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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Delta View Post
    Are you sure? My 3rd Ed books are boxed up in the back of the attic but I'm very sure "Grounding is dead!" was one of the inofficial taglines of SR3 back in the day.
    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    SR 3rd Ed. p172
    "While using astral perception, you can be affected by things on the astral plane as well. Other astral forms can engage you in astral combat or cast mana spells at you. "
    Could you still ground spells through active foci in 3rd? I don't really know, as I'm not very familiar with, well, really anything other than 2nd Edition. Hmmm.... I seem to have an obsession with the second edition of things: Warhammer 40,000, AD&D, Shadowrun. On the other hand, I never played Diablo II, and I thought Homeworld II was pretty pathetic. So maybe it's just coincidence
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  2. - Top - End - #92
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    SR 3rd Ed. p172
    "While using astral perception, you can be affected by things on the astral plane as well. Other astral forms can engage you in astral combat or cast mana spells at you. "
    That's not what grounding was.

    Grounding was using that dual-natured creature to cast spells that had an effect in the real world.

    If my astral self gets targeted by a Manaball cast from Astral Space, it only affects other things in astral space, not living creatures nearby.

    Quote Originally Posted by page 182, SR3
    The barrier between the physical and the astral planes is like an unbreakable pane of one-way glass. A spellcaster on the “physical plane” side of the glass, the opaque side, cannot see the other side (the astral plane). He can only affect targets on his side of the glass. A caster on the “astral plane” side of the glass—someone who is astral projecting—can see things on the other side of the glass but any spells he throws are blocked by the glass, the barrier between the planes. A dual being (such as a character using astral perception), exists on both sides of the glass simultaneously. He can see characters on both sides and attack any of them, but likewise can be attacked by any of them.
    So, it used to be that if I was astrally active (Astrally Perceiving, carrying an active spell lock), someone in Astral Space could target that astral connection and drop a fireball that would explode in the "real" world. Did someone have an active Increase Reflexes spell lock? Then an enemy mage could MAKE EVERYTHING AROUND THEM EXPLODE. Starting in 3rd edition, that didn't happen. The enemy mage could take out the Increased Reflexes spell lock (it is an astral object they can attack), but couldn't do anything to the person themselves UNLESS they could see them in the physical world (either normally or via astral perception). Someone who is dual-natured can be attacked from either side, and can attack either side, but attacks originating from one can't resolve in the other.
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  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    That's not what grounding was.

    Grounding was using that dual-natured creature to cast spells that had an effect in the real world.

    If my astral self gets targeted by a Manaball cast from Astral Space, it only affects other things in astral space, not living creatures nearby.



    So, it used to be that if I was astrally active (Astrally Perceiving, carrying an active spell lock), someone in Astral Space could target that astral connection and drop a fireball that would explode in the "real" world. Did someone have an active Increase Reflexes spell lock? Then an enemy mage could MAKE EVERYTHING AROUND THEM EXPLODE. Starting in 3rd edition, that didn't happen. The enemy mage could take out the Increased Reflexes spell lock (it is an astral object they can attack), but couldn't do anything to the person themselves UNLESS they could see them in the physical world (either normally or via astral perception). Someone who is dual-natured can be attacked from either side, and can attack either side, but attacks originating from one can't resolve in the other.
    Oops
    Yes I presumed, having extensively played 2nd ED., that area effect spells targeted on dual natured critters would 'ground' down into the real world like they used to
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  4. - Top - End - #94
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Has any edition mentioned whether handheld laser weapons make noise when fired? I own 4e and Arsenal, but not Gun Haven, and not any other edition.

    I'm thinking a sniper could do some serious mischief working silently with a laser, taking out security features and guards at 300 meters, no GSR or shell casings ...
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  5. - Top - End - #95
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    but a pretty impressive heat bloom and energy emission that can be tracked......

