Morning,
Since i'm stuck at work and waiting on staff to get here for some testing figured i'd make use of my new access. I've been able to dig and find a few answers to questions and saw some rather interesting debates on the industry standard definition of FAQ vs Errata.
Our group is talking about kicking up Shadowrun 4e, the DM and I have the 20th Ann Book. Since most of the time I play a stoic defender I figured I'd try a mage this time.
By-in-Large we are RAW players, only if something really doesn't work/doesn't make sense/breaks the game horribly will we houserule things.

Questions:
Reading through forum threads saw some talk about an FAQ "errata" but then others saying that the errata is old… is there an errata that we would want to pick up?

1) When casting a spell, can you use Rule of 4 for any of the checks? Eg Summoning dice pool of 16, buy 4 hits.

2) Can the mage w/ a dice pool of 16 choose to only buy 1 hit?
-I see this more for Conjuring a spirit for services and not wanting to many services for a lower drain resist

3) How do I increase my drain resist further?
*The main reason I'm concerned about this is trying to conjure a spirit and getting gibbed by a bad roll. *
Here are the things I know
-Willpower max
-2nd casting stat max
-Max Edge
-Augment Max for the casting stats ( spells, bioware )
-Quality: Focused Meditation 20pt for +2
-Initiation Metamagic Centering
-??

4) Can you Summon spirits of any type, or only those listed as apart of your tradition? In the section talking about creating a tradition step 2 implies that but can't find elsewhere where it states clearly.

4b) Follow-up: When building a tradition you can get 5 spirits that will give you access to most all of the spirit powers. If the 4a is true, then what is the balancing point if you can already get all but like 3-4 powers?

5) Power Foci do not add to Drain Resist tests because the Magic attribute is not included in the test, correct?

6) Is there any really required splat books? I know with previous game systems I've played some splats were really needed to increase the enjoyment of the game.

7) Oddball - If I wanted a power foci implanted into me, what would the cost be.

8 ) Do I understand this correctly: if I sling spells on a run, have a spell active, or have a spirit active a mage can just back track right back to me without much effort? This stinks of Mage: The Awakening in a way, where you end up being afraid to use your abiliites because of the backlash. not cool. :/

Thanks all, look forward to running. ^_^

I'll take the oddball: Foci are made of what are known as telesma. This is whatever physical form the focus takes. Telesma is always assumed to part of the cost of the focus, e.g. if your focus was a ring, you don't have to buy a ring and the focus. However, if you want a piece of gear to also be a focus, you pay for the gear and add the cost of the focus. E.g. a katana weapon focus would cost the katana's price + the focus price. This works with cyberware too. I would suggest having a simple piece of cyberware and telling the GM that it is the telesma for your focus. Then pay the nuyen for the cyberware and focus, and then the Essence and BP for bonding too.

tl;dr get a datajack or something and get a power focus.

1) I believe you can use the Rule of 4 for any test, unless your GM says otherwise.

2) Well, the example given I think is wrong. Summoning drain is based on the hits the spirit rolls on its opposed test, and does not have any relation to the successes the summoner has. This is true for summoning as well as binding.

4) You can only summon spirits your tradition allows. But you can always make up a new tradition with GM approval and get the spirits you want that way. (page 188 SR4A)
4b) I'm not sure balancing is really part of it. If you planned ahead and bound spirits, you get the benefits of have access to all powers. You still have to call/command the spirits and whatnot.

5) It adds to all tests where the user's Magic attribute is used, so no.

6) Splat books? If you mean additional sourcebooks, you don't need them. I guess typically if a group likes a game players start picking up the books for their characters and it just kind of goes from there. Street Magic is definately worth picking up, with more traditions, spells, threats, initiation, etc.


Yes and no. Casting spells and whatnot leaves a temporary astral signature behind. It fades normally, and while it can't be used as an astral link directly, it can be used to 'recognize' you astrally or for astral tracking. I think the threshold goes up +1 for every hour since the link was active.

1. ONLY IF the GM let's you. Any activity which could result in harmful results, is performed under pressure etc should be rolled. In offtime i see no problem with that - if the mage is exceptionally good and isn't doing something dangerous... but also in offtime people like to prepare and roll more (for higher hits)

2. If you want ... but: Drain doesn't have to do anything with your hits. (Only on direct combat spells, with OPTIONAL rule) But yeah you can limit hits (I myself allow it houseruled only for withholding 2 dice from your pool - no matter what activity - Melee, shooting, casting, building etc.)

