By the way, are the entries for weapons and stuff laid out like the vehicle pages?

Milspec is a crunch book. I think it fits into the state of the universe even though the weapons shown are more dated rather than the cutting edge of military tech. Like comparing the M-60 to the M-1 tank.

I thought the equipment look balanced compared with Arsenal. Some of the armor is greater than the rules allow, but overall I didn't feel the power levels were so over the top like War! had for their cruise missiles.

The equipment seems to blend well, but I don't think it enhances the game so much other than quench some curiosity of what is out there. It is like getting a Jane's book on military equipment when you are looking at purchasing a family car. It is cool, but will probably never come into your life.

The weapons are 2-3 per pair of pages. Just stats, maybe a picture for a missile and some shadowtalk.

Hey, the M-60E actually makes it a decent weapon again. Every time I show the video about it, everyone is amazed.

Considering Grinder's a Mod, his point's more valid than an XKCD comic. And that should NOT be expected or acceptable behavior on the internet.

If I could have one job, it would be Netiquette Cop.

Bull

I'd want to be the Intelligence Police that prevent idiots from getting computers.

But, then again, I worked Tech Support long enough that I'm heavily scarred for life. Some are still gaping wounds that are filled with rancid... [Deleted by SysOp]

Ah well, better than nothing...and to be honest, a picture of an incendiary bomb wouldn't really add any revolutionary insights.


RE balance, I didn't consider the cruise missiles in W! bad from a balance point of view; getting hit by one is supposed to be a "rocks fall" moment. Problem is that they wasted a lot of space on statting this and several other kinds of falling rocks...some shadowtalk would have been a better space filler.

That was my feeling actually. There is a certain point where stats are irrelevant except from a blast radius standpoint. My real point is if I wanted to play tactical/strategic wargames there are other systems I would favor over shadowrun.

Oh yeah, he makes sure to remind about that from time to time.


I don't recall neither netiquette not the forum rules having anything against the arguments - or nitpicking, for that matter, too.
Maybe you'd be kind enough to point out my error?


Well, maybe somewhere out there are vehicles (or dragons) who can live through that. Shouldn't space be left for extreme min-maxers, after all? :ь
And it's not like that makes War! any worse anyway, minding that like 3/4 of it are already wasted on Bogota.

So... Back to MilSpecTech...

How do you think these toys will work in this season of Desert Wars?

Aren't Desert Wars supposed to be a show of cutting-edge tech?
Those appear a little dated for that...

Not just cutting edge tech, but big violence for big ratings!

And that cutting edge tech has to be used on something expendable. Which might turn out to have a BRAND NEW UPGRADE that turns it from being expendable into the next new BIG BUY for that African Overlord with the Blood Diamond Mines.

It reminds me of when I was playing and players wanted to roll their damage regardless of the creatures hitpoints. But I want to roll 10D6 to the kobolds 4 hps... All it did was waste everyone's time. As I get older if it doesn't add tension or excitement to the game I will gloss over it. Ok the troll has 14 dice to hit the guy from behind and subdue him. At that point I will handwave you knocked him out and move on. I don't care if you needed 2 hits and got 12.

Yeah, see, 10d6 against 4 HP is a sure kill (but I'd still let the players roll attack rolls, even if they autohit, just in case they crit and get to describe the results).
However, 14 dice vs threshold of 2 is a roll that can be failed and can be glitched. Maybe it's a good idea to skip it if you play in RL; if you play in IRC, like I do, it takes the same effort - 1 bot command, - to rolls 14 dice as it takes to roll 1 die, so it makes sense to roll and see what happens. Just in case.

I love the smell of critical failures in the morning... It smells like... Burned Edge/Karma...

Burned Edge? It's the smell that doesn't make for happy GMs.
Zero Edge left, critglitch? Ho boy, now we're talking.

You are right it can be, but it is statistically insignificant where I am trying to wait for something 1 in 318,000. I have better ways to spend everyone's time than having players roll.

318000 to 1 chances crop up 9 times out of 10, duh.

...

Damnit, now I want to run Shadowrun on the Discworld!

Vetinari vs. Lofwyr in a scheme off.

FastJack attempts to hack Hex!

Actually, the probability would be 468931/362797056, that is, around 1,3/1000.
And that's not a probability to disregard!


See, FastJack does not do "attempting". Only "hacking right through".

I am not sure how you did your probability. There are 15 combinations where you don't make a threshold of 2 vs. 3^14 combinations. Where did I do my math wrong?

I am of the opinion it is your tactics that will kill you rather than a bad roll especially when the probability is low enough to slow down the game.

I'm talking about the probability of a glitch. And while those generally don't kill you, they have an immense potential for making games more fun.

