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FutureBoy posted:Hey, I'm running a game right now and it occurred to me that no information had ever been revealed about Dubai in the post awakened world. Does anyone know if any sourcebooks cover this? Digging this back up because I was flipping through some books. Dubai is in Corporate Enclaves, but it only gets a few pages. It is most definitely not a Feral City, as it's one of the few places in the Middle East actually worth visiting, if you've got the nuyen, of course.
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Sep 5, 2009 19:07
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There's literally no advantage to being mundane and not taking cyber or bio 'ware. Without good ware or magic, as a mundane you can't exceed your natural scores, and since it doesn't cost karma to buy ware, in the long run a guy who takes the ware route is just plain going to outperform the guy who didn't, because he'll have stats over the natural maximum, extra initiative passes (in 4e or just plain more turns in previous editions), and built in capabilities that can only be matched by specialized gear like smartlinks, extra senses, commlinks or weapons that can't be disabled or stolen easy, etc.
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Sep 9, 2009 06:01
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Datajacks aren't as important now that everyone carries a commlink and uses AR glasses or whatever. But yeah, if you go around with no cyberwear whatsoever people are going to assume you are the team mage on the run, and you're going to get shot, with bullets. One of the things I noticed in the 20th Anniversary book is that they switched cover from being an attacker modifier to a defender modifier. Has anybody actually played with cover giving a bonus to the defender instead of as a penalty to the attacker? If so, did it noticeably change the outcome or behavior of characters in a firefight?
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Sep 10, 2009 04:30
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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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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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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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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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Fenarisk posted:I would only allow my players to do so if they had the implanted comm-link. It's like .01 essence anyway and I don't see any reason for non-magic users NOT to have their commlink setup this way. There are a number of reasons to not do that. The first is to avoid being mistaken for a Technomancer by the general public (always a bad thing.) The second is that upgrades to implanted commlinks are basically impossible, you have to get surgery to have the thing removed and/or upgrades installed. The third is repairs, again, if something breaks (you get hit by EMP, a worm fries your gear, etc) you've got to let a cyberdoc crack open your skull and fish it out so you can get it replaced. The fourth is cost, a normal commlink is always cheaper than the equivalent implanted version because of the implanting surcharge, for a hacker on a budget this is the difference between being merely good, and excellent. Finally, a smartlink implant REQUIRES an image link, but if installed in an eye, is operating off DNI just like any other cybernetic vision modification. If your GM is going to be a total dick and require you get more cyberware to actually use a piece of cyberware, hit him upside the head with the drat book, he deserves it. If he insists you need another link to the gun, get a trode net, stick it in your hat/helmet, there's no penalty for trode nets anymore.
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Oct 22, 2009 07:06
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Here's my last thoughts on this whole subject: Shadowrun is a complicated enough game without requiring players to jump through hoops with their cyberware when there's nothing in the RAW to support some of these half-baked ideas you people are coming up with. Just let the goddamn PC buy a cybereye, shove a smartlink in it, and give him the bonus plus the Free Action stuff, anything else is being needlessly complicated and is honestly a dick move unsupported by published material. There are plenty of dick moves that ARE supported by published material, like Essence loss for Deadly wounds, that you can use to screw over the players if you really have to gently caress with them. Alternatively, if you really want to make the players confused and have chargen take hours, play third edition and use ALL the optional rules. Man & Machine was particularly bad about this, since you had to buy DNI ROUTERS in order to get your cyberware to talk to each other.
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Oct 22, 2009 19:47
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IMJack posted:The cost of a smartgun system is a drop in the bucket for your average corporate security division, rolled in with training and equipment costs required of any new hire. There are actually cyberware suites (bundle packages) you can get in Augmentation that include Smartlinks (Lone Star SWAT, Urban Kshatriya, although the latter is outside of a starting PC's reach without perks).
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Oct 24, 2009 03:50
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In previous editions for various reasons I've always stated that cyberware is hardened to ignore EMP, mostly because there is no similar way to disable magic or bioware, and it just feels cheap to disable the one guy who went heavy cyber, the different upgrade options were balanced in other ways (bioware super expensive, cyber shows up on MAD and X-ray scanners, magic made you vulnerable to all kinds of astral poo poo). But yeah, cybereyes are optronic and fairly low impact electrical-wise, a dude with cybereyes hit by EMP should really only be temporarily blinded until they reboot, at worst. Per Arsenal (page 57, EMP Grenade) most cyberware is unaffected by EMP. As a final thought, anything the GM does, the players should, logically, be able to do back with sufficient effort, so expect them to start EMPing corp compounds from a safe distance.
