The Gaming Den

You do realize the marks (') around the word flaw indicate sarcasm, right?

On my better days...

Aside from knowing who moves when in a group that has 1 IP compared to the street sam's 4, can you take multiple Sprint actions in a single turn?

virgil wrote:Aside from knowing who moves when in a group that has 1 IP compared to the street sam's 4, can you take multiple Sprint actions in a single turn?

Yes. People with multiple IPs are faster than people without if they run flat out (though not if they are trying to do other things).

-Username17

i thought the movement distance was divided by the passes?
so if both the 1IP and the 4IP characters have a movement rate of 20m per time slot, then they both cover the 20m in that time slot and arrive at about the same time at their destination, just the 4IP character can still shoot stuff with his other 3 IPs if both of them spend one IP sprinting?

Correct, but the Sprint action is something you can do additionally every IP.

Finally got word on what the new players on making; the new party is going to be as follows:

• [Old] Orc Mage: Monowhip wielding, giant spirit summoning, parkour ninja/mage. Also the muscle of the old group, with the highest Strength and Body and Armor.
  [Old] Human Hacker: PhysAdept with just enough cyber for an internal commlink and an extreme focus on that. Has enough stealth/gear to not embarrass himself, as well as enough medicine to get good use out of the medkit.
  [Old] Human Ninja: PhysAdept luddite, wears a trode hat and A/V glasses to keep in touch, otherwise wields monowhip & crossbow and highest Stealth/Dodge in the old group. Also familiar with poisons (for the X-Bow) and demolitions, and recently invested in training and enough gear to make sure the group at least doesn't get ripped off in negotiations.
  [New] Human Street Sam: High amount of cyberware and ~20 dice in guns from what it sounds like the plan is.
  [New] Combat Medic: Decent investment in face, medicine at all levels, and enough guns to survive.
  [New] Rigger: Expected goal, not much else told as they and the medic haven't fully statted their characters for me to review yet.

Hmm, the PhysAd Script Kiddie is an interesting choice . . . The monowhip wielding Parcour Ninja ORK Mage is strange as well o.O
otherwise pretty decent standard i think.

Stahlseele wrote:Hmm, the PhysAd Script Kiddie is an interesting choice . . . The monowhip wielding Parcour Ninja ORK Mage is strange as well o.O
otherwise pretty decent standard i think.

For the script kiddie, it works.

Monowhip is because it's a melee weapon that can be made a focus for use in the Astral, if for whatever reason she doesn't feel like casting spells. As an ork, there's no penalty for going intuition-base while allowing for higher end armour values thanks to the Body (can't dodge as well as the ninja, but soaks nearly twice as much). She's jiggered the numbers sufficiently that she actively tones down her actual actions in runs for the valid fear of overshadowing the PhyAd ninja once you take into account everything she can do as a mage on top of it.

Stahlseele wrote:Hmm, the PhysAd Script Kiddie is an interesting choice

PhysAd hackers are the only hackers that can stand up to technomancers. And maybe even be better, by the virtue of having infiltration powers.

Is there any value in the Gun Heaven or Gun Heaven 2 books for a 4E game?

virgil wrote:Is there any value in the Gun Heaven or Gun Heaven 2 books for a 4E game?

There's no value in those books for any game. Zero percent of Shadowrun's combat system problems are that there aren't enough light pistols with minor variations in starting accessories or that the most efficient assault rifle isn't quite efficient enough.

-Username17

Oh, I wanted to ask! Are there rules for blind fire in SR4? I once made an adept sniper, with firing range of 1.5km and features allowing to negate all penalties. If I have a mage scrier, or a spy bot, can I do "Wanted!" stuff, and shoot people from the other end neighborhood?

EDIT: assuming I don't have a direct line of sight, but can get a position through GPS or something

The Blind Fire rules are fairly dumb. You use Intuition instead of Agility, and suffer maximum vision penalties on top of that. Yes, that means that for some characters in some situations, their aim would actually improve if they closed their eyes.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:The Blind Fire rules are fairly dumb. You use Intuition instead of Agility, and suffer maximum vision penalties on top of that. Yes, that means that for some characters in some situations, their aim would actually improve if they closed their eyes.

