Okay, so I am completely new to Shadowrun. I have been wanting to play this game since like 5 years ago but I never managed to learn the rules. So now I'm really trying it out and trying to learn it through combat and what-not.

However, I've got a few problems with the rules, and it is not so much that I am complaining about the rules, rather that I do not quite understand them and would love for someone to clarify them for me.

So, here we go.
1) We have been trying to figure out how the Full-Auto and Burst-Modes work... but we don't get it. So... let's say that I do a Complex action to burst a guy with an Assault Rifle... Ares Alpha... has like (2) to recoil, and 6p dmg. Now we are talking 10 bullets flying at my opponent and I am getting -9 dice pool modifier. Let's say that after modifiers I have 2 dice to roll... does this mean that I get to roll 2 dice per bullet that goes flying or total? Cuz if it's total... then that's only 6p of damage for a full auto burst. This doesn't make much sense to me... just trying to figure it out.

2) Opposed Grenade Throws... so it's kinda weird that the defender gets an opposed Grenade roll... so depending on his "chi" or whatever u may call it... the grenade lands in a different spot? I don't get it...

3) You can run... 25m for one combat turn... 3seconds... and that's a simple action... that's like World Sprinter-Quality when wearing whatever gear ur carrying and guns... while getting shot at... is this really right? It doesn't make much sense to me... but then again, I might have missed something.

Anyone who feel that they can answer these questions to some fashion would get a huge thanks from me... I am really confused about these things but I really wanna learn them... please help me out

/Zore

Yes. That's pretty much how it works. Thought you also get to choose narrow (+9 DV if you hit - sometimes) or wide (-9 to target defense pool). You'll eventually get used to the rules not making much sense.


No, it's that the target has mysteriously teleported out of the way. You'll eventually get used to the rules not making much sense.


Yes, that's how it works. You'll eventually get used to the rules not making much sense.

The developers seemed to have learned everything they know about combat from watching crappy movies and reading comic books.

You get 2 dice. Not 2 dice per bullet, 2 dice. If you get fewer hits than the guy who fired the gun you take a hit from 1 bullet (6P + net hits) damage. If you get more hits than the guy who fired the gun he missed you (and all of the bullets go poof).

Think of a wide burst as a shotgun blast that can only ever hit 1 guy.

Okay... so if it is general consensus that none of the previous things makes sense... is there an alternative "fixed" system that takes care of these obvious problems?

I do not mean to flame each and everyone who plays the system, but I do like a system that you can make some sense from... and generally I prefer "realistic" campaigns as opposed to "Superhero" campaigns. Is there a 4.5 released that addresses some of these issues?

I have not even begun to look at the magic and hacker stuff yet, I'm trying to figure out the game one part at a time... but this seems like some really, really, big problems. Please tell me I'm wrong and give me the resources to back it up, I really want you to... the Shadowrun d6 system is too cool to be so flawed

edit:: Is the third edition better in taking account for these types of things?

Well, for one, if a guy dodges a grenade you threw at him it means it's landing behind him. It doesn't disappear. Besides, you should be throwing them at the floor for maximum effect (the floor can't dodge).

As for movement speeds, they're fast, but at any less and your tactical options during combat get slimmer. It's not a lot of fun to only be moving around at 3m per combat round (realistic speeds). Also, when running you take a -2 to all dice pools (including dodging!)

As for bullets disappearing if they miss the intended target, that's for the sake of paperwork. No one wants to track the trajectory of every round fired to see if it hits someone else. Leave the collateral damage to the GM.

All right, you shoot at someone, with the penalty for firing a full burst. The Ares Alpha has 2 points of recoil compensation, so you have a net -7 penalty. But that's for a stock Alpha - any professional shadowrunner will get a shock pad and a gas-vent: 3 system for it, to bring the penalty down to -3.

