Shadowrun Campaign

[Haizu]

I'm looking to start a Shadowrun campaign, this will be the first time I've ever done something like this so please bare with me. If you're interested let me know. If you've got rulebooks, go ahead and make some characters. Try to go with 4.0 rules, the newest ones. Those are the ones I know best.

[Haizu]

Oh btw, these will be 500 BP characters. The usual BP limit is 400, but I'll be a nice guy so that you can get some cool toys. :P If anybody wants to play a Cyborg, that's fine. And please run any off the wall stuff or crazy equipment by me first. Feel free to pull things from the Arsenal book if you would like.

[Haizu]

Alright. Here's a noob's guide to Runner creation. Look through this(it's alot of material, i know) and then get with me for skills, gear, things like that. I'm not going to type all that out. Veterans, I'm still getting used to this so if I'm wrong about something please correct me....nicely! Alright, here we go.

Build Points
When creating a character, everything costs BP (Build Points). Stats, qualities, gear, even money. Normally, new characters are generated using 400 BP, but it's really up to the GM what the BP limit is on new Runners. So make sure you keep careful track of how much everything costs, because otherwise it's going to be a real headache later.

Stats
There are 9 stats: Body, Agility, Reaction, Strength, Charisma, Intuition, Logic, Willpower, and Initiative. Here's a description for each.

Body: Pretty much the same as Con, but also heavily influences armor and damage resistance. Defintely a must for tanks and front-liners.

Reaction: Alot like Dex, but is only used for determining Initiative, dodging, and the like.

Agility: This is an absolute must for gun users. All gun skills depend on this stat. Is also used by skills that require delicate movements and such.

Strength: Simply put, it determines how hard you hit stuff. This is the primary stat for Melee weapons.

Charisma: Exactly the same thing as D&D.

Intuition: Determines how aware your character is of his/her surroundings and such.

Logic: Deals heavily with skills. Almost all skills have this stat involved in some way. You don't exactly need it if you are going to concentrate on combat, but it's not a bad thing have anyway.

Willpower: This is the resistance stat. It's used to resist everything from stun damage to spells. A good stat to have.

Races
Now first things first: your Race. There are 5 races: Human, Ork, Dwarf, Elf, and Troll. Each race costs a certain amount of BP, but they all have different starting stats and racial qualities. Also, each race has a Stat Cap as well. There is both a Natural Cap and an Augmented Cap for each stat. For instance: Humans have a Natural Stat Cap of 6 for all stats except for Ini, which is 12. The Augmented Stat Cap is for all stats is 9, except for Ini, which is 18. Stats can be augmented by Cyberware, Bioware, Gene Therapy, Magic, and a variety of other things. I will cover this later.

Here are the racial stats for each one. If i dont' list the stat, assume it is the same as Human.

Human: 0 BP, All stats are 1/6 (9), except for Ini 2/12 (18), +1 Edge (will explain later)

Ork: 20 BP, Bod 4/9 (13), Str 3/8 (12), Cha & Log 1/5 (7), Low-Light Vision

Dwarf: 25 BP, Bod 2/7 (10), Rea 1/5 (7), Str 3/8 (12), Wil 2/7 (10),
Ini 2/11 (16), Thermographic Vision, +2 dice for Body Tests to resist pathogens and toxins.

Elf: 30 BP, Agi 2/7 (10), Cha 3/8 (12), Low-Light Vision

Troll: 40 BP, Bod 5/10 (15), Agi Int Log 1/5 (7), Str 5/10 (15),
Cha 1/4 (6), Ini 2/11 (16), Thermographic Vision, +1 Reach, +1 Natural
Armor (cumulative with worn armor)

Buying Stats
The next step is to buy stats. Now, keep this in mind: you are only able to spend HALF of your BP on stats. In this case 250 BP. You also can only have ONE stat at it's NATURAL maximum. Stats cost 10 BP per point that you buy. However, it costs 25 BP to buy the last point in a stat. So if you start with a Str of 1 and you want to max it out, it would cost you 10 BP each for the first 5 points and 25 for the 6th point. Capiche`?

Edge
Call this your luck stat. You must either buy or earn points for this stat, you don't start with any. Each race is allowed to have 6 points of Edge, except for Humans, they can have 7. To Edge, it costs 10 BP each and 25 for the last point, just like Stats. YOU WANT AT LEAST ONE POINT IN THIS! Think of these as lifelines. Now these can also be earned by doing really cool or crazy things, this is determined by the GM.

