Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Shamie on <04-09-13/1443:31>
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I spent this months dming shadowrun for my group of players and while i like SR4 im not of the mentality of "thats how the game is play" and im trying to house rules some stuff that we dont like but i want yours take on how to improve this house rules (or maybe there is a rule variant im missing)
1) Eliminating soaking roll: The attacker rolls "atribute + skill +/- mods" vs defender "atribute + skill +/- mods" the difference + the weapon rating should surpass the armor in order to do lethal damage.
Reasoning: It speed up combat (two opossing rolls, you compare on the armor and done with it) and it makes trolls afraids of assault rifles
2) you gains the extra IPs if you are hacking on AR (the same IPs you would gain on VR) if and only if you spent all of it on only hacking.
Reasoning: so i dont have to separate the poor souls that decide to make a hacker or tecnomancer from the the party and slow down the game.
3) Extras IPs. With wired reflexes you get the following. In any extra IP you can only move or attack. not both and you have to split your dice pool (declaring first on the turn what you gonna do)
Reasoning: Wired reflex became a must always no matter which concept character you make. They add wired not for character but because not doing so is a major disadvantage. So everyone has them and quoting manly men doing manly things "When everybody is a hipster no one would be".
With this at least character with mastery of guns or swords would use wired. Because otherwise it would only be a waste of nuyen and essence.
Im looking for a way for them not to feel obligated to add wired reflexes to everysingle pc they can because having extra turns is usefull no mather what. And in doing so they devaluate the fact of having Wired.
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1. By just having Attack vs Defense and not rolling soak, you pretty much upped the damage with 3 (Body 3, Armor 6) to... well, a LOT more damage per shot. I think it'd become too lethal. SR combat quickly gets lethal even with soak.
2. Don't really see why... Especially not seeing what you want to do with point 3.
3. I'm assuming you mean to do that with all the IP-increasing 'ware, spells and powers? Also not understanding the dicepool thing... You want to split what, when? Also you're nerfing combat characters pretty badly, which doesn't HAVE to be bad as long as you keep this in mind when sending them opposition. Where earlier a streetsam could've dealt with a small security team all by himself, he can't do that anymore. Also moving has never really been an action, what you're doing here seems to require changing movment in combat rules too. And imo, even after your change, Wired Reflexes would still be a must for most characters that want to be good at combat.
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1. Horrible idea. Makes an already quite lethal game into a meat grinder.
2. Don't see the point, really. Meat moves slower than the mind. The reason you get three passes in full VR, hot sim is that your mind doesn't have to focus on the outside world, and doesn't have affairs of the meat slowing it down. Plus, just because a hacker goes VR to break in, doesn't mean they need to stay VR the whole time. They don't lose access just because they are in AR instead of VR. But really, you're messing with serious genre tropes here. The hacker jacking in and being vulnerable in the meat until the hack is done is something of a staple of the cyberpunk genre. Its like doing D&D where wizards use shotguns instead of a staff.
3. This is a crap rule. No one is obligated to get wired reflexes (or other IP boosters). You just have to adjust your play style to fit. Being a combat focused character with no extra IPs is idiotic, true, but hackers and riggers can get by without wired reflexes just fine. Anyone who focuses in longarms or heavy weapons is just fine at 1-2 IPs.
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2. Don't see the point, really. Meat moves slower than the mind. The reason you get three passes in full VR, hot sim is that your mind doesn't have to focus on the outside world, and doesn't have affairs of the meat slowing it down. Plus, just because a hacker goes VR to break in, doesn't mean they need to stay VR the whole time. They don't lose access just because they are in AR instead of VR. But really, you're messing with serious genre tropes here. The hacker jacking in and being vulnerable in the meat until the hack is done is something of a staple of the cyberpunk genre. Its like doing D&D where wizards use shotguns instead of a staff.
Well in a all hackers party that wouldnt be an issue but there is the "all hacker not hacker" argument i have heard before. You know that moment when one players make a hacker and when they do their thing i have to stop the game and design a mini game all for himself while the rest of the players have to sit arround waiting for him to finish? everytime the hacker goes hacking we all go "aww fuck" because the hacker goes to his little world wich noone of the players can access so by all means it puts a stop to the game. BTW if you hack in AR you cant defend yourself by my rules.
i have heard a lots of possible solutions for that. Make the PC "programs" to help the hacker" (to much work), run a separate session for the hacker (not going to happen), have a extra DM to run the hacking (im the only DM), making the hacker NPC only.
Seriously no one else have encounter the hacker problem?
3. This is a crap rule. No one is obligated to get wired reflexes (or other IP boosters). You just have to adjust your play style to fit. Being a combat focused character with no extra IPs is idiotic, true, but hackers and riggers can get by without wired reflexes just fine. Anyone who focuses in longarms or heavy weapons is just fine at 1-2 IPs.
You would think so but really think about it. Why wouldnt you? Seriously i havent heard or read any single reason you wouldnt get more IPs assides from roleplaying reasons (and flimsy ones at that). Why wouldnt a face want extra turn? why wouldnt a smuggler, driver, paramedic, mage, adept, want extra turns?
You can start with 250.000 nuyen and you know that no matter your job having extra turns is always a plus. You know that everyone else has then. And you know that if you dont , you dont get to play as much (for everybody else who is gonna have 2-3 turns you get one).
The face has wired, the mage gets them (or the spell that does the same), the adept, everyone got them because extra action without any true penaltie is just more usefull. So what you do if you dont want to play 1 turn out of 3 you get wired, so does everyone else.
This cause the poor guy who doesnt get them to sit bore for 5 to 10 min while the rest act and then he makes an action. And thats it. He gets bored and next PC he makes also has wired so i ended up dming a game where everyone has wired. so if everyone gets wired i may as well remove it. because if i have a turn with all pcs having 3 ips what im having in reallity is three turns
Being the street samurai with wired doesnt make you special sunflower because everyone else has them. i dont want to remove it because wired its very much an thing of SR but by putting a very narrow scope and limitations i make sure than only very very combat oriented PCs can make use of them.
3. I'm assuming you mean to do that with all the IP-increasing 'ware, spells and powers? Also not understanding the dicepool thing... You want to split what, when? Also you're nerfing combat characters pretty badly, which doesn't HAVE to be bad as long as you keep this in mind when sending them opposition. Where earlier a streetsam could've dealt with a small security team all by himself, he can't do that anymore. Also moving has never really been an action, what you're doing here seems to require changing movment in combat rules too. And imo, even after your change, Wired Reflexes would still be a must for most characters that want to be good at combat.
what i was thinking about is if Pepi the street samurai want to shot guys with his three ips and let say he has a dicepool of 10.
first IP he has a dicepool of 10
second and third IPs he has to divide that dicepool between the shot he take in ip2 and ip3
but thinking about it has the problem of what to do if player decide to do something else with their ips.
what im trying to acomplish is a fix for table of games in wich all pcs have wired reflex a way so that only combat oriented pcs should get a use for wired. or better yet only speed oriented characters would get it. So a heavy russian troll with a shotgun wouldnt ALWAYS comes with wired.
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In the case of the hacker, it seems like you and your group might want to play without a hacker. You wouldn't be the only group with the same problem and just avoiding hacking is the best solution I've seen so far if you ask me.
If someone still wants to be the tech guy, have him specialize in hardware, demolition and/or rigging or something like that. Make sure you develop runs that don't NEED a hacker but have other solutions or provide them with a hacker(group) contact that's willing to do some work for money/favors.
