I have linguist+mnemonic enhancer+something else.

I get the first language for free, and +4 to all my linguistic rolls.

Can't complain about that...

When the thread degrades to "nuh-uh, my guy is better because <insert cherry picked scenario here>" I get to cherry pick my own scenarios too, and in mine I left no trace. Even if I did, I still win the "whose imaginary testicles are bigger" battle before the corporate court comes after me.



I believe the answer is "enough." IIRC it's in WAR!, but I don't have it handy. If that's not enough, I nuked instead (and bought the GM dinner so he'd let it go off).

Basically, arguments like this are pointless exercises in cherry picking scenarios and ego one-ups-manship. Eventually the GM wins by telling everyone to shut up and dropping anti-cty weaponry on them to make sure it happens. That is, if these scenarios ever came up in a real game, which they don't.

It is in the Errata for Arsenal. Yes, they have an Errata for Arsenal.



You could always go to a 7, at least in one skill. Legendary is hard to beat.

I think it's "if you're within 200m: dead. Beyond 200m it has a base value of (130?) -1 DV/100m"

I believe that Concealment does not hide your commlink's Signal Rating, you'd have a Signal Rating if you were the commlink.

I do think that Concealment hides from Radar - so long as it uses the Perception skill, Concealment works against that. While Radar ignores Improved Invis which only affects vision, it would not and should not ignore a similar multi-sensory Illusion spell.

Thank You...



Not sure that I would agree here. Again, YOU ARE STILL there... therfore you have a radar reflection. That is one of the reasons that Invisibility does not work, because of the Radar Reflection. Could you design a Spell to be invisible to Radar? Sure, but one does not exist yet in canon, as far as I can remember.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein

Same is true for light, sound, smell, etc. etc.

And yet, that Invisibility does not work against Radar, now does it? Because Light is not Radar Waves... Duh...
Nor does it work against Sound, Smell, or anything else...

Invisibility != Concealment

Invisibility does not work against radar because it specifically states that it works against visual senses and radar ain't one of 'em.

Concealment applies a penalty to all Perception rolls. If the radar is using Perception, it is affected. A house rule certainly isn't unwarranted. Concelament as written is very powerful, too powerful for some campaigns. But the RAW is very clear.

I get it, Really, I do...

Concealment is TOO powerful for Most if not ALL games when your average Mage has a Magic of 15+ (That stupidly epic 2000 Karma Game mentioned somewhere above comes to mind).

In Sane games, it is not so bad. Concealment is never really a problem in any game I have played. I still have issues with it, however, because purely mechanical devices should not be affected by it, much like the aforementioned Radar. High Powerd Mage Magic does not work against it, why should Pixie Magic do so?

Additionally, The way it is worded seems to imply that it is no good unless the user is actively being stealthy. Your Mileage may Vary, of course.

Anyways.

High powered mage magic should, when appropriate (multisensory spell, normal Concealment), work against it, so why should pixie magic not do so?

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein

Silent does not work against visiual perception. So invisibility should not work against visiual perception.


Or a camera or a microphone.


With a chamelion suite and magic 6 it just adds up to 10 dices. (And in a "normal" game not everyone is going to have around 20 dices for perception)

By Canon, it does not, as there is no spell that does so. You could, of course, add one in for that purpose. Concealment IS the Pixie magic to which I referred.

It's just a pet peeve of mine, that's all...

Anyways...

It is so stupidly easy to get a high Perception Dice Pool that I often have to consiously work to not go that route.
As for the reference to my character, it made sense, in that normal game, to have such a high dice pool. A Cyberlogician is nothing but observant.

By canon, there is no multisensory Illusion spell that does what Imp Invis does for vision based Perception, yes. But by canon also, Concealment does work against radar, as long as the skill being used is Perception. Concealment isn't a multisensory version of Improved Invis, just because Improved Invis doesn't work against radar and no canon spell fulfills this specific function doesn't mean that Concealment doesn't work against radar.

I agree with what you wrote. I disagree with the rationale for it however. Besides, Drones do not roll perception, they roll a Sensor Check which is Pilot + Sensor. So Purely Mechanical Devices should not be fooled by Concealment. Which is what I said earlier.

