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ChuckRozool
I got a friend who posted this over at drivethrurpg.com

QUOTE
First off let me say that I've been GM'ing Shadowrun since it's inception. I met Weisman,Charrette and Dowd, etc. I understood the need for 2nd Edition. I agreed that 3rd Edition was really just a way of gathering all the rules that had been introduced via separate sourcebooks and adding uniformity to the sources of all dice pools.

And I really, really, REALLY wish I could find reason for 4th Edition, but I can't. After reading through and comparing the 3rd edition to the 4th edition, I've come to the conclusion that 4th Edition is unnecessary, unclear, and adds little to no value. I have included my top 4 arguments for discussion.

1. No real changes or improvements to the overall world.
Excluding game mechanics, approximately 70% of this book is directly pulled from the 3rd Edition. The remaining parts were taken from Man & Machine, Target: Matrix and Rigger 3. Hell, even the Otaku (now called technomancer) was pulled from previous material. One of my players has been playing an Otaku Rigger for about the last two years now. The only vaguely new material is this Augmented Reality (AR) with the dubious "shopping at the mall" example. I understand the idea of "Commlinks" and "how cool it would be if everyone had a Bluetooth Palm connected to their mind?", but my point is that the AR and Commlink ideas are simply emphasis on already existing topics (Simsense, Smart Goggles, team data network) in the gameworld.
Tangent: Given the lack of wireless security and glut of identity theft in our current world, wouldn't broadcasting SINs and cred transfers be a little fool-hardy in the somewhat more hostile world of Shadowrun? But I digress.

2. Game Mechanics
Here is where changes were seemingly made for change's sake. Let's start where most rolling takes place, combat. So now its (Firearms + Agility) instead of Firearms + Combat Pool, we that isn't much of a change except that anyone making a regular defense (not full) takes no repurcussions for dodging. And then we have the huge SNAFU on armor. So now an Ares Predator (5DV/-1AP) will only cause stun damage on anybody wearing an armor jacket (8 ballistic). Everybody bring your stimpatches and pain editors! So the answer is APDS ammo, right? Securetech's Form Fitting Armor gives any experienced runner an armor of 10/8 cumulative with the Armor Jacket (so pack lots of Tylenol). Then there's magic......

3. Magic - a half-hearted attempt to balance spell casters
We all knew magic-users grew way more powerful than any samurai. (Try explaining to a player that his Merc can get better at firearms while the Mage gains an Ally ready to cast "accident" on the Merc 3 times a day) The changes in 4th Edition are supposed to make things more equal (e.g., all sample spellcasters have a magic of 5, so max force =5, so 5 or 6 are hits for spell resistance). The only thing is that they really don't. For all magic purposes, the old magic pool has been replaced by the Magic attribute during casting and Logic(mage)/Charisma(shaman) for Drain. So this means the new magic pool for an average magic-user will be 5 during casting plus 4 for Drain (that's 9 dice!). How's that for a Magic Pool? I won't even get into Spirits, Allies, and Conjuring (hello! Earth Elemental).

4. In Defense of Dice Pools
One of the truly impressive qualities of shadowrun was intercontected quality of the game. Examples of this would be the skill web, priority based character generation, and, of course, the dice pools. The Dice Pools always made sense to players; if you spend your all dice dodging, then you won't have any dice left for aiming. Or if you spend all your dice on the spell casting, then you won't have any dice left for the spell drain. All of this connectivity has been removed in 4th Edition. Why? Some may say that the reason was to simplify the game, or to give the game a faster paced. Well, if the majority of your gaming experience is rolling dice then you are truly missing out on some of the magic of the 6th world.

So this leads me to ask, "Why was the 4th Edition even made?"
Well, I can't really say. Maybe Mr. Boyle and his team thought they could improve on the 3rd Edition. Maybe Mr. Boyle and his team thought that target audience was too lazy or stupid to understand the previous rulebook. But honestly, I think its because companies don't make money by winning praise from the fans; they make money by selling books.

But that's just my opinion. What yours?

