Question one:

Hardened armor ignores the damage completely if the modified DV of the attack doesn't exceed it's rating. Drakes get a Hardened Armor of 4... which is lower than pretty much any attack known to mankind, save maybe a few really weak melee attacks and the like.

What is the point of such low rating Hardened Armor? At first I misunderstood the rules and thought it was decent, but once I really looked at it, it seems to be a waste of an ability. Now a greater Dragon's hardened armor in the 12ish range, that has some value.

Question two:

Fetishes - do they work for all spells of the category, or do they only work for the particular limited spell? I.e. can I buy one Combat Fetish for 200:nuyen: and then learn all my combat spells as limited versions - or do I need to buy a separate fetish for each combat spell. In SR2, the last version I played, it was each spell, but the description in the book is a bit vague.

Thanks for the help, as always. You folks are really helping myself and my prospective players to get a better grasp on this system.

1) exactly.
2) you don't need more than 5 (for the five categories) fetishes, but only the spells limited to it need it to work. only 90% sure

Hardened Armor of 4 will shrug off: Hold-Outs, Light Pistols, most SMG's and Machine Pistols. Barring APDS/Ex-Ex ammo, of course.

That's not bad, IMO.

SMGs do 5P base DV and all the others do at least 5DV after net hits...

But that Hardened Armor counts as double when you soak damage, if it is bypassed (or am I confused? It is a Really Bad morning today, and I am away from books)...

yes, you're confusing Hardened Armor in general an spirits' Immunity to normal weapons, which gives Hardened Armor equal to Fx2. drakes basically have Force 2 ItNW

If hardened, you roll double to soak if the DV exceeds the base armor rating, yes.

no it doesn't. you're confusing it with spirits as well
the only thing Hardened Armor does, is saying "don't bother rolling damage resistance, if DV < Armor"

but Drakes have Mystic Armor 4 as well, so they do indeed roll 8 armor dice (+ body +worn armor) if DV > 4

Look, it's the Matrix, there's a fetish for everything on it! Yes, even for Hardened Armor. It's so hard and firm and...

...

Oh, I read that wrong, didn't i?

Thbbbbpt.

@CanRay: I thought exactly the same thing when I saw the title of this thread.

Not sure why I thought SMG's were 4P.

It was my understanding that Hardened Armor stops all attacks where the Base Damage is less than it's value (after AP is applied), and net hits don't figure in to the calculation. Am I mistaken?

You are... Net hits apply before checking against Armor Values...

the DV changes for burst/Full Auto fire is what does not apply.

Actually... The descriptions of the Mystic Armor power (for Critters) in the book disagree with your statement... Mystic Armor does not apply to any attacks in the physical. Only against Astral Attacks. Please see the description of the power, page 296, SR4A... (Yay, I have my books now)...

Hardened Armor only counts once, though, for soak purposes, thoug it will ignore anything less than or equal to its rating...

Bolded portion of quote is true. Underlined is in fact, false.
The Critter power Mystic Armor is actually DIFFERENT from the Adept power Mystic armor last I checked. The Adept version gives armor both normally and vs astral assault
Unless I read it wrong, the Critter power version only gives armor vs Astral attacks

EDIT: CURSE YOU NINJAS

thx for the clarification. you're correct with the critter power mystic armor.
wow, that will get weird, if I built a Drake Mystic-Adept with Mystic armor and the Armor and Astral armor spells

Indeed... Good luck...

Yes, that is very weird and coincidentally, that was what happened. Tyger is my GM and we just spent some time making the character. I am brand new to SR so I needed the assistance creating a character. I didn't read your post until after the character was completed. It is totally funny that what you types is what happened.

Frankly, I would recommend a metahuman infiltrator, samurai or face as the archetypes for a newbie, without bothering with rules for magic, matrix, drakes and such. Once you get the basics down, you can move on to using more rules...
Just my opinion, anyway - at least it removes the chance of being stuck with a useless character for a campaign.

Yeah, I made my recommendations to everyone - they ignored them. That's fine though, I am assuming there will be a fairly high turnover of characters at the beginning. Hell, as it stands, the entire team (6 players) with the exception of one healing and defense focused magician, are all eitehr cybergoons or physical adepts. I have never seen such a combat heavy group. No face. No social skills at all I think. The highest Charisma is a 3. No technical skills beyond really rudimentary ones.

