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In the little blurb from the anniv. edition it mentions to cut down on die rolls for combat, you could not even roll to resist the damage. Would this be a good idea to slightly speed things along for a brand new group, or would it make some stats less useful or gently caress them over if we ever decide to add resistance rolls back in? It doesn't mention if it makes the game any deadlier or not, or what the adverse side of it would be. Also I'm really liking the dice mechanics system (first time I've ever really looked into a d6 dice pool, stat+skill system) but holy hell I wish there was a universal system that used something similar, without a bazillion skills.
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Sep 14, 2009 17:12
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Not resisting damage would make the game much deadlier. Even having a set amount of damage taken would make the game deadlier. I'm not a big fan of it because the system isn't set up in a way that would deal with that, unlike something like warhammer, which is.
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Sep 15, 2009 00:48
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I'm working on reading through my copy of SR4A (which is a beautiful book) and I have a couple of questions. My Smuggler (I changed a few things, but he largely resembles the smuggler in the book) has a GMC step van with a mounted Ingram gun on it. If I fire it while jumped in, I use: the vehicle's Sensors (1), + my Gunnery (4) + Control Rig (2) + Hot Sim (2) for 9 dice. If the truck fires as a drone, it gets Pilot (4) + Targeting (Heavy Weapons) (3) How can I increase the truck's sensors? The book has stats in the back for different sensors, and includes capacities and packages. It says Vehicles have 12 capacity. Does this mean I can buy 12 capacity worth of sensors to put in my truck? Also, how does jamming work? The jammer entry says you can turn it on and it jams all signals less than the rating of the jammer. But earlier in the book under Electronic Warfare it says I can choose to let certain traffic through. How does Electronic Warfare play into jamming?
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Sep 15, 2009 15:19
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Ice Phisherman posted:Being mundane vs cybered or biowared really depends on your GM. Some games have pretty much no security at any time because the venue doesn't call for it or the DM doesn't give a poo poo. However, a decent GM that has you on corporate or other high security runs will have cyberware scanners at almost every turn, which is why I tend to go with bioware at chargen because it is harder to detect the illegal stuff. Dunno if I'd call that a "decent GM", because that's basically the point at which anyone with cyberware says "welp we can't do that job, Mr Johnson, what else you got?" and you skip ahead to the next mission (or leave out anyone with a cyberarm.) Fair enough if you tell them at the start of the game "don't get cyberwares because there's scanners everywhere", though. Fenarisk posted:In the little blurb from the anniv. edition it mentions to cut down on die rolls for combat, you could not even roll to resist the damage. Would this be a good idea to slightly speed things along for a brand new group, or would it make some stats less useful or gently caress them over if we ever decide to add resistance rolls back in? It doesn't mention if it makes the game any deadlier or not, or what the adverse side of it would be. It'll make the body stat less powerful, because it's now only contributing 1/2 a box of health per point, instead of also giving an extra soak dice. But yeah it'll really mess things up, because body, armour and AP mods no longer matter. You could just use the buying hits rule on soak (trade 4 dice for 1 hit) so you don't have to be rolling all the time. That could be a good compromise.
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Sep 15, 2009 15:51
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I'll probably just stick with the damage resistance roll, it seems like only a few seconds extra of math for the new target number (just the different in hits from the attacker winning against the defender minus armor plus the DV of the weapon, correct?) and one extra dice roll. Plus I don't want to devalue the stat and the idea of someone getting lucky and resisting what could be a deadly shot adds to tension I think.
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Sep 15, 2009 17:04
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children overboard posted:Dunno if I'd call that a "decent GM", because that's basically the point at which anyone with cyberware says "welp we can't do that job, Mr Johnson, what else you got?" and you skip ahead to the next mission (or leave out anyone with a cyberarm.) Isn't this one of the reasons you keep Hackers on hand? Any cyberware scanner hooked into an alarm system can be hacked, and depending on your hacker, why not just add wares to the scanner's 'legal' list?
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Sep 15, 2009 18:00
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lighttigersoul posted:Isn't this one of the reasons you keep Hackers on hand? More entertainingly, have it go off on that unsuspecting wage slave behind you so security jumps his rear end while you use the distraction to your advantage.
