Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Ruski]

i'm in. and i vote yes for back to the shack.
so far we've got a hacker, and... what is everyone else playing?

[Katrex]

Right I'll play if this is still going.
I'm making a character on the fly. I assume 400 bp.
Fliss, The shy pixie

Pixie (35)
Stats 2 7 7 1 , 7 6 2 3 (170)
Magic 6 Edge 6 (115)
Qualities Positive: Adept First impressions, ambidextrous, way of the adept, Astral chameleon. (30)
Negative:  Incompetent (intimidation) Amnesia, pacifist, In debt 3(-35)

Adept powers: Improved reflexes 3 (3pp) Improved ability Infiltrate 4 (0.75pp) Unseen hands 1.5(pp)  Cloak rank 4 (0.75pp)

Skills
Stealth 1
Infiltrate 6
Social 4
Perception 1
Pistols 1
Gymnastics 1
She has amnesia so no contacts.
15000 Nuyen + 3bp gear= 27000 nuyen
Gear
Weapons
2 silenced chameleon coated skin linked Morrissey Élan  -6 to perception -8 concealability modifier, Undetectable by mad scanners.
50 stick and shock 400 6s ap half
Armour
Soft weave formfitting armour,  Counts as 2/0 for encumbrance
Soft weave padded leaver armour Counts as 1/4 for encumbrance
PPPS 900ny modifies armour rating by 2/4
Ballistic mask 300 ny 1/2
Total armour rating 11/13
Reuthinium coating
PPPS works like helmets and shields adds modifies armour but doesn’t modify encumbrance.
Total armour cost

Electronics
Renraku sensei
Sony emperor
Cmt clip
Sim module + trodes
Fake sin rating 3,
Fake sin rating 1,
Eraser

Sense enhancement
Contact lenses vision enhance 3
Ballistic mask, Image link, Thermo graphic low light, flare comp
Earbuds Audio enhancement 3 + spacial recogniser

Respirator
Keycard copier
Cellular glove molder

Lifestyle 12, (necessities 2 , comports 2lp Neighbourhood 1lp, entertainment  4 security 1, No neighbours 1, Home grown farming 1, green plan -1 free access node +1.
Fliss has no idea who she is, She knows she’s a pixie and that they are incredibly rare, She knows she can’t speak any other language than English, so she thinks she might have come from England. How she got here though she has no idea. Still she likes the place she woke up in, her home a tiny hidden oasis of green in the city and seems to have a decent budget to spend in luxuries. She spends a lot of her free time watching people invisibly and she’s learnt a lot from overhearing idle conversations. The only time she really socialises is when she takes a “shine” to someone which has almost a magical effect on her, she stops being the secretive keeps to herself pixie and becomes the cutest bundle of joy you could imagine. Those someone’s she takes a shine to tend to be about 8 years old and female though and on a rare occasion a beautiful adult with as peaceful a disposition as she has.
Fliss’s home
Fliss has taken residence in the roof of an abandoned house that’s stairs have collapsed, (No neighbours) the roof shaped like ^--^ has allowed her to make her own little garden which she grows her own food from (home grown farming). She’s put a few solar panels on the inner roofs sections that she draws her power from (green plan). Her house has no central home node and her only matrix access is from a nearby (free access node), that said she never access’s it from home, in fear of being traced. Any appliances she does have; have their wireless functionality switched off, and she’s perfectly happy with that.
The only access to her house would be flight or climbing up the house. She’s always very careful to erase her equipment and self of any rfid tags and to make sure no one is following her and that she’s  concealed when she flies home.
The majority of the money spent on her home is on entertainments, almost all of which is spent out on the town, restaurants going to nature parks etc.

Dice pools
Infiltrate 20
All other stealth 11
Social 14(16 first impressions)
Pistols (holdouts only) 8 dice
Gymnastic dodge 8 dice
Perception 8 dice (11 auditory visual)

-Cloak, -6 dice pool to be detected by search
-Concealment - 6 to perception to spot from astral plane
-Concealment + chameleon suit -10 to spot from Material plane

[kv]

Hey Katrex, welcome to the Shadowrun Pub. I'm all for new blood, and I appreciate that you're just jumping in and making a character, but I had a few questions.

Uhhh... my first question is about the starting availability of new characters and 'Reuthinium' coating on what's already some pretty expensive armor. Was that armor created using the custom rules? Some sort of homebrew rules? A set of specialty rules that I wasn't aware of? (I know there are some rules that lessen the bulkiness of armor, but I wasn't planning on using them).

Like I told Zyano, things should probably be pretty basic, seeing as how Shadowrun Missions are meant for newcomers. So is Back to the Shack. I'm not trying to discourage you, just asking questions so I can get a sense of where you're at, and what you're looking for in a game. So ka?

