Shadowrun
Shadowrun Missions Living Campaign => Living Campaign Discussion => Topic started by: Bull on <07-31-13/1428:49>
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A full listing the Shadowrun Season 5 Mission contacts! Background, stats, starting connection and maximum starting loyalty listings if you want to start your characters with these contacts! pictures! Enjoy!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12034805/Season%205%20Contacts.pdf
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Chargen rules state you're not allowed to spend more than 7 Karma on a single contact at chargen - however, some of the Season 5 contacts have a max Starting Loyalty that would break this limit (Goober, Maggie, Martin Tate, Nick Ryder, Quantum Princess, Simon Andrews). Does the normal 7-Karma chargen limit not apply to these contacts?
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I actually missed that rule, so... Umm... Lemmee get back to you. :)
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"Simon is an odd individual. A full body changeling, he appears to be a bipedal lizard-man with thick scaly."
I am no natural speaker, but somehow this just sounds as if there is something missing...
btw: Is there an option to marry Sarah? *drools* ;)
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Chargen rules state you're not allowed to spend more than 7 Karma on a single contact at chargen - however, some of the Season 5 contacts have a max Starting Loyalty that would break this limit (Goober, Maggie, Martin Tate, Nick Ryder, Quantum Princess, Simon Andrews). Does the normal 7-Karma chargen limit not apply to these contacts?
But doesn't that only apply to Contacts purchased with Karma? It's specifically referenced in that table. Which makes sense since you're buying up past the point your abilities support in social situations.
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"Simon is an odd individual. A full body changeling, he appears to be a bipedal lizard-man with thick scaly."
I am no natural speaker, but somehow this just sounds as if there is something missing...
btw: Is there an option to marry Sarah? *drools* ;)
"thick scaly skin", I think. So yeah, looks like a word got lopped off.
And really... you don't want to marry Sarah. She's BAD news. And very high maintenance. but that *is* the proper reaction to her :)
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But doesn't that only apply to Contacts purchased with Karma? It's specifically referenced in that table. Which makes sense since you're buying up past the point your abilities support in social situations.
Right, but some players like to start off knowing a couple of the Seasonal contacts, so they buy them at Chargen, so this limits some of the contacts I wrote up.
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Anyone with Charisma 5 will want to be able to spend 8 karma on a Contact for Missions. I mean, normally a Fixer at 2/1 ain't that bad since he still rolls 14 dice, but in Missions he can't get you squat. So it might not be that bad if these let you go past it, give people more contact spending space.
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The 2013 CMPs have additional contacts, so of which are old friends to Missions, some new, and at least one of a type I'm not sure has ever appeared in SRM before.
-k
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Errrrr question, isn't it pretty much a known fact in shadow circles that the desolation angels are a mantis spirit gang?
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Well, insofar that they're a apparently a gang of women who allow mantis spirits to possess them in order to hunt other insects, yes.
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Errrrr question, isn't it pretty much a known fact in shadow circles that the desolation angels are a mantis spirit gang?
Well, insofar that they're a apparently a gang of women who allow mantis spirits to possess them in order to hunt other insects, yes.
It's a rumor, not a fact, and it's something only rumored in the shadows.
And hey, have you seen any Mantis spirits yet? Becky is a Rat Shaman after all :)
(God I love paranoid runners)
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Hey, I don't give a rat's ass as to whether she's a Mantis or not, given how the Mantis like killing the other Bugs instead. Enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy, nothing more, nothing less*, but I'm perfectly fine with live and let live when it comes to those.
* Bonus points to who catches the reference.
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Hey, I don't give a rat's ass as to whether she's a Mantis or not, given how the Mantis like killing the other Bugs instead. Enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy, nothing more, nothing less*, but I'm perfectly fine with live and let live when it comes to those.
* Bonus points to who catches the reference.
The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
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bows
They make a rather decent Runner guideline list :)
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Maxim One: Pillage first, then burn.
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I hate forgetting that one.
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pillaging is indeed much harder when the goodies are all burning.
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Maxim Two: Get paid. This requires you to be living at the end of the job.
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Matt Wrath seems like he would be a fun guy to hang around with. I don't get the whole 99 bit, there's Becky 99 and Johnny 99 any meaning to it? Sarah would make one hell of a face.
