General Shadowrun Questions

[comicshorse]

What are some newbie pitfalls? I've played videogames my whole life and have played D&D since 199X (not sure of the right date).

Buy insulation for your armour, tasers are nasty !

[CrusaderJoe]

A tough one right at the start. I play 4E (4A to be precise, namely the 4th edition Anniversary rules who are slightly different on some accounts) and I've looked into 5E, though I've never gone around to play it.

5th edition, if I'm not being an idiot, doesn't have a lot of supplementary material, unlike 4A who has different character creation processes (point buy, karma, priority system, etc) but on the other hand, 5E tries its best to "fix" issues from 4E/A, though you'll have to ask someone proficient with 5E to tell you whether it's effective or not.

What can be a make or break deal for some: I easily found a free character generator for 4E back in the day, and since I tend to screw up numbers in my head, it definitely was helpful.


Don't make a non-augmented non-magical character.
Don't base your character around heavy weapon use, or driving planes.
Actually, it would be simpler to ask your DM when you find one. There are a lot of different kinds of advice, and what may be good in one case (3 IP per combat round) may be bad in a particular group configuration (non-optimization non-fighting campaign)


Dunno one in english.

4A and 5e seems to really use a lot of the same rules... My first look at the quick start rules for both were pretty similar. I might have missed something in the matrix section but the rest looked pretty similar. Now it didn't give character creation... But it seems most of the game play will be the same.

Note: First character will be non-magical, non-augmented, and a pilot. Ok but seriously, thanks for the tip. make sure to augment or cast spells.

Yeah one of the first things I do in D&D games is ask the percentages for the game. Combat, Social, and Exploration and try to adjust my character to that.

I just hope I can adjust back to a more complicated system, all this 5e D&D simplicity stuff might have ruined me . I do really like the Shadowrun system

[Kid Jake]

In a similar vein to the question above me: For some reason I own both 3e and 4e (don't remember buying 4e but it's sitting in front of me) but haven't really done more than glance at 4e so I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading to. I've heard that there's some fairly substantial differences between the two.

Is 4e a flat better system or is there some give and take there? What are the major differences?

[Alberic Strein]

4A and 5e seems to really use a lot of the same rules... My first look at the quick start rules for both were pretty similar. I might have missed something in the matrix section but the rest looked pretty similar. Now it didn't give character creation... But it seems most of the game play will be the same.

Note: First character will be non-magical, non-augmented, and a pilot. Ok but seriously, thanks for the tip. make sure to augment or cast spells.

Yeah one of the first things I do in D&D games is ask the percentages for the game. Combat, Social, and Exploration and try to adjust my character to that.

I just hope I can adjust back to a more complicated system, all this 5e D&D simplicity stuff might have ruined me . I do really like the Shadowrun system

5E is more complicated, some would go as far as to say needlessly. It offers weapons who hurt WAY MORE, skill levels through the roof (+7 in 4A, +12 or +13 in 5E) but with added limitations. Literally. Your character now has caps on the number of successes he can get, physically, mentally, socially and gun-latively.

Let's take an over simplified example:
Kaym the overpowered insane runner draws in a fit of total and utter madness, his Morissey Elan (an hold-out pistol smaller than your palm) and shoots at the car passing him by, a Mercury Comet (the normal everyday car for most people). His dice pool is his Agility rating (9 the maximum a human can have) + his pistol rating (7, the best of the best) + miscellaneous bonus (+1 for his reflex recorder) = 17 dice pool. It's pretty good, but could have been better with a decent gun who could have had modifications, if he had been an adept with the corresponding power, etc...

Anyway, since it's on the low side and he is insane, he uses his edge rating of 7 (the best of the best only humans can get) to add this value to his dice pool. Added bonus, since he declared that before rolling, any 6 will be counted and then rerolled for a chance to generate one more hit.

The player throws the entire dice pool of 24 dice now and lo, every dice rolls a 6. He counts them, rerolls and this time, only 1/3 are successes, namely 8.

This ends up with 32 successes, we add the power of the gun, 4P (physical damage), for 36P. This is as powerful as two rocket shots. The car resists with armor and structure (one of which is counted twice) but even in the best case, it will still get destroyed by a single bullet from a hold-out pistol. An entire, brand new car.

