Perhaps, but like it's been said a couple of times, realism is not the only issue here.

The question is, does it make sense (given the way the game plays) for some of these weapons (which can bypass armor) to be more disabling than firearms? My feeling is no, which is why I bring it up.

Except that pepper spray has absolutely no range, but basically, yeah - it makes little real world or game sense.

Exactly.

But, with all due respect, shouldn't the current issues be hammered out completely (or at least something akin to 'completely'... remotely?) before delving into other aspects? Especially the quagmire that will be Rigging...

I'd say so, yes (I didn't mention Decking, but there's more I want to do there before branching out as well—I figure two active sections plus the main thread are about what I can juggle in my attention)

~J

Ahhh... foot, meet mouth. I didn't see that at first. Sorry.

Unlike what Fortune said above me... I do think Sorcery needs to be split up, at least a tad. Or maybe his version could work out fine-- I'm slightly biased on it, heh.

I also believe that Decking should be split into smaller skills, as well. I don't know if anybody brought this up in the Decking thread...

I have no problem if you want to design a new skill called Spell Defence. What I am refering to is the current mechanic that requires you 'remove' dice from your 'effective' Sorcery skill in order to use Spell Defence (or Astral Combat).

As far as the last is concerned, I'm all for scrapping the Sorcery = Astral Combat rule as well.

Skills: Sorcery, Conjuring, Astral Combat, Spell Defence?

I don't know. Firearms is split up, but you don't NEED 'Assault Rifles' to survive. 'Pistols' is fine. But a Magic user without one of the above... well, I can imagine him to be somewhat weaker. Or maybe that's a good thing?

Like I said: biased. I'm a decker/gun guy.

I disagree completely. We should check how things look across the entire reasonable spectrum of play (I must admit, I have no objections to a rule that breaks down for skills over 30 or somesuch), but multiplication and division are not, to my mind, to be avoided in and of themselves. You actually give a perfect example of how things break down when you start removing them:

So what happens when cyberware costs 1.5 Esssence? 1.7? .1? Either you're making the rule break places or you're just having the player figure out the division on their own.

I'm inclined to use PEMDAS, since it's what most people will be familiar with.

That's probably a good idea. We'll see if that can't be implemented. Any thoughts, at the moment, which way to round?

~J

Ok. Here's my reasoning why -

When we start multiplying things, we can easily create situations where things get much bigger bonuses than they ought to. While just being careful of it all can work, I think a general policy of "Avoid multiplication and division except when actually necessary" is a good one.

Examples of where multiplication and division for bonuses or penalties makes people cry -
Adept Geasa: Since you multiply by .75 and round up(more on that in a second), you will never geas something that costs less than 1 PP.

The Wallhacker: Everyone know what this is? It involves applying multipliers to your strength bonus a few times.

Explosive Ammunition: It cuts barrier ratings in half. Do the math some time on how tough a barrier an Ares Predator loaded with ex-explosive rounds can shoot holes in and how many shots that takes.

In my defense, it was an off-the-cuff thought, not a fully-formed idea. Anyways, the way I thought of it was "For 1 or less essence, you get -.2. For between 1 and 2, you get -.4", etc. Yeah, it creates some break points, but since every single piece of cyberware has a fairly static essence price tag, you can build the rest of the system around that concept. You'd either end up with some cyberware not getting the full benefits or else some cyberware would be Essence-free if of high enough quality. I don't necesarily consider the latter thing to be a bad thing, maybe couple it with something like "Awakened calculate the magic cost of cyberware as if it were not upgraded" to prevent abuse. How exactly it worked tie into rounding rules.

Always round up. Shadowrun's dice system already rounds the TN up to 2 if it goes below that, so it'd somewhat follow the pattern. Plus, I think it fits the idea of the Shadowrun world that the corps are always screwing you out of that last nuyen.

I don't think there's a need for an Astral Combat skill at all. It is only an option to duplicate other Melee skills on the Astral, and I think using the appropriate Melee skill works just fine. If the character doesn't have a Melee skill, then he is stuck using magic or defaulting, just as he would do in normal melee combat.

As for a Spell Defence skill, I think that is a better option than the current SR3 mechanics of splitting the Sorcery skill. I still prefer to just make Spell Defence solely a function of Spell Pool, but I could live with a separate skill as a compromise.

