Suffice it to say that most of the old timers around here know I think a lot of SR3 was crap(py), but primarily, that I saw combat and weaponry as the most easily fixed (and, to some degree, most necessary to fix). For a while, I actively pursued a revised ruleset, though due to real life and community lack of interest, I eventually left it on indefinite (and likely now permanent) hiatus. I also worked on new rules for dying and staying conscious that (hopefully) made a hell of a lot more sense, and a set of canon compatible new guns that never saw much of a response. Raygun obviously has his set of well known rules, though those mostly stay within SR3 as much as possible. Austere never got around to putting up a website (because he is a very bad person), but he uses three part damage codes (probably the first thing that occurred to me as missing and necessary when I started getting into SR3 a bit over a year and a half ago) and has really quite detailed rules.

So, really, primer over with, I'm wondering where the Dumpshock is on the issue of more realistic weapons rules now that SR4 is on the horizon. Personally, beyond wanting the rules to finally be sensible and internally consistent, I'd really appreciate rules consistent with real life. Even Spycraft, which deviates heavily from reality in its rules in order to create a specific effect (ie it's a game about James Bond and Cate Archer, not a realistic combat and espionage sim), has managed a very admirable amount of realism in its handling of combat and weapons. I would very much like SR to finally take note of this and stop beating everyone senseless with the Abstraction Stick. Of course, then there's melee, which is simultaneously worse off and harder to fix for a number of reasons.

And, since I've heard that developers will likely read this, get your opinions out.

And hire some of us as consultants! Self interest rocks! And I hear that Raygun guy is ok, too. Austere's kind of a jerk, though.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Frankly, I agree that it might be a very good idea to not hire but to simply ask some of the people with extended knowledge of things related to SR to help with those areas of the game, or perhaps even consult them in some cases. Outside of the gun nuts, people who could at least stop serious mistakes from happening include, for example, Cray74.

It's a good thing that the game designers still have a final word on all those matters, since no matter how well all our house rules suit our own games, I doubt the majority of people would be too thrilled about your or my house rule sets or even Raygun's rules being part of canon. Especially now if SR4 is indeed more streamlined.

Judging from the amount of very negative comments I received for just including one more variable into the Damage Code you'd think most SR players are really in love with the way damage works in SR -- although some of the comments about reintroducing the variable staging in SR4 I find rather ironic.

For the most part, I'm fine (in a "this is a really simple, fun, combat system") with Shadowrun's weapons and damage codes and combat rules. Really. I play "combat" sort of characters pretty much exclusively; sammies, adepts, mages who try to act like both. I like physical combat in an RPG, and I like the SR rules.

But please, please, make "light pistols" 6M instead of 6L. Make it less mandatory that any given pistol is a "heavy pistol," please. The gap between a 6L and a 9M damage is ridiculously huge, both in terms of realism and game worth. I'm not going to try and argue that light pistols are worthless -- I understand that they aren't, quite -- but they are very very close to worthless, when compared to a heavy pistol, for most situations. They are ridiculously non-lethal. Absurdly so. Someone with an armor jacket and an average Body score has little to fear unless the guy plugging him is truly skilled. That's ridiculous.

Please.

Just...bump that up. Or bump heavy pistols down. Or...something. Keep the Light damage code for holdouts (most of them), where it's reasonable and where the weapon is very clearly meant to not be anyone in the world's primary means of harming the opposition. Light pistols in Shadowrun are supposed to be the default, the median, the average. Heavy pistols are, in fluff, meant to be rare, intimidating, over the top killing machines.

Remedy this. Make light pistols worth taking. Keep heavy pistols horrifying engines of destruction (compared to more reasonable handguns), but make light pistols dangerous.

Also -- I'd love it if they just bumped assault rifle's base damage up to 9M, or lowered heavy pistols to 8M, or something. A single shot from most handguns compared to a single shot from most assault rifles should, well, end up with the rifle on top. It'd be cool to just nudge one of those two power codes one way or the other. Mostly, though, I just want a reason to carry a light pistol.

Well, I hate to say it guys, but I think any requests we make at this point are pretty much going to land in a big fat pile of too late. I'm pretty sure they're set on what's going where and doing what within the 4th Edition system. At this point we can only hope that some of the writers have listened to us bitch and moan (I know at least a few with some influence couldn't possibly have avoided it!) about what we don't like and have taken some steps to do something about the more rediculous things, while at the same time keeping it all as simple as possible.

