General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

[The Random NPC]

I guess perception checks would work very differently then. I imagine someone with high essence hiding behind a door may be easier to spot than someone with near zero essence standing right in front of you.
Not gonna implement it at my table though. Too many rules already...

Yeah, perception gets kind of screwy in astral, but fortunately, the books just recommend you impose a -2 for obstruction (remember that this is coming from 4e). That being said, in a lot of cases, the fact that you glow like a bonfire could give you away. Like if you're the only one on the floor. If there isn't supposed to be anyone there, the fact that someone is could ruin a stealth mission.

[comicshorse]

2E question about wards. How does a rating point affect the strength of the ward? In the 2E Grimoire (p92), you roll Sorcery dice against a target number equal to the desired Force of the ward, and "Every two successes gives the ward 1 Rating Point as an astral barrier." How does that relate to the Force of the ward?

I've read the Grimoire and it is very unclear. The only thing I can think is that the Rating only represents the DURATION of the Ward and nothing else. The strength of the Ward is decided entirely by the number of successes you get to increases its strength as an Astral Barrier

Also, is there a way to completely pull down a ward? SR II says that defeating a ward in astral combat just let's you pass through it; it doesn't allow anyone else through.

I think you're misreading this. It says on p148 " If and when the barrier rating is reduced to 0 ,it collapses and the magician can pass though ". Not just that only the magician can pass through

Also I believe Wards have a physical component on the mundane plane. Chalk marks, bead curtains, etc so a Mage can always have his mundane pals remove the ritual markings of the Ward and that will destroy it. Though of course if they are already there then its doubtful the Mage needs to be astrally projecting anyway

[LibraryOgre]

So, this is a bit of a tone thing... but did anyone else feel that, after 2nd edition, a lot of the differences between Mages and Shamans were de-emphasized?

[comicshorse]

I certainly felt that but after 3rd, particularly with the doing away of the big distinction between Nature Spirits and Elementals

[Nifft]

So, this is a bit of a tone thing... but did anyone else feel that, after 2nd edition, a lot of the differences between Mages and Shamans were de-emphasized?

In 4e it's basically non-existent, so yes.

[Telwar]

In 4e it's basically non-existent, so yes.

Precisely. They're just separate traditions in 4 and 5, with a LOT of others to choose from. The handwaving is the Unified Magical Theory, iirc.

[Delta]

Precisely. They're just separate traditions in 4 and 5, with a LOT of others to choose from. The handwaving is the Unified Magical Theory, iirc.

This. In 3e, the differences where still the same as in 2e, shamans had a lodge and summoned nature spirits, while mages had circles and libraries and summoned elementals.

In 4e, in came "UMT" which was a retcon that basically explained that the differences had always just been a matter of dogma and perception and put everything within one big framework, 5e just blew the lid off with the sheer number of traditions now available.

One of the big reasons for that was that in 1-3e, mages were simply worse than shamans, period. Elementals took hours to summon while a shaman could shake his hand a little and get a nature spirit to show up with one action, considering how ridiculously OP some of those spirit powers were, that was a big imbalance. Yes, there were situations where a mage had an advantage, but those were far and few between, I'd say in 90% of scenarios I encountered in Shadowrun back in 2/3 days, shamans were simply more useful.

[Telok]

What I recall doing as a mage was doing the summonings as a downtime activity and pulling up the elemental for something later.

I also recall spending a task to tell an elemental to obey someone else, effectively transferring control to another person.

[Delta]

Yeah, you could do it in downtime, sure. But the shaman could summon the usually more useful nature spirit in a complex action, that's just no contest.

[Telok]

Yeah, you could do it in downtime, sure. But the shaman could summon the usually more useful nature spirit in a complex action, that's just no contest.

Also an option for mages was having multiple elementals out at once.

I'm not saying better, it's just that there were real differences in the options back then.

Shaman could whip out a spirit on short notice without material costs. It lasted until dawn/dusk, was locked to it's geography, and the shaman took drain. The mage could go all in for successes on downtime summoning since they only needed to not fall unconscious, have multiple elementals on tap, and cross boundaries with them. But they did cost a lot and required more prep work to make use of.

