I can download my Spell list for you - or you can ask my GM. I am sure he could confirm it for me.
TeOdio is his Handle.

I have absolutely no need to lie to you about it... So your disbelief concerns me not.
And no, I do not use Mob Mind, OR Control Actions, Control Thoughts, etc. Occasionally I sneak in an Influence or a Mood altering Spell from time to time, but no, I am not a Mental Manipulator.
Why do you assume that power is my motivation?
I have already stated multiple times that the character cares more for versatility than power. We already have a Combat Mage concentrating on Power.

As for your disbelief that my Character building skills are not up to the challenge, I could care less. Since I start with baseline humans, it has NEVER taken me very long to build starting characters. Longest part is gear, and even that can be done in 10 minutes or less unless I take the High End Nuyen Option. Does not happen very often. That is for solo building. Building in a group takes a bit longer, as discussion takes precedence over straight building. Of course, I always have an idea too, and that is generally half the battle.




Character uses Narcojet - Undercover Cop trying to compile dossiers on the shadows, so killing people is a problem. No called shots. DP of 14 with Pistols - Every time I tried to remove opponents in a non-lethal way, I would attain some stupid high number of successes which would inflict stupid levels of damage, and then the Narcojet would kick in, overdosing them and sending them into Shock, killing them. It is a running gag at our table. Only character it ever happened with too, though he was my primary character for years.



Really only a problem if you have fists full of dice to start with in the first place. As I said, the 5th Edition Characters I have put together have MORE dice than the SR4A Characters I play. Using the same definitions of skills, of course. So I fail to see how 5th Edition reduces dice.

Yeah, you are probably right.

Oooh, that's not really a fair comparison then. There's a reason The Supersoaker Wars is a thing.

Perhaps not, but the goal to be non-lethal, resulting in excessive lethality is entertaining to me. No matter how I tried, I often ended up with deaths.
Changing to lethal ammunition exclusively would have just had horrible repercussions (even though on occasion I did use regular rounds, to the same lethality, though not as often). *shakes head*
Now, not always did it end in deaths, but more often than not on anything not an Ork or Troll, and often enough in those cases to be an anomalous statistic. *sigh*
Putting such a combination in a heavier gun would only have exacerbated the situation.

Never used a Super Soaker.

The super soaker was an escalation of what you're already doing. Mixing Narcojetwith DMSO to avoid armor entirely.

But you're still using what most people here on the forums agree is slightly cheesy. Not the worst, but definitely in the category of "this works on anything living at a noticeably higher effectiveness than bullets."

Maybe... Might have worked better with Dart Guns, but those rules were so very odd. And that option is not cheap, so I see little cheese in it (though netting a lot of deaths was not the intent of such ammo... Sad, to be sure). He was attempting to not create a death count in his wake, and regardless of his efforts, well...

Not sure about that. As I indicated, even with standard ammo I was killing people. No Stun track to worry about, you see. So, what was Stun + Stun to Overflow = Death, was merely Physical to Overflow = Death with Standard Rounds. Definitely due to stupid high number of hits more than anything else (as I said, DP 14, so very uncharacteristic of a DP 14). And while a Limit on Hits would have likely solved some of that, I am not a fan of hit Limits, because then you do not get these interesting and entertaining idiosyncrasies.
SnS/Tasers proved less than useful (Anyone professional had Non-Conductive), and is a cheese best left un-discussed. Though it may have been fixed in SR5. Will have to see.

So basically even with more boxes you were still killing people outright.

Hmm.

Seems like toxins are easier to damage people with.

Sounds like cheese to me.

Is narco ject ammo a 4E thing? I seem to recall the narcoject pistols just doing the toxin damage/effects. not a bullet with extra effects from the toxin.

Seems as bad as stick n shock.

How were you doing enough damage to overflow the entire Stun track, the entire physical track, and still racking up enough Physical overflow damage on a single shot to kill a guy?

Capsule rounds do stun damage, and then deliver their payload (using DMSO usually, or a contact toxin).

