Here is my review of Arsenal.

GREATEST BOOK EVER.

No, seriously. Augmentation had too much NERPS and the data it had was sparsed out and relatively useless. Street magic was a bit better than AUG, but it had no room for more in the realm of gear options or rules. The core was so full of holes that it barely held water (I still hate square root) Emergence might have been fun if it had been anything but 100% fluff about technomancers and AI.

Arsenal had well referenced pages, loads of new toys, patched and fully explained rules on Two weapon fighting, using a weapon in two hands, expanded arrow types, martial arts maneuvers, extra explosives, and FFS a chart listing the prices of the drugs. Near the area on drugs no less!

The only thing that i've found so far that would need improving is the section on drones. While its awesome that its alphabetical, then broken up by chart, each of those section chunks needs a bold linebreak.

In short, Syn, you may have completely dropped the ball on cyberzombies, bloodspirits, technomancers, trollbows, brains in jars, advancing Docwagon's medical proceedures and countless other things. BUT Arsenal... Makes it all worth it.

He's to hoping Wired has rules that make running the matrix work as more than "Everyone but the person with 90 BP specced into matrix ninja sits out".

Cheers!

Just goes to show. Ask 3 Dumpshockers for their opinions and get 5 different answers.

Seriously though, I happen to like and I'm quite satisfied with the way cyberzombies, blood spirits, technomancers, and jarheads came out. I'm also quite pleased with the overall quality of all the core books Arsenal included (though more than the other books, it needs some errata).

I enjoyed it, but there are a few mechanics I want to try out just to see how well they work at the table. The fluff fiction was nice, and I like the fact that they are getting back into the habit of giving us pictures of what all of the weapons look like.

Honestly though, I do miss the catalog like feel that the old supplements (circa 2nd edition) had. The less obvious side benefit of that layout was that it let a player actually feel like their character a little bit, flipping through a catalog of the latest gear prior to calling up their fixer.


By the way, I am back from the dead and my site is going to be updated over the course of the next 2-3 weeks to bring everything in line with canon from the new supplements.

Also, I have a small mountain of new gear to add as well. Sorry for the long haiatus!

Rigger 3 Revised?

But the Segway is LISTED as quintessential runner gear
every hacker is expected to have one now
Welcome to SR4

To dispell what seems to be a common misunderstanding Arsenal is not and was not intended to be a Shadowrunner Gear book. It is a Shadowrun Gear book and it includes a number of weapons, devices, and vehicles that are useful across the board to runners, corporate security, and civilians.

The case has been made regarding the reasons for the inclusion of PMVs. Whether you agree or not, the writers and the developers felt such vehicles make perfect sense in many urban jurisdictions for street policing and a number of other functions in large enclosed habitats and arcologies.

I've played Shadowrun for almost 20 years now and I've yet to see a PC runner drive a Jackrabbit, and yet it's been there through all editions. We choose a varied and diverse sampling of vehicles runners might encounter. And, as a developer, I definitely see more common use and greater likelihood of a typical street-level runner needing to use a Segway, than the spacesuits or cyborg anthroforms described in Arsenal. YMMV.

<----Drove a Jackrabit with missing bodypanel and bad motor(GM cut me a deal on a used one because its all I could afford).

Umm i was referencing this


Besides i like the automated rigger or hacker idea

I'm pretty sure that "some" does not equal "quintessential"

And Peter, my games have certainly involved the Jackrabbit. How else can you hope to be just like Dirty Dirk?

Well, there are always the odd ducks. But, seriously, I don't think I can remember ever seeing a Jackrabbit on a PC character sheet in all this time.

What, you've never seen a player act deliberately obtuse and crazy for the sake of 'role-playing' their character?

Dang, it must just be me....

Well if you think the jackrabbit is little used,,,,the segway will be even more so.

FYI in previous iterations of SR many of my characters ie the non rigger ones had jackrabbits for vehicles.

WMS

All real Shadowrunners drive Jackrabbits! I'm more a used Ford Americar kinda guy myself, but the jackrabbit is a good reliable form of transportation. I stopped dumping money into supping up my car when I realized it is easier to just blend in. BSD's stick out you know? Also, for anyone else looking for motivation, try reading this CLUE file.

Case #26: Born to be Wild

Oh come on, a little hyperbole is getting slammed, here?

I'm not slamming you -- your post didn't read like hyperbole, it read like a misunderstanding of what was actually in Arsenal and how it was portrayed.

I too am a used Ford Americar kinda guy.

That and a Dodge Scoot as a disposable piece of gear.

Hell yeah! Just load it up in the back of the bulldog, with the Drone rack, explosives depot, and the family of mexicans (extended family, mind you).