[Delta]

Never said there weren't differences, quite the opposite. If there weren't any, they wouldn't have needed UMT. But in my experience, on the vast majority of runs, the shaman's advantages turned out to be much, much more useful than the mages.

And one more reason for UMT of course was the break up the lore a little bit, because the "there are two ways to do magic, the 'classical western' wizard and the native american shaman" was ignoring tons and tons of mystical lore from around the world which especially non-american players felt weirded out a bit by, since for obvious reason native american mysticism was never that huge a thing over here.

It was a natural development, Shadowrun was a child of the 80s when as I gather a lot of that native mysticism was a big part of the north american New Age movement, but from the late 90s onwards, with globalization going into overdrive, developers wanted to include more different approaches from around the world.

[Telok]

Yeah, I hear ya on the expansion of magic traditions beyond the two of them. It was sorely needed.

Most of the runs our group did were probably different from yours. The day/night and geographic boundaries would have actually made a shaman have to call another spirit three or four times, our caster went KO from drain a few times, and when we found the ant spirit hive multiple elementals was a big help. So for us the mage elementals were better than shaman spirits.

[Delta]

Yeah if you have a large battle having multiple elementals prepared can be useful, but that was in my "10%" category, at least in my experience, that's a very small fraction of runs based on having big open all-out prolonged fights.

As to the rest, I guess the shamans I encountered were more optimized (never played a mage in SR2/3 myself), never seen anyone taking much serious drain unless they were pulling out the really big guns. The thing you mentioned "Oh, moving into a different region, I need a new spirit" usually wasn't really worth mentioning so I didn't consider that a big point tbh.

[Telok]

I think it was because we did a number of runs on/near harbor and waterfront properties.

[Lord Torath]

I think you're misreading this. It says on p148 "If and when the barrier rating is reduced to 0 ,it collapses and the magician can pass though ". Not just that only the magician can pass through.

The first paragraph on Barriers the page before (p147) says "To pass through a barrier, a magician must destroy its resistance. The barrier remains intact against all other intruders." This seems to imply that each magician or spirit must fight its way past the barrier separately.

Also I believe Wards have a physical component on the mundane plane. Chalk marks, bead curtains, etc so a Mage can always have his mundane pals remove the ritual markings of the Ward and that will destroy it. Though of course if they are already there then its doubtful the Mage needs to be astrally projecting anyway

I'll have to check the Grimoire on Wards. I don't remember it saying anything about a physical component, unless the barrier is a Hermetic Circle.

On the subject of various magical traditions, the 2E Grimoire (and possibly the 1E as well) introduced Celtic Druids, and the 2E Awakenings told how to use Voo Doo magic.

[comicshorse]

The first paragraph on Barriers the page before (p147) says "To pass through a barrier, a magician must destroy its resistance. The barrier remains intact against all other intruders." This seems to imply that each magician or spirit must fight its way past the barrier separately.

Yep, you're absolutely right. I can't remember if I applied it that way last time I ran a game (it was a bit) but that's definitely what the rules imply

I'll have to check the Grimoire on Wards. I don't remember it saying anything about a physical component, unless the barrier is a Hermetic Circle.

I did a little further checking and I got that from 3rd Edition and slightly wrong. It says Astral Barriers have physical components and suggests as examples chalked runes for a Hermetic Circle, Paranatural Hides for a Shamanic Lodge and a wall of the Warded area for a Ward. Now obviously the Mage could destroy the Ward by having his friends knock down the wall but that seems even more unlikely for the Mage to want to happen so he can do a subtle recon

[Lord Torath]

How often does the Karma Pool refresh during downtime? During adventures, it refreshes every scene change. Does any rulebook suggest how often it refreshes between adventures?

[Delta]

There's no official rule on this, and honestly, considering how ridiculously powerful karma pools quickly get if you play a while (we always houseruled it only refreshed at the beginning of a new adventure, period) I wouldn't refresh it during downtime at all.

