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Shadowrun (SR4) Questioning
AnalogyShark
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey, recently me and a bunch of friends started a SR4 game, and we've been noticing some glaring holes in the structure of a lot of the sections of the rules, and this is probably the best forum to ask about it.
If anyone else is playing a SR4 campaign and wants to discuss questions they had on other people's interpretations of the obviously very open ended rules, I suppose this would be the thread to discuss that as well. I've had some pretty skilled Munchkins tear apart manipulation magic already, but there's some more just glaringly too good of things in the game.
1) Tranq Patches. Anyone who has been in a game with Tranq Patches know why these are a problem. They deal non-resistible stun damage equal to their rating (ranging from 1-10, 6 being 12F availability, and fairly easy to get) With your average character having 10 stun capacity tops, and only requiring a touch attack to apply, Tranq patches are the solve all win all card in this it seems. They're silent, leave no wounds, don't kill if you don't want them to, can kill if you *do* want them to.
2) Logic. The logic attribute seems to have been made near-useless in 4th Edition with the second Crash and the switch to wireless. Logic, is great for manually hacking into terminals, hardware, and other devices. Unfortunately, with the advent of wireless, NO ONE USES TERMINALS ANYMORE. People merely access terminals wireless, and let their programs take over, using Hacking or Data Search + Program Rating, dropping logic completely out of the equation for most hackers and definitely for cyberwarriors.
3) Grenades + Wired Reflexes + Surprise Round + Vision Magnification. Everyone who has played probably can see where this train of thought goes. I have a character in my campaign, we call him the Fridge, cause he's more Fridge than troll these days. If stealth is not an issue, his surprise round 5 grenade volley from 300 meters ends fights before the other side even gets to blink.
If any DMs have gotten around similiar scenarios in a way their players accepted, please let me know.
Thanks, and I'll be happy to help anyone else's questions as well.
If anyone else is playing a SR4 campaign and wants to discuss questions they had on other people's interpretations of the obviously very open ended rules, I suppose this would be the thread to discuss that as well. I've had some pretty skilled Munchkins tear apart manipulation magic already, but there's some more just glaringly too good of things in the game.
1) Tranq Patches. Anyone who has been in a game with Tranq Patches know why these are a problem. They deal non-resistible stun damage equal to their rating (ranging from 1-10, 6 being 12F availability, and fairly easy to get) With your average character having 10 stun capacity tops, and only requiring a touch attack to apply, Tranq patches are the solve all win all card in this it seems. They're silent, leave no wounds, don't kill if you don't want them to, can kill if you *do* want them to.
2) Logic. The logic attribute seems to have been made near-useless in 4th Edition with the second Crash and the switch to wireless. Logic, is great for manually hacking into terminals, hardware, and other devices. Unfortunately, with the advent of wireless, NO ONE USES TERMINALS ANYMORE. People merely access terminals wireless, and let their programs take over, using Hacking or Data Search + Program Rating, dropping logic completely out of the equation for most hackers and definitely for cyberwarriors.
3) Grenades + Wired Reflexes + Surprise Round + Vision Magnification. Everyone who has played probably can see where this train of thought goes. I have a character in my campaign, we call him the Fridge, cause he's more Fridge than troll these days. If stealth is not an issue, his surprise round 5 grenade volley from 300 meters ends fights before the other side even gets to blink.
If any DMs have gotten around similiar scenarios in a way their players accepted, please let me know.
Thanks, and I'll be happy to help anyone else's questions as well.
AnalogyShark on
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2): Hardcore secure paydata will not be wireless-accessible. Period. Alternatively, increase the cost of programs.
3): Have the NPCs spread the hell out, so a couple grenades won't wreck the whole group. Also, grenades are noisy. Eventually, they're going to call in drones and other big nasties that AP weapons simply won't deal with.
Also, I sorta thought the same thing about it being really easy to hack wirelessly. Then our GM, Valkun, just had important things on closed networks. I mean, thinking about it...wouldn't you want to make things harder to hack into?
I'll be buying a datajack and the neccessary skills to hardware-crack as soon as I can.
Also with regards to the grenade thing: If they aren't in a warzone they are going to be pissing off what passes for the local Law Enforcement/Military. Gun play is one thing but if you start dealing with heavy explosives routinely people get very very edgy.
