It's been awhile since a request for House Rules has gone out. Anyone have links, or feel like posting, their House Rules?

Ours are located at: http://shadowrun.i-sphynx.com/HouseRules.htm if you're interested in looking. There is also included there, a link to our House Rule for the BuildPoint System that alot of people had interest in some time ago.

Sphynx

for hard cover, i give +1 armor for every +2 TN. it's simpler than determining whether the shot would have hit without the cover, then determining the barrier rating of the cover and figuring out whether the attack would have penetrated.

We have a very simple house rule:

If it's good for the drama, go with it.

Half the time, we don't know the given rule for any given situation. We make up what sounds fairest and has the most dramatic flair. I've always envisioned SR as being an action-movie-buff's best game. Watch Blade Runner, Ronin, or any of a score of other SR movies and tell me I'm wrong.

We play the games to have fun, and nothing kills fun more than, at the very moment of highest drama, having an inconvenient rule bring everything crashing down. Rules are guidelines. Rules are meant to be tweaked, bent, and yes, even broken.

The other sensing powers are much cheaper because they're mainly modifications and enhancement of other senses. Their only real game effect is to cancel out penalties to rolls. Astral perception gives you a whole new sense as well as:

• The ability to detect magical potential in other people.
• The ability to assense people.
• The ability to set up wards.
• The ability to fight unmaterialized spirits.

Not to mention the ability to get you ass killed by unseen threats that move 3-4 times the speed of your meat body....

That's gotta be worth a lot.

I really like the 'magic build points' system; I've been working on house rules to encorporate it into BeCKS.

In the meantime, here's an alternate Skill Defaulting system I've been advocating for awhile:

SKILL DEFAULTING (pp.84-85, SR3)
Skill defaulting is replaced with the following rule: Each skill gains a ‘base’ number of dice equal to its Link Attribute ¸ 3 (round .33 down; round .66 up). This is the minimum number of dice that may be rolled in a Skill test for that skill, but do not count as actual Skill Levels – thus, they cannot allow Combat Pool to be spent, and do not count against the Karma expense of new Skill Levels. Until a character raises his Skill Level beyond this minimum threshold, the only bonus gained by having the skill is the ability to spend Combat Pool dice to augment the roll. For example, if the character has a Quickness of 6, and a Pistols of 1, he may roll 2 skill dice for all Pistols tests – but may only augment his skill with a single Combat Pool die. If he later raises his Pistols skill to 2, he still rolls 2 dice, but may augment his roll with up to two Combat Pool dice per roll. Skill defaulting is possible regardless of the target number.
Likewise, when defaulting from skill to skill, use half the Skill Rating of the new skill (round down). This does count as actual Skill dice, after a fashion – while it does not affect Karma costs, it does allow the player to allocate Combat Pool dice up to its rating. If the character possesses the Skill being rolled, but wishes to use a higher-rated linked Skill, take the average of the two Skills (round down). If the computed number is still below the minimum (the default Attribute ¸ 3), then the minimum number of dice rolled is computed from the default Attribute, as above. Specializations of the actual Skill being rolled may be used in lieu of the generic Skill, but Specializations of the Skill being defaulted to may not be used – only base Skills are generic enough to lend cross-disciplinary expertise.

Suzie Samurai, with Quickness 7, Submachine Guns(5) / Uzi(, and Pistols(1) / Hold-Out(3), gets a total of 3 dice to roll when firing her Ares Predator Heavy Pistol: her Pistols skill(1) + her Submachine Guns skill(5), divided by 2. When firing her Fuchi Ladyfinger hold-out, she gets four dice: her Pistols/Hold-Out(3) + her Submachine Guns(5), divided by 2. She can not use her Submachine Guns/Uzi( skill to allow her to roll 5 dice to fire her Ladyfinger; her understanding of the Uzi simply doesn’t translate well.
If she didn’t have the Uzi skill, she could still roll 2 dice for Pistols, since her Quickness(7) ¸ 3 gives her a 2-dice minimum for skills that default to Quickness. However, she could only allocate a maximum of one Combat Pool die, since her actual skill is only 1. She would roll 3 dice (plus up to 3 Combat Pool dice, if desired) in Pistols/Hold-Out; since it’s above her Attribute Default threshold, the threshold does not apply.

