Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: CrimsonY on <01-03-16/0145:40>
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Hello, my name is Yanick.
I recently joined a group of friends who are already running an active Shadowrun campaign and I'm looking into ways to spare them some time on running me through the basics of just about everything "shadowrun", I'm pretty sure they will love to tell me everything they know about this fascinating world within the game, but I'm also curious about this forum and the resources it has to offer, as I'm new here as well.
So far all I know is... and correct me if I'm wrong. The steam game Shadowrun returns is great fun, I like it so far, about midway through the story dead man switch. Shadowrun is a Cyberpunk meets medieval high fantasy in a near future era where anything can happen, no one cares about you and are ready to do anything to take everything you have include your body parts, this also mean there's quite a few career opportunity for those not too concerned with moral issues.
I've already started browsing the forum for character creation tips and such, but I would greatly appreciate if anyone who's used to the forum and knows a few good pages or article about good guidelines or interesting summary of what to look for at first, as getting starter can become quite a chore when facing several pages of content all seemingly equally important.
I'm thinking links towards pages you found interesting or helpful.
Most important of all: if you take the time to answer me, thank you for your time.
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What are you looking for exactly, tips/guidelines on character creation or more general ones about the world?
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(https://memecrunch.com/meme/22D8M/one-of-us/image.jpg?w=400&c=1)
Sorry, couldn't help myself. Anyways, now that you're being inducted into the wonderful world of Shadowrun, here's some things to know:
1. You are not heroes. Put away your ideas of buckling swashes and saving maidens and raiding dragon's lairs. That shit will get you killed. You're a shadowrunner. Sometimes you do the right thing. Sometimes you shoot people in the face for money. Sometimes that's the same thing.
2. Kicking in the door with guns blazing is NEVER Plan A. Shadowrun can get very lethal, very quick. If you are stupid, you're gonna die.
3. Respect the NPCs. Sure, in a D&D world you can mouth off to the king, because at high levels you can, literally, blow up a kingdom. But in Shadowrun, you'll never be more than a cog in the machine.
4. There's no such thing as a fair fight. There's only the person standing at the end. Find any advantage you can (within the rules, natch) and exploit the hell out of it. If you're not cheating, you're not trying.
5. Shoot straight. Conserve Ammo. Always check six. And never, ever cut a deal with a dragon.
Now, looking up the history of the world will take you ages. Your best bets are to find a copy of the Sixth World Almanac from 4th edition (it has a Cliff's notes version of SR world history), and the Shadowrun wiki http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
As far as the 'feel' of things, here's some viewing material that'll help set the mood: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Die Hard, Leverage (TV show), Ocean's Eleven, The Sting, Johnny Mnemonic.
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As far as the 'feel' of things, here's some viewing material that'll help set the mood: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Die Hard, Leverage (TV show), Ocean's Eleven, The Sting, Johnny Mnemonic.
don't forget Robocop (the old one from Paul Verhoeven and with Peter Weller )
,Judge Dredd (rather the New one than the Old One with Sly )
and Demolition Man
(and lots of other Movies)
@ Crimson Y
Welcome to the Forum :)
HougH!
Medicineman
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About creating a character:
Obviously you should play what you want, but there are a few archetypes (which you find also in the book) you can take as inspiration:
The Face: Someone with good social skills, ready to negotiate, con and in a pinch lead the team. Quite often an elf due to their high base charisma
The Sam: Short for Street Samurai, those are warriors that use cyberware to become faster, stronger and more durable then ordinary humans. The iconic weapon is the Katana, but you don't necessarily need one to become a Sam - an Assault Rifle will do nicely
The Mage: A spell slinger, capable of doing things no one else can: Calling spirits to aid you in and out of battle, chucking fireballs and making you and levitating your team. There are variants depending on what flavor you want: Shamans, Druids, scientific minded mages or even psionics.
The Hacker: Someone who handles the matrix comes in two flavors: So called Deckers, who need sofisticated and expensive hardware to manipulate the matrix and Technomancers who have an innate mystic ability to do likewise. Deckers are generally considered to be better at this game in 5th edition, although Technomancers have unique abilities to call up techno-spirits to aid them in their endeavors.
The Adept: Someone who channels magic into their body to become stronger, faster, more durable or an absolute master in a skill.
The Rigger: Someone who doesn't rely on his body at all but sends his mind into a machine to become one with it - super piloting skills included. Alternatively they direct a network of drones to do the battling for them.
There is a lot of overlap possible in all those roles, so don't be limited by them.
That said: Focused characters tend to do better in there specific rolls than generalists.
About principles of the game and character creation:
Sooner or later there will be conflict. Initiative is a very important stat in this game. Going first generally also means getting more actions. And since this a relatively deadly system the one to shoot first is usually the one to shoot last also.
Incidentally high Ini correlates with a high defense.
High attributes (including special ones like Magic) are recommended for most roles since they are in pretty much every dice pool and they are quite expensive to improve.
And welcome to the Forum ;D
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For your first character I suggest staying away from matrix archetypes (deckers and technomancers) as the matrix rules are the easiest pitfalls in the game.
And a character that does several things well is better than a character that is mediocre in a lot of things.
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To echo what the others said, when I make a character for myself, I try to make sure they are able to fill at least two different roles, a main and a sideline. It might be a Mage who can double as a Face in a pinch, or a Street Samurai who has skills in demolition, or... well, you get the point. Being able to have something to fall back on when your primary role isn't useful (being able to talk nice isn't terribly useful in the middle of a firefight) is a good thing. But it is better to specialize in one or two things than to do five things poorly.
I started with D&D, back in the 3.5 days, so most of my examples of learning new systems involve that. When you first pick up D&D, it is easier to start with a Fighter, rather than jumping straight into playing a Wizard. Spellcasting and spell selection in D&D takes familiarity with the system to really 'get', whereas 'hit them with the hammer' is easy to figure out. Give yourself a break, and start with something that isn't a Rigger or Decker for your first character.
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Sure, in a D&D world you can mouth off to the king, because at high levels you can, literally, blow up a kingdom. But in Shadowrun, you'll never be more than a cog in the machine.
Dude i played a level 20 wizard once. Can confirm. Pretty damn powerful.(Although they can be killed at the hands of a level 20 rogue or even a bard, if they know their stuff, easily.)Look up Wish. Ive heard many a gm suffer due to creative players and the spell wish. Some ban it entirely. Favorite story thus far(i was in this campaign i can vouch)was a player wished to turn into the Tarrasque in order to fight a an army of orcs(think battle of helms deep level here.). Small problem, he didnt state he was in full control so GUESS HOW OUR PCS DIED?(Ps if you think DnD anythings are overpowered the Tarrasque is what we think is overpowered. If Erza Scarlet was a monster in DnD it would be the Tarrasque.)
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Thanks to everyone for their answers, I'll answer everyone separately for clarity, but it's still a lot of text and I'm sorry.
@Senko. Pretty much anything really, sorry if that made my post vague.
Also if there is a thread for something like: "Compiled resources list" or anything post that tries to join everything for quick access then I'd love to know.
