/srg/ Shadowrun General - RPG Design+Logic (100, 1 day)

Your augmented maximum for any attribute is your personal natural attribute plus four. Your metatype's augmented maximum is your metatype's natural maximum plus four. Elf agi would be 7(11)

Am I being stupid, or is there no Exotic Melee Weapon skill listed in the actual combat skill section? It's referred to all over the place elsewhere, but not in the combat skill section.

On that note, would a sword cane count as an Exotic Melee Weapon?

Are there any rules for mass combat in the books? I'm running a game of 5e and shit's about to go down with several factions all showing up at once in a small area, so there's gonna be 40+ people all shooting each other at once, not including the players. Is there any way to resolve the combat using rolls or should I just gm-fluff it?

Anyone ran any games recently that they'd like to share current events?

Yeah, that's a thing but you get a karma penalty, you're also getting -1 dice penalty when using a firearm that's not your fave brand.

I'm this guy Member of party got contacted by an old friend from their past (as in, he's a psychopathic priest and she knew him from before he went insane). Contact ended up getting them a job working protection for two foreign diplomats attending a global conference dealing with magic and its role in counter-terrorism. What the party doesn't know is that one of the diplomats is there to intercept an underground exchange of a powerful magical artifact being handled by Wuxing. Additionally, the party is going to be betrayed by the decker they hired for the job (turns out they killed his former fellow runners a few sessions ago). Also the yakuza is going to get involved. And two separate terrorist attacks (actually both orchestrated by a vampire BBEG) are going to happen at the conference and threaten the life of the other diplomat. I love this game.

Sounds like fun, I just hope your party dont happen to browse at this particular time..

Thank God.

I was afraid they were gonna continue sinking all their time and efforts into that Shadowrun anarchy Rule's lite bull shit they're working on.

pretty sure none of them browse Veeky Forums

You never know. People aren't exactly forthcoming with that information in my personal experience .

IT WAS ALL A MISDIRECTION

I'm trying to find a list of team names for my runner's fantasy urban brawl league. Everyone knows Seattle Screamers but Holly is an Essen guy. Someone mentioned something about a team list being in Super Brawl Sunday, but I can't figure out if that's a PDF that's actually been published or not. I found a list of North American teams, are there just no Euro or Asian teams? Anyone that can point me in the right direction?

Nevermind, I found it.
shadowhelix.de/Urban_Brawl
For anyone who is interested.

>silencer, I'm looking at you
Valid use of a select sound filter, omae.

Exotic Melee Weapon skill is dependent on the weapon. You have to buy it individually for every weapon type such as Monowhip

Hey Chummers.
What's easier for a new player: Combat mage, or street shaman? I'm rolling up a street sam because it seems easiest, but my friend is apparently diving directly into magic, do not pass mundane, do not collect cyberware.
I'm wanting to at least direct him to the easiest one, because he's the type that usually takes a long time to take his turn.

On one hand spirits are some BROKEN shit
On the other hand there are a lot of beautiful spells you can get to brighten up your days and make those of your enemies go to shit real fast

I'd guess spirits are a bit easier, but there is nothing stopping you from doing both, using spells and summoning spirits

Alright, so agents have condition boxes equivalent to 8 + (System ÷ 2, rounded up). How exactly does that work for Sprites since they don't have System? I feel like I'm missing one specific line of text in the manual here.

>spirits are some BROKEN shit
Please elaborate.

Question:
saw someone in the previous thread complain about pixie riggers. What's the issue with them? They're essentially giving up the one good thing about the pixie (innate invisibility with hits = to magic) in return for fluff.

Any idea where I can find the Shadows of Europe book for DL?

It's not because it's a pixie rigger. It's because it's a pixie.

Okay, so I haven't really gotten into the math of it. But suffice to say a force 6 fire spirit using engulf can kill basically anything in one hit.

A force 6+ fire spirit engulfs your decker and it's not going to be good time for the decker.

Sword cane is clearly just a blade
You use it like any other sword

Anybody know of any good places to search character images for Shadowrun that aren't what's already in the Mega folder or on Google?

tumblr

pinterest for runner fashion

sounds pretty good.

Thanks user Pinterest had some good shit. Still kinda pissed they made me make an account to view it.

Can't even bring myself to go there.

>They're essentially giving up the one good thing about the pixie
Pixies are attribute minmaxing 101.

followup question:
In the spell force section, it says "if the number of hits (not net hits) after applying the limit exceeds your magic rating, the spells drain is physical instead of stun damage"
Why is it specifying not net hits, and how does that relate to summoning spirits?

It clarifies for the sake of clarification. Also this has nothing to do with summoning. Conjuring follows it's own rules for physical versus stun drain.

Why does neoteny gives so little karma for what it does?

-2 to condition track, serious social issues, increased lifestyle costs, and all it's worth is 6 karma?

did they give it such a low karma bonus because they knew anime fans would get it regardless of what it actually did mechanically?

