Newbie help, Shadowrun Newb looks for clarification Options

[Xd12c]

Hey all...

Let me lay out some background info. I just moved, found a new gaming group and the group fell apart.
It's currently being put back together, but it's quite a bit smaller than it was and other options have arisen.

1 of these is Shadowrun 4th edition
Up until now, the group has played 4th ed AD&D. MY old group and I played a bunch of different systems and some of the other players have played other systems.

One of the guys got his hands on the SR4 core rule book. None of us have ever played SR, let alone SR4.
Myself and another player have played other systems, the GM has played White Wolf and AD&D, the other players have never played anythig.
So it was an interesting session the other night.

We're using the pregenerated templates in the book to start and then we'll create characters when we're comfortable with the system.

Right now we only have the core book.
Looking through it, I can puzzle most of it out and having read a bunch of the SR novels, I have a decent grasp of the environment.
I chose the Comabt Mage character, he looked interesting. Looking him over, I have a couple of questions about his equipment.
1st, WTF are Mage Sight Goggles used for? Mages can only cast LOS spells using natural vision, so what advantage do the goggles have? They were pretty expensive, so I'm assuming they grant some sort of advantage.

2nd, If the Yamaha pistol is a muzzleloader, how do I have clips for it and is it only a 4 round clip giving me one burst or is it a 10 round clip giving me 10 bursts of 4 shots each?

Also, any books we should look into picking up?
One guy looked and is interested in Street Magic and the Arsenal book

[Ravor]

For the love of all that is holy, forget that the pre-gen characters even exist, they are steaming piles of shit that didn't even follow the book's own rules the last time that I checked.

However with that aside, Fourth Edition is a fairly solid rule set provided you are willing to stick with much lower dicepools then Dumpshocker would lead you to believe, once dicepools start creeping up the game begins to break and turns into bad anime/superhero crap. I personally reconmend average Dicepools of 6-10 before equipment (And go easy on the equipment.) as it will encourage more realistic play and make sure that tactics will win the day.

[Cain]

1st, WTF are Mage Sight Goggles used for? Mages can only cast LOS spells using natural vision, so what advantage do the goggles have? They were pretty expensive, so I'm assuming they grant some sort of advantage.

Mage sight goggles use fiber optics to allow you to see (and cast) around corners. At a small penalty, of course.

2nd, If the Yamaha pistol is a muzzleloader, how do I have clips for it and is it only a 4 round clip giving me one burst or is it a 10 round clip giving me 10 bursts of 4 shots each?

The (m) on the ammo for the Yamaha Pulsar means magazine, not muzzle-loader. There are no muzzle-loaders in the base book. It's a 4-round internal magazine; and the SA stands for Semi-Automatic, meaning you can't fire bursts. It's a taser, though, so bursts wouldn't be that effective, anyway.

Also, any books we should look into picking up?
One guy looked and is interested in Street Magic and the Arsenal book

Arsenal is probably the best to pick up. However, don't pick up *any* of the advanced books until you've got a firm grasp of the base book rules and equipment. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches that way. Once you've got your feet wet, then you should start with Arsenal, and then pick up the books pertinent to your character types (SM for mages, Unwired for deckers, and so on). Do *NOT* pick up Runner's Companion until you've got the hang of all the other books first.

For the love of all that is holy, forget that the pre-gen characters even exist, they are steaming piles of shit that didn't even follow the book's own rules the last time that I checked.

I agree with Ravor. Check out the Sample Character Thread that we made, the characters are much better developed.

[Xd12c]

LOL..
The fact that they are pre generated leads me to believe that they are extremely basic views of what you can do. They are made "crippled" to encourage new players to read through the rules and familiarize themselves so they can do a better job generating a charcter.

I haven't looked through Dummpshock, I went straight to the forums to ask someone.

I also found some neat tools to help us out.

So what's up with the equipment and which books should we look for next?

[Xd12c]

Mage sight goggles use fiber optics to allow you to see (and cast) around corners.

That's what I was hoping for, but I got confused when I read that only natural vision could be used in regards to LOS. Is it because the light is traveling through fiberoptics and not transmitted through a camera?

And if that is the case, would I be able to use a mirror to do the same thing?

[Crusher Bob]

You can look at some reasonable (lower) powered characters here.

The mage sight goggles use fiber optic cables so that the mage can cast spells while looking trough them. The cable is 2? meters long, so you can do stuff like stick it around corners, under doors, through vents, etc and then blast the people on the other side.

