/srg/ - Shadowrun General

Foxit Reader.

I have a character concept, a japanese ghoul remote decker that can hack things remotely so she doesn't risk infecting her teammates.

Is this a viable character for a PC, or should I save the concept for when I'm the GM to introduce her as an NPC?

I'd use her as an NPC. Deckers already have the issue of operating independently of the Party and splitting up the action and limelight, and your concept just exacerbates that. It's perfect for an NPC who takes care of business while leaving the party with something to do and not taking up too much screen time.

So what's the deal with Dragons?

They're big scaly dicks that spit fire and piss misery.

Some of them also spit lightning.

But know your players. If you have one who always tries to make everyone uncomfortable by fucking literally everything no matter what he's playing.. well, let him. Give her a huge disguise skill. It's going to be great when he wakes up a ghoul.

Hmmm. Can't replicate it, works fine for me.
It can work as a PC concept fine, but noise is a dick in 5e. There are ways to mitigate it (fresnel fabric, a bunch of datajacks, antennas) but it's not an ideal state.

Will updates override my own changes in the xml files for our houserules?

Hm. Curious. I'll keep poking at it I guess. Thanks for testing it out on your end.

If you've made changes directly in the XML files, yes. Ideally you should be using override, amend and custom XML files to prevent your changes from being overridden. If you have multiple groups that are using different rules, you can use the CustomData folders to make your own separately-enableable house rules that can be turned off for a given campaign. github.com/chummer5a/chummer5a/wiki/Custom-Data-Files

One of my players brought up this book called Forbidden Arcana to my attention. I must be out of the loop for hardcovers since the last one I heard of was the Anarchy book. Whats the lowdown on this book? Is it worth integrating? Shit the mage in my group keeps pestering me to allow shit from other books I haven't read and don't even know much about like Street Grimoire since I wanted a print copy.

"Shitfight", for a one word review. It introduces spells that need blood and blood magic, some of which are stupidly powerful and some of which are mind bogglingly idiotic and nobody would ever cast. It adds some optional powers to the infected, which Pat must have flipped his shit over. Lots of new magic stuff that doesn't really make much sense in the context of lore and previous game mechanics.

So say fuck no to that book? Works and makes my job easier. This guy just wants to play some sort of tragic hero type it seems with some story about his teacher from the Prague university being some sort of bug spirit or shadow spirit conjurer or some shit.

Nah there's some ok stuff. Don't let him take anything from the chapters on blood magic or the infected though. Some of the traditions, spells, and mentor spirits are cool.

Ariel sucks eggs

Basic guideline is: treat anything that seems like it should be gm only as gm only. Letting a guy take the Oak mentor spirit or be an Olympian Mage is fine. Letting him become a vampire insect shaman who practices blood necromancy? Not so much.

And import 4e's Lion over the top of 5e's. Holy shit is 5e's lion a stupid mentor spirit.

>a vampire insect shaman who practices blood necromancy
We haven't gone there yet, but if he saw that as an option, he'd be having visions of being some anime character, and he is already a mage who abuses the mob control spell. Shit and even the groups Oni isn't as snowflakey as the human wizard, just a hippie who lives out of her car.

Shit guys, I kind of know about some sort of turn to goo spell from the grimoire and that it had a bunch of different magic traditions and shit. Is there anything that is just plain stupid in that book either?

The stuff about Dark Magic should be off limits because it's nothing but edgy antagonist options. The traditions are pretty cool honestly. Way better than being HERMETIC OR SHAMAN NO OTHER CHOICE

Eh.. the dark magic *tradition* from dark terrors honestly isn't too bad. I can see it, along with chaos magic, shamanism and hermeticism being one of the 'early' magical traditions.

I mean the dark magic section in Street Grimoire. The 'insect, toxic, shedim, and elder god' section

As a remote Decker I can say that the opposite of what says is true. Its super easy for you to duck out of the way of the action and let other people do their thing while you do yours in the background or simply on Initiative count when appropriate. Much easier than having an unconscious body around is. Your Datajack is gonna get you 2 Noise Reduction and you just grab a satellite link to cap distance at 5.

