Same here.

...playing Deckers and designing custom decks in 3E really helped me hone my real life skills in Excel.

I created a spreadsheet for managing character actions and programmes as well as one for designing custom decks in which all you had to do was plug in the the results of your B&E rolls and it would figure out the time involved and costs (based on a middle lifestyle which was required for a workshop).

One of the symptoms of what made SR3 both the best version technically and worst Version to play at the same time.

So you need cyberjacks to gain edge bonuses?
Interesting. Can still see a good decker without one, maybe. You can at least make up the reaction lag.

Another question for the people with the 6e core rulebook.
Do extended tests still work the same? Because now you at least have the potential to use edge for each roll, if they don't flat out deny you use of edge that is, if you make the test long enough.

Extended tests in 5e had a window of sorts to do the same, with some further interpretation.

There was also a rule in the 5e core rules that allowed a guaranteed sucess over time up to a threshold with no net success.

...yeah, I was fortunate to have a notebook computer (with a whopping 2 GB HDD and 256 MB of memory).

However for complexity of play, 3E doesn't hold a candle to FGU's Space Opera. I GM'd a multi year Space Opera campaign back in the 80s when business and scientific oriented desktop PCs cost 5,000$ - 6,000$ and had monitors which weighed a tonne. I ended up using a 125$ HP programmable scientific calculator (one of the horizontal ones) to handle all the number crunching of navigation and combat (both character and starchip). Crikey, Starship combat had something like three layers you had to deal with (after initiative) before you could actually determine if you even scratched an opposing ship's hull. The modifiers for character combat were ludicrous and made a 3E firefight look as simple to resolve as AD&D in comparison. I ended up hand-waving a lot of stuff just so we could get through a single combat in one 5 - 6 hour session.

FGU liked to simulate realism, so much so that their medieval fantasy game Chivalry and Sorcery, was pretty much unplayable (but made good source material for use in other games like for setting up the royal hierarchy, societal structure, courtly procedure, and determining social rank for characters/NPCs).

No, you only need the jack (or a be a TM) to be able to perform some matrix-specific Edge uses:
- Increase an attribute by 1 (1 Edge)
- Reduce somebody's Data Processing by 2 and program slots by 1 (2 Edge)
- Ignore noise penalties (2 Edge)
- Don't increase OS with your next action (3 Edge)
- Use CHA instead of LOG for a test (TM only, 2 Edge)


No changes apart from referencing an "interval scale table" which does not seem to exist and nothing that forbids using Edge on extended tests. However, the classic Edge uses (reroll failures or add Edge to the DP) cost 4 Edge now, so you are not going to use those on every roll.

There is a interval on the Errata page just realeased.
As far as how often you can replenish and use edge, I guess it will depend on the interval of the test and how difficult the threshhold is, and how often the GM decides it needs to be replenished.
A test that can take a minute can be stretched to an hour or a day or longer just to be sure to add more edge to the tests, an example.

There's a short announcement suggesting that the PDF will drop tomorrow:

https://www.shadowrunsixthworld.com/2019/08...se-coming-soon/

＃1: Increase an attribute (I take it Matrix attribute) I can already do that through programmes and swapping as well as with both the Perfect Time and Quick Configurator Qualities can change things almost at will.
＃3: Ignore noise penalties (that's what deck rating, a Datajack, gear like a Sat Uplink, programmes like Signal Scrub, and ware line antennae are for, My 5E decker Violet has a total of 10 noise reduction).

Neither of these adds Edge in 5E, but I found them are pretty darn useful.

The more I hear and read about 6E, the less interested I am.

I'm planning an all Decker game for 6e but I'll be sure keep you off the list.

...no problem.

Played her in a last week's 5E Mission session where she did a quite a bit of decking, and it didn't slow play down much if at all. If you have the proper "cheat sheets" it goes like clockwork.

