Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: Mercer on <02-06-12/0043:22>
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For whatever reason, the last little bit of nuyen takes forever for me to spend. I pretty much have all the gear I want from the books I'm using, but I've got a few bucks left over-- not enough that it's worth bumping my starting money, but too much to write off. (Of course, I'm pretty cheap even with fake money.)
What are some of the little things you put on the gear list, even though they're not in the books? (Obvious example: duct tape.)
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If you still have a couple hundred nuyen to spend, mapsofts, more ammo, survival gear, and so on are always a good choice. I'll often have 2-3 different outfits for each of my characters, as well, helps to blend in with different crowds.
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Two words: Plastic Restraints
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I usually buy a couple thousand ¥ of misc. clothing items...
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White socks. Lots of white socks.
I think someone at CGL has a fascination for them. :P
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I wouldn't say that. The bit in Attitude about them is fairly common knowledge. Not just in guerilla warfare, but even in sports and other fields requiring physical activity. Dry, comfy feat go a long way to keeping you going. You can't run if your feet are messed up, and if your feet stay wet too long, you get the fun of trenchfoot. If you're on an extended job, and sweating at all, clean socks are a must.
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I wouldn't say that. The bit in Attitude about them is fairly common knowledge. Not just in guerilla warfare, but even in sports and other fields requiring physical activity. Dry, comfy feat go a long way to keeping you going. You can't run if your feet are messed up, and if your feet stay wet too long, you get the fun of trenchfoot. If you're on an extended job, and sweating at all, clean socks are a must.
And that's why I went to College rather than trying to get a job right out of High School. :P
Then again, the guys that took the Trades Courses at College are making more than I ever will...
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Snuff.
5 yen a hit. +1 reaction +1 pain tolerance for 1d6x10 minutes. Totally legal. No downside, besides "increased cancer risk." No reason not to buy some.
Betameth
20 yen a hit. +2 reaction +1 intuition for (9 - Body) hours [min 1 hr] with 5S (healable) on the crash. Threshold of 2 on the addiction test isn't hard to beat if you're not already an addict.
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Snuff.
1 yen a hit. +1 reaction +1 pain tolerance for 1d6x10 minutes. Totally legal. No downside, besides "increased cancer risk." No reason not to buy some.
And, honestly, if you survive long enough to have to worry about cancer, you're probably rich enough to just get some nano-treatment to scrub it out of your system.
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Drugs and bullets, yo.
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A certified cred stick with the remaining amount.
Rasmus
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A certified cred stick with the remaining amount.
At the risk of being pedantic, that'd be "...the remaining amount -25¥". Gotta buy the 'stick before you can load it. ;)
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Extra Clothes, Drugs (I prefer snuff and/or Betel), Prepaid Cards and Passes (Hotels, Hostels, Coffins, Vending, Nightclubs,Transport, etc.), Fashion Accessories (Piercings, tatoos, etc. if your GM requires buying them at CC). And of course as mentioned, Plastic Restraints. I'm also a big fan of buying thermal or UV dye splash grenades, great for raves and tracking those pesky ones that run.
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A certified cred stick with the remaining amount.
At the risk of being pedantic, that'd be "...the remaining amount -25¥". Gotta buy the 'stick before you can load it. ;)
I'm not sure if that's going by the spirit of the rules personally. The rules do say that you lose everything not spent, receiving a small bonus to the die roll determining starting money. Buying a few cred sticks is one thing, but putting some of those char gen resources on them just sounds like rules mangling to me.
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A certified cred stick with the remaining amount.
At the risk of being pedantic, that'd be "...the remaining amount -25¥". Gotta buy the 'stick before you can load it. ;)
I'm not sure if that's going by the spirit of the rules personally. The rules do say that you lose everything not spent, receiving a small bonus to the die roll determining starting money. Buying a few cred sticks is one thing, but putting some of those char gen resources on them just sounds like rules mangling to me.
Hey, I was just pointing out the need for the physical cred-stick, it's up to his GM say "yes" or "no" to the idea.
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I'm not sure if that's going by the spirit of the rules personally. The rules do say that you lose everything not spent, receiving a small bonus to the die roll determining starting money. Buying a few cred sticks is one thing, but putting some of those char gen resources on them just sounds like rules mangling to me.
Yeah, if a character wants that build cash, they need to take a custom-high lifestyle and buy starting cash at 5:1 like everyone else. ;)
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For low-lifestyle and higher its more efficient 2/3 of the time to turn it into starting cash dice.