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Soooo, what with using Loyalty instead of Charisma, and Connection instead of Negotiation, why wouldn't everyone just get Connection 6 contacts? As far as I can tell, you can improve Loyalty, but not Connection, right? Presuming the formula for the various legwork activities remains unmodified except for skill and attribute substitutions, you'd use the following:
Legwork extended test (required if we don't know what knowledge skill ratings the contacts have): Connection (Negotiation) + Loyalty (Charisma)
Networking: Etiquette (what do we use for Etiquette, by the way?) + Loyalty (Charisma) + Connection
Swag: Connection (Negotiation) + Loyalty (Charisma) + Connection
With a C6 contact, getting gear becomes a 6+1+6 test, and as I understand it you HAVE to buy hits. Since you round down, that puts the maximum avail you can get at 12 until you get a C7/L2 (easiest approach, alternatively C6/L4, or C5/L6) contact, at which point you can get avail 14 items. Is this really as intended? This does throw a bit of a spanner in the wrench for cybered street sams, as a lot of the implant weapons start at avail 12 and become avail 14 if you use alpha grade limbs, which seems like an unfair disadvantage to me.
And finally, if we don't know the values of their active skills (negotiation and etiquette specifically), do we know their values for knowledge skills? If not, that makes them all pretty useless for legwork...
The way I see it, you've got to be able to use the sample contacts from the Core SR5 rulebook with skill values as-is, with the possible exception of using Connection and Loyalty instead of Negotiation and Charisma.
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Soooo, what with using Loyalty instead of Charisma, and Connection instead of Negotiation, why wouldn't everyone just get Connection 6 contacts? As far as I can tell, you can improve Loyalty, but not Connection, right? Presuming the formula for the various legwork activities remains unmodified except for skill and attribute substitutions, you'd use the following:
Legwork extended test (required if we don't know what knowledge skill ratings the contacts have): Connection (Negotiation) + Loyalty (Charisma)
Networking: Etiquette (what do we use for Etiquette, by the way?) + Loyalty (Charisma) + Connection
Swag: Connection (Negotiation) + Loyalty (Charisma) + Connection
With a C6 contact, getting gear becomes a 6+1+6 test, and as I understand it you HAVE to buy hits. Since you round down, that puts the maximum avail you can get at 12 until you get a C7/L2 (easiest approach, alternatively C6/L4, or C5/L6) contact, at which point you can get avail 14 items. Is this really as intended? This does throw a bit of a spanner in the wrench for cybered street sams, as a lot of the implant weapons start at avail 12 and become avail 14 if you use alpha grade limbs, which seems like an unfair disadvantage to me.
And finally, if we don't know the values of their active skills (negotiation and etiquette specifically), do we know their values for knowledge skills? If not, that makes them all pretty useless for legwork...
The way I see it, you've got to be able to use the sample contacts from the Core SR5 rulebook with skill values as-is, with the possible exception of using Connection and Loyalty instead of Negotiation and Charisma.
WIthout any sort of rules for advancing the Loyalty rating of contacts that aren't Season 5 specific, the odds that the L1/C6 contact you took at creation will get any better are fairly slim. Your better bet is to take one of the S5 contacts with a Connection of 5 at Loyalty 2 and hope you get enough to bring him or her up to L6, so you top out at Availability 16.
Your other option is to pay a PC a percentage to buy things for you.
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Keep in mind that since the item itself also buys hits, as long as your contact has 12 dice (3 hits), you can get anything up to Availability 15 (also 3 hits). I decided to go with some L2/C5 non-S5 contacts, myself (I prefer L2 over L1, and both allow me to get Availability 12-15 items without added price). As for the S5 contacts with Connection 5, they all work for corps, so reaching 6 Loyalty with them seems highly unlikely (well, unless it's Simon Andrews and you're Lofwyr, I guess): this means that if you're getting Availability 16-19 items through contacts, you'll always have to pay extra.
