Done this a dozen times in two days, I have my "speech" down pretty good, so here's a text version of it. It's very stream of consciousness, and very much how I was speaking during the demo's. And you may note I was mostly just following the "list of changes" checklist and expanding and explaining the items in it.

Hi, I'm Bull, and I'll be your GM this evening. First things first... Are you all familiar with the basic Shadowrun setting? Good, this makes my life a lot easier, as it saves me an hour long "This is the world of Shadowrun" spiel. Ok, i'll start things off by going over the major changes to the system.

First off, dice pools as you knew them are gone. Combat, Astral, Hacking, Rigging, Karma Pools, all gone. The core mechanic now is skill plus attribute, plus or minus any modifiers in dice, and that is now referred to as your dice pool for the test.

Your target number is always 5, and this is called a Hit. Modifers add or subtract dice from your dice pool rather than modifying your target number.

The Rule of One is triggered more frequently now. I don't know about you guys, but I've been playing Shadowrun for umpteen years now, and the Rule of One has come up a grand total of three times in all the games I've run or played in, and one of those three was because the player was only rolling two dice to start with. Since we're evil and like to screw with the players, we decided that the rule of one should come up more often.

So the Rule of One is now called a Glitch. If at least half your are ones, that's a glitch. there are two types of glitches. If you glitch but still roll any hits, it's a minor glitch, and some minor negative thing happens. It's a setback, but not a major negative thing, and you can still succeed at whatever test you were rolling. For example, if I was shooting at someone and rolling 8 dice, and I got four 1's and 3 hits, I could still hit my target and wound or kill him, but something happens to me, like I stumble and have a point or two penalty to my next action.

If you gitch and get no successes, that's called a Critical Glitch, and something major catestrophic bad happens. The exact nature of both types of glitch are up to the GM, so bribe you GM well and keep him happy. Candy, Caffeine, Pizza, or Beer work well for this.

The rule of Six no longer applies to your dice rolls, except in a couple situations which I'll get to in a bit. Since you have a set target number of 5, you don't need the open ended dice to get higher target numbers.

Open tests no longer exist. These were tests like with stealth, where you'd roll and your highest die roll would become the opponents target number. This type of test was always more than a little wonky and could be extremely random, and we hated it, so we chuked it.

There are now three types of tests: Opposed Tests, Threshold tests, and Extended tests.

Opposed tests are your standard My Dice vs Their Dice tests, with you wanting to get more hits than your oppoenent or whatever is resisting you.

Threshold tests are generally unopposed type of tests where you're simply trying to succeed at an action. Things like climbing would be a Threshold test. The GM will give you a threshold of hits that you need to meet or beat to succeed at your test. A threshold of 1-2 is relatively easy, while a threshold of 4-5 is pretty difficult. It's GM fiat as to how difficult a lot of thresholds are, so again, bribes work wonders.

The maximum for skills and attributes before possible metahuman modifiers is 6. There is no longer the Racial Modified Limit of 1.5 your starting max, so 6 is generally as high as they get. It is possible to get a 7 using the Exceptional Attribute or Aptitude Positive Qualities (What used to be Edges). And of course it's possible to exceed these maximums through cyberware, bioware, magic, and the like.

Intelligence has been divided into 2 attributes, Intuition and Logic. This was done primarily because in the past, Perception has always been based on your Intelligence, which just didn't make sense. You can be incredibly smart, but oblivious to your surrounding, and conversely you can be very aware and perceptive, but just not that bright.

Quickness was broken up into two new attributes as well, Agility and Reaction. Agility is your hand-eye coordination, while reaction is your speed.

Initiative is now a derived attribute, Reaction + Intuition, similar to what eaction was in older editions.

Characters no longer have a random number of initiative passes, or actions, per turn. Instead they have a fixed number based on any cyber, gear, or active magic. Normal unmodified metahumans have a single initiative pass, while things like wire reflexes will give an extra initaitive pass or three. So someone with wired reflexes 2 will get 2 additional passes, and will have three actions every turn.

Two new attributes have been added: Edge and Resonance.

Side Step a moment... ***I take a tangent to talk about the Crash 2.0 and the upgraded matrix and a bit about Augmented Reality, hackers, and the new wireless world and how every connects to it*** So something happens with the crash that effectivly "unlocks" Otaku. They are now a little more common, and are no longer the one in a million, urban legand that they once were, they can now grow up and become "real boys", so they no longer lose their powers as they age. They're now called Technomancers, and they have an attribute called Resonance, which is similar to the Magic Rating for a mage or an adept.

Technomancers are neat in that they can hack without the use of hardware, if they need to. their brain is configured to detect Augmented Reality and to connect to other systems wirelessly. They would still use a commlink to store data and the link, but they don't need it for programs or anything.

