By draining all their Essence out and having bodily fluid contact with their Essence-free corpse, just like every creature that uses the Infection power does.

That ghouls don't have the Infection power, or Essence Drain, or the ability to survive while at zero Essence should tell you how incredibly unlikely that particlar line of thought is.

-Frank

Correction, no one should have their character made slightly less playable in some ways yet gain absurd bonuses in other areas because they took a single box of damage from or had unprotected sex with someone who may or may not have been a ghoul and were too cheap or too stupid to go down to their local clinic and get a shot of penicillin or whatever the hell it is they use to cure those infections.

In previous editions PC ghoul rules ere available but they softened the infection so that the only possible way you could become a ghoul is if you wanted to become a ghoul (although it was possible to carry the disease without transforming and thus possible to infect others).

Heck being a ghoul isn't even that bad. You lose a point of essence and you have to pay a premium for real meat as opposed to soy. That's hardly a death sentence.

And Frank's opinion about ghouls is well stated and well known. Just do a little search and things will become much clearer.

Ghoul.

...

Sex.

...

*brain esplode*

There's a cure and a vaccine. You can only turn into one if you voluntarily decide to.

It's like hating on people with credit card debt. Sure, you could get it too, but they can't make you get it.

-Frank

Bah. NIMG.

It is actually a fairly low percentage that are 'normal'. A good number of people turn into feral loons during the transformation. However I will point out that the bonus fiction at the back of the Limited Edition of the SR4 has a ghoul as the protagonist...and it is quite likely you don't realize it till the end though there are hints dropped. So it is pretty much a lock that there will be rules for playable ghouls somewhere in the SR4 supplement books.

Assuming you know about the infection. OK, maybe you are clued into ghoul bites. But under the rules in Shadowrun Companion there are carriers that didn't transform! So always remember: Wrap that rascal!

I assume you are refering to the differences between the single stat line Ghoul in Critters and the different modifiers that come from the transformation?

It's called making something that originally was written as an NPC into a playable PC, and providing the variety that comes with that. It's what happened with shapeshifters too. Although the later were still over-the-top powerful even after they were reworked, and they were changed far more than ghouls.

That assumes:
1) You know about the exposure, which isn't always the case
2) The treatment is available to you within the 1 month window
3) You can afford the treatment

Is the treatment as cheap and available as food? I don't recall specifics about that, anyone have canon quotes regarding that?

Yep. Take an NPC critter type that is juiced up to the point where it's supposed to pose any threat at all to seasoned shadowrunners just getting up in the morning, and then nerf t to bejeebus in order to keep it from being overpowered in PC hands. Except you go too far and end up with something that's extremely crappy and over priced that can't actually do any of the really cool things that made the critter appealing in the first place.

-Frank

The regeneration is still plenty kickass. Yes, it's a little tight to squeeze in a Magician shapeshifter if you are playing a 120 BP game. That's where buying attributes for both forms hurts, like it was intended to. But once they Initiate to hide that dual side and work their way past wards, assuming the ward issue comes up often in your game, they are definately kick ass all over the place.

Of course the ghouls didn't get toned anywhere near that much. If you factor in the Critter version as the specific portion of the ghoul population that doesn't run and hide but instead hunts you then it makes a lot more sense as you'll see a good number of Body 7 Ghoul runners.

What part of "if you get incapacitated with a weapon focus you have to make an Essence check or automatically die" (RSRC, p. 36) did you not understand? Yeah, you had a 5/6 chance of removing damage every turn, but you also had no armor, so you took deadly damage from everything. And you had to roll for Magic Loss every time.

A shapeshifter magician was good for maybe three missions, tops. At the end of that she'd either be dead or have lost so much magic that she'd wish she was dead. Standard gang armament included things like Heavy Pistols (9M). A ganger was probably getting a few successes, so you're resisting Serious damage from each shot, and the ganger gets 2. Now, a normal character was running around in an armored jacket over ballistic underwear (Ballistic 7) or better, but the point is that we're looking at an effective TN of 2 for the Body check. A Body of 4 or 5 would expect about 4 successes, dropping a standard bullet to Light. Two hits gets you 2 boxess out of 10 - annoying, but nothing you can't First Aid at the end of the battle.

BUt our Shapeshifter is naked. She is seriously looking for a TN of 9. She averages one success for every 9 Body she has. I don't think I have to remind you that there are few shapeshifters with a Body of 9 and probably none with a Body of 18. That means that she doesn't average staging it down even once. A normal Ganger drops her in one round with overflow. And sure, she has a 5/6 chance of being back up at the end of the turn (which let's face it is the end of the combat if SR3 Street Sam are involved) - but she rolls for Magic Loss.

