This ^

It struck me as strange that you start with a limit set by your stat, but if you pick up a weapon it overwrote that, when really it should start with your stat limit and the accuracy would add or possibly even reduce this if really unwieldy.

FWIW, some of us felt (or rather, feel) the same way. Initially Accuracy was a modifier to your existing Limit, instead of a replacement. It was in part due to playtester feedback that it was changed -- folks felt it was too clunky that way, apparently. I much preferred it as a modifier, and didn't think the single step of additional basic subtraction/addition was all that bad (no moreso than AP or a host of other things on a weapon statline), but...oh well. That's not what made the cut.

Only for a given value of "initially."

Just FYI, but speaking only for myself here, it's not so much that I've shut down from criticism, as that I have better things to do with my day than defend other peoples' decisions (for better or worse), especially when many of the rules issues people have with SR5 are rules issues I also had with SR5 while working on developing it. It is utterly exhausting to be lambasted for things that aren't your fault, but even moreso when they're things you also personally argued against, pointed out were in error, etc, etc. And, to make sure it's all extra tiresome, there are things I'm not allowed to say due to NDAs being involved (along with basic professionalism), which means I can't always agree, or disagree, with comments the way I'd like to. After a while, visiting a forum you've been a member at for years turns into, instead, being a pop-up target in a shooting gallery, and fuck that noise.

So, yeah. After a while you get tired of being called a scab, an idiot, or worse, while soaking up insulting pay to do work that's all just supposed to be fun in the first place. And then, of course, when we're not still regulars at the forum, hanging out like we used to for years and years prior to being turned into lightning rods, we get accused of hiding out somewhere else, or being a yes man, or ignoring criticism.

@Critias
for whatever its worth:
I allways liked and appreciate your Work and dedication
I've never seen you as a scapegoat or Yea-sayer

HougH!
Medicineman

Thanks for the response, good to know the idea had/has potential and maybe I will sit down and tinker with it as an alternate method, henceforth being referred to as RG11 on my optional rule/idea list.

I think the clunky part might be trying to establish a baseline for determining revised acc bonuses, especially for new or unusual weapons. Should make for some fun discussions.

I'd just look at the most common Accuracy, and set that as the 0 or - or whatever you want to call it, the baseline. Then just apply math modifiers from there, apply smartlinks and whatever as normal, and...voila. Call it a day.

So limit = skill +/- acc mod?

I think it was Physical Limit +/- Accuracy Mod, based on what Critias said. It's still a little clunky with Agility not factoring into the Physical limit, but I would assume there is a balance reason for that.

I also thought that Accuracy replacing the Limit was weird considering one of the stated goals of SR5 was to emphasize the character and not the gear. In some ways it's remenicent of the problems that cropped up in SR4 when a piece of gear replaced a skill (I'm looking at you medkit). Namely, you don't need to be a sniper, for example, you just need to buy a sniper rifle. Granted the limit is not the same as the skill but it just rubs me the wrong way. Anyway, I said as much in my playtest feedback, but we all know how that story ends...

But that causes weird things like Trolls and Orks naturally being more accurate with melee weapons.

They will have a higher Limit, but they still need the skill to use that melee weapon.

Which also raises the question, should physical limit maybe substitute Agility for Body in the limit calculation?

It would make sense that agility plays a factor and would mitigate the double whammy of high str & body you are worried about for orcs and trolls.

Or if you do not like including agility, then maybe rejuggle the formula and make reaction the x2 with body & str as the add on. Maybe even call it a Melee Limit if you want it just for combat purposes.

Taking agility from "super stat" to "uber stat" certainly doesn't look too appealing to me.



I really wonder how people can worry about double whammy on strength and & body when the vast majority of combat related skills are in fact agility based. Factoring agility into that limit calculation would further increase agility's value - particularly for elves - and relegate str and body further into the realms of being dump stats. I'm not too sure that metahuman racism against orcs and trolls should be part of the mechanical side of the combat system.



~hmm~ And I thought that one of the major problems of the first three editions was the exuberance of different rule sets for different sub-systems of the game and the additional exceptions within these sub-systems. SR4 (and SR5 as its successor) aimed at streamling the mechanics at least with some success ... but now you're suggesting the introduction of similar rule bloat as in those earlier editions?

The problem is that currently, given how physical limit is calculated, trolls are the uberninja - the ideal b&e specialist is a 300 kg, 3,5 meters stack of meat. I hope you see how this doesn't make much sense.

