I know Dragons can piggy back ride on other Matrix users VR connections (Atleast they could, Celedyr used to do it?) . Is that an effect of Dragonspeech, or is it some different Dragon Power effect?

Ok some question:

If my character gets get exposed to the virus and manages to resist part of the of the essence loss he/she doesn't become a ghoul, what happens if he/she gets exposed a second time and the total essence loss reaches 1.0? Does he/she becomes a ghoul or he/she has to fail another whole batch of resistance tests?

If a total 1.0 essence loss spread over multiple inoculations is enough, does Cellular Repaire (Arsenal, genetech) reset the count?

You resist untill you have reached essence loss of 1 whole point. It does not matter, what happens in between and it seems not to matter if your essence is changed up or down.
When you have lost 1 point of Essence to the Virus, no matter how much time and things have passed in between the losses, you might want to consider relocating your lifestyle closer to the placenta restaurant.

That sucks, at least allowing cellular repaire to reset the count would allow to make ghouls not a total screw up.


By the way:



There was a line about watching out for cats stalking you, as mundane ones are afraid of metahumans.

Horned Bear, Night Manta, Demon Rat, and Shambler were all critters I wrote up for Year of the Comet, the result of SURGE and/or the rising mana level creating a new wave of Paranormals.

The other two from YotC were Glomoss (WHich has appears in STreet Magic, IIRC) and the Sangre Del Diablo (By far my favorite, if most limited, critter. Evil, sentient, carniverous trees for the win ) which is sadly missing from Running Wild.

Great game.

You have not yet read up on the "Ghouls: Do you tolerate them?"-Thread yet i gather? ^^

I did not want to think of other sources for that.

I just about shed a manly tear of happiness when I saw M'boi made it into an official Shadowrun book. My baby's all grown up now !

For those just tuning in, M'boi was originally from the long lost SoLA book. As one of the few survivors, I made a point of getting M'boi published in an official product.

Anybody seen "The Ruins"? I did recently and was pleasantly surprised. Made me think of the ol' Sangre Del Diablo, tho. I wish RW would have included some plant fauna, but thats okay... Its easy enough to adapt some of the critter powers to plants.... muahahaha...

Thank you for doing that . While the M'boi bit jumped out at me, all of the material in Running Wild was pretty good! I'm not sure when I will have the opportunity to use some of it in a game, but if nothing else it was fun reading about grues, drop bears and feral AI lolcats .

hi hi

As a friend of mine succinctly stated:

A moose bit my sister once...

hey, mooses are dangerous!

no, really! she was carving her initials on it with the sharpened end of a toothbrush...

Given to her by her brother in law Sveng, an Oslo dentist and star of many movies?

I officially love you for the Shambler. I look forward to the day when i can use it against my players for freaky goodness. Could be faster if you answer me the following question: Is it possible for them to live in central european swamp territory or would that be too much of a stretch? And how big can they become? They can become toxic too, what would be appropriate powers for them to aquire?

Other thing. Sadly the Protean is missing. It is one of the freakiest critters i ever met and the fluff in Paranormal Animals (of Europe i think?) made me think of "The Thing, holy shit!".

That's a shame - it was one of the coolest critters (well... sort of) ever.

Yeah, unbeatable reflexes.^^

First critter I ever used against my players, Incubus.
Most terrified players have ever been facing a critter, massive Protean.
First critter encountered while trekking across Germany, Kludde.
How many times I used Talis Cat, once.

Guess I can live without the cat entry.

There'd be reasons for Talis Cats not being used as critters in my Group of friends.
1. We love cats and probably would not be able to bring ourselves to harm them.
2. We like our Characters and would want to keep them around for a bit longer.
3. We think they are frigging scary.

just for newbies and old hats with corrupted memory backups, what was the abilities of the talis cat?

IIRC it was a perfectly normal cat, except that when it got angry it changed to a combat form which looked like a big feline (like a panther or a puma) and had the same stats too.

