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Tippis posted:No, but they would hire him for a quick snatch'n'grab of the CEO's daughter (so the corp security is busy gunning down the schmucks while the other team sneaks into the facility to grab some really compromising material from the CEO's own computer). Or we can play professional criminals in this professional crime RPG about the most elite mercenaries in the world. Didn't you start with one million nuyen at resources A in second edition?
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Sep 13, 2013 02:06
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Starting street level works out just fine, you just have to scale runs to match - or perhaps start on something other then runs. You don't have to open up on a run to kidnap the CEO's anything. Hell, Food Fight isn't exactly a high stakes operation, and that's the module everyone gets first. Who says mission one is black ops? I agree with Piell that a street game would be better served by actually using the priorities system better (like the aforementioned BBCDE or BCCDE)
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Sep 13, 2013 02:25
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I'm not sure BBCDE or BCCDE doesn't have the same problem of sabotaging certain archetypes, only with a different set of archetypes. Building a technomancer on those, for instance, is really, really dubious. If you're gonna modify the priority table, I'd almost rather go ABCEE or something, with street level types possessing a much narrower base of expertise/less versatility.
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Sep 13, 2013 02:32
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Gort posted:I always did think a weakness of Shadowrun is that it starts too high-powered and you don't work your way up. Right out of the gate you're a high-level asset to basically any organisation you meet. That wasn't true in 4E. Most 4E characters had one great schtick and outside of that they were on par with a random triad gangbanger. The difference between a fresh character and a seasoned character was usually the number of things they were awesome at, not how awesome they were at their schtick. I feel 5E took a step back here. The skill limit (one skill at 6 or two at five or one skill group at 5, rest at 4) forced a little diversity down everyone's throat. --- It's not enough to limit the number of skill or attribute points someone has. What makes a ganger a ganger is that he isn't good at anything. You need to limit how much he can invest into any given test. So if I was going to do a street campaign, I'd do standard priority char gen but: -You may only start with one one skill at 4. All other skills, including all skill groups, must be rating 3 or less. -You may only start one attribute at (racial unaugmented attribute maximum -1) before augmentation. All other attributes are restricted to a maximum of (racial unaugmented maximum -2). So a human could have Agility 5 and all of his other attributes would be limited to 4 or less. -Maximum Resonance or Magic before modification by cyber/bioware is 4 except for aspected magicians who may start with Magic 5. -Minimum Essence of 2. -No attribute or skill rating may be permanently enhanced by bioware, cyberware, or adept powers by more than a total of 2. -All adept powers are limited to a maximum level of 3, except for improved reflexes which is limited to level 1 (maybe 2?) and danger sense, light body, and natural immunity whose maximum starting level is not limited. -Maximum availability of 8 (Really.) -The availability of used cyberware is the same, not -4. -Maximum device rating of any electronic device is 3. -The maximum rating of any piece of gear with a variable rating (e.g. armor enhancements, a jammer, explosives, magical lodge materials) is 3, except for foci which are limited to Force 2. -You may not start with more than 3 foci (bound or unbound). -You may not start with power foci. -You may not start with more than 10 spells. -You may not start with more than 5 complex forms. -The maximum Connection rating of any contact is 4. -You may not start with any of the following qualities: Aptitude, Catlike, Codeslinger, Exceptional Attribute, First Impression, Gearhead, Natural Athlete, Spirit Affinity, or Toughness. All other positive qualities with variable ratings (e.g. Magical resistance) are limited to a maximum rating of 2. Consider allowing them to have one piece of gear of up to availability 10 or maybe 12 with strict oversight. You could also use negative qualities to reinforce their terribleness, like requiring everyone take at least one 9+ point negative quality other than Allergy. Gobbeldygook fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 03:05