It introduces nice guy bloodmagic based on self-sacrifice, and stupid blood crystal implants that are the blood magic version of several kinds of ware. Like instead of a cyberlung you get a crystal breath bloodcrystal implanted. It's annoying and dumb and basically the new magic angle theyre trying to push like theyre trying to push CFD on tech.

>and he is already a mage who abuses the mob control spell.

Don't allow him access to the traditional black magic tradition or any of the new mind control spells.
Shit is even more bonkers now than before.

The stupid part is the 'nice guy' magic was already possible. There were even metamagics left in character troves that showed you how to do sacrificing without a background count. Because of hte poor wording not ruling out armour ("Resist damage from the attack as normal") you could load a mage into heavy military armour and tow him around as the team tank.

Hey, kinda new to Shadowrun (Started with 5e, late to the party) in general and could really use a few tips for running. What are some of the more typical rewards and payment that can be expected from the various Johnsons both corp and non corp, and what would be some good side jobs for a magic user outside corp jobs? I want to try making a character that focuses on something like, artifact recovery, magical security and/or general magical services.

Side jobs? Forensic thaumaturgy. Reading a background count to work out what happened. Ritual tracking. Healing or spying, depending on your area of expertise.

Big groups - cops, corps - will have their own, so you'll be doing it for gangers, syndicates and the like.

How's the exorcism market?

Not only is it a legit business but its a good one too. Dangerous, but more than worth the pay. A person who knows how to deal with spirits and other spoopy shit make bank whether its eliminating spirits, appeasing them, or simply making sure that all the work spaces in your Wuxing building are properly channeling the ki flow.

Neat. Any particulars I should look up for making an exorcist? The mandatory skills and foci aside, what spells/rituals/metamagics should I invest in down the road?

So I want to do a kind of plague doctor next.
I think the best way would be a dart gun full of poison and drugs and some grenades in addition to the Standard streetdoc stuff.
Do you guys think that would be viable? Or better yet, any experiences?

been thinking of the same thing as a necro mage. Start with rot spirit and a lot of healing spells.
Maybe even make it an Infected to justify the thick, sun proof, sealed plague doctor outfit.

Well, it's complicated. Bare minimun is Assensing. Being able to summon your own spirit buddies is great, too. There are also several mana spells (like Mana Barrier) that could be very useful for an exorcist. Don't overinvest in your side job though.

Sounds more like a witch doctor than a plague doctor to me.
Would be an interesting Team though

Wasn't planning on being too invested in it, more of a way to keep some nuyen coming in and build a good rep. Plus the whole keeping an eye on possible resources, jobs and training opportunities wouldn't hurt either.

Then you just need decent Assensing, maxed Summoning and Spellcasting, maybe Binding too. A point or two in Ritual Spellcasting wouldn't hurt but it's not a priority.
Generally you'll want Heal, Improved Invisibility, Levitation, Stunbolt, Lightning Ball as your spells. I also recommend an AoE debuff of your liking and some mind trickery (Influence, Trid Phantasm for subtle, Control Actions, Mind Probe for not subtle at all). Other spells are extra.

Before they were comfortable with taking hoards of gold and minding their own business in a cave. Now that humans have things like "Corporations" , "Employees" and "Stock options" , well naturally they want that too.

If 's going to invest into exorcising spirits, wouldn't they benefit from Banishing too? Seems more efficient than just trying to beat them up with magic.

Banishing's kind of iffy with the way it handles drain. It's often better for higher force spirits, just because using it on swarms of babies is a guaranteed kick in the balls at 2dv minimum per use.

Ariel sucks dick too, buddy

So, aside from every purturbator clip, ever (youtube.com/watch?v=-B7-Vcdlld8), what are some good 'modern' cyberpunk shorts?

Beating spirits with your own spirits > beating spirits with magic > beating spirits with Bullseye Burst Crockett EBR > Banishing > Astral Combat.

Oh and you can also use Negotiation to try to convince a roaming spirit to go away.

