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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmu1" data-source="post: 3592949" data-attributes="member: 319">I've been playing SR3 for a few years now (never played SR2) and SR4 doesn't do it for me. It's not an awful system, by any means - but it does away with a number of things I really like about SR3, and introduces a slew of poor design choices / things needing an errata or clarification. (I'm writing without access to the book, and it's been a while since I tried it and decided it wasn't for me, so I could be wrong on some of this - don't think I am, but...)Here are the things I'm not especially crazy about:1. The TN is always 5+ and penalties/bonuses subtract/add to the number of dice, not the TN. This changes the resolution mechanics drastically - in SR3, high enough TN mods would make certain tasks damn near impossible for both the starting runner and a veteran with 200 karma.Under the SR4 model, a high-powered character (or in some cases, a specialized starting runner) can have so many dice even huge penalties like for shooting in complete darkness without any vision-enhancing cyber can be overcome.2. The combat model has changed drastically. In SR3, getting shot/stabbed was more binary - you could usually avoid getting hit and hurt at all, if you worked at it, but if you did get hit, there'd be a good chance of a wound that'd be disabling. In SR4, you're a lot more likely to take damage, but it'll be less serious, generally speaking.The damage track is also different - you don't take L, M or S wounds, you take boxes of damage. How many boxes you can take depends on your Body and Willpower, for Physical and Stun tracks, respectively. Every N boxes of damage gives you a -1 die penalty, IIRC. This can lead to some screwy results - a really tough troll that's almost dead has a bigger penalty to all his actions than a really scrawny human that's almost dead, because the troll's damage track is longer. Or, to look at it in another way, a human that's almost dead might have the same wound penalty as a troll that's pretty banged up, but still ok.The use of Willpower for calculating the size of the Stun track can also lead to weird situations  - magicians can now take more hits with gel rounds than street sams...3. No Combat Pool. No Karma pool. (no control pool, no hacking pool either, for that matter)The two have been (sort of) rolled together into a new attribute called Edge, which allows for re-rolls and lets you make your rolls "explode" - you can use it a number of times equal to the attribute.4. Technomancers - magicians that can hack/deck without the need for cyber or electronics - are now a common staple of the setting. As someone who likes the fact that in SR3 cyber and magic both can do some things really well but others not at all, and complement each other, I really dislike this development.5. Everything is hack-able, because everything is now wireless, even things that don't make sense. (for security or common sense reasons) It does make it a lot easier for Deckers/Hackers to get in the thick of the action, but it feels (IMO) rather contrived and not well fleshed out.6. Lots of arbitrary restrictions on attribute and skill levels during character creation, meant - I think - to curb the abuse of the system. (which lends itself highly to min-maxing otherwise) Equivalent to  - for example - SR3 telling you not just that you can't get any skills at a level of more than 6, but that you can only get one skill at six, at chargen. Despite that, maximum skill and attribute caps are set extremely low by the system, which means that if you do specialize your character, you'll hit a limit in your specialty very soon out of chargen, and have nowhere to go in that area.7. By default, using the rules as written, you only need 1 success to accomplish an unopposed task. The rules note that if that's too easy (and it is extremely easy to get at least 1 success in many cases) the GM can set a treshold higher than 1, but there are really no rules or guidelines for this. All in all, I think it doesn't feel anything like the old SR, mechanically - and there have been significant changes to the flavor as well. Not my cup of tea.</blockquote>

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