Ultrasound is a separate emitter/receiver set, and doesn't correspond to a sense. Thermo is just receiving normal radiation, and it's a sense. It's the difference between radar and low-light.

This is really starting to sound like application of real life to the game, rather than actual RAW. Can I get a reference of some sort to the books?

Couldn't magnetosense, electrosense, broad auditory spectrum, or biosonar be comparable?

IIRC magnetosense, electrosense and broad audio spectrum only sense some kind of emission instead of emitting it themselves and detecting the echo. Biosonar works on the same principle as ultrasound vision.

I kind of mis-spoke. Is there a difference rule-wise between emitter/sensor, and a sense?

Not applying any real life applications to your game is what is known as a mechanical disconnect and it gives you cancer.
Ultra sound is listed as a sensor, rather than a sense, like a Troll's thermographic vision.

In which context? If it involves vision penalties, then there is no rules difference between using your elven Low Light eyes or your implanted Ultra sound sensor.
Ultra sound is like looking through a pair of glasses, while thermographic vision can be entirely natural. It is up to the GM to determine if and when that becomes an issue.

Sounds fair.

The difference is the emitter. Biosonar is natural as well (at least as natural as surge is) and works the same way as ultrasound vision. The images created by Implanted Cybereyes with Vision Enhancements are just as artificial the ultrasound sensor.

This only ever can become an issue when magic is interacting with senses.

Agreed. Although I would have brought that up as technological vs natural vision.

Under SR3 there were even different modifiers for natural and augmented vision.
Troll/Dwarf IR gave a +2 in Total Darkness, while Cyber gave a +3. Ultra-Sound was a +4.

Ah. Makes a bit more sense why people might distinguish then.

I think it's [sense/sensor] an important distinction in the current edition, even though they removed the difference between natural/artificial senses (Troll eyes, thermo enhancement). If you start messing with it, you have to alter everything. UWB radar is the biggest one, but it's also an issue for things like capacity and drones… currently, you can install a camera and add ultrasound to *it*, instead of the drone. Conversely, you can't *just* add ultrasound (IIRC), because it's an enhancement. (This even contradicts the fluff on the Dragonfly drone, I think).

In addition, senses use your normal Perception skill (and attribute), while sensors don't. It goes on to mention that sensors are subject to Signature rules (which are their own Broken Rule, unfortunately).

I could have this all wrong, but it makes sense. It's just yucky.

Odd. I'll look that up next time I get the chance.

This IS the "broken rules" thread...




-k

Becoming so obsessed with mechanics that you forget your players should be living in a flesh and blood world breaks the game more than any rule ever could, like some other Fourth Editions I could mention.

You must be talking about MLP FiM 4th edition. Speaking of 4th editions, I'm really enjoying DnD 4ed.

I really enjoy Scrabble, but it has nothing to do with RPGs either.

Well put.

I figured "like some other Fourth Editions I could mention" meant D&D, but that's harsh. Were you at least alright with 3.5?

3.5 was nice, but to really work you had to houserule a bunch and ban or houserule a whole bunch of splatbooks. Major power creep + an inherently flawed magic system turned the game into rocket launcher tag around level 12.

Dang, I'm curious about the flaws in the magic system, since I never joined a real community while playing D&D. I guess this isn't the place to ask though.

As for rocket launcher tag around level 12. Maybe, but level 20 was the really funny stuff.

Mechanical Disconnect.

While I am more of an OSR kind of guy, I don't like to get bogged down in the great Editions Wars. I'll play just about anything.
4E D&D, however, isn't a role playing game, it's a miniatures game, and that's fine. I like Warhammer and other miniatures games plenty. If your game cannot be played without miniatures, it's not a roleplaying game. It's a war game.
That's why I like Shadowrun, it is a game that can be played entirely in your head, has it's base in a flesh and blood world and where the interactions are the star. It's a game in which you are playing a role and not a stat or a tiny piece of pewter.
Most experienced Shadowrunner talk of their character's exploits and craziness and wacky things they did to get out of an impossible situation. Most miniatures gamers talk about their character's magic items or treasure hoards.
Nothing wrong with either, but my players and I far prefer the latter.

The Former Maybe?

If the RAW makes no sense in relation to how the same thing works in Real Life, that's a good sign that the RAW is broken, no?



-k

It depends. Sometimes it's just game-ification, abstraction, etc.

I skipped a bit, so maybe your link on mechanical disconnect covers this.
I'd like to argue that RAW trumps fluff, and many meanings can be picked out of the rules to contort what is meant, even well meaning people can misinterpret RAW. All in all, a solid rule set is more important than descriptions on how things may work from the characters' perspective. The four kinds of modifiers in Shadowrun are an example of making rules that allow the game to run more efficiently, while not having any game world significance.

I'm just going to say that this depends 100% on the group playing the game. My boyfriend runs a 4.0 D&D game, they find that with classes being simplified and more... cookie cutter lets say, that characterization, plot, social interaction, have all become more important while combat is slightly less thrilling.

Course,this will depend on the group, if the GM and players don't focus all attention on combat ability then that's the game you can expect. You can see the same thing in Shadowrun. A group full of combat monsters will focus less on social skills, etc. I think Shadowrun just tends to attract more mature players who are more interested in areas besides combat.

Anyhow, done. Lets get back to broken rules.

