Then you are loosing customers, and I am not talking about just me. Most people I know would not purchase something with that kind of crap in it, & I doubt that is isolated to just my area.

Runners Companion was poorly balanced (at best), several changes in the SR4A are very poorly done, the advertisements are bullshit, and you seem to be dead-set against fixing any of it.

I guess the best system out there truly is dead. Unless there is a major change, I will not be purchasing any future products, & I expect many (not just this community) feel or soon will feel the same way.

I know I will be advising my group to avoid SR4A like the plague. Also all of our old members who have since moved to other states.

IF the group buys it it will be because of the errata we actually want (that is, all the current errata).

My simple recommendation, if you don't like the new rules in the 20th Ann. Edition, then don't use it, just let your players know that you'll be using the rules and character advancement as presented in the current edition and that they need to consult that edition for making characters. Simply type a copy of the cost of everything (or print the cost page off) and hand it to them during character creation.

I've actually made the recommendation for the shadowrun game I'll be starting (playing in) to use the non 20th Ann Edition, since everyone has that book. I think the Gm actually only owns the Fanpro print.

No need for a petition, and for those of us who like the new book, we can go ahead and use it.

Anyways, Can I start a petition to get my 20th Ann. Edition Air Mailed to me ASAP. I can't wait to have it in my hands.

Okay, this has already been addressed. For home games, yes, that is entirely acceptable. For public or official games, however, that will not work.

Buying the book is out of the question - the advertisements easily outweigh any other layout benefits.

I purchased the PDF, and unless there is a major change in how things are being done, that will be my last purchase from Catalyst. The rest of the group has no need to purchase the PDF now, & after they see the advertisements, I seriously doubt they will purchase the hardcover, even if they like the rules changes.

And as I pointed out, it's less Drain to overcast now than it is to throw low-force.


First of all: 9 karma a /game/? Are you kidding? According to the karma awards section (P263), you should only get 3 karma for merely finishing an average run. The rest is all situational.

Second: So what if characters are maxing out their BP on attributes? Do you think raising the karma costs is going to change that? Attributes are stupidly powerful in SR4, and SR4.5 isn't going to change that. What's going to happen is that characters are going to be encouraged to pump those attributes even higher, maybe even taking dump stats. The net result is *more* one-dimensional characters.

Maybe I missed something, but what Advertisements? Also I don't see a problem with imposing a previous rulebook on a public game, though I do understand that wouldn't work for an offical game. I see public games just like home games, the guy running the game says what goes. Unless there is a specific "public" game thing to shadowrun which would be different then simply a game ran in public.

And don't most official games only last one game session? Hardly enough to worry about the changes.

Method, I am terribly sorry you didn't get a response. I did post several times in the "Playtesting" thread that I'd answered all emails I'd received and that if you hadn't gotten an answer from me, to please PM me on this forum. This isn't the thread to discuss it (of course) but you may PM me at any time if you'd like to talk about it.

Ok, I'm guessing by advertisements you mean the mentioning of the other "core" books. I actualy didn't mind those being present when I gave the pdf a quick look over last night, and had to go back and relook at the pdf to figure out what you meant. I don't see them as advertisements, but more as helpful additions to the corebook. In my opinion Shadowrun differs from most other roleplaying games, in that if you play a Magic User, you really need the additional Magic User book. If you play a Rigger, you need the Rigger book. Etc. I see this as helpful to new players, rather then an advertisement plug for Catalyst. It gives them a preview of what else is out there. This can be potentially helpful since your average gaming store may only carry the main shadowrun book. Your larger book reatial stores may only carry the main book as well. This gives players a chance to find out what other books are out there. (Believe it or not, not everyone has the internet) The more I talk about it, the more I like the addition of the other core books into the main core book.

Core Supplements:

Arsenal:

Augmentation: SR4A, p.338

Street Magic:

Unwired:


They each take up nearly half the page, with full color images of each book cover. Extremely intrusive & terrible design. Runner's Companion image is with the Core Supplements. I have not noticed it's own advertisement yet - I haven't looked at the book much, these being one of the primary reasons.

So, why not put them in the front or back of the book, where they are unobtrusive but available, & not likely to piss off a significant portion of the customer base.