-TPWC


I'm wondering what you guys think...
Personally, I've skimmed thru it and it seems OK but I am only a player so i don't sweat the rules too much. biggrin.gif Based on his comments on combat, I will be looking thru that section more thoroughly...
Clyde
When was this posted? It looks like a lot of the stuff we heard back before SR4 was released and all the stickies showed up here at Dumpshock. Overall, it sounds like the usual pissed off nerd stuff. Not to bash your friend, I do the pissed off nerd thing myself from time to time, but that's what it is.
Kagetenshi
Some items seem based on an incomplete reading of the material (magic 5 means max force 5? He then seems to imply that force=TN still, which is just wrong), and point 1 is completely batshit insane (changes for the sake of changes, sure. No meaningful changes?!?), but the rest I would largely agree with.

~J
ChuckRozool
Today actually...

He told me about it, so i figured i'd post it here where more ppl might see it and be able to comment on.
hahnsoo
It sounds to me like someone who not only didn't read the rules enough (there IS no Form-fit or Securetech armor in SR4, and there is a -1 dice pool penalty per subsequent attack on defense), but is still clinging onto some of the old SR2 mechanics like the Skill Web (which no longer exists in SR3). It also does not acknowledge the flaws of SR prior to SR4 that put off players in the first place. The fact that the majority of Man and Machine and Initiation rules made it into the BBB is a big step... you can actually run a long-term campaign using just the BBB, and SR4 fulfills that function well, without having to make an investment in several books just to play a usual SR game (in effect, SR3 was entrenched in the population willing to fork over the money). A technically written review that gets marks for grammar and spelling, but no marks for its poor scholarship.
Ellery
Yes, let's call the writer a "pissed off nerd" and not address any of his statements. That's useful. Let's call the responder a "slavish fanboi" and not address any of his statements either. If we keep this up, pretty soon we won't have to think about any questions at all! Edit--this applies specifically to Clyde, whose post is a few spots above this one.

I think all the original points have been discussed on these boards at length. I've not actually seen any good counterarguments to any of those general points although some specifics are wrong in the post. (The counterarguments I have seen that are based on anything solid, e.g. math, have all been wrong, e.g. mathematically incorrect.)

But I have seen a lot of posts from people claiming that they find the new system much simpler, and that they love it for that reason. For people like the writer of that message, I think there is no reason for SR4. They'll probably have more fun playing SR3. But for others there was reason--even if the final product wasn't very well executed. (Lots of success with pretty looks, some competent writing and editing, but a very poor job of crafting non-broken rules.)
hahnsoo
QUOTE (Ellery @ Sep 7 2005, 07:10 PM)
Yes, let's call the writer a "pissed off nerd" and not address any of his statements.  That's useful.  Let's call the responder a "slavish fanboi" and not address any of his statements either.  If we keep this up, pretty soon we won't have to think about any questions at all!

I will just note that I refrained from such labels in my comments.
QUOTE
But for others there was reason--even if the final product wasn't very well executed.  (Lots of success with pretty looks, some competent writing and editing, but a very poor job of crafting non-broken rules.)
I will agree that this product was not executed very well. They created a good simplistic system reminiscent of Exalted and nWoD, but failed to address the issues of scaling in an appropriate manner. Worse yet, they get their own nomenclature confused at some points when defining their skill/attribute caps, and didn't unify character creation and advancement as we could have hoped (interesting to note: most of the archetypes can be "built" using a BeCKS-like system at 450 Karma). All it would have taken is one more development cycle of playtesting and refinement to handle most of the main issues that I have with the system (which amount to house rules now in my gaming group). As it stands, it's pretty good... we've played several sessions using it, and "I like what they've done with the place", so to speak. But it definitely isn't at the level of refinement that SR3 was at.
kigmatzomat
I understand some of the angst but not all.

Setting:
No, there were no global changes to the setting. They revamped the economy, did some advancement of tech, and just generally addressed Crash 2.0. There's enough setting for someone to run a game but the bulk is mechanics, which is what I want out of the BBB.
Tangent: data broadcasts happen right now; you just don't know it. For years banks and credit card companies would send plain text or ROT13 transaction information over the internet. Once you have the processing power to address simsense using gigabit keys and das uber encryption becomes a no-brainer.


Mechanics:
dice pools were a nightmare to people who weren't good at odds. I've always been able to evaluate odds in my head so they weren't a problem but some of my friends were sweating bullets all the time. This is a major improvement to those people who appear to consist of about 80% of the gaming public.

