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Blackb1rd
I have all the current 4th ed books, excluding Vice, but I can;t seem to find any rules for pets. Either I'm not looking hard enough, or they're not there...

So, does anyone know if there are any rules on pets or are there just not any? Thanks for your help.
Teryn180
I haven't seen anything about pets, but I haven't been looking. Have you checked Running Wild? If it would be anywhere I would think in there.
Blackb1rd
Running wild actually makes alot of sense... thanks i'll check.
Tanegar
You could simulate a pet using the Dependent quality (p. 104, Runner's Companion).
Karoline
Running wild has various rules for pets, including the price of various kinds of animals, the upkeep(Food), and training prices, as well as ideas of how much space you need for various pets and so on.
Blackb1rd
QUOTE (Karoline @ Feb 27 2010, 04:58 AM) *
Running wild has various rules for pets, including the price of various kinds of animals, the upkeep(Food), and training prices, as well as ideas of how much space you need for various pets and so on.


Karoline, once again you have proven yourself one the most useful people on this site... kudos to you.
Teryn180
Cool, I'll have to go look at that again when i get the chance. I wonder if my GM would let my Technomancer have a technocritter for a pet.
Karoline
QUOTE (Blackb1rd @ Feb 26 2010, 11:01 PM) *
Karoline, once again you have proven yourself one the most useful people on this site... kudos to you.


Hehe, thanks, glad to help.

QUOTE
Cool, I'll have to go look at that again when i get the chance. I wonder if my GM would let my Technomancer have a technocritter for a pet.


There are certainly rules for it, though obtaining one might be difficult, and obtaining a trained one even more so.
Umidori
If you have a summoner, you can always opt for an Ally Spirit with an Inhabitation power.

GM: Bad choice of words. The go-ganger decides to shoot your cat. *Rolls* He has to soak 7P.
Mage: Fluffy has ITNM 8, so it bounces off.
GM: ...
Mage: Okay, now it's my pass, I spend my Free Action to instruct Fluffy to use Conceal on our party, then I cast Stunball on the middle ganger.

~Umidori
Teryn180
Hm, Emerged cats have Resonance Bond, that helps figure things out.
Karoline
QUOTE (Umidori @ Feb 26 2010, 11:17 PM) *
If you have a summoner, you can always opt for an Ally Spirit with an Inhabitation power.

GM: Bad choice of words. The go-ganger decides to shoot your cat. *Rolls* He has to soak 7P.
Mage: Fluffy has ITNM 8, so it bounces off.
GM: ...
Mage: Okay, now it's my pass, I spend my Free Action to instruct Fluffy to use Conceal on our party, then I cast Stunball on the middle ganger.

~Umidori


I have to imagine you're GM might know about the fact that you're using an ally spirit to possess your cat.... you know, given that nothing happens in the game without him knowing about it.
Blackb1rd
Alright, next question. My character, at least the one i'm writing right now wink.gif, is a former UCAS Army Interrogator/Dog Handler. When i purchase an awakened critter at Chargen should i include the cost of the animal's training even if the character has trained the animal himself as part of his background?
Teryn180
It would make sense to me, but if it were me making the character, I'd run it past the GM before I finalized anything.
Blackb1rd
Teryn180, excellent point. It's standard procedure to run everything by the GM however I wanted to know what the communities thought on this was. Thanks for your reply.
Karoline
QUOTE (Blackb1rd @ Feb 26 2010, 11:43 PM) *
Teryn180, excellent point. It's standard procedure to run everything by the GM however I wanted to know what the communities thought on this was. Thanks for your reply.

The really short answer is:
You have to pay for it by the rules, but talk to your GM, but don't just ask for it for free.

The long answer is:
My thought is that is does indeed seem silly to have to pay for something you could very reasonably have done with your skillset (Animal training that would take a few hours a week for a month or so in particular, as it isn't very time intensive).