Its going to be interesting. Suffice to say my first run was supposed to be a quiet data grab - that's not going to work.

You are the goddamn GM.

Well. I'd slaughter such a team, myself.
However, if you want to be gentle, by fluff Johnsons rarely offer shadowrunner teams work they are not at all prepared for - for example, a sammy-only team is not getting a trix run; so you could still make it work with some enforcing, courier runs or bodyguarding...

I can see we have very different views of how to GM. That's cool.



Oh yeah, I have a first couple run ideas. I'm not planning much beyond that, so that they can get a feel for the world and the system. We have two hackers (one techno, one hacker) in the wings, a rigger, a face, another magician... they just want to get a feel for the first.

*shrug* Frankly, Shadowrun is all about narrowly specialized characters acting as a team. When I GM for first-time players, I just explain that their team needs certain specialists, lack of such cripples it, and increases the probability of a TPK. Worked so far.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand: your players want to get the gist of the game; most of them are combat specialists; yet you prepare a B&E run? Is that what is happening?

Just a question and I am not being ignorant here. Do you have a problem with losing players in your group?

I understand what you are saying about an "idea" shadowrun team but why pigeonhole into something they don't want to play? And then to say that you would kill off the entire team? What would that accomplish other than proving a point that you can kill off such a party at the expense of an entire group of your friends having a terrible time playing a game you are running?

We are a group of professionals. We have an archaeologist, metalurgist, electrician, baker, teacher, human rights officer, and a labour investigator in this group of friends. We are not a bunch of 15 year olds so we would not appreciate a gm killing off every member of the team just because they can or to prove a point.

Again, no offense is meant to you. I am a total noob here and I would not want to step on toes at all. I guess, as Tyger mentioned, we have different styles. Thanks very much for your advice and please know it is appreciated. Any of those suggestion you offered are great but I am not opposed to jumping right in and playing something that I would have more enjoyment with. And I don't have to have the most powerful character out there as was illustrated by my first inclination to play a nosferatu

Cheers for the advice!

That's cool that's how your SR group plays, but really, SR is not JUST about this. Another table may have room for more generalist characters.

*edit* from the post above by tundrawalker1 - it's a game, so ya'll play it as you want to. Sounds like Fatum's group enjoys the mirrorshades, deadly type of game (maybe?). Your group might enjoy it less so, and that's cool too. I think it's fine if your team is combat-heavy but you prepared a B&E run. Maybe they have fun and want to try to make a B&E char at some point in the future.

*double edit* I thought your "group of professionals" was your SR characters, at first. It sounded like a pretty interesting party for a run

LOL and thanks on the last comment. I don't think our group of professionals group would be much of a runner group. I am the labour investigator in the group and despite my past career in various aspects of law enforcement when I have seen and heard a lot, I would be the worst criminal in the world!

With regard to your statement about playing the game as we like it, I concur with you, my friend. With all the possibilities out there in this woderful world of Shadowrun, any gm worth their salt could tailor the "adventure/run" to his or her players. If not, then maybe someone else should change seats with the gm. Clearly a well rounded group that covers all the possibilities would be more successful in various missions. But that does not mean to say that a group of characters such as ours cannot find a mission that would relate to our abilities. I really do not see the need/sense in a TPK because your players are not playing character you view as "ideal." Again, no disrespect to Fatum at all as it is just a style issue. Personally, if I devoted time to create a SR character along with my friends and the gm did a TPK because of the makeup of the team, I would question why I and my friends wasted so much time and ask the gm what was the point of the TPK. Shadowrun is a deadly game and characters get killed but a TPK just because a gm can makes little sense to me....but again, that is just my opinion and no offence is intended to anyone.

Thanks for your comments, sir.

No, I have no problem with losing players in my group. Actually, I have about the number of players I am able to GM willing to get into the game.

See, game style is mostly determined by rules, don't you agree? With Shadowrun and its three worlds (RL, Matrix, and Astral), there is just no way to make a complex, interesting adventure using the possibilities the system gives you without needing a diverse set of talents among the team.
Let's try to go with an analogy - it's widely known that D&D class balance is shifted towards casters, especially at higher levels. Does that mean that if a whole party wants to play fighters and barbarians, DM should advise them otherwise? In my opinion, absolutely - because otherwise, when an encounter with fitting CR is upon the party, it will be slaughtered, leaving the DM with a choice of subpar opponents or constant TPKs.

