Big List o' House Rules

Optional Rules In Play

• Quick Resolution Decking: Single Test w/ Option (MJLBB, 122)
• Quick Resolution Vehicle Combat (MJLBB, 123)
• Athletics and Dodging (CC, 97)
• Small Unit Tactics and Combat Pool (CC, 106)
• Advanced Remote Control Rules (R3, 84)
• Advanced Electronics Warfare Rules (R3, 85)

Canon Rules Out Of Play

• Deadly Wounds and Permanent Damage (SR3, 127)
• Layering Armor (SR3, 285)

New Mechanics

• Teamwork Tests: If more than one character has ranks in a skill, they may be able to combine their efforts and work together to accomplish a task. When making a teamwork test, rank the characters according to their skill level. The character with the highest rank in the skill is the designate leader, the character with the next highest rank is the secondary assistant, the character ranked third is the tertiary assistant, and so on. Next, everyone makes their skill roll - all of the leader's successes get counted as normal, every two success from a secondary assistant gets counted as one additional success, every three successes from a tertiary assistant adds one more success on top of that, and continue until every team member's roll has been accounted for to determine the final result. In the case of an open test, the effective TN generated by a secondary assistant is equal to his second highest roll, the TN for a tertiary assistant his third highest, etc, with the final TN being the highest effective TN generated by the entire group. Pool dice cannot be used by assistants, including karma pool. Skills from the following categories can benefit from a teamwork test: Technical, Social, Build/Repair, and Knowledge.

General Changes

• Complementary skills and dice pools add half their value, rounded down, to skill tests instead of being rolled separately.
• Knowledge skills cannot act as complementary skills to active skills.
• Humans gain karma pool dice at the same rate as metahumans: 1 per 20 points of good karma. In return, they gain 5 extra build points or 25 additional karma to use during character creation. If using NSRCG to create a human character, simply select the Bad Karma flaw for him.
• The Edges Aptitude, Friendly Face, and Good Reputation add their value in dice to relevant tests instead of modifying the target number. Good Reputation will only work on NPCs who are aware of the character's reputation.
• All long distance skills refer to the following range modifiers, including firearms, sorcery and perception: Short (0-10m / +0 TN), Medium (11-30m / +1 TN), Long (31-100m / +2 TN), and Extreme (>101m / +3 TN).

Combat

• Characters do not receive separate wound modifiers for physical and stun damage - your wound modifier is a universal value calculated based on the total number of boxes of damage you've sustained, physical and stun, determined at the following rate: +1 for 1 box, +2 for 3 boxes, +3 for 6 boxes, +4 for 10 boxes, +5 for 15 boxes, +6 for 20 boxes.
• The number of combat pool dice you may allocate to a skill test is not limited by your skill rating. Characters with no ranks in a skill can draw dice entirely from their combat pool to make a skill test and avoid the defaulting penalty.
• The firearms skills have been regrouped as follows: Light Guns (Pistols and Submachine Guns) and Medium Guns (Rifles, Assault Rifles, and Shotguns).
• For every three rounds fired in an autofire burst, you can choose to either stage up the Damage Level or increase the enemy's target number to dodge by 1. The Power Rating of the attack increases by 1 per round as normal.
• For burst-fire and full-auto weapons, your recoil is equal to the number of rounds fired minus 1, not the number of rounds fired.
• Shot rounds do not reduce the target number for your attack.
• The maximum amount of armor you may wear before you begin to suffer combat pool penalties is equal to your Quickness or Strength, whichever attribute is greater.
• Your combat pool is reduced by one die for every point your Ballistic or Impact armor rating exceeds your Quickness or Strength, not every 2 points.
• Armor cannot be layered, with the exception of helmets and shields.
• Offensive staging of damage for grenade attacks occurs one step prior to the damage resistance roll instead of during the same step. Additional successes in a grenade attack after scatter has been reduced to 0 are used to stage up the damage, to a maximum of Deadly.
• The "Character has friends in melee" bonus applies only to your attack roll. The "Opponent has friends in melee" penalty applies only to your defense roll.
• Targets may use combat pool to make a Dodge test against an explosive blast with base TN 6. Each success puts you one additional meter away from the eye of the blast.
• When using Demolitions: Improvised Explosives to rig a booby trap, the Concealability of the trap is equal to the number of successes rolled in the Demolitions test.

