[falar]

So, I've been noodling some stuff in my brain about how 5e works with regards to limits and dice pool modifiers and I'm wondering if the designers might have ended up designing how they work in reverse. See, it seems that a lot of the positive things that you get end up as just limit modifiers and most of the negative things end up as dice pool modifiers. For instance, when you have Vision Enhancement, the basic that you get is a positive limit modifier and the wireless bonus is a dice pool bonus.

I'm actually thinking that things should maybe be the reverse - positive things usually give you dice pool modifiers and negative things and super bonuses usually affect the limit. This would make the application of limits a lot more meaningful.

For instance, consider range modifiers. Currently, they're a 0/-1/-3/-6 to your dice pool. With a high dice pool, this wouldn't make a ton of difference and doesn't really represent what's going on - what's going on is not that you're less skilled, it's that the the weapon just isn't accurate at that kind of range. So what if the reduction was 0/-1/-2/-4 to the limit instead of the dice pool? This would mean that keeping inside the weapon's optimum range (Short-Medium) would be much more important and would also increase the desire to use Take Aim actions to increase the limit. In this case, you'd make SmartLink automatically give you +2 dice pool, but the wireless on bonus be +2 to the Accuracy.

After that realization, I started looking at other areas - for instance, melee and Reach. When making an attack, your limit would increase/decrease according to reach. If you're attacking someone with a Reach 3 weapon and you have Reach 0, we'd decrease your limit by 3 instead of removing 3 dice from your pool. On the other hand, if you beat them, you'd get a positive dice pool modifier, but not a limit increase. Then there'd be a solid want for a martial art that did exactly that.

The big one that hit me was social. Instead of using dice-pool modifiers on negatives, what if they were limit modifiers? Change the general social modifiers to negative limits on the negative side (Suspicious/Prejudiced/Hostile/Enemy at -1/-2/-3/-4) for your limit. Etiquette - if you're wearing the wrong clothes, you decrease the limit.

It would take a fair job of work to apply this across the board, but I think it would have a decent shot at a 5.5e shakeup. Limits are one of the most interesting things that they added in 5e, but the designers didn't really seem to get at home in the space. Positive limit modifiers are actually rarely helpful. Negative limit modifiers can be super crippling. Negative dice pool penalties are annoying, but not really until they're taking more than a quarter of your dice pool. Positive dice pool modifiers make everyone feel cooler.

Thoughts?

[Beta]

At first glance, what you wrote makes a lot of sense to me.  I'd need to spend some time working through examples to figure out how it would play, although the numbers involved would maybe have change in certain cases (extreme range adjust of -10, for instance)

[falar]

At first glance, what you wrote makes a lot of sense to me.  I'd need to spend some time working through examples to figure out how it would play, although the numbers involved would maybe have change in certain cases (extreme range adjust of -10, for instance)

I did actually change the extreme range from a -6 dicepool penalty to a -4 limit penalty. I'm also wondering if there should be a minimum limit that can be adjusted. So, for instance, should an Accuracy 4 gun be just worthless at Extreme Range unless it has a SmartLink with wireless enabled? Or should there always be a minimum limit of 1? That could be combined with a quality, for instance, that sets your minimum limit for a specific skill to be 3.

[Stoneglobe]

I think the issue you'll have with reducing limits in combat this way is that not only are you making it harder to hit and easier to avoid you're also reducing the damage potential by just as much. I can see an inaccurate gun being harder to hit with the further away the shot is but there's no reason why it should have any less damage potential. After all it's already hindered as it is by it's low level accuracy anyway for damage potential. The only way round this is to add split limits for accuracy and damage potential and yet more maths and book-keeping.

[falar]

I think the issue you'll have with reducing limits in combat this way is that not only are you making it harder to hit and easier to avoid you're also reducing the damage potential by just as much. I can see an inaccurate gun being harder to hit with the further away the shot is but there's no reason why it should have any less damage potential. After all it's already hindered as it is by it's low level accuracy anyway for damage potential. The only way round this is to add split limits for accuracy and damage potential and yet more maths and book-keeping.

I actually see this as a benefit. To me, the added damage from net hits was always because you shot in a more vital place. If you're less accurate, you're less able to do that.

[Beta]

There is one paradoxical outcome of lowering limit without lowering pool: it gives incentive to used called shots. 

Say that you've stacked things up to be tossing 18 dice, but due to range and conditions your limit has been cut to three.  If the target is dodging your chance of hitting is pretty low so maybe the shot is a waste, but if you are going to take it anyway, and don't want to waste most of your dice, might as well make a called shot.  Can drop to 14 dice and still almost surely waste hits to add two to your DV, or heck you could even go for one of the tough to hit body-location shots (-8 pool) and still probably saturate your limit.

[falar]

There is one paradoxical outcome of lowering limit without lowering pool: it gives incentive to used called shots.

Actually, since it's a negative modifier, it would be a limit decrease. So a called shot would probably be a straight up -2 or -1 to your limit.

