If there's not enough variance in the core rules, don't worry. There's lots of room in future books for hundreds if not thousands of different weapons. Not to mention other gear.

Buit the master will be better playing the crap violin than the beginer, accuracy does not reflect that in the slightest. Getting a better performance would be a dice pool mod or penalty, capping success just narrows the range of acceptable diece pools making characters more cookie cutter.

I don't mind it as long as they make the availability rules more useful, so a low level runner is stuck with worse gear, and a higher end character can get the better gear, rather than just everyone regardless getting the best gear easily.

Well, assuming the beginner has a 1 in Artisan(Violin)-which is what a beginner would likely have-and the master has a 6. The beginner has Intuition 4, the Master has Intuition 6.

The K-Mart Violin has a...Violin-ness of 3. The Strad has a Violin-ness of 6.

The Beginner may end up getting enough successes that he has to drop 1 from them, but more often than not he won't. He can't get enough successes to surpass the Strad's Violin-ness(unless Edge comes into play, which represents really incredible luck that moment). He may get really really damn lucky and pull off a pretty awesome 5 success performance with it, but generally, he'll at best be able to make them both sound the same.

The Master will likely bang out more than the 3 successes fairly regularly, and he CAN actually, with a lot of luck, surpass the 6 of the Strad. He's going to be better than the beginner more often anyway with either one, but when he has the pinnacle of craftsmanship in his hands he's going to be able to push the thing a lot more than the beginner would. The accuracy(or Violin-ness) in this case would be holding the master back; he averages more successes than it's Limit. Perhaps the violin never can be rid of it's tinny K-mart sound that people just know is there, even if the tune the master is playing is pitch-perfect.

I'm not saying the system doesn't have potential flaws-it does have some possible drawbacks of causing cookie-cutter folks if the same gear is chosen, as you said, and I feel it's going to open up other min-maxing doors at the same time it closes others, resulting in 'the same amount of min-maxing, just a different kind'-but I think the analogy looked sound enough to me. A better piece of gear will be able to perform better. A junker car won't be able to go as fast as one primed for racing. A cheaply made gun won't have the accuracy of one whose barrel and parts were honed via a lot of complex math and lasers and whatever. A cheap practice target bow will likely not be as effective for hunting as a super precision made hunting bow.

I think the Stradivarius analogy is actually a very bad one. You can't get lucky on how a violin will sound. A low quality instrument will always sounds shitty, no matter who plays it. It' just that there may so many things done wrong by a bad violinist that you won't notice how bad the instrument also is.
There's more to say when you compare the middle range to top levels. A Stradivarius will sound great even if played by a mid-level violinist, and enhance his performance. And though obviously a grand master with a Stradivarius ought to give you the best possible performance, it can be tricky to compare if you were to have a battle between a mid-level violinist playing on a Stradivarius and a grand master playing on an only decent violin.

A limit on the number of hits would actually make more sense on the piece of music. A grand master can perform a given piece better than anyone else, but he can't really make it a greater piece than it is (unless he rewrites part of it on-the-fly, but then it technically is no longer the same piece). But this isn't what we're talking about here, as the piece is the target, not the mean.

You just said 'a low quality instrument sounds shitty.' If anything, that proves the equipment Limits even more. If a Master can't get more than X out of something, then that is exactly what an Equipment Limit is, right there. The fact that the item is obviously not as good as one with a higher Limit.

Ironically, it's been shown that no one can differentiate a Stradivarius from any other good violin, when played in a double-blind trial.

But yes. The analogy is one that I can agree with (as read by ElFenrir).

Oh I can assure you I'd have no clue what violin was being played, but that is rather interesting that the pros can't pick it out.


My only first hand experience with this sort of thing off the top of my head is with the bows that I spoke of, but even then it's tough since I was by no means an expert. I just remember feeling a difference between 'crappy' and 'good'.


Again-I don't think it's a flawless system; I can see the min-maxing going from 'squeezing out points for this skill and that die pool' and onto 'figuring out the best DP to Limit to Nuyen Cost ratio' (and if Physical/Mental limits end up being averages, that can be a whole other can of worms in terms of math.) Really to make a final call I would of course need to see it in action-build a character under the new rules and try out some mock combats/skill rolls/etc. I can see the ideas behind this; the idea that gear can be of different quality is a very real thing(IRT gear limits.) It also seems to have a point to have characters actually want to stay state of the art(though I do hope there is a system for upgrading pieces as well...I do like the idea of favorite old pieces.)