I live to serve.

Is this a new 5e thing? Last I checked, max augmented was (max.natural x 1.5). Humans have 6(9) in everything except Edge, for example.

yup, in 5e it's maximum+4
seems the distinction between your and the metatypes augmented maximum is also from 5e, at least I can't remember it in 4e

I wonder how "fun" things could get if they had forgotten to set an augmented maximum.

ah, alright. Thanks.

So how I fluff Marquis from Battleborn to Shadowrun as a villain npc?

Mages would turn every run into something you'd expect to see in dragonball, all while the more mundane players are reduced to mere spectators.

What book in 5e is the one that has info on insect spirits?

I keep hearing about them but I really don't know shit about them.

So, you guys, did you ever give your players an actual contract full of legalese they have to read through for a run? Or do you just handwave it as "it's a scary contract"?
Have you ever had a corporation so frighteningly corporate that players had to buy additional parts of the contract to know whether or not they broke the NDA?

>SINless
>signing contracts

Cause that's gonna be real fucking enforceable.

Why would anyone do that? Sounds like you're trying to alienate and bore your players.

Still, corporations like doing it.
And it explains in great deal the exact moment they are going to doublecross you.

isn't part of the reason to have shadowrunners that they're deniable assets that are difficult if not impossible to trace back to whoever's hiring them, even if the shadowrunners try to double back on the deal and sell the corp out?
why the fug would you blow that by using solid contracts, which are more or less 'HERE'S SOLID PROOF THESE GUYS ARE ON OUR PAYROLL, COME RAPE OUR FACES'

I don't think so. It's more efficient to increase the stats of somebody who already has high stats than it is to try and bring one's own weak shit up to par.

If I were the mage, I could overcast Enhanced Attribute to bring myself up to the auged sam's level, at the cost of ridiculous Drain, or I could take the same Drain to send said sam's STR into the realm of, say, dragons.

Even discounting that, though, poor GM management is the only thing that makes magic seem overpowered. There are tons of ways any GM can counter that power, all right there in the books. Stupid bastards just never bother to use them.

>Fuckin sick trips
>Hail Satan

Can you detail some good counter mage stuff? I'm gonna be DMing a Shadowrun campaign for the first time and the guy who always uses mages I'd a power gamer douche.

Is a power gaming douche*

But, since I'm apparently the Prince of Lies, maybe it's better to disregard all that.

all mages are only able to use their powers at all because DMs ignore the background count rules.

If that rule was enforced to the letter as described in the 5e street magic book, it would be impossible to use magic with any competency because basically anywhere you went would give you -1 to -16 penalty to your magic shit.

Tech and Background Count are good places to start. The more complex a certain piece of technology is, the harder it is to affect with magic. Background Counts, whether positive or negative, act as a flat reduction to any Magic-linked tests made by any magic user who doesn't share the same aspect in their tradition.

If you want to combine the two, cyberzombies are ridiculously-technical entities who also create Background Count just by existing.

Thanks anons. I'll have to lookup the rules for background count, but appreciate the insight.

>technical
*technological, natch.

I just read the section on background count in the street magic book. What is considered a reasonable count at any given time? How often should there actually be a background count? The section didn't really go into great detail.

it's basically DM fiat
>oh btw there was a mass murder here so you now have -200 to all your magic tests
>don't like it? maybe you should have bought me pizza

I wouldn't call it Fiat. The rules for it make sense.

You must be a mage fan.

Chummer5 is crashing for me on load with most of my chars? Is this happening to anyone else? I'm running the latest nightly.

>make sense
No they don't.
According to the rules, every mage out here would be suffering from at least a -1 since any murder, rape, and other suffering of that level generates a background count.

Which means literally every single inch of say, seattle, would have several different -1 background counts, which by their "temporary" nature a mage would never be able to acclimatize.

The problem with magic is individual overpowered spells and spirits, something background count doesn't do shit for.

Your average new player mage that just wants to throw fireballs gets fucked by those rules, but the powergamer that summons a fire spirit before the run to eat any opposition doesn't give a shit.

>acclimatize
You can't "acclimatize" to Background Count to begin with. It's either of your general tradition or it isn't.

A Wolf Shaman walking around Auschwitz is never going to work good mojo in there, no matter how long they stay. A sterilist Toxic, on the other hand, might be able to aspect the suffering of the site to his own ends.

>the powergamer that summons a fire spirit before the run to eat any opposition doesn't give a shit
Spirits suffer from Background Count, too. Anything magical does.

Hey dragon cyber ware. I figure they're all awakened and would prefer magic shit but if a dragon lost body parts in a fight and felt inclined would it be possible in SR? Is there precedent?

>Spirits suffer from Background Count, too. Anything magical does.
not enough to make it not overpowered.

