Does anyone here know if there is a nig difference between 3rd ed and 4th edition? :ponder:

I use to love Shadowrun, but I am little out of the loop,

Quote from: Eli the VileDoes anyone here know if there is a nig difference between 3rd ed and 4th edition? :ponder:

I use to love Shadowrun, but I am little out of the loop,

There are quite a few. The SR4 system is different, you now roll ATT + SKL +/- Modifiers, against fixed TN#5. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.

I'd suggest visiting Dumpshock.com for an indepth explanation of the changes. And please, please, avoid asking what edition do people like most. :heh:

Other changes:

- Wireless Matrix and Augmented Reality (AR) are everywhere.
- Hackers are extremely playable now.
- Vehicle combat is also playable now.
- Initiation rules in the core book.
- Technomancers (Otaku 2.0) in the core book.
- World update to 2070.

Quote from: JongWKThere are quite a few. The SR4 system is different, you now roll ATT + SKL +/- Modifiers, against fixed TN#5. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.

I'd suggest visiting Dumpshock.com for an indepth explanation of the changes. And please, please, avoid asking what edition do people like most. :heh:

What they are having edition wars or something?

A fixed target number sounds like a great idea, although setting at 5 makes it difficult to reliably succeed at even a base level unless you are highly skilled. But doesn't using a fixed TN make most of the old books redundant?

Quote from: BagpussA fixed target number sounds like a great idea, although setting at 5 makes it difficult to reliably succeed at even a base level unless you are highly skilled. But doesn't using a fixed TN make most of the old books redundant?

The new rules aren't really designed to be backwards compatible with the old rules. The game setting itself is 30 years IIR in the future so most of the old tech is outdated.  There is no reason though why you couldn't run old stories through SR4, however some things (beyond the rules) would need to be rethought becasue of how VR works now instead of old school decking.

So what you are saying is if you want to waste all your previous investment in Shadowrun stick with 3rd Ed, no matter how good/bad 4th Ed is. Hmm no wonder there is an edition war going on.

Quote from: BagpussSo what you are saying is if you want to waste all your previous investment in Shadowrun stick with 3rd Ed, no matter how good/bad 4th Ed is. Hmm no wonder there is an edition war going on.

Oh come on.  Shadowrun's one of those games where reading the sourcebooks is actually better than playing the game, so it'll be no great loss

Quote from: BagpussA fixed target number sounds like a great idea, although setting at 5 makes it difficult to reliably succeed at even a base level unless you are highly skilled. But doesn't using a fixed TN make most of the old books redundant?

You are now rolling dice equal to your ability score and your skill (I think that in old editions, it was just your skill). That means that Joe Average (stat 3) with professional competence (skill 3) has a 91% chance of getting at least one success.
Even with just two dice, you have about a 55% chance of at least one success.

Quote from: BagpussSo what you are saying is if you want to waste all your previous investment in Shadowrun stick with 3rd Ed, no matter how good/bad 4th Ed is. Hmm no wonder there is an edition war going on.

Especially if you were using any of the Metaplot aspects of the world.  There's good and then there is bad, in many ways it's an all-together different game.

From what I've seen, the general gist is that if you don't have a previous investment with Shadowrun, then you should get 4th (unless everyone you play with does).  Otherwise, it's more of a decision.

Personally, I've got a guy in town here who's trying to increase Shadowrun games by running 'Shadowrun missions' - something like the Living campaigns that the RPGA puts out.  He's starting us off in 3rd (because that's when the campaign started), and apparently we'll go along for a while until we need to switch to 4th.  Luckily enough, the basic rulebook for 3rd is pretty easy to find cheap on ebay.

Until last year, SR Missions used SR3 rules. They switched to SR4 this year, and you can download a new adventure every month from the official website.

Here's a nice summary by Bull, who ran several demos at GenCon 2005:

Quote from: BullHi, I'm Bull, and I'll be your GM this evening. First things first... Are you all familiar with the basic Shadowrun setting? Good, this makes my life a lot easier, as it saves me an hour long "This is the world of Shadowrun" spiel. Ok, I'll start things off by going over the major changes to the system.

First off, dice pools as you knew them are gone. Combat, Astral, Hacking, Rigging, Karma Pools, all gone. The core mechanic now is skill plus attribute, plus or minus any modifiers in dice, and that is now referred to as your dice pool for the test.

Your target number is always 5, and this is called a Hit. Modifers add or subtract dice from your dice pool rather than modifying your target number.

