Since you have only "just" become dual natured you may have an argument to purchace "Astral Chameleon" which makes it harder to assence you, 2 dice penalty, it SAYS just Mages etc. but seriously. You will still be kinda glowing but "blend in" better. you not really getting full use of it as you don't leave signatures but your call. Since you are dual natured you use Physical combat skills (unarmed usually) in astral combat.
You are dual natured 24/7 - 365 for the next 7000 years (assuming thats the length of the cycles of mana, I think thats about it).
Options for sleeping: natural earth (Gaia) is a barrier in astal space, many para-critters favour caves, twisty caves with low ceilings, the projected mage has less edge on you in combat, there is alos a wide array of dual natured plants that bar passage of astal forms to a varying degree - take up botony and discuss possiblities with the GM. They range from slowing him down so you can catch him before he 1000 km/hour off to eating his SOUL!... essence... whatever...

I don't beleive you can transmit any of the HMHVV stains over the astral plane, no referance just a gut feeling and vague memory that it is a body fluid borne illness - astral forms are purely psyhic. Most of the awakened diseases seem to require physical contact for transmission. Thankfully... the other reason that comes to mind is all it would take is one Ghoul/Vampire/Whatever magician projecting and desiding to infect a few choise people... I'm sticking with physical infection whatever the books say.

Yes, if your infection is visible, it does have an effect on your social skills, including Negotiation, which will effect eventual attempts to sell illegal contraband.
Runner's Companion has the details on that.

The advantage of this is that you benefit in situations where you are dealing with people who idolize the Infected or when you are threatening people (which may be the more likely situation), so you may consider becoming the group's Intimidation specialist.
There are several items in Arsenal that provide additional dice for Intimidation, specifically weapons with the Custom Look option and Emotitoys.
If you want to go further down the "i scare the living shit out of everybody" road, particularly glaring cybermods can provide Freak Modifiers for social skill tests.
This will make non-hostile interaction even harder, though.

If you want to avoid that, there are basically four options :
-use a non-infected middleman for such deals
-disguise yourself with clothing covering up the fur, nanopaste disguise etc.
-disguise yourself permanently with major biosculpting (found in Augmentation)
-make deals over the matrix



You're in line with the books here, physical contact is needed as a vector.
However, one doesn't want to think about the possibilities that arise if a particularly deranged person has acces enough infectious material containing either HMHVV II or III.

I have a Nosferatu with Carrier (Banshee, Dzoo-noo-qua, and Ghoul) who is trying to build an Infected empire. He uses Compulsion, Influence, and Alter Memory to make ghouls follow his orders, and he's currently working on getting Slab splash grenades carrying the Ghoul strain.

BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!

tell me how that works out.

This whole thing is nothing new really. However, it's just known that using Alleviate Allergy on a vampire is just being a munchkin. It's not specifically forbidden, but really? Someone mentioned a shadowrun group refusing to work at NIGHT? What? Shadowrun groups pretty much need to work exclusively at night. You're breaking into all those corp facilities where all of the workers are there too? (Don't get me wrong, every once in awhile this has its advantages, but usually not)

Most importantly... You're already a vampire (/werewolf/whatever). Enhanced physical attributes anyone? Regeneration? Are these really not enough? Now, granted, If my GM was absurd enough to shoot my character with an HMHVV dart, I would take the spell out of spite. So, I guess I do agree on that point (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) But for all of you thinking "Well, now I have my next character idea", just stop and remember vampires should be few and far between... I know you play 4th edition, and they took most of the cyberpunk out of it, but that's not reason to make silly characters...

Aside: vampires are cool =D We once had a game where 2 of the characters got infected, one possessed (by specific contract) by a free spirit. I was just a rigger. We were (unknown to the characters for a long time) working for Winternight. Good times. Also, I was once turned into a werewolf as well (why'd they become dual natured in 4th anyway?). We were looking for a bunch of escaped Experimental Bioware test subjects who were real big and had a tendancy toward killing. The first we found was nearly feral (Turns out that was the only one, the rest were rather intelligent). An old man told me there was a werewolf hiding behind a dumpster. We figured it was one of them. It was a werewolf, go figure eh? Got infected, ended up infecting another in the group who went berserk, Crazy antics (gun-fight on a moving limo) ensue. (I won becuase my guns happened to be loaded with XX (he fell off, and calmed down later). Ended up tossing a box full of high explosive grenades into an army of bums who the other Biosubjects gathered for a raid on thier former prison. messed up the good part of a city block in the process. We left the city shortly there-after... Anyway, so we ended up buying an old church (former UB holding, they had recently gotten closed down) and then I decided that during the full moon, it would be best if I chained myself up in the basement to prevent myself from hurting anyone. We then found uot that it's impossible to buy chains strong enough, so I got out, and ran into the woods, came across a lame ritual and ended up killing a bunch of witches. Good times! =D

Loup-Garou are sucky (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

People with bad allergies take antihistamines all the time IRL, are they munchkins too?
What exactly is munchkinny about using a well-known and effective method to counter a massive, painful disadvantage?
Imagine exposing yourself to an allergen that is present for about 12 hours every single day would cause you terrible physical pain and you could learn a spell or take a medication against that- wouldn't you do this immediately?
Really, if i was GM, i'd give the player of any vampire spellcaster with a Logic attribute >1 who doesn't learn Alleviate Allergy in an instant a firm slap on the head for hurtfully bad roleplaying, as not learning that spell is obviously just plain retarded for a vamp.
Well, practicing a nonviolent lifestyle, i'd probably do something else than hitting the player on the head, such as kindly suggesting the Mental Handicap Quality, but still...

