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What's the word on the street re. campaigns/adventures? Is anything good out/coming out soon? I just got started with Sprawl Wilds, which should be good enough for the first couple of sessions and getting used to the system. I haven't been able to find anything more substantial though. Most campaign books on the Shadowrun site appear to be for SR20A, and there's a couple of missions according to the facebook missions page. Am I stuck with converting/retrofitting, or what?
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Aug 11, 2013 19:50
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So, is melee still awful and useless in 5e?
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Aug 11, 2013 20:56
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dirtycajun posted:You would never run the defensive programs from your deck or offensive from your RCC, so no need for duplication. Does this actually work, though? If you are talking about program sharing, you only share autosofts (and only with drones), cccording to my reading. And if not, you have to be running off the device that runs the programs to get the benefit, right? So you can't have the benefit of all those programs at once? The Firewall and Noise Reduction would still work, though.
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Aug 11, 2013 21:16
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Baby Babbeh posted:So, is melee still awful and useless in 5e? The biggest buff to melee is that now guns only fire once per round, unless you split your dice pool (which melee can do as well). In addition, damage is now equal to Strength rather than Str/2, but due to how damage went up universally it doesn't get comparatively better until really high strength. Of course, that's ignoring the monowire whip which is basically always the best melee weapon to use.
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Aug 11, 2013 21:16
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ProfessorCirno posted:So...I don't want to give excuses to the horrific editing in this book, but apparently it was well worth it. I'm wondering if it's release coinciding with Shadowrun Returns has given sales a definitive boost? I bought the book cause of the video game, so there may indeed be an effect.
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Aug 11, 2013 21:21
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Manifest Dynasty posted:Does this actually work, though? If you are talking about program sharing, you only share autosofts (and only with drones), cccording to my reading. And if not, you have to be running off the device that runs the programs to get the benefit, right? So you can't have the benefit of all those programs at once? Well the side bar specifically allows these things to be on the RCC. They also do things like increase your firewall, that you are using from your RCC not cyberdeck, so starting firewall 7. Programs that increase defense from matrix damage doesn't seem to matter where they are installed, the provide flat boosts to defense against the damage no matter the source, and if the target is anything slaved to the RCC it should just work. Also it has been brought to my attention that having an implanted cyberdeck can be of the used variety saving you about 83,500 nuyen! This freed up some money and and karma at start so now he has a 3 body and can actually survive a thing! code:
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Aug 11, 2013 21:44
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Hypha posted:I bought the book cause of the video game, so there may indeed be an effect.
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Aug 11, 2013 22:39
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Rutkowski posted:Yeah same here. Yeah, waiting for iOS release is what got me to break out my 3E book and start reading up on 5E, which got me to preoder the 5E book and starter set on Amazon.
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Aug 11, 2013 23:39
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I'm not quite clear on how Technomancer abilities work:quote:These actions only operate in the Matrix, but they’re not Matrix actions and don’t follow those rules. The bad news is that you don’t get the bonus dice for being in VR (those only come with Matrix Actions), but the good news is that none of it counts against your Overwatch Score. Which "bonus dice" is it talking about? Do I have to drop the +3d6 initiative I get for being in VR?
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Aug 12, 2013 00:02
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Gravity Pike posted:I'm not quite clear on how Technomancer abilities work: No there, is a +1 or +2 dice for cold and hot simming. I have to go find where it says that.
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Aug 12, 2013 00:17
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Baby Babbeh posted:So, is melee still awful and useless in 5e? While guns are still better overall until you have high strength, melee is far from the useless garbage it was in SR4. Assuming for a 5 strength out of chargen, you'll be doing between heavy pistol and assault rifle damage with a katana. Add in strength boosting 'ware or adept powers and you can end up hitting sniper rifle levels of damage. For a completely built and juiced troll with a big fat gently caress-off axe, you can even end up hitting near rocket launcher levels of kill. Or, you take monowhip and require none of the above, and just do insanely high damage with little to no need of boosting a secondary stat. ( Monowhips are pretty OP )
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Aug 12, 2013 00:50
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ProfessorCirno posted:( Monowhips are pretty OP ) Until you have to use one while fighting on a giant trampoline. 