House rule:

A contact from a distant place I give for half price.
If you want a fixer in Lav Vegas and a Bartender in Denver, you get them for 2500 each.
There's exceptions of course. Deckers and such don't lose their usefullness by being distant, and runners and other guys who can and will travel for biz don't get it either. An armorer in NYC is half price. A steet sam in Boston is 5000.

I have to say that the cost of .5 for astral perception is low. a cost of 1 I could maybe understand in a magic heavy game. I am curious if there are any adepts that don't take astral perception in your game.

Also why did you cut mnemonic enhancers? Not that I disagree I just want to hear your reasoning. I cut monowhips in my world just because I find them distasteful.

Back to the main thread.

I am sure I play lots of house rules I am sure, the most obvious ones come in character creation.

All players get a free armor jacket, tailored how they want it. All guns that players buy in creation come with two free clips. And all players get a zippo lighter. However you cannot buy a zippo in the game world. so you have to take good care of it.

Limit of two pieces of bioware at character creation, or alternately if you have a bioware themed character limit of two pieces of cyber. Anyone taking tech at priority A has to have a damn good background.

Since we don't play lots lowered the cost of skill buying to double current rather than double new. I suppose this could have been balanced by just giving more karma but it has been a rule long enough that it seems right.

Scraped negotiation and interrogation as skills, and handle them with rp. Left in teaching and leadership.

Astral Perception also allows an adept to engage in astral combat with spirits and such, which is great for characters that don't expect the mage to be there all the time.

I don't think it's too expensive, personally. Sure, other magicians get astral perception for free, but the whole point of having adepts is that they're different from run-of-the-mill Awakened characters (tough people may have forgotten that with all these priority A spellcasting adepts roaming around). Also, other magical characters don't get to throw ungodly amounts of dice for their chosen specialty skills, so I think it evens out.

I haven't played an adept with Astral Perception bought at full cost, but that's because I used to be the GM. I've made plenty of them, tough.

Unfortunately, magic is one of those things where you got a lot of apples and a lot of oranges and a lot of blue apples and a lot of pears. The cost of astral perception is 33% or 25% (with voluntary geasa) of the adept's total power points. It is a bit harsh, but that is, in my opinion, to restrict it to adepts who really need/want it. At 2 points, it's only taken by those adepts who really want/need it. At a lower cost, it would start becoming commonplace among adepts. It's all in whether or not you want that to be the case.

The general idea seems to be that most adepts simply aren't in tune with astral space enough to see into it. If your adepts are more mystical, then lowering the cost of astral perception (and the powers which are like weaker versions of it, like empathic sense) makes sense. The way the "standard" game world works seems to indicate that it's not all that common among adepts.

Of course, being able to play "geek the mage" with astral perception and Improved Ability (something that kills people) +6 is just nasty. Particularly when your foes try to go to pains to make all of the guards look the same (making picking out the mage difficult).

I play an adept who paid 2 points for perception. I can't imagine not being able to assense, though I wouldn't have paid 2 points just for that ability.
But ours is such a magic heavy game I would have been at a disadvantage without astral perception.

Link to Our Team's House Rules

And on a similar note, rules we have accidentally played wrong and are working to correct:

Link to Rule Notes

Okay. I stand convinced and the rule is allowed to remain as it is!

So says I!

That said I'm glad that the GM is there to bend the rules to fit the situation, since I'm going to be able toget Astral perception and hang out with that new spirit contact I just got.

And of course, kill hidden mage guards on sight!

I like the rules notes, OurTeam. However, that first one on background skills is an optional rule.

Thanks TinkerGnome. I'll update that.

By the way, the page number decimal points refer to where on the page the rule occurs. The left column is numbered, for example, from 90.0 in the top left corner through 90.4 in the bottom left. The right column would be 90.5 (top right corner) through 90.9 (bottom right). I've been doing this for years, and it is very helpful.

