[Fedifensor]

I tried asking these questions on the Dumpshock forums, but after a week without a response, I thought I'd try here instead.  I played Season 5 for the first time last weekend, and I'm trying to fix a few character sheet errors and figure out some solutions to problems I encountered.  I enjoyed the game, but there was at least one point where I was taking a -5 penalty while unwounded (Background Count 3 + Mild allergy to Pollutants).  Hopefully this is the right place to ask about these issues.

Background Count: 
Is there any way around the penalties other than Home Ground (Astral Acclimation)?  My Physical Adept was running with a penalty almost constantly in both adventures I played.  It's at the point where I'm considering spending the 20 Karma to get the Home Ground quality - if that even works for the CZ. 

Also, does Background Count affect Initiative?  The way we did it at my table for the 3 adepts was to reduce the total initiative by the Background Count quality, up to the level of the character's Improved Reaction.  So, if you had Improved Reflexes 2 and the Background Count was 3, you'd lose 2 from your total Initiative roll.

Pollution: 
I went with Mentor Spirit (Eagle) for my character, which gives a Mild pollutant allergy.  How often will this affect me in Missions (particularly the Containment Zone), and what sort of gear can negate the penalties?  I assume a Hazmat suit would do the trick, but that's a bit extreme.  Is a Respirator sufficient?  Gas Mask?  Chemical Protection on my armor?  Chemsuit?

Contacts and Gear:
A character has a Fixer (Loyalty 6, Connection 1).  Based on the rules on page 419, he can fence items for the character at 30% value.  Does that apply in Missions as well?

Does everything you buy in Missions have to be overseen by a GM, or is there a system where your Loyalty and Connection with a contact can speed that up?  I can understand needing a GM to purchase that Ingram Valiant (Availablity 12F), but a Ruger Super Warhawk (Availability 4R) shouldn't be that hard to find on the streets if you have the right contact.  Both games pushed right up against the 4 hour run time, partly because a few characters (particularly the two riggers) were asking the GM to oversee their purchases.  It would be a lot easier to be able to handle the simple stuff between missions.

How hard is it to upgrade components inside an existing piece of cyberware, such as adding Vision Enhancement 3 to an existing pair of cybereyes.  Assuming the contact makes the relevant rolls to get the gear, how much does the character have to pay, and how long is the recovery time?

My wife's street samurai has a Cyberarm with a Cyber Holster, which says it can hold any pistol- or smaller-sized weapon.  She has a machine pistol (Ares Crusader II) in it.  Is that acceptable?

The same Cyberarm has Armor 2.  As I'm reading the rules, her Armor Jacket plus the cyberarm armor gives her a total armor rating of 14.  Is that right?


Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.

-Fedifensor (aka Breeze, Gunslinger Adept)

[The Masked Ferret]

Fedifensor,

I tried asking these questions on the Dumpshock forums, but after a week without a response, I thought I'd try here instead.

Sorry, I did not see your questions earlier, or I would have replied sooner.

I played Season 5 for the first time last weekend, and I'm trying to fix a few character sheet errors and figure out some solutions to problems I encountered.  I enjoyed the game, but there was at least one point where I was taking a -5 penalty while unwounded (Background Count 3 + Mild allergy to Pollutants).  Hopefully this is the right place to ask about these issues.

Ouch, that is a steep penalty.

Background Count: 
Is there any way around the penalties other than Home Ground (Astral Acclimation)?

Turn off your adept powers, according to Bull. Basically, when you are in a Background count, if the Penalties that you receive are greater than the benefit of the Adept power, turn off the magic and go with your non-magic stats.

My Physical Adept was running with a penalty almost constantly in both adventures I played.  It's at the point where I'm considering spending the 20 Karma to get the Home Ground quality - if that even works for the CZ. 

According to Bull, the Home Ground quality should cover an area about a square mile in size, and the CZ is about 100 sq miles in size. The Home Ground quality can work in a specific area, but Home Ground (Containment Zone) is too wide.

Also, does Background Count affect Initiative?  The way we did it at my table for the 3 adepts was to reduce the total initiative by the Background Count quality, up to the level of the character's Improved Reaction.  So, if you had Improved Reflexes 2 and the Background Count was 3, you'd lose 2 from your total Initiative roll.