3. Centering Foci for add-on to centering metamagic. Spirit Pact: Drain (Edge of free spirit to drain), being a blood mage (NPC only) and sacrificing people, drugs or spells (sustained by spirits or foci) for enhancing attributes, cyber/bioware for lowering/ignoring drain: Platelet factory for example.

4. ONLY the five types of your tradition. All Traditions already have set ones. IF you made up your own traditions (which the GM has to sanction) you can choose 5 fitting types. Only ways to get "other" spirits doing your bidding is mindcontrolling them OR banishing and immediate takeing them over with summoning.

4b. GM can smack you over the head if you choose to make a tradition with Task, Guardian, Guidance spirits, Spirits of Man and one loser Spirit *g*

5. Exactly

6. Whatever you play... you better have the expansian books. You really need "Street Magic" for Mages, Augmentation for more Cyber/Bioware, Arsenal for everybody, Unwired for Technomancer (and Hackers).. War (don't kill me please) - If you need MOAAAR POWERRR. The Companion for "I want to be a pretty Faery" - weird creatures. And so on.

8. Well, most tracks you can erase. The tracking itself is usually taking AT LEAST an hour too. You can erase your own signatures pretty easy with just a few complex actions (force actions, i think it was) OR by just ONE application of the cleansing metamagic. But yeah... if someone sees your spirit doing stuff, he can track you down.

Have fun

Awesome, thanks guys

4b) that bad huh? I actaully thought of an Ancestor Worship tradition that focused on human spirits rather than elementals. So those 4 and beast ( closest thing ), is that really that borked?

*most* tracks? i'm just kindof paranoid that this character is going to be fairly easily backtracked to the group. To track me is all Assencing skill right? ( or ritual spellcasting if i leave bits of me around )


New Questions:

Are Fetishes considered Foci? It doesn't state so but the end of the description it refers to the Foci in 4a. This seemed to just be refering to what they are and what they look like.

Do a drugs benefits count towards Augemented Max? Or can a Augemented max character take drugs to above that augmented max. ie Troll with max STR of 15 from cyber, does Kamikazi boost the STR to 17?

Realistic Form: This is a spirit power but no spirits have it listed as a power/optional power. It refers to Fire Elemental using the ability. Is this only for free spirits?

about 4b.: Well ALL spirits are perfectly powerful. Fire and Air are INCREDIBLE fighters and every spirit has great powers to massivly change combat/physical/social encounters.

But: The spirits i named (mainly the ones in the Street Magic) have this: Guidance spirit can pretty much use a metamagic (divining to see parts of the future) and provide magical guard and also have a INSANE engulf. Guardian spirits have magical guard too and also can have ANY combat skill you want and ridiculous physical attributes. Task spirits can have ANY technical skill and Spirit of Man can cast any one spell you yourself have.

These are all very powerful abilities. But depending on the style and power of your players, the mage, the NPC this can be A-OK or horribly broken.

New Questions:

Fetishes ARE enchanted, but they are not foci. Be aware that they are not listed in the list of things you can take with you in the astral realm. So you can't cast fetish-bound spells there. They are not bound to you and don't carry your signature. (Except if they are a dear memento as well)

Nope, Drugs or anything can't go above the augmented limits. The only things that can do that is external enhancements (Like Powered Armor) OR (Optional Rule) Redlining of cyberlimbs. And if you disregard the FAQ/rambling of people here... Spirit possession.

Aye. Realistic forms is only for free spirits and special ones (mostly evil deception-based spirits like Insects or Shedim something - so that they can take over people without anyone noticing.)

4b) Ok, that makes sense. A-Ok if I dont abuse the powers they have to try and replace my running mates but just for that time when everyone has square pegs and we need a round key.


Reading your sentance, i think you meant 'Drugs or anything *can't* go above the augmented limits.

9) You mentioned the FAQ. I've seen it debated quite abit as well, is this the one or is there a differant one? Linkie

Thanks for the help, have a feeling I'll necro this when more stuff doesn't make sense. ^_^

That's the one.
It's horribly... Just horrible. It tries to fix things it doesn't have to, by doing things it shouldn't be doing, in ways it really can't be doing. Plus it's old.

Then again, it works for our group. I suggest reading it and making your own judgments.

If the GM does that, just take the Voodoo tradition (SM42). It's got those four spirits; the downside is that it is a possession tradition.

Downside?

Yes. See here for starters.

Additionally, I don't know what the caster's player would expect to happen if his own possession spirit possessing him Engulfed a foe and then ended its possession power...