@Mirikon. Very appropriate, thank you now I feel welcome AND scared. As for your guideline I'll make sure to remember that, now I'm curious to see if you mean actual dragons of legends, which would be awesome, or just a person calling themselves that due to their position of power. Either way I'll say: A good GM always has a way of punishing players who try to stay high on the "avatar strength" feel and in a realist world of any genre and setting, there should always be a consequence to standing out and abusing your strength no matter if you are good or bad or even just opportunist, from a hobo fighting the cold to Superman's own Lex Luther, if there is no opposition you're just a guy brushing his teeth with a toothbrush and up to a laser guided brushinator 3000 doom machine, without conflict storytelling is just not interesting to me and the characters are just sheet of paper being filled with perks.
Thank you for your movie ideas and I've found the first 22 pages on a PDF preview for the sixth world almanac, I'm sure it'll do at least until I start playing, hopefully soon.
@Medecineman I remember vaguely the old Robocop, the newest judge Dredd was great in it's depiction of a ruined post modern world as well as a good action movie. And oh man! I forgot all about demolition man, quick google search and I read "Hey you wouldn't happen to know how to use the three shells?" and the memories came flooding back, thank you xD.
With all those examples now I can think of a lot of ways my character building could go, I guess I'll leave out the hocus pocus to weirdos at least until I know the system better. ( Not that I have anything against magic users inside such games in general).
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@Jack_Spade, @gradivus and @Mirikon. The archetypes were vaguely discussed in the steam game and your precision clarify them well, thanks Jack.
In the steam game you could really get any skills you wanted but it's just smarter to pick as many skills of one base stats as you can, rather then one of each as it's just easier for example to max INT and then get decking, drones etc... rather then half INT and Charisma and then decking and spirits from each. after I get to know the system more I suppose it won't always be true, given that having a full specialization with all melee or all ranged weapons individually won't do much good, having only two hands and so much inventory space.
As I do not know how the tabletop system works, I can only make assumptions but with your help I have a better idea of what to ask my DM when I'll make a character.
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Now here's a little something about my own experience at tabletop RPG (little is an euphemism as this post is a wall of text already.)
Aside from D&D as a kid, what really ignited my passion for tabletop was FFG's recent edition of Star Wars, I have only praises towards it, with very little limitation and only possibilities, the dice system is also a nice change of pace from D20 and offer very malleable results for storytelling, some ppl complain about the price of custom dices, but
')3)' PFFFffffffffff really you can make a table for normal D12, D8 and D6 and if you're that cheap get PDF online or something ( I know money doesn't grow on trees, but still). Enough shameless promotion however, just meant to say it revived and ignited my passion for tabletop so much that I'm here for something new and it's on.
As for character building I learned it's best to stick to this formula, I feel it's similar to what you pointed out:
1) Invest a lot on doing one thing well as you flesh out your character's job or background etc... (I feel it's appropriate for this game as based on what I've read so far, you need a reason to be "hired" in a group of shadow runners and putting: "I'm good at stuff" alone on a blank page and call it your resume will ensure your phone remains silent and your pockets empty.)
2) Make sure you have at least one decent way of handling yourself in combat. (Because combat is inevitable and staying alive seems like a decent goal in life.)
3) The rest of your "exp" or character creation resources can go in whatever else you feel like getting, to round up your character how you want to.
I'm not bothered when it comes to "choosing last" when someone else wanted or has made exactly what I wanted to do and often enjoy filling roles left out by other players, a good example of this is my first Star Wars character: I really wanted to play a Wookie just for fun and because it was a possible race, but my group didn't have any medic, queue in the amazing system I mentioned earlier and I ended making a Wookie medic... it's not even as bad as it sounds, I invested in INT and medicine with starting exp and since I had good natural strength I ended up filling a role of tank of sort in combat, often keeping attention as more skilled gunners would do the real damage. Never mind that no one trusted a Wookie to tend to their wounds, it's not like they could run away once I had them pined on their back, I wore gloves off course, my hairs were probably cleaner then their insides anyway. Everyone loved that character (mainly because no one else could take hits and/or knew how to use a scalpel), I find it sad he ended up a Sith Lord called Darth Sternum... oh well, such is life!
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Sam seems like a simple enough first character and I've always loved the implants and bionics aspect when present in games, I've read somewhere that implants reduce magic potential so I assume they are opposite and that means that adept are the very opposite of Sams, since they both seem to focus on combat training and hard work, but one through technological augmentations and the other through training, mediation and force of will, with chi and all.
If the adept gets the chi, does a sam get any kind of "skills" or implants are their own rewards?
Lastly, if I do a Sam I'd like to have mechanic as a secondary gig, not necessarily drones, but just mechanic and/or Biotech in general, as I assume knowing how implants and augmentation works will save me a lot of junk tech mistake.
Again thank you all for your time and being so welcoming, this forum seems very active and with a very nice community, it's great.
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So as a caution the tabletop game, while inhabiting the same world as the SR:Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong, has significantly different mechanics. For example, while Adepts, Mages and Shamans are all different in the computer game, they're more unified in the tabletop game. They're all "magic" classes. Indeed, Mages and Shamans are the same thing, just different traditions. Chi is certainly a concept, but the main Special Attribute for any of those classes is Magic.
In any case you're right that Physical Adepts and Samurai have much the same powers, and indeed can have identical abilities but with different sources. However, each is more "efficient" at getting things done one way than the other.
Generally speaking a cybered Street Samurai will focus on increasing physical attributes and durability. He has access to all sorts of installed electronics that the metahuman body could never duplicate.
Conversely, the Physical Adept specializes more in honed skills and intangibles. Where a Street Samurai can very easily build himself to take a short burst of Assault Rifle Fire to the chest with minimal ill effects, the Adept will specialize in never ever being hit. Where the street samurai can demonstrate the advantages given by chrome, and bio-engineered flesh, the Adept demonstrates the heights at which the metahuman body performs at, running across the surface of water, up walls, or walking across fresh drifted snow without leaving a trace.
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@ProfGast. Thank you, this is very nice to know more in-depth definition of the archetypes as they don't appear so obvious at first glance.
And so I see this world is full on science vs magic vs virtual reality apparently, more than the surface (or steam games let on at first).
With my background at with the star wars universe, I was wondering why anyone would bring a sword to a gunfight, while a light-saber has an obvious explanation, I thought there was just no logical reason to use an ordinary sword in this world, given that in the game you just end up getting a full auto unload to the face and silencers exist for stealth missions, or just a plain knife and rifle combo.
I'll read/talk more about it when I next meet my group for sure, as I'm starting to like where this is going.
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Sure, in a D&D world you can mouth off to the king, because at high levels you can, literally, blow up a kingdom. But in Shadowrun, you'll never be more than a cog in the machine.
Dude i played a level 20 wizard once. Can confirm. Pretty damn powerful.(Although they can be killed at the hands of a level 20 rogue or even a bard, if they know their stuff, easily.)Look up Wish. Ive heard many a gm suffer due to creative players and the spell wish. Some ban it entirely. Favorite story thus far(i was in this campaign i can vouch)was a player wished to turn into the Tarrasque in order to fight a an army of orcs(think battle of helms deep level here.). Small problem, he didnt state he was in full control so GUESS HOW OUR PCS DIED?(Ps if you think DnD anythings are overpowered the Tarrasque is what we think is overpowered. If Erza Scarlet was a monster in DnD it would be the Tarrasque.)
