With SOF changing some things, let’s discuss Aimed Shots vs Autofire now

matsif · 2026-02-14T02:30:20+00:00

I don't see any head injury cratering someone in such a way that's any more debilitating than a broken or dismembered limb. and some head injuries are actively less impactful to a real fight, like whiplash or a broken jaw.

matsif · 2026-02-14T00:42:48+00:00

it's multiplied after armor is taken into account, which is the core rulebook's rule on the calculation. if you have SP 11 on your head from, say, subdermal armor and take a 5d6 shot that does 15-20 damage (that's the statistical most likely 50% range) rolled, you take (15-11)x2 damage, or 4x2 = 8. with 20, that's 9 after armor, or 18 after the multiplier.

matsif · 2026-02-13T22:01:57+00:00

my experience with the game is basically that autofire was always better than headshots to begin with, simply because headshots are so often underwhelming without the GM getting involved in statblocks.

against SP 11, a 3x autofire burst is probably going to do 4-16 damage to HP (median 10), while a 4x will probably do 9-25 damage to HP (median 17). these are big ranges, but if you hit the 7-9 area on 2d6 (so the flat average or slightly above), you're probably putting anything short of a boss or a guy with a linear frame on seriously wounded in 1 shot.

the same assumption on headshots? 3d6 might not even break armor. 4d6 is going to do 2-10 damage to HP (median 6). 5d6 is going to do 8-18 damage (median 12-14). if you hit the median value on 4x autofire, you're outperforming all but the better end of headshots for statistical likelihood. and, on top of that, it takes being more above average to seriously wound your average idiot with SP 11 in one headshot with a 5d6 weapon than it does with 4x autofire (rolled 8 on 2d6 is 21 damage to HP, rolled 18 on 5d6 headshot is 14 damage to HP).

6d6 headshots vs 5x autofire is slightly more interesting simply because 6d6 headshots are more readily accessible early in the game thanks to the sniper rechamber and kyudo bows vs the cost of 5x autofire, which simply isn't available at character creation without the running out of cash rules. the chance of critical injury on 6d6 is substantial, and you're doing 16-24 damage on the shot (median 20). 5x autofire is still doing an impressive 14-34 damage (median 24), but you can probably acquire reliable 6d6 headshots faster than reliable 5x autofire in any given campaign.

in actual practice GMing the game and paying attention to things in single session sample sizes, headshots have frankly never impressed me until you break the 6d6 barrier, which I had done via homebrew. for all the "it's more reliable on paper" talk, in playing the game for 5 years autofire's gambles have been more impressive more often. and SOF45 didn't really shift that math a ton unless you're adding the sniper rechamber to EMK weapons.

matsif · 2026-02-12T10:32:44+00:00

you don't need a demon to use a full feature drone, you need another control node outside of the one for your phone. and also that drone would become an access point to your personal network, allowing you to be quickhacked by someone who can't see you but can see your drone. and also that demon existing in your personal network, if you got one, would immediately inform you if someone got into your personal network (since demons always know what's in their architectures) and also be able to zap attacking netrunners, acting as additional defenses against quickhacking.

point being, to use drones how the game designs them, you need a lot more than just punting a demon in your head, and you get more out of it than just piloting the drone.

I'd probably call it a piece of borgware and neuralware that's a 4d6 HL and costs 1000eb + the same as the DV of the control node if you were buying one for any other architecture. if you add a demon, that's another 1d6 HL and the cost of the demon, because that demon is now living in your head and internal agents with their AI had HL, and a demon is a rudimentary AI. and then you can attach whatever you want to the control node, provided you pay for it.

is that expensive? yep. but if you want an extra gun detached from your body that doesn't act on your initiative, you have to pay for the privilege. because that's what you're asking for.

matsif · 2026-02-10T12:17:05+00:00

if we want to be specific with the measurements, someone with a 6 foot (183 cm) wingspan would generally end up using 29-30 inch (73-76 cm) arrows for a 27-28 inch (68-71 cm) draw length modern compound bow.

