...and it's largely great. Netrunning is a LOT better, even with only a reading. However, where it's bad it's really bad to me. I get it's a teaser but there's a rules dynamic that is simply awful, IMO.

So, if you shoot somebody, armor applies and you track each bullet. Each hit that has damage in excess of armor ablates it once. You get one ranged attack per turn.

Melee weapons halve armor, ablate if damage exceeds and you get TWO melee attacks per turn. Body Type does not add to damage.

Brawling does zero damage if the target has any armor and you get two Brawling attacks per turn. However, against UNArmored opponents, your Body Type scales damage and eventually a meat fist hurts more than a gun.

However, a cyberfist is considered a MELEE weapon, halving armor and ablating it. It does 1d6. Note that the weakest Body Type also does 1d6.

So, if you punch an unarmored guy with meat at say, Body Type 7, you do more damage than a cyberfist and as much as a bullet. But if the guy has any armor at all, your meat fist does zero, and your cyberfist is more effective against armor than a bullet.

It's also odd that you just get double the attacks for melee/brawling as pulling a trigger's faster. Rate of fire could be an excluded rule due to it being a jumpstart.

I'm also not sure if the timeline is a thing I can get behind. I understand the desire to follow CP canon, but it's so wildly divergent from reality and believability and has SO much going on. My struggling might be that I'm digesting decades at once, but it seems to be a weird "apocalypse-but-not" scenario.

Other good things are the new stats. Reflexes is no longer a "god stat" and Attractiveness is gone, which is good. The art is really good, IMO.

Definitely interested in reading more about this, might have to grab the PDF....

From what I've heard, it's more than just some of the rules, the rules are actually different and simpler than the full version.

Sounds like they didn't put a ton of thought into the cut-down version though.  That sounds fairly lame.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1098304Definitely interested in reading more about this, might have to grab the PDF....

Feel free to ask about it. And if you get it, please chime in.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1098306From what I've heard, it's more than just some of the rules, the rules are actually different and simpler than the full version.

Sounds like they didn't put a ton of thought into the cut-down version though.  That sounds fairly lame.

We'll have to see the full core, obviously, but I agree with you and think it's a bad first impression.

Sounds like an easy thing to house rule. But that's my memory of CP2020- having to house rule everything to make sense.

Quote from: Longshadow;1098403Sounds like an easy thing to house rule. But that's my memory of CP2020- having to house rule everything to make sense.

I recall that too, and that's why this one gets a hard pass until/unless I hear differently about the full product. I just don't have time for crappy system stuff like the above describes.

I have the jumpstart pdf's. The core dice mechanic looks very swingy to me - d10, 1s and 10s implode/explode respectively, once only. Don't remember if it was the same in CP2020. I guess it is supposed to be cinematic.

Gunfights turning into chiselling off small pieces of armour and of meat over multiple rounds did strike me as potentially not fun, but I haven't gamed out a gunfight yet. I liked CP2013's no hit points/wound system.

Quote from: Marchand;1098571I have the jumpstart pdf's. The core dice mechanic looks very swingy to me - d10, 1s and 10s implode/explode respectively, once only. Don't remember if it was the same in CP2020. I guess it is supposed to be cinematic.

Gunfights turning into chiselling off small pieces of armour and of meat over multiple rounds did strike me as potentially not fun, but I haven't gamed out a gunfight yet. I liked CP2013's no hit points/wound system.

What strikes me as odd is they seem to have gone cinematic in some ways while staying the same in others and it makes for a weird synergy.

Don't want to sound too down on it; the production values are very high, getting rid of the Attractiveness stat was good (given you can easily change the way you look for cheap in a clinic), Netrunning is a huge improvement. But...

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1098303I'm also not sure if the timeline is a thing I can get behind. I understand the desire to follow CP canon, but it's so wildly divergent from reality and believability and has SO much going on. My struggling might be that I'm digesting decades at once, but it seems to be a weird "apocalypse-but-not" scenario.

Yeah, kind of agree. The lowpoint for me (hope I'm not spoilering anyone) was when the US government nationalises a megacorp by drafting its CEO back into the military. WTF?

"WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION PRIVATE ZUCKERBERG?"

"Goddam guv'mint gon' an' stole my comp'ny, suh..."

I don't know why I gave him that accent either.

Quote from: Marchand;1098577Don't want to sound too down on it; the production values are very high, getting rid of the Attractiveness stat was good (given you can easily change the way you look for cheap in a clinic), Netrunning is a huge improvement. But...