1. Okay... Typical Adversarial Target has 9-11 Physical Health Boxes and 9-11 Stun Boxes (18 to 22 total Health Combined).
2. Base Damage is 4 Stun, added to by Net hits.
3. More often than not, when I wanted to take someone down non-lethally, I would end up with stupid successes (upwards of 80% Hits or more on my Pool - No Edge expenditures). And targets would roll at or below average to not get hit.
4. Targets resists with Armor (usually Jacket) + Body (usually average or slightly above), sometimes rolls well, though usually average to poorly (in combination with stupid high net hits, of course, because I wanted them to survive)
5. So, target takes anywhere from 10-14 Boxes of initial Stun Damage. And then the toxin deploys (Above average Body of 4 vs. 10 Damage) which is generally bad for the target at that point.
6. Take 8-10 more boxes of damage, sending them into toxic shock (all physical damage at that point).
7. Total Damage 10-14 + 8-10 = 18-24 Boxes Damage.
8. More often than not, that overflowed them, and they died in toxic spasms shortly thereafter.
9. From a drug that should only inflict stun, and a powerful intent to simply incapacitate with a single shot.
10. It was sad, and happened often enough that it became (and still is) a pretty entertaining running gag at the table.

No other character ever had that issue - and in fact, I think it was BECAUSE he was so adamant about non-lethal that the Dice Faeries loved the irony of it.
Another choice was to use Slab, but we never used it (too cheesy).

I don't understand how you say the norm was for you to get 80% hits and your opponents would roll below average.

By definition aren't those results atypical? (at best)

Yes, they are, but when atypical becomes typical (and it was so typical we joked about it for years), well, then you get entertaining results... like having less than lethal ammunition becoming more lethal than it should be (or is intended to be). I admit that a Dart gun would probably work better in this regard (Dart guns don't ramp up damage do they?). Though I am not sure how they interact in SR5 (and STILL not absolutely sure how they work in SR4A). No worries, though. That character has retired. Now I play an Occult Investigator (who is also soon to retire, after the Artifacts campaign).

Are there even 62 spells in the game? Even with all the suppliments? Especially when forsaking all combat and most mental manipulation? Do you have 'Invisibility' AND 'Improved Invisibility?'



Ummm, maybe because:



You're kidding me right? You've gone for the cheesiest 'let's exploit this for all it's worth' mechanic you can get. This is the gun equivalent of Stunbolt! Does your mage do this too?



Well you probably should because your head in the sand view of 'Oh that's not a problem for me therefore it's not a problem' is not a particularly helpful viewpoint. It's all very good that you can somehow create a character in 1/10th the time 90% of gamers do, but that doesn't diminish the fact that loads of people are turned off Shadowrun because of the complexity of character generation. Hell, a lot of people are turned of RPGs like D&D 3rd ed+ because of the complexity of character creation but give them first or 2nd Ed and they're happy.

5th Ed has tried to remedy this. It's silly to argue that it wasn't needed.



Both editions start at max skill 6, both have specialisation bonus of 2, 5th Ed applies smartgun dice to the limit, not the pool, and the cyberware bonuses are basically they same. In addition, 5th Ed has a mechanic, that limits the effectiveness of extra dice, 4th ed does not. So I'm just not seeing how characters are starting with more dice in 5th Ed.

I should introduce you to Joe Canning (not actually sure how his last name is spelled). Given D&D typical rolled stats (4d6 drop lowest) he would either:

Roll two 18s, a 17, and nothing below 15. As in, atypically good, 34 stat-point equivalent characters.
or
Roll nothing above 7. As in, according to the rules you're allowed to reroll.

Sigh... Yes, Yes there are...
From Street Magic Table - Not counting multiple applications of spells like Shape [Element]
There are:
38 Detection Spells
23 Health Spells
36 Illusion Spells
60 Manipulation Spells

Please notice that that does not count ANY combat spells (of which there are 30 base spells). Also note that MANY spells can be learned for multiple different usages.
Again I refer you to such gems as:

Shape [Element]
[Element] Wall
[Element] Aura
[Critter] Form
Clean [Element]
[Sense] Removal
Mass [Sense] Removal
Increase [Attribute]
Decrease [Attribute]
Detect [Lifeform]
Detect [Object]
And we cannot forget to add the various Slay, Melt, Wreck, Sludge, One-Less, Slaughter, etc Combat Spells to that mix.
This does not even count any other sourcebook but Core and Street Magic.