I'm well aware that my own rules are a bit too intense for most players, and honestly, I wouldn't want the majority of the things I've done showing up in canon, if for no other reason that it would likely turn a lot of potential players off (what's with all this gun crap?). But there are a few very simple things, particularly those that Critias mentioned, that there's really no reason not to bring more in line with how things are out here in the real world.

Anyway, if they've taken any of my advice over the years and plan to put it into effect now, it'll be as much of a suprise to me as it is to you guys.

They are likely to be very far along in the process for the new edition. I'm guessing that they have been playtesting for a while, and are editing the books.

Either way, I'm just hoping heavy pistols get bumped down a notch. They need it in my oppinion. The whole more powerful than assualt rifles thing is just crazy.

One thing I'm hoping for is a revision of the way firearm skills are done - some sort of happy medium between having a lot of skills so that everyone doesn't know how to shoot most of the guns out there, and avoiding absurdities like Rifle and Assault Rifle being entirely separate skills.

I'd also like to see something done about the nearly binary nature of SR ranged combat - it seems like 90% of the time you're either armored well enough that the enemies might as well be spitting at you, or getting hit with something that forces soak TNs of 6 or more, and you're completely hosed. It might actually be a case of accidental realism, but there's little reason for that in a cinematic system where an unarmored unaugmented human can actually soak a gunshot wound down to nothing if he's tough and lucky enough.

There are reasons for these weirdnesses. Whether you agree with them or not, that's another thing.

Heavy pistols have such a steroidal damage code in order to make them worthwhile and faintly realistic. If I shoot a man wearing a bullet-proof vest in the chest with my .45, the vest will save his life, but I'll still ruin his whole day. If you reduce HP damage to 7M or so, handguns will become almost pointless against body armor. But handguns are the most common weapons in the shadows for reasons of portability, affordability, and concealability. So if you reduce the damage code for heavy pistols, a lot of gunfights will be determined solely by who's got a shotgun installed in their cyberarm...or who's got a sorcerer on their team.

SMGs and rifles are so wimpy on single shot to keep them from being overpowering on burst and automatic. Yes, if a .45 does 9M, then a 5.56 mm rifle should probably do 8S, But then a burst would do 11D, and a lot of PCs would die awfully young.

And keep in mind that the relative effect of firearms has a lot to do with who you're shooting at. Don't forget that, allegedly, the average human has Body 3, Combat Pool 4. But how often are you shooting at him? Usually it's some ork street samurai with body 9, Combat Pool 9, Armor 7/5.

Realism and rpg rules mostly aren't compatible. So your explanation makes sense and sounds very good to me.

I'm going to venture a guess that in the interesting of "streamlining" the rules, they opted for similar rules that are in SR3. You can't make things easier by bringing into account the bajillion variables of real combat. Realism breeds complexity. The very nature of keeping it simple will overwash the realism some people so desperately can't live without in this RPG.

I somewhat agree with Critias. The determinig factor for damage should be caliber and shot placement (skill). RoF should factor in there somewhere as should armor, of course. If they can make all of this streamlined, I will be very happy.
My fear is that they can't and I'll be forced to create house rules (or just wait for Raygun to come up with something.)

which is so stupid it makes me blind. the only thing more stupid is the "any weapon can be purchased in cased or caseless versions" insanity. replacing the damage code column with a calibre column would solve both problems.

I always propose:

[with a caliber example]
light pistol / light submachine gun: 7M (9mm Para)
heavy pistol / heavy submachine gun: 8M (.40er S&W)
light rifle / assault rifle / hunting rifle / sniper rifle / LMG: 10M (5,56mm Nato)
medium rifle / assault rifle / hunting rifle / sniper rifle / MMG(GPMG/UMG): 11S (7,62mm Nato)
Heavy Rifle / MG: 16T [(.50er BMG)

Simple: all weapons with the same ammo and different damage codes have different barrel lengths

No, it doesn't make sense, but it's at least physically possible now.

~J

Critias, I'm pretty sure SR3 says that the ammo only works for one weapon(Ruger Superwarhawk, Ares Predator). No books ATM, sorry.

no, i just double-checked. ammo can be shared between all weapons of the same class.