This^^ if someone with cyber gets penalized for ware no matter what it is. Then someone who can cast spells and someone who can hack with their minds should also get penalties for being inhuman. Also mages need some kind of limit for spells like mundanes have the accuracy limit.

Okay, I'm gonna simplify my question. Why did they create a new mechanic to represent accuracy quality in the first place when they already had one in play? I am in this particular instance, referring to "Handling Modifier" for vehicles. Simpler to implement, and easier to comprehend, and did not put automatic limits onto events or situations.

But I digress, it is one thing that may just be inherent with the planners involved. Something that hasn't gone away for several editions now.

Handling is a dice pool modifier. It isn't really the same thing.

I think that was the point. Handling is done as a dice pool modifier and it basically represents the same thing accuracy is trying to represent. Why create a new mechanic instead of just porting handling into a more universal applicaiton?

Because what we're trying to do is move away from dice pool modifiers from gear. There were way too many instances in SR4 of people having a high attribute, little to no skill, but because they stacked enough gear modifiers on they were still rolling handfuls of dice. This was a way to make skill matter again.

Something like, say, the Force of the spells cast?


If the goal of the limits system is to promote skills, why are the limits based on gear and attributes?

I would guess it's because all the knowledge in the world will only go so far if you or your gear aren't capable of performing a task.

The problem is, there are more than just shitty violins on one end, and Stradivarius on the other. There are plenty of decent violins between, which would nonetheless been played better by a grand master than a merely skilled player. If anything, limits should only apply on a narrow range of really bad instruments that really limit most people using it, while exceptional piece like Stradivarius (and comparable more modern masterwork that can sound as good) would grant more dice to enhance the performance of anyone above a certain skill level.

Well, if the violin is wireless, like those vision enhancements ...
The thing is, both interpretations are valid and have well thought out arguments on their respective sides, so in the end it boils down to pure preference, and how the gear is presented.

So make the limits skills plus mods instead of attributes and mods? Sorcery (skill) instead of spell force (an attribute). Pistols (skill) instead of Agility or Damage Value (attributes). If a gun had an accuracy of say -2 ( using my analogy of handling) the the limit might be the pistols plus (minus in this case) the that is the limits. Bull, you say you wanted to get away from mods because people could stack their mods ... Why didn't people just limit the stackables instead? It was done with armor. It was done with Wards. Why is it when time and time again people say they want to streamline to enjoy the game, they wind up just adding and adding complications? Add ideas, give a basic structure, allow for growth. But don't repeat the mistakes of the past (2nd Edition comparison here to your current proposal with regards to mechanics).

I'm not entirely sure what accuracy is supposed to represent. A 12ga shotgun will fire in the exact same pattern as any other 12ga assuming the barrel length and choke are the same. That's physics. You can have a more nicely built gun, but since the barrel is smooth and is throwing down pellets without any twist there shouldn't be any difference in SR Accuracy between any shotgun of the same classification unless we are now including variables like barrel length, choke, etc.

Rifles and pistols I suppose make sense, a Hi-Point will have possibly negative accuracy compared to most other guns. Still, and I will have to wait to see the rules for sure, it seems like we are right back in the Predator/Ares Alpha/other no-brainer supergun dilemma we've had since SR1 when guns were all statted seemingly randomly.

My guess is that if the Limit was based on, say, the Skill Rating, it would soon result in a ton of specialists since they'd be wanting to get as high as Limits as possible. On paper I think Limit=Skill Rating doesn't look that bad, but it really does start to get kinda limiting where your Negotiations 3 character-not a bad skill at all really-will be helping a lot less than they may have used to.

I also wonder if the Skill rating will be worked into the physical Limit, but that might be a bit complex. I do like the idea behind gear mattering, but I agree that it seems to conflict with 'making skills matter'-it makes what you have matter. I can also very much understand wanting to get away with the Stacking Other Modifiers. Though to be honest...most of us never stacked more than a Smartlink and a Custom Weapon for 3 dice when it came to guns, and then Reach for attacking in melee-most of the MA maneuvers that granted DP bonuses did so to defenses-so I'll be honest when I say I forget how much a gun bunny could stack. Now Socialites and Stealth monkeys could stack a WHOLE lot.

(Okay, Adepts could get extra dice of course, but they were capped to 1/2 the skill's worth if I recall, so even that wasn't excessive. A gun bunny Adept would likely not be skimping on their firearm of choice skill anyway which is what seems to be the problem-and the most I can think they'd get is +3 with IA, +2 Smartlink, +1 custom weapon, which sounds like a lot but then you stack it next to a Stealth monkey who gets the same bonus with a Chameleon suit.)

