Right.  So we want the feel - both magic and technology-wise of 2050.  But we want as few rule changes as possible.  At the same time, we want to ensure that backtracking the gear and not the rules doesn't create balance issues.

For spells, it's reasonable to expect that the *kinds* of spells would be limited to those in the main book (unless we're talking 2050 + street samurai, riggers black book, grimoir, etc.)  But to me, saying you now need to purchase fireball as a separate spell at it's L, M, S and D versions seems like a rule change, not an availability change.

If we're using old characters for drop-bear, is it still in the original timeline?  Prequel?  Stop worrying about the fraggin' timeline and just post something? :>

The Drop Bear Timeline is whenever. That's generally the rule for this adventure. Just to get you into the swing of things, this is from the GM instructions:



TL;DR: Nothing you choose matters; have fun :)

There are rules in SR3 where every time someone suffers a Deadly wound, they have to check for Essence loss.

So one thing I was going to try out in my own SR3 game: Instead of being just "1", "5.6", or ".03", Essence is a fractional thing. Essence Loss is tracked by how much cyber is installed (so, a character with 4.3 points of cyber would write "4.3" instead of "1.7") out of how much Essence they have (so 4.3/6). Characters with cyber can then spend karma to "acclimate" to what they have installed, and would karma as if it were either an attribute being improved, or like a Mage improving their Magic Attribute. Essence increased in this way would not recover lost Magic points, unless the Essence was lost through traumatic injury.
Basically: Sams can now spend Karma or Cash (and alternate between) to pick up ludicrous amounts of cyber so that they can keep up with Mages and Physads who have no such limitations. Physads or mages who use cyber are still vulnerable to burnout however.

Only issue with allowing that is that it sort of eliminates the whole "Cyber Zombie" mythos.

Cyber zombies still happen, since anyone can still have a zero or less-than-zero essence. CZ's just spent that karma on additional "I kill you more" skills or have a buttload more cybertech.

I don't recall that. Was it in M&M? I do recall that magicians had to check for *magic* loss after a deadly wound, but never essence.

The buying up essence isn't a bad idea. The mage track gets expensive, but it's there. The street sam track basically just caps out.

It might be M&M rules, SR3 just has you check for Magic loss. Can't find permanent essence loss, so either I'm imagining it or I just haven't found it again (yet)

Smartlink and Subsystems: M&M p32, the 4 Smartlink components can be substituted Limited Simsense rig (simrig), palm induction pad (datajack), eye display (Image Link), and ballistics processor. "If a Smartlink system is not entirely cybernetic (any of the above substitutions are made), the Smartlink only provides a -1 bonus to Ranged combat."
IMO this is really a stupid idea. What I think happened is they tried to say "if you use smartgoggles", but what they literally said was "upgrading or altering any Smartlink subsystem" makes the Smartlink throw a hissy fit. So as written, a video feed does not replace ASCII cross-hairs, adding the lower half of your body to the half-simsense rig makes it a completely different augmentation, or using a wire to directly interface with a gun instead of a weird little wifi-palm-pad causes massive inherent systemic changes.
I am trying to make a character as "by the book" as possible, but some of the rules are stupid.

Other things for your consideration:
One of the ideas I had was to start using injection-vector knockout drugs to coat knives, so I can try and "pull a punch", only deal S damage (instead of D), and make the target resist a dose with the S wound modifier as a penalty on the test. Mechanically, this makes sense, and I was going to say that my character really prefers not to kill people but still needs that tactical option. Since I have Biotech of 6, I was going to handwave the "pulled punch" as knowledge of where to and not to stab.
What I was considering as an alternative to knives and the knifegun (bayonets should be matter of course on pistols), was to have a retractable spur with a retractable hand blade for my off hand. The only downside to this plan is I can't think of an easy way to coat the blades. My knife idea just had a wet seal in the sheath with a fluid reservoir and a liquid-only injection version of Neurostun. I could say "I coat the blade and the inside-arm sheath is sealed", but the only option I have to maintain the toxin is either applying it every time and hoping, or using a modified Auto-Injector (which I am not sure is on the equipment list anyway). So, am I applying the toxin by hand or do either of you have a better idea?