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Shockeh posted:E: And it wasn't meant to be a poo poo on the idea; More a suggestion that it's fine you can't just punch Astral bodies. You're already very good as an Adept at murdering physical ones, I like the way it forces you to choose (and opens up the possibility of a more Astrally-focussed Adept) Man, an astrally-focused adept is a terrible idea. It's not even terrible idea in a fun way, like being a Psychic (an old magician flaw that meant you could only cast things that a "psychic" could do and also steadfastly refused to believe you use magic because you're a crazy bastard  ). Basically, all you can do is counter unmanifested spirits and projecting mages, and do it WAY worse than either of them because they can easily disengage/maneuver by flying at the SPEED OF THOUGHT while you are stuck traveling meat body speeds, operating at meat body reaction while dealing with meat body problems like...oh, I don't know...walls, floors, altitude. Hell, Magicians don't even really need astral combat except maybe to defend themselves, since they can just mind-beam out astral entities with mana spells. Forcing an adept to take Astral Combat to combat astral entities sandbags them pretty drat hard with an entire skill of very limited utility that they have to be really good at or they may as well not take at all. Fighting an unmanifested spirit, for example, means a spirit is going to have its force x2 to its dice pool, which means an adept is going to need at least as many dice between willpower and this limited utility skill, plus they have to peg out their Charisma if they actually want to reliably do enough damage to matter before said astral entity backs off to spell/power range and melts you into oblivion with attacks that you cannot retaliate against (except running away by turning off your perception). So, you either further dilute a combat adept with a skill and high charisma, or you make a face adept in which case, you're now good at being a lovely astral fighter (because you can't fly around at the speed of thought, cast spells, scout astrally, etc) but are almost definitely a bad meatfighter because you're an astral-boxing faceman. TLDR; Astral Combat for dual nature creatures is a terrible rule and, if it is played with, it is an even more terrible option for Adepts.
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Sep 13, 2013 03:24
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Weapon foci monowhip just seems better and better.
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Sep 13, 2013 04:11
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Mystic Mongol posted:Or we can play professional criminals in this professional crime RPG about the most elite mercenaries in the world. Yes, but what did a million N¥ buy you? One or two tricked-out cars and some drones for the rigger. A deck for the decker. A full set of wires for the street sam. It also left you low on skills and attributes and you couldn't be magically active and/or metahuman. code:Cabbit posted:So.. wait, you want to play expendable shmucks that get in over their head and die? Gee, I can't imagine why those sort wouldn't have half a million nuyen worth of cybernetics or drones. It's no different than going from rescuing the farmer's daughter from goblins to rescuing the princess from a dragon. Except maybe that in SR, you are the goblins and the dragon, respectively. And no, I want to play a crime saga — from the first fumbling steps on the street to the blackops strike on the orbital delta growth labs. Hatchetman started out by getting in over his head, after all…
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Sep 13, 2013 11:37
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The various Shadowrun computer games managed to start you off pretty much flat broke with virtually no useful skills, and by the end you're able to punch out a dragon. (Hyperbole, but you get the idea) There's no story or fun-of-gameplay reason it wouldn't work in PnP, just mechanics. I find it's a lot easier to introduce a new player to a game if they are a smaller player in the world. Something like, "You're a ganger. This bit of Seattle is your turf and the Halloweener gang is trying to take it from you." rather than having to go through all the various militarily and wars your elite mercenary has been in, who they fought and why. You know, start small. It's a lot easier on the players and DM for the characters to start low-level and grow from there, rather than starting out elite (even if only elite at one thing). You get more organic characters with fewer unlikely gaps in their skill sets as well.
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Sep 13, 2013 12:14
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I started my campaign recently with a bunch of 'newish' and fairly broke Shadowrunners being given a job primarily because they were expected to fail, and were framed for crimes as a result. It's a good way to boost their morale (they exceed expectations naturally, and that's what saved their bacon in the first place) and also make for a storyline of their first step up from low-level to 'mainstream' Shadowrunning.