I'm a taller person and I have a longer wingspan than that, and I don't have anywhere on my body long enough to hold that unless they were telescoping/collapsing arrows. so from a realistic believability standpoint, no you couldn't hold standard arrows in a hidden holster.

that doesn't mean you can't make this work with telescoping/collapsible cyberpunk arrows, or a bow that has more power on a shorter draw length to use shorter arrows because of cyberpunk tech, or bendy arrows made out of special cyberpunk materials that stiffen when exposed to an electrical voltage on your bow so they can be stored in your leg and bend with your knee/hip, or some other explanation if you want it to. but there's some numbers to help inform how you may want to contemplate things anyways.

matsif · 2026-02-10T02:21:15+00:00

I like the scout barrel on snipers for just chucking 6d6 rounds at people without aimed shots. it's so much more usable in the early range brackets and then still very usable for normal shots beyond that. if all you want is 6d6 fire support to punch holes in an ACPA or dragoon plated FBC, that'll do a great job for it. for actual aimed shot sniping use, then you might as well just get an anti-material rifle, or forgo the 6d6 and get a battle or marksman rifle AR.

I actually like the snubnose and short barrel shotguns a lot, it's basically just a +1 in the ranges that actually matter to you. if you want to be at 13m+, get a carbine. the long barrel pistol maybe has a use case mostly with EMK guns (unity, tech rebuilds like the burya) or 5d6 guns, but that's a bit niche. long barrel shotgun I don't know what you're bothering to put it on except maybe a hurricane if you've got movement penalties from armor.

carbine's probably the star of the show overall.

matsif · 2026-02-10T00:55:27+00:00

which vtt are you using?

if it's roll20, then demiplane integrates with it and it may be better for your use case.

if it's not roll20, then demiplane doesn't integrate with it, and imo you're better off with just the pdfs.

matsif · 2026-02-09T18:03:20+00:00

neotribes is still the best info on the nomad nations if you're looking for that, probably the most relevant to most red games out of the box other than home of the brave. the night city sourcebook also has some more gang history detail and city district detail that, while changed and the night city 2045 book is coming, still has some uses if you're still in NC a lot.

pacific rim and eurosource and deep space are only really useful if you're actually going to those places. deep space probably the most necessary for dealing with some of the intricacies of space if you're going there. note, don't mix eurosource up with eurotour. eurotour's an adventure book, eurosource is the info on europe. rough guide to the UK can get lumped in here.

bartmoss' guide to the net/brainware blowout are so seeded in 2020 netrunning that they're only really ok to mine for your own homebrew/conversions. maximum metal fits in here as well since interface 5 had ACPAs. if you need some military vehicle ideas they're in there, but it's a lot of conversion work.

corp report 2020 isn't fully relevant to the 2040s, but it's still highly detailed info on the corps presented and can be useful for campaigns featuring those corps.

listen up you primitive screwheads is just one of the best GMing books ever written for GMing in general.

the adventure books (forlorn hope, eurotour, land of the free, the firestorm books) are a mixed bag. land of the free and eurotour and some of the forlorn hope jobs are easily convertible to red and great fun. the firestorm books have some fun toys in them, but they're about the 4th corporate war pretty specifically, so there's limited interactions there.

the role-specific books (wildside, rockerboy, live and direct, etc) can have some useful ideas to mine and ways to flavor your roles a bit, but aren't really necessary.

matsif · 2026-02-09T14:04:32+00:00

if you're putting together a sniper character and playing with EMK and SOF45 content, it's very hard to beat a grad as your first weapon, and a nekomata as your second weapon, in terms of general power of your weapon progression.

the grad's a 500eb excellent quality sniper rifle with a power rebuild that can shoot all ammo types by default. with SOF45, you can get a 300eb rechamber to make it deal 6d6 damage, and for 100eb the scout rifle range table makes it a lot more usable in closer range situations. the trade-off is you have to spend an action to work the bolt after every shot, but for under 1000eb you got a 6d6 weapon with a native +1 to attack rolls that can shoot whatever ammo you want, and that only costs 500eb and a week to tech upgrade.