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DWC; Good advice, thanks! And yeah, I forgot about buying hits :)
ZeConster; that's interesting, I didn't consider the 12-15 range, for some reason I was stuck on thinking 12 was max. That solves my problem for now :)
I guss that means delta grade Wired Reflexes R3 is out, along with a suprathyroid gland (avail 20, really!?) and maybe even pain editor (18F) or any of the 18 avail items for that matter. Shame, cause pain editor is almost a necessity for high armor street sams, in order to not just succumb to stun damage... I guess you "just" need a C5/L6 contact to get those things, though, or pay some extra nuyen, which again is a shame because you likely won't make enough money in one season to even afford some of the higher end items.
CGL; you're such teases, showing us all this neat gear that our characters can never afford! Assuming the guidelines for Missions are followed, you can expect to earn between 5k and 20k per mission; if you average that at 10k per mission, that's 120k per season. Add in another 10k if you convert 5 karma to cash every mission (assuming you earn that much karma), and you're looking at 240 per season, not even close to getting you some R3 implants...
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I would bet the answer is something along the lines of keeping things at a consistent level throughout the season in a way that a new character that joins a late-season mission can still be useful. Just a guess, though.
Also, per the Season 5 FAQ, deltaware will only become available if you get access to a deltaware clinic. (Which might happen, I've only read through the first mission so far).
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If you take a 5/2 contact, boost them to 5/4 by selling out to them a few times, and pay 50% extra you can get anything below availability 20. And we don't know what the Faction Favors can do, maybe those will include an Availability discount.
A 5/6 contact sounds cute but will be impossible to get. In Season 4, contacts never went past 4 Loyalty.
Keep in mind Missions is semi-low-level, you can expect 6~8 karma and 10k~12 nuyen per Mission. And the retiring limit was 150 karma at season start in the past, even if you do 2 seasons + filler missions you'll be at most at 800k if you convert karma to nuyen every time, and that point you're retiring at a pretty high level way-past-150 character. If you want the expensive toys, then you really want to play a home game. ^_^
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Some interesting ideas in these contacts, but it bugs me when I see typos or little technical mistakes popping up in every profile that I stop to read slowly.
Je stayed there for nearly two decade.
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Michael; thanks, very good advice indeed.
I've reviewed the contacts again, and I'm curious about one mechanism; I presume you have to "buy" them using Karma, but with the max 7 karma per contact spend limitation in effect, how are so many contacts exceeding this limit in the document?
Do I have an outdated one, or are you supposed to be able to spend 8 karma on Doober, or Martin Tate (C5, Loyalty "max starting 3")?
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Bull slipped up and missed the 7-max rule. :P
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Chargen rules state you're not allowed to spend more than 7 Karma on a single contact at chargen - however, some of the Season 5 contacts have a max Starting Loyalty that would break this limit (Goober, Maggie, Martin Tate, Nick Ryder, Quantum Princess, Simon Andrews). Does the normal 7-Karma chargen limit not apply to these contacts?
Unless Bull lowered the Connection Ratings, they are all good. Those are the MAXIMUM starting Loyalty, not the Minimum Starting Loyalty,
and I did not see any Connection 6 people in there. (Interesting, though, considering Connection 6 is now like Connection 3 in SR4...)
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Bull slipped up and missed the 7-max rule. :P
Yeah, I kinda goofed on that one. The downside to having about 42 different versions of Shadowrun rattling around in my head. I sometimes lose track of little rules and use an older version. :)
Unless Bull lowered the Connection Ratings, they are all good. Those are the MAXIMUM starting Loyalty, not the Minimum Starting Loyalty,
and I did not see any Connection 6 people in there. (Interesting, though, considering Connection 6 is now like Connection 3 in SR4...)
Well, yes and no. The curve is just different. And it's not something that's really been explored much yet.
In my opinion, 1-4 is about the same as it was in SR4. 5-7 is equal to about 5 in SR4. 8-10 or so represent a 6 in SR4. Now the big difference, to my mind, is that we have 11 and 12. You couldn't accurately represent Lofwyr, or Damien Knight, or another major mover and shaker in SR4, IMO, because the curve was so narrow.
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Hehe, ok, I was just curious since "maximum" implied that you COULD buy them up to 4/4, for instance, since Connection was not variable.
Thanks for the clarification, Michael and Bull; wanted to make sure my SRM character was rules legal.
