Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Typhus on <07-20-19/1205:29>
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So, obviously, Armor not being part of the damage soak mechanic has become a pretty controversial subject. This is explicitly NOT another thread to start hating on that notion. What I am interested in hearing about from knowledgeable parties is why that came to be the case. I don't feel that I've heard a solid statement yet on the intent or theory there. My hope is that if I can understand it better, I can either overlook it and move on or just get onboard with it. Maybe some others could too.
What I really don't want to see in this thread is either just rage against the mechanic or hating on the reasons that get presented, or other saltiness. Save it for Reddit.
I know I was a little salty about cyberjacks elsewhere, but I'm trying to reformat my own take on things, and keep my posts more productive. I'll do my best to stick to asking clarifying questions. I may not end up agreeing, but at least I will see the point of how it is all intended to work.
A special thanks to Fastjack for trying to set a civil tone for the forums here. My goal is to follow that. Please feel free to call me out if I get too saucy.
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I don't know that there's any place for this discussion to go.
Not to say that it's got no merit in discussing.... I don't mean that at all. It's that the people who have the information you seek aren't going to give it to you. They can't, until NDAs are lifted. Best case scenario: as of Gen Con the CRB and 1st wave of errata are all available to the public. That's only a couple more weeks. So I guess I should expound on that first sentence in this post to say "I don't know that there's any place for this discussion to go at this time."
EDIT: I wasn't part of the playtest or writing, so I suppose I can engage in hypotheticals and conjecture with the best of them... so here's something to offer other than "Ask again later"
I presume that armor not adding to soak is a 2nd order effect of generally lowering damage values. Because quite obviously, you can't be throwing body+armor rating against DVs of 3s and 5s. That'd be ridiculous. As for why DVs had to be so low, again I can only guess and I'm not sure that'd be helpful at this point. So: given that DVs are so much lower (for whatever reason) than in 5e, clearly armor has to work differently in some way. If 5e armor ratings were hypothetically boiled down to compensate for lower base DVs, you'd end up with armor ratings ranging from like 1-3, with maybe some slightly bigger bonuses in the extreme stuff. It'd resemble 5e more, sure. But it's just 5e, twisted downards in rating. And actually you'd have less granularity that way between armor types than the new DR mechanic anyway.
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So, obviously, Armor not being part of the damage soak mechanic has become a pretty controversial subject. This is explicitly NOT another thread to start hating on that notion. What I am interested in hearing about from knowledgeable parties is why that came to be the case. I don't feel that I've heard a solid statement yet on the intent or theory there. My hope is that if I can understand it better, I can either overlook it and move on or just get onboard with it. Maybe some others could too.
What I really don't want to see in this thread is either just rage against the mechanic or hating on the reasons that get presented, or other saltiness. Save it for Reddit.
I know I was a little salty about cyberjacks elsewhere, but I'm trying to reformat my own take on things, and keep my posts more productive. I'll do my best to stick to asking clarifying questions. I may not end up agreeing, but at least I will see the point of how it is all intended to work.
A special thanks to Fastjack for trying to set a civil tone for the forums here. My goal is to follow that. Please feel free to call me out if I get too saucy.
SSDR beat while I was typing (stupid spilled soda can), but the people with the full knowledge behind the curtain can't talk about it yet. We just gotta be patient to get all the salacious details.
My own best guess is that, armor values were getting out of hand. It wasn't too hard to work the armor system and make a runner who was near immune to small arms fire. Anything that can counter that threat, is probably going to make all the other players armor completely pointless anyhow, or have such high DV that it could potentially party wipe just to challenge one player. It also made it seem rather pointless to get some pieces of cyber as you could get better bonuses with just an armor mod or two. This solves those problems.
It does seem to create a few of it's own tis true, and it just seems weird on paper, but we'll have to see how it ends up feeling in game. This could also shift the view of armor from being just valuable for soak, and focusing on the various mods and extra protective layers you can add. I personally never walk around Seattle without some acid wash protection for the rain :D Plus cyber like bone lacing and dermal plates gain back their power and value in a runners kit.
That or Ares pushed a new bullet onto the streets that make armor a joke, and armor tech just hasn't caught up yet.
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That or Ares pushed a new bullet onto the streets that make armor a joke, and armor tech just hasn't caught up yet.
That is really not a bad way to choose to look at it. Who remembers the SOTA rules back in 2e? (or was it 3e)
Anyway, just as Cyberjacks weren't even invented yet in 2079 and any decker worth his salt has to have one in 2080, some new teflon-or-whatever can have been invented that effectively changed the dynamic between armor and firepower back in firepower's favor. A couple of shadowruns later, every arms manufacturer has their own unlicensed knock off version, and now everyone's shooting through what was a year ago solid armor.
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There is a perception that unbalanced soak values disrupt table balance and playability because anything capable of hurting the street samurai is going to one shot everything else.
In reality, this is kinda the point, but people takeaway the wrong lesson here.
The point isn't that you should be trying to hurt the street samurai, the street samurai didn't take all that soak 'by mistake' and you as a GM need to correct their erronious choice and ensure they take the damage they clearly want.
The point is most combatants firing normal guns at normal skill values seriously are unable to hurt samurai, and that is kinda the point. Samurai have numerous weaknesses (An inability to use 'social stealth,' the fact they are the only role who has no abilities really usable outside of their immediate location, few support options besides protect the principle and suppressing fire, with suppressing fire coming at the intense cost of the Samurai ending fights quickly) that make them arguably one of the more interesting archetypes: Sure the SAMURAI is immune to damage, but their friends aren't.
If you run SR almost like a dungeon crawl where everyone is constantly fighting alongside each other any time combat occurs, this is a problem. If you are running SR as a heist game (and to be clear, that is what at least 5e is), then the samurai's immunity and overwhelming combat ability makes sense as the logistics of what room people are in and the fact that corpsec may be really terrible at killing a street samurai but can be really good at slowing them down for backup to arrive works.
This is, however, a pretty non-standard and nuanced way to run a game, and its not intuitive. While I always advocate that the 'tension' of random PC death in random combats is bad tension (Its akin to a show or story where the only driving tension is if the main characters may die to a stray bullet by some mooks. It isn't satisfying, dice can't foreshadow, build up to things, or play off dramatic tension, there is a reason the RPG industry trended hard away from high lethality) and that SR's default plot structure is really REALLY poorly suited to common PC death (As the default assumption is the group are mercenaries and there is no overarching goal that isn't intensely character driven, so the entire cast getting replaced over time is... weird) it is also true that... people sorta naturally lean towards the game aspect over the collective storytelling aspect, especially newer players.
Accessibility and easy to understand plots and conflicts are very in right now, very 2019, what with Game of Thrones and Stranger Things really pushing 'RPGs are a fun thing you can play with your friends and have fun with even if you aren't a super nerd' more at the forefront of people's minds. And this is a VERY good trend, it is GOOD that more people are aware RPGs are fun and not intimidating. But SR has a sort of culture of trying to intimidate people, the screech of 'SR isn't D&D' is common and while soak rolls themselves are not complex the ramifications of soak are, as well as the methods of getting soak. The number one mistake I see new and even veteran players making is failing to understand how absolutely critical their defensive totals are to combat, and paying for defenses inefficiently (ex: A pure adept player taking a few ranks in mystic armor because it sorta feels like a natural thing to do despite that trashing your PC because now you can't efficiently takedown enemies and will be exposed to more DV incoming overall every turn while having often ineffectual turns). So while 'soak rolls going away speeds up combat' feels kinda bunk, soak rolls going away speeds up system mastery a LOT.