For the record, if I would have done limits, I'd have done Base Skill Rating +2 hits. Simple, clean, makes low skills still count nicely while not being as amazing as high end, makes high skills really count. Edge would remove these, of course. Specializations wouldn't have added to it-they give a nice enough bonus as it is. Again I'll see how this works; I'm quite looking forward to seeing how the idea behind the Limits being Attribute and Gear based push people toward Skills. (The only thing that would disappoint me would be even more arbitrary attribute limits or even less points. I like my SR3 Attributes where I could play a ganger with awesome attributes but less in everything else, I admit.)

What really concerns me is the extended test mechanic. It seems to me that the shrinking dice pool makes those tests far more difficult. Unless I've got around 10 dice my chances of succeeding in an average (threshold 12) test are pretty low. Heck, in the example the character rolls an above average number of hits on 3 rolls and barely succeeds.

Here's an example of my own: Joe Average the mechanic (attribute 3 skill 3) wants to change the water pump in his car (average difficulty threshold 12). He simply doesn't' have enough dice to generate 12 hits before he runs out. And oh yeah, he has to worry about limits on top of his diminishing dice pool.

I get having a possibility of failure on an extended test, but this seems rediculous.

Nice assumption.
But it's wrong.

All of the Ares Deermurder shotguns will have the same barrel length and choke, and an Accuracy value of 6 (making this number up), but isn't very concealable.
But the Renraku Sawedoff shotgun has a shorter barrel, making it easier to conceal, but it's Accuracy is only 3.

In the mechanic's case, I'd say extra dice would be handy from proper tools...but then that brings back outside dice modifiers. Yes, I can see that being problematic with the bit that we have now, but of course there are rules we haven't seen yet.

I do believe that this is partially a case of 'We have a certain bunch of rules in front of us, but we don't have the entirety', and this can possibly make things look worse than they are. Now, that being said, if the above mechanic situation did happen it would be pretty messy.

Though on a third hand, if skills lose their hard cap, then high skills might be more common again on average(like in the older days). Of course that opens up another can of worms of finding what is average anymore. If the skills no longer have a cap(do they?), that mechanic may end up more SR3 like and have a high skill in his trade. On yet a fourth hand, if attribute points are more SR3 style(Ie, not as horribly capped as SR4), then the professional mechanic having a 4 or 5 in his main stat wouldn't be unheard of either. (I remember SR3 Contacts having better skills in their trades/trade attributes.)

SR4 ran into the problem of trying to throttle back attributes and skills way too much, IMO, but then brought in outside modifiers instead. SR3 I felt was a lot more elegant there, even if the numbers were higher. I somehow find a world where a professional mechanic might have Logic 4(5 for maybe the Head Mechanic), Skill 5(specialized possibly in cars, bikes, or maybe engines, bodywork, whatnot) instead of the 3's of SR4, but the Fastjack of Mechanics has something like Logic 9, Skill 15 or something. (where in SR4 it would have been something like Logic 7, Skill 7.)

In other words if the numbers curve up a bit, this can potentially work out very, very well.

An initial dice pool of 10 means total of 55 dice rolled, without limits that gives 18.3... expected successes.

That is why I'm glad they stayed with the old extended tests, it's easy for the GM to do those numbers mentally and come up with a realistic threshold. Of course limits can skew those numbers badly, if the limit is significantly lower than the DP.

Possibly, but unlike 4th when they get to pick the force make it like the older editions where the spell must be learned at a certain force. Still doesn't seem like enough to me, hopefully it's been handled already.

I strongly dislike the idea of balancing archetypes not by making the weaker ones more powerful, but by making the apparently overpowered less powerful. But this is just a personal preference.

I agree, for the most part, and will concede we haven't seen the magic rules yet. However firearms are the method of attack for most mundanes and if they are limited by a new mechanic magic should be as well. I hate that I'm making this argument because I truly believe not everyone should be equal because it makes a game bland, but in this instance I feel I have to.

*THIS* example is a point where reality and gameristics do not match. That isn't how those things work, but the game mechanics needed something else.

But just based on attribute and skill, 10 is hardly an average number. It's pretty high end. It was average in SR4 because there were a lot of various modifiers you could apply that had nothing to do with attribute or skill, and those things have been stated to go over to Limits now.

