Shadowrun

[Muspellsheimr]

Though I was surprised there was no change to summoning. Is it just me or does summoning in SR4 seem crazy powerful?

My ruling is as follows:

Spirit Attributes (except Magic) are equal to Force / 2, round up (minimum 1)

Summoned / Bound spirits do not have an Edge attribute - instead, the summoner may use their own Edge on their spirit's tests

Spirit Skills are equal to Force / 2, round up

Summoning / Binding Drain is equal to Force / 2 + the spirits Hits (as in Street Magic)


The Immunity power now grants Hardened Armor equal to the critter's Magic attribute.

Hardened Armor now provides automatic Hits on damage resistance equal to it's rating.



Spirits remain a viable & powerful option, but are no longer overwhelming at higher Force.

I am still unsure if the change to Immunity makes it better or worse, which suggests balance is roughly the same. It does, however, work better/smoother/whatever.

[Sir Neil]

"Would anyone care to comment on the quality of the Shadowrun Missions line?"

Uneven.

The series I read is set in Denver -- where everyone cowers under the shadow of the GM's giant dragon-cock. As I recall, they mostly involve working with different organized crime families. I think the Russian mafiya is trying to horn in on the American Indian mafia, or something, not to mention what the Triads and Yakuza were up to. Among them were some Pink Mohawk moments, like the adventure where your kidnapping attempt is met with a helicopter gunship with air assault troll...

Still, it's better than Zero Sum Gain, a SR adventure by ... Ancient History, maybe? The characters are raped by the Johnson (with no save), who holds the fate of their fertilized eggs hostage because she can't afford to hire them and didn't think they'd help for free.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Still, it's better than Zero Sum Gain, a SR adventure by ... Ancient History, maybe? The characters are raped by the Johnson (with no save), who holds the fate of their fertilized eggs hostage because she can't afford to hire them and didn't think they'd help for free.

WTF were they thinking?

[Username17]

I am still unsure if the change to Immunity makes it better or worse, which suggests balance is roughly the same. It does, however, work better/smoother/whatever.

Since that's my Immunity/Hardened Armor rules, I can comment:

It makes Hardened Armor better by 50% against zero Armor Piercing, but makes Armor Penetration values three times as large. So against an Ares Predator with standard Ammo inside, ItNW is superior if the spirit has a force of more than 2 (which is to say: pretty much everything). Against a high powered rifle filled with AP ammo, the ItNW is worse at anything less than Force 14 (again, pretty much everything).

In practice, this is good for mundane runners, because it means that they have specifically effective anti-spirit options in the form of taking high Armor Penetration weaponry. Spirits still pretty much own random dudes on the street, bu then so do drones and street samurai so I don't really have much of an opinion on that fact.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

Summoned / Bound spirits do not have an Edge attribute - instead, the summoner may use their own Edge on their spirit's tests

Wow, you know i just realized that spirits have edge when you pointed that out.

That's crazy.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Here's a question for the Shadowrun crowd: some locals that I know play Shadowrun, but they absolutely refuse to move from 3rd Edition to 4th Edition. One of the main reasons is because the Decking rules suck (and I have forwarded Frank's alternate rules to them), but they also apparently dislike the "oversimplification" of the rules for Riggers. But aside from these issues (and I really don't know if the Rigging thing is an actual issue or not), are there any good reasons why someone might want to consider playing/running in a 3E game instead of a 4E game?

[Username17]

Summoned / Bound spirits do not have an Edge attribute - instead, the summoner may use their own Edge on their spirit's tests

Wow, you know i just realized that spirits have edge when you pointed that out.

That's crazy.

Yeah it is. Peter Taylor and Rob both put out an official stealth nerf where they noted that since it is up to the spirit whether to spend Edge or not, that they usually just don't spend it. Which is almost like retconning them to not have Edge, but not quite. You'll note that when I wrote the Free Spirit rules, one of the key conceits is that they end up with a very small and very precious Edge stat. Because yeah, a Force 8 spirit that spends its 8 fucking Edge points like would be entirely reasonable for a critter that is going to go off screen for a month at sunset would just fucking rape everyone and everything.

But aside from these issues (and I really don't know if the Rigging thing is an actual issue or not), are there any good reasons why someone might want to consider playing/running in a 3E game instead of a 4E game?

A number of people are confused by the really complicated math of SR3's variable Target Number and think that it represents infinite scaleability. It doesn't really. While it is true that you can make a task arbitrarily difficult and still have a chance of success, in reality that just doesn't even matter. Since you're rolling the dice just once and not a hundred times to portray each action, a 1::81 shot just isn't meaningfully different from a 1::216 shot. By the time things get incredibly unlikely, they pretty much just don't happen in play and then you move on with your life

The fact is that damage vs. soak scales better in a fixed TN system than it does in a variable TN system. While I prefer LMSD damage to the SR4 "two shot take down" system, so much that I used the former for Warp Cult - it's not enough to put up with the frankly bad math generated by the variable TN.

