[TheLonewolfA]

Makes sense. For the record, my GM is pretty awesome. We've been playing WoD games for years, just now both trying Shadowrun for the first time, with our regular group.

[Novocrane]

It's very hard to recommend negative qualities, because we don't know your GM. He may be a sane and reasonable fellow. Or he may be an asshat that only GM's to powertrip over his players, and will screw you super hard no matter what you choose.

One can point out to your player(s) that they've invalidated the negative part of a negative quality, and still be the former GM type. It's like getting surgery for any of the multiple medical disabilities that can be taken as negative qualities, replacing / fixing buggy 'ware, or installing nanites when your system is nanite intolerant - the difference being that you have something left afterwards. A (somewhat empty) SIN. From the way you & A4BG responded, you'd think I suggested explicit hardline asshattery, when it was simply that it shouldn't be logged under 'negative qualities'.

Nearly everyone considers stuff like Form Fitting Body Armor ... to be discrete forms of protection, because that is the entire F-ing point of their existence.

Now you're just being a dick. PPP is explicitly available as discreet protection. FFBA is only discreet by virtue of being thin, custom-tailored and not extending beyond your other armour / clothing. And then some people just want the 6/2 armour.

If you're getting angry enough to start mock-swearing on forums over it, think about why. Come back with that, rather than this inane, "If you aren't doing X, you are a horrible, power-tripping, player-screwing GM". It's uncalled for.

[TheLonewolfA]

Also, Mad Hamish:

The book states: "When a particular limb is used for a test (such as leading an attack with a cyberarm), use the attribute for that limb (natural or cyber)."

So even if I used a katana in two hands, the right arm is still leading the attack.

[All4BigGuns]

Pistols skill has one of the most awesome weapons in the game (though it requires Restricted Gear in character generation). The HK Urban Fighter, a heavy pistol that is at a base completely silenced and totally immune to both MAD scanners and chemical sniffing devices.

[Whiskeyjack]

Re: Negative Qualities - if you get points for them, expect them to come up. I'm not talking things like Scorched where if you get hit in cybercombat things could be worse for you. I'm talking things like Ork/Elf Poser, Dependent, In Debt, Records on File, etc. Things which could reasonably be used as plot hooks or exploited by enemies or corporate employers for their own gain. Obviously some Qualities are better suited for story fodder than others but I think you should assume that if you take one that does have story fodder, it can and will be used as such.

This is part of why I like systems like L5R and Burning Wheel: when your negative stuff comes up in game, you get rewards (usually bonus XP) for it. It creates some incentive to be smart about flaws that could affect the character and rewards you for bringing up or dealing with the bad stuff you chose.

Pistols skill has one of the most awesome weapons in the game (though it requires Restricted Gear in character generation). The HK Urban Fighter, a heavy pistol that is at a base completely silenced and totally immune to both MAD scanners and chemical sniffing devices.

I am tempted to say you could modify a machine pistol to do the same but I'm away from books right now.

[All4BigGuns]

To my knowledge there's not a weapon mod to account for the special "chemical block" of the Urban Fighter. There's ceramic components for the other, but I don't think even Restricted Gear could get you the level of the mod to make another gun equal to the Urban Fighter in that regard.

[Captain Karzak]

Now you're just being a dick. PPP is explicitly available as discreet protection. FFBA is only discreet by virtue of being thin, custom-tailored and not extending beyond your other armour / clothing. And then some people just want the 6/2 armour.

That sounds pretty damn discrete to me.

Look, in older editions there used to be concealability ratings for things that weren't weapons. Form Fitting Body armor, like most equipment in SR4A, is recycled from previous editions. From the (revised) Street Samuri Catalogue, Level 1 FFBA is a vest that is impossible to detect as armor (no roll allowed). Level 2 (covers 60% of the body) has a rating of 15, which is hugely good, and on par with the most discrete piece of securetech clothing (which is armor disguised as regular clothing). Level 3 (covers 90% of the body) has a concealability of 12, which is still really, really, good, and more discrete that some of the securetech clothing options - like the jacket (12) or longcoat (10).

So FFBA is NOT that strange body condom that you linked to.

Makes sense. For the record, my GM is pretty awesome. We've been playing WoD games for years, just now both trying Shadowrun for the first time, with our regular group.

That's good to hear.

Did you guys play nWoD or oWoD?

[TheLonewolfA]

oWoD: Vampire, Werewolf, and Hunter. Had a Brujah for the modern VtM games, Ravnos for Dark Ages, A Get of Fenris Ahroun for WtA, and a Martyr for the brief time we played Hunter.

[All4BigGuns]

oWoD: Vampire, Werewolf, and Hunter. Had a Brujah for the modern VtM games, Ravnos for Dark Ages, A Get of Fenris Ahroun for WtA, and a Martyr for the brief time we played Hunter.

I got someone to let me play a Fianna who by blood was actually White Howler with the goal of trying to refound the tribe. Had maxed Pure Breed and Immune to Wyrm Emanations.

[TheLonewolfA]

Now THAT'S ridiculous, lol.  I thought my Fenrir was a little munchkinny. Yeesh.

[All4BigGuns]

Now THAT'S ridiculous, lol.  I thought my Fenrir was a little munchkinny. Yeesh.

The Pure Breed, I thought was appropriate so she could have a good spirit contact that somehow evaded the corruption of the tribe, and the Immune to Wyrm Emanations was a ST requirement to be "pure" rather than a Spiral.

[TheLonewolfA]

Hey, if you got your ST to let ya, more power to ya, man.  I've always been more of the mind that the Howlers are dead, and if one were to pop up somewhere, the Spirals'd stamp 'em out pretty quick.

[All4BigGuns]

Hey, if you got your ST to let ya, more power to ya, man.  I've always been more of the mind that the Howlers are dead, and if one were to pop up somewhere, the Spirals'd stamp 'em out pretty quick.

Oh, I took Hunted too for a similar reason as the Immune to Wyrm Emanations, as well as a little zero point flaw that must've been in an old edition or something because I couldn't actually find it in any Third Ed. books. You ever hear of "Lost Pup"?

[TheLonewolfA]

No, actually. Must be pre-3rd ed.

[All4BigGuns]

And as to wanting to play one, I'd been wanting to ever since I'd heard about 'em because I thought they were cool. Did kinda annoy the ST though a little, I did quite a bit of Umbral exploration because he isn't all that comfortable with the stuff for being in the Umbra.  Got a really lucky pair of rolls with her though. Two-shotted (in one round) a Nexus Crawler.