Hello everyone, I'm and old SR GM, and some may remember me from before on these forums.

We have started a new game, this time using SR4A rules. Now after forgetting my old house rules and the erratas I'm looking at the SR4 anniversary book, where I suppose the old errata has been applied to.

Flechette: It says it gives +5 to the targets Impact armor, but both the Viper Slivergun is listed with +2 (metal slivers that count as flechette), as is the Remington 990s shotgun (w standard flechette ammo), while the Remington Roomsweeper w/flechettes (actually said to be buckshot) has +5AP. Now are these different ammunition types or are there not? If they were consistently wrong (as in copy paste from SR4) I could understand it, but this is confusing.

There are no rules which weapons can use which type of ammunition, so I'm assuming everything can use everything unless specifically noted (some can use only x). With that in mind, why would anyone ever buy a shotgun (remington 990) to fire the expensive and almost useless flechette ammo, when for example the Ruger 100 sporting rifle can do the job at much better range? Or why get the Mossberg CMDT when an assault rifle can fire flechette ammo full auto while retaining superior range, no extra recoil modifiers, and much better ammo capacity?

That's it for now.

1) The flechette differences are likely this: those weapons that specifically state they have those codes already integrate the flechette modifiers; to put it another way, they have the +2 AP despite firing flechette, because they were designed to.

2) Correct, you can use any ammo with any weapon, unless explicitly told differently (with some exceptions - assault rifles can't shoot taser ammo, and light pistols can't shoot assault cannon rounds, for example).

3A) Because shotguns firing flechette can modify the choke of the weapon (SR4A, page 154-155), potentially doing more damage or hitting more targets.
3B) Again, because of the choke rules for shotguns. Also, the modified damage of the Mossberg is greater than an assault rifle with flechette (although the AR has slightly better AP..).

Thanks for the quick reply.

1. Ok, that was one of my theories. It almost holds too, for guns like the Slivergun. But what makes the Remington 990 (shotgun) more designed to fire flechettes, than the Mossberg CMDT (also shotgun)? I don't mind a rule saying shotguns get +2 AP for flechette (more if adjusting choke) since they are designed to fire them, as long as they are consistent. Shotguns even use a different skill for some reason, despite ammunition used. I loved shotguns in 3rd edition, but have not really found a good use for them in this one.

2. OK.

3. Adjusting choke means doing less damage, having less penetration, in return for making it slightly harder to dodge and a possibility of hitting 2 targets. AFAIK you can't up the damage in any way above standard choke. The Mossberg DOES have higher damage, but the extra recoil and lack of accessories. Sure, the Ares Alpha cost 700 more, but has 4 times the ammo capability (important when firing bursts), free recoil, better range, better penetration (offset by the Mossbergs higher damage), free smartgun, grenade launcher, uses the more versatile Automatics skill, and most importantly: Can fire all the other basic ammunition types! Looks to be there is no good reason to get the Mossberg.

I thought this was an old typo that got fixed? You can come up with handwaves for it (Neraph's point #1), but otherwise it (and anything else) should have 'normal weapon class stats modified by normal flechette stats'.

The slightly less interesting but also more sane explanation. How it got past the playtest etc. is beyond me, these errors have been in several different prints. Is it specifically stated in an errata or faq somewhere?

Personally, I'm fine with certain guns (e.g., the Viper) having some edge. Not necessarily the printed stats, but something. The Viper doesn't 'really' shoot flechette ammo. It shoots silvergun slivers, which are seen as 'effectively' flechette ammo. They're actually more like individual metal darts. That's why they have no spread, etc.

I'm okay with this *specific* thing having a better AP than flechette ammo. Flechette ammo is available to all guns, and is basically a shotgun shell filled with many tiny metal darts/shards. It makes sense for a single dart to pierce better.

This is a recurrent topic among SR players, because it has it all: optimization confusion ('why bother with X?'), rules typos, RL-confusion ('flechette are supposed to be armor-*piercing*!'), and balance issues ('Viper is the best!'—it was better in SR3). One issue is that SR4 has no real distinction between 'hard' and 'soft' armor, and flechette ammo is (RL) supposed to pierce soft armor (and not hard). This is slightly modeled by going against Impact armor.

Personally, I think a better solution might be to have no (or less) DV bonus, but a better AP bonus. In that case, the slivergun is not stronger against unarmored, but it's better than a 9mm against kevlar (or whatever). This is an easy house rule, requiring you to just say that the silvergun is NOT 'flechette ammo'.