I don't like the new soak rolls. At all. But it seems clear to me they want to make things easier on rookie GMs who struggle to really wrap their heads around the fun of a PC who is immune to damage, because its way easier to run a police shootout or a fight against gangers than it is to diagram an office building's social routines and layout, figure out how its technologial security layers in, and setting things up so the PCs feel like that despite the fact they are insanely awesome superhuman cyborg and magical badasses there is so much to do and so many ways things could go wrong that don't involve failed dicerolls or damage. I think they went too far in trying to make SR more accessible to this influx of people new to our hobby, but I think the goal is sorta self evident and is a good goal to have, and I do thing RPG players need to me making a way better effort to make the hobby inviting and lower barriers of entry.
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I guess I assumed that because I was answered in a general way about the cyberjack issue, and in a way that satisfied my curiosity enough, I felt the same was possible in when discussing this notion. I'm not looking for an in depth commentary, just something that would tell me "it's actually accounted for over in another area" or "we assumed that everyone wears armor, therefore, the damage is lower overall, and the DR takes care of the degree of distinction" or something to that effect.
It's the number one concern people give voice to so far, so if there's an offset to that concern, I hope it can be presented even very generally while under NDA restrictions (like the cyberjack already was). It might help the perception.
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or "we assumed that everyone wears armor, therefore, the damage is lower overall, and the DR takes care of the degree of distinction" or something to that effect.
You hit the nail right on the head there I think. The characters aren't supposed to be idiots, so they'd at the least have some armored clothing on or vital plates sewing into a shirt. Vending machine armored jumpsuits have been a thing for a while, so it's a pretty safe bet most people have them, all jokes of swim trunk runs aside.
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or "we assumed that everyone wears armor, therefore, the damage is lower overall, and the DR takes care of the degree of distinction" or something to that effect.
And therein lies the issue, its not that this couldn't work but that the current RAR that we know don't provide that "degree of distinction" to a degree to suspend disbelief.
When the best you can get from your armor is +1 edge no matter if its armored clothing or a full tactical suit how do you explain this to the players in a way that makes sense.
I personally feel that if there was a step progression to the DV(4+)= +1 edge or even DV(2+)= +1 edge per (2+) a lot of these issues would have been mitigated.
You hit the nail right on the head there I think. The characters aren't supposed to be idiots, so they'd at the least have some armored clothing on or vital plates sewing into a shirt. Vending machine armored jumpsuits have been a thing for a while, so it's a pretty safe bet most people have them, all jokes of swim trunk runs aside.
As above if armored clothing or a full tactical suit both add the same max +1 edge it comes down to "what is the max armor DV + Body I need to average +1 edge or deny the NPC +1 edge, nothing more.
Example using info from the rigger sheet
DV= Body(2) + Armor Jacket(4)= DV(6)
Rifle (name withheld for forum reasons)
AR= C:3,N:11,M:10,F:6,E:1
So with this armor the runner is going to give the NPC edge at Near and medium ranges (most common ranges) and get edge at extreme only(rarely happens)
With out the armor the runner is going to give the NPC edge at Near, medium, and far ranges and not get edge at any range.
This to me means that for a 2 body runner this armor is doing little to nothing useful, and the money could be spent on something else, or I would ignore this armor and go for something with more DV.
This also brings on the issues of runners with more body finding lighter armors to be more effective for them which is nuts that the player that can soak well already gets more effect from light armor then the runner that can't soak as well. So if a Troll tank can get or deny edge most of the time just wearing an armored jacket why would he waste money on anything bigger, and if a Elf mage can't avoid giving edge at any of the most common ranges why would he bother with armor?
The answer: they wouldn't.
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Some caveats: I haven't played 6E yet, nor am I privy to any insider information.
That said, as I've been listening and reading between the lines, I've feel like I've heard few things from the devs:
1) In 5E, armor had inflated so much that it devalued Body. If everyone is running around with 12 points of armor from an armor jacket, why bother with anything more than Body 3? Spending finite attribute points in Body generally wasn't a good investment, since the % change to your soak pool was so small. The optimal approach was the maximize Intuition and Reaction, not only because they were tied to useful skills (unlike Body) but also because they were superior to Body in terms of reducing damage and/or avoiding it altogether. So, the new system is to intended to rebalance the importance of Body.
2) The high armor values of 5E lead to high weapon DVs which often lead to dodge-or-die situations. Some devs like this and some devs don't, citing realism or game balance to support their preference. The new system is intended to make things more granular so that a single hit - or a single poor soak roll - isn't an automatic death sentence.
3) Similar to the above, a high base DV devalues the net hits that a skilled attacker can adds to the final DV. Take the FN HAR for example. If your base DV is 10P (in 5E), the difference between 1 net hit and 3 was modest from a % lift standpoint (since 13P is 18% higher than 11P), but if your base DV is 5P (as in 6E) then the lift is much more significant (8P is 33% higher than 6P). So the new system is intended to make your skill more important not just for determining whether you hit or not, but also how well you hit and how effective it is.
Again, much of this is based off asides and me reading between the lines, so don't take it as gospel. I'm not saying that I agree with it or that I would have done it the same way, but that's my current understanding behind the changes in 6E's approach to armor, Body, and weapon DVs.
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Some caveats: I haven't played 6E yet, nor am I privy to any insider information.
That said, as I've been listening and reading between the lines, I've feel like I've heard few things from the devs:
1) In 5E, armor had inflated so much that it devalued Body. If everyone is running around with 12 points of armor from an armor jacket, why bother with anything more than Body 3? Spending finite attribute points in Body generally wasn't a good investment, since the % change to your soak pool was so small. The optimal approach was the maximize Intuition and Reaction, not only because they were tied to useful skills (unlike Body) but also because they were superior to Body in terms of reducing damage and/or avoiding it altogether. So, the new system is to intended to rebalance the importance of Body.
2) The high armor values of 5E lead to high weapon DVs which often lead to dodge-or-die situations. Some devs like this and some devs don't, citing realism or game balance to support their preference. The new system is intended to make things more granular so that a single hit - or a single poor soak roll - isn't an automatic death sentence.
3) Similar to the above, a high base DV devalues the net hits that a skilled attacker can adds to the final DV. Take the FN HAR for example. If your base DV is 10P (in 5E), the difference between 1 net hit and 3 was modest from a % lift standpoint (since 13P is 18% higher than 11P), but if your base DV is 5P (as in 6E) then the lift is much more significant (8P is 33% higher than 6P). So the new system is intended to make your skill more important not just for determining whether you hit or not, but also how well you hit and how effective it is.
Again, much of this is based off asides and me reading between the lines, so don't take it as gospel. I'm not saying that I agree with it or that I would have done it the same way, but that's my current understanding behind the changes in 6E's approach to armor, Body, and weapon DVs.