Well, if the Adepts have Improved Reflexes active, they should subtract the value of the background count from their initiative value. As for how the Background count would effect skills that benefit from the additional reaction, that is still under debate, but the power IS increasing their reaction. So, if they don't want the penalties, turn off the reflexes.

Pollution: 
I went with Mentor Spirit (Eagle) for my character, which gives a Mild pollutant allergy.  How often will this affect me in Missions (particularly the Containment Zone), and what sort of gear can negate the penalties?  I assume a Hazmat suit would do the trick, but that's a bit extreme.  Is a Respirator sufficient?  Gas Mask?  Chemical Protection on my armor?  Chemsuit?

Hmmmm.... this one could be argued. I would think respirator or gas mask, but I don't know the answer to that question. Technically, you could also buy off the allergy.

Contacts and Gear:
A character has a Fixer (Loyalty 6, Connection 1).  Based on the rules on page 419, he can fence items for the character at 30% value.  Does that apply in Missions as well?

That is how you sell most items in Missions.

Does everything you buy in Missions have to be overseen by a GM, or is there a system where your Loyalty and Connection with a contact can speed that up?  I can understand needing a GM to purchase that Ingram Valiant (Availablity 12F), but a Ruger Super Warhawk (Availability 4R) shouldn't be that hard to find on the streets if you have the right contact.  Both games pushed right up against the 4 hour run time, partly because a few characters (particularly the two riggers) were asking the GM to oversee their purchases.  It would be a lot easier to be able to handle the simple stuff between missions.

You don'y have to have a GM oversee purchases. If you want to purchase it yourself, you must use the buying hits rule (4 dice for 1 hit) and pay the relevant time from your lifestyle (assuming that you can find the item). A contact cannot speed up delivery times, but they can search for an item while you do other things, effectively speeding up the search. I will have to look back at the Missions FAQ for more specific rules.

How hard is it to upgrade components inside an existing piece of cyberware, such as adding Vision Enhancement 3 to an existing pair of cybereyes.  Assuming the contact makes the relevant rolls to get the gear, how much does the character have to pay,

Very similar to the above answer.

and how long is the recovery time?

A week, I believe.

My wife's street samurai has a Cyberarm with a Cyber Holster, which says it can hold any pistol- or smaller-sized weapon.  She has a machine pistol (Ares Crusader II) in it.  Is that acceptable?

That sounds reasonable. My hacking adept carries around a Steyer TMP for a similar reason. FYI, of the machine pistols, the Steyer TMP is the only one that can do Surpressive Fire.

The same Cyberarm has Armor 2.  As I'm reading the rules, her Armor Jacket plus the cyberarm armor gives her a total armor rating of 14.  Is that right?

That is correct, as far as I have read the rules.

I will Try to add some links to Bull's answers later.

- The Masked Ferret

[Michael Chandra]

Background Count: 
Is there any way around the penalties other than Home Ground (Astral Acclimation)?  My Physical Adept was running with a penalty almost constantly in both adventures I played.  It's at the point where I'm considering spending the 20 Karma to get the Home Ground quality - if that even works for the CZ. 

Try Adept Centering?

By the way: If the background count is X, you lose X to all rolls (and Initiative) boosted by Magic in any way. So at your IR2, you suffer a -3 on Initiative. You'd also suffer a -3 on dodging stuff, so basically your dodge pools are down 1 and your initiative are at +2d6-1.

The GM doesn't oversee any downtime activities, Bull said he'd clarify it later but heavily implied you cannot roll for things. This includes purchases, spellcasting (for Quickened Spells) and Summoning+Binding. Anything that echoes into the next run you are not even allowed to do with a roll anymore, you must do it with buying hits. So they can't roll to see whether they get the item, you simply compare (Connection+Connection+Loyalty)/4 rounded down, with Availability/4 rounded down.
This would also mean no Quickening an extremely lucky spell, or Binding a very lucky Summoning.

[Fedifensor]

Ouch, that is a steep penalty.

Especially for my 2nd game in 5th edition...and my first game had me at a constant -2.