I think it says that engulfing materials appear around the vessel.

Also, that stuff about possession assumes the vessel hasn't been possessed in advance. Also, why do you need a mobile vessel? I've seen loads about possessing swords to make lightsabers and metal blocks to make elemental rayguns.

Voodoo is a shining example of why I don't think much of the SM traditions.


Indeed.

The downside of possession traditions is not readily apparent until you start taking into account Background Counts. Summoning a spirit in a bad area, your dice say you failed to summon what you wanted, but nothing says something else did not notice. This is even worse when you are trying to juice yourself up for some serious wuxia action and you screw up, and find yourself in a fight for your own body with any of a wide body of hostile spirits. Essentially you better be summoning shit in a nice, clean, positive, astral environment, or else you could easily find yourself the victim of a witch hunt.

That goes for materialisation spirits too. BC is nasty to magicians.

Except with a materialization spirit it will be more noticeable (err..nope that ain't a fire spirit), and you won't have the quandary of having a toxic spirit inside you, or a friend, or an even worse spirit. Welcome a horror to its new home.

Well, that's just the nasty the GM throws at you. Your choice of tradition is unlikely to cause that to happen, unless you hose up your summoning test and get an uncontrolled spirit. But then you're in trouble either way

I guess it is kind of a personal peeve, I don't like the concept of something crawling inside me controlling me. Possession Traditions have a near open door policy on that kind of stuff hence the serious drawback in my mind, plus the vessel preparation portability issue. It definitely throws wrenches in the works when unexpected dark matter hits the fan.

Then buy a high Willpower stat?

Implanted Foci have been doable for a LONG time, even without Essence-Loss. Tattoo-Metamagic for example uses something like this.
And you can enchant a simple ring and then have it implanted under the skin of your favourite body part and you will not lose essence.
Furthermore, you can try and make your own BONES into foci with etcher nanites i think.

High Willpower is kind of assumed with just about any mage build. Like I said purely personal creep factor, but in game it is not as flexible and can be severely questionable from an ethical standpoint when dealing with unwilling vessels, not that many shadowrunners care but well I guess that is what poetic justice is built on.

That's true. If you do that, though, you end up with a mage wielding a spirit. The mage swings the spirit around on the mage's turn. The mage's actions are consumed by swinging the spirit around. If the mage is in mêlée range of his targets, he's in mêlée range of their weaponry too (or will be as soon as they move) and their ranged weaponry to boot. If the sword / block is a prepared vessel, any other possession spirit can (attempt to) possess the sword / block at the GM's whim and play havoc with the team when they're stealthing / resting / etc.

Materialisation traditions don't have these downsides: the mage slings spells around on the mages turn and the spirit wades into combat on the spirit's turn. The mage's actions are free to do whatever he wants: cast spells or run away or fire a gun. He can be as far from the combat as he wants while the spirit keeps opponents occupied.

Possession has perks which are worthwhile for specific builds when you're willing to sacrifice safety and flexibility for those perks but outside those exceptions it's not worth it.

Of course, if you're playing in a pink mohawk game where the GM ignores the existence of wards and the player complains his mage has survived three times then possession is the way to pull the wool over the GMs eyes even further. As that thread illustrates though, breaking the game like that means no fun for anyone: the GM is (IRL) on the defence and the player is playing the wrong game: one with challenges, not cheatcodes and save-game editor.

Hey All again, hope you dont mind me repurposing my thread.

So chatting with the soon-to-be-GM and he's getting cold feet on the game. here are some of his concerns, if you could give some insight it would be sweet.

Involving each player:

Now I read a post previously about what does the Street Sami do if the run goes perfectly. Nothing unless we set the run up to include violence. But this concept also goes for what happens if the story leads into a Matrix null zone?

-side note- the GM does not want to throw in random hitches into the run just to create drama. if the players are smart the run can go smoothly.

Running three campaigns in one:

He is concerned that to provide an interesting game for the Mage, the Hacker, and everyone else you have to split and prepare basicly three campaigns. One astral, one matrix, one 'mundane'. Additionally this means that involving the whole group at once is almost impossible. If he wants to add 'magic stuff' into the campaign only the mage can participate. If he wants some interesting matrix stuff then only the hacker types can participate. he doesn't want to force players to pick up hacking type skills just to play that side-game and if they do, he's concerns that just 1 rank in the skill will be to little to effectively contibute.

Hopefully y'all can help out some. really dont wanna see SR crash and burn.. :/ thanks again.

