Shadowrun
Catalyst Game Labs => Errata => Topic started by: PiXeL01 on <12-18-14/2302:09>
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Basic Cyberdeck Programs Pack p. 248 - table contains same information as the Advanced Decker Pack
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On page 105 the Pixie is described as having the Vanishing ability but there is no description for this ability anywhere in the book that I can find.
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College Education and Inspired both first appeared in Sail Away, Sweet Sister; the Run Faster versions are different (better, as well). Not sure which is correct.
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Run Faster. SASS specifically says that those are place-holders and would be superseded by upcoming products.
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The Investigative Reporter on 163, her living persona stats are wrong. Attack, Data Processing, and Sleaze should all be at 4. Since that is what her log, int, and cha are at.
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p. 121: Neoteny should not be modified by "freaks" because the character looks like a normal child / tween and uses the rules under Neoteny for social situations.
p. 111 - 122: The following should (logically, when compared to "feathers") be modified by "freaks": 360 Degree Eyesight, Animal Pelage, Bone Spikes, Claws, Dermal Alteration, Dermal Deposits, Elongated Limbs, Fangs, Frog Tongue, Functional Tail, Goring Horns, Greasy Skin, Monkey Paws, Photo-metabolism, Thorns, Webbed Digits, Striking Skin Pigmentation, and Unusual Hair.
p. 135: Banshee is based on an elf, so it should have a min Charisma of 3 in the table to match with what was done with other infected.
p. ???: General rules clarification request: Character build with Sum to 10: 4: Human(9) + 4: Magic(6) + Nosferatu = Max Essence of 18, therefore beginning permanent Magic of up to 15? Similar question with other variable-essence characters.
UPDATE: Additional Errata: 12/20/14
p. 103: "Creating a Changling":
a) The 1st paragraph, 3rd sentence states the Surge Class "indicates the karma limit". The 4th sentence states selecting the Surge Class "determine the actual Karma cost of this variation". It is unclear whether this is saying the same thing, and in any case, there is only one (## Karma) next to each Surge Class in sentence 2. At the end of this paragraph, it states that the cap on the positive qualities for Class 1 is 30, which apparently contradicts the 2nd and 4th sentences, where it's capped out at 10. If this is the actual cap, then no cap is given for Surge Classes 2 and 3. The example to the right implies that the Surge Class must be bought with free character karma per the (## Karma) next to the Surge Class in sentence 2, then all positive metagenic qualities are paid for with negative metagenic qualities. However, the first paragraph under "Positive Metagenic Qualities" on p. 111 states "Depending upon the class of SURGE picked when choosing to be a changeling, characters get a balance of metagenic Karma to use in selecting these qualities and balancing them with Negative Metagenic Qualities" which implies that the (## Karma) next to each Surge Class is the "balance" cap. The first paragraph under "Negative Metagenic Qualities" on p. 119 appears to support this with "These qualities are the price for those cool advantages of the Positive Metagenic Qualities", implying that there is no other price in free karma for Surge.
b) The remainder of the 1st paragraph on p.103 discusses rolling randomly to find out one or both sides of the +/- qualities, but then the next paragraph states that the two totals must match or have a net cost of 1 from the character's free karma pool. This is almost impossible to affect because the random rolls will result in sums that don't match within this tight of a bracket.
c) The last paragraph of p. 103 then throws down guidelines describing Surge Classes vs. categories of metagenic traits, though these metagenic categories aren't then associated to the actual metagenic qualities in the tables or descriptions of said qualities. The fluff descriptions of the Surge Classes on p.101 also don't supply actual lists for said categories.
p. 111: Table title should be "6 to 15 Karma" not "3 to 5 Karma" as in the previous table on p. 110.
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Life Modules contains Enemy for Street Kids, and as such in the sample module character. However, this quality was dropped from Run Faster and no longer exists.
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since someone else mentioned it already:
the omission of regeneration in relation to shapeshifters
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the vanishing for pixie, is concealment self only, it's listed on the metavariant table
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p249 - Basic Cyberware Program Pack - it has the same info as Advance Decker Pack, which is not software.
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the vanishing for pixie, is concealment self only, it's listed on the metavariant table
And listed immediately after that is the power "vanishing"
In the Aetherology eBook, there is a Vanishing power, (and Shift). However, in SR4 the Pixie's "vanish" power was actually a weakness (and yes, there was also a vanishing power in SR4; so it was a distinct thing that Pixies had a drawback version of that ability)
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p135 and p138 – infected table and ghoul description on p138, the charisma values don't match.
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Could you clarify that, DeathStrobe? I'm not at the top of my game right now, and I'm also not where I can get to the book to try and dope it out at the moment.
I'll go over the tables and such this weekend to make sure everything is in order (I thought I'd caught all the problems in that table, but I appear to have possibly missed a couple things) and try to recall my thought process as I find discrepancies.
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No problem.
on p138
Gained Weaknesses: Allergy (Sunlight, Moderate), Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), Reduced Senses (Blind), –1 Logic, –1 Charisma
So here it says ghouls have -1 Charisma.
But the table on p135 lists all the metatypes having -2 Charisma. Example human ghoul here
Ghoul (Human) Bod 1/10 Agi 1/6 Rea 1/8 Str 1/9 Wil 1/8 Log 1/5 Int 1/7 Cha 1/4
So a normal starting human's max is 6. With a -2 Cha it'd be at 4, like it is on the table. But the Weaknesses of the ghouls says its only a -1, so a Human Ghoul's max cha should be 5 (6-1). So either the table is wrong, or the weakness is wrong. I'm looking at ghoul stats and they look amazing, so I'm thinking they should be a bit less charismatic. So I'd think the table should be right, but that's me.
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((I'm reading that differently than you are, DeathStrobe. On pg. 135 it adjusts your min/max but that does not necessarily change your charisma value. A human with a 3 Charisma would not lose anything to the adjustment of the min/max value as it still lies within the allowed range. They would still lose the -1 for being a ghoul as cited on pg. 138. An elf, OTOH would lose -3 by my reading since the adjustment to the min/max score would affect their Charisma score as well as the penalty on pg. 138. ))
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That's possible. Maybe the ghoul's -1 cha is only applied after a PC becomes a Ghoul. But its min/max changes. Like say we got Elfy McFacington with 8 charisma. He gets bit and looses to HMHVV and becomes a Ghoul. we first lower his Charisma by 1, so he's at 7/8, then we apply the new Ghoul min/max so he's now at 6/6 as a Ghoul Elf. That makes sense to me. Never mind, I guess everything is as it should be.
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Under the various shapeshifters stat listings on pg. 105 it lists Shift(Metahuman Form) as a racial trait but that isn't described anywhere I can find. The basic concept is obvious, of course but I don't see where the mechanics are described anywhere. What kind of action does it take to shift from animal to human and vice versa? The fluff indicates low mana areas can force a shifter back to its native animal form but are there specifics? Are there any other rules governing this ability? Inquiring minds want to know.
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The Shapeshifter attributes chart on pg. 105 has an error in the attribute columns. The chart as listed labels Magic as starting at 1 and having a maximum of 5 (4 for Leonine or Tigrine), then Initiative as being 1, which can't be right... Initiative is a combination of Reaction+Intuition, so it can't be just 1.
Based on the previous chart for the Metasapients, I theorize that the MAG and INI headers should be one column to the right (labeling the column that is all 1's as the Shapeshifter's starting Magic, and the column that is currently without a header and has 1d6 or 2d6 as a Shapeshifter's initiative.
That leaves the column with the 1/5's and 1/4's as unlabeled, and a basic guess is that it should be EDGE, but that leaves a contradiction. On page 103, the final sentence for Shapeshifters identifies them as having a maximum Edge of 4... most of the shapeshifters have that column as max 5.
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On page 110 for the Random Negative Karma Value, where its suppose to say Dice Roll, it says " RP;;".
On page 110, Feathers is listed twice for no obvious reason
On page 111 Vestigial Tail is not on the Negative metagenic quality list, However it couldnt fit because it is 6 karma and there arent enough spaces for it.
-----Note: Perhaps it should be reduced to 4 karma so it can fill the 12 spot on the 3 to 5 karma set.
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For clarity's sake, it doesn't really explain in the Life Modules section for Further Education that you pick one art or science discipline (this is my understanding of it).
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Pg 222 of Run Faster has Grid Subscription being a 1 point cost for 50 nuyen per month, with a minimum lifestyle of Medium.
What sort of grid subscription is this? Pg 222 of the Core Rulebook has local grid included at Medium, one of the ten global grids at High, and all the grids at Luxury. It mentions upgrading them, but no rules are provided, so I'd hoped Run Faster lifestyle section would. It presumably isn't an extra cost for the includes access.
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My guess would be it is for one of the big ten grids. *Shrugs*
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given that you get a grid subscription at medium+, i'd imagine that was supposed to be available as an upgrade for low lifestyle?
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Page 106 through 107:
On expanded Priory A, and Expanded Priority B tables, Hobgoblin is list as costing 5 points and Onis is listed as costing 4 points,
while on the Expanded Priority C chart, the Hobgoblin is listed as giving you 5 points and the Oni is listed as giving you 4 points.
Given no other metavariant changes its cost by priority levels, either the Priorority A and B are wrong, or the Priority C is.
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P. 195 Used Car Salesman - initiative listed twice. Please delete the initiative written in the subheadings on the left hand side.
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Darzil, Rift_0f_Bladz, Csjarrat: Re: Grid Subscription being a 1 point cost for 50 nuyen per month
p. 219 Entertainment Section: Each of these perks has a monthly monetary cost and a point cost, as well as a minimum “no cost”
lifestyle.
Since the no-cost lifestyle is "Medium", I'd guess that it's the Medium equivalent?
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not sure i follow. its included in a medium lifestyle, but the quality as listed can only be added to a lifestyle of medium or higher, meaning its pretty pointless. You're adding a duplicate.
If you could add it to a low lifestyle or squatter lifestyle, great, that makes it useful as they have to use the public grid.
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I though the no-cost lifestyle factor meant it was included, meaning Middle lifestyle and higher has a grid subscription. The Grid Subscription option would therefore be applicable to Low and lower lifestyles, allowing those lifestyles to buy access to a specific Grid of their choosing for 1 point and 50 nuyen a month.
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Ok, I get it now, minimum lifestyle is the minimum lifestyle that can have it automatically. In that case, it's time to speak to my GM! 50 nuyen a month for my decker not to have to use public grid or hack a better one (starting overwatch) is well worth it! Thanks, Slow_Joe.
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given that you get a grid subscription at medium+, i'd imagine that was supposed to be available as an upgrade for low lifestyle?
That is correct.
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given that you get a grid subscription at medium+, i'd imagine that was supposed to be available as an upgrade for low lifestyle?
That is correct.
that's great to know, thanks for the reply
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- Organizational Contacts chart on page 177 has a column "Connection Bonus". This term is not defined anywhere else in the book.
- The Organizational Contacts chart on page 177 has a column "Karma Cost", but no where is it defined how that karma cost was derived for the examples.
- Group Or Organizational Contacts says "Loyalty is limited to 1" and "the character has some contractual obligation to the organization that he should not break", but SR5 pg 387 defines Loyalty 1 as "The relationship is purely mercenary, based solely on economics. The people involved may not even like each other, and they won’t offer any sort of preferential treatment." This seems to be in conflict.
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- Organizational Contacts chart on page 177 has a column "Connection Bonus". This term is not defined anywhere else in the book.
- The Organizational Contacts chart on page 177 has a column "Karma Cost", but no where is it defined how that karma cost was derived for the examples.
- Group Or Organizational Contacts says "Loyalty is limited to 1" and "the character has some contractual obligation to the organization that he should not break", but SR5 pg 387 defines Loyalty 1 as "The relationship is purely mercenary, based solely on economics. The people involved may not even like each other, and they won’t offer any sort of preferential treatment." This seems to be in conflict.
I asked this of Giabraltar a little while back, and he replied to me with this answer:
There's two elements; How connected the organization is, and does it require a SIN. Organizations that are more bureaucratic, require a SIN and thus have a discount. Without a SIN (Rating 1 and 2) is 5 and 10 Karma. With a SIN (Rating 1,2, and 3) is 3, 8, and 12. At Rating 3, there's no organization that doesn't have some bureaucracy to keep track of their people.
Instead of a quantified size of the organization, it would be how powerful the gamemaster allows the organization to be. The samples are levels of power. Corporations, GOD, CIA, Military would be Rating 3. Official Organizations such as Church sects, Humanis Policlub, Terra First or High tech groups like a Decker club would be rating 2. More localized organizations like local government, gangs, people in town who get together for the same hobby would be rating 1.
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The Hobgoblin meta-variant in Run Faster is listed as having 'Extravagant Eyes' but there is no 'Extravagant Eyes' quality in the Meta-genetic quality list (or anywhere else in the book).
To further complicate the issue, referring back to last edition's Runners Companion, the Hobgoblin does not have 'Extravagant Eyes' but the quality is available in the book.
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p68, the Life Modules: Corporate Drone and Arcology Living are the same
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p68, the Life Modules: Corporate Drone and Arcology Living are the same
Not exactly, one provides a Corporate Limited SIN, the other doesn't. They are very similar backgrounds that produce similar outcomes, after all, but they are different flavors.
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given that you get a grid subscription at medium+, i'd imagine that was supposed to be available as an upgrade for low lifestyle?
That is correct.
Riggers everywhere rejoice!
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pg.93. says cyclops have thermographic vision, but it's missing from the entry in the table on pg. 104.
Is it cyclops or cyclopean now anyway? The later is used as a noun at several places, especially tables (also but less often the fomori/an)
Do dwarven and troll metavariants inherit the lifestyle cost increase?
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The math on the karma cost of playing as a dryad seems wrong.
The statline is almost identical to elves. The only difference is that their maximum strength is reduced to 5 instead. If we stack glamour and symbiosis on top of a baseline elf, we come up with a total karma cost of +7. Which means that according to the figures in Run Faster, you are paying an extra 43 karma to be a dryad over an elf with glamours and symbiosis (admittedly, the elf will probably have more metagenic qualities than that. It will still cost less karma than the dryad), not counting what effect your reduced maximum strength would have on the cost of the template. Note that a dryad's maximum charisma is listed as 8, which is identical to an elf's.
It gets weirder when you look at where dryads fall on the priority chart: despite costing 90 karma they are set at Priority D. Which is identical to where elves sit on the priority chart. Something is amiss here.
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The math on the karma cost of playing as a dryad seems wrong.
The statline is almost identical to elves. The only difference is that their maximum strength is reduced to 5 instead. If we stack glamour and symbiosis on top of a baseline elf, we come up with a total karma cost of +7. Which means that according to the figures in Run Faster, you are paying an extra 43 karma to be a dryad over an elf with glamours and symbiosis (admittedly, the elf will probably have more metagenic qualities than that. It will still cost less karma than the dryad), not counting what effect your reduced maximum strength would have on the cost of the template. Note that a dryad's maximum charisma is listed as 8, which is identical to an elf's.
It gets weirder when you look at where dryads fall on the priority chart: despite costing 90 karma they are set at Priority D. Which is identical to where elves sit on the priority chart. Something is amiss here.
Actually, yeah..the math is kind of weird. OK..by it, Dryads cost 50 points more then an elf, but on the priority chart, they cost 0 points. OK..so, what about others: Well, Nartaki are 0 extra, Nocturna(Night Ones) are 0, Wakyambi and Fomorian are 12 extra(ties for the HIGHEST mcost metavariant difference), Minotaur and Giant are 2 extra.
In the Karma gen: Nartaki are 40 extra, Nocturna are..20? Wakyambi are 30 and Fomorian..are 10? Minotaur are 10 and giant are 0 extra? There seems to be no connection between the cost of the metatype on the priority chart and the cost in karmagen..
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The Point (Karma) Buy system on pg. 64 needs some clarifications.
- The previous edition allowed for free knowledge skills based on logic and intuition even for karma character creation. 5th edition does not address this as far as I can tell so some clarification is in order. Does the point buy system get free knowledge skills based on stats as in 4th edition or do they have to be paid for strictly from karma.
- In the previous edition contacts were bought out of karma using the karma buy system though in the 4th edition priority system free contact points were received from part of resources. In 5th edition free contact points are received based on the charisma score when using the priority system. When using point buy it does say to refer pg. 98 to buy attributes, skills, qualities and contacts so does that mean that point buy also gets the free contact points from charisma?
- Also would like clarification that qualities do not cost double karma as stated in the character advancement section of the core book (pg. 103.) I do not think this is the intent but it does say on pg 64 to use the character advancement rules from pg. 103.
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Free things (like knowledge skills and contact points) are still free. Yes, this means that characters built using the Life Modules will have a bucket load of knowledge skills. My understanding about qualities is the same as yours, but that's worth asking.
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Another thing that could perhaps use some clarification in Karma Buy and Life Modules is positive Quality limits... they mention a limit on negative qualities, but don't really clear up if this applies to positive qualities or not.
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Page 249, the Advanced Drone Commander Pack clips over the chapter title and page number.
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Another thing that could perhaps use some clarification in Karma Buy and Life Modules is positive Quality limits... they mention a limit on negative qualities, but don't really clear up if this applies to positive qualities or not.
As an extension to this, if there is still a 25 point maximum on Positive Qualities does the Rank Quality count towards this?
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pg. 142 of Run Faster has this to say about Strain I infected:
She begins her new life with an Essence of 1 and a maximum Magic of 1 + initiate grade (see Infection, Magic, Resonance, and Essence, p. 141). Her minimum starting Magic, if she was not already Awakened, is 1.
However, Patrick had this to say about what it should have said:
Okay, that didn't work out quite the way I'd planned....
For infected it says that this occurs at step 4 of character creation. This is after Magic is chosen, so does that mean that if I took Priority A for magic, and then took the Vampire quality - my magic and essence would go down to 1 each at the beginning of play? Or do I keep the 6 in each assuming that they have fed at some point before play starts.
When you're building a Strain I Infected character from scratch, you start with (starting Essence) - 1 and (starting Magic) - 1, with a minimum Magic of 1; you're assumed to have been Infected for a little while, though you're still a basic newbie and a little hungry. You can get that Magic point back using the rules on page 141; it's not really lost, just blocked off.
If your character isn't Awakened, your Magic is set at 1. I didn't make this as clear as I should have on page 141, and I'm sorry (though it is mentioned in the disease description for HMHVV Strain I on page 142; I should have at least pointed you there on page 141).
Strain II and III Infected start with their Essence and Magic at one less than when they started, per the rules on page 141. If they don't start out Awakened, then their Magic is also set at 1.
Assuming Patrick is correct (and he wrote it so...) it looks like the line on page 142 that I quoted needs to be edited to reflect the actual starting values for essence and magic for Strain I infected.
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Meta Variants of Dwarves and Trolls (and maybe Meta Sapients) don't have a tax on lifestyle, like Dwarves and Trolls in the core book do. Possibly an oversight.
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Meta Variants of Dwarves and Trolls (and maybe Meta Sapients) don't have a tax on lifestyle, like Dwarves and Trolls in the core book do. Possibly an oversight.
does that really need to be written? troll and dwarve metavariants are still trolls and dwarves.
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Meta Variants of Dwarves and Trolls (and maybe Meta Sapients) don't have a tax on lifestyle, like Dwarves and Trolls in the core book do. Possibly an oversight.
does that really need to be written? troll and dwarven metavariants are still trolls and dwarves.
((But in some cases they mention stuff that metavariants inherit from the base metatype and in some cases they don't. That lack of consistency is the reason the question needs to be asked.))
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Maybe someone has already mentioned it, but can we get clarification about whether Shapeshifters have regeneration (or can/have to buy it like new infected), vulnerability/allergy to silver, or are dual natured? None of those things are mentioned at all, not even the lack of them, and I would figure they really have to be dual natured (which is neither really an advantage nor a disadvantage, it's just a thing).
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In Run Faster, there is a question in the NAN life modules... Other than the fact that i don't see people in the Pueblo Councilpracticing Archery; there is no spoken language for the Denver and Salt Lake City backgrounds. And also, it is kinda strange that the UCAS and CAS get exactly the same bonuses from Denver and the guys from NAN get a smaller one, especially they don't get to know their city...
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In Run Faster, there is a question in the NAN life modules... Other than the fact that i don't see people in the Pueblo Councilpracticing Archery; there is no spoken language for the Denver and Salt Lake City backgrounds. And also, it is kinda strange that the UCAS and CAS get exactly the same bonuses from Denver and the guys from NAN get a smaller one, especially they don't get to know their city...
Technically speaking, the NAN doesn't have a presence in Denver as the NAN. Instead, the presence is the Pueblo Corporate Council, which is already covered, and the Sioux Nation, which is also covered. If you need to add an area knowledge, just change Knowledge: NAN to Knowledge: Denver.
Note that I'm not suggesting this shouldn't be addressed as errata. I'm simply pointing out a very easy workaround until an errata document is released.
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Hi to all,
The Point (Karma) Buy system on pg. 64 needs some clarifications.
- The previous edition allowed for free knowledge skills based on logic and intuition even for karma character creation. 5th edition does not address this as far as I can tell so some clarification is in order. Does the point buy system get free knowledge skills based on stats as in 4th edition or do they have to be paid for strictly from karma.
- In the previous edition contacts were bought out of karma using the karma buy system though in the 4th edition priority system free contact points were received from part of resources. In 5th edition free contact points are received based on the charisma score when using the priority system. When using point buy it does say to refer pg. 98 to buy attributes, skills, qualities and contacts so does that mean that point buy also gets the free contact points from charisma?
- Also would like clarification that qualities do not cost double karma as stated in the character advancement section of the core book (pg. 103.) I do not think this is the intent but it does say on pg 64 to use the character advancement rules from pg. 103.
Is there any answers to the questions above?
Is there any official download or website where can i find the official errata?
Best regards Max
ps: I apologise for my really bad english, due to i'm not a native speaker
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((No errata for Run Faster yet.))
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((No errata for Run Faster yet.))
Yeah, I'm under the impression that Catalyst has way too much for too few people to do (I can relate to this all too well). Hoping that they're not still trying to recover from the scandal 4 years ago. Despite issues with the rules this has turned out to be by favorite edition yet, just wish they could get the FAQ put together and up on the website sometime soon.
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Also keep in mind that unless it's an obvious misprint, errata changes need to be playtested before they can be released.
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i assume we will get an errata/faq before it goes live for conventions at the start if next month. No proof for that, but it makes sense in my head :)
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Question: Should there be a listing of which new qualities add or subtract to your Notoriety? Or is there one and I just missed it.
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Question: Should there be a listing of which new qualities add or subtract to your Notoriety? Or is there one and I just missed it.
Page 368 of the core book, but it doesn't include any qualities from Run Faster.
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Question: Should there be a listing of which new qualities add or subtract to your Notoriety? Or is there one and I just missed it.
Page 368 of the core book, but it doesn't include any qualities from Run Faster.
Yep, as I suspected.
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Not sure if this is against the rules or not but here is a link to a discussion of the Metalvariant table inconsistencies.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/2yn1pm/metavariant_attribute_table_shapeshifters_run/
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As the rules for maximum starting resources are different for karma point build characters as compared to priority system characters, how do qualities such as Born Rich and In Debt apply to the karma point build system?
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in regards to jack of all trades and karma reduction for skills 5 and under. does the karma reduction/increase apply to specializations as well?
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in regards to jack of all trades and karma reduction for skills 5 and under. does the karma reduction/increase apply to specializations as well?
Specializations just add dice to test, they don't count as a skill rank.
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The Point (Karma) Buy system on pg. 64 needs some clarifications.
- The previous edition allowed for free knowledge skills based on logic and intuition even for karma character creation. 5th edition does not address this as far as I can tell so some clarification is in order. Does the point buy system get free knowledge skills based on stats as in 4th edition or do they have to be paid for strictly from karma.
- In the previous edition contacts were bought out of karma using the karma buy system though in the 4th edition priority system free contact points were received from part of resources. In 5th edition free contact points are received based on the charisma score when using the priority system. When using point buy it does say to refer pg. 98 to buy attributes, skills, qualities and contacts so does that mean that point buy also gets the free contact points from charisma?
- Also would like clarification that qualities do not cost double karma as stated in the character advancement section of the core book (pg. 103.) I do not think this is the intent but it does say on pg 64 to use the character advancement rules from pg. 103.
Do we know if questions 1 and 2 have been addressed officially somewhere?
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I think #12 of the 3 to 5 negative mutagen quality was suppose to be Extravagant eyes. Which probably is something along the lines of causing having the Freak attribute, can't have any bioware, cyberware and not applicable with the low light vision from the PQ side of things. +1 on identifying you and all that jazz. And a 10% increase to life style because you can't find contacts for your special eyes.
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Hi to all,
The Point (Karma) Buy system on pg. 64 needs some clarifications.
- The previous edition allowed for free knowledge skills based on logic and intuition even for karma character creation. 5th edition does not address this as far as I can tell so some clarification is in order. Does the point buy system get free knowledge skills based on stats as in 4th edition or do they have to be paid for strictly from karma.
- In the previous edition contacts were bought out of karma using the karma buy system though in the 4th edition priority system free contact points were received from part of resources. In 5th edition free contact points are received based on the charisma score when using the priority system. When using point buy it does say to refer pg. 98 to buy attributes, skills, qualities and contacts so does that mean that point buy also gets the free contact points from charisma?
- Also would like clarification that qualities do not cost double karma as stated in the character advancement section of the core book (pg. 103.) I do not think this is the intent but it does say on pg 64 to use the character advancement rules from pg. 103.
Do we know if questions 1 and 2 have been addressed officially somewhere?
Is there any answers or reactions to the questions above?
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The Menehune dwarven subtype has incorrect racial traits.
The book notes the following on Run Faster pg90:
"Menehune also do not possess the inherent resistance to toxins of their primary subspecies.
The nasal muscle, nictitating membrane, webbed feet, muscle density variation, and fat layer allow the species to thrive in aquatic environments."
The statistics still show the Resistance to Pathogens/Toxins and fail to list the Webbed Digits:
Menehune 2/7 2/7 1/5 2/7 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6
Racial Traits: Resistance to Pathogens/Toxins, Thermographic Vision, Underwater Vision
I believe the stat block should read:
Menehune 2/7 2/7 1/5 2/7 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6
Racial Traits: Thermographic Vision, Underwater Vision, Webbed Digits
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Using Life Modules it is not clear what happens when your Attributes exceed the maximum from your chosen Metatype.
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Hey Chummers,
The Life Module Organized Crime pg. 78 does not have any Attribute bonuses. This has got to be a mistake.
