Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: fougerec99 on <08-27-19/1311:47>
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I see reference to Unarmed Damage being Str/2 but I can't actually find that listed anywhere. Is it actually stated (and if so on which page).
I'm not sure if it was just my tired eyes missing it or if it's legitimately not mentioned.
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It's missing. Check my change blindness thread.
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"If the attack is successful, the attacker does their unarmed combat damage (Strength/2, rounded up) plus net hits." page 111.
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"If the attack is successful, the attacker does their unarmed combat damage (Strength/2, rounded up) plus net hits." page 111.
Those are specifically for the Grapple rules. Ideally, it's the same when you're punching someone outside a Grapple, but it's not official yet.
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what exactly is the DV for unarmed damage is very much being hammered out once and for all.
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I mean, given that Dermal Deposit of Trolls list [str/2+1]P, along with Grapple damage code for unarmed, strongly implies Str/2 S is default Unarmed damage.
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I mean, given that Dermal Deposit of Trolls list [str/2+1]P, along with Grapple damage code for unarmed, strongly implies Str/2 S is default Unarmed damage.
Indeed it does.
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what exactly is the DV for unarmed damage is very much being hammered out once and for all.
Argh!
With all due respect to the hard-working errata team [1], and intending for the criticism here to be pointed directly at Catalyst... There were $200 special edition CRBs on sale at GenCon. People, presumably, bought them. Two hundred dollars! Is it not a bit bloody late to still be changing details as basic as the DV for unarmed damage?!
I feel like more than half the criticism threads here end up with someone from the errata team tapping their nose and saying "don't worry, we know, it's gonna get fixed." And on one level that's good. But these are not small changes. These are not reword-for-clarity, or oops-the-page-reflow-dropped-a-table, or oh-that-quality-is-imbalanced. These are big, sweeping, rewrite-a-chunk-of-that-subsystem changes. Or small changes to very fundamental values that underpin big chunks of the game.
At what point do we ask Catalyst "why are you even selling this thing right now?"
[1] Who are hard-working heroes. I am well aware they got access to the docs really late and have been scrambling to catch up ever since.
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I feel like more than half the criticism threads here end up with someone from the errata team tapping their nose and saying "don't worry, we know, it's gonna get fixed." And on one level that's good. But these are not small changes. These are not reword-for-clarity, or oops-the-page-reflow-dropped-a-table, or oh-that-quality-is-imbalanced. These are big, sweeping, rewrite-a-chunk-of-that-subsystem changes. Or small changes to very fundamental values that underpin big chunks of the game.
That's what has me questioning my desire to support the game past the core book. I can understand, even if I don't like, design changes. I can understand a few typos here or there. I can't fathom how any company can release a game that's missing core information that absolutely should have been caught. If this edition was someone's first introduction to SR then it's a pretty poor one.
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I feel like more than half the criticism threads here end up with someone from the errata team tapping their nose and saying "don't worry, we know, it's gonna get fixed." And on one level that's good. But these are not small changes. These are not reword-for-clarity, or oops-the-page-reflow-dropped-a-table, or oh-that-quality-is-imbalanced. These are big, sweeping, rewrite-a-chunk-of-that-subsystem changes. Or small changes to very fundamental values that underpin big chunks of the game.
That's what has me questioning my desire to support the game past the core book. I can understand, even if I don't like, design changes. I can understand a few typos here or there. I can't fathom how any company can release a game that's missing core information that absolutely should have been caught. If this edition was someone's first introduction to SR then it's a pretty poor one.
Also while the errata team is working hard on this stuff aren’t they potentially subject to the same issues that made the initial um draft. By being just another echo chamber. If you are going to go through the process of rewriting large chunks of the rules maybe open it up to the community.
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At a certain point the question also becomes 'are the errata team essentially writing another draft and deserve credit and pay as such."
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Also while the errata team is working hard on this stuff aren’t they potentially subject to the same issues that made the initial um draft. By being just another echo chamber. If you are going to go through the process of rewriting large chunks of the rules maybe open it up to the community.