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Aug 12, 2013 00:55
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PeterWeller posted:Until you have to use one while fighting on a giant trampoline. Next heist: The Family Funzone. Actually that'd own bones.
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Aug 12, 2013 00:58
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We need more 5e GMs! There's a lot of interested players but only a couple games on the go. I was thinking the SCP foundation would make a good base for a game: Shadowrunners working for the foundation capturing metacritters, fighting off opposing corporate teams who are trying to enslave mystical threats for their own dark purposes... if someone ran this I would apply so hard.
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Aug 12, 2013 05:51
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children overboard posted:We need more 5e GMs! There's a lot of interested players but only a couple games on the go. Honestly you could probably do something like this simply by having the PCs work for the Draco Foundation, which is pretty much one of the few genuinely philanthropic organizations in the Shadowrun world.
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Aug 12, 2013 07:21
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children overboard posted:We need more 5e GMs! There's a lot of interested players but only a couple games on the go. I'll put up a thread today, seeing the interest in your game's reassured me that there'd be interest.
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Aug 12, 2013 13:30
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Would there be any interest in a vigilante game? The rules contain enough Batman-like gear that I am considering running a PbP where the party is paid to apprehend super villains (preferably non-lethally) and are financed by a Batman, Inc.-style company for their work. It could be a lot of fun, and I think the Shadowrun world is just crazy enough to fit in a charity/government-paid corporation that hires runners to stop megacriminals.
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Aug 12, 2013 17:12
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The ones I've always considered doing are LoneStar and DocWagon games, in which the 'runners' are employees of said companies. And Ninjas Without Borders is also a pretty great idea. Either that, or run the A Team. I'd be interested, but I just got picked for Children's game, so will let others enter.
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Aug 12, 2013 17:32
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So last night we had our first game, wherein our all-magic group utterly wrecked our opposition by use of Invisibility/Concealment/Levitate and Edge-casting. We were hired to create a distraction at the front of a high-class mansion with a tall turret-mounted wall and a security gate while another team infiltrated a mansion and stole a maguffin. With the exception of a brief period where our stealth adept snuck up to the gate and planted explosives, our entire team simply sat invisible and completely undetectable on a levitated platform about 150 feet away as we flung magic and bullets into security while we kept them busy with incredibly-well done trid phantasms of spirits and a few very real spirits. My group has come to the conclusion that Edge-casting is going to have to be something we house-rule to be more fair to the GM. As it stands, casting and using Edge removes any Limits you apply to your cast. The Limit for your spellcasting is the Force of the spell, but the Force also dictates how much drain you take. By using Edge with a character with a high Edge attribute, not only do you cast with an incredibly high success rate but under almost all circumstances you are casting at Force 1 and take 2 Drain which you can buy away with no roll provided you have an 8+ Drain test dice pool. Our Edge caster was achieving 9-10 successes and taking no drain all game. Unless you really press a character to cast all the time all night, someone with 6-8 Edge is going to be hard-pressed to need to use it all. We're still not sure how to properly balance this, because for the time being it's incredibly powerful with almost no downside.
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Aug 12, 2013 17:38
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PierreTheMime posted:So last night we had our first game, wherein our all-magic group utterly wrecked our opposition by use of Invisibility/Concealment/Levitate and Edge-casting. Would it be possible to HR that the actual 'Force' of the spell dictated by how many hits you garner when Edge-casting? That way it becomes a high risk/high reward scenario instead of a go-to always-good sort of thing. Is there any overcasting anymore?
