Looking Professional, Serious fashion Options

[Ancient History]

Sometimes, you have to change from the outside in.

No matter how much cyberware you have or how many grades you've initiated or how big your deck is, there comes a time when you're going to end up in a massive firefight, or penetrating a building, or some other circumstance where crawling around in a duster with a shotgun just isn't gonna cut it.

The Suit
A full-body suit of form-fitting body armor, preferably with five points of Thermal Dampening
Combat Vest (12 small equipment pouches)
Load Bearing Harness (4 large equipment pouches)
Military rucksack, with quick release mechanism
Forearm guards
Snake mesh socks
Desert Goggles (Smartgoggles may be substituted)
Night Vision Contacts (if needed)

The suit gives the most protection and usefulness for the least encumbrance. Very much a paramilitary outfit, the combat vest, load bearing harness and rucksack provide sufficient room for all your little toys, widgets and ammo. Plus, the suit is acceptable for all environments, as more extreme environmental gear can easily go on over the form-fitting body armor. Appropriate camouflage clothing over top is recommended.

In addition to the suit, and whatever toys you decide to bring-I suggest you fill your pouches-it is essential to bring four things:
1) Primary Weapon - Typically a shotgun or assault rifle, adepts or magicians might consider a katana or a laser crescent axe a suitable primary weapon, while deckers and riggers will almost certainly consider their deck the primary weapon. In any event, primary weapons must use quick-draw holsters when possible.

2) Back-Up Weapon - Typically a handgun, the size and style depending on the user. Collapsable weapons such as an extendable baton or telescoping staff may also work. Tasers are also a good choice. In any event, the Back-Up Weapon should be in a concealed holster.

3) Blade - Always have a blade in your gear. Not necessairilly a big, scary knife to gut snakes and hillbillies, but something that can cut through anything you need to cut through. Vibroknives and the small Cougar fineblade are ideal.

4) Gloves - Be them stun-gloves, Hardliner gloves for unarmed attacks, or just surgical gloves, you don't want to leave fingerprints.

[Grinder]

Sums it up nicely. ;)

[Ol' Scratch]

[Ancient History]

Oh good, a discussion.

I think what you're disagreeing with is the combat vest, load bearing harness, and military rucksack. While I agree that these might seem mercenary-like, they're popular fare for professional criminals in movies and television these days. While obviously not what you want to walk down the street with, during an actual penetration they can be ideal.

The Vashon Island line is essentially another type of camouflage gear.

Snake mesh socks and forearm guards might seem silly to an extant...until you've run into an ankle-high strand of monowire or needed just that little bit of edge in melee.

Smartgoggles are a good choice, but I gave desert goggles as first choice due to the flare protection.

[Ol' Scratch]

I guess it's a matter of gaming styles, though. My preferred get up is:

Concealed Quick-Draw Holster
Forearm Guards
Form-Fitting Body Armor (Full Suit) [4/1, not counted for layering]
> Chemical Seal 4, Thermal Dampening 1
Hardliner Gloves
Smartshades
> Infrared and Low-Light Vision Mods if needed
Snake Mesh Socks
Vashon Island Actioneer Line (Full Suit) [5/3, 4/2 for purposes of layering]
> Fire Resistance 4, Nonconductive 4

Then add Ruthenium Polymers and a full suite of scanners to the Vashion Island suit, the gloves, and the extra hood the FFBA provides and you can effectively become invisible at a moment's notice.

This outfit not only fits anyone with a Quickness of 4 or higher comfortably, but it adds a nice amount of protection (Ballistic 7 and Impact 3), increases the Concealability of items underneath the long coat, includes ample ammo pouches, and is largely inconspicious in many areas outside fo the Barrens. Even if it does draw attention, it's relative blandness and its covering of your most identifying features (body frame, eyes, and hands) tend to make you hard to describe to others. The armor treatments are far superior to Thermal Dampening 4/5, too, in that they provide protection against the various types of attacks you're likely to encounter if things do get ugly, whereas Thermal Dampening 4/5 is trumped easily by the Ruthenium Polymers anyway.

That's a far more professional look than a paramilitary get-up and provides just as much versatility. It also lets you go nearly invisible when needed without comprimising your ability to blend in with the populace when you need to. You can go straight from a meet at a popular nightclub to an actual mission without having to stop and change, too.

