It does.

Logic 1 has a 1-in-3 chance to succeed when defaulting, unless there's a single penalty in which you automatically fail.

Logic 7 has a near 100% chance to succeed when defaulting, and even with severe penalties you have a better than 50% chance.

Not the probability of 1 hit, the number of hits. Both are capped at 1. That's why I said 'just an example'; it applies to Log 2, 3, etc.

Yes, but the probability of that success and the ability to take penalties certainly matters.

Without the cap, the genius would know just as much about repairing artillery as the Logic 3, skill 4 guy (but he still can't fix a car if his life depended on it...go figure )

If you're a genius (Logic 7) and doesn't study anything related (skills 0), you won't be very good at anything that requires learning.

Then those things wouldn't be defaultable. That's my point: if something is in the rules as defaultable, it's by-definition something you *could* fake (like Athletics), not something you can't (Pilot:Sub).

And you can fake it with hit caps. Just not very well. Which is fine.

And you can still default on Pilot Watercraft (Submarine).

One hit (or even 2) is frequently not good enough.

Bad example, then; replace all my references to Submarine with Suborbital.

You can spend Edge if you have to make one test, like avoiding a crash. But unless you have a lot of Edge (and are willing to blow it all in three rounds on one car chase), that's about it. Vehicle combat-- whether tactical or chase-- generally takes several rounds, requires multiple tests, and generally has a threshold higher than 1. It seems to me that's like saying to the player, "Unless you have built for something you will fail at it, so only try the things you have built for."

We keep using the REA 9 guy like that's a normal thing, but it's the pinnacle of (super)human achievement. It's the hard cap. It's as good as a person could ever be. And if he's defaulting on test, he's about average or a little behind the runner curve. If we're talking about a soft cap human maximum of 6, he's below average or what I would consider "civilian average" when defaulting on a test. That really, really doesn't bother me.

Also, not having a rank in a skill doesn't necessarily mean you have no experience with it. My sammie might not have Pilot: Ground Vehicle, but that doesn't mean his only recourse when confronted with a car is to poke it with his katana.

Right, that's Skill X/Unaware.

Suborbital works They're almost the same anyway, except not quite

If we ignore Jumping for now, and agree that Perception is something of a mess regardless of hit caps (if strictly applied), the only thing where you'll need more than 1 success is for any kind of advanced driving (everything beyond normal keep-to-the-rules stuff), and combat where you always(?) want as many successes as possible - but completely untrained individuals don't fare very well in combat against those with training.

Everything else is IMO adequate, and possibly better than that with 1 hit at a time during extended tests (taking extra time to manage anything), and occasional Edge use if it really really really matters (extreme situations). Possibly Rapelling as well, where you need 2 hits and either go down at 20m per pass or not at all. It isn't clear that you can do extended tests for rapelling, and a defaulting character should realistically manage - if awkwardly and slowly and with lots of yelping (but the rules for rapelling don't cover 'half-successes').

Having high Body, Agility, and Reaction is good enough as it is, without also having those people average 3 successes on any defaultable skill, equalling normal trained professionals.

Very true.

Like Yerameyahu said, someone who's never seen a car would be ranked as 'Unaware' Incompetent (Pilot Ground craft). Not able to default.

Someone with Skill Rank 0: "Can get from here to there, but can't handle driving in adverse conditions." (emphasis mine)

Remember that most casual driving in SR4 will be using the car's built-in Pilot and sensors.

That's casual riding.

My position is that someone with great Reaction *should* be able to get lucky (not Edge-y) and manage better than 1 hit in many cases.

Again, it *is* an opinion question: do you think great natural abilities should allow untrained/minimally-trained success, or not? I think SR in general leans toward 'yes'.

I fully agree.

But, imo, the degree of success you can acheive by defaulting/minimal training is too high, unless you apply some of the optional rules.

This may stem from the fact that we often see very high stats in our games, and characters earning over of 300 Karma over a career - such characters become very capable at almost anything, able to default to the level of near-elite npcs (DP of 10) with no training at all.

On the obverse, a low-power campaign we had saw a minotaur street sam fail at getting up onto a building because he was lacking Climbing/Jumping skill and couldn't fit on the 20th century fire escape...

If only the rules were 'perfect'...

They may not be perfect, but they are the next best thing - customizable. With optional rules for both grittier and for more cinematic gameplay, Shadowrun is easier to tweak to the level of verisimilitude that you want it to be.