The fubuki is roughly based on this technology. It has 4 barrels, each barrel holds 10 rounds, giving you a total of 40 shots before you need to reload. Bursts are regular 3 round bursts with all 3 rounds coming out of the same barrel. In theory, you should have to replace the whole barrel of 10 rounds at the time; they would come pre-loaded from the factory. Of course, the SR4 developers didn't read how metalstorm works too closely, so didn't give exact guidance here.

[Xd12c]

Ahh...

Much Better. Thanks.

Since we've started with the chars from the book, we may not want/be able to switch.

And another question popped into my head.
I haven't had enough time to read through the book thoroughly.
I've played Cyberpunk, they had a medic and cybertech skill.
What are the SR equivilants?

[Crusher Bob]

First aid, medicine, and cybertechnology skills are probably what you are asking about. Take a look at the skill list on, erm, page 111 I think.

[reepneep]

2nd, If the Yamaha pistol is a muzzleloader, how do I have clips for it and is it only a 4 round clip giving me one burst or is it a 10 round clip giving me 10 bursts of 4 shots each?

One guy looked and is interested in Street Magic and the Arsenal book

Ignore what Cain said about this as he seems to think you're talking about the Yamaha Pulsar, a taser.
The Yamaha Sakura Fubuki is a muzzle loader with four barrels that hold 10 round each.
It uses the standard burst-fire number of three rounds, but only narrow bursts (the DV increasing ones) and treats the recoil as if it were fired on semi-automatic (0 recoil for the first shot in a pass, 1 for the second). The only exceptions to the rules in the core book for number of rounds for automatic fire in the game are in Arsenal.

Arsenal would be my choice of the first book to add to your library as well.

About these guys trashing the pre-made characters, most of them are quite playable, particularly the combat oriented ones. People here seem to think (Warning: Hyperbole Ahead) that unless you can throw 15+ dice at a test you might as well not even bother. Some are better than others, with the worst being the Smuggler and the Technomancer (which a noob probably shouldn't be messing with anyway, IMHO). They will work fine for helping a bunch of noobs learn the system, though.

Finally, welcome to Dumpshock. Hope you've got thick skin. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ork.gif)

[Glyph]

Actually, Xd12c was pretty spot on when he said they were very basic character builds. In every edition of Shadowrun, that has been the case - you have always been able to make significantly better characters than the archetypes by building them from scratch.

Some of them, the Combat Mage among them, are actually fairly playable (although it also illustrates how common errors are for such characters, in this case listing clips for a muzzle-loading gun).

Others, though, are pretty botched, such as the Bounty Hunter and the Weapons Specialist.

And they aren't just bad from the "You need 15+ dice" end. They are bad in the sense of lacking essential gear (many of them don't have even a basic DocWagon contract, or any fake ID), or not being any good at their stated roles (the Bounty Hunter is not only bad at hitting anyone above grunt level, but is also bad at finding people, which is his main function).

[Crusher Bob]

There. Finally found the thread with the improved archetypes: here

[Xd12c]

Excellent, thanks for the help.

Though I am still confused on my ammo.
How should I be translating the Clips? 20 10rd barrels? Or 20 sets of 40 shots each?

[ornot]

Careful discussing clips. Our friendly neighbourhood gun enthusiasts might go off on one about clips =/= box magazines or something!

Without going into too much detail about gun mechanics or the devs interpretation thereof, my understanding of the Fubuki is that the barrels are mounted one above the other, and sequential shots come from different barrels. Thus after firing 6 shots, two barrels will be depleted from 10 to 8, while the two others will hold 9. Reloading the thing before completely emptying it will lead to some wastage, which cannot be ameliorated by only refilling one barrel. Look forward to much book keeping with that gun, or apply a more cinematic mechanic.

Ammo is priced for every ten rounds (bullets or equivalent, not intervals of time), so it isn't too hard to work out how much has been spent and see if this is enough for 200 rounds, or 800. However, unless the fit seriously hits the shan you're not going to get through even 200 rounds before you decide you want to start again with your own characters.

[Ravor]

Also remember that at least one of them has a piece of cyberware bundled into his eyeware that simply is not allowed to be implanted that way in Fourth Edition.

[Zolhex]

Ok First up Welcome to Dumpshock and more importantly to Shadowrun hope you like the game.

Second up just to let you know I am part of the offical Catalyst Demo Team in so much as I hold a title of Shadowrun Special Agent going here Find games and signing up you can find me listed as Casazil Shadowrun Special Agent # 251.

