I'm working on a mini-campaign to give SR4 a try. And to get the full experience, I'm giving my players the option to make their characters or use a published archetype. Not surprisingly, one of my players threw me a curveball (they're an inventive bunch). He really wants to play a ghoul adept. I was hesitant at first, but he has a great concept, made a convincing pitch, and I'd hate to turn him down just because there's nothing "official" on them yet.

So... I have some ideas for converting SR3 ghouls to SR4, but I'm looking for any homebrew SR4 ghoul rules so I can compare and see what other people have done.

I only have the main book and street magic to go off of, so if ghouls have been covered in one of the other books, please let me know.

Alternative meta-types are slated for Runner Companion. In the meantime, you could try the old equivalent, and try and translate over the stats.

It is possible someone has already done that conversion. I suggest that you look up the forums with the search function, and remember to enable it to look into posts more than one month ago.

I am at work right now so I haven't books nor not much time available. It can't be too hard. It's a metatype after all, with some heavy duty qualities (dual natured, essence loss). It's just a matter of factoring in the attribute penalties and bonuses and deciding on a cost. I also remember they had some trouble with cyberware, so something like Sensitive system and incompatible with biowre would be good for starters.

It's nice to see GMs with open minds, have fun!

Cheers,

Max

I do in fact recall a playable set of ghoul rules being put up here:

Ghouls
Ghoul (30 BP):

B: 5/10
A: 1/6
R: 3/8
S: 4/9
C: 1/4
I: 2/7
L: 1/5
W: 3/8
Edg: 1/6
Ess: 5
M: 1/5
Movement: 10/25

Powers:
Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell), Natural Weapon (Claws: S/2 + 1), Resistance (+3 dice vs. Disease)

Ghouls get the following Negative Qualities and gain no BPs for them (these do not count against the 35 BP limit):
Allergy (Sunlight, Mild), Dark Secret (Ghoul), Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), Reduced Senses (Blind).

---

Official ones will take an ass long time coming out, so I'd just use those.

-Frank

I wouldn't, the attribute bonuses are just too obscene for 30 BP.

I once tried a conversion on the old FanPro-forums and ended up either with costs of around 65 BP or not using the modifiers suggested by the statblock of the "average" ghoul presented in the core rules.

How? You get substantially better attributes than an Ork. You get +1 to Strength, Body, and Intuition, and +2 to Reaction and Willpower. And your Charisma penalty goes up by 1. And you just spent an actual Essence Point! In the long run, an Essence is worth a lot more than 7 points of attributes. In fact, it's worth about 10. But even in the very close future where people are getting basic bioware the Essence comes in normally with 5 attributes points (at a cost of about 8 BP worth of money).

So seriously, are you going to tell me that the inability to read computer screens, the requirement to eat metahuman corpses, and an active bounty on you in half the civilzed world is worth less than +Inutition and +1 Willpower?




I don't even know what you just said, because FanPro never released a point converter or metatype regression rubric. I know, because I used to work for FanPro.

Ghouls have very nice attributes. But they have huge penalties, and if you charge them full price for their attribute bonuses they end up sucking extremely badly because those penalties are still very very real. Seriously, these guys have to assense things to use ranged weapons. In most cases they can't even shoot drones. They also can't stop being astrally active and have no access to flight or an astral ranged attack which means that they are in "automatically lose at life" territory the instant they find themselves in an area with a high ceiling and an astrally projecting magician who knows any Mana combat spell at all.

I can tell that you haven't really put a lot of thought into Ghouls as actual player characters if you are throwing around numbers like that. People who actually have, have generated much less onerous costs than you.

-Frank

I just dropped it into the Typhoid Mary thread, too, but here is the disease version from the thread Frank is referencing. It's like explosion of the ghoul threads all of a sudden, what set this off? *shrug*

Krieger Strain of HMHVV
Disease:
Vector: Injection, Speed: 1 Day (3), Power: 3, Nature: Viral
Effects: Transformation into a ghoul.

