Having a Logic of 1 will make it higher than 100% of SR3R characters, what with it not being a stat

~J

Kage: We'd be moving forward relative to default SR3. It's only backward relative to your system, which I suspect would require some GM adjudication at chargen.

Kyoto Kid: KK41 gets screwed by the SR3 method for determining Reaction, which includes Intelligence. The INT range for successful Shadowrunners mostly starts at 4, modulo a couple of Snoogish aberrations. That's why everyone can cheaply become computer-proficient. Me, I kinda wish there was a way to squeeze a second skill out of Computers, similar to the Sorcery/Conjuring divide, and making decking a tad bit more exclusive.

(from Gunner J)
Competency: This attribute describes how well the contact is in certain generalized fields that describe their "job."

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.

Compentancy:
1-3 500¥ per point
4-6 3,000¥ per point
7+ 10,000¥ per point

Connection:
1-3 500¥ per point
4-6 1,000¥ per point
7+ 5,000¥ per point

Loyalty:
1-3 500¥ per point
4-6 1,000¥ per point
7+ 5,000¥ per point

Example:
I want to buy a Fixer contact at character creation. I need this fixer to both connected, loyal, and skilled so I splurge and give her Compentancy: 5 (15,000¥), Connection: 5 (5,000¥), and Loyalty: 5 (5,000¥). Meaning that I just spent 30,000 on a contact. ouch, suggestions

To help keep track of things, I'm looking into getting a ticket tracker set up for the project. More information soon™.

~J

Does anyone have a suggestion for a good tracker that's… well, maybe a little bit less specific to software development than Bugzilla?

Instructions on submitting issues to the tracker coming Real Soon Now™.

~J

Do you have access to a MySQL webserver with PHP and Perl support? If so I've got something that might be useful.

It's something I inherited from an earlier grunt at my last job, and it's written almost entirely in undocumented perl, so it might not be what you're looking for. If you want something easy to modify then I'd avoid it like the plague. But it does have login capabilities, user rights, room for various projects, versions, priorities, due dates, and quite a bit more.

Hey, I was just posting about Shadowrun in the MS shadowrun computer game forum and it occured to me... what is going on with SR3R? Kage had an awesome idea (even if it's only 'reorganized our house rules and equipment lists so they're concise and all in one place').

Kage - why has this gone quiet? What are you missing that can drive your project to undrempt of SUCCESS? I love what you're going for and I'd be happy to contribute some man hours if that would make a difference.

Two big reasons why the project went quiet. The first was I actually got off my ass and got back into academia proper instead of bouncing between dead-end jobs and part-time classes I wasn't really interested in. That's really been the big killer—this project is still on my mind, but gone are the days when I would do something like sit down and spend eight hours solid figuring out how to fix something. Tradeoffs.

The other part is, I picked a lot of the low-hanging fruit in the areas that I'm looking at so far. There's still a fair amount elsewhere, but I'm still trying to keep scope constrained so that some of these sections can actually get finished sometime before 2010. The problems I was working on when I last had a chance to spend solid large blocks of time on this were ones where no obvious fix presented itself.

That said, I've got a new Sunday group (woo for three days of Shadowrun a week), so fixing holes has come back into my mind more lately. Still, you (the readers in general) can help. How? Well, a few ways.

1) Identify specific weaknesses in the system, particularly in those areas open for discussion. Post them, we can argue for a few weeks as to whether or not they're bugs or features, then propose solutions if necessary. If you have a proposed solution, all the better, but figuring out precisely what the problem is is the important part.

2) Try the new rules! Decking's really the main place where we've got a chunk of rules all together that are ready for live play. If there are any issues remaining, or worse yet new issues, report them as above.

3) I forgot what this one was.

4) If you're feeling really masochistic, try to sift out the agreed-upon changes from a thread and organize them into a distributable file (PDF, text, RTF, something universal—avoiding Word documents is the big thing).

~J

Will there be happy fun armor degradation rules? I don't think that a firefight counts unless you discard your pockmarked, somewhat bloody vest afterwards.