  6. - Top - End - #96
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dimers View Post
    I'm thinking a sniper could do some serious mischief working silently with a laser, taking out security features and guards at 300 meters, no GSR or shell casings ...
    It'll look like he's firing 100% tracers in IR generally, and probably thermal too from the beam heating the air. How many people in SR have IR/thermal vision?

  7. - Top - End - #97
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Hoi, deckheads .. Any of you have experience running games with Shadowrun 2050? What did you think of it?
    ( linky link )
    Last edited by Pendragonx; 2017-05-22 at 09:34 AM.

  8. - Top - End - #98
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Blue Duke View Post
    but a pretty impressive heat bloom and energy emission that can be tracked......
    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    It'll look like he's firing 100% tracers in IR generally, and probably thermal too from the beam heating the air. How many people in SR have IR/thermal vision?
    Good points, y'all. I'll look up how much lasers heat the air ... and you've given me another couple ideas about decoys. But you didn't see anything about noise from the weapon?

    Who has heat vision: trolls, dwarves, some enhanced/equipped other people, a few critters, a few drones (it's not part of the standard package on 4e Arsenal page 105), a few security cameras (how often do you need a camera to see both heat and light? and how much are you willing to adjust your bottom line?). In the kind of run where silent sniping is useful, I'd guess at least 7% of the sensing people or objects. Probably no more than 20% in any reasonable instance. That just me spitballing, though.
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  9. - Top - End - #99
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dimers View Post
    Good points, y'all. I'll look up how much lasers heat the air ... and you've given me another couple ideas about decoys. But you didn't see anything about noise from the weapon?

    Who has heat vision: trolls, dwarves, some enhanced/equipped other people, a few critters, a few drones (it's not part of the standard package on 4e Arsenal page 105), a few security cameras (how often do you need a camera to see both heat and light? and how much are you willing to adjust your bottom line?). In the kind of run where silent sniping is useful, I'd guess at least 7% of the sensing people or objects. Probably no more than 20% in any reasonable instance. That just me spitballing, though.
    Lasers heating the air is called thermal blooming. It's one of the reasons we don't have many laser weapons in real life. It's a nonlinear equation, which from what I can tell means that the answer varies wildly. Fun fact, the wind has a large affect on thermal blooming, which can cause the laser to bend towards the source of the wind.
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  10. - Top - End - #100
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dimers View Post
    But you didn't see anything about noise from the weapon?
    I don't recall anything in an SR book mentioning the sound/noise a laser weapon makes, so I've always assumed they make the same kind of high-pitch 'crackling' noise that a powerful laser in real life does when it's fired.
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  11. - Top - End - #101
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by DigoDragon View Post
    I don't recall anything in an SR book mentioning the sound/noise a laser weapon makes, so I've always assumed they make the same kind of high-pitch 'crackling' noise that a powerful laser in real life does when it's fired.
    Huh, learn something new every day!

    Quote Originally Posted by The Random NPC View Post
    Fun fact, the wind has a large affect on thermal blooming, which can cause the laser to bend towards the source of the wind.
    Two new things if you're lucky!
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  12. - Top - End - #102
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Alright, I'm in an interesting debate with some other players on the topic of "expected response to a top secret facility".

    --Background--
    Our team was hired by a Mr. Johnson to travel deep into the Redmond Barrens to locate a specific individual and extract them for payment. The GM loves us because we don't ask too many questions of our Johnson, particularly why we're extracting someone from the slums. We drove out to the address and find a neighborhood that back in its heyday was probably a nice office park. Now it's just a bunch of decrepit buildings coming apart. It's pretty quiet out here, not counting the homeless drek that occasionally skitters in the shadows. Or the gangers. >.>

    After a quick search of the building the address points us at, we found a hidden basement entrance into a well-stocked underground cybernetics lab. A very bloody, trashed, power is out and the emergency lights are flicking-okay-the-GM-needs-to-stop-playing-Alien:Isolation-because-he's-scaring-us kind of lab.


