Right. Typed that with my brain in WoD mode (because that's what I've been in recently). But yes, that's essentially what I meant.

Honestly when I first read a quote about preparing spells in advance to launch instantly, before seeing the bit about using an item to store it in, my first thought was Shadowrun was moving to a more D&D style spellcasting, and bumping up casting time, so mages had to ration spells cast in combat until they had a few minutes/hours in which to reprepare their spells.

To make things clear for everyone, I contributed to the discussions on SR5 rules design for six months, between December 2011 and June 2012. I did not got to see the latest version (as there have been things mentioned on the dev blog that I never saw before).

I clearly dislike the Hit Cap and its implication, I got and took the time to weight the pros and cons, and I don't expect the final details to change that (since I don't expect the rules to be schizophrenic enough to make irrelevant the precise core mechanic it introduces).

However, in spite of my dry tone, my comment on fix versus change wasn't intended to be a critic. I believe both way are equally valid to develop a new edition. I was perfectly fine with SR4, which was all about changes, with fixed target numbers and including attributes in dice pools. The only difference is that a fix is supposedly always a good thing, while a change can be considered as either good or bad.

As for turning cynism down, it has been clearly stated during SR5 conception that I was a very cynical person

A limit on the number of hits has been added on every roll that didn't have one (basically everything except spellcasting). Every skill is now capped at 12 instead of 6. I'm wondering what are those things who were "left alone". The way the number of boxes in condition monitors is calculated? The dice shape?

I'm not saying SR5 is not fixing anything. But the thing is, you can't fix what ain't broken. Was there a definitive list out there of what was "broken" in SR4? If it did, I doubt "achieving unusually high number of hits on a roll" or "hacker can't stay permanently connected to the Matrix" would have appeared anywhere near the top. Rather try "dice pool inflation" or "hackers don't need attributes". SR5 actually doesn't directly address those to fix them. Instead, changes such as limit on the number of hits and a new Matrix design were introduced with the expectation it would trickle down to either help fix or make known problems disappear. Of course, this wasn't done completely randomly, there was some thinking ahead so that those expectation weren't unfounded. But replacing entire part of the system doesn't account for fixing. You could argue those changes actually were broad-reaching fixes specifically designed to tackle multiple problems at once. Still, it's different process, and SR5 would have quite different if the line of reasoning only had been "What need to be fixed in SR4?" and proceed to fix them one by one.

Capping skills at 12 instead of 6, from my PoV, was a fantastic move, and IMO, absolutely a fix. It just feels better for skills to be able to run a broader range. Sure this means there will be more Mechanics at the shop with skills of 4 or 5 probably but that, IMO, is much more believable than everyone having the same upper limit. It also gives folks a bit more to think about-do they up the skill again? More attributes? Or start to spread themselves around more?

I honestly can't judge the Limits system properly until I see it in play. From the little I've seen of it I can see potential good(wanting high end gear to actually feel better, making it so people may not need a bazillion dice to to worry about because hits will be capped), and some potential not as good(making gear count TOO much, rather than closing a minmaxing door it simply opens another one and possibly more than one depending on Attribute limits). But I really can't say for sure. yet.

Your last point is my issue, You have to take E in something and unless E is human or mundane it is a ridiculously big hit. In 4e a E in attributes is 12 points to spread out over 8 attributes. Seriously that is pretty close to unplayable, skills 18 points again unplayable, resrource $5000 well here for a mage or technomancer it might fly, but it is still a stretch you can't afford a decent fake id if you want armor and a bare bones comlink.

A should be good and E should be bad but E should not be so bad it is almost unplayable and A should not be so good it is unbalanced.

I'm not sure metahumans took a hit really as usually their cost was around the difference in cost between that and the next level in attributes, so a C might be ork but that is +4(as humans have +1 edge) in attributes with a drop in max for 2 stats. That net of 4 turns a D in attributes into a B letting you put B in let say skills while keeping A with resources. Not perfect but im not seeing a real hit here either. Elves got hosed a bit though. And quite frnakly related to my first point it kind of forces metahumans into a mundane route as attributes, skills and resources are hard to take at e.

