Skillwires only go to 6. (p 456)

Ah.
So they suck even more for more money.

Had a Typo. Meant in third edition Improved Reflexes cost 5 points.

But yeeesh. I missed 4th edition, so maybe I'm just getting Edition-shock, here.

Did Samurai primarily take this hit in 5th edition? Or is this a continuing iteration of getting beat down from 4th edition?

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

from reading the rules for Initiative, I get the feeling, that high level Initiative Enhancement are less necessary than they were in 4th. Almost everyone can get a 2nd pass, but for your 3rd pass the investment is pretty heavy.
I thnk it's a good thing. We will see more 2 IP chars which means more room for variety for pther stuff.

So I heard that money rewards have been standardized, and they're almost universally low.

Any details on that, and how that feeds into the Street Sam getting kicked in the pants issue even further?

Under the new pay scale Sammies can only afford Bermuda Shorts, no more pants.

Nah. Somebody else said they'd do it, so why curb their enthusiasm? It's not like I've got special claim or something.

Sure. Summary from Page 375, Run Rewards:

To calculate, start with base cost of 3k (May be negotiated up and down in increments of 100). Then begin to calculate modifiers to that total.

First, take the highest opposing dice pool of the opposition and divide by 4. (This is the total of the highest active skill + attribute of any NPC that will directly opposing the players.)

Then add +1 for any of the following: Runners outnumbered 3 to 1, or Runners outnumbered 2:1 by Professional Rating 4 BOCs. Runners faced a pack of at least six critters. Runers encountered at least three different spirits (beside watchers). Runners accomplished task with impressive speed/subtlety. Risk of public exposure. Or Job brings runners into notably dangerous element of sixth world, such as, but not limited to, Red Samurai, Mutsuhama Zero Zone, etc.

Once all multipliers are calculated, multiply it by the base run payout, then apply a final modifier:

Increase: 0% for standard run
Increase: 10-20% for run that makes you a cold hearted bastard
Decrease: 10 - 20% for a run that gives you warm fuzzies, and saves fluffy animals.

The final amount is the payout per player.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Sounds similar to the Full Replacement I made in SR4A.

Not that this helps much, but you can buy Used ware, which is 25% cheaper but uses up 25% more essence... and lowers availability by 4. Note that Used is now a category isntead of a modifier. You can't buy Used Alphaware, it's all just "used" if it isn't new. p. 451 "Cyberware and bioware implants are available in five distinct grades: standard, alphaware, betaware, deltaware, and used. Only standard, alphaware, and used implants are available for purchase at character creation." The description for Cultured Bioware still seems to imply, without outright saying, that you can't get Used Cultured ware because it all has to be custom to your character. Also, some things are still listed in Basic Bioware that should really be Cultured: For example: How is bone density not something that needs to be tailored to an individual person? How can I get used bone density? Are you replacing my skeleton with someone else? I have similar issues how Enhanced Articulation is described.

Availability for various things your restricted from getting new:
Used Titanium Bone Lacing (Av 12r)
Used Reaction Enhancers 3 (max) (Av 11r)
Used Cyberskulls (Av 12)
Used Skillwires 4 (the max under sr4) (Av 12)
Used Dermal plating 4 (Av 12r)
Used Muscle Replacement 3 (Av 11r)
Used? Bone Density Augmentation 4 (max) (Av 12)
Used Muscle Augmentation 3 (Av 11r)
Used Muscle Toner 3 (Av 11r)
Used Orthoskin 4 (Max) (Av 12r)
Used Symbiotes 3 (Av 11r)
Used Cyberlimb: Torso with 4 points dived between Customized Agility and Strength (Av 12)

Note: Edited post to include torso. There is a lot of other ware that could go on this list too but I'm not going to work it all out.

So top end mission reward, give an opposed 30 dicepool and gets a 7. If you throw in every other modifier listed, you get as many as an extra 8. Makes for a total multiplier of x15. Figure a net 4 successes on negotiation, for 3400. So your absolute top end mission payout is 51,000, for a mission that will kill most groups...