Please don't fall for that "if i don't intentionally hurt my character without any apparent reason to do so, it's bad roleplaying" 90's storyteller bullshit.
That was never more than a lie systematically propagated by people who where too fucking lazy to read the damn rulebooks or put any serious, coherent thought into their character's actions.



The OP's character is a friggin' loup-garou.
And yes, i fully agree with Starmage 21, loup-garou are, at least as far as the mechanics are concerned, made of purest, unadultured suckishnes.
They're about as counter-awesome as any racial choice in SR gets.

Let's take a look at the cold, hard stats :
Basically, he gets +1 to Body, +1 to Willpower and +4 to Strenght (oh wow, the only real advantage of loup-garous, they are halfway awesome in the game's least-used attribute!), a decreased Charisma and Logic maximum, Dual Nature and three different allergies, along with being visibly infected, becoming a walking biohazard, turning into a madman once a month and being forced to eat metahuman flesh.
No Regeneration.
No Mist Form.
No Compulsion, Influence, Magic Resistance or any of the other cool superpowers other Infected get.
For this rather mediocre package, he has to pay off 70 Karma.
Bad deal.




Never. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)



No, you must be mistaking them with cyberzombies. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

Actually, my characer (I'm the OP) is a Nosferatu with Carrier (Banshee, Dzoo-noo-qua, Ghoul). No loup-garou included, well, because they suck. Hard.

I do believe that infections only modify the attribute minimums/maximums - which works differently if you get infected AFTER buying attributes (=ingame).

Quote [Let's take a look at the cold, hard stats :
Basically, he gets +1 to Body, +1 to Willpower and +4 to Strenght (oh wow, the only real advantage of loup-garous, they are halfway awesome in the game's least-used attribute!), a decreased Charisma and Logic maximum, Dual Nature and three different allergies, along with being visibly infected, becoming a walking biohazard, turning into a madman once a month and being forced to eat metahuman flesh.
No Regeneration.
No Mist Form.
No Compulsion, Influence, Magic Resistance or any of the other cool superpowers other Infected get.
For this rather mediocre package, he has to pay off 70 Karma.
Bad deal.] End Quote

You guys are not reading the part of the time of "bad time" for the Loupe-Gurou. He acts like a bear shaman during those times. WHICH IS, that if he get's hurt or someone get's hurt that is in his care, he goes bezerk for some time. After the bazeark goes away, he takes some stun. So yes, it's bad but avoid getting hit. Also, he comes with natural weapons and all he has to learn is maybe two things then initiate for spells. not that hard actually and doesn't need that much Karma to pull it off. Also, an autoinjector later and BOOM! instant resolution for the allergies. Only problem is a glitch later and my autoinject is SOL.

With a Vampire however, the autoinjector is pointless since the high allergy to the sun is instant hit points. However, if you stick to night only missions, you can get away with it.

On the note of night missions, the last 3 missions have been held during the day. Trust me, the day missions do occur and they really require just a pickup or whatnot.

I think when he says OP he meant me. Now, to make things easier, just put SG if all else fails if your referring to me.

Loup-Gurou maybe the suckiest but it's not as bad as some things he could have picked for me. My group swears that the worst is a Ghoul or a Vampire. So, there is worse things besides what he could have become. Also, stop thinking 3rd dimensional for the Loup-Gurou. They have a lot of potential of a lot of things after the fact. Granted the fact of being struck by a highly contagious virus sucks and I have to keep my distance but it's not instant sucky death. With time and a lot of rp, this character can become really amazing.

Love and peace,
SG

In regards to Infection, yes, it is.


Then your group are idiots. Loup-Garou have all the negatives of a Ghoul, plus some, with significantly less advantages. Vampires are flat-out powerful with relatively minor drawbacks. The only reason I would not play as a vampire is if it does not fit the character concept.


Such as?




Edit: Although not one of the most obvious examples, the Loup Garou is one of the most extreme pieces of "It's balanced because I say so!" in Runners Companion. The Loup Garou, as written, is roughly equivalent to a 15-point Negative Quality.

Dude, he's a troll.

Um, forgive my use of relatively few words, but ghouls rock. You'd be better off as a ghoul. At least then, it would take a scratch or bite to transmit infection, and not a mere touch.

This thread is pretty much derailed anyway so:
Where does it say that Loup Garou transmit HMHVV II by touch alone?


Augmentation states that Contact vector diseases must touch the target's skin.

To me, that means the disease is contained in the infected's body fluids and the body fluids must touch the victim's skins for infection to spread. So day-to-day interraction is unlikely to spread the infections unless SG's character has open wounds, spits on another character, is sweating profusely (even then, sweat doesn't tend to spread diseases so that would be a particularly harsh interpretation) or has unprotected sex. Standard medical precautions for dealing with HIV Positive (or potentially) patients should be all that is required to manage your disease on a daily basis (gloves and respirator).

Imp

Oh damn, all those HMHVV threads get so confusing (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)