I just noticed this, so does wired go to level 4 now? What are the non-mage options to get 5 dice. And holy crap +8 to initiative.

A billion times. Yeah I'd like to know this as well, I also want Gator Shaman to make a comeback no more lame croc shaman.

I expect Body is still used to determine knock down.
Hard for a street samurai to look cool when knocked on his ass by the first burst fire he doesn't avoid.

I don't see street samns dumping body, but I do see a lot of other characters. It is about the only dump stat in the game now.

So are skill softs still Nerfed at 10K per rating point?

Skillwires was one of the few things that balanced out things for the non awakened.

I mean for a rating 4 skill chip you could hire someone to do the job.

Way over priced, especially when you considering just how much free domain/pirated skill softs for non technical skills had to be out there.
I mean how much does sailing a boat or swinging a club change from year to year?

They honestly need to redo skillsofts a great deal IMO. If its just a program its hackable and free, and fee skills is a bit much even if you have to update them every month for game reasons. Raising a skill from 1 to 4 would cost 4+4+6+8 karma or 24 karma how much is 24 karma worth in nuyen? Yeah its not as good as the skill so some discount, but it needs to be expensive on some level. Personally I'd make it so there are 2 types of skill softs, one you can just chip in and it works, its for languages etc and has some serious limits, others would need to be tailored for the user taking into account your reflexes, agility, eye sight psychological make up etc so they could not be just hacked, were expensive but had fewer limits.

Agreed. He made me want to play a gunslinger again.

You mean like the good old fashioned Datasofts, Lingasofts and Knowsofts as well as Skillsofts.

Skills in SR5 go to 12 - I assume that skillwire skills do not go to 12. If that is the case, then cheap prices and/or cracked skillwires (if it is really coming, because, you know, JH is a SR3 fanboy, so don´t expect cracked programms like in Unwired) are not really a problem. They stop at "professional" level and for everything else you can go to 12. Combined with no edge usability (at least in SR4, I assume that this is carried to SR5 as well) and the increased edge regeneration and effect on limits, hits etc it balance out.

Your runners can have some minor skills without Karma, but for the heavy (and important) stuff you want real skills, even if they are on the same level.

SYL

Back on topic:
What is the max rating for skillwires now that skills can go so much higher?


What is the nuyen cost per point of active skillsofts?




Off topic
But skills that don't need to be updated regularly to stay SOTA should be dirt cheap because of freeware, opensource, public domain, and piracy.
Yeah the max rating of the skillsoft will be lower then the current latest edition, but for most stuff you don't need to have the highest rated software if you are using skill softs.
You just want enough to get by.

But at 10K per rating, that isn't really feasible.
The only people who will have skillsofts will be ones that the governments or corps provide it to because who can afford to drop 40K for a rating 4 skill and then pay to keep it up to date (unless you are getting the group discount by buying licensing for hundreds of users).

Why should skill softs be any different from any other program in the Sixth World?
Sooner or later a hacker will remove any DRM.
After 30 years there should be a huge library of skill softs out there.

Now I can easily see max rated SOTA technical skill softs running 10K per rating.
You make a real good point on having to fine tune/customize a skillsoft to be able to make use all the bio and cyberware out there.
That would be expensive.

It is having the same cost per rating point for lower rating skills soft that are not going to be changing that much from decades ago.
I always figured if a guy with skillwires wanted to restore his Dad's old ford mustang, he could buy a few low rating mechanic and bodywork skill chips and get to work on the weekends but the current price scheme makes that totally unfeasible.

Plus with the new skills rating system going to 12, some rating 5 skills are not that big of game changer.

Don't want to hijack this thread so I'm open to starting a new topic if someone wants to continue on this subject.
Thanks

Yeah, I actually got a different answer elsewhere that says that "Mentor Spirits" now have an in-game effect. Can't seem to get a good detailed answer though so I guess I'll wait till the book is released and then homerule accordingly.

You mean like the mechanics that are already in place for Mentor Spirits in SR4?

Or are the benefits/drawbacks different for SR5?

Mentor Spirits now have an Advantage listed for All, Magician, and Adept. If you are a Mystic Adept you have to pick which benefit you want. Each also has a disadvantage that everyone has to deal with. Some of them can be pretty harsh.

1) What test should be done by a hacker to hack the commlink of someone else and what test should be done to resist ?
in particular:
I suppose that the hacker launch Intuition+hacking skill dices (with limit based on a cyberdeck attributes), but is it now an opposed test or a treeshold test ?

Does the commlink resist with only attributes/programs (Firewall indeed) or we take into account a skill or an attribute of its owner (for exemple, Logic+Computer with limit=Firewall) ?



2) Do spirits have the same power as in SR4 rules or powers were reworked to give more differences between two kinds of spirit (contrary to SR4 where air, water and man spirit have rather the same powers) ?

3) Does the drain for summoning still "2 x Success" of the spirit ?

4) Do spirits have still a 2 x Force "heavy armor" ?

Oh, ok then. That's good that now Mentor Spirits look a lot more attractive, versus in SR4 where there was no point in getting them besides for RP if you were an adept.

*thumbs up*

Not so. Several Mentors actually offered benefits to non-magical skills, making them quite handy. 2 dice on a skill for 5BP isn't bad at all, especially when you're not casting so you don't care about the disadvantages.

Also to Critias, not sure if you can answer this or not but:

Are Adept Ways in the core rulebook now, or will we not see them until the SR5 magic book gets out?

Since the book's out (Origins-out, at least), we've got a bit more leeway in answering stuff: no, there are no rules for Adept Ways in the core book. There was lots of stuff some of us would've liked to see fit in here, but keep in mind this puppy's already clocking in at (iirc) 480 pages. Fiddly stuff, detailed stuff, fluffy stuff, specialized stuff, all kind of got shoved aside to try and make room for what's already a honkin' huge monster of a core book.