I didn't find them obtrusive or a big deal. Maybe I'm being more forgiving looking at it from a business and new player perspective (or maybe my monitor is just to big). By your count, it was only five pages out of 300+, so not like it was all over the book. A back insert featuring the books may have been a better idea though. Especially if there are more people like you then like me.

If your claiming SR4 is the best system out there and SR4A changed this amazing system so much that it is horrible
WOW I mean really WOW!!!!! I really hope I understood that wrong.

And the karma change alone has me personally looking at buying SR missions. I had only recently started buying SR4 again after buying the main book when it came out, after long and hard trying to fix what I felt were oddities in the system. My biggest headache was in fact the karma cost of attributes but I did the same thing the devs now are making standard and I love it. Now because it will be RAW I may buy into missions. And because I have been a collector (all 1e & 2e SR products, multiple copies of some) I've already purchased the pdf and will be buying one regular copy and one limited copy. I hope I continue to see this level of trying to satisfy customers even more in the future. It doesn't matter so much that catalyst make my version of Shadowrun rather that they listen to my complaints and address them in a polite manner trying to give a reasonable answer.



This is not a reasonable answer IMHO (may fall under polite, not sure)
A better one would be
"Unfortunately our book is already done and signed off on. It would take a lot of $ and man hours to change that. Most of our 20% responders to the playtest liked our current method and did not feel that it required anything else. We would love to have you sign up to playtest our next product and give useful ideas like the one you presented. Please sign up at info@shadowrun.com"

I once got to hammer on Justin Achillie about nWOD. He was very polite and gave me reasonable answers (I still disagree with some of the design goals but I can see they met their design goals)
One example I ask about the silly -1,-2,-3 wound penalties for mortals his reply was similar to the following.
"We never anticipated the mortals game taking off the way it did, so when we designed it we were designing for the supernaturals and trying to keep it simple as possible. The wound modifiers worked great for vampires, werewolfs and mages but I can see how it may seam silly for a mortal to get shot the first time and not take any wound penalties. We were designing a core book for the three lines with mortals as a nice addition though and not the main focus. If we had known how successful the mortal line would be we may have taken a different aproach"

Notice he stated why they did what they did (design goals), addressed my concern as a problem that was not just me and said that their goals were not my goals but if they had been perhaps they would have used my rule.

There are five of these "advertisements" in the book. They take roughly a third of a page. Not counting the "advertisement", these pages have roughly 650 words; a full page with two columns of text, no artwork, no AR windows, no tables -- the "max words per page" has about 1050 words.

I've posted one of these pages for everyone to look at and draw their own conclusions: http://shadowrun4.com/resources/previews/C...eview3Magic.pdf

If five such pages in a 376 page book ruins the book for you, then so be it.

It is not what was changed, but how, following the ridiculous ignorance of balance in Runners Companion.

As for the advertisements, again, it is not so much that they are there, but how they were implemented. The book is not a magazine; I do not want to see crap like this in the middle of the material. If you want it in there, put it in the front or back of the book, in its own section.

I have shown this to several people outside of the forums, and every one had nearly identical reactions - it is a bad fucking idea. Especially in an anniversary celebratory product.

While a major departure for recent SR products (SR1 books almost always had adverts in the back) this is pretty unintrusive compared to some other game books I've seen, particularly when compared to tabletop war games or other systems where the real profit lies in selling gaming supplies other than rules. Based on what I've seen of the book so far it would be hard to convince me that these 3-5 pages detract enough from the rest of this book to really be significant.

Good point Method, also SR2 was full of adverts even if they were for non-existent materials. Perhaps these were not inserted with the old 1e/2e flair but they do have a history in shadowrun



Look the SR4 book isn't balanced either. Some attributes are way more better than others. Its like auguring D&D balance, yes there is some but not to the level of GURPS or a handful of other games. Storyteller has a paper (social), rock (physical), scissor (mental) style balance but its not all perfectly balanced either. I understand Runners Companion may have taken it in an even less balanced direction but honestly it always has since the 2e version on. I don't believe any of the changes in SR4A are that significant yet, perhaps I'll find one eventually.

I am in the same boat as red. These are not mistakes these are rules changes. They will effect all the books I just bought. It is like selling anolog dvs and then telling people a month or two later that they need a digital feed and that their antenna ain't going to cut it.

