Okay seriously?

To be clear: I followed all the discussions about how crappy the new book ist, how the developers sucked and why everything takes so long to come out. I know all the little things like broken totems (raven), imbalanced classes (mystic adept) and strange new wireless-boni to push deckers into combat. I know that "the hot-fix-patch-update-errata", i could have written in under an hour, took WAY to long to come out. And i know that when developers say "Missions 05-01 will be released at the same time as the corebook" youll better read "we dont give a f*ck when it comes out". And to be honest i dont gave a damn.

Until today when i was randomly looking through that book and had to stop at page 107 (pdf). What the hell is this? It has to be a joke. I mean, why would someone WASTE almost a whole page for this f*ck?
Some months ago i have seen a post in this forum by a person responsible that said:
"Spirits? Are you joking? I barely got dragons in that book."



This is a 100% quote from page 105 (and imho the only useful info on that whole page). Now you tell me why that sh*t on p. 107 should have a right to exist? And why this is more important than backgroundcount, traditions, posession or an proper overview of the history 2010-2070?

What is it with you guys? Dont you get paid well? Regular people would have been fired a 100 times for that. I dont want to be the troll but something definitly has to change with the following releases or people (at least me) will stop spending money on this and get stuff from the internet.

...excuse me?

Just what's such a Betrayal about skill costs?

I'd say the complaint is more about wasting a whole page on tables that provide no benefit to someone beyond second grade.

Especially the first table with cumulative attribute cost is borderline insane - have you EVER been in the situation where you needed to know the combined cost for raising an attribute by two points AFTER char generation? In addition to not being able to calculate that on the fly? And i'm being generous by using the word calculate here.

While I did laugh at the useless tables, I think the OP may be a slight overreaction...

That's what we call nerdrage.

It may be, still i think some random dudes with lower secondary education would have done a better job. Apart from that at least there has to be someone doing kinda final acceptance on the product. And this guy should go to hell for blowing up my - and your - money.

Yes. Some dude should burn in hell because you have the feeling that wordcount was wasted. Very proportionate reaction indeed.

Why wait until hell? we've already got fire here! (Thanks Prometheus!)

(Disclaimer: not serious. Burning people alive is wrong. And bad. And we shouldn't do it. Often.)

Do you seriously think the wordcount is the issue here?

Let me translate that page for you:
'You, dear reader, are dumb as bread. Please allow us to dedicate this whole page to demonstrate our opinion of your intelligence.'

And that's not even counting all the potentially useful stuff that's missing from the book.

No, I'm simply questioning the opening poster's reaction.

Spouting vitriol, implying that pirating the products in the future might be a better way, and wishing hell upon people (if you believe in this sort of stuff) damages a very valid general position.

There IS such a thing as bringing wares back to the dealer and getting your money back if you're not satisfied with the product's quality. And if the seller won't budge, sell the thing on to people who like it better.

To be honest... I was so insulted by the time I got to Page 107, that it was just another data point along the way. And the insults don't stop there, either. I hold no hope for the continuation of SR5 under the current developmental leadership, and will only play it if there is no other choice.

So, what would you consider a valid response towards someone telling you you're a f*cking idiot AND taking your money?

Good thing there always is

Honestly?

If they're going to keep publishing like this, pirating as a preview in the future might be a better way. Same way I'd never buy a sourcebook in hardcopy without paging through it first to make sure it isn't just 100 pages of sketches of someone's butt and reprinted GURPS rules.

Sure, imply all you want that the authors want to deliberately insult their customers.
Take a tinfoil hat, while you're at it.

SR is not a pyramid scheme, even if you choose to be personally insulted by phrases that are most likely directed at new players not familiar with the system. If you believe that the authors have it out for you, your dog and all their potential customers, you should probably listen to all the reviews that have been available earlier, plus the reactions of the people here on this very board and not buy it.
This way, they can't insult you and you don't give (important distinction here, btw) them your money.

If you do it anyways, it's no ones fault but your own, and it is still not an issue, because you can simply take it back to your FLGS, or Amazon or wherever you got it from.
Don't act so outraged. No one killed your puppy. You chose to buy this thing, despite a lot of people giving a lot of opinions in either direction.

Indeed, though My GM actually likes much of SR5 (and as he always runs Conventions with Missions, I expect him to continue with SR5 - he is a completist, after all). Hopefully he chooses SR4A (with maybe some backports) instead of SR5 for the Home games.

