I suspect the audio signal is pretty unique. Even if a person doesn't notice it a sensor probably can. And a rifle with a can on still produces a loud sound. For example, a typical AR is 165 dB 1 meter from the muzzle, 133 dB with a good can on a good day. So silenced it's about as loud as a jack hammer.

Personally, if a character had audio enhancement, attention coprocessor, math spu and spatial recognizer, I'd agree and understand the concept of pinpointing by sound. Otherwise, you're gonna get general info, not precise location. I know what RAW says, and I agree that's buggered. However, given the penalties you can stack on, the average, unaugmented, non-prime-runner/pc human has no chance to hear it at all. They run out of dice and joe blow doesn't have edge.

What? Is your argument that "because augmentation only adds probability to something which I find impossible, augmentation is basically like multiplying by zero," or what? How is that relevant? I mean, I read your post, I just didn't understand why you brought up unaugmented tests, and, now that I do know why, I wonder why you would even play a dice-based game if that's your thought process. For comparison, at a 1.5 kilometer distance, that hypothetical sniper could be shooting from the hip and his shot would only suffer a -3 penalty for the distance according to RAW. That's asinine, sure, but well within RAW. It doesn't mean that a skilled sniper using a bipod and a scope couldn't take a shot at that range and expect rounds on target. That's what difference tools make. Imagine the Enhancer is the scope, and the Filter is the bipod.

Disregarding that, whoever would be listening, even if the gun's unsilenced, would have a massive dice penalty for hearing the shot, much less finding the location of the shooter. -2 for Not in the Vicinity, an additional -3 for Far Away, and a bonus -2 for Distracted (assuming surprise) on the first shot. So, that's -7 dice leaving your hypothetical unaugmented guy a whole negative one dice to roll to even hear the unmuffled gunshot. For the 2nd shot, we'll drop the -2 from Distracted if the guy can make a Composure test (it's hard to hear things over chants of "Oh shit! Oh shit!") This would give the guy one whole one die to throw in an attempt to even hear that there is, indeed, a gunshot. That will never beat a threshold of 1, so it's still impossible for him to identify the shot. But, let's assume that the guy knows that someone is shooting and is actively listening for a gunshot. That's reasonable enough if we're talking about someone who is combat trained (familiar with the sound and apparent effects of taking on gunfire) and has sussed out that his position is being fired upon. So, assuming the guy had three more dice to throw based on Actively Listening for the sound, he could possibly beat the threshold of 1 (aka two hits, no glitch,) and identify the sound of someone shooting a gun in the distance. Goody.

So, now there have been two shots, and this guy is trying to pinpoint where the shots are coming from. So, knowing what he's listening for, he gets a +3 for Actively Listening, but a -2 for Distracting sounds (the echo,) added to the -5 dice for Distance giving him only two dice to throw to pinpoint the sound. But now we're no longer listening for something obvious, (the presence of gunfire,) instead we're trying to determine the Sniper's position, which is hidden amongst a huge section of possible terrain. So, for this test, we'll use a threshold of 4 to represent the relative obscurity of the snipers position amongst all possible points in the surrounding 1.5km radius. Therefore we're now rolling two dice at a threshold of 4 and we're back to the whole "never going to happen" conclusion. So, we make it an extended test. Again, assuming best possible result on all rolls, three more bullets have been fired and with two net hits, the unaugmented man has determined direction and distance. He now knows that there is a sniper firing on him from 800 yards away and can point his finger at the area. A great victory. Since we're assuming best case scenario, maybe he didn't even have 5 friends shot before he figured all that out. Is it so unreasonable to think that a person being shot at could figure out approximately where the bullets are coming from after so many rounds fired?

Now let's look at it from an augmented technofuture perspective. Here is a little text under the description for Tacnets (emphasis added):



So, that's not assistance in determining the source of a registered weapon sound. That is automatic functionality, built in. It can identify a gunshot, or silenced gunshot, and will instantly provide a heads-up AR arrow pointing at its source. Hopefully you're familiar with the modern (read: primitive) equivalent of this, the Boomerang. Bringing it back to your earlier point, that's the difference between a guy with the tools and one without.