To this, the 5th edition says no, and forces limits on how many hits can be generated with a weapon (if memory serves it can be raised with the appropriate measures, but it still demands resource expenditure). The PJSS Shotgun (if I remember correctly), famed for its reliability and aim, will let you generate, out of the box, 6 hits at most. Others only 4. This allows 5E to regulate your damage output to avoid those crazy, yet hilarious situations.

Of course my example is stupid, but using edge to boost your hits you can really rack up damage and do things you shouldn't be able to, like one-shotting shedim masters, force 4/5 spirit insects with a burst-firing heavy pistol, or other crazy awesome feat of arms that your DM does not expect you to pull and thus throw a wrench in his plans.

It is of course not limited to gunning things down. I've seen DM take edge badly, claiming it as unfair, or that it was impossible to challenge a character who could just pump his dice pool in something he was bad at and suddenly becoming pro-level.

5E adresses that with another limitation, another parameter we need to keep track of even though it won't show up most of the times, and when it does it's to punish an particularly good roll.

And when you roll badly it's on you. Of course.

[CrusaderJoe]

5E is more complicated, some would go as far as to say needlessly. It offers weapons who hurt WAY MORE, skill levels through the roof (+7 in 4A, +12 or +13 in 5E) but with added limitations. Literally. Your character now has caps on the number of successes he can get, physically, mentally, socially and gun-latively.

Let's take an over simplified example:
Kaym the overpowered insane runner draws in a fit of total and utter madness, his Morissey Elan (an hold-out pistol smaller than your palm) and shoots at the car passing him by, a Mercury Comet (the normal everyday car for most people). His dice pool is his Agility rating (9 the maximum a human can have) + his pistol rating (7, the best of the best) + miscellaneous bonus (+1 for his reflex recorder) = 17 dice pool. It's pretty good, but could have been better with a decent gun who could have had modifications, if he had been an adept with the corresponding power, etc...

Anyway, since it's on the low side and he is insane, he uses his edge rating of 7 (the best of the best only humans can get) to add this value to his dice pool. Added bonus, since he declared that before rolling, any 6 will be counted and then rerolled for a chance to generate one more hit.

The player throws the entire dice pool of 24 dice now and lo, every dice rolls a 6. He counts them, rerolls and this time, only 1/3 are successes, namely 8.

This ends up with 32 successes, we add the power of the gun, 4P (physical damage), for 36P. This is as powerful as two rocket shots. The car resists with armor and structure (one of which is counted twice) but even in the best case, it will still get destroyed by a single bullet from a hold-out pistol. An entire, brand new car.

To this, the 5th edition says no, and forces limits on how many hits can be generated with a weapon (if memory serves it can be raised with the appropriate measures, but it still demands resource expenditure). The PJSS Shotgun (if I remember correctly), famed for its reliability and aim, will let you generate, out of the box, 6 hits at most. Others only 4. This allows 5E to regulate your damage output to avoid those crazy, yet hilarious situations.

Of course my example is stupid, but using edge to boost your hits you can really rack up damage and do things you shouldn't be able to, like one-shotting shedim masters, force 4/5 spirit insects with a burst-firing heavy pistol, or other crazy awesome feat of arms that your DM does not expect you to pull and thus throw a wrench in his plans.

It is of course not limited to gunning things down. I've seen DM take edge badly, claiming it as unfair, or that it was impossible to challenge a character who could just pump his dice pool in something he was bad at and suddenly becoming pro-level.

5E adresses that with another limitation, another parameter we need to keep track of even though it won't show up most of the times, and when it does it's to punish an particularly good roll.

And when you roll badly it's on you. Of course.

Sooo 5e took a problem with balance and fixed it? I'm not seeing why that is a bad thing.

I could see using thr 5e rules as a base and then if a player is about to do something awesome, but not completely stupid, allow them to use edge to increase past the normal threshold or whatever.

Like in an action movie. Normally the bad guys and good guys can shoot each others cars all day long. However, in special moments, the good guy will shoot the badguy's car and the car will skid off the road, do a flip, and explode.