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Aug 12, 2013 18:03
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Mendrian posted:Would it be possible to HR that the actual 'Force' of the spell dictated by how many hits you garner when Edge-casting? That way it becomes a high risk/high reward scenario instead of a go-to always-good sort of thing. If you house-rule it like that, you're essentially getting no benefit from Edge-casting aside from breaking your limit. If you achieve 9 hits you're taking Drain equal to whatever formula your spell uses (Force - 3, Force, etc.). Edge-casting and taking 6 Physical Drain in return for a good success is rough. It's pretty easy to overcast in 5th Edition. If you get a number of hits greater than your Magic attribute you take Physical damage instead of Stun damage for any Drain remaining after your resistance test. A decent starting magic-user will generally have a Mental Limit of 7+ so overcasting from the start is possible. PierreTheMime fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 18:43
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Mainly using high Edge pools comes with a trade-off though; while its powerful I don't think its significantly more powerful than an edge 6 character using edge to fire full-auto; you can get enough recoil compensation to lose no dice on the initial complex action full auto, with its -9 dice and removal of accuracy limits (and straight up higher base damage), you can easily see things like 20P damage and higher. Being invisible is nice defensively, but once combat is in progress, its only worth "superior position" offensively. "No Defense Possible" due to defender being unaware of attack ONLY occurs in what amounts to a first strike capability. But its also trivial for the cybered up character to achieve similar results via chameleon suit etc. What about the defensive aspect? Well an edge mage who is sustaining an edge-cast invisibility is hard to spot, sure - meaning the attacker will suffer the "blindly firing" penalty if they can make the (threshold 2) test to hear them and pick a general location. On the other hand, the cyber character can gain insanely high armor and survive fragmentation missile hits. Both of these characters benefit from high edge, but I'd hesitate significantly before saying the mage benefits more; I think its just safe to say that due to limits in SR5 and lower TN in general, Edge is a significantly more powerful stat. The trade-off I mentioned is being essentially edge-fueled vs. using your metatype for higher base stats or to improve magic/resonance. Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 19:19
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Anyone have any tips on building mages? I dunno what all I need.
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Aug 12, 2013 23:40
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BenRGamer posted:Anyone have any tips on building mages? Firstly, what kind of play-style do you want? Do you want a no-nonsense mage who deals in formulae and the "science" of magic? Do you want a caster who deals in spirits and the wills of the natural world? Do you want a combat mage, a summoner, or a support caster? I love building mages so I'd be happy to offer advice, but it ultimately boils down to your character, their backstory, and how min/max you want to get with your build. As the great magician Brillat-Savarin once said, "tell me what you cast, and I'll tell you what you are."
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Aug 12, 2013 23:54
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PierreTheMime posted:Firstly, what kind of play-style do you want? Do you want a no-nonsense mage who deals in formulae and the "science" of magic? Do you want a caster who deals in spirits and the wills of the natural world? Do you want a combat mage, a summoner, or a support caster? Illusionist. Special Effects Wizard gets bored with just Special Effects so he goes Shadowrunner who views magic as less than formulae and science than just a natural extension of himself. The stats will be something along the lines of a Face, too. I wish there were rules for creating custom traditions, because I like the hermetics fluff better than the shamanistic one, but the later one uses Charisma. Just found out the game is gonna be more action oriented so I'm going to lean more towards 'Special Effects' than Stealth. How difficult would it be to pull off some crazy stuff like having illusions that can actually feel like they can hurt enemies with spells like Agony/Mass Agony and Clout/Blast? With stuff like Focused Concentration and Sustaining Foci to help out, of course. DMW45 fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 00:11
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BenRGamer posted:Illusionist. Special Effects Wizard gets bored with just Special Effects so he goes Shadowrunner who views magic as less than formulae and science than just a natural extension of himself. The stats will be something along the lines of a Face, too. In all honesty, it would be a difficult and relatively ineffective gimmick. You'd spend one turn casting an illusion like Phantasm/Trid Phantasm and then another casting the debilitating spell like Agony. You could blow both spells in a single turn but that is insanely risky as each cast would be +3 Drain. This gimmick is also assuming that you're already Invisible or sneaking so your target doesn't automatically assume "oh this is magic bullshit" and just shoot you instead. This type of thing can be effective if your team members are addressing them on a more immediate sword/gun basis so they don't have time to try and shrug the illusion and deal with you. You could definitely pull it off, especially in a "soft" game, but you would need to rely on the support of your team members to run it effectively.
