And a low accuracy, high precision weapon is one that needs its sight adjusted.

Sure, but even a weapon that throws bullets upwards of 30 degrees off the barrel axis isn't going to do less damage if the bullet somehow manages to strike someone in the temple.

The combat system is already fairly abstract. Previously Accuracy has been modeled by some weapons as being more/less accurate at range (treat this light pistol as a heavy pistol for range, since it's more accurate, and so on). Modeling Accuracy in such a way that it means "X gun can do a max of Y damage no matter how skilled you are" is just kind of.. weird, and unpleasant. It makes the abstraction uncomfortable, but it doesn't do anything to promote simulation/realism.

To a point, yes, but some inaccuracy is too great to predictably account for. Take a flintlock pistol, for example. I don't care how straight and true you level the barrel, the aerodynamics of spherical ball ammunition fired from a smoothbore barrel makes for a very strong tendency to tumble and fly off course. Beyond a certain range it's anyone's guess where the ball will land, and you certainly aren't going to be getting tight, consistant shot groups.

Basically it boils down to the quality of the weapon and ammo, and the distance over which you are firing. A precision machined professional sniper rifle should pretty much always hit where you point it (up to a certain distance where gravity and wind start significantly messing with the trajectory). But a homebrew zip-gun sniper rifle is going to be a lot less accurate. Likewise, a precision pistol should do the same at short distances, but suffer at longer ones. (I imagine they'll represent this in the new system by having Range Categories modify Accuracy rather than Dice Pool.)

And if you're stuck using a Barrens Special that looks like someone's been using it to hammer nails into concrete, the accuracy of that weapon is probably so bad that even a world class marksman is going to have trouble hitting a moving target at any significant distance (and that's assuming it doesn't just blow up in your hand when fired).

~Umi

I don't know if this is overboard, but that's a goddamn brilliant idea that I think could solve the shotgun vs SMG vs assault rifle problem. Give short-range weapons very high limits, but have them fall off faster at range (so an SMG at long range might be down to like Accuracy/whatever 2). Then the damage limit would make more sense -- longarms would retain higher accuracy/damage at longer ranges, whereas SMGs and shotguns could do high damage close up but decline at range. That'd give you a real reason to switch to a shotgun or pistol when clearing hallways in a building, but make you want a rifle outside.

The reason you use a shotgun/PDW over an assault rifle in an indoor environment has nothing to do with damage and more to do with who quickly you can bring the weapon to lethal bearing on a sudden target.

Yes, but try to model that in Shadowrun. In an abstract combat system, modifying the damage potentials in different range categories still roughly brings you to the same place -- more bullets on target close up with close up guns, so close up guns are more desirable close up. If you wanted to get crunchy, you could put each category of gun on its own skewed bell curve, so a sniper rifle might be awful at close range, so-so at medium range, and really good at long range (and back down to so-so/decent at extreme range).

EDIT: This would also allow for some cool weapon mods and effects: various range sights (ACOG, etc) to skew the accuracy curve, heavy attachments (grenade launchers) could screw up accuracy at close range, or other attachments (gas vent, silencer) could screw up accuracy at long range, or even adjustable stocks to make a carbine/assault rifle more suitable to a particular range with an action.

I'll just throw in some food for thought, what if they amp up all the DV's and have accuracy be the throttle...
So a Heavy pistol would do 8P but only have accuracy 1 or 2, for example.


Increasing lethality, bit by bit.

Exactly. If we tried to model firearms realistically, all guns would be just about equally likely to kill if you hit your target. The abstraction of dealing more damage with shotguns instead of assault rifles suits the needs of the game while still making sense as an abstraction of reality.


I'm actually hoping for exactly this sort of thing. A heavy pistol might have a much higher base damage than a light pistol, but a light pistol should be much more accurate.

~Umi

Regarding accuracy limiting the hits and preventing bullet from being deadly and eliminating the possibility of pistols killing trolls, I feel like the adding net hit rules already does this in reverse. Why is it that simply because you're inexperienced with a weapon it is literally impossible to kill someone with it?