"Dude, you failed to hack the PUBLIC LIBRARY?" "The security on it... The IC... It's so thick, so cold... It's insane! MCT's private servers at that Zero Zone we hit last month was easier!"

I am surprised that Desert wars are still ongoing, along with urban brawl and the rest of the blood "sports"...

Why are you surprised about that?

fashions change.

doesn't look like it to me buddy O.o

Fashions change, but Football/Soccer is still around. So is Rugby. Hell, CURLING is still around, $Deities know why!

Desert Wars and Urban Brawl aren't One-Hit Wonders where fashions do change, they're the new sports of choice for the world market.

Except that sports are not lethal by design.

Still, the more i dig into "life inc." the more worried i become about how himanity can distance itself from violent acts...

Distance?
Why Distance?
Humanity as a whole seems to LIKE that kind of Stuff.

Not any more. Life is worth too much. In the nicer parts of the world.

Get to some of the Hives of Scum And Villainy IRL, and I'd bet you'd find yourself some bloodsports that doesn't involve just Cocks and Dogs...

By the time of the 6th World, with life being so cheap... Well... Bread and Circuses, please throw another Christian to the Lions, they look hungry.

Sounds like hobgoblin never watched boxing, football, etc. They're just lethal *slowly*.

Everything that has to with more or less full body contact is potentially lethal.
You just need to slip and suddenly your shoulderblock hits a throat.

Or not so slowly if you play football badly.

But that's only in places that aren't Canada and the USA.

Make Believe is lethal.

You have them in the more shady corners of the nicer places already. And historically, nonlethal sports are an exception, not the rule.

Besides, neither Urban Brawl (essentially live-action Red vs. Blue) nor combat Biking are especially designed for killing participants. It DOES happen, but it's an exception. They're not much more likely to result in permanent damage for participants than football (Australian) or Football (lower leagues Europe, Dutch); with the amount of cut limbs/nasty wounds being balanced by Shadowrun's far superior medicine.

The one true blood sport is the gladiatorial games show from Aztlan ("Suerte ó Muerte" or something).

Which only has "Coincidence" to having the traditional deaths from the Aztec game happen...

Minor details/remarks on stuff people said some pages back:

1 - I never said there were (only) 8 original pieces of art. I asked fo your opinion on a SELECTION of 8 original pieces of art in MilSpec.

2 - I did not get 100$ per piece of original art in Milspec. If you know a RPG publisher that pays 100$ per half page of color art in a PDF(!), please point me in that direction. Thank you

Carry on.

We as fans are generous. We also don't know the costs of production, and assume your NDA's prevent you from enlightening us.

So, which toys are your 'Runners drooling over?

I, personally, would love an MPUV to drive around the barrens in with a Belt-Fed LMG on the roof to discourage any problems. The headlights switched out for Low Lite/IR Filter as well.

More of a fine-toothed comb read-thru of MilSpecTech, and I just caught something...

The JackPoint hearkening back to ShadowLand's "Street Samurai Catalog"... It's nice to see the little things remembered.

*Sigh* I miss The Big D.

We all do, Can, we all do . .

Glad to see I'm not alone.

When we Dumpshockers find out who assassinated the First Dragon, well, we'll just have to get... Creative, eh?

Technically he killed himself, wasn't it?

Yeah right. Sure. He put a bomb in his own limo.

Obviously I'm joking or pseudo-talking in character.

Just did a quick pass through it and thought I'd post impressions:

Vehicles/Drones need some kind of scale for size. Useful for the GM storytelling.

Clean art - liked the backgrounds and early attempt at labeling, again would have liked a bit of scale.

New gear: Didn't find much useful here for actual Shadowruns. Big guns, big tanks, big planes. This may sound strange, but I was expecting more of the offshoot Milspec technology that shadowrunners might add to their collection. In a normal shadowrun, if the GM pulls out tanks and railguns, there are no stats needed (like pulling out a great dragon). Considering how the rules tend to break at this level of armor/damage, do many people play battletech scenarios in Shadowrun?

Overall, good content for the price. No wasted space and stayed true to a Military technology theme. I didn't really look too hard, but I didn't see many gamebreakers. As long as you know what you are getting, I recommend.

They could easily afford an MPUV. It'd be like owning a WWII-Vietnam era jeep in the '50s and '60s. And '70s. And '80s for that matter...

I just don't see the logic in increasing the MPUV's price in 3e so high :-s

22K doesn't sound too much to me. Remember, "Military Pricing": 5,000 hammers. 12,000 toilet seats for cargo planes.

And it's 16K now in MilSpecTech. A bit pricey for a used MPUV, but these are either refurbished models or brand new ones. Used ones would be even cheaper, and I like some of the options suggested in the PDF.