It could be that a skill rating of 6 is the average now, so 3 attribute and 6 skill is average for a professional, but right now we really have no basis for that king of assumption. And as Entropian noted, a skill 3/attribute 3 (ie pretty average professional) guy is going to be rolling an average of 7 successes. So he can barely even succeed at easy tasks.

Note: Unless the mechanics change drastically, data searching will fall under the same category of problems. You'll need a dedicated hacker with a big dicepool to accomplish more than a 2 second google search, which is absurd.


Honestly I just don't like the mechanic because of how important it makes every extra die you add. Each extra die adds your entire dicepool to the total. Going from 3->4 gets you 4 dice, while going from 9->10 gets you 10 dice. But thresholds show no sign of being tuned to account for that kind of very fast increase. So you have silly things like the average dude with 6 dice struggling to get 6-7 successes, but adding 4 more dice jumps that up to as you note 18 successes, and jumping that up 4 more dice (to 14 total) gets you all the way up to ~32 successes. And given extreme is 30+, getting anything beyond that is useless except to make you ridiculously fast at accomplishing an extended test.


Really we need more information on expected ranges and such before we can really make any real judgement on this. But at the very least the Threshold numbers should be tweaked. As it is they are just a straight copy/paste job of SR4A, and that's not really reassuring. Should have something like first figure out what your average dicepool should be, then figure out what they can hit on average. This is your average threshold. Go up and down from this by 3 dice for every other threshold.

So if we decide that say 9 dice is the average. 9 Dice can be expected to score 15 hits. So 15 is your average threshold.
So now we look at 6 dice for the Easy threshold. 6 dice can be expected to score 7 hits. 7 is your easy threshold.
Now we look at 12 dice for Hard. 12 dice are expected to score 26 hits. This becomes your hard threshold.
Now we look at 15 dice for Very Hard. 15 dice get on average 40 hits. This becomes your very hard threshold.
Now we look at 18 dice for Extreme. 18 dice get on average 57 hits. Since this is extreme, we'll round it off to an even 60, and call 60+ an Extreme threshold.

On the other hand, if 6 dice is your average, then 7 becomes average threshold, 15 becomes your Hard, and so on. The new easy threshold is a mere 2. Of course, you can see where these numbers get out of hand pretty quickly.

Personally I would like to see Limit factor in as a limit to how many times you roll, rather than how many successes you can get, on an extended test. So your average person might be 9 dice with a limit of 3 (average: 8 successes), while your extreme will be 18 dice with a limit of 6 (average of 31 successes), which gets us numbers closer to what we're used to, still makes limits useful/sane

Easy: 6 with 2 (average: 3.6, round it off to 4)
Average: 9 with 3 (average: 8 )
Hard: 12 with 4 (average: 14)
Very Hard: 15 with 5 (average: 21.6, round it off to 22)
Extreme: 18 with 6 (average: 31)

Alternate numbers without decrementing dicepools:
Easy: 4
Average: 9
Hard: 16
Very Hard: 25
Extreme: 36

Which also seems relatively reasonable, and can work out as well.


Alternatively, I wouldn't mind seeing a bigger overall change to how these work. Possibilities:
1) Simple change. You roll once for your Extended test. Divide the threshold by the number of hits, that tells you how many intervals it took (if this number is less than 1, you are awesome, and can take whatever fraction of the interval you managed). If the number of intervals is higher than your limit, you failed. This method works well with the last set of Threshold Values I listed above.

2) Bigger change. You roll your dice for each interval, but rather than tracking hits across each roll, instead the hits on your previous roll adds to your dicepool for the next roll, until you achieve more net hits than your threshold, or your number of rolls has exceeded the limit. For example an average extended test threshold might be 5. We have our average mechanic (6 dice) with a shop that gives him a Limit of 4. He goes to do an average test that has a Threshold of 5. First roll, he gets 2 successes, so his next roll he gets to use 8 dice. That roll he gets 3 successes, letting him roll 11 dice on his 3rd roll. On that roll, he gets 4 successes, letting him roll 15 dice for his 4th roll, where he gets the 5 successes he needs to succeed on the task.

This method keeps the massive amounts of die rolling in for Extended Tests, but deflates the DCs necessary a fair bit. Using the same metric as above (average = 9 dice, limit 3. Going up 1 stage is +3 dice + 1 limit, down 1 stage is -2 dice, -1 limit), the thresholds you'd want for this are:

Easy: 3
Average: 5
Hard: 9
Very Hard: 15
Extreme: 24+


This method has an advantage over the traditional extended test model in that it's more consistent with other rules. Basically it works almost as though you are doing a teamwork test with yourself every interval.