I would not go down that road. I guess if you follow through to the and drones wouldn't be able to see anything. (Because to see something you have to make a Perception test, a Perception test ist defined by having perception as part of the dice pool (your axiom), drones do not have perception so they don't see anything.)

Obviously, Common Sense is not. There is Perception, and then there is perception. Drones do not have the Skill, but they can still perceive. They just use different abilities. So your argument fails, since teh books say to use Pilot + Sensor to make that roll, not Perception + Sensor (which is what a Rigger would use if HE was perceiving). Ergo, Since Concealment only applies to Perception Rolls (The Skill), Machines are immune to it. Pretty simple really.

Do I buy that line of reaasoning? Maybe. It makes a good argument, and brings Concealment into line with the rest of the magic system. Afterall, even Ruthenium Polymers and Sneak Suits, which Concealment is magically mimicing, can be seen with Radar.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
My argument was meant to fail. Out of the same reason yours fails. You do not need perception to make a perception test.


Well, radar is something I dislike a bit anyway because there are no visibility rules. (So it is not even said a pixie can be picked up with rader)

I disagree. Concealment only subtracts from Perception Tests (Note the Capitalization). It Does not subtract from Sensor Tests.

Sorry that you dislike them, but why would they not? They are corporeal. Therefore they have a Radar Return. Thus they can be seen.

I don't know about anyone else, but the majority of my characters are unplayable out of chargen.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Well radar ain't radar. Different radars have totally different properties.

Irrelevant. Per the game, they work. Don't really care about yhte differing vagaries of the differing Radar Systems.
And we both know we are discussing Ultra-Wide band Radar, and the Vehicle Radar.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Well, you have to at some point.
Is it possible to tell female from male? Is it possible to tell strong from fat? Is it possible to tell human from orc? Is it possible to tell pidgeon from pixie. I would go with no to every question. But how is it supposed to be?

Does not reallly matter. What matters is that I can now see you, when my eyes tell me nothing is there. Begin the saturation bombing...

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein

So you start bombing smog. Nicce. Well, I guess lone Star will take care of you...
(Now getting the point why it is important to know how the radar works and what you see?)

You are making an assumption here that is not warranted. I am not a moron. I understand that ground clutter is an artifact that Radar has to deal with (Which is something my characters use to their advantage). I also know that MOST forms of radar do not care about mist (I am not using Weather Radar here) or smog (while Chaff is another story). Please do not assume that I am uneducated.

Never assume anyone on DumpShock is uneducated about anything. We have a really strange group of skills and knowledge sets.

And a number of posters are current/former military who might know one HELL of a lot about radar!

Off-topic point of curiosity:
My late grandfather helped build AWACS.
And apparently so did one of my professors (although they never met each other, as they were working on different sides of the project).

I had a statistics professor at a base whose job when he was in the Army was to calculate how many people different nuke strikes would take out.


Talk about a freaking depressing job.

If your eyes tell you nothing is there, then therefore you cannot now see me.

Your instruments (if using radar as a sensor) tell you something is supposed to be there.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein

As a matter of fact the Frequency Diversity Radar, used for weather radars, would have a better chance to destinguish between mist and a pixie compared to "normal" radar.

Bio radar works with the doppler effect. (It is used for detecting victims of avalanches.
This effect is manly known from the weather forcast, because it is manly used in (you guessed it) weather radars.
You need a low frequenzy to get though objects and to "not kill the person you are looking for".
A scan takes several seconds to scan the area in the avalanche.

So I guss the poor pixie would be cooked, before you could shoot her. (This to the realism part)

(Oberating with a THz frequenzy and having a range of 200m in a city.)


I personaly don't give a crap if the "radar" in shadowrun works just like the Inertial damper in Star Treck. Put I would like to know how they are supposed to work.
Do I get my update realtime or do it update ever 10 sec. or even every min.
Does it just show walls and things it believes to be "alive" as dots?
How big do I have to be to be seen as a "alive dot"?
You could argue, that the pixie does not show up on the rader if she is more than 10 m away or even just behind a thin wall or she does not show up at all. (Or any other possibility)

(Ah, but in one instance the rules for the radar are clear. Concealment does help.)