I also didnt like it. I think it could be in the back of the book, just like in SR 2nd edition.


And I also see Muspellsheimr tweak on the atribute cost (a few pages back) to be more coherent with the (apparent) design goal presented by Synner.


That said, even if I dont fully agree with these points, I think I will be purchasing the book because hey, we will not agree on everything anyway, and the pluses overcome the minuses for me.

It seems that I can't remove a post ?

with a dance in the Morning
Medicineman

Since this has gotten so "off topic" , and I am waiting to buy a Limited SR4A book if my FLGS can gets me one, I have a question for you fine folks that got the PDF version. I've been running SR every week for like ever. I've been of the opinion (just from observation, no hard math to back it up), that 4th ed has given a much better chance to the mundanes being able to resist spells. But, when they changed Spell Force to something a mage can choose when they cast it, overcasting became the "new" problem. As a GM, I have to be very careful when presenting challenges to the players where they are not facing magical opponents. It's not that I believe that everyone should be "balanced", but everyone to one degree or another wants combat in their game. I've played in games where the mage stunballs everything to hell and leaves everyone else at the table with their thumbs up their butts. As a GM, I try and create situations where this would not be the best choice, so that everyone can contribute, but it IS a challenge. I am interested in the Drain changes, but from what I've read on the forums, it appears to be a bad fix. I am hoping someone can clear it up for me that has the PDF. Here's my scenerio from what I've read in the posts, please let me know if this is right or if I'm way off target.
Mage 1 has a pool of 10 dice, casts a force 5 mana bolt at target A and gets 5 net hits(target bones his roll). If he decides to use the net hits on his target then the Damage the target takes is 10, and the drain would be 7 [(F/2) + 5 for the 5 net hits]
Mage 2 has a pool of 10 dice, but overcasts a force 9 mana bolt at target B and gets 5 net hits as well(Target B sucks equally). Since Mage 2 can choose to only use 1 net hit, target B takes 10 damage as well, but mage 2 has 5 drain. Granted, it is physical drain, but as stated before, first aid is viable after a fight for that kind of trade off. It would seem that this rule change encourages overcasting. This was already something mages had to consider doing as the force capped how many hits you could apply to the test. Just from what I've read on the posts, it seems that a mage would ALWAYS want to overcast if they seriously wanted to drop a target in one shot. The only real effective limiter I've seen is that you need at least one net hit for the spell to take effect, so effectively it increases the drain (unless I missed something and the first doesn't count?) of all direct combat spells by at least 1. If that was the intention, my question is, why not just raise the drain values for direct combat spells by 1? As I currently understand the change, it just seems like a punishment to those interested in not overcasting but get's that "lucky" shot that can take their target out.

I think a little perspective is needed here before this turns into the WotC D&D forums.

I'm with Muspellsheimer in not like what I see as sales pitches thrown into the middle of the rule book, but not with quite that degree of vehemence. I mean I was the one that raised the issue, but I can also appreciate where Synner is coming from when he points out that a new player may have a different point of view. They look and read like ads to me which is disappointing but they are not, imo, a reason to campaign against purchasing the book. And nor are the other contentious issues. There seem to be a lot of good fixes and improvements in the errata. I like the clarifications on Movement powers, some of the Matrix stuff, sustained Area of Effect spells. All the little things that I had forgotten I needed to clear up or house rule in my game when I started. There's a lot to benefit from. There are three, maybe four particular issues that have caused trouble here. For the most part these can be easily dealt with so I don't think it's fair to start an "Edition War" over this.

The Attribute cost adjustment. It recognizes something that most agree was a problem. The rising cost of advancement can be addressed fairly easily with additonal karma. The penalisation of metahumans requires a house-rule but it's a smallish one. Potentially a problem in Missions games, though. But surely not worth campaigning against the entire errata over?

The Direct Combat spell change. I need to try it out but my feel is that I don't like it. I think instead I will merely add +1 to the drain of all Direct Combat spells. Still though, it's a quick house rule.

Backwards compatibility with Missions games. We'll have to wait and see about this. If they follow Adam's recommendation and just accept pre-Errata characters without adjustment then it's a non-issue.

The +2 cap on modifying Matrix attributes. I actually like this one as it brings things back into a realistic range without everyone running around with utmost cutting edge technology. But if people don't like it, it's again very easy to drop.