Essence
Everybody starts with 6 Essence. This stat will never increase, but it can decrease. It is decreased by using Cyber- and Bioware. More of that later.

Magic/Resonance
These two stats are only available if you buy one of the following Qualities: Adept, Magician, Mystic Adept, or Technomancer. Purchasing Adept, Magician, or Mystic Adept gives the character a Magic attribute
of 1. Purchasing the Technomancer quality gives the character a Resonance attribute of 1. A character can only possess either Magic or Resonance—never both. Raising this stat is just like all the other ones: 10 BP for +1, 25 BP for the last point. The cap on these stats is 6.

Skills
There are 3 types of skills: Active, Knowledge, and Language. Active skills are things like Firearms, Athletics, things like that. Knowledge skills aren't required, they are skills that you make up to flesh out a character and give it a personal touch. Language skills are exactly that, Languages.

All Active skills start out at 0, anybody can use any skill. It costs 4 BP per skill rank, with a maximum rank of 6. Starting characters are only allowed ONE skill at rank 6 or TWO skills at rank 5.

Your character starts with a number of Knowledge skill points equal to (Logic + Intuition) x 3. You may also purchase additional Knowledge skill points at a rate of 2 BP per point. The maximum number of Knowledge skill points you may purchase is also equal to your (Logic + Intuition) x 3. Keep in mind that your Language skillpoints come from the same pool, so spend wisely. Knowledge skills are a 1 for 1 rank buy, they can't go any higher than 6 ranks, and must be VERY SPECIFIC. You can have as many Knowledge skills as you like, so spend all of those points because you can't save them for anything else.

For Languages, you have to pick a Native tongue for your character before you do anything else, this language is free and you are automatically and expert in it. You are allowed to pick as many Languages as your Knowledge pool allows. Just like all the other skills, you can have up to a 6 in it.

Qualities
There are alot of different qualities available, both positive and negative. You are allowed to have up to 35 points in Positive Qualities. Negative qualities on the other hand, give you points to use on Positive Qualities. You are allowed to give yourself up to 35 more points from Negatives.

Money and Gear
Now for the fun part: Money and Gear. Nuyen (the currency in this game) is bought for character creation, not given. You get 5,000 Nuyen for 1 BP. You are allowed to spend 50 BP in this manner, that's 250,000 Nuyen. Nuyen is used to purchase everything from weapons, to armor, to cyberware. With this money you must also buy your lifestyle. There are 6 types of Lifestyle: Street, Squatter, Low, Middle, High, and Luxury. the prices are Free, 500, 2000, 5000, 10000, and 100000 respectively. You must pick one of these. It's best to pay for a couple months worth right from the start so you don't have to worry about it again for awhile. These cover everything from food, to clothing, to lodging, all the little piddly stuff.


And that's really it. Nothing to it right? ;) Well this is all just the basic stuff. If you want to get into anything like Cyberware, Magic, stuff like that, let me know and I'll walk you through it. If you can go out and torrent the books (like I did) then you will be much better off. Alright then, hope all that helps. Happy Runner Making!

[rhoenix]

:: Personal Data ::
Name:
Total Karma: 0
Current Karma: 0
Street Cred: 0
Notoriety: 0
Public Awareness: 0
Current Edge:

:: Attributes ::
Physical
Agility 4, Body 9, Reaction 4, Strength 8

Mental
Charisma 2, Intuition 3, Logic 3, Willpower 2

Special
Edge _, Essence 6, Magic 5, Resonance _

Special
Initiative:
Astral Init:
Matrix Init:
Init. Passes:

:: Description/Personality ::

:: Various Stats ::
Walking Rate (m/turn):
Running Rate (m/turn):
Swimming Rate (m/turn):
Lift (without test, in kg):
Overhead Lift (without rest, in kg):
Weight (kg/lbs):
Height (cm/inches):
Gender:
Age (in years):
Lifestyle:
Metatype:

:: Qualities ::
Adept 5
Mentor Spirit: Wise Warrior 5
Toughness 10
SINner -5

:: Skills ::
Close Combat
Blades
Clubs
Unarmed Combat

Perception 3
Armorer 3

:: Skill Notes ::

:: Armor/Defense ::

:: Weapons/Offense ::

:: Misc. Items ::

:: Contacts ::

:: Identities ::

:: Licenses ::

:: Versioning ::
v0.01: begin character (and learn ShadowRun!)

