Cndblank:
I actually preferred the earlier solution to legendary runners. Namely, don't give them stats. Just use them as plot devices. That way you can keep up the legend and never have to be disappointed by a lousy dice roll. Your players shouldn't generally be fighting legends anyway, which is the only reason you would need to stat them out.

As for the limits, well my example was how they hindered our game. An example of where they are irrelevant were with the face and hacker. They both had high enough limits that they almost never hit them. They would still do very well at their tasks but hitting their limit was just never a factor. This was also true with the dwarf as regards things like stealth checks. It is super weird to me that the potentially sneakiest characters are the strongest characters. That is, a troll with a high strength has such a high physical limit that he is unlikely to hit it whereas a human or elf, who you would think would be more stealthy, are very likely to hit their limit. To get around that you jack up your strength so now you have weight lifters sneaking from place to place rather than ninjas. Blah. That is just silly. Limits sounded like a good idea but the implementation isn't.

I had more points to make but I was getting annoyed just reviewing what I did. The wireless bonuses just completely floored me and we left them out of our game. Silencers with directional mikes that detect whether someone noticed your shot? What the hell? Is it magical? Grrrr. There I go. Getting annoyed again.

I was coming at it from a systems and game design point of view, not necessarily a player/GM issue. I was going to wait for Wak's troll post, but let's go there.

Okay, as a GM, you're having trouble with the troll soak monster, you tell him about your problem, he understands and asks how can we make this work? You tell him you want to be able to physically challenge the characters with a similar level of threat, which requires mitigating the troll's soak.

The player says, "Great, I'm with you, but here's the deal: I wanted to play the tank, the iconic troll of Shadowrun, and furthermore, I only have two spotlights: taking damage and punching people. Every other character outshines mine in every other way. Every time I get to be the bullet sponge, that is my crowning moment of awesome. But I'm a decent guy, so let's try to make this work, but I don't want my character to have no other spotlights because if I can't take the damage, charging into melee is a pretty stupid plan, which means I can't even use my other niche." So as a GM, you now have generated two different problems, trying to correct one.

The first is, how do you let the player get the feeling of being able to protect his teammates from harm, but at the same time have similar lethality? Telling a player that you have no room for his vision at your table is just as much of a douche move as the player insisting on disrupting play with the problem troll. On top of that, this is an archetype going back for as long as I've been playing SR, so it's got history and players come to the table, or when sitting down with a new version of SR, with the expectation that they can make a troll tank, and being effective in that role at the same time. So, the GM really shouldn't outlaw the concept altogether, so that means you as a GM have to change something, and since it seems like it's mostly a troll issue, let's nerf them.

However this leads into the second thing. This is, under SR5, if you take away the Troll's inherent sturdiness, there is very little reason to ever make a Troll outside of roleplaying reasons, and even then, for choosing to be a troll without that inherent sturdiness, that troll will be mathematically weaker than all other races, because even if they're lowered on the priority table, the attribute caps would put them behind every other race for any role primarily depending on Agi, Cha, Log, or Int. Which is every other role other than meatshield. So no matter what other niche that player wants to try to find outside of a meatshield, another character would outshine that troll, in the troll's own area of expertise. So we can't really take the meatshield niche away from trolls at large.

So we can't nerf Trolls specifically. But only 11 out of the 30+ soak dice specifically comes from being a troll. The other twenty-some-odd dice come from armor, cyber, magic, or other modification. And every one of those modifications are available to every other character. It's equal opportunity! So why aren't we seeing soak pools in the high teens/low twenties for every other character if it's equally available? Because the player has to focus almost exclusively on getting every possible modification to add to that soak pool in order to jack it up there. Cyberarms with armor, bone lacing, dermal sheaths, qualities like exceptional attribute and toughness, getting that mage buddy to cast the Armor spell on the character (who even bought a spell focus just so that the mage always had one free for his use), and then you get into the armor shenanigans. But with every choice the character's essence, karma, and nuyen are going down, usually to the point of, yeah you can shoot, but you've got no more resources left to be really good at anything else, and you're probably not going to hit the ninja adept with maxed combat sense without help. So there is some inherent balance to the situation, but something's still off.

Hell, orcs are only inherently only 2 dice behind trolls, so why don't we hear much complaining about the orcs with 28+ soak pool? It's because throwing that much character creation resources into tanking just doesn't make sense unless you fully commit to the tank role, which means going troll. So it's not inherently about being a troll... so what is it that causes the tanking monstrosities that need tank shells to bring down?

The key, I think, is all those different stacking modifiers to the soak pool, and not Trolls in and of themselves. That's where I believe the change has to go in, but there's so many different moving parts in the gear analysis that it's beyond the scope most GMs should reasonably have to deal with when making house rules, and it's much simpler to nerf trolls because troll tanks are all we ever see... but this would only shift the tanking monstrosities to orcs if nerf goes far enough and not deal with the actual problem. I've still not entirely thought through the idea, but a simple answer might be to make cyberware mods affect Bod and not the soak pool; I know theres some simulationist arguments against it, but all of these modifiers are getting around the +4 modified attribute cap. And I may be wrong, but I think that's the specific loophole that is getting exploited by the 30 dice soak monster, and not the fact that they're specifically a troll.

Other ideas might include changing the Armor spell and set the armor gained at Force+hits, but make it so that it does not stack with any other armor, or make armor gained from cyber/bio as unstackable with other forms of armor gained from cyber/bio and only the biggest modifier applies? Alternate idea is to set a +body for damage purposes cap, but I like the simplicity of treating body like the other attributes and not creating different body dice pools depending on what exactly you're using body for. Cyberlimbs just give me a damn headache, and I've house ruled them at my table, so I've got little thought in the way of dealing with them without changing the entire way they're setup.

But overall if there are no answers for these problems, we might as well take out trolls altogether... and a troll-less Shadowrun, is a sad Shadowrun. Don't let Brackhaven win!


This is another, separate, but related problem. A robust system should be able to tolerate the edge cases such that they don't immediately break the system, and a table should be able to trust that under RAW, the system extremely hard to break over your knee without resorting to Pun-pun levels of system mastery. The need to house rule anything should be a rare event and otherwise done only for the personal preferences of those playing rather than the need to correct an oversight. SR5 doesn't rise to this level of execution and polish. Honestly, SR has never risen to this level but in the 80's and 90's, an RPG really didn't need to; I mean heartbreaker is a term for a reason. But as time has gone on, expectations have risen, and SR really needs someone behind the curtains with authority that understands the entirety of the system, how each piece relates to the whole, and how to adapt SR towards modern game design. My suspicion, based upon reading SR5, is that this is not the case. Maybe I'm wrong /shrug.

Wakshaani,

That is PRECISELY the kind of argument I was talking about earlier. It's something an old employer of mine did years and years ago - even talked openly about it - assigning people the tasks they were weakest at to balance the load. End result? Predictably, lower efficiency, performance and morale. Running my own teams I did the exact opposite. Applies to things like character generation as well.

See, even in SR4/4A trying to make a troll spell-tosser of any flavor you were already penalized by reductions in maximum Mental Attributes. Crank in not really using your strength for your "job" and that reach and strength just became effectively worthless; A human Sammy could easily match your natural power and then some since they'd have incentive to and hadn't blown the points/Karma/Priorities on being a troll.

It's a hard-rule fix for something the GM ought to be taking care of. If this is all about Campaigns where you have no control over characters... wow, Catalyst just lost me as a customer permanently. Why? See: Living Greyhawk. Plenty of "legal" Gouda there. Writing ANY role playing system with the assumption the GM won't have any control deprives the GM and the players of flexibility to play their kind of game - you have to play the within the narrowly constrained limits of the DEVs assumptions. It also means there are going to be pages of "house rules" to let them make do. The earliest most primitive game systems included under the GM section that ANY rule was changeable if it needed to be, and building in things to cover ONLY people playing in rigid modules (as opposed to the MUCH broader and deeper home campaign players) then you're building failure into your product from the bones out - ask Microsoft how well that kind of weakness worked out vis-a-vis security in Windows XP due to their original business model of "pay to play monthly" with the ability to shut down your OS and then sell copies of your Registry (with software keys) to vendors to help catch pirates. You can't "patch" that kind of problem when you build it in from the very beginning concepts and even "house rules" won't fully handle it. My groups played two of the modules and the consensus was: they suck compared to a personalized campaign. Furthermore, when you're module-oriented you wind up with characters built to MEET that expectation with no emphasis on, oh I don't know... languages, knowledge skills, secondary skills, hobbies or the background that support them. You get Module Monsters™ like you used to see in Living Greyhawk - characters that wouldn't be appreciated by their table mates for the time between runs or in actual - you know - ROLE PLAYING across the table. Best games I've been in, regardless of system, were all about the interactions across the table not "up the table" with the GM. A bad GM can ruin a good group, but a godlike GM can't save a bad group. You don't build that kind of interaction (including things like inside in-character jokes) with "episodic" play - that only really comes from ongoing free form interaction between players/characters; episodic play like episodic TV tends to lead to trite, 2D caricatures instead of organic, deep characters unless it goes on for many seasons. That's over 30 years of RP experience talking with everything from kids to veteran adults in multiple systems in multiple combinations with philosophies all the way from the universe-specific version of "Pink Mohawk" to "Uber Professionals In Mirror Shades". Pink has a place... even I'll admit it (grudgingly) but I tend to think more Macho Women With Guns than Shadowrun for that.

