[Dr. Meatgrinder]

Not sure about an official ruling, but I've always treated a "month" as 4 weeks.  It seems to fit with the Season 5 Missions calendar and how it actually lays out time in months, with the odd weeks as "Free Weeks".  Just be careful that you don't spend more than 4 weeks downtime between missions--that's forbidden by the FAQ (top of p. 11).

For daily intervals, I usually go with 1 week for every 7 days (or fraction) spent in total.  If I spend a total of 8 days increasing 2 skills from 3 to 4, it costs me 2 weeks.  If I spend 12 days increasing 3 skills from 3 to 4, it still costs only 2 weeks...as long as I have that much Karma available to spend.

[KraakenDazs]

I didnt want to spam the forum by adding a new post just for that question, but i've been looking around, and gathered a lot of varied info, and i just kinda want to make sure.

What are Missions season 5 *official* runs/quests/supplements?

I've seen the mention of Sprawl Wilds, Firing Line, and now Chasing Wild (Designated as 5A-01), but again, i don't really know what can be considered ''official'' or not.

Basically, is there a repository of ''approved'' SR5 season 5 mission listing anywhere, and if so, can anyone point me in the right direction? Mighty appreciated, tks.

[Bull]

"Shadowrun Missions" is a product line, and are noted by the Missions Logo.

[Michael Chandra]

With Assassin's Primer being past the 30-day window and Gun Heaven 3 nearly at it, as well as one of my regulars feeling cheesy about taking the one problematic gun from GH3 even though he was looking for a better-punch SA Assault Rifle, is there any word on anything that is or isn't allowed from these two supplements?

[Daedalus]

This question came up in a game last night and we are looking for a clarification. The FAQ states has the following Question and Answer.

Q: I want to do X, which can be done in game or as a downtime action. Do I roll skill dice or buy hits?

A: Anything that is permanent or has no explicit “expiration date” to it must be done using the “buying hits” method.

The question is if this applies to Addiction Tests since they have no explicit expiration date. There are opinions that you do buy hits for addiction tests elsewhere in the forums, but we prefer to go with 1st and 2nd tier answers for things like this. Any help would be appreciated.

[Daedalus]

Bump

[Michael Chandra]

Got another Taxes question: When a Mission offers loot as part of the rewards, under specific restrictions, players will tend to sell their share to anyone interested. Are taxes involved in any way here? It kinda is a wasp nest. :<

[PittsburghRPGA]

Can I buy (fill in the blank)?
If the gear is legally available (has no Availability rating), you can buy it from your local Stuffer Shack, Weapons World, or Kong-Walmart at any time, provided you have the available nuyen. Gear with an Availability rating isn’t as readily available, and as such you need to go looking for it, or have your contacts go looking for it.
If you go looking for a piece of gear, use the standard Availability Test rules (see p. 418, SR5) and mark off the appropriate amount of time on your Missions Calendar. Note that you can only search for one item at a time, as this represents you physically going out and looking for the item, spending time making phone calls, talking with people, buying them drinks, etc.
If you wish to have contacts purchase additional items during a single downtime, use the standard rules for determining what items they can find, and how long it takes (see p. 418, SR5). Since you won’t always know the skills and attributes of all your contacts, all contacts instead use their Loyalty instead of Charisma attribute and Connection in place of their Negotiation skill for the Availability test.
You cannot buy used gear.

So, does this mean character-bought contacts are effectively useless for buying gear with an Availability of 8+?  The section on Black Market Goods describes it as an opposed test of Negotiation (which is Connection) + Charisma (which is Loyalty) versus the item's availability rating.  The maximum amount of dice a starting contact can have is 7 (6 Loyalty and 1 Connection, 1 Loyalty and 6 Connection, or something in the middle).  This means they can only buy 1 hit, while an Availability 8 item gets 2 hits. 

Basically, unless you're a troll with the social grace of a rabid wolverine, it's going to be easier and cheaper to ignore your contacts and search for the item yourself...or go to another player's face character and bribe him to get the items for you.  I could see an optimized face (20 dice is possible at character creation) swimming in Nuyen from purchasing items for others and charging a small premium.

This got brought up over on the CDT forums.  On page 418 of the Core rule book, it says that Connection Rating is a bonus to the Contact's Social Limit, not dice pool.  Based on the Missions FAQ and SR5 page 418, contacts are only buying hits using Connection + Loyalty and Connection as Social Limit since Social Limit is not on the 1/3rd page contact sheets to be handed out at Missions.  So, for say, Simon Andrews, that's 5 + Loyalty and a Social Limit of 5. Let's say for the sake of arguement, we've played enough that his Loyalty is 4.  That's 9 dice. You can then spend an additional 275% over base cost (or 375% of base price) to get 11 bonus dice, to give him a dice pool of 20. That translates to the 5 hits he's allowed to keep per his Social Limit/Loyalty of 5.  Which also means Item Availability of up to 23 since we drop all fractions when buying hits. 

