As a pc and an occasional gm i totally approve of npcs and all other opposition burning edge that's the whole reason behind them having it and the whole group edge thing. It gives the grunts and other opposition a chance @ luck. Almost every time the pc's will be way over powered compared to the grunts and they have edge. If you have a decent character there should be no worries. Not trying to start one of those arguments that have been happening a lot lately just stating what make sense to me.

And where do I stand in this?
I agree that the GM has whatever right to run the game the way they wish, but every mook burning his three points of edge permanently is GM cheese and should never be considered.

This is how I look at the "NPC Edge" issue:

All NPCs have some edge to increase their die pools to be lucky.
Only MAJOR PLOT IMPORTANT NPCs can permanently spend edge to achieve critical successes or to avoid death. Major NPCs (of which dragons are by default) are built painstakingly from the ground up like PC and are expected to be around for a while. They die when the GM chooses that they should die and not before.

As a matter of fact, in my current gaming group, we took a vote and agreed to ban the burning of Edge by NPC's, with the exception of Hand of God. And judging by this thread, GM's who'll agree to ban that particular GM cheese is not hard to do.


You don't use Escape Certain Death. You burn Edge for a critical success on the soak roll. For example, you're facing 20 boxes of damage. Through the miracle of exploding 6's, your burned Edge grants you 24 successes, enabling you to take the shot without damage.


One burned Edge on an attack roll = One dead PC. The PC's could do this too, but the scarcity of Karma keeps this trick in check. A group Edge pool has no such limitations.

I don't understand.

Posters here continually argue against what they say is my position that all NPCs should be able to burn Edge any time they want to. But that is not my position at all! Please stop implying I said otherwise.

I acknowledge the unfair advantage that the GM has in generating unlimited numbers of NPCs, and therefore unlimited Edge to burn vs. the PCs. I have said that the GM w1ns if he wants to. I don't want to. General and regular burning of Edge by the GM will ruin the game and drive away players.

I have, however argued the very specific case of a powerful spirit countering with burned Edge a summoner burning Edge to get an automatic success in the situation in which he summons that spirit, one too powerful for him to beat without burning Edge.

My position is based on two factors:

1) The player (not the PC) is trying to metagame and cheat the built-in constraints on the powers of characters. This applies only to the burning of Edge, not getting lucky and succeeding without burning Edge. In that case, the PC has balls and takes her chances. Good luck to her, and let her reap the rewards if she survives. Her luck will not last forever, and I as GM am happy to live with her increased power as long as she has it.

2) The history and logic of the world of Shadowrun, the 'fluff' as those who wish to deride it call it, has ample example of Great Beings not putting up with being jerked around by those who do not have the power to stand up to them. And spirits with intellect and force of character greater than Great Dragons qualify as Great Beings. Fluff does indeed structure and override rules and mechanics, otherwise we would be playing a dice game like Yahtzee, not a role playing game like Shadowrun.

I wholeheartedly agree that the role of the GM is to make the game fun for players. I also believe that 'fun' includes legitimate constraints on the PCs abilities, and does not include guarantees that egregious behaviour will have no consequences.

I think you all should just dissallow burning edge on soak rolls, as that makes the option to use it escape certain dead completdly unnecesary.
I actually think that getting a critical succes in an action isn't meant to include soak rolls.

I don't think anyone has implied that your position was that NPCs should burn edge whenever they want to. Most of those comments are generally aimed at those folks who see nothing wrong with letting NPCs burn edge just like PCs do.



Except that your solution was to match player cheese with GM cheese. That's never the correct solution. (It only leaves the mice happy.) A better solution would be to tell the player that burning edge was for emergencies, and not for him to summon up friends to abuse.



So, you generate your NPCs to match the current power level of the players? When you generate new NPCs you subtract points for edge that your NPCs burnt in the previous scene?

For example, we'll create a PC called 'Jones.' In scene A, NPC 1 burns edge to survive an attack by Jones. Now, you have to measure how many 'points' burning that edge cost, and adjust every scene that Jones is in to accommodate the fact that NPC1 in scene A burnt edge to survive. So, three years and hundreds of karma later, you are still subtracting points from NPCs in scenes that Jones will be involved in to balance out the burnt edge spent by NPC 1?

I'm betting that you don't.

Jones, on the other hand, would have to re buy his edge that he lost. He would have to spend his karma on re buying his lost edge. The decision to burn edge will affect Jones for as long as his character exists.



I can only predict that this is because you have never been railroaded by a GM. However, when NPCs burn edge it's generally in order to stop the players. It sends the message to your players that your NPCs can succeed whenever you want them to. That's just a bad message to send to your players. It takes away any victory they may have gotten. They didn't win because of themselves. They won because the GM permitted them to win.



