What do you miss the most about the older versions of SR?

One thing I miss is the old skill web for defaulting. It may not have been the most effective, but I did enjoy the concept.

How about:

If a skill is part of a skill group, the character may default on their choice of (Attribute - 1) or (Attribute + highest skill in group - 4). That would mean that skill levels of 4 or more within that skill group would start to add dice to defaulting. Note: This does not imply that the character must have purchased those skills as a group.

Seconded the skill web. We liked it.

The skill web was the awesome. Who cares if it made it impossible to add more skills later on? Theoretically, by the Fifth Edition we've got all the skills we're going to have, yeah?

Hmmm, top off my head and minus stuff we will probably get back (then "some difference between mages and shamans" would win) I'd say the Availability/Legaility/Street Index system. Like the skill web, all sorts of complications included, but different street costs and legality tables and all that were nice to have...

Oh, and nobody mentioned Dikote yet? I am dearly disappointed...

You know, I haven't even thought about it since 3rd. As well, I never went too far into the extra books in 4th (as the system never really got my motor running), so I just assumed it was there.

from a gear availability point of view, I also used to like the exponential cost increases for gear (Ex: rating x rating x 1000 nuyen). I think SR4 made things too cheap.

I think SR4's numbers use a different notion of a base rate than prior versions did - or was the default pay rate the same?

Not sure. But if its not the same, that would have made things very bad for awkward players: A) the GM would be giving out too much, and B) the players would be expecting more than normal.

SR4 doesn't exactly do the best job of offering guidance on how much should be paid - you've pretty much just got a function of karma:nuyen; ideally 1:2500.

The skill web and descriptive damage codes. The look of confusion on the new player's face when I told him to take 9M from an ares predator during a 4E game was priceless. I even began to explain to him the mechanics of a 9M shot until I realised what edition we were playing.

Allocatable dice pools. They were a fun and unique mechanic, added a good tactical element to combat without slowing things down.

Yes, I think I miss the combat/magic/hacking pools most of all.

I miss the old version of asspected mages. The 4E version is halfassed at best.

Even that guidance really falls apart at a point. Mission payout/karma:nuyen ratio should improve as the runners get more experienced. When you hit the point that the sammy actually needs 500k nuyen to get another upgrade, and the Mage needs 17 karma to initiate again, giving the Sammy his 500k, going with that ratio, you also earn 200 karma, which is going give the mage a much bigger boost (we're talking like +3-4 points of magic/initiation plus some other stuff on the side just cause kind of boost).

But yes, clearer rules on this would be great.




On topic, I liked how in SR3 you had softcaps for skills, where getting a skill up to your attribute was cheap, and pushing beyond that was expensive. I'd like to see something similar to that come back. Most characters should have 1-3 ranks in a whole bunch of basic skills.

I also liked the old Shamanic/Hermetic divide, and am glad that they're making those more distinct.

I agree with both of those. I think when they made SR4, they took what was broken in SR3 and fixed it, and then turned around and took what was good about SR3 and mangled it, if not completely abolished it.

There are stats for Dikote in the 2050 book.