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Sep 15, 2009 18:34
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lighttigersoul posted:Isn't this one of the reasons you keep Hackers on hand? I think that's a great way to handle it. Gives a little extra risk to get the guy with wares in (because the hacker might fail) and doesn't outright halt the game.
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Sep 16, 2009 03:11
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children overboard posted:I think that's a great way to handle it. Gives a little extra risk to get the guy with wares in (because the hacker might fail) and doesn't outright halt the game.
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Sep 16, 2009 05:02
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Yep, OH by the way, the whole hacker without a datajack thing. I built one in 400 BP form yesterday and it worked out great and might be overpowered due to not buying implants and thus buying LOTS of software. If only you could buy military grade at character creation. I then proceeded to tone it down from retarded lvl and made it playable without wanting to beat the player in the face. Still works out pretty well. Hell the character is even a pretty drat good face on top of it.
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Sep 16, 2009 05:04
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YOTC posted:Yep, OH by the way, the whole hacker without a datajack thing. I built one in 400 BP form yesterday and it worked out great and might be overpowered due to not buying implants and thus buying LOTS of software. If only you could buy military grade at character creation. How does this work?
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Sep 17, 2009 15:25
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He's talking out of his rear end is how it works. In order to do what he's describing you have to ignore several basic chargen rules (availability maximums, upgrade maximums) or use a bunch of homebrew crap. You don't need ware to be an efficient hacker, but being a hacker at all is expensive, I spent nearly 100k on programs and related gear (which is 20BP) before I even bought cyberware, you're looking at a realistic minimum of 80BP just on hacker skills (cracking skill group 4, electronics skill group 4, and that's assuming you're not aiming for a 5 in something) you only have 200BP for stats, and unless you're a technomancer Charisma is kinda a dump stat for hackers, and you need your Logic, Intuition, and Will to be good because those are your stats that are actually used in cybercombat. Assuming you're not playing the world's hackeriest paraplegic you can't neglect your physical stats too, half the time you'll be hacking from AR and not VR unless you spend even more money on a PMV like the Ares-Segway Terrier, use a bunch of drones for signal bouncing, or can actually trust your buddies to guard your meat and haul it around. If you can't move, that's a different story, but you're not going to be logging much Face time that way. So, there you are with at least 300 of your 400 BP spent and you don't have any combat ability, cyberware, etc. You can spend another 30BP on vehicles, lifestyles, and cyber/bioware if you want it (I recommend an Encephalon, that will make you a wiz hacker), leaving you with between 100-70BP to buy more skills if you need them (you will need them), get contacts, and purchase qualities (or you can ingore this section if you're going positive/negative balancing). But you can't make an 'overpowered' hacker at chargen unless you're ignoring one basic rule. The Availability maximum of an item that may be purchased at character generation is 12. What's the Response 6's upgrade availability? Why it's 16. What's the Availability on cracking programs? It's Ratingx2 which isn't so bad... until you realize you can't put the program options you would need to run a Rating 6 program on a System 5 OS at character generation. 5's not overpowered, in any way, shape, or form. You're better than Professional Rating 3 dudes, but that's kind of the idea, you won't be trashing elite codeslingers effortlessly and you certainly won't be taking on the Right Hand of GOD and expect to win. He is right about not needing a datajack though, you can use a trode net with no bonus or penalty now compared to a datajack. edit: and if you want to call me out, you'd better be posting the original version of the dude you claim is so overpowered Kwyndig fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Sep 17, 2009 |
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Sep 17, 2009 17:54
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4e is quite balanced and I think it's quite a task to go broken. Though I haven't spent the weeks needed to try.