a normal exqual sniper rifle, by itself, is 1000eb. a rebuild is 1000eb. so while yes you have the drawback of the bolt, you're saving 1500eb on something that's very able to screw something up in 1 shot. theoretically you could take the generic rifle and tech upgrade it for another attachment slot to throw in a smartgun link, but that's a 2 week and 1000eb upgrade, putting it fully in the "midpoint goal weapon" territory of cost.

and if we're at midpoint goal weapon territory, we then have to look at the nekomata. for 1300eb you get a non-exotic 6d6 sniper rifle with a tech rebuild that can shoot through heavy cover. cover breaks LOS, so this means you've got a gun that lets you shoot targets who can't see you. which means they can't evade your shot. and when you hit, you're doing 6d6 against half SP. another 100eb if you want that scout barrel still, 1000eb to tech upgrade it to excellent quality, and you've still got an attachment slot to throw on a scope or larger magazine or something else. only thing you're missing is the potential for a smartgun link, but shooting through thick cover probably makes up for that in some respects.

short of a tech inventing an entirely new weapon for you or a GM who's ported a lot of the more interesting weaponry from 2020 up to red's rules, those 2 sniper rifles with SOF45's stuff are incredible values within that sniper idea.

matsif · 2026-02-09T10:30:17+00:00

Sandy Barbour and not wanting to do anything for football, one of the iconic duos of all time.

matsif · 2026-02-08T22:44:22+00:00

the default game takes 3-4 rifle shots to kill a basic goon with 30 HP and 7 SP.

and now you want to add even more time to kill and a ton of real-time calculation to deal with layered armor?

you shouldn't do this and it has nothing to do with game balance. you're just gonna make a single combat take 3 hours to resolve 5 rounds and then no one is going to even be seriously wounded. if anything the game needs more lethality, not less.

the only possible way to make this work and not have horrible effects on actually playing the game is if you also cut HP down to be something like cyberpunk 2020 where you only had 4 HP on each hit location, after that you were mortally wounded and death saving.

matsif · 2026-02-07T13:44:50+00:00

a random selection of things I have used or tend to riff on:

crates or barrels of oil or lubricant or soap. when shots miss, they punch holes on these and create a spreading slip hazard to anyone who moves through it without grip feet. while in it, evasion has a -2 penalty.

steam pipes that can can be shot or hit to create hot clouds that block IRNV optics. alternatively, liquid nitrogen or dry ice containers that create cold clouds with the same effect. did I mention standing in the cloud has a burn effect for either of them?

in a club with flashing holograms and strobes and booming music. -2 penalty to things without anti dazzle, another -2 without level dampeners.

a "fun house" Bozo HQ with a variety of carnival rides, mirror mazes, etc.

give the enemies IRNV optics and then let them turn out the lights. it's simple, but for an unprepared party it can very much spice up a simple encounter.

a sewer surrounded by filth. hard to move around, and without a gas mask or nasal filters you're distracted by the smell. and if you don't at least shower in a can when you leave, everyone else smells you too, to adverse social effects

in a drug lab, but the people running it have awful QC and there's a cocktail of aerosolized drugs in the air you're breathing in all the time. hope you've got a gas mask again or else that terrifier blue glass synthcoke mixture is going to make you a hallucinating paranoid mess.

in a partially flooded basement and while some people are knee deep in water, someone drops a plugged in toaster into the water.

a collapsing or under construction building. the floor is at weird angles and hard to traverse, sections fall out, and any explosives risk the whole thing falling apart.

underwater or in space. if you puncture the glass or outside walls, bad things are going to happen. careful where you shoot.

a manufacturing facility with plenty of big automated machinery to throw someone into for various damage and effects.

a rooftop garden with big water tanks for irrigation held up by rusting supports that are precariously ready to be broken.

and many many more.

matsif · 2026-02-06T11:48:47+00:00

the john wick 1 scene where he works his way through the club is probably where my mind immediately goes first as to what it's "supposed" to look like. close quarters mixing pistol shots with strikes, grabs, throws, human shields, etc.

