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<blockquote data-quote="Abstruse" data-source="post: 8859414" data-attributes="member: 6669048"><p>And to explain the rules bits...</p><p></p><p>Target numbers frequently go about 6 because the system has exploding dice. Any die that comes up 6 on a roll, you re-roll and add the new result to it. And keep going. For example, say I'm rolling to shoot something. The target number to hit is 8. I have a Firearms skill of 6 and decide to use 4 dice from my combat pool so I'm rolling a total of 10 dice. I get 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6. Because I got three 6s, I take those dice and re-roll them and get a 1, 4, 6 (making those dice 7, 10, and 12). Because I rolled another 6, I reroll that and get a 5. That means my entire dice roll was 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10, 17. Therefore I got two successes.</p><p></p><p>For the damage codes, the first number is the Power (that's the target number to defend against the attack), the letter is the Damage Code (that's how much damage the weapon does by default), and the third number (only used in 1st Edition) is the Staging Number (how many successes it takes to stage the damage up or down a level). </p><p></p><p>Every character has a condition monitor that functions basically like HP. Damage comes in two types: Stun and Physical, which are tracked separately. You have 10 HP in Stun and 10 HP in Physical. Damage codes are (L)ight (1 damage), (M)oderate (3 damage), (S)erious (6 damage), and (D)eadly (10 damage). So if you take a Moderate wound, you take 3 damage. If you take another Light wound, you take 1 damage for a total of 4. When you hit 10, you're not dead but that's when the "make death saves" style mechanic kicks in. But you are unconscious and out of the fight for the moment.</p><p></p><p>Now, the Staging Number is what tripped up a lot of players and why they got rid of it in 2nd and 3rd Edition. When you make an attack in Shadowrun, the attacker and defender make rolls to see if the attack hits. You compare successes on the Attack Roll vs Dodge Roll and if the attacker gets more successes, the attack hits. If the defender gets more successes, the attack misses. The defender then gets to resist the damage if they're hit. You compare the Net Successes (however many more successes one side got - If the Attacker got 6 successes and the Defender got 2, the Attacker has 4 Net Successes) and that's used to Stage the damage.</p><p></p><p>In Shadowrun 2nd Edition, damage stages up or down one level for every 2 net successes. If the gun has a base damage code of M and the attacker has 4 net successes, that means the damage then goes up to D (2 successes to go from Moderate to Serious, then two more to go from Serious to Deadly). It also works the other way around on the damage resist test, so if the defender has 4 net successes the damage stages down from M to L to no damage at all).</p><p></p><p>In Shadowrun 1st Edition, <em>every weapon had a different staging number</em>. So the Streetline Special, a cheap sometimes even homemade gun, has a damage code of 3L1. Meaning that <em>each net success </em>stages the damage up or down. So those 4 net successes for the attacker would mean the damage went from L to M to S to D. Meanwhile, a more standard gun like the Ares Predator has a damage code of 4M2, so it stages up or down every 2 successes. But let's say you're using a sniper rifle with a damage code of 5S3. That means the default damage starts at S but it takes <em>three successes </em>to stage the damage. What this means is better weapons tend to be more consistent in how much damage they do while cheaper weapons tend to be far swingier. Because defenders get two rolls (one to avoid the attack altogether and one to resist the damage), this means the swinginess works in the defender's favor.</p><p></p><p>That said, I still prefer the 2nd Ed version of the mechanics because...well...this system is crunchy enough as it is without adding even more stuff to keep track of to the list. Especially since damage codes can be modified by ammo type or weapon accessories or sometimes even cyberware so it quickly becomes a <em>lot </em>to keep track of. Especially in the days before online character sheets that did the damage calculations for you.</p><p></p><p>And if all that sounded like overly-complicated gibberish to you, congratulations! Now you know why I've had such a difficult time selling people on Shadowrun for years because even as the system has become more streamlined and easy to understand with unified mechanics for different character types, all this nuanced stratigic crap (which I personally like but also started RPGs with this system) has given the system a reputation for being overly complicated to the point of being almost unplayable. The only reason I know how all this stuff works even 30 years later is that Shadowrun was my first RPG and I spent a lot of time playing it as a kid. I don't find it complicated at all, but it's like learning English as a first language - yeah, it's easy for me because I grew up with it but for someone else, it's a complete nightmare of disjointed rules that's easy to mess up.