I think part of the reason why D&D 5E worked as well as it did out of the gate was because there where thousands of playtesters and I don't recall being under an NDA for it either. It was, basically, crowdsourced playtesting and it paid off for them.
SR6 smacks of limited resources, time crunch and likely an editorial mandate relating to page count. It feels half baked and rushed.
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At what point do we ask Catalyst "why are you even selling this thing right now?"
A week or so ago, at least. The same company that already made this choice is not going to spontaneously develop ethics.
For those who feel motivated to defend this edition, I suggest you get some copy pasta cooked up, because the conversations you are having this week will be happening over and over for most of at least the first year of this run. This is your life now.
Good luck.
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I think part of the reason why D&D 5E worked as well as it did out of the gate was because there where thousands of playtesters and I don't recall being under an NDA for it either. It was, basically, crowdsourced playtesting and it paid off for them.
Imagine how different the tone and content of the current conversations would be if the exact same 6e ruleset had dropped (without finalised art/layout) at GenCon as an open playtest beta edition, with a robust process for gathering feedback, leading up to a final release at GenCon 2020. Hell, price it at $10 and tie that into the feedback system to reduce noise and recoup some expenses now instead of deferring all revenue a year.
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SSD's response leads me to believe the damage calculation will be changed. Spidey sense is tingling and what not.
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SSD's response leads me to believe the damage calculation will be changed. Spidey sense is tingling and what not.
Well, if I gave you that impression it's my duty to walk it back.
The "best practice", until such time that issue is formally errata'd, is certainly to go with STR/2. It's technically unsaid (the reference on pg 111 technically doesn't apply outside of grappling) but is a reasonable inference.
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Imagine how different the tone and content of the current conversations would be if the exact same 6e ruleset had dropped (without finalised art/layout) at GenCon as an open playtest beta edition, with a robust process for gathering feedback, leading up to a final release at GenCon 2020. Hell, price it at $10 and tie that into the feedback system to reduce noise and recoup some expenses now instead of deferring all revenue a year.
This, with the exception of charging for playtest. That's just shitty. I know many people who dropped support for Pathfinder for that sort of thing.
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Well, if I gave you that impression it's my duty to walk it back.
No need bud, you are all good. Like I said, I just got that intuition from your reply, right or wrong. It's certainly not your fault I got the tingle from your comment.
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SSD's response leads me to believe the damage calculation will be changed. Spidey sense is tingling and what not.
Well, if I gave you that impression it's my duty to walk it back.
The "best practice", until such time that issue is formally errata'd, is certainly to go with STR/2. It's technically unsaid (the reference on pg 111 technically doesn't apply outside of grappling) but is a reasonable inference.
Natural Attack helps.
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I think part of the reason why D&D 5E worked as well as it did out of the gate was because there where thousands of playtesters and I don't recall being under an NDA for it either. It was, basically, crowdsourced playtesting and it paid off for them.
Imagine how different the tone and content of the current conversations would be if the exact same 6e ruleset had dropped (without finalised art/layout) at GenCon as an open playtest beta edition, with a robust process for gathering feedback, leading up to a final release at GenCon 2020. Hell, price it at $10 and tie that into the feedback system to reduce noise and recoup some expenses now instead of deferring all revenue a year.
Sigh if only such a thing was possible, but sadly we live in a world where common sense takes a back seat to profit motive, and logic take a back to blind support. Thus we are left with the spectacle of an edition of SR that failed to include the basic concept of how to calculate unarmed damage. smh. I mean come on, I'd honestly called that a bad joke. The fact that it's true just means makes it even more tragic.
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I think part of the reason why D&D 5E worked as well as it did out of the gate was because there where thousands of playtesters and I don't recall being under an NDA for it either. It was, basically, crowdsourced playtesting and it paid off for them.
Imagine how different the tone and content of the current conversations would be if the exact same 6e ruleset had dropped (without finalised art/layout) at GenCon as an open playtest beta edition, with a robust process for gathering feedback, leading up to a final release at GenCon 2020. Hell, price it at $10 and tie that into the feedback system to reduce noise and recoup some expenses now instead of deferring all revenue a year.