I have to say in 4e though anything less than A in attributes felt like a hit since the 200 point cap that the 20 points copied didn't get you great stats and I rarely saw anyone take less than 200 at character creation.

The Attribute cap was easy enough to houserule away, but I agree there was an issue. Of course-as I mentioned I think the fluff didn't do as good as a job as it could have in describing the attributes. The lineup has always been 'Weak/Underdeveloped/Typical/Improved/Superior/Maximum Unmodified Human'. The descriptions never changed, but the associated numbers did. As we even talked about in the thread, it was usually seen that 2's were a lot more common in 4e, but the fact 2's were actually seen as more 'underdeveloped' in earlier editions...essentially I think the attribute fluff should have been changed to reflect that. People took the 200 points I think because there was years of seeing a different view of the 1-6 scale, where 3 was ingrained in as the average for a long time, before it was suddenly shifted to 2, but the attributes stayed 1-6. (If SR1-3 meant 2 to be the average then it wasn't described very well in the material that way.)

When I read 'Typical', I mean the first thing I think is 'this is the number that most people have in this stat.' Underdeveloped to me says 'This stat isn't necessarily terrible, but people who don't work with the stat have it, but they're not really 'deficient' in it' Improved says 'This is someone who works on the stat.' So where above it says the regular computer desk guy would have a 2 in Strength but the guy who hits the gym would have a 3, under the way it's described I imagine the guy who hits the gym has a 4, the regular guy has a 3, and the guy with the 2 is someone that's more sedentary or something. I mean I understand that when you have a grainy attribute spread then strange things can happen. I know White Wolf had only 5 points usually(until you started getting into expanded stuff), but generally that scale was Weak-Average-Good-Superior-Super or something like that, where 2 WAS the average Joe in that case since it's scale was 1-5. So in White Wolf, yeah, the regular Computer nerd would probably have the 2 in Strength, where the guy who hits the gym has a 3.

As for Priority stuff:

Now SR2's E Priority took a big hit. It's Nuyen was a staggering 500. Now you had the Allergy that a Meta could take. I remember actually making an Dwarf Sorcerer work in SR2 with Priority E Attributes. mean he was moderately allergic to Plastic to get bonus points, but thanks to the Dwarf stat allocation he made out pretty well all told(I think thanks to his Willpower bonus I was able to get 5's in both Int and Will.) He wasn't too stunning in the physical or Cha department and he was pretty specialized skillwise but he was rich as hell(thank you, Resources attached to Magic points. )

(I actually made a character on 5k nuyen before, but it was a human adept in SR4. He worked, though he was a ware-less adept and I was allowed to break the 200 BP on Attributes for him.)

Granted, when I look back yes, I could make a character on Priority system in SR4, meant for the Priority system(not converted from BP) whom essentially resembles a BP character in at least most of the ways. Maybe you're right that metas look less of a hit than I thought, but I do think that in 2 and 4(not so much 3 where they hit the balance better for that) Magically Active Metas did take a nastier hit to their other stuff. I will say in 2e it was worse for the Meta magicians though due to the fact they sometimes had minuses and actually had to put more points into those attributes.

(For the record, I should make it known here that while I tend to praise 3 a lot, I played and enjoyed quite a bit of 4 and will say they nailed Cyberlimbs soooo much nicer in 4 it wasn't even funny. In 3 and below they were stupidly expensive, hard to work with, and pointless. In a world where they were iconic in the artwork they cost more than a literal arm and a leg to actually get.)

For attributes the problem is even if the fluff says 2 is average mechanically 2 sucks, even slapped together with a decent skill you will only get like 2 hits on most tests. Once they went with the stat+skill model it became really hard to take crap attributes.