This is not the ideal takeaway for the effects of 5e armor.
For example, high body is pretty meta among soak tanks due to the interplay of soak and edge. It doesn't make sense to pump body too hard if your not going soak tank, this is true, but body and strength are really strong on soak tanks in 5e. The stat definitely had its place.
5e was a significant DOWNGRADE of lethality from 4e, where it wasn't so much 'dodge or die' as 'Have 40 soak or die' because the final DVs of weapons in SR4 was higher than in 5e.
For example, a Machine pistol in SR4 had a BASE DV of 4, but a final DV of 13 (lets forget about ammo and assume this is a cruddy ganger with an MP). Your armored jacket negated 3 DV. If you didn't have pretty much every soak aug in SR4's core book or a troll's body, you couldn't survive that damage, so the smallest gun in the game that isn't a single shot gun, something any idiot could get for the same price and avail as a handgun, would kill almost every SR PC pretty much automatically. In SR5, you only break DVs of 13 on really big guns like shotguns and sniper rifles. So survivability in SR5 is much higher, especially because in SR4 the way defense was calculated made dodging weapons impossible. So even the weakest autofire weapon in the game would kill any PC besides a street samurai hit by it nearly 100% of the time. For reference, the Panther was 10 DV.
SR5 was probably the least soak minmaxing intensive edition of SR printed due to the fact base armor was really good. It is super incorrect to state that it was more lethal than previous editions where your soak 6 body 4 armor was going up against someone firing 3 hypervelocity submachinegun shots at you for 16 DV 3 times, all shots being made with a pool of 12 or more against a defense pool of... reaction alone. Unless you full defensed in which case you only got to add 1-4 to the roll.
Obviously, this environment where you auto-hit reduced the importance of skill dice even more than 5e. In fact, in SR5, skill dice are hugely important due to the relationship between DV and autofire now: Higher dice isn't an efficient way to get DV directly, but it indirectly increases your DV because semi-auto and single shot weapons tend to hit harder than the burst fire or autofire they lost would negate in defensive hits. In fact, in SR5, despite the increase to soak, most of your lost DV as an attacker doesn't come from soak, but from defense dice, even vs grunts who aren't optimizing for it but have the good core rules armor, which is why for most PCs automatic weapons were still the ideal: Yes that sniper hit WAY harder than the AR (rather than way less like in SR4, where machine pistols hit harder than a panther...) but if your missing 35% of your shots your way better off with the AR. This also really hurt 4e's balance, because the nominal cost of autofire (recoil, which in theory lowered hit rate) didn't matter because A: You got more dice from gear than you do now, and B: Even on a full defense test your rolling like 8 defense dice optimistically, and full defense was just a terrible deal vs ranged weapons as it guaranteed you would get shot an extra time.
In fact SR5 probably had the best balance of defense vs offense of any SR edition, because its totally possible to go into combat as a non-soak tank and eat a few shots and not die, but it is still rewarding to really push that soak up because really big scary guns still exist, and it is still possible to achieve the classic samurai trope of bullet immunity. What SR5 did was heavily squeeze the range of DVs down, increased base soak numbers, and removed the insane impact autofire had on DV, resulting in damage generally being very consistent and PCs fully capable of surviving attacks from even serious guns rather consistently, but making it possible to get unlucky on either side of the attack. In SR4, a light pistol failed to do any damage through an armored jacket worn with a helmet while a machine pistol without special ammo would consistently kill a body 5 reflexes 4 character through full body armor 80% of the time, and your survival rate vs an assault rifle with ExExplosive is 4% with FBA.
This actually had huge ramifications going from 4e to 5e, mainly the fact that armor was no longer virtually worthless made it so PCs who weren't soak-stacking could participate in combat without instantly being popped the second the standard PR1 Halloweener grunt took out their TMP with their 6 attack dice and got even slightly lucky on the attack, forget about Corpsec utterly annihilating you with an HK-277. You get shot in SR4, you best be a samurai, be getting hit with a 'toy gun' in single shot or semi-auto, or be a soak tank samurai limb build.
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Ok gang, I will fill you in as best as I can ... I was not privy to the final decision process but I can speak some about how we got there.
1. one of the very first things we established was the Attack Rating vs Defense Rating relationship
2. we had also decided that we wanted to make sure we had an emphasis on attributes
3. we were also looking for ways of streamlining by removing rolls from the sequence, the ultimate goal was to have at most one roll for the attacker and one for the defender (one of the things we looked at was removing the soak roll completely) ... this did not playtest very well
4. then we went through several iterations of DR and how it worked and was calculated
5. once we decided armor was to be a major factor in DR, it was decided it would not be a factor in soak ... we wanted it to be a factor to be considered in combat but not the "holy grail" of factors like it was in 5E
6. then damage values were adjusted down to match the reduced soak pools and when it was playtested the effect curve was pretty much the same both ways (i.e. higher DV with armor as soak and lower DV with no armor soak)
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I was very sceptical about the Armor thing at first, and to a little degree, I still am.
Thatīs mostly because of that stupid Limit of 2 Edge per round, which may or may not be either RAW or RAI in the final core book ::) But thatīs a whole issue on itīs own, not just because of the way armor works now. And luckily, that one can be houseruled/fixed by literally just changing one word in a sentence...
Other than that, I get your thought process. I would have opted for a more "conservative" approach (a.k.a. Armor just reduces damage), but I rather have a system/balance where (worn) armor just gives you Edge - which isnīt so bad considering that you can also reroll Hits of your opposition - than one like SR5 where your Armor jacket often makes up more than 75% of your damage resistance.
I think that the AR-DR system should be a little bit more differentiated in the future, tho. F.i., the Steel Lynx in the QSR has 16(!) Armor for a total DR of 26. Whatīs even the point of having such a high DR? This should be more than enough to grant that beast an Edge against pretty much every attacker. If the differences between AR and DR really can get this high, there should be at least an additional benefit when the AR-DR difference is unusually high (f.i. denying the opposition to use Edge on their own on their defense/attack test, which is going to be my houserule in these cases). Same in the "middle band": Why not use the AR-DR comparison to determine who wins on a tie?
I guess itīs not a coincidence that the Combat Supplement is scheduled this early for the new Edition. Maybe there are already plans on how to enhance and differentiate the "Low-Res" mechanics of the CRB?
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#6 is the answer I was hoping existed, thank you. I'm curious about one aspect though. How is it that heavy armor vs light armor somehow equate to the same effect on damage values? Feels like heavier armor ought to offset damage in some better way than just higher DR. Maybe not street level armor, but some of the higher end security/ milspec armor maybe?
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#6 is the answer I was hoping existed, thank you. I'm curious about one aspect though. How is it that heavy armor vs light armor somehow equate to the same effect on damage values? Feels like heavier armor ought to offset damage in some better way than just higher DR. Maybe not street level armor, but some of the higher end security/ milspec armor maybe?
the CRB armor basically only covers light armor ... the heaviest thing you can get is FBA, which is still light armor in the big scheme of things and the only advantage it provides is full coverage
milspec is not a thing yet, so not sure how it will factor but if I would guess that it will behave like hardened armor which does give a soak boost in the CRB (the hardened armor power is on the errata list though so may get tweaked yet .. it's OP when compared to the new DV's) ... I am also hoping for some more armor options to make it into the advanced combat book whenever it sees the light of day
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I was very sceptical about the Armor thing at first, and to a little degree, I still am.