Stealth and Perception

• Trolls suffer a flat -2 penalty to their Sneaking rolls due to their large size.
• Characters carrying heavy weapons suffer a -4 TN modifier to their Sneaking rolls. Trolls reduce this modifier to -2.

Magic

• The maximum number of successes achievable on a spell is limited to the Force of the spell.
• Increase Reflexes has a drain value equal to +1(D), and increases the Initiative dice of the target by 1 for every two successes, up to a maximum of +3d6.
• Magical groups do not reduce the karma cost of initiating, and joining a magical group does not require a karma investment.
• Using the critter power Confusion requires an opposed test between the critter's Essence and the target's Intelligence. If the critter achieves more successes, the target suffers +1 TN per net success to all his actions for the duration of the power.
• Only one focus may add its dice to any given test.
• Taking Deadly damage or being disrupted in astral combat does not trigger a magic loss check.
• Only one magician's spell defense, reflecting, or shielding dice can be used to defend against any single spell.

Rigging

• The base target number for a driving test is determined by the GM according to the Difficulty Number Table (SR3, 92). The only TN modifiers are Non-Rigger Driving Using Datajack (-1), Rigger In Control (-VCR Rating), and an additional modifier equal to your vehicle's Handling Rating - 4.
• Terrain modifiers as listed in the Driving Test Modifiers Table (SR3, 134) apply to vehicle combat tests.
• It is assumed that your vehicle is moving at its Speed Rating during vehicle combat. You may lower your speed at the cost of suffering a +1 TN modifier to your vehicle combat tests and a -1 Initiative penalty for every 25% reduction in speed. You may also increase your speed up to 150% of your Speed Rating, but you must make a Crash Test at the beginning of every Combat Turn you are maintaining a speed higher than your Speed Rating.
• Characters in vehicles may attempt to ram a pedestrian by making a Vehicle Skill (Handling) test with the following modifiers: Open Terrain (-1), Normal Terrain (0), Restricted Terrain (+2), Tight Terrain (+4), Rigger in Control (-VCR Rating). Targets may make a standard Dodge test to avoid the vehicle - they may also make a Perception test against a base target number of 4 to spot the vehicle before it gets within ramming distance. If they succeed in this test, the pedestrian receives an additional combat phase in which to act before the vehicle reaches him.
• Riggers operating a vehicle in primary mode use their Vehicle skill to substitute for all Physical Skills.

Implants and Gear

• All cyberlimbs have base attributes equal to the character's natural attributes. Increasing them beyond this point costs Essence.
• The Mneumonic Enhancer only reduces the karma cost for learning Knowledge Skills.
• The Chipjack Expert Driver does not add task pool dice - every level allows you to allocate an additional die from an associated pool to your skillsoft test.
• The Hearing Amplification enhancement applies a -2 TN modifier to sound perception tests if combined with a Dampener.
• Shock weapons do not stun the target, and their disorientation modifier is reduced to +1.
• The disorientation modifier for Neuro-Stun is reduced to +1.
• All skillsofts have an Availability equal to Rating x 2.
• Overdrive skillsofts apply their target number penalty to all tests, not just skill tests, when they're active.
• Ruthenium polymers add a maximum target number modifier of +8, not +12, to vision-based Perception tests.
• Characters using a medkit without the Biotech skill require two successes to reduce their Damage Level.
• The target number to decrypt an encrypted broadcast signal is equal to the Encryption Rating, not the Encryption Rating + 4.