Turn off your adept powers, according to Bull. Basically, when you are in a Background count, if the Penalties that you receive are greater than the benefit of the Adept power, turn off the magic and go with your non-magic stats.

If I have to shut down the main thing about my character, I may as well tell Mr. Johnson to slot himself and go home.  Sure, I can live without Increased Accuracy (Pistols) 1...but Improved Reflexes 3 is another story.

According to Bull, the Home Ground quality should cover an area about a square mile in size, and the CZ is about 100 sq miles in size. The Home Ground quality can work in a specific area, but Home Ground (Containment Zone) is too wide.

Sounds like a vastly overpriced quality - the area is so small it will basically never come up in a mission.  Especially if I'm still playing in Season 6, and we move to a different city.

Well, if the Adepts have Improved Reflexes active, they should subtract the value of the background count from their initiative value. As for how the Background count would effect skills that benefit from the additional reaction, that is still under debate, but the power IS increasing their reaction. So, if they don't want the penalties, turn off the reflexes.

Again, not really viable.  If I have to turn off the most expensive part of my character, I'll just leave.  And if it happens in every Mission (as it did in my first two), I'll just stop playing Missions.  I don't really want to...but I'm not really big on campaigns where some characters are heavily penalized while others waltz around without problems.

Hmmmm.... this one could be argued. I would think respirator or gas mask, but I don't know the answer to that question. Technically, you could also buy off the allergy.

I didn't think that was possible, since it comes from the Mentor Spirit.

You don'y have to have a GM oversee purchases. If you want to purchase it yourself, you must use the buying hits rule (4 dice for 1 hit) and pay the relevant time from your lifestyle (assuming that you can find the item). A contact cannot speed up delivery times, but they can search for an item while you do other things, effectively speeding up the search. I will have to look back at the Missions FAQ for more specific rules.

I read somewhere else that you can't take more than a month between missions.  I'm buying Arcana 1 and initiating (to get Adept Centering), and that gives me 6 dice, which I can use to buy 1 success and initiate in a month's time.  Does that mean I need to buy Arcana to 3 to get my second level of initiation, and the third level is basically unreachable?

That sounds reasonable. My hacking adept carries around a Steyer TMP for a similar reason. FYI, of the machine pistols, the Steyer TMP is the only one that can do Surpressive Fire.

I noticed that, but the cost in bullets is rather high.

I will Try to add some links to Bull's answers later.

Thanks for the help!

Try Adept Centering?

That's the plan.

[Daedalus]

I read somewhere else that you can't take more than a month between missions.  I'm buying Arcana 1 and initiating (to get Adept Centering), and that gives me 6 dice, which I can use to buy 1 success and initiate in a month's time.  Does that mean I need to buy Arcana to 3 to get my second level of initiation, and the third level is basically unreachable?

Actually 6 dice would be sufficient for 3 levels of initiation. It is an extended test. So six dice will get you three successes buying hits. 6 dice = 1 success, 5 dice = 1 success, then 4 dice = 1 success for a total of 3. Since you cannot take more than a month between missions, but you CAN keep any progress you have made, grades 2 and three would require adventuring between completion of the initiation ritual.

[Michael Chandra]

Again, not really viable.  If I have to turn off the most expensive part of my character, I'll just leave.  And if it happens in every Mission (as it did in my first two), I'll just stop playing Missions.  I don't really want to...but I'm not really big on campaigns where some characters are heavily penalized while others waltz around without problems.

It shouldn't happen in every Mission in Season 5, but in a significant amount of them.

As Daedalus said, Initiation is an Extended Test. To quote the FAQ: "Any week spent on a Shadowrun interrupts your training, but you can resume where you left off. If you spend more than three weeks without resuming your training, you lose any progress made and must start from the beginning"

[ZeConster]

Turn off your adept powers, according to Bull. Basically, when you are in a Background count, if the Penalties that you receive are greater than the benefit of the Adept power, turn off the magic and go with your non-magic stats.

If I have to shut down the main thing about my character, I may as well tell Mr. Johnson to slot himself and go home.  Sure, I can live without Increased Accuracy (Pistols) 1...but Improved Reflexes 3 is another story.

