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SR3R Master Thread

Jon’s Glorious Karma Character Generation System (S3CKS)

Decking

Astral Space, Essence, and the Awakened

Backporting Gear

Cyberware

Time, Pool, and the Flow of Combat
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Decided:
(All of these are subject to reopening for discussion should there be any strong argument for a different path)

3) Skill groupings

Laser weapons are still their own skill but are now grouped with other firearms (can default to/from).

Bracers and gun canes now use Pistols. There's a reason somewhere, I'm sure of it.

Rifles and Assault Rifles now use the same skill.

Eye guns, cyberguns, etc. now use Ranged Cyber-Implant Combat. I'm not entirely happy with this and would prefer to lump them with another skill, but I can't see one that makes sense.

The Blowgun is now under Projectile Weapons

That leaves us with a final skill list of:

Quickness

<begin linked skill block>

Pistols
Submachine Guns
Rifles
Shotguns
Laser Weapons

<end linked skill block>

Ranged Cyber-Implant Combat


Strength

Throwing Weapons
Projectile Weapons

<begin linked skill block>

Heavy Weapons
Spray weapons

<end linked skill block>


Intelligence

<begin linked skill block>

Gunnery
Launch Weapons

<end linked skill block>

4) Armor-defeating rounds of all shapes and sizes

Standard armor-piercing rounds are only available in Heavy Pistol and heavier varieties. Antivehicular rounds are only available in rifle-class or larger weapons, and do not have bronze cores. While this generally does allow rounds to show up in weapons that might benefit from them in real life, it does avoid some ridiculous situations (like the famous hold-out with AV rounds wielded by an adept taking down APCs).
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In progress:

1) Shotguns are your new god

Now, not to say that I don't enjoy having ten successes on a 2S attack on everyone in a cone ninety meters long and nine meters wide at the far end, but it's absolutely absurd. What do we do with shotguns?

2) Light pistols are worthless

I'd argue that hold-outs still have a place due to their sky-high conceals, but Light pistols… are not much more concealable than heavy pistols, and orders of magnitude weaker. One suggestion has been to make them more on the order of 9L rather than 6L. Opinions or other suggestions?

5) Flechette Rounds: what do we do with them?

Do we change them? Remove them entirely? Leave them as is? Leave them as is but rename them?

6) Armor Layering

If nothing else, we need to clarify this. I'm fine with the status quo of only-top-two-layers-count, with the second at half value, but I'm also open to suggestions. This one will vary in terms of proper approach based on what else we do with weapons.

7) Binocular Vision Works Backwards

I propose that henceforth monocular vision shall give no penalties to ranged combat. When the melee combat section is opened, a proposal will go up to assign a penalty for monocular vision to it. This is both more in keeping with reality (binocular vision only helps within 25-30 feet anyway, and at that range you don't need to know how close something is to shoot it—on the other hand, how close that fist/knife/whatever is is very important information) and serves to encourage single-eyed characters, as ranged deficiencies are generally more crippling than melee issues for non-close/general-combat characters.
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Here it is, the one you've all been waiting for. Ranged Combat is specifically focusing around firearms and projectile weapons in combat, and the skills for them. I may address things like weapon weights/costs/etc. here, but it will take a back seat to issues like damage, skills, soak tests, etc. With that said, let's get this party started. Feel free to suggest issues in addition to commenting on those I put forward, and also to ask any questions.

With that in mind, let's get started.

1) Shotguns are your new god

Now, not to say that I don't enjoy having ten successes on a 2S attack on everyone in a cone ninety meters long and nine meters wide at the far end, but it's absolutely absurd. What do we do with shotguns?

2) Light pistols are worthless

I'd argue that hold-outs still have a place due to their sky-high conceals, but Light pistols… are not much more concealable than heavy pistols, and orders of magnitude weaker. One suggestion has been to make them more on the order of 9L rather than 6L. Opinions or other suggestions?

3) Skill groupings

SR2 had "Firearms". SR3 divides rifles and assault rifles, where it's more sensible to divide rifle semi-auto and rifle automatic fire (yes, having two skills apply to AR. No, I'm not suggesting it, but it makes more sense than what we have right now). What's the happy medium?

That ought to get people started.