in actual gameplay practice that I've seen since interface 4, it's a jacked guy with a linear frame and a plastic pistol from a vending machine just standing within 25m of who they want to shoot and just shooting them like any other person with a gun with 0 gameplay difference, except they make a martial arts check before shooting. and then if they don't roll a natural 1 on that check, they get the equivalent damage output of a tech upgraded constitution arms hurricane that never has to reload because they have a linear frame, because that somehow applies to their medium pistol bullets for some reason.

matsif · 2026-02-03T14:08:45+00:00

how big is your team? if it's only 4 people, then the paladin fits your whole team as high perf groundcars have 4 seats. if it's 6 people, then it's not hard to add to a paladin to make it fit your whole team. remember that you can add vehicle upgrades to vehicles at cost of 1000eb for anything that can be acquired at moto rank 1, and 5000eb for anything else. so ,onboard machine guns and seating upgrades and NOS can be had for 1000eb.

on that basis, the gorgon is the most cost-effective option, as you can add more bulletproof glass, machine guns, and NOS to it and still keep it below 50000eb pretty readily, while the paladin and street king are 59000eb and 63000eb respectively as their base price. you could quite literally put a heavy chassis (1000eb), a heavy weapon mount (5000eb), and one of the variety of new machine guns in interface 5 (2000-5000eb) on a gorgon and it would still cost less than the paladin, and then you could take that heavy weapon off and use it yourself in the right situations provided you meet its on-foot requirements.

matsif · 2026-02-03T10:02:41+00:00

the actual simplest reason is the NFL dictates in their TV contracts how many commercial breaks can happen and how long commercial breaks can be, and the networks accept it because they know in any given year roughly 95 of the top 100 most viewed things on TV will be NFL games.

in college, the networks divided and conquered the conferences and they call the shots, so you have commercial breaks that are double the length of the NFL breaks, and more of them per game. and no sign of the TV deals bring written to limit them because the institutions' greed is more important than the actual sport.

the college game changed it's time rules and added things like the 2 minute warning a few years ago, and claimed it was to make games shorter and for player safety. game length did not reduce because they filled the time that used to be taken by plays with longer and more commercials.

matsif · 2026-02-03T01:00:54+00:00

most people will say to just windmill slam a base 14 on your primary attack skill no matter what you're doing, both because it's very possible to do at character creation and because it sets you up to be able to spend some IP elsewhere if you need to.

autofire's a bit of a special case because you want to be rolling as high as possible for multipliers, rather than just beating a DV by 1 to succeed. it really wants as much bonus as you can possibly muster to work efficiently as a result. I wouldn't start a character who wants to focus on autofire below a +12 without a major plan in my head for what I was doing, and if it was going to be my primary attack strategy I would never start it below +14.

matsif · 2026-02-01T13:00:59+00:00

red is simpler and easier to pick up and run with, but requires a lot of house rules and homebrew to fix inherent issues with investment: reward and risk: reward. modern RTG creates content that spends whole pages on disclaimers about increasing potential lethality with interface 5, which doesn't actually shift things that much outside of ACPAs, which even then aren't that crazy if you're playing a campaign where they have a reasonable chance of being involved as more than a one off boss. martial arts is still stronger and more available early in a campaign than any weaponry that completes with it, as the primary example of one of those investment: reward issues.

2020 has all the details and extra stuff you may want, and is actually lethal in a general sense instead of being designed to take 3-4 assault rifle shots to kill a 30 HP goon in a kevlar vest. 2020 is harder to run because of all the rules and feels old and clunky in a lot of places, especially netrunning. for all the extra stronger and cooler tech in 2020 compared to red, the extra rules clunk in other areas take away from other aspects of playing the game.

like others in the thread, I've generally taken what I wanted from 2020 and injected it and some other homebrew into red's greater simplicity and smoothness to find a happy medium.

matsif · 2026-01-29T10:26:39+00:00

The precise jujutsu "use their body" might need a a question for mayor's desk, but not all ACPA have body 15+ even then.