B +4
A -
R +2
S +3
C –2
I +1
L –1
W +2
EDG -
ESS –1
M 1
Init –

Note that normal racial maximums still apply and that these are treated as stat augmentations, subject to normal rules.

Powers:
Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell), Natural Weapon (Claws: S/2 + 1),

Ghouls get the following Negative Qualities and gain no BPs for them (these do not count against the 35 BP limit):
Allergy (Sunlight, Mild), Dark Secret (Ghoul), Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), Reduced Senses (Blind)., Sensitive System

Frank, what if the Ghoul buys cyber eyes? Would that restore his sight?

Shadowrun Canon is unclear on this point. There are characters in the world who are ghouls who had cybereyes that can see after the operation. There are also competing statements that the vision difficulties are neurological and that cybernetic eyes would not function.

Also the original ghoul write-up merely had impaired vision (and also was a SURGE effect rather than a contractible disease). And there is canonical mention of 2nd generation ghouls whose eyesight never deteriorates and can see just fine.

---

Best vision wrap-up I can give you with the competing fluff is that Ghouls have variable impairments to their vision with true and uncorrectable blindness being the most common. For player characters it would probably make most sense to offer them a Positive Quality option to buy off the blindness.

-Frank

I never said i would have done an official conversion, just that i posted a homebrewed one (not even that, more a play of thoughts on what one would have to consider) on the German FanPro boards sometime last year, before they lost the license.
So i guess you can calm down on that issue.
Furthermore, i did not want to say that i would charge 65 BP for a ghoul, but rather that i'd prefer ghouls to have less extreme attribute modifiers.

See, the modifiers to the normal attributes are comparable to a troll, but with a +2 bonus on willpower, +2 on reaction and +1 instead of -1 on intuition.

Given such modifiers, it seems unlikely to me that a ghoul could end up costing less BP than a troll, even considering the -admittedly massive- drawbacks.

On top of that, you get astral perception, enhanced sense of smell and increased unarmed combat damage.
In my previous conversion attempt, i roughly equated them with adept powers granting the same advantages, since qualities giving benefits mechanically similar to adept powers usually cary BP costs comparable to them and not to the much cheaper cyber/bio equivalents.




Yeah, 65 BP is insanely high.
Still, 30 BP doesn't seem fitting, either.

I admit that there are huge penalties.
Some of them (the sunlight allergy and immune sensitivity) can be pinned down exactly in BP costs, since they are already existing handicaps.
Others (blindness, dietary requirement, the social status of ghouls and the downsides of being dual natured) are harder to calculate.

Still, there are other factors to consider.
Like stacking attribute bonuses with other metatypes or the fact that ghouls with the abovementioned stats would be the only race to receive +2 bonuses to two potential drain attributes.

Don't get me wrong, i absolutely don't want to penalize anyone for playing a ghoul, i just would like to see costs that are halfway balanced.

Simply saying "well, the disadvantages could be extreme, let's give patchy some absurd attribute bonuses" is a rather problematic workaround for that problem, since it generates new imbalance potential without eliminating the old one, resulting in a character that is both overpowered and extremely handicapped at the same time, making the impact on the game completely uncalculable.

This is neither desirable for the player of a ghoul PC nor anyone else at the table.

Where in the books is Dark Secret at? Just curious, I do wish they had more and diverse negative qualities... (and yes I know I can make them up).. Stuff like chronic disease (from -30 (terminal cancer) to -10 (Uncurable Diabetes) to -5 (Mild Asthma))... I've handled them similar to allergies when I can...

Sounds good to me.
BTW, note that the contradictory fluff concerning ghoul blindness also includes statements that all second-generation ghouls are completely blind (see Bug City sourcebook).