So, Hmmmmm - That is 1, Carry the 3, times some number... That equals 187 Base Spells. Please do the research before accusations.
And No, I have Improved Invisibility, and no Invisibility.




Nope - not cheesy at all compared to APDS or AV rounds from a FA capable Assault Rifle or SMG. In my mind, the latter is not only more cheesy (everyone does it), but leaves a massive body count, utilizing military grade hardware (and if you think that APDS or AV are NOT military grade, well, you would be wrong), which ensures that you will be hunted until you are dead.

Compared to a non-lethal takedown (which ironically resulted in more deaths - even if atypical... at lest the intent was there).
My Mage actually uses an Shiawase Tactical 73 AR with Standard Rounds. And it was a recent addition (within the last 100 Karma) since I traditionally use a Pistol.
I Needed more firepower.




Love how you try to be insulting here. It does not work.
JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DO SOMETHING DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD.
Besides... It is only complex if you try to Hyper specialize. Just like D&D 3.5 *shrug*
Maybe I just excel at such things.

I argue that it was not needed, because I see little utility in it. *shrug*



False...
In SR4A, Skill 6 IS NOT EQUIVALENT to Skill 6 IN SR5.
So, to be more clear. I want a professional in SR4A. I choose a skill at Rank 3. Done. Professional, 4 if I want a Veteran.
In SR5, I want a professional Skill I need it to be a 6 (and I cannot take Veteran at all unless I take a Quality allowing it). Wait a Minute... Something is not right here. WOW, look at that, 3 does not equal 6. So, Net gain of 3 Dice for SR5.

So my design criteria being equal in both editions, I will gain more dice in SR5 than in SR4A. Pretty easy math. And since I rarely went beyond skills of 3-4 with that RARE 5 or better, then Voilà... SR5 Characters have MORE DICE than SR4A characters with the same criteria. Again, if you are confused about what I am arguing please ask, your assumptions are obviously wrong, at least about me.

...only if you don't include equipment.

And only if you're building characters under a particularly unusual methodology.

Heh, I have this same problem only the oppsite. One of our games I had a tanker troll who would roll in excess of 40 dice to resist damage. It was common for me to roll 2-3 total hits on 40+ dice. To this day my typical roll is 2-3 hits no matter the size of my dice pool. It's an awesome roll when I throw 20 dice and see 5 hits.

I admit, I am unusual. I do not create Best of the Best of the Best of the Best, right out of the box. Something about verisimilitude.

My troll was like that too. Not sure why, though he was only rolling about 20 Dice.
Very sad to see 20 Dice turn up no hits on a soak roll.

I can pass along the number of a very good Dice Therapist/Exorcist.

Not cheap, but they can work wonders with bad or troubled dice.

Problem is that it is the same Dice for all my characters.

one of the guys I used to game with would roll 7 hits. dicepool was virtually irrelevant, he'd get 7 hits regardless of whether he was rolling 7 dice or 70. it was uncanny.

Inherent Limits of the Gamer... That works too.
We have a guy whose dice can't succeed to save his life, or anyone else's. He has to use an electronic Dice Roller to have any chances. .

For me the dice roller programs roll basically randomly for 2-3 sessions, then they need to be retired as they begin the 2-hit system again. I've bought new dice, even the really expensive "Vegas" craps dice (actually used at the tables in Vegas) and still see only 2 hits on average. *sigh* The dice fairies hate me.

The trick, then, is to appease the Faeries...

*sigh* I wish I knew how, so instead I ply the GM with food and drink.

Had a game session tonight (Pathfinder).
On the d20 I only rolled above a ten twice. Both were skill checks (and the 11 was still a failure).
On the d4s, I rolled 1, 2, 1, 3.

And people wonder why I take 2/3rds on my hit dice and have never once played a class, used a weapon, or purchased an enchantment that had an "on crit" ability.