You left out staging. Staging was a double edged sword. There were only 4 grades:nick, cut, disembowel, and decapitate. Even the wussiest weapon with six successes was potentially fatal. Now there's much better granularity and it takes a crapload more successes to kill granma with a butterknife.

As far as firearms and armor, go hit the other threads. People will point out that currently available concealable body armor that's only 4-5mm thick can stop a .44 magnum with only bruising. Sounds like stun damage to me.

Magic:
Mages could blow lots of stuff up in 1e. I mean, really, lots of stuff. Go look at the old Ram spell. I blew up a helicopter the first time I used it. 2e they were still pretty heinous. 3e didn't change it too much.

Guess what? They are still serious weaponry. The only difference is that now they will be taking a lot more painful drain when casting to get enough successes to drop people thanks to the lack in staging. No more firing off F:1 spells at Deadly damage using just your sorcery skill while saving your magic pool for drain.

Oh yeah, remember those people who hated combat pool? They didn't do well with magic pools either.


Other stuff
Yeah, dice pools made sense as a concept. But so few people could use them well or manage them. I've played SR with many dozen different people (yay public college full of gamers) and I'd say that no more than half the players had anything more than hunch as to how many pool dice to roll at any time.
The fact there was a separate system for GMs and players indicates it wasn't an easy to implement concept.

Skillweb. Ehh, I don't see it as anything genius. It's a flow chart and it simply isn't good game design to need a chart to function. Earthdawn's step system was brilliant from the statistical front but only die-hard players could memorize it. It was unpopular as well.

Priority-based generation. Guess what bubba, it's still an option. Nothing prevents you from delineating an array of BP combos that are balanced and quick. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't one already here on Dumpshock somewhere.

Did we need SR4? Probably not. Is it a distinct improvement over SR3? Yeah, quite a bit. Will I be a bit nostalgic over dice pools? Yeah, when I have my munchkin moments. But this is a much cleaner and more approachable system than the old.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (kigmatzomat)
Now there's much better granularity and it takes a crapload more successes to kill granma with a butterknife.

This is not a good thing. It is not difficult for even a vaguely-trained individual to leave someone without something going for them (Body or skill) dying after a second and a half of attacks with a butter knife.

~J
Ellery
I'd characterize ED's system as "clever", not "brilliant". The probabilities were a little off, and they didn't seem to take variance into account (so that moving to a higher step could actually make you have a worse chance against a much better or much worse opponent). It was a good try, though.

Ultimately, though, it did end up seeming unnecessarily complex.
hahnsoo
QUOTE (Ellery)
Ultimately, though, it did end up seeming unnecessarily complex.

Some aspects, however, not only made sense, but were amazingly simple. Like the whole "weaving threads to magic items" bit. I always enjoyed that aspect of Earthdawn, as it meant that you couldn't just receive a +5 Longsword and kick ass... you had to weave it into your own legend and grow with it, while finding out more aspects of its history. It turned every "dungeon crawl" into a sort of Indiana Jones-esque adventure.
Ellery
Yes, that was nice. It was mostly the step system that seemed like overkill to me for a system that wasn't perfected. (I think they were more interested in using all the dice than getting the best statistics.)
WhiteRabbit
Really, the only things I don't like in SR4 are the caps on raising skills and the lack of dice pools. The caps are easily houseruled around, and the lack of pools don't hurt too much.
Cain
QUOTE
dice pools were a nightmare to people who weren't good at odds. I've always been able to evaluate odds in my head so they weren't a problem but some of my friends were sweating bullets all the time. This is a major improvement to those people who appear to consist of about 80% of the gaming public.

You don't have to be good at odds. All you need to know is that More Dice=Good. Dice Pools meant that you could decide which areas would get more dice, thereby determining what you'd be better at this round.
QUOTE
You left out staging. Staging was a double edged sword. There were only 4 grades:nick, cut, disembowel, and decapitate. Even the wussiest weapon with six successes was potentially fatal. Now there's much better granularity and it takes a crapload more successes to kill granma with a butterknife.

Variable staging was a nightmare, but the fixed staging was pretty straightforward. When combined with dice pools (remember: More Dice=Good) you could easily evade things. Besides which, the whole point of Shadowrun was to be a more deadly game than, say D&D. By increasing the granularity, you push things away from the "gritty, street-level" concept that the SR4 devs supposedly wanted.