And Bull, I can't even begin to imagine; I'm struggling just between SR4 and SR5 :)
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Yeah. I've been playing since 1st edition. I've played with 4 regular GMs over the years, plus run a few of my own campaigns, so I have the various house rules and GM quirks that go along with all of those. Plus I have now playtested 3 editions (3rd, 4th, and 5th), and every playtest has dozens of variant rules that get tested and ultimately discarded.
And hell... I can;t even remember where I put my van keys some days, let alone the bazillionteen rules for whatever edition I'm playing. I think you're all lucky I remember that there are even dice involved ;)
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Dice? My group has just been buying hits for everything; makes everything much more streamlined... /Sarcasm :D
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I've reviewed the contacts again, and I'm curious about one mechanism; I presume you have to "buy" them using Karma, but with the max 7 karma per contact spend limitation in effect, how are so many contacts exceeding this limit in the document?
Honestly, where people are putting forth nitpick things in the errata thread like typos, this really should be changed. If someone wants to buy a Loyalty 6, Connection 10 contact in creation they should be able to using the rules as printed without alteration. Sure, that's a powerful contact, but someone getting that is paying out the butt for it (over 20% of the discretionary karma including Negative Qualities).
Even including the free karma for contacts, that's more than a Charisma 5 character gets.
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Isn't that something you think should be changed in general, not just in Missions, since it's the general rules that forbid this?
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BTW....I know they have to have ways worked in for getting more stuff for your character by exceeding the "limit". Those of us who player the LARP at GenCon get +3 to our characters next availability checks. Although to do so, my character had to hold a barrier spell against a few very, very determined shadow running teams.(and yes, they were PCs)
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Isn't that something you think should be changed in general, not just in Missions, since it's the general rules that forbid this?
The limit entered discussion, so the timing and place were convenient to bring it up.
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Questions about availability and using contacts;
One of the first things I'd be looking to buy for my character is the Pain Editor bioware implant, which has an availability of 18. The highest rated contact you can get is someone like Dr. Martin Tate, and he would presumably be able to get this piece of gear but at extra cost. The first question is:
1. How much extra do you have to pay per extra dice?
Page 418 describes how you would do it as a player, so I presume this is a similar situation:
"For every additional twenty-five percent of the item’s value you are willing to pay, you get an additional die on the Negotiation Test. Once you get up to 400 percent of the item’s value (12 extra dice), throwing money at the problem doesn’t get you any more dice."
A contact like Dr. Martin Tate (C5/L2 at game start) would get Connection 5 (replacing Negotiation 7), plus Loyalty 2 (replacing Charisma 5), plus Connection 5, for a total of 12 dice, or 3 automatic hits. And this is where things start to get really confusing.
2. How do you round dice rolls when buying hits? As per page 45:
"To buy hits, simply count one hit for every four dice in your pool, rounded down."
In other words, how many automatic hits does an item with Availability 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20 get? 3, 3, 4, 4, and 5, respectively?
3. As a follow-up to the above, what effect (if any) does tieing the availability vs Swag test (page 388) have?
For example, would a contact with 12 dice count as winning against all items with availability 1 through 11, but as tieing with all items with availability between 12 to 15?[/u]
4. If yes to 3, how does delivery times work in SRM; as per usual according to page 418?
If yes to 4, some of the "relatively" low-cost 'ware items just became very, very hard to get. Let me illustrate with the example I'm specifically curious about;
12 dice vs Avail 18 for Pain Editor, standard grade. Base cost is 48k.
To reach 4 automatic hits (18/4 =4.5, rounded down to 4), a character would have to pay and additional 48k (100% extra, as 16-12=4 * 25% per extra dice), with a delivery time of 2 weeks.
If buying alpha grade, an additional 8 dice is required, for a total of 200% increase and a delivery time of 2 months. This would (hopefully) include the 1 week recovery time from 'ware installation, unless those costs are hidden somewhere I can't find.
Last question;
5. Can you initiate a Swag test with a contact before you have the cash (i.e. Payable on Delivery), or do you have to wait until you have the funds available to do so (i.e. Payable on Order)? The latter could potentially increase the delivery time by 2 months.
I'm also surprised that the change to using a contacts Connection and Loyalty in place of Negotiation and Charisma was made, particularly when all the contacts we have at our disposal at character generation are fully statted.
