So Jong was talking me up about how awesome the new "anniversary" edition of Shadowrun is going to be.  Apparently they'll be going all "Alpha Omega" on the production values.

Anyone actually seen this thing? Production aside, is there much point in getting it if you already have 4th edition?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;290990So Jong was talking me up about how awesome the new "anniversary" edition of Shadowrun is going to be.  Apparently they'll be going all "Alpha Omega" on the production values.

Anyone actually seen this thing? Production aside, is there much point in getting it if you already have 4th edition?

RPGPundit

There are some important rules changes that seem minor if you don't play it, but that will really change things in play.

1) Costs for physads key ass-kicking abilities are slightly cheaper, which makes them quite a bit stronger.

2) Cover now adds to a dice pool to dodge rather than subtracting from your shot pool. This makes characters with low attack pools a little more potent, since they still have a chance of getting a shot off instead of having their pool zeroed out.

3)It's no longer possible to buy the cheapest electronic shit you possibly can and mod it out at dirt-cheap to the point where it's equivalent to SOTA.

4) Karma-gen is more expensive, which means that the BP system doesn't disadvantage you quite as much.

5) Karma costs to boost attributes are higher now, to encourage you to boost skills.

6) It evidently contains a lot of content from Street Magic, Unwired, Arsenal and Augmentation, without rendering those books totally useless.

All the rules changes will be provided in an errata file for free eventually.

That sounds quite awesome. Catalyst is one of the few game publishers that are totally worth the price of admission.

I only thought it was a special cover for the game...

It looks awesome. I just wish they'd fix the one complaint I had with the whole 4E--still like the game, but wanted one slight consistency tweak.

So I see a lot of used 4e copies flooding the market shortly.  Do we have an aprox street date for this?

There's been some arguments over on Dumpshock on whether or not the new Drain rules for spellcasting will make it more likely for people to constantly overcast direct combat spells. As I understand it, net hits added to damage also add an equal amount to the drain code. So lets take the example of a mage that wants to one shot someone with a manabolt. The general consensus is that you need an average damage value of 10 to oneshot kill someone with a manabolt, taking into account Body soak. A Magic 5 caster can cast manabolt (Drain of Force/2)at Force 5 and use his net hits to max out at 10P Damage, this would give him a drain value of (5/2)+5 so 7S. On the other hand the same mage can overcast for a Force 10 spell, put no net hits in for damage and take a Drain Value of 5P. The Physical damage is in many ways 'worse' (possibility of death rather than KO) but the mage is taking the same dice pool penalties whether its physical or stun damage (that is, 5P and 5S damage would have the same dicepool penalties). The 5P is obviously easier to soak than the 7S, and if you have a medkit then you might be able to have your people patch you up to fine in no time.

The intention, I believe was to have Mages casting spells more in line with pistol damages to keep drain low, but it seems some of the system wonks have gone the other way with it.

Quote from: MGray;291054There's been some arguments over on Dumpshock on whether or not the new Drain rules for spellcasting will make it more likely for people to constantly overcast direct combat spells. As I understand it, net hits added to damage also add an equal amount to the drain code. So lets take the example of a mage that wants to one shot someone with a manabolt. The general consensus is that you need an average damage value of 10 to oneshot kill someone with a manabolt, taking into account Body soak. A Magic 5 caster can cast manabolt (Drain of Force/2)at Force 5 and use his net hits to max out at 10P Damage, this would give him a drain value of (5/2)+5 so 7S. On the other hand the same mage can overcast for a Force 10 spell, put no net hits in for damage and take a Drain Value of 5P. The Physical damage is in many ways 'worse' (possibility of death rather than KO) but the mage is taking the same dice pool penalties whether its physical or stun damage (that is, 5P and 5S damage would have the same dicepool penalties). The 5P is obviously easier to soak than the 7S, and if you have a medkit then you might be able to have your people patch you up to fine in no time.

The intention, I believe was to have Mages casting spells more in line with pistol damages to keep drain low, but it seems some of the system wonks have gone the other way with it.

Yeah, but when do shadowrunners only fight one dude?

Quote from: KrakaJak;291097Yeah, but when do shadowrunners only fight one dude?

True, but it's also true that Shadowrunnners rarely fight all on their lonesome. You may only have to take down one or two of the combatants while the Street Sam(s) take the rest.

I just thought it was an interesting implication of the rules that Catalyst is trying to implement.

Is there an online file for these errata for 4e owners ?

Quote from: boulet;291161Is there an online file for these errata for 4e owners ?

Not yet, but there will be. Probably around the same time that they release a hard-copy. Currently SR4A exists only in *.pdf form.

Quote from: MGray;291135I just thought it was an interesting implication of the rules that Catalyst is trying to implement.

The Dev team's official stance is that they don't see overcasting as a major problem.

SR4A cover:



The back cover is also part of the image, but I don't have it here.

Quote from: JongWK;291195The Dev team's official stance is that they don't see overcasting as a major problem.

And technically, it isn't. It's the interaction of overcasting with the _healing_ rules that screws things up. Healing physical damage in SR4 is very easy once you're out of a firefight. The problem with overcasting, frex, is that it's equally easy to heal physical and stun with first aid, so taking fewer boxes is more important than the type of damage.

Last session, our cyber-ninja nearly got tasered to death (I think he had a full stun track and 8 full boxes of physical) by a sniper assassin. The Star was hot on our trail, so we had to bail into the sewers carrying him with seconds to spare. Even down in the sewers, in total darkness, with no medical training, I was able to use my SOTA autodoc and natural smarts (medkit 6 + Log 7) to heal him back to consciousness, and it was only a day or so before he was back up and running around.

Shit. Very good cover.

RPGPundit

Quote from: JongWK;291198SR4A cover:

Wow. I'm impressed.