I don't think using the appopriate melee skill makes sense, unless I am way behind on my Astral Plane trivia. How about Charisma, or something like that? It makes sense to me, anyway.



As said: maybe I'm behind on my 'magical' knowledge, though.

Especially considering how much karma you have to put into Centering to make it worthwhile (i.e., Centering at 4-6, an artistic skill at 4-6, and the actual initiation, which may include joining an initiatory group and paying dues).

Well, as canon stands, normal Melee skills are what are usually used when fighting hand-to-hand on the Astral. Sorcery is merely an option that can be used in place of Melee skills any time a person has access to the Astral..

Remember that not all combat on the Astral takes place between Projecting beings. Some combattants are Dual Beings, and/or are using Astral Perception. There is no reason why someone would use Charisma (or Sorcery) when they are still using the meat muscles when fighting.

Never heard of Wallhacker. Anyone else familiar with this?

EX ammo: this is true, but in this case it's because it shouldn't be a multiplier in the first place. This just comes down the the devs not knowing math; if you want EX ammo to be 2-3 times as powerful then you just reduce the barrier rating by 1-2. Halving the barrier rating actually squares the power of the ammo (roughly) rather than multiplying it. So you're right in this case, but the conclusion you're drawing isn't.

I'd round *down*, actually. That's actually how it works in most cases already; the only times I can recall rounding up is on a few Pool calculations. Drain = half Force, round down; successes divide into base time, round down; Essence costs round down. Less has to change to implement the rule, so there's less breakage.

Original post. It's a running gag, like having sex with a dikote'd ally spirit.

No, it's laziness. Regardless, I've probably made my point. Anyone working on this might stop and think for a moment about what they're doing before doubling or halving something, which was my goal. If you look over my recent post over on the Ranged Combat thread, I do double something at one point, so it's not like I'm the crazy guy on the street corner demanding we give up the number 9.

Ironically, the thing that needs fixing in what I wrote isn't what I doubled, it's what I added things together for(I did a double-whammy on gel rounds. -2 power AND ball+imp? Overkill). So the problem is more "Copying and pasting without thinking makes bad math".

.
Yes. This hit me yesterday as I went about double-checking the rules on a particular character. In most cases we already round down, so I'm going to change my mind and say that's where I lean now.

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Also, I concur on splitting up the other skills. Don't do it folks, that'll just make baby jesus cry. SR4 can split up skills because they're already totally re-writing the system from the ground up. Plus, they're going BeCKs so diversification wont be as painful.

Original post. It's a running gag, like having sex with a dikote'd ally spirit.

No, it's laziness. Regardless, I've probably made my point. Anyone working on this might stop and think for a moment about what they're doing before doubling or halving something, which was my goal. If you look over my recent post over on the Ranged Combat thread, I do double something at one point, so it's not like I'm the crazy guy on the street corner demanding we give up the number 9.

Ironically, the thing that needs fixing in what I wrote isn't what I doubled, it's what I added things together for(I did a double-whammy on gel rounds. -2 power AND ball+imp? Overkill). So the problem really is "Writing numbers down without actually checking what they look'll like in play.

Yes. This hit me yesterday as I went about double-checking the rules on a particular character. In most cases we already round down, so I'm going to change my mind and say that's where I lean now.

---

Also, I concur on splitting up the other skills. Don't do it folks, that'll just make baby jesus cry. SR4 can split up skills because they're already totally re-writing the system from the ground up. Plus, they're going BeCKs so diversification wont be as painful.

You also round up when calculating Maximum Attribute Ratings.

Incidently, which Pools round up?

I also think splitting the skills is not the optimum solution, but I really think something needs to be done with the current Sorcery/Spell Defence mechanic. My 'Spell Pool only' ruling for Spell Defence seems to work well in practice, and has the added benefit of pretty much halving the maximum amount of dice a character can assign in comparison to the current system.

And only then when you have the Exceptional Attribute Edge.

Um, Hacking Pool I think.

Nope, actually I was thinking of Detection Factor, which does round up. All pools round down.

And it makes intuitive sense too; it's much like combat pool can be used to dodge, control pool can be used to help with crash tests, Hacking Pool can be used to help dodge attacks (Improvised defense rules), so can spell pool be used to help resist. It's good from a rules mastery point of view, which is what SR really is lacking in right now.

