Navigation, Shadowing, Survival, Perception are all physical skills. Does this make sense? I think, it would make more sense if you insert a sentence like "on any test involving the selected skill that is
linked to Physical attributes."

SYL

None of thos skills you listed are linked to physical attributes...nor would i consider them physical skills. As they're almost all completely mentaly based with (in general) very little phyical interaction involved (survival being the main exception to this as well building a lean-too would be physical interaction but you're not building it the same way twice ect ect ect).

Shadowing? You do realise that involves moving as fast as your target without being seen?

Perception also involves turning your head quickly and such. In a session not so long ago we had captured a member of a large group we were trying gather information about, such as the location of their HQ and such. He had been knocked out in the fight. So i beat about the head and shoulders to make him really sore in the neck, busted a big toe, and made sure his eyes were nearly swollen shut. Then left him to discover himself alive and assume he had been left for dead. I beat him about the head/sholders to make it harder for him to notice me following him. It also makes it much harder to locate the source of a sound, as the way the human body works that requires that you move your head quickly to give your ears a second point of reference.

So as a GM you wouldn't have given him a penalty for noticing me?

The only one of those four i find dubious enough to possibly house rule out is Navigation, other than staying on track is a physical skill when you are walking through uneven terain, or perhaps using a paper map.

Just, installing a reinforced reflex to do so isn't such a good idea... unless you want to be nicknamed 'wryneck'.

You mean you might instead want to install something that has you use a better technique and move in better form when you move your head to perceive something? But what would be call such an implant???

Well first off. Shadowing is less of a physical skill and more of a mental skill. Knowing when to lay back. Knowing how far you can close on the subject. Figuring out what you should do in order to not look like you're following them. Anyone can walk behind someone at the same speed. Not everyone has the knowledge and skill to not make it obvious. It has very little to actualy do with physical movements. Its about timing that constantly changes depending on on what your subject does and your current surroundings. Theres not much you can record there reflexively as well your environment, and where you are, and such determines what you may react and do.

Where as firing a gun theres certain things, no matter the environmental conditions that you always do...line the gun up look down the sights, fire the weapon.

Perception being a physical skill? You're realy REALLY stretching it there blakkie. Honestly, turning your head? Perception is about noticing details. It has nothing to do with moving your head. You can not record your reaction to things such as noticing papers are out of order on your desk. Its memory. Its noticing somethings not right. Its that gut feeling that tells you someone's behind you. Its paying attention to those things in your perifrial vision. Turning your head does not play into this. You may notice something in your periphrial vision but that doesn't nessicarily mean you turn to look at it. Perception has never, ever been a physical skill. In sr3 it was based off of your intelligence, not your quickness since quickness would be the attribute you'd base how quick you can snap your neck around.

Navigation is another completely non physical skill requireing you to use points of reference, and infer your position on the map or wherever based on what you have available as cues. The trail marker. That land mark over there. Knowing which way is north. Very little physical parts to this skill. And the physical parts are a result of the skill but do not cause the skill to be used. Believe me, having done more than my share of orienteering, trail traveling, and such, theres not much you can record as well its going to be completely different at every single new location, the only things being the same would be whipping out the map and compass, or in shadowrun turning on that mapsoft.

Survival, out of all of those skills mentioned is the only one thats remotely physicaly related, and even it encompases far to much to be even classified as such for a reflex recorder. I would say it even being iffy on building shelters with it as the shelter building completely changes depending on your surroundings and matterials available. Building fires would be the the only real thing I could think of that would be recordable. The others theres just far to many variables to even think of recording and getting something usable.

All skills I mentioned are physical skill (SR4 page 113+), but are based on mental attributes. That is the reason why I think that reflexrecorder for perception do not make sense. It should be limited to combat/physical skills linked to an physical attribute.

SYL

Meh so they are. I still won't consider them physical skills as they have very little to do with the physical.

uh huh...

This is exactly the reason why I wish that a phrase like "linked to an physical attribute" is added ...

SYL

Ya huh!

As this tends to make Survival very erratic, it would be better to make Survival the equivalent to normal damage resistance.

