/srg/ - Shadowrun General

Soooo hellhounds as guard critters.

I know that they are dual natured, but i cant make out an ability of them that makes them actually able to harm astral beings. Proably i'm just overlooking things.

Can your average hellhound actually harm, say, astral spirits ? Or do they have to be trained in astral combat to do anything harmful besides barking at them ?

Adept doesn't require you to be Awakened, only Magic Amps do; unless that's stated elsewhere. As is, I wouldn't even consider that if I weren't already familiar with Shadowrun. Maybe that's why Adept Amps are so bland, since they require no buy-in. But that's why stuff like Cyberspur seems like it should be "worth" more.

It seems like Cyberware and Bioware Amps should all be one less, since they also cost Essence.

I'm also not really sure what purpose it serves to restrict characters to being either Awakened OR Emerged. Frankly if you're giving up four Amp points just to buy other Amps, you should be able to do what you want. Then again, I wonder how well the up-front surcharge of 2 Amps for Awakened/Emerged compares to the cost of Essence loss, or increased Amp cost for Bioware. Essence loss also seems more/less meaningful, since a full set of limbs would only be 2 Essence instead of turning you into a Cyberzombie, but even simple things like a Data Jack cost 1 Essence minimum.

I'm just all in all a little disappointed with how bland the powers are. If Adept is sort of the "default", I guess it's okay that they're bland, but since Cyberware requires resource management and Bioware requires both Amp points *and* (slightly lessened) resource management, they should be more interesting than dice bonuses or rerolls.

I mean, "Control Thoughts" is just giving a +1/2/3 on Intimidation and Negotiation.

>Unrelated to the powers:
I haven't gone through most of the rest of the book (I try to always start with chargen) but I get the impression that this is a completely different system that they jury rigged to be as Shadowrun as possible, right down to forcing it to use a d6 dicepool system instead of whatever it originally used.

Aren't they Dual-Natured? If so they can just attack astral forms

>We all know the Jaguar shifters, and Bear-Who-Walks-Through-Walls, but what are some rarer animal shifters you got in your games?
My current character is a Dog Shifter. His name is Runt. He's the runt of his litter, from when a paracritter breeder tried to create a Barghest/Hellhound mutt. The result was a mixed litter of either barghests or hellhounds - rather than any dogs with the powers of both - and a single normal german shepherd/english mastiff puppy, apparently unawakened.

I say 'apparently' because at 2 years of age, Runt's owner came home to find a naked elf stealing a bunch of dog biscuits from the tall cupboard - the one with a latch. The elf goes running off to the back room, and by the time his owner gets there, all he finds is his dog, doing a bad job of pretending to sleep.

It doesn't take long for things to get sorted out - Runt wasn't even keeping the shapeshifting an intentional secret, he just didn't see it as worth mentioning before. He only used it for things that required thumbs anyway, like using the trideo remote or accessing food secretly when home alone - he'd booked it because he thought he'd be in trouble for sneaking food.

I play him as a Mystic Adept, with a particular fondness for fire spells, because of his heritage. He makes great use of an armored jacket with special elastic, smart materials, and loose give in certain areas to let him shift without taking it off, along with tactical webbing to keep his gear on him when he has no hands. He mostly uses his dogform for mobility, but honestly he finds it a lot more comfortable during downtime than his humanoid form.

He's a very good boy.

>I know that they are dual natured, but i cant make out an ability of them that makes them actually able to harm astral beings.
Just being dual-natured itself automatically means you can touch/harm astral beings. I'm pretty sure their elemental attack can too.

But don't they need the Astral combat skill to ghost-bite spirits ? Isn't that the whole reason for the skill to exist, to punch spirits on the astral plane ?

You can just use your normal skills if you're hitting them with a dual-natured limb or weapon. Astral Combat is only optional unless you're actually astral projecting, at which point it becomes mandatory.

I just beat Dragonfall the other day.
I was disappointed that I couldn't talk Vauclair out of the plan, but damn, that twist.

I'm going to start Hong Kong soon, and I want some advice on what Etiquettes to take, and what to stat my character like. I tried to be a combat Rigger in both Dead Man's Switch and Dragonfall, but the reduced actions made it really hard to be a robo-Rogue like I wanted. I ended up giving up on Rigging, but I didn't quite get to Close Combat 8 by the end, so I wasn't able to use the Ares Monosword.

I'm thinking about trying an Adept, but I worry that trying to be an Adept *and* do melee sword shit *and* have enough to keep up my Intelligence and Biotech and Decking and other useful non-combat traits will spread me thin again.

This is what I ended up looking like at the end of the game.

That's not what Hellhounds look like. This is.

So they can just bite a piece of a spirit or burn them with non-fire-but-close astral fire breath ?