Once you sign up there you will get e-mails for when i'm running games and where coming up this weekend Nov. 1st I'll be at Sci-fi City and next weekend I'll running some games at Florida Fall Fantasty I'll be running on Firday at 7 pm and all day Saturday from 9 am till around 11 pm.

Your welcome to join me at either or both events and I will do what I can to help you learn the game.

Questions may be asked here as people here know alot about the rules (heck I ask questions here heh) or you can feel free to e-mail me at Casazil.

Hope I can be of help.

[Xd12c]

Thanks!
I will shoot you an email later...

I don't know if I'll be able to make the events, but I'll definitely check it out.

[Tachi]

Careful discussing clips. Our friendly neighbourhood gun enthusiasts might go off on one about clips =/= box magazines or something!

Without going into too much detail about gun mechanics or the devs interpretation thereof, my understanding of the Fubuki is that the barrels are mounted one above the other, and sequential shots come from different barrels. Thus after firing 6 shots, two barrels will be depleted from 10 to 8, while the two others will hold 9. Reloading the thing before completely emptying it will lead to some wastage, which cannot be ameliorated by only refilling one barrel. Look forward to much book keeping with that gun, or apply a more cinematic mechanic.

Ammo is priced for every ten rounds (bullets or equivalent, not intervals of time), so it isn't too hard to work out how much has been spent and see if this is enough for 200 rounds, or 800. However, unless the fit seriously hits the shan you're not going to get through even 200 rounds before you decide you want to start again with your own characters.

Ya know, it's funny you should mention that. To my knowledge a "clip" is just a strip of metal holding ammo that is usually fed into the weapon through the breech, on the other hand a detachable box magazine or "mag" is actually an enclosed feed mechanism that attaches to the weapon. But hey, far be it for me to pick nits, oh wait, that's right I'm in training to be a gunsmith, so , on this subject it's kinda mandatory. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Zaranthan]

Clip: http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/Mosin_clip.jpg

Magazine: http://www.tactical-life.com/online/wp-con...8/05/glockk.gif

[ornot]

I'm impressed that you've managed to keep from spitting blood over the misuse of the term clip!

I wonder where the confusion of the two terms first came from... I remember the A-Team referring to magazines as clips when I was growing up, but that can't be the first example the good folks of Dumpshock can think of.

[Ravor]

I think it is just a case that the two terms are close enough that in most cases everyone knows what you really mean.

[Zaranthan]

I think it is just a case that the two terms are close enough that in most cases everyone knows what you really mean.

More to the point, I can't imagine a situation where confusing the two terms could possibly mean anything.

[Tachi]

More to the point, I can't imagine a situation where confusing the two terms could possibly mean anything.

Only if you're actually taking a test on it. Mostly, I just like the way people cringe when someone says something about it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I'm not trying to be combative or anything, in fact I usually try to be helpful, but, I still have to amuse myself. That tends to be hard to do when no one is in range.

[Xd12c]

M1A1s used clips, then, right? And a glock or AK uses a magazine?
If that's the case, what the hell do you call the grouping of ammo for the fubuki?
It WOULD classify as a clip, it's just a barrel that's preloaded
I'm not sure there would be a feed mechanism...

[Tachi]

1. M1A1s used clips, then, right? And a glock or AK uses a magazine?
2. If that's the case, what the hell do you call the grouping of ammo for the fubuki?
It WOULD classify as a clip, it's just a barrel that's preloaded
3. I'm not sure there would be a feed mechanism...

1. Yes. Though keep in mind that some old battle rifles that took stripper clips also had detachable box magazines, like the Enfield.
2. You know, I'm not real sure. I wouldn't classify it as a clip, because a stripper clip is just folded sheet metal.... well hold up, I just quick searched yahoo, kinda, I just visually scanned the search results.... They kept referring to them as preloaded barrels.
3. By feed mechanism I meant the spring constantly feeding the rounds up to be stripped from the magazine.

[AllTheNothing]

Ya know, it's funny you should mention that. To my knowledge a "clip" is just a strip of metal holding ammo that is usually fed into the weapon through the breech, on the other hand a detachable box magazine or "mag" is actually an enclosed feed mechanism that attaches to the weapon. But hey, far be it for me to pick nits, oh wait, that's right I'm in training to be a gunsmith, so , on this subject it's kinda mandatory. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Ok Tachi, I know nothing about guns and I'm curious, if a clip is just a strp of metal with some rounds how said rounds get loaded into the firing mechanism?