"Current" 4e Shadowrun rules.

[Strung Nether]

I am going to be starting a new shadowrun game soon, and I was looking for some house rules to fix some of the traditional shadowrun problems. I first came upon this:http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s ... t&p=687562, which after making a few characters seems to give me the results I want. I didn't click on the "new matrix" link until about a week ago.

Now I have spent over 6 hours over the last week reading through threads like: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s ... 19657&st=0 and: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=22630, and I am burning out. Some of these houserules are over three years old, and tracking down the "updated" versions has been difficult and confusing. Could someone link me to the updated/current/tested version(s) of some good shadowrun houserules that focus on making shadowrun more like shadowrun?

[JesterZero]

There are really only three threads that you need to care about here. Those three will get you roughly 95% of the material you're looking for.

• First, you want to check out the EOTM rules. Rules that specifically relate to chargen are at the bottom of the first page.
• Second, you want to check out the alt.War thread. This is primarily an overhaul of the damage system, but it touches on a lot of related issues. Unfortunately, it was abandoned right around the time the end was in sight, but there's plenty to work with.
• Third, you want to review the 5th Edition thread. It will highlight other problem areas, albeit usually not to the same level of detail as the previous two.

I'm actually in the process of pulling all of these together in a "pretty" format, but it's not to the point where I'm ready to open it up to Denizen review. Feel free to PM me if you want an advance copy.

[Stahlseele]

i'm not sure how rules heavy that project is, but SOLA is an inofficial source book for south america.

[Username17]

Yeah, I'm sorry about cutting off work on Alt.War. The people who were working on it with me produced some literally impossible demands, and then moved their stuff to a special folder on dumpshock that I did not have access privileges to even read. Which is about as giant a "Go fuck yourself Frank" sign as it is possible to erect. I figured that, having already been fired, it was acceptable to stop working.

-Username17

[virgil]

Just looking at the first page of the alt.War thread made me think a bit on logistics and such. There seem to be quite a few arcologies in the setting; DeeCee is described as having a plurality of mini-arcologies just along the Potomac. An arcology is defined by its self-sufficiency, which seems a weird goal to have for one in the middle of a city. I'm guessing such places have robust recycling and advanced maker-bots for all of their consumer goods?

Does the proliferation of these arcologies (which should have a very high population density), along with a world population largely unchanged from today (due to all of those plagues and wars), mean that the rural areas are just that much more empty and inhospitable to metahuman life? Just how crazy is life in the NAN? I really don't recall them having the population to justify the territory they control.

Does every arcology have super lasers (or equivalent) to handle hostile satellites?

EDIT: Also, was there ever any decent news/rocker rules for Shadowrun posited? I'm completely imagining Transmetropolitan as major source material for that.

[Username17]

"Barrens" zones happen because with people moving to ultra-high-density housing in arcologies and the world population being largely unchanged, there simply aren't enough residents in a lot of cities to justify providing them with basic services and utilities. So whole cities just get shut down, driving the populations down even more.

In a world where 1% of chickens, rabbits, and foxes have magic powers and are as serious threat to life and limb, retreating to fortresses makes sense. In a world where peak oil came 65 years ago and you can't afford to run a car, moving into a housing complex that adjoins your workplace makes sense. In a world where your corporate affiliation is your nationality, living in the same corporate compound that you work makes sense. The whole case for arcologies in Shadowrun is very easy to make.

It's just... the actual writers of Shadowrun rarely make it. The people who draw up the maps and talk about street life sound like they are talking about a slightly grungy 2020, not a 2050-2070 world where population concentration simply left Redmond to go fallow and be reclaimed by the wilderness decades in the past.

-Username17

[virgil]

What about electricity, along with subsequent battery technology? Are the energy gains from using bound spirits in varying fashions enough to make a dent in the demands of civilization; or do I need to get nerdy and calculate it myself, the same way that XKCD answered how much energy Yoda provided? The same goes for some of the 'green' energy sources, be it solar farms, algae-oil tanks, ultra-solar collection satellites that beam down their energy, and other currently theoretical power sources.

[Strung Nether]

What about electricity, along with subsequent battery technology? Are the energy gains from using bound spirits in varying fashions enough to make a dent in the demands of civilization; or do I need to get nerdy and calculate it myself, the same way that XKCD answered how much energy Yoda provided? The same goes for some of the 'green' energy sources, be it solar farms, algae-oil tanks, ultra-solar collection satellites that beam down their energy, and other currently theoretical power sources.