Thatīs mostly because of that stupid Limit of 2 Edge per round, which may or may not be either RAW or RAI in the final core book ::) But thatīs a whole issue on itīs own, not just because of the way armor works now. And luckily, that one can be houseruled/fixed by literally just changing one word in a sentence...
Other than that, I get your thought process. I would have opted for a more "conservative" approach (a.k.a. Armor just reduces damage), but I rather have a system/balance where (worn) armor just gives you Edge - which isnīt so bad considering that you can also reroll Hits of your opposition - than one like SR5 where your Armor jacket often makes up more than 75% of your damage resistance.
I think that the AR-DR system should be a little bit more differentiated in the future, tho. F.i., the Steel Lynx in the QSR has 16(!) Armor for a total DR of 26. Whatīs even the point of having such a high DR? This should be more than enough to grant that beast an Edge against pretty much every attacker. If the differences between AR and DR really can get this high, there should be at least an additional benefit when the AR-DR difference is unusually high (f.i. denying the opposition to use Edge on their own on their defense/attack test, which is going to be my houserule in these cases). Same in the "middle band": Why not use the AR-DR comparison to determine who wins on a tie?
I guess itīs not a coincidence that the Combat Supplement is scheduled this early for the new Edition. Maybe there are already plans on how to enhance and differentiate the "Low-Res" mechanics of the CRB?
Yeah pretty much all the limits on edge gain hurt it for being used as a universal mechanic. Armor alone should probably be a edge for every 4 difference. Maybe even a quicker exchange. If you gained 4 edge as a troll tank getting shot at by a pistol it might feel like a difference than rando human with armor jacket neither gaining or granting a edge. 1 edge with a cap of 2 per round and absolute cap of 7 hahaha.
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the CRB armor basically only covers light armor ... the heaviest thing you can get is FBA, which is still light armor in the big scheme of things and the only advantage it provides is full coverage
So, for all those trying to say that "armor doesn't matter", it sounds like the answer is more "armor's effect is baked in to the damage codes, however the system is abstracted to the degree that the distinction between armor types is not nearly as relevant as in prior editions". IOW, it's there, but much less directly noticeable -- its only reflected in the DR, which means it isn't felt 100% of the time. Fair statement?
Also, would that mean, if we attack an unarmored target, should we then get a damage bonus? If I attack a critter, it (usually) lacks armor. Shouldn't that be a factor in the base DV at that point? They didn't seem to call that out in the devil rat fight on the SCN live play, so it wasn't my impression that was the case.
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the CRB armor basically only covers light armor ... the heaviest thing you can get is FBA, which is still light armor in the big scheme of things and the only advantage it provides is full coverage
So, for all those trying to say that "armor doesn't matter", it sounds like the answer is more "armor's effect is baked in to the damage codes, however the system is abstracted to the degree that the distinction between armor types is not nearly as relevant as in prior editions". IOW, it's there, but much less directly noticeable -- its only reflected in the DR, which means it isn't felt 100% of the time. Fair statement?
Also, would that mean, if we attack an unarmored target, should we then get a damage bonus? If I attack a critter, it (usually) lacks armor. Shouldn't that be a factor in the base DV at that point? They didn't seem to call that out in the devil rat fight on the SCN live play, so it wasn't my impression that was the case.
mostly yes, but some no too ... armor is still a factor and yes it is more abstract and not 'felt' ... (and that was the core of my argument when we were going through development on it ... at the very least people need to feel like armor is doing something) ... but yes it is basically baked into the revised damage codes and no there is nothing to offset not having armor, the basic combat system assumes everyone (or thing) has armor of some kind on the damage side .. the only benefit you have as an attacker going up against an unarmored defender is the most likely advantage you will have in generating edge
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Thanks, that's useful info to have. I think I have what I was looking for from this thread. Cheers!
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Ive been interested in this thread. My take-away is that the mechanic ) was built to play reasonably in the most typical cases, and b) as known so far doesnt scale well to corner cases. Im a bit sad because this was one of the weaknesses of the target-number-adjusting mechanic used in SR 1-3; it played in a pretty cool way in the middle, but became silly once you went out any distance. I jumped from 2nd edition to 5th and the greater linearity of mechanics was one of the things that I really appreciated. (they are by no means perfect as things scale, but they hold up much better than the earlier system did).
I suspect Ill put some house rules around this mechanic for the more extreme cases, if there is not already more coverage in the CRB. Ill hold off speculating until Ive read and absorbed the full rules and the numbers.
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This info kind of disheartens me even more then I already was about the game.
I have been constantly trying to convince my table that the writers where not trying to turn SR into D&D and this seems to prove my players right. :-[
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. :'(
So while it has was being claimed that this was all for streamlining in truth it was all for dumbing down as much as possible and the only reason we have anything approaching older version is they couldn't get the more dumb down version to work.
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The real issue is that this REALLY hurts soak tanks. Not because soak tanks got better armor than other people, they didn't so the nominal gap in preformance is the same, but soak tanking depends a lot on big pools to get a standard result. In the context of already having 18 dice you can post edge in 5e a +9 to armor from ortho and lacing is massive, while 9 soak from a base soak of 4 and no post-soak re-roll isn't nearly as effective, even when you factor DV dropped.
amurai WILL take damage from attacks based on these new DVs, unless they are dodge samurai in a way that is hard for them to force prevent, unless things we don't know about come to light. Combined with the fact the new legality system seems to be pushing the value of 'social stealth' compatible gear up, and the fact that the value of big guns is going down to sorta soft revert to 4e autofire (though unarguably less insane than 4e autofire, as, you know, you can miss now and the hit rate penalty is baked in which actually does help make the dice a samurai can pull more useful) and its really questionable what the big value add a samurai brings to the team.
Like, yes, they are still better at resisting damage than other people, but Samurai is getting more power shunted to their offensive capability which never really was the draw (as at least in 5e it was pretty easy to one shot kill if you wanted too, offense was cheap, defense was expensive, even with old armor, so specializing in that is what really made a PC a combat PC rather than a face with smartlink and toner) and with the push for even more condensed social skills (And social skills were already REALLY cheap) and with possibly every PC caring about legality now even if they are a physical stealth PC, the Samurai's actual functionality on a run is coming into more and more question the more info we get.
Like I don't super care about the realism argument (though the non-intuitive argument is good. I think putting 1-3 soak on all armors would have been a good way to make them statistically not significant while still making it easier to wrap your head around how FBA protects you), but the role balance always assumed pretty insane combat supremacy in Samurai and unless their toys got much cheaper and easier to fit in (like big price and essence reductions to soak 'ware and 'wired, so that samurai hybridize on par with faces) this may be the edition where Samurai are the bottom of the heap, and I don't think that is going to be good for the game's accessibility.
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Just picking on one thing as I am lazy. I actually think this game will push for big guns more than 5e. One major action killing will be hard with a pistol in 6e. But totally possible with an assault rifle.
In 5e pistols could fairly easily one shot people and bigger guns were either over kill or a buffer for rough enemies.
