jgalak
Aug 28 2009, 03:31 PM
As I mentioned before, I'm getting back into SR after a long absence. Picked up the Anniversary additions (which I presume is what SR4a refers to) at GenCon, planning on using this ruleset. One of the players-to-be has a copy of a SR 4th Edition book, from Catalyst, but a different edition. Rules seem the same, but the flavor text (vignets) and art is different. I presume this is the plain SR4 book?
Are there any differences between the two other than the flavor text and artwork? Are the rules and the setting info the same?
DWC
Aug 28 2009, 03:34 PM
The version you picked up the latest printing, incorporating all the erratta, but featuring new art and a new layout to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the game. If he grabs the latest erratta, he'll have all the same rules that you do.
BishopMcQ
Aug 28 2009, 03:34 PM
SR4A has all the errata added. There is a change document...which I wil llink when i find it.
Otherwise SR4A is the pretty version.
Edit: Damn you DWC and your faster typing skills!!
Link to the SR4A Changes Document
jgalak
Aug 28 2009, 03:37 PM
Thanks.
Eugene
Aug 28 2009, 08:06 PM
Also there's more fiction, all new AFAICT. Most of it's pretty good. I've read about half of the pieces so far, and the only one I haven't liked was the one at the beginning of the book.
Grinder
Aug 28 2009, 08:09 PM
The fiction by Peter Taylor has been released in another book before iirc, even though I can't remember where.
Tiger Eyes
Aug 29 2009, 12:43 AM
QUOTE (Grinder @ Aug 28 2009, 03:09 PM)
The fiction by Peter Taylor has been released in another book before iirc, even though I can't remember where.
I don't believe that's the case.
DarkKindness
Aug 29 2009, 12:46 AM
Also worth mentioning - the Karma cost for increasing attributes (as has been pointed out to me in another thread) rose from new score x3 to new score x5.
I'd say that SR4A is absolutely worth getting - I love every piece of the new art (and the choices that they made when keeping/discarding the old), and I actually enjoyed every piece of the new fiction in the book. The rules update is nice, but not necessary. All that aside, though, the production values alone are enough to merit the purchase - this is what all RPG books should be.
kanislatrans
Aug 29 2009, 02:55 AM
For me, I love the new layout. it makes things real easy to find...Master index is a GM's wet dream...all the info and which book to find it in.
Art and fiction are great. but I'm partial to the fluffy stuff anyway.
Krypter
Aug 29 2009, 02:56 AM
Funny how a new design job can make the ol' dancer look twenty again, eh?
RunnerPaul
Aug 29 2009, 03:48 AM
One annoying thing was the change in how the rules for grenades work. Under the original SR4, you were allowed to stage the damage of a grenade up against a single target once you'd reduced the scatter down to zero (with blast radius effects still being determined by the base damage of the grenade). Of course, if you were throwing a grenade at a location, and not any particular opponent, you didn't get any damage boost, even for really successful throws. However, someone at Catalyst got it in their heads that the option of throwing at a location made grenades "too easy" because locations can't dodge. Never mind the fact that to get that "easier" throw you sacrifice the ability to do more than base damage to a target.
So when SR4A came out, the rewrote the rules to insist that if there's a victim that could get caught in the blast, you have to roll it as an opposed test, took out any options for staging up damage, and increased the amount grenades scatter in the first place. It's an overkill solution to the non-existent problem of grenades being "too easy". Yes, under the original rules they were effective room cleaners, but guess what? They are in real life too. And the thing is, excessive use of grenades by the players can be solved a lot more simply than overhauling rules to the point of taking the fun out. All it takes is the GM applying a little verisimilitude to the game world, and having military-level response to shadowrunners who use military-level hardware like grenades.
Aside from that, I love what I've seen of SR4A.
Shinobi Killfist
Aug 29 2009, 04:10 AM
QUOTE (RunnerPaul @ Aug 28 2009, 11:48 PM)
One annoying thing was the change in how the rules for grenades work. Under the original SR4, you were allowed to stage the damage of a grenade up against a single target once you'd reduced the scatter down to zero (with blast radius effects still being determined by the base damage of the grenade). Of course, if you were throwing a grenade at a location, and not any particular opponent, you didn't get any damage boost, even for really successful throws. However, someone at Catalyst got it in their heads that the option of throwing at a location made grenades "too easy" because locations can't dodge. Never mind the fact that to get that "easier" throw you sacrifice the ability to do more than base damage to a target.