The Rule of One is triggered more frequently now. I don't know about you guys, but I've been playing Shadowrun for umpteen years now, and the Rule of One has come up a grand total of three times in all the games I've run or played in, and one of those three was because the player was only rolling two dice to start with. Since we're evil and like to screw with the players, we decided that the rule of one should come up more often.

So the Rule of One is now called a Glitch. If at least half your are ones, that's a glitch. there are two types of glitches. If you glitch but still roll any hits, it's a minor glitch, and some minor negative thing happens. It's a setback, but not a major negative thing, and you can still succeed at whatever test you were rolling. For example, if I was shooting at someone and rolling 8 dice, and I got four 1's and 3 hits, I could still hit my target and wound or kill him, but something happens to me, like I stumble and have a point or two penalty to my next action.

If you gitch and get no successes, that's called a Critical Glitch, and something major catestrophic bad happens. The exact nature of both types of glitch are up to the GM, so bribe you GM well and keep him happy. Candy, Caffeine, Pizza, or Beer work well for this.

The rule of Six no longer applies to your dice rolls, except in a couple situations which I'll get to in a bit. Since you have a set target number of 5, you don't need the open ended dice to get higher target numbers.

Open tests no longer exist. These were tests like with stealth, where you'd roll and your highest die roll would become the opponents target number. This type of test was always more than a little wonky and could be extremely random, and we hated it, so we chuked it.

There are now three types of tests: Opposed Tests, Threshold tests, and Extended tests.

Opposed tests are your standard My Dice vs Their Dice tests, with you wanting to get more hits than your oppoenent or whatever is resisting you.

Threshold tests are generally unopposed type of tests where you're simply trying to succeed at an action. Things like climbing would be a Threshold test. The GM will give you a threshold of hits that you need to meet or beat to succeed at your test. A threshold of 1-2 is relatively easy, while a threshold of 4-5 is pretty difficult. It's GM fiat as to how difficult a lot of thresholds are, so again, bribes work wonders.

The maximum for skills and attributes before possible metahuman modifiers is 6. There is no longer the Racial Modified Limit of 1.5 your starting max, so 6 is generally as high as they get. It is possible to get a 7 using the Exceptional Attribute or Aptitude Positive Qualities (What used to be Edges). And of course it's possible to exceed these maximums through cyberware, bioware, magic, and the like.

Intelligence has been divided into 2 attributes, Intuition and Logic. This was done primarily because in the past, Perception has always been based on your Intelligence, which just didn't make sense. You can be incredibly smart, but oblivious to your surrounding, and conversely you can be very aware and perceptive, but just not that bright.

Quickness was broken up into two new attributes as well, Agility and Reaction. Agility is your hand-eye coordination, while reaction is your speed.

Initiative is now a derived attribute, Reaction + Intuition, similar to what eaction was in older editions.

Characters no longer have a random number of initiative passes, or actions, per turn. Instead they have a fixed number based on any cyber, gear, or active magic. Normal unmodified metahumans have a single initiative pass, while things like wire reflexes will give an extra initaitive pass or three. So someone with wired reflexes 2 will get 2 additional passes, and will have three actions every turn.

Two new attributes have been added: Edge and Resonance.

Side Step a moment... ***I take a tangent to talk about the Crash 2.0 and the upgraded Matrix and a bit about Augmented Reality, hackers, and the new wireless world and how every connects to it*** So something happens with the Crash that effectivly "unlocks" Otaku. They are now a little more common, and are no longer the one in a million, urban legand that they once were, they can now grow up and become "real boys," so they no longer lose their powers as they age. They're now called Technomancers, and they have an attribute called Resonance, which is similar to the Magic Rating for a mage or an adept.

Technomancers are neat in that they can hack without the use of hardware, if they need to. their brain is configured to detect Augmented Reality and to connect to other systems wirelessly. They would still use a commlink to store data and the link, but they don't need it for programs or anything.

Technomancers have the ability to create Sprites, which are basically temporary Matrix constructs that can perform services for them. they're similar to the spirits Shaman's could summon in that they would last for X services or X amount of time before decomiling back into loose code. They use their Forms like a mage would spells, and suffer temporary Fading when using forms, the way a mage suffers drain from spells.

The other new attribute is Edge, and Edge effectively replaces Karma Pool, though it's a good deal more flexible than Karma Pool was. There was some confusion in earlier demo's, so I should explain that you have both an Edge Attribute and an Edge Pool. While your Edge Pool decreases as you spend Edge, your attribute doesn't change, so even if you've spent three Edge points this game session, your Edge Attribute is still 4. There are a bunch of things you can do with Edge.

You can spend a point of Edge before you roll to add your Edge attribute to the dice pool for the test, If you do, all your dice for the test are Open Ended.