  -kv

[Katrex]

Thanks. I thought it was easier than faffing about and you could just tell me if you liked the charecter or not.
In response to your first question, It's an armor modification in arsanal rating 12 (doesnt increase rating of item) and costs 7500 it,s basicaly chamelion coating but more expensive cus you can put it on anything

As to the other stuff, There is a little bit from "war!" basically to make up from how bloody fragile the pixie is. This consists of softweave armor which lets you subtract your strength (1) from armor in terms or armor encumbrance, But increases the cost of the armor.
Everything else is from arsanal ppps and formfitting armor.
The lifestyle bit is from the lifestyle section of Runners companion
And finaly of course way of the adept from "way of the adept"

Fundamentaly everything that is "questionable/unusual" is to bolster her terrible defenses if/when she gets suprised or hit by grenades when hiding. Otherwise she'll just die most likely.
Speaking of newcomers this is my second shadowrun game ever, im currently playing a campagne IRL atm, But i wanted to play a pixie so my friend showed me some tricks so i just wouldnt get slaughtered.

[Ingo Monk]

Ruthenium polymers:

This modification can only be added to armor or clothing that covers the wearer’s whole body, like full body armors or suits. The ruthenium polymers are controlled by a sensor suite incorporated into the armor or clothing that scans the surroundings and replicates the images at the proper perspectives, providing the wearer with chameleon-like abilities and applying a –4 dice pool modifier to  perception Tests to see the wearer.

- Arsenal pg 50

Essentially it makes you look like the Predator from the movie of the same name.  It will only work with full body suits, i.e. the form fitting body armor listed by Katrex, as long as it's the entire suit with the hood.  However if you put anything on top of it, a coat or more armor for example, it will negate the benefit of the ruthenium depending on the situation.  The funny thing is that it will work with anything classified as a full body "suit" so it will work on security and military armor "suits."  When players used this in my games rather than the default -4 dice pool modifier I made it harder for people to see them from longer distances or if they were standing still.  Similar to the Adaptive Coloration critter power in SR2.

[Katrex]

Yes and with that rule no one would take it, way to make 2 bp completely useless haha.

[Ruski]

well, the -4 would be situational at best anyways. if bad guys ran into a room you were already standing still in. and just so long as you didnt move to give away your position. and hoping they dont have thermal, uv band, or that sonar sight thing hooked up.
i did like the part about burning out all the rfid tags though.
i once spotted a mage with a bad ass invisability spell by locating the ping off of a super krill bar rfid tag she ate. painted a big bullseye on it in augmented reality. anyone with their gear turned on could play geek the mage with the best of em!

[Katrex]

I'm not a fan of this way of thinking about in a game. A lot of things in game that "Logicaly" should act one way but don't. And that's about game balance.

It isn't like the spell says "you are completely invisible and can only be noticed by..."Which i've seen done.
It takes in to account that it's not full proof which is way its -4. Remember you have to consider what is the perception modifier to see someone standing in the middle of a room. It's something you dont have to make a test for. So it must be at least +1. Therefore anyne with an average intuition and a novice's perception score will seeh im after a couple of rounds, Not to mention everyone and their dog has vision enhance 3. He might just not notice instantly. Now if that person has there back to a wall it will be harder, If they are stuck to the ceiling or whatever then it will be tricky. And THAT is based of infiltrate.

It's in combat and when someones infiltrating that it makes a big diference and of course that's when it should. In combat people are distracted and picking up the faintest of outlines and lags in the Reuthiniums sensor aray relitive to the person's movement is going to be a lot harder.
Regardless in terms of game balance which is probably what they were thinking about, it negates the effect of all that vision enhancement everyone has. Which is you know fair enough and hardly something that needs houseruling.

[Ingo Monk]

I don't think we're going to use house rules for this game, just out of the box (errr... book) rules.  I was actually planning to only use the main core book to make my character

The reason I had used that house rule in my games is because all the players were getting Ruthenium Polymers with every character they made, so I had to make it a little less attractive since I'm not the kind of person to say "No you can't have that" or "that doesn't exist in this world". 

In the basic rules however, they tried to balance it a little by only allowing it on full suits.  I think the idea is that only a full suit will cover the entire body, including areas of articulation like the neck, wrist, and ankles.  So you could in theory get the polymers on a "standard" Shadowrunner armor set up like a long coat over some regular or armor clothing and add a helmet and mask.  However in certain situations the runner's neck or wrists would show through the polymers.

In theory you could layer more armor over a suit and get the polymers on the outer armor as well.  Some GM's might say that the inner layer would then show the inside of the outer layer of armor.  I would say however that in the future where this item exists and it is controlled by a simple computer system there would be nothing stopping you from linking the 2 systems together, especially if you had some computer or hacking skills. 