OK, having pushed my own buttons there, I'll reduce it to this: You can't legislate stupid, and trying to make home campaigns play like (or with) pregen modules is a giant mistake. The "pay" modules are designed to fit better into an ongoing campaign or form the basis for one to continue between and/or after they're done. They also tend to be centered around major "world" events or characters, historically speaking. DNA/DOA, Dreamchipper and Maria Mercurial all come strongly to mind. You shouldn't - CAN NOT - try to micromanage groups through hard rules to deal with system-breaking players. That's always been the GM's job. One of the things I love most about the SR4/4A engine mechanics at the core level is that it's more "story driven" than the older versions and I am in love with the 6th World.

There are multiple ways to play Shadowrun, always have been, always will be:

• Game Breakers play like Call of Duty - with just as much depth of character
• Pink Mohawk plays like The Matrix
• Professionals In Mirror Shades plays like Burn Notice
• Middle-of-the-road plays like something between Chuck and later James Bond

I know my preferences and my limits, but it really sounds from your commentary about the base assumptions and inner deliberative process like the primary motivation for SR5 was controlling Game Breakers. DnD 3.5 did a good job of controlling overall cheese levels compared to 3.0 without boxing people in. SR5 seems to have missed that mark. Sorry.



Mantis,

The optional SR4/4A dice caps worked pretty well when we used ALL of them - they forced the game to be "skill-centric" instead of just going for maximum attributes. Skills have stories behind them which makes for a deeper character background unless you built a Module Monster™. Once we put those in all of a sudden we wound up with better characters and better player/character interaction across the table and we had a ton more fun. Why? Because it kept us inside the mechanical framework of the base rules which assumed you'd never really expect to roll more than five or maybe six hits. Skill level descriptions suddenly made sense, especially with Keep Caps.

Now, the new limits are purely Attribute based which is less ideal since it artificially pushes people to go for the limit if it's within reach... which you cover pretty well. That's why my first House Rule before I got to Char Gen was to amend the limits for physical activity based on the primary skill-linked Attribute (in other words: an AGI limit, a BOD limit, a STR limit and a REA limit - which had no STR in it at all). Mental I did the same but the Social Limit is just a Charisma Limit anyhow so it worked for me as-is. Haven't gotten to run it and it's added complexity, but I also played L5R and the Roll/Keep model was expected and really little different from SR4/4A skill-hit caps. Penciling in a number for the skill-hit cap right next to the number of total dice made it instantly transparent to a player... no reason it couldn't be "lower of the two" once you're in that mindset.

The House Rule for making a Skill-based Limit would be [Limit=IF(Skill>0,Roundup(Skill/2,0),1] if you can read Excel. Merge that with a stat-appropriate limit as "lesser of" so a puny character with great skill is limited by their punyness as a check against Dump Stats. And as long as the limits were in the 5-7 range you're on-target to keep things within the conceptual limits of the basic thresholds (1-6). That's why I don't object to the ACC on most of the weapons - a 4 or less denotes an inherently inaccurate weapon which will actually limit the skill of the user.

Does that make a general kind of sense? It's a paradigm-wide approach that would cover spells, programs, skills and combat equally with the same core logic and mechanics... and it keeps the results for all but the most legendary 'runners within that (1-6) range. After all, the Positive Quality to improve an inherent Limit could be bought later to indicate learning to transcend as well as balancing "everybody" buys by making it have to be bought more than twice. You're really good with LOGic linked skills? You just buy up that one. I'd probably say cut the Karma cost by one or two per to reflect the narrower focus but keep from getting low enough it's an "out-of-hand" buy for whatever the character's main focus is every time.

S// Kerenshara

This ^ precisely hits the nail on the head.



Win. Sorry.



I was typing while you were posting so I kind-of address this in my post right behind yours. I'd like your thoughts on my reply to Mantis.

S// Kerenshara

I played an Orc ganger named Bulldog in a 4th campaign with a total of 19 Ballistic soak dice and 17 Impact soak dice. One of my crowning "tank" achievements was the time ol' 'Dog took a point-blank Roomsweeper shot when he was already kind of wrecked up. GM looked at me over the table with a look of grim satisfaction, and after I mitigated two successes with a Reaction roll said, "9 physical". I was a bit nervous to be sure, but without edge because I knew that I wouldn't get a recharge until the end of the adventure I made my roll. Looking up at him, I said completely deadpan, "I soak 11 of it".

As you can see, you can be a very effective bullet sponge without resorting to ridiculousness like 30+ soak dice.

The main issue I have with your above example is that it shows that it's all on the GM, and it's the GM's fault that they don't have the imagination or wherewithal "to handle the situation" without resorting to some perceived underhanded character concept thuggery. I'm sorry, but the 30+ soak Troll doesn't just want to be able to take a seriously nasty hit and keep on fighting. They don't just want to be able to run up and punch stuff. They want to have a carte blanche reason to be stupid and lazy as a character builder and as a player.

Tactics? Who needs tactics when you can use autofire as your exfoliation regime?

What am I doing this combat round, Pinky? I will do the same thing I do every combat round...run up sans cover or concealment and punch people in the head until they die with a few basic Reaction rolls tossed in as deemed necessary.

Heaven forbid a GM enforcing dice pool caps to encourage teamwork, roleplaying, and *gasp* character concepts that involve actually, y'know...thinking.

Kerenshara took a point-blank (one square) full-auto blast from an AK straight to the chest wearing FFBA Half-suit and fashion armor clothing. Rolled up with the limited pool (~13 dice IIRC) and despite the good roll took 6 Physical and even with penalties was able to kill her assailant. Took a very good mage to get her back up but that SHOULD have been fatal. Luck always comes into play. Not a single person in our group was rolling North of 20 dice including the Sammy and even he knew he was mortal IC and OOC. Kerenshara taking that burst bought him the time to get into position to take out the rest of the badguys. It doesn't always take a Tank to save the TPK and being a Sammy isn't a "get out of firefight free card". He wound up needing a "good mage" about 50% more than I did.

On the other hand, we didn't have anybody putting "everything" into the armor and soak mods. Had something to do with a GM who emphasized RP and being smart... and an experienced mature group interested in RP and being smart. Every single person could pass most security checkpoints except for their weapons. And the Sammy (played by a 21 year old) had a preferred music style, favorite sports team and even a preferred brand of liquor. We'd been "training" him since he was 14 (our group had played multiple games together for years and we were friends outside the game). When we got him 2D Pink didn't begin to describe him, so we were quite proud of his development. Took me quite a few more years than that but I didn't have good guidance.

Occurs to me that obsessing over making combat "more lethal" to "let 'runners feel afraid of bullets" hasn't ever been a problem in groups I play with. Of course, when you've put a lot of work and love into a character's background and personality and become attached to them and their relationship with other characters at the table, you're not going to hazard them carelessly. That's not true with a Module Monster™ because the only thing to love is the stats so if they die all you need to do is erase the name and show up at the next game (slight exaggeration, but not too much). I guess at some point I realized it's called a Role Playing Game for a reason; if all I wanted was pure combat I would (and occasionally do) play a dedicated miniatures game. Heck, my last gaming session I played a close-combat Tank with mental stats as dump in Pathfinder, but he still had a halfway decent background and was close with the other party members... well most of them anyway. I created him the night before the game started to fill in a missing slot, putting aside a character I'd spent a full month working up with 30 pages of background; I still didn't want to see George get killed even if he was a DBF WoHP because being not-as-dumb-as-he-looked was a lot of fun.

Your point is well taken and made, but the broader message is that no role is circumscribed 100% and combat isn't the objective of any RPG, only a frequent intrusion. The best 'runs never had a lethal shot fired. DnD gives XP for fights so it's not "avoidable" most of the time, but we never went picking fights either.

S// Kerenshara

Thank you for your reports, this has been dealt with. By mutual agreement in PM based conversations, Epicedion will simply not be posting to Dumpshock again... ever.

We have Terms of Service ( Link at the upper left ), please adhere to it. We are a private board, neither the other members, nor the moderators, are here for you to abuse, nor insult. There is enough political vitriol outside of the boards; I especially will not suffer any immature persons who cannot keep it off the boards.

Finally, we are not the official boards so we are not beholden Catalyst to delete, alter, nor censor posts critical of them. That said, it does make us weary to come to a thread and see the same drawn out rants and/or attacks on the writers. I disagree with a number of the rules, I abhor quality control issues and I find the current state of published errata insulting as a consumer. That said, I can converse with them without veiled insults and long winded rants that include factually incorrect inferences or statements that simple wrong (& that have been contradicted by neutral parties who were present to personally witness events being dredged up). In summary on this third point: Stop dragging every conversation down into the mud. We do not want to add some specific Term of Service that requires civility and respect for others; we are hoping everyone will figure out how to do that themselves and frankly, we have neither the time nor patience to play censors... but our tolerance level is about to bottom out in this area.

Welll said.

I do think you should let Epicedion back though so I can continue getting my Elder Scrolls Online updates

To be honest, I had no intention in banning him. I simply wanted him to not increase the vitriol. He chose instead to piss in my eye (as well as the other mods) as he went out the door and disabled his own account.

TBH, I found Epicedion's comment pretty funny. Hermit likes to call out what he perceives as a WASP (or WAS-Mormon) bias behind everything, giving him the same tune sounded more like a quip than any serious political flame...of course, flaming mods generally is a rather bad idea...

It's like kicking the local mob boss' dog. You shouldn't have done it in the first place, so there's a general feeling of 'sympathy is between "shit" and "syphilis" in the dictionary' when you see them go.

I hate to have to hang on this any longer, but time and again nobody has trouble with being critical of weird or poor rules. But start attacking the people directly and it's crossing a line. Mistakes happen and just because person X was responsible for writing section Y doesn't mean that everything they did made it to print. Bitch about the rule, come up with a fix that works for your group, and you're good to go.

