[Moonshine Fox]

So on another thread there seemed to be a general agreement that drakes as written were not a viable option. I had some ideas jotted down from when I tried to bring them over from 4th back when Run Faster came out, so I combined it with the updated ideas in Howling Shadows to come up with something I think is viable, but not so awesome as to overshadow non-drake runners completely. This is something I'd like to use at my own table at some point in the near future, so please give it an honest critic.

The idea for the Apex Predator flaw goes to Reshy as a brilliant idea I wish I had thought up!

Drakes
So you want to play a drake? Well chummer you’ve come to the right place! Drakes can be a lot of fun, adding a lot of unique power to you and a wealth of role-play opportunities for you’re not-quite-so-metahuman runner. Plus it gives your GM a few dozen plot hooks already in your flesh to yank about at his whim! But enough chatter, let’s get down to hard facts.

First off, before you do anything else, sit down with your GM to hash out your plan. Having a drake in game is master class gaming and needs at least one of you to be thoroughly prepped for the changes it will make to your game and willing to help the other if they aren’t up to speed on it. This is a purely optional choice, so don’t feel bad if your GM tells you no.

Second, you’ll need to take this handy positive quality below.

Drake Bloodline (40 points)
You have the blood of an ancient drake line and have recently awakened to your true nature. You cannot take this quality of you have the Infected or infected carrier quality, and are in fact compleatly immune to HMHVV in all it's forms. You are also a being literally flowing with magic, and as such you cannot be a technomancer. You pick one of the four types of dracoforms that you have the appearance of, Western, Eastern, Leviathan, or Feathered Serpent. You’re choice affects some of the boosts, and what powers you have access to. This quality, despite being a positive quality, does not count to your max number of positive qualities. You can continue to take more as your remaining points allow up to the normal maximum. You may also take this quality beyond character creation at the GM’s discretion and approval at the listed cost, rather then the double cost of normal qualities.

Being a drake grants you a host of bonuses and flaws due to what you are. I believe in bad news first, so here’s the downsides.

Wanted: You gain the Wanted quality without gaining the points from it. Drakes are Objects of Interest for a whole host of groups. The Great Dragons want the investment in your ancestors back in your service, talismongers want your mana-rich body parts, dragon hunters just want you dead, mercs want the paycheck from handing you to any of the mentioned groups, and many more. Go over with your GM what groups, if any, currently know of you, or if you just have a general bounty on your head if people find out what you are.

Some of Both, All of Neither: You are the line between metahuman and dragon. Your ancestors where made to walk back and forth between the two as a go-between, and as such, you are both, while still being something unique. Spells and abilities that target both your metatype form, and those that target dragon affect you. You do gain a +4 dice pool bonus to resist an effect for a form you aren’t currently in though, as your current form provides a buffer of sorts. Things that target drakes specifically affect you perfectly no matter what form you’re currently in.

Apex Predator: Even though you’re new to your form and powers, your new instincts no longer follow the same path as before, trying to force you to take your more powerful form and deal with problems a little more directly then before. When in a suitably stressful situation, or if you glitch or critical glitch several times in a short time, your GM can have you roll a Composure (2) roll to avoid trying to shift into your drake form. Simply failing doesn’t fully shift you, but enough of a change occurs that someone around you may readily notice. On a glitch you raise the target number of the Composure test by 1 until you have a chance to cool back down. On a critical glitch you fully shift into drake form. Being tuned to magic as you are, the local mana levels can work against you. Apply a penalty to your composure dice pool equal to the level of local background count unless you are aspected to it.

True Nature: While your metahuman form is indistinguishable from any other, your aura shows your true nature. Thankfully making sense of your aura is difficult for most, taking 2 successes on an Asensing test to reveal your drake nature.

Alright, now after all of that, it’s time to get to the benefits of being a small dragon-like creature! First all, if you don’t already have one, you gain a magic rating of 1. You also gain the Draco-Shift power! This power takes a complex action to activate and allows you to shift from your metahuman to drake form (and vise versa). While in drake form you gain access to a number of powers listed below. Should your magic rating ever be reduced to zero permanently, you shift back into metahuman form and lose access to the Draco-Shift ability and all optional powers you may have purchased. If your magic drops to zero temporarily, you are stuck in your current form and lose any abilities that you must activate (ie, elemental attack or the Fear power).

Draco-Shift: Your drake form is roughly of the same mass as your metahuman form. This has the advantage of being able to still fit into most of your gear, however many types of gear still needs to have a few modifications in order to properly function. This increases the base cost of the item by 10%, and needs a tailor that you can trust, or a sewing machine and some personal skill. This cost applies mostly to armor, but your GM may declare that other pieces of gear need to be specially modified (such as goggles), and some gear cannot be altered in the ways needed. You do not have the opposable thumbs in drake form to fully make use of many items. Eastern drakes however do have both an opposable thumbs letting them easily pick up and manipulate objects around them. While in drake form, you also gain the powers listed below:

•   Dual-Nature: You are a dual nature being and interact with both the physical and astral planes at the same time.
•   Stat Changes: You gain a boost to your stats depending on what type of drake you are as shown on the table below. When raising attributes, only the stats in your base metahuman form count. The bonuses in drake form counts as a boost that doesn't apply to the +4 max adjustment.
•   Natural Weapon (Bite): You have a bite attack (DV STR + 1P, AP -2, Reach 0). The bite uses the Unarmed skill to hit and has it’s own specialization.
•   Hard Scales: You gain both Armor and Mystic Armor of 4.
•   Breath Attack: You have the Elemental Attack (fire) power. This power uses the Exotic Ranged Weapon skill to hit. At his discretion, your GM may let you pick another element for your breath attack.
•   Flight (Western, Eastern, Feathered Serpent only): You can fly at your base movement rate. Use the Acrobatics and Running skills to apply to your flight the same as if you were on the ground (both of these skills also have a new Flying specialization for you). Western drakes and Feathered Serpents fly using wings, while Eastern drakes fly via magical levitation.
•   Underwater Action (Leviathan only): You gain the ability to breath underwater and the Underwater Vision metagenic trait. Unfortunately you are also somewhat slow on land, and cannot run in drake form.
•   Enhanced Sense: You may choose one of the enhanced senses from the list of optional powers.

