Shadowing of the Running kind. [Shadowrun 4e]

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Shadowing of the Running kind. [Shadowrun 4e]

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

h_double posted:

Older editions of GURPS are the best, with tech levels capable of interstellar travel and teleportation, that have computers which use data cubes a couple inches on a side that can hold HOLY poo poo A GIGABYTE OF DATA.

I'm also amused by how Shadowrun 4e handles storage space. The answer to "Can I store this on this device" is pretty much "Sure okay." Storage capacities just never come up at all. Unless I missed something.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2009 08:09

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 16:05

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

For the love of god, never play Exalted. If your players balk at six dice they'll explode att he prospect of rolling 20-ish 10-siders at once.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2009 23:00

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

children overboard posted:

How do other people handle this? No scanners at the borders? Or do you make your PCs take illegal routes if they have wares?

That or fake up an identity with licenses for your poo poo seems like the obvious choices for runners. Fake IDs would probably be a major expense for most runners who need do a lot of traveling.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2009 03:19

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

LGD posted:

And most of the above is assuming you're in a situation where you've accidentally been picked up by a government with some level of concern about civil rights- in other situations detection of this stuff can get you harshly interrogated/tortured and then forcibly removed from the territory or just shot and left in a ditch somewhere.

Shot and left in a ditch? That's ridiculous, they wouldn't do that.

They'd chop you up and sell the cyberware. And recoverable bioware. And any organs in good working order. And, depending on where you are, possibly the rest of you too :chef:

# ¿ Jul 31, 2009 06:17

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

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.

There is of course also the issue that a lot of cyberware is in fact perfectly legal, and a good chunk of the restricted stuff is probably not easily distinguishable without making somebody stay still so you can run a detailed scan.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2009 05:02

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

McGravin posted:

Again, simply roll for them. Like Scarecrow411 said, rolling and not announcing anything (because they failed) is a great way to set players on edge.

If you do this, don't do it ONLY when there's actually stealth or whatever going on, just roll dice periodically for no particular reason at irregular intervals. Otherwise they'll pick up on you rolling and then immediately announcing that there's a ninja dinosaur in the corner or whatever.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2009 22:14

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

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.

Black Ice/Hammer? NOT walking around with the ability to have your brain hacked all the time?

# ¿ Oct 22, 2009 06:53

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

McGravin posted:

Just having an implanted commlink does not mean you are permanently stuck in full VR. You can go AR and still be protected from biofeedback.

Your commlink is there, in your head. It can be directly attacked, taken over, and THEN they set it to hot-sim VR without you being involved. From the point of view of that unfriendly hacker, it's just another node, except this one's peripherals include YOUR BRAIN. And god help you if you have skillwires too.

I'm not saying "don't take it ever", but that 5K doesn't count the enormous cost of actually SECURING it. It's not loving worth it if you're not a hacker-type because for you it's just an spiffy iPhone.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2009 19:59

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Young Freud posted:

an expensive hunk of unsterile and thus un-reusable cyberware

... did you miss the options for used cyberware?

# ¿ Oct 23, 2009 03:33

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Young Freud posted:

Do you think the military or a corporation would reuse cyberware? I understand the market but ewwwww....

Gotta keep costs down somehow, right? And it's not like the stuff actually performs any worse, so unless we're dealing with something with a massive essence cost like high-level Wired Reflexes why not?

# ¿ Oct 23, 2009 04:16

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

YOTC posted:

Well yeah, it's shadowrun, nothing is as it seems. You could always make the mr johnson have a briefcase with the S&K logo and be sipping his soycoffee out of an S&K mug.

Man if I was playing a game and a johnson was being that obvious about it the conclusion I would come to would be that he is absolutely not working for S-K, but rather making a really clumsy attempt to trick us into thinking he is.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2009 19:39

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Tias posted:

Avoid fights whenever possible. Witnesses, ballistic analysis and a chance crossref of that fake firearms license you pulled just might put you behind bars. Generally the police and corporate security are so good at what they do nowadays that any evidence will be enough to get at least some data on the perpetrator.

Also try to avoid using distinctive weapons like assault cannons and be prepared to destroy your guns and repaint and re-ID your vehicles after a run.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2009 01:25

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Young Freud posted:

There are chameleon LCD paintjobs and morphable license plates available for those with less-than-legal occupations.

don't forget about pulling the electronics and replacing them with ones that say it's an entirely different vehicle. EDIT: and if those are noticed it'll raise some big ol red flags, I'd stick with the low-tech method myself unless you need to change them in the middle of an op.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2009 02:01

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Grim posted:

Are there rules anywhere for reducing the signal rating of a device? I know I can turn the wireless off but I just want to reduce some things to rating 0 (3m range) to prevent hacking while keeping it useful with my implanted commlink.

Skinlink maybe?

# ¿ Nov 15, 2009 16:30

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Gobbeldygook posted:

Personally, I find his incoherent philosophy on game balance far more offensive than that module.

Tell me where I can learn more about this philosphy.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2010 03:59

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Mystic Mongol posted:

Isn't this what an armory (weapons) skill of six and a logic of seven are for? I mean, if a monstrously high technical skill, a tool facility (armory), a background and knowledge skill in weapons engineering, and brainboosting bioware don't allow you to craft top of the line guns, then what good are these things?