As for FFBA, I actually like the route they chose to take for 5th with it. Not because everyone was stacking it in 3rd and 4th, but because it was mathematically superior to do so. I really like that it has a niche now other than "wear this under your other armor for more armor with less encumberance". That said, I'm totally guilty of packing an FFBA shirt under armor on a couple of characters. I'm still not sure how I feel about the higher lethality in 5th or if it truly is a higher rate or not. I haven't had enough time to actually play it at a table, but in the one or two sessions we did, guards dropped quick for sure, not sure how well the team would have faired, and I'm not sure how well that translates into "fun".

I really do not see how FFBA is different to a Second Skin now, though. Except the Second Skin can do camouflage too without adding it as a customization.

What bothers me about SR5 in general is that the rules seem never - or at least, very often - made to specifically adress a problem or "problem", and never evaluated for their interaction with other rules. And the wording of the rules, the descriptions (as with the pee tags) is often less than informative.

Well, the Second Skin is more expensive, yes? I don't have access to my PDF right now to check.

Except its not nearly that simple, for example my main build is a female combat face and FFBA is simply not an option considering what else she wears.

Really everyone is always talking about what a no-brainer full FFBA is(in SR 4), when the fact is thats its a full body condom you cant get away with wearing in almost anywhere.

That's only if you wear the full suit. There were other options available.

I specifically said full FFBA, witch is exactly what was pretty much always recommended for every character.

it's very formfitting, as long as you're not in a bathing suit or revealing dress, it works with everything.
the gloves and the hood make you look a bit daft usually though . .

Alright, got some time freed up, so time to chat a bit more on this one.

What we were seeing in 4th edition, and this was backed by many a GM doing Missions stuff, not *just* zipping through forums and seeing the assorted "Troll dwarf" builds, was this: It was more points-efficient to take Troll for the high Body and Strength than to be a human with the same stats, especially for a spellcasting type. The hit to mental stats wasn't that bad since the Magic attribute did most of the heavy lifting. What you *didn't* see much of were big meaty Trolls because Strength was a dumpstat. Heck, people would call out Orks and Trolls as having a "Strength tax" that made you pay more for them than you really should for teh Body increase.

Now, the question you have to face is this: Should that be what the race is designed for? If Yes, then leaving them as-is was fine. If no, then they'd have to be addressed.

The first option in repairing this would have been to simply adjust the stats. Few games have any race with such deformingly large modifiers as Shadowrun Trolls. Making those changes smaller would have made life easier, but it had two issues: One, it would cascade through the other races (If Trolls get less Strength and Body, then you need to shrink Orks. if Orks get smaller, you need to weaken Dwarves. If Dwarves get weaker, what's really the point of being a Dwarf?) ... two it would invalidate a lot of older fluff and characters. The SR5 crew is willing to do that as a last resort, but whenever possible they'll go to the wire to keep tradition alive. (Cuethe baying of hounds. I know we killed your favorite thing and I apologize, but honestly there's a lot of work to keep as much as possible. Some things simply have to die in order to ensure a healthy body keeps going. See also: The removal of Dikoting. For what it's worth, I personally miss Program Carriers and naked decking from 1st ed. I share your pain.)

The concensus was that we wanted Trolls to live up to the stereotype of big hulking powerhouses. Rule interactions with them changed chargen to accomidate them remaining true to their traditional bonuses. Humans got better to try and keep up with them. The way stats are purchased got changed to keep Trolls from being totally boned. (And whenever work starts on a karmagen-type system, if one's eventually going to be made, Design will have to groan and dig back into that whole thing again. They're a serious issue.) The bullet was bit to ensure that big lug was a viable build but those who wanted to go a different way still could. You're *encouraged* to play the stereotype and get some free bonuses to nudge you that way, but you don't have to go there.

(Similarly, you can play a low-Agility Elf with a high strength and body, or a Dwarf Face. They aren't optimized, but they're *way* fun, and I always have a hug for people who'll do that for good Roleplay.)




Snipped a bit here as I wanted to focus on this part.

For one, another big line for this edition is "Shadowrun your way" ... encouraging people to tinker with the system, go with house rules, play teh narrative that they want to see... these are *awesome* things. I'm not great at design, which is why I'm mostly a monkey chattering along and asking questions, rather than cranking out the rules themselves, but I love to tinker and have been doing it in asorted games for decades. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but having that freedom is faboo. At some point I want to write up some bits about taking a wrench to your game and seeing how a few changes can work, but, that's for down the road. Short form is, I absolutely defend this.

At the same time, there also has to be a "default" style of play, one that is supported at the convention scene, one seen in modules, and one showcased in suppliments. It shouldn't be seen as THE RIGHT way to play, but it's the default, simply because we have to have a baseine to work from. If one writer's talking about Lone Star cops as dweebs with Firearms 2, Agility 2, and swatted aside in droves while another does the same as Agility 6, Firearms 9 machines of death, well, we have problems. Establish the baseline, let local GMs change things up to make the games they want.

If you want to run a pink mohawk game, great! If you want a mirrorshades game, fantastic! If you want a noir detective story, a gritty street drama, or a rollicking Yiff-venture of the Starship Starfox, more power to you. We ain't rolling in to your living room and flipping your table, honest. Heck, if I could, I'd love to open the official page to a "Fanhacks" sub-page, where people submit their house rules/house games to a central database so people can see how they run things differently, maybe get inspired to do their own thing. Way above my paygrade that, but I think it'd be tres fantastique.



I think limits will gradually be improved over time. The concept is based on older stuff (Force limiting successes from magic), then applied across the assorted mechanics. There are some improvements to be made, a few bugs to catch out, but it's a new design and that's to be expected. Your approach ain't bad. It's a tad different than what's in my head, and somewhat different than what others have suggested, but I think, in time, we'll get it to a point where everyone can run with it. I know some people have tossed them out of their home game entirely, and, as noted above, that's fine. I dig them, but the execution needs a touch of refinement IMHO.

Hopefully this smooths out some issues you might have had. Dumpshock's a family ... yeah, we roughhouse with one another and sometimes doors get slammed, but some of us have been here for ten years or more. I want everybody to get along is possible.

If you have any questions or issues, feel free to ask me and I'll answer as best I can. I accept criticism as well, but I ask that it be constructive if possible. (An old boss of mine said it best, "If you come to me with a problem, try to bring a solution with you.") If it's a small one (For example, "Why is there no statline for a FFBA shirt?" then it's probably an easy one. Broader ones might take a bit more time. Some things I *can't* answer, due to non-disclosure stuff or not being privy to such decisions, or just, you know, flat-out not knowing, but I'm always happy to help where I can.

Kerenshara, I get your idea on limits and that can certainly work. In fact I would have been fine with limits if they had been set out that way in SR5. I too have played L5R so the concept is familiar. I would have preferred, I think, for weapons to modify those limits rather than being a limit on its own. This way weapons become less of a single choice thing. There really seems to be just 1 or maybe 2 weapons at each category that are worth looking at.
Most guns in the real world throw bullets just fine and accuracy of the weapon matters less than the skill of the user. At least it doesn't matter much until you get out to longer ranges where those differences become more noticeable. But most SR combat never happens in those longer ranges so I don't see the need to model it.
Anyway, we've gone back to our SR4 game and just lifted the stuff we liked from 5th edition into it. Yes, despite how it may seem, I do actually like some of the stuff in 5th ed. There were some excellent concepts in there but the execution lacked. I like the matrix mechanics but not the idea of bricking gear. Just changed that bit to causing gear to reset. Causes the same short term effect of the character losing access to the gear without the insanity of having that gear burned out until you get to a repair shop. Dumped the wireless bonuses entirely because they make little sense. Dumped the expensive cyberdecks and reworked commlinks so they could have an attack and sleaze module added for hackers. This is pretty expensive so it becomes something you do because you want to fill that roll rather than because you bought an agent and were going to script kiddie your way through.
We kept the cumulative recoil and strength based recoil compensation. We went with the rules for learning skills and attributes in 5th. I liked that idea better than the 4th edition version. We addressed the issue of combat spells by modifying the 5th edition solution. Damage from direct combat spells is net hits x2, with no force addition. Force acts as a limit, just as it always has. This has worked quite well so far. We took the 5th edition movement rates. This was one thing from previous editions I do like. It always bugged me that 4th ed characters of a given race all move at the same rate.
I also use some of the optional rules for 4th edition. Increased lethality for example. We haven't used the dice pool caps suggested but we might in the future.
While play testing this to make sure it worked, the first thing we noticed was that while characters get injured more, we weren't seeing the deaths we got with 5th edition, even using increased lethality. The spell caster wasn't an 'I win' button with stun ball either. He hurt the baddies but they could still function unless he got a good roll or edged his roll. The matrix ran much faster for the most part. It does seem that matrix combat needs some clean up though. Too much of a reliance on a bad luck roll to win, which seems odd. The basic mechanics are just melee combat and we don't see this in melee. More testing needed.

