That doesn't bother me quite as much, because they are in the same book, and their effects stack with one another. An encephalon is (to my mind, at least) the pricey option for hackers who are extremely dedicated and want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of themselves. The altskin applications don't bother me, either, because they are more expensive and of a higher Availability than latex masks or nanopaste - they don't make the latter two useless, just as the savior medkit doesn't render a normal medkit useless. People will still use the cheaper options.

I can't really comment about the face morphing cyber from Spy Games. I can only hope they present it in a way that still leaves a niche for the bioware - ideally it would be better in some ways, worse in other ways. After hearing about the munchkin crap in War! I'm not too hopeful about that, but then again, maybe they've learned their lesson.

To be fair in that case, they add together. You get PuSHeD and then if you need more, then get the Encephelon. Some hackers might go for it.

Sorry Sengir, I just do not see the problems...

Temple Pharmaceuticals is proud to unveil their newest cutting edge-product, a result of years of research by our dedicated scientists:
Nanite Reflexes
+1 IP and +1 Rea per Rating, R*2000 , Avail 5R, Essence 0.3

Hey, it's more Essence-friendly than its bioware counterpart, while being cheaper and more easily available than the cyberware (you know, the kind of ware which is supposed to be the cheap alternative) equaivalent - but I do not see any problems there...

Taking into account that this is non-RAW tech, this is nanoware right? Or does it also have house rule advantages over regular nanoware?

Thank You Toturi...

Especially since Drugs are even Cheaper than Sengir's Porposal, for the Same Benefit... Cram: +1 Reaction, +1 IP, Cost is 10 . Wow, this must be the most powerful substance ever produced.

What are you guys talking about? It's a fake example of an augmentation that's flat better than all the rest (and no, Tymeaus, Cram doesn't beat it). And I'd assume it's nanocybernetics from the description, but how is that at all relevant? The point is that it would be something fundamentally better in every way.

This.
Bear with me, I still sometimes forget the problem most English speakers (fun fact, I've even noticed it among locals who stayed in the US or UK for a few years) with analogies, irony, or similar devices


By the way, I looked the Jigsaw Skull in Spy Games and it does not look so bad: Essence cost is higher (it's cyber, after all), Availability higher for low ratings and lower for high ratings, price is exactly the opposite. Overall a nice alternative with its own faults and merits, instead of being flatly better or worse.
What is bad on the other hand are the unclear rules: One can obviously adjust the face manually on the fly with a Disguise + Intuition (4, 3 Combat Turns) Extended Test, or more carefully in two minutes..without a test? I guess so, because it does not mention a test. What's also guesswork is the actual rules effect of the disguise ...Rating added to Disguise test maybe?

Cram does not have to beat it Yerameyahu, all it has to do is compete with it. And it does so quite well in that regard.
Cram is Fundamentally better in every way to what Sengir posted. Same Benefit, No essence Loss (at least initially) and significantly cheaper in such a way that you would need Hundreds of Combats to realize any fundamental difference in Cost. What is the Survival Quotient for Combat. How many Combats are you expected to survive in your career? If it is 200 or less, then the Cram is a MUCH better deal than ANY other Initiative Enhancer out there, bar none.

Drawbacks?

Cram - Possible Addiction
Nanocybernetics - Essence Loss and More Expensive.
Cyber/Bioware - Essence Loss and More Expensive.
Magician - Magician Quality, Heavy Investment in Magic Attribute, Sustaining Focus or Sustaining Penalties, and Spell Cost in BP/Karma (More Expensive).
Adept - Magical Quality and Heavy Investment in Magic Attribute, Heavy Investment in Power Point Expenditure.

Cram is better in Every way, it has a [i]Possible[/i] drawback (that may or may not take effect), while every other option has a Guaranteed Drawback. So... Why does not everyone use Cram? Choice. There is an abundance of choices out there. This is good for Shadowrun.

The Point is, there is absolutely no problem with there being 10 ways to do something in the game. Some will be, by definition, fundamentally better in every way than another (or several others) out there.

