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Melee is a complex action because it allegedly incorporates parrying, thrusting, struggle of power, etc. all wrapped up in a 1-3 second timeframe which of course makes zero sense anyway and should simply be one strike per attack like you suggest. Melee has never made sense in any edition and sadly SR5 gimped all but the highest strength Trolls and Orks or those who want to spend points in an Exotic Monowhip skill.
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Oct 9, 2013 13:05
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ProfessorCirno posted:Was thinking of house rules. One of these is just taken directly from SR4. How do these sound? You should include some change to the following things: Chunky Salsa Grenade Tests (to avoid wireless airburst detonation, also Indirect Damage spells like Lightning Ball which resolve as airburst grenadeS) Devices Running Silent and Matrix Perception (you need a house-rule that basically re-writes the entire thing. Or replace Running Silent with something else altogether). Essentially I think Running Silent should work like Stealth. The device Running Silent has a threshold to detect it equal to its device rating. So the threshold to detect a Device Rating 6 commlink Running Silent would be 6. Make 1 Matrix Perception test as a complex action, find all devices Running Silent with a threshold equal to or less than your hits within 100 meters (antena range) of your deck/commlink. Outside of 100 meters, you cannot find devices that are Running Silent, but you can find Hosts that are; use the rules for an opposed test for Hosts that are Running Silent.
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Oct 9, 2013 16:13
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Laphroaig posted:Essentially I think Running Silent should work like Stealth. The device Running Silent has a threshold to detect it equal to its device rating. So the threshold to detect a Device Rating 6 commlink Running Silent would be 6. Make 1 Matrix Perception test as a complex action, find all devices Running Silent with a threshold equal to or less than your hits within 100 meters (antena range) of your deck/commlink. Even a highly optimized hacker won't be able to throw more than 20~ dice at Matrix Perception tests, giving him just over a 50/50 shot of detecting a rating 6 Something running silent. You cannot do anything against a target until you spot them, even if the target is blackhammering you (pg 236). This would make Matrix ambushes disgustingly effective. Also, the ratings for Hosts go up to 12. I recommend that stuff that doesn't matter should just buy hits (4 dice = 1 hit), so anything that isn't a deck will have get zero or one hit to stay hidden. If it matters, Logic+Sleaze and this doesn't build Overwatch because that would be insane and stupid. Or you could just put your foot down and say if something doesn't have a Sleaze rating it doesn't get to roll a resist vs Matrix Perception; anyone who gets even one hit will spot them.
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Oct 9, 2013 18:08
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Has anyone seen/made a decker designed to use decking in combat? Is that even possible?
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Oct 9, 2013 19:18
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Gort posted:Has anyone seen/made a decker designed to use decking in combat? Is that even possible? Mine has 9 Logic, 6 Cybercombat(Specializing in Personas), a mid-range deck, a quality for +2 dice on Data Spike, and the Biofeedback and Hammer programs. 17 dice, Limit of 7. Edge it for 5 more dice and blow past the limit. Edit: extra dice for marks and hotsim as well, not included here. Deviant fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Oct 9, 2013 |
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Oct 9, 2013 19:30
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Gobbeldygook posted:It should definitely just be one matrix perception test vs everything in range, but I don't think this is right at all. This seems draconic, because it essentially means that a decker can crack any commlink he wants. The whole point of Running Silently is to give a party without a decker a fighting chance in the modern world, and tossing it out the window is going to exacerbate the problem in the other direction. I suggest you treat a Running Silent perception check as a free mark, which means if you pick the wrong device you at least get a mark on that device, but, more importantly, on the device's master. This means picking wrong isn't the worst, as it still gets you some forward progress. I don't have the decking rules in front of me, but I'll look them over again this evening and see if there isn't a more obvious solution that falls somewhere between "hackers get nothing" and "hackers get everything".
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Oct 9, 2013 19:33
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I've seen one, and he spends every combat struggling to get marks on anything and spending every pass spamming matrix perception tests before the more combat-focused characters flatten the opposition forces.
