The problem with the pornomancer isn't that he slucks up spotlight time. The problem is that he gets a higher quality of spotlight time than everyone else does. Your "fix" is to nerf him, so that he gets even less spotlight time than he should. That's unfair to the player.

I don't have a rules fix for him, I just have a "gentleman's agreement" that seems to work fairly well.


Good point, but also a tangent. I always let players create new characters when they're bored. And while no system can prevent character suckage, some do defend against it better than others. SR3 does a better job of this than SR4, for example; D&D4e does a better job than d20, and so on.

Back on topic, you're proposal is to GM-Hammer the pornomancer into oblivion. The same is true for manaballs, and so on. That's also not fixing things "within the system", that's fixing things by GM fiat. A rules fix would be something that prevents the combo-stack that allows the pornomancer in the first place. See the difference?

MHO, on the contrary, is that SR1 to 2 & 3 is an obvious evolution (or devolution in some areas;). The core mechanics and many rules remain constant throughout the editions with the notably significant changes being the introduction of Rigger 2 and VR2 during the later SR2 epoch and perhaps damage resolution in SR2.
That said, if SR4 recalls the mojo of original SR for you, then good luck and good gaming.

The only reason why you say I'm not fixing it is that you've arbitrarily decided to define "fix" as "creating house rules to deal with the problem." The entire game is GM fiat. The GM decides what job the Mr. Johnson hires the team for. The GM decides who the enemies will be. Are you saying that it's wrong for the GM to use fiat to decide these things? Are you saying that it's wrong for the GM to tailor the run so the players don't automatically win? It sounds like this is what you're saying. All I'm saying is, one can deal with problems without creating house rules. Your response seems to be, alternatively, "no you can't," and "it's wrong to do so." Do I understand you correctly?

Actually, it was more about the multiple additions and subtractions spread out through multiple books, which took either knowing the rules very well through play, ignoring them, or having an insane ability to remember the system by heart.

Among the typical gaming geek, that is hardly an inane ability.

There's a difference between the GM using the rules, and the GM stomping them flat. There's also a difference between the GM's assigned role (setting challenges) and GM Fiat (handing down pronouncements writ upon the stones of the covenant). You're saying that you can fix the rules by arbitrarily forcing conditions onto the players that nerf their best powers. For example, manaball might not work if everyone is jumbled up, but how are you going to contrive that situation for every combat? Railroad them? Fudged surprise tests? It all comes down to GM fiat, which is just a fancy word for railroading.

The entire game is about fun. GM Fiat is Not Fun. It should be avoided, rather than embraced.

I think Larme was talking about the GM designing runs and situations that challenge the players, as you suggest. After the group goes through a few runs its quite possible that opposition could be aware of their abilities and start to develop counters for them. If you have a character with 48 dice for Seduction tests (in their home ground, against someone they haven't met before and all those goofy situational modifiers that are in that number) then it takes a little more creativity on the part of the GM to challenge the player, otherwise you should just turn to them and say, "you win."

It does make sense from a game theory point of view. In a world where pornomancers do exist, one can safely assume that people, especially the power players that runners have to face, took measures against them. Same for manaball or any other PC munchkinism. This is precisely why they are power players

If they don't, it means that they're not aware of the threat. What really unbalances the game here is not what your PC is capable of, but the whole world working as if he was the only one of his kind in the world. There are scanners for weapons and cyberware, laws restricting them, armor designed to protect from them, because they are dangerous. Why should it be different for any other dangerous stuff?

I'm not suggesting to do it for every combat. However, your suggestion seems to be that the GM can never manipulate the situation to make it harder for the players, and thus the only solution is to fix it with house rules. My argument is that the GM has a huge bag of tricks to make the game more challenging. You want to say that using those tricks is railroading, with no support whatsoever, and thus the best solution to powerful PCs is a rules nerf. I just can't see where you're coming from. Again, the GM controls the entire world. If the GM says "there are drones guarding this facility you've been hired to infiltrate," is that railroading? Of course not. What's railroading is if a Johnson implants cranial bombs in them, without letting them roll to escape or anything, and orders them to go into situations that suit the GM's will. But when the GM simply sets the tactical and victory conditions, that is normal play. You seem to be saying that the players control the game world, not the GM, and when the GM uses the rules to challenge the players, he's committing some sort of crime.

