[Bull]

I just updated the FAQ, but we have Street Grimiore looming and we're well aware that there are a couple minor...  issues. I don't know when SG will Street yet, but would like to be prepared for when it does.  So if you have questions about Street Grimiore, or any major questions that directly effect Missions about other books that was not covered by the FAQ so far, let us know.

Please post your questions (And ONLY your questions) below.  No speculation, no arguments, no discussion is allowed in this thread.  I will edit posts mercilessly and flat out delete posts that are not questions.  If you want to discuss something, start a new thread.  This is the only warning you get that I will do this.  I want this thread to remain a useful link for me to reference later, and 3 pages of discussion for every question does not help.

Also, when referencing a rule or section of the book, please give me a book and page reference.  I spent almost half an hour trying to resolve an issue with the last FAQ where there were conflicting numbers posted in two different places in SR5, but because I didn't know where to look I had a hell of a time finding these references.  And then it turned out that they had been stealth errata'd in the latest SR5 PDF and weren't listed in the Errata sheet, which was why I couldn't find the conflict!  Page numbers would have let me realize right away that it had been fixed already. (for the record, it was the training times for Skill Groups, which is Rating x 2 weeks, not Rating x Month, which the original printing said in one spot.)

Please try and keep your questions to relevant FAQ material, and not Errata related when possible.  We'll try and deal with that elsewhere, and is more a General Shadowrun 5 thing than it is a Missions thing, and as such it's outside of my purview.

Bull

[The Masked Ferret]

So, if an Adept power is printed in one book (say, Commanding Voice in Stolen Souls, Pg. 191) and another power that is very mechanically different and has different costs but shares the same name appears in a later book (Street Grimoire, pg 170), would the power from the first book be superceeded by the power in the second?

Thanks,

Ferret

(moved from the other thread)

[Triskavanski]

ASSASSIN’S PRIMER
The Assassin’s Creed qualities (p. 16, Assassin’s Primer ) are listed as specific examples of the Code of Honor
positive quality. Does this mean they are disallowed?
Unfortunately, yes

I'm gonna have to bring this part up in the FAQ, as a few things I noticed about it. Code of honor is a negative quality, and Code of honor is not a prerequisite for the qualities within the book.

[Bull]

But the book specifically calls them out as a form of Code of Honor.  CoH is not a  prerequisite because these have their own costs based on functionality, and they're not all Negative Qualities because they have some beneficial effects as well.

Either way, disallowed for the same reason that CoH is...  A large portion of the Quality, negative or positive, is a roleplaying focus, which is something that Missions can't really take the time to encompass.

[Kincaid]

Do Gel Packs (Run & Gun, page 86) count as armor accessories for the purposes of encumbrance (SR5, page 169), or do they "add to" (as opposed to stack with) the base armor?

On a related note, there is some confusion about how Custom Fit (Stack) rules in Run & Gun interact with the armor accessory rules.  For example, if my character is wearing a Sleeping Tiger suit with a Synergist Line Long Coat (both on page 61 of R&G), does the +3 armor provided by the Long Coat count towards my +armor accessory limit?

[SichoPhiend]

Possibly a silly little question.

Does buying karma for cash affect your total earned karma when calculating your street cred?

More serious questions pertaining to Street Grimoire.

On p.32, second paragraph of the block about background counts it says "Pre-existing active foci, sustained spells, quickened/anchored spells and rituals are reduced by the background count. If they are reduced to 0 or less, spells fizzle, wards and rituals collapse, foci deactivate. A foci cannot activate while under the influence of the background count"  Does this apply to all foci being unable to activate in a background count, or just the ones that would be reduced to 0 or less?

When Street Grimoire goes legal, can existing characters change their tradition to one of those listed in the book? (Starting on p.41)

on p. 131 in the block under tattoo magic it says "Using the Artificing skill, the magician can create qi and other foci as tattoos."   May we get other foci as tattoos, and if so, is there a limit to what kind of foci?

On p.140 there is a listing for reducing the cost of initiation, the questions are
     Are any of these legal for missions?  If so
     How should we round the final cost?  Do we round the discount up, or do we apply the discount first and round the final cost up?
     Does the 5 weeks of schooling count towards the time needed to initiate, or is it in addition to?

