/srg/ - Shadowrun General

FWIW, a rating 3 license should be fine even for going through customs unless you have really shit luck

Point taken, I've got a game I'm about to start and I'm using a houserule I saw on Veeky Forums for freebie special gear

>Unless you have really shit luck
I always do chummer. Just been my experience that for some reason my dice hate me whenever I get ID'd in-game. I always make a point of buying the best SIN i can ASAP

I mean, maybe you could nag the GM for a rating 4 SIN. It's understandable, especially since being SINless means losing lifestyles over squatter if the fake burns.

A rating 6 SIN is well worth taking Restricted Gear in chargen. Hell, I'd even allow the licenses on it to be rating 6 too.
"No, Mr. Lonestar. I outrank you!"

>Which are your favorites?
Metavariants are special snowflakes and should have never been written.

Same with SURGE. If you play metavariant or SURGE in my game, expect to have a bad time.

How concealable is something like PPP Vitals protection supposed to be anyway? Like would it be seriously noticeable in a fancy dress situation?

>muh metavariants
They've been in the game longer than SURGE, so suck it up

So's the Matrix and it's SOP to throw out an entire third of the system just so we can play the game

>how concealable
Imagine going everywhere in rugby protective gear.

So if I want to make my own Drams how many dice in alchemy should I have?

that's because it doesn't work, not due to general dislike.
We delegate the Matrix because we have to, not because we want

Eh I like the idea of regional metavariants, like the Oni or the Gnome, but I've never actually played as one.
I think my favourite one in the lore is the Oni

The game isn't made unplayable because someone's rolling an Oni or a Dryad. Which is what the Matrix did in 2e, Matrix segments just turned the game into a dinner party for most of the group.

whats shadowrun?

A miserable pile of dice pools

pic related

An utter broken and barely playable mess of a game and setting that's also really fun.

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The real Shadowrun is the friends we made along the way

There's two types, visible worn outside clothing, and invisible because it's worn under clothing.
GM might rule that it makes your fancy high-fashion suit fit you strangely, but there's no actual rules for that.

Not very.
>Features: Decrease Social Limit by 1; Arms and Legs kits cannot be combined with any full-body armor; Vitals kit cannot be combined with full-body armor, armor vest, or armor jacket.

Oh well, the Zoe will still stop most pistol rounds even without

In older editions, was there a point to layering as much armor as possible, or was taking cover always by far the superior option?

3e wise, layering armour is good, but you'll take Quickness penalties and shit if you try to stack on too much. In general, hiding behind things is better than trusting in your armour, but at least old armour was subtracted from the Power of the attack, making it easier to stage the damage down.

That is, assuming I've remembered correctly.

How do you like to distribute your skills, anons? If chargen efficiency wasn't an issue, would you prefer to be a jack of all trades or a master of few?

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Master of a couple, professional at a few, competent at a bunch. Current char is masterful with unarmed and automatics, professional with explosives, first aid, and small unit tactics, and competent at facing, stealth, and athletics.

What should I keep in mind if I want to play a Christian Theurge?

Make a visit to Westfalen once in a while

I'm not familiar.

Corporate SIN (Vatican).

WIP character, trying to make him the ultimate in the "it literally could be anybody" department. Without any situational or disguise bonuses it has 24 dice in impersonation. Add to that:
>can change skin colour at will
>can change eye colour at will
>can change hair length, style, colour, type at will
>can give itself breasts of any size at will
>can change handprints at will
>can change its voice to mimic anyone pretty much perfectly at will
>can change the structure of its face at will
>clothes can change colour at will
So ideally it should be pretty much impossible to tell that this is actually an extremely competent infiltrator rather than your boss. Unless you go anywhere near him with a cyberware scanner that is; in that case he lights up like a christmas tree. So that he's useful once he's infiltrated, he has the maximum possible boost to all forms of perception thanks to cyberware, as well as mapping capabilities with radar. He has blades covered in narco that come out from under his fingernails for a knockout handshake, and pretty decent unarmed skill to be able to use them in combat. How viable is this character in /srg/'s opinion? And should I make him a personafix user? I feel like it would be more interesting if he was just so damn good at impersonating people that he's forgotten who he really is, rather than having to actually plug a chip in to be somebody. Also, a weakpoint of his "could be /literally/ anyone" thing is, frankly, his genitals. Is there convincing cyberware that I haven't spotted that lets him change sex at will (or at least with 15 mins and a toolkit)?

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>Unless you go anywhere near him with a cyberware scanner that is; in that case he lights up like a christmas tree
Really, pretty much everywhere should have a cyberware scanner.

Really I was hoping I could just smoothtalk past the guys holding the scanners or get our decker to disable them.

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A few 4s, a few 7s, one group and 1-2 skills at 12 is usually how I like it

Hobgoblins are awesome. All the ork/troll ones are neat, but they're my absolute favorites.

You aren't wrong.