At a certain point you just see that it's universally unbalanced and give up.
The cost of adding X dice to your dice pool is whatever a developer felt the market price might be for an item regardless of other market prices or it's benefit to runners.
For some devices, the market price varies depending on which rules you're using (pirated vs. non-pirated software).
For some devices the effectiveness is purely up to the GM (Vocal Range Enhancer for example).
Even the costs for Karma and BP aren't even remotely related and oddly enough seem designed to be counter to the goal of building a well rounded character. (It's beneficial points wise to specialize under BP to just below hard cap and round out under Karma. I don't understand why that was the goal.)

Some things are just too powerful. Some things are just to weak. In the end it's enough fun that we're all willing to turn off Leverage and play. And that's good enough.

Tymeaus, I really don't understand your mind. Cram is +1 IP, this is a notional version of standard +3 IP 'ware (it's *Rating). Cram is temporary, this is permanent (and helps with driving, heh). You're completely ignoring the point of the example, and I can only assume on purpose?

Yes, there are choices, and they're not perfectly balanced like a rock-paper-scissors game. No, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be a *little* balanced, nor that universally superior choices don't basically ruin it. It doesn't mean you should just ignore it all and accept every imperfection, large or small.

You're going a little overboard with the nested negations there



Anyway, the point was that ideally, all the available ways to do X have some benefits, some drawbacks, and it makes sense that there's a group of people for whom it is the sensible choice.

If an augmentation is outclassed in every way by others, then why waste valuable book space on it?

As for Cram: it's a viable choice for some people, but it doesn't obsolete the others because it only goes up to +1IP.

Cram also improves reaction, and has a working time of 12-body hours. Unless your stunt is taking a few hours to pull off, it should help with driving, too. Also, is it not possible to stack drug effects until you hit the (augmented) maximum? That's only 30 nuyen to have 4 IPs for a few hours, if you want to risk the addiction test and the huge stun damage after it wears off (18 total). Yeah, it's not perfect, but in the short term, it might be better then the other options. It all comes down to choice.

(And really, does anyone actually need 4 IPs unless they are just trying to play the system?)

Cram: Cheap, easy to obtain, but unreliable, very limited (no way to get more than +1 IP), and with heavy side effects. The typical no-implant solution
Wires: Moderate price, controllable, but cost a crapload of Essence and easy to detect. The typical cyberware
Synaptic Aceclerators: Friendly on the essence, easy to conceal, but costs a fortune and cannot be deactivated. The typical bioware

Now, nanoware should be expected somewhere close to the bioware: Hard to detect and easy on the Essence score, but expensive as hell and hard to get, since nanotech is still new and uncommon. But when it comes to disguises, the nanoware is actually the cheapest of all possible implants, plus it's essence-friendly and harder to detect.
And at this point it's no longer just "choice". It would be a choice if there were multiple options to choose from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. If there is one good solution and three ways to shoot oneself in the foot, it's simply bad design. Especially if the clever choice is supposed to be the ultra-new high tech solution.

Psh, Ascalaphus, show me where the grammar is wrong.

HunterHerne, if drug stacking is possible, it's banned in every game I've ever played—and thank god. The point was permanent vs. temporary, and (indeed) the crash damage.

I don't think this is a controversial point: balance (meaning trade-off choices) is the ideal, and imbalance is to be *grudgingly* tolerated when it's more trouble than it's worth to fix. To automatically scoff at anyone pointing out clear imbalance is ridiculous.

As I understand the terms, nanotechnology and nanoware is seperate from (although related to) nanocybernetics which is a subset of cybernetics pertaining to nanotechnology.

The problem is that not everyone uses the same standards to gauge imbalance. To say that it is ridiculous when someone scoffs at someone else pointing out "clear imbalance" is in itself pretty ridiculous, IMO. In fact, it is highly unlikely that someone will scoff at someone else pointing out imbalance that he agrees with. It is only when there is a disagreement on whether something is imbalanced that this situation will arise.