Maybe splitting the Limit - into a resistance and an agility limit - would help. I don't know though; such nonsense seems inevitable given the way limits work. They'll always generate one wtf or another.


That is, after all, the official design philosophy of SR5 - I mean, just look at all the bloat added only in the core rules.

Wouldn't that suggest that the real problem lies with the attribute/skill linkage and not so much with how the physical limit is calculated? Because I do seem to recall that limits aren't supposed to come into play that often to begin with.



So the answer again seems to be: more differently calculated limits. Somehow that reminds me of the "dreaded" dice pools from earlier editions ... spell pool, combat pool, control pool, task pool (I), task pool(II), astral combat pool, astral pool, whatever pool ...



Is such bloat really the official design philosophy or rather the result of not going through with the official design philosophy?

But whatever the answer to that is, I'm still glad that a certain freelancer so readily helped me with deciding on where not to spend my money

My first inclination is to have a base limit and then scale up from there based on skill, probably along the same lines as how recoil comp scales with strength since I like symmetry in design.

Going back to Critias' idea of Acc acting as a modifier for Limits:

One idea my group played around we during play testing was using multiple limits (the big three plus other calculated limits, or sometimes using the linked Attribute as the limit) and have all gear rating act as limit modifiers (+/- DP modifer depending on the gear).

The limit modifer for melee weapons was reach (and trolls got thier inate bonus).

This requires some rescaling of the gear ratings (we suggested gear ratings should be 1-12 like Skills) and we envisioned would require a dramatic restructuring of costs and availability (with high rating equipment becoming much more expensive, maybe even a return of logarithmic costs like in SR3 deck building rules). High rating equipment would be "military" or "prototype", uber expensive and worth every penny if used by highly skilled characters.

However, this also created somewhat of a niche for cheeper, low level equipment. With rules for ownership and RFID tags we also envisioned that shadowrunning would creat a market for cheep disposable equipment that could be left behind or destroyed after being used in criminal activity.

Any thoughts?

Alright, lets munchkin this to find out.

Troll Chargen
Priority A: Attribute, B: Metatype, C: Resources, D: Skill, E: Magic

B: 9, A: 6(8), R: 5(6), S: 9(11), mental stats are whatever, Edge: 1
7 attribute points left

physical limit: 13

Quality: exceptional attribute agility - 14 karma
11 karma left

Muscle Replacement 2 - 50,000¥
Wired Reflex 1 - 39,000¥
remaining 51,000¥

Skill Sneaking: 6
16 skills left

Total sneaking DP 14, odds of hitting limit...pretty low

Elf Chargen
Pritory A: Attribute, B: Resources, C: Metatype, D: Skill, E: Magic

B: 5, A: 8(10), R: 5(7), S:5(7), Mental whatever, Edge: 5
6 attribute points left

physical limit: 9

Quality: exceptional attribute agility - 14 karma
11 karma left

Muscle Replacement 2 - 50,000¥
Wire Reflex 2 - 140,000¥
remaining 76,000¥

Skill Sneaking: 6
16 skills left

Total sneaking DP 16.

Conclusion

I wish I knew the formula to calculate how often a DP of 16 will hit the limit of 9, and the DP of 14 to hit the limit of 13.

There is a difference of 2 DP between the elf and troll, and a difference of 4 limit. Call me crazy, but I'd rather have the 2 dice on tests over the 4 limit that I won't be hitting too often. Especially since the elf get so much more edge and can totally ignore limits more often than the troll. And to top that off the elf still has more nuyen to spend and will be going faster than the troll, both in IP and just generally moving around since the elf's agi is so damn high. It really doesn't look like Trolls are the uber ninja of SR5.

i'm just curious, what exactly is giving the troll an augmented 1 reaction from his base of 5?

Isn't it from Wired Reflexes 1?

Try anydice. http://anydice.com/

The code you'll want is:

output [count {5,6} in Xd6]

Where X is the size of the dice pool. Then click on at least for the results and look for the results that are one higher that the limit (so 10 in the first case and 14 in the second). The percentage is how often you will be above the limit.

For the two cases you've presented it is:
DP 16 limit 9, you will be above the limit 1.59% of the time.

DP 14 limit 13, you will be above the limit <0.01% of the time.