EDIT:
'Removing' the Threshold and using it as a DV to be resisted with Survival+Willpower produces results less extreme, and more streamlined to the normal damage system.

A clarification whether the prohibition of recovery covers First Aid would be nice, too.

IIRC, it's mentioned in an unfortunately nebulous "somewhere" that you can always choose to decrease the DV of your attacks. This would let a Cat shaman (or Cat hermetic, for that matter) fulfill the quirk.

Erratic? In which way?

In a bad one.

EDIT:
Those rules kill characters faster than Ebola... even those prepared and with professional survival skills: Either the day is perfect or you are screwed.
Using the Threshold as a DV to be resisted with Survival+Willpower still allows Joe Average a camping trip while making arctic trip hard but manageable for trained folks.

Er, that's nice detail.

Let's try this another way...you don't like the all or nothing aspect of the damage since it lacks granularity to outcomes? So you are suggesting a better way is for partial 'failure' to meet the threshhold still reduces the damage by 2 boxes/hit? Because i do like that idea, and i do think that SR4 doesn't take full advantage of the fixed TN's support for the concept of partial failures.

EDIT: I see you added some detail, and ya i agree on that point.

Actually, it's three aspects:

First, that does not mesh with the usual Damage resistance rules.
Second, depending on the way you read it, as the use of First Aid may be prohibited, the DVs are to high for any normal periods.
Third, the lack of possibility of partial failure totaly ruins the dramatic aspect: No one would be able to crawl back barely.

It does mesh much more with how Mana spells work (i.e. Stunbolt), but then i'm not crazy about the way they work. The environment doesn't have the ability to stage the damage up past the base DV though. I do somewhat understand why Stunbolt works that way, basically it is a combination of a throwback to previous SR and at least part of the point of Mana spells is to counter high Body opponents.

If Survival allowed a second soak stage then you'd have to up the damage to make something short of the Sahara/Tundra mean anything (although a case could be made it should be that way?), but in doing so Survival would become Ebola with a gutshot chaser for low Body characters even at the low levels.

If you allow automatic successes it's not too bad at the bottom end. You only need 4 dice to live on the street, what i think they mean by "urban".** The top end does start becoming cruel. A Willpower(7) Dwarf with Survival(6), a heat source, appropriate clothes, camping gear, and food/water can safely survive indefinately in the Arctic baring storms (which you'd need to he'd need to use Edge for). So i think it's close.

Have you ever gone winter camping/hiking? It is a demanding experience. I think what it's missing are just a few dice modifiers, such as the survivor aclimatizing, the ability to increase bonus dice over a number of days to represent building semi-permanent support, and perhaps a larger range of bonus dice for heating/cooling sources and gear. It wouldn't make it 100% realistic, but it would help a lot addressing the playability of the top end environments (which in the end should be fairly dangerous IMO).

** - This is actually something that probably should come into play for characters that take the Street lifestyle, at least unless some helpful social charity like the Universal Brotherhood is operating in the area.

It is a tough balance. Although the tension of whether you roll 4 hits does simulate the "just making it" somewhat, the 3 and 4 Threshholds do have that granularity issue of two bad days are going to knock any metahuman unconscious (and the second bad day is going to come quicker with the -2 dice).

Not even quite that... that mechanic is just here for Survival.

What second soak?

The point here is... many people do it for a hobby, some for a living and some to live... the problem isn't even the Threshold (Teamwork is your friend in Antarctica), though, it's the fixed and rather high damage accumulating too quickly.

The attacker side of the opposed roll is coming from the environment, so it is a fixed Threshhold instead of a rolled Threshhold. Other than that, it's a similar the same mechanic (dice pool modifiers and Countercasting support aside) except the environment doesn't scale up damage for "net successes".

Er, i mean a second stage of rolling that is a Body soak roll. Poor wording, sorry.

Well it is a hobby you need to invest more than a casual amount of learning and equipment in or you'll be scoring a ride home in an emergency helicopter, perhaps a ride delayed till the next spring whe you get your own private bag for the trip back. The base DV isn't so bad at all if you allow partial reduction for each hit.

