I think the answer you're really looking for is, "No, Critias. Even though you've decided to act like a grown up and argue with my suggestion and refute my logic, I don't want a shot at the title. LOLOMGROFLMAO! I'm gonna keep ignoring what you say and just act like a little jerk forever!"

You think dodging isn't important, you don't see how vital it is to the feel of Shadowrun combat (and it's survivability), and you refuse to go into any more detail about the Blakkierun Combat System ™. Explain to me, again, how this makes this side the loser of any argument? Just refute some of my logic, if you can. Feel free to be as insulting as you want while in the middle of doing so, but cowboy up and give it a try would'ja?

Or, at the very least, explain to everyone a little more detail about Blakkierun 4. Show us that you know what you're talking about by doing MORE than trash-talking SR3 (by expanding on your oh-so-hot-topic suggestions for SR4).

Of course not. You are mad. Mouth foaming, crazy dog, ranting mad. Even if you were able to grasp an idea you'd want to ignore it.

"What's that, Blakkie? Timmy fell down the well? And the basic damage multiplier for a heavy pistol, by default, is x2? Wow, I think that's a little steep. I'm not sure that multiplying successes by anything for damage leaves enough room between weapons to differentiate between them, while simultaneously keeping the combat from being absurdly lethal. Remember, it's important to keep weapons (even with the same class) different enough from one another that dikote, bursts, or special ammo can still have room to effect, but to also not increase your damage multiplier by too much, too fast!"

"Unarmed/Light Pistol/Knife/SMG: x1
Dikoted Knife/Sword/Heavy Pistol/Assault Rifle: x2
Dikoted Sword/LMG/Shotgun: x3
Sniper Rifle/Grenade: x4"

"Really Blakkie? Did I hear you right? Golly. That sure does sound dangerous. And burst fire kicks it up by +1 per three shots fired? Really? Wow. How's flechette ammo or EX fit in? How many health levels does someone have with your combat system, in order to make it possible to die from a single attack, but also possible to survive one? What about spells? Or called shots? How do explosions stage?"

So. Should I just keep making your perfect system (or, at least, your "better in every way than SR3 system") up, or are you going to, I dunno, back up your arguments by sharing some information with the rest of us? You keep picking on SR3 and praising the (imaginary) SR4, but you don't have anything to show us about Blakkierun. If it's so much better than this horrible pile of poop we all call SR3 (that you keep claiming we're "stuck in," when we try to argue with you), why don't you share more with us? When I expressed my frustration a few pages back, that there was just too much to talk about, and then when later you mentioned there was "a lot of threads within this thread," I just decided to pick one such sub-thread and run with it. Right now I'm curious about how your hypothetical damage/combat resolution (expanding on the one without dodges) is so great. So sell us on it. Don't just bash Shadowrun, sell Blakkierun.

It reads to me that he created a new set of rules to replace [edit]parts of[/edit] the existing ones for Magicians. In these rules all the magic skills are accessed by Metamagic. So character creation building has been changed around for Mages. To build something equivalent to a canon Magician you take the required metamagics to get the skills you want.

Of course you have the benefit of access to the full document. So is that about right?

P.S. Do you have a link for the archive? Or is this a private or semi-private archive that the files are in?

So what if you don't agree that there was a "problem" (or even just room for improvement?) with the one or two particular example problems they gave?

I think what you need to keep in mind that it appears that they are laying the groundwork robust enough for Fanpro to extend. Customers can still make use of the structure, but customers have more lattitude building extensions since many (such as yourself) tend to be more tolerate new special case mechanisms and deveations from canon when it is their own house rules. If Fanpro did that sort of stuff (again) then we'd end up right back to new and overriding rule mechanisms sprawled over multiple books.

These problems are hard sells individually since so many SR people have grown accustomed to rolling their own and making special rules lots of specialized one-of rules. Hey the canon supplements do it, so why not?

About nine posts below your post (back on page 9, by standard page size) are my thoughts on why it was a good move to limit the examples to the other 3 Q/As. If you look at those 3 answers again you'll see one or two imply an possible area of concern for lack of a robust mechanism to support extensions with a minimal of new rules. Why do i say this? Because they appear to be adding such support in those locations. So we have adding traditions, which is a definate area, and metamagics reusing core Skills instead of spawning new Skills. The second one might also be an example of eliminating unnecessary complexity. Even the Q/A about splitting the base Skills of Sorcery and Conjuring is likely tied into the Metamagic support, but also it allows spreading around the attributes links among magic skills so you don't have one Sorcery attribute and one Conjuring attribute when you factor in goal two (Skill+Attribute as a die source is going to be common across all Skills).