So I just went ahead and wrote the stuff you need to automatically calculate the effects of limits. Hopefully this will make all of the statistics thrown around on dumpshock more accurate and make people's evaluations of limits and their impacts more realistic (I can hope, but I doubt it actually will).

function: countlim VALUES:s in SEQUENCE:s {
COUNT: 0
LIMIT: 9
loop P over {1..#VALUES} {
COUNT: COUNT + (P@VALUES = SEQUENCE)
if COUNT > LIMIT {COUNT: COUNT - (P@VALUES = SEQUENCE)}
}
result: COUNT
}
output [countlim {5,6} in 16d6]

Note, that currently you will need to adjust the limit above and the dicepool in the output line.

Average successes with DP 16, limit 9: 5.25
Average successes with DP 14, limit 13: 4.67

Winner, elf even with the lower limit. EDIT: And the limit reduces the elf's hits by 0.08 hits on average.

he's got reaction 5(1). that's not 5 (+1), unless you think that, say, strength 9(11) means base 9, plus 11 more

That'd be a typo. Thanks for pointing that out.

Very helpful. Thank you. Somehow, I can't help but think that limits will still be the scapegoat for people to hate on SR5. That and wireless boni.

Glad to be of assistance. Another version in case you want to do opposed rolls with limits:

function: countlim VALUES:s in SEQUENCE:s with LIMIT:s {
COUNT: 0
loop P over {1..#VALUES} {
COUNT: COUNT + (P@VALUES = SEQUENCE)
if COUNT > LIMIT {COUNT: COUNT - (P@VALUES = SEQUENCE)}
}
result: COUNT
}
output [countlim {5,6} in 16d6 with {8}]

The easiest way to determine expected results from opposed rolls is to do:

output [countlim {5,6} in 16d6 with {8}] - [countlim {5,6} in 14d6 with {13]

Then positive values the first dice pool wins and negative values the second dice pool wins.

And yet, experientially, I hit that limit fairly often, and exceeded it multiple times in last Friday nights games, even for Limit 6 and 7 (with 10-12 Dice). Outlier Dice rolling (up or down) is not a rarely seen phenomenon at our table, and when it happens it really sucks to have the joy ripped right out of the roll because you have hit your limit. When you have a DP that is 3x+ your Limit, you are likely to hit it regularly, and that is why it is there, to give another axis for which to improve upon when you get DP's of that caliber. However, it is nothing more than a penalty for those whose DP's are Mid-Range and the occasional "lucky roll" is a part of the excitement of the game. Your counter argument is undoubtedly likely to be "Use Edge." I say that is a lame counter to the problem. *shrug*

As for wireless boni - They are so staggeringly ill implemented that until they are fixed (or removed), you are likely to be right. It is a core concept that falls completely flat. *shrug*

With a dice pool of 12 and a limit of 7, you should hit that limit about 1.84% of the time.

If you lower that to 10 dice with a limit of 7, it drops to .3%

If you get 7 hits on 10 dice (which, btw only happens 1.63% of the time) that IS a lucky roll - and you still get to count all 7 hits. If you get 8 hits, that isn't lucky, that's ridiculous - happening only 3 times out of a 1000. 9 hits drops to 3 in 10,000, and 10 hits on 10 dice is so rare that anydice.com doesn't even show it as a percentage.

If your group has magic dice that somehow defy the laws of probability on a regular basis, a game designer can't account for that. They have to design with what happens for most people.

And for most people, over 98% of the time, a limit of 7 does not hinder someone with a dice pool of 12.

As far as lucky rolls, if you want to consider that the "average" roll on 12 dice is 4 hits (23.84%) with 3 hits close behind at 21.2%.

That is the what you should be rolling most of the time. If you get an unlucky roll, you'll get 2 hits 12%, and a lucky roll is 5 or 6 hits (19% and 11% respectively) Those are lucky and unlucky rolls, and the limits don't affect that at all.

If you get a REALLY lucky roll - i.e. 7 hits - only happening 4.77% of the time or a REALLY unlucky roll - i.e. 1 hit (4.62%) - the limit still doesn't get in the way.

It is only if you get 8 or more hits that it matters - and the odds of that happening are, as I said, less than 2%.

You can't write a rule system that tries to handle something that statistically happens only 2% of the time as the norm.

Your table's example is completely anecdotal. To contrast that, you can look at my PbP OOC thread where we have 121 pages now. TONS of dice rolls, and I've had to reduce the number of hits that my players have achieved because they exceeded their limits literally less than 5 times. And in each of those cases, (I'd have to go through it to check) I believe they lost a grand total of 1 hit each time.

Basically the idea is this:

If you are hitting a stat limit - i.e. Physical, Mental, Social - then increase your stats.

