Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 7:11 pm

I can imagine the reagents being industrialized, but the magical compounds as well? I guess it would depend on what the magical compounds are worth, since Street Magic doesn't give prices.

Antumbra · Post by **Antumbra** » Sat Jun 14, 2014 5:39 pm

I believe Arsenal, Parageology, Parabotany and Parazoology all have some scraps about magical compounds. At any rate, most of the magical materials are in the "uselessly expensive" range, and there aren't any rules if you want to make Azzalum instead of Orichalcum.

An alchemist can make quite a good return on making Orichalcum, and still be a very good spellslinger. It's been a while since I ran the numbers, but at the time it definitely passed the "why not just jack Americars?" threshold by a few miles.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 11:49 pm

ok, it's probably because i am tired and my brain is half asleep already but:
how stupid, exactly, is shadowrun magic?
if i cast a LOS(A) Spell, then all available targets than can be affected by the spell i case will be affected, wether or not i want them to or not, correct?
So i can't cast a spell targeting living beings and decide to not hit my buddies that are in my LOS right?
and did you know that there is no possible way for humans to not see their own nose with open eyes?
So if a mage casts such a spell, he can also see his own nose. and thus sees himself. should he not by that logic then become a viable target and be affected by that spell as well?

Next question in that line of thought:
If i cast such a spell, and somebody is hiding behind a bit of shrubbery but i did not actually spot him with my spot check, even though he is not completely out of line of sight but i was distracted by something like a nice pair of boobs for example, does he still get hit by that spell?
Technically i can see him, i just have not yet acknowledged his existence there yet . .

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 8:29 am

A LOS(A) spell requires you to have LOS to the center of the area. The magic generally radiates out from that point, like a grenade or other blast, so "cover" or whatever is determined relative to the center of the area (physical cover for physical spells, astral barriers for mana spells).

It's not specifically based on who you can see, but who you can form an astral link to. And you can form an astral link to things you can see, but you can also do it to things that you're touching (in the dark, or while blinded) or to things that you're astrally sensing (while using Astral Perception; or while Astrally Projecting if the target is also on the mana plane or dual natured).

I mean I'm pretty tired but i'm 97% that's how it works based on what I can remember about shadowrun and earthdawn metaphysics.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 10:14 am

LOS (A) spells don't affect everything you can see, they affect everything you can see within virtual sphere with an arbitrary point of origin. So if you don't want to get caught in the effect, you just have to place the center farther away from you than the radius is long. If you don't want to affect one of your friends, you can either move the center away (or up or down or something) so that they aren't in the radius, or cover up your ally with your hand before the spell goes off.

You can also make your spells smaller by withholding dice and reducing the radius, but since you live in a 3D world and don't have to place the origin at ground level there is usually no reason to bother with that.

A special note goes out to spells like Fireball, which actually are explosions from a point of origin. In those cases, you have to have an unobstructed view of the origin point, and the explosion itself is perfectly happy to go around walls (relative to you: cover is counted along the path from the point of origin to the intended target rather than from you to the target).

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 11:44 am

So, all area effect spells are spherical in nature and have a reach of probably force then?

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 1:17 pm

The radius is Force meters for all such spells, IIRC.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 1:30 pm

OK, i thought that only applied to the ball spells, not things like mob mood and the such.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 5:38 pm

I'm thinking about running a bank robbery scenario for the newbie players. Does anyone have any useful ideas/advice/materials I can use?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Jul 19, 2014 4:43 am

Do they even have banks, as we understand them in bank heist movies, in the Shadowrun world?

As a semi-related question, what kind of facility would Lofwyr's medical records be stored in, and what kind of security would it have?

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sat Jul 19, 2014 5:41 am

virgil wrote:Do they even have banks, as we understand them in bank heist movies, in the Shadowrun world?

As a semi-related question, what kind of facility would Lofwyr's medical records be stored in, and what kind of security would it have?

