I would like to come up with a list of things worth establishing when forming or joining a new game. On DS we get into a lot of arguments interpreting RAW. I hear people talking a lot about tables needing to establish not even a list of house rules, but an implementation of RAW. My intent is to gather enough data to list of everything that is worth stating to a new player about how your table works. What I would like your help fleshing out 3 lists:
1) Places where people could disagree about RAW, like how agents work
2) Common gentleman's agreements, like not using more interrupt actions than you have IPs per round
3) House rules common enough to ask about, ignoring Availability after char gen, or gymnastic dodge
While I'm sure people will get bent out of shape about what counts a RAW per usual, please take the actual arguing somewhere else. Remember if people disagree with you that makes the point contested EVEN IF THEY ARE WRONG. Synner said point blank you can't cast off of ultra-sound, but it's still worth it to tell people new to your table whether or not that will fly. I'll edit this post to keep the lists updated.

1 Contended RAW
How does edge refresh
Can unattended agents move to a new node
What response do agents use
Does cracking give you one or unlimited copies
How mobile are wards
Scope of Knowledge skills
Do wards protect a volume or a surface (especially in regards to direct spells)
The dice pools of "Average Joes" and "Typical Professionals"
What is a "set of wounds" for healing.
What can treat drain
Augmented Skill max
Brain Hacking
Targeting spells off implanted ultra sound or Radar
What counts as 'limbs' for the purposes of determining average attributes in the case of unbalanced cyberlimbs.

2 Gentleman's Agreements
No comlink haystack / 4 IP AR decking / Agent Smith'ing
Don't use your ally spirit as an infinite sustaining focus.
Don't be a script kitty
No using more interrupt actions than you have IPs per round
Don't spam great form spirits
Some kind of expectation about dice pool range

3 Common House Rules
Making the matrix rules functional some how
Basically everything about edge
Basically everything about contacts
2xCha in contact points
Assorted dodging variants
Variants on getting gear / ignoring availability rules
Indirect fire variants
How does common sense get applied to social rolls
First-Aid and natural recovery
Maintaining safe houses / Multiple Lifestyles
Buying hits
What do Knowledge skills let you do (i.e. is Chemistry rolled in labs? does a demolitionist need Engineering(structural)?

I didn't realize some of these could be debated...

Take wards for example:

they explicitly give a volume that is warded in both the main book and in Street Magic, and "A ward must also extend at least one meter in every direction from the physical anchor that it is attached to (see below), which prevents ward shapes that are very tiny or very thin in any dimension." (SM p 123)

and the devs have gone on record as saying a warded vehicle is possible - a ward's anchor needs to remain stationary within its ward (which should be in the FAQ or Street Magic errata when they get around to releasing it)

what counts as 'limbs' for the purposes of determining average attributes in the case of unbalanced cyberlimbs.

gentlemen's agreement:

don't use your ally spirit as an infinite sustaining focus.

Radar and Ultrasound can NOT be used for targeting. I got flamed so hard for that I thought it was my profession. Synner came on to the boards and set me straight on that.

Can First Aide be used to Heal Drain tracks?

If you have Medical specialization in Magical Health and First Aide, if you use First Aide on a Awakened or Technomage is the -2 mod offset by having Magical Health specialization?

WMS

-2 + 2 = 0, Id say it is offset.

As for First Aid and Drain, I say that the Savior medkit (or nanoware based first aid) can heal Drain damage. I think FAQ ruled that yes, first aid can heal drain.

Awwwwww, but that's why we take Allies!

First Aid isn't just bandages and splints. The skill description calls it basic medicine "as a paramedic rather than a physician." Having seen paramedics inject drugs into a patient's bone marrow, shock stopped hearts with defibrillators, punch a needle through someone's chest wall to reinflate a collapsed lung, and hang Lasix to diurese a patient and reduce the fluid buildup in her lungs that was drowning her, I'm more than happy to let the First Aid skill be used for any kind of treatment that would normally be in the prehospital environment.

