I'm sure everyone whos played since 1st edition,read some novels....even dabled in earthdawn for the lore has few unswered questions. So I thought I'd ask see if any of my questions may have been resolved and I just missed it or misunderstood. Also be happy to see some other folks questions. Looking for more storyline then rules problems...I'll try to fill in any blanks I might have insight into.


1. In very first novel a "Doppleganger type creature was used in a snatch and grab in Renraku arc. Was this creature every statted or explained anywere?

2. In first Tir sourcebook several Apt sized blocks appeared over wizard island in crater lake, was this every explained or referenced elswere?

3. In Aztec sourcbook a locus is mentioned and hinted thats its power was on par with the greatest of magics. (still waiting too see if holostreets is gonna post south america book) any other mention elsewere?

4. T-birds, every mention of a smuggler almost always includes mention of the t-birds...but ones ever seen stated are Banshee (military vehicle) and Stonewall (simply described not stated). Has there ever been smuggler version stated (gonna have to dig out some old books have in storage, possibley in rigger 2?)?

5. This ones more of observation then question and possible fix. In SR4 it implies that not haveing active commlink in certain areas can cause authorities to give you some attention. Technomancers dont seem to have need to carry or are they stated with commlinks in example charecters. Also they lack ability to store or download info without offline device. Fix in my campaign has been Technomancer has hacked team members Comm and uses it for storage, file transfers and leaveing as his contact number. Only issue then becomes the security issue which we've resolved with some "Spoofing" rolls.

Look forward to comments and some other lists, thanks ahead of time.

My understanding is that the "smuggler" T-birds were just customized (by the rigger or for the rigger) versions of the base models. At least, that's how I run it.

Sorry, no questions coming to mind at the moment for addition.

to my knowledge:

1) the doppleganger was never addressed agin, except in SOTA 63, where they said the viable clones still weren't possible. So who knows what it was except perhaps "artisic license"

2) The floating stones thingies get mentioned a few more times, but no details are ever really given, except that the area eventually became a mana ebb, and blocked off by the TIr military after Dunkie's death in 57. After 61 (year of the Comet), they changed out the guard with all mundanes. Never any explanation. Mayeb that'll change soon since it's now a democracy lead by good ol' Larry Zincan, and not the Princes anymore.

4) technomancers do need "off-brain" sotrage. Check out Runner haves, end of the Hong Kong section for an example. So yeah, they'd 'prolly still carry a commlink, even if it is a bottom grade.

every good tm buys a link if for no other reason than disguise. That way when he's arrested, the sec for doesn't immediately throw a head jammer on him. As far as data storage goes you can use anything, clothes and guns being two of my faves.

The dopplganger thing was defintely not a drone it was grown through some draconic magic iirc.

2) The floating stone blockies are still there mentioned in Street Magic, they're still there and the place is still locked down.

4) There was a heavier version statted in aztalan. I suspect they're custom build jobs, using the old vehicle design rules.

5) techno's in my game just buy their own commlinks, sure they don't need them but there is no rule against them having them.

2)my theory for the floating blocks is that they're some sort fo Citadel from the 2nd age. They're trying to distance the old ED connections now though, so I wouldn't expect much on them, but I suppose they have to address it at some point.

5) Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a techno uses a commlink to hack, they need a completely seperate computer skill don't they. If they use the channels and all that, they use computers/hacking, but if they want to use other hacking-ware, they have to work on a second hacking/computers skill since they're very different. I think I recall reading something along those lines in the SR4. Hoping I'm not just smoking crack again.

yeah, we worked on a smugglnig campaign for a while. The first thing we did was spend gads of cash modifying the engine so that we could go more than a few hundred miles on one tank. That jet fuels expensive ya' know. T-birds I think are more inteded to be short range interceptors for things like border patrols and countering/chasing down choppers. They work good for hopping borders in a hurry, but not much besides laying down heavy damage they way their stock fuel systems work.

Can I add a question to the mix?

What was the deal with the medicine that Dunky left the formula for in his will? I know that it was never made, but did we ever find out what it would have done or prevented?

Read the book The Forever Drug. Supposedly it was supposed to prolong life spans. AH says it was suposed to include dragon blood or something to that effect. I think his theory was making a servitor race, but don't quote me on that. IIRC, it was destroyed by Humanis agents that were working (unknowingly) for Lowfyr. The head researcher got her brain jacked up, and when she tried to go back and fix it, Lowfy decided to step in. Wasn't that nice of him?