So when SR4A came out, the rewrote the rules to insist that if there's a victim that could get caught in the blast, you have to roll it as an opposed test, took out any options for staging up damage, and increased the amount grenades scatter in the first place. It's an overkill solution to the non-existent problem of grenades being "too easy". Yes, under the original rules they were effective room cleaners, but guess what? They are in real life too. And the thing is, excessive use of grenades by the players can be solved a lot more simply than overhauling rules to the point of taking the fun out. All it takes is the GM applying a little verisimilitude to the game world, and having military-level response to shadowrunners who use military-level hardware like grenades.
Aside from that, I love what I've seen of SR4A.
Yeah, we encountered this for grenades and missiles in our sunday game. My character is a heavy weapons specialist and I roll 16 dice using heavy weapons, with the current scatter rules I'm more of a machine gun specialist since I'll miss fairly badly in most cases with grenades or missiles/rockets. Heck with a unguided rocket I'd be lucky to hit the planet.
I don't mind the non-increasing damage 10P is a solid effect and it is an AoE, 10P-5 because of scatter is ta lame. Its like they decided only mages can have AoE effects in the game you pansy mundane types suck it up and kill one person at a time. Did they have two different design teams each coming up with a grenade nerf and they forgot they were going to use the best one not both?
Grinder
Aug 29 2009, 07:15 AM
QUOTE (Tiger Eyes @ Aug 29 2009, 02:43 AM)
I don't believe that's the case.
But I'm so damn sure I've read it before. Maybe I'm just hallucinating or have some serious deja-vu.
Mäx
Aug 29 2009, 07:59 AM
QUOTE (RunnerPaul @ Aug 29 2009, 06:48 AM)
One annoying thing was the change in how the rules for grenades work. Under the original SR4, you were allowed to stage the damage of a grenade up against a single target once you'd reduced the scatter down to zero (with blast radius effects still being determined by the base damage of the grenade). Of course, if you were throwing a grenade at a location, and not any particular opponent, you didn't get any damage boost, even for really successful throws. However, someone at Catalyst got it in their heads that the option of throwing at a location made grenades "too easy" because locations can't dodge. Never mind the fact that to get that "easier" throw you sacrifice the ability to do more than base damage to a target.
So when SR4A came out, the rewrote the rules to insist that if there's a victim that could get caught in the blast, you have to roll it as an opposed test, took out any options for staging up damage, and increased the amount grenades scatter in the first place. It's an overkill solution to the non-existent problem of grenades being "too easy". Yes, under the original rules they were effective room cleaners, but guess what? They are in real life too. And the thing is, excessive use of grenades by the players can be solved a lot more simply than overhauling rules to the point of taking the fun out. All it takes is the GM applying a little verisimilitude to the game world, and having military-level response to shadowrunners who use military-level hardware like grenades.
Aside from that, I love what I've seen of SR4A.
Yeah it's really funny that you con throw yourself in the head with a grenade, even when you get a critical success.
DarkKindness
Aug 29 2009, 08:04 AM
Uh... hey Max... that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Perhaps a rephrase is in order?
Mäx
Aug 29 2009, 08:20 AM
QUOTE (DarkKindness @ Aug 29 2009, 11:04 AM)
Uh... hey Max... that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Perhaps a rephrase is in order?
A critical succes is when you get 4 or more net hits, those four hits reduce catter for standart grenades 4m(max catter 6m) and for aerodynamic grenades 8m(max catter 12m).
So when used for room clearing if the point in the room you throwing is less then 2m/4m away for standart/aerodynamic grenade, the grenade can end up between you own legs thanks to catter. Even though you got a critical success that usually means you did really well.
Cain
Aug 29 2009, 08:37 AM
Shadowrun's grenade rules have always been borked. I don't think there's any edition where you couldn't potentially end up on top of your own grenade.
