This question is going to require a major philosophical choice, and as such is probably going to take me a while. Possibilities range from the particularly abstract (eliminating layering entirely, save in a few cases) to the moderately (encumbrance values or CP penalties by armor rating) to the theoretically less so (encumbrance values plus weights, etc.).

This will not be an easy one. If anyone has suggestions for methods or arguments for why a given method should be implemented, now is the time to offer them.

~J

*quick kick*
To recap, these are the points Kagetenshi has brought up he and others who are contributing to this project would like to see revised.


1) Shotguns are your new god

<In progress>

2) Pistols and their damage codes

<In progress>

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). Opinions?

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?

Open for suggestions on both halves.

6) Armor Layering

I have a little playtesting data to contribute WRT shotguns. Shot was treated as flechette ammo with a flat -1 to TN to hit (normal area-of-effect increase and Power reduction with choke). The player was quite cool about it, but requested to retroactively fill his shotgun with shells (I allowed it) and never used a shotgun again.

Honestly, I'm OK with this; shotguns weren't really designed to do any of the things that shadowrunners care about. Does anyone like and care about shotguns enough to disagree?

I disagree that shotguns weren't designed to do any of the things that Shadowrunners care about—shotguns are pretty darn good for close-quarters combat. That said, the previous shotguns-own-you method left a lot to be desired as well; I'd like to see shotguns improved slightly from the current SR3R proposal (flat -1 to hit, no area-of-effect increase or power reduction, stacks with cybered Smartlink for a net -2 but not with Smartgoggles), but I'm not entirely certain how.

Additional proposal: despite the fact that Shadowrunners can typically throw grenades further than 10 meters (standard) or 15 meters (IPE), grenades that reduce in power by 1/meter are hereby termed "defensive" grenades. Grenades that reduce in power by .5/meter are termed "offensive" grenades.

Alternately we could try to get grenades to have realistic threat ranges… any thoughts?

I'm also considering proposing making smoke grenades work more realistically—that is to say, have WP grenades create a smoke cloud similar to the one covered by the current rules, with actual smoke grenades taking a significantly longer time to do their thing (but also not forcing the smoke up and away from the fight with hot air, so longer concealment time).

~J

Since you probably meant to bring the blast ratings in line with the RL terminology, did you perhaps mean those the other way around? Or did you mean 1/meter and 2/meter, respectively?

If grenades must be kept very simple and easy to manage rules-wise, then 12S-15S -1/meter (using the optional blast and grenade damage rules) is a decent fit for a fragmentation (defensive) hand grenade. Any rule that allows for random damage beyond such a radius is going to be pretty complicated. An offensive grenade could easily be given a blast rating of -3/m with similar Damage Codes.

Actually, I meant 1/.5 meter, as the book has it. I'm not awake yet. I like your suggestion for shotguns with shot—the possibility of a net -3 at ultra-short-range would give 'Runners a reason to use shot rounds again, plus the overall higher Power of the shells.

More when consciousness fully returns.

~J

I think that adding calibers would give the game a lot of fun and flavor. Just a thought. That would also kill the bullshit caseless issue too. Two birds with one stone.

Calibers are right out unless you make a very strong argument for it. I am toying with the idea of dividing ammo by damage code as well as weapon class—all 9M pistols would share ammo, but the 10M one wouldn't, for example—but most common weapon classes are uniform enough that I'm not sure it's worth bothering.

~J

My apologies, reading too much and running out of time, so I missed alot of comments on this thread. If I re-iterate, my apologies.

ShotGun (our House Rule), regardless of success, people in the cone take only Moderate Damage after the dodge roll, which can be minimalized with the damage resistance roll. It is impossible for anyone in the cone to take more than a Moderate Wound from the shotgun blast, with the exception of the main target

Pistols (Recommendation). All Single Shot Light to Heavy pistol fire does 9M damage, regardless of pistol type. HoldOuts do 9L.

Skill Groupings (Recommendation). I'd recommend returning to 1 skill. Once you know how to shoot a gun, the others are similar enough to use easily. To have a rating 6 Pistol skill and a 0 Asault Rifle skill is a bit backwards. Therefore, in similarity to 2nd Edition Etiquette, during character creation perhaps force specializations so that if you have a Pistols of 6, your Assault Rifle is a 4 (5 base skill before specializing). After creation, when spending karma, only allow specializations of Firearms to be advanced.