    --The Debate--
    Ignoring the fact that all the lab techs have been eviscerated by something that is very likely still down here (), the debate was over how long until a response team from the corp that owns this place would get out here, and how big a team we should expect (If it matters, we're fairly sure it's Ares owned by some of the files we found on a laptop). The facility's power and communications are all down (wireless signals can't penetrate the thick walls, so we would have to go topside to access the matrix). If Ares tried calling this place, they won't get an answer. We estimate the disaster that struck here happened about 2 hours ago, give or take.

    Half the team thinks Ares is gonna have a SWAT force here soon to lock the place down and shoot any of us on sight. The reasoning is that since this place is deep in barrens territory with few witnesses, they can afford an armed response team. The only witnesses are not credible (homeless bums and gangers), neither of which are in any position to tell any authority what they saw because they don't want trouble for themselves.

    I'm on the other half that thinks because this is a secret lab, they'll only send a few covert ops here to check on the place, because even drunk hobos and gangers might see something and blab to a friend and that friend leaks it to the news media (and the media will wonder why Ares is out in the middle of nowhere, because saying "live-fire training exercise" only works so many times). Thus, we should expect a few deadly "ninjas" showing up and giving us a hard time. Or worse, they follow us to find out who we are and then strike us at one of our safe houses.

    The GM hasn't said which is it. He rather likes that we're debating how long we might have (and we need to at least find and ID the body for the Johnson if nothing else). Curious if any of you had thoughts on what you would expect showing up.
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  13. - Top - End - #103
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Two hours? No power, no communications?

    If they were GOING to show, they are there already.

    Ares has enough resources that something like this happening could reasonably be dealt with quickly, and the question of "in force" or "covert" is one that highly depends on what's going on. I would expect that the first response from them would be covert, and quickly. Catastrophic loss of communication through the hardlines would be noted and responded to with a look-see... might be a technical problem, but you don't assume that. It might be a full on Ares strike team, it might be a squad of KE Security goons told to go check something out and report back.

    Once they report back, or if they don't, Ares either
    a) burns the site
    b) sends people in to control it.

    Both of which involve a fair amount of numbers.
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  14. - Top - End - #104
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    To me this screams 'way off the books site where Ares is doing stuff even they are ashamed of'. As such I'm firmly of the opinion the response would be of the Ninja variety.
    So there is a very decent chance they are already there, watching you and wondering what the hell you've got to do with this unholy mess. Of course what you'd better hope is that their superiors are curious enough about you to not decide to activate the bomb built into the shelter (of course there's a bomb ) and wipe out you and any evidence of the horrors they were up to

    Alternate theory : The extraction was of the chief scientist of this hell-hole and was paid for by himself. Expecting his rescuers he cut the communication lines with the parent corp. to give himself the maximum time to run.
    A smart move, less smart was letting loss Project Nephilim as a further distraction
    Last edited by comicshorse; 2017-06-27 at 11:31 AM.
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  15. - Top - End - #105
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    I suppose the time frame matters. Are we talking 2050s? 2060s?

    I'd expect a troubleshooting team of 4-5 NPCs (Rigger/Mage/Street Sam 1/Street Sam 2) with 10-15 grunts as back-up. They'll probably show up in a Mobmaster or several Patrol-Ones. Probably unmarked vehicles, with no one wearing badges on their armor. Possibly a not-visibly-armed helicopter to make a high-altitude Jellyfish drop (Condor or Condor II) a km or so away from the site to keep tabs on the surface without drawing too much attention.

    If this was Aztechnology, they'd already have several Watcher Spirits onsite, with other back-up on the way (Speaking of, if you've got a mage/shaman on your team, summon up some astral surveillance for an early warning system). Ares doesn't strike me as particularly "stealthy" in their approach, and I wouldn't expect them to tail you home. That being said, assume they will, and take steps to throw off any pursuit.