The rules changes go beyond simple errata. It's not quite a Shadowrun 4.5, but it's close. Characters aren't backward-compatible, and the changes make for some profound differences in the game. For example, changing Extended tests forces you to entirely rethink your character, if you want to meet certain Thresholds.
Hiroru
Aug 29 2009, 08:55 AM
I believe I've seen a link to 'happy trails' before 4a. I think Ancient History posted it up in a pile of stuff recovered from a dying hard drive?
Jame J
Aug 29 2009, 12:03 PM
Just out of curiosity, is there any difference between the FanPro SR4 and the Catalyst Labs SR4, at least in terms of the core book?
Cain
Aug 30 2009, 12:58 AM
QUOTE (Jame J @ Aug 29 2009, 04:03 AM)
Just out of curiosity, is there any difference between the FanPro SR4 and the Catalyst Labs SR4, at least in terms of the core book?
In the 4.0 book? Errata's about it, I think.
Jame J
Aug 30 2009, 07:40 PM
QUOTE (Cain @ Aug 29 2009, 08:58 PM)
In the 4.0 book? Errata's about it, I think.
Okay, thank you. (Yeah, the 4.0 book; you're right.)
Where do I find the errata?
RunnerPaul
Aug 30 2009, 07:50 PM
QUOTE (Jame J @ Aug 30 2009, 03:40 PM)
Where do I find the errata?
http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/index.shtml#errata
Malachi
Aug 31 2009, 03:15 AM
DarkKindness
Aug 31 2009, 07:15 AM
Though that document was published before SR4A came out, and a number of the things in it are outdated/never made it into SR4A. Oh, that and it doesn't detail all of the changes that they made. Actually, calling it a changes document is kind of misleading... it's really more of a teaser document.
Cardul
Aug 31 2009, 11:26 AM
And, of course, last I checked, if you want to use the much better SR4A character sheet, you have to buy the PDF, as they STILL have not put the SR4A sheet up on the website..
eidolon
Sep 1 2009, 06:12 PM
I just burned off a PDF of the SR4A character sheet. The PDF printer I have made the color a bit wonky, but if I leave it at full reso and stuff the filesize is huge. PM me with an email address if you'd like it or have somewhere to host it. Especially if you can host it.
Adam
Sep 1 2009, 07:05 PM
BlackHat
Sep 2 2009, 12:40 PM
I'm a little late to the party, but another big change happened to combat spells, that isn't captured (well) in the changes document - or, at least that document doesn't agree with the pdf. According to that document, the change to direct combat spell DV is optional. According to the book, it is just another rule - nothing optional about it. In fact, its written twice (once for direct combat spells, and once again in the drain value for ALL combat spells). Then, in the examples, it isn't used at all. *shrugs*
Basic gist is that every net hit raises the DV by 1 - which is... insane... as that basically works out to always having to resist AT LEAST as many boxes of damage as your opponent, except in the cases of the weakest stun spells (even then, the mage will probably fall asleep if the target will). I can't imagine any character using this, but I have not had a lot of experience with magic, and have not played with a mage post SR4A. It *feels* like it would be equivalent to informing the gun-bunny that post-SR4A, every time he fires a weapon, the gun will fire a second bullet into his own chest, for no particular reason.
I don't imagine that would go over very well.
DarkKindness
Sep 2 2009, 04:29 PM
QUOTE (BlackHat @ Sep 2 2009, 07:40 AM)
I'm a little late to the party, but another big change happened to combat spells, that isn't captured (well) in the changes document - or, at least that document doesn't agree with the pdf. According to that document, the change to direct combat spell DV is optional. According to the book, it is just another rule - nothing optional about it. In fact, its written twice (once for direct combat spells, and once again in the drain value for ALL combat spells). Then, in the examples, it isn't used at all. *shrugs*
Basic gist is that every net hit raises the DV by 1 - which is... insane... as that basically works out to always having to resist AT LEAST as many boxes of damage as your opponent, except in the cases of the weakest stun spells (even then, the mage will probably fall asleep if the target will). I can't imagine any character using this, but I have not had a lot of experience with magic, and have not played with a mage post SR4A. It *feels* like it would be equivalent to informing the gun-bunny that post-SR4A, every time he fires a weapon, the gun will fire a second bullet into his own chest, for no particular reason.