[DigoDragon]

My local group wants me to run them on Shadowrun 4e and I (foolishly) said yes. I'm going to start the campaign in the city of London and have them move about the UK for the most part. I chose the year 2072 as the start. Is the Scottish Irradiated Zone still a thing? I'm just trying to refresh my memory on dangerous places over there (you know, cause who else but Runners would willingly go there?).

[Telwar]

My local group wants me to run them on Shadowrun 4e and I (foolishly) said yes. I'm going to start the campaign in the city of London and have them move about the UK for the most part. I chose the year 2072 as the start. Is the Scottish Irradiated Zone still a thing? I'm just trying to refresh my memory on dangerous places over there (you know, cause who else but Runners would willingly go there?).

Oof. Sixth World Almanac has a four-page entry on the UK, which does show the Scottish Fringe Toxic Zone and Irradiated Zone, respectively, and there's a blurb about the Toxic Zone expanding a bit. For the only other recent mention I recall, check out Conspiracy Theories, which has about as much detail on London as you'll get in this millennium so far. Otherwise...there's always the old 1e London Sourcebook. Caveat that I may very well be missing something, too. There was a lot of stuff around the Pendragon storyline, but that's scattered around and in adventures.

[DigoDragon]

Oof. Sixth World Almanac has a four-page entry on the UK, which does show the Scottish Fringe Toxic Zone and Irradiated Zone, respectively, and there's a blurb about the Toxic Zone expanding a bit. For the only other recent mention I recall, check out Conspiracy Theories, which has about as much detail on London as you'll get in this millennium so far. Otherwise...there's always the old 1e London Sourcebook. Caveat that I may very well be missing something, too. There was a lot of stuff around the Pendragon storyline, but that's scattered around and in adventures.

A friend of mine happened to have an old London source book from... I guess 2e or 3e Shadowrun? It's got a print year of 1991, back when FASA held the system. But anyway, it has a lot of fluff I can use for my campaign.

[LibraryOgre]

Yeah, to my knowledge, the old London Sourcebook is the only big piece of UK lore, though there were also some adventures (Celtic Double-Cross?) and the Tir nA 'Og sourcebook. (I believe it is 2e; if you see a damage code (X)(Y)(Z), it's 1e; if it's (X)(Y), it's 2e)

[Lord Torath]

Imago was another UK - based module, and both it and Celtic Double-Cross use the 2E rules. The London Sourcebook was written with the 1E rules in mind, but there's not a lot of mechanics in any of the setting sourcebooks from that era. They're pretty much fluff and plot hooks.

[comicshorse]

Yeah, to my knowledge, the old London Sourcebook is the only big piece of UK lore, though there were also some adventures (Celtic Double-Cross?) and the Tir nA 'Og sourcebook. (I believe it is 2e; if you see a damage code (X)(Y)(Z), it's 1e; if it's (X)(Y), it's 2e)

Both of which are (IMHO) terrible. 'Imago' is decent though

[LibraryOgre]

Both of which are (IMHO) terrible. 'Imago' is decent though

*shrug* I think the only adventure I've ever actually played was Double Exposure.

[Ignimortis]

My good old friend wants to run a Shadowrun 5e campaign. We've been looking to make some changes to how the game plays due to the fact that he intends to run it sandbox-like, with players not necessarily in the same team or even running (although I suspect everyone will be a somewhat appropriate runner in the end). Does anyone have any suggestions to changes we could make?

BTW, here are few things we think of changing so far, critique and suggestions are welcome:

1) Raise accuracy on all ranged weapons, from +1 or +2 to shotguns/pistols to +4 to sniper rifles or so.
2) Remove limits otherwise, including accuracy on melee weapons.
3) Reduce cyberware/bioware costs by about 25 percent.

[Black Jester]

In standard SR5e, a good, upgraded Sniper Rifle will have an Accuracy of 11, meaning that you won't hit the limit at all until you have a pool of 30 or so dice, which never happens outside of some non-viable proof of concept builds or Edge use, in which case the accuracy doesn't matter anyway.
A good, upgraded shotgun has an accuracy of 7 or so, which means that you will only hit thr limit once you have reached 20+ dice pools. That is definetely manageable, but usually still rare and resource-intensive to pull of. With your changes, the accuracy becomes completely meaningless. So, if you plan to ignore limits anyway, ignore them all the way. Enjoy the complete domination of spellcasters along the way.

