My initial reaction to the standard ranged combat test is tepid. I fully support the active dodge rules, but the idea that everyone gets to actively oppose gunfire from 200 yards with their Reaction rubs me the wrong way. I noticed they suggest an alternate unopposed resolution system where you increase the Threshold to compensate for the lack of the opposed Reaction roll. I'm looking for anecdotes from people who have used this alternate resolution system. Does it work well. Better or worse than the standard, in your opinion. How do you determine the Thresholds? That sort of thing. Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

My group uses a threshold system for range modifiers instead of the RAW version. That is, we make the initial attack roll based upon the range modifier threshold and then take extra successes and add to damage normally. This way, a character has to roll decent just to hit the target that far away and it reflects the lessened chances of getting the good hits with greater range.

So How does that work when the attacker can conceivable eliminate the range penalties, needing only a single hit to affect the target? Even at Very Long Ranges...

Probably by the fact that you still need 3 hits just to shoot the target at that range? Since the highest ranged combat mod in RAW is +2d for a Smartlink and maybe +3d for aiming, it not really an issue in our experience.

Vision magnification on a pair of goggles would turn that high threshold to a 1.

What's the problem with using Reaction? If they're being sniped unawares, they don't get a roll anyway, but if they know they're getting shot at, why not give them a chance to skip out of the way (and use Edge to put luck on their side)?

No save? Where does it say that if you are attacking a target and they are unaware they get no reaction roll?

I know this makes snese, and thats how we play it, but where is this rule?

My group uses the alternate system, where you have a threshold based on range. After you add in penalties for targets running, cover, etc, it makes this much more sense.

I don't like the threshold approach to range combat. It is just a way to force the players' chararcters to throw more ¥ at the problem with the effect that combat becomes more deadly. On the other hand the players will probably start complaining, if the GM kills their characters off with NPCs who have guns with improved rangefinders and scopes, or have even trained in Krav Maga.

Not to mention that it removes the advantage of surprise and ambush.

Exactly... Surprise is a condition that unfortunately, you have to contend with... not being able to react to the situation is a drawback... by the same token, you should not penalize the character for getting the drop on a NPC/target as the alternate ranged combat rules would tend to do... Having to spend MORE nuyen to offset that penalty would be annoying

Let me rephrase my question. I'm coming at this without having played a single SR combat in ten years. How deadly do you perceive firearms to be in SR4? Without getting into hypothetical number-crunching, is it the case with the RAW that characters with relatively high Reaction scores are regularly dodging short-range gunfire without resorting to "active dodge?"

In our games, it is not regularly dodged (average Reactions are between 4 and 9 depending on the character and 'ware)... even those with the 9's do not do so regularly, as they tend to be targets (as they are generally the biffer threat) and all attacks reduce your avoidance pool by one per attack for that purpose... usually it reduces to 1 or 2 net when they are hit, which they then get to try and soak...

As a note, even with the addition of the Dodge stat, I still tend to get hit somewhat often in both firearms and unarmed combat attacks (Dodge is equal to unarmed)... though in unarmed I get to add dodge for free initially... I still take damage from both sources pretty regularly...

For the record, I have the 9 Reaction (Reaction Enhancer and Wired reflexes), and a 3 Dodge... (DP for Ranged Combat Base 9 (12 if Dodging), and 12 DP for Melee (15 if Dodging)...

Ranged combat is deadly indeed, but no more so that it should be...

That being said... In our experience, the dice are very capricious... sometimes you will avoid the shot completely, and other times you will get 1 success on 15 dice and take a hard round to the sternum...

My Contribution, hope it is helpful...

Very helpful. Thank you. Based on the feedback I've gotten, I think I'll start out using RAW for ranged combat. I keep failing to grok the new die mechanic of always needing five and sixes. In previous editions, which are the only ones I have experience with, you could always beat down the the Target Numbers via smartgun links and such, so large dice pools were hugely effective. My sense is the new statistics of SR4 will result in a lot fewer Hits for the large dice pools than what my 2nd and 3rd edition instincts tell me.

This is how it worked for us anyway... Target 5 is brutal if you are used to having Target 2... This works with soaks of damage as well... Soaking 2's was WAY easy compared to Soaking 5's

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that magnifying scopes don't remove all range penalties in our game. To be frank, this rule is frickin' retarded because any long range shooter will tell you that having a good scope doesn't mean that you have your solution set correct for a given shot. At best, a telescopic scope will reduce the Threshold by one for a long shot.

Why would anyone use image magnification if there is no benefit?

Because there are lots of cases where it is useful. I tend to not be convinced that you have to allow 100 options to be game breakers.