As a guy who played 3.5 D&D uberchargers (in high op games and such) I love doing damage... But in a normal game I wouldn't want to break things in such a way.

I think I'll go with 5e, or at least use the limited edge rules if I play 4e.

[Anonymouswizard]

Sooo 5e took a problem with balance and fixed it? I'm not seeing why that is a bad thing.

I could see using thr 5e rules as a base and then if a player is about to do something awesome, but not completely stupid, allow them to use edge to increase past the normal threshold or whatever.

Like in an action movie. Normally the bad guys and good guys can shoot each others cars all day long. However, in special moments, the good guy will shoot the badguy's car and the car will skid off the road, do a flip, and explode.

As a guy who played 3.5 D&D uberchargers (in high op games and such) I love doing damage... But in a normal game I wouldn't want to break things in such a way.

I think I'll go with 5e, or at least use the limited edge rules if I play 4e.

Limits in 5e are weird, as far as I can tell you'll generally have a character with stat 9/10 and skill 6 (the highest char gen can get, and it's really expensive to go past this with karma). this gives you about 16 dice, of which about 6 will be hits, which means unless you're using a weak weapon and/or no smartlink you'll generally not hit your limit. It also balances the attributes better by making the weakest count twice as much when calculating your limit. If you do want limits to increase in dramatic situations, you could always make that a function of spending edge, either in addition to or instead of adding bonus dice to a roll (but I recommend the former). So let's say I have a holdout with a limit of 6 and a damage of 6P (afb so not using specific examples) a skill of 6 and an agility of 10. I'm trying to execute Villain McEvil, who I have bound and at my mercy. I roll my 16 dice and come up with 7 hits, of which my limit only lets you use 6. The damage I deal is 12 because McEvil can't dodge, enough to leave most humans bleeding to death. But let's say that McEvil is a troll, where 12+ HP isn't unlikely and I only have one shot. Here I can't execute him, even if I rolled all 6s. This is the bad side of the 5e changes.

The good sides stem from the same thing as the bad sides, in that while 5e is theoretically more balanced (an adept with reaction 6, intuition 5, magic 6, improved reflexes 3 and 5 levels of combat sense has an initiative of 14+4d6 (average 34) and a dodge pool of 16 dice, so this isn't always the case) it also has some things that annoy people, mainly limits and removing cheap hacking commlinks for expensive cyberdecks. The character generation also rewards minmaxing, in that it's a really good idea to have high attributes and skills, bumping as many as possible to the 5/6 range, and then using karma to buy little things. Races are also extremely overpriced, but that doesn't matter as long as you aren't playing high-op, in low/mid op the raw boosts from races are enough to justify the costs (which is really more important than balancing for high op groups in my opinion, as in my experience mid-op is where most games are actually played). I've played far worse systems than 5e (the words Unisystem spring to mind), but it is more limiting than 4e.

[CrusaderJoe]

Limits in 5e are weird, as far as I can tell you'll generally have a character with stat 9/10 and skill 6 (the highest char gen can get, and it's really expensive to go past this with karma). this gives you about 16 dice, of which about 6 will be hits, which means unless you're using a weak weapon and/or no smartlink you'll generally not hit your limit. It also balances the attributes better by making the weakest count twice as much when calculating your limit. If you do want limits to increase in dramatic situations, you could always make that a function of spending edge, either in addition to or instead of adding bonus dice to a roll (but I recommend the former). So let's say I have a holdout with a limit of 6 and a damage of 6P (afb so not using specific examples) a skill of 6 and an agility of 10. I'm trying to execute Villain McEvil, who I have bound and at my mercy. I roll my 16 dice and come up with 7 hits, of which my limit only lets you use 6. The damage I deal is 12 because McEvil can't dodge, enough to leave most humans bleeding to death. But let's say that McEvil is a troll, where 12+ HP isn't unlikely and I only have one shot. Here I can't execute him, even if I rolled all 6s. This is the bad side of the 5e changes.

