Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: mcv on <05-11-19/0818:13>
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I'm running the final fight for SRM 04-00: Back in Business tomorrow, and I'm wondering if it isn't a bit excessive that some smuggler trying to get an artefact that's apparently worth a couple of thousand nuyen, has hired magical defenses with a special ward and a bunch of spirits.
According to the adventure, if they deliver the artefact to a buyer, they get 2000 (up to 4000) nuyen each for the artefact. That makes it a total of 20,000 with optimal negotiation and a team of 5. From someone who has no claim of ownership, hasn't invested anything yet, but is very interested in acquiring it, so you'd expect this to be close to market value. It might be worth a bit more than that, but it's not going to be worth 100,000, especially considering it doesn't actually do anything.
The artefact is in the hands of a smuggler who has a ship and a warehouse, and abducted his client, the owner of the stone. His usual defenses consist of a couple of automated drones, which is fine. To protect this artefact, he apparently hired a quality mage who put up a ward and left a couple of spirits to defend the place. On top of a bunch of armed goons.
How much would such services normally cost? It feels to me like this should be a fairly small-time operation hoping to hit it big this way, but if he spends everything up-front on expensive defenses, he may end up risking more than he's likely to make on this.
I'm not an experienced GM, but I really feel like there should be some more loot to justify these kind of defenses. There's only a crate of very traceable pistols, but it'd be easy to at least give the smuggler an anonymous credstick or something.
I mean, the players are probably going to do their job no matter what, because they want to play Shadowrun. I suppose the mission has been designed to be balanced an interesting, and the total reward for the mission is more than just the value of the rock, but if the market value of the rock itself is only about 20,000 nuyen, and they ask why this guy put up so many defenses for it, I'd like to have an explanation for them. Is this reasonable? Does everybody who has something of that value to protect, hire a mage to summon a bunch of spirits and a ward for them? How much does it cost to hire a mage? Plenty of businesses seem to have far less defenses than that. Or am I wrong about that?
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I'm not familiar with that SRM, but I feel like I can make a couple observations based on what you've said.
1) I think your assumption about how the money paid to the runners relates to the value of the artifact relate. That is, if the runners are paid 20,000 then the artifact is worth much more than that, not roughly that. The reason I say this is because if the artifact were worth something close to 20,000 nuyen, then Mr Johnson probably would have just bought it rather than go to the bother of hiring thieves for 20,000 to get it.
2) Prices for security are not given because they're not germane to regular play. That is, shadowrunners are expected to deal with security measures in an adversarial manner rather than employing them. Ergo, there's no price given for what it costs to install a Mana Barrier, for example. They cost as little as you want them to cost when an NPC employs them, and as much as you want them to cost when a PC goes to hire a mage to set one up.
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1) I think your assumption about how the money paid to the runners relates to the value of the artifact relate. That is, if the runners are paid 20,000 then the artifact is worth much more than that, not roughly that. The reason I say this is because if the artifact were worth something close to 20,000 nuyen, then Mr Johnson probably would have just bought it rather than go to the bother of hiring thieves for 20,000 to get it.
True, but in this particular case, the person offering the 10k-20k is not actually the Mr Johnson hiring them. He was already about to buy the item from the owner when the owner was abducted. Then the runners are hired to free the owner, and the buyer offers them this money if they bring the stone to him. The runners can get paid twice: for freeing the owner and for bringing the stone to the buyer. If they don't sell to the buyer, he can still try to buy it directly from the owner again, but then he'll be in competition with other potential buyers, so his motivation is to cut off other potential buyers. And the PCs are not required to sell to him; he just made them an offer, but they've been hired by someone else. And if they ask, their original employer is also willing to buy the stone from them (for slightly less than the other offer). So there is even the opportunity for a bidding war.