You seem to presume that I'd deliberately set up the game to wipe them out. This is not so (I dunno, see my signature or sth).

Consider the following: one of the advantages of Shadowrun as a setting is that you can use your day-to-day logic to determine the events of the game in the vast majority of game situations.
Now, suppose we don't craft the adventure specifically for the benefit of the team, and just give them one of the published adventures, or go along with our imagination. One of the most common challenges for a shadowrunner team is hardware security: cams, locks, recording drones. All those things are omnipresent in Shadowrun (it's in the books - a GM might choose to tone it down, but going without means ruining verisimilitude because it goes against your day-to-day logic). What can a team composed entirely of combat specialists do against the hardware security to stay undetected? I hate to spell it out, but realistically - nothing much. It's not like doors blown out and cams taken down is going to go unnoticed.
Now, again, use your real-life logic: what happens when the police gets a call informing them of a group of heavily armed men up to no good in the property of some respectable business? You might say - yeah, but the team are specialists, they are much better at combat then the cops. But think about it - in real life, if even a highly trained team is put against a whole city worth of law enforcement, does the said team have a chance to succeed? Let's just say "not likely".

That leaves the GM with a very limited set of options, really.
1) You can choose to stick to the logic still. In this case, you either have to choose the challenges your team is prepared to face (and note my suggestion of doing so above), persuade the players to form a balanced team with more bases covered, or go with the logical consequences of not doing so, including TPK. That gameplay style makes for believable, deep campaigns with an interesting story respecting the setting's peculiarities and benefiting from them.
2) You say "goodbye" to that boring common sense, and go full pink mohawk mode. Cops in the example above are too busy fighting escaped genecrafted polar bears in the zoo, and never arrive. The team does pretty much whatever it wants to the setting. This approach makes for some easy and fun games, and in no way do I say it's "wrong" or "unacceptable". It just doesn't realize the setting's potential fully, and gives much less food for thought then the first approach.

I typically use the first, "black trenchcoat" style of play when I GM, and I fairly warn my players: do whatever you want, but be prepared to face the realistic consequences of your actions.
Always winning is not always fun, and fun is not necessarily winning all the time.

>we're adults not some teenagers like you stop your bickering you're playing wrong you egotistical imbecile
>no offense meant
Well, fine then, I guess, none taken :3


See, Shadowrun is a rather complex system with its rule system far from streamlined. That's why in my experience for a new player it's always better to start with a character only operating in one world: either RL, Matrix or the mages' Astral, just to use less rules and to be able to tell whether his character is good at what he does. Since the rules RL works by are generally known, it makes sense to choose that for a first-timer. Just to do less hysterical flipping through the book trying to recall that specific rule exception you saw somewhere when the rest of the group is waiting for you.


Sure enough. If you play thrice each week, maybe your characters make enough Karma to advance their high-ranked skills during the campaign. Or maybe if you have incompetent opposition. Or just play pink mohawk style, where everything goes.

I wrote up a long dissection of your post, but then figured it's not worth it, arguing on the internet.

It seems that tundrawalker1 & co are eager to play SR and have fun. That's the most important part. Styles of play / character types / skillsets are secondary.

QFT, as I've said numerous times, I've wanted to play since '92, and finally gave up and started running when 4th Edition came out.

IMO you need one fetish for each spell, one fetish per spell catecory makes blood fetishes a little too good.

I think you're right, although it doesn't seem 100 % clear in the text (surprise, surprise)

SR4A, p 182:
Limited Spells
"...When the spell is learned, it is attuned to that particular fetish...If the fetish is lost, a new one must be tracked down and re-attuned to both the magician and the spell"

But it also sounds like a case could be made for one fetish per spell category

"...Fetishes are available for sale from talismongers or other magicians, and are made for a specific category of spells (combat, detection, and so on). A given fetish can only be used for spells of that category.

I'd interpret that as the fetish can be attuned to any spell in said category but once it was attuned it was locked to the individual spell. But its late and I cant be bothered to look up the details.

Yeah, that is the interpretation I am going to go with as well. Makes sense, and yes, otherwise Blood Fetishes do become even better.