    I tend to agree with Mark, here. If it's been two hours, they've already come if they're coming. Ares should have response teams much closer than two hours away. If there were no mostly-empty vehicles at the surface, they are probably not coming. If they'd already sent a team (that was killed by the blood-elemental-animated dolls that only move when you're not looking), they'd leave one or two members up-top to report their progress back to HQ, and you'd have seen that during your approach.

    But that's just us. More important is whether your GM has a habit of hitting you with brute force assaults or stealthy teams of assassins.

    Edit: I suppose they could have some spotters hidden in nearby buildings (if there are any) to keep an eye on things. But they should have been in place within 15-20 minutes of Things Going Down.
    Last edited by Lord Torath; 2017-06-27 at 01:32 PM.
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  16. - Top - End - #106
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Try taping a note to the door.
    "Runner team on site for personell extraction. Found everyone dead and dismembered. Trying to ID body. Please confirm targets before shooting. Will talk for cash. If found half eaten, please inform next of kin."

    Edit: Due to corp politics this may be a completely unapproved project. Communications and response may not have full corp resources. The person running the project may have to be circumspect about using corp resources. Instead of corp security you may see another runner team.
    Last edited by Telok; 2017-06-27 at 04:35 PM.

  17. - Top - End - #107
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    I suppose the time frame matters. Are we talking 2050s? 2060s?

    I'd expect a troubleshooting team of 4-5 NPCs (Rigger/Mage/Street Sam 1/Street Sam 2) with 10-15 grunts as back-up. They'll probably show up in a Mobmaster or several Patrol-Ones. Probably unmarked vehicles, with no one wearing badges on their armor. Possibly a not-visibly-armed helicopter to make a high-altitude Jellyfish drop (Condor or Condor II) a km or so away from the site to keep tabs on the surface without drawing too much attention.

    If this was Aztechnology, they'd already have several Watcher Spirits onsite, with other back-up on the way (Speaking of, if you've got a mage/shaman on your team, summon up some astral surveillance for an early warning system). Ares doesn't strike me as particularly "stealthy" in their approach, and I wouldn't expect them to tail you home. That being said, assume they will, and take steps to throw off any pursuit.

    I tend to agree with Mark, here. If it's been two hours, they've already come if they're coming. Ares should have response teams much closer than two hours away. If there were no mostly-empty vehicles at the surface, they are probably not coming. If they'd already sent a team (that was killed by the blood-elemental-animated dolls that only move when you're not looking), they'd leave one or two members up-top to report their progress back to HQ, and you'd have seen that during your approach.

    But that's just us. More important is whether your GM has a habit of hitting you with brute force assaults or stealthy teams of assassins.

    Edit: I suppose they could have some spotters hidden in nearby buildings (if there are any) to keep an eye on things. But they should have been in place within 15-20 minutes of Things Going Down.
    ...perhaps they're already on-site, and some of the splatter is them? Maybe there are survivors inside as possibly shaky allies against the wounded-but-not-dead xenomorph-analogue, who'll then turn on the PCs as they complete the extraction with the target somehow magically alive and no don't look too closely at the gift horse...

    At this point, they may be on the third wave of response, which might well be attack ships with thermobaric warheads to obliterate the block, just as soon as they can manufacture a previously-unknown gas line that the locals were tapping to have it magically blow up...in case anyone asks, which they don't with Redmond, usually.

    Definitely send some spirits and drones in. The spirit at least can come back a lot faster if it's not obliterated outright, and iirc you'll know it went down.

  18. - Top - End - #108
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    Two hours? No power, no communications?

    If they were GOING to show, they are there already.
    The team hacker had said that there is no telling how often this facility checks in with a local office/superior outside the place. A secret facility might be fairly independent, and only checks in every couple hours. However, it would be best to assume that the corp office is both aware of a communication failure, and a response team was sent. Since we haven't met anyone yet, I am assuming the corp team is using stealth like we are to investigate.

    The facility has an impressive size--we are aware of at least two "levels" to this facility and we're only just getting through the first level, which are mostly offices and living space.