What kind of content got added to make the book 100 pages longer than SR4A?

Gah, alright then. Guess I'll just play the waiting game with regards to the SR5 magic book.

(good lord this summer is going to be expensive for me. Between SR5, the core book for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, Comic Con, and SR:R....yeesh)


Well, judging from the previews, for starters a lot more qualities.

If the Gunslinger Adept sheet and the Sprawl Ganger sheet is anything to go by, a lot of the qualities listed for them first appeared in SR4 in Runner's Companion. So probably a fatter default list of qualities.

Outstanding questions:

1) About how much faster does Edge refresh? Daily? Faster? By taking some specific action?

2) Is Edge still "spend one point, get dice equal to your normal max Edge" or is it less effective?

3) Is there any way to increase the base damage of Direct Combat spells (instead of just net hits, net hits + anything)?

4) Is there any real benefit to overcasting Direct Combat spells if you don't have scads of dice to throw?

5) Does casting a Direct Combat spell at Force 1 and then spending Edge bypass Limit = Force?

Is that really a "Limit"? I know people used that comparison to justify the new rule. Although spell Force, like Limits, cap the number of hits, I don't think they count. But who knows?

Edit: In the magic preview (#5), it uses the word limit to describe the Force of a spell at least twice. It also notes the spellcasting test as: Spellcasting + Magic [Force], which to me clinches it. The Edge Effects subsections of preview #2 states that a point of edge can be spent to add your edge dice to a test and "to ignore any limit on your test."

Some might question now whether spell force really counts, because preview #2 also said that there are two kinds of limits: inherent and gear, and Force seems to be neither.

If this is anything like SR4, (and it likely is,) your base casting pool is supposed to be Spellcasting + Force, not Spellcasting + Magic, so Force affects both your limit AND your dice pool.

SR4 casting pool is spellcasting + magic

No casting pool is Spellcasting+Magic and so it was in SR4.

As posted SR5 casting is Spellcasting + Magic (Force). Force IMHO would count as a "gear" limit because a spell is essentially "gear" for a Mage in the same way that Accuracy is a gear limit for anyone using a gun. It does say several times that Force is a Limit.

This also makes Magic an attribute to be carefully used as it directly effects your ability to perform magic both by capping your spells Force maximums (Magic x 2) for none physical drain, but also by being part of the dice pool. I quite like it.

So get your initiation on as early as possible

Hasn't that always been the way? Initiate ASAP!

Some really good fiction.
Expanded chargen options.
Clearer rule descriptions throughout.
Awesome artwork.
Lots of examples.
Reworked Matrix rules.
Expanded rigging rules.
More magic options.
Good advice section for gamemasters.
Expanded contacts, grunts, and critters.
Detailed index for all that stuff.

... and lots more I didn't think of off the top of my head.

Looking forward to the examples. It's always nicer to see the actual effects in play.

What are the improvement for riggers, please?

Are there new attributs for vehicule/drone or just a rework of "vehicule combat rules" ?

Further, is there more to building a rigger now?

Did the Acceleration and Speed thing get fixed, or is Acceleration still a velocity?

How did the social skills get changed? I always felt that it was the vagueness of the rules, more than the super-high dice pools, that made them so potentially unbalancing.

If Leadership still exists, does it have actual defined rules for its effect?

Other than listing 2 social skill groups, we haven't got much on this and yeah I'd like to know as well.

Are there rules included in the combat system for miniatures based combat, or is it abstract only?

Core book is traditional, abstract combat. There is a miniatures game, Shadowrun: Sprawl Gangers, coming out soon that might fill your needs. I don't know much about it, however.

Because someone asked about skill ratings.

No rating: Unaware
Rating 0: Untrained
Beginner
Novice
Competent
Proficient
Skilled
Professional
Veteran
Expert
Exceptional
Elite
Legendary
Rating 12-13: Apex

I didn't feel like tying out the ratings, but I also take it as a given that you guys can count from 0 to 13....

Sprawl Gangers minis you could appropriate them for use in an SR RPG game, but they aren't designed with that in mind.

In an interview awhile back, they did say that if Sprawl Gangers does well enough, minis for the regular SR game will get considered.

Thank you sir. This helps a lot.

Can someone explain this, what makes this more or less abstract than say D&D 4e. We have movement in meters not 5' squares, there is reach and intercept rules, line of sight etc. It seems pretty well set up for minatures if that is what you want to use. Though maps, terrain might be a bit of a hassle with elevation etc. I guess some things need to be abstract to some degree do to range, like a sniper but even that can be represented on a map.

Where are the augmented maximums for each metatype in the book? (They're mentioned to exist at least in one of the adept's powers)

Also, is the +1 limit for Enhanced articulations always active or is it just for escape artist checks?

Augmented Maximum is current attribute +4. You can never get more than a +4 bonus to an attribute, regardless of what that attribute currently is. So if you're a troll with a strength of 5, augmented max is 9. If you raise your natural strength to a 10, then augmented max is 14.

Can you please give me the page? The book's a doorstoper and I can't find the reference .

p. 94, second column, last paragraph under the Spend Your Resources heading.

I'll note this section specifically refers only to cyber and bio, but under the individual spells and adept powers it specifically refers back to the AUgmented Max, which is what this section defines. It likely could have been more clearly stated, unfortunately.

Whats the reasoning for this change, was there some big problem that you tried to fix with this change?

Probably do to the odd resutls for even and odd attributes, a 7 agility is 10, a 8 is 12. Its a big swing.

But it's not just that it's a static number addition now, they also changed it so that it's calculated from current attribute and not the racial max.