http://www.shadowrun4.com/wordpress/?p=220

So - how many people will be "GM's discretion-ing" those out of their games? I know I will ...

... maybe I will allow it if I ran an uber campaign, the same one where I allow PC jarheads and vampires and stuff?

My abbreviated response: NO.

I seriously hope this is a Day Late April Fool's joke.

Oh hell no! Not as PC's!

I can see using one of these as a contact or even as a plot NPC, but not as PC's.

Hah, well - as we were just saying on IRC - if you don't like an optional rule (especially from the book that is "the optional rules book") then you don't have to use it.

I guess it's kind of nice that it has been put in the companion, and if the SRC is going to be a big hardback like the other 'crunch books' I think they have a lot more space to fill than they did in the SR3 companion. Plus, the companion doesn't need to contain the point-buy system for chargen anymore.

Either way, whilst that's a "grab your attention" kind of thing to put in the preview, I can't say dracoform PCs would be something I would use day-to-day. They would be saved up for a really high-powered campaign I think, especially since I like dragons to be really rare (like, 'you can't play one as a PC' rare).

Aww, I still can't spend more than half my points on attributes. Must be for those more than 400 BP characters where this would be a problem, since there's a 300 or 325 BP cost to be a dragon.

I can't imagine too many GM's allowing their players to be Dragons, but its good to have a format to build NPC's with.

I'd guess dragon PCs would be for an all-dragon high-power game. If a GM allows a PC dragon into a regular game, it's the GM to blame, not the rules.
The Companion has always been about optional and alternate rules and settings and unless the designers don't go overboard with catering to niche settings, I'm ok with it.

Intriguing.

Go Obsidimen!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Wow! If that is not an April fool's joke then I don't know what it is. Seriously, Drakes are already hard enough to pull off, real Dragons now? I'm not believing this until I see it in print. The biggest issue would not actually be the raising of PC powerlevel, but the complete nerfing of dragons to make them balanced as PCs.

Operating on the assumption that this isn't an April Fool's joke, does this mean that Runner's Companion has leapfrogged Unwired? Where is Unwired, anyhoo?

Ooh, good catch! I was distracted by the dragons.

This was actually posted today...well, i'll just roll with it.

It's nice to have BP costs for statting out prime runner NPCs, but besides that...

In a normal 400 BP campaign, i don't see how a dragon PC built under the preview's rules could be of much use, with only 75-100 points (or a max of 135, if the player chooses a feathered serpent or leviathan and goes for the full amount of handicaps) to distribute after paying the racial BP.
Good luck squeezing a viable build out of that...
The only possibility i see here is playing an utterly incompetent just-past-wyvern-stage young dragon for the sake of...i hardly dare saying it...RP.

In 600+ BP campaigns...well, who plays with > 600 BP?
Not anyone i know.

Nice for oneshots or miniseries, probably, but i never had the idea to try this.

However, i don't see where the presented rules would lead to dracoforms being overpowered.
In fact, they might pretty much suck without tons of karma.

Gonna be the new PC shapeshifters...



And, BTW, i second what Earlydawn has to say :
WHERE THE HECK IS UNWIRED???

Obsidimen!

Woooooohooooooooo!!!!!!!

[runs around in circles, arms raised high]

The last I think anyone said on unwired was it had been sent to final layout?

Dragons ok it can be worked with but to me the thing I liked was the mini blurb on Obsidimen.

Oh like HELL NO!! Oh jeez just what I need in my games. Obsidimen and Drakes/Dracoforms. I am a Canon/RAW kinda GM but this really pushes the envelope on my tolerance levels.

Forget it Casazil. You are not getting a Gene Treated BioWare loaded Dragon.

I'm going to think "out loud" here, feel free to ignore me. I'm going to examine the Western Dragon:
Sooo, Body is large. Is it really worth the 110 BP for a +11 Body? No, because you're not going to be able to put standard worn armor such as armored jackets or anything on them, so their ability to resist incoming damage is 20 dice (including their hardened armor of 8 ) 8 is nice, but not OMFG broken. If I ignore the hardened-ness of the armor it's about like a Body 7 character wearing maximum armor, in terms of soaking dice rolled. I'll ballpark it as such, so for the moment I'll call this roughly 60BP worth of body. Sure, you can add magical armor on top of that, but so can anyone else.

Agility is a +3. That's cool. Of course, you don't have the spare BP to get it any higher than that, so while it's definitely worth the 30BP, you're ending up with a relatively moderate Agility.

Reaction of +4. Similar situation as Agility. It's sweet and worth every penny, but you simply don't have the BP to go much above that.

