Since we can treat AIDS, but we cannot treat HMVV AIDS is far less dangerous. I'd reduce the carrier rate to 1% or less - but that's since I consider the whole "a scratch and you're dooomed, doomed, hahah - unless you burn edge, and you still lose essence anyway, sucker!" a stupid idea that's only in there to ruin a player's fun.

Things that make Ghouls more acceptable nowdays:

1) They are more likely to still be sane and sentient then previously.
2) As Ancient history pointed out, there are the "Born Ghouls," who are not carriers.
3) While Ghouls need to heat metahuman flesh, they do not need to kill metahumans.
The Placenta restaurant in Neotokyo is one way, when Hollywood executes someone
would be another(I mean...why spend all that money injecting someone? 2 Nuyen for a bullet, then toss
the corpse to the Ghouls...). And, of course, I still think of Tanamous as having alot of ghouls in
charge somewhere..
This actually makes ghouls more palatable then, say, Vampires who do need to kill someone
periodically.
4) They are easily identifiable...it is always easier to accept someone you can discriminate more easily against.

The big down side is:
The Kreiger Strain is now ALOT more Virulent then it once was. Admittedly, I do not see the disease's classification of "contact" as being wrong, I do not see it as right, either. I would be more inclined to treat
it as "It only has the chance if the attack causes damage."
Though, I thought you just had to get the diseases power below your body for it to not effect you? And that
it has a 10 day duration, so you just need to reduce it below your body once, and you are good...though, the problem I see, is that it was never explained: is that 1.0 essence total from HMVV? Or 1.0 essence loss from one infection of HMVV? That makes a huge difference.

I think it's combined, else they just would have to write "if all 10 tests fail you turn into a ghoul", and not go through the trouble of having to keep track of essence loss.

All you need to do is to get the disease's power to 0 for it not to affect you, therefore at the very first Disease Resistance, burn 1 Edge to critical success it and therefore never lose any Essense or somehow get at least 24 dice, remember once an Awakened is infected, you'd lose more than that point of Edge. Otherwise you'd need far more than 24 dice for the other Disease Resistance tests.

another thing to consider is that a sinner ghoul can potentially live and work in isolation, thanks to telepresense...

a bit like the dolfins and orcas of blue planet, and how they interact with the human world...

Btw, it comes to mind that we may be indirectly be arguing about the risk of a ghoul typhoid mary.

Also, will it not be in the interest of the growing ghoul population to police itself for 'willful negligence'?

And i just recalled reading about rl people trying to get infected by hiv. Whats the chance of something similar related to ghouls?

I happen to be on my "thinking chair" this morning and going over Runners Companion sidebar discussing infected breeding. Ghouls can bear children and pass on the infection to them. But these offspring are not contagious. After all these years established ghoul enclaves could be strictly non infectious and more likely to elicit compassion.

On the other hand you could have an inbreed family of non infectious ghouls living out in the badlands. (ala The Hills Have Eyes)

Sure, but thats only an option if the GM agrees on that way of reading Augmentation. Of course, reading it any other way would cause any disease have an infection ratio of 100%...

BTW, the preemptive loophole:

As O-Cells are neither inocculation nor antiviral agent but nanites they actually work against HMHVV. (in-game: improved immune cells - if immune cells don't work, HMHVV couldn't be resisted)
They aren't affected by penetration, either, as they are neither pharmaceuticals nor protective systems. (which refers to gear only, implants and the like don't count - and it would collide with the fact that protective systems provide resistance dice which they don't)

I think that you would still have to do a total of 10 resistance tests (minimum), even after a critical success on the first one. Beating the test repeatedly is not easy, and you run out of edge pretty quick. That is unless you and your GM agree on another interpretation, like Rotbart said.


The speed of HMHVV III is 1 day (10). So, like pointed out before, the time to burn edge would be the last of the 'mandatory' resistance tests. You still lose essence, but at least you don't have to go on a permanent Atkins.

I think I'm gonna look for a good houserule on this one.

That point is here:

That can be read the way that the first test become an "Infection Check" - determining whether or not you actually catch the disease. Because if you make the test "the disease takes no effect".

And that's pretty much the only sane way to read it, because, like pointed out, otherwise, every single disease has a 100% infection ratio on vector, making you catch any and all diseases.

Everytime the rules contradict themselves, Toturi takes 5S damage.

Developers - Think of Toturi!

Incorrect. You must reduce the power to 0 for the disease to have no effect, for that interval. You must make a Resistance Test each interval period, a minimum number of times equal to the number on parenthesis - this is not an Extended Test. Each time you fail, you suffer the effects of the disease, and any unresisted Power is cumulative for the next Resistance roll.