A -3 is enough to pretty much shutdown a fireball slinger (who is usually rolling around 12-13 dice and really needs the hits to make their damage spells do things) but a pre-summoned before the run high force spirit isn't gonna care about a -3

And lets not mention that background counts ruin adepts completely. I don't see random areas of anti-technology that randomly shut down cyber augments, so why are background counts allowed to affect adepts?

>What is considered a reasonable count at any given time?
BCG is area-dependent, so it all depends on the area. Count manifests in areas of strong emotion. ANY emotion. A Christian chapel with a long-running tradition of performing happy marriages would have just as much chance of having a Count as a Barrens neighborhood where troggers are regularly beaten to death would. They'd be more or less powerful, maybe, and they would DEFINITELY be aspected differently.

>How often should there actually be a background count?
As often as there needs to be.

You're looking for a mathematical solution rather than a narrative one, but you aren't going to find it.

Are you saying that a Force 3 spirit is just as effective as a Force 6 spirit?

One tried, once. I think he went crazy or something. Don't quote me on that, though.

But Sam's get rekt by Mages and Deckers.

I see BC as magic noise; only there to keep the (decker/mage) in check and for ploy convenience (I can't draw a bead on him the background count is too high

>all this talk about background counts
How do you quickly produce a large, temporary background count?
How temporary is temporary?
Is there a way to make this background count one that blood mages can't use?

>How do you quickly produce a large, temporary background count?
murder a lot of people in a single place

>How do you quickly produce a large, temporary background count?
Rock concert with an audience of thousands.

>How do you quickly produce a large, temporary background count?
Murder a box of kittens

>How temporary is temporary?
IIRC, they fade by the hour or by the day in 5e.

>Is there a way to make this background count one that blood mages can't use?
I imagine a blood mage would have trouble utilizing a background count created by a beloved marriage ceremony.

>kittens
Kittens are animals, user. Murdering them wouldn't really do much unless you did it in front of a bunch of preschoolers or something like that.

>keep the (decker/mage) in check
the mage/decker wouldn't need to be in check if the rules weren't shit.
Adepts shouldn't be better then sams, mages shouldn't be able to just fuck shit up if left unchecked.

>Everyone should be equal forever
This isn't even true in the real world. Why would it be true in an offshoot of the real world?

Because it is a game that posits these roles as equal for the sake of game balance.
It's why noise, essence, and noise are things. Otherwise everyone would go the super nintendo shadowrun way and be spellcasting cybermen.

er, noise, essence, and background count. whoop.

>it's unbalanced on purpose

Why do stronger races cost more karma then humans if balance isn't important? Just have elves be literally better then human in every aspect, that's "realistic"

Magic isn't real m8, it has no inherent reason to automatically be better then cyber augmentation.

And I'm pretty sure it isn't the intent of the writers to make magic better in every way either.

how cheesy is prototype transhuman?
Because I love supersoldiers so much.

Only really super good for awakened, a sam will get more mileage out of biocompatibility and/or adapsin.

DESU it's kind of shitty to let an awakened take prototype transhuman imho

Thing is, unless you're jamming piles of inefficient gear into your body, it's rather difficult to actually run out of Essence. Since you still have to pay for the bioware's nuyen cost, awakened and techomancers who can't afford the hit to their special attributes are the only ones really getting anything out of it.

Oh yeah I just can't find the actual skill entry. I found Exotic Ranged Weapon but not Exotic Melee Weapon.

Damn, I was hoping to tap into the same cheese our party's combat dwarf did by comboing Blades and Exotic Melee Weapon (Katana) together.

i dunno fampai, theres quire a bit of bioware a mundane would like to not have to pay essence for that leaves dosh for other things. even just bone density 3 is another .9 essence you can put towards other stuff

Would you do runs for skynet if skynet is trying to overthrow the corps?

What, because they have 1 more logic than a human? Their other good thing is an absurdly high cha, which is again wasted on a rigger.

Misread "rigger" and laughed my ass off for a good fifteen seconds.

>You can't "acclimatize" to Background Count to begin with. It's either of your general tradition or it isn't.
You totally can though. If you live in a place long enough, you can ignore the background count. It's a quality, iirc.
Anything that creates a lot of emotion. Hold a concert, murder some dudes, set off a dirty bomb, whatever.
Murder a box of awakened kittens. There's snakes that count as people, we can probably find cats that count as people too.
Because this is a game? If one player is objectively better than another, it'll be less fun for the shitty player.
Eh, so long as they take something like Astral Beacon or Wanted as the downside I don't think it's a big deal.

Hey guys, I'm rolling up a face since it seems fun, but I've got no idea what skills are required besides intimidation, con, etiquette, and obviously negotiation.

Hey Veeky Forums I'm making a decker/rigger what are the most important attributes for those?

all charisma skills duh

logic and intuition.
Logic for the real cyberhacking and shit and intuition because apparently google searching requires intuition.