/srg/ Shadowrun General - Plan C (the "C" stands for "Crack skulls")

Print the sheet out to pdf, and post it here.

Fuck with people. A mage isnt going to win any direct combat awards but they can absolutely mess with everyone and everything. Lower the enemies initiative, make your team mates invisible, create holograms and illusions, use physical barrier to make various geometric shapes, make it so sound cant escape a room, magically seal a door etc.

Dont think 'how much damage can I do this turn', think 'how can I make the enemy so miserable they'd rather turn their guns on themselves'

Don't go to

The premise is that in the very near future (or possibly an alternate reality where genetic engineering is a lot more advanced) Hasbro bought out a biotech company and tried to develop cute, talking horse-things called Fluffies. The fluffies escaped before all the kinks could be ironed out, and now they're a menace to society. Also they accidentally destroyed Cleveland. On one level, it's basically MLP meets Happy Tree Friends, but on another it's actually really interesting speculative fiction. /b/ was briefly obsessed with it

This is really up to your GM, but I love using Trid Phantasm to fuck with people in combat. It can be a distraction, or a bullet sponge, or a team of Red Samurai to scare off gangers or whatnot. It's just down to your own creativity. I've taken physical drain on a massive phantasm spell with no regrets because it changed the course of a combat. You can also use Animate to make people's cover walk off or have lampposts swat people, or straight-up mess with their dicepools with Confusion.

Don't be afraid to abuse the secondary effects of spells. Lightning causes a -1 dicepool penalty on everything and costs them 5 initiative, acid strips a point of armor (one at a time, but still) and fire can be used to ignite nearby objects and/or used to trigger sprinkler systems that can make Lightning more effective.

Also, Force 1 Heal spells + reagents to blow the limit. You can get huge amounts of healing, and it becomes permanent instantly because it's still F1.

Because you either lack imagination, system knowledge or both.
Super armored troll is against you? Levitated him in the air, unable to do anything
Being chased on foot or car? Wall or Ice Sheet will solve your problems!
Being gased by deadly poison? Clean Element [Air] is for you!

Levitate is resisted by STR+BOD, so good luck with that against a troll. Probably better to pick up something heavy and drop it on him.

Also, good idea on Clean Air, but you can also Oxygenate your allies and let the enemies suffer.

Language rules are confusing me. You get to pick a native language and that counts as mastered, no skill roll required to understand someone else speaking it. Great.

But what if someone is speaking English 1337speak at you and you don't have that specialization? Normally a lingo gives you a -2 to interpretation rolls, but in this case -2 to what? Do you just understand all lingos in your native tongue? That doesn't seem to make sense as lingos can be drastically different from their base language.

Congratulations, you found yet another gaping hole in Shadowrun's incongruously detailed ruleset.

IC advice: Janitors have keys to everywhere and don't need to make extra cash, what they can't repair, drones can. What they need most is a good time.
OOC advice: Avoid any GM that utters the phrase street level or low magic only.

Best weapon/weapon skill for a decker? Is arm of god really that good or is it a meme?

It's a half meme. You honestly can do well with a massive gorilla arm scavenged off of a troll and then stick a sprite in it to let it gunnery and drag you around while you are VR diving.

Call it Armold.

>high agi
>machinepistol
Of course it's good. It's stupid, but it's good.

Automatics and a Steyr TMP
>Is arm of god really that good
yes. You pay about 25k and can now shoot as well as the Sammy

Sounds hilarious but kind of a pain in the ass.

Really? I would have assumed, going the automatics route, that an SMG would have been better than a Machine Pistol. What makes them better? Just price?

>Janitors...don't need to make extra cash(??)
You really should check that Jazz addiction, omae. Janitors always need extra nuyen.

Why the hell would janitors be doing jazz? That shit is a purpose built combat drug. Wouldn't it be more likely cram or bliss?

You don't want to show up to work high, but sometimes that pile of garbage hides a Devil Rat.

>Cram
Cram is for pussies studying for their GPAs. Jazz is where it's at.

Ignorant slut detected. Janitors make buku bank, omae, on par with the highest paid person in middle management. Literally, a good janitor with electronics education, plumbing education and the ability to fix a boiler can bank 100k Nuyen a year.

>Cram and Jazz
>Not using K-10 for everything.

Arm of god? Enlighten me oh ye of meme.

