A Paladin is really nothing more than a religious zealot, which was done so much better using the Black Company Rules overlay for DnD 3.5.

I never read those but I should, I love the series. At least most of it, the last few was getting weird.

Supposedly he's writing a couple more.

Which is fair - the issue would only come up if, say, you had another part of the run that had to be done in two days; at that point, either you scrub the run, leave the injured party out of it, or the injured guy goes, but his wound penalties severely interfere with what he can do and he can't afford to be around combat at all. I'm not saying it doesn't work for your table (and obviously you should do whatever works best for your table), it's just that I disagree with any suggestion that something like that should become the main rules because of the broader effects it would have.



It's an interesting notion, but I'm curious: Why the need to make a glitch more likely the more generally capable of the task a character is?

As for Paladins: 3.5 also introduced the Paladin of Freedom, a Chaotic Good variant, as well as providing the Crusader towards the end (a more general religious warrior - Crusaders had to be within an alignment step of their god, but they could be of any god). It also introduced the Book of Exalted Deeds, which makes it somewhat clear that Lawful Good isn't somehow the very most Good alignment (it also made it clear that the classical "Paladin Traps" weren't actually traps, by providing a definitive solution).

Amazingly, those rules fixed all the little niggling issues (well, most of them, anyways) I had with DnD.

I was not on board with limits when they were brought up, lo these many moons ago, when I was brought into the SR5 project (I came in relatively late to the party). Not down with them at all. To some extent, I'm still not.

That said, I had a long talk with several of the people who came up with them, and I began to at least understand their reasoning. And then I started playtesting as things started coming together, and I discovered something: While they do come up, they don't come up all that often. I think the math has them coming into play something like 1 every 5 tests; our playtest experience had them a little less often than that, I think something like 1 in 8 tests (or at least that's what I'm told; I didn't do the actual tracking).

Yesterday, I ran a four-hourish long demo (a slightly modified "Food Fight," in case you're curious), a la the demo that was done at (I think) Pax East a few weeks ago. (And I asked the Powers That Be if I could do this; they said it was okay.) Out of that four hours, IIRC, we had limits (specifically, the accuracy of a Ruger Super Warhawk) come into play once. It's not outside the realm of possibility that I bollixed something and missed one somewhere, but it didn't happen a lot.

I'm still not wild about them, but it's coming to the point for me where I'm not wild about them because they're something else to keep track of, rather than "They're holding me back from being awesome!" as my initial complaints read.

I know, I know, anecdotal evidence and I'm a company shill since I wrote part of the book, so take it for what it's worth.

Awesome (Still not a fan of the idea)...
BUT... If they come in to effect that rarely [such that it made no real difference], why have them at all, then?
As you indicate, it is just one more [tedious] thing to keep track of, then.

My complaints can be summed up as follows:

1. It's an additional complication we don't need.

2. It doesn't actually stop dice pool inflation, it just takes the joy out of it for those who do like big dice pool games.

3. There's better ways of solving the problem, such as directly capping dice pools.

Again, I haven't actually played it, so I don't know how it'll work in practice. But I remain skeptical until I see for myself.

1/5=20%
1/8=12,5%
That's supposed to be low odds?
If the rolling of dice has not been severely reduced, limits will pop up very often.

It's no different then older versions of SR, and without it, IMO, players really don't fear getting hurt (they only fear dying).



It would be less likely to glitch the more capable a character is.

a character with skill of 2 would need to get 3 or more 1s before glitching

a character with skill of 5 would need to get 6 or more 1s before glitching.

it balances out in the end, a character with a low skill but moderate attribute (no other dice modifiers) would have a better chance of glitching than RAW, but a character with higher skill rating and moderate attribute (no other dice modifiers) would have a reduced chance of glitching than RAW. It would also provide a check on players from piling on massive amounts of other bonus dice making them uber-powerful.

Thank you Larsine.

oh crap, it's just all fluff. . . . . . .lame

To this day, and we've been playtesting this a long time, I'm still not sure I'm doing them right. It's not outside the realm of the possible that I've got such a block to it in my head that I let myself forget as often as not.

Like I said, it's anecdotal. I didn't take extensive notes on the subject.

They're intended to come in ... well, I'm going to wait for the release and let the statisticians and number crunchers of Dumpshock figure out how often they actually come into play. The intended value isn't actually useful in a case where there are as many variables as in an RPG the size of Shadowrun--the intended value could be miles away from the actual value.

As to why they're in there, they serve a couple purposes, at least in my opinion, and I think all of them have already been mentioned by others. One advantage is a second axis that the game lost when it switched to static target numbers. That second axis also allows for greater variance in gear (something that was a complaint in Arsenal: why were all the guns so similar?).