Not really. In an in-game view, possibly. From a game theory / design, it is just poorly balanced bullshit.


No. The point is nothing should require the GM to place artificial modifiers to bring it to the power of everything else. If something is found to fall into that category, the solution is not to place those modifiers on the character all the time, but to fix the actual problem - an overpowered option.

There's a misunderstanding here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

By game theory, I meant the search for an optimal strategy for one agent (here: the corp) given what he knows of the opponent's (here: the runners) possible strategies. Call it in-game game theory if you prefer

You can prefer a world without pornomancers to a world with pornomancers and all important meetings going through the matrix, but it's only a matter of taste. Both of them work from a rule point of view and both of them have consistent fluff. Game breaking only occurs if there is a mismatch between the rules you use and the people behaviour in your world.

The GM should never manipulate the situation, that's the player's job. THe GM's role is to set conditions, and then react to the players, within the conditions he's already set up. Suddenly, every mom-and-pop facility has nothing but drone guards? That's both nerfing and railroading the pornomancer.

When you set the tactical and victory conditions, you have to be fair. That means not targeting one player for super-stardom or uselessness. You also have to be prepared for the players to come up with solutions you weren't expecting. Suddenly nerfing a good solution because it wasn't in your original victory conditions, or makes victory too easy, is also railroading.

Oh, and on a more philosophical level: The GM does not control the world. The world is a consensual product of the imagination of all the players, including the GM. The GM's role is to control NPC's, set challenges, and provide flavor text. And that's it in a nutshell.

Why? Drones are way cheaper than physical bodyguards, and don't require any amenities... for a Mom & Pop company, it is fiscally more responsible to have drones than it is metahuman guards... you might also have a mostly automated security scheme, with a single spider to monitor... after all, it is a Mom and Pop organization...

Besides... Seduction seems to be a poor way to infiltrate a facility, and is definitely not an option once a firefight breaks out... that Pornomancer better have other options available to be effective...

Emphasis mine. Larme doesn't seem to be advocating using drones, matrix meetings, etc. to continually nerf the pornomancer. He is suggesting that these things will occasionally be encountered by the group. Just as the sammie can't solve every problem by shooting it, the pornomancer can't solve every problem by, well, you know.

Drones are also a lot dumber than physical guards, and can't make the same kind of judgment calls. A combination of meat and drone security is best. Suddenly perfecting the drone security setup not only nerfs the pronomancer via railroading, it over-emphasizes the techies.

Edit: He is suggesting it as a general fix for the issues a pornomancer brings to the table. That suggests that he plans on using it more often than as an occasional challenge.

A good mix is definitely preferable if one can afford it... sometimes you can't so you get the best that you can afford...

Now, That being said... it is sheer hubris to assume that all security setups are equal... even for low end targets... that is what makes Shadowrun interesting, you cannot rely upon data that you have accumulated or been given 100% of the time... So you get thrown a curve... you gotta adapt or die... that is the nature of the game...

Besides, what you thought was a low priority target may not be that Low Priority... How many times have your shadowrunners been lied to and not detected the lie? It Happens...

You're still attacking a straw man, even though I explained that I didn't think you should alter every situation in such a way. If you'd rather knock down straw men then argue with me, I'll exit. But the GM is fully licensed to set various conditions that aren't always the same. Some facilities have drones, some have spirits, some have a rigged security system. If all facilities are the same, then you're not being much of a GM.



