Shadowrun 4e: No IP for You!

[DigoDragon]

In a few weeks my group will be starting up a Shadowrun 4e campaign and for the first time, I'm not the GM to run it. The one who is running the game has never ran 4th edition before, but he has GM experience in several other systems and player experience in Shadowrun 4e.

Here's where it gets interesting:
The GM was thinking of getting rid of multiple Initiative Passes entirely. From past Shadowrun adventures, we know the action economy is king and once someone gets multiple IPs, then everyone else has to "Keep up with the Jonses" just to stay effective alive.
The GM's reasoning is that if everyone is strictly limited to 1 IP a round, then the players can focus on making the most of their one pass, rather than focusing on how to squeeze more passes out each round. The GM may still allow spending Edge for a second IP, but outside that all the spells and cyber/bioware in the world granting IPs are removed from the game.

Thus far all the players seem to be onboard with this idea.

I was curious on the opinions of other experienced Players/GMs on this board. Is limited extra IPs a fair rule? How about if Edge is your only source of an extra IP a round?

[Alejandro]

I totally read it as Internet Protocol and thought this was about slicing.

[Andrewmoreton]

In SR in general it works best if all the Pc's have comparable number of IP's/actions so limiting everyone to 1 does have that effect. There are a sumber of other consequences which need to be considered.
1) Mooks become more powerful, where as a boosted PC could cut down a large group of gangers without multiple IP the gangers become relatively more powerful.
2) It invalidates a whole range of character concepts, and means that Adepts/Cyber users no longer need to spend a big chunk of resources on going fast. This means that instead they will be able to get more different cyberware gear, this may well mean that tank builds with massive soak pools become common (they are another balance between pc's issues as if you have a tank weapons that can hurt him annihilate any other pc)
3) It may tend to make mages more powerful (this is commonly perceived as an issue already) although mages can get mulitiple IP's with Increase reflexes spell and a focus it is rarer for mages to have them and is more vulnerable for them (spirit attack on foci, dispelling, astral barriers breaking the foci)

[Ravens_cry]

I read it as Intellectual Property myself, and wondered if some company had bought the rights to Shadowrun and now refused to release it or something dastardly like that.

[hiryuu]

I was curious on the opinions of other experienced Players/GMs on this board. Is limited extra IPs a fair rule? How about if Edge is your only source of an extra IP a round?

They are all going to die. Probably to street trash. That's my opinion.

That said, this is going to react hilariously with rigging and matrix rules. ...Probably by streamlining them a ton and making them easier to use. But, then, you should probably give some kind of bonus to hot sim. Otherwise it's useless and downright dangerous to do, and technomancers get kicked in the butt. Again.

[Raimun]

Hmm, I think magic will be more powerful in combats.
No one in our group has more than one but I know IPs are strong... but so is magic. If you have the right spells, normal rules of engagement do not apply. Of course, this is the case even with IPs but at least normal people (yes, a troll counts as normal) will be more dangerous if the mage fumbles it.

[Anderlith]

Init Passes are kind of the foundation of fast characters. Guys with serious mojo get 3 passes when ghosting astral, & when your rigger wants to run hot he should be getting the benefits from it & not just the scorching feedback.
In addition to that all the vat-job neo-ninjas & street sams will be running too slow to duck into cover away from Knight Errant bag & taggers. Convince your GM to let you have back your IP, cause when running in Redmond, you're either quick or you're dead



(Sorry I couldn't help but throw around some Shadorun lingo)

[DigoDragon]

1) Mooks become more powerful, where as a boosted PC could cut down a large group of gangers without multiple IP the gangers become relatively more powerful.

And hilariously the more powerful encounters like the Red samurai get slightly easier. Its a good point to bring up though.