> mouth dick
got it !

They can dual-natured bite, but I just checked, and the Elemental Attack is Physical, so it can't be used to affect Astral things unless they Materialize.

Biting and barking to alert someone else to an astral presence.

Okay, got it ! But do they use their strength and dexterity for damage and attack or charisma and willpower ?

>Astrally perceiving and dual-natured characters use their physical attributes and skills to fight opponents with a physical body, and their Astral Combat + Willpower to fight wholly astral entities.
A hellhound would need to roll using Astral Combat + Willpower (with Charisma as Strength) in order to fight wholly-astral beings. If it doesn't have any points in Astral Combat, it would need to default on the roll, meaning Willpower-1.

But dogs can be trained.

If you want your hellhound to be a really good Astral guard dog, get him trained by an appropriately-skilled shaman to be a very good boy at Assensing and Astral Combat.

In the director cut you can, it just requires some very high charisma checks, the right etiquettes, and in the end it doesn't even matter

Thank you all for those quick and insightful responses. I think i am now ready for my first round as Shadowrun Gm and will now go to sleep.

>If you want your hellhound to be a really good Astral guard dog, get him trained by an appropriately-skilled shaman to be a very good boy at Assensing and Astral Combat.
And maybe get his teeth replaced with some high-end Weapon Focus implanted dental replacements. Or his muzzle tattooed to turn his mouth into a Weapon Focus. Chomp chomp.

I know. I meant that I, personally, couldn't talk him down.
I apparently missed a conversation with the Talismonger's assistant. I also didn't have the skills to learn any extra details about Panacea to use to point out its flaws.

Okay so if i understand the greentext right. Your everyday hellhound could bite a projecting mage, but would need astral combat for a spirit, since the spirit doesn't have a physical body per se ?

or does it mean with "wholly astral" that there is no body in the physical plane moving along with it ? But then, why the need for astral perception to attack ? a mundane dog could bite or a corpsec wit a gun could just shoot it in the face...

It means that in physical combat you use physical stats, but in astral combat (where you're attacking immaterial spirits or projecting mages) you use the astral/mental stats.

The hellhound would use Astral Combat + Willpower. If it's not trained in Astral Combat, that's Willpower -1, or a dice pool of 3.

Dogs - even magic dogs - aren't as good at biting spirits as they are at biting real, physical things, unless you train them to be good boys.

>I'm also not really sure what purpose it serves to restrict characters to being either Awakened OR Emerged

Stoping turbocheese and the fucking background of the game.

You sound like exactly the wrong target audience.
The game is supposed to be rules light.
Making Amps basically always slight die bonuses, accieves this.
Fullfilling your wish of tons of different shit, however, isn't.
Stick to the normal Shadowrun if you want a complex system.

Money is way more scarce in Hong Kong than it was in both DF and S:R, keep that in mind.

You can go the route you lined out, but throw out decking, its way to ressource intensive to tag-on and there is a fuckton of excellent melee weapons you can spend your Nuyen on.
Besides, there is a competent Decker and a frightening good Rigger available, use them both.

I fail to see the purpose in stopping "turbocheese".

>The game is supposed to be rules light.
>Making Amps basically always slight die bonuses, accieves this.
>Fullfilling your wish of tons of different shit, however, isn't.
>Stick to the normal Shadowrun if you want a complex system.
I feel the gulf between "powers are simply bonus dice or rerolls" and "powers that feel flavourful and have meaningful effects that actually do something worthwhile" is so massive that you could park the moon in there.

I don't want a complex system. But the powers in Powered by the Apocalypse games are more interesting.

Ah, good, if there's an NPC decker I won't feel as bad. I was told that the Rigger isn't good, but that her personality is great, though.
If money is scarce, it's probably best to go Adept instead of Street Samurai.

The Decker is a she, the Rigger is a he. People seem to like the Rigger and dislike the Decker generally, but not always.

Hey Chummers I need some advice. One of my players will be leaving the group for a while because of life stuff. The in game excuse will be that his character need to go back to the UCAS for some time. Any suggestions on hooks for what came up that requires him to drop everything and head home?

Love it and stealing it

Somebody moved in on his turf.
His grandmother needs his help moving apartments.
He was randomly chosen to try out new and exciting drugs for the low price of free.
The Exchange had him do something in the UCAS as part of his instructions.

I'm sure you've thought of loads of reasons for any of the characters to take a hike, just put a more temporary spin on one of those.

>tfw I realize my session this week is on my birthday
>exactly 36 hours before the session starts

Honestly? Send him away on some super crazy job that only he can go on for reasons. That way, you can give him the exact same amount of money and karma for when he comes back so he isn't a gimped loser.

Happy future birthday user. I suggest showing up with a party hat and a birthday boy badge.