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I usually end up taking a multitool-one of those pocket ones with lots of gadgets, at some point at the end of making a character. They're just handy. A larger random toolbox is good to have. Certified credsticks(nice and hard to trace). Gas masks are cheap and easily available as well.
Yes, duct tape. Can never have too much of that.
When it comes to stuff in the books, I always have a survival kit and some of those odds and ends.
Yeah, that last bit can be tough. Sometimes I just shuffle stuff around if I still have some left for an extra safehouse or something. I always try to get one-typically custom built with Low comforts, necessities and neighborhood, Middle security, but zero in the Entertainment. Somewhere to lay low in an inconspicuous place, but with a little extra on the Security side. Don't care about entertainment at that point but I like to have at least some passable grub and sleeping quarters to keep going.
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A towel, you can't go wrong with one.
How much you have left?
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NERPS!! for spending cash!
NERPS!! for that not so fresh feeling!
NERPS!! for concussion!
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Despite the advertising, they don't help a concussion. But if the shelf of them fell on you, you might get one.
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But, Chummers. If we are talking about Chargen, wouldn't using those 2 points work as a skill specialty too? Unless we are talking about miniscule amounts of cash here...
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For me, it was the last couple hundred nuyen, which goes pretty quick to the last 50 nuyen then you realize there's not a lot in the books that cost less than 50 nuyen. (I already had a mapsoft and wire clippers.)
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Grenades. You can always use more grenades. Whether they're flashbangs or white phosphorous is up to you.
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Grenades. You can always use more grenades. Whether they're flashbangs or white phosphorous is up to you.
And don't forget, as I may have mentioned on a previous page, Gas grenade with DMSO and a Rating 6 Adhesive Solvent.
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Grenades. You can always use more grenades. Whether they're flashbangs or white phosphorous is up to you.
And don't forget, as I may have mentioned on a previous page, Gas grenade with DMSO and a Rating 6 Adhesive Solvent.
Just make the gas grenade a gecko grenade.
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Wouldn't they have to be splash grenades? I was under the impression that DMSO and whatever compound it was affecting had to both be dissolved in a liquid (water, alcohol, etc.). Also, chemical attacks are a #1 way to get on the FBI watch list.
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DMSO is the liquid the agent would be dissolved in.
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Wouldn't they have to be splash grenades? I was under the impression that DMSO and whatever compound it was affecting had to both be dissolved in a liquid (water, alcohol, etc.). Also, chemical attacks are a #1 way to get on the FBI watch list.
DMSO is the liquid the agent would be dissolved in.
I was figuring the stuff could be aerosolized, but it probably would be Splash grenades, yes.
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I'm not sure if that's going by the spirit of the rules personally. The rules do say that you lose everything not spent, receiving a small bonus to the die roll determining starting money. Buying a few cred sticks is one thing, but putting some of those char gen resources on them just sounds like rules mangling to me.
Yeah, if a character wants that build cash, they need to take a custom-high lifestyle and buy starting cash at 5:1 like everyone else. ;)
Psh, just a high lifestyle? Here's how you live the good life.
Qualities: Born rich, debt.
330,000 nuyen
Max-out luxury lifestyle, minus the neighborhood (you'll see) = 25 LP.
Rad Pad +1 lp
Corporate owned -3lp
no astral privacy -3lp
No Neighbors +1 (this lets you bypass the need to pay for a neighborhood, since there isn't any)
Trigger-Happy Landlord -1lp
You can explain those qualities away by saying the place is owned by the Saeder Krupp Prime Intelligence agency near Lowyr's Estate in Tir Tanginre, and they let you pimp the place out.
Buy a year of that. You're left with 210,000 (120,000 for a year). According to the rules, your lp gets you a free car. Make it a Eurocar Westwind 3k. Then buy a hydrofoil boat, and a susuzki mirage. I know, I know, the temptation is to spend a little less on rent, and blow the rest you got on a yacht, but you'll have to save up for that. It's just not feasible to start out with one. Believe me, I've tried.
For bioware, buy the Pheromones (rating 3). You should be a Dryad, have the exceptional attribute on charisma, and have your con (seduction) maxed-out, so you can basically get any bitty on the planet.
Buy lasers and a enough ammo to last you ten runs. Spend the rest of your money on a custom commlink, clothes, nightclub passes to the hottest clubs and resort hotels in the world, and bling. Leave 300 resource nuyen left, so you get the die bonus. See if you can catch your dm being lazy, and give yourself 24,000 starting cash. If your DM is indeed lazy, he'll see it as plausible, and leave you alone. If he isn't, well, you still got 7d6 x 1000 starting cash, so it's whatevs.