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Sep 17, 2009 22:47
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The General posted:4e is quite balanced and I think it's quite a task to go broken. Though I haven't spent the weeks needed to try. My definition of "broken" is more lax than most it seems. 4th ed chargen stops you from outright breaking it so you can buy enough dice all the time to "break" the game yes. But hell if you can't be REALLY good at something. I feel that "breaking" the game only needs to involve you having to put next to no effort into your actions to succeed at them(bluntly if your rolling 11+ dice at character creation for a skill that uses 2 pools, your breaking the game over your knee.) Few examples of this, reaction oriented pixi character armed with duel monofiliment whips(if you want to see this Overcannon posted it in the bug city recruitment thread. Roll 19 dice to attack with whips!) You can also find his full cyberbody character that has massive amounts of damage soak here The answer to getting around the 5 response limit is in Unwired as you can use a rating 3 response enhancer to improve your initiative by 3(which can negate running agents with pilot programs or IC to keep you comlink safe.) Also, I might be missing a rule on running lvl 6 programs, but you can buy system/firewall software 6 instead of buying a standard os and not have to worry about that can't you? Edit: I spellz guds sometimes. YOTC fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Sep 17, 2009 |
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Sep 17, 2009 23:09
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The General posted:4e is quite balanced and I think it's quite a task to go broken. Though I haven't spent the weeks needed to try. Ehhh... you only need mediocre magic skills to make stunbolt (or clout, if the enemy has counterspelling) totally stupidly outrageously awesome. Then there's spirits with their "no counterspelling allowed, by the way, have you seen my Influence power hahaha kill your friends! Or how 'bout concealment why yes you do now have -5 to spot me and all my friends." I guess you can balance this with environmental stuff, like amping up magical security but it gets to a point where you just wish they'd balanced poo poo instead of making you have all these measures in place every single run just so the party mage and his pet ghost don't tramp all over everything and make the rest of the party laughably redundant. Or maybe you were just talkin' about breaking hackers. Dunno!
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Sep 18, 2009 04:38
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children overboard posted:Ehhh... you only need mediocre magic skills to make stunbolt (or clout, if the enemy has counterspelling) totally stupidly outrageously awesome. I refuse to play a mage in shadowrun simply because I refuse to use bullshit spirt abuse. It just seems unfair to be able to call up like 10 watcher spirits to follow EVERYONE and such.
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Sep 18, 2009 04:45
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Well the number of Watchers is limited by Charisma, but yeah you usually get a few at least. And you really only need 1 moderate level spirit concealing itself on the astral to make the perfect tail/scout and obviate a bunch of skills. Oh yeah, movement power, too.
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Sep 18, 2009 05:01
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YOTC posted:The answer to getting around the 5 response limit is in Unwired as you can use a rating 3 response enhancer to improve your initiative by 3(which can negate running agents with pilot programs or IC to keep you comlink safe.) Also, I might be missing a rule on running lvl 6 programs, but you can buy system/firewall software 6 instead of buying a standard os and not have to worry about that can't you? You're an idiot. Response is not the same as Initiative, going faster does not let you handle higher level programs. You cannot run a program with a higher rating than your OS, and you cannot have an OS with a higher rating than your Response. A Response Enhancer specifically modifies your Matrix Initiative, which is a derived stat of your Response with your Intuition. It doesn't actually increase your Response. Page 196 of Unwired posted:Response Enhancer Admittedly, it isn't the brightest idea by them to call it by that name, but a quick read of the description would show that it doesn't automagically overclock your processor. Now, if you wanted to actually buy a Response 6 upgrade, you can take a Quality for that in Runner's Companion (Restricted Gear) but that is seriously a waste of points when 400BP is already a tight fit for most survivable character concepts, also, if you're going to get the Restricted Gear quality, there are much better things to blow the points on (like Deltaware). Oh, and you think 11 dice is broken? Man, you never want to play in a 4A game then, they rebalanced some of it (like Drain and extended tests) on the assumption that starting characters are throwing around 8+ dice (which is relatively easy for anything your concept is based around). I mean come on, the buying hits table goes up much higher than that, the 'grab and go' ork hacker in the main book throws 9 dice at cybercombat, and I can easily see a few ways to bump that up (place his Codeslinger Quality into Cybercombat Attack actions, for example).
