[Shinobi Killfist]

What is issued in war isn’t necessarily a good example of how effective it is. Standardized training is a huge factor in what is issued.

That being said even at close ranges guns have advantages. You can’t block or dodge a bullet, close isn’t melee it’s Still ranged where melee can’t do anything. The training required to be competent at guns is vastly less than melee.

But you rarely miss with a kick or punch. They may avoid or block it but you don’t miss. People just flat out miss at short ranges with guns. And fairly frequently.

Question is though how much or little is negated by people running 60mph, being able to kick down bank vault doors, have claws that can cut through armored cars etc.

I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to accurately reflect that in game. 4e kind of did it decently as an abstraction with the extra defense dice I think.

A lot is negated by the use of a turn based system. I’m not moving towards you as you line up a shot and shoot. I basically teleport to your side and kick your head in and then you line up a shot and shoot while I stand there.

A huge advantage of guns is negated by turn based movement.

[kyoto kid]

I think people will figure out to use it quick. But if it fails then what?

You don’t have a decent soak to fall back on when you roll bad or just don’t have the minor action.

They will roll up new characters and start playing the game as Black Trenchcoat as they can. Players and GMs who don't like playing Black Trenchcoat (whether or not they already knew it) will either return to a previous edition of their choosing or stop playing Shadowrun altogether. I'm calling it now.

Guess I’ll be playing something else then. Forced Black Trenchcoat can go burn in hell. I like my Mohawk Fix or at least the option to do either. 5e was also highly BT in my opinion and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Let the gaming tables make the options of which direction to go, not the game developers

The damage-numbers and mechanics teased suggest that while massive armies of mooks become more dangerous, there's less chance of being one-shotted. Don't forget, in SR4 and SR5 a sniper can easily one-shot you when they get the drop on you unless your armour is crazy high. Only actual time can tell us if this still exists in SR6, but lower damage and lower soak numbers means less 'holy crap a bad soak roll completely wiped me'. I've had players roll 1 hit on over 10 dice even after reroll, so then they'd drop like a fly in SR5. In SR4 there's a Mission where the sniper deliberately fires a paintball first, and his superior initiative still meant that I (too obviously unfortunately) fudged a killing shot.

Also, my SR5 campaign was pretty pink mohawk so I'm a bit surprised to hear that apparently I've been doing it wrong?_?

Anyway, if players wipe too easily, it suggests either the players should be a bit more tactical in the fights they pick, or the GM needs to adjust to the new balance. It doesn't mean we are forced into Black Trenchcoat. So the massive negativity here is extremely surprising. You're playing together with, not against, the GM, so the PM vs BT is still something that explicitly depends on the table.

@Stainless: I wonder how many tests will involve Strength?

Yeah in SR well anything there are items that can one shot you easily.  SR5 I felt was too deadly.  Assault Rifles a sort of corp goon norm had a base damage of 11 2 AP, two net hits and you are looking at 13DV.  Assuming a fairly normal set up for a runner they had 15ish dice to resists, on average knocking it down to 8, a point of edge knocking it down to 5ish.  Now you maybe got hit more since the auofire reduced your dodge dice. But that was another place where you had a chance to save yourself. With cover probably canceling out most of that dodge penalty.

Currently according to what people have stated, assault rifles damage 5 but can be boosted to 7/8 with autofire, their dice pool can go up if firing as a group and I think each group member adds 1 DV.  Now low rent types have a solid chance to hit you, and when they hit its devastating. Now lets assume non group, 2 net hits on a auto fire attack. Damage is 9, but you only roll 3 dice, so 8. Seems kind of the same place, but you need 1edge on hand to reroll each failure, and you are kind of capping at reducing it to 6. If he had been going full auto and hit you are at 10 boxes and hoping for a hit on 3 dice to live. Part of a group and you are resisting like 12 or 13 with 3 dice.  I'm actually seeing a lot of one shot kills in 6e unless I as the GM pull my punches in play.  I'm fine pulling my punches in not having an overpowered opposition facing them even though its a mega corp.  But whatever the opposition is, intentionally playing it worse seems off if they aren't dumb or something.

Now again I felt SR5 was too deadly.They have stated as part of the advertising SR6 is more deadly. The deadlier the game gets for the players the more they generally will move away from Pink Mohawk. I hope it is not more deadly, and that is just marketing. There are a lot of things I think will improve it from SR5, but there are a lot of things that have me worried.

...+1. 

Also the deadlier the game the less some may want to even bother playing at all.

[mbisber]

Also the deadlier the game the less some may want to even bother playing at all.

