A couple of things have really bothered me about the ranged combat rules in Shadowrun 4th Edition. The chief amongst them being that sniping is way too easy. A barely-trained sniper with a scope shooting at a moving, unaware target at 1 mile distance can pretty much never miss. The sniper has no penalties at all, and the target does’t get to roll any dice in defense. This is silly. There are very few people in the world that can make 1-mile shots against static targets, let alone against moving ones without ever missing. In trying to fix this, I think I’ve got a way to make the cover and called shot systems work better as well.

In addition, the scatter rules don’t make sense when it comes to rockets and missiles. The justification for the random scatter is that grenades skitter and bounce when they land, which makes sense. Rockets and missiles aren’t known for skittering and bouncing on impact, and yet their scatter is large enough to make them largely useless. Plus, things like RPGs rarely miss by a few meters: they either hit or go zooming past the target when fired from the ground. So I’ve attempted to make the scatter rules more realistic, faster and (hopefully) easy to work with.

So I've put together a revised set of ranged combat rules to try and fix some of these problems. I'm getting ready to test them with my table-top group, and I thought I'd post them here to share my ideas, get some feedback, and (probably) get flamed by people outraged with my suggestions.

The short summary:

• Ranges are reduced by half, with the “extreme” range’s far end left as is.
• Target range, motion and size are handled as thresholds.
• Hindrances/aids to the shooter are handled as modifiers to the shooter’s dice pool.
• Take-Aim actions reduce thresholds.
• Scatter is reflected in a threshold modifier, with the final scatter being the number of hits below the threshold on the attack test.
• Firing guided munitions requires a lock-on test with a threshold of 2.

Anyway, you can find the rules in a PDF form here. Other versions can be found on my website (see the signature) - can't vouch for the Word export.

Comments welcome - desired even!

Sound like admirable objectives.

Sounds interesting. Basically you're saying instead of auto-hit unless the target dodges, you have a threshold of successes you must hit to succeed, but there is no dodge test? At least for an unaware target, but honestly, the concept seems like it would work just as well applying to all shots (with things like dodge adding to the threshold)


Edit: Didn't see the PDF link, reading through that now.

I think these are mostly amazing - although a few things may need to be tuned.

You have to be clear about the propabilities you are creating. A +1 threshold is about 3 dice, etc. You could do a matrix in more detail.

I like that it gives ranged combat a measure of consistency, like it used to have in SR3.

There are certain things I dislike, I'll have to go over everything again in detail to get those straight.

Sorry but the scope and moving target don't work well together...



Emphisis mine. Reading this the sniper couldn't "lock onto" a moving target so he will take the -6 range modifier as a minimum (for extreme range). Even if the defender is casually strolling across an open area.

Just my 2¥

-D

Take Aim is a Simple action, so is firing a weapon.
You can Take Aim to use the scope, and fire, ignoring the range modifier in a single turn. The target will not have moved in that time.
If you have 4 passes while the target has one you could Take Aim, pick your nose, play some Sudoku for two passes, Take Aim again for a +1, then fire without the target having moved in the mean time, assuming you stall taking your first IP until the target took his.

Just a couple of thoughts and questions.
1) What is a barely trained sniper? IRL a sniper is already a highly trained marksman receiving additional training in spotting, camouflage techniques (urban and rural), and ancillary training in escape and evasion techniques. So when you say a barely trained sniper I have to ask what do you mean?
2) Image magnification/scopes don't work on moving targets, neither does the Enhance Aim spell. So your sniper is automatically starting with an extreme range penalty of -6 if that target 1 mile away even takes a step.
3) The reason you don't see people take these kinds of shots is simply because you almost never get a clear shot that far away, which means...
4) Use visibility modifiers, and remember if it is a sun shiny beautiful day in "I can take a one mile shot land", the likelihood of being spotted would be higher particularly if you are not firing from cover...
5) Speaking of cover and concealment firing from it is an automatic -2 modifier...
6) and if you are going through all the trouble to snipe a target you might as well make it count by making a called shot.

Essentially there are a ton of penalties for shooting under the conditions described so I don't really see a need to adjust anything.



Yep scatter rules are screwed up which is why I don't use them. Even grenades generally go where you want them to if you throw them correctly.



Guess I will take a look.

Movement takes place at a constant rate throughout the turn, if you "lock on to" a target as a simple action, by the time you have pulled the trigger the target has moved and you have missed your shot as both locking on and pulling the trigger are simple actions and the target hasn't stopped moving between each simple action. This is of course the strictest possible interpretation of the rules.

-D

This is the way a turn-based system makes the world work. To do anything else would incur nightmare scenarios in other places.

Okay having actually read the PDF now, comments:

-I do like it, all told. However, your pdf doesn't mention anywhere how it interracts with firearm damage or reaction/dodge rolls. Do those still apply under this system? Do you gain damage based off net hits or total hits? Since nothing is mentioned, I would assume that dodge rolls still apply normally, and damage is based off net hits, which makes firearms in general FAR less deadly. Like at point blank range you'd almost never hit anyone, because after you succeed on your threshold 3 test to hit them behind cover at a medium range (which will be far more likely now with your reduced ranges), the vast majority of people don't have any hits left, if they could have hit that at all. Personally I'd argue in favor of straight reaction tests being removed, with full defense/dodge being a test that raises the threshold to hit you, and damage being based off net hits.

-Speaking of net hits. Let the shot succeed if you meet the threshold. Needing one higher than the threshold means you're effectively increasing the threshold by one, and I'm pretty sure most threshold based tests don't work that way. (Though I could be mistaken on that point)

-I don't like the called shots rules you have here. What determines the difference between a security vehicle and a regular vehicle? If my rigger modifies his truck to have as much armor as a tank, do you still get to bypass all of the armor because it's not security or military? I'd set the threshold rather than based on the vehicle type, the amount of armor the target has, and let it apply to both vehicles and body armor, to make it more consistent. Something along the lines of:

0-8 Armor: +1 Threshold, ignore all armor
9-16 Armor: +2 Threshold, ignore 75% of armor
9-16 Armor: +3 Threshold, ignore 100% of armor
16-24 Armor: +3 Threshold, ignore 75% of armor
16-24 Armor: +4 Threshold, ignore 100% of armor
25+ Armor: +4 Threshold, ignore 50% of armor
25+ Armor: +5 Threshold, ignore 75% of armor
25+ Armor: +6 Threshold, ignore 100% of armor


And allowing a called shot for +2/+5 damage for +1/+2 threshold (this is slightly weaker statistically than current +dv called shot, but current +dv called shot is pretty strong).

-Take Aim seems inconsistent now. Is there really a problem with letting take aim reduce the threshold once per use up to half your skill? This would still keep a meh sniper away from making those really hard shots you described, but could allow a awesome sniper (remember rank 6 in a skill is amazing world class once in a generation sniper) to make those hard shots more reliably.

For example the extreme range walking human sized target with a threshold 5 base. The sniper needs to take him out in one shot, so goes for the called shot +damage, increasing threshold to 7. With a smartlink it's threshold 6. At this point you have two possibilities: The dextrous guy with low sniping skill (say 2) takes aim, reducing the threshold to 5, and has 9+2+2 = 13 dice to make those 5 hits. A possible shot, but statistically he's more likely to fail than to succeed. Compared to the sniping specialist with his rank 6 longarms and specialization in sniping, who is up to 19 dice. I don't know the exact odds here, except that it is favorable and likely the sniper will make the shot at threshold 5, but still having a decent (my guess is about 30%, but I'm not sure) chance of failing. Being able to use take aim to reduce that threshold 2 further however makes his success all but certain.

Anyway the point of that example is that allowing the take aim to continue reducing threshold makes character skill matter that much more, which seems to me to be in line with the goals of your project.