It seems unreasonable to me to have such outrage on the basis of a couple of easily resolved issues. From what else I've seen, the errata is very good. And, barring those ads, the production values on the Anniversary Edition are beyond anything else we've seen for 4e yet.

I just think we should all get a little less polarised. There is obviously a huge amount of care and effort gone into all this and for the most part it's paid off. I don't think it deserves the sort of vehemence that is being levelled at it.

Peace,

Khadim.

Just trying to clarify my stance.

I will not be purchasing a book with advertisements in the middle, especially as they are currently presented. I feel confidant saying that most people I know feel the same way, & likely a fairly significant number I do not know (those I have already brought it up to agree with me fully).

Advertisements in their own section, at the front or (preferably) back of the book are less than desirable, but entirely acceptable. If the advertisements are moved to the front, I may purchase the book. If they are moved to the back, even more likely. Everything else can be house ruled - I have done enough house rulings already, two or three more will not change much.

Assuming the advertisement issue is resolved, if either the attribute advancement or direct combat spells are altered to a more acceptable and logical functionality, I will probably buy the book; if both are addressed, I almost certainly will. If both of those, and the less important but still notable changes - the limit on equipment advancement & object resistance are fixed, I will purchase the hardcover, guaranteed.



Once again, by far the biggest issue I have is the current layout of the advertisements (not even that they are in the book, but where). The poorly implemented changes being discussed, along with the poor balance in Runners Companion are what make me hesitant to purchase future products (something I will not bother with at all if the advertisements are not resolved). If at least some of this is fixed, I will continue to purchase future releases. If not, support for the game effectivly ends here as far as myself, & I would guess numerous others are concerned.

I like them, they jive well with the layout of the book and are where you need the info about them.
They are pretty much like all those outerside art panels that take the same amount of space from many more pages, or do you hate those too.

Holy Buckets!

I've been playing Shadowrun since 1993. I know my way around the editions and changes we've seen in the last 20 years. I've lived through the SR3 v. SR4 Wars (not without scars, mind you). With that said...

@ Adam & the rest of the Catalyst Crew:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You guys and gals do amazing work. More than EVER, you listen to the fans and players when making rules changes and are by FAR the most receptive game company in term of listening to player feedback. The 20th Anniversary book is STUNNING! Finally, Shadowrun gets the treatment that Battletech has been getting in recent years. Don't let ANY of these naysayers get to you. All of you consistently produce fantastic work and have a WAY better track record than FanPro ever had. A month from now, when THE VOCAL MINORITY has stopped crying over nothing, they will remember that Shadowrun & Catalyst are still around because of the effort that you all put forth. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

@ Everyone Else:
The members of Catalyst are NOT "higher-ups", "corporate wage-slaves", or "wizards of some-sort-of-coast". They are a group of players just like you. Almost all of them started off as fanboys just like you. I've just spent over a half-an-hour reading the complaints on this thread and they seem, IN MY OPINION, over-blown.

Karma? Really? The only reasonable justification I've read so far is that it MAY OR MAY NOT affect Shadowrun Missions. Adam has already said that they are going to address this.

All of the other complaints are even more "nit-picky". I understand that these are your opinions and that you have every right to "voice" them here. So, here is my opinion:

The 20th Anniversary book is great. All of it. Don't change a thing. I just wanted to say thank you from the (not-so) vocal majority.

I think you are radically over-estimating how widespread knowledge of these "problems" are. The average consumer wont be aware of the changes one way or another and will be purchasing the book based on either "oh its shiny" or "oh look a new edition"

By the book you should get 4-5 Karma Avarage per run no more than 10, and those with the pdf mentioned this did not change.
If 9 was average the attribute change would not be a big deal, skills would still be to expensive, but overall advancement would be ok. By the book advancement feels screwed, especially for awakend characters. Min/Maxing with BPgen will see new heights of stupidity, too.

@Synner:



How do you get average 9karma out of the table in the book?

there are max 11 karma to get and

- a standard run is in my opinion not considered extra challenging: only 10 karma left

- individual karma is applaid for each individual player, so there is only 2 karma left for the actual run. In my expirience most GM tend to give very little individual karma, only in very exceptional circumstances.