Even if it gives you 17 total skills & 2 Qualities, That is not comparable to the rest of the Life Modules, which all give you some for of Attribute buff. Hope they errata it.
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3 separate queries/suggestions concerning life modules.
1: In the Formative Years section the modules "Arcology Living" and "Corp Drone" provide the exact same attribute and skill bonus' whilst Arcology Living also provides the negative quality "Limited Corporate SIN". Given that these modules both have the same karma cost there is a definite mis-match in here. It is my belief that the Corp Drone should not get the Charisma bonus. This would make sense to me and reflect the different flavours of these 2 backgrounds more realistically.
2. Private Eye. " You may not pick this module until you have completed a Tour of Duty, Law Enforcement, Covert Operations, Shadow Work, or Corporate module." I would suggest that the "Government Agent" module should have been included in this list as it makes no sense for it not to be included.
3. In the "Street Magic" module the choices "Street Mage" & "Street Shaman" are identical (yes one has city whilst the other has sprawl for their street knowledge but that's basically identical). If nothing else I would expect the Mage choice to have the sorcery skill group at +3 and the conjuring skill group at +2 whilst the shaman remains as printed. Overall this just feels more in line with the fluff/flavour of the 2 distinctions.
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And 1 more.
The Law Enforecement Module does not require you take any form of Negative Quality SIN whilst the Private Eye does. This really doesn't make sense as it suggests that the individual actually employed to protect you (the reality of this is not up for question here) does not require any records to be kept on thwm or pay any taxes whilst the person you go to and hire as an individual does.
Personally I would expect there to be at least the negative quality SINner(5): National but would more realistically require it to be SINner(15) Limited Corporate SIN as almost all basic law enforcement is now provided by a corporation of some description.
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If a character becomes Infected during play, do the Infected Positive Qualities cost double?
e.g. Taking Vampire at creation costs 27 karma. If a character is infected in play is that now 54 karma?
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And 1 more.
The Law Enforecement Module does not require you take any form of Negative Quality SIN whilst the Private Eye does. This really doesn't make sense as it suggests that the individual actually employed to protect you (the reality of this is not up for question here) does not require any records to be kept on thwm or pay any taxes whilst the person you go to and hire as an individual does.
Personally I would expect there to be at least the negative quality SINner(5): National but would more realistically require it to be SINner(15) Limited Corporate SIN as almost all basic law enforcement is now provided by a corporation of some description.
While most corporate based law enforcement in North America is either Lone Star or Knight Errant, two AA Corps and so therefore having extraterritoriality (which is what allows corporate citizenship), there will still be some places in the world that have police that aren't from AA or AAA Corps... and in any event not every employee of a Corp needs to be a citizen of that corp.
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And 1 more.
The Law Enforecement Module does not require you take any form of Negative Quality SIN whilst the Private Eye does. This really doesn't make sense as it suggests that the individual actually employed to protect you (the reality of this is not up for question here) does not require any records to be kept on thwm or pay any taxes whilst the person you go to and hire as an individual does.
Personally I would expect there to be at least the negative quality SINner(5): National but would more realistically require it to be SINner(15) Limited Corporate SIN as almost all basic law enforcement is now provided by a corporation of some description.
While most corporate based law enforcement in North America is either Lone Star or Knight Errant, two AA Corps and so therefore having extraterritoriality (which is what allows corporate citizenship), there will still be some places in the world that have police that aren't from AA or AAA Corps... and in any event not every employee of a Corp needs to be a citizen of that corp.
True, but as it stands the modules are only feasible for creating North American runners as there are no other nationalities and it still doesn't answer the base question as to why I can be employed in a law enforcement position without requiring a SIN (and therefore any records kept about me) but to be a private detective I need one.
To be employed you require a SIN, see the Day Job quality, so whether that's a Corporate citizenship SIN or a National citizenship SIN someone who worked in Law Enforcement requires a SIN. That is unless you are actually suggesting that all Law Enforcement officers are actually deniable assets and therefore, basically, Shadowrunners. Now that's a truly scary thought. ;D
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P. 400, SR5 Core rule book:
"Regeneration is incompatible with augmentations. Critters with Regeneration cannot receive augmentations; surgical incisions close too quickly to perform the implantation. Critters with augmentations who gain this power will reject their augmentations as the power repairs the existing genetic template."
P. 134, Run Faster
"Infected characters can generally accept augmentations, though of course they need to be aware of their balance of Magic and Essence, as well as Magic loss from any Essence loss. Infected with the Regeneration quality need high-quality augmentations to keep their body from pretty much spitting the augmentation out, meaning they can only accept deltaware augmentations."
P. 135, Run Faster
"Note that any Infected with the Regeneration power must deal with the restrictions listed with that power (see p. 400, SR5)."
A limitation of Regeneration is that they cannot receive augmentations, but p. 134 directly contradicts that. So which is it? In my game I rule that Infected with Regeneration can get deltaware-quality cyber/bioware, considering those are designed to meld with the recipient as much as possible. I don't think it's a carryover from SR4, since SR4: Runners Companion words it less verbosely.
P. 77-78, SR4 Runners Companion
"Infected with the Regeneration power may only accept deltaware implants."
If it were a careless copy/paste, additional text wouldn't have been added.
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Savign for later so I won't forget to address this when I have more time....
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Some things from this thread that are changed / fixed in the German "Schattenläufer":
Disclaimer: Some of the stuff might be mistranslated into english by me.
- Point buy, p. 64
Point buy is called "Karmasystem" in German :-P
Qualities can be bought for their "basic cost", I assume that means not doubled
You get your free points for knowledge / langauage skills and connections
- Life modules "finishing"
You get your free points for knowledge / langauage skills and connections
- Metatype Attributes, p. 104
Hobgoblin does not have "Extravagant eyes"
Cyclopean has infrared vision
Dwarf and troll lifecycle cost increase is inherited by their metavariants
- Shapeshifter Attributes, p. 105
Last three colums are EDG, MAG, INI
- Random Metagenetic Qualities, p. 108
If you roll a qualitiy that you already have or that's incompatible with what you already have or does not fit into your surge-class, you reroll until you get something that fits.
- Basic Cyberdeck Programs Pack, p. 248
Common programs: All 7
Hacking programs: Baby monitor, Decryption, Sneak, Stealth, Wrapper
Toolkit (Software)
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P. 400, SR5 Core rule book:
"Regeneration is incompatible with augmentations. Critters with Regeneration cannot receive augmentations; surgical incisions close too quickly to perform the implantation. Critters with augmentations who gain this power will reject their augmentations as the power repairs the existing genetic template."
P. 134, Run Faster
"Infected characters can generally accept augmentations, though of course they need to be aware of their balance of Magic and Essence, as well as Magic loss from any Essence loss. Infected with the Regeneration quality need high-quality augmentations to keep their body from pretty much spitting the augmentation out, meaning they can only accept deltaware augmentations."
P. 135, Run Faster
"Note that any Infected with the Regeneration power must deal with the restrictions listed with that power (see p. 400, SR5)."
A limitation of Regeneration is that they cannot receive augmentations, but p. 134 directly contradicts that. So which is it? In my game I rule that Infected with Regeneration can get deltaware-quality cyber/bioware, considering those are designed to meld with the recipient as much as possible. I don't think it's a carryover from SR4, since SR4: Runners Companion words it less verbosely.
P. 77-78, SR4 Runners Companion
"Infected with the Regeneration power may only accept deltaware implants."
If it were a careless copy/paste, additional text wouldn't have been added.
It was not a careless copy/paste, especially since I didn't copy and paste any of that when I was writing it. It was, however, a tacit admission than I had to reverse a position I'd taken, and even then it involved me being on the receiving end of some arm-twisting.
When I wrote "Sleeping With the Enemy" in Storm Front, I'd reached a point where I knew that Infected PCs were here to stay, but I was tired of the sparkling I was seeing in the rules for the aforementioned Infected PCs, and which I had seen discussed online. The biggest problem I had there was the notion of the Infected with Regeneration being able to take cyber and bio modifications, which flew in the face of (at the time the rules were written) about a decade and a half of canon.
So in Storm Front, I thought I'd fix that and make Regeneration and augmentations incompatible, as they had been for many years before that. By then, I had gotten the chance to write critters and critter power for Shadowrun Fifth Edition, so I had the chance to codify that.
Victory, it seemed, was mine. But wait, there's more....
My co-conspirator in "Into the Night" in Run Faster, and one of my better friends in the gaming/writing community, is Kevin Czarnecki. He has no problem with Infected PCs, and has the novel to prove it (it's called Crimson, if you've not read it yet, and it's an amazing read...and I'm not just saying that because Kevin's my friend, either). He was willing to follow my lead on the rules; even if he didn't entirely agree with my harsh stand on Infected PCs.
I was reminded by my developer, though, that there's this thing called "backwards compatibility" that I had somewhat completely abandoned when I didn't make it possible for Infected PCs to have delta-grade augmentations. In fact, my initial draft may have reiterated the "No augmentation" policy espoused in the SR5 core rulebook (which might need to be getting some errata in light of the Run Faster decision; we'll see how that shakes out), but I don't remember off the top of my head.
I do know I fought the decision, but ultimately it wasn't my call and I capitulated. On a certain level, I know it was the right call, but in spite of that, I still think I was right.
Bottom line: Infected PCs deal with Regeneration with the modifications shown in Run Faster. There is, in my eyes, a certain amount of conflict with the wording of the power that needs to see some errata at some point, but it's not, ultimately, a huge deal. Infected PCs in SR5 can, like their counterparts in SR4, get delta-grade cyber.
But I don't have to like it.
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I think it makes sense that that the infected shouldn't be able to get ware. They're magical, and magic doesn't like tech. Its thematic that being a vamp means you can't have chrome. Also, the infected have alternative progression now with the ability to buy infected powers.
But at the same time, rule of cool kicks in and having a cyberzombie vampire is really awesome and is so uniquely Shadowrun.
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Thanks for your detailed response, Patrick!
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No Patrick, I agree.
Kick the "sprinkle and glitter" infected to the curb!
Never agreed with the 4e decision of cyber for infected :(
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2. Private Eye. " You may not pick this module until you have completed a Tour of Duty, Law Enforcement, Covert Operations, Shadow Work, or Corporate module." I would suggest that the "Government Agent" module should have been included in this list as it makes no sense for it not to be included.
In addition, is there a reason why Street Magic isn't included the list of prerequisite life modules? Shadow Work basically specifies the Street Magic life module is the magically-equivalent module, and the Occult Investigator sub-module seems like it would fit into what a Private Investigator/Detective would need, in terms of skill set.
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[Run Faster pg 221] Garage - setting the split for the vehicle body at 4. According to this category, the dodge scoot and medium drones are in one category of car, and everything from a Growler to a Roadmaster is in the next. The split should be between 14 and 15, which is where vehicles go from fitting in a standard garage (light trucks and smaller) to things that need some special considerations (limos, delivery vans, etc.).
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The paint gun in the "Buying the Basics" section... What's the accuracy on that?
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Wouldn't that be improvised weaponry, so 3?
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Is the previous edition forbiddence of cyberware for metasapients gone?
It's not mentioned anywhere, is that an oversight or a deliberate change?
Really, there seems to be a stark lack of actual rules governing metasapients beyond the few charts. Like a chapter was left out.
-k
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Right so this is something I just noticed. I'm putting together a group lifestyle for one of my games and came across something... well... typical. P218-219 is talking about the stun damage you need to resist depending on the level of Comforts and Necessities. It goes into a lot of detail about how you total up the amount of Stun damage to be resisted, it just doesn't tell you what to roll!
COMFORTS & NECESSITIES
Comforts & Necessities are an integral part of any lifestyle. If a shadowrunner doesn’t get a good night’s rest and a belly full of nutrient-added soy, he’ll eventually end up at the morgue. This is because of the possibility of fatigue damage (p. 172, SR5). At the beginning of most game sessions, characters roll to resist fatigue damage, simulating how much rest they have been able to get in their quarters. Characters do not, however, have to make this roll if the new session directly continues an adventure from the previous one and they have not had a chance to rest in whatever domicile is part of their lifestyle. Base Fatigue damage that characters must resist is 6S. For each level in the Comforts & Necessities category, reduce the DV by 2.
Additional factors may affect the damage the character must resist. For example, having allergies can be a hassle, especially food allergies where choices are limited. Allergies to things found in the environment (such as pollution, ultraviolet rays, plastic, etc.) increase the Fatigue damage characters must resist by 1 per level above mild for common allergies and 1 per level above moderate for uncommon allergies if the Comforts & Necessities category of the lifestyle is level three or lower. Allergies to foods can be problematic, as some special dietary requirements may not be available in all lifestyles. Allergies to common foodstuffs (soy, mycoprotein, etc.) also increase the fatigue damage value by 1 per level above mild if the Comforts & Necessities category of the lifestyle is level 3 or lower. For uncommon allergies, the damage value increases by 1 if the allergy is Severe, 2 if it is Extreme.
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It's Fatigue damage, so Body + Willpower.
FATIGUE DAMAGE
Fatigue damage is Stun damage you incur through doing something strenuous or for being in the middle of something stressful. It’s caused by harsh environments, hard exertion, and drek like that. Fatigue damage is resisted with Body + Willpower, not with any armor. Fatigue damage cannot be healed while the condition causing it still exists.
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Can a mundane troll become a mutaqua if using point buy? The 54 Karma cost only seems to stop them from being rules-legal in Priority or Sum to Ten, but the creation rules for infected call them out as only being available if taking a magic talent.
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It's Fatigue damage, so Body + Willpower.
FATIGUE DAMAGE
Fatigue damage is Stun damage you incur through doing something strenuous or for being in the middle of something stressful. It’s caused by harsh environments, hard exertion, and drek like that. Fatigue damage is resisted with Body + Willpower, not with any armor. Fatigue damage cannot be healed while the condition causing it still exists.
Ahh, OK, thanks.
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Can a mundane troll become a mutaqua if using point buy? The 54 Karma cost only seems to stop them from being rules-legal in Priority or Sum to Ten, but the creation rules for infected call them out as only being available if taking a magic talent.
Well, there's a discount on them if you're already awakened, thus making them somewhat available;
You don't have that problem with Karma Creation.
You'll play the full price, and you'll be awakened nonetheless afterwards.
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Can a mundane troll become a mutaqua if using point buy? The 54 Karma cost only seems to stop them from being rules-legal in Priority or Sum to Ten, but the creation rules for infected call them out as only being available if taking a magic talent.
For the love of God, why would you want to?
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Can a mundane troll become a mutaqua if using point buy? The 54 Karma cost only seems to stop them from being rules-legal in Priority or Sum to Ten, but the creation rules for infected call them out as only being available if taking a magic talent.
For the love of God, why would you want to?
If you build the rules, they will come.
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In my time working on Chummer I've come to learn that people try to make very, very odd characters. 54 Karma to get a mage that has a MAG value of 0 is definitely... something.
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In my time working on Chummer I've come to learn that people try to make very, very odd characters. 54 Karma to get a mage that has a MAG value of 0 is definitely... something.
*blink* *blink*
I say again: For the love of God, why would you want to?
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You could be the troll version of Blade, I guess?
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I was mostly talking about the mage who had a 0 MAG. What's the freakin' point?
As to the original question: I don't know. I was not in the loop as the other chargen methods were being explored, and I barely had time to come up for air as I did my part of the text I had. I was WAY behind when we were writing that; it was ugly there for a while. Sort of the way it is right now on the work-in-progress. Life is really getting in the way.
At first blush, I don't know why you couldn't take the Mutaqua quality, but again...I'm not sure why you'd wanna. This is subject to change once I have a chance to read the rules and analyze things. I've slept since Kevin and I wrote that stuff.
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It'd be fun for an Infected game, at least; a Mutaqua heavy would utterly demolish most competition in the street sam department, don't you think? At least, they would at night. They get some insane benefits (all for, you know, being a giant cannibal beast).
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Very rare, very obvious, pretty much dying to sunlight....
Well, they have their niche, I suppose.
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Speaking of sunlight, are there any ways to deal with an allergy to sunlight in SR5? Armor with environment adaptation; sunblock; anything?
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Speaking of sunlight, are there any ways to deal with an allergy to sunlight in SR5? Armor with environment adaptation; sunblock; anything?
Covering up (full body) will reduce the severity by one, as would the kind of pollution density that requires a breathing mask for other characters.
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Ah, nice. Thanks, Novocrane. If anyone else is wondering. Walking in Shadows sidepar on page 134 of Run Faster covers this.
On-topic, are there any official costs for UV treated clothing? As a houserule, I'd probably use counts-as Radiation Shielding or Fresnel Fabric and the rules for ruthenium polymer, so that each rating point reduces the severity of the allergy by Rating, adjusted for the amount of coverage provided as per the Errata.
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Very rare, very obvious, pretty much dying to sunlight....
Well, they have their niche, I suppose.
Like I said, an Infected game. Which I still want to do one of these days...
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Maybe they want to make troll version of Rincewind.
I was mostly talking about the mage who had a 0 MAG. What's the freakin' point?
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There's also a spell to lessen alergies, which I've seen houseruled to not make Infected trivial.
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Dzoo-Noo-Qua can select the Armor critter power as one of their free optional powers, but there's no value specified. Is this supposed to just be an additional +1?
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Dzoo-Noo-Qua can select the Armor critter power as one of their free optional powers, but there's no value specified. Is this supposed to just be an additional +1?
Yes. Each instance of Armor is +1.
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Everywhere: change “dwarven” to “dwarf” and “dwarves” to “dwarfs” (Shadowrun style)
Everywhere: change “Doc Wagon” (with a space) to “DocWagon” (without one)
Page 2 (Contents 88), change “DWARFs” to “DWARFS” (capital S)
Page 2 (Contents 97), change “HUMANs” to “HUMANS” (capital S)
Page 2 (Contents 100), change “ShapeShifters” to “Shapeshifters” (no interior capital)
Page 3 (Contents 141), change “& Essence” to “and Essence”
Page 3 (Contents 176), make “I Owe You One (Gaining Chips)” title case … same with “Improve Relationship” and “Future Service”
Page 4 (Contents 182–196), ensure all sample contacts are indented at the same level.
Page 8 (Decade), change “Tare’s reply and” to “Tare’s reply was”
Page 11 (Introduction), change “a mother you” to “a mother who”
Page 44 (More than Skin Deep), change “pheromonal” to “pheromone”
Page 88 (Gnome), change “Metaergonomics” to MetaErgonomics” (cap E) … again on p.94, 97
Page 90 (Koborokuru), change “Western” to “Eastern”
Page 90 (Koborokuru), change “has done” to “have done”
Page 91 (Hobgoblin), change “leave the, with” to “leave them with”
Page 92 (Ogre), change “They have are looking” to “They are looking” (delete “have”)
Page 92 (Satyr), change “satyr maintain” to “satyrs maintain”
Page 92 (Satyr), change “satyr also seem” to “satyrs also seem”
Page 92 (Satyr), change “a wide variety of variations” to “many variations”
Page 93 (Cyclops), change “Their primarily work comes” to “Their work comes primarily”
Page 94 (Giant), change “immigrated” to “emigrated”
Page 100 (Shapeshifter), change “possess” to “include”
Page 100 (Shapeshifter), change “metahuman life” to “metahuman lives” (plural)
Page 100 (Shapeshifter), change “breed dogs” to “breeds”
Page 105 (tables), change the table headlines to “Metasapient Attribute Table” and “Shapeshifter Attribute Table”
Page 105 (Shapeshifter Table), add the following racial traits to every shifter type: Allergy (Silver, Severe), Dual Natured, Regeneration, Sapience, and Vulnerability (Silver)
Page 110 (Random Negative Karma Value), change “RP;;” to “Dice Roll”
Page 111 (360-Degree Eyesight), change “360-Degree Vision” to “360-Degree Eyesight”
Page 112 (Arcane Arrester), change references to the Invisibility spell to something that’s actually unresisted, like Increase Reflexes or Armor
Page 114 (Granite Shell), change “massive calcite formations” to “extensive calcite deposits”
Page 114 (Defensive Secretion), change “cells that allow” to just “cells allow” (delete “that”)
Page 115 (Functional Tail), change “above” to “below”
Page 115 (Glamour), hyphenate “soul-wrenching”
Page 117 (Natural Venom), change “Injected Vector” to “Injection Vector”
Page 117 (Ogre Stomach), delete the word “unique”
Page 117 (Proboscis), change “an prehensile” to “a prehensile”
Page 118 (Thorns), change “discomfort due to the discomfort of the thorns” to just “discomfort due to the thorns” (delete “the discomfort of”)
Page 119 (Berserker), change “have a very little self-control” to “have very little self-control” (delete “a”)
Page 123 (Freaks sidebar), change “characters” to “character’s” (singular possessive)
Page 126 (… And All the Rest to Come), hyphenate “toxic-shaman-style”
Page 126 (… And All the Rest to Come), change “sort” to “sorts”
Page 127 (What It’s Like to Walk the Night), change “phenomena” to “phenomenon” (singular)
Page 133 (You Can’t Take It With You sidebar), change “duct work” to “ductwork” (no space)
Page 137–138, Dzoo-Noo-Qua and Goblin have notes about being unable to regenerate damage from sunlight, but with only a moderate allergy, they never take any. Either change the allergy levels to “Severe” or delete the notes.
Page 139 (Loup-Garou), change “Wolf’s Bane” to “Wolfsbane”
Page 143 (HMHVV Strain II), change “as a carrier” to “as carriers”
Page 143 (HMHVV Strain II), change “her metatype” to “his metatype”
Page 153 (Borrowed Time), change “times up” to “time’s up” (add apostrophe)
Page 153 (Computer Illiterate), change “e-mails” to “e-mail”
Page 160 (Burned Company Man), hyphenate “go-bag”
Page 160 (Burned Company Man), change “Thrown Weapons” to “Throwing Weapons”
Page 162 (Disgraced Bodyguard), change “principle” to “principal” … twice
Page 165 (Rocker), change “at worse” to “at worst”
Page 166 (Street Racer), change “Electronics Group” to “Electronics skill group”
Page 168 (Domestically Disturbed), change “and a self-changing” to “and self-changing” (delete “a”)
Page 168 (Domestically Disturbed), change “but it there really” to “but there really” (delete “it”)
Page 168 (Domestically Disturbed), hyphenate “once-over”
Page 168 (Domestically Disturbed), change “his perky” to “her perky”
Page 170 (Domestically Disturbed), change “people who has” to “people who have”
Page 170 (Domestically Disturbed), change “known to was rhapsodic” to “known to wax rhapsodic”
Page 170 (Domestically Disturbed), change “diffuse” to “defuse”
Page 170 (Domestically Disturbed), change “Aand” to “And”
Page 170 (Domestically Disturbed), change “Netcat though” to “Netcat thought”
Page 170 (Domestically Disturbed), lowercase “cautiously”
Page 171 (Domestically Disturbed), change “hackies” to “hacked”
Page 176 (Favors), change “can be service” to “can be services”
Page 176 (Company Suit), change “corporations intelligence” to “corporation’s intelligence” (add apostrophe)
Page 192 (Rockstar), change “pour over every detailed” to “pore over every detail”
Page 196 (Johnsons and Fixers), change “shadowrunners teams” to “shadowrunner teams” or just “shadowrunners”
Page 200 (The Handoff), change “a-ok” to “A-okay”
Page 205 (Shiawase), change “they don’t disappoints” to “they don’t disappoint”
Page 223 (Patron of the Arts), change “or and limited” to just “or limited” (delete “and”)
Page 231 (Blademaster PACK), change “Club” to “Katana” and “Extendable baton” to “Tomahawk” (or any other bladed weapons … sword, hatchet, machete, etc.)
Page 249 (Basic Cyberdeck Programs PACK), accidental duplicate of the previous PACK (Advanced Decker PACK) … replace with basic cyberprograms
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Should the college life style packages give you college education quality?
MDC
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What happens if a dual-natured being burns out to 0 current magic? 0 max magic?
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Page 105 (Shapeshifter Table), add the following racial traits to every shifter type: Allergy (Silver, Severe), Dual Natured, Regeneration, Sapience, and Vulnerability (Silver)
This is not an errata, this is a proposed rules change to revert to 4e, on par with "Limits suck! Get rid of them!" as multiple sections of the fluff make it very clear shifters do not regenerate or have a vulnerability to silver.
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It is an errata (albeit provisional), and it is not some kind of reversal to 4th Edition. Shapeshifters in Shadowrun have always had Regeneration and a Vulnerability and/or Allergy to silver.
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Page 105 (Shapeshifter Table), add the following racial traits to every shifter type: Allergy (Silver, Severe), Dual Natured, Regeneration, Sapience, and Vulnerability (Silver)
This is not an errata, this is a proposed rules change to revert to 4e, on par with "Limits suck! Get rid of them!" as multiple sections of the fluff make it very clear shifters do not regenerate or have a vulnerability to silver.
MijRaj is right, it caused massive confusion when Run Faster was printed without them having it listed. Although I'm curious where you think the fluff indicates to "make it very clear" they shouldn't have regeneration... I'm not familiar with any places where they really make a statement one way or the other except for one mention of Shapeshifters needing to be careful so they avoid "silver bullets lodged in their skulls."
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Page 105 (Shapeshifter Table), add the following racial traits to every shifter type: Allergy (Silver, Severe), Dual Natured, Regeneration, Sapience, and Vulnerability (Silver)
This is not an errata, this is a proposed rules change to revert to 4e, on par with "Limits suck! Get rid of them!" as multiple sections of the fluff make it very clear shifters do not regenerate or have a vulnerability to silver.
Writers went to great lengths to justify relatively minor changes to vampires and other infected from SR4 to SR5 (see "Sleeping with the Enemy" in Storm Front, "Into the Night" in Run Faster, the novel Crimson, "The New Changes" in Howling Shadows). By comparison, they were completely silent about what would have been radical changes to shapeshifter lore. On the contrary, they continue referring to shapeshifters being vulnerable to silver ("silver bullets lodged in their skulls," Run Faster, p.56) and regenerating ("regenerative abilities similar to shifter species," p.59, Howling Shadows). I'm not aware of any contradictory references.
It's no secret that writers updating material from SR4 to SR5 tended to lean heavily on the the original SR4 sources, sometimes to a fault. SR4 listed basic shapeshifter powers together as a group just once ("Shifter Powers," Runner's Companion, p.87): "All shapeshifters start out with the Shift (Human), Regeneration, and Sapience powers, as well as the weaknesses Allergy (Silver, Severe) and Vulnerability (Silver)." The fact that these defining powers and weaknesses (Regeneration, Sapience, Allergy, Vulnerability) were omitted in SR5 seems like an oversight to me, not a choice.