Well, Dual Natured used to be a 5 point flaw (which people avoided like grim death), and the unarmed combat damage is more accurately written up as forcing them to carry around a non-concealable knife every where they go. Both of those aren't "Adept Powers" they are crippling limitations. Enhanced Smell is nice, but it's not super special awesome nice.



I look at them as being stronger than an Ork, rather than being weaker than a Troll. They don't have the reach or the speed of a Troll, so it's not a very meaningful comparison there. So I'm looking at them costing 10 points more than an Ork, which under the circumstances seems reasonable.



There have never ever been any rules for doing that in any edition of Shadowrun. And no, I don't count the rules in the SR3 Companion because they don't generate the listed Human Ghoul when applied to humans. So I don't count that as an issue. The rules here are for Human Ghouls only because those are the only critters which have ever been given stats in any edition of Shadowrun in any book ever printed.

Humans have an Edge bonus. Human Ghouls don't. No one has any idea what that translates to when applied to metahumans who already don't have an Edge bonus.



Um... no they would not. They have a +1 to one potential Drain stat, and a +2 to Willpower. And they have an Essence Penalty. And they have a reduced Logic cap, and Logic is the Drain attribute you can boost with Bioware. At the high end, Dwarfs still have the best possible Drain Resistance.



But no one is saying that. We're saying that the attribute bonuses are distributed around sufficiently that you don't end up really exceeding what other metatypes can do in any field, and the penalties are large enough that your abilities as a generalist still kind of suck.

Ghouls are highly limited characters. They don't make great tech specialists because of the Logic reduction and their vision problems. They don't make great faces because they have a tiny Charisma cap and built in social problems. They don't make good infiltrators because they can't walk through wards without setting them off and can't pass themselves off as ordinary consumers and have difficulty passing weapons checks even if they don't have any decent weapons. They don't make good magicians because they have a reduced Magic cap. They don't make good street samurai because they have reduced Essence.

At 30 points they aren't a first pick for any character archetype that people normally put into a Shadowrun team. They are a second rate metatype, and the reason people play them is because Ghouls are awesome and you can tell cool stories about Ghoul characters. They wouldn't push out any of the other metatypes in min/max circles even if they cost zero BP.

-Frank

It's not in the SR4 books anywhere, I think it's a holdover that slipped in there from an earlier edition. Probably something that'll be in the Runner Companion. I suppose you could handle it as Phobia(Being discovered to be a ghoul) or something...

The rules in the SR3 Companion where inherently broken and also contradicted the critter description, but since they where last edition's only official version of ghoul PCs, they should be taken into consideration in such a discussion.
Especially if you don't want to repeat the mistakes made back then.

So no, i don't dismiss them as nonexistent, since they where undeniably a part of SR3.
Instead, i consider the implications they had because i don't want to see them coming up again in SR4.
Counting the modifiers as enhancements seems to be one possible way around that problem, one that should be taken into consideration.

Besides that, i do see your point here, even though i don't like the idea of "second rate metatypes".
Sounds as if the design intend was to effectively penalize people for taking a certain roleplaying option.
Choosing a certain character concept and building an efficient character should not exclude each other.

Also, there's other issues to be adressed in the upcoming Companion, especially how the Krieger strain is passed on in SR4.
I really hope that this time, developers come up with better solutions than basically presenting two different kinds of ghouls, but instead, writing up a template that can be applied equally to PCs and NPCs with satisfying results.

*cough* technomancers *cough*

Seriously, while I was first in line to complain about how boned ghouls were in SR3, not every option should necessarily be optimal in an open-build game. Not every character concept will be an efficient build. You can easily specialize, overspend in a few other areas, and have crippling flaws - or you can overgeneralize to the point of near-uselessness. Sometimes, choosing a certain character concept does exclude having an efficient build.

Suppose you decide to make a bounty hunter who uses a revolver, isn't an adept, and eschews those fancy smartlinks. You will be going half as often, and rolling less dice, than the sammie or adept will. And that's fine - you chose that limitation.

