Per the GEAR chapter though, an out-of-the-box grenade could be any of those options. However, in the COMBAT chapter, the rules only explicitly deal with timed triggers. The rules for the other two are flat-out missing, even though the items clearly exist.

Getting slightly into the realm of supposition, but well within the-rules-lay-out-the-logic-for-this territory, presumably an impact grenade would simply detonate at the end of the action used to throw it, and a wireless grenade would detonate as a result of the Free Action "Change Linked Device Mode."

Timed grenades really are best used for situations that call for wild-eyed schemes: "I don't want this to explode on impact, because I'm going to bounce it around a corner" or "I drop a timed grenade and run."

Exactly, that's what I'm saying: the rules fail to satisfactorily deal with grenades either way (too many options, too few options). Just another thing for us to fix.

Re: Wireless activated grenades, I'd be scared to death of using those for fear of a hacker noticing them and detonating them while I carry them. Unless that is you want to spend an extra action activating the wireless before throwing the wireless grenade. Either way, not quite as simple as the straight up timed grenade.

Errr why wouldn't it be? Pull pin, wireless activates.

Use Strong Encryption. But the point is that there are all kinds of crazy options that both exist and don't exist in the rules, *and* they don't cost more (if they exist).

Oh hey, I spy another overpowered option that should never have been made. Unless you want to make hacking literally useless because everybody has everything strong encrypted and changes the encryption in 12 hour intervals. Or even 6 hour intervals if you want to play it really safe.

And the beauty of that is that if there's a hacker waiting for that, and if the hacker notices, and if there's a mechanic to deal with it, the hacker could exploit that very narrow window of opportunity to detonate it.

Which should totally happen. Because it is awesome. *grins*

EDIT: Sorry, should have been clearer. Presumably our hypothetical hacker is using a Delayed Action.

Hell, Seerow, use *normal* encryption. There's no way they can crack it in the time it takes you to throw the grenade.

So what would you suggest as a way to reduce the effectiveness of wireless detonation?

If you have a 6 hour Interval, it will be perpetually Encrypting. With 6 hours as your Increment, it takes 6 hours to actually encrypt the data, and then it starts over. Seems like a waste. Strong Encryption is a useful idea, it is just that everyone will not do so, because it is tedious. Ease of use is the mantra. A 6 hour encryption time does not promote ease of use.

I like Strong encryption for certain areas, where it makes sense. The other encryption scheme is also entertaining. Combine them both for extra goodness on those things that you want to take loads of time to have decrypted without the Key. Makes having an encryption key something to acquire before the run, if possible.

No, you misunderstand me. You spend 24 hours setting up a strong encryption with a 24 hour interval. Then every 6 hours, you spend a single complex action to encrypt on the fly, which increases the threshold for any currently active decryption attempts by your hits. (The section on encrypting on the fly is literally on the same page as strong encryption with no exception saying it takes longer for a strong encryption, or isn't possible for strong encryption.). So now anyone trying to decrypt your stuff has a interval of 24 hours, and that threshold requires 4 times per interval. Even if they are going fast (spending an edge, rushing the job) the threshold is increased every time they make a check. And if you know someone is decrypting you can do it more often, you have a minimum of 7200 complex actions per 6 hours, that's a huge action advantage.

Well, if I had my way with the Matrix rules, wireless encryption couldn't be defeated without gaining physical access to one of the devices.

I would not keep adding your hits, though, I would add the highest. Besides, with a 24 Hour Encryption Scheme (Strong), Dynamic Encryption is not really going to matter much. Just unhook the Server from the Matrix (Remove Wireless - Changed Linked Device Mode). That likely just takes a switch of a lever (or a thought), if you set it up correctly.

What, all in one IP?



Anyway, there's a simple reason I love wifi grenades: Bust-a-Move dolls/drones!

Hordes of teddy bears with Cute Looks as a built-in mod, all carrying grenades, whimpering "I wuv you!", shambling towards your enemies.

