[Coord]

Hey guys, I am brand new to this forum, still pretty new to shadowrun in general, my first character was a rigger in 3rd but we have switched to 5E since.

I have been torn about character creation but when I realised you do not need a head implant to run drones and can use them purely on the RCC (I think this is the name?) it got me thinking!

So my ultimate character goal is to be a cybered up street sam who has a few drones slaved to a decent RCC for things such as surveillance and what have you, during my readings I came across the noizquito, a drone that is small, yet has speakers and lights strong enough to put a -4 penalty, like a portable flying flashbang.

On its own this doesn't seem overly strong, but then I read that the effects are cumulative, if you have 4 of these very cheap drones, you can put a -16 on the enemy, essentially subduing all but the most hardened of foes.

So my initial question is, how is this balanced? Am I missing some great flaw in these drones that makes it reasonable?


My second question is on the use of these drones without impairing yourself, my first thought being, if you simply removed the lights from the drones, they will drop a -2 per drone for sound. Is it then possible to have cyberears you can deactivate, essentially deafening yourself, but also making you immune to such noise? Thus allowing you to put massive penalties on the enemy whilst suffering no ill affects at all yourself?

Like I said, I am really new so, please forgive any glaring oversights I may have made ^^

[falar]

You are correct. Noizquitos are ridiculously good. Most people have house-ruled them to some kind of maximum penalty (-6 from either, -10 from both, like Environmental Modifiers), but Rules-As-Written, they're hilariously awesome.

Other than the part about protecting yourself. And there, you've got two good options -

• First, like you said, cyberears and turn them off. Boom. Done. Other than that, you can use dampers, but you're still taking negative penalties. Adept Centering might help here.
• Second, make sure you're never looking at the Noizquito. The -2 from visual is only if you're looking at it. So have your three Noizquitos flying above your head and slightly behind you doing figure eights. Problem solved. Of course ... your team might hate you, but you know.

[adzling]

Yeah we remove the cumulative penalties at our table, otherwise it's insanely OP.

[Coord]

I almost feel as if they should be consumables, or have a number of charges like a flashpack.

Currently there just seems to be no drawback to them at all.

[ZombieAcePilot]

They are t cheap at 2k a pop. Have no armor and 1 body. Any damage means someone just threw 2,000¥ away. Suppression fire could catch a swarm of them and end the whole tactic. So could a single grenade. You could spread them out, but that means someone would have to be commanding them individually.

For a similar cost you could buy a rocket launcher and end fights that way. Further, almost every shadow runner has flare comp. I'd think most cyber ear users would have dampers (not going deaf from shooting in enclosed spaces).

As for being OP in use... This is mainly a GM concern. The GM can overwhelm and kill you whenever he wants. Having another tool to do so doesn't change anything for him. It does concern him that the players may try to cheese through all the encounters using them though.