After reading a lot of the pages of the SR5 wishlist, and multiple discussions with my players, we have decided to house rule things, or partially redesign sections of the system to make it more interesting/fun/realistic for the players and GM.

Here are a list of areas that we are planning on addressing, some of them will be mechanic's overhauls, some minor changes. I need to figure out how to include spreadsheets.

Combat Mechanics
* Certain weapons being more useful in certain environments than others (pistols and shotguns inside, etc.)
* Called Shots being based on the coverage of an armor, as opposed to its resistance.
* Drones: adjusting armor ratings, resisting damage is based off of base weapon damage, not modified (yes ammo, no
multiple shots, if 1 9mm bullet didn't phase it, then 3 shouldn't tip the balance.)

Magic
* Making tradition important mechanically, making choices similar to Martial Arts (as was suggested in the SR5 wishlist)
* Limiting the power of summoned spirits
* Adjusting the way elemental damage interacts with damage resistance

Wireless
* Size of computer should limit hardware, and therefore limit software (Commlink, Portable/Laptop,
Desktop/Immoveable)
* Adjust software rating limits
* Limit or Erase Technomancers
* Streamline Matrix interactions and processes, but also make them realistic (We're near DC and group consists
partially of government IT contractors. This should be a headache.)

Gear
* Adjust ammunition function (Really more adjusting the way elemental damage works with armor and resistance. Yes,
I'm looking at you Stick and Shock.)
* Armor coverage (redesign armor construction and assign everything a coverage rating, which assigns penalties to
called shot around it.)
* Rework Bioware to provide minor or temporary increases, and utility to complement Cyberware. It should not directly
mirror Cyber counterparts, but provide other, interesting options.
* Cultured Bioware should not cost essence but be costly
* Create mid price range items for Awakened characters to purchase, the list of things they can buy specific to their
needs seem to be either fairly cheap or really expensive.
* Adjust the way contacts purchase and deliver goods to feel more real and organic, mostly it's just a matter of time
with very little risk of not being able to find something.

Please feel free to comment or add suggestions. This will be a project log and ongoing, to let people know what our thought processes are. If you have suggestions or arguments why these things are in place, or easy ways to solve these issues, please comment! Thanks.

A commlink should work like it does in SR4A, but a deck should have response degradation either elimiated, or greatly reduced. If nothing else* it can be that a deck is like 5 or 6 exact commlinks all clustered together to do the job.

* == This would be a really lame explanation, but it might make the haters say: "OK, I can believe it."


This I don't really like at all. Bioware is balanced by the fact it costs so much more and it has no capacity. My combat medic mage is able to squeeze a commlink, nanohive, Radar, datajack, and orientation system into his lower cyber leg. I know that I have spare capacity, but I'm saving that. You can't do that with bioware.


This I don't like at all. Cultured bioware should still cost Essence, otherwise you'll have every hermetic mage getting Cerebral booster level 4! I mean why not, it only costs and any normal mage is going to have an excess amount of that floating around.


One thing that I would like to see is the Mystic Adept quality eliminated. Make it that being a Magician costs 20 BP, but if you want to put some of your magic into physical abilities then you can do that. If you just want to be a spell monkey, then you do that as well. This would eliminate the shenanigans MagicRun.

I would also like to see Smartlink cyberware being elminated (or being reduced to Capacity [1]). If you can put the system into a pair of fraking contact lenses, then you should be able to run it as a program on your commlink. You still need the ability to display the data from the smartgun, but if you have cybereyes or an ImageLink built into your glasses/contact lenses, then you should be good to go.

In my next campaign, I'll have an house rule for this.
Weapons have a size attribute. 2 for light pistols, 3 for heavy pistols and PM, 4 for assault rifle, 5 for LMG, 6 for the biggest weapons (sniper rifles, missile launchers, HMG, etc.). Weapons described as "compact" have a lower size attribute.
Weapons can be "readied" before use. Weapons with size 1 and 2 can be readied in a auto action, size 3 and 4 require a simple action, size 5 and 6 require a complex action. Unrediead weapons suffer a size negative modifier if the target is more than 5m away and recoil modifiers are doubled. Calling a shot and Aiming can only be done if the weapon is readied. When the weapon is readied, it's not possible to run and all combat action other than shooting may suffer a size negative modifier or be downright impossible. A readied weapon can be unreadied at any moment.

The size can also be used as a negative modifier to physical and combat actions in small places.


Houserules I've seen for this used an additional "coverage" attribute for the armor. The problem is that the armor values in Shadowrun are as much about the resistance as the coverage.


No need for a houserule: burst modifiers don't count when comparing to the armor rating.


There are many ways to do this, either by lowering the spirit's attributes and skills or by raising the summoning drain, or summoning resistance pool.