3) It may tend to make mages more powerful (this is commonly perceived as an issue already) although mages can get mulitiple IP's with Increase reflexes spell and a focus it is rarer for mages to have them and is more vulnerable for them (spirit attack on foci, dispelling, astral barriers breaking the foci)

Mages can "cheaply" use spells for additional IPs, so power level isn't much affected, but funny thing is that our group isn't big into spell-type mages with Shadowrun anyway. Adepts always seem the preferred choice of awakened character. Extra IPs and Adepts are like PB&J.
Sure a lack of spellcasting mages makes fighting spirits/enemy mages extra-difficult, but I guess that's why we have the tank issue as stated in your point #2. :smallbiggrin:



That said, this is going to react hilariously with rigging and matrix rules. ...Probably by streamlining them a ton and making them easier to use. But, then, you should probably give some kind of bonus to hot sim. Otherwise it's useless and downright dangerous to do, and technomancers get kicked in the butt. Again.

True, it does make hotsim less useful. I'm showing these responses to my GM to see what he thinks. Not as a complaint or anything, but it's good that we think these house-rules through before implimenting.
We just want the playing field to be... less unfair? :smallsmile:



In addition to that all the vat-job neo-ninjas & street sams will be running too slow to duck into cover away from Knight Errant bag & taggers. Convince your GM to let you have back your IP, cause when running in Redmond, you're either quick or you're dead

Well, I don't think I need to convince him. He was looking through some builds with IPs and came up with a "middle ground" of sorts--


The GM is now thinking that one extra IP should be alright (not including Edge use). It'll give a small advantage to fast-type builds over regular go-gangers and cops without leaving single IP players in the dust. For purposes of matrix users, Cold sim is 1 IP and hotsim gives 2 IP.

I guess really the GM just wants to avoid the issue we had in our last Shadowrun game where the two adepts with 3 IPs could only deal 2 damage to everything while the Streetsam who's turn came up Next Tuesday kept missing the first round with his one shot. :smallbiggrin:
Well, it was funnier than it sounds at the time...

[LibraryOgre]

One thing you may try to reduce the impact is to make additional IPs harder to get, but not impossible.

For example, you may have Wired Reflexes give an Initiative bonus at every level, but an IP bonus only at even ones (so level 2 Wired is good, level 3 Wired is slightly better, deltagrade Wired 4 is AWESOME). Boosted Reflexes (are those still a thing?) might be an IP at Rating 3, while Move-by-wire would be at every level.

This reduces the number of IP passes you get, making a bonus one valuable... and giving you an edge on the mooks... but without relatively low-level cyberware giving you tons of IP.

[hiryuu]

Everyone has the ability to get more IPs for their specialty. I would consider that while the problem is that it looks like IPs are the problem, the real problem is not having mages. In fact, without those extra IPs, hacking turns into a dreadful bore unless everyone is in on it.

Expect automatic weapons to suddenly become even more ridiculously powerful and see way more attempted uses.

On possibility is to divide initiative into chunks and let people who would have more IPs go in the first chunks. So someone who would have 4 IPs will always go first, regardless of their init roll (unless someone else would have 4 IPs, too, then the contest is against them). That way you get the same "effect," but they don't break the action economy into tiny pieces and then make those pieces explode.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I read it as Intellectual Property myself, and wondered if some company had bought the rights to Shadowrun and now refused to release it or something dastardly like that.
Yup, me too.

[DigoDragon]

This reduces the number of IP passes you get, making a bonus one valuable... and giving you an edge on the mooks... but without relatively low-level cyberware giving you tons of IP.

Not a bad idea. My GM may stick with just lowering the max number of IPs a round, but it doesn't hurt to pass this along.




Everyone has the ability to get more IPs for their specialty. I would consider that while the problem is that it looks like IPs are the problem, the real problem is not having mages. In fact, without those extra IPs, hacking turns into a dreadful bore unless everyone is in on it.

The first part is true, everyone can get more IPs, but they go about it differently. It is possible (depending on how the game plays out) that some get more IPs faster than others. This is what sometimes happens with our group so the GM is trying to find a way to keep that gap from being so wide.

Lacking a mage isn't a big problem though... well, assuming the GM only throws occasional minor spirits at us. The Johnsons would probably not hire a magically-light team to go break into a Magic Lodge and if they did we'd be morons to take a job like that. :smallbiggrin:
Assuming we have no mages of course. One of my two character concepts is a straight-up mage so if the rest of the players go totally mundane... I got their back.

As for hacking... dunno. The GM is working on a streamline process though.



Expect automatic weapons to suddenly become even more ridiculously powerful and see way more attempted uses.

