The Gaming Den

I still maintain, what you pictured is the crossbow that can already be put into cyberlimbs.

And again:
1) The difference between normal bow and cross bow is in the fact that one of them works by you spanning the string and letting it go (Bows) and one works by cocking a string into a latch and releasing it through pressing a trigger (Cross Bows). this is the only thing determining whether you have a Bow or a Cross Bow:
Do you hold it and fire by letting go? It's a bow.
If it's held by a mechanism and you fire it by pressing a trigger? Crossbow

2) AFAIS you can't put crossbows or normal bows into cyberlimbs.
Dartguns? Yes.
Fingertip dartguns? Yes.
Guns? Yes.
Bows or Crossbows? No
If the German versions have changed this and given stats for cyberweapon (Cross-)Bows, please give me a page and book.

Would it be possible to run a literal Magic Run Shadowrun game, where everyone is some form of Awakened at chargen, and still manage to make each character mechanically distinct as well as capable of meeting core competencies of the other archetypes? If so, how? If not, what would need to be changed to make it work?

Assume SR4+EotM.

Mask_De_H wrote:Would it be possible to run a literal Magic Run Shadowrun game, where everyone is some form of Awakened at chargen, and still manage to make each character mechanically distinct as well as capable of meeting core competencies of the other archetypes? If so, how? If not, what would need to be changed to make it work?

Assume SR4+EotM.

Easily. The Spellcasting skill is the most versatile and powerful skills in the game. But it is versatile and powerful because it lets you do whatever the spells you happen to know do. There are enough spells that are extremely good that it would be realistic to expect a team of 5 mage runners to have 2-3 spells that no one else on the team had without people having to take any bad spells or incredibly niche spells. On the Conjuring front, things are much more cramped, because there are only 10 spirit types (assuming no one is doing something crazy like playing an Insect mage), and they aren't distributed evenly enough that you can easily have 5 runners who each have 4 common spirit types and one unique spirit type on their roster. I mean, you can theoretically do that, but it would be really hard and probably require players to design a few traditions from scratch. On the other hand, if you consider Possession spirit types different from Materialization spirit types, it's pretty easy to have a five mages where two are possession traditions and three are materialization traditions where each mage has at least one spirit they can summon that no one else on the team can replicate.

And since Mages are strapped for build points because they have to buy Magic attributes and Magic skills and spells and shit, it's pretty easy to have other kinds of skills be effectively exclusive. It's quite expensive to be a magic hacker, so probably only one character is going to do that.

-Username17

Going over my last post:
Collapsible Bow:
First option would be to make it far pricier. 500n¥/Rating while making the Damage R+0 to account for the far faster time. Too Costly?
Second one would be to make the building gradual. So you need at least one CT to deploy it which would make it start at R2. Each additional CT spent increases the effective Rating by 2, so that even the highest bow is built fully in 5 CTs. Too Fast? Too slow?
Third one is making it a extended Test with Interval of 1CT using a free action to attempt to roll. They would roll AGI+Armorer (Because I think it makes sense that a quicker person can build it faster, and because a person with experience in mending/changing weapons has a good feel for how to best assemble it). Once they have reached a threshold (I'm thinking 4 or 5) they have built the bow. Does the test make sense to you? Is the threshold fine?
Fourth one is of course keeping it the way it is. Do you think this is fine? Keeping bows as something that's either obvious or slow to assemble, keeping them for when you need to be stealthy and guns when you need to be quick?

Implanted Bow:
Given that light Crossbows do 3P and medium Crossbows do 5P I'd say it does 4P. With a Free Action you can let the bow pop out. Like normal bows it is both nearly silent and pretty much unexpected so you need to get 4 hits to hear it. Due to non-magnetic materials it is invisible to MAD scanners. People searching for it need to make a INT+Perception(4) test to notice the covers. It is however easy to spot on Microwave scanners, meaning that they only need a threshold of 1/2 (I'm tending towards 1) to notice it.
Do you think this is well balanced? Too strong? Too weak?

Arrow compartment:
I'd make it take a small modification (100 n¥) to install a hole in the hand that is retractable. It reduces the Ready Weapon Action of the Bow to a Free Action. Only normal arrows can be stored and extracted, so no special arrowheads.
Does this sound fine?