Yeah, that's really sad.

THAT.... Sounds completely Dumb. *shrug*

51,000 per runner seems like a lot. I don't often send groups on runs that net them 255,000 nuyen.

It really isn't... We have had runs that netted us more than that, individually, but they have been few and far between.
Hell, the Zero Zone we hit destroyed multiple vehicles, many Drones, expended HUGE amounts of preparatory resources, and cost us a LOT of Time (more than a year). We SPENT more than 250,000 Nuyen prepping for that run, so only netting the paltry 51,000 detailed above would have been a non-starter

51,000 per runner is a nice chunk of change, but look at what you need to accomplish to get that:

-Face an opponent with at least 30 dicepool
-Take on 3 to 1 odds
-Take on 2 to 1 odds against prof rating 4 group
-Take on 6 critters
-Take on 3 spirits
-Risk public exposure
-Take on the Red Samurai or similar group
-Do it all with extreme speed/subtlety


That's a pretty tall order for an amount of money that most likely won't even get your street sam a cyber upgrade.

Well it used to be something like 3x(# of runners)x(avg lifestyle cost), so a group of 5 Low lifestyle runners would get like 30,000 nuyen.

Which is more than half of what the maximum payment you can get from that calculation is.
while the ware prices have been multiplied by . . what . . 10 for basica?

Anyway, what I actually wanted to say here re: Wireless Reflexes, Reaction Enhancers, Synaptic Boosters, etc:

You can come out of chargen with WR 2 and RE 3 (used) for under 200,000 nuyen, stacking to +5 Reaction and +2 initiative dice. Compared to Synaptic Booster 2, at about the same price, for +2 Reaction and +2 initiative dice, this is a pretty good deal, though you're spending scads of Essence.

Reading between the lines, since Cultured Bioware has to be tailor made to the individual, what this also means is that if you ever want to upgrade the Synaptic Booster to 3, you have to completely ditch the old implant. There's no upgrade available, and you can't sell the part back to recoup any of the investment.

Uh, no, that's 30,000 to divide amongst a team of 5. Or 6,000 per person.

Pay for Jobs has always been an issue. Unfortunately, if you can make more money by jacking a few cars over the course of a Month for little to no risk, your Shadowrunners will become Car Thieves. If you want quality, High-End Shadowrunners, You MUST pay for them.

In the Barrens, you can probably hire a Street Level Assassin for a chump target for a couple thousand bucks. To take out someone of Damien Knight' Status, you would be looking at Millions, Minimum. Are you really going to trust that the Barrens 6th Street Irregulars are going to be capable of hitting the Zero Zone for the Multi-Billion Nuyen Prototype? Are you willing to bet next year's production schedule on that decision?

That is the problem. You do not hire bargain basement operatives for the Big Scores. You need to pay for the expertise. If you don't, then you should not be surprised when they are eliminated before they even make it onto the premises of the target.

To me, the Used category is more than just pre-owned ware. It's any ware that is cheap and poorly suited to you for whatever reason. It could be brand new, but produced by cut-rate unlicensed small time operators, like Amazing Andy's Ratburgers and Bodyshop in Redmond. Or it could be high-quality brand new ware, but it "fell off the truck" and you are not the intended recipient that it was customized for.

that only makes it worse.

Yes, but that would have been the average/low end run. A high end group under that same formula would have gotten what, 1.5mil?

This was under SR3 I think (it's buried 'somewhere' in the core book, like every other rule in SR3). Probably classified under "most unused rule ever."




Most teams aren't going to be doing multi-billion nuyen prototype jobs.

I actually came up with a formula (this was for SR3 so it's tricky and won't translate well) that followed a team's Professionalism, Notoriety, Anonymity, and Heat to come up with a list of offered runs and their values.