I'm pretty certain some of my chars have driven a Jackrabbit. On a recent character, I picked a Spirit over the Jackrabbit solely to save 500 and then switched to a bike to save more.

In all honestly, I found the basic weapons provided in Arsenal to be too inconsistent in pricing (put Gas Vent 2 on a Predator IV vs Smartlink a Colt Government 2099) and the choices too similar. The vehicles provided more variety but fewer choices within a category (Sports cars, luxury, muscle cars, mini sports, non-armed ATVs, etc)

Actually, I suspect that one would see fewer low-end vehicles in SR4 among shadowrunners because of the linear character design system. In the old priority system, it was possible to end up with Not Much Jing At All, which would precipitate the purchase of cheaper vehicles. The same goes for lifestyle; you don't really see a lot of Street or Squatter lifestyles, especially when Middle costs one Build Point and Low costs less than a half of one.

You can't put a Gas Vent on a Predator, Cabral-- Gas Vents are explicitly listed as only being available for machine pistols, SMGs, assault rifles and machine guns. This is why integral recoil compensation of any sort is generally worth it when it comes to pistols-- your only other options are a personalized grip or electronic firing, which unfortunately are mutually exclusive for the purpose of recoil compensation. Incidentally, this means that a Savalette Guardian with a personalized grip is probably the best overall heavy pistol for users looking to avoid recoil penalties-- simply use semi-automatic rather than its burst fire option and you're good to go.

Bulldog? I usually just tuck it in my backpocket when I'm not using it...

But seriously, how much did a scoot cost in SR3? Like 5 grand or something?

Ha, the jackrabbit have been THE most used vehicle by me for any character (and by several other players characters in our group). Unless the character needed a heavy vehicle or had a bike they took the jackrabbit or the americar mostly due to being cheap and affordable and as a secondary perk one of the most common vehicles on the street making it harder to track and also easier to steal.

The biggest disappointment I had with arsenal: there are no rules for custom vehicles. More than the tanks or airplane carriers, I liked the fact that there were rules to build vehicles from scratch in Rigger 3. The rules themselves were messy and thus difficult to use and would have benefited from a overhaul, but they were there.

Okey dokey, miscommunication then.
I would say that this is a first fore the internet, but then i would have to take a career in politics to justify that big a lie.

It's an alright book, added many good options and fleshed out the equipment lists quite a bit, which I suppose was the whole point. My only major complaint is form fitting body armor. From what I've seen of it in action, it's too good. The ability to stack with other armors and apply only half it's rating for the purposes of encumbrance makes it remarkably easy to get asinine amounts of armor fast. This is of course aside from my complaints with the gear in Shadowrun as a whole, which are mostly related to grenades, grenade launchers, and how the latter makes the former pointless, as well as the fact that Shadowrun seems to have some demented hatred of the number 30.

I could debate you on the utter silliness of 'Grenade Launchers make grenades pointless'....


... but just trying to type it makes me tired.



Cars make having shoes pointless.

Seriously.

Well, it's a little bit different with grenade launchers in Shadowrun. In real life, a 40mm (or 20mm like you're going to find in any grenade launcher small enough to carry six shots and be mounted under the barrel of a rifle which still stretches believability if you ask me) grenade is a lot less powerful than most hand grenades. The reason is simple: they're smaller. Most fragmentation hand grenades are powerful enough that most people can't reliably throw them far enough that the shrapnel doesn't still stand a good chance of hitting them. But in Shadowrun, a fragmentation rifle grenade is just as powerful as a fragmentation hand grenade. So, if you have an under-barrel mounted grenade launcher, there's absolutely no reason to take a hand grenade on a run and absolutely nothing that you could do with a hand grenade that you couldn't do with a rifle grenade. To me, that just seems wrong. Please, don't give me any hoo hah about miniaturization, no matter what era it is, 6 20mm projectiles in a detachable magazine is still going to make for a large magazine. Explosives may get more powerful, but the amount of explosive you could put in a 20mm or 40mm wide projectile is still going to be significantly less than you can put in an apple sized grenade.

how about lobbing a grenade over a 10 foot wall, or around a corner? taping the grenade to something? rigging a trap? *silently* dropping a grenade, or placing it somewhere? (remember, they can be detonated wirelessly in SR4).

all kinds of cool stuff. the human throwing arm is much more versatile than a grenade launcher. the launcher is just a lot stronger.

Ah well, that's what I get for posting a quick comment without reading on gas vents first.

Still, any sort of RC on a predator (heavy barrel from Arsenal still works, right?) means you've got a recoilless heavy pistol cheap.

If you don't like the amount of armor your players are using, may I suggest more NPCs with elemental attacks? Indirect spells and the like?

