/srg/ - Shadowrun General

have you considered stealing the assault helicopter? that shit alone is it's own run.

I have toyed around the idea of giving the players a group budget additional to their resources, and building a "military death squad" and sending them on official shadowruns from corps who can't afford to fuck up, even if it means sending their own guys.

First game tomorrow, things to know/be aware of/avoid?

what edition?

I consider stealing a lot of things. Not sure I could get the group behind this particular escapade, especially since we don't even have a rigger who could use it to full effect.

does it matter if it's used to its full effect? You're basically going to crash it anyway and then come out shooting after you've killed everything within half a mile.

an assault chopper that is stolen is basically disposable. "Not mine and I don't care" type piloting.

We had a chance to use a helo. It was the end of a campaign, and Aers really wanted us to be successful.

>an assault chopper that is stolen is basically disposable
Are you fucking kidding me? When you get your filthy hands on a half a million nuyen war machine, you don't let it fucking go easily.

>Do you know some wageslaves?

The neighbors, Ed and Becky. They're pretty nice. They always invite me to barbecues, Ed helped me helped me carry in the last cough I bought and they're always willing to look after my kid (or at least check up on her every day) whenever I'm "away for business" for a few days.

no, you use it to "maximum effectiveness". which is code for "Drive it like a rental", you can always steal another one so who cares if that specific one goes down. Keeping it is how you get caught and shot 38 times in the penis.

>You can always steal another military grade attack helicopter
Chummer what type of GM do you have that stealing an attack helicopter is an everyday thing?

How unplayable are the different MHVV strains?

Everything that sucks essence and can turn into mist seems like a giant FUCK NO, but what about ghouls and strain 2?

Because problems that can only be solved by an assault helicopter aren't exactly what you ask shadowrunners?

Have Mr. Johnson provide the helo if it's really needed.

>you can always steal another one
Unless you stumble across one by dumb luck, finding an assault helicopter and putting yourself into position to steal it takes no small amount of legwork.

You are not a hero. Acting like one will get you killed. Take the money, and run.

Do your legwork. Going in blind gets you killed.
Protect your mage. Protect your decker.
Avoid combat - it's deadly, and the consequences will follow you.
If you have to fight, fight where the terrain favors you. Apply liberal doses of automatic fire until the enemy stops moving.

5e

My player killed the pilot of one with a sniper rifle while he was jacked in and then immediately burned edge the next turn to get 3 marks on it.

Guess he really wanted it.

This. You may do some heroic things, but at the end of the day you are a person who does bad things for money, so don't get any delusions about it. You're not Robin Hood, you're not the champion of the people, you're a mercenary, a deniable asset and a troubleshooter for hire.

>Avoid combat - it's deadly, and the consequences will follow you.
Only if you're a scrub. Gangers, gangsters, cops, corpsec....none of them are a match for a component streetsam, especially if he can get the jump on them. Just be discreet about it so the real threats don't get called in. And as always,
>Apply liberal doses of automatic fire until the enemy stops moving.

Run a PMC campaign. Everyone gets triple resources and all availability bets are off.

Ghouls are fucking blind, so you'd better have astral perception. Strain II actually isn't that bad, all you have to do is stay out of the sun and eat a corpse now and then.

I'm thinking of removing Prototype Transhuman from normal chargen, but including it in a new Transhuman metavariant. Any suggestions on what to include?
I'm thinking they have Biocompatibility (Bioware) and Transhuman Prototype as standard, but magic priority moves up one level worse for Prioritygen and Magic qualities cost double for karmagen.

Idea worth continuing?

Exercise some restraint. Killing corpsec/wage slaves, destroying property, and generally making your mark look stupid will do nothing but paint a big target on your back.

Sup. I played SR5 when it first came out and was disappointed at how fucked up and unfinished it felt. There were tons of mistakes in it still when I played.

Has it been updated or anything since then?

Protect the team. Protect the principle. Never stop training at your job. Know how to use a gun. Have a backup weapon. Have at least 2 backup plans. Legwork, legwork, legwork. Don't be afraid to call up contacts for help. Keep collateral damage to a minimum. Don't get greedy. Don't be a hero. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. Never deal with a dragon.

Good news: there's more stuff in it now.

Bad news: a lot of the new stuff also suffers from CGL's poor editing.

>if he can get the jump on them
Well then that's not combat, it's threat elimination. Totally different, and much less risky.

Also, does anyone know where I can find numbers on gel rounds vs. stick n' shock?

Whatcha mean more stuff? Like more splatbooks or more stuff in the core book?

There's a ton more content, and more importantly, most people have come up with homebrew to fix the problems by now.

Any links to writeups fixing some of the fucked up shit in 5e? I'd have to read it again to remember what all the mistakes were

>Whatcha mean more stuff? Like more splatbooks
Yes. Run&Gun and Run Faster are books everyone needs to look at, Rigger 5.0 gives you more vehicle options, and everyone should look at the books relevant to their archetype (Chrome Flesh for streetsams, Street Grimoire and Shadow Spells for magic people, etc)

Gel rounds changes damage to S and apply +1 AP. Stick-n-shock reduces DV by 2, changes damage to S(e) and sets the AP to a flat -5. Stick-n-shock can give your non-lethal option an easier time with armor, but it won't pack as much of a knockout punch.