In this case, where it's not clear that something has to be done, criticism of proposals is constructive IMO. I mean, not that it isn't always if it's reasonable criticism, but the option of not changing things is always there whereas something that needs to be fixed needs some change.

~J

Well, okay, how about this?

Keep track of the number of times that the armor his hit by an attack which exceeds the relevant protective value and which causes Physical damage, with elemental damage Power being compared to full impact for the purpose of this tally.

When the number of times the armor has been hit equals the relevant protective value the armor loses a point of that protective value.

That way the armor won't degrade if it's being hit by a lot of weak attacks or stun attacks, but only for relatively powerful Physical attacks.

Under these rules, a suit of Armor Clothing will quickly degrade upon being fired on by a shotgun because of the big honking holes punched through it. In my mind, the lower Ballistic values represent how you now have zero protection against rounds that hit the punched-through spot.

If layered armor is involved degradation is applied first to the outermost layer of armor. The inner layers of armor are only affected if the [Power of Physical attack - Points of relevant armor on outermost layer of armor as articulated above] > [Relevant protective value of armor underneath]


How's that?

The problem with Armour Degredation rulings is that you have to keep track of armour on a per-piece basis. I would never follow an armour degredation rule for that purpose. The fun of shadowrun (and any rpg) is complex simplicity. Ie: no hit-locations requiring seperate monitors, no insta-death shots, etc.

Just my opinion.

On the other hand, I feel like one of the advantages of SR3R will be modularity. For any given problem, there are at least two mechanics available (SR3 and SR3R solutions), possibly more. As an optional rule, the armor degradation rules WR is posting seem well worth including in the final SR3R product, even if many people choose not to use them.

- deleted duplicate post because the forum software hates me-

So, i sincerely doubt we'll be able to change it, and I care little either way, but I think it should be brought up for SR3R.

The target numbers of 6 and 7 are the same target number.

Any suggestions for a solution short of changing to the hit system or doing away with the rule of 6 (if that was even possible)?

Reroll 6's, adding 5 instead.

Wow, that's a very elegant solution!

I'm going through this thread and tabulating everything into a single document, but in case it comes to naught, I think we also need to better define astral perception. Is it a psychic sense or just a visual overlay? Either way, the modifiers should reflect that.

Well, it's not just visual.

Re-Rolling 6's and adding 5 is probably the best 'solution', however I think most players will agree that it's not a problem needing solving. No game balance or other issues has ever arisen from having a TN of 7 and rolling a 6 being a success. It's just uncomfortable for some people, but isn't an issue really....

And as SL James said, it's not -just- visual. Visual is part of it though. Just like your non-astral perception test may not be -just- visual...

The point is, should it be visual at all?

Why is that the point? Why shouldn't it be visual?

Because it's a psychic sense, not an optical one.

The problem is basically that we use the metaphor of visual sight to explain it, which is fine to begin with. However there are points when the metaphor is used in place of the reality, and it becomes unnecessarily confusing. For instance, why does astral perception see through glass? The answer is because our normal vision can see through glass. It's a misapplication of the metaphor.

I disagree. The reason Astral Perception can see through glass is because the Astral is mostly manipulated by 'intent'. A window is placed in a location to allow one to see through. The intent and purpose of that window is to provide sensory throughput. It has only enough to do with visual in that visual is the intended sensory.

I don't see a need to seperate them, since it's your brain that's translating the input, and telling you that you're "seeing" something due to a lack of a better way to translate it to you.

So if I intend for a wall to be red, it'll be red on the astral, and if I put up a sign saying "no spitting on the dwarves", you'll understand the intent of the sign? Or if I intend to put up a window, but haven't gotten to it yet, you can still see through where it would be?

At best, glass that was put up by someone who REALLY REALLY wanted to be able to see through it should give the sense of 'someone put up something here with the intent of allowing people to see through it'. The astral shows the intent of conscious beings, it does not manifest that intent.

If someone has a hole in their wall and they put up a piece of glass to plug it up, does it show up as opaque, since it was intended to be a barrier, and the visible transparency of glass is incidental?

Re-read about the Astral. Although I realize you're simply attempting to be facisious, I will reply to each comment.