I was curious about this too. Do spirits allow you to ignore thermodynamic problems?

[Stahlseele]

It's Magic.
Magic ALONE allows you to ignore the laws of thermodynamics.
And all other physical laws basically. BECAUSE IT IS MAGIC!
It's the whole point of magic, in all of it's forms, really . .
Create SOMETHING from NOTHING. be it matter or energy alone.
Technically, even information counts as something from nothing, but this does not interfere with the laws of physics as much as anything else.

build a wind-farm: sustaining focus for control wether to always have a stiff breeze going on there.

build a hydroelectric power plant somewhere, have control element sustained to make water go in a circle through the turbines

build a boiler and sustain firewall underneath it to create steam with which to power a turbine again.

Furthermore on Energy:
The Renraku Arcology had more than one Fusion-Reactor going on in the basement. One was not enough, 2 are needed to keep up operations, but these two together create MUCH more energy than is needed and thus they sell their surplus to the plex and supply about 20% of the energy the plex needs i think . . And because you can't have them failing, there are 2 more reactors kept down there as hot spares to boot . . the arcology alone could supply several megaplexes with energy!

Also, solar cells seem to be pretty damn effective in the SR Universe.
So, build a solar array, then use a sustaining focus to create light above it.

aside from fuel for vehicles, ENERGY is the smallest problem in most of the inhabited parts of the world. which is why there is such a huge ammount of electric vehicles and grid-guide to keep them running.


as for frank quitting on alt.war:
sad but sadly understandable <.<

[Strung Nether]

It's Magic.
Magic ALONE allows you to ignore the laws of thermodynamics.
And all other physical laws basically. BECAUSE IT IS MAGIC!
It's the whole point of magic, in all of it's forms, really . .
Create SOMETHING from NOTHING. be it matter or energy alone.
Technically, even information counts as something from nothing, but this does not interfere with the laws of physics as much as anything else.

build a wind-farm: sustaining focus for control wether to always have a stiff breeze going on there.

build a hydroelectric power plant somewhere, have control element sustained to make water go in a circle through the turbines

build a boiler and sustain firewall underneath it to create steam with which to power a turbine again.

Furthermore on Energy:
The Renraku Arcology had more than one Fusion-Reactor going on in the basement. One was not enough, 2 are needed to keep up operations, but these two together create MUCH more energy than is needed and thus they sell their surplus to the plex and supply about 20% of the energy the plex needs i think . . And because you can't have them failing, there are 2 more reactors kept down there as hot spares to boot . . the arcology alone could supply several megaplexes with energy!

Also, solar cells seem to be pretty damn effective in the SR Universe.
So, build a solar array, then use a sustaining focus to create light above it.

aside from fuel for vehicles, ENERGY is the smallest problem in most of the inhabited parts of the world. which is why there is such a huge ammount of electric vehicles and grid-guide to keep them running.


as for frank quitting on alt.war:
sad but sadly understandable <.<

...so mankind has basically infinite energy now? why is anyone living in poverty again?

[Mistborn]

...so mankind has basically infinite energy now? why is anyone living in poverty again?

Because Cyberpunk and Grimdark.

[JesterZero]

Yeah, I'm sorry about cutting off work on Alt.War. The people who were working on it with me produced some literally impossible demands, and then moved their stuff to a special folder on dumpshock that I did not have access privileges to even read. Which is about as giant a "Go fuck yourself Frank" sign as it is possible to erect. I figured that, having already been fired, it was acceptable to stop working.

Yeah, I get how that was a total slap in the face. As someone who only noticed that thread after it was all said and done, I was just bummed that it ended abruptly after motorcycles.

(In my group, this is jokingly referred to as the "Dumpshock is the reason we can't have cars" situation.)

I'm hoping that once I've got the last of the material formatted and ready for review here...where there are no special folders...it'll be enough to tempt you to come back and finish the vehicle stat lines and the rules related to the Mass attribute that you were working on. Hope springs eternal.

[Username17]

...so mankind has basically infinite energy now? why is anyone living in poverty again?