Same thing with ghouls - you are taking a serious limitation to your character. You are choosing to play a character who eats metahuman flesh, has a bounty of his head, and can't stop astrally perceiving. I don't think that should be rewarded with a whopping 12 points in Attribute bonuses - and I don't think extrapolating those bonuses from their critter stats is really accurate - a devil rat PC would get +8 in Attribute bonuses using that approach.

Attributes are important. But like how being possessed by a Force 3 spirit gives you plus twelve to your attributes, that's not the whole story. There isn't a numeric rubric for metatype creation. It's all ad hoc based on perceived utility. The Ghoul in the book has large bonuses and large penalties, and presumably someone who wants to play one actually wants to deal with both ends of the spectrum.

Let's consider actual archetypes:

• Bounty Hunter - this character would make a great conversion to a Ghoul. Already devoid of social skills, this character would get better at tracking. He'd lose some in the unarmed combat department and he wouldn't really be able to be a cheesy bow fighter any more, but he'd be better at his core skills of Tracking and Survival. Certainly workable. Also ironic.
• Combat Mage His Magic would be penalized, which would hurt. And it would be hard to use the pistols. Probably a step down.
• Covert Ops Specialist No ward passing basically kills this character concept.
• Drone Rigger - while this actually could be done, you don't really get anything for being a Ghoul except cool factor.
• Enforcer - This one would actually work OK. At least, potentially. Hard to work for the Mafia as a Ghoul, so you'd take it in the neck on social issues. But you'd be alright.
• Face - Not a chance in hell.
• Gunslinger Adept - There is a problem with this concept that is easy to see.
• Hacker Like the Drone Rigger, this can be done, but you don't really get anything for being a Ghoul except the cool factor of being a Ghoul.
• Occult Investigator - Now we are talking! A dual natured character with an Intuition bonus and you weren't maxing out your Magic anyway. You are racially superior at finding clues astrally or physically and you can defend yourself with Stunbolt. The Ghoul limitations still hurt, but you've got a very viable character here.
• Radical Eco Shaman You have restricted caps on both your primary attributes (Magic and Charisma). This archetype is a non-starter.
• Smuggler Ghouls make horrible wheel men and are racially inferior at crossing check points.

So yeah. Of all the archetypes in the book they can do one very well, and four vaguely adequately. That is not the hallmark of an over powered metatype.

-Frank

But those characters all have the most fucked up stats, like, ever. Also you seem to have left out the Sprawl Ganger. Which the Ghoul rocks at incidentally.
Now I have to build one.

Good point, I cut off before doing the:

• Sprawl Ganger - decent character type. While fearfully vulnerable to magic, he's hopefully going to live in a world with relatively little of it. Definitely playable.
• Street Samurai - not even practical. Put that much cyber into a Ghoul and he actually dies. Hell, putting nearly that much cyberware into a Ghoul and he becomes intractably expensive because he dies if he runs out of Magic.
• Street Shaman Taking it in the junk coming and going, this isn't viable.
• Technomancer It is actually illegal to be a Ghoul Technomancer.
• Weapons Specialist - I don't trust a Ghoul to know whether to pull the red wire or the green wire. This character is non-viable.

So yes, I cut off 5 archetypes, of which one could make a decent Ghoul character.

-Frank

Ghouls are cool? News to me. The inherent social troubles they have would kill them for my campaign right away, and the permanent astrally perceiving problem would make them rather hard to survive too. So, I'd agree with the stats from Frank as not being overpowered.

Yeah, appearently I didn't get the memo that stated Ghouls are cool either.

Seriously, a blind, dual-natured, human-eating creature with claws and a really bad odeur is far away from being cool.

People like playing elves... compared to that Ghouls are cool.

Elves have the better PR department. And they aren't cannibals.

Tell that to all the White Wolf players.

-Frank

I've never seen it that way.

Aren't they?