Also.... CyberImplantWeaponry should be a specialization of UnArmed and Firearms (or Pistols). Hard to believe they seperated FireArms but left Spurs in the same category as an eye dart. o.O

Also, there wasn't really a place to put this, but Alertness should, IMHO, be taken out of Stealth and made its own skill....

Ok, here is some of my suggestions/rules for combat.

We should not go back to a single fire-arm skill. Different classes of weapons are similar, but to use them effectively one must be proficient in their particular use. I think I've come up with a comfortable middle ground. Why don't we just lower the target number for firearm defaulting? Defaulting from firearm to firearm should cost only +1 TN maybe? I'm pretty opposed to going back to the SR1 "Firearm" skill.

Ok, Shotguns. We leave the base damage as-is. We chuck choke. We chuck the meters/spread power reduction system. We replace it with a range system, and make the gradings harsher (to stop the shotgun slaughtering at medium-long range aswell).
Eg. we stage down the damage by 3 or 4 (instead of 2) per range. This way we calculate base damage at the same time we calculate the range. This involves less clunky math-work when working out shotgun combat.
As for the spread? Make it less ridiculously wide and also base it on the range table. I propose perhaps 0 meters (single target) at short range, 1 meter medium, 2 meter long, 3 meter extreme (obviously would be quite weak.

Personally I think it would be much better. It would solve the confusing rules and stop shotguns from being slaughter-gods to just powerful short range guns. I'm not proposing any changes to the slug rules, you guys can see to that.


As for flechette? For pistols, it doesn't make much sense to have a pistol firing actual flechette. Why don't we keep flechette rules as is when it comes to damage on unarmored targets, remove any spread and re-name/re-explain it.

I say it is now "anti-personell" rounds. These rounds are designed to stay as one cohesive solid until impact, whereupon they fragment, causing maximum trauma to organs. However, because of this design, they are easily absorbed by ballistic armor. (cue flechette rules)

Sound good to you guys?

for shotguns, i'd have the spread be 0.5m per range category. rather than have choke affect the actual spread distance, i'd give shotguns a -2 TN attack modifier that they can trade in for a -1 TN/+1 attack power or a -0 TN/+2 attack power bonus by changing the choke. not dead-on realism, but close enough.

I hate doing things in decimals.

don't think of it as decimals, think of it as counting by 5s.

OH GOD!

You're in luck, then! As rationals, these decimals can be completely replaced by fractions for your viewing pleasure

mfb: you think that system is superior to the current proposal (no choke, single-target, flat -1 to TN)?

~J

it more closely fits the facts i know. i misspoke, though; rather than a power bonus, it should be -2 TN/-2 power, reducible to -1/-1 or -0/-0. their attack power's pretty high to begin with.

shotguns can hit more than one target... if they're close together. 0.5m/category fits the numbers fairly well, as these things go.

now, that said, i've only used a shotgun for two long afternoons. i've certainly never tried to use one to hit multiple targets simultaneously. all the numbers i've seen are in discussions of birdshot, and with birdshot, if you're not pretty close to the center of the blast at longer ranges, you're going to get only superficial injuries. i don't want to think about rules for birdshot, so for the rules above, i'm assuming 00-shot.

Bird shot can have real trouble penetrating your skin at longer distances. It can still work on birds because of how fragile they are.

i was thinking that maybe if you wanted to catch more than one person with a shotgun blast, you'd treat it like a called shot. only i think +4 TN is a bit much; i'd make it +2 TN (effectively cancelling out the -2 TN provided by a wide choke).

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.

Thoughts?

~J

6) Armour Layering

I think the status-quo works fine. It's quick, easy, workable and reasonable. I've never had any problems from my players about this, even from a power-gamer!

7) Binocular Vision Works Backwards

Yes, you're right although at first sight it seems counter intuitive. When using iron or telescopic sights you do only use one eye. Your idea works for me, go with it.

7) Binocular Vision Works Backwards

The Cyclops entry in the SR Companion is the only place I've seen a monocular vision modifier. Are there any others? Otherwise the melee' and close quarters penalty seems sound.

I thought there was at least one other mention. Anyway, we'll be making a flaw to allow one-eyed characters (presumably with some sort of neural damage to remove the possibility of a cybereye in that socket).

~J

Inevitably so.

On the topic of new rules and close quarters combat, I made a rule that is simple and yet models CQB, at least to the extent of encouraging counter terrorist types to use an SMG rather than rifle in confined areas. Is this objective realistic?