But these are mag scopes of the future! Where's your sense of wonder???

Anyway, I think the ranged combat rules strike the right balance between deadliness and realism. A more realistic game would make me bash my skull in against the wall, because my players would all be taking hours to set everything up, and protesting loudly if their careful preparations ever failed to deny the enemy the chance to shoot at them. Shadowrun RAW allows a bit of fun, cavalier, cinematic action. You have to use cover, but you don't have to hide from bullets like a coward in order to survive. It's a game where people have hyper reflexes and magical powers, and I think the idea of a chromed up sammy dodging through a hail of bullets is just flat out cool. And I honestly can't stand the simulationist uber-stealth, uber-paranoia style of play that some people are into. When you play a cyberpunk game, there should be room for style, and it shouldn't get you killed more often than not.

Ditto... Well Said...

Name some, if there is no bonus to the attack roll as psychochipps houseruled.
Game breakers? Using image magnification effectively allows only one shot (or burst) per Action Phase unless the character spends BP/Karma on Martial Arts. What's so gamebreaking about image magnification?

My bit o yen for the discussion. I never see folks as "dodging" gunfire. I see them as using movement and skill to make themselves harder to hit. For a novice game hunter I think it's going to be harder for them to shoot a running cheetah as opposed to hitting a bear (and they move pretty quick too). For a seasoned and skilled pro, they'll pop both sure as shit, but I'm pretty sure they'll tell you the easier target is the slow one running in a straight line. Plus, it's a game. Realistic fire arms simulation would be tedious at best. Just like anything else, real life marksmen are the best in the world because that is what they do all the time. Shadow runners pull off amazing shots while being shot at on a pretty regular basis and I never once heard a player say to me that they were going to drop a couple thousand rounds of ammo at their local gun range in their down time.

That seems like a good way to think of it. Once I wrap my head around the new die mechanic, I can see that the "average Joe" with a 3 Reaction is rarely getting enough Hits to avoid gunfire. Meanwhile the augmented, professional combat artist with Reaction 9 is zigging and zagging so gracefully that they make a much tougher target than poor Joe Average.

While I like my games fairly gritty, I do want to leave room for some cinematic actions sequences.

Hi there, I am on the same boat as you - veteran 2nd and 3rd edition SR player getting introduced to 4th edition just now.

I didnt like the default opposed test system because of 2 things:

1) the thought of people "dodging bullets", be it average joes or veteran firefighters, sounds too "super-heroes" for me.

2) I like combat fast - the less rolls, the better.


That said, I confess I didnt even tested the default system. What I can say is: the alternate ranged combat system is running nice for my style. If you go with it, I would just suggest this...

1) the threshold should be modified based on factors related to the TASK or the TARGET (eg: target running or taking cover, long distance, visibility mods like heavy rain or smoke, etc.); while the dice pool should be modified based on factors related to the SHOOTER (eg: smartlink, aiming, pain, injury, etc.)

2) Adjust the trheshold scale to your group's preference. I adopt the standard suggested by the rule except for the extreme range (which I raise to thresold 6. So It stays this way... Short: 1, Medium: 2, Long: 3, Extreme: 6. It being worked well for my style. Find yours. )

Well, there is a benefit in my game for telescopic sights...it reduces the range-based threshold by one with a decent skill roll to set the scope correctly for the shot.
As for the "sense of wonder", that's what a telescopic sight networked to a smartlink is for. You get a reduced range threshold and two bonus dice on your attack rolls, and this is before you even start getting your aiming bonuses! How is this not pretty dang cool?

As for the rest, we have plenty of guys running through machinegun fire and other random acts of stupidity...err, heroism. I just don't give the sniper a free pass on making the long green shots if they drop the big, phatty 100 for a RAW scope. Besides, the best use for a scope is for gathering intel, not blowing holes into people.

Just a side not, Telescopic sights were developed to do nothing but to assist in blowing holes through targets... whether they are static or people...

Called Tactical Movement in the Corps...

Yes, and then we realized their true potential in military/paramilitary applications.

You are talking about binoculars not telescopic sights.

I haven't played SR4 as yet, but I actually had the opposite view... that shooters had it too good, because in melee, the defender always gets dodge (or unarmed, or parry, or whatever). Although I haven't played a game, it seems to me someone shooting with 10 dice is going to fare better than the dodger, with say 5 - 7 dice (on a good day)... So I would expect most shooters hit. Of course I haven't played a game, so, er, guess this don't count for much!!