Going back to sensitive system for a bit: I allow "cheap flaws" in my games, for the most part, simply because they're cheap. Sure, a mage or otaku has no intention of ever getting cyber, but this restricts them from going that direction. They might, as the character develops, discover a use for cyber, and deeply regret that they can't use it. The adept in my game is lagging behind the curve, because he has Sensitive system and won't take cyber to match the advancement of the troll samurai and the rigger. Cheap flaws shouldn't get much play, because they're supposed to only be minor inconveniences. The trouble arises when someone loads up on minor flaws; but even then, it's controllable. I don't need to harp on a character's flaws, I have enough ways of messing with them in game without needing it.

The only flaws I strongly restrict are SURGE, Incompetences, and In Debt. SURGE is too game changing for me to control, while Incompetences and In Debt have been gone over many times. I'll allow them, but only if the player can justify it to me. For example, I have a mage with Incompetence: Banishing. That's legit: it's a skill she could use, but has trouble with.

The only flaw I outright ban is Day Job. I've despised it ever since the days of SR2. It's a flaw that gives you money, and has no drawbacks. By RAW, if you "quit" your day job, you still get the monthly cash until you buy off the flaw. I'd have to force a player to spend karma on nothing but buying off that flaw, which would lead to an argument over whether or not a GM can dictate the way a character advances. I just bypass it.

As far as rules go, I've simply banned War! from my table. Even though they're getting into merc work, it's just too much power creep. Don't get me wrong, I like high powered games. But I'm not putting THOR satellites where PC's can get their hands on them.

They quit, they chose how they advanced. You're just enforcing their decision as per rules as written.

Yeah, flaws give you build points, and get bought off with karma. If you ditch the flaw, you have to pay the karma to pay it off. Although the GM might replace it with a different flaw, instead. That includes In Debt - you didn't just get some money, you got build points with it, too.

But I do appreciate that Cain simply lets players know, ahead of time, that he isn't allowing certain negative qualities. No bitching at the player, no allowing it and then pulling a bunch of passive-aggressive crap. I wish more GMs were like that.

@Yerameyahu
Honestly, if you want to nail mage run, just change how magic loss due to ware works.
Just get back to:
If you have some ware, your magic is less potent but you still have to pay the full price to increase it.
Example mage has magic 4.
Now he gets to points of Ware and drops to 4(2) now using only a magic 2 for all his tests.
Now he is increasing his magic from 2 to 3 and pays 5*5=25Karma. (compared to the 15 Karma in the book now)
Does not sound like much here, but if said mage ends up with magic 8 in the long run his two points of ware did cost him (7+*5=75 Karma.
Thats a force 9 Power Focus! Compared to the 35 Karma in the book...

Making them all sensativ does not work, since there is a work around in the book. You just need to buy your ware with a low magic score.
Espacially in Karma Gen, there would be no reason not to start with an adept having just 3 Points of magic and dropping two for ware.
After a few runs get one point of magic and drop it again for ware. leaving you with 35 Points Karma lost for 3 Points of ware. Even if you can just use 1.5 effectiv due to the sensitivity, it is still a good deal.

I see no need to bring the low powered mages down. They can't do much anyway.
Some magic 4 or 5 mage, can't do the very bad stuff. (Well, he might stunbolt some guys, but thats about it)
Have him in some BC of 1 (which is quite common) and he has to hide behind the sam.
It is the magic 7 mage with 3 initiation you got to keep an eye on. If this guy manages to get 2 or eve 3 points of ware without a major setback in Karma you will run into problems!

Yeah, but I'd rather not have the problem. That's why I ban it. And like Glyph said, I let the players know up-front that it's banned from my games. That's also why In Debt is next on the chopping block for me, and how I handle War!. I don't care how you guys handle it at your games, it's not something I want to deal with in mine. If somebody wants something out of War!, I tell them no *before* they start making their character. It might not be totally fair, but at least it's honest.

@Cain
It is quite the definition of fair, by the way. You tell up front and it is true for everyone. It does not get any fairer than that.