Remind me to tell you about the time I was in an epic campaign where we were going up against some bloody idiot who thought it was a good idea to start a Tarrasque factory. Plane-hopping into a modern world where we 'acquired' some assault rifles with depleted uranium bullets, tossing a Tarrasque with a couple templates into a pocket dimension so we could deal with it when we found a scroll of Wish, and fighting several groups of Half-Tarrasques... Good times.
As for Wish, woe be to the players who think they can get cute with that spell. For every such player, there is a GM who has perfected the art of Wish-twisting. Sure, you get what you wished for. But didn't anyone ever tell you to be careful what you wish for?
With my background at with the star wars universe, I was wondering why anyone would bring a sword to a gunfight, while a light-saber has an obvious explanation, I thought there was just no logical reason to use an ordinary sword in this world, given that in the game you just end up getting a full auto unload to the face and silencers exist for stealth missions, or just a plain knife and rifle combo.
Actually, there are plenty of reasons to bring a sword to a gunfight. All depends on how you use them. A sword never runs out of ammo, and is quiet. And while I wouldn't want to cross the width of a football field to get into range of someone with a gun, understand that a great deal of the fighting in Shadowrun is in fairly close quarters, which enforces some parity. I could go on, but suffice to say that for any combat-focused character, it pays to have both melee and ranged options available.
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@Mirikon - Good introduction to the game, however you forgot one rule "Always, i repeat, always trust an Elf" ( Thats how it goes---seriously ;) )
@CrimsonY - You bring a blade to a gunfight when you don't want to leave a lot of evidence behind, like spent bullet casings and bullets and all that, that criminal investigators and corp security can use to run ballistics profiles on and Thus tie you to various crimes where you have used those same guns...etc. Sometimes the old fashioned ways Works just fine, is it necessary - no as you said you can do just fine without a blade, but when we are speaking of Shadowrun and the archetypes, then the Street Samurai is called Thus because the idea is that they follow a sort of code and they have traditionally been depicted as carrying a Katana to signify that. There are other names Associated with other types of "warriors" in the shadows like Gunbunny and Razorboy/girl..etc.
Also an enemy hacker can't hack a sword, they can and will ( if they get the opportunity ) hack your guns.
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The main thing a melee weapon means is that you have to have a way to close the distance in the fight. In general, most fights take place in the under 15 meters range. Most melee-oriented characters are going to have high Agility, which means they can close that gap in a combat turn and a bit.
Even if it is at longer range, you have the options of Sneaking and/or running to close gap while shooting.
I have a Missions-legal character that can close a gap of around 70 meters in a single Combat Turn. It helps that he also has a soak pool of something like 40, so even if he does get shot on the way, he likely isn't taking a ton of damage.
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Hello, my name is Yanick.
I recently joined a group of friends who are already running an active Shadowrun campaign and I'm looking into ways to spare them some time on running me through the basics of just about everything "shadowrun", I'm pretty sure they will love to tell me everything they know about this fascinating world within the game, but I'm also curious about this forum and the resources it has to offer, as I'm new here as well.
While ever games comes from the base setting ever game will naturally be different, taking the time to hear how your table spins things is of course important. Background wise I'd recommend reading the first chapter of the CORE, as it gives you a good idea of the base concept.
So far all I know is... and correct me if I'm wrong. The steam game Shadowrun returns is great fun, I like it so far, about midway through the story dead man switch. Shadowrun is a Cyberpunk meets medieval high fantasy in a near future era where anything can happen, no one cares about you and are ready to do anything to take everything you have include your body parts, this also mean there's quite a few career opportunity for those not too concerned with moral issues.
The Steam Game is pretty good, it hits most of the high points though it fails to give you a good idea of the scope of things. But I totally recommend all of them.
I've already started browsing the forum for character creation tips and such, but I would greatly appreciate if anyone who's used to the forum and knows a few good pages or article about good guidelines or interesting summary of what to look for at first, as getting starter can become quite a chore when facing several pages of content all seemingly equally important.
I'm thinking links towards pages you found interesting or helpful.
Most important of all: if you take the time to answer me, thank you for your time.
In the end you have to triage what you find valuable. The fact is many posters disagree on many basic issues. Which is simply natural.
Some things are simply mathematical realities, Keeping body and will as odd numbers etc. My suggestion is search for concepts that are similar to yours, and follow the examples you like. Once your about done post it and say what your going for.
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The main thing a melee weapon means is that you have to have a way to close the distance in the fight. In general, most fights take place in the under 15 meters range. Most melee-oriented characters are going to have high Agility, which means they can close that gap in a combat turn and a bit.
Even if it is at longer range, you have the options of Sneaking and/or running to close gap while shooting.
I have a Missions-legal character that can close a gap of around 70 meters in a single Combat Turn. It helps that he also has a soak pool of something like 40, so even if he does get shot on the way, he likely isn't taking a ton of damage.
40 . . . I swear sometimes I feel like I'm playing a different game to other people.
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(...) I have a Missions-legal character that can close a gap of around 70 meters in a single Combat Turn. It helps that he also has a soak pool of something like 40, so even if he does get shot on the way, he likely isn't taking a ton of damage.
40 . . . I swear sometimes I feel like I'm playing a different game to other people.
It took me almost a year to come to the same conclusion. It is incredible how different the experience of power levels in SR can be. Only look at the example characters in the CRB with their DPs around 7-8 (for Technomancers, which has parts in his background story where he hacked megacons... sure, go ahead ^^). For me, it felt strong to have DPs around 10-14 in my core skills. And now, like i said after one year of practice with a group, i'm convinced that i will make sure to have at least 15+ (better 18+) dice in my main skills. Just to make sure, that my char makes an impact and is not useless.
Allthough i really have to admit, that i would love to tryout street level instead. A big part of RPGs for me is character developement. And to start at a lower level leaves you so much more room to improve and shape your char. No need in stupid min-maxing and leaving out skills every idiot would have points in just because he uses the related devices/tools every day. Like Computer and a Commlink. Everybody has one, everyone uses matrix search. Like we call it "to google" today if we are searching something. I think, the idea of life modules covers this very good (not perfect though, but it let's you get into the karma based char creation with big amounts of background (knowledge) skills...!). Really, if i would start in a total new group, i would highly recommend that system. You can still debate with the GM if you really have to take a point in Archery, only because you were born in a NAN state. But this has nearly no impact. Flavorwise, fluffwise, backgroundwise - realistically - this is IMHO the best char gen system i've seen in a long time. Only exception to make is maybe, that there are so few modules. But i guess if you get the idea of the system, you can make some by yourself. It is still your game. So do whatever you enjoy the most. This would be my approach. If i will ever GM a round, i will try it that way.
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In the same train of thought as the melee weapons issue, i would recommend any Street Sam kind of character to also have some proficiency in unarmed combat. Again the same reasons exists as for using melee weapons. Additionally there are many Places in the 6th World where you can't Count on being able to bring your guns with you and many Places where it is considerably easier to bring a knife than to bring a gun. But perhaps the biggest reason of all is that as a mundane unarmed combat is the way you survive ( or atleast try to ) encounters with spirits. Sure if it's a relatively low force spirit you can bring it Down with your guns, if it's a high force spirit you're better off smacking it in the face with your fists using the Neijia technique from run and gun, of course that does demand a relatively high willpower stat
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@Rosa- if you're gun fires cased ammunition, you had best get a new gun.
