Personally, I don't think that variable TN works with d6. It's okay, but not amazing, with the d10 that WoD uses.

@Halinn
Variable TN make the math you need to build the system very, very, very complex.

This blows most games out of the water as soon as you have a bunch of things modifing the TN. (Advantages, spell, circumstances etc.pp.)


Reducing a TN from 4 to 3 is not a big deal. But from 6 to 5...

Where's the difference to how the dice pools work right now?
set TN variable small to huge ammount of dice, set ammount of dice variable small to huge TN . .
Basically, everything where you need to roll 2 sixes on a D6 in succession (12+) is a VERY low chance of success, everything else is pretty fair game . .

The problem is that the statistical effects of various things become much more difficult to determine.

@Stahlseele
As an example:
To get one hit on a TN of 6 with one die is 17%.
With two dice it is 30%
With five dice it is 60%
With 10 dice it is 83%

Now do the same with TN 5
1 die: 33%
2 dice: 55%
3 dice: 70%
4 dice: 80%

What does this mean. It means that it depends on your dicepool how the changed TN interacts with your chances.
For example: If you are using a TN 6 test a guy with a dicepool of 2 can probably beat a guy with a dicepool of 4 or 5.
This requires a lot of luck if you are using TN 5.

Add hit locations. They technically exist now, but serve no static purpose.

Greatly simplify augmentations, and make them easier to comprehend.

Remove the wonky bioware-cyberware interaction and offset their essence subsidy across the board.

Currently elemental spells are harder to hit with, *far"* easier to resist, easier to spot, and harder to cast, where boring, silent stuns are basically win conditions. Change that completely. It's not fun. It wasn't fun before, it isn't fun now. Fun comes first.

Where it really gets messy is when you throw in the number of successes. Which is more difficult to achieve, 4 successes at TN 3, 3 success at TN 4, 2 successes at TN5, or 1 success at TN 6? It's not immediately obvious.

1 success at TN6
1 die: 17%
3 dice: 42%
5 dice: 60%
10 dice: 84%
15 dice: 94%

2 successes at TN5
1 die: 0%
3 dice: 25%
5 dice: 54%
10 dice: 90%
15 dice: 98%

3 successes at TN4
1 die: 0%
3 dice: 13%
5 dice: 50%
10 dice: 62%
15 dice: 94%

4 successes at TN3
1 die: 0%
3 dice: 0%
5 dice: 46%
10 dice: 98%
15 dice: 99.8%

It really depends upon where you fall with your dice pool whether changing the number of successes required or the target number has a bigger impact. And there is no simple rule, like for high dice pools it's always better to change target number or something similar. Notice that for 10 dice these four situations vary from around 2/5 chance of failure to 1/50 chance of failure, but not in a predictable way.

Personally, I favor lowering the TN to 4 with larger base dice pools (higher average attributes and wider range of skill ranks) so that modifiers are not over powering and NPC's compete better. It eliminates some of the cases where auto pilot can barely perform the functions for which is was designed or a professional NPC with average stats not being able to succeed regularly.

*points at joined-date*
I am antique

...

I got nothing

4-5: +1 success
6 1 success and re-roll the dice?

@sk8bcn
Before you go about that you need to consider what "hits" in general mean and how they are limited.

This has the potential to creat a lot of hits on a test.


Generally speaking you have to consider several points.

1.)Range of attributes
They determin how precicely you can model your character.
For example, if natural strength only goes from 1 to 3, there will only be:
Week, normal, strongman.
On the other hand, if you go from 1 to 20 you can precicely put your score where it belongs. (And you can model pixies and the like without making them horribly strong.)

On a further note their range also determins the potential for character development.
Example:
Natural ranges from 1-11 and we are using Karmagen(SR4A) to generate our runners.
This would give them a lot of potential to increase their attributes later on. Even the "gunbunny" would probably not raise agility to 10 (270 Karma) or 11(325 Karma) straight out of chargen.

First look at what you want to do?
Shall there be supernatural stuff?
Shall there be only humans? What kind of "non-humans" you have in mind?

If you try to model from a pixie to a troll you need a different kind of system, than going human only.