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Oct 9, 2013 19:40
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Mystic Mongol posted:I've seen one, and he spends every combat struggling to get marks on anything and spending every pass spamming matrix perception tests before the more combat-focused characters flatten the opposition forces. This has not been my experience. I've ended combats by both bricking cyberlegs and getting marks on a car and then using the command ability to set AIRBAGS = YES.
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Oct 9, 2013 19:49
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So I'm considering running an SR5 game for a couple of people who have literally never played SR before. They are familiar with it only in the most abstract, 'box-art' sense. I have played SR4 quite a bit, I've played some SR3, and I'm pretty familiar with the fiction. The thing is these people are not... shall we say, mechanically savy. And while they're willing to tolerate almost anything in play, I don't think I can realistically expect them to engage with the system deeply. So I'm trying to think of a way to introduce them to the system slowly. I suppose I could make their characters for them but that might be too limiting. If anybody thinks that's a good idea, let me know. The big things that are likely to cause trouble are the shopping list, the min/maxy aspects of the various sub-systems, and the setting. As far as money goes I was considering limiting their ability to prioritize cash monies. That would be pretty uncool for experienced SR players but I'm thinking having less money to play with might make them less prone to paralysis during the char-gen process and then I can introduce new pieces of gear through play. As far as the various subsystems... I have no doubt they can figure out how to cast a spell. Or how to make a hacking roll. But they're probably never going to find the most optimal way to stack their spells while minimizing Drain while optimizing spirits. "I cast stunball" for instance, is probably as far as that'll go. Finally I'll probably be using only one or two major Corps in the setting at one time because I don't want to inundate them with text dump. Does anybody have any better suggestions?
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Oct 9, 2013 19:49
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Deviant posted:This has not been my experience. I've ended combats by both bricking cyberlegs and getting marks on a car and then using the command ability to set AIRBAGS = YES. Care to walk us through the exaction actions and rolls involved? It'd help things at our table immensely.
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Oct 9, 2013 19:50
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Gort posted:Has anyone seen/made a decker designed to use decking in combat? Is that even possible? I took a crack at it here, its using the very worst deck cause hey money but I can pull off like 15-16 (Decryption for the 16) on a dataspike against personas (read: other deckers/IC/Agents) depending on how the deck is configured. Deviant took some bioware and maxed out logic to get that 9 where as I'm pulling double duty. Defense is poo poo (4 Matrix defense with the firewall at 3), the commlink is better on defense than the drat deck heh but I can AR Deck it almost as good as VR Hotsim especially if drugged on jazz for an extra +2d6 init and +1 reaction. Devices would subtract 2 from that quoted dice roll, but if its something critical I'd edge to remove limits+get another 5 dice on the roll+rule of 6. Fork would let me hit two targets with one roll and Hammer boosts the DV by +2. So in the middle of a firefight where say a sentry turret is lighting up the hallway I'd probably be at the top of the init order. It should be as easy as take cover, spend the complex action to data spike (no marks required) and hit the turret and probably some corp sec guys assault rifle and brick them both in one shot or at least have it mostly there. They'd defend with willpower+firewall or device rating as applicable. Considering its the barebones deck and I managed to pull off that type of result, I consider that acceptable. Just don't ask this guy to run a megacorp host without some matrix backup, which is coincidentally what his Matrix Gang contact is for. Mystic Mongol: I hope that helps at least on the bricking aspect. For getting marks in combat: Brute Force (Complex) (or hack on the fly) would cover the marks on the first initiative pass, You'd want to go for 2 marks in one shot (so -4 dice pool). Brute Force also gives you the option of inflicting 1 DV of Matrix Damage for every 2 net hits on the test, which they resist with Device Rating+Firewall if applicable. You get your two marks, and then control Action which is either a data processing or sleaze action depending on what you are trying to do. The airbag trick is a free or simple action I think which would cost you that much to do the control device action. Anything thats complex requires a third mark and will be a complex action. So it might get a little tricky to set up the combo but doable. I'd just go for bricking dudes straight up but if there's enviromental factors to abuse I'd do it no problem.
