Preview #3 out here.

Basically (from just a quick skim through), some other combat modifiers, additional kinds of Called Shots and...rules for hitting specific body parts?

Yay, now my players can get the VATS they've solely desired!!!

The optional rule of 'Putting Bullets around Armor' is certainly interesting and would avoid having you being stunned senseless by ammo, but does mean bleeding more when you are hit.

Will have to play with this a bit and see...

Dangit, I really wanted to see what a called shot to the ear would do. I could imagine someone glitching their defense roll on that getting hit in the achillies tendon.

Hmm.. looking at this I may be missing something here because this looks funny if using RG5

So we have Benny the Snitch over here with an Armor Jacket (Armor 12)

Hi guys.. ooo.. spiffy jacket

Now Tommy the Troll decides to pop a cap in Benny with his throwback Rugar Super Warhawk style.

Wait, WHAT?

*BANG*

OMG you SHOT me!!!

Tommy has 4 Agil and a 6 in Pistols for an initial Attack DP of 10, under RG5 it is now modified by the armor minus AP if using this optional rule so 12 armor reduced by the -2 AP to 10, for a penalty of -10 to the Attack DP, meaning a final dicepool of 0 unless Tommy is using edge or can swing some other modifiers?

Even with a heavier weapon, which will be between AP of -4 to -6 that still means an attack modifier of -8 to -6 dice just against a basic armor jacket.

Or am I missing a step in this?

No.

Except maybe APDS. So you need Armor Piercing Ammo do not shoot the armor.

To be honest, called shots to specifics body parts don´t work very well (rule and imagination). It works only if you have a clear zone / hit system in the first place.

SYL

Fixed that.. but that does make some sense since the APDS is making those nice holes in the armor to get through.

So with APDS, the AP jumps up to -6, modifying the armor value for an attack roll penalty of -6, knocking the 10 dice down to 4 dice.

At least still a chance to hit though Benny still gets a chance to defend.

Wonder if GR5 was originally designed with SR4 armor values in mind before the boost to Armor.

SR4 version Jacket would be equivalent of 8, modified by the -2 AP would be a -6 to attack roll. In the above example, would knock the 10 dice down to 4 dice.

Toss in APDS and the penalty to the attack roll drops to -2, -2AP for gun and -4 for APDS so -6 modifying the armor down to 2, for a final Attack DP of 8.

PRO:
Alot of ammo flattening against armor for more survivability.
No cascading stun as any damage that does get through will stay in its original form.

Con:
It can be ALOT of ammo flattening against even moderate armour by shooters with only nominal skills/gear.
Mil Spec armor is gonna be a monster.
Only Body now for the damage resist of whatever does get through, so those wounds will hurt like hell. So you are either up or you're down.

It's not a great rule that one, no. But it is optional and I more like the sound of there being ruled in Called Shot system for getting around the armour. That makes things like the FFBA potentially more tasty than the Armoured Vest depending on how they do it (plus whatever the concealment rules and charts work out as and so forth.) I get a feeling a bunch of the Optional Rules will become Common Rules at a lot of tables.

Small point regarding RG5... Adept centering?

I always treated hit locations as being based upon your successes...flavor text, as it were.

That's a good point, so the gunslinger adept could be very popular in this scenario, at least once they got a few grades under the belt....

There's the odd situation where they can be pretty handy, though - such as slamming heel or the "blade" (outside edge, you might note that it's harder and thinner than the inside edge) of the foot onto the instep of an attacker, which is commonly taught as a rudimentary self-defense technique.

If they are allowing for ankle and ear, that probably means they are going to have a modifier for head shots and how is armor going to run for that?

The helmet is listed as a + value, but that was for stacking purposes. They are going to need a value like the great coats, one value is worn alone since for a head shot that's the only armor reasonably there and the other value as part of a stack.

I remember targeting systems in battletech let you target specific parts of the mech, except the head/cockpit as that would have made short work of the mech.

How so? The better they roll, the better <insert random trick> works. It's not rocket surgery.

Having specific effects in the rules is useful, if only because it makes it easier to adjudicate. I'm sure there's some players who would have more difficulty thinking of something to do that's outside of the rules, so it's useful for them.

As far as headshots go - or in general called shots for greater lethality - I don't think that fits the mold of what they appear to be going for; it looks more like hit locations for specific effects.

Granted, plus there will probably be things like Blood in the Eye where you graze/cut them on their brow so blood drips down into the eyes, blurring their vision.

They mention chopping at the neck so maybe the old karate chop KO is back, well stunned anyway.

Well, you *do* tend to shoot people in the head because you want them dead...