Damage from drain is frequently represented as burns, bleeds, fatigue, and nasty failures of major systems along the lines of strokes, hemorrhages, heart attacks... these are all real, physical damage that can benefit from emergency medicine. If the EMT hangover cure (high-flow oxygen and an IV of normal saline or Ringer's lactate) helps pounding heads and aching muscles after a long, hard night, I'm not sure why it wouldn't help those same pounding heads and aching muscles you get after slinging a bunch of stunballs. If overcasting ends up being so stressful that you have a heart attack, I'm not sure why that would get treated any differently than a heart attack caused by working too hard. Sure, your doctor is going to do different things in the long-term (no more overcasting, versus eat healthy, start running, and get more sleep)... but that's Medicine, not First Aid. First Aid just wants to get your heart going again and get you stable enough (Stabilized, preferably with a couple of boxes opened back up at the bad end of the condition monitor) to get to the hospital in one piece.

"Medkits" today contain tons of things that can affect various systems inside of your body, be they drugs, oxygen, hot and cold packs, glucose, space blankets, or even just normal saline to replace lost blood volume. You don't need nanoware to do that, and I'd be really curious to see what kind of things people will have started stocking ambulances and jumpkits with in 2070. The only thing that's unique about damage caused by drain is that you're not allowed to heal it magically (likely some gobbledygook about your aura also being temporarily damaged and interfering with healing magics, or some such). The FAQ doesn't say that mundane healing doesn't work... in fact, it lists "regular mundane medical care" and "rest" as the two ways you CAN heal damage caused by drain.

This is actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I close read does support what the devs have posted here, but it could easily be miss read by many people and create confusion at a table ... and so would be worth putting in a list of personal rulings to hand to a new player.

This is actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I close read does support what the devs have posted here, but it could easily be miss read by many people and create confusion at a table ... and so would be worth putting in a list of personal rulings to hand to a new player.

I disagree that these are even close to being 50/50:

-Can unattended agents move to a new node- dur yes, with a command action
-What response do agents use - dur commlink if they are in the same node as you, node if they are not in the same node as you.
-Do wards protect a volume or a surface - wards are walls, if your inside the wall they dont count, if you are outisde they do.
-4 IP AR decking - Dur yes, why bother going VR? cuz you get other benefits.
-Don't use your ally spirit as an infinite sustaining focus. - Why not? Dont like it nuke the spirit.
-No using more interrupt actions than you have IPs per round - no? You should agree to some limit though.

I'm not trying to say that nanoware is the only way to heal drain, just that it is the most effective. The issue with healing drain as I see it is the type of damage. Where does the damage manifest and how. Does it depend on the spell, the force, the type of spell, etc? I am not an expert on the medical field, but I also don't underestimate drain. My impression was that it was uniformly spread throughout the body, but maybe this could be different. Maybe there are drugs today that could help, or maybe it would just require time for the body to recover on its own. Either way, drain cannot be easy to treat.

Why would they get pissed off an kill you? I mean, you can just get them to sustain upteen spells when you are running, and you can actually say 'Why don;t you take a holiday in agentina this week, you can pick up some money with my agent at the airport, and I've already got you a fake SIN because realistic form only goes so far and I routinely pay 10% extra on my lifestyle costs so you can enjoy my lifestyle too' and you can call them back with the click of your fingers.

Err nevermind. I was thinking of spell binding which reduces their force. I would be cool with ally's infinitely sustaining spells on you, as the gm could just blast the spirit if he wants to stop it from happeneing.

If your doing that trick, I suspect you'd be leaving the ally at home, chilling out, with a good bottle of wine and a cigar, so blasting him may not be an 'easy' option.

Dont you have to stay in LOS of a sustained spell. The spirit would have to materialize cast the spell and then he could unmaterialize and keep sustaining it. Also if he left afterwards he could be tracked by the link to the spell. And if he went back home to chill then congrats you just showed the bad guys where you live.

I don't think so? I could be completely wrong, but I am pretty sure you don't have to be in LOS to sustain a spell, but he certainly cannot dematerialize.

So really, I'd cast it on myself, then get him to stustain it while we are at home, then say 'Sweet gig, eh bro?' as he lights up his cigar and I go to do my job with a zillion layed spells (note to self: If doing this, extended masking and flexible signature are really good ideas too). Tracking the link I'm pretty sure is improvisation by you, do you have a rules quote?

Oh cool


I was thinking more of onsight spell sustaining but if players did what you are suggesting and slap on the spells at home I would make them pass through 50 barriers between home and where they need to go and most likely all while he is inside a vehichle so each ones knocks his ass out cold lol.

As for astral tracking pg185 BBB

Wards at least, can't be freestanding, so to go through any in a vehicle, let alone 50 would be REALLY weird, they would pretty much have to be sustained spells themselves. Also, afaict, the sustaining task is one that can be done without materializing.

