[X] My Assistant

[Sphynx]

It's been awhile since a request for House Rules has gone out. Anyone have links, or feel like posting, their House Rules?

Ours are located at: http://shadowrun.i-sphynx.com/HouseRules.htm if you're interested in looking. There is also included there, a link to our House Rule for the BuildPoint System that alot of people had interest in some time ago. ;)

Sphynx

[mfb]

for hard cover, i give +1 armor for every +2 TN. it's simpler than determining whether the shot would have hit without the cover, then determining the barrier rating of the cover and figuring out whether the attack would have penetrated.

[Stonecougar]

We have a very simple house rule:

If it's good for the drama, go with it.

Half the time, we don't know the given rule for any given situation. We make up what sounds fairest and has the most dramatic flair. I've always envisioned SR as being an action-movie-buff's best game. Watch Blade Runner, Ronin, or any of a score of other SR movies and tell me I'm wrong.

We play the games to have fun, and nothing kills fun more than, at the very moment of highest drama, having an inconvenient rule bring everything crashing down. Rules are guidelines. Rules are meant to be tweaked, bent, and yes, even broken.

[Dr Vital]

[TinkerGnome]

[Dr Vital]

[TinkerGnome]

The other sensing powers are much cheaper because they're mainly modifications and enhancement of other senses. Their only real game effect is to cancel out penalties to rolls. Astral perception gives you a whole new sense as well as:

• The ability to detect magical potential in other people.
• The ability to assense people.
• The ability to set up wards.
• The ability to fight unmaterialized spirits.

[Mongoose]

Not to mention the ability to get you ass killed by unseen threats that move 3-4 times the speed of your meat body....

That's gotta be worth a lot. :)

[Dr Vital]

[ialdabaoth]

I really like the 'magic build points' system; I've been working on house rules to encorporate it into BeCKS.

In the meantime, here's an alternate Skill Defaulting system I've been advocating for awhile:

SKILL DEFAULTING (pp.84-85, SR3)
Skill defaulting is replaced with the following rule: Each skill gains a ‘base’ number of dice equal to its Link Attribute ¸ 3 (round .33 down; round .66 up). This is the minimum number of dice that may be rolled in a Skill test for that skill, but do not count as actual Skill Levels – thus, they cannot allow Combat Pool to be spent, and do not count against the Karma expense of new Skill Levels. Until a character raises his Skill Level beyond this minimum threshold, the only bonus gained by having the skill is the ability to spend Combat Pool dice to augment the roll. For example, if the character has a Quickness of 6, and a Pistols of 1, he may roll 2 skill dice for all Pistols tests – but may only augment his skill with a single Combat Pool die. If he later raises his Pistols skill to 2, he still rolls 2 dice, but may augment his roll with up to two Combat Pool dice per roll. Skill defaulting is possible regardless of the target number.
Likewise, when defaulting from skill to skill, use half the Skill Rating of the new skill (round down). This does count as actual Skill dice, after a fashion – while it does not affect Karma costs, it does allow the player to allocate Combat Pool dice up to its rating. If the character possesses the Skill being rolled, but wishes to use a higher-rated linked Skill, take the average of the two Skills (round down). If the computed number is still below the minimum (the default Attribute ¸ 3), then the minimum number of dice rolled is computed from the default Attribute, as above. Specializations of the actual Skill being rolled may be used in lieu of the generic Skill, but Specializations of the Skill being defaulted to may not be used – only base Skills are generic enough to lend cross-disciplinary expertise.

Suzie Samurai, with Quickness 7, Submachine Guns(5) / Uzi(8), and Pistols(1) / Hold-Out(3), gets a total of 3 dice to roll when firing her Ares Predator Heavy Pistol: her Pistols skill(1) + her Submachine Guns skill(5), divided by 2. When firing her Fuchi Ladyfinger hold-out, she gets four dice: her Pistols/Hold-Out(3) + her Submachine Guns(5), divided by 2. She can not use her Submachine Guns/Uzi(8) skill to allow her to roll 5 dice to fire her Ladyfinger; her understanding of the Uzi simply doesn’t translate well.
If she didn’t have the Uzi skill, she could still roll 2 dice for Pistols, since her Quickness(7) ¸ 3 gives her a 2-dice minimum for skills that default to Quickness. However, she could only allocate a maximum of one Combat Pool die, since her actual skill is only 1. She would roll 3 dice (plus up to 3 Combat Pool dice, if desired) in Pistols/Hold-Out; since it’s above her Attribute Default threshold, the threshold does not apply.