If a player can only do one thing, that's his problem. The GM is not required to alter the game world so that a player's specialty is always useful. The player created a flawed, one-track character on purpose, and should have been advised of the consequences at that time. The pornomancer knows he's only good against things that can be social'd. He knows that there exist things which cannot be social'd. And yet, he chose to make that character, knowing that he might encounter things he'd be useless against. It is utterly fair, because he had notice, and proceeded with his build anyway. The GM does not have to act purposefully to nerf a pornomancer, he only has to set the conditions as they would be in a semi-realistic Shadowrun world, as RAW provides. And believe me, RAW does provide for facilities having more than just rentacops guarding them. Basically, you're saying that one character's problem is the whole system's problem. I disagree. One character's problem is that one character's problem. If his build is lopsided and bad, then his play experience will be bad. It should not be necessary to rewrite the rules just to make sure that one guy has maximum fun. He built the character within the system, and if he doesn't have fun within the system, that's his fault, not the system's. He used the system, he knew the implications, he's got only himself to blame. He can make a new character if he realizes that social tests don't work on everything. You seem to want a system where nobody can build a bad character. If so, go play D&D 4e. But Shadowrun is about choice and customization, that's the whole attraction of its chargen. That inherently means that people can do stupid things and make bad characters. The solution is to help them make better characters -- like you said, your gentlemen's agreement to limit pools to 20 makes better character who can do more things. As you yourself have shown, all that's necessary to deal with rules you see as broken is to counsel people about what effect exploiting those rules will have. It is absolutely unnecessary to alter the rules.



Ok, the GM doesn't control the world. He just controls all the people in the world who aren't players, controls all obstacles that the characters face, and tells a story. Are you even listening to yourself? The two things you described are not different. And it's semantical trash anyway. Who cares whether we say he controls the world or not? The point is, the GM sets the challenges. You're basically saying that if a character who can only social exists, then the GM is being unfair unless all the challenges can be solved socially. That is either sophistry or insanity, I can't decide which.

No, I am not. I'm saying that your solution only works if you erase social challenges from the run, all the time, effectively nerfing the character and railroading the players.

Or your manaball solution, which is to have the enemy mixed in with the runners. How on earth are you going to contrive that all of the time? Fudge surprise rolls? That's effectively railroading. And if you don't do it all of the time, the problem re-emerges. No, the best solution for a bad rule is to replace it with a good one, and not to GM-hammer contrived situations.

Wow, neither of you are listening. Cain, Larme's not saying that at all. Larme is simply talking about allowing the SR world to be itself, and present challenges as they happen. Larme's NOT saying to railroad the players with contrived situations 24/7. The pornomancer won't be effective on *most* runs that typically take place. Hell, that build isn't even meant to be a shadowrunner so much as a theorycrafting project on how many dice a person can actually accumulate. Larme, Cain isn't suggesting to cater to every player all the time no matter what, either.

Both of you need to back off the extreme and realize you're both arguing the same point, which seems to be everything in moderation and letting the system rule it self.

EDIT: Okay, posting immediately after returning home from work results in a disconnect between brain and fingers. Noted for the future. The above "point" is not what I *meant* to type. Here's what it should have read:

...the same point, which seems to be that contrived situations are not needed for game balance. You don't need to intentionally nerf a particular player/build any more than you need to intentionally allow for that. Play the *world* and it generally works out.

I am going to have to side with Larme on this one...

It does not take a whole lot of effort to keep the game world challenging and fun for everyone... however, if a player creates a character that the GM has to devote excessive time to plan for so that that single character is challenged, then that character should probably be looked at... Shadowrun is a team soprt (I know that I have said this before)... you cannnot please all the people all the time, and you should not have to try to do so... A Challenge is a challenge, if the character has difficulty dealing with it, maybe he should start filling those holes that he has so as not to be at a disadvantage anymore...

Besides, for your manaball query... remember, movement is fluid, it is not all that hard to place yourself into a position to at least hamper the Mage (how many archtypes do not go before the mage afterall)... I do it all the time as a character; forcing the mage to choose between area spells and point spells is the mark of a well prepared street sam or covet ops specialist... The ONLY time that you can be sure of the tactical situation is when you have managed to initiate an ambush, and that changes almost immediately as things develop...