Which is why I don't understand the fascination with the Warhawk- policing your casings is bah humbug.
Give me a caeseless semiautomatic or automatic any day.
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@Rosa- if you're gun fires cased ammunition, you had best get a new gun.
What if its a gun that fires cases of ammo? :P
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... I was wondering why anyone would bring a sword to a gunfight....
There are many a time that you shouldn't bring a gun to a sword fight as well! ;)
We've flipped that saying in our games many a time. Guns are definitely a serious threat in the SR verse, but in close combat, edged weapons and unarmed do just as well if not better at times. An adept focused on close quarter combat is extremely dangerous (or awesome if they are on your side).
Here are some links to resources, some may be dated, but should give you a springbooard. As mentioned above the shadowrun wiki (http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) is good as well. I also second the Sixth World Almanac (http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Source:Sixth_World_Almanac).
Catalyst Labs Game Resources (http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/game-resources/)
GM Resources (https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/1pfagz/sr5_gm_resources/)
Cheat Sheets (https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/1pw6zy/5e_shadowrun_cheat_sheets/)
This thread (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=14877.0) has some good stuff in it as well! :)
[edit] Just realized anumber of the links are broken - but still some useful stuff. Ah, here is the stickied thread (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=20938.0). Check out the stickied threads in the various forums - lots of good info there.
There is tons to dig through out there - welcome to the sprawl chummer! 8)
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@Rosa- if you're gun fires cased ammunition, you had best get a new gun.
Which is why I don't understand the fascination with the Warhawk- policing your casings is bah humbug.
Give me a caeseless semiautomatic or automatic any day.
You can get a caseless Super Warhawk, actually. Most people like cased ammunition because the tinkling of brass falling as you dump the cylinder is music to their ears (and tells the bad guys you're out of ammo, but style is never wrong!). Also, if you are firing cased ammunition, the Super Warhawk and other revolvers are better. A revolver doesn't spray the casings around for you to pick up, it holds them until you take them out yourself. I've also never gone into a fight where I used a full cylinder from a Super Warhawk, but hey...
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True, if you have to reload the Ruger you should have switched have the weapon out two rounds ago.
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It took me almost a year to come to the same conclusion. It is incredible how different the experience of power levels in SR can be. Only look at the example characters in the CRB with their DPs around 7-8 (for Technomancers, which has parts in his background story where he hacked megacons... sure, go ahead ^^). For me, it felt strong to have DPs around 10-14 in my core skills. And now, like i said after one year of practice with a group, i'm convinced that i will make sure to have at least 15+ (better 18+) dice in my main skills. Just to make sure, that my char makes an impact and is not useless.
Just don't use the Priority/Sum-to-Ten systems and you'll see a lot more sanity. Although you can get super-whack results with Life Modules if you try for it.
I must admit that the 40 armor Missions Legal character was because literally everyone had told me that Convention games were a meatgrinder and my character would die in the first fight unless I brought some serious character optimization to the table. At a normal table, I probably wouldn't do that unless it was a hardcore charOp table, which is not usually where I run.
EDITED TO ADD: That was also a lie. I had to play down my character to fit in with most people, who were using characters out of the book.
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It took me almost a year to come to the same conclusion. It is incredible how different the experience of power levels in SR can be. Only look at the example characters in the CRB with their DPs around 7-8 (for Technomancers, which has parts in his background story where he hacked megacons... sure, go ahead ^^). For me, it felt strong to have DPs around 10-14 in my core skills. And now, like i said after one year of practice with a group, i'm convinced that i will make sure to have at least 15+ (better 18+) dice in my main skills. Just to make sure, that my char makes an impact and is not useless.
7-8 isn't indicative of the dice pools for all of the characters in the CRB. The street samurai and the decker, for example, throw down a lot more dice than that for their specialty. Shadowrun really lets you build to concept. Unfortunately, not all concepts are going to be equally kickass in a game, at least measured solely in combat effectiveness. Also, a high dice pool does not always mean someone powergaming - there are some trap options in the game, but you can also easily wind up with a high dice pool just by making a few logical choices. Say, you're building a street samurai. You want him to be good at hitting and shooting things, so you give him an Agility of 6. For one of his skills, you take pistols at 6, specializing in semi-automatics. When you pick out his augmentations, you get cybereyes with a smartlink, and rating: 2 muscle toner. So that's 18 dice to shoot your trusty Ares Predator, 16 if your wireless is turned off. And that's a character who is still far from fully optimized.
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As for Wish, woe be to the players who think they can get cute with that spell. For every such player, there is a GM who has perfected the art of Wish-twisting. Sure, you get what you wished for. But didn't anyone ever tell you to be careful what you wish for?
One of the best things for budding GMs who want to figure out how deal with the wish spell is to watch the Wishmaster horror series of movies. Yeah they're cheesy, but without a doubt they give excellent examples of how to twist an innocent wish around into something horrible.
With my background at with the star wars universe, I was wondering why anyone would bring a sword to a gunfight, while a light-saber has an obvious explanation, I thought there was just no logical reason to use an ordinary sword in this world, given that in the game you just end up getting a full auto unload to the face and silencers exist for stealth missions, or just a plain knife and rifle combo.
Actually, there are plenty of reasons to bring a sword to a gunfight. All depends on how you use them. A sword never runs out of ammo, and is quiet. And while I wouldn't want to cross the width of a football field to get into range of someone with a gun, understand that a great deal of the fighting in Shadowrun is in fairly close quarters, which enforces some parity. I could go on, but suffice to say that for any combat-focused character, it pays to have both melee and ranged options available.
Something to keep in mind for 5th edition: If you close into melee range, people using ranged weapons start taking penalties to shooting. Also, never underestimate the intimidation value of someone swinging a combat axe, claymore, or vibrosword, especially if they're an ork or troll! ;D
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The main thing a melee weapon means is that you have to have a way to close the distance in the fight. In general, most fights take place in the under 15 meters range. Most melee-oriented characters are going to have high Agility, which means they can close that gap in a combat turn and a bit.
Even if it is at longer range, you have the options of Sneaking and/or running to close gap while shooting.
I have a Missions-legal character that can close a gap of around 70 meters in a single Combat Turn. It helps that he also has a soak pool of something like 40, so even if he does get shot on the way, he likely isn't taking a ton of damage.
40 . . . I swear sometimes I feel like I'm playing a different game to other people.
You are playing a different game then other people. Some like a more mechanical take on the game then others. Doesn't make on way better then another. There is not point in judging how another table comes together. As long as you have fun playing at your table, what does it matter how others have fun at theirs?
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The main thing a melee weapon means is that you have to have a way to close the distance in the fight. In general, most fights take place in the under 15 meters range. Most melee-oriented characters are going to have high Agility, which means they can close that gap in a combat turn and a bit.
Even if it is at longer range, you have the options of Sneaking and/or running to close gap while shooting.
I have a Missions-legal character that can close a gap of around 70 meters in a single Combat Turn. It helps that he also has a soak pool of something like 40, so even if he does get shot on the way, he likely isn't taking a ton of damage.
