Adept on it's own is okayish, but you can generally get as good if not better with chrome. Mystic Adept is where the cheese comes in, because nothing ruins the other guy's day like a mage with four actions a turn.
Real quick question, what sourcebooks do I need for this "High Life" thing? Prime Runners is in the core, but I haven't found a High Life bit after my quick refresher read.
I think High Life is in the core actually, but in one of the GM sections. @NothingNow is playing a Mage, but you could double up. High Life is A/A/B/C/C priories for Awakened characters, and no availability limit, and A/A/A/B for mundanes.
Adept on it's own is okayish, but you can generally get as good if not better with chrome. Mystic Adept is where the cheese comes in, because nothing ruins the other guy's day like a mage with four actions a turn.
I'm still trying to figure out how to spend 450k money for Mage characters. Magical supplies don't seem to cost much in comparison to some of the non-magical gear.
Bioware and Adept-powers oftentimes do a similar/same role with Essence/Magic being the defining factor. The idea behind "tricking it out" is to use a single point of essence for most value by using bioware (oftentimes on a high grade to lessen the blow to essence even more) while using Adept-powers who can not be emulated by Bioware.
Bioware and Adept-powers oftentimes do a similar/same role with Essence/Magic being the defining factor. The idea behind "tricking it out" is to use a single point of essence for most value by using bioware (oftentimes on a high grade to lessen the blow to essence even more) while using Adept-powers who can not be emulated by Bioware.
Generally it's recommended not to lose more than a point of essence, perhaps two at most. With options like Prototype Transhuman and starting with Initiate Grades on the table, it's an even stronger strategy.
Pft, magic. Just do what I did and have your weak mundane flesh upgraded with shiny bioware!
I'm actually really interested in how the contract for this sort of thing is going to work out, since missions through the Stargate don't strike me as being the sort of thing you arrange on a mission-by-mission basis. Zephyr at least is the sort of individual who will cheerfully accept payment in the form of even more augmentation, which should make things easier, as I have no idea what kind of nuyen reward one should negotiate for when it comes down to something like this...
Pft, magic. Just do what I did and have your weak mundane flesh upgraded with shiny bioware!
I'm actually really interested in how the contract for this sort of thing is going to work out, since missions through the Stargate don't strike me as being the sort of thing you arrange on a mission-by-mission basis. Zephyr at least is the sort of individual who will cheerfully accept payment in the form of even more augmentation, which should make things easier, as I have no idea what kind of nuyen reward one should negotiate for when it comes down to something like this...
Well, they'll be offering a fee for you to stick around (~10,000 nuyen a month) and then fees per mission. You are, of course, free to negotiate on these.
Well, this is more complete. I will work on the rest soon. Anyone taking a look and telling me what i forgot/did wrong (it has been awhile), please tell me.
Updated: Knowledge Skills and Gear Purchased. Initiations juggled. Story Added
Name: Duncan Cuervo "Raven"
Sex: Male
Age: 34
Current Employer: Ares
Current Position: Manager (Troubleshooter and Operative)
Qualities
Prototype Transhuman (10)
Photographic Memory (6)
Solid Rep: Local Ares (2)
Agile Defender (3)
Corporate SIN (-25)
Insomnia (Free, 10)
Low Light Vision (Natural)
Records on File (Ares and one of GM choice) (-2)
Knowledge Skills
English N/A
German 1
Spanish 2
Czech 2
Cooperate Politics 2
Cooperate Law 1
Small Unit Tactics 4
Current Gossip 1
Psychology 2
Statistics 1
Ammunition:
300 Regular Ammo (600)
120 Gel Rounds (300)
100 Taser Darts (500)
30 APDS (360)
30 Explosive rounds (240)
Clothing and Armor:
Full Body Armor (13.700)
+Full Helmet
--Sony Emporer Commlink
--Thermographic Vision
--Smartlink
--Vision Enhancement 2
+Chemical Seal
+Enviroment Adaption
Actioneer Buisness Clothes (1.500)
Various Amounts of Suits and Clothing (5.000)
TL;DR: Experiment captured by Ares and trained as an Operative.