    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    To me this screams 'way off the books site where Ares is doing stuff even they are ashamed of'. As such I'm firmly of the opinion the response would be of the Ninja variety.
    So there is a very decent chance they are already there, watching you and wondering what the hell you've got to do with this unholy mess. Of course what you'd better hope is that their superiors are curious enough about you to not decide to activate the bomb built into the shelter (of course there's a bomb ) and wipe out you and any evidence of the horrors they were up to
    Which goes along with Mark's response up there of "A) Burn the Site". Well so far we haven't seen anything to indicate this place could be blown up, but OOC, I'd not be surprised if there were such a system already armed down here.

    Hopefully the fact we're not the 'grabby' type to steal everything not nailed down is seen as brownie points in the eyes of whoever might be observing us.


    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    Alternate theory : The extraction was of the chief scientist of this hell-hole and was paid for by himself. Expecting his rescuers he cut the communication lines with the parent corp. to give himself the maximum time to run.
    Huh. I hadn't thought of a deliberate sabotage. It's plausible, and the scientist would know a way to delay Ares from figuring out lines were down for some time to give the extraction team a window to pick them up.


    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    I suppose the time frame matters. Are we talking 2050s? 2060s?

    I'd expect a troubleshooting team of 4-5 NPCs (Rigger/Mage/Street Sam 1/Street Sam 2) with 10-15 grunts as back-up.
    We're in the summer of 2070. Our team consists of--

    • Elf hacker (I suspect a Technomancer, but she's good at covering her tracks. She's always riding our back on security and "policing our brass")
    • Human combat mage (Moi. I'm the team healer, buffer, and the first one to get shot at because geek the mage first. The sarcasm is free)
    • Ork street sam (Our walking stealth armory. He's scary to watch when he gets in the zone and "quietly" snipes a target with a hand cannon)
    • Dwarf infiltrator (Our 4-foot darling murder-hobo. When she's sober, she's like a stealthy Belkar. When she's not sober... Belkar on a bad day)


    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    If this was Aztechnology, they'd already have several Watcher Spirits onsite, with other back-up on the way (Speaking of, if you've got a mage/shaman on your team, summon up some astral surveillance for an early warning system). Ares doesn't strike me as particularly "stealthy" in their approach, and I wouldn't expect them to tail you home. That being said, assume they will, and take steps to throw off any pursuit.
    Aye, I got an astral spirit watching our backs. Magical security seems to consist mostly of astral barriers, and (so far) two instances of a rune-like traps that set off an area stun spell to knock out intruders. Almost disabled the first one with my face.


    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    But that's just us. More important is whether your GM has a habit of hitting you with brute force assaults or stealthy teams of assassins.
    He leans toward the stealth. It helps encourage us to do the same rather than kick-in-the-door with our pink mohawks showing. ;)


    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    Try taping a note to the door.
    "Runner team on site for personell extraction. Found everyone dead and dismembered. Trying to ID body. Please confirm targets before shooting. Will talk for cash. If found half eaten, please inform next of kin."
    Hee hee, that sounds like something our dwarf would do. I should recommend it. ^__^


    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    Edit: Due to corp politics this may be a completely unapproved project. Communications and response may not have full corp resources. The person running the project may have to be circumspect about using corp resources. Instead of corp security you may see another runner team.
    Unless we're the other runner and we're extracting the only resource the corp wants back before burning this place down?


    Quote Originally Posted by Telwar View Post
    ...perhaps they're already on-site, and some of the splatter is them? Maybe there are survivors inside as possibly shaky allies against the wounded-but-not-dead xenomorph-analogue, who'll then turn on the PCs as they complete the extraction with the target somehow magically alive and no don't look too closely at the gift horse...
    That... would be scary to deal with. But having a couple npc meat shields allies would be nice.


