Go ask Peg. I'll be as far away from your SIN and Argent as possible.

Who?
And besides, do they do actual literal rock climbing while being actually literally quadriplegic? And are awesome at it?

Peg is/was the Quadriplegic Decker that worked with the infamous Shadowrunner named Argent. We haven't heard what happened to her after Crash 2.0, but Argent hasn't retired from Shadowrunning yet.

He's the type that'd retire five minutes after he's planted.

I did not say I didn't need a rules system, so please do not put words in my mouth. A rules system is only a tool. Like a hammer or a wrench. It is not the hammer or the wrench that makes the carpenter or the mechanic awesome. It is how he uses it. And he does not blame the hammer or the wrench if it doesn't work the way he likes it.



Reductio ad absurdum only diminishes your argument.



I'm afraid you are mistaken. The mage starts out with more tricks, but they are weak tricks compared to a starting cybergoon. A starting mage can not start with a magical attack that does more damage than the starting damage of a cybergoon's weapon, and unless he starts with a bonded magical foci, he will never have more dice to attack with at the start. If he has that foci, then he won't be able to have the resources to purchase the sustaining foci that supports armour or improved reflexes. Or even the resources to have a skill that adds to his defence from a ranged attack. The Cybergoon will win, whether it is because he is faster, he has stronger weapons, or is tougher and can take

Yet workers prefer working with well-machined tools, not half-broken ones.

Even if so, yours is a fallacy fallacy.

Trid phantasm is weak? Or invisibility? Control thoughts, maybe?

Overcast stunbolt. Slay. Spirits.

Which is easily negated by the fact that he's rolling against Willpower. The difference will not be significant anyway.

Armour? Are you even serious. Armour is -¼ attack pool die per hit on spellcasting, Combat Sense is -1 attack pool die per hit.
And even that the mage does not really need because he can still wear armour, and will likely never be attacked due to never being detected.

I know, I'm behind... but "racial equality" has been a thing of the past for over 50 years here in the States yet *somehow* people just aren't *over it" either. Inherited Memory is just as scary as anything Genetic could ever dream up, sorry to say.

Okay... you asked for it.

A (presumably mundane) Samurai can ignore a Nuissance Watcher damn near all day (and night).
A mage/adept can probably sit there and monitor their sexual arousal states far better than a samurai with assensing.

A Technomancer with Skillwires (or Biowires) and Threading was (potentially) a righteous mess waiting to happen. But it was fun watching it, especially when one of the players asked the TM just where the "Sexual Forms-5" came from, and then tried to explain how the matrix just "pulled it all together". Yup, was worth a few extra role-playing and humor points there it was....

I feel that the whole approach is backwards. The social limits are there because you actually cut parts of your soul to replace with ware, not because people flee in terror after seeing your cyberhand. It's an internal thing, it has nothing to do with public perceptions.

Erm... That's not how Biowire works - skillsofts cannot be threaded, only emulated. As such, the skillsoft has to exist and be in the technomancer's possession first.

This might be an accurate comparison if the social hinderance was based on the outsiders perception or belief, however it's quite specifically laid out to be an internal effect due to the cybered indviduals loss of humanity, an outward facing effect. Basically unlike in previous editions where a cybered character could face social stigma due to the beliefs of their target audience in this edition it's actually become all about what they themselves believe and there is only one right way to believe per the rules. I frankly don't know where it comes from but taken at face value it just seems like someone getting their belief's over the way everyone in the entire game world will play the game.

It wouldn't be about their "belief" - it's about some sort of "loss of humanity", an actual change in their state of adjustment. That is something radically different from a "belief", and has a far, far, far stronger impact upon a person.

So? Initiation and buying up Magic is quite expensive in Karma, too.


So ... Mages are overpowered, but downpowering them is unfair? Sorry, but please make up your mind whether they need to be toned down a bit or not. Also, if you read the domain rules (pp. 118 SM) unfavorably, you can make every place with dense population a domain of some kind. The guidelines at p 121 imply background count should be given as in previous editions. Someone had great sex here last night? Background count 1! High School? Background count 2! Justin Bieber concert? Background count 3! More than 3 rarely makes sense (though strictly speaking most of Central Europe should be at 4), but that would already confront magical characters with a notable decrease in power. Also, wards are a great way to prevent sustained spells from being taken everywhere and can be used in conjunction with cyberware scanners.