[TinkerGnome]

[Bearclaw]

House rule:

A contact from a distant place I give for half price.
If you want a fixer in Lav Vegas and a Bartender in Denver, you get them for 2500 each.
There's exceptions of course. Deckers and such don't lose their usefullness by being distant, and runners and other guys who can and will travel for biz don't get it either. An armorer in NYC is half price. A steet sam in Boston is 5000.

[Jpwoo]

I have to say that the cost of .5 for astral perception is low. a cost of 1 I could maybe understand in a magic heavy game. I am curious if there are any adepts that don't take astral perception in your game.

Also why did you cut mnemonic enhancers? Not that I disagree I just want to hear your reasoning. I cut monowhips in my world just because I find them distasteful.

Back to the main thread.

I am sure I play lots of house rules I am sure, the most obvious ones come in character creation.

All players get a free armor jacket, tailored how they want it. All guns that players buy in creation come with two free clips. And all players get a zippo lighter. However you cannot buy a zippo in the game world. so you have to take good care of it.

Limit of two pieces of bioware at character creation, or alternately if you have a bioware themed character limit of two pieces of cyber. Anyone taking tech at priority A has to have a damn good background.

Since we don't play lots lowered the cost of skill buying to double current rather than double new. I suppose this could have been balanced by just giving more karma but it has been a rule long enough that it seems right.

Scraped negotiation and interrogation as skills, and handle them with rp. Left in teaching and leadership.

[Dr Vital]

[BitBasher]

[Dr Vital]

[BitBasher]

[Bira]

Astral Perception also allows an adept to engage in astral combat with spirits and such, which is great for characters that don't expect the mage to be there all the time.

I don't think it's too expensive, personally. Sure, other magicians get astral perception for free, but the whole point of having adepts is that they're different from run-of-the-mill Awakened characters (tough people may have forgotten that with all these priority A spellcasting adepts roaming around). Also, other magical characters don't get to throw ungodly amounts of dice for their chosen specialty skills, so I think it evens out.

I haven't played an adept with Astral Perception bought at full cost, but that's because I used to be the GM. I've made plenty of them, tough.

[TinkerGnome]

Unfortunately, magic is one of those things where you got a lot of apples and a lot of oranges and a lot of blue apples and a lot of pears. The cost of astral perception is 33% or 25% (with voluntary geasa) of the adept's total power points. It is a bit harsh, but that is, in my opinion, to restrict it to adepts who really need/want it. At 2 points, it's only taken by those adepts who really want/need it. At a lower cost, it would start becoming commonplace among adepts. It's all in whether or not you want that to be the case.

The general idea seems to be that most adepts simply aren't in tune with astral space enough to see into it. If your adepts are more mystical, then lowering the cost of astral perception (and the powers which are like weaker versions of it, like empathic sense) makes sense. The way the "standard" game world works seems to indicate that it's not all that common among adepts.

Of course, being able to play "geek the mage" with astral perception and Improved Ability (something that kills people) +6 is just nasty. Particularly when your foes try to go to pains to make all of the guards look the same (making picking out the mage difficult).

[Senchae]

I play an adept who paid 2 points for perception. I can't imagine not being able to assense, though I wouldn't have paid 2 points just for that ability.
But ours is such a magic heavy game I would have been at a disadvantage without astral perception.

[RedmondLarry]

Link to Our Team's House Rules

And on a similar note, rules we have accidentally played wrong and are working to correct:

Link to Rule Notes

[BitBasher]

[Dr Vital]

Okay. I stand convinced and the rule is allowed to remain as it is!

So says I! ;)

That said I'm glad that the GM is there to bend the rules to fit the situation, since I'm going to be able toget Astral perception and hang out with that new spirit contact I just got.

And of course, kill hidden mage guards on sight!

[TinkerGnome]

I like the rules notes, OurTeam. However, that first one on background skills is an optional rule.

[RedmondLarry]

Thanks TinkerGnome. I'll update that.

By the way, the page number decimal points refer to where on the page the rule occurs. The left column is numbered, for example, from 90.0 in the top left corner through 90.4 in the bottom left. The right column would be 90.5 (top right corner) through 90.9 (bottom right). I've been doing this for years, and it is very helpful.