BishopMcQ,
I read the example. It indicates that the runner shot at the mischief and after all modifiers were applied he did 4P to the mischief and one bat fell dead. Does this effect the group rating or the population, or neither? How would a direct attack be different from a single target attack? Again, I like the idea alot for dealing with large groups but want to make sure I understand it perfectly before trying to use it in a room full of rules lawyers (aka my players).

Make the Sprawl Tokyo, use some kind of School for the Setting. ^^


FLYING TENTACLE-MONSTER(s)!


Allways glad to make someone smile or laugh ^^

If you can get your grubby paws on a copy, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7ck5mcd1o and go from there ^^

Yeah, that's allways fun ^^
One can do that with Unicorns as well ^^

It's much more fun to use the Protosapient breed.

I shall say no more.

Oh, I wasn't taking it as a knock. Just hoping that people understand that we're often in "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations -- release too much info/teaser material too soon and we're, well, teases; but if we stay silent for too long, "Shadowrun is dying." [Not putting those words in your mouth, but I saw someone say that last week, and I had a good bitter laugh and then released two new PDFs. ]

Say more to me, i don't really know what you are talking about O.o

Also, something with Tentacles does not have to mean a critter.
Surge and Squid-Head and make something like chthulhu or however that's called ^^

or have them go after some re-purposed oil rig, or maybe some sea bottom habitat

hell, they may even run into it, crossing a bridge, while its snacking on canned goods

If the Runners run into it, it will be snacking on canned goods soon enough, provided the runners come in enough armor ^^

ah, got to love portion packs

Protosapients are animalistic AIs that have now speciated. There's a species call Tentacles - they "eat" Persona Icons. Obviously, Tentacles have tentacular iconography - and lack any other discernable features.

someone played too much day of the tentacle i guess ^^

I personally enjoyed that game.

Further question on Swarms and Mischief's.
Swarms have the following modifiers applied to them that are not mentioned in the discription of Mischief's. Do they carry over?
• Individual wound modifiers are not assigned to the population of the Swarm
• the Group Rating acts as a positive dice pool modifier to attack
• Damage Value of physical attacks is increased by the Group Rating
• Group Rating also serves as a positive dice pool Modifier for all skill tests

Yeah, Day of the Tentacle. Sure.

In, all Running Wild an intriguing attempt in the continued effort by SR4 to systematize a rather sprawling game. I wish it had been more like Street Magic, which combined and reduced the spectrum of primary spirits to the main ten -- and carried over the basic system (5 spirits per tradition) to toxics, insects and shadows.

Rather, the spirits section of RW seems to have multiplied spirits, with some confusion and redundancy. For instance, shouldn't the bean sidhe arguably be a form of crone? Why make 'fey' distinct from spirits if they are, for all practical purposes, the same? How are harbingers different from other shadows/blood spirits? Why are some harbingers described as shadows (with no subtype) and others more specifically as wraiths? Might ghosts have been more succinctly described as wild spirit of man? Mightn't arboreals and men-of-the-woods have been the same thing? Why was no basic spirit type (like man) given for tanglewebs?

I wish there had been a more coherent pattern overall, rule-wise, even if things are meant to be mysterious, fluff-side.

But, then again, I'm frustrated generally with the sort of confusing redundancies that exist in SR, such as satyrs/wild satyrs, minotaurs/wild minotaurs, banshees/bean sidhe, fomori/fomoraig, etc. Not to mention dryads as metavariant vs. dryads as plant spirits, or the same for gnomes (earth) and oni (shadow).

On a separate note, I wish the book had added more non-European creatures that have been heretofore mentioned only in passing, such as garuda, fu lions, etc. Or added more non-western great dragons, to balance things out on that scale. No pun intended. LOL

Ok, so I'm going to go through some of my shorthand for GM notes, since I will use it in my example here. When running a Swarm or Mischief, I generally note it as Rating/Population. A Rating 4 Swarm with a Population of 67 would be noted as S-4/67. Likewise a Rating 2 Mischief with a Population of 9 would be M-2/9.