Sigh if only such a thing was possible, but sadly we live in a world where common sense takes a back seat to profit motive, and logic take a back to blind support. Thus we are left with the spectacle of an edition of SR that failed to include the basic concept of how to calculate unarmed damage. smh. I mean come on, I'd honestly called that a bad joke. The fact that it's true just means makes it even more tragic.
Privateer Press created their Community Integrated Development (CID) for free community beta testing/feedback on models and rules. Aside from some dedicated salt miners, it has worked fairly well to engage the community by letting them preview new content 2-3 months prior to release, try to break the game with it, give feedback, report errors, and get new stuff closer to balanced at launch.
Not saying all companies would/should/could follow that model, but it seems like it has done good things for PP.
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Unfortunately, some playtesters on this edition went ahead and released information (and possibly the documents). I agree that an open play-test is a terrific thing (examples: Pathfinder, D&D 5E, Pathfinder 2), and I hope that Catalyst goes that route for future books. One of the difficulties is that Shadowrun is a six-book game. Yes, you can play the game with the core rule book, but they now have a history (every since 1st Edition, in fact), where the game really hits the mark after they are able to put out Magic/Matrix/Cyber/Lifestyle/Rigger books that give the players depths to the characters they want to play. It makes it hard to do a playtest without playtesting all the books, since they build on each other. D&D and Pathfinder can get away with playtest on the base rules, since any rules that come after are simply adding on to the rule, not making them more complex and intricate.
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Sigh if only such a thing was possible, but sadly we live in a world where common sense takes a back seat to profit motive, and logic take a back to blind support. Thus we are left with the spectacle of an edition of SR that failed to include the basic concept of how to calculate unarmed damage. smh. I mean come on, I'd honestly called that a bad joke. The fact that it's true just means makes it even more tragic.
If sense were common, everyone would have it.
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Unfortunately, some playtesters on this edition went ahead and released information (and possibly the documents). I agree that an open play-test is a terrific thing (examples: Pathfinder, D&D 5E, Pathfinder 2), and I hope that Catalyst goes that route for future books. One of the difficulties is that Shadowrun is a six-book game. Yes, you can play the game with the core rule book, but they now have a history (every since 1st Edition, in fact), where the game really hits the mark after they are able to put out Magic/Matrix/Cyber/Lifestyle/Rigger books that give the players depths to the characters they want to play. It makes it hard to do a playtest without playtesting all the books, since they build on each other. D&D and Pathfinder can get away with playtest on the base rules, since any rules that come after are simply adding on to the rule, not making them more complex and intricate.
I think that is more of a design issue. By putting CRB through playtests and making it solid, it should reduce complexity and ambiguity from any expansion books. A clean and unambiguous rule set version is conducive to extension via virtue of it's ability to be understood. Greater the ambiguity of anything, the harder it is to integrate with. The more clear and accurate, the easier it is to make a choice on how to extend or modify as an optional rule in a expansion book. If the CRB is unplayable by itself, then that is, again, a game design issue.
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Not unplayable. Much like you can play D&D with just a PHB, you get more from the game with the PHB/DMG/MM combo. Shadowrun players expect the six books now, and many will wait until the ones they really use come out before getting involved in the game. I know I tend to wait for the Magic and Lifestyle books because I play a lot of adepts and mages. In previous editions, I couldn't even build an adept until they came out.
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Yes, you can play the game with the core rule book, but they now have a history (every since 1st Edition, in fact), where the game really hits the mark after they are able to put out Magic/Matrix/Cyber/Lifestyle/Rigger books that give the players depths to the characters they want to play. It makes it hard to do a playtest without playtesting all the books, since they build on each other. D&D and Pathfinder can get away with playtest on the base rules, since any rules that come after are simply adding on to the rule, not making them more complex and intricate.
I would think that is something that would look at changing with a new edition - the reliance on 6 different books to make the game playable.