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Sep 18, 2009 05:53
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Kwyndig posted:Oh, and you think 11 dice is broken? Man, you never want to play in a 4A game then, they rebalanced some of it (like Drain and extended tests) on the assumption that starting characters are throwing around 8+ dice (which is relatively easy for anything your concept is based around). I mean come on, the buying hits table goes up much higher than that, the 'grab and go' ork hacker in the main book throws 9 dice at cybercombat, and I can easily see a few ways to bump that up (place his Codeslinger Quality into Cybercombat Attack actions, for example). Or make him Human since buying the Ork metatype for a hacker makes next to no sense, what with dropping your maximum Logic by 1.
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Sep 18, 2009 06:23
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Just got the anniversary edition in today and holy poo poo is it the highest production values I've ever seen from a $30 rpg book. The thing is beautiful, well bound, and it even has this silky bookmark in it, holy poo poo. That said I can't wait to read over it and see what I can do about starting a game within a month or so when all the players have the free time again. Something that occurred to me, is finding a way to make the rules work for something that isn't entirely cyberpunk based and only in a major city or two at a time...I finally got around to seeing Firefly and every episode is like an example of a run, I think with a few tweaks it might work really well for a space-faring game like that.
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Sep 18, 2009 06:29
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I, for the life of me I don't know how, managed to never read that block of the page or have blocked it out of my mind, but I was just heading back here to post that you were right, don't know how I missed that rule about system needing to be the same lvl as response. (It's on p. 222 of 20th Anniversary edition if anyone cares.) And yes, I know that the response enhancer just gets initiative. I thought you were bitching about the lack of matrix initiative vs people running from nexi's that can have more response than you and floor you with multiple initiative phases(which they can use to shut off your armor program and such.) This sadly cuts down on the overall power but it did free a bunch of money up from lvl 6 programs to do other stuff with, like buy lvl 5 of every program except medic, disarm, nuke, and corrupt(which are lvl 3.) So that's something I guess. Fake edit: I did the math on restricted gear and as I had spend 5bp on speed reading for fun I just took that off and remove the response enhancer to buy the response 6 upgrade. Everything else fell back into place afterwords and you can start with 10 dice in AR with just the cracking skillgroup at 4. + modifiers if you optimize for exploit and use a hot sim and if you really want to poopsock you can instead get hacking skill 6 and pull I think like 15 dice out of this. Honestly I just made the character on a whim while sitting bored in class on the sr4_chargen excel file and went home and spent 5 minutes fixing things that were too high in availability and other stuff. If you want the excel file I'd be happy to send it to you if you want to gently caress with it.
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Sep 18, 2009 06:46
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Does anyone really allow dedicated hackers in their games? I mean seriously? Outside of a play by post game game time for a hacker means that everyone goes outside and smokes two cigs at the least.
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Sep 18, 2009 14:41
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Fenarisk posted:Just got the anniversary edition in today and holy poo poo is it the highest production values I've ever seen from a $30 rpg book. Well its MSRP is $45, which is much higher than most current competitors. But yes, it's a really nice book with great art and great page layouts.
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Sep 18, 2009 14:46
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Ice Phisherman posted:Does anyone really allow dedicated hackers in their games? I mean seriously? I don't think I understand. It's a roll or two for breaking into a node and changing something or breaking something, maybe 3-4 rolls if it's against a system or user that's fighting back or something, right? How is being a dedicated hacker taking up so much time?
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Sep 18, 2009 20:30
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Ice Phisherman posted:Does anyone really allow dedicated hackers in their games? I mean seriously? This isn't 3E. Despite having three Init Passes MINIMUM in VR, the wireless matrix now works on the same timeframe as everything else. And with signal blockers and such, usually you need the hacker right there in the room with you to spoof that MAD scanner/disable that camera/hijack that Red Samurai's cyberarm/etc.
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Sep 18, 2009 20:33
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404GoonNotFound posted:This isn't 3E. Despite having three Init Passes MINIMUM in VR, the wireless matrix now works on the same timeframe as everything else. And with signal blockers and such, usually you need the hacker right there in the room with you to spoof that MAD scanner/disable that camera/hijack that Red Samurai's cyberarm/etc. What 404 said  You can get around signal blockers with drones to a certain extent, but unless the party wants to haul an AI's home node around with them you need a hacker on site to handle stuff.