[Haizu]

Here's a character I made awhile back, might use him as an NPC. Keep in mind that he's a Cyborg so the rules are different for him. This is a 500 BP character just like the ones that you are developing.

Name: Eddie Brock
Total Karma: 0
Current Karma: 0
Street Cred: 0
Notoriety: 0
PA: 0
Edge: 2/6
Essence: .01
Lifestyle: High (6 Months paid)

Agi: Vehicle+Handling
Bod: Depends on Chassis
Rea: Response of Built-In Commlink

Str: Same as Body
Ini: Int+Res of Internal Commlink
Ini Passes: 4

Cha: 4
Int: 4
Logic: 4
Will: 5

Qualities
SINner
Aptitude: Heavy Weapons
Natural Hardening
Photographic Memory

Skills
Heavy Weapons Skill Group 7
Computer Skill Group 2
Data Search Skill Group 2
Cybertech 5
First Aid 5
Medicine 5
Dodge 4
Armorer 2
Hardware 5
Vehicle 5

Contacts
Fixer: Loyalty 3 Connection 3
Cyber Clinic: Loyalty 2 Connection 4
Lonestar Captain/Old Military Buddy: Loyalty 4 Connection 5

Main Chassis
Mitsuhama Tomino
+2 Handling
Accel 5/15
Spd 35
Body 10
Armor 30
Sensor 4

Internal Commlink: Res 6 Sig 4

Sensor Package (LL Vision, Flare Comp, Image Link, Smartlink, Thermo, Vision Enh 3, Vision Mag)
Ultrawide Band Radar 4
Microphone (Audio Enh 3)
Passive Sensor 6
Active Sensor 6

Drone Slots: Imp Sensor Array, Armor, Engine Cust. Speed, Body Stabilizer 2, Cyborg Adapt, Nanomaintenance System 2, Touch Sensors, Walker

Weapons
Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle
9P -4AP SA RC1 10c+Energy
Ammo: 50 rounds
Energy: Satchel Power Pack x2

ArmTech MGL-12
SA 12c
Ammo: Frag 12P(F) +5AP -1 Dam per meter from explosion 24 rounds
Mods: Ext Smartlink, Airburst Link

Ingram White Knight
6P -1AP BF/AF RC5(6) Ammo Belt

Chassis 2
Mitsuhama Otomo
+1 Handling
Accel 5/15
30 Spd
Body 6
Armor 0
Sensor 3

Armor: Armored Jacket 8B/6I

Gear (All)
Crash Cart Auto-chanic

Notes
Adult Brain: -1 Dice pool mod to Non-Skillwire based skills. May advance pre-cyborg skills to beyond 5. -2 to Sanity Tests.
Sanity Test: Will+Int
+2 Dice Pool mod to Vehicle Tests
Rating 6 vs. Biofeedback
Requires Cybertech+Logic Extended Test, Threshold 20, 30 mins per test, once per week.
Upkeep Cost: 8,000 per month
Mana Spells are ineffective.
May combat in Matrix and Physical world at once. Treat as a hacker active in multiple nodes.

[rhoenix]

Ok, I heard from another member here that the majority of people here interested in/familiar with Shadowrun on these forums utterly despise 4th edition for some reason.

I'm coming from the perspective of a person who enjoyed reading a few of the books based on the game, but never played the game itself or even read the rulebook. Of any edition.

So - I've been told a few people here could explain why 4th edition is bad, whether another edition would be better, and so on. So, I ask all of you - please tell me why. Thank you in advance.

[Cynical Cat]

So - I've been told a few people here could explain why 4th edition is bad, whether another edition would be better, and so on. So, I ask all of you - please tell me why. Thank you in advance.

Shadowrun is a terrible choice to run as a mechanics based forum game period, even without the soul sucking, fluff destroying, samurai pandering blandness of the 4th edition. Even more so than White Wolf, the mechanics rely on reactive actions and that means glacial crawling.

There has been a Shadowrun game on this forum before. It didn't use game mechanics and it collapsed after about 75 pages.

Haizu's offered:

1) Himself as GM and as a player he makes soulless killing machines, not characters.

2) Nothing interesting about the actual story.

3) 4th edition game mechanics.