One system that has a lot of of different sized creatures (from pixie to dragon) is Fireborn. And that uses size (as an integer going from 0 to 6 or so, IIRC) in combat as follows:
- It influences who may block who's attack. Melee weapons come in three sizes - small, medium and large. Weapon block is only possible with one step difference max. Size difference gets added to that. So, size 3 medium weapon vs size 0 large weapon = no block allowed. Size 3 small vs size 0 large = both can block each other.
- It stages damage up/down. Weapon's base value + maneuver bonus + skill result is compared to victim's attributes, to result in: Nothing, a scratch (no damage yet, after a certain amount, scratches convert to negatives) or 1 or more negative modifiers (enough negatibes result in disabled/dead). Afterwards, size difference is used to move the result. A pixie with a claymore hitting a human might score enough damage to inflict a -3 wound (to another pixie with the human's attributes) but that is then staged down to a scratch, due to a size difference of 3. Conversely, a scratch the human does to the pixie is staged up to a -3 wound.

The benefit to that approach is that your normal attributes don't have to be hugely wide; especially if you want them to be linear. Plus, for the majority of cases, you can forget the size modifier, as the difference zero.

Just to throw in one approach to that problem.

That's close combat.
How about a guns?
And Spells?

Damage staging applies to all kinds of attacks in Fireborn. IIRC size had no/little effect on getting hit. Of course the game is geared towards favouring using your talons and snout in close combat (your character slowly becomes more and more dragon like) over blasting away with guns. One part of that is supernatural abilities that give bonus size or attacks that inflict actual wound levels instead of going through damage->staging. Most notorious defensive power was one that took the wound levels you suffered and gave it your attacker. Remember one fight where that was the only way to hurt the monster we were up against.

Sure not gonna be a simply copy-paste job from Fireborn to SR.

@Dakka Fiend
Yeah, but it is a way to bring size into the game.
If you make ranged weapons generic enough, it would also work there.

On the other hand, you could give weapons size and strength requirements.
Like: You want to use a browing as an assault rifle, you better be a troll.

Well, Size-Modifiers would be a good start for the Next SR.
These never really made it into SR for some reason . .

They did. I believe body 8 or higher is easier to hit.

SR3 and missile seeking, too. It was easier to hit a troll than a dwarf.

Mhm, I have to admit, that I really like the general Idee of size modifiers.

How to implement would go to far, but modifiers to physical attributes, usable weapons, ranged modifiers and usable gear are some keywords, I guess.

No, that was Signature for InfraDead Sensor Ratings.
And THAT was not a Size-Modifier. That happened also if you had the Suprathoid Gland installed.

Well, size was the primary component.

I AM A FOSSIL.





-k

Oh come on. 100 MEGABYTES. Think about it. I have a chip the size of my thumbnail that holds 64 GIGABYTES on my tablet.

It's damn bleak if I cannot even fit in a 4 gigabytes DVD rip.

They somewhat made in Fourth edition actually, though not in the core book. They based it on the Body attribute for the large and massive size, but the wording ("as a general rule") leaves room to adapt.

I just wished they had kept damage levels of weapons in SR4.

I can make a troll that completely ignores most heavy firearms while in SR3 a good shot with a heavy pistol could raise my TN to dangerous levels and if I failed I would DIE from 1 shot doing deadly damage.

How so?
Remember, in SR3 the Damage and Armor System worked differently.
Heavy Pistol deals 9M Damage. So you need to roll four nines to stage it down to nothing without armor.
Now you use 7 Armor(easy enough to do) and suddenly, you only need to roll four twos to get nothing.
Granted, with ExEx Ammo you can get that a +2 on the TN and with Burst-Fire there is another +3 possible, but all in all, the Power does not matter as much as the Damage Level.
With a good roll you could have a Heavy Pistol start at 9M Damage and if you are really good and lucky, then you can get 6 to 8 hits on the attack. Meaning the Damage goes from 9M to 9D.
And then there are still 4 Hits left. So the other Guy needs at least 12 hits versus the TN of the Power of the Attack after he has applied his armor. And this means you need a Body Attribute in the double Digits.
If you don't manage to simply dodge most of the Damage using your combat pool, but for this exercise i'll leave combat pool out of the equation on both sides . .

They really missed an opportunity with regards to massive targets. Should have had the examples include the aforementioned side of a barn. "... hitting them can be as easy as shooting the side of a barn. This includes things like the side of a barn, ..."

@Stahlseele
He is argueing the other way round.
Beeing bullet proof is easy in SR4 but not in SR3. Thats why SR is better.

Thats true if you just consider armor.
Simply because it is possible to crank up the power to insane levels.
For somebody to beat a TN of 12.... Well, I would say unless you have a whole bucket of dice...

So if you really were playing one slow but though troll... Well, your opponent could just go full auto with AP-ammo and splatter you all over the place.
For example: Full auto 6 round burst gives you +2 Damage level and +6 to power. (That makes most of the weapons hit deadly and a TN 10+)

But I have to say, I do not understand how he gets to the remark about "one-shot" kills... Thats wrong, since they are not really that dangerous. (Or much more dangerous in SR4)
Full Auto is the mean thing. Can eat through all kind of armor due to the fact it is increasing the powerlevel AND damage level.
Getting two hits, while rolling against TN 12+ is a bitch. (Not to mention the fact, that you can reduce your TN for the AT quite easy.)