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Abstruse, post: 8859414, member: 6669048"] And to explain the rules bits... Target numbers frequently go about 6 because the system has exploding dice. Any die that comes up 6 on a roll, you re-roll and add the new result to it. And keep going. For example, say I'm rolling to shoot something. The target number to hit is 8. I have a Firearms skill of 6 and decide to use 4 dice from my combat pool so I'm rolling a total of 10 dice. I get 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6. Because I got three 6s, I take those dice and re-roll them and get a 1, 4, 6 (making those dice 7, 10, and 12). Because I rolled another 6, I reroll that and get a 5. That means my entire dice roll was 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10, 17. Therefore I got two successes. For the damage codes, the first number is the Power (that's the target number to defend against the attack), the letter is the Damage Code (that's how much damage the weapon does by default), and the third number (only used in 1st Edition) is the Staging Number (how many successes it takes to stage the damage up or down a level). Every character has a condition monitor that functions basically like HP. Damage comes in two types: Stun and Physical, which are tracked separately. You have 10 HP in Stun and 10 HP in Physical. Damage codes are (L)ight (1 damage), (M)oderate (3 damage), (S)erious (6 damage), and (D)eadly (10 damage). So if you take a Moderate wound, you take 3 damage. If you take another Light wound, you take 1 damage for a total of 4. When you hit 10, you're not dead but that's when the "make death saves" style mechanic kicks in. But you are unconscious and out of the fight for the moment. Now, the Staging Number is what tripped up a lot of players and why they got rid of it in 2nd and 3rd Edition. When you make an attack in Shadowrun, the attacker and defender make rolls to see if the attack hits. You compare successes on the Attack Roll vs Dodge Roll and if the attacker gets more successes, the attack hits. If the defender gets more successes, the attack misses. The defender then gets to resist the damage if they're hit. You compare the Net Successes (however many more successes one side got - If the Attacker got 6 successes and the Defender got 2, the Attacker has 4 Net Successes) and that's used to Stage the damage. In Shadowrun 2nd Edition, damage stages up or down one level for every 2 net successes. If the gun has a base damage code of M and the attacker has 4 net successes, that means the damage then goes up to D (2 successes to go from Moderate to Serious, then two more to go from Serious to Deadly). It also works the other way around on the damage resist test, so if the defender has 4 net successes the damage stages down from M to L to no damage at all). In Shadowrun 1st Edition, [I]every weapon had a different staging number[/I]. So the Streetline Special, a cheap sometimes even homemade gun, has a damage code of 3L1. Meaning that [I]each net success [/I]stages the damage up or down. So those 4 net successes for the attacker would mean the damage went from L to M to S to D. Meanwhile, a more standard gun like the Ares Predator has a damage code of 4M2, so it stages up or down every 2 successes. But let's say you're using a sniper rifle with a damage code of 5S3. That means the default damage starts at S but it takes [I]three successes [/I]to stage the damage. What this means is better weapons tend to be more consistent in how much damage they do while cheaper weapons tend to be far swingier. Because defenders get two rolls (one to avoid the attack altogether and one to resist the damage), this means the swinginess works in the defender's favor. That said, I still prefer the 2nd Ed version of the mechanics because...well...this system is crunchy enough as it is without adding even more stuff to keep track of to the list. Especially since damage codes can be modified by ammo type or weapon accessories or sometimes even cyberware so it quickly becomes a [I]lot [/I]to keep track of. Especially in the days before online character sheets that did the damage calculations for you. And if all that sounded like overly-complicated gibberish to you, congratulations! Now you know why I've had such a difficult time selling people on Shadowrun for years because even as the system has become more streamlined and easy to understand with unified mechanics for different character types, all this nuanced stratigic crap (which I personally like but also started RPGs with this system) has given the system a reputation for being overly complicated to the point of being almost unplayable. The only reason I know how all this stuff works even 30 years later is that Shadowrun was my first RPG and I spent a lot of time playing it as a kid. I don't find it complicated at all, but it's like learning English as a first language - yeah, it's easy for me because I grew up with it but for someone else, it's a complete nightmare of disjointed rules that's easy to mess up. [/QUOTE]
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