[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

... If 7 Edge is a waste, then what's the use of being human?

Perhaps there wouldn't be one, but I think it suffices to say that I disagree with the premise in the first place that 7 edge is a waste.  But if you feel you don't need quite that much edge, then by all means make race your dump priority.  Something has to be, after all.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.

Is it really so wrong for the streetsam to dominate grunts NPCs in combat?

Oh no, they definitely SHOULD!

But should the player get seven edge for beating up random gangers in one round?

Yes, maybe more. If this is supposed to narratively represent range, armor, weather, recoil etc you should not have a limit for the action much less the entire combat round.

Does the 3rd person shooting auto fire at you magically not have to deal with recoil now? I’m sure I can weave a bullshit story to cover things, but having to weave a bullshit story makes it feel strained and forced.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I don't like the idea of telling someone 'if you go from 5 Edge to 7, 80% of the time your first action in combat will be sacrificing 2 Edge to give someone else 1 Edge'. Their first attack won't grant them Edge, because they already have it, so they lose their first opportunity to gain Edge. That's basically punishing someone for daring to get high Edge. If 7 Edge is a waste, then what's the use of being human?

If the leaked priority chart is accurate and humans only have +1 edge cap there is none. Like you are mechanically punished for playing human.

I hope that chart is wrong because there was lots of issues in it.

[Finstersang]

I'm guessing the meaning here would be 'per entity's turn'. So you have a player's turn, and the combat round. If I fire twice at you, you can only get 2 Edge, but if the next guy then fires at you, under version 2 you'd be able to get more Edge.

Precisely what I mean. I added a (maybe a little bit passive-aggressive) clarification to my post 

[Michael Chandra]

Perhaps there wouldn't be one, but I think it suffices to say that I disagree with the premise in the first place that 7 edge is a waste.

So then what do you say is the value of having 7 Edge instead of 6, other than at the start of an encounter immediately spending 2 Edge to give someone else 1 or immediately giving yourself an Initiative boost? Or is it simply that you value those possibilities that much?

Because right now, I don't like that I am practically FORCED to ignore the strong point of being Human, because I get practically nothing in return for going to 7 Edge. If I earn ANY point before I spend some first, it's wasted on the cap. And all that because someone else can't boost their Edge?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

The difference between 7 and 6 edge is clearly less advantageous than 7 and 2 edge.

Sure, with 7 edge you might lose out on the potential for up to 2 edge gain on the first action in an encounter.  With 6 edge, you might miss out on 1.  Not a whole LOT of difference.  Compare it to 5?  Well, you'd have to presume you're getting the 2 edge, which isn't something I'd say you can safely presume. Especially since it's not a given you're even a participant in the first action of an encounter!

With high edge, every edge option is available to you immediately.  But the higher your edge, the faster you can dump another big expenditure after making a big expenditure. If you don't think going from 5 to 6 or even 7 is worth the opportunity cost, then don't do it.  Sure, it's diminished returns to go from 5 to 7 than say 3 to 5.  But it's not a case of there being NO return.

[Finstersang]

I haven't had my coffee yet, so I trying not to sound dense on this, but I'm still not getting the argument for this. Are you saying that you'd rather be awarded edge to player every turn? That sounds horrendous to me, since players are going to get edge over most grunt NPCs in most encounters. So, if the player goes first, here's Edge for having a hire AR and better tactics. Then the NPC goes, granting Edge to the player for having better DR. Then the next NPC goes, granting more edge. In a player versus 3 Grunt scenario (i.e., the Sam versus three low-level gangers), that would easily wind up giving the Sam at least four, possibly all seven, Edge in a single round.

Is it really so wrong for the streetsam to dominate grunts NPCs in combat?

Oh no, they definitely SHOULD!

But should the player get seven edge for beating up random gangers in one round?

Well, the Sammie wouldn´t exactly get seven edge for "beating up random gangers".

It´s seven Edge for drawing multiple attacks by the gangers while cleverly using the environment (f.i. darkness, cover) and superior gear and stats (Armor, Body, Vision Enhancements) to her advancement.

And also for taking the risk that she might not be able to easily dodge or soak all of these attacks - especially when she wants to safe up the earned Edge for a tacticool Counterattack on her own turn.

And also, for somehow making the GM forget that Grunt rules exist  Because if the GM lets the gangers, well, gang up , they might reduce their max. damage per turn, but will also hit more reliably without feeding the Sammie precious Edge. They might even earn Edge on their own and bring her down by attrition.

