Year of the Comet

The basic rule is that everyone rolls an Essence test, target number 12 (+1/2 Magic rating, +2 if metahuman or +3 if metavariant, +4 if Albino, +other mods for other things).
(note: Magician's Way Adepts, if that's what FF was talking about re: being a mage and an adept, still only have a Magic Attr of 6, they just "split" it differently)
Then take 1d6+2 negative SURGE points, 1d6+2 positive SURGE traits karma cost 5 to reroll either, and the second roll must be used.
Then, depending on the GM's preference, the players may either choose their own traits (yes, it is there in the book), or roll for random SURGE effects.

I propose an alternative. You may either roll to take random SURGE, or buy the SURGE trait as outlined above with the numbers smudged. In either case, you are either given a random animal archetype (outlined above) or choose one. After this point, you may only purchase traits that are relevant to that archetype (or make ones with the assistance of BB). We can make more animals, those were just the only ones I could think of.

This would shorten the number of cat-people-with-gills that the original style goes for.

New alterations can be chosen later on as long as they are relevant to your archetype, and bought as Edges with twice their value in Good Karma. Additionally SURGE related flaws give only their point value in Good Karma which can be spent normally. Both of these represent the "latent" traits that take a longer to manifest. The massive systemic changes that are also associated with the massive "too-big-to-afford" costs.

SR4E only gives the option of buying the SURGE trait (again, above), and all players with this background can later buy SURGE traits like any other edges and flaws.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:29, Thu 20 Sept 2012.

Initiates get extra magic points, so my target would be 18.  I guess still theoretically possible though.  Agree that surge changes should either be related to an archetype or cost more.

I have no real desire to be surged but am willing to make the roll if we decide to go random.

MAGIC

Combat spells must be learned at a particular damage level, so for instance, Powerbolt is now Power Dart (L), Power Missile (M), Power Bolt (S). Similarly, Treat and Heal spells are learned at a particular health level (L/M/S/D).

There are no physical adepts. That character class has been replaced with Rockers.


RACES

All of the current races exist, however they have it pretty rough. All non-humans must take a mild allergy flaw to one of the following substances: silver, plastic, sunlight, iron without the corresponding character points. (Strictly speaking, being a metahuman should cost as many points as being a full mage, and the allergy should be randomly rolled to determine substance and severity, but we're not going there.)

EQUIPMENT

I've updated the equipment lists (mostly) to 2050. Some exceptions still in place. If it's not on the list, you can ask, but most likely it isn't available yet.

Not knowing the rules on Rockers, I would much rather we have Physads as an option. That said, if you post what the Rocker archetype *does*, I might modify my character concept a little.

The rocker plays a musical instrument, normally at a public locale, and inspires all of the people with the sound of his (or her) rock music. It's a good way to get famous and make a lot of money (or more likely, nurture an ongoing drug addiction until you die, alone and forgotten. But I'm sure that won't happen to you; you're a PC!)

I love the rocker archetype. I'm considering giving bonus karma to everyone who plays a rocker.

BTW, I read through the equipment list doc you sent my way a couple days ago. None of the equipment I was planning on getting was missing. So... there's that.

On the plus side, I now know exactly how much kinky sexual favors cost in SR, so there's that.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:56, Thu 16 Jan 2014.

So a question for our other oldbies... When I read through the SR1 book, I notice physical adepts aren't added until Grimoire (which I don't have). So:

1) how soon into SR1 were adepts playable character types?
2) How similar did they look to SR3 adepts?
3) Do we care enough to only introduce adepts later in play?

Please define "all" the races. By this, do you mean the std book races, or are we talking about the extended races, giants and satyrs oh my!



Also, I want to state, I am prepared to hide behind the pile of dead bar...I mean rockers.

I think you should allow adepts.  I only have access to the 2nd ed grimoire, they are part of the main book by then, but if you limit them then if someone wants to play one they have to make a new character when they become available.

All races includes all races, including everything in the 3rd edition companion. I'd be willing to roll with Shifter rules, but I'll use 2nd edition for that and make some other appropriate tweaks.

Still don't know what to do with this so I'm moving it here.


BB notes:  Firefox has been very good to compile these rules, but they are very complex.  I would prefer something simpler, and am considering how best to approach it.  For the time being, I will default to these rules if it seems appropriate and plot-important.