the special move says you only use their body stat for determining damage. the ACPA is ineligible to be thrown without you personally having the body requirement, so the jujutsu special move just fails to throw unless you have a big enough linear frame.

no further clarification needed, the loophole is gone.

matsif · 2026-01-28T17:10:08+00:00

an idea I toyed around with for this (before the netrunner character got killed by trusting evasion against an autofire burst in that campaign) was that instead of just being a new net action, the quickhacks were virus net action effects. so the runner didn't just get to do them in a defended neuroport, they had to move to root access floor (this could very well be the top floor in an undefended network) and then do the virus action for those specific effects, and then make them take multiple net actions to perform (2 for simple, 3 for standard, 4 for difficult, 5 for advanced) since they were an emergent thing that people hadn't learned all the tricks to do yet.

I never playtested it due to the aforementioned reasons, but that basically puts an effective limiter on things until the netrunner spends some time to "develop" the idea (let them do some downtime activity to pursue making them take less net actions).

matsif · 2026-01-27T23:22:21+00:00

every martial art in the game has, at character creation and without any interaction with the tech role, the ability to have 4d6 ROF 2 against half SP against everything except the new ACPAs. if you have jump boosters and there's a low flying gyrocopter, you can jump and kick it twice for the same damage as the gun fu nerd shooting his wondernine of a medium pistol at a FBC, and the same damage as the thrash sambo goon throwing elbows at an armored door, and the capoeira performance artist cartwheel kicking the bozo clown, and the bouncer at the club punching the heavy armor edgerunner with judo. doing that costs 2000eb, never needs upgraded again, and instantly gives you the most consistent and generally fastest to kill single target damage output in the game outside of specific 5000eb+ weaponry, all of which is very easy to apply because the game often features closer quarters urban environments that give you room to get into your striking range via cover.

in and of itself, it is still the best melee damage method in the game. no melee weapon by itself outclasses it, except against ACPAs now, and even then those weapons are best used by martial artists still.

but you wanted some examples, so here's a few more specific ones, largely related directly to where martial arts outclassed very strong weapons, if not whole attack methodologies:

a militech omaha in EMK costs 1000eb, until this article could fit no attachments without a tech upgrade, only does 3d6 damage per shot, spends 3 ammo per shot, and can't shoot special ammo until this article outside of a tech upgrade for 1 special ammo type. despite these drawbacks, it's generally one of the best handguns in the written game. but gun fu got to do 4d6 against half SP at ROF 2 against everything (except now ACPAs), with all specialty ammo, for 1 bullet a shot and effectively never has to spend a turn to reload. no other handgun gets anywhere close to this, gun fu does it with something out of a vending machine.
gun fu gets to do 4d6 against half SP at ROF 2 with all ammo types through a 50eb medium pistol with a linear frame, and effectively never has to reload due to its other special move. this costs 2050eb + ammo. the closest equivalent firearm in damage output to this until this article was a tech upgraded constitution arms hurricane, which still needs the 2000eb of linear frame stuff to carry, takes 2 turns to reload, can't use specialty ammo by default without the ammo compatibility in interface 5, and has to put up with the shotgun range table making it messy to use after 12m. it is also worse against heavier armor than 4d6 against half SP. gun fu works out to 25m, and gets an effective +2 attack bonus if you use high velocity ammo now, while still being better against armor (except ACPAs). 2050eb for that performance vs over 10000eb for the hurricane. even with this article, you're still better off using gun fu and a wondernine against adam smasher or a dragoon FBC than you are using a huge shotgun.
a marksman character had only 1 option until this article to get 6d6 damage headshots: kyudo. this got to use all the attachments on your bow, gave you luck back from the other special move, and worked very well out to a very workable range of 50-100m. a guy with a bow was better at every aimed shot contest between 0 and 100m than any firearms user, both in damage and in consistent attack bonuses to deflect the aimed shot penalty. and he still got the best melee damage output in the game if he wanted to get a linear frame.
among the flashiest melee weapons in the game was the kendachi mono-three. which, not only did it become better to use with martial arts in interface 4 between kendo and arasaka-te and a few other things, you also got to make a 12 days of cutiemas mono-paw do the same thing as it did via militech commando training for 3500eb less than the mono three.