Careful with this if you still want the hacker to be able to hack an Immoveable server with his commlink/portable device.


Discuss this with your players to see what kind of Matrix they want. If they want to get rid completely of the metaphor, how abstract they want the rules to be and so on. Everyone has his own vision of how things should work, so I think it's the best solution.


The problem is that now you have Awakened who can spend both karma and nuyens to raise their characters, while non-Awakened still can only significantly raise their stats with nuyens.


For my next campaign, I'll try to model the black market so that nothing exists in a vacuum. There won't be a rule system to handle this, but it will depend on who the contact knows and how the market currently is.

I like the suggestion about Mystic Adept being gone. I'll probably use that.

Size of weapons would be handy and it makes no sense for the Smartlink cyberware being actual hardware, when it's clearly described as software that can be run through your com. Thank you both for your suggestions so far.

My biggest hurdle, I think, is bioware. And for some reason it strikes an odd chord with me. The descriptions are nice, but some pieces are practically useless or dangerous, or both. Cultured Bioware, as it is described in the book, is your own organ genetically. There should be an essence loss from surgery as normal, and obviously a way to limit the amount of bioware your body can handle (Having Essence be a limit on the amount of extra stress your body can handle, but not lower it from Cultured. A seperate Bioware Essence is the capacity for your body to handle Cultured implants?)

We thought of the mage with boosted reflexes, but if we were changing the nature of bioware anyway to not provide the effects of cyberware at increased price/lower risk, then it would be something to work out. It's still a work in progress. I think I'll leave that part to last. Frankly, it seems reworking the Matrix system seems easier than trying to something as simple sounding as Bioware.

Sometimes rules are there to keep things nice, balanced and clearcut , not to make sense.

Ease of play and balance is something we're considering. My players generally feel that a bit more complication, if it means realism, is more important for their immersion and roleplaying (which is, I think, the ultimate goal)

You know one of the things that you can do to make cyber more attractive than bio is limit things like Synaptic Boosters to two levels rather than have three. Yeah, if you want the fastest reflexes you have to get the wire.

Cyber vs bio is fine in a lot of cases, people look to the wrong things to what makes them attractive.
Look to things the other part can't do, like attention co processor, control rig, simsense booster, skillwires... there's cyberwares edge.
Cyberlimbs needs some tweaking to be attractive though, generally allowing redlining and lessening the damage it does tends to do the trick.

Just one comment/question. Why bother buying the rules to a game if you're just going to ignore them?

Not cool. If you have nothing to contribute to the topic at hand, keep your mouth shut.

I don't mind answering it if it's a genuine concern and question. The answer is simple: the game, as an entity, has the right setting, level of crunch, overall realism, and best representation of concept that we have found to date. There are ingredients that I don't like, but overall I love it. Saying that a burger with tomato on it is utter trash and you should never buy it, is a bit extreme. When the burger is delicious, you just need to throw the tomato out and slop on a little mustard.

Could you explain more on the Cyberlimb idea, I'm interested to the tweaks you mean.

I went down the road of trying to 'fix' SR4 and ended up switching entirely to SR3 -- I went so far as to rewrite the gear availability rules, vehicular/chase rules, and all the Matrix rules. This close to a new edition, I'd say you should save your effort, just for a little while, until you can see what changes the new book brings to the game. They might produce something that only needs a light pruning to get where you want, rather than the current ruleset that needs a bush hog.

Redlining is an optional rule from augmentation, it essentially allows you to turn off the safety switches in your cyberlimb and push it beyond it's design specs.
The downside is that it causes physical stress that damages you and the implant.
In game terms, you can increase one stat of a cyberlimb as a simple action up to double it's natural stat, at the end of each combat turn you take stun damage.
The default value is ludicrous (not the rapper) and outright kills most people in one turn, a lesser value or a set value allows this to be used without ending up like Kusanagi fighting the spider tank...

Is this not the consideration of the advanced com links from War? The consideration of a Nexus that has multiple processors and thus higher load limits?

As for getting rid of Essence for Bioware, as one of the play testers for Bioware back in 3rd Ed, I'd only want to point out that "money only penalties" simply do not work in the Shadowrun mechanics. I admit I don't like the whole costing essence thing myself, but I do find it to be at least a functional option.

I think that you could have some sort of already-in-place limit on Bioware, like tracking it differently (like it is) from Cyberware, but have it function like Capacity for Essence, having a 6 limit, but not reducing from Essence.

It needs to be something that represents the capacity of the body to handle the new stress it's under.

You mean like previous editions? It was called Bio-Index, though it still reduced Magic Rating.

I'm also thinking of RFIDs and micro drones and sensors built in pens etc.
Bur I wouldn't go as far as limit it, instead price needs to increase exponentially with smaller sized gear.