Hmmm, aiet. Thanks.

Wait for 'Shadowrun 5 2.0: This time with editing' edition.

You should grab pretty much every book, they all have shit that's worthwhile to somebody in them. The downloads are in the OP.

its not an everyday thing. maybe half a year type thing.

you guy's make min-maxed characters all the time that can do retarded shit off the walls. I just happen to have given you a practical application for one of the snow flakes.

That's what I was waiting for. 30th Anniversary edition? Or 25th?

Combat can become pathetically easy is you use grenades, cover, and the good 'ol liberal use of automatic fire. Cover is especially important. 4 extra dice to dodge for a simple action is great.

The only downside to this is that when you get in combat the whole thing turns into "I move up. I take cover. I shoot a Simple Full-Auto" over and over again because taking cover interrupts your shooting and resets your recoil comp. You can occasionally spice things up by staying in cover and tossing a grenade or asking your DM if you can do something crazy like doubling-back to fake out someone or full on Queen-and-Country bayonet charge.

Another thing to note is that you can really do whatever the fuck you want to in Shadowrun. If your mission is to say, extract a thing from a place, running in the front door and gunning down a bunch of guards may seem like the pragmatic approach.Or you could use a grappling gun to scale the building, break a window with a crowbar, cut a hole into the room next to the target with a mini-welder, and just leave the way you came.

Think outside the box for the most enjoyable experience.

>making decent characters
>'snow flakes'
Big difference, chummer.

Yeah, I'm aware of the stats. I was wondering which ammo I should get for which guns in order to optimize stun/KO/disabling speed.

Gel rounds are usually the better options. Stick-n-shock can be useful in guns with no innate AP if you really need that initiative penalty, but that's about all they're good for. Better yet, buy a taser. Those things pack a charge.

They'll probably start work on it after the technomancer book is finally released. And then errata'ed. Which given CGL's shitty work ethic could be some point after the heat death of the universe.

Do you guys use knockdown RAW? In my limited experience, almost every hit seems to hit the physical limit of my character, so I'm pretty thankful my GM doesn't do knockdown. Thoughts?

Your character needs to toughen the fuck up.

>Well then that's not combat, it's threat elimination.
Not always. There are definitely situations where infiltration is not an option.

This desu.

Cool man thanks

I have a runner concept I am wanting to play.

Todd Sayjak, aka "Horseshoe".
He's a salaryman that ticked off his boss and was ordered to accompany a kill team on a dangerous job for research. Turns out it went without a hitch. Todd gets a reputation for being lucky, so more corp teams take him along and teach him how to shoot and do tactical stuff. He's a face with absurd luck and a bunch of tough friends, and refuses to do any runs that harm his corp.

Alright, I have a physical limit of 7, and 15 armor. My resist pool is 20.
4 BOD. Armor jacket. Plastic bone lacing. Any advice on what to go for next?

just enter combat already laying on your stomach so you're less likely to get shot.

Someone give me salaryman jobs that arent accountant, salesman, or programmer.

>My resist pool is 20.
I really hope you don't think that's enough to be a frontline combatant.

HR
PR
Management

I'm aware it's shit. That's why I'm asking for advice.

Upgrade your bone lacings, look into getting wired reflexes.

I've got WR2, but to get better bone lacing I'm looking at .8-1.2ess, out of the 1.54 I have left. Can that be applied over the plastic lacing, or do I need to get the plastic removed?

You need to get the plastic removed, but you'll get an essence hole worth its essence cost that can be filled by other 'ware before digging in your remaining essence.

You need the plastic removed. Also
>but to get better bone lacing I'm looking at .8-1.2ess, out of the 1.54 I have left.
That doesn't mean much to a guy who had 0.02 essence at chargen.

>it's shit

It isn't, stop listening to hardmaxing sperglords.

Also you can at least get some forearm guards for an additional point of soak, if you aren't some 1 STR faggot.
Don't forget to upgrade your Armor Jacket with electrical protection. Another four dice against Stick-n-Shock is always useful.

You need to get the plastic removed but you only loose the essence that the Aluminium lacing costs more.
So, if you had the normal plastic lacing and are getting Alphaware Aluminium, you will have an additional 0.3 (=>0,8-0,5) Essence lost afterwards.

>forearm guards
GM only allows core rulebook material right now :(

>GM only allows core rulebook material right now :(
What?

ABORT

>forearm guards for more soak
this meme needs to die

Cut him some slack. He's a newbie learning the rules while balancing an engineering course load. We've had 2 sessions so far.

playing Shadowrun with only the core book is like knitting with mittens on
Technically possible, but extremely suboptimal, tedious and not very enjoyable

>GM is a newbie learning the rules while balancing an engineering course load
WHAT

Shadowrun is a game system that requires you to use additional books, since later books override shitty decisions in earlier ones.

As of right now, we're all having enought trouble getting the core rules down. We will be adding splats later.

Yeah, it's pretty impressive. We kind of split the rules, so I'm the expert on combat and gear, while he handles everything else.