In other words, there's no good reason for him to offer significantly below market value. I mean, everything he pays below value is profit for him of course, and the PCs will have to succeed spectacularly (10 net successes) to get his maximum offer, but that he has such an enormous leeway for his maximum offer when the PCs turn out to be spectacular negotiators, suggests to me that value isn't too far below what the item is worth to him. Or to look at it from another direction: there's no good reason why the smuggler would get a significantly higher sum for the stone than the runners would. So whatever the maximum is the runners would conceivably be able to get, is probably close to the maximum the smuggler would be able to get. Though I suppose it's possible the smuggler overestimates the value or sellability of the stone.
This is somewhat related to an issue I have with a later mission, where a fool hires the runners to extract him from a powerful company and help him sell an extremely valuable document for about a million nuyen, so he can actually pay them for the extraction. Some of the potential buyers will kill the fool and take the document if they get the chance. That leaves me wondering: what if the PCs kill the fool and take his document and try to sell it. Shouldn't they be able to get that million? If ever there was an adventure that looks like it can be easily short-circuited, it's that one. (Also because the fool lied to the PCs in order to get extracted: they might kill him simply because that's the most likely way for them to get paid the money they were promised.)
2) Prices for security are not given because they're not germane to regular play. That is, shadowrunners are expected to deal with security measures in an adversarial manner rather than employing them. Ergo, there's no price given for what it costs to install a Mana Barrier, for example. They cost as little as you want them to cost when an NPC employs them, and as much as you want them to cost when a PC goes to hire a mage to set one up.
Defense costs being irrelevant makes sense when they're up against a large organisation, but this guy is just some smuggler who broke a contract in order to make some extra money. Whatever he can afford to spend to ensure he gets the profit of the stone, can't be that far out of the runners' league if they get to sell the stone.
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As far as the defenses go, who said that those defenses were for the stone alone? If I recall, you are raiding a smuggler's warehouse in that instance. All those defenses could easily be just what he's built up to defend himself regardless of what he is holding.
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As far as the defenses go, who said that those defenses were for the stone alone? If I recall, you are raiding a smuggler's warehouse in that instance. All those defenses could easily be just what he's built up to defend himself regardless of what he is holding.
Some of them are, like the drones protecting the place. But the magical defenses have been explicitly added for this, according to the mission.
In the end, I completely forgot to have the fire spirit materialize, though the ward did stop the mage from lobbing spells in from the outside. Wards force mages to enter the building before they can do anything.
One question that came up was what happens when you cast a spell on someone outside, and that person then passes through the ward. It feels like the spell might be dispelled, but the book provides no rules for that as far as I can tell, so I allowed it.
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My understanding is it’s a spell vs ward test. The spell could get dispelled but the ward could crash. I’m not at my books so I’m not sure about that.
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Yeah, crossing a ward with an active magical effect would fall under the "Astral Intersection" part of the rules.
And right about now I'm realizing that I'm not sure if I should be citing 4e or 5e rules. You mentioned running a 4th edition mission, but you could also easily be converting that to 5th...
Either way, the rules are basically the same. The ward and magical effect each roll a test (usually double Force vs. double Force) and the winner gets to stay put.
If I'm remembering the adventure, the ward is like Force 8, so it probably wins unless that mage went super serious about something...
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Yeah, crossing a ward with an active magical effect would fall under the "Astral Intersection" part of the rules.
And right about now I'm realizing that I'm not sure if I should be citing 4e or 5e rules. You mentioned running a 4th edition mission, but you could also easily be converting that to 5th...
Yeah, I'm using 5e. Using 4e missions is not that hard most of the time, except that Matrix stuff is really different. Armor is a bit different. I'm mostly using the same stats and replacing the armor and weapons with their 5e equivalent.
Either way, the rules are basically the same. The ward and magical effect each roll a test (usually double Force vs. double Force) and the winner gets to stay put.
And the other is dispelled? That seems like a really easy way to get rid of a ward.
If I'm remembering the adventure, the ward is like Force 8, so it probably wins unless that mage went super serious about something...
The ward is Force 6, so powerful, but not out of range for a decent mage.