So every time someone looks at a Shapeshifter funny, the shapeshifter is out for the combat and rolls for Magic Loss. This just isn't viable for a campaign game, and never has been. The fact that there were chart results that made you "automatically die" - something that didn't happen to any other character just drove the point home. Shapeshifters = Fucked. And they pay more for physical attributes.

-Frank

That is the assumption at core of your perception, and a rather dubious assumption it is. They aren't putting on a kevlar vest? Not using the Armor spell, or have Mystic Armor? If they are that stupid then yes they will die shortly. But if they do put on armor of some sort then the prognosis is much better.

You do if you transform at appropriately convenent times. But that aside, that limitation does NOT apply to magical forms of armor.

EDIT: It need not even apply to custom made physical armor. Given that in SR even clothing can be made to slow or stop slugs, having armor plates joined by super-stretchy lycra type cloth could be viable for some 'shifter forms. Or you use a manipulation spell to help aid strapping a kevlar doggie-vest on yourself.

Dog shifters have the bonus of looking innocuous in some urban settings. I played one, starting from 100 BP mind you which was decidedly tough, and that's what he did. His native dog form was primarily for scouting, although it was a low enough power game and he was a mage with the Armor spell, that for the first while he just passed himself off as a stray-come-pet of one of the team members. Even to the rest of the team.

EDIT: Incidentally this is why I know FrankTrollman is full of shit. I played that particular character with regeneration rules watered down even further than the Shadowrun Companion ones.

I don't really think your little puppy would be too innocuous walking around the barrens glowing like he just escaped from Glow City.

Pretty sure that's only Drakes. The double Attribute purchase thing with 'shifters is correct.

First thing to do with that "glowing" line in the spell description is to toss it, because if you don't then any player with half a brain will create their own custom spell that doesn't glow. It's been a while so I don't remember which way I had to do that, either via custom spell or appealing to the GMs cognitive ability. But assume the glow wasn't there. Because glowing runners == TEH STEWPID.

The tough part about looking innocuous is on the astral, that's where Initiation comes in.

Custom spell is NOT a custom rule. Besides if the GM is being such a tit, and no doubt you would be , you can use Magician's Way to have constant armor and still cast spells because Mystic Armor doesn't glow. You even have need for one less sustaining focus that way.

You definately should. But I'm sure you'll manage to delude yourself...again.

Now there's an understatement!

Adept shapeshifters were meh. But given that shapeshifters weren't allowed implants (outside of that one bit of fluff that talked about more a freakish collar than anything), and that in SR3 no implants + no powers/spells == TEH SUK, that isn't too surprising that the blew. Even with the coolio regeneration.

But the worst part for shifters being a non-mage was the fact that they remained a blaring astral becon and it was blatantly obvious that they were not human since their astral form was always their native animal even when their physical form looked like a human. It didn't even require an assensing check to notice the discrepancy.

In SR4 it is somewhat more viable for non-awakened PCs to have no implants, so they'll become a bit more playable. But I assume later issue will still remain a problem, so without some sort of Knack to overcome that they are still pretty much hooped.

yeah... that was pretty impressively bad...

it's like the occasional answer you hear on the D&D boards about "how can i get my DM to allow <insert non-core book> into the game? he says it's broken" (the stupid answer being, for the record "just play the brokenest 100% core class (cleric or druid, AKA C.o.D.Zilla) around and abuse every aspect of it until your DM crys and allows non-core material). and for the record, yes, that is an absolutely terrible idea.

anyways, as far as the armor problem, might i suggest an anchor focus set to turn your armor into animal form armor? another one to change it back would be ideal, of course.

mind you, at this point we're still pretty much dependent on the character being an initiated mage. or having one as a buddy (hmmm... starting contact maybe?). and of course, you have to scrape together the resources to be able to actually pay for the anchor focus...

In its defense, it would get rid of the munchkin players.

And the non-munchkin players.

And the sort-of-in-between players.

Really, it just sounds like a very effective way of getting rid of players.

-Frank

You really live up to your name FrankTrollman

A-ha! You mentioned the dreaded Nyx Smith first this time!

Do you mean a part on the site? I ran a quick search and didn't see anything.
Also the only shadowrun material I have prior to 3rd edition is the sega shadowrun game.

He means the Shadowrun Companion sourcebook for 3rd Edition.