I know this was a change I lobbied for, and there were two primary reasons for this.

1) Changing from +3 to +4 was done because a lot of cyber and whatnot went to +4. So it seemed silly that a peak physical condition human with a 6 strength, for example, couldn't use all 4 points of Muscle Replacement.

2) It was also a restriction, going from a flat "Augmented Max" number to a straight bonus because it avoided certain cheeseball combinations where characters keep their attributes low deliberately and then hit the AUgmented max through a combination of cyber, bio, and magic. Logically there's a "breaking point" where you can only increase things so far, you can only take and build off the bodies base for so long before it can't tolerate anymore. +4 seemed a good balance point for that.

Bull

I like it. It also means that cyberware can make you go from crippled to above average but not all the way from crippled to godlike superhuman.

I really like this particular rule. Please don't take offense at the following though: I think the organisation/accessibility of rules could use a bit of optimization.

One thing I am curious about: one of the design blogs mentioned that gear bonuses would mostly affect limits. However, so far, in practice, it's mostly bonus dice. Is this going to be different in the archetype rulebooks?

I have a question. A big question. It has nothing to do with the Matrix.

Have they unfucked grenade/rocket/missile scatter rules yet? Because it's kind of retarded that you can competently chuck a grenade at someone and wind up having it detonate three feet behind you. Unless you're throwing it at someone armed with a baseball bat who knows how to use it for its intended purpose, that's ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is the notion that a heavy machine gun is a better choice against an armored vehicle than an anti-tank rocket or missile.

We tripled the scatter. So now it's possible to have it explode 20 meters behind you.

Just kidding.

No, seriously... I believe they're better. I know that was a big point of contention for some of the playtesters.

It's a whole thing, and wireless interface to detonate the grenades helps reduce scatter. It depends on the grenade/rocket/missile/etc. I won;t retype everything though.

On that note, have they made it even slightly more difficult to completely destroy a car with a single burst from an AK-97?

*IF* you quoted it correctly, *MY TAKE* on this is that your MAXIMUM amount of +armor is limited by strength, *BUT* additional side effects influencing your Reaction and Agility are also to be taken into consideration. I see no reason to separate that stuff.

Which also makes sense - a pathetically weak individual should't be able to get more benefit from Muscle Augmentation and Suprathyroid than a person at peak-strength. Plus it moderately diminishes both the advantage of higher natmaxes and the disadvantage of lower natmaxes, normalizing things a bit - a troll can now augment his way to 9 Agility. It also reduces the value of natmax boosters a little bit.

Oh now come on, that's a dangerous presumption....

That and the "quick hits conversion" (summarized term from 4th Edition), is 1 hit per 4 dice, so this is cleaner as well here *IF* that rule made the transition to 5th.

Hey I can take off my shoes.

Completely Destroy (as in, no recognizable aftermath) or just rendered completely useless? (you can tell it was/is a car, it just won't work anymore)? I'm asking because a LOT of people seem to get carried away on the answering/comparison of "completely destroyed" vs. "completely unusable".

At least I wouldn't be in the blast radius!

Well, "break" is what I really mean. Fill in the damage meter.

Unless it's decently armoured, shooting a car with an assault rifle SHOULD be reasonably able to disable the car - bullets and engine blocks do not get along. And if it is armoured, remember that vehicles effectively have Hardened Armour due to stun immunity and that burst damage doesn't impact the stun/physical determination.

There's no such thing as "burst damage" in SR5.

jezz, If more changes like that are coming I need to buy a hard copy and seal every page of it in plastic for eternity as an example for thought out rules.
Skills extended, problems with the augmented max cleared up.

Still wondering on how armor will be handled now. What I have seen so far I like it. (If I read it right)

@NeoJudas
I would think that the limit are those side effects. The first sentance stated what attribute limits it and the second sentance stated in which way. (If you would not be allowed more armor than strength, the second sentance would not come up like ever)

If the skill ratings have been expanded, does this mean we have done away with the notion that professionals who rely on a given skill for their breadwinning have a grand total of two-three dots in that skill?

Yes, experienced professionals have 6 in a skill, and that's also the maximum in a skill for a Shadowrunner at creation.

@ShadowDragon8685
To quote the comple anwser:

And a short "yeah" for more diverse characters!

Yup. 3 is now "Competent". 5 is skilled.

And let me tell you how nice it is not to feel like I'm cheating when I stat up NPCs and give then 5-6+ in a skill just so they can maybe almost sort of a little bit compete with my Missions players out there. And it feels DAMN good to be able to drop in a skill of 8 or 9 for someone that's supposed to big a big bad.

Yes, but now, starting characters aren't remarkable in anyway. Not Hiro Protagonist/YT/Case/Molly level, or remotely close.

I'll houserule 1 possible skill at 7 at creation I think.

Quick question about armor: how are Dermal Sheeting, Troll skin, and cyberlimb armor handled?
Another quick question: How are limits handled for cyberlimb attribute bonuses?

if the player has 6 anf hiro protagonist has lets say a 12, the starting player is only 2 hits away from being as good. It does not sem that big of a deal to me. In SR you can frequently cap a lot of the other facotrs at chargen like getting your agility up to 10, so the total dice pool difference wil remain at 6 dice.