~J

1) I liked the idea of an inversion of the burst staging rules. When the base power of an attack gets to -1, drop the damage level by one and up the power back to 2, repeat as needed.

2) Either blend them into heavier hold-outs, or 8L as the standard starting damage (before design improvements).

3) I have yet to decide if it's too broad of categories, but "One hander", "Two handed" and "Heavy" may work. Pistols and SMGs would be the one handed, rifles and shotguns would be the twohanded, and heavy weapons would still be anything that should be fired from a turret that you are using as troll-portable. Between those three, lasers, grenades and sprays, ranged combat is about as hard to master as melee combat (unarmed, edged, clubs, polearms) and magic (sorcery, conjuring, drekloads of karma into spells). My thanks to whoever suggested this one in a different argument about ranged weapon skills long ago.

i think any firearm that does less than M base is a travesty of epic proportions.

Just a couple off the cuff idea's from someone who knows nothing about guns in real life..

Shotties, i have no idea, i had something, but decided to not make myself look like a complete fool.

Pistols, eh, for true hold outs, i don't see a need for them. Yes, while they MAY exist in the WOLRD at large, i don't see them being used by shadowrunners. Bump the conceal on regular light pistols, and leave it as is.

Skills, while "firearms" is obviously too vague, i agree the current groupings are a bit haphazzard as well.

Kage, I can only reasonably conclude from this thread that you hate me.

On the Light pistol thing, i don't think it's an issue with the light pistol, more with the heavy pistol. IMO a average joe wearing a Vest with plates Vs a Heavy pistol should take a bruise or a cracked rib with a basic hit (Light or Moderate wound) more likely a Light. Vs a Power of 9 its not going to happen, where as VS a power of 7 it's got a good chance to be reduced to light, Very likely in fact.

yeah. heavy pistols are god damn insane. a pistol of any stripe should not pierce more armor than a rifle.

All pistols should have a 8 or 9m damage code. The difference in hold out - light - and Heavy pistols should be wait, concealability, and ammo capacity.


Maybe the Hold outs could go 6m just to replicate .22's or something. But they should all do Moderate damage. Pistols kill people, even .22s. And in SR it would take an insanely skilled shooter to kill someone using a gun with a 6L damage code.

i'd say all pistols and SMGs should have a 5-7M damage code, unless you're also going to bump assault rifles up to 10-11M, and sport/battle rifles up to 10-11S. but even that doesn't work unless you also bump up armor values. otherwise, you end up with SR3's unrealistic setup, where pistols blast through armor specifically designed to stop pistol rounds. big pistols would get up into 8-9M, but those would be special cases.

1) Get rid of Choke, replace it by TN bonuses/reduced TN penalties at ranges beyond Short, and lowered Damage Codes to go with that. If you want a dozen or so decent ways to deal with this, just search for "choke".

2) I have to agree with mfb here. Anything meant to be a defense handgun should at least do Moderate (unless you somehow also make ammunition types which increase Damage Level a reasonable alternative), while handguns penetrating better than rifles is bullshit. 5M-7M is a pretty good range to encompass most handguns and SMGs humans would use in combat. If you feel like it, I'm sure I could dig up a couple of dozen threads about this very issue.

3) I'm a proponent of a simple compromise: only a few firearms-skills, like Hanguns - Long Arms - Launch Weapons - Gunnery. Again, plenty of old threads around dealing with this.

Big pistols often use the same ammunition as assault rifles; however, assault rifles usually do more damage because you fire them in bursts. Good armor (5 ballistic) will allow an average beat cop (4-5 body) to stage a heavy pistol (9M) down to light damage without much difficulty, and it's not too likely to be staged up with an "average" pistol skill of 3-4. Shadowrunners, however, tend to be much, much scarier.

On the issue of skills, I think that assault rifles and SMGs should be in one category. They're both fired somewhat similarly in many respects; many even use the same ammo. (If I'm not mistaken, both the AK-47 and some versions of the Uzi are chambered for the same rounds.) Rifles and (slug-firing) shotguns are also pretty similar in many respects; however, I personally think that they should not be grouped, if only to preserve game balance.
Light pistols should, in my opinion, have a damage code of M. Without armor, a light pistol can easily take down an opponent with one or two hits; large slugs may do more damage, but I personally think the difference is better represented by the greater difficulty in resisting damage.
Also, the claymore should be a sword, not a polearm.

still not seeing a problem, kage. big creatures are largely immune to do take less damage from smaller rounds.

big pistols are not commonly chambered in 5.56, 5.45, 7.62, or any other common AR cartridge. it's possible, but such a weapon would largely be a collector's piece--you won't see them in combat.