Further, it is actually very clear that the 1.0 Essence Loss required to become a Ghoul is not per infection, but total.

For those interested, here are the infection rules for Ghouls. I do not have Running Wild yet, so if anything changed, let me know.

Guess what. Magic is also a type of protective system.

That's exactly not what RAW says.

Yeah: O-Cells are not a protective system by the definition of the disease rules.

Additionally, they are not used to defend against it - that would be the disease resistance test, which also declares that protective systems add dice to the disease resistance test.

Nope.

"the disease takes no effect" is poor grammar at best, & I believe the line in question.

The 'reasonable' way to read this is "the disease has no effect", meaning you do not take damage, suffer from nausea, or, in the case of HMHVV, loose Essence. Nothing in that passage indicates it is speaking of the first Resistance test, nor exempts a successful test from the subsequent tests required by the Pathogen rules.

Further, "If the pathogen’s Power is not reduced to zero, it is added to the pathogen’s Power when rolling the next subsequent Disease Resistance Test" strongly indicates that there is another test, regardless of the previous result.



Your view may indeed be "the only sensible way" of reading it, but it is not Rules as Written.

You can get away with O-Cells being unaffected due to technicality, but no such luck for Magic. Prophylaxis & Cure Disease spells explicitly provide bonus dice to the Disease Resistance Test.

My point was that this can be interpreted both ways, RAW itself being ambigious.

BTW - Cellular Repair should be able to reset the counter for KHMHVV Essence loss as well.

Yet no-one will classify them as "protective system", but spells. Like qualities or dwarven resistance, those are modifiers. Taking Edge dice for a Disease Resistance Test won't make those "protective systems", either.

Basically, protective systems refers to external gear in contrast to implants. What's really silly is that keeping on your Chemsuit wll help with subsequent tests...

These rules are silly. Note I am not questioning the interpretation of them, but the effect. Aside from being so obnoxiously hard to beat that you might as well not bother having them, the contact vector as described makes it fantastically easy to pass on to the point that no-one in their right minds would allow a ghoul within leaping distance of them and the whole concept of PC ghouls goes out the window. Even if other PCs are accepting of being in close proximity to a ghoul ("No - don't pull me out of the gunfire, I'm more likely to survive the bullets than you touching me"), then I as GM still wouldn't want a PC with a 'Death Touch.' It also makes ghouls a terrible monster for me to use against the PCs. Either the PCs shoot them all dead from a distance, or they end up in close combat and almost certainly lose their character (I count being forced into playing a ghoul as losing your character). It's very binary.

And if ever ghouls want to "re-populate" their numbers, they can produce hundreds in just ten days.

Yes, thank you, this has been established. If and when (Ghost forfend) we have another edition and if (Ghost allows) I'm still there to throw my nickels in, it will be a point I will willingly bring up.

Make up a complete Runner-Group out of various Ghoul Metavariants based in Asamondo or however that's called.
The whole frigging country is made up of canniballistic carnivourus super-human predators. would you want to be ANYTHING less than that as a runner in there?
I mean, even their Deckers and Riggers are gonna be tough SOBs!

being so contagious you wouldn't want to shoot one that was to close either. The impact from a projectile could launch bodily fluids and/or flesh in an area surrounding the target...netting the same result as touching.

Not in the rules...but something interesting I thought about if you wanted to be a complete azz to your players.

And that is EXACTLY why no one would risk being near ghouls at all.
Asamondo would be nuked, the parts of cities SUSPECTED of harboring ghouls would be burned to the ground.
There would be curfews, nobody going out at night, flying drones opening fire on everything that looks REMOTELY ghoulish.
and it would be that way for SEVERAL years. Untill ALL ghouls have become extinct.
It's either that or the whole world slowly turning into ghouls without any little chance to stop this.
At least, as per the rules.

Having been established for some time now. Using the RAW second and third generation ghouls would no longer be contagious except to there offspring. So Asamondo wouldn't be as dangerous (at least infection wise) as one would think.

the issue here is "contact".

how much is needed for contact to trigger? a milisecond with a pinky? a single cell of spit?

ah, SR4(244) gives a nice clue (tho its about toxins in a vial, not a body)...

Which is why you need to kill them with fire. Atomic fire, if you've got it, but regular old napalm or Fireball spells will do in a pinch.

Setting Zombies . . erm, ghouls . . on Fire is a dumb idea . . all that will accomplish is the fact that the monsters coming straight at you are also on fire . .

That's why you are backing up while you doit... everyone forgets that part. Keep running from the burning zombie until it stops moving.

