Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 6:19 pm

An observation; a mage summoning a Force 10 guardian spirit, then handing them a bow built for their strength, is freaking devastating.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 8:37 pm

huh?
having a spirit like that shoot arrows is a retarded waste of power O.o

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 9:45 pm

I'm completely new to Shadowrun, except for what I've skimmed through threads like this. There's possibly going to be a (sigh) Shadowrun 5 game that I'll be playing in, and I think everyone there is a first-timer. My hope is that, barring successful lobbying for SR4 or SR4A, most of SR5's shittiness is just noise and we mostly get the cool SR4 themes and core system.

My question as a newbie is sorting through chargen. At a first glance, hacking and rigging look pretty cool. Drones are neat, cyberguns are neat, it seems like it'd be fun to do that. But then I look at the sample rigger, and notice that they get to deal with all the fourteen billion gear entries before they get to do anything at all. So is there a quick rundown of how to quickly write up Baby's First Rigger?

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 10:33 pm

Hacking seems as broken in SR5 as it has been in every other version. Don't go there, it leads to tears and everyone else going out for pizza.

I glanced at SR5, but in general there are a couple of things a rigger does in SR: Be the guys who drives vehicles, be the guy who remotely controls weapon platforms and being the guy who runs recon stuff. You can combine them all in one character, but what is the main thing you want to do?

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 10:43 pm

Weapons platforms, definitely. Recon stuff and shooting my own guns if necessary would be distant secondary considerations.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 12:08 am

Cyber-Guns are just not worth it.
Built in Weaponry rarely is really.

As for the sample characters: fuck that noise, ignore them, they are completely broken on principle in every incarnation of shadowrun.
And not in the good way usually.

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 4:29 am

It seems like the main thing, at chargen, since I apparently can get anything up to Availability 12 but nothing beyond that, is to grab a Rating 2 rigger interface, a Rating 2 command center, a few rotodrones, a vehicle, and then random peripheral stuff.

ETA: Autosofts for drones look pretty useful, since giving them beefy bonuses to Perception, Evasion, and Gunnery sounds good. Especially since you can give them to all your drones simultaneously by loading them onto your RCC. However, I don't see anywhere in the Rigger chapter or the Gear chapter where it actually says how much those autosofts cost or what their Availability is. Conceivably this information might be in the Matrix chapter, but I'd rather not slog through it.

Also, while obviously sample characters are all terrible, is the sample Rigger specifically terrible in that she doesn't actually have an RCC at all? How does she have twelve drones and no command console?

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 8:32 am

FrankTrollman wrote:It's totally hax. There are a few items in Arsenal that are totally unfair. That would be one of them.

Ah yes, nice to learn about that, I was wondering what are the other unfair items in Arsenal?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 1:39 am

This is for 4E, what kind of action does it take to activate the ruthenium coating on your armor? Can you drop an IR smoke grenade (set to explode on impact) and activate it at the same time so you can go into full stealth in the same IP?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 11:38 am

Depends.
Simple switch, simple action.
Connected via DNI? Free action.

@Grenade:
Explode on Impact detonate at the End of the Round i think?
Not quite sure about that. SR rounds are 3 Seconds long so . .

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 4:14 pm

When it comes to NPC mages; when they're described as a Grade 2 Initiate, what is their implied Magic score? Do NPCs commonly work like PCs and buy their Magic to maximum before initiating? This is in the context of either (or both) setting or 4E w/EotM house-rules.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 4:44 pm

virgil wrote:When it comes to NPC mages; when they're described as a Grade 2 Initiate, what is their implied Magic score? Do NPCs commonly work like PCs and buy their Magic to maximum before initiating? This is in the context of either (or both) setting or 4E w/EotM house-rules.

AFAIK, average magician is supposed to have a magic rating of about 3-4.

My question: how can I make a necromancer in SR4?

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 5:04 pm

Longes wrote:My question: how can I make a necromancer in SR4?

Play a Mage of a possession tradition and summon/bind spirits to possess corpses.

Edit: corrected quote tags

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 8:54 pm

virgil wrote:When it comes to NPC mages; when they're described as a Grade 2 Initiate, what is their implied Magic score? Do NPCs commonly work like PCs and buy their Magic to maximum before initiating? This is in the context of either (or both) setting or 4E w/EotM house-rules.

I'd expect a magic rating of 6-8, probably 7-8.

JesterZero · Post by **JesterZero** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 3:11 am

virgil wrote:When it comes to NPC mages; when they're described as a Grade 2 Initiate, what is their implied Magic score? Do NPCs commonly work like PCs and buy their Magic to maximum before initiating? This is in the context of either (or both) setting or 4E w/EotM house-rules.

There's really not a definitive answer. Offhand, you're dealing with three questions:

What was their starting Magic stat?
What (if any) augmentations have reduced that stat?
What is their initiate grade, and does that grade actually indicate that they've bought up their Magic rating to its full potential?

Going off the material in Street Legends (I know, I know...that's suspect in the extreme), we've got the following:

Essence 6 / Initiate 3 / Magic 8
Essence 4 / Initiate 2 / Magic 6
Essence 6 / Initiate 3 / Magic 7
Essence 6 / Initiate 5 / Magic 11
Essence 5.6 / Initiate 1 / Magic 7 (I see the no-editing fairy has visited us here)
Essence 6 / Initiate 6 / Magic 10
Essence 5.7 / Initiate 5 / Magic 9
Essence 6 / Initiate 5 / Magic 11
etc. (stopping now...I hate this book)

I'm not including IE nonsense because those are obviously outliers. All that to say, "legendary" NPCs seem to be running anywhere from 0 to 2 points under their potential Magic maximums when it comes to their Grade. You might want to knock that down a tad more for more run-of-the-mill opposition.