However, his full stats are available in the full page Season 5 Missions Contacts file showing he has Negotiation 8, Charisma 6, and a social limit of 8. So 8 + 6 = 14. Can spend up 300% additional (or 400% of base cost), but thanks to rounding only 10 dice or +250% makes a difference, as that brings the total to 24/4=6 hits or up to Availability 27 (27/4=6 using buying hits).

I think this is something to be clarified in the Missions FAQ.

Several of us remember Bull saying somewhere that the NPC Contacts are using Connection + Connection + Loyalty, but I can't find that anywhere in official documentation (nor can I find that in a post, but I'm sure someone can provide a link to that post). 

Eric Kiefer
"Bronze Dragon"
Special Agent #524
Pittsburgh, PA

[Michael Chandra]

http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=11944.msg220742

Was a pain in the neck to find, I eventually searched for a post where he said "both".

[PittsburghRPGA]

So to help clarify then, in reference to "use both" we are talking about page 388 and page 418 of SR5:

Page 388 Swag: This is like networking, except you’re specifically trying to buy or sell something. A contact can use her connections to find potential buyers or sellers. Contacts looking for traders follow the same procedures for Availability and Fencing Tests (p. 418) that PCs do, using their own Charisma and Negotiation skill instead of yours,
along with their Connection rating as extra dice (they’re better at it than you are). If you’re willing to sweeten the deal for the potential trading partner, let your contact know in advance—they’re good, but they’re not psychic.

and

Page 418 Contacts and Availability You probably have a fixer, talismonger, deckmeister, or other contact find the gear you’re looking for. Contacts are better than you at acquiring the gear they specialize in. They spend most of their time making and maintaining their connections to the rest of the world while you’re out shooting corp security or banishing evil spirits or hacking hosts or whatever you’re doing on your shadowruns, so they’ve had time to hone their gear-acquiring abilities. When contacts look for an item for
you, they use their Negotiation and Charisma for the Availability Test, with their Connection Rating serving as a bonus to their Social limit.

So there is evidence in the book to support Connection rating as having two uses when finding gear.  That's fine.  Would it be too much of a hassle to re-do the 1/3rd sheet Contact handouts to include Social Limit? Or add a Missions Specific rule to use Connection Rating (again) when Social Limit isn't known?

Cordially,

Eric

[ZeConster]

Actually, there's not actually a need for that when it comes to Swag. The most extreme scenario you can have is a Connection 1, Loyalty 6 contact with 12 extra dice bought: they'll have 1+1+6+12 = 20 dice, and a +1 on their Social Limit, and it is entirely reasonable to assume they'll have a Social Limit of 4 or more, which means that even with minimal Connection and as many extra dice as possible, they won't be able to buy more hits than their Social Limit.
Unless, of course, you're assuming all their 'attributes' are equal to their Connection rating for the Swag Social Limit, in which case their Social Limit for Swag purposes will be 4/3+1 = 3 at Connection 1 versus 20 dice or 5 hits maximum, but even then a Connection 2+ contact will have a high enough Social Limit (8/3+2 = 5, versus 22 dice or 5 hits maximum).

[PittsburghRPGA]

Actually, there's not actually a need for that when it comes to Swag. The most extreme scenario you can have is a Connection 1, Loyalty 6 contact with 12 extra dice bought: they'll have 1+1+6+12 = 20 dice, and a +1 on their Social Limit, and it is entirely reasonable to assume they'll have a Social Limit of 4 or more, which means that even with minimal Connection and as many extra dice as possible, they won't be able to buy more hits than their Social Limit.
Unless, of course, you're assuming all their 'attributes' are equal to their Connection rating for the Swag Social Limit, in which case their Social Limit for Swag purposes will be 4/3+1 = 3 at Connection 1 versus 20 dice or 5 hits maximum, but even then a Connection 2+ contact will have a high enough Social Limit (8/3+2 = 5, versus 22 dice or 5 hits maximum).

There's a series of mods where you can get a Connection 6 contact and get that connection's loyalty to 4.  So, 6+6+4=16 +12 dice bought = 28/4 = 7 hits.

So, I guess it depends on how we calculate an unknown Social Limit using Connection and Loyalty with Connection as a bonus to Social Limit. Is it zero plus Connection?  Is it Connection + Loyalty?  I don't have a 1/3 sized sheet in front of me, do they include current Essence?  If not, what should we substitute into the normal formula to calculate social limit?

That's why I was wondering if it wouldn't just be simplier to add Social Limit to the 1/3rd size sheets?

 

[ZeConster]

My point is that since a contact's Connection is also added to their Social Limit (in addition to their Swag dicepool), their Social Limit can be abstracted for the purpose of Swag, since their base Social Limit is "high enough" for all but the most extreme cases.
Those most extreme cases, by the way, are contacts with Loyalty 6 and 12 bought dice, in which case a Connection 1 contact would need [CHA + CHA + WIL + ESS] >= 10, and a Connection 2-3 contact would need [CHA + CHA + WIL + ESS] >= 7. At Connection 4+, it's not an issue, since the only way to not have a Social Limit of 2+ is to be dead. So unless you're getting your gear through a Connection 1 contact, it's a non-issue.