The ally spirit as sustaining foci has it's downsides (needing to protect the ally being way up there), but random mana barriers on the street isn't one of them (at the destination, sure, but thats a problem for anyone who is somehow better at casting at home).

I think it's Kiddy... but most people don't want script kitties either, I guess.

Sounds like a potential errata to me.

As for the Gentleman's Argument bit about dice-pool range, the easiest way to handle this is for everyone at the table to determine which type of game they want to play, then agree to stick within the limits. Low-power? 6-8 is a good range with a 10 perhaps for the speciality skill/couple of skills. Mid/Normal powers? 8-10 with 12-13 for the 'speciality/specialties.'. High? Probably looking around a range of 8-14, with 8s being some scattered 1's and 2's in skills that get teamed up with higher attributes, and the specialities running 16+.

If it's ironed out at the start, there won't be an issue with dice pools, in my experience. But it's a good gentleman's rule to have.

That's not a gentleman's agreement, that's the rules. Yes, I am aware that Street Magic erroneously lists "Sustain Spells" as an available service to request from an Ally, and yes I am aware that would be totally broken. But it also lists exactly zero spell categories that it can sustain. So as written it can sustain none of your spells for all eternity for no cost.

Anything else would require a very unwise house rule.

-Frank

That makes no sense. Your ally has to be connected to a metaplane. And the metaplane better be one of the ones available to your tradition which would have a corresponding spell catagory. Like a shaman ally that is from the earth metaplanes = health

What really makes no sense is why the heck should an Ally spirit be crappier than an unbound/bound spirit that CAN sustain and or bind spells ???

Knowledge skills: I base thresholds on obscurity.

Dice Pools: Avg npc 4-8 / PC and "profesionals" 8-up,obviously adjusted by race and situation.

Set of Wounds: This can be a messy damage management situation from the heal spell, if I'm shot twice can
I have Heal spell cast on me twice? Or cast on me once and then again if I'm wounded again. I go with the latter, one heal spell then can be cast again if I'm wounded again.

Drain: Drugs and rest, stim patches or other stimulants or rest.

Skill Max: Max is 7, if going with attribute rules bonus dice still count but not direct skill mods?

Brain Hacking: Is the bastard child of Dumpshock and a gypsy fortune teller.

Spell Targeting: Seen this answered here on DS and think in FAQ ultrasound and I believe radar create a
view from information as opposed to enhancing what your already seeing. So no
spell targeting?

Limbs: To keep it simple I average total body stats natural+cyber arm,leg,torso and head.

Gotta go with Abb on Ally spirit thought. Why would'nt ally be able to do what normal summoned spirit could? Not an added game breaker if it can already be done another way..right?

Well, I'm no expert, but I suspect that on a normal spirt, sustaining a spell is a service. If its like Sprites and threading (which, oddly, I DO remember) then it's a service ever round or somesuch.

An ally spirit has essentially 'unlimited services' which means you summon once and sustain indefinitely, whereas with an ordinary spirit you would have to summon new ones constantly as you burned their services on sustaining...

I can see how that is somewhat broken, can't you?

What I don't really understand about the Ally sustaining thing is that Allies have the 'Magician' quality. Why cast a spell yourself and suffer the drain when you can have your Ally do it for you? Your Ally can maintain as many spells as it has dice to keep casting them, which seems like a reasonable way to limit the number.

Standard spirit would use a service yes. But that service is'nt one round it would be till it's time was up would'nt it? How does that make the ally more useful other then resummoning or using additional services? It's just a convenience issue then.

A convenience issue that could very well get you killed. Constant conjuring is safe if you stick within your limits, work within a safe area and have little else for your Spirits to do, but since we're talking about shadowrunners here I'm going to go out on a limb here and say those things aren't always an option. Sustaining foci have a pretty wide array of limitations you have to work around, and making Ally Spirits capable of sustaining any spell you please for as long as you want without counting against your bound spirits or bound/active focus limit is pretty silly. As for whether they're connected to a specific metaplane or not, that is neither here nor there, especially since ally spirits are shaped by the designer of their formula. They're not earth, blood or fire spirits, they're ally spirits-- magical chimeras cobbled together by an initiate who cherry picks some of the powers used by spirits they can normally summon and nothing more.

Nah.

It's measured in seconds per service used.

It has always been useless, all the way back to SR1. You can burn force to make it last longer but that's a long walk of a short pier in the long-run.

