Can someone in the in's with production tell me why they brought in/allowed pixies? Was this an earth dawn cross over or an appeal to the urban fantasy crowd like in the Rachel Morgan books?

I hate Kim Harrison with the fires of hell, so no on that particular score.

There was a slight demand for it. They were one of the few sapient critters out there. There was the whole Bordertown aesthetic, and there was the Earthdawn crossover material. Personally, I wanted to develop their culture a little more, and there are some subtle and unsubtle hints spread out among the books concerning it.

I don't know what the hell the Rachel Morgan books are, but I hate to break it to you: mages, spirits, elves, orks and trolls in a cyberpunk setting is already urban fantasy.

There is no accounting for Tastes there Ancient History...
Kim Harrison rocks... SO much better than the Anita Blake Books (well, anything after the 6th one or so) in my opinion...

That said... Pixies are interesting, but unfortunately, my GM does not like them, and has yet to allow them in game.

show him the atland webcomic.
inky the blue little guy with wings.

I don't have that many problems with pixies. They make for GREAT horror. Seriously.

What i have problems with is their stats. Intuition+: sure maybe 1 or so. Charisma+: No prob, make it +2... they are funny, nice pixies, Willpower: huh... wait a minute, Logic: WTF? What is going on here? Of course ALL pixies played (ok 90%) will be magicians and are serious contenders against motherfucking NOSFERATUS in power.

Indeed. And +1 Edge (over standard metahumans), just for kicks?

I rather <3 them, but I'm crazy and made a pixie-hacker. First off there's the fun of playing a critter- something that isn't considered a person, and is mostly considered a nuisance or a source of telesma, and then the fun of ..nothing being made the right size outside of the home village, presuming you were born in one and aren't an urban pixie, and thirdly.. if your interests as a person do not coincide with what you're 'expected' to do... eeh I like the little fairy-bugs, but I can come up with a whole list of fun RPing reasons for any of the races and professions.

Best Pixie I've seen is a surged pitfighter just something darkly funny about a pixie punching out a troll. Pixie mystic adepts are the way forward.

Nah, i'd go with hacker/rigger too . .
Use concealment to hide my body/astral self and a carried holographic emitter so everybody thinks i am an AI or something . .

No reason you can't be a Mystic Adept Hacker/Rigger. Probably the best way.

which is something i really do NOT like about SR4 . .
You can have your cake and eat it too . . magical types can do everything else too . .

Yup, especially if they're invisible flying super-stats. Bleh.

Honestly, my rationale for them being OK is that when you really think about it, Tinkerbell was clearly the most badass character in Peter Pan.

It's not that big of a problem. If they spend the energy (karma) to be a good hacker/rigger, they aren't going to be as good of a mage/adept, and they won't be as good as a pure hacker/rigger.

So basically you trade power for versatility. I really don't see a problem there.

Pixies on the other hand, they do have a huge boost to mental stats (and agility and reaction, arguably the better physical stats), which really isn't compensated for by lackluster str and bod since lowered maxes aren't really a big deal unless you really want a high stat, and lets face it, not many pixies are going to want a high str stat. The low bod sucks a bit for wearing armor, but how often do invisible flying targets a foot high get hit anyway?

So, personally I don't really have problems with pixies as a playable race, I have problems with them having absurdly amazing stats and exceptional abilities with almost non-existant drawbacks, all for less than the price of a troll.

I don't know, Wendy made an entire crew of pirates cry.

My point was that the way to become the best hacker/rigger was *via* MysAd (possibly just Adept). It's not dual specialization, it's the path to that specialization. You've likely seen the builds around here.

Yeah, and I've made some too. They generally work out fairly well, but if they want to beat a dedicated mundane hacker/rigger, they're going to be spending way more BP/Karma. They can be better than the max potential for a hacker/rigger, it just takes a long time.

Eeeh, don't forget you have to buy off uneducated, and you aren't nessicarily -good- at being invisable. My little guy cant conceal himself worth drek, you have to increase your magic stat to get any good at it. Theres also paying out the hoop for any and all gear, and -having- to buy it directly from either Evo or Neonet.