In comparison, if using Martin Tate's statline (N7+L2+C5), the availability out of chargen would still be >=15, but it would only take 50% more (2 dice) to tie the availability roll of Avail 16-19 items, or 150% more for Avail 20-23.
While I understand that SRM is designed to be a somewhat low-level campaign, there are far more unbalanced items out there than some of the high-availability items. For a "mere" 90-100k at chargen, I could drop the two cyberlegs on my street sam and buy a single-person helicopter outfitted with a medium machinegun and 10.000 rounds of APDS ammo. Not very subtle, but it would be a great one-trick pony! I guess the reason I'm a little miffed at this choice is that this choice only seriously affects cyber-heavy characters; while it will prohibit F6 power foci and extremely advanced cyberdecks, the price of these items alone puts them out of reach for most campaign characters. In terms of 'ware, however, this mechanism puts a LOT of things out of reach that normally would just have required a little saving and planning.
Why even bother including the paragraph about betaware being available, when it adds 4 to the availability and thus excludes nearly every R2 item in the book because of price? Even something as reasonable as an olfactory booster would be very impractical to get at Rating 6 betaware grade, as it would be priced at 24k * 1.5 = 36k, with a modified Availability of ((3*6)+4=22), meaning a character would have to add 8 dice (or 200%) for a total cost of 72k. As the average runner can expect to earn between 5-20k per SRM adventure, that means a full 12 mission season earn the character 120k or so on average, presuming they do well.
The price hike 'ware took in SR5 was expected, but the way contacts are handled certainly makes me question some of the decisions made for SRM. I apologize in advance if this comes across as a rant, as I am just a little frustrated with the way I perceive this particular part of SRM having been handled.
That being said, I still look forward to playing, but I will be cursing every time my high-armor character gets knocked unconcious due to stun damage; in fact, I would like to make a request for characters to be able to invest in stock, because my character will need a lot of stim patches! :D
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1. How much extra do you have to pay per extra dice?
What's on page 418 also applies to contacts. See page 388, "If you’re willing to sweeten the deal for the potential trading partner, let your contact know in advance".
2. How do you round dice rolls when buying hits?
Exactly as it says, you divide by four and round down. So every 4 whole dice becomes 1 hit, meaning 16 to 19 dice all buy 4 hits.
3. As a follow-up to the above, what effect (if any) does tieing the availability vs Swag test (page 388) have?
Tying doubles the delivery time involved. For a PC that means they have to mark off twice as much time on their Calendar, for a Contact it simply means it takes that much time before the PC gets it. See page 418, "If you tie in the test, you find the gear, but the delivery time is twice that listed on the table." This is of course the time required to obtain the item, you then have to recover a week after the surgery in Missions.
4. If yes to 3, how does delivery times work in SRM; as per usual according to page 418?
Correct. See here (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=11944.msg220276#msg220276) for confirmation.
5. Can you initiate a Swag test with a contact before you have the cash (i.e. Payable on Delivery), or do you have to wait until you have the funds available to do so (i.e. Payable on Order)?
There is no specific rule regarding it but given how delivery time is only 1 week for anything the PC will ever be able to buy, 2 weeks on a tie, I don't see why you'd bother ordering it earlier.
I'm also surprised that the change to using a contacts Connection and Loyalty in place of Negotiation and Charisma was made, particularly when all the contacts we have at our disposal at character generation are fully statted.
Look at it this way: A PC obtaining an Elven Fixer could claim 9 Negotiation + 7 Charisma for 16 dice without Connection bonus. In fact every PC would try to obtain Elven contacts for the extra 2 dice. Meanwhile, if someone picked a contact that's not on the sample list it's impossible to figure out the Charisma and Negotiation it should have. Plus there's no specific rules for what a specific contact gets as bonus on gear that a Fixer can get you, which would need adding to compensate for people using a generic fixer for everything since those have the highest Negotiation. And technically players aren't supposed to know the stats of their contacts to begin with.
