/srg/ - Shadowrun General

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>Welcome back to /srg/, chummer
>Last Viewed Files:
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Personal Alerts
* Your Current Rep Score: -2.5 (5i% Positive)
* You have 1 new private message, titled ''I never asked for this"
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* Running Detroit Tigers Winning.BTL...

>Shoot straight
>Conserve ammo
>And never, ever cut a deal with a dragon

Ware grade edition. Do you strive to have all ware at one grade. Do you use Used/Omega Ware. Have you ever gotten Beta- or Deltaware?

First for you didn't need to make this thread yet, drekhead.

he just really, really wanted to get the "I never asked for this" line in the OP

I go low-grade for things with small Essence costs but big price tags and high-grade for things that are essence-heavy but nuyen-cheap. I literally set up a spreadsheet, determine an Essence:Nuyen ratio, and then decide what grade to take based on that number.

What's your optimal conversion rate?

Depends on the amount of nuyen/essence I'm willing to lose to the build.

>not going 0.01 essence for every build
humanity is overrated

>chavs of the future

how horrifying

>An explosive’s Damage Value is calculated as its Rating (modified by the Demolitions Test, if you made one) times the square root of the number of kilograms used (rounded down).

>square root
for fucks sake shadowrun writers, give people who don't know math a bone here

m8...

Discalculia is a known mental disorder.

More like "I forgot what I was taught in primary school".

You have a smartphone with a calculator app, right? If not, a pocket calculator is, like...2 bux at your nearest pharmacy convenience store.

Dude... I know you probably spent the bonus karma well but some Negative Qualities just aren't worth it.

That's square root.

√√√√√
√√√√√
√√√√√
√√√√√
√√√√√

Find that button on your phone's calc, and punch it.

How would you stat John Carmack as a character?

(Not the same user but) Almost every character I make has negative qualities. They're totally worth it.

I rarely ever see builds online that don't have at least one negative quality either.

Look I haven't need to do square root of anything in literally 15 years

plus my GM always says to leave the phones off during game

as said, calculators able to calculate the square root of numbers are extremely cheap

Otherwise make yourself a small list with numbers and their corresponding square root

He said SOME negative qualities are not worth it. As in, certain ones. Like dyscalculia.

Oh, sorry I misread. Yeah, certainly some are obscene.

What Negative Qualities are absolutely not worth under any circumstances, or are just ones you would never ever take?

>Corp Born SIN
You're a dead man walking.
>Pacifist (I or II)
Too harsh a requirement for comparatively small benefit.

Addiction: Burnout

Fucking precalculated tables? Are we going pre-computer computers here?

If he's such a cheapskate/ his GM has LOG 1 so that he will/may not use a calculator then that is sadly the only way for him to do this

Nigger, do you want things to go boom, or do you not? Alternatively, always use 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, or 64 KG of explosive compound. Which may be somewhat excessive, but it's very easy to calculate.

good news for me!
There are pre-calculated tables on the run and gun book!

Pic related. It's hilarious, but you'll die after 3 runs top, most likely while taking at least some members of your crew with you

>log 1
>using bombs
What could possibly go wrong?

I don't know, but I do know it's going to be a blast.

And here we see a chummer who took Illiterate as a negative quality:
>his GM has LOG 1

>not having LOG and CHA at 1

>not having log, will and cha at 1 and being a burnout addict addicted to psycho

>having WIL at 1

ishygddt

what's the worst that could happen?

I don't use negative qualities for the karma, I pick one or two negative and positive qualities for flavour, and go from there. It's more common for me to reach the end of a character with spare karma I need to spend on a quality to get below the limit.

Am I minmaxing wrong?

"I have no mouth and I must scream." is probably the worst.

So, negative and positive qualities?

What are the combo's that are the most___Fun?

Back in the 4e days, Deep Cover, Amnesia, Cranial Bomb, Hung Out to Dry and Mysterious Implant resulted in the most fun character I've ever run with.

>Deep Cover
You're actually undercover for fbi/cia/police ?
>Amnesia
Cannot remember who you are
>Cranial Bomb
Head goes chunky salsa
>Hung Out to Dry
No contacts?
>Mysterious Implant
You'\re a drugmule?