-Username17

Well, the main question is - is it possible to recreate this scene:

http://youtu.be/7mcx789Tv4A

if you have no direct line of sight, then how do you plan to shoot a bullet at the target?

everything else is indirect fire, so artillery / missle rules or something like that.

of course, that is impliying that direct line of sight = direct line of fire.

The blind fire penalty is -6. So to get more dice when blind firing, your Intuition needs to be 6 points higher than your Agility. Unless you specifically design your character for this, this is a case that rarely comes up.

To do a crazy impossible shot, you better abuse a far more problematic trouble with the SR4 rules, which is that when your dice pool is below 0, you can roll Edge. So a character with 6+ Edge has a decent chance of successfully making such a shot. Even with an Agility of 1 and a skill of 0.

Longes wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:The Blind Fire rules are fairly dumb. You use Intuition instead of Agility, and suffer maximum vision penalties on top of that. Yes, that means that for some characters in some situations, their aim would actually improve if they closed their eyes.

-Username17

Well, the main question is - is it possible to recreate this scene:

http://youtu.be/7mcx789Tv4A

Yes and no. You're looking at what is literally an armor piercing discarding sabot round fired from a high powered sniper rifle at extreme range against an unseen target located via electronics, with a called shot to the head through heavy cover. Total penalties: Blind (-6), Called Shot (-4), Good Cover (-4), Extreme Range (-3). So that hurts, you're firing with a -17 die penalty. But your dicepool is: Intuition + Longarms Skill + Adept Power + Aiming + Equipment + Edge. And the target gets no defense, and their soak roll is Body + Armor minus seven. And the base DV is 12P.

So here's what happens: your gun adept has an Intuition of 6, a Longarms of 6 with specialization, +3 from an adept power, A smart link, a high powered scope, and plenty of time to aim. So your net dicepool is about 6 dice plus Edge if you want to do that. So you do hit, and you do so with about 2 net hits, bringing the incoming damage to 14P. Then the target rolls their 4 body plus 1 die for their armor (Armor 8 modified by your -7 AP value), and get about 2 hits themselves. Which means that they take about 12 wound boxes. Which is enough to drop them, but not enough to kill them outright. Indeed, if there's a dedicated medic on site, they'll be able to start First Aid and heal about 4 boxes - which will not only stop them from dying but literally bring them to consciousness.

Edit:

Blade wrote:The blind fire penalty is -6. So to get more dice when blind firing, your Intuition needs to be 6 points higher than your Agility. Unless you specifically design your character for this, this is a case that rarely comes up.

Remember that Blind Fire also negates all visibility penalties. If you're in heavy fog, you have a -4 penalty for shooting with your eyes open, and a -6 penalty for shooting with your eyes closed. Having an Intuition that is 2 points better than your Agility is pretty likely. A heavy Intuition character can get pretty far dumping thermal smoke and wearing a blind fold.

-Username17

Blade wrote:The blind fire penalty is -6. So to get more dice when blind firing, your Intuition needs to be 6 points higher than your Agility. Unless you specifically design your character for this, this is a case that rarely comes up.

To do a crazy impossible shot, you better abuse a far more problematic trouble with the SR4 rules, which is that when your dice pool is below 0, you can roll Edge. So a character with 6+ Edge has a decent chance of successfully making such a shot. Even with an Agility of 1 and a skill of 0.

Or you can be Mind over Matter adept, who Adept Centers himself to negate penalties, and who dumped Agility for Logic and Intuition.

As of SR4 with the AR overlay where you can have the silhouette of a target painted into your field of vision i'd say you don't even need to do the whole intuition thing right?
you get him painted by your decker friend and then you see the target again.
and because it's AR and streamed into your field ov vision electronically, why should any kind of vision modifier aside from maybe electronic spam on your location matter?

The street sam finally submitted most of their character. Gave him 445BP and 7k nuyen per BP spent, otherwise following Frank's house rules in the Ends of the Matrix document.