Are any of the Adept Ways actually worth the karma cost at chargen? If my goal is maximizing my PPs, most Ways will only get you 1 PP extra, for the cost of 20 karma. Seems better to just save some extra karma at chargen and just initiate ASAP in most cases.

Though I guess it does get you those PP faster, and if you go Way of the Warrior foci are cheaper, which helps.

Take any build and slap a cyberarm onto it
Stuff the cyberarm's capacity full with Customized Agility and Enhanced Agility
Use only that cyberarm to hold a machine pistol and lay down full-auto fire on anything that moves

Note that even if you default on Automatics you'll be throwing out at least 10 dice to shoot.

>janitor with electronics education, plumbing education and the ability to fix a boiler can bank 100k Nuyen a year.
You've just described a maintenance tech. Janitors/Custodians get paid 10 Nuyen per hour.

Shit, I guess I'm the ignorant slut. Guess that's what I get for only having 2 logic.

By itself that 20 Karma spend isn't that great - you can get an additional PP through metamagic for just 13 Karma - but the additional benefits of some ways, especially Burnout and Athlete's, can be fairly substantial or irreplaceable. It depends on your build, as some Ways are much better than others.

Ways are ass for PP savings as you need a full Magic rating to take advantage of it, and even then most of the discountable powers aren't that expensive by themselves.

Way of the Athlete. Turns Improve Attributes and Enchanced Attributes into cost effective power points and turn your combat adept into a CQC monster throwing 20d6s every turn.

Way of the Burnout. Lose 2 Magic Points. In exchange, essence costs of standard cyber/bioware is treated as alphaware-grade and Adepts/Mage can continue initiating to gain magic rating and power points. Way is lost when PC regains two magic point but still keep benefits prior to that point.

I decided to just say fuck it and finished the entire character sheet, so as a recap I'm a newfag and this is my first character ever, any suggestions/recommendations/comments on spell selection/etc would be appreciated!

Never leave your home without a microtransceiver

I'm trying to wrap my head around how riggers operate. I know the stereotype is the guy in the van controlling an army but that sounds pretty meh to me. Is it viable to have a rigger who follows along with the ground sending command messages while meat shooting? Or do I need to be jumped in all the time to get the best benefits. I know I'll need to be jumped into our team car when getting the fuck out of dodge but thats unavoidable.

I assumed it would be a pain in your shoulder or back. But what do I know about cybernetics.

I really like Arm Of God though, having a slab of machinery on your arm can open up some interesting options. Smuggle your gun/deck/illegal-immigrant pixie, whatever in it. With an arm like that, the world is your oyster.

swarm riggers are a thing, omae

No idea what that is. This is literally my first rigger.

Most non-kraut SMG don't really have more damage than the better Machine Pistols. And you are saving yourself the hassle to dispute with your GM if SMGs should be able to be used with one or two arms (the latter implying you needing to buy two Cyberarms.

Swarm Rigger = Bunch of Drones (all the same type) using the swarm rules and the software runs on the RCC instead of on each drone.

You can also just sorta use drones that follow you and give you surveillance options, but thats more of a "sammy with cyberbuddies" and less of a rigger approach.

You can also be a driving-rigger who simply drives the getaway-vehicle, which is an excellent secondary role for a Streetsam since you only need a CR an high REA, which most Sams have.

Sounds interesting, now how retarded would it be to strip a lockheed down to body 1, add a standard mount to it with a grenade launcher loaded with thermal smoke and use it as the exfil bot to cover our retreat if shit goes messy?

creative enough
Dropping wifi-smoke nades out of a compartment should also work.
To bad the Feisto Pidgeon only has a Body of 1, i would have loved a few of those with smoke Projectors just derping around.

Oh fugg, this actually does work.
"single shot grenade" in the drone rules is covered by the 1 MP weapon mount.

Yay for smokescreen-birdies. I need to talk to my GM about this.

>you can attach them to flyspies as well
Well time to buy 10 of the fuckers, plant them in trees/on walls and then ambush HRT with high explosive grenades.

Oh boy, I'm already getting ideas.
Need to be careful though, my group already objected to me bringing an emergency tank full of gasoline to the hotel where we wanted to snag some scum last time.

You, however, seem to have a good taste.
A fun thing you might want to use are Comlinks fitted with the explosive Mod that you can give out to "contacts" of questionable use that you might need to dispose of later.
Or just have them lying around in unsuspecting places.

