Dice rolls and Skillchecks

In this guide we will go some the core gameplay mechanics of Shadowrun. Do not take this document as the end-all, be-all rules for Shadowrun 5th edition. If you find something here that conflicts with rules you´ve found elsewhere remember that the order of what is "right" goes: The Gamemaster > Core Rulebook > Expansion Book > This guide.

Dice Rolls

In Shadowrun all dice rolls are made with D6s. The number of dice you roll is called your Dice Pool.

Checks are made by rolling your dice pool and seeing how many hits you get, then comparing that to either a threshold or an opposing test (someone else rolling their dice pool). A 5 or 6 on a D6 is a hit, every other result except a 1 can be ignored.

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Glitches and Critical glitches

If more than half of your dice pool rolls a 1, you have a Glitch. Whatever you were doing went wrong, maybe you have bad luck, or maybe the enemy did something to counter you. Either way something happens that makes your life more difficult. Note that it´s possible to both glitch and succeed on a test at the same time, the success just comes with a side effect.

A Critical Glitch is when you roll a glitch but also no hits at all. This is just like a normal glitch, just much worse. These mistakes (or misfortunes) could put your life at risk, and will seriously throw a wrench in your teams plan.

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Rule of Six

Certain mechanics (usually Edge) in shadowrun can cause "exploding 6s", this means that any 6s rolled counted as a hit, then rolled again. If you get a hit on a the next roll that counts as another hit and if you get another 6 you can roll it yet again. This keeps going until you stop rolling 6s. All hits until then are counted towards your total hits, wiz!

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Tests & Limits

Whenever you want to do something more complicated than say, toasting bread, you´ll need to make a Test. This can be a Success Test (against a threshold) or an Opposed Test (against another player or an NPC). There are also Extended Tests, but they will get their own chapter below.

To perform either of these test you simply take your Dice Pool, roll it and count the number of Hits. The hits are then compared to the Threshold or the result of the Opposed test (performed by the gamemaster or another player).

In a success test, if you roll equal to or more than the threshold, you succeed!

In an opposed test, you must roll more than the opponent to succeed. If you both roll the same number of hits, the test is a draw.

Limits

Limits represent the physical, mental and technological barriers holding you from greatness. After all, it doesn't matter how skilled you are at sword fighting if you don´t have the physique to actually swing the sword!

Many things have Limits, including you. All characters have a Physical, Mental and Social limits. Your gear also has limits, for example the Accuracy stat on a weapon serve as a limit for any attacks made with that weapon.

What a Limit does is to serve as a maximum for how many hits on a test actually count towards the test.

If you were to roll 7 hits on a Gymnastics test but your Physical Limit is 5, only 5 of your hits would actually count towards the test!

There are many ways to raise your limits, but to remove them completely you need to spend Edge (see page 58 of Core rules).

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Dice Pools

Most of the time your dice pool will be made up of an Attribute and a Skills plus/minus any Modifiers.

A skill will tell you what Attribute goes along with it, to see a full list of of all skills and their associated attributes go to page 130 of the Core rules.

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Extended Tests

When performing a task that will take longer to complete, or that can be started, paused and picked up again later, you perform an Extended Test.

An Extended Test works much like a normal Success Test but instead of rolling once, you roll your dice pool, adding up the hits you´ve gained, until you succeed, run out of time or run out of dice.

The Extended Test will have a Interval set by your Gamemaster depending on the size and complexity of the task. It may be a minute, an hour or a month, or anything in between. Once ever Interval, you roll your dice pool and count the hits, adding them to the total rolled during this Extended Test. If your total hits equal or exceed the threshold, you've succeeded! If not, you wait for the interval to pass and roll again.

Every time you roll your dice pool, you remove 1 of the dice from the pool. This represents your characters limits, the larger the dice pool, the longer they can keep trying.

Your Gamemaster may also set a time limit to the test, depending on the situation. They may for example say that you can only try to defuse the bomb for 5 minutes, because after that it explodes!

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