I never said there was any given person that said that -everything- not on the list was gone. The problem was logic that roughly followed this: The example most important to me should have been important enough to Rob to include, otherwise it must be gonzo. No, this wasn't everyone. But oddly i found the reaction to this FAQ more subdued. Was it because it was better authored? I suspect partly so. Of course it could also be less people hanging around? Oh, and to let you know up front no i'm not going to go sift through month old posts for examples for you. Remember it, don't remember it, never were here and don't believe me. *shrug* Take a look around and tell me that it is such a stretch for the people here.

So Rob gave an outline of the guiding principles of what they were doing, and basically said that all of magic is fair game for save for the feel of the game and Magic in it. They also gave 3 glimpses of the design goals in action. To correct myself from before, Rob did risk a small 3-item incomplete list in the last paragraph of the last Answer, but the items seem to have been reasonably well chosen and camoflagued by everything before it.

How critical is it really which problem label they hang on what, compared to what they replace the pieces with? You'll (potentially) be paying for and playing the parts they design, not the reasons that they had for removing the old. To that end you have 2 or 3 examples.

P.S. Yes, generally Ellery posts a cut or two above....some others. I have even specifically mentioned this at one point. But spotless as the driven snow? Hah. Actually maybe you should do a quick self-check too? You certainly were laying the on pretty thick. So you can save the civics lecture till your own house is spotless.

It's borderline whether it's a change or just an addition. You add a new rule which changes what kind of Awakened characters you can create. It's a far more major change than anything possible within canon SR3 rules (which freelancers has to consider).

That was too obvious to mention. My point is that while it isn't impossible to introduce new concepts in SR3 magic, it is hard to do it without contradicting canon.

Well, if you change the rules, it's not the same rules any more. And if the current rules already tries to cover the things you want to add, but does it poorly you have to change the rules. MitS did cover a lot of things it shouldn't have, and did it poorly. (p24-26 is my prime example). So: No, that is not true for any system of rules.

Nah, SR3 has exploitable errors, inconsistant rules between some disciplines, and rules bloat in may areas. I love the game and the universe. I am used to the mechanic (and still learn new things about it every week).

SR4 will be a hard sell to the hardcore fans here, and all our hopes are tied into our personal agendas.

Combative posts aside, the discussion here is a way to (hopefully) let the members of the dev team who visit here know about our hopes and fears. Hopefully it helps us get an end product we can enjoy as much as we have SR1-3.

that goes both ways, you know. i don't take your arguments seriously because you've shown, in previous debates with Ellery, that you're likely to respond with "LOL" to a valid point.

You noticed? See, we thought if we gave them wings, it might be more easily accepted. Everybody needs a few more winged monkeys, right?

Yeah, because SR3 didn't contradict anything from SR1 or SR2 with regards to magic, except grounding, astral travel through earth, astral travel through mundane biomass, Anchoring, Adept Improved Reflexes ...

Well it's a completely new system from a company that has never made an original system before. With a few notable exceptions they have done a fine job on adding to and modifying the SR3 universe. So I leaned to trusting them... that was until the FAQ's started coming out and the purposeful misrepresentation of the SR4 system started.

Um, so being able to swap out, say, Warding, for, say, Quickening as an edge is a bigger change than adding all metamagics, free spirits, watchers, voodoun, path magic, and so on? I don't think so. Does it make the game different? Yes! Do additions make the game different? Yes! That doesn't mean this is a change to the core rules. It's just another extension that works fine within the SR3 framework, like many others do.

Are you claiming that adding spells, adept abilities, spriits, and so on, contradict canon? Or that they don't, and they're all fine, but they're not new concepts?

So that I don't put words in your mouth, could you tell me what you think is poor about that section?

Sure. But how is that more modular than rolling skill vs. variable TN to get effects? Given that you can change TN, #dice rolled, and successes needed with the old system, and you can change only the # of dice rolled and successes needed in the new one, the old system was more flexible. So this doesn't really answer the question of how to make things more flexible and unified. You give some generic suggestions later on--how the same mechanic can be applied to everything--but this is true of SR3 as well. Which leaves me to continue to wonder what about SR3's magic system they disliked so much. Spellcasting works the same way for everyone; conjuring almost so (the main difference being that one is immediate and one takes hours, so a difference in rules is necessary). How do you get much more modular than that? Spirits are just another type of spell, now? (Or spells are a type of spirit?) So I more-or-less agree with much of what you said, but unfortunately it doesn't really help understand what the FAQ allows us to conclude about the SR4 magic system.

It reads to me like you replace abilities that canon mages have with metamagics at a cost of extra build points. Doesn't it read that way to you? How is that more of a "change" to the core system than any of the other edges and flaws (where you can pick up ambidexterity, gain or lose affinity for specific skills, etc.)?