Ready-to-make Arrows:
I'm not exactly sure but my gut feeling is that a spring shaped projectile is a stupid idea, both from an aerodynamical standpoint and from an archery standpoint. So it's most likely a long band, wound up, to be portioned. On command they turn hard. I'd say that they do less damage than normal arrows (so a -1 on damage) but are better at piercing armor (so -1 or -2 AP) and very hard to detect. The point is that they are weaker than normal arrows (on average -1/3 point of damage) but are extremely hard to notice, both because of the materials (non-magnetic) and the form (a metal disk/short cylinder). Is this worth it?

Followup question: would Adepts be able to meaningfully contribute to a game like this? If so, how? If not, how could they be brought up to snuff?

FrankTrollman wrote:

Mask_De_H wrote:Would it be possible to run a literal Magic Run Shadowrun game, where everyone is some form of Awakened at chargen, and still manage to make each character mechanically distinct as well as capable of meeting core competencies of the other archetypes? If so, how? If not, what would need to be changed to make it work?

Assume SR4+EotM.

Easily. The Spellcasting skill is the most versatile and powerful skills in the game. But it is versatile and powerful because it lets you do whatever the spells you happen to know do. There are enough spells that are extremely good that it would be realistic to expect a team of 5 mage runners to have 2-3 spells that no one else on the team had without people having to take any bad spells or incredibly niche spells. On the Conjuring front, things are much more cramped, because there are only 10 spirit types (assuming no one is doing something crazy like playing an Insect mage), and they aren't distributed evenly enough that you can easily have 5 runners who each have 4 common spirit types and one unique spirit type on their roster. I mean, you can theoretically do that, but it would be really hard and probably require players to design a few traditions from scratch. On the other hand, if you consider Possession spirit types different from Materialization spirit types, it's pretty easy to have a five mages where two are possession traditions and three are materialization traditions where each mage has at least one spirit they can summon that no one else on the team can replicate.

And since Mages are strapped for build points because they have to buy Magic attributes and Magic skills and spells and shit, it's pretty easy to have other kinds of skills be effectively exclusive. It's quite expensive to be a magic hacker, so probably only one character is going to do that.

-Username17

In fact, Frank ran such a game. It was quite successful with four mages, five might have actually worked better.

Having everyone be a mage solves more problems than the restricted character-concept space creates:
[*] The party doesn't have to split up when you astrally project and etc.
[*] Everyone knows Physical Mask, so you can infiltrate the base together.
and so on.

Mask_De_H wrote:Followup question: would Adepts be able to meaningfully contribute to a game like this? If so, how? If not, how could they be brought up to snuff?

They would be doing the magical street sam role i'd guess.
If you have a phys ad that specializes in any given area and a mage with spells that are good for buffing that area of expertise, then the synergetic effects of that can and happily will break the game.

See a sneak adept that gets silence cast on him for example. Or invisibility.
Or gets bestowed with the concealment power of a spirit summoned by a mage.
A Sneak Adept with the improved invisibility spell cast on him and bestowed upon with concealment by a spirit can literally just walk up into the black pyramid in seattle and start unloading with a minigun and they would not immediately find him.

Or the combat adept that gets a cast of attribute boost or armor or improve aim.

The hacking adept with the improved device spell or improved attribute spell.

Hell, even a simple healing spell to keep them going would greatly benefit them in almost all cases.

DrPraetor wrote:Having everyone be a mage solves more problems than the restricted character-concept space creates:
[*] The party doesn't have to split up when you astrally project and etc.
[*] Everyone knows Physical Mask, so you can infiltrate the base together.
and so on.

This would be great, and would also have an interesting space for a no-magic PC in the group (aka Togusa).

When you want to increase an attribute which you have augmented with Karma, is the cost based on your natural attribute or the total?
If e.g. I have AGI 3 and Muscle Toner 2 giving me AGI 3(5), is the cost to raise it 12 (4*3 Karma) or 18 (6*3 Karma)?

Natural.

How would you balance elves with the other metatypes?
Because AFAIS they cost 30BP, but those go 1:1 into AGI (Godstat) and CHA (Secondary Godstat), and they get Low-Light Vision on top for free
The way I see it there is no good reason to take a human over an elf

Trill wrote:How would you balance elves with the other metatypes?
Because AFAIS they cost 30BP, but those go 1:1 into AGI (Godstat) and CHA (Secondary Godstat), and they get Low-Light Vision on top for free
The way I see it there is no good reason to take a human over an elf

You don't need to. Orks are the master race of SR4. For mere 20BP they get 3 points of Body, 2 points of strength and thermal vision. Thermal vision is better than Low-Light Vision. Having Str 3 is great for everyone including mages, because more Str lets you wear more armor. Same goes for Body, and everyone wants to buy at least Body 3 anyway for another health box.