As for the IP's... I don't really see this as being as problematic as you seem to think it is. Even if it is, your solution seems to either nerf it to uselessness so nobody'd really want it... or not, in which case everyone who wanted it before would still want the toned-down version, because it's still better than having only 1IP.
"But why doesn't everyone want extra IP's?" -> Everyone wants them! Wouldn't you want to be 3 times faster? But making and playing a character is about making choices, and if they choose to take Wires, they'll have not used those resources for something else. They'll also have chosen not to set off every MAD/'ware scanner and raise suspicion that way, not to walk around looking like a Christmas tree on the astral, not having lost power/part of their humanity to essence loss, buying loads of extra powers with other uses... etc etc.
Really, you ask for opinions: I'm a fan of a lot of houserules, but not these ones.
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As for the IP's... I don't really see this as being as problematic as you seem to think it is. Even if it is, your solution seems to either nerf it to uselessness so nobody'd really want it... or not, in which case everyone who wanted it before would still want the toned-down version, because it's still better than having only 1IP.
"But why doesn't everyone want extra IP's?" -> Everyone wants them! Wouldn't you want to be 3 times faster? But making and playing a character is about making choices, and if they choose to take Wires, they'll have not used those resources for something else. They'll also have chosen not to set off every MAD/'ware scanner and raise suspicion that way, not to walk around looking like a Christmas tree on the astral, not having lost power/part of their humanity to essence loss, buying loads of extra powers with other uses... etc etc.
Really, you ask for opinions: I'm a fan of a lot of houserules, but not these ones.
My intention is not that noone wants them but to make that only street samurais (combat oriented pcs) wants them. The scanner thing thought is interesting, didnt think about that. How does it work, in the sense of where would they be? Like in very private places like corporation building or in places like shopping malls? i mean i know there are scanner looking for weapons and such so they cant go arround carrying assault riffles but i though that only in airports there were.
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Don't know where you live, but from what I read on the interwebs, the majority of the people on these forums live in a country where they're having those scanners installed in schools and public libraries and where influential lobbyists want to put a gun in the hands of every teacher.
I doubt they'll be any more scarce 60 years in the future where they're not only cheap as dirt but where things like privacy and civil liberties don't really exist anymore and where entering/leaving a building owned by a large company could be legally considered crossing a border.
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Don't know where you live, but from what I read on the interwebs, the majority of the people on these forums live in a country where they're having those scanners installed in schools and public libraries and where influential lobbyists want to put a gun in the hands of every teacher.
I doubt they'll be any more scarce 60 years in the future where they're not only cheap as dirt but where things like privacy and civil liberties don't really exist anymore and where entering/leaving a building owned by a large company could be legally considered crossing a border.
Well in my country we dont really. People shoot at school here and there but i guess there arent any funds for that equipment. Here only on airports. But i could make the lives of Wired reflexes pcs a living hell on that matter in order to dissuade non combat pcs of having those.
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BTW if you hack in AR you cant defend yourself by my rules.
I think you are actually exacerbating the issue of the divide between hacker and non hacker with that rule.
If instead a hacker decided to buy wired reflexes (or go the Adept extra actions route) and hack in AR instead of VR, and travel with the party, that might help integrate them better. However if they can't defend themselves in AR, then they are naturally going to take the *less expensive* route of turtling in a vehicle (or other safe location) so they don't get shot while hacking.
Seriously no one else have encounter the hacker problem?
I think the issue is more that nearly everyone has had this issue, and no one has come up with a universally accepted method of handling it. Look at the announcement for 5th ed - they acknowledge the 'mini game' problem and are promising to improve the situation in the next edition.
I've been running "by the book" hacking for about 17 games now, and it works ok at best. The best situations are those they can't hack until the team is ready to 'enter the facility' or otherwise swing into action, but frankly that's hard to accomplish on a regular basis. A good deal of the time in my games, the other players are indeed sitting out for a bit as the hacker does their pre-run hacking.
You would think so but really think about it. Why wouldnt you? Seriously i havent heard or read any single reason you wouldnt get more IPs assides from roleplaying reasons (and flimsy ones at that).
As stated by Xzylvador, yep, everyone wants them, but not everyone can afford to get all that they want. Its a decision each player has to make for their characters. At my table, I have a Mystic Adept with 2 IPs (base 1 + Adept power) but with the ability to cast the Improve Reflexes spell, a Technomancer with 2 IPs, an AI with their standard 3, and an Adept with 3.
Did all the players choose to get at least one extra IP? Yes they did. But not all of them went for 3, and none went for 4, and I'll guess that they didn't get more IPs due to the opportunity cost involved in getting them, not that they were undesirable.
because if i have a turn with all pcs having 3 ips what im having in reallity is three turns
True on the PCs side, but NOT necessarily for the NPCs!
I've had my group go against 1, 2 and 3 IP using opponents. Do the PCs feel superior to the 1 IP people? Yes, yes they do, and I use that to show that the PCs are *the stars* of the game, but I never let the 1 IP guys be a total push over either - people with guns are scary even to fast moving PCs.
And the PCs encountering 2 or 3 IP people feel the danger there.
And to me and my players there's at least some cool factor in the after combat chat - "how long did that take" "only about 12 seconds", etc. but then we are playing because we like the cybered/magic world and all the speed and such that means.
Consider that you can get an extra IP for like 10 nuyen through drugs. While drugs have their own issues, the extra passes are there for much less than the 80K of bioware (or less in cyber). Its really a core aspect of the game.
i dont want to remove it because wired its very much an thing of SR but by putting a very narrow scope and limitations i make sure than only very very combat oriented PCs can make use of them.
I'm not super clear on your proposed limits. As noted above it seems like you would have to mess with movement, and movement is already divided up by number of actions in 4th (unlike older editions where the more passes you got the more times you got your full move). So why even bother with changing movement?
what im trying to acomplish is a fix for table of games in wich all pcs have wired reflex a way so that only combat oriented pcs should get a use for wired. or better yet only speed oriented characters would get it. So a heavy russian troll with a shotgun wouldnt ALWAYS comes with wired.
I do wish I could help you on this, but I myself don't see extra IPs as an issue, so its hard to wrap my head around.
About the only think I can say is take extra IPs away totally and provide some other (entirely combat oriented) bonus instead?
I don't think that's a solution in itself, though, because, well, at my table, most PCs would look at what the 'extra bonus' was and see if it was still worth while and cost effective to get it, and if so they would. If not, then they would not - not even the combat people.
Extra IPs are effective and efficient (to a point, which is why not everyone rolls with 4IPs). Anything you trade up for that is going to be evaluated based on utility and take or not based on that utility. And since combat is a universal constant in games, any edge in combat generally has a high utility, and thus I predict that the ratio won't change much.
Well in my country we dont really. People shoot at school here and there but i guess there arent any funds for that equipment. Here only on airports. But i could make the lives of Wired reflexes pcs a living hell on that matter in order to dissuade non combat pcs of having those.
Yes, you could, and to some extent that's the price you pay for cyber. Just be aware that there are character types that DON'T pay that price - Adepts and Technomancers, people with Bioware instead of cyber - and make it understood ahead of time that that is a part of your world. Doing that you will certainly see a shift in what people do or get, but it may be a shift toward character types that don't suffer the issue over just not taking the 'ware.