Another advantage is that it generates more choices, more decision gates in the game. First, you have to make the decisions that lead up to the limit--are you good with what you've got, or do you want to push it a bit further? And when those extra hits do come up, are you satisfied with your limit, or do you want to push the limit? Choices are good for a game. Aside from the basic value of variation, choices make a game more interesting. Making choices in a game makes the game more valuable to you (incidentally, it's not just for games, I use it in the classroom to increase my students' engagement).

I'm not convinced the system is all that tedious. Limits rarely change during play, any more than your attributes do. Playtesting data seemed to indicate that they added more to the game than they cost it. But once it opens up to the Shadowrun community, we'll see how well it survives its first real stress test, ne?

I can't find in the preview where it says skills will be rated 1-12. Can someone point the location out to me?

Thanks,

B.S.

In my limited Experience, what you will likely see is that players will go for what gives them the greatest capacity so that the limit does not come into play. At that point, you have no limit, which is the same as not ever having put the mechanic in play at all. Or, as many have called it in the past... One gun to rule them all (in the case of the Limits for Weapons, regardless of how much the weapon actually costs).

Unless it is a threshold test. If my threshold is 4 for a hard test and my limit is 3 I'm hosed from the get go, I can't succeed no matter what outside of edge which I don't want to require for people to go for it and might not be there anymore since you use it. Or if the opposing rolls first. I have no idea if there is a dodge limit but lets say there is and the shooter got 4 hits, if my threshold is 3 I can't dodge it, I can reduce the hits but I can't dodge it. Stealth vs perception is the same thing, if he gets 4 hits and my threshold is 3 I have no chance of spotting him. On top of that for perception how exactly do you choose to use edge, its not like you know you got shot so you use edge to avoid it. You have no idea if you missed something of any import, or anything at all since many DMs give random checks to hinder gaming he system. Yeah it can occur without limits when your dice pool is so small you don't have a shot, but I suspect limits will come into play a lot more often.

Yah 1 in 5 sounds like a lot to me, like a lot of pisssed off players as their good roles get taken away far more often than edge can deal with.

I ink 1 in 5 is way too high. I also think that a 3 limit is way low.

With a Dice-Pool of 12 and a Limit of 4 that has a 20% chance of being there, even if you only roll an average of 50% hits on these 12 dice, you will, statistically speaking, lose 2 (a third) of your hits on every 5th roll due to the limits.
If the Limit is 3 instead of 4, you lose half your hits on every 5th roll, if you only get 50% hits on each roll . .

and due to skills going up to 12 now, having a 12 dice pool for rolling is very much mediocre . .

The concept of "limits" is a method of capping. You can cap the entire pool, or cap the results. Works either way for me.

My predictions. Limits won't affect starting characters much. It'll be easy to overcome limits. It's a way of differentiating gear. It makes some gear desirable, improving gear can have a significant effect. Limits make you think carefully about your attributes (I bet a dump stat will affect your limit). Limits will affect characters as they get up into 8+ skills, you will start thinking about buying up attributes instead of skills when doing character advancement.

A limit of 4 on a total dice pool of 6 to 10 probably doesn't come into play that often. And I bet the limits tend to match the linked attributes for the skills they "belong" to. So if your Pool is 12 the limit is likely to be 5+.

That's the fine line. If the limits aren't coming into play often, then they're not a limiting factor, and they're not doing any good. If they are coming into play often, they're an added annoyance on the game, and slows down play. There is a middle ground, but it's thin and difficult to see without playtesting the game.

Looking back on my earlier ideas, I'm starting to like the "your attribute dice contribution cannot be greater than your skill rating" idea. Reminds me of older SR versions, where the combat pool that you dedicated to a skill test was limited to your skill rating. What can I say, I'm a nostalgic freak.

The only Paladin that should be allowed in Shadowrun.

So, would it be your view that if two characters have equal Gymnastics ranks, but one has three points more Agility than the other, they should be regarded as equally capable in the area of Gymnastics? Because it is the fact that the second individual has a greater chance of glitching that I'm referring to.

I think I see where you are going with this . . . Easily solved by dedicating the skill portion of the dice to a different colour, and only glitching if those dice come up 1s.

Whoa, 12 is like 1 more than 11. It's one higher. All the other runners only go to 11.

(I was going for the spinal tap reference)

I think the implication is more that if you don't rely on gear, you can still perform well or that your limits are based on your attributes. Which makes sense actually, though I'm really hoping that it's not a 1-to-1 thing, or the limits pointless for the attribute loaded no skill character, which was something I was hoping would be changed (or fixed depending on your opinion).

Just to let you know:

People hate that. It requires going out and buying separately colored dice.

You mean, you hate it. I don't know a single person who plays Shadowrun and owns only one colour of dice.

.........Left overs from the old days with combat pool.