I don't imagine that would go over very well.
This was changed in the 2nd printing of the hardcopy of SR4A to be clearly and obviously called out as an optional rule.
BlackHat
Sep 2 2009, 04:32 PM
Ah, I thought to myself as I was typing it that someone probably caught and fixed this - but I had not seen an actual errata for 4A yet, so I proceeded with the rant.
Krypter
Sep 3 2009, 12:26 AM
QUOTE (DarkKindness @ Sep 2 2009, 12:29 PM)
This was changed in the 2nd printing of the hardcopy of SR4A to be clearly and obviously called out as an optional rule.
What? There's a second printing with rules changes? That's insane. Why are they doing this? Is it correct to say that we now have 4 versions of the rules, aka
1. Classic SR4
2. Changes document
3. SR4A v1
4. SR4A v2
Yikes.
DarkKindness
Sep 3 2009, 12:41 AM
The changes document is not any sort of official rule set, and was overridden the day SR4A came out. The second printing of SR4A only included minor changes, it would seem - mostly formatting and editing errors that crept into SR4A. New printings make small corrections like that all the time - it's not a whole new edition or anything, just some clarifications.
That said, there is only one set of the rules at the moment. For all intents and purposes, SR4A, second printing is the accurate and up-to-date rulebook.
Of course, this would all work much better if the errata on the website got updated with any sort of frequency.
Adam
Sep 3 2009, 12:43 AM
The changes document corresponds with the 2nd PDF of SR4A, which is identical to the first printing of the book -- the only printing yet available.
DarkKindness
Sep 3 2009, 12:50 AM
QUOTE (Adam @ Sep 2 2009, 06:43 PM)
The changes document corresponds with the 2nd PDF of SR4A, which is identical to the first printing of the book -- the only printing yet available.
Hm. Guess that I hadn't looked at the changes document all that closely after all. Quite right, then.
Doesn't explain the confusion regarding spell hits adding to DV, but that could just be confusion, I suppose.
Krypter
Sep 3 2009, 01:23 AM
QUOTE (Adam @ Sep 2 2009, 08:43 PM)
The changes document corresponds with the 2nd PDF of SR4A, which is identical to the first printing of the book -- the only printing yet available.
Ah, thank goodness then. I wouldn't have wanted to try to track down my shipment to see which printing it was.
cndblank
Sep 3 2009, 05:54 AM
QUOTE (Adam @ Sep 2 2009, 06:43 PM)
The changes document corresponds with the 2nd PDF of SR4A, which is identical to the first printing of the book -- the only printing yet available.
How do you get the 2nd PDF of SR4A?
I ordered the PDF and hardcover combo from Catalyst.
When I go to my account at Battleshop, it tells me that the link for the S4A PDF has expired.
Thanks
Adam
Sep 3 2009, 07:19 AM
Depending on when you last downloaded it, you may already have it. But if you want to check, drop quartermaster@battlecorps.com a line and ask them to reset your download count, and when he does so -- should be within a biz day -- grab the most recent version.
cndblank
Sep 4 2009, 06:39 PM
I love most of the changes to SR4A. And a beautiful book too.
The only major issue I had with it was charging 10K per level of an Activesoft. The economics just don't make sense.
If you can download the skill from the web, then they are not doing needing to do some sort of extensive fittings with a custom compile for each individual.
Most every day skills don't change that much from year to year. You going to tell me that my Pilot Ground vehicle skill chip and my Plumbing 101 skill chip are degrading because they are no longer SOTA?
The technology has been around for over a quarter century so there is likely a vast library of public domain software out there.
Some hacker some where will have found out how to run any brand of activesoft software on any brand skillwire hardware.
I can imagine someone installing a new set of skillwires and and the hardware having a vast library of low level but totally free skills softs (including deep discounts for those wanting to upgrading the activesoft) .
And skillwires were one of the few perks for playing a non awaken character so it hardly seemed broke.
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