Can the mage use Edge on this? Because that could make it really easy to dispel a ward.
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Wards tend to restore after 1 turn right?_?
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Wards tend to restore after 1 turn right?_?
I don't have the rules with me, but that would certainly help. But then why not simply have the spell pass through the barrier if it wins the roll, but keep the ward in place? If the ward is down for one turn, you could use a cheap high-Force spell to make way for a couple of people with expensive low-Force spells, which I guess is tactically interesting.
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If the spell wins the roll on a clash, nothing else risks disruption during the turn that it's down. So yeah, letting a high-Force take the lead is best.
Looked it up: When you cast Ward, you can expend karma to make it 'permanent'. In Astral intersections, it notes that a permanent mana barrier that is disrupted, regains all its Structure at the end of the Combat Turn.
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I've read the CRB on this, and it's not remotely clear. The part about intersecting barriers seems to be when one barrier or other thing is forced by outside forces (a van or elevator, are the examples) into another one. Weirdly, the elevator example mentions an astrally perceiving mage, despite the part on mana barriers not saying that dual natured creatures are blocked by a mana barrier.
It is possible for awakened creatures to push through a barrier with a Magic+Charisma roll, but it's not clear to me which awakened creatures would have to do that.
Basically, this rule seems woefully incomplete, and never even mentions active spells anywhere.
Does this get explained better in Street Grimoire?
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The spell itself would be subject, but people being under influence from it is not really touched on afaik. I guess you could argue it clears the spell, unless it was cast on them specifically rather than an area-impact, assuming a barrier won't let you cast through it normally?_?
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mcv, reread the section on Astral Intersections (p. 316) again. A spell, would qualify as an astral form which is bound to a physical object (the spell is tied to the person it is cast upon). When the person passes through a barrier it causes an astral intersection and the two would make an opposed test.
If the spell fails the test, then it is disrupted and ends. That's why spells are listed in the list of things that can be disrupted.
Dual-natured creatures have an astral form, so they are subject to the same limitations as other astral forms, so they can't walk through a ward without being subject to an astral intersection.
Pushing through a barrier is available to any awakened creature, but it takes an action, so they wouldn't be able to do it without warning. If you are trying to move any active magical effect through a ward, you would need to push through.
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It all depends on if the spell is on a person or an area, but yeah, if it's cast on a specific person it accompanies them.
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Well, if a spell is on an area, then it wouldn't be moving, so it wouldn't end up intersecting with a ward...
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mcv, reread the section on Astral Intersections (p. 316) again. A spell, would qualify as an astral form which is bound to a physical object (the spell is tied to the person it is cast upon). When the person passes through a barrier it causes an astral intersection and the two would make an opposed test.
I f this is the case, I'm surprised that the rules don't state this explicitly. A person with a spell cast on them walking through a mana barrier seems like the most obvious case. The fact that the rules resort to elevators and vans to explain this, suggests strongly that this rule is not meant for the simple case of a person walking through. If it was, why not simply say so? The section sounds like it's dealing with exceptions and edge cases, rather than the simple most common case.
If the spell fails the test, then it is disrupted and ends. That's why spells are listed in the list of things that can be disrupted.
Dual-natured creatures have an astral form, so they are subject to the same limitations as other astral forms, so they can't walk through a ward without being subject to an astral intersection.
So what happens when a dual natured creature is disrupted? Do they stop being dual natured? The rules also say that if the ability is inherent, like with Adept powers, the mana barrier doesn't stop you.
Maybe if it's just astral perception that makes you dual natured, the astral perception stops working but can be reactivated once you're through? That makes astral perception a cheap way to try to destroy a mana barrier. Unless your astral perception is inherent, in which case it doesn't disrupt the barrier.
Pushing through a barrier is available to any awakened creature, but it takes an action, so they wouldn't be able to do it without warning. If you are trying to move any active magical effect through a ward, you would need to push through.
So basically the options are: you push through carefully, or you take a 50/50 chance of destroying the barrier, or you can cast a spell from outside to inside with a chance it gets resisted.