I'd rather deal with situational modifiers. The whole Edge thing just adds another layer of management (as well as a stage for rules debate and "wingeing" which I see affecting game flow more) for both players and GM.

i think the funniest thing about 6e edge to me is that when the change from 3rd to 4th happened, all the various "________ pool" mechanics were removed because they were too complicated and slowed down gameplay.

so here we are in 6th edition, and now there's a pool that applies to basically everything ever, and if you spend it you lose access to it in other scenarios (so for example, you have to ask whether you can afford to spend edge on combat when you might need it for spellcasting later on), with much higher stakes because it doesn't come back as easily.

but hey, just look at this wonderful new "streamlined" mechanic that they added in to replace modifiers. but not all modifiers, of course, only most of them, so you still need to check your books to see if there is a modifier. for example, now when you're making an attack instead of checking the range table to see what penalty you get to your dice pool, instead you check to see what your attack modifier will be. [sarcasm] oh boy, look at that streamlining!!! checking the same table for a different reason sure saves on time and is less distracting! hurray for 6th edition!!! [/sarcasm]

of course, this isn't the only lie that makes me laugh about 6e. for example, the claim that they've removed marks from the matrix. this is complete and utter bull; they didn't remove marks, they renamed them to access levels.

honestly, i half suspect the dev team don't have a clue what the word streamlining actually means, because sometimes it sure *seems* like they heard that 5th edition D&D did that and are having great success and then just decided to use the latest buzzword in tabletop RPGs.

...👍

I mean, yeah. It's pretty much cargo-cult design all the way down.

Interesting...

In the Quickstart, they list the Armor spell as adding net hits to target’s Defense Rating and to Body for Damage Resistance tests.

Which was a point of contention as WORN armour only added to the Defense Rating.

Just got a hold of Core and the Armor Spell now only adds hits to the Defense Rating in a similar manner as Worn Armor. No mention of adding to Body.

Bone Lacing and Bone Density Augmentation still add to Defense Rating as well as Body for resisting physical damage.

yup. i had heard that the spell was different in core, guess i didn't think to share it here at the time.

the change is "good" in the sense that at least the armour spell isn't somehow better than actually wearing armour, but not good in that armour is still kinda crap in general which means that the spell is pretty much not worth learning. but at least that means it's consistent, i guess.

also good news for the augmentations, which otherwise would be just badly overpriced garbage (they might still be badly overpriced, i'm not sure since i don't have the book, but at least they're not garbage). though of course, that still leaves us with the question of why putting armour around only your bones gives you damage resistance but putting armour around your bones *and* your meat does not.

(it is also not so good in the sense that either the dev team are incompetent and didn't update the spell when they were doing the quick play rules, or they made a last minute change with basically no testing in between printing the quick play rules and the final version, but i suppose neither of those would be news these days).

...so that makes me wonder, why someone would bother paying more and taking the heavier hit to essence from Bone Lacing when both it and Bone density Bio (which has a lower essence impact) both offer the same exact benefits?

Bone Density is (in 5E) 5,000 x rating (total 15,000 for rating 3 and 0.9 Essence), while Titanium Bone Lacing is 30,000 and 1.5 Essence. Furthermore Bone Density does not show up on MAD/Cyber scanners.

Does anyone know the answers to these questions:

So many unclear and contradictory things in this.

Where does it tell you your starting Essence score? I know from previous editions that it's (probably) 6, but where is it here?

Do adepts gain power points when they increase magic with metatype adjustment points (MAPs) and/or karma? Page 66 says "no" but page 156 says "yes" and the sample adept has so many power points if he can only start with 4 (max) without MAPs/karma.

Also karma says you can increase physical and mental attributes but what about Magic and Resonance?

Also, how are adepts supposed to be able to initiate if they cannot use the Magic skills untrained?

Is any limit on how many positive or negative qualities you can take?

- it isn't in the print book. i believe it is in the errata though.

- yup, sure does say all that. nobody's had any luck yet getting a straight answer out of the devs that i can recall.

- haven't heard anything on this... weird stuff with how it works at chargen, yes, but inability to buy special attributes i haven't seen anyone bring that up. it's probably in there.