2nd idea, as we discussed yesterday:
BB has voiced a concern over magic "slowly rising" during the 2050s. I have mentioned that if he does not allow players to use Physads from the starting gate, it gets harder to make them "pay" for it down the line while still making the priority spent not gimp them in the beginning. I had mentioned that we could instead drop the priority for Mages, Physads and their ilk by one or two slots, but instead your character starts with a Magic rating of 2. As play progresses, you can buy a Magic Attribute up to 6 as if it were any other attribute (so 2x the desired rating in Karma). Every point after 6 would have to come with Initiation, per MITS after it has been discovered in-universe.
Concerns:
1 Street Samurai become even more powerful straight out of the gate. If we are trying to keep game balance, this has to be acknowledged.
2 Casting offensive magic becomes intensely more difficult. Either you are constantly frying yourself, or you are relying on your ability to roll more dice than your target pretty consistently.
3 Physical adepts are less hindered by this than Mages are.
4 If you can buy a MA up to 6 as an attribute, what happens when you get cyber? Is it taken off the top and made into a new cap (so 1.8 Essence lost makes your Magic-as-an-attribute stat 4)? Is it subtracted from your starting Magic?

Huh. I was looking at Retractable Spurs and Hand Blades for the "surprise I stab you" effect, but I just realized that in addition to the huge price gap, and additional Essence loss, you can't ever really get implanted weapon foci. I guess a boost to attack power and concealability isn't worth that much after all.

Smartlink: Check out the errata: http://old.shadowrun4.com/resources/errata_mm.shtml

p. 32 Smartlink Subsystem Game Effects [3]
Change the remarks in parentheses, found in the second paragraph, to read:
    "(any non-implant substitutions are made)"

So your reading is correct, but you're safe.

Chemicals: Chemicals delivered how you describe. However, wound modifiers from a knife wound do NOT apply to resisting damage from chemicals (SR3 p. 126 lists what wound modifiers apply to, and specify it does not apply to resisting or avoiding damage).

Gun-knife: I said we could work something out on this. I'll do some research and come up with a model. Expect that it won't be as effective at gunning or knifing as a dedicated tool.

Magic Rising: There are some SR3R rules for this. I'll need to read through them and get back to you.

Pulling Punches: Martial Arts maneuvers frustrate me, because they're for martial arts, but nothing else. I would like to either drop martial arts maneuvers as its own category of rules, or get a list of maneuvers for other combat styles. In general, if I "drop" them, that doesn't mean that they aren't available for use. Pulling punches is a thing, whether you're trained in boxing or not. I'd use the maneuver rules as guidelines, and tweak them as appropriate. (Expect it will never be easier than the rules described. How much harder depends on what the maneuver is. Any idiot can pull punches, but sweeping or ground-fighting are very tough.)

I would like some thoughts on the Martial Arts maneuvers from people (and also the magic, once I come back with something).

I'll put out a Players Wanted ad today.

Also I plan on deleting unused NPCs (which is basically all of them). Give me a head's up if you want to keep anything.

I found some rules for buying up magic piecemeal, however it requires the Build Point chargen method (of course). After that, Magic and Power Points would be bought like a normal attribute (so adepts would be paying twice for each power point, once for magic, once for the PP. Buying that last point would be 24 karma.)

I'm thinking that may be a touch too expensive, plus we'd have to go to point-buy which invites all sorts of power-gaming. Thoughts?

Smartlink substitution: Excellent. Glad that works out.

Chems: Ok, good to know that now instead of when I am depending on it. Still, I think I'll keep the idea around in case I want to do it anyway.

Pulling punches: I thought there were rules for preventing max damage. If there aren't, we could call up the called shot rules. Take a called shot penalty, then instead of adding damage or bypassing armor, we set a cap on the damage code with the +power for over-deadlier-damage rules applied (maybe). That way your character has a harder time with the fight (you are restraining yourself while they are not) but (assuming you hit), they also have a harder time reducing it below your cap.

