Pets?, Is there any literature on this? Options

[Blackb1rd]

I have all the current 4th ed books, excluding Vice, but I can;t seem to find any rules for pets. Either I'm not looking hard enough, or they're not there...

So, does anyone know if there are any rules on pets or are there just not any? Thanks for your help.

[Teryn180]

I haven't seen anything about pets, but I haven't been looking. Have you checked Running Wild? If it would be anywhere I would think in there.

[Blackb1rd]

Running wild actually makes alot of sense... thanks i'll check.

[Tanegar]

You could simulate a pet using the Dependent quality (p. 104, Runner's Companion).

[Karoline]

Running wild has various rules for pets, including the price of various kinds of animals, the upkeep(Food), and training prices, as well as ideas of how much space you need for various pets and so on.

[Blackb1rd]

Running wild has various rules for pets, including the price of various kinds of animals, the upkeep(Food), and training prices, as well as ideas of how much space you need for various pets and so on.

Karoline, once again you have proven yourself one the most useful people on this site... kudos to you.

[Teryn180]

Cool, I'll have to go look at that again when i get the chance. I wonder if my GM would let my Technomancer have a technocritter for a pet.

[Karoline]

Karoline, once again you have proven yourself one the most useful people on this site... kudos to you.

Hehe, thanks, glad to help.

Cool, I'll have to go look at that again when i get the chance. I wonder if my GM would let my Technomancer have a technocritter for a pet.

There are certainly rules for it, though obtaining one might be difficult, and obtaining a trained one even more so.

[Umidori]

If you have a summoner, you can always opt for an Ally Spirit with an Inhabitation power.

GM: Bad choice of words. The go-ganger decides to shoot your cat. *Rolls* He has to soak 7P.
Mage: Fluffy has ITNM 8, so it bounces off.
GM: ...
Mage: Okay, now it's my pass, I spend my Free Action to instruct Fluffy to use Conceal on our party, then I cast Stunball on the middle ganger.

~Umidori

[Teryn180]

Hm, Emerged cats have Resonance Bond, that helps figure things out.

[Karoline]

If you have a summoner, you can always opt for an Ally Spirit with an Inhabitation power.

GM: Bad choice of words. The go-ganger decides to shoot your cat. *Rolls* He has to soak 7P.
Mage: Fluffy has ITNM 8, so it bounces off.
GM: ...
Mage: Okay, now it's my pass, I spend my Free Action to instruct Fluffy to use Conceal on our party, then I cast Stunball on the middle ganger.

~Umidori

I have to imagine you're GM might know about the fact that you're using an ally spirit to possess your cat.... you know, given that nothing happens in the game without him knowing about it.

[Blackb1rd]

Alright, next question. My character, at least the one i'm writing right now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) , is a former UCAS Army Interrogator/Dog Handler. When i purchase an awakened critter at Chargen should i include the cost of the animal's training even if the character has trained the animal himself as part of his background?

[Teryn180]

It would make sense to me, but if it were me making the character, I'd run it past the GM before I finalized anything.

[Blackb1rd]

Teryn180, excellent point. It's standard procedure to run everything by the GM however I wanted to know what the communities thought on this was. Thanks for your reply.

[Karoline]

Teryn180, excellent point. It's standard procedure to run everything by the GM however I wanted to know what the communities thought on this was. Thanks for your reply.

The really short answer is:
You have to pay for it by the rules, but talk to your GM, but don't just ask for it for free.

The long answer is:
My thought is that is does indeed seem silly to have to pay for something you could very reasonably have done with your skillset (Animal training that would take a few hours a week for a month or so in particular, as it isn't very time intensive).

That said however, you'll still (generally) need to pay for it. Hackers could easily claim they programed everything themselves, and so get all their programs for free, mages could claim they made their foci themselves and so get those free/discounted, riggers could claim they built their own drones and programed them, once again getting a bunch of free/cheaper stuff.