Without the Tacnet, to hear the shot, someone with a pair of kickin robot ears has +3 bonus with Enhancement 3 and +2 bonus for the shot Standing Out since a Select Sound Filter can cut out all ambient noise. Additionally, to trace the sound's source, he gets another +2 for the Spatial recognizer and doesn't get the -2 for the Echo Interference thanks again to his Filter. This means he throws 5 more dice than the Luddite to hear the gunshot, and 9 more dice to determine direction and distance. This goes a pretty long way to counteract the penalties caused by a sniper using a silencer etc.

That would be a -6 now.

I'll buy that 4a book one of these days..

Wait, so if we have an active TacNET running, and a sniper shoots at us, we get an arrow pointing at our target? No running around for hours scouring the hillside while taking round after round to the chest?

No, you get a HUD display indicating the most likely general area that the shot originated from. You still have to make your Perception Test (albeit with a bonus if the GM decides to apply it from the TacSoft recommendations).

Of course, the TacSoft can make Perception Tests, too.

4 Dice does not a good Perception Roll Make... it would be making the roll based upon its rating... pretty poor chances, if you include the penalties... I would not hold my breath... I would use the Tactical Network as a bonus to the Character's roll instead of letting it roll itself...

Just Sayin'...

Keep the Faith

No. It makes it's roll on Response+Rating, see Unwired.

Oh and it is possible to disguise sound: firing through a window from the back of the room will mean that most of the shot's sound wave is caught within the room itself. Equally sound travels better and further over some surfaces than others. So if a sniper specifically stated he was picking a location that would effect his weapons aural signature, I would allow him to use the Disguise (Gunfire) or Infiltrate skill-sets to affect aural perception tests. I might say, however, unfortunately the best position aurally has these downsides visually, and vice versa. I probably also give a threshold to beat before his hits had any effect, say 1 for pistols, 2 for ars/small calibre rifles, 3 for heavier rifles.

Talking all the technical advantages. Add in an ear-recording unit, the positional information for a decent comm-link integrated with a decent NavSoft. You can dive for cover, and then have a hacker buddy pull apart all your recordings, filtering out back-ground noise, have his uber-fast commlink crunch the numbers. He'll be using a program for this, as he'll be manipulating the digital data. So rather than the gut perception test that you rolled earlier you have a test that looks more like this, assuming a specialised hacker and basic TacNet:

Analyse (5) + Computer (5) + TacNet (2)+ Actively Looking (3) + Hearing Augmentations (3) + Spatial Recogniser (2) + Sound Stands Out (2) - Sound not in the Immediate Vicinity (2)- Sound Far Away (3) - Inbuilt Silencer (6) = DP9 vs Threshold 2 (+ net hits on Disguise noise / Infiltrate for better aural positioning test) to detect the noise, net hits give a more precise location.

Even if you rule you can't use a Spatial Recog to detect sound, only determine its location and can't use Sound Stands Out until you have detected it so you can use your Filters (one could say you can't filter 'everything but this sound' until you know what that sound is), its still a DP5 vs Threshold 2, use a point of edge, then run the test again but this time with filters running and the spatial recogniser's bonus to determine position. And yes, you can do that all while your in cover. Hell your hacker doesn't even need to be in the same continent as you, just forward the information over any sort of link to him.

Also, Longshots is where teamwork tests work well. If 1 guy has a DP of 1 vs a Threshold of 2, he can't do it. If that guy has 4 buddies who were standing around at the same time with aural sensors feeding into to the TacNet its different. Run it as a DP5 teamwork test rather than 5 individual DP1 tests. Together the TacNet co-ordinating their sensors was able to determine an answer, individually they had no hope.

According to the books, yes. It happens automatically. No dice needed. Do remember that this works for CropSec too...

For comparison, the Boomerang, which was developed in 2003, can tell you the approximate direction, distance and elevation of a shooter within a few degrees in less than a seconds time.