Sorry for answering so late, but RL really costs a lot of my time. ^^

I am wondering, if you ever played SR5 or if you just read the books. I mostly have made completely different experiences, so here are my 5 cents:




1) Indeed, it is. I can agree, that this is basically the only field SR5 wins over SR4 without any discussion.
2) They are still a downer, especially if you are used to handwave decking. ^^ But it is basically the same question as before, so we already agreed.
3) You got higher damage and more dodging. I have some experience in SR5 in the meantime, so i strongly disagree. Combat is different, but ZERO quicker than before.
4) No, it isn´t. Now the first 2 spells a mage takes are control thoughts and mob control.
5) They also had a point before. Now they deal more damage, like everything else. Where is the improvement? Especially if you spells now do the same damage as a hold-out. Embarrassing.
6) It still takes the same amount of time. Come to my group, they will all say the same to you.
7) Do we read the same books? Where are they an tactical choice? You had to choose before, too. The only difference is, that you now only decide how many dodge-dice you will subtract, in the past you also raised your damage (if you can withstand recoil). You see improvements i don´t see.
8 ) Is this a joke?
9) No they haven´t. But they weren´t as inconsistent as in SR5. If there are problems, an improvement consists of analyzing these mistakes and wiping them out. Not fixing things that were perfectly fine.
10) Limits are mostly higher than the number of successes you can achieve. And if you are really lucky, your hits don´t even count. Luck gets punished. Great improvement. Especially in a gambling-game.
11) They are worse. Or lets say: there are more worse things than good ones.
12) You still have a table, that is now even more confusing than before. Just because the table is different, i don´t see it being easier.

If you can only attack once your turn is going to be 1/2 as long (ok maybe 60% as long given that people didn't always attack twice. So even if the combat took the same amount of time people are still getting back to their turn more often and not sitting off to the side being bored. That's not even considering that guns do more damage therefore......



That's odd, as someone like me who has only read the rules and not played (apparently..) can see that those 2 spells are WAY less effective now given that their resist pool is also derived from 2 stats rather than just 1.



So before when holdouts did 4P you would need to get maybe 6 net hits to take someone down assuming that they have no body or armour. Now that number is 3-4. Yes they have more armour now but the difference want be 3 hits worth. Some bad-guys may not even wear armour at all.



As what? Maybe the 4th Ed priority system? If you're talking about build-points or karma there's just no way.



I guess you could call the difference between narrow or wide bursts tactical, but single shots? lol, they were for pistols and NPCs. Recoil was never an issue in 4th ed given enough cash (and we're not talking more than a couple of thousand). At least in 5th recoil matters (you can't just keep firing full-auto).



No. Knowing stuff your cars can do, like transport multiple people, is kinda important sometimes.......



Fine is subjective and what you should probably consider is that dumpshock does not house a perfect gamer cross-section. Also, go back and read your 4E rulebook, you know the one before the 20th edition...no no, the first printing. It is the worst ordered book of all time......



I always have to lol at this. If you roll 6 dice you will not always get 2 successes. Sometimes you may even get 6 ...or 0



lolwut? It's stepped now..... so like if you are getting -6 because of light levels and....... you know you have low-light..... you know like the steps are the same............ meh, who can be bothered.

I suppose the limitless ease of how movement works now also sucks? Nothing better than 4th Eds divide by initiative passes malarkey which left your samurai frozen in space between cover while rentacops glided effortlessly from one point to another. It's probably more 'real' or something right?

Which, if you had read what he said, you would have understood.
If you have a DP of 12 (Not Unreasonable in SR5), your average Hits will not come into conflict with the Limit (and if he rolls less than average, well, again, no interaction with the Limit). HOWEVER, if you get lucky and manage to gain a phenomenal 10 Hits because, you know, you got lucky, you have just been punished for that success, because you are only allowed to apply up to your limit.

Limits aren't supposed to come into play much unless you start stacking up dice pool increases without doing anything about your limit.

I do understand that, but they still punish players, in my opinion.
Getting the lucky roll is supposed to be exciting. With limits in place, they don't even matter any more... Ho Hum...
And that is boring and dull, if you ask me. *shrug*

Obvious solution: Find something to do with hits above the Limit.

You mean like special effects or....?

Something like that, yes. I'm not really sure what, though. For First Aid (for example), might ease off on wound penalties or something... 1:1 loss of soak dice for attacks?