-Target sizes, I'd avoid using body as a determinant as that has weird side effects. (For example my cripple rigger with body 1 suddenly has a +2 threshold to be hit unless the GM says otherwise), and I'd also avoid penalizing trolls for their size, they already pay more than enough bp for what they get, without getting penalized further. Instead I'd recommend just listing sizes in meters (/centimeters when appropriate) for thresholds, with the medium size being between 1 and 3 meters, which should cover pretty much all metahumans.

-Smartlinks become even more 100% necessary with this. Not that I mind, since everyone should have smartlink anyway, but you should be aware anyone going anywhere with a nonsmartlinked gun is losing effectively 5 dice. That's a pretty big deal.




I won't comment on the exploding stuff because I'm not particularly familiar with the base rules for those things, let alone the rammifications of any changes.

As a quick note, the scatter rules for rockets or missiles dont reflect "scatter" per say, but rather the fact that rockets and missiles dont work like they do in videogames.

They wobble and weave in-flight, especially if they're un-guided. So you're probably not going to strike the target you were aiming for, even if that target was a spot on the ground.

Well in my experience the only ones that "wobble and weave" are wire guided missiles since a human is essentially the guidance system. An AT-4 or SMAW are unguided and essentially make a straight line to the target. Javelin and Stinger missiles make in flight correction to keep pace with the targets current location and in the case of the Javelin it rises and then plummets on the target to hit the weakest armor it can. So while they don't work the way they do in a video game they sure as hell don't go bouncing along because well they tend to just go boom at that point.

I haven't read the scater rule jet, but the rules for ranged combat are great.
Yes, they are a bit more complicated but much more intuitiv.
Introducing thresholds adds a mechanic but it makes much more sense than adding dices to the defenders test..

Only point would be, that smartlink is now very, very good...

(So a stripper with smartlink is able to take on seals without on a regular basis...)

I'm not sure if you caught last week's episode of Top Shot, but it was obvious to me that many of them were either unfamiliar with a spotting scope or forgot to use it to help their teammate. These people could all be considered "barely trained snipers" from a Shadowrun perspective. They're expected to perform with a variety of firearms, including sniper rifles.

http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/vide...-3-the-gauntlet is you want to see the episode. 17:14 is where the section starts. One could argue that at that range, spotting should not have been necessary, but some of the contestants clearly made the effort.

Edit: Wanted to rewatch that section. It looked to me like everyone who worked as a spotter was the person doing the 100Y shot. The 75 yard shooters just stood there and cheered.

Thanks for the feedback and comments. I'll try and give some of my responses:

1. "Untrained Sniper Problem". A shorthand expression which has caused some confusion. Basically, take an average schmo (Agility 2) with a modicum of experience firing a rifle (Longarms 2). 4 dice. Take aim (+1) for a total of 5 dice. Firing at a target 1,500 meters away (~1 mile) with a rating 3 scope. The scope eliminates all range penalties, so he rolls 5 dice. Probability of no hits is only 13%. So he's going to hit roughly 9 out of 10 times. That's what I call the "untrained sniper problem" - the rules break in this case. There are very few people that can consistently make that kind of a shot, and even they aren't getting 90% hit rates. Depending on how you read the rules he can hit a moving target just as easily.

Dmiller/Faelan: The whole take-aim/moving target thing is a bit of a grey area - RAW is open to debate. I've read the rules as per Mardrax's interpretation, largely as I think that's what they intended, but your mileage may vary. I think the problem still stands, even with static targets. People that can make those kind of long shots are highly trained experts, and by SR4a, you don't have to be an expert. You can be a bit of schlub and have a fairly high hit percentage.

2. Smartlinks. Yeap, they are definitely made bad-ass. The description of what a smartlink does I think justifies it: an automatic ballistic computer that automatically adjusts for range and projects the impact point on your eyeball? +2 dice pool really doesn't quite cut it. In older editions of SR, a smartlink was seriously scary: it changed the base target number from a 4 to a 2. Statistically, it was about equivalent to doubling your hit rate (though, comparing SR1-3 to SR4 stats is a hairy business). Based on that, I think the -1 threshold makes a lot of sense. I was tempted to with -2, but it seemed overkill. The +2 dice pool is to counter the effect of "firing from the hip", which I think is a reasonable interpretation of what they can do.

3. Dodge and Damage Resistance. I didn't state it explicitly in the rules, but dodge, full-defense and damage resistance tests are left "as is." This means that the overall miss rate is going to be a bit higher, particularly at range. Again, I think this is entirely reasonable, considering the statistics on weapon accuracy in real-world shootouts. Plus, it should reduce the "street samurai goes on full-defense until everyone else runs out of passes and then shoots" loop that I see happen a lot. My hope is that with the cover/size rules, players will be more inclined to use cover and use less full-defense, making gun battles a bit more exciting. The examples in the writeup have folks rolling defense.

4. Take Aim (SeeRow). I thought real hard about having "take aim" reduce the threshold by 1 per action up to 1/2 of skill, rather than the dice pool modifier. I see your point, but I think it makes Take Aim too powerful. Again with the long-distance snipe being an edge-case, a skilled sniper would be able to reduce his miss rate to something less than 20%, which I honestly think is too easy a shot. Plus, from a stylistic perspective, I want the players thinking hard about taking aim once, but not just sitting there and aiming for pass after pass. Making take aim too powerful will tend to make combat more static, which I'm trying to avoid. This may take some playtesting to work out.

5. Called Shots (SeeRow). Not a bad idea, but I like my solution better. My thinking is that a military/security vehicle is going to have its armor integrated into the structure much better than something done after-market. Sure, a rigger could put a few tons of armor on a vehicle, but he's going to have to cut corners and compromise around the existing vehicle frame. Plus, I wanted the rule to combine vehicle and personal armor in a single table, and emphasize the difference between security, military and civilian. Like with vehicle armor, there's going to be a big difference in vulnerability between a heavily lined long coat, and a full-body armor suit with a helmet. My system, I hope, also gives the GM plenty of wiggle room to say things like your rigger's tank is so heavily armored it counts as a security vehicle, etc.

6. Total Net Hits of 0. Ack! I need to think about this. You may be right, Seerow. I think changing it to a zero net hits is still a hit may be a serious headache, so I'll need to noodle. My reflex is to say no, but I'll have to run some scenarios in my head, and it's too late at night for me to do that.

7. Body for Target Size. Yeah, it's a bit messy and body isn't always a good indicator of size. And the difference between critter and vehicle body scales is pretty large, but it's a good first-order approximation. As the note says, the body stat should be used to give you an idea of the size, but in some cases it may be way out of whack. The thing with trolls being easier to hits a twitchy one for me. They are a lot bigger, so I think they should be easier to hit from a simulation perspective, but from a game perspective it is a big penalty. It kind of depends on which you value more: simulation vs. game. And how many trolls you have in your team.

8. Scatter. I agree that rockets and missiles shouldn't work like regular guns (or like they do in videogames), but I think the SR4A solution is bad. It means that anti-vehicle rockets are pointless. They do no damage if they are more than 4 meters away from the target...and the scatter is 4d6 -1 per net hit. That's a 14m base scatter on average. On average, that means you need at least 11 hits (33 dice!) to damage your target at all. From point blank range, no less. Hell, HE isn't much better - it has to be within 7 meters to do any damage at all, so 7 hits on average (21 dice!).

Even a rating 6 missile isn't much better: you still need an average of 5 hits (15 dice!) to do any damage with an AV missile.

Now, my proposed system may go to far in making them too accurate, but at least it makes them useful. And I hope it isn't any more broken than the SR4A rules.