You can spend an Edge after you've rolled to roll just your edge dice and add any hits you get to this test. Only these Edge dice are open ended, so any original sixes you rolled do not get rerolled. This is useful if you were one hit short of success, or if you find out after the fact you didn't quite have enough dice to succeed at a test.

You can spend a point to reroll all your failures, like you could spend karma pool for under 3rd ed.

If your dice pool is reduced to zero or more due to modifiers, you may make a long shot test, which allows you to roll just your Edge dice. These dice are open ended.

You may spend a point of Edge to automatically go first in an initiative round. If more than one character spends Edge to go first, you then compare initative scores.

You may spend a point of Edge to buy an additional initiative pass for the current combat turn.

You may negate the effects of a glitch with a point of Edge.

Edge can be extremely powerful, and it now makes it possible for a non-cybered, non-magical character to compete with his cyber and magic buddies, if he maxes out his edge attribute.

Edge refreshes like karma pool did, between game sessions or at the end of each adventure. There are also some suggestions for ways to earn Edge pool points during play, through things like dazzling the GM with a brilliant move or terrific roleplay, or achieving a major storyline goal. It's GM fiat on these, so again, bribe your GM with fabulous prizes. (I usually got smiles with the GM bribe jokes, which was fun).

Magic no longer starts at 6. Instead, it's bought up just like any other attribute. You buy a Positive Quality to become a mage or an adept or whatever, and then purchase it up like you would the rest of your attributes. Resonance works the same way.

Because the game is more lower powered, bringing mages magic ratings down was one way to keep them in line with the rest of the characters. However, they still have options at their disposal to be pretty nasty in play, which I'll cover in a bit. Plus, there have been a couple fiction stories and novels that used the idea of a character "awakening" or discovering that he's magically active after his running career has already started. Because before you automatically got a full load of magic rating adn spell points when you made a mage, you couldn't really emulate this

Now you can simply buy the Magician Quality without buying up the magic attribute or purchasing any spells. Your character has that "spark of magic", but doesn't know he has it. , and can later through game play and roleplay "discover" his magical talent and start nurturing it through karma expenditure and the like.

Bioware and Cyberware both cost essence now, but the lesser of the two counts for half. So if you have 4 points of Bioware, and 2 points of Cyber, it costs you 5 essence total.

Exclusive actions no longer exist.

There are now Skill Groups. There have been a bunch of new skills added to the overall skill list, and many of the more widley used skills were lumped up into Skill groups. Not every skill, hoever, falls into a skill group. Starting active skills are limited to a single 6 *or* two skills at 5, and everything else 4 or less. Skill groups cannot be rasied above 4 at chargen. You cannot buy an individual skill within a skill group up past the Group attribute at chargen, and you can't specialize any skill within the Skill group.

Later on with karma you can break up a skill group and raise an individual skill up. Hoever, once you do you can no longer increase them through karma as a single Skill Group. You have to raise all the lower skills in the group up to the level of the highest individual skill before you can Group them up again.

The condition monitor is no longer fixed at 10 boxes of damage. It is now 8 + 1/2 your Body or Willpower, for Physical and Stun damage tracks, rounded up. Wound levels, such as Light, Moderate, and Serious, are gone. instead every three boxes of damage gives you a -1 modifier. that's every three full boxes, so the first 2 boxes of damage don't effect you.

All types of combat are now opposed tests.

For melee, the attacker rolls his weapon or unarmed combat skill, plus the appropriate attribute. For defense, you have three options. If you have a weapon and the weapon skill, you can try to parry. If you have unarmed combat, you can try to block, though there may be instances where the GM doesn't allow this. When a troll swings a mono sword at you, blocking with your forearm seems like a bad idea. And finally you can try to dodge the attack. And yes, this means Dodge is now an active skill.

For bullets, it's a little nastier becuase it's hard to didge bullets, espeically if you aren't paying full attention to them. So you don't normally get your dodge against ranged combat, though you always get your Reaction dice to resist with, On your turn you can choose to dodge, which allows you to roll Dodge + Reaction for the rest of the turn. A character can also declare a dodge when it's not his turn, though this uses up his next action.

With wound levels gone, weapons no longer have a damage level associated with them. An example weapon is the Ares Predator 4, which has a stat line of 5P(-1). What this means is that the weapon has a base Damage Value of 5, the letter is either a P or s, for physical or stun, and the number in parenthasis is an armor penetration modifier. The Damage Value of a weapon is the base number of boxes of damage it will do before modifiers.

