Help with Ghouls, any SR4 rules for them? Options

[paws2sky]

I'm working on a mini-campaign to give SR4 a try. And to get the full experience, I'm giving my players the option to make their characters or use a published archetype. Not surprisingly, one of my players threw me a curveball (they're an inventive bunch). He really wants to play a ghoul adept. I was hesitant at first, but he has a great concept, made a convincing pitch, and I'd hate to turn him down just because there's nothing "official" on them yet.

So... I have some ideas for converting SR3 ghouls to SR4, but I'm looking for any homebrew SR4 ghoul rules so I can compare and see what other people have done.

I only have the main book and street magic to go off of, so if ghouls have been covered in one of the other books, please let me know.

[Earlydawn]

Alternative meta-types are slated for Runner Companion. In the meantime, you could try the old equivalent, and try and translate over the stats.

[MaxHunter]

It is possible someone has already done that conversion. I suggest that you look up the forums with the search function, and remember to enable it to look into posts more than one month ago.

I am at work right now so I haven't books nor not much time available. It can't be too hard. It's a metatype after all, with some heavy duty qualities (dual natured, essence loss). It's just a matter of factoring in the attribute penalties and bonuses and deciding on a cost. I also remember they had some trouble with cyberware, so something like Sensitive system and incompatible with biowre would be good for starters.

It's nice to see GMs with open minds, have fun!

Cheers,

Max

[FrankTrollman]

I do in fact recall a playable set of ghoul rules being put up here:

Ghouls
Ghoul (30 BP):

B: 5/10
A: 1/6
R: 3/8
S: 4/9
C: 1/4
I: 2/7
L: 1/5
W: 3/8
Edg: 1/6
Ess: 5
M: 1/5
Movement: 10/25

Powers:
Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell), Natural Weapon (Claws: S/2 + 1), Resistance (+3 dice vs. Disease)

Ghouls get the following Negative Qualities and gain no BPs for them (these do not count against the 35 BP limit):
Allergy (Sunlight, Mild), Dark Secret (Ghoul), Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), Reduced Senses (Blind).

---

Official ones will take an ass long time coming out, so I'd just use those.

-Frank

[Rasumichin]

I wouldn't, the attribute bonuses are just too obscene for 30 BP.

I once tried a conversion on the old FanPro-forums and ended up either with costs of around 65 BP or not using the modifiers suggested by the statblock of the "average" ghoul presented in the core rules.

[FrankTrollman]

I wouldn't, the attribute bonuses are just too obscene for 30 BP.

How? You get substantially better attributes than an Ork. You get +1 to Strength, Body, and Intuition, and +2 to Reaction and Willpower. And your Charisma penalty goes up by 1. And you just spent an actual Essence Point! In the long run, an Essence is worth a lot more than 7 points of attributes. In fact, it's worth about 10. But even in the very close future where people are getting basic bioware the Essence comes in normally with 5 attributes points (at a cost of about 8 BP worth of money).

So seriously, are you going to tell me that the inability to read computer screens, the requirement to eat metahuman corpses, and an active bounty on you in half the civilzed world is worth less than +Inutition and +1 Willpower?

I once tried a conversion on the old FanPro-forums and ended up either with costs of around 65 BP or not using the modifiers suggested by the statblock of the "average" ghoul presented in the core rules.

I don't even know what you just said, because FanPro never released a point converter or metatype regression rubric. I know, because I used to work for FanPro.

Ghouls have very nice attributes. But they have huge penalties, and if you charge them full price for their attribute bonuses they end up sucking extremely badly because those penalties are still very very real. Seriously, these guys have to assense things to use ranged weapons. In most cases they can't even shoot drones. They also can't stop being astrally active and have no access to flight or an astral ranged attack which means that they are in "automatically lose at life" territory the instant they find themselves in an area with a high ceiling and an astrally projecting magician who knows any Mana combat spell at all.