As has been discussed on other threads the chase rules suck eggs, but yes, if you use the optional rules and your REA 9 sammie is defaulting with a hit cap of 1 in a chase vs a REA 3 Skill 3 mook, best to use a bit of edge to raise the pursuit distance as much as you can afford, then bail out somewhere where you can dissappear. Not possible in a sub I guess, but there you go.

When you think about it though, REA 9 is just lightning fast reflexes, so I am fine with that leading to basically 1 hit on any vehicle test, but no more without the use of Edge. If you consider the flip side (not using the optional rule), your pursuing mook will have to be REA 4 and skill 4 just to keep pace with your defaulting sammie, so there is no point him ever learning any vehicle skill unless he wants to diversify into professional rigging.

And it is not "Unless you have built for something you will fail at it, so only try the things you have built for.", it is more "Unless you have built for something you will fail at it against skilled opposition , so time to use Edge or think of plan B."

If the defaulting sammie is at the absolute human maximum, the hard cap, the pinnacle of human achievement, it's really, really okay with me if he's a match for a mook.

If what you want to penalize is defaulting, it might be better to simply raise the defaulting penalty directly. (That hurts low DP people even more, but nothing's perfect, hehe.)

I think it is important to SR, heroism, cyberpunk, etc. to preserve the concept of 'the natural' and 'the genius'. Someone excellent *can* walk up and amaze on their first try. (Or not, if it's non-defaultable.)

Yeah. got to be about what can and cannot be defaulted upon. That's going to require some GM discretion at some point.

That just means that the Sammie reacts way faster than the mook - but if he don't know HOW to react properly, his speed will not help him.

Which describes a non-defaultable skill. He's taking a penalty for being untrained (-1). If that's too small, change *it*. But a defaultable skill should be by-definition something for which training is not required (Jumping, etc.).

Like Yeramahu says, that really comes down to the skill in question. I imagine that being able to react with 3+ times the efficiency and awareness of a normal human being helps immensely in some skillsets based on hand-eye coordination, even if you don't know exactly what you're doing. Having that kind of reaction time will help you to respond to the mistakes you (inevitably) make, and likely even correct them in time for those mistakes to not be critical; even without expert race car driving, inhuman reaction speeds would likely help someone drive a race car, for instance. Less than someone with inhuman reaction speeds and formal training and experience, of course...but it should still beat the pants offa neither of the above.

How many dice you have is how we determine in this system how good you are at something. I don't buy the assertion that 8 dice from one source should be all that different from 8 dice from another source or 8 dice from another source. I don't care if he gets them from defaulting from a superhuman reaction, from a mix of decent reaction and training, or from the world's worst reaction and a lifetime of training-- all I need to see is how many dice he has and that can tell me roughly how good he is at something.

Only if you don't use the optional rules.


(Oh, and not capping hits for defaulting means that higher force spirits automatically are quite accomplished at First Aid, Pilot Ground craft, Pilot Watercraft, Armorer, Heavy Weapons, SMGs etc - even Computer! ...not to mention a Great Sea-dragon Parachuting with 22 dice (oh, and remember how 'slow and clumsy' Leviathans are on land? Climbing and Running 34 dice - and that's for a standard adult leviathan, no less... )

So, the GM can either use common sense on spirits, or arbitrarily punish the PC's for not making their characters a certain way. I fail to see the advantage in the latter.

Honestly, I fail to see the 'punishment' - imo 1 success is fine for pretty much every situation an untrained person should be able to handle (Jumping excluded), and plenty for extended tests. I don't think someone who qualifies as 'Untrained' should perform at the level of trained professionals, regardless of maxed-out stats. Besides, it's only punishment if the player expects to be able to default with 5 successes. If max 1 success for defaulting is the norm, it won't be seen as punishment (and it's certainly not 'arbitrary')

Without the hit cap option it is very easy to create an ultra-generalist with several near-maxed-out stats, focusing skill points in mostly non-defaultable skills, and performing quite well at the majority of physical skills a character will ever need.

It's fine (and even desired) for things like SRM campaigns and home games that only run for a handful or three worth of scenarios, but when characters live to earn 300-400 Karma they can pretty much do everything with little effort. To me, that takes away a big portion of Shadowrun's dystopic cyberpunk feel.