You're overlooking something here. Burning edge on a soak roll only works on one soak. It won't soak the damage from the next 5, 10, 15, 20 attacks coming down the line. Burning edge to escape certain death will. So, it only makes sense to burn edge on a soak roll or a dodge roll (which you can also do) when you have a decent chance of winning. Otherwise, it's probably better to take your 'get out of death free' card.

It only makes real sense to ban burning edge on a soak roll when in a situation in which it would be lunacy that the would walk away from unharmed. Like Cain's 20 boxes of damage example, or maybe falling out of an airplane without a parachute.

So, it's better to take each instance on a case-by-case basis, and determine which way you'd allow the players to burn edge by the situation.

Hmm...

Did I miss something regarding 'critical successes'?

From what I can find in the RAW, a critical success means '4 or more net hits' - thus, burning Edge to achieve a critical success would give you 4 net successes (at a minimum, but still - GM decision, I guess). That means soaking 4 boxes, not 24...

I think they're judging success as enough hits to avoid damage... which hits the "or more".

Which leaves the interpretation of a critical success up to the GM when it comes to soak.


One GM could rule that a critical success is 4 hits above the minimum necessary that you don't go dead. So if you had 10 open physical boxes... and had 24 points of damage... the burned edge would be worth 19 hits... (15 to get you to 9 boxes +4 for a critical success = 5 boxes of damage).

Hmmm interesting interpretation you've drummed up.

Which would still leave people saving up 4 karma and then summoning the biggest nastiest spirit they could... Which is bad imho... if you stretch outside of the bounds of your ability that much that the only way you can handle the drain... you shouldn't be able to burn edge for it. Keep your cheese in the fridge, not at the game table.

No it doesn't, it just leaves you barely alive after taking damage that would have killed you. But if your allowed to burn edge to not take any of that damage why would you ever choose to be almost death over didn't take any damage?
Thats right you wouldn't.

if you have ten guys shooting at you (each one will kill you in one shot) then you would have to either burn 10 edge to dodge/soak all or 1 to survive all attacks for the rest of the encounter, but be critically damaged. I'd burn the one edge.

Actually, burning edge to stay alive "removes you from the scene." You can't be attacked any further.

What? You mean you never stab and hack a body once it's down??

Tunnel Rat has it right. It just starts an arms race between PC's and GM. Matching cheese with cheese only makes the mice happy.


That's "net" successes, not gross. If you need five successes to beat an opponent in an opposed test, burning Edge gives you nine.

That is a possibility, but that is where your suggestion of talking things out amongst players and GM comes in.

What i don't get is, why only 25 people voted yes on the question if Magic is broken, if at least 50 people have voted yes on the question if they have SEEN Magic break a game . .

Which is also my take on things... But Hey, it appears that I am still not convincing anyone that has a problem with the process that I have put forth...

Oh Well... to each his own...

And Legitimate Contraints are all that I ask for... Sometimes, those constraints take the form of interpretation of mechanics... and sometimes they come in the form of the "Fluff" inherent in the campaign world... In either case, the constraints are what keep the game interesting...

In this particular instance, the spending/burning of Edge is both a Mechanical Constraint and a Fluff constraint, depending upon the situation involved... I am okay with this...

I've seen characters that break D&D, but I don't think the game is inherently broken, just abuse-able. Same thing here with magic. Yes, you can do broken things with it, but that's not a flaw in the magic system.

I Also tend to interpret it in this manner... Critical Success on an unapposed roll is 4 Hits... You get 4 Net Hits... Period...
Soaking damage is unapposed... you either soak it or you don't... on 20 Damage, a critical success at our table (when burning edge for such) is interpreted as 4 Net Hits and you take 16 boxes of damage... Pretty severe in my opinion, which is why it would be better to just Burn the edge to survive... you still take the damage, but at some later point, you reappear (with cyberware/bioware or not) for a new scenario...

AS I have said before... in our campaig, burning edge for a critical success has NEVER been done... however, burning edge to survive certain death has been done on several occassions by different characters...

Again.. Opposed Test... Damage is not an opposed test... it is a result that you have to roll against to take less damage...
an opposed test would be for the Dodge test against the incoming Rifle Fire (Attack Test)... this is an OPPOSED test... Damage is a result of failing an opposed test, and as such is not relevant for the "Critical Success" of burned edge...

Anyway, that is our interpretation...