Regeneration, Allergy (Silver, Severe), and Vulnerability (Silver) have already been restored in errata:
http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=24596.0
Looks like Dual Natured may be gone, though. Not sure how I feel about that. Shifters have always been dual-natured in Shadowrun (SR2/SR3 Shadowrun Companion, p.36; SR4 Runner's Companion, p.87), but I don't consider that ability quite as central to the critter type as the others. I could live without it.
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Looks like Dual Natured may be gone, though. Not sure how I feel about that. Shifters have always been dual-natured in Shadowrun (SR2/SR3 Shadowrun Companion, p.36; SR4 Runner's Companion, p.87), but I don't consider that ability quite as central to the critter type as the others. I could live without it.
Yeah...mea culpa on that one. In my zeal to get something substantial out there, to prove we don't just fix typos, I forgot about Dual Natured, until Adzling brought it to my attention. Then I had some paying gigs, and I lost some time there.
Probably could have just penciled it in without anyone caring, but we have a (semi-)formal process, and since I helped write it I figure I should stick to it. It's almost to the "Post it" portion of that process. Bear with me.
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Any chance we're also going to get the note that while Silver is the most common allergy/vulnerability, it is also possible for the shifter to be allergic to some other natural material?
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We've been having a spirited debate on that. We'll see where it goes. There's always a chance, but I don't know for sure which way things are gonna fall out, so I don't want to say one way or the other.
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Is there a clarification on how In Debt is supposed to interact with Life Modules, Point Buy or the Born Rich quality? Does the Karma spent on In Debt count towards your quality cap?
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Haven't gotten that far yet.
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Shapeshifters should definitely have regeneration an vulnerability to silver (maybe panthers should be gold, other regional folklore based differences).
That said, regeneration was the main reason they were kinda broken in previous editions, and not usually allowed (in my experience) as PCs by most GMs. I don't think that's balanced out by a vulnerability to silver, at all. Were their karma costs made with regeneration in mind? You guys seemed to go to great lengths to make Infected no longer start with regeneration, which seemed like a good change (though 12 karma still seems cheap). Conversely, the omission of it from shifters seemed pretty glaring, but it doesn't sound like the same attention is being made for balance now in adding it back in.
And yeah, dual natured. That seems easy though, as it has both good and bad sides.
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I disagree that shapeshifters should get both the vulnerability and allergy to silver, as well as dual-natured. One or the other is fine, but having both on one character makes them virtually impossible to play with all the negatives they get by way of being a shifter. Not only are they Uneducated for free, meaning they cannot default on rolls, but they have lower magic and edge pools for very high cost. And now they are severely allergic to silver, *and* dual-natured with none of the benefits that even Infected get to purchase. Regeneration really isn't that strong without a high body, even on home tables, and having the one positive for so many negatives just doesn't add up. They're being relegated, like naga, to NPC roles and little else, because they are pound for pound worse than any kind of metahuman. Meanwhile, pixies are as broken as ever.
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We haven't gotten to pixies yet.
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The Vulnerability/Allergy bit has been around for a long time, and Regeneration more than compensates for a bad reaction to a noble metal that isn't generally used in everyday things. Unless you are trying to infiltrate upper-crust dining with real silverware or have prepared hunters gunning for 'shifters after you, it shouldn't be that common a trigger. In fact, Vulnerability itself only affects the Regeneration power, nothing else. Just because a normal metahuman has a severe allergy to Silver, it doesn't mean they're utterly screwed out of being awesome. On top of that, you can buy off Uneducated (which not all 'shifters start with anyways). That only represents a lack of interaction/experience with humanity, not that you can't learn ever. Dual-Natured is another thing shapeshifters have always had and never should have lost in the first place, and it has positive side effects as well as the negative everyone doesn't like.
What's your problem with naga? The fact that the setting hasn't just glued arms to snakes like almost every other interpretation I've seen? It's definitely more interesting this way, if nothing else.
And yes, we haven't gotten to pixies yet. That's on my list for sure. As are centaur, sasquatch and naga, as all of them need to be addressed in one way or another.
The last thing I have to say, though? If you want to play something weird, you better be ready to deal with the consequences of being weird. Centaurs aren't going to be able to fit into normal vehicles. Naga don't have limbs to do a lot of work (which is why Awakened naga in their society are the upper crust; they can use magic to do things directly or just cast Magic Fingers to manipulate objects 'manually'). Sasquatch have no voice boxes. Shapeshifters aren't acclimated to society without paying the Karma cost for it. Various metavariants are rather outlandish in appearance. Be all the special snowflake you can be! While some people consider the phrase pejorative, it is just another way of expressing something being unique. Just be ready to accept the repercussions of such features.
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Except Pixies.
Those can die in a lake of fire.
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That made me read the pixie section, trying to figure why they're so bad.
Side note: correct term for "living autopsy" is just "vivisection".
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I'd be pretty happy if shifters, metasapients, metavariants, changelings, drakes, infected, AIs, etc were brought down to a standardised power level - at least to start out.
Infected are almost there, as is.
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I'm not so big a fan of standardizing the power levels, personally. My only desire is to have them require an appropriate investment for what you receive. That way, if everyone is given the same amount of resources, the ones who don't pay for special things can invest in other upgrades to keep themselves on par.
Oh, and thank you for reminding me that Changelings need fixing too. The fluff and the mechanics for the three types are wildly divergent, so that should be looked into.
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In fact, Vulnerability itself only affects the Regeneration power, nothing else. Just because a normal metahuman has a severe allergy to Silver, it doesn't mean they're utterly screwed out of being awesome.
Vulnerability doesn't work the way you think it does. It adds a rather large DV increase to the damage of any attack using that weapon, in addition to disabling regeneration. Also, no one is seriously saying an allergy to silver makes you automatically bad, though people are correctly noting you are further reducing the total power level of shifters despite the fact that they are already very bad in order to maintain consistency with a previous edition over the integrity of the current one.
Dual-Natured is another thing shapeshifters have always had and never should have lost in the first place, and it has positive side effects as well as the negative everyone doesn't like.
Why? What part of being dual natured is integral to the shifter experience and lore? What would be so irreparably harmed by unsaddling them from that horrifically terrible quality to allow them to blend in and play up the duality between metahuman and animal more? What integral part of the lore is now ruined? Can you even name anything? Because it seems like arbitrary grognardism from the outside, a resistance to an edition update applied only in a very specific way for one specific type while leaving everything else, things that changed on a much more fundemental level, unchanged.
And more importantly, positive side effects? Really? Yes, you ignore the -2 to acting on both planes, but that is not at all an important benefit. The only real mechanical benefit being dual natured gives is that it allows you to assense slightly faster, but that doesn't even begin to overcome the many many negatives?
What's your problem with naga? The fact that the setting hasn't just glued arms to snakes like almost every other interpretation I've seen? It's definitely more interesting this way, if nothing else.
The mechanical price you pay to be one (The priority combined with being dual natured) is not worth the mechanical output. Basically you are ascribing cost to the cool factor of being a naga, which is bad design, it is like saying that pistols are cooler than assault rifles so you have to pay an extra 10 karma to learn them, even though despite being cooler than rifles they are mechanically worse.
Having fun or doing something interesting shouldn't have a 'cool tax' on it. This is true of most of the metasapients except for pixies, who are actually tit for tat better than metahumans at many aspects of the game, which is why Pixies have become somewhat of a meme among shadowrun playerbases.
The last thing I have to say, though? If you want to play something weird, you better be ready to deal with the consequences of being weird. Centaurs aren't going to be able to fit into normal vehicles. Naga don't have limbs to do a lot of work (which is why Awakened naga in their society are the upper crust; they can use magic to do things directly or just cast Magic Fingers to manipulate objects 'manually'). Sasquatch have no voice boxes. Shapeshifters aren't acclimated to society without paying the Karma cost for it. Various metavariants are rather outlandish in appearance. Be all the special snowflake you can be! While some people consider the phrase pejorative, it is just another way of expressing something being unique. Just be ready to accept the repercussions of such features.
No one is necessarily saying they want the weird variants to not have weird things about them. But what people are saying is that the mechanical cost of being a Shifter, Naga, Squatch, or Centaur is radically out of line with what they actually do. You pay a massive tax to do a weird concept, one that is so high Naga and Centaur essentially can't be played right now, and one that puts Shifters and Squatches deeply in the hole in terms of power to the point you are kind of being selfish and unkind to the fellow people at your table rolling them.
Furthermore there is agitation that there was an overfocus on restoring shifters to their old state rather than continuing the welcome trend of changing things from previous editions that didn't work. Shifters lost regeneration and dual natured, but their entire fluff changed, now there were major urban shifter populations that literally can no longer exist. There are wannabie metahuman shifters who no longer work because dual natured makes such an act totally impossible So did Dryads, if you didn't notice. They now come about from any elf anywhere in the world rather than being part of this one specific weird cult on an island. A change specifically made because dryads were popular but their lore was problematic.
Karma became edge, which is possibly the most massive lore change shadowrun ever saw. Mages gained summoning, Shamans gained binding, Spell formulae no longer had to be purchased at a specific force, and all magical types became one archtype with no rationale and no one batted an eye because it made the mage experience smoother.
Wireless bonuses exist. RCCs are now required to operate drones. Agents can't run on comlinks. None of these things changed as a part of the matrix protocol update, they changed for mechanical reasons and mechanical reasons alone.
Things change between editions that are major unexplained lore changes all the time and it isn't the job of Errata to undo clear design intent to make things better by making them different. If you are serious about undoing edition updates to the lore, then we need to seriously talk about how all the currently printed traditions will be supported and who will get what spell list.
I'm not so big a fan of standardizing the power levels, personally. My only desire is to have them require an appropriate investment for what you receive. That way, if everyone is given the same amount of resources, the ones who don't pay for special things can invest in other upgrades to keep themselves on par.
That is literally the controversy, because none of the metasapients save pixies and some vampire variants actually offer that, and these changes are pushing the game away from that.
Oh, and thank you for reminding me that Changelings need fixing too. The fluff and the mechanics for the three types are wildly divergent, so that should be looked into.
Praise be to Firebringer this has been a long time coming!
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Okay, so since there seems to be some confusion as to what Dual-Nature does and does not do, let's break down the positives and negatives:
+Assensing becomes a simple action rather than a complex action
+No more -2 penalty for 'seeing' on the astral and the material at the same time
-Cannot go through astral barriers of any kind without breaking them, astral barriers being expensive, but common when dealing with magic-based corps
-No practical way to defend yourself against astral form spirits unless you are Awakened yourself
-Your aura is brighter when you are dual-natured than when you are not, which draws further attention
-Vulnerability to Manablade, even if you are not Awakened, as well as literally any other spell, with no defense except your base willpower
Do you see where I'm going with this? Doesn't exactly outweigh the positives, does it?
> What's your problem with Naga?
From a mechanical standpoint, besides the lack of arms (Which while refreshing, is grossly inconvenient), let's have another list:
* -1 reach on bite attacks: You're not misreading this, Naga have a -1 reach on their bite, meaning that no matter what, they are at a disadvantage (Dice pool penalty) in melee combat. I am playing a danger noodle that is strong as hell, and without hands, I am relegated to being melee or mage. Now, this dice pool penalty on my only natural weapon wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for
* 4 racial max agility: Unless I'm horribly mistaken, this means that not only do I have a hard time in melee as an adept with an unnaturally shitty base dice pool, I have even more of a hard time hitting things or attempting to grapple, which is an unarmed agility - not strength test.
* Venom: What strength of venom? What symptoms?
* Dual Natured: See above.
* Reduced max edge: Not as painful as say changelings, because they still have the ability to take magic 6. Still worthy of note.
* Guard: Is this supposed to be an apology for giving them shitty dice pools? 'At least you won't glitch?" Come on!
But that's alright, make your snake exclusively magical and specifically magician despite listing adepts as an option because for some inexplicable reason your talking snake has 7 charisma and willpower. And can't operate door handles without a gymnastics test (Which they suck at!). So much for danger noodle. (TRUSSSSSST IN MEEEE~!)
Now for Pixies. Oh, pixies, how I have such a burning hatred in my heart for thee. What does this mean? Another list! And just to mix things up, let's go negatives to positives, shall we?
- Their on-foot speed sucks. Again, understandable design choice, they have tiny legs.
- Uneducated. To use your own argument: They just don't have the chance to catch up with our society, being X-thousand years old does that.
- Maximum two body and strength. Understandable, except for the fact that, through magical augmentation, or any other kind (Pixie 'ware is "Extremely rare" not "Impossible under normal circumstances," and don't get me started on PT), they can get up to peak human strength for the low low cost of a force 2 quickened spell.
Positives:
+ Racial max of 7 in Logic and Intuition, and 8 in literally everything else. Adding that all together, that's 10 free attribute points for reduced body and strength. Trolls get +8 free attribute points in exchange for a little off the top in 4 categories (A lot if we're talking Charisma)
+ As of 5e, there is no issue with them firing any gun, as they can pay troll tax and be able to fire a scaled-down version that somehow has the same DV/AP values. Someone tell me how we scale down a 1.5 meter gun to pixie size and give it the same penetration power without blowing the 2 strength fairy's arms off. Oh, wait, magic!
+ Astral Perception: That's right, the thing that only mages get and adepts/mysads have to pay for? Pixies get it for free by nature of being pixies, and they can turn it on and off at will!
+ Concealment: Free critter power!
+x2/x6 Flying speed, +2 meters to flying movement. Ridiculous pixie speed so long as you don't completely burn out!
+7 edge: They're basically humans except better in every way except bench-pressing, because you can just take magic to fill in the blanks and make them have well beyond peak human forms, further giving mundane people the shaft.
+Vanishing: No body, no evidence! Win-win for the Johnson if the pixie starts bleeding out and dies!
I hope this cleared some of the confusion up on a number of topics, and helps the freelancers understand their player base a little better from a game design standpoint, rather than a past-edition one.
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I'm not so big a fan of standardizing the power levels, personally. My only desire is to have them require an appropriate investment for what you receive.
Those are roughly equivalent, only you don't seem to agree that any PC option should be able to be taken at the start of a standard game.
* Venom: What strength of venom? What symptoms?
Critter Power: Venom. When in doubt, always look to critter powers.
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Okay, so since there seems to be some confusion as to what Dual-Nature does and does not do, let's break down the positives and negatives:
+Assensing becomes a simple action rather than a complex action
+No more -2 penalty for 'seeing' on the astral and the material at the same time
Slight misconception there, Shifting Perception (to or from Astral) is a simple action. Which means normally you would have to spend a simple action to turn it on, then another simple action to turn it back off.
Assensing was always a simple action. A dual-natured being effectively just always has Astral Perception turned on (and can't turn it off). Living that way constantly is what lets them negate the penalty normally associated with trying to interact with both worlds at once.
-Cannot go through astral barriers of any kind without breaking them, astral barriers being expensive, but common when dealing with magic-based corps
To be fair here, being dual-natured means that you can always see those barriers ahead of time, so you don't have to worry about accidentally walking through them. I've seen a decent number of mages accidentally try to walk through barriers to find that their spells and/or foci don't usually like that very much.
-No practical way to defend yourself against astral form spirits unless you are Awakened yourself
Dual-natured creatures have the same ability to defend themselves from astral entities that astrally perceiving characters would. Save that they don't have to only use astral-only attributes.
Astral combat is resolved in the same way as physical combat. Astrally perceiving and dual-natured characters use their physical attributes and skills to fight opponents with a physical body, and their Astral Combat + Willpower to fight wholly astral entities.
Dual-natured critters can take Astral Combat as a skill no matter what, technically anyone can (just doesn't do much good to people without access to astral space.
-Your aura is brighter when you are dual-natured than when you are not, which draws further attention
Your aura is the same brightness as any other dual-natured creature, which includes any magician that is astrally perceiving. It doesn't give a precise amount of this brightness change, but the negative quality Astral Beacon also makes you "highly visible" which to me sounds more pronounced than just "more colorful." You'll also note that active foci also fall into the Astral Form category, so I don't think it is unreasonable to think that a Dual-natured entity could move around without drawing the attention of every magical related thing within sight. Heck, anything that could even possibly see that you are a dual-natured would themselves have to be dual-natured and therefore just as visible to you as you are to them.
-Vulnerability to Manablade, even if you are not Awakened, as well as literally any other spell, with no defense except your base willpower
Do you see where I'm going with this? Doesn't exactly outweigh the positives, does it?
I'm not sure what you are trying to refer to with this one. If you mean the Manablade spell from Hard Targets, it doesn't affect dual-natured creatures any more than anyone else. If you mean Mana spells, then yes, that would be the one significant drawback.
And Overall, yes, I think being Dual-natured is supposed to be one of the penalties that goes along with Shifters having Regeneration. Regeneration is hugely powerful, they heal at least one box of health every combat turn. Assuming a moderately poweful Shifter (Body 3, Magic 3), that means they would on average heal 5 boxes of health every turn. That is maybe about as much as a decent mage can heal with a casting of the Heal spell, but they don't suffer drain, and they keep doing it every turn. Knowing the Vulnerability is one of the few ways to consistently kill a Shifter (hence the reference to using silver bullets).
Honestly, these changes being added back to Shifter is restoring the powers (and balance) that they have been known to have previously. I don't remember anybody ever complaining about the powers (and weaknesses) when they had them before. So what changed? If anything, the weaknesses stayed the same as they were, and Regeneration got better.
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Thank you, Kiir.
To recap:
Dual-Natured isn't the huge penalty people seem to think it is; there's a number of benefits and as a Dual-Natured creature you can fight back against astral threats. Why do you think megacorporations bother with paracritters half the time? Most can deal with astral problems as much as mundane. On a team with low magic resources, a 'shifter can be the eyes and ears even without being fully Awakened (please don't complain about the whole 'Magicrun' phenomena going on, I don't like it either). The fact that they've been Dual-Natured just like a good section of all paracritters are should mean something given it can be an aid more often than a hindrance and that it gives them another sense to stalk and hunt with even with their other keen senses disabled by whatever (say, smoke grenades or fog) is icing on the cake in my mind.
Vulnerability is a weakness, sure. As is Allergy. It's a Vulnerability/Allergy to silver, though. It ain't the most common thing in the world. Normal people don't pack silver bullets and silver-edged weapons around for kicks. Even elite troops aren't going to be packing that on a day-to-day basis. The only time someone is bringing a silver weapon or ammunition to a fight is when they know 'shifters are going to be involved. That means maybe the Russian government and Aztechnology/Aztlan have stockpiles, as they're the only people who regularly pick fights with 'shifter-heavy populations. And if you're a 'shifter running against them, you should be taking precautions of your own to not get shot in the first place. Maybe if 'shifters were Severely allergic to iron or plastic or oxygen or something else that is ubiquitous in this setting, this would be a problem.
I do agree that Naga need to be repriced, since you don't get what you pay for; I've already said I would prefer to reprice things to balance the costs out appropriately. I'd personally lower the Karma cost by a lot. Same goes for Centaurs and Sasquatch, while I'd charge more for Pixies. That said, I'm against blatantly changing their Attributes (except to just level out Edge, that makes no sense to me) and a few Statistics. I mean, really. Do you think a bite has any Reach to it? No! You're literally trying to get the teeth in your skull into them. That's pretty much as close as you can get to someone without going into XXX territory. And while yes, you're at something of a disadvantage in trying to grapple someone (I've had pet snakes, and they can have trouble getting a proper hold on something that knows what the snake is doing; snakes are usually ambush predators), once you have the hold, you use Strength, not Agility.
Adjusting Lifestyles, however... That would be a good idea. And addressing the gear compatibility, which applies to more than just pixies.
Also not getting this idea where your pixies are thousands of years old. Nor how they would be able to have spent their alleged thousands of years to become accustomed to humanity if they've not been here the entire time. Pixies weren't just frolicking about the Fifth World, constantly learning about us. To expand further, by the books Pixies are generally an insular species who don't often associate with people, thus not socializing and acclimating to our culture even if they were around.
One of the problems with Pixies currently is they actually don't pay said 'troll tax;' gear concerns haven't been addressed. On top of that, the current Vanishing power they have isn't the 'their body disappears when they die' one. In other words, on top of the lack of Lifestyle adjustment and all, Pixies have Problems that need to be fixed. I agree. I disagree with tossing the pixie's design out the window, however. They're small, flighty gits who are hard to spot and can literally fly.
And Novocrane, where do I say I don't think PC options shouldn't be available at CC? I'm all for adjusting the costs to make them appropriate for what you receive (and for the most part I don't think any of them are worth over 25 Karma, or the number of Special Attribute points one needs to cough up). Or, to draw from the Drake rules in Howling Shadows, you can go in Karma debt to start as one if it gets too expensive.
P.S. Naga Venom is the Venom power, to start. Power equal to Magic. And Hard Targets specifies that instead of taking a Combat Turn it is Immediate. So while the information is wee bit spread out, it is there.
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And Novocrane, where do I say I don't think PC options shouldn't be available at CC?
You didn't, and I accidentally a word or two. But. If the price of power is equal and the power level of PC options vary, it's more likely there will be options that will feel anaemic by way of having all their points tied up in that one option under standard chargen.
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Ah, gotcha.
Well, my perspective is that they shouldn't have to feel anemic about what they bought. The price of power shouldn't just be flat for everything, it should be based on what you receive. A 'shifter should cost more than a regular metahuman, because you receive Regeneration, physical stat increases, the ability to turn into a critter (a number of those forms are amazing for certain roles/survivability), etc. In their bailiwick, they're going to surpass vanilla mortals in what they do. The Allergy and Vulnerability basically negate the Regeneration and Uneducated helps pay off the cost, so you have to cover the rest of the Karma from there.
Of course, one also has to factor in that some people will never be satisfied and that you shouldn't try to go out on a limb to appease those people at the risk of introducing mechanical flaws or alienating the general population.
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I personally have no problem with there being a 'snowflake tax' on the generation of characters with alternate metatypes.
Keeps the "D'rizzt Effect" down , and helps balance out the population perspective.
Take magic as an example, by lore its rare. As in 2% of the population rare..... or only 140,000,000 people WORLD WIDE can use it (CRB). And yet most teams seems to pack magic on in spades.
In many cases we are talking a fraction of a percentage of the world's population, there should be a 'tax' on that regardless of the mechanical effects, because you can't rely on the social aspects to have any real baring.... (and we see this in the character creation threads ALL the time....)
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To be fair what other choice would a mage have? A corp job? Pssshhh :p
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SO, A few thoughts:
1) Yeah, special snowflake taxes are fine. 5th ed does a good job of making Humans kinda better for the cost than other metatypes, so you see more humans than you do everyone else. That's good.
2) That said, shadowrunner populations do not need to reflect the general population. It doesn't strike me as weird you see a lot of mage or troll characters, for instance. Probably a greater percentage of trolls are employed as shadowrunners than humans are. Strength 10 doesn't really help you at a desk job.
3) Lot of FUD going around about dual natured. It is pretty much literally astral perception that you can't turn off. The lack of the -2 penalty (presumably because you're used to it) is nice. It's worth noting that astral perception is a power that adepts pay 1 PP for, which is significant. But of course, you can't turn it off, which is also a big deal. (there are other ways to go through astral barriers btw, than just destroying them, though it takes some skill) It is my sense of it that it is generally pretty neutral as a power, neither good nor bad.
4) Regeneration is a big deal, folks. It seems like generally, balanced campaigns didn't allow characters with regeneration, and shapeshifters were verboten. It seems like there was a concerted effort to make it harder for Infected to take (though 12 karma is nowhere near expensive enough). Leaving it off shifters seemed really weird, though, and no, I don't think it's balanced by the silver vulnerability. (and the cost needs to increased for infected)
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Take magic as an example, by lore its rare. As in 2% of the population rare..... or only 140,000,000 people WORLD WIDE can use it (CRB). And yet most teams seems to pack magic on in spades.
The percentage of the total population doesn't particularly matter to me; it's the percentage of the shadowrunning community and peripheral communities that actually mean something. 140 million might sound like a vanishingly small amount, worldwide, but if most of those are runners, corpsec, talismongers, etc, then it doesn't matter that wageslaves worldwide are almost never awakened powerhouses. Ditto that for everything else.
Well, my perspective is that they shouldn't have to feel anemic about what they bought. The price of power shouldn't just be flat for everything, it should be based on what you receive.
Agreed on the latter, but not the emphasis of the former.
A 'shifter should cost more than a regular metahuman, because you receive Regeneration, physical stat increases, the ability to turn into a critter (a number of those forms are amazing for certain roles/survivability), etc. In their bailiwick, they're going to surpass vanilla mortals in what they do. The Allergy and Vulnerability basically negate the Regeneration and Uneducated helps pay off the cost, so you have to cover the rest of the Karma from there.
If Infected were able to put a paygate on regen (etc) to put them on more even starting footing, why not shifters? I get Infected have their whole "recently afflicted and still changing" thing going, but that doesn't mean a reason can't be found for shifters to not have everything.
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If Infected were able to put a paygate on regen (etc) to put them on more even starting footing, why not shifters? I get Infected have their whole "recently afflicted and still changing" thing going, but that doesn't mean a reason can't be found for shifters to not have everything.
Problem there is that there isn't really an "(etc)" when it comes to Shifter powers. Shifters basically only get 2 powers, Shift and Regeneration. Everything else is based pretty much on the fact that since their natural form is animal and they have the innate ability to change form that they don't actually change all the way. That's why they always have tells that show their Shifter nature (Tiger's eyes, wolves extra hair, etc). Thus they retain some of their improved sensory capabilities even while shifted, but otherwise the attacks, and extra sense-based powers are all just from being an animal.
Likewise, the regeneration goes hand-in-hand with their Shift power. The list of Vampire powers is much more extensive, and at least from a perspective of how the rules have changed somewhat, the reduction in the powers they receive from the beginning is actually what makes them more of a playable option from the get-go.
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Problem there is that there isn't really an "(etc)" when it comes to Shifter powers
(not that there has to be an etc to put a separate price on regen, or prices on scaling up to full regen, but...) Before 5e Infected, there wasn't an etc to Infected powers, either. It was just *blat*, and "run along now". That something doesn't currently exist isn't reason enough to avoid considering change beyond the initial suggestion.
they retain some of their improved sensory capabilities even while shifted
So do that, but don't give them everything at maximum ability to start. Even animals can improve by practice, play, and training.
If SR allowed for animal instincts they can sharpen, the ability to improve their shifting finesse / what animalistic abilities they retain while in (meta)human form, and so on - then Shifters would have the viable range of purchases Infected do now.