In our case, the spell was Invisibility. The street sam got Invisibility cast on her and went inside. The mage was already bummed by the barrier, but if the spell had destroyed the barrier for him, I bet he'd have been pretty happy. He could also have cast a spell through the barrier on the street sam once he was inside, and as long as it's not a normally resisted spell (which most buffs are not), then there's a pretty good chance the spell will be successful.
All in all, using the intersection rules for a spell passing through the barrier seems rather dramatic and makes the barrier very vulnerable.
In any case, this seems like a very badly written rule. It would have been very simple to treat spells more explicitly than letting us deduce it from astral patterns and examples with vans.
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Badly explained, yes. But the rule itself is a good counter-measure. Don't forget wards are small and expensive.
Note that one example is 2 spells clashing though, and one involves a dual-natured person. It also explicitly notes that disrupted spirits poof while disrupted living creatures go k.o., so dual-natureds are clearly identified there.
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I've always felt the missions format (and most published adventures) tend to really lowball rewards. And then things like, "And we want to prevent looting." reminders.
Then usually combined with the "must use negotiation to increase rewards" combined with notes of, "Contact/Mr J gets really annoyed when money grubbing runners ask for more money." And even when you max rewards, its still pretty lowball...and you've annoyed your Mr J. I've never understood the milkrun offerings for things that rarely stay milk-runs. I noted it in another thread but, unless you get expenses covered, it can be easy to barely break even after a mission run.
Doing a quick looksee on the missions I have, I'd easily make base pay something like 3x the maximum normal offering. Generally it just feels like the 'negotiate for more pay' is there to give the face something to do, shoehorned in by mechanically lowballing the players.
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Most Missions pay a rather normal amount in SR5 if you compare them to the reward advice from Core, even if some examples may not (though those often tend to go 'okay there's rewards possible afterwards due to the extra circumstances'). As for 'prevent looting' reminders: Dragon Song paid quite well, but if all the enemy gear was stolen and fenced at 30%, each CMP there would grant 3x the money to insane amounts. For a level playing field for different tables, preventing looting is 100% a must.
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Badly explained, yes. But the rule itself is a good counter-measure. Don't forget wards are small and expensive.
If they're expensive, should they be so easily destroyed? As for small, I consider the size of a small building not that small.
Note that one example is 2 spells clashing though,
Two mana barriers.
and one involves a dual-natured person. It also explicitly notes that disrupted spirits poof while disrupted living creatures go k.o., so dual-natureds are clearly identified there.
Good point. I missed that. So crashing through with astral perception on is very dangerous, but pushing through is very safe.
I must say, the more I understand them, the less sense mana barriers make to me. They are expensive but easy to disrupt. They are either dangerous or harmless if you take a moment to push through them. They're an obstacle, sure, but not a very hard one if you have some time. In combat, they can be nasty because you don't have that time.
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Weaker stuff fails, unprepared fail, quickening faces problems, it recovers in 1 turn and the caster knows when it's attacked or breaks. It's a good security mechanism.
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Weaker stuff fails, unprepared fail, quickening faces problems, it recovers in 1 turn and the caster knows when it's attacked or breaks. It's a good security mechanism.
Yeah. It’s more an alarm than a barrier.
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Weaker stuff fails, unprepared fail, quickening faces problems, it recovers in 1 turn
Only when it's a permanent ward. A temporary ward from a ritual is still easily disrupted by a spell, from what I understand.
the caster knows when it's attacked or breaks. It's a good security mechanism.
That's certainly true. An alarm that can't be hacked is worth quite a bit too in Shadowrun.
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Weaker stuff fails, unprepared fail, quickening faces problems, it recovers in 1 turn
Only when it's a permanent ward. A temporary ward from a ritual is still easily disrupted by a spell, from what I understand.
the caster knows when it's attacked or breaks. It's a good security mechanism.
That's certainly true. An alarm that can't be hacked is worth quite a bit too in Shadowrun.
