Kinda just breezing through the book, but I'll share some things I've noticed are different.
General
- NeoNET is out of the Big 10! The former number 2 is gone from the big 10, and Saeder-Krupp falls from 1 to 2, usurped by Mitsuhama. Ares continues to slide after the failure of the Excalibur, and is using Horizon for a rebrand. A new corp jumps into the fray: Debuting at #8 is Spinrad Global, a merger between a media savvy company, Spinrad Industries and the petrochemical giant Global Sandstorm. Headed by president, Johnny Spinrad, who has his own TV network, which brings attention to the public president and their newly acquired special forces group, the Nizari.
- Priority system returns, and you can't just get Magic/Resonance 6 right out of the gate. The highest you can get with A priority is 5, as an Aspected Mage. So restricted mages get the most raw magic to start. Neat. Buuuut, you can still buy Magic with the bonus points from your Metatype so shrug
- SKILL LIST PARED DOWN! SKILL LIST PARED DOWN! Firearms all use the same skill! As does all close combat! 19 skills, most of them named after the former skill groups. Full list (italics cannot be defaulted): Astral, Athletics, Biotech, Close Combat, Con, Conjuring, Cracking, Electronics, Enchanting, Engineering, Exotic Weapons, Firearms, Influence, Outdoors, Perception, Piloting, Sorcery, Stealth, Tasking.
- Skill ranks only go up to 9, unless you have the one quality to raise the cap to 10.
- Specializations matter more now! They also added a level beyond called Expertise. You can only have one Specialization and one Expertise per skill, so you need to advance the first to Expertise before taking the second. Specialization gives +2, Expertise +3, and can only be taken if you have at least 5 ranks in the skill.
- I like the list of Glitch ideas for various types of actions in Running the Game section.
- There's now a Heat Check (This term makes me laugh as a basketball fan because it's something completely different) at the end of each Run. GM rolls 2d6 with a modifier based on some occurances during the run. A really violent run gets a +1 modifier, murder gets a +1, but doing illegal actions without notice gets you a -1. On a 9 or higher on the roll, give each runner 1 Heat. You take the highest Heat rating among the group (if they do something to split up or do other actions that may raise Heat), and check it on a chart. At 0-3, nothing happens. 4-6: Law enforcement response time down by 25%. 7-9: Response time halved. 10: Lowest rank SIN among the party is burned. Using it will set off alarms. 11-13: 2 extra law enforcement officers arrive whenever the cops are called when the runners are involved.
- You can reduce heat by calling in favors with powerful contacts. If you have a law enforcement or corp security contact with Connection 3 or higher, you can reduce your their Loyalty by 1 in exchange to drop you and your party's heat by 2. You can bribe at $1,000 per point of heat per person. Heat drops by 1 per month you don't work. A maximum of 3 Heat per year can be removed this way. If you drop heat to 10, it doesn't automatically burn another SIN, but if you go below 10 and hit it again it will.
- I actually kinda like the Heat system. It replaces Notoriety and has some more teeth behind it.
- Karma earning seems to be focused around the magic number of 5, since that's the multiplier for a lot of skills and abilities. For a session that was sloppy, 1-2 karma should be earned. One that they excelled at, 5-6.
- Like Karma, Nuyen is suggested to work on a sweet spot. $5,000 should be "average" since it's the amount for a month of Medium lifestyle. A more dangerous job could net 10-15k, while an easier job, 1-2k. This is a decent departure from the scaling system in 5e.
- Item Availability goes from 1-9 rather than 1-20+. (F)orbidden is now just (I)llegal and (R)estricted is (L)icense. Same thing, cleaner names.
Edge
- Edge is not just a stat, but currency. You gain and lose Edge as a situation evolves. You start at your stat, but as you build momentum or put yourselves into better position (or are better geared than a defender [Difference of 4 or more on your Attack Rating versus their Defense Rating]), you gain Edge. Likewise, if you put yourself into a bad position, the opponent can be given Edge instead. You can earn up to 2 bonus Edge at a time, but it resets to your default after an Encounter, and can carry no more than 7 at any time. Edge is now spent to take special Boosts and Actions, each costing varying amounts, such as rerolling a die (1 Edge per die you want to reroll of yours or an opponents [not both at once]). Rules for permanently burning Edge remain.
- Qualities and Gear can give characters Edge if it's advantageous in the situation. For example, two unaugmented players go into a firefight in the dark: No Edge because it's neutral. Now, if one person has say, Thermographic Vision, give them Edge. Some Edge options have to be chosen before the roll. The Traditional "Add Edge to roll and 6s explode" costs 4 Edge. A new fun Edge Boost costs 5 and it forces the target to counts 1s and 2s towards Glitches and Critical Glitches.
Combat
- The Action system is streamlined. You get 1 Minor and 1 Major Action per Combat Round. Things like Attacking or Casting a Spell or Banishing a Spirit are Major Actions, while things like dropping prone, moving, and commanding drones are Minor. You get additional Minor Actions per die in your initiative. A Major can be used for a Minor, and 4 Minors can be traded for a Major.
- I think this means you actually get 2 Minors a turn? Since your initiative is usually x + 1D6
- These Actions are also spent on your off-turn reactive Actions too, so if you want to Intercept or Dodge, you need to save some of your Action Currency.
- You Do Not Reroll Initiative Every Turn. No real difference for VTTs, save I don't get to see an explosion of dice when I roll it automatically, but it also means players don't have to deal with swingy Rounds where they only have one Initiative Pass.