Another useful House Rule:

RULE OF SIX (p.38, SR3)
In addition to the standard Rule of Six, an additional success is added to the target number for every 10 levels that each die beats the target number. Thus, if a character rolls 7 dice against a TN of 3, and achieves 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 13, 25, he receives eight successes – one for each 4, one for the 5, two for the 13 (13 – 3 is 10), and three for the 25 (25 – 3 is 22). If the 25 had instead been a 33, it would have been worth four successes (33 – 3 is 30). This solves two problems – one, it is now possible (although unlikely) for a character to achieve more successes than he has dice pool, and two, a TN of 7, 13, 19 and so on are no longer statistically equivalent to a TN of 6, 12, or 18, since the probability of getting additional successes is lowered.
Likewise, target numbers below 2 are now possible – a 1 is still a failure, but the lowered TN determines the threshold at which extra successes are counted. Thus, at a TN of 2, a die roll of 2-11 is one success, 12-21 is two successes, 22-31 is three successes, and so on. At a TN of 1, these thresholds are 2-10, 11-20, 21-30 and so on; at a TN of 0, these thresholds are 2-9, 10-19, 20-29; at a TN of –1 they are 2-8, 9-18, 19-28; and at a TN of –6 they are 2-3, 4-13, and 14-23. With target numbers lower than –7, double or even triple successes are automatic.

house rules for the merc game i'm running.

we have some changes to the karma system. Everything works as it does in the books except:

You can buy successes with good karma not Karma Pool, providing you get at least one on the test, up to the number of dice on the main skill/attribute rolled, not including pools. Yes, this means the characters are much more survivable and can do far more spectacular feats - but if they spend them, thats less for character advancement and its a tricky line to walk. And as I always say - Shadowrun is everyone's favorite action movie. If the main characters keep getting killed or screwing up its just not cool...

Also, if you want to re-roll failures more than once, it doesn't just increase incrementally as it does in the book, it doubles each time. This nicely balances out the good karma rule above in my experience. We've been playing it this way since before Sr3, and we found it works. Not for everyone, I'm sure, but it works for us!

Oh, and we have Deadlier Over-Damage, Extra Strength Remedy: in addition to the rule about attacks with a greater power than 1.5xBody, we also have that if the power of the attack causes deadly damage and was greater than 2xBody, it's instant death, only Hand of God rolls will save you, assuming you have it left. So beleive you me, they DO die every now and again!

And I think that's it for major changes.

D'OH! I forgot the most major change - all characters get +1KP per 10 GK as per standard rules for humans, up to reaching 5KP, at which point EVERYone earns it at 1 per twenty. Then it goes to one per thirty above 10KP. If they drop below either of these thresholds by burning pool, they go back to the lower rate.

Lets everyone advance at the same rate because i really didn't like the SR3 way of doing things with regard the different races - though I do understand why they did. It also keeps the pools low enough that re-rolls don't take over the game, which keeps all the characters a bit more in the non-superhuman range a bit longer so low level stuff can still be challenging.

Had plenty of Physads with astral perception in my game. Never found 2 points that restricting except in the case of one guy who picked a physical mage, obviously hoping he'd be able to munch out. Bit of a shock when he found he really couldn't without vast quantities of karma. The character spent 4 points on magical power and then bought astral perception with the other 2. He's since initiated twice just so he can apply centering to his unarmed combat and behave a little like a physad once in a while!

But apart from this one failed attempt at munchkinism, I've seen five or six physads in our game with the power and yeah its expensive, but not too expensive. Admittedly, very few adepts buy it except at character gen (because in my experience players just can't wait to improve their powers. If they just spent 20-odd karma initiating I think its genetically bred into them that they spend it immediately cos they hate walking round with that extra point of magic and little else to show for it!), but buy it they do.

When you look at the cost of it and the number of things it lets you do I think its worth two. The other improved senses only reduce target numbers (except sound filters which add extra dice), they don't give the character an ability shared by only 1% or less of the population (that stat i think is from Awakenings, possibly MITS, in the background which states that less that one in a hundred people have magical ability, and only 1 in a hundred of THEM is a full mage. So 99% of Awakened types are what used to be called adepts of one type - sorcerors, conjurors, physads, astral adepts, etc). Giving physads astral perception cheaper puts them on a level with their Awakened peers, but still gives them a massive advantage compared to the rest of metahumanity, and I think that's why its on the expensive side. Considering that physads only take drain on one ability I can think of, they get off easy compared to their Awakened counterparts, so i don't think making it more expensive to bring areas where they lack up to that level should be that cheap.

