QUOTE (Cain @ May 11 2010, 08:55 PM)

Arming 100 drones is dirt cheap, if you just arm them with small arms and save the big guns for the heavy combat drones.
If the rules "work just fine", in your book, why did you change them?
That's the bottom line.
They clearly did NOT work for you. You wanted less tactical combat, and more focus on the characters. And that's fine. You couldn't get that within the RAW. And that's fine. I know you can understand that. The point is that character build, rules, and even story take a back seat to Fun. If it's fun, then run with it. If it's not fun, then toss it and move on. Clearly, attacking with an army of drones or an overpowered Possession mage was Not Fun for everyone else. Even you house rule these issues, even though you proclaim the rules Work As Written.
Man, you really need to relax... I did not change the rules... not once... When you are engaged in a massive fight, with tens, if not hundreds of combatants, do you roll the dice for all of the combatants? or do you focus upon the characters and what THEY are doing? This is the context in which you insist that I have changed the rules... You're wrong. The rules were not changed, the focus of the action just stayed with the characters, not the support that was being provided for various other duties/functions...
It is not like the drones were not doing anything, and I did spend a few actions here and there keeping tabs on what was going on in the big picture...but not using ALL of my resources is NOT implementing HOUSERULES... I mean really, get over it, I just wanted to focus on the characters, not the possibly extraneous non-player characters, drones and Spirits...
That is not a houserule... other times, like I have stated, I have used my drones... but again, I have very few Combat Drones, and your contention that you can arm any drone for cheap is flat out wrong... when you are forced to spend as much, or more, on a weapon mount, as you are on the drone, it is no longer cheap... if you are spending 200,000 just putting
weapon mounts on your drones, how is that cheap? not to mention the actual weapons themselves, even if you are using just a machine pistol. You and I apparently have a very differing oipinion on what is cheap and what is not...
BTW, my 48 Surveillance Drones (which were not purchased all at once) only cost me 96,000 Nuyen, total, and I have absolutely no need for a Weapon mount or weapon to get tons of use out of them... Why would I spend 3 times what they are worth just to get a weapon on them? Especially when they are perfectly legal and cause no raising of eyebrows when they are unarmed... besides, Information is far more valuable a commodity than having an extra gun to use 9 times out of 10...Just sayin'...
And we also apparently have a different opinion on what constitutes a House Rule... Not using all the rules to their optimal benefit is not a Houserule, it is a choice to not use all of the rules... and that is it... these rules have not been discarded, they are just used only when they need to be...
Keep the Faith