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Aug 13, 2013 01:00
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PierreTheMime posted:In all honesty, it would be a difficult and relatively ineffective gimmick. You'd spend one turn casting an illusion like Phantasm/Trid Phantasm and then another casting the debilitating spell like Agony. You could blow both spells in a single turn but that is insanely risky as each cast would be +3 Drain. This gimmick is also assuming that you're already Invisible or sneaking so your target doesn't automatically assume "oh this is magic bullshit" and just shoot you instead. This type of thing can be effective if your team members are addressing them on a more immediate sword/gun basis so they don't have time to try and shrug the illusion and deal with you. Hm. Then I just have to find other ways to make Trid Phantasm more effective. Suppose I could do things like mimic smoke grenades and have additional runners coming onto the scene to give decoy targets, I could pull off something like that hologram effect in classic Total Recall (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy7UtkLOfDI). Suppose I could even do some tricky things with it. Phantasm a guy's boss walking in the room or something. Any other ideas on how I could work an illusionist mage into the game without resorting to a bad gimmick?
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Aug 13, 2013 01:29
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BenRGamer posted:Hm. Then I just have to find other ways to make Trid Phantasm more effective. Exactly like you discussed, but you will likely need a strong Con and/or Impersonation skill in order to effectively imitate a target. This is based on GM discretion though, as there are no rules covering this matter directly.
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Aug 13, 2013 01:45
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PierreTheMime posted:Exactly like you discussed, but you will likely need a strong Con and/or Impersonation skill in order to effectively imitate a target. This is based on GM discretion though, as there are no rules covering this matter directly. Of course, I'm statting the guy out to be a Face, he'll have the stats/skills for it.
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Aug 13, 2013 01:56
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PierreTheMime posted:Do you want a no-nonsense mage who deals in formulae and the "science" of magic? Could you elaborate on this one? How does this kind of mage character work?
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Aug 13, 2013 03:35
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Hypha posted:Could you elaborate on this one? How does this kind of mage character work? It's the Hermetic tradition, I think.
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Aug 13, 2013 03:57
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In Shadowrun, magic can be approached from two ways. There's the woo woo mystical traditions that approach it from a spiritual or religious perspective. Since casting magic is based a lot on raw willpower, you can get by with seat-of-the-pants intuition and innate understanding developed from growing up with it. Shamans and Catholic Saint pantheon "miracle workers" get by just fine whether or not they understand the processes that underlie their spells and summonings. Then there's the Science of Magic (called the Hermetic tradition) route, which is heavily invested in studying the classifications of magic/spirits/etc, as well as codifying specific magical activities that will result in predictable, repeatable results. A non-magical person can actually draft the procedures for a properly working spell if they have enough understanding of magical theory. Of course, they'd never actually be able to cast it themselves, because magical *capability* is something you have or don't.
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Aug 13, 2013 04:17
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Speaking of magic, did they bring back any mechanical distinction between Hermetic mages and shamans?
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Aug 13, 2013 04:23
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pospysyl posted:Speaking of magic, did they bring back any mechanical distinction between Hermetic mages and shamans? The only real mechanical difference I saw was that Hermetics used Logic + Willpower to resist drain and Shamans used Charisma + Willpower.
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Aug 13, 2013 04:33
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pospysyl posted:Speaking of magic, did they bring back any mechanical distinction between Hermetic mages and shamans? It's pretty much the same as 4e, which makes me a little sad because I miss kind of miss the stark choice between hardass, long-term elementals vs on-the-spot spirits. For spirits, Hermetic gets fire and shaman gets beast, but they share the rest. They still have the logic vs charisma for secondary drain stat. Finally, Hermetic mages can take mentor spirits, which they could before in 4e, but now it explicitly points it out in the quality description. Despite playing and GMing a metric fuckton of 4e Shadowrun, I actually didn't realize that Hermetic Wizards could take mentor spirits in 4e until I looked it up to check just now. I guess that was just a blind spot I had from previous editions.
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Aug 13, 2013 04:37
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PierreTheMime posted:Exactly like you discussed, but you will likely need a strong Con and/or Impersonation skill in order to effectively imitate a target. This is based on GM discretion though, as there are no rules covering this matter directly.  Hypha posted:Could you elaborate on this one? How does this kind of mage character work? They are a different mix of Hermetic and/or shaman with their own understanding of the world. MilkmanLuke posted:It's pretty much the same as 4e, which makes me a little sad because I miss kind of miss the stark choice between hardass, long-term elementals vs on-the-spot spirits.
