So what do we think is basic gear that every runner (individually) must have ?

Commlink ? A weapon (ranged, close combat or at least one of each)? Armored clothing? At least one fake SIN ? A fake weapons / cyberwear license ? An RFID eraser ?

As a shadowrunning team are the basics a place to crash and transportation ? (Obviously with enough room for everyone in the team)

What do you think ?

clothing. definitely a must.

Odd. My current character is spending more of his time out of it than in.

Probably due to the fact that no one makes clothing for drakes.

Flashlight

You have no idea how many times i've started a campaign and caught my players without

You have no idea the kinds of things our group comes up with to have instead of flashlights.

In Alpha Omega one of our characters is a giant glowing, bioluminescent torch.

Sounds like I need to party with this guy.

Stolen vehicle, for use in mission.
Maglock, as usually opening locks properly takes valuable time.

In Shadowrun, why? There are enough ways to make a character who can see just fine in the dark, I'm a little surprised anytime someone does need a flashlight.

Warez: Ultrawideband Radar, Ultrasound, Thermographic Lowlight Flash Compensating Smartlinked Cybereyes. Knowledge of the battlefield is worth magic loss.

Fake SIN and Licenses
Commlink w/ good firewall
Several cheap as hell commlinks
Good IC
TacNet
Certified Credsticks
Morrissey Elan Holdout Pistol
Neurostun Capsule Rounds
Street Legal Taser
Ceramic Knife
HERF Gun
Setyr TMP
Laes
Ingram White Knight and Smart Platform
ArmTech MGL-12 and Smart Platform
M79B1Law
Briefcase Rocket
~4 HE grenades
Tag Erasers
Form fitting body armor
Lined Coat, Actioneer Business Suit or Mortimer Greatcoat
Semi-disposable Car
White Noise Generator
Area Jammer
Glo-Wand
Maglock Passkey, Sequencer and Autopicker for quiet entry
Cutting/Breaching charges for less quiet entry and speedy exit
C4 for everything else.

Condoms.

What? You know I'm right.




-karma

For the "standard" Shadowrunner, I advise the following:

• Fake Identification
• Pistol
• Armored Clothing
• Commlink
• Tag Eraser

There are quite a few other things I would strongly suggest, but nothing else I would consider an absolute "Must Have".



Side note: My current character does not carry a weapon of any kind, nor have any trained combat skills. Being a powerful magician easily compensates, but it does make her stand out a bit (that, & the Glamour quality), and severely limits available options.

Another of my characters would disagree - Strongly [& probably violently]. Being a psychopathic sex addict who is unable to catch diseases or have children (vampire) probably warps her point of view a bit though.

A decent fake SIN (and licenses), a weapon (unless a mage or some other type with "built-in" weapons), armor (a real lifesaver), a rating: 6 medkit, a tag eraser, and some kind of commlink - even if you don't use one for anything, at least have a cheap one so that you fit in with the masses. Have a high firewall for anything that isn't skinlinked or DNI only. DocWagon is very good to have.

Why? I've noticed quite a few characters do have this, but it is perhaps the single least useful piece of equipment in the book as far as I can tell.

First off if you go down, you bleed out before DocWagon can get there, even with a platinum contract.

Second, DocWagon can't come get you while you're on someone else's property, meaning that if you go down on corp property (most likely place to go down) they can't help you.

Third, the other major benefit of having a contract (Discount on hospital visits) rarely comes into play thanks to the effectiveness of medkits and magical healing. After that a day or two of rest at home eating soy noodles is generally enough to get you up to full health. This could be made useful if it applied to getting 'ware, but it doesn't seem to at all.

Anyway, bashing DocWagon aside, A commlink is an obvious must have. A tag eraser is important, as fluff indicates even food has tags in it, and you don't want those hanging out in your stomach. Armor and a weapon are both important for if the excrement hit the air recycling unit.

Some cuffs of some kind are generally useful, even if it is just the zip ties.

Know there are a few things I'm forgetting.