Anyway, My Two

Admittedly, I'm used to mages with Increase Reflexes is a sustaining focus. YMMV on that count.

But it's still hard to mix up the players and enemies enough of the time for manaball's usefulness to be reduced. You can, however, fix it with a simple rule, such as all direct combat spells use base Force for drain, instead of half Force. Easy enough, and more fair and balanced than trying to shovel enemies into the team's tactical position each and every time.

Not at all. I don't see the problem with a player auto-winning social situations, not if they spent all the points to be able to do that. So what if they win the rolls? They spent the points to be the best of the best, and it's within the rules, so let them. The fact is, however, they left lots of gaping holes in their character sheet. I will create challenges by exploiting their weaknesses, not confronting their strengths. That's not to say that I'll use every single opportunity to make them useless, but it's also not to say that I'll allow them to solve every single run by using their main strength, either.

This is where our thinking diverges. To you, it is a foregone conclusion that the pornomancer is a "problem" which must be "solved." To me, it is not. Sure, they get to win the social situations, but they don't get to have all situations be social. You keep offering this false choice: nerf the pornomancer is every situation, or let them auto-win every situation. There's an obvious middle ground -- let them auto win some, but not others. What's so hard about that? Am I being unclear? Or are you refusing to concede a point for the purpose of trolling?

You keep coming back to this idea of railroading, like the GM setting conditions is automatically railroading. I am honestly confused by how you use this term -- you seem to arbitrarily call everything I suggest railroading, without any standards. So let me ask: is it railroading to say, "The J wants you to get something from a facility guarded by drones?" Is it railroading to say, "There are hellhounds patrolling an area you need to cross." Is it railroading to say, "Your opponents are mindless bug spirits?" As you yourself admitted, the GM sets the conditions. Some conditions simply cannot be cleared using social skills alone. They are valid conditions per RAW, they are part of a realistic Shadowrun game world. And yet, you seem to say if the pornomancer can't auto-win them, then it's railroading?



Again, straw man. You're starting to aggravate me with this, you've done nothing but take my arguments, turn them into really stupid straw men, and knock them down. When did I say that mixing the team in with the enemy was the only way to deal with manaball? When, pray, did I suggest that this should be done every time? I did not. I gave a whole list of options, all of which can be used when the situation calls for it. The team could get mixed in with enemies when the enemies ambush them. Or, the enemies could be too spread out to be caught by one manaball. The enemies could be riding inside of a vehicle with no LoS to them, cuz of tinted windows or the like. The enemies could lay down smoke to obscure vision, or they could be in areas with a background count, or they could have a friendly mage on spell defense. Any and all of these are perfectly fair, reasonable ways to reduce the effectiveness of manaball without needing a house rule. By setting some very basic, everyday conditions, you can make the mage change his tactics up, make him include the rest of the team a bit more. You keep using this all or nothing bullshit argument, like either you have to 100% railroad all the time, or you have to do nothing. It's bullshit, and you're reducing your credibility every time you make it. Case in point: nobody has chimed in to agree with you yet, like they usually do.

It is railroading to force the PC's to deal with the challenges in the fashion you want them to. They should be allowed to pick the approach. So, the pornomancer might seduce the security chief off-duty. and convince him to walk into the facitilty and complete the run. If you try to force the players to do anything else, it's railroading-- for example, by declaring that it's all drone security.

It's also railroading to push the players to take on a mission, or even talk to the Johnson, if they don't want to. If they'd rather play flirting with the cute waitress, then that's fine and dandy. Any attempt to get the game "back on track" is railroading.


If you want it to be a valid in-game fix for a rules problem, it needs to occur every time the rule does.

And speaking of straw men, you're more guilty of it than I am. My viewpoint really isn't that extreme: it's that certain rules in SR4 are harder to fix than equivalent rules in SR3. For example, the Maneuver Score can be fixed by replacing it with opposed Vehicle test rolls. The pornomancer requires rules fixes, contrived in-game situations, nerfing certain combinations, and so on and so forth. Those are just the examples that spring to mind; I'm sure there are many others.