[Marcus]

Well I'm shocked this thread is still going, as i didn't see a point in the original topic at all, we covered that weeks ago.
But the edge topic is meaningful. So as I understand it, in the round order of operation you check edge generation at AR vs DR, before you have a chance to roll. Is that correct? So unless there is edge use for Initiate modification, which I am guessing there is not. At 7 edge with a 7 edge cap you guaranteed to waste any edge you generate round 1. In other words at no time should you ever build above edge 5. 

[Shinobi Killfist]

Well I'm shocked this thread is still going, as i didn't see a point in the original topic at all, we covered that weeks ago.
But the edge topic is meaningful. So as I understand it, in the round order of operation you check edge generation at AR vs DR, before you have a chance to roll. Is that correct? So unless there is edge use for Initiate modification, which I am guessing there is not. At 7 edge with a 7 edge cap you guaranteed to waste any edge you generate round 1. In other words at no time should you ever build above edge 5.

That’s how I see it. I can see maybe going to 6 for the just in case I only get one edge idea. But, wasted edge would irritate me more than not hitting 7.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

...In other words at no time should you ever build above edge 5.

Let's try to keep the thread civil and avoid hyperbole.

Yes, at 6 or 7 edge you can hit the edge cap and lose potential edge.  That's not the same thing as there being no reason to go above 5.

At 7 edge, if you spend 5 you only need to gain 3 to spend 5 again.
At 5 edge, if you spend 5 you have to gain 5 to spend 5 again.   This simple arithmetic advantage still exists.

[Finstersang]

Well I'm shocked this thread is still going, as i didn't see a point in the original topic at all, we covered that weeks ago.
But the edge topic is meaningful. So as I understand it, in the round order of operation you check edge generation at AR vs DR, before you have a chance to roll. Is that correct? So unless there is edge use for Initiate modification, which I am guessing there is not. At 7 edge with a 7 edge cap you guaranteed to waste any edge you generate round 1. In other words at no time should you ever build above edge 5.

I presume that by "the edge topic", you mean the diminishing benefit of having an Edge Attribute of more than 5 or 7, and not my ol´ceterum censeo about the  2-Edge-per-round-limit? 

You´re right, that´s topic on its own, especially when considering that going up to 7 might be the only real benefit for (norm-)humans. I think it deserves to be discussed in its own thread, because this has only very little to do with the "Armor" theme.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

...
You´re right, that´s topic on its own, especially when considering that going up to 7 might be the only real benefit for (norm-)humans. I think it deserves to be discussed in its own thread, because this has only very little to do with the "Armor" theme.

Agreed.  Made a new thread for that tangent.

[Typhus]

Well I'm shocked this thread is still going, as i didn't see a point in the original topic at all, we covered that weeks ago.

Yes, I have my answer.  DVs are assuming armor on all targets.  Wherever it was covered weeks ago wasn't something I was aware of.  If you can link me to it, I might glean some additional info there I'd be glad of reading. Thanks!

[kyoto kid]

Some caveats: I haven't played 6E yet, nor am I privy to any insider information.

That said, as I've been listening and reading between the lines, I've feel like I've heard few things from the devs:

1) In 5E, armor had inflated so much that it devalued Body. If everyone is running around with 12 points of armor from an armor jacket, why bother with anything more than Body 3? Spending finite attribute points in Body generally wasn't a good investment, since the % change to your soak pool was so small. The optimal approach was the maximize Intuition and Reaction, not only because they were tied to useful skills (unlike Body) but also because they were superior to Body in terms of reducing damage and/or avoiding it altogether. So, the new system is to intended to rebalance the importance of Body.

2) The high armor values of 5E lead to high weapon DVs which often lead to dodge-or-die situations. Some devs like this and some devs don't, citing realism or game balance to support their preference. The new system is intended to make things more granular so that a single hit - or a single poor soak roll - isn't an automatic death sentence.

3) Similar to the above, a high base DV devalues the net hits that a skilled attacker can adds to the final DV. Take the FN HAR for example. If your base DV is 10P (in 5E), the difference between 1 net hit and 3 was modest from a % lift standpoint (since 13P is 18% higher than 11P), but if your base DV is 5P (as in 6E) then the lift is much more significant (8P is 33% higher than 6P). So the new system is intended to make your skill more important not just for determining whether you hit or not, but also how well you hit and how effective it is.

Again, much of this is based off asides and me reading between the lines, so don't take it as gospel. I'm not saying that I agree with it or that I would have done it the same way, but that's my current understanding behind the changes in 6E's approach to armor, Body, and weapon DVs.

This is not the ideal takeaway for the effects of 5e armor.