QUOTE
Mages could blow lots of stuff up in 1e. I mean, really, lots of stuff. Go look at the old Ram spell. I blew up a helicopter the first time I used it. 2e they were still pretty heinous. 3e didn't change it too much.

Guess what? They are still serious weaponry. The only difference is that now they will be taking a lot more painful drain when casting to get enough successes to drop people thanks to the lack in staging. No more firing off F:1 spells at Deadly damage using just your sorcery skill while saving your magic pool for drain.

Check the other threads. Mages can now throw a force-10 spell (not an option for starting mages under any previous edition) and only risk minimal, if any, drain. They might have been gimped in some ways, but they can also dish it out a lot more than ever before.

QUOTE
Yeah, dice pools made sense as a concept. But so few people could use them well or manage them. I've played SR with many dozen different people (yay public college full of gamers) and I'd say that no more than half the players had anything more than hunch as to how many pool dice to roll at any time.

More Dice=Good. That's about as far as it needs to go.
QUOTE
The fact there was a separate system for GMs and players indicates it wasn't an easy to implement concept.

Umm... what? Under 3rd ed, they used the exact same system.

QUOTE
Priority-based generation. Guess what bubba, it's still an option. Nothing prevents you from delineating an array of BP combos that are balanced and quick. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't one already here on Dumpshock somewhere.

There isn't, believe it or not. And every deconstruction of the archetypes in the SR4 book come back with some serious deviances in point totals. At any event, because of the stepped-build system, you can't actually "delineate an array of combos"-- you've got to offer a straight set of stats, which basically means you need to offer an archetype. And what's the whole point of chargen? To build your own character, and not to use someone else's.
JongWK
QUOTE (ChuckRozool)
I got a friend who posted this over at drivethrurpg.com

Dude, give it a break. You/he posted it on how many forums? 5? 10?
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (JongWK)
QUOTE (ChuckRozool @ Sep 7 2005, 08:51 PM)
I got a friend who posted this over at drivethrurpg.com

Dude, give it a break. You/he posted it on how many forums? 5? 10?

I would certainly consider this one to be an appropriate place to post it, wouldn't you?

~J
JongWK
Of course it's appropiate to post it here, but after seeing him post it everywhere on the same day (and vanish without a trace after the first post), I have to wonder...
ChuckRozool
What?

This is the only place i posted what my friend wrote.
Drivethrurpg is the only place he posted it...

If you've seen it anywhere else then that was not my doing

And as far as me disappearing...
This reply didn't make itself

pwned

PS - the reason for the post was because i thought he made some valid points and i figured it would be wasted in the drivethrurpg forums. Based on the amount of replies and the number of views i think i was right in posting it here.
coolgrafix
First of all, I'm still complaining about how Adobe changed the key shortcuts for Photoshop between version 3 and version 4. My anger at such brazen disrespect for users' time-worn habits still lingers to this day. So, I understand the arguments against change. But I still use and love Photoshop to this day regardless.

All editions of SR have/had both merits and flaws. Those of you who got SR3 back at GenCon 98 when it came out know all about the gimped movement system. And I will never forgive FASA for the overly complicated skill purchasing and advancement system that SR3 introduced. And God bless the Skill Web!

But the real issue is the life of the game product itself. Some of you out there have spent time in the RPG game publishing gulag like myself. There's really very, very, very little money to be made. It's more a hobby for the people who do it. Much worse now after D&D 3rd edition and the D20 OGL; every fanboy and his grandma started a gaming company and split an already tiny little pie into a thousand tiny slices of revenue so small that even though there is unprecedented diversity and creativity in the industry almost no one is making money (R.I.P. FastForward Entertainment, Ossium Distributing, etc.).

I don't know if we're all keeping score out there, but FASA vaporized in a puff of "had enough." The fact that someone stepped up to keep the product alive is a testament to the fans alone; someone recognized that there was a large enough base that people would continue to buy product. But the product has to be re-energized every so often to create buzz and bring new people into the fold. Anyone who claims, as all publishers do, that their new edition is being put out to clarify rules and bring disparate material together is only telling half the truth, whether it's Hero System 5th Edition, D&D 3.5, Mechwarrior 2.0, or SR4. It's about the life of the product itself.