Technomancers have the ability to create Sprites, whicha re basically temporary matrix constructs that can perform services for them. they're similar to the spirits Shaman's could summon in that they would last forX services or X amount of time before decomiling back into loose code. They are use their Forms like a mage would spells, and suffer temporary Fading when using forms, the way a mage suffers drain from spells.

The other new attribute is Edge, and Edge effectively replaces Karma Pool, though it's a good deal more flexible than Karma Pool was. There was some confusion in earlier demo's, so I should explain that you have both an Edge Attribute and an Edge Pool. WHile your Edge Pool decreases as you spend Edge, your attribute doesn't change, so even if you've spent three Edge points this game session, your Edge Attribute is still 4. There are a bunch of things you can do with Edge.

You can spend a point of edge before you roll to add your edge attribute to the dice pool for the test, If you do, all your dice for the test are Open Ended.

You can spend an edge after you've rolled to roll just your edge dice and add any hits you get to this test. Only these edge dice are open ended, so any original sixes you rolled do not get rerolled. This is useful if you were one hit short of success, or if you find out after the fact you didn't quite have enough dice to succeed at a test.

You can spend a point to reroll all your failures, like you could spend karma pool for under 3rd ed.

If your dice pool is reduced to zero or more due to modifiers, you may make a long shot test, which allows you to roll just your edge dice. These dice are open ended.

You may spend a point of edge to automatically go first in an intiative round. If more than one character spends edge to go first, you then compare initative scores.

You may spend a point of edge to buy an additional initiative pass for the current combat turn.

You may negate the effects of a glitch with a point of edge.

Edge can be extremely powerful, and it now makes it possible for a non cyybered, non magical character to compete with his cyber and magic buddies, if he maxes out his edge attribute.

Edge refreshes like karma pool did, between game sessions or at the end of each adventure. There are also some suggestions for ways to earn edge pool points during play, through things like dazzling the GM with a brilliant move or terrific roleplay, or achieving a major storyline goal. It's GM fiat on these, so again, bribe your GM with fabulous prizes. (I usually got smiles with the GM bribe jokes, which was fun.0

Magic no longer starts at 6. Instead, it's bought up just like any other attribute. You buy a Positive Quality to become a mage or an adept or whatever, and then purchase it up like you would the rest of your attributes. Resonance works the same way.

because the game is more lower powered, bringing mages magic ratings down was one way to keep them in line with the rest of the characters. However, they still have options at their disposal to be pretty nasty in play.\, which I'll cover in a bit. Plus, there have been a couple fiction stories and novels that used the idea of a character "awakening" or discovering that he's magically active after his running career has already started. Because before you automatically got a full load of magic rating adn spell points when you made a mage, you coudlnlt really emulate this

Now you can simply buy the magician quality without buying up the magic attribute or purchasing any spells. Your character has that "spark of magic", but doesn't know he has it. , and can later through game plkay and roleplay "discover" his magical talent and start nurturiing it through karma expenditure and the like.

Bioware and Cyberware both cost essence now, but the lesser of the two counts for half. So if you have 4 points of Bioware, and 2 points of Cyber, it costs you 5 essence total.

Exclusive actions no longer exist.

There are now Skill Groups. There have been a bunch of new skills added to the overall skill list, and many of the more widley used skills were lumped up into Skill groups. Not every skill, hoever, falls into a skill group. Starting active skills are limited to a single 6 *or* two skills at 5, and everything else 4 or less. Skill groups cannot be rasied above 4 at chargen. You cannot buy an individual skill within a skill group up past the Group attribute at chargen, and you can't specialize any skill within the Skill group.

Later on with karma you can break up a skill group and raise an individual skill up. Hoever, once you do you can no longer increase them through karma as a single Skill Group. You have to raise all the lower skills in the group up to the level of the highest individual skill before you can Group them up again.

The condition monitor is no longer fixed at 10 boxes of damage. It is now 8 + 1/2 your Body or WIllpower, for Physical and Stun damage tracks, rounded up. Wound levels, such as Light, Moderate, and Serious, are gone. instead every three boxes of damage gives you a -1 modifier. that's every three full boxes, so the first 2 boxes of damage don't effect you.

All types of combat are now opposed tests.

For melee, the attacker rolls his weapon or unarmed combat skill, plus the appropriate attribute. For defense, you have three options. If you have a weapon and the weapon skill, you can try to parry. If you have unarmed combat, you can try to block, though there may be instances wher ethe GM doesn't allow this. When a troll swings a mono sword at you, blocking with your forearm seems like a bad idea. And finally you can try to dodge the attack. And yes, this means Dodge is now an active skill.