Martial Arts are useful, the biggest hangup is that they suck for character creation. 2 skill points does not equal 2 karma in chargen, no matter what the game devs think. The way I usually run it:
Martial Arts have their inherent bonuses and drawbacks as written. If a martial art says that you can use maneuvers with certain types of weapons, then you can use any maneuver as soon as you purchase it the first time, with any weapon of that class. You do not have to buy maneuvers, and there is no built-in cap for how many maneuvers you can take.

In my games, I would consider also allowing the martial art's specific benefit and drawback to be applied to any weapon to which it ascribes (so for example, Pentjak-Silat gives you a bonus to called shots and a penalty to subdual. You have the option of applying that style bonus to Edged Weapons and Implant Weapons as you please).
The other optional rule I'd consider using is that instead of treating every martial art as a singular skill, you can learn to mix and match them. Once you have a certain number of points invested in a new style you can learn to swap out one set of style bonuses for another while still using your highest skill rating. The reasoning being most martial arts are based off of similar foundations, so it's not impossible to apply the principles of one into another. We could talk about an actual blending of styles, but these are my two cents.

Martial Arts maneuvers can be really useful. Things like Whirling gets rid of the threat of a swarm of Watcher spirits or Kip-up allows you to quickly escape hostile territory. Basically, I'm in favor of the Martial Arts rules because they are discrete and pre-written so we don't have to spend a few weeks in a rules thread going "but how do I throw that bad guy off a roof?"

Point-buy makes my head hurt. Also, having the Magic Attribute, Power Point distinction invites other questions like "can I buy PP without MA upgrades" and "do I have to spend build points on Magic Attribute lost to cyberware installation?" So on the one hand it would encourage players to have widely skilled characters from the get-go, but on the other hand it takes a lot more work to make them.

Looking back, Pulling Punches isn't a martial art, it's a general rule for melee combat. So no MA required, hurrah!

My issue with martial arts is exactly what you are illustrating. Assuming Carver doesn't know Arnis De Mano, does that mean he can't throw people?

1: I found the rules for pulling punches. Cannon Companion p86. The short and sweet is you set a limit on the number of successes and +1TN. After the attack rolls are compared, you deal damage as if you had *only* rolled that many successes. The only downside as written is that characters who roll abundant successes also lose additional Power added to their attacks. IMO if you roll well enough to earn extra power (through over Deadly damage), you should be given extra power for the attack, since there's no reason not to.

2: As it stands, the Throw maneuver makes it easier to throw people effectively, farther and deal more damage. So someone throwing someone else would roll their STR vs the target's BOD (after a Melee attack) to determine distance thrown. Characters with the Throw maneuvers deal their Unarmed damage, and reduce the target's BOD for the distance check by how many successes they score on the attack. (I.E. people not trained in a maneuver can still do most of them, it's just harder, exclusive, and you don't deal damage in addition to pulling off the maneuver)

Overall the most useful maneuvers you can pull are Blind Fighting, Close Combat, Evasion, Ground fighting/kip-up, Herding/Throw, Multi-Strike, and Whirling. So from the mechanics perspective, it's like modifying your weapon to suit a circumstance. Characters use maneuvers so that they can prepare for the worst or use a little smarts to change the odds to their favor.
Ex: A Physical Adept with the Blind Fight adept power and maneuver takes only a +2 TN modifier when fighting blind. So if they are facing a superior force in a warehouse, they can bust all the lights and go all "whatchAAAA!" on them.
Pretty much the biggest reason why I like maneuvers is that they allow you to change a fight actively, instead of sitting back and going "cool, you rolled five successes, that means you punched him a lot".
The situations you can turn around using maneuvers:
"to bring an advantage or take away a disadvantage": Blind Fight, Close Combat, Kick Attack
To fight large groups of people: Evasion, Multi-Strike, Whirling
To survive & GTFO: Evasion, Ground Fighting, Kip-up
To actively take advantage of your surroundings: Blind Fight, Herding, Throw
This message was last edited by the player at 19:07, Wed 22 Jan 2014.

So we have 4 new players (hurrah!) Including a few who have probably been playing Shadowrun longer than I have, and can actually answer my SR1 questions.