Are we allowed to use spirit fettering on p.192?

On p.230 there is a block about upgrading a focus you already have with the requirement that the original enchanter does the upgrade work, can we upgrade foci we purchased through appropriate magical gear contacts (such as Lothan)?

I'm sure I'll think of a few more

[Bull]

How does missions handle the transfer of gear or nuyen between player characters?

[The Masked Ferret]

Bull, you posted the below in another thread. I know you changed the repair cost, but will you apply some of the below discounts for runners that have invested in technical skills?

As it would take 34.5k to fix one box of damage on my Sony CIY-720, it would take damn near all of DragonCon to get that one box fixed, given the absurdly low payouts.

It would be great if repair stayed the same, but I have no faith that it will.

Time for a troll physad with a MetaLink and a chunk of rebar.

Sad really.

No faith here.  So sad

Anyways, starting up a new thread for some discussion here.  I'll be honest, with the Missions pay scale, those repair costs are kind of insane.  They make a certain degree of sense (As someone who drives for a living and pays his own car maintenance and repairs, they make a LOT of sense).  But...  yeah.  They would seriously hamper certain characters and would really beef up the "Magicrun" game, which I don't want to see happen (I like a solid balance between magic and tech).

So first off, chances are now that we have official repair costs, we will probably revamp the rules.  However, I'm thinking of doing a couple things, because I'd like characters to be able to use their skills and contacts here. Now this here is me spitballing, and nothing is set in stone.  I'll talk with some of the other Missions writers, SR Freelancers, Missions GMs, and most importantly Jason to make the final decisions, but I don't mind a little discussion and opinion.  Just keep it civil and sane.

So...

1)  Baseline repair costs stay as they are in R&G.  Brutal, but within reason.  This represents you taking your gear into "the shop", whether it's a n actual mechanic/repair shop or a black market/underground repair shop.  Either way, they're gouging you.

2)  If you have the proper mechanic as a contact (Mechanic for vehicles, Armorer/Gunsmith for Guns and Armor, Deckmeister for Cyberdeck/RCC/Electronics, and Cyberdoc/Street Doc for Cyberware), you can take your gear to them for repairs at a discount off the total repair cost of 10% per point of Loyalty you have with them.  THe contact is unavailable for that week to provide any other services for you.

3) If you have the skill (Armorer for Guns and Armor, Hardware for Cyebrdecks/RCCs/Electronics,  Cybertechnology for cyberware, and the appropriate Mechanic skill for the various vehicles) and the proper tools (Kit for up to 3 boxes of damage, shop for up to 6 boxes of damage, and facility for 7+ boxes of damage), you can repair it yourself, reducing the total cost of repairs by 10% per point of skill you have (To a maximum of a 90% discount).

Example:  Bull is repairing his beloved cyberdeck that he wears strapped to his arm after foolishly using it to shield himself from a rabid awakened woodchuck, and it sustained 8 boxes of damage.  He has a Hardware Facility and a Hardware skill of 7.  His Cyberdeck is worth a cool 1,000,000¥, so the base cost of repairs is 800,000¥!  His skill of 7 gives him a discount of 70%, which reduces the repair cost to a mere 240,000¥. With a sigh, he dips into his saving and cancels the family trip to Aruba, knowing his wife will chew him out when he gets home.

This helps quite a bit, in my opinion, though repairs can still be pretty rough.  It does give an incentive to buy up repair skills though, or know some really good contacts.  (And for Season 5, Goober would count as both an Armorer and a Mechanic, Quantum Princess can act as a Deckmeister, and Dr. Tate is a cyberdoc, though they cap out at Loyalty 4, so they're only good for up to 40% off).

Also, could you answer this question  from the same thread?

Bull, if a GM is willing to sign off on it can I spend lifestyle on my latest mission log to repair things for others on their latest mission log?
(And I guess it would require them to spend the same amount of lifestyle if its cyberware since surgery would be involved to access and repair implants such as wired reflexes, cybereyes, etc..)

[Bull]

Bull, you posted the below in another thread. I know you changed the repair cost, but will you apply some of the below discounts for runners that have invested in technical skills?

No, mainly because I think the change to 2% (Which is the semi-official errata for that) effectively covers this better, more cleanly, and much more simply than the rules I was proposing.  Especially since I'm keeping Matrix Damage a free repair. 