Strength. Wow. That's a lot of strength. Fortunately, strength is the crappiest attribute in the game (IMO) It's only really useful for melee damage (which is fixed at 10P and not strength dependent), thrown weapons and bows (ummmmm, no), and a little bonus recoil compensation (again, no). So they can lift a lot. Woo. A strength of 35 which can not be applied to damage or recoil is so close to worthless I'm just going to skip it's cost in my consideration. It's obviously worth something, but I'm being quick-n-dirty here.

Cha, Int, Log, Will, all 5's. Of course any magician would have the ones they need that high. It's well worth the +4x4=160 BP, though.

Magician is 15BP + 50BP worth of Magic.

Sensitive system is worth -15BP and you get something considerably worse.

So that's 340 BP with my fuzzy-math. And bear in mind that these attributes still aren't worth what they're "worth", since it's a package. You're being forced to pay for attributes which you otherwise might not, so that should devalue the whole package a little.

There's the neato summoning of all 10 spirit types. Of course, any GM who would consider letting you play a dragon would've let you design your own tradition, so you'd be getting the 5 you really wanted anyway. The other 5? A tasty little bonus, but this is a case where 10 does not equal 2x5.

You get a bonus IP. Cool, but I can't imagine normal IP-boosting drugs would work for you, so there goes the simplest way to boost IP and puts you even with the cheapest of cheapy-cheap guards in terms of initiative enhancement. You can still boost your initiative magically, but so can a mage, so there's no inherent bonus here, and you're still limited to 4IP total. Oh, and you can't get cyberware or adept powers. Meh.

+2 Reach is cool. It almost sort of makes up for your sub-standard agility (if you're talking about melee builds, 4 is substandard)

There's that bonus for people to hit you in ranged combat that somewhat devalues your Reaction. You barely have the BP to get the most basic of skills, contacts, gear (what little you can use, anyway). There's a lot of baggage and difficulty that comes with being a big fuck-off dragon.

I'm really not seeing this as being all that overpowered. And if you still don't like it, it's optional.

I would say the announcement came one day to late...

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that with the Obsidimen entry at the top of Page 1 gives it away. From what I remember, didn't they say that because Living Room Games had the license now for Earthdawn, didn't that prevent them from doing outrightly obvious Earthdawn > Shadowrun connections?

OTOH, is that a picture of Schwartzkopf teaching?

"Playing an adult dragon"...

Even if it was an April Fools joke, the supplied material is quite sufficient... if a player ever gets a spot for a dragon PC, the role of "snack provider" goes with it.

Either CGL is off their timing, or ... RC will contain really insane things.

I do believe this is april fool's, though.

If everyone's just going to say "is good", "is bad", or "is a joke" we should just make a poll.
Does anyone have any actual reasoning to go with their knee-jerks?

edit: There are one or two people this comment was not directed at.

300 BP for a leviathan? This is the first thing that has given me any interest in SR4.

I hope they fix the typos before they publish it >.<

And I think an April Fools joke would lack the whole "optional rules, think VERY carefully before using" part.

That said, Dragons are like Shapeshifters - neat, but critically flawed in many ways. Dragons have much more potential for advancement than any other type of PC, but they also start off with very little in skills, gear, and spells, 100 BP worth at the most. Well 135 with negative qualities. They really don't have much in the way of limits, but it would take hundreds of karma to go from where they start out to where they max out. These are dragons after all, not great dragons. They are not, and never will be demi-god-like, they are just very powerful monsters.

Speaking of which, they are enormous monsters. They can't really do anything in their dragon form without starting a fuss. Even a basic Shadowrun in dragon form would get the HRT called. So dragons are pretty much forced to sustain a Shapechange spell at all times, which takes away the benefit of some their amazing attributes. And the rules don't say that dragons ignore the rules for Shapechange - you can only turn into forms with +- 2 body. So a Western Dragon with minimum body could only turn into a troll. If he raised his body to max, Shapechange couldn't possibly turn him into a metahuman.

Its good because it has dragons in it. Its an extreme package, but rather balanced by the price. I would be hesitant to allow it because I could not accept someone casually playing a dragon. There would be a need of great role-playing, and of buying favour with the other players. And the whole campaign would need to be rather high-powered. But I have a great idea for a super-villain now... a smallish dragon they can handle.

yep, from DOTSW(DOT6W) i think . . . but still, with how they've been reusing pictures of canon companion in arsenal, we can'T be sure if that is an indicator for a joke or not . .

Excellent point. I would add that letting PCs play dragons de-mystifies the dragons. They used to just be an "OMG, cheese it!" sort of moment. There have always been stats for dragons in the main book, but this just makes them seem less, I don't know, alien.

@Moonhawk: +4 Agility's AWESOME. Who said the dragon isn't going to use a gun? And +2 reach is bad-ass, too. Reach is really useful, and actually goes a LONG way toward making up for 4 Agility (which like I said, isn't that bad). As a dragon, you won't have to try very hard at all to become a close combat nightmare.