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Sep 19, 2009 03:40
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Quick question for starting gear! I see that you need to make some rolls to get black market stuff, anything restricted or forbidden, and that one can increase the cost in order to get the items quicker (or even make sure he gets them at all). However, I don't know if that applies to starting gear. The rules say no gear with a rating 6 or higher or availability 12 or higher. I have a player that wants two items that are both availability 10F (a sniper rifle and chameleon suit) at start...do I apply the same rules of finding it through the black, or does it make no sense that if he fails the rolls at character creation he just doesn't get the items he wants even though they aren't at 12 or higher? I wouldn't initially see it as a huge deal letting him buy both, as together they will take a good amount of his cash and he knows the trade off is that he won't be as useful when not being the covert ops/sniper specialist for the team in some missions, but he's fine with that.
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Sep 25, 2009 20:58
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No rolls for starting gear, nothing over the 12 availability, no ratings higher than 6. There are Qualities in the Runners Handbook (I believe it's this book) that allow you to break these rules. He can have as many 10 items as he wants.
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Sep 25, 2009 21:04
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The General posted:No rolls for starting gear, nothing over the 12 availability, no ratings higher than 6. There are Qualities in the Runners Handbook (I believe it's this book) that allow you to break these rules. Thanks, I just wasn't sure because of the resricted and forbidden aspects. Personally I'm not going to allow the forbidden (because it's military grade it seems), but this helps, my player will be happy. These are brand new players to SR4 so I'm not using any supplemental books. Two of them are absolutely glass-eyed when it comes to the entire gear section anyways.
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Sep 25, 2009 21:11
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Fenarisk posted:Thanks, I just wasn't sure because of the resricted and forbidden aspects. Personally I'm not going to allow the forbidden (because it's military grade it seems), but this helps, my player will be happy. There's nothing wrong with letting your guys have 10F gear at character creation... They'll just have to be extra paranoid when they actually take it places/have their apartment searched/etc. as Forbidden on a piece of gear's Availability is a faster way of saying 'just owning this is totally illegal'. It does not actually mean 'military grade'. Military Grade is reserved for items with ratings ABOVE 6 and always has been. Since you're already going to be breaking the law a bunch, there's no reason to prohibit characters from getting F items, they aren't necessarily stronger, and some of them can be completely essential to operations, like silencers, foam explosives, hot sim modules, jammers, fake licenses and SINs, most B&E gear, combat spell formulae, etc.
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Sep 25, 2009 21:45
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Restricted and Forbidden tags shouldn't really say anything the difficulty of getting ahold of the gear though, it's just a marker indicating whether or not you can have a real/fake license that will get you out of trouble if you're caught running around with it. And those tags really only apply to the UCAS and Seattle specifically- other places will be more and less restrictive about certain things. There are plenty of Forbidden items that are easy to get ahold of per the availability rules and/or assumed to be accessible for most Shadowrunners, things like certain illegal drugs, tag erasers, fake SINs (which are 100% vital), fake licenses, silencers, hollow-point rounds, etc. And there is plenty of military grade hardware that you can legally own if you have a proper license. Since anything you're getting with an availability score is pretty much assumed to be black market goods anyway, and given the historical tendency of military gear to go "missing" combined with the SR world's rampant corruption, smuggling, and widespread organized crime syndicates it is not really a stretch to think that a Shadowrunner could get their hands on some pretty impressive military hardware. Especially if they themselves come from a military or paramilitary background. I mean it's your game, play it how you want, but the default assumption is that if your background story can plausibly justify it and it is under availability 12 then you can have it regardless of legality- you just need to be prepared to deal with the consequences of someone seeing you with it. LGD fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Sep 25, 2009 |
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Sep 25, 2009 21:55
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I still find it hilarious that of all the drugs in SR4, the only Forbidden ones are the "this WILL make your heart spontaneously combust" combat drug, Tir's memory wipe cocktails, and... future pot. 63 years later and it's still illegal 
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Sep 26, 2009 00:35
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Awesome, thanks for clearing up the R and F stuff for me. It's one of the few players who will always do a bit of a backstory, so I'd be more apt to letting him have it anyway.