Yeah, I remember the first Traveler. One could have his character die many times, even during character creation, before one would develop an attachment to that character.

While burning Edge can make up for a really bad die roll, or rolls, having to do it many times would drive me away from Shadowrun.

[Michael Chandra]

Honestly, they said SR5 would be deadly and even then it played fine in my games, so I'm not going to assume SR6 will be extremely deadly without a choice yet. Maybe if I pull out Red Samurai, sure, or throw thirty gangers at my players. But honestly at that point the problem is the GM, not the system. All more grunts does is simplify by having them be a bit more threatening in a group and increase their dicepool a bit, in return for only 1 attack instead of 5. Saves time and actually doesn't strike me as far more lethal. And worst case we can just add some houserules.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Honestly, they said SR5 would be deadly and even then it played fine in my games, so I'm not going to assume SR6 will be extremely deadly without a choice yet. Maybe if I pull out Red Samurai, sure, or throw thirty gangers at my players. But honestly at that point the problem is the GM, not the system. All more grunts does is simplify by having them be a bit more threatening in a group and increase their dicepool a bit, in return for only 1 attack instead of 5. Saves time and actually doesn't strike me as far more lethal. And worst case we can just add some houserules.

Almost any game you can tone down the opposition enough that it’s not deadly. Early Chicago missions were survivable without me modifying much. Maybe drop a goon or two when the table wasn’t full. Late season 6, early season 7. There were tons of groups where it’s a team of 5 sams with firearms skill 10 agility 7 areas alphas loaded with apds and enough recoil comp to deal with a long burst with decker and mage backup. Maybe some teams build so all the players can be shot at by that, we don’t min max anywhere near that degree. Even with trimmed down dice pools, due to how deadly the ares alpha and other assault rifles are every player has burned edge to survive at least once.

SR5 May work for your group but it was distinctly more deadly than 4e. I’m already weakening opposition pretty far to fit my tables style. Weakening more might break the settings feel. 

[Michael Chandra]

Honestly, I suspect SR6 Goon-rules are less lethal than SR5's: If they do 1 attack, it means you only get damaged once, and you don't suffer the constant 'already got fired on' accumulative penalty. So the last attack of a group of goons already had more chance to hit in SR5 than the combined attack has in SR6. Wouldn't surprise me if the final numbers end up less damage on average in SR6 than in SR5 from the same Rating group of enemies.

As for weakening opposition: I've tossed them Blood Mages, Toxic Mages, Cyberzombie Shedims, an army of Juggernaut drones, a massive ambush by corp anti-sinless terrorists, an entire Bug Hive, a Corporate Hit Squad... Didn't feel like I was breaking the setting. Sounds more like a problem with average required level for Missions than with the game itself.

[easl]

Now again I felt SR5 was too deadly.They have stated as part of the advertising SR6 is more deadly. The deadlier the game gets for the players the more they generally will move away from Pink Mohawk. I hope it is not more deadly, and that is just marketing. There are a lot of things I think will improve it from SR5, but there are a lot of things that have me worried.

...+1. 

Also the deadlier the game the less some may want to even bother playing at all.

The combination of "easier to take damage" and "we're giving you 1 major + any amount of minor actions depending on init dice and other bonuses (...instead of SR5's 1 complex OR 2 simple actions)"  says to me that they are making the game more tactical. 

Soooo...this is nothing but my guess, but for what it's worth, I'd guess that choices like "I stand there in the open trading blows with the bad guy" or "I stand there and hose down the area with gunfire," are much more likely to get you killed, because integrating the use of those minors into your combat plan ("I fire and move to cover") is the substitute for big armor. Again, nothing but my guess.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Now again I felt SR5 was too deadly.They have stated as part of the advertising SR6 is more deadly. The deadlier the game gets for the players the more they generally will move away from Pink Mohawk. I hope it is not more deadly, and that is just marketing. There are a lot of things I think will improve it from SR5, but there are a lot of things that have me worried.

...+1. 

Also the deadlier the game the less some may want to even bother playing at all.

The combination of "easier to take damage" and "we're giving you 1 major + any amount of minor actions depending on init dice and other bonuses (...instead of SR5's 1 complex OR 2 simple actions)"  says to me that they are making the game more tactical. 

Soooo...this is nothing but my guess, but for what it's worth, I'd guess that choices like "I stand there in the open trading blows with the bad guy" or "I stand there and hose down the area with gunfire," are much more likely to get you killed, because integrating the use of those minors into your combat plan ("I fire and move to cover") is the substitute for big armor. Again, nothing but my guess.