Boiled down (it's several pages), based on a roll for a time period the team is offered a number of jobs of Rating 1-4, with the base payout of the run being

1 - 5,000
2 - 15,000
3 - 50,000
4 - 100,000

This would then be modified by the job type. So my team of Professionalism 8 Notoriety 2 runners offered a Rating 4 Wetwork mission would get the base 100,000 + (Professionalism+Notoriety)x500x(Rating) -- or 120,000. Then this would be again modified by another roll to vary it by a percent based on Professionalism and Heat, Xd6 percent in one direction or another. My team would probably bump it up by about 7%, making the base pay actually 128,400 nuyen.

Then the team's negotiator would be able to either shift that pay up by 2% per net success in an opposed test with the Johnson (up to 10%) or get 10% (per net success) of the amount up front (up to 50%).

Now I never carried this chart forward to my intended 6 ratings because my team started street-level and Rating 3 or 4 was intended to represent an actual normal run (higher rating = harder job / more complications). Rating 1 jobs were mostly mercenary work or smash-and-grabs, like guarding a truck or stealing a car.

EDIT: Note, this is extraordinarily crunchy and could probably be simplified. It was entirely behind-the-scenes and a component of a Totally Random Jobs system I built to model how often Runners got offered jobs, what kind of jobs they were offered, and how they needed to spend their downtime to acquire stuff, lay low, drum up work, etc.

Makes me think of a samurai I used to play back in the day in the... either Caribleague or South China Sea. He only wore shorts, sandals and loud Aloha shirts (somewhat modeled after Mugen from Samurai Champloo).

The synthetic cyberlegs made shorts and sandals make more sense.

So I've been trying to concoct a Samurai/Decker (my favorite "archetype") and mostly I'm seeing that my "good" DPs are like .. 12-14? Am I totally doing it wrong, or were they not kidding about non-crazy DPs to start characters.

Side note, getting enough skills for combat AND decking is definately trickier in 5th thus far.

looks like a standard run to me. Just not a run going as planned

You're not entirely crazy, SR4 originally was 2, 3, 5 for PP costs of improved reflexes. SR4a lowered the cost.

Phew. Just mostly crazy. But geeez, man. Does someone upstairs hate Samurai, or something?

Yikes. All this is on top of the old Halve-the-least of Cyber/Bio formula from SR 4, right? Which is a downgrade from the old Overstress doesn't occur until Body Index exceeds Essence by 3.

As much as I don't support flippant house rules, I'm probably going to need to find some way to throw Samurai a bone. As far as I'm concerned, Samurai are the single most important archetype to the genre. (With honorable mention to Deckers.)

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Indeed, they are the swiss army knife we all know and love.

Well done.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Probably the quickest and least messy would be to change the price and availabilty of wires. Making it so that alpha WR2 is available out the gate brings it more in line with older editions and still eats up the sam's soul.

If that's your typical run, and you consider that payout totally appropriate for it, remind me to NEVER play in any game you run.

Note: Same goes for Bull or whatever SR5 designer actually codified those rules.

I think I like to hear about that run...

*grabs popcorn*

Coming from third edition, my kneejerk reaction would also be to anchor the Essence cost of Wires to the Power Point cost of Improved Reflexes.

That change alone would be very, very significant, immediately elevate the appeal of Wires vs. Synaptic Accelerators, and free up significant essence for further cybernetic modifications.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Hm, just found a piece of ware which really got better: "If the pain editor is active, this allows you to ignore all injury modifiers". Not just stun anymore.

@Wired_SR_AEGIS
No. That is impossible.
Magic has to be the Master-Race after all.

@Sengir:
That was always the case, as far as i remember.
You still suffered the wounds, you simply did not get any modifiers.

Just as a note, if you take Money B for your Sammy instead of A, then 41,000 makes a HUGE difference. That's where WIred vs Synaptic really comes into play.

Nope, in 3+4 it only affected stun.

Interesting Observation, Bull.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

So, only during character creation and then never? Well, then it´s in the same area as cybermuscles.

SYL

I would think that most (not all) sammies and deckers are going A for resources.

<edit> @Aegis - The disparity is even greater when we consider that improved reflexes 3 for adepts is only 3.5 PP, making it nowhere near balanced versus the cyber/bio options.