Your hapless opponent, though, is not so lucky. You can either fire a wide burst, which reduces their dodge roll by -9, or you can fire a narrow burst, which increases the damage by +9. Either way, you will likely do more than 6P damage, because your net hits get added to the base damage.

Also, a wide burst is not like a shotgun burst that can only hit one guy - there are rules for multiple targets of a wide burst.


This represents them running the hell out of the way when you toss something at them - are they just going to sit there and watch the grenade land at their feet? It's the same as defending against any other ranged attack. I know "opposed by the target" could make it seem like they are rolling grenade skill vs. you, but they aren't - it only refers to the normal Reaction test.


Movement rates seem to be a weak point for most games. In Shadowrun, the movement rate is a bit on the high side.

Im new to the new edition also (Ihave anniversary edition). But the way I read the rules it seems to me that, if you fire a full-auto (10 bullets), you get +10 to DV, making it a 16P damage. Am I reading something wrong here?

You are correct, there are rules for using a wide burst on more than one target, but the simple "I fire a wide burst at that guy" doesn't use those rules, even if the guy is standing should-to-shoulder with another guy.

Ok, first are you firing a Wide Burst or a Narrow Burst? If its a Narrow Burst then yes, only one of the bullets "hit." If you fire a Narrow Burst then if you hit the guy then all the bullets "hit" so that would be 6P +9 + 1 net hit (at least) = 16P.


Although the rules have players take turns when attacking combat, obviously, doesn't really work that way. Each attack is getting opposed by something, so the defender is "reacting" to the attacks as they come. So, someone throws a grenade and then it lands and everyone around it kind of jumps away from it. Wouldn't that be your reaction? There is errata on the grenade rules, as I remember so grab the latest errata from the website. This particular topic has, however, been the subject of some debate here.


Yeah, it's pretty fast: 25m/3seconds = 8.33m/s. That's 100m in 12 seconds. Usain Bolt is the current record-holder and he ran 100m in 9.69s, so he would move 30.96m/3 seconds (per combat round). So, 25m/round is fast but not what I would call "superhero."

I don't believe that the general consensus is that the combat mechanics don't work. It's easy to miss when spraying bullets out of a full auto gun. If you really want a bullet hose to do more than make noise, and don't want to spend the money for recoil compensation, use suppressive fire rules. Only if you're very good or have good bracing (recoil compensation) can you put 10 bullets in one spot (or make it much harder to dodge). Otherwise stick with short bursts.

3rd edition is generally more complicated. If you want to tweak the modeling better, go with 3rd, but be braced for a steeper learning curve. 4e works for the rest of us.

[ninjaed]Why do I bother.[/ninjaed]

Okay, got some more reasonable replies
Now... one more thing about opposed grenade throws... if i'm throwing at at person X who is standing 4m away from person Y... does only person X get an opposed roll or both?

And according to the rules, it seems kinda like the position of the grenade is changed as opposed to the person changing place... maybe I just misread it though.

Any did I get this right or am I still confused?

i guess one have to consider that a wide burst is not a "fan the room with bullets".

its just a case of widening the grouping of bullets a bit so that there is a higher chance that at least one of them hits, no matter where the target goes.

basically, rather then having them all hit within 7-8cm/3inches, they spread out to 30cm/12inches or slightly larger.

if one wants to fan the room with bullets, one go with suppression fire.

mostly the rules are abstract for ease of use. would you rather spend the time each round calculating penetration, pr bullet, depending on where it hits, what angle it hits at and all that stuff?

people complain that the SR rules are slow enough as it is. if one added ballistic realism on top, sign of on the next hour or so for the damage calculations

or one could always go and play space opera

Actions are not resolved until all the dice are rolled.

Just because you got some hits on the Attacking Roll does not mean you hit. It is not until the defending roll(s) are complete that the actions are resolved.

You shoot at someone, you roll your attack roll, you get some hits. This only means you have a chance of hitting

The defender rolls, maybe they were lucky and they didn't end up where the bullet went. They have a chance of being luckier then you at being out of the way.