Just make sure that they actually have to do the run, and make sure there's consequences.

Spend at least 5 hours making sure everyone knows the rules for shotgun chokes and grenade blast radius and damage. Be sure to create a PowerPoint to explain the "Chunky Salsa" rule.

Skip over optional rules like Noise, Environmental Modifiers, and Background Count to start with, but make sure everyone knows they exist.

if I haven't found a way to slip this npc into the game within the next month I will consider myself as having personally failed my players

>Dude with a L115 wearing a horse mask

Allows you to line up your shots on people while they're busy going "WHAT THE FUCK" I guess?

The NPC decker and rigger are fantastic at their roles, and the rigger has a favorite drone that you can get a gimmick modification for that makes it into an unstoppable killing machine. Adept is good, but I honestly had the most fun during my street razor cyberspurs only playthrough. With a little money management there's still enough to become an Adam Jensen-esque monster who can sprint a mile in one IP, catch grenades out of midair, and turn half a KE squad into a pile of gore with your sweet wrist blades.

I liked that the rigger was so... alien, I guess, and he brings a pretty interesting viewpoint and set of circumstances to the team. People probably didn't like the decker because she's a huge bitch, and her entire backstory and side run is super uninteresting and felt like it only existed as an unnecessarily long way to learn that the kings have to honor their deals.

Anime edition?!

The thing about them honouring their deals is that they'll fuck you in the end, though.

A question for Veeky Forums. In Shadowrun 5e, would a traditionally bladed weapon without an actual blade make use of the Blades skill, or the Clubs skill?

Like, if you had a wooden sword, or a Rurouni Kenshion style reverse-blade sword, would wielding that count as a blade despite the fact that it doesn't do cutting damage, or would it count as a club because it's effectively a bludgeon?

Depends if you're using it like a blunted bladed weapon, or as a really awful bludgeoning weapon.

>traditionally bladed weapon without an actual blade
>wooden sword
>made of wood
>no blade
Literally a stick.

>an Adam Jensen-esque monster who can sprint a mile in one IP
In Dragonfall I used enough combat drugs to get myself like 8 AP.

I'm thinking in terms of like a Samurai trying a "Less Lethal" alternative for subduing without necessarily murdering. Possibly with some added concealment because a wooden sword is well... wood.

I think by raw if it doesn't cut it's not a blade, so you'd be using Clubs.

If I were your GM I'd probably make a special exemption for your weeaboo fightan magic stick because you're using it AS a blade, even though it's not one. You'd be using techniques and muscle memory from the Blades skill to use it, even if it can't follow through with a cut. Think about it, if you had to use a training sword or one of those bamboo practice sticks (I don't know what they're called) with the Clubs skill, how would you ever learn Blades? You'd just walk out of the dojo having practiced Clubs your whole life, and suddenly forget everything you've learned when you pick up a sword.

ur a faget btw

I looked through Core pretty thoroughly and there's nothing in there about this specific sort of situation, where a bladed weapon is lacking an actual blade. The closest I found was the rule for changing damage types on page 186.

>CHANGING DAMAGE TYPES
>Sometimes all you have is a sword and you want to knock out your opponent and not kill them. In these circumstances your options are limited, as most lethal melee weapons are not designed for non-lethal attacks.
>When desired, the characters can use the Called Shot (p. 195) option to transfer damage types if the opponent is armored.
>If the opponent is unarmored, the attacking character can use the weapon in question as a club
(with the Clubs skill) with an Accuracy of 3.
>Blades used as a club lose all Reach due to the need to hit with the pommel to be a club.

Okay, now i got it (kinda, rules seem blurry) but now the facility will have an elf dog-handler-adept to raise the best boys around. Thank you good user.

>there's nothing in there about this specific sort of situation, where a bladed weapon is lacking an actual blade
That's probably because if it's lacking an actual blade, then it's by definition not a bladed weapon.

Just ask your GM if you can use it as a blade and be done with it.

>dog-handler-adept
Someone who can project, rather than just perceive, would be better at training astral combat, but sounds rad.

>If money is scarce, it's probably best to go Adept instead of Street Samurai.
Adepts have to buy their powers with money in SR:HK. You'll gain no benefit there.

He's not talking about hitting with the pommel, though, he's talking about a sword that has a blunted edge.

I wanted to do something similar in a game I dropped out of. I wanted a Metal Gear style High Frequency Blade so that I could be Raiden. It was basically a stun stick that used the Blades skill and was a Shock Katana.

Well darn.

Sure, but all statted clubs except for like, chairs, do P damage in 5th. Honestly something like a bokken would probably just be STR+2P, +2AP.

Think I'm on the latest nightly. Seems like short-barrel mod is now subtracting 2 damage instead of 1.