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Sep 13, 2013 12:23
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Gort posted:The various Shadowrun computer games managed to start you off pretty much flat broke with virtually no useful skills, and by the end you're able to punch out a dragon. (Hyperbole, but you get the idea) There's no story or fun-of-gameplay reason it wouldn't work in PnP, just mechanics. I'm inclined to agree, and I like this too. It would allow for things like a character who decides to become a decker or get his first piece of cyberware in the game, or you could even have a character awaken during the game. Mechanics-wise, I think there are really only a few issues holding the system back from allowing for this. 1. Raising attributes to high levels is so expensive that it's hard to people to accumulate enough karma to raise them after chargen. This also goes for skills you want at high levels, but to a lesser extent. I think whether we really need geometric increasing costs for better skills and attributes is worth thinking over. Trolls who want to raise Body and Strength are pointlessly shafted. 2. The suggested Karma rewards are pretty piddly, especially for PbP games or games where a run is planned and executed over the course of several sessions. On average, you'll probably get about 7 Karma per run as a new character. A growing Mage with Magic 4 saves up for 3 runs and still can't buy Magic 5. He'll probably spend some of that on useful skills, and encouraging more well-rounded characters is cool, but it sucks that he can't raise his primary stat. I almost wonder if it wouldn't make sense to do it the opposite way; Give out Karma at character generation, which encourages being well-rounded, and then award skill points and nuyen after runs, with an attribute point awarded after big runs. MiltonSlavemasta fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 12:36
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Milton's got the right of it; Shadowrun's experience system strongly discourages you from making a shlubby generalist and working your way into the big leagues because it's a huge, grindy timesink of hoarding your karma to slowly buy your way up as opposed to making a character that's really good at an area of expertise and then gradually broadening out your interests from there. It's not the only game that does that either, it's practically a staple of various Storyteller games and even Reign sadly does it too. Frankly I'm not really all that enamored with "start as a scrub, work your way into being pro tier" as a default because let's face it, how long does the average tabletop game really last anyway? But beyond that I've just never really been interested in "oh man I can't wait to power my character up." Like, it's nice to get karma or XP or whatever, but it's not really a huge appeal for me either, so. Also it's incredibly easy to introduce a new player to a game of Shadowrun where their character isn't some guy clawing their way up from the street. "Here, watch the first episode of Leverage. You're like one of those guys only with magic and/or robot parts, also you may be an elf." Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 12:50
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Once they release a karmagen system you can easily start at any power level. Right now you need to screw with the priority system and put restrictions on your players to be anything other than the best at something and competent at a lot of other things. Even doing BBCDE or whatever doesn't quite seem like enough, but if it works for you feel free. For example, in the SR4 game I play we did 500 karma instead of 750 to reflect a street-er level game.
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Sep 13, 2013 12:56
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Gort posted:The various Shadowrun computer games managed to start you off pretty much flat broke with virtually no useful skills, and by the end you're able to punch out a dragon. ( SR5 is like a MMO compare to that.
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Sep 13, 2013 15:52
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Nyaa posted:Those single player games also hands out karma like hot cake and the most expensive ware rarely cost more then 5 digits. I really don't have a problem with vastly inflating the suggested rewards. After the last run I DMed, my players got half a million Nuyen and thirty karma for a two-evening run. I also think the rewards for the published adventures are low to the point of absurdity. I ran one where the opposition wheeled out an attack helicopter armed with missiles. The runners were being paid a total of 20,000 Nuyen, and were probably carrying millions in gear themselves. There's something wrong when jacking cars and stealing dropped guns are better money-makers than actually doing the run, and there's something wrong when people are more interested in what gimmicks they can fit into a starting character as well. Someone implied that most SR campaigns don't last more than a couple of sessions. That is not a good sign in an RPG. My last D&D campaign was thirty sessions.