OTOH you'd have to balance the hits-above-limit effects with hits-below-limit such that it's more desirable to have hits-below-limit or we'd end up in a very strange boat indeed.

Easy for attacks: Hits above accuracy add to damage but not to the threshold for dodge, meaning that a really lucky shot will still deal a metric ton of damage if it hits but is still theoretically dodgeable.

And easing off wound penalties in the manner of "count as having N less boxes of damage for determining wound penalties" or taking away soak dice (thus adding 0.33 damage per extra hit) would certainly cover off that. But that really only gets us started...

Not sure about wanting it to be more desirable to have hits below level, but the benefits of going over limit would have to be carefully gauged otherwise if the special effects are too good, people will intentionally use a lower accuracy weapon so as to have a better chance to go over limit setting to gain the bonus effect, even if it means lower initial damage.


That has potential...

If it is an opposed test, you could just invert the order of operations and have the limit apply after net hits are calculated (and assessing drain based on a post-limit net hits calculation)

So instead of 7 hits reduced to 4 hits due to weapon accuracy opposed by 2 hits netting 2 hit, you would have 7 hits opposed by 2 hits netting 5 hits, reduced to 4 total net hits due to weapon accuracy.

I've used edge multiple times to keep an awesome roll, I didn't feel cheated. It felt like a decision with ups and downs, I thought it would suck but I like it. I just wish accuracy was a modifier on your base limit. Having it a set number in such a crucial part of the game seems to defeat the purpose of inherent limits. Oh and I'm not that happy with how the physical limit is calculated, i get the game balance side of it but it just seems off.

Eh. I sorta like the idea that you can roll at or above the other guy's limit, and thus he cannot succeed.

I can kind of agree with that.

The thing about limits is that they make you make choices (not specifically you Shinobi). Don't like having your great rolls reduced? Work on your limit. Don't want to work on your limit? build up your edge. Don't want to do either? Work on your lower skills first.

Character creation and development is about trade-offs. If there is no trade off then characters become homogenised and boring. A lot of the complaints I hear about 5th Ed seem to always come down to: "I don't want to have to make hard choices. Why make me choose? Why can't I have both?"

They really don't... at least not for me. *shrug*
For me, at least, it is not about the Hard Choices. It is about punishing the players for being lucky. I hate that.

That's kind of my point.

A lot of rules punish players (and NPCs for that matter alike).
The point is, that with a dicepool system like shadowrun, using low dicepools (lower than 15), the vararity is just too high.
With 5 dice you may get practically anything between 0 and 4 hits.

@Choice or Punishment
So you get punished if you get lucky and you have not worked on your limits. The choice is right there.
Every choice can be seen as a punishment or a reward, depending on where you stand.
As a matter of fact, rationally, you can not regard it as punishment, because you do not get any kind of reduction. It would be a punishment if it would be like: You hit the limit +1, you get only get limit -1 hits. If you would have had limit hits, you would have got limit hits. That would working as a punishment. (Or if you would get -1 too all dicepools for your next action everytime you would roll over the limits)

See, I disagree... Limits do not come into play enough to even be in the game (hell, even some Freelancers/Playtesters have commented as such), as far as I am concerned, but when they do, they are a punishment. I agree that you can work on your Limits, but then you take something that is rarely an issue, make it more of a rare issue, and then when you roll lucky, you are STILL punished for that luck. It is just stupid. *shrug*

Your example makes no sense. If I have a Limit of 7, and I have 10 Hits, that is a reduction of at least 3 Hits, and potentially more, since they do not count for the oppositional comparison. Punishment.

Yea...
...
...
Limits where put in place as a response to over-inflated dice pools...
So therefore it is a punishment for those gamers who play on the moderate side by not having dice pools over 15... Yes, you may see more of a swing with lower dice pools but not being able to use them is a kick in the balls. A better way to go would have been to decide what they wanted as the max dice pool capable and adjusted everything else to match that. Does it still affect the lower dice pool characters, of course it does, but then I would not expect a beginner (or expert even but someone fully kitted out to the max?) to be able to shoot a moving target 1000 yards away in windy conditions on a moving vehicle. Limits are a crutch to shore up a failing part of the game and not a true fix.