For five I imagine you'd probably have that in physical money in your pocket. Alternatively, does anyone remember that picture from Cannon Companion in the applied simsense chapter, where the guy is going nuts on a BTL while slotting his money into a little device his dealer is holding, that displays how much money is being transferred?

As for an acquaintance/business card situation. You wouldn't use a credstick at all. You'd use your telephone/P-sec/Telecom/etc. A credstick probably wouldn't have anything to do with it.

Are you talking about your cell phone? I suppose that makes sense, but considering everything is already on your credstick, and EVERYONE has a credstick while not everyone has a $50, 1kg cell-phone or a $2,000 .5kg pocket secretary, hence the ability to exchange personal data easily would be incorporated into the credstick. Maybe another function of the $12k credstick reader?

I still suggest this issue needs to be clarified. Either we have a lot more use for paper money, paper cards, etc. (which seems counter to the cyberpunk theme and Shadowrun canon) or the credstick is a lot more like the commlink in SR4.

An unrelated note, I'm assuming some people have multiple credsticks (so if they lose one, they don't starve out in the street). I also think it'd be interesting if someone replaced the sensor from the credstick for retinal scanning with a real laser that would kill the user. Talk about a way to assassinate someone!

It would be awesome if you were a midget troll

WRT credsticks, I always envisioned them being able to perform stick-to-stick transfers—presumably via little receptors in the rounded end of the stick. Or maybe there's a little adapter that doubles as a carrying case that most people have, or something.

I certainly don't see credstick transactions going wireless, but then I usually overestimate general intelligence. Though I guess in Shadowrun doing it without a dedicated computer would mean using the broadcast encryption rules rather than the data encryption rules, which would mean much better security…

~J

so you could take 15 boxes of physical or stun damage before going unconscious (rather than 10 as in SR3), but also only 15 boxes of physical and stun (rather than 20 as in SR3).

it's not a smooth progression (2, 2, 3, 4), but for limited ranges, that's not really necessary. it allows you to take two boxes of stun without penalties, and you take less total modifiers for stun damage--but it could be argued that stun damage is overpowered anyway, in SR3.

I actually thought you were a mouse.

Well, random person-to-person transfers of money on the street would be most problematic considering how expensive a good reader is.

I always assumed that establishments like bars or restaurants or fixers would have a nice big reader there for people to slot their credsticks.

My understanding from the Genesis game was that public telecom units also have places you can stick your credstick and theoretically send money to the person you're talking to. Maybe it's part of the telecom system? I put my credstick in my end and you put yours in yours and I can send you money or vice versa?

Hmm. I'd be willing to restrict stun damage to 1.) drain, 2.) emptyhanded percussive attacks on a standing opponent, and 3.) drugs such as neurostun.

I'm not sure if simunitions aka gel rounds should do stun or small amounts of physical. I mean, I'm sure they hit differently than a punch.

What would happen if a group of bullies surrounded a fat kid and kept firing paintball markers at him from a distance of 5 feet away? Would that result in stun damage or physical? If we can answer this question it would clarify the overall question on how to handle stun versus physical.

Eh... Never been shot by a paintball from 5' away, but I have been shot repeatedly in the back of the head, neck and side of the jaw (~10-15 times) at a range of less than 10', and while that hurt like a bitch (and drew blood, in one case - I had shards of paintball shell stuck in me), you could shake that off in a matter of seconds, especially with adrenaline flowing.

At ranges of 20-30 feet, I have been shot with dozens of paintballs over the course of less than a minute without any effects I'd begin to describe as damaging - though I was wearing a face mask, naturally.

(We decided to get rid of all unused paint at the end of a day of playing, and had one last game with one rule - no shooting from less than 10', and you're in the game as long as you can take the shots. I found out I could rout people by walking straight at them while firing, Terminator-style, ignoring their shots. Until one asshole pretended to be out and shot me 10-15 times in the back of the head and neck when I stopped shooting him and turned away... Ah, youthful hijinks. Not ever playing that game again.)