That ruling is going to make firefights even in close quarters brutal, unless everyone is standing out in the open firing blindly at each other 5 meters apart. Especially with your current ruling of needing 1 net hit to succeed. Let's run a hypothetical scenario:

You have a medium target within short range, who is in cover. You are firing from cover yourself. You are an above average shooter, but no street sammy, with 5 agility, 3 gun skill, and a smartlink, but -1 penalty for firing from cover. You roll 9 dice, for an average 3 hits. The target gets his dodge with 6 reaction, leaving you with a single net hit on average.

Now, let's switch it up to your system. That short range? It's now medium range. The target is behind cover, so they are considered a small target, and have the cover bonus, for a total threshold of 3. You have your smartlink, so that goes down to 2. So now you roll your 9 dice against a threshold 2, succeeding with a net of 1. The guy now gets his dodge roll, and on average leaves you at -1 net hit.

Just for reference, you can't actually reliably hit this guy with a dice pool less than 18. If you maintain close range with the range modifications, then you can manage with 15 dice. But 15-18 dice pool is pretty much the realm of a dedicated street sammy, everyone else is going to be missing a whole lot. and this is without even considering other negative modifiers, and NOBODY has the dice pool to try to called shot or anything else like that. They're just too likely to miss.

With my suggestion, only getting a bonus to threshold when a full defense action is taken, you can choose to make yourself damn near impossible to hit as described above, but at the cost of your next action, which is a pretty fair tradeoff. Additionally, if you make it so you don't need a net hit to succeed, and rather just hit the threshold, the shot in question is doable with minimal skill, just as it is now.

However, if your intent is to slow down the game and make firefights a flurry of misses until someone jumps out from behind cover, you'll succeed though.



It still takes 3 simple actions of aiming to lower the threshold by 3. In 90% of situations, it won't be used. In situations where a highly trained (4-6 skill) sniper is sniping, it makes a difference, but that is rewarding that person for having their skill high as opposed to just relying on a high agility and other modifiers.



First, that's making a huge assumption. There is nothing that says vehicle mods are in any way less robust than military issue vehicles. When they modify a vehicle, it isn't just slapping something on, it's incorporating something new into the vehicle's structure. B Mechanically there is no difference between a 20 armor 16 body security vehicle, and a Bulldog modified to have 20 armor. Making an arbitrary distinction is disingenuous, and a needless extra complication.

As for wanting to combine vehicle armor and body armor into the same table, my solution does the same, without the arbitrary distinctions between who made the armor, and instead distinguishing by the amount of armor the target actually has. So using called shot to bypass the guy's lined cloak is easy (+1), while bypassing the guy with military grade armor is hard (+4-6)



If you really want to insist on making trolls easier to hit, you could balance it out by upping their body or armor bonus, and/or reducing their bp cost. But honestly, I'd just avoid that bag of worms altogether. Consider you're making the difference between hitting a building and a medium person a difference in 3 threshold. If a difference in around 100 meter only makes a difference of 3, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say the 1 meter height difference between trolls and humans isn't going to make the difference of a full threshold rating. Remember, while you are making it a bit more simulation focused, it IS still an abstraction.

By that definition there are never any moving targets ever.

To me, that strongly suggests that such an interpretation is wrong.

YMMV.

I tend to consider a target as moving if he ended his last turn moving, and is even slightly likely to continue that movement on his next turn, meaning he didn't do something as dropping prone, dropping behind cover or whatnot.
This still doesn't mean he ever moves in between the end of his last turn, and the start of his next one.

Movement is not a continuum, spread out evenly across all IPs. It only is for those who have more than one.
When you and your wired up, 4 IP sammy mate want to charge up to a ganger at the limit of your movement range, odds are in your favour for getting the first hit in.
When the both of you are dashing from cover to cover, there's a good chance he'll have to soak up some bullets, as he moves far less in one turn, so is more likely to be out in the open at the end of his turns.
When you're the 4 IP sammy being charged at by a 1 IP ganger from 20 meters -if he wins Initiative- you can shoot him an exact 0 times before he reaches you, while you could shoot him 3 times while charging towards him, while he shoots you once, and still gets punched in the face after.

More responses:
1. Moving Target issue. I think I straddle the middle ground - targets in motion are in motion, and you break up the distance per pass by the number of passes the character has. The question is does Take Aim simple action followed by a Shoot simple action give the scope bonus as the rules are written. I think it does, largely because scopes should be effective against moving targets. RAW are open to interpretation on this - one way makes scopes overly effective, and the other makes them overly ineffective and breaks simulation. Shooting a moving target at long range is extremely hard, but a guy with iron sights shouldn't be just as effective as a guy with a scope. My system attempts to find a middle ground that is a bit more realistic.

2. Dodge (Seerow). I see your point, but your example is a bit off. An average schmo isn't going to have a reaction of 6. He's probably going to have a reaction of 2-3, so he's looking at (on average) only 1 hit.

Let's go with a Lone Star Squaddie vs. a Red Samurai (from SR4A). The LS has an agility of 4, pistols 3 and a reaction of 4. The RS has an agility of 7, Firearms of 5 and a Reaction of 7. Let's put the Lonestar squad die behind the door of his cop car for some cover, shooting at the RS in the open at a range of 20 meters.

The LS's threshold is 2 for the (revised) range. Assuming he has a smartlink, that reduces is to 1, and his dice pool is 4 (Ag) + 3 (Pistols) + 2 (SL) - 2 (Firing from Cover): 7 dice total. On average he's going to get ~2 hits. That's one net. The Samurai is rolling 7 dice on reaction and is going to get at least 1 hit 94% of the time. So yeah, the LS guy is boned - he's going to hit about one time in 20. If he uses a single take aim action, he's going to hit approximately 80% of the time.

The RS, on the other hand, is using an assault rifle. That puts him in short range (0 threshold), but the target is using cover (+1) and it's pretty good cover so the GM says it's a +2, for a total threshold of 3. He has a smartlink (presumably), so he's rolling 14 dice. That's ~4 hits on average, so he has 1 net hit. The LS has a reaction of 4, so he's going to get 1 hit ~80% of the time. So, the RS is going to hit ~1 time in 5. If the RS takes aim, he's going to have 2 net hits on average, and the cop is going to successfully duck ~half the time. If the RS goes with a wide short burst instead, the poor cop is only going to roll 2 dice, so his chance of not getting hit is ~50%. Take Aim & Wide Short Burst means the cop is boned: 2 net hits, 2 dice on Rx: 10% chance of ducking.

Your mileage may vary, but I think this is pretty realistic, and gives the LS a real incentive to get cover. And the relative range penalties makes sense to me: an assault rifle should be much more effective than a pistol. Plus, when you look at stats from actual shootouts, most shots do indeed miss, so its a win on simulation. Plus, the RS is, in general, going to wax the floor with the poor squaddie, which again makes sense to me.

On the other hand, you are correct that it will seriously extend the lengths of fights, especially in cover situations. Again, from a simulation perspective I think this works, but it may lose some on gameplay as shootouts may last too bloody long. Again, your mileage may vary.

3. Hitting on 0 Net Hits. Using the above example.
The LS squaddie shot. The RS now needs 2 hits in the baseline (no take aim) case to drop the net hits to -1. He's going to get that on 7 dice ~75% of the time, so the LS is going to hit 1 in 4 times. If the LS takes aim, the RS now needs 3 hits, and that's only going to happen half the time.

The RS shot: Baseline (no take aim), the squad die is going to need 2 hits on 4 dice, which is 40% of the time: 2 in 5 chance of ducking. If the RS does a take aim action, he needs 3 hits on 4 dice: ~11% duck chance. With a short wide burst, the LS pool is reduced to 2, so he's only got an 11% duck chance. Take Aim + Short Wide Burst: 0% chance of getting 3 hits on 2 dice.