Example, Joe average defaulting on using a pistol even with an above average agility of 5, he's rolling 4 dice. With a heavy pistol, the most damage he can do is 9 DV, if he rolls all hits and the defender doesn't have any successes on the defense test and they have no successes on the soak test it's still only going to knock out them out, not kill a low body human or elf. Because the shooter is inexperienced, the bullet can never hit the temple. I'm not saying I want it to be a frequent occurrence, but it's not possible under the current rules and it would be nice if it was. But it's a game, you have to sacrifice realism for play.

I don't think we're losing anymore realism by limiting hits to damage than we are losing right now by not letting low end users have any chance at those levels of hits to damage. And I will be happy to see a game where the damage from a light pistol doesn't magically triple in the hands of an expert. How often the expert hits, sure, but damage? a lot of what the bullet hits in the body and what it does is chance. Even a well placed shot has a chance to avoid major organs regardless of how good the shooter is. Light pistols shouldn't regularly be more deadly than a high explosive grenade exploding at your feet.

I would also like to see an complete change on called shots. I'll never understand why aiming at a spot their vest doesn't cover makes it completely impossible for me to hit their vest or any other part of them.

I would sacrifice my neighbors to see SR5 do this. Both of them (neighbors, I mean).






SUDDEN EPIPHANY .... what if Recoil stops being a DP modifier, and becomes an accuracy modifier?

Wasn't that mentioned a few pages back?

Well, since there's going to be fewer positive dice pool modifiers from equipment, there really should be a commensurate reduction in negative ones as well.

Maybe. If there was, I missed it.

There probably will be.

To me, those kind of fluke, one-in-a-million shots are represented by the Edge Attribute. Assuming that Edge in SR5 still uncaps the maximum possible hits.

Just to add a few more thoughts. While I like the concept, I'm not sure I'll like the execution. Here's what I found when using the matrix + attribute in SR4:

1. Certain rules interactions become stupidly broken. Threading up a program, means you can take your CF of 4 an thread it up to an 8 (or higher, AFB). Meanwile your opposition hacker can get at most 4 hits (with a rating 4 program to me being standard jo blow security software).

2. Barring incompetancy, say enough to get 6 to 8 dice, skill did not matter as much as the limits did.

3. Agents were wither stupid good or a cakewalk, balancing for a challenge was difficult for me.


For 5th Edition:

1. They will have to rework the matrix rules to better handle infiltrating a site. As it stands now a Techno can waltz right in to most systems.
2. Agents/IC should just be a single number ranging in rating from 3-18+.Keep it simple, and an agent can have its rating in programs.
3. Go back to a security tally for deckers! One of the things I miss from 2nd ed.

OT:Guns
1. Range should reduce accuracy--it does not need to be linear. Ex shooting a sniper rifle at a target within point blank and short range modifies the rifle's to a 3, while at medium range and longer it jumps up to an 8 and then drops to a 6 at extreme.
2. Wide bursts should just be a negative to the persons dodge roll as it is. Narrow should still increase the damage.
3. Recoil should reduce accuracy as well.
4. Cover should limit the dodge roll.

Because clearly the matrix isn't getting an overhaul.

My thought is that weapons could be restricted to a damage maximum (say 50% above their base damage). Extra hits above that would still affect the damage resistance test and have to be negated.

So you shoot a guy with a weapon that's Accuracy 5 and Damage 6. You get your 5 hits, bringing the weapon damage up to 11. The target only soaks one damage, bringing the damage down to 10. Since the weapon max damage is 9, he actually takes 9 damage (not 10).

There, that makes a lucky amateur able to do the same amount of damage as a sharpshooter, but the sharpshooter is still doing more damage in general because people have to soak more in order to reduce his damage.

One ordinary dude being able to murder another ordinary dude with a gun really shouldn't be a fluke one in a million shot.

One ordinary dude murdering another ordinary dude with a gun and a single bullet. Yeah, it should be. Anyone can double-tap for a kill.

Or at least, on average, the injured guy isn't going to die from the initial wound.

To put it back in perspective...

