So, a new Dev Blog article just got posted. I'll let you read it for yourself, but the gist of it is: gone are the days where gear could outshine skill, when it comes to building DPs.

Point by point:

Skill ratings will be 1-12 (again) ... but costs are not coming down. The upper echelons of skill ratings will be rewards for development and progression (and survival).

Matrix actions are going to be Skill + Attribute ... though they did not specify which attribute(s).

Weapons are being given a new statistic, "accuracy", that will limit how many hits can be counted when using them ... it seems likely that thins like Laser Sights and Smartlinks will become Accuracy modifiers. It also seems logical to infor that one's programs, and/or commlink stats, will work like "accuracy" for matrix actions. A direct comparison was made to how the hits you can count for spellcasting are directly limited by the Force you cast the spell at.

Limits and Edge interact in some unspecified way (detailed in the next article, yet to be published ... *shrug* ... lots of room for speculation, here.

This should be an interesting topic of conversation.

I'll be hiding in my fallout shelter if anyone needs me.

I guess no hope for the return of combat pool and the like. Too bad.

Well, as I said on FB ... I'll have to see how its actually laid out before I have a final opinion.

But having a few more minutes to think about it, I will add that I am "guardedly optimistic". It's not a bad idea, really; I just wonder how it was implemented.

Certainly, Accuracy (and shifting many bits of gear to affect that, instead of DPs directly) have the potential to make it harder for huge power imbalances between characters. I mean, DP of 12 or DP of 20, if both have an accuracy of 5 ... then the huge-DP character may consistently hit that accuracy limit, but even their best, won't be better than the low-DP character's best. I see the huge starting DP being more resistant to negative circumstance modifiers, more than anything else. And that, IMO, would be a good thing.

So, like I said ... "guardedly optimistic". The concept at least has some good possibilities going for it.

Really, all those pools (and the Karma Pool, ofc) got rolled into the Edge statistic.

Intriguing, kinda love it...
I wonder if they will extend the accuracy concept to other tests and make the hits represent respectively.
Example on top of my head.
Let's say we apply the system to jumping the unaugmented limit for jumping is 5 hits modified by the speed of your metatype.
So for a troll it would be 6 and a dwarf 4, similarly affected with someone who had kid stealth legs or was a satyr.
Each hit gives you 2 meters per hit, so a human scoring 5 hits would be at world record lengths.

If you were to say get an adept power or hydraulic jacks, each point would increase the hit limit by one, so someone with jacks 6 would have truly super human jumping capacity.

edge stat and the opposed combat test, yeah

Yeah, this is not an inherently bad idea - it's going to come down to execution, editing, and playtesting.

I don't want to read too much into a few hints, but it looks like they are addressing a few of the core issues with SR4 dice pools.

Having a higher cap for skills will make skills a more important component in dice pools, and it will put a halt to characters who are able to reach the skill caps at character creation. On the fluff side, it should ameliorate the hyperbole of the skill descriptions, where differences of a point (one third of a success on average) were presented as being far more meaningful than they were in actual play.

I don't have enough information to judge the "accuracy" mechanic, but it seems like an elegant way to cut down on the dice pool bloat from modifiers, while still ensuring that augmentations and tech mean something in a fight (important!).


They are keeping the Attribute + skill dice pool mechanic and a fixed target number. It is just the skills will be a more significant component of those dice pools, and modifiers will be less significant (only letting you uncap your hits, rather than adding dice). Could be good or bad. Like UmaroVI said, it comes down to how they will implement it.

He's actually referring to the SR1-3 Pool mechanic, which was significantly different from SR4's.

right, I'm talking about pre-fourth edition, where attributes weren't an inherent part of your starting dice pools, but instead gave you access to ______ pools that could be used to enhance your rolls (either offensively or defensively, depending on your strategic decision)

for me, that was always something iconic about SR that I was sort of hoping might return

this just seems further away (although mechanically I think I like the idea of it)

I will second the cautiously optimistic opinion. I like not having ballooning dice pools. I like skills mattering more. And I like equipment effecting rolls differently than skills and attributes. But we'll see how it's implemented.

Accuracy is a cool concept that makes sense, that already has an equivalent mechanic in magic, and that appears elegant and manageable.

Very eager to see more specifics.

~Umi

Quite. Not something I'd have come up with on my own, but I can totally see it.

And here Bull thought he needed to hunker down in a bomb shelter ... ha!