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Oct 9, 2013 22:45
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QuantumNinja posted:This seems draconic, because it essentially means that a decker can crack any commlink he wants. The whole point of Running Silently is to give a party without a decker a fighting chance in the modern world, and tossing it out the window is going to exacerbate the problem in the other direction. Your solution would not solve any problems with the standard reading of the rules (ie you pick randomly among all targets in range) because I'm pretty sure you don't automatically get a mark on the owner of a device/icon when you mark a device/icon. So you could still just carry around 50 stealth tags to protect yourself from being hacked. If I'm wrong about that, then this comes into play: Pg 236 posted:On the other hand, if you succeed in a Sleaze action, you do not increase your visibility. If you fail a Sleaze action, however, your target immediately gets one free mark on you (or its owner does if your target is a device). This means it spots you right away, along with the whole owner-alerting and IC-launching thing. Gobbeldygook fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 9, 2013 22:55
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Gobbeldygook: are there any Matrix tricks I should keep in mind when playing as a decker like the stealth tag thing? I'll be playing for the first time ever as a decker hopefully within a few weeks so I'd like to not get screwed.
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Oct 9, 2013 23:02
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The best trick is to talk to your DM and ask how hard he's going to ride with antagonist deckers and then not use the 50 stealth tag thing because it's loving stupid rules bendy bullshit that was exceptionally clearly not intended.
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Oct 10, 2013 00:03
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I concur on the assessment cause thats ridiculous as poo poo, that being said what reasonable poo poo can I figure out to give me an edge? Cause that combat decker example, is the char sheet I'll be using for that game heh.
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Oct 10, 2013 01:31
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2 Questions about armor in cyberlimbs: The game says that items installed using a capacity slot on cyberware must be of the same grade as the cyberware. Thus, since rating 3 cyberlimb armor has an availability of 15, is used cyberlimb armor 3 (availibility 11) availible as at creation? If I get 4 cyberhands/feet and put armor 3 in all of them, do I get a cumulative +12 armor overall?
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Oct 10, 2013 04:06
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H posted:If I get 4 cyberhands/feet and put armor 3 in all of them, do I get a cumulative +12 armor overall? This is how street sams get pools of 40-odd dice to soak damage with.
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Oct 10, 2013 04:24
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ProfessorCirno posted:Was thinking of house rules. One of these is just taken directly from SR4. How do these sound? These all look really good. Monowhips are too good in comparison to other melee options as it stands, and the statistical probability of their special drawback coming into play with any PC who's serious about using them is so low you would maybe hit yourself once in an entire campaign. I would suggest that Prime Runner rules just mirror the street level rules you have right now, so you can have AACDE or nothing at E or whatever. As for cyberlimbs, you can always be a troll and have better (and more expensive!) cyberlimbs. A troll with exceptional strength can get "the arm customized up to 11" then three points of enhancement for 14 STR in one arm, then use a one-handed sword and a ballistic shield in combat. With some armor and cyberware that adds body+armor, bullets will just "tink-tink-tink" off and you'll be a modern-day knight. Be sure to take Knowledge: Chivalry.
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Oct 10, 2013 04:51
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Here is how I get 30 some odd dice to roll as a decker build (aka 3 marks on test)code:Hack on the fly roll will be logic(9)+skill(6)+adept(3)+specialization(2)+hotsim(2)+codeslinger(2)= 24 dice before edge or agent assist. Pretty loving beefy decker skills here. On top of that you can take 1 rank in any knowledge skill and be rolling 12 dice so even outside of hacking you are incredibly useful. In theory with 5 (program to increase the number of program slots) rating 6 agents rolling 12 dice with about 4 hits per and using edge our hack on the fly can be around 51 dice, 41 dice after taking the -10 to get all 3 marks in one hit. Pretty crazy build to do all things matrix dirtycajun fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 07:34
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I really hate the Running Silent rule. If you are not a decker, the rule isn't a trade-off in any way. It is just a blanket nerf to deckers with zero downside for anyone who isn't a decker. The so-called tradeoff of losing 2 dice is just double-dip decker nerf, because it is a penalty that doesn't actually matter to non-deckers. That isn't a trade-off, that is just an extra little cherry-on-the-top kick in the dick after the rule nerfed deckers action economy into the ground as well as essentially forcing them to randomly select what their character can do once they finally get to do something. If Running Silent was restricted to things with an attack/sleaze rating, it would be fine. It would mean that the only things doing it would be those things that actually cared about the penalty, and it would also mean that anything running silent that you had to spend actions to find was something that had to spend actions to find you back. I'm waiting for the Matrix splat book with baited breath. If the inter-author fighting is this bad in just one section of the core rules... I'm expecting at least one murder before an entire book on the matter makes it to print.