The last character I had in an RPG that had a (semi)sexual encounter was a completely different species than the two women he took back to his room.

So condoms aren't high on my list.

Well then you won't be helping ME.

seriously for any of my characters:
clothes
comm unit
Hand gun
long arm (usually an SMG)
armored jacket
lined coat
transport (bike or car)
doc wagon
med kit

Rope. There's a million uses for it, and the lack of it causes easy obstacles to become tough obstacles. Even if you can levitate, there are situations where rope can be handy. There are so many cliche situations in adventures, video games, and TV/Movies that could easily be solved with a single length of rope. At the very least, you'll need it to tie up the occasional troll or ork (when zip-ties just aren't enough).

So you have some new and interesting diseases to experience!





-karma

I would also include the following:

- Glue Sprayer
- Gas mask
- Stim + trauma patches

The glue sprayer is good for rigging things. It's like a magical tape dispenser! We usually always get one person on the team using gas, but everyone needs a gas mask just in case. Stim patches are just a great way to keep going after taking stun damage and it is a good idea to carry some.

-Medkit (amazed only one person said this)
-Some form of armor
-Some kind of weapon (even if a mage or hacker/rigger/technomancer, just for those moments when you're caught off guard)
-rope
-glasses or goggles (or a helmet visor) with flash compensation, plus imagelink and smartlink if you use a gun
-helmet, headphones, or earbuds with sound filter
-flashbang grenades (missions where you have to go non-lethal are some of the hardest)
And finally.......
-duct tape

1) Condoms don't protect against disease with any degree of reliability.
2) That would assume that a komodo dragon isn't already a host to it.
- a)And that he wasn't taking a drug to kill those to not infect his partners.
3) And assuming that the disease is transmissible to a reptile.

Just there are two issues:

First off, Tag Erasers are illegal, so you can't just swipe your plate at the restaurant.
And, secondly... the only tags that could be included in food would be Nano ones, which are way too expensive.

So while you can't usually clean your food, it won't contain any tags anyway. It's packaging, sure - just not the food. The shadowposter pulled the newbie's legs on that one.

1...... Really? They protect you a damn sight more than going bareback does...

Keep the Faith

Also, notably, that encounter wasn't vanilla. If you read the post I linked it was very heavily implied towards oral.

One thing that i've been thinking of including with more or less every character is a handheld sensor package. They're amazing after all. You could have ultrasound, olfactory sensors, linear junction detection, ultrawideband radar, directional microphones and all sorts of other functions facked into a little harmless looking device kept in your pocket or just hanging from a strap on your belt, ready to be used any time.

Sure you can't use the sensor in a firefight, but a paranoid runner could check if someone is hiding behind the next door or if your toothpaste has been replaced by plastic explosives while you were away.

Or acid.
</reference to--I think--Richie Rich, where the butler was given new toothpaste and used it to escape from prison>

Apart from the obvious gear like guns and armour:
- Flex Cuffs.
- Transportation. "I thought you'd take care of that?"
- Some basic B&E gear
- Rope and Duct Tape
- Medkit
- A Balaclava. Better not to leave your face on tape and in people's minds in the first place.

I am seconding the Balaclava idea. Reminds me of the one time we started a new game and everyone forgot to buy them. Had a time sensitive mission and our johnson owned a 'pie' shop (don't ask about they mystery meat). We grabbed some empty flour bags, voila! instant (if a bit of a facepalm) disguise.

I'm actually finding that over in Shadowrun Missions being too anonymous can be a BAD thing.

Have gone through a number of missions, all either invisible, stealthed, or otherwise unrecognizable whenever it counted. So far not one of the campaign factions and affiliations there have offered membership or the like.

And why should they? They have no idea what I even look like.






-karma

Your rep spreads in the shadows based on a street name and a success rating...it shouldn't take a mug shot to get the word out that someone's competent.

I would say no to the baclava and say get a helmet.

Facial recognition software can identify people even WITH masks on today (not prefectly) add +60 years of development.

Besides, a helmet protects your head.

