[Michael Chandra]

I'm envisioning placing 2 chips/tokens in front of each player at the start of a combat round.  Player takes them when earned, and can only end up grabbing a max of 2!

I'm sure the players will remind me and keep me front letting a NPC claim more than 2 per round.

Hm... I should use two-sided cards in transparant sleeves: Unclaimed/claimed.

[adzling]

i can't wait for the shadowrun trading card game to come back and replace shadowrun the ttrpg.

PokeShadowMon!

Now with abstracted mechanics that bear no resemblance to anything IRL, no need to pay attention to what weapon or armor you're using as it's all irrelevant.

It's the total triumph of rule of cool over verisimilitude.

yaay.....?

[Lormyr]

I'm talking about it because they didn't do any of that in the Actual Play.  And I think the beatings the characters took have more to do with those things than the change of armor not contributing to soak pools.

I mean those things are a contributing factor sure, but two say any change has more to do with taking a beating then the armor change is at best foolish in my opinion.

[Michael Chandra]

Eh, given how the alternative is 'everyone gets massive armor and then nobody fears an army of weak gangers', I'd say this new mechanic is more real Shadowrun. Plus we don't even know all of the new DVs and new armor ratings, so it's rather a moot debate at this point.

[Ghost Rigger]

I'm talking about it because they didn't do any of that in the Actual Play.  And I think the beatings the characters took have more to do with those things than the change of armor not contributing to soak pools.

So what you're telling me is that between the players and what was written on the character sheets, the demo crew were the exact sort of runners that naturally get themselves killed on their first run on account of their own incompetence/inexperience. Not exactly reassuring.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I'm talking about it because they didn't do any of that in the Actual Play.  And I think the beatings the characters took have more to do with those things than the change of armor not contributing to soak pools.

So what you're telling me is that between the players and what was written on the character sheets, the demo crew were the exact sort of runners that naturally get themselves killed on their first run on account of their own incompetence/inexperience. Not exactly reassuring.

Well, when you've been conditioned a ruleset where 20 to 30 soak dice renders you immune to gangers and devil rats, it stands to reason that your instincts have to be unlearned even if you intellectually know you don't HAVE a soak pool of 20 to 30 dice any longer. It's a failure, sure, but a very understandable one if you forget to focus on taking cover the first time you face opposition you could wade through unharmed in 5e.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Eh, given how the alternative is 'everyone gets massive armor and then nobody fears an army of weak gangers', I'd say this new mechanic is more real Shadowrun. Plus we don't even know all of the new DVs and new armor ratings, so it's rather a moot debate at this point.

There is a ridiculous range of options between massive pools and nothing to soak. This mechanic is less real shadowrun. Armor doing nothing for soak has never been shadowrun until well 6e. Doing too much is a much smaller leap than to 0.

[Hobbes]

I'm talking about it because they didn't do any of that in the Actual Play.  And I think the beatings the characters took have more to do with those things than the change of armor not contributing to soak pools.

So what you're telling me is that between the players and what was written on the character sheets, the demo crew were the exact sort of runners that naturally get themselves killed on their first run on account of their own incompetence/inexperience. Not exactly reassuring.

For some reason all Pre-gens for all games are mechanically bad, at best.  Catalyst pre-gens, unfortunately, are historically and hysterically bad.  I suspect strongly it's a mix of Player/GM inexperience and mechanically weak characters that contribute to the hilarity on the Actual Plays.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I'm talking about it because they didn't do any of that in the Actual Play.  And I think the beatings the characters took have more to do with those things than the change of armor not contributing to soak pools.

So what you're telling me is that between the players and what was written on the character sheets, the demo crew were the exact sort of runners that naturally get themselves killed on their first run on account of their own incompetence/inexperience. Not exactly reassuring.

Well, when you've been conditioned a ruleset where 20 to 30 soak dice renders you immune to gangers and devil rats, it stands to reason that your instincts have to be unlearned even if you intellectually know you don't HAVE a soak pool of 20 to 30 dice any longer. It's a failure, sure, but a very understandable one if you forget to focus on taking cover the first time you face opposition you could wade through unharmed in 5e.

Literally none of my players until the street sam recently wared up to be a semi tank we’re immune to gangers. And if they are using a AK he still takes damage. None of them rolled 20-30 dice. Min maxing that way be the norm at your table, but I don’t think it was a shadowrun norm. Most people I’ve seen roll 16ish dice. Now they may only take stun from gangers but they still can get dropped.