Putting up a red wall has no effect on 'color' in the Astral plane. The 'intent' is based on what the general person (not the implementor or viewer) understands that intent to be. The only 'intent' of a red wall, is that there is an intended barrier in the way.

If you intend to put up a window, there is nothing for the general person to understand from 'intent'. Again, not the implementor or viewer responsible for effect here.

If you use see-thru glass to plug up a hole, your intent is not going to over-ride the general populace definition of 'intent'. However, by my understanding of the Astral, the window would be slightly less opaque (tinted?) than a window glass-piece, purely because there actually is 'intent' of some nature.

I really am not trying to be facetious.

Alright, I'm opening up the book to the astral section. So far I see no mention of "intent" anywhere. The most relevant bit is:

"Non-magical objects have no auras, but pick up impressions from being in contact with living auras. Assessing can "read" any impressions left behind on an object."

(here's intent, under astral senses):

"Abstract information is more difficult to perceive there. Written information and symbols carry their emotional intent rather than their informational intent. Blah blah, you could scan a sheet of paper... and get feelings of love and longing from it, but you can't read it to see that it's a love letter."

Glancing through, I don't see where it mentions glass is transparent on the astral, but we both know that that is the rule.

In summary though, you see the emotional intent people leave on objects. So if I really really wanted a window to be transparent, you could get that. That doesn't mean it would be transparent any more than if I really really wanted a love letter to be transparent. Non-magical objects have no aura of their own, and so the window, by virtue of being glass, does not have an 'intention to be transparent' aura that allows you to see through it.

If you have a quote to support your stance, I really would appreciate seeing it, because it could clear up a point of contention I've had for a very long time.

(An addendum, part of the confusion I'm sure stems from:

p.173

"Your astral form has normal human sense of sight...
Written information carry their emotional intent rather than their informational intent. For example... but you can't read a street sign and know what street you're on."

The problem is that clearly you do NOT have the human sense of sight if you can't do things like read. The passage is completely fubared. Either you have the human sense of sight and can see through glass, read signs, etc. or you do not. You have the astral perception to read emotional intent, "see" life, etc. or you do not. However human sight does not read emotional intent, and astral perception cannot read, so clearly the two are separate senses and should be treated as such.)

Searching MitS and SR3 for the word "glass" fails to come up with any support for the idea that it is transparent on the astral. I don't have time right now to look more closely.

~J

Just the old SR3 FAQ
Should be the second occurance of the word "glass". But I'm guessing everybody already knew about that.

The SR3 FAQ was specific in stating that glass is clear (see-through) to Astral Perceiving/Projecting characters. Incidently, in SR4, glass is now considered opaque in that situation.

The best I can find is SR3, page 182.

"Transparent obstructions, such as glass, have no effect on most spells (see below). Because it is transparent, the spellcaster can see the target and affect it." (It doesn't specify 'while on the physical', although two paragraphs before is talking about that.

It seems to refer just to sorcery on the physical plane, but I grudgingly accept the FAQ idea of it being transparent on the astral.

It's just one of those things I figure doesn't need too much thought put into it, like how metahumans who have thermographic (which I treat as IR) vision can see through glass without impediment.

Stealth is different. You can make them make rolls for it -- because other then something as pervaisive as the Arcology, who lets the mage know that sort of thing without a roll? Just make them roll astral perception, just like any other perception test. If they can't physically see the person, they can't tell the position through astral perception. But they might be able to know they are there, by the emotional cues.

And again, this is entirely astral perception. Unless you're blind and deaf, you still have your senses of sight and hearing while astrally perceiving. So you should be able to read the street sign, or hear the conversation.

If you're astrally projecting, on the other hand, then you don't have physical senses. You have only the astral perception. Your brain might parse it into rough sense analogies, but you aren't using them. You can't read the sign because you can't see it. You can't hear the conversation because you don't have ears. You might be able to tell a great deal from emotions and so on, but you can't hear them say "Joe, you wait there with the shotgun, Jimmy, be ready with the flamethrower" -- you just sense "Plan." Possibly on a really, really good roll, 'ambush plan'.