It can be hacked. It just takes a bit of effort and traditionally the masking meta magic. Though that might not be necessary in certain editions I’m not sure.
Usually you assence the ward. Astral search the mage. Get their signature. Mimic it and go through the ward.
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Get their signature. Mimic it
Is that possible?
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Get their signature. Mimic it
Is that possible?
It was in every edition so far. Has not come up yet in 5e at my table but I presume it’s still possible. The needed metamagic might vary by edition.
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Get their signature. Mimic it
Is that possible?
Assense their signature to identify it, Memorise it so you can recall it, Flexible Signature to change yours and add Initiation to the threshold, so they need to hit threshold 1 to identify the signature and threshold 2 to realise it's a fake.
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Get their signature. Mimic it
Is that possible?
It was in every edition so far. Has not come up yet in 5e at my table but I presume it’s still possible. The needed metamagic might vary by edition.
It is called "Fooling Wards" which is written up in Street Grimoire, pg 135. To do so, you either need Flexible Signature and use the Astral Doppelganger ritual, or learn an additional metamagic, Flux, to be able to put your aura in a state of flux to trick the ward. Just using Flexible Signature (without the ritual) to make your aura appear the same isn't quite enough to trick a ward into letting you pass undetected.
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Get their signature. Mimic it
Is that possible?
It was in every edition so far. Has not come up yet in 5e at my table but I presume it’s still possible. The needed metamagic might vary by edition.
It is called "Fooling Wards" which is written up in Street Grimoire, pg 135. To do so, you either need Flexible Signature and use the Astral Doppelganger ritual, or learn an additional metamagic, Flux, to be able to put your aura in a state of flux to trick the ward. Just using Flexible Signature (without the ritual) to make your aura appear the same isn't quite enough to trick a ward into letting you pass undetected.
Yeesh. Every edition they make it worse. Sneaking past a ward should be possible without any initiations. It’s a pretty core thing it would be like making a decker by an availability 16 deck so he can hack security cameras. You should be able to astrally scout and get more than a, um it’s warded. It’s one of the reasons the mistake adept was so bad. It gave up nothing because astrally scouting was so easily thwarted if you didn’t have multiple ducking initiations geared to just fool wards and assensing. Initiations should be there to make you better at it or to make your ward harder to sneak past. Not to gain access to a core function.
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*Sneaks past Ward without problem with a normal uninitiated mage*
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Okay now that I’m reading the section again it seems the an-either or not a and. Like you can sneak past just with the astral doppelgänger ritual or flexible signature. That seems reasonable to me. The ritual can be picked up at char gen and it requires effort to hack the system so to speak. And could be impossible if the ward creator can’t be found. Not sure I’m reading it right though as that book is confusing. Does astral doppelgänger have flexible signature as a pre req?
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Nothing stops you from performing the usual pressing through test at M+C[Astral] vs F*2, except maybe too many quickened spells. Failure won't cause a clash.
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Well, the Astral Doppelganger ritual requires you to have Flexible Signature. The Flux metamagic would let you sneak through without needing a ritual.
I've always hated the way they worded the "press through" wards action. It implies that doings so means that you move through undetected. But the first sentence of Fooling Wards, explicitly says otherwise. And if anyone could press through a ward and be undetected, why are there initiated skills for doing it?
I think it is perfectly reasonable for getting through a ward completely undetected to require specialized training. We're talking about a magical defense that is literally designed to keep magic out. If any untrained schmo can get through it, what's the point?
One thing that a lot of people overlook for the uninitiated is that wards only stop magic. If you turn everything off: deactivate foci, stop sustaining spells, etc. it doesn't do anything to you. An uninitiated mage just needs to step through and recast his stuff...
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Huh. You're right that Fooling Wards mentions setting off an alarm, whereas Core doesn't. Weird.
Incidentally, I've had times where my experienced players had to roll like 4x and nearby cops started to get suspicious, due to the amount of Quickened Spells they had on them.