Ok, say you're standing toe-to-toe with a guy. Karate style. This is a fist fight, so you've only got your right flank towards him (or your left, if you prefer) because that presents a smaller target.

He's doing the same to you.

Take your forward foot and kick his forward foot.

How hard is that?

Answer:
Really fucking easy. His foot like is like six inches from yours.
It's also a great distraction. It says "hey, hey, look at my foot, hey, foot, hey" and then you punch him.
(My favorite tactic, back when I took karate, was actually a double or triple-feint with my foot, then I'd feint with a punch or chop and follow it up with a real kick. Because it's such a good tool for distraction people stop paying attention to it)

Really reminds me of the hit location system for wfrp and the sci if versions by FFG, perhaps that was he basis of their inspiration for this?

And called headshots I've always ruled were using the armour in the head (the +3). But that was a house rule more tan anything, and required an aim action with no bonus prior to the headshot.

From my limited understanding of combat with firearms, pulling off headshots are actually really difficult, especially if it's from a precise shot. If you're spraying and praying someone in the general direction of their head, yeah chances are good that you'll put several holes in their noggins. But a precise shot to the head is significantly harder to pull off. Mostly because the head is just a much smaller target then everywhere else on the body. Military snipers are always taught to aim for center of mass of the body (aka the chest) when making their shots and will rarely ever do headshots.

For me, I slap as low as -4 to as high as -6 penalty on players that attempt Called Shots to the head, which would usually bring their DP down a third or almost half of their original DP. Although the plus side being if they hit, I rule that the guy dies instantly.

I feel like we've entered the realm of recursion, where we're about to see a whole book of additional alternate combat rules that need errata published before the basic rules get errata that will, in turn, require more errata to the new rules.

For all we know, Catalyst could be doing all these levies to test the waters an seeing how Ds and their forums react. And then deal accordingly. So let's hope tats no th case of the errata being made before it's even been released

I wonder how Armor is integrated into Hit Location Shots
Example Ear.
When my Char succeeds with an aimed shot to the Ear.
what is the other guys Soak Pool ?
mere Body? Or Body and Armor(argue Point: He's not wearing his armored vest around his ear. I hit his Ear not his Chest)

with a Hit location Dance
Medicineman

That's a lovely thought, but the SOP to date has been it will release with what they have, with errata later as they probably have moved the bulk of the people onto the next project and any errata would want to be examined and playtested before commiting to final errata.But that is sort of the advantage of buying the downloads as the errata can then be downloaded as well.
Or let the Germans do it.


In the ear example they mention its not an actual hit but so close the pressure change of its passing impacts on your ear drum so I think they are playing this as bypassing armor unless you have something specific providing ear protection.

Call my crazy... but wouldn't that do nothing to your ear except maybe scare the frag out of you? I know they tested really hard to get a .50 from a rifle to break glass just by passing close to it to no avail.

Well we can't know for sure right now, since the rest of that entry has been cut-off.

There has to be substantial force for any damage to be done to the ear drums. Like on the level of artillery and explosives blasting nearby. Then again those can 'scramble' the brain and just kill the person in question anyways. That's also why if a gun is discharged close enough to the ear it can cause hearing damage, and depending on the blast force of the gun in question, possible death.

Though I can't tell do specifics, I just recently started researching guns and artillery effects

Probably, these special called shots are looking like more special effects than actual damage, they mention overstimulate not making you bleed out your ears, so probably counting on the slap of air on the ear to cause a kneejerk reaction, because you do not KNOW it's a miss and first instinct may be to duck with a light ringing in the ear.

though we will have to wait until the full piece comes out to see what the actual effect is.

So reading through it, it does seem to confirm that Martial Arts is getting revised. A lot of the new Called Shots are some of the old Maneuvers from Arsenal. So in other words, instead of having to get the Martial Arts quality, and spend additional karma just to get the Maneuvers, now once you get Martial Arts, your character will be able to perform all of the special Called Shots without spending any karma. So that's cool.

The thing I'm tilting my head at though is that RG4 seems to be just the regular Initiative rules but just reworded. Am I missing something?

It is different.

if character A has 21 init and B has 9, under the original system, both can act on the first IP. A goes first as they have the higher init. After that they discount 10, leaving A with 11 and B has nothing left. So A gets two more IP, one at 11 and another at 1


RG4 would have it so you check at each step of init, so A moves at 21 Init having the IP basically all to themselves as B is still waiting until it counts down to 9,and then reduce by 10, so at 11 Character A get to start their second IP and can not act again until 1.

Meanwhile once 9 comes around only then B can act, so A gets to do two actions before they even get to respond, the action back at 21 and 11 with B following at 9 with A taking their final action at 1.