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Sep 13, 2013 16:16
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I wish there'd be a bit more power progression in game, it's kinda annoying how if you can't grab a piece of expensive ware or equipment at character gen you're not likely to ever get it. Same for a high skill rating. Like all that arguing about starting with a 1 in an attribute earlier (please please don't begin that again, I'm just using it as an example because it was the first thing I thought of): Character A starts with 5 agility and 1 strength. Character B starts with 4 agility and 2 strength. A spends 10 karma to raise strength to 2. B spends 25 karma to raise agility to 3. Both now have agility 5 and strength 2 but one of them is rewarded for minmaxing by being up 15 karma. 
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Sep 13, 2013 16:23
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Poil posted:I wish there'd be a bit more power progression in game, it's kinda annoying how if you can't grab a piece of expensive ware or equipment at character gen you're not likely to ever get it. Same for a high skill rating. In Shadowrun Missions, the average Karma award is 6 Karma at the end of a run presuming you completed everything really well. So that is 2 and a half missions worth of Karma. You need to min-max 'ware as well, since you are not going to get more of it. The average Nuyen award ranges from between 9,000 to 12,000 nuyen, so split the difference and say 10,500. This season of missions is going to have the Sprawl Wilds and Firing Line missions, plus 16 core missions, for a total of 24 missions. 24 x 6 = 144 Karma and 24 x 10,500 = 252,000 Nuyen (minus the Nuyen for Lifestyle, bribes, ammunition and expendables like drugs or grenades). You also need to go on a mission every two weeks on average, due to the Calendar only giving you a year total. So good luck being able to spend all of that Karma; to go from a 5 to a 6 is going to take you 6 weeks; an instructor reduces that to 4 and 4 days. You can train skills equal to logic/2 (round up) at the same time, but to make your time work out you have to bank all of your Karma and then spend it in one go on skills. Raising attributes or skill groups is going to eat all of your calendar time. Having everything you want at 6, and then raising a bunch of skills to 4s? Takes new rating in days, so 1+2+3+4 or 10 days, and you can do logic/2 rounded up at once. (You need a starting logic of 3 to train two skills at once). The only Karma dump that you can just advance, no questions asked, are Edge and Qualities. So if you did not max our your Edge at character creation, you really should do so once you have the Karma to do it, since it takes no time and greatly improves your character.
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Sep 13, 2013 17:04
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Poil posted:I wish there'd be a bit more power progression in game, it's kinda annoying how if you can't grab a piece of expensive ware or equipment at character gen you're not likely to ever get it. Same for a high skill rating. I still fail to see any reason there are character gen restrictions on ANYTHING. That should be a GM call, not RAW. Like, the arbitrary 12 availability. So you're telling me I can easily find Aluminum Bone Lacing, but my character has never ever seen Alpha grade? I doubt that. Or that a Yamaha Raiden gun is so rare that you can't buy it unless you're a professional already...it's just pointless cockblocking.
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Sep 13, 2013 17:41
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I ran SR4 with build point chargen (with adjustments, like skill cost was cut in half) and handed out BP instead of karma. Whether BP gen/BP advancement or karmagen/karma advancement is better is just a matter of taste, but I prefer BP gen because BP chargen is doable by hand and BP advancement allows people to actually improve attributes and skills. Mixing and matching them is just terrible.
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Sep 13, 2013 17:49
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Bigass Moth posted:I still fail to see any reason there are character gen restrictions on ANYTHING. That should be a GM call, not RAW. In theory Availability ought to be a convenient tool to allow GMs to make that call to suit their tastes. "No gear higher than X Availability at the start." In practice Availability seems to be as arbitrarily assigned as the monetary costs and there'll doubtlessly be a quality available in a supplement that lets you ignore it anyway.
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Sep 13, 2013 18:42
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What do you think would be a better tool for quickly stripping a dead NPC of cyberware: Mini-welder or Monofilament chainsaw?