Dropping that kind of thing on your players as a bomb might not be the best idea. Most of my players are new to SR, having not played before, so if I were to introduce cyber scanners, I'd need to bring it up in advance, maybe as part of the session's legwork for example, as something the team would need to overcome. That would be my advice on how to introduce the scanners in game.
(Really in my campaign, no one has cyber to be detected. The AI is on a comlink, the Adept and Mystic Adept are magic and don't have cyber and don't need guns either, and the technomancer gets his extra IP thru an Echo, and has some bioware, so a scanner isn't picking anyone in my group up, even though they all have 2 to 3 IPs).
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Is it possible that the IP issue is rooted in the ratio of Combat, Social, and Stealth encounters in the campaign? IMO a good satisfying Run should feel more like Mission Impossible (the TV series) than Commando.
Every archetype should get equal time to shine. And need it's own specialization; be it skills, 'ware, gear, or magic. Play up the need for specialization, if a player can operate successfully at high levels in more than 2 areas chances are they aren't at the bleeding edge anymore.
One of the ways that I've combated the "go eat pizza" effect encountered surrounding Deckers/Hackers since SR2 is to have the player do the heavy work while the other players are doing their Legwork. And trust the player not to fudge their rolls while you attend to the other players Contact rolls. Then play ping pong.
Contacts: let the non-hackers get in touch with their peeps and ask their questions and... Break Scene.
Hacker: find out how they want to approach things and... Break Scene.
Contacts: players roll their contact rolls and give them the lean stuff (the lower on the Legwork Table)... Break Scene.
Hacker: 3-5 rolls, exposition exposition... Break Scene.
Contacts: to dole out the heavy knowledge from their contact (the highest stuff they rolled on the Legwork Table)... Break Scene.
A smart hacker is going to leave themselves an in so that when the run goes down the access the network and trip the cameras and sensors. AR is the best thing the developers have done to integrate hackers into combat in years. Leaving overwatch and managing the team's Tac-net to keep the Security Forces oblivious to the Runners.
And IIRC, the IPs granted from AR/VR only apply to Matrix actions by RAW.
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<snip>i could make the lives of Wired reflexes pcs a living hell on that matter in order to dissuade non combat pcs of having those.
*sigh*
If that's what you chose to take from my advice....
Just forget I gave any.
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Is Wired Reflexes, along with other IP boosters, powerful? Yes. Too powerful? NO. They are as powerful as they are supposed to be. It's part of what makes combat specialists matter, and part of how the team of runners takes on numerically superior forces.
I understand wanting to speed up the game, but taking out damage reduction is the wrong way.
As for the AR IPs, this just tells me you need to take a serious look at how you're running the Matrix stuff - if you're setting up some sort of mini-game on the side, you're quite simply doing it wrong. There are a plethora of ways to deal with that issue, and this is in no way one of them.
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I spent this months dming shadowrun for my group of players and while i like SR4 im not of the mentality of "thats how the game is play" and im trying to house rules some stuff that we dont like but i want yours take on how to improve this house rules (or maybe there is a rule variant im missing)
1) Eliminating soaking roll: The attacker rolls "atribute + skill +/- mods" vs defender "atribute + skill +/- mods" the difference + the weapon rating should surpass the armor in order to do lethal damage.
Reasoning: It speed up combat (two opossing rolls, you compare on the armor and done with it) and it makes trolls afraids of assault rifles
2) you gains the extra IPs if you are hacking on AR (the same IPs you would gain on VR) if and only if you spent all of it on only hacking.
Reasoning: so i dont have to separate the poor souls that decide to make a hacker or tecnomancer from the the party and slow down the game.
3) Extras IPs. With wired reflexes you get the following. In any extra IP you can only move or attack. not both and you have to split your dice pool (declaring first on the turn what you gonna do)
Reasoning: Wired reflex became a must always no matter which concept character you make. They add wired not for character but because not doing so is a major disadvantage. So everyone has them and quoting manly men doing manly things "When everybody is a hipster no one would be".
With this at least character with mastery of guns or swords would use wired. Because otherwise it would only be a waste of nuyen and essence.
Im looking for a way for them not to feel obligated to add wired reflexes to everysingle pc they can because having extra turns is usefull no mather what. And in doing so they devaluate the fact of having Wired.
Re 1: SR is already one of the deadliest games out there on the RPG scene. I have to spend considerable time balancing my combat encounters to NOT outright kill my players a good 40% of the time. And let's face it, if you have to make a new character every 3 games, it stops being fun. As it is, if you run combat properly (including all the options available to everyone, PC and NPC) combat in SR comes in 2 forms: short and sweet or long and bloody. Your 'solution' just makes this worse.
Re 2: hacking is an issue for many groups. Most just 'hand wave' in an NPC hacker to speed things up (I have many times) on the few times that I have actually had a player want to play a hacker, I spend some prep time designing pe-fabbed hacks for them. For the cost of 6 hours of down time (ok, ok I worked on them during commercials while watching TV) I got myself 30 premade matrix runs for each of the following; corp facilities: commlinks: mob networks: police networks: blackmarket nodes: runner nodes. Each scales in complexity and difficulty, so if the hacker is trying to hack a wage slave commlink I use a pregen lvl 1 to 3.... Or if he's trying to hack a ultra violet node at a research facility I use corp facilities lvl 27 to 30....
As far as mixing the two together (hacker & rest of team), this is where note taking and time management come to play: it is possible to run SR with a minimal amount of downtime for all, you just have to be able to split your attention and break down what is happening to "useful" time segments. Incorporate the hacker into the team by making the run location buffered against 'outside' penetration. Meaning he HAS to be in the facility to get the pay dirt!
Re 3: it seems that every few months, someone shows up on the forums and whines that 'extra IPs are broken' I would encourage you to look up some of these old posts to have a greater understanding of why extra IPs are not broken and why they are actually needed! But I will give you the short list right now:
1: extra IPs save shadowrunner's lives! No matter what, the players will always be outgunned. They can never hope to match the vast amount of firepower that can be thrown at them in a drag out fight (corp security, KE/LS, military can all be brought to bare against them. And if they are acting like total douches, all 3 at the same time!) A player's only hope to survive long enough to retire is to make combat as short as possible... And extra IPs allow for that. Having an extra pass per player per combat round basically turns a team of 5 players into a team of 10 (assuming the NPCs have 1ip). This makes it possible for a team of 5 to take out an NPC team of 5 in 2 to 4 seconds... Hopefully before an alarm can be raised
2: over the course of a campaign, a single character could be involved in hundreds (or in the case of multi year campaigns, THOUSANDS) of lethal situations, the extra IPs give a player more options to help them survive! With only 1 IP, a player's options become very limited to threats or situations. The more IPs a player has, the more options are opened up to him.
3: Extra IPs outside of the players and select few NPCs should be rare! The security guard that sits behind a desk has no need for them, so why would a company pay to have them installed?? The same for the average 'beat cop', considering how unlikely he is in encountering 'serious threats' the cost VS reward of implants just isn't there. However, elite bodyguards, special forces (both police and military) would most likely have them due to the perceived chance and likelyhood of combat.
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In the end though, it's your game do as you wish, but don't be surprised that few on here will like or surpport your changes.... And don't be surprised if your game changes in ways you didn't expect!
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Re 1: SR is already one of the deadliest games out there on the RPG scene. I have to spend considerable time balancing my combat encounters to NOT outright kill my players a good 40% of the time. And let's face it, if you have to make a new character every 3 games, it stops being fun. As it is, if you run combat properly (including all the options available to everyone, PC and NPC) combat in SR comes in 2 forms: short and sweet or long and bloody. Your 'solution' just makes this worse.