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Sep 26, 2009 02:38
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404GoonNotFound posted:I still find it hilarious that of all the drugs in SR4, the only Forbidden ones are the "this WILL make your heart spontaneously combust" combat drug, Tir's memory wipe cocktails, and... future pot. 63 years later and it's still illegal That is pretty amusing, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the restricted drugs are effectively illegal for private citizens. For example I'm pretty sure Jazz is supposed to require some sort of law enforcement or security job to get a permit to use. Though apparently the UCAS also gives someone prescriptions for drugs like Novacoke and Nitro so who loving knows.
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Sep 26, 2009 10:06
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Last night, we found out vehicles are no where near as untouchable as they where in previous editions. It did take us an hour of debating to find this out though, since our GM kept going into "automatically double vehicle armor vs. character weapons" and us pulling out that the 4th edition vehicle section that does say "treat as character's armor/body". I knew the Body and Armor ratings were higher than previous editions for a reason. I got a pretty good shot last night at clipping a Revolution monowheel and completely wrecking it and it's Troll occupant.
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Sep 26, 2009 18:29
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This could just as easily go in the "Best Experiences" thread, but gently caress those guys, ShadowRun's too baller for them to handle. The party has to track down an escaped genetically engineered crocodile/shark hybrid through the old Seattle sewer system. They get the bright idea to buy some poodles, feed them hamburger with half a pound of Xanax each and use them as floating buoy/drugs to lure the gator and then hopefully knock it out. For insurance, they also strapped 4P worth of plastic explosives on the dogs. They encounter the creature and subdue it from an overcast stunball after its dice pool shrinks from eating exploding knockout poodles, but have to sneak by the ghost of "Mad" Thomas Mercer (of Mercer Island fame), which they do by disguising themselves as 1890's dandies and convincing the ancient haunt that they are simply removing this abomination from "his" Seattle. When they get back to their fixer for payment (a breakdancing Elf chiphead), the party's sniper (based on the Sniper from TF2) challenges the elf to a dance-off and, with the judicious help of edge dice, serves the elf, even after he loads a skillsoft program for the latest breakdancing moves. :iamafag:
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Sep 28, 2009 08:42
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Young Freud posted:Last night, we found out vehicles are no where near as untouchable as they where in previous editions. It did take us an hour of debating to find this out though, since our GM kept going into "automatically double vehicle armor vs. character weapons" and us pulling out that the 4th edition vehicle section that does say "treat as character's armor/body". I knew the Body and Armor ratings were higher than previous editions for a reason. Yeah, but also remember that the modified DV of the attack has to exceed the modified armor of the vehicle or the attack does nothing at all*, and autofire bonuses don't count when attempting to overcome this. While that won't help a monowheel if you're using anything more substantial than a light pistol, it does mean that things in the armor 10+ area can be fairly damage resistant if you're improperly equipped. *Because it would be converted into stun damage and vehicles aren't affected by stun damage. And because the book specifically says so.
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Sep 28, 2009 14:16
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I'm DM'ing my first Shadowrun game this Saturday, and while I've taken two full weeks to look at rules, try to memorize the basics, and skim over a lot of the options, I'm nervous as hell since this first game is going to sell almost half the players on running this more than once. So far the group makeup is a Covert Ops Sniper, a Hacker/Street Samurai, and a Face, with the fourth member undecided but knowing him he will probably just go for a weapons specialist. I should have all 3 character sheets in my hand during the week to look over the, double check BP totals, etc. For now though, I have two questions: 1) The sniper has something like 14 dice for his attacks when using his sniper rifle, which seems excessive as hell to me. I know it's forbidden, as is the smartlink options he has on it, but he's put a lot of points into being very sneaky in order to setup sniper points, cover his team, do recon that doesn't involve hacking, etc, so in what ways can I at least make him feel like he might be in trouble with the law or outright caught? He bought the chameleon suit with a thermal dampener, so my only thought are drones with ultrasonic trying to scout him out. 2) The face has tailored pheromones, which are forbidden, but how exactly are they detected, and in what capacity/security level? 3) How can I limit the usefulness of a contact that is at or better than 5/5? I think the sniper has a fixer at 6/6, and the way the book words it the fixer can get and do drat near everything he needs. What's a good way to balance this out? My initial thought is asking for a lot of favors or big cuts in whatever the fixer can accomplish. 4) The players want to know how to work on maybe living together in regards to living expenses. The face wants a high lifestyle, and the hacker wants to work into the story that they know each other and live together. My thought was the person living with the face would need to still pay 75% of the cost of living. 5) Given that at least one of the players will be finishing a character the night of playing, and people are learning the system, I don't want to use the "on the run" published adventure just yet. I was thinking of using maybe two quick easy runs where everyone can shine. One idea is possibly having a Mr. Johnson from a bioengineering lab hire the runners to track down some genetically modified animals on the loose in the city (thanks for the initial idea from the croc/shark Tendrilsfor20), maybe tossing in a ganger squad to shake things up.