Question. So, the "Dark Gods" in Darker Shadows and Street Grimoire, are they just lazy Cthulhu ports, or are they Horrors come knocking early?

Lazy ports.

definitely ports and olde gods, maybe Horrors?

How could 6E fix all the shit introduced in 5E? Well they might as well go for pure magicrun, making cyborgs weak NPCs, remnants of bygone age of technology at this point and making everyone who matters at least an adept.

Shadowrun is done for, it needs hard reboot. now.

How can I increase my Exotic weapon skill beyond attribute + skill?

Just spawn the Elder dragon "magica inhibitus"
Suddenly magic is weaker

Honestly, as someone who always heard of Shadowrun as the fantasy cyberpunk RPG, cracking it open to read all this shit about nanotech, genetech, wireless, orbitals, a fucking Mars colony? It was a rude awakening to how much the setting has advanced compared to what I thought it was, and in ways that made it feel more and more towards post-cyberpunk.

That is the natural evolution of the setting as the mana level rises, yes.

Man, you have to work up to that level of troll. Don't just dial to 11. Start at 2, then lead us on until you drop that motherfucler.

It’s not a troll when it’s true.

Magic users got a ton of new nice toys to paly with in 5E, while tech characters got shit on.

Make summoning A, more of a risk with things like spirits going rogue, and B, more restrictive in choice of spirit types available and what they are willing to do.

Also, just make cyberware stronger and have essence loss give magic resistance bonuses.

Most of those new toys are functionally useless. Certainly, tech(and technomancers) are being jammed down, and summoners are stupid. But it's not functionally worse than 4a in any game where everyone doesn't have access to everything.

And you certainly are trolling. "Weak npc cyborgs, bygone age of technology" - I mean, really mate? Put some effort into your shit.

>magicrun
I am unironically okay with this.
>post-cyberpunk
I would unironically prefer this.
>have essence loss give magic resistance bonuses
That would actually make a ton of sense for mana spells like manabolt. The whole premise is that it affects the "spirit" or "soul" of the person, so if you have less of that left you should be more resistant. How would you do it mechanically? Every 1 point of essence loss gives 1 die to resist?

>have essence loss give magic resistance bonuses.
My GM did this. 1 die of passive spell resistance per point of Essence lost (rounding up).

How hard it is to give techies something nice, such as cuting down the essence costs due to both technology marching on and manasphere adapting to i?

How about stable, playable cyberzombies for new, yet functionally useless option?

Not hard, not hard at all, yet we are geting more and more into magicrun territory.

All this technology bullshit has only ever held Shadowrun back. Let's just drop any pretenses about "cyberpunk" and embrace a full fantasy setting.

So you want that bright netflix thing

I would be cool with a Urban mystery crime RPG.
Thing is that the freelancers can't write for shit and there is a huge power gap even between awakened.

TFW you will never play as a team of hardened criminals in a setting like dresden files/kekkai sense/ or even Harry Potter.
Feels bad man

Basically, maybe make it increase a bit more, like essense points 1-3 are a die each, while 4-5 are 2.

Having it only affect mana spells does make a kind of sense though.

Dresden Files RPG is a thing, man. It's a Fate hack, but it's a thing.

Biomages win again

The point of the greater increase is to make it better for not those, since they rarely go past 2 essense points in my experience.

You can also make it just reduce the mages pool for unopposed tests, should help stop cheep self buffs.

because of the Attribute Boost: Strength?
It's okay if you use Kraut rules, since I've heard that for them it also increases STR for stuff like encumbrance

would a possession mage drone rigger work?

i have 2 concepts
>engineer that is sent to a remote renraku r&d in neo orleans and going native

>a street racer who has been making host for his childhood friends the spirits

Its kind of a good thing that he isn't big into doing seriously fucked up shit, otherwise he'd probably do that, but it is pretty hard to combat mob control as it is without making just about everyone they have to go against a mage.

Are you sure you are referring to the right post?

Unrelated to that, yes, Attributeboost STR actually increases melee DV in Krautlandia.