I do the same. It's smart, actually. But how is pirating better? Why would I even want to pirate stuff I don't like?
Besides that, Dumpshock ToS

Edit: Clarification: I thumb through books before buying them. Especially those expensive RPG products.

It isn't. Pirating is a Zero Sum Game for the end user and hurts businesses, not to mention being illegal, so no, not the best choice there. But there are better systems out there if you have issues with one that you are playing. Better even for things like Cyberpunk, if you are willing to put in the work.

I know that life is all about opinions, but I'm curious as to what you, and all the other anti-5 peeps, find so insulting about the new edition?

My position: I haven't played sr5 yet. We're half way through a sr4 run and are playing it through before we switch. I bought and read the sr5 pdf, then bought the book too. In reading it, I found changes in the system almost universally positive and enjoyable. Some particular highlights for me were the change to initiative, the overall increase in weapon damage, mages taking a bit of hurt, deckers requiring actual intelligence to be good at their jobs, and numerous other things. Negative changes, well they've been relatively minor. Maybe more will crop up as we play, but certainly there hasn't been anything I've read that's caused me to be insulted, or even to regret moving edition. For the most part complaints I've seen have been about wireless bonuses and cyberware pricing, neither of which breaks a system beyond usability. The former is, at worst, ignored and the latter can be easily changed if you desire.

So fill me in, what makes this system worse than 4th edition*? So bad as to be insulting? I'm honestly curious.

*please only compare core books, as that's where we're currently at.

I have played (GMed) a couple of meetings now and I find some issues that I feel annoyed by but they are minor.

The Wireless bonus thing have not come in play yet, the enemy hacker failed to destroy any cyber the only chance they have encountered so far. At start level where enemy dicepools <12 things don't go splat. It is for more difficult missions and then they'll be more careful I'm sure.

And, a bricked gun or spinal cord costs less to repair then the money you get from selling a used cyberdeck =D


What I do feel insulted by or annoyed by from actual play is, first and foremost

Issue A, the most serious one so far is the odd bridge between Chargen and karmagen.

This is simply horribly done and a balance flaw that I despise with all of my heart: "No, get 6 in pistols with your skill points and 1 in computer with karma. Don't ever get 1:s or low skills with skillpoints..
Pistols 5, Computer 1 then raise to Pistols 6 with karma costs 12 karma. Getting Pistols 6 at chargen and pick up Computer 1 after your first run costs you 2 karma.
Same with stats. You get waaaaaay more worth to get one 6, the rest 5:s and leave all other stats at 1 at start and then fix after 1-2 runs the critical ones to 2 for a mere of 10 karma each compared to 30 karma to raise 5 to 6.
What does this do? It premiers munchkinism. You don't only get a better character with maxed out stats from start, you even save tons of karma by doing so! Being highly specialized is already a good choice for any character, adding a huge penalty for characters not going balls out 6 in all skills and min-max stats is terrible.
I see way too many Strength, Logic and Charisma dumped to 1.

Issue B
Mystic adepts start with full mage + full adept making pure adepts feel completely pointless. It also means you are a mage with Maxed initiative without even having to bother with foci cheese... wich leads to

Issue C
drams + foci = a ton of F1 sustaining foci for maxed out buffs. With edge you can get 10+ hits on increased initiative, boost 3-4 stats with 4 each and the foci cost almost nothing in karma and nuyen. They are a factor 4 cheaper than last edition, not counting that you only need F1.
As a consequence, Disenchanting is a strong counter skill to disrupt the christmas tree of foci present on any decent mage. (I mean mystic adept, being mage is meh, projection is solo-play anyway so the other players hate it)

And, finally

Issue D
No doge on grenades and a damage value that is near guaranteed oneshot. Regular grenades are fine since all can run away but they just had to add motion sensor crap throwing this out of the window.

And, that is the end of rules. Outside rules I have found several sections being in a text-wise low quality. Like the rigget chapter about getting dumped making terrible references to relationships instead of drones. It feels like reading something a 14-year old has written in a desperate attempt to seem "cool".
I want to read about riggers and what they can do. I want cool fluff to be in the mini-stories between chapters but the rules should be rules, clear and exact not some teenager joking around and forgetting to clarify even half the stuff he is babbling about.