A matrix null zone? I dunno if I've ever seen that.

The characters should have multiple skills. If the sam only kills things, it's a bad character, and he should be content to live on standby.

The mundane/astral/matrix split is the central recurring problem of SR, indeed. On the other hand, it's often only realistic for these all to be present; what kind of lame target ignores one of these aspects of security? Luckily, all three exist in the same physical space, thanks to wireless matrix and astral perception/projection. People will indeed have to split up their jobs, but that's their *job*.

Wonder why he made a character that can do nothing but violence?



4E has done a lot to include the hacker, and to make it so that you could be more than a fully-dedicate effectively a brain-in-a-vat hacker and still be useful. If the hacker can only hack, he's in the same boat as a gunbunny that can only shoot.



Sometimes there's a split, sometimes there's not. If the mage is doing astral stuff while everyone else sits on their ass, then it needs to be done quickly. But fully astral stuff should be rare, and physical stuff that's magical can easily involve the mundanes.

For the matrix, anything worth getting to is not going to be accessible from outside of the maximum security building. The hacker is going to have to get in and get out with everyone else, and they've changed timeframes from prior editions so that hacking uses the same combat turns as everything else. If there's a matrix alert, a physical alert is likely to follow soon and now the rest of the team has to protect the hacker while he gets tot he paydata.

Hacking doesn't need any skills at all. You can default to Logic and use a program. If everyone has a good Logic score, everyone is a good hacker, but the dedicated guy will be better thanks to specialties, qualities, and actual skill ranks.

The upshot is that if you make a character who can only do one thing in any game system then there will be times when you're sitting on the sidelines twiddling your thumbs. If a player wants to be included more often, it's their job to not make a one trick pony, not the GM's job to make sure that the single-faceted characters get an equal share of the limelight.

The above is only true if you're using the optional Logic-hacking rule. Otherwise, you just default to Program (-1).

Do you all run fairly small groups?

Our team will be 5 people. It seems that you would almost get overly redudant if every had everyone elses skills. Magic gets to kindof stand alone since the GM doesn't want more than one mage running around. With the right cash can anyone be just a few dice shy of a dedicated hacker?

This was the team that was being talked about:
Dorf Mage (me) - unsure on tradition.
Troll Sami
Smuggler pregen
Drone Rigger pregen
Hacker possibly pregen

As we've never played I think some of the problems we are seeing is that we understand the classicly defined roles, so the lock picker say. can't really wrap heads around having a bunch of the team helping out on that little maglock.

What else do you think the hacker should be doing? Drone control?

Regardless of the group, you're either good at 2 or 3 things (or 5), or you spend time standing around. I use this makeshift chart (http://goo.gl/i42xR), but it's not really a question of redundancy. The specialist *is* going to be better at his specialty (or something's very wrong, heh). But there are lots of situations where it helps to have a helper or a backup (or both), and it gives the *players* something to do.

Most skillsets have flexible applications (rigging, magic, hacking, etc.), but 'killer' does indeed have a certain kind of exclusivity. You can certainly work it in (kill the guards instead of avoid them, that kind of thing), but it's still good to have various abilities. Even if the sam's other strength is just physical overwatch, or being a diversion, or parkour, at least he's got options. Failing that, have him carry stuff.

Our Group is currently consisting of 6 Players. This is the standard Crew for our table. On ocassion, we reduce to 4-5, or increase to 7, but 6 is the standard compliment.

We have:
Human Black Mage Initiate. (Magic 2)
Ork Technomancer/Rigger. (Resonance 8 )
Human Hermetic Mage Initiate. (Magic 6)
Human Face/Jack of all Trades Triad Boss
Elven Assasin
Human Assassin Mage (Magic 7)

The action flows well, and the interface between all the various realms (Mundane, Matrix, Astral) is smooth and efficient. The characters stretch from 180 Karma to 340 Karma.

Looks like you have 3 Vehicle Guys. In my expereince, Drones are often worse (for a GM) than Spirits when it comes to Force Multipliers. So he may want to keep an eye on such things. Additionally, It is easy to be a GOOD hacker using the basic rules; All it takes is a little bit of money (to upgrade your hardware/programs) and you are hacking in style.

As Yerameyahu indicated, it is good to be flexible. Specialization is okay, but try not to specialize to the exclusion of everything else. A diverse skill set is very, very desireable, in my opinion.

To use your maglock example, there are three basic ways the group can handle maglocks.