@ Werewindlefr
They weren't either in SR4.01 because everyone tended to have skills at 6. That was kind of the problem...

I guess the fastest and best workaround would be to allow the starting Karma to break the 6 limit. Just flat allowing one skill at 7 would just mean that everybody gets one skill at 7 because it would be a no-brainer.

Which is fine, if they want to spend the point. 7 is *just* veteran, which was a 4 in SR4. Your idea is also a good solution.

Putting the maximum at 7 or 8 at chargen would have been a good compromise and might have explained why a Fixer would give them a job.

@Werewindlefr
Which ends up everbody having at least a raiting 7 skill, which kind of goes against your argument to allow "something" special...

Just look at the rules I think about why they have limited it in the way they did. It might be usefull to look at Karmacosts for increasing skills and attributes, when you get the book. (I assume they are similar (form the model) to SR4.

I...not to sound dismissive of your concern, but what on Earth made you ever think most of those were starting characters, to begin with?

ETA: I mean, Hiro in particular. Sure, he's "just a pizza guy," but he's also one of the most influential, talented, and pioneering hackers in his cyberpunk world, and oh by the way also the greatest swordsman alive (by most estimations). And Case is a cool dude and also a phenomenal hacker of great talent (crippled by plot device, but that's the whole plot, isn't it?). Likewise, depending on how much you read into Molly's ability vs. bravado she's a fine template for just another razorgirl (maybe), but...y'know what I mean? And that's not even talking about the contacts many of them bring to bear.

Those folks are great characters, and great inspiration for great Shadowrun characters. But I'm not sure that most of them are really "great starting character" material.

I would consider Molly a "starting character". She was tough, but not legendary. What I like about Shadowrun characters is that they are not rank novices when they start out, but have typically been doing this for awhile.

The skill ratings won't push the PCs down too far compared to everyone else. Look at SR3, where skills were completely uncapped. Most NPCs had a 5 or a 6 in their primary skill, with a few rare cases of the extra-tough ones going to 7 or 8. Just because skills go up to 12 doesn't mean that suddenly every NPC will have them.

As much nerdrage as some of the new rules have instilled in me, I find the new skills to be one of the few bright spots. I didn't like SR4's hyperbolic descriptions of skill differences that only made a miniscule difference when you rolled the dice (having 12 slots gives the descriptions a much more believable gradient), or how you could start gameplay at the very top limit, skill-wise. At least now, non-awakened characters have some vertical improvements they can do in their specialties.

Yeah, in retrospect I would consider Molly very much archetypical, moreso than legendary. But for a couple of those other characters (say half of 'em in that list), I'd see them as "dudes starting characters want to grow up into," which is perfectly awesome to me.

I think all too often we, as gamers, get tangled up in chargen and forget that characters get better as the game progresses. I don't know if it's because we're worried about letting the team down at our first Missions event, if it's because all too often we get sucked into campaigns that fizzle out after just a few sessions, or if we just spend lots of time in chargen (and making up cool backstories)...Lord knows, I do it to!


Honestly, I don't see a huge practical difference between "skills go to 12" and "skills go to whatever" that we had pre-SR4. I think the cap is there for largely symbolic reasons, personally.

This question will find an anwser if we know how much it costs to raise skills.
If you hear things like one powerpoint for 2 Karma and qualities for 4 Karma and so on, I guess skills will have lowered cost, too. And then you might guess how far those 25 points of starting Karma (or those 35 points for prime runners) really carry you.

Erm... Chargen karma's not all that relevant with regard to skills going to 12 versus being uncapped - it's still a max of 6 out of the gate.

@RHat
True or not true since I did not got the pleasure to read the section of finishing your character with this Karma.
But I have to disagree anyway, since the real question behind it would be how expensive skills in general are. As for now, we only have the the priority table. And unless the made "get priority A" in skills a nobrainer, I would guess, that skill will be less expensive. Priority B to A gives you 4 attribute points or 10 skill points and 5 skill groups, if I am reading the table correctly. So if you were planning to use groups anyway thats up to 74 skill points for 4 Attributes...
With the increased value of attributes as limiting factor on the hits for test, I would assume that the ratio for skill to attribute was changed from 5 to 2 in favor of the skills.

(The starting Karma would still be usefull as an hint to how much the Karma rewards will be in game, since 25 Karma to flesh out your Runner are not that much, I guess they went down too.)

Well not that much more silly then that nobody can get full benefits from Muscle Replacement 4(or toner and augmentation 4) + Suphathyroid Gland combo.
Unless there are some way(s) to boost augmented max.

Wireless bonus maybe?

Kidding , kidding

I fail to see the sillyness in that, but anyhow.
This rule has a number of great advantages for which I would agree to a bit sillyness anyhow.

Critas, I like your posts a lot, but the snark in me wants to mirror that question back at you. So without the snark, why should we play n a game if a standard character cannot emulate some of the characters within the genre that make us want to play that game in the first place?