Was D&D 3rd edition necessary? Of course not. Everyone had 2nd edition and it was just fine. But the product line was reborn anew with 3rd edition, regardless of any real improvements. Same with SR4. I haven't been this interested in SR in years, and I haven't even finished reading the SR4 rulebook yet.

Anyway, one more time: It's about the life of the product. Better "new and improved" than gone. =)
Shadow
To bad DSF isn't considered a 'fan base' and therefore we are either relagated to fanboys (and ignored) or supporters (and ignored).
JongWK
QUOTE
What?

This is the only place i posted what my friend wrote.
Drivethrurpg is the only place he posted it...

If you've seen it anywhere else then that was not my doing


I'm talking about this.

Color me skeptical, but in every case, someone registered a brand new ID just to post that (grossly inaccurate) rant. My point stands, someone's been very busy today.


QUOTE
And as far as me disappearing...
This reply didn't make itself

pwned


pwned? Oh poo-lease... ohplease.gif


QUOTE
PS - the reason for the post was because i thought he made some valid points and i figured it would be wasted in the drivethrurpg forums.  Based on the amount of replies and the number of views i think i was right in posting it here.


This is the first time you make sense so far.
ChuckRozool
LOL

I didn't even realize he posted elsewhere he only told me about the Drivethrurpg post.

Anywho, looks i was pwned

and i have something else to say...

Based on what i've read so far there doesn't really seem to be much of a difference between Shamans and Mages (other than the spelling nyahnyah.gif )

Mages, it appears can summon elementals as easily as a shaman summons a spirit. Or am i reading that wrong? I will continue to read in order to provide a more well informed opinion.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (JongWK)
QUOTE
What?

This is the only place i posted what my friend wrote.
Drivethrurpg is the only place he posted it...

If you've seen it anywhere else then that was not my doing


I'm talking about this.

Color me skeptical, but in every case, someone registered a brand new ID just to post that (grossly inaccurate) rant. My point stands, someone's been very busy today.

Erm, dude, that's flimsy evidence. It's entirely possible that the guy is every bit the troll you claim, but a case in which a guy comes on quoting someone else and then displays a lack of knowledge of another post in which a different ostensible person expresses an opinion as their own? That's wholly consistent with two people.

Attack the merits or lack thereof (and there's certainly lack there in parts, we've already established that the original writer can't have read SR4 particularly carefully) or bring some real evidence to the table, please.

~J
Oracle
QUOTE (ChuckRozool)
Anywho, looks i was pwned

Can't someone stop him from using that language? Please? dead.gif
ChuckRozool
QUOTE (Oracle)
QUOTE (ChuckRozool @ Sep 8 2005, 08:03 AM)
Anywho, looks i was pwned

Can't someone stop him from using that language? Please? dead.gif

LOL

sorry... nyahnyah.gif
Clyde
This is the right place for a post like this. It just isn't the right time. There really isn't anything in this post that hasn't been said a million times already. Most of it comes down to feel - and that's a personal thing.

I'm going to go out on a limb and philosophize a little here. Every RPG ever published has its own unique feel. But while the text of the game as written has its own feel, every individual campaign (or group) has a slightly different feel. Every RPG (even, or perhaps especially D&D) has so many variables and little quirks that no two groups play quite the same game. In a world intensive game like Shadowrun, every group is going to develop its own sense of what SR should feel like.

Now SR4 comes along - and the feel has changed. Different players and groups interact with the material differently. It's like a shark's skin - smooth if you rub it one way and rough when you go the other. Some groups will like the changes because SR4 has made things smoother for the way they run their game. Others will hate it, because where things used to be smooth now they're rough. We all move in our own little patterns across the surface.

For example, in SR3 the dice pools had a certain effect. When you played the game they gave it a certain feel. They're gone now, so the feel is drastically different. It's like turning around the scales, or whatever. In my last SR campaign I often felt the dice pools were a negative. Tough for me (the GM) to track across a dozen goons, and yet they let the player characters wander about with near impunity - alternately walking through fire unscathed and lancing out surgically precise death to anything that moved. I imagine the fixed system is going to feel a lot better for me. But that's because in my interpretation of the material the dice pools actually felt wrong.

I'm a fan of SR4 without playing it or even owning the book, because at this point I can see how much more easily my game will flow across this new landscape. But I can easily see where that new terrain is going to totally disrupt other people's flow. You really can't do a lot of the old round by round tactics. Wired reflexes are way worse. Magic probably is a lot more powerful. If that feels wrong with your SR game then SR4 is going to suck for you.