Western Drake:           +2 Body, +2 Strength
Eastern Drake:            +1 Body, +1 Agility, +1 Strength
Feathered Serpent:     +1 Body, +1 Agility, +1 Reaction
Leviathan:                    +1 Body, +1 Reaction, +1 Strength

Drakes can use most forms of technology in either form, at least, those they can manipulate with claws. Many drakes utilize trodes when in drake form to make more use of their devices. Drakes can accept cybernetics, but only in metahuman form. While it's theoretically possible to implant augments on a dracoform, few have done the research necessary to due so and have their patient live; and the few who can, are all heavily watched or employed by dragons, and a drake who goes to them is likely to wake up in the claws of their new master or mistress!

Augments on the metahuman form of a drake only function in metahuman form, disappearing when the drake shifts. Most drakes tend to be leery of getting too many augments so they don't lose all their powers by reducing their magic to zero.

Optional Powers

As listed in Howling Shadows, drakes have the ability to learn various ways to enhance their dracoform bodies, as well as new abilities they can channel their innate magic into. Pull from the list in Howling Shadows except as noted below:

•   Feathered Serpents cannot take the Natural Weapon (claws) power.
•   Heavy Scales only give +2 physical and mystic armor. This is not hardened armor unless you also have the Hardened Scales trait.
•   Dracoform Mastery, Flight, Magical Flight, and Transcend Form are removed, and replaced as below.

•   Dracoform Mastery: You have mastered your instincts and step between your forms at will. You no longer suffer from the Apex Predator flaw (though are still encouraged to role play it up!), and can spend a point of Karma to shift form as a free action. 15 karma.
•   Advanced Flight: You learn to fly more naturally with your wings or levitation powers. You can now move at x2/x4/+3 when flying. 14 karma.
•   Hardened Scales: Your scales and skin are made harder with the magic flowing through them. Your natural armor is now hardened armor. 16 karma.
•   Transcend Form: You can channel the innate power of your draconic form into your metahuman form, gaining it's benefit. You can use any power once per activation of Transcend Form. Non-activation powers (such as flight or natural weapons) Last for a number of rounds equal to your magic score. Doing this a taxing however, and you suffer 4S Drain, resisted with Body + Willpower each time a power is activated.  25 karma

You can also take any of the new options from the list below:
•   Astral Sight: You learn how to channel your dual nature into your metahuman form easier, at least for the purpose of seeing mana. You can use astral perception as per the adept power. 20 karma
•   Aural Stealth: To survive free, a drake must learn to hide what they are. Awakened drakes often turn to masking metamagic, however, even non-awakened drakes can learn a few tricks to help hide what they are. When selected, you learn how to more closely match your aura with your metahuman form. You may roll Willpower + Magic to oppose an asensing test. If the asenser doesn't get more hits then you, your aura appears as your normal metahuman type. Note that this doesn't protect you from someone asensing you to learn your emotional state or awakened nature, only if you are a drake or not. It also won't protect you if you parade around with your snout out either. Nobody is that dumb chummer. 10 karma
•   Enhanced Form: You learn to utilize the mana in your drake form even more efficiently, enhancing your physical prowess. You double the stat bonus you get when shifted. 20 karma
•   Underwater Adaptation (leviathan only): You are now fully adapted to underwater life. You can exist at any depth without worry of the cold or pressure from the environment. Other sources of cold still affect you as normal. You also double your base swim speed. 14 karma

[Reshy]

Ah, Moonshine glad to see you're still working on this.  I've been collaborating on my own with Dwagonzhan and EiraHaexa.  Though it needs to be fluffed up and reorganized.  Still have a couple sections that need to be written.  If you want to join we have a discord group going that I can send you the link for (and any other interested parties).

Anyway onto critique:

•   Feathered Serpents cannot take the Natural Weapon (claws) power.

They still have claws, just not forelimbs.  Though me and Dwagonzhan decided that the lack of forelimbs would be utterly crippling next to the other dracoforms all having opposable thumbs, so we decided to give them forelimbs.  Also because Drakes were designed to have capabilities that their creators did not, in this case they have hands and forearms.

Aural Stealth: To survive free, a drake must learn to hide what they are. Awakened drakes often turn to masking metamagic, however, even non-awakened drakes can learn a few tricks to help hide what they are. When selected, you learn how to more closely match your aura with your metahuman form. You may roll Willpower + Magic to oppose an asensing test. If the asenser doesn't get more hits then you, your aura appears as your normal metahuman type. Note that this doesn't protect you from someone asensing you to learn your emotional state or awakened nature, only if you are a drake or not. It also won't protect you if you parade around with your snout out either. Nobody is that dumb chummer. 10 karma

We just added "Aura Masking" critter power to their repertoire for 10 karma.  In essence basically the same thing.  Doesn't stack with the Masking metamagic, but let's be honest here you wouldn't ever take it over Flexible Signature.

Natural Weapon (Bite): You have a bite attack (DV STR + 1P, AP -2, Reach 0). The bite uses the Unarmed skill to hit and has it’s own specialization.

Far too weak unfortunately, we were discussing this but most melee weapons you can find on the streets have +3p -2ap or better.  One melee weapon is +5p and -5ap.  Dracoform claws are supposed to be scary, so it should at least be able to match the average sword.