So yes, I hope this is a joke. But it makes me sad, anyway.

I hope the hell it isn't a joke. I mean sure it isn't something everyone will use, but in the right group it could work assuming it was for RP reasons. I mean RP reasons like an undercover lone star cop, as in Knasser's version of the clue files showed once. Plus this is only a small section of the book, they probably chose this because they knew it would stir up the most discussion if it is indeed genuine.

To me, these where more like "oh, it only takes one burst of APDS from my assault shotgun to take down a dracoform" sort of moments.

Honestly, when you want to go all super-superhuman and mysterious, go for great dragons.
Dracoforms are nothing more than big, smart lizards.
Nothing a high-grade initiate, jarhead or CZ couldn't compete with.
In fact, a maxed-out street sam who manages to shoot first could take them out.
Once more, the whole eggshells with hammers thing.
And i think the rules could do a much, much worse job at representing this.
Depending on the amount of BP a draconic PC starts with, it would be a very young specimen, completely lacking the experience of its more famous brethren and therefore also their terrific attribute values, spell selection and so on.
Wizworms aren't born awesome, they need centuries, no, millenia, to reach their full potential.

I still wouldn't advise to stat out dragon PCs with less than 600 BP, unless you intend them to end up just plain laughable, but both of these options might be worth considering for some players.

I agree with moon-hawk's math. I wouldn't say it is for a high powered game. I would however say it is not a thing for the PC's who are novices of faint of heart. I mean A) you are dual natured, B) you are as Moon-Hawk put it so beautifully, "a big fuck-off dragon." Take into consideration too that you are dual natured which is not that good of a thing in a lot of situations. And any astrally percieving being has a chance of seeing your true nature.

Also consider the fact that they are uber rare. Now, some may say 'very rare' is an argument to keep a PC from playing something. But in a system like this I would allow someone to be somethign very rare and odd purely out of curiosity of seeing how long it'd take them to tie a noose and hang themself when given a bit of rope. This is just not a world for dragons and such a person pretty much HAS to have a shapechanging spell just to get around. And if you don't you'll have an exceptionally short career, if not already shortened by the fact that you are hideously easy to identify thanks to your unique nature. I can see automatic points of notoriety stacking up rather fast.

"Did you get a look at the perpetrator?"
"Yes, he was a big fraggin' lizard!"
That really narrows down the search significantly.

Also consider dragons are territorial critters and some shadowrunner areas are in the domains of various dragons. Attracting the attention of another dragon could end up being far worse as a young easy to kill dragon then doing so as a metahuman who may be deemed not worth the effort.

It isn't a bed of roses, everything is going agianst you and with only 100 or less build points to play with you'll be at quite a handicap. That is even assumng a shadowrunner team accepts you. I can imagine a lot of shadowrunnres would see a dragon as more of a liability then a boon and won't be too open to the prospect of working with one. Remember the age old adage "Watch your back. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon." You'll probably run into sour feelings around every corner.

You may as well be walking around with a big bullseye on your back.

I wouldn't play one. And if I saw a player doing one, I wouldn't pull punches and I'd make sure he'd be fully aware of what he is getting into, (and possibly make sure the other players know too.) I've been in a shadowrunner team where one runner was ousted for pure incompetence and making himself a liability. I can see a dragon running into similar problems if not done wisely.

(Edit: Oye, not only did I tyop thing as think, I got the tyop quoted, the humiliation! Yes, I intentionally spell tyop as tyop it helps avoid attracting the attention of the tyop fairies who invariably assail your work either way, but at least this way you can mitigate it.)

*snerk*

I'm almost tempted to believe it's real - they left an awful lot of typos in that for it to be anything other than a ready-for-first-printing Shadowrun release.

also: as a dragon, you are literaly made of expensive and rare reagents. alchemists, talismongers and organ harvesters are gonna be watching you with greedy eyes.

i guess i shouldn't be surprized by the PC dragon characters, since i remember one of the devs metioning the possibility of PC AI characters.

here's how you can tell it's a joke:

when do they release *real* previews? when they have a street date. which is usually around the time the PDF comes out.

not that i would have a problem with rules for dragon PCs, but it's clearly not a real preview.

if this is real, i sure hope either RC or unwired include rules for playable AI's...

I personally hope for playable Totems and Passions.

I'm reading this post and reading a lot of people freak out about the topic. Let's pretend this isn't a joke...So what, sounds fun. I can think of a decent amount of reasons I'd implement the dragons. In our current game running, "most" of the characters have been around since 4th editions release date (and runners from 2nd & 3rd edition who were converted as well). I have magicians with magic ratings of 12, Riggers who are looking to buy stealth bombers, and street samurai's who are leading in Anarch revolutions. We meet once a week and have a great time.