The good sides stem from the same thing as the bad sides, in that while 5e is theoretically more balanced (an adept with reaction 6, intuition 5, magic 6, improved reflexes 3 and 5 levels of combat sense has an initiative of 14+4d6 (average 34) and a dodge pool of 16 dice, so this isn't always the case) it also has some things that annoy people, mainly limits and removing cheap hacking commlinks for expensive cyberdecks. The character generation also rewards minmaxing, in that it's a really good idea to have high attributes and skills, bumping as many as possible to the 5/6 range, and then using karma to buy little things. Races are also extremely overpriced, but that doesn't matter as long as you aren't playing high-op, in low/mid op the raw boosts from races are enough to justify the costs (which is really more important than balancing for high op groups in my opinion, as in my experience mid-op is where most games are actually played). I've played far worse systems than 5e (the words Unisystem spring to mind), but it is more limiting than 4e.

It seems that the McEvil example would benefit from an execution rule more so than counting it as a bug if the limit. If you make X hits them you kill the target if it is bound and at your mercy? Or just make whatever type of action to execute a creature in such a way.

Min/Maxing isn't so bad, every system I've played has that issue and that's something a decent GM can deal with by imposing character creation rules. I like a game where I can an average character or a god-like character and go with it. It all depends on the GM and the group and what they want out of the game.

[Anonymouswizard]

It seems that the McEvil example would benefit from an execution rule more so than counting it as a bug if the limit. If you make X hits them you kill the target if it is bound and at your mercy? Or just make whatever type of action to execute a creature in such a way.

Min/Maxing isn't so bad, every system I've played has that issue and that's something a decent GM can deal with by imposing character creation rules. I like a game where I can an average character or a god-like character and go with it. It all depends on the GM and the group and what they want out of the game.

The execution rule is "if your opponent is helpless they don't get to roll defence", which is actually fine nine times out of ten because if I'm executing you you're probably already beat up and not wearing armour. I'd go one step further and say just give them successes equal to their limit, it means that you can execute with a light pistol as well as a heavy one. The problem comes when you want to execute a troll, who can take between 11 and 14 points of physical damage, and on average ignore 2-3 points of physical damage (with the toughest possibly ignoring 10/11 points), but this is arguably a 'feature' and not a bug. If you're executing a troll you probably have already pulled out a rifle.

Minmaxing is not bad, especially if the GM is the best minmaxer in the group It's just annoying when the party consists of: a moderately minmaxed jack; a moderately minmaxed face (me, I only min/maxed because nobody else had decent social skills at character generation, and I still fail fairly regularly); a decent investigator; a passable medic; and a completely minmaxed ninja totally impossible to find, dodge, or hit (and don't get me started on the 'so what is his sword?' 'oh it's a katana, because they are the best sword ever' argument, which ended in deciding that he probably did have one of the best sword designs invented, the cavalry sabre, I swear he watches too much anime) It wouldn't be so bad if that game was made for that sort of character, but it is essentially throwing an anime character into a cop show (with demons). I'll be taking over the GM mantle when this game finishes, and have specifically got a box of tricks to occasionally negate his minmaxing (oh, you have 99% stealth? well the military installation specifically uses an AGI with 99% perception, let the dice decide. You chose a fury morph? So sad that those aren't common on Mars, how about an Exalt or Ruster? etc.), but once you get past the fact his character is literally twice as good as everyone else's the character itself is not bad.[/rant]

[Alberic Strein]

Sooo 5e took a problem with balance and fixed it? I'm not seeing why that is a bad thing.

I could see using thr 5e rules as a base and then if a player is about to do something awesome, but not completely stupid, allow them to use edge to increase past the normal threshold or whatever.

Like in an action movie. Normally the bad guys and good guys can shoot each others cars all day long. However, in special moments, the good guy will shoot the badguy's car and the car will skid off the road, do a flip, and explode.

As a guy who played 3.5 D&D uberchargers (in high op games and such) I love doing damage... But in a normal game I wouldn't want to break things in such a way.

I think I'll go with 5e, or at least use the limited edge rules if I play 4e.

That's the thing. Fixing a balance issue is not a bad thing. I was showing you one of the changes I, as a non Hacker/Decker player, noted and found noteworthy. I'm not bashing 5E for the heck of it. You could say that, in many cases, this change is a good one. That tongue-tied characters with a kick ass edge score shouldn't be able to Face with no issue. Second hand information there, but I hear that 5E is better for hacker/decker types and melee characters too.