The core rules should be where your testing is the most rigorous as it's the very core of everything that comes after it (implied by the title Core Rules). It has to be as solid as you can make it since everything that comes after rests on its foundation. There's no need for SR6 to have a 10 page errata before the book is even available. There's no need for simple, basic information to be missing (like Unarmed damage, like starting Essence). If this is the level of care put into the core book then I can't even fathom how bad supplement books are going to be.
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They playtested a lot but even veteran players missed plenty of things. I caught maybe 20% when I read the book from end to end and making notes like crazy. People ask questions and I'm all "d'oh!". Fortunately they're using a decent errata process nowadays.
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They playtested a lot but even veteran players missed plenty of things. I caught maybe 20% when I read the book from end to end and making notes like crazy. People ask questions and I'm all "d'oh!". Fortunately they're using a decent errata process nowadays.
I have the suspicion that there were too many veterans and not enough total newbs in the playtesting groups. A lot of the missed/wonky stuff seems to be due to what you correctly identified as "change blindness" - the vets already knew how stuff worked in the previous edition, so when questions like "what´s the unarmed melee DV" come up, they thought they knew the answer without looking if its really written out in the actual book.
Ideally, there should have been some 100% newb groups in the playtesting sessions, with one vet/dev sitting in the background, taking notes and only jumping in when the group gets stuck. But that´s hard to achieve, especially in a rush.
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A lot of the missed/wonky stuff seems to be due to what you correctly identified as "change blindness" - the vets already knew how stuff worked in the previous edition, so when questions like "what´s the unarmed melee DV" come up, they thought they knew the answer without looking if its really written out in the actual book...
But unarmed melee DV is different in 6e...! And the fact that it's Str/2 is not easy to intuit from the rules as written, except for where it comes up in passing in the Grapple rule.
If you gave a seasoned RPG player the bare bones of the 6e melee system (sans Grapple), I think they'd guess that unarmed damage would be some fixed code and not a derivative of Strength, as that's consistent with all the melee weapons.
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A lot of the missed/wonky stuff seems to be due to what you correctly identified as "change blindness" - the vets already knew how stuff worked in the previous edition, so when questions like "what´s the unarmed melee DV" come up, they thought they knew the answer without looking if its really written out in the actual book...
But unarmed melee DV is different in 6e...! And the fact that it's Str/2 is not easy to intuit from the rules as written, except for where it comes up in passing in the Grapple rule.
If you gave a seasoned RPG player the bare bones of the 6e melee system (sans Grapple), I think they'd guess that unarmed damage would be some fixed code and not a derivative of Strength, as that's consistent with all the melee weapons.
Ah, right. It was the full strength value in 5th Edition. Unarmed Damage being Str/2 was written out in the QSR, though. I can understand how the "vets" come to this conclusion without looking it up (and realizing that it´s really not there).
That being said: Closing these kind of gaps in the RAW is one thing, but I really hope that the errata team gets some leeway to adjust some of the mechanics and balancing blunders as well. F.i. I´d say that there´s a really clear picture now that the majority of players don´t like and/or understand the logic (or rather, lack thereoff) behind Melee weapons being almost 100% independent from Strength while Unarmed Combat relies on it when it comes to both the Damage Code and the Attack rating. Refusing the necissary "blessing" for adjusting this issue via errata (or at least in the Combat supplement...) or refusing to acknowledge that there might be an issue here is just insulting at this point...
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They playtested a lot but even veteran players missed plenty of things. I caught maybe 20% when I read the book from end to end and making notes like crazy. People ask questions and I'm all "d'oh!". Fortunately they're using a decent errata process nowadays.
Maybe they should have had non-veteran players playtest it then. Veteran players are going to read the rules and subconsciously fill in the gaps with their extensive knowledge, while new players are more likely to say, "um... how do we do we figure out unarmed damage?"
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F.i. I´d say that there´s a really clear picture now that the majority of players don´t like and/or understand the logic (or rather, lack thereoff) behind Melee weapons being almost 100% independent from Strength while Unarmed Combat relies on it when it comes to both the Damage Code and the Attack rating. Refusing the necissary "blessing" for adjusting this issue via errata (or at least in the Combat supplement...) or refusing to acknowledge that there might be an issue here is just insulting at this point...