The document is available, but that's beside the point. Plenty of information has been presented here to understand what is going on, if you read the posts. You don't even need to read between the lines, really--the lines say what is going on.

But even D&D acknowledges that this is a stupid way to do this when it comes to magical attacks delivered by touch. So you have a weird fragmented mechanic--one DC for touch attacks, and one DC for damaging attacks. And if you swing a sword dripping with burning acid, then...? Whoops, the mechanic is broken.

That's the whole reason why dodge and soak / resistance to damage need to be separate. Sometimes it doesn't matter whether you're hurt less because you're tough as nails, or you were only struck a glancing blow. Either way, you're mostly fine. But sometimes it makes a difference. It's hard to dodge 50 bullets at once, but it doesn't matter to the side of a tank whether the bullets hit one at a time or 50 at a time--they still aren't going to do much. Regardless of how much armor you have, it's hard to resist being hit by a high-velocity explosive 30mm shell. But if it doesn't actually hit you, you might be in pretty good shape.

So dodge and soak are different. If they're separate, a lithe elf might be good at avoiding fire from a known sniper, while his armored troll buddy would be toast...but against a bunch of thugs with light pistols, the elf would be in big trouble, while the troll would wade in and take the pests out. If they're collapsed, there's no distinction. And there's no good way to handle thing like contact poisons, touch-delivered spells, paintballs, and other events where being hit is not the same as being missed but not being injured by the physical impact.

You know, this discussion is following exactly the same pattern as the soak vs. dodge discussion. Maybe there's a fundamental lesson here--ergo, that blakkie is unconcerned about accuracy. Wit involves intelligence, clever thinking, fast responses, and humor. Brevity is just short.

The R3 rules could be made a lot shorter by explaining them incompetely. That would give worse results--but it's the fastest way to make them shorter. And speed is good, so that must be the way to go! Or maybe not.

There's a reason why the quote is "Brevity is the soul of wit." It requires some wits to understand why: the word "soul" conveys that something is central, important; that without it, you will not be alive--but there is more than just a soul. And this is true: brief, snappy, insightful comments capture the mind in the way that long-winded, expanded sentences--such as this one--do not. But it does not mean that something becomes witty just because it is short. "I am Ellery" is short. It's not particularly witty, though. "No more nukes!" is also brief but not witty.

Well, don't forget all the cool magical edge "knacks" you could pick up in the SR2Comp. One of my favorite story-only PCs was an Adept who could cast Improved Invisibility. But the spirit ones were cool. It's a shame that they somehow disappeared from existence in SR3. I wonder what you call something like that? You know, when you say something is so and then turn around and say it isn't? There should be a word for that.

Well, it's also provably false. But since when have such niceties as that ever stopped anyone here?

BTW, that was not the end of the discussion. The end of the discussion was my "*blinks*" post, because when I read blakkie's response I was literally IRL speechless.

Eh, I'd go with two words--it's a little more charitable.

Flip-flop.

It's the addition of a mechanism rule. Notice that he created a new mechanism for the character build that involves metamagic purchase at character creation.

Some of the spells added are fine. But some of them redefine things like the meaning and use of Force or what a success on the Sorcery test means. This is really about rules sprawl, where related and interacting rules get spread over a number of books.

Do not confuse rules with stats. Rules are things like gaming procedures, and definiton of terms used i the game. The rules also include the definition of the parameters that describe items, spells, characters, abilties, and so on. Stats on the other hand are information about a specific instance of things defined in the rules.

Two choices, assuming there is enough acid to do damage by contact only. The first is to force the attacker to choose before rolling what kind of attack (touch or normal) will be attempted. This is the one that is usally suggested and chosen, mainly to avoid rule abuse with touch range spells. The second is to compare the roll first to the normal AC. If it hits damage is sword + acid. If it doesn't hit then compare to touch AC. If that hits acid only.

Personally i've ruled the later, and not see much if any abuse of it by players.

So exactly how do you handle an acid coated sword in SR3 rules? Rules that ignore the possibility all together is better than what you describe as "broken"?

BTW i'm not suggesting that D20 would be a good thing for SR (i think the opposite). Nor am i suggesting that SR combat accomedate for touch-only attacks. The SR world is such that the cases you could justify touch-only are fairly rare. There just aren't enough acid coated swords to make the extra weight in the rules worthwhile. :^)

No prob them.

That said my idea for reducing it to one roll did NOT have armor combined with dodge. It didn't generate a die roll though because it's damage reduction was a constant based on it's quality.