The Ends of The Matrix thread has some theory stuff on electronic money in shadowrun and why it exists at all in a world of hackers. Basically, there are banks, but you can't hack them, as in you physically cannot hack them because they're behind faraday cages that block wireless signals, and the transmitters on the outside just send hardline signals across a 56K modem through the faraday cage to the internal computer with orders on when to move money from account to account. So even if you hack the outside computer, your hacking connection can't be sent through such a low-bandwidth cable, and you're still unable to affect the main database. Even if you got an operative onto the Zurich Orbital satellite, or into the depths of the European Economic Commission, or into Aztlan's ultra-secret bank location that they don't even talk about... it'd all be a bunch of database changes that would be somewhat easily reversed once the forensic hackers show up to figure out what you've done. People might lose some transactions or something when they have to revert to a backup, but you sure wouldn't gain any money out of it.

In terms of cash banks, no, they don't really exist. People are distrustful of large amounts of cash that's basically untraceable (compared to an electronic record). Even if you're a criminal, be respectable and get an off-shore account like all the other big times have.

Which isn't to say that there's nothing to steal, but that you don't steal little green pieces of paper. You'd steal biotech, or computer parts shipments, or piles of gold and gems, or whatever other sorts of things. I think that's more exciting than just stealing generic piles of cash.

Lofwyr, being a dragon and all, probably doesn't have medical records in anything but a very private database, and they could have completely arbitrary top grade security. I think that, in the real world, american presidents need to have a yearly physical and have the general results released to the press (I seem to remember something about that in The West Wing), but even if that's true I don't think he ever had one of those since he was killed so soon after election and all.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 6:53 pm

Lokathor wrote:Lofwyr, being a dragon and all, probably doesn't have medical records in anything but a very private database, and they could have completely arbitrary top grade security.

I am having trouble coming up with a semi-realistic building and security to hold such a database, without it feeling more like a design for a video game than an actual facility where people work. Are there any resources that can help with this?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:11 pm

It'd probably sit right in the middle of his own room i'd guess

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:27 pm

You put it on a computer locked in a safe inside the clinic. Like this http://www.hamiltonproductsgroup.com/in ... -45-24-ips. The keyboard/mouse/monitor/whatever is outside the safe, but you can't get physical or network access to computer without opening the safe. Which is designed to make entry either take a lot of time (as in many hours)or be very noisy.

You bolt the (1600 pound) safe to the concrete slab. Then you put it in a locked room with an alarm on the door and armed guard outside, who is covered by video monitors. One assumes the people installing video wouldn't have a camera covering the lock to the safe....

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:52 pm

When designing Shadowrun dungeon crawls, always start at the end and work backwards.

The data vault itself would be underground and would consist of a shielded room full of servers with a noble-gas atmosphere to prevent electric fires. The point where humans come in and out would therefore need an airlock and a chem-suit store, plus the normal human amenities like locker rooms and bathrooms. This would be a substantial high-security place with cameras, cyberware-scanners, SIN-scanners and magical wards. Anyone going in and out would have to go through here. The airlock itself would be dual-key locked from an offsite office, so the only way in is either to hack the electronics, social-engineer the guys to unlock it for you, or make a separate attack on the other facility.

Needless to say, trying to tunnel into the facility will result in mockery and failure - say they have seismic sensors or something.

Outside of that would depend on what else the site does - what the front business is, if you will.

If it's a data storage facility then there would be a lot of other data vaults and server rooms, each with their own staff. As such the overall site security personnel probably don't know everyone's face so you could dummy your way through, but any sort of weaponry would be extremely conspicuous since it's a fairly mundane place. If the PCs get detected here then they will probably find the high-security data vault in lockdown by the time they get through to it.

If it's a Saeder-Krupp office complex then it will look like any other office complex. Going in with business suits might work, but since every single door will be swipe-to-open or SIN-scanner, even the best deckers, faces or riggers might have some difficulty. This is a situation where a straightforward assault would work well. Depending on the security level of the facility it might have anything from rentacops to serious security people, but since it's only the front business it won't be too conspicuous about it - Lofwyr doesn't want anyone to know *which* S-K office is the front for this place, after all.

It might even be some other front business. An electronics manufacturing plant or a shipping depot might be good ones. Whatever the case it would need to be a place where they have corporate extraterritoriality, so it won't be that secret - there will be Saeder-Krupp logos on things and they'll have enough security to keep anarchist thugs out.

Whatever it is, give it large grounds so they have to cut their way in through a fence or get across a parking lot or whatever. This isn't that important on the way in, but it'll make them worry about what it's going to be like on the way out; and since you showed it to them on the way in they won't consider it unfair of you. Just getting back out of the front doors won't be enough - if you do it right they'll have to give real thought to their getaway plan. This also makes the legwork phase more interesting.

