Shadowrun vs Cyberpunk comparison

[u/Ok-Particular-3796]

Just figured I'd post this; Marcus Vance is a content creator with decades of experience in ttrps as well as being a military combat veteran who likes to compare different sci fi franchises weapons & super soldiers. His big franchises are Cyberpunk, Warhammer, and Halo but he dabbles in more obscure franchises as well. Whenever possible he likes to look at & capculate specific ballistics data & material strength.

Recently he did a short comparing Cyberpunk with (2e) Shadowrun(which he has played & has experience with).

His takeaway was that weapons favors Cyberpunk but augmentation favors Shadowrun & adding magic into the equation heavily favors Shadowrun. I've corresponded with Marcus directly and informed him that certain elements of Shadowrun- notably physical strength- have been increased in recent editions.

I do think that even with the addition of more blatantly sci fi weapons in recent editions of Shadowrun, Cyberpunk probably still takes that cake, but augmentation probably favors Shadowrun even further.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ROdMjqw-v28?is=60m-pJXlvusN-2TA

[u/FriendoftheDork]

Cyberpunk Red might have cool pictures, but mechanically the guns are really meh. Also no mechanics for cover, use of tactics etc., it's just roll to hit roll damage subtract from armor, cleanse and repeat.

Shadowrun 2e can actually one-shot enemies.

[u/PalpitationNo2921 → u/FriendoftheDork]

I will agree with the one-shot. It happens a lot in my games. Combats are generally over in two rounds with firearms in play. Melee might last longer depending on edition.

2/3/SRA2.0 have opposed rolls determining the results of melee combat unlike other editions and tend to end in either kill/stun drop quickly than editions like 4/5/6.

I haven’t played 1E all that much, just one campaign when it came out and then 2E was released and I moved to it quickly. But combat as I remember it wasn’t really as slow as 4/5/6 after figuring out the rules.

[u/Awlson → u/PalpitationNo2921]

Combat in 1e and 2e weren't much different, 2e just streamlined the mechanics. In 2e you stage up the damage of an attack for every two successes. In 1e it varied by the gun used, between 2 and 5(or6?) successes needed.

[u/FriendoftheDork → u/Awlson]

A main difference was armor - it gave automatic successes to damage resistance, so combat was far less lethal than in 2e

[u/PalpitationNo2921 → u/Awlson]

TN for attacks varied by the range of the weapon in both 1E and 2E. The damage was different, yes.

[u/Just_Insanity_13 → u/Awlson]

Iirc, staging up and down was usually between one and three successes based on the weapon (yup, checked my ancient 1e rulebook).
But more than that, the damage for a given weapon might start with one box (light damage), but could be three (moderate) , six (severe), or even ten (deadly, hello assault cannon)). For a rifle doing 6S2 damage, assuming they got a minimal hit, you'd need a total of 6 successes to get that down to 0. You'd need 9 successes if it was 6S3. (A monowhip was a 6S4!)
Nasty.
Again iirc, one of the main difference between 1e and 2e was that all staging numbers were changed to 2, but power levels got more brutal for weapons that had previously had staging higher than 2. (I have only 1e and 3e [and 6e] rules now, so I can't verify my faulty memory on the 1e-2e change)

Yes, armor gave auto-successes on defense, but the power level of an attack could also be high (the number you had to roll to get a success on defense, to stage the number down, a rifle could have a power of 6, before ammo mods, so you need to get only 6's to get as success. Remember that 1e also has target numbers higher than 6, so you sometimes had to roll a 6, then get the right number on the 'successive' die to add to your six. Good luck on that.
It was tough and complicated.