The problem I had with Sr4.5's Priority was that it wasn't actually any easier or faster to use than BP... and BP characters could take hours to days to create. In SR 1-3, I could create most characters in less than 30 minutes, including gear; low-gear characters could be done in just a few minutes. While I'm encouraged by the promise that SR5 will have faster and easier chargen, I'm not going to hold my breath either. I'm waiting until I can playtest character creation with a bunch of min/maxers, and see how fast, easy, and destruction-proof the system really is.

Enhancing Alchemy: Moving from a specialization of Enchanting in SR4 to its own skill in SR5, Alchemy received a strong boost. It can now be used to create reagents, which have expanded functions (such as helping increase your limits in certain tests)

Meh, I am less than thrilled by all these special artifacts and compounds introduces as of late, now we also get "potion of X"...

Attribute 2 + skill 2 = Dice pool 4 -> one hit while bying successes, and I'm quite sure most professionals work in non-stressfull situations.

That's another thing-the fluff calls a 3 in Skill rating 'Professional'(or at least it did, if I recall a 4 was 'Veteran.') When your scale is 1-6(at the start, even able to go higher later)having a 'Hobbyist-Practiced-Professional-Veteran-Super Expert-Really Super Duper Expert' looks better than either taking off the Hobbyist level, or going right from Practiced(1) to Professional(2), then throwing on something before the Legendary 7(Legendary may be moved up with higher skill rankings, and this I can see.) Note-I WILL make the point that this was in the original 4e book. I don't remember reading skill levels in the newer edition of it.

I think this is very much a YMMV thing due to how one's brain ends up scaling/seeing everything. I had said Attributes I pretty much see as I did, with 3 being the 'typical' stat in general, not 'typical stat in their speciality.' With skills, even if they go up to 12, I see 3 as the Professional rating; anything beyond 6 and you're getting into 'holy crap, they're really REALLY good' territory.

As for non stressful...well, here's where we have differences even in the Professional level when you think about it. Let's say in the real world I'd want my surgeon to have more than 4 dice. Though here I guess one can say a Surgeon is beyond the 'typical' level. They would, I'd assume, at least have a Specialization in their field(say, Medicine(Heart Surgery) or something), giving more dice, but I'd think they would at the VERY least have a 3 in their base skill and they'd probably have at least a 3 in Logic to even graduate med school. A Window Washer probably wouldn't need that, even though they might be a 'professional window washer.' Of course when you start separating out jobs and their difficulties it's a lot of busywork that you don't need, so it's easier just to have a nice clean scale(I was just bringing up a surgeon). 1-6 just feels better having a 3 being the 'Middle ground', for me anyway. (Another good example would be a lawyer-if I needed a lawyer I'd be checking their character sheets to see that minimum Logic 3 and Law Skill 3 with appropriate specialization, and if it's higher, awesome.)

Of course, jobs and trades probably have associated knowledge skills as well. A lawyer has different types of law, a surgeon various things, a Mechanic has those too.

Of course the word Professional in and of itself is kinda weird, a Professional Window Washer, as said, is probably very good at washing windows but it's sort of a 'low cap skill' (Insert a pro window washer setting me straight), but a Professional Lawyer, Doctor, Surgeon, Architect, or Mechanic or others of the like are much higher 'cap' skills for lack of a better word. But again, that's something that is best left out of the game in terms of being technical with them because that opens terrible doors of certain skills costing more or less and that's too much. (I'm sure it would be fine in some system, but here I'd be like nooooo.)

in a TL ; DR version since I typed a lot of words yet again(I"m quite enjoying the discussion actually), I guess my brain has a thing where it moves to the middle number of the normal 1-6 starting for average/typical(or in the case of Metas, 3+/- their bonus to find the average AMONG them) and nothing I can tell myself can change that. If it was 1-5 it would shift to 2. If stats and skills went from 1-4 my brain would probably get sad because it wouldn't know what to do.