For flechette ammo, I think the current rules make sense: deals meaner wounds, but at an AP penalty. Non-flechette shotgun shells don't exist in SR4, because (I assume?) they'd have worse range, damage, and AP.

Explain.

Yeah. The Slivergun is probably based off Molly's Needler from Neuromancer etc., which makes it quite different from a shotgun with no indication of having bad penetration per se. There is something called buckshot in SR4, but it is not listed in the equipment list unless it is called "regular ammo." The combat chapter says you can use Shot, but it is less effective against armor, and then says to apply Flechette ammunition rules to the damage done by shot rounds. Now why would it say so if buckshot IS flechette?

Treating buckshot as regular ammo for price and availability makes sense for shotguns, and actually gives them some purpose.



Shotguns use the Longarms skill. There are generally more weapons available that uses the Automatics skill, including those that can be concealed. Never mind the part about ammunition, not sure what I meant there.

I assume he means that shotguns require the Longarms skill while pistols firing shotgun ammunition require the Pistols skill.

It does imply that ammunition is not the deciding factor.

Why not just use slug rounds with shotguns?

Because Rifles have better range. Not to mention sniper rifles....

Ammo has never been the deciding factor; I don't understand the question.

AFAIK, buckshot doesn't exist in SR. If there's something that 'functions as flechette' and flechette is listed as 'shells full of metal silvers', then why not just admit that shotguns all fire flechette 'shot'? Either way, it hardly matters. The point is that shotguns have choke, and nothing else does. Yes, automatics are great and shotguns(/longarms in general) are typically less great. The gun categories aren't balanced?! That's certainly not news, hehe. The game is full of less-good choices.

Gunnery. Put a weapon mount on a Ferret and carry whatever gun you want with the ferret hanging off the bottom and enjoy your no recoil. All other weapons are less-good choices.

That is… a thing that someone could say. (That was the best thing I could muster to say about it!)

In our games, shotgun shells have the price and availability of normal Ammo. They are shotguns. They fire little plastic tubes filled with metal balls. Those are cheap, and available at Kong-Walmart, for shooting at pigeons (Pigeons are not known for wearing armor but are agile little buggers). You can also get the slugs, in case you want to absolutely pulverize a deer in a lined coat.

Specialized flechette rounds for pistols? Pricey and harder to get.

The Arsenal errata 1.3.2 file does state the Ares Viper Slivergun, Remington Roomsweeper, and Remington 990 (and a few others) are +5 AP, and not +2. The way it's written does seem that all flechette ammo, regardless of the weapon itself, is now +5 across the board. My soft copy does say the Slivergun is +2 AP, and I take this as a typo.

Also, in SR4a, page 154, shotgun [buck]shot rounds use the flechette ammo rules.

What is this playtest thing you refer to? And I'm not kidding. Pretty much there has been no playtesting done with SR4. What little there was done was pretty much totally ignored by the developer and writers for some reason. I'm not sure there ever was effective playtesting of SR in any edition. I know FASA did some playesting for some games (I did some way back when) but I don't know if SR was one of them. And I saw Jordan rewrite the rules of games after playtesting had been completed because he felt like it.

The gun rules in SR are pretty messed up in multiple places, but are still usable.

If the shotgun base stats are DV 7 AP -1, then why does the Remington have DV 9(pf) AP +5 with Flechette? Or is it just a worse shotgun?

Same with the Slivergun, should it have AP+4 because of heavy pistol -1 base AP?

This. And my German hardcopy (which for some reason I trust more that CGL's stuff when it comes to errata...) has the Slivergun listed as +5 AP

Apparently you ignore the base AP (maybe it's only for slug-type ammo).

Nope.
Sliverguns stats have nothink to do with other heave pistols, or did you completely miss that it also gets +3 to damage for only firing "flechette" ammo.

Heh, acually there are rule(s) to support this.
As in the arsenal the note for AV ammo says it has AP -4 against people, -6 against vehicles and barriers.
Where as the note for AV assault cannon rounds says they have an additional AP of -1 against people, -3 against vehicles

For all we know, that's another typo. Just kidding, though the silvergun stats have always been kinda BS. It should have some unique benefits, but it also should have drawbacks (beyond costing a measly +250¥). I mean, christ, vs. the SR4A guns: double-size magazine, the sole BF option, *same* Avail/Legal (despite free suppressor!), and magic +3DV/+3AP 'flechette' ammo? I feel like it was even better in SR3, even. Look how much the Fubuki costs compared to its peers, for the much smaller list of benefits of narrow-only BF and a slightly larger mag.

If I was living in-game, my only question would be 'where's my SMG and AR-size sliverguns!?'

