Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

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Trill
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Post by Trill »

FrankTrollman wrote:Synthacardium adds its rating because dodge is a dicepool where you are using the skill when you gymnastic dodge.
?
The description of Synthacardium says:
CRB p.339 wrote:The synthacar-
dium adds its rating as a dice pool modifier on all Athletics
Tests.
Which are skills in the Athletics Group (Climbing, Flight, Gymnastics, Running, Swimming), not Dodge. And if Gymnastic dodge only adds the skill then Synthacardium makes no difference since it doesn't modify the actual skill rating, only giving a DPM

Or does using Gymnastics make it a Athletics Test?
Last edited by Trill on Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Whipstitch »

It applies because an athletics test is just a test that uses a skill in the athletics skill group umbrella. People try to make tortured arguments that Gym Dodge is a "defense test" instead and synth bonuses shouldn't qualify but that doesn't pass the smell test because "defense test" isn't a defined term in the rules and because it would be the only area where I'm aware of ppl getting fucked out of their bonuses by double secret test subcategories. I wouldn't be surprised if synth dodge stacking was unintended because writers weren't talking and some old ware was grandfathered in but by the raw it should be in.
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Post by Iduno »

I've always heard gymnastic dodge is great, but it looks like it takes an action, where regular dodge is free. If you're facing someone worth spending an action on, you can get reaction+dodge+dodge, which is probably lower than but still comparable to agility+gymnastics+boosters. Having the flexibility to dodge without using an action seems like a better deal.

What am I missing.
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Post by Trill »

Iduno wrote:reaction+dodge+dodge
That's Full Defense against Melee. And yeah, if you have a good Dodge you might get a better dice pool.
But Full Defense against Ranged is just Reaction+Dodge. And you have the same dice pool with REA 5 Dodge 5 and REA 5 Gymnastics 2 Synthacardium 3
Which costs you far less.

And Dodge is only used for Defense, while Gymnastics also makes you great at general gymnastics(tightrope walking, jumping, keeping balance). So with the same rating you get more if you invest in Gymnastics
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Post by Korwin »

Iduno wrote:I've always heard gymnastic dodge is great, but it looks like it takes an action, where regular dodge is free. If you're facing someone worth spending an action on, you can get reaction+dodge+dodge, which is probably lower than but still comparable to agility+gymnastics+boosters. Having the flexibility to dodge without using an action seems like a better deal.

What am I missing.

If I remember correctly:

Meele Full defense:
Rea + Dodge + Dodge
or
Rea + Gym + Melee Skill

Ranged Full defense:
Rea + Dodge
or
Rea + Gym

And you can push Gym more with cyberware.
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Post by Trill »

Not exactly:
Melee Full Defense:
REA+Dodge+Dodge or
REA+Dodge+Gym or
REA+Dodge+(Weapon Skill) or
REA+(Weapon Skill)+(Weapon Skill)

Ranged Full Defense:
REA+Dodge or
REA+Gym

Dodge is useful if you are often in Melee ranged fights, since you always add it to your defense pool and have three means to add to it in full defense. But if you are sufficiently capable of using your melee weapon you may use that in Full defense.

And of course in Ranged fights it is in direct competition with Gymnastics which is easier to get, easier to push and more useful outside of fights
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Post by Trill »

Am I reading it correctly that the more ware you have, the easier a Cyberware scanner can find you?
Is there a way to shut them down/avoid them like you can do with MAD?
And how common should they be?
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Post by Whipstitch »

Yeah, Dodge's biggest selling point is that it's one stop shopping for second line combatants who want to save money or essence while still having a passive defense pool in case some random ganger tries shanking them. Basically, people don't take Dodge because it's better than a combo of Gymnastics, Unarmed and Synthacardium, they take Dodge because they're riggers or mages and want to stay under specific point caps.
Last edited by Whipstitch on Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Iduno »

Trill wrote:Am I reading it correctly that the more ware you have, the easier a Cyberware scanner can find you?
Is there a way to shut them down/avoid them like you can do with MAD?
And how common should they be?
Yes, more cyberware causes the scanner to be more likely to find you.

I guess you would install one everywhere that you want an alarm to go off for every 4th person so you can check why they have cyberware and what type it is, and are okay with some false positives because it's only one layer in the security and people expect to wait anyway (airports or Denver checkpoints where security is looking for combat cyberware), or places where you for some reason want only non-cybered people to enter (I cannot think of an example). If you consider the effect on the world: long lines at the security check-point because cyberware is supposed to be common in the world, there are not a lot of places where it would be reasonable to implement. Can you imagine the corps wanting people to waste the first hour of work waiting in line for security to determine if they installed new cybereyes?

