Quick intro: Since rules can be confusing to people, especially the finer details, I am designing a sample encounter. I was going to write the entire thing first, but that way I’ll never finish it. Instead, I’ll write it out over several posts and eventually compile it into a Google Doc with sidenotes to make it easy to go through and understand all the small rules.

GLOSSARY

• CRB = Core Rulebook aka Sixth World
• FS = Firing Squad
• p# = page number (so CRB p249 means page 249 of the Sixth World book)
• AR = Attack Rating
• DR = Defense Rating
• SR = Social Rating
• DV = Damage Value

So let’s explain what the fight will contain: Some go-gangers walk into a bar. That’s the joke. If they were proper go-gangers, they’d ride in on their bikes and act as if the bar is a drive-thru. 🥁

Anyway. They see some runners they got beef with, and attack them. The runners fight back, the bartender gets pissed, bullets and gas grenades fly around. It’s a nasty event. This will let us touch on quite a bit of small details, such as Surprise rounds, using combat drugs, how toxins work, etc. As well as default Attack Rating vs Defense Rating, Edge actions, Cover, and so on and so forth!

But first. The characters. Let’s start with Rude, the Troll Street Samurai, a slightly-tweaked version of the Street Samurai archetype from the book.

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Rude (Troll Street Samurai)

Stats
B 7, A 3(7), R 3, S 7(11), W 1, L 2, I 4, C 3, Edge 5, Essence 1.34

Important augmentations

• Muscle Toner + Muscle Augmentation: +4 Agility and +4 Strength (CRB p292)
• Titanium Bone Lacing: +2 DR, +2 soak dice, +3 Unarmed AR, 4P base Unarmed DV (CRB p286)
• Dermal Plating: +3 DR (CRB p286)
• Platelet Factories: Taking 2 or more Physical damage? Reduced by 1 (CRB p292)
• Reflex Recorders for Close Combat and Firearms: +1 skill rating (CRB p293)

A 3(7) means that someone’s base Agility is 3, and their augmented Agility is 7, so for all rolls and checks you’d use the 7. Note that the maximum adjusted attribute value is +4, see CRB p37, so Rude’s Agility cannot ever be boosted past that 7. UNLESS the rules EXPLICITLY state something bypasses the adjusted/augmented maximum limit!

Important note: Bone Lacing and Bone Density Augmentation do not augment your overall Body, they only provide a bonus to Body when you’re facing physical damage. Note that that is lowercase physical. This means you could argue it applies to all damage you face in the flesh, even if it’s Stun and not Physical. Is that actually the case? I got no idea what’s official, but I’d say yes: These apply to damage resistance tests against attacks that attack your actual body, in contrast to for example Direct Spells that attack your mind and Matrix Biofeedback Damage.

Platelet Factories, however, state they work against Physical damage. Which means that a Direct spell that does 2+ Physical Damage would trigger Platelet Factories their effect.

Important skills

• Close Combat 7(8), with a Specialization in Blades
• Firearms 4(5), with a Specialization in Heavy Pistols
• Perception 3
• Seattle Street Gangs (Knowledge Skill) (CRB p97-p99)

So to translate those stats to dicepools: If Rude swings a first, he has 7 Agility + 8 Close Combat = 15 dice. If he swings a katana (which is a blade), he also adds a +2 from his Specialization = 17 dice. Knowledge skills are special, we’ll get to those in the actual gameplay example

Rude’s special stats

• Defense Rating: 17 (7 Body, +4 Armor Jacket, +1 Dermal Deposits. +3 Dermal Plating, +2 Bone Lacing)
• Social Rating: 0/6 (FS p50: 3 Charisma, -3 Armor Jacket, armor flipped on Intimidation)
• Base Initiative: Reaction 3 + Intuition 4, no augmentations on the dice = 7+1D6 (CRB p39)
• Base Actions: 1 Major/2 Minor (CRB p40: 1 default Minor + 1 per Initiative dice, aka 2 total when unbuffed)
• Default defense pool: Reaction 3 + Intuition 4 = 7 dice (CRB p105)
• Condition Monitors: 12 Physical, 9 Stun (CRB p38: 8 + Body/2 rounded up, note that the +2 from Bone Lacing doesn’t apply here, and 8 + Willpower/2 rounded up, so 8+7/2=12 PCM, 8+1/2=9 SCM)

Rude’s Armor Jacket (CRB p265, +table on p266) provides +4 Defense Rating and has 8 Capacity. He spent that all on the following:

• Electricity Resistance Rating 3 (CRB p266: 3 Capacity, can protect against Zapped status 3x, both those numbers are equal to the rating)
• MEMS Equipment Pouch (FS p48: 2 Capacity, gives Gear Access (FS p53: makes picking up items from the pouch a Minor Action))
• MEMS Quick-Draw Holster (FS p48, 3 Capacity, allows the Quick-Draw action, boosts 1 AR when quick-drawing, can at most hold a Heavy Pistol)

Weapons (ignoring weapons Rude didn’t bring with him to the bar)

• Ares Predator VI (CRB p253 + table p255)
  • 15 Explosive rounds and 15 Stick-n-Shock rounds loaded (an Ares Predator VI can have multiple ammo-types loaded and uses the type you want)
  • Personalized Grip (FS p62, +1/+1/-/-/- on available Attack Ratings)
  • Active Smartgun (CRB p260-261, since Rude uses Wireless Smartlinked Contacts, the combination of Smartlink+Smartgun gives 2 on all available Attack Ratings, and other benefits)
  • Explosive Rounds (CRB p261-262): 13/13/11/-/-, 4P damage (The – Attack Ratings do not become 2 with the smartgun bonus, they count as non-existent instead)
  • Stick-n-Shock Rounds (CRB p262): 14/14/12/-/-, 2S(e) damage
• Unarmed Strike: 14/-/-/-/-, 4P (p39: Strength 11 + Reaction 3 as Attack Rating, and see Bone Lacing for why this is the unarmed damage)
• Katana (CRB p247, +p249 table)
  • Personalized Grip: (FS p62, +2/-/-/-/- Attack Rating)
  • Attack Rating: 23/-/-/-/- (base 10, +11 from Strength (CRB p109 Combat Example, due to an errata mistake it’s not in the base rules), +2 from the Personalized Grip)
  • Damage: 4P (Note that Strength gives no bonus on melee damage, only on melee Attack Rating)