I know there has been a lot of bitching about it, but the limits are not a terrible thing. They are a rule in Shadowrun, so yeah, the implementation is less than perfect, but by now that is part of the charme of the system. It is clunky. The limits allow for a positive equipment modifier which don't require a direct dice pool boost which helps to keep the total pool size on a more rational level. It really helps to keep a few elements (read: spellcasters, especially summoners) from becoming too good to be any fun, and most shockingly, they don't affect the game that much.
And yes, I have read the rantings of a certain bitter ex-writer of Shadowrun 4 about the limits in 5th edition as well.

Lower costs for Bio/Cyberware is a decent idea, though.

Another good house rules: Kill the 'one atttack per initiative pass' nonsense. Switch back to the straight initiative countdown of second edition (much easier to bookkeep, and actually an upgrade to the otherwise regularly screwed combat specialists). Introduce a gentleman's agreement that the excessive use of pet classes (summoners, sprite-heavy technomancers, drone riggers) is frowned upon in polite society. Infected characters and Pixies are an explicit exception to the 'no PvP' rule.

I usually provide bonus connections, karma and equipment based on the classic 20 questions for new characters, granting a nice but not game-breaking (and well deserved) boost to fully fleshed-out characters. For a sandbox game where the players are probably going to be mre embedded in their local communities, a more generous alotment of contacts also seems like a good idea.

[druid91]

Something I've never quite understood about Shadowrun.... Not to do with any particular edition, but more of a community thing, is the utter and total opposition a sizable portion of the fanbase has for any manner of playable Dark Magic.

Be it Blood Magic, Toxic, Insect, dealing with shadow spirits... Evil magic seems pretty out of bounds as far as the community goes.

On the other hand, you can play a mage who's evil and no one will care, so long as you don't use evil magic. If you're a street samurai, you're outright encouraged to maul your soul to borderline nonexistence with cyber... But a mage who treads similarly dark paths is. Well we can't have that now can we?

Anyone else experience this? Anyone have something to explain it? Because I really don't get it.

[Delta]

It's actually I rather common thing and not that hard to explain. To put it like this, in Shadowrun, your characters are, by default, bad guys. They're professional criminals, they steal, cheat, con, threaten, even murder for money.

While that of course is one of the big draws compared to the typical hero character of classical fantasy games, it also leaves the player in a weird space. You know the guy you're playing is bad, that what makes it cool, badass, and so on. Humans are amazing at rationalizing doing bad things, so most Shadowrun players will soon start to do exactly that. "Yeah, we're kind of the bad guys, but we're not the really bad guys!" and then point to the other side of the line usually right next to where there character is standing. Blood Magic, Insect Spirits, Shedim, that whole bucketload of things is presented as Evil, capital E, in the books (because many of the authors, being players themselves, fall into the very same trap), so that's something even morally bankrupt professional criminals can look down upon.

It gets most ridiculous regarding wetwork, the number of times I've seen players go "Oh no, my character would never do wetwork, that would be bad!" and you know full well that said character wouldn't think twice about ambushing and killing a bunch of cops-for-hire if they happened to stand between him and the place he's been paid to rob...

With the magical thing, you have the "in(meta)human" factor added in. Blood Magic is connected to the Horrors, Insect Spirits and Shedim are alien creatures not of this world, yeah, maybe your guy is a violent criminal who makes deals with metaphorical devils on a weekly basis, but even that guy might draw a line about dealing with the quite literal devil.

[druid91]

That's the part that confuses me. Because I've played characters who were not twisted mages, But made the antics of twisted mages look positively pleasant by comparison. I've seen games where players were twisted path mages in everything but name/powers.

The wetwork thing is also something I don't get. Like, I've seen people play the game entirely using stun damage. But... Most people don't and the game assumes you don't.

And mind you, I can understand it if you want to run a more heroic campaign, but when you're not. When you are running a game about morally bankrupt mercenaries doing dirty deeds for shadowy masters...

Why then can't they use spooky magic?