Also cops who might overlook a gun will fuck you up if you have grenades on you. Guns can be for protection, a grenade is for killing people.
Be part of something big, even if you are small.
Spirits of Man get Innate Spell for any 1 spell the summoner knows. Well I want to Mind Probe this guy but the drain in killer....Spirit!
Spirits of Air get a Stun Lighting strike that hits really fucking hard and has the Stun descriptor thingy....
I find that when most people find something overpowered in Shadowrun, they're ignoring whatever consequences for the players are appropriate, assuming that they abuse something for a reasonably extended period of time.
This is not D&D. This is an evolution of the modern world. If you run around tossing grenades at people all the time someone will eventually find you and kill you and it's just as likely it'll be your employers for escalating what was supposed to be a simple in & out grab into a goddamn corporate war. If you get a reputation for abusing spirits, you won't find any to train you and Big Papa Free Spirit might just come kick your ass, and your friends' ass, and trash your safehouse while they're at it, leaving a big fuck-off aura that even a burn-out can read clear as day. If you have a reputation for brutality, period, your jobs and contacts will dry up and you'll be left robbing Stuffer Shacks until some clerk with a shotgun puts a round of buckshot through your face at point-blank range. If a stray round from your ever-present fire fights accidentally hits a Yakuza boss's girlfriend your entire extended family, your contacts, your employers, your friends and your coworkers will be hunted down and killed without mercy before they finally flay a single nerve out of your arm and play it like a goddamn violin while they use magic to keep you fully cognizant.
You make a lot of noise, you are going to get smacked the everliving hell down. Roleplay downtime, off a few of your PCs, and they'll get the message.
Bound spirits are generally not as big a deal to me.
When I run a summoner I use most of my spells not dying and have my spirit bust heads. They're damn tough. Hell, it's hilarious when the bad guys aren't packing anything heavy enough to break their Invulnerability to Normal Weapons....
Same in this. If the Troll is counting on surprise rounds to lob grenades with wired reflexes, hes only going to get one surprise round, ever. After that the grenades will alert everyone in the building to their presence. Where normally the dataterminal would be in a mostly empty guard room/research lab. Now that room is going to be on full alert, heavily armored troops behind cover, reinforcements on the way, and guardian spirits summoned an active. An air spirit with the instruction of "send grenades back at the attackers" would wreck their shit. A prepared combat mage is going to remove your mage from combat, you end up counterspelling the hell out of each other and as long as that spirit is up your trolls big trick is useless.
Also tranq patches require skin. Mages/Deckers can remote activate explosives with by pulling the pin, or hacking the arming mechanism. Are your runners turning their Wireless off? Can their smartguns work without wireless access? Did that belt of grenades just start ticking?
So you just blew the hell out of a facility and got the data, that Mr. Johnson wants NOTHING to do with the runners, your a liability now. He doesnt want it known he hired you. Now you have hot data noone will touch due to being implicated when that corp decides to hit back hard.
Have a couple sessions with your characters on the run, do they have some really good safehouses? By good i dont just mean a low lifestyle they pay once and awhile. I mean a full on place to hide? Sure the barrens may be lowtech, but people will sell you out cheap. The orc underground may back their own, but they arent necessarily going to protect you from several squads of elite shocktroops.
It all comes down to consequence. Shadowrun is a thinking mans game, if your shooting your way out of a situation something should have gone wrong.
When a majority of the party has been capture, killed, or is so far away from the scene of the crime that your just not worth chasing and those that remain are living squatter, with no money, and have sold their cyberlimbs for food then maybe the heat can drop.
If they're being used in a stealthy manner then there shouldn't be a problem. However, it's unlikely that they could be administered easily in combat unless they're being used by some sort of adept martial arts monster. If they're being abused, I'd suggest requiring the things to be applied for a full combat turn before having the damage go through. Outside of combat the patch would work quickly enough that most NPC's wouldn't realize what's going on before they pass out, during combat they can just rip it off. You're the GM, don't be afraid of changing or ignoring the rules to make the game better.
That's really not true. Wireless communication is highly vulnerable so anything worth protecting should be put on hard connections only. Try to get your mind into the thought process of security designers and architects. For example, in the building that my players are in right now: all components of the security system are run through hardlines with their own backup batteries in case the power goes down and the outer walls of the building are insulated to prevent wireless communication in and out.