On top of that, it'd result in that everyone would get the same 1 or 2 contacts. Here's their dice: 13, 12, 16, 14, 12, 12, 11, 13, 19, 12, 14.* The 16 and 19 dice would be the only ones taken, with the 19 dice taken by anyone who wants high-availability stuff and thus only has to pay 25% more for up to and including 23 availability. Krime Cannon, really high ware, fully-specced Full Body Armor which thus still has its full 15 Capacity left that way, fully specced helmet (VE3, TGV, VM, SL = 20R), 10-damage Tranq Patches, high-rating high-grade ware, anyone who'd ever want any of those would take Sarah Silverleaf, which ends up rather monotonous. Heck, if Connection adds to the dice she'd have 24 to begin with, can you imagine having her at 5/4 with full use of Connection+Loyalty+Negotiation+Charisma for anything under availability 32? That'd be overkill to the max.
*: This is assuming Connection only raises the limit under the base rules. Bull ruled Connection adds as Bonus Dice because of the using of Buying Hits and low dice ratings with the Connection+Loyalty system. As such, with Charisma+Negotiation he'd likely not let them add bonus dice.
Now let's assume you ran a few runs and sold intel to the same 5/2 Contact every time. That puts you at 5/4 which likely is the limit, meaning it's 50% more for anything under availability 20, so 72k for a Pain Editor. This is assuming you do not score Availability Discount favors in any way throughout Season 5.
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Michael, thanks for an exhaustive reply, very much appreciated; clears up a lot of my questions, and does address some of my obvious frustration. As mentioned, the system just hits a little close to home when the character type that is most hit by Availability limitations (and thus cash limitations) are those that need it most to be cost effective. A high-armor character (as opposed to the ridiculously fast one who just dodges bullets instead of taking them to the chest) will statistically quickly succumb to stun damage, with few ways of countering this (Pain Editor being the most obvious and most effective).
Also, I did no even know you could create your own contacts :) I figured you would always use the base stats of the contacts in SR5 or the SRM sample contacts; learn something new every day.
Also also, selling intel and gaining availability discount favours is a thing? I've only GMed the first 6 SRM Season 2 missions so far, and nothing like that has come up yet that would apply in these cases (max availability of 15 mentioned in those rules),
Again, thanks for elaborating; cheers!
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Also also, selling intel and gaining availability discount favours is a thing? I've only GMed the first 6 SRM Season 2 missions so far, and nothing like that has come up yet that would apply in these cases (max availability of 15 mentioned in those rules),
I haven't got the foggiest, since I haven't seen SR5 Missions yet.
Now in Season 4, the players got to sell Artefacts to either of the four interested parties and increase their Loyalty. In Season 5, we got 4 corp Johnsons as well and they want intel to help them claim land in Chicago. So reason begs that we'll have the same situation in Season 5, where you frequently can suck up to a corporate Johnson by selling them what they want and thus raise Loyalty and obtain Faction Points. Note that this wasn't just selling intel (aside from selling info to either of the two journalists in the Ork Underground storyline) but actually selling them what the run was all about.
In Season 4 the faction favors included a one-time discount on an item. I don't know what exactly the faction favors entail in Season 5.
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I see light at the end of the tunnel! It's the Pain (Editor) Train coming, choooo chooo! *coughs*
Eherm. Thanks again, Michael, did not know about those (as we've still got another 19+12 missions in Season 2 and 3 before Season 4 :) )
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So far I have not seen anything that makes much more available in season 5, other than 1 place that has everything avail 6 or less available all the time. And one CMP from firing line that you can get access to one item of any availability at cost, if you make the right choices.
There are no factions in season 5. So, no faction rewards.
If you are creating a character, you will probably want 2 fixer contacts: a 6/1 and a 1/6 (Loyalty/Connection). The 6/1 is for fencing the stuff you steal (6 loyalty will buy at 30%), the 1/6 is for buying stuff (starts with 13 dice, and you can possibly earn their loyalty up to 4, for a 4/6 contact that will stay with your character even when the invariable change in venues for season 6 happens.
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Raising Loyalty is really hard to do, though, when it comes to non-Missions contacts.
No Factions? Well that indeed is a big change.
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Raising Loyalty is really hard to do, though, when it comes to non-Missions contacts.
Indeed. Especially for a Connection 6 contact. It required me to sell out a dragon to get him from Loyalty 1 to Loyalty 2. I have no idea what it will take to get him to 3.