We have basically infinite energy now, there's just a cost to each joule we recover. Magic accesses an entire extra universe, and it is at present unknown whether it is limited by thermodynamics because we can't measure Delta G across two universes. What is known is that a fire elemental stays hot for a long time. Maybe it stays hot forever, maybe it drains the power out of the Astral until the magic goes away. We don't know. but while a fire elemental burns quite hot and for a long time (certainly practically forever, it doesn't actually make much at a time. A very high force elemental might glow as hot as thermite, but it's still just man sized and the total amount of water boiled and thus the total amount of turbine push is actually not very big. The Three Gorges Dam pushes water through at the rate of 70,000 cubic meters every second. That's a lot of fucking fire elementals, more than humanity actually has.

So while there are ways to make small amounts of power in a potentially limitless way, that's not practically different from the fact that we could put donkeys on treadmills today.

Of more interest is the fact that in Shadowrun they have fusion reactors, tidal farms, and geothermal boreholes. Those generate a lot of energy presumably, and they will do so for a long time. But they are also presumably expensive. The reason we don't make a lot of geothermal plants isn't because they don't work, but because if you don't live in Iceland it is an expensive proposition to set something like that up. What that really means is that people in Shadowrun are willing to accept a higher unit cost for their production of kilowatt hours than people are today. And that means that it makes more sense to see "no light districts" than Shadowrun authors usually portray it as. There's a lot of power to be had, but your power bill should be considerably steeper than it is in 2013.

-Username17

[virgil]

Well, looking at it, Shape Material can produce an decent amount of power. The amount of material is based on volume which is measured in cubic meters, which is an incredible amount of mass. Presuming you choose a roughly fluidic material, you're moving many tons of the stuff at the low end.

Using the math used for Yoda, you're going to freaking smoke him. Force 5 Shape (Water), only one net hit, and you've got yourself 523 thousand kilograms moving at .3m/s; which is going to get you roughly 1.7MW of power. A Force 10 version of this spell, still with only one net hit, will get you 41MW. Get some finely ground granite, Shape Stone/Sand, cast it at Force 10, and get 3 net hits; and you've got yourself ~300MW.

So, a single decent mage or a spirit can probably match an efficient modern power plant; which as investments go, is quite good.

[Fuchs]

The reason we don't make a lot of geothermal plants isn't because they don't work, but because if you don't live in Iceland it is an expensive proposition to set something like that up.

That, and on some sites you cause small earthquakes with geothermal plants.

[Vebyast]

Well, looking at it, Shape Material can produce an decent amount of power. The amount of material is based on volume which is measured in cubic meters, which is an incredible amount of mass. Presuming you choose a roughly fluidic material, you're moving many tons of the stuff at the low end.

I don't play shadowrun, and I can't find anything on the Shape spells online. Do you get the same rules and volumes if you're shaping metal? If so, molten gold is 17.3 g/cm^3 and will give you a good solid 2GW, as much as the entire Hoover Dam and enough to power our entire modern-day civilization with less than a thousand casters.

[Stahlseele]

yes, there are no rules for different materials.
yes, magic can power the world.

[Username17]

Well, looking at it, Shape Material can produce an decent amount of power. The amount of material is based on volume which is measured in cubic meters, which is an incredible amount of mass. Presuming you choose a roughly fluidic material, you're moving many tons of the stuff at the low end.

Using the math used for Yoda, you're going to freaking smoke him. Force 5 Shape (Water), only one net hit, and you've got yourself 523 thousand kilograms moving at .3m/s; which is going to get you roughly 1.7MW of power. A Force 10 version of this spell, still with only one net hit, will get you 41MW. Get some finely ground granite, Shape Stone/Sand, cast it at Force 10, and get 3 net hits; and you've got yourself ~300MW.

So, a single decent mage or a spirit can probably match an efficient modern power plant; which as investments go, is quite good.

That is stupid. The amount of electrical power you get out of water moving is a lot less than the power of the water itself moving. Basically what you're planning to do is to pick up a big blob of water or mercury and drop it across a turbine. That's all well and good, but remember that the Three Gorges Dam is still dropping 70,000 cubic meters per second down a one hundred and ten meter drop. To power something like that, you'd need about 353,000 mages casting Force 5 Shape Waters. Use Mercury instead and you could cut it down to bit over twenty five thousand mages working round the clock.

Of course, they wouldn't survive very long casting and recasting a 5 Drain spell every couple of seconds. And the Three Gorges Dam, while incredibly impressive, does not supply enough power for the world. No, mages can't power the world in Shadowrun. Shadowrun mages are incredibly impressive in their way, but nothing they do is actually large enough in scale to seriously displace machines.