If someone could just explain the decision maybe that would help. It might be something we're just not seeing and having it explained could help. We may not like it, but at least we'd understand it.
Right now I ordered the 6E book for free (won a draw for a shopping spree at an online store) and I'm starting to regret my purchase. I'm basically looking at gutting 6E for what is good and combing it with 5E. So it's little more than an options book :)
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F.i. I´d say that there´s a really clear picture now that the majority of players don´t like and/or understand the logic (or rather, lack thereoff) behind Melee weapons being almost 100% independent from Strength while Unarmed Combat relies on it when it comes to both the Damage Code and the Attack rating. Refusing the necissary "blessing" for adjusting this issue via errata (or at least in the Combat supplement...) or refusing to acknowledge that there might be an issue here is just insulting at this point...
If someone could just explain the decision maybe that would help. It might be something we're just not seeing and having it explained could help. We may not like it, but at least we'd understand it.
Right now I ordered the 6E book for free (won a draw for a shopping spree at an online store) and I'm starting to regret my purchase. I'm basically looking at gutting 6E for what is good and combing it with 5E. So it's little more than an options book :)
Having used it, it's not as terrible as people are making out. Are there big mistakes? Yes. Am I enjoying the new rules, yes!
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Having used it, it's not as terrible as people are making out. Are there big mistakes? Yes. Am I enjoying the new rules, yes!
I am really hoping that it plays better than it reads. I'll definitely play it as written before making any hard and fast decisions.
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They playtested a lot but even veteran players missed plenty of things. I caught maybe 20% when I read the book from end to end and making notes like crazy. People ask questions and I'm all "d'oh!". Fortunately they're using a decent errata process nowadays.
Maybe they should have had non-veteran players playtest it then.
They did. But if the rulebook is in flux, even playtesters will start remembering things and face change blindness.
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Having used it, it's not as terrible as people are making out. Are there big mistakes? Yes. Am I enjoying the new rules, yes!
I am really hoping that it plays better than it reads. I'll definitely play it as written before making any hard and fast decisions.
Some of what will make it play better is actually the lack of material. While yes many people want book x,y,z out SR5 had those and 30 more which bogged down the rules with bloat. Many times my layers would be like I use x program or y ware and I’d have no idea what it did there was just too much. Trimmed down systems flow easier. The core mechanic is the same and unless you used a lot of modifiers in SR5 it probably won’t be any harder or easier. It’s still die pool vs die pool. But there is a lot less to deal with.
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Having used it, it's not as terrible as people are making out. Are there big mistakes? Yes. Am I enjoying the new rules, yes!
I tend to agree. There´s a lot that really got better.
But among all that there are some really obvious stinks - often due to change blindness. It would be wise to errata these soon, before everyone starts switching to different houserules regarding core mechanics. And before you start to build up additional stuff on top of that. The current state of the Core rules is not a good foundation for a supplement (unless that supplement directly aims at some of these problems. Would come off as a little bit greedy, but hey... ::))
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Not unplayable
Yes, unplayable fits. You can't currently make a character with it since the RAI are so badly written or absent. That's pretty basic. That has nothing to do with six books not yet in the mix.
It's not that a determined and clever GM can't make it work and bridge the myriad haps and stitch up the loopholes as they arise. We've seen that they can. The problem is that they have to do that just to run the game .
This means each GM has to maintain a houserule document just try to play it RAW/RAI. Players can't use the book as printed, because it's either been erratad or houseruled, and so there's no point in buying a hardcopy. And if they play at a new table, fundamental details that completely change a build (like how unarmed damage is calculated) may be in play that make certain builds immediately unusable or require rebuilding.
The PDF may get updated regularly, but that is not likely to make up for all the missing info, especially when constraining the book to an arbitrarily lower page count (when page count wasn't the problem with 5).
So, yes, unplayable and definitely irresponsible as a game company to have released in such a shape.
As for mining it for ideas, as it stands, I think the only thing I am considering keeping from it is the action economy. Almost nothing else is working for me the more I read through it.