Also, if you're a GM or JH that hates non-mages, you'd put them everywhere. Because you are terrible.
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Post by Iduno »

I noticed in Augmentation that Cybermancy is described as blood magic, but requires metamagics for Invoking (greatform spirits) and Corruption (toxic spirits).

Is it a blood magic variant of Corruption, some weird mistake, or am I missing something?
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Post by Stahlseele »

The simplest explanation would be that the Fluff and the Crunch just do not match up again.
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Post by Username17 »

Iduno wrote:I noticed in Augmentation that Cybermancy is described as blood magic, but requires metamagics for Invoking (greatform spirits) and Corruption (toxic spirits).

Is it a blood magic variant of Corruption, some weird mistake, or am I missing something?
This is an example of "Frank is always right." The editor put in those metamagic choices because he thought they sounded cool. I said "Hey, that is not in fact how Corruption works" and was overruled because he thought that it sounded cool. There is literally zero Shadowrun magic theory as to why or how Corruption is involved.

Of course, I was against Corruption from the beginning, because it doesn't have consistent mechanics. But what are you gonna do?

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Post by Iduno »

What am I gonna do? Probably just pretend "corruption" in that section is a very bad misspelling of "sacrifice," because at least that makes sense and takes no effort on my part.

Invoking doesn't work the way it needs to for cybermancy either, but it involves spirits, so whatever. Some sort of essence trap would be better, but I don't think that's a thing.
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Post by Stahlseele »

Binding?
Technically you kill somebody by overloading them with cyberware.
And before their Essence can leave the burned out husk you made it,
you trap it and bind it into its own old rotting corpse.
Last edited by Stahlseele on Wed Nov 08, 2017 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Post by Whipstitch »

I could get behind cybermancy requiring Doctor Blight but yeah, it's pretty weird how often they manage to trip over details and make things unnecessarily complicated. I'd be cool with making cyberzombies by performing blood sacrifices in a toxic domain but instead they did dumb things.

Plus, it always kinda bugged me that taint and corruption exist as separate metamagics when I feel like it's something you should just be able to do with banishing or geomancy or whatever if you happen to be a toxic mage. Thematically Toxic magic is basically supposed to be falling to the dark side but with Captain Planet villains instead of Sith lords. So it's weird to me that an Initiated magician who goes toxic arguably needs to go to Evil Wizard School for a while before they can do the bad versions of shit they already know.
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Post by Coldstone »

Salutations all. Fan of Shadowrun (in concept), and someone who has been scouring on how to fix 4e matrix forever. >.<

In an amusing (if slightly embarrassing) twist, in my efforts to try and clean up the matrix and organize it, I went looking up various puzzles I kept finding to look for answers. I had actually run across EoTM once before... but including the bits on brainhacking, at first I thought it was a bad idea and moved onward. later, I found other references going back to suggest it, as well as Frank's original role with SR to begin with, and when I found it again, I realized I had skipped over something quite handy - Frank!

So, I have reviewed EoTM much more thoroughly, along with reading many things Frank has said about SR stuff in general. It's helped me to work on some cleanup for future games I might deal with in the future, but there are a few things with EoTM I'm having struggles with.

Keep in mind I have been reading/skimming this stuff for like 3 days straight now looking for nuggets of information, including the last compiled pdf of it (4.3 I believe). It is possible I missed answers to some of these, and in other cases, it may be it's not actually mentioned, but assumed since EoTm is adapted partly off the concept of how magic works. My apologies if I bring up things that have in fact been answered before.

1) Hack-on-the-Fly and Threading: There is a couple ways to read this feature, so the main question is: are all hack/threadings considered 'emulated, one time use' moments, or is that in reference to programs made from scratch? does the -2 penalty for use apply in both instances, or only to the one built entirely from scratch?

1.b) If threading/hacking on an existing program is not one use, how is it sustained? Counts against number of sustainable actions versus system like some program actions? I'm guessing it's most the one time version since otherwise a person could basically 'augment' a bunch of programs and hold them like that, which seems a bit too cheesy.

2) Program Rating: Programs are capped at the system(?) rating, at least when it comes to hack on the fly and threading. Does it hard cap the general program too, or can you put a high quality program on a machine with a low system? Does this mean the 'Resonance' rating on complex forms gets pushed down to match logic (system) for technomancers if so? (note: I just reread the bit where it mentions limitations under Response, when it doesn't mention it under system. Having seen that, I recall a post pointing this out, but as that would take digging to find -again- I'll just ask what it is here while I check notes later. ^^; )
EDIT: So, I found a reply by Lokathor to this question stating that system is the overall cap of the program rating, but response caps how high you can augment a program in general. If that is the case...well, confirmation is always handy, but otherwise that counts as an answer to this part.

