NEWS

In need of opínion for house rules

  • 36 Replies
  • 10759 Views

Shamie

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 262
« on: <04-09-13/1443:31> »
I spent this months dming shadowrun for my group of players and while i like SR4 im not of the mentality of "thats how the game is play" and im trying to house rules some stuff that we dont like but i want yours take on how to improve this house rules (or maybe there is a rule variant im missing)

1) Eliminating soaking roll: The attacker rolls "atribute + skill +/- mods" vs defender "atribute + skill +/- mods" the difference + the weapon rating should surpass the armor in order to do lethal damage.

Reasoning: It speed up combat (two opossing rolls, you compare on the armor and done with it) and it makes trolls afraids of assault rifles

2) you gains the extra IPs if you are hacking on AR (the same IPs you would gain on VR) if and only if you spent all of it on only hacking.

Reasoning: so i dont have to separate the poor souls that decide to make a hacker or tecnomancer from the the party and slow down the game.

3) Extras IPs. With wired reflexes you get the following. In any extra IP you can only move or attack. not both and you have to split your dice pool (declaring first on the turn what you gonna do)

Reasoning: Wired reflex became a must always no matter which concept character you make. They add wired not for character but because not doing so is a major disadvantage. So everyone has them and quoting manly men doing manly things "When everybody is a hipster no one would be".

With this at least character with mastery of guns or swords would use wired. Because otherwise it would only be a waste of nuyen and essence.

Im looking for a way for them not to feel obligated to add wired reflexes to everysingle pc they can because having extra turns is usefull no mather what. And in doing so they devaluate the fact of having Wired.


Xzylvador

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 3666
  • Ask me about NERPS! 30% Sales!
« Reply #1 on: <04-09-13/1545:17> »
1. By just having Attack vs Defense and not rolling soak, you pretty much upped the damage with 3 (Body 3, Armor 6) to... well, a LOT more damage per shot. I think it'd become too lethal. SR combat quickly gets lethal even with soak.

2. Don't really see why... Especially not seeing what you want to do with point 3.

3. I'm assuming you mean to do that with all the IP-increasing 'ware, spells and powers? Also not understanding the dicepool thing... You want to split what, when? Also you're nerfing combat characters pretty badly, which doesn't HAVE to be bad as long as you keep this in mind when sending them opposition. Where earlier a streetsam could've dealt with a small security team all by himself, he can't do that anymore. Also moving has never really been an action, what you're doing here seems to require changing movment in combat rules too. And imo, even after your change, Wired Reflexes would still be a must for most characters that want to be good at combat.

Mirikon

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 8986
  • "Everybody lies." --House
« Reply #2 on: <04-09-13/1612:11> »
1. Horrible idea. Makes an already quite lethal game into a meat grinder.

2. Don't see the point, really. Meat moves slower than the mind. The reason you get three passes in full VR, hot sim is that your mind doesn't have to focus on the outside world, and doesn't have affairs of the meat slowing it down. Plus, just because a hacker goes VR to break in, doesn't mean they need to stay VR the whole time. They don't lose access just because they are in AR instead of VR. But really, you're messing with serious genre tropes here. The hacker jacking in and being vulnerable in the meat until the hack is done is something of a staple of the cyberpunk genre. Its like doing D&D where wizards use shotguns instead of a staff.

3. This is a crap rule. No one is obligated to get wired reflexes (or other IP boosters). You just have to adjust your play style to fit. Being a combat focused character with no extra IPs is idiotic, true, but hackers and riggers can get by without wired reflexes just fine. Anyone who focuses in longarms or heavy weapons is just fine at 1-2 IPs.
Greataxe - Apply directly to source of problem, repeat as needed.

My Characters

Shamie

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 262
« Reply #3 on: <04-09-13/1659:48> »
2. Don't see the point, really. Meat moves slower than the mind. The reason you get three passes in full VR, hot sim is that your mind doesn't have to focus on the outside world, and doesn't have affairs of the meat slowing it down. Plus, just because a hacker goes VR to break in, doesn't mean they need to stay VR the whole time. They don't lose access just because they are in AR instead of VR. But really, you're messing with serious genre tropes here. The hacker jacking in and being vulnerable in the meat until the hack is done is something of a staple of the cyberpunk genre. Its like doing D&D where wizards use shotguns instead of a staff.