I think both are good reasons, roleplaying your negative qualities is fun. But the clever part is the way that min-maxers like myself are encourages to roleplay more by putting a monetary value on particular character traits.

Deep Cover is that you're a Manchurian Candidate. You have a second personality that emerges when someone says the trigger phrase and (potentially) goes back to sleep when someone says another. Being a spy is a distinct possibility.

Amnesia is accurate. The second level of Amnesia just says "let the GM make your character for you," which is a little more risky. The player in question did not do that.

Cranial Bomb is also accurate, although it specifically stipulates that someone else implanted it in you and they're holding the detonator switch. Amnesia may prevent you from remember that you have a bomb in your head.

Hung Out to Dry stipulates that none of your contacts can be reached for whatever reason. Maybe they just don't want to talk to you. Maybe they've gone dark and can't risk poking their heads out. You can buy it off after you've cleared up whatever is making them unavailable. Combined with Amnesia, this prevents anyone who knows you from being able to tell you who you are while also implying that something bad happened to get you to where you are at the start of the game.

Mysterious Implant means that there's some minor hidden cyber or bioware implant in your body. This can be anything from a secret, heavily-encrypted data lock full of information, to a biometric scrambler that causes you to never leave the same set of fingerprints or DNA twice, to a backdoor into all of your other cyberware. No matter how you cut it, finding this shit inside of you on a routine scan from your street doc is probably extremely disconcerting.

All four are qualities that involve putting a lot of trust into the GM and springing them makes a perfect drama bomb and a wonderful dramatic swerve to any campaign.

Pretty obvious I'd say. But speedreading and photographic memory can pull many a cart out of the mud. Especially if you are in a time sensitive situation and aren't filming everything that happens.

The real fun begins when you are doing social infiltrations. One hour preparation time with the personnel files and you basically know everything to know about every employee in a place.

>>Mexico annexes a portion of one of the most militarized states in the U.S.A.
>I don't care if it has historical significance, a third world nation under a shitty cartel dictator can't roll in to one of America's most hostile states with T-72s and expect any sort of success.

>This user fell for the "Texas is really big on guns" meme

Haha oh man

for some reason, I think I've read about that character in /srg/ from one of the other players. Anyone got the screen cap I'm thinking of?

There's a ton of retarded shit in the setting.

That's why it's better to disregard the canon setting and run your own.

Usually I expect 25 karma of negative qualities to be worth as much as any other 25 karma of negative qualities, and that's my gauge of whether it's worth taking.

I run canon and then deviate wildly in the current setup and shoehorn my stupid bullshit in

Jesus, I posted that how many threads ago?

Also, it's not the militia I'm talking about, it's all the military assets Texas has.

I will literally never take qualities I intend to later buy off, because that's literally paying for the privilege of having been penalized. The only negative qualities I'll purchase are ones I want to be a permanent part of the character. Anything else, I'll still include, but as a mechanics-free fluff element of my character.

So, for example, Debt? I will never take Debt, because that's a constant nuyen tax until purchased off with karma. I might be in debt in fluff, probably represented by taking some certain lifestyle element, but never the actual Debt quality unless I intend for that character to die with that debt still hanging over their head.

Was this it?

>That's why it's better to disregard the canon setting and run your own.
That's still wisdom.

First time playing a Decker. Do you always have to be on the front lines? It seems like noise becomes a huge bitch really fast if you aren't infiltrating right alongside the party. And here I was thinking I could chill with the rigger in the van and be ready to high tail it if I tipped off GOD.

You aren't on the front lines, just behind the line so you can keep yourself alive to get into those systems. Sticking to the van usually requires a sat link to keep the distance noise at -5 dice, so only do so after you max out your dice pool.

>the setting sucks
>the rules sucks
why does anyone play this game?

I play 2e back when the game and setting were still good

The setting is fine. Some people are little bitches about everything.

It's fine to gloss over some dumb things like native population, or ignore bits you don't like such as CFD, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not a good idea.

>wish to leave humanity behind and fill myself with bio augs to become the ultimate bio weapon
>cannot reproduce a child with these augs, cannot bite a civvie to turn them into the ultimate bio weapon

I am not ultimate bio weapon enough. Where do I go to pick up some umbrella shit?

