So I seem to have a knack for finding these sorts of things...


...and...



What I'm taking away from a literal reading of this is that the Break Weapon maneuver can never miss?

I'm kind of amazed at how many of these stupid rules end up this way. So many cases of failing to fully think through the implications of what the wording is actually saying in referencing other rules for newly added systems, all in the name of hitting those magical word count numbers.

I'm even more amazed no one's caught this before. They probably have, but a couple cursory searches didn't turn up anything.

~Umi

A barrier *can't* dodge. A person can. GM's aren't stupid.

I can see how you take it that way, but I wouldn't have, and still don't, read it that way. I think the phrase, "Since barriers can't dodge" sort of trumps the assumption that you treat a weapon like a barrier in terms of making the attack. The weapon itself can't dodge (without a Pilot upgrade and some sort of motive system, that is), but the wielder can move the barrier normally.

I just happen to read it with those missing words, "treat damage resistance for the weapon as destorying..."

Barriers can't dodge. People wearing the weapon can.
If they parry though ... more fools them

Not to be a complete douche or anything but, technically your not attacking the person...your attacking what they're holding

Not only did you break the weapon sir, you removed it from the story altogether!

A parry could redirect the attack and soften the blow to the weapon; meeting the attacker's weapon before it strikes reduces the force behind the attack and may change the angle of the attack. I'd allow it to work just as well as dodge, but woe be unto you should you glitch.

Did they pay for it with essence?

Don't worry, I think your reading it right (missing words and all).

I See it as 2 seperate things...

Attacking a Weapon (being wielded) with the intent to destroy it results in an opposed roll, Your attack vs the wielding character's defense. Net hit add damage to the Item you are attacking...

Attacking a Stationary Barrier results in no Defense (it cannot dodge) and you are just stacking net hits for damage purposes

*shrug*

Exactly. I mean, what would happen if suddenly that wall COULD dodge...it would not only be very surprising to the dumbstruck orc who watched the wall leap out of his way, but would reduce your net hits.

My point was just that the rules say "Handle this as per the Destroying Barriers rules" in a blanket statement, when the rules for Destroying Barriers aren't designed to compensate for the fact that a person is holding the barrier.

How many words would it have taken to clarify? Replace...

...with...


Seven additional words, fifty two additional characters, untold additional clarity.

~Umi

And more money spent for printing, which would raise the price of the book by probably another 10 to 15 bucks.

Yes. Seven words cost $15.

You know how it is... More money for the Writer, more for the Editor (assuming he is even paid, currently), layout re-design, etc.

Sorry to spoil the CGL bashing, but first you need to be aware of such a problem, before you can change the wording.
It is entirely possible that people think rationally and thus did not even see that there even IS a problem.

The 10 to 15 dollar price increase on each copy of the book would be to maintain a profit after taking into account the cost increase from the additional word count. Do you run a publishing company and thus know the exact costs of printing? I don't know specifics, but I do know that word counts are a determining factor in the cost to print.

You're building a rules system. You are creating the limitations of abstract mathematical relationships. Essentially you're creating a very large logic system. In doing so, you need to consider the effects of taking your rules to their logical extremes.

If a new rule wholesale references a prior rule, but the referenced rule was not designed to handle an additional aspect of the new rule, there is going to be room for logical ambiguity and confusion. You can't add a new element that the original rule was never designed to handle without clarifying how that new element ought to be handled via the new rule. This is just how rules design works, and it is an entirely predictable pitfall.

Am I asking for perfect rules? No, there's no such thing. But the longer I use the SR system, the more I pore over the rulebooks, the more I realize how many erratas have been put out, and erratas of erratas, the more I realize just how many holes there are in the rules, moreso than I would think reasonable or appropriate for the system.

Of course, that's merely my own amateur opinion.

~Umi

Then cut out half the useless fluff text and images, for crying out loud. Better rules for less junk, please!

If you told me I could have a copy of just the rules with none of the story elements or superfluous filler for a cheaper price, I'd spring for that over the padded version any day. I don't want to read about stock characters in contextless non-adventures that are meant to be dime-novel levels of thrilling, I want to create my own characters and my own adventures using a ruleset that is clear, concise, accessible, and flexible. I don't want freelance convention table artist artwork of said stock characters, I want informative art that shows me what items and gear look like, what the various metatypes and metavariants look like, and actually useful images that augment the limited explanatory ability of text alone. I don't want the rubbish that marketers are convinced will make me buy the book, I want the stuff that actually enables the gaming experience the book is intended to provide.