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Hobgoblins in 5e are a downgrade in literally every way and they pay karma for the privilege.

Are you doing it explicitly without magic?

Because sufficiently pumped-up MysAd can do it better.

You still can get around 1 ess worth of 'ware for MysAd, mainly stuff that's not conspicious and what every wageslave could install (data/skilljack, clean metabolism, toxin extractor, pheromones...).

As a MysAd you get access to stuff like Fashion spell, adept powers (including the authoritative voice) and insanely useful Masking metamagic that can make you look like A N Y O N E even on astral plane (thing mundies struggle with).

But actually that's bullshit, and even if it were true he should be able to talk his way past it.

You should be, unless your GM is a total asshole.

I meant lorewise, not to play as. They're shit gameplay wise, sure, but I like hobgoblins as a concept and I dig their flavor.

I haven't actually played as any metavariants before. I just like hobgoblins.

>Because sufficiently pumped-up MysAd can do it better.
I know you can do literally everything better with magic, but it can be fun to play a mundane every once in a while and use some of that cool cyberware that never sees the light of day because magic does it better. Plus, the rest of my group literally all play awakened characters, and their alt characters are all also awakened, aside from 1. All that magic gets a little bit boring.

>tfw you play low-grade awakened purely as summoners and still use augments

Like my favorite magic subsets in 4e were assensing adepts and knack summoners. Just enough magic to be functional in Chicago, otherwise play as a mundane.

I was wanting to get into Shadowrun as I've never played it, (other than the vidya games) whats the best way for a newbie like myself to start?

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Don't

It's a rabbit hole but it can be fun if you don't just play with randos on reddit

/srg/ doubles as a Clockwork appreciation thread, lad

I appreciated Clockwork a lot
as my range practice target

where or whats the best way to get involved with groups? especially ones that take on greenhorns

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>killing one of the few jackpointers that isn't complete aids to read
shiggy

clockwork only seems tolerable because jackpoint is garbage for garbage people and fastjack is a terrible judge of character

Also it's only an effigy

You're stil shooting at the best character who is active in the canon right now.

No seriously, of all the tolerable characters who are actually... doing shit right now?

All the big players haven't been present this edition, all the jackpointers are cancer-aids, no character who is good in any of the stories exists outside of the story.

>tfw captain chaos died and Kane is still alive
At this point I'm pretty much 100% convinced that "Pirate King Kane" doesn't exist and is just a relatively talented hacker who just posts Navy SEAL memes unironically backed with an extremely elaborate fake persona

(It also helps justify the fact that he has a lot of surface knowledge about stuff but actually knows nothing about naval ops despite being some hotshot caribbean smuggler, which irl is mostly the fault of the freelancers writing the maritime supplements only being so-so for research)

I guess every character ever is just a hacker in disguise at this rate

Didn't /dev/ grrl find him and start running with him or something though?

I fucking hate Kane but I would fucking love to play in a game that was basically what he does. Smuggling runs throughout the carribbean.

What's this?

She did, and it's so goddamn stupid. Because it's obvious it's just someone who wants a quirky team up LOL SHE'S SO LOLSORANDUM AND HES SO SERIOUS THEY'RE A PERFECT MATCH LOLOLOLOLOL.

Ew.

Oh absolutely that'd be fun as fuck.

Westphalia is a place in Germany,

In shadowrun it's where the christian theurges began, and in real life it's pretty much mainly notable for right wing nerds because of the treaty of westphalia which defined a nation-state.

Bavaria but less rural and with a less funny accent

it's also a theocratic state within the AGS. more notably, in this case.

I was like 80% sure I mentioned that, but then somehow I didn't.

NP user.
Check Shadows of Europe 3E.

So, which of the splat books are actually good suppliments?

>CGL: We're not even pretending anymore.

Hey, Veeky Forums I got an odd question...

So, like, I know that in general (in 5e) spirits fucking suck. To fight. At least, if you're mundane.

But, like, I had a sudden thought: Aren't there things that are inherantly magical?

Like... okay, I get that foci need to be turned on, and you need to be magical to, ya know, use magic.

But I don't understand weapon foci. At least, in the idea that you need to be magical in order to use them. Why couldn't Magician A give Mundane B a weapon foci, turn it on, and just let him hit people over the head with it?

Something probably along the lines of 'without the magician bonded to it keeping it on, it will stop drawing energy" okay fine. I don't like it, but fine.

Aren't there dual natured metals though? Like, Orichalcum is inherantly magical, isn't it?

Could a mundane slap some orichalcum onto their cyberblade, so that they can stab at a spirit and bypass their non-magic immunity?

(Yes, I know orichalcum is expensive as fuck, I don't need an entire sword made out of the stuff, just 'enough'. unless 'enough' requires the whole sword. and if that's the case, fuck it, I should have the option).

Or, am I just drunk on exhaustion and making no sense at all?

Basically, from War! onwards is shit.