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I personally have no problem with there being a 'snowflake tax' on the generation of characters with alternate metatypes.
Keeps the "D'rizzt Effect" down , and helps balance out the population perspective.
Take magic as an example, by lore its rare. As in 2% of the population rare..... or only 140,000,000 people WORLD WIDE can use it (CRB). And yet most teams seems to pack magic on in spades.
In many cases we are talking a fraction of a percentage of the world's population, there should be a 'tax' on that regardless of the mechanical effects, because you can rely on the social aspects to have any real baring.... (and we see this in the character creation threads ALL the time....)
Placing a mechanical barrier around content you do not want other people to freely enjoy is not even close to legitimate errata content.
If Infected were able to put a paygate on regen (etc) to put them on more even starting footing, why not shifters? I get Infected have their whole "recently afflicted and still changing" thing going, but that doesn't mean a reason can't be found for shifters to not have everything.
The idea of a paygate isn't a bad one, especially as it makes it easier to enable people currently playing shifters to not have to undergo major retacons to the character, and for individual GMs to ban the regeneration aspect of the shifter while keeping the core story of them the same. It works for vampires, soooorta works for drakes, why not shifters?
It would essentially allow people who enjoy the 'minority alien outsider looking for a home' aspect to keep doing that while allowing people who favor 4e-2e's interpretation to keep doing their thing. You could even play up the weird pseudo-spirit aspect of shifters that older fluff sorta had by giving them some spirit powers, but that may actually push them over the top.
There are a few other problems with shifters that need to be adressed. Specifically, their movement tables are very strange and don't make a lot of sense. Read as a replacement to base movement for shifters suddenly animals with a running speed of over 30 miles per hour suddenly struggle to outrace a relatively out of shape human. Read as a multiplier to the base movement speed shifters now go crazy fast, though that may fit in with the idea of the powerful unstoppable werecreature thing some people seem to enjoy.
Also, the way they purchase stats twice can lead to an extremely odd situation with special attributes. Purchasing magic twice is pretty insane for what you actually get for being a shifter, and creates a lot of major rules holes for mystic adept shifters as well as any shifter who by some miracle gets deltaware, as well as minor weirdness with foci and summoning, but is a relatively minor issue compared to the edge question. Do shifters have two edge stats and two edge pools?
As for naga reach: Literally every bite attack in the game is a reach 0 or reach 1 attack, so the idea that bites somehow make your reach negative two meters is a bit silly. Bites, knives, kicks, punches, and stungloves have reach 0 or 1 because reach doesn't represent how far from your body an attack is (after all, a troll's kicks have a reach of 2, 3 if they got claws on each feet or a spur!) so much as the area that you threaten, which makes an attack easier to make and harder to land on you without getting hit first.
Think of it this way, would you want to stand within 2 meters of a naga knowing it had to keep half its body roughly where it was? Probably not, you know its bite range extends way longer than the range of your fist, not negative 2 meters into its body. Reach represents the advantage your personal zone of control has, and while in a real fight it would be represented likely by an initiative bonus more than anything (the naga's extended zone of personal control can strike you down faster than you could ever get close enough to land your strike on any part of its body) that would be mechanically unwieldy and thus its represented as changing the difficulty of the attack. This is why the lunge is represented as a reach boost in martial arts as well. Your arm or sword doesn't actually get longer, you are just 'uncoiling' like a naga would!
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I personally have no problem with there being a 'snowflake tax' on the generation of characters with alternate metatypes.
Keeps the "D'rizzt Effect" down , and helps balance out the population perspective.
Take magic as an example, by lore its rare. As in 2% of the population rare..... or only 140,000,000 people WORLD WIDE can use it (CRB). And yet most teams seems to pack magic on in spades.
In many cases we are talking a fraction of a percentage of the world's population, there should be a 'tax' on that regardless of the mechanical effects, because you can rely on the social aspects to have any real baring.... (and we see this in the character creation threads ALL the time....)
Placing a mechanical barrier around content you do not want other people to freely enjoy is not even close to legitimate errata content.
If you accept that some grand mistake of omission was made, and that the costs of the choice may have been decided after that omission, sure it is.
And the "snowflake tax" isn't meant to be a "barrier" so much as a weighting .....it's not that people don't want to see these characters, they just don't to see them all the time with a frequency that strains credulity. If every frontline character is a tiger shifter adept, and every decker an AI (because that's the best way to build X archetype), that's a problem. And indeed, with the cost factored in you want them a little suboptimal, just to keep them appropriately rare. So that guy who wants to make a japanese fox shifter can do it if they want to , for the flavor, and it's cool, but everyone else at the table isn't saying "I wish I'd done that".
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And the "snowflake tax" isn't meant to be a "barrier" so much as a weighting .....it's not that people don't want to see these characters, they just don't to see them all the time with a frequency that strains credulity. If every frontline character is a tiger shifter adept, and every decker an AI (because that's the best way to build X archetype), that's a problem. And indeed, with the cost factored in you want them a little suboptimal, just to keep them appropriately rare. So that guy who wants to make a japanese fox shifter can do it if they want to , for the flavor, and it's cool, but everyone else at the table isn't saying "I wish I'd done that".
But that isn't even close to how good game design works, because being cool and having fun and doing something weird aren't mechanical entities. If you balance correctly for mechanical power, you wouldn't see every PC as a tiger or an AI.
You balance the mechanics and allow GMs to control their tables, because that is what the GM needs in order to make their own informed decisions. Designing around theorycraft boards isn't a good plan, people make weird stuff all the time as thought experiments, that is what was interesting. A GM needs an honest appraisal about what is worth what, and that is what the mechanics actually represent at chargen. If all things were equally powerful at what they were supposed to do, and you ended up with 3 shifters, a naga, and a changeling, that is what those players genuinely wanted to play, so the idea of 'weighting' really is just to enforce personal views onto the game. No shadowrun team ever represents a perfect cross section of the general population anyway, that just not how statistics and demographics work, due to selection bias, something already explained earlier in the thread.
In fact, theorycraft asside, we see how bad the idea of a snowflake tax is already in play, and they tend to have effects far out of proportion to their intent.. You don't see AI ever because their design in 5e is so bad that every single major shadowrun living community has banned them because they are an unplayable mess. Likewise, naga, centaur, and sasquatch are not at all possible because the gate on their cool factor is unreasonably high.
Know what we actually see a lot of? Pixies. Because they are amazingly and overwhelmingly powerful at any mental dependent role that isn't the face. Pixies are the best mages, riggers, and deckers. And if they weren't automatically awakened they would be the best techomancers. That is why people have been coming into this thread and posting memes you people understand about pixies and the need to light them on fire. Anyone from the runnerhub or shadownet is super familiar with people posting pixies because they are just a little bit better at rigging, hacking, and spellcasting. By 1 dice and are the bane of the chargen teams.
Even trolls and dwarf play numbers among both reddit communities, a totally normal metatype, are severely hurt by the fact they just harder to make than a ork, elf, or human by a little bit.
We see consistently that players deeply care about the mechanical balance of their characters along with their story. When you go into a chargen chat of one of these communities it is a constant struggle to make a troll work because it is cool but in the end people give up because its just a bit too far off the curve. Technos and especially Riggers face that problem as roles.
The mechanics of the game trump your own personal distaste for these types, and even if you wanted to make a snowflake gate all you would need to do would be to reduce their mechanical efficiency by a liiiiitle bit. Just a tensy bit. Just 1 dice to all pools is enough to push something completely over the edge. That is how immaculate this errata needs to be for these major communities to use it.
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Have yet to see a table ban AIs yet. I HAVE seen tables where players whine they can't build their AI the way they want it - thus it's unplayable.
Nor have I seen a table ban Nagas - as long as the player isn't trying to load it up with guns and grenades that is..
it's interesting you bring up the word "balance" like its some all powerful thing in the RPG community. Really, it's not. Balance has never been at the heart of the table top experience, nor has it ever been. There are entire books that discuss this very point! In fact, TSR published a book that broke down the power curve of every class over 20 levels based on the game mechanics, and at no power were any of the classes "balanced".... The heart of every table top is "Is this enjoyable?" And admittedly, that takes a measure of balance. The balance of game mechanics, player choice, difficulty intended, and atmosphere is not something that can be boiled down into a straight X=Y=1 formula.
The last tabletop developer that thought along your line of thinking lost thousands of players, millions in revenue, and spawned a competing company that makes and arguably more popular game! (DnD VS Pathfinder. Hasbro Vs Paizo). Even development studios, with a decade in the MMORPG business spend more time patching for "Balance" then any other issue.... Heck World of Warcaft is HOW old??? And they are stilling "Balancing" the classes!
No, "Balance" is a myth, a pipe dream. A good acid trip. "Balance" can never be achieved. Why? Because we want choices. And when we introduce different choices, those choices reflect the "balance".....
Race: 10+ choices
Stats: 10 attributes range of numbers (Oh the Choices!!)
Magic: More Choices on Choices, with Choices!
Gear: Choices, more choices, and even yet more choices!!!
You starting to see where I am going? These are all things that are in the game, that affect that finished outcome of a character..... they matter. The fact that Purple People Eaters cost 5 more karma then Green Veggie Sprouters is of little concern after the final tally of those said choices and the effects of said choices on "balance".
But really Sir_Prometheus said it best.
" And the "snowflake tax" isn't meant to be a "barrier" so much as a weighting .....it's not that people don't want to see these characters, they just don't to see them all the time with a frequency that strains credulity. "
The simple fact that you flocks of Pixie Runners tells me that they are too cheap and should be adjusted up in Karma costs. (and IF they are packing assault rifles, the player smacked up side the head with a physics book)
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Statswise at least, not sure I'd include Sasquatch in complains of being underpowered :
Sasquatch comparison with Troll
+1 Body Max/Min
+1 Agility Max
+1 Logic Max
+1 Int Max
+2 Cha Max
+ Dual Natured
+ Mimicry
+ Natural Weapon
+ Uneducated
- Thermographic Vision
-1 Dermal Armor
- increased Lifestyle costs
20 Karma cost (but 2 extra Edge over Troll at priority B)
Balanced out by fluff that they can't speak, but doesn't stop them being successfully as diplomats or politicians, and no idea how it affects other modes of communication (sign language, comm links etc)
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Statswise at least, not sure I'd include Sasquatch in complains of being underpowered :
The fact that they have dual natured prevents them from seeing a lot of tables. On top of that, while they have somewhat comparable stats to a troll, their charisma in no way helps them at the things they are predisposed towards and using charsima as a sasquatch for uses other than drain, spirits, and over the matrix is complicated because you are a big fuzzy monster. Finally, because they share a priority with trolls, they already are 'hard mode' because any priority above C has very serious ramifications for a character because it necessitates dropping multiple priorities down by 1 point. Dropping a D priority to E isn't generally a big deal, but dropping a C priority to D is a massive loss to a character. As A B priority metasapient a sasquatch requires you to drop 3 priorities, which means you not only get the C to D problem, but you also can't really start dropping priorities anymore and something you actually care about now has to end up near the bottom. Worse, squatches requires you to be an awakened PC for a power source both due to dual natured's downsides and the fact that a dual natured PC who burns out to 0 dies, and it is notoriously impractical to make a magical priority B metatype character. Sum to 10 helps a bit, but not that much, especially as squatches likely need to be mystic adepts to handle flying astral threats and they already are some karma in the hole.
The problem with sasquatches is that dropping dual natured from them would make them another pixie: A metasapient with just better stats than a metahuman paid for by social disadvantages that can be overcome or avoided.
Have yet to see a table ban AIs yet. I HAVE seen tables where players whine they can't build their AI the way they want it - thus it's unplayable.
I have seen many do so, more because their rules make them an unplayable mess rather than being under-powered, but in many ways the symptoms are linked to their core mechanics just being plain bad. Depth as a mechanic doesn't work as a power source and actively makes the AI worse at what they do forever with each point they obtain, but AI need depth to operate most of their abilities, which ultimately are not all that potent with rare exception. Then on top of that there is the utter lack of clarity to how the AI actually works in the matrix, the entire question on how to capture an AI is just left unanswered despite decidedly being a canon thing. AI are literally a mess of mechanics that prove how serious mechanics really are in supporting 'snowflakes' because hope and desire alone can't make it work.
it's interesting you bring up the word "balance" like its some all powerful thing in the RPG community. Really, it's not.
I have no idea what RPG communities you go to, because game balance is incredibly important in any RPG review and when discussing the game. I have never seen it not matter. There is a reason people blast Exalted or nWoD before its update for having really terrible balance in its mechanics that creates massive party disparity. People make tier lists and get sad when archtypes, not necessarily classes but entire archtypes, are no longer powerful enough to matter.
Balance has never been at the heart of the table top experience, nor has it ever been. There are entire books that discuss this very point! In fact, TSR published a book that broke down the power curve of every class over 20 levels based on the game mechanics, and at no power were any of the classes "balanced".... The heart of every table top is "Is this enjoyable?" And admittedly, that takes a measure of balance. The balance of game mechanics, player choice, difficulty intended, and atmosphere is not something that can be boiled down into a straight X=Y=1 formula.
TSR's dungeon's and dragons was a very different beast from where RPGs ended up, still having its feet firmly in wargames. Modern ideas of game design weren't exactly a thing yet, and the player experience wasn't always focused on. However, I would argue that TSR did a better job than you think, because regardless of the power of each class at any given level, at that point in history every class in D&D had very strong niche protection, especially in terms of exclusive access to entire categories of magic items which is why a class like rogue which underpreformed at a lot of levels was still always valuable simply by being the best person to hold many useful magic items. Furthermore, as a designer it is your job to think in terms of balance. A balanced RPG is inherently superior to one that isn't, all other things being equal. Saying balance outright doesn't matter is just silly.
The last tabletop developer that thought along your line of thinking lost thousands of players, millions in revenue, and spawned a competing company that makes and arguably more popular game! (DnD VS Pathfinder. Hasbro Vs Paizo). Even development studios, with a decade in the MMORPG business spend more time patching for "Balance" then any other issue.... Heck World of Warcaft is HOW old??? And they are stilling "Balancing" the classes!
Actually the last developer to think along these lines was Montie Cook, who went out of his way to make a game with immaculate class balance and a focus on story telling that has become a critical darling and a kickstarter success no less than 3 times over because people really appreciated the focus on making a game that was fun to play in the way people wanted to play it, after openly stating that he was an idiot for making 3.5 the way it was. 4e failed because it lacked soul. Its mechanical quality was good but there was never any threat or edge to any encounter. 4e's class design is still clearly in 5e, which is being very well received as far as I am aware.
The dissatisfaction with poor mechanics is also, frankly, why the community went out of its way to demand errata from catalyst. Because it is very obvious people care, even if you don't think they should. It is also why rules lite systems are coming into vogue right now, because in general they enforce balance by making all choices fundamentally the same and only affect the narrative of the game, something attractive to many players who are tired of having to deal with something they enjoy being arbitrarily worse to enforce an RPG system mastery concept literally recanted by the person who invented it as a terrible idea.
As for world of warcraft and mmos... yes. Balance is an eternal struggle and you never fully reach it. But you realize they are fully aware their business is dying because people are so fed up by the lack of balance remaining in the game and continued pushes of low quality content made for an assumed guaranteed audience that is rapidly going away, right? Sound familiar? WoW tried because it understood balance was important and the number one way for your game to just turn people off is to be bad as a game. RPGs have role playing, sure, and many people think the mechanics are spereate from this, though the stormwind fallacy basically disproves this idea. But it is also a game. And there is a reason that people enjoy games like Go, which despite not being perfectly balance has mechanics built in to ensure both a more even match and to ensure that stupid situations don't show up like an infinitely repeating loop of play, more than they enjoy tic-tac-toe, a game so obviously imbalanced you don't make a single legitimate choice throughout it .
No, "Balance" is a myth, a pipe dream. A good acid trip. "Balance" can never be achieved. Why? Because we want choices. And when we introduce different choices, those choices reflect the "balance".....
Race: 10+ choices
Stats: 10 attributes range of numbers (Oh the Choices!!)
Magic: More Choices on Choices, with Choices!
Gear: Choices, more choices, and even yet more choices!!!
You starting to see where I am going? These are all things that are in the game, that affect that finished outcome of a character..... they matter. The fact that Purple People Eaters cost 5 more karma then Green Veggie Sprouters is of little concern after the final tally of those said choices and the effects of said choices on "balance".
First of all it depends on what is going on. If the purple people eatiers gain +2 in xand the green veggie sprouters get +3 in x, and that is all either of these PC types offer, and they take up the same resource, you objectively failed to balance these choices, and the idea that you can 'fix it in post' by just designing is outright not good design. There is wiggle room to determine how good an extra +1 on top of a +2 is in the context of X, but you need to recognize you must think about it and not just arbitrarily make the better mechanical option cost more mechanically.
You open up any game design textbook and they will tell you that asymmetry and variaty in choice is the outcome of balance, not a determent to it, because if you ignore game balance enough some choices stop being a choice. If everything functions roughly the same you end up with first order optimal solutions where one thing is clearly better than everything else at what it does, and you saw this constantly happen in SR4 because a lot of the design wasn't thought through and many gear pieces just had first order optimal solutions. It still sorta is around in 5e, armor is not in a good spot for player choice right now for example because most of the best armors have no real tradeoff involved, and sometimes there just is a way to potent metavariant or metasapient. Also, riggers are still struggling, obviously, but I don't think that bit is in doubt.
In fact, 5e has a lot of clear thought to balance in it, and the fact you can't see it is saddening. For example, weapon categories in 5e are probably in a better spot than they ever have been, because of changes made purely for the sake of balance coming in and kicking automatics around a little bit by removing their primary benefit (Bonus damage) and instead just flat out making every gun stronger. No longer are the days you would rather be shot by a sniper rifle than machine pistol. There is even a really nuanced curve to weapon classes that make them vary in power based on your dicepool because of the differences now in automatics and single shot.
Other things that prove balance exists in the context of shadowrun include: dodging now being a thing where it was categorically impossible before, not everyone forever being a burnout adept or mage, spirits losing the ability to freely use their own edge, vampires now having to buy qualities to have powers over time, initaitive being entirely reworked to make having an initiative aug less overwhelmingly potent, direct damage magic being heavily nerfed so that indirect magic is now viable, limits, force re-balancing on spells to make it harder for mages to overcast while still geniusly going out of its way to make sure low force casts are still easy for many staple spells, and the evening out of soak values between roles by taking a lot of soak off augmentations and putting it onto personal body armor everyone has access to, and making agents on comlinks outpreforming deckers impossible.
None of these things reduce player choice. They in fact, increase it. You can now toss a fireball instead of a stunball and not be outright hurting yourself more than the enemy. You can not play a soak tank and still get into a fight without instantly dying to a machine pistol. Chosing to use longarms or pistols or bows actually works now, you aren't just depriving yourself of literally over double your base damage on attacks. Chosing to use cram is now going to actually let you fight only a little worse than someone with wired 2 rather than comically terribly. By focusing on making more choices work in the mechanics, otherwise known as balance, we actually have more options than if we didn't. This is why 4e monobuilds aren't really a thing in 5e anymore, you don't see standard pornomancers or nexus mages because there isn't one true way to build an archtype anymore. By using priority to force players to give something up, and making as many choices have a trade off as possible rather than being pure upside or downside, the game got better.
You don't even need a textbook to figure out balance is real, because 5e did it. I shouldn't have to defend the objectively true concept of game balance from someone working on the errata.
Like I get that this may come across as insulting, but this is a serious request: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_(game_design)
Read this article. Notice how many balance terms came from RPG players. It is absolutely something important to this medium. Specifically, based on the next quote, you are looking to Gimp metasapients, IE make them unfairly weak compared to what they get, something not historically looked upon kindly in the RPG community.
But really Sir_Prometheus said it best.
" And the "snowflake tax" isn't meant to be a "barrier" so much as a weighting .....it's not that people don't want to see these characters, they just don't to see them all the time with a frequency that strains credulity. "
I don't see the overflow of metasapients at all. In the history of the hub and net they have made up maybe .5% of PCs. That is literally less than proportional to the population of Seattle, not more, and they logically should actually be overrepresented in the shadows.
But any such mechanical weighting doesn't work, and more importantly is, no matter what, just your own personal viewpoint. If you think you are seeing flocks of infected and shifters being played for mechanical reasons (you aren't by the way) that means the game's balance is off. You need to bring them down and back in line with other options, not make them arbitrarily worse because you don't like them at your table. Any given table has the power to ban or limit these archtypes, not every table has the mechanical knowledge to untangle a poorly written errata made to push an agenda and fix those archtypes mechanically. Putting a mechanical weight on your own personal views of how the game should be played is clearly not valid errata content.
The simple fact that you flocks of Pixie Runners tells me that they are too cheap and should be adjusted up in Karma costs. (and IF they are packing assault rifles, the player smacked up side the head with a physics book)
Pixies aren't too cheap necessarily, and in fact prove how weighting doesn't really work. They already are pretty expensive and even without the ability to use guns they still are a dominant metatype, because weighting isn't actually a good system compared to real balance.
I mean obivously if you pump up their karma cost you will see less, but karma efficiency is a very binary balancing tool and if its the only thing keeping you from doing something you hit a point where something is either efficient or its not and it either sees a lot of play or it doesn't. At the end of the day pixies are flat out the best at mental stat archtypes that don't need to use firearms personally, meaning that even if they aren't karma efficient they will be attractive for these roles because they let you go higher than anything else. You would need to make them so karma inefficient that they hardly even work to balance them, which then would just not be fun or fair. Arguably, as many pointed out, they are the metasapient that jells best with being dual natured and it is somewhat bemusing that they aren't. They have much more overt magical abilities, downright melt into a metaplane when they die, and more importantly have the best chance of surviving and thriving with dual natured due to their ability to fly, conceal themselves, and excellent mental stat line, and as a bonus the roles they tend to gravitate towards anyway aren't especially devastated by being dual natured compared to the more relatively 'front line' infected and shifters who run a far more serious risk of getting forced through a barrier and just ending up on the ground or having to spend a full minute trying to walk through the doorway in a building.
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I personally have no problem with there being a 'snowflake tax' on the generation of characters with alternate metatypes.
Keeps the "D'rizzt Effect" down , and helps balance out the population perspective.
Take magic as an example, by lore its rare. As in 2% of the population rare..... or only 140,000,000 people WORLD WIDE can use it (CRB). And yet most teams seems to pack magic on in spades.
In many cases we are talking a fraction of a percentage of the world's population, there should be a 'tax' on that regardless of the mechanical effects, because you can't rely on the social aspects to have any real baring.... (and we see this in the character creation threads ALL the time....)
I have great problems with this concept. Shadowrunners are inherently exceptional. The fact that they buck the odds is literally why they get paid. Indeed, the entire fluff of the setting goes to great lengths to explain why various different characters are put into circumstances where they can become 'runners.
Options like shifters and metasapients (with the notable exception of pixies) are only chosen when players *really* want to play that particular sort. They already have a mechanical tax - they're poorly designed. With things like mages, it makes *perfect* sense for there to be an abundance of them in the shadows, given the fluff of 5e and - to my understanding - the previous four editions.
If you feel, at your table, that an option is coming up too often, then house rule it it in some way. Do not propose errata be put into place to make those options less viable at all tables.
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stuuuuuffff....
Wow, um, that's a lot of words.
You seem to be arguing that Dual Natured is some sorta crippling disadvantage. I see some disagreement on whether it is, on balance, a slightly good thing or slightly bad thing, but I don't see anyone else agreeing with you that it is some sort of huge disadvantage that more than makes up for regeneration, various stat buffs, etc.
For what's worth, I do agree that balance is important. Not that it's the only thing, but if X build is optimal enough that everyone starts building their character like that it is less fun.
As to the current state of shifters (without errata) they seem a little hard to get to work. The extra initiative dice are pretty nice. To me the biggest disadvantage is actually that you have to leave your gear and armor behind when you shape shift (and vampires don't when they go to mist form, why?) I think I could build a pretty good one as a mage or an adept, but even then the lack of bringing your armor with you really hurts.
But still, those extra initiative dice, and when you add regeneration on top of it.....a lot of scenarios I see have a shifter that never really shifts, just stays in metahuman form wearing armor. Most NPCs aren't going to aim for the head. "Typical" opponents aren't going to have experience with shifters at all. It's really good. All the same things apply to vampires, of course, but they have much bigger downsides. oh, and they have to pay 12 karma for regeneration. Probably should pay more.
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I personally have no problem with there being a 'snowflake tax' on the generation of characters with alternate metatypes.
Keeps the "D'rizzt Effect" down , and helps balance out the population perspective.
Take magic as an example, by lore its rare. As in 2% of the population rare..... or only 140,000,000 people WORLD WIDE can use it (CRB). And yet most teams seems to pack magic on in spades.
In many cases we are talking a fraction of a percentage of the world's population, there should be a 'tax' on that regardless of the mechanical effects, because you can't rely on the social aspects to have any real baring.... (and we see this in the character creation threads ALL the time....)
I have great problems with this concept. Shadowrunners are inherently exceptional. The fact that they buck the odds is literally why they get paid. Indeed, the entire fluff of the setting goes to great lengths to explain why various different characters are put into circumstances where they can become 'runners.
Options like shifters and metasapients (with the notable exception of pixies) are only chosen when players *really* want to play that particular sort. They already have a mechanical tax - they're poorly designed. With things like mages, it makes *perfect* sense for there to be an abundance of them in the shadows, given the fluff of 5e and - to my understanding - the previous four editions.
If you feel, at your table, that an option is coming up too often, then house rule it it in some way. Do not propose errata be put into place to make those options less viable at all tables.
As I said, shadowrun demographics do not have to match general population demographics. It's OK for 1/4 runners to be a mage, for instance. But still nudges in certain directions are good. In previous editions, you would often have no one playing as humans. Now, in 5th, the game does a good job (maybe slightly too good) of making human a better choice for most builds than metahumans. It's good to have the majority of the players bee human.
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Okay, so further explanation on why dual natured does actually possess serious drawbacks, as there seems to be some confusion on the subject of astral vs physical.
On the topic of mechanics of being able to see into the astral, let's go over what that can and cannot do:
-Looking through solid objects. Even objects that are physically transparent still exist on the Astral or else you get blind ghouls repeatedly walking into glass doors. And astral perception does not work through any physical object to prevent this humorous edge-case.
There are no ranged weapons that function in astral space, so unarmed attacks, active weapon foci, and mana spells are the only options for astral combat. CRB 315
1) Somehow gain 30 meters of altitude so they can punch said mage/spirit/astral form in the face
2) Run away, break line of sight, crawl into a vent and force them to come to you.