Due to this I think people had more mechanical freedom to pick a weapon that fit their characters style where as in 6e you are more pressed for pure effectiveness. One action kills are a huge effectiveness change since dead people dont shoot back. That being said with how tasers look the big gun might be a taser.
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Well, from running the starter set adventure, all I can say is that it worked really well, mainly because the damage values are much lower.
For example, an Ares Predator now has DV4, instead of DV8. So in our session, if a ganger tried to shoot the troll samurai, they typically had 7 dice vs. his ten (I think it was ten). If the ganger managed a hit, it was usually only with one or two net hits. In the old game, that would be 9 or 10 damage to soak. With condition tracks of about 12 you better have a lot of soak dice! But now it is only 5 or 6 damage to soak. The troll samurai had something like 8 or 10 soak dice (I don't remember off the top of my head). So mostly he was missed, and when he was hit, he could reduce the damage 2 or 3 points before spending edge. If he gets edge from DR, that also helps. It happened more than once where the troll was able to soak all damage from low powered gangers. I know it was said before that damage was scaled down, but it has been about cut in half! The result is less dice rolling and faster action.
While running the gangers, I also found it much more easy to use the Edge system. If an enemy for some reason has an edge while being shot at (from DR or something else) I can just reroll one of my dice real quick. Did I get two edge? I almost always have a 4 in my pool that I can turn into a hit. This was much smoother than having to constantly figure different NPC soak pool and roll them. Also, the two edge per turn cap is nice, it keeps people from trying to argue for tons of edge. Basically, I ran it as one chance to get edge from environment/gear, one chance to get edge from AR vs DR.
I don't really know how else to describe it. The only thing I really missed was the idea that sometimes getting shot might only cause stun damage if the DV wasn't higher than your armor. I wonder if this will be a thing in the full rules. I could almost see something similar, just using the DR value as the threshold. Other than that, I really like the system so far.
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Also, the two edge per turn cap is nice, it keeps people from trying to argue for tons of edge. Basically, I ran it as one chance to get edge from environment/gear, one chance to get edge from AR vs DR.
Yeah, too bad that itīs - be it on purpose or by accident - written as two per round ::)
Two per (individual) turn absolutely makes sense, though. At least from a gameplay perspective.
I don't really know how else to describe it. The only thing I really missed was the idea that sometimes getting shot might only cause stun damage if the DV wasn't higher than your armor. I wonder if this will be a thing in the full rules. I could almost see something similar, just using the DR value as the threshold. Other than that, I really like the system so far.
I really resented this rule in SR4 and 5. Not the general idea, though, but because it tended to make "tanky" targets even easier to bring down, since Stun damage couldnīt be properly healed and physical damage tracks were often longer then the Stun track. Also, armor could be easily be stacked so high that you rarely have to fear lethal damage unless someone whips out a Sniper Rifle with APDS. SR5 firefights often were more like pillow fights: Nobody gets injured, but everyone is tired afterwards :P I houseruled this to into splitting the damage between the Stun and the Physical track instead of a full conversion, which helped a lot.
However, while this didnīt really work out in the previous 2 Editions because of balancing issues, it probably works a lot better in SR6 if implemented right. I wouldnīt base it on Attack/Defense ratings, because there are too many other factors coming into play that donīt really reflect the fact that itīs your armor that converts bullet holes into bruises. Instead, Iīd base it on the actual Damage Code (+ Net Hits) and the actual Armor Score - so, pretty much like in the previous Editions. In SR6, this would work out nicely, since the Damage Codes and Armor Codes are lower, more evened out and more dependent on the Attackers net hits. And also, you can finally heal Stun damage in SR6.
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Two per (individual) turn absolutely makes sense, though. At least from a gameplay perspective.
I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.
Again, I apologize if I'm sounding dense on this, literally the first thing I'm typing this morning and I'd like to understand the argument better.
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One of the issues raised about Edge being caped per round is that once you have gain your 2 Edge of the round, nothing else matters: armor? I do not care I already maxed my Edge for the round, I can go and fight in swimsuit it does not change anything!
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Two per (individual) turn absolutely makes sense, though. At least from a gameplay perspective.
I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.
Again, I apologize if I'm sounding dense on this, literally the first thing I'm typing this morning and I'd like to understand the argument better.
A GM can group grunts and have them fire once per group, this gives an AR and dice bonus to the single attack depending on the group-size. Saves this kind of headache as well as time.
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Two per (individual) turn absolutely makes sense, though. At least from a gameplay perspective.
I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.
Again, I apologize if I'm sounding dense on this, literally the first thing I'm typing this morning and I'd like to understand the argument better.
Youīre not sounding dense. Well, maybe just a little bit ;)
In fact, youīre bringing up pretty much the only (semi-)valid concern about the "per turn"-ruling: It could lead to a scenario where tanky characters get rewarded for letting themselfes getting shot at a lot. That would advocate a kind of "bait-and-punish"-playstyle for Tanky McTrollface: Because you often wonīt need to use your Edge on your defense/soak rolls, you can afford to put it aside for your own counterattacks.
But consider this:
- Your example is even better at demonstrating whatīs bad about the "per round"-rule: In your scenario, Edge gain would be cut off right after 2 Edge, which may happen right with the first attack of the ganger or even on the samurais own turn. And once this happens, all these factors that would put the gangers at a disadvantage or put the Sammie at an advantage suddenly donīt matter any more, because pretty much all of them are reflected by granting Edge now. This includes Armor, Range, Cover, Firing Modes/Recoil, Lighting/Visibility and probably a whole bunch of other factors and perks we have yet to hear about. How on earth is this better? Itīs pretty much a limit on how many things "count" per round. Itīs a kind of realism filter.
- Whatīs even so bad about your scenario after all? "Bait and punish" is a fun tactic. True, itīs got a bit of a "cheesy Action Movie" vibe to it, but unlike previous incarnations of "Tanks" in SR, thereīs an actual risk involved in this playstyle, especially if you decide to safe your Edge for your own actions (Hell, that even fits the new Motto of "Risk it all!" :P). If I have to throw realism out of the window, Iīd rather do it this way than by pretty much limiting the amount of depth per combat round.
- If the GM is fed up with this "abuse" of the Edge machanic, (s)he can simply use grunt rules to attack the Streetsam. That would limit the amount of Edge he can generate with this trick, and might even deny the Edge gain from the AR-DR comparison.
If youīre now still convinced that there should be a per-round-cap on Edge gain, you may want to consider another houserule/fix/re-interpretation of the 2-Edge-per-round-limit thatīs floating around: Yes, there is a limit per round, but Edge that is spend right on the Action that helped you earn it, doesnīt count towards it. In other words, only the amount of Edge that can be saved up for later is limited. No Edge would be truly lost, but it would force the tanky Samurai to use most of the Edge generated by getting attacked on the actual Defense/Soak tests.
So letīs compare these 3 different versions of Edge Limiting:
- You can get max. 2 Edge per round (currently RAW, at least in the QSR)
- You can get max. 2 Edge per turn
- You can save up max. 2 Edge per round for later.
#3 is more realistic, but #2 is a bit easier to explain and monitor, and I actually like the idea of that "Bait and punish"-Playstyle. Iīd still prefer option #2 over #3, but only by a small margin.