Agreed 100%.

On a side note, this is so far from the original topic now....

- J.

You're saying that any facility the GM makes which is guarded entirely by drones is railroading. That is utter bullshit, and you know it. The players are free to say "drone security? No thanks." But the GM's hands are not tied in the way you claim. The GM sets the challenges. They can be easy challenges, like a security guard who can be seduced, or they can be hard challenges, like a rigged network of drones guarding a target place. Basically, you're saying that a challenge which an only be solved one way is railroading, but then making the non sequitur that drone security can only be solved one way. Drone security can be solved a lot of ways -- you can blow the drones up in combat, you can spoof them into fighting each other, you can hack them and take control, you can procure IDs that make the system think you're friendly, you can sneak past them... There is more than one way to accomplish any challenge. Just because the pornomancer can't solo the run does not mean the team is being railroaded.



Fine, who said I wanted to do that? If they talk to the J, the J gives them mission parameters. The J wants them to do a particular thing, which is set by the GM in order to challenge the players. The GM is free to use the players' weaknesses to challenge them. They built sheets with weaknesses, and they deserve what they get when they run up against them. They can back out if they want to. I never suggested that PCs had to be railroaded into anything, you simply take everything I say, and arbitrarily define it as railroading, in order to "win" the argument (which at present, you're not doing, because of how ridiculous your statements are).



Again, I don't want a "valid in-game fix for a rules problem." The rules are the rules, and rather than treating them as a problem, I treat them as they are. Nobody is invincible in SR4, everyone has a weakness. Instead of altering the rules to nerf their strengths, it is perfectly fair and legitimate to challenge them based on a weaker area. Hopefully they have teammates who can cover that for them. I'm not talking about stripping away anyone's spotlight time, I'm talking about giving everyone their fair share. That's all. I have no desire to make the pornomancer weaker in social situations, only to make sure that she can't solo every run by rolling seduction.



Your viewpoint seems to be that the GM cannot manipulate in-game situations to make certain character builds less effective in certain situations, that it is wrong to do so. If I'm wrong, please explain how. If I'm right, then it's no straw man.

My viewpoint has nothing to do with character builds, but rather with broken rulesets. Fix the rules so you don't have broken characters, you don't have a problem. GM-fiat an artificial in-game balance, and you have problems.

Trying to bring this subject back on topic, I quite clearly remember reading the Maneuver score, and thinking it was borked. I remember reading the Chase Combat rules, and while thinking they were quite an improvement, that they were still borked. The mach 4.6 car was probably the best example of this. The problem was, while the Maneuver score caused a bigger headache, Chase Combat is proving harder to fix. We're having to go further and further outside the ruleset in order to change it.

Your solution isn't a solution, it's just a way of making more problems. There are very few quick and easy fixes for an RPG as complex as Shadowrun. If you consider baseline mechanics to be broken, then you have to write your own version of Shadowrun. Some are willing to expend the time and effort to create their own version, most are not. I consider my way the most practical solution. Instead of calling it broken and beating your face against the wall trying to fix it, just live with it. It's not broken unless you arbitrarily apply that label. If everything powerful is broken, then you would have to fix half the game. Power is not the same as something being unfair or unfun, those are all separate judgments. Obviously, you've made yours, but it's not a foregone conclusion that you're right. IMO, a pile of dice is just a pile of dice. It's the ability to do something really well. There is nothing wrong with someone doing something really well. The one problem you've pointed to is that the invincible socialite gets bored because nothing challenges him. If that's the case, that's his problem and his fault. Some people like to always win at their specialty, and if they do, let them. Just make sure to show them that one auto-win specialty is not enough to auto-win the entire game universe.

Sure, at the cost of altering the mechanis for a specific category of spell, which is just useless... I quit 3rd edition because none of the systems were the same... you had a different system for social rolls, for magic, for combat, for technical skills, it was a complete mess...