40 . . . I swear sometimes I feel like I'm playing a different game to other people.
You are playing a different game then other people. Some like a more mechanical take on the game then others. Doesn't make on way better then another. There is not point in judging how another table comes together. As long as you have fun playing at your table, what does it matter how others have fun at theirs?
It matters in that when people ask for help making a character here the advice is nearly always focused on that "Don't buy skills below rank 6 + spec", "better to have a few dump stats of 1 than 1 stat less than 6" and so on. Don't get me wrong I'm not judging him for his 40 die its just I can't see how people do get those 20+ dice at character creation. Partially because I tend towards mages but even when I make a specialized street sam I'd never play because I don't find it fun to specialize that much I can't get those numbers.
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Way to ignore my follow-up post. :)
I only did a super-char-oped character because people told me I'd get murderated at con games if I didn't. So I did. Then I found that I didn't need it and therefore looked like an asshole at the table.
I generally push crazy concepts as far as I can as an exercise, then pull them back to sane concepts. I tend towards no dump stats (except for Strength/Body on Dwarfs/Trolls/Orks or Charisma on some Elves), although the aforementioned character was a human with Charisma 1. I also had to make sacrifices to get him working - he had no natural way to get increased initiative, so he popped drugs.
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Bah, no need to defend yourself or your character, falar.
Crafting a character that is good at what he does takes effort and a certain time investment to study and understand the rules. And you certainly won't get any better at that if you don't experiment with crazy concepts.
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It matters in that when people ask for help making a character here the advice is nearly always focused on that "Don't buy skills below rank 6 + spec", "better to have a few dump stats of 1 than 1 stat less than 6" and so on. Don't get me wrong I'm not judging him for his 40 die its just I can't see how people do get those 20+ dice at character creation. Partially because I tend towards mages but even when I make a specialized street sam I'd never play because I don't find it fun to specialize that much I can't get those numbers.
What do you want people to say? Char creation boards are by their nature driven to optimization, because individual people's tastes on what makes a fun character varies incredibly but the math doesn't lie when you look at it from a perspective of "how can I be as good as possible at my role(s)?"
You are playing a different game than the math crunchers and that's ok. But for the average newbie coming to a chargen board for build help in this complicated system, personally I would think the general build help guidelines like "buy rating 1 skills with karma not skill points" and "skills A is usually a trap for these reasons" is probably more helpful and more on point to the reasons they come to that kind of board than anything else.
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What do you want people to say? Char creation boards are by their nature driven to optimization, because individual people's tastes on what makes a fun character varies incredibly but the math doesn't lie when you look at it from a perspective of "how can I be as good as possible at my role(s)?"
/...)
Isn't this heavily reliant on your GMs calls? My first SR experience i made a few years ago and the GM took our charsheets before the start of the game. He noted down all our skills and stats. And everytime we did something fairly usual (like matrix search with the commlink, driving a char off the grid-link, and so on) he asked for a test. Especially at chars without points invested in this specific skill. It's not even funny to roll 3-5 dice the whole evening, everytime in risk of a critical glitch.
And i have to tell you: i loved it. It really forced us to focus on a broad skillset and made the characters so much more dynamic. Each to his own and minmaxing is a thing i highly appreciate because i am not good at it. But that does not mean that math always demands to min-max. Math demands dependend on what the GM wants. And the best for each player is to find out, what style of game the GM wants to play. Story driven? Action orientated? Focused on hard maxed skills? Or more on flavour and fluff? I don't judge any playstile. Playing means to have fun. And fun is different to each person. So, to make this work out perfectly, just make sure to ask, what type of play is actually "fun" for the group you are playing with. Nothing more and nothing less.
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In the vast majority of cases on this board, you get a thread with a sheet and a comment of "plz to critique." No context about the game, about expected dice pools, etc.
Not knowing how your game is set up,and thereby not knowing how to build for it, is especially common if you're joining a PbP of random people who don't know each other but it certainly happens in established groups where the GM has failed to hold a Session Zero in which they set expectations of power levels and theme (yes, I'm comfortable laying this at the feet of the GM).
In the absence of that info it's no surprise that the default advice is set to "be as good as possible in your focus areas."
I'm glad you enjoy the style of play you cited. Personally I think it's too punishing and frankly a little sadistic to go out of your way to call for rolls like that, pointedly setting the players up to fail. It's not players' fault for specializing near as much as it is the system's fault for pushing that as the obvious decision path (Exceptions of course existing for specific table guidance) to anyone who can do a little math.
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It matters in that when people ask for help making a character here the advice is nearly always focused on that "Don't buy skills below rank 6 + spec", "better to have a few dump stats of 1 than 1 stat less than 6" and so on. Don't get me wrong I'm not judging him for his 40 die its just I can't see how people do get those 20+ dice at character creation. Partially because I tend towards mages but even when I make a specialized street sam I'd never play because I don't find it fun to specialize that much I can't get those numbers.
Why does that matter? I don't follow.
I don't mean to harsh or rude but getting 20 dice is hardly a stunning feat, nor is always a worth while one. Magic is a great example of a place where spending the resources necessary to go much above 16 is so expensive starting resource wise as to be not worth it. Further Getting to 40 dice in armor can actually be very dangerous to a table as a whole, if the rest of the table isn't in the same power range as a whole. But those are issues to be address at a given local table.
Regardless no one in the critique section is trying to dictate how games should be run, or even how characters should be made. Simply offering the best mechanical advice as they see it, most of the multi-build threads include plenty of contradictory advice. Meaning that the OP has to make their own choice based upon the options they like best. Plenty of character that get reviewed don't end up with pools beyond the 16+ range. Plenty do go higher, as long as the players are happy at their table then all is well. I personally post in the board b/c it helps me become better at building, and I hope I can help people become happier at their tables.
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Optimization advice isn't always limited to dice pool size, either. Things like important skills that are missing, or glaring weaknesses, also get touched upon. If the Street Samurai archetype was presented as a character for critique, people would be saying "Dude, you have a Charisma of 2 and no social skills - you are rolling a single die for those rolls. Even worse, no perception and an Intuition of 3 means this guy will be rolling just two dice to notice things."
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I do it all the time..
throw out a concept with no commentary...
because I do want to see how different people would redo the concept to suite their taste.
Doesn't mean I'd do it their way.
Doesn't even mean I'll play that concept...more often than not it's a thought exercise for me.
I do however enjoy seeing the different takes.
And sometimes I'll purposely do what I know I'll get scolded for just because I'm quirky like that.
Remember never break the golden rule that <insert your personal pet peeve golden rule>
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Oh my god, the thread is alive =O
I'm sorry I didn't notice the page numbers on the bottom and though it stopped at the first page.
@ "Sword to a gunfight discussion", pretty sure there is nothing to hack in the basic mechanics that makes guns such a terrifying force. A strong point is the possibility to dodge bullets for magic users or just adepts? and outright negate them with implants. Meaning swords are starting to get an edge for sure to me now, since most of the best qualities of guns are losing their strength to magic and gizmo, all points taken. xD thank you.
On the other hand: Now that's just silly, why would you ever design a gun that can be hacked?