Modding the magazin of Tasers with the "explosive clip" mod from Hard Targets is also quite funny.
You have a non-weapon that you usually can take into many more secure places, but also are always armed with two or so nades of various effects.

I didnt even know you could make commlinks explosive. Thats amazing. An idea I had was to abuse the fuck out of those nozsquitos by airdropping a bumblebee loaded up with drone racks full of the things. You'd need a helicopter though.

Also how heavy are lone star castle guards and can I give a couple to the stronger members of the team to carry so that they can put them down in corridors so I can cover their retreat? I'd just give them smart firing platforms but I cant find the option for them on chummer

>Noizquitos

Don't desu, your GM will hate you. Shit is broken as fuck.

You could just create a dummy entry in chummer for the smart firing platform if its not already in there.

Crap, i really need more ingame money, so many ideas for drone fuckery for my Streetsam.

The explosive mod for comlinks is in Data Trails btw.

Noizquitos are fine if you ignore that line about their debuffs stacking. How they thought a reusable -20 dicepool modifier to everything for the cost of one run was a good idea is beyond me. Even for CGL.

What kind of armor would this be in SR terms?

Armored Jacket, Forearm guards, PPP for legs.
Maybe plastoe boots

Ah yeah, thats a fair enough houserule for a debuff.
CGL simply can't into math, its quite sad. They need a few numbercruncher/powergamer to go over the stuff that the normal authors write.

>I didnt even know you could make commlinks explosive
You can make any device explosive. Give your teammates microtransceivers with kill phrases, Deus Ex style. It could blow up in your face (literally), but it'll be fun.

You sure about the forearm guards? I thought that armored jackets cover torso and arms, whereas a vest covers only the torso

Another rigger question, if the game is going to be set in seattle should I pick up a manta ray or a boat?

Is there anyone who actually uses the black market rules? In addition to it being a total chore and taking forever, it seems to be virtually impossible to actually acquire high-availability gear due to the dice and limits involved. Even if you're paying quadruple the item cost, the social limit of 7 on the sample fixer means he'll have to be hugely high-connection for them to even have a chance.

If it's an 18+ availability item, the odds are so preposterously low even at quadruple the price I'm not sure it's even worth the effort, since you can't try again for weeks if you fail.

The rules are okay-ish if you have a decent face looking for the stuff.
Current gm is just going the "if you want fancy stuff, go steal it" route and handwaves the rest.

Don't bother, if the team wants a boat, they should all pitch in or steal one.
Thing is way too expensive for a niche item.

You're still trapped by the social limit on the test, though. So unless you've got multiple faces doing it together with good teamwork rolls, you basically can't get anything higher than avail 10 regardless of how many dice you've got.

The whole thing is just silly, especially considering how easy it SHOULD be to get black market goods based on how easy it is to get a fake SIN. Most high-avail items can be bought from a store no prob if you have the right license, so it doesn't really make much sense that such items are nigh-impossible to find even if you're willing to pay triple or quadruple the market value for 'em. But CGL math.

But that's wrong. You aren't rolling against a threshold, the item is rolling its availability as dice. So a limit of 10 is plenty.

What is the most usefull or stylish type of damage?

That does make more sense, yes. It also explains why it's been impossible for us to actually buy anything rather than stealing it.

I'm a big fan of electrical damage. Dicepool penalty and initiative loss when you zap someone with it, and it's 100% effective against drones, vehicles, wet surfaces, people touching each other, phone lines, computers, etc.

Acid is a good second for raw utility, especially for an infiltrator. Being able to melt stuff is surprisingly useful, especially if you're casting it from a spell and it doesn't leave a lingering poison cloud.

Emotional.

Can confirm.

>I thought that armored jackets cover torso and arms
Armoured Jackets are AV12. I'd expect it to go past your waist, considering how well it protects.

Light Corp Security Armor, Run & Gun pg. 67-68. It's alright for mooks.

>I know the stereotype is the guy in the van controlling an army
Not in 5e. Deckers and riggers are expected to follow physically into buildings with the rest of the crew now, because of how prevalent noise penalties and wifi-blocking construction materials have become.