3) Turn off astral perception.
Oh wait, Dual-Nature means you cannot turn off astral perception. This is one of the downsides, but it's none too serious. They can still use astral combat, except it's a game of rocket tag because
Damage inflicted from astral combat can be either Stun or Physical (attacker’s choice). Astral barriers can only be affected by Physical damage.
Which means that astral combat can further screw mundane soak tanks because the only roll you make to resist astral damage is your single stat of Willpower. Rocket tag, for those of you who don't know what game design is, means that everyone has the potential to kill everyone else in one hit, and the only way to really win is not to play. Not an option for the dual-natured, they're strapped in no matter what, and without their rocket launcher to boot!
Further, astral objects and barriers have very little relation to the physical plane, except where they do. If you want to deal with a mage or active spells/foci, what you do is put a mana barrier with high force in the elevator shaft (Example) or parking garage (Another example), or hell, just about any doorway. Three very common things in a sprawl, I would wager. And, according to the astral intersections,
Disruption means different consequences for different things. Disrupted spells and rituals end, disrupted preparations lose their spell and become mundane, disrupted mana barriers collapse, disrupted foci deactivate, disrupted spirits are banished, and disrupted living creatures are knocked unconscious with a full Stun Condition Monitor. Any permanent mana barrier that is disrupted regains all its Structure at the end of the Combat Turn.
This same test of Magic+Charisma[Astral]vs Forcex2 is that skill test I believe was cited earlier, in order to pass through without disruption, except it's still equally impossible and will take a dual-natured person easily a minute to try and get through the door, Ghost help you if you come in contact with anything higher than a Force 4 mana barrier. And even that would give you a hard time where a mage would simply have a spirit punch through.
Because of this, the only opportunity you really have to play any dual-natured character is a charisma mage or social adept, otherwise you're stuck rolling at barriers until the sun comes up or you get exceedingly lucky with limited dice on literally any other character concept. I want my ghoul street sam, dammit, but it's literally impossible to play anything but an Awakened face or a mage under the dual-nature rules, else you're going to come into far too many issues. Also, you need good willpower and agility, in order to both fight off spirits that are stupid enough to engage in fisticuffs with you when they can use Elemental Attack, and run away into a vent or something, rabbit punching all who come near. Not a major drawback in the least.
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Well these are high stakes decisions being made for every table in SR. Can't let anything be left unsaid!
I agree shifters right now are a bit wonky, for the reasons you mentioned. In fact there seem to be two playstyles of shifter right now: The 'I am a bear/cow/lion adept' who builds entirely around their shifted form and invests in gear for that form, because their metahuman attributes don't help them at all they must shift all the time in combat, and the 'fox/dog/sometimes wolf' mage build that pretty much only shifts when it is perfectly safe to do so for very minor stat boosts, so they don't ever expose themselves without armor.
I think dual natured seriously is a kiss of death quality. Pretty much every 'advantage' of it isn't an advantage at all, it is a mitigating factor of being forced to be on the astral plane at all times. Yes, you can use unarmed to fight back, but most PCs never *need* to fight back. Yes, you can see wards ahead of time, but most magical types don't care about moving through a ward, spells and foci are easy enough to bring up and anywhere warded is also anywhere with enough magical security to have a watcher screw a dual natured PC anyway. Yes, you can avoid the -2 dual action penalty, but acting on both planes is rare and pretty much only shows up in blind mage builds.
Regeneration+dual natured is a problem because it entirely changes how 5e shifters play on very fundemental levels. The only reason we have been given for changing it to be like that is to undo edition updates, which are common in SR for game balance purposes. There has been no real attempt to explain why dual natured and regen are more iconic to shifters than them being urban survivors with an alien outlook torn between two identites, something irreparably harmed by forcing them to astrally percieve 24/7.
Regen, contrary to what you think, isn't actually that strong. Yes, it makes you impossible to hurt by smallarms fire, but so does good soak, which is cheaper to obtain. No one is arguing that troll soak tanks, which are mechanically in most ways identical to regeneration or even superior, should be given dual natured to help people hurt them...
Because soak isn't really the only stat you get attacked on even by mundane foes. Gas alone screws a regenerator, as do weapon foci, which are rare, and mage spells, also rare. But spirits are not rare and unlike with soak a spirit attack entirely bypasses regeneration.
That isn't to say regeneration isn't potent. But it isn't some pancea that makes shifters suddenly good despite being literally made into worse versions of vampires.
And vampires have much more minor disadvantages. Sunlight allergies are not significant in a 24/7 city like seattle, and you need to get downright contrived to force it to matter (Johnson calls a meet 1 hour before the deadline? Yeah, walking there buddy, have fun with that). Even if it does, you can simply use an alleviate allergy spell to make it not relevant for getting about. Considering most conflicts in SR either take place in a facility or in areas of urban decay, meaning shade is not a rare commodity, and at night to boot, the fact that daylight can't be used in a gun is sorta a step up.
Then there is the 'weakness' of essence drain. Which in SR? Is outright an advantage, hands down. Anonymous murder is established as a super common issue, and no PC tier vampire will have any problem walking into the barrens, consuming a ganger or rapist or drugdealer for almost all of its essence, killing them, and dumping their body in the sewers for the rats to eat. In any other setting this would be an angst filled action, but in SR one of the selling points of the setting is that the world has gotten so crazy that violence against the established social orders, governmental, corporate, and criminal, is a valid and ethical form of resistance.
So now we got a PC option that is priced lower than shifters, with arguably more minor disadvantages, all of the same advantages, better statlines, and on top of that they can use all of these benefits all the time. Oh, and they can suddenly pump up to magic 12 whenever they want after a trip to the barrens to get a snack.
It may be impossible to achieve full balance, but lets not sugar coat it, there should be at least an attempt to look honestly at what is being done and how it works out mechanically. This is literally a case where one option is just straight superior but for some reason cheaper.
As I said, shadowrun demographics do not have to match general population demographics. It's OK for 1/4 runners to be a mage, for instance. But still nudges in certain directions are good. In previous editions, you would often have no one playing as humans. Now, in 5th, the game does a good job (maybe slightly too good) of making human a better choice for most builds than metahumans. It's good to have the majority of the players bee human.
1: That really isn't good, that is kinda annoying, and really shouldn't be enforced so heavy handedly with mechanics.
2: The second most common metatype should be orks, but it is not.
3: Dwarves by this logic should be about as rare as shifters and vampires, because they are only 2% of the population
4: In no way are metasapients common PCs. It isn't even close to a problem yet. If no one is currently playing a metasapient, talks about making them rarer make no sense and really just confirm everyone's suspicions this is pretense to enforce personal table morality.
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stuuuuuffff....
Wow, um, that's a lot of words.
You seem to be arguing that Dual Natured is some sorta crippling disadvantage. I see some disagreement on whether it is, on balance, a slightly good thing or slightly bad thing, but I don't see anyone else agreeing with you that it is some sort of huge disadvantage that more than makes up for regeneration, various stat buffs, etc.
Guess I'll be the first.
Let's go ahead and look at what Dual Natured does.
A dual natured creature is active in both the astral and the physical at the same time. They're capable of perceiving and interacting with both worlds at once, and do not take the -2 penalty a normal mundane takes for being active on both.
So, compared to a dude who's assensing, Dual Natured gives you +2 dice to actions on the physical plane.
On the other hand, the dude who's assensing can turn it off. As it happens, this is a pretty big deal. First, it's rare that one will be forced to assense and perform actions on the physical plane at the same time, particularly in an instance where the assensing is not being used to get around a worse penalty (such as assensing in a pitch-black room to take a -2 in combat rather than the -6 or -10 from darkness and other possible factors.) This degrades the positive value of Dual Natured greatly, making it very, very niche.
Unfortunately, that's all the positives Dual Natured has going for it. What are it's downsides for an intrepid shadowrunner?
Well, first, you stand out in a crowd. Even a watcher construct will casually and easily pick you out from a crowd. Random spirits or assensing mages will pick you out similarly, automatically tagging you for extra scrutiny from security as someone who is definitely magical. This is pretty bad in and of itself, but the fun's just getting started.
Second, you're vulnerable to attack. The same entities who are capable of spotting you out from a crowd are also going to be able to send assault after you - assault you'll frequently be able to do nothing about. Sure, you can train Astral Combat, if you have the willpower and charisma necessary, or you can even forego that and use your natural weapons. However, astral combat has a critical downside, and you as a meat-creature have another. Astral combat is melee only. You can only move as fast as your agility allows you to. Any astral being is going to be capable of performing hit and run attacks on you using astral combat that you'll barely be able to react to, assuming they don't one-shot you before you have a chance. This is entirely discounting the possibility of a hostile magician or spirit of man simply flying above you, out of reach, and plinking a few manabolts at you until you die. A force 5 manabolt can keep 5 hits - far more than anyone can reliably keep - and inflicts only 2 drain on the caster - low enough to be trivial - meaning that the eventual weight of odds means you'll die, and the mage might have a box or two of stun for their troubles.
That's not the worst bit, though. "But Voro, that can literally kill me with me unable to act in response, how does it get worse?"
The worst bit is dealing with mana barriers. Unlike a mage with foci or sustained spells, you're always active on the astral, so you'll typically have an opportunity to spot them before they run into you (though not always - elevators, cars, and other things that can trip up even an alert mage can trip you up in the same way.) On the other hand, the stakes are much higher. If unnoticed - like one placed over an elevator shaft, or across a roadway or other path for motor vehicles - a mana barrier will roll opposed rolls against anything active on the astral, with the loser (or tied party) in each roll being turned off - and the creator of the barrier being informed of the intrusion. For active foci, turning them back on is a simple action. Trivial, though still a hassle in that it alerts security, albeit with a delay for the mage to send the comm message to the right place and all that. For sustained spells, it's more of a hassle. You have to recast, hope you get as many hits as you wanted, and suffer drain again... and if you used background counts or reagents to your favor for your limit, you'll have to spend more reagents to get it going again.
Unfortunately, when a dual natured creature is turned off, well, that's a bit harder to fix, since their stun track is filled and they're knocked unconscious. Even if this isn't direct cause to abort the mission, it's a terrible inconvenience, possibly a lethal one.
How do you avoid doing this? It's simple. Stop in front of the barrier (if that's even possible) and try to slowly ease your way through, making a Magic + Charisma [Astral] test opposed by (Force of the Barrier * 2).
Simple, but not easy. Even casually guarded facilities will have a force 6 barrier, with secure facilities easily reaching 8, 10, 12, 14, or even higher over sensitive areas. If you didn't select a magic priority, you have almost no magic, and if you're not using Charisma for anything else, that's likely low too, so even a force 4 barrier will give you difficulties, much less anything seriously employed by security. Even if you're a charisma tradition mage, you're chucking 12-16 dice at most, and if your GM is particularly strict on the interpretation, a failure will force an intersection and risk unconsciousness.
Now, remember that most buildings in the 6th world will have some kind of astral security, which will likely involve at least a low-to-mid force ward over at the very least the back room and secure areas, and you can see where the day-to-day life for an intrepid criminal who is dual natured might be difficult at best.
tl;dr - if people don't think Dual Natured is a big negative, they don't understand Dual Natured
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There is also the fact that a security mage can literally just send force 2 spirits to repeatedly attack you infinitely until you die, eating up at least one action pass for every 1 the mage spends.
Using astral combat to fight off security spirits is sorta like a decker fighting IC. You can do it, but you basically have to either get to running silent or log off to get anything done once you start smashing. But mages normally 'log off' by turning off astral perception.
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tl;dr - if people don't think Dual Natured is a big negative, they don't understand Dual Natured
I really understand dual natured. (I've been playing mages since 1st edition) Several of the concerns you have mentioned are overwrought. For one thing, it doesn't make you as visible as you're suggesting, and even then not necessarily noticeably different than any randomly perceiving mage. I will also point out that Masking is available to initiatites.
It does bring up the point that shadowrun needs rules for Magic increase and maybe some metamagic by creatures who are dual natured but not either adepts or mages. Yeah, currently, if you're playing something dual natured, and not using the adept of mage powers, you're doing it wrong.
Generally speaking, statements like "the guards will notice you and blow you away" are apocryphal.
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Several of the concerns you have mentioned are overwrought. For one thing, it doesn't make you as visible as you're suggesting, and even then not necessarily noticeably different than any randomly perceiving mage. I will also point out that Masking is available to initiatites.
You glow on the astral, as opposed to everyone else who is a dull light at best. You stand out, the text is very clear on this. And masking does not allow you to appear as if you're not present on the Astral, only to appear as something other than what you are. And is only available to initiates. Which requires you to have chosen magic as a priority, which is shoe-horning in anyone who is dual-natured and restricting actual choices.
It also doesn't at all address the concerns of people being able to kill you with you being able to do nothing in turn, nor the problems I detailed relating to mana barriers. You only made an effort to argue against the weakest of the three downsides I detailed.
EDIT: To be clear, I don't think a dual natured person would be immediately shot by guards. But they would have attention paid to them the entire time they were in the facility, the same as any other walking weapon ought to be. That's attention that isn't desirable, and it isn't gated by having your aura actually read, like it is for most awakened (and that blocked by Masking)
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Also dual natured works very differently from 4e on than it did in 3e. In 4e and 5e, especially because spirits are now a pretty casual thing, being dual natured is less 'I am a magical creature who works equally well on both planes, as long as I got a mage at my back I am good!' and is now more 'I am half a spirit in almost all of the worst ways. I literally can drop dead going down an elevator or on a car ride.''
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EDIT: To be clear, I don't think a dual natured person would be immediately shot by guards. But they would have attention paid to them the entire time they were in the facility, the same as any other walking weapon ought to be. That's attention that isn't desirable, and it isn't gated by having your aura actually read, like it is for most awakened (and that blocked by Masking)
Here's my big issue with your complaints; Shapeshifters are not dual-natured people. They're dual-natured animals. Damn straight any guard worth his salt is going to pay attention to an animal wandering around where it might harm real people.
You want to play a wild animal that's essentially learned a neat form of camouflage that's fine, but you have to accept that's what you're doing.
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You glow on the astral, as opposed to everyone else who is a dull light at best. You stand out, the text is very clear on this. [
Actually, no, the text has always been super unclear on how visible relative things are on the astral, whether stealth of any kind is possible, and all of that. It doesn't even say that they glow "brighter". All it says is that a perceiving character is "obvious". What "obvious" means in this context has never been detailed.
And masking does not allow you to appear as if you're not present on the Astral
Also unclear. You can quote whatever text you feel is "definitive" if you like on either of these subjects. I've had a GM argue you could Mask an aura to simply not be there on the astral. I don't actually think it works like that, but it's not clear how it does work.
It also doesn't at all address the concerns of people being able to kill you with you being able to do nothing in turn, nor the problems I detailed relating to mana barriers.
Spirits fighting a perceiving physical character is not air support vs a ground target. As to why it's not: *hand wavy metaphysics*. Truth is it just wouldn't work, otherwise. If the spirit can attack the physical character, the physical character can attack back. Maybe there's some Heisenberg uncertainty to the spirits position. It can either be "local", or "not". Like a node. The spirit can "run away" quite easily but it doesn't get to make drive by attacks. Otherwise there'd be no point and the system isn't setup like that.
Wards aren't that common, and high force ones are expensive. They can also just be plain destroyed in astral combat, btw, not that hard. Back in the day, they used to fight back! Certainly does pose some infiltration problems.
I think dezmont mentioned force 2 spirits summoned ad infinitum...........which would do 2 dmg. Gimme a break.
Like I said, "your concerns are overwrought". That doesn't mean they're nonexistent, and I was trying to avoid going through them all one by one. Many of your assumptions are not true.
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You glow on the astral, as opposed to everyone else who is a dull light at best. You stand out, the text is very clear on this. [
Actually, no, the text has always been super unclear on how visible relative things are on the astral, whether stealth of any kind is possible, and all of that. It doesn't even say that they glow "brighter". All it says is that a perceiving character is "obvious". What "obvious" means in this context has never been detailed.
I do think that "obvious" would indicate that you are, you know, obvious. Easily discernible, noticed casually, whatever.
And masking does not allow you to appear as if you're not present on the Astral
Also unclear. You can quote whatever text you feel is "definitive" if you like on either of these subjects. I've had a GM argue you could Mask an aura to simply not be there on the astral. I don't actually think it works like that, but it's not clear how it does work.
So... you don't think that's how it works, except in this particular case, because it works against my point? Even if one's GM does believe that's how it works, it doesn't change the fact that all dual-natured creatures are shoehorned into being magicians, or at least adepts.
It also doesn't at all address the concerns of people being able to kill you with you being able to do nothing in turn, nor the problems I detailed relating to mana barriers.
Spirits fighting a perceiving physical character is not air support vs a ground target. As to why it's not: *hand wavy metaphysics*. Truth is it just wouldn't work, otherwise. If the spirit can attack the physical character, the physical character can attack back. Maybe there's some Heisenberg uncertainty to the spirits position. It can either be "local", or "not". Like a node. The spirit can "run away" quite easily but it doesn't get to make drive by attacks. Otherwise there'd be no point and the system isn't setup like that.
Even disregarding the capacity for drive-by attacks, they can still make an Astral Combat attack against you before you can react, which is a *tremendous* advantage, even if you make your surprise check, as astral combat is basically rocket tag unless you're a dragon or a high-initiation adept specced for it. And it does nothing to contest their ability to manabolt you to death at their leisure.
Wards aren't that common, and high force ones are expensive. They can also just be plain destroyed in astral combat, btw, not that hard. Back in the day, they used to fight back! Certainly does pose some infiltration problems.
Wards are "An extremely cost-effective method of magical protection" and "they are inexpensive as magical protections go." In fact, they're "one of the most basic services magical contractors provide", and "competition has driven the price of magical barriers down to the point that nearly any corporation or organization will be able to afford them."
So, no, not expensive. And sure, they can be destroyed in astral combat, if you can deal enough damage to destroy them in one turn. Which requires you to be a high-charisma character focused on astral combat, which, again, shoehorning. And honestly, even then it's sketchy.
Oh, and they can still fight back, if they're one of the fancier ones in Street Grimoire, though those probably do cost more.
I think dezmont mentioned force 2 spirits summoned ad infinitum...........which would do 2 dmg. Gimme a break.
If you're swamped by force 2 spirits, you're unable to do anything but be pecked apart by them or spend all your time fighting them off, until such a time as some form of reinforcements come around, at which point you'll likely be partially injured anyway. It's not really the most viable way for a few reasons, but the principle is not entirely unsound. Even 2 damage can hurt if you can't keep it from being applied repeatedly, at least when your soak pool is only your willpower.
Like I said, "your concerns are overwrought". That doesn't mean they're nonexistent, and I was trying to avoid going through them all one by one. Many of your assumptions are not true.
I respectfully disagree.
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EDIT: Forgot to address this post.
Here's my big issue with your complaints; Shapeshifters are not dual-natured people. They're dual-natured animals. Damn straight any guard worth his salt is going to pay attention to an animal wandering around where it might harm real people.
You want to play a wild animal that's essentially learned a neat form of camouflage that's fine, but you have to accept that's what you're doing.
Actually, they're not dual natured animals as it stands in SR5. They're animals, yes, but if they're going to be an option at all, they should at least be a passably viable one, and making them dual natured would make them effectively not. If you want to ban them because you don't feel they fit the theme of SR, sure, go ahead, but do it at your table, and call it what it is, don't try to skirt around that by making them grossly ineffective for everyone through errata.
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Actually, no, the text has always been super unclear on how visible relative things are on the astral, whether stealth of any kind is possible, and all of that. It doesn't even say that they glow "brighter". All it says is that a perceiving character is "obvious". What "obvious" means in this context has never been detailed.
Not to be cute, but I think the meaning and intent is obvious.
Also:
Anything active on the astral plane, including spirits, active foci, dual-natured beings, etc., has a tangible astral form. These forms are more colorful and brighter than auras, as they are astrally “real.”
Also unclear. You can quote whatever text you feel is "definitive" if you like on either of these subjects. I've had a GM argue you could Mask an aura to simply not be there on the astral. I don't actually think it works like that, but it's not clear how it does work.
The core text is definitive. GMs are allowed to be wrong all they want...
...however... you are not wrong here! In this case, you are correct in that it is totally unclear. That said allowing masking to conceal astral forms has a ton of super intense effects beyond just helping out dual natured PCs, specifically it means that mages can astrally percieve an area without alerting spirits, which makes mages much stronger as they can now more easily know if it is safe to cast in areas they don't control without aid of other archtypes. It also is important to note that there is no way to casually see through masking without a major action, meaning that in astral combat if someone was masked there is literally no way to spot them without eating a turn. You basically totally ruin astral activity allowing active auras to mask without further changing how fast one can assense... and that would be a pretty major change to do just to justify the mechanical balance of dual natured on underpowered metasapeints!
It also doesn't at all address the concerns of people being able to kill you with you being able to do nothing in turn, nor the problems I detailed relating to mana barriers.
Spirits fighting a perceiving physical character is not air support vs a ground target.
You aren't physical. You are dual natured. You are 100% a valid target for a spirit air bombing you, so it in in fact air support vs a ground target... who can't shoot back or get most of his allies to shoot back.
As to why it's not: *hand wavy metaphysics*.
I hope you will not be offended if I say this is not an acceptable counter argument and that I am not going to even bother getting into detail on it because you are essentially saying that the rules don't need to function to function.
Wards aren't that common, and high force ones are expensive. They can also just be plain destroyed in astral combat, btw, not that hard. Back in the day, they used to fight back! Certainly does pose some infiltration problems.
Wards are actually exceptionally common lore wise. Destroying a ward basically alerts your target which means a dual natured PC has the option of sitting in the car, and avoiding that at all costs was literally a stated design goal of 5e, or trying to press through, or ruining the run for sneaky types.
I think dezmont mentioned force 2 spirits summoned ad infinitum...........which would do 2 dmg. Gimme a break.
2 damage times infinity is a lot of damage to be fair, especially because you can only soak with willpower ;)
A willpower 6 PC with 5 intuition, logic, and charisma has a 5% chance to take anywhere from 1 to 3 DV each pass. Assuming the average of 2 damage each hit and the spirits acting fast enough to get 2.5 combat passes on the astral, pretty low to be fair, the dual natured PC has 3 minutes to find and neutralize the mage before dying, assuming that they become incapacitated at 10 physical boxes. If the mage projects and hurls stun bolts at the poor shifter or vampire or, firebringer forbid, naga, that time will be dramatically reduced.
A bit less of a joke now, that 2 damage. Only way to avoid that fate is to become a adept or mystic adept with a serious investment in mystic armor, which is literally one of the worst adept powers in the game.
Like I said, "your concerns are overwrought". That doesn't mean they're nonexistent, and I was trying to avoid going through them all one by one. Many of your assumptions are not true.
Except I just proved a few are and your only counter to some is 'despite working that way in the rules I am imagining it doesn't work that way.
The reason literally no one I have talked to believes you are sincerely trying to fix their thematic consistency is twofold:
1: Shifters don't have a strong thematic link to dual natured. It makes you a half spirit, and dilutes the actual thematic conflict shifters face which is a pull between the animal and human worlds. You can't have that pull if it isn't even possible to consider integrating into a metahuman identity, there is a reason Stripes doesn't focus on the legendary assassin micromanaging her reaction to barriers and background counts as opposed to saving her child from a world that sees them as monsters despite their desire to remain isolated.
2: If this was really about consistency we wouldn't be completely ignoring the actual mechanical issues shifters have that make their writing borderline incoherent. The provisional errata would have far more content than just 'regeneration, silver, dual natured, done.'
3: There are claims these archtypes are somehow shockingly common and popular when they really aren't and if anything are underepresented right now.
All of these combined scream disingenuity, and even if you are being 100% sincere 2 absolutely needs to be adressed. No one can even begin to consider this an errata effort if no one is trying to plug the writing holes in the actual mechanics because they are too busy trying to convince everyone they have their best interests at heart over a frankly mechanically unnecessary change who's rational constantly changes.
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What "obvious" means in this context has never been detailed.
Like physical perception, you don’t need to make a test to see things that are immediately obvious (and since astral forms are bright and vibrant, this means that most astral forms are easy to spot).
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I'm not going to debate all that in detail, so just a few points. Most of this is directed at dezmont
* "Obvious" is not a synonym for "glowing" and particularly not "shining brighter than all the other generall glowing stuff". An assault rifle strapped across someone's back is "obvious", that doesn't mean it's glowing like a lighthouse, it means if you look at the guy, you're going to see he has a rifle on his back, and you don't have to roll a perception test. WHich isn't even the same as saying you'll notice it -- you may not look at the guy. People miss "obvious" stuff all the time. A lot of this is a question of "active" versus "passive" noticing.
* If you're going to say that the text is "definitive" you should quote the text.
* Fending off those dmg 2 attacks --It's Body, not willpower, you aren't projecting. (They didn't do good job, like many things, detailing that in 5th, but the "astral attributes" are for pure astral forms only. A dual natured dragon still has body 40, or whatever it is)
* I find it more believable that Masking can make it look like you aren't perceiving/dual natured than that you aren't there at all. EIther way, it's undefined. Stealth on the atral in general, is undefined.
* The air support thing just doesn't work that way. Never worked that way. It mostly doesn't work that way because it would be dumb and unworkable if it did. Metaphysics is not physics. That is, really, why astral combat is a different skill than regular combat, because things work differently. If you want to argue about the rules in some different version of the game, then you can go about doing that then. You can have projecting magicians using weapon foci spears to poke each other through walls (or better, a scythe, that way you can sweep) and all that fun stuff. Skip astral combat, just let them use their polearm skill. But shadowrun doesn't work that way.
*Dual-natured isn't supposed to denote something "half spirit" lots of random paranormal animals have it, and it seems like more and more of them have as time went on.
*For that matter, Shifters always have been described as "half-spirit". Specifically, in previous editions, it was supposed to be easy to tell they were shifters, becasue their astral form would always be whatever form they weren't using physically. I.e. if they were standing there as a human, you could see their bear form on the astral, or vice versa. Soooooo......that's just completely, utterly wrong
*Who's being disingenuous? Me?
*I'm really sorry you won't get to play your init +5d6 regeneratin Tiger street sam who never has to worry about astral barriers.
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I'm not going to debate all that in detail, so just a few points. Most of this is directed at dezmont
Cool.