Mage was the only White Wolf game worth playing. Werewolf, you were fighting a lost war... kinda depressing. Vampire... oh yes, let's play a bunch of emo bitches whining about how unfair everything is... and eat humans along the way

What in "Daisy Eaters" don't you understand?

I think most archetypes in previous editions where even less functional rules-wise (like the SR3 street sam crippling himself with 2 in that edition mechanically worthless cyberarms).
Still, SR4 archetypes are far from being optimized.
Plus, not one of them is build around a ghoul template, so any good builds resulting from combining an archetype and the abovementioned ghoul stats are purely coincidental (such as the bounty hunter and sprawl ganger examples).

It's no surprise ghouls suck at all charisma-based tasks and have to face serious drawbacks when taking up heavily logic-dependant roles in a group, even though their reaction bonus might be utilized in some rigger builds.
Also, yes, there are huge disadvantages in the fields of cybering up, using ranged weapons and being magically active (which otherwise would be the most interesting option for any minmaxed ghoul, since it is a workaround for the drawbacks of being dual-natured).

The question is wether there are builds that utilize a ghouls massive attribute advantages to make up for the drawbacks.

Obviously, none of the archetypes provides a sufficient answer to that question, even though the given examples already hint at synergy effects with a bunch of skills that are both useful and highly fitting for a ghoul concept (like tailing, tracking, survival, asensing, and disguise, plus stuff like dodge and certain physical skills).

Any decent ghoul mage would have to take an intuition-based tradition which, in combination with the +2 to willpower, could make up for the magic loss, depending on how far you want to max him out.
He would not quite reach a genetically and biologically augmented dwarf (but then, who does?), but besides that, could be a well-rounded caster, saving more than the ghoul BP on physical stats a mage also needs, like constitution and some reaction.
A secondary caster who also serves as tracker and astral spy/combatant might be the most interesting option here.

As far as pure combat optimization is concerned, a biosam could yield interesting results, depending on how much ware you want to sink in him and how expensive it would be to buy off the blindness handicap.
Close-combat builds could also be interesting, but they are not partially overpowered to begin with.
For defensive potential, ghouls certainly rock, having all in all unparalleled bonuses to all 3 relevant attributes.

Adepts face the problem of decreased magic, too.
If you wanted to go for astral perception anyway, this evens out a bit, leaving you only with the ever-present problem of duality.

@Frank

My initial impression is that the body modifier is a smidge too high, as is the BP cost. Otherwise, looks about right for a human ghoul.

I guess I'm going to have to go back through by pre-SR3 books and refresh myself on Ghouls because I have the ghoul PC rules for SR3 Companion stuck in my head. I keep thinking of ghouls as a template added to an existing metatype, rather than an individual sub-species (to borrow a concept from D&D 3.x).

@Grinder

Ghouls are "cool" because they're tragic. Not emo (like WoD Vampires), just tragic. Since this is a short run game, my player wants a tragic character. If the campaign continues past the initial run (about 3 to 4 sessions), he will probably switch to something else.

Also, I suppose its worth nothing that Daisy is a girl's name.

The concept of a tragic character is indeed cool, even though I didn't think of a Ghoul. But I can understand the motivation of your player to try a Ghoul-character out in a short-lived game.

And yeah, I know about that Daisy thing. Daisy Duck and all that.

So, between going away party planning, setup, and execution, I managed to sit down with my SR books, some printouts and such this weekend to come up with the following. I've added in some descriptive text to account for the wild variation between ghouls presented in SR2/SR1 Critters sections and the Ghoul PC in the SR3 Companion. I'm aware that this is non-canon, but it should serve well enough until SR4 version of the companion comes out.

Ghoul (+20 BP)
Note: Ghoul is a template applied to the "base metatype," in other words, the character's original metatype. There are human, dwarf, elf, ork, and troll ghouls. The rules presented here are for the more intelligent varieties.