In SR4, one could get that supposed Rating 7 skill grandmaster out of chargen, not so much in SR5. While the math didn't truly support the granularity within the fluff of SR4, I did appreciate the support for playing one the world's best at whatever.

However the double reference to "starting" characters, insinuates that the player has to "pay dues" or must have spent a certain number of months or years playing the character the player doesn't want to play in order to get to the point of playing the character they originally wanted to play at the very start of the game. The preference for the Zero to Hero trope is fine, but finding it unthinkable that others are... well, bored of playing the figurative "first level fighter," is somewhat flummoxing.

Well the simple fact is that those character are high level prime runners not starting characters.

There is a Chargen "Game Level" box in the previews which gives you some numbers for playing Prime Runners as an Option. That should give you something more like what youre looking for. Starting out as Best of the Best right out the door is very very rare in most RPGs and even then there is room to grow (things like Exalted, Agone, etc) but in Shadowrun (at least editions 1-3 and 5, don't know about 4) the description is you're a professional that can get the job done, you're competent and have combinations of skills, talent and luck the mega corps need (plus the willingness to use them in a fashion most others wouldn't even think of). Being legendary should be a goal, not a start point.

Veteran, not legendary. What bothers me isn't the number of dice one throws, anyway, just that even a starting Shadowrunner should be more than average, without being elite or legendary, and according to the skill description of their skill cap, they're just average.

And the "Game Level" box doesn't raise the cap.

Sorry, but at some point you have to cap, or you need to generate with Karma. 50% is more than a nice spot.
If you let it go higher you will end up with hyperspecialists who are great a shooting and whatever else but can't even spell their name.

If you want to raise skills high, a priority system is not what you are looking for (unless you make a skillcap depending on the priority choosen for skills).

At some point I think people need to get it in their heads that every design decision has its flaws and merits. Different cost in chargen versus game has merits (you can make chargen fast) but also has flaws (you have to impose limits, if the discrepancy gets too bad)

In SR 4.01 the first point costs 4 and the 6. point costs 12 Karma. So if you put the cost at 4 BP you were "OK". (But even there they needed to put it on "one skill only or two at 5".
Same issue here.

I think we're going to disagree on this a bit Werewindlefr. I see max of six out the gate still letting you be better than Mr Average Rentacop, G.I.Jane or Joe Security Decker (which I would expect their ratings to be 3-4). Your 5-6 will belong to the NPC ranks of SWAT gradient Professionals or Toured Soldiers and the sorts of Deckers that run the higher profile system, which I feel is about right for a Shadowrunner just starting out to have the option to be as good as in field. Sure 7+ is Veteran and beyond and if you feel the need raise the cap in your game (I think yes there should be say an 8 cap for Prime Runners instead of 6). However I've never felt too closely attached to the list of level comparison descriptors.

Per skill descprition, those have a peak skill of 7 or 8.

I think the biggest practical difference between the cap of SR5 and the uncapped SR3 is for the folks who are writing adventures for publication. Unlike home GMs (who can make thresholds and NPCs tailored to their players), the publication adventure writer (and I think we might know one or two of those, ne? =i) finds a closed-ended scale to be a lot easier to work with. I'm sure many of us have heard the stories of how various tables simply tore through legendary-level adventures because the printed stats were actually lower than their PCs' stats.

I recognize the need for a large distance between the skill cap and the character creation maximum. I just think it went slightly too far. We went from SR4's "You can start as the best in your field" to "you're as good as an average professional with a decent resume", at least according to skill descriptions. Allowing one skill at 7 was a good way, in my opinion, to justify that those guys would even *try* being shadowrunners instead of stealing cars, because "Veteran" level (the name of the skill) looks to me like the basic requirement to have a shot at surviving in those circumstances.

A classic backstory for Streetsams and gear priority A is "former corporate hi-threat response" (like the main character in weregeek's shadowrun campaign). I don't see a corporation spending 200k or 400k nuyens in someone described as just "professional".

I'll just say you have a different game world view than me. I see professional in a different light I guess. Also in my experience in large bureaucracies both government and corp the largest determiner of who gets the goods is politics and not success or talent. Success and talent are needed to some degree but not on the same level as political maneuverings. Your ability to schmooze the boss always outweighs your actual abilities. Its like extra curricular activities for getting into college but weighted heavier than either your grades or entrance exam.

WTH???

1 Body = 3 dmg resistance dice?

Have I been playing SR4 wrong all these years?

1 from body it self and 2 from armor it allows you to wear is what he means.

If you have, then a lot of the rest of have, too.

1 die for the Body Point itself + 2 x Body in Armor

Realize that there really has to be a distinction between Joe Mediocre at 3 dice and an actual professional. If 4 is professional and 2 is trained, the actual difference in effect is tiny, less than 1 hit on average.

So at professional grade with average attributes you could expect 9 dice -- or rely on 1 hit, expect 2, and hope for 3 or more. That seems right.

It also means there's a long way from taking a couple points in something and specializing in it in chargen (remember specializations?). The specialist will start at 8 dice, or expert level.