Anyway here's the rule;
Close Quarters Battle (CQB)
In tight or restricted terrain (based on character and environment) larger weapons may impede the combatant. Combat pool is reduced by the difference between the terrain threshold and a weapons concealment rating. (Light weapons with no concealment listed are considered to have a concealment rating of 1 while heavy weapons are considered to have a concealment rating of 0.)

CQB
Terrain Threshold
Open, normal -
Tight 3
Restricted 5

Eg. On a large plane/HSCT (tight terrain 3) with an Ares Alpha (Conceal 2) would mean (3-2) or 1 is taken from the combat pool. This represents an impediment to rapid aiming or dodging.

Hope this is topical here. SR3R Manouevre scores are next.

I like that.

Apart from the namespace collision with the terrain classes for vehicles (which, admittedly, have their own collisions—it makes no sense to think of Restricted for a Main Battle Tank as the same thing as Restricted for a Renraku Arachnoid), I like it. Any other opinions out there?

Edit: one problem, though: adding a laser sight to an Ares Predator makes it take penalties in Restricted terrain. That seems off to me—thoughts?

~J

Only include bayonettes or barrel adjustments in size calculations for CQB penalty testing. But that's adds a whole new level of record keeping, so maybe just make it based on the weapon type. All pistols fall in one category, ARs and shotguns in another, long rifles is a third, etc.

Terrain is generally (but probably not always) relative to the class of the vehicle, the terrain classifications for men would need to be defined somewhat.

Bayonettes & Barrels, Stocks & Suppressors. I think general categories might devalue certain weapons, such as those with integral suppressors and high concealment.

That still creates the problem where slapping a laser sight on certain weapons gives them penalties.

Another possibility is to drop the conceal penalty for miniaturizable items like the laser sight… thoughts?

~J

Personally I've always thought that laser sights and external smartguns (if I'm correct) detracting from concealability was silly. A Scope, fair enough, but really, a laser sight in the 27th century would probably be about the size of a triple A battery.

Not that I don't agree about the laser-sight-conceal issue, but we're in the 21st century here still

~J

Buck Rogersrun!

This is all getting to be a little too complicated, especially for something that will barely ever be implemented, as it has to be VERY tight for a gun of man-portable size to be a big hindrance, and bottom line is, I don't think it fits in with what we're trying to do with SR3R, which is revise to make things balanced, make more sense and most importantly, simpler.

I'm going to keep discussing this for a few more days, but if an option that's about as easy as basing it on Conceal would have been (but that makes sense) doesn't appear, the idea's probably going to have to be scrapped (or at least backburnered).

I'll look into doing it by-weapon-class over the weekend.

~J

Plus, the applications here are as useful (more so, even) when relating to melee weapons—this might finally give a way to reduce the number of Trolls using polearms inside submarines, etc. without just declaring situational modifiers.

Though, as you point out, there are worse fates than leaving it unaddressed.

~J

For one thing, some-one trained in the use of a weapon has some ability to carry and operate it in a close quarters environment. Even if you're holding an assault rifle in a standard hallway, you can still turn on your heel, because you automatically point it up/pull it close to you, but we don't really need to create specific rules for it, the same as we don't add the weight of weapons (or whatever else you're carrying) to your aiming target numbers, it's excessive number crunching.

I think if you want to do something about it, have it at GM discretion, like all target numbers are. They are not totally rigid, there are many things not in the target number tables that we add and subtract TN for. If your character is brandishing an LMG in an office space, go ahead and nail a +1 or +2 at your discretion, but I don't think it calls for a formalized rule.

Bump:Oh as for more proposed revisions, I think the Sport rifles are a bit broken. "... The 750 sport rifle and the 950, its heavy-duty sister, both use smooth bolt-action..." However the listed mode for the Remington rifles is Semi Automatic. A bolt action rifle can not be fired as quickly as a semi automatic, or even as fast as a single shot revolver. Should we have a new rule for Bolt Action rifles? Any propositions?

What acronym would we use for bolt action? BA conflicts with Break action.

Does a similar problem occur with all shotguns seemingy being semi-auto rather than pump action? It doesn't really strike me as being that bad, especially given shotgun rules are already a little complicated.

SS for single shot - any weapon that can be fired only once each combat phase. The extra idea is that a bolt action would require you to take the 'ready weapon' simple action after each shot.

Real men make it a Simple Action to fire and a Simple Action to throw the bolt. That way we can also separate reloading and working the bolt. If I use up all my rounds and I switch mags with a Complex Action there's still one Simple action in the cards before I can party again.

I do the same thing with pump action.

It's much more mentally masurbatory when you think about throwing the bolt.