That said however, you'll still (generally) need to pay for it. Hackers could easily claim they programed everything themselves, and so get all their programs for free, mages could claim they made their foci themselves and so get those free/discounted, riggers could claim they built their own drones and programed them, once again getting a bunch of free/cheaper stuff.

The thing is that the resources section of your character doesn't represent him/her going into Wall-to-Wall-mart and spending 250k. It represents having acquired things over time. Maybe you stole that big gun, but it still comes out of your resources, because it is something you have. Maybe you did write those programs yourself, but you still have to pay resources because that is what you have when you start. It also represents the time investment your character had to make that could have been spent at the gym.

So don't think of the price hike as being "I had to spend more to get my pets" so much as "The 'cost' of the pets is just a BP exchange for the time I spent training and raising them." Hope this makes sense.

That said, one thing I've found works well is to ask your GM for a month of pre-start work. In other words, everyone gets one game month before play starts to make use of whatever skills to build/make/train/program/whatever. This works well because it allows people who go through the trouble of getting 'crafting' skills to get some use out of them, but it doesn't allow for infinite time to do stuff in.

As a trainer you should be able to get a few tricks taught in that time. A hacker might be able to get started on a complex program or churn out some simple program. A rigger might be able to build a drone or add a few mods or whatever. A mage can (Along with binding a few spirits) make a fancy new foci to bind when they get some karma. The combat bunny gets laughed at for not taking any skills that don't involve killing. Could maybe do a small time car jacking or something for a bit of bonus starting cash. Face could start getting some negotiation rolls in for that high availability item they wanted at CG but couldn't get because it was over 12. They can come up with the money after the run starts.

So there you have it.
Dahrken
An E-Cat eh ? Don't forget that you don't "own" a cat, he let you serve him, and E-cats are even worse cool.gif !
Teryn180
QUOTE (Dahrken @ Feb 26 2010, 09:27 PM) *
An E-Cat eh ? Don't forget that you don't "own" a cat, he let you serve him, and E-cats are even worse cool.gif !

Oh, I'm a cat owner (not owner, but you get the point), I can imagine how bad an E-cat would be. Though at least when they want food, I know that's what they want, because I'll suddenly get tons of spam about cat food.
Karoline
QUOTE (Teryn180 @ Feb 27 2010, 12:31 AM) *
Oh, I'm a cat owner (not owner, but you get the point), I can imagine how bad an E-cat would be. Though at least when they want food, I know that's what they want, because I'll suddenly get tons of spam about cat food.


I suddenly envision being woken up by the meow mix jingle piped through my stereo when I forget to feed my cat at night.
Brazilian_Shinobi
QUOTE (Teryn180 @ Feb 27 2010, 02:31 AM) *
Oh, I'm a cat owner (not owner, but you get the point), I can imagine how bad an E-cat would be. Though at least when they want food, I know that's what they want, because I'll suddenly get tons of spam about cat food.


You are a cat roomate. And I almost wet my pants laughing on the image of motivational posters with lolcats eating poping up on your AR.
Although, if you had an automatic food dispenser, the cat would eat whenever it want.
Khyron
In the game I'm currently in, the face has a pet Bandit and a Bonzo she purchased and time-shares a Bastet that moves in a few weeks at a time. We joke that the animals do their own runs while we're out doing ours and occasionally return to base to find various goods they somehow procured. Mostly high quality animal food. We don't question it.
Professor Evil Overlord
QUOTE (Tanegar @ Feb 26 2010, 07:51 PM) *
You could simulate a pet using the Dependent quality (p. 104, Runner's Companion).


That's how I treat a useless or helpless pet (or group of pets). Or a really annoying pet. Either way it'd have to be role-played right to really be much of a flaw. For example, one player in my group qualifies by spending several hours a day feeding, grooming, and walking his devil rats. They are, of course, completely filthy (hence hours of grooming), untrained (useless as weapons), unhouse broken (more cleaning), and extremely affectionate towards anyone they meet (no good as guard animals, and let's face it, no one wants affection from a devil rat).
Patrick the Gnome
QUOTE (Karoline @ Feb 27 2010, 12:15 AM) *
The really short answer is:
You have to pay for it by the rules, but talk to your GM, but don't just ask for it for free.