Well in a all hackers party that wouldnt be an issue but there is the  "all hacker not hacker" argument i have heard before. You know that moment when one players make a hacker and when they do their thing i have to stop the game and design a mini game all for himself while the rest of the players have to sit arround waiting for him to finish? everytime the hacker goes hacking we all go "aww fuck" because the hacker goes to his little world wich noone of the players can access so by all means it puts a stop to the game. BTW if you hack in AR you cant defend yourself by my rules.

i have heard a lots of possible solutions for that. Make the PC "programs" to help the hacker" (to much work), run a separate session for the hacker (not going to happen), have a extra DM to run the hacking (im the only DM), making the hacker NPC only.

Seriously no one else have encounter the hacker problem?

3. This is a crap rule. No one is obligated to get wired reflexes (or other IP boosters). You just have to adjust your play style to fit. Being a combat focused character with no extra IPs is idiotic, true, but hackers and riggers can get by without wired reflexes just fine. Anyone who focuses in longarms or heavy weapons is just fine at 1-2 IPs.

You would think so but really think about it. Why wouldnt you? Seriously i havent heard or read any single reason you wouldnt get more IPs assides from roleplaying reasons (and flimsy ones at that). Why wouldnt a face want extra turn? why wouldnt a smuggler, driver, paramedic, mage, adept, want extra turns?

You can start with 250.000 nuyen and you know that no matter your job having extra turns is always a plus. You know that everyone else has then. And you know that if you dont , you dont get to play as much (for everybody else who is gonna have 2-3 turns you get one).
The face has wired, the mage gets them (or the spell that does the same), the adept, everyone got them because extra action without any true penaltie is just more usefull. So what you do if you dont want to play 1 turn out of 3 you get wired, so does everyone else.
This cause the poor guy who doesnt get them to sit bore for 5 to 10 min while the rest act and then he makes an action. And thats it. He gets bored and next PC he makes also has wired so i ended up dming a game where everyone has wired. so if everyone gets wired i may as well remove it. because if i have a turn with all pcs having 3 ips what im having in reallity is three turns

Being the street samurai with wired doesnt make you special sunflower because everyone else has them. i dont want to remove it because wired its very much an thing of SR but by putting a very narrow scope and limitations i make sure than only very very combat oriented PCs can make use of them.

3. I'm assuming you mean to do that with all the IP-increasing 'ware, spells and powers? Also not understanding the dicepool thing... You want to split what, when? Also you're nerfing combat characters pretty badly, which doesn't HAVE to be bad as long as you keep this in mind when sending them opposition. Where earlier a streetsam could've dealt with a small security team all by himself, he can't do that anymore. Also moving has never really been an action, what you're doing here seems to require changing movment in combat rules too. And imo, even after your change, Wired Reflexes would still be a must for most characters that want to be good at combat.

what i was thinking about is if Pepi the street samurai want to shot guys with his three ips and let say he has a dicepool of 10.
first IP he has a dicepool of 10
second and third IPs he has to divide that dicepool between the shot he take in ip2 and ip3

but thinking about it has the problem of what to do if player decide to do something else with their ips.

what im trying to acomplish is a fix for table of games in wich all pcs have wired reflex a way so that only combat oriented pcs should get a use for wired. or better yet only speed oriented characters would get it. So a heavy russian troll with a shotgun wouldnt ALWAYS comes with wired.

Xzylvador

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 3666
  • Ask me about NERPS! 30% Sales!
« Reply #4 on: <04-09-13/1739:42> »
In the case of the hacker, it seems like you and your group might want to play without a hacker. You wouldn't be the only group with the same problem and just avoiding hacking is the best solution I've seen so far if you ask me.
If someone still wants to be the tech guy, have him specialize in hardware, demolition and/or rigging or something like that. Make sure you develop runs that don't NEED a hacker but have other solutions or provide them with a hacker(group) contact that's willing to do some work for money/favors.

As for the IP's... I don't really see this as being as problematic as you seem to think it is. Even if it is, your solution seems to either nerf it to uselessness so nobody'd really want it... or not, in which case everyone who wanted it before would still want the toned-down version, because it's still better than having only 1IP.
"But why doesn't everyone want extra IP's?" -> Everyone wants them! Wouldn't you want to be 3 times faster? But making and playing a character is about making choices, and if they choose to take Wires, they'll have not used those resources for something else. They'll also have chosen not to set off every MAD/'ware scanner and raise suspicion that way, not to walk around looking like a Christmas tree on the astral, not having lost power/part of their humanity to essence loss, buying loads of extra powers with other uses... etc etc.