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Sep 28, 2009 18:10
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1) Well, a guy who can only shoot things well is not really at an advantage against anything but non-awakened/augmented characters. A security hacker could eject his clip from his rifle before he fires it, sabotage his scope or whatever. Mages or their spirit servants could detect him in the astral, alerting security drones or sensors to his location, and so on. I'm not saying you should do everything you can to make his life miserable, he's the hero after all, but he should have to put some effort into his ops if he doesn't want to be sniffed out. That's where working with his team becomes essential. 2) I'm assuming a high-rating bioware scanner could 'sniff' it out, but I don't see why you'd want to make him fall over that. Instead, try to make the people he outshines jealous or envious of him if you need to one up him. 3) If you don't want a character to have too high-level contacts, forbid them at character creation. That said, they are not all-powerful in any sense of the word. Even good friends will feel like they need something out of a relationship, so if his character mooches off the fixer he/she might resent the character. Also, even though the fixer would drat near give his/her life for the character at loyalty 6, it couldn't just keep giving him anything he needs, as the fixer's got to make a living as well. And, of course, the fixer could end up dead, although you'd have to compensate the character by giving him karma or other contacts amounting to the fixers rating in return. 4) I don't have the book here, but I believe the runner's companion has something about group lifestyles. Not sure though.
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Sep 28, 2009 19:12
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 01:06 |
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Fenarisk posted:1) The sniper has something like 14 dice for his attacks when using his sniper rifle, which seems excessive as hell to me. I know it's forbidden, as is the smartlink options he has on it, but he's put a lot of points into being very sneaky in order to setup sniper points, cover his team, do recon that doesn't involve hacking, etc, so in what ways can I at least make him feel like he might be in trouble with the law or outright caught? He bought the chameleon suit with a thermal dampener, so my only thought are drones with ultrasonic trying to scout him out. Drones are useful for this as well, but slightly less so unless they are running on silent to avoid hacking (which doesn't make them very useful for reporting). Ultrasound is an excellent method for detecting invisible or stealthed characters--Runners routinely use this to get around NPC stealth, so turn-about is fair play. Fenarisk posted:2) The face has tailored pheromones, which are forbidden, but how exactly are they detected, and in what capacity/security level? Fenarisk posted:3) How can I limit the usefulness of a contact that is at or better than 5/5? I think the sniper has a fixer at 6/6, and the way the book words it the fixer can get and do drat near everything he needs. What's a good way to balance this out? My initial thought is asking for a lot of favors or big cuts in whatever the fixer can accomplish. Fenarisk posted:4) The players want to know how to work on maybe living together in regards to living expenses. The face wants a high lifestyle, and the hacker wants to work into the story that they know each other and live together. My thought was the person living with the face would need to still pay 75% of the cost of living. Fenarisk posted:5) Given that at least one of the players will be finishing a character the night of playing, and people are learning the system, I don't want to use the "on the run" published adventure just yet. I was thinking of using maybe two quick easy runs where everyone can shine. One idea is possibly having a Mr. Johnson from a bioengineering lab hire the runners to track down some genetically modified animals on the loose in the city (thanks for the initial idea from the croc/shark Tendrilsfor20), maybe tossing in a ganger squad to shake things up.
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Sep 28, 2009 19:25
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