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Follow-up on this;
1. If buying gear during a mission, do you still have to use the "buying hits" method?
The FAQ only states that you have to buy hits when "making tests during downtime" under the "Can I buy/train/do downtime items such as (fill in the blank) at the game table?"; this does not cover buying an item that one needs before a mission, as it wouldn't take place during downtime activity but during the run itself.
And a repeat:
2. What is the actual maximum values for Connection/Loyalty for SRM Season 5 Contacts?
Despite Bull's previous statement that the Mission contacts exceeding 7 karma spend was a mistake, they are still listed in the new Prep documents as "Connection X" (a fixed value) and "Max Starting Loyalty Y" (a variable), which in some cases would put them over the 7 limit (Goober 4/4, Martin Tate 5/3). I'd be very curious to know the correct values for these contacts.
3. Sample contacts in the SR5 rulebook have a "Uses" description, indicating that some may be used as fences and others may not, while SRM contacts do not have this descriptor; is it assumed that all SRM contacts can perform all possible services?
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1: Didn't the v1.0 file state anything without expiration date that carries on inbetween Missions involves buying hits?
2: I'd still assume the 7-karma limit applies and they forgot to adjust it, of course confirmation would be nice.
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Michael
1. It does, but wouldn't this fall outside the "in between Missions action", as it would occur during the mission (say, buying any avail 12 item that might be needed for a particular mission but that no one on the team has, like plastic explosives, or a simrig to record events, or whatever else might be needed)
Actually, re-reading the FAQ I just noticed that the paragraph you refer to actually states "I want to do X, which can be done in game or as a downtime action. Do I roll skill dice or buy hits?" with the answer that buying hits are used. This includes buying items, and seems to be a VERY broad definition (anything that can be done during downtime, basically); it also nearly invalidates buying items as a character, simply because a contact will be better than a character without very significant investment (Charisma 6 + Negotiation 6 still only gets you 12 dice or 4 hits, though a specialization and the Exceptional quality might raise your dice pool all the way to 15 from the get-go)
2. Agreed, my assumption is that the 7 karma limit still applies, so some sort of confirmation is exactly what I'm looking for (hopefully with an updated Contacts sheet)
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Don't forget that contacts only have Conn+Conn+Loy so are limited to 12 dice as well. And that's for the ones you heavily invest in. But yes, Negotiation is mainly interesting for players who want to be a secondary or primary Face. On the other hands, contacts no longer require a cut so contacts are always the way to go.
By the way, 12 dice is 3 hits, not 4.
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Absolutely, that was partly my point; one of your contacts will likely have 12 dice (if you intend to be buying anything high-avail) for a moderate investment of 7 karma points (either free or discretionary), whereas getting your own dice pool to 12 requires 6 skill points and 6 attribute points, which is only likely to be relevant for a Face type character. Presumably, things like tailored pheromones won't work on Availability Tests :)
Thanks for the correction on 3vs4; apparently I'm still too sleepy for basic elementary level math :D
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Don't forget that contacts only have Conn+Conn+Loy so are limited to 12 dice as well. And that's for the ones you heavily invest in. But yes, Negotiation is mainly interesting for players who want to be a secondary or primary Face. On the other hands, contacts no longer require a cut so contacts are always the way to go.
By the way, 12 dice is 3 hits, not 4.
A connection 6 / loyalty 1 contact could get 13 dice to start with, for a max of 16 (investing a good bit)
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Yes, but it'd be a custom contact, for which raising loyalty is extremely difficult. For 5/2 you got multiple options with the Season 5 Contacts, and good odds at raising loyalty with them.
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Yes, but it'd be a custom contact, for which raising loyalty is extremely difficult. For 5/2 you got multiple options with the Season 5 Contacts, and good odds at raising loyalty with them.
True, it would be much harder to raise. However, it would not go away by campaign fiat like the campaign ones are known to do.
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Those go away? I thought it simply was a matter of not being in the same city.
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Moving from Denver to new York, all contacts less than loyalty 4 or so would not even return you calls
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Since Sprawl Wilds are now valid Season 5 Missions, what is the connection rating of the orc fixer gained in Manhunt? It says you gain him as a contact with +2 loyalty, but it does not say what his connection rating is.
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You mean Carbon Copy? Bull is listed on the website in the list of SR4 contacts.
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Sorry yes, Carbon Copy....