But #1: Sorry, thatīs just easily the worst of the three: Itīs neither realistic, nor fun, nor easy to monitor in a fight with many participants. Iīd rather play with no limits at all than with this.
OK, just so we are 100% clear here: By ROUND, I mean the whole Intervall of ca. 3 Second in which everyone acts according to their Initiative Scores. By TURN, I mean the individual turn of a player or NPC, which consists of different Minor and Major Actions.
Instead of TURN, I might have also called it INITIATIVE PASS. But then Iīd be 100% sure that the very next post would be someone helpfully pointing out that "ACKCHYUALLY, there are no Initiative Passes in 6th Edition anymore, because the system is totally different now", followed by 2D6 posts of raging and raving about the new action economy.
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So letīs compare these 3 different versions of Edge Limiting:
- You can get max. 2 Edge per round (currently RAW, at least in the QSR)
- You can get max. 2 Edge per turn
- You can save up max. 2 Edge per round for later.
#3 is more realistic, but #2 is a bit easier to explain and monitor, and I actually like the idea of that "Bait and punish"-Playstyle. Iīd still prefer option #2 over #3, but only by a small margin.
Although I have had coffee I may also be a little dense this morning. Or possibly it is from not having read the QSR yet so I'm off on SR6 terminology. But I'm really not sure what the difference is between a round and a turn? In SR5 there were multiple initiative passes, but in SR6 everyone gets 1 major and some minor actions per turn, right? (with the possibility of turning 4 minors into 1 major, and so getting a second attack). So there are not multiple passes ... and I just don't get what else the round and turn differentiation could mean?
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I'm guessing the meaning here would be 'per entity's turn'. So you have a player's turn, and the combat round. If I fire twice at you, you can only get 2 Edge, but if the next guy then fires at you, under version 2 you'd be able to get more Edge.
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I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.
Is it really so wrong for the streetsam to dominate grunts NPCs in combat?
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I believe Finstersang is using Round to represent the entire combat round, and Turn to represent an individuals set of actions. If I have that backwards my use of the words will need reversing in this post.
A simple combat example, two participants - you, and opponent. In this case you go first.
When you go, you gain 2 Edge.
With Edge limited to 2 per Round, when your opponent goes it doesn't matter what you have or don't, what they do or don't, you can't gain any further Edge.
If Edge was limited per Turn, you would still have the chance to gain 2 more Edge - say if your AR is high enough and something else.
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Even if you already managed to gain a big advantage over the opposition (maybe because it's dark but you got low light while your opposition does not and maybe because you picked the conflict at optimal range for your current weapon or whatever), you still want to prevent the opposition from gaining a (any) tactical advantage over you.
Waking around naked just because you might be able to secure a big tactical advantage over the opposition is still bad because you will let the opposition gain a tactical advantage over you to even the scores (something you could probably have prevented by simply wearing your armored jacket).
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I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.
Is it really so wrong for the streetsam to dominate grunts NPCs in combat?
Oh no, they definitely SHOULD!
But should the player get seven edge for beating up random gangers in one round?
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I think with it being a hard cap of 7 edge total it shouldn't be a problem.
one street sam versus say 5 gangers ... not using the goon rules ... the street sam can earn 2 edge on his action then 2 edge on each of the gangers actions (assuming he didn't drop one or two on his turn) ... that's 12 total edge potentially. If he started at zero edge he would have to spend a minimum of 5 that round or lose it at the end of the round. If he is gaining that much edge it shows he has a huge advantage of some sort (probably the total package of better tactics, gear, and ware) but having to spend that a large chunk of that edge immediately should also mean he is wading through them fairly fast too. Then he walks out that fight with a full edge pool and feeling good about himself, and ready for the boss fight.
super realistic no, but super cool action hero type thing ... absolutely
even the odds up some by either using the goons as a single squad entity or just getting them better gear or using tactics (like a security team instead of gangers for example) then that edge gain drastically reduces ... probably only gaining at most 3 or 4 per round
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It's not too unrealistic. After all, before the big game you'll see star athletes taking shots on an empty net (assume it's the net-based sport of your choice). A streetsam beating up low-level goons would be equivalent, no?
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I mostly want the cap to not apply as strict for people who have 7 as Edge-stat. Right now this has very little value to them. But higher Edge gain I like, keeps things dynamic. Though then maybe mooks should be able to spend a bit more liberal as well.
Meanwhile, after the encounter ends the cap of Edge-stat applies, so there's no use gathering the Edge if you're not spending it and not allowed to keep it. The next fight is another encounter after all.
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So spend the edge. There are a beavy of things to spend edge on, aren't there?
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So spend the edge. There are a beavy of things to spend edge on, aren't there?
To include literally just giving it away to a teammate. So you shouldn't ever be stuck with edge that you can't find a use for.
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So spend the edge. There are a beavy of things to spend edge on, aren't there?
To include literally just giving it away to a teammate. So you shouldn't ever be stuck with edge that you can't find a use for.
Does giving Edge to a teammate count towards their 2 per turn limit?
If so, you may very well get stuck with not being able to give it away.
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So spend the edge. There are a beavy of things to spend edge on, aren't there?
To include literally just giving it away to a teammate. So you shouldn't ever be stuck with edge that you can't find a use for.
Does giving Edge to a teammate count towards their 2 per turn limit?
If so, you may very well get stuck with not being able to give it away.
IIRC yes, but the larger point I'm trying to make is to confirm that "yes, there are lots of ways to spend edge". It's going to be quite the corner case where you have nothing you'd want to spend use-or-lose edge on, much less CAN spend it on.
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In fact, youīre bringing up pretty much the only (semi-)valid concern about the "per turn"-ruling: It could lead to a scenario where tanky characters get rewarded for letting themselfes getting shot at a lot. That would advocate a kind of "bait-and-punish"-playstyle for Tanky McTrollface: Because you often wonīt need to use your Edge on your defense/soak rolls, you can afford to put it aside for your own counterattacks.
Narratively, I don't hate the idea of a character who takes a risk and exposes themselves to hits in return for setting themselves up for a vicious counterattack. Say, they step out from behind cover, taking some rounds they could have avoided but getting a clear shot in return. Or in melee, they pull a Rocky Balboa, and take a few shots to the chin so they can get into position for a devastating right hook. That kind of thing.
If youīre now still convinced that there should be a per-round-cap on Edge gain, you may want to consider another houserule/fix/re-interpretation of the 2-Edge-per-round-limit thatīs floating around: Yes, there is a limit per round, but Edge that is spend right on the Action that helped you earn it, doesnīt count towards it. In other words, only the amount of Edge that can be saved up for later is limited. No Edge would be truly lost, but it would force the tanky Samurai to use most of the Edge generated by getting attacked on the actual Defense/Soak tests.
Hey, I came up with that too! (Admittedly I'm sure I wasn't the only one. It's an obvious idea.)
Overall this is the approach I am happiest with (disclaimer: haven't actually played any 6e yet, of course.) Like you, there's no way I'm going to play with max 2 Edge per entire round, no matter what the book says. A complex round with lots of participants could take quite a long time to play out; I'm simply not going to keep track of who has earned how much Edge over that long a period. It's too fiddly.