1) The guy who's good at breaking into things has umpteen dice for beating maglocks, and nobody else bothered with the gear or Hardware skills needed. Now, when that guy can't make it (perhaps he's busy trying not to get shot, had to go take care of his daughter because the sitter got sick and the GM felt like poking his negative quality, or whatever). Now that he's gone the run fails, the runners get no money, but they do get a point of notoriety for the failure, all because everyone made a pidgeon for their favorite hole.

2) The guy who's really good at breaking into things has umpteen dice for beating maglocks, and one or more people have decent skill ratings and gear to handle it. Now when the plan calls for Mr. Maglock to be doing something else, it doesn't fall apart because there's other people that know how to open locked doors. And when the plan doesn't need other people, they can be at the door helping ("No, not the blue wire, the red one").

3) Nobody is "the maglock guy" but several people have the skills to handle it. Now no matter what the situation a door shouldn't be an issue. Some days the mage cracks it invisibly while the talkative guy distracts the guards. Other times the mage is busy handling the spirit guards and the street sam steps up to open the door. But when the spirit materializes and the gunbunny is needed elsewhere, the face can step up and finish the job.

For the hacker: give him a gun and some armor. Every single character, even a hacker, should be combat worthy because there ain't no such thing as a campaign without a firefight, and while you can usually choose who you shoot at you can't choose who shoots at you. You can also give him some side skills that fit his attributes (whatever they may be, though usually it's Logic heavy so Demolitions is a good one, as are First Aid and Medicine). That way he's still doing stuff even when there's no computers around.

Yerameyahu: Thanks for the link, rather interesting. Am I reading it correctly: Pick a few roles, check the corresponding attribute and sum up the 1's for general good starting score in the stat?

James McMurray: I agree most with point 2. allows for a character to have roles but other people atleast fake-it when needed. But your 4th point is kind of the DMs problem. He played in a game previous to this with another group. They planned and planned and planned so that, as I recall, they never even got into a gunfight. Having to fire the gun was a lose. So it might be part of his mindset of not wanting to throw random kinks into the plans and let the players win through thought and preparation. Thought I do agree that synergy of skills is good. Maybe the hacker is a bit of a pyro so she has a thing for c4. or Medic. I know I was thinking a Logic tradition with Heal and First-Aid/Medicine.

I think the 1s are just a placeholder, like binary (0, 1)… it's been a while. I could've used X, but I forget why I didn't. So they just flag major attributes, you'd want them as high as feasible. I know it's rough, I just made it for myself. There are a lot of roles that need covering!

Everyone should do pretty much what they want, within reason. The GM can hopefully be clever enough to come up with plenty of situations where it's advantageous or even necessary for two people to be doing the same thing at the same time to different targets.

Game-wise, Shadowrun is about creative problem solving with the tools and abilities you have on hand, often assessed and managed on the fly. If you've got two people with the same general skills and abilities, I would seriously hope that your team could find a way to use that to its advantage.

To borrow James' example of the "maglock guy," if you had two maglock guys you could open twice as many maglocks twice as fast. This could be particularly useful if you've only got 30 seconds before the next security patrol comes through and the MacGuffin is behind one of four maglocked doors.

Magic is particularly flexible in this regard, since you can make two magician characters with the exact same stats and skills, but different traditions and spells, and have them fulfill completely different nonoverlapping roles.

You could even work multiple Face characters to your advantage, fairly easily.

I don't know about that. I've always been of the opinion that if the run goes smoothly the GM screwed the pooch. Sure, my runner wants the run to come off without a hitch, but as a player I have more fun if like Mal in Serenity he can complain about why things never go smooth. A good GM either plays to their players or they tell them when a concept won't work for the campaign. If someone makes a gun bunny and they don't get to shoot something it's the GM's fault.

If there are no random kinks it's not a shadowrun game, or at least in's not in the typical genre of the game (read any of the novels, most of the short stories, or play the video games). Heck, it's not even a pen-and-paper version of a heist movie. The reason "no plan survives contact with the enemy" is a cliche is because it's proven itself true time and time again. If your group is capable of being omnipotent enough to expect every eventuality and perfect enough to deal with them all in the planning phase then you don't need a GM at all.

It sounds like the GM is unwilling to put unexpected difficulties in your path, does not know how to merge multiple roles into a single scene, and/or doesn't want to listen to the plans you're making and determine how security experts (who've had a lot longer to think about it than he had to prep the run) would have expected and countered some of your moves. If so, perhaps he's right that Shadowrun isn't the game for him. Maybe someone else could run this campaign, or you play a different system.