Unrelated, and can be applied to any possible option: I would love to see something that lets you cut down your interval one step (ie from weeks to days, days to hours, hours to minutes, etc) in exchange for bumping the difficulty up one step.

So say you have a Mechanic check that is normally easy, but has a 1 day interval. A typical mechanic will do it in one day, and not worry about it. But a really good mechanic with great equipment knows he can hit a Very Hard check with no trouble. So he drops the interval from Days to Hours, to Half Hours, to 10 minutes, in exchange for raising the DC from Easy, to Very Hard. This lets complete the task that would normally take a full day to somewhere between 20 and 60 minutes, depending on luck (it will take him 2-6 intervals most likely to achieve the very hard task).

This would be nice for a number of reasons, but at least one big thing would be in letting skilled hackers write their own programs in some reasonable timeframe while still making them very big projects for the average code monkey.


[Edited to remove annoying smileys.]

What, two different shotguns can't have different accuracy? If my time in the internet has taught me anything, it's that two firearms that differ is a minor detail are vastly superiour to each other, and there are fans willing to fight to the death their favorite is the best.

This to me is one of those times where you do *NOT* have to, and in fact should not suggest it. Political Correctivism aside, no one should be equal, that is what adds to the dynamism IMO.

I also feel, and have seen by many repeated examples, skill specialists might bend the curve for specific events, but at least they are not Jack-of-All-Trades who nearly have no reason for a team at all.

I agree with earlier remarks as well, we are left to conjecture on partially revealed mechanics and as such are stuck until future period.

Not everyone should be equal but nobody should be head and shoulders above everyone else. That's basically the point I'm (badly) trying to make. From what little I've seen mundanes are going to be even more gimped compared to mages and it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy about the game.

There's a Problem with Trolls and Dorfs then O.o

I'm more worried about how gimped people are going to be at doing things outsdie of their specialty. If you have a phsyical limit of 2 will you ever even try to do anything physical? If you have a pistols of 4 and agility of 3 will you ever try to shoot someone now that they have 2 stats for defense?

Magic might be dodging the limit problem since you can pick your own force, but they could have weakened magic in a variety of other ways to make it more balanced, or strngthened mundanes in ways that make it more balanced.(2 stat defense helps here)


Also while it is cool that they upped the skill cap to 12, will anyone even bother going bast 6 or so with limits. Cap your attributes, worry about skills later because limits are going to keep your hits low anyways.

Without going into the details of the formula (if the bosses haven't released yet, the bosses haven't released it yet, and NDA means I'll stick with their lead) -- you've got to be really pretty terrible, physically, to have a limit of 2. Like, super-sickly, super-slow, super-frail and super-weak. If your stats are low enough that you've got a (Whatever) Limit of 2, you'll have to have gone out of your way to be that terrible, really.

I'll take your word for it on that specific example, but the point stands you can have a low limit maybe not 2 low but given in the example a 6 physical limit was based on high stats in strength and body, I suspect a 3 limit is not out of the question will you go for anything mildly risky in the physical sphere since it may require more hits to succeed than you can get without edge. A hard test is a threshold of 4, so now he can't even go for things past average without edge. I don't want to require edge to try something. If limits end up being high enough why are they even there? So I am not getting bonus dice from X gear. If my limit is 6+ I need 18 dice to hit that on average, so unless I get to 18 dice off of skill+ attribute which seems fairly hard why is the limit even there? Other than crapping on people parade when they roll good what does it do. If its medium it just caps the size of pools so people wont bother investing too much into skills, if its low it stops people from going for it and really shrinks the pool.

A simple only the highest modifier adds to your pool would have handled gear stacking and would have made skills just as valuable as in this limit system. And sadly since limits are somewhat based on attributes, they are even more valuable than before and they with insanely too good compared to skills in 4e.

To add to Critias's comment, if you're keeping your limits on-pace with your dice pools, limits aren't going to be a horrible stone around your neck. I don't think I can offer specific numbers without breaking my NDA (again following Critias's lead), but you can probably ask the folks who have played demos (or maybe some playtesters) and they can tell you their experiences.

If my time in the internet has taught me anything, it's that the more vocal fans get about their thing being superior to another thing, the smaller the actual differences between the two are.

The folks who playtested are under NDAs also

And the demos were supposed to be placeholders to a certain degree.

