[Fedifensor]

I have a mage in our group who want's a Rating 6 Centering Focus.  Now, from what we could hash out from the FAQ and from other posts, we're left with the impression that he cannot simply make the calls to get a hold of the thing during a game, but MUST buy the rolls during downtime.  Which leaves us with a bit of an issue.  Mainly that the rating of the thing and the availability leaves it at 18R and costs 54k.

Now, for the record, he doesn't have the 54k (yet, but he's close).  but the availability means he'll NEVER get it with downtimes, unless I'm mistaken.

So, let's say he has a charisma 5, Negotiation, 4.  That means he get's 2 successes, whereas the avalability get's 4.  So he needs to get 3 more hits.  Does that mean he'll never get it?

Here are some tips directed towards your group's mage:
1) Buy the Bargaining specialization for Negotiation - it's only 7 Karma to get you +2 dice.
2) I don't see anything preventing you from using teamwork with your contact.  If you have a Loyalty 2, Connection 5 contact (12 dice), and you buy 2 hits with your 9 dice to assist him, your contact is up to 14 dice.  Pay an extra 50%, and you can buy 4 hits - enough to get anything up to Availability 19.
3) If your group has a Face with the 16+ dice needed, give him the money to buy the item (plus a bit extra for his time spent).
4) Combine 2 and 3.  It means both you and the face have to spend time acquiring the item, but better to pay your party member extra than let the money go to an NPC.
5) Lower your expectations - a Centering Focus 6 is a game-changer, and it should be very, very hard to acquire.

[Tacitus05]

and a level 4 focus is pretty easy to acquire, and two dice is really not that much more

[Michael Chandra]

2) I don't see anything preventing you from using teamwork with your contact.

That is an interesting approach, might want to run it by Bull to see if teamwork is allowed in this manner.

[martinchaen]

Or Leadership, for that matter

[Deacon]

Remember that Missions is intentionally a low powered setting where aquiring gear is harder than it would be in a home game.

Just what my players will want to hear.  "Great news, everybody!  You'll all start as putzes, and you'll remain putzes throughout the campaign!  Won't that be great to play?"

[RHat]

Remember that Missions is intentionally a low powered setting where aquiring gear is harder than it would be in a home game.

Just what my players will want to hear.  "Great news, everybody!  You'll all start as putzes, and you'll remain putzes throughout the campaign!  Won't that be great to play?"

If those characters will not be going into other Missions games, you can tweak things as much as you want.

[Michael Chandra]

Low Power does not equal Putz either. Just because you won't have easy access to really-expensive stuff with high availabilities, doesn't mean the characters will never amount to anything.

[RHat]

Low Power does not equal Putz either. Just because you won't have easy access to really-expensive stuff with high availabilities, doesn't mean the characters will never amount to anything.

Fair point - "putz" does not describe a chargen SR5 character at all.

[All4BigGuns]

Remember that Missions is intentionally a low powered setting where aquiring gear is harder than it would be in a home game.

Just what my players will want to hear.  "Great news, everybody!  You'll all start as putzes, and you'll remain putzes throughout the campaign!  Won't that be great to play?"

While there is hyperbole being used here, that doesn't mean that he is wrong.

When it comes to advancement, there should be very significant increases by the time a character reaches the 150 Karma point of retirement that Missions uses (going by what the retirement point was for the previous Season). The Street Sam for example with his implants and such should have two or three of his implants maxed out in rating and upgraded to Beta or Delta grade by that point, and the Magician and/or Adept should have a few Force 6 foci. The Decker should be sitting on a deck that is at least the second best and the Rigger should be sitting on having several vehicles each for land, air and sea and have a damn good control console along with enough drones to practically be able to invade a small country (thinking one of those countries not much bigger than Rhode Island here). Not to mention that all of the characters should be reliably able to cover a High lifestyle every month by that point with money to spare to save for upgrading more of their stuff.

[martinchaen]

All4BigGuns I see a lot of "should" where you "should" be using the word "could".

Keep in mind that since Missions is limited in both nuyen and karma rewards, so will your opponents likely not be Great Dragons. So while some of you may "expect" to see 150 karma characters decked out in milspec gear and wielding the most powerful items in the world, that certainly doesn't have to be the case.

A well rounded Missions character has tremendous potential to grow skillwise, as well as character wise, even if you hyper or even just semi-specialize. In missions, you're not SUPPOSED to need 20+ dice pools, because your enemies won't have anything like that...

[All4BigGuns]

All4BigGuns I see a lot of "should" where you "should" be using the word "could".

Keep in mind that since Missions is limited in both nuyen and karma rewards, so will your opponents likely not be Great Dragons. So while some of you may "expect" to see 150 karma characters decked out in milspec gear and wielding the most powerful items in the world, that certainly doesn't have to be the case.

A well rounded Missions character has tremendous potential to grow skillwise, as well as character wise, even if you hyper or even just semi-specialize. In missions, you're not SUPPOSED to need 20+ dice pools, because your enemies won't have anything like that...

Whether one needs it or not is not in question. However, Missions calls those retired characters "Prime Runners" and a "Prime Runner" shouldn't still be sitting at low ratings in their implants/foci. The Prime Runner should be a scary force in both skill and equipment, and he/she should have gotten into the point where he's living the "high life".

[martinchaen]

Maybe you need to redefine your perception of "high life" for a former runner? There are plenty of examples in the books that have been released over the years of runners "living it up" by retiring only so they can run a bar, or a diner, or live comfortably and not get shot at.

Being a Prime Runner could just as easily be about being well known and connected (which, at 150 karma, with a large contact network and knowledge of a lot of things is certainly the case) as opposed to living it up with a Permanent Luxury Lifestyle, millions of nuyen, and all the wiz gear.

Just go with it, man. It's not going to change, so why waste energy being upset about it? Try playing as a character who has to struggle for his meal ticket, who runs because he HAS to and not because he wants to. Or don't; but stop complaining about "unfairness" and "should" when the campaign clearly has been developed with other goals in mind, and just play Missions with your own modifications.

I intend to play it as described, a lower-level campaign than usual, with some additional challenges; and, judging from the fun I've had creating my character and laying plans for where I want to take him, I'll have lots of fun in the process. Your mileage may vary, so feel free to ignore this advice like I'm sure you will...

[RHat]

Whether one needs it or not is not in question. However, Missions calls those retired characters "Prime Runners" [...]

In Season 5, not retired, just doing different things.  Or at least I think that's the idea behind Prime Runner missions.

[Pollution]

Well, I'm in an interesting position with my group.  We have 4 players and me, 1 of the players is an experienced SRGM and will be running missions while I get to play.  The other is an Agent and can also run missions.

So i came up with a solution for all this silliness.

I made a retired thief B&E specialist.  I figured he would need to fence a lot of gear,and is just coming out of retirement, having spent the last few years fencing stuff for his buddies or for runners.

So, Charisma 6, Negotiations 6, Bargaining Specialty which will give us 3 hits = Avail up to 12 and spent my Karma that I earned running games for these guys to get up to Negotiation 9.  Now, with Tailored Pheromones and/or First Impression, I should be able to get up to Availability 20 items for my runners.

Of course, he'll take an extra 15% for 1 week searches and %25 for 1 month searches, but hey, a brother's gotta make a profit.

For higher availability items that are just out of reach....there's always a teamwork test (give me 4 dice and I can go to 24).

[Kincaid]

3 hits gets you up to availability of 15, which you can do with a 2/5 or 1/6 starting-level contact in SRM.