Why? i mean is like a defender friendly version of NWOD combat.
Nwod: SR:
att + skill +/- modifiers -deffense att + skill +/- modifiers vs att + skill +/- mods
what remains + weapo rating is damage
i have run changeling, werewolf and mage games in NWOD for five years and i never got a TPK and only two characters ever die on me. I know is deadliers than the core rules of SR but still Nwod should be worse and in wod (and keep in mind i run heavily combat games of that) i never outright kill a PC. But if you get shot with an assault riffle kevlar or not you going down.
Re 3: it seems that every few months, someone shows up on the forums and whines that 'extra IPs are broken'
i never said that they are broken i only wanted a way to make reflexes only rewarding to combat focus characters. A way to not to have every single players buying the same option and feeling like everyone is the same spastic pc.
If one player wants to play the superquick Street Samurai a la Raiden. Sure go ahead get wired.
but if you gonna play a face who only use a gun and you get wired or a heavy hitter troll being superquick is just silly because the super agile raiden ninja feels puny in comparison.
1: extra IPs save shadowrunner's lives! No matter what, the players will always be outgunned. They can never hope to match the vast amount of firepower that can be thrown at them in a drag out fight (corp security, KE/LS, military can all be brought to bare against them. And if they are acting like total douches, all 3 at the same time!) A player's only hope to survive long enough to retire is to make combat as short as possible... And extra IPs allow for that. Having an extra pass per player per combat round basically turns a team of 5 players into a team of 10 (assuming the NPCs have 1ip). This makes it possible for a team of 5 to take out an NPC team of 5 in 2 to 4 seconds... Hopefully before an alarm can be raised
How many enemies NPCs do you usually throw at the PCs? from what i get you usually play 10 to 15 characters on combat and that WAAAAAAY more than what i throw at them. I normally throw their number +2/3. Whats the point of a 2 to 4 second combat? unless they are a street samurai. What narrative porpouse do it acomplish. I normally dont go with the route of making feel to the PCs they are the stars. So unless you follow that DM route in games i dont see what narrative pourpose is acomplished by a combat you and them know well they are gonna win in 2 to 4 seconds.
i dont know maybe for me putting security guards who dont have a chance in hell to even treathen the players is not something ecxiting for me. It feels a waste of time because i know they gonna win for sure and they know it for sure. While when i throw combat at them i know they gonna win, they should not i just try to create the ilussion of difficulty wich is impossible to maintain when 5 party members equal 10 guys.
And i never go with the PCs are the heroes of the story. Because it kinda goes against the opressive cyberpunk feel of them feeling like special sunflowers.
3: Extra IPs outside of the players and select few NPCs should be rare! The security guard that sits behind a desk has no need for them, so why would a company pay to have them installed?? The same for the average 'beat cop', considering how unlikely he is in encountering 'serious threats' the cost VS reward of implants just isn't there. However, elite bodyguards, special forces (both police and military) would most likely have them due to the perceived chance and likelyhood of combat.
This is funny though because one of the people in my table told us their take on that one
"We arent special sunflowers, we are regular joes shadowrunners and all of us have wired or their equivalents. In a world where is common place for 1 street samurai to clean a room full of security do you think any guard who wants to go back to their families wouldnt invest in wired at least? They save their payrolls and they buy wired in bulk for discounts because in this setting is commom place that assholes like us come, kick the door and kill them. Any beat cop who wants to see tomorrow is gonna have wired because, if we who are regular shadowrunners have wired we have to assume that every other shadowrunner has them and if we do then the people who has to risk their life against us they should buy wired for a chance of tomorrow"
i just dont see the point of enemies who are gonna die at the end of the first turn. It just seem like a waste of time those combats.
In the end though, it's your game do as you wish, but don't be surprised that few on here will like or surpport your changes.... And don't be surprised if your game changes in ways you didn't expect!
Im not surprise on that. Neither i ask for people to praise them or not. i ask advice on how to refine them in the service on what i want.
But i must say im blaffled at some responses like the "but shadowrun is a grindhouse and your rule is gonna make it a slaughter house" when Nwod is slightier worse than my rule and has never been an slaughter house. How many dices are an regular dice pool? i mean last time i play the combat oriented pc throw 15 dices and any succes of those i had to subtract the success of the opossition 9 dices and the differences + the weapons still had to content against the body soak damage. Maybe people in this forum play SR like the matrix lots of heavy militar weapons on both sides but i tend to run with pistols and the the rare assault riffle and the only time that one guy almost day was when he tried to take cover against a thin metal wall against close range assault riffle and he got shot.
Maybe is a thing of game styles some people want to make pcs feel like superheroes while other like them to feel like normal people.
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I should point out that your rule makes extra passes rewarding for precisely no one. It takes very specific builds for splitting your dice pool to not be horrible under the current rules.
And guards can't save enough for the ware. They just don't get paid enough. However, they could be supplied with combat drugs (it's the exact reason Jazz was developed), which would give them one extra pass. Runners have a lot more money to spend on that kind of thing because its the cost of doing business for them. Part of what runners are paid takes that into account.
Also, I don't know NWoD to make a direct comparison, but I am absolutely certain you're not including enough data to make that comparison. How is damage determined in NWoD? How much damage can be taken? Are there ways to reduce that damage? That's just for starters. They're different systems, and you cannot simply compare attack/defense to see which one is deadlier.
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Sonsaku, I suggest you and your players take a look at the 'Friends and Foes' section of the core book. See how many of the characters there have extra IPs.
Extra initiative passes is great as a force multiplier, but it is cost prohibitive to put wires in all your corpsec. Especially since time and numbers are always on a corp's side. The longer a combat goes on, the more noise made, the more the advantage shifts to the corp's favor over the runners, as more forces are called in as backup. If you go through two clips of ammo in a fight and aren't done, you should run, because otherwise you're going to die, or worse.
Remember, a squad of five corpsec doesn't have to kill the runners to win. They just have to get behind cover and stall the runners long enough that backup arrives, and they know it. So things like Suppressing fire, flash-bang grenades, firing from behind cover, and squad tactics becomes far more important. In addition to the fact that the alert will have spiders coming online to fight the hacker in the building's computer, and turn the defenses against the intruders. That's what you're not seeing. Time and numbers. With those things on their side, corpsec at most sites can take a more conservative approach than runners can afford to. Now, at high security, zero zone sites, things are different, but the approach is still the same.
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How many enemies NPCs do you usually throw at the PCs? from what i get you usually play 10 to 15 characters on combat and that WAAAAAAY more than what i throw at them. I normally throw their number +2/3.
Not that the question was directed at me, but I'll answer about my game:
I normally figure a combat at even numbers, and then move up from there depending on the situation. But then, I'm also doing a lot of module running right now, and PC# +/- 2 is about what you get in (starting) opposition for fights.
If the fights go long, then yeah, reinforcements are going to arrive, and at least my players are smart enough to not be around for that.
Whats the point of a 2 to 4 second combat? unless they are a street samurai. What narrative porpouse do it acomplish.
Well, 2 to 4 seconds about 1 round, right? A round is listed as 3 seconds long.
So in a 1 round combat, my fastest player will have fired 6 times. In theory that's maybe 6 but more likely 2 or 3 opponents down. So a 1 round combat would be kicking down the door and gunning down the first group of people in the first room of a complex.Or taking out the first group of guards to round a corner, or whatever.