* "Obvious" is not a synonym for "glowing" and particularly not "shining brighter than all the other generall glowing stuff". An assault rifle strapped across someone's back is "obvious", that doesn't mean it's glowing like a lighthouse, it means if you look at the guy, you're going to see he has a rifle on his back, and you don't have to roll a perception test. WHich isn't even the same as saying you'll notice it -- you may not look at the guy. People miss "obvious" stuff all the time. A lot of this is a question of "active" versus "passive" noticing.
Someone just posted a direct quote proving that active astral forms can instantly be spotted in the astral. So I don't think I really need to adress this, considering the core rulebook outright says 'you get spotted if you are astrally active, have fun.'
* If you're going to say that the text is "definitive" you should quote the text.
I didn't quote the text because, as I said, you are right in that there is nothing in there that says masking doesn't work the way you think it does.
* Fending off those dmg 2 attacks --It's Body, not willpower, you aren't projecting. (They didn't do good job, like many things, detailing that in 5th, but the "astral attributes" are for pure astral forms only. A dual natured dragon still has body 40, or whatever it is)
Cool. You still die in about 3 minutes with literally the best stats possible. Faster if the mage summons spirit of man.
* I find it more believable that Masking can make it look like you aren't perceiving/dual natured than that you aren't there at all. EIther way, it's undefined. Stealth on the atral in general, is undefined.
Agreed. It is insanely unclear at the moment and no interpretation is really going to please everyone here.
* The air support thing just doesn't work that way. Never worked that way. It mostly doesn't work that way because it would be dumb and unworkable if it did. Metaphysics is not physics. That is, really, why astral combat is a different skill than regular combat, because things work differently. If you want to argue about the rules in some different version of the game, then you can go about doing that then. You can have projecting magicians using weapon foci spears to poke each other through walls (or better, a scythe, that way you can sweep) and all that fun stuff. Skip astral combat, just let them use their polearm skill. But shadowrun doesn't work that way.
Ok apparently you just didn't get my point.
"It is dumb and I don't like it working that way despite it clearly working that way mechanically" is not an argument. The fact that something is inconvenient to you does not make it less true. Nothing about astral movement makes it so that you can't make a hit and run attack. Nothing in the astral combat section even comes close to implying that you can't do this. The idea that it isn't possible is nowhere in the text, its not even alluded to being untrue, and so because it exists as a natrual ramification of the rules we are going to keep treating it as true. Because it is true. Even though that hurts your argument.
Also, that isn't even the thing people are criticizing. Even if the spirit holds still, you just can't defend yourself against a spirit floating 30 feet above you. You have no recourse as a non-mage, at all. This isn't even slightly ambiguous.
*Dual-natured isn't supposed to denote something "half spirit" lots of random paranormal animals have it, and it seems like more and more of them have as time went on.
*For that matter, Shifters always have been described as "half-spirit". Specifically, in previous editions, it was supposed to be easy to tell they were shifters, becasue their astral form would always be whatever form they weren't using physically. I.e. if they were standing there as a human, you could see their bear form on the astral, or vice versa. Soooooo......that's just completely, utterly wrong
That hasn't been true for two editions because of changes to how magic works. Too much has mechanically changed to keep the game in perfect stasis. We can't pretend this is 3e. If you want to write for 3e, there is a 3e section of the forums. However this is 5e with its own mechanical realities.
*Who's being disingenuous? Me?
Yes. You still fail to address the very serious criticism that this errata is completely ignoring major errata content to overfocus on reverting to 3e. Do you even know about the edge issue or the movement tables? Do you even care? It seems pretty clear to all observers you don't, because you won't even consider talking about them. One of your core arguments is also 'I don't like the ramifications this fact has on my argument so I will argue that it is simply untrue because I say so.
*I'm really sorry you won't get to play your init +5d6 regeneratin Tiger street sam who never has to worry about astral barriers.
No one wants regeneration either, if you didn't notice. It is just a compromise because some people are ridiculously upset that people have fun the way they want at their own tables.
Thank you for outing your true colors. I think this was an illuminating conversation for everyone.
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Everyone seems to forget that spirits in astral space MUST use mana based attacks, or melee combat. If it uses melee combat, then you can attack it back. If it uses mana spells, block its line of sight.
Really, this is the "Nerf guns cause my melee combat character dies all the time" whine, except over dual natured status.
there are pros and cons to it.
Suck. It. Up.
Vamps and dual natured, ghouls are dual natured. 80% of the para-critters are dual natured..... and yet there are not exploding critters left and right all over the city and countryside... hmmmmmm......
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Well, if you want to accuse me of not replying in good faith you can go screw, frankly. I have no idea what you think my "true colors" are other than you somehow think it's personal when it's not.
Text was cited but not by you and more importantly, no, it is not definitive, as described.
You were getting into fluff descriptions, sir, you were wrong on all counts. Mostly I think they got rid of the alternate-astral form just because it made them too obvious. But they very much have been spiritual beings and always have been dual natured. Vampires haven't, but now they're dual natured, too.
You claim this is a reversion to 3e? Wow, that's a bit hyperbolic. You're obviously a bit overly emotionally invested in this. I'm not sure why, I suspect regenerating tiger street sams. Regardless, obvious omissions are sorta low-hanging fruit for errata. I just want to make sure the karma (or other) costs take all that into account.
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Everyone seems to forget that spirits in astral space MUST use mana based attacks, or melee combat. If it uses melee combat, then you can attack it back. If it uses mana spells, block its line of sight.
Spirits move riduclously fast. Blocking its line of sight is not very practical. Mana based ranged attacks on spirits are not rare. Some of them are downright more crippling than damage ever could be.
As for 'low hanging fruit...'
No? I think the question of if shifters have two edge pools and two seperate adept power lists is a bit more critical than anything actually being talked about.
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Everyone seems to forget that spirits in astral space MUST use mana based attacks, or melee combat. If it uses melee combat, then you can attack it back. If it uses mana spells, block its line of sight.
Really, this is the "Nerf guns cause my melee combat character dies all the time" whine, except over dual natured status.
there are pros and cons to it.
Suck. It. Up.
Vamps and dual natured, ghouls are dual natured. 80% of the para-critters are dual natured..... and yet there are not exploding critters left and right all over the city and countryside... hmmmmmm......
Well said.
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Everyone seems to forget that spirits in astral space MUST use mana based attacks, or melee combat. If it uses melee combat, then you can attack it back. If it uses mana spells, block its line of sight.
Really, this is the "Nerf guns cause my melee combat character dies all the time" whine, except over dual natured status.
there are pros and cons to it.
Suck. It. Up.
Vamps and dual natured, ghouls are dual natured. 80% of the para-critters are dual natured..... and yet there are not exploding critters left and right all over the city and countryside... hmmmmmm......
Going to have to say that this is overly antagonistic, there are individuals who obviously have quite a bit of system mastery, and who are very well versed on FIFTH edition giving suggestions and trying to be diplomatic, and you're just being a bit, a tiny little itty bitty, oh fuck it, you're being jackasses, why don't YOU suck it up and stop being a little shitstain and actually try to refute the ENTIRETY of their arguements rather than cherry pick and interpret the rules how you WANT to and not how they're WRITTEN. Mkay? Mkay. Have fun with that.
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:::wave::::
sorry I had to sign off the reddit farkfest but my handler requested it and it was only starting to get ugly with folks trolling and personally attacking me despite my attempts to engage and answer as many questions as possible.
but no fear, I'm back here!
Sooo it occurs to me after reading far too many of these "dual-natured kills you" responses that much if not all of the negativity is resulting from personal decisions/ ambiguity about wards, astral space and their effects.
As a point of reference our table has 3 mages, one adept and 2 mundanes (yes they call it magicrun for a reason).
So with the above pc spread there's tons of activity on the astral and making use of astral vision, spirits et al.
In our game astral perception is only as sure as normal perception, i.e. completely dependent on the circumstances/ area. Most action happens in a city where there's plenty of cover to hide/ run from astral presences. Our team recently plunged into the amazon and in triple canopy jungle the amount of cover is even more dense.
So even if an astral spellcaster can see their target at a distance (not at all a given) there is still plenty of opportunity to just hide, behind anything living or non-living (except of course if you're in an open area, the desert, etc).
Wards, yeah you could crash into one but you could also crash into a wall (you can see both at a distance being dual-natured).
The only real ward risk is ward in an elevator shaft, my team (see above) has run into that scenario precisely once in a year of continual play.
They survived.
Sure wards are all over corporate targets and players often have corporate targets. However they're not all (or even mostly) going to be force 6. And they won't cover the entire facility, they will be used on the most high-value areas that are small enough to feasibly protect.
In a year of play our team has had to deal with wards about every second session but have, for the most part, "pushed" through them using the rules for sneaking. Those who couldn't because they didn't want to risk intersection stayed on the other side of the ward and supported / did something else valuable.
Spirit try's to wiz by and melee you're dual-natured person? I'd permit an interrupt melee attack in return.
You think your astral entity can fly through an entire cityblock in a microsecond because astral flight is so fast and thereby invalidate the chance of someone hiding?
Sure but there's nothing that says (or even suggests) they can take in and visually process everything that passes in front of their eyes as they move through a 100 rooms at close to the speed of light.
We don't let astral entities do that at our table as it beggar's belief (and would make a mockery of anyone trying to hide from a spirit/ mage).
you want to search for someone in the astral, sure but it's gonna take time just like walking through those rooms (or mebbe running through them) would.
My point is that play-style has a very large effect on how drastic you view these changes.
For how we use astral space it's not really a big deal, at all.
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Hello Sir_Prometheus.
I want to ask you about the benefits of being Dual Natured. It in fact seems to me that there is utterly no upside what so ever. It is entirely downsides. Additionally, it makes certain builds and playstyles simply not viable.
Reading over this thread, I've realised my Sasquatch Rigger is simply dead.
Being a charisma 2, mag 1 Dual Natured entity, he has a mechanical unlikely hood of passing a Force 2 mana barrier. He will astrally intersect and take a full stun track and pass out. I do understand he is astrally weak, but until now, I didn't realise how much threat he is under. With no astral combat skill, without even being an adept, he is screwed. He can be attacked at any time by any astral entity with no option of defence.
Now, for shifters, who haven't taken 4.5 essence of cyberware, this problem is slightly less, due to higher magic, but is still present. I ask you, do you not see that it is essentially impossible to function as a dual natured entity without being a full mage?
You must be able to astrally project to fight astral combat without being kited to death. You must be able to cast mana spells to easily and effectively damage things in an astral fight without high charisma. You must be able to cast mana barrier to protect yourself while sleeping. You must have a high magic to be able to pass through mana barriers without intersecting.
If it uses mana spells, block its line of sight.
You are aware than on the astral, movement is essentially speed of though, or high enough that any entity that is dual natured and thus stuck at material plane speeds has no option of holding cover when the opponent can simply move to negate it, attack, and continue moving away!
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To try to salvage something constructive from... that...
I don't particularly care that people disagree. But I care that the quality of discourse is low, and it is pretty transparently low. There is frankly very little attempt to defend against the actual arguments. It really is just a 'we are right, you are wrong' situation where the same talking points are mentioned but not supported, or not supported well.
It frankly doesn't matter if I did or didn't cite something. He got to it first, and it is true. To say that I am somehow being unreasonable for pointing out something that is objectively true is silly. And I think everyone can see it is silly you are so upset I am not the one who brought forward the proof that you actually misunderstood the mechanics there.
Again, the primary argument is that shifters shouldn't get regeneration or dual natured, not that people want to keep playing 5d6 initiative monsters with regeneration who don't exist, and that the errata team should focus on critical writing errors in shifters (Movement, edge, magic, ect) before focusing on lore updates between editions frankly many people think aren't appropriate at all. Even if you feel that it is 100% justified and you totally plan on doing them, you should be able to see why this paints the errata team in a bad light. You 'fixed' the fact that shifters changed but they are still as broken and nonsensical as ever. The actual errata never hit.
Whole lotta stuff
Honestly good points and a good faith attempt to try to figure out the disconnect going on here. I may not agree with everything, but at least you are honestly trying rather than evading the core point: People seem to not agree with the errata on how fundamentally dangerous dual natured is.
I will say that driving into a barrier is different because not everyone can see it and you can hit it purely by accident, but I also have to say I don't recall barriers being on the road that often.
Spirit sniping is a bit more scary than just damage. While damage is easy to illustrate and think about, a lot of people don't realize how many very dangerous and powerful spells and powers are mana based. It is a bit beyond just like getting attacked by a gun you can't close with (especially as movement points alone can bring you into contact with a ranged NPC) because you can be paralyzed, feared, or mind controlled via the astral. A lot of scary save or die stuff that your team can't help you with from out of your reach.
Astral perception, stealth, and masking definitely has been an ambiguous mess for years and cleaning that up would go a long way to helping people get on the same page about how things work.
You are aware than on the astral, movement is essentially speed of though, or high enough that any entity that is dual natured and thus stuck at material plane speeds has no option of holding cover when the opponent can simply move to negate it, attack, and continue moving away!
Honestly this depends on the situation. You would both need to be able to break astral sight, and then manage to change where you appear to be going while someone can't see you, and there need to be enough options that the insane speed of an astral creature can't allow them to simply move around to check everything. It is important to note that astral movement is so fast it is realistic to literally check a 25 by 25 meter area each turn assuming literally every meter blocked line of sight to every other meter. Realistically it is possible for an astral form to check every spot in an area so large that a character can't realistically leave it in one combat turn, meaning they can never escape.
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So as I have pointed out on reddit the errata team is still working and we have put out other errata besides shifter stuff.
To assume that there will be no other errata on shifters or that this is all we will focus on is, to be frank, outrageously blindered when you look at both the facts of what has been presented so far as well as what the errata team members *cough* have said.
Moving on, yes both astral space and the matrix are in desperate need of *clarifications*.
And yes, you are correct a well positioned (and well commanded) spirit with the appropriate powers could hang back and destroy a dual-natured target in the open.
However this scenario is not very likely or common in my experience, at our table.
This is because:
1). yes you can move really fast in astral but you still have to stop and look. If a dual-nature being ducks out of sight into a building/ forest/ water/ whatever you have to spend time to find them. That time is considerably larger than simply zipping through the astral from london to tokyo.
2). summoned and bound spirits do wtf they want, and it's not always the perfect answer to combat/ risk you as summoner/ binder would hope for.
once summoned you don't get to drive your spirit like a PC, you give it a command (help me in combat, kill those guys, scout that space etc) and the GM then controls the spirit to get it done.
spirits, unless higher force and very accustomed to the material plane, are typically very poor tactically. They might try and close to combat rather than stay back and plink unless specifically commanded to do the latter, using another service.
3). there's lots of cover that can force a spirit into hand-to-hand range
TL:DR if you're dual natured you better take some unarmed combat skill to fight astral threats but running, hiding and/ or bringing them into range of your attack are all valid options,
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TL:DR if you're dual natured you better take some unarmed combat skill to fight astral threats but running, hiding and/ or bringing them into range of your attack are all valid options,
SOoooo We're shoehorning players now? Great, thanks, I'll just NEVER make a mundane again, great job.
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You greatly simplify the challenges of keeping someone in sight in a typical environment.
While running into a ward could cause astral intersection issues the same could be said of hitting a brick wall at speed.
The real risk is the ward you can't see that you're about to crash into, like in an elevator shaft.
How many wards have you run into in elevator shafts so far (likely none or not many i'd wager)?
Finally kiting is a bogus analogy, see my post above for reference.
TL:DR this ain't starcraft, there's plenty of stuff in the real world to hide behind/ draw an astral being into so you can take it apart with your hands.
TL:DR 2: Astral scouting/ searching is not as powerful as you think it is (by far).
Being a charisma 2, mag 1 Dual Natured entity, he has a mechanical unlikely hood of passing a Force 2 mana barrier. He will astrally intersect and take a full stun track and pass out. I do understand he is astrally weak, but until now, I didn't realise how much threat he is under. With no astral combat skill, without even being an adept, he is screwed. He can be attacked at any time by any astral entity with no option of defence.
You must be able to astrally project to fight astral combat without being kited to death. You must be able to cast mana spells to easily and effectively damage things in an astral fight without high charisma. You must be able to cast mana barrier to protect yourself while sleeping. You must have a high magic to be able to pass through mana barriers without intersecting.
You are aware than on the astral, movement is essentially speed of though, or high enough that any entity that is dual natured and thus stuck at material plane speeds has no option of holding cover when the opponent can simply move to negate it, attack, and continue moving away!
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so a shifter bear/ wolf/ tiger taking unarmed to use his claws his shoe-horning now?
im sorry i fell off my chair for that one.
BTW what does "making a mundane" have any relevance to?
a mundane shifter with unarmed can tear apart an astral entity, because he's dual-natured. no magic required.....
TL:DR if you're dual natured you better take some unarmed combat skill to fight astral threats but running, hiding and/ or bringing them into range of your attack are all valid options,
SOoooo We're shoehorning players now? Great, thanks, I'll just NEVER make a mundane again, great job.
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so a shifter bear/ wolf/ tiger taking unarmed to use his claws his shoe-horning now?
im sorry i fell off my chair for that one.
BTW what does "making a mundane" have any relevance to?
a mundane shifter with unarmed can tear apart an astral entity, because he's dual-natured. no magic required.....
TL:DR if you're dual natured you better take some unarmed combat skill to fight astral threats but running, hiding and/ or bringing them into range of your attack are all valid options,
SOoooo We're shoehorning players now? Great, thanks, I'll just NEVER make a mundane again, great job.
Who said I was making a shifter, Any dual natured creature is fucked, because in *MY* Experience, Spirits are fucking bullshit in astral combat, and unless you are a mage/have a mage to back you up, you are going to die.
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Adzling is pretty much on point, as was Reaver.
As to the rest of you, I think I might have been a little unfair. It feels like many of you are new to the game, and definitely have started with 5th edition. Many of you seem to have have made brand new accounts just to post in this thread, which is ........ interesting
I get it, you're new, and you're trying to apply real world physics to the astral world. Well, don't. It's weirder than that. Maybe find someone who's played the game with for a while....? There are lots of people on roll20. Or try Runnerhub.
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Adzling is pretty much on point, as was Reaver.
As to the rest of you, I think I might have been a little unfair. It feels like many of you are new to the game, and definitely have started with 5th edition. Many of you seem to have have made brand new accounts just to post in this thread, which is ........ interesting
I get it, you're new, and you're trying to apply real world physics to the astral world. Well, don't. It's weirder than that. Maybe find someone who's played the game with for a while....? There are lots of people on roll20. Or try Runnerhub.
I'm sorry, i've been playing since second edition, I just don't have the time, or give enough of a rat's ass about the forums to make an account before now, I've been lurking for a while but I just couldn't stand you being such a cunt for no goddamn reason, take that how you will, take my opinion of you how you will, and take your own opinion and shove it.
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It feels like many of you are new to the game, and definitely have started with 5th edition. Many of you seem to have have made brand new accounts just to post in this thread, which is ........ interesting
I get it, you're new, and you're trying to apply real world physics to the astral world. Well, don't. It's weirder than that. Maybe find someone who's played the game with for a while....? There are lots of people on roll20. Or try Runnerhub.
Sorry, I didn't realise you were going to attack our shadowrun credentials that we are under no obligation to present to someone who is out of hand dismissing rules legal, effective and deadly threats to a wide range of characters.
I literally GM'd this last night (http://"https://www.twitch.tv/leventnoir/v/91617513"), so assuming I'm a decent GM, who has GM'd over 50 games in 5e alone in the past year, and played in at least that many, with characters covering all archetypes and niche spots, I would like to announce: I have played this game for quite a while.
Your assumptions that astral combat are not an instant death sentence for dual natured characters relies on:
1. The character being able to win a stand up fight vs the astral attacker. Not always possible, and contains dual natured PCs to having high Cha and unarmed combat.
2. That the astral attacker cannot easily move in the astral at speeds so in excess of the PC's material movement that cover, line of sight, and prolonged melee range engagements are a thing. None of this is in any way backed up by any quotes from the rulebooks, and assumes that creatures able to move at near speed of though aren't accustomed to perceiving while doing so.
3. That this game takes place exclusively in locations where there is plentiful, three dimensional, dense cover. Given that dual natured creatures are bound to the material plane, they are bound to material cover, which is almost exclusively two dimensional, and easy to track people from place to place in. Additionally, astral beings, able to ignore gravity, can attack from straight above, negating 99% of cover and making tracking even easier.
4. That the PCs are going to be high magic pcs. Almost every single threat to a dual natured PC increases in danger for a magic 2-3 PC. Mana barriers are harder to pass. Your limits on astral things are lower. Your have less adept powers and lower forces.
I suggest, before placing a trait on a wide range of characters, a trait that is a death wish as read from rules, you instead put this entire idea on hold, and clear up all these questionable grey areas and assumptions you are using about what being dual natured means, how astral combat works, and how astral cover and movement work.
Can you please provide me a citation for:
1. High speed astral movement prevent easy perception.
2. This game taking place in locations with plentiful cover such that a PC can reliably break line of sight.
3. How a PC with say, Agi 5, and 20 movement / turn can expect to outrun an Astral Form with no listed upper limit to movement.
Finally, can you please show me how all these delaying actions lead to the PC winning rather than simply delaying their death?
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Spirits are far easier to kill in astral than material plane if you can engage them.
How do you engage a spirit that is out of reach? Step into a room.
so a shifter bear/ wolf/ tiger taking unarmed to use his claws his shoe-horning now?
im sorry i fell off my chair for that one.
BTW what does "making a mundane" have any relevance to?
a mundane shifter with unarmed can tear apart an astral entity, because he's dual-natured. no magic required.....
TL:DR if you're dual natured you better take some unarmed combat skill to fight astral threats but running, hiding and/ or bringing them into range of your attack are all valid options,
SOoooo We're shoehorning players now? Great, thanks, I'll just NEVER make a mundane again, great job.
Who said I was making a shifter, Any dual natured creature is fucked, because in *MY* Experience, Spirits are fucking bullshit in astral combat, and unless you are a mage/have a mage to back you up, you are going to die.
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Spirits are far easier to kill in astral than material plane if you can engage them.
How do you engage a spirit that is out of reach? Step into a room.
While ignoring the fact with no stated upper limit on the spirits movement while in Astral form they can:
1. Follow you into the room.
2. Attack you.
3. Move away from you, preventing retaliation.
This ignores the next option:
1. Move to the doorway.
2. Cast spell at you.
3. Move away.
I think what your single actually solid point is:
"When built to fight a Spirit in melee combat, a PC can hide in a broom closet, and through use of interrupt actions to get half the number of attacks as a spirit per round, possibly avoid dying."
I'll give you that.
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1. The character being able to win a stand up fight vs the astral attacker. Not always possible, and contains dual natured PCs to having high Cha and unarmed combat.
No high cha needed, just unarmed combat.
2. That the astral attacker cannot easily move in the astral at speeds so in excess of the PC's material movement that cover, line of sight, and prolonged melee range engagements are a thing. None of this is in any way backed up by any quotes from the rulebooks, and assumes that creatures able to move at near speed of though aren't accustomed to perceiving while doing so.
The first part can be mitigated to great degree by stepping into a confined space, say a room, that draws them in range of your claws etc.
The second point is just daft, sit on a train going through a building at 60mph and tell me how much you see.
3. That this game takes place exclusively in locations where there is plentiful, three dimensional, dense cover. Given that dual natured creatures are bound to the material plane, they are bound to material cover, which is almost exclusively two dimensional, and easy to track people from place to place in. Additionally, astral beings, able to ignore gravity, can attack from straight above, negating 99% of cover and making tracking even easier.
Again your being daft, srun mostly happens in congested urban spaces. Mostly.
Step into a room and brain that spirit with your fists!
4. That the PCs are going to be high magic pcs. Almost every single threat to a dual natured PC increases in danger for a magic 2-3 PC. Mana barriers are harder to pass. Your limits on astral things are lower. Your have less adept powers and lower forces.
You clearly have little understanding of dual natured and how they fight and what skills and stats they use.
I would suggest you check that out before commenting further.
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Everyone seems to forget that spirits in astral space MUST use mana based attacks, or melee combat. If it uses melee combat, then you can attack it back. If it uses mana spells, block its line of sight.
I will get right on blocking the line of sight from something that can pick me out of the crowd (I am obvious) and that can move at 100m/turn in any direction it pleases, through air and walls, and in fact through anything except the earth and wards it doesn't have permission to pass through. Oh, and 100m/turn is it's walking rate. It's running rate is 50 kilometers/turn.
Really, this is the "Nerf guns cause my melee combat character dies all the time" whine, except over dual natured status.
there are pros and cons to it.
I can take cover against guns. People with guns cannot fly around and be immune to my own guns, or thrown weapons, or literally every ranged option I have that isn't manabolt, stunbolt, or their AOE equivalents.
There is a pro to it, and tremendous cons.
Suck. It. Up.
Inspiring. Truly.
Vamps and dual natured, ghouls are dual natured. 80% of the para-critters are dual natured..... and yet there are not exploding critters left and right all over the city and countryside... hmmmmmm......
I have seen exactly one vampire that is not at least an adept. For that matter, the only Infected I've seen that was only an adept was my own. I've also only seen one sasquatch and one naga. Mind you, I'm a long-standing member of a living community in addition to multiple home games. I've seen literally hundreds of different character builds, probably pushing a thousand now, with over a hundred personally inspected.
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In our game astral perception is only as sure as normal perception, i.e. completely dependent on the circumstances/ area. Most action happens in a city where there's plenty of cover to hide/ run from astral presences. Our team recently plunged into the amazon and in triple canopy jungle the amount of cover is even more dense.
This is entirely reasonable most of the time. However, a dual natured entity is going to stand out. They're obvious. And unlike your mages or adepts, they cannot turn it off.
Wards, yeah you could crash into one but you could also crash into a wall (you can see both at a distance being dual-natured).
The only real ward risk is ward in an elevator shaft, my team (see above) has run into that scenario precisely once in a year of continual play.
They survived.
I cannot enter a situation where I will hit a wall because of a device that hundred of people use every day. Elevators are not the only risk - go into a parking garage, for example, or try driving through a secure checkpoint. If you're in any situation where you are not propelling yourself, you likely can be caught by surprise, given how astral sight interacts with physical objects. Regardless, your mages are safe from this! They won't get knocked unconscious unless they're actively assensing. A dual natured creature is not. They cannot turn it off. They cannot be safe.
Sure wards are all over corporate targets and players often have corporate targets. However they're not all (or even mostly) going to be force 6. And they won't cover the entire facility, they will be used on the most high-value areas that are small enough to feasibly protect.