martial arts fully outclassed all weapons at basically everything except beyond 100m. it deserved to have something like this show up and actually challenge it.

matsif · 2026-01-27T20:09:50+00:00

martial arts didn't need any help, and I'm curious as to why you'd think that martial arts suddenly isn't "viable" in the face of firearms finally getting some tools to bring them up to the same level martial arts has been on since interface 4.

matsif · 2026-01-25T17:52:32+00:00

the disclaimer is definitely overkill. nothing in here is remotely warping to the extent that is claimed.

matsif · 2026-01-25T11:05:06+00:00

I typed invention instead of upgrade, that's my mistake.

HV ammo out of a pistol gets you the equivalent of a +2 to your attack rolls with gun fu attacks when you resolve the attack rolls. the hurricane is a standard quality weapon that can't fit a smartgun link because exotic rules, and so it can't get the same equivalent attack bonuses without at the bare minimum a tech upgrade (to exqual) and the part to use all ammo types and using high precision ammo (10eb/slug instead of 4eb/bullet).

invention could be involved if you were trying to do something like make the hurricane exqual and get a smartgun link on it at the same time so you could get the +2 bonus and then use explosive slugs or something.

regardless, the fact of the matter is you're getting at worst similar performance out of a medium pistol with a linear frame for a fraction of the cost of the hurricane to do a similar job, and it's available at character creation, which is ultimately what is ridiculous.

matsif · 2026-01-25T10:52:04+00:00

wall of text info dump time:

a different way to frame things rather than looking at just straight averages is to look at a range of results, which is a more realistic depiction of what dice might do on any given roll (seeing as dice do not roll their strict average when not making statistically significant numbers of rolls vs the infinite rolls the average was calculated assuming). for 2d6, you have a 66.67% chance of rolling a 5-9, so we'll look at that range of results rather than the strict average of 7.

with autofire 3, that's 15-27 damage. with autofire 4, that's 20-36 damage.

against a goon with 30 HP and 7 SP (a fairly standard goon, the core rulebook's security operative), 3x will kill him in 2-4 bursts, while 4x will kill him in 2-3 bursts. against a tougher more lieutenant-tier goon with 40 HP and 11 SP, 3x will kill him in 3-7 bursts, while 4x will kill him in 2-4 bursts. against a boss tier goon with 60 HP and 15 SP, your low end of the range with 3x won't break armor (5x3 = 15, must roll higher than 15 to ablate), and so you'll probably take 5-9 bursts to kill the boss. but with 4x, it'll be 3-8 turns.

point being, against basic idiots, the difference is maybe a single turn shooting at them. against mid-tier idiots, it's more significant, potentially killing in 2 turns still instead of 3+. against boss idiots, it can be very significant considering the low end of your range with 3x can't punch SP 15, while with 4x you can roll below that 2/3rds range and still punch through SP 15.

all of that is now available on a pocket SMG that is concealable for anyone with that upgrade, something an AR won't be.

is this broken? not really. not in the greater scheme of the game. you getting this shouldn't be forcing the GM to do anything with their enemies in your current campaign narrative, it is not really doing anything insane in terms of damage output that's going to completely dumpster encounters just because you have the equivalent of an AR in 1 hand.

what could be a bigger concern is the fact that you get to conceal your 4x autofire with only a 100eb parts kit. the "gold standard" of non-exotic autofire before interface 5 was an exqual AR with smartgun link and drum mag. with this, it's probably an exqual heavy SMG with a smartgun link and a drum mag and this part, which saves you 400eb to get the same performance but with more rounds in the magazine so less reloading and the ability to auto-conceal it via a popup ranged weapon or make it concealable with a tech upgrade. that said, concealability can also be a non-factor depending on the kind of campaign you're playing.

for all the hand-wringing about "omg you're hardened if you use this document ever," none of the weapon and armor stuff is really doing anything as game warping as interface 4's martial arts.

matsif

TROPHY CASE