Not likely a full scene itself, but I KNOW I've seen moves that do a quick round of firing, then it gets quiet for a bit, then all heck breaks loose, or the like. So even a short combat can add to narrative.
In my games, it would serve to show 'cyber/magic' beats mundane, which is a theme I want and try to reinforce in my campaign. It may not be a theme in yours (at a guess?), but its a theme and a short combat does reinforce it.
(That or my 'ware/magic was *better* than yours because I'm on the bleeding edge, which is another cool theme).
I normally dont go with the route of making feel to the PCs they are the stars. So unless you follow that DM route in games i dont see what narrative pourpose is acomplished by a combat you and them know well they are gonna win in 2 to 4 seconds.
See this is something I can't understand.
What is the point of a person, a real live person, showing up to play a game if the game isn't going to be about what they do?
That's what it means to be the 'star' of the show: the show is about what you do and what happens to you.
Do you have to be the biggest baddest thing on the planet to be the star? No. In fact you don't have to be any good at all - you can totally suck at what you do, but as long as the game is about what you do and what happens to you, then you are the star.
I've walked from games where what I did as a PC did not have an impact on the plot or story. I'm not there to be read to like a kid, I'm there to DO stuff and see things react to what I do, and change the plot and story.
I tell you from experience though, that its been a heck of a lot easier to change where the story goes for me by being pretty good at doing *something* as a PC. I suspect that ability to more greatly affect the outcome is one of prime motivators for making effective characters.
Now maybe that's not what you meant by 'star'. Maybe you were going with the idea that you don't have to make them feel like 'kings of the world', and you're right, you don't.
But if you are trying to 'respect' the SR setting, then people with extra IPs ARE fast and ARE special because of it. You don't have to like the setting to play in SR, but that runs down the path of 'but why are you playing then', so I have to assume that the setting is desirable to play up as part of the adventure that occurs.
I want to reinforce that aspect of the story, because I like that about the setting. There are plenty of things that can be brought in to 'humble' the PCs, but if you just do that and don't empower them as well, I find it makes a pretty short lived game.
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I should point out that your rule makes extra passes rewarding for precisely no one. It takes very specific builds for splitting your dice pool to not be horrible under the current rules.
Also, I don't know NWoD to make a direct comparison, but I am absolutely certain you're not including enough data to make that comparison. How is damage determined in NWoD? How much damage can be taken? Are there ways to reduce that damage? That's just for starters. They're different systems, and you cannot simply compare attack/defense to see which one is deadlier.
Well i try to make it so it only benefit combat focus PCs and that pass IP2 only NPCs should have competence with those.
well actually i explain my players that SR is NWOD with D6s
an atacker rolls: Attribute (1-5) + skill (1-5) +/- mods - defender defense (a fixed number usually 2 - 3) the result success from than(8,9 or 10 and the 10 explodes always) + the weapon rating determine the damage
For example i have 4 on atrribute + 4 on skill - 1 for defender armor (modifier) - 3 for defenders defense. i would throw 4 dices from those 4 dices i get 3 success so i would make 3 points of damage + my sword rating that is 2 for wich i would make 5 points damage in total (3+2). And thats it that the damage you take there is no soaking roll for it. if the attack connect you take damage end of story.
Normally character can take from 7 - 8 point of damage.
They are very similar systems one with d6 but the rolls are att + skill.
the probability of success on nwod is 3/10 wich is 0.3 while SR is 2/6 wich is 0,33 but NWoD 10s always explode.
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well actually i explain my players that SR is NWOD with D6s
SR4 is much more like *old* WoD than NWoD.
The old one had both a dodge and a soak roll. The new one... well I just tried to look at three different NWoD core books (Vamp, Mage and Werewolf) and can't find an example of combat in them at all. What I was able to cobble together is that you are correct and that its a roll to hit, with modifiers penalizing that roll. I didn't see a roll for the defender, but again I couldn't find a combat section or example in three books, so... yeah.
What you might want to consider, if you just going for 'one roll on each side' is eliminate the DODGE roll, and mash that in with the armor soak, so you have Attrib+Skill vs Reaction+armor.
That would be reasonable close to what SR4 actually does, but eliminates one extra roll from the process. Still makes it more deadly since there's a lesser chance to get away with no damage like there is with a separate dodge roll.
Based on what it seems like your saying is that your version would have a modifier of the target's armor penalize the attacker's roll. What do you do when armor is higher than their die pool? Let them roll something anyway, negating some amount of the benefit of the target's armor, or rule they can't roll, negating the ability to do the target any damage?
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well actually i explain my players that SR is NWOD with D6s
SR4 is much more like *old* WoD than NWoD.
The old one had both a dodge and a soak roll. The new one... well I just tried to look at three different NWoD core books (Vamp, Mage and Werewolf) and can't find an example of combat in them at all. What I was able to cobble together is that you are correct and that its a roll to hit, with modifiers penalizing that roll. I didn't see a roll for the defender, but again I couldn't find a combat section or example in three books, so... yeah.
What you might want to consider, if you just going for 'one roll on each side' is eliminate the DODGE roll, and mash that in with the armor soak, so you have Attrib+Skill vs Reaction+armor.
That would be reasonable close to what SR4 actually does, but eliminates one extra roll from the process. Still makes it more deadly since there's a lesser chance to get away with no damage like there is with a separate dodge roll.
Based on what it seems like your saying is that your version would have a modifier of the target's armor penalize the attacker's roll. What do you do when armor is higher than their die pool? Let them roll something anyway, negating some amount of the benefit of the target's armor, or rule they can't roll, negating the ability to do the target any damage?
Melee in NWoD is Attribute + Skill + modifier for weapon - opponent armor - opponent Defense score (a derived attribute that I forget how to calculate).
Ranged in NWoD is Attribute + Skill + modifier for weapon - opponent armor
Nowhere does the opponent receive a defense.
As to the question about if a pool is reduced to zero, NWoD has something called a "chance die", and if reduced to that, one must roll a 10 to get a success and a 1 means you're flat screwed.
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First, I understand what you were going for. I'm trying to explain what you actually have. Other than some very, very, very specific melee adepts, splitting your dice pool just sucks - some highly, highly skilled shooters can manage two pools, but outside of that it's only when you're stacking modifiers for weapon focus, specialization, reach, and personalized grip that you can manage multiple split pools. If you're an elf street sam with WR2, AGI8, and Automatics 6, and a smartlink, you've only got a base pool of 14 before smartlink. If you have to split that 3 ways, you're looking at 5/5/4, +2 to each for smartlink, so 7/7/6. That's not functional for a combat specialist. This is what I mean when I say that your houserule makes WR utterly worthless for anyone.
As for your change to the damage rules, I see part of the issue. A standard shotgun has a base DV of 7. Load it with EX-Ex for 8. That means 1 net hit kills anything with less than 3 Body, 2 kills anything with less than 5, 3 kills anything with less than 7, 4 kills anything with less than 9... The base damage in Shadowrun is much, much higher. A troll with augmented strength 11 and a claymore does a base DV of 10. The system already tends towards being extremely lethal, your houserule makes it nigh-impossible to survive (with the exception of extremely armoured trolls, who now simply can't be stopped).
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The base damage in Shadowrun is much, much higher. A troll with augmented strength 11 and a claymore does a base DV of 10. The system already tends towards being extremely lethal, your houserule makes it nigh-impossible to survive (with the exception of extremely armoured trolls, who now simply can't be stopped).