Wakashaani, I appreciate your comments on the development side of the game. I like getting some insight in to how things were done. The thing I see is that there seems to be a frequent disconnect between what you guys put together in the rough draft and what actually gets printed. I saw this with stuff Patrick Goodman did for 4th edition quite a bit too. It makes me sad when I see some good idea revealed and then see them actually implemented so poorly. Of course it is always easier to point out the flaws than to offer fixes. Anyway, I don't really share the idea that there is a problem with trolls specifically. I like them being tanks but in our games, we play with characters running around in suits and more casual wear rather than maxed out armour options so we don't run into the 30+ dice monsters often.
I think the problem lies in all the mods you can get to stack up. A troll would be better off in 4th ed wearing layered armour and cyber limbs with orthoskin than he would in military armour. That is weird from a concept level. Law of unintended consequences I guess? Or lack of adequate play testing? There are too many ways to add soak dice that stack up in 4th.
I find the opposite in 5th, in that there isn't enough armour. The increased damage from weapons and their increased AP makes the little bit armour went up in value to be pointless. Especially with APDS available at character generation and things like spirits getting AP equal to force for certain attacks. I think this is why I saw so many more character deaths in 5th than I did in 4th, even after we modified our 4th ed campaign to use the increased lethality rules. For everything up to SMGs this is basically what 5th ed did, add +2 to the damage of weapons. After that point though, while the weapon damage may be closer to real world rifle damage, it isn't really survivable with the armour options available. Those damages went up a lot more and in some cases included increased AP.
This would be fine if rifles were rare in the game but it seems every adventure writer out there gives the bad guys an AK-97 at the least. So if the players stick with the concealable weapons, they end up out gunned. So they carry the big guns and this escalates things. I think this is an editing issue though. The published adventures need to be checked for this sort of thing. Should corp sec always have FN-HARs or should they instead be geared up with HK-227s? Anyway, that is more game design stuff and I'm not sure I want to make this post much longer.

I do have one question that has been bugging me since I saw the previews for 5th ed. Why did dwarves get a body boost? They went from have a +1 body in 1st through 4th ed to getting a +2 body in 5th edition.

Good points.
I liked how they tried to provide wireless bonuses to show why everything is interconnected.
I didn't like how they rammed it side ways down our throat after retconning the standard "Professional" grade countermeasures.

I agree with you on statless legendary runners, but some runners are more legendary than others.

In 4th for Boss fights using Edge really helps but if I wanted to run the group against a martial arts master, I was SOL since he likely only had a couple of skill dice more than them.

With 5th, I can add up to an extra 6 skill dice which makes a REAL difference.

Wakshaani,

Thanks again for the reply.

In sort-of reverse order:



Right, I picked up on that bit, but my feeling was that it was come at backwards and the logic and reasoning - as you admitted - was about discouraging "dump stats" which is all about limiting Module Monsters™ instead of encouraging Skillful Professionals or just organic (meta)human characters.

If you like to tinker, give the notion I proposed a shot keeping in mind the assumptions in the 'verse about levels of skill. Funny how suddenly people with 2 skill wind up acting like at least they know which end to point at the other fellow but aren't godly from mods and good AGIlity. IRL, cops should be "professional" with firearms at 3, but look at ALL the news reports - if they weren't ex-Iraq/Afghanistan-military then the later reports show appalling hit rates even at close ranges... "gang banger unarmed kid shot 17 time!" is the headline but the report admits the three officers discharged their 15-round magazines at a distance of 20 feet. That's appalling. It also keeps people with a high REAction from trying to pull stunts without the appropriate Drive skill since they'll be limited to a single hit.

Other place this comes into play: With a max limit on hits for generic skills tied to the rating of the skill, you can do things like dredge up the old Concealability ratings and apply them to the modern guns and convert the old numbers to thresholds (I had an OLD thread about 5 years back talking how to do it but the short version is: the old Conceal 2 was Threshold 1; Next two levels were a -1 Dice Penalty at the same threshold... third increase adds to the Threshold and zeroes the modifiers. Repeat up to whatever. Makes it easy to see if any of the NPCs has a realistic chance of spotting the concealed item rather than having every punk in the room roll a check looking to get lucky. And it gets rid of Palming as the basis which is just silly as Kerenshara demonstrated over and over to my GM's amazing annoyance until he broke down and used my system and suddenly his life got better and she got more circumspect. Yes, it hurt my ability (accidental synergy of Adept Powers and skills + stats) but it played "right". Conceal 18 = Threshold 6, -1 die.)

Another thing we did to cut down on dice was to compare the "buy hits" level and compare it to various tests; The GM determined how "hard" things would be based on the fluff descriptions and if you had enough skill you could "buy" enough hits and keep them then we didn't even bother for non-combat rolls. I guess you could compare it to the d20 System "take 10" and it made things SO much simpler. (Eg: since "hacking" -so glad to have 'decks back again- was so tedious, if it wasn't going to involve Black IC or a Spider the GM set a difficulty and looked at the character's skill and if it exceeded the threshold he just waved his hand and it happened over whatever appropriate time.) For things like security gates and ID checks, if the item's level beat the system, we skipped the rolls. If they tied the GM would make a quick call if it would get in the way of the story if things went awry (Basically, it did a very good job of encouraging people to get expensive IDs and Licenses and not to do stupid stuff IC that would get them burned. Amazing how circumspect people got because they "lived" their good ID and "becoming" another is a pain since you can't "live" the old one any more. "I LIKED being Larry Garber of Wisconsin!"

That rambled, so let me retry this:

1. IF ( Item RTG > Opposing System, Pass, Roll ) for IDs and Cyberscanners and the like.
2. IF ( ( ( Skill+Stat+Fixed Mods ) / 4) >= Threshold, Pass, Roll ) for non-dangerous "hacking"/Decking and the like.
3. IF ( Threshold > Kept Hits Cap, No Roll, Roll ) for Perception and such. (Combined 2, if the NPC is "guaranteed" to see the shotgun under the long coat, there's no OOC dice roll to tip off the player.)

Amazing how well those combined with the caps I listed (minus the Attribute-based caps new to SR5) to make people play smarter at the table and keep things flowing AND keep the events in line with the expectations laid out in the book for difficulty. Bottom line, the players and their characters couldn't count on modifiers and high Attributes (easy to add to with magic, 'ware and gear) to carry them through everything without care; having a trained spotter and a competent driver and such became pretty important and as a result each person got respect for their role on the team. Ran a couple different campaigns like that with different "extras" to our core crew of players and it's pretty surprising how consistent the results became and everybody had fun.

*deep breath*

OK, to your first part.

We're talking circles around each other instead of AT each other, and I'm pretty certain of that now. Bear that statement in mind because I don't want this to even seem a dig at you.

You're missing my point though I'm pretty sure I've gotten yours. I'll paraphrase yours: trolls are a problem and balancing them has caused issues both mechanical and philosophical. Same goes for combat et. all. You expect people to "tinker" with the game (though a Mod on the "official" forum cautioned me against "tinkering with" the caps because of "unforeseen consequences" which didn't sit well with me) but try to set a default. Got that.

I'm trying to make a subtler point.

The "Default" for fluff and concept (your Lone Star Rent-a-Cop Rookie vs. Lone Star Death Machine is awesome and really makes the point well) stuff is not your problem. I'm looking deeper.

The problem is that IF you approach a problem with one or two "key" things in mind as nails needing hammers, you're going to inevitably hammer them just fine BUT it will ALWAYS color your group's thinking about the project on a subconscious level. You touched on it in your reply making reference to Cons and Missions (read: one-shot modules, even if they are related to each other, because the same party won't run all of them by design due to table changes per time slot). If you try to balance the game to handle 2-dimensional Module Monsters™ who are just stat sheets not characters then every single rule you (collectively) write will subtly reflect that bias. Balancing the game towards modules M U S T balance it against long-campaign home play. It's just the way it is, and just like the tradeoffs you keep talking about with trolls and the way things cascade away from the decisions made. This part is no different but much subtler. It strongly encourages home campaign GMs to adopt more House Rules than were necessary in SR4/4A.

If your predominant audience (as a business model) is the people who don't make it to Cons or play the Modules as part of their own ongoing home games (read: a big majority of your fan base) then balancing the rules toward the stuff they aren't using creates friction and alienates people. As the posts about events (true or false) at CGL demonstrate, it's very easy to sour good will and very hard to overcome bad will. The people who post here aren't a good sampling of everybody who plays and I'll give that point up without quibble; however, people like us do tend to speak for the spirit of the body public and we do tend to cover both extremes (the endless and mostly good-natured Pink Mohawk vs. PIMS debate being a great example) on most issues... but have you noticed even the "moderates" on here aren't stepping up to strongly defend CGL? Individual writers and contributors like you, absolutely; but the "face" of the SR-X system? No. You mostly hear at least veiled grumblings and the low level grumbling now is broader than it was right after the events in question (at the time you had people strongly saying "benefit of the doubt" or "wait and see" to oppose the firebrands... now the people formerly waiting are done waiting and they have a bad taste in the mouth despite remaining loyal to the 6th World as their continued posting here amply demonstrates and the "haters" still post indicating Shadowrun is important to them but their anger hasn't dimmed a watt). Me? I have a little aftertaste that's less than pleasant but the books started coming out again and the quality picked up (did I mention my digital copy (don't own DTF) of 6th World Almanac has an entire full sidebar which is missing because they duplicated the text of one a dozen pages earlier? War and 6th World Almanac represented the trough of the curve and I think it recovered pretty well for the most part...) but that's my opinion and YAMMV. And my loyalty to the 6th World? My spouse has MANY times asked in exasperation after listening to a piece of music or watching a movie or even talking about politics and the approaching Corporate Extrateritoriality "Is it ALWAYS about Shadowrun for you?!" That answer the question? *wink*

Lastly, let me bring up Mil-Spec Armor. Had the same Mod on the official board where I asked my OP question (who never even addressed the question other than to agree FFBA was intentionally Nerfed) say stacking Second Skin was worthless when I suggested it was as good or better than FFBA. I replied that adding YNT Softweave and stacking it with the Executive Suite yields Armor 14 / Capacity 9 which is pretty favorable compared to Light Security Armor (in the old days, the real bar you measured against being the intro to "heavy" armor) at 15 and 12 respectively and a cost/avail of 28,000¥/12&14 vs. 8000¥/14R. Their response? Toss back Hardened Mil-Spec Battle Armor with YNT added (to a "hardened" armor??). That's part of why over a couple threads, reading Run & Gun, and reading between the lines that the DEVs seem - collectively - to view the SR-X community as playing the game like Call of Duty rather than the other examples I offered above in this thread. I remember when the meme making everybody laugh was the assault to free Morpheus from The Matrix and the caption read: Shadowrun - admit it; this is how you really pay it. I get the impression that these days it would be the "How the public sees me, how I see myself, how my mother sees me" with "how the DEVs see me" with a picture of Call of Duty.