[Ruski]

my general opinion is that "there's a way to counter that", and "more than one way to skin a cat."
having a cloak of invisibility (T.M.) can be useful; if you do your research ahead of time and discover that the building and guards are vulnerable to physical visibility issues.
If they've got augmented guards, then some of the extra vision spectrum options available to them could negate that bonus.
If they are all astrally active, then being an adept is more likely to get ya in trouble than being seen on camera.
Then again, if you are just hanging out in a club after they close, the weary human bouncer won't notice anything.
Although most runs involve negating more security than a typical night club; and, if they are expecting your particular brand of shadow-justice: you can bet your gossamer wings that they'll have multiple countermeasures to your harry-potter era gag in place and running hot.
I personally believe it comes down to research, being more prepared than the other guy, and perhaps working in a degree of adaptability as well.
lets say you sneak in the window to corp A, expecting an unaugmented guard and some cheap cameras that your karma-chameleon number should work well against. as you sit in the window seal you notice that they've upgraded their cameras to see into UV spectrum, a band of light that the current level of ruthenium polymers do not broadcast into.
so, now suddenly instead of being an unseen ghost you are a detectable shadow.
So, change tactics.
Get your favorite sim-scarlet's 'skin pic' posted on the outside of your suit. (you can draw more than just what's behind you with those things)
it won't be enough to fool someone in the meat, but a 2d image on a camera would look great.
So, instead of being a shadow, they now think they got robbed by the local XXX factory. or perhaps conned into believing their security feed got hacked.
I may appear to be giving you drek about the invisibility cloak; but really my complaint is against 'the prefect squirt gun' mentality.
I'm all for tools in the tool box.
Get the suit. hell, get two! One with thermal dampening and an air supply, and a second one with a built in base-jumping number on the back.
Just don't expect them to work every time in every situation. and don't complain when suddenly the perfect weapon is rendered worthless by surprise circumstances.
*shrug* but that's just how I roll. I am all for the Troll bullet-sponge driving an honest to goodness tank everywhere. I just don't want him to be all surprised if the situation calls for something where the tank won't work. "Why does the meet have to take place on a yacht?"
The infiltrator can have a magic suit. and the ability to hold her breath for an hour, and cat claws for hanging upside down on the ceiling.
If the situation calls for a down-syndrome bicycle helmet wearing janitor to walk through the room with just a little bit of meat-stick poking through the fly in his pants... then that's what needs to happen.
Get it, but don't depend on it I guess.
so yea; anyways, that's my 0.02 newyen.
-Ruski
(P.S. sorry for the messed up post earlier, I was trying to type it from my phone, and that worked out less than awesome)

[Katrex]

Im not saying at all that it's perfect, or makes you perfectly invisible. I am saying it's only a -4 perception mod, you can still be seen.

But considering what it is the modifyer seems reasonable and i see little reason to change it.
 I think people over value the effect of a camelion suit and go OMG THATS SO IMBA INVISIBILTY CLOAK NERF!
As i see you roll infiltrate that suit gives you a bonus, whether it be hiding in a corner with it tonned to invisibility as a guard moves by, or changing your apearence so that you look like said guard as you walk by the guy eating donuts. In shadowrun its complicated and timeconsuing enough without having to roleplay exactly how you are inflitrating every bit. Sometimes Roll infiltrate and they get a -4 penalty cus the chamelion suit makes it easier is enough you know?

Anyway. Is this game going to happen or?

[Ruski]

ohhhh, okay. i see what you are saying.
my favorite part of pen & paper games was always verbalizing how the bits and parts meshed together; but as an abstract system for 'i do this' i agree. not as much fun, but I agree. :-)
as for the status of the game: i think its still on. weve got an infiltrator, a hacker, a shamen,... i guess all we need now is muscle. I'm thinking i could do: 'Shiver'. in the roll of street sam. any thoughts?

[Ruski]

For those of you not familiar with the exploits of 'Shiver', he's got what amounts to wired reflexes 4, and not much else.
He is good at the killing of stuff in the super fast department. I don't have a version of him for SR4 (SR2 and SR3 yes) but it wouldn't be that tough to port over the idea.
Or, if an itchy trigger finger dosn't sound like fun to have on your team how about one of the following 'muscle' ideas?
1)
General Havoc. A Gunny sergeant in the UCAS marines, that got fired to open his position for an unqualified underling who's sister was 'entertaining' a superior. He stormed off in a huff, gave himself a promotion by way of moniker, and now he uses the GPHMG and heavy support options to support his own causes.  Would be a tactical guy, with some of the brain-bender hardware that helps with that.

2)
Clip from the old block.
Clip is the street name for an orc ganger gone pro. on account of his intimidating manner and gang ties he gets most things done without lifting a finger.  he started in the gang, and still has buddies there, but his current paycheck from season IV of Urban Brawl let him leave the ghetto behind. He's got the urban brawl pro pack, thick shiny skin that is rumored to be bulletproof, and that video of him throwing a eurocar at a mage wasn't photohacked.

3)
Sly the Devil
Sly is actually a devil hunter. He got his start cleaning out his neighborhood ghoul infestation. that paid well enough to start a small company of paranormal exterminators, that was instantly smashed when it came onto the corporate radar. He's got paranormal extermination background, and the resources of a destroyed small business (use to have 43 employees at it's best time).
Think: Devil may cry, with a chip on his shoulder for free enterprise, and wired reflexes 1.

any of those sound good/compatible?
-Ruski

[Katrex]

it's totaly up to you what you play. I'd be tempted to mix in adept (im always tempted to mix in adept), play a way of the burnout adept.
If  wasnt playing the pixie it would be an orc adept with a cool cyber arm and built like a tank.

[Katrex]

That said I like sly the devil