Well, if you're not trying to make a copy of an existing design, it'd take lots of research and development and prototypes and a team and, you know, there's a reason these things are made by large corps.

A black market gunsmith would probably get most of their business customizing weapons or obtaining weapons cheap through contacts in, like, Ares' shipping division making things fall off the back of a truck and then selling them at high prices to runners and other criminals.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2010 23:23

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Yes, clearly you shouldn't steal a car and use it as your own personal vehicle from then on.

You should just steal whatever happens to be nearby, GTA-style, and use your crazy Technomancer stuff to spoof it not being stolen until you abandon it.

EDIT: Hell, as a technomancer you don't even need to be in the car to steal it and drive it away, just... this is a thing you can just throw sprites at, right? "Hey sprite, go drive that car across town and through the wall of some guy I don't like."?

# ¿ Nov 25, 2010 09:33

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Zweihander01 posted:

But where will I put all my drones?! Well, drone. But I keep stealing other peoples' drones, so the number should be climbing soon enough.

Then again this all brings up a better question: what else should I be spending 140k nuyen on? Buy like a hundred Bust-A-Moves, then load them up with combat software and switchblades?

"Buy" drones? Treat them as disposable things to steal when you need them like the cars!

And clearly you should spend your money on buying piles of recreational drugs for your harem to roll around in in your penthouse suite.

Also, excellent armor in case somebody ever shoots you and a top of the line DocWagon contract.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2010 10:11

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

I want to play the serial car/drone thief technomancer now. Solve every problem by having a sprite steal a car and drive over it or similar.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 05:28

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Bigass Moth posted:

Technomancers make magicians look cheap in terms of karma consumption before they can do anything. Nearly any well-made starting hacker will outclass any starting Technomancer from the get go, and when you have an Adept (which costs 5 BP) with the appropriate abilities doing the hacking, forget about ever catching up.

As I understand it, can't Technomancers be kinda worth it if they exploit Sprites for all they're worth? Sort of like how a mage which does nothing but summon spirits to do things for him is actually pretty goddamn awesome.

Also I think they can technically eventually outstrip mundane hackers, maybe adepts, but it costs astronomical amounts of karma that the hacker could use to become a world-class street sam, rigger, mechanic, and scientist as well as maxing all his hacking skills.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2011 03:19

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Bigass Moth posted:

and could either teleport or move his entire physical body into the astral plane.

Probably the second, there was a spell to do that in Earthdawn. And Earthdawn was supposed to be the previous era of magic in the SR universe, so...

# ¿ Feb 17, 2011 23:00

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

children overboard posted:

That's the weirdest part. I thought exactly the same thing. 99.9% of runners would too. Why did the author not realise this?!?!?! (It was one of the Shadowrun writers, I remember that, not just a random loon who made an adventure)

poo poo, my usual reaction to another PC loving over the party in Shadowrun is to either shoot them or throw them to the wolves, whichever seems like the better option. Some random kid I didn't ask for wouldn't even cause a blip on the care-o-meter.

I particularly like how the setup doesn't seem to think about the fact that most runners who've survived for a while would probably see the broken light as a red flag and start looking for an ambush, maybe even go crash somewhere else entirely, or be able to resist the shock weapons. Completely aside from the "why the gently caress would any runner ever give a flying gently caress about the kid" issue.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2011 17:37

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

YOTC posted:

Oh hey I thought I posted a thank you for the clarifications like a day ago. Opps. Thanks for that.

I would guess that the only real reason to go with the bioware route for initiative pass boosts is if you really need the Essence or if you don't want there to be a chance for your stuff to get hacked. Anyone have a better reason for it?

Wired Reflexes 3 is base 5 essence, while the bioware equivalent, which is identical in terms of init passes/reaction boost, is 1.5 essence. Plus in-character quality of life stuff like Mystic Mongol brought up.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2011 09:13

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

YOTC posted:

I was gonna say his GM sounds insane, but that works too. Also WTF no wired reflexes/synaptic boosters? He didn't say no Move by wire? ABUSE THIS.

Given things like the "customized smartlink" he probably just forgot about about Move By Wire.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2011 00:02

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Zmej posted:

1. No mind control or teleports for mages.

... Pretty sure that's not a house rule but a feature of the stock setting. :raise:

EDIT: And not having a list of the house rules you'll be using provided by the GM is a bad sign, I think.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2011 09:01

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

LGD posted:

To begin with literally everybody in SR4 wears ballistic armor (or has it naturally)

Hey! Not EVERYONE has ballistic armor!

Just anybody you'll actually care about shooting.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2011 03:59

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Okay fine any human/metahuman you give a poo poo about shooting will either be wearing low-profile armored clothes at minimum, or be an unsuspecting assassination target in the tub or something happy now :mad:

# ¿ Mar 18, 2011 04:12

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Yeah, clearly he should have a taser on one and a more lethal option on the other, that way he can choose one based on the situation.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2011 06:17

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Zmej posted:

What about ones I'm specifically remote controlling, and not jumped into?

