From: [f--h--e] at [kpc.com] Reply-To: [f--h--e] at [kpc.com] Errors-To: [flashlife request] at [kpc.com] Subject: Flashlife V3 #6 To: [f--h--e] at [kpc.com] From: Carl Rigney (moderator) <[flashlife request] at [kpc.com]> Flashlife Sat, 30 May, 1992 Volume 3 : Issue 6 Today's topics: Re: Weapon Staging and Healing Effects (quasar) Rigger book -- semi-review (quasar) Decker build times (Sean Mccauliff) Questions re riggers (Vaughn Ravenscroft) Hit Location (John Martin) [ Two Issues in the same month! :-) --CDR] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 May 92 16:32:02 EDT From: [q--as--r] at [ctt.bellcore.com] Subject: Re: Weapon Staging and Healing Effects Weapon Damage Staging: Well, yes, the shadowrun combat system does have problems. At least the new rules for automatic fire in the rigger book make the game go faster -- also, called shots (to avoid that nasty armor) is a good rule, which I had implemented myself before they came up with the thing in the new book. I like CDR's idea about staging. I also think a critical hit system might be a good idea. Let's say hitting with 10 above the needed target is a critical hit, with additional critical hits making it worse. Perhaps a nice critical hit table (a la the fun tables in ICE's Rolemaster series) would be good. Healing: Of course magical healing, like in most roleplaying games, is rather unlikely. But then lots of things in shadowrun are implausible. The fact that "turn-to-goo" is a sustained spell is silly just to begin with.... Anyhow, when my players have sustained a lot of damage a little at a time (as often happens with the amount of armor they lug around), I let healing work as described, since they have sustained no specific massive damage except general body trauma -- massive bruises, etc. Even so, they'll feel like shit the next day. However, if someone sustains large-scale damage -- broken limbs, a S or a D class wound from any source, I let healing work as usual to remove their physical damage slots, but they will still be functionally messed up until they've had time to recuperate. If nothing else, when your body is filled with APDS slugs, it just doesn't work as well.... I have no objection to healing working perfectly against, say, mana-based attack spells. -Laurence Brothers [q--as--r] at [bellcore.com] -------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 May 92 16:49:32 EDT From: [q--as--r] at [ctt.bellcore.com] Subject: Rigger book -- semi-review The rigger black book is fairly good, particularly with all the new vehicles, customization rules, etc. The new optional combat rules are also an improvement. There's also some new heavy weapons for troll street samurai to dream about being able to carry themselves (realistically, only Shiro could manage a drum-fed autocannon -- never before has so much firepower been given into the paws of a kitten so young). There's some funny things about the book, though: 1) CF's don't make any sense. They admit it in the rules that cargo factors don't directly relate to actual volume or weight-carrying capacity, but the cf numbers for the different kinds of vehicles in the book seem to me to be completely arbitrary and senseless. 2) Fuel capacity and operating ranges are silly. There's this ATV hovercraft thingy, I think called a Red Ranger or something like that, which is apparently about the size of a small car. It carries more fuel than the actual volume of the vehicle. There's other examples not quite as bad. Also, it moves ridiculously fast considering.... 3) It's too easy to add body points to a vehicle. Consider the Bison, one of the nicer cargo/combat vehicles around. It comes with 5/2 body/armor. The rules allow you to double the body of a vehicle at only 1% performance degradation per point. This is ridiculous, especially considering the serious penalty armor gets. I could design a loaded Bison for around 500,000NY that would give stock panzers serious trouble. So anyhow, it seems that they didn't give enough thought to balance in the vehicle selection. Also, the vehicle styling is very strange. Everything looks like one of those fiberglass body kits they used to sell to put on top of VW beetles. Very baroque, useless spoilers, weird anti-ergonomic styling, etc. Oh well, I guess you can ignore the bad art. Overall the book is still very worthwhile. -Laurence -------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 May 92 10:55:39 edt From: Sean Mccauliff <[s m ccauli] at [libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu]> Subject: Decker build times One of the main things that I do not like about decking is that for the decker it takes too long to make the deck that you want to build, where the other party member have a much faster improvement of the things that they specialize at doing. If you're a mage you can just spend some karma a few weeks and poof! you have a new spell. If you're a street samurai you can alwalys get more cyberware or pick up a heavy machine gun and increase your kill ratio. What I propose to decrease the time to write such things as MPCPs is to have program libaries. These libaries could have a rating just like hermetic libaries. They could add to the computer skill for programming. You could subdivide the libaries so the decker would have different libaries for different kinds of programs. There could be a Combat libary, a MPCP libary, a hardening libary, etc. Also it makes for good "treasure" for deckers instead of the usual cash or valuable info. -- Sean McCauliff [s m ccauli] at [libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu] -------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 May 92 11:16:51 SAST From: [vaug h n] at [frcs.alt.za] (Vaughn Ravenscroft) Subject: Questions re riggers A few questions for those other Shadowrun GMs out there: 1) What is the situation regarding sensors and targeting. Is it possible to use sensors from a vehicle to target beings and the like as opposed to just vehicles with a signature. 