I personally !love! all of the concepts in SR4. The story, the backgroud, everything... except the damned rules!

It leaves almost no room for growth in skill. I'm fine if they have a cap on skills (even with magic and cyber) but to make it so low is disheartening. You want to make the dice pool smaller AND make skills all that more important (while still have the attributes with a say)? Have the attribute add half its rating to the pool damnit! Still simple and easy.

Also... explain. more. crap. It says that instruction adds to the pool to learn skills. What. ..pool!?

This system has so much potential but its a waste as is. You want to take more time to improve and tweak before releasing it? DO THAT! I can wait a few months ( won't like it but I'll fragging do it!)

I have a number of other complaints on the system but those are what irk me on a major level.

Is there a way to salavge it? Please tell me they're going to re-vamp it... so cool.... but such a waste...

Should have just fixed SR3, it wouldn't have been that hard, you wouldn't have this gigantic new-rules mess, you wouldn't have alienated a sizeable chunck of the exsisting players, I could go on, but I won't. I'll just sit here and laugh at the fact that SR4 is already halfway FUBAR. There's already lists of house rules being posted and it's been out less than a month.

I'm sure I said something before about SR4 going to wind up a rules cluster-fuck.

LOL

It wasn't any different with previous SR releases or with releases of new editions of other RPGs. Give it a rest.

The risk that any RPG company takes in changing the core mechanic includes alienating your core audiences of fans and missing "holes" in the rules. Suffice to say, SR4 has been doing both, but at the same time, it brings a lot of possibility to the aging SR mechanic. They couldn't have simply "revised" the mechanic because all of the holes from the original mechanic would still be there (6 is the same as 7, Open tests, etc.).

At first glance I don't mind the simplified set up. Fixed target number, thresholds, and such. Alright, thats fine. Altering armor a bit to add to body and make low caliber guns deal stun? Okay. Having reaction for dodging (this I like actually with the way initiative affects stats). Neat. Yes runners should be well rounded in many ways... but taking away the ability to focus and keep focusing on a set area... is just not fun.
I also enjoyed how previous editions held up skills as a bit more important than attributes. Then there was this crossover to White Wolf style game play. Well... White Wolf nWOD is an awesome system... very loose and flexible with little need for detail. Shadowrun... is all about detail. Its a game where you need to notice the small stuff (and which needs to be reflected in the rules).

Anyway... I truely want this edition to go through... I just want a bit more quality in the content of the rules...

I don't want "over-done complexity". I want a rehash of a few rather important areas of the rules. I enjoy most of it and want it as is... but there are several rules that are rather silly, runners starting as almost perfect fighters, hackers, or gunners is just silly... this takes away the fun of earning a damned rep and gaining skill slowly. I don't mind a skill cap.... but such a low skill cap is silly. I'd prefer a skill cap much like the attributes (1.5 times max) with a modified dice max of double the base skill. This not only fits with the adept power, allows for more growth, but allows for the skill levels of the legendary persons like Fastjack and such. I'd prefer to make the dice pool smaller somehow and have the focus on skills again, but the current rules make that nearly impossible.

There are a few other issues like the instruction skill explaination (adds dice the the dice pool to learn a skill.... what pool? where?).

I think the range needs work. Perhaps a -4 modifier instead of a -3 but that might just be nit picking there and comparing it to SR3 there.

I HATE how they did movement. Its outright dumb. Know anyone who can walk 10 meters in 3 seconds? I don't. Just to shed some light on it its about 30 feet. Use the original set up for movement. Agility or reaction for walking speed, and x3 for running (or 2.5 ft you want to stick to the charts set up.) I like how they gave Dwarves a penalty and Trolls a bonus, but beyond that... it sucks.

Agility is a bit too emphasized in the combat skills... lets see... about 18 of 75 skills which Logic ties in skills as well. Kinda makes strength useless unless you are a melee, bow, or thrown weapon fighter or running/swimming like hell. Not balanced when the skills agility has are all the gun skills, all the melee weapon skills, and so on. Much of it makes sense but there are a few skills that should be linked to strength. Like Clubs. Or they could just give strength a few more skills or something. This one isn't all that big a deal, I just feel that a bit of balance is needed.