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Aug 13, 2013 05:15
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What are the technomancer rules about putting Machine Sprites into combat drones? Does the Technomancer still require rank-1 submersion to have any reasonable drone perfomance, or could I just put a Machine Sprite with Diagnostics/Stability in a drone and set it to attack in a fight?
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Aug 13, 2013 13:09
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Hot Yellow KoolAid posted:What are the technomancer rules about putting Machine Sprites into combat drones? Does the Technomancer still require rank-1 submersion to have any reasonable drone perfomance, or could I just put a Machine Sprite with Diagnostics/Stability in a drone and set it to attack in a fight? All a sprite can usefully do is maintain Diagnostics/stability on one drone. A rating 6 machine sprite would give an average of +4 dice. That's not bad but it's not very impressive either. You would probably be helping the team more by putting your Machine Sprite's to work on the people's guns or something. To add insult to injury, registering them is more of a hassle and necessity than before. In 4E, an unregistered sprite existed for 8 hours. In 5E, an unregistered sprite starts generating Overwatch score the moment it's created giving you about 3 hours before it's Overwatch hits 40 and the sprite is automatically destroyed. Unless you have submerged and taken the Stealth program The Man then immediately knows there is a hacker at your physical location and a SWAT team is dispatched to take you down. Drain and Fading can no longer be healed with first aid giving you about 2 hours to heal however much stun damage you can from compiling a sprite before you need to start registering it.
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Aug 13, 2013 15:01
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If it's your drone, presumably it could "JUMP INTO RIGGED DEVICE" Matrix Action, and drive the drone around. It lacks the VCR to do so by the rules as stated, however. Also, as machine sprites inexplicably come with no machine-related skills, the drone will need to have some autosofts, or it's probably not doing much of value. It is stated that drones can run (device rating) / 2 [rnd up] programs(p269), and the matrix section lists all drones as device rating 2 (p234) [note, p269 also says that device rating = pilot program rating. All drones are listed with a pilot rating of 3, so maybe 'drones' have DR2, except for every drone ever listed, which all have DR3?] You might want to work with your GM to upgrade the drone a little bit if a sprite is going to be driving it around, at least enough to shove a third program in there, so the sprite/drone can run Targeting, Manouvering, and Clearsight. There are 0 rules for a machine sprite running a machine. It is clear that it costs a service to get the sprite into the machine, but there is no "now shoot those guys" service option. Depending on GM fiat, it could work like spirits in combat[which makes sense, as participating in cybercombat is all one service], or it could be that that sprite eats a service every combat turn. Also, maybe you would use the sprite's rating instead of the pilot program's for doing things, maybe? As for the TM's themselves, a rank of submersion buys you a R1 VCR in your head. No RCC though, so you can only really move one drone/vehicle/door around at a time (as long as it's wireless enabled, as you don't have the physical connector!). Not entirely sure what the point of that is. If you're the player, you might want to read through the rigging and matrix sections, and discuss it all with your GM ahead of time. If you're a GM, you might want to make something up. (BTW - Sprites lack LOG/INT/WILL/CHA. INT, LOG, and WILL are needed ALL THE TIME in the matrix. I would suppose that you determine them similarly to a Technomancers.) Sprites are far less detailed/complete than spirits, is what I'm saying. EDIT: I agree with Gobbeldygook that by the rules, a sprite CAN NOT IN ANY WAY OR FOR ANY REASON use the "JUMP INTO RIGGED DEVICE" action. Consider the above as an additional set of things to consider if they could. Actually, the best that they could really do it get marks on the drone's owner and eventually spoof command it into not doing anything if it's owner is giving it commands, or actually maybe convince it to do something if not. Either way, you're probably better off doing all this yourself, as it will eat the same number of actions to walk a sprite through it, and you won't take summoning fade. OB_Juan fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 15:45
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I'm buying the 5th ed rulebook tomorrow (just couldn't resist the siren's call), but are you telling me Machine Sprites can't take Autosofts as Complex Forms anymore? I thought that was the whole point of the little guys?
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Aug 13, 2013 16:00
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