I think a game could definitely suck all on its own. It could have rules and setting so messed up that there's no way to play it smoothly. In the old days of AD&D and early WoD you had to do a lot of surgery on the rules to get the game to work. A whole lot of people on DSF seem ready to do that with SR4 - so I don't think it's hopeless.

At the end of all this stuff about how things are all relative I do want to raise one criticism of the anti-SR4 people. No one seems to have picked up on the sea change that has occurred with ranged combat. In prior editions of SR, ranged combat was static. You could be the most experienced guy in the world and all you got was a limited "dodge" resource. To use it, you had to be unwounded, fighting defensively, not subject to a full auto or wide spread attack, not subject to multiple attacks, and you had to have enough cover or protection that the other guy didn't have a TN2 to whack you. That's a lot if "ifs." Now, it's automatic that you get your Reaction to defend. Combat has gone from static (with modifications) to full on Opposed Rolls. That says major things about the world - now you can have such a high reaction that ordinary people cannot hit you no matter what you do. Ranged combat (the meat of a modern system) has gone from absolute to totally relative and that worries me. Does this not bother anyone else at all?
NightmareX
I, for one, am still reading through SR4 and making comparisons between it and SR3. I'll hold my judgement until then.
blakkie
QUOTE (hahnsoo)
....(there IS no Form-fit or Securetech armor in SR4....

Actually there is, and it is errata. smile.gif One of the sample characters has it listed on their equipment list.

But overall ya, it reads like fretting over Mr. 24.
apple
QUOTE
1. No real changes or improvements to the overall world.
Excluding game mechanics, approximately 70% of this book is directly pulled from the 3rd Edition. The remaining parts were taken from Man & Machine, Target: Matrix and Rigger 3. Hell, even the Otaku (now called technomancer) was pulled from previous material.


Well, cyberware, magic or the matrix are the basic elements in SR. And directly pulled? I donīt think so, perhaps except for the history-chapter. Many articles are re-designed & re-written. And yes, while for example the AR is really new, the astral space didnīt change so much, the articles must be pretty similar. And please: in some ways it is not fair to compare the new GBB4 (green basic book 4th edition) with the entire product range from SR3. Perhaps it would be better just to compare the two basic books?

Btw: in 1st/2nd/3rd edition the world looked much more similar compared with 4rt edition. But it seems that this didnīt disturb you.

QUOTE
, but my point is that the AR and Commlink ideas are simply emphasis on already existing topics (Simsense, Smart Goggles, team data network) in the gameworld.


That is true, but the art, the presentation, the overall feeling about everyone (un)wired, the importance of the matrix for everyone and the focus of the daily interaction with the matrix is something new.

QUOTE

Tangent: Given the lack of wireless security and glut of identity theft in our current world, wouldn't broadcasting SINs and cred transfers be a little fool-hardy in the somewhat more hostile world of Shadowrun? But I digress.


For that a commlink knows several operating modes ... like hidden. Continual broadcasting is only required in special security areas, for that the guys in black can monitor every stop of yours.

QUOTE

So now its (Firearms + Agility) instead of Firearms + Combat Pool, we that isn't much of a change except that anyone making a regular defense (not full) takes no repurcussions for dodging.


You forget to mention that the pool in SR3 was highly variable, 1 dice here, 2 dice there ... or 10 dice now and nothing later. Especially for a normal GM the consequent pool administration (lets say: 4 NPCs, 1 Mage, 1 Spirit => 5 combat pools, 6 karma pools, 1 astral combat pool, 1 sorcery pool) was problematic.

QUOTE
And then we have the huge SNAFU on armor. So now an Ares Predator (5DV/-1AP) will only cause stun damage on anybody wearing an armor jacket (8 ballistic).


Welcome to reality. At some point, NIJ-protection levels really stop the bullets and just turns the deadly bullet into a (hurting) punch.

QUOTE
Securetech's Form Fitting Armor gives any experienced runner an armor of 10/8 cumulative with the Armor Jacket 


Layering is no more in SR4. For 10/8 you need a jacket and a security helmet.

QUOTE

The only thing is that they really don't. For all magic purposes, the old magic pool has been replaced by the Magic attribute during casting and Logic(mage)/Charisma(shaman) for Drain.