A streetsam can shoot while wearing heavy military armour. While he cannot fly, a ward is an effective way of preventing people walking into everywhere with invisibility. Plus, they also make life a lot more difficult for spirits.

Much like Lurker's sig says: Magic is the more powerful the less the relevant rules are understood and applied.

I suggest that you play a 200+ Karma Street Samurai who tries to upgrade all his Bioware and Cyberware into Alpha/Beta-Quality. The number in the end is noxt exactly that what you would consider "cheap". And this simply means that the mage can improve a little bit slower at the beginning, but steadily even after hundreds of Karma, while *ware-Improvements can take month of gametime (Beta- Traumadamper, normale SB3, Nanoware etc) - except your usual payment per run is a higher 5 figure or lower 6 figure.

But usually 5 Karma vor the nextd spell or 20 Karma for the next grade or foci is far easier to accumulate than the next 500k ¥

SYL

And did you have to buy Magic up from 1 in previous editions? I've heard not. And if that's the case, what might be sensible handling of Background Counts in previous editions could make basically no sense in the new edition.

Okay.


I'm sorry to hear you had a rough year.

For starters, I'd like you to note that my post wasn't specifically about you. I used the plural there for a reason. I think that whole chunks of the community are engaging in the behavior I noted, not you in particular. I think that the fact there's kind of a feeding frenzy -- which isn't exactly uncommon for the internet at all -- is so clear that me pointing it out really shouldn't be this personally upsetting to you, and I'm sorry if you feel I've singled you out.


And here you just point out that yes, you formed an opinion already.

I'm...not sure that really counts as an excuse for being scathing, caustic, and sarcastic. And, surely, if it does count as a perfectly valid excuse, couldn't I, if I really wanted to, just repost the exact same thing? I mean, the absolute worst case scenario, here, if you felt that I was being all those things in my response (that response where I said that this sort of response isn't unique to Dumpshock and these products, where I said that maybe it's just that the previews are flawed, where I said maybe it's just how new editions work, and all the rest? That response where I pointed out maybe it's not really anyone's fault at all?), can't I just trot out this same line, and be effectively immune to criticism every bit as much as you are?

I mean, c'mon, man. "Yeah, I was being snarky, but oh well! I just gotta be me!" isn't exactly the way to tone down a heated thread, is it? That's not setting the bar very high for what someone can say, and get away with saying.


I really am sorry if you think that me posting my disappointment about tailspins of negativity (perhaps caused by the internet forum medium, perhaps caused by faulty previews, perhaps caused by any number of things) was in some way an "attack." I like to think I've been a member of this community long enough, and earned enough warnings for myself in the thousands upon thousands of posts I've made, that it's pretty obvious when I'm actually attacking someone, though. This was -- honestly -- me just being sad that something seems to be going wrong with the preview-and-discussion process, instead of anything that was meant to be an attack.

And, since you mentioned NDA's, you understand just how much that honestly limits our evangelizing potential, anyways. Even assuming I'm 100% fired up about every word printed in SR5, 100% on board with every single little change that got made, 100% psyched about every change we didn't make...well...it's not like I can really stand on a milk crate and sing praises, can I? Since, y'know, I'm not allowed to tell any of that stuff. What I'm allowed to share is what's already been shared via previews and blogs, basically, and the trickle of information released in those previews and blogs is what's getting some folks all up in arms, isn't it?

So what I'm stuck doing -- what I can do -- is basically say "Hey, calm down fellas, please remember you're reading just a few bits of information, out of context, without knowing how it all really works." And when I say that, I tend to get snarked at or dismissed. Or, well, apparently sometimes people take it as a terrible personal attack, even when that's really not what I mean it to be.