Being an ork may not give you higher caps to god stats, but it literally gives you 30 BP on top of the stats you would have bought anyway. The basic human package of Body 3 Str 2 is more expensive than just being an ork.

Longes wrote:Having Str 3 is great for everyone including mages, because more Str lets you wear more armor.

Err.

SR4A, page 161 wrote:Too much armor, however, can slow a character down. If either of
a character’s armor ratings exceeds his Body x 2, apply a –1 modifier
to Agility and Reaction for every 2 points (or fraction thereof) that
his Body x 2 is exceeded. Note that this may affect Initiative as well. If
a character is wearing multiple armor items, add their ratings together
before comparing to Body.

@Longes
Nope, Orks and Elves get low light.
Trolls and Dorfs get Infra Dead vision.

Fair enough, I misremembered. Everyone still wants to buy Strength 2 to avoid being fucked by GMs who fuck you for having a 1 in an attribute, as well as to carry more than 10kg of stuff. I will agree that Str 3 is excessive for most characters, but it's still cheaper to be an ork with Edge 2 than to be a human with Body 4 and Str 2.

Longes wrote:Everyone still wants to buy Strength 2 to avoid being fucked by GMs who fuck you for having a 1 in an attribute, as well as to carry more than 10kg of stuff.

I can understand people at least needing an explanation for why your character is literally the dumbest person ever, or least charismatic, or whatever (and I've seen GMs who are assholes, and they would be extra-assholey about that), but we have gyms now because there's no reason for most people to carry anything heavy or be particularly active. If you live in a future where drones and/or the SINless do all of the actual work, dump-statting strength is reasonably justifiable. Especially for mages who know the levitate spell.

Now I want to play an aggressively lazy mage who mostly learns spells that make his life easier (magic fingers to drink and throw grenades, levitate to get up the stairs, spirits for everything else), and has to take up shadowrunning/walking because he can't keep a real job.

The only reason I can think of to play a human is to have 7 (or 8, with lucky) edge, or for roleplaying reasons. Or, I guess, because your GM/group has decided to play up the racism between metatypes, which is the only time humans are the best.

Or because you want to spend your points on something else but race.
Which, i guess, could be seen as a fort of racism at it's best . .

If you want to play an Intuition mage (best combat mage), then orks are still better than elves. As a combat mage you don't care about Agility or Charisma beyond the passable minimum, and being an ork still gives you free points compared to being an elf.

The only reasons for being an elf over ork are:
* Roleplaying
* Charisma build
* Hyper-focused agility build that is really pushing for all the dice you can possibly get at the expense of everything else

Aside from that, orks just give you a perfect baseline for any build and then free points on top of that. The game literally pays you for being an ork.

Yep, and one could make a strong argument that the best stat in the game is actually Intuition rather than Agility or Charisma anyway. Agility and Charisma are both great stats that are capable of defining what your character brings to the team but ultimately Intuition is more like a flat out requirement--it's a huge part of how you go first and find the clues. It's not sexy, but I've never had any real cause to regret taking 5 Intuition, an Attention Coprocessor and a tricked pair of eyeballs. It's a fucking cyberpunk game; Vegas won't even take odds on whether you'll run into a pissed off yakuza cyber ninja at some point.

When using Gymnastics Dodge, do you add the skill or the dice pool?

Trill wrote:When using Gymnastics Dodge, do you add the skill or the dice pool?

Skill.

Does that mean that Synthacardium doesn't add its rating?

Also: Suprathyroid Gland: Good Bioware or GREAT Bioware?

Trill wrote:Does that mean that Synthacardium doesn't add its rating?

Also: Suprathyroid Gland: Good Bioware or GREAT Bioware?

Synthacardium adds its rating because dodge is a dicepool where you are using the skill when you gymnastic dodge.

Suprathyroid is... it's OK. Physical stats in general are rather overpriced, so getting them cheap is not as big a deal as getting mental attributes cheaply would be.

-Username17

Suprathyroid Gland was one of the Must Haves of SR3.
SR4 did changed that quite a bit.