[Eyeless Blond]

Also note that FFBA with thermal dampening isn't available at chargen (Avail 12), and after chargen it's difficult to procure if your GM is being a hard-nosed about getting armor of any kind, and FFBA in particular. A Victory "Rapid Transit" Hvy Jumper, however, has an Availability of 4, so you can pack its maximum rating (4) of Thermal dampening in without a fuss. Considering that plus FFBA is the max an average (Quickness 3) character can carry without CP restrictions, it's actually a great idea for the Qui 3 beginner to get those plus the helmet, netting you an armor rating of 5/6. All this, plus you get the neat color-changing feature out of the rapid transit suit makes it great for infiltration wear on a budget, and it's considered ordinary wear so you're fine for most street purposes.

This post has been brought to you by Victory Sportswear. Victory: it's for winners. :D

[toturi]

The Actioneer Longcoat may not be worn with the Suit Jacket, how do you get 5/3? Going strictly by the wording in CC, while you may layer another longcoat, you simply cannot wear the Longcoat with the Suit Jacket.

And if you are being really literal about it, the Actioneeer Line Long Coat cannot be worn with anything with an asterisk. Also apart from the concealed holsters, the ammo clips pockets do not have a specified holding capacity (it can range from the anal GM of 1 to the ultra-liberal GM of as-many-as-you-can carry).

[Critias]

No such animal as a "default" suit, just the same way as there's no "average" Shadowrun. You've always gotta dress for the occasion.

[Ol' Scratch]

[Kagetenshi]

My preferred getup is an ordinary comfortable gray sweatsuit and a heavily armored van.

~J

[Arethusa]

Huh. Personally, I prefer a snappy grey suit and an unarmored cab. But that's me.

[Penta]

If one takes AH's approach as one method, how about those disagreeing draw up similar laundry lists?:-)

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

On the job.

[Nythrun]

[Edward]

For camouflage work I like the rapid transit jumpsuits, with 12 internal colour patterns on there photovoltaic covering (and shouldn’t be to hard to increase that) you have several tradesman’s outfits, jogging outfits and very camouflage pattern you may need. Far cheaper and easier to obtain than ruthenium (indeed available at char gen) giving most of the benefits.

What you where underneath it is up to you.

Edward

[Ol' Scratch]

Ruthenium Polymers are available at character creation (Availability 5 for both the polymers and the scanners, and both are 100% legal). Your average human has just under 2 square meters of surface area, so that's only about 20,000-30,000 nuyen for the ruthenium polymers, which is worth the cost when you consider it can do everything Photovoltaic weaves can do plus tons more. Shoot, the eight extra scanners cost more than the ruthenium does...

[RangerJoe]

My players just finished a module of mine a few runs back where they happened to pick up lightly armored "Armando and Armando" custom taylored tuxedos. These are the kind of UV-tres-chic clothes that you simply cannot buy in stores. I expected the duds to just go in the runners' closets after the run, but much to my surprise (and their karma-fication), a run or two later, they pulled out the clothes again, in order to spend some yen on a beyond-tres-chic dinner at a shadowy Japanese restaurant (think a 5,000 nuyen meal). The clothes got them past the door.

Remember, the 2060s are just as superficial a time as the 2000s are. The clothes make the man.

[Edward]

My current char has spent more than 5K on a meal, of cause he had to spend about 100K on clothing and pull strings to get a table but it did suitably impress the girl, and distract him from what the blood mage had been doing (dunclzan’s bequest was good for the money), what is beginning to bother him is that he is making a habit of this. After other negotiations where concluded for his second arcolegy run he demanded in addition a table for 2 at a romantic high class restaurant 2 days before the run, and 2 weeks at a 5 star resort when he got out, of cause when the Johnson is the head of security for novatech you know these demands wont be difficult, or even expensive, to grant, and he knows I met my girlfriend on my first arcology run. (the Johnson on that run also worked for novatech and was nice enough to give her a job).

Edward

[hermit]

Your char met his girlfriend through your Johnson? Isn't that a bit, umm, suspicious? And even if he onlym knows she's some chica you pulled out fo Deus' clutches ... I'd still worry. If only because he has a great handle on you.

And he got her a job? Jeez. Get her a non-Johnson job ASAP! Otherwise, it may soon come that the Johnson tells you to <insert suicide mission the char would give the Johnson the finger for if asked> or else your chica is gonna be handed to you in several of those nice blue garbage bags.

[JongWK]

Any of Battletech's Assault Mechs.











What? :D

[Mortax]

LMAO! :rotfl:
you get a karma :-)

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[toturi]

double post

[toturi]

[wargear]

A couple of obvious (in hindsight) additions to every professional shadowrunner's kit are:
1. a decent pair of combat boots, looking at say a -1 TN for tests to retain footing on unstable surfaces, and most likely steel-capped or better;
2. a pair of shin and knee guards, we used identical stats to the forearm guards.

You're not going to get far if you don't look after the one form of transport you can allways rely on...your legs!