~Umi

You have to remember on this one, that there are those who like the 'fluff' aspects as much if not more than the rules information, and they have to put enough of that in there for them. Hell, I've seen people complain that there isn't enough of that aspect in any of the books that aren't entirely 'fluff'.

Of course you build a rules system that should be logical in itself. However, you're a games designer, and most likely not even that, but just some bloke writing up some stuff (at least it seems this way sometimes). You do not have a degree in logic.
Then there's the fallacy of proof reading: You look for typos, maybe find most of them. You read over the rules, but to you, they make sense, so you don't see a need to clarify it with further seven words.
Your playtesters playtest the rules. Attacking barriers is rather common, but attacking weapons not so much. They read the part, make sense of it in the formerly established rulebook (namely: close combat is an opposed test) and it goes unnoticed that the wording may be a bit off.

Just a possible scenario

The product goes to print. Stuff happens. A 2nd printing comes out. The wording is still just a bit off and no one has asked this yet. It still goes unnoticed. Then there's the player with the degree in logic who finds the issue and sighs "7 words would have made all the difference"

But that is not really possible to correct in hind sight. And I'd wager that this wording would not even be changed, just cleared up with an FAQ, IF the question gets asked often enough.

And to clarify: I didn't want to accuse you of bashing CGL, that one was reserved for the 15$ hilarity.

Yes. Seven words cost $15. If you were intending to make a more nuanced statement, you should have done so. In no way did your comment refute Umidori's simple point that it would be nice to have clearer rules in some places. If, for example, you meant that adding 7 words to every paragraph would be more expensive, that would be true… except that wasn't suggested. Presumably, they could write more clearly overall without altering the overall word count. Either way, it's no reason to say, effectively, 'no, how dare you complain about the rules'.

Very True...

I have quite honestly in all my time on Dumpshock never come across a more non-issue nitpick of the book than in this thread.

Yes, rules in RPG systems should cross-reference with care and diligence.
And yes, going through a proof with the fine-toothed-editorial-comb expected by the average DSer (or hell, just the average player) is cost- and time-prohibitive.

But, as has been bandied about so many times before I feel it is once again necessary to stipulate that Shadowrun, like so many things in life, was not intended for use by people devoid of common sense and a child's experience of physical laws. You call this a hole? Logical ambiguity and confusion? Because RAW doesn't spell out something every player already knows?

I'm not incensed, just incredulous.

Seriously, where is the harm caused by this particular lack of service?

For the sake of courtesy, though, I'll indulge it and give my account, which is that there isn't an issue at all. The passage for the maneuver describes making a Called Shot and receiving a bonus to the attack roll, both of which require an attack roll. Therefore I would speculate that even those without common sense or a child's experience of physical laws would come down on the sensible side of things.

Do also note that attacking to Destroy a Barrier requires an attack roll as well, one which is unopposed. Next time you want to couch your snide condescension and implied suppositions about people's sense and intellect in comparison to children in an air of logical superiority, please make an argument that holds water. Even if the entire topic IS utterly ridiculous - which I freely admit this one is - logic is still logic.

The entire point of this thread is the same as the entire point of these forums - to discuss Shadowrun. That can range from asking for advice, to discussing theory, to examining the rules system, to making jokes and being absurd. This was something of an exercise in several of those things, most notably absurdity.

You don't care for useless nitpicks about the minor failings of the wording of the rules? That's fine. You're absolutely right, it's not "an issue", but then again really nothing about Shadowrun actually is, depending on your perspective. Still, for how inane and incredible it is to remark about this non-issue, it's likewise pretty inane and incredible to remark about how inane and incredible the non-issue is.

~Umi

$10 to $15? For adding HALF A DOZEN WORDS?

Dude, whatever you're smoking .... put it down, go get some fresh air.

And no, word count has NOTHING to do with the cost of printing a book. PAGE COUNT is chiefly what matters (other factors are: full color or monochrome? what kind of paper? what kind of binding? plain text, or lots of images / background?).

You could print a bok with millions of words in it .... or a book with the exact same pagecount, paper choice, etc but not a single word in it. Both would cost the same.

Granted on the to hit roll, oversight for me.

I will contest 'snide condescension...' - there was nothing in my post implying that any players, specific or general, were of inferior mental faculties, quite the opposite really. In fact, the main thrust of my post was of my own failure to understand the point here. There are things Shadowrun that are an issue and things that aren't, but all subjective natch.

The wording on this is correct, though I feel the need to point something out. The Barrier section says exactly "since barriers can't dodge," which is true. The gun you are attacking cannot itself dodge without extreme modifications. The object itself cannot dodge, unless it's a drone.