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Oct 10, 2013 08:49
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Yeah I don't think Running Silent adds anything positive to the game. Even if there aren't many other silent devices in the area, it just adds another action that the decker has to waste a turn on before he gets to do something interesting. That's the opposite of how I like encounters to work: I want everyone doing fun stuff every turn. I want deckers to be bricking guns and hijacking cars mid-combat, not wasting actions on a crapshoot to even spot the thing they want to hack. I'd house rule out Running Silent entirely but I haven't properly thought out the side-effects of doing that (noting that I don't consider 'stuff can be hacked easier' to be a downside at all--I'm wondering what else it might affect that I haven't thought of).
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Oct 10, 2013 09:20
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Gobbeldygook posted:Neither you nor anyone else has any idea what the point of the running silent rules are because the developers acted completely oblivious to the obvious "carry 50 stealth tags" strategy. Well, neither I or anyone else has a hosed up, adversarial relationship with our GM in which we say "we're gonna buy 50 stealth tags, lol, gently caress your deckers" or visa versa. And even if I did, my GM would probably laugh because that's way in the spirit of Shadowrun's "throw money at a problem until it goes away through absurdity" philosophy. That said, the rule is a pretty clear attempt to help out everyone who bought cyberware legs with wireless capabilities (which provide a bonus) get into situations where they feel comfortable taking advantage of that bonus without fear of getting their loving legs bricked (which is some funny poo poo, I might add). Gobbeldygook posted:Your solution would not solve any problems with the standard reading of the rules (ie you pick randomly among all targets in range) because I'm pretty sure you don't automatically get a mark on the owner of a device/icon when you mark a device/icon. Not the owner, but the master: Pg. 233 posted:There are risks to slaving devices. Because of the tight connections between the devices, if you get a mark on a slave you also get a mark on the master. This happens even if the slave was marked through a direct connection, so be careful about who you give your slaved devices to. This doesn’t work both ways; if you fail a Sleaze action against a slaved device, only the device’s owner gets the mark on you, not the master too. If someone hits a single thing and it's in your PAN, the device controlling it becomes targetable, and the controller gets -2 dice pool to its defensive roll to resist this because it's Running Silent. So the likelihood of failing that roll is pretty low, and you get a lock on the PAN's master for free. So if you get a mark on something Running Silent, you get a mark on its master automatically, and it's a pretty safe assumption that anyone running cyberware legs is using a master because they don't want their legs bricked. And at that point, you pop their commlink and wreck their whole setup or have a Hacker Fiiiiiiiiiight. I think a fair modification for this rule might be the following: only commlinks / cyberdecks / rccs can Run Silent, but anything slaved to them is also Runing Silent when they are. Edit: RAW still makes it hard to target a specific thing, but if you're a decker in combat just looking to trash some tech, it should be pretty easy. QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 12:08
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QuantumNinja posted:Well, neither I or anyone else has a hosed up, adversarial relationship with our GM in which we say "we're gonna buy 50 stealth tags, lol, gently caress your deckers" or visa versa. [...] -Cybereyes -Earbuds -Rifle -Pistol -Three grenades -Commlink -Medkit x2 -2 trauma patches -Jammer -Microtransciever One PC. 14 wireless devices. That's probably low. You don't slave all of your devices, just ones you care about. So if you are carrying two medkits, you probably don't bother slaving either because a hacker bricking a medkit is just jerking off. Regardless, unless the hacker bricks your device in one action or engages in initiative shenanigans, you can respond to any hacker attack by just turning off the wireless when your turn comes around as a free action. Yes, you lose the bonus, but you just wasted one or more of a hackers Complex actions for a free action of yours.