The only upside for me is that I am writing more homebrew and retro porting, and may actually play some old school shadowrun again. Going back to the good times.
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As for mining it for ideas, as it stands, I think the only thing I am considering keeping from it is the action economy. Almost nothing else is working for me the more I read through it.
I'd like to hear ideas about how to do that, because I also quite like that aspect of 6 but don't see how you'd backport it.
I might have a go at porting the Matrix rules. I definitely like the 6e Matrix rules better than the 5e ones.
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The matrix section is one of the few that is a strict improvement imo.
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The matrix section is one of the few that is a strict improvement imo.
Yeah, I can't see any aspect of it that's a step back from 5e. Which for my money makes it the best Matrix rules SR has ever had.
(I mean, thematically I like 2e's dungeon-crawling host maps and hardlines, but it's horrific to actually play unless your non-deckers go out for a lot of pizza!)
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The matrix section is one of the few that is a strict improvement imo.
Agreed it’s solid, the best it’s ever been imo.
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I'd like to hear ideas about how to do that, because I also quite like that aspect of 6 but don't see how you'd backport it.
Well, granted I haven't tried it yet, but the basics would seem to all be there. Complex = Major, Simple & Free = Minor, unless it's an attack. All attacks seem to be Major. There might be some fringe cases for specific exceptions, but that's my baseline for now. Conversion to a 3 AP/turn system is my backup plan, with Complex/Major being worth 2, and Simple/Single Move being 1. Reflex Boosting adds extra AP, probably +1 per bonus die.
I've got a laundry list of other simplifications that go with my home edition ideas, too much to easily explain, and probably still full of holes to fill.
Related to other statements in this thread, I also tend to reject arguments that praise 6 by saying it's "better" than 5. That's a pretty low bar to clear, IMO. "Better" here does not = "good", especially in regards to the Matrix. Sooo many missed opportunities with that section.
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Well, granted I haven't tried it yet, but the basics would seem to all be there.
I'll get back to you on this. I had something I couldn't figure out but now my mind's gone blank.
"Better" here does not = "good", especially in regards to the Matrix. Sooo many missed opportunities with that section.
Eh, you could be right, but I don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I've been playing SR5 for a year now, and having fun. Anything that improves on it is good news in my book.
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The matrix section is one of the few that is a strict improvement imo.
Agreed it’s solid, the best it’s ever been imo.
among all of the negativity it sure does warm my soul to see this post ... there are things I wish that I could have had more time and space to work on but overall I am happy with what I wrote for the matrix and glad people like it.
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The matrix section is one of the few that is a strict improvement imo.
Agreed it’s solid, the best it’s ever been imo.
among all of the negativity it sure does warm my soul to see this post ... there are things I wish that I could have had more time and space to work on but overall I am happy with what I wrote for the matrix and glad people like it.
I was going to put in the sections I thought had issues or even got worse than 5e but I felt it didn’t fit the theme of what I was quoting. Maybe this weekend I’ll do concentrated posts on issues I see, the math of why I see it that way, separate as best I can things I just don’t like from ones I think don’t function right math wise and ways I think it can be moved to fix it.
As negative as I am I try to be constructive. I didn’t like x, here is why, this I think would be better. But I post a lot so it’s easy to drop the ball and just say god x sucks here and there especially when I’ve already said the why in another post.
But there are things I really do like about 6e. Some things I really don’t like and some things I’m unsure of. The matrix is the one area where I literally can’t think of one thing where it isn’t a improvement or at least the same as before. Sure some things I might say I wish they pushed this further or whatever. But that’s what supplements are for I guess.
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among all of the negativity it sure does warm my soul to see this post ... there are things I wish that I could have had more time and space to work on but overall I am happy with what I wrote for the matrix and glad people like it.
Well hopefully at least this demonstrates I'm not being negative for the sake of it... I get no joy from either personally disliking 6e or even seeing it fail. Quite the reverse; I'd rather not be a grognard and I want 6e to be a commercial success that brings new people to Shadowrun.