Ah, but how do they know its you? And how do they know that it was really you on that job?

Just because it makes sense to have X, Y, and Z gear it doesn't make sense that every shadowrunnner will have the knowledge or the ability to use said gear.

The standard gear is different for every character. It is kind of hard for me to have a go-ganger, hacker and many urban type of character concepts to run around with 100M coil of rope, flex cuffs and some other gear that doesn't fit the character background. While a mercenary or a street samurai would think it normal to carry around 100M coil of rope. A face may find that having a set tres chic clothing is a must, but a rigger may think it is laughable to need such nice clothing.

Your rep is gained by being know a person who can get things done. In the beginning it may only be a fixer, but as time goes on characters meets more and more Johnsons and other contacts in the underground. People tend to want to work with people they have success partnerships with in the past. If a runner is sloppy and messed up a run that Johnson may not want to employ that runner in the future, just as if a Johnson is know for double crossing runners he may find it hard to find people of talent to want to work for him.

That's stupid. Name one fucking thing you're gonna need a rope for.

My technologically inept Go-Ganger might disagree with the "proffessional" about what constitutes the "right" gear for the job - after all, kicking down the dorr and shoot people have worked rather well before.

Getting fancy can get you killed - keep it simple.

a survival kit, rope(as a previous poster, so many uses)
and
a kick ass attitude.

I also agree with the previous poster, a lot of it
is character related.

and edit-


he did, but,
here is a couple,
-climbing a surface that might be somewhat moist and making gecko gloves unusable.
-lowering a rope down out of a ventilation shaft so the infiltration specialist doesn't have to fall 30 feet+ into a museum
display

I'd rather go on a run with someone who may or may not be the reputedly amazingly dangerous, subtle, killer, Awesome Samurai Man (on the assumption that it is Awesome Samurai Man, because ASM would kill anyone who was wrongfully claiming to be him), than go on a run with someone that I know for sure is Vaguely Mediocre Killer Guy, because he's been caught on security cameras and locked up so many times that everyone know what he looks like (which still leaves the possibility of cosmetic surgery or something being used to pretend to be Vaguely Mediocre Killer Guy, for whatever reason).


I'm pretty sure you're just missing the joke/movie reference.

and that's what i get for taking the oblivious quality

I was wondering who would be the first to comment, and whether it would be a woooosh response or not.

Reputation goes both ways, for good and for bad.

I can vouch for him I worked a snatch and grab with him a year ago, he was cool level headed professional wheel man.

or

I think we should look for another wheel man that guy pulled up in a rusty old step van blasting trog rock, that almost blew our cover last year on a run I did last year.

A knife. So you can do that finger/knife thing that Bishop did in "Aliens" and impress all your runner friends.

No, not really.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condom#In_preventing_STDs

I hear photos of Cap Chaos or Fastjack are also rare


And my ork ganger bought a pack of Flex Cuffs right after his first run. What else do you do to prevent someone from calling the Star the instant you left, unless you are willing to shoot everybody?

Being unconscious?

If they have a DNI or implanted commlink, there isn't anything stopping them calling the cops while you have a gun to their head either.

I...am not sure who you're trying to support there. The article linked supports his assertion (85% reduction), but the way you stated your post seems to imply supporting mine (significantly less than 85% reduction).

I was too late to post, just watched it

And for an in-joke with Wifi, everybody needs a grappling hook.

I've been trying to get my players to buy rope in pretty much every RPG I've played for better than 20 years... Sadly, most players, unpredictable outside-the-box thinkers that they are, are fundamentally incapable of just trying the rope around something and lifting it. The simple, straightforward solution either never occurs to them, or they assume it's a trap.

We grew up with Admiral Ackbar, and his warnings of traps.

I believe TJ was expressing incredulity at your assertion. I was showing that you were incorrect.

And how do you get them unconcious? Knocking someone unconcious is far harder than it looks on TV, even more so if you want to victim to survive.


Sure, every holdup in a Stuffer Shack needs an electronics guy. Welcome to the wireless world