Debate still rages over the origins of ghouls; some claim it the condition comes from the so-called Kreiger Strain of HMHVV, while others claim that ghouls are created through a process similar to goblinization or SURGE. Still others belive that there may be multiple factors at work, speculating that there may be several very similar, but distinct, species. Since concerns for ghoul origins and welfare have only surfaced relatively recently, the amount of research dedicated to determining the truth has been limited.

The following modifications are applied to characters with the Ghoul template:

Attributes
Bod x+2 / x+2
Agi x / x
Rea x+1 / x+1
Str x+2 / x+2
Cha x-1 / x-1
Int x+2 / x+2
Log 1 / x-1
Wil x+1 / x+1
Edg 1 / 6
Ess 5
Mag 1 / 5
Ini x+3 / x+3
Notes: Attributes marked with an "x" use the starting value for the character's base metatype, modified as above.

Qualities

• Allergy (sunlight, mild): -2 dice on all tests while exposed to sunlight.
• Blindness: -6 dice on non-astral vision tests.
• Dietary Restriction (metahuman flesh, weekly): Ghouls must consume approximately 1% of their body weight in raw metahuman flesh every week or begin to suffer the effects of starvation.
• Dual Natured: Ghouls are dual natured beings, active on both the astral and physical planes. This has a number of advantages and flaws (see the Critter Powers rules for more information). Ghouls may learn the Assessing and Astral Combat skills. Ghouls possess latent magic abilities, and may buy up their Magic rating, though they must also buy the Magician, Mystic Adept, or Adept qualities to learn any magical abilities (spells, powers, etc.).
• Enhanced Senses (hearing, scent): As the Adept Powers Enhanced Scent and Amplified Hearing.
• Natural Weapons: Claws inflict S/2+1P.
• Resistance: +2 Body dice to resist disease.
• Sensitive System: double Ess loss from cybernetic implants.
• Social Stigma (ghoul): -2 dice on Social tests (other than Intimidation) when dealing with non-ghouls who are aware of the character's condition. Also, Ghouls may not legally hold a SIN and have no legal rights in most jurisdictions. Additionally, some regions place an open bounty on ghouls.

I intend to properly write this up and PDF it at some point. I'll probably host it on my SR3 campaign wiki (see my .sig). If anyone sees anything especially dumb or questionable (other than my spelling and grammar), please feel free to point it out.

So your hypothesis is that the basic mook Ghoul listed in the SR4 main book started as a Human with a Body of FIVE?

-Frank

The basic mook ghoul in the book is a feral pack hunter - I would probably give a lower Body to Joe Wageslave who just recently became a ghoul. I don't think the ghoul mook stats, by themselves, are a good indication of the Attribute modifiers. It is a typical feral ghoul, nothing more (I would probably add astral combat to its skills, as I have a hard time imagining a permanently dual-natured creature not developing that skill).

It's exactly the same stats as the 1st and 2nd edition ghoul, when it was specifically defined as being applied to someone with 3s across the board. Larger, stronger, tougher ghouls specifically do exist and usually rampage around on their own. The stats shown are for the ghouls who band together in packs, and they are specifically on the small end of ghoulish ass kicking. The idea that they have near maximum Body is completely ridiculous.

In 4th edition, Joe Civilian has lower stats and the default Ghoul doesn't. If anything, a +4 Body increase (5/10 Body) is low.

-Frank

Yup, the bonus to Body needs to be higher. Or the Body value of the BBB ghoul lowered.

Not really, since he can attack everything that comes near him with his claws on astral as on physical, for him to learn how to attack something in an astral way makes not much sense.

My proposal is based on a fusion of the ghouls in the SR3 companion and the ones in the critters section of SR1/SR2. Since there's nothing 'offical' in SR4 about playing a ghoul PC, I feel well within my right as a GM to come up with something reasonable to fill that gap until such time as canon ghoul PC rules are published. To that end, in my Shadowrun world, there is more than one kind of ghoul. I point to the distinctions between SR3 companion ghouls and previously published critter ghouls to support this notion. I intend to explore the differences between the two types of ghouls in my mini-campaign, which will involve a small-ish biotech company that is trying to win Big D's prize for the synthetic ghoul food.