Have I finally (my fault, not yours) managed to explain what it is I'm really on about here? It's like... tone of voice. Almost a dismissive derision saying "Yeah, we want you to Role Play not Roll Play but you're Players and we know you're really just going to try to break the system we wrote so we're going to let you make House Rules if you really do want to (air quotes) Role Play and otherwise we're going to write rules for the rest of you Munchkins."

Why else would we see gear in the first major supplement to SR5 that will probably never actually show up outside a war zone or the players being monumentally stupid? That stuff used to show up way down the line. Even the regular militaries of the 6th World don't routinely go into battle wearing M-SHBA - usually they have on a heavy (stacking) vest over something akin to Ares Victory Big Game Hunter. It's the same logic that just having gotten an implant in the military doesn't make it Beta Grade; it's just more likely to get a Beta implant if you're Special Forces than working at a desk. And people with Beta Grade implants very likely wouldn't be wearing M-SHBA (unless Canon changed between SR4 and SR5) because in the kind of ops they get sent on, that kind of gear gets in the way of the mission. You're more likely to find M-SHBA in units that are Heavy Armored Cavalry or something similar - veteran special units which are still short of SpeOps. Why? Even in Heavy M-SHBA if you do a real assault against military-grade heavy weapons, you're still going to have a lot of casualties. A single set of Beta Grade Cybereyes nearly matches the price (84%) of the HEAVY armor minus the helmet. In the 6th World, "bodies are cheap; 'ware is expensive". You can install RIG and a BioMonitor in a suit and have a full feed on the trooper and give them the equivalent of DNI to the suit for all the sensors and add-ons. Since I mentioned it, I'd love to see the stats for regular-infantry "battle-rattle" like I described. Getting your hands on THAT as a shadowrunner is a lot more likely and you could be mistaken for a SWAT unit (as opposed to HRT in Security Armor) if you pick your weapons right.

Hmm, having said that, I DOUBLY want to see Canon stats for that because the characters would likely face off against that if they fail to clear an area after the alarms go off. Since you were involved with the M-SHBA (M-SHeBA like HMMWV became Humvee?) I'd love your take on the armored battle uniform with the matching stacking vest. Not Canon of course until/unless you can sell the idea to the rest of the CGL/SR5 team for a later supplement. My take? Make the vest "hardened". Ooh, right. Make the vest the primary piece and have the under-uniform be equivalent to big Game Hunter but with a stack bonus (that isn't hardened) when added to the vest. That would look like 14/+3 for the uniform and the vest would be like 11 (enough to bounce some assault-rifle fire) on its own. Add on some kind of minor-ish movement or encumbrance penalty for the vest itself so it's not "free" and come up with a price South of Security Armor. Now you have something with slightly less total protection the the armor suits while offering a bonus over civilian gear, less capacity (no thoughts on that yet), and very attractive for mass-issue. What's your thought on that as an off-the-cuff answer to a stray thought that fills a blank I hadn't really identified before but is glaringly obvious when you look at it?

>>I forgot and sticking this in the above ramble would be lost: I'm very happy with all the hostile environment stuff and the much MUCH better explosives stuff in R&G compared to Arsenal and delighted to have it so early on. After all, once the 'run is blown, "there are few problems which can't be solved by the appropriate and judicious use of high explosives", and it makes having a level of the Temperature Tolerance Adept Power really meaningful mechanically instead of just for RP value. <<



I think that's brilliant and I've always been more than willing to put up complete ideas. I had an idea for expanded mentor spirits a few years back I completely wrote up and posted in a thread that I got a lot of PMs asking permission to use. I appreciate the requests but if I wanted to keep it to myself I wouldn't have bothered to make it pretty and post it. Anything I share is fair game - even for Canon - so long as if money gets attached I get a copy of the book and attribution somewhere in the credits.



I'd like to think you see my comments -even back years ago - as meeting that test.



How'd I do?

S// Kerenshara

Like you said: "good points".

Remember when the Great Dragons didn't have stats because it was inconceivable for any PC to actually survive engaging one unless it decided to let the idiot live?

S// Kerenshara

*sigh* okay, I eat crow when I'm wrong... *Om Nom - choke*

The moderator on the main board clarified their comment and gave a way to hit their numbers with civilian armor. Hadn't considered their route since I thought we were trying to stay with less-than-obvious gear and you'd have to find a way to justify keeping on a Greatcoat indoors even using the Fashion Spell whereas Second Skin and a business suit can be Fashion-ed to look right almost anywhere. Doesn't changed my argument, just my sentiment and feelings. Editing the Wall-o'-Text would be too tedious so I just made it a separate reply.

Sorry.

S// Kerenshara

Sure thing, this will get long, so I apologize to everyone =p
Shadowrun Missions are a thing. Whether they should be a thing is another thing entirely; you obviously had some negative experiences, but I don't think they're going to go anywhere any time soon. So I'm just going to take it as a given when getting into the nuts and bolts of the system but because Missions is a thing, RAW becomes rather important. This is because, as you've alluded to, there is as many different ways of playing rpgs as there are players and every approach is as valid as everyone else's.

While you and I lean probably more towards the playing of a role aspect of rpgs, there are others that treat their characters similarly to game pieces, and the infinite possibilities for challenging scenario play is what gets their juices going. And they aren't wrong for it, but those two differing playstyles probably shouldn't game together without a lot of talk and compromise on every side to come to a consensus. This is another way of setting foundations and a shared basis for understanding so that everyone can come to play on the same page.

But the thing is, Missions is an official doohickey and because of that, if a player wants to play in Missions, it's important that Missions allow them in.

But I just got finished talking about how players with differing playstyles probably should talk and compromise prior to ever sitting down at the table, and Missions is in a convention atmosphere, where it's likely that everyone else at the table is a stranger. Talking it out before every Missions game at a convention is just implausible, so we need another way to set that baseline for a shared experience, and the only baseline between every player, from the eldest grognard to the 13 y/o who only just got the mainbook today... is that mainbook. This is why RAW, and polishing RAW to a point where it shouldn't need house rules, is important. RAW becomes ever player's shared basis for understanding SR.

So the flexibility? You can still do whatever you want in your home games; I've got more than a few house rules myself, but when making a game under the assumption that it is going to played, together, by people with vastly different playing styles, Rule 0 cannot be invoked because so many different players have different versions of what Rule 0 means to them, which just gets people off on different pages again.
My group played through some of the missions stuff and had fun, we also played through Ghost Cartels and absolutely loathed it. It's a mixed bag, and always will be, because of that whole different approaches to gaming. However a personalized campaign will always be better, because it's specifically tailored to your table, and the stuff that's published has to take into account the entire gamut of playstyles.
And by playing at your table, which does put an emphasis on those things, you are now creating an expectation in which the characters built for your table are now built to meet your expectations. Because your table has had some history together and people know what the general playstyle is. Missions doesn't have that, Missions only has the main book, the actual Missions themselves, and whatever Bull (the guy who took on the job of organizing Missions) can publish, either to volunteers at Cons or across the internet.

So the only expectation that there can be for Missions is that they've read the main book, which then means the only expectation for building characters for Missions is: "Is that character rules legal?" Which again comes back to RAW, and making sure the dev gets RAW right.
You can't legislate stupid, but a good dev can make a system robust enough to handle that stupidity, while at the same time encouraging a certain style of play by making "optimium" choices encourage that style of play. A good dev will make a player's system mastery work for the game, rather than breaking the game.
And every one of them is equally valid. But Missions needs to be able to accommodate as many differing views at the same table as possible in order to accomplish its goal of fostering an overall Shadowrun community. Letting your buttons be pushed because Missions and the other pre-gens aren't specifically suited for your table is only going to lead you to be angry, because Missions, and to an extent RAW, have to specifically not be suited to any one table, so as to be as inclusive as possible in order to bring in more players to the Shadowrun community.
Question: did you ever play the game as is? To see if it was actually a problem in play and not just something you felt was wrong in theory? Personally I'm not a fan of limits, but they did add an additional dimension to gear that I felt was needed, and creates an additional pressure on Edge use, and highlights the really good rolls as being important, because of that pressure on Edge. That said, in play things like the combat axe become nigh useless and any limit under 5 in a contested test.
There's two small wrinkles I could see from your house rule, and they totally depend on the type of table you're at. The first is, that it's kinda computationally heavy. Not the worst that has shown up in an rpg by any means, but I had one player once that refused to do any math more than simple addition and subtraction. He just wanted to show up and have a good time, and as math was relatively hard for him (pretty bad dyslexia), and a player like that would balk. I got tired of making his sheets for him and doing all the calculations for whatever system we'd use, but when we tried out WoD, he really liked it... because of that lack of maths. But that's a table by table thing and you don't need to be inclusive of everyone; just everyone at your table.

The other thing is a little more serious. Most of SR is based off of contested rolls which means even if you max out a combat skill, that limit is going to mostly be a 3 for a starting character, no matter what weapon they're using. I already dislike Combat Axes for having a limit of 4 and never hitting, 3's across the board would mean whiffville for everyone. Most characters are going to be able to get 3 hits on their dodge test, which has no limit, and so even the best shooter out of chargen is going to miss most of the time. That's just the most obvious thing, but it extends to other opposed tests like social tests, because if the character has at least a three in the skill, he will always win (unless he rolls rather badly) when faced with anyone with less of a skill than he has. Secondly, a lot of the electronics gear uses device ratings as their limits, which in general are higher than three, and might lead to unintended consequences such as using sensors instead of perception for everything, including what's right in front of the character.