I can tell that you haven't really put a lot of thought into Ghouls as actual player characters if you are throwing around numbers like that. People who actually have, have generated much less onerous costs than you.

-Frank

[JBlades]

I just dropped it into the Typhoid Mary thread, too, but here is the disease version from the thread Frank is referencing. It's like explosion of the ghoul threads all of a sudden, what set this off? *shrug*

Krieger Strain of HMHVV
Disease:
Vector: Injection, Speed: 1 Day (3), Power: 3, Nature: Viral
Effects: Transformation into a ghoul.

B +4
A -
R +2
S +3
C –2
I +1
L –1
W +2
EDG -
ESS –1
M 1
Init –

Note that normal racial maximums still apply and that these are treated as stat augmentations, subject to normal rules.

Powers:
Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell), Natural Weapon (Claws: S/2 + 1),

Ghouls get the following Negative Qualities and gain no BPs for them (these do not count against the 35 BP limit):
Allergy (Sunlight, Mild), Dark Secret (Ghoul), Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), Reduced Senses (Blind)., Sensitive System

[KCKitsune]

Frank, what if the Ghoul buys cyber eyes? Would that restore his sight?

[FrankTrollman]

Frank, what if the Ghoul buys cyber eyes? Would that restore his sight?

Shadowrun Canon is unclear on this point. There are characters in the world who are ghouls who had cybereyes that can see after the operation. There are also competing statements that the vision difficulties are neurological and that cybernetic eyes would not function.

Also the original ghoul write-up merely had impaired vision (and also was a SURGE effect rather than a contractible disease). And there is canonical mention of 2nd generation ghouls whose eyesight never deteriorates and can see just fine.

---

Best vision wrap-up I can give you with the competing fluff is that Ghouls have variable impairments to their vision with true and uncorrectable blindness being the most common. For player characters it would probably make most sense to offer them a Positive Quality option to buy off the blindness.

-Frank

[Rasumichin]

I don't even know what you just said, because FanPro never released a point converter or metatype regression rubric. I know, because I used to work for FanPro.

I never said i would have done an official conversion, just that i posted a homebrewed one (not even that, more a play of thoughts on what one would have to consider) on the German FanPro boards sometime last year, before they lost the license.
So i guess you can calm down on that issue.
Furthermore, i did not want to say that i would charge 65 BP for a ghoul, but rather that i'd prefer ghouls to have less extreme attribute modifiers.

See, the modifiers to the normal attributes are comparable to a troll, but with a +2 bonus on willpower, +2 on reaction and +1 instead of -1 on intuition.

Given such modifiers, it seems unlikely to me that a ghoul could end up costing less BP than a troll, even considering the -admittedly massive- drawbacks.

On top of that, you get astral perception, enhanced sense of smell and increased unarmed combat damage.
In my previous conversion attempt, i roughly equated them with adept powers granting the same advantages, since qualities giving benefits mechanically similar to adept powers usually cary BP costs comparable to them and not to the much cheaper cyber/bio equivalents.

Ghouls have very nice attributes. But they have huge penalties, and if you charge them full price for their attribute bonuses they end up sucking extremely badly because those penalties are still very very real. Seriously, these guys have to assense things to use ranged weapons. In most cases they can't even shoot drones. They also can't stop being astrally active and have no access to flight or an astral ranged attack which means that they are in "automatically lose at life" territory the instant they find themselves in an area with a high ceiling and an astrally projecting magician who knows any Mana combat spell at all.

I can tell that you haven't really put a lot of thought into Ghouls as actual player characters if you are throwing around numbers like that. People who actually have, have generated much less onerous costs than you.

-Frank

Yeah, 65 BP is insanely high.
Still, 30 BP doesn't seem fitting, either.

I admit that there are huge penalties.
Some of them (the sunlight allergy and immune sensitivity) can be pinned down exactly in BP costs, since they are already existing handicaps.
Others (blindness, dietary requirement, the social status of ghouls and the downsides of being dual natured) are harder to calculate.