The same average Joe with 5AGI goes to shoot a guy from ten feet away. (4 dice, +2 for point blank. 6 dice.)
He knows Ganger McGangerson has to die, so he aims for the head. (-4 dice, called shot head. +4 damage. 2 dice.)
He steadies himself for a second. (Take aim, +1 dice. 3 dice.)

He shoots and, on average, does 10P with the potential of 12, enough to kill a low body enemy.
Random people CAN one hit kill other random people. A single shot to the chest? Survivable. To the head? It still depends on if they hit you between the eyes or take an ear off, but it's doable.

You still should make it into persepective. When I play DD, no matter if I roll 5 or 18, my sword still deals 1d8+Strength in damages. In Call of Cthulhu, nigh the same.

Heck, many games doesn't offer any success mesurement.

I'm willing to see the outcome. I've got my 4th and 4A books but still didn't read them as I'm playing all the old adventures I bought. However, from what I've seen here, equipement's effect was mmmm lack luster? Like +1 die/+2 dices (+0.33 succes, +0.66 successes?). While adding equiment to highten the cap feels, IMO, stronger.
Well, 'kay, the stranger point about such a system it is that a lower dice pool character wouldn't benefit at all from equipment.


And btw, if I understood that, you still can uncap the roll with edge.

NEW BLOG ENTRY ... relevant to this thread:

http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2013/02/s...exceeding-them/

Seems Edge is one way to exceed those Limits - including, AFTER the roll; if you get an awesoem roll, just blow a point of Edge to ignore whatever Limit there was. Or if you spent the edge beforehand, to gain dice ... you also ignore the Limit.

I actually like that.

I'll be damned, I guessed right. It seemed like a common sense thing to me, so I'm glad it's in there.

The refreshing edge thing instead of karma seems like something you'll want to talk about with your players as a GM if it's an either/or thing. I can see some players saying "Nope, I'd rather have the karma. If I run out of luck in the middle of the run, well the world is a cold place and agricultural property is cheap."

I agree with ChromeZephyr. If the karma costs stay about the same as they are now, I would much rather have the karma than the luck.

A GM could also rule that the down-time required to regain (at least some of) your edge could be shorter so that you can gain back edge during the mission. We do this already at our table.

-D

Letting everyone refresh a single point of edge at the close of each major Scene would also work. It would encourage people to spend a point now and then, without worrying too much about "OMG I'll be out of Edge during the climactic scene at the end of the 'run!"

We still don't know what, if any, changes are going to be made to karma, however. They may already be planning a way to compensate for this change.

~Umi

so, instead of doing something to actually make the dice pools smaller, they just limit how many hits you can use and then give a limitbreak to get around that limit?

The more things change . .

Something about trying to make character stats look about the same at a glance, but function together in a completely different way.

Honestly, there wasn't much attempt to really make dice pools smaller. For most of us on the design team, we didn't feel this was an issue.

The thing we focused on was finding more balanced ways for your attribute, skills, gear, and gear mods to all work together.

At this point you still haven't seen everything regarding Limits and how Skills and Gear and stuff all work together. I imagine Jason will cover more of this in the near future.

Yeah we need limit breaks.

OMNI-SLASH!

I find that a little off-putting, since I've always thought the large dice pools and the more-dice-more-often design were the biggest weaknesses of the system. Since there's an extremely tiny chance for literally achieving no successes once you reach the standard character range of dice pools, you have to heap additional qualifiers for what counts as success in order to maintain any tension brought about by the possibility of failure. This leads to more Opposed Tests and Extended Tests -- opposed tests are just more dice on the table, but extended tests are pretty weak, since again with large pools there's no real likelihood of failure, so it's just an exercise in rolling again and again and again until you get it (which has led to optional/house ruling of diminishing dice pools for extended tests). It's all very brute force and inelegant.

I like this limiter on dice pools. Roll lots of dice, but you're going to hit a theoretical wall based on your natural capabilities. Quite nice. The one thing I'm uncertain about is that this will still push people to raise attributes again and again, meaning that sooner or later, Shadowrunners are still going to end up superhuman. I hope they raise the cost for increasing attributes a bit more (10 x Level perhaps?), so that people will focus more on skills, and raising an attribute will be considered a significant expenditure, representing months or more of improvement.