Paintballs only stop being a really painful nuisance and become a weapon of any kind when fired at the face (eyes in particular, obviously) or the groin. They just don't have any mass to them, and the splatter on impact dissipates what little energy they have. They're just not a good analogue for gel rounds. (because I have no illusions about being able to stand up to a few dozen rubber bullets, or even simunitions, like that)

...had a shaman say she was going to lift a stretch van with Telekinesis. I said "go for it", TN something like 50 of 60. She rolled a 35. I said, good enough, you have the back wheels off the ground. Then I rolled to see whether it was a front or rear wheel drive. Came up rear wheel. She couldn't do anything else while sustaining the spell but it was enough to let the other characters deal with the NPCs inside.

When a 3, 4, 5, 17 (4 successes vs. TN 5) is less likely than a 5, 5, 7, 8 (also 4 successes vs. TN 5, and 2.5 times more likely)... why shouldn't it? I guess if you perfer you can make additional successes harder to obtain--going 12 over the original TN for an additional success may be a bit much, but how about 9?

Dice pool (the SR4 term) would confuse the issue but a common term in line with SR's 3 or 4 tests is a good idea. Test dice?

As for threshold or TN modifiers and modifiers to the number of 'test dice' SR applies these modifers inconsistently, it'd be taxing to change this and I prefer TN mods to dice mods - less dice to roll!

Since the 2 success threshold exclusively deals with damage the simplest way to deal with it may be to amend the condition monitor to 20 boxes and 6 or 7 steps of damage (rather than 4) such as 1 Light, 3 ?, 6 Moderate, 10 Serious, 15 Critical & 20 Deadly. There are probably many unforeseen problems that would arise with this.

As for that exploding (?) die idea, it is probably the only way a low skill attacker could present a deadly threat when they can't get the successes required to stage the damage otherwise.

No, you're wrong. Unlike any test with a threshold, successes in Searches are saved across tests—in a threshold test with a threshold of 5, five tests with one success each is five failures. A search with the same tests results in a successful finding of the file at the end of the fifth test.

I see where you're getting that interpretation, but I don't agree with it.

Someone clearly hasn't played very many RPGs, especially ones from the mid-90s and earlier

Anyway, I think we need to make a list of where exactly thresholds occur (and argue out whether or not they're really thresholds) before we can address whether to embrace or abjure them.

Edit:

If by "deadly threat" you mean "able to deal D in one attack", sure. An M Physical wound isn't a small thing, though, doubly so if magical healing is unavailable.

~J

I like the term Handful.

That's even worse. What you're saying here is, not only are there Thresholds in SR3, but there are a proto-version of SR4's Extended Tests as well! But no, I don't think we need to include Extended Tests in SR3R's description of the core mechanic; as far as I can tell the ability to "build up" successes toward a Threshold is unique to interrogation tests, and so is farly well off as an exception.

If we were really going to try to make the rules completely consistent we'd eliminate the Extended Test aspect of the interrogation method, maybe just make it into an Opposed Test, but that, as nezumi pointed out, is a bit beyond the scope of this project.

Well if we want to keep the rules substantially the same then we absolutely must keep thresholds, as, unlike say Open or proto-Extended Tests they're pretty much scattered everywhere throughout the rules. For clarity's sake though we need to learn to call a spade a spade throughout the entire document, and not suddenly start calling it a trowel in one chapter, a Kunai in another, and a shovel in a third, just to be contrary.

Absolutely. Perception and Astral Perception are, as far as I can tell, one of the few places where Thresholds are *not* used; they're simple Success Tests, with each additional succes giving you access to additional information. Thresholds are integrated so far into SR3 that these kinds of tests are almost the exception rather than the rule, however. Many tests do use Thresholds, in one form or another, even if they don't explicitly call them by that name, and it would be much simpler to just use the term--or even a synonym, I'm not picky--for the sake of clarity.

So it should be impossible for an untrained person to shoot and kill someone else with a single bullet? Whew, I'd better tell all those kids who die in accidental shootings every year.

Less flippantly, though, even without integrating thresholds further into SR3R, I'm still unsure why this is a problem, other than the fact that it's a sacred cow of the old editions. If you roll well, why shouldn't that translate into a higher degree of success?

Just so long as it maintains the connotation that Shadowrun is for people who like to sling a lot of dice.

I like the handful/fistful as it intuits the dice you are rolling for that specific test no matter their origin.