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Dec 8, 2009 18:18
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The funny thing about cyberware hacking is that it is done best in full VR (to get the extra passes/actions you need), which means, yeah, you're going to be doing it using a drone or your buddy's commlink as a relay anyway. Alternatively, you can get a really good Agent and have it break in for you and leave a backdoor. Unless for some reason your enemy's node isn't in hidden mode, then you can hack, hack, hack away fairly easily. So yes, as a PC, the best thing to do is set your cyberware's wireless signal to 'off', or only allow connections via skinlink or PAN for stuff that needs to talk (smartlinks, tacnets), and only shut that off when you go in for a diagnostic. That reminds me, as GMs or PCs, do any of your groups use the tactical AR software?
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Dec 9, 2009 18:44
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Gobbeldygook posted:You're not allowed to cast spells on purely physical targets when you're astrally projecting. No, not even if you're manifesting (which is not the same as materializing). You can target astrally active entities so you can kill their hellhounds and whatnot, but you absolutely cannot breach the astral barrier. Yes, the rules in 4e are less than clear on this point, but that is the authorial intent in 4e and how it has worked in every previous edition. This is correct, if your mage is, somehow, materializing instead of manifesting, he could cast spells on purely physical targets, but then you could just shoot him dead (unless he's a Free Spirit, in which case WHY DID YOU LET HIM PICK THAT). When astrally projecting you can only cast spells on other astral entities or dual natured beings. As you average human is not dual natured, you've been letting him get away with far too much, even way back in 1st edition, this was the case (although first and second edition had some wacky rules there that no longer apply).
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Jan 5, 2010 05:31
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The Runner's Companion has a bunch of ill-thought out rules on a variety of topics, but most specifically the SURGE rules are an abomination because they put furries in SR. Oh, also playable shapeshifters are terrible, and playable AI make little sense and have an overly high BP cost to offset their lack of physical attributes. Many of the subraces have been in previous editions, but they were terrible then too.
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May 5, 2010 05:50
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The whole confusing cyberlimbs having their own strength and agility actually dates back to 2e Cybertechnology (principle writer Tom Dowd) and the whole averaging thing does too. It's woth noting that in book they pointed out it added additional complexity. Instead of capacity, they had these really confusing weight rules (probably to go along with the cyberlimb electromagnet rules). edit: Even then, cyberlimbs were straight modifiers to Quickness (2e's Agility stat) and Body instead of having their own score, it was just Strength where it had a base stat. Kwyndig fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 03:41
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I don't have a problem with the SURGE rules as they currently exist in 4e. Their fluff introduction was really really bad though. It started out okay and then quickly devolved into transhumanist clubbing and a segment that must be read to be believed.Year of the Comet Page 34 posted:JQ: My guest today is Rebecca Constantine, one of the first changeling superstars, Rebecca, forgive me for saying this, but you are hotter than Texas asphalt during a heat wave in August. It goes on, but you get the idea.
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Aug 5, 2013 23:16
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Zereth posted:Man that's not a WACKY ANIMAL PERSON CHANGELING! Totally a T'skrang. Speaking of which, is Earthdawn still a thing?
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Aug 6, 2013 01:16
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Martello posted:I'm one of those "metahumans is too much" people. Don't get me wrong, cyberpunkXmagic is a cool idea, but it makes no sense to me when all the magic in the world is based on folklore and blah blah blah, but metahumans are D&D races. Is D&D folklore in the world of Shadowrun? You do realize that elves and dwarves and trolls are all actual folklore in basis right? They weren't invented by Tolkien. Read some actual mythology that isn't Greco-Roman. Try a Norse edda or some original Grim's, those things are full of elves and trolls and dwarves. It's just the Orks that are the odd man out.
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Aug 6, 2013 14:26
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So apparently I shouldn't post about elfgames before I've had my medication regimen, because off his meds Uncle Kwyndig is a jerk. What I was trying to say this morning was that Tolkien appropriated all sorts of cultural myths and legends when he made his 'generic' elves and dwarves and orcs. Since Shadowrun ascribes to the theory that legends and myths were once true events distorted by the passage of time then the idea of metahumanity as something already so familiar is fine, to me anyway.
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Aug 6, 2013 23:10
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 05:40 |
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Yeah Shadows of Aztlan was intended to be an update to the 2e book titled simply Aztlan. As for more current events, yeah, hit up Dumpshock. edit: Correction, the book was actually Shadows of Latin America, and is available by following download links here Kwyndig fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Aug 7, 2013 |
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Aug 7, 2013 13:51
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