Thats not what I mean...

That makes the difference visible:
Instead of using the normal 1 Hit -> 1 DV, it uses 1 Hit -> 2 DV, or uses the mechanic of Magic for Physical Damage...
Ungood.

Only with the rules, that doesn't help.

Says you. I'd rather have seen that used more in the system. These high damage values are important to increase the shortterm danger. Changing to 1 box hit drops the danger a lot as you drop the DV to match. If you don't drop the DV it becomes a near certainty that at least some damage is done. When that occurs and you aren't allow to heal up the damage a spiral starts.

You are worried about evironment killing fast, but IRL failure is in fact a hell of a lot quicker death than the 8 DV/day of the Artic conditions.

That's why i suggested more of a range for equipment bonuses. It already helps to some extent in the rules, you'd need to burn "Edge" though to try match survival in RL.

As long as it does not use a different mechanic as the rest of the system...

Not quite - it drops the speed of danger.

Just that such critical incidents usually call for extra tests, resulting in additional damage if failing.

Ya, 1 box per, 2 boxes per, etc. when needed being defined as the mechanic of the system. *shrug* But that isn't so much the way they took the system. Instead they took it the direction that Survival is written in, more binary. Survival is just a more obvious example of the downside.

Which is already a bit slow is some ways. -40 weather kills in hours for those not at least somewhat prepared, not the minimum 3 days that the Survival skill results in. Ebola is indeed slower than RL sometimes. I'm not looking to get it up that fast though, for playability reasons.

I thought about it a bit more, and perhaps the problem is partially in the lack of Threshhold modifiers for some of the more key environmental factors such as Weather conditions. Then change it to 1 box/Threshhold with credit for less that the Threshhold hits. Or at that point you could just change the naming for that from "Threshhold" to "DV" and have Survival as soak-like reducing the DV. Either of those effectively equivalent ways does give the smaller random swing range, but also allows for defining truely dangerous conditions.

So akin to unDodgable damage.

Whether it really would be enough of an improvement to be worthwhile? *shrug* For as often as Survival is likely to come up i can live with the way it is, functioning basically as a Stunbolt that is gimped (no extra damage for net hits), with a fixed number of hits rolled at 1/2 Force cast, that is maximum overcast for Magic ranging between 1 and 4 corrosponding to 4 different classes of environments.

Example? Not sure what you are refering to here.

Been there.
Even that gets pretty nasty if you don't use optimal conditions - there is a load of negative modifiers... but yeah, thats kinda slow.

On the other hand, when allowing the use of First Aid, being sparse with negative modifiers and counting any closed shelter as the 8h-place, the rules may work over a normal timeframe.

For those mercs out there? Definitively.

Mainly involving Athletics.

Being prepared is a huge part of the skill IMO. Including being ready to bring resolve to bear, and being acclimatized. But acclimatization doesn't fit into the Skill mechanism because of it is mostly a temporary effect. The human body is incredibly adaptable. Just watch people getting off the plane from very cold regions to a place where it is only a few degrees below freezing. They'll be comfortable in T-shirts and shorts (unless it is very high humitity, then they'll likely wear long sleeves and pants outside).

I've walked a 1/4 mile out in the open in 30 miles/hour wind and -30º with clothing i've spent the whole day outside in under normal conditions. It is scary how cold it felt, i definately wouldn't want to have to walk more than a mile like that at a time. But without being acclimatized and without proper clothing i would have had serious frostbite and would have been incapacitated just from that 10 minutes of walking.

Oh, and i completely get tying the skill to Willpower.

And it can be equipped with a grenade as part of its payload... the Ocular Drone cannot.

Point taken for the iBall and the Microskimmer. But what about the Flyspy? A "large insect" with body 1?

SYL

Um. How does that resolve anything? How do you decide who can take the Hacker quality?

Could you provide a reference? I see nowhere that says that all revolvers are semi-automatic (unless of course you were simply stating your opinion, in which case it doesn't really belong in the errata thread).

Calypso