Make sure you leave a decent amount of bp left for contacts, because you need to know the owner of a luxury hotel (so you can get a totally comped stay in Vegas or something), be on a first-name basis with Dante (yes, the club owner), Orxanne, a ton of other celebrities, and anybody on the Grand Tour. Finally, you need to have a loyalty 6, connections 6 relationship with Damien Knight, so you can ball around the world in style and power.
With contacts like those, making money and living large shouldn't be no thang. If you really get desperate, you can always gamble all your money on the super bowl, and sell the Westwind. That should buy you at least a month or two. If you're still in the red, just make sure you have a 6 in hacking and spoofing, so you can spoof the lifestyle you got.
That, my friend, is how you live in the Sixth World.
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No Neighbors +1 (this lets you bypass the need to pay for a neighborhood, since there isn't any)
It does not allow you to bypass buying your neighborhood, it just means you have no neighbors around.
The primary definition of a Neighborhood is: A district or area with distinctive characteristics.
Whether you have Neighbors or not, your lifestyle is in a specific district, otherwise its all in your head and you're really living on the street paying cram dealer 120k a year to keep you doped so high you can taste the rainbow.
According to the rules, your lp gets you a free car. Make it a Eurocar Westwind 3k. Then buy a hydrofoil boat, and a susuzki mirage. Take all your vehicles and modify them to have as much speed an acceleration as you can get on them.
You can't begin play with your lifestyle vehicles upgraded.
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No Neighbors +1 (this lets you bypass the need to pay for a neighborhood, since there isn't any)
It does not allow you to bypass buying your neighborhood, it just means you have no neighbors around.
The primary definition of a Neighborhood is: A district or area with distinctive characteristics.
Whether you have Neighbors or not, your lifestyle is in a specific district, otherwise its all in your head and you're really living on the street paying cram dealer 120k a year to keep you doped so high you can taste the rainbow.
According to the rules, your lp gets you a free car. Make it a Eurocar Westwind 3k. Then buy a hydrofoil boat, and a susuzki mirage. Take all your vehicles and modify them to have as much speed an acceleration as you can get on them.
You can't begin play with your lifestyle vehicles upgraded.
Wouldn't having your home out in the boonies outside of the sprawl be considered "street" level neighborhood?
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That really depends on which particular out in the boonies you're referring to. If you open your door to devil rats, wolves and other nasties trying to eat your face, have to hop the toxic puddles to make it down the walk to your car, and are constantly having to shoot racoons to get your rolex back I might say its equivalent to a street level.
If its a nice area out in the boonies, peaceful and mostly quite, with only the occasional nuisance, then I'd say it would be closer to mid level at the least. After all fresh air, lack of acid rain, and lack of danger are all major pluses for the neighborhood. Keep in mind that a neighborhood out in the boonies with Luxury Security is more likely to be right on the edge of a state park or the like which I would personally put at the high level.
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That really depends on which particular out in the boonies you're referring to. If you open your door to devil rats, wolves and other nasties trying to eat your face, have to hop the toxic puddles to make it down the walk to your car, and are constantly having to shoot racoons to get your rolex back I might say its equivalent to a street level.
If its a nice area out in the boonies, peaceful and mostly quite, with only the occasional nuisance, then I'd say it would be closer to mid level at the least. After all fresh air, lack of acid rain, and lack of danger are all major pluses for the neighborhood. Keep in mind that a neighborhood out in the boonies with Luxury Security is more likely to be right on the edge of a state park or the like which I would personally put at the high level.
Yeah...no. There's a reason they made two different "street" level neighborhood options, Crash. What you described is more the Z-zone than just Street.
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Street Level
are a miserable, dangerous place to live
Z-zone
These are the worst areas possible on Earth, the most dangerous of barrens, the vicious slums of a feral city, the lawless spread of destroyed and uninhabitable tenements or urban blight.
Racoons, Devil Rats, and Wolves and a little toxic rain are hardly any part of the worst areas on earth (they'd get eaten by the stuff that's considered prey in the worst places on earth). Sure, they're dangerous, but more of a nuisance than anything else. Just a constant dangerous nuisance like hanging out in Touristville, Redmond.
There is a reason they separated the Neighborhood into two 0 sections. One is far far worse than what I described.