The thing is that the resources section of your character doesn't represent him/her going into Wall-to-Wall-mart and spending 250k. It represents having acquired things over time. Maybe you stole that big gun, but it still comes out of your resources, because it is something you have. Maybe you did write those programs yourself, but you still have to pay resources because that is what you have when you start. It also represents the time investment your character had to make that could have been spent at the gym.

So don't think of the price hike as being "I had to spend more to get my pets" so much as "The 'cost' of the pets is just a BP exchange for the time I spent training and raising them." Hope this makes sense.

That said, one thing I've found works well is to ask your GM for a month of pre-start work. In other words, everyone gets one game month before play starts to make use of whatever skills to build/make/train/program/whatever. This works well because it allows people who go through the trouble of getting 'crafting' skills to get some use out of them, but it doesn't allow for infinite time to do stuff in.

As a trainer you should be able to get a few tricks taught in that time. A hacker might be able to get started on a complex program or churn out some simple program. A rigger might be able to build a drone or add a few mods or whatever. A mage can (Along with binding a few spirits) make a fancy new foci to bind when they get some karma. The combat bunny gets laughed at for not taking any skills that don't involve killing. Could maybe do a small time car jacking or something for a bit of bonus starting cash. Face could start getting some negotiation rolls in for that high availability item they wanted at CG but couldn't get because it was over 12. They can come up with the money after the run starts.

So there you have it.

[Dahrken]

An E-Cat eh ? Don't forget that you don't "own" a cat, he let you serve him, and E-cats are even worse (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) !

[Teryn180]

An E-Cat eh ? Don't forget that you don't "own" a cat, he let you serve him, and E-cats are even worse (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) !

Oh, I'm a cat owner (not owner, but you get the point), I can imagine how bad an E-cat would be. Though at least when they want food, I know that's what they want, because I'll suddenly get tons of spam about cat food.

[Karoline]

Oh, I'm a cat owner (not owner, but you get the point), I can imagine how bad an E-cat would be. Though at least when they want food, I know that's what they want, because I'll suddenly get tons of spam about cat food.

I suddenly envision being woken up by the meow mix jingle piped through my stereo when I forget to feed my cat at night.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Oh, I'm a cat owner (not owner, but you get the point), I can imagine how bad an E-cat would be. Though at least when they want food, I know that's what they want, because I'll suddenly get tons of spam about cat food.

You are a cat roomate. And I almost wet my pants laughing on the image of motivational posters with lolcats eating poping up on your AR.
Although, if you had an automatic food dispenser, the cat would eat whenever it want.

[Khyron]

In the game I'm currently in, the face has a pet Bandit and a Bonzo she purchased and time-shares a Bastet that moves in a few weeks at a time. We joke that the animals do their own runs while we're out doing ours and occasionally return to base to find various goods they somehow procured. Mostly high quality animal food. We don't question it.

[Professor Evil O...]

You could simulate a pet using the Dependent quality (p. 104, Runner's Companion).

That's how I treat a useless or helpless pet (or group of pets). Or a really annoying pet. Either way it'd have to be role-played right to really be much of a flaw. For example, one player in my group qualifies by spending several hours a day feeding, grooming, and walking his devil rats. They are, of course, completely filthy (hence hours of grooming), untrained (useless as weapons), unhouse broken (more cleaning), and extremely affectionate towards anyone they meet (no good as guard animals, and let's face it, no one wants affection from a devil rat).

[Patrick the Gnom...]

The really short answer is:
You have to pay for it by the rules, but talk to your GM, but don't just ask for it for free.

The long answer is:
My thought is that is does indeed seem silly to have to pay for something you could very reasonably have done with your skillset (Animal training that would take a few hours a week for a month or so in particular, as it isn't very time intensive).

That said however, you'll still (generally) need to pay for it. Hackers could easily claim they programed everything themselves, and so get all their programs for free, mages could claim they made their foci themselves and so get those free/discounted, riggers could claim they built their own drones and programed them, once again getting a bunch of free/cheaper stuff.

The thing is that the resources section of your character doesn't represent him/her going into Wall-to-Wall-mart and spending 250k. It represents having acquired things over time. Maybe you stole that big gun, but it still comes out of your resources, because it is something you have. Maybe you did write those programs yourself, but you still have to pay resources because that is what you have when you start. It also represents the time investment your character had to make that could have been spent at the gym.