A lot of rules are very very ambiguous and require a lot of judgement from the GM to even make basic sense. I really wish there were far more clarity what thing does, better use of keywords (like what counts as attack, etc.). Is casting Swarm (illusion) on an area that happens to have people in it prevent me from shooting my gun just like tossing a fireball at same area does? Or is it allowed just like casting heal on myself and then shoot a gun is? (casting recklessly to make it simple action). What about creating a phantasm of a drone attacking, is that an attack?

a) While this is an issue, it isn't a new issue. The SR4 Build Point system was exactly the same, scaling laterally while karma is exponential

b) I think this issue is being errata'd already. I'm not sure how far it'll go. Mystic adepts are meant to be better than adepts now, as they are higher priority on all levels. That may not be a change you like though.

c) Took me a while to figure out what you meant exactly here but I think I've got it. You're suggesting casting force 1 spells through sustaining foci and using edge to go over limit making them higher level, correct? Firstly this seems like a bit of a cheesy exploit that is easily ruled against by only allowing foci to sustain their level in 'hits' instead of force. Also, edge refreshes much more slowly now (one point per night) so even with the exploit I don't see how you're sustaining 4 or 5 spells reliably over a mission. One good disenchant and the trick is worthless as you say.

I still feel this is an exploit (and there were many in 4th edition too, and all other rpgs)

d) I haven't experienced this yet, so I guess I'll see how it plays out

edge is optional. the "drams" he refers to are drams of reagents. edge makes for a larger dicepool, but all you really need to do is throw a few hundred nuyen worth of drams at most force 1 spells to give them as high of a limit as you're ever likely to need.

Actually I think there is a kickstarter somewhere for that one.

And the $500+ backers get their butt sketched for it.

Just to make sure we are all nice and clear on this.


That said, don't be a troll, don't feed the trolls, and overall play nicely with each other. Thank you.

When I reached that page during character creation, I turned to my GM and said, "This table seems unnecessary." He said, "Yeah." We chuckled. Then we moved on.

Having done some analysis on this, grenades are rarely a one-shot unless your armor is terrible and you're standing on the grenade. They are rather painful up close, but if you can get just a couple meters away you'll probably do okay.

You would need to get to where you are taking 10p or less for it to just be rather painful. Having seen even combat monsters with 20 Dice rolling only a single soak success (even with reroll from edge), soaking anything higher than your total body boxes is really going to hurt.

Nothing. It isnt worse. That was not even close to what i meant. I like almost all of the new rules. What i dont like is the fact, that some official statements say it was hard to get everything in the book and at the end you get this. Its not about the rules, i just think thus people dont care much about what they release. I buyed it and would probably do so again. And they know, so they dont care. What leads me to the only thing i can do, go rampage and nerdrage because i dont want to play another system and i dont want them to f*ck things up. It can't be that hard to get the job done right.

Its simple as sh*t, do your job right or don't do it. "If you dont like it, dont buy it" is not even an option.

Looks like they would get the layout right after all this time and learn how to organize the book.

Yeah, you would think... but alas...

it hasn't been all *that* long since their layout "team" (and by "team" i mean "one person", and by "one person" i mean "Adam Jury") got replaced. so it's not like the person they have doing layout has been doing layout for shadowrun for all of it's history or anything

Same. Suppose I should have clarified that as 'look over a friend's PDF before buying my own'. I didn't use to be this paranoid, but the editorial and layout trainwreck that is SR5 has convinced me to be more careful with PDF purchases.

Motion sensor (or airburst) just places the grande at your victims feet. The "aoe" effect of people nearby is highly secondary. All you need is a simple 3 hits to get the grenade at your target. In no case can you do anything to defend. 3 hits on attacker = you get full blast. You don't get to act your turn, you don't get to run away or do anything. Grenade ends up at your feet and blows up in the same action phase.

Ignoring the completely horrible chunky salsa rules (they are terrible, don't use!) that means the target gets 16P (AP-2)

An orc with Body 7, Armor 12 +2 (helmet) -2 rolls 19 dice, rolls 6,33 hits on average. He will get around 9-10 boxes of damage, knocked down and in case of frag grenades he'll take 0,33 less damage (on average) but it will be stun and stun track is almost always shorter than physical. (Way more +body races AND cyber that add boxes or body for damage tests)

A typical target has 4 body and 12 armor, rolling 14 dice for 4,67 hits taking 11-12 damage, that is oneshot damage.

EVen if you are lucky to only take 8-9 boxes in one hit you will end up on your ass and rendered pretty helpless.

Frag grenades deal physical and 0,33 more damage but has barely any aoe effect, Frags are much more effective to seriously harm the targets nearby and is almost always just stun, making it ideal for capture and reduces risk of collateral.


My personal hotfix of that was to simply remove motion sensor as option alltogether and allow drop prone interrupt action to add defence-hits to distance from the explosion.