As to the possibility of disguising the sound, for human ears, maybe, but a line of sight is also a line of sound. You would have to be really really specific in how you disguised your shot to fool an expert system capable of comparing a gunshot to terrabytes of similar gunshots from an on-board library. Even the Boomerang knows the difference between a bullet going supersonic and a car backfiring.

Tech like this makes the sniper as dated as a cellphone makes an old-school slasher villain.

Absolutely it is difficult to disguise sound versus technology, you'll notice that when using an expert system to determine the position (ie a Hacker with an Analyse program in my example) you can get decent Dice Pools even in the face of large modifiers. But its not impossible, there are techniques for reducing your aural footprint. If you've managed to set up your shot that the technical solutions are out of direct LOS (so all they're getting is echos) then you've mitigated that advantage; but to do that takes skills (like Infiltrate or Disguise (Gunshot) ).

And as to TacNets automatically painting a glowing neon sign saying 'SNIPER HERE', if thats the way you want to interpret it then go ahead. I'd interpret that as a function of a TacNet that it can achieve given the necessary sensory input/right circumstances. To determine whether the circumstances exist you either roll the dice or use GM Fiat (I don't really want my whole team to die, I'll use the TacNet as justification to give them some vague information that they can use to come up with a cool tactical plan to kill the sniper).

For sure. Also, the TacNET needs at least three separate sensors with data access to be effective. So, if you shot through a portal small enough that no one else in the crew has LOS then they'll not have enough data. But all of this also assumes that the bullet goes supersonic before it hits the open air.

Which is a pretty good assumption for anything which doesn't have a second propulsion source (al la 40k bolters), as bullets slow down from the moment they leave the barrel. Which means they break the sonic barrier either in the barrel or just on exiting (I never remember). They'll do it once more as well, if at any time they become subsonic. (Actually you could have a spirit use Movement of a bullet put it back supersonic. It would make more sense to ensure it never slowed down enough because breaking the seismic barrier does weird things with ballistics).

Oh and on three sensors - left ear, right ear, commlink aural input; probably not far enough apart for a human to triangulate from, but for a computer - maybe. (As an aside, its ridiculously easy to get the required sensors for a Tacnet - Commlinks position information, commlinks microphone, commlinks inbuilt scanner, DNI input (on=alive, off=Unk: guy gets shot and his DNI suddenly goes completely dead, safe to assume so is he), AR gloves (can be used for basic touch input), smartlinked weapon (camera, ammo counter), Glasses (Image Link and Camera) and thats 90% of characters)

This also ignores Magical solutions. Imagine a sniper with a 'Throw/Displace Sound' spell. That lets him move a specific sound to another physical location within LOS. Yup, that stand of trees you've just set up on. Well thats not where the sniper is, thats his next target. Hell, you could just design that as a 'knack'. It was a party trick until he became a sniper, now...

Magical Solution: Detect Enemies, Extended Range.

The sniper doesn't know your there, he bodes no ill feelings to you, he is not your enemy, you do not detect him. Your friend who is lying bleeding in the middle of the street isn't so lucky.

You expose yourself, the sniper sees you, he becomes your enemy, you detect him, your brains leave your skull by the newly minted back door.

Edit: Just having fun at the expense of subjective definitions.

I was just thinking about how some lighter rounds don't hit supersonic until the moment where the bullet escapes the muzzle, which would confuse the sensor since it relies on both the muzzle blast and shock wave. But, yeah, I doubt anyone would try to snipe with a .22 rifle. Besides, that's all too specific for a game..

Anyway, it is possible for one person to have a sensor array to grab up enough sounds I suppose. The modern equivalent uses mics only about 7 inches apart, and the military is already talking about adapting the tech for their personal "future warrior" (or whatever) suite.

Forgot about the Response... You are right...

I still contend that the roll will be less than a character's most of the time... but that would be table dependent I would bet...

but with teh negatives applied, it would still leave a very small imprint for which the system to actually register against... I mean really, -6 range, and -9 weapon signature alone (-15 there) will guarantee that the system would not succeed on its own... I would still take the bonus applied from the system to a Character's roll any day of the week and twice on Sunday...