I'm pretty sure Strong Encryption *is* specifically incompatible with Dynamic Encryption, but I'll recheck. Anyway, my point is that it doesn't matter; regular encryption is plenty for 1 IP. Whatever kind you used, you'd encrypt them and then disconnect, and then 'pull the pin' as Lurker said.

Found it: "Dynamic encryption is not compatible with strong encryption." Literally on the same page.

You mean how to prevent wireless-detonation from becoming the best of all possible worlds?

Jamming.

There we go... Guess I remembered Wrong. That should teach me to look it up before commenting.

Y'know, I read that section, thought it was stupid that they were compatible. Showed it to my GM, he read it and also thought it was stupid. I even posted about it on the forum here at some other point and nobody called me on it, and a couple people even agreed it was a known issue that was stupid.

What I'm saying is, that's apparently a very easy to miss line at the end of that section. Also I need to increase my perception skill.



But should people on both sides really be expected to be jamming everything all the time when they're on a run? I can count the number of times I've seen jamming in play on one hand. Nevermind how easy it is for a player to basically make jamming obsolete with ECCM and a decent signal.

Under vanilla SR4A...probably not. We use a modified version of EOTM though, so it happens quite a bit more often than it would under typical conditions.

Also, jamming is one of those things that is quite the under-utilized trick, especially given the state of the world as described in Shadowrun. Personally I'd like to see it happen more often, if only because it implicitly gets players to start thinking along Plan A -> Plan B -> Plan C lines, and that adds to the fun-factor.

I guess i'm of the opinion that grenades should be both effective and deadly, under just the timed detonation rules they are not nearly that, too much opportunity to clear the area, I guess it's good for game balance, but the game balance to them in my mind should be they are grenades, their not standard street carry gear.

Honestly, jamming is so 'magic' and silly in SR4 that you'd expect every corpsec to use powerful jammers at all times. It's trivial to exclude yourself and all your friends, after all; anyone not on the list is a bad guy. But, luckily there's still timed, impact, and airburst.

I dunno, Lurker. You simply can't move *that* far, even if you notice the grenade in the first place (ignoring impact and airburst, of course). It's true that 2070 armor has advanced faster than 2070 grenades (except for the fact that microgrenades are as strong as the macro kind, bleh).

Well. It is not even possible in other systems. And honestly I have to say, that I can't remember any game, where I needes to know where exactly a person was standing, while an other person was acting.

Leading to the proplem I mentioned in the post before.

So do it whit others. There won't be a problem.




Easy, because it is written down. Yes, you would need 5 to 10 sec. I do not see a problem here. Yes it is more calculation but most of the calculation is done when the combat starts. (Screw the stupid varible INI and it is done once, when the session starts)

G4 can just write it down on his paper. If I, as a GM come prepared I copy those notes. I need to do it anyway, because I need the INI and the passes. And if I am writing down 2 numbers or 1-4 per player, really does not matter.


No, I just used those numbers. They may have the same or anything.

It is a simulation like approach. It is a bit more complicated to execute than the normal shadowrun approach but still easier than any other approach given here. (With the exception of the frontloaded approach (4-3-2-1 instead of 1-2-3-4)

I mean the pyramid-approach lets you go crazy as soon as you have more than 3 characters (with different IPs) taking part in combat.
Your approach lets guys with less than 4 IPs go twice or even tribble the way in their last action.

@JesterZero
I guess jamming is just to darn powerfull to be used by GMs often.
If I remember correctly it disables drones, tacnet, communication, hacking etc.
So actually anything short of magic and guns.

I'm not sure if "any game" here refers to any game, or any Shadowrun game. I can think of several games where knowing where someone is standing is rather important, but they all tend to be far more mechanically tactical than Shadowrun. I would agree with you that that sort of issue doesn't come up often (if at all) in our Shadowrun games.

Well, it's slightly worse than that. Under rules-as-written, jamming is simultaneously both too powerful (in that there are insufficient downsides to explain why corporations don't use it all the time, as mentioned above), and too weak, since it tends to lose the arms race to a sufficiently skilled user with ECCM.