I've been doing some more thinking about element resistance tests (e.g. do your grenades blow up when you get engulfed by a fire elemental).  Unfortunately if we want to make things somewhat realistic, it's going to be very hard to come up with a single rating for a given material that applies to all types of element attacks.  What I'd therefore suggest doing is coming up with a generic set of categories reflecting "vulnerability" of that substance to a given element.  The GM makes a determination of how "vulnerable" a substance is to the related element.  For example, an open jar of napalm would be quite vulnerable to fire, but pretty much invulnerable to acid.

Vulnerability scale would be "severe", "serious", "moderate", "mild", and "invulnerable".  The scale would work as follows:
- damage level experienced by the substance would need to be at least L for severe, M for serious, S for moderate and D for mild to have any danger of ill effects.
- For each damage level above the minimum, there's a +1 chance of ill effects happening.  For example, deadly damage to something with a severe vulnerability would have a +3 modifier.
- Base target number would be the power of the attack divided by 5.
- Finally, there's a +1 modifier for each turn the substance is exposed, including the first turn.
- A negative modifier is applied for "effective armor", such as 1/2 impact for fire.  Only content beneath armor is protected by armor.  E.g. Grenades strapped to an armored vest get no benefit from the armor.
- Damage level and power is based on the effective damage after dodge roll but before armor is applied.

Summary:
Roll 2D6 against (Power/2) + number of turns exposed (including this one) + 1 per damage level above minimum based on vulnerability - effective armor.

The roll is made once per character per attack, with the result determining what types of items get damaged.

Suggested vulnerabilities:



Some examples:
A character is carrying a couple of regular grenades, a predator loaded with a clip of regular ammo, clip of standard EX ammo and a 5/3 armored jacket.  They're also wearing a tranceiver with the radio clipped to their hip pocket.

On round 1, the character is hit for 4 net successes by a force 6 fire elemental for a total of 6D.  That means that the targets are as follows:
5 for the EX to go off
4 for the ammo in the gun and the grenade to go off
3 for the ballistic armor to melt
2 for the gun to melt (which doesn't really matter because if the bullets in the gun go off, the gun is fragged anyhow)

On round 2, the elemental engulfs the character, doing 6M.  That means:
Gun and ballistic armor are safe
4 for EX to go off (6/2 = 1 + 1 for Moderate dmg + 2 turns of fire damage)
3 for the ammo and the grenade to go off

On round 3, provided the character stays engulfed, the chances would be:
5 for Ex
4 for ammo and grenade

Another character (same equipment) is hit by a force 6 D lightning spell with 4 successes.  (The mage is hurting, but so is the character :>)  Total damage is 10D.  The character lucks out and with their armor and body resistance manages to survive.  Targets would be as follows:
4 for the radio
3 for the fire arm and ballistic

In practice the probabilities are probably lower than they should be.  However, given that multiple characters can be impacted and we don't want everyone to be losing equipment left right and center, this is probably the best we can do.  If people think it's still two high, we could make it 3d6 instead of 2d6.

So is the number next to the equipment the target number or the number of dice rolled?

Can you quote the section you have questions about?

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 54):

there are pretty much already rules for this that work well enough.  page 196 SR3 under the elemental manipulation spells. simply apply the same rules for elementals if appropriate.

no need for new, excessive and confusing rules

This particular set of rules were proposed after an OOC discussion that treating all elemental effects the same against all objects didn't make much sense and that object resistance rating had very little to do with likely impact.  Dynamite would have a target of 8, while soil would have a target of 3 to have nasty stuff happen from a fireball - didn't make a lot of sense.  Agree that what we came up with (more than just my own contribution) was a little overly complex.  I look at it more as a listing of things to take into account and a starting point for the GM to decide what happens if they decide it would be interesting for something to happen.

Honestly I don't really care how complicated the rules get as long as everyone enjoys themselves and the rules run smoothly.  All game systems have rules that just don't make sense.....lol

In your example, you have a 5 for EX explosive rounds, and a 4 for grenades. Is that number 5d6 and 4d6 (resp) against a TN of X, or is that Xd6 vs a TN of 5 and 4 (resp)?

Proposed rule was roll 2d6 and you want above the specified number.  So EX rounds would go off a bit easier than the grenades.

Makes a lot more sense now, thank you.

I hate the Martial Arts maneuvers because I never have a good answer for them. If there were maneuvers for other combat skills like firearms, or at LEAST other melee weapons I'd probably go for them, but no one has written those up yet. But they are also pretty cool.