Now if one of them were to die from some of their enemies they've acquired over time and wanted to try a dragon out, no problem. While I agree that the dragon option should be used only after careful consideration from the GM, I don't think attacking the idea is constructive. Just because it is not good for your game doesn't mean that some game out there wouldn't invite the idea with open arms.

P.S. And if you don't agree with me, while you can't see it...I'm flicking you off right now!

btw, look at the costs, at 400 most will go into being the dragon, while the rest can outfit themselves with all those nice toys

and from the looks of it, these are not great dragons. so no at will shape change. your either a dragon or you learn to cast shapechange as a spell...

all in all, you may as well paint a very very big bullseye on your forehead

Classic!

Admin post: Dude, this sort of behavior isn't necessary. There are some forums where it may be the default and encouraged way of acting, but it's not, here.

So western dragon with a bow is new damage record

On a more serious note these rules are reasonably balanced for a number of uses.

Even ignoring the anomalous strength value and magic, feathered serpent repays its points value purely on stats. Yes, they come as a package, but if we treat things like the 16 hardened armour vs mundane attacks as fringe benefits of that, the package looks relatively attractive.

Anyone else notice they have no edge? Typo, omission or the cost of playing a dragon?

Ok, assuming just for the moment that this is actually real ...

Why would Dragons have their ability to use Magic already paid for with Race? This would allow them access to more Positive Qualities than any other Awakened character, who has to use precious BP (and even more precious 'Quality Points') for that benefit.

I'm pretty sure they automatically have magician packaged, so more BP for qualities (except for having spent them all your BP on dragon).

This thing is just sad. If it's meant as an 1st April joke, it came too late, and if it's meant to be real, it's just badly written.

It just needs another round of playtesting.

they have 8 hardened armor actually.

the other ability gives them 8 hardened armor on the astral too, as i understand it.

I too am curious. Does this mean that Unwired has been pushed back to be released behind RC ?

...I don't even bother with NPC dragons in my campaigns let alone allow a PC to be one. I don't even care very much for Meta-variants and Shapechangers.

Like Emergence, this one looks pretty much like a miss for me unless it has some really good setting and lifestyle fluff.

Ok, let me say that I really hope this is some kind of late April's Fool joke. It would make sense it is late. It is coming from a game publisher we all know they never do anything on time. The reason I am hoping so hard for this to be a joke is the fact it is so poorly written and so full of typos and grammerical errors. But, given the plethora of poor grammer in Arsenal, I just don't know. I will post a few examples.

"Evidently a dragon is exempt from Piloting Tests to move about normally,"
Evidently? Why is that disclaimer even there in a non-fluff rule sentence?

"Every time a dragon loses Essence to implantation he must make a Willpower + Magic Test with a Threshold of 3. If he fails he automatically gains a 10 point Mental Negative Quality."
Every dragon has a combined base Willpower + Magic of 11. Just raise either one more point and they can beat this with just buying successes.

"Fortunately the development of AR has made it easier than ever to interface with technology—though this requires specialized nanotrodes custom-made and configured to the draconic brain which are both expensive and difficult to acquire on open market (Cost: 50,000Y and Availability 20) but might be possible to procure from certain corporations in return for services rendered."

Then the very next paragraph on the next page contradicts this!!

"Dragons in their natural form have some difficulty using trode-nets, since they must be custom-designed for them, costing 20 times the normal amount."

"All cyber, bio, nano and geneware augmentations for dragons must be custom-designed, of course, making them automatically the equivalent of deltaware with an additional cost multiplier of 4 (for a total multiplier of 12 times the normal cost)."

Last time I checked, deltaware costs x10. And 4+10 doesnt equal 12.

"kept to dragonkind. which allows higher level"

Need to capitalize the 'W' in which and the black box isn't the correct size for the paragraph.

Those caps are ridiculous. I'm as big of a fan magic and other oddities as the next guy, but this has higher caps in all stats then other meta types (2 of those doubled). A couple drugs, buffs and a possession and even a starting character with no more build put into stats would be higher than any other metahuman augmented max.

I would have to see this come down or know the PC was a responsible player before I allowed this.

Edit: but with that said... I want to play >:)

Seriously? Like what, the first round?

Man AH, I thought Harlequin was enigmatic, but you're taking you're on a whole new level (Ha! Fraggin Ha!)

Seriously though, I just don't see what kind of roleplaying purpose this could have. I mean, how did a dragon get to the point that it needs to beg Johnson's for scraps? I just don't see it. As for AI's, make TMs playable first! They are close enough, just need some help in the BP and DP section.

...and if anyone insists on playing a dragon I will politely remind them that there has been a sudden quantum leap in fully autonomous precision targeted rapid fire Thor Strike capability ushering in the era of TungstenStorm™ technology

...brought to you by the forward thinking folks at Aeon Labs).