You probably missed my comment where I mentioned we use EOTM, which doesn't use the SR4A jamming rules. Without derailing the conversation, under those rules jamming is more akin to background count than it is to a magical "Hacking = No" button. That explains (among other things) why corporations aren't deploying them willy-nilly, because they would bring down their own networks if deployed indiscriminately.

In general I'm not a fan of anything in SR4A that allows a character to essentially opt-out of consequences while simultaneously retaining all benefits. If you're desperate enough to deploy a solution that ruins a lot of peoples day (grenades, mana static, area jamming) then it's going to ruin your day as well. If you weren't that desperate, you should have deployed a more targeted solution.

@JesterZero

I meant any any game. But I guess thats going too far. It is not about where somebody is standing, but to determin how he moved from position A to position B. Mostly it is assumed they "teleport" anyway.


I have to look it up, but I thought you would need ECCM for any connection you have. You may end up with an extra commlink running only ECCM.

So none of the situations I pointed out have ever come up in your games? Nobody has been on the edge of short and medium range and it was important to know if they crossed that threshold? Nobody's ever used melee combat and needed to know if they could get into melee range for their turn?

Maybe you're confusing what I think is needed, and think your crazy "my initiative count divided by your initiative count to find out how far you've gotten at this point" is what I want. I'm going to clarify I don't think it needs to be anything THAT specific. The ONLY thing I have said should happen is that movement should happen every pass regardless of if somebody has an action or not, so you don't have weird things like a low IP person moving further in an IP than a high IP person. This really isn't a change but is something already in the damn rules



What problem? The only problems I've seen you point out have been addressed, and mostly come from your completely misunderstanding what is being said.



There won't be a problem, the system still technically works. It however fails to give any meaningful benefit despite being more complex. Introducing complexity for the sake of complexity so that something might change one time out of a hundred really isn't worth it.


Look at it this way, you have your guy with 15init, and guy with 12 init. Both have 4 IPs:

15-guy1
12-guy2
7-guy1
6-guy2
4-guy1
3-guy2
2-guy1
3-guy2

How is this actually functionally any different from:

IP1:
Guy1
Guy2
IP2:
Guy1
Guy2
IP3:
Guy1
Guy2
IP4:
Guy1
Guy2



It will work out the same for any combination of initiative score and initiative passes (if one person has more initiatve passes than someone else any extra passes will come at the end) UNLESS the higher initiative score is more than double the lower initiative score.

So why not just keep the initiative pass notation rather than confusing it with having to track everyone's number and how many passes they've taken separately?






But in this case what you need to write down varies dramatically. Current system, all you need to write down is initiative count. That's literally it. With your system, you have to write out the whole initiative order for the entire turn at once. To take a more complex example (and spoiler it because who wants to scroll through that shit):





The problem is this: Your system is functionally 4 IPs with IPs being backloaded. When you use wildly different numbers that don't actually show up in a game, then it can look sort of like the pyramid approach, but real initiative numbers typically don't get that far apart. So functionally it is just 1-2-3-4, with a lot of extra work involved.



What? Are you seriously STILL not understanding what we're discussing? Where are you getting that you are going double or triple the way in your last action? Or are you still linking actions with movement, something I explicitly decoupled?

Basically there's 2 systems floating out there right now:
1) Initiative remains as is. You move every initiative pass whether you have an action or not. +Initiative passes give you a bonus complex action, but all characters handle movements per IP, and all combats use 4 IPs, regardless of how many characters are involved.

2) Jester_Zero's proposal where you simplify down to 3 IPs. Everyone gets an action and their full movement on IP2 (or the normal phase). If you have a second IP, you get a complex action and a free 1 meter of movement on IP3 (or the cleanup phase). If you have the max 3 IPs, you get an extra complex action and a free 1 meter of movement on IP1 (the surprise phase).

The 2nd is effectively a pyramid initiative setup, but by removing the 4th IP it is effectively much easier to use, as there's less specific patterns to remember. Just remember 2 = act last, and 3 = act always, and you're set.