I...dude, listen. In your first post in Ghost-knows how long, just before your post about how open your mind is, you said you probably weren't buying it (and then rattled off a bunch of shit you don't like). Even right there in that post where you said you were keeping an open mind, you said you probably weren't buying it. So, yeah. I'm sorry. You can say your mind is as open as you like, and maybe your mind is really open, but everything else you're saying -- and, in fact, the remainder of this very post I'm responding to! -- is you going on and on about how terrible you think it is, and how much you feel you already hate it, and all the things you insist are already wrong with it. So, y'know, that's what I'm replying to. I can't read your mind, I can only read what you're saying.

And all I'm saying here, all I said in the post that you felt was so directly aimed at you and so personal in nature and such a scathing attack, was "Holy shit, I wish people weren't taking away what I feel is all the wrong things from these previews! Man, I really hate how people are latching onto a few lines and then making big guesses, and feeding off one another's guesses, and then getting all worked up over stuff that I think, in the end, they're actually gonna like! Boy, it sucks how conversations are spiraling way out of control, and how I can't really try to stop them due to my NDA, and how everyone's making up their mind about this edition before they see all of it!" I'm not mad at, or attacking, any one person. I'm not meaning to attack anyone (and I don't think anyone else has taken my posts as attacks, for what that's worth). I'm just frustrated at the situation, and at the mob mentality that's swirling before folks even get to crack the book open. Folks. Plural. Not you, singular.

Dude, we've gamed together. You're one of a handful of Dumpshockers I've gone out of my way to shake hands with and meet in real life. I'm sorry -- sincerely -- if you feel like that was some sort of attack. I'm sorry, in fact, if you feel this response is really some terrible unwarranted attack. But you took the time to spell out your thoughts over paragraph after paragraph, and I hope you don't mind me doing the same. That said, it's now going on 6:00 am for me, and I've been up all day and night driving to and from Dallas, so hopefully my exhaustion (and my effort to reply to you immediately, since you seem to have been so bothered by what I said) didn't make me more abrupt than I should've been.

And now please tell me where you got the idea that the dehumanizing effect of Essence loss has anything to do with beliefs?

200+ Karma advances are not the problem here. Jealousy of the mage's from-the-get-go awesomeness is. Besides, mages need to upgrade some skills too, and attributes. And at least in my experience, GMs are a lot stingier with Karma than Cash. YMMV.

Less Human then a troll, a naga, or a shifter? Less human then someone with the ability to summon fireballs from their hands and fly free of gravity unaided? To summon forth and consort with spirits for the beyond? Basically my problem here is out of all the radical changes that have been laid against humanity in the 6th world, and their ability to interact with non humanity why is implants singled out for special hate? Especially 4 editions in.

Critias I'll make you a deal:

If you promise me the following things I will not only buy a book i will have you, Jason, and everyone else sign it.

1) Ware has been suitably changed/buffed to make such a social penalty appropriate. If the ware table/rules is basically the same as it was in 4th edition and wared characters are getting hit with a social debuff that's quite the deal breaker.

2) The no casting cross the astral barrier rule remain in place. Loss of this rule would quite fundamentally break the game.

If the dehumanizing effect of Essence loss is something new, what exactly was the problem with cyberzombies, again?

People are freaking out about the effect of Essence on the Social limit, and I've gotta tell you, after doing the math...it's not that big a deal. I'll try to get permission to post supporting evidence ASAP, but in the meantime, it's my opinion that a lot of people are having cows over nothing.

Yes, I just opened myself up to a lot of people's rants. I'll deal.

The used blood magic (plus background count) and the resulting "undead feeling" along with the massive cyberware involved maybe?

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not saying that Essence loss should have no impact on social interaction. However, it should not cause modifiers "just because Essence is lowered" and certainly other dehumanzing effects should get their share, if such things really are a desired part of the world feeling ...

You have no idea how badly I want to post a video of Hermes Conrad replacing his body parts with robot parts and becoming less and less human.
But alas, I cannot find the clip on Youtube.

At least part of it can be found here

If a cyber character has managed 200+ karma, he should be for past 500,000 nuyen.