Also, rate my ballistic mask design.

It also requires noting the even shittier decisions made on later books and culling them before it spreads too far.

We've used a Tbird for a run and right now we're securing access to two attack helicopters for a run.

You just need a run that warrants spending money to pay the pilots or the military to help you out.
In our case I think it's 50k for the helo to just be there, 25k for if they need to do CAS, 50k if they need to use missiles and 100k if they take any fire. That's x2 plus the 250k we need to bribe that UCAS Captain.

why the fuck do you have a tag eraser in your mask?
And why the micro-transciever?

>As of right now, we're all having enought trouble getting the core rules down.
>We kind of split the rules, so I'm the expert on combat and gear, while he handles everything else.
So, sneak in gear from other books because he doesn't know any better, I don't see the problem here.

>tag eraser
Ease of access. Brush pass datachip, view data, touch to head to burn it, throw it away.

>micro-transceiver
Communication without a commlink. Tactical shit, I don't know. It seemed cool.

Nah, he's a cool dude, and we've made an agreement. As soon as I can run a one-shot, we open up all the splats for the group to use.

Well, things are about to get weird. GM says I can play a cyber'd up changeling troll with latent awakening (adept). Is this the dumbest thing he could let me do?

I would like to play Shadowrun again, but I'm pretty intimidated by the amount of rules and math in play. Which would be better for me, 4e or 5e?
I played a bit of 3e with an extremely nitpicky rules-lawyering GM, and the whole system left a distaste in me, however I really like the fluff.

4E is a god damn mess of fully-automatic death machines and commlink script kiddies. Play 5E.

>pic related costs more and takes up more modification space than a turret that can be fired remotely
>weapon mounts that are controlled solely by people fully inside the vehicle aren't a thing
Why? This doesn't even make sense.

You can easily homebrew the second thing, but an armored manual turret costs more because you need extra space for where the gunner stands and the armor protecting them. It's dumb balance but sound logic.

5e has terrible editing and missing fluff. Play 4e

Well then.

5E is a mess but it plays better. Read 4E shit for fluff, play 5E for slightly better balance.

>Ease of access. Brush pass datachip, view data, touch to head to burn it, throw it away.
Keep in mind that tag erasers deal matrix damage, and likely won't burn anything in a single attempt.

This
Get the 4E background books, eg 6th world almanach (from the pastebin) but stick to the 5e Rules.
4e Rules have a bit better editing but are shit tier save for a few things where the 5es are even worse (AIs)

I could see that holding true for a tank or fully enclosed vehicle, but I'm thinking more about open-topped vehicles, like sticking a metal post in the back of a pickup truck or a motorboat, sticking a machine gun, ammo box and ballistic shield on it and calling it a day.

Thanks, gonna do just this.

3e books are better for understanding how stuff works and getting the most out of the background.

The fluff is written best in them, but the info is heavily outdated.

>consider buying a boat
>check out the Aztechnology Nightrunner
>now that is a nice boat
>look at the price tag
>56k nuyen
>I'd probably spend even more money upgrading it
>plus there'd be docking fees
>I have other things to spend money on, things I'd actually use during a run
I shouldn't a boat, should I?

Unless you are running somewhere with a lot of water to cross (Caribbean, SEA, ...) you shouldn't

Hey guys so I need some help making a ruling call for a play by post game I run.

We have a brand new player who rolled up a Street Shaman. As his very first action before his very first mission, the player decided to summon a force 12 (!) spirit so that he could have "guaranteed protection" during the meet and so that he could bind it later while the rest of the team were doing legwork. In spite of my telling him that summoning a force 12 spirit is a kind of risky bet and binding it would be 12 hours that might be better spent helping in the legwork, he insisted that his character was paranoid and would summon the strongest spirit possible before any given meet.

He rolled his 12 summoning dice against its 12 dice. He got 3 hits, then spent edge to it up to 5 by re-rolling failed dice.

The spirit got 8 hits.

The shaman rolled his 10 drain dice against 16P damage, got 5 hits, took 11P damage on his 9P damage track, and collapsed on the floor in his apartment hemorrhaging his brains out.

Now as a GM I'm faced with a decision: do I make a new player burn edge to save their character from the results of their literal very first in-game roll, or do I let them rollback their mistake, toss it up as a rookie's mulligan, and hope they learn their lesson? I've never let a player retcon a bad choice before because I think it takes away from the quality of the game, but I'm feeling a little hesitant to let a player fuck themselves over that much that early into their Shadowrunning experience.

Depends on what you're talking about. We're still referring to 3e for Sleeping Tiger, for instance. RAS Override has been mentioned in the core book for the last two editions, but it's so easy to pass over and unexplained that people think it's something specific to BTLs. Want to know how likely you were to SURGE when halley's comet passed over? Gotta go back to Year Of The Comet. Want to know where cops stop giving a shit about your machine pistol? Gotta go back to Sprawl Sites (though that's 1e, IIRC). Want to get the full picture on yak ninjas? Vice will get you part way, but Shadows Of Asia fills in a few more blanks. That's just the tip of the iceberg.