Really, you ask for opinions: I'm a fan of a lot of houserules, but not these ones.

Shamie

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 262
« Reply #5 on: <04-09-13/1757:10> »

As for the IP's... I don't really see this as being as problematic as you seem to think it is. Even if it is, your solution seems to either nerf it to uselessness so nobody'd really want it... or not, in which case everyone who wanted it before would still want the toned-down version, because it's still better than having only 1IP.
"But why doesn't everyone want extra IP's?" -> Everyone wants them! Wouldn't you want to be 3 times faster? But making and playing a character is about making choices, and if they choose to take Wires, they'll have not used those resources for something else. They'll also have chosen not to set off every MAD/'ware scanner and raise suspicion that way, not to walk around looking like a Christmas tree on the astral, not having lost power/part of their humanity to essence loss, buying loads of extra powers with other uses... etc etc.

Really, you ask for opinions: I'm a fan of a lot of houserules, but not these ones.

My intention is not that noone wants them but to make that only street samurais (combat oriented pcs) wants them. The scanner thing thought is interesting, didnt think about that. How does it work, in the sense of where would they be? Like in very private places like corporation building or in places like shopping malls? i mean i know there are scanner looking for weapons and such so they cant go arround carrying assault riffles but i though that only in airports there were.

Xzylvador

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 3666
  • Ask me about NERPS! 30% Sales!
« Reply #6 on: <04-09-13/1839:23> »
Don't know where you live, but from what I read on the interwebs, the majority of the people on these forums live in a country where they're having those scanners installed in schools and public libraries and where influential lobbyists want to put a gun in the hands of every teacher.
I doubt they'll be any more scarce 60 years in the future where they're not only cheap as dirt but where things like privacy and civil liberties don't really exist anymore and where entering/leaving a building owned by a large company could be legally considered crossing a border.

Shamie

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 262
« Reply #7 on: <04-09-13/1849:13> »
Don't know where you live, but from what I read on the interwebs, the majority of the people on these forums live in a country where they're having those scanners installed in schools and public libraries and where influential lobbyists want to put a gun in the hands of every teacher.
I doubt they'll be any more scarce 60 years in the future where they're not only cheap as dirt but where things like privacy and civil liberties don't really exist anymore and where entering/leaving a building owned by a large company could be legally considered crossing a border.

Well in my country we dont really. People shoot at school here and there but i guess there arent any funds for that equipment. Here only on airports. But i could make the lives of Wired reflexes pcs a living hell on that matter in order to dissuade non combat pcs of having those.

Carz

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 130
« Reply #8 on: <04-09-13/1900:33> »
BTW if you hack in AR you cant defend yourself by my rules.
I think you are actually exacerbating the issue of the divide between hacker and non hacker with that rule.

If instead a hacker decided to buy wired reflexes (or go the Adept extra actions route) and hack in AR instead of VR, and travel with the party, that might help integrate them better. However if they can't defend themselves in AR, then they are naturally going to take the *less expensive* route of turtling in a vehicle (or other safe location) so they don't get shot while hacking.

Quote
Seriously no one else have encounter the hacker problem?

I think the issue is more that nearly everyone has had this issue, and no one has come up with a universally accepted method of handling it. Look at the announcement for 5th ed - they acknowledge the 'mini game' problem and are promising to improve the situation in the next edition.

I've been running "by the book" hacking for about 17 games now, and it works ok at best. The best situations are those they can't hack until the team is ready to 'enter the facility' or otherwise swing into action, but frankly that's hard to accomplish on a regular basis. A good deal of the time in my games, the other players are indeed sitting out for a bit as the hacker does their pre-run hacking.


Quote
You would think so but really think about it. Why wouldnt you? Seriously i havent heard or read any single reason you wouldnt get more IPs assides from roleplaying reasons (and flimsy ones at that).

As stated by Xzylvador, yep, everyone wants them, but not everyone can afford to get all that they want. Its a decision each player has to make for their characters. At my table, I have a Mystic Adept with 2 IPs (base 1 + Adept power) but with the ability to cast the Improve Reflexes spell, a Technomancer with 2 IPs, an AI with their standard 3, and an Adept with 3.