You can call me cautiously dubious about limits. Whilst I don't mind the idea of hard upper limits on successes for magic or the matrix, I'm concerned that it might end up being frustrating for everything else.

It should always be possible in theory for someone with a pistol to take down a troll in one hit. I don't mind whether they have to call shots, spend edge and roll well to achieve such a result, but I'll be unhappy if it's simply outright impossible. The reason I'm concerned about such a possibility is because if the "average" limit enforced by accuracy is low enough to be a point of differentiation between characters, then it's likely to make single shot troll dropping a literal impossibility. And if the "average" accuracy limit is high enough to allow for skilled shooters to drop a troll in the right circumstances, then the limits are unlikely to be relevant for the most part.

That being said, having only seen a tiny window in to the future, I'm not going to get too worried at this point. I'll see how it plays out...

Well I imagine there are going to be high power / low accuracy weapons for things like dropping a troll. Something like a Warhawk on steroids, dealing out Massive Damage™, but relying practically on chance to actually HIT anything with it. If you DO hit, that Troll goes down. The only problem is actually managing to hit the troll in the first place.

And to be honest, a Troll SHOULD be hard to drop. They're friggen TROLLS. To take one down in a single hit you either need to connect with a very precise and skilled shot, or a very lucky but monstrously overpowering shot.

The more I think about what Accuracy is going to mean for the game, the happier I get. Sniping with actual Sniper Rifles is likely going to be superior to sniping with Assault Cannons (which currently are just as concealable as sniper rifles, and can easily be silenced and modded for semi-auto fire). There's probably going to be meaningful variation between similar weapons of the same basic category. Shotguns might even get reworked, and people might actually use them! (They're actually pretty decent currently, but for some reason highly unpopular and viewed as terrible.)

~Umi

Based on the article, there will be a clear interaction between Edge and Accuracy (and other limits). One can also posit that a Called Shot's direct boost to DV, may not be affected by Accuracy. Or may even serve to increase accuracy.


In 3E, I had a troll whose entire raison d'etre was "stop bullets and say they tickle".

First combat scene, he took a full, long burst from a Stoner-Ares GPMG firing APDS rounds - with a LOT of successes (the player apologised to me for the lucky roll). My troll's soak roll, which was a shade below average, combined with a trauma damper, converted the entire hit to 1 point of Stun damage. He looked up at the shooter, and said "Right; you and me, we gotta have words. I'll be right up." (That was a fun night - my introduction started off being misperceived as an enemy by the party, but ended up being counted as a very useful asset ... "unobtanium bullet sponge" was the term they used, I believe.)

Pistol, shotgun, even a rifle? Don't make me laugh. nd no, he wasn't wearing milspec armor, either. But he had 19 dice for soak (this is SR3 rules, mind), and I think 10 or 12 Ballistic armor, gelpacked to boot. In SR3 terms, he'd have a 15 body, and armor / DP modifiers to bring his soak pool into the 45-50 range. And I don't care HOW good you are, if you're not sniping with a frelling Tank cannon (or a Thor shot), you are not dropping that kind of character in one shot.

... just to put some perspective on that. (Also: now I know what character to build for fun, next!!)


Right tool for the right job. I'm pretty sure a Light Pistol is going to have a lower accuracy in general, than a sniper rifle.

• Higher skill limits: All for it, provided hitting the cap at chargen is (near) impossible. It makes attributes less important, gives characters room to improve, and also allows for better fluff associated with skill levels
• Accuracy stat: I can understand the reasoning, a crack shot still needs a decent rifle. But it's yet another stat added to weapons, and breaks up the beautiful simplicity of "skill + attribute +- modifiers". Besides, crack shots with prehistoric rifles are certainly not such a widespread problem that it warrants a whole new mechanic.
• Attributes in the matrix: Many wanted it, I'm still not one of them. If metasploit has not been updated in a year you can't hack, and even the best reflexes will help you if [random FPS] lags badly on your rig.

It's reasonable to think that your programs and rig gonna act as "accuracy" for the matrix Sengir, given how they want all three worlds to have the same type of combat

Yes, I agree there. They should be /very/ hard to drop with a pistol. But if you're lucky/skilled/focused enough, it shouldn't be totally impossible.

Skills are Rating 1 to 12 . . again . . since when?

I'm not talking about those guys though

I just mean an average troll, not armoured, not particularly skilled. It should be possible to drop him in one shot if you're optimised for it. I'm perfectly happy with the idea of not being able to one shot a troll optimised towards not being able to be one shotted

As I said though, I'm happy to wait and see.