The Raven started its existant as a lab-experiment by a group of scientists working for one of the Big 10. The original goal of the Raven-experiment, including its former name is unknown. What has become known is that at least one of the Scientists turned Rogue and managed to steal the Raven away.
Turned a fanatic, the scientist believed that the Raven would be a religious figure and destinied to conquer the world.
It was about this time when an Ares Attack-team stormed the building and ended any further plans by the barrel of a gun.
They seized the Raven and analysed the vat-grown. The creature was Homo sapiens nobilis and its growth was almost finished. Hoping to find out more about it, an executive of Ares decided to continue the experiment instead of killing the subject and disecting it.
Ravens training was finished. His abilities were found capable, albeit lacking in several areas.
Using the Raven in several Missions as an operative, Ares deemed that its loyalty towards Ares was almost bordering fanatical. This behaviour was encouraged and Ares over the next two years used Raven rather extensively.
The break for Raven as an experiment came a few months ago. By happenchance, Raven was at a hidden Ares Facility when it was attacked by Mercenaries.
Albeit unarmed at the time, Raven took charge. Non-combat personell was shoved into lockers and then Raven went out to meet the Mercenaries. Recovered Video later showed that, in the course of the next 15 minutes, Raven only stopped moving in order to seize a weapon or to reload, constantly moving, firing or engaging Mercenaries in Melee.
When the Ares Security-forces arrived, 19 Mercenaries lay subdued or dead, the rest surrendered as soon as given the choice or had run off into the night.
Raven became a person that day, his history and background fully forged as an employee (some would say Property, but at least an acknowledged one now) of Ares.
Taking the name of "Duncan Cuervo", he is now a "contracter and troubleshooter" for Ares.
Raven himself is rather unimpressive. He is neither particulary tall nor broad-shouldered. One could underestimate him easily. Which is where the danger begins because he moves quickly and eagerly in battle with various plans and methods to subdue or take out the opposition.
Socially, he is not as awkward as people may think, putting people mostly at ease and treating every metahuman equally when it comes to race or ethics. Of course, he is more than a bit preferrable to those which are "of the Company".
He often comes about as a "stiff suit", a middle manager with some combat training.
His first Initiation was a rather simple test which was supposed to teach him "humiliation". It was over after a few minutes after he figured it out and submitted.
His second Initiation was much less peaceful and required him to capture a relic from hostile magically active fanatics. Raven prevailed.
I think High Life is in the core actually, but in one of the GM sections. @NothingNow is playing a Mage, but you could double up. High Life is A/A/B/C/C priories for Awakened characters, and no availability limit, and A/A/A/B for mundanes.
Yeah, and Miriam is probably not going to be too combat focused anyway, given her general archetype, so a proper combat Mage or mystic adept could be really useful.
Just a few thoughts @whydoyoubother - regular ammo sucks, use APDS instead. Also, you can get 20% off the price of initiating for 10,000 nuyen and 30% off if you're willing to do it in a group. That makes a second initiate rank cheaper than Exceptional Attribute Magic, and will get you another metamagic/power point.
On the one hand, this looks like an interesting concept that I want to play-but on the other, I'm not fluent in Shadowrun, any edition you care to name. Gaaah, guess I'll probably wind up spectating or asking if I can be a guest-villain.
Just a few thoughts @whydoyoubother - regular ammo sucks, use APDS instead. Also, you can get 20% off the price of initiating for 10,000 nuyen and 30% off if you're willing to do it in a group. That makes a second initiate rank cheaper than Exceptional Attribute Magic, and will get you another metamagic/power point.
No, probably not. You'd need at least three members for the group bonding ritual, and I suspect that in addition to the karma costs; the penalties for not being Ares-Spec-ops anymore would be... harsh.
I'm trying to understand the drain function under magic. So if I fail against the drain value, I'll take stun or physical damage, but if I am able to resist, it doesn't affect me? If yes, does this mean theoretically I could be casting spells all day?