Troll with Strength 11 nothing. I've got that Elf with an effective Strength 7 that deals only 1 less than that with a normal sword and not a claymore--granted, he's one of those few builds that splitting doesn't hurt quite as badly...
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De-centralizing Combat in your stories might serve you better than monkeying with the system mechanics.
Playing up the Negotiation and Sneaking aspects of the game could de-emphasize the need for more than 2 IPs. Try for unsuspected and undetected over the mass of flying lead and big booms. I've always been more impressed with runners that don't shoot everything that moves in a corp facility.
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I tell you from experience though, that its been a heck of a lot easier to change where the story goes for me by being pretty good at doing *something* as a PC. I suspect that ability to more greatly affect the outcome is one of prime motivators for making effective characters.
Now maybe that's not what you meant by 'star'. Maybe you were going with the idea that you don't have to make them feel like 'kings of the world', and you're right, you don't.
But if you are trying to 'respect' the SR setting, then people with extra IPs ARE fast and ARE special because of it. You don't have to like the setting to play in SR, but that runs down the path of 'but why are you playing then', so I have to assume that the setting is desirable to play up as part of the adventure that occurs.
I want to reinforce that aspect of the story, because I like that about the setting. There are plenty of things that can be brought in to 'humble' the PCs, but if you just do that and don't empower them as well, I find it makes a pretty short lived game.
i was refering to not to let them think they are kings of the world.
The thing is IPs high lost his specialness when everyone has them, it stop being special and becomes a nesecity
if you are a street samurai and you want to clean a room with guard in 3 seconds, yeah go ahead is you made that character for that
However when the face who only put a little on combat do the same with 3 ips per turn. It kinda devaluates the whole thing.
From what i read in this post wired seems to be the equalizer so shadowrunners can take on 10 to 15 enemies at once and live through that. So in short is useless on both parts.
its useless in the sense that my players are never gonna run into that kind of scenario because micro manage 15 NPC is a just headache. Instead of 15 weak security guard i preffer to put 6 strong ones who gonna have wired to match their own. So if both sides gonna have them may as well remove it.
Its useless from me to try to tweak a mecanic that exist to allow a type of game that i just dont do (5 PC vs hordes). In conclusion i understand the need of the mechanic and why it was messing with my game. As is a mechanic for high powered game wich i dont do.
The technomancer/hacker house rules lose effect too as now everyone is gonna have 1IP so that goes too. The just gonna hack guns and stuff from AR and be done with it too.
As for your change to the damage rules, I see part of the issue. A standard shotgun has a base DV of 7. Load it with EX-Ex for 8. That means 1 net hit kills anything with less than 3 Body, 2 kills anything with less than 5, 3 kills anything with less than 7, 4 kills anything with less than 9... The base damage in Shadowrun is much, much higher. A troll with augmented strength 11 and a claymore does a base DV of 10. The system already tends towards being extremely lethal, your houserule makes it nigh-impossible to survive (with the exception of extremely armoured trolls, who now simply can't be stopped).
well getting hit with a shotgun in close range should kill you or if you have enough armor to make stun damage it should knock you out. And being hit with a claymore in the hand of a super strong troll should end you unless you got the swordmanship or reflex to avoid it. Maybe its a highpowered game thing of taking a shotgun to the face and live but i have to say that is not my coup of tea
My first session of SR i used that one as i missunderstood the rules. It was fun, high pace combat in wich they use every single cover/armor and bonus they could and the only time they got in trouble was against a group of shadowrunners with assault riffles in close combat with little to no cover. And the only time one almost died was an assault riffle in close range without cover (granted i made the NPC to dont use full auto but still). However since then i read properly and where playing the game with the soaking and it drags down forever. The pcs get shot and they soak, the enemies get shot and soak, the combat goes on and on and on. They make a very good shot but them after soaking is just a scratch wound. 3 rolls per attack wich both have to reference and calculate and calculated modiefiers on both sides.
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Ok, so ignoring half the discussion I can't bother to read, I'll give you some streamlining houseruling suggestions. I'll try to maintain the purpose you seemed to want and make it even easier if possible.
1) Here's what I use for heavily combat oriented campaings, same category of combat stramlining: I roll the attack roll normally, just minus the dodge dice of the opponent. If the dice pool goes zero or negative, I only count 6's as success. That streamlines the combat quite well, since low-end lotsa mob attacks can be rolled just as a handful of dice and see of many five's or sixes there are and that's the number of hits. I also always just default the damage soak roll of the average enemy.
Doesn't tweak the system balance too much, but streamlines the combat very well. With some cost at realism of chances, of course... But that's not an issue for our group.
2) Won't say anything, we don't really use hackers that much anyways. I don't even know the IP rules for them, so I couldn't say if this was a good or bad ruling.
3) IP's... well, to make them less appealing, just double or triple the price on them wired reflexes. We streamline the extra ip's anyways so that all the basic rate movement is done in the first pass and the running skill check increases the distance when rolled (you know, the simple actions you make to run a bit farther). So it's a move or attack situation anyways. I don't really know about the dice pool splitting... You could instead rule that passes after the second have only a simple action (and the usual free one) available... Though I wouldn't use it at least while doubling or tripling the prices. That not only would penalize just a little bit less than dice pool splitting, but it also would be more streamlined... No mathing around with the dice pools.
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The thing is IPs high lost his specialness when everyone has them, it stop being special and becomes a nesecity
Well, what I first got out of your goal was that you wanted to 'reserve extra IPs for combat characters', to which I think the majority reply was that extra IPs are inherently useful, but more useful to some characters than others, and have diminishing returns anyway. Summarized that means that combat characters will get more IPs than non-combat, but everyone will want some, and will sacrifice to get at least one extra, just to stand above 'mundane street gangers' or the like.
Now it sounds like you don't want any extra IPs in your game at all. And you can certainly do that, and its vastly simpler than trying to achieve the 'limited desirability' that seemed to be your initial goal.
However when the face who only put a little on combat do the same with 3 ips per turn. It kinda devaluates the whole thing.
Unless the face isn't a great Face, or they are indeed a Face/Sam, I don't see the Face getting 3 IPs. I see them getting 2IPs, sure since everyone wants at least one extra, but not 3.
From what i read in this post wired seems to be the equalizer so shadowrunners can take on 10 to 15 enemies at once and live through that. So in short is useless on both parts.
Its not always about facing groups 3 to 4 times your size. Just one or two more opponents than your team is enough to make a combat hard. Looking at my group, the Phys Ad is our 'combat person' with the Mystic Adept in second place via combat spells; the AI supports with Drones and the Technomancer with Pistol fire. Thus the bulk of combat falls on the two magic users, which can easily be overwhelmed by having just a couple more opponents on the board, not 5 to 10 more opponents.
Plus, extra IPs put the PCs above being rolled by a bunch of homeless for their gear.
Sounds funny when I say that. But yeah, YOU may not run the PCs up against 10 or 15 opponents, but that doesn't mean there aren't legit situations where they SHOULD face that many. Biker gang, or squatter turf, the PCs are there doing their thing, and if maybe negotiation with the gang goes south, or the squatters think the PCs are weak, then the PCs get jumped.
Without extra IPs, the PCs start looking weak to 'normal folks'.
If that's a theme you want, then that's a way to do it, easy. In my games I want the PCs to be a cut above squatters/gangers (because corps don't hire gangers for 5K a head to break into other corps secret facilities and steal data, and they do pay that kind of cred to shadowrunners...)
well getting hit with a shotgun in close range should kill you or if you have enough armor to make stun damage it should knock you out.