Anyway, here's a post from the Rules thread we never settled on anything, but it's good information so I don't want to delete it.

Existing martial arts styles have 9 maneuvers.  Here are some ways I would build a melee martial arts style...

Melee weapon martial arts:

Optimal maneuvers for both offense and defense:
- Blind Fighting (fighting against invisible enemies or in low visibility)
- Ground Fighting (fewer penalties when prone)
- Herding (only maneuver that allows you to push back or lead an enemy somewhere)
- Whirling (significantly reduces massive penalties when facing multiple enemies)

Optimal offensive maneuvers:
- Full Offense (you get hit more, but your damage code goes up one level)
- Multi-Strike (you can attempt to hit multiple enemies with fewer penalties)
- Zoning (successful attack does no damage, but *next* attack is done at a TN bonus, which makes it easier to stage up and deal significant damage for a final blow)

Additions for an offensive martial style (choose two to complete the offensive style):
- Vicious Blow (for weapons that primarily use stun damage, such as staves and clubs, can change damage to physical but much more difficult to stage up damage)
- Kick Attack (attack with +1 reach, but you're more likely to get hit)
- Throw (knock down enemies by throwing them)
- Sweep (knock down enemies by tripping them)

Optimal defensive style maneuvers:
- Close Combat (all reach bonuses/penalties negated, but your attacks are less powerful)
- Disorient (stack up to an 8 TN penalty on an enemy's chance to do anything)
- Evasion (get a bonus for dodging when using "full defense")
- Kip Up (Roll against Quickness(6) to stand up as a free action)

(to round out the defensive style, I'd take any two of the offensive maneuvers listed)

------

Two other maneuvers I'd probably skip:

Focus Strength (+1 power to a single attack; requires a complex action to prepare the maneuver before the attack)

Focus Will (+2 to Willpower for a contest of wills versus spirits/elementals/etc.; requires a complex action to prepare the maneuver before the attack)

Giving up a complex action to prepare one of these is a pretty severe restriction (you can either attack, or do one of these and get a minimal benefit to a single attack in the future).  However, they are able to be done before combat starts, getting you an extra bonus above and beyond whichever maneuvers you're using when you fight.  Also, an appropriate martial arts style could allow these with only a Simple Action to prepare, making them more usable during combat.

------

Assigning appropriate advantages and disadvantages...I'm not sure.  I can think about existing maneuvers because I can read what they do.  Pulling rules-based advantages and disadvantages out of thin air is more difficult, because I don't know what would be more or less powerful.

If you wanted to make Martial Arts and guns go together directly, stat up a club for pistol-whipping, and a polearm for longarm smack-people-ing. You can make an equivalency for Close Combat in reducing the penalty for firing in melee (if there is one, I forget), a Whirling-equivalent for multi-targeting, etc. It can be done, it's just tough.

Usually martial arts get 2 points, usually a +1d or -1TN bonus for specific maneuvers (combat maneuvers, called shots, or combat goals such as subdual). The option of maneuver training for a weapon, is also worth a point each. Argument could be made that combining two maneuvers is also an equivalent bonus, I disagree; could also reduce the drawbacks of some maneuvers.
The drawback to a style is usually a -1d or +1TN that is circumstantial (usually called shot, full defense, offense, or subdual). Some martial arts have +1/-1 (making it +3/-2), Ninjitsu has +5/-4. The points vary a little, but that seems to be the general rule. Every two points of drawback is weighted as one point of Flaw (as in "edges and flaws")

As far as the maneuvers themselves go, I file them by equivalency.
Blind Fighting/Close Combat/Kick Attack - to eliminate an advantage or take away a disadvantage.
Whirling/Multi-Strike/Evasion - to survive longer against a superior or more numerous enemy
Ground Fighting/Kip-up* - These are either survival or advantage concepts
Herding/Throw/Sweep - to take advantage of your terrain, and turn it against your opponent
Zoning/Disorient - to establish dominance in a longer engagement, to work in tandem with an ally against an outnumbered (but dangerous) enemy.
Full Offense/Vicious Blow - to end an engagement as quickly and brutally as possible

*because Kip-up is a free action, which means you can do it whenever you want to

Focus Will and Focus Strength really are kinda crud. I assume that they are supposed to be used with Tai Chi Chuan, whose major advantage is "makes it a Simple action each instead of a Complex one" (which can also be read as "makes these maneuvers worth a fart").

