No, sir. No rules in need of clarification here. Move along.

Wow, maybe it's a legacy of SR1 but we've always had a virtual "Spell Defence Pool" equal to Sorcery skill. Or to put it another way, you could use your sorcery skill to defend whether you'd cast a spell that phase or not.

Actually, my personal problem with the sorcery..

I don't like that you have to allocate it. You don't have to decide in advance that you're going to use combat pool only for shooting, you don't have to decide if you're going to store half your combat pool for dodging.

I'd like to be able to just USE spell pool outright when it matters. It brings it in line with the other pools system -- especially combat pool.

Mind you, I'd also like to have a higher spell pool. It's analogous to combat pool for spellcasting (skill, soak, dodge vs cast, drain, defense) but lower (divide by 3 instead of 2) and can be degraded over time (magic loss).

I like the idea of making spell defense solely a function of spell pool, but with the caveat of making spell pool int + will + magic/2, and taking out the 'allocate dice' requirement.

Agreed. Also I'd like to toss out the only other place where you have to allocate dice: casting multiple spells on one action. Either forbid casting two spells at once (weaken spellcasters), or realise that the +2 TN for both casting *and* Drain per extra spell is enough of a penalty--rather like it is with shooting two guns at once--and just let them use their whole Spellcasting specialization for every instance of the casting. Note that this +2 TN per extra spell cast in one action still applies even to people with the Focused Concentration twink--I mean Edge--and it's a hefty enough penalty, IMO, to warrant just forgetting about splitting sorcery dice between the two spells.

Spell pool would still have to be split, however.

(Edit): I like the higher spell pool idea too, and I've already weighed in on the spell pool -> defense issue.

Another interesting note on Spell Defense. The last time I checked in SR3 rules, allocated spell defense dice last until the end of the turn. That means if you have not had an action yet in the current turn, you have no spell defense. Also, if you have multiple actions, you can allocate additional dice in each action.

Example. MojoMobMan has a Sorcery 6 and Spell Pool 5. His first action in 12, he allocates 6 Sorcery dice to spell defense and uses his 5 spell pool to cast a spell. In his second action, in 2 of the next pass, he can allocate another 6 Sorcery dice to spell defense for a total of 12.

Remember, only pool dice are used for the turn. You can use your skills in every action. So until the end of the turn, MojoMobMan would have 12 dice in his spell defense pool. But at the beginning of the new turn, any unused dice are lost and he has none until his first action.

Unless there is some Errata out there somewhere that I don't know about (and I'm hoping there is) this system just seems wrong.

Spell defense dice should be allocated and last until the magicians next action. If you still want the protection, reallocate your Sorcery and pool dice.

As far as using spell defense in a reactive manor. I think it would make the Sorcery skill to powerful. Being able to cast your spell with sorcery dice and then resist as many spells as are cast at you or your party with spell defense is to powerful.

I also think allocating spell defense is a foolish mechanism while "held actions" are a perfectly acceptable method already built into the game. If your mage wants to sit on overwatch and protect himself and teammates from harm, hold action and step in with sorcery to dispel any spells cast on the party.

Why make the rules more complex when the same idea is built into the system under a different name...

I would like to see sorcery split up to Mana spells and Physical spells, both having their own pool's.

Also cast my vote for Edged weapons to be breaked to long and short ones.
I can give some examples at budo gym if needed.

If different guns skills gets combined, i will use the old 3ed skills instead.
Using sniper rifle is totaly different than a shotgun, how it behaves and how to use it effetively. Specialy when the shit realy hits the fan. Only 100% common thing is that the bullet comes out from the thinner part of the gun.
Any person with army background can tell you this.

Maybe that's the problem. Why have arbitrary "active skills" and "knowledge skills." Why not arbitrary "combat skills", "technical skills", "athletic skills" and so on. Each with their own defaulting criteria.

Is this a good idea? No, but I'm just talking out some thoughts.

I thought we were trying to make things more *steamlined*.

That's why it's not a good idea...

What they need to do is either combine some firearms skills together (I like "Handguns" "Long Arms" "Heavy Weapons" and "Gunnery" myself) to make it more like all the rest of the skills (look at Biotech, for instance, or Computers; both are a huge collection of RL skills under one heading for convenience purposes; the same can be done with armed combat), or they can split up all the other skills like Firearms got fragmented and give everyone 3X as many Active Skills at charge to compensate. They're already starting to half-assedly do the second suggestion in 3e, by introducing "new" Active skills in the expansion books (like Lockpicking and Disguise) which used to be covered onder an older umbrella skill (Stealth and Ettiquite), but there's been no corresponding increase in Active Skills for characters. This tends to lead to Gms either ignoring the new rules or haphazardly implementing them, and really has to be addressed in 4e.

Why would you split off assault rifles and SMGs? At that point, you've gotten rid of what? Shotguns?

While we're splitting stuff up lets not forget athletics.
We'll need running, jumping, swimming, climbing, hanging(endurance not suicide), acrobatics and dancing. All as different as splitting the firearms that much.
Ask yourself do you really want this many differnt skills to buy and keep track of?
Myself and some friends built a system that was a realistic as we could get it.
The problem was you needed a maths degree to even work out hitting someone with a punch.
The moral: Somwhere things have to be more simplifyed.