I think the new edge system plays a similar role, where you are making constant tactical decisions on how to use it, how much to use, when to try to build it up etc. And for that I think the edge system may end up being a pretty good system with made some poorly designed edge manuevers.

When it comes to the actions I am a bit more leery.  More tactical sounds good but at what cost. As a quick example. Lets say face B is in a room, cover is 6 meters away, a table is in the way, goons are drawing guns its going down.  The face decides they want to move to the cover, draw a gun, shoot at the dudes.  Something like while I run towards the cover while drawing my gun firing off a shot at Goon A, I slide across the table into the cover of the heavy planter box behind it. How many actions was that?  Its not a mystical hyperspeed series of actions, it is something a athletic person could do as they multitask some actions.  If its more than 2 minors and 1 major the cost of being more tactical is your characters competence. You need cyber or magic to hit fairly basic levels of physical competence. It could be removing the cinematic though practical action for less exciting more static ones. I'm okay with less stand out in the middle of a room blazing away. But if they need ware to get to cover while drawing a gun and shooting or other fairly basic practical but maybe entertainingly described actions I will think it was a mistake.

We may have 2 minors and one major instead of 2 simple actions but if I normally would have used 3 free actions on top of that and those are now minor actions, I'm losing actions.  And i'm not talking super cyber guy being down to 2 attacks actions, but like everyone doing everything and perhaps to a point I as a overweight middle age dude start feeling more coordinated than my professional runner, because i mastered the amazing chew gum and walk at the same time technique. The loss of free actions is big especially movement IMO. it may create a much more static field, not using a minor to move when you need to save it for a dodge action may be more tactical but its also more boring.

[tenchi2a]

So I may be reading to much into this, but it seem the major argument here is.
I can stand in the middle of an empty hall way with a machine-gun and unload on 6+ guards while they can kill me anymore.
That don't seem like shadowrun to me but each to their own.

[mbisber]

Hopefully that poorly written and defined rule for perceiving/noticing Magic is corrected or deep sixed to a septic tank.

[Shinobi Killfist]

So I may be reading to much into this, but it seem the major argument here is.
I can stand in the middle of an empty hall way with a machine-gun and unload on 6+ guards while they can kill me anymore.
That don't seem like shadowrun to me but each to their own.

Other than tank builds I never noticed anyone doing that in previous editions. I guess melee characters to some degree as well. They might be able to take on 6 security guards but yeah wired reflexes have always been about moving so fast you were effectively multiple people. But stand in the middle of a hallway, I didn’t see it.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Hopefully that poorly written and defined rule for perceiving/noticing Magic is corrected or deep sixed to a septic tank.

It will have to change a bit since force doesn’t exist  anymore.

But yes I don’t think it was clear when people even got a test.

[tenchi2a]

So I may be reading to much into this, but it seem the major argument here is.
I can stand in the middle of an empty hall way with a machine-gun and unload on 6+ guards while they can kill me anymore.
That don't seem like shadowrun to me but each to their own.

Other than tank builds I never noticed anyone doing that in previous editions. I guess melee characters to some degree as well. They might be able to take on 6 security guards but yeah wired reflexes have always been about moving so fast you were effectively multiple people. But stand in the middle of a hallway, I didn’t see it.

This was not directed at any single event.
It was more of a comment on most of the complaints I have read about the new armor and soak rules.
And how it seems that some people are surprised that bullets hurt. 
Me, I guess my players and I are more of a BT group, because they instinctively run for cover in doorways and behind deck/tables etc.
Even my brother the Troll, will hide behind a doorway and take shots from there.
The idea of not being tactical in an RPG would never occur to them.
So to make I long story short I see no problems with the new armor and soak rules and feel they will add more flavor and logic to the combat round.
That is until someone find and post how to brake them. 

[Michael Chandra]

That is until someone find and post how to break them. 

Challenge accepted! *cannot wait until he can read this stuff and prepare an open event*

Edit: Actually I'm just going to be cruel, grab my SR5 Knight Errant HTR templates, and make them even nastier in SR6... I want a PR4 team to already feel like PR6, by support and gear. Need to make the runners fear them and run from the police... Will be fun to do... *insert evil laughter here*

[kyoto kid]

Also the deadlier the game the less some may want to even bother playing at all.

Yeah, I remember the first Traveler. One could have his character die many times, even during character creation, before one would develop an attachment to that character.

While burning Edge can make up for a really bad die roll, or rolls, having to do it many times would drive me away from Shadowrun.

...yeah same here, almost would seem more like a P&P version of Halo without the cheats to survive.