That's not actually accurate. I assume you're referring to the fact that a normal human has all 6/9s with no fractions to round, but a Troll's Quickness RML is 5 and the racial max is 8 without any edge whatsoever.

~J

Really? I always figured it was exactly the oppostie; you typically round whatever way that screws the players, from what I've seen in the rules.

Doh, I forgot about pools. Also, about skill costs. There is no pattern.

WRT contacts: I don't think there's any harm in complexifying the contact rules. Contacts are just NPCs, so if the rules are too annoying for a particular situation, or if they don't make sense, it's easy to replace them with more roleplaying.

Mechanically, how about defining them along two axes (how well you know them, and how powerful they are)? That'd make it possible to become friends for life with the local bouncer without spending the equivalent of 1000kg of Compound 13. On the other hand, 'power' is a terribly relative measure so the power axis would likely boil down to some guidelines and a lot of GM's discretion.

Ever heard of Risus? I've always wanted to use a system for contacts that just used the Risus Cliche system for contacts. So you have 10 points to spend on a contact (for instance). It costs nothing for him to just be a "contact," but L2 (Buddy) costs 3 points and L3 (Friend for Life) costs 5. Then, whatever skills left over get applied to Cliches like "Street Doc," or "Fixer." Hell, I wrote something up about all this for a set of SR houserules (Basically, I wanted to make a generic cyberpunk system out of Shadowrun). Here's what I had:

Basically, you got points to spend on contacts equal to x + CHA, where x increases dependant on where you put contact as a Priority (it was a Priority in this system), but it was the multiples of 5 from 5 to 25. Contacts are defined by two attributes: competency and familiarity. For any contact, it costs 1 point to have a simple acquaintance, 5 to have a buddy, and 10 to have a friend for life. Competency is bought at a one-for-one ratio, so that a contact with a competency of x costs x contact points.

Competency: This attribute describes how well the contact is in certain generalized fields that describe their "job." Those familiar with Risus will recognize this as the basic Cliche System. Examples of competency fields are Fixer, Street Doc, Informant... basically any of the contact archetypes. A contact can have multiple competency fields.

The GM should roll competency whenever the contact's ability to do something is in question. Use the field closest related to the task at hand; for example, roll Smuggler to see if the contact can transport something illegally, or Street Doc to see if a contact can heal a wound. Target numbers should be as for the skill being supplanted by competency. Contacts may have to perform tasks outside their chosen field; in these cases apply a TN modifier. For tasks closely related but not really within the contact's expertise (e.g., a Street Doc acquiring illegal drugs) add two to the TN. For tasks distantly related but with some similarities to a field (e.g., a Street Doc repairing cyberlimbs) add four to the TN. For a task completely out of the field's domain (e.g., a Street Doc firing an assault cannon) add eight to the TN.

In combat, competency fields can be used for combat skill rolls where applicable. When a contact needs to use a specific attribute, apply the closest field applicable (e.g., Talismonger for resisting a spell, Street Samurai for damage resistance rolls), and apply TN modifiers for unrelated fields if they need to be used. An applicable competency field can be used to help find gear for characters; simply roll against the availability. In general, it is up to the Gm's discretion to decide what tasks fall within a competency field.

Familiarity:As described in the character generation section, these are the acquaintance/buddy/friend for life distinction from SR3. They work in exactly the same way.

It's a bit rough, but I liked it. Never tried it though.

First, I want to put my personal bias on the table. While I'm against needless complexity, I am a big fan of the "one game, many systems" aspect—in my opinion it is one of the greatest strengths of Shadowrun. If one grows tired of the way melee works they can switch to a pistol. If they grow tired of that, time for a decker. If they get sick of having a TN of over 2, they make a Rigger ( ). So on and soforth.

That said, I'd like explanation of how, in your opinion, open tests unbalance the game. The best way to convince me would be to come up with an elegant replacement for open tests (even in just one area, say Stealth), but poking enough holes in the current system is enough to get me to start looking for an alternative myself.

Mm. Well, I'd like to hear additional comments on it, but at first glance I don't think it's a good idea. Particularly the VCR would have to be dramatically reworked/rebalanced to fit in with this.

That said, the rigging rules are going to see a serious overhaul anyway, so that'll offer more chances for something like this to slip in. Still, anyone else have feedback on it?

~J