If the Defender is unlucky enough to be in the way, they still have a chance of their armor and resistance making the effect of the hit minimal or nothing.

You can choose optional rules where only the attackers roll is used as a single roll to resolve whether or not you hit.

I do appreciate all the replies so far. I am not trying to bash apart SR system by any means (wouldn't make any sense since I've barely tried it yet), I'm just trying to make sense of it so that I understand what is happening when I try it out.

Still, one of my big questions remains... does opposed tests for Grenades involve everyone who could be affected by the grenade or only the person I throw it at?
Which leads me to my follow-up question... if it's the latter... where only one person gets to dodge... then that sux for everyone else...
but if it is the prior... that gives all the people within the grenade range and extra chance to make a small move action... which once again... unfair

which leads us to how i understood the rules... the grenade gets moved!? that's even crazier though because then it can be moved away from the target and closer to another group of people who are not as lucky as to have an opposed roll...
(all this is assuming stationary opponents, not moving)

so therefore... is it better to just aim at a spot? If so... it becomes a bitch to dodge that grenade if you have a slow initiative next round... this seems the most plausible of the scenarios... but then again... I don't know... I haven't really played the game a lot

please, enlighten me with your insights.

/Zore

Impact and Air Burst grenades.

Don't mean to be annoying... but I'm still confused

edit:: rather, that doesn't help me understand since I don't know the mechanics of those grenades either

Well, air burst grenades explode in the air--no dodge roll, and no throwing them back. Impact go off when they hit a surface, so no throwing them back.

Ah that makes sense... but that doesn't really answer my question about how the game mechanics works on regular grenades... the prior post that I made was just like 4 different ways it COULD work... I don't know which one it is supposed to be even...

Third edition has most of the same realism issues as SR4, mostly because SR4 is based off of SR3. They changed the dice mechanic from variable target numbers to a fixed target number with variable dice pools, but the basic structure of everything is the same. I think the system works great as long as you look at it as a game, and not a battle simulation. The point is to have some fun, and have it be non-lethal enough that you'll survive most fights and not have to make a new character after every game session. If you want a realistic, simulation style battle system, you're not going to find it in Shadowrun, in this or any other edition.

i guess one thing to consider about say the grenades rules are that everything is happeing within the same 3 seconds.

that is, as your troll teammate is filling the air with lead, that thrower on the other side is trying to throw said grenade, while not being hit at the same time.

people may be moving back and forth with in a radius of their supposed location, and the "dodge" test of the grenade may be the target going "oh crap!" and diving in some direction to get away from it. but when the grenade goes off, damage is calculated and all is said and done, the person goes back to his area of activity.

and on that one, i recall hearing about one game where the rule was that if you dodged a explotion, you found your self outside its radius, no matter how large is was...

oh, and there is always the alternative and simply declare all grenade attacks a success test, murphy be damned.

Right, all this is good for visualizing how it works, but it still does not answer earlier question, which one of the scenarios that I listed is the one that the official SR 4ed rules stands by?

only person x as he is considered the primary target. if your just trying to land it between them, go for a success test as your attacking a spot on the ground and see how close to the intended target it lands.



its the position of the grenade that changes, yes. but its mostly a case of abstracting multiple factors (moving target(s), bad luck on the side of the thrower, sudden winds or other factors) into a single effect for ease of use vs accuracy of physics...

in the end, one should ask, what is the attacker trying to do?

1. is he trying to attack a single person with a grenade (and just happens to catch others in the blast)?

2. is he trying to catch as many as possible in the blast radius?

if its 1, then its a opposed test with others just being shit out of luck. if its 2, its a success test.

in either case, people better be wearing their best running shoes

A character typically is not going to be throwing a grenade at a person/opponent. He will be throwing it at a spot. That spot could be indicated by the player saying some thing like "I am throwing my grenade at the "feet" of Goon A." This indicates the roughly meter area where Goon A is standing at the time of the player taking his action, not actually on the goon's feet.

