Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

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Whipstitch
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Post by Whipstitch »

Enchanting is its own thing and you need fifty grand worth of magical doodads lying around to qualify as an enchanting shop, so it's not a slam dunk that your MC is going to treat your 2k nuyen magical lodge as an Aspected Domain off of that paragraph alone even before we get to the part where influencing Domains your own damn self is normally covered by the Geomancy metamagic. In practice that sort of thing almost always ends up as an "Ask your MC" issue--some give away domains like candy, others expect you to pay a high Lifestyle cost for the privilege and others tend to forget background counts completely.
Last edited by Whipstitch on Sun Jun 28, 2015 11:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Longes
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Post by Longes »

What are the good metamagics to get? My character is a Voodoo mysAd, so step 1 is Channeling. I obviously don't need Divination, since Guidance spirit has it.
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Post by Korwin »

Longes wrote:What's up with the Free Spirit chargen rules and is it possible to make something playable? I assume that step 1 is to take Possession and not Materialization.
If playing an Free Spirit, you get the choice, either play something underpowered or do some rules lawering and play something overpowered.

Both Options are IMHO so out of whack to be considered unplayable.
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Post by pragma »

Flexible signature and masking both tend to be pretty great for doing traditional Shadowrunning/stealthy things. Shielding is always nice.
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Post by kzt »

Korwin wrote:
Longes wrote:What's up with the Free Spirit chargen rules and is it possible to make something playable? I assume that step 1 is to take Possession and not Materialization.
If playing an Free Spirit, you get the choice, either play something underpowered or do some rules lawering and play something overpowered.

Both Options are IMHO so out of whack to be considered unplayable.
Plus character advancement doesn't work. You either have to cripple the character to advance with the group, can't advance, or you take off like a Saturn V heading for the moon depending on how you can fast talk/rules lawyer the GM.

Essentially it needs to be rewritten from top to bottom by someone who isn't an idiot.
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Longes
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Post by Longes »

Are Ally Spirits as much of a pointless karma sink as they seem to be?
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Post by Username17 »

Longes wrote:Are Ally Spirits as much of a pointless karma sink as they seem to be?
Nope. They have unlimited services and Aid Sorcery to all magic types. They do various other shit, but the bottom line is that they add their force to your "doing stuff" die rolls all the time forever.

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Post by Silent Wayfarer »

I looked at the free spirit rules, apparently they expect you to pay 250 BP for:

- +1 to all stats (capped by your Force, which is also your Magic stat)
- free Magician quality
- points of Spirit powers equal to your Magic/Force
- no ware, ever
- no foci, ever
- no karma ever

It just seems like a gigantic trap.
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Longes
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Post by Longes »

Silent Wayfarer wrote:I looked at the free spirit rules, apparently they expect you to pay 250 BP for:

- +1 to all stats (capped by your Force, which is also your Magic stat)
- free Magician quality
- points of Spirit powers equal to your Magic/Force
- no ware, ever
- no foci, ever
- no karma ever

It just seems like a gigantic trap.
Ally Spirit != Free Spirit. Ally spirits are a thing magicians do with Ally Spirit metamagic. It's basically a permanent loyal spirit you build out of your karma.
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Longes
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Post by Longes »

FrankTrollman wrote:
Longes wrote:Are Ally Spirits as much of a pointless karma sink as they seem to be?
Nope. They have unlimited services and Aid Sorcery to all magic types. They do various other shit, but the bottom line is that they add their force to your "doing stuff" die rolls all the time forever.

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Hm. Can a Possession tradition mage give an ally Possession power? Permanent power rangers suit seems worth 70ish karma.
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Post by Silent Wayfarer »

Longes wrote:
Silent Wayfarer wrote:I looked at the free spirit rules, apparently they expect you to pay 250 BP for:

- +1 to all stats (capped by your Force, which is also your Magic stat)
- free Magician quality
- points of Spirit powers equal to your Magic/Force
- no ware, ever
- no foci, ever
- no karma ever

It just seems like a gigantic trap.
Ally Spirit != Free Spirit. Ally spirits are a thing magicians do with Ally Spirit metamagic. It's basically a permanent loyal spirit you build out of your karma.
I meant the rules for making free spirit PCs.
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Post by kzt »

Silent Wayfarer wrote: I meant the rules for making free spirit PCs.
Well, yes. It was written by Aaron. You might notice that all the parts of SR 4&5 that are horribly broken are at least partially credited to him.
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Post by phlapjackage »

Longes wrote: Hm. Can a Possession tradition mage give an ally Possession power? Permanent power rangers suit seems worth 70ish karma.
Don't think so, unless there was an errata at some point.

