Hey, everyone. I'm in a new SR 3rd game (one of my other players has a cool campaign idea), and I was just curious for a safehouse. I know the mainbook states that a Low Lifestyle constitutes a safehouse. What I was wondering, is if you bought a permanent Squatter Lifestyle, if that would cover a coffin hotel for your entire career?
What I was wanting to do is buy four or five different ones, and keep a spare pistol, a few sets of clothes, maybe an armored vest, and some extra money and fake IDs.
Essentially, I figured that they'd go off of a fingerprint or something like that. So if things get really bad you've got some back up gear, some money and a place to crash.
My GM is not certain if he'd allow this. And I wasn't sure as a player if I was over-stepping my bounds by asking for this.
And, a secondary question: What do you use for safehouses? Anything really clever that I could borrow the idea from/ steal blatantly?
Thanks for the input guys!

Yes, you can do it. It's even mentioned in the main rule book.

Sprawl Survival Guide details lifestyles in greater details, allowing you to make "safehouses" much more easily and in a more useful way. Aside from that, buying a lifestyle isn't that usefull, especially squatter. I mean, not much security inherant in hiding in someone else's basement, is there. IMO you're better off paying a few months ahead on 2-3 low lifestyles, and buying extra security such as a biometric maglock and such.

A permament squatter lifestyle is a lifetime supply of McHughs coupons and a plastiboard box to call your own. A coffin would be a low lifestyle.

But for the money, Coffin motels offer some of the best security, as they are annonymous, sanitary, and are built like friggin safes.

Keep in mind that a Permanent lifestyle is eight years, four months of Lifestyle. It's generally only worth it for retiring or exceptionally long-term characters.

For the same amount of money, you can get four months in some twenty-five different locations.

Here's a question: what would you all peg a locker in an airport or train station as?

~J

depends, airports now have really good security and they regularly check the lockers today, let alone 65 years from now. I doubt you could keep anything of value for more than a few days before someone tossed the locker and confiscated (and subsequently lost) in short order.

^^ Airports, yep. Bus stations? Not so much, as that is mentioned in the SSG. I'd go for a set monthly payment of sorts, say 25- 50. That gets you a basic, small duffel bag sized locker. Not to say anyone has tried to jimmy it open before...

Bus station lockers are a common resource for a lot of my characters. Shouldn't cost more than Squatter prices though, as it really is no-frills.

what about an NPC whose living is storing stuff for people. Basically the bus locker only in a room with a little more security, and the guarantee that no one is ever going to go through it.

How much would someone charge a PC for using something like that?

I know it might be shocking to you, but such people do exist in reality. Such a place is called a BANK!! Did you ever hear that word before?

Thank you. (smart ass. )

But banks are A. largely owned by untrustyworthy corporations. and B. while they let you stash stuff, they do tend to make sure its nothing that violates their security. (after people put smoke bombs and stuff like that in them, to use to break into the banks)

Also, banks have "banking hours" (which seems to translate to NEVER open when you need it, at least for me.)

that means when your PC really needs that spare.. he'd be at the mercy of 9-5, and shadowrunning isn't really a 9-5 occupation.

Actually, many higher end banks are transforming the safety deposit box industry. No more control key, just a thumb-scanner to let you into the box-vault and another to retrieve your box and open it. Some even have after hours access.
Personally, I think the after hours access is a bad idea froma security stand point, but I understand that catering to the needs and wants of your client base sometimes has to come first when reasonable precautions can be made.

it also exists as your local secura-shack™, might not neccesarily be the safest, depending on a few factors, but.

Some places that might be used as safehouses: (Squatter or low lifestyle, I leave for you to decide.)

A defunct bus, semi or other large vehicle parked where no one bothers to have it moved.
A sailboat or other small boat at anchor. Hey, what about a diving bell or something like that in shallow water? Maybe for a water-oriented shaman....
Somebody's garage, basement, attic, couch.
Back room at a business of some sort. Could be a fast food place, brothel, whatever.
The cliched "tunnels" under a mall, university or other large complex. (Edited, with apologies to Kagetenshi.)
Abandoned building, say... a building partly constructed then the project was abandoned because of bankruptcy. Brand new carpets!
A church sanctuary, if you got the right contacts.
Some homeless shelters have individual rooms, probably wouldn't take much to get the employees to "reserve" one for you.
Due to military downsizing, there may be lots of unused barracks buildings out there.
Rent cheap office space?
A cabin in the woods.
The family farm? Or just the barn, maybe.
Sugar momma/daddy?

A room at the top of one of the Golden Gate bridge's towers, where you can put your ear to the hump of the cable protruding to the floor and hear the moaning of the bridge. And it has a little elevator thing that you can use to get soup for the old man who..... never mind.

I could see diving bells, that's pretty cool, except how deep would you need to be to be safe from the water traffic? Though you could always tie a ew off under a pier when nobody is looking and have a few rooms to use. Just be sure you have plenty of towels in ziplocs for when you have to go topside.

You could always just get one of those storage pods and live/store junk in that. Or live in a mini-storage complex, a la Snow Crash.