Take a look at the missions FAQ.
They slightly nerf'ed Mind Control Magic. Its still very powerful, but not the FUBAR shit that it is by RAW.

>How could 6E fix all the shit introduced in 5E?
The point of an edition update is that it doesn't have to fix the previous one. It wipes the slate clean and leaves behind the mistakes of the previous edition.

6e can incorporate real systemic fixes. Things like hard caps on sustained spells, dumping the 'reagents to set limits' tactic, nerfing mysads, harsher burnout tradeoffs, removing quickening, giving mundies serious defenses against magic (such as counterspelling perhaps), items which counter magic (special 'anti-magic' armor, special critter-buster bullets, charms to ward off spirits, etc), removing the foundation, taking away spirits' hardened armor and giving them real weaknesses, and so on.

yep, wrong post

Should I go blades or blunt?
Why/why not?

How would one stat this guy for Shadowrun for those who know? Adept? Full augs? I gotta play a mute who communicates with an Electrochromic helmet.

I think we already did last year
IIRC he's an edgelord with a cyberarm and a cyberspine

Automatics
if it has to be melee, it depends on how you want to play
stun batons are clubs, most improvised weapons are clubs IIRC
but blades has some nice weapons including the katana and the claymore

Really depends on your STR and whether you prefer killing or knock-outs.

If your (DV+1/3AP) with the blade of choice is > the (DV + 1/3AP) of Stun Batons, go for blades.

Around 7 STR is the point where i would consider going for blades.

No idea who that is, but that left arm looks like Cyberware... so if you want to stay on model I'd say full augs. One cyberlimb and then just a bunch of internals/boosters.

Clubs allies you to improvise with you weapons a bit easier with stuff like pipes, rocks, bottles lying around or picking up decoration to hit somebody with it.

Also clubs got the stun baton, which has high AP, did decent damage with extra effects and doesn't return on your strength. Which allies you to go full ham on agility to a point where you usually only need 1 or 2 points in a new weapons group to bed able to use them effectively.

T. Stun baton using runner with skill wires.

Skill wires best wires if you also move by said wires.

I see you are also a man of great taste.

"Clubs allow you"

And "didn't rely on your strength"
Never post with commlinks omaes.

Delighted to see a fellow patrician.
now if CGL would finally port the fucking skillwire expert System to 5e and please not make it cost a fucking fortune, I could make use of the soon 4 Edge even more. Demolition-on-a-chip is sorta risky

I hope so too but wouldn't count on it.
MBW rating 2 kicks all the ass if you can get your hands on it.

I am reading the shadowrun core book, and in the reagent section (p.316), the text claims that orichalcum can be made with alchemy, but "it will be covered in a separate book". What book is that?

I have been placed in a situation where another mage put me in a physical barrier and threatened to kill me. I managed to tell them to fuck off by saying I had a bunch of bound spirits and we can spend all day shooting each other with mana spells until one died. Obviously a viable solution, but is there a way to directly counter his bullshit the next time he tries to pull this on me?

Maybe with street legal or in one of the green books.
Who knows.

And yeah, it kicks ass.
Played a M-b-W Lvl 2 Alphaware Yakuza in NeoTokyo, he also had a skillwire subscription (silver).
That was pretty dope.

Now i'm playing a M-b-W 3 Streetsam in the AdL.
While the increased hit in Essence is really hurting, its absolutely brutal in practice.
21 INI BEFORE you throw any dice, being able to get any Skill to 6 for the equivalent of 15 Karma, potentially having access to every knowledgeskill for a few thousand nuyen per month, going full "Trinity" and possibly filling every fucking role imaginable (save for faces, you really don't want to slot those social skills due to the additional penalty on your social limit if MBW is active).
I literally have a social limit of 1 when MBW is active (it can explicitely be shut down in Krautrules).
funny thing is, i actually have to fill in as sorta-face for everything regarding Johnsons, because my 10 Dice in bargaining are far above what the rest of the group can offer.

Physical Barriers actually don't have much power if you bother to read the rules.
Grab a high powered rifle and cast "full auto APDS" on the opposing mage through the barrier.