I would suggest to revise the table in something like
survived: 3 karma
fullfilled objectives: 3 karma
extra challenging: 3 karma
...

considering the more expansive attributs this will help allout to keep a character development going.

cya
Tycho

Of course, as it is, it still is, as there are more dice pools affected by Attributes.

My real issue is that the total character advancements costs went up and Skills are still way too expensive.
Was an option like Attributes x5, Skill Groups x3 (leaving the total cost more likely the same) tested?


I need to disagree, mathematically - the cost increase is the Sum of each step of Attribute x2. If a typical human wants to raise his 3's to 4's and his edge to 5, that's 74 Karma more already.

As other have already pointed out, the by-the-book Karma awards are and were 4-5 average, max 10.

While this is a way to handle it (the attributes are already purchased), it will cause existing characters to have a significant advantage.

Looking at On the Run, SR missions, and german SOX, it appears published adventures follow a "1 karma per objective" rule instead of the "1 karma for fullfilling 2/3 of the objectives" as written in the corebook (also, it should be noted that those are adventure objectives and not only the run objectives).

Personally, my main complain bout SR4A would be that, when I'm starting to see a slight rise in the number of background-related topics on DSF, we're now heading for a new round of rules-related topics, that I find horribly annoying and uninteresting.

Wow, this got out of hand in a hurry.

Attribute Advancement

I can see the argument. I can see that Musspellheimer's fix is very popular.

For the most part any member of any species in SR has a spread of 6 in any particular Attribute. It seems unfair to penalize Trolls so heavily. The effort involved in going from Troll nerd to Troll Schwarzenegger using the SR4A RAW is gigantically out of proportion to the same 'journey' for a human.

I strongly urge Synner to consider going with Muss's fix. It seems to be the 'mode' here of most popular version of this nerf.

However, I am still strongly opposed to the idea of hammering Mages and TM's in this way.

I can only assume that this was a serious balance problem due to people 'dumping' various Attributes and buying them up to 3 with karma in game. Cheap and effective and I can see why you would like to discourage that. The point being that Attributes are much wider in effect than Skill Groups. The worst offender, Agility, has 18 linked skills in the BBB.

However, for normal attributes the spread is only 6 so in the worst case scenario this nerf only has a 12 karma impact on the cost of a single gain.

But for special Attributes this is not the case. They are uncapped and only effect at most 3 or 4 Skill Tests. So no more effective than a Skill Group and with the possibility to cost gigantic gobs of karma.

This is unfair. TM's in particular are already gigantic karma-whores and Mages are little better. This change is just taking the piss.

As Muss' knows I'm playing a Mage on the boards here built on 1250 karma using karmagen. He's a monster. I am unafraid to say that he is an enormous cheese-monkey.

But it was uneconomic to buy his Magic any higher than 8.

I haven't recalculated yet but my guess is that that same character is now worth 1500 karma.

That's a massive de-buff.

Is it really justified?

It makes mundane characters viable again, though, and especially Technomancers needed to be nerfed, otherwise, with Karmagen, they'd be Neo out of chargen, slicing through all-6 nodes like they were made of air. Of course, if that's what you want to play, SR4A is just not for you.

I for myself am, happy that the Awakened/Emerged have been taken down a bit. They were way overpowered before, now at least the power creep will be slowed, and Karmagen will not permit you to build monsters right out of chargen. It fixes something about SR4 that has been annoying me from the moment I read through the SR4 base rules.

As for the ads: I didn't take them as very intrusive. Sure, they were enticing people to buy the expanded books; however, they also stressed they were optional, not mandatory, and listed what was in them. Most ads fail to be so informative these days. I could do without them, but new players might like the info it gives them on the contents of the advanced rules books.

As always, you have no friggin' idea what you are talking about. At least you could have watched Matrix, to fill your Neo gap, alas, you did not. This changes do not affect TM retardedness AT ALL. They are still stupidly broken as hell. From square one, that is.

You fail at trolling. As always.

You respond, my trolling is successful. And even if the trolling did not succeed, I'd still be... well... right. TM silliness did not change at all.

that's it????!??! that's what all these pages of whining have been about? 5 columns that are helpful for new players in determining what books to get??!??! jeez, people, not everyone is a shadowrun ubergeek with an account on dumpshock and knowledge of the web. some people *gasp* don't even have regular home access to the internet!! big deal if a company plugs some of their other books in the revised core book thereby using up 0.7% of their 376 page book. you guys should go buy the rifts "ultimate" edition in which the company uses it's some of its few (only about a dozen) color pages to plug a licensed game for a dead platform if you want to see something to complain about.