Now, a character may want to throw a grenade at an opponent for some reason. (Maybe he wants to bean him in the head with it?) I would rule, at that point, the character is no longer throwing a grenade. Grenades are typically lobbed to try and hit a rough area. At the point the guy is throwing it at the opponent, he is throwing an object like a rock. I would probably force the player to use the general Throwing skill and not the specialization Throwing: Grenade, in any case. Alternatively, I may ask for him to apply the called shot penalty (-4 to his roll) and let him roll his specialization. Of course, how the events play out in the actual game may change my ruling in a lot of cases. Intent and the actual scenario are things any GM needs to weigh in any situation where the players are going slightly "off" the norm. Obviously, the defender of such an attack would get a Dodge to avoid the incoming missile (provided they are aware of the incoming missile), and if such an attack were made and missed actually hitting the guy, the grenade would land pretty far from it's target due to the force of the throw. There's a reason the term "lobbing" a grenade is used so often as a description of that type of attack... to me it implies an arcing throw intended for the grenade to land in specific spot and have minimal rolling/bouncing afterward.

Vlad

This is explicitly disallowed by the rules.

Thank you, now I have actually had all my questions answered and it should prove a lot easier for the next attempt to try out the combat system. Thanks all that helped out
/Zore

page?

My current GM had a character that did that. Beaned people in the head with grenades (for damage) only to have the grenade then explode.

applying about the same damage as a billiard ball i guess?

It's not disallowed. p.155 of SR4A lets you throw at a target, in which case there is an opposed test, or you can throw at a location, in which case it's just a success test to see how close to the location you get. I don't like the grenade rules at all though, grenades are the one weapon where you can potentially hit a bunch of people without giving any of them a defense test. I would always give people within the blast radius a defense test, with each hit putting them 1 meter farther away from the blast center. Otherwise, greandes are just ultimate instant killyness, and not very fun at all.

Uh...Isn't that what I said?



The floor can't dodge, there is a success test, yes, but the floor itself can not dodge. And given that I'm not throwing it at anyone they can dodge all they want and still take the blast damage.

Ahhh. Apologies, it's not in the rulebook, but it IS in the FAQ: http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/faq.shtml#3

And what, pray tell, occurs when the attacker fails the opposed roll?

The same thing that always happens when the attacker fails an opposed roll for throwing a grenade?

....the grenade disappears in a puff of RAW?

I'm not positive on this, but I think that the opposed test is actually a contest of increasing vs. decreasing the scatter. If I tie the attacker who's 'nading me, then the scatter is neither increased nor decreased, it scatters its normal distance. If I beat him by 4 hits, then the scatter increases by 4, which represents me getting out of the way. If he beats me by 4, then the scatter decreases by 4. It's a bit vague because usually an opposed test is all or nothing. But I prefer my reading of it, since grenades disappearing is a bit stupid, even for Shadowrun's unrealistic combat system.

No, it scatters. Just like grenades always do. Yeah, that means grenades generally scatter farther (since an opposed test is almost always going to net fewer hits than a simple success test) if your intent is to catch a person in the blast radius -- as mentioned earlier in this thread, sometimes the rules just don't make logical sense.

Not saying I approve of the way grenades work. And I'm not terribly familiar with the grenade rules, anyhow, never having used any. I just remembered that one FAQ passage (and incorrectly remembered it as being in the actual rulebook).

Correct. Or, at least, that's how I read the rules as well.

Opps. Well, we always used airburst grenades anyhow. A pet peeve of mine is that grenades aren't dangerous enough to the person using them in SR. This may just be a personal bias due to unfortunate incident involving a hand grenade simulator and a tree branch, but I still feel that way.