The long answer is:
My thought is that is does indeed seem silly to have to pay for something you could very reasonably have done with your skillset (Animal training that would take a few hours a week for a month or so in particular, as it isn't very time intensive).

That said however, you'll still (generally) need to pay for it. Hackers could easily claim they programed everything themselves, and so get all their programs for free, mages could claim they made their foci themselves and so get those free/discounted, riggers could claim they built their own drones and programed them, once again getting a bunch of free/cheaper stuff.

The thing is that the resources section of your character doesn't represent him/her going into Wall-to-Wall-mart and spending 250k. It represents having acquired things over time. Maybe you stole that big gun, but it still comes out of your resources, because it is something you have. Maybe you did write those programs yourself, but you still have to pay resources because that is what you have when you start. It also represents the time investment your character had to make that could have been spent at the gym.

So don't think of the price hike as being "I had to spend more to get my pets" so much as "The 'cost' of the pets is just a BP exchange for the time I spent training and raising them." Hope this makes sense.

That said, one thing I've found works well is to ask your GM for a month of pre-start work. In other words, everyone gets one game month before play starts to make use of whatever skills to build/make/train/program/whatever. This works well because it allows people who go through the trouble of getting 'crafting' skills to get some use out of them, but it doesn't allow for infinite time to do stuff in.

As a trainer you should be able to get a few tricks taught in that time. A hacker might be able to get started on a complex program or churn out some simple program. A rigger might be able to build a drone or add a few mods or whatever. A mage can (Along with binding a few spirits) make a fancy new foci to bind when they get some karma. The combat bunny gets laughed at for not taking any skills that don't involve killing. Could maybe do a small time car jacking or something for a bit of bonus starting cash. Face could start getting some negotiation rolls in for that high availability item they wanted at CG but couldn't get because it was over 12. They can come up with the money after the run starts.

So there you have it.


I would actually allow players to have free/discounted stuff if they spent the BP at chargen for skills that create it. There would be limits certainly, but things like discounted foci or trained animals I would consider legitimate simply because they're so difficult to obtain with a straight up purchase. Trained animals especially are insanely expensive, especially if you want an attack animal and in comparison to what it would actually cost to train an animal on your own. I would even argue that an animal trainer character is utterly impossible to make at chargen without some kind of discount for the right skillset.
Karoline
QUOTE (Patrick the Gnome @ Feb 27 2010, 06:30 PM) *
I would actually allow players to have free/discounted stuff if they spent the BP at chargen for skills that create it. There would be limits certainly, but things like discounted foci or trained animals I would consider legitimate simply because they're so difficult to obtain with a straight up purchase. Trained animals especially are insanely expensive, especially if you want an attack animal and in comparison to what it would actually cost to train an animal on your own. I would even argue that an animal trainer character is utterly impossible to make at chargen without some kind of discount for the right skillset.


I did actually go through and make a trainer adept right when I got running wild, and I do have to admit, it is somewhat difficult to get together a nice group of starting animals without breaking your bank. On the other hand, a dozen warformed pack trained attack dogs aren't just that expensive, and are amazingly powerful on the offensive. The real problem is that they are fairly fragile.

If you're talking about starting with a trained bandit or something else, yeah, it costs insane amounts.

Edit: And like I said, I personally like to have the one month thing to create a non-arbitrary limit. You could change it to more or less depending on how much you want to reward people for taking 'craft' skills, but I think it is a better way to go then just handing out free equipment and saying 'there will be limits'.
toturi
Due to the natural tendencies of Bastets, I told the player that wanted one, the Training levels for a Bastet may be higher than those compared to a friendlier animal like a Flipper or a Mongrel. So while the character may have a Resonance bond and a pet with higher Resonance in a Bastet, it may not be as easy to train as compared to a Flipper or a Mongrel.
Blackb1rd
the way i see it... and it's definately a subject that is up to interpretation... is that a character who spends the BP at Chargen on the necessary skills needed to train animals should be rewarded for that by having the right to "purchase" one starting animal at it's base cost plus 50% of the training multiplier, and halve the willpower multiplier.