So don't think of the price hike as being "I had to spend more to get my pets" so much as "The 'cost' of the pets is just a BP exchange for the time I spent training and raising them." Hope this makes sense.

That said, one thing I've found works well is to ask your GM for a month of pre-start work. In other words, everyone gets one game month before play starts to make use of whatever skills to build/make/train/program/whatever. This works well because it allows people who go through the trouble of getting 'crafting' skills to get some use out of them, but it doesn't allow for infinite time to do stuff in.

As a trainer you should be able to get a few tricks taught in that time. A hacker might be able to get started on a complex program or churn out some simple program. A rigger might be able to build a drone or add a few mods or whatever. A mage can (Along with binding a few spirits) make a fancy new foci to bind when they get some karma. The combat bunny gets laughed at for not taking any skills that don't involve killing. Could maybe do a small time car jacking or something for a bit of bonus starting cash. Face could start getting some negotiation rolls in for that high availability item they wanted at CG but couldn't get because it was over 12. They can come up with the money after the run starts.

So there you have it.

I would actually allow players to have free/discounted stuff if they spent the BP at chargen for skills that create it. There would be limits certainly, but things like discounted foci or trained animals I would consider legitimate simply because they're so difficult to obtain with a straight up purchase. Trained animals especially are insanely expensive, especially if you want an attack animal and in comparison to what it would actually cost to train an animal on your own. I would even argue that an animal trainer character is utterly impossible to make at chargen without some kind of discount for the right skillset.

[Karoline]

I would actually allow players to have free/discounted stuff if they spent the BP at chargen for skills that create it. There would be limits certainly, but things like discounted foci or trained animals I would consider legitimate simply because they're so difficult to obtain with a straight up purchase. Trained animals especially are insanely expensive, especially if you want an attack animal and in comparison to what it would actually cost to train an animal on your own. I would even argue that an animal trainer character is utterly impossible to make at chargen without some kind of discount for the right skillset.

I did actually go through and make a trainer adept right when I got running wild, and I do have to admit, it is somewhat difficult to get together a nice group of starting animals without breaking your bank. On the other hand, a dozen warformed pack trained attack dogs aren't just that expensive, and are amazingly powerful on the offensive. The real problem is that they are fairly fragile.

If you're talking about starting with a trained bandit or something else, yeah, it costs insane amounts.

Edit: And like I said, I personally like to have the one month thing to create a non-arbitrary limit. You could change it to more or less depending on how much you want to reward people for taking 'craft' skills, but I think it is a better way to go then just handing out free equipment and saying 'there will be limits'.

[toturi]

Due to the natural tendencies of Bastets, I told the player that wanted one, the Training levels for a Bastet may be higher than those compared to a friendlier animal like a Flipper or a Mongrel. So while the character may have a Resonance bond and a pet with higher Resonance in a Bastet, it may not be as easy to train as compared to a Flipper or a Mongrel.

[Blackb1rd]

the way i see it... and it's definately a subject that is up to interpretation... is that a character who spends the BP at Chargen on the necessary skills needed to train animals should be rewarded for that by having the right to "purchase" one starting animal at it's base cost plus 50% of the training multiplier, and halve the willpower multiplier.

So a Hellhound. base cost 10,000 nuyen, is trained by a character with significant (over 3) skill in Animal Training and Handling respectively, representing about 32BP (assuming a 4 in each of the two skills, witholding specializations or the equivalent of 160,000 nuyen of resources)

Under this model the Hellhound, trained against instincts now has a training modifier of 5, instead of the 10 that would be required if the character were simply purchasing a pet or had no skill in training, then that is multiplied by the willpower ranges set in the book divided by 2... so sice a hellhound has a willpower of 3 and the corresponding multiplier is 2 that would be a 1 multiplier leaving a character that has the skill to train an animal himself with an attack Hellhound at the cost of 50,000 nuyen as opposed to the 200000 nuyen that is in my mind absurd. just my thoughts...