Can I use it to detect the Insect Flesh Forms as they're thirty metres away... Twenty metres away... Ten metres away...

"They'd be in the slotting room!"

FIVE METRES AWAY!

"They're in the walls!!! OPEN FIRE!!!"

To go back to topic: the answer is "you don´t need one single point of karma before your character becomes unplayable". I created a new character 2 weeks ago (fomori-changeling with astral hazing, MBW System 2) and gave the character sheet to the GM for approvement. After approval I started playing yesterday and during Ghost Cartels he realized that i (again) created a very good character that outclassed all the other players. Some minutes ago he called me and started an argue because i alway create high-power-chars....

I didn´t read the adventure, but according to the way he gamed, it seems that this situation with the possession spirit at the last third of the adventure is not about to be solved by the players. My char. stepped into the room and beat the spirits ass and this seems to be the main reason for him to become angry. But i really don´t know what i made wrong? This was basically THE situation my char. was made for. To beat spirits asses... In every other situation this char. is nigh unplayable because he only has 3 skills at all. I also don´t know how to create loser-characters that might please him. He also told me that he has problems with my magical character that was really poorly build and now, after 130 karma, starts to outclass the team soon. Maybe i am too stubborn, maybe i don´t get the point, but a RPG is IMHO about 2 things:

1) playing your character and having fun
2) improving your character

Our GM seems to dislike point 2, so what should i do? Decline karma? Should we disallow magic in our games? Surge, high-quality cyber and bio like MBW´s? If we do that, what is left? What can i do if he has problems with 13 dices in close combat but no problems with 20 dices in automatics? Should i start letting the GM create my chars and he decides what i may rise and what not?

It would be great to hear your comments.

Some GMs simply cannot think outside the scenario they have been given or they are unwilling to do so, for whatever reasons. When this happens, I have seen one of 2 things happen: The good GM takes it like a man (not that I am disparaging women, but it is simply a saying where I come from), the bad GM takes it like an insult.

Personally I dislike straying from the published adventure when I am running a published adventure. If I do allow certain character options, then I brace myself when I inevitably(rarely now, but still inevitable) miss something. But I try to accept that as the cost of playing a published adventure; sometime someone has a character that's a silver bullet and as long as the players are having fun, then it doesn't really matter that I am not really enjoying myself as much.

This might be the difference between you and our GM. I really don´t want to destroy the fun for all the other players, but i really don´t know what i can do. If i go on like that, the GM resigns to game anymore (because he is a sissy ) and the other players don´t care about the run as long as they can play. So either the GM resigns or i do.^^

It really Sucks to be in that position. Been there a time or two. Ended up just resigning the game and moving on to something else.

@Machiavelli
Your GM is not a evil enough. If I would only see a Char with astral Hazing and withoug Astral vision, I would be laughing my ass off.
This guy would be in a prision cell faster than you could be saying MOVE BY WIRE SYSTEM.

Yes, of course. If a GM decides to ignore all the drawbacks of a negativ quality, well...

Astral Hazing is like pinning a big astral shield on your forehead screaming BAD BOY.

Have you considered creating an ally spirit? (/action listens for huge vacuuming noise as karma points vanish)



For it to be a fair comparison, you also have to improve all characters in the areas the specialist excels in to match his ability. If you start with 1 charisma and 6 body, its a easier (less karma) to go to 3/6 than if you started with 3 charisma and 4 body

I think this will be the result of this situation. If i stay in this group, the GM will possibly resign GM´ing which would cancel the fun for the other players. So i better leave him into his tiny little world and check out for another group (or stop playing). Somtimes things come to a natural end.


The GM has a problem with Magic IMHO and the power that comes with it. Creating an ally spirit will cause 2 reactions:

1) the GM first will allow the ally and after one session or two, he realizes that it is a big advantage. Then...
2) the spirit will be destroyed and i loose the karma (and the magic point i think).