Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Nov 14, 2014 12:19 pm

And the lower mental stats of the Troll don't matter as much anymore, when the spirits highers ones take over as well.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 8:48 am

Longes wrote: The reason I think troll is a better choice than an elf is because troll has better physical attributes, which will get even bigger when possessed by the Guardian Spirit.

Disagree, the troll has some physical attributes higher than the elf, but he has the worse ones.

Edit: Was thinking about resisting spells, when talking about using the lower Attribute.

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 8:39 pm

Speaking of Trolls, for awhile I came across this Awesome Tri-barrel Gun (From 3rd's Cannon Companion apparently). Made me wondering, WHAT is that gun (looks like Assault Cannon, fires like HMG), and how would one convert it into SR4A rulesets + Frank Houserules? Oh and yes, the guy's reaction at the back is also quite hilarious.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 9:22 pm

That's a simple (H)MG. Artistic License.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:00 pm

How hard would it be to After Sundown shadowrun?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:16 pm

It's a work in 'progress,' called Asymmetric Threat. But it has a long way to go and isn't moving quickly (if at all) these days.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:04 am

I didn't want to make a new thread, so lel necro.

I was wondering what contacts a Face would have. I imagine Faces live and die by their contacts, but I have no experience making or playing one, and as a samurai I usually stick to "guy who does my augs" and "guy who gets me guns".

Also, is it worthwhile to pick up the Linguistics adept power (learn any language at R1 after (10-Magic) hours of exposure and the Linguistics Expert Positive Quality (halve time to learn languages, +2 to the rating of all Language skills), just for the fluff benefit of being able to say I can speak to anyone?

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:53 am

You can get a similar fluff benefit using a datajack and knowsofts. If you're already getting cyberwear then that might be a cheaper option.

A pnemonic enhancer is another fairly cheap way to boost language skills, combining it with linguistics expert/linguitics might be particularly batty. I think you can get an effective language skill of 6 after 5 hours of exposure to a language.

All that said, I like the linguistics combo. Even if it doesn't come into play it's a great piece of character fluff.

Contacts vary widely and tend to need GM approval, but I'm happy to spitball a few:
* Reporter - leak secrets and pick up rumors
* Police Dispatch - get news about people, run plates
* Mid-level representatives in organized crime -- also good for news
* Depending on the GM, multiple fixers can make a lot of sense
* Any arms/cyber/magic dealers so that you can buy and sell stuff and directly leverage your big pile of negotiation without a fence taking a cut.
* Tamanous -- good at getting rid of contacts, doubles as cyber dealer

I can go on, but it probably depends a lot on what you want the character to be able to do.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 4:46 am

Basically, I want to be the person who can make phone calls to get things done. When the gang needs emergency disguises or a safehouse, I'm the one who arranges things. When they need to sell or value stuff, they turn to me. When they fuck up, I guess I'll have to take one for the team with 25+ social dice.

To be honest, I've never played a face before, so besides pure mechanical considerations, I'm not sure how to handle it.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 9:26 am

Silent Wayfarer wrote:I didn't want to make a new thread, so lel necro.

I was wondering what contacts a Face would have. I imagine Faces live and die by their contacts, but I have no experience making or playing one, and as a samurai I usually stick to "guy who does my augs" and "guy who gets me guns".

Also, is it worthwhile to pick up the Linguistics adept power (learn any language at R1 after (10-Magic) hours of exposure and the Linguistics Expert Positive Quality (halve time to learn languages, +2 to the rating of all Language skills), just for the fluff benefit of being able to say I can speak to anyone?

Linguistics is never worth it. Just get a datajack and some Linguasofts. Shadowrunners don't normally travel much around the world, due to their criminal status and loads of illegal gear. But when you do need to travel, or have to know some new language, just download a Linguasoft from future Steam.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 11:05 pm

Playing faces is tricky because a lot of your build points get devolved to the GM if you invest heavily in contacts. They're only as good as the GM lets them be. There are two tricks to making contacts sing. The first is picking contacts that the GM thinks are cool or powerful. The second is pre-negotiating so that the GM agrees what the contacts can do. The easiest way to do that pre-negotiation is to offer to help write the back stories of your own contacts, this eases the GMs preparation load, and writing a paragraph about each of them lets you spell out what you think their abilities should be.

