Last session, I wanted to buy 10 doses of Breathtaker drug to deal with some Barghests. It costs 50¥ per dose and has an availability of 8R. How long does it take my dealer to fill this order?

Do I treat it as:

• Ten simultaneous 8R purchases of 50¥, an availability test of (8, 12 hours)?
• Ten sequential 8R purchases of 50¥, an availability test of (80, 12 hours)?
• One 8R purchase of 500¥, an availability test of (8, 1 day)?
• Or something else?

It's a judgment call for each situation, in this case though I'd say 10 simultaneous 8R purchases. Now if they were looking for 10 cyberarms to outfit their praetorian guard with it might be a different story but given the resources of a Shadowrunner I'd say forcing a test for each dose of a moderately common drug would be unrealistic.

well, if i was looking for a specific system to judge this sort of thing by, i'd probably look at the player's contacts and compare their connection ratings to what the player is trying to get (probably based on overall item cost). if the contact is specialised (eg a hacker and you're trying to get unrestricted agents for a botnet or something) they would count as a higher connection rating.

and if the player is trying to do it themselves, i'd probably base it on street cred, personally. some nobody with a street cred of 0 isn't going to be able to order in 100 AK-97s, but an established runner who is well enough known probably could.

in this particular case though, i doubt the breathtaker would be that hard to get. i'd let them just place one big order as if it was the base availability.

As a rule of thumb, I would apply a discrete availability test for durable goods as well as some services. This would be stuff like guns, vehicles, hacker services, and cyberware. Individuals don't usually buy guns 10 or 20 at a time, especially in a less than legal setting.

For consumables like drugs, food, and bullets, you don't usually buy just one unit. Just add up the quantity, apply one test to the whole shebang. You could increase avail for unusually large orders though. It's a lot easier to get a dozen doses of gamma-scope than a tanker full of it.

I would offer you a choice between

• Ten simultaneous 8R purchases of 50¥, an availability test of (8, 12 hours)? (10 transactions, 10 dice rolls)
• One 8R purchase of 500¥, an availability test of (8, 1 day)?(1 transaction, 1 die roll)

Bulk purchase for your convenience is an inconvenience to the seller to carry that stock. That's why it takes longer to round it up. While it's easy to get a single dose, you still need to take the time to go do it 10 times

Ehhh....It's a stupid pusher that doesn't have more than one dose of candy to sell. You might not be able to buy a kilo right off, but I'm sure you can get a couple dime bags for the availability of a single one.

No, just raise the threshold as the quantity increases. Easy peasy. Maybe +1 for every 2, or 6, or 10, whatever makes sense for that item.

as the cost goes up, so does the interval. problem solved, imo.

Sure, that too.

Quick question...isn't Breathtaker a combat toxin, not a drug?

well, arguably it's both, really (toxin and drug are not mutually exclusive). but yes, the street corner drug dealer wouldn't likely have any on hand (though his source could quite possibly have the training, knowledge, and even materials to make it, but that depends entirely on the dealer)

a better source would be your fixer, someone who works for a chemical company that sells to military organisations, a chemist, a weapons dealer (probably not the same kind you buy guns from, but you never know), someone in the military, or similar types.

I figured. Based on the earlier posts I got the impression they thought dealers were selling these things in inhalers and street kids were getting their rocks off doing combat chemicals.

Hey, you *never* know.

It's funny, it's a staple of economic thought that buying in bigger quantities leads to advantages, so why not in the case of less-legal items? If you have serious demand, that might motivate salespeople to treat you like a serious customer. More sales means the opportunity for bigger profits..

I'm wondering if it isn't time to turn the Availability system sideways, and make the test interval dependent on the Availability rating instead of the item price?

Thanks for your input everyone! I think I'll go with the third option in future: One 8R purchase of 500¥, an availability test of (8, 1 day).

Maybe a contact is more willing to find you the goods because of the potential sale (loyalty bonus)?


I'd argue that time is already dependant on availability (required hits). The idea of time being dependent on price is based on more expensive items being rarer and harder to move.

Right, I feel like the hits directly links Availability to difficulty and time, while the interval is slightly different. That's not to say that your way couldn't work.

Really, it all depends on what you're buying in bulk, and add in supply/demand.

Sometimes you can score kilos of Novacoke with ease (You know, because you REALLY need your Troll buddy at his best!), but if Lone Star/Knight Errant just did a major raid on your supplier's supplier, then it will be that much harder. And possibly have to go to another supplier, antagonizing your previous one.

On the flip side, getting bulk orders of something that's generally available might even get you a discount. "100,000 rounds of ammo? Sure! Be glad to open up some room in the stock room, you know what I mean?"

...

I'm hoping that the person that buys that much ammo has a Vindicator or something similar, otherwise it's going to take a long time to go through that much!

you'll be surprised what you can do with that much ammo... and how many friends you can make handing it out say in the plastic gardens, and various other spots. Especially if you have a van full of say a couple hundred shotguns that got rerouted through a clerical error...

done it too, but it was 1 remington 990 and 120rds of ammo x 100 given to the gardeners


But back on topic, it's going to vary by item and have to be fudged at times...

Buying a case (24) of smoke grenades isn't a biggie, but buying a case of gas grenades with nerve toxin... yeah the fixer is going to have some time to do that (and get the hell out of the plex too!)

I agree that a dealer is going to have more than one dose available.
Ten doses might be hard to do if he hasn't had a delivery for a while.
Single doses are likely small fry to him.
And a volume discount to clear stock could be possible especially if the dealer doesn't expect normal demand to cover his stock.



Now trying to get an order of magnitude more than what a dealer normally handles can get sticky.
His suppler will have to move more and the dealer will have to have enough cred (in what ever form) to cover the extra stock and risk.

But a regular customer, giving a few days notices, and fronting some surety cred would likely get a deal.

The dealer might pass the buyer up to his supplier if the risks are too high.