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Oct 10, 2013 18:15
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Gobbeldygook posted:You don't slave all of your devices, just ones you care about. So if you are carrying two medkits, you probably don't bother slaving either because a hacker bricking a medkit is just jerking off. Regardless, unless the hacker bricks your device in one action or engages in initiative shenanigans, you can respond to any hacker attack by just turning off the wireless when your turn comes around as a free action. Yes, you lose the bonus, but you just wasted one or more of a hackers Complex actions for a free action of yours. That's precisely my point. I were rocking that street sammy trying to be stealth, I wouldn't have the medkits on. If I'm Running Silent, it's probably because I don't want to show up on the Matrix for fear of decker trickery, so it stands to reason I'd just have the Medkit wifi turned off. I won't slave the medkits and I'll either turn them off, let them broadcast their entire kit and kaboodle, or seriously contemplate exactly what gear I'm going to bring. I guess if I were somehow super metagame aware I'd intentionally run the medkits Silent just to ensure I could gently caress over the decker, but the fix I proposed deals with that: QuantumNinja posted:Treat a Running Silent perception check as a free mark, which means if you pick the wrong device you at least get a mark on that device, but, more importantly, on the device's master. QuantumNinja posted:Only commlinks / cyberdecks / rccs can Run Silent, but anything slaved to them is also Runing Silent when they are. If I get those rules, looking at something disguised gets a decker access to that thing's master (with a free mark!), and I'd argue anything with a mark on it is automatically 'perceived', so the decker can target the commlink as his next move. And if you still aren't happy, add the following rule: A decker using a Matrix Perception check against a device that is Running Silently automatically perceives every slave device it has. This means there is another perception check requires against the commlink itself, but that's kind of the point of the nicer commlinks: to provide an illogical street sammy some legitimate protection against the decker trying to brick his legs. I also think that the RAW should add another caveat: If the device does not have Data Processing at least 3, or Device Rating at least 3, it cannot process enough data to properly run silently. That, taken with the Slave rule, means I have to buy a commlink at over Rating 3 just to get into Running Silent, and even that I only get 9 devices I can do that with, and I take a -2 penalty to hide from deckers. And if my commlink gets marked, a decker can peek my whole PAN in another Perception, meaning that any hope I had of stealth is now out the window because I didn't turn my wireless off. Two complex options is steep, but so is being unable to walk. You could even require Noise checks for devices like Cyberlegs Running Silent to ensure they still get their wireless bonus, but the second it stops the Street Sammy is just going to switch the wifi off and make them unhackable anyway, so what does it really matter? You could continue to further restrict these things, but we're right up at the point where, as you said, players will just disable the wireless on everything for safety. Running Silent is a nice medium: they're hackable, but harder to find in exchange for easier to hack.
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Oct 10, 2013 22:51
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If I squint and look at the intent, I like the decking rules. When I read the clusterfuck that came out of the authors fighting about it and Shadowrun's bizarre aversion to optional rules... it adds up to prolonged negotiation sessions with the GM and players to play any game of Shadowrun 5E ever because you realistically have to house rule it out of the box. Especially when you consider that Running Silent and Turning It Off are actually optional rules presented in the most conflict generating way possible. They are pretty bad game design, and seem to be engineered to provide a passive aggressive backdoor to veto option to decking rules. There wouldn't be enough popcorn in the entire world if magic got the same treatment. If people could turn their auras 'low' and mages couldn't cast spells at anyone that they couldn't see the aura of and had to assense people at random until they found the person they wanted to cast a spell at... only to have the person decide to turn their aura off and become immune to spells at no penalty to anything non-magical they were doing... Although, to be fair, given the look of pure horror on the face of the chronic mage player in the last session when he failed to one-shot someone with an attack spell, I think maybe magic might be in a slightly more reasonable place in this edition.