The fiction had a few refueling stations on popular t-bird routes. Of course, the odds of such fueling points being able to avoid being busted if anyone really cared about smuggling were always...low.

SR2 era Aztlan sourcebook did have "Lobo," which was supposed to be lighter than the Banshee, but I don't have a copy of SR2 anymore and can't compare it to the Banshee of that era. It's in almost all ways grossly inferior to the SR3 stats.

Does Movement multiply the speed without increasing the fuel consumption?

Just...change the fuel consumption.

I know we all get stuck in "canon" mode, I'm not poking anyone with the nyahnyah stick. But it is a really easy fix, and doesn't really do a whole lot to hurt the game, especially when you get workable baddassery out of it.

Unfortunately I'm a pilot in real life, so the whole suspension of disbelief becomes flat out impossible for me when it comes to the aerodynamics and fuel consumption of T-Birds, especially compared with the economics of them. (i.e. what the things would actually be useful for that other flying machines couldn't do better).

Realize this is just a personal pet peeve of mine that I couldn't resist chiming in on, not meant to be any kind of serious discussion of the things.

Well sure, if you're going to let reality get in the way.

Given the way Shadowrun Magic works, the T-Bird concept doesn't seem weird to me at all. Spirits have Movement. That lets them get things from point A to point B in 1/6th the time. And that means 1/6th he fuel consumption.

So the idea of putting your contraband on a rocket that has a toggled nozzle that allows it to set down in a parking space is pretty silly with modern technology and no Magic. The fuel involved would ruin you.

But divide the fuel consumed by 6 and you're talking. Energy is just Energy, a rocket is potentially a fairly efficient use of fuel if you're going to be burning a lot of it. It's damned fast and with the adjustable directionality it is pretty maneuverable. I can easily see that as being the best possible template to llay the Movement power on - it's going through the air so you can take advantage of your whole speed, it's setting down somewhere other than an airstrip so you have a chance in hell of getting away with it, and it's extremely fast to begin with (being a rocket and all) so the speed multiple puts it into the mid-machs.

Honestly, if you're the air defense of some country like the CAS, a T-Bird can be over your entire country in minutes. In the time it takes for someone to request authorization for an interceptor to shoot down that T-Bird, it's not in CAS airspace anymore. That's a reasonable smuggling tactic.

-Frank

True, but when their radar says that you're a flock of pigeons...

MMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm SR-71.

Actually, the movement power doesn't cause anything bad too happen to you, that's the whole point.

It just divides the amount of time it takes you to cross a region by the creature's Magic attribute. It's very powerful and risk-free. Your maneuverability and such are unaffected. While you're sailing around at comfortably over Mach 6, you're turning, accelerating, and more importantly deaccelerating as if you were just crestingthe speed of sound.

When you have Movement on you, you have a real speed, and then you have an effective speed that is several times that. You don't apply your acceleration to the total speed, you apply it to the base speed.

So no. It doesn't require wisdom to use it at all. You just fucking point your vessel and go. And laugh like a maniac because you can cross the Aztlan border, unload your cargo, and then be back over the border in less than a minute.

Stopping that is a total pipe dream. It just aint happening unless you for some reason know ahead of time where they are going to land and put a land mine there.

-Frank

How exactly *does* Movement work? Does it encase the affected in a "bubble" where they move at apparently normal speed while the terrain flashes by? Do G-forces, air resistance, etc., apply? What about reactions? Does using high-force Movement on your van cause the driver to face insanely high skill checks or does the magic handle that and make the driver feel like everybody else is just moving slowly?

Also, don't forget that if you've got Movement up, you probably have Concealment running as well. Any reason that won't work on radar?

[EDIT] Ahh, so it's essentially a time-distort bubble? That makes sense, but it also makes Movement at any decent force munchy beyond belief. Heck, imagine the legal transportation possibilities alone. How many bound spirits and allies would Fedex have on staff?[/EDIT]

I think the implication is that there are no other rules; ie, everything else remains the same.