Astral Sight: You learn how to channel your dual nature into your metahuman form easier, at least for the purpose of seeing mana. You can use astral perception as per the adept power. 20 karma

Afaik you get this for being dual natured innately.

Advanced Flight: You learn to fly more naturally with your wings or levitation powers. You can now move at x2/x4/+3 when flying. 14 karma.

That's the base movement rates for metahumans to begin with.   x3/x6 would be better.

Underwater Action (Leviathan only): You gain the ability to breath underwater and the Underwater Vision metagenic trait. Unfortunately you are also somewhat slow on land, and cannot run in drake form.

N. O.  Sea drakes are already pretty screwed due to their lack of flight, don't tack on needless weaknesses too.  Swimming is very niche compared to flight, so this is not necessary on an already very weak dracoform. 

True Nature: While your metahuman form is indistinguishable from any other, your aura shows your true nature. Thankfully making sense of your aura is difficult for most, taking 2 successes on an Asensing test to reveal your drake nature.

3e put the threshold at 4, and the threshold for latent drakes at 6.  Drakes are supposed to be hard to detect from metahumans, the average mage can easily hit a 2 difficulty assensing check.  Competent Assensing is 3, and Average Intuition is 3, that's typically 2 hits on average.  Me and Dwagonzhan actually decided to make it harder since in 3e successes were harder to come by than in 5e.

This increases the base cost of the item by 10%, and needs a tailor that you can trust, or a sewing machine and some personal skill. This cost applies mostly to armor, but your GM may declare that other pieces of gear need to be specially modified (such as goggles), and some gear cannot be altered in the ways needed. You do not have the opposable thumbs in drake form to fully make use of many items.

10% is far too low, I know the book has that as the default value but that's a pittance for a suit that's able to adapt to a dracoform suddenly being where a metahuman is.  There needs to be an availability increase, and at least a +50% markup on it, in addition to it being risky.  Being a drake isn't easy.

Second, actual full-sized dragons do have opposable thumbs if I recall.  Drakes should possess this too.  The way we thought to do it was that other dracoforms take a -2DP to use any item that requires fine manipulation of the digits because it is still awkward (exception goes to eastern).  And of course this can be mitigated by giving it a metahuman customization not too dissimilar to what a troll would need.  Might get you some weird looks though.

[Novocrane]

Ditch the gear markup entirely. This is what lifestyle cost increases are for.

Otherwise I mostly agree with Reshy.

[Reshy]

Ditch the gear markup entirely. This is what lifestyle cost increases are for.

Otherwise I mostly agree with Reshy.

Then that needs to be listed, but again you're comparing buying troll-sized clothing with buying a specialized piece of equipment designed for a dragon.  That's not something you can just find in your average store, even if you went into the metasapient section.

[Novocrane]

I think you're overstating just how special this clothing would be.

The problem isn't a great deal more complicated than the existing issues faced by shapeshifter and sapient critter armour. YNT Softweave stretch fabrics, memory materials, automated and self-adjusting straps & armour plates may not be hitting the runways, but they're not that unusual, tech-wise, in the 2070s.

Plus, metasapient section? Almost half of the armour listed in the books won't be found in a department store. Get a tailor ...

[Dwagonzhan]

I'd say finding someone who would be willing to make drake-friendly armor and clothing is far more challenging than just bumping lifestyle costs. They'd need to be a Contact, and require maintaining an ongoing relationship.

I mean, you could abstract the ongoing cost ala lifestyle, but I personally don't think that fits very well because for trolls/dwarves, the lifestyle bump stems from the fact that there is an entire industry catering to them.
"You can get anything in the shadows for the right price" is a theme of the game, but I want to put this into perspective:

Drakes are virtually unknown to the world at large. Even their closest analog in Shapeshifters have haven nations available to them (NAN countries even issue SINs to shapeshifters), and thus, access to a niche, but existent public industry.
Dragonkind is the least-trusted known sapient species in Shadowrun, and for good reason; they frag with everyone else.
And the shadows are especially distrustful of dragonkind by default ("Never deal with a dragon").

It's definitely something I'd mandate RP time to and Contact Points for at my table.

[Moonshine Fox]

Ditch the gear markup entirely. This is what lifestyle cost increases are for.

Otherwise I mostly agree with Reshy.

While I like the idea of it being special, that would cut down on a lot of unnecessary system math and GM arguing in the same way as metatype markup did. Plus it also can represent the Apex Predator a bit when you have to go buy yet another flavor dispenser for your soy processing unit cause it flaked out and you "dropped it" when trying to fix it and it just caught fire. For the third time this month. So bizarre!

We almost have materials that could accommodate different body sizes now, and straps are easy to adjust. By the 2070s these could easily be common and function automatically, especially when you consider awakened spellcasters have had spells that let them shapeshift for some 50 years now. Still a chance that someone will notice and question some of the features of your adjustable clothing, but it's not a dead give away that it otherwise could be. Hell, there are cloths that are self cleaning for Ghosts sake!

[Moonshine Fox]

Ah, Moonshine glad to see you're still working on this.  I've been collaborating on my own with Dwagonzhan and EiraHaexa.  Though it needs to be fluffed up and reorganized.  Still have a couple sections that need to be written.  If you want to join we have a discord group going that I can send you the link for (and any other interested parties).

Will look into that since I didn't realize Discord has a smartphone app (don't know why I didn't, old man moment there). DOn't have much free time though.

Anyway onto critique:

•   Feathered Serpents cannot take the Natural Weapon (claws) power.

They still have claws, just not forelimbs.  Though me and Dwagonzhan decided that the lack of forelimbs would be utterly crippling next to the other dracoforms all having opposable thumbs, so we decided to give them forelimbs.  Also because Drakes were designed to have capabilities that their creators did not, in this case they have hands and forearms.