Those are not bad changes. But since you noted that lately you had been using a very streamlined set of rules, I wanted to warn you about 5e being a little bit more complex.

But there was personal taste there too. I HATE it when a system uses luck abundantly via dice pools and then starts putting limits on how well you can perform, but not how badly.

This is a false equivalence, but to take an example from D&D5, it's like your DM going "nah, your nat 20 is an 18 because the greatsword is a cumbersome weapon (don't get me started on that) and your fighter is specialized in bows."

This just irks me to no end.

[LibraryOgre]

The execution rule is "if your opponent is helpless they don't get to roll defence", which is actually fine nine times out of ten because if I'm executing you you're probably already beat up and not wearing armour. I'd go one step further and say just give them successes equal to their limit, it means that you can execute with a light pistol as well as a heavy one. The problem comes when you want to execute a troll, who can take between 11 and 14 points of physical damage, and on average ignore 2-3 points of physical damage (with the toughest possibly ignoring 10/11 points), but this is arguably a 'feature' and not a bug. If you're executing a troll you probably have already pulled out a rifle.

I want to see YouTube videos of someone trying to execute a troll with a palm pistol.

I am hearing the troll's voice as sounding a lot like Urdnot Wrex.

[Kid Jake]

I want to see YouTube videos of someone trying to execute a troll with a palm pistol.

The way I imagine it.

[comicshorse]

Or this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFhqE9vZQ04

[Alberic Strein]

4A question, it's mostly meta so it may be out of the scope of this thread though.

I am quite in a pickle. I screwed up at chargen and bought my burnout adept the "enhanced reflexes 2" power and that now I have 2.5 PP blocked and can't use my hard earned cash to buy some tasty bioware or I'll lose a magic point and end up having to forgo either astral sight (the reason I took adept in the first place) or the enhanced reflexes. After thinking about it a bit, I decided to go full burnout, buy synaptic reflexes and realocate the remaining 1.5PP elsewhere (probably in enhanced combat skill, I'm literally the worst combat adept with a blade in hand). Now is there any rule pertaining to that? I'm pretty sure my group is going to dislike the idea, so if there is a rule about it or if you have arguments you'd be willing to share, etc... You'd be very welcome.

[LibraryOgre]

It was a 2e rule, not a 4e rule, but you were allowed to take Geasa that applied to your adept powers to "keep" your magic point. So, your magic went down, but instead of actually losing the magic entirely, you limited it. Some people limited it by domain (so it only worked in a City domain). Others would have an oath they had to maintain, or something similar.

[Lord Torath]

In the earlier editions, you could become an initiate to increase your magic level, giving you more points to spend on new powers/sacrifice to chrome. Is that still available? That would allow you to get new cyber/bioware without giving up the magic points you've already invested in your character.

When considering new powers, I always check to see whether cyber/bio will do it better for less "magic." In case of a tie, go magic.

Of course, this all depends on how your character feels about his/her magic. Most magicians/adepts tend to hang on to their magic at all costs, and getting burnt out is usually the result of traumatic injury, and losing their magic is even more traumatizing than the wound they took that caused the loss. Does your character like having magical abilities? Or just feel 2nd best compared to the chromed party members?

Are you regretting starting with an adept? Perhaps it would be better to create a completely new character with a different focus.

[Alberic Strein]

Mark Hall > Nice, I'll look into that!

Lord Torath > His runner name is Sir Failure. He doesn't exactly have the best image of himself. What he wanted to become was an astronaut, not a combat adept. Disappointment is his middle name. So yeah, his magical aptitude? He doesn't care for it. He also has a chromed colleague and yes, he does feel second best compared to him and it does irk him.

The issue with initiation is that it's costly karma wise, while he is karma starved, but rolling in creds. But that was the plan, go down to 3-something essence and use initiation to keep astral sight and a couple of powers. It's just that now, this huge 2.5PP block is bottlenecking his character advancement. And I won't be able to hold on to it forever.

[TeChameleon]

Just as a thought, but maybe ask your GM if your character can take a geas on enhanced reflexes 2 when he initiates? That would reduce its power point cost to a more manageable level and maybe let you get another power.

