It looks as though my posting privileges have been approved; this makes me happy. I've been GM'ing an SR4 game on AIM private rooms (because they have the capability to roll dice, but don't be shy about speaking up if you know a better method), but after reading the BBB cover to cover a few times over, and certain sections of the other books, I am a bit puzzled on few subjects.

MAGIC
Street Magic | Adept Ability | Elemental Strike | Cost 0.5.
This adds an elemental effect to the adepts unarmed strikes.

Is it just me or is this power ridiculously powerful? The abilities listed have the power to reduce armor by half if not remove it completely, not to mention the elemental effects can catch people on fire, blind them, paralyze them, and various other things. I don't understand how this costs the same as a single point of mystical armor.

BBB | Weapon Foci
Can adepts use/create Foci?

COMBAT
There seems to be a -3 melee attack penalty of you are being fired at via ranged combat while in melee combat, but there's no penalty to the gunman for firing at a target who is engaged with a friendly target in melee combat. Um... what?

MATRIX | RIGGER
If a technomancer or other hacker wants to take control of a drone that is controlled by a rigger, how is this handled? I have read that the hacker can lift the matrix ID of the rigger and use it to spoof commands to the drone, but can the hacker actually hack the drone "node", and "jump" into it himself or is the drone somehow hardwired to the drone modification blackbox and the original rigger?

If a hacker wants to hack into a car and use it to run someone over, how would this be handled? I was a bit at a loss when my group rigger wanted to do this, so I told him he'd have to get a drone close enough to the car to compensate for a low signal, bounce his matrix link off of that drone to the car's pilot computer, make a successful hacking test, and then use his command program + vehicle skill to run the fellow over. It felt a little off, but I'm having trouble finding a better method to do this. Should the hacker only be able to issue commands to the vehicle and then use the vehicle's pilot rating for the attack test? There seem to be painfully few examples in the BBB on how Rigging and manipulating vehicles works.

SETTING
What happened to the Matchstick?
What happened to the colorful terms such as Drek, Slot-Off, Chummer, etc?

Adepts have always been able to use weapon foci. I can't remember if adepts could create them in SR3, but they can in SR4. It's a bit easier to makes them now then in SR3 iirc - and you can use mundane base items (like ceramic knives), but still a pain.

Any chance on getting an example for the Rigger problems?

I just edited my post above to include the audio demo I did with a couple of my players. Start there, and if you still have questions, let me know.

Mystic Armor is always on.

Elemental strike lasts only for a number of combat turns equal to your magic before it must be activated again.
Many of the powers can be rendered mute for example.

Smoke for example can be rendered mute by an internal air tank for 750 Inhalation vector toxins don't work if you don't breathe.

Sound has various defenses. Hell a selective sound filter should do wonders.
The elemental strike must be taken for each element individually.

When you look at the damage and reach advantages of many melee weapons unarmed needs some advantages.


My own character has more armor to resist fire, cold and electricity then he does a regular fist.
Rating 6 armor modifications are nice.

Maybe we should start a new thread with a bunch of slang that people can submit. We could post SR3 slang, useful slang from Japanese, and whatever other slag from other languages that people know. (Kinda similar to how we use chica from spanish to say "girl" (I'm being polite here) in modern day times.)

Anyone up for that?

No levels for Killing Hands in SR4, though - additional damage comes only from Critical Strike.

I'd rule as a game master that if a car was say, on the side of the street parked for the night, that it would be un-hackable as it's system node is switched to the 'off' position. if you had a firefight in an intersection, however, then sure, the hacker could conceivably hack into the system of a vehicle at the stoplight and wing it at a badguy.

Excellent information. That's going along the lines of what I was beginning to suspect, but now I feel pretty confident about it.