    Quote Originally Posted by Telwar View Post
    Definitely send some spirits and drones in. The spirit at least can come back a lot faster if it's not obliterated outright, and iirc you'll know it went down.
    Yeah, we got it covered. Our SOP is to send in a little drone and a spirit into a room first and report back what they see. Then we go in and search for our target.
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  19. - Top - End - #109
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Anyone curious to know how hard the drek hit the fan?

    Spoiler: We need to ask more questions of our Johnsons.
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    Our team dove deeper in the facility, using the stairs, and eventually happened upon the actual cybernetic labs in basement level 4 (level 2 was utilities, though we didn't bother getting power back on and level 3 was storage, which we didn't get into much). These lab rooms were trashed hard and had several bodies smeared all over the walls. We found our extraction target as well, or rather what's left of him, locked in a small 'vault storage room'. Turns out he wasn't dead though! Just unconscious from severe blood loss due to stab wounds that made us think he had a bad run-in with Jason Voorhees. He was apparently a gutsy scientist too--left a datachip on his person addressed to "deniable assets".

    Yeah, that would be us, wouldn't it?

    The chip had just one file--a document showing a schematic of a communication box that was attached to the comm lines that exit this facility. The short version is that the box is designed to send Ares HQ a repeating packet of data to their computers, thus making it seem like the facility is online and doing fine after all the lines are cut. Downside is if anyone at Ares called this facility, or actually looked at the sent data, they'd know something is wrong. Our helpless little extraction target had apparently sabotaged the power here and cut the lines himself to make it easy on us to grab him in the chaos. Oookay, so that's possibly good news. We just have to hope no one at Ares felt like doing their job and looking at the data sent by the box. We stabilize our charge and proceed to get out. We got him, we've only had to deal with a few basic traps, getting to this point has actually not been that bad and we're making good time.

    On the other hand, reason the walls were repainted with blood finally showed up.

    You ever watch Robocop 2? There's a scene where OCP plays a video showing the results of what happened when they tried to make a better Robocop. Yeah, apparently this facility had the same idea.
    And apparently they also had the same success rate. Two cyborgs show up (from different areas, but near the same time that the second joined combat a couple rounds after the first engaged). And when I say cyborgs, I mean like, full conversion chrome-domes who are probably little more than brains in a machine body suffering cyber-psychosis for having essences in the .00X range. They were pretty much just walking insanity, and they attacked us on sight.

    Our hacker names them Murphy and Ed, because the first one was humanoid while the second was more like a... tank on legs. Murphy I suspect had some of his mental faculties intact, because after I start buffing the team defenses, he shoots me first and gets me good with his autopistol. The streetsam closes in and fills the cyborg's face with shotgun slugs and his right hook. The others do whatever damage they can. The hacker is the first to notice when Ed showed up, and that Ed... was carrying a machine gun. Here's where we really should have died because when things escalate, it's usually because we reach a point where we think explosives are a good idea.

    Which explains why we have a combo move we call Chips and Salsa.

    We coordinated our turns (holding actions) for this attack plan. The hacker keeps Murphy busy by messing with his smartgun system. The streetsam and infiltrator throw grenades at Ed (our streetsam brought a few because reasons). I then overcast a physical barrier between us and the grenades. When the frags detonate, Ed was basically standing in a 5-wall box with only one way the explosive shockwave could exit--through him. The chunky salsa effect makes quick work Ed (and my barrier). We're lightly toasted from the explosion, but no one dropped. I'm really close though.

    We retreat from Murphy and find an alternate path to the stairs with our extraction. We beat feet up to the first level, but then complication number 2, 3, 4, and 5 show up. A four-man Ares Firewatch team had just arrived to investigate (uh oh). Now we play the stealth game, diving into offices and skulking around to avoid them. Thankfully running away from Murphy was the good plan, because that investigation team heard the cyborg before discovering us. They engage, we escape.

    I'm sure they got this. Probably.