Drones are one thing but a gun is just mechanical, and even the best firearms of today don't need computer parts, so maybe it's something about shadowrun's matrix I don't know, but I feel like in the sixth world, weapon designers would have that possibility in mind and not do that unless the pros greatly outweighed the cons of being hacked. ^^
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"Discussion about the system forcing people into min/maxing as a logical decision rather than casual fun character building"
I once read something in a game modding forum that went something like this (incoming destruction of original citation I half remember): In a game you want to reward players for good decision making, but that means there will be things better than others and some players might fail to see why.
I often wondered what a perfectly balanced system would feel like, getting any skill at 18 dices would be as cost efficient as any other skill, be called upon as much as any other 18 dices in any skills OR cost exactly as much to get to 18 as it's use frequency and relevance...
While it would be incredibly difficult to balance like that considering each GM might set their campaign differently, it would also take away much of the fun of character creation (although not all if it).
So I feel the "pitfalls" you have all mentioned are perhaps what makes character building fun, realizing what a terribly deficient very good hacker you have on paper in front of you xD
Keep posting what skills or stat can be such a pitfall in general it's very helpful.
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This post is about an example of how a system can lead to forcing players into a certain amount of min/maxing just because of how it is made, so skip it entirely if you want, it may not be interesting to you.
Meanwhile I'll post one of my own observation about how a system can funnel players into patterns for character building that just ends up better than others (maybe even breaking the system for when there are min/maxers and just plain "casual" players at the same table [I'm saying casual here but I really just mean someone who doesn't care to weight every possibility and end up with a +1 somewhere because they spent 3 hours at it])
In the FFG Star Wars system the only time you can put experience in a base attribute (agi, int, etc...) is at the creation. Base stats are THE most important aspect of your character, setting the amount of dices you will have for any action using the stat. It cost 10x rank you want to buy and later on can only improve with implants or reaching the botom of a "skill tree" the aumentation often cost immense amounts of money or a minimum of 100 exp (up to 175 for certain career trees).
All the while that medecine proficiency has the same cost to raise (10x the amount you will have for the next rank and five less per level if your career has the skill training). I'll spare you the rest of the details, but basically if you make a character there is absolutely no reason NOT to put as much starting Exp in base stats as possible, leaving your character growth to end of session experience gain.
This make it seem like every character is coming out of the box as that rookie "insert career path" right out of the entrance exam for said career, as you will have your entire game to put points in your career skills while if you wasted creation exp into it, you'll have good rolls in your first games and then will get outclassed by anyone who didn't, just because a skill use the base stat for dice amount and the skill for dice "efficiency" if you want, since you can't crit on a non trained dice and they have 1/8 to be wasted while trained dices have 1/12, but more dice = better. So having 4 INT and 0 medecine will yield better dice results as having 2 INT and 2 medecin, unless both dices crit (1/12).
Sorry for the wall of text again, and thank you if you read it.
Please go ahead and include your opinion if there are such funnels in the Shadowrun system, or if you think there are particularly bad decisions I should avoid going into character creation for the first time ^_^
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I am meeting my group next Sunday, tomorrow in fact I'm pretty hyped!
Seems like everyone has their character mostly set, during a discussion about what each person wanted to make certain roles were left and out of them it seems I'll end up making a Rigger as I liked the idea. Since it seems it is INT based and we also lack medicine skills and that also goes by INT it'll be a machine/people repair guy, let's just hope I don't get that oil can and blood pack mixed up... ah It'll be fine I'm sure, seems like half the group is gonna end up as cyborgs anyway xD.
Talking about the rest of the group it seems so far we'll have an Elf Face combat oriented, an Elf mage with some fencing, an Ork Decker with some melee skills as well as a fourth Ork Melee with lots of skills in many things apparently. So much for bringing a gun to a sword-fight! >_>
Seems like I'll be having lots of drone with lots of guns and actually end up as minority as a human... (though I usually have no racial preference when it comes to role-playing, be it monsters, aliens or meta-humans xD)
Let's hope all the sword over firearms arguments hold up, otherwise I'll have a lot of sewing back limbs and extracting lead from torsos to do. ^_^
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Riggers need 4 stats. Reflex is probably the most important. Behind that you have intuition and logic, and finally willpower. Explaining why is a doozie that I will leave for someone else.
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"Sword to a gunfight discussion", pretty sure there is nothing to hack in the basic mechanics that makes guns such a terrifying force. A strong point is the possibility to dodge bullets for magic users or just adepts? and outright negate them with implants. Meaning swords are starting to get an edge for sure to me now, since most of the best qualities of guns are losing their strength to magic and gizmo, all points taken. xD thank you.
Wait what?
No.
It's easier to be better at guns with much less investment because you don't have to care about STR. In addition, auto fire is the best way to penalize a defense test, and there are a lot of ways to shoot that only take a Simple, where Melee is always a Complex outside of an Iaijutsu or Rapid Draw adept build.
That said anyone can try to dodge anything and hacking a gun in combat isn't viable given the action economy. Hacking guns and ware is great if you can do it outside of combat time. I find the concerns to be more bogeymen than legitimate.
On the other hand: Now that's just silly, why would you ever design a gun that can be hacked?
Drones are one thing but a gun is just mechanical, and even the best firearms of today don't need computer parts, so maybe it's something about shadowrun's matrix I don't know, but I feel like in the sixth world, weapon designers would have that possibility in mind and not do that unless the pros greatly outweighed the cons of being hacked. ^^
It's just like how cars can be hacked now. The smartgun/smartlink requires a wireless connection to gather ambient information. That link is vulnerable.
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@ZombieAcePilot. Thank you for the info, I've been told there are two ways to control drones, one simply with a controller of sort and the other one by "jumping inside" with your mind via an implant.
Now I assume the controller option is somewhat perhaps not as good or limited as far as drone control goes, but probably leaves the user much less vulnerable as leaving your body to put your consciousness inside a remote controlled machine means you aren't there to see that guy sneaking up on your with a knife xD. I'll explore both options with the other players to see what they think or what the campaign setup might need.
It leaves me to wonder why actual AI are not a thing (more than just the "programs" Decker run inside the matrix to help them.). Although I understand that with so many ways to hack anything even remotely related to computers, I would understand why the sixth world might have no love for Advanced, autonomous AIs.
@Whiskeyjack Ah finally someone willing to defend the Gun nuts side! Between all the good points brought by this forum's users and my entire group of friends going for melee characters, I was beginning to think they were no use.
If guns use Reflex (or Quickness like in shadowrun returns, is it the same thing?) and according to ZombieAcePilot's importance order, I should have some room for it, again my character being a total black sheep to the group. I can already imagine some lines and role-play directions to take, being in opposition to all the common points of the group and the main source of healing could lead to some very fun interactions.
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It leaves me to wonder why actual AI are not a thing (more than just the "programs" Decker run inside the matrix to help them.). Although I understand that with so many ways to hack anything even remotely related to computers, I would understand why the sixth world might have no love for Advanced, autonomous AIs.
AI are a thing, with rules for playing them as characters in Data Trails.
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Your ability to hit with shooting (and Melee swinging) is tied to AGI. Initiative is tied to INT and REA. Defense tests are also tied to INT and REA. For a wheelman/rigger, drive and pilot are tied to REA.
It's also easy to boost AGI with ware to do even better and there are lots of special ammos that can be quite nasty.