That and some new splitting of skills, the increased drain for several spells (yes, I am not talking about stunbolt) ...

QUOTE
The Dice Pools always made sense to players; if you spend your all dice dodging, then you won't have any dice left for aiming.


Now your dodge gets more difficult everytime you use it. This makes sense to me.

QUOTE
Well, if the majority of your gaming experience is rolling dice then you are truly missing out on some of the magic of the 6th world.


And yet a large part of your article is about game mechanism.

SYL
blakkie
EDIT: oops rotfl.gif rotfl.gif
Grinder
QUOTE (apple)
Now your dodge gets more difficult everytime you use it. This makes sense to me.

It would make sense that it's getting more difficult to dodge several bullets at once like in dodging a burst. But dodging shot after shot shoulnd't get more difficult.
Siege
Not the right place to post, I know - but where can I find the Short Arms skill? Or is it limited to NPC Asian criminal organizations? grinbig.gif

-Siege
Ellery
It looks to me like the name was changed to Pistols, and if you found a reference to Short Arms in the SR4 text, all that means is that for some reason they didn't do a search-and-replace for it on the whole document.
kigmatzomat
QUOTE (Cain)
You don't have to be good at odds.  All you need to know is that More Dice=Good.  Dice Pools meant that you could decide which areas would get more dice, thereby determining what you'd be better at this round. 


Except it wasn't round by round; it was sub-action by sub-action. Combat pool to attack (How much to use on full auto? Two bursts?) and defend (how much to save?), Magic Pool for casting, drain and spell defense, etc, etc. Do you hit the target with a skill-only attack first to try and bleed off their pool and then load up on the second shot? How many dice do you need to have a decent chance of withstanding that drain and does it leave you enough for the casting to take out your foe?

QUOTE

Besides which, the whole point of Shadowrun was to be a more deadly game than, say D&D.  By increasing the granularity, you push things away from the "gritty, street-level" concept that the SR4 devs supposedly wanted. 


Lethality and granularity are not mutually exclusive. If you want a weapon to be fatal, jack up the damage code and give it some AP. Only having the option of inflicting 0, 10%, 30%, 60% or 100% of a target's damage's capacity isn't "gritty" in its own right. The rest of the damage mechanics determine lethality. I like the idea of being able to take one shot that leaves someone just barely alive.


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Check the other threads.  Mages can now throw a force-10 spell (not an option for starting mages under any previous edition) and only risk minimal, if any, drain.  They might have been gimped in some ways, but they can also dish it out a lot more than ever before. 


Yeah, but what does Force 10 mean in SR4? Used to, Force 10 meant "unresistable" because the TN was too high. Now Force 10 means there may be up to 10 successes behind it with a universal DC of 5. Not much different from SR1&2 spells cast at Force5. There is some similarity to SR3 but since the resistance test for the target is the same as for the caster's drain, I think any reduction in drain risk is validated.

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because of the stepped-build system, you can't actually "delineate an array of combos"-- you've got to offer a straight set of stats, which basically means you need to offer an archetype.  And what's the whole point of chargen?  To build your own character, and not to use someone else's.


Any priority system is going to have some innaccuracy since you're basically "rounding" the entire system to a 5 point scale. I seem to recall there were inaccuracies between the priority system and the optional build point system in previous generations. In classic engineering-speak you can have good, cheap or fast: Pick two.

mmu1
QUOTE (Cain)
Check the other threads. Mages can now throw a force-10 spell (not an option for starting mages under any previous edition) and only risk minimal, if any, drain. They might have been gimped in some ways, but they can also dish it out a lot more than ever before.

That's hardly a good example, since Force no longer means the same thing.

And something doing 10 boxes of damage with no drain isn't much different than a SR3 spell doing D damage with minimal drain, if any - not all that hard to do with, for example, a force 6 stunball. The main difference is that although the SR4 spell is almost guaranteed to be staged down some, it'll never be staged down completely, while the SR3 spell is likely to be all or nothing.
mintcar
Thanks Apple for making a reply to the orignal post that made me content with not replying myself. cyber.gif

ps. (about "pwned") If thereīs one thing I like with dumpshockīs conservative, wiseass denizens, itīs the way that stupid use of language is never tolerated. wink.gif
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