For instance, I was building a face/rigger who specialized in surveillance stuff and private eyeing. When writing up his contacts I needed some gangers to reflect his backstory, but by specifying where they came from, Redmond Barrens, and what they did now, wrenched at a chop shop for drug smugglers, the contact became much more useful. Now I can assert that this contact should know things about the drug trade, and should be able to buy used car parts, and the GM should be on board. The GM was also oddly enthusiastic about drug smuggling, so he let the contact punch above his weight in terms of connection rating.

You can use this technique to achieve the design goal of making phone calls to get things done. Start with a list of things you want to get done, then find the spanning tree of contacts that covers those things. For instance, if your list was "dispose of bodies," "buy and sell cyberware," "have safehouse no one wants to get near," then you might pick a tamanous ganger. Finding contacts like that, who have a little intersectionality, helps squeeze the value out of your build points.

I find that contact loyalty doesn't come up that often if you're smart about using them, don't over invest in that unless it's for back story purposes or it's the guy who runs your safehouse. It takes a pretty diligent GM to hose you over on a low loyalty rating from the guy who sold you guns. Though the story writes itself (the contact passes ballistics data to KE) the GM has to remember that the contact is low loyalty and has to engineer a situation where it comes up. Most forget to do so.

Finally, don't skimp on your own character for the sake of contacts. When you buy contacts you're handing BP to the GM, so be sure to build a character that controls everything you want to control first. i.e.: make sure you throw about 14 dice for negotiation.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 1:36 am

I find that contact loyalty doesn't come up that often if you're smart about using them, don't over invest in that unless it's for back story purposes or it's the guy who runs your safehouse. It takes a pretty diligent GM to hose you over on a low loyalty rating from the guy who sold you guns. Though the story writes itself (the contact passes ballistics data to KE) the GM has to remember that the contact is low loyalty and has to engineer a situation where it comes up. Most forget to do so.

I'm big on loyalty (Scorpion maxim: "Without it, all other virtues serve your enemy"), but I figure not everyone needs to be a Friend For Life.

Finally, don't skimp on your own character for the sake of contacts. When you buy contacts you're handing BP to the GM, so be sure to build a character that controls everything you want to control first. i.e.: make sure you throw about 14 dice for negotiation.

Apparently my group is a low-system-mastery one, because my first draft could apparently fight better than the fight adept and the Sam (I have 11d for a basic punch and 16+d for gymnastic full dodges and 3 IPs), and I throw more social dice than everyone else in the team combined (30+).

So I had to throw out a lot of stuff, and even then, just by soft-maxing Charisma/skills/etc, I can still throw out about 20+ dice.

Oh well. The group seems pretty nice, so I do what I must.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 6:11 pm

Asymmetric Threat is like many other Frank projects -- it's got an incredibly ambitious design proposal which demands pioneering multiple never-before-seen types of mechanics. It basically can't crib anything from anywhere else in the industry and would really require a dedicated team to put together in anything like a reasonable period of time.

No, I'm talking what if you literally just hacked the Shadowrun setting more or less as-is into a system with 6 stats, ~21 skills, and selectable powers grouped by discipline and by basic/advanced groupings.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 6:42 pm

I know Physical Mask can fool tech sensors, but what about wifi signals? Can it mimic/hide a PAN? Can you accept ping requests on your illusory deck?

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 7:15 pm

Orion wrote:Asymmetric Threat is like many other Frank projects -- it's got an incredibly ambitious design proposal which demands pioneering multiple never-before-seen types of mechanics. It basically can't crib anything from anywhere else in the industry and would really require a dedicated team to put together in anything like a reasonable period of time.

No, I'm talking what if you literally just hacked the Shadowrun setting more or less as-is into a system with 6 stats, ~21 skills, and selectable powers grouped by discipline and by basic/advanced groupings.