With regard to the other stuff above, I believe that it is possible for a GM to play in a flexible manner so as to accommodate the needs and wants of the players - and in doing so some of the richness and versatility of the system and world may be lost. But if the overall group has fun, who cares?

If the players have a good time with a team composed almost completely of thugs, then we met our objective, which was to get together as a group, pretend to be fantastical folks, and have fun.

Now if their builds and playstyles get in the way of that, then yes, we'll make changes. But I am certainly not going to impose my version of fun on them. I believe, and I noted above, that once they play the game a few times, we'll see some changes. And some of them did want to play hackers as their first characters, and I strongly suggested we avoid matrix stuff until we had a couple sessions under our belts - Fatum is certainly correct about that - its a darned complicated system for new players to pick up and run with.

most of the time, I read: Model the scenarios so the team will fit and the players have fun. All combat heavy -> lots of shooting.
but what about the GM? He should be first saying about what's going on, because he's the most valuable guy at the table and he's doing all the work. He's entitled to the most fun! I would never make up combat heavy runs. My group is lacking matrix, but that's ok. I can still make the runs 40/40/20 social/combat/magic. The players should be thankful for the GM in the first place oO

Nothing makes the GM in any way superior on any ground than the other players. Roleplaying is about teamwork, not (just) between characters, but between people involved. If the people involved want to have characters that go together like chocolate sprinkles in lemon juice, they can. If the Gm feels he can make this situation playable, as well as fun for himself, he gives them the go. Otherwise, they should talk about it until they reach something he can do, or ditch the concept and find something else they can all agree on.
The GM is not in any way more important than the players, nor entitled to more, nor the be all and end all of anything. He should balance his desires, his values with the other players just as everyone else.

I completely and thoroughly agree with everything you typed. Sure the GM does a lot of work and should be appreciated for that but they are no more important than anyone else at the table. We used to have a system where when we ordered food for a gaming session, one member (the GM by the way) suggested the GM should not have to pay and the other players would chip in for the GM's food. Say what?!?! Suffice to say that did not go over well.

Umm, pardon me if I am wrong but when you state you would "slaughter a group like that" it certainly does appear that it is a deliberately set up game to wipe them out.

There's a difference between deliberately slaughtering a group off, or saying "The world is filled with lethal, and often fast repercussions. Combat can kill you, the aftermath more so."

I've only ever had one person in one of my games both without Stealth and Social skills and Uncouth to boot. She was shot a few times with stick n shock rounds, and left for dead in an alley, the vehicle with which she ticked off local law enforcement impounded, along with all the gear she carried.
Not out of spite, or out of deliberately setting her up, but out of saying "look, the world doesn't tolerate you going rampant in it, and since you're SINless, the world generally couldn't care less about your continued existence." After she had those points made clear to her by both me and other players on multiple occasions.

The way the typical SR game runs, having no Stealth and Social skills tends to be a huge handicap, even if you don't play it rampaging giant style.
If you can make it work though, power to you.

as a gm you have the power to veto any character. and I'd do so with combat-only chars. by RAW (SR4A p89). ofc I'd tell them in advance.

how is this still ontopic? *g*

TygerTyger, is *everyone* in your game (a) brand new to SR and (b) playing complex freak characters out of splatbooks? Enjoy.

We're all new to SR (I played 2nd edition 13 years ago) Most of them are pretty straightforward. The two sammies are pure core, as is the lone magician. One of the phys-ads is a haruman dwarf (nothing challenging there), one is a bear shapeshifter, and one is Tundra's fomorian drake changeling... can you spot the guy who picks 12 PrCs in D&D?

Mostly I think its a hold over from D&D, which will fade very quickly. Once the players get a taste for the system and the world, and a better understanding that standing out like a sore thumb is a bad thing (I run mirror-shades far more than pink mohawk) we'll see an entirely different batch of characters.

The only one that I can see really doing well is one of the assassins - she's well built and discrete. She could easily weather the storms.

After the first couple of sessions, I am going to let them know what the repercussions would have been (i.e. the errors they made due to not knowing the world and the system) without actually imposing them. That way they'll start to learn the paranoia level they should have been maintaining, but won't get killed for player lack of knowledge.

Its a great group, they'll do fantastic once they get their teeth into the system.