Using heavy pistol 3 if they had bumped it to dv 6 and full clothing armor auto soaked 3 dv you’d literally be in the same spot but armor would do something.

Side note dv 3 sucks. You need 7 net hits to kill random goon and hope they don’t get a single hit on their soak. Assault rifles doing 2 more dv pushes people to big guns just so they have a reasonable chance to drop a goon in one shot. I’d of bumped pistols to 6 with armor doing the above. Assault rifles about the same but they have versatility and a higher attack value. Big less versatile guns like shotguns, snipers  dv 7, cannons 8. 1 dv is significant when you need roughly 3 dice to soak or raise it.

[adzling]

Just as irl our team has a set of armored street clothes, a set of armored high-fashion clothes and a set of ballistic entrance armor for high-threat situations.

With option 1 or 2 most of them can be threatened with a pistol.

With option 3 most of them cannot.

This is good game design as it reinforces the core conceit of Shadowrun; the appropriate archetype / gear / ware/ tool for the job.

Security rating of the area they are operating in becomes an absolutely essential component of running a black trench (or just non-pink mohawk) game.

With the rules changes shadowrun is now full-on pink mohawk with no room for realistic feeling reactions to player's actions as it's now literally codified into the system.

thanks but i'd rather play with a bag of rocks.

[tenchi2a]

Its funny now that I think about it.
The issues that they where trying to address with the new armor rules (I think) was the for lack of a better work "Troll Battlefield tanks"
There answer to make armor useless for everyone only makes this problem worse as these character are still going to be the only ones that can stand-up to a firefight.
The real problem with the armor system in 5th edition is the high armor ratings combined with high body that allow player like this to brush off most attacks.
So a true fix for this issues would be to either just make armor rating smaller or remove body from the equation.
I mean body already sets how much damage you can take so why does it also have to proved soak?
Just a thought.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Its funny now that I think about it.
The issues that they where trying to address with the new armor rules (I think) was the for lack of a better work "Troll Battlefield tanks"
There answer to make armor useless for everyone only makes this problem worse as these character are still going to be the only ones that can stand-up to a firefight.
The real problem with the armor system in 5th edition is the high armor ratings combined with high body that allow player like this to brush off most attacks.
So a true fix for this issues would be to either just make armor rating smaller or remove body from the equation.
I mean body already sets how much damage you can take so why does it also have to proved soak?
Just a thought.

Be prepared for the 9 body 1 strength troll overlords.

As for ditching body as a soak pool is day it would feel inconsistent for things that armor does not effect like poison or disease. 

[Marcus]

the game now plays like a push your limit board game, substituting the edge mechanic for any connection to reality.

melee and firearms damage codes are divorced from reality.

armor has no relevance to survival.

beyond complexity almost none of 5e's issues are resolved.

it's like the designers got distracted by inserting a board game mechanic into a ttrpg.

i'm expecting catalyst to start selling "Edge tokens" to keep track of everything with the tabletop eventually looking like a boardgame without a board.

our table has decided to skip 6e and stick with a home-modified version of 5e.

sad the opportunity was missed and instead of taking the best bits out of 5e and making the game more approachable the designers decided to take us into boardgame land.

Adzling have you read the CRB? Everything you said lines up with what I've heard. But if you have read it, then I'm prepared to skip 6e and go try to determine which past version I plan to use for the foreseeable future.

[Lormyr]

Eh, given how the alternative is 'everyone gets massive armor and then nobody fears an army of weak gangers', I'd say this new mechanic is more real Shadowrun.

I don't think anyone would argue that the soak potential in 5e was extreme enough to be unbalanced, but wearing a decent ballistic vest, getting shot with a medium power pistol, and it doing nothing to protect you from the wound is lolsy at best. There is certainly room for a balanced medium.

Be prepared for the 9 body 1 strength troll overlords.

Bearing in mind I have not seen anything more than the QSR, I have a theory that a mystic adept troll with max body, increase body, armor spell, and mystic armor adept power will be the new tank. Maybe even drop that essence some for soak ware if the goal is maximum soak. We'll see if the final mechanics prove me right or wrong.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I have not heard about mistake adepts yet in 6e. Given how the general consensus was they were broken in 5e I wonder how they over corrected to fix that in 6e.