If it works in your game though, have what you like! I might introduce a limited version which is more 'astral sight' than full 'astral perception'. It'll have all the drawbacks (dual natured etc) but you'll only be able to perceive, not set up wards, do Cleansing and so forth. Astral combat would work as normal though. Yeah, I kinda like that. They can have that version for 1 point, and the full version at 2. Choices, choices...

Well, considering you could effectively have Astral Perception for 0 points via Surge (spend 10 points to Surge and gain 10 points for being Dual Natured, hardly a negative for most Adepts who specialize in combat anyhows), I think 2 points is way too much. But I don't play an Adept, and when I did, I didn't buy Perception, I bought 6 levels of Improved Ability (whip) for my nunchaku's with a Talisman Geasa, 6 levels of Improved Ability Stealth and Athletics, and TracelessWalk/Balance Augmentation. Never had room or concern for Astral Perception, and my thinking had nothing to do with the points actually, it was just un-needed as it's as much a flaw as an edge.

You honestly think most Adepts are wanting to Assense, or setup Wards? Nah, the Adept that takes Perception, 9 out of 10 times, is creating a Spirit Warrior type and it's the only way to fight an astral being. Of course, if a spirit wants to fight me without Astral Perception, it has to materialize and I still kick it's ass.

No, AP isn't worth 2 points at all.

Sphynx

Heh, don't think I was calling other people stupid there boss, it was just stupid not to have one. I mean, hell, take ANY skill from 0 to 3 for 3 ( vs 8 ) karma. And don't exploit the elitist 'character' arguement to explain why not to have something that gives you near photgraphic memory and makes it more than twice as easy to learn skills. There's no character concept (other than the anti-ware concept) that would not want to have both of those potentials. Never once heard of a character concept which included a "I just wanna be a slow learner with a bad memory". It fits into any concept imaginable, and at 0.6 BI, there's not a character out there that wouldn't want it once they see the rules for it.

Sphynx

You're right on the Surge thing, I just remember it was perfectly offset by Dual Natured and forgot that DN was variable dependant on Awakened. So it's spend-5, gain+5 instead of -10/10.

You're wrong on the Astral Perception though, as the book says, anyone who is Dual Natured can even start learning to Aura Read.

Sphynx

yeah, he's a nutbag. You use Str for damage if you're dual, and Chr if you're projecting. Still, dual nature kicks ASS for adepts, who can buy up Improved Attribute: Strength and get a Strength of 15 as a human.

There is, of course, the unusual alternative for physads of taking magic as their first priority, becoming magician-adepts, and getting all the benefits of astral perception plus spellcasting and conjuring for a minimum cost of 1 power point. I'd probably take 2 points in it, just to be on the safe side if I got hit with deadly damage, but...

I thought they couldn't do conjuring, only sorcery?

They can use both, but they don't get astral perception for free. They have to buy it for 2 power points like every other adept.

I thought that was changed in SR3? And how can they cast if they can't perceive?

If they perceive while casting, it would raise the TN by 2. You no longer sinchronize auras, or whatever to cast. They no longer mention auras extending beyond armor, etc..

Wow. That kinda sucks. That was what I liked most about SR1/2 - how detailed and consistent the magic was.

I have two adept characters playing my game out of two characters. One purchased astral perception in game, for 2 points and has never regretted it.

The ability to spot Bug spirits and mages alone...

i may eventually pick up astral perception, but there are more important things my adept needs. when he started out, i spend 5 points on Imp Reflexes and a point on senses; for all intents and purposes, he's a street sam without cyber. i grabbed killing hands with my first 20 karma, then initiated three times and picked up pain resistance each time. my next purchase will be a custom power that gives me -1 to dodge tests for 2 power points; after that, i'll probably pick up another point's worth of senses. then, if something else hasn't caught my eye, i might get astral percep. or maybe not.