Still, there are other factors to consider.
Like stacking attribute bonuses with other metatypes or the fact that ghouls with the abovementioned stats would be the only race to receive +2 bonuses to two potential drain attributes.

Don't get me wrong, i absolutely don't want to penalize anyone for playing a ghoul, i just would like to see costs that are halfway balanced.

Simply saying "well, the disadvantages could be extreme, let's give patchy some absurd attribute bonuses" is a rather problematic workaround for that problem, since it generates new imbalance potential without eliminating the old one, resulting in a character that is both overpowered and extremely handicapped at the same time, making the impact on the game completely uncalculable.

This is neither desirable for the player of a ghoul PC nor anyone else at the table.

[cryptoknight]

It is possible someone has already done that conversion. I suggest that you look up the forums with the search function, and remember to enable it to look into posts more than one month ago.

I am at work right now so I haven't books nor not much time available. It can't be too hard. It's a metatype after all, with some heavy duty qualities (dual natured, essence loss). It's just a matter of factoring in the attribute penalties and bonuses and deciding on a cost. I also remember they had some trouble with cyberware, so something like Sensitive system and incompatible with biowre would be good for starters.

It's nice to see GMs with open minds, have fun!

Cheers,

Max

Where in the books is Dark Secret at? Just curious, I do wish they had more and diverse negative qualities... (and yes I know I can make them up).. Stuff like chronic disease (from -30 (terminal cancer) to -10 (Uncurable Diabetes) to -5 (Mild Asthma))... I've handled them similar to allergies when I can...

[Rasumichin]

Note that normal racial maximums still apply and that these are treated as stat augmentations, subject to normal rules.

Best vision wrap-up I can give you with the competing fluff is that Ghouls have variable impairments to their vision with true and uncorrectable blindness being the most common. For player characters it would probably make most sense to offer them a Positive Quality option to buy off the blindness.

Sounds good to me.
BTW, note that the contradictory fluff concerning ghoul blindness also includes statements that all second-generation ghouls are completely blind (see Bug City sourcebook).

[FrankTrollman]

On top of that, you get astral perception, enhanced sense of smell and increased unarmed combat damage.

Well, Dual Natured used to be a 5 point flaw (which people avoided like grim death), and the unarmed combat damage is more accurately written up as forcing them to carry around a non-concealable knife every where they go. Both of those aren't "Adept Powers" they are crippling limitations. Enhanced Smell is nice, but it's not super special awesome nice.

See, the modifiers to the normal attributes are comparable to a troll

I look at them as being stronger than an Ork, rather than being weaker than a Troll. They don't have the reach or the speed of a Troll, so it's not a very meaningful comparison there. So I'm looking at them costing 10 points more than an Ork, which under the circumstances seems reasonable.

Like stacking attribute bonuses with other metatypes

There have never ever been any rules for doing that in any edition of Shadowrun. And no, I don't count the rules in the SR3 Companion because they don't generate the listed Human Ghoul when applied to humans. So I don't count that as an issue. The rules here are for Human Ghouls only because those are the only critters which have ever been given stats in any edition of Shadowrun in any book ever printed.

Humans have an Edge bonus. Human Ghouls don't. No one has any idea what that translates to when applied to metahumans who already don't have an Edge bonus.

the fact that ghouls with the abovementioned stats would be the only race to receive +2 bonuses to two potential drain attributes.

Um... no they would not. They have a +1 to one potential Drain stat, and a +2 to Willpower. And they have an Essence Penalty. And they have a reduced Logic cap, and Logic is the Drain attribute you can boost with Bioware. At the high end, Dwarfs still have the best possible Drain Resistance.

Simply saying "well, the disadvantages could be extreme, let's give patchy some absurd attribute bonuses"

But no one is saying that. We're saying that the attribute bonuses are distributed around sufficiently that you don't end up really exceeding what other metatypes can do in any field, and the penalties are large enough that your abilities as a generalist still kind of suck.