They got modified a bit in RW it looks like. By the original rules in Year of the Comet (Which was SR3 rules, obviously), the Shamblers added their victims body rating to their own when they glued them to its shell. They got a point of armor for every 6 Body points added this way (A fresh, unshelled Shambler had 4 body and no armor). Once they got a whopping 13 Armor points, they would spawn a baby Shamble, who would live in the shell for a couple months, feeding on it, before becoming old enough to move on and start creating it's own shell. Meanwhile, the parent Shambler would have started collecting a new shell of it's own (they're not exactly the nurturing, caring parental types). They also lost QUickness and Reaction (one for every 4 Armor), thus if they don't spawn at 13 armor, they become immobile soon after when their shell gets too heavy to drag around.

13 armor puts the thing up over 40 body. Plus, that's 40 body worth of corpses. So yeah, they can get pretty damn big

As for location, there's no reason they couldn't appear Europe. They're listed as "Global" for location in RW (and while in YotC there had only been just over a dozen sightings of them, it was noted that the sightings were "around the world").

And, considering where they live and, more importantly, how they live... I'd say turning Toxic is a definite possibility for one. The things to keep in mind when giving it toxic powers is that the Shambler does NOT want to kill its victim. It glues the victim to its shell live, then feeds off it. So the longer the victim lives, the more the shambler gets to eat (It drains fluids and nutrients out of the victim, rather than devouring the flesh).

Just digging through the powers list real quick... Animal Control is a potential power for small to medium creatures that may live in the same area as it (makes hunting that much easier ). Adaptive COloration would be a nasty one to give it. Compulsion works along the same lines as Animal Control. Confusion maybe. Immunities. Mimicry could be a fun power, especially in sewers ("You hear a little girls voice in the darkness calling 'Help me! I'm lost!" ). Mystic Armor. Paralyizing Howl. Petrification. Taint. Regeneration. Silence. All could work to make the critter that much nastier.

Weaknesses are a bit more restrictive, based on the nature of the thing. Reduced Senses hearing or touch maybe. Dietray Requirement (Only Metahumans. Makes it more of a hunter than a simple trapper). Allergies or Vulnerabilities to some odd elements or materials.

Honestly, these things are freaky, creepy, and fairly rare and solitary. So if you do use one, feel free to go nuts They make a good, fairly horrific monster to play with. The one time I used one in a game, the lead up was that the PCs heard about a rash of missing children in the area. When they came across the thing and started shooting at it, they realized that a couple of the kids glued to it's back were still alive even. Gave them a bit of a moral dilemma to deal with.

Bull

Kill them fast, kill it with fire.

Innate Spell (Passenger) from Digital Grimoire, based on Dragonspeech.

Oh man, Bull. I'm running a campaign in YotC right now. I'm definitely pinching this run idea.

Bull: Yeah i read through the YotC after i bought it some years ago and really thought "How awesome is it!"
Think i will base a toxic Shambler in the toxic wastes of southern Austria. Think it would be a cool critter for my team to encounter.

I just adjust the attributes a little to get a toxic shambler who grew along with his shell and bam. Think it would be fitting.

Want your critter never again to have to worry about finding sustenance?
give him something with regeneration in his shell . .

heh, makes me think of wolverine, when he supposedly survived a cross pacific trek by shipping container by eating his own arm flesh...

Hah, awesome. I can just see a Shambler with a Vampire "mounted" on the shell. And maybe some running lights, and spinners, and a spoiler...

Coming soon to a Trid Near You! Pimp My Shambler!!

Ok... I'm done now

Finished my Attribs for the toxic Shambler i will use against my guys. Boy i'm anxious about using it ^^ Will post it when i'm back from work.

Just to confirm AH, there is no advantage to this optional rule if your drake character is already a mage? It just allows minor spellcasting without the mage quality?

Seems that way. Great for Drake adepts.

I'm wondering if- for a normally non-caster type - if the Spellcasting (Detection Spells) specialization helps here. How about a Mentor Spirit bonus for Detection Spells? How about Detection Spell foci of various sorts?

Pretty much; there's nothing to stop a drake magician or sorcerer from learning it too, but there's no real benefit unless you run across a dracoform willing to teach it to you as an innate spell but not as a regular spell.