Dang it, I think you may be correct. Having the attacker still hit on 0 net hits (after the reaction roll) is going to make things more lethal - it's not quite as accurate simulation-wise (I think), but increases the gameplay value quite a bit.

4. Called Shots vs. Armor. (Seerow). Yeah, it's an assumption that rigger-installed vehicle armor isn't going to be as good as a military or security designed vehicle, but I think it's a more than reasonable assumption. Adding armor isn't just welding on plates of metal, it's got a lot to do with protecting key components, layout of internal components, using dedicated periscopes, etc. Never mind glacis fronts, weld lines, impact angles and rebuilding the suspension to handle the weight. I'm going to stick to my guns on this one and say that military/security-sourced armor should be harder to bypass than civilian or improvised stuff. Again, it also leaves some wiggle room for the GM, which is a plus in my book.

5. Size and Trolls. I entirely see, and agree with your point. Dang it, I just think there needs to be some sort of downside for how freaking huge a troll is! Simulation vs. Gameplay is always a delicate balance, and one you can haggle on about endlessly. There's no right answer, so I think if you choose to use these rules, you can decide to not do the troll thing or not. I'm going to have to play a few sessions with this to see if it works or not. I think if I don't go with the size penalty, I'm definitely going to make finding adequate cover a lot harder.

One other thought - I think I may split out the "Firing from Cover" penalty a bit. Say -1 dice pool if you are only getting +1 to the attack threshold to reflect situations where you have cover, but you're prioritizing shooting over the cover.

Alright, I'll also try a detailed investigation/commentary.

0) Weapon ranges:

I would NOT do this. Keep the ranges, you are not adding anything to the game by changing them, except adding more misses. The weapon ranges are fine in a moderately sci-fi setting. Unless you want to go back to a checkerboard pattern tactical map like in D&D, where it's a problem when ranges don't fit on the map, you don't really need people to go into point-blank range all the time.

1) Threshold, and attacker vs defender wins:

The threshold system is a very good addition, as it finally provides a distinction between how hard the shot really is, and what thing are modifying the chance to hit based on a given situation. This is GOOD.

Meeting Threshold vs passing threshold: Now this is a tricky one. Basically, if you have to exceed the threshold, then you always have one net hit - i.e. weapons never even do their base damage, they always do one more. This is the defensive option. If you have to meet the threshold, then the "attacker wins", so it's a more lethal option. However, you are already making just hitting a LOT more difficult in this scenario.

So, overall, I would favour setting the new to default to MEETING the threshold, and simply doing that for the entire game.

2) Target size: A system like D&D would be more advisable, with fixed size categories. Basing it on body is... questionable, but possible. I don't think making trolls easier to hit is totally out of the line - they ARE. However, their advantages in that area aren't big enough - they need actual I/B armour for their thick skin.

3) Called Shots:
I think this is a fishy system, and completely removes the consistency you've just been trying to create. In a GAME environment, keeping this simple is important. You want exactly ONE mechanic to work in all cases. So I would use a simple calculatory system: For each +1 Threshold you circumvent X armour, or simply use the alternate system that was suggested here.

Now do understand how the numbers work, here:
+1 Threshold is -3 dice to the shooter, -1 armour is +0.33 DV. If you remove the numerical relation between them, (by basing the effect of a called shot completely on target armour) then the system is prone to become unbalanced.

I also think the division into regular/security/military doesn't work. If anything you have to base this on a recognized value within SR4 - which is device rating. So an R6 rigger vehicles is clearly security, if not military, while an R2 or R3 regular car is civilian. However, this does not translate to worn armour at all, which makes the system less consistent.

If you want a more detailed armour/called shot system, you have to use hit locations, armour based on aspect for vehicles, etc., and that's just a completely different game.

4) Attacker modifiers
These are mostly fine. Making vision magnification worse is a break from the way SR used to work, and SR4 already started this trend. You are now taking that to the next level. Now I think what SR always missed was a more detailed look at vision magnification:

Vision mag via a scope should be good vs stationary + slow-moving targets, but bad vs a running target.
Vision mag in cybereyes or googles alone shouldn't be useful for shooting at all, because you can now use neither iron-sights nor aim-dots.
Vision mag in cybereyes or googles connected to a smartlink system should be the best, because you can now follow targets as quickly as you can move your eyes, and you know exactly where you are shooting.

So I would differentiate those cases:
Scope: +1 per range category after a take aim action, and you lose lock when the target moves more than a meter or two in one IP(essentially, you can shoot once per IP).
Cyber/googles: nothing for shooting
Cyber/goggle+smart: negates range penalties (or gives at least +2 per range category) after a take aim action. You can maintain lock even on a moving target.

Bad stance: I have always disliked the penalty for shooting from cover. Seriously, most cover actually improves your shooting, because you can steady the weapon on whatever it is you are hiding behind. So the only downside to cover might be a reduced field of view, but then, that's a LOS thing - either you have it, or you don't. I would even go so far as to give +1 Recoil compensation (in addition to a possible bipod) to a shooter from cover, and +2 to a shooter from prone.
The other penalties for bad stance are ok, although I would go so far as to actually increase the maximum penalty to -6, with a few guidelines as to when they apply.

Recoil is missing. For simplicity's sake I would keep it as a normal dice pool modifier as before.

5) Take Aim and Smartlink are fine, I believe.

6) Revised scatter rules: these are a very good addition, and make a lot more sense than those from vanilla SR4, without adding TOO much complexity. I would add the following aspects:

Dropping prone next to ground-exploding weapons (such as timed grenades, impact grenades that explode on the ground, mortar bombs and artillery shells that explodes on the ground) effectively doubles scatter for that target alone. Being in a foxhole or trench quadrubles effective scatter if the weapon explodes outside of that entrenchment.

Airburst linked grenades or other munitions do not have this disadvantage.

Dodging and Thresholds

If you can always dodge AND the attacker has to hit a high threshold, then lethality of the game just went down significantly - to the point where a couple of poor shooters with heavy armour could shoot at each other for ages without doing any signicant damage, since net hits will be very low.

So I propose a simple solution: Dodging needs to meet a threshold, too.
Single fire weapons or narrow bursts create a threshold of 1
Short Wide Burst fire creates a threshold of 2
Long Wide bursts imcrease threshold to 3
Full-auto Wide bursts increase threshold to 4
Dodging explosive weapons can occur at a threshold of 2

Only NET hits over the threshold increase the shooter's threshold/remove net hits from the shooter. (But remember that I suggest letting 0 net hits be a hit.)

This means that wide bursts effectively drains 3 dice from the dodge test per increment.

Burst fire rules These could be revised as well in conjunction with the thresholds.

As a means of letting burst fire be less binary, I suggest the following:

Narrow bursts add one die to the attack test per round above the first, and increase DV by +1/three rounds
Wide bursts add no dice, but make dodging harder, as above.

Spirits and stuff

ItNW is now a KILLER. Spirits need to be toned down in force, or else the reduced net hits will mean guns are lately useless against them.

Isn't threshold+1 how the game already works, incidentally? That is, the guns never do their base damage, because you always have at least one net hit.

Yes, but guns are currently an opposed test, not a threshold based test, which is the difference.

I haven't had the time to read through this closely enough, but I thought this was still an opposed tests, with thresholds (they're not actually incompatible, though it does get complex). Just checking.

Brainpiercing - Great stuff!

1. Weapon Ranges
I think you take or leave this bit - YMMV. My own thinking is that the ranges are simply too freaking long, and it generally means that range never comes up. By shortening the ranges, it makes range a little more realistic and more of a factor in shootouts. But that's largely an issue of style. Heck, I don't care if you shorten the ranges are not - it's your game!