If he thinks part of the shadowrun mechanics are broken, he won't solve the problem by avoiding it. I fully agree with him on FFBA, and I would just advise him to ignore that nonsensical (at least in my opinion) rule that halves armor encumbrance for FFBA.

It's not enough to call broken, just a bit annoying at times. I just made the quick realization that gangers with crappy guns aren't gonna do the trick.

Edit: That's exactly what I did, it still stacks, but it encumbers the same as any other armor.

Just picked up mine TODAY at ICON 27. In for a very interesting read. The way I like it.
Ahhh, that new book smell.

Jaid pretty much covered my points. No one, to my knowledge, has ever bitched that launched grenades are less powerful. They do, however, require additional equipment. Now, if you, as the GM, never think there is anything wrong with players lugging around 8 guns (not even that many for some players, sadly) or never enforce 'swapping guns takes actions', or any of a dozen other reasons the GL won't be ready to hand then there is no problem at all. I've seen players just write '6 grenades' on their sheet and use them interchangeably as launched or thrown... a technology that I'm sure the RL military would love to make cost effective.

It depends on how 'movie action' you want your games I suppose.

Expect if you don't have heavy weapons skill witch you need for that GL as opposed to trowing skill used for hand grenades, and of cource there are multiple tricks you can do with those hand grenades that you just can't do with a GL.

Considering that every rifle integrated launcher out there in Shadowrun somehow manages to magically hold 6 grenades in something that still looks like this http://world.guns.ru/grenade/gp-25_1.jpg switching weapons taking time is not a concern, it's as simple as shifting your hand from the foregrip to your grenade launcher's handle (or the magazine in many cases) and looping your finger into the grenade launcher's trigger, or in the case of smart links, sending a command via your link to launch a grenade. There's still the fact that anything small enough to fit six of under an AK and still not noticeably increase the size of the launcher is going to be less powerful. Just because it's the future doesn't mean the laws of physics don't apply, more explosive means more bang. Thrown grenades http://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/imgs/m67grenade.jpg are significantly different from 20mm grenades http://world.guns.ru/grenade/paw20-3.jpg 40mm grenades http://www.army-technology.com/contractor_...rtin/3_40mm.jpg or muzzle grenades http://world.guns.ru/grenade/_gl-rf3.jpg. The only one of those that could achieve similar power to a hand grenade is the muzzle grenade, and it requires a loaded blank to launch (live ammo will cause rather catastrophic results) and none of them are interchangeable, they are all VERY different.

AFAIK there are rifle grenades built to be used with live rounds, designed to capture the round and use its kinetic energy.

I just don't understand why the FFBA rule is unbalanced with alot of people. So it only counts as half encumberance. Someone with 6/2 suit and an armor jacket still has 11 armor with an armor jacket, and needs...well, i forget if it's round up or down, but a 5-6 body to wear both of them properly. So it prevents them from dying faster, but you can knock em out just as fast. SnS rounds will do the trick and they aren't even lethal to begin with.

But, you know what they say, what's unbalanced for one game is balanced in someone elses, so i won't say someone's wrong for wanting it to count. It's just not our style. To us, it makes sense something form-fitted only counts for half; I find that if i wear a fully customized, say, set of clothing(tailored for me specifically), im much more comfortable and move much easier than i do tossing on some general, one size fits all armor.

THAT being said, i'd require if they buy FFBA in game that it's exactly that-FFBA. As in you go get measured and probably have to wait a little bit(a reasonable amount of time but not insane; pretend you're getting a suit made) to get it. If you wear FFBA that ISN'T customized for you? then i'd count it's encumberance. Hell, i'd impose a minus on a human if the only armor he had available was on the dead troll that he takes off and wears, even if said human has a body of 5.

I might be thinking of FFBA wrong. To me, im getting the idea in my head that's its rather light and easy to move in, and very custom-tailored, which is why it halves encumberance. Used for people like, bouncers at a fancy but dangerous club which features weekly Yakuza vs. Mafia fights(gets Simpsons flash ), where he can be protected with that and his Actioneer Buisness Suit, and not lose too much mobility. I was discussing this with a friend and we seem to be in agreement, i don't see why something MADE for extra protection and ease of movement/subtlety would add it's full rating. But again, everyone's game is different.

Now, if FFBA was made to be a stiff marshmallow suit...well then, yeah, i'd count it as full. I just might be thinking of FFBA in the wrong way.

I'd assume that all armor is made so that it doesn't encumber the wearer more than absolutely neccessary. I also think that many clothes are custom-fitted in 2070, with scanners in shops (or used at home).

The problem with FFBA is not that its broken or whatever, it is that before you had armour x 2 body, and that was easy when one needed to wing it.

Now you have armour x 2 body + FFBA which is harder for the GM to wing on the fly, and boosts armour for everyone across the board, powering up the game. Doesn't really add anything and makes things more complicated when improvising.