Resist the urge to build a fortress. Lofwyr knows this site is incredibly important, but can't trust its own people with that knowledge. As a result the place will be tight but not so tight as to draw attention until you get past the front business. The data vault will be as concealed from Saeder-Krupp people as it will from anyone else, so it's not unreasonable to have additional external layers of security so nobody low-clearance on site will be able to wander far enough in to realise that it's more high security than it should be.

The real threat comes from absolute top-of-the-line HTR personnel, who will be standing by to arrive at top speed after an alarm goes off. This probably won't happen all at once - first there'll be a wave of scout drones, then combat drones, then the HTR team decker will enter play, then the sniper, then the magician, and finally the street sams and adepts. Remember Saving Private Ryan - build up to the Panzers, don't just show them off immediately.

Make your players sweat; if you're doing it right then merely the threat of that alarm going off should be enough to force them to change their tactics around. I recommend getting some form of numerical display and having it count down the combat rounds starting at 20 or so when the alarm goes off. If you really want to drive home the anxiety of it and the value of professionalism, give people a very short amount of time to decide upon and resolve actions once that ticker is counting down. Make them panic. If they're making tactical mistakes because of the adrenaline, then you're doing it right. This is an incredibly high stakes run and should be a roleplaying experience to remember; you owe it to your players to pull out all the stops for something this badass. Make them feel like they earned it.

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 5:00 am

I think the medical records would be stored in the clinic room where they examine the dragon. Which probably has a bunch of specialized equipment custom designed by Siemens Medical. So yeah, when Lofwyr comes into the clinic they open up the safe and connect all the equipment network connections to the server. I'd suggest that is a poor time to try to try to steal his records.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 6:25 am

Here's the real question: Why would a dragon have any medical records in the first place?

Humans don't actually know the first thing about draconic physiology, there's nothing to be gained from submitting to medical tests. I'm sure whenever he gets sick he uses a draconic ritual of some sort rather than modern medicine to recover from it.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:17 pm

Lofwyr has admitted the advantages of technology by being the CEO of a AAA megacorp. Humanity as a whole may not know much on draconic physiology, but he'd be remiss to not avail himself of the potential advantages and actually get tested.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:28 pm

Curiosity what metahuman sciences can tell him about his own body perhaps.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Thu Jul 24, 2014 10:37 am

There are no banks you can loot, but there are probably several kinds of secure storage facility which might serve a similar purpose.

At the lowest level some smartass who believes in security via obscurity might try to hide something valuable in a locker or a self storage facility.

Next up warehouses and routing facilities for transportation/courier firms will hold much moderately valuable stuff temporarily.

Probably many corps will operate some sort of security deposit boxes for their employees (especially high level ones) and hotels will operate some for their guests.

I don't know that it's mentioned in the game, but I can easily imagine a few places set up like fortresses which offer to hold on to really valuable items with 'unbreachable' security for an extortionate price. This is probably the closest to the target of a bank heist movie.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:27 am

Can you get a BTL recording of what a mage sees in the astral? If you can, can that be a way to keep assensing records?

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 2:12 am

virgil wrote:Can you get a BTL recording of what a mage sees in the astral? If you can, can that be a way to keep assensing records?

I don't think you can. Those perceptions aren't going physically into your brain, they're going magically into your spirit.

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:33 am

virgil wrote:Can you get a BTL recording of what a mage sees in the astral? If you can, can that be a way to keep assensing records?

That's very clever. I don't know. I'd probably go for it.

Otakusensei · Post by **Otakusensei** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:26 pm

A simrig records physical and emotive experience data, which is sort of abbreviated bullshit science. Based on their use of the word physical I'd say it's a stretch to think it would give you anything astral. Which is a bummer cause I normally go in for stretches of the rules like that.

Further it's questionable that your eyes see anything while you preserve astral space. You aren't sticking your head through a portal so much as making an astral form to see through, at least as I understand it. A simrig wouldn't get that, not as I understand it. Unless the sensory signals being fed from astral space are what the simrig is physically reading from the brain.

Hard call to make, and the opportunities for abuse are pretty high.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:44 pm

Additional question; can illusions be made that fool astral senses?