Plus, as a GM it's a lot more player-friendly to have the hit cap and then let the PCs 'get away with' an extra success or two if it makes sense for the situation, than to not enforce any hit cap at all and then suddenly tell the player 'you can only get one hit on this test, because...'. That's arbitrary punishment.

Spirits are inherently a mess, worse for skills they *do* have.

See, that's the opinion. IMO, 1 hit is *not* enough. Ultra-generalists are good.

But neither of those is good, and you wouldn't do either. You have to be consistent.

Agreed.


Yes - too good.


Rewarding good roleplating with a potential extra success or two isn't really 'bad' imo. However, if I want to reward them in that way, I'll just refresh a point of edge instead so they feel they get a 'free' edge use on that test. Rewards are good, it makes for happy players. It's even consistent (well, kind of), as long as the players know roughly what they can expect.

Not having the hit cap for normal PCs but 'using common sense' when it comes to spirits (as Mercer put it) will arbitrarily punish Conjurers and Free Spirit PCs unless you outline every possible 'common sense' ruling - or, of course, just allow the plant spirit to pilot submarines and the fire elemental to defuse a bomb.

Well, the solution is probably to have spirits better-defined, with lots of Unaware ratings. I don't think it's a good idea, though, to let the craziness that is spirits to unduly influence this discussion.

Yup. Opinions. I fully agree it depends on the table and the specific game.

I do, naturally, agree that you'd want to be consistent and up-front with your conjurers, just as with everyone. I was just saying that you wouldn't suddenly grant exceptions to the dice cap, *nor* suddenly impose it; you'd be consistent and up-front with everyone. As for FSPCs, just screw *them*, man. Hehe.

Indeed!

Yeah, as long as everyone at the table knows beforehand more or less what they can expect to do, or not do - and you stick to that as best you can without screwing up the game - it'll be fine.

Surely Spirits can't default?

Defaulting is a by-product of at least having a vague idea of what they should be doing, and Spirits come from the bizzaro metaplanes, ergo will have absolutely no idea of what they should be doing in with a bomb or submarine. So the spirit example is a red herring. Agree with snowRaven and Yerameyahu about FSPCs, the whole concept just seems like a power problem waiting to happen.

Defaulting already gives a -1 to the linked Att, huh? I don't see the problem. Ensure that there's no defaulting on stupid skills and all is fine. Or raise the TN to 6 on a default test, or make it a -2 to DP. Capping successes seems to me to be the cruellest way to do it.

As said above, as long as you're honest and consistent with your players, it's all good.

That's what I said: you have to give spirits Unaware (Rating X) to demonstrate that (or, of course, say they're Unaware in everything; this method probably requires giving them more skills explicitly?). Either way.

Yeah, it might be interesting to compare the curves for -1 defaulting, -2, and TN6 (though I'd prefer to never mess with TNs in SR4), (and/or Gremlins, easy glitching?).

Easier glitches is not a terrible idea, that's the same mech as for rushing an extended test isn't it? That would probably work.

I'm happy to mess with TNs in appropriate situations, and i'm yet to find a solution to The Long Shot Test Anomaly that doesn't involve using the -dice pool as a TN modifier and still works.

Actually, by RAW it is specifically mentioned that they can, and do so normally (it's under 'Sapience' power, if I remember correctly).

It's not that variable TN doesn't work. It's that it's an alien mechanic to SR4.

Not entirely - there's the Cinematic option of changing it to 4,5,6 - as well as the optional Street Legends Quality that does the same thing for an individual for 100 Karma (provided he already earned 500...).

But it would be something I'd shy away from doing except under those limited circumstances (applying it for everyone in cinematic games, or for rare individuals paying through their teeth in normal games)

That optional rule's not *variable* TN, right? I hadn't read Street Legends, though… that's kind of a crazy power, wow. 'I'm so good, reality is different for me.'

Well, if that means Spirits can be lazing about on the fire planes one day and then able to expertly disassemble an AK-97 the next then I call house rule.

Same thing applies, what can and cannot be defaultable should be to GM discretion at all times.

Classic

It's on page 6 'Running Legends':



Put that on Lofwyr and let your players go at him...

It's more of a "Wow, I'm so cinematic and over the top, the GM is seeing fit that reality is different for me and people around me."

Not for the 100 karma version, that's just for the one guy.