Did all the players choose to get at least one extra IP? Yes they did. But not all of them went for 3, and none went for 4, and I'll guess that they didn't get more IPs due to the opportunity cost involved in getting them, not that they were undesirable.


Quote
because if i have a turn with all pcs having 3 ips what im having in reallity is three turns

True on the PCs side, but NOT necessarily for the NPCs!

I've had my group go against 1, 2 and 3 IP using opponents. Do the PCs feel superior to the 1 IP people? Yes, yes they do, and I use that to show that the PCs are *the stars* of the game, but I never let the 1 IP guys be a total push over either - people with guns are scary even to fast moving PCs.

And the PCs encountering 2 or 3 IP people feel the danger there.

And to me and my players there's at least some cool factor in the after combat chat - "how long did that take" "only about 12 seconds", etc. but then we are playing because we like the cybered/magic world and all the speed and such that means.


Consider that you can get an extra IP for like 10 nuyen through drugs. While drugs have their own issues, the extra passes are there for much less than the 80K of bioware (or less in cyber). Its really a core aspect of the game.

Quote
i dont want to remove it because wired its very much an thing of SR but by putting a very narrow scope and limitations i make sure than only very very combat oriented PCs can make use of them.

I'm not super clear on your proposed limits. As noted above it seems like you would have to mess with movement, and movement is already divided up by number of actions in 4th (unlike older editions where the more passes you got the more times you got your full move). So why even bother with changing movement?


Quote
what im trying to acomplish is a fix for table of games in wich all pcs have wired reflex a way so that only combat oriented pcs should get a use for wired. or better yet only speed oriented characters would get it. So a heavy russian troll with a shotgun wouldnt ALWAYS comes with wired.

I do wish I could help you on this, but I myself don't see extra IPs as an issue, so its hard to wrap my head around.

About the only think I can say is take extra IPs away totally and provide some other (entirely combat oriented) bonus instead?

I don't think that's a solution in itself, though, because, well, at my table, most PCs would look at what the 'extra bonus' was and see if it was still worth while and cost effective to get it, and if so they would. If not, then they would not - not even the combat people.

Extra IPs are effective and efficient (to a point, which is why not everyone rolls with 4IPs). Anything you trade up for that is going to be evaluated based on utility and take or not based on that utility. And since combat is a universal constant in games, any edge in combat generally has a high utility, and thus I predict that the ratio won't change much.


Quote
Well in my country we dont really. People shoot at school here and there but i guess there arent any funds for that equipment. Here only on airports. But i could make the lives of Wired reflexes pcs a living hell on that matter in order to dissuade non combat pcs of having those.

Yes, you could, and to some extent that's the price you pay for cyber. Just be aware that there are character types that DON'T pay that price - Adepts and Technomancers, people with Bioware instead of cyber - and make it understood ahead of time that that is a part of your world. Doing that you will certainly see a shift in what people do or get, but it may be a shift toward character types that don't suffer the issue over just not taking the 'ware.

Dropping that kind of thing on your players as a bomb might not be the best idea. Most of my players are new to SR, having not played before, so if I were to introduce cyber scanners, I'd need to bring it up in advance, maybe as part of the session's legwork for example, as something the team would need to overcome. That would be my advice on how to introduce the scanners in game.

(Really in my campaign, no one has cyber to be detected. The AI is on a comlink, the Adept and Mystic Adept are magic and don't have cyber and don't need guns either, and the technomancer gets his extra IP thru an Echo, and has some bioware, so a scanner isn't picking anyone in my group up, even though they all have 2 to 3 IPs).

The Aztechnology ziggurat is imposing in only the way corporate architecture mixed with a an ancient culture renown for its human sacrifice could be. Its hard to really determine which is more chilling, though... the ancient bloody past or modern soulless technology.

Shaidar

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 477
« Reply #9 on: <04-09-13/2153:24> »
Is it possible that the IP issue is rooted in the ratio of Combat, Social, and Stealth encounters in the campaign?  IMO a good satisfying Run should feel more like Mission Impossible (the TV series) than Commando.

Every archetype should get equal time to shine. And need it's own specialization; be it skills, 'ware, gear, or magic.  Play up the need for specialization, if a player can operate successfully at high levels in more than 2 areas chances are they aren't at the bleeding edge anymore.

