QUOTE (tasti man LH @ Jun 1 2013, 01:49 AM)
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).
Bull mentioned the 'slush fund' that pops up at the end of chargen, and while I can't give away details (NDA and such), those little 1 point skills were *not* taken instead of giving him a push in, say, Pistols by 1. They were cheap lil' add-ons after the fact to give him color. A ganger should be able to work his commlink (even if it is a piece of drek), and he has a guitar somewhere that he plinks away duing his downtime, helps with the chicks, right? Throwing weapons because there's always a good time to chuck something at a guy's head ... bricks, empy bottles, whatever. Plus chucking knives is just cool.
As for Intimidation? Yup. Talk trash, get people to back down, establish yourself in the pecking order, give people to give you stuff without having to kick their teeth in ... it's really useful, and used far more often than, say, plinking away with an AK-97. The average bouncer doesn't fight all that much... they just come over, loom, ask, "Is there a problem?" and the situation resolves itself. Same thing here. Looking tough can keep you out of fights but keep legitimacy. See also: Police saying "Move along" instead of whacking them with sticks.
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-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.
Personally, I'd love to see it broken into three different skills. Mind you, I also want Etiquette broken into, like, ten, so.
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-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.
Not an error. People are guessing why, and some are much closer than others.
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-The damage code for the Sprawl Ganger's weapons are...well, scaring me. A lot:
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?
Damage went up across the board, as did armor, but since +1 DV is about the same as +3 armor, well, damage got an overall boost. Combat is really dangerous right now. Once again, avoiding it is good for you.
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-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.
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.
That one's on me. The archetypes I put together almost all had art ready when I got started (And those that didn't had art notes) ... I know I had a reason for going outside the lines on this one, but I don't recall exactly why now. (Tho he doesn't have "molotov cocktail" on the list either, so.
) Hrm. I'll have to get back with you on that one. Another archtype was listed as having cybernetic eyes, but the art showed goggles, so I changed it up and went with goggles instead.
Hrm.
At any rate, there was a lot of "What makes sense?" on this one. I wanted gear that was commonplace (Like the Colt) or cheap (The streetline special) and that would be fairly easy to carry around or ditch when needed, the axe being a noted exception for when things got serious. He had enough cash to get, say, an Ares Predator or avane an Ares Alpha, but my mental image of gangers looked at that idea and went, "Nope!" and moved on.
STreet Gangers are big on 'rumbles', brawling with whatever's at hand, rather than breaking out guns. When gunshots ring out in the 'plex (And you aren't in the Barrens), Lone Star rolls in quickly, and nobody wants that. Beating a guy goofy with your bare hands, or knocking him upside the head with a baseball bat or a piece of rebar, gets the message accross and doesn't fetch the cops.
(As an aside, a few years back, street gangs in ... I want to say Portland? ... started a new thing. They found that gangers were always showing off bullet wounds and scars as trophies and getting 'cool points' for it, rather than intimidating people to not mess around. So, new plan ... They'd round up opposing gangers, yank down their pants, and shoot 'em square in the buttcheeks. Just as painful, but not something you could ever show off for being tough. Surprised it hasn't caught on more widespread, truth be told!)