[frigidmagi]

The problem with 4th edition in Shadowrun is the gimping of magical characters while boasting the abilities of cybernetic characters. Both Cat and myself are major magical character players in Shadowrun so we object to being gimped. Also is the consideration that magic is the big thing seperating Shadowrun from all the other cyberpunk settings out there, making it less of a factor just seems well... idiotic.

In 3rd edition you didn't have to buy magic twice for example. What do I mean by that? I'll explain.

In character generation in 3rd edition, you bought the ability to be a Shamen, a Mage or an Adept. This automatically granted you a magic of 6. Now you couldn't start with a higher magic then your essence, so if you took Cyberware your magic would drop but well a magical player doesn't need cybernetics.

Now even in 3rd edition it was alot easier to play a Cyberjock. To upgrade all you needed was money and an access to a Cyberdoc. Even if you didn't upgrade your metal parts, it was laughable easy to start off as a well tuned machine of whatever you wanted.

Being a magical character took more effort and brain matter to keep up. Even in a system was wasn't against them per say. Now everything pretty much leads me to assume the system is set up against magic characters, so why should I play? What makes Shadowrun any different from Cyberpunk setting 34?

[Haizu]

Well I've never played Cyberpunk and this is the only edition I've ever played. Also, the Cyborg was more of a character example than anything else. I like to tinker with the system and make characters. I don't understand how Magic has been gimped in this game either. Yeah it sux that you have to dump BP into the Magic stat, but so what? Magic is ridiculously overpowered in this game. A guy I do this with irl dropped every single person in an entire building in one shot and he resisted all the drain from it too. Now please explain how that is gimped.

[LadyTevar]

that's what magic is supposed to do, actually.

What I really hated was the Meta-Magic "upgrade".

[Marcao]

Okay, I am going to drop my two cents on the conversation. Here is the full disclosure comment: I am one of the people that never really got into the Shadowrun. I did not like magic in the genre, give me good old cyberpunk 2020 any day of the week. However, I have -played- three honest to god games in the Shadowrun version 3 setting. In each game, magicians were considerably more powerful and more able than the non-magic using characters.

As a result, I am not going to shed any tears when people tell me that it is more difficult to be a magic user in 4th edition or that magic users got nerfed. Sometimes, the nerf bat is warranted and in my experience, magic users in 3rd editing needed some beatings with the nerf bat. Its like an argument that I recall reading in the dakkadakka forums regarding W40K table top games.

"Man, there is no way the Callidus assassin is undercosted or broken for what she does if anything she is too weak!"
"Is that why in every battle reports you have ever posted, you have a callidus assassin with your space marine army?"
"..."

[rhoenix]

Huh.

Ok, well how do casters compare against the cyber-people in 3rd versus 4th?

I mean, I can already see that combat may be a bit difficult to do via forum post, but that can be worked around, as that's pure mechanics. If that can be done, then other "houserule" changes can be made in the name of expediency and fairness.

EDIT: Wow. I mis-spelled a two-letter word.

[Cynical Cat]

Magicians are somewhat more versatile than cybered dudes, but cybers are superior in combat in normal conditions than either magicians or physical adepts, which are essentially guys who use magical rather than cybernetic enhancements to be badass warriors. Under some conditions (say fighting spirits) the magic users are better. In others, (anything magic resistant or anytime they get to bring in heavy weapons) they're much worse.

Once you get out of the starting box, everything a magically active character does to improve himself requires xp, lots of it. Huge amounts of cash might be required as well, but it's always lots of xp. Cyber dudes, on the other hand, get to save their xp just for buying up stats and skills and all their augmentations just require money.

Magic also has a cost, the more powerful the spell the higher the drain which will fuck up the mage. You can argue about whether or not the greater versatility of a mage is superior or inferior to the samurai, but the samurai gets badass faster and easier and not matter how powerful a mage gets, the adept doesn't keep pace with the samurai.

If you don't like cyber plus magic, then for god's sake don't play Shadowrun. It's the core of the fucking game.

[rhoenix]

If you don't like cyber plus magic, then for god's sake don't play Shadowrun. It's the core of the fucking game.

Quite honestly, this is one of the attractions to the game for me, and I'd like to play a game in such a setting. If the only issue for playing a game in such a setting here over the forums is one of mechanics, then the mechanics can be changed to make things more fair.

So, if everyone who's posted in this thread so far is interested in this game, what does everyone else think?