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Sep 14, 2013 18:45
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H posted:What do you think would be a better tool for quickly stripping a dead NPC of cyberware: Mini-welder or Monofilament chainsaw? Wouldn't either of those potentially destroy the cyberware? Also, when does Turn To Goo become a thing in SR5?
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Sep 14, 2013 19:03
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H posted:What do you think would be a better tool for quickly stripping a dead NPC of cyberware: Mini-welder or Monofilament chainsaw? Per Sin City, a katana to make for more easily transported bits, and then probably some kind of fancy nanobot bath. Or just resurrect the older-edition version of Turn to Goo.
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Sep 14, 2013 19:05
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H posted:What do you think would be a better tool for quickly stripping a dead NPC of cyberware: Mini-welder or Monofilament chainsaw? Dude. You need a white panel van with wireless reflective paint.
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Sep 14, 2013 19:38
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Doc Dee posted:Wouldn't either of those potentially destroy the cyberware? The character concept I'm considering is a street doc (5 points in Biotech Group) who can spend 2-3 minutes after each fight scanning and stripping the most expensive pieces of cyberware off dead mooks. It's a total smash and grab surgery that shouldn't take too much time/logistics. My goal is to end each shadowrun with a bag of bloody cyber-parts that I can re-assemble later. (My solution for the Nuyen crunch)
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Sep 14, 2013 19:52
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Tippis posted:Per Sin City, a katana to make for more easily transported bits, and then probably some kind of fancy nanobot bath. Or just resurrect the older-edition version of Turn to Goo. Why a fancy nanobot bath instead of a steel drum full of beetles? Now that I consider it, a forensic entymologist isn't likely to be out of work long in the Sixth World.
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Sep 14, 2013 19:56
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H posted:The character concept I'm considering is a street doc (5 points in Biotech Group) who can spend 2-3 minutes after each fight scanning and stripping the most expensive pieces of cyberware off dead mooks. It's a total smash and grab surgery that shouldn't take too much time/logistics. My goal is to end each shadowrun with a bag of bloody cyber-parts that I can re-assemble later. Yeah… I'd say that unless you've been fighting fish on a Norwegian cyber-trawler, 2–3 minutes won't be enough. Maybe to lop of the relevant bits and bring them home for processing, but certainly not to strip the actual cyberware. CMS posted:Why a fancy nanobot bath instead of a steel drum full of beetles? Because unless it's very crude (read: cheap) purely mechanical implants or some similarly obsolete junk, they'll be attached to the nervous system and/or embedded in immunosuppressant casings, so you need something of the same calibre to detach them. Beetles will just eat the casing and wires and make a general mess of things, because it'll all be close enough to their regular fare.
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Sep 14, 2013 20:09
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CMS posted:Why a fancy nanobot bath instead of a steel drum full of beetles? Seems like a good idea now, until you open the drum and are accosted by a swarm of beetles with wired reflexes.
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Sep 14, 2013 20:09
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Cabbit posted:Seems like a good idea now, until you open the drum and are accosted by a swarm of beetles with wired reflexes. I take my answer back and yield to this one.
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Sep 14, 2013 20:11
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Man, I really wish I had an idea of how well supplemental stuff from SR4 would translate to SR5. I'm reading Street Magic right now and it seems like Sludge Flesh or something would be perfect for harvesting cyberware. Probably also for decimating entire groups of enemies without much effort. 
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Sep 14, 2013 20:27
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H posted:The character concept I'm considering is a street doc (5 points in Biotech Group) who can spend 2-3 minutes after each fight scanning and stripping the most expensive pieces of cyberware off dead mooks. It's a total smash and grab surgery that shouldn't take too much time/logistics. My goal is to end each shadowrun with a bag of bloody cyber-parts that I can re-assemble later. You're better off just stealing cars.
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Sep 14, 2013 21:43
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Speaking of illicit sources of funding, I'm wondering if a Technomancer could use Puppeteer on random people on the street to make their commlinks initiate bank transfers to some dummy account. Or, for that matter, use Resonance Veil to convince some automated merchant that they've just made a legitimate payment for some item when they haven't.