Dont forget that for a "sensor to participate" in the TacNet it must have twice the number of channels (or rating) of the TacSoft... so a rating 4 Tacsoft needs a Sensor that has at least a Rating 8 (or 8 seperate Sensor Channels)... easy for a person, a little more difficult for technology for the upper range of TacSofts...

Still won't detect a sniper....

Extended range is Force * Magic * 10 Meters. Most snipers will be at least 800m out a good portion of the time, meaning your Force * Magic needs to equal 80. At 6 Magic (meaning highest possible with initiation) you'd have to cast at least a Force 14 Extended Detect Enemies spell to notice a sniper that's at the bare minimum of the extreme range category. If he's at 1 klick, you'll need to cast a Force 17 spell. If he's at the far end, 1.5 klicks, you'll need at least a Force 25 spell. If he has a barrel extension.... well at 1650 meters you'll need a Force 28 to detect him. Let's look at the extreme though... Grade 6 initiate... 800m requires Force 7, 1000m requires Force 9, 1500m requires Force 13, and 1650m requires Force 14. I think no matter how you cut it, Detect enemies isn't a viable solution against a sniper at extreme range for the majority of magicians.

Most cities don't have 800m ranges available for snipers; buildings get in the way. I think 300m is generous; many parts of town will be a lot more cramped.

A mage on full paranoia can do Force 12 * Magic 6 * 10 = 720m range. More reasonable is F6*M6*10=360m; that should be enough in cities. If I was a paranoid mage, I'd stick to parts of town where there aren't long open ranges to fire from.

Detect spells function as a line of sight, do they not? If you're on the street, considering most city streets will run for miles, it is easy enough to get a straight shot. The angle of fire will be limited, but the range will be available. If I want to take you out, I will stalk you for a couple days, find your patterns and behaviors, specifically places you frequent. Let's say you regularly visit this one magic shop with a street side exit. Guess what? I position myself on a rooftop a klick down that road so I have line of sight on that store front (easily doable) and I wait. You won't know I'm there until you have a sucking chest wound while entering or exiting the store, if you survived the shot.

If the sniper is shooting at you through barriers (due to tacnet and AR overlays from friendlies in the building, the detect spell is useless since it requires line of sight and the barrier, unless it's a window, will block that. No sniper will be taking shots at anything closer 750m at best unless he has friendlies between him and the targets or has ways to suppress detection, both mundane and magical in nature.

In reality, I'm keen to chalking this up to people having this notion that magic is the end all be all and can't stand that there's purely mundane means of foiling it without even gimmicking the rules on detect enemies. In all reality though, in a magic world the sniper is going to be carrying something specifically to fool Detect Enemies and other magic effects. Especially if it's small and lightweight.

The best way to deal with snipers is to avoid them. Stay in areas where they can't get good shots (more difficult than you would think), make sure you stay away from the outer most set of rooms in a building. Don't assume that just because you have a short distance there can't be snipers. They are masters of stealth and infiltration, and a lot of people forget, or don't know, just how much they excel at that along with how many other skills snipers have.

Only some do, those like Detect Enemies are area-based.

Nope.

This is exceedingly rare, actually. In the Netherlands, at any rate - a mile of straight street is pushing it. They're usually curved, with lots of obstacles to vision. And those are the major streets - never mind all the smaller alleys.



This brings us back to how "enemy" is defined; someone stalking me to plan a sniper shot would qualify as an enemy to me. You try staying scrupulously out of the range of a Detect Enemies spell with 360m range while tracking a target. Not so easy.



Most Runner venues won't be opening their front doors on Main Street. If they do, they'll have a parking garage for my armoured car. This is how VIPs do it nowadays, because it works.



Snipers are also exalted beyond their rather limited applications. They're not so all-effective and unstoppable as you think.



It's an arms race. If the toys balance out in favor of snipers, next year will see a new generation in personal protection devices for VIPs. There's a jjuicy market for them.



If they're close-by, they risk getting entangled in your personal security perimeter. If they're far away, they might not get a shot. And if they're built to the same BP as the characters, then the sniper's abilities will likely be tested to the limit.