One of the ways that I've combated the "go eat pizza" effect encountered surrounding Deckers/Hackers since SR2 is to have the player do the heavy work while the other players are doing their Legwork.  And trust the player not to fudge their rolls while you attend to the other players Contact rolls.  Then play ping pong.

Contacts:  let the non-hackers get in touch with their peeps and ask their questions and... Break Scene.
Hacker: find out how they want to approach things and... Break Scene.
Contacts: players roll their contact rolls and give them the lean stuff (the lower on the Legwork Table)... Break Scene.
Hacker: 3-5 rolls, exposition exposition... Break Scene.
Contacts: to dole out the heavy knowledge from their contact (the highest stuff they rolled on the Legwork Table)... Break Scene.

A smart hacker is going to leave themselves an in so that when the run goes down the access the network and trip the cameras and sensors.  AR is the best thing the developers have done to integrate hackers into combat in years.  Leaving overwatch and managing the team's Tac-net to keep the Security Forces oblivious to the Runners.

And IIRC, the IPs granted from AR/VR only apply to Matrix actions by RAW.

Xzylvador

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 3666
  • Ask me about NERPS! 30% Sales!
« Reply #10 on: <04-10-13/0355:13> »
<snip>i could make the lives of Wired reflexes pcs a living hell on that matter in order to dissuade non combat pcs of having those.

*sigh*
If that's what you chose to take from my advice....
Just forget I gave any.

RHat

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6317
« Reply #11 on: <04-10-13/0500:53> »
Is Wired Reflexes, along with other IP boosters, powerful?  Yes.  Too powerful?  NO.  They are as powerful as they are supposed to be.  It's part of what makes combat specialists matter, and part of how the team of runners takes on numerically superior forces.

I understand wanting to speed up the game, but taking out damage reduction is the wrong way.

As for the AR IPs, this just tells me you need to take a serious look at how you're running the Matrix stuff - if you're setting up some sort of mini-game on the side, you're quite simply doing it wrong.  There are a plethora of ways to deal with that issue, and this is in no way one of them.
"Speech"
Thoughts
Matrix <<Text>> "Speech"
Spirits and Sprites

Reaver

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6424
  • 60% alcohol 40% asshole...
« Reply #12 on: <04-10-13/1612:27> »
I spent this months dming shadowrun for my group of players and while i like SR4 im not of the mentality of "thats how the game is play" and im trying to house rules some stuff that we dont like but i want yours take on how to improve this house rules (or maybe there is a rule variant im missing)

1) Eliminating soaking roll: The attacker rolls "atribute + skill +/- mods" vs defender "atribute + skill +/- mods" the difference + the weapon rating should surpass the armor in order to do lethal damage.

Reasoning: It speed up combat (two opossing rolls, you compare on the armor and done with it) and it makes trolls afraids of assault rifles

2) you gains the extra IPs if you are hacking on AR (the same IPs you would gain on VR) if and only if you spent all of it on only hacking.

Reasoning: so i dont have to separate the poor souls that decide to make a hacker or tecnomancer from the the party and slow down the game.

3) Extras IPs. With wired reflexes you get the following. In any extra IP you can only move or attack. not both and you have to split your dice pool (declaring first on the turn what you gonna do)

Reasoning: Wired reflex became a must always no matter which concept character you make. They add wired not for character but because not doing so is a major disadvantage. So everyone has them and quoting manly men doing manly things "When everybody is a hipster no one would be".

With this at least character with mastery of guns or swords would use wired. Because otherwise it would only be a waste of nuyen and essence.

Im looking for a way for them not to feel obligated to add wired reflexes to everysingle pc they can because having extra turns is usefull no mather what. And in doing so they devaluate the fact of having Wired.

Re 1: SR is already one of the deadliest games out there on the RPG scene. I have to spend considerable time balancing my combat encounters to NOT outright kill my players a good 40% of the time. And let's face it, if you have to make a new character every 3 games, it stops being fun. As it is, if you run combat properly (including all the options available to everyone, PC and NPC) combat in SR comes in 2 forms: short and sweet or long and bloody. Your 'solution' just makes this worse.