Nothing is apparent in SR It seems to me they made a mistake, just as they did in the first SR4 print with shotguns, slivergun etc... basically anything listed with special ammo. The rules on the ammo itself was clear, that you add the base AP value of the weapon to the AP value of the ammo.



I noticed it's damage yes. It still struggles to penetrate much with +5 AP, which means it is either a decent stun gun (normal rules) or simply bad (my rules).

On 3 net hits (not too shabby one would think) it fails to penetrate an armor vest, some of the lightest armor in use by security guards etc.

Maybe it just remains a niche weapon that is awesome against unarmored opponents and fairly weak against anything else. Spirits will laugh at the damage of course.

Whut, it needs exactly 2 net hits to do physical damage to someone wearing an armor vest:
4+5= 9 armor and 8+2=10 damage

And also only targets you need(or really even want to most of the time) to do physical damage are those that are immune to stun damage and really i would prefer not to use a heavy pistol of anykind against those.

I thought the point with the Fubuki was that it fires an extra round on a short burst, with minimal recoil? Load it with S&S, and it's the best for it's level of concealment. Even with normal burst rules that is 8S before net hits... far superior to an Predator, and much more easily concealed than a machine pistol. The only real drawback is it's cost, which makes it rare except for execs and possibly Shadowrunners.

Hmm forgot it's Impact armor. Which means you need an Armor Jacket to resist 11 damage. (6+5= 11).

That's been my take on it, for flechette only. All others get their AP modified as described in SR4a, page 323.

Minimal recoil? It has the same recoil as anything. But I was talking about the comparison to the slivergun. That is, the slivergun has even more benefits and basically no increase in cost, Avail, Legality, etc. A BF-suppressor is 12F by itself!

I think you've missed the fact that the Yamaha shoots bursts using semi-auto recoil (which is compensated for by using the folding stock). That, in addition to being able to shoot other kinds of ammo, makes it better than the slivergun by far.

12F means you get it at chargen but can't show it with a licence. Then again it is a much more easily concealed weapon, so maybe you won't make so much notice anyway.

Suppressor is nice, but not the end all. It adds a penalty to hearing the shots, but does not make it soundless like in movies.

That's not the point. The point is that the slivergun has a suppressor, and the other heavy pistols I was comparing don't. It also has BF, they don't. It did (pre-errata) 8P +3AP, which is tons more than the other heavy pistols. It also has a magazine of 30 (!), which is double the closest competitors. All this, and it costs basically the same, same Avail, same Legality, etc.

The Sakura, on the other hand, costs much more, higher Avail, and only has 1, 1.5 little perks. The balance is clearly different, that's the point. I am not comparing the Sakura *to* the slivergun, but the in-group balance of each weapon. I'm just saying, something with this much specialness should cost more, higher Avail, *maybe* F legality, something.

(You're right, I forgot it gets 'SA recoil'; you're also wrong, it fires 3-round bursts.)

Pre-errata they were rather OP for a heavy pistol, yes. Despite this many vent for the good old Ares Predator simply for the free smartgun, decent clip size etc, and ammo variety. The 4 round burst might have been creative interpretation due to the fact that the Yamaha has 4 barrels... having only 3 round burst seemed stupid. A light pistol that does +3 damage (after armor) for virtually no drawback might be a bit too much, but I think the high cost justifies it. Want a light machinegun? Or just this pistol here... or maybe a drone?

Hehe. I think the Fubuki *is* nifty. I'm just talking about the oddness of the slivergun, that's all. I think it's a cool (stolen) idea, but everything should have tradeoffs. So, if the slivers go against Impact armor and pierce it well, they shouldn't also do lots more DV; if they do more DV, they shouldn't also have great AP… unless they cost more. If they can be burst-fired, you should pay for that, or it should use Machine-Pistol-like DV. If the slivers are so small it can hold 30 of them, it should be weaker. If it's a 'naturally' supressed BF high DV weapon anti-person weapon, facrissake make it F legality. Etc. The specifics don't matter as much as some overall fairness.

Just remember, IRL, shotguns arent particularly better than other weapons aka pistols and rifles, im of the opinion that some shotguns should have a lot lower availability and be much more useful for people who arent very good at shooting stuff since buckshot spreads. Rules wise this could basically be a way for bad npcs to still have a chance of hitting a pc with a gun, despite not doing a whole lot of damage...

Also you have to remember that this isnt a computer game, its a roleplaying game, if i building a character and was of the opinion that he wouldnt have access to a high powered rifle or anything, a shotgun could be more themeatically accurate for him.