Maybe. I dunno how this GM will fair on weapons escalation, but I know in my game heavy weapons were only warrented 33% of the time. The other 66% of the missions required carrying small/concealable weapons because the players had to get into high security areas and fighting your way through was the hard way. At one point I made them break into a Lone Star office! :smallcool:

I suppose a machine pistol is small enough to resonably get it in...

[Axier]

IPs are kinda important. Without it, yeah it just kinda averages everything and makes it harder for melee characters to survive.

[vhfforever]

They are going to die to thugs the first time one of them is asked to hand over their com outside a Stuffer Shack.

[hiryuu]

The first part is true, everyone can get more IPs, but they go about it differently. It is possible (depending on how the game plays out) that some get more IPs faster than others. This is what sometimes happens with our group so the GM is trying to find a way to keep that gap from being so wide.

That depends. Everyone can start out with more than 1 IP in their specialty: hackers and Technomancers get them in the matrix, adepts and sams get them all the time for breathing in the right direction with their character creation resources, and if a mage lives longer than a round he gets all of them when he summons four spirits with 3 IP each.


Lacking a mage isn't a big problem though... well, assuming the GM only throws occasional minor spirits at us. The Johnsons would probably not hire a magically-light team to go break into a Magic Lodge and if they did we'd be morons to take a job like that. :smallbiggrin:
Assuming we have no mages of course. One of my two character concepts is a straight-up mage so if the rest of the players go totally mundane... I got their back.

If a company does not have magical security, namely, the super-cheap, readily available astral walls or bound spirits, they are asking for it. If you can't detect or stop them, you are asking for it. Binding at least minor spirits is so cheap and easy every convenience store should have a Force 3 spirit and watchers moving around even in a "low magic" situation. In fact, binding nasty spirits is cheaper than actual security forces.

There are things in Shadowrun that just wander invisibly around the astral and are immune to bullets that are the reason everyone lives in huge cities.


As for hacking... dunno. The GM is working on a streamline process though.

There are a lot of house rules floating around, I'm sure you could find one for your group. Also, Unwired makes it better.


Maybe. I dunno how this GM will fair on weapons escalation, but I know in my game heavy weapons were only warrented 33% of the time. The other 66% of the missions required carrying small/concealable weapons because the players had to get into high security areas and fighting your way through was the hard way. At one point I made them break into a Lone Star office! :smallcool:

I suppose a machine pistol is small enough to resonably get it in...

"Warranted" does not mean that a PC won't try it. There are fully automatic weapons that are not heavy, break down into things that look perfectly normal, and are not made of metal.

To be fair, if you fired a shot, you probably screwed the whole run, but when the bullets start flying, expect anything that gets you more attacks to rule everything. Automatic weapons are stealth IPs, so just be careful.

[DigoDragon]

Just to let everyone know, we tried a session with a maximum of 2 IPs (3 if you use Edge) and it worked out okay so far. The points that would have been spent on more than one extra IP were spent on soaking more damage and getting the most attack power out of your turn. The GM also changed "Hit points" to be 8+BOD instead of 8+Half BOD.

Overall fights were slightly longer, but no more lethal than normal for us.

[DodgerH2O]

I always wanted to houserule the 'old' (2e anyhow) initiative rules into the game, but never managed to run with it.

[LibraryOgre]

I always wanted to houserule the 'old' (2e anyhow) initiative rules into the game, but never managed to run with it.

The old rules, in many ways, were just as bad. Instead of "I act, you act, I act, I act, I act", there were "I act, I act, I act, you act."

[The Random NPC]

Or sometimes, I act, I act, I act, There's no reason for you to act.

[LibraryOgre]

So, this is JUST on the line (literally, six weeks to the day), but I had a brainwave while discussing this on the G+ group:

Instead of IPs, every level of Wired Reflexes grants you an additional simple action. 2 simple actions still can be "traded" for a complex action.

This preserves the value of wired, but avoids the problem of too many passes.

(Looking on it, this is really just a refinement of what I suggested earlier)

[hiryuu]

That's a good one! I'll actually try that next time.