You are thinking to complicated, chummer. Just hit up your local talismonger and let them enchant a stick with a ball of lightning force gazillion and the trigger of saying the word "dick in my butt"

There you go, adjust if needed.

Running a 4e game soon; is there any reason I shouldn't houserule that a player with Knack or Astral Sight can spend karma to keep their Magic rating above 0 besides hating fun?

No. No there is not.

Nope.

They should but CGL hates mundanes.
I'd allow an orichalcum alloyed blade to fuck up spirits.

I'd also honestly allow you to just straight up shoot spirits though, because the barrier doesn't really make sense.

I think for "game balance" purposes they just can't fully awaken. But even that seems kind of arbtirary.

In 5e you CAN shoot spirits. But they're immune to nonmagic attacks, including bullets, so, like, the attack still has to deal with fuckoff amounts of hardened armor.

Which is bullshit, because they can punch you just fine and the mage can summon a new one every turn.

Let people with astral sight just use it regardless of magic rating. I mean, fuck it, they're already spending karma on the skill and using it renders them vulnerable to the archetypal spirit sniper. As long as they stay above 0 max magic or something; if you want to steal from 5e rules for the 4e game.

>But actually that's bullshit
>a wall-mounted Rating 4 cyberware scanner is 1000 nY and has a range of 15 m
Is there a good in-universe reason to not have at least one of these?

Is there a good reason that magical security is always fucking ass in Shadowrun?

IME the opposite is true where people just wildly overestimate how beefy magical security should be and having every fucking trash office a notch above the local stuffer shack having a full fledged mage and guardian spirits

Not really, no. It'll reliably pick up anything lower than alphaware, then you've got to fast talk it. There's some lines about how to sneak your cybered killing machine through in.. runner's companion, I think, because run faster is fucking stupid.

I think a lot of it is that GMs don't understand it. The old 'magic becomes less powerful the more you understand it' with matrix as its opposite. A high security corporate facility will have walls nobody can get through astrally thanks to other astral forms, or careful landscaping/geomancy to ensure there's living earth in the walls. Or just burying it. And not just warded. Guardian spirits not being a joke. Trap spells. That sort of thing. It's easier for people to go 'okay, trip fires, Seven7 gas flowers, monofire, pot plant turrets, pressure pads, jetpacked attack dogs..'

>Nartaki_Troll_Handjob.sim

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Today, $1000 gets you set up with several security cameras.

There are plenty of places that still don't have them. Laziness, stinginess, or a decent insurance policy are all reasons you might skip out on security hardware.

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The professional criminal element and major gang activity is also less prevalent in our world.

Not to mention data balkanisation and economies of scale. The local stuffer shack probably gets knocked over two or three times a month at least. Why bother with sensors if you're not paying guards? It'll happen, train your employees appropriately.

Didn't they get errata'd to be a bit less 100% awful? Still pretty bad iirc, but I could swear they aren't a straight downgrade anymore.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember reading something along those lines here before.

>Why bother with sensors if you're not paying guards?

Exactly. If you're not equipped to stop a mundane junkie with a knife, why would pay ¥1000 to know if he had cyberware?

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A note on that: in a ton of places these cameras are pure security theater and their usefulness is fairly limited because, lacking witnesses, you're sorting through days and hours of film

In general if rent-a-cops lack witnesses I just assume they pick up a random kid in the barrens

Alternately, they have the scanner, but don't bother paying anyone to watch it, and it dings so often that nobody gives a shit because like every other wageslave has some sort of mod for their job.

Datajacks should be ubiquitous enough to make a cyberware scanner virtually useless as proof of anything.

They are a straight downgrade except they get fangs.
Fangs which Chrome Flesh say you should let your ork players have anyway.

Cyberware scanners give general info on what and where. Unless you have a really shit scanner it's not going to mistake hidden cyberlimbs for datajacks or whatever.

assuming the item is listed in the device’s database. If the threshold is reached, the scanner detects the item/implant and notes its general locations and type; additional hits provide more detail (function, model, grade, etc.).

They also have Keen Eared. Which, while not a bad quality, isn't good enough to offset their many disadvantages in everything else.

Actually, speaking of their qualities, why don't they have striking skin pigmentation? They're green, after all. My best guess is just that it'd make them even worse than they already are.

>additional hits
You ain't getting more than one hit out of a r3 scanner.

Like, sincerely, if you're assuming KE/LS are going to do major crime solving without a mega breathing down their neck or literally catching the criminal in flagrante, what the fuck are you doing running a cyberpunk game?

Crime gets resolved one of three ways
1 - It's a huge fucking deal and there's a full investigation because someone ticked off the wrong people in the process (or they caught the you in the act)
2 - Pure investigation theater, they bring out trash-tier forensics like ballistic fingerprinting and composite portraits and then just pick up someone who happens to fit whatever profile they want, probably some kid from the slums
3 - It goes unsolved, forever, nobody gives a fuck. That's most crime.

Basically they're still police except moreso.