Give me a more streamlined system any day... any "fixes" can be taken care of by paying attention to the fluff of the universe at that point... Tactical advantage means a lot in Shadowrun, when you lose it, you gotta adapt or die...

as for the Sustained Reflexes, usually the first thing that I get rid of when I am playing a mage and see someone else using it... Counterspelling is a wonderful thing... Gives bonuses to my team and removes the mage as a general threat pretty darn quick, as we always follow the rule of Geek the Mage FIrst... Of Course, YMMV...

Just out of curiousity, which maneuver roll is uncontested in your mind...

Chase COmbat Rules on page 161-162 of the BBB...

Make Opposed Test for Position (First roll, required every Turn)
At Step 4, you can declare a Driver Complex Action/Maneuver Stunt, one of which is a Maneuver Test... THIS TEST SHOULD NOT BE OPPOSED as you are using the test for yourself... how is the other pilot/driver gonna influence this test? If the Maneuver is a Split-S aircraft maneuver, it in no way impacts the other pilot at all... if the Maneuver is a RAM it is a melee attack, and therefore it is opposed by default...

What is your argument, because I am lost here?...

Why are you trying to change it? At the ridiculous speed you have been citing, your pilot checks are going to get you very dead, very fast... you have a relative speed which you still need to take into account when you are making Maneuver tests... in any game that I am in, you would already be at a base of "Extreme" for difficulty (4 Net Hits required) and you better hope that you are in open terrain, if you are in a standard megaplex like Seattle or Hong Kong, your terrain type will probably be a minimum of Light and most likely restricted or tight (+1 to +3 Hits additional) because at that speed, your space compersses pretty damn fast, and your reaction times will not be up to it for very long...

And lets not forget that the Position Test is not a Maneuvering Test... it just sets distance... which you have to overcome sequentially (makes sense, no reference) from Close to Long and then breakoff, If your eventual goal was to evade pursuit......

I have never seen SR4 Chase combat to be as broken as you are stating...

Sorry, But my two

The mach 4 car is just an extreme example. In terms of today a moped can't keep up with a sports car. But under the current mechanic a moped is just at X penalty dice for having a different speed. So by the rules magically a moped can keep up with said sports car with good rolls. Now I think as long as you don't try to interpret the rules to strictly it works out okay. In an open freeway the moped just loses, boom done no tests needed. Don't even roll. On a congested highway, make the tests because the sports car wont be able to hit anywhere near its top speed. But by the rules and not using GM fiat the rules can create some really bad situations. Personally I think this is one of the cases where GM fiat to solve the dumb outliers is not a rules problem.

Manaball on the other hand is too core of a combat mechanic to only function well under a pile of modifiers.

On the contrary, in SR3 there were many quick and easy fixes for serious problems? Maneuver Score? Replace it with an opposed test. Open tests? Again, replace and be done with it. There aren't many quick and easy fixes for SR4, which I think is the heart of my argument.


I'm referring to the Maneuver Score from SR3. Probably the single worst mechanic I have ever seen for any game system, anywhere. It's overly complex and gives you very abstract results. I despise it.

I don't hate SR4, and I don't universally love SR3. SR4 is better in many ways, and getting rid of the stupid Maneuver Score is one of them.


First of all, Mach 4.6 is an extreme, but real, example from a game I actually played in. Second, the point was that the chasing bikes actually had an advantage on us, according to RAW. We were in a souped-up Westwind, with a top speed of 300, when we had a Force 10 spirit use its Movement power on us. 3000m/turn rouchly equals Mach 4.6. Now, the GM in this case handwaved the escape, but let's look at what would have happened if he had stuck to the RAW.

First of all, the bikes are at a severe penalty, but so are we. Let's call that a wash, and give everyone three dice. Terrain and other threshold modifiers don't apply, since thresholds never apply to opposed tests. We roll the opposed test to start the round. We get one success. Everyone else fails, except for their best biker, who gets two succeesses. Because he won, he sets the range, and everyone moves into Close range. So, despite the huge disparity in speed, they manage to remain within five meters of us.

