Johnny Downtime

Many people track this by making a hashmark going one direction "\" for stun and a hashmark in the other direction "/" for lethal. This has the nice effect of creating an "X" for every fully damaged mark on the track.

 

It might look something like this:

 

LGHT--SRS--CRIT--MORT

XXXX--XXXX--\\\\--

Have you been reading my hard drive? my house rules look very similar, but probably because we read from the same sources!

I know the combat actions part of IU isn't always a favorite with people, but it works, and it works well, especially in melee combat.

I know! IU is better for most things, but I just want to keep the simple -3 per extra action thing going because it's easy, and have the GM determine what is possible in 3.3 secs with common sense.

Usually, when people kick, the have a good chance of hitting the left or right leg only, unless they are elevated. ...Also, kicking is for when characters are down and getting beaten by my NPCs anyways.

 

And groin kicks are auto-stun roll (unless your character is female(void if a shemale)).

I agree, kicking is for when they are down already, and I think I mentioned I'm going to institute a D6 roll on the location chart against standing opponents with un-targeted kicks.

So punches average around 2 points of damage...BTM of an average guy is -2 so...Yup, punches are pretty well worthless according to RAW.

Very true, punches are not likely to do any dangerous levels of damage without Martial Arts... but BTM can't reduce damage below 1, which still causes a stun save, and can be just enough time to give you time to pull out a weapon (or run away) before they recover

Or kick them while they are down :evilgrin

Martial arts is a crazy powerful skill in 2020.

Yep, whole 'nother can-o-worms. I just incorporate IP multipliers on character creation...

...I think the danger of martial arts combat is worth keeping, and doesn't need to be nerf batted. ... I do have a player who has minmaxed for martial arts... I'm still not sure how this will turn out, but it's far less of a problem than the brand-new player who wants to have REF 10, combat sense +10, and handgun +10

Agreed, anything can be abused and it is up to the GM to let players know what is acceptable.

the link is dead. does anyone have a copy?

...It also had the VirtualFront sourcebook which covered Augmented Reality in a serious way years before any other RPG.

Virtuality was the most interesting part of Gyber Generation, although I have only skimmed the book. I don't have a copy of VirtualFront. I am definitely mixing a lot of those ideas into my regular Cyberpunk games, but without codeguns and illusions that kill. I love the idea of everyone's business card having Virtuality code embedded in it which throws advertising out into the AR world.

I was going to make a new topic, but this seems to fit here...

From this interview: link

I had been wondering since I heard of the game by CD Projekt Red how/if the timeline would be tweaked. The world depicted in CP203X does not seem like a place which can return to that 2020 vibe after so much had changed.

I imagined they would do what many GMs do, and reorient the timeline with modern day, which explains the 50 year jump. But this tid-bit in the interview sheds some light on the subject:

obskures.de: What makes Cyberpunk 2077 unique and what references/flashbacks are there to previous editions 2013, 2020, 203X or even Cybergeneration?

Mike Pondsmith: There are tons of flashbacks and shoutouts already in 2077; I was pretty amused by how much they crammed into the trailer alone. Heck, the psycho girl in the trailer is a direct reference to the Alt Cunningham picture in original 2013. Then they doubled down by putting an actual repro of Alt in the background holos. It helps that the CDPR team are fans of the original game—they seem to enjoy hiding Easter eggs and shoutouts all over the game world. There probably won’t be any references to 203X or C-Gen though—it’s agreed that those two represent divergent time lines from the main 2020 series.

Now it seems that some peoples wishes have been granted and C-Gen and CP203x are going to be alternate timelines to 2077. This answers my questions about the timeline and alleviates some of my fears.

Looking forward to the video game and obligatory PnP cross marketing!

I'm going to heavily incorporate augmented reality in my games in the future. Google glasses and smart phones were the inspiration naturally.

Check out CyberGeneration, ignore everything in that book except the description of Virtuality.

If you have not read the book, Virtuality is AR via the Net. Virtuality takes AR one step further by using interface plugs and wireless technology to make augmented reality that is "real" to all of the senses. So like today, how we have websites with desktop and mobile versions, the Net would have Netspace, and Virtuality versions. Virtuality would allow corporations to plaster even more advertising around, floating pop-up boxes, talking AIs telling you about the next great product while you stand in line at the bank. The advantage here for Netrunners is they could make a simple run while still being aware of the real world so long as they were in the right place.