One service is used in spirits force x services owed combat turns. 179 BBB

A force 5 spirit with 4 services owed could sustain a spell for 20 combat turns......I don't have many combats that last 20 combat turns. I don't see giving an ally the same ability a break.

Binding opens up a nastier can of worms...does it deplete the allies force?

By the same logic:
Force 5 ally x infinite services = infinite time.

Lol, didn't see page two.

-You dump all that karma into ally's to get extra cool abilities like infinite spell sustaining.
-Having it cast the spells would be bad because each sustained spell is -2 to their spellcasting.
-If your ally spirit gets geeked which metaplane do you goto to help it return quicker Street Magic pg 94 Disruption
-pg 103 SM: Ally Spirit Formula can also be gained via a metaplaner quest..
-pg 105 SM: Native Plane. Spirit plane is specified in formula, doesnt necessarily grant abilities/powers of that plane..
-Ally spirits can perform any service possable of an unbound/bound spirit... pg 105 SM open-ended service

Like I said Forcex3 seconds per service owed. The only real use I can see for that is healing.

As you point out combat doesn't last long, by the time you've gotten any augmentation spells cast and handed off to a Spirit it's all over bar the shouting.

That's why an Ally able to sustain spells indefinitely is so potentially broken. It doesn't need LOS so it isn't vulnerable like Sustaining Foci and Quickening and it don't cost nothing.

So not as vulnerable as foci or quickening.....but really no different then a summoned spirit.

No.

With an Ally you can be running around with Increased Reflexes (4), Armour (10), etc, etc, 24/7

Sustained by an Ally sitting at home behind a huge-ass Barrier those spells are untouchable, no Astral Forms to attack or run into Barriers, only thing you have to worry about is counterspelling.

Sorry man, but you seem to be missing the point. Yes a summoned spirit can sustain a spell for 20 combat rounds, but that requires you to cast the spell as and when you need it.

If ally spirits worked as Abbandon and you would like it to, you could just cast the spell in the privacy of your own home and then it would be sustained indefinitely.

If you can't see where that is a problem, then I'm not sure what else I can say.

Yeah, you have to remember that you also have to dump karma into binding foci to get cool sustained abilities without an ally as well as spend cash on getting the focus in the first place; that's a bit expensive you consider that you'll likely want things like Illusion Foci to be taken at Force 4 in order to have the option of beating object resistance. While it is indeed even more expensive to initiate and whip up say, a force 3 or 4 ally spirit, it's not so bad when you consider you've got an extra loyal spirit buddy who can provide bread and butter powers like Concealment, Movement or Guard 24/7 with no fuss or can be given a skill you know but haven't invested many points in. Remember, any skills it picks up from you at its creation are considered to be at a rating equal to its Force, so knowing the basics of a useful skill like First Aid and creating a Force 4 Ally with said First Aid skill can be quite handy when you're bleeding to death. And as I said before, an ally spirit doesn't contribute to your bound spirit or foci cap. They don't really need to double as a sustaining focus to justifiy their existence.

Bleh.

Just apples and oranges...if cast three spells before combat and tell the spirit to sustain and then go hide I've used 3 IP. With an ally I've used none. Looking forward to the Street Magic errata on this stuff.

You are saying the difference between having 3 IP to use and not having 3 IP to use is not a material difference??

Plus you have to be aware you need to cast the spells before the combat, which means you have to be aware of the combat - with an Ally spirit sustaining indefinitely you don't have to be aware of anything at all 'cause the spells are always there.

Again, if this is not broken to you, I'm running out of ways to clarify...

No you were very clear the first time and I get it. Guess just playing devils advocate in an attempt to rationalize RAW. I know hoping we'll get a clarification is only a maybe and I hate to have notebook full of house rules if I can help it. And I hate removing bits of RAW without giving benefit of the doubt.

I think Frank was pretty clear that it was an error.

I can't understand why he hasn't arranged for the FAQ to be updated at the very least.

I mean seriously this is the internet, it wouldn't take 20 seconds to do...

I am sure there is a fair amount of bureaucracy to arm-wrestle with to make any official ruling.

I was under the impression that Catalyst was a pretty small outfit. Like about a dozen guys?

How much bureaucracy can there be?

Beware of peeking behind the curtain of the Wizard of Oz,, you may not like what you see.

If there are 12 persons, do they all agree? if not how do you make a ruling/clarification?

WMS

That's what those big metal D20's are for...