You still get the same number of IP per character, but when they are taken has shifted.

It does have a certain thrill to it as it can mean acting/moving multiple times before the non reaction enhanced sorts even realize you are plowing through them, but slower players may feel a bit left behind...

...ugh. If that's the case, it would certainly help to have worded it a bit better, or have one of those shiny example boxes that the core book was so proud of.

The other thing that I feel needs clarifying is the Movement Penalties table, specifically "Ranged Attack Penalty". I'm not sure if they mean if the penalty is for someone firing on a character that is moving the listed distance, or if the character is shooting while moving that distance.

for RG3 the first column (Ranged Attack Penalty) applies modifiers to actions taken against characters based on how fast they are moving that Action Phase. Original was a flat -2 if target was running, -4 if sprinting, now its the actual speed in play.

It looks like they are just spreading out the penalty to shoot at a runner/sprinter/vehicles so now it can be -1 up to -6.

It does not specifically state the penalty for actions taken by the running party themselves, so it probably is just the standard -2 for taking any actions while running (except running/sprinting of course ) as sprinting is a complex action anyway, but there is nothing to stop you from house ruling this and applying the same penalties to a running shooter as it will usually fall into the -1 to -3 range. Call it GR3.5

I like this preview better than the two others. It's nice that they warn about the side effects of the optional rules.

Indeed, makes it feel more like it was tested with feedback given.

Though again I am wondering if the original testing for GR5 was using SR4 armor values as the increase in armor for SR5 really makes a bit of a shift in the applied penalties for even moderate gear. But that may be needed since you wont be getting loads of stun damage either when you do get hit.

Gotta keep bouncing numbers, and bullets, off it and see how it compares in long run.

Yeah; at best, have the penalty instead be half of the Armor rating.

Does make me remind me of that one optional rule in SR4 that lets Armor Rating be just a straight deduction on the DV...which meant that under that rule, if you had any decent bit of Armor (aka Armored Jackets or Lined Coats) Pistols would be almost useless and that you'd be nickle-and-diming the opposition doing 1-2 damage unless if everyone brought APDS rounds.

I haven't read the preview (or this thread) yet, but I've been missing hit locations ever since we stopped playing 2020, so I'll read this one with interest

Optional Rule #1 has made me especially happy


I just want to say thanks ro whomever is responsible.


RG4 seems to me like the old SR2 IniRules ?!

with a happy Dance
Medicineman

Yep, its the SR2 initiative system Medicineman. I spotted that too.

Well, they were a pretty popular alternative ruleset for SR3. I'm not sure if I like them or not yet given SR5's rebalance of initiative enhancers. Only one way to tell, but that requires I finish annotating these house rules to match the errata.

Uhhh Gamesmaster beware of that optional Rule !
a dedicated mystic Adept can get an initiative of 30 + 5D6
It was a good thing to change the Ini from SR2 --> SR3 and 4
this optional rule may cause some unhappy players ,especially if you've got an ...Inimonster

with a very fast Dance
Medicineman

An average of 47!
Very fast dancing indeed.

That's why the GM should keep players in check. Now, if your team is on average sporting 2 to 3 passes, this can be a bit of a nice rest from some slow ass gangers always getting a shot off if you don't 1 shot them all at once.

Uuups sorry I meant to write 36 + 5D6 so an Ini of 50+ or even 60 is posssible
OK he'd need about 80-90 Karma ,MAG 8, 2 Spelllocks rating 5 ,pos qual focused rating 4 and an Initiation
but thats really within reach of a dedicated Char

with an even faster Dance
Medicineman

So... SR2 style initiative... No thanks.

The SR2 style rewarded people who got as much IP boosting augments as possible and penalized anyone who didn't. Luckily it's an optional rule, otherwise any combat-oriented character had better be an adept with Improved Reflexes 3, otherwise they may never get to act!

Yeah, I know... And I was glad to see it in the rearview mirror once 3rd Edition came out.

Then don't use it; it's an optional rule, after all. I certainly won't be using it since the base rules I find more appealing.

Same here, that's why I said luckily it's an optional rule.

Wasn't planning on it...
Sadly, the more I see of SR5, the less I like it.

I see that despite the efforts of previous editions of Shadowrun to not equate higher Body/Strength with size, SR5 has decided to do the exact opposite. I'm actually more peeved by that than I am by silly wireless bonuses and numbers that don't make sense.

I thought I remember seeing somewhere in the text that you did have to purchase certain manuevers with karma. I'm not sure if that includes the ones listed.

Oh, here it is:


Yeah, I am not at all sure what it means though... have to wait for the book.