Well, they do have the tail stinger with venom in it that none of the other's get, which would balance out the lack of combat usable claws pretty well I think.

I was also thinking of removing the 'can't use things' penalty while still leaving they lack of forelimbs. Drakes were created to be a go-between true, but they were created in their masters image. Besides, you even seen some birds, especially the smarter ones, manipulate things with the hind-talons and mouth? They really aren't hampered that much at all by the lack of hands and I'm sure a drake would be even better at overcoming this problem.

Aural Stealth: To survive free, a drake must learn to hide what they are. Awakened drakes often turn to masking metamagic, however, even non-awakened drakes can learn a few tricks to help hide what they are. When selected, you learn how to more closely match your aura with your metahuman form. You may roll Willpower + Magic to oppose an asensing test. If the asenser doesn't get more hits then you, your aura appears as your normal metahuman type. Note that this doesn't protect you from someone asensing you to learn your emotional state or awakened nature, only if you are a drake or not. It also won't protect you if you parade around with your snout out either. Nobody is that dumb chummer. 10 karma

We just added "Aura Masking" critter power to their repertoire for 10 karma.  In essence basically the same thing.  Doesn't stack with the Masking metamagic, but let's be honest here you wouldn't ever take it over Flexible Signature.

I’ll have to look over the power, but I’m leery of giving them too much full awakened type powers. Just masking their true metatype is really all I think that non-awakened drakes should do, otherwise it has the potential to be too strong. Will look over it though.

Natural Weapon (Bite): You have a bite attack (DV STR + 1P, AP -2, Reach 0). The bite uses the Unarmed skill to hit and has it’s own specialization.

Far too weak unfortunately, we were discussing this but most melee weapons you can find on the streets have +3p -2ap or better.  One melee weapon is +5p and -5ap.  Dracoform claws are supposed to be scary, so it should at least be able to match the average sword.

While true, most natural weapons in the game pale to modern weapons, most range in damage from +0 to +3. The strength of a natural weapon relies more on the strength of the critter then laser sharpened edges and titanium impact areas. Still, looking over some other naturals, it could use a boost.

Astral Sight: You learn how to channel your dual nature into your metahuman form easier, at least for the purpose of seeing mana. You can use astral perception as per the adept power. 20 karma

Afaik you get this for being dual natured innately.

Drakes are however only dual natured in drake form. In metahuman form, they haven't been dual natured since 3rd ed. Something that's really good as it's hard to hide an always on astral aura even with masking, especially since wards are even more common it seems now then they were 20 years ago. Still needs the cost dropped though. I was trying to base it on the cost of the adept power and I forgot it's less now then it used to be.

Advanced Flight: You learn to fly more naturally with your wings or levitation powers. You can now move at x2/x4/+3 when flying. 14 karma.

That's the base movement rates for metahumans to begin with.   x3/x6 would be better.

Good catch, will change.

Underwater Action (Leviathan only): You gain the ability to breath underwater and the Underwater Vision metagenic trait. Unfortunately you are also somewhat slow on land, and cannot run in drake form.

N. O.  Sea drakes are already pretty screwed due to their lack of flight, don't tack on needless weaknesses too.  Swimming is very niche compared to flight, so this is not necessary on an already very weak dracoform. 

While it does hurt them, if you play a leviathan in a land locked game, you're going to be at a penalty and most of your powers are not useful. Put them in a more sea fairing location or game and they are superior to their air based cousins and that serves to balance them. Personally, I'd also let them use their elemental attack fire underwater with no penalty while the others would have problems, but that's me and I didn't feel like adding that in.

True Nature: While your metahuman form is indistinguishable from any other, your aura shows your true nature. Thankfully making sense of your aura is difficult for most, taking 2 successes on an Asensing test to reveal your drake nature.

3e put the threshold at 4, and the threshold for latent drakes at 6.  Drakes are supposed to be hard to detect from metahumans, the average mage can easily hit a 2 difficulty assensing check.  Competent Assensing is 3, and Average Intuition is 3, that's typically 2 hits on average.  Me and Dwagonzhan actually decided to make it harder since in 3e successes were harder to come by than in 5e.

I'm looking into it more and will end up knocking the number up a bit. Remember though that in third, perception was just an inteligence test, which meant hermetics (and any intelligence based tradition) would almost always be able to see your aura for what it is. With asensing being it's own skill it changes things up a bit and gives the advantage to intuition based traditions. I'm thinking a 3 or 4 will do as it'll still give a specialist in aura reading a solid chance to notice, but not leaving it out of the reach of most others, just makes them have to have a lot of luck. Will crunch the numbers and change it.

This increases the base cost of the item by 10%, and needs a tailor that you can trust, or a sewing machine and some personal skill. This cost applies mostly to armor, but your GM may declare that other pieces of gear need to be specially modified (such as goggles), and some gear cannot be altered in the ways needed. You do not have the opposable thumbs in drake form to fully make use of many items.

10% is far too low, I know the book has that as the default value but that's a pittance for a suit that's able to adapt to a dracoform suddenly being where a metahuman is.  There needs to be an availability increase, and at least a +50% markup on it, in addition to it being risky.  Being a drake isn't easy.

Second, actual full-sized dragons do have opposable thumbs if I recall.  Drakes should possess this too.  The way we thought to do it was that other dracoforms take a -2DP to use any item that requires fine manipulation of the digits because it is still awkward (exception goes to eastern).  And of course this can be mitigated by giving it a metahuman customization not too dissimilar to what a troll would need.  Might get you some weird looks though.

They do and I realized my mistake a few hours after I posted it. Dragons (and drakes) have opposable thumbs, they just have a harder time manipulating fine objects (like typing on a keyboard). This is one reason dragons have staff to do certain things. Eastern drakes (and dragons I think) don’t have this problem. I'll have to read up and see if I can find if there's been a set penalty for this sort of thing, otherwise I may leave it up to GM fiat on what you can manipulate with ease and what you can't.