You should really read the combat chapter if you haven't.
As an aside, drones are squishy. You should not be as worried about your body being stabbed if you're jumped in as you are of being killed by biofeedback and dumpshock when the drone you're jumped into is easy shot to bits. The best things to jump into are sniping rotodrones, because they'll be hanging in the sky out of range of many threats, and vehicles with weapon mounts, because they're much more durable to small arms fire.
Widespread AIs are not much of a thing because the last time corps really invested much into AIs, one of them (Deus) took over a megacorp arcology, killed all the inhabitants in terrible experiments, uploaded itself into the stock exchange after a major server upgrade to try and ascend to god good of the Matrix, and when a couple other AIs and hackers opposed it, it caused the Second Matrix Crash. So you could see why the corps wouldn't be all that interested in trying that again.
More limited AIs exist and can even be PCs for some reason but a lot of people fear and hate them due to the 2nd crash and all.
You should read the 4th ed setting chapter. It lays out the history of this world very well the 5th Ed chapter on setting and history is awful as it seems to presume all players are veterans who would carry setting knowledge forward which is, IMO, one of the worst possible assumptions RPG writers can ever make.
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I am meeting my group next Sunday, tomorrow in fact I'm pretty hyped!
Seems like everyone has their character mostly set, during a discussion about what each person wanted to make certain roles were left and out of them it seems I'll end up making a Rigger as I liked the idea. Since it seems it is INT based and we also lack medicine skills and that also goes by INT it'll be a machine/people repair guy, let's just hope I don't get that oil can and blood pack mixed up... ah It'll be fine I'm sure, seems like half the group is gonna end up as cyborgs anyway xD.
Good luck tomorrow, I hope you all have a blast!
But to quickly point out, pretty sure that 1st aid and medicine use logic. Not in front of my books, but almost positive.
One thing as a different -- got a vehicle for the team? You need one for moving drones around, and a lot of other archetypes run real tight on resources.
Agility is the stat you use for hitting weapons in almost all situations, the exception being sometimes with riggers. Basically you care about almost all stats if you are a rigger with melee skills. Using a fun lets you worry less about strength, at least.
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Going to point out that First Aid has specifically limiting and finicky rules tied to it. Most of the time you're better off with a really good medkit followed up by someone casting Heal.
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Again thank you all for your help.
After getting into the content, it's astounding how deep it goes, it's almost too much in fact, after an hour and a half we were about done creating the base structure of a character when a player pointed out we forgot to buy bullets for any guns, mine and drones...
They told me Riggers were probably one of the longest class to build, I can believe it.
Here's a idea of it so far: Body: 3, Agility: 5, Reflex: 5, Logic: 6, Strength: 1, Charisma: 1. Human
I know about the silliness of power playing, as in getting 5/1 over 4/2 because at creation a 5 cost the same as a 2, it's just +1 and later a 2 cost much less than a 5 to upgrade.
I understand min maxing is somewhat of a "scrub" thing to do, but when I make a deficient character I play it so, so the group help me built a mechanic that possibly can't use a wrench without his whole weight to move it, also forget about swimming, it'll be fine half the group has str 3+ anyway. Lastly Logic 6 cha 1 feels like I know exactly what to say in all situations but can't possibly formulate it in a manner that allows anyone to care until I'm done talking without punching me in the face.
Sounds like a fun character so far.
I've picked traits like "Jury rigger" for the sake of being a good mechanic, I've also taken most of the driving/piloting skills and all the mechanics one. I've also taken some medicine and first aid, but as Whiskeyjack pointed out, it's not as interesting or good as I imagined.
Since there are about a hundred+ traits, feel free to suggest which ones you think are essential or just your favorites.
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With STR 1 and CHA 1 you are weak and timid. You might have a great idea, but no one asked you and perhaps you just don't want to make somone else's idea look bad so you keep it to yourself. At least that is one way you might play it.
Don't forget intuition is important for a rigger for matrix actions, perception, and vehicle full defense.
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Remember, though, that an Attribute of 1 is only 10 Karma from an Attribute of 2, and another 15 Karma from an Attribute of 3 after that. Unless you plan on never improving those Attributes, don't describe or play them too drastically. Strength of 1 is a couch potato, not a wheezing asthmatic with a walker. Charisma of 1 means someone who is a bit uncomfortable or unsure when interacting with other people (might be a wallflower, might be too blunt-spoken, etc.), not an obsessive-compulsive geek who wipes his nose with the tablecloth.
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Remember, though, that an Attribute of 1 is only 10 Karma from an Attribute of 2, and another 15 Karma from an Attribute of 3 after that. Unless you plan on never improving those Attributes, don't describe or play them too drastically. Strength of 1 is a couch potato, not a wheezing asthmatic with a walker. Charisma of 1 means someone who is a bit uncomfortable or unsure when interacting with other people (might be a wallflower, might be too blunt-spoken, etc.), not an obsessive-compulsive geek who wipes his nose with the tablecloth.
To rephrase this drek, ahem, "Don't play him to his stats, play him how he will resemble in 50 karma if you decide to spend it on nothing else."
Even at 5 karma a session, that is 2.5 months of weekly play to get that much karma. And that is assuming you get 5 per session. If you net 6 per mission and it took you 2 weeks, that's reducing you to 3 a session. Now you are waiting over four months with no spending on anything else.
Play it how you think it should be played. When you raise stats (if you do), than start beefing up and growing a spine.
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I understand min maxing is somewhat of a "scrub" thing to do
Not at all. Play what you wanna play.If you're happy with having two stats at 1, do that. Don't let people harping on tired memes make you think you're actually doing anything wrong.
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Going to point out that First Aid has specifically limiting and finicky rules tied to it. Most of the time you're better off with a really good medkit followed up by someone casting Heal.
I think that people are applying the old SR4A rule to First Aid still. Page 205 states that the only limit is the Mental Limit. Further on page 208, it specifically states that a medkit adds it's rating in dice (with the wireless bonus, of course). On page 450 it further elaborates that the rating increases the limit. Nowhere does it say that healing is restricted by the skill ranks in SR5.
Example:
Logic 5 + First Aid 5 + Medkit 6 = a 16 dice pool to heal damage
This character has a Mental Limit of 6, so with the Rating 6 Medkit, the test's Limit is increased to 12.
Now let's do a test roll for the healing.
Rolls: 2 - 6 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 3 - 6 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 6 - 4 - 5 - 2 - 5 - 4
Not a very good roll, but it still healed a respectable 3 boxes of damage. If more was needed, you could spend an Edge to reroll failures.
Re-rolls: 6 - 2 - 6 - 3 - 4 - 2 - 4 - 2 - 5 - 4 - 5
So, here, we ended up with 4 more boxes of healing that could potentially end up with more depending on the table interpretation for the Edge reroll (whether 6 explodes or not on the reroll).
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Nowhere does it say that healing is restricted by the skill ranks in SR5.
Well that's a funny assertion, considering page 206 explicitly says: "The maximum damage healable with the First Aid skill is equal to the skill’s rating."
that could potentially end up with more depending on the table interpretation for the Edge reroll (whether 6 explodes or not on the reroll).
That would be somewhat broken, making post-Edging even better than pre-Edging. And post-Edging is already better on any reasonable dice pool than pre-Edging is.