Re 2: hacking is an issue for many groups. Most just 'hand wave' in an NPC hacker to speed things up (I have many times) on the few times that I have actually had a player want to play a hacker, I spend some prep time designing pe-fabbed hacks for them. For the cost of 6 hours of down time (ok, ok I worked on them during commercials while watching TV) I got myself 30 premade matrix runs for each of the following; corp facilities: commlinks: mob networks: police networks: blackmarket nodes: runner nodes. Each scales in complexity and difficulty, so if the hacker is trying to hack a wage slave commlink I use a pregen lvl 1 to 3.... Or if he's trying to hack a ultra violet node at a research facility I use corp facilities lvl 27 to 30....
As far as mixing the two together (hacker & rest of team), this is where note taking and time management come to play: it is possible to run SR with a minimal amount of downtime for all, you just have to be able to split your attention and break down what is happening to "useful" time segments. Incorporate the hacker into the team by making the run location buffered against 'outside' penetration. Meaning he HAS to be in the facility to get the pay dirt!

Re 3: it seems that every few months, someone shows up on the forums and whines that 'extra IPs are broken' I would encourage you to look up some of these old posts to have a greater understanding of why extra IPs are not broken and why they are actually needed! But I will give you the short list right now:
     1: extra IPs save shadowrunner's lives! No matter what, the players will always be outgunned. They can never hope to match the vast amount of firepower that can be thrown at them in a drag out fight (corp security, KE/LS, military can all be brought to bare against them. And if they are acting like total douches, all 3 at the same time!) A player's only hope to survive long enough to retire is to make combat as short as possible... And extra IPs allow for that. Having an extra pass per player per combat round basically turns a team of 5 players into a team of 10 (assuming the NPCs have 1ip). This makes it possible for a team of 5 to take out an NPC team of 5 in 2 to 4 seconds... Hopefully before an alarm can be raised
    2: over the course of a campaign, a single character could be involved in hundreds (or in the case of multi year campaigns, THOUSANDS) of lethal situations, the extra IPs give a player more options to help them survive! With only 1 IP, a player's options become very limited to threats or situations. The more IPs a player has, the more options are opened up to him.
    3: Extra IPs outside of the players and select few NPCs should be rare! The security guard that sits behind a desk has no need for them, so why would a company pay to have them installed?? The same for the average 'beat cop', considering how unlikely he is in encountering 'serious threats' the cost VS reward of implants just isn't there. However, elite bodyguards, special forces (both police and military) would most likely have them due to the perceived chance and likelyhood of combat.


-----
In the end though, it's your game do as you wish, but don't be surprised that few on here will like or surpport your changes.... And don't be surprised if your game changes in ways you didn't expect!
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Shamie

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 262
« Reply #13 on: <04-10-13/2316:14> »
Re 1: SR is already one of the deadliest games out there on the RPG scene. I have to spend considerable time balancing my combat encounters to NOT outright kill my players a good 40% of the time. And let's face it, if you have to make a new character every 3 games, it stops being fun. As it is, if you run combat properly (including all the options available to everyone, PC and NPC) combat in SR comes in 2 forms: short and sweet or long and bloody. Your 'solution' just makes this worse.

Why? i mean is like a defender friendly version of NWOD combat.
       Nwod:                                                                           SR:
att + skill +/- modifiers -deffense               att + skill +/- modifiers vs att + skill +/- mods
what remains + weapo rating is damage
i have run changeling, werewolf and mage games in NWOD for five years and i never got a TPK and only two characters ever die on me. I know is deadliers than the core rules of SR but still Nwod should be worse and in wod (and keep in mind i run heavily combat games of that) i never outright kill a PC. But if you get shot with an assault riffle kevlar or not you going down.

Re 3: it seems that every few months, someone shows up on the forums and whines that 'extra IPs are broken'

i never said that they are broken i only wanted a way to make reflexes only rewarding to combat focus characters. A way to not to have every single players buying the same option and feeling like everyone is the same spastic pc.
If one player wants to play the superquick Street Samurai a la Raiden. Sure go ahead get wired.
but if you gonna play a face who only use a gun and you get wired or a heavy hitter troll being superquick is just silly because the super agile raiden ninja feels puny in comparison.