But as for the Matrix stuff, I think you hit it out of the park, and for whatever it's worth from this guy you don't know: thank you for your hard work.
I'm deadly serious about working on backporting it to 5e; not just for my table but because if people skip 6e because of other things they don't like, it would be crying shame if that meant they didn't see these Matrix rules.
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The matrix is the one area where I literally can’t think of one thing where it isn’t a improvement or at least the same as before.
Well, there is the fact there is no way to detect when your own gear has been successfully Sleazed anymore... That is a step backwards.
If you need modern day equivalents, if on *nix, you could run who -a to see who is online (system only users, such as www-data, won't be online even if in use), or if you want to list all the user accounts on a system you could pull from the /etc/passed file - no, it doesn't actually list the passwords. You could even write a small script to compare to a list of known expected accounts to list only the unexpected ones that shouldn't be there.
There really needs to be a way to do this, even if it is a Major action - although it really should be a Minor.
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all of the negativity it sure does warm my soul to see this post ... there are things I wish that I could have had more time and space to work on but overall I am happy with what I wrote for the matrix and glad people like it.
Speaking strictly for myself, for what it is with my criticism is not just for it's own sake or just to tear down the changes. I am just calling them like I see them. The matrix revamp is the best feature of the new edition to me, and it is not the only positive change. The negative changes are just glaring in comparison.
Edit: Oh, and this is super important. Some of it is not negative change at all, it is more of the same, and that is the true disappointment. I am looking at you spirits, foci, infinite magic loop, explosives damage, ect.
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While the Revamp is good I don't think this edition will be much kinder to deckers than 5e was just because its still a relatively niche thing that is costed not just as a primary role but a 'super' primary role. Like prices didn't go down very much, the top end no one took anyway got squashed and the floor was raised.
I seriously don't understand why the decker equivalent of a gun, the thing that allows them to use skills but does not actually do anything without other ware or skill investment, costs 20 times as much as a gun minimum. I get there is still 'role shock' from 4e but it works at extreme cross purposes to the nominal goals of decker design to make it so deckers are unable to invest resources in non-matrix things.
Squishing down skills was very nice though, and is a start at least.
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Perhaps the better comparison for a decker wouldn't be their deck vs. a gun but rather the samurai's 'ware, or the (Priority) cost for an adept/magician's Magic or a technomancer's Resonance.
I haven't built a decker yet so I can't comment in detail. The price of cyberdecks looks fine to me. The price of a cyberjack is potentially more challenging.
I'm not a dev, but if I had to speculate I would imagine that there was a desire not to have decking be an easy "add on" that could be tacked onto another archetype. Since skills have been simplified, picking up some ranks of Cracking and Electronics is relatively easy compared to previous editions. Given that, perhaps they decided to change the cost of entry to being a decker to the nuyen (and Essence!) of a cyberjack.
Swinging back toward the topic at hand, I'll add my compliments to Banshee for your transparency and willingness to engage on these forums. I've said it before but I greatly appreciate your insights and your commentary.
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Perhaps the better comparison for a decker wouldn't be their deck vs. a gun but rather the samurai's 'ware, or the (Priority) cost for an adept/magician's Magic or a technomancer's Resonance.
No, sorry, it really is not. When you evaluate it based on how PCs are actually built, the direct comparison is to their firearms, not their augmentation choices.
In SR, a pretty fundamental assumption of the system is that, in general, anyone can do anything (With magic and resonance skills being the big exception) using low cost equipment and their skill total. Anyone can fire a gun, or remote control a drone, or talk. Your main investment to be able to attempt the roll at all is skill points. You don't NEED 60k of tailored pheromones to make a remotely difficult face roll, or muscle toner and wired to shoot a gun. You can just do that with a few skill points.
In SR, your 'ware and big nuyen investments, or your power points, go towards ENHANCING a skill towards superhuman levels of ability. A samurai COULD just buy a gun, but then they wouldn't be a samurai. They augment their skill pools by spending essence and extreme amounts of nuyen to augment their combat capabilities well above what can be obtained with skill alone.