I'm trying to understand the drain function under magic. So if I fail against the drain value, I'll take stun or physical damage, but if I am able to resist, it doesn't affect me? If yes, does this mean theoretically I could be casting spells all day?
Correct. Things with a DV of F-2 or F-3 are your freind, because then you can chuck Force 5 versions of those spells and need to get two hits on your Resist Drain test. Combine with Mystic Adept to get multiple actions a turn, and just spam powerbolt all day.
I really should work out the gear for Glacier, though.
Correct. Things with a DV of F-2 or F-3 are your freind, because then you can chuck Force 5 versions of those spells and need to get two hits on your Resist Drain test. Combine with Mystic Adept to get multiple actions a turn, and just spam powerbolt all day.
I really should work out the gear for Glacier, though.
Thanks for clearing that up. I read on some shadowrun forums foci are useful particularly the power foci.
I was thinking of making a full Magician and going the super utility route - buffing/healing allies and CCing enemies - since it looks like other people will be bringing the heavy firepower.
Concerning spirits, I noticed how versatile the Spirit of Man with their optional ability to reproduce any spell known to their summoner. The only problem I can see is being restricted by whatever Tradition you choose. For example, Zoroastriasm lists Man under Combat. Does that mean if I were to summon a Spirit of Man they could only use combat spells that I know? Does binding affect a spirit's role restriction?
I think i am pretty finished now. I may juggle some points and minor things around.... Not sure how useful that guy really is. I will admit that much of him is already covered by horngeek.
But then, what is better than a single gunslinging elf-adepts? Two of them, i suppose.
I am currently throwing around three concepts, as follows, and am curious as to what other people are interested in:
File: Revanchist said:
Name: Johnny Goodman
Metatype: Ork
Hyper-Patriotic aug-focused street samurai. Was a soldier, then a shadowrunner who worked for the UCAS a lot and refused to take jobs against them. Became semi-famous nationally due to his exploits. Lots of guns, combat medic stuff, probably B+E specialist or backup driver stuff as well. Kind of want to grab Hardened Mil-Spec Battle Armor but that might not be remotely sane.
Islam Tradition Mage, heavy combat focus. Nartaki due to magical exposure while visiting family in India. Has a bound spirit of fire (A Jinn, according to Hamid), big on knowledge skills, Overwhelming Magical Power, and probably Alchemy.
Oh, you mentioned that Miriam's not a combat mage, what does she specialize in? If I end up running Hamid I wouldn't want to cross specialties too hard.
File: said:
Name: Saleh Al-Ansari
Metatype: Ork
Orc PhysAdept, based around large guns and being hypermobile, with some unarmed combat or melee capability. Think Titanfall Pilot. Backup Face, definitely can do B+E. Is involved in the Orc and Troll political scene and metahuman rights groups, and does jobs for them with some regularity. Probably a Code of Honor/similar flaw revolving around his political work. Maybe a weird implementation of Dependents?
Well, I'm interested.
I actually have several character ideas to submit.
One being Therese Ashcroft, a Hacker/Ritual Mage, who usually also uses Alchemy but sadly that requires houserules, for normal alchemy rules are crap. In other words, a support character and scholar in every way who'll hate going on missions at first.
The other is basically just a copy of Dabbler from Grrlpowercomic. Swordfighting, technical skills, magic - but mostly a face who, well, dabbles in other things. It's actually interesting how easy she was to replicate (Hobgoblin gives us part of the appearance and appropriate attributes, Shive Arms, Glamour and Satyr Legs get us the rest of the way there.
@Tekomandor, would you be okay with either of those characters?
Therese specifially would really benefit from some houserules for Alchemical Preparations.
Roughly:
- exchange the Touch-trigger for a Manipulation-trigger. That basically being any complex action, such as drinking a potion, lighting a candle, activating a technical gizmo, putting a prayer seal on yourself, anything that fits. Prevents both the silliness of enchanted death-arrows, and makes alchemy much more cooler. Seriously, the same thing is possible by just putting preparations into small plastic bags, but that's silly in so many ways.