It would appear that some interpretation is involved here. I would have thought that 4 net successes on a soak roll means you get 4 more than the 'threshold', which is 20. Or at least, 4 successes more than the opponent got on his attack roll, thereby reducing the DV to 4 less than the base DV. Some don't see it this way, though, but assume the threshold is 0.

I would be one that does not see it that way...

Again, Damage is not a Test, it is the result of a failed test... for the 4 more successes than the opponent, you would need to apply it during attack resolution (Dodge vs. Firearms)

My Two Cents

Because something CAN break a game does not mean it is easy for it to break a game. Samuri can break a game. I've seen a few who didn't need the rest of the party for anything but magical threats.

I figure soak rolls are tests with a threshold of X to avoid damage. You fail, you take X - hits damage
Net hits would be hits over and above X
If you have 4 net hits, then you have X + 4 hits
and take no damage

Threshold tests are unopposed.
If I attempt a threshold 8 task, and burn an edge to get a critical success, you'd say I'd get 4 hits, while I'm taking the rules to mean I'd have 12

I'd like to point out that the book says that on a Threshold Test, a critical success is the Threshold + 4 total hits. That is, 4 hits more than needed to overcome the threshold (BBB page 59).

Resisting damage from a failed opposed attack/dodge test is...you guessed it:

A Damage Resistance Test (BBB page 140).

There are three kinds of tests: threshold, opposed, and extended. The Damage Resistance Test is neither opposed nor extended. Therefore it must be a threshold test.

Conversely, I will point out that on page 68 of the BBB under "Burning Edge" it does say "Automatically achieve a critical success on one action." IMO "resisting damage" is not an action and therefor not applicable. Dodging however, is an action. Even if not declared as a complex action you are still avoiding shots actively.

As others have pointed out, we've seen lots of things break the game. Shadowrun is very breakable. Mundanes can do it just as easily as magic. That doesn't mean the magic system is broken, or the combat section, or the Matrix.


That makes it a simple Threshold test, which is eligible for burning Edge.

Look at it this way. Let's say the player is able to roll a critical success without the use of burned Edge. When would you say he earned his flourish: when he soaked 4 boxes of damage, or soaked all of them plus four?

And this is where you are wrong.
You can ONLY explode 6's by spending edge. You can only use edge ONCE per test. It does not matter if you burn it or spend it, you only get to do one. If by spending edge you still don't have enough hits to not die you may then burn it to live but the damage test is over and your burning of edge is not to die.

While true, he never said he used edge to get more dice, he said he burned edge to get N successes, which would normally be possible, though unlikely to achieve through the normal application of edge.

Incorrect. You may only use Edge once in any single test. However, the book makes a clear distinction between using & burning Edge - using reduces your available Edge by 1, burning reduces your attribute by 1, & they each have different results.

You can use & burn Edge on a single test. You can burn Edge 4 times on a single test, if you are so inclined.

Spending edge and burning edge is still using edge. But you are free to look at it that way if you want. I guess at the tables I have been at we have a more strict interpretation of the edge rules.

Spending is restricted to once per action. Burning is an entirely separate category, & has no such restriction. You can Spend & Burn Edge on the same test. This is not new to SR4A - it's like this in SR4 as well.

Muspellheimr, the quote from SR4A, p. 75 does not say that burning and spending can both be done, it merely says that burning is more effective.

And burning Edge 4 times on the very same test will not get you any more than burning Edge once... you still get only 4+ net successes. "I put the gun on the top shelf" cannot be multiplied... no matter how many times you do it, you can't get higher than the top shelf.

Unless, I suppose this is applied: "If two opposing characters burn Edge in this manner, they cancel each other out." (p. 75) If this is applied, then each opposing character could continue burning Edge points at each other. [Please! I'm not trying to start that other discussion here, too!]

Spending Edge & Burning Edge are two, entirely separate applications for the attribute. The restriction for multiple-use is placed only on Spending Edge - go read it yourself, if you do not believe me. And I am well aware burning multiple times on the same test does not net you anything but lost Edge, but it can be done, which was my point.

Having read the text, I would read that you may use one or the other at any given time, not both in the same action if the first (spending) did not work... You have a choice... when spending edge is just not enough, you can Burn Edge instead......



It may be an interpretation of sentence construction, but there you have it... If you believe that spending Edge would not be enough, then you can Burn Edge... I would rule that you cannot do both within the context of the same test...

Subtle, but within the RAW (After all, Interpreation is in the eye of the beholder)

To me it reads more like "If spending Edge was not enough, then you can Burn Edge".

I read it the same way.

Well, there you have it. Yet again, it's all in how you read it.

Yep...

And opinions will always vary...