Basically, if something is as good so that everyone would be using it, it's too good.

FFBA fits that to a "t". Emotitoys as well.

Just a quick question regarding Jarheads and the CCU.

In arsenal it mentions that the CCU has a capacity of 12 but that wasnt in Augmentation is that something that was meant to be in but got missed or is arsenal wrong?

Im hopiong that arsenal is right as it would make Jarheads a little more playable

I've been describing and imagining FFBA as the "soft" armor Recon Marines wear under their SAPI plate carriers. Those are pretty damn comfortable to begin with and if you were getting it tailored I'd imagine that only makes it even more comfortable to wear. So no, halving the value of FFBA hasn't broken my game yet. The skinny mage has a reasonable but not retarded amount of armor (so he doesn't go splat when the APDS starts flying) and the troll gets even stupider amounts of "I Soak Rockets To the Chest". Actually the super troll damage soak is getting a little wonky but that's what called shots are for...

moo hoo ha ha.

You know, when I was looking over the Arsenal book, I thought it was interesting they included some stats for inline skates. Kinda neat, but only the odd runners would use them, right? Much to my surprise, I was delighted to hear that it's been used recently in real life for something.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080407/ap_on_...u/olympic_torch

"About 3,000 officers were deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and with inline roller skates."

But now you are assuming that assault rifles are appropriate to every shadowrun job, much less every military operation, or that the militiaries want to pay for every joe schmuck to carry a launcher all the time, when they can just hand out grenades as needed and let him toss them... much cheaper.

As for teh relative powers, while that is both interesting and believable, in reality (and we can project this through the setting), getting hit by a grenade is pretty lethal, regardless of size. You hit a point of diminishing returns for killy factor after a point. Clearing a room is no less effective just because you used a 40mm grenade over a hand grenade.

You point, actually, would be that cheaper, less effective explosives can be used in hand grenades, or the hand grenades themselves can be made smaller and thus more portable, keeping them in line with the launched grenades.

You keep harping on the magical six shot integral launchers: It is irrelevant and caused by foolish game writers almost 20 years ago not having a firm grip on engineering principles, or for that matter hands on expirence with real grenades and launchers of same. Even if we ignore the often non-sensical technology of the Shadowrun universe: Launchable Grenades have not, in the last 40 years or so they've been in use, replaced the old fashioned hand grenade, I don't see how pushing forward another 60 will alter that without a much more radical technology push than simply having multishot launchers.

For all the reasons others, and myself, have already covered.

Most of which can be summed up in a single word.

Versatility.

I thought the concept was silly until I saw a cop hanging on to the security bus while keeping an eye out for trouble. He looked pretty pro.

Well, when there's no statistical difference between an assault rifle and a submachine gun besides the SMG having reduced range, lethality and penetration, why would you take it? For a shadowrunner it's a bit different, you can conceal an SMG, but for anyone who can afford the luxury of an overt operation, there's just no reason to bother according to the shadowrun rules.

When you're dealing with humans, yes, getting hit with a 40mm grenade is gonna be just as lethal as getting hit with an m67, but what about situations that aren't dealing with the frail human anatomy? By your line of reasoning, an HMG should do just as much damage as a 12 gauge, afterall, both kill humans just fine, so why differentiate based on the fact that .50 bmg has something to the tune of 11,000 more foot-pounds of muzzle energy. The reason to differentiate is simple: because they're different.

Launched grenades and hand grenades are very different animals with very different roles.

In Shadowrun, a grenade launcher is pretty well always better to carry than a hand grenade, especially considering launched grenades have all the functions of normal hand grenades.

The fragmentation grenade in Shadowrun has at most a casualty radius of 11 meters, that's the point where it's down to it's last box of damage. The m67 has a casualty radius of 15 meters and a kill radius of 5 with fragments going as far as 230 meters, that's a fairly significant drop in lethality.

I liked Arsenal overall. There were some really cool things they brought in, and there were also some very stupid things in my opinion. But as a whole, damned good sourcebook.

No your just being way too literar with the game rules, becouse even if the rules don't give different rules for hand grenades and launchers, that does not mean you can use a launcher to do all the funky tricks you can do with hand grenades.

Oh, yes, the fragments. Once, in the army, we were training with hand grenades in a live fire exercise (exercise grenades, no fragmentation mantle, and reduced amount of explosives, "only" about 120 gramm as opposed to about 160 gramm, if I recall correctly). My group finished, went down 50 to 100 meters to the rest area to eat a snack and drink some tea (standard beverage provided by the swiss army in the field, hot or cold depending on the season), and just when I was about to remove my helmet a fragment or stone splitter from the next group's training hit it with a quite audible "ping". We moved behind the truck to chill after that.