And, regarding drams.
Allowing drams or edge to break hit limit on spells sustained via Foci (or focused concentration) is easy to just forbid. You can't get more effective force in a foci than its power level, end of story. But, by raw F1 sustaining foci plus a negligible sum of reagents to buff upp is the new MO of all mages and stinks.

For all our complaints, the fact is that 5th edition is more or less (barring a few omissions fixed in the missions hot patch) a perfectly playable and fun system. Is it better or worse than 4th or even 3rd? Time will tell. Each system has its strengths and flaws, and in the end it's all about finding the system where the stars align and the strengths outweigh the flaws for your group and playstyle. Just remember, we could always have ended up with another .

If you don't know what that is, feel blessed.

This post contains wisdom.
And if you click the spoiler, and decide to find out, what it is, you'll need mind bleach.

Yes, this is indeed the truth(and I have seen what is in the spoiler, and the brain bleach won't even work. Trust me. )

Yeah, I really don't get 'insulted.' Like...so they included a chart for people to look at if they want to. I think I glossed over it and stopped caring.

There are things I like in 5e, am neutral on in 5e, and dislike in 5e...the same as every other edition of SR. I'm not sure if it's topped 2e or 3e yet for me(my favorites of the bunch.) In order I'd say 5e is in the middle; I'm a 3e-2e-5e-4/4.5e(WITH splats)-1e-4/4.5e(no splats. Yes, I didn't count splats in the others, but I really didn't like just core 4e too much. Karmagen helped save me there; I did not like 4e's BP setup as RAW. Not BP in general; I was quite fine with 2e-3e's BP system in the companion.) I will make a point to say 4e rocked the house when it came to dealing with cyberlimbs. I mean for another example of 'Like/Neutral/Dislike'-in 2e and 3e I love the fluff and character building, I'm neutral on the Matrix rules, and I dislike how cyberlimbs are so freaking expensive.

At the end of the day, I'm really not sure what edition I want to use for the next SR campaign I run yet. I've had fun playing in 5e so far, but I might move back to 2e/3e dude to all the splats for now.

i happened to stumble upon this link http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/10/14/ten-things-hate-shadowrun/
if you want to be angry about SR5, go read that. it works.

I better add that I in general like a lot of the things they did with the rules. The concept of limits adds a nice natural "diminishing returns" on raising skills and or stats to silly levels. Augmented max is far more pleasant now and in general everything works pretty good.

The pointbuy/karma divide is easy to fix (mentioned in other post) without breaking any of the spirit of priority system (That I like because it forces characters to have 2 strong sides, 1 average and 2 weak instead of putting really everything in one trick and skip everything else).

The ambiguity of some rules is a problem (-2 to defend against aoe attacks in the modifier list, tons and tons of mistakes and contradictions in examples etc) but it can often be solved with trying to understand the spirit of the rules. Attempting to find RAI where RAW is impossible etc. That is true for most systems.

Am I still GMing SR5? Yes, did I quit SR4A because splatbooks/meta broke it? Yes. Will I stick to SR5? The answer to that is also yes.

I like that Melee is viable again, attacks per round has dropped to a more sane level and the base damage is more in line with everything else instead of being all about autofire or stunbolts like it was in previous edition.

My list of "Problems" was things that need to either get a hotfix at your table, or at least acknowledged so you know the implications of what happens when a mage/mysad picks 4 sustaning foci and some drams and buff the shit out of himself or a sam using his ares alpha to deliver unavoidable massive damage to enemies. I need to add disenchanting spammers and add a couple of extra enemies to each fight to counter that the grenade sam will autokill at least 1 every time it is his turn. It needs to be dealt with one way or another and I find it easier if all characers are on the same page, or at least in the same book.

If I find that I need to specifically adjust all fights to handle one character using a broken/OP mechanic then THAT character is a problem for everyone.
That includes that player. He/she will also feel frustrated when all enemies show up with tennis rackets in every fight just to give any of the other characters a chance to be meaningful.

And yet it is not difficult to see what has come before so you have some idea how Shadowrun has been laid out over the years.

You know, does it strike ANYONE else as odd that with 4 Net Successes being a Critical Success (Has that changed?) it takes an almost perfect shot to put a grenade in the right area, and yet a Bullet can strike the target with a single Net Success? I find that truly unsatisfactory, since it is not that hard to put such munitions where you want them. Just another foible of the writers not truly understanding how such things work, I guess. You think I would be used to that, but it still grates on me a bit.