Sorry Kagetenshi, wrong word. (Damn you, Reader's digest! Enhancing my word-power like hell!) I'll edit.

Dad: "Y'know son, I built you a nice tree house last summer. Why don't you ever use it?"

Son: (On the verge of tears.) "'Cause there's an orc with a machine gun living in there."

Dad: (Pats son on head.) "Of course there is...."

I believe it was someone on these forums who said the best thing to do is put together a few ziplocs with the following in it, and bury/hide them all over the city.

A fully-loaded Ares Predator
- with 1 spare clip.
A RT 3 minimum fake ID.
A cheap-o credstick ( 100- 2000).
Some small amount of medical supplies.
Cell phone.
For a mage, maybe some type of expendable spell focus.
If you get a big bag, maybe a bottle of water.

All you'd have to do is find a building with cinderblocks and break one of them a little bit, insert the bag, and patch the hole back up as well as you can. If you get stuck and can't return to the place with most of your gear, at least you have a gun, an ID to get out of the country (maybe. I belive most transport-scanners are rating 3), a way to call your buddies, and a drink in case you need one.

Anything else?

Done that with a character before, had several duffle bags stowed around that contained the following items
Medkit
Survial Kit
'Clean' cell phone
Letherman tool
Duct tape
Change of clothes and shoes.
Armor jacket or long coat.
Predator +2 extra clips in a concealed holster
4,000 nuyen mixed as cash and certified credstick
1,000 nuyen ID crestick

Ah, if only I had the resources to leave "several" bundles of 5000 lying around the city....

Time to create that "detect credstick" spell!

Anyone remember the original Blues Brothers movie? Elwood's hotel room would be the Ritz Carlton of Coffin Hotels. The Motel 6 of Coffin hotels would be a number 9x1x2 (with the first 9 being horizontal) rectangular lockers stacked side by side and on top of each other.

From someone who had a charcter once buy 10 squatter, 5 low, and a luxery (yay for living ammenities) life styles, and then proceed to out fit them, Please dont go to your local fixer and ask for 16 Ares Predeters(with 2 extra clips each, internal smarklink, and cleaning kit). You get REALLY strange responces, even once you slap the cash on the table.

well, honestly, how many bug out kits do you need?
1 or 2 that can't be linked to you is about the extent of it.

"What? They're Christmas presents."

"It's the middle of June."

"I'm beating the holiday rush."

I try to remind my players all the time of the things included in lifestyle other than rent: food, entertainment, etc. A lifestyle isn't just living space. However, we all know that some players have selective memories when it comes to this sort of thing.

Me: "Lemme see your character sheet. Wow, you've been saving up a lot of cash! Have you been making lifestyle payments?"

Him: "I don't need to."

Me: "Oh! How come?"

Him: "Remember when I decked the city records to make that abandoned warehouse in my name? (note: that was six months ago) I've been living there. I own the place now."

Me: "With no telecom, no food, no gas for your (checking character sheet) three cars. With no maintainance, no utility bills, no going out. No security, no change of clothes. No personal hygiene products, no cleaning service or garbage pick-up...."

Him: (whining) "Why do you always pick on me?"

...apparently, I didn't pick on him enough.

I also don't get how any sane person with over 200 000 in certified cred would tolerate a low lifestyle just to save money. It smacks of min/maxing.

Because they make Ebeneezer Scrooge look like Jesus.

Because if you flash too much nuyen, people notice.
I mean just how likely is it that some person with day-labot like "income" (the public side of the character should have a cover job of some plausible kind) could afford to live in the best part of Seattle with Oyabun neighbors and the Star actually looking out for them?

If you cover is a bum, regardless of your actually net worth, you should look like a bum to the curious. If your cover is a prissy piano player, then you should live in accomodations that at least include space for the instrument.

I've had lots of players pull the change records to suit, and they run the risk of the random audit. With the computer systems of Shadowrun, audtis should happen frequently enough for the "odd" situations that they might get a couple of weeks out of the warehaouse before the real owners took interest.

Nikoli, I agree that sometimes you need the cover, and so one would want to maintain a low lifestyle for temporary use sometimes, maybe even for a couple of months or a year. That's just the demands of the job. However, I'm refering to those players (and maybe you don't know any, lucky you!) who see lifestyle as a waste of money that could be spent on guns-guns-guns and so on, so the character lives below the poverty line from month to month with no plans to upgrade, while their bank accounts are enormous. They rationalize like crazy, but really they're usually just bad role-players.

even if they want to maintain a low life style to maintain close connections to the streets, (or whatever) there isn't any reason why they wouldn't buy Many Low Lifestyles.

I agree with you Dog, those who treat lifestyles as an unwanted expense are expressing an element of munchkiny.

(not the worst element, but an element)

I can see that and respect that sentiment. No, never had a player that took the "Street" lifestyle unless it fit. Like a Shaman who staked out a place in a park with his tent.
I usually see the other aspect, they turn ShadowRun into Sims:Criminal Masterminds and go into far too much detail on the decor and outlay of their various apartments and what each is stocked with.