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Nice to see some familiar faces this season. Simon Andrews is a favourite of mine (the first T'skrang of the Sixth World ;D), and it's always nice to have news of characters like Quantum Princess (from Bug City) and Lothan the Wise (even if the Shadowrun Duels action figures were not very successful it's cool to see they're still part of the canon).
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I want to shoot Simon Andrews in the face. I'll be roleplaying him perfectly, no worries. May he be loathed more than Joe Martin.
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So... despite what the updated prep files state, we're still limited to 7 karma on each contact, right? Not Connection 5, Loyalty 3 as is the case of Dr. Martin Tate, or Connection 4 Loyalty 4 as is the case of Doober, etc, etc.
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So... despite what the updated prep files state, we're still limited to 7 karma on each contact, right? Not Connection 5, Loyalty 3 as is the case of Dr. Martin Tate, or Connection 4 Loyalty 4 as is the case of Doober, etc, etc.
You can take them as contacts, but at a lower starting Loyalty than the stated maximum. Sure, it would be great if the listings were 100% consistent with FAQ (with maxes of 2 and 3 respectively) but it's really not hard to figure out.
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I want to shoot Simon Andrews in the face. I'll be roleplaying him perfectly, no worries. May he be loathed more than Joe Martin.
Joe? Joe was the paragon of modern reporting, no matter which network you view, and as such was 'business as usual.' With contacts from the Big A and Renraku, a corporation that when I last heard of them had an arcology that was giving death camps a run for their money, my bet is that one of them being the most hated.
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Renraku wasn't in control of that arcology anymore at that point so honestly I don't see the point in treating them as bad guys anymore. Besides, it was ages ago. What recent evil did they commit? The dragons waged war on mankind and each other, Aztech went to a bloody war, Horizon murdered POWs for PR reasons, I know what corps I got a problem with there. And that's not including the guys who managed to give us Sybilis. What did Renraku do recently?
As for Joe, I suspect the players tended to be turned off by his million-dollar smile and fitting behaviour. In my campaign, the only reason 1 player sold info to Joe Martin was he was the last to be asked and all others had sold to Athena Tattletale already, he figured having eggs in both baskets would be a good idea.
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Aztechnology got added as one of the two because of all the stuff they do; blood magic, death games, etc. They're the ones the rest of my group will probably hate the most. But Sarah? There's just something...off about her for me, and I'm thinking that with the land rush going on Renraku may just edge out Aztechnology this SRM season, because of her (and not anything Renraku did specifically). Nothing concrete of course, but my gut is giving me warning signs about her.
Besides, isn't Simon the lizardman changeling from Season 4? If so, I rather liked him.
*Edit* Joe we took a liking to, and tried to spread scoops evenly between him and Athena. We kind of saw him like Chuck Fleming, Action News.
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Simon tried to have you killed first time you met him, never liked him since.
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Renraku wasn't in control of that arcology anymore at that point so honestly I don't see the point in treating them as bad guys anymore. Besides, it was ages ago. What recent evil did they commit? The dragons waged war on mankind and each other, Aztech went to a bloody war, Horizon murdered POWs for PR reasons, I know what corps I got a problem with there. And that's not including the guys who managed to give us Sybilis. What did Renraku do recently?
As for Joe, I suspect the players tended to be turned off by his million-dollar smile and fitting behaviour. In my campaign, the only reason 1 player sold info to Joe Martin was he was the last to be asked and all others had sold to Athena Tattletale already, he figured having eggs in both baskets would be a good idea.
Renraku was recently kiddapping CAS politicians for some reason, never explained (well, as far as I'm aware anyway)
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Awesome! ;D
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Renrakool!
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So... how many politicians do they have to kidnap before they can evolve into Renakruel?
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Can anyone give me a quick summary of the Desolation Angels please? I figure I ought to have a clue about the gang that one of the contacts my runners have more chance of knowing runs.
I'm a bit spent out at the moment having bought the SE, Chasing the Wind and Feral Cities for info on Chicago.
Oh. They're in Feral Cities.
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Related note (and sorry of this has been addressed elsewhere):
Should I make sure to have at least one Seattle contact for "CMP" missions, or can these leverage Chicago connections in real play?
Hate to miss out on them because I don't have the hook-up!