Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 7:25 pm

I actually heard from the smurfs...
That leaves the Immortal Orks...?

What where they?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Apr 06, 2014 2:51 am

Ork.
Singular.
As i said, if i remember correctly: he was the best of the master thieves.
The Myth says he stole his immortality by stealing life one day at a time from death itself.

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Sun Apr 06, 2014 2:56 am

Stahlseele wrote:Ork.
Singular.
As i said, if i remember correctly: he was the best of the master thieves.
The Myth says he stole his immortality by stealing life one day at a time from death itself.

Which sounds lot more hardcore and interesting than the bunch of Irish Mary-Sues. I'm sure one could even draw up a decent metaplot involving him yoinking more life.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat May 24, 2014 12:04 am

Street Magic, Meditation, do you have to make the two separate tests on separate days? Can you roll once each on the same day?

Can you repeat the same ordeal without restriction?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat May 24, 2014 6:38 pm

Aryxbez wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:Ork.
Singular.
As i said, if i remember correctly: he was the best of the master thieves.
The Myth says he stole his immortality by stealing life one day at a time from death itself.
Which sounds lot more hardcore and interesting than the bunch of Irish Mary-Sues. I'm sure one could even draw up a decent metaplot involving him yoinking more life.

Vampire with Essence-Drain would work.
Or some sort of shadowy spirit with Karma-Drain.

@Virgil:
No idea, sorry.
Frank probably knows.
Or Aunty Ancient maybe.

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Mon May 26, 2014 7:05 am

So I'm looking at the Martial Arts Quality and I noticed that you could buy "Attacker penalty for firing in melee combat is reduced by 1" a total of 3 times in between Ares Firefight and Krav Maga. Is it worth doing this for gunkata goodness?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon May 26, 2014 7:11 am

Silent Wayfarer wrote:So I'm looking at the Martial Arts Quality and I noticed that you could buy "Attacker penalty for firing in melee combat is reduced by 1" a total of 3 times in between Ares Firefight and Krav Maga. Is it worth doing this for gunkata goodness?

Well, the question is: do you want to go into the melee and shoot people who are trying to hit you with a sword, or do you want to sit in cover and not be in the melee in the first place?

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Mon May 26, 2014 8:15 am

Naturally the second, but I was assuming some cocky fuck would make a run up at me and I'd have to get him out of my face.

That said, it does sound like an edge case, so I'll buy something better with it.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon May 26, 2014 8:31 am

The dicepool penalties for shooting in melee really aren't very onerous.

-Username17

Silent Wayfarer · Post by **Silent Wayfarer** » Mon May 26, 2014 10:39 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:The dicepool penalties for shooting in melee really aren't very onerous.

-Username17

Hmm, all right. Then what about replacing those 3 ranks of the Martial Arts Quality with thee Adrenaline Rush quality? Apparently it lets you go first no matter what in the first IP of any combat, which would be useful for countering ambushes (since the ambushers in SR4 have to make an initiative test as well).

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon May 26, 2014 10:46 pm

Silent Wayfarer wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:The dicepool penalties for shooting in melee really aren't very onerous.

-Username17
Hmm, all right. Then what about replacing those 3 ranks of the Martial Arts Quality with thee Adrenaline Rush quality? Apparently it lets you go first no matter what in the first IP of any combat, which would be useful for countering ambushes (since the ambushers in SR4 have to make an initiative test as well).

If you want to shoot, pick 3 ranks of martial arts, but pick the ones that give you a "+1 die on Called Shots to increase damage" bonus. Like Wildcat and Pentjak.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri May 30, 2014 5:24 pm

In the dystopian future that is Shadowrun, your street sams will want to start getting awesome deltaware, which are exceedingly expensive. The current line of thought with my group is that doing runs for Shadow Clinics directly for credit would be the most direct and cost-effective method of getting what they want.

My first thought is the imagery of Shadow Clinics being underground bases with tunnels filled with high background counts, bulky military-grade area jammers, and cyborg bodyguards. My second thought is trying to figure out what a Shadow Clinic would want; maybe expensive medical supplies? If so, what kind of supplies would a facility such as this ask for? Truckloads of awakened leeches and/or hospital-grade nano-fabber stock? A small case of specialty chips with awesome hardware-specific surgical software? A Force 12 foci for a regeneration spell, or maybe a formula for a magical compound that can retroactively extend the timeframe of the "golden hour" to 7 years? I'm thinking the less McGuffin options would be better, but I'm not sure.

@Frank: Do you know the answer to my earlier Meditation question(s)?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri May 30, 2014 5:40 pm

The Runners could be something like the HTR Teams employed by DocWagon for the Shadow-Clinic if needed be. Just with even less Rules about who they can rescue from where.
Aside from that, not very much. A Shadow-Clinic capable of doing Delta-Grade Operations is one in a Dozend around the world. They have it made. Even if they wanted, none of the Corps would want to mess with even the "unaffiliated" ones. Much less those actually belonging to one of the AAA Corps . . .
Hits on people having gotten knowledge about them sound pretty likely to me.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri May 30, 2014 7:16 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Aside from that, not very much. A Shadow-Clinic capable of doing Delta-Grade Operations is one in a Dozend around the world. They have it made. Even if they wanted, none of the Corps would want to mess with even the "unaffiliated" ones. Much less those actually belonging to one of the AAA Corps . . .

I would presume it's still cheaper to hire freelance violence experts to steal ¥1,000,000 worth of anti-cancer drugs rather than pay a million to ship legitimately, and not even pay them ¥100k but perform services you'd normally charge for ¥100k but cost you ¥50k.