>Is it viable to have a rigger who follows along with the ground sending command messages while meat shooting?
Yup. Put your RCC in a Body Armor Bag to protect and carry it and have it both streaming Autosofts and letting you give group commands.

>I know I'll need to be jumped into our team car when getting the fuck out of dodge but thats unavoidable.
Don't bother buying a Control Rig if you're going to be an RCC Rigger. They're really two fundamentally different archetypes. My advice is to pick one or the other. Then you can just let the Reaction-maxing Street Samurai be the escape driver.

Caveat: all of your drones are going to be super fragile. Even a fully-armored Steel Lynx is only rocking 15 Armor with a soak pool of 21. That's decent, but the repair bills are going to add up fast, and it definitely can't just tank an assault rifle.

>A fun thing you might want to use are Comlinks fitted with the explosive Mod that you can give out to "contacts" of questionable use that you might need to dispose of later.
Fuck you, how many times do you need to be told that advice is garbage? That's how you get black listed at best or headhunted at worst. Plus, no retard is going to use someone else's burner comm - they're going to get their own and give you the number.

Stop suggesting that. It's astoundingly retarded.

An armored jacket blocks arms and vitals, for PPP.

If your team has custom ballistic masks with a camera inserted, can you share camera feeds with each other?

Yes.

Sweet.

You can go even further than that, in fact. Stick an Ultrasound Sensor in one person's mask, a Radar Sensor in someone's cyberarm, and have them layer their information over everyone else's field of view in AR.

>muh Blacklist

Operatorfags who unironically use BlablaDawn and fap to GM-Fiat are not welcome here

Man, it ain't about that, it's about being a cunt to your Contacts and turning them into enemies.

That's some hideously stupid nonsense, you fucking retard.

I mean, I'm pink mohawk as fuck, but that's just retarded.

That's 'poison everyone you meet and then covertly slip them the antidote when they don't betray you' retarded.

...Wait you're telling me you dont do that? I started slipping my teachers stuff in the 4th grade.

That's literally what tacnet software is for.

Tacnets are expensive as fuck though?

Not that guy, but they're pretty cheap for how big of bonuses they provide.

Can anyone hook me up with prep tips? I'm running a session on sunday. I've ran before, but it's been a while and I never really know what to prep, at least compared to other rpgs.

Yes and I'm sure we'll get one when we have the cash but this is just a stopgap ghetto version. I'm not expecting to get bonuses or anything like that just a 'we can switch to see what the others are seeing' thing.

>I'm not expecting to get bonuses or anything like that just a 'we can switch to see what the others are seeing' thing.
It's definitely good for that, yeah.

Make sure everyone gets a biomonitor too, so you all have a live feed of each other's vitals.

Dead people don't qualify as contacts and not everybody you come in contact with is a future contact.
Of course you aren't mindlessly handing out Boomlinks to everybody, that would spoil the fun.

Handing them out to literally anyone is shady as fuck, and if word ever gets out that it's a thing that you do you'll be suffering Notoriety for the rest of your life in the shadows.

>A fun thing you might want to use are Comlinks fitted with the explosive Mod that you can give out to "contacts" of questionable use that you might need to dispose of later.

Okay so in this scenario I'm gonna assume that these "contacts" are not your friends.

"Heydeho stranger here have a commlink. I mean you already got one but this one is a gift please keep it on you at all times."

Wow yes solid contingency plan.

The panther xxl is a baby toy. Sure there's the gauss cannon, but what's out there that's bigger?

Define big
Big as the the hardest you can hit with a bullet or Big as 80+ DV in single pass

5e also gives out Bushido as an example code, which is a lot more complex than the baseline "don't kill X".

How about both

For maximum Bullet Killy Terracota Arms with handloaded EX-EX comes to 18 DV with -5AP or 19 DV -3AP if you stack the alchemy spell form FA
OR you go the handloaded APDS route for 16 DV and -8 AP which you double tap to -16 AP
For 80+ DV killy you have to go for the Mitsubishi Missile Launcher which you fire at long burst. Watch how 6 missiles impact the same space and burning 20k out of your pocket.

So I've been doing some reading into Shadowrun and Earthdawn, and one particular argument strikes me as interesting: Was Aztlan founded on Parlainth?

>Parlainth
considering that Barsaive is Ukraine? No

forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=2606
I thought so too, but the Aztec parallels seem to present a compelling case. I haven't looked at the book in question though.