It sounds a little harsh, but clarity beforehand avoids a lot of grief.

Personally I'd say that given its reputation, stuff in War! is on the "no, unless" list, while in most other books it's "yes, unless". That is, I might allow something if the player can convince me that a particular thing isn't unbalanced or stupid, but that it would be cool to have.

Incompetence is the trickiest NQ I think. I only allow it if the Incompetence is for a skill that you can reasonably expect the character to want to use from time to time. Pilot Ground Vehicle is usually OK; Pilot Aircraft wouldn't be, for most characters (but would be for a rigger).

Now, I allow SURGE(as we all do really at the table unless the game itself dictates), but I can understand why people ban this. However-did you find it easier, I take it, to just flat-out ban SURGE than to cherrypick the ''Not So Gamechanging'' ones? For example-Claws, Horns or Fangs can be gotten via cyberware, Satyr Legs can be gotten if you play a Satyr/get the Kid Stealth legs. and I don't see that being too gamechangy(granted, Kid Stealth cyberlegs can be swapped out for normal ones if needed, and Satyrs are kinda rare-of course some folks ban the metavariants which is also understandable) but glow-in-the-dark Ganesha characters would likely get a huge ''WTF''.

I do like your method though-just tell it up front, and those flaws you banned are all really understandable(I actually have gotten use out of Day Job before but I do totally get that it's one of those can-of-worm flaws that can cause problems, and the positives-being able to get a decent story out of it sometimes-don't outweigh the negatives.)

And yeah-Incompetence is rough to handle, but can be good if used well. It's also quite game-dependent; Incompetence: Swimming wouldn't work in a total dry land campaign but could damn well be crippling in a pirate campaign. It can either not come up at all-or be actually over-crippling, all for the same amount of points. Sometimes it can actually be kinda fun(A few years back, when we made the Mystery Men using Shadowrun rules on this board in a fun thread, I made Mr. Furious and gave him Incompetent: Intimidation. It fit. )

Have you considered just ruling that In Debt doesn't count as a negative quality but can be still be taken to get some extra money in chargen that you have to pay back in game.
That's the way i would handle it(and if i ever find a GM, how i will try to convince him/her to handle it) as it has quite solid rules for getting loan money in chargen, it just doesn't make sense that you get Build Points too.

BP for stuff that's very easily gained or lost during play (jobs, debts) are awkward game design. I think the more permanent qualities (Lucky, Scorched) make much more sense. They also feel like they're more innate to the character, not external like Day Job or Debt.

If their qualities change (debt is paid off, fired from job, etc) simply replace them with new negative qualities. Maybe an old coworker gets spiteful and turns evidence to the police (Wanted) or a corp (enemy) showing the character doing some illegal running activity. Maybe they develop a gambling habit, or a distant relative dies leaving them as the only one to care for a neice, cousin, or grandparent. Its easy to find negative qualities that would pop up after character creation, and simple to use these to replace old qualities that no longer apply.

I don't like that. If you resolved some IC thing through play, you shouldn't also have to pay karma to get rid of it.

For example, Debt: what that amounts to is basically this -
1) You have an actual debt, which you got money for during CharGen.
2) You have a mysterious negative quality; if you were to pay off (1), then it'd suddenly turn into an actual NQ. So not clearing (1) is better than clearing (1) and not paying the karma.

Also, suppose you took a loan with someone during the game; would you suddenly get NQ:Debt? Do you get Karma for that? Or does taking a loan mean you basically lose karma in the long run?


It's clunky.. I prefer qualities to be permanent traits of the character, not circumstances that can quickly change, all the while having karma consequences.

There's also the alternate interpretation of "1 BP = 5000 nuyen" in the case of the debt. Pay it off, then you've already paid the cost for it, leaving time for hookers and ice cream! But quitting a day job, you lose the income AND the drain on your time, and depending on when and how you quit, it may make you a suspicious person, or bring down other negative repercussions (tainting your real or fake SIN).

