I am looking to create some house rules to make SR4 a less complicated/faster game (less dice rolling and time between player turns). The 1st house rules I would like some input on is reducing the number of skills. I know some people will hate this idea and that is fine. But after playing D&D 4.0, I am now of mind that less is more. The thing I am most interested is placement of certain skills in their proper group.

House Rule:

Less Skills: There are no Skill Groups. Rather, the Old Skill Groups are now the Active Skills and the old Active Skills are the Specializations. Furthermore, some of the old Active Skill that did not belong to any Skill Groups will now be included within an appropriate Active Skill as Specializations. The rest will be separate Active Skills.

Current Active Skills include (additional Specializations):

Athletics (Diving, Escape Artist, Parachuting)
Biotech
Close Combat
Conjuring
Cracking
Demolitions
Dodge
Electronics (Forgery)
Exotic Melee Weapon-must be taken individually for each
Exotic Ranged Weapon-must be taken individually for each
Firearms
Heavy Weapons (Gunnery)
Influence (Instruction, Intimidation, each Etiquette is a separate specialization)
Mechanic (Armorer, Locksmith)
Occult (Arcana, Assessing, Astral Combat, Enchanting)
Outdoors
Perception
Piloting-must be taken individually
Sorcery
Stealth
Tasking

Yes, since there are fewer skills to spend BP on, characters in general will be more powerful.

Anyone have further input for further reductions?

edit: made some changes to reflect below

Occult (Arcana, Assensing, Astral Combat, Enchanting)
Awareness (Perception, Dodge)
Presentation (Intimidation, Instruction)

hmm, I forgot Arcana and Enchanting. Hmm, I am thinking you are right to have arcana and enchanting under occult. i was also thinking that there should be another skill called Astral or something like that and include Assessing and Astral Combat. My only concern with that is a magician, if he/she wants all relevant skills must invest in 4 separate skills (Sorcery, Conjuration, Occult, Astral).

Thanks for the input!

So, essentially, you're going back to 1st Edition skill groupings, yes?

Not a big fan of them myself, but whatever loads your magazine.

-Siege

Mages are karma sinks by design, otherwise they outstrip chromed characters much too quickly. I don't think forcing them to learn more skills is a bad thing.

Just wants to warn you: D20 gives you cancer.

Lars

Could be dangerous but interesting.

Anyone care to generate some characters using the above skill lists so we can see cost differences and power level differences in action? Say a Street Sam, Hacker, Face, and a Mage?

Well, first thing, make sure this is what your players want. Otherwise you might spend all the time working on the rules just to find out two sessions in that absolutely despise it. It's easy for a GM to take his players feelings for granted. For instance, as a player I loved third edition shadowrun the most out of all the games I played, I like taking time to build the characters I play, and taking the time to actually play them. I despise playing D&D, there just to little variation in it to me, and I think the change here would probably ruin a Shadowrun game for me.

That said, if you group likes it, everything looks all right. I'd start them out with less building points though, you'll probably want to tweak around with the number until you're sure that sams and mages are on the same power level. Likewise, you'll need to look at the karma/money ratio you usually play with and make sure to change it appropriately.

I got a little bored and decided to convert a few of the sample characters to this system.









This is a considerable power boost. I'd consider knocking off as much as 50 BP for a standard build, but I honestly think this needs some playtesting before any meaningful numbers can be hammered down.

While we are out deep in the marches of Houseruleia, what about taking a page from trait based games letting people make there own skill groups that reflect the skills they aquired at a given aspect or time period in there life. Something like

Mr. Clean was born to SINless orcs in the barrens. He feed himself by scavenging junkyards for electronics
Rank 2: stealth, perception, dodge, hardware
By his early teens he met Atum, a BTL dealer, who recognizes Mr. Clean's natural charisma and mentored him in hustling
Ranks 4: Con, Etiquette, Negotiation, Intimidation
Someone in Atum's crew sells them out a syndicate and get's almost everyone kill. Mr. Clean flees out into NAN with in a stolen car. He meet up with some survivalists and adopts them as his new crew
Ranks 4: Survival, Shadowing, Long Arms, Pilot Ground Craft,

Thanks for the great work/input Zaranthan!!!

Thinking of having the specialization of Etiquette broken into specific types of Etiquette, like Street Etiquette, etc...

Does look like mages get the shorter end of the stick, but from what said, that may not be a bad thing.

you are correct in that some play testing needs to be done. but i don't think the players will complain if they get a free power boost.