Maybe it would add complexity but to bad there isn't a way to have a duel damage code.

7m against armored opponents, 7S against un armored. That would be a way of representing the deadliness of Firearms while still preserving balance.

It's not a problem. Departing from the disastrous clusterfuck that is SR3 is pretty hard to get wrong. Ok, so maybe SR4 will beat the odds and actually get it very wrong and be worse— you certaily seem to think so, and not without reason— but SR3 is not exactly a holy cow. It's very largely a pile of shit.

Kage, I still think you did this because you hate me.

The thing is, in RL AR's are powerful because of the chambered ammo and velocity at which they are shot. A M-16 has just as much killing power with the 1st shot as it does with the 3rd. Some how it magically does more damage because it hit you with a burst seems wrong. I think the idea was to reduce die rolling (rolling for each bullet) but I think they screwed it up some where along the way.

To me an AR should have a 8-10 S damage code.

depends on the AR, Shadow. i think 8-10M for a 5.56 or 5.45 round is a'ight, but 7.62 should probably be 9-11S. the easiest way to reflect that is to not class 7.62 rifles as "ARs" in SR terms--call them battle/sport rifles.

Excessive deadliness in what is ultimately a game system is not always a Good Thing™.

I would settle for a realistic amount of Deadliness. When you are walking down the street and punk pulls the pistol, you are afraid.

And with a sensibly designed hitloc system, I'd be pretty worried about M damage in even incompetent hands, rather than SR's current system of magically armored faces. Jacking up damage levels does bad things to the system and creates more problems than it fixes. Serious damage is exceedingly generous for anything in 5.56x45mm.

Also, I think I should point out to you that SR may be a very poorly designed game as a cohesive whole, but what does hold together paints a fairly distinct picture that looks a lot more like Ethan Hunt than Black Hawk Down. Action movie silliness was very often intended.

I personally think that the old system of simply rolling seperate shots was much better; however, it took an absurdly long time to actually get anything done. It also makes hitting people much easier, in a manner similar to real life.

So lets make a set of terminal balistics rules. There really is no way that you can make a rule system to accuratly describe what happens to a bullet after impact. a 123g 6.5x55 FMJ does very little damage because it does not loose very much energy on a small target. however that same bullet hitting a troll would so a lot of damage as it was reflected around his internal organs by his bone lacing. people have been "dead" and still manage to fight for some time (generaly chem fueled but not always)
I don't think that holdouts are too broken, to do damage you pretty much would have to go for a head shot anyway, and that puts you to 4-6M or up to 9M if you use HP ammo, plus staging and that gets pretty deadly. I do think there should be a greater range of power (lots of derringers are available in the .45 ACP to .50 AE range)
so whats so special about lazer weapons that they need a new skill? just roll some dice and burn ammo, you want realistic combat try paintball, (those guys argue all the time about its realism, and they only have to deal in reality) enough of my smart-assituse for a while

The first part was more that the bullet does not impart much energy on the body as it does not slow down much (mostly due to shape). the second part was partly sarcasm /smartassedness/ mocking CSI which seems to like the bouncing bullet

With the growing prevalence of OpenRPG, perhaps it would make more sense to use the old-fashioned "seperate shots" method of resolving combat. After all, if resolving attacks and damage only requires the push of a button, why not use six more clicks? It also covers hitting seperate targets (you often lose shots) and greatly improves the balance between burstfire and full-auto.

It would definitly make the "short burst" more powerful

The problem being of course not everyone does use OpenRPG, whatever that is, and some people even like to roll dice by hand once in a while.

Anyway, another thing to consider about pistols doing low-power (5-6) damage is that in the 2060s there are trolls, and have been for some 40 years. Gunmakers will likely have responded to that and tried to pack larger bullets into pistols, in order to make them actually meaningful against such behemouths.