(Thats a bit countered by the strong say of vision modifiers, uncompensated recoil and the like...)

That's why you use your combat pool to dodge full auto and to boost your own attack if there is no full auto on the other side.
An Assault-Rifle, under SR8, usually starts at about 8m Damage single auto. And goes to 14D with Full-Auto. -7 points of Armor and you are at a TN of 7 to resist.
You just need MORE of those, because the DAMAGE Level is at Deadly+net hits.
Getting the TN to resist Damage down was easier under SR3. And getting Body up way easy too. And Combat Pool.
A Troll with Body 18 and 9 points of Armor is not unheard of under SR3 rules. And the Hardened Armor you can wear helps tremendously too.

There is no such thing as a one shot kill under either SR3 or SR4.
You have a full physical damage track, you are not dead yet.
You go into overflow damage while you bleed out.

It couldn't happen in SR3 because the number of boxes of damage dealt by an attack was either 1, 3, 6 or 10. There was no rules to makes more boxes of damage beyond Deadly (10). It only required more successes on the Resistance test to stage it down to Serious. Since the Condition Monitors had 10 boxes, you couldn't fill it and have extra damage for Overflow.

This is no longer true in SR4 because every hit adds to the Damage Value, with no upper limit. A single physical attack that effectively delivers 9 + (Bodyx1.5) DV will fill the Physical Condition Monitor and make the Overflow exceeds Body instantly (or 17 + (Willpower/2) + (Bodyx1.5) with Stun damages).

Indeed... The Troll I played had Body 12, 11/12 Points of Armor, and 7 Combat Pool. I was almost always soaking Damage at TN 2-3 (At Most). Even the above Full Auto Burst at 14D was soaking 3's. Rarely did I EVER worry about any firearms unless they were Military Cannons or better.

I have pulled off MANY 1-Shot Kills in SR4. In fact, I have even done so with LIGHT Pistols, which was unheard of in SR3.

I did see someone 1-shot "cyber troll" with an Ares Predator once in Third. (And it was a completely mundane human with no 'ware)

Ares Predator is a Great Gun... And while it may be possible, much like I accept the existence of Quarks and Leptons (I have heard of the existence of such), I have never seen it myself.

@Nath

Well, the source of nearly succide bombers in SR3.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
If you do not have a lot of armor in SR3 AND the other guy has a high attack pool.

But that is not counting more than ONE success for the enemy.



Yea, but anything above 8-10 got a lot more difficult due to the layering rules unless you had insane physical stats.



I started having trouble with my (resistance pool) at 14D6 as soon someone started going BF or FA because that's when the target numbers went over 5+.

What attributes did you have and did you get negative penalties for encumbrance? BOD and Quickness were rather important for that part.

No Encumbrance (What I was wearing was the limits of my Armor before Encumbrance), And he was a Physical Adept w/4 Initiate Grades, with Magic of 10. Above Listed Armor is his "Ganger" setup. When he was trying to be more Urbane, his "Professional Suit" look was an Armor of 9/10 or 10/11 depending upon Suit being worn.

At my highest Armor (add 1 to those above numbers) and I was at a +1 TN for Quickness Tests due to encumbrance, though I rarely went around with such armor, as it was obviously not needed 99.9% of the time. *shrug*

Liked the character. Was fun. He retired after the Bug (Ant) Hive incident in Detroit. Moved to Hong Kong.

There are many problems related to the last two rulesets. My three examples simply noted three categories that never worked well. Several basic game mechanics need to be changed. I prefer simple systems that can be adapted easily to emulate complex situations. I believe I have done so. However, I absolutely hate digital forum discussions and prefer a small group of people we can talk with or write emails to.

Since you are sceptic and I like open-minded sceptics, do you have the time and the open-minded will to participate? If I convert you (insect spirits) than other non-believers will seek me out (and become insect spirits).

Parfait! You are my first recruit. Please send me your email by message. Once I get a few others, we can start. I only can check my email once a week here so again, please be patient.

I took the wheel and made it into a tire by creating a simple system that properly matches mechanics to fluff, fun and "realism" without breaking our balls. You can actually do kung fu in my edition and it works AND its fun! Hand to hand was a nightmare in 3rd. I kick you! Armor 5. I do nothing to you for 20 turns! Correct.