[frigidmagi]

I'll make this my last post in respect to Rhoenix. But Haz here asked some questions so I will provide answers.

Yeah it sux that you have to dump BP into the Magic stat, but so what?

No I have to drop BP into the Magic stat twice. Once to buy the option and again to get a Magic stat. That's double charging for the same bloody thing. Bluntly that's a fucking rip off, nothing else in the game requires me to buy it twice and if I don't dump as much BPs into it as are require for a magic of 6 then I'm a lousy mage. That's a rip off and I don't see why I should swallow it thank you for asking. Also it increases the maintance cost. Keep in mind that in order to bump my magic power I have to burn money, time and Karma. The Cyber-player just needs cash and not near as much time. So I'm spending more just to keep up.

What does this mean? This means that any time a mage player is putting Karma into skills or stats, he's slowing his advancement as a mage. This means playing with a calucator to work out the best spread, this means thinking. I'm cool with that, half a reason I played a mage in 3rd edition was the challenge of keeping up with doped up manics of a essence of .92 or some odd crap (why yes, they were utterly useless whenever it came to time to gather information).

Meanwhile a Cyber player can keep a constant upgrade on skills, stats and ware for the same cost? Meaning, if any of the cyber players had had a brain they could have out paced me with ease.

A guy I do this with irl dropped every single person in an entire building in one shot and he resisted all the drain from it too. Now please explain how that is gimped.

There are a number of ways he can be doing that. One is a number of foci, which aren't cheap and cost Karma which would help him dump the drain. Another is by metamagic feats and acts, which cost so much karma your damn head will spin with the numbers. The most basic of these effects is upping your magic stat past 6. Considering that your spells cannot have a power rating beyond your magic rating this is rather important (the power rating is the basic umph of your spell, a power rating of 1 can be shrugged off by some species of house plants for example). Oh did I mention it takes weeks to learn spells of high power ratings? Meaning you can be out of game for over a month? So basically this isn't a starting character, this is an effect of alot or investment and time.

Another possibility is that your GM is doing it wrong, either by giving NPCs all willpowers of 2 (the top is 6 and the average is 3, higher willpowers can shrug off spells more easily). That's a heavy charge to make though and I'm not gonna advance without actually knowing more about the game. So at the moment I'm assuming it's one of the other two.

[rhoenix]

Thank you for your replies, Frigid. I am now more curious about 3rd edition rules now.

And now I'm more curious about Shadowrun itself - I'll be looking into it a bit over the next few days.

[Jason_Firewalker]

Can anyone email me a copy of the 3e and 4e rules? I kinda like cyberpunk settings.

[Haizu]

I'm going to have to look into that Frigid, because the spell he used was a lvl 14. Now there's no way his magic stat could be that high so I'm gonna ask him about it so that I can get more of a grasp on the magic part of this game. Now I'll ask this again, is anyone even the slightest bit interested in trying this out? Besides Rhoenix and Jason?

[GreyGriffin]

I may be interested, but I'm more interested in a 4e game than a 3e game.

In 3e, you can cast a spell of any Force you like. If you cast higher Force than your magic, you simply risk Physical Drain instead of Stun Drain. If your Drain resist is good enough, this is no risk at all.

[Haizu]

Well I was planning on running a 4e anyway, i don't know the 3e rules.

[Cynical Cat]

In 3e, you can cast a spell of any Force you like. If you cast higher Force than your magic, you simply risk Physical Drain instead of Stun Drain. If your Drain resist is good enough, this is no risk at all.

That's completely dishonest.

1) You can't cast a spell at higher Force than you know. Learning spells costs both xp and cash and the higher the Force the higher the cost. Hermetic Libraries and Medicine Lodges are also required (also costing cash). You also have to be able to get your hands on a copy at that Force.


2) Physical Drain is Physical damage. That means you can die from trying to cast the spell. Also, since Physical and Stun damage modifiers stack, and these penalties rapidly become severe, that means you have a good chance of fucking yourself up.

3) In general, the more potent the spell the harsher the Drain code. The greater the Force the harder the Drain as well. That means if you're casting a high Force spell and not taking any drain then:

1) Wussy drain code, which means its not that badass of a spell. Even the manabolt/stunbolt family (well known to have excellent bang for their buck drain wise) have fairly severe drain for the high Force and high powered versions of their spells.

2) Monstrously capable magician, which requires truly massive amounts of xp and money (especially xp) to become.