And now, some of my own little quibblings, this time mostly around the Sprawl Ganger pre-made sheet.
-Dude's got an awful lot of skills at rank 1...which seems kind of odd for a ganger. I get that the aim might have been to make this guy have as many skills as possible, and I personally do not consider myself to be of the mindset of the optimization guys that frequent DS, but why in the hell would a ganger do with Computer, Throwing Weapons, and Performance? I would rather stick more points into upping Pistols or Automatics (nvm that his highest skill is Intimidation).
-And speaking of which, Performance...I assume this is the new SR5 version of the Artisan skill? Or did Artisan get broken up into several other skills? If it's the latter, then that would make a whole lot of sense, since I did feel like just Artisan was WAY to broad and abstract as it was in SR4, and the potential silliness that someone with Artisan could play the piano, cook gourmet French meals, paint the next great Impressionist art piece, AND sing like a choir of angels.
-Wee error regarding the Physical CM for our ganger, as well as for one of the qualities listed: it lists his CM as being 13, but if we take the formula for deriving it (I'm going to go ahead and assume that it'll be the same for SR5) of (Body/2) + 8 (round up), which in this case is (7/2) + 8, that would mean it would come out as 12, not 13.
I THINK what was supposed to happen is that he was supposed to have the Tough as Nails 1 quality, which would have given him that extra +1 box to his CM...but it's not there. Or, more likely, someone got it mixed up with the Guts quality. And all that does (in SR4) is give the character a bonus to resist Intimidation or Fear-based attacks. So unless if Tough as Nails is now called Guts.....don't think so.
-The damage code for the Sprawl Ganger's weapons are...well, scaring me. A lot:
QUOTE
-Colt America L36 [Light Pistol, Acc 7, DV 7P, AP —, SA, RC —, 11©, w/ concealed holster, 2 spare clips, 110 rounds of regular ammo]
-Combat axe [Blade, Reach 2, Acc 4, DV 12P, AP –4]
-Extendable baton [Club, Reach 1, Acc 5, DV 7S, AP —]
-Knife [Blade, Reach —, Acc 5, DV 7P, AP –1]
-Ruger Super Warhawk [Heavy Pistol, Acc 5, DV 9P, AP –2, SS, RC —, 6(cy), w/ 2 speed loaders, 60 rounds regular ammo]
-Streetline Special [Hold-out, Acc 4, DV 6P, AP —, SA, RC —, w/concealed history, 30 rounds regular ammo]
I mean...by the Nine, that's a little bit much!
An SR5 Warhawk can do a base amount of 9P? And with AP -2? That's more than what a base SR4 PJSS Elephant Rifle could do, outside of how the Rifle can hit from farther away than the Warhawk without incurring Range Modifiers!
I'm going to assume this is what the very first announcement meant when they promised for SR5 to be "more lethal"...and if it meant upping the DV of each weapon, that is...not really the way to go. Now it could just be that the Damage Resistance rules might work differently in SR5 to address this, but even then, with most characters averaging at about 10-11P CM, now the likeliehood of a character dying (NPCs, and PCs) in one shot just went up a lot. And honestly? At least at my table, SR4 was still lethal as hell as it was. I would see it happen a lot where characters would die in 1-2 shots. I constantly stressed to my players that in SR, you REALLY really didn't want to get hit with bullets, since there's a good chance you could die in just one attack. But, there was still that leeway where characters can make it out with a bunch of dings and scratches (and damaged 'ware), but still be alive. Here though.....well, it's gonna kind of suck if it's going to be even more likely for starting characters to die on their first run.
-And then there's the fact that: this is the Damage Code for JUST Pistols! If the DV for Pistols are going to be this devastating, what the hell are assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles going to have?
Otherwise, going one-on-one with a GD suddenly got a lot more plausible...
-Last issue that I'll bring up, and this is actually something that has bugged me with all three previews, is that there seems to be a disconnect with the artwork and the text of the previews.
Now, don't get me wrong, the actual artwork is fine and I really really dig the style of it and hope to see the rest of it when I have the book in my hands...but some of it just doesn't really match with the text that's right next to it.
This has been more glaring to me with the artwork preceding the short fiction. In this preview, in "Girls with Guns", our main hero Frank is described as male dwarf (I'd wager in the 40's-60's age range). And that the bulk of the action in the story takes place at a diner, where Frank is fighting off some gangers. The artwork that accompanies this does not reflect this. At all. Instead, it looks like we've got five random shadowrunner-looking people, fighting it out in what seems to be a strip mall. No diner, no old looking dwarf trying to fight off a couple of gangers. Da hell?
Similar problem in the first preview: the artwork for Another Night, Another Run, who are supposed to be about the runners that are going to be on the front cover, and who, according to the fiction presented, are going on a run against an Ares facility when drek hits the fan. Yet the artwork that accompanies this reflects none of that. Instead we get a troll firing a Panther (...ok, this aspect WAS in the fiction, but this one isn't being backed up by Ares Security) at a rogue spirit, being backed up by his male elf spellcaster buddy. In what looks like a dirty alley way. Certainly not the rooftop of a an Ares facility. Now I THINK this is actually supposed to go with the intro chapter of this section, since it mentions about what you would do if a malevolent spirit just sprung up from the ground in front of you, but what's it doing with the fiction and not the section of the book that it's supposed to be in?
Also, the gun that the Sprawl Ganger is carrying...that is not any of the guns that his sheet has in his gear section. That gun is the freakin' Barrens Special from Gun Heaven 2.
I'm starting to get a bit worried if the artists making these pieces had no idea what section of the book they were making them for, or had no context to the text that the artwork was supposed to be accompanied with.