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Oct 11, 2013 02:18
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I think the big war over the decking rules more or less came down to "can they effect players?" Each layer on top of the rules was one side saying "Yes, they can" and another side saying "No, they can't." Yes, they can effect players. But players can turn them off! Well, there's bonuses for keeping them on. But players can use stealth! And etc, etc, etc. The "50 stealth tags" is just the latest layer to this. This in turn I feel comes down to different GMing styles. If you go with very starkly antagonist GM then you're going to do everything you can protect your rear end, no matter how absurd (which leads us back to SR4 and the fifty contingencies). If you play with a GM who's trying to actually challenge you in a way that isn't just pure rules one-upmanship, then you don't need all these contingencies. To use the D&D example, a worm that lives inside of and only inside of wooden doors in dungeons that exists only to crawl into ears and no save kill the person only makes sense in a DM vs player one-upmanship fight on exploring a dungeon. In Shadowrun this seems to be the opposite of that - you have players and developers terrified of GMs being overly cruel with deckers so they put in fifty contingencies to ensure the players get the upper hand. Frankly I'm going to agree with Children Overboard - I feel the best possible solution is just take an axe to the Running Silent rules. Sometimes a decker is going to mess with your poo poo. That's fine. Sometimes a mage is going to mess with your poo poo, and sometimes a big mean troll with an axe is going to mess with your poo poo. For me, the excitement is in what you do when they mess with your poo poo - not having so many plots in plots and defense mechanisms that you ensure nothing can ever actually mess with your poo poo.
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Oct 11, 2013 02:40
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I have to ask: Is there really any consequence to saying, "You can't turn wireless off or Run Silent on wireless-enabled devices?" I mean I know it looks insane on the face of it and god knows there's a million verisimilitude arguments against it, but if I were deliberately trying to simplify the game, would that be a viable option? I ask because simplifying the game by reducing total options is a real thing I have to do in a game I will be running.
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Oct 11, 2013 02:47
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Mendrian posted:I have to ask: Is there really any consequence to saying, "You can't turn wireless off or Run Silent on wireless-enabled devices?" Only if You The DM decide to constantly and incessantly punish your Sammy for having a metal arm. A PC Decker is decently balanced if they can spend a couple of complex actions to disable a mook. A mook is maybe overpowered if they can spend a few complex actions to completely disable a PC (with no real defense available.)
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Oct 11, 2013 02:58
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Mendrian posted:I have to ask: Is there really any consequence to saying, "You can't turn wireless off or Run Silent on wireless-enabled devices?" It's real hard to spot a hacker doin' stuff to stuff if it's not slaved to another decker, so if the players (or hell, the NPCs) get any time to screw around a decker can quietly build up three marks on every single device that's not on a skilled hacker's watchlist and start combat by bricking the poo poo out of a lot of stuff. So if everyone agrees not to do that (which is a pretty poo poo thing to do anyway) then I don't see a problem with it.
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Oct 11, 2013 03:01
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Gravity Pike posted:Only if You The DM decide to constantly and incessantly punish your Sammy for having a metal arm. A PC Decker is decently balanced if they can spend a couple of complex actions to disable a mook. A mook is maybe overpowered if they can spend a few complex actions to completely disable a PC (with no real defense available.) How on earth is this punishing anyone? That's like claiming you're punishing anyone without counterspelling by hitting them with magic. The sammy is hardly the only one who's exploitable. Anyone with a gun is likely using a smartgun. How many PCs go with no contacts or goggles or glasses or any visual enhancers? How often do PCs go with their commlinks completely shut off? Sometimes a decker will mess with yourself. Sometimes a mage will mess with your stuff. Sometimes a sammy will shoot you in the face. Besides, if you look at how poo poo is set up, deckers and mages are typically equally rare - they very far from "mook" status.
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Oct 11, 2013 03:35
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I've never fully understood the aversion to oh my God the decker might brick my gun when, if the decker was replaced by any other archetype the round would go more like oh my God he shot me twice in the face. Spending complex actions to gently caress with someone in a non-lethal, non-knocking-out manner is already something of a fool's errand when you could be a magician or a troll melee monster or a handful of other cherished archetypes that can just kill the problem instead. Why on Earth do we want to dissuade someone from taking less powerful, but narratively flavorful, combat actions?