Maybe you can fix this by applying the limit to net hits instead of after the roll is made, but if your goal is to keep things in the 1-6 range, the lower of anything and a skill/2, round up, limit puts every skill limit for a starting character in the 1-3 range. Or maybe you can reduce the amount of limit given by the attributes, and add a factor generated by the skills, or maybe use the higher of whatever attribute limit and the skill rank. But these are the kinds of unintended consequences that happen when monkeying around with the system in a way a GM shouldn't have to. Limits shouldn't need GMs to polish them because they are so core to the entire system, and effect everything =/

Thanks =) I appreciate the insight, were you going to open up a new thread on trolls, or just keep it here?

Where are you coming from with all of this player vs GM antagonism?

Most often players start by sitting down with the book at the game table in order to make their character, and if they want to make the toughingest tough guy that ever toughed, because that's going to be his role in the group, they start looking for every +die to withstand taking damage that they can, which is a lot. At no point does the GM ever tell him "hey, you know, there's an issue with stacking soak modifiers in the base book" because he's either too busy with the complete newb who has no clue what Shadowrun is, or it doesn't occur to him that soak monsters are problems. All the player has is books in front of him, he hasn't read the book like us obsessives on Dumpshock, or even to the degree of his GM, he reads really only enough to play his character, and since it's a new system, he has no personal experience with the game to tell him there's an issue with soak stacking, and he sure as hell can't read anyone's mind to know that he's creating an edge case scenario that breaks the system. He might ask the GM if there's something ambiguous, but for most people, making a character isn't hard, it just takes time. However the player's expectations as to what is acceptable are formed directly by what RAW tells him is acceptable, and the book tells him it's perfectly fine to stack his soak pool into the 30's, says nothing on the subject. However the book says there's an attribute mod cap, and the book specifically points out a rule causing conflicts with initiative mods, but there's no rule ever telling the player he really shouldn't be stacking his soak pool into the 30's. And for that reason the player deserves your derision, insults, and insinuations?

If a player is a problem player, it won't be because of stacking his soak pool, it because he's a problem player and it doesn't matter what character he plays, it's going to be a problem. He's going to troll the net for these edge cases and if you've ever played with him before, you know this is what he's going to do. Even if you fix soak stacking (which is what I would do), he's going to come back with a pornomancer, if it's not a pornomancer, it's a Mr. Lucky. But when talking about an isolated case, I'm not going to simply assume the player is intentionally doing it to cause a problem.

I also approach the game as whatever the system allows, it's not the player's fault for exercising those options to him. Go watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er-E1vxEnic It applies to this, and notice his distinctions between spoilsports and cheaters, and the camps of purists, code is law, cheaters, and jerks. I fall heavily into the code is law camp, where if we have a problem with a game system that produces characters out of step with everyone else, we need to fix the system, and not yell at the others that they're doing it wrong.

Ok, good place to jump in. I understand that Missions are an official "thing" and that Missions need to allow them in. If people want to break a module, they don't need to be Module Monsters™ to do it. Seen THAT in Living Greyhawk as well. If Missions are going to be a given doohickey, then understanding people are going to break them also has to be a given. Trying to make rues to stop that stifles home campaigns which are more free-form to begin with and winds up necessitating House Rules to remove the Mission-specific stuff. Did I actually get that explanation to make sense? Missions have to be RAW - no brainer. But making it so you almost HAVE to make House Rules to play a long-term game is nonsensical if you want to keep people who don't play the Missions. And since I'm going to snip your post a bit, I've had bad experiences in the paid canned modules too. The good ones are more unusual than the meh or bad ones but I think my problem with Missions is they kind of do expect cookie cutter characters and if you build the mechanics around that you've built in a bias you need House Rules to get around. I'll make a point to steer clear of Ghost Cartels on your advice.



Ok, that sounds suspiciously like a class-based system by another name. Just sayin'. I've seen sneaky and worldly Paladins but they tend to be memorable for their uniqueness and how much weaker they are at their nominal "role".



In SR4/4A yes, briefly. The house rules came out of the first few sessions and it got predictive once you understood where things inevitably had gaps or rough patches. SR5, not yet, but mechanically it's the same bones as SR4/4A; rules is something else. It's why I say the Decking (thank gods they brought back the Cyberdeck) looks VERY promising but can't say for sure. Too many things needing to be ported forward didn't have enough info (been playing in the 6th World for 29 years and I'm not willing to "forget" something that's been a fixture for that long just because the stats aren't out for it yet in the new version which is why I've been waiting on R&G and why I put up the OP way back up top). Since the dice mechanics haven't changed, I know precisely what telescoping the skill levels will mean (I'm diagnosed severely OCD about numbers as my biggest obsession) mechanically in relation to the old version I HAVE played RAW and extensively with House Rules of various flavors. Bear in mind, the "house rules" about caps are only "house" in that we chose from the ones offered as optional in the core books. It was using all of them that made it very "house" in feel.



Hmm, okay. There's computation and computation. This is actually the former. Most of the "computation" is done at CharGen and when spending Karma. The actual "maths" are no different than the RAW in play especially compared to SR5.



OK, here's where I know either you misread or I really blew the explanation. (From the length of the following response, you guess which... I don't usually go on if I think the other person's being dense) The formula means somebody with Skill 2 has a cap of 4 kept hits. The average U.S. Police Officer has Pistols 2 and they can't hit squat even against a non-dodging unthreatening target at 5-10 meters distance (Check the "officer involved shooting" stories and report details - 12 to 17 hits on somebody from three officer who emptied their 15-17 round magazines. And those are all "two single action" shots, mechanically). We tend to have an unrealistic idea as a fanbase of what "trained", "professional", "veteran" and "elite" look like. People think you can get Pistols 3 from a week-long course of "combat pistol marksmanship". Sorry, just ain't so. The SEALs who popped the hijackers of the Maersk Alabama at a couple hundred meters in a bobbing lifeboat are - in game terms - Legendary. The average SEAL isn't actually Firearms 6. More like Automatics 5 and Pistols 4 given their training and operational realities. Sniping really should be its own active skill as a means to reduce shooting penalties (each hit on the Sniping test reduces one point of negative modifiers from cover, movement or range but not concealment). Your average Taxi driver is a "professional" driver but they aren't "professional" the way the RAW would define them; most are Driving 2 at best since the AVERAGE driver is Driving 0 (or Unaware depending on the city ). Professional and experienced truckers tend to actually be Driving 3 - have you seen them maneuver those things around corners I'd have trouble getting my CAR around or backing a 53' trailer up without help with centimeter accuracy? THAT is Professional (Rtg 3). I would give level 3 to most pursuit-trained Police Officers and high-level protection detail drivers. Level 4 would be the best of those groups and amateur stunt drivers. Level 5 is the average professional stunt driver and 6 is the guy doing the staged stunts for major movies. Olympic Gold Medalists are Gymnastics 6 but people who can do "impossible" moves (Scott Hammilton comes to mind in ice skating) is your Legendary. You can train people to duplicate his moves, but actually coming up with them? THERE lies the legend.

So, having established that a character with 3 or more skill has a cap of 6 any character swinging most non-personalized weapons if that's their role in the party is going to be limited by their weapon - not their skill. As to the values set on the ACC for weapons... I haven't delved too far into them. But consider this: most Sniper kills are from what would be considered "unaware" shots because they don't know it's coming. The best most troops can hope for is to declare "full defense" and hope for the best. When you can see (and shoot back at) your attacker, things get harder for both shooters. And despite dodge being unlimited, what's the most dice you can pull together from just [Dodge + Reaction + Consistent Modifiers]? There are way more ways to add dice to an attack than defense unless you give up your attack to defend. That was certainly our experience playing with it the way we did. Put it another way: most people can't match the modified dice pool of an attacker unless they seriously pumped Dodge. And all it takes to hurt is one net hit. Now, your experience with the SR5 limits per RAW is that between using an axe and the Physical Limit you can't hit a dead tree in the woods. If that's your experience (and as a dice mechanic junkie, I can see your point immediately) then taking a closer look at the Inherent Limits in SR5 and rethinking the basis of the ACC on any given weapon seems to be in order. But let me put it to you like this: if you are limited to 4 hits by weapon ACC, it takes 12 dice to give a even-odds chance of dodging entirely; how many times does the badguy really bring 12 dice to his defense pool if they're actively trying to hurt you right back? Maybe the answer is in moving bonuses to defense over as penalties to attack so your extra dice can soak up the losses instead of applying them to your hits? Just thinking out loud on that, mind you.

In a lot of play, the (non SR5 element) caps I suggested never caused the problems you're describing or anticipating so I'll sit down and have a HARD (read: OCD) look at the new limits with my pet spreadsheet program and get back on a possible quick-fix. I'm still convinced that using them to discourage dump stats is a mistake; using them to encourage improving all stats isn't quite the same thing. Pegging each skill to a linked-stat-specific limit (calculated at CharGen or Karma improvement) isn't math intensive at the table. And it's easy to pencil a number of "keep" dice next to the relevant skill with base dice pool is also easy. Then it's just add or subtract dice, roll them, and remove anything not a 1, 5 or 6 (check for glitch) and then pull out the 1s and extra hits if you're over caps. You can do the "math" with the dice on the table using your fingers which fixes problems with the "maths" - that's how I do it to make sure I don't screw up.

Does that version of my explanation change things for you? Because your "what if's" just never materialized.

S//Kerenshara

p.s.: good discussion. I suspect it may go back and forth a few times more but it's intelligent, articulate and polite. Hard to beat that in a forum.