Except Control Weather. Traditions with Water Spirits can make the world incredibly, unrecognizably different by controlling the weather every day.

-Username17

[virgil]

Of course, they wouldn't survive very long casting and recasting a 5 Drain spell every couple of seconds. And the Three Gorges Dam, while incredibly impressive, does not supply enough power for the world. No, mages can't power the world in Shadowrun. Shadowrun mages are incredibly impressive in their way, but nothing they do is actually large enough in scale to seriously displace machines.

I was under the impression that the shape spells could be sustained, so you'd only need to cast it once and let a sustaining focus (or a bound spirit) handle it for however long; just spinning the water in place if necessary.

Also, how does Ignite work? Does it just plain raise the temperature of the material to its ignition point, and if so, how large an item can this be done too?

[Username17]

Of course, they wouldn't survive very long casting and recasting a 5 Drain spell every couple of seconds. And the Three Gorges Dam, while incredibly impressive, does not supply enough power for the world. No, mages can't power the world in Shadowrun. Shadowrun mages are incredibly impressive in their way, but nothing they do is actually large enough in scale to seriously displace machines.

I was under the impression that the shape spells could be sustained, so you'd only need to cast it once and let a sustaining focus (or a bound spirit) handle it for however long; just spinning the water in place if necessary.

The Shape Spells can be sustained. But the material doesn't fall and let gravity help it actually push a turbine until you let it go. So all you can do is shape it up to the top of a water slide and release it to push a wheel as it goes down. While you could use Shape Metal to spin the turbine directly, pushing it at 1/3 of a m/s is so bullshit that the amount of power you're getting is essentially meaningless. Not much different than having the mage bicycle or walk on a treadmill to generate power.

Also, how does Ignite work? Does it just plain raise the temperature of the material to its ignition point, and if so, how large an item can this be done too?

Ignite is bullshit. If you want to generate power by burning things you can just stack them on top of other things that are already on fire. If you wanted to generate power with heat differentials, you'd use Alter Temperature to lower temperatures in order to increase the differential. But that's still bullshit in terms of actual extractable wattage.

-Username17

[virgil]

Ignite is bullshit. If you want to generate power by burning things you can just stack them on top of other things that are already on fire. If you wanted to generate power with heat differentials, you'd use Alter Temperature to lower temperatures in order to increase the differential. But that's still bullshit in terms of actual extractable wattage.

Burning things is different, as that's creating a combustion cycle. I ask because if you can bring a massive block of aluminum to its ignition temperature, that's at least something to consider; but the rules for the spell are unclear to me as to whether that would even happen, let alone the size limits. *If* you can, that allows for a drastically larger temperature differential than you'd ever get from Alter Temperature, even if the spell only brings it to the temperature and then turns off; as the bleed off of that reservoir has potential, depending on how the math works out.

[virgil]

I'm aware of the power of Control Weather, but not every mage will have access to Water spirits; and I can imagine a corporation at least looking at the possibility of using other spells for stuff. In regards to Control Weather though, is there any information on the heavy use of that power or its consequences in the setting?

[kzt]

I'm aware of the power of Control Weather, but not every mage will have access to Water spirits; and I can imagine a corporation at least looking at the possibility of using other spells for stuff. In regards to Control Weather though, is there any information on the heavy use of that power or its consequences in the setting?

The only writer or dev who thought about setting consequences past 1995 or so was Frank.

[Pulsewidth]

What happens when colder matter is introduced to a sustained Alter Temperature? Can we funnel a river through a big pipe with a team of mages Alter Temperaturing it into high pressure steam?

[Vebyast]

While you could use Shape Metal to spin the turbine directly, pushing it at 1/3 of a m/s is so bullshit that the amount of power you're getting is essentially meaningless.

Lifting and dropping stuff is being conservative. The Shape spells simply set a material's velocity and include no language about slowing down when resisted; they are, in other words, prepared to exert exert arbitrarily large forces over a nonzero distance, giving us an arbitrarily large amount of work. Driving a load directly, the only limitation on a power plant would be how much power you can put through the gearbox that connects your giant piston to the generators.

Also, if I'm reading Virgil's math correctly, a caster that's shaping a sufficiently heavy metal is moving upwards of 1e8 kg of stuff. It's going one-three-hundredth as far as the water in a dam, sure, but there's three hundred times as much of it. A single caster can't match Three Gorges, but nothing else can either; a caster can match - or beat - many smaller power plants, and costs a hell of a lot less.