Finally i got the book, but i really have to say that i am very dissappointed. It is not about the content, more because of the lacking pictures. I am used to the old books. *sob*

We've been saying since day one that Running Wild wouldn't be "catalog style." Just too much material to cover.

You can exaggerate everything.

A ton of material, can't wait to get this one in hard copy.

Was hoping to see a mention of the dragons introduced in Augmentation connected to Aztec in the dragon personalities section.

Maybe I'm missing it, but is there a section in Running Wild, or another book, that lists special gear for animals? Shocker collars that could be activated via Wifi, or those dog packs they sell at camping stores (so the animals can carry their own gear).

Basicaly, I'd like to give my paranormal exterminator one of those awakened geckos for when he's called out to deal with devil rats. I can tag it with an RFID, and likely build a commlink into a collar with speakers (so I can issue commands via Wifi) but I'd love to have more options, and cyberware just isn't an option with paracritters.

it's listed in the same place as backpacks for (meta)humans. which is to say, nowhere. make up a cost if you really feel the need, or potentially even make it part of a lifestyle if it seems reasonable.

backpacks? try the smartpack, page 62, arsenal.

Quantity is great, but if doesn't have quality as well its a waste of paper. I'm fine with the layout and the amount of critters. I'm worried about the individual critters not being well designed. It doesn't help that my favorite critter the juggernaut was done poorly IMO. 12 armor, yeesh.

Seeing as how the SR3 version of a Juggernaught had 8 points of Hardened Armor, and most armor values are about 150% of previous, isn't 12 Hardened on par?

Note: I didn't write the stats for that entry, but I'm better able to help address an issue when given specifics of what the problem is.

Err ... I wasn't responding to any specific rules questions/concerns. Just one about someone having expectations of the book that weren't based on anything we had ever said.

well, so far anything less then a assualt cannon has trouble doing damage to it...

or maybe flamethrowers, lasers and explosives...

heh, a barret 121 may do it, but bring at least 2 extra clips

Or a taser.

Its been continually nerfed.

In SR 1 it had 4 levels of vehicle armor. That meant it brought damage from deadly to nothing with no rolls needed. You needed to stage past deadly or have anti-vehicle weaponry to hurt it. SR2 it had 12 levels of hardened armor, which fit the x3 vehicle armor system they had, but still was weaker in comparison. If SR3 had only 8 points that is well the sucketh, and back to 12 with 4e. One point in SR3 and earlier vehicle armor wasn't on all vehicles, in SR 4 all vehicles have it to some degree. I guess representing the inherent toughness of that much metal and plastics. So even if the armor went up form SR3 o SR 4 comparative to the rest of the world it went down in protection a lot. The Juggernaut is supposed to be tank tough heck Tank+ tough. In 4e its 4 door car tough, and that is just lame.

Oh and most sniper rifles have a decent shot at hurting it. -3 AP drops it down to 9 armor, so only 3 hits needed. And its not going to do much dodging of the bullet. The Barret would blow holes in it.

one thing to note is that body 17 of its...

meaning, it has 8+9=17 boxes in its physical track, and can on average roll 17/3=5,7 hits during damage resistance.

now add 12-3=9 dice more, or 3 hits more, and your looking at 8,7 damage resisted on average.

so on average, the only damage done will be the net hits after dodge...

if your average human, thats maybe 2 hits, resisted by reaction, so that would on average result in 1 net hit.

better bring that ammo

That's why I voted for a Warform Juggernaught Biodrone...but was sadly vetoed. If you want to make the Juggernaught terrifying again (as opposed to run away and shoot it from a distance), simply give it Attribute Enhancement on a few stats, and ignore the last sentence in the Thicker Hide description. Regeneration could also be fun.

Body of 25, Strength 63 and 18 points of Hardened Armor would put you back to the unstoppable category. (The Str boost would also take the damage code from 24 to 34...that's one-shotting nearly anything it hits.)

one better run fast, unless i botched the math, a juggernaut can run at around 54km/h...