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It's perfectn isn't it?

By Howling Shadows RAW you either need the skill you want to teach on that level (and animal handling on a lower one) or animal handling on the level.
Which makes sense to me, since i don't believe that every guard dog trainer is a professional martial artist.

I guess

Actually, Adept powers require being Awakened.

Page 33 "Adept Powers: Instead of casting spells, adepts use mana to perform physical magic"

Page 63 "If you’re not Awakened, you can’t access mana to do amazing things like cast spells, summon spirits, or enhance your physical abilities."

page 134 "Critter Powers work similar to Spells, Adept Powers, and Technomancer Amps in that they can only be used by characters specifically designated as critters, in the same way that spellcasters and adepts are Awakened and technomancers are Emerged.

Has anybody the link for parabotany book for 5e lying around ?

Have you checked the OP pastebin mediafire?

I did and couldn't find it there. Sort of need it for a run at a botany lab.

>Other animal themed concepts welcome

As soon as shifters are implemented in Chummer5 I'm making someone that was spoken about a long while ago in /srg/.

A Horse shifter unarmed adept, with Adept Spell: Shape [Fire]. A revolutionary from Amazonia, he fought in the Az-Am War as a guerrilla with a knack for destroying supply depots. Now, pursued by Jaguar Warriors, he runs the shadows to earn the money to stay hidden.

I really like the idea of this guy sneaking into places with nothing but his blue jeans and a disposable lighter, and 10 minutes later everything is burning and a horse comes racing out the front entrance, blood on his hooves.

Nice.

>I get the impression that this is a completely different system that they jury rigged to be as Shadowrun as possible

Correct. The Cue System, to be precise. CGL can't innovate, but they can try to hammer it into shape.

Okay i have to ask, what's the lighter for ?

To have fire to shape. The Shape spells don't let you create matter, only shape it.

nice

Was playing with the idea of a fog shapeshifter face. Just an all around good boy, maybe even a black german shepard, so people think he might be a hellhound when assensing. Just your usual stuff with kreatin control and commanding voice.

Your charamant elf face when in Metahuman form and an irresistible adorable dog when in animal form you just HAVE to take with you.

>fog shapeshifter

Dammit, Steve, I told you vampires don't work like that in the Sixth World. And you're not even HMHVV-positive, you bought those fangs at Party City.

Oh. Well that's shit, then. Although it means that anyone who's a Mage is automatically an Adept as well. I'm disappointed in this system. I wanted to like it and hoped that it would be a more accessible version of Shadowrun for me. But when the powers feel more like a board game it just feels bland. I don't know. Has anyone even run it yet? This thing came out a little after Gencon didn't it?

I mean, I know it's a different system, I just suspect that it's a very different system that they're trying too hard to make "familiar" to Shadowrun kiddies.

Honestly, I'm just annoyed at the idiots who say it's rules-light, when it's a huge book with a mess of rules. It only looks simpler compared to SR5.

It seems rules light. Or at least from what I can tell it's roughly Fate level.

Trust me, it's average in terms of complexity. Try running a combat and you'll see, it's about D&D 5e level. If it was Fate, it's the shitty first version of Dresden Files Fate, with a lighter shell stuffed to the brim with so many modifiers and options it slows right down.

Hey /srg/-bros. Anyone got an imgur/dl link to the artwork gallery? My HDD got fucked two weeks ago and I need some crazy gang mofos.

Pastebin, faggot.

The link doesn't work, dunce. Since forever.

>open Mega
>open Token folder
>suck my dick

fuck. I think I owe you that BJ. Thanks, tho.

Welcome. The dropbox link is being saved as a noob trap, I assume.

youtube.com/watch?v=wUtG93BebJ4
Major a cute but Batou looks derpy as fuck.

>Those fucking eyes.
Is his head too wide or something?

It turns out, sometimes things that look cool in anime look pretty fuckin' stupid in live action.

Fate is not, nor has it ever been rules-lite.

It *looks* good, but Johansen's quiet disaffectedness isn't the same as the Major's, and Batou's eyes look even weirder than in the comics.

It all *looks* like I'd expect Ghost in the Shell to, but the plot sounds dumb and useless and ~backstory~ filled instead of something more interesting like the Laughing Man incident. I wonder if they're just going to redo the original movie? Some of it looks like they might.

Also
>Afraid to lose people by with an Asian lead
>Show lesbianism in the trailer
Progress?

Fate is what people talk about when they talk about Rules Lite games that still have enough depth to last beyond a single silly session, the way that RISUS can't.

Do you guys have some comfy shadowrun/cyberpunk pictures?

sadly not nearly enough

I search my folder and post what I find

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There's cats everywhere

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Thanks user