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Oct 11, 2013 03:49
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Mystic Mongol posted:It's real hard to spot a hacker doin' stuff to stuff if it's not slaved to another decker, so if the players (or hell, the NPCs) get any time to screw around a decker can quietly build up three marks on every single device that's not on a skilled hacker's watchlist and start combat by bricking the poo poo out of a lot of stuff. It is a powerful move, but wouldn't the hacker still need to spend a complex action to brick each thing? There'd still be some time between people noticing that their legs weren't working and tracking down the hacker, but I'd see it as comparable to the time between guards noticing one of their buddies just got shot and then having to track down the invisible sniper (in a chameleon suit (with a spirit using concealment on him)). And while pretty powerful, this tactic's got a minor downside in that if the hacker does that, he starts combat with a fair chunk of of Overwatch Score (I say it's a minor downside because the OS limit of 40 is pretty generous, and dumb devices are only going to get a hit each, so you've got lots of room to play around with, it'd only be a problem if after that combat you've got some extensive hacking to do or need to keep some Marks for the whole run).
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Oct 11, 2013 03:50
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Conskill posted:I've never fully understood the aversion to oh my God the decker might brick my gun when, if the decker was replaced by any other archetype the round would go more like oh my God he shot me twice in the face. Yeah I'm on board with this, with a complex action a person who wants to hurt you can do all kinds of awful things. Hacking is powerful, but so are high explosive grenades, sniper rifles with APDS, mind control spells, trolls with axes, and spamming drones or summoning spirits. Hacking does have the advantage that it can be done without line of sight, which I'm not that fond of. It's annoying to me more on a practical GMing level because it means the hacker could hog a lot of table time pre-hacking everything before the rest of the runners can get into the fun (most of the rest of the team has to be in sight of a target to do their stuff).
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Oct 11, 2013 03:57
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children overboard posted:It is a powerful move, but wouldn't the hacker still need to spend a complex action to brick each thing? There'd still be some time between people noticing that their legs weren't working and tracking down the hacker, but I'd see it as comparable to the time between guards noticing one of their buddies just got shot and then having to track down the invisible sniper (in a chameleon suit (with a spirit using concealment on him)). Overwatch score's a better limiting factor than I thought, but it's way harder to find a hacker chillin' in a car on the fifth floor of a nearby parking garage than someone who's actually got line of effect to the party like a sniper or an invisible flying mage three kilometers away casting Control Mob. Honestly invisible flying mages three kilometers away casting Control Mob has been a problem in every edition.
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Oct 11, 2013 04:01
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Mystic Mongol posted:Overwatch score's a better limiting factor than I thought, but it's way harder to find a hacker chillin' in a car on the fifth floor of a nearby parking garage than someone who's actually got line of effect to the party like a sniper or an invisible flying mage three kilometers away casting Control Mob. Yeah I do like requiring line of sight as a general design choice (only a small part of that's for balance: My main reason is table mechanics). I get that Hackers have another axis of risk in getting detected via the matrix, but line of sight at least means the party's more likely to be together and acting alongside each other (rather than playing the hacking/astral/social/combat minigames consecutively while the rest of the party sits around). Moving out of the terrain of house rules for this one: Has anyone seen Overwatch Score reach 40 in play? I've only done two scenes in 5e so far, but I don't think OS got above about 8. I thought maybe I just didn't have enough matrix stuff, but looking over the first official Mission (Chasin' the Wind) there's nothing in there that'd really tax a decker or bring them to even a double-digit Overwatch Score, let alone 40.