Will update it here with new info when I can.

[Dwagonzhan]

Well, they do have the tail stinger with venom in it that none of the other's get, which would balance out the lack of combat usable claws pretty well I think.

I was also thinking of removing the 'can't use things' penalty while still leaving they lack of forelimbs. Drakes were created to be a go-between true, but they were created in their masters image. Besides, you even seen some birds, especially the smarter ones, manipulate things with the hind-talons and mouth? They really aren't hampered that much at all by the lack of hands and I'm sure a drake would be even better at overcoming this problem.

I considered this in my discussion, then thought about a feathered drake trying to do most mundane tasks we use our hands for.
Things like, swiping a card, turning a key, or opening a door. Now imagine doing that with no arms.
In short: It's absurd and awkward to the point of weeping hilarity. A bird attempting the same with their claw-feet and/or beak MIGHT pull those off, but it would be an uphill struggle at best.

A feathered drake would facepalm at the absurdity of its creators lack of foresight...if only it had the hands to do so. -_-

Now, for combat purposes every drake is solid as-is, but contrary to many builds I see here, Shadowrun is not D&D; it doesn't revolve around combat. So I thought it prudent to TRY and give the dracoform more usage outside of "Rawr, now that I'm in snout-mode, I'mma either kill you or fly away" (which seems to be the extent of how drakes were written in Howling Shadows, plus or minus a couple of critter powers).

The other option that we bounced around was basically giving drakes access to the Magic Fingers critter power variant (Psychokinesis, I think?).
But that solution fixes one problem by creating another (now the drake has gone from lacking utility to having way too much innate utility; it's a very powerful ability)

The "eloquent" solution was to just let Feathered Drakes retain functional forearms with claws, ala retaining the ability to speak verbally. (drakes in SR3 and SR4 couldn't; they can in SR5, which is one of the few changes I do approve of without reservation; drakes ARE a servant race made to interact with metahuman society after all)

TL;DR: Just give them hands so they aren't hilariously crippled compared to the other drakes when it comes to manipulating objects.

I’ll have to look over the power, but I’m leery of giving them too much full awakened type powers. Just masking their true metatype is really all I think that non-awakened drakes should do, otherwise it has the potential to be too strong. Will look over it though.

This is another issue I considered too, but felt it necessary to at least offer it so not every Corp Watcher Spirit on patrol could spot a drake and immediately raise a POI bulletin.
Masking is pretty weak starting out even for Initiates, and the scaling we're using for the power is much more gradual than the full critter power. It will cover getting around just fine, but carries enough risk "on-mission" that the drake should play extra careful, especially around Watchers and Wards.

While true, most natural weapons in the game pale to modern weapons, most range in damage from +0 to +3. The strength of a natural weapon relies more on the strength of the critter then laser sharpened edges and titanium impact areas. Still, looking over some other naturals, it could use a boost.

Dragonkind's natural weaponry tends to be far more potent than the average critter's.
Granted, what you say is true here: The crazy damage stems from adult dragons having ABSURD amounts of Strength. (24+)
But since drakes are a sort of intersection between Dragonkind and Metahumanity, another solution (that aren't insane STR boosts) is needed to keep the natural weapons as a viable build.

I'm working on a series of optional buy-in powers that improve drake natural weapons in function beyond the allmighty DV and AP, along with a "Drake-Fu" Martial Arts form.
If nothing else, it's been a fun exercise in game design.

Drakes are however only dual natured in drake form. In metahuman form, they haven't been dual natured since 3rd ed. Something that's really good as it's hard to hide an always on astral aura even with masking, especially since wards are even more common it seems now then they were 20 years ago. Still needs the cost dropped though. I was trying to base it on the cost of the adept power and I forgot it's less now then it used to be.

I addressed this before in my PM to you, but for the sake of discussion, I'll reiterate that there are plenty of examples of folks who are Dual-Natured 24/7.
(Shapeshifters, certain Changelings (the poor slots), and gobs of paracritters.)

With the option for Masking being available, this should balance out the issue on both sides. Drakes still have to be careful around Wards and watch for spiritual attacks, but they're no longer as virtually defenseless starting out, like they were in SR3.

That's the base movement rates for metahumans to begin with.   x3/x6 would be better.

Good catch, will change.

This reminds me: Need to consider the Eastern Drake's Flight power in design. It makes no sense for them to require Athletics because it's effectively levitation.

While it does hurt them, if you play a leviathan in a land locked game, you're going to be at a penalty and most of your powers are not useful. Put them in a more sea fairing location or game and they are superior to their air based cousins and that serves to balance them. Personally, I'd also let them use their elemental attack fire underwater with no penalty while the others would have problems, but that's me and I didn't feel like adding that in.

Ah, the eternal issue of "Land vs Sea" in tabletops... "Niche role only" is the #1 way of getting a character shelved (or ignored in session) in any tabletop game.
Since I'm in the business of encouraging players to actually use the stuff I write, rather than go "Oh, that might be useful exactly once" and ignore it, I just rule the sea drakes aren't hilariously crippled and slow on land.

I'm looking into it more and will end up knocking the number up a bit. Remember though that in third, perception was just an inteligence test, which meant hermetics (and any intelligence based tradition) would almost always be able to see your aura for what it is. With asensing being it's own skill it changes things up a bit and gives the advantage to intuition based traditions. I'm thinking a 3 or 4 will do as it'll still give a specialist in aura reading a solid chance to notice, but not leaving it out of the reach of most others, just makes them have to have a lot of luck. Will crunch the numbers and change it.

I'll add that SR3 had Aura Reading as a skill available to all Awakened with Astral Perception, which would work as a complimentary pool for Astral Perception tests.