Kerenshara... I think the confusion comes in with your proposed formula... It is as follows from you rprevious post.



The issue is that the Skill is being divided and rounded up, rather than multiplied, for your Limits in SR4. Skill 1 should give Limit 2, but your formula gives Limit 1. By the same token, Skill 3 SHOULD be Limit 6, rather than Limit 2. In the follow on discussions, I think that is what is causing issues. Could be wrong, though.

That, or I am reading your Excel Code wrong somehow.

I think it's a given that people will try to break the system, but I don't accept that they will break it. There's always a chance, but if it does happen, I feel that the response should be to ask how, and then fix the problem such that it doesn't happen again, and in such a way that it doesn't break something else down the line. That's not to say there shouldn't be an optimal way of number crunching a character to peak efficiency, only that peak efficiency is in the relative neighborhood as everything else. Furthermore, the dev should understand exactly what that peak efficiency would produce, and engineer the classic archetypes of that game to be produced by those optimal choices. By way example, I mean that when a player sits down and say "I want to play Fighter!" he's not looking to make the dancing flail guy or the guy that drops rats at his feet to use whirlwind attack+cleave, and by making choices that support the knight in shining armor, the barbarian with the big ass sword, or the light on his feet duelist, he's also making the most optimal choices mechanically.

To throw one's hands up and say that they're going to break the system anyways, so why even try to stop them... is a little too defeatist for my tastes.
I... don't follow. I'm not sure if there is any Missions specific stuff, only that Missions was used extensively for feedback on how to make the next iteration of the rules. Further, I'm not following how making rules stifles home campaigns at all, unless one's fighting a rules lawyer of canon nazi, but then the problem is the player, not the game. For everyone else, there's no jack booted thug to come and make sure everyone is in compliance with all the rules, so individual tables are free to do whatever they can all agree to. But then again, Missions is all about long term play, so I'm a little unsure about the objection.

Then again, the karma/nuyen award structure for runs from Missions isn't what one might call... enticing. Which is a whole 'nother debate (that has been viciously beaten around the head and neck).
Snip away! But as for Ghost Cartels... it was very much not a match for my table. I don't want to trash it, because I'm sure someone, somewhere, got a lot of enjoyment out of it, but I found it somewhat unrelentingly grimdark, and one of my players hated it because it very much rewarded a scum playstyle, such as selling drugs to kids in school, killing undercover cops to prove your bonafides, and not being able to murder some morally reprehensible individuals because the entire plot would go off the rails if they died.
Every character creation system is going to have an optimal set up, there's no getting around that, so rather than creating a bunch of piecemeal options together, start at the end and work backwards. And while Shadowrun isn't a class based system, there are very definitely archetypes that are clearly defined, and expected as to be playable by the playerbase. So, a good dev will engineer that whatever the optimal set up is, is right in line with those expected archetypes. You don't want the most effective character to be the underwater basketweaver, but if they happen to get the most plusses, there are going to be some players that will chose to be said basketweaver just for the plusses. They honestly don't want to play the basketweaver, they'd rather play the samurai, but they feel compelled to pick the optimal choice, be it for some sort of competitive edge, so as to not feel like they're letting the rest of the team down by making a "stupid" choice, or whatever. Further, there are those that are going to hate on said player just for the fact they choose to make a basketweaver and not something more traditionally accepted. By choosing to make the archetypes the most optimal choices, a lot of headaches are avoided.
While the bones of Stat+Skill hasn't changed, other things, such as the defense roll later on, definitely have, and have large impacts on the game. Limits are another thing, but I think we crossed wires on that discussion. I'm a big fan of house rules, and I think every table should have a discussion as to what they want from play, and if there are any changes to the base rules that would help foster those goals. That said, I also think it's very important to play at least one session "vanilla" to understand what exactly it is that you're changing. There's been things I've read that I've thought would end up horrible in play but turned out to be a non-issue, and similarly others that I didn't think twice about when reading, but threatened to stop the entire game in play.
The difference is there's three limits vs a different limit for every skill, which then has to be compared to a separate limit. Yeah, the actual "maths" aren't hard or anything, but any math needs to take into account it's target audience, and if that target audience includes liberal arts majors... as a GM, I really don't want to do all their computations for them =p

Also, I ran out of the number of quote blocks allowed in a post, see the following post:

I was going off of the excel formula! I even put it into excel! =p

This is what I understood: there was normal attribute limits, but for each skill, it had it's own limit equal to half the skill rank, round up (or a limit of one, if they didn't have the skill). Then for each skill you compare the two limits, and took whatever limit was lower. As a starting character is limited to a skill rank of six, half of that is three, and three is going to be almost always lower than the attribute limit, so the limit based upon the skill would take precedence.
Obviously I misinterpreted or something got lost in the translation =/ So, yeah, under that setup, concerns are less.. concernish?
This would be failing on the surprise test. A character doesn't get to have a defensive roll in this case, so it tracks with RAW.
Can't remember SR4 off hand, but this isn't the case in 5: every attack inflicts a cumuliative -1 to the defense pool, and autofire and the choke setting on shotguns also will put a crimp on the dodge monkey.
It's now Reaction+Intuition, so even standard mooks are going to have five-ish dice to dodge, and anyone decent at combat should have at least seven without any modifiers.
New rule doesn't make you give up your current attack, instead you take a -10 to your initiative score, which effectively makes you give up your last attack in the round, but doesn't normally effect your current phase. And going full defense adds the character's Willpower to the dodge pool, so now most people are going to have at least a 7 dodge, and if they're a combat character, they're now going to be around a twelve. This bonus from Willpower is now applied against everysubsequent attack, and if the character wants to take an additional -5 initiative (again, doesn't hurt their current action unless it would bring them below 0 initiative), they can add their gymnastics to that dodge roll to (but only against that one roll). Even at a dice pool of 12, you get an expected 4 hits, and since ties go to the defender (unless making a touch attack), things like a Combat Axe with a limit of 4 very rarely connect against a competent combat character.

Now add a maxed Combat Sense Adept power, and watch the character do a moonwalk up the beach at Normandy.
Sure, it's fairly easy to get a dice pool around 18 for a decently optimized build, but using all those dice is another matter entirely, though if you're using Smartlink (and anyone serious about combat really should be), they should get at least a limit of 7. So in a straight up fight, the attacker should still have a decent chance to tag the above combat operative with a 12 defense pool, but then you start adding things like cover, lighting and visibility, and things start getting murky again.
My answer would be, if this individual is a named individual (and not a mook), has a combat role and is decent at it, and has a healthy respect for getting the hell out of the way of flying lead? Every time. Different folks may have different analyses, but see above as to how I got there.
I could see that for the Gymnastics dodge (or some of the melee blocking options), but the Willpower bonus is for the whole round, and against every attack that person faces.
If a skill of 2 comes out to a limit of 4, yeah there's little problem for combat rolls, I'm just unsure how a skill of 2, under [Limit=IF(Skill>0,Roundup(Skill/2,0),1] gets to 4.

However there's still a little concern with contested rolls with things like social skills. Take Con, the person doing the conning rolls Cha+Con and the person resisting the con rolls... Cha+Con. Let's assume the guy conning has a decent charisma of 4 and a con of 2, for a limit of 4, and the other guy is a fairly upstanding individual with an amazing Charisma of 7 (let's say he's an elf), but no skill in Con. If I'm reading your formula right, the conner has 6 dice with a 4 limit, but the connee has 6 dice and a limit of just one. Despite having the exact same dice pool, the connee has no chance to ever beat the conner unless the conner rolls supremely badly. It's not as extreme as I initially thought, but it does put a large emphasis on getting as many skills as possible in any sort of contested roll, so as to not be instantly bulldozed when you don't have the skill at all. Whether that's a feature or a bug depends on one's viewpoint.

And thanks for the debate =) but this is Dumpshock, we really should be calling each other names by this point =p

Basing the limit on the skill kinda defeats the purpose.

I will say that limits are a very good way to have all your stats (or the condition of your gear) to impact the use of a skill.

Certainly it works for showing an aging runner who is very skilled yet has slowed down physically.

He knows exactly what to do and how to do it, but is limited because he is not as fast\tough\strong as he once was.

I like the suggestion that weapons instead of having an accuracy stat have an accuracy modifier (Streetline Special -3, Ranger Arms +3) but that would take calculating it on the fly.

The #1 thing that bothers me about SR5 is the writing tone. There are rules in the fluff, fluff in the rules, and lame jokes sprinkled throughout. Keep the technical stuff technical (maybe hire an editor???) and let the fluff stand alone and we've got a good thing going. As it stands, there's too much conflicting or vague information in the book that requires heavy houseruling. A good example is what happens when cyberware gets bricked. By the book, bricked gear stops working, can cause fires and sparks, etc. However, there are no actual hard rules for this, so what happens when your wired reflexes get bricked? Totally GM-dependent, which would be OK if the writers of the book stated that, but they didn't, they just left a fluff comment about fires and sparks and called it a day.

SR5 = Grognard Appeasement Edition. It took SR4, gave it the death of a thousand cuts with lots of tiny, inane rules changes that made the game pretty shit, and then gave it a couple good direct stabs just to make sure it wouldn't breathe again.

SR5 has a handful of good ideas, which by themselves would've IMPROVED and augmented what SR4 did for the game. SR4 and SR4A were not perfect but they took some big steps in the right direction, and with some proper changes would've made great new editions for the game.

The new edition is such a fucking mess that you have to either go back to SR4A to have a solid basis for moving forward again... or start over. Or there's always option C: let Shadowrun die. Seriously, I think the current crop of devs have killed it. Time to find new games to play. The line isn't going to get any better without some French Revolution style beheadings in the line's upper management. Or maybe just transferring the IP to another company, one that isn't overrun by embezzlers, grognards, and yes-men.