Not really.

Many here take issue with the fact that in Shadowrun, Attribute advancement outvalues other character advancements. The modification to advancement cost is allegedly designed to deal with this issue. I have played many RPGs in my 30 odd years of roleplaying, and I cannot recall one that was not constructed in this fashion. All of those systems rewarded high Attribute (or their equivalent) and made advancement in that characteristic expensive. Now, "Everybody else does it!" is not necessarily a good argument to support an action, but it does show that people generally recognize the value and influence that advancement in the basic attributes have. What all these games also do is recognize that a rookie brings a basic set of abilities to the new world she enters, and in the course of life in that new world she gains expertise and skill and specializations.

A strong argument presented here against the SR4A advancement cost in Attributes is that a) it punishes metahumans by making their advancement to higher levels way more expensive than humans', and b) it encourages players to maximize Attributes at character generation, which allegedly counters the intent of leading players towards skills. Muspellheimr's house rule is presented as a more reasonable alternative.

I find his alternative (described in post #72) a little self-contradictory, in that it removes the effect of metahuman positive bonuses, putting metahumans and human on an equal cost-footing for those Attributes in which metahumans get a bonus to their stat, but in fact increases costs for metahumans in those Attributes in which they have a reduction to the maximum. The SR4A system is alleged to punish metahumans in those Attributes in which they should excel, but Muspellheimr's method punishes them in those Attributes where they cannot go as high as humans.

The argument that, for example, Trolls should advance from STR 6 to STR 7 for the same cost as humans advancing from STR 2 to STR 3 has a "keep all meta-races equal in the eyes of the law" kind of logic, but no other logic to support it. Trolls get a kick-start at birth, but putting 50 kg. of mass on your body is putting 50 kg. of mass on your body, no matter where you started. And all living organisms are subject to the same laws of diminishing returns. It gets harder to put that mass on once you have a whole lot of it already. This is true for humans, and for gorillas. SR4A just makes it harder in-game than SR4 did.

Does the SR4A system encourage maximizing stats at chargen? Absolutely. As did earlier versions of SR. Is this a bad thing? No. It in fact leads us as players to -be- rookies with raw talent who come into their own with experience.

One might argue that some PCs are in fact experienced characters from other walks of life, and that the starting characteristics should reflect that. So, some beginning PCs should have lots of skills. This is fine... and also should be placed in a frame of reference that puts all starting PCs at a roughly equal starting point. If you wanty a game in which one PC is the 'grizzled veteran' and others are the 'rookies', without limiting his 'natural talent', then simply give him more BPs to start. Otherwise, there needs to be a balancing act to keep PCs equal.

In the SR4A system, once PCs start their new career, they move from raw talent to polished professionals through their skills, rather than through the natural abilities 'God gave them'. This seems logical to me. Those few who wish to focus on pumping their bodies or their magic will find that in the long run this may not be as profitable as it used to be in earlier versions. The 'wizard of o'erweening power' -should- be incredibly rare... and have arrived at that power at great cost.

The petition was a good idea (for those that dislike the changes and want to say something about it) but the wording comes off as attack. I think it'll loose some potency because of that.

Any idea when they plan on printing the books? If there is a deadline and they are still working on proofing and such they may not have the opportunity to postpone printing.

Is Catalyst open to changing any of the rules before SR4A goes to the printers?

Should Catalyst change the rules based on forum feedback? Besides several playtesting groups (an assumption) they have several devs who seem very active on the boards. It seems that they've probably tried many rule modifications, tested them and are currently printing the ones that they think work best.

If there is nothing that can be done this time around what can you guys do in the future?
Heres some ideas:

• Join up as playtesters.
• I noticed there are a lot of houserules floating around. Maybe someone should create a house rules wiki and get all of that stuff centralized. Maybe even use the Sixth World Wiki as a starting place.
• Bribery: Pizza and whiskey + your rule changes. Happy devs are more likely to listen to you, especially drunk ones.

Ok, so... what, you want me to give you a Warning now?