[Ghost49X]

One of the big things here is to consider the medium, if you guys are playing by post lowering the IP cap allows everyone's turn to come around faster. It's kinda boring to be that street Sam who gets to act once a week where people are acting every day. Also it drags out fights that are already long. Personally I'd like to try stating all your round's actions including all IPs on the same post and use contingencies in case your original action isn't viable. You could always go back and edit if the GM allows it should the situation allow it. It would make a round go by in like 2days as compared to a week.

[vampeel]

I was considering GM a Shadowrun game too, and thought how Initiative Pass (IP) thing leaves a lot of people doing nothing, while one person does everything.

I was thinking of changing the rules for IP:
Everyone gets one IP.
If you have an additional IP from item, once per rating you may gain one additional IP per round.
Any Initiative bonus that item

Several things give additional IP: cyber, drugs, magic, etc., I am referring to them in general as 'items'.

This should give an advantage to players with additional IP but those players without can still contribute to the game.

Example:
Glen the Street Samurai has wired reflex 2, just got into a brawl with a local troll street thug.
When starting combat, both roll initiative, Glen gets to add the bonus to initiative from the wired reflexes of +2. The troll being all natural has no bonus.
The troll manages to go first but misses, so Glen counterattacks, but was unable to seriously harm the troll.
The next round the troll lands a blow, and Glen realizes he needs to end this, so he decides to use one of his two bonus initiative passes, and as such gain two passes this round, leaving him with one bonus initiative pass to be used later.

[LibraryOgre]

I don't like your solution, vampeel. Most fights last very little time, and front-loading IPs would be a substantial advantage.

So, let's go back to Glen. There's very little reason for him not to simply use 3 IPs in the first round... because he'll be able to take out the troll quickly, and then go on to the next fight, where he can use 3 IPs in the first round again.

Sure, in subsequent turns, he's got one IP, but unless the GM adds more people to the fight, so do they.

[vampeel]

I am not good at explaining what I am thinking...
I meant that you could only use one of your additional initiative passes per combat round. So if you had three bonus initiative passes, over the first three combat rounds you can use one each round, or you could hold off using one for a later round.

[LibraryOgre]

Even then, what's the advantage to saving an IP?

If I have 3 bonus IPs, is there any situation you can think of where it would be to my advantage to not use them as soon as possible?

[TheOOB]

I fail to see the problem with the IP system. It strongly encourages players to seek technological or mystical enhancements to their abilities, without which they are dramatically less effective in combat, to the point of even being a liability. Without multiple IPs, you are not a good fighter, period.

You know what though, that's the point. The world of Shadowrun is not fair, especially not to the titular runners. That's what the punk in cyberpunk is for. As a runner, or anyone in a dangerous profession, you have two choices, either be born with supernatural abilities, or defile your body with expensive cyber/bioware(we'll there's a third choice, but it involves dieing a quick and dirty death to someone who gets to act three times more often than you). I'd argue that is the point of shadowrun, and reducing the emphasis on IP's makes the system more fair and makes unaugmented mundanes a viable character archtype. And if unaugmented mundanes can be good combat characters, something is seriously wrong.

As for the effects on combat, remember that Shadowrun combat is usually really short. If one side gets suprise, they usually win right out, and combat is typically won or lost in the first round. Also remember that each IP is less important than the last. Your first IP doubles your combat effectiveness(twice as many actions), while your second extra IP only increases it by 50%(and the third extra 33%). It is often better to go for higher dice pools than it is to squeeze an extra IP out of your build.

[illyrus]

Keep in mind that you you can still have wide differences in action economy like [mage with a bunch of spirits in tow] or dronomancer (technomancer rigger) with a sprite/drone squad. These may not be be an issue for your game though.

I honestly think it will work just fine, the GM needs to just keep in mind the power shift.

[TheOOB]

Keep in mind that you you can still have wide differences in action economy like [mage with a bunch of spirits in tow] or dronomancer (technomancer rigger) with a sprite/drone squad. These may not be be an issue for your game though.

I honestly think it will work just fine, the GM needs to just keep in mind the power shift.

Yes, that's another thing, conjuring and drone technos will become even more powerful, as they'll have easy ways of increasing their actions(which to be fair is their primary way of increasing actions normally), while other characters will not.