I've recently pointed my players who will be in the SR4 mini-campiagn to Dumpshock, so in the interest of not giving away too much of the metaplot to them if they should stumble across this thread, I'll spoiler the details:



I'd be inclined to drop the BP cost before boosting the Body attribute. I like where the Body is at the moment, so I guess I'll just have to disagree with some folks on that point.

So, other than the Body score, is there anything that stands out as wacky or too far out there?

Compared to an ork, your ghoul right now is way to expensive. Why you ask? Because you hardcoded Sensitive System into him. Drop that and I still think it's wrong to do 7 gazillion diffrent kinds of ghouls (just like subraces in D&D), but the cost/benefit equation will be bearable.

I for myself would use Franks ghoul, since it's assuming PC and NPC ghouls are the same, because it's really bad design to give something to players that is diffrent from it's NPC counterpart.

I'll take another look at Sensitive System. Maybe they could stand a slight improvement (+1) to either Rea or Agi? I think I forgot to include an improved movement rate in my notes too.

I don't have an issue with having two ghoul types (more, I guess, if you count the vaious type of viral ghouls). Its still a far cry from D&D where you have countless different Elf subraces, half a dozen different tyoe of dwarf, three or four types of halfling, and strangely, no much variation in orcs. And its hardly the sort of goofiness that SURGE and the metavariants from the SR2 and SR3 companions introduced.



I've played enough Rifts that I'll have to respectfully disagree with that. 'nuff said.

"Here your Ares Predator. It is the player version, so it does only 3P and has a +2AP modifier."

Disagree all you want, it is still wrong.

Oh, now you're just being silly a silly forum troll.

House rules are house rules. Frank's ghoul rules are no more offical than mine (even if one of us has SR writing credits and the other doesn't) because either way you look at it, they're non-canon for SR4. If you want to use his rules in your game, go for it. If someone wants to use what I've come up with, fine.

-paws

BTW, I expect to see your rules for Great Dragon PCs on my desk in the morning.

It isn't which rules you use that is in question. It is the idea that NPC anything is different than the PC version of the same thing. It can be seen as being cheesy.

I might be a troll, but silly is something I don't really enjoy being called. Do so only if you want me to insult you in a similar manner.

In this case, I wasn't even trolling, this was a serious comment. Frank's rules might not be official, but they are consistent. Giving players a ghoul with half the attributes the NPC would have is like handing them guns that do only half damage. It's not even worth called silly, it's just inconsistent. Hence, bad game design.

Why would anyone want to play a GD in SR?

Yes, the rules are in question. If they weren't then the thread would have derailed at all, would it? The funny thing is that I don't recall stating I

Please see the OP.

Next, see the spoiler.

None of my players have any issue with a PC ghoul and none of them see an issue with there being two types of ghouls. I know this because I asked them what they thought about it before okaying it. They don't think its cheesy or unfair or abusive.

If I sound like an ass, I don't mean to. I'm trying to get something accomplished here. Having my GMing style/quirks nitpicked isn't what I came here for. I came here because Dumpshock is one of the biggest, best SR communities out there. Was I wrong?

-paws

PS I don't know what ya'll's gaming groups are like, but if this tiny like deviation from canon causes this kind of "you're wrong, I'm right" bickering, then I feel sorry for you. You guys playing with a bunch of suger-high 5 years olds or something? Yeesh.

Then I appologize for calling you silly. I had idea it was such a brutally harsh slur around these parts.