Even if he has magnification, high initiative, and a grenade launcher, that doesn't guarantee he's going to be able to make 300m shots with little penalty. Remember, all projectiles are affected by gravity, you're not going to hurl a grenade that far parallel to the ground. Don't feel like calculating it right now but I'd say anything short of a thirty-fourty foot ceiling would impede the necessary parabollic arc. If he's trying to bounce it down a cooridor, don't allow any sort of smartgun bonus and give the shot a hefty penalty.
I need to just start remembering that this is Shadowrun, not DnD, and that I can change rules as I see fit.
Some other questions came up:
Astral Plane: what the hell does it look like from the mages side?
My mental image of it is basically a mirror of the world, where everything is ghostly, and living things light up in relation to how much essence/magic they have. I can't find in the Corebook or Street Magic and definately description of the Astral realm. If anyone has a cooler concept of it, or knows which book goes into good detail about it, but that would nice if someone could lead me to it.
Also, does casting magic make you very visible on the Astral Plane for someone who is projecting/assensing? (Beyond the bonus to perception they get from being Awakened)
Same thing goes for your Persona in the VR Matrix. Just how far can you change your persona's visual appearance. And just how intelligent are ICs (in general)? Are they scanbots/killbots? Or can you negotiate with/trick them? (Beyond a Spoof roll to pretend you are someone else.)
The persona is pretty meaningless, it's like your forum avatar. And remember that the matrix is a visual representation of a complex data architecure and although IC may take on a form to merge with the node style, they interact on the more direct level. They can be as unintelligent or intelligent as you desire (based on rating) and it'd be impossible to 'fool' an IC without actually hacking. Unfortunately, when it comes to the Matrix and related technology, a strong background in programming and system design in real life really helps. Otherwise, you can just try to muddle through by spouting off some good technobabble and going off of various cyberpunk. I'd recommend Ghost in the Shell and Snowcrash as good starting places.
Man, almost everything in that movie is hilariously wrong.
As a for instance. We had a Chanku (sp baby chinease dragon), a technowizard (me) and some form of psychic. I forget which offhand rifts never was my primary game.
First two games standard stuff, nothing to difficult groups of 2-3 armed opponents. Gm hates my chameleon armor due to not being able to target me. Im neither doing the most damage nor the biggest threat. GM annoyed he cant focus fire me.
Third game large groups of heavily armed opponents. The dragon has enough MDC to soak most things, im sniping as the techowizard using chameleon armor, and the psychic is just immobilizing targets by picking them up. We end up using my mountaineer as a portable fortress. GMs annoyed his forces are dying in one round of combat due to combination CC, and smart players. Storyline hidden villian exposed while trying to hold open a portal, psychic pulls him through portal and to party. Mage is turned over to the city. No reward is given. GM annoyed mage is caught as opposed to escaping unscathed.
Fourth game GM decides he hates the truck, two full grown T Rexs attack the truck. Barely escape due to creative quick thinking. GM annoyed he didnt get to destroy the truck. Gm annoyed we pointed out destroying the truck would get us to goal faster with less hassle. Gm annoyed ive still not taken a point of damage due to a combination of chameleon, using a truck for cover, and using a wingboard to outrange most things attacks.
Fifth game. Tree spiders. Die quickly. GM annoyed their legs are valuable. Use most as armor to fix truck.
Sixth game. Wormwraiths. GM annoyed that my range > theirs. Dragon and psychic make quick work of them. Still not found a good reason to shoot at me. Make it to Arzno. GM annoyed we refuse to check our weapons at the gate. Annoyed when characters gets around gate. Main enterance suddenly undergoes radical transformation. (a broken wall with two guards became a checkpoint with steel gates, guard towers, and sharp eyed guards. Female player talks guards down. GM annoyed powertrip ended through RP).
Seventh game Exterminate entire vampire population of silverado. Body count. 15 vamps, one master, one large vampire intelligence familiar, one human charmed into taking a bullet. GM annoyed we use astral projection to follow them home, and toss them out windows in broad daylight.
Party Advances to level 2.
Game 9. Teleported grenade inside personal shield of spluggorth slaver barge. Staff takes 40 damage, slaver took 400. Psychic immobilizes gunners.