Does your long answer mean you are interested or you just like writing long answers at work?

I did. I rewrote the rules, keeping the good mechanics and more importantly the FLAVOR.

Silly American. AFRICA.

Yes, I am fully realist and realize it is probably a gigantic mess. I will still try. If it works, they have lots of new money. I vote for Big D. I miss saying that.

if you did nothing in close combat against 5 points of impact armor, then you were too weak and had no business being in close combat in the first place O.o
that's what cyberware, bioware and guns are there for. or magic, if you must <.<

Standard Troll does something like . . i don't know, 12M to 16M Damage in close combat.
And Orks and Dorfs get up to that too without too much optimizing into that direction either.

Under SR3, the main difference was that no matter who attacked whom, whoever had the most hits did his damage to the other guy.
So yes, skill could outweight Strength. but if you did not have enough dice for your attack, the other guy would usually shrug it off, if he had enough body and armor to resist with.
Kinda as it should be. take a 1.7m tall kung-fu master and let him go up against a 1.9m tall guy in knight-armor for example. the knight may not have much of a chance of hitting the kung fu master, but the kung fu master has little to no chance to deal damage to the knight either. this is the point where you either go for cyberware(bonelace to make you hit harder) bioware(muscles to make you hit stronger) or weapons(to punch through armor and to give a reach advantage, which was way bigger under SR3 due to directly affecting TN's), or, if you must, magic, to completely circumvent any worn armor, and then try again . . .

i like the SR3 close combat system. at least the core book one, the advanced close combat stuff was waayy too much micromanaging . .

Holy Drek you guys write way too much. THE POINT OF THIS THREAD WERE VOLUNTEERS TO DISCUSS NEW RULES AND YOU GUYS ARE READY DEEPLY DISCUSSING WITHOUT THE NEW RULES. eheh

Seriously, who would like to participate? Again, I want to start with a small circle of elite and then later when catalyst games or Lofwyr spit on me you can all discuss this on forum until the Apocalypse. Answer the post and send me a private message with email. Many thanks.

A few points I read upon skimming. Fixed T# vs variable. I almost vomited upon reading all your statistical analyses. I use variable for one simple reason: it is fun.
Having a high t# was hugely suspenseful. Rolling 28 was SUPER fun. YOU ALWAYS HAD A CHANCE TO PULL OFF YOUR STUPID STUNTS. In 4th, you lose enough dice, it fails unless you plunge into crappy karma pool drek. and then it still sucks. Our group no longer liked rolling dice. As simple as that. We ended up playing campaigns where you d not fight, or playing campaigns in Africa with 3rd retro rules and fluff. Hence, stuff your statistics. Variable is fun and unpredictable.

Magic mechanics are good. Huge problem in 4th is that it lost all flavor. A shaman was different than a mage than a voodoodude. It was nice to have differences.

Adepts and technomancers always feel like an incomplete addon and seems pretty underdevelopped, limited and weak compared to a good old all powerful mage.

Briefly, I rewrite the mechanicis keeping the best ideas and mechanics of both editions. I present rules to have all items and gear easily modifiable so as to differentiate between designs without having to have a huge list of complex mechanics. An AK is different than an M16, in a super intuitive oneline gear profile. Healing is smoother, hand to hand works, guns is roughly the same (it worked) but magic is more clearly defined and is limited in a cool way reflected in the fluff. Adepts are cooler and work better as a standaloine.

I also develop the social aspects and the downtime of a runner with ubersiple mechanics that is surprisingly efficient.

However, I am out of time and I prefer fully presenting my ideas to a small group of people so please clearly state your desire to participate and send me a Message with your Skype and email.

Rant Much?

Honestly, I think it really just comes down to the 'grognards' trying to claim that the old system was better just because it was the original. Fourth vastly improved ALL aspects of the game, and made it more playable without dumbing things down to the point that D&D4 did.

Think the OP is off his rocker... he's free to rewrite all he likes but doubt he'll have any kind of official sanction... also doesn't seem to realize the role the line developer holds in all this in calling the shots.


As for the SR3 bits... I strongly disagree. I loved the dice pools but I don't agree that SR3 and prior editions did the pools well. The one thing in SR3 and prior I absolutely utterly hated is the damage system... the whole light/moderate/etc I'm watching people go on about. The armor and damage system as a whole was nonfunctional... 4th is a huge improvement on that whole affair.

Damage system and the 'floating TNs' were weird, but I could deal with them, same with armor. Where it real improvement came in from 4 and 4A is that attributes actually mean something beyond a few that determine reaction, and Bod. Rolling just the skill is completely ridiculous and stupid.