If you are hitting a gear limit (not a weapon) - get better gear - and if the gear can't get better, i.e. certain things only have a rating of 6 as the maximum, then the game is designed so that you are only supposed to be able to get 6 hits using that gear - and you aren't doing anything wrong by hitting that limit. Getting 6 hits with that gear represents the best you can do under normal circumstances - and if you want exceptional circumstances - then use Edge.

If you are hitting an Accuracy limit for a ranged weapon, then Aim (which increases your limit) or do a called shot, which decreases the amount of dice you roll so you won't waste hits on your limit, but gives you a benefit (see the copious amounts of options in Run and Gun).

If you have a melee weapon, then if you are hitting your accuracy limit, then either call a shot, or use a weapon that allows you to use your skill more effectively.

QFT and really should be the basis of any argument about limits and probabilities. Anecdote cannot be the basis for design.

Except what you're describing are not outlier cases. With 12 dice a limit of 7, you would expect to hit the limit about 2% of the time which is hardly unlikely in play where 4 players easily roll 25+ times a session; especially in your games where combat lasts 100+ rounds from things you've said previously. For a limit 6 for 12 dice you'll hit it 6.6% of the time, more likely than a 1 in the other game.

It's fine if you don't like them, but I'm tired of everyone talking about the statistics without any basis. For example, your basis of 3x limit as where you will hit them regularly is wildly inaccurate. In reality limits will come into play regularly (here I mean more than 1% of the time), for most dice pools 2x the limit and for smaller pools the limit is important at DPs 1.5x the limit.
I think there were more elegant and fun ways to implement another axis without going back to varying target numbers. Particularly because the limit doesn't actually matter, if your limit's 6 or 7, how often do you need more than 6 hits? I've never had a game where the difference between 6 and 8 hits was really that important except maybe on a damage soak roll. Maybe your table's different and your GM regularly throws out opposition and obstacles that need 8+ hits to succeed, but I really don't think that it's common. That's my primary problem with limits, most of the time it doesn't actually matter if you hit the limit or not, it doesn't change the end result. Except making players like you that value crushing a stealth or etiquette roll upset that they only beat the opposition by 3 rather than 5.

I did a little chart in Excel a while back on the chance of exceeding the limit for a given DP/Limit combination: http://postimg.org/image/3li7gi2ab/

(Yes, it's an image and with comma as decimal separator. I tried getting a better export but Excel can be frustrating )

And yet, my experience is my experience.
I dislike Limits on a functional basis, regardless of how often they come into play. It really is that simple.

100% agreement from me. Taking a great roll and saying, "Oh well, you should have picked a different weapon..." leaves a bad taste in my mouth even on a conceptual basis, let alone having it be an intrinsic part of the game engine.

Yeah they could have spread the skill love quite a bit. Strength could have covered a wide range of skills that fall under agility by defining it as the explosive action stat so melee skills, gymnastics etc could be under strength while agility would be more the fine motor control hand eye coordination skills. Body could have picked up a skill or two as well though its default attribute check is pretty important. Once they decided to tie die pools to attributes instead of a more minor connections like in SR3 they really should have reevaluated where skills could go with a eye towards stat balance.

Where as to me it makes total sense, though again I would have tied the limit to your physical limit and accuracy would have been a modifier. There are wrong tools for the job, and people do have limits so conceptually they work for me.

And yet I have seen completely inept people using weapons pull off some pretty amazing things because of nothing more than blind luck, which I see as being part of the Exceptional Roll that occurs infrequently. I do not favor Edge for such things. *shrug*

I do agree, though, that accuracy should have been a modifier rather than a new limit all its own.

But that is literally what edge is.

Which, of course, is pretty much the definition of Edge in 5E (although not really blind, as it is controlled).

Chances are what he calls "amazing things" are not covered by Accuracy anyway. Range, wind and light/glare, and called shots, are all dice pool modifiers. Actually, the more difficult the shot, the less Accuracy matters. Accuracy only deals with cover, dodge and armor.

So an elite marskman with a dice pool of 18 firing a M1 Garand (Accuracy 5) under 50 meters in broad daylight will hit the limit 59% of the time. But to make a called shot with strong winds at any range (modifier -10, assuming a scope on both weapon for the sake of the demonstration), the difference between using a Ranger Arm SM-5 (Accuracy 8 ) and the M1 Garand is... 2%.

Indeed.