- Instead of learning a preparation for each spell, you learn triggers and preparation categories, similar to how Ritual Magic works. So for example, you know the spells Improved Invisibility and Armor, and learn the Manipulation-Trigger and how to make Illusion- and Manipulation-Preparations (for 5 Karma each, so 15 Karma). Now you can make Manipulation-triggered preparations for those spells, as well as any other illusion- and manipulation-spells you learn.
- get rid of the vastly shrunk dice pool preparations end up with. In other words, you make a Alchemy + Magic [Force or Reagents] test that is NOT opposed by the force of the preparation.
- in exchange, you HAVE to spend reagents on a preparation (1 dram per force), which don't provide any other benefits (you can spend more to get the usual benefits).
- also, preparations should be counterable by normal antimagic. This also removes the Disenchanting skill, subsuming all it can do into enchanting.
- change the Fixation metamagic so it no longer needs Karma. Seriously, spending Karma on a one-off spell is just...incredibly stupid, nobody would ever do that. There's two options: spend more reagents to add your willpower to it's duration, and an option to spend more to renew the duration, or simply make it so that you have (initiation grade x2) preparations that do not decay. Oh and add a Fixation-focus for it.
"Dabbler" on the other hand might simply clash with what you imagine for the game.
By the way, here's some other common houserules I like to use for Shadowrun 5E. Feel free to use these as you like.
Get rid of Diving. You now use Swimming for it.
Get rid of Escape Artist. You now use Palming for it.
Get rid of Free-Fall. You now use Gymnastics for it.
Get rid of Disenchanting. You now use Antimagic for it.
Get rid of Artificing (and hence Enchanting is no longer a skill group). You now use Arcana to craft Foci).
All these skills are way too specific, and the first three don't even fall under a skill group. Getting rid of them allows for more sensible skills and allows most Runners to actually do these things with any proficiency.
Martial Arts are now Specializations for Archery, Blades, Clubs, Gymnastics, Pistols and Unarmed. You can have several of them, though you can only start with one. Purchasing the Specialty automatically teaches you one technique, more techniques are bought as normal. They otherwise work as normal specialties.
This makes martial arts training way easier to get. Basically, it makes the melee-skills much more attractive, since you now have easier access to fancy things with them. Granting the same benefits to Archery, Gymnastics and Pistols is a bit different, but either way having martial arts techniques is actually pretty fun.
Seriously, all the different armors in the game are a mess. Quite frankly, in 99% of the cases you are best off purchasing specific fancy high-society armors because they provide the best armor rating and modifications. This is highly silly, actual armor should obviously be better.
Due to this, I've re-written the entire armor selection. Sadly it's currently only in german. However, it basically boils down to getting rid of all the special armors in Run&Gun, replacing them with one set of "elegant protective clothing" (which can look however you want) and allowing specific types of clothing (armored dusters, form-fitting body armor, leather clothing) to work as armor accessories similar to helmets.
This heavily unifies how armor works. You can now run around in any style you want, instead of going for specific ones because they're the best. If you think this is sensible, I can translate the whole work into english.
Oh, and make it so that Commlinks, no matter how modified, can't actually be used for hacking anything, because that's silly and makes cyberdecks nearly useless (seriously, if done right you can get Sleaze 12 on a commlink for only ~120k, it's game-breaking).
Well, I'm interested.
I actually have several character ideas to submit.
One being Therese Ashcroft, a Hacker/Ritual Mage, who usually also uses Alchemy but sadly that requires houserules, for normal alchemy rules are crap. In other words, a support character and scholar in every way who'll hate going on missions at first.
The other is basically just a copy of Dabbler from Grrlpowercomic. Swordfighting, technical skills, magic - but mostly a face who, well, dabbles in other things. It's actually interesting how easy she was to replicate (Hobgoblin gives us part of the appearance and appropriate attributes, Shive Arms, Glamour and Satyr Legs get us the rest of the way there.
@Tekomandor, would you be okay with either of those characters?
Therese specifially would really benefit from some houserules for Alchemical Preparations.