Ghouls are highly limited characters. They don't make great tech specialists because of the Logic reduction and their vision problems. They don't make great faces because they have a tiny Charisma cap and built in social problems. They don't make good infiltrators because they can't walk through wards without setting them off and can't pass themselves off as ordinary consumers and have difficulty passing weapons checks even if they don't have any decent weapons. They don't make good magicians because they have a reduced Magic cap. They don't make good street samurai because they have reduced Essence.

At 30 points they aren't a first pick for any character archetype that people normally put into a Shadowrun team. They are a second rate metatype, and the reason people play them is because Ghouls are awesome and you can tell cool stories about Ghoul characters. They wouldn't push out any of the other metatypes in min/max circles even if they cost zero BP.

-Frank

[JBlades]

Where in the books is Dark Secret at? Just curious, I do wish they had more and diverse negative qualities... (and yes I know I can make them up).. Stuff like chronic disease (from -30 (terminal cancer) to -10 (Uncurable Diabetes) to -5 (Mild Asthma))... I've handled them similar to allergies when I can...

It's not in the SR4 books anywhere, I think it's a holdover that slipped in there from an earlier edition. Probably something that'll be in the Runner Companion. I suppose you could handle it as Phobia(Being discovered to be a ghoul) or something...

[Rasumichin]

There have never ever been any rules for doing that in any edition of Shadowrun. And no, I don't count the rules in the SR3 Companion because they don't generate the listed Human Ghoul when applied to humans. So I don't count that as an issue.

The rules in the SR3 Companion where inherently broken and also contradicted the critter description, but since they where last edition's only official version of ghoul PCs, they should be taken into consideration in such a discussion.
Especially if you don't want to repeat the mistakes made back then.

So no, i don't dismiss them as nonexistent, since they where undeniably a part of SR3.
Instead, i consider the implications they had because i don't want to see them coming up again in SR4.
Counting the modifiers as enhancements seems to be one possible way around that problem, one that should be taken into consideration.

Besides that, i do see your point here, even though i don't like the idea of "second rate metatypes".
Sounds as if the design intend was to effectively penalize people for taking a certain roleplaying option.
Choosing a certain character concept and building an efficient character should not exclude each other.

Also, there's other issues to be adressed in the upcoming Companion, especially how the Krieger strain is passed on in SR4.
I really hope that this time, developers come up with better solutions than basically presenting two different kinds of ghouls, but instead, writing up a template that can be applied equally to PCs and NPCs with satisfying results.

[Glyph]

Choosing a certain character concept and building an efficient character should not exclude each other.

*cough* technomancers *cough*

Seriously, while I was first in line to complain about how boned ghouls were in SR3, not every option should necessarily be optimal in an open-build game. Not every character concept will be an efficient build. You can easily specialize, overspend in a few other areas, and have crippling flaws - or you can overgeneralize to the point of near-uselessness. Sometimes, choosing a certain character concept does exclude having an efficient build.

Suppose you decide to make a bounty hunter who uses a revolver, isn't an adept, and eschews those fancy smartlinks. You will be going half as often, and rolling less dice, than the sammie or adept will. And that's fine - you chose that limitation.

Same thing with ghouls - you are taking a serious limitation to your character. You are choosing to play a character who eats metahuman flesh, has a bounty of his head, and can't stop astrally perceiving. I don't think that should be rewarded with a whopping 12 points in Attribute bonuses - and I don't think extrapolating those bonuses from their critter stats is really accurate - a devil rat PC would get +8 in Attribute bonuses using that approach.