Maybe things like Debts, Day Jobs, SINs and such would have been better handled by treating them as an exotic form of equipment, like Lifestyle.

For me, I restrict them because it's easier. I don't exactly ban SURGE, I just need a very good reason before I allow it. So far, I haven't encountered one, but I do leave the door open. My players do know to not touch that section of RC without asking me first, so it works out. Incompetence is the same way: if there's a valid reason for it, and it's a reasonable limitation, I'll allow it. For example, the mage with Incompetence: Banishing. Banishing is really a useless skill, and the character would probably never use it anyway. But it does prevent the Pokemon trick, as well as several other cheese moves.


Again, I don't do that because it's easier to ban it than rejigger it. If a player absolutely needed more money for chargen, I'd already be worried about a potentially game-breaking character. I'm willing to work with players if it's not unreasonable, but I can't think of many unbroken character types that need more than 250,000 nuyen. And if they did have a good case for why they couldn't shave off a few pieces of gear here and there, I might even bend the rules and allow them to spend more BP on cash. In Debt, as it stands, has too many problems for me to really allow it, and there's ways of doing what you suggest without involving it.


If a player is cheesy enough to blow off a flaw like that, there's no reason why they won't do it again. I could slap them with increasingly severe flaws, but that becomes very punitive after a certain point. Really, it's better to avoid the whole mess than risk an escalation like that. That's the other reason I'm up-front about what I allow and what I don't: it warns me of potential problem players. If I say no, and they fight for it anyway, I know I have a possible problem brewing.

As for War!, my players knew it was trouble when one guy pointed to the PDF and said: "What's in that book?" The look on my face was probably priceless.

The correct answer here is "a book of stuff for the GM for when the players epically fail".

Corrected your answer.

Well "need" is such a subjective think, for example my combat face character Sasha, has about 320k worth of stuff and i really wouldn't call her broken(even thought she's about 1000 karma character in the errated karmagen), atleast not on the gear front, some people might cry wolf as she's a Dryad. She only throws 10-18 dice with all non exotic weapons and 11-16 dice for social skills.
Ofource if forced by GM i could easily drop that to below 300K by ditching some of the fluff ware she has, most likely even to under 250k , as it's not absolutely necessary to have 12 guns at the start of the game

To be honest, I've been around Dumpshock too long; every time I see a dryad face, a pornomancer alert goes off in the back of my mind. But seriously, I've built enough characters to know that you can do a lot with the starting 250,000 nuyen. I can build very nasty street samurai with that budget, so a player would have to show me why they can't get what they want within budget. I'm willing to listen, and I'm even willing to work with the player if they have a good reason. But rather than add a problematic flaw to give them cash, I'd probably bend the rule that says you can only spent 50 BP on resources. I honestly think it's much easier.

Here's two hypothetical examples. Bob the troll's sheet lands in front of me, and he's overspent on cyberware. He's got everything alphawared, and is somewhere around .01 Essence. The player wants to take In Debt so he can afford everything. I'm probably going to say no, simply because the troll is nasty enough with everything at standard grade; he won't need that much, even in my high-powered games. Then, I read the sheet for Jane the Weapon Specialist. She's well cybered too, but she's got an interesting backstory as the child of survivalists, is something of a gun nut, and likes to collect weapons. She's got every gun in the books in her collection: not because she plans on carrying them all at once, but because she's a collector. She wants a few thousand more nuyen to finsh her collection with the rest of the starting-legal guns. I'm more apt to say yes in this case, as the amounts are smaller; and rather than saddle her with a flaw that's hard to handle, I'll let her spend 1-5 more BP on resources.

If you really need more cash, there is the positive quality, Born Rich. It's effectively 2 BP per 5000Y that way (in addition to using up 10 quality points), but it's there.

I don't like the name of the quality, because I see resources as representing things that don't necessarily translate to wealth, even though you purchase them with your starting resources. Your street samurai with over 200K in 'ware might not have ever had 200,000 in cold, hard cash in hand, for example.