    So! At the end of the run we bring our extraction to the Johnson. He'll have to get a street doc to patch the guy up, but the job didn't specify condition, so point in our court. We get paid and then head to a safehouse for a couple weeks of laying low and getting ourselves patched up. And of course our sneaky hacker got a hold of a few schematics of the cybernetic research done, so I suspect shes got 'paydata' to sell off. I'm sure that won't come back to bite us later.
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    I feel so smug right now
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by DigoDragon View Post
    Anyone curious to know how hard the drek hit the fan?
    That was awesome.

    So, a question for the board, though: Has anyone else noticed that Shadowrun-specific slang seems to have dropped off in the books since the end of 2nd edition? Like, you're more likely to see duck than drag, if you move the initial letter of those words one letter to the right?
    The Cranky Gamer
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    Has anyone else noticed that Shadowrun-specific slang seems to have dropped off in the books since the end of 2nd edition? Like, you're more likely to see duck than drag, if you move the initial letter of those words one letter to the right?
    Yyyyup. Even worse in the splatbooks (for 4e at least).
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    I feel so smug right now
    Well you were pretty much on the ball there. :D


    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    So, a question for the board, though: Has anyone else noticed that Shadowrun-specific slang seems to have dropped off in the books since the end of 2nd edition? Like, you're more likely to see duck than drag, if you move the initial letter of those words one letter to the right?
    Yeah, I miss the slang in the newer books. That was one of the best parts of the books. It just adds something important to the setting immersion.
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    That's pretty much the definition of a good run. For the players, if not for the characters.

    Chips and Salsa is a good trick, makes me with I'd thought of it. It reminds me of our group's slap-bang.

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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    So, in a few issues of Knights of the Dinner Table, the GM, BA starts enforcing the rule that you can only say a couple of words during combat without it taking your action. The players respond by coming up with what they call the "Player Advantage Codes"... two-word phrases to communicate common battle tactics. Really, it's a great idea, and something I can see a group coming up with, especially if they work together a lot... and I assume a lot of groups think their characters have such a code, but don't bother to write it up.

    One of those codes, though, was "Chunky Salsa", which was "Watch out for the fireball... and throw that annoying NPC in there, too."
    The Cranky Gamer
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    So. Looking into 4e mage builds.

    Is channeling combined with an ally spirit as insane as it looks? Yeah it costs 8 karma per point of force. But when channeling you use its magic stat and add it's force to your physical stats and gain double it's force in hardened armor and get to use it's spirit powers...

    All while basically looking like a normal dude.
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    Quote Originally Posted by AvatarZero View Post
    I like the "hobo" in there.
    "Hey, you just got 10000gp! You going to buy a fully staffed mansion or something?"
    "Nah, I'll upgrade my +2 sword to a +3 sword and sleep in my cloak."

    Non est salvatori salvator, neque defensori dominus, nec pater nec mater, nihil supernum.

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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    Chips and Salsa is a good trick, makes me with I'd thought of it. It reminds me of our group's slap-bang.
    The important parts of the trick are to get turn order correct and for the mage to put up a really good physical barrier so that the shock-wave doesn't blow back at the party. We've had a couple messy executions of that trick.


    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    So, in a few issues of Knights of the Dinner Table, the GM, BA starts enforcing the rule that you can only say a couple of words during combat without it taking your action. The players respond by coming up with what they call the "Player Advantage Codes"... two-word phrases to communicate common battle tactics. Really, it's a great idea, and something I can see a group coming up with, especially if they work together a lot... and I assume a lot of groups think their characters have such a code, but don't bother to write it up.
    Speaking in combat is one of those really varied kind of things. The current GM for the core-only 3.5 game I'm in limits speech to just two sentences a round as a Free action. Any more and you have to use up a move-equivalent action.


    Quote Originally Posted by druid91 View Post
    Is channeling combined with an ally spirit as insane as it looks? Yeah it costs 8 karma per point of force. But when channeling you use its magic stat and add it's force to your physical stats and gain double it's force in hardened armor and get to use it's spirit powers...