That's actually not a bad fix - of course, it gets into the issue that it discourages people from broadening out with a number of lower ranked skills.

And I don't know about anyone else here, but I've got quite a few colours of dice. There's also the alternative of rolling the skill dice separately, if for some reason you don't have a variety.

No, I mean, I've heard such things in the past on this board.
As it so happens, my group used to buy dice by the pound, so it was tricky to get a collection of dice that matched even more than two dice the same color (much less everyone around the table). Our GM eventually went out and bought 40 black dice to use as "Shadowrun Dice" (and then I dutifully colored in the 2/3/4 pips with a sharpie I owned). Could we do that again? Sure, but it'd be annoying.

I'm sure you've got more than enough "bluish" dice, or similar, to use for that.

Well, actually, not any more.
GM moved out of state, someone else now owns the original 1 pound of dice, etc. etc.
Also, haven't played SR in like four years.

Are there really many times that the extra hits actually matter outside of combat?

As a frequent GM, I think it will be nice to just go "You succeed" rather than players expecting that they super extra succeed on 'tying their shoe' (insert mundane binary success task here) because they rolled 8 successes out of 10 or 15 successes out of 24 with their world class shoe tying expert.

And it may be one more thing to think about, but it's no worse than remembering all the modifiers for recoil rules.

Well unless C, D, and E in attributes gets you past the dump stat stage so you can easily have a 4+ limit in all the stat based limits I suspect it will pop up quite a bit. Maybe the number they pulled was totally random in the example we have but if a 6 limit is based off of high stats what is your limit when you only could put C, D, or E into stats? 3 does not seem that far fetched to me if a 6 is actually based on good stats. But hey bump it by 1 to a 4 limit and its a very hard test, or the guy sneaking for 5 hits which he can probably do off a pool of 8 or 9 and if his limit is 5 or he used edge, you are kind of boned. And if NPCs have limits do I really want them to auto fail against a decent stealth roll.

Negotiation, etiquette for legwork, stealth(you never know what you will need) perception usually has bonuses for high success etc. Sure sometimes they just need to jump the gap, but plently of other times the level of success maters.

I'm inclined to disagree, but a lot of how much extra success matter probably depends on your table.

Opposed tests the hits matter, but it's still a binary success/failure most of the time and I expect that the runners will have limits on the same level or better than most opposition in their specialty or even secondary specialty so it's not a huge detriment there.

Extended tests the hits matter, but the limit just means that there is a lower limit on the time a task takes. Not detrimental and not something many players are likely to get too bent out of shape on.

Social tests are so subjective and GM based that the limits will likely have exactly as much impact as the GM wants them to. Sure Pornomancers will suffer, but is anyone really all that concerned with keeping them viable?

If implemented correctly, I really think the place that's going to see the hardest hit from limits are people trying to do things without the proper equipment or people that depended entirely on stacking dice pool bonuses. i.e. someone trying to hack a AAA database with a stuffer shack special cyberdeck, someone trying to snipe with a pistol at 200 meters because lol dice pool of 24, someone trying to infiltrate a corporate facility while wearing a bright red neon shirt because lol I've got good agility, someone in a gun fight that has a 1 in firearms, with 1 agi, +2 smartlink, and +4 tac net, the guy with agi 1 rutheium coated camo suit, the character with a moderate charisma score and social skills and a toy furbie and pheromones convincing an NPC that they are in fact just a tree stump that believes it's alive etc.

Yeah, they're not super common examples, but they do exist and I'm fine with those sorts of silliness being actually blocked in the rules rather than having to veto them myself.

See the thing is I'm not that worried about how well the stealth expert can sneak, I expect his limit will be high. I'm worried about everyone else trying to sneak. Limits seem to have the potnetial to tell people not to even try in the first place because no matter how good you roll it wont be good enough since your hits will be capped. I'm not sure about your table but everyone at my table talks to NPcs, everyone tries to sneak past guards and everyone wants to spot the guy sneaking up on them. Sure it is a game of specialists but that does not mean you never do things outside of your specialty. Personally I think one of the worst things a game can do is tell people not to even try.

Yeah, everyone talks to NPCs, but we usually roleplay that and only the face negotiates the price for a job or for most of the equipment. We don't use the etiquette shifts someone one step per hit in your favor. Blending in helps, but no one that planned on shooting you instantly becomes your friend just because you look like you probably have been on the streets before.
Only the infiltration players try to sneak past the guards, the face usually walks in the front door right by them in plane view if he needs to and the hacker stays in the van. But every tables different, I know a lot of groups drag everyone along for everything so yeah maybe limits will hurt that style of play.
Everyone wants to spot the guy sneaking up on them, but we usually do this with precautions, not perception. And intuition is not a commonly dumped stat at our table, so I don't think the limits are going to be an issue. And even so, they either spot the guy or they don't. Maybe they get a few extra details for a higher perception roll, but beating him by 6 dice doesn't help a whole lot.