I do already spend way too long on this game. I am happy to review and use maneuvers if someone else goes through the work of designing them, but I don't have the luxury of doing it myself.

I can if you want me to. It will be back-burner stuff, since I still have three other things on my list right now.

I don't care. But if you write them, they'll be used.

So, the roughest of the rough draft:
Weapon Expertise
Weapon Expertise is treated as a Knowledge Skill with the relevant attribute equal to the weapon skill it is linked to. There are five Weapon Expertise skills in total: Pistol, SMG, Shotguns, Rifles, and Heavy Weapons.
Weapon Expertise allows you to purchase Expertise Methods, or simply "Methods" that are intended to change the way you fight and not replace existing rules. In effect, none of these rules directly change damage codes, range values, or inherently make existing equipment moot, but they give greater tactical options instead. You can only learn as many Methods as you have points in a given Weapon Expertise, and they do not carry from one weapon category to another (with the exception of CQC Expert, Laser Blind, and Quick Fingers).

Pistols: Akimbo, Both Barrels, (Improved) Quickdraw, Trigger Discipline
SMG: Akimbo, Quickdraw, Trigger Discipline
Shotguns: Both Barrels, CQC Expert, Trigger Discipline
Rifles: CQC Expert, Focus Fire, Spotter, Trigger Discipline
Heavy Weapons: CQC Expert, Focus Fire, Spotter
All Weapon Expertise categories have access to Better Bracing, Fast Aim, Laser Blind, Quick Fingers, Return Fire

Akimbo - By spending a Complex Action, fire two Single Shot weapons as a Burst-2, two Semi-Automatics as a Burst-4 (or as a Simple Action Burst-2), or two Burst-fire weapons as Full Auto-12. This only applies to weapons of the same or similar size categories (you do not get the full bonus from a Heavy Pistol and a Holdout).

Better Bracing - +1 natural Recoil Compensation, +2 with two one-handed weapons.

Both Barrels - Roll a Quickness (4) test as a free action. With a success, you may treat a Single Shot weapon as Semi Automatic for one turn as long as you do not have to reload it between shots.

CQC Expert - If a bayonet strikes your target in melee, you may pull the trigger as a free action to fire one bullet. Use the melee attack's test to modify the damage as normal.

Fast Aim - As a Simple Action, roll Weapon Expertise as an attack. Every 2 net successes is counted as a +1 Aim bonus on your next attack against that target (minimum +1)

Focus Fire - You use Tracer rounds to highlight targets for your teammates. Allies gain 1/2 the bonus you get from tracer fire on attacks against that target.

Laser Blind - Requires a laser sight in your off hand or mounted to your weapon as normal. Roll an attack against a single target ignoring range penalties. That target suffers Glare penalties to all actions until the end of your next turn.

Quickdraw - You can now quickdraw this weapon as if it were a pistol following normal rules. This can be taken twice (once with Pistols) to gain a -2 to TN for quickdrawing, cumulative with a quickdraw holster.

Quick Fingers - As a Simple Action roll a Quickness (4) test to reload in one Simple Action instead of two. Characters with Smartlinks and modified weapons can attempt this once per turn as a Free Action.

Return Fire - -2 TN for firing blind or through cover

Spotter - As a Complex Action you may roll Weapon Expertise plus Physics as an attack against one target. Every two successes applies a +1 Aim modifier to an adjacent (or battle-tac linked) ally up to the next range category.

Trigger Discipline - On an attack that misses neither because of an enemy using Combat Pool to dodge or a critical failure, roll 1d6 vs a TN equal to 8- your Weapon Expertise skill. A success means that you did not fire the round. This applies only to SS or SA attacks.


If a weapon is used in melee as an improvised bludgeon, it is treated as a Club (Pistols, SMGs; Reach 0 STR+1 M Stun) or a Polearm (Shotguns, Rifles, Heavy Weapons; Reach 0 STR+2 M Stun for the butt, Reach 1 STR+1M Stun if held by the barrel) per normal rules as modified by martial arts and the Bayonet attachment. Ranged weapons used as a bludgeon are damaged on an attack roll that is more than half 1's, and broken on a critical failure. Weapons can be hardened for use in melee combat by paying 20% of the weapon's value or 600 nuyen (whichever is higher), weapons hardened for combat are only ever damaged on a critical failure (and add +1 to the Power of melee strikes).