Well, it looks like Pegasus will be doing a demo of the SR5 quickstart rules at the RPC Cologne (June 1+2). Unless the transporter from the printer ends in a ditch again, I might be able to grab a copy

Wonder what it'll be at Nerdcon in Hamburg next month . .

Removing spirits' ability to use Edge seems like a strange solution, in all fairness.

I think the problem with the SR4 priority system was that many of the BP limits didn't have a lot of leeway between "maximum allowable" and "the minimum that you need to do your job". A human street samurai needs high Attributes and high resources. A hacker needs high resources and high skills. All of this can be avoided by the simple change of making priorities "sum-to-ten" or the equivalent, rather than demanding a rigid A-B-C-D-E adherence. Of course, more generous allocations at all levels of a priority system (so that Priority B is still good enough for one of your primary specialties, and E doesn't suck to where it is unplayable) would also make it better. Overall, I am adopting a wait-and-see attitude, but priority kind of seems like a step back from the flexibility of a BP system.

You can quote Street Magic to me all you like (I'm not the one that made the decision anyways, I'm just the guy that's dumb enough to try to talk to people on an internet forum), but if it's as cut and dried as all that, why has Dumpshock hosted so many flame wars where people bitch about how different GMs handle spirits and their Edge expenditures?

Sum-to-ten isn't a bad idea, it does allow more flexibility than straight up Priority.

My gripe with any non-Karmagen system is that character creation and character advancement are done differently. Forgive me for not wanting to be "punished" for taking skills at 2 or 3 during creation, or not maximizing my BP in other ways that inevitably end up creating a lot of the same character types with dump statted attributes and skills at 1 and 4. When using karmagen there is practically never a time when I feel cheated or like I'm making suboptimal choices since any use of karma later would be exactly the same (except Nuyen and contacts).

Because many people apparently never bothered to read these rules? Nor on background counts.

^^^^^ I am thinking it is this right here. The rules are very clear on this matter.
And no worries, Critias, I am not dogging on you (I actually appreciate your involvement here); and yes, this conversation has cropped up tons of times over the years.

People don´t read the rules (perhaps even some SR authors don´t read them if they feel the need to make a blog post about a problem which does not exist - except for people who don´t read or know the rules).

SYL

Didn't you know? The poor, underpowered Awakened needed massive buffs to make them remotely attractive as playable characters.

The D&Dization of Shadowrun is a problem, but really not in this way.

I'm more being snarky because a lot of what we've seen announced is either upgrades for the awakened, or nerfs for the cybered. Maybe there's good stuff the other way that hasn't hit release, won't really know until I have the book in my hands, but if this is what they want to showcase, I agree with other posters that I am very skeptical.

I'll personally hold my horses until I hold the PDF in my hands (on my tablet) before going into snark mode. Yes, things don't look really good right now about some things, but between he glimpses we get, and the vagueness of them, I just don't feel safe to judge the impact just yet. And since there have always been moderate mali for cyber monsters, if the draw on limit is like Limit (social)=[Int+Cha+WP-[1/2*(6-essence score, round down)]/3, where a cybersam would at most face a 2 dice penalty, I'd even be kind of okay with that.

If the rule about spirits and edge is a basic rule, then it makes sense to me to put it among the basic rules in the core rulebook, not among the advanced rules in an advanced rulebook.

You mean besides this one?

That's really a non-issue, except for GMs who let their players get away with abusing a 'maybe' in the rules.

The cyberware social thing isn't new either, except for GMs who don't read and remember the relevant sections of the code.

The only other nerf I'm aware of effects everyone equally (though mages less so only because they were already beholden to the rule).

Apparently, because the rules are vague enough for that: after all, they leave a lot of space for GMs to decide what a spirit might consider particularly important.
The rules are extremely clear in that a magician can not order a spirit to spend Edge at will, which is what the dev blog is apparently addressing.

I usually reserve the use of spirit Edge againt the summoner for special circumstances dictated by the fiction. For example, trying to summon an earth spirit in a flying plane or a fire spirit on a ship at sea. If the summoner or one of her friends has the appropriate Spirit Bane, then that, too, would make me think about using Edge. That kind of thing.