[FrankTrollman]

Same thing with ghouls - you are taking a serious limitation to your character. You are choosing to play a character who eats metahuman flesh, has a bounty of his head, and can't stop astrally perceiving. I don't think that should be rewarded with a whopping 12 points in Attribute bonuses

Attributes are important. But like how being possessed by a Force 3 spirit gives you plus twelve to your attributes, that's not the whole story. There isn't a numeric rubric for metatype creation. It's all ad hoc based on perceived utility. The Ghoul in the book has large bonuses and large penalties, and presumably someone who wants to play one actually wants to deal with both ends of the spectrum.

Let's consider actual archetypes:

• Bounty Hunter - this character would make a great conversion to a Ghoul. Already devoid of social skills, this character would get better at tracking. He'd lose some in the unarmed combat department and he wouldn't really be able to be a cheesy bow fighter any more, but he'd be better at his core skills of Tracking and Survival. Certainly workable. Also ironic.
• Combat Mage His Magic would be penalized, which would hurt. And it would be hard to use the pistols. Probably a step down.
• Covert Ops Specialist No ward passing basically kills this character concept.
• Drone Rigger - while this actually could be done, you don't really get anything for being a Ghoul except cool factor.
• Enforcer - This one would actually work OK. At least, potentially. Hard to work for the Mafia as a Ghoul, so you'd take it in the neck on social issues. But you'd be alright.
• Face - Not a chance in hell.
• Gunslinger Adept - There is a problem with this concept that is easy to see.
• Hacker Like the Drone Rigger, this can be done, but you don't really get anything for being a Ghoul except the cool factor of being a Ghoul.
• Occult Investigator - Now we are talking! A dual natured character with an Intuition bonus and you weren't maxing out your Magic anyway. You are racially superior at finding clues astrally or physically and you can defend yourself with Stunbolt. The Ghoul limitations still hurt, but you've got a very viable character here.
• Radical Eco Shaman You have restricted caps on both your primary attributes (Magic and Charisma). This archetype is a non-starter.
• Smuggler Ghouls make horrible wheel men and are racially inferior at crossing check points.

So yeah. Of all the archetypes in the book they can do one very well, and four vaguely adequately. That is not the hallmark of an over powered metatype.

-Frank

[Kyrn]

But those characters all have the most fucked up stats, like, ever. Also you seem to have left out the Sprawl Ganger. Which the Ghoul rocks at incidentally.
Now I have to build one.

[FrankTrollman]

Good point, I cut off before doing the:

• Sprawl Ganger - decent character type. While fearfully vulnerable to magic, he's hopefully going to live in a world with relatively little of it. Definitely playable.
• Street Samurai - not even practical. Put that much cyber into a Ghoul and he actually dies. Hell, putting nearly that much cyberware into a Ghoul and he becomes intractably expensive because he dies if he runs out of Magic.
• Street Shaman Taking it in the junk coming and going, this isn't viable.
• Technomancer It is actually illegal to be a Ghoul Technomancer.
• Weapons Specialist - I don't trust a Ghoul to know whether to pull the red wire or the green wire. This character is non-viable.

So yes, I cut off 5 archetypes, of which one could make a decent Ghoul character.

-Frank

[Fuchs]

Ghouls are cool? News to me. The inherent social troubles they have would kill them for my campaign right away, and the permanent astrally perceiving problem would make them rather hard to survive too. So, I'd agree with the stats from Frank as not being overpowered.

[Grinder]

Yeah, appearently I didn't get the memo that stated Ghouls are cool either. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Seriously, a blind, dual-natured, human-eating creature with claws and a really bad odeur is far away from being cool.

[KCKitsune]

Yeah, appearently I didn't get the memo that stated Ghouls are cool either. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Seriously, a blind, dual-natured, human-eating creature with claws and a really bad odeur is far away from being cool.

People like playing elves... compared to that Ghouls are cool. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Grinder]

Elves have the better PR department. And they aren't cannibals.

[FrankTrollman]

Seriously, a blind, dual-natured, human-eating creature with claws and a really bad odeur is far away from being cool.

Tell that to all the White Wolf players.

-Frank

[Grinder]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I've never seen it that way.