Next turn. We win the test, and move to Long range. However, we can't Break Off just yet, since we have to stay there for three turns. Next turn, and we lose again. The bikers teleport into Close range (the "Picard Maneuver") and start jumping onto our car. We fight them off, barely.

Now, we get lucky, and win the test three times in a row, then successfully Break Off. This chase has taken five minutes, and we've traveled hundreds of miles. Despite the fact that the bikes' top speed is much less, they stick with us right up to the very end.

This subsystem is a little harder to fix than the Maneuver score. Opposed tests are already factored into the rules, so we can't just switch them out.

Wasn't the problem with speed disparities fixed in an errata? *checks* Nope, was fixed in SR4A though. So really, it's a moot point.

You know, I can agree with this... as Magic is a great equalizer, you can pull of some crazy things... and for the extreme example, yes, why make the roll if there is an open road, no traffic and the moped is not being amped by magic... but remove any of those circumstances and you may need that roll, if for no other reason than to see if that fool driver moving at Mach 4 on a congested road manages to NOT kill himself and 50 other people...

My 2

And that scenario is one of the reasons that I do not like SR3... A lot of this has been fixed in SR4/4A in my opinion... you still need a position test, but I would logically say that you cannot increase you position by more than a single range category per round... thus if you have a superior speed advantage, you will probably begin at Long range (depending upon initial variables and lead time) to start with and remain there until you broke it off and escaped... after many chase scenes in our games, this has been the way that htey have progressed... after several minutes, someone manages to escape, longest chase scene took about 10 rounds to finally escape and it was because I had to evade multiple pursuers from multiple vectors (we were flying)... it worked out wonderfully and did not take overly long to accomplish in real time...

Oh well, Just my 2

Ok, public service announcement concerning the Chase Combat rules because it really sounds like no one gets this except me: you don't have to use them. The Chase Combat rules are an option provided for people that don't want (or don't care) to calculate exact speed and position for vehicles every Combat Turn. If it's really that important to you to have the exact vehicle positions and such, just run the thing as regular combat. Calculate the exact distance between the vehicles as you would the distance between people in non-vehicle combat. Use the current Speed value of the vehicles to determine how far they move each Combat Turn and update their relative positions. There's your "easy fix" Cain: just use Tactical Combat, and ignore Chase Combat.

Try again. The Chase Combat rules are and included as core rules.

Rules as Written, there is no 'optional' about it.

If you do not want to use it in your game, whatever. That would be a House Rule.

There is nothing saying you have to use chase combat for any situation involving vehicles. Chase combat "is designed to abstract vehicular combat between multiple vehicles moving at high speed over a longer time frame and across larger distances than tactical combat. "

If your vehicle combat is occurring at low speeds, or across short distances and/or short times, you might as well use tactical combat.

That scenario was in SR4. Granted that an equivalent scenario under SR3 would have been much more difficult to run, but the relative speeds of the vehicles were a stronger factor, including ludicrous speed differentials. Allowing only one range change per category is a house rule, and not according to RAW.

SR4.5 adds in a speed differential, but not a strong one. A moped could still keep up with a sports car, even with the penalty.

I'm glad it worked for you once, but ten minutes of flying is still a long time for a combat to run. Ten rounds on the table usually translates into an hour and a half of real time. I should also add that multiple pursuers from multiple vectors doesn't matter in chase combat: the winner of the opposed test determines where everyone goes. So, if the guy in the helicopter wanted to Picard Maneuver the moped right next to your van, he could.


Trying to keep track of the relative positions of vehicles in tactical combat is a nightmare, even with a tac map to help you. The one strength of Chase Combat is that it abstracts it all for you. Anytime you have fast-moving vehicles, you practically need chase combat if you don't want to perform advanced calculus to figure out where everyone is.

Not really in your problem example, your car is 3km that way from the starting point and the chacers are over 2km behind you, next turn their 5km behind and the chase is over.

Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want everything accurate, you have to keep track of everything. If you want it fast, then you have to abstract it and live with the fact that not everything will be perfect all the time because its abstracted. SR4A added in the relative speed penalty which takes care of the most ridiculous cases of people on bicycles keeping up with cars, and it also now states that range can only be changed by 1 increment. The Chase Combat rules are written given the overall assumption that the is terrain and/or intervening obstacles involved in the chase such to the point that driver skill plays more of a factor than the raw speed of the vehicles. If the moped catches up with a sports car, then perhaps that moped driver cut through an area of traffic/terrain that the sports car had to go around and thus was able to travel a much shorter distance. The rules are fast and abstract, you basically roll the result and then reverse-engineer the reason for that to happen. If you want to nit pick every little thing, then run it as tactical combat.

That will teach me to use the term magically on a SR board. Sorry, I was not trying to say the moped was magically powered. I was trying to say for no logical reason the moped could keep up. I can't remember the 4a penalty off hand, but I think its like -1 die for ever 10 difference in max speed. So lets say the mopeds max speed is 50 and the cars is 150 that is a -10 dice penalty. -10 dice will probably handle the issue,. but a bad roll like 1 success by the cars driver vs 2 successes on the moped with maybe just 2 dice left in the mpeds pool after penalty and the moped keeps up. Its a silly outcome in almost any situation, even sillier on the open road. Now I think in extreme cases it just calls for the powerful GM created element Handwavium, and you are good. In closer cases the system actually works out fairly well. In any open road case top speed is top speed in my book.

No argument shere, just pointing out that the Chase Combat rules have worked for us quite well..., I mentioned multiple behicles, because that adds to teh difficulty of the chase combat resolution (+1 Threshold for each vehicle after the first, If i remember correctly, at least in SR4)...

And yes, keeping track of vehicles on the tactical level is dsifficult, at best, if you have more than a few vehicles... Which is why we use Chase Combat I am sure...

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Yeah, on an open road, the matter of relative distance soon becomes moot... especially witrh high speed differentials... Handwavium indeed...

I can't recall the rule either, but thresholds don't apply in opposed tests, so it's kinda a moot point.

Chase combat works withing a narrowly defined set of parameters. Try and add in some other factors, such as a sniper, and you have trouble. Neither tactical nor chase combat does a good job of mixed pedestrian/vehicle combat. Fixing this is hard, since you'd have to abstract all distances in all combat in order to make it work. You can have the best of both worlds, but you'd need to rewrite much of the combat section in order to pull it off.

This is why I say it's harder to fix SR4 than SR3. The Maneuver score was crazy, but could be replaced easily. Chase Combat is hardwired into the core combat mechanic, so it's harder to fix without redoing a lot of the combat section.

What's wrong with Tactical Combat? I run it all the time with people and drones and it works just fine.

So... I'm curious. (And I apologize in advance for asking lol)...


What was wrong with Manaball again? I think I missed something...

That's an interesting problem with the mix of tactical and chase combat. Personally I'd just switch between the two as needed. Start out with a vehicle chase, as soon as the vehicles enter the sniper's area, switch to tactical combat, then switch back to chase as they leave the snipers range.

It's not manaball so much as direct combat spells in general. They completely bypass the target's armor. At normal forces, this is a minor issue, but overcasting allows a mage to throw down massive amounts of damage with their spells, as long as they're willing to deal with the Drain. Also, with manaball being a mana spell, it's resisted with willpower - frequently one of the lower stats for many characters. Add in that it's area of effect and a mage can potentially clear an entire group of enemies with a single casting. Of course, all of this is further compounded by the tendency of posters to assume that the mage in question will - through huge scores in their drain attributes, bioware such as platelet factories to reduce damage, and immediate access to highly-skilled first aid - be able to reduce the drain to negligible amounts. While access to the above isn't entirely unreasonable, it results in the 7 physical drain from overcasting a force 10 manaball gets treated as something akin to a stubbed toe, rather than the low-end rifle round to the face that would be a closer comparison for the amount of damage they're subjecting themself to.

Oh ok. I don't agree that is a problem then. No I'm not going to talk about it though. It will only make this thread more stupid and rediculous than it already is. Thanks for answering though! ^-^