Also as far as using random ammunition in random guns, its a little tricky but flechette was explained to me as firing metal slivers or ball bearings instead of the traditional bullet, in a rifle (especially a sniper rifle) this would mil-out the rifling in the barrell pretty quickly and probably wreck the use of the gun for other ammunition. Id probably just say yeah sure, use it but your weapon is going to degrade a lot faster.

Pulling a description from a different RPG, it has artwork of a flechette in a casing of some kind that breaks open once it's left the barrel. For SR4 there could be something similar for the rifled weapons, which is pretty much everything except shotguns (and some really big cannons).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette

It looks like a small-arms flechette round is one dart, not a cloud of little darts (which is reserved for large calibre or artillery rounds).

Which is why it has no choke effects. It doesn't explain why the slivergun would be 'special'; for that, you either rule that it's not special (fix all the stats), or just come up with some fluff for why it is.

In real life, shotguns are vastly better then pistols. They are the most effective close range firearm out there. More effective than sub machine guns. Against people wearing body armor, not so great. Past 25-30 yards, not so great. In close against people not wearing armor - great!

Very few people not wearing body armor get hit multiple times by shotguns without dying. A vastly higher percentage of people struck by one shotgun blast die than from one pistol round. IIRC, .30 cal hunting rifles with hunting ammo and shotguns have about the same probability of immediately incapacitating an opponent, and it's north of 80%.

In SR they are pretty much worthless because SR uses really dumb rules for them.

After reading this, I came to think of a possible "fix."

1. Flechette ammo is removed from the game.

2. Buckshot is reintroduced, only allowed for shotguns (price and avail. as reg. ammo), and keeping the flechette rules (+2 dam +4 net AP, less range than slugs).

3. Slivergun reduces damage to 4, is reclassified as a light pistol, fires a special small flechette/slivers in a discarding sabot.. which works as APDS (-4 AP ) (cause that's what APDS really IS). Because of the special ammunition and delivery system it uses SA recoil when firing bursts. It has a price 1000 and avail. 12F. Price and avail. of ammo is 50 per 10, and also 12F. It has no real suppressor, but works as if it had because of the special delivery system.

4. APDS is retained as is, and is larger and more costly than the Slivergun slivers.

How does that sound? OP? OK? LOL?

I don't see how any of that compensates for the fact that it is "Not an Ares Predator."

No self-respecting Street Samurai uses anything else! The only exception were the days of the Predator II, that thing was ugly as sin.

Haha, I've never understood that. Why wouldn't a sam at least have BF (like a Crusader stolen from the cops)?

Because for that, every self-respecting Street Samurai uses the Street Samurai's Sidekick.

If the Ares Predator is not capable of doing enough damage, it's not because it's not firing flechette or burst fire. It's because the Street Samurai needs to bring out the Ares Alpha instead.

That's what weapon mods are for silly.

BF mod is a simple mod (I think, its actually been forever since I've fiddled with firing selection). Then add your custom look, melee hardening, and a bayonet mount. BOOM! One Ares Predator, ready for action.

Going from SA to BF is actually a Large Firing Selection Change and uses 4 slots. I guess you can get to work since the Slivergun doesn't have any more or less RC than the Predator.

That said, everyone knows the true weapon of a professional is a Dikoted Silvergun.

Buckshot is still an option. You just apply the choke rules to the base DV of 7 and AP of -1.
It's all "-xDV, +xAP, -x to dodge, can hit x targets within x meters" and it results in some shitty DV/AP busines.

If I wanted to do anything with shotguns, it would be this. Medium spread is base. Narrow spread increases DV while wide spread reduces DV. AP is unaffected and remains +1 for all shot, regardless of choke settings. After all, more/fewer pellets connecting shouldn't affect AP just like more bullets don't increase penetration for narrow burst autofire.

I'm fine with the slivergun being as you say, a stabbing weapon that's APDS by default. I just wouldn't want it to be available at chargen. I'd make a default APDS, BF, suppressed pistol something hard to find.

You never use slots when you can get it built-in, Chainsaw.

That sounds like a great way to take the fun out of everything.

Everyone needs a chainsaw bayonet. Particularly on their silenced pistol.

I almost added it before, but didn't. Since you brought it up:

The underbarrel weapon modification mentions melee weapons. If you have the slots, a bayonet is a horrible waste. Really pathetic weapon compared to, say, a Vibro Knife. That and melee hardening only totals to 4.

And I wish there was a proper ruling for a chainsaw bayonet. The mono chainsaw is a pretty terrible weapon. WAR! might be worth acknowledging for a couple session one-off of chainsaw bayonet murderthon.