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To include literally just giving it away to a teammate. So you shouldn't ever be stuck with edge that you can't find a use for.
So if you start the fight with 7 Edge, you HAVE to immediately give it away before you are allowed to earn any? Then there's little point to going for 7 Edge.
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To include literally just giving it away to a teammate. So you shouldn't ever be stuck with edge that you can't find a use for.
So if you start the fight with 7 Edge, you HAVE to immediately give it away before you are allowed to earn any? Then there's little point to going for 7 Edge.
Way I see it, the point is you HAVE 7 edge to begin the encounter with. You can start blowing the big chunks of edge as soon as you like before having to accumulate them. 2 edge is earn then spend. 7 edge is spend then earn.
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I don't like the idea of telling someone 'if you go from 5 Edge to 7, 80% of the time your first action in combat will be sacrificing 2 Edge to give someone else 1 Edge'. Their first attack won't grant them Edge, because they already have it, so they lose their first opportunity to gain Edge. That's basically punishing someone for daring to get high Edge. If 7 Edge is a waste, then what's the use of being human?
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... If 7 Edge is a waste, then what's the use of being human?
Perhaps there wouldn't be one, but I think it suffices to say that I disagree with the premise in the first place that 7 edge is a waste. But if you feel you don't need quite that much edge, then by all means make race your dump priority. Something has to be, after all.
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I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.
Is it really so wrong for the streetsam to dominate grunts NPCs in combat?
Oh no, they definitely SHOULD!
But should the player get seven edge for beating up random gangers in one round?
Yes, maybe more. If this is supposed to narratively represent range, armor, weather, recoil etc you should not have a limit for the action much less the entire combat round.
Does the 3rd person shooting auto fire at you magically not have to deal with recoil now? Im sure I can weave a bullshit story to cover things, but having to weave a bullshit story makes it feel strained and forced.
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I don't like the idea of telling someone 'if you go from 5 Edge to 7, 80% of the time your first action in combat will be sacrificing 2 Edge to give someone else 1 Edge'. Their first attack won't grant them Edge, because they already have it, so they lose their first opportunity to gain Edge. That's basically punishing someone for daring to get high Edge. If 7 Edge is a waste, then what's the use of being human?
If the leaked priority chart is accurate and humans only have +1 edge cap there is none. Like you are mechanically punished for playing human.
I hope that chart is wrong because there was lots of issues in it.
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I'm guessing the meaning here would be 'per entity's turn'. So you have a player's turn, and the combat round. If I fire twice at you, you can only get 2 Edge, but if the next guy then fires at you, under version 2 you'd be able to get more Edge.
Precisely what I mean. I added a (maybe a little bit passive-aggressive) clarification to my post ;D
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Perhaps there wouldn't be one, but I think it suffices to say that I disagree with the premise in the first place that 7 edge is a waste.
So then what do you say is the value of having 7 Edge instead of 6, other than at the start of an encounter immediately spending 2 Edge to give someone else 1 or immediately giving yourself an Initiative boost? Or is it simply that you value those possibilities that much?
Because right now, I don't like that I am practically FORCED to ignore the strong point of being Human, because I get practically nothing in return for going to 7 Edge. If I earn ANY point before I spend some first, it's wasted on the cap. And all that because someone else can't boost their Edge?
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The difference between 7 and 6 edge is clearly less advantageous than 7 and 2 edge.
Sure, with 7 edge you might lose out on the potential for up to 2 edge gain on the first action in an encounter. With 6 edge, you might miss out on 1. Not a whole LOT of difference. Compare it to 5? Well, you'd have to presume you're getting the 2 edge, which isn't something I'd say you can safely presume. Especially since it's not a given you're even a participant in the first action of an encounter!
With high edge, every edge option is available to you immediately. But the higher your edge, the faster you can dump another big expenditure after making a big expenditure. If you don't think going from 5 to 6 or even 7 is worth the opportunity cost, then don't do it. Sure, it's diminished returns to go from 5 to 7 than say 3 to 5. But it's not a case of there being NO return.
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I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.
Is it really so wrong for the streetsam to dominate grunts NPCs in combat?
Oh no, they definitely SHOULD!
But should the player get seven edge for beating up random gangers in one round?
Well, the Sammie wouldnīt exactly get seven edge for "beating up random gangers".
Itīs seven Edge for drawing multiple attacks by the gangers while cleverly using the environment (f.i. darkness, cover) and superior gear and stats (Armor, Body, Vision Enhancements) to her advancement.
And also for taking the risk that she might not be able to easily dodge or soak all of these attacks - especially when she wants to safe up the earned Edge for a tacticool Counterattack on her own turn.
And also, for somehow making the GM forget that Grunt rules exist ::) Because if the GM lets the gangers, well, gang up , they might reduce their max. damage per turn, but will also hit more reliably without feeding the Sammie precious Edge. They might even earn Edge on their own and bring her down by attrition.
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Well I'm shocked this thread is still going, as i didn't see a point in the original topic at all, we covered that weeks ago.
But the edge topic is meaningful. So as I understand it, in the round order of operation you check edge generation at AR vs DR, before you have a chance to roll. Is that correct? So unless there is edge use for Initiate modification, which I am guessing there is not. At 7 edge with a 7 edge cap you guaranteed to waste any edge you generate round 1. In other words at no time should you ever build above edge 5.
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Well I'm shocked this thread is still going, as i didn't see a point in the original topic at all, we covered that weeks ago.
But the edge topic is meaningful. So as I understand it, in the round order of operation you check edge generation at AR vs DR, before you have a chance to roll. Is that correct? So unless there is edge use for Initiate modification, which I am guessing there is not. At 7 edge with a 7 edge cap you guaranteed to waste any edge you generate round 1. In other words at no time should you ever build above edge 5.
Thats how I see it. I can see maybe going to 6 for the just in case I only get one edge idea. But, wasted edge would irritate me more than not hitting 7.
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...In other words at no time should you ever build above edge 5.
Let's try to keep the thread civil and avoid hyperbole.
Yes, at 6 or 7 edge you can hit the edge cap and lose potential edge. That's not the same thing as there being no reason to go above 5.
At 7 edge, if you spend 5 you only need to gain 3 to spend 5 again.
At 5 edge, if you spend 5 you have to gain 5 to spend 5 again. This simple arithmetic advantage still exists.
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Well I'm shocked this thread is still going, as i didn't see a point in the original topic at all, we covered that weeks ago.
But the edge topic is meaningful. So as I understand it, in the round order of operation you check edge generation at AR vs DR, before you have a chance to roll. Is that correct? So unless there is edge use for Initiate modification, which I am guessing there is not. At 7 edge with a 7 edge cap you guaranteed to waste any edge you generate round 1. In other words at no time should you ever build above edge 5.
I presume that by "the edge topic", you mean the diminishing benefit of having an Edge Attribute of more than 5 or 7, and not my olīceterum censeo about the 2-Edge-per-round-limit? ;D
Youīre right, thatīs topic on its own, especially when considering that going up to 7 might be the only real benefit for (norm-)humans. I think it deserves to be discussed in its own thread, because this has only very little to do with the "Armor" theme.