That being said, I have a suggestion: While only X Hits will count for your effect, I'd like additional rolled Hits to be able to be used to counter a target's defence. If your Accuracy is 2, and you roll 6 hits, perhaps the 4 uncounted Hits can be used specifically to counter the target's Dodge roll - you'd still only get your 2 hits for purposes of damage, but the remainders could help ensure those two hits count for something. If your target rolls only 1 Hit on dodge, you still only get your two Hits, but if he rolls 4 Hits on dodge, your two Hits still count. This is something we've done with magic (any Hits higher than the spell's Force count to reduce the ability to resist the spell).

That makes it an explicit damage limiter as opposed to a to-hit limiter. Keeping hits over a hit cap to increase the resist/defend difficulty sort of defeats the purpose of capping things in the first place, and more leads you to the realm of guaranteed low damage rather than an actual failure situation.

I disagree. That makes weapons with low Accuracy not-inaccurate.

And if dodge test is capped by something, the successes achieved are substracted to the over-success of attack test and...

I find the base idea more in-line with an overall cap system.

i remember one of the design goals of SR4 having been to reduce the ammount of rolled dice . .

And it worked! For instance, my face is DOWN to only 30-something dice for negotiation!

Problem is, this isn't unique to Shadowrun. In Shadowrun, characters get more dice. In D&D, they have a higher skill that they're adding to the dice. So you have to increase the difficulty, add more modifiers, whatever. Same goes for Vampire, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Star Wars, Cartoon Action Hour, GURPs, Mutants & Masterminds, and pretty much every other RPG I've played over the years.

Every game has a success scaling issue, if there's any kind of real progression for players. That's the nature of gaming. Players want to get better, they want to be better. And at some point, the success to failure ration on a basic test diminishes to the point where it's a non-issue.

At that point, as a GM, you have to start looking at other ways to challenge your players. Maybe even put them in situations where success or failure depends solely on their choices and actions, and not on their dice rolls.

Bull

Personally I love rolling buckets of dice, the modifier system could use some work though, which it looks like they're doing.

From now on Edge is Limit break, lets see if it catches on

I think that was one of the stated goals of SR4, yes. And you'll note it failed, pretty spectacularly in some cases.

Hell, I regularly roll MORE dice in SR4 than I did in SR2-3.

So early on in discussions, we decided we weren't going to concern ourselves with the sizes of dice pools. For every player I've met that didn't like the size of SHadowrun's average dice pool, I've met one who loves rolling big handfuls of dice. But those two players represent a fraction of the players who simply don't care about the size of the dice pool one way or another. So long as the sources of those dice make sense and fit the character, it doesn't matter.

So rather than concern ourselves with arbitrary numbers (What is too many? How many are too few? Everyone has a different opinion.), instead we focused on where those dice were coming from and how they effected game play and character growth.

Bull

Hmm. Good points raised. I retract my suggestion. Especially the one about dodge caps and how that would play out. I'd completely not thought of that!

4E did hold back on the larger dice pools I had in 1E to 3E, and I'm glad for that, but I would really like to see more limits on increasing attributes. I'm almost tempted to say I preferred 1E, where each attribute could only be increased once. Seriously, people can only improve themselves so much naturally... there's hard limits that normal people slam into, and the only way to surpass them is if you dedicated a portion of your time to fixing that -- and continued to dedicate that time to maintain it. Someone starting at Strength 2 should not be allowed to hit Strength 6, since Strength 2 should be close to their 'optimal' rating for their current lifestyle and employment. Sure, they might get to Strength 3, by training themselves, but unless they maintain that regimen, they're technically shouldn't be keeping that Strength 3. I can accept a bit of slide there, but ... when attributes go up 3 or 4 points, you have to really wonder what the hell the character's doing to get to that point.

I heard running for your life is good exercise

If you're doing this regularly, something's wrong. But I usually believe that your 'starting character', while fresh in their career perhaps, has the attributes that represent their 'normal' manner of living. So if your character is a mercenary, their attributes came about from mercenary training and experience. I can understand skills improving - as you use these skills, you'll get better at them, but attributes I see as more a byproduct of genetics and lifestyle.