Weapons and Armor
- On a tie, weapons and attacks do Base Damage Value. Net Hits get added to Damage totals like older editions.
- Armor no longer counts towards Soak, it counts towards Defense Rating, added to Body and any necessary qualities/cyberware/etc. Defense Rating only determines if someone gets Edge. You want armor to help keep an attacker from getting a cleaner shot. You still avoid damage with Reaction + Intuition, and soak with Body.
- Elemental Damage changes and status effects: Fire inflicts Burning instead of having more AP. There's also statuses like Blinded (Rating 1-3), Wet, Chilled, Zapped, Stunned, Poison, Petrified, Prone, Invisible and so on. Electricity no longer gets -5 AP, but still gives someone a hit to their Initiative, but doesn't affect their action economy like in 5e (Dropping someone from 11 Initiative to 6 was brutal because they wouldn't get their next action)
- Range now affects Attack Ratings. Each weapon has a sweet spot where their Rating is the best. Looking at the Ranger Arms SM-5 sniper, it has an attack rating of 3/6/9/11/12 (Close/Near/Medium/Far/Extreme) In close combat, the sniper's unwieldiness makes it harder to use effectively against targets.
- Unarmed Attacks Attack Rating is Strength + Reaction, but melee weapons have their own AR. It's base damage is 2S. Melee weapons damage is flat as well, no Strength added, just net hits.
- Damage and Armor are nerfed into oblivion. Game is still lethal as hell, because an Ares Predator can easily do 7 damage with net hits, but damage is down everywhere. A full set of body armor with a helmet gives +7 to your Defense rating (So with a Body of 3 you'd have a 10 rating, which should neutralize a lot of Attack Ratings enough to keep them from getting Edge). The traditional Armored Jacket is +4.
Magic
- Drain can only be healed with rest like normal, with one exception: The Edge Boost that recovers a single point of stun damage for 3 Edge.
- It's now harder to notice Magic as a mundane. In 5e, a spell's visibility was 6 - Force, now it's a Perception + Intuition test against the caster's Magic rating.
- Attack Rating of a Spell is [Spellcasting Attribute] + Magic. If an AoE, you take the highest Defense Rating to see if Edge is distributed.
- There is no Spell Force. Spells have a base damage and base Drain.
- Spells can be modified with bonus effects such as Amp Up which increases the damage of the spell by 1 per 2 additional points of Drain you're willing to try to soak. Increase Area boosts the area of the spell by 2 meters per 1 drain (base AoE Radius is 2 meters), and Shift Area is a Minor Action to move a sustained Area spell that you cast.
- Indirect Spells like Fireball have a base Damage of 1/2 Magic then you add net hits. You only roll defense once for defenders in the AoE, based on whoever has the highest Reaction + Willpower, resist damage with Body. (The example used 1 roll for 3 defenders, you could probably still do individual dodges).
- Heal is Sorcery + Magic with a threshold of 5-Target's Essence. The more Chromed out someone is, the harder they are to heal. There are other Heals that also eliminate a Status on top of healing damage, such as Cooling Heal removing Burning.
- Spirit of Man is now Spirit of Kin
- Force is now the domain of Spirits, not Spells. You use Force to determine the spirit strength, per usual.
- Foci Limits: No more Foci than your Magic stat, no single Focus can have a higher rating than your Magic stat, and the Force of all your combined Foci cannot exceed Magic * 5.
- Mentor Spirits give benefits relating to the cost of Edge Boosts of specific types. Magicians get a second Edge Boost cost reduction for another skill/spell type, while Adepts get a free rank of a listed Adept power instead. Example: Eagle - All who have it: Edge Boosts cost 1 less on Perception tests (Errata states Edge costs cannot go below 1). Magicians: Edge Boosts cost 1 less for Summoning Spirits of Air. Adept: 1 free level of Combat Sense.
Matrix
- Attack Rating for Matrix Actions is Attack + Sleaze, while Defense Rating is Data Processing vs Firewall.
- There are a series of Matrix-specific Edge Actions you can take, in exchange for losing some of the ones like Tumble.
- Overwatch Score threshold remains 40 before Convergence. Maintaining illegal user access increases OS by 1 per turn, and illegal Admin access is +3 per turn.
- Hosts operate with user levels: Outsider, User, and Admin. Outsider is just your generic access, might be something like "The ability to checkout at the 7-11" while User access may be for Employees.
- You need Admin privileges to check your Overwatch Score (Major action). As a hacker you're getting a few Minor actions per turn, and a cyberjack can get you more Initiative Dice depending on it's rating (for more minors), but to take 2 Major Actions a turn, you'd need to hot sim VR (2d6) and a rating 4 or higher Cyberjack (+2d6), which you could then turn the 4 minors into a Major action.
- Think they corrected course after how effective hackers can be in combat with how many initiative turns they had. A Hot Simmed hacker could get 3 turns in an pass and brick several weapons in one go.
- Christ almighty they finally made a Matrix host flow cart.
- Technomancer's Resonance powers are more straightforward and more like Magic For The Matrix.
- Whipping up a sprite on the fly does not have a minimum Fade. If they get 0 hits, you take 0 Fade. You do still take minimum 2 Fade when Registering a sprite + 2 per hit the sprite scores on it's opposed check, due to how long the process is.
- Lmao: The Diagnostics Sprite Power remains unchanged. Excellent.
Lots of changes here with the core functionality of the game. Some I like, some I want to see in action and others are really headscratching. If someone has read 6e and sees an error, point it out if you feel like it.
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