They do and I realized my mistake a few hours after I posted it. Dragons (and drakes) have opposable thumbs, they just have a harder time manipulating fine objects (like typing on a keyboard). This is one reason dragons have staff to do certain things. Eastern drakes (and dragons I think) don’t have this problem. I'll have to read up and see if I can find if there's been a set penalty for this sort of thing, otherwise I may leave it up to GM fiat on what you can manipulate with ease and what you can't.

Will update it here with new info when I can.

I haven't found any such penalty by RAW, but there's a LOT of little things Catalyst has missed.
It's not as terrible an indictment as that sounds; Shadowrun was not a simple game back when FASA had it either.

Anyway, I think there should be a penalty for having to use fine motor control for stuff made specifically to be wielded by bipeds or accounting for size differences.
(a dracoform trying to wield an assault rifle is awkward, if only because dragonkind are quadrupedal in their normal form | also, a dracoform trying to write with say, a normal pen, would be a bit like trying to write with a thumbtack)

[Moonshine Fox]

I considered this in my discussion, then thought about a feathered drake trying to do most mundane tasks we use our hands for.
Things like, swiping a card, turning a key, or opening a door. Now imagine doing that with no arms.
In short: It's absurd and awkward to the point of weeping hilarity.

Or as beings of two worlds they'd use the form that has hands. Drakes have always looked like the dragon they descended from, I see no reason to change one of the four because they have an inconvenience. That's part of the price of playing a feathered serpent. Granted in 5th they can use trode nets now so doing a lot of things are now just a thought away, assuming they even stay in drake form for any length of time and risk exposure.

Like I said, watch videos of birds, especially parrots and the like, interacting with daily objects. They have far less trouble then one would think, and most of them could be solved by more size/muscle or critical thinking skills.

Now, for combat purposes every drake is solid as-is, but contrary to many builds I see here, Shadowrun is not D&D; it doesn't revolve around combat. So I thought it prudent to TRY and give the dracoform more usage outside of "Rawr, now that I'm in snout-mode, I'mma either kill you or fly away" (which seems to be the extent of how drakes were written in Howling Shadows, plus or minus a couple of critter powers).

When you really break down full dragons, most of their power comes from very high stats, skills, and mystic prowess. Drakes lack this, being in drake form or not is a mostly physical effect. They mystic side of the transformation is shown pretty well in 5th via the optional power table. Most of any characters power comes from what they know how to do, and going snout doesn't change that. In the other two editions they either did "Rawr, now that I'm in snout-mode, I'mma either kill you or fly away" in the other two editions too, and didn't have the critter powers either.

Dragonkind's natural weaponry tends to be far more potent than the average critter's.
Granted, what you say is true here: The crazy damage stems from adult dragons having ABSURD amounts of Strength. (24+)
But since drakes are a sort of intersection between Dragonkind and Metahumanity, another solution (that aren't insane STR boosts) is needed to keep the natural weapons as a viable build.

Dragon claws only do Str +2 with -4 AP, their power comes from their body and crazy high unarmed skill, not the claws. Drakes will be crazy powerful too when they have an unarmed skill of 14 as well. Their bodies will never be as strong as strong paracritters.

I'm working on a series of optional buy-in powers that improve drake natural weapons in function beyond the allmighty DV and AP, along with a "Drake-Fu" Martial Arts form.

And what drake would have been around free from the fear of discovery and had the ability to experiment fully to make such a combat style?

I addressed this before in my PM to you, but for the sake of discussion, I'll reiterate that there are plenty of examples of folks who are Dual-Natured 24/7.
(Shapeshifters, certain Changelings (the poor slots), and gobs of paracritters.)

With the option for Masking being available, this should balance out the issue on both sides. Drakes still have to be careful around Wards and watch for spiritual attacks, but they're no longer as virtually defenseless starting out, like they were in SR3.

Ok, that doesn't mean others need to be. Look at other topics in the forum about people asking about the Infected riding in an elevator that passes though an astral ward. You're pretty much chunky salsa and rolling up a new character.

Besides, was just looking though Dragons of the Sixth World and drakes even back then were only dual in dracoform. In metahuman form they could astral perceive while in metahuman form though (bottom of pg 184, second paragraph under forms). Don't know how I've missed it all these years, but there it is. Starting out without perception power works as player drakes are pretty new to their powers, and would need to learn how to use it.

This reminds me: Need to consider the Eastern Drake's Flight power in design. It makes no sense for them to require Athletics because it's effectively levitation.

While true, why make a new skill just for that. Just hand-wave it as "dragon flying magic" and leave the rest of the distinctions to in game descriptions. Or make a specific flying skill for them to use.

I'm looking into it more and will end up knocking the number up a bit. Remember though that in third, perception was just an inteligence test, which meant hermetics (and any intelligence based tradition) would almost always be able to see your aura for what it is. With asensing being it's own skill it changes things up a bit and gives the advantage to intuition based traditions. I'm thinking a 3 or 4 will do as it'll still give a specialist in aura reading a solid chance to notice, but not leaving it out of the reach of most others, just makes them have to have a lot of luck. Will crunch the numbers and change it.

I'll add that SR3 had Aura Reading as a skill available to all Awakened with Astral Perception, which would work as a complimentary pool for Astral Perception tests.

By the numbers, a 3rd ed Awakened with intelligence of 6, has a 50/50 chance to tell if your a drake (3 successes). Add in Aura reading, and that chance goes up. In 5th, intuition and assensing of 6, 4 successes on average, which would make it roughly on par (or more so since most probably don't put 6 into assensing).

[Moonshine Fox]

Ah, the eternal issue of "Land vs Sea" in tabletops... "Niche role only" is the #1 way of getting a character shelved (or ignored in session) in any tabletop game.
Since I'm in the business of encouraging players to actually use the stuff I write, rather than go "Oh, that might be useful exactly once" and ignore it, I just rule the sea drakes aren't hilariously crippled and slow on land.