In 4e, geasa reduce the PP cost of a power (by 1/4) while adding a gameplay 'cost' to it, rather than letting you 'keep' magic points. As a couple of examples of geasa, my old unarmed physad had to slam his fists together before activating Killing Hands or the power just didn't work, and one of my adept players in my current game (an Eagle Shifter) has to spend at least an hour daily in bird form or lose access to their adept powers until they can spend an hour in bird form.

[Lord Torath]

The issue with initiation is that it's costly karma wise, while he is karma starved, but rolling in creds. But that was the plan, go down to 3-something essence and use initiation to keep astral sight and a couple of powers. It's just that now, this huge 2.5PP block is bottlenecking his character advancement. And I won't be able to hold on to it forever.

In the 2E Shadowrun Companion, there was an option to trade nuyen for karma, generally at a rate of about 1000¥ to 2000¥ per point of karma (simulating giving money to charity, or spending money on incense and candles to help with meditation, giving food and computers to the orphanage, etc.). That way the cyber guys and the magic guys can all play in the same campaign, and the magic guys have enough for initiation/magic stuff. Talk to your GM about it? Also, Mark's idea about reducing the cost with a geas is pretty good too. If you initiate, can you upgrade your Enhanced Reflexes to be equal to your chromed colleague? Or is the cyberware better than magic can achieve?

[Dimers]

More SR4 questions, please.

I know the errata for 4e was supposed to explicitly prevent healing Drain damage with magic, whether the Drain was Physical or Stun. I can't find that errata now. Does the Anniversary edition mention this issue? Is magical healing of Fading kosher? What about using the adept power Pain Relief to remove Stun damage?

When you aim a resistable spell at a target on the other side of a mana barrier, it gets a bonus to its resistance roll equal to the barrier's Force. Is there any penalty for non-resistable spells? Are they supposed to be canceled outright?

[comicshorse]

[QUOTE=Dimers;18844119]More SR4 questions, please.

I know the errata for 4e was supposed to explicitly prevent healing Drain damage with magic, whether the Drain was Physical or Stun. I can't find that errata now. Does the Anniversary edition mention this issue? /QUOTE]

It does,
p253 of the Anniversary edition explicitly states magic won't cure damage caused by Drain

Is magical healing of Fading kosher?

Anniversary edition describes Fading as being 'very similar to the Drain magicians suffer ' so I'd say no

What about using the adept power Pain Relief to remove Stun damage?

I couldn't find anything to explicitly say it can't

When you aim a resistable spell at a target on the other side of a mana barrier, it gets a bonus to its resistance roll equal to the barrier's Force. Is there any penalty for non-resistable spells? Are they supposed to be canceled outrigh

To quote 'If the spell is not Opposed or the target does not benefit from a resistance roll then increase the threshold by 1 for every 3 points of Force or part thereof (round up) that the mana barrier possesses'
Anniversary edition p194

[Taet]

Don't make a non-augmented non-magical character.
Don't base your character around heavy weapon use, or driving planes.
Actually, it would be simpler to ask your DM when you find one. There are a lot of different kinds of advice, and what may be good in one case (3 IP per combat round) may be bad in a particular group configuration (non-optimization non-fighting campaign)

Excuse me. I am going to start in 5e soon. Does no driving planes mean no flying drones too? Or just no flying aircraft for metahumans?

I think I am going to go rigger. At least when I said control deck to friends that know me for awhile they said "of course you went rigger". I want to pick useful drones for watching and helping our two sword sams. And the katana mage. (Katanas all the way down. )

[Telwar]

Excuse me. I am going to start in 5e soon. Does no driving planes mean no flying drones too? Or just no flying aircraft for metahumans?

That. Drones = teh awesome. Thinking you're going to fly a chopper all the time = wrong. :)

[Squirrel_Dude]

What forums, outside of giantitp of course, would one reccomend to find good community support for Shadowrun!

Dumpshock
Catalyst Games' Shadowrun Forums

As for the 5e vs 4e debate. Meh, 4.5e (anniversary edition) is probably the "best" way to go, as it's probably the more solidly designed game of the two, but 5e is getting more content made for it (slowly). Third edition is still also an option, even though it is a little messy, and old. It also can't be understated how large the change from a wired to wireless matrix in 4th edition was.