However, it really needs some clarification, because if you only alter speed, it gets really hard to not bump into things (or tear your body or ride apart), and if you alter time, it raises relativity questions (sense of passage of time, fuel consumption, why don't you get a Reaction bonus, etc).

If you assume that because the power description covers none of those fairly obvious effects, that the power is such that it allows you to disregard them--that is, you multiply your speed, but can withstand it as if unaugmented, make driving/piloting rolls as if unaugmented, consume fuel as if unaugmented--then it becomes every bit as munchy as Frank says.

At least, that's the way it reads to me. There may be something in previous materials that clarifies this, heck, it seems too big of a loophole not to have come up in 20 years.

Could be wrong, but I thought one of the main reasons the SR71 did so well was it flew so high it was almost impossible for anything to get high enough in order to shoot it. I seem to recall the SR71 appeared some time after an incident where the Russians managed to down a U2, not sure how that fits into the SR71 though.

The SR-71 flew very high true, but it was also MUCH faster than the U-2. Those two factors combined were what gave it it's survivability. An SA-2 or similar system still had the ceiling to reach them, but combined with the Blackbird's speed it would be an almost impossible intercept.

Ummm, yeah.

Movement is a critter power that remains centered around the critter. Shells fired from within the effect would revert to "normal" speed as soon as they exited the bubble. That's fine, as long as you're not firing straight ahead in a t-bird with significant Movement on it...

I guess, if you used inhabitation rules on a cannon shell...

Yeah, I don't think that would work too well, either.

Err, I'm thinking "terrain it controls" would be the important bit.

So only Air Spirits could do it?

That's a reference to previous editions in which nature spirits were limited to functioning in specific domains. Elementals could always conrol terrain wherever they happened to be. And in 4th edition, spirits are capable of controlling any terrain.

Regardless, here are the key points:

1. Movement, when used on an arrow or a bullet, does not cause a weapon to do amazing crap tonnes of damage. Therefore the energy of the subject is not increased.
2. Movement produces the same speed multiplier when used on an object of any size or shape and when used in any medium. Therefore it is not affected by drag, riction, or any other salient fact about moving faster in a mundane fashion.
3. Movement does not cause you to run out of turns of continuous running or fuel super fast. Nor does it allow you to shoot a gun more often. Therefore it doesn't simply make you experience more time than other people.

The best guess would be that it actually shortens distances for you if you wanted to think about it scientifically. It's not a scientific power though, it's a magic power. So thinking about it in those terms is always dangerous. When you measure its effects, it literally doesn't add up.

-Frank

There is nothing rational about a form of magic that allows over-light speeds...

The SR3 version represented a major break with the SR2 and SR1 versions of the power. The SR4 version of the power is a return to the SR2 version.

In SR3 Movement had special rules where it could be used to accelerate a vehicle that was fucking stationary! As such, I'm sure that could cause a crash test, since a vehicle was being moved from stationary to non-stationary without any input from the driver. That existed for exactly one edition before people realized that was retarded and took it out again.

I make absolutely no excuses or allowances for the SR3 version of the Movement power, which had no maximum speed when used on vehicles, did not require vehicles to expend fuel at all, and behaved in all ways completely contrary when used on anything that counted as a "vehicle" as compared to when it was used on any other living or inanimate thing that didn't count as a vehicle.

I refer only to the original Movement power, the SR2 Movement Power, and the current version which all say:

I might be missing something, but who's talking about critters? Frank's talking about the spirit power.

Then how *does* it work? That's what I'm trying to get at.

What *are* the abilities and limitations of the Movement power?

For example, if you're on foot, being chased by chromed-up Knight Errant troops and have only a F3 air elemental on your side, what will using the Movement power do for you? Will you face rolls when you plant a foot and cut down a side street? Will you wear yourself out over the same distance as a normal run, or the same time (and 3x the distance)?

Or, back to the t-bird issue... turn Movement on, and what happens? Does the ship tear itself apart if you have a F9 elemental? Do you generate a sonic boom since your real speed is well over Mach, or not because your "base" speed is under Mach? Do you consume fuel at the normal rate over time, or at the normal rate over distance?

If you're in a van with high Movement on, and you roll down the window to take a shot at somebody else who also has Movement on, does the airflow blast the gun right out of your hand as you reach outside?

I'm much less interested in arguing points than I am in hearing what it *should* do.