Ah yes, beacons of intellect that you are. You speak words of Truth like unto God. But wait, what is this mention of a "coded mantra" i made? Nah, that is nothing. Carry on with your doggedly literal, narrowly scoped readings. Afterall that is theOne True Way.

As i pointed out in that thread, and incidentally also early in this thread, the LOL was NOT a response to a "point", valid or not. It was a response [edit]more of a reaction really[/edit] to Ellery's posturing fluff at the end of his post. Like begat like. Look back to that thread if you wish. It also wasn't the only thing in my post.

At times alot. Then i'll be too busy to spit for 2 month straight. That's the nature of my job.

It changes the power. Maybe you can find where this is done? Changing the power is a good quick compromise. It makes armor less effective against the attack, which is exactly what you want.

If you want to do more work for cases where even a change in power isn't good enough, you could have two damage codes on one item.

Huh? See above.

Right, which isn't all that different from any other edge.

Okay, then what's wrong with that?

BTW, nice to see it only took five days for someone to actually describe what a "legacy system" could be. Shame it was lost in all this other crap.

you're correct, it wasn't in response to a point. it was a response to a request for better examples, since the examples you'd laid out had been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt to be non-exemplary of the point you were trying to make. the fact that you took it as posturing pretty much invalidates any claim you might try to make on lucidity or the ability to prosecute a coherent debate.

Blakkie has a gift.

Ah, i see.

...in Ellerys opinion. Which is what i was laughing about. The problem really was i didn't mention the specific sub-topic Ellery wanted, so it would be like me going to a Baskin Robins and having the staff read out each flavour to me and me laugh at they saying that flavour sucks until they got to the flavour i wanted. A post or two later Ellery got to the [edit]subtopic Ellery desired[/edit] and we were off....except for Critias who veered off into stalkerland and continued "point" misidentification. Perhaps you can go back and reread? I've already explained there.

If Ellery's didn't mean it to have a riddiculing tone, then i suggest it was poorly chosen words.

The summer drilling season is starting to ramp up, so it'll be any day now that i'll be swamped. I'm thinking i'll probably be dropping off here soon for a month or two. Or maybe until late August. Or maybe till everyone has decided whether they are going to stick with SR3, move on to SR4, or just stop playing SR. Or maybe until people stop ranting about how Fanpro just isn't listening to them and is ruining SR.....which i guess would be forever?

I've come to see the wisdom in Patrick's choice. I should have seen it when Crimsondude mentioned that his every momment was spent loathing how Fanpro was destroying SR. Why all the hate? That might be a clue.

Exactly, you lump the blade and the acid together as one ignoring that the acid on the side of the blade might hit but the edge of the sword not. *shrug* Close enough approximation for me, but by your standards?

Or you create two damage codes???? WTF is there a two damage code weapon in SR? You attack twice, or you attack once and resolve each weapon? Or you pick which you are attacking with, acid or blade?

Ummm. This is where i give up on you. Enjoy being 'right' that the SR3 magic system rocks and shouldn't be changed and SR4 can't be a worthwhile improvement on it.

Buh-bye.

Shock gloves, right off the top of my head.

Ah yes. Right, that annomoly. There we have it. Both systems handle it....sort of. Shock gloves you have to hit as hard as a punch. Acid coated stuff i guess you have to hit as hard in SR3 to do the damage. So yes, the SR3 rules ignore contact-only, which is close enough approximation for me.

Yes, please don't try to convince me.

Just like you don't need to try convince me that my guess at what combat could be like where dodging is separate from armor would be an enormous insane mistake because dodging has to separate from armor.

EDIT: Oh, and don't bother either trying to convince me that SR3 doesn't combine dodge and body successes. Yeah, the the fixed begining damage of a weapon makes checking dodge first a requirement. But get rid of it and ....

Buh-bye.

He does seem to manage to draw the bile-filled ire of several people for, near as I can tell, no good reason. I read Ellery and blakkie's argument in that other thread, and I was completely mystified why so many people took time out of their day to tar and feather him for it, but then again I saw why blakkie was laughing so maybe I'm "batshit insane" too.

Rory Blackwind--or whatever his name was, that guy from the levitate thread who couldn't make an actual argument to save his life but insisted on yelling at everyone who pointed that out--didn't draw such lightning on his head, and he was several times worse than blakkie is. Not only that, but this irrational hatred is starting to contaminate the whole subforum, as people keep coming back to that damn "LOL" comment, even in threads where no such comment is being made. It's weird, like he's being unconsciously targetted or something. I'd bet that if all of his other posts were changed to a different nick he wouldn't be drawing half the insults he is now.

It's my posting style. It's reflective, and people don't like themselves.