Hold out pistols: 4M. Short barrel length leads to drastically reduced muzzle velocity for these bad boys. The short sight radius and awkardly small grip contributes to shorter range. Nevertheless, they ought to do a base moderate wound b/c anyone can stage. The power's at 4 because armor is still highly effective against them. Note that on this logic, I'd consider .38 special fired from a 2" barrel to be basically a hold out. It's on the minimum end for a defensive handgun these days anyhow. 4L can be relegated to those holdouts that fire .22 short or .25 ACP.

Light pistols: 6M. Same calibres as holdout pistols (in the 9mm/.38 range), but a full length barrel gets you more muzzle velocity and thus penetration. The presence of a full sized grip and proper sight radius gives you the improved range you seek. 6L can be relegated to those light pistols that fire .380 auto or .32 ACP.

Heavy pistols: 7M. Slight advantage over the lights in terms of armor penetration. The true benefit of the heavy pistol is its range. I'd consider these bad boys to be based on current high powered cartridges such as .45 ACP, 10mm Auto, .357 magnum, etc. The increased power doesn't represent the ability of the bullet to penetrate modern body armor reliably, rather it represents blunt trauma transmitted through the armor by the increased mass of the bullet.

Assault Rifles: 8M. Its got a combination of penetration and wounding. Note that this is for 3/4 power rounds as fired by modern assault rifles: 7.62x39mm, 5.56mm, etc. Full power rifle rounds don't have an edge in penetration, but they have a higher base damage level ("S") because their increased size lends itself to greater up front tissue/bone damage. Thus, an "assault rifle" modeled on the M-14, G-3, or FN-FAL would probably do 7S damage.

Other weapons would all do similar damage.

As for skills: pistols, assault weapons (covering the assault rifles and SMGs), rifles and shotguns. That's four skills instead of five. Alternatively, fold assault rifles into rifles.

A note on body armor in shadowrun. Given the high concealability value of most SR body armor, it's clear that they mean this stuff to look A LOT less conspicuous than current policy/military body armor. Thus, it makes sense that even a weak handgun may have a chance against it. For everyday wear, you need comfort and concealability. The armor may lose reliability in that trade off, it would certainly lose the ability to handle blunt trauma well. Also, it would be subject to a lot of wear and tear. Kevlar, for example, is quite susceptible to the elements. It loses tensile strength when exposed to water and can degrade under UV rays. Modern body armor systems solve this by putting a waterproof layer around the actual kevlar. SR armorers may be using different materials and techniques.

As for shotguns: spread should not exceed 1 meter. Most sporting shotguns are designed to put their "pattern" into one square yard at the limit of their range. Besides that, 12 gauge buckshot shells contain about 9 pellets, each about .33 calibre. They can't provide coverage like a miniature claymore. I say leave the gigantic shot cones and adjustable choke behind. Instead, grant a flat target number modifier. At short range the modifier is nice for hitting a fast and small target At longer ranges, the modifier helps offset the chance of missing but not as much because now half your pattern has gone wide. Shotgun pellets can lose damage over range categories, instead of obsessively tracking ranges. -2 power per range category ought to do (thus T-250 goes 10S/8S/6S/4S). Ineffectiveness against body armor at range is the real problem with a shotgun, unarmored targets are still screwed to a considerable distance.

Given the generally reduced power levels I advocate, it's probably a good idea to do something about armor layering.

I am all for rifles and assault rifles (at the least, maybe even shotguns too) being folded into a single skill.

One of my favorite firearms-skill breakdowns had pistols (including some SMGs) in one skill, rifles (including assault rifles, shotguns, and some other SMGs) in another skill, and "full auto" as a skill all it's own (if you plink on semi-auto with an M-16, you use rifles. If you spray and pray, you use full auto -- ditto with uzis, MP5s).

So in a way it was just "shoulder weapons," "handguns," and "blazing merrily away."

Incidentally, I do want to mention that realism isn't my primary concern. Any improvements that can be made in the course of changing things to affect balance are all well and good, but I'm leaning heavily towards not wanting to change anything that isn't unbalanced or unnecessarily complex just to make it more realistic, though I do admit that the idea of Trolls being all but immune to handguns is very attractive to me.

And I'm about to fall asleep on the keyboard, so more later.

~J