There are two sets of rules in SR canon for ghouls: SR companion and Critters.
There are two descriptions of how ghouls come to be in SR canon: Goblinization and Kreiger Strain HMHVV.
There are two descriptions of how ghouls behave: feral pack hunters and intelligent individuals.
I see no reason why there aren't two seperate subspecies of ghoul.


A. Because they want vast, ultimate power, of course.

Q. Why would anyone want to play a ghoul?
A. Because they have a story they want to tell or explore a concept.

There is only one source that matter on that point, and that is SR4 BBB.

Goblinization was kicked in the noggin since SR3 companion completly. Canon is, Krieger was mistaken for Goblinization. I don't like it, but that's the case. I would like two different types of ghouls even less.

It's actually more than those two. And all are covered by the same species without need for extra rules. Just like smarter orks don't need a new rules set compared to less smart, but strong orks, if you catch my drift.

Well, for one they would not be seperate subspecies but seperate species. That's a huge difference, actually. Second problem is, you creat a new species and most likely it will not affect you gameworld in any way, so basically the diffrence is just metagame mechanics.
And to go back to my previous comparison, the PC Ares Predator does less damage, because of inferior manufacturing compared to the NPC Ares Predator. It just sounds wrong that way, wouldn't you agree? As does the creation of a weaker ghoul breed just for PCs.

But the critter rules have been reprinted edition after edition, have seen use in literally dozens of adventures, and have been transfered whole cloth to SR4. The Companion rules have appeared in two books (Target UCAS and Revised Companion as I recall), and are specifically touted as gimped rules to foist on player characters (with NPCs still getting to use the ghoul stats from the SR1, SR2, and SR4 main book as well as the SR3 Critters book).

So yes, Malicants 3P Heavy Pistol is a very apt analogy. The SR3 Companion rules were never written or intended to do anything other than fuck over player characters, something that they do with astounding success. They are very unpopular rules, and rightly so. It's like the Shadowrun Companion Shapeshifter rules - they were written to hose PCs, not to make viable characters or to simulate the critters who actually existed in the game world.

The Companion rules for playing dual characters are like the D&D Level Adjustments. Or like the Changelings/Warforged/Shifters from Eberron. It's not real "monsters as player characters" rules, it's totally gimped monsters as player characters. If you're going to give people chicken shit versions of races you should just tell people that they can't play those races. After all, if you aren't letting them play with the big boy rules, you really aren't letting them play the real thing.

If you won't let people use the real stats you should just tell people point blank that you are uncomfortable with letting them play ghouls. You can let people play recovering Wendigo Cultists or something. There's a lot of stuff in the Shadowrun world. But giving people character options which are flat inferior to the "real thing" is insulting.

-Frank

Wow! Rudeness. Cool.

I was going to go on and do more than explain that I can, in fact read, and that my post was specifically referring to the couple of posts above mine that were dealing with disparate NPC/PC stats, but I figure why bother. If you are just going to be rude and insult everyone who tries to give an opinion, then there really is no point in continuing a discussion with you.

Have a nice day.

You're thinking SR3. In SR4, you don't get to use your meatbod melee skills against astral opponents (one of the new rules I don't like that much). And the astral combat skill doesn't let you default, either. I don't see a ghoul being attacked by an astral spirit as being passive and helpless, so that's why I think they should have the astral combat skill. Non-mage ghouls are already hosed enough by astral entities who can lob mana spells at them.

Yay me. I've have my first argument on Dumpshock. The guy that pointed me in this direction said it wouldn't take long. Here I thought he was kidding... Hmph.


You too! (seriously)



Its funny, but in the year-ish that my old group played SR3 (back when SR3 companion* came out), none of the regular GMs (we had 4 that rotated duties) wanted to allow Shapeshifters or Ghouls because they thought they were cheesy and overpowered, not underpowered. I come here and the opinion seems to be the complete other way around. I gotta say, I'm having a hard time reconciling that difference.

And I think I'll just leave it and go back to lurking before I manage to piss anyone else off.


*Edit to clarify