Why 6 stats? seems like you could do Physical/Social/Mystic, maybe tack on some specializations for each one via keyword, skills/powers and blammo.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 10:35 pm

Aryxbez wrote:Speaking of Trolls, for awhile I came across this Awesome Tri-barrel Gun (From 3rd's Cannon Companion apparently). Made me wondering, WHAT is that gun (looks like Assault Cannon, fires like HMG), and how would one convert it into SR4A rulesets + Frank Houserules? Oh and yes, the guy's reaction at the back is also quite hilarious.

In Warhammer 40k terms we'd call that a "heavy stubber".

Just an HMG.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 11:51 pm

I'm guessing it's just a triple barreled HMG. One firing mechanism, three barrels to spread out the heat so they don't melt. Same principle as a minigun.

Standard HMG, but with higher rate of fire.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 5:36 pm

This isn't exactly a rules question, but I just got one of the alternate endings for Dragonfall and now I'm curious: could metahumanity fight the Horrors as they are now (2072)?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 5:55 pm

Silent Wayfarer wrote:This isn't exactly a rules question, but I just got one of the alternate endings for Dragonfall and now I'm curious: could metahumanity fight the Horrors as they are now (2072)?

The answer to that is complicated, because Earthdawn doesn't really work as the prequel to Shadowrun. All kinds of shit happens in Earthdawn like the invention of steel, stout, and the crossbow, that are like several thousand years too early if it's actually supposed to be Shadowrun's 4th age. So any and all things from Earthdawn, where the Horrors are actually written up, are totally non-canon in Shadowrun. So you have to take everything with a grain of salt.

That being said, the Horrors easily overwhelmed a low tech, low population, low magic world and took some losses doing it. The numbers on the super mega horrors are way out of scale with what a "pretty good swordsman" can pull off in Earthdawn, but are well into the realm of "we shoot it and it dies" for naval vessels in Shadowrun.

The question is not whether the Horrors can beat "all of Metahumanity," because they fucking can't. The question is whether they could overwhelm the Ukraine.

-Username17

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 6:12 pm

Good point, ED's setting was pretty much limited to... the Caucasus Mountains and thereabouts?

I also dug up an old Dumpshock thread while I was looking, it seemed relevant. I notice that you referred to troll bones on Mars; what exactly is this referring to?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:14 pm

Silent Wayfarer wrote:Good point, ED's setting was pretty much limited to... the Caucasus Mountains and thereabouts?

I also dug up an old Dumpshock thread while I was looking, it seemed relevant. I notice that you referred to troll bones on Mars; what exactly is this referring to?

There is a really weird set of adventures involving tracking down some fake UFO footage from Dunkelzahn's will. It has to do with the first Mars mission in Shadowrun, which got the MIB coverup treatment. They found troll bones. On Mars. That's as far down as that rabbit hole goes, MCs are told to spin their conspiracy theories or whatever. It was a FASA plotline that never went anywhere. We could talk about what it might mean that there was explicitly at least one dead metahuman on Mars - star gates, time travel, 4th age interplanetary travel, alien abductions, whatever. But the fact is that the plotline never went anywhere. The current bunch of yahoos at Catalyst don't even know that Shadowrun's future has space stations and Mars colonies in it.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:21 pm

They actually went a bit further than that too:
SOME - note, not all - of these pictures have been, in universe, proven to be fakes . . so technically, the non fake ones are in universe still true . . untrill proven fake, which simply won't happen anymore . .

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 10:06 pm

Stahlseele wrote:They actually went a bit further than that too:
SOME - note, not all - of these pictures have been, in universe, proven to be fakes . . so technically, the non fake ones are in universe still true . . untrill proven fake, which simply won't happen anymore . .

Nah, the troll skeleton on Mars is the end of that chain. The beginning is some fake UFOs on Mars pictures. In the final bit, you even get to get your hands on some of the bones, for all the good that'll do you.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 3:01 am

ok, that is . . even more dumb than i thought . .

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 3:37 am

That's some freaky-ass shit.

Also, is it true that by the Script Kiddie assessment of SR hacking, that all I need to be a good hacker is to throw lots of nuyen at commlinks and software?