3.5 PP, and available out of Chargen to boot. With Qi Focus added on top of whatever else the remaining PP are being spent on. Yeah, I hear you man.

I proposed a Wired cost change in a separate thread. My kneejerk is that the proposal is sound and lightweight, but I'm interested to see what the unintended consequences of such a move would be.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

"Why can't QB get rid of this guy himself?"
"Stupid, he can't have any illegal activities connected to us."
"So where we gonna find a hitman?"
"Classifieds. Duh."
"What's our price range?"
"QB gave us ten grand. I guess he wants a quality job."
"You're kidding. How hard can it be to off a guy in jail? Let's find someone cheap and keep the extra dough."
"Now you're speaking my language."
"Here's one! "Kobayashi - Discount Ninja.""
"Twenty bucks. Sweet!"

~Kid Radd

I actually went B with my current Missions Street Sam character, Shadow Ron. Had to buy an extra 20K with his karma to buy a bike and a couple other things, but pullede it off. He's pretty badass, is down to .16 essence. I went Attributes A, Skills C. He's hell on wheels.

Hrm. Interesting. You know, Attributes 'A' in SR 5 is a pretty big deal as Attributes are such an important part of the equation. They're half of every skill roll, and applicable to basically everything. And by taking 'A', you have a lot of room to min/max your final attribute allocation.

In the edition I'm most recently familiar with, 3rd edition, you would basically ALWAYS take Resources A for a serious Samurai.

It sounds to me, Bull, like you're suggesting that some of us may be carrying with us baggage and assumptions based on other editions that are no longer accurate. And that it is no longer necessary to go the Resource 'A' route, and instead a Samurai can be built with a lower resource requirement, leaving Resources 'A' for Deckers/Riggers, and instead min/maxing Attributes and/or Skills as a Samurai.

(Edit: 40 Skill points and 10 skill groups is no joke, either.)

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Resources B was, in fact, the Resource level I had in mind when I originally posted. I literally just built a melee street samurai with B Resources, and I kept finding I had extra nuyen to spend.

Granted, I didn't cram myself full of every type of combat 'ware possible, but I did get a bunch of the utility 'ware, a vehicle, a decent lifestyle, a top grade commlink, tons of miscellaneous pieces of gear, a pair of drones, customized armor, vision and hearing enhancements, a DocWagon contract, first aid gear and trauma patches for my entire team, a Rating 6 Tutorsoft, and a R4 Fake SIN.

But what I also got is 2 extra points of Essence, immunity to being hacked, and immunity to cyberware scanners. At a difference of 41,000 nuyen and the ability to also add in Reaction Enhancers, that is an incredible bargain. I can't think of anything that I could currently spend a mere 41k on that I'd rather have than those benefits.

~Umi

Awesome.

You managed Immunity to being hacked? Pray tell, since that was supposed to not be possible, due to the new design implementation.
Course you likely used Bioware.

If you're looking for more places to spend on augmentations... It doesn't make much in-game sense, but as far as I can tell it's a great deal to replace your hands and feet with cyber versions just for the armor. 4 alpha cyber hands/feet with 2 points of armor each is 0.8 essence and 48k for +8 armor.

As just hands and feet, their attribute scores shouldn't matter. I do wonder a little bit about where to draw the line for that -- it would be nice if it were explicit. As far as I can tell, if you have natural AGI and STR of 6 and get four partial cyberlimbs with the base AGI and STR of 3, you can still use your natural 6's for all attacks and physical skills, except in rare cases like testing your grip strength or performing card tricks.

Exactly. If someone really wants, they can hack my Internal Air Tank, but I'll probably keep the Wireless on that turned off on that except to check the gauge. (Which is a seriously stupid thing to have depend on Wireless, but whatever, I've sworn to at least try out most of the Wireless Bonus items before making any final judgement.)

It helps, of course, that I'm running as a melee sammie, so I don't need a smartlink and the like. By the way, did I miss the Personalized Grip somewhere, or is it simply not in the corebook?

~Umi