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Oct 11, 2013 04:27
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children overboard posted:Yeah I do like requiring line of sight as a general design choice (only a small part of that's for balance: My main reason is table mechanics). I get that Hackers have another axis of risk in getting detected via the matrix, but line of sight at least means the party's more likely to be together and acting alongside each other (rather than playing the hacking/astral/social/combat minigames consecutively while the rest of the party sits around). I had a Decker inside a host, making a lot of checks to do stuff inside of it. The Decker got up to a 38 overwatch, because of all the hits scored on the defense tests. To be fair though, this was due to the fact that a lot had to be done. Also, 20 dice is not a 50/50 shot at a Rating 6 device running silent; its a 70% chance of success. 17 dice is a 52% chance at success. Keep in mind you can have multiple agents running, who are on average going to give you about 3-4 dice on Teamwork tests to assist you in Matrix Perception etc. Even 1 Agent is pretty good in that sense. Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 05:33
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Sometimes I think about doing a rewrite of the Shadowrun rules - there are too many rules that seem to get in the way of how I think the game should be. I'm just going to throw out a few things I don't like about the current iteration: 1. Initiative sucks. I far prefer the idea of everyone going once in a round over going round everyone several times. Powerful characters should do more stuff with their goes, not get more goes. 2. Combat balance is weird. Deckers seem particularly poor at it - doing stuff takes more actions, and there's no "default" they can use like "shoot him" or "lightning bolt him" - they're dependent on the GM to give them options. 3. Weapon balance seems off. Grenades are hosed up. Weapons should be balanced so that you trade off power with concealability. Something should be done about everyone wearing the same armour. 4. Everything rolls too many dice and the problem only gets worse as your guys level up. 5. Character generation sucks. Priorities are rubbish, they lead to one guy getting a better character than another - if the game was more balanced it would be more obvious. I think the game needs a redesign with the idea of, "OK - what do we want characters to do? How can we let them do that in a balanced manner with as few rolls as possible?" at the forefront. At the moment a ton of your capabilities seem to be buried in rules, and then they break the game when you actually use them.
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Oct 11, 2013 12:35
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I like some of what you have said here but I feel like adding a bit: 1. I kind of like your idea, maybe characters that would have multiple initiative passes would now get something like 4e action points that they can use every round? 2. Deckers are really not bad, just have agents do silly poo poo while boosting each other to do it then you go do another thing. Really though deckers should be carefully setting everything up ahead of time. They are the best when given at least a minute or two advance warning, in which case they can pretty much solve fights single handedly. 3. Yes about the weapons, no about the armor. Unfortunately the armor thing mostly comes down to wether or not the GM wants to make social poo poo harder in certain kinds of armor. 4. You never really roll to many more dice than at character creation, the system is just way to expensive to get better at what you are already good at. You are better off expanding your abilities than just stacking the one or two. 5. Priorities have been making some pretty even across the board characters in Mission play with the 14 or so players we have. I think you need to give them another shot. This is minus the intentionally gimped but ultimately awesome Troll Face named Brickface.
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Oct 11, 2013 15:40
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1. Bigger dude = more awesome in one action works...in D&D. Shadowrun is not D&D. Being a badder dude meaning your individual actions are bigger means you are more vulnerable to being swarmed and, more importantly, it reduces the survival margin unless you decide to also scale defense to increasing awesomeness. This is part of why I am not happy about the change to weapon power in SR5; it's even less likely than before for someone to be wounded instead of just dropped in one hit than it used to be. 2. Deckers in SR5 are in the same position as Clerics in D&D 3E: They were useless fucks for decades and grognards cannot handle the idea of them actually being able to do anything but sit in the van and jack off to anime. A freelancer, Frank Trollman, developed an alternate Matrix system for SR4 that made deckers as good as mages but also just as limited (e.g. their awesome tricks are limited to line of sight). 3. The armor problem is new to SR5. Previously, you could wear up to (body*2) armor rating without penalty and took a -1 penalty to agility/reaction checks for every 2 points (or part there of) after that. So some PCs actually wore stuff besides armor jackets. I have no idea why they changed it. 4. What makes it too many dice? Do you mean characters are 'too competent' or do you just not like the number of dice rolled? 5. You have two easy options: Either the characters need to be built with karma and advanced with karma OR built with build points and advanced with build points.
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Oct 11, 2013 16:47
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| # ? Jun 4, 2024 22:33 |
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I like the idea of building the character with karma to make them well rounded and then advance with build points. Less chance of elite marksmen who can't tie their shoelaces or negotiate for a hot dog. No idea how well it would actually work though.
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Oct 11, 2013 18:39
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