2. Threshold
Glad you like it. And you've (and Seerow) have convinced me: hit should be on meeting the threshold, not exceeding it. I will revise shortly.

3. Target Size
My intent is to go purely off target size categories, with the body ratings intended to provide a guideline for GMs. I obviously failed to communicate that.

4. Trolls
Yeah, the -1 threshold thing is a bit severe. Again, you and Seerow have convinced me. I think I'll make a note for GMs that cover should be a bit less...forgiving...for trolls. Maybe that will be a good balance.

5. Called Shots
I agree that a +X threshold for +X DV is a good gameplay compromise. My intent with the table was to provide a little extra simulation and cover those situations where the player is trying to find a weak spot on a tank vs. on a taxi. I was trying to get some element of weak-spot consideration with a little more fidelity, but not going to the armor facings level of detail. I'll have to noodle this some more. I don't like "dial-a-yield" called shot systems much, simply because in a lot of cases, there isn't a weak spot to aim for. I don't care how carefully you aim, and M1 Abrams is going to have a lot of armor between you and it's insides.

6. Scopes
My intention has been to make scopes and vision magnification quite a bit less useful than the baseline rules - I think they are seriously overpowered. Perhaps I've gone too far. Splitting out by magnification type (eyes vs. scope vs. goggles) is not a bad idea, but it's more simulation complexity than I think it's worth (and I'd think scopes would be more effective than eyes, but that's a purely theoretical debate). Perhaps +2 per range category overall?

7. Bad Stance and Cover
You know, I don't like the shooting from cover thing either. I think I'm going to get rid of it entirely, and leave it as a purely GM's call if the cover is such that a bad stance penalty should be applied.

8. Recoil & Bursts
I've not mentioned recoil, as I think the existing rules work just fine. Ditto for automatic weapons fire. I should mention that explicitly.

9. Scatter
Glad you like them. Good idea on the dropping prone thing against grenades on the ground. A simple rule, and provides a good level of simulation.

10. Dodging and Thresholds
Yeap, it does make the game a lot less lethal...or, there's a lot more lead in the air per dead body. Which, again, is an improvement in simulation, in my opinion. Most real-world shoot-outs have a lot more misses than hits, from what I've read.

On the hand, dang it! I should have thought to do Reaction/Dodge thresholds! I'm going to have to add that in. Mind if I steal your work as a starting point? I think I might go with single shots/narrow bursts have no threshold, wide shorts have 1, wide longs have 2 and wide full autos have 3. That works out to 0, 3, 6 and 9 die penalties, which is close to SR4A. Excess hits reduce the net hits of the attacker, who still succeeds on 0 net hits.

11. Magic
One thing I like about this system is that it works for direct and indirect combat spells as well. It's always bothered me that range isn't an issue at all for mages, and this could at least make it something of a problem. Use sporting rifle ranges or some such and voila! I'll have to add that in.

12. Spirits
Good point. Mind you, ItNW is already killer strong, and results in a brittleness problem (once you manage to pierce the Hardened Armor rating, they tend to take massive damage) - but that's another new house rule to think about. I think it might be as simple as saying the value is only 1.5x the magic rating.

Good stuff! Revised version in a couple of days.

I see your point on the weak point idea for called shots. Hmmm...

I've always found the normal vanilla called shot for +4DV to be enough to justify the "weak point" requirement - after all, that's the only logical explanation, and it works throughout the game. It's a very lethal option, because you gain a huge amount of DV for a comparatively small cut to your DP, but... at least with near parity of attacker vs defender dice pools, there is an increased chance of missing added in - and it takes an important, limited type of action.

I'm not sure, I would have to think more about this. As it is, you can already target specific systems on vehicles - for instance, wheels, windows, sensors, etc. Also, simply spraying a vehicle with full-auto narrow bursts is likely to kill everyone inside, due to the weird system of vehicle combat. Which leads me to... the next thing that desperately needs revision, in my opinion .

I'd like to see the problem of full auto vs multiple passes addressed...particularly suppressing fire. Why does wired reflexes make the street sam's ingram fire with 4 times the fire rate of the unaugmented face? I've thought about ways to fix it, but it would require a potentially drastic change to the current system.

I would say that it doesn't. If it is a sticking point, then set Suppressive Fire to function for a full Turn. At that point, Your 4 IP Sam wants to use Suppressive Fire, he does so his entire Turn, Nullifying his normal number of IP's. Problem Solved. No new rules involved.

On the issue of magic, since direct combat spells don't really need an attack roll how exactly are they changed? Would it just be the threshold modifiers for cover?

Hmmm, that makes it even more lacklustre than it is now. Granted, I think suppressive fire SHOULD be a tactic for all those people who can't do snap-shots with pinpoint accuracy. However, its value in tactical situations is very limited.

I would love to see a rule that actually improves its use - which must be limiting mobility and the ability to counter-attack for the enemy, and ensuring tactical mobility for allies.

So... this is my take:

Suppressive Fire

Suppressing an enemy means forcing him to hunker down behind cover, enabling your own troops to advance to a more advantageous position. In order to suppress an enemy, a single shooter has to lay down a full burst of full-auto fire within a cone with a maximum base width of five meters. The shooter rolls an attack roll against the regular threshold for the distance of the cone base, with the usual modifiers, the result of which is left lying openly or noted. Anybody within or entering the area of fire must dodge against that attack roll with either reaction or edge (whichever is higher), or drop prone, respectively find full cover. He must repeat this for every meter of a suppressive fire zone he crosses in any manner other than crawling. If he fails to dodge, he takes damage equal to the base damage of the weapon plus the net hits of the attacker. Whether he dodges or not, any actions undertaken from within the suppressed zone - including going into full-defense - incur a dice pool penalty equal to the hits on the attack roll (=total hits minus threshold).
Several shooters can lay down covering fire with semi-automatic or burst fire weapons. The general rule is that each shooter can influence one meter of the cone base per two rounds or single short burst fired in one IP. So a semiautomatic shooter can suppress a cone with a base width of one meter, a burst fire shooter can suppress a cone with a two-meter base.

It is possible to contract the suppressive fire zone: By voluntarily halfling the witdth of the cone base, dodging character receive a threshold of 1 to dodge.

It is possible to suppress a terrain feature, too, as long as it is not larger than the cone that could be suppressed. For instance, characters advancing down a corridor could suppress the corner where an enemy might be hiding. Anybody peaking out from behind the corner would have to dodge or take damage, and incur a penalty for returning fire. If the area suppressed is sufficiently small, this automatically acts as a contracted suppressive fire zone.

Several people can work together to create overlapping zones. In this case, their hits on the attack rolls are added together against the dodge roll and for the penalty a victim must incur. The victim only takes damage once per instance.

Using Suppressive Fire is a complex action, and fills up the entire time until the shooter's next IP. The shooter has to spend ammunition for each actual IP cycle of the combat turn, even if he himself has no more actions. (So a 1IP shooter using suppressive fire on his IP in a turn with 4IPs uses 40 rounds for full auto fire.) Essentially, it allows attacking people out of turn.

Suppressive Fire can be interrupted by forcing the shooter into full defense or full cover.

Example:

The problem isn't just with Suppresive fire...its full auto period.

How does having 4 IP vs 1 IP allow a Samurai to shoot 4 times as many bullets (using 4 full bursts) compared to a the 1 IP Face (1 full burst)...they are both just holding down the trigger...I don't remember how long a full Turn is supposed to be in SR....3 seconds? so a Face doing Full burst only holds the trigger for .75 seconds through the whole turn and the sam (by virtue of super wired reflexes) can hold down that trigger for a full 3 seconds....

doesn't make any sense at all...

short burst is a little less rediculous, but still is...