But the good news is, he's not bitter!

On a more serious note, there are are enough posters here that I have come to respect and their opinions have kept me from even going the "let's pick it up for bits to add to my SR4A game" route. I have, to be frank, been far from impressed with what I have seen myself, or the reports from others that have opinions that I usually agree with that have delved deeper into the ruleset of 5th.

I'm normally pretty chill, but I've had a few.

The cumulative weight of all the ill-advised rules changes really bothered me when I first dove into SR5, but technomancers was really the final straw for me. And even after I hit that breaking point, I still ran a session of the game for a friend, which only solidified my disdain for the new edition.

I also played in a couple sessions of SR5 at a gaming convention. Funny story, the group I played with were having a decent amount of fun, but playing with the rules incorrectly. When I stepped up and pointed out what the rules really said and how they were supposed to be used (in a Missions game, so this is a legit concern), they started having less fun, too. You could see the light fading from their eyes.

I'll ditto this.

Everyone has different preferences, but I'll say i am digging limits in play. I thought I'd hate them but I think they rock. Maybe agility should have factored in even with its huge skill list, and i do wish accuracy was a limit mod and not a separate limit but overall its been a blast. Its been fun when I tried to jump a gap and my limit capped me from succeeding, and making it a decision to get the awesome role by using edge has been fun as well.

What are your enemies rolling? 12 dice? 6 reaction + 6 intuition? That sounds like something any starting character should definitely not be fighting on a regular bases. That's like elite corporate security level opposition, and that kind of stuff you should be running from at the start, not staying and slaughtering them. And if the limit was such a problem, there is edge to ignore the limit. Not to mention that the combat ax is the HIGHEST DV melee weapon in the game. Do you honestly think that's balanced to have it one shot people and have good accuracy?



SR4
Lighting Bolt
Drain: (f/2)+3

Force level = drain value
Forse 1 = 3
Forse 2 = 4
Force 3 = 4
Force 4 = 5
Force 5 = 5
Force 6 = 6

SR5
Lighting Bolt
Drain: f-3

Forse 1 = 2
Forse 2 = 2
Force 3 = 2
Force 4 = 2
Force 5 = 2
Force 6 = 3

Also, while SR4's magic damage is half impact armor, SR5's is force = AP. So SR5's magic will hit harder lightly armored targets, while SR4 will hit heavily armored targets harder. The point still is though, you're wrong. I just wanted to make sure that was clear.


The advantage is that IP boosters are no longer THE most important combat stat. This means Street Sams can boost other attributes to be combat effective, and that everyone else doesn't instantly die.

Does the character fit into a combat role like a Samurai or an Adept, and said enemy is supposed to be an even level challenge to starting characters fresh out of the book? Yes, yes they are rolling twelve (or more) dice of defense, but it's not because everyone has 6 Reaction + 6 Intuition.

After making more than a few characters, a starting character focused on physical combat tends ends up with a R+I of around 7, and this without cyber or magic modifications. But here's the thing, I've yet to make a character (of 30 or so) with a Wil less than 5 under normal priority rules. And since full defense is actually decent in this edition, this then pushes us to that magical twelve dice plateau. Now add cyber or magic to negate any potential reach advantage (or more), and there's a very good chance that the combat axe will have a really hard time hitting, assuming equal opposition that isn't surprised.

Hell, if you go with Professional Rating 4 grunts (the standard organized crime grunt out of the book), they're going to have 12 dice to defend if they get a decent initiative roll. Granted, they have no cyber to counter the combat axe's reach, but under the karma rewards, being out numbered 2 to 1 by Professional Rating 4 mooks is worth specific mentioning as a modifier for the run's payment. As in, being outnumbered 2 to 1 by mooks that can have 12 dice to defend is something that's almost expected as a common occurrence. This common occurrence does demand more payment, but still, this level of opposition is expected per RAW.

Guns can combat this problem by getting smartlinks to up the limit or using choke settings or autofire to strip away defensive dice. The combat axe on the other hand (barring anything out of Run & Gun (which I don't have yet)), is relatively worthless unless you like spending edge or can consistently create environmental factors to act as a negative on the defense test because most other melee combat modifiers act as a bonus for the attacker, which is meh with a low limit like 4.

Yes, this is a level of opposition that you're not supposed to be slaughtering outright, but it is a level of opposition that a starting runner is supposed to be able to handle and deal with, and a combat axe has a really hard time dealing with this basic level of opposition. Sure it can one shot people, but if you have to blow Edge to reliably hit, you might was well get the katana, which doesn't have these problems hitting and will be just as lethal as the combat axe in the hands of someone able to hit the limit consistently.

Welcome to the 80's indeed.

Those rating 4 grunts have a whopping 8 initiative +1d6. Meaning they have at most 2 IP and more often than not only 1. So how threatening is someone that is spending their entire initiative on trying to not die honestly going to be?

But lets look at this another way. So we have a dwarf, lets assume he's got something around 9 str at chargen. His ax does 14p, and this can be much higher, lets pretend we're not munchkins at the moment.

The opposition has an lined coat and body of 4 -4ap from the ax. So that's 9 soak dice. Lets say our dwarf gets 1 net hit, so is doing 15p. Our ganger rolls really well and gets 5 soak. He takes 10p, he dies! His condition monitor is only 10 boxes!

Our dwarf street sam only needs 1 net hit to pretty much one shot this guy and most others. This weapon NEEDS a low accuracy because its too powerful otherwise. I'm sure its very horrible that this Ax isn't the answer to all your combat situations, but it shouldn't be.

I'm just having a good time trying to picture the dwarf carrying and wielding a 6 foot long combat axe

Deathstrobe - He did not say that the Drain was Nerfed. He said the DAMAGE was Nerfed, and it was indeed Nerfed. You really cannot argue that at all.
Direct Spells went from Force + Net Hits to Just Net Hits. If it Looks like a Nerf, Acts Like a Nerf and Sounds like a Nerf, it is probably a Nerf.

He also said the drain was increased, which Deathstrobe proved to be incorrect (at least in the case of Lightning Bolt).

Direct spells were dicked though. I think they should at least do half-force damage as a baseline.

+1

and I'm going to do exactly that
I'll be taking the best of the SR5 Rules (Skills---->12 f.e. ) maybe change them (Skills --->9 (10 with aptitude) to make it streamline) insert them into my 4A Games and continue playing 4a
So instead of moaning toooo much about how shitty SR5 is (it is though and sometimes you'll find me moaning cause a facepalm hurts sometimes) I'll just get the best of both SR worlds and make it a better one

with a better (slightly moaning) Dance
Medicineman

Ahh... Missed the Drain Reference apparently. Thanks Jack VII...

As long as your hands are visible at all times and the dance is not Slow, we are good.

That sums it up quite well: We've always done it like that, we never had that before, give me back my million-dollar samurai

This is pretty much exactly what we've elected to do. I've even made changes in Chummer to reflect things like a skill cap of 9.

As for drain codes of spells, outside of Indirect Combat spells, which honestly, had too high a drain in SR4 compared to direct spells, all the other spells, on average, when used at a meaningful force, have a higher drain code than they did in 4th edition (enough qualifiers in there?). I'm sure if someone else wants to prove me wrong they can grab some more exceptions to that but if you look them over, yeah, higher drain, which, as I said in the original post was a good thing. Nerfing Direct combat spell damage and setting its drain to the same as an equivalent indirect spell makes no sense to me. It seems like a double nerf, higher drain and lower damage? Why?

For the mooks my players were facing, we were playing through some of the adventures in Sprawl Wilds and Firing Line. So published baddies, not something I made up just to screw with people. All it really takes for a mook to equal those 4 hits on the axe accuracy is a slightly above average roll and some modifiers. Or he could take 5 off his initiative and add his melee skill to the mix. Throw in edge and it is very easy to start getting those 4 hits to counter the axe. There is nothing the player can do to offset this, making the axe a pointless weapon. High damage is meaningless unless you can hit with it.
Sure the axe does lots of damage, but there are plenty of other weapons that do lots of damage that aren't hindered by low accuracy. Like half the assault rifles and every sniper rifle or the katana, . The axe just has goofy stats. A pole arm does less damage and is slightly more accurate? Why? A staff is more accurate? And what makes the katana the magic, must have weapon? 80s nostalgia? Its a sword but somehow its slashes are just sooooo much more accurate . I mean it is a good sword for what it was designed to do but it isn't 'teh best sord evarz!!!'
It seems like each class of weapons has 1 or maybe 2 weapons in that category that are worth looking at and the rest are pointless. Why bother with them then? They fill space that could be better taken by rule explanations or making the book shorter, and no one is going to use them. May as well just go with Heavy Pistol, SMG, Assault Rifle, etc, set the stats to Ares Predator, Ingram Smartgun and Ares Alpha and save yourself pages of gear fluff and rules. The game was supposed to be getting some streamlining right? There is a perfect place to do so. If the gear doesn't have some meaningful purpose, why bother with it?

if that was the goal they managed to miss it . . .

Really, the idea of accuracy for melee weapons always sounded wrong to me. Not mechanically, just the idea that a length of metal and wood somehow is more or less accurate at hitting stuff than another length of metal...

Well, depending on the quality of the craftsmanship, it could have an effect on accuracy... but not that drastically. A well made cut and thrust sword should be able to accurately stab a ping pong ball hanging from a string with one hand. If the balance point is off you'll have a hard time making an accurate thrust. Katanas in particular need a fair amount of free area around you to swing as well, as they aren't make for thrusting. Limits for all melee weapons really should be based somehow on skill, rather than an arbitrary "accuracy" stat.