A single target/Direct attack is one which when targeting a metahuman would normally only hit one person. Area of Effect attacks could hit multiple individuals based on proximity. Rating of a Swarm/Mischief changes based on the total Population--per the table on p. 25, Running Wild. (This is clarified in the first paragraph under the Swarms and Mischiefs header.)

Now, here we go...
From the example, Marcos opens fire on a M-2/9 (that's Rating 2 Mischief, Pop. 9). After the Mischief soaks damage, one bat falls to the ground leaving M-2/8. So the population is reduced, but the Rating stays the same until crossing the next threshold. His friend Sammy, the gun-bunny, opens fire with a long burst from his assault rifle at the group of bats. The burst due to some luck, does 12 boxes of damage to the Mischief after soaking--this kills 3 bats. The Population of the Mischief goes from 8 to 5, which reduces the Rating. After Marcos and Sammy are done, they are facing a M-1/5 (Rating 1 Mischief, Pop. 5)

Does that clear things up?

(I changed the bullets to numbers to make it easier for me.)

All of the information in the Swarm Characteristics paragraph applies to Swarms and Mischiefs--they are generic characteristics and restrictions which are shared. The following paragraphs that separate them out are used to define the differences between the types. 1 through 4 all apply to Mischiefs and Swarms equally.

1--To make it easier for GMs to not have to track wound modifiers across 20-30 different critters in a single swarm, the damage mechanics described later were applied.
2-4--Swarms and Mischiefs don't use the Teamwork rules, so the Group Rating is applied instead.

BishopMcQ,
Thats what I was thinking but wanted to clairify it before bringing it into my game. I like to tell my players, "yes this is what they meant when they wrote it" rather than just saying "this is what I think so lump it".

There are plenty of critteres from the first 3 editions that have still not been converted to SR4:
Abrams Lobster
Aitvaras
Bayard
Blood Kite
Bombardier
Bulldog Stoat
Burrowing Beaver
Cat, Wild
Century Ferret
Corps Cadavre
Corpselight
Enwontzane
European Gargoyle (unless you assume it's the same as the normal Gargoyle)
Flame Jackal
Foulmart
Fox
Gyre
Imperial Eagle
Kludde
Leopard
Leviathan
Mami Wata
New Boar
Nutria
Peryton
Protean
Rock Lizard
Salamander (unless you assume it a Fire Spirit)
Scintillant Albatross
Shapeshifter, Warek
Shasta Deer
Siberian Bee
Siberian Firebird
Snow Moose
Stone Toad
Tachypus
Talis Cat
Unicorn, Greater
Vampiric Pawn (unless you assume it's just a persone affected by "Renfield")
Wraith

Lars

That was the intent, yes. It came after long discussion with a number of people as to how bollixed up vampiric pawns were in earlier editions. Probably the biggest change I made to anything in regards to HMHVV.

Okay, now that (hopefully) some of the vitriol is out of my system: Taken as its own entity, not necessarily a reflection of the rules, was the Infected section useful or entertaining for anyone?

hi hi

I've been waiting for this book ever since I started playing Shadowrun. I don't know if any other edition had a book specifically with rules on how to use critters as pets, being a player character. Always wanted to see a mundane character be able to augment his/her abilities with a dual natured pet of some kind. Hopefully I'll get a chance to read it soon.

I like it, though I probably would have been more specific about the magical compound at the end.

Ran out of space.

The aitvaras has been rewritten as the lindworm, in the dragons section, I think.

Bought my Running Wild but didn't have the time to read through today. ^^

Need some advise, my runners are now on a speeding maglev in the Austrian Alps, facing a freshly emerged AI (they don't know yet) and another enemy party is a toxic Norse with his e-Ghost Brother. But i guess they'll do it and go on with their actual mission, salvaging a "treasure" from a lake deep within a toxic zone in southern austria.
It got that way when the Dschihad was fought by the Danube Union and the DU used some biological warfare on the muslims. Before i read the book, any suggestions on what to encounter and what does Running Wild provide me rules-wise for toxic and mutated critter?

That one should be completely covered by any Posession Tradition.



Isn't that simply a leopard shifter with Allergy (Gold) instead of silver?
RC has optional rules for that.