Nah... we need to arm all shadowrunners w/ pipebombs w/ time fuses and audio/visual ghoul attraction.

As well as everyone gets molotov cocktails.

Plus, everyone gets unlimited pistol ammo and wants to dual wield em.


Again, anyone else getting the urge to play Left4Dead?


Seriously... I can't see the disease being anything except this base on this level of virulence and spreading mechanism.

Nope, I don't tolerate working with naything that is potentially looking at me as a date/entree/recruit all at once.

Setting things on fire is never a bad idea. If it's not working, you're just not burning hot enough.

How do you feel about two out of three?

The rules aint changed from RC as far as I can tell so this debate is either solved some place or a long time coming. However I will quote fluff to may be the correct way of treating this contact vector.

"When in doubt, fire and acid everytime." Peter Davidson as the 5th Doctor.

I think this is the best win this thread could have achieved. Thanks AH.

Until then, houserules win.

- J.

Since innoculations were a "loophole" that was closed, my question to the developers/writers would be - Are O-Cells the next "loophole" that will be closed?

Is the intention of the developers to turn Shadowrun into Zombierun?

Damn, I didn't tolerate me any ghouls before this. Nows I gots me a even better excuse to shoot first and alter the reports later.

Mmmmm... I can think of several combinations of two that sound highly pleasant.

Thanks for your support, btw. Like The Jake said, it was 'the best win'

Here is a question: Infectious Ghouls....how long do they live? Does anyone think that the non-infectious Ghouls mighthave started thinning out the numbers of the infectious ones? Or the ones that can still think, started thinning out the numbers of the feral ghouls, and isolating themselves from where they could accidentally infect others? It would seem that, if they want to survive as a group, they would be taking measures to make themselves less dangerous...

Or, at least those ones that want to show that ghouls are people too.

How does anyone detect an infectious ghoul? Do ghouls go "Oh, we don't know this new ghoul, let's kill him"?

Probably. If not as a Safetymeasure, then to secure a new food-source.

How they tell an infectious from a noninfectious apart? They just take a look at the aura, i'm sure you can detect such a thing with three or four hits.

This enormous potential for infection is definitely something, the devs should reconsider in a future errata. It is far away from the basics we know since app. 20 years and would negate all developments the human/metahuman rights associations did since then. Nobody that is sane, would accept a single ghoul around him, not speaking of a whole ghoul nation. Just think about a ghoul, spitting on the ground, touching a glass in a bar, not knowing if he is infectious (maybe he doesn´t know it by himself)...and *poof* some days later every customer of this bar transforms. Not playable, unless you want to play Resident Evil Extinction.

In augmentation p129



Emphasis mine.

This clearly states that if you beat the disease power during the first ten tests you still need to take the remainder of the tests.

As an alternative to killing with fire in cases where this may spread and cause further damage / lawsuits, how about entirely cocooning them in impervious material? Soem form of high-tensile freeze-foam or something, delivered high-pressure from a backpack sprayer.

That would be one way to deal with them.
But not as easy and impressive as Napalm-Bombing their homes.
And you still need to get too close to them to apply the foam.

Of course. But what power is the disease after you reduced its power to zero? To me, this is what is ambiguous.

During the first ten tests the disease operates in an Accumulating Power mode, meaning that every test you must beat the base DV of the disease + any remaining power from the previous test.

example sequence
first test dv 8
save 4
second test dv 8 + 4 = 12
save 9
third test dv 8 + 3 = 11
save 11
fourth test dv 8 + 0 = 8
save 5
fifth test dv 8 + 3 = 11
ect.

For the following, P equals the base power of the disease (8 in the case of HMHVVIII), R is the remaining power from the prior test (that is, how far you fell short of making the threshold), and T is the total power for this interval

If the minimum duration has not passed:
T = P + R

If the minimum duration has passed:
T = 0 + R

P for HMHVVIII is 8. So, if your first test succeeds, reducing R to 0, what you get is the following:

T = 8 + 0

So, you're still looking at a Power of 8 for the second roll.

Ah but "this accumulation only continues for a number of resistance tests as listed in parentheses after the Speed in the pathogen description". But that applies to the preceding sentence which states "if the pathogen's Power is not reduced to zero...".

Therefore what is the pathogen's power if its power is reduced to zero? The answer could be 0.

First test - Burn Edge - power 0
Since power reduced to zero, second paragraph does not apply, while the sentence that states number of minimum rolls still do, hence:
Second test Power 0
Third test Power 0
etc

If minimum duration has not passed, T = P+R(n) if R(n) !=0, where n>1
If R(n)=0, then P=0 until T>0

Therefore power of second roll is 0.