But, yeah. Neither of those is old-SR-style variable TN. Which isn't bad per se, it's just not SR4.

Maybe I missed something here, but my experience with FSPCs leads me to believe they are some of the least likely candidates for abuse of defaulting. They just can't afford a whole rack of high Attributes.

The trouble with increasing the -1DP for unskilled is it starts boning characters who did *not* elect to take a superhuman attribute. When you include the chance of glitching, even the 1DP penalty for defaulting makes it a risky enough prospect for characters with attributes in the 3-5 range.

Even with the optional rule, attributes still rule the roost because they are linked to so many skills and offer other benefits as well (initiative, condition moniters, encumbrance, DV for unarmed etc etc). What the hit cap does do is increase the relevance of skills, and encourages PCs to take a wide range of skills, either during CharGen or in-game. In this way, mundanes who (according to some DSers) have little use for karma suddenly do, and mages will have to invest some of their karma on raising skills rather than just focusing on Magic and initiation, which in turn reduces their power creep.

The advantage of the skill cap for me as a GM is that I do not have to throw ridiculously high thresholds or super-mooks at the PCs just to make the game challenging for them.

The only disadvantage with skill caps that I have found is in opposed tests. The 1 hit cap for defaulting means that anyone using it in an opposed test against an opponent with the skill will almost always fail unless they use Edge, but I guess such is the advantage and relevance of proper training.

Yeah, this is what I see at my table as well.



Indeed. But, if you've never held a gun before it's not easy to hit someone with combat experience and/or fast reflexes who is trying to avoid you. That's what wide bursts are for, though.
Main issue here is with Social skills, and it means the player has to be smart and try and introduce negative DP modifiers for the NPCs.

Just knocking the idea around in my head: how about if skills were used as automatic successes instead of as part of the dice pool? Skill 1 = 1 success, you automatically succeed at really simple tasks, and you have your Att + other DP stuff to try for better results.

This makes skills really useful. Attributes are still really useful in that they apply to many skills. It makes the difference between skill 5 and skill 6 more noticeable.

I (of course) haven't run any numbers (not even sure I know how to do that) or looked at any other systems that might use a similar mechanic. Just idle musings...

You'd have to up thresholds, most likely.
You'd have to clearly define if a penalty applies to the skill first or to the attribute first.
You'd have to clarify regarding augmented skill ratings.
You'll also likely have to lower base weapon damage unless you want a much more lethal game.

The Spellcasting 7 mind-control Mage will rule the world
The [ranged Skill] 10 Adept will kill with each shot

I agree, Midas. It all just depends on who you're trying to affect, and when. :/ Personally, I'm not at all worried about generalists. At the beginning of this, people suggested that hitcaps helped rein in *specialists*; they don't, but presumably that is a goal people have?

The reason this problem is hard is that core mechanics are hard. Um. I think some people have suggested making DPs Attrib/2+Skill, just directly making skill more important?

1. Yeah
2. Biggest problem, I think. Also what happens if modifiers deplete the dice pool - how do negative mods affective skill? Have to think more about it...
3. Not sure why
4. True, but I'm for that


Not sure I see the problem, here. Skill 10 Adept? F*cking skill 10? Yes, he should kill with each shot, unless he comes against situations or people that can challenge this level of skill in killing. Same with any other ridiculously high-skill character.

I'm more concerned that any auto-hit rule necessarily reduces the random variability of the tests. This is more opinion than anything else, but it's a concern. I am happy with the current level of randomness (d6 dicepools between about 1-20 dice), and I don't like people being complacent about the number of hits they're sure they'll get. With this rule… jesus, would anyone *ever* care about rolling? In combat, I guess, but for almost everything else, life just became either a cake walk or a living hell (why try if you know you'll succeed *or* fail?). Or, depending on how you've increased thresholds, you've just required X skill.

I suggested Attrib+Skill*2, but this helps mages a lot (MAG+Spellcasting*2 vs. WIL) and makes ranged combat really dangerous


The Mage: 7 Autohits + (MAG+Mentor Spirit+Spec+Focus+Aid Spellcasting) vs WIL - anyone without access to counterspelling is just fucked, the mage can wreck every vehicle because he always beats the OR, etc.

Well, the Skill 10 Adept could hunt armored vehicles with a stock holdout pistol - 10 Auto-hits, 4 DV from the Pistol, 4 DV from a called Shot, and then roll AGI-4