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Youīre right, thatīs topic on its own, especially when considering that going up to 7 might be the only real benefit for (norm-)humans. I think it deserves to be discussed in its own thread, because this has only very little to do with the "Armor" theme.
Agreed. Made a new thread (https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=29586.0) for that tangent.
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Well I'm shocked this thread is still going, as i didn't see a point in the original topic at all, we covered that weeks ago.
Yes, I have my answer. DVs are assuming armor on all targets. Wherever it was covered weeks ago wasn't something I was aware of. If you can link me to it, I might glean some additional info there I'd be glad of reading. Thanks!
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Some caveats: I haven't played 6E yet, nor am I privy to any insider information.
That said, as I've been listening and reading between the lines, I've feel like I've heard few things from the devs:
1) In 5E, armor had inflated so much that it devalued Body. If everyone is running around with 12 points of armor from an armor jacket, why bother with anything more than Body 3? Spending finite attribute points in Body generally wasn't a good investment, since the % change to your soak pool was so small. The optimal approach was the maximize Intuition and Reaction, not only because they were tied to useful skills (unlike Body) but also because they were superior to Body in terms of reducing damage and/or avoiding it altogether. So, the new system is to intended to rebalance the importance of Body.
2) The high armor values of 5E lead to high weapon DVs which often lead to dodge-or-die situations. Some devs like this and some devs don't, citing realism or game balance to support their preference. The new system is intended to make things more granular so that a single hit - or a single poor soak roll - isn't an automatic death sentence.
3) Similar to the above, a high base DV devalues the net hits that a skilled attacker can adds to the final DV. Take the FN HAR for example. If your base DV is 10P (in 5E), the difference between 1 net hit and 3 was modest from a % lift standpoint (since 13P is 18% higher than 11P), but if your base DV is 5P (as in 6E) then the lift is much more significant (8P is 33% higher than 6P). So the new system is intended to make your skill more important not just for determining whether you hit or not, but also how well you hit and how effective it is.
Again, much of this is based off asides and me reading between the lines, so don't take it as gospel. I'm not saying that I agree with it or that I would have done it the same way, but that's my current understanding behind the changes in 6E's approach to armor, Body, and weapon DVs.
This is not the ideal takeaway for the effects of 5e armor.
For example, high body is pretty meta among soak tanks due to the interplay of soak and edge. It doesn't make sense to pump body too hard if your not going soak tank, this is true, but body and strength are really strong on soak tanks in 5e. The stat definitely had its place.
5e was a significant DOWNGRADE of lethality from 4e, where it wasn't so much 'dodge or die' as 'Have 40 soak or die' because the final DVs of weapons in SR4 was higher than in 5e.
For example, a Machine pistol in SR4 had a BASE DV of 4, but a final DV of 13 (lets forget about ammo and assume this is a cruddy ganger with an MP). Your armored jacket negated 3 DV. If you didn't have pretty much every soak aug in SR4's core book or a troll's body, you couldn't survive that damage, so the smallest gun in the game that isn't a single shot gun, something any idiot could get for the same price and avail as a handgun, would kill almost every SR PC pretty much automatically. In SR5, you only break DVs of 13 on really big guns like shotguns and sniper rifles. So survivability in SR5 is much higher, especially because in SR4 the way defense was calculated made dodging weapons impossible. So even the weakest autofire weapon in the game would kill any PC besides a street samurai hit by it nearly 100% of the time. For reference, the Panther was 10 DV.
SR5 was probably the least soak minmaxing intensive edition of SR printed due to the fact base armor was really good. It is super incorrect to state that it was more lethal than previous editions where your soak 6 body 4 armor was going up against someone firing 3 hypervelocity submachinegun shots at you for 16 DV 3 times, all shots being made with a pool of 12 or more against a defense pool of... reaction alone. Unless you full defensed in which case you only got to add 1-4 to the roll.
Obviously, this environment where you auto-hit reduced the importance of skill dice even more than 5e. In fact, in SR5, skill dice are hugely important due to the relationship between DV and autofire now: Higher dice isn't an efficient way to get DV directly, but it indirectly increases your DV because semi-auto and single shot weapons tend to hit harder than the burst fire or autofire they lost would negate in defensive hits. In fact, in SR5, despite the increase to soak, most of your lost DV as an attacker doesn't come from soak, but from defense dice, even vs grunts who aren't optimizing for it but have the good core rules armor, which is why for most PCs automatic weapons were still the ideal: Yes that sniper hit WAY harder than the AR (rather than way less like in SR4, where machine pistols hit harder than a panther...) but if your missing 35% of your shots your way better off with the AR. This also really hurt 4e's balance, because the nominal cost of autofire (recoil, which in theory lowered hit rate) didn't matter because A: You got more dice from gear than you do now, and B: Even on a full defense test your rolling like 8 defense dice optimistically, and full defense was just a terrible deal vs ranged weapons as it guaranteed you would get shot an extra time.
In fact SR5 probably had the best balance of defense vs offense of any SR edition, because its totally possible to go into combat as a non-soak tank and eat a few shots and not die, but it is still rewarding to really push that soak up because really big scary guns still exist, and it is still possible to achieve the classic samurai trope of bullet immunity. What SR5 did was heavily squeeze the range of DVs down, increased base soak numbers, and removed the insane impact autofire had on DV, resulting in damage generally being very consistent and PCs fully capable of surviving attacks from even serious guns rather consistently, but making it possible to get unlucky on either side of the attack. In SR4, a light pistol failed to do any damage through an armored jacket worn with a helmet while a machine pistol without special ammo would consistently kill a body 5 reflexes 4 character through full body armor 80% of the time, and your survival rate vs an assault rifle with ExExplosive is 4% with FBA.
This actually had huge ramifications going from 4e to 5e, mainly the fact that armor was no longer virtually worthless made it so PCs who weren't soak-stacking could participate in combat without instantly being popped the second the standard PR1 Halloweener grunt took out their TMP with their 6 attack dice and got even slightly lucky on the attack, forget about Corpsec utterly annihilating you with an HK-277. You get shot in SR4, you best be a samurai, be getting hit with a 'toy gun' in single shot or semi-auto, or be a soak tank samurai limb build.
...+1
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I guess I'll have the real answer shortly, but maybe someone can clarify order of operations? Let's say I've got 7 edge, I'm about to gain 1 edge from a AR vs. DR comparison, and I want to spend 1 edge. Which of the following scenarios am I looking at?
- I can spend edge before gaining the ARvsDR edge, leaving me at 7-1+1=7 edge
- I can spend the ARvDR edge immediately, leaving me at 7+1-1=7 edge
- I cannot gain any edge this round until I spend edge, leaving me at 7-1=6 edge
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#3
From the Beginner's Box Set:
Step 1: Grab Dice
Step 2: Distribute Edge
Step 3: Roll Dice, Spend Edge
Step 4: Soak Some Damage
Step 5: Bring the Pain
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I was under the impression that you, in addition to 2 edge per round and 7 edge total, were allowed to spend any "overflow" edge you earned during a specific action on that specific action (and then, but only then, any remaining "overflow" edge would be lost).
Or have i missed something...?
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I don't know for sure, since it's the QSR of the box set. There may be more details on overflow in the Core book.