Anyhow, the problem with the mechanics of combat is that there are lots of little things that make you go "that's insane", but when you start tweaking them you tend to create as many issues as you solve. It's easier to just deal with them. You just accept that you can reliably shoot people 250 meters away with an AK while running, and only use real machine guns when mounted on drones - as drones don't take recoil mods.

anyone subject to a artillery bombardment would probably agree with you.

in the end it comes down to collateral damage. if the object the PC's are after is within the blast radius, can they really risk it?

and the same with the other side, what, beyond the PC's gets blasted to bits by the explosion?

remember, even walls can be blasted out by a grenade, and anyone on the other side can get a face full of hurt...

as in, can the corp sec goons really justify deploying that kind of fire power on corp grounds?

i would say that if the answer is yes, the PC's should be heading for the nearest exit, asap!

sounds like a 4 on the direction and a number of meters equal to distance tossed in the first place...

Too bad someone throwing a normal grenade cannot have it, by RAW, hit back at them by the troll wielding the louisville slugger.

heh, held action and a bat, and i think i would allow it, rules or no rules

just resolve like one would if someone tried to pick it up and throwing it back before it explodes, with maybe a strength bonus or something...

ok, now im envisioning a adept with a mitt catching and throwing them back, with a added punch from the missile mastery power

That's what I figured, and for the most part a guy throwing a grenade is going to have more dice than the dodger, so while fewer net hits means less accuracy, most grenades end up where you want them: in the room.

I will however point out that due to RAW stating that there must be a (primary) target, you can't throw nades into an empty room.

Unless I can make that chair my primary target.

heh, the faq only states that if you intend to catch one or more people in the blast radius, you have to make it a opposed test vs one of them.

if your just lobbing the grenade around for shits and giggles, its still a success test.

the faq seems to be a poor way of forcing people to use the opposed test.

just had a spark of creativity.

one way to read the opposed test is a feint test on part of the target.

that is, the target sees the throw coming, and tries to make the thrower throw the grenade in the wrong direction, increasing the effective scatter (tho that do not fully explain a scatter towards the thrower, but i guess murphy can).

Combat is so complex in real life, and the rules abstract enough, that your "skill" doesn't necessarily mean any actual in-universe understanding or ability. It just means "succeeds at this more often than not". Your Thrown Weapons skill can mean "I'm really accurate" or "Murphy is on my side". Which it is has absolutely no effect on the game.

Others have already answered your question quite thoroughly, so I thought I would point you in the direction of a different form of assistance.

An Ares Alpha comes standard with Recoil Comp (RC) 2. It also has a built in smartgun for 2 extra dice.

Just sticking with the core book, for 450 nuyen you can get your RC to 6 by adding a Gas Vent 3 system and a shock pad.

That should help significantly.

I'm going to lob more grenades for shits and giggles during combat.

"I don't like that table. I throw a grenade at it."

Your opponent is getting a chance to dodge out of the way, remember, unless it's an airburst grenade it doesn't detonate until the beginning of your next action. The scatter roll is just what it says, grenades roll when they hit the ground. If you want an example, stand outside a room and throw a baseball in (yes, the weight is VERY different, but the shape is very similar).
Just because I've tossed grenades at an area, doesn't mean the grenade won't bounce when it hits a hard surface or slide off in a random direction because of a terrain feature I can't tell is there (in reality, you throw a hand grenade roughly twenty meters on open ground to avoid shrapnel).

Get two friends. Put one of them in a chair, he's not allowed to move.

Tell them to avoid your baseball.

Toss it at the feet of the first guy (not in a chair). Measure distance away from target.

Toss it at the feet of the second guy (in the chair). Measure distance away from target.

I'll guarantee you that the distance away was the same in both cases, give or take a small amount due to physics. If you end up with 3 or more meters of difference after performing this test, then I'll listen to your argument.

That is:

In no way did the guy who was jumping around and making a Dodge check influence where the baseball landed.