The rules do not detail if someone is trying to prevent you from attacking the barrier. Which I think should be a contested roll, as it would be regardless of the tjomg you are defending.

This seems to me no different than if a runner is trying to break a mirror (down to hand mirror size) that another person is holding. The mirror cannot dodge, but the person involved could parry your attack, or move the mirror, in an attempt to stop you.

This is hardly different than if you are trying to break a window in a wall, and someone in the way is parrying your attack to prevent it. Or defending a downed runner friend through parry (or dodge, if he can move the friend).

In that perspective, the rules still inherently mean that the barrier is not rolling opposing your hit. You DO need to make an opposed check against the person defending, as they prevent your attack; an opposed roll that has nothing to do directly with said barrier. They'd roll the same to defend a helpless comrade from being attacked: stop the attack or move the comrade.

The problem with that line of thinking is that if you take it to the logical extreme, you get absurd situations wherein a dwarf riding on a troll's shoulders suddenly doesn't roll to defend but has the troll defend on the dwarf's behalf, because the dwarf is being carried.

As the rules currently stand (to my knowledge), you cannot actually roll to defend a helpless comrade, as you suggest. You can make an Intercept attack if the enemy is melee attacking and you're close enough, but you can't actually defend an incapacitated or otherwise helpless ally.

~Umi

Since a dwarf is sentient (one assumes), unlike a weapon or a mirror, it seems to me this would be a case of the dwarf defending himself and the trolls actions affecting that defense, possibly positively, possibly negatively.

Gonna be really blunt here, but:

It gives your team/studio/project/manager a reputation for lazy slack-asses who don't know their own shit that they wrote.

Compare to say, wizards of the coast products, which are fantastically cross-referenced, internally consistent, errata'd(and updated), have web content for stuff that got cut out of the print edition, and generally doesn't have ambigous or unclear wording in basic rules.
Seriously. Its a whole world of difference.



I realized this a long time ago, and its basically the reason I enjoy breaking the system so much. They make it so EASY. Occasionally, I've tried to fix it, but people haven't really seemed interested in houserules so I've lost interest.

Like… 2? If only there were errata!

I'm looking at my copy of Augmentation, and it says printed in July 07.

that's five years to fix basic printing and table errors and missing costs.

If 7 words added to the word count raise the price of the BBB by $10 - $15, then the BBB itself should cost thousands if not tens of theousands of dollars ...

Sorry, my wording was unclear and cumbersome. That was kind of my point. I was trying to call attention to the lack of erratas overall. Erratas and erratas of erratas are good things. They mean someone is taking the time to critically think about the rules, think about how to make them better, and then make them so.

~Umi

I've got to agree with Umidori, here.

Catalyst's biggest weakness isn't their lack of editors, it isn't that they don't playtest new rules.

It's that they don't, won't, issue and maintain an up-to-date Errata for their game. And no, the overall FAQ doesn't cut it; it's better than nothing, but, still a whole lot less than SR4 deserves.

Keeping a good Errata / MainFAQ was one of WotC's biggest successes with 3E/3.5E, in my opinion. It's a feature well worth emulating for other systems.

Disagree, I sincerely doubt the matrix rules SR50 were ever playtested AS PUBLISHED. And clearly tossing out the product to editors piecemeal is resulting in a bad QC. A single top level editor would have found things that others seemingly just assume is elsewhere in the book.


Many of the current products starting back about runner's companion, they simply go to their fluff authors and have them write up stuff. With very little EXTERNAL playtesting. The problem is that most of the fluff authors are very good at setting and story, but not very good at crunch and rules.


That and Mr Hardy's aversion to errata are a problem. (including his half-assed stuff like 1000karma chargen).

I can partially understand this... ok... the company had some big financial problem with funds. They needed to make more money than they otherwise would to stay solvent and keep paying the bills. Errata isn't a profit center, it's not sold. It reflects resources that could be spent on new product. But it's still a problem.

Errata doesn't in itself generate any profits, but it very much helps the image of a product line, which aids in securing long-term profits.

So...what about a weapon with a Pilot upgrade and a motive system, does it need to defend itself if attacked like this? This is why gaming requires you to have a GM in place and why a good group needs a GM who will use logic, or at least common sense, when dealing with wording issues like this.

If it has a Defense autosoft installed, I don't see why not.

Propulsion System requires Pilot Upgrade, which turns it into a drone. In which case, it uses the drone rules.
not to mention 9 boxes of condition monitor makes it pretty durable.