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Sep 14, 2013 21:58
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I'm 2/3rds of the way through this thread, but I wanted to share some stuff I made: A meant-for-play character sheet, either landscape-printed or on a screen. Make a copy, fill in the attributes, and a lot of the sheet will write itself: http://goo.gl/aVFQlS A sheet that automatically generates summoned, materialized spirit stat blocks. Make a copy and just edit the Force cell in the upper left: http://goo.gl/CT4wRc I'd love to get some feedback on the utility of the sheets, as well as any bugs you notice. I've been using the character sheet for about five sessions now, and it's held up pretty well. Here's what it looks like filled out with my current character: http://goo.gl/slRwqx
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Sep 14, 2013 22:06
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Diaghilev posted:I'm 2/3rds of the way through this thread, but I wanted to share some stuff I made: No slots for spells or powers? The problem with these catch-all sheets is that they get enormous if you try to appeal to all sides. Maybe make Mundane/Decker/Techno/Magician/Adept sheets specific to each "archetype". The layout is great and is one of the best sheets I've seen so far.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:07
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Bigass Moth posted:No slots for spells or powers? The problem with these catch-all sheets is that they get enormous if you try to appeal to all sides. Maybe make Mundane/Decker/Techno/Magician/Adept sheets specific to each "archetype". The layout is great and is one of the best sheets I've seen so far. Thank you! You'll find space for spells and powers on the Magic/Resonance tab at the bottom of the page.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:23
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Diaghilev posted:I really like this sheet, I don't mind skipping a line to separate Adept Powers from Spells or whatever, or using a line or two to mark where the separate lists start. EDIT: Apparently I don't even need to do that, there's a type column too!
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Sep 15, 2013 00:04
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Is it just me or do you heal really quickly using the SR 5th rules for healing (pg 207)? My character had 2 Body and healed up 7 boxes of physical damage (got set on fire by a spirit) in only a few days with a +3 from a medicine test on the first day. Apparently in SR 3rd that sort of damage would have taken a couple months to recover from, baseline? I imagine you're supposed to aggressively apply negative modifiers to those healing tests (you only get full bonuses if you're in an actual medical facility) but even then, a character with 4 or more Body should be able to recover to full health within roughly a week on average.
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Sep 15, 2013 01:07
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Well, if someone's not receiving any medical care and is just sleeping it off in their apartment, they'll be testing at -4, due to -1 for not being in a sterilized medical setting and -3 for not having medical supplies. If you apply First Aid or Medicine to yourself, you can't make the natural recovery roll. If they're cybered up or awakened (which is most characters), that's going to be another -2 for Awakened characters and likely a -2 for cybered-up characters. So, an Awakened or Cybered-up character who isn't a troll is probably going to do nothing but stay the same/deteriorate unless they get actual care. This is all without factoring in the wound penalties from the actual injury,
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Sep 15, 2013 01:18
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My character's a Human Face with a street doctor contact, so that explains the big disparity in expected healing time then. Guess my interpretation was right then, you're supposed to aggressively apply healing penalties unless you're in a good situation. Thanks! edit: Are there any rules for upgrading Contacts with karma? I can't seem to find them in the PDF. Brannock fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 01:21
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Brannock posted:edit: Are there any rules for upgrading Contacts with karma? I can't seem to find them in the PDF. There are not and I don't believe ever have been rules for upgrading contacts with karma. You don't buy contacts with karma in game, you just get them. You improve or worsen loyalty of your starting contacts and those earned in-play based on your behavior towards them. Their Connection varies by GM whim and maybe by doing favors for them.
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Sep 15, 2013 01:54
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I think the only time you can improve contacts with karma is at chargen. Either that, or you can only buy entirely new contacts with karma, I never really understood that part of the book.
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Sep 15, 2013 03:00
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