[Whiskeyjack]

Hmm. Dice pools are better than Limit, because every Limit can be broken in some manner.

[falar]

Hmm. Dice pools are better than Limit, because every Limit can be broken in some manner.

I'm not quite sure I follow what you're getting at. Care to expound?

A side-effect of doing it this way is that it further incentivizes Push the Limit in more circumstances.

[Whiskeyjack]

It was a response to your suggestion of flipping bonuses (many of which currently give +Limit as a basic bonus and +dice as a Wireless-on bonus).

Dice are better, so getting them first is strange. It would incentivize not running things wirelessly, since oftentimes Limits are not a huge concern, and as you pointed out, can be broken easily. At the same time, for some rolls, particularly combat rolls, a dice pool penalty of -2 isn't the end of the world, but a Limit reduction of -2 means everyone will be hitting less (since Defense tests have no Limit).

I don't see this as a good thing. It will just slow down combat even more. What is the value?

There's also a weird thing where -Limit as a range modifier makes sniper rifles worse at range than up close.

[kyoto kid]

...in "the good ol' days" of Shadowrun. Range modifiers affected the TN making it harder to hit tour target.  The current reduction to the attack pool for range basically follows the same concept. As you have fewer dice to use you have, the potential to get fewer hits, thus the net hits would not increase the DV as much while the target would have better odds defending against the attack.

[kyoto kid]

It was a response to your suggestion of flipping bonuses (many of which currently give +Limit as a basic bonus and +dice as a Wireless-on bonus).

Dice are better, so getting them first is strange. It would incentivize not running things wirelessly, since oftentimes Limits are not a huge concern, and as you pointed out, can be broken easily. At the same time, for some rolls, particularly combat rolls, a dice pool penalty of -2 isn't the end of the world, but a Limit reduction of -2 means everyone will be hitting less (since Defense tests have no Limit).

I don't see this as a good thing. It will just slow down combat even more. What is the value?

There's also a weird thing where -Limit as a range modifier makes sniper rifles worse at range than up close.

...true, with a personalised grip and internal Smartlink, KK's Remington has a base accuracy of 10.  -2 to to the rifle's limit (as it has an imaging scope that reduces range increment by 1) would still allow a maximum of 8 hits for a base 20DV even at extreme range.

[falar]

There's also a weird thing where -Limit as a range modifier makes sniper rifles worse at range than up close.

For this implementation, you'd probably define medium range as the 0 modifier for sniper rifles, then close and long as -1 and extreme as -2, but I take your point.

I don't see this as a good thing. It will just slow down combat even more. What is the value?

I actually think it would slow down less than negative dice pool modifiers. My limit and number of hits is usually an easy number to compare. Adding and removing dice from my pool is more tedious.

As for the value - mainly it was a thought experiment. I didn't find Limits to be mechanically interesting as they are and I was thinking of ways to make them more mechanically interesting.

[Reaver]

There's also a weird thing where -Limit as a range modifier makes sniper rifles worse at range than up close.

For this implementation, you'd probably define medium range as the 0 modifier for sniper rifles, then close and long as -1 and extreme as -2, but I take your point.

I don't see this as a good thing. It will just slow down combat even more. What is the value?

I actually think it would slow down less than negative dice pool modifiers. My limit and number of hits is usually an easy number to compare. Adding and removing dice from my pool is more tedious.

As for the value - mainly it was a thought experiment. I didn't find Limits to be mechanically interesting as they are and I was thinking of ways to make them more mechanically interesting.

But now you just end up with really low "attack" rolls, thus increasing the chance to "dodge" the attack....

Thus you have combat drag out forever, or until they move to a range that they don't have as serious a modifier....



On the other hand, most SR combat happens at close to medium ranges for handguns/Smgs (hallways and office towers are only so big.... and city warfare with a ganger group is usually confined to 'across the street' distances...

[rednblack]

For instance, consider range modifiers. Currently, they're a 0/-1/-3/-6 to your dice pool. With a high dice pool, this wouldn't make a ton of difference and doesn't really represent what's going on - what's going on is not that you're less skilled, it's that the the weapon just isn't accurate at that kind of range

I disagree.  I can group a lot closer at 50 yards than I can at 100, but it's not the rifle's fault, it's mine.  A small problem with shooting stance, or site picture, or jerking instead of pulling the trigger will make a more substantive difference the further out in range the target is, and a good shooter knows how to minimize or eliminate those mistakes.

By imposing Limit modifiers to shooting tests, you're saying that someone shooting an Ares Alpha at Extreme Range with 9 dice in their pool is on average, as good a shot as someone with 18.  Now, 9 dice isn't unskilled, but it does not represent the same kind of dedication, and training, and ware, and magic that gets somebody to the super-human level where they can reliably pull off 4 hits at 550 meters, which would seem to me to be within the capabilities of that kind of rifle -- maybe someone more knowledgeable than myself will chime in on that.