I suspect one method of making it easier to sort the relative power/lethality of weapons while still making them capable of killing people would be to use a slightly different method for determining damage tests.

Very short chart of common Handgun calibres

9 x 19mm 6M
.45 7M
.357 Magnum 8M
.44 Magnum 9M

etc modified by barrel length, technical details etc

Make the target take a normal damage test of (power - ballistic) with a supplemental of a second stun damage test either against it's unaltered power or it's (power - impact armor) to simulate the fact that you'd still get hurt (at least to a degree) by the kinetic energy moving through the armor and bruising.

As a result unless you had a big body or some sort of hardened armor you eventually are going to get worn down by getting shot even if you armor keeps the bullet from puncturing something important.

Or

You could do a mechanic that modifies power based on range (close range doing +2 power or something) that would simulate the greater tendency of a shooter to hit something important when he's in close as opposed to range. To keep things like electronic III from ruling all you'd want to avoid having magnification effect this damage as it does TN (although an interesting variant might allow you to apply the Damage code modification and keep the higher TN).

Regardless there are plenty of ways that can both breathe some versimilitude into the game while retaining the lethality of all classes of weapon (well except holdouts which should suck).

I really don't want to see hit locations introduced into canon. I would also love to see called shots (other than for a special effect) removed entirely.

Hit locations are generally a clunky bad idea that was best left in the 80s. Already it's ridiculously easy for the street samurai with the smartlink-II to reign down god's wrath from obscene ranges. With hit locations it would be high damage shots to the head every battle which might be a bit more accurate but would be exceedingly lethal.

Agreed. I suppose that I can't categorically state that it's impossible to create a good system, but I haven't seen one and I've seen a lot of attempts. The best solution is to drop called shots entirely save for called shots for special effect.

~J

The other thing about hit locations is that it would require massive revisions of the existing armor rules and runners would have to wear helmets which is soo not cool looking

Standardizing on a handful of ammo types for Nato ammunitions is quite a bit different than than all pistols firing the same calibre ammo in cased and caseless ammo. Unless you have some development of a magical gun that converts ammo from one type to another.

It's simply a matter of versimilitude if you want to appeal to the gunheads then do the basic research if you want generic weapons than just convert everyone over to futuristic needler weapons.

I'm not sure if I stand for or against "caliberization" of SR, but it might be just as simple to say that no two weapons can exchange ammunition except where noted...?

You could do that, but that's just as wrong as the current system, only in the other direction.

If anything it seems like the current trend is towards an ever increasing variety of ammuntion types rather than less variety. Add in the assumption that caseless returns to some degree of popularity (looking pretty dubious IMHO) and you have roughly twice the ammo types of 2005 unless you can explain a huge number of ammo types retiring.

Even if you assume that the prevalance of light body armor forces the retirement of stuff between .22 and .38 because it's relativel obsolent the neccessity of adopting really heavy loads to deal with paracritters etc would force an increase in the current wacky ammo types.

For Developers :

With the FN Five-Seven and the HK UCP (coming soon) on the scene nowadays and to my experience offering good performance while firing quasi-rifle-like ammunition, would it be too far off to assume that more pistols in the future may be chambered for these types of rounds?

(I havn't tried the UCP yet, but have got to play around with the MP7 which supposedly uses the same ammo. Yes, yes, I know, TOTALLY different weapon, but you do get some idea of cartridge performance.)

I don't know. I've yet to hear anything favorable about PDW cartridge lethality in the real world.

We've used the P90 for years and have had nothing but good (except reloading is a bit wierd). As far as comparison to the MP5, it's at least it's equal, if not better. Against body armour, the P90 has the edge.

The 5.7 has in my opinion outperformed your standard 9mm pistol accross the board. While it'll never be obsolete, it's hayday is over.

I'm not sure it's entirely realistic to expect that the 5.7 ammo type becomes the norm or even extremely popular in the future. Remember that it was developed by FN Herstal pretty much to exclusion of everything else and if it failed it pretty much was lights out for the company. Unless you have a massive builtin marketplace the development of something like the 5.7 is pretty much only doable by a small handful of companies otherwise it's better to go with an established calibre and spread your risk out.

I'm not saying there isn't going to be examples (especially if China develops an a more vibrant arms industry) of new ammos it's just that tried and true and incremental improvements often when out over large scale changes.