For example, high body is pretty meta among soak tanks due to the interplay of soak and edge. It doesn't make sense to pump body too hard if your not going soak tank, this is true, but body and strength are really strong on soak tanks in 5e. The stat definitely had its place.

5e was a significant DOWNGRADE of lethality from 4e, where it wasn't so much 'dodge or die' as 'Have 40 soak or die' because the final DVs of weapons in SR4 was higher than in 5e.

For example, a Machine pistol in SR4 had a BASE DV of 4, but a final DV of 13 (lets forget about ammo and assume this is a cruddy ganger with an MP). Your armored jacket negated 3 DV. If you didn't have pretty much every soak aug in SR4's core book or a troll's body, you couldn't survive that damage, so the smallest gun in the game that isn't a single shot gun, something any idiot could get for the same price and avail as a handgun, would kill almost every SR PC pretty much automatically. In SR5, you only break DVs of 13 on really big guns like shotguns and sniper rifles. So survivability in SR5 is much higher, especially because in SR4 the way defense was calculated made dodging weapons impossible. So even the weakest autofire weapon in the game would kill any PC besides a street samurai hit by it nearly 100% of the time. For reference, the Panther was 10 DV.

SR5 was probably the least soak minmaxing intensive edition of SR printed due to the fact base armor was really good. It is super incorrect to state that it was more lethal than previous editions where your soak 6 body 4 armor was going up against someone firing 3 hypervelocity submachinegun shots at you for 16 DV 3 times, all shots being made with a pool of 12 or more against a defense pool of... reaction alone. Unless you full defensed in which case you only got to add 1-4 to the roll.

Obviously, this environment where you auto-hit reduced the importance of skill dice even more than 5e. In fact, in SR5, skill dice are hugely important due to the relationship between DV and autofire now: Higher dice isn't an efficient way to get DV directly, but it indirectly increases your DV because semi-auto and single shot weapons tend to hit harder than the burst fire or autofire they lost would negate in defensive hits. In fact, in SR5, despite the increase to soak, most of your lost DV as an attacker doesn't come from soak, but from defense dice, even vs grunts who aren't optimizing for it but have the good core rules armor, which is why for most PCs automatic weapons were still the ideal: Yes that sniper hit WAY harder than the AR (rather than way less like in SR4, where machine pistols hit harder than a panther...) but if your missing 35% of your shots your way better off with the AR. This also really hurt 4e's balance, because the nominal cost of autofire (recoil, which in theory lowered hit rate) didn't matter because A: You got more dice from gear than you do now, and B: Even on a full defense test your rolling like 8 defense dice optimistically, and full defense was just a terrible deal vs ranged weapons as it guaranteed you would get shot an extra time.

In fact SR5 probably had the best balance of defense vs offense of any SR edition, because its totally possible to go into combat as a non-soak tank and eat a few shots and not die, but it is still rewarding to really push that soak up because really big scary guns still exist, and it is still possible to achieve the classic samurai trope of bullet immunity. What SR5 did was heavily squeeze the range of DVs down, increased base soak numbers, and removed the insane impact autofire had on DV, resulting in damage generally being very consistent and PCs fully capable of surviving attacks from even serious guns rather consistently, but making it possible to get unlucky on either side of the attack. In SR4, a light pistol failed to do any damage through an armored jacket worn with a helmet while a machine pistol without special ammo would consistently kill a body 5 reflexes 4 character through full body armor 80% of the time, and your survival rate vs an assault rifle with ExExplosive is 4% with FBA.

This actually had huge ramifications going from 4e to 5e, mainly the fact that armor was no longer virtually worthless made it so PCs who weren't soak-stacking could participate in combat without instantly being popped the second the standard PR1 Halloweener grunt took out their TMP with their 6 attack dice and got even slightly lucky on the attack, forget about Corpsec utterly annihilating you with an HK-277. You get shot in SR4, you best be a samurai, be getting hit with a 'toy gun' in single shot or semi-auto, or be a soak tank samurai limb build.

...+1

[topcat]

I guess I'll have the real answer shortly, but maybe someone can clarify order of operations?  Let's say I've got 7 edge, I'm about to gain 1 edge from a AR vs. DR comparison, and I want to spend 1 edge.  Which of the following scenarios am I looking at?

• I can spend edge before gaining the ARvsDR edge, leaving me at 7-1+1=7 edge
• I can spend the ARvDR edge immediately, leaving me at 7+1-1=7 edge
• I cannot gain any edge this round until I spend edge, leaving me at 7-1=6 edge