SM says this:
p103: "The ally spirit may either have the Materialization power or the Inhabitation power."

My own private wish is that Obsidimen return to the world when a troll mage conjures an earth ally spirit and the mage has found a way to use himself as the vessel...
Last edited by phlapjackage on Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Longes »

phlapjackage wrote:
Longes wrote: Hm. Can a Possession tradition mage give an ally Possession power? Permanent power rangers suit seems worth 70ish karma.
Don't think so, unless there was an errata at some point.

SM says this:
p103: "The ally spirit may either have the Materialization power or the Inhabitation power."
Yeah, but you can give him bonus powers from spirits of your tradition.
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phlapjackage
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Post by phlapjackage »

Longes wrote: Yeah, but you can give him bonus powers from spirits of your tradition.
Good point - probably not what the authors intended, but by the rules it seems to be allowed.

I would allow it at my table - I don't see any problem with allowing a Possession ally spirit. The whole "Possession is OP" thing is bunk. Yeah, maybe a few of the possession rules need tweaking, but overall, it has its tradeoffs with Materialization.
Koumei: and if I wanted that, I'd take some mescaline and run into the park after watching a documentary about wasps.
PhoneLobster: DM : Mr Monkey doesn't like it. Eldritch : Mr Monkey can do what he is god damn told.
MGuy: The point is to normalize 'my' point of view. How the fuck do you think civil rights occurred? You think things got this way because people sat down and fucking waited for public opinion to change?
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Post by Orion »

What do GMs actually do about PC Astral Signatures, matrix callsigns, and other kinds of evidence left at the scene of the crime. Do you just have a social contract where players agree to care about leaving no trace, or is there a legit way to make signatures come back to haunt them without delving into "rocks fall, everyone dies," or "dm penis" bullshit?
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Post by momothefiddler »

Never GMd SR but does blackmailing the PC into doing runs for some tier of the org that found the evidence (from individual up to corp), or slipping them extra objectives on their existing runs, or whatever count? Until the PC finds a way to silence the blackmailer, even the tables, destroy the evidence, disappear, etc.
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Post by Blade »

@Orion:
First of all, I'll only consider them if someone has a reason to track down the runners. Most of the time, if the runners aren't caught by the time they finished the job, chasing them further is just a waste of everyone's time and money.

Second, I'll consider that PCs will always do whatever is necessary to erase/limit the evidence they leave at crime scenes, as long as they have tim to do it.
I'll only ask the players to explicitely tell me that they take the time to erase the logs/remove astral signature/etc. when they have to take valuable time to do it. (For example if they're chased by security).

If I notice that the players seem to be forgetting completely about leaving evidence, and I think it might impact what will happen next, I might ask them for a knowledge skill check and remind them about it if they succeed.
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Post by virgil »

I have been less than impressed with the general selection of Shadowrun missions. This is exacerbated by the fact people generally set the bar for Shadowrun to be near street level, while my current group of players are all high-powered (¥1M & 115BP earned).

Is there a good resource for run ideas and their associated surprises? Suggestions work as well.
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Post by Longes »

SR Missions are disgusting. Bull himself is cheezed out, with milspec software and emotitoys. The very first check of the very first SR4 mission is a social check you need about 15 dice to reliably pass. Then characters, nameless shadowrunners, are approached by the head of Atlantian Foundation (an initiated magician with high magic and a bunch of quickened spells) who personally gives them a job. On the street. In Barrens.
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Post by virgil »

Lore question; are there any major players/factions that would want do something like destroy the Statue of Liberty or other major strike against the UCAS, and hire a team of shadowrunners to do it instead of their own agents?
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Post by Longes »

Activity like that seems more in line with the terrorist states. So I'd guess nationalist branches among the amerinds might hire runners for that.
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Post by Stahlseele »

Look no further than Alamais.
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Post by virgil »

Are there any stats for size, concealability, fire mode, & ammo for the HERF gun?
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Post by Silent Wayfarer »

virgil wrote:Are there any stats for size, concealability, fire mode, & ammo for the HERF gun?
Don't think so. It's basically a glorified Tag Eraser anyways.
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