Also, under the 'Prempt-Normal-Cleanup' (ABC) system, did we decide if 2IP users should be forced to use B+C, or if they could choose A+B *or* B+C? It's a little more effort; does the gain help the game, does it weaken 3IP users, etc.?

I was in favor of they're forced to us B+C as hinted in the previous post. I remember at least one or two people agreeing with me, but don't recall a actual consensus (as if we ever get -that- in this topic )

I'm in favor of B+C as well. Pre-emption (beyond having a high initiative) should be relegated to the 3rd initiative pass.

Also, touching on the spell version for a moment:

What do we want the thresholds on the spellcasting test to be?

Assuming everything else is left as is? Like a 2-3 for a +1 pass and like 7-9 for 2 passes. It shouldn't be a given that every mage ever can just grab a cheap low force sustaining focus and have max IPs when other characters have to invest so much more for it.



Now, if the way magical buffs were handled was changed, I wouldn't mind making the casting threshold, but that's opening a totally different can of worms (though I've touched on it briefly a few times earlier)

B+C it is, then.

It depends: are we keeping the 'Edge breaks spell balance' rule? Force 6 is probably okay. Are we *also* using Skills-12, because that alters the expected hits, of course.

I think so, yes. It's not terribly broken: you are using an expendable resource to get something snazzy.



With skills to 12, we might want to reconsider the "force caps hits" method (ie. raising the cap to F*1.5) although we can address that later.

With skills to 12 (and starting character max of 6) with starting magic maxing at 6, few bonuses from somewhere (on average, +3) gives us 15 dice tops...expected hits: 4 (average 5)...

I could see TH 6 for the third IP. For the second, TH 3?
(sidenote: at F*1.5, this would be a F2 spell and a F4 spell respectively, which are fairly expensive to sustain with a focus)

@Seerow



So G3 was taking an aktion moving 3m, taking an action again moving again 3m and then he is taking an action moving 6m.


To the extend it could not be handled by GM fiat? With such precise floorplans that positions could be determined to 1m? No, actually not. (I tried it once, in an other game and it was a fun but actually a waste)

If you really want to have that, it takes preparation. And if you have taken this preparation my approach is not adding extra work to that, really.

I mean what does it take to really meet this precision? A scaled floorplan with a drawing of the area. Best on a plastic foil, so you are able to draw on the path you want to move on.
This of course means you need to have figures or different colors of water resolving markers. (Best is both)

And if I really take it this far, it is not much to get an other piece of card board, draw a INI-Line on it (lets say from 0 to 40), glue a plastic foil over it (the stuff you may wrap around books for protection for example). Now I am able to mark when every player will act in a combat turn. For that I may use those colored arrows you use for marking stuff in texts. Thats 4 arrows max per player. For NPCs you just use colored pens (since you want to use it again i suggest water resolcing once). Thats not taking longer than writing everything down in any case.
And the board I will need this way or the other to write down stuff about the NPCs. (Damage, edge, weapons etc.)

Long story short: If I do that much bookkeeping, that a player may start an argument if he is one meter closer to the granade or not, I already do a lot of bookkeeping.
So it does not matter if I keep track on 1 or up to 4 inis per Player. The important thing is to find a way to get those information in a good chart. And a linear timeline for every combat round kind of does that.

I'd say no on edge, given the general sentiment last time it came up was "Edge needs to be toned down". Also, I want skills to go as high as 12, or preferably really uncapped. But I wouldn't suggest doing that without lowering dice pool in other ways (attribute/2 to dicepool, skill costs increasing past a softcap, outside dicepool modifiers limited, etc)

Yes, he is moving 6 meters after that action. But it's 3 meters per pass even so. Once again, how many actions you can take does not and should not have any bearing on your movement rate

Look at it this way: With 4 passes and 3 second turns, each pass is .75 seconds. You are moving X speed every .75 seconds, even though you only have the reaction speed to take 2 actions rather than 4 in that 3 seconds. It doesn't matter if you can take 1 action, or 4 actions, that reaction speed doesn't modify your movement speed. You are moving at a set rate per pass. This really is not anything complicated and I don't get how it is that you still seem completely unable to comprehend it and confuse it.