This is all very cool and is something I am going to use, up to a point: The technology gets weird again when CyberGeneration starts detailing black ICE attacking non-netrunners linked into Virtuality which deal illusionary damage that must "unbelieved", and "codeguns" which fire streams of programming to damage ICE.

I seriously cannot wait for this game!

I have played both Witcher games and cdprojekt red knows how to create engaging dialogue, realistic characters with ambiguous motivations (now just "good guys" and :bad guys"), and moral choices that impact the whole game.

What I am also excited about is an update on cp2020 (not gybergeneration or cp3030). I wonder if it will be a re-imagining of the 2020 world or a direct squeal...?

While we're on the topic of missing rules:

What is stun damage? Some weapons say they do stun damage or half-stun.

Nowhere in the rules is damage divided as stun or lethal! I assume stun damage is tracked separately and can not cause death saves? CP2013 has bludgeoning damage and lethal damage, but the damage rules are incompatible.

Also a question about the interactions between death and stun saves. Is a character passes a death save roll are they stunned? Do they also take a stun roll? Does the death save check override the stun save check and make it unnecessary (this is how I played in the past)?

I've been wondering that for the last 10 years and I'm pretty sure there's no sane RAW answer .

Thanks I thought I was the only one who noticed, or I was missing some glaringly obvious rule!

... or a handful of netrunners that harass the PC's out of the net then send remotes to hunt them in the "real" world. Steal their fancy toys, ruin their overpowered vehicles, degrade their armor, confiscate their guns.

This gave me a brilliant idea!

Create a competent netrunner NPC and allow the players to act out his mystery run into a datafort. Hand them a blank character/cyberdeck sheet and tell them the stats as needed during the run, his Icon is a grinning green skull. Play this as an interlude when a player shows up early or during a snack break. This is also a way to give them a taste of netrunning if the group does not have a cowboy in it. The players will have nothing to lose, so will be reckless, that's OK. Make the runner good enough to eventually defeat the datafort after several tries. If defeated just end the interlude and wait for another time to allow a different player a chance to crack the mystery datafort.

Once a player is successful the scene ends, fade-to-black... . Congratulate the player on a job well done and say no more. The next time that player's character checks their cred account they will notice it has been emptied and nasty taunting green skull mocks them from the terminal screen!

Well, unless you have a specialized martial art, you can only kick once per round or you will fall down. You have two fists that can both strike in the same round. Calculating average damage (with no strength mods), a kick will deliver 3.5 points, but a punch can deliver an average of 2 points times 2 fists for a total of 4 points. Of course you have to roll twice and their are modifiers.

That is true, but sadly this type of common sense is not specified by the rules. But I can see someone making more than one kick in 3 seconds if the target is laying down and the player is just hammering away.

Perhaps kicking more than once should be prone to the +4 difficulty modifier for "very difficult acrobatics."

EDIT: this does not work, combat rolls are opposed so there is no difficulty.

It has always bothered me that a punch does 1D6/2 damage and a kick does 1D6 damage. Both moves are the same difficulty to perform (assuming no martial arts aren't involved) but one is strictly better.

I have not played CP2020 in many years, but the announcement of the video game has made me want to bring it out and rustle up a new RPG group. Now when I used to play, in high school, we just simply conducted combats with common sense. Unless you were a martial artist, kicking was never used unless your hands were bound, or your target was prone.

If I end up playing with randoms met in a local game store I can imagine some of them never throwing a punch and kicking in every combat (I swear DnD trains players to min-max)!

I cannot find any rule preventing someone from constantly kicking (Pacific Rim mentions something about punch-punch-kick combos but no solid rule restricting their use.

Has anyone else run into this issue and had to make a house rule for kicks? If so did it work?

My current thoughts are to to allow punches to roll a 1D6 for location while kicks still roll 1D10. This prevents people from punching someone in the legs unless they actually make a targeted attack, thus making punches more appealing for due to the increased chance of a head strike.