An example of Z-zone is Kowloon where the Yami Kings (high force free shadow spirits) like to play around, people die and rot in the streets like flies, and rape and murder are more common than jobs. The only thing that overpowers that sickly sweet smell of carrion is the shit filling the gutters right next to the local taco stand that sells Yesterday's Bob specials and the only thing that keeps the population from lying down and just dying is the need to steal enough money to buy tomorrows BTL or the itch will come back again. Your alarm clock is whenever a gun shot goes off relatively nearby, which means you don't get more than ten minutes of consecutive sleep, and the bullets tend to pass through two buildings worth of rusted out corrugrated shanty walls, meaning you never know if it's going to hit you or not. You've had to shoot three people in the past hour just to keep your gun from being stolen and you woke up two hours ago to an addict trying to cut out your kidney. Meanwhile you're thanking whatever power you believe in that it wasn't Tanamous because they would have had the foresight to slit your throat first so they could get much much more than your kidney. That is, of course, on a beautiful day in the neighborhood. On a bad day someone offers chips for triad badges and the world explodes into war. You might as well kiss your ass goodbye on those days, because if a stray bullet doesn't get you, a hungry Yami will.
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Ah. I see.
Well, I guess the lack of vehicle mods just makes it better. In that case, you can opt for the high neighborhood, get rid the no-neighbors quality, and just opt for 6 or 7 months of that lifestyle.
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Street Level
are a miserable, dangerous place to live
Z-zone
These are the worst areas possible on Earth, the most dangerous of barrens, the vicious slums of a feral city, the lawless spread of destroyed and uninhabitable tenements or urban blight.
Racoons, Devil Rats, and Wolves and a little toxic rain are hardly any part of the worst areas on earth (they'd get eaten by the stuff that's considered prey in the worst places on earth). Sure, they're dangerous, but more of a nuisance than anything else. Just a constant dangerous nuisance like hanging out in Touristville, Redmond.
There is a reason they separated the Neighborhood into two 0 sections. One is far far worse than what I described.
An example of Z-zone is Kowloon where the Yami Kings (high force free shadow spirits) like to play around, people die and rot in the streets like flies, and rape and murder are more common than jobs. The only thing that overpowers that sickly sweet smell of carrion is the shit filling the gutters right next to the local taco stand that sells Yesterday's Bob specials and the only thing that keeps the population from lying down and just dying is the need to steal enough money to buy tomorrows BTL or the itch will come back again. Your alarm clock is whenever a gun shot goes off relatively nearby, which means you don't get more than ten minutes of consecutive sleep, and the bullets tend to pass through two buildings worth of rusted out corrugrated shanty walls, meaning you never know if it's going to hit you or not. You've had to shoot three people in the past hour just to keep your gun from being stolen and you woke up two hours ago to an addict trying to cut out your kidney. Meanwhile you're thanking whatever power you believe in that it wasn't Tanamous because they would have had the foresight to slit your throat first so they could get much much more than your kidney. That is, of course, on a beautiful day in the neighborhood. On a bad day someone offers chips for triad badges and the world explodes into war. You might as well kiss your ass goodbye on those days, because if a stray bullet doesn't get you, a hungry Yami will.
Honestly, that's taking things way too far and showing little if any care for if the players are actually having fun or not.
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You can live on the streets (that's right 0¥ a month) without being in a Z-zone neighborhood. If a player chooses a Z-zone neighborhood, its because he/she wants to have their character live in a place that is, to quote the book, uninhabitable. If that's what the player wants, how is it making that way, showing no care for the player's wants? That makes no sense. If the player doesn't want to live in a place like that, it literally costs them nothing. If the players decide they want their characters to hole up and lie low in a place like that, well I guarantee I could make it a hole heap of fun for my players and keep it just that depressing, dangerous, and uninhabitable.
Choices are about consequences.
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You can live on the streets (that's right 0¥ a month) without being in a Z-zone neighborhood. If a player chooses a Z-zone neighborhood, its because he/she wants to have their character live in a place that is, to quote the book, uninhabitable. If that's what the player wants, how is it making that way, showing no care for the player's wants? That makes no sense. If the player doesn't want to live in a place like that, it literally costs them nothing. If the players decide they want their characters to hole up and lie low in a place like that, well I guarantee I could make it a hole heap of fun for my players and keep it just that depressing, dangerous, and uninhabitable.
Choices are about consequences.
That's just it, the whole deal of "depressing gritty" and scraping the bottom of the barrel just to make ends meet on living day to day is not fun in the slightest. If most people want that sort of thing, they can just record their normal life rather than play a game.