For bullets, it's a little nastier becuase it's hard to didge bullets, espeically if you aren't paying full attention to them. So you don't normally get your didge against ranged combat, though you always get your Reaction dice to resist with, On your turn you can choose to dodge, which allows you to roll Dodge + Reaction for the rest of the turn. A character can also declare a dodge when it's not his turn, though this uses up his next action.

With wound levels gone, weaqpons no longer have a damage level associated with them. An example weapon is the Ares Predator 4, which has a stat line of 5P(-1). What this means is that the weapon has a base Damage Value of 5, the letter is either a P or s, for physical or stun, and the nmber in parenthasis is an armor penetration modifier. The Damage Value of a weapon is the base number of boxes of damage it will do before modifiers.

So an example combat would run like this. I have an Ares predator 4, you have an armor jacket with an armor rating of 8/6I go to shoot you, and I have 4 pistols, and 4 agiility, so I get 8 dice. You defend with just your reaction because you weren't dodge, and roll 3 dice. I get 2 hits you get one, so my shot hits you with one net hit. I add my net hits to my Danage Value to give mea modified Damage Value of 6. My armor penetration of -1 applies to your armor, giving you 7 armor. And this is probably my favorite rules change of 4th ed...

Because my modified DV doesn't beat your modified Armor, the bullet doesn't penetgrate and do physical damage. instead the bullets impacts off the armor and causes bruising damage, possibly a fracted ribs. You still have to resist the full amount of damage, and wound modifiers are just as useful regardless of whether they're phsyical or stun. And an unconscious mook is just as out of the fight as a dead one, so this doesn't make combat less effective.

So anyways, I shoot you for 6 DV. You then get to resist damage using your body plus your modified armor. So say 4 Body + 7 Armor. you get 4 hits, so you reduce the damage down to 2 boxes.

Damage spells work much the same way. Plus you can Overcast magic. Basically, spells don't have a set force anymore when you learn them, instead you simply learn the spell, and when you cast it, youc an choose the force up to double your magic rating. Anything over your magic though will be physical drain rather than stun.

There was one big change to magic, and it's that the lines between the traditions has blurred a bit. At some point in the last 5 years, either due to new techniques or a rising mana level, the two core traditions have learned a few of each others tricks. the net effect of this is that both Hermetics and Shamans can now summon Bound Spirits (What the mage used to summon) and Unbound Spirits (what Shaman;s summoned). You can still only have one unbound spirit at a time, and bound spirikts are limited to i think your Charisma.

However, magicians with Bound Spirits do have a limitation on them. It takes a bit of mental control on the part of the magician for each bound spirit he's controlling to keep them in line. So for each Bound Spirit that he has active (called up and actually being used, not just on reserve),. he suffers a -2 penalty to all tests.

That was about the gist of it, but I'm not exceedingly tired and still slightly buzzed, so while I may have missed a few points, I'm going to bed. If this is informative or helpful, cool, if not, whatever.

Bull

Thank you very much, Bull. This is a huge improvement over the swirl of rumor, piece-by-piece innuendo, and "I haven't slept for two days and have five minutes to answer 11 questions about a book I've just skimmed before my hotel mates start having sex again."

The saddest thing I've read so far is that the old damage levels are gone. Oh, the memories...of people screaming, "Dead! Dead! Panther Assault Cannon dead! 18D dead!"

I do not like the blurring of the magical traditions at all.

I do like the -2 modifier to everything for an active bound spirit. Although for some reason most players failed to abuse it, the fact was that if you told an Earth Elemental 6 to go into a projects apartment and kill every ganger in there, there was zip point fuck all the average street gang could do to defend itself unless it was lucky enough to have Mana bolt or a window it could jump out of. Elementals were way overpowered.

By the way, why does my post above claim that it went up at 7:41 AM? It's 3:41 AM Eastern here in the Orlando ghetto.

Here's my version:

You know, it's too late at night to read some farce of an insult thread... *sighs* Especially considering I'm not drunk.

Not meant as a farce. I hand out one similar for SR3 as well. I'm just evil like that.

Seriously, good work was done on the original post.

Very cute, Sabosect. I laughed out loud.

Thanks a ton, Bull. It's great to see everything put together. You should've written the FAQs. Can you go into the basic Shadowrun setting you skipped over earlier?

(No, no, I'm teasing )

Open ended is the Rule of Six. If you roll a six, it's a hit and you get to roll another die. Another reason why high Edge is a Good Thing ™.

So, for example, you could conceivably roll 4 successes with 1 die (roll a 6, roll a 6, roll a 6, roll a 5). As long as you keep rolling 6's, you keep rerolling.