I considered myself warned before posting. I will not troll anymore... for a while.

So you're issue is more with the advertisements than with the actual rules changes? The purpose of the advertisements is pretty straightforward; let people know about the other books. SR4 from what I understand has brought in or back a ton of players, and these blurbs tell people what's in them. Older editions had a number of full page pics that, IMO at least, we're useless and kinda boring to look at. But that's just because I didn't care for the artist's style. I turned the page. Problem solved. I just don't understand not wanting to buy a book because of blurbs and their placement as opposed to the actual content. It's making mountains out of mole hills.

Fair enough. At least you've got a sense of humor.

Peter tell you what, you and up to five other people make up characters using BP build. I'll do up a lawfirm office in a high rise with a 5m nuyen security system, and say maybe 10 sec goons for the builds and one plot twist. We'll meet up on a TS somewhere and I'll put your group through a run. I'm pretty sure I can fairly and logically either kill or incapacitate at least half of your team (and I'll send you the notes after I'm done so you can see how).

I had not noticed parts of that quote until you quoted it. So research sows that 80% of players use the 200 BP cap in attributes when building a character. Considering it takes 180 points to get to there stated average stat, should this be a surprise. It takes almost everything to be average, you really only have 20 points to go crazy on. Look out folks he's got a 5, no lets go with 2 4s that will shake things up.

How invasive are these ads. I mean if its one ad each for the other core books, that's really not that objectionable (especially if they're "in character" ads). I'm not buying a book with a bunch of nerfs that are going to cause emo at the table, but honestly I can't say that ads for other books in the line really bother me that much.

See here for yourself. The others have a similar size and way nof presentation. Me, I don't take offense in them, but YMMV.

The ads do seem invasive. Dare I say a bit 'American'? I don't like them. I like them even less than the mock ads in the London Sourcebook....

They would be much better if they were 'in character' like FASA used to do and possibly at the end where such things belong.

They ain't a deal breaker for me though, not by a long shot.

Petition is signed. Ill describe some issues I have with the changes. (BTW: Technomancers broken? In a powerful or non-powerful way? I always thought the consensus was that they needed a lot of help, especially coming out of the box.)

Well, I can say one of my issues, that I haven't said in the other thread, why I almost loathe this change, and really, really hope we won't use it(we'd probably vote or something. I know, as a GM, the answer is a big no.)

I get to play about four times a year. My characters stagnate enough as it is. Like this, I'll never see them grow. It's a completely personal thing, but it does affect my view of the change.

Now, if RC changes it, and we get more Karma-I'd be a bit better with it. Truth is, I like coming out of the door competent, because I don't get to see much mechanical growth. (Perhaps when we get an online kind of game going with the use of Skype I'll be able to play more, like once a month. Right now, with my group in New Jersey and me in Helsinki, this is not possible.)

But I also see the other changes-attribute-heavy metas are punished, and in BP gen, it will just get people pumping the ''important'' (read: skill-heavy) attributes even more, and yeah-the balanced builds were hurt far more by these changes than the 'broken' was. (For the record, my Karmagen characters-even with 750-tend to have LOWER die pools across the board compared to my BP-gen characters, who i find myself frontloading for some reason.) Oh yeah, Adepts, even with the changes(and I felt they could have gone even lower-it's pretty much been proven that .5/level for Attributes are plenty balanced and STILL even favors the ''bio-adept'', and it's what I use. Hell, even with this barely anyone takes attribute increases like that.) These WERE one of the changes I did like, however.

Of course, heavily cybered characters will still have an edge, and even more of one, now. It was pointed out in the other thread, the face with all 4's in their spread will be at a disadvantage vs. the face with all 2's and an 8 Charisma. The sam with all 4's is at a disadvantage vs. the sam with all 3's and a 9 Agility. It also leads too much, IMO, to attribute homogenization; since it's the most ''cost-effective'' to buy a certain combo of 3's and 4's(while leaving 2's since they cost too much to raise, and 5's also-under karmagen, at least), where everyone is the same except for the attribute they ''buy up'' since it's cheaper. Strength seems to have gotten no help so far(still linked to all of 3 skills, doesn't do a lot for damage since most +DV is outside sources and isn't as far as I saw added into armor), and is now even worse due to increased costs-there are going to be a lot of the 'weak' trolls, orks and dwarves out there simply because they can't afford to raise them over the more 'important' attributes(might as well jack the Agility, buy it up the rest of the way and toss on a couple levels of muscle augmentation if they really want that extra 1 DV.)