So an example combat would run like this. I have an Ares Predator 4, you have an armor jacket with an armor rating of 8/6. I go to shoot you, and I have 4 pistols, and 4 agility, so I get 8 dice. You defend with just your reaction because you weren't dodge, and roll 3 dice. I get 2 hits you get one, so my shot hits you with one net hit. I add my net hits to my Danage Value to give me a modified Damage Value of 6. My armor penetration of -1 applies to your armor, giving you 7 armor. And this is probably my favorite rules change of 4th ed...

Because my modified DV doesn't beat your modified Armor, the bullet doesn't penetrate and do physical damage. Instead the bullets impacts off the armor and causes bruising damage, possibly a fracted ribs. You still have to resist the full amount of damage, and wound modifiers are just as useful regardless of whether they're phsyical or stun. And an unconscious mook is just as out of the fight as a dead one, so this doesn't make combat less effective.

So anyways, I shoot you for 6 DV. You then get to resist damage using your body plus your modified armor. So say 4 Body + 7 Armor. You get 4 hits, so you reduce the damage down to 2 boxes.

Damage spells work much the same way. Plus you can Overcast magic. Basically, spells don't have a set force anymore when you learn them, instead you simply learn the spell, and when you cast it, you can choose the force up to double your magic rating. Anything over your magic though will be physical drain rather than stun.

There was one big change to magic, and it's that the lines between the traditions has blurred a bit. At some point in the last 5 years, either due to new techniques or a rising mana level, the two core traditions have learned a few of each others tricks. the net effect of this is that both Hermetics and Shamans can now summon Bound Spirits (What the mage used to summon) and Unbound Spirits (what Shamans summoned). You can still only have one unbound spirit at a time, and bound spirits are limited to I think your Charisma.

However, magicians with Bound Spirits do have a limitation on them. It takes a bit of mental control on the part of the magician for each bound spirit he's controlling to keep them in line. So for each Bound Spirit that he has active (called up and actually being used, not just on reserve),. he suffers a -2 penalty to all tests.

That was about the gist of it, but I'm not exceedingly tired and still slightly buzzed, so while I may have missed a few points, I'm going to bed. If this is informative or helpful, cool, if not, whatever.

Bull

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonOh come on.  Shadowrun's one of those games where reading the sourcebooks is actually better than playing the game, so it'll be no great loss

Most versions of Traveller fall into that category I believe.

Edit: After reading above... Hmm the new Matrix and Technomancers sounds a awful lot like CyberGenerations Virtual Reality and Wizards. If you are going to steal ideas it might as well be a good one.

Personal Anecdote:

I was a fan of SR1 back in the day (when it first came out) my interest in SR waned by the time 2E hit and I hadn't bothered with 2 or 3.

In the last year via trading games I managed to aquire 2E and 3E and read them both.

2E was what I remembered from 1E made better. To me 3E was a horrible horrible mess of complexity and add ons and things that didn't connect together.

I heard some things about 4E and was cautious but got to read 4E. I found that while more complex than 2E in some ways, it is a complexity that is at least more coherant/focused.

Some of the changes are good for example I can now make a non cyberwared (other than comlink) non supernatural, character who WORKS and works well via skill alone. (something that previous editions in my limited experience had trouble with.)

Plus I can make some pretty cool cybered up/magic upped people--the build point system is a dissapointment in some ways, it IS slower than old priority system, but also, adds more flexibility in building ones PC's.

Although I discovered much to my delight, that the munchkin in me was able to make Oni again. (Troll Physical Adept, focused on a bow, with bow built for his strength...) Sure he's hyper focused, but shooting arrows through tanks is fun!

Not that I'll get to play Oni. (Or my non munchkin shaman, or drone-rigger assassin..) *sighs*

Anyway, my preference is 4E simply because in spite of complexity compared (relatively) to 1/2E. I find it provides better options for that slight difference.

Quote from: BagpussSo what you are saying is if you want to waste all your previous investment in Shadowrun stick with 3rd Ed, no matter how good/bad 4th Ed is. Hmm no wonder there is an edition war going on.

If you look over at my user name, you'll see that I'm a bit of a Shadowrun fan.  HOWEVER, the rules have always SUCKED ASS.  Period, end of story, anyone who says otherwise is either a moron or a big fan of Rolemaster.

I'm actually considering picking up 4e *only* because it's not backward compatible.  All the years I played Shadowrun, I never learned how to do rigging.  After the regular rules, and the decking rules, and then the revised decking rules, and the revised again decking rules, and the magic rules...  fuck if I was going to learn another retarded set of rules!

Death to the old editions.  May the rules rot in HELL.