Wraiths are now a subset of Shadow Spirits (found in Street Magic).

It's a pity they didn't include Talis Cats, Abram's Lobsters, Corpselights and Proteans, though.
Well, as long as the Blackberry Cat is still around...

Thanks for the list, BTW.

So they've cut a few old favorites. Did they add any paranormals?

No, those are saved for Running Wild 2.

"Running Very Wild"

Thanks for chuckle/sigh Grinder.

You're welcome.

a thought came to mind, can warforms be intelligent? and if so, can they be a PC?

if so, say hello to sla industries, shadowrun style

Warforms cannot be granted Sapience, so whlie intelligent, they would be limited to the Non-Sapient Intelligence scales. To my knowledge there have been no successful "Upliftings" of animals to Metahuman levels.

So no stormer warforms running the shadows...

The following list is based only on the SR1, SR2, SR3, SR4, PNAoNA, PNAoE, Critters and Runners Companion. Some of the critters will likely have appeared in previous products and editions in other books.

They added the following (unless things was changed at the last moment):

Alufye
Apparitions
Arboreals
Artnwerre
Blood Dog
Bonzo
Borax Burro
Chalico
Cicak
Demon Rat
Drop Bears
Elder Lindworm
Emperor Eagle
Flesh Walker
Gamma Spider
Gan
Gnawer
Grendel
Grim Reaper
Harvester
Hell Cow
Horned Bear
Imp
Kappa
Kiwig
Kokopelli
Lab Rats
Leprechaun
Lindworm
Metaroo
Mutaqua
Neogargoyle
Night Manta
Phantoms
Road Racer
Roc, Greater
Sand Chameleon
Shadow Crawler
Shambler
Silap Inua
Snatcher
Storm Wraith
Tanglewebs
Tasmanian Tiger
Temu
Twisted stymphalian
Wild Demon Bear
Wombrick

Lars

The Lindworm is a survival from SoLA.

Mentioning SoLA makes us cry...

Like hungry, angry babies.

I'm very pleased overall with RW, and I'm looking forward to the new corporation and criminal syndicate books.

No one seems to want my head vis a vis drop bears, I feel much better now....

I'm guessing none of the drake players read the new Dragonspeech optional rules yet.

Flipped through it yesterday and must say that the technocritters are pure genius, although i felt that they should've been introduced earlier and mentioned in Emergence.

Hope to get my dirty hands on a hardcover of it. Now i have some ideas with what to harass my players... *hrhr*

Looking at the rules on creating Mutants, one of the stats were 1 point of essence loss for every 2 points of stat increase. But the example given for the bear mutant then appears to show 1 essence for every stat increase.

1 per 2 stat increases, and 1 per each quality or level of quality. since the bear only had 1 stat increase, it lost 1 point of essence. had there been 2 stats increased by 1, or 1 stat increased by 2, the bear would have only lost 1 point of essence for the pair.

it then lost 2 points, 1 for each quality. total essence lost: 3 points (i suppose if you want to feel better about it, you can always just decide that animals lose .5 essence per stat increase, so the bear would have only lost 2.5)

Most Dangerous Critter in RW? Not counting Drop Bears!

Basets (Techno-cats)... hm... maybe you should define "dangerous".

"In other news, Damien Knight has announced that Ares will be switching all their Weapon Manufacturing plants to Tuna Manufacturing plants, effective immediately..."

*snickers* i think i know why i seem to like you Tiger ^^

in other news:
EEEWWW . . the shadowrun giant amoeba things are real now it seems x.x
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07...th_carolina.php

Anciant History,

I did see the section on Dragonspeech but have no Drake players in my game. The fact that they can learn Dragonspeech now is kinda cool. Is it clasified as telepathy?

Yes.

ok, why am i thinking x-files here...

Is communication sent via Dragonspeech limited to the languages known by the dragon? Is Dragonspeech a one-way sending by the dragon, or can it 'hear' the 'thought-replies' of those it communicate with? Is any of this covered in RAW?

Yes.


One-way - unless the subject has Dragonspeech too.


Nope!