Yeah, buying off uneducated is an extra 20 BP, which makes them realistically 55BP, but given the 100BP worth of free stats, that part isn't so bad. Forgot that concealment was only a -magic dice. I was thinking it was a +magic to threshold to spot the pixie. Still, since most are pixie are awakened, -5 or -6 DP is fairly serious.

Gear isn't so bad. 50% extra cost isn't generally too much. It can add up, but most equipment doesn't need to be replaced often

Right: 'any and all gear' actually means 'only clothing and personal weapons'.

..no I really meant everything, because tools, commlinks, implants, clothing, weapons...trodes.. everything has to be bought from them

Why? Very few things need to be sized, and you wouldn't have implants. Commlinks certainly don't need to be sized, and 'tools, weapons, trodes' barely adds up to anything. If you spend money on anything, it'll be programs and vehicles.

How do you get telesma off a pixie? Don't they go *POOF* on death?

Pin the little bastards down.

Why wouldn't you have implants?

You might need to make allowances for the fact that the formerly pocket-sized object is now laptop-sized and probably needs a backpack or bag to be carried in.

Also, I'll admit to always liking pixies - one of my first characters in any RPG I ever played was a pixie. They're all small and magical and stuff. Plus, it gives you an excuse to play a Breton, which is kinda cool in an obscure kinda way.

They do, their stuff doesn't.



Commlinks is questionable, they're already super small (Small enough to fit inside your skull without having to remove part of the brain), so I'd imagine they're small enough for a pixie already, and likely couldn't be physically made any smaller anyway.

Implants don't have an added cost, they just have to be bought in delta grade, but a pixie doesn't pay more for a delta datajack than a human does.

Clothing and weapons, sure, those have to be made smaller, but if a mage/adept/hacker/rigger, weapons aren't going to be more than a few hundred nuyen anyway generally.

Trodes are a one time purchase and cost.. what, 50 nuyen? Extra 25 isn't exactly game breaking.

Tools... well, that's like going to be a bigger problem, but remember this important tidbit: You don't have to pay for customization at chargen, so really most of the cost concerns aren't a real issue. Weapons, armor, trodes, clothing, and most tools are going to be bought before the 50% increased cost even applies. The only real disadvantage that pixies have is that they must use deltaware. Oh, except for geneware and nanoware. Those can both be gotten at regular grade.

That ones easy. Make sure they don't die before you finish taking everything you're after.

Want pixie wings as an exotic telesma? Gotta take them off them while they're still LIVE. Whether or not you have to use it once it's been removed before they die is something I don't know.

I bet the black market value on pixie wings would be crazy good considering how rare and how heartless you have to be to get them.

Makes me now think of a pixie down on their luck resorting to selling their own wings.

"Hobbies?" "Pulling the wings off Pixies, come on, what does that have to do with Shadowrunning?" "Well, actually..."

Those pixies that are Mystic Adepts/Magicians are super glass cannons nukes. Yes, they are very powerful but by relying so heavily on Magic, they take it on the chin when Magic goes bad (Background Count) and they have a very brittle glass chin. They have to stay far out of harm's way or rely on their luck to help them soak whatever damage they receive. In optimum situations, yes, they are strong contenders with nosferatu for power, but nos can fall back on their raw physical power to carry them through where pixies would crumple like paper.

IIRC, a soft-max Bod pixie has a dice pool of 6 (Bod 2 and Armor 4) to soak normal gun fire, with a shorter physical track since it keys off Bod as well. Factor in the various special ammos like APDS, Ex-Ex, etc and it's new character time if you do not get enough successes to dodge out of the way.

True, but you're forgetting armor and deflection and invisibility and concealment.

You are right though, pixies are extra screwed in high background counts when they don't get any of those things, but on the other hand, pixies will at least have advanced warning (maybe only a minute or so, but still) that they're hitting a BC, and so can prepare for it at least a little bit generally. Still, yeah, very painful, though that is generally fairly true for all mages.

Oh, and given their huge agility, they could easily afford some extra armor. FFBA is 6/3 and can be worn with a body of 2. Throw on something with 3/6 armor (Some PPP maybe?) and they can have 9/9 armor at the cost of 1 agi. May not be tanks, but it is fairly reasonable.