Roughly:
- exchange the Touch-trigger for a Manipulation-trigger. That basically being any complex action, such as drinking a potion, lighting a candle, activating a technical gizmo, putting a prayer seal on yourself, anything that fits. Prevents both the silliness of enchanted death-arrows, and makes alchemy much more cooler. Seriously, the same thing is possible by just putting preparations into small plastic bags, but that's silly in so many ways.
- Instead of learning a preparation for each spell, you learn triggers and preparation categories, similar to how Ritual Magic works. So for example, you know the spells Improved Invisibility and Armor, and learn the Manipulation-Trigger and how to make Illusion- and Manipulation-Preparations (for 5 Karma each, so 15 Karma). Now you can make Manipulation-triggered preparations for those spells, as well as any other illusion- and manipulation-spells you learn.
- get rid of the vastly shrunk dice pool preparations end up with. In other words, you make a Alchemy + Magic [Force or Reagents] test that is NOT opposed by the force of the preparation.
- in exchange, you HAVE to spend reagents on a preparation (1 dram per force), which don't provide any other benefits (you can spend more to get the usual benefits).
- also, preparations should be counterable by normal antimagic. This also removes the Disenchanting skill, subsuming all it can do into enchanting.
- change the Fixation metamagic so it no longer needs Karma. Seriously, spending Karma on a one-off spell is just...incredibly stupid, nobody would ever do that. There's two options: spend more reagents to add your willpower to it's duration, and an option to spend more to renew the duration, or simply make it so that you have (initiation grade x2) preparations that do not decay. Oh and add a Fixation-focus for it.
"Dabbler" on the other hand might simply clash with what you imagine for the game.
By the way, here's some other common houserules I like to use for Shadowrun 5E. Feel free to use these as you like.
Get rid of Diving. You now use Swimming for it.
Get rid of Escape Artist. You now use Palming for it.
Get rid of Free-Fall. You now use Gymnastics for it.
Get rid of Disenchanting. You now use Antimagic for it.
Get rid of Artificing (and hence Enchanting is no longer a skill group). You now use Arcana to craft Foci).
All these skills are way too specific, and the first three don't even fall under a skill group. Getting rid of them allows for more sensible skills and allows most Runners to actually do these things with any proficiency.
Martial Arts are now Specializations for Archery, Blades, Clubs, Gymnastics, Pistols and Unarmed. You can have several of them, though you can only start with one. Purchasing the Specialty automatically teaches you one technique, more techniques are bought as normal. They otherwise work as normal specialties.
This makes martial arts training way easier to get. Basically, it makes the melee-skills much more attractive, since you now have easier access to fancy things with them. Granting the same benefits to Archery, Gymnastics and Pistols is a bit different, but either way having martial arts techniques is actually pretty fun.
Seriously, all the different armors in the game are a mess. Quite frankly, in 99% of the cases you are best off purchasing specific fancy high-society armors because they provide the best armor rating and modifications. This is highly silly, actual armor should obviously be better.
Due to this, I've re-written the entire armor selection. Sadly it's currently only in german. However, it basically boils down to getting rid of all the special armors in Run&Gun, replacing them with one set of "elegant protective clothing" (which can look however you want) and allowing specific types of clothing (armored dusters, form-fitting body armor, leather clothing) to work as armor accessories similar to helmets.
This heavily unifies how armor works. You can now run around in any style you want, instead of going for specific ones because they're the best. If you think this is sensible, I can translate the whole work into english.
Oh, and make it so that Commlinks, no matter how modified, can't actually be used for hacking anything, because that's silly and makes cyberdecks nearly useless (seriously, if done right you can get Sleaze 12 on a commlink for only ~120k, it's game-breaking).
Alchemy house rules look fine, and so do the skills. I think, due to the fact that full body armour, SWAT armour etc is relatively easily available in this campaign, the armour fixes aren't really needed and I'm going to say no to the martial arts house rules as well.
Also: if anyone else has some house rules they'd like to use, please tell me. I can't promise we will, but I will at least take a look at them.