I've been looking at the toxins and drugs rules. They look fun, but I doubt their flexibility and usefulness past "I put X into so-and-so's drink", palming nasty drug slap patches onto people, or using Narojet darts to knock out unsuspecting goons. I've been rolling variants of Faces for my current game to learn different rules. Like my next character will be a Mystic Adept so I can take the monumental task of understanding the magic rules.

Dump an Agent (I think that's the term) in the node to do the same thing.

And don't forget putting airborne drugs/toxins into the ventilation system and such.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2011 18:50

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Young Freud posted:

Yeah, Jazz is used by Lone Star and corporate security personnel. While megacorps don't really care about their employees, they'd rather not have valuable, vital security personnel get addicted to drugs and become manipulated by outside sources.

Being addicted to drugs which they can get their fix easily from their corporate masters is A-OK, though!

# ¿ May 8, 2011 03:16

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Don't you not need skillwires for mental skills, just a jack? They don't make a skillsoft for calculator operation, they make one that IS a calculator.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 03:08

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

MaliciousOnion posted:

(also maybe cost)

Basically

, yeah. But kinda justified in the case of shadowrunners, especially ones who don't have the matrix chops to defend themselves. If somebody manages to shove a black hammer ICE or the non-lethal equivalent or whatever into your commlink and have it attack you, you've in much worse trouble if said commlink is built into your head. (Not that shadowrunners should have their primary commlink actually facing the Matrix without a disposable buffer commlink in the way.) And it's not like there's any mechanical penalties for using trodes over a datajack/implanted one.

On the other hand, the cost for getting an implanted commlink is, what, 200 more nuyen and an hour or so at the doc? By the cyber implantation rules it's a procedure where you get up and walk out as soon as it's done. :haw:

# ¿ Jul 25, 2011 01:30

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Geekkake posted:

No one's going to hire a bunch of runners who act so high-profile, except maybe as decoys for real runners.

This does bring up a trick I've never actually had the opportunity to use myself: Be a Johnson yourself and hire some lovely rear end runners who can't be quiet if their lives depended on it yourselves, to hit somewhere else and make a lot of noise, drawing attention away from whatever it is you're doing. Hell, if they manage to actually get whatever it is you told them to go in after maybe you can sell it for some extra cash, and if they fail, well, you got what you actually wanted out of their mission!

Hell, maybe pay them their advance in things like grenades and disposable rocket launchers instead of cash to nudge them along towards the "make noise" options.

EDIT: Or I suppose you could hire some competent runners to make a scene but that'd cost more money.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2012 09:32

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Is S-K wants credit why are they sending shadowrunners? :psyduck:

# ¿ Jan 31, 2012 22:42

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Tias posted:

For solving the situation? Then again, you're right, they could have sent a-list corp mages to snuff it out. Perhaps preserving Ishii is their own doing, and they'd have to be the ones to stop him so as not to be revealed?

My point is you use shadowrunners when you don't want to be connected to what you're doing. So if they want credit, using runners is the exact opposite of how they should be doing things.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2012 23:32

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Do your players like looting random poo poo when on runs for extra cash? Maybe they grab some S-K datafiles on this thing when doing an unrelated run and "oh poo poo, this is apocalyptic-level stuff. We keep our stuff on earth, we'd better go save it!"?

EDIT: Or depending on how moral they are, put something innocent and/or that they have established themselves as caring about in the way.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2012 01:27

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

SerCypher posted:

How can DocWagon bring you back from the dead? I was under the impression you couldn't do that (easily) in shadowrun.

Presumably the same way we can get somebody who's got a gaping chest wound, no heartbeat, and isn't breathing up and around again, only with better tech to do it with. I don't think they've got braintapes and poo poo, though, so if you sustain irreparable cranial trauma or something you're out of luck. Clones though, yeah, if you've got a high grade enough contract they'll keep a braindead clone of you on hand for organ transplants.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2012 06:00

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

MohawkSatan posted:

Yeup. It increases your max magic, so if you've got 5 essence your Magic is capped at 5. If you initiate your magic is now capped at 6. It's a bit costly in the long run(you're never going to be as good at magic as a straight mage or adept), but you get the power quicker.

You're basically going the Way of the Burnout shoving cyber into a magical character. Walk a fine line, quick power or a longer road.

On the other hand, if you're an adept, there's some things, like the bioware IP enhancer I can't remember the name of, that cost less essence than the adept power costs Magic, for an actual net long-term gain. I think that's the main one, though. And you can't mix and match, so you're committing to paying huge piles of cash to upgrade it.

Also, short-term, Adepts can get really good at one specific thing by buying extra skill dice with the relevant adept power.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2012 02:46

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

SerCypher posted:

Until I hit the guy with my Power 4 Weapon Foci Nodachi that's going to do 13DV Ap -2 and I get to roll 18 Dice to hit.

edit: Maths

Wait.

This thing? You're going to be performing covert operations carrying around one of these things?

# ¿ Apr 23, 2012 03:50

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 16:05

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Have fun getting it through security checkpoints, I guess!

# ¿ Apr 23, 2012 04:07

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