Most of Europe is not a good example of city planning. Drags typically are broken mostly by coastlines and rivers than anything else.



Which ultimately boils down to GM interpretation. Further, I can work around this easily enough by saying the sniper is just tasked to recon on your habits, nothing more. No harm intended. Then when he reports back he's given the order to take the kill shot. This is not uncommon behavior for snipers. They are ordered on recon and not to take shots.



If I wanted to be really clever, I don't have to shoot an actual bullet with my rifle to score a kill. Setup some explosives linked to a visual sensor. When I spot you, I send a narrow beam laser to trigger the explosives.



Oh I know how they're limited, but people quickly forget that snipers are far more than just good shots.



Everything is an arms market, but it boils down to how much money you have, but mind you well that defensive technology has always lagged behind offensive technology and there's no reason to expect this trend to alter. Besides, if defensive tech outpaced offensive tech, then shadowrunners would be extinct since the counter measures to them would already be in place.



Mechanically speaking, most skills that a sniper relies on are linked to either Agility or Intuition. You could make arguments for the other stats, but their utility is limited. I would say a sniper built to less BP than the PCs would give the PCs a run for their money if played as a sniper rather than a sharpshooter.

Snipers honestly are rather cheap to build. It's honestly easy to create a character with the dice pools needed to do lethal damage at range and in Shadowrun the character doing the planning and ambushing has a hefty advantage up front. There's only so many ways to skin a cat, and unless you're dedicated to being lethal with a wide variety of weapons, you'll find a high bp combatant is usually defined by the 'ware and ancillary skills they have rather than an attack pool that ranges ever higher.

Yep. With 275BP, I have 9 Agility, 6 Intuition, 3 Reaction, 3 Edge, 4 Stealth Group, 5 Longarms, 5 Infiltration, 4 perception, muscle replacements, reflex recorders to cover all those skills, and specializations in longarms and infiltration.

Sniper Rifles: 17 Dice
Perception: 11 Dice
Infiltration: 17 Dice
Shadowing: 11 Dice
Disguise: 11 Dice

Now there's probably other 'ware I can put in that will improve those dice pools even further. Exceptional Attributes Agility or Intuition and it becomes 305BP and improves the respective dice pools by 1. You still have 39BP worth of resources to possibly work with and 60BP left on attributes. Of course this isn't a milspec sniper, which is very difficult, if not impossible to do within the standard 400BP.

I'd be interested in what you'd add to the build to get milspec if cost wasn't an issue. Always looking for new ideas.

The guy's marksman and stealth skills are milspec or better already, actually, but a lot of the gear (light milspec armor, for example) and ancillary skills aren't going to fit in easily under a 400 bp limit without sacrifices. The guy above is more of an extremely dangerous urban commando than say, an Army Ranger. That's not to say that Rangers or other well-trained military units are chock full of super humans or anything, but skills are a serious point sink in SR4, so things like a point or two of Armorer and First Aid with the Firearms and Combat Wounds specializations respectively can end up piling on points rather quickly. This is real troublesome when you consider that a sniper will have points in the Outdoors and Athletic groups in addition to the above; a sniper who cannot navigate difficult terrain isn't a sniper at all by military standards. All in all, the BP system is generally a lot better at producing powerful specialists (perfect for shadowrunners) than well-rounded personnel (great for the army). It's really just a bit of a round peg, square hole situation.

This... Well Said...

Keep the Faith

Not so unusual in a large majority of American Cities...




That is what electronic and drone surveillance is for my friend... Detect Enemies will not detect that...



You would be surprised at what a well trained Sniper can do... I knew a few very competent Scout Snipers in the US Marine Corps, and they were very scary indeed with their abilities, and not just with a gun, but their abilities to notice things and avoid detection...



The point being stated is that they do not have to be close buy to be effective... range works in favor of the Sniper, not the Target, as the Sniper is trained to overcome the range issue... as for initial builds... I would place an initial build Sniper against a fairly experienced Target and would likely still come out on top... Hard to dodge the bullet you never see coming after all...