The GMs big problem is we always fought when he wanted us to run, and ran when he wanted us to fight. We were all veteran roleplayers, he was a bit out of practice as a GM and was used to people who always approaching combat head on. He could not adapt to us worrying more about shutting down his encounters than we did about killing stuff. He through stuff he thought would be neat at us, was constantly unprepared/canceled games, and never really strove to challenge the party. He got sucked into a "i need to beat them" mentality. IMO a good gms job is to make the game fun for the players, make them think, sweat, and bleed for every victory, and make them feel like they have accomplished something.
Take the Ghouls with thermal smoke, thats fine, well and good. The party can adapt, jury rig something, or run like hell. Its an interesting problem to confront, what if we dont have sonar? Spray and pray? Shotguns on wide choke, grenades, use the smoke as cover and engage in H2H?
Agreed, I just try to make it amusing. Put in whatever crazy encounters I think both the players and I will like, and see what crazy things they can come up with.
Like putting two spies up against a helicopter with a rocket launcher they were supposed to blow it up with. Even with their great stats, to-hits, and spending action/luck points, they missed with all four rounds. My encounter is ruined, what do I do? I just continue to fire at them and wait. What did they do?
One of them jumped at the fucking helicopter armed with missiles and huge machine guns, crashed through the window, and cut the pilot's hands off before kicking him out of the chopper. His friend jumped after him and managed to grab him and use a grappling hook to grab ahold of the wall.
Good, smart players will figure out some way to bullshit through almost anything you can throw at them.
I have been a rabid Shadowrun RPG system fan ever since it first came. I've been playing since First Edition, and have seen the gradual (and sometimes not so gradual) change in rules applied to the system. Now that Fanpro/Wizkids has it, I find myself not liking the direction they have taken the system. My suggestion is, if you find yourself having lots of problems with the rules in Shadow Run FOURTH Edition, then go buy a THIRD Edition main book for cheap from your local gaming store (all the ones here in Houston still carry both edition books) and paruse the rules. You may find yourself liking the rules behind Third Edition more than Fourth, as I have.
So I have been running a Third Edition campaign or two with one group of players for almost a year and a half now. They are having fun, like the ruleset we are playing with, and have PLENTY of backstory and world detail to play around with for setting and environment of campaign storyarcs.
Some people didn't take to the radical changes in some fundamental systems very well. I've seen the biggest beef with the move to wireless moreso than the magic changes.
I think the move to wireless was great, and of course a fitting analog to how technology is progressing.
The problem is some GMs are having a very difficult time of being able to ad hoc what one can/cannot do.
Even DnD doesn't have to be strictly by the book. Some of the best games and GMing will come from those who can identify areas in the system that can be improved to suit the gamers one is catering to.
And as was said, it's not easy. But certainly a fun challenge!
Even if something has a possibility of happening doesn't mean it's what the book says. Common sense comes into play and the comments about suppression fire, automatic weapons, lack of exposed skin to target, etc. are all great points to that.
I don't like to punish the players for coming up with something truly inventive rather than a gameplay exploit. But I will have the enemies learn and adapt from the encounter.
Take the wireless hacking and the ease of use. Aside from the wired stand-alones people have mentioned, I also worked out wireless "noise" generators that could be used during times of alarm in certain high security corporations. Of course they're not on all the time, but as soon as crap hits the fan the opposition can trigger the emitters in an area to drown out hacking attempts. You can still try to tunnel through it, but it makes things much tougher and pushes stealth as a viable option versus the huck a grenade and still be able to hack with the greatest of ease way.
This of course becomes a double-edged sword for the opposition too and my players realized that. And you can organically develop the system. Everything has a tradeoff. Opposition eventually wedged in a rotating frequency band during alarm periods so they can maintain wireless benefits while cycling through to disrupt players' wireless usage, but a window like that versus the simple blast on all frequencies option allows the players to be able to squeeze in to do their mojo if they're smart enough to see through it. Seeding hooks rules. : )
And heck, even hackers have to fend off hacking attempts themselves. : 3
Reynolds - freaking great story, I love stuff like that... how many successes did that one take? haha
They had a dramatic flashback afterwards and everything. They then went on to abuse their powers, completely tossing aside their stealth and other sneaky abilities. They'd just knock down walls or build laser guns and mecha. :P
Almost like a made for Sci-Fi miniseries.
Also, Shadowrun is great...and stuff. >.>