I don't believe the example specified range, but since damage doesn't decrease over range (except for some lost range penalty dice) range really doesn't matter - they could be firing from across th street instead of point blank. And in your house ruled combat system, I'm not seeing a way that armor *could* decrease lethal to stun, since it's taken off the attackers die pool to start with.
And being hit with a claymore in the hand of a super strong troll should end you unless you got the swordmanship or reflex to avoid it.
Or maybe good armor and high body?
Like maybe your playing a big, tough Troll as well?
SR is an action game, whose rules mimic Hollywood combat more than real life combat.
Maybe its a highpowered game thing of taking a shotgun to the face and live but i have to say that is not my coup of tea
If you use the actual rules, which would be a called shot to bypass armor, i.e. 'shooting them in the face' (which effectively is what your house rules DO ALL THE TIME by subtracting the armor from the attackers 'to hit' pool), then few characters do survive that type of attack.
Maybe you weren't seeing that your house rule was actually already in existence as an optional attack form, and a very deadly one at that - attacking to bypass armor?
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Maybe its a highpowered game thing of taking a shotgun to the face and live but i have to say that is not my coup of tea
If you use the actual rules, which would be a called shot to bypass armor, i.e. 'shooting them in the face' (which effectively is what your house rules DO ALL THE TIME by subtracting the armor from the attackers 'to hit' pool), then few characters do survive that type of attack.
Maybe you weren't seeing that your house rule was actually already in existence as an optional attack form, and a very deadly one at that - attacking to bypass armor?
i think we have a misunderstanding here. I never mention armor in my house rule. Its the regular combat rules in shadowrun without the soaking rolls. the atack should surpass armor for it do lethal damage.
3) IP's... well, to make them less appealing, just double or triple the price on them wired reflexes. We streamline the extra ip's anyways so that all the basic rate movement is done in the first pass and the running skill check increases the distance when rolled (you know, the simple actions you make to run a bit farther). So it's a move or attack situation anyways. I don't really know about the dice pool splitting... You could instead rule that passes after the second have only a simple action (and the usual free one) available... Though I wouldn't use it at least while doubling or tripling the prices. That not only would penalize just a little bit less than dice pool splitting, but it also would be more streamlined... No mathing around with the dice pools.
actually that a pretty good idea, make reflex 2 or 3 times expensive. Im gonna try that one.
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i think we have a misunderstanding here. I never mention armor in my house rule. Its the regular combat rules in shadowrun without the soaking rolls. the atack should surpass armor for it do lethal damage.
Wait, what?
So armor in your game isn't going to do anything other than maybe convert lethal to non lethal?
Wow that's a huge change in favor of taking damage fast.
Walking around naked (no armor) gets you killed fast; walking around in the heaviest 'normal looking armor' (Armor Jacket), still gets you killed fast as I'd say at least half the incoming damage will be higher than 8, and wearing as much armor as you can cram on just makes you go KO instead.
I envy the drone rigger in your game (assuming you have one). He's the only one going to survive a normal fight.
actually that a pretty good idea, make reflex 2 or 3 times expensive. Im gonna try that one.
Smart players will get their IPs elsewhere, like I mentioned earlier.
Given all the stuff you have talked about so far, just get rid of extra IPs in your game, its easier and more fair to all character concepts.
Have you talked to your players yet about your house rules?
Have they read the rules themselves so they know the difference between what you are proposing and the core?
What types of characters are they playing or will be playing?
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Seriously, if combat is taking that long, then one of two things is the cause. Either one or more people in the group do not actually understand the rules, or there is a lot of going off on tangents occurring during game sessions (pretty much every group I've been in has been guilty of the second).
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As for your change to the damage rules, I see part of the issue. A standard shotgun has a base DV of 7. Load it with EX-Ex for 8. That means 1 net hit kills anything with less than 3 Body, 2 kills anything with less than 5, 3 kills anything with less than 7, 4 kills anything with less than 9... The base damage in Shadowrun is much, much higher. A troll with augmented strength 11 and a claymore does a base DV of 10. The system already tends towards being extremely lethal, your houserule makes it nigh-impossible to survive (with the exception of extremely armoured trolls, who now simply can't be stopped).
well getting hit with a shotgun in close range should kill you or if you have enough armor to make stun damage it should knock you out. And being hit with a claymore in the hand of a super strong troll should end you unless you got the swordmanship or reflex to avoid it. Maybe its a highpowered game thing of taking a shotgun to the face and live but i have to say that is not my coup of tea
My first session of SR i used that one as i missunderstood the rules. It was fun, high pace combat in wich they use every single cover/armor and bonus they could and the only time they got in trouble was against a group of shadowrunners with assault riffles in close combat with little to no cover. And the only time one almost died was an assault riffle in close range without cover (granted i made the NPC to dont use full auto but still). However since then i read properly and where playing the game with the soaking and it drags down forever. The pcs get shot and they soak, the enemies get shot and soak, the combat goes on and on and on. They make a very good shot but them after soaking is just a scratch wound. 3 rolls per attack wich both have to reference and calculate and calculated modiefiers on both sides.
In simulation terms, certainly a shotgun should be that lethal. But this is a game, not a simulation. I don't think your players are going to want to have to make new characters every other session.
Also, for the most part, soak rolls aren't going to be complete soak. If an NPC has Body 3 and 6 Ballistic armour, on average it will soak 3 points of damage. If they have Reaction 3, as well, on average they will generate one hit on defense. If the Street Sam has 15 shooting dice, and even just 5 points of RC with an Assault Rifle, they can fire 2 short narrow bursts (adjusted DV of 8 ) and expect to generate 5 hits, and thus 4 net hits, on each attack - dealing a DV of 12 before soak, and doing so twice (and I'm not factoring AP or ammo types). Factoring for soak, that's 18 damage in the pass. If enemies have been constantly soaking large shares of the damage, I expect you're handling something wrong.
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All things considered, since it seems that extra IPs is the bulk of your problems, perhaps you'd be happier, and better off, translating the Shadowrun setting into another ruleset, like d20 Modern or Mutants and Masterminds, that doesn't use extra initiative passes. That would save the trouble of making houserules of exponential complexity until you get what you want.
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Or, translate the setting into Nwod, a game system you seem to be very familiar with. When you have to start changing core concepts and established setting rules/procedures/lore, it's a good sign that the mechanics don't work with 'your' perceptions/expectations.
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Walking around naked (no armor) gets you killed fast; walking around in the heaviest 'normal looking armor' (Armor Jacket), still gets you killed fast as I'd say at least half the incoming damage will be higher than 8, and wearing as much armor as you can cram on just makes you go KO instead.
well that is indeed weird, i think only three times that happen and it was with high caliber weapons. Remember that they have to surpass the defender roll + all their modifiers like cover, vision, cover fire etc etc and even then an assault rifle hit 6 by itself so 8 would mean 2 net hits on a roll.
Smart players will get their IPs elsewhere, like I mentioned earlier.
im curious about the how? We remove the extra IP spell so that only leave drugs and a junkie character could be interesting.
Have you talked to your players yet about your house rules?
Have they read the rules themselves so they know the difference between what you are proposing and the core?
What types of characters are they playing or will be playing?
actually yeah those are their complains. The technomancer complain that if he wanted to hack in AR (so he dont have to go another plane of existance just to hack pistols) he only had one pass so by the time he manage to do something the combat already finished. Thats why we came out with the second houserule so he has the same pass than the rest of the spastics.