The problem is, while Shadowrun does tend to focus on land activities, most of the Earth is covered in water, and they're are a LOT of ways to have an entire campaign on the water. Plus several of the major sprawls have ocean front areas. Seattle, Chicago, Boston, New York, all of Hawaii, Japan, and the Caribbean League.

Rules have to be made, not with the most common environment in mind, but with nearly all places a campaign could be. In the city, in the plains, the wet jungle, the burning desert, on the high seas, in the arctic, ect. In Shadowrun, the place that you'll probably not see people in often is in space, and even that is getting less rare then it used to be. This is a reason rule sets for games can be hard to write, and why some game systems run into problems when a "niche" environment is suddenly the main one, and the player option that was 'balanced', suddenly because massively overpowered and the GM may have to deal with munchkin or argumentative players.

If you want to play the child of the Dragon of the Seas, you're going to be at a disadvantage on land, just like western drakes will be at a disadvantage when trying to do things underwater. Besides, you could always just drop into metahuman form and run just like everyone else.

[Dwagonzhan]

Or as beings of two worlds they'd use the form that has hands. Drakes have always looked like the dragon they descended from, I see no reason to change one of the four because they have an inconvenience. That's part of the price of playing a feathered serpent. Granted in 5th they can use trode nets now so doing a lot of things are now just a thought away, assuming they even stay in drake form for any length of time and risk exposure.

You call it a a "price";  I call it an "Idiot Trap".
I get the lore implications and precedent, but I still think it's ridiculous that dragons would create drakes specifically to infiltrate metahuman society, only to hamstring them by omitting the power of opposable thumbs.

Going by gameplay logic, well, this decision basically ensures nobody would play feathered drakes vs the others, short of maybe comedic hubris.

Like I said, watch videos of birds, especially parrots and the like, interacting with daily objects. They have far less trouble then one would think, and most of them could be solved by more size/muscle or critical thinking skills.

My mother is a life-long bird enthusiast, card-carrying Audubon member, with a Bachelors of Science in Biology (specializing in north American wildlife).
I've seen all the bird vids, talks and walks I never wanted. ;p

And my conclusion is that the raptor-esque claws of the feathered drake would have great difficulty achieving most of those basic tasks I established. Especially under pressure.
The biggest observation, especially in manipulating equipment, is that carrying something is rarely the same as operating it.

When you really break down full dragons, most of their power comes from very high stats, skills, and mystic prowess. Drakes lack this, being in drake form or not is a mostly physical effect. They mystic side of the transformation is shown pretty well in 5th via the optional power table. Most of any characters power comes from what they know how to do, and going snout doesn't change that. In the other two editions they either did "Rawr, now that I'm in snout-mode, I'mma either kill you or fly away" in the other two editions too, and didn't have the critter powers either.

Indeed, but if I may play Devil's Advocate here, it's that one-dimensional design that makes drakes unpopular and kinda unfun to build.
The most interesting drake build I've seen while digging through the old posts in the Character Creation Forum here, was from Aria.

Dragon claws only do Str +2 with -4 AP, their power comes from their body and crazy high unarmed skill, not the claws. Drakes will be crazy powerful too when they have an unarmed skill of 14 as well. Their bodies will never be as strong as strong paracritters.

I'm not trying to make them as strong as "strong paracritters", I'm trying to make them POTENTIALLY as useful as a cyber-martial artist without being overbearing.
Something that's solid vs other runner builds without being off the chain in terms of power.

And what drake would have been around free from the fear of discovery and had the ability to experiment fully to make such a combat style?

Instinct? Lots of hiding and little else to do? I dunno, I'm just trying to give drakes something to work on in-character here. Maybe theirs is the one that figures it out.
Living in the shadows is about adapting to a harsh world. I'm not expecting them to start dojos or anything (amusing that would be).

Ok, that doesn't mean others need to be. Look at other topics in the forum about people asking about the Infected riding in an elevator that passes though an astral ward. You're pretty much chunky salsa and rolling up a new character.

I could. Or I could just save the time doing so by making two observations:

1) Astral Perception. All dual-natured beings have it innately now. It spots wards pretty darn handily; especially those powerful enough to crush you like a steamroller (which will glow like the sun in Astral Space).
USE IT.

2) It's poor argumentation in design. I mean, yeah, a GM could set that up, but then again, a GM could create any other "What if-? deathtrap scenario.
"What if this garbage chute drops us into a narrow room lined hardwired auto-turrets firing APDS?"
"What if the extraction target has an area-nuke in his head, keyed to go off as soon as we turn him in?"
etc

Besides, was just looking though Dragons of the Sixth World and drakes even back then were only dual in dracoform. In metahuman form they could astral perceive while in metahuman form though (bottom of pg 184, second paragraph under forms). Don't know how I've missed it all these years, but there it is. Starting out without perception power works as player drakes are pretty new to their powers, and would need to learn how to use it.

I know. My old SR3 drake had to cope with that as well, and unlike your rewrite, he had to burn Power Points on Astral Perception. (PAINFUL cost for an Adept)
My rewrite will adhere to the design decision that persistently dual-natured creatures get astral perception.

You do make a good point about adapting to the new powers though.
Maybe a burn-in period for getting used to being Astrally active (if they weren't before)?

While true, why make a new skill just for that. Just hand-wave it as "dragon flying magic" and leave the rest of the distinctions to in game descriptions. Or make a specific flying skill for them to use.

Huh??? Where did I say I was making a new skill? I just said I was going to address it, I didn't know how yet.

By the numbers, a 3rd ed Awakened with intelligence of 6, has a 50/50 chance to tell if your a drake (3 successes). Add in Aura reading, and that chance goes up. In 5th, intuition and assensing of 6, 4 successes on average, which would make it roughly on par (or more so since most probably don't put 6 into assensing).