And it's not like the don't even try situation doesn't exist already. The large negative dice pool modifiers already do this. (Concealment power, with chameleon suit, injured, -2 hit by a taser, -2 disorientation, lighting penalties, you can usually cripple most characters just through dice pool modifiers). At least with a limit on an opposed roll, you still have a chance rather than having your pool reduced to zero and not having any.

Gear also comes into play. Limits are the higher of [Attribute Limit] or [Gear Limit], not the lower.

That's... really not very reassuring.

My goal is a simpler. faster game. Having a new mechanic to deal with is bad enough, but having to look it up every time somebody picks up a new piece of gear does not sound appealing.

Yeah, that seems like Yet Another Number to track on the already oversized gear stat blocks that everything requires.

Well, there's something else to consider here. I bet there will be drugs, toxins or spells that will actually lower a person's hit limits. Illusion spells like Confusion or Chaotic World could now work in such a way. And when a hit limit reaches zero you can't succeed at a test. In SR4 it was virtually impossible to reduce even a moderate dicepool of 6 or 7 to zero this way, but now hit limits will be much lower than that (probably around 4). So debuffing opponents may become a feasible tactic...

-CJ

If a Sam were to ahve a Physical limit of, say, 10, I can't say I see that situation coming up all that much either.

The same thing the "ohnoes, Limits are 4!" thing came out of had exactly that example.

The Sammy in the Quickstart Rules has Limits

A Limit of 4 is more or less the low end.
A Limit of 7-8 is more or less the high end.

Ares Predetor has Accuracy 5(7) (means Limit 5 normal; Limit 7 with Smartlink)

Street Sam Limits: Physical 8, Mental 5, Social 4
Street-Shaman Limits: Physical 5, Mental 5, Social 7
Hacker Limits: Physical 5, Mental 6(7), Social 5
Adept: Limits: Physical 6, Mental 5, Social 5

And if those are anything like the SR4 sample characters, the ACTUAL high end will be a good deal higher. Combine that with Limit penalties presumably being smaller than dice penalties, and I don't see diminishing a limit to zero being much of a plan.

your are probably right.

guessing from the samble chars: The Limits seem to be calculatet by this formula... but it is just my interpolation of the given data

Physical Limit: (Bod+Str+Agi)/2
Mental Limit: (Int+Log+Wil)/2

If limits are that high, they're not going to be effective in stopping dice pool inflation. If they're too small, they're going to constantly annoy people as they can't get enough successes to do anything.

I'm sincerely hoping that they playtested enough to find a good middle ground, but I'm going to play it and see how it works.

I find the limit concept nice at least. And I expect it to be taken as a good thing in the long run. It grants an extra-tactical playtoy (do I know break the limit with edge), and adds something to de-min-maxing. If dices are added, everyone should min-max equipement, even the unskilled guy (as long as he has money for it). Now only specialists have to, which, IMO, sounds good ("yeah, I'm a gun master and I've mounted this and that on my xxx gun better at md range than yyy" "Woa me? I'didn't do nothing. Just have my predator. I'm a decker after all").







@Fatum: I think I was unclear about that "If implemented at all" sentence. Essence loss isn't a deshumanizing effect (crunchwise, not fluffwise). It's a mechanic that lowers your magic and lowers your interraction with magic. And up to a point you die. There were notes about deshumanizing BUT honestly, even into fluff books, not every samourai is a heartless robot. Nor does a table or pages explain in rulebooks how to roleplay that loss of soul. Nor does a fluff book explain how it's perceived to lose your soul. Ok a street sam may be badly perceived, because he's dangerous.

That's why I say it has never been implemented. And if it is in 5th, it would be nice to have the logic be explored completely and get guidelines about how personnality and cyberware loss inetracts.


@Canray: Why would have cyberpunk to make and immediate jump to transhumanism? Deus Ex 2 ditched the soulless desuhamanizing cyberpunk gimmick. Because, I think, we are more confortable with the idea than in the 80s.
You can polish and update your cyberpunk. It's not really cyberpunk anymore, but I don't think that many want cyberpunk to be that 80's cyberpunk it once was. I've read an interview of Mike Pondsmith. He want to do that for Cyberpunk 4. I expect a flop.

Oh, on a side note, I think SR evolves in the right way.

Maybe you're right. We'll have to wait and see... but if limits are that high, their effect won't come up very often in the game... then I wonder why they did all the work to implement a new mechanic in the game that will presumably be applied to every roll and that's going to be irrelevant 95% of the time...


Yepp, me too...

-CJ

To be fair, just because you CAN get a limit that high doesn't mean it's a good plan - you have to balance primary limits against primary dice pools against secondary limits against secondary dice pools...

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