Generally speaking, I can't see too many instances where any really expensive gear besides possibly a vehicle is going to get physically damaged, shy of a runner being really stupid ("I block the sword with my deck!") or the GM being extra malicious and vindictive.  So this repair rule generally only is going to come into play with drones and vehicles most of the time.  And drones are relatively cheap to begin with.

Plus, well, having recently played a rigger...  Woooo boy.  The ability to call up a small army at a moments notice is amazingly powerful. Even with most of my drone running on pilot and gunnery programs and me jumped into one, a Steel Lynx, 2 Dobermans, and 2 Rotodrones tend to render the rest of the partly somewhat obsolete in combat, especially when your drones are rocking Ares Alphas with APDS.   So I don't feel too sorry for them if they need to occasionally shell out part of their paycheck to patch them up a bit.

[justkelly]

There are always language interpretations that fill the boards, but this most recent one I noticed seems to continue the conflict.  Can a MIssions ruling be given or is this being address in the overall game FAQ?

http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=17854.0
Suprathyroid Gland and Adept Increased Reflexes topic that spilled all over the place regarding stackable augments and magic.

Which perhaps also begs clarification - is Magic (adept power or spell) considered an "augmentation" or not to Attributes?


Also, do drug effects ignore the +4 max threshold for attributes?

[Namikaze]

There is no text that I can find limiting the number of unbound spirits a mage can have at any time.  In previous editions, the limit was always 1 unbound spirit, and a number of bound spirits equal to Charisma.  Is the omission of an unbound spirit limit intentional?

[Fedifensor]

There is no text that I can find limiting the number of unbound spirits a mage can have at any time.  In previous editions, the limit was always 1 unbound spirit, and a number of bound spirits equal to Charisma.  Is the omission of an unbound spirit limit intentional?

You're looking for page 300...

Summoning
You can summon spirits of your tradition (p. 279). Summoning a spirit is a Complex Action.  You can only summon one spirit at a time, and it only hangs around for a limited time - a summoned spirit will return to where it was when you called it when it's either through with all the services it owes you or when the sun rises or sets (whichever comes first).

[Namikaze]

You're looking for page 300...

Summoning
You can summon spirits of your tradition (p. 279). Summoning a spirit is a Complex Action.  You can only summon one spirit at a time, and it only hangs around for a limited time - a summoned spirit will return to where it was when you called it when it's either through with all the services it owes you or when the sun rises or sets (whichever comes first).

Which doesn't mention a limit to the number of unbound spirits that a summoner can have active at any given time.  Please read my post.  Also, here's the same passage from 4th edition:

A magician may only summon the chosen spirits of her tradition (see Traditions, p.180). Summoning a spirit requires a Complex Action, and only one spirit may be summoned at a time.
...
A magician may only have one unbound spirit summoned at any given time, and no more bound spirits than her Charisma attribute. Spirits on remote service and on standby count toward this total.

These two lines are almost identical to their counterparts in Fifth Edition, with the distinct absence of the line stating that a magician can only have one unbound spirit at a time.  This is what lead to the question.

[Namikaze]

In a similar vein to the topic about spirit limits, there seems to be an omission of rules regarding datajacks as well.  In previous editions, using a datajack required a fiberoptic cable.  Nothing in Fifth Edition mentions this.  Is this also an intentional omission?

[JackVII]

Bull: This is one from the core rules.

When a person uses a device to connect to the Matrix, the device’s icon is subsumed by the persona’s icon, so it’s basically gone from the Matrix until the persona jacks out.

Only devices can be slaves, masters, or part of a PAN

Due to the difficulty in determining whether "device" in the second quote refers to the game term or the real world term, the following question comes up frequently and it would be nice to have a solid answer from somewhere. If you have a PAN consisting of your commlink and a number of devices as slaves, does the PAN cease to exist once you log in via AR or VR and the device's icon is subsumed by your Persona icon? Personas icons are not listed as being viable constituents of a PAN. If this is not intended, I would suggest replacing the wording quoted on p. 233 above with text similar to what is listed for WANs. For example: "In a PAN, the slaves must be devices, and the master
must be a device or persona."

Thanks for your consideration.