Because it's the dominant near-future table-top RPG and I can't get my group to break out of their inertia and learn a different system. It's called "lock-in", any cyberpunk dystopia should be familiar with it.

Because despite it's flaws, I love me some cyberpunk.

Because Cyberpunk2020 is even worse.

And Eclipse Phase is WAY too far into the future and full of crazy.

And I already own the books.

If I could, I'd get my players to try out Interface-Zero.

Eclipse Phase isn't cyberpunk
And interface Zero is absolute garbage

>And interface Zero is absolute garbage
Better or worse than SR and CP2020?

Worse than both.

Not only that, didn't they lose it after declaring Independence? I'm pretty sure the CAS would have taken or sabotaged a ton of it before they left. Countries don't usually like losing territory.

Time for Nova Praxis?

>Cyberpunk
>Anywhere but terra
I think not

Texas got invaded, they left the CAS because they thought they weren't getting enough support (The CAS didn't formally declare war on Aztlan because the country was still barely together and not able to fight Aztlan/Aztechnology, de facto ceding that bit of desert), then came crawling back 4 months later when they couldn't win on their own.

thats the one.

Hey srg, quickie question.

Is there any actual rules restriction on a non-Toxic mage taking a Toxic spell?

I really wanted the "Laser" spell, but we're playing 5e, and the only laser-y spells are Radiation Beam and that one flashlight spell that's only good for killing vampires.
My concept was basically a character who used the Laser spell as a signature, so I'm kind of lost without being able to take something similar.

So I was thinking about taking Arsenal and Gun Heaven, rewriting all the stuff to 5E, putting it in a PDF, and then releasing it.

Would anybody be interested in that?

Just take an Indirect fire/force spell and fluff it as a laser. They're line-of-sight attacks that ignore some/all armor already.

Enjoy getting ceased and desisted.

Or just, y'know
Make a PDF and post it here and people can share it as they'd like.

Yes, it's explicit that only Toxics can use toxic spells.

You could use the Sunbeam Spell, or Flamethrower, Clout, Lighting Bolt, Powerbolt... refluff any single target combat spell into your preferred laser, whether burning, zapping, or pure force.

Enjoy getting thanked.

It's never time for Nova Praxis.
To be fair a large part of why they lost was making grandstanding maneuvers like moving the fucking Alamo to Fort Worth.
Ask your GM if you can make power-bolt into a beam? It's pretty much irrelevant.

Well when the whole point is to burn holes in things, Sunbeam feels kind of toothless.

Ditto Clout, because it's stun damage.

Powerbolt is direct, so it's not something you actually fire off, so that's off the table too.

Lightning Bolt is closer, but it does Electricity damage, which is stunning and behaves differently with drones and just doesn't fit a cutting laser.

Flamethrower and similar is kind of closer. I also considered Napalm for it, though I don't know how tough it'd be to explain away the physical 'water' part... even though a laser blasting people off their feet seems pretty awesome conceptually.

It's literally just Flamethrower but with the word 'beam' instead of 'bolt.'

4e: What Cyber-/Bioware can be used to defend against Tailored Pheromones? Cause I tried to make a character that is hard to manipulate and I don't know how to defend them from that.

Noseplugs. Glue them in, 0.1 Essence.

What said.
Hack out your nasal cavities, replace with a cyberdong.
Become Dicknose the Social Wanker.

>Not buying the deltaware version
Pleb

Turn off your Olfactory cyberware, or use a Respirator, Gas Mask, etc.

If you have either of the latter in a mask, helmet, etc, then you can add an olfactory sensor to notice when someone is using tailored pheromones.

Not meeting face to face, or simply having a high score for resisting social stuff, since all they do is provide the user with a bonus.

Along the same lines; meet somewhere the pheromones don't have time to build up.

That's not a thing. They propagate more or less instantly unless you're so far apart that a comm call would be easier than trying to shout at each other.