It is funny that you mention that, since I almost NEVER improve any single Atttribute more than once in game (outside of Augmentations). Magic/Resonance aside, of course. I far prefer to improve my Skills. I also rarely ever hit DP's above a 16, though, either. *shrug*

It's not a matter of basic tests -- generally speaking, there are dozens of things you might do every day where you have no real chance of failure unless you're completely inattentive. The chance of failing a basic task should recede to nearly nothing, and generally pretty quickly.

It's the really difficult stuff becoming relatively easy that irks me. Taking a long-range called shot through smoke while running at a guy in cover, for example. At a certain point you're virtually guaranteed to get a few successes on anything you try, just because you're going to apply every negative modifier in the game and still have dice left over. I've said it before, but it's linked entirely to the fact that success drops from a worst case of 33% likely to 0% likely in a single point.

Tacking on thresholds and using opposed tests alters that probability, but thresholds add complexity (requiring some calculation to determine the appropriate threshold) and opposed tests tend to make any task a craps shoot (if the opposing force has anywhere near the ballpark of the dice pool of the character) rather than a risk that can be evaluated. Further, thresholds tend to be somewhat arbitrary -- when you use them versus when it's an opposed test etc, sometimes switching from one to the next within related activities.

As a GM, I can always ditch a system or play an entirely different game or decide to have popcorn and watch movies. That doesn't actually help the game system's ability to arbitrate and resolve conflict. I understand that any system taken to extremes will break, but SR4 tends to reach the breaking point pretty damn early. I already know why, but I'd like to think some effort is being made to make it nicer, rather than repeating mistakes.

Hmm. Perhaps things like range can reduce how much accuracy a weapon has. A sniper rifle might have an accuracy of 6, for example, but at extreme range this might drop to 2. A scope can offset this, adding a +2 accuracy, rather than an increase in dice pool, perhaps. So, a hold-out might normally have an accuracy of 2, but with a laser sight, this increases to 4. Firing at long range can reduce this to 1, which makes sense for a pistol.

I don't know where the "I rolled more dice in SR3 than in SR4" people are coming from. I sometimes see.. 12 dice? Rarely more than 12.

I honestly don't care how arbitrarily large the average dice pool is. What I care about is the effect of dice pool modifiers versus the size of the dice pool versus the probability of success per die. A lot of the problems I see in SR4 have to do with importing the Target Number modifiers from SR3 whole cloth as dice pool modifiers. -2 TN for a Smartlink is not really close to the same thing as +2 dice out of 18 for a Smartlink.

Well, a quick way to consider the thing is to transform 1 die into 0,33 successes.

And if you take 2nd-3rd, not considering TN over >6 or <=2, a -1/+1 TN was equal to 0,16 success x Nb of dices rolled.


So a +2 smartlink 4th ed (+0,66 successes) is way weaker than a -2 3rd ed with a skill of 6 (+0,32*6=+2successes) and with a full combat poll use, +4 successes.

Yeah I mentioned some of this in another random brainstorm post....

But really short of 'percentile' penalties/bonus to dice pools... don't know what else to do. That's a bit math heavy for some... even if calculating 5 or 10 percentiles is pretty easy.

You either end up with a ton of nit-picky situational mods which slow things down... or you end up with no meaningful mods whatsoever on a monstrous dice pool. So unless you have something which penalizes the dice pool by say 30%... a -3 is a big deal to 'joe average'... but no problem whatsoever to 20 dice pool.


But that brings it's own set of problems... much more needs to be seen about how this accuracy system works in fact. But I doubt we'll see enough in these sneak peeks to make any good/substantive opinion before the release in summer.

The concept of applying force limits to equipment is kind of nice... as is the confirmation that edge would allow exceeding the limits... though as always devil is in the details... including how exactly edge works to be spent... how often it refreshes partially or in full... etc. Right now it has the sound of... go big on edge or go home... (something many of my GM's criticize me for... making characters with 5 edge normally out the gate when half the rest only have 2 or 3).