Basically, yeah.

thx guys! now its clear...

i think i like the edge attribute

Ah, clarity. Truly, 'tis bliss. I hungrilly await SR4.

Sort of yes and yes to your question, Book.

In the SR4 corebook, spirits are pretty generalized. THere are 6 types of spirits: Fire, Earth, Air< Water, Man, and Beasts. Each Tradition can summon 5 of the 6 (Shamans can't summon Fire, Hermetics can't summon Beasts). These seem to really represent spirit categories that individual spirits fall under now... So a hearth Spirit, City Spirit, and the like all fall under Spirits of Man, and now all have the same stats. Likewise an Air Elemental, Wind Spirit, and a Sky Spirit are all the same.

And I like your honesty Book... It's cool if you as a GM and your group don't like a rule and want to change it. I've even told a few folks who were asking me questions and had concerns that they wouldn't be able to convert their characters over easily, or weren't happy with the Att/Skill caps that hey, if you really want, just remove the caps. It skews things a little, but not terribly.

Not like SR has never had any house rules before, you know?

Bull

A conjurer does get to select the optional powers each spirit has during the summoning, from a list of optional powers for each spirit type. So one "Air type" spirit might have the Fear critter power while another one might not be able to fear at all, but instead can use Psychokinesis.

But there's no reason to be a shaman as opposed to a hermetic as opposed to anything else in order to get specific spirit powers, or even to get most types of spirits, right? It's 83% flavor, 17% substance. (The one missing spirit type.)

Add in the totem.

Pretty much, I think that sums it up. The totems don't really sound like they are anything special, and by the sounds of things shamans don't even need them. Worse, I would say that shamans get a set of spirits that are not really all that helpful.

Hey Bull thanks for the info. It's what we were all clamoring for months and months ago. Just enough to calm at least some of my fears, and give me a little to think about until I can get my copy.

I think they did away with domain restrictions now. I'd have to read more carefully, though. It appears that conjuring is much more homogenized, in that any tradition can summon spirits "spontaneously" like Shamans and any tradition can bond spirits like Hermetics. Also, Shamans do not automatically get totems (it's a special Edge called "Mentor Spirit", which implies that Hermetics can get it as well).

It appears that summoning a spirit (Spontaneous summoning, like the old nature spirits) uses a Complex Action, while binding a spirit (binding an elemental) costs 500 nuyen per force point. You have to summon a spirit first before you bind it. The gear section, however, says that conjuring materials for binding a spirit costs 1,500 nuyen per force point. There are two mentions of the 500 nuyen per Force Point in the actual description of binding, so I'm not sure which is the typo, but I'm leaning toward the listing in the gear section to be wrong.

The roll for Summoning is an opposed test of Magic + Summoning vs. the Spirit's Force. Drain is equal to twice the Spirit's hits.

The roll for Binding is an opposed test of Magic + Binding vs. the Spirit's Force x 2 (binding is harder). Drain is equal to twice the Spirit's hits.

Neither are linked to Logic or Charisma, although your GM may apply modifiers based on roleplaying and situation (perhaps give you extra dice based on a Charisma test, with extra dice equal to the number of hits, or if you take a long time with lots of burning incense and a boring ritual, give you extra dice based on a Logic test), but that would be your GM's call.

Shamans use Magic + Charisma to soak drain. Hermetics use Magic + Logic.

or maybe the shaman see dissonance/bad notes in the magical flow so that he can apply his own to defuse or deflect the blow, while the mage see logical weaknesses so that he can push the right spots to have the attack fall apart.

two ways of looking at it, same basic outcome

This is assuming that drain is from the spirit "fighting" the summoner, which is true in the case of Banishing, but not necessarily true in the task of summoning or binding (although being bound may not sit right with free-thinking sapient beings of mana). It could be a negotiation, with a Shaman trying to cajole and beg a catlike Spirit of Man to help him for a longer period of time (promising bribes of cream and rotted meat), or a Hermetic having a debate with a "projection of his unconscious psyche, made manifest in mana".

At first glance, Intuition would be where I'd lean for many of the Asian traditions too, though not all of them. Charisma would probably work better for the early folk traditions (Shinto, Bon, etc.) and I could see Logic being used for some traditions like Neo-Confucianism.

"bump"

You're an admin and you bumped the thread by posting *bump*.

Only you Bull, only you.

- Jackal

Bull, Can I have you're permisiion to steal this and use it for an Intro to SR4 spiel at a local con we got comming up in october?

www.gamercon.com <-----------Shameless plug for my friend.


I wanted to do the Intro to SR4 demo's there, but dont even have my copy yet, and wanted to get on as much of a head start getting this down as possable.