>>unless you're so far apart that a comm call would be easier than trying to shout at each other.
>Ever meeting people in person
>Ever using your real name, face, or giving away any identifying characteristic about yourself whatsoever
>Ever leaving your secure, blacked-out, environmentally sealed, armored Personal Mobility Vehicle
>Going by the same username for more than 6 months
Some of us plan to retire, you know.

>That's not a thing
>They propagate more or less instantly
Says you. Given the same amount of written support, I could say they cease working as soon as you're not breathing them in.

>unless you're so far apart that a comm call would be easier than trying to shout at each other
I would say there's some amount of distance between 'comfortable' and 'comms are easier than shouting'. That's just being silly.

>only when the person you’re using them on is within a comfortable conversation range
>if they can’t smell you, the pheromones don’t work
Being outdoors and/or wind in the right direction should redefine 'comfortable' distance, imo.

Mexico would never be able to invade American territory and keep any of it. Texas alone could easily beat them in a war. Even if the hispanic population of the Southwest revolted or tried to secede, they would probably do better on their own with whatever they could grab from their own territory than relying on help from Mexico.

Tips for beginner DM and party new to SR? They've played PF a bit so any pointers on how SR is expressly not like PF would be good too.

MAGIC

You don't NEED to fight unless that's what you wanna do. I know that every game technically has a pacifist route, but Shadowrun excels at it. I've played sessions where I've never fired a shot, and I've played sessions where we rammed through the front door with an APC and swept an entire complex with frag and clear strats.

On top of it, Shadowrun does lethal and nonlethal incredibly well. You may wanna heads up your players on that. You can even do loud nonlethally, which is interesting because not many games with guns do that.

Your players may or may not find out that their first character that they build will probably suck. When I've played and ran games, every time somebody creates their first character, they always want to do something else because they've realized where they fucked up after the first few sessions. Best example of this is when somebody plays dual-wielders, pistol only, melee only, or magicians that didn't specialize in something or only took combat magic. They'll find out that what they're playing isn't really that good or doesn't bring a lot to the team and kinda feel like they're garbage. If this happens to be the case, just let 'em rebuild the character or make another - don't be that DM that forces somebody play a character they don't wanna play.

I know you probably didn't read the OP, but there is a pastebin and in that pastebin is a mega and in that mega there's this beautiful little thing called the Hayek sheets under a folder called Summaries or something like that. Get them.

other than that i can't think of anything now. If you're playing online, get chummer or herolabs.

So for the manasuckers out there, whats the biggest, baddest spirit you ever summoned, why did you summon it and did it perform adequately?

>implying you need to be awakened to answer this
Street Grimoire, p126.

You'll need an alchemist or some such for the components, and it's roughly as safe as Damocles' sword if you fuck up, but summoning itself can be done by anyone.

It also has some uses for mages to get around their limitations. Only slightly safer, but it can work.

However to answer I called up a Force 7 Fire spirit once. It was for a game of oneupmanship (huge lie) gone very bad.

Got rid of the guy and his 'weener friends, so I'd say it worked pretty well.

I really, really like cancerstix.

>Play in a group of slow, careful, heavy black trenchcoat runners
>Careful consideration of every move, meticulous planning, minor casualities in even massive clusterfucks
>Say fuck it, discuss with group but not GM
>Play heavily augmented cyberpsychotic with superhuman psychosis quality.
>Shank everyone and everything who so much as glances threateningly at any of us
>GM can't create long running antagonists that we've met before because they're immediately shanked if they suffer even a whiff of suspicion
>later in campaign get wheeled into more private meets like hannibal lecter
>live in sewers
>laugh
>eventually become loup garou and get shot

Best campaign ever.

What this guy said, half the population was dead from a plague and the Mexicans had Blood Mages summoning spirits that can eat tanks.

Not to mention the threat of a new great ghost dance. The Mexicans were big on 'supporting' the amerinds.

No group ever wants to do nonlethal awesomeness superstealth-modo and it makes me sad.

I really want to play that kind of game, and was hoping this would satisfy that itch. But everyone I've played with just wants to do 0 planning and charge the front door while wearing glowing neon pink mohawks.

There's no baby, just a miscarriage.

>No group ever wants to do nonlethal awesomeness superstealth-modo and it makes me sad.
You are just unlucky, plenty of people want black trenchcoating.