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Stormcrow
2007-01-29, 08:46 PM
I've played Shadowrun in a friends group for years but he moved to europe and im looking to get the books so i can run some Shadowrun myself. The question im asking is how steep a learning curve is there between Shadowrun 3 and Shadowrun 4 and is Shadowrun 4 worth getting?

Shisumo
2007-01-29, 09:03 PM
The SR4 rules are fairly divergent from the SR3 rules in many respects - how much trouble you have with them is likely going to be a question of how many White Wolf games you've played (particularly nWoD).

That said, the rules are a hefty improvement, including the best iteration of decking/hacking by a massive margin. I highly recommend it. Even if the new setting isn't to your taste (which it is not to mine), the rules make the purchase worthwhile. It takes all of about three seconds to adapt to the pre-Crash setting, and the return on investment (in terms of ease of gameplay) will more than make up for the time...

Swordguy
2007-01-29, 09:08 PM
The decking rules are phenomenal, and many blatant combat exploits have been cleaned up. I just can't stand it because it's a point buy creation system, and it's not really backwards compatible with the legions of SR1,2,and 3 sourcebooks I already have.

If it's not a priority creation system, it's not SR.

TheOOB
2007-01-29, 09:18 PM
Truth be told I've played very little Shadowrun 3, but heres my take on Shadowrun 4.

In many aspects Shadowrun 4 is much simpler and easier to pick up then previous edditions. Gone are the dice pools and target numbers of yore, which are replaced with a generic target number of 5(a 5 or 6 is a hit, and generally you need to either get a certain number of hits, a "threshold" or get more hits then the person who your opposing.), and a new way of determining total number of dice rolled(For most rolls you use attribute+skill number of dice, except during hacking when you usually use skill+program rating).

Character creation is more complex then before, using a BP(build point) system rather then priorities. On the one hand you have greater control over your character, on the other character creation can take a long time, and you usually only have enough BP to be really good at one or two things.

Gameplay has been for the most part simplfied, in the core rule book, the rules for the real world, astral plane, and the matrix are all very similar and use almost identical combat rules(though naturally the meat combat rules are a bit more in depth as most combat is in the flesh). It is no longer really hard to learn how to play a magician, hacker, or rigger, as the rules are not all the different from playing a street samurai or face. With the just core rulebook the rules for magic and matrix(including rigging) are a little sparse considering how much space they had avaible, but street magic released in '06 added loads of depth to magic in the game, both from a flavor and functionality standpoint (for instance material links, metaplanes, and free spirits among other things which are not present in the core rule book are presented in full force in street magic). Wireless, coming out late 07 early 08 will likely do the same for hackers/riggers/technomancers(think otaku) that street magic does for adepts/magicians.

Setting wise the most prominate change to the game world is Augmented Reality(AR). AR allows you to gain much of the benefit of the new wireless matrix without having to take leave of your real world senses and go into full VR. With AR you can get tactical overlays of your building, commicate non-verbally with teamates, tell your house to warm you up a cup of coffee, and make the chip head over there look like a simstar all at the same time, and all while still while fully functioning in the real world. Of course most serious hacking still takes place in full VR, and the new wireless matrix means your hacker can hack into that Ares Knight Errant strike teams wireless commications just by being near them.

One thing of note, Shadowrun 4e is really incompadible with Shadowrun 3e, it takes a lot of work to convert your character over (for example, in 4e most skills cap at 6 points, and for humans most attributes cap at 6 as well), the rules are different, the cyber is different, and the magic is different. I personally think Shadowrun 4e is a great system, much better then it's predicessors, though it's lacking in a few areas that should be addressed in Unwired and the Runners Companion.

Stormcrow
2007-01-29, 11:05 PM
Well...

Thats me sold. Im ordering Shadowrun 4 next pay.

TheOOB
2007-01-29, 11:23 PM
If it's not a priority creation system, it's not SR.

I'm not sure I agree, I like certain aspects of the priority system, namely how fast it is, and that you can splurge in some areas without it directly affectingyour ability in other areas (for example a mage can put ranks in pilot ground craft in a priority system without it affecting your attributes.)

However, the way the 4e system is set up doesn't allow for a good priority system. For one thing not every aspect of your character is equal now, attributes are of paramount importance (it is virtually always better to raise an attribute then to raise a skill group), while nuyen isn't as important (the highest amount of nuyen you can start with is 250,000, which is 50 BP, only 1/8 of your total BP). The system also heavily relies on qualities, which arn't supported well by a priority system (especially the magical ones, the 15 BP you pay for the magician quality isn't the real cost, it's the 150+BP you spend on increasing your magic attribute, magical skills, buying spells, binding spirits, bounding foci, ect.)

There are a few ways to fix some of the problums with the BP system. For example, I double the number of free knowledge skill points you gain, making more rounded characters with more diverse backrounds, I also grant bonus BP for gaining contacts equal to Charismax4, representing that a charismatic person simple has more friends then other people. I've also played around with the idea of giving 20-28 bonus BP that can only be used to buy active skills up to rank 2 that are non-essential to your build type (for example a mage could use them for pilot skills, computer skills, ect).