While I admit it's pretty ridiculous for a Background Count to both affect your Reaction increase and decrease your Initiative Score, that still leaves you with +1 Reaction and +3D6+1-2 Initiative with a BC of 2, and +3D6-3 Initiative with a BC of 3. It's the other powers (Attribute Boost, Increased Physical Attribute, Improved Ability, Enhanced Accuracy) that are hurt the most.

[Fedifensor]

I admit it's pretty ridiculous for a Background Count to both affect your Reaction increase and decrease your Initiative Score, that still leaves you with +1 Reaction and +3D6+1-2 Initiative with a BC of 2, and +3D6-3 Initiative with a BC of 3. It's the other powers (Attribute Boost, Increased Physical Attribute, Improved Ability, Enhanced Accuracy) that are hurt the most.

I'm more concerned about the part of the FAQ that felt the need to talk about double-digit Background Counts...

[Michael Chandra]

Apparently there was a communication snafu between me and ZeConster: The Background Count does not decrease your Reaction, it counts as negative modifier on any tests that are in any way augmented by Magic. This means you do not take the penalty twice on Initiative, so you don't get a -2 from Magical Reaction and -2 from Magical Initiative Dice. This puts you, with a Background Count of 2, on a +3-2=+1 on your Dodge and a +3-2+3d6=+1+3d6 extra Initiative from Increased Reflexes, and a +3-2=+1 on any Reaction-skills as well.
The heaviest damage indeed is to things you only increase very slightly. On the other hand, if you get multiple powers boosting the same skill test, you only take the penalty once. So Enhanced Accuracy, Improved Ability, Increased Agility and Agility Boost at the same time results in an awful lot of boost and only a single Background Count penalty.

Double-digit Background Counts pretty much only apply in Space and reaaaaaaally crazy places, Fedifensor. The worst I've ever seen in a mission myself is a -4 in SR4, I doubt SR5 will often go beyond that.

[Bull]

The background counts suck.  Deckers are likewise pretty screwed.  Chicago is NOT a nice and friendly place, for anyone.

This season is intended to be a challenge for players, in a LOT of different ways.

Bull

[Fedifensor]

The background counts suck.  Deckers are likewise pretty screwed.  Chicago is NOT a nice and friendly place, for anyone.

This season is intended to be a challenge for players, in a LOT of different ways.

I can't disagree (especially since I've only played two modules), but I wonder what challenges the CZ has for those other than deckers and the magically active?  It's not that we don't like a challenge...it's that the problems are focused on specific types of characters instead of all shadowrunners.

[ZeConster]

Well, if you take out deckers (which I'm guessing includes technomancers in this case) and magic users, aren't you basically left with street samurai, faces, and the "other" category? I imagine those will all have some issues if there's spirits in there.

[DWC]

The same massive Noise rating that screws deckers and technomancers over is going to mean that the street samurai who actually have their wireless turned on still won't benefit from their wireless bonuses.  The faces have to deal with the penalties associated with being an outsider.  The "other" people are probably being hit by one or more of the things that messes with everyone else.

All in all, it looks like the entire season is going to be brutal.  This should be fun.  Definitely different from the way that I enjoyed Season 3, but still a lot of fun.

[Fedifensor]

The same massive Noise rating that screws deckers and technomancers over is going to mean that the street samurai who actually have their wireless turned on still won't benefit from their wireless bonuses.  The faces have to deal with the penalties associated with being an outsider.  The "other" people are probably being hit by one or more of the things that messes with everyone else.

I wouldn't call it massive Noise.  If the default Noise is 2, can't you just spend 80 nuyen on a (legal, non-hacking) Signal Scrub program to counter it?  As for a face being an outsider...I've already encountered one character whose background is that they grew up in the CZ.

[Michael Chandra]

Signal Scrub is still a Cyberprogram so only Deckers and RIggers can use it. A wireless smartgun has Device Rating 2, so a Noise of 3 will disable its Wireless Functionality.

For Deckers and Riggers yes, they can counter Noise 2 with just 1 program. They'd still face any other source of noise, but they can counter default background noise with ease.