Decking... doesn't work this way. And its in theory ok to break with that if you were to make decking a power source more akin to magic (That is, after all, what happened with Killcode. Decking was noted to have a minimum buy in on par with being a mage, so deckers were essentially given defensive oriented buffs and debuffs as 'spells') but breaking with the convention of 'cheap access that anyone can splash into, but expensive buy ins for superhuman ability' needs to be done mindfully.
Deckers basically can't function without the cyberjack and cyberdeck, which means they FUNCTION as the gun, but they are PRICED as the 'ware. Which is a problem because deckers also have 'ware that functions as 'ware they want to buy! Their attribute augmentation is literally the most expensive in the game!
And, despite the fact that 6e's matrix is better than 5e's, it still is a very limited domain of ability. You can DO stuff with it, but it clearly isn't more versatile than being a sam-face which costs less, there are many many scenes where this power source is essentially worthless or extremely minor support value, which isn't the case for the other power sources/roles in the game.
And this kinda makes sense because there is a design intent to force deckers to do meat things and not play a side game and interact with the same world everyone else is. And that is a fine goal, I don't agree with it, but its not inherently bad, you COULD execute on it well by making decking on par with being a face: Super cheap to do skill and 'ware wise so you sorta expect deckers to hybridize in the same way faces do so they always can have something to do even if decking won't be relevant in a given scene or very useful all run.
But instead it is the most expensive role to be, with the most limited set of utility (it is basically entirely dead in combat, which even a pure face isn't because they can at LEAST leadership, and Pure faces are extremely inefficient due to faces hybridizing almost by default!) and GM advice literally saying "Hey sometimes just tell the decker they HAVE to do non-decking things by shutting their power source off with wifi inhibitting wallpaper or whatever!" That is essentially what forced the 5e decker into being a non-role, so we can expect it to still be a non-role. Who is going to want to be the decker when it was designed to basically not be fun and also be insanely greedy as a role?
Either Killcode style 'spell hacking' actions need to come back REALLY fast to justify an entire PC being dedicated to google searches contacts can do for you and flicking lightswitches and cameras that the samurai could probably sneak past anyway, or they should honestly just remove a 0 from the cyberjack and cyberdeck prices (and possibly cut the essence costs of cyberjacks in half!) and say essentially "Deckers are like faces now and are an extremely low buy in role that you should hybridize with samurai or rigger so you have combat capabilities."
I'm not a dev, but if I had to speculate I would imagine that there was a desire not to have decking be an easy "add on" that could be tacked onto another archetype. Since skills have been simplified, picking up some ranks of Cracking and Electronics is relatively easy compared to previous editions. Given that, perhaps they decided to change the cost of entry to being a decker to the nuyen (and Essence!) of a cyberjack.
That is probably the case, because that is literally what 5e did to kill 'side deckers' being rampant in 4e. But side deckers in 4e mostly came from the matrix having infinite utility and agents existing. Neither of those are true in 6e. 6e probably could support 'side deckers' as well as side faces, in the sense that it probably is the most healthy way for the role to continue to exist as the game tries to escape the legacy of 'pizza time' deckers. It is essentially a utility/support role that grants access to information and locations without really pushing run objectives super hard or having combat capabilities, exactly like faces.
You can become a face with a few ranks of Influence and Con, but that is totally fine because it is expected for faces to bring more to the table due to the fact you can't really use influence and con in every situation like you can stealth, althetics, and a combat skill, or magical skills, or rigging skills. Deckers are in kinda the same boat, but instead of being a super cheap role in recognition of the fact Decker probably should always be hyphenated with Decker-face, Decker-mage, Decker-rigger, or decker-samurai, decker is probably the only role you CAN'T hyphenate, despite needing it the most.
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Str/2 seems to be the working assumption on Damage Value.
But does anyone know what the Attack Rating of unarmed combat is?
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Strength+reaction
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STR/2 seems to be the best assumption but IMO it is unbalanced which the melee weapons damage that doesn’t include STR in the DV
For the moment I have house ruled the unarmed DV as STR/3 round up
It seems to work quite good and it lets the STR as mainly useful for the AR