Yeah, kind of agree. The lowpoint for me (hope I'm not spoilering anyone) was when the US government nationalises a megacorp by drafting its CEO back into the military. WTF?

"WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION PRIVATE ZUCKERBERG?"

"Goddam guv'mint gon' an' stole my comp'ny, suh..."

I don't know why I gave him that accent either.

That's not new to the backstory. That's the denouement of the Fourth Corporate War adventure duology from the original Cyberpunk 2020.

Quote from: Marchand;1098571I have the jumpstart pdf's. The core dice mechanic looks very swingy to me - d10, 1s and 10s implode/explode respectively, once only. Don't remember if it was the same in CP2020. I guess it is supposed to be cinematic.

Gunfights turning into chiselling off small pieces of armour and of meat over multiple rounds did strike me as potentially not fun, but I haven't gamed out a gunfight yet. I liked CP2013's no hit points/wound system.

One of the guys I went to GenCon with picked up the box and ran it for us while we were there.  The gun fight was pretty fucking deadly.  Two of us dropped in the second round of combat after corp security burst fired us with assault rifles.  Our armor helped, but not enough.  The other guy made his death save, I wasn't so lucky.

Quote from: Marchand;1098577Don't want to sound too down on it; the production values are very high, getting rid of the Attractiveness stat was good (given you can easily change the way you look for cheap in a clinic), Netrunning is a huge improvement. But...



Yeah, kind of agree. The lowpoint for me (hope I'm not spoilering anyone) was when the US government nationalises a megacorp by drafting its CEO back into the military. WTF?

"WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION PRIVATE ZUCKERBERG?"

"Goddam guv'mint gon' an' stole my comp'ny, suh..."

I don't know why I gave him that accent either.

At the point where Pres. Kress reactivated GEN(R) Lundee, she was explaining that it was the only way that the US would avoid using military force to completely eliminate Militech around the world. It was offered pretty much in the same tone as setting a pistol on the table and suggesting he do "the right thing" before leaving. They didn't offer the same to Arasaka, they just attacked any Ara military units still operating after Kei "killed himself".

On the subject of the exploding dice, that's just Interlock. It's always  been that way, in CP2020 as well.

I have the .pdf as well, and I don't have a lot of problems with the system, although I did have a problem when I realized that even though I only paid $15 for the early version, they listed the regular price as $30, which I think is a bit of a ripoff for what they're giving, considering the Witcher was the same price.  Hopefully that early purchase will turn into the full game when it  comes out, but if anyone is paying the full price, I'm sorry for them.

Overall, I think it's a lot like the Witcher, but without the video game to explain why it feels like it does.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;1098581I have the .pdf as well, and I don't have a lot of problems with the system, although I did have a problem when I realized that even though I only paid $15 for the early version, they listed the regular price as $30, which I think is a bit of a ripoff for what they're giving, considering the Witcher was the same price.  Hopefully that early purchase will turn into the full game when it  comes out, but if anyone is paying the full price, I'm sorry for them.

I don't know.  2 books (120ish pages) with an adventure that can be played a few different ways, 4 maps, some dice, a bunch of cardboard minis and stands, some in game handouts, 6 nice pregens with some customization possible and a box to keep it all in?  That seems about $30 worth of stuff.

Quote from: rgalex;1098579One of the guys I went to GenCon with picked up the box and ran it for us while we were there.  The gun fight was pretty fucking deadly.  Two of us dropped in the second round of combat after corp security burst fired us with assault rifles.  Our armor helped, but not enough.  The other guy made his death save, I wasn't so lucky.

Getting hit with burst fire from an assault rifle = 3 x 5D6 damage. Attacker needs a 15 to hit, which seems pretty likely from stat+skill+d10. Even if target is wearing heavy armourjack for 15 points, that's c.30 points of damage average, with a major wound threshold even for a max BODY character of 25. So... yeah that's deadly. Fair enough, getting shot by an assault rifle should be deadly. And thankyou for encouraging me to do the numbers finally.

Although getting hit with say a single round from a revolver averages 16-17 points, so with 10-15 points of armour it might feel like chiselling meat.

Anyway, for similarly armed characters carrying powerful weapons, does it not mean initiative is basically the decider, unless an attacker rolls really badly? Maybe that's a fair way to model a gunfight.

By the way, opening up my pdf to look up the combat rules again made me want to play this game.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;1098581On the subject of the exploding dice, that's just Interlock. It's always  been that way, in CP2020 as well.

Was it? Its been forever since I acutally played. I'll have to check out the rulebook.