Newbie: Just bought 5e, need translation help

[fireinthedust]

While I know other games well, this is my first foray into Shadowrun since I saw the first edition in grade six. I've always liked the Street Samurai picture, and some of the concepts; admittedly, I'd want to rig my own setting for my own games, but I do that with everything. It's interesting reading something that was generated as D&D with tech, way before 3e was even an idea (heck, before skills n powers in 2e), and how it's evolved over 20 years.

Anyhoo, I'm trying to wrap my head around the 5e rules. It's a bit complicated, making characters, and some details I'm trying to map where the answers would be. I get the feeling the game is designed with gamers in mind more than new gamers, but that could just be because I'm only now sifting through the book. Having 60 pages of fluff before the char gen rules may be adding to this (mis?) perception on my first read-through.

My newb players would likely just want pre-gens or need hand-holding the first time through. I'm not so sure about the concept of multiple Initiatives in a round, or how it plays as I'm just reading... but:

Would I be right in thinking that all the numbers are each a pool of dice? At that point, it seems playing would be really easy: look at what you want to do, then roll that pool of dice.

Would one add Skill group dice to individual skill dice? So if I have Athletics 2, would I add my dice for Jumping3 to make a pool of 5 dice?

Is combat slow? Or does it play fairly fast? I'm thinking in terms of how fast round the table it goes.

The art is fantastic.

 

[fireinthedust]

So... No shadowrun fans?

 

[CAFRedblade]

Well, posting this around New Years celebrations might allow it to quickly get lost in the shuffle, as people are out elsewhere.

For making characters in 5th ed. you follow the Priority system.
From the table available, you assign the one time use of A, B, C, D, & E to one
of the five categories, race, attributes, skills, template, money (may not be directly in that order, as I don't have the book in front of me).

Then follow the guidelines for each category.. Race and Attributes are tied together, then you'll want to pick both your Advantages/Disadvantages, and consider/pick your skills, while considering which Template (kinda like a class, but not as defined) you chose... then the final stage is equipment using the money category you picked. Differing Templates have different subsets of things to manage, the mages, technomancers, adepts, mystic-adepts, Street Samurai. Then there are cybernetics, and bioware to consider.. It's best to maybe try one class and go through the stages there.. also, there is a few minor corrections to the mechanics located http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=12106.0

But that doesn't fix a bunch of word misprints/errors that can lead to confusion.. I'm still waiting on them to release an FAQ, or correction notes... but the've been rather slow on any kind of updates like this.

For your dice pool, you add your attribute, and skill value together, but there are caps on how many successes you can attain. Either based on innate levels, or based on gear.
So your AGI may be 4 dice, your guns may be 8 dice, for a total of 12 dice in the pool, but if the gun in question has a cap of 6, then that is the most successes you can achieve I believe.
Keep in mind I've perused the book, but haven't deeply read or played in it yet, as I'm still playing 4th ed Shadowrun.

For skills you can buy the full skill groups at character creation, or individual skills, but when post creation when you go to level the skill group, things are a little trickier to handle I think, compared to individual skills.

 

[fireinthedust]

Thanks!


I think there's an issue with a system that has built-in exclusion for actions by characters who are faster. While realistic, I can see slow-thinking players driving everyone else nuts around the table.