So a Hellhound. base cost 10,000 nuyen, is trained by a character with significant (over 3) skill in Animal Training and Handling respectively, representing about 32BP (assuming a 4 in each of the two skills, witholding specializations or the equivalent of 160,000 nuyen of resources)

Under this model the Hellhound, trained against instincts now has a training modifier of 5, instead of the 10 that would be required if the character were simply purchasing a pet or had no skill in training, then that is multiplied by the willpower ranges set in the book divided by 2... so sice a hellhound has a willpower of 3 and the corresponding multiplier is 2 that would be a 1 multiplier leaving a character that has the skill to train an animal himself with an attack Hellhound at the cost of 50,000 nuyen as opposed to the 200000 nuyen that is in my mind absurd. just my thoughts...
Teryn180
QUOTE (toturi @ Feb 27 2010, 08:08 PM) *
Due to the natural tendencies of Bastets, I told the player that wanted one, the Training levels for a Bastet may be higher than those compared to a friendlier animal like a Flipper or a Mongrel. So while the character may have a Resonance bond and a pet with higher Resonance in a Bastet, it may not be as easy to train as compared to a Flipper or a Mongrel.


Yeah, cause let's face it. Cats are hard enough to train, and Bastets are more intelligent, and quite likely more stubborn. Oh, and don't forget, they're probably going to be training you (weather you know it or not) while you're trying to train them.
Blackb1rd
QUOTE (Teryn180 @ Feb 28 2010, 06:26 AM) *
Yeah, cause let's face it. Cats are hard enough to train, and Bastets are more intelligent, and quite likely more stubborn. Oh, and don't forget, they're probably going to be training you (weather you know it or not) while you're trying to train them.


No joke on the cat training you thing... my cat literally hates me, like legitimately, yet I still feed it, change out it's litter box, give it water and treats... and she ignores me... sometimes I don;t know why I do it. At least I don't live alone so i'm not the only one that has to deal with rejection, the cat only pays attention to one person and it;s not me. I mean come on... I was the one that choose it when we went to the shelter.

But back to Shadowrun...
Khyron
Yeah, you don't train cats, cats train you. With something like a Bastet, it runs your finances too. biggrin.gif
Karoline
QUOTE (Khyron @ Feb 28 2010, 04:46 AM) *
Yeah, you don't train cats, cats train you. With something like a Bastet, it runs your finances too. biggrin.gif


Given the percentage of the USA that is in crippling debt and such, that might not be such a bad thing wink.gif
hobgoblin
QUOTE (Blackb1rd @ Feb 27 2010, 05:38 AM) *
Alright, next question. My character, at least the one i'm writing right now wink.gif, is a former UCAS Army Interrogator/Dog Handler. When i purchase an awakened critter at Chargen should i include the cost of the animal's training even if the character has trained the animal himself as part of his background?

one still "buy" the cyberware even tho its part of the background (former military or something). Think of the char gen purchase not so much a straight out purchase but more the resources spent in the time up to the start of the game. That is, a runner is not some level 1 newbie that is barely out of school, they have already picked up skills and gear that fit their way of doing things.
crash2029
This reminds me of a game I ran awhile back in 3rd. One of the characters, a minotaur combat mage named Aquarius, rescued/stole a hellhound from a corpsec kennel during a run. He spoiled that damn dog rotten. And when it ate Mexican food... Let's just say a gassy hellhound is not a pleasant companion. Not to mention the costs of asbestos upholstery...
WyldKnight
I recently started training a pack of attack animals because one on one most animals aren't very useful in a fight but when you have them trained for group tactics and cover them with some thermal smoke to keep the gun fire off them they quickly become a force multiplier. Has anybody else had much use for pets? Maybe outside of fighting?
Karoline
QUOTE (WyldKnight @ Mar 1 2010, 04:50 AM) *
I recently started training a pack of attack animals because one on one most animals aren't very useful in a fight but when you have them trained for group tactics and cover them with some thermal smoke to keep the gun fire off them they quickly become a force multiplier. Has anybody else had much use for pets? Maybe outside of fighting?