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Realized I forgot to include Willpower and intuition, I think I picked 5 for both to be honest, the DM kept the character sheets since didn't want to damage them so I can't remember for sure, but I have taken attributes as priority A, I wonder if it's preferable to have higher body over willpower, since I have no magic whatsoever, but I will not be a front liner by any means, given I'll do these in order of priority: Drive or operate vehicles> operate drones> fight with guns.
I do plan on playing out those stats, even if I might use the first 20-40 Karma to up them a bit, I'd like it to remain somewhat a flaw at least unless it's called for too often, personally having a swimming dice pool of 1 [can default to 0] or whatever the program hero lab meant makes me laugh because my best means of fighting my mortal enemy (lakes/rivers pool or small ponds) will be to hold my breath and pray apparently =P
I really like the timid and pushover personally and will watch the latest spider-man movie again, Jamie Foxx was really good at that, regardless of general opinion about the Spider-Man movies.
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Remember, though, that an Attribute of 1 is only 10 Karma from an Attribute of 2, and another 15 Karma from an Attribute of 3 after that. Unless you plan on never improving those Attributes, don't describe or play them too drastically. Strength of 1 is a couch potato, not a wheezing asthmatic with a walker. Charisma of 1 means someone who is a bit uncomfortable or unsure when interacting with other people (might be a wallflower, might be too blunt-spoken, etc.), not an obsessive-compulsive geek who wipes his nose with the tablecloth.
To rephrase this drek, ahem, "Don't play him to his stats, play him how he will resemble in 50 karma if you decide to spend it on nothing else."
Even at 5 karma a session, that is 2.5 months of weekly play to get that much karma. And that is assuming you get 5 per session. If you net 6 per mission and it took you 2 weeks, that's reducing you to 3 a session. Now you are waiting over four months with no spending on anything else.
Play it how you think it should be played. When you raise stats (if you do), than start beefing up and growing a spine.
Nowhere did I say anything resembling your "rephrase". I said Strength of 1 is a couch potato, and a Charisma of 1 means someone who is a bit uncomfortable or unsure when interacting with other people. I was pointing out that with Attributes being so easy to raise up to "average", it is good to not play them as if the character is permanently disabled, unless the player chooses to keep those Attributes low.
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@Glyph I'm sure there are actual negative "perk" or "traits" that would fit perfectly into great roleplay ideas, but so far I'm just gonna keep it to small allusions in certain situation, thank you for your suggestions.
I'd like a reason to start as a loser of sort, given I have almost max attributes in many things and just as many skills in very useful domains, from mechanic to medicine, as well as many Rigger talents.
I know what I want to roleplay and do in the group and was gonna do it during play, but seeing as there are SO MUCH dept to the rule book, there is probably an actual name and ruling for it, so far the character is really a good guy with great ideas who ended up living in a van and selling his drones for food (good reason I got to start with only 2-3 drones since we didn't want to spend 2 more hours on customizing more, since the group was waiting on me to start). If you want to suggest combinations of perks that match that, it's great.
I am perfectly fine with just playing it since I don't really need the extra Karma of negative abilities, and running will (hopefully) put a stop to the downstream of failures that put the character in such a predicament. ;3
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Make it personal. Like, you were a semi-successful professional rigger whose relative's medical bills started piling up, so you sold off a lot of gear and got in debt, and maybe even embezzled, leading you to get fired and blacklisted, and just as you were starting to do ok again, Crash 2.0 wiped everything out. So now you run the shadows just to make ends meet.
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It sounds to me like Analytical Mind might be a good fit for your character. If you wanted to you could run wild with it and play him like a high functioning autistic. Gearhead is one that I find hard to pass up any time I'm making a rigger - in my opinion, it's one of the things that makes a rigger a rigger.
Which drones did you buy, by the way, and how are they kitted out? Riggers can be vastly different based on their drone and vehicle choices. If you have even a little cash left, a few of the minidrones and microdrones are some of the best recon options available - they're relatively cheap and run fine out-of-the-box.
The negative qualities are also way more than a way to get some extra karma to spend. I could easily see this guy having a Corporate Limited SIN, with someone else walking over him and taking credit for a new drone design or something, then firing him or evening trying (and failing) to liquidate him after getting promoted. MCT might be especially appropriate, and if you're guy isn't Japanese, it makes him getting screwed over even more fitting. Plenty of shadowrunners had their start in the corporate world.
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@Lorebane24.
Because we were limited in time, or patience I guess xD, the GM quickly picked and loaded a couple small drones, like the ball helicopter and a medium land one I think, everyone also recommended the insect sized spy drone for obvious recon utility. Other than that, we got an armored van with large carrying capacity, since the group seemed to only care for 1 place vehicle or not at all. Joke's on them, now they get to ride with the smelly looser xD
Part of this limited resources is what got me thinking of a "recently robbed" or lost everything background.
I have read about SIN negative qualities and can say I am not ready to roleplay the implications as my first character, being new to the world of shadowrun, although it could actually be more appropriate, given it's a bad thing to have a SIN and end up running. xD
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In that case, moving forward I would make building up your drone arsenal a high priority, though which ones you want will really depend on your group composition. Rotodrones can be excellent cavalry for your team, though they are a little large for stealth and recon (and if your GM wants to get really gritty, I imagine their means of propulsion is not exactly quiet). A Steel Lynx might be your best bet for big guns. Sensors on some smaller drones really open up the possibilities for espionage. Laser mics are personal favorite of mine because you can park a drone on the other side of the street and point that mic at a window to eavesdrop on conversations.
Also, don't knock the utility of more vehicles. They let you get creative. One of my old groups ran an extraction where our rigger was instrumental. We grabbed the guy when he was en route to work. The rigger took remote control of his two cars and used one to block the guy's security detail while he used the second to literally push the guy's limo off a bridge, which we were waiting beneath with a speedboat. Our samurai dove into the water and cut the door open and hauled the guy out, then the rigger drove us around and did his best to lose any eyes on us while our combat medic performed impromptu surgery to remove the guy's tracking device before we made a getaway.
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I've noted your suggestions and to be honest going into the work and world as a rigger, I feel will make for a lot of fun, starting small and growing an army as runs go, our DM picked me ( or even made up I think) a nice junkshop contact with whom I can eventually trade all kinds of part and make custom drones.
I can see our group finding or making a safe-house where we can pool resources as we become more experienced runners, to be honest I didn't think about getting multiples vehicles because I didn't realize driving multiple cars was a thing, now I feel silly xD.
I also didn't want to start off with tons of drones because I didn't see how it would be possible to start with an armada without getting arrested or something, I imagine walking the street with 4 rotodrones would likely not pass as being a lawn mowing service.
I picked the mechanic group and even AI writing, not sure what the name for the skill is, so I wanted to put that in the background and hope the GM has the High end AI operated drones I sold to eat come back not so happy about my life decisions or something.
"real game" start next Sunday, I'll be sure to post here about it, although if the thread die down or if it's inappropriate for this section of the forum maybe, I'll just stop.
I'm happy with the community's help so far and don't want to push it. ^^
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By all means, take keep going with your posts! I just started GMing a new game with mostly new players, so I'm very eager to see how other new players approach the system and how their games go.