Question one:

Hardened armor ignores the damage completely if the modified DV of the attack doesn't exceed it's rating. Drakes get a Hardened Armor of 4... which is lower than pretty much any attack known to mankind, save maybe a few really weak melee attacks and the like.

What is the point of such low rating Hardened Armor? At first I misunderstood the rules and thought it was decent, but once I really looked at it, it seems to be a waste of an ability. Now a greater Dragon's hardened armor in the 12ish range, that has some value.

Question two:

Fetishes - do they work for all spells of the category, or do they only work for the particular limited spell? I.e. can I buy one Combat Fetish for 200:nuyen: and then learn all my combat spells as limited versions - or do I need to buy a separate fetish for each combat spell. In SR2, the last version I played, it was each spell, but the description in the book is a bit vague.

Thanks for the help, as always. You folks are really helping myself and my prospective players to get a better grasp on this system.

1) exactly.
2) you don't need more than 5 (for the five categories) fetishes, but only the spells limited to it need it to work. only 90% sure

Hardened Armor of 4 will shrug off: Hold-Outs, Light Pistols, most SMG's and Machine Pistols. Barring APDS/Ex-Ex ammo, of course.

That's not bad, IMO.

SMGs do 5P base DV and all the others do at least 5DV after net hits...

But that Hardened Armor counts as double when you soak damage, if it is bypassed (or am I confused? It is a Really Bad morning today, and I am away from books)...

yes, you're confusing Hardened Armor in general an spirits' Immunity to normal weapons, which gives Hardened Armor equal to Fx2. drakes basically have Force 2 ItNW

If hardened, you roll double to soak if the DV exceeds the base armor rating, yes.

no it doesn't. you're confusing it with spirits as well (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
the only thing Hardened Armor does, is saying "don't bother rolling damage resistance, if DV < Armor"

but Drakes have Mystic Armor 4 as well, so they do indeed roll 8 armor dice (+ body +worn armor) if DV > 4

Look, it's the Matrix, there's a fetish for everything on it! Yes, even for Hardened Armor. It's so hard and firm and...

...

Oh, I read that wrong, didn't i?

Thbbbbpt.

@CanRay: I thought exactly the same thing when I saw the title of this thread.

Not sure why I thought SMG's were 4P. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

It was my understanding that Hardened Armor stops all attacks where the Base Damage is less than it's value (after AP is applied), and net hits don't figure in to the calculation. Am I mistaken?

You are... Net hits apply before checking against Armor Values...

the DV changes for burst/Full Auto fire is what does not apply.

Actually... The descriptions of the Mystic Armor power (for Critters) in the book disagree with your statement... Mystic Armor does not apply to any attacks in the physical. Only against Astral Attacks. Please see the description of the power, page 296, SR4A... (Yay, I have my books now)... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Hardened Armor only counts once, though, for soak purposes, thoug it will ignore anything less than or equal to its rating...

Bolded portion of quote is true. Underlined is in fact, false.
The Critter power Mystic Armor is actually DIFFERENT from the Adept power Mystic armor last I checked. The Adept version gives armor both normally and vs astral assault
Unless I read it wrong, the Critter power version only gives armor vs Astral attacks

EDIT: CURSE YOU NINJAS

thx for the clarification. you're correct with the critter power mystic armor.
wow, that will get weird, if I built a Drake Mystic-Adept with Mystic armor and the Armor and Astral armor spells (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Indeed... Good luck... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Yes, that is very weird and coincidentally, that was what happened. Tyger is my GM and we just spent some time making the character. I am brand new to SR so I needed the assistance creating a character. I didn't read your post until after the character was completed. It is totally funny that what you types is what happened. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Frankly, I would recommend a metahuman infiltrator, samurai or face as the archetypes for a newbie, without bothering with rules for magic, matrix, drakes and such. Once you get the basics down, you can move on to using more rules...
Just my opinion, anyway - at least it removes the chance of being stuck with a useless character for a campaign.

Yeah, I made my recommendations to everyone - they ignored them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That's fine though, I am assuming there will be a fairly high turnover of characters at the beginning. Hell, as it stands, the entire team (6 players) with the exception of one healing and defense focused magician, are all eitehr cybergoons or physical adepts. I have never seen such a combat heavy group. No face. No social skills at all I think. The highest Charisma is a 3. No technical skills beyond really rudimentary ones.

Its going to be interesting. Suffice to say my first run was supposed to be a quiet data grab - that's not going to work.

You are the goddamn GM.

Well. I'd slaughter such a team, myself.
However, if you want to be gentle, by fluff Johnsons rarely offer shadowrunner teams work they are not at all prepared for - for example, a sammy-only team is not getting a trix run; so you could still make it work with some enforcing, courier runs or bodyguarding...

I can see we have very different views of how to GM. That's cool.



Oh yeah, I have a first couple run ideas. I'm not planning much beyond that, so that they can get a feel for the world and the system. We have two hackers (one techno, one hacker) in the wings, a rigger, a face, another magician... they just want to get a feel for the first.

*shrug* Frankly, Shadowrun is all about narrowly specialized characters acting as a team. When I GM for first-time players, I just explain that their team needs certain specialists, lack of such cripples it, and increases the probability of a TPK. Worked so far.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand: your players want to get the gist of the game; most of them are combat specialists; yet you prepare a B&E run? Is that what is happening?

Just a question and I am not being ignorant here. Do you have a problem with losing players in your group?

I understand what you are saying about an "idea" shadowrun team but why pigeonhole into something they don't want to play? And then to say that you would kill off the entire team? What would that accomplish other than proving a point that you can kill off such a party at the expense of an entire group of your friends having a terrible time playing a game you are running?

We are a group of professionals. We have an archaeologist, metalurgist, electrician, baker, teacher, human rights officer, and a labour investigator in this group of friends. We are not a bunch of 15 year olds so we would not appreciate a gm killing off every member of the team just because they can or to prove a point.

Again, no offense is meant to you. I am a total noob here and I would not want to step on toes at all. I guess, as Tyger mentioned, we have different styles. Thanks very much for your advice and please know it is appreciated. Any of those suggestion you offered are great but I am not opposed to jumping right in and playing something that I would have more enjoyment with. And I don't have to have the most powerful character out there as was illustrated by my first inclination to play a nosferatu (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Cheers for the advice!

That's cool that's how your SR group plays, but really, SR is not JUST about this. Another table may have room for more generalist characters.

*edit* from the post above by tundrawalker1 - it's a game, so ya'll play it as you want to. Sounds like Fatum's group enjoys the mirrorshades, deadly type of game (maybe?). Your group might enjoy it less so, and that's cool too. I think it's fine if your team is combat-heavy but you prepared a B&E run. Maybe they have fun and want to try to make a B&E char at some point in the future.

*double edit* I thought your "group of professionals" was your SR characters, at first. It sounded like a pretty interesting party for a run (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)