Yeahhh...I didn't like that test for two reasons:
1) It was way too easy for a random corp mage or watcher spirit (which have high Perception pools either via the Power or INT) to spot your drakeyness
2) That they correctly identified what you were...despite drakes being virtually unknown to EVERYONE but dragons/immortals at the time. It made no fragging sense!

The problem is, while Shadowrun does tend to focus on land activities, most of the Earth is covered in water, and they're are a LOT of ways to have an entire campaign on the water. Plus several of the major sprawls have ocean front areas. Seattle, Chicago, Boston, New York, all of Hawaii, Japan, and the Caribbean League.

Sure, but "Near water" isn't the same as "ON" the water.
How many modules for Seattle actually take you out into the deep blue yonder? OK, now how many DON'T?

Rules have to be made, not with the most common environment in mind, but with nearly all places a campaign could be. In the city, in the plains, the wet jungle, the burning desert, on the high seas, in the arctic, ect. In Shadowrun, the place that you'll probably not see people in often is in space, and even that is getting less rare then it used to be. This is a reason rule sets for games can be hard to write, and why some game systems run into problems when a "niche" environment is suddenly the main one, and the player option that was 'balanced', suddenly because massively overpowered and the GM may have to deal with munchkin or argumentative players.

If you want to play the child of the Dragon of the Seas, you're going to be at a disadvantage on land, just like western drakes will be at a disadvantage when trying to do things underwater. Besides, you could always just drop into metahuman form and run just like everyone else.

In my experience, it's always more interesting to force the well-rounded party to adapt to a niche environment than forcing specialized/niche characters out of their element.
And I've been in the latter position before (hello non-Force Pilot role from Star Wars d20), and it's "You're effectively benched, and it's entirely your fault because you picked the Idiot Trap Class, you idiot."

I dunno...maybe I'm overstating how bad that nerf is.
Just my two cents there.

[Reshy]

The problem is, while Shadowrun does tend to focus on land activities, most of the Earth is covered in water, and they're are a LOT of ways to have an entire campaign on the water. Plus several of the major sprawls have ocean front areas. Seattle, Chicago, Boston, New York, all of Hawaii, Japan, and the Caribbean League. If you want to play the child of the Dragon of the Seas, you're going to be at a disadvantage on land, just like western drakes will be at a disadvantage when trying to do things underwater. Besides, you could always just drop into metahuman form and run just like everyone else.

That's like saying western, eastern, and feathered drakes should be handicapped on the ground because there's a higher volume of air in the world than there is water in the ocean or land on the planet.

Rules have to be made, not with the most common environment in mind, but with nearly all places a campaign could be. In the city, in the plains, the wet jungle, the burning desert, on the high seas, in the arctic, ect. In Shadowrun, the place that you'll probably not see people in often is in space, and even that is getting less rare then it used to be. This is a reason rule sets for games can be hard to write, and why some game systems run into problems when a "niche" environment is suddenly the main one, and the player option that was 'balanced', suddenly because massively overpowered and the GM may have to deal with munchkin or argumentative players.

The whole point of rewriting drakes is to make them more appealing.  Making one of them unnecessarily handicapped except for certain games built specifically for them isn't what I would call good design.  It's just wasted space and time.

Or as beings of two worlds they'd use the form that has hands. Drakes have always looked like the dragon they descended from, I see no reason to change one of the four because they have an inconvenience. That's part of the price of playing a feathered serpent. Granted in 5th they can use trode nets now so doing a lot of things are now just a thought away, assuming they even stay in drake form for any length of time and risk exposure.

Like I said, watch videos of birds, especially parrots and the like, interacting with daily objects. They have far less trouble then one would think, and most of them could be solved by more size/muscle or critical thinking skills.

The problem is that drakes were designed to fill capabilities their dragon creators could not do.  I'd go with "opposable thumbs" being one big important issue for feathered serpents. 

Dragon claws only do Str +2 with -4 AP, their power comes from their body and crazy high unarmed skill, not the claws. Drakes will be crazy powerful too when they have an unarmed skill of 14 as well. Their bodies will never be as strong as strong paracritters.

A drake's melee weapons should be on par with other melee weapons that other characters can use, or at the very least not be worthless.  As is there's no reason to use them over your elemental breath weapons, which do Mag x2 Damage with -Mag AP.

And what drake would have been around free from the fear of discovery and had the ability to experiment fully to make such a combat style?

I'd assume that it'd be a mix of adding Mixed Martial Arts into the intuitive fighting that drakes engage in by instinct.  Basically meshing them together, using the strengths of both, just like MMA does.  A drake is not so vulnerable that they cannot ever assume dracoform in the privacy of their own domain.  Maybe more risky sure, but when it comes to defending yourself learning your form is important.  Throwing claws, tail, wings, horns, and fangs into the punches and kicks of martial arts I can see working quite well.

While true, why make a new skill just for that. Just hand-wave it as "dragon flying magic" and leave the rest of the distinctions to in game descriptions. Or make a specific flying skill for them to use.

There's already a flying skill...

and

It's literally in both the Dragon and Drake stat blocks if you look.

By the numbers, a 3rd ed Awakened with intelligence of 6, has a 50/50 chance to tell if your a drake (3 successes). Add in Aura reading, and that chance goes up. In 5th, intuition and assensing of 6, 4 successes on average, which would make it roughly on par (or more so since most probably don't put 6 into assensing).

Drakes are supposed to be hard to detect, hence why the threshold has to be higher.  Successes are easier to come by in 5e for various reasons, so that necessitates a somewhat more difficult check.  The whole point of drakes is they're supposed to be subtle, not just anyone should be able to sniff out a drake.