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Well two issues with that theory:
A.) That's a matter of opinion. It may not be fun to you at all, but I thoroughly enjoy it (both when GMing and Playing). I like some gut wrenching grit and darkness beneath the metallic gleam in my cyberpunk. I'm not by any means reaching through the internet and forcing you to play my games (my wife won't even allow me to force people here to play my games or I'd have a mini-unit full of roleplayers). Then again, I don't find my normal life depressing or gritty either, so I don't really know where that comment comes from. That said, that leads us right into...
B.) If, as I used in the example, the player chooses (because there is no downside to choose anywhere else) to live in an area like that, or the players choose to lie low in an area like that (again, it's far from the only viable choice), that tells me that they do want the dark gritty game and have fun with it. Why else would they choose it?
And how bad the areas are really doesn't have any impact on the power level of the game you're playing either. A group of million dollar men lying low in Kowloon are going to be living in the same drek that the runners who just had a huge 3k payday are living in when they lie low there.
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If we're strictly talking about gear...
(Some of this is repeated from above, so just consider it my two cents)
Plastic restraints, the zip-tie ones.
Tranq Patches. You can NEVER have enough of those for quiet takedowns. With Sleight of Hand, you can even get a handshake and take someone down with it.
Licensees. Every little thing you can authorize a SIN to do can come in handy. We had a SIN that had authorization and papers for real estate that not only saved us a bad fight, but ended up turning us a big profit.
Gifts for contacts, if you bother with role-playing contact maintenance.
Stock. You can buy into corps and potentially play the market for spare nuyen, but on top of that, you get access to meetings inside the corp for some insight. Year of the Comet taught me that trick, and it's a good one to give circumstantial bonuses for Corporate Rumors, Politics, and get those Right Place, Right Time and Moving the Story Along karma.
Glue sprayer. I have never had any piece of gear so useful as a glue sprayer. You can tie hands together, fasten a bandage quickly, reinforce a door... It's ALMOST better than duct tape.
More ammo. Always more ammo. And grenades. They are cheap, and a flash bang doesn't always need to be thrown accurately so much as dropped at the right place or time (down stairs, elevator shaft, just on the floor as you run to hit the people chasing.)
Sensors. You can get a lot of sensor packages cheap, and there's no reason you can't set them up remotely to provide a little extra security or surveillance when you need it.
Disguises. And keep in mind a good mage with the Fashion spell and Disguise can refit damn near anything into anything else of equal mass. But if you don't have that, keep a few easy outfits. Any good runner can look like a street tough, a suit, a norm, a club kid and a hobo, at the very least.
Anything you can one-time-purchase to make a safehouse a little more comfortable, useful, or safe (in ascending order of importance).
A spare anything. Extra gun. Extra flak jacket. Spare bug drone.
Anyway, just my initial thoughts. :)
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Honestly, that's taking things way too far and showing little if any care for if the players are actually having fun or not.
Life in a Z-Zone is not supposed to be 'fun'...
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Honestly, that's taking things way too far and showing little if any care for if the players are actually having fun or not.
Life in a Z-Zone is not supposed to be 'fun'...
Depends on your definition of "Fun". ;D
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*laughs* Ain't war hell! *fires a SAW*
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Honestly, that's taking things way too far and showing little if any care for if the players are actually having fun or not.
Life in a Z-Zone is not supposed to be 'fun'...
Depends on your definition of "Fun". ;D
Have to agree with CanRay, here. I've run groups that liked to jump right in the run and skip meeting the Johnson, others who just want to blow stuff up. Someone on these boards likes the idea of playing a heavily cybered samurai who basically sleeps in a storage unit and subsists on soy packs and electrolyte drinks. My current group seems to like talking their way through first, sneaking second, and killing everything third, then going back to the yacht to relax. Very spy-style.
Never think there is only one way to enjoy Shadowrun. ;)
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Honestly, that's taking things way too far and showing little if any care for if the players are actually having fun or not.
Life in a Z-Zone is not supposed to be 'fun'...
Depends on your definition of "Fun". ;D
Have to agree with CanRay, here. I've run groups that liked to jump right in the run and skip meeting the Johnson, others who just want to blow stuff up. Someone on these boards likes the idea of playing a heavily cybered samurai who basically sleeps in a storage unit and subsists on soy packs and electrolyte drinks. My current group seems to like talking their way through first, sneaking second, and killing everything third, then going back to the yacht to relax. Very spy-style.
Never think there is only one way to enjoy Shadowrun. ;)
B-b-but if other people play differently than me, it means my fun is wrong! :'(
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my fun is wrong! :'(
Accepting it is the first step in recovery. :P