I don't get why an average troll should be more prone to stand up after a shotgun blast then any other bloke. They're flesh and blood afterall not a race of Terminators

I am very intrigued, especially about the Accuracy stat. I can totally see (as an example I'm pulling out of thin air, no foreknowledge at all) an AK-97 having a barely adequate stat whilst an M22A2 has a much higher one, to reflect the differences in how the two weapons are designed. Which, of course, allows for MOAR GEAR PR0N.

Perhaps Edge can be used to push successes over the Accuracy stat, or maybe increase the stat itself for a combat turn? Just spitballing here.

I think they meant "Looking at this idea (which was never used) again."

I'm surprised myself. Though the night is young. But Dumpshock occasionally surprises me.

Essentially, since ... SR3, I believe. The effective limit based on attributes - the cap for skills was 1.5x attribute, yes? So 9s for unaugmented himan maximum, 12's if you got to 8 (not unreasonable) ...

@Chromezephyr
Weren't they saying they wanted to de-empathize edge?
Also Kalashnikov's are notoriously durable and reliable, how that reflects in accuracy... Heck if I know

Ah . . no? O.o
The Skill-Limit of Natural X1.5 was introduced in SR4.
In SR3, there was NO skill-Limit at all . .
Skills just got progressively more expensive in terms of Karma in SR3, the further you got them above the attribute for the skill . .
So, skill half as high as Attribute, 1 Karma per Level. Skill up to Attribute, 2 Karma per level. Skill x1.5 as high as Attribute, 3 Karma per Level. skill 2x as high as Attribute, 4 Karma per Level.
Or something along those lines, been ages since i actually had to deal with costs of skill above attribute @.@

Ah, well, I haven't had an SR3 mainbook to check in, for ... six or eight years, minimum.

There wasn't a limit, though the core book didn't describe skill categories above 8 (8+ was World Class), and due to cost inflation it was incredibly rare to see anyone with a 12 or better (Barring those anomalous multi-thousand karma games out there). It was also a fairly common house rule that skills capped at 10 or 12.

Bull

Well, seeing how people could start with Skill 6 and higher Attribute or with 5/7, skill 10 was very much a possibility . .
But it is a game of diminishing returns, and at skill 12 why would you ever need to go higher?

The old shadowrun computer game used to limit skills to 12. (though there was some trick to get a 13 in one type of firearm IIRC... you'd raise the group to the max then do the old school specialization).

SR1 and 2 both didn't limit the skill.

But I'm glad to hear this... it sounds like it'll go a long way towards improving things... Answers a few of the bits we brought up in the thread on the SR4 forums about dice mechanics...


Some speculation & consequences I can see of this...

If the limits on skill modifiers don't change... this could mean they could go up to 12(18) for adepts... giving them a solid boost for the people who chronically complain they're underpowered. Or it could be improved some other way... it'll be interesting to see how...

I like the concept of accuracy... if it follows the same method as magic, then it would allow you to exceed it when you spend edge..

Characters will be far more competitive with spirits for skills. Spirits right now have unlimited skills... and this will help with this.

Armor and hardened armor increases will need to be seriously looked at... especially vehicles and spirits... on one hand you'll no longer to be able to blow through an armored car with a light pistol most likely. But if itnw isn't addressed this will be something to watch for trouble with.


A hope:
I hope they change the skill karma cost down to 1x new rank since ranks are now doubled... and then just by knowledge/language skills two ranks at a time (almost halving their costs). This and dropping the price of groups down should go a long way towards bringing attributes and skills into balance.

That's actually a very good point. Will be interesting to see what the Official Version says, there.

Rather than "modified damage rating" being ignored, making it "listed DV" being ignored* would go a long way to preventing holdouts from blowing up trucks as well. And make low-value hardened armor (*cough* drakes) actually have meaning.

Alternatively, hardened armor could be treated as "auto-hits" on damage reduction tests.**

*Spirit immunity to normal weapons possibly getting a tweak so that high force spirits don't become neigh invulnerable to everything short of a nuke.

**With spirit immunity being "force" instead of "twice force," which is a house rule used at some tables, IIRC.

I wasn't trying to derail the thread... just raise some random thoughts for the powers that be.

Mostly in the mold of... if this is done... what are all the unintended consequences of it?