In SR4 you can add a pile to an attacker's strength and a pile to the defender's soak and have that produce a result which is on average the same. In SR3, if you add to the attacker's strength you have to multiply the defender's soak to get the same average result. And that's just not practical. In SR4 you can push something completely off the human scale with 20 dice. In SR3 you're still on the human scale in a lot of ways even at 60 dice. I don't want to roll 60 dice, especially when the results aren't meaningfully different from rolling 15 dice in a system that scales better like SR4.

-Username17

[Murtak]

A number of people are confused by the really complicated math of SR3's variable Target Number and think that it represents infinite scaleability. It doesn't really. While it is true that you can make a task arbitrarily difficult and still have a chance of success, in reality that just doesn't even matter. Since you're rolling the dice just once and not a hundred times to portray each action, a 1::81 shot just isn't meaningfully different from a 1::216 shot. By the time things get incredibly unlikely, they pretty much just don't happen in play and then you move on with your life

My take is a little different. Variable TNs combined with a shifting dicepool work very well on one level - the DM only ever has adjust difficulties, the player always rolls the same amount of dice and (and this is the difference to SR4) he can always get the same number of successes. This is particularly noticeable at the lower end of the dicepool range, where people with dicepool of 4 can't ever anything in total darkness because they have a post-penalty-dicepool of -2. This problem doesn't exist in SR3. Unfortunately there is no easy way to generate a smooth shifting TNs without computer assistance. So you end up with a +1 to your TN sometimes doing literally nothing and sometimes halving your chance of a success. And when I say sometimes I really mean every other round. You can mitigate the problem by changing rerolling mechanics, but now you no longer have easy mechanics.

To sum up: SR3 produces really nice long tails in your probability curve, but also comes with odd bumps for very common tasks. And that is terrible tradeoff. SR4 has the most simple mechanics of any SR version and scales very smoothly for all common tasks. It comes apart for very small dicepools though, but that is a much better tradeoff in my opinion.

[TavishArtair]

So here's a request. I've played some Shadowrun before, so I have a feel for the system and know how the game breaks down in general terms. However, I don't have a really sharp eye towards all the mechanics, and I haven't done the kinds of dozens of hours of playing that let you really know how the system feels on subtleties. My elf samurai didn't even bother dikoting his katana, nor did I play him very long.

My question is, assuming the character is an Adept or Magician of some sort, i.e. he is not dependent on cyberware to get things like bonus initiative passes and boosted stats, how much does other gear honestly influence your performance? I got the impression that once you hit a certain minimum of functionality, the rest was often gravy.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You NEED gear in Shadowrun. It pretty much makes or breaks you. Don't even consider getting foci until you have computers, a cell phone that's not attached to your computer, a nice hideout, a set of concealable and tactical body armor, a holdout pistol, a knife, some assault pistols, some grenades, gel rounds and some regular bullets, as many drugs and slap-patches as you can get your hands on before the DM will start going 'lol addiction', flashlights, smoke bombs, a getaway vehicle, and some damn contacts.

Mind, these are the things that every character should get regardless of what they do or how much tech is in their bodies. Obviously if you are a decker or a razorboy you'll need even more gear on top of that

[TavishArtair]

I'm sorry, let me clarify.

My question was about the difference between the baseline versions thereof (say, a blade) and the high level variations that one can buy (say, a dikoted katana). Or an Ares Predator versus the monstrosities one can get in certain editions with the custom gun rules.

Not about the bare minimum needed to attain functionality.

[RandomCasualty2]

The fact is that damage vs. soak scales better in a fixed TN system than it does in a variable TN system. While I prefer LMSD damage to the SR4 "two shot take down" system, so much that I used the former for Warp Cult - it's not enough to put up with the frankly bad math generated by the variable TN.

What's LMSD?

[CatharzGodfoot]

The fact is that damage vs. soak scales better in a fixed TN system than it does in a variable TN system. While I prefer LMSD damage to the SR4 "two shot take down" system, so much that I used the former for Warp Cult - it's not enough to put up with the frankly bad math generated by the variable TN.

What's LMSD?

It's damage tiers.

[Heath Robinson]

The fact is that damage vs. soak scales better in a fixed TN system than it does in a variable TN system. While I prefer LMSD damage to the SR4 "two shot take down" system, so much that I used the former for Warp Cult - it's not enough to put up with the frankly bad math generated by the variable TN.

What's LMSD?

Light
Medium
Serious
Deadly