I think alot of 'deadlier combat' games kind of support that kind of playing.

I mean, whipping out your sword in Warhammer fantasy RPG is actually serious business.

Shadowrun I don't think is quite as deadly but at least you aren't running around with 8 healing surges to effectively give you 3 lives.

Yeah, I meant former. Sorry. It's just that latter is such a cooler sounding word I get carried away. This is why I have editors.

There is that word I hate. Broken. To me the word "broken" mean unplayable. A system that relies so heavily on mechanical disconnect that it ignores any basis in the world in which it lives(notice I didn't say real world) that it becomes a board game or a system that is so rules heavy as to imitate real life that it gets bogged down in grognard capture.
Broken doesn't mean "flawed" or "rule I don't like," and that is what some RAW are. Flawed and disagreed upon. Easily mended with a group that views both the system and their game as something that evolves and adapts over time.
So RAW that make no sense in relation to real life, or in the case of something like the metaplanes, the world in which they occur, is a sign of a flawed system, but not one that is unplayable, wrong and to be derided.

Viewing things only as "fluff" and "crunch" is the purview of war gamers, not roleplayers. It is important to find the best way to describe the story being told in the context in which it is told. The rules are there to help give context to the universe. A ref to decide whether or not you got shot in this expanded game of Cowboys & Indians we play so we can't all run away screaming "You missed me." If the rule trumps the world, you are playing the game backwards, ignoring the story being told so you get more dice. If the rules are worded so improperly that they can be interperited to mean the Indian's arrow can go loop de loop around a building, then either that needs to be part of your world(as in not on Earth) or that rule is wrong.

Also, read the Alexandrian article on disconnected mechanics.

Mustn't...get...started...on asinine nature...of "healing surges!"

QFT. Also, thanks for that article - really good reading.

Heh, sorry Just saying that getting shot at least has (usually has) a significant impact. I am usually tempted to ramp up the deadliness though, but haven't played/know enough of 4th edition to really have a good feel for combat with this version.

I think I missed you're point here. How do you get more deadly than a game where a weak combat character can kill a strong combat character in 2 hits?

Probably because he's comparing it to an even deadlier game.

Hard to get deadlier than Legend of the 5 Rings. Man, that is brutal. Shadowrun is close, as well.

I don't know if this breaks anything, but Whips (note the lack of monofilament) have a DV of 1 against Structures. If I flail away with a normal whip for about 5 minutes, I can bring any building crashing down. Or maybe I've missed something.

You've missed the fact that barriers have Structure and Armor, and ignore (that is, soak DV with Armor*2) attacks that are too weak. But if you mean that someone with enough net hits (a lot!) might beat some barriers with a whip, yes. The barrier rules are indeed broken more obviously with other weapons (autofire, certainly).

I knew it was something.

But, an SMG with some net hits can tear walls apart. :/ I like the barrier rules in theory, and they're pretty good overall, but some things do seem too easy. If the wall rolls badly, for example, pretty small bullets can mess up 'bulletproof' things.

Don't forget, Bullets only ever do 2dv to a Barrier. Regardless of whether it is autofire or not. You will punch holes in SOME walls, but likely not hurt anything with more than 4 Barrier Rating. Of course, Specialty Ammo (APDS, EXEX) will alter the numbers a bit due to their AP capabilities. But still, only 2DV is applied to the wall as it Pushes through the wall.

It says DV of 2 per bullet. It wouldn't say 'per bullet' if bursts didn't apply. There is no basic rule that Narrow +DV is ignored for damage, ever; it's only for comparing to armor for stun. AP is ignored, so specialty ammo does zilch.

I said, it's a poor rule. It's desirable for autofire to chip away at (some) barriers, cinematically, but it shouldn't be too strong. And you can get some serious net hits against an inanimate target.

"Doors? But I have a Vindicator!"

*big boot*

Incidentally, where's that thing about Man Who Walks Through Walls or whatever?

no idea, i just can't figure out how to make the board search yield to me <.<

I think it's a bear-troll, but I forget where it's posted. Honestly, isn't knowing the concept enough? 'High strength adept with anti-barrier/+melee powers'.

Hmmm, 'suppose....

Bear Who Walks Through Walls had a big discussion in this thread:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...p;#entry1057041
Just search the thread for "bear"

First and Second editions were truly deadly. Then, by third edition, they toned down the letality a little bit, just to raise it again in fourth, but adding suggestions on how to tone it down back again.
I for one, love the letality of it. It really represents the feeling of a samurai not drawing its sword unless he has to.

I take "broken" to mean "does not work as written". Most broken rules can be fixed with a little common sense, but that doesn't mean the rule isn't broken. I will say that I do not include rules that work, but I don't like, in this category.

Yes, ideally rules should be linked to the game world, but rules should ALSO work by themselves.

The same article you quoted has this to say about the idea that "it isn't broken if you apply common sense":

"The Rule 0 Fallacy ("this rule isn't broken because I can fix it") is a poor defense for any game."

The Sensors rules scattered around the Shadowrun books are to some degree broken, in that there are areas where they are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. The Ultrasound rules, for example, are inconsistent in that they are described as sound-based but then get classified as a visual sensor. This is where the weirdness of them being affected by light levels comes in.

Rules need to work in and of themselves, even before you apply any external world or common sense factors.




-k

I absolutely agree...