I have not forgotten armor, deflection, invisibility or concealment. I have already factored them in, which is why I stated that they have to stay far out of harm's way. Invisibility and concealment serves them well doing that by allowing them not be targeted in the first place. How many sustaining foci could the pixie mage/mystic adept have? Those spells are likely to be at low force if you want the spells to be sustained by foci and would impose penalties if sustained by self.

How will the pixies have advanced warning? Astral perception/projection? I doubt everyone has Sensing.

How much armor can a Bod 2 character wear before taking penalties? IIRC, it was Body*2. EDIT: It is 2 x Body for either type of armor. And -1 Agility and -1 Reaction for every 2 points over or part thereof. Pixie wearing FFBA 6/3 already takes a -1 Agility and Reaction penalty. - As Karoline pointed out in a PM, form fitting counts for half encumbrance when worn with other armor.

That's just the damage from the usual suspects. We have yet to factor in diseases or toxins.

Diseases? Psh.

Pixie rigger adept driving from inside a Tomino, with Mimic adaption to look like a troll.







-karma

I'll do you one better: rigger cocoon inside a smuggling compartment in a troll's cyberarm.

Eh?

And with that sort of poor damage soaking, area attacks (grenades and their ilk) will be real problem - shrapnel don't gives a fig about invisbility...

Think about this.

A commlink for a metahuman is an old-school cyberdeck to a pixie. They are the retro hacker option.

No. Just... no.

Can you actually do that at character generation? I mean, the uneducated flaw is the thing that keeps me from playing sapient critters as characters...

-CJ

IIRC there are rules (optional?) to buy off flaws in Runners Companion. So if you create the char via Karma System I don't see why you shouldn't be allowed to buy it off at creation.

As always, ask your GM.

From RC

Relevant part is bolded

May I shamelessly point you towards my "Tooth Fairy" thread?

Ah, thank you, I missed that one.

-CJ

Just to bring back the thread its original question as to why Pixies have been brought to Shadowrun.

Actually they are nothing new to the shadowrun world in general. They were in Shadowrun from the first Critters book just under the name of "Sprite". Of course as mentioned they could be considered cross over material from Earthdawn as there were Windlings which are all the same thing.

The only new thing I presume is now core rules that allow you to play them? If the old Earthdawn rules are anything to go by (from memory), yes, they are made out of paper.

Sprite's as we call them in our game (which is still 3rd Ed) were introduced well before 4th Ed hence. I doubt however whether our GM would allow us to play one though.

I really dont see a problem for a character playing one but I can see some rather jumpy runners around one.

First of all, a high magic attribute would have the *thing * pop out from nowhere and its gor freaking insect wings...

Now, it might be the 2070 but bug spirits (regardless if they are 0,5 meters tall and cute or huge and ugly) are not exactly met with a friendly nod.

Second, it is something non-human. I mean, ok, we got a troll at 3 meters tall but at least he is metahuman, this tiny little thing is something not animal and not human, and it talks...

Also, regardless having an intimidation skill of 6 with a specialization of "physical intimidation" I'm still not afraid of the 0,5 meter tall winged elf aiming a toothpick of a spear at me and sounding like chip n dale...

So, they have some prejudice and misconception to go through.

On the other hand, when the same tiny thing rams a spear weapon foci through someone rolling around about 20D6 for the attack...THEN I'll be intimidated.

Pixies lowered Strength and Body are big penalties, since it means they, really, cannot take a hit. I can easily see their other boosted stats because
of the idea that that are fast, flit from place to place, etc. Remember, they can't have implants, unless they buy their magic up, AND those implants
have to be DELTA Grade, but cost the same essence. And, of course, most people are going to buy off Uneducated at chargen, so, generally, a Pixie
costs at least 55 points. Somewhere, I have a pixie Physical Adept I did...but Pixies are something that has enough inherent disadvantages(Everyone
remembers you, you have no legal rights in most places,and, by that, I mean SINless have more rights, you are a sapient critter, so...your group's
mage's talismonger might want parts of you....)