The entire rest of your argument is "I just eyeball things and fudge it, despite the fact that the game itself doesn't do anything of the sort, to keep things simpler. Because this is how I do it, anything else is a waste of extra effort thus making what you want more complicated" despite what I want already being basically what is in the rules, and what you want not actually modifying those rules in any meaningful way.

Not in my games it isn't. Why would you assume it is via a "Teleport Mecahnic"? That's just dumb. They have to physically move the distance. Which is what we (well, maybe not you) are talking about.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein

Well, I just doubt that anybody is doing it really that way.
The only way it really becomes an issue is if you are using a floor map.
And if you are using a floormap you are finishing every move in the ini-phase of the guy moving. Thats what I called "teleporting".
Thats also how it is handled in the basic rules of shadowrun. And to be honest I know no game, where it is different.

So it's not teleporting, it's merely moving at FTL.

@Yerameyahu
Yeah, I prefere thinking of teleporting, because of acceleration and deceleration trauma.
But you are right. Teleporting bullets you still may dodge... Well strange things.

*Shakes Head*... Just Wow...

What should happen is that moving without stopping should confer a "moving" condition, which relates to all sorts of things.

It gets worse when you have things flying. Things that literally can't stop, or else they'll fall down. And then it gets even worse in D&D, which normally doesn't give a damn about whether things stop instantly, just stop, or keep moving - after your turn, you are stationary for all maneuvering regards. (Not quite true, but it's really unsatisfactory, still ).

However, there is a solution to all yor problems, it's called first-person-shooters or real-time-strategy games. And if you're feeling sportive, there is always LARP. You can be sure that in LARP you can't teleport, and whatever bullet simulation you use can still hit you while you're running, even though it's harder.

Heh. Yeah, in my games/table/group, we never worry about details positioning. If you're at the edge of Short and Medium range, the GM guts it, because who cares?

The character getting shot might...

Nope, he doesn't. I checked.

Heh... Okay Then...

Next problem. Sneaking past [spirits/hidden cameras/invisible guards/etc.]: this is something that needs to be decisively handled by a rule, to stop the almost weekly arguments.

There needs to be one rule that you can apply to an infiltrator trying to sneak past observers he cannot see; one rule that applies to all those problems. I propose as obvious solution: a bonus to Perception/Astral Perception tests for observers that the infiltrator cannot (does not?) sense.

Yeah. I'd even say something like "2-3 free hits on perception" would be fair. It's still possible for a particularly good infiltrator to make it past your average camera or watcher spirit, but it's damn hard.

Why would a hindrance for the infiltrator be a bonus for the spotters? Just give them a -2 or -3.

The biggest reason I would expect is that they may not even know that the spotters are there. When the GM tells the infiltrator to take off a few dice, without saying why, then he's suddenly going to have the mage and the hacker check into things closer before moving on, defeating the point. Giving a bonus to the perceiver means the infiltrator rolls his same dice regardless. Yeah, it's a metagame thing, but so is the difference between a bonus to the perceiver and a penalty to the infiltrator.

Ah, sneaky! I thought it might be that reason. Still, I'd prefer the infiltrator to glitch. Hmm. On the other hand, the players are constantly getting unfair information from the dice, barring the GM making all the rolls in secret. Infiltration just might be one of those cases where the GM *should* roll it for them. I know many people say that players shouldn't know how many hits they got in the first place, you know?

Really, isn't this fixed by the Thresholds-for-difficulty change we already 'agreed' on? They roll their dice, they see their hits, the GM knows the Threshold. A burst of mental arithmetic will tell them something about the Threshold, but only afterward. I think +1 Threshold would do it.

I'd make it a 2 or 3 threshold, but yeah, making it threshold based and the GM having the knowledge of the threshold would be fine.