Which is my Point - Edge is Controlled, and the Standard Dice Rolling is not. I far prefer the randomness of the Dice than the comfort of Edge (which is probably why my characters rarely have more than a few points of it).

Not really. You specifically said:

There is a mechanism for this, in SR5 it's called Edge. In order to perform amazing feats of luck (defined in the game as exceeding limits in order for amazing dice rolls to have their full impact) you have to use Edge. Luck in SR5 is quantifiable, just like the other Attributes. If you want a lucky character (different than a lucky player) you have to invest in Edge. It's that simple.

Additionally, you claim that exceptional rolls somehow happen very frequently in your games. That's not something any of us can really address since we haven't observed those games. What we can look at are the numerous documented PbP games on this and other boards that use online dice rollers. From what I see, most dice roll distributions tend to conform to the expected 3 dice per hit average that we use as a basis for discussion.

*shrug*

Which is exactly what I said - Blind Luck (you commented that Edge is Controlled, which is the point).

Blind Luck is not Edge in my opinion. Blind Luck is making a roll and taking what you get, for better or worse. Edge is a mechanic where you can CHOOSE to be lucky or not (so it is therefore neither Lucky nor Blind). Which is a huge difference in my book.

And yeah, Swing rolls (both ways - we got a guy who has trouble gaining 1 Hit, regardless of DP) are a staple of our table apparently. Interestingly enough, when our Low roller uses an electronic Dice Roller (as you commented upon), he has much better results (as in more average) than if he were to roll real dice.

Have you ever considered that maybe if you invested in it a little more (the way most players do), you might minimize some of your problems with the way Edge interacts with other subsystems?

Nope... I think Edge is a waste, generally, and only really useful for very specific things (I would pare that list given in the book down to maybe one or two things at most). Its very desirability to abrogate things is why I hate it so much. You are heavily incentivized to purchase it to play concepts, and that irritates me.

In fact - Forcing me to purchase it so that I can bypass Limits pisses me off, because I think limits suck as a concept in the first place. *shrug*

It sounds like you have more of an issue with the fundamental mechanics of the game then, because the game would model that inept person (skill 1, agi 2) with 3 dice and they're never going to get the 5 or 6 or 10 hits that would constitute something pretty amazing even with the most exceptional roll they could possibly have. *shrug*

Not really, no, The System at its core works just fine. It is the Limit Mechanic that pisses me off. Average Starting Character (Average Character - My comment was based upon new Marines who had no previous training whatsoever in handguns, so Ending in Skill 3/4, average or slightly above stats and a concentration) can start with a DP of about 9 (Skill 3/4 (average Professional) and Stat 3, with a Specialty). Heavy Pistol 5/7 Accuracy (but only if user is wired, so no assumptions). So, IF he rolls those 9 Dice and hits with 8 (Unlikely, I know, but roll with it), He is penalized for that success buy disallowing anything above 5/7 dependent upon whether he can benefit from the Smartlink or not. This was not a problem in previous editions. But now it is. It pisses me off... Can it be easily fixed by removing Limits? Sure. Does not change the fact that I have to remove it and anything relating to it to make that fix, which may or may not be inconsequential. I LOVE the idea of Opt In Rules - I Loathe Opt Out Rules. In the first, it is easy to add the rules in that you like. In the latter removing rules tends to have a cascading effect of unintended consequences. Does not have to be that way, but generally it is because the developers (not specific) don't tend to think in the latter mode.

So you are complaining about the .09% of the time that this happens? Literally it happens 9 out of every 10,000 rolls.

How on earth does that actually impact you? I mean, I understand conceptually not liking it, but I mean, come ON shouldn't something have to happen a little more often than that for you to say that the character is actually penalized by it.

It really bothers you that every 1,000 times you shoot someone, and you roll 8 hits ONCE, and then you have to, if you want that ONE EXTRA HIT that it is costing you, to spend an Edge?

You as a player are more likely to be hit and killed by a car than your character is to be hindered by that limit of 7 on 9 dice.

ETA - as an aside, if that character took a simple action to aim, with his smartlink he can increase his limit by 1 and his dice by 1 - and rolling 10 dice with a limit of 8 only causes you to lose a hit 3 in 10,000 times.

Sadly, it happens often enough that Limits are an irritant to me. Take that for what you will.
It has often been said here that the table I play at is full of mutants. *shrug*

Now I'm really confused. You're saying someone with 9 dice is completely inept and no training whatsoever is skill 3/4? I thought that's what you considered acceptable for professionals.