I think firing modes should be limited to a specific rate of fire per turn, but allow those with more IPs to place their shots more accurately....

perhaps something like, the face with a full auto SMG would get 1 full burst that would deal 5 (+9 burst damage)

whereas, the 4 IP sam would be able to split that up as he wants over 4 IPs and each time get 1 full bullet's worth of damage and add any extras as burst damage...for example: (i'm assuming full burst fires 10 bullets because i havn't played SR in about 6 months and can't remember the actual amount off the top of my head)
1 - 3 bullets - 5+2 burst
2 - 3 bullets - 5+2 burst
3 - 2 bullets - 5+1 burst
4 - 2 bullets - 5+1 burst

The problem with this is it does result in BF being far superior to FA.


If you want to make it more realistic, instead make FA allow extra attacks on phases you normally don't get an IP, with a penalty if you didn't have an IP that pass. A heavy one, like -10 DP modifier. Or you get the dice pool from however many passes you have normally to split up among all 4 passes. (like say you have a dicepool of 14, and 2 IPs. You full auto, now you have 28 dice to use over 4 IPs, so you can have 10 dice in 2 passes and 4 dice in 2 others, or 7 dice in each pass, or 14 in 2 passes and none in the last 2 (ie you just shoot wildly wasting bullets those passes)

Two things:

1) Vision Magnification should reduce distances by 1 category rather than being all or nothing. This means that you're still taking penalties for those long range shots, they don't automatically become close range.

2) I dislike headshots, it's a move back towards SR3 where everyone took "called shots to the eye" because "it has no armor." I'd prefer it based on armor values and each +1 TH or -1 DP counter some X value of armor (vehicular armor having its own separate X value).

I'll keep pondering suggestions, and look at possible fixes with my regular group tomorrow. In the meantime:

1. The Full Auto Problem.
I actually don't think this is that much of a problem. A real automatic weapon will empty the clip in <3 seconds, so I figure it's a matter of control - if you have multiple passes, you are able to control the weapon better, so you can fire more rounds without them going completely wild. The poor saps with one pass don't hold down the trigger the whole time - they let go after a dozen rounds as the weapon is going all squirrelly on them.

Yeah, it's a kludge, and doesn't work if you think too much about it...but there's all sorts of problems with multiple initiative passes. You have to just live with it at some point and not get to wrapped up in it. Yes, I know that's rich coming from me, but considering that I used to play a lot of Advanced Squad Leader, I think I'm doing pretty well overall.

2. Suppressive Fire
I actually think the suppressive fire rule works pretty well, but Brainpiercing's idea of applying a threshold or penalty to any actions while in the area are a great idea. For the sake of simplicity, I think I'd go with simply having a penalty of net attacker hits to any action's dice pool while being shot at - but that may actually be too much. Plus, shadowrunners are supposed to be cool under fire, etc. I'm going to have to noodle it. Personally, I think the risk of getting shot should be enough to keep their heads down.

3. Scopes (Revisited, Again)
Draco - I think my system effectively does that - it reduce by one category. I've added the additional +1 die per rating to give bonus to having really good optics.

4. Headshots/Called Shots
I tend to agree with Draco that I don't like called shots much either - I think I may drop that specific bit.

I've been away for a week, so sorry for the late reply/early necro .



It's the way I rationalise it, too.

Well, unless you are suppressing at a very high DP, you simply aren't going to do a lot with it under the current rules. The only benefit right now seems to be the penalty to dodge. Now with high damage explosive weapons, as with the rules from WAR, suppressing might work using the RAW, but I still think the tactical benefit is rather too weak. Maybe I'm just not using it right, though.

I still think a penalty to all actions is better. However, my system could end up really powerful, to the point that who suppresses first wins. I would have to playtest that, or at least do a few more thought experiments.

One quick concern/issue that I wanted to point out with Runner Smurf's proposed changes...

While threshold modifiers rather than dicepool modifiers serve the purpose of making such modifiers meaningful (or at least, more meaningful) as dicepools get progressively larger, there is one mechanical effect that no one has called out yet. Perhaps there's an existing rule that I'm unaware of, but here goes.

When using negative dicepool modifiers, reducing the number of dice to 0 or less does not render the action in question impossible. If memory serves, there's a rule on the books that allows the character to expend and roll edge, and an optional rule to limit the number of Edge dice (relative to the penalty). Generally, you get into very-unlikely-but-never-impossible territory.

Using threshold modifers, there is no way (that I am aware of), for a player to succeed at a task if their dicepool is less than the threshold. In other words, a character with a dicepool of 1 can simply never succeed on test with a threshold of 2. Full stop. They simply auto-fail.

Where this becomes troubling (at least for me), is that a character with a low dicepool potentially cannot succeed on shots in the long/extreme ranges. That one-in-a-million shot becomes simply impossible.

I mention this simply because going back to previous editions of Shadowrun, a long-standing GM rule has been "never say no, just provide a ridiculous TN." Most of the time, the player will fail. It's that rare occasion where they pull it off that provides a great deal of excitement and memories. Now granted, the fixed-TN of SR4 complicates this. Since we're in houserule territory already, it may be as simple as creating a houserule allowing a player to apply Edge to that situation as well...but it's still something that I just wanted to bubble-up for consideration.

Well what dice pool do you consider low, and how high a target number are you talking?


Because no, I don't care how lucky that mage is, if he has 2 agility and no gun skill, and tries to fire a sniper at someone 1000 meters away, he's going to fail.


On the other hand, someone with a relatively low dice pool. An average joe with say 3 agility, 3 skill and smart link) has 8 dice to roll. Even before throwing in edge, that's enough to possibly hit any target number RS set. (Extreme range +3, target moving eratically at >200 meters +3, target the size of a CD +2, total target number: 8. He can't hit the micro target, or succeed on a called shot while making his shot, without spending edge. While spending edge, he can succeed even on the micro target, and possibly on the called shot depending on armor. Mind you none of these shots are particularly likely, and he is going to fail most of the time. But you just want a one-in-a-million shot, which is wholly possible here.


Actually, if the mage had enough edge, he could conceivably hit an erratically moving medium size target while edging at that range with a lucky shot, which is pretty impressive.

I'm specifically thinking of dicepools in the 1-4 range. Let's leave Smartlinks and other weapon modifiers out of it and just consider a player character, the weapon, and the rules.

At extreme range, a player has a threshold of 4, which can be reduced to 3 by Taking Aim. If the dicepool is 1-2, the player cannot succeed. Ever. No amount of Edge, fluke luck, or chanting "Big Money" can change that.

I understand that such a shot is highly improbable. I question the design that makes it simply impossible. It may be that Runner Smurf can address this by another houserule allowing the use of Edge in that case. I just wanted to point out that this could happen, and a dicepool of 3 becomes the equivalent of "you MUST be this tall to shoot things far away."

Um. Roll with edge?

Said shot SHOULD be impossible. You're talking about an untrained person with 3 agility, and not using even a scope, smartgun, or other targeting system.

Yes it SHOULD require some training and/or preparation to be able to hit a target at extreme range.

Also, as Draco said, use edge. Right now with your dicepool of 2, extreme range gives you a -1 dice pool. So you have to edge to be able to roll on that.

Two things:

1) Draco actually raises an excellent point. Now that I'm off work and have my books, I can see that I was conflating part of using Edge with part of the Longshot rules. So from a mathematical perspective, that can be solved. It does some funny things with the numbers (where certain cases flip from have a probability of 0% to instantly having a probability greater than 50%), but hey, that's Edge for you. So thank you Draco, and I'll happily concede that point.