Oh yes, and the fact that skill costs were not lowered even with the attribute increase I'm not too fond of, either. Had skill costs been lowered to say, 3x Skill Group and 1.5 times new cost for regular skill, I'd have been able to swallow it easier(though I still wouldn't have been super-duper fond.)

I do dislike the changes to drones/devices as well. I like the idea of a genius tinkerer getting something off the shelf-their first ''insert item here'' and completely revamping and reworking it to their own massive beast over the years. It seems that now this won't be able to happen, unless I missed something.

Spells being favored for overcast now means Physical drain, and if i recall physical damage is healable right in battle. If a mage has a 'pocket healer' this will mean more overcasts, and with some proper foci and drain attributes the opposition will still get hammered. Likewise, NPC mages have to face this drain as well.

IMO, character advancement should be the domain of the GM and the table. It's the players involved that should determine how fast their people advance, and how fast they don't.

If I HAD to pick how I would have done them in the book, this is how I'd do it:

1. Leave Attribute costs as they are...HOWEVER, I'd also include a large sidebar/section called ''Alternate Character Advancement'', with a nice description of how one can adjust their game to fit it-describe how 4x New Rating could be a ''middle-ground'' description, the ''5x New Rating'' for describing how advancement could be slowed even more. You could also put descriptions of the ''super-high action'' (2x) or ''Very Long Time'' (6x) options in there, as well, so GMs have a nice, clear set of options and can choose what works best for THEIR table. I'd also include the pluses and minuses of each system(3x, for example, might be described as being a TOUCH fast for some tables, which 5x might be described as ''this might be a bit slow for those who like to see growth happen within the first month, assuming 4-5 karma per game.''

2. I'd take 4x New Rating of Attributes and lower skills to said 3x Skill Group and 1.5 times skill ratings. (If 5x was decided as the limit, I'd DEFINITELY put these in.) Or, like above, point out some possible skill rating adjustments for ''faster'' or ''slower'' advancement, or if you wanted skills to have more weight or not.

3. For drones and devices, I'd put in an optional rule of ''capping'' them instead of having it be the ''main rule.'' Or switch them, but make sure to point out there could be an option to allow them freely.

4. Drain could have a sidebar for ''a deadlier'' or ''a lighter'' game.

EDIT: Threshold changes are likewise not good in my eyes. It's made harder to hit the higher DPs(without ware), and thus harder to hit these thresholds. I mean, a 4 was hard enough to get net hits on. I mean, with these rules, a very smart(Logic 5) professional surgeon(skill 3, which is professional rating), and even the proper tools(+6 for medkit) would have a rough time performing a threshold 6(quad bypass?) on someone. Yes, quad bypass is not easy, but come on, make it at least not a crapshoot. Under these rules I'd not feel safe unless House were working on me, and even then I'd feel a bit risky. (Also, this makes the folks who DO pump die pools via artificial means even more over the more 'middle ground' folks than before.)

All of these, of course, could go under the ''Rule 0'' of a GM choosing everything, but at least listing some viable options for them could really help things.

I dunno, again, this is just what I would do, YMMV, but I figure if I sign it I might as well try to toss some ideas out there.

Basically, yes. Not that the book has them, but where they were placed. Every time I look at one of those pages, the advertisement is the first thing I see. I find them extremely intrusive, & ridiculous in there implementation. You cannot even skip the page, because there is game information also on the page. Move them to the front or back of the book - you can inform new players of whats available & promote your products nearly as well there, without detracting from the quality of the book layout.

As for future products, I doubt I will purchase them because due to the poor balance in Runners Companion, & the apparent unwillingness to even consider changing one of the major rules issues in SR4A, I can very reasonably expect poor mechanics. If something of the former changes, I will at least strongly consider purchasing new products, as long as it doesn't have fucking adds in the middle.

Incorrect. Moving them to a place that they will never be seen from a place where they will frequently be seen is a very dramatic drop in effectiveness. Why do you think advertisements are in the middle of TV shows, rather than solely before the start or after the end?