I haven't actually done it yet, but I'd imagine a bandit could be super helpful for non-combat rolls such as recon, B&E, and so on.

If you could manage to train a rat and strap an RFID camera onto it, that would be good for some surveillance as well.
Brazilian_Shinobi
QUOTE (WyldKnight @ Mar 1 2010, 06:50 AM) *
I recently started training a pack of attack animals because one on one most animals aren't very useful in a fight but when you have them trained for group tactics and cover them with some thermal smoke to keep the gun fire off them they quickly become a force multiplier. Has anybody else had much use for pets? Maybe outside of fighting?


I wanted to use a temu as spotter for Astral activty for my mundane ninja, but my GM said he would never let me have one...
Karoline
QUOTE (Brazilian_Shinobi @ Mar 1 2010, 02:43 PM) *
I wanted to use a temu as spotter for Astral activty for my mundane ninja, but my GM said he would never let me have one...


Lame GM. How else is a mundane suppose to evade an astral patrol?
hobgoblin
walk very very quietly, and carry a big can of FAB3?
Brazilian_Shinobi
QUOTE (Karoline @ Mar 1 2010, 05:05 PM) *
Lame GM. How else is a mundane suppose to evade an astral patrol?


You hear that Garou? Ain't just my opinion now grinbig.gif
He says I can get that Ghost Cartel's BAD but he said it will show up in the campaign in a month (game time), but if I'm ever going to use any drug that often I'll have to buy a whole ne filtration system inside my body. A temu would take less trouble.
Garou
QUOTE (Brazilian_Shinobi @ Mar 1 2010, 09:00 PM) *
You hear that Garou? Ain't just my opinion now grinbig.gif
He says I can get that Ghost Cartel's BAD but he said it will show up in the campaign in a month (game time), but if I'm ever going to use any drug that often I'll have to buy a whole ne filtration system inside my body. A temu would take less trouble.


I am not using Running Wild on this campaign. I don't see reason to make an exception. And i find the idea of a monkey trained to be a mute ninja in a mini rutheniun coating Full body Suit ridiculous. Get yourself a FAB granade a be happy about it. smile.gif

Brazilian_Shinobi
QUOTE (Garou @ Mar 1 2010, 06:08 PM) *
I am not using Running Wild on this campaign. I don't see reason to make an exception. And i find the idea of a monkey trained to be a mute ninja in a mini rutheniun coating Full body Suit ridiculous. Get yourself a FAB granade a be happy about it. smile.gif


the mini ruthenium full body suit would be a plus. You cut my monkey idea before I had even mentioned the suit.
Blackb1rd
Brazilian_Shinobi- It is of my humble opinion that one should never argue with a GM after he;s made a fair and reasonable decision. Jut because we, as players, do not like it we need to bear in mind that it is the GM's game and any Characters and their, erm, pets are subject to the proverbial "chopping block".

That being said this not the thread for such discussions, and from the looks of it this is an issue that should be addressed over PM and not on my innocent, if fully uninformed, topic.

Furthermore me and my GM have come to an agreement on the issue if a Hellhound at Chargen. We have decided my method of mathematical critter procurement costs for individuals with the necessary skills to train and care for animals (at least a skill of 3) is reasonable and will be held as a house rule from here on. That being said, i may work personally on creating similar house rules for Hackers, Riggers, and other specialists.

One caveat, i think the halved willpower modification should only be applied if the character in question has the Animal Handling and Care Skills at or above 4.

If you are confused you can refer to the bottom of the first page of the thread where my method is detailed.
Khyron
My GM ruled that a Bandit with shiny toys playing in a parkinglot will distract every watcher spirit in the area. biggrin.gif
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