2) Who has access to the vehicles sensors - just the rigger or a passenger who is firing a vehicle mounted weapon? 3) Is it possible to get a smartgun link on weapons larger than an LMG? I am busy working (somewhat erratically) on a Southern African 2050 setting which assumes that the negotiation process ended in a counrty which returned to a tribal situation with the right wing white South Africans becoming a small self governing, walled, state who have links to Humanis and other such organisations. If anyone is interested I can send them a rough outline of work done on it thus far. Its far from perfect or complete but I intend to put some more work in on it between work and my studies. Regards Vaughn [vaug h n] at [frcs.alt.za] -------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 May 92 10:43:38 PDT From: [j--n] at [gibbons.com] (John Martin) Subject: Hit Location [ I disagree with adding hit location to Shadowrun but other members of the list may find this of interest. --CDR] With all the different posts about how people run their shadowrun combat systems. I thought I would send in a description of the way I run the shadowrun Combat system.. And see if you like/hate it :) In an attempt to make shadowrun combat a bit more realistic we have come up with the following system: please send any comments to me at [j--n] at [gibbons.com.] In the games I run, the players are always striving to come up with the most "realistic" combat system they can. This has led us to the following combat system. We have hashed out a "hit location" type of system with separate damage charts per location. Hit Locations: Instead of the 10 box status system for shadowrun the group I play with has developed a 10 box system for EACH body part. Body Parts: Head, Chest, Abdomen, R. Leg, L. Leg, R. Arm, L.Arm Keep a separate tally for each location. We have also developed a "degree" system. We feel that Head wounds are much more serious then wounds to the arm's or legs. Thus we have a "wound multiplier" system. Head: x2 Chest: x1 Abdomen: x1 Legs: x.5 Arms: x.5 This means that if you take a "light" wound to the head. then the number of boxes you would x out total:2. If you took a serious wound to your right leg, then you would x out 3 boxes. Notice wounds to the Chest and abdomen are on a 1:1 ratio. Note: You keep the shadowrun characters original "10-box hit list" You use this list to keep a "total" of all your wounds. So if you have: head: light wound (2 boxes) AND r. leg: serious wound (3 boxes) Your TOTAL wounds would be: 5 (just under a serious wound). Keep track of fractions also...on all lists.... Armor: Since the "hit location" method of combat is used... it seems logical that Armor would only cover certain areas of the body. In the original shadowrun rules..wearing an Armored jacket gives you 5/3 over your entire body....not so with our rules. here are the areas covered by armor: Jacket: Arms, Chest, Abdomen Lined Coat: Arms, Chest, Abdomen, Legs (everything but your head) Vest: Chest, abdomen Form Fitting lvl 1: Chest Ambdomen Form Fitting lvl 2: Chest, Abdomen, arms form fitting lvl 3: Everywhere but head. It is pretty straight forward....... Thus you can "layer armor" For example...You could wear an Armored Jacket underneath your Long Coat. This would give you armor for the following areas: Head: 0 Chest: 5/3 (from Jacket) Abdomen: 5/3 (from Jacket) Arms: 5/3 (from jacket) Legs: 4/2 (From long coat) I.e you take the GREATEST armor value. Example 2: Real leather under Armored clothes: head: 0 Chest/Abdomen: 3/2 (3 bal for clothes, 2 for real leathers) arms: 3/2 legs: 3/2 Hit locations are determined with a D20. (I know shadowrun doesnt use them being an all D6 system.... but we are rebels...what can we say? :) ) Melee Chart: Projectile Chart: Head 19,20 Head 20 Chest 16-18 Chest 13-19 Abdomen 13-15 Abdomen 9-12 R.Leg 10-12 R.Leg 7-8 L.Leg 7-9 L.Leg 5-6 L.Arm 4-6 L.Arm 3-4 R.Arm 1-3 R.Arm 1-2 Notice how the chest range for melee is alot more narrow then that of projectile combat. WE think that in melee combat, more wounds will be delt to the arms and legs then to the chest region. Also in melee combat, the head would be a much easier target (boxing, martial arts etc) For projectile combat (guns, bows, thrown weapons) we felt that the chest, being the largest part of the body, would be the most often hit. Thus, the extended range. WE have also come up with a "point alotment" system for initiative. With this system you can use actions, where each action has a different point value. Thus if you just wanted to take an action to drop prone. that would take up say 5 points, this allows a bit more action in shadowrun combat, and a bit more variance. If you people want me to hash up a table of point values, ask and I will see what I can come up with. -- John Martin [j--n] at [gibbons.com] -------------------------- End of Flashlife **************************