EDIT: Another question. How close to the original stats of someone can you mimic with cloning vats? Can you get a hair sample and recreate a legendarily strong troll, hook up the body to an artificial brain, attach some strength enhancing cyberware, and have an awesome biodrone? Hell, can you do brain transplants and have super smart people run around in awesome new bodies?

EDIT: Another! Currently you can't do vat-grown paracritters in Shadowrun. What about artificial insemination?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri May 30, 2014 11:14 pm

Yeah, might still be cheaper. but you asked for non macguffin related stuff.

No, Brain Transplantation and Cloning like that is not actually a thing (tm) in the world of SR . . there is hints at it, but it does not actually work/have rules for player characters or even really examples in the fluff aside from some hints in the novels . .
Stats are who you are, not what you are.
So even if you cloned your body as it is right now, the clone still needs to grow. and then it's still brain-dead/simply has an empty brain with no skills.
Because cloning brains is not possible, because brains develop depending on input. The clone is going to be missing all of your life. You could MAYBE try and do a Persona-Fix-Chip of you and install that in there . . But these are considered BTL so they will kill the body sooner rather than later if left running for the entire time.

if you want to be te one to squirt some hellhound semen into a hellhound bitch, be my guest and try it.
not sure if they breed true though, might get normal dogs that might or might not awaken at a later time or you may get one hell hound in a litter of four or five normal dogs. no idea really.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat May 31, 2014 10:36 pm

OK, here's one from me . .
How hard would i make a rule abiding GM frown, if i were to be a Troll . .
With a very large hammer made of something with an obscenely high barrier rating . . and were to strap a claymore mine to the flat surface and claim chunky salsa rules from the flat surface of the hammer every time i hit a squishie with that hammer?

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Sat May 31, 2014 10:57 pm

Stahlseele wrote:OK, here's one from me . .
How hard would i make a rule abiding GM frown, if i were to be a Troll . .
With a very large hammer made of something with an obscenely high barrier rating . . and were to strap a claymore mine to the flat surface and claim chunky salsa rules from the flat surface of the hammer every time i hit a squishie with that hammer?

Wouldn't you need a new mine for every such attack and also take damage yourself? That hammer would need to be truly obscenely huge for you to be able to claim cover from the blast. So huge as to make the mine redundant.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 1:05 am

I was planning on playing the Troll and making the Hammer Human sized . . meaning size of a human, not size a human can handle

^^
And no, strictly technically rules wise as i understand it, using this makes the explosion VERY MUCH DIRECTED into your target and COMPLETELY away from you. Well, if you are not dumb enough to actually do a downwards swing towards the ground, which would then chunky salsa reflect it right back up at you.
And yes, the mine is, technically, for these rare HARD cases or for shock value . . a Hammer like that in Troll Hands deals something obscene like i don't know, probably STR+4D Stun in SR3 terms i guess . .

mlangsdorf · Post by **mlangsdorf** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 1:42 pm

Although a claymore mine is a directional explosion, that just means that more of the energy is focused in one direction. The backblast from the explosion is unsafe within 16 meters (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... aymore.htm) and there's some chance of getting hit by stray projectiles (even if you're behind the mine when it goes off) out to 100 meters.

So if you put a claymore on the end of a hammer and hit people with it, you're going to damage yourself. A lot.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 1:59 pm

Yes, yes, realistically, of course you lot are completely correct and right in pointing this out . .
But i am of the opinion that realism has to go and sit on the stairs for a bit when the rules of the game with magic such like Trolls get to talk.
How secure am i in saying that as long as the boom of the claymore does not beat the barrier rating of the hammer i get chunky salsa rules on the other guy and no damage to myself?

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 5:52 pm

Not at all. First I tend to doubt you can carry, much less swing, a club that weights multiple tons, which is what you are describing. Second, the shock wave and fragmentation from an explosion is not a line of sight phenomena. Third, something that is directly attached to a explosive charge is going to transfer shock better that the air, so the vibrations will probably shatter the bones in your hands. Fourth, explosives directly contacting rigid objects do a lot of damage to the surface, so the odds are you'll be holding a short handle and have a lot of secondary projectiles in short order.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 2:10 pm

If I'm to understand Street Magic's rules right, Magical Compounds requires a minimum of 28 days to produce by a fairly skilled awakened individual, not counting the radical reagent's circulation production. As it requires such skill, one would put a wholesale value of a month's lifestyle on the item, which I'm guessing puts the street value for five times that? Depends on how much else you can do while performing a circulation, I suppose, since your effective production cost is less if you can still jet around on Movement-assisted planes to set up corporate wards.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:30 pm

The economics of making magical compounds doesn't make sense. The devs (and Ancient History) were so petrified that Alchemists might be able to make a lot of money and quit shadowrunning that the payoffs for enchanting are ricockulously low. That was literally the exchange which prompted me to ask if a Houngan had killed Ancient History's dog.

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:48 pm

What would be a sensical approach?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:59 pm

virgil wrote:What would be a sensical approach?

Well, if you wanted to claim that people actually harvested reagents and refined them and shit, you'd calculate each of those jobs as a job, and calculate the output as the supported lifestyle cost divided by the unit profit at wholesale prices. I ran some sample numbers on that back in 2005 when I was having this argument in the first place, but I don't remember them nor do I still have the chat logs.

As is, the rate of return on alchemical labor is so absurdly low that you have to assume that contrary to claims in the Manual of Practical Thaumaturgy, Wuxing actually did manage to industrialize the creation of alchemical grade chrysanthemum back in the 2040s - essentially driving cottage industry out of the market entirely.

-Username17