There's been some talk about archetypes, so here's the deal;

I ran a looong campaign which I wrapped up in 2010 (wow, doesn't seem that long) which had a full party. Since I'm kicking this up again, we only have two of the original players:

Carver - new PC for this campaign, seems to be a knife specialist (physical adept?) and also a knife specialist (combat doc).
Firefox - old PC, the player hasn't mentioned the plan for the new PC.

Six characters means I expect a little overlap; that's fine. I can always tweak as need be anyway.

I'm still fighting off a head cold, so please excuse me if I'm losing details.

FYI, I plan to wipe all of the old threads and old NPCs. I'll do that tomorrow unless someone says 'no please don't!'

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 46):

Hey. New guy here. Just gonna throw out a few ideas/opinions.


1)BP character building:
I like these kinds of builds myself, as I have more flexibility over what I can and cannot do with my character. As for power gaming, the GM has final say does He/She not? :)

2)Rules Changes:
I am seeing a lot of suggestions about rule changes and whatnot here, I have not gone through everything, but I think maybe we should decide as a group how crunchy we want to be with this. Adding things like MA rules, and changing around the magic system etc have a large learning overhead. If we just stick to the equipment & spell lists that were available in 2050, I think this will be the simplest way to accomplish this.

3)Character Archetypes:
I was thinking of playing an decker style character, or a face style character. Is anyone thinking of playing something along those lines? I am totally flexible here, so if someone is planning either or both, I can choose differently.

In regards to mechanics, don't forget that testing SR3R is a goal in itself. In play, I normally hide most of the mechanics (unless people want to get into them). But this game is also a testbed for the modified ruleset.

And yes, most of us are grognards who just like to talk about Shadowrun rules a lot :P

Oh, I am all for that. I just wasnt sure where the line between talking about and implementing was. I have a _LOT_ of catching up to do.

I totally understand. I plan to tidy up the Rules thread today, hopefully dropping it below 3 pages.

And no, I've never caught a firing pin that's been launched across the room :P that did get a laugh.

BTW, a note for Thaden/Carver/Kiku and Firefox -- To help keep things from getting stuck, I'm planning to 'advance the clock' every Tuesday and Thursday morning (excepting of course for days when I don't -- if we're already moving fast, holidays, etc.)

Welcome all.

Haven't decided on a new character archetype yet.  Combination of letting the newer folks figure out what they wanted (because I'm flexible) and not having the time to write one up prior to the drop-bear run.  I have in interesting fellow drafted up who's a physical adept assassin-type, but if we're not doing physical adepts, he's sort of out.

The question was asked about "starting karma", but didn't see an answer.  Do we all start from ground zero again?  (I'm ok with that, but it definitely effects character design.)

Yeah Carver is a dwarven combat doc, cat burglar, pistolero and knife man. Physical Adept with a little cyber. He's not big on social skills unless you plan on quibbling with him while you bleed out. But for healing or hurting, he really likes knives.

Warlock, you are more than welcome to play a socialite decker.

Am I the only one who would love to see Kronk from Emperor's New Groove as a Shadowrun Ork?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:32, Thu 23 Jan 2014.

Well I just PMed the GM on this but this seems like a place to really ask it.

How many active PCs are there here?  what archetypes are represented.

Warlock, I was thinking along those lined for a character for myself, or a B&E specialist, or a weapons specialist....

Well it looks like 6 players active, though only 4 have posted thus far. Far as party balance goes, we have found that 2 mages makes things a lot easier, but we are also actively trying to make Street Samurai better because they do lag behind very quickly (and that's bad). As far as archetypes go, I think all we have covered really solid is "generic Adept". In case you haven't played before, a few infiltration skills are always recommended.

What we really need:
Magic (caster preferred), socialite, and ranged strike capability (somewhere between SMG and sniper rifle). If you need help, I can pull you through character creation. You can make any archetype fill pretty much any role, so if you want to play a wizard sniper that is both awesome and doable. Having some vehicle skills (even if you aren't a rigger) is also handy. If you want to help us give the GM a headache, demolitions is always a thing.

What Carver brings to the table: quick quiet take downs, medical assistance, and durability (I'm not as tough as a street sam, but I'm still a dwarf). I have invested in a few contacts, but I'm not skilled enough to really use them (yet). I'm not going to be as powerful as some of you, but I'll never run out of ammo either.