I like the technomancer, I like the magic set up (almost excessively expensive to raise a magic stat above 6 but I can live with that.) And I hope they bring back the quick draw adept power in Street Magic.

I like.. no love the way they linked reaction (and the initiative boosting power/cyber) to oppose combat skills. This make me happy.

I like this new edition's concepts and many of the rules, but many important rules seem to be bungled or at least hurried for publication.

If you have a problem with skills caped at 9, change it. I can guarantee that the Fanpro police won't come kicking down your door and haul you off to gamer jail if you up the limit to 12 (or higher).

I haven't found many problems with the rules. The rules with cyber limbs starting at all stats 3 and only able to raise to 6 without a cyber torso doesn't sit right when you consider trolls and orks. So I just have a cyber arm start at the minimum for the Meta type plus two and have them be able to raise it to their starting maximum without a cyber torso. I don't think I need to worry about the RPGustapo coming for me in the middle of the night because I changed the rules to suit my game better.

Errr... skills are capped at 6 not 9. 9 is the modified limit. So while karma brings it to 6 (or 7 with aptitude) your adept powers or cyberware can only add about three dice if you have the skill at 6.

Indeed. It's sooo sad Adept Powers aren't able to effectively double your dice anymore...

I detect sarcasm there.
Eh. I just want base skill to be as important as attributes, at least. Adept powers shouldn't raise it ubber high. Having about three levels of Improved ability is enough. So a Skill cap of 9 (10 with aptitude) with a modifed limit of 12 (13 with aptitude) seems fair enough to me. Allows room to grow. Certainly either double karma costs to buy skills about 6 or raise the multpier by one. I'd do the same with attributes above the natural max... maybe...

Seems like a nice set up to me.

I don't mind keeping the caps, I simply want the caps higher. As is, the game has more of an emphasis on attributes with all the stat bonuses being thrown around. Skills become less important and specializations become.... very important.

How is that different, though, that real life. I have a speciality that's very important, I'm a programmer. My other skills are less important to me that my raw ability to learn to program and my programming skill (please, dear goddess, do not let this dissolve into a debate about the skill + program rating rule). My speciality is in PHP and I'm growing some serious skill with Python, too. Thus, I have a specialization that is more important than my skill, but it's but my attribtues are importent, too, for the basic, raw potential for me to learn that specialization.

SR4 seems to represent that pretty well so far.

Its the number of dice it adds I'm concerned about. And your knowledge of programming is at least as much important as your logic. Sheer talent is good, but must be tempered with knowledge and experience.

I'm all for reducing the dice pool a bit, but the current rules set makes that unlikely... in fact the rules set doubles much of the dice pool and increases chances of success anyway even with threshold (which I will modify... too few a number of successes are needed for "extreme" and with the buy success option, runners with large pools can easily accomplish "extreme" on a daily basis. This is with the original rules I might add).

The more I think about this... the more I want to know how much they playtested this before release... it has some issues several other people who are reading it are noticing. And they are completely new to Shadowrun. Some of them rarely agree with me on various subjects and in this case... most of them agree.

It was also a big deal if you are rolling dice pools of about 10... oh wait... thats rather easy to do in the current rules set... *gasp* Oh no.
In fact, a standard starting character will have one, two, or maybe three different pools of 10 or more. So large pools are going to be a standard in thie new system and arguing that its so horrible to raise a skill cap is.... well... decide for yourself.

I thought one of the goal was to reduce the number of dice thrown?

I either remember something like that... or had assumed it so. Perhaps in stating that they wanted a "simplified, universal" system we had assumed they would reduce the number of dice rolled.

Perhaps you assumed that, i never did. From early on in the FAQs i could see the extra dice taking shape. What they did though, it seems, is reduced the number of times you roll.

I thought it was to reduce the number of dice pools. I will do some digging myself...