Ehhh, people....

Quote from Shadowrun 5 blog:

"The fix was that spirits cannot use Edge when they are bound or carrying out services. If a magician wants a spirit to have access to Edge on one of its tasks, he has to use his own, not the spirit’s."

The same thing for background count. If its a core feature meant to keep things on an even keel they need to put it in the main book and explain it really is everywhere in the 6th world. Though I fweel sorry for any adepts in the game where it is everywhere.

Background Count is a feature meant to keep mages on par with mundanes, but ends up as a fuck-you to adepts (and a handful of others, like free spirits and shapeshifters*)

*Shapeshifters spend a boatload of BP on being a shapeshifter and get remarkably little out of it, so hitting them with background count can screw them over pretty hard.

They should just make mages on par and leave BGC as a cool set piece for certain runs so the GM can add some extra challenges to a certain character just like how you might make the matrix security tougher than normal in another adventure. Side note I wish it was just a dice pool penalty or hell a limit modifier in 5e. I hate figuring out which adept powers to keep and then writing a bunch of notes on my character about what he can do now, its just apain in the but IMO and quite frankly adepts in 4e at least did not need the nerf.

I agree with this.

Try playing a Rigger in 4E in a game that does not handwaive hostile hackers.

Fixed that for you.
Hostile Hackers == Hostile Mages (which I can be pretty sure most GMs run).

Last I checked those, not many people dealt with wide area jamming. Which is more equivalent to BGC.

I was referring to your "keep track which of my powers are active" woes, not BGC. Securing every drone you own as a node is a tremendous amount of red tape, even worse if you install ICs (which you totally should). And don't even get me started on keeping all these programs up to date.

I also agree that the hacking rules are a mess of red tape, which is why I'm eagerly awaiting the SR5 revamp.

Mind, I don't want to relegate it to buff/debuff "mage" but having it only take two or three rolls to resolve simple tasks ("open a door" "turn off that camera" etc.) would be marvelous.

True. I've lucked out in that at best the riggers in my games did that on the side of decking so we never went to far into it. The occasional roto drone hear and there that was activly piloted by the decker wasn't much of an issue.

Having read the second preview, I am slightly more cautiously optimistic. I like what they did with Edge. The mechanics are virtually identical, but it is a lot more clear in some key areas. You can't negate a glitch or a critical glitch by re-rolling the dice, and what happens when you burn Edge in an opposed test is quantified. I hope the new edition fixes more of those irritating ambiguities from SR4 that have been unresolved for so long.

Indeed.
Even if it's not necessarily my interpretation, it does make it very clear cut.

I haven't stopped by in months... Any chance we are going to get new fiction/novels to accompany the move to 5th edition? I seem to recall there was rumors of a publishing rights issue which is why none have cropped up in the past few years. :/

There are Rumors about new novels floating around, yes . .

There have been six novels announced for the next two years or so (and also some novellas, though I'm not as certain if we've announced them officially, or how many of them there will be).

Interview with Jason M. Hardy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls8n4GS4AZU

There are some technical issues at 18min10s, just FF to 18min55s, if you're watching

(Edit) Wrong thread. D"oh!

Hmmm...

So, to inform those that for some reason have a dying hate of Youtube...

-The Intro Box Set will be released shortly after the core rulebook gets released

-Splintered State will in fact be the first non-Missions published adventure module for SR5

-More confirmation on the Stolen Souls sourcebook (which will contain the usual plot hooks, as well as the run-down, how-tos, and gear to used on extraction-based runs)

-The first rulebook expansion after the SR5 core rulebook is released will be the Gear/Combat book (no title for that yet)

-There has been talk about bringing back the SR3-style custom weapon and vehicle generation systems

-An SR4 -> SR5 character conversion guide is being worked on.

bwahahahaahahahaaa!

Well it sounded like it was a ways off, probably not in the first gear book.