- that's a known issue to the players. the errata team (which is basically fans who do work for free) have probably mentioned it to the devs, but the devs have a pathetic track record when it comes to actually doing anything about it, so good luck.

- last i heard, no more than 5 total qualities. anyways, there is a limit in there somewhere, but i only know that because i've heard others talking about it. i don't own the book, so i can't give you a page reference.

I've had someone tell me that adepts need to buy Astral Perception so they can use the Astral skill (which is based on Intuition, not Magic, but there's no clear definition of a "Magic skill" that I could find) for Initiation. IOW, Astral Perception is now a tax if the adept ever wants to be able to Initiate. If true, I think this is really lame.

The cap on qualities is six (Positive and Negative combined). You can't earn more than 20 karma from your qualities (see the top-right of page 66).

I just got the book yesterday and am only 100 pages into it, so I don't have a lot of answers yet. The qualities are all over the place. Some are bargains - "every player should take this" - and others are head-scratchingly expensive. Also, many of the negative qualities look borderline suicidal. Combat Paralysis (halve your initiative, act last in the first round) for 8 karma is monstrous.

I didn't come here to rain on things. There are lots of things which are interesting and that I'm eager to try. There are also lots of things which I intend to aggressive house rule (like the DV of melee weapons being independent of Strength).

...all the more looks like i'll be sticking with 5E Never liked hard caps that restrict concept creativity. Can you still gain new positive qualities after chargen for double the Karma cost, or is that gone too?

I feel that many of the negative qualities in 5E already could mess with a character if played correctly (this is why a number were prohibited in Missions). Sounds like they made some even worse (crikey Combat Paralysis sounds like it would make your character a one shot kill, here's an HE grenade on an impact trigger, you can't run until it's your action, *boom*).

I also always felt the priority system led to "cookie cutter" characters which was why I preferred the build point option outlined in in The Shadowrun Companion books for 2E & 3E, as well as being adopted as the default in 4E (though without the hard skill caps). I was disappointed that they went back to the priority table in 5E and only offered half baked options (Sum to Ten and a fairly anemic Karma Build system). 5E with the 4E build point system would have been ideal.

Thanks for that part on Qualities.

The melee damage is stupid. A strong troll's fist does more damage than almost any melee weapon, and if that troll gets a cyberlimb, the damage goes down (max 4P for Str 7+). WTF?

My favorite line in the book so far is this: "Remember that attempting to use a skill untrained means rolling (linked attribute – 1)". Unless I missed something, this fact was not mentioned anywhere before...and I looked hard, because I was genuinely curious if they had gotten rid of the defaulting modifier.

Seems like 6th has (among other things) the same problem as 5th, the book which is supposed to teach people how to play the game was never reviewed by somebody trying to learn the game from reading the book.

ah, there we go. as an added note, this pretty much means that all those people arguing that the races aren't all that unbalanced because humans can just buy the qualities that other metatypes get for free is a load of bull. every quality you buy to keep up with a troll is one less quality that you can buy total in addition to costing them karma and being behind on attribute caps. (meanwhile, their own increased attribute cap has been badly devalued due to the fact that 4-5ish edge is plenty to start a fight with and high edge doesn't let you generate it any faster, meaning that 7 vs 5 edge is more likely to wind up meaning you get, say, 15 instead of 13 edge over the course of a single scenario, and even worse over multiple scenarios if your edge doesn't refresh in between or if you got your edge back up to cap)




no surprise there. they straight up told us that they couldn't afford to lose the money to do a good job of playtesting, so they just used their standard team... as in, the group of people that have been playtesting for years and who are pretty much guaranteed to miss things like that. also, since they only trust a handful of people, that pretty much means that only a handful of people were ever on the job, and when it comes to playtesting, quantity *is* quality.

... one of which leaked the entire pre-errata, first-print PDF, so that trust is obviously well placed ...