[Taet]

That. Drones = teh awesome. Thinking you're going to fly a chopper all the time = wrong. :)

Thank you. Then Wakizashi-1 and Wakizashi-2 will be flyingdrones.
No I am not calling them Wacky 1 and Wacky 2.
Or Wacky and Backy.

[LibraryOgre]

Thank you. Then Wakizashi-1 and Wakizashi-2 will be flyingdrones.
No I am not calling them Wacky 1 and Wacky 2.
Or Wacky and Backy.

You're not. 50Y says that at least one of your partners will.

[Anonymouswizard]

Thank you. Then Wakizashi-1 and Wakizashi-2 will be flyingdrones.
No I am not calling them Wacky 1 and Wacky 2.
Or Wacky and Backy.

Oh no, you're Wacky

Giving your drones individual names can help get you in the mindset of a rigger, who is willing to sacrifice a drone if needs be, but doesn't consider it acceptable. It can be like sacrificing their children.

[DigoDragon]

Giving your drones individual names can help get you in the mindset of a rigger, who is willing to sacrifice a drone if needs be, but doesn't consider it acceptable. It can be like sacrificing their children.

The last Rigger I played gave all his drone names and treated them like beloved little pets. He wouldn't sacrifice one unless it was really important to do so (i.e. his own life was in danger). He built a little harness he could wear to store the tiny ones so that if he had to go around with the team through a run, his drones could be carried together but keep his hands free (think a rugged backpack slightly armored for the drones' protection while stored).

And yes, he did talk to his drones. Daily.


Heh, Wacky and Backy, I gotta remember that one.

[Lord Torath]

Many of the 2nd edition illusion spells require "voluntary" subjects. Does this mean that any attempt at disbelief automatically succeeds?

Entertainment says it produces "obvious" illusions, and Spectacle says it's the same as Entertainment, except it affects all the senses. Trid Entertainment and Trid Spectacle are the same as the non-trid versions of the spells, except that they affect mechanical devices. Does "obvious" mean that no one could mistake the illusion for the real thing? Are there any spells that create realistic illusions? Say I want to create an image of an empty hallway right in front of a security camera (ala 2Delusion from AD&D Unearthed Arcana) so we can sneak by without being detected.

[comicshorse]

Many of the 2nd edition illusion spells require "voluntary" subjects. Does this mean that any attempt at disbelief automatically succeeds?

I believe so, the spells are designed for entertainment only

Entertainment says it produces "obvious" illusions, and Spectacle says it's the same as Entertainment, except it affects all the senses. Trid Entertainment and Trid Spectacle are the same as the non-trid versions of the spells, except that they affect mechanical devices. Does "obvious" mean that no one could mistake the illusion for the real thing?

I'd say it means exactly that.

Are there any spells that create realistic illusions? Say I want to create an image of an empty hallway right in front of a security camera (ala 2Delusion from AD&D Unearthed Arcana) so we can sneak by without being detected.

'Awakenings' has the 'Crowd Scene' spell which, if it works, creates a realistic illusion that fools the senses and crates a crowd of people the runners can lose themselves in.
However the 'Grimoire' has rules for designing your own spells that you might be able to use to create such a spell but I think it would be simpler if you want to sneak down a hallway past a security camera to cast Improved Invisibility or Mask to make yourselves look like people who should be there (granted this will take multiple castings for the group)

P.S.
It's not the edition you're using but 3rd Ed. has the 'Phantasm' spell which is pretty much perfect for what you're looking for

[Anonymouswizard]

The last Rigger I played gave all his drone names and treated them like beloved little pets. He wouldn't sacrifice one unless it was really important to do so (i.e. his own life was in danger). He built a little harness he could wear to store the tiny ones so that if he had to go around with the team through a run, his drones could be carried together but keep his hands free (think a rugged backpack slightly armored for the drones' protection while stored).

And yes, he did talk to his drones. Daily.


Heh, Wacky and Backy, I gotta remember that one.

Exactly what I meant, I've just never played a rigger so I gave the best explanation I could.