There was an excellent writeup at some point - I can find it if necessary - that detailed the costs and efforts behind using wards as a corporate entity. What it broke down to was that even a mom and pop shop could afford rating 6 pretty easy, and a corporate facility could afford rating 12 pretty easy, due to the math behind setting them up. And most places, particularly corporate facilities, are heavily encouraged to reach high, as in order to re-establish wards later, they would have to shut down operations over at least large chunks of their facility to, well, facilitate the ritualists.
Spirit try's to wiz by and melee you're dual-natured person? I'd permit an interrupt melee attack in return.
Reasonable, if they pass a surprise test. Doesn't get around spirits of man or mages with manabolt, who never have to come within your reach.
You think your astral entity can fly through an entire cityblock in a microsecond because astral flight is so fast and thereby invalidate the chance of someone hiding?
Sure but there's nothing that says (or even suggests) they can take in and visually process everything that passes in front of their eyes as they move through a 100 rooms at close to the speed of light.
And I quote (Page 314, Core, under Astral Movement) "If you're looking for a particular place or thing, you must travel at a slower pace. "Slower" in this case means up to 100 meters each combat turn - this is considered to be the Walking rate in astral space."
You can quite explicitly look for things - particularly obvious things, like an astrally active entity - while moving at 100m/turn. Aside from that, they typically won't need to. None of the situations described have involved canvassing hundreds of rooms. At most, a watcher or spirit watching the entrance or main lobby and the road outside would cover all situations I've personally described, without any need for dedicated searching.
I can appreciate that your playstyle doen't involve challenging astral entities in a manner consistent with the core book, but given that the core book does, the errata team should keep that in mind.
As to the rest of you, I think I might have been a little unfair. It feels like many of you are new to the game, and definitely have started with 5th edition. Many of you seem to have have made brand new accounts just to post in this thread, which is ........ interesting
The discussion on reddit was devolving past where I felt anything useful was getting through to the errata team, so I came here. I suspect others have done similar.
I get it, you're new, and you're trying to apply real world physics to the astral world.
I am not.
Maybe find someone who's played the game with for a while....? There are lots of people on roll20. Or try Runnerhub.
This is, among other things, an insulting ad hominem attack. The duration of time I have played Shadowrun is not relevant to my arguments. For that matter, you have absolutely no way of knowing how long I or any others have been playing. I know for a fact that of the people who have recently participated, whose experience with the system I am aware of, I am the only one who has only played on 5th edition - and I've been doing that since before Run n Gun was released - several years at this point, more than long enough to attain system mastery.
But you know what? That doesn't matter. I am familiar with and have played on Runnerhub. I am an active member of ShadowNET, which has a spread of both players new to 5e, experience with 5e, and coming from any of the older systems up to and including 1st.
Ultimately, though, even that doesn't matter. We're not talking about those editions. We're talking about Shadowrun 5th Edition, and the nominal errata it is to be receiving. Which, thus far, has not fixed any of the major confusion, and has instead added abilities to a subset of PCs that were not in need of anything other than some clarity, abilities which now threaten to ruin their functionality as shadowrunners.
Spirits are far easier to kill in astral than material plane if you can engage them.
How do you engage a spirit that is out of reach? Step into a room.
Assuming the room isn't warded (neccessitating a struggle to get in) the spirit pokes it's head into a corner, relays where you are to it's summoner through it's link, manabolts you, then moves out through the same way. If it is warded, it kills you while you're trying to get in. If you get in, it saunters through, easily possessing the skill to make the check, since it's a spirit, even assuming it isn't keyed to said wards.
A better option, a good way to draw out your slow death, but not a way to win the fight.
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Hold action is a thing, so is interrupt action against melee opponent.
Your combat toolbox is a little empty there chummed.
Spirits are far easier to kill in astral than material plane if you can engage them.
How do you engage a spirit that is out of reach? Step into a room.
While ignoring the fact with no stated upper limit on the spirits movement while in Astral form they can:
1. Follow you into the room.
2. Attack you.
3. Move away from you, preventing retaliation.
This ignores the next option:
1. Move to the doorway.
2. Cast spell at you.
3. Move away.
I think what your single actually solid point is:
"When built to fight a Spirit in melee combat, a PC can hide in a broom closet, and through use of interrupt actions to get half the number of attacks as a spirit per round, possibly avoid dying."
I'll give you that.
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Children: Focus.
Calm the hell down, all of you; this is starting to get more than a little testy. Even if I can't do mod stuff in here, I know people who can.
This is why we can't have nice things, and I, for once, would like some nice things. So STOP IT. NOW.
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1. The character being able to win a stand up fight vs the astral attacker. Not always possible, and contains dual natured PCs to having high Cha and unarmed combat.
No high cha needed, just unarmed combat.
Moot point. Unarmed combat is melee only. Manabolts aren't.
2. That the astral attacker cannot easily move in the astral at speeds so in excess of the PC's material movement that cover, line of sight, and prolonged melee range engagements are a thing. None of this is in any way backed up by any quotes from the rulebooks, and assumes that creatures able to move at near speed of though aren't accustomed to perceiving while doing so.
The first part can be mitigated to great degree by stepping into a confined space, say a room, that draws them in range of your claws etc.
The second point is just daft, sit on a train going through a building at 60mph and tell me how much you see.
My previous comment includes a quote from the core rulebook that explicitly states that Astral entities are capable of looking for specific objects, things, whatever, while moving at 100m/turn, faster than almost any PC, and unrestricted in the vertical axis.
Drawing them into the range of your claws does not make this a winning battle. It makes it a siege. You can't step outside without them manabolting you "slowly" to death. What happens then? They just get bored and go home? No, they call in more spirits, or just an HTR team with guns. You can't leave that building without being spotted, because you're always obvious on the astral, so game over, hombre.
3. That this game takes place exclusively in locations where there is plentiful, three dimensional, dense cover. Given that dual natured creatures are bound to the material plane, they are bound to material cover, which is almost exclusively two dimensional, and easy to track people from place to place in. Additionally, astral beings, able to ignore gravity, can attack from straight above, negating 99% of cover and making tracking even easier.
Again your being daft, srun mostly happens in congested urban spaces. Mostly.
Step into a room and brain that spirit with your fists!
See above. The points are valid for outdoor urban places, and indoor urban places are not your friend even if you can beat up a spirit.
4. That the PCs are going to be high magic pcs. Almost every single threat to a dual natured PC increases in danger for a magic 2-3 PC. Mana barriers are harder to pass. Your limits on astral things are lower. Your have less adept powers and lower forces.
You clearly have little understanding of dual natured and how they fight and what skills and stats they use.
I would suggest you check that out before commenting further.
A magic 2-3 PC that is not dual natured doesn't have an issue with mana barriers. They turn off their foci and spells, and they stop assensing, then they walk through like a mundane. No problem. Hell, that's what magic 6 and 7 PCs do most of the time, because it's easier and safer. Unless they have a spell they just don't wanna get rid of. Or they're dual natured, and thus can't turn their presence on the astral off, and thus *have* to deal with mana barriers.
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If I am coming across as adversarial, I apologize. I do not mean any of what I'm saying as a personal attack, I am merely trying to attack the arguments.
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1. The character being able to win a stand up fight vs the astral attacker. Not always possible, and contains dual natured PCs to having high Cha and unarmed combat.
No high cha needed, just unarmed combat.
Unarmed combat is not the skill used. You may attempt to use unarmed combat against a materialised spirit, but the spirit is an Astral Form, and thus, invulnerable to unarmed combat. Astral combat is the skill used.
You must be assuming that the spirit has Materialised, and were that the case, then yes, Critter Power Claws would be effective. But sadly, the Spirit is an Astral Form:
Only astral attacks or mana spells/powers may hurt an astral critter;
This does not say that adept or critter powers may hurt such a creature: A point of difference on the vulnerability of a materialised Spirit with Immunity to Normal Weapons vs an Astral Form.
Thus, we are limited to Astral Combat,
Unarmed astral attacks are an performed through an Opposed Astral Combat + Willpower [Astral] v. Intuition + Logic Test
Your Astral Limit is a function of Magic. You must have high Willpower to be effective at attacking. For a Magician, the damage value is linked to Charisma.
To sum this all up:
You have assumed the spirit has Materialised. You have assumed that the spirit is in range of a melee attack. You have assumed that Astral Forms can be attacked with Unarmed Combat.
Can you please stop writing errata for Run Faster and go back and clean up the core rulebook first. Clearly there are significant design issues here that are causing tension as a Dual Natured Character without Astral Combat skill and high Charisma has no effective method to hurt an Astral Form.
Before you attempt to dismiss my very valid points yet again, do you disagree with any of the directly quoted references I have made?
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Reading through all of this, and all I see is logic being pitted against bias, with no different results than any other similar case. The bias starts to whine and throw erroneous arguments to try and counter the logic, with no other backup besides handwavium, in and attempt to make themselves feel better, mixed in with personal attacks on the logic, most of which are naught but speculation. Meanwhile the logic continues to place valid point after point, with real world evidence, and tested claims, and avoids personal attacks, in most cases.
I feel like everyone involved should sleep on this matter, think it over, every side of the argument, not just the parts you agree with. If this continues any further, all I see is it devolving into a school yard fight, and that isn't good for anyone.
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please read what it means to be dual natured then come back
you're missing the point of being dual-natured
tL:dr dual-nature can use unarmed and natural weapons on the astral and they use their physical stats while in astral
so too does a mage astrally perceiving and using a weapon focus
both remove the spirits immunity: normal weapons
1. The character being able to win a stand up fight vs the astral attacker. Not always possible, and contains dual natured PCs to having high Cha and unarmed combat.
No high cha needed, just unarmed combat.
Unarmed combat is not the skill used. You may attempt to use unarmed combat against a materialised spirit, but the spirit is an Astral Form, and thus, invulnerable to unarmed combat. Astral combat is the skill used.
You must be assuming that the spirit has Materialised, and were that the case, then yes, Critter Power Claws would be effective. But sadly, the Spirit is an Astral Form:
Only astral attacks or mana spells/powers may hurt an astral critter;
This does not say that adept or critter powers may hurt such a creature: A point of difference on the vulnerability of a materialised Spirit with Immunity to Normal Weapons vs an Astral Form.
Thus, we are limited to Astral Combat,
Unarmed astral attacks are an performed through an Opposed Astral Combat + Willpower [Astral] v. Intuition + Logic Test
Your Astral Limit is a function of Magic. You must have high Willpower to be effective at attacking. For a Magician, the damage value is linked to Charisma.
To sum this all up:
You have assumed the spirit has Materialised. You have assumed that the spirit is in range of a melee attack. You have assumed that Astral Forms can be attacked with Unarmed Combat.
Can you please stop writing errata for Run Faster and go back and clean up the core rulebook first. Clearly there are significant design issues here that are causing tension as a Dual Natured Character without Astral Combat skill and high Charisma has no effective method to hurt an Astral Form.
Before you attempt to dismiss my very valid points yet again, do you disagree with any of the directly quoted references I have made?
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Now. I'll try to be civil here, but frankly, sir, you've tried my patience today. No good has ever come of that.
Let me go ahead and address a couple of things.
You still fail to address the very serious criticism that this errata is completely ignoring major errata content to overfocus on reverting to 3e.
Source? I've got something like 35 open discussions right now in there, between Core and Run Faster. There's about to be a lot more, as I open discussions on the "Mess of Metahumanity" chapter for discussion.
We're not ignoring anything, and I'll thank you to provide proof the next time you want to go running your mouth and attacking my people. That will not stand, especially if you want to come storming in here and spreading your bile in my figurative back yard.
Incidentally, re: the "overfocus on reverting to 3e" comment -- You want to provide proof of that, as well? Since it's patently untrue, I don't imagine that you can. There is no agenda to revert things to 3rd edition, never has been, and to the best of my knowledge never will be.
Do you even know about the edge issue or the movement tables? Do you even care?
If you're referring to shifter movement rates: Very much aware of them. One of your sparring partners (Adzling, to be precise) brought them up weeks ago, in fact. We weren't there yet, so we tabled them temporarily. Now that we're entering that chapter, it's about to become an active discussion again.
When you don't know what you're talking about, you might find it best not to be quite so confrontational.
*I'm really sorry you won't get to play your init +5d6 regeneratin Tiger street sam who never has to worry about astral barriers.
No one wants regeneration either, if you didn't notice. It is just a compromise because some people are ridiculously upset that people have fun the way they want at their own tables.
Yours is not the only SR community out there, dezz, and you're not always the finest exemplar of what people over there think.
Quite a lot of people wanted Regeneration, actually. And Dual Natured. I've gotten a number (more than a dozen and less than three, to be sure, but a number) of emails asking what happened to shifters, and if there would be a fix for them since they seemed to these people obviously an error. I've gotten a few thank-you notes from people, including some of the users you intimidate over on reddit, who were happy to see their traditional powers and weaknesses restored.
It might not last, since Jason has final approval, but your outrage at this is not as common as you want to think. The reddit community is not the be-all and end-all of Shadowrun communities, and to be honest, the vocal online community is not the sum total of Shadowrun fans out there.
Thank you for outing your true colors. I think this was an illuminating conversation for everyone.
Right back at you.
I talked to Adzling and told him not to go picking any more fights on reddit. I'm going to tell you the same thing now: Don't you dare come into my forum and start fights with the regulars here.
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Thank you for replying, Mr. Goodman, it was getting rather tense in this discussion. However greatly things have spiraled out of control, it's important to remember that we're all here to have fun with a system that we all clearly love, once we cut away all the hurt and spent feelings and get right down to the core of it.
However, you do raise a point. Dezzmont is not the only voice of the online communities, nor is he the best. So I would like to ask you, and your errata team members to honestly consider what is being asked for clarification, because there have been several points raised by LeVentNoir and Voro as well. I for one am not trying to start a fight, and understand that the errata team is very busy with the internal projects that we on the outside cannot see. However, the four page slapfight that has occurred here is both concerning and alarming with personal attacks fired on all sides. Regardless of how we feel on various factions within the community, we are still all part of a larger whole. I think we should all do well to remember that.
In summary, http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/e2/e2983cfb7b9158ab06ad348047932f425ed9c1a842dca2fd6b8f606373baaf9a.jpg (http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/e2/e2983cfb7b9158ab06ad348047932f425ed9c1a842dca2fd6b8f606373baaf9a.jpg) . We shouldn't have to feel this way about a game and a pastime. And if you missed it, Reading through all of this, and all I see is logic being pitted against bias, with no different results than any other similar case. The bias starts to whine and throw erroneous arguments to try and counter the logic, with no other backup besides handwavium, in and attempt to make themselves feel better, mixed in with personal attacks on the logic, most of which are naught but speculation. Meanwhile the logic continues to place valid point after point, with real world evidence, and tested claims, and avoids personal attacks, in most cases.
I feel like everyone involved should sleep on this matter, think it over, every side of the argument, not just the parts you agree with. If this continues any further, all I see is it devolving into a school yard fight, and that isn't good for anyone.
This is important and would otherwise be lost. And with that, I for one, am signing off for the night. May you all have a pleasant evening, and hopefully whenever we wake up tomorrow to continue in this work, we remember what it means to be good to each other. After all, the disunity within Shadowrunners is the only thing that's keeping them from being a palpable force in 5e, I believe, for anything but the corps that pay them. We, on the other hand, are all on the same side.
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I'll get to this tomorrow, when I've calmed down a bit.
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It feels like many of you are new to the game, and definitely have started with 5th edition. Many of you seem to have have made brand new accounts just to post in this thread, which is ........ interesting
Sorry, I didn't realise you were going to attack our shadowrun credentials .................
..................1. The character being able to win a stand up fight vs the astral attacker. Not always possible, and contains dual natured PCs to having high Cha and unarmed combat.
Attacking your credentials mostly because:
A) You don't seem to know the rules (as Adzling pointed out, Charisma has nothing to do with this, but that's just one of many)
B) You and 3 or 4 of your friends JUST made accounts JUST now to argue all this. So, yeah, you're new here.
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BTW, Patrick, that made me think of a thing. Is it possible that pushing through a mana barrier is really supposed to be Mag+Str when you're dual natured? The rules seem to assume you're astrally projecting most of the time, they may be just assuming Cha because that'd be astral Str.
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Isn't the DV for Astral Combat based on Charisma?
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If you're projecting, yes. Not if you're perceiving or dual natured (same thing). Cuz without a body str =cha, but not with the body. The CRB pages describing this this edition are awful brief and seem to assume projection in their examples.
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And there's the problem; you're inferring based on the rules from previous editions that that's still how it works. RAW (SR5, p315) specifically states that dual-natured creatures use their Astral Combat + Willpower against wholly-Astral targets, not Unarmed Combat. Astral Combat says use the Astral Damage table on the same page. Shifters don't have Natural Weapon so they can't use the rules for the power to short circuit it. Like you said it's probably an oversight, but as it is right now, it's the only valid rule.
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Ehm, all shifters have natural weapons in their animal form and they even retain their claw attacks in their alternate form (only bite and gore vanish and gore might stay if your alternate form has horns like a troll). Likewise your unarmed attack is also a natural weapon.
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For those new to the forums (and since one of you asked)
I am Reaver.
Skeptic,
Cynic,
pessimist,
Asshole,
Drunk.
There are a few more adjectives that can be added to that list, but those are the main ones.
I used to post nice, flowery messages, and tried to not step on toes, but to be honest, I am tired. Tired of a lot of the whiney bullshitery that I saw going on, and that is getting worse daily... So now I post pretty bluntly. deal with it. (there is an ignore feature. Learn it. Love it.) Sadly, even when I post bluntly I am often not far off the mark.
<And you can tell this by the interesting fact that the 2 posters that jumped to my defense are also posters that I have had long, long arguments with, over a variety of topics>
I used to do quoting directly from books, heck I even used to copy and paste entire sections.
By why bother with that effort when that info is handily dismissed (usually with a strawman situation)? Especially when others have already quoted said info? What possible point could be made by being redundant? At least a snarky comment expresses both my feelings, opinion and (often) contempt just as well?
You want me to be nice? Be nice. Otherwise what you see is what you get.
Suck. It. Up. Many others on the forums have. (or found how to use the ignore option - which also suits me fine)
*****
This is a place where people can express their opinions on/ request Errata changes.
I expressed mine. What the "Big Boys" in charge of the errata do with my opinion is out of my hands.....
What YOU (looking at a couple of new boys/girls/its/ze/zi/hir/shim/-other-trangenderual-pronoun-your-snowflake-ID-requires) think of MY opinion, I don't really care.
<Of course, this could be due to the fact that I am inclined to simply change shit I think needs changing for my table, without the need to be a whiney ass about errata, and then whine some more when that errata doesn't line up perfectly with my personal view of the Shadowrun World. I already change it to suit my and my player's perfect personal view of Shadowrun.... which is the beauty of all table top games, taking that core effort and design of rules, and putting your table's own personal stamp on it.>
edited because:
Note to self: 9 beers do NOT improve typing, nor language skills. Which are piss poor to begin with.
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Attacking your credentials
No matter the reasons, it's making assumptions, promoting acquiescence over trivialities like how long someone has been here, fostering poor opinions of others, and escalating towards worse discourse / mod intervention.
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Ehm, all shifters have natural weapons in their animal form and they even retain their claw attacks in their alternate form (only bite and gore vanish and gore might stay if your alternate form has horns like a troll). Likewise your unarmed attack is also a natural weapon.
Unarmed attacks are not natural weapons. This is not pathfinder. Only creatures with claws, fangs, or whatever else get to use unarmed combat instead of astral combat, and they still have to use willpower and charisma for damage (as the entry, under the Natural Attack critter power in Core, does not contradict the Astral Combat section.)
Indeed, the Astral Combat section on page 315 notes that Dual Natured creatures explicitly use their astral stats to attack wholly astral entities. They do not get to use strength or agility, unless they're attacking something that is present on the meat.
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Core p. 394
"Whenever a critter flies, rends something with its claws, or paralyzes a target with a mere touch, it’s using a critter power. Powers are the special abilities that a critter possesses. Some critter powers are natural, such as their claws or tough skin. Others, such as a barghest’s Paralyzing Howl, are magical in nature.
In order for a critter to use a power against a target, they have to be in the same state, either astral or physical. Astral forms cannot affect physical targets, and
physical forms cannot affect astral targets (see The Astral World, p. 312). An astral critter that can materialize can affect physical targets if they do so, however, and dual-natured critters can interact with the astral plane as easily as the physical one.
Core p. 399
"A dual-natured critter with a melee Natural Weapon, can use this power against astral targets that are within its reach. Use the critter’s normal Unarmed Combat skill and physical Damage Value for this attack. [...]
Critters without a Natural Weapon may still make an unarmed attack."
You have to apply a very strict reading to not allow normal unarmed attacks to count as natural weapons.
Your other point is refuted by the bolded, underlined text.
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@ Voro: No, it doesn't that's for astral forms, not perceiving or dual natured forms. I believe this has already been errata'D somewhere, or maybe it was just a developer clarifying, in which case I'm sure it's on Patrick's list
This is what I mean, guys. Everyone who's played the game for any length of time knows that. That's how it's always worked.
5th has some good ideas vs 4th, but it's not the best edited, that's why Patrick's work is required. And here you are, in a post about errata, using the unclearness on a particular page (and your own rules lawyering) to argue something shouldn't be errata'd.
Shapeshifters are dual natured. Always have been. Always will be. Makes a lot of thematic sense. Everyone who picked up Run Faster knew that was an omission. Regeneration, we were less sure of because of the changes to Infected. But anyway, no, being dual natured isn't going to get your character eaten by the astral bogie men. Lots and lots of things are dual natured.
Let it go.
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Core p. 394
"Whenever a critter flies, rends something with its claws, or paralyzes a target with a mere touch, it’s using a critter power. Powers are the special abilities that a critter possesses. Some critter powers are natural, such as their claws or tough skin. Others, such as a barghest’s Paralyzing Howl, are magical in nature.
In order for a critter to use a power against a target, they have to be in the same state, either astral or physical. Astral forms cannot affect physical targets, and
physical forms cannot affect astral targets (see The Astral World, p. 312). An astral critter that can materialize can affect physical targets if they do so, however, and dual-natured critters can interact with the astral plane as easily as the physical one.
Core p. 399
"A dual-natured critter with a melee Natural Weapon, can use this power against astral targets that are within its reach. Use the critter’s normal Unarmed Combat skill and physical Damage Value for this attack. [...]
Critters without a Natural Weapon may still make an unarmed attack."
You have to apply a very strict reading to not allow normal unarmed attacks to count as natural weapons.
Your other point is refuted by the bolded, underlined text.
I will grant that a reasonable reading would operate more generously, and a very generous but not unreasonable one would act as you say, and will concede the point... though it does not get around the other issues a dual natured creature faces, merely allows them to reasonably be competent at astral combat, which is not nearly enough to make it anything but a drastic negative.
@ Voro: No, it doesn't that's for astral forms, not perceiving or dual natured forms. I believe this has already been errata'D somewhere, or maybe it was just a developer clarifying, in which case I'm sure it's on Patrick's list
To my knowledge, it has not been errata'd. If that is something that is errata'd by Patrick and Co., that's great. However, until then, the text found here (http://puu.sh/rqFuq/6fb364c418.jpg) stands
This is what I mean, guys. Everyone who's played the game for any length of time knows that. That's how it's always worked.
Appeal to tradition. This is not 4th, 3rd, or any other edition of Shadowrun, and the purpose of edition breaks is to allow previous concepts to be discarded or kept in order to keep the game as enjoyable as possible.
5th has some good ideas vs 4th, but it's not the best edited, that's why Patrick's work is required. And here you are, in a post about errata, using the unclearness on a particular page (and your own rules lawyering) to argue something shouldn't be errata'd.
I am, in fact, in a thread for discussing errata, arguing that a proposed errata is a bad idea. This is not a change to improve clarity, or improve editing. This is a change to bring Shifters back to what they were in previous editions, which I wholeheartedly feel is a negative gameplay change for shifters, and prevents a subset of interesting characters from being played effectively in a 6th world sprawl. I can think of no better place to voice my opinions and arguments about this errata than the thread about said errata.
Shapeshifters are dual natured. Always have been. Always will be. Makes a lot of thematic sense. Everyone who picked up Run Faster knew that was an omission. Regeneration, we were less sure of because of the changes to Infected. But anyway, no, being dual natured isn't going to get your character eaten by the astral bogie men. Lots and lots of things are dual natured.
Let it go.
No, Shifters were dual natured in 4th edition and prior. They were notably not dual natured in 5th edition. The nature of edition breaks allows changes like that to occur, particularly when it improved gameplay. Unless the Dual Natured critter power is changed, adding it to shifters reduces gameplay options for them dramatically to completely. And, as others have noted, it comes entirely out of place. Apparently, the chapter in which Shifters are located has only been reached by the errata team very, very recently, but these changes have been in place far longer, which admittedly gives me worries about the motives behind it compared to what I feel are the appropriate means of approaching errata.
You have done very little to demonstrate that dual natured in it's current incarnation is not a crippling setback, particularly when the only gain is Regeneration, and doubly so when paired with a powerful allergy and Vulnerability to something people can make bullets out of. If Patrick and Co. wish to change Dual Natured as well, to make creatures with it functional in the sprawl, or if someone can actually demonstrate why the majority of my arguments are invalid, then I'm happy to step back from this issue. However, at this time, no changes have been proposed to Dual Natured as far as I am aware, and the only point I have been proven incorrect on is how dual natured creatures approach Astral Combat.
In any case, please stop telling me that I do not understand the game or that my opinion is invalid simply because I did not play previous editions. Previous editions are not relevant to the mechanics and functionality of this setting. While a common thread in lore and setting is excellent for the health of a tabletop game, it is not paramount, nor does it eclipse the need for the mechanics to be functional, as myriad changes made in other aspects of the gameplay and setting from 4th to 5th have proven.
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I guess I just don't have time to rules lawyer with you about what are obvious omissions. Things change between editions, sure, but some things are just obvious mistakes, or worse, assume a shared knowledge base. (Which is not a good plan, but it's what they did here)
I'm not exactly saying your opinion is invalid because you didn't play previous edition but it is much less informed.
Let it go.
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In any case, please stop telling me that I do not understand the game or that my opinion is invalid simply because I did not play previous editions. Previous editions are not relevant to the mechanics and functionality of this setting. While a common thread in lore and setting is excellent for the health of a tabletop game, it is not paramount, nor does it eclipse the need for the mechanics to be functional, as myriad changes made in other aspects of the gameplay and setting from 4th to 5th have proven.
I think part of a growing problem with newer editions is that they often presumed a certain amount of knowledge of previous editions was required as they did not necessarily spell some things out because it was covered in a previous edition so to save on reprinting they just left it hanging.
