[prismite]

Ok, so I'm remaking a character that I played some time ago who is less of a Shadowrunner and more of a legal and licensed Bounty Hunter. Nothing on his is Rated F because he follows the law.

However, I just noticed that his favorite long range weapon, the Onotari Rhino Hunter uses High-Power chambering and is something like 8R. But ... the rounds for said gun (High-Power rounds) are 20F?

Did this ever get errattad or is that how its meant to be?

[martinchaen]

According to WAR! p156, adding High-Power Chambering is a 7R modification, while High-Power ammo is 20F and costs 80¥ per 10. So yeah, you're better off using something else unless you have good contacts.

Keep in mind that SR4 has fairly high availability limits on most high-end security and military gear; APDS alone is 16F, APF is 18F, and AT rounds is 22F.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Remember also that an 'F' rating is meant for people who are 'private citizens'.  Anybody could actually be legally in possession of a 'Forbidden' item, presuming they went through all the (microscopic-sized) hoops and paid all the (macroscopic) fees in order to acquire a Valid End-User Certificate for the damn thing.  National armed forces?  Valid End-User Certificate.  Bonded mercenary company?  Valid End-User Certificate.  And, quite possibly - but you should absolutely have this conversation with your GM - a bonded, licensed bounty hunter, especially one that deals with highly dangerous and difficult-to-kill paranormal animals (like juggernauts!!).

I would, however, expect such hoops and fees required for a bounty hunter's VEUC to require at least a perfectly clean National SIN, licenses for all your gear, and a very fat yearly fee - in the nature of 50,000¥ or more.

[WellsIDidIt]

I wouldn't expect the fee to be that high. After all, current fees on automatic rifles, silencer and short barreled rifles were at $200 last time I dealt with them. The paperwork scares a lot of people away, but ownership is relatively cheap and easy once you jump that hurdle.

That said, as a bounty hunter, if you were part of a trust or corporation, the trust or corporation would own all the licenses/tax stamps on the equipment rather than you. It's actually kind of scary how lax the law is on this. You can set up a trust or corporation and get approval on all sorts of NFA items that people generally think of as illegal about 90% easier than registering in your own name.

Of course, the 50k would probably be on scale for a Fake license.

On that note though, if you do have a license of that sort as an individual, you will likely meet a lot more scrutiny. Police generally don't want to accept that the suppressed automatic 16" rifle you're carrying under that coat is legal. They tend to not understand those laws so well.

[Top Dog]

Remember also that an 'F' rating is meant for people who are 'private citizens'.  Anybody could actually be legally in possession of a 'Forbidden' item, presuming they went through all the (microscopic-sized) hoops and paid all the (macroscopic) fees in order to acquire a Valid End-User Certificate for the damn thing. 

You're describing restricted items. Restricted items can be licensed by civilians as you describe. Forbidden items are strictly illegal for any private person - that's clearly spelled out in the relative paragraph. There is no way for anyone to obtain a license for those - the only ones that can use them are the official institutions (who issue them to their personnel - not even those are allowed to privately own those items.)

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

And what I've described above is part and parcel of becoming an official institution ... which doesn't automatically mean government institution, you see.

[martinchaen]

Wyrm
Are there any game mechanics that covers what you're describing, though?

I get that militaries are supposed to have access to what is Forbidden to the average consumer, but in game terms a Forbidden item is very clearly impossible to get a Fake License for. Wouldn't it have to be a GM call (and house rule) to allow a player to get an actual, real license for something like being a bonded bounty hunter or a paramilitary employee, allowing you to possess Forbidden class items?

[Elektrycerze3]

Are there any game mechanics that covers what you're describing, though?

This might or might not be deducted from this bit:

Jurisdiction
The law, of course, varies in different countries all over the world—and with megacorporate extraterritoriality in Shadowrun, sometimes from block to block. Police officers in one jurisdiction may of course turn a blind eye to the possession of certain items that would cost you your life if you were caught with them in another. The legality restrictions in this book use the Seattle, UCAS, setting as a base guideline. Whenever the characters are in another national or corporate jurisdiction, the gamemaster determines exactly what the legalities and punishments are, as appropriate to his campaign.

[martinchaen]

That seems like more of a "what is F and what isn't in different countries", though, not a "You can have a Fake License for an F item by paying X, and this has an availability of Y".

So, my question remains; how does a runner (for the purposes of this discussion based in Seattle, UCAS) get a license for an availability F item in the core rules?

I don't believe there are any game mechanics for this, which means it's up to the GM to decide as usual.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Of course it's up to the GM, and of course there are no game mechanics for it.  It's a marginal case at best, and the main book - even Run and Gun - aren't big enough to talk about every single possible marginal case.

It kind of irks me that for every possibility there's someone going, 'are there any game mechanics for it??'  Every game mechanic ever published covers maybe 80% of the possibilities at best; the rest, as much as the game mechanics don't cover, whether that's holding off going to the bathroom while you're on a stakeout (go ahead and find a mechanic for that) to getting fully licensed and bonded as a High-Threat-Paranormal bounty hunter, is going to fall into the camp of 'the GM's gotta use a big dose of common sense, with all he knows of both the game world and the real world acting as a guideline.'  It reminds me of the guy who wanted game mechanics for buying legal items.

[martinchaen]

Woah, woah, woah, settle down. I was just asking if there was or had been; I know you have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of past and present editions, and was curious if there were any game mechanics covering actually being licensed as a professional X.

The way your post was phrased (using terms like "bonded" and "Valid End-User Certificate" to my mind implied game mechanics I hadn't heard of; it wasn't clear to me that you were talking about abstracts. Just checking, is all.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

No, there never have been.  You'd basically require a corporate, military, or government sponsor - or functionally establish yourself as a corporation specifically chartered for such a purpose - and there's never been a canonical method to do that.  Plenty of non-canon directions; I have a mess of 'em in my own hard-drive somewhere, stacking up with my home-brewed fake SIN modeling that is (alas) well out of date.

However, 'bonded' and 'end-user certificate' isn't a matter of abstracts; they're very real legal terms in use today.  Yes, Virginia, you can purchase a pallet-load of plastic explosives IRL - if you pass all the legal hurdles and licensing etc. to be a registered and bonded mining corporation, allowed to purchase and use plastic explosives for the purposes of blowing big holes in the ground.  Or, of course, if you can fake that sort of licensing ... but that should, by its very nature, be a step or six above simple 'restricted gear' licensing.

[martinchaen]

Cool, that's all I wanted to know.

Thanks!

[WellsIDidIt]

Unless they decide to make a splat book for starting a business/corporation we won't see anything covering that level of ownership in SR. Yet, they have to exist. If they didn't, then legal mercenary companies and PMCs would not be able to exist as they do, and setting material tells us that they do exist.

[ZeConster]

I'm reasonably certain that you're only allowed to have Forbidden gear with you if you're currently in the process of working for an organization with enough influence to be allowed to use it, and which has authorized you to use it.