The soaking removal as i said was an accident and we found out after by playing by the rules that the soaking made the combat ecxesively long, tedious (as for every attack was checking both atts, both skills both modifiers, rolling and then again to check weapons damage and the check body, the armor value and roll again and finally someone got hit a little) and not very menacing with the weapons they had (pistols, assault rifles and a shotgun).
And the third came not from the mechanical side per say more that they feel they cant take SR seriously something because everyone moves like spats. All the party is a bunch of spastics. One of the players wanted to make a heavy hitter troll and he told me that he didnt want to have reflexes but he had to add it because otherwise even the face would steal the combat position.
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Yes, people who specialize in combat in Shadowrun are wired. That's how it's supposed to be. Adepts use the Improved Reflexes power.
Technomancers have options for extra passes - they can take cover and shift into VR or use combat drugs, and once they've got some Karma there are echoes that provide extra passes.
Wired people don't move like spastics - they are not affected by random muscle spasms, rather they are able to take specific and directed action at a much higher pace. They move far faster.
If you want to speed things up, the "eyeballing modifiers" optional rule might offer more of what you're looking for without making such sweeping changes to the system - the basic problem here is that you're making these houserules without taking the time to understand how they'll impact that game overall. Everything is connected, so these changes would have consequences far, far, far beyond what you intend.
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Yes, people who specialize in combat in Shadowrun are wired. That's how it's supposed to be. Adepts use the Improved Reflexes power.
Technomancers have options for extra passes - they can take cover and shift into VR or use combat drugs, and once they've got some Karma there are echoes that provide extra passes.
Wired people don't move like spastics - they are not affected by random muscle spasms, rather they are able to take specific and directed action at a much higher pace. They move far faster.
If you want to speed things up, the "eyeballing modifiers" optional rule might offer more of what you're looking for without making such sweeping changes to the system - the basic problem here is that you're making these houserules without taking the time to understand how they'll impact that game overall. Everything is connected, so these changes would have consequences far, far, far beyond what you intend.
well thats why i made this post so far house rule 1 and 2 (technomancers ips and soakingless) are doing fine for now but i post this just to see if there is factor im not seeing aside from the suppouse ultra-lethal thing that we dont experience.
There is something aside from that im not seeing? some angle im missing?
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well that is indeed weird, i think only three times that happen and it was with high caliber weapons. Remember that they have to surpass the defender roll + all their modifiers like cover, vision, cover fire etc etc and even then an assault rifle hit 6 by itself so 8 would mean 2 net hits on a roll.
I'm having a hard time pinning down exactly what your ruleset involves.
For example, *defenders* don't get vision modifiers that *help* get out of the way of gunfire. I don't recognize 'cover fire' as a defensive modifier either. Cover or good cover, certainly.
So the attacker rolls Agility+Automatics+2 for smartlink - vision and range modifiers.
Defender gets Reaction + cover mods (2 or maybe 4 points)
Your house rules say no armor and no soak, so whatever occurs from the above is the damage outcome.
Given that setup IO think that yes, its very easy to get 2+ successes to hit your target, getting at over an 8 armor (Assault Rifle -1 AP makes 2 successes enough to cause lethal in this scenario).
Am I missing some other house rule or modifier you commonly use in the above scenario?
im curious about the how? We remove the extra IP spell so that only leave drugs and a junkie character could be interesting.
Ok, well if you expressly remove other method of getting IPs then sure, but what I was replying to was your ONLY increasing the cost of Wired Reflexes without you mentioning doing anything to any other form of extra IP.
Since you indicate that you HAVE a TM in your game, then that player directly has access to Echos that can give extra IPs in the flesh.
You have not mentioned Adepts, so Adepts can still get extra IPs.
You have not mentioned Free Spirits, and Free Spirit PCs come with extra IPs. Same with AI's.
So like I said, if you don't want extra IPs just ban them outright instead of 'adjusting' one more more types. The types you fail to adjust will be the method chosen to get extra IPs. Its fairest overall if you just get rid of them rather than try to spot-fix each type as you notice them.
actually yeah those are their complains. The technomancer complain that if he wanted to hack in AR (so he dont have to go another plane of existance just to hack pistols) he only had one pass so by the time he manage to do something the combat already finished. Thats why we came out with the second houserule so he has the same pass than the rest of the spastics.
Since your calling your own players spastics (as an insult? or am I not understanding?), I'm going to make the assumption that they are new to SR, and have not availed themselves of all the wondrous advice on this board.
I don't blame them for being overwhelmed to begin with, SR is a big complex game, and frankly (using my own, ongoing SR game experience) it takes everyone at the table knowing at least 'their part' to have a good and swiftly resolved combat.
The soaking removal as i said was an accident and we found out after by playing by the rules that the soaking made the combat ecxesively long, tedious (as for every attack was checking both atts, both skills both modifiers, rolling and then again to check weapons damage and the check body, the armor value and roll again and finally someone got hit a little) and not very menacing with the weapons they had (pistols, assault rifles and a shotgun).
From the above, it sounds like when you tried to do combat 'the right way' that you *may* have made some mistakes. For example, what skill do you think applies to the defender? Dodge? It could, but only if that PC then forfeits their next action: Dodge isn't free.
You can generalize firearm combat to the attacker getting about twice the die pool size as the defender (Agi+Gun vs Reaction), indicating that the attacker nearly always wins and hits the target (YMMV depending on specific character builds - this is a *broad* generalization). And when they hit they get the amount they hit by, plus the weapon damage to go up against the target's armor.
That 'good' armor Jacket with 8 dice, plus their body score on average is maybe going to be around 12 dice - enough to counter, on average, a light pistol's base 4 points of damage, so whatever the person made in initial successes to hit gets thru and does damage.
Maybe figure 2 to 4 damage per time you are shot, assuming the above averages. And you can be shot twice in a single action. That's with a Light Pistol; you had assault rifles and Shotguns too which do more damage.
As others have said, combat should not take that long. I recognize it will take longer with new players, but it seems more like there may be a misunderstanding of the core rules that may be stretching things out farther than they really should be.
And the third came not from the mechanical side per say more that they feel they cant take SR seriously something because everyone moves like spats. All the party is a bunch of spastics.
Sorry, I don't get what you mean by spastic.
Is that just short hand for moving fast due to extra IPs?
If so, others have already addresses this; PCs move quickly and smoothly when using extra IPs.
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Yes, people who specialize in combat in Shadowrun are wired. That's how it's supposed to be. Adepts use the Improved Reflexes power.
Technomancers have options for extra passes - they can take cover and shift into VR or use combat drugs, and once they've got some Karma there are echoes that provide extra passes.
Wired people don't move like spastics - they are not affected by random muscle spasms, rather they are able to take specific and directed action at a much higher pace. They move far faster.
If you want to speed things up, the "eyeballing modifiers" optional rule might offer more of what you're looking for without making such sweeping changes to the system - the basic problem here is that you're making these houserules without taking the time to understand how they'll impact that game overall. Everything is connected, so these changes would have consequences far, far, far beyond what you intend.
well thats why i made this post so far house rule 1 and 2 (technomancers ips and soakingless) are doing fine for now but i post this just to see if there is factor im not seeing aside from the suppouse ultra-lethal thing that we dont experience.
There is something aside from that im not seeing? some angle im missing?
In a word, yes. But to keep it to the relevant information, might I ask what sort of characters you have?