Keep the Faith

Most of the solutions we've discussed have been ways to find the Sniper after he's taken his initial shot. So if your a runner team, 1 guy is probably already down/ possibly out of the mission (if not dead). Having a large enough DP to make that initial shot lethal is generally part of the build (especially given the likelyhood of Surprise and therefore inability to defend).

Losing 1 guy to a sniper isn't necessarily it for a shadowrun team - and a competent team after knowing there is a sniper with a bead on them should be able to deal with it. For a security detail, it could well mean the VIP is dead, the mission is a bust and your out of a job.

If the game master wishes to kill you your going to die, be it form a well trained sniper you can't realistically defend against or an invisible great dragon that hurls a force 12 manaball.

Any GM who sends a sniper like you all describe against the PC's is probably being a prick. Its no different then having the PC's throats slit in their sleep. If the PC's are up against this sniper at least one of them is going to die. (or at least be forced to burn a point of edge permanently). If the game master wishes to kill you or TPK your going to die, be it form a well trained sniper you can't realistically defend against or an invisible great dragon that hurls a force 12 manaball. I don't see how the sniper situation debated above is any more fair then sending two dozen professional rating six enemies in fullbody armor all wielding ingrim white knights(or similar weapon) loaded with EXEX ammo and outfitted with a gyro stabilization. With a specialist counterspeller to support them.

Here is the only realistic way I see a group surviving that encounter, the first runner burns a point of edge so he's not fatally shot, the second runner(the one with the highest perception) hopefully has a high enough dice pool so he can burn a point of edge to automatically succeed on his perception test.
But that is not really a fair encounter is it.

There is only really only one proper way for a GM to use such a sniper (that I can think of)against a group of runners, is to include a red shirt to be the first target so at least the PC's have a chance to dive for cover before any of them die.

Unavoidable death should be reserved for when a PC does something really really stupid, like telling ghostwalker to kiss my metahuman butt.

Actually the guy with the lowest Edge should be burning that Edge for Perception. Perception dice pool doesn't have anything to do with it, burn an Edge for critical success for the Perception test.

You can only burn edge for an automatic success if success was actually possible to begin with. It just happens the success is also a critical success.

I am away from my books currently, so I have to ask for a rules quote for that.

Burning Edge. page 75 SR4A, lists only two possible options for BURNING EDGE, plenty for spending but few for burning.
"Automatically achieve a critical success on one action. The character must be capable of carrying out the action—you can’t buy a critical success for something you have no hope of achieving"
I suppose this is open to interpretation.

The second being hand of god to escape certain death.

I would interpret that to mean you have to be rolling enough dice after penalties to meet the threshold.

Which was my interpretation.

I would interpret that you have a possibility, no matter how slim, to meet the threshold though. But you'd be correct in the initial assertion - you'd probably need someone with a large dice pool or Edge equal to or higher than the threshold required.

I would think that it would be Perception (after modifiers) + Edge >= Threshold. You can't spend edge on the same action twice, but if you spend edge for more dice, then you have a possibility of success, therefore could burn the edge for the "auto success."

Not necessarily. As long as Edge>=Threshold, you'd have a chance at the longshot and thus qualify to burn Edge for critical success.

Well, yes. But assume that the threshold is 5 on a character with 4 edge and an after-modifiers perception pool of 3. Would you let that character burn edge for a critical success?

Regarding training a sniper's perception skills.....

"...they would put different objects on the table: a bullet, a paper clip, a bottle top, a pen, a piece of paper with something written on it -- 10 to 20 items. You'd gather around and they'd give you, say, a minute to look at everything. Then you'd have to go back to your table and describe what you saw. You weren't allowed to say "paper clip" or "bullet," you'd have to say, like, "silver, metal wire, bent in two oval shapes." They want the Intel guys making the decision [about] what you actually saw."

"What they would usually do was hide things in a field, and you would just line up and have a certain amount of time to find them. There might be the tip of a pen hanging up out of the grass. You'd just have to look at every area in that field, you know, put your scope on it and just stare at it for a couple minutes, and move it over, stare at the next spot for a couple minutes. Basically, after a while, you do get really good where you can just pick these things out easy. You'd just look for things in the field that didn't add up."