It should also be said that, despite a much larger (though still not sufficient) playtest campaign in 5th, no such leak happened there.

yeah. i'm wondering if that's going to lead to a decrease in quality, or if the current crap they shovel in our direction actually incorporates any feedback at all from playtesters/proofreaders/errata teams and the embarrassing mistakes would have been even worse.

The pre-Errata book certainly looks like something I'd expect in a pre-Alpha, first phase playtest - a bunch of brainstorming rules and c&p from previous edition to test the waters for changes. It seems the very honorable men at CGL want to be paid for that now.

"During character creation, only one attribute may be at the maximum for the selected metatype."

Is this only when spending points, or dose it include spending starting karma too? Does this include special attributes (Edge, Magic, and Resonance)? I ask because the human adept has Agility 6, Edge 7, and Magic 6.

It's not like archetypes were ever consistent with the creation rules.

Well it's nice to see they got something right for Shadowrun then bannockburn

Well, the PDF is available on Catalyst's site finally, so I was able to use my GenCon code to grab it. It DOES appear to have integrated the errata, not that that's helping it much...

...I'll wait until Drive Though gets it.

DriveThru already has it:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/286850...d-Core-Rulebook

...really? Thanks.

Last I saw it was still pre-orders.

PDF is available, solid book is still on pre-order

...I only bother with PDFs. Considering the track record of CGL's binding quality, not going to throw 50$ - 60$ away on a book that likely will fall apart in a month or so. Also a lot easier on the old arthritic shoulders to carry a slim notebook computer than 20 kilos of books to each session.

To be fair, this time the PDF is included if you buy the hardcover, so if you want something for the collection, you don't pay extra for the PDF.

That way you still have a PDF that updates with errata as the printed book rapidly becomes obsolete.

I wouldn't say "rapidly". Maybe once over the full lifetime. But yeah, that's a bonus.

No mention of the Foundation in the core rules. I hope they expand on 5e with that. The Matrix needs another layer to romp in.
Overall 6e did keep the feel of 5e, and a little parity is nice.

Rapidly as in 10 pages of errata before the printed book is even available to most buyers.

They still have quality that can be decreased?




They probably (reasonably) assume that people are still playing 3rd or 4th edition. Catalyst generally puts a lot of effort into driving away new customers.

...yeah but the PDF is only 19.99$ at Drive Through, compared to 50$ (70$ at Amazon) for the dead tree version with PDF. A lot of us are living low lifestyles in RL.

personally, i hope they pretend that it never happened.

the foundation was stupid. "oh hey guys, there's this thing that we know absolutely nothing about. let's base all of our technology on it!"

when you remember that the entire world has been dealing with repeated matrix crashes (caused by stuff in the matrix that nobody can understand) that caused mass devastation, it gets even stupider.

...well there is the "War Games/DarkStar effect" where a National or Megacorcorporate automated system goes awry due to a bad piece of code, or is set by someone on a destructive mission.

Even national defence systems by 2080 are likely managed by supposedly "secure" hosts.

We are already seeing the security threats posed by the IoT in real life. Now magnify this a thousand fold like it is in the Shadowrun universe where the Matrix is so highly invasive in people's' lives that you literally can't function in society without it.

I remember Deus, those pesky AIs just can't be trusted.

Foundation was even weirder than that do. "Deep Dives" where you take other people into the Matrix with you just because they are people you know... It worked for Harlequin and Magic and stuff but not so cool when it's tech not magic doing it.

If the game world's "real" world is charged by the Astral, causing the altered reality, then the Matrix being the thing they choose to "anchor" their slipping reality to, then the matrix must be affected to.
Cyberspace is nothing more than the space observed in computer memory. With no data it is empty, lifeless. The underlying prnciple is reality, the data.
So, the the astral causing people in the Shadowrun reality to "loose their hold" except through technology, is the "fantasy" worlds in the Foundation. Slipping in to and out of observed sanity.

Or not.

...hmm, wonder what would happen with a global data wipe?

Seems like they try that on some scale every once and a while. People die.
The only "real" control they have is to pull everyone's plug. At least that's how it was.