Attributes B5, A6(8), R4(6), S3(5), C2, I3, L3, W3, Edge 5, Essence .46
Initiative 7(9), IP 1(3)
Active Skill Ratings (Groups Rtg included) Aeronautics Mechanic 2, Armorer 4, Automatics (Assault Rifles) 6, Automotive Mechanic 2, Blades 2, Climbing 3, Clubs 2, Computer 1, Cybercombat 1, Data Search 1, Demolitions 4, Disguise 3, Diving 1, Dodge (Ranged) 4, Electronic Warfare 1, Escape Artist 1, Gunnery 1, Gymnastics 3, Hacking 1, Hardware 3, Heavy Weapons 4, Industrial Mechanic 2, Infiltration (Urban) 4, Intimidation, Longarms (Sniper Rifles) 4, Nautical Mechanic 2, Navigation 1, Negotiation 1, Palming 3, Parachuting 1, Perception (visual) 4, Pilot Ground Craft (Bike) 1, Pistols (Semi-automatic) 4, Running 3, Shadowing 3, Software 1, Survival 1, Swimming 3, Throwing (Lobbed) 1, Tracking 1, Unarmed Combat 2
Knowledge Japanese 2, Spanish 2, Bars & Clubs 2, Combat Tactics (Urban) 4, Engineering 3, Fireamrs 2, Military 2
Qualities Addiction (Mild, Alcohol), Augmentation Addict, Biocompatability (Cyberware), High Pain Tolerance 2, Incompetent (Medicine), High Maintenance Implant, Spirit Bane (Man)
Cyberware (All alphaware unless noted)

• Cybereyes 3 (Eye Recording Unit; Image Link; Flare Compensation; Low-Light Vision; Protective Covers; Smartlink; Thermographic Vision; Vision Enhancement 3)
  Muscle Replacement 2
  Obvious Left Arm (Customized Agility 6; Customized Body 5; Enhanced Agility 3; Enhanced Strength 3; Armor 2; Large Smuggling Compartment)
  Obvious Right Arm (Armor 2; Customized Agility 6; Customized Body 5; Enhanced Agility 3; Enhanced Strength 3; Datajack)
  Skillwires 3 (Betaware)
  Wired Reflexes 2

Equipment Suzuki Mirage, Explosive Rounds (200), Regular Ammo (1100), AR Gloves, Programs w/Rating (Analyze 2, Browse 2, Command 1, Edit 2), Docwagon Contract (Gold), Fake License 4 (cyberware, guns, muscle replacement, SIN), Tool Kit, High Lifestyle (1 month), Hermes Ikon Commlink (Response 4, System 2, Firewall 1, Signal 3), Camouflage Suit (Ruthenium Coating, Thermal Damping 6), Full Body Armor Helmet, Survival Knife
Weapons Ares Alpha (Sound Suppressor, Chameleon Coating, Personalized Grip, Sling, Smartgun), Ares Alpha Grenade Launcher
Ares Predator IV (Concealable Holster, Smartgun, Internal)
Grenades (5 Flash Bangs, 10 Frag, 10 HE, 4 smoke)

I'm going to have to go through the EotM to figure out how he needs to change his commlink/software material.

Whoa there O.o
That's one hell of a broad spectrum of skills for somebody calling himself a sam o.O

The half price on skills thing gave him a pile of BP that he had to put somewhere. Also, the street sam moniker is what I'm calling him with his stated goal of lots of guns and cyberware.

Street Samurai have secretly been the de facto generalists of the Shadowrun world for a while now anyway, since Synthacardium, Muscle Toners, Attention Coprocessors, Tailored Pheromones and Cerebral Boosters all belong to the generically useful pile. Frank's rules mostly just make sure that Samurai have the BP left over to nab a point or two in a whole mess of technical skills that would otherwise forbid defaulting. McGyvering your problems in person is actually a pretty logical niche for sams to be filling when you consider that the heavy artillery role is rather easily usurped by any rigger who realizes there's nothing stopping them from slapping tasers on a few dozen RC cars. So Samurai aren't really the best in the fight or in a negotiation, but they can do a serviceable job filling in when the elf shaman gets shot in the face or the team dalek gets hung up by a flight of stairs.

Updated the sam's stats; definitely more Cyber'd up this time around. One thing I'm noticing is that I may have to show him the armour in Arsenal, because the mage (17/15) still has more than him (14/12).