Regarding training a sniper's stealth skills.....

"Stalk training takes place in open grassy ranges. Students start at one end of the range. One thousand meters down range, two instructors sit on top of a truck or tower with spotter scopes. Sniper students must stalk toward the instructors without being seen. To add to the challenge, the instructors have two soldiers in the field called walkers. The instructors use radios to communicate with the walkers and try to find the sniper.

Students must stalk from 1,000 meters out to within 150 meters of the instructors, all the while avoiding detection by the instructors and the walkers. Once in position, they take a shot (they are firing blanks). They must take this shot carefully because if their muzzle flashes or kicks up dirt, then they can be easily spotted. After the first shot, the snipers must stalk to a second firing position and take a second shot. To verify that the snipers were actually sighting the instructors, the snipers must read the card or count the number of fingers the instructors are holding up. Stalk training is a pass or fail game. If the sniper is spotted at any point, he fails the game. Too many fails, and the student washes out of the program."




The biggest problem is that making a milspec sniper with the right attributes and skills is impossible with 400BP (not enough BP for attributes) and the restrictions placed in character creation (limited number of skills above 4, I can think of 3 off hand that would be 5-6). However, a sniper capable of filling the stealth, observation, and shooting portions in around 300BP including some 'ware already.

--



Well, my interpretation is that Edge can't be counted into the meter for success for determining if burning Edge can be used on a check. You're literally putting the cart before the horse. If you have to spend Edge to make a longshot, then you can't burn Edge to make it an auto crit success. Basically, if Edge functions as a pseudo-luck stat in shouldn't factor into whether a character can accomplish an action. So I would say that to be able to burn edge for a critical success you would need a Perception DP >= Threshold after all applicable modifiers are applied.

Perception DP >= Threshold : Burn Edge
Perception DP < Threshold : Rule of 6
Perception DP = 0 : Longshot

In such a case, yes. It is still possible for the character to hit that threshold, as long as the character has 1 unspent point of Edge.


You can either push the cart or pull it, either way the horse moves the cart. In the same way, even if the dice pool is 0, as long as you have an Edge unspent (hence being able to make the Longshot) and having high enough Edge (hence possibly making the threshold), you can burn an Edge to get that critical success.

Because of the Rule of Six, if they spend Edge, they can burn Edge.

The rule of six doesn't actually apply when you burn edge because success is automatic no dice are rolled, and because you can't spend more then a point of edge on a single action, you couldn't spend and burn an edge point on the same action.

You see, in the reality of Shadowrun, there are times where the reaction of the Corporations that you run against will prompt just such a response... in our game, it came after we continuously hit the same Corporate Tower a total of 6 times, in the course fo the last 2 or so years (game time)... after finally crossing the line (caused some substantial damage to the superstructure of the 42nd Floor), the Chief of Security authorized a team to try and eliminate the problem... in the end, 5 characters (from the other team involved) were dead, my character (a Borged out Street Samurai, with 20 health boxes) had taken 11 boxes of Physical and 8 of stun, and my team mate was close to death (8 or so boxes of Physical) before we managed to escape the Sniper's Ambush... it was brutal, but not unexpected... we are a mite bit more careful for the time being; and since we are not in the Campaign city currently (Hong Kong) we are letting the heat kind of dissipate a bit whle we pursue mission leads in PyongYnag...

Worked for us, and the lesson was learned... at least I hope it was learned by the other characters... I am assuming so anyway... (For reference, the average Karma Acumulation was around 190 points, some higher (240+ or so), and some lower (160-170 with my character at about 120) of course)...

In my opinion, this was a justified encounter, with a few avenues of escape optioned to us during the scenario... had we chosen to "try to find the sniper" we would probably have all died... we didn't do that... we ran our shadowrunning asses off, and vacated the area... this is what any shadowrunner should do when confronted by this type situation... leave the revenge for later when you can regroup and find out who the shooter is... there is a time for fight and there is a time for flight... hopefully you can recognize which is which...

Keep the Faith