You're quite right. Shooters hit way more often than not (until you start trying to factor Edge). Even against targets with a reaction of 9+. Sure, the first two guys missed, but they were firing on that quarter sized bit of air. The third guy, putting more lead in the air catches the artful dodger because there just wasn't anywhere else to zig-zag too (remember, very compressed time spans of about a third of a second, if you're zig-zagging there's about three places to aim: as far right as you go, as far left as you go, and right down the center--one of them's going to hit).

No, I mean telescopic sights (Really!). You see, with a telescopic sight you have both an excellent intel-gathering visual aid and a weapon in one handy-dandy package for instant use if the tactical situation requires someone to have a hole blown into them. With binoculars you get the joys of setting down your binoculars and then grabbing your weapon which has a high propensity to mean that you missed your chance to do anything about the aforementioned tactical situation except pick up the pieces.

Needing a dicepool of 12 instead of 15 to hit and possibly damage every second target at extreme range, is not enough a bonus for me. Don't forget per RAW you cannot use the take aim action if either the target or the shooter moves.

All this does not eliminate the problem that with the threshold approach the attacker has no benefit for laying an ambush.

Only at Extreme ranges, actually. Judging by the fact that the vast majority of Police sniping is done at 50m or less and happens in an urban setting, it gives you an idea of how often your typical SR marksman is going to be shooting at the 600+ meter long greens. Yeah, the rifle and your marksman can probably do it, but you're probably never going to get a LOS that long in a place like Seattle. Even then, you'll probably not get some super nugget-busting hit unless your boy (or girl) really knows that they're doing (which is reflected in a large dice pool).

First off, not many ambushes are sprung at distances of over 100m and most are far shorter than that. Threshold range penalties doesn't hurt you at all in terms of an ambush except for the fact that instead of getting a free pass to shoot some chump at the farthest reaches of your weapon's capability for big money like 100 , you actually have to make a good shooting roll to, well...make a good shot (and at those ranges, it's a "good shot" just to hit your target). Kind of makes sense now you see it typed out, huh?

How often this occurs in a typical shadowrun is irrelevant. If such shots regularly are made IRL by trained professionals, they should be made in the game as well, and I'm not talking about headshots, just hitting any part of the target. Called shots are even more difficult.

The threshold is indeed mostly irrelevant for ambushes unless handguns are used, but if you don't use an opposed roll but instead the threshold for the ranges, there is no difference between sneaking up on an unaware target and shooting it and stepping in front of the target yelling "Now you die!" and pulling the trigger. I find that weird.

Kind of makes sense now you see it typed out, huh?




"shrug" had to do it...

It's FAR easier to hit in SR than in real life. With any reasonable die pool you'll hit with more than 75% of your shots, often over 90%

In actual warfare a 5% hit rate is considered pretty good. In police shootings about 20% is average, over 50% is outstanding. And police shootings are typically at under 30 feet.

Umm...who said that we don't make opposed rolls? I had simply stated that we use threshold increases for range modifiers rather than removing a few piddly dice that (pre-SR4A, and the new ones still aren't enough, IMO) were not even close to reflecting how hard it is to hit targets at long ranges, especially in combat.

I assumed you were using the following alternate rule:
So in your games the shooter has to beat a threshold of range penalty + defender's hits? This probably makes combat quite long.

Pretty much the rule we use. Of course, we used it before it was published.

Not at all, really. The main reason for this is because I rarely give the PCs a chance to set up a sniper position where range modifiers come into play (and most of us realize that Snipers are really whack for PCs anyway). Since most fighting in an urban area, especially the type engaged in by 'runners, is at distances of 10m or less, it's largely a moot point. Keep it up close and personal and all types of characters can enjoy themselves, not just the gun bunnies.

Just so that I understand then... it is a penalty to those who would prefer a little space between themselves and the opponents throwing out tons of lead... Yes?

if so, Okay...

There is a common structure of teams in which the sammi just kills most everything from 800 meters. After all, a HMG bullet does extra special damage in a "sniper rifle" and with no range mods in the normal rules they just kill everything they see as they get like 6 successes even if they really are not very skilled in long arms.

Some people find this kind of annoying.

Close, but not quite. The annoying aspect for me is how the character is always trying to be 600+ meters away so they're: 1) useful for a very limited scope of actions well over 90+% of the time, 2) they seem to almost always also involve the skills of a medic for some $&#@ing retarded reason, and 3) really super easy to counter if your opponents aren't complete idiots by simply selecting locations without a long LOS easily found by a quick online comparison reference between a topographical map and Google maps.

Long range marksmen (especially criminals) aren't very common and you can only do the same trick so many times before it gets you dead...

May be true in some games, but we have yet to even be at that distance and have observable line of sight to the target... on the rare occassion that that is the case, what is wrong with it?