At least that gives you some numbers, however questionable they might be.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat Mar 22, 2014 4:55 am

When it comes to NPC mages; when they're described as a Grade 2 Initiate, what is their implied Magic score? Do NPCs commonly work like PCs and buy their Magic to maximum before initiating? This is in the context of either (or both) setting or 4E w/EotM house-rules.

FWIW I've never seen a PC in a game I've actually played in keep their Magic attribute maxed out. The karma cost for improving it is so high, and those first few initiations are dirt cheap by comparison while getting you access to the first few metamagics (ie the ones you want the most anyway).

I've always seen a character get anywhere from 2-4 initiations before raising magic past 6. (and that assumes a starting magic of 6. If they start with 4 or 5, they'll still initiate several times before buying up an extra magic point. There's nothing special about 6 magic besides that being what you can buy up to using the cheaper BP formula at character generation)

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Mar 24, 2014 2:26 pm

Related question. If said Initiate 3 mage is wealthy, has several items from his personal vault of rare/obscure magic miscellany robbed from (they grabbed literally randomly, which I didn't plan for, so I need to figure out what they got), and assenses the mage shadowrunner (with her F10 spirit's one service of Concealment running) before immediate escape; what are the chances/options for tracking the runner down?

EDIT: I am currently using the SR4 and not the SR4A book for my game. Should I use the latter's rule for a cumulative -1 per roll for extended tests? Or should I just use Frank's house rule of "roll once, divide threshold by hits for effective # of tests"?

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Mon Mar 24, 2014 3:53 pm

They are likely going to be dead unless they ran like hell and hid inside a big ward.

Spirit uses search power (20 dice extended test....), locates them shortly in their hideout, then goes back to mage. If that fails spirit uses astral tracking from the mage to where the focus is located.

Mage casts improved invis on the spirit, spirit materializes while they sleep and rips them into little pieces. Mage walks in, picks up his stuff and goes home humming a tune.

F10 spirits are essentially unstoppable without a powerful mage, HtH adept with a weapon focus or the use of heavy weapons. And the you won't make the minimum arming range for an anti-tank rocket in your average bedroom.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Mar 24, 2014 3:59 pm

kzt wrote:They are likely going to be dead unless they ran like hell and hid inside a big ward.

Spirit uses search power (20 dice extended test....), locates them shortly in their hideout, then goes back to mage. If that fails spirit uses astral tracking from the mage to where the focus is located.

The F10 spirit was the runner's, not the mage they pissed off. And the runner did in fact run home in a truck with F7 Movement on it, specifically to hide behind a F6 ward while having the Concealment continue to run (-6 Ward, -10 Concealment). The mage subsequently chose to stay invisible and behind the ward for several days afterward.

The mage they pissed off has 8 magic. Since I'm using Frank's spirit house rules, the biggest spirit he can summon is F13 (Magic + 5 instead of Magicx2), and its mental stats are 2 or 3 depending on whether it's bound. That means the absolute largest Search dicepool available to the mage is 16...which is equal to penalty being maintained by the runner for the next couple days.

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Mon Mar 24, 2014 4:09 pm

Then if you are a big time NPC mage you get you magical group to do ritual magic. This gets interesting....

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Mar 24, 2014 5:03 pm

1. Since he knows the runner's aura, he can send spirits with Search to track them down.
2. One or more of the items might be linked to the magician. In that case he can find them.
3. Pull on his contacts. Rare magical stuff will be easily tracked, if the runners try to fence it.
4. RFID tags.
5. Unless the runners sterilized the place, he can probably find some hair or something, and do big bad rituals.
6. Depending on the stuff, just wait until something goes "BOOM!" and go there.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Mar 24, 2014 6:27 pm

I would like to scale the actual response to that of the party's own actions. While it's possible for the mage who saw them to make a symbolic focus (had given the mage Linking metamagic & is a Grade 3 initiate), the question is how big and dedicated the response should be.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Mar 24, 2014 7:42 pm

virgil wrote:I would like to scale the actual response to that of the party's own actions. While it's possible for the mage who saw them to make a symbolic focus (had given the mage Linking metamagic & is a Grade 3 initiate), the question is how big and dedicated the response should be.

Well, that depends on how much the mage wants his stuff back. It can range from "Call the police and give them aura reading and camera footage" to "Let slip the dogs of war and summon (Charisma) Force 13 spirits, hire a couple of shadowrunners' teams, and stunball the city from orbit". He can also just buy his stuff back, if he is a wuss, or really really needs his stuff. Depending on how personal this is, he can just find the runners, and ask them nicely to give his stuff back.

I'd probably start with him sending a spirit to ask nicely, and if when the runners refuse, wreck their shit.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 5:40 pm

Been reading Street Magic, and I'm wanting to verify something. If a mundane obtains a free spirit's true name, can they make the a formula and summon the spirit with it? In addition, it says the binding is an opposed test with "Willpower + Binding skill (if any)"; does the 'if any' mean a mundane can make the test to bind the spirit as well?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 5:49 pm

virgil wrote:Been reading Street Magic, and I'm wanting to verify something. If a mundane obtains a free spirit's true name, can they make the a formula and summon the spirit with it? In addition, it says the binding is an opposed test with "Willpower + Binding skill (if any)"; does the 'if any' mean a mundane can make the test to bind the spirit as well?

Yes and also yes. I wrote that bit, but it basically already worked like that back in first edition. All I did was consolidate all the True Name and Hidden Life stuff into a single "formula" concept.

-Username17