So, I've been looking at the 401 rules for making a dragon PC, and I had a question. Can dragons take the adept, mystic adept, or aspected qualitjes?

Also, do dragons retain their stats when in metahuman form? And how would one go about locking a dragon into metahuman form against its consent?

Do you mean, Drakes ...?

If it's an actual dragon, based on the stats for Hestaby & Lofwyr, yes they can take the magician quality (both dragons named here have it) and I'd think adept and mystic adept would be available as well.

The Metahuman Form power that [only] great dragons have is detailed in Running Wild, page 213, which should answer most of your questions regarding their stats and such.

Well, you can't make a dragon PC per the rules. So if everyone in the game thinks it would be fun to try I'd just put it together with the GM. But yeah, all dragons seem to be mages.

Actually no. ALL dragons are mages.
This is supported by canon* and not-quite-canon materials.**

*Lack of any non-mage dragon of any kind over the course of about 30 years worth of material.

**The April Fools sneak peek at Runner's Companion from a couple years ago stated as much.

Building a Dragon: You decide what you want it to do. It does it.

What you expect rules and balance with dragons?

Sorry, but a lack of known reference materials had suggested the possibility.

No. According to the Dragon PC "rules," all dragons are magicians. I'm not sure if they are able to take the aspected magician quality - canonically, it wouldn't make much sense, though.

For normal dragons, which I believe you're using, I'd use the rules for Shapechange, which I don't think lets you keep your normal form's stats in metahuman form. I don't know how it'd be possible to lock it in metahuman form, though.

See footnote number **

OK, thanks. That kind of ruins one idea. I'm assuming dragons can't get amnesia.

Sorry, but that is meaningless to me. Besides, my first clue to Runner's Companion was seeing it in hard copy at my LGS, and I've seen so much legit and trick stuff regarding that particular day that I don't bother trying to figure which is which.

Runners companion was a terrible book, don't buy it. The April fools Dragon player character is better then some of the serious ones they want you to pay for.

Does anyone have a link to the Dragon PC joke rules?

Runner's Companion does not cover Dragons as PCs. What it does cover is drakes as PCs, but those are to dragons what guppies are to great white sharks. Drakes can be adepts and mystic adepts as well. They can even be "mundane" - it is a really bad idea though.

Oh, I so cannot agree with that. While I don't care one whit for Free Spirits or AI, I was glad to see the old Metavariants make a return. And the plethora of qualities to choose from is definitely a boon.

Yeah, I've got to agree with you there. And I'll go so far as to say that I appreciate having "rules" for Free Spirits and AI. It's at least something that you can let your players build on. That is, the ones who aren't intending to use them to break the system in half over their knee while they cackle and wipe cheeto cheese on your nice furniture. But I tend not to game with that type anymore anyway.


~R~

Runners Companion is a great book. It just suffers the same disease WAR! died of.
Bringing in new, cool stuff which contradicts or need changes/exeptions to the core rules/fluff. Never, never ever a good thing to do!

the Runners Compendium is a "Two Edged Sword" it has great Ideas (Teampositions,pos & Neg Qualities,Metavariants,Surge,ext. Lifestyle,Contacts) but also some (ImO) "stupid Ideas " (AI,Free Spirits, Sentient Critter as Chars, some arbitrary Costs for Metavariants)
but in the End the RC is a valuable Book !

Hough !
Medicineman

Dragons in Shadowrun aren't creatures.

They're plot devices.





-k

Actually it's the reverse. >..>



I'll see if I can dig it up.
Edit:
Here you go, http://www.catalystgamelabs.com/download/p...ers_preview.pdf

If you want a Dragon with Amnesia Shapechanged into metahuman form, it's easy.

Use a custom Human Form spell quickened at a high enough force. Physical stats will be base human stats + net hits.

Use Amnesia Qualitry - no reason a dragon can't have it, imo. Punishment from a great dragon or massively powerful free spirit perhaps?

Make sure the dragon is an initiate with Masking and Extended Masking(for the quickened spell), otherwise the game will be up as soon as someone sees him/her on the astral.

Or just good old fashioned head trauma. No reason a dragon getting brained should be ruled out.

Dragons have also been shown to react...interestingly...to cybernetic enhancements. The titular character of Dragon Hunt went a little nuts when it got a datajack, so that's another route you could go as a purely handwavium plot device to describe why your particular dragon has amnesia or is otherwise a crazy-ass.

In the end, though, yeah. Basically the whole exercise is "I dunno, talk to your GM, because making a 'dragon PC' is so outside the norm that you're basically winging it with the whole danged thing."

If someone told me they wanted to play a dragon trapped in a human's body I'd probably go the route of them playing some poor schmuck who has been PABbed with a dragon's mind-maybe even a legit dragon's memories and persona.

For all intents and purposes, they are 100% sure they are a dragon trapped in the body of a human. I did the same thing when a player told me he wanted to play an AI trapped in a human body.

I played a PC with the Amnesia Quality who believed he was an angel in the host of Ahura Mazda, fallen to Earth for unknown transgressions. His whole purpose in life was to get back into Zoroastrian Heaven. I left it up to the GM as to whether he was right or just delusional.

Sadly, the campaign died before I could find out.

I've got a character in a GURPS game with amnesia. From what I've picked up from OOC chatter about how this game relates to another, my character is either a) past-(future?)-self of a character from the other game or b) related to said character.

It's going to be interesting.