It is not allowing more Power... it only allows better effect. They are still just F1 Foci (Focused Concentration) after all and are generally screwed in any Background Count (I really hate the new system of Background Count alluded to) or when someone dispells them. *shrug*

This post, coupled with an innate curiosity, has caused me to read a full review of 'that game'. I even downloaded and perused the rules, though not for too long. I now hate you

3 hits on average require 9 dice. Average stat (3) + average skill (4) is not enough to do that reliably, but 5-6 stat + 5-6 skill does it quite often and more often than not, even a 1-2 hits short will end up on target. I roll 2 hits it means 1d-2 scatter, that is still 33% of hitting target directly.

If you load up stun grenades (10S, AP-5, area 10 no falloff whatsoever) you cant miss. DOn't bother rolling dice. It is guaranteed to hit*! Stunbombing is in no way oneshotting though, but it is still extremely effective to deal reliable stun to a collosal area (over 300 sq meters)

*Critglitch is a possbility if you have a really low pool)




Most buffs are just effect, not power. Armor, Combat Sense, Increase Reflexes, Oxygeneate, Invisibility, etc.

Drams + reroll misses (or high edge) means you can get 10+ hits on Increase Reflexes and enjoy +10 (+3d6) initiative. Background count does nothing to foci now


5-6 hits Invisibility for 2500 nuyen and 120 per cast at the start of adventure is a pretty good deal. With foci addiction kicking in after Magic total force it normally takes some consideration what buffs a mage decide to keep on her but with 6 extra buff slots for a mere 100-ish nuyen once per adventure day is a complete nobrainer.

Though, I made an error in my earlier post, increase attribute is thankfully not affected, it explicitly requires Force = stat to boost to work. (Good design!)

Yeah, I'm sure that was their intended message....

Thanks, I tend to not read books looking for things to be insulted/annoyed by, so I missed that bit.

it's a bit of both actually . . important stuff is left out for things like that.

Sorry but I have to rage back.
This has nothing to do with the developers. The horrible shit I have seen people on this board alone claim just because the rules don't specifically outlaw it could fill books. It is a sad truth that you have to tell everything ten times and even tell that you can't do stuff no sane human beeing would even consider. I personally blame dnd for it. So yes I fear such tables have to be considered needed. Here it might be over the top but in generall....

Actually, it doesn't. What it does, is make me angry at the person writing the post. They attempt to pass off unfounded opinion as fact throughout almost the entire piece. Even while contradicting himself in the next sentence. "Now, these days we're in something of a movement towards lighter games. We don't need massive blocks of stats and numbers [...]" Who, where, in what player base? Simply because he has a preference for those, and maybe his gaming group, does not make it universal. I would posit the opposite, like the fact that he acknowledges Shadowrun is one of the "big" rpgs on the market, and also Dark Heresy. The other top sellers, as much as the data is available, are of course, D&D, Pathfinder, GURPS, and Whitewolf stuff. None of these are "light" rpgs, they are all serious game systems with intense focus on everything he says is bad and no longer desired in games. He considers them "dinosaurs," but the reality is, the market he says is there for them is significant. Simply because he does not like them does not make him the majority consumer or viewpoint for pen and paper games.

Really, it seems he hates pen and paper games to begin with. So what he is doing reviewing them I have no idea. It seems he would more prefer something like Super Dungeon Explore, or Once Upon a Time. Which are fun games, I own both, but they are not solid rulesets for a campaign. I want a game with rules for things like treading water, because anyone who plays an extensive campaign knows, you never know what is going to happen. And, unsurprisingly, if character death is involved, most people prefer to know what they need to do to survive. Which, I guess, is something that he dislikes in general. He just wants a storytelling game, without so many rules getting in the way of what people want to do.

Really, I did not find a single part of his "rant" intelligible or valid. If he wanted to rant about the format of the book, okay it has some problems. Particular rulesets, sure I can see that. But he is reviewing a pen and paper game from the standpoint of hating the entire premise of pen and paper games.

Its like if I decided to go out and write a wine tasting blog. I dislike all wines to begin with, I can taste differences between them, but I dislike them all anyways. That does not make me a good person to review them.

Silly double posts.

That "review" is the dumbest waste of words I've read all week.

ah. so it isn't just me, then, that started reading it, immediately realized "he just doesn't like rules in general, this has absolutely nothing to do with shadowrun - of any edition - in particular", and moved along. good to know.

good to know the point of view of those we can avoid, but otherwise I would agree, there is nothing wrong with disliking rule intensive games, but don't review them, you'll give out distracting information to those who find your post & are looking for genuine information.