2) I probably should just leave it at that, but I want to again just challenge your claim that "said shot SHOULD be impossible." It really shouldn't be. Let's illustrate this. A person with STR 1, AGI 1, and ARCHERY 1 starts taking pot shots at a human-sized target 16 meters away. In other words, we've got a kid on their first day of camp, and that's being generous. Under the proposed rules by Runner Smurf, that child CANNOT hit the target without spending edge (dicepool of 2, threshold of 4, -1 threshold for taking aim). The problem with this is that kids hit that ALL DAY LONG. We usually start them around the 20m mark, and walk them back from there. I've seen kids on their first day put anywhere from 10% to 50% of their arrows into targets at 30m and 40m.

If you'd rather do firearms and abstract it, then let's use a dicepool of 2, a light pistol, and a human-sized target 16m away. Again, this is technically impossible (same math as before), but people hit it ALL THE TIME.

Now I understand that we're dealing with abstracts here, and trying too hard to apply real-life to SR4A is going to result in headaches all around. Rather, the issue as I see it is this:

1) By switching from dicepool modifiers to threshold modifiers, you are basically changing -1 modifer to a -2 to -4 modifer for most of the expected values that you'll see in Shadowrun. This works great given the power creep that any game experiences over time, where "average" dicepools can double or triple depending how far along the splatbook publication cycle you are. Runner Smurf proposed a rather elegant solution for dealing with that, and deserves credit.

2) The problem is that just like dicepools struggle with meaningful granularity on the high end (and actually on the non-negative low-end as well), the threshold system struggles with meaningful granularity on the low end as well. As I've shown, things that you say are "impossible" actually happen (and SHOULD happen) a statistically-significant portion of the time. That may not even be the majority of the time, but when things that previously had a likeihood of 30% to 40% now have a likelihood of "no," you have an issue. When that issue arises in something as commonplace as combat, that requires a long, hard look.

3) Under Runner Smurf's rules, the problem is compounded by halving the ranges. That means that you are now encountering threshold modifiers twice as fast. The problem arises that you have a arbitrary "cliff" on the border between long and extreme, and you have another mathematical "cliff" where total dicepool is less than required threshold.

There are ways to smooth that out: you could revise the ranges to remove that long/extreme cliff, or you could make Take Aim continue to reduce the threshold beyond the first use. I'm sure there are other possibilities as well.

If you wanted to, you could even just ignore the problem, and for a number of tables it might not matter at all. If your characters have larger dicepools, and you don't mind low-attribute, low-skill people being no threat instead of minimal threat in certain situations, it's fine. And honestly, I could see a number of groups doing that, since the proposed changes would solve more problems than they cause, or solve more relevant problems than they cause. However, there are still times where it will produce undesirable and ridiculous results, even if those times don't crop up at the power level of most games.

You're simply going to lose a certain amount of granularity with reasonable sizes of d6 dicepools. That's how it is. :/

Without even getting into what "reasonable" means, sure. But to try to point this out again, it's one thing to lose "granularity," assuming you define that as the range of the probabilities. You can see this at the lowest end of the current system for non-negative dicepools. If you have even one die left, you've got a 33% shot. I'm not thrilled about that, and I doubt most GM's are either.

It's something else entirely when losing "granularity" means that things which really should be unlikely (or even probable given enough attempts at reproducing it) automatically become impossible. And THAT is the problem that lives on the corner of threshold modifers and small dicepools.

Average person is 3 in all stats. Str 1 agi 1 is a gimp. He finds it nearly impossible to lift more than 30 pounds. He can barely get out of bed without tripping over himself. I mean if you REALLY want to get into it, by RAW your 1 str kid can't even draw the weakest bow in the books, it only goes down to 2. But anyway, bump that kid up to 3 agility, and suddenly he's rolling 4 dice. It's a nonmoving human sized target 20 meters away (range increment is 20 meters, so that's in short range if barely), so the threshold is 0. He hits a bit over 50% of the time. I'm not sure where you got that threshold of 4 from. Move that dummy back to the 40 meter mark you specify at the extreme range, and now you're 1 range increment out. That ups the threshold by 1. Still a threshold 1 test so he still hits about over 50% of the time since the only difference in threshold 0 and threshold 1 is 1 damage. If you instead assume a base threshold of 1 exists, will now you have a threshold 2, and the kid will still hit that fairly regularly with his 4 dice.



Prove it. Find someone of average agility who has never held a firearm in their life, and tell them to shoot something 45 feet away. Only let them take the one shot, then you have to find someone else who's never shot a pistol. See how long it takes to find someone who hits that target first try. (If you let them fire indefinitely, they'll eventually have the equivalent of skill rating 1 and suddenly have 4 dice to throw at it)

People who are skilled hit it all the time.





Most importantly, you design the system to work around where it is intended to work. The game really really is not intended to work at dicepools in the 2-4 range. Even the most low powered character you find are going to have a dicepool of at least 6-8 in a skill they bother trying to use. Anything lower than that, and that's what they have teammates for. if they expect to shoot a gun, you can guarantee they will have enough skill and/or agility and/or other modifiers to roll at least that many dice. Seriously, the game not working well at low dice pools is nothing new. As it is, in game if a character has a dice pool of 2 to shoot, he probably has something more useful to do than shooting. He will either cast a spell, or be busy hacking, possibly hacking some other gun to shoot for him. Trying to say a system is bad because your physically crippled character who has no training whatsoever using firearms can no longer make a one in a million shot is not a valid argument. It seriously isn't.

Human sized target 30 feet away? I did it.

Hell, first time on the firing range (admittedly we're talking .22 rifles here) I was getting shots within a foot of each other at a range of...oh, 30 to 45 feet?

That is, of my first 10 bullets ever fired, most--if not all--of them hit the target (a sheet of paper about 12" square). Almost every boy scout manages to get one bullet (of 10) on the target their first time on the range and I'm pretty sure we can consider 11 year old kids to be "Agility 2, Skill 0," tops.

One year (mind, I only ever used guns at summer camp, so Skill Rust applies) I managed to get all 10 shots to fit under a quarter.

Another time I managed to use a bow and arrow supremely well (range of 30 feet). First time ever, did better than one of the instructors (who was using a compound bow with a scope--admittedly it wasn't adjusted properly and he missed two shots (at a range of about 10 feet, I might add) and had to buy me a drink).

Edit:
Oh yeah. "Untrained" in a skill isn't "never used a gun, ever ever ever." That's Incompetent. Skill 0 is "held a gun, maybe fired it a few times, no real training or experience."

You just said it was a Rifle. We're talking a light pistol. 30-45 feet is short range for a rifle, but long range for a pistol (extreme range by the rules Runner Smurf put forth, but I don't necessarily agree with that). So it's either a 1/36 shot, or a impossible shot without edge, depending on which range your looking at, but an easy shot for a rifle regardless.



Again, within short range so within range of possibility with the rules as presented.


I may also add if you're that competent as a baseline with no training with these various firearms, you may have an above average (say 4 or 5) agility.

I'm not sure if I'm not being clear, or if you just love to provide arguments and counter-examples for points I'm not making.

First of all, attributes of 1 denote...not connote...denote...a character who is "weak." Not a "gimp." And another way to express their strength of 1 would be to say that they can lift 30 pounds with no test whatsoever. All day. Wheeeee.

I don't know where you get the rule that all bows have a STR minimum of 2...I don't see that in my copy of SR4A in either the combat or gear chapter. Maybe it's somewhere else? And thanks, but let's NOT arbitrarily inflate the imaginary kid's attributes so that the math works better for your strawman arguments. Under the revised range tables proposed by Runner Smurf (remember, all ranges except Extreme are halved), Extreme Range begins at 16m for a STR 1 bow, or 31M for a STR 2 bow. The default threshold for success is 1, +3 for being Extreme, -1 for taking aim. Our kid needs 3 successes, but can only roll 2 dice. If you don't bring Edge into it, he will never hit that target. Given infinite time and attempts, he will still never hit it.