With the Immunity to Normal Weapons, it should be left as is. A high Force spirit SHOULD be impossible for mundanes to deal with, and they should have to call in magical backup (or flee if they don't have access to any) should they encounter one.

Damnit, Draco. Now I'm wondering what the Accuracy of a nuke is gonna be...

~Umi

Infinity (assuming it works, which it may not since the mana stuff seems to make them unreliable).

While yes. No.

Yes, a high enough force spirit should require a magical response.

But.

Players should not be able to summon these at a whim.

Accuracy of 1. Autonomous die pool of 1. Pray you don't glitch. ;D

By the time a mage (PC or otherwise) is powerful enough to summon a spirit of Force 10 or higher as easily as breathing*, they deserve to be able to do so.

* This means summoning the spirit with only Stun damage drain and taking no more than 1 or 2 points of that drain.

Oh. Sure. I meant more the Force 6 spirits, which under the current rules, pretty much are immune to non-magical damage, until you pull out the cheese that is stick'n'shock.

Well, there is one change I thought of that I'd like to see with ITNW, and that is for it to be true Immunity, as in if it isn't a Weapon Focus, spell or Adept's punch with Killing Hands, the spirit can not be harmed by it at all. Period. Full stop.

And, again, I'm saying this as someone who plays mundanes more than Awakened, and as such would not be able to affect spirits with my characters.

This thread is about dice mechanical changes... not about the merits of anyone's particular views on how hardened should be. That's why I said i wasn't trying to hijack the thread...

Merely point out what may or may not be the law of unintended consequence.

Hmm, lesee...

-Skill cap rais- MOTHER OF GAIA YES, PLEASE!!!!!! Yer darn skippy that skills should matter more when it comes to DPs! I'm all for this one.

-The Accuracy thing for gear is an interesting idea...but I'm hoping for a little bit more on in. Because otherwise, there's a lot that it could go wrong.

For one, I do think that the Skill of your weapon should factor heavily if you make or break. Since, y'know, a Pistol will typically have a much shorter range in comparison to a Sniper Rifle.

So if you've got a guy who's main thing is dual-wielding two Colt Manhunters and has trained years and years with the thing, versus Joe Schmo, who's never fired a slingshot in his life, much less a rifle, just picks up a shiny new Ares Alpha off the street, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if Joe Schmo has a much better chance to hit his target just because he has an overall better gun in comparison to the pistols our gunslinger has.

...of course, it could be that we're just missing a couple of bits of information and that Accuracy modifiers are a thing, but we'll see.

Putting a hard limit on rolls are fine, but idea still needs some fleshing out to do.

Let's presuppose an Accuracy of 4 for Heavy Pistols, and 6 for Shotguns.

So hypothetically, Gunslinger Bob has Agility 5, and Pistols 7, specialised in Manhunters for +2. That gives him a DP of 14. Now, since he knows what guns he's going to be wielding, they're both Smartlinked, for +2 accuracy - a 6 total. He can count up to 6 hits, out of that DP of 14. Even if he splits that, to 7 dice per gun ... and even if dual-wielding has a -2 penalty to accuracy (an excessively harsh setup IMO), he's still going to be getting 2.33 hits per gun, firing 4 shots per combat turn. Or 4.66, capped at 4, if he alternates between pistols and gets only 2 shots per combat turn.

Meanwhile, Joe Random picks up a shotgun; he's got Agility 4, and - hey, he's a big Cabela Hunting/FPS junky, so he actually has Longarms 2; his DP is 6. Not bad for someone who's never shot a gun outside a video game in his life. And, ";ucky" him, his gun is loaded with FL ammunition, with a wide-open choke, for +2 accuracy. But he still only has a DP of 6, so an 8 accuracy is pretty worthless for him: he's going to get 2 successes on average, and accuracy doesn't mean bupkis to him.

And in the end? Bob's putting either 4-hit shots into people twice a turn, OR, he's putting four 2-hit shots into people per turn. Meanwhile, Joe gets two 2-hit shots per turn.

Either Bob has more successes per shot, OR, he has twice as many shots. No matter how you look at it, Bob's got the clear advantage.

That "Joe Schmo" won't have the dice pool to get the hits necessary to fully utilize that Ares Alpha.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I just said. I even gave Joe Schmoe the benefit (IMO unearned) of 2 ranks of skill with the gun, and an above-average Agility to boot. He probably seriously pwns at Miracle Shooter ... ;D