    All while basically looking like a normal dude.
    Huh. I don't think anyone in my groups have tried that. A quick google search for this topic seems to make it a debatable tactic. The 'against' side says you need to choose to channel a spirit at the time of summoning and channeled spirits cannot be bound, while the 'for' side says that doing this makes you permanently dual-natured and you have to share your action pool with the spirit (plus, real expensive tactic as you mentioned). Maybe it's a GM call?

    I'll have to get to my books tonight and read the rules to see for myself.
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Last month I started my first Shadowrun campaign (5e) with some friends. The campaign is set in London and they received their very first big run. During the first session our decker went on a streak of luck and basically stole loads of company secrets (they are targetting a bioware company). His luck ended when he tried to get to the information he actually needed and he quickly got out with his tail between his legs.
    So back in the real world he tried to sell this information. He gave it to his fixer - who is still a young and upstart fixer with little experience but big dreams who has a connections of 1 and loyalty of 3 - hoping that she could get him some nuyen.

    Now what would be a fair way to decide what happens to the stolen company secrets and the fixer? How do you guys usually make that decision? Do you roll for it or do you just decide on something?

  29. - Top - End - #119
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Guran View Post
    Last month I started my first Shadowrun campaign (5e) with some friends. The campaign is set in London and they received their very first big run. During the first session our decker went on a streak of luck and basically stole loads of company secrets (they are targetting a bioware company). His luck ended when he tried to get to the information he actually needed and he quickly got out with his tail between his legs.
    So back in the real world he tried to sell this information. He gave it to his fixer - who is still a young and upstart fixer with little experience but big dreams who has a connections of 1 and loyalty of 3 - hoping that she could get him some nuyen.

    Now what would be a fair way to decide what happens to the stolen company secrets and the fixer? How do you guys usually make that decision? Do you roll for it or do you just decide on something?
    I'd start making **** up. ;-)

    So, figure out who is investigating this for the Company. Give them an Investigation rating, based on some skill or another of theirs. To that, add the Fixer's connection rating (they make big waves if they have big connections), but subtract the fixer's Loyalty rating (their big friends keep the waves down). Add some arbitrary numbers for various things (how important the secrets were, how much they're worth, etc).

    Roll the resulting dice pool. Count the hits.
    The Cranky Gamer
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    *Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
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    Default Re: General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

    Meh...

    I need some advice.
    We started playing a 5th ed. campaign some time ago (I'm the GM), and it started off pretty well.
    Unfortunately, once my players got a hang of the rules, the power gamer in the group created a new combat monster character.
    This was fine by me, except that all the other characters then felt useless in combat and created their own combat monster characters.
    The result is that a year into the campaign the mage of the party, who is the only one who didn't create a new character, is the only one capable of performing any non-combat tasks.
    She is the face, the infiltrator, the manipulator, the information gathering specialist, but not really comparable to the rest of the party when in combat.

    So far I've let it slide and let the dice fall where they may, hoping that would wake them up.
    They are incapable of making any excellent negotiation tests, so they make less money from contracts, and they make lousy first impressions on Johnsons.
    They are incapable of stealthing an entire run, so they usually lose any low-profile bonuses.
    They don't have many or high quality contacts, so they are mostly incapable of getting better gear than what they started with.
    They are not very good at collecting information, so they usually miss important stuff, making even their succesful runs half-assed efforts.
    They have no matrix capability, so they just brute force. Successfully thus far only because they haven't run into anything really serious and they don't mind murdering prodigous amounts of wage-slaves to make a quick getaway.

    The players are reasonably smart, even if their characters aren't, so they have been able to scrape by thus far,
    I'm setting the next run up to be low-profile, meaning no pay if they blow anything up, but I fear that it won't be enough to get them to reasess the situation.

    I feel like the entire campaign is beginning to skate on thin ice. Does anyone have some ideas that could help us out?
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