You actually hit on the issue when you respond to the pistols example. Letting people take "only one shot" has nothing to do with it, because the more shots they take, the more likely they are to hit it. Yes, people are are skilled hit what they're aiming at quite often. And people who are incredibly unskilled hit it sooner or later as well. Millions of monkeys and all that rot. If you want a system that approximates that specific aspect of reality, the proposed houserules currently fail to meet that design goal.

And despite what you say, low dicepools are the issue here. I've already raised the caveat that the higher the value of the dicepools in question, the more of a non-issue this becomes. That was MY point remember? I'm simply pointing out that while the official ruleset has a statistical plateau on the high end...with a dicepool of 20, losing 40% of your dice doesn't even move the needle 1%...the proposed ruleset has a statistical cliff on the low end.

You don't have to care, because it might not ever affect you. Again, I already brought that up. But Runner Smurf asked for feedback, and that's what I offered. You can toss around pejoritive synonyms for cripples, move the goalposts, put words in my mouth I never used (I believe my term for his system was "elegant," not "bad") and propose unrelated hypotheticals, but it doesn't change the numbers.

I'm going to take a break because this honestly isn't worth any more discussion, and I have no clue why you're getting so wound up over this. If your games never include situations where this could come up, you don't need to care. But if you're modeling (N)PCs who are anything from "weak" and a "beginner" to "average" and "untrained," there are issues with the way the probability curves play out. If you are modelling (N)PCS who have access to significantly higher dice pools, the problem goes away. It's not personal, it's just math.

I realize that the argument has moved away from this point already, but I haven't been on the boards for a few days and wanted to add something to the stew.

As far as firing more bullets in a 4 IPs vs 1 IP: Why not add a maximum rate of fire stat to automatic weapons? A character with multiple IPs can divide up how many rounds they can suppress with based on how many passes they have; like movement speed.

I still think that a 10 round burst is the most 'controlled' shot you can make in a single pass, so that wouldn't have to change.

1) If your problem is the range increments, I'm with you on that. Using normal range increments, pretty much every shot you described is more or less doable. Like I've said before, I don't agree with everything RS has done here, however the majority of your arguments seem to be a bias against a threshold based system, which I disagree with.

2) I'm assuming an average individual as opposed to someone who is far below average. And yes, if 6 represents the peak of physical conditioning while a 3 is average, then a 1 is pretty gimp. And yes, the character with 1 strength will almost never pick up more than that 30 pounds, because he rolls a strength+body check to try to pick up more. Good luck getting hits on that with your 1s across the board.

3) The minimum strength I think came in the same errata that had the maximum strength cap for bows. I could be wrong on there being a minimum strength 2, but I'm pretty sure it is there.

4) If someone is naturally unsuited for something, has put no effort into training for something, then yes, they should need a lot of luck to be able to succeed at it. That is what edge is for. If you don't have enough edge to make up the difference and get that lucky roll, well that sucks. You've already said you don't like the current system where if someone has a single die they have a 33% chance of hitting, so basically I'm not seeing a solution that WOULD please you, unless we went back to 3rd edition style TNs, where the TN for such a shot might be 14 with only a single die to roll, but you have a small chance of making it. And while that may be better to represent statistical anomalies, it really is worse at just about everything else.

5) Your average joe untrained guy shouldn't be getting involved in your firefights. On the rare occasion it comes up (say he's an abduction target and happens to carry one around with him despite never training with it) and he finds that he can't actually hit someone who's not in his face.. is that really such a bad thing? If it really matters THAT much to you, a house rule of something like if after spending edge you still don't have enough dice to potentially hit the target number you need, you can make a straight up edge test, threshold 2 (or 3 depending on how hard you want it to be, 2 is enough to make it unlikely but possible for all but the luckiest people), to succeed. This would more or less replicate the effects of the rule that you are missing.

6) If you REALLY want some sort of simulationist "The longer you shoot at the same unmoving target the more likely you are to eventually hit it" test, to simulate the 12 year old shooting his bow or the guy going to the firing range with his pistol, you can allow aiming bonuses to stack one higher for every 2 shots you take at the target, but only allow it on stationary targets such as target dummies. Now you can simulate these guys hitting stuff on the range after firing a few shots while still being totally bewildered (as they should be) in a real fire fight. But once again, this is something that doesn't matter because it shouldn't realistically come up in a real game session. It's just an extra useless rule to make you feel better about the game working like the real world.

7) It is worth noting, what you are asking for is for untrained, unskilled people with no natural aptitude towards the task at hand to be able to succeed at that task. Consider the equivalent in a different field: Would you expect a average joe with no computer skills, 3 logic, a normal commlink with no illegal programs to be able to hack a corporate database by sheer luck? Would you expect same average joe with 3 logic and no mechanic skill to be able to go out back, kick his car, and it magically starts up? Because if you want hard things to be doable for anyone with shooting, the same thing should apply to everything else, and it really doesn't.

Too many things have been said to quote easily, so I'll try to thow in another 2 cents just like this:

The threshold problem and low dice pools:

Really, I don't see it. Average people are not affected by this problem. An average person defaulting on a skill has 2 dice, yes, that makes certain tasks statisitically impossible. Even worse, it makes glitches so probable that this guy will be hurting himself half the time he tried. That's a basice problem of the basic dice rules. Quarrelling about whether thresholds make the system worse when the base system is already so bad is really besides the point. The threshold system makes the game better for the majority of the cases.

The highly improbable thing can also simply be handwaved: You are watching a group of kids trying to hit a target. Now they are attempting many tests with a statistical probability of zero, and I would simply say: Rules MAKE the game world. So these kids actually NEVER do hit the target. However, if you think that rules only approximate the world, and you want things to be more like real life, then there is some wiggle room, you can handwave that. There is no relevance to these tests, so you might as well just say that they hit every 10th or 20th try.

A character trying to make a long-shot test will just have to pre-roll edge to succeed, and in this case, he CAN! When it's a relevant test then there is always a probability. Of course he can't try this indefinitely, and here the game just doesn't do very well at simulating the real world, but guess what, it's not supposed to.

I have another solution, which is well in line with the extent of the changes suggested by RS:

Return to exploding 6s by default. With the changes imposed by RS' rules, you have significantly decreased chances of hitting, so you might as well up them again a bit, to increase the randomness of the game. Now there is always a fairly slim chance of a total wimp making extreme tests. The chance is larger than I'd like it to be, because now a threshold of 2 with one die is just a 1/36th to make, but... there you have it. Your cliff is gone.

You might consider going back to surpassing thresholds then, instead of meeting them.

This makes long shots a lot more likely, and entirely removes statistical cliffs. It devalues edge, at least pre-roll edge, sure enough, but you can easily come up with something that increases its value again, or simply live with the fact that life got worse for runners...

I'll find a firing range somewhere then that'll let me fire a pistol.
(someday, eventually, not soon)



Short range for a simple (not compound) bow? That has a mere 100 pound draw? (i.e. one that an 11 year old boy can pull, albeit with difficulty?)



Unlikely.
What else is Agility linked...that isn't a combat skill?
Not much. The only other example I could even use is Unarmed Combat, unfortunately I had several years training in Karate (not that I remember any of it at this point).
Forgery: I used tracing paper?
Gymnastics: Never did any. Maybe some balance beam work, but everyone who isn't a complete klutz (or drunk) can balance on a beam 4 inches wide.
Palming: Never tried it? I don't even know how I would gauge success.

Anyway, point is. I'm not a physically active person. I'm a programmer and always have been.