I will note that for folks suggesting alternate methods to the Limits... We discussed, crunched numbers, and playtested a whole pile of different options. At the end of the day Limits were what worked the best and fit the criteria we wanted. This isn't a system that was just added willy-nilly to SR5. There was a TON of discussion and arguments over it behind the scenes.

Entropian complained about the example in the preview, where those exact numbers come up: 10 dice, threshold 18


At 21 total dice, there is 75% chance of rolling 6+ successes. Being unlikely to fail easy tasks with 6 dice sounds about right



Of course you are right that a single additional die can make a huge difference. For example, succeeding at "average" difficulty (12) is 56% likely with 8 dice, but wiht 9 dice you boost your chance to 87%

*whistles innocently*

I don't remember any arguments!

I've no doubt about that, Bull. No worries there. I always liked a lot of your guys ideas; maybe I've not agreed all of them(but I have never, ever, in my day, even back with OD&D, agreed with every word of an RPG). Let's say Shadowrun has stayed one of my most run systems for a reason. I've managed to get by through the 18 years I've been playing with a minimal of houserules compared to other games. I can even run them down; No Availability limit at chargen and cyberlimbs being able to go over your racial max are the two oldest, 4e saw the no limit to how you split your BP for Attributes houserule(we were about to can the 25 points for the last point but then we swapped to Karmagen), and when using BP we used Chax3 Contact points as well. Later on we used Bod+Str for armor and having Martial Arts + Qualities not counting toward the + Quality limit(but still costing full price), and we kept the x3 Attribute Cost for Karma since we tend to give lower Karma rewards like the old days, so it fit more. That's literally almost it off the top of my head. (Oh yeah, we had a houserule that became canon-we capped + damage to Martial Arts at +3 DV.) But really, in 18 years being able to actually name off the houserules we used? I can't do that with any other system(okay, OD&D notwithstanding but we were like 12 when we played it and didn't really care about rules I don't think. )

I can say the idea I had for Skill +2 I have a very good feeling has hidden issues with it that looking at it on paper doesn't show(there are countless things that look better on paper than they actually work in practice). Also I'm pretty jazzed to hear from Crit that you really need to *try* to end up with crappy limits.

Believe it or not my bigger concerns whenever there is a new system is if I can make old favorites again. Some people have no problem dropping old characters and picking up new ones, I have a few favs that I've carried on over time(and new ones pop up in new editions as well that get carried over.) Creating Street Legends for my slightly adjusted version of Seattle and Denver aren't a problem-they don't get made with beginner limitations anyway(and using old splats in terms of stuff like Surged ones)-but PCs, yeah.

Clearly, laés was involved. Are you sure you agreed to whatever they said you agreed to?

And when he says a ton, he means MONTHS. Not months, MONTHS. I think in the end there were around a dozen systems, over twenty if you count all the variations, that we looked at, played with, and tested, and this was the one that offered the most depth and breadth to the game.

They're probably also going to re-balance the threshold values so that the now-not-optional mechanic is appropriate.

I'm fine with limits, though I do hope that the addition of limits comes with a change of how metatype limits work. One of my current characters is Theodore "The Bear" Valentine, THE MOST HANDSOME FOMORI IN THE WORLD. He is the party face, but he relies on several classic pornomancer tricks to get his dicepool to a respectable level. I'm concerned that with limits, my metatype will lower my social limit to a point where Face isn't a viable option for a Troll character.

Will it be possible for people of every metatype to fulfill any role in the party? Or will Limits get in the way of that?

I think it's okay for me to say that we put a lot of effort to preserve all the character concepts.

In fact, I vaguely recall that something official has already been posted to that very point.

Oh! Good. I was hoping so. I can't wait to get a look at the character creation preview. Whenever it comes out, at least.

I wonder if they will keep TN 5. I thought it was a bad TN in SR4, and I think it will get worse in 5 since dice pools will on average be smaller until late game when you have 10+skills since gear no longer helps in that regard. Basically with a TN 5 out side of extended tests a difference in ability is not reflected very well since it take on average 3 dice to get one hit. So a guy with 6 skill vs a guy with 3 skill is only marginally better instead of a lot better liike he should be. Sure skill limits go to 12 so worlds best now has a 12 or 13 if they kept the bennie to break it, but we are talking a level of skill most characters wont see and it seems kind of screwed up that my average mage with a 3 skill is only a couple hits worse than the infiltration expert. Yeah they would have to redo thresholds etc, but a TN 4 or hell even 3 would go a long ways to help dice pool differences seem as meaningful as the fluff indicates. Its not like it wrecks the game or anything but it seems really screwy to me.