2.b) Technomancer response is equal to intuition and system to logic. whichever version controls the rating level, since CF are defaulted to a rating matching their resonance (regardless of whether it lowers the cap to match the stat or not), if the number is otherwise the same or higher than that stat, you can't actually thread it anyways, right? The main point of threading is basically to pull together a program you don't have learned yet, right?

Mini edit: Also, if there is possible example sources of things of the system in use that is linkable or such, that would be handy as well. Seeing the system 'in action' would help a bit in following it all. >.<
Last edited by Coldstone on Fri Nov 10, 2017 6:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Trill »

I'm pretty sure this is more fitting for the EotM thread than the general SR4 thread
Mord, on Cosmic Horror wrote:Today if I say to the man on the street, "Did you know that the world you live in is a fragile veneer of normality over an uncaring universe, that we could all die at any moment at the whim of beings unknown to us for reasons having nothing to do with ourselves, and that as far as the rest of the universe is concerned, nothing anyone ever did with their life has ever mattered?" his response, if any, will be "Yes, of course; now if you'll excuse me, I need to retweet Sonic the Hedgehog." What do you even do with that?
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Post by Coldstone »

Hmm, I suppose so. I did it here cause this seemed more active at the time, and technically it was SR4 too, but yeah, given what it's about that does make more sense. I'm gonna blame mass reading for not thinking that through. Thank ye. ^^;

After finally easing up a bit on reading, I think things are settling more in head, so I may re-ask them in a different light over there late.
Last edited by Coldstone on Tue Nov 14, 2017 6:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Zaranthan »

We actually like necro'd threads around here. Keeps the old conversation handy when discussing new ideas.
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Post by Stahlseele »

And it looks a bit more tidy to have a dozend gargantuan threads instead of hundreds of less than one page Question:Anser threads.
Even if it is exceedingly rare around these parts that a threat will stay at that.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Post by Trill »

So something that I thought was insufficiently explained was the mana cycle in Shadowrun. I know that the current world (at the time of SR1) was the fifth world, that on 2012 the sixth world would begin (with magic), that the fourth world was the world of Earthdawn (a few missing things notwithstanding) and that the mana works like a sine curve with the negative parts flattened to zero.
But the questions are:
  • When did dragons show up?
  • Who started the cycle?
  • Did the earth start with the first world?
  • Was having mana the default state?
  • Where is this explained?
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Post by Username17 »

The "Sixth World" refers to the Mayan calendar. There has never been any direct confirmation that there were specifically 5 up and down cycles previously. The entirety of mundane history would be the fifth world (or fifth sun, if you happen to be from Aztlan), with the Earthdawn stuff being near the end of the fourth world (or sun). The Awakening marks the beginning of the sixth world.

Note that Earthdawn isn't exactly canon anymore in 4th edition. Though obviously the kind of people who know anything about Earthdawn are probably likely to treat it like it is. It's rather odd, because Earthdawn actually has a really tiny and myopic focus and is centered around some fantasy adventures people are/were having in what is now the Ukraine / Russia. There's no particular reason for people in North America, East Asia, or even Western Europe to ever see anything that ever made a fuck width's of difference in Earthdawn, and all of the crossovers were kinda strained when you thought about them in that light.

Anyway, some claims are about that various Dragons or Horrors were around during the second world, but they've never said anything meaningful about what that was like. Also, the first world would remain as obviously hypothetical as the third world because those would be mana-free periods and no one is around who was around then.

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Post by Trill »

But the world didn't start with the first world, right? The earth is older than ~30k years, right?
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Post by Username17 »

Trill wrote:But the world didn't start with the first world, right? The earth is older than ~30k years, right?
Shadowrun - Earthdawn links don't actually make any sense because the Earthdawn shit was written by people who didn't really know any ancient history and also didn't care.

Even within the context of Earthdawn, there is no particular reason to believe that the First Age was the beginning of anything in particular. There are no creatures alive from before the second world, and claims that anything is alive from before the 4th world are pretty dubious.

But yeah, Mayan creation myths only go back a few thousand years. If those are supposed to be taken literally then the world is only a few thousand years old.
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Post by Whipstitch »

BTW, does anyone still have an Ancient Files archive? I don't have it anymore because reasons.
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