So when there were actual edition changes, the question remained was this an actual intended change or just something left out because it was assumed to be common knowledge brought over from the previous edition. Which creates headaches for new players wanting answers and the old guard trying to keep with a theme when there may have been an actual intended change since that is sort of the point of a new edition, but nobody is entirely sure because there is always some errors that creep in and errata is meant to fix those.
Grenades were a good example of this and you can go through the threads to see the round and round discussion on that one because it was not very clear, thanks to two different readings in the main book itself, one giving a dodge while the other didn't.
Dwarven Thermographic was another. In the first release of 5th, dwarves did not have Thermographic vision-something they pretty much have always had. It has since been errata'd and added to the newer version to include Thermographic vision for Dwarves.
But thanks to Patrick and Co. this is being addressed and anything he suggests has to be ran past Mr. Hardy I would imagine, so while different parties may not agree about what should and should not be errata'd itself, it is a thing that is happening and we should thank Patrick and his team for their work in trying to get one final version hammered out.
Then we can roll out 6th edition. ;)
Teasing.....teasing...
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Is there a part of "STOP IT. NOW." that some of you don't comprehend? Because I'll cheerfully parse it out for you if it's necessary.
I will grant that a reasonable reading would operate more generously, and a very generous but not unreasonable one would act as you say, and will concede the point...
Good, because Jack's reading is much more in line with the author's intent than yours is. I know this because I wrote "Help & Hindrances," the chapter he quotes from. Dual natured critters are not defenseless on the astral plane; the rules explicitly state they can make unarmed attacks. Any other reading of it is incorrect. To deal with ranged attacks, you still need to be a magician or have appropriate powers, but that's true for any astral form. You can still break line-of-sight to mess with manabolts and such.
But the pages and pages and pages of you going after Dual Natured because it makes you defenseless on the astral are bunk, pure and simple, and have been from the start.
I am not going to argue the rest of this right now, but I felt a need to chime in on that.
This is also the last warning for a bunch of you. Quit the arguing now, or there will be time-outs given. Civil discussions are fine, but wall-of-text arguments will not be tolerated any longer.
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Is there a part of "STOP IT. NOW." that some of you don't comprehend? Because I'll cheerfully parse it out for you if it's necessary.
I will grant that a reasonable reading would operate more generously, and a very generous but not unreasonable one would act as you say, and will concede the point...
Good, because Jack's reading is much more in line with the author's intent than yours is. I know this because I wrote "Help & Hindrances," the chapter he quotes from. Dual natured critters are not defenseless on the astral plane; the rules explicitly state they can make unarmed attacks. Any other reading of it is incorrect. To deal with ranged attacks, you still need to be a magician or have appropriate powers, but that's true for any astral form. You can still break line-of-sight to mess with manabolts and such.
But the pages and pages and pages of you going after Dual Natured because it makes you defenseless on the astral are bunk, pure and simple, and have been from the start.
I am not going to argue the rest of this right now, but I felt a need to chime in on that.
This is also the last warning for a bunch of you. Quit the arguing now, or there will be time-outs given. Civil discussions are fine, but wall-of-text arguments will not be tolerated any longer.
I'm sorry sir, but this is a forum a "Wall of Text" is not an applicable complaint in a forum setting, on something like an image board or in an active conversation like IM/IRC clients, then yes, Wall of text is a problem, But there is nothing wrong with long posts in a forum environment, whatsoever, If you disagree you are free to do so, but I will continue to disagree with you on that subject. If you want to have a problem we can have a problem, and I will gladly leave and go back to discussing shadowrun in person and on various forums that I enjoy, rather than giving you my opinion, as a long-term player, and someone who has spent multiple hundreds of dollars on shadowrun products since second edition.
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Solathon,
In case you were not aware, Patrick is one of the freelance writers for shadowrun (and other projects). And generally not someone you want to piss off, as he has done more for Shadowrun - without being paid for it- than most people.
In fact, the ONLY reason you are getting ANY errata at all is because Payrick took it upon himself to organize a set of volunteers to get the project moving.
And, you have done nothing to endear yourself to THIS community......
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Don't get ugly, Reaver. I appreciate the vote of confidence, but we're just now getting things calmed down. I'd rather they not get calmed up again.
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I do have to second his praise of you, however. You're the one who got this train rolling, and that is awesome. I even get to be on the ride!
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Well, that was a bit of a read.
Me: long time gamer, been playing Shadowrun since it first came out. Been game-mastering it since its first year.
Not going to comment on the previous thoughts, just asking a question about Run Faster and a possible errata, which has a tie-in to Hero Lab.
In Run Faster the Metavariants go from page 88 to 97, then Metasapients from 98 to 101, where it then goes into describing Creating Something Different.
On page 103, the first sentence of Creating a Changeling states "SURGE can happen to anyone and anything."
Changelings being in the same section as metaspaients, are they a metasapient? Can SURGE occur in an existing metasapient; such as Pixie, Naga, Centaur, or Sasquatch?
If SURGE does effect them, then why does Hero Lab exclude metasapients from access to SURGE?
I have asked this in the LoneWolf bug report for Hero Lab (Shaowrun 5th) as well, just asking here for clarification and possible addition to errata for Run Faster.
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That's actually a discussion we're having now, as that's the chapter we're working on right now.
My personal feelings are that SURGE should be available to metasapients. It's affected paracritters since the beginning; devil rats SURGEd into demon rats, for instance.
We'll see where the discussion goes.
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SR3/Year Of The Comet, at least, you could randomly suffer SURGE with an Essence(12) test. Metahuman +2, Metavariant +3, Albino or Otaku +4, Infected +5, Shapeshifter +6, with Awakened receiving +Mag/2.
Anything with Essence Loss or Essence 0 never rolled. If everything else short of vampires and cyberzombies can manage it, I don't see why metasapient critters shouldn't, too.
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Well. Reading through this thread. Something that popped out at me was being able to use agility and unarmed to deal damage based off strength and whatever natural weapon a dual natured creature might have. That alone eases a lot of problems non awakened dual natured creatures have. Though makes me wonder if str is supposed to be able to be used instead of charisma to pass barriers and the like. Also whether interupt melee attacks would be possible to deal with spirits. Issues like these made me wonder how low/no magic ghouls are able to survive against pollution spirits or other magical threats in the sewers when I was first reading the RAW of 5th. EDIT: well seems like the martial arts counterstrike in run and gun solves the melee interupt if it is applicable in this case, guess most ghouls become martial arts masters to survive.
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The better fun is a dual-natured critter grappling a spirit/astral form. They both have Astral Forms, so they are both Astrally "real" so it technically works. So, the dual-natured critter can grab hold of the spirit and keep them in melee by going subduing combat. Also, I don't see any reason why an Interrupt action couldn't be used to do an Intercept attack as normal. You don't need to go into Martial Arts to do it, it just makes it more effective.
In my group we had a funny story where an Astrally Projecting magician got grabbed by a Vampire when she wandered too close. It was a "perfect storm" of relatively new player, playing a "naive" magician that was lost in a new city. She decided scouting Astrally would be faster, and didn't think to discuss it with anyone else. Then when she got lost she tried to stop and ask for directions, as an astral form. First, she decided to approach a spirit that was patrolling a building and ask nicely. Luckily for her, the spirit didn't attack on sight (it just told her to stay away), this eventually got the attention of the resident magician who likewise projected and approached. Basically ended up in her being (sort of) politely told to back off and not come back.
So then she tried looking for other people that she could talk to. After wandering around looking for someone she eventually noticed someone that was dual-natured. Thinking they were a magician that was astrally perceiving she approached to talk to them, and what she found out was actually a vampire lunged at her. She managed to get away and she decided it wasn't safe to scout astrally.
Best part of all that was that she was super worried that she had contracted HMHVV and insisted on us checking on her over and over again to make sure she wasn't infected. Out of character she was convinced/paranoid about her character getting in deep trouble like that. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she was freaked out over nothing. Not only had she not been in contact long enough for the vampire to drain her at all, but Infection is a Physical power, can't be used on purely astral forms. It was sort of like a person being worried about contracting HIV from a hand shake.
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Huh. Forgot about intercept being a thing tbh. If that works against spirit astral melee attacks that is pretty neat. Also just got a great image of infected dogpiling onto astral forms from your story.
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Well. Reading through this thread. Something that popped out at me was being able to use agility and unarmed to deal damage based off strength and whatever natural weapon a dual natured creature might have. That alone eases a lot of problems non awakened dual natured creatures have. Though makes me wonder if str is supposed to be able to be used instead of charisma to pass barriers and the like. Also whether interupt melee attacks would be possible to deal with spirits. Issues like these made me wonder how low/no magic ghouls are able to survive against pollution spirits or other magical threats in the sewers when I was first reading the RAW of 5th. EDIT: well seems like the martial arts counterstrike in run and gun solves the melee interupt if it is applicable in this case, guess most ghouls become martial arts masters to survive.
Dual natured creatures already use str/agi/unarmed/natural weapons. That's what the whole last few pages was about. It's already how it works but unfortunately not so easy to read nor obvious to new players. Which may include you. I'm not yelling, just clarifying.
The str instead of cha for barriers may be intended as well, but that's less clear.
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Dual natured creatures already use str/agi/unarmed/natural weapons. That's what the whole last few pages was about. It's already how it works but unfortunately not so easy to read nor obvious to new players. Which may include you. I'm not yelling, just clarifying.
Yeah, I had a feeling that might have been the case from reading through the 4th ed. books. Just am never sure on what is supposed to be intended changes or simply unclear text. Because frankly just reading 5th its easy to come up with wrong answers on stuff like that. Which is why I'm glad for the errata team hopefully clarifying a lot of stuff like that so its usable in the online shadowrun community I am in.
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Life Module Question
The following passages seem to contradict each other:
Pg. 66 "Note that no active skill may be raised above 7 in this system. If a module is selected that would raise an active skill above 7, the module can be selected, but ranks in a skill over 7 are lost."
Pg. 76 "Additionally, skills cannot go above 7 in this process. If the skill is not part of a group, transfer the points to a skill with same linked attribute."
Additionally, the wording of pg. 76 seems to imply that if the skill were part of a group, you might transfer the points to a skill within the group. Or that may be wishful thinking on my part.
Thank you.
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Patrick, interested in these changes to edge for the nartaki and wayakambi meta variants. I'd assumed the old stats were intentional, particularly for the nartaki. I.e. We have four arms but aren't as lucky as normal humans. Made a lot of sense to me because I thought human luck was a benefit for being "normal" in some way.
Is this a confirmed typo/mistake or are you just resetting to the base metatype?
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That was from the German errata. There was no indication anywhere in-universe that wakyambi or nartaki varied in any way from the base metaspecies in terms of luck/Edge, so we went ahead and rolled with it. Seemed like an honest typo to us; God knows I've made a few of those, working on tables like that.
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On the new Banshee stat errata, it has 1/9 Cha going to 3/9. I'd expect 4/9, as normally changes increase min and max by the same amount, and 5 points different is the largest I've seen.
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No, that's right. Vampires, nosferatu, and wendigos also have a minimum of 1. I structured the table to just raise the caps when I was doing the math, but for the life of me I can't remember why. I just know that banshees were getting shortchanged.
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I assume it is because the Elf's natural Charisma is 3/8; HMHVV infection doesn't always make you friendliier; vampires, nosferatu and Wendigo all have an increase to their Charisma maximum, but it doesn't raise their base Charisma. This is so those creepy, non-social types can exist while others can develop their silver tongues and fit other Infected tropes (creepy Orlok versus charming Dracula, both being closer to Nosferatu power even if the latter has a fancy head of hair).
A better way of phrasing it would be that HMHVV infection doesn't make you mentally/socially better, but it can improve your potential. None of the mental changes get an increase to the Attribute, just to the maximum.
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I guess the idea is that becoming infected allows someone to be more charmismatic, but it does not automatically raise charisma of the less charismatic ones (the ones at the minimum before being infected). Thus only increasing the max value, not the min one
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I remember now!! It was because of the way I did attribute boosts. Strain I Infected don't get all their attribute boosts at once, as they had in SR4; they just had an increased capacity in some attributes. Since the ones that got boosted were up to the player, I just raised the cap and called it good.
Amazing what a little drive can shake loose.
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So, does it matter what the minimum CHA is? Banshees come from elves, so they're always going to have at least Cha 3 unless something traumatic happened.
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Was the increase in lifestyle costs, particularly pixies, mostly due to custom sizes? I feel a pixie could live in a large chicken coup like a king
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It doesn't just cover your home's size, odd. It also covers every single piece of gear/equipment having to be re-sized to fit your winged, meter tall frame.
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So, does it matter what the minimum CHA is?
Only when it's printed wrong. :)
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I was under the impression that a Banshee wishing to retain their natural elfin charisma would have to use their two mental attribute points to do so.
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I can assure you, that was never the intent. It was, straight up, a typo that I've wanted to fix for better than a year and a half. A lot of people have asked me about it, too.
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I'm hoping that the errata team will be looking at the Karma costs for meta variants under the Point Buy system. The Hanuman in particular seem severely over-costed. Most seem at least slightly over priced compared to the karma surcharge used for the same races in the priority system.
It seems like the list on page 64 was mostly just copied forward from the Runner's Companion in 4th but in 4th stats for metavariants were done a little differently IIRC. I don't have my Runner's Companion with me ATM so I can't get more specific.
If this is still just about a snowflake tax I would like to see a bit of a tax cut. ;)
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It does bring up the point that shadowrun needs rules for Magic increase and maybe some metamagic by creatures who are dual natured but not either adepts or mages. Yeah, currently, if you're playing something dual natured, and not using the adept of mage powers, you're doing it wrong.
I don't see the need for errata regarding Magic increase except to possibly clarify what is already there. Any stat can be raised to its max by karma or by special attribute points during chargen using priority and duel nature has a magic stat whether they are awakened or not.
As to metamagics I'm personally against giving them to non-awakened outside of some specific case (making one a power of a metavariant or infected for example.) After all those are supposed to be advanced mystic techniques rather than innate abilities but it won't hurt my feelings any if TPTB decide to go that route.
On a more general note I'd point out that a door ward takes [force] hours to create and lasts for [force] days. A mage working 12 hour shifts (or a group of mages since this is a ritual) would be able to ward a grand total of 12 doors before having to start over again. This seems like a huge amount of effort for a relatively limited benefit. This is just my opinion but it seems to be that only the biggest corps would use this technique on a regular basis and only at their very most secure locations. There are relatively cheaper and/or easier ways to secure locations against magical threats for day to day use.
Finally, I've never met a impassible barrier that a little lateral thinking couldn't get me around to my amusement and the GM's annoyance. ;)
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Partick, did you mean to take Sapience away from all ghouls? Cuz that's what some people are reading that most recent bit as. I thought the old rule -- basically, if their magic score goes to zero, they go "feral" (lose sapience) was pretty clear. I know a lot of what you're doing it just format stuff, but what was the intention here?
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You know how we all go after sloppy cut-and-paste errors, and (perhaps rightly, perhaps not) castigate the writer for committing these errors?
Sapience being listed for the ghoul quality, and not for any of the others, was a cut-and-paste error committed by yours sincerely when I was writing the qualities up. I thought I had gotten them all and removed them, but I missed that one. In any event, I'm pretty sure that the ghoul quality was the only one that had Sapience listed; I hope nobody thought that meant that none of the other Infected weren't sapient.
Remember that the rules in Run Faster are for PCs, and we're bold enough to think that someone making a character might want to play that character. Therefore, we're also generous enough to consider all PCs sapient, some potential examples notwithstanding. Since you're starting off with Sapience by virtue of being a PC, it's not something you can gain by spending 29 points of Karma on a quality.
I didn't take anything away from them; PC ghouls are still just as sapient as they were before I went to work this afternoon. All I did was take a word out of the description that didn't need to be there.
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Ok, thanks, that some people's suspicion, just y'know, raised confusion. (The subtraction, I mean)
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Out of idle curiosity, was this an online discussion? You were the person to say anything about it that I've seen, but I don't hang out everywhere. :)
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A large skype chat.
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Ah. Yeah, no place I would have been.... ;)
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Could someone explain to me what exactly happens now to Pixies please? They just poof when they die? I'm somewhat confused.
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Correct, Pixies "Vanish" when they die. Upon death theor body disappears leaving no trace (physical or astral) of their existence.
This is the same as it was in previous editions.
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I think the Vanishing power needs some additional clarification. Something like "If it's triggered by a certain condition or event, like their death, the critter can not willingly activate it outside of these conditions."
Just to make sure people won't try to misinterpret it again. "Oh yes, sure, they vanish on their death automatically, but it doesn't say, they can't just vanish whenever they want!" Especially considering that it's marked as a Free Action, so people would try to use it.
Maybe "Action: special" would be better too? Since it's not a Free action on death (a dead creature can't take any action anymore) it just happens automatically.
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Usually an ability/critter power that has something listed in parenthesis after it is referring to a restriction of some sort, like how several creatures have "Concealment (Self Only)" or the Basilisk has Vulnerability (Own Gaze).
If we wanted to make the Pixie ability "clearer" it could be as easy as changing it to "Vanishing (Only Upon Death)" to indicate that it is restricted to only that condition.
Personally, I don't think it really needs it, but as Quatar pointed out, it can potentially be misunderstood as being an additional trigger instead of a restriction.
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Was there ever a fix of the shifter table on pg 105? Looked like a column shift mistake. I remember something being talked about but can't find a fix.
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Not on the official errata, However they have an Edge of 1/5 and a Base Magic 1. I think their natural max magic is also five.
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I don't know why their natural magic max would be different than their essence, same as everyone else. This is what I'm talking about. Table is obviously wrong, but right answers are t obvious. Let's fix it.
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Anybody? Anyone know the answer?
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I remember some HEATED discussions about that table....
And I remember HEATED discussions ovee the max magic thing...
In the end, think its still 5 max magic. (Not changed in the errata that Patrick is working on yet).
As to the reason? No idea. Game balance is the first thing that jumps to mind
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From the way the chart is formatted, and comparing it to the chart for the other metasapients, it looks like the table for Shifters is missing the EDGE header, and all the column labels are off by one because of it. Possibly because of a last minute decision to make all Shifters have a set Edge max rather than based on animal type.
If you compare the charts, the other Metasapients list MAG as just the flat 1, like you see in the "INIT" column. An Initiative of 1 doesn't make sense either, and the Initiative Dice doesn't have a label.
Personally, I read it as the column after Charisma being Edge, then Magic has a default value of 1. Only way it really makes sense... I was really hoping that would be one of the things fixed quickly when they started releasing the fixes like adding the Regeneration back in.
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Their edge is definitely supposed to be less than normal. That seems the most common balance for "specialness" (humans not being special but are very lucky). The fact edge is stated outright in a paragraph and then seemingly given different versions of it in the table is poor, but sorta typical catalyst goof.
I really would think their magic would start at one and could be bought up to essence + initation. Same as infected, but of course infected either have reduced essence or its variable.
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Their edge is definitely supposed to be less than normal. That seems the most common balance for "specialness" (humans not being special but are very lucky). The fact edge is stated outright in a paragraph and then seemingly given different versions of it in the table is poor, but sorta typical catalyst goof.
I really would think their magic would start at one and could be bought up to essence + initation. Same as infected, but of course infected either have reduced essence or its variable.
That would make sense, and you are probably correct, but we don't have anything official yet to state that....
But you probably wouldn't be far off the mark if you built a character with that column shift in mind.
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So in priority-gen, does an Adept that becomes a Nosferatu have to pay for their power points in the same manner as a mystic adept?
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Someone must. Dunno who, but someone must.
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Someone must. Dunno who, but someone must.
Huh?
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Uh oh. Looks like someone caught a bad batch of nanites lol
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I'm okay; I was responding to something, thought my reply was closer to the original message than it was, and was in too much of a rush to fix it.
I think some of these questions will be answered with the upcoming reprint.
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So in priority-gen, does an Adept that becomes a Nosferatu have to pay for their power points in the same manner as a mystic adept?
Once they become mystic adepts, they play by mystic adept rules.
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Their edge is definitely supposed to be less than normal. That seems the most common balance for "specialness" (humans not being special but are very lucky). The fact edge is stated outright in a paragraph and then seemingly given different versions of it in the table is poor, but sorta typical catalyst goof.
The table and the text agree on Edge now. Edge is now labeled in the table.
I really would think their magic would start at one and could be bought up to essence + initation. Same as infected, but of course infected either have reduced essence or its variable.
Pretty sure that's how it is; they all have magic, because that's how their powers work, but not all of them have as much as the next one in line. That's what special attribute points in chargen are for. And yeah, I'm pretty sure it can be bought up with Karma like other attributes, to the normal limits.
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OK, cool! Reprint Run faster is out?
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Not just yet, but at the printer.
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Well just got the reprint from Drive through RPG. Trying to figure out what is different between the two now. So far the one thing I noticed the Hobgoblins lost their Special eyes trait, since the trait never made it into the book in the first place. However where it was suppose to go in the random charts (Negative metagenetic Qualities 3 to 5, value 12) still kind of misses it there.
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AFAIS no mention of Shapeshifter having Regeneration and Weakness/Allergy against Silver, like the current Errata stats. So, another Street Grimoire Reprint?
Well, at least the new artwork is really neat.
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Weren't we promised an errata sheet? Wouldn't that typically come before a reprint anyway?
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Hello? Patrick?
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Working on it. Reality occasionally interferes with my volunteer efforts.
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So in priority-gen, does an Adept that becomes a Nosferatu have to pay for their power points in the same manner as a mystic adept?
Once they become mystic adepts, they play by mystic adept rules.
So what happens to the power points they already acquired? Do they have to spend karma to repurchase something they started with? What about the power point metamagic?
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They already have them; it's not a reset, in my opinion. And if they already have the metamagic, then they would keep that as well. You just no longer gain Power Points by raising Magic is what I see happening with an Adept becoming Nosferatu.
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Yeah, that was how it was supposed to come across.
I guess I should try to get something done today while I'm able to get on this site again. Oi.
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What is up with the website anyway? I've never seen a forum so unreliable before.
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Someone asked me the question what happens, when you reach the natural maximum in one attribute of your character within the Life Module system? The rules specify what happens to skills that reached level 9 (add points beyond that to another skill in the same skillgroup), but as far as I can see it doesn't mention the attributes.
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So in priority-gen, does an Adept that becomes a Nosferatu have to pay for their power points in the same manner as a mystic adept?
Once they become mystic adepts, they play by mystic adept rules.
So what happens to the power points they already acquired? Do they have to spend karma to repurchase something they started with? What about the power point metamagic?
My guess is they keep them but it goes into the negative karma pool that they have to pay off from getting infected before spending new karma.
At least I think that is how it works.
So in the short term, great, you get some extra abilities, but its going to be a LONG time before you get any earned karma building up.
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p68, the Life Modules: Corporate Drone and Arcology Living are the same
Not exactly, one provides a Corporate Limited SIN, the other doesn't. They are very similar backgrounds that produce similar outcomes, after all, but they are different flavors.
The problem is that Arcology gives a Corporate Limited SIN but no balancing extras, they have the same skills.
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So in priority-gen, does an Adept that becomes a Nosferatu have to pay for their power points in the same manner as a mystic adept?
Once they become mystic adepts, they play by mystic adept rules.
So what happens to the power points they already acquired? Do they have to spend karma to repurchase something they started with? What about the power point metamagic?
Thought I'd answered this one already, but apparently I didn't. Sorry about that.
They don't lose power points that they already had; I'm not that much of a dick. I honestly haven't thought about it much, but I understand the "karma debt" approach, though I shy away from it. My own style is more forgiving; this is what you had pre-Infection; from this point forth, though, the rules are different. Makes bookkeeping a pain in the ass, but it's how I see things working.
When we return to this subject, I'll throw this to the team and see what comes up.
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On p.71 of Run Faster, in the text about the Magical Education module it refers to p.44 in the last sentence:
Note that you must purchase Adept, Aspected Magician, Magician, or Mystic Adept separately (p. 44) to select this module.
I'm guessing it's suppose to refer to either p.64 or 66
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Are the bonuses for shapeshifter metahuman forms supposed to carry back over to the shifter's base form? Troll reach and lifestyle costs, adjusted vision, etc.
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Are the bonuses for shapeshifter metahuman forms supposed to carry back over to the shifter's base form? Troll reach and lifestyle costs, adjusted vision, etc.
Of course not, that's like arguing the metahuman form would have animal form powers, such as flight. No one wants to live in flying troll world.
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So how does something like the Dryad's Symbiosis work for a shifter then? If it's only present in the metahuman form, do you have to remain in the metahuman form for the entire acclimation period? If you switch forms, does it reset?
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In the interest of shifters not being absolutely insane, yes and no respectively.
Simpler answer, they don't have symbiosis at all as per "When in their new shape, the creature gains access to all non-paranormal abilities innate to that race (if any), including Armor, Natural Weapons, and Enhanced Senses. The creature retains all of its paranormal powers in its new form."
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If a character with MAG 1 gets infected by HMHVV, do they stay at 1 MAG or burn down to 0?
All Strain II and Strain III Infected begin play with an Essence of one less than their original Essence and a Magic of 1, unless they were magically active before their Infection. In this case, they begin with a Magic rating one less than their original Magic
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It'd have to be MAG 1; it's likely that line was written on the assumption that almost all player characters with a MAG rating have it as high as possible without thinking about that specific borderline case. It also wouldn't make much sense for someone to lose access to their magic from becoming Infected when it makes mundanes magical (in a sense) in the first place.
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It would stay at Magic 1
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I believe you go down to 0, then you are without, and as such, get bumped to 1 again? Not that the details matter. I mean, it even grants 1 magic to a character that, after the infection, has 0.x Essence left.
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Athames are listed as 'a new type of focus' on page 90, but don't have availability, cost, or a karma binding requirement. The Blood Thirst trait indicates that weapon foci can be used as athames. Is it then intended that an athame can be any kind of focus, or is it a unique form of weapon focus with the same requirements as standard?
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An Athame is a specific kind of focus (it doesn't give the other benefits a weapon focus does), it only allows for the storing of blood points. They aren't really intended to be available to players (Street Grimoire mentions them for NPCs, which is what the Blood Thirst imbued item trait is for too), which is why there's no information on them.
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Blood Thirst specifically says 'weapon foci used as athames' though; stacked foci aren't in 5E, so might it be some kind of modifier to an existing focus?
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I recall hearing they had the same karma cost and nuyen price/availability as weapon foci, but I don't remember where I actually read that.