To many threads to go through. Not worth digging through. Like I said "I thought" from some of the things that were talked about when it was first anounced.

the problem is that the system is broken coming and going. on one hand, there's almost no difference between the best in known history (att 7 skill 7) and the best you're likely to find (skill 6, att 6). granted, the same problem existed in SR3, but at least in SR3, you could argue that the skill level lables were insane (8 is the best in the world, but you can hit 14 if you try hard enough...?). on the other, if you raise the skill and attribute caps, you make modifiers even more insane than they already are. it's bad enough that a human at max ability and no augmentation can bullseye a different 500m target every three seconds with unerring accuracy; if you ignore the skill/attribute caps, a normal human will be able to bullseye a different 500m target every three seconds with unerring accuracy in total darkness.

Well theres got to be a way to fix it somehow. I enjoy many of the ideas they have within the system; the background, the magic set up, the technomancer, initiative, reaction opposing combat skills and so on. I want it to work... I just know they way it is now is a waste and will not be be near as fun as SR3 is.

I'll throw out a few quick ideas on how to reduce the dice pool while still keeping the emphasis on skills.

Only half the attribute counts towards the dice pool... I'm not really fond of this one.

The dice from the attribute is equal to the attribute... minus 2 or 3. (To reflect an average of sorts.) Still not quite what I'm looking for but better.

Anyone else have some ideas? Lets brainstorm on this, wether you like my opinion or not, lets try and make the system the best it can be.

that's part of my point. every competent runner group has at least one person who can accomplish this feat, or a similar one. truly impressive levels of skill are commonplace, in SR4--which makes them not-impressive.

Perhaps rather than a dice penalty, require a threshold for ranges, and every success beyond that threshold adds to the damage? Or have both a dice penalty and threshold.

that was one of the proposed mechanics (i think it's even suggested as an option in the final version of the rules). there are problems with it, as well, mostly tending towards the opposite end--high skill people have a problem ever hitting extreme-range targets, and low skill people have no chance at all. it could probably be balanced with some work.

Hmm... how about... Short range has no threshold or penalty, medium range has only a -1 dice penalty, Long range has a -2 dice penalty and a threshold of 1, and Extreme range has a dice penalty of -3 and a threshold of 2?

I'll throw out a few more just becuase

[Range
[Threshold
[Modifier
Medium
1
-
Long
2
-1
Extreme
3
-2

[Range
[Threshold
[Modifier
Medium
1
-1
Long
2
-1
Extreme
2
-2

Rember a few years ago with WOTC released the all new AD&D 3.0. Didn't they have to release AD&D 3.5 within a year? Maybe this is the road we are looking at. I didn't watch any of the AD&D boards at the time (to busy playing Shadowrun and not interested in AD&D). Wonder if those forums looked like this one.

Just remove hits instead of dice? (This would be a treshold)

i know the character creation mechanics, which means i know the most likely types of character builds. i know that skill 6 and attribute 6 can be achieved without sacrificing too much ability in other areas, which means i know it shouldn't be all that uncommon--after all, if X is good, and everybody knows it's good, and it's not hard to get, everybody will have X.

birdy, i didn't answer your questions because they're completely tangential to my point. since you seem to be missing my point anyway (or, at least, you're not addressing it), i'll go ahead and answer.

a) levels of success indicate general hit location--lots of successes against a metahuman target mean you hit a critical spot (because the extra damage is likely to kill them), while fewer successes mean you hit a less-critical spot. the same principle can be applied to target-shooting; if you get lots of successes, you hit closer to the bullseye. 4 successes, in SR4, are defined as being extra-good; if you get 4 net successes, that means you've accomplished your task almost perfectly. i think it's therefore safe to say that 4 successes on a target-shooting roll = bullseye.

b) modifiers generally reduce the number of dice you roll. if you're rolling 14 dice, even total darkness (-8 dice) leaves you with two successes on average, or one success if you want to purchase it.

i'll note again that neither of these points are really salient to a comparison of level of ability.

I think threshold rather than a modifer works well. And to smooth it out a little, you could (like I was arguing earlier) raise the skill caps a little to compensate, and have a slightly higher threshold for the rest of your skills. Compensates nicely, allows for a bit of character growth, allows skills to be reemphansized, and makes me far happier with the system.