     1: extra IPs save shadowrunner's lives! No matter what, the players will always be outgunned. They can never hope to match the vast amount of firepower that can be thrown at them in a drag out fight (corp security, KE/LS, military can all be brought to bare against them. And if they are acting like total douches, all 3 at the same time!) A player's only hope to survive long enough to retire is to make combat as short as possible... And extra IPs allow for that. Having an extra pass per player per combat round basically turns a team of 5 players into a team of 10 (assuming the NPCs have 1ip). This makes it possible for a team of 5 to take out an NPC team of 5 in 2 to 4 seconds... Hopefully before an alarm can be raised

How many enemies NPCs do you usually throw at the PCs? from what i get you usually play 10 to 15 characters on combat and that WAAAAAAY more than what i throw at them. I normally throw their number +2/3. Whats the point of a 2 to 4 second combat? unless they are a street samurai. What narrative porpouse do it acomplish. I normally dont go with the route of making feel to the PCs they are the stars. So unless you follow that DM route in games i dont see what narrative pourpose is acomplished by a combat you and them know well they are gonna win in 2 to 4 seconds.
i dont know maybe for me putting security guards who dont have a chance in hell to even treathen the players is not something ecxiting for me. It feels a waste of time because i know they gonna win for sure and they know it for sure. While when i throw combat at them i know they gonna win, they should not i just try to create the ilussion of difficulty wich is impossible to maintain when 5 party members equal 10 guys.
And i never go with the PCs are the heroes of the story. Because it kinda goes against the opressive cyberpunk feel of them feeling like special sunflowers.

 
    3: Extra IPs outside of the players and select few NPCs should be rare! The security guard that sits behind a desk has no need for them, so why would a company pay to have them installed?? The same for the average 'beat cop', considering how unlikely he is in encountering 'serious threats' the cost VS reward of implants just isn't there. However, elite bodyguards, special forces (both police and military) would most likely have them due to the perceived chance and likelyhood of combat.

This is funny though because one of the people in my table told us their take on that one
"We arent special sunflowers, we are regular joes shadowrunners and all of us have wired or their equivalents. In a world where is common place for 1 street samurai to clean a room full of security do you think any guard who wants to go back to their families wouldnt invest in wired at least? They save their payrolls and they buy wired in bulk for discounts because in this setting is commom place that assholes like us come, kick the door and kill them. Any beat cop who wants to see tomorrow is gonna have wired because, if we who are regular shadowrunners have wired we have to assume that every other shadowrunner has them and if we do then the people who has to risk their life against us they should buy wired for a chance of tomorrow"

i just dont see the point of enemies who are gonna die at the end of the first turn. It just seem like a waste of time those combats.

In the end though, it's your game do as you wish, but don't be surprised that few on here will like or surpport your changes.... And don't be surprised if your game changes in ways you didn't expect!

Im not surprise on that. Neither i ask for people to praise them or not. i ask advice on how to refine them in the service on what i want.

But i must say im blaffled at some responses like the "but shadowrun is a grindhouse and your rule is gonna make it a slaughter house" when Nwod is slightier worse than my rule and has never been an slaughter house. How many dices are an regular dice pool? i mean last time i play the combat oriented pc throw 15 dices and any succes of those i had to subtract the success of the opossition 9 dices and the differences + the weapons still had to content against the body soak damage. Maybe people in this forum play SR like the matrix lots of heavy militar weapons on both sides but i tend to run with pistols and the the rare assault riffle and the only time that one guy almost day was when he tried to take cover against a thin metal wall against close range assault riffle and he got shot.

Maybe is a thing of game styles some people want to make pcs feel like superheroes while other like them to feel like normal people.
« Last Edit: <04-10-13/2329:17> by sonsaku »

RHat

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6317
« Reply #14 on: <04-10-13/2324:30> »
I should point out that your rule makes extra passes rewarding for precisely no one.  It takes very specific builds for splitting your dice pool to not be horrible under the current rules.

And guards can't save enough for the ware.  They just don't get paid enough.  However, they could be supplied with combat drugs (it's the exact reason Jazz was developed), which would give them one extra pass.  Runners have a lot more money to spend on that kind of thing because its the cost of doing business for them.  Part of what runners are paid takes that into account.

Also, I don't know NWoD to make a direct comparison, but I am absolutely certain you're not including enough data to make that comparison.  How is damage determined in NWoD?  How much damage can be taken?  Are there ways to reduce that damage?  That's just for starters.  They're different systems, and you cannot simply compare attack/defense to see which one is deadlier.
« Last Edit: <04-10-13/2326:36> by RHat »
"Speech"
Thoughts
Matrix <<Text>> "Speech"
Spirits and Sprites