I do like the quality itself, though. I see it as the equivalent of exceptional Attribute or aptitude, only applied to resources. Along with the restricted gear quality, they make street samurai a bit more competitive with bioware-enhanced adepts.

Man I'm old. I remember my first Street Sam starting with 1,000,000Y. Of course that was SR (first edition) and the priority based creation system (the only one available at the time).

-D

Had a mage with Incompetent: Pilot Ground Vehicle a while back. From his backstory, his mother got gunned down in front of him during a mafia wars shootout in Chicago in the '50's, and this trauma was the reason for his incompetence. Admittedly as a mage he was more likely to use levitate and air spirit movement power to get places, but the way I played it he was distracted just being in a car, and I voluntarily took a -2 to all actions if he was in a car when the lead was flying.

As a GM, I want a backstory reason for an Incompetence, so Incompetence: Pilot Aerospace is out unless you take at least a point in the skill and have a trauma in your backstory to go with it.

As for other NQ, I tend to ban most RC NQ out of hand. Things like Enemy (for a runner to survive to the point of CG, they gotta have a few at least anyways) and Day Job are out. I will allow In Debt and won't require PC's to buy the debt off with karma as well as cash, but warn players that the people coming collecting are like the Sopranos. Until that debt is repayed, the mafia/yakuza/whatever goons will hassle the PC on a regular basis, and while they might know better than to slap a shadowrunner around, they won't be past trashing their apartments or taking that nice shiny assault rifle toy as a down payment. Should the PC be stupid enough to fight back, they will find themselves invited to meet the mafia boss and told that any further assault on any of his employees will not be tolerated, and that the assaultee's medical bills and a gratuity has been added to their debt. In other words, what they don't pay in karma they pay big time in inconvenience until the debt plus loan shark interest is fully repayed.

I have 2 Gnome Chars and 2 Hobbits.
All of them have Incompetence Heavy Weapons because of their physical Built

with a small Dance
Medicineman

Well, I see almost every PC mage/mystic adept in my games with Incompetence(Banishing/Ritual Spellcasting). So yeah, I guess those skills must be of limited value to PCs.

Banishing is a pretty useless skill to begin with, so it's mildly cheesy to take an Incompetence in it. But it's also fair, because the skill does have some use.

I restrict Incompetences, but not especially harshly. I prefer a backstory reason, but I'll accept a good mechanical one as well. I personally don't like the "group incompetences"-- Infirm, Uncouth, and Uneducated-- because they're too much drain for not enough gain, especially when compared to multiple Incompetences. Usually, I draw the line at multiple Incomptences, although there are exceptions. For example, I was considering an ex-Drill Sargent who had Incompetence: Etiquette, Con, and Negotiation, but had a high Leadership. That actually made sense to me.

True enough. I especially dislike that Uncouth applies to Intimidate.

Wouldn't Etiquette also cover proper salutes and forms of address towards superior officers?

I see that as a job duty, not a social nicety, and therefore I'd tuck it under knowledge skills. There's a fine line. The ability to convince someone you're an officer is Con, so while part of that may be saluting properly, the overall task is con. If you're getting to the specific point of "proper salutes and forms of address" that sounds either academic or professional to me.

Either Etiquette with military specialization, or a knowledge skill.

Eh. "Fitting in" is generally an Etiquette thing, and the military does go a lot for that. Actually getting promoted beyond Cannon Fodder duty gets a lot harder if you're an antisocial twerp with an Incompetence: Etiquette, too.

Well, part of the story I was designing was that he was eventually kicked out for making inappropriate comments about an officer's wife. He was a very good drill instructor, and that's why he kept his job so long. He never got promoted to officer status because he was too brusque off the training field; and like most sargents, he viewed officers as too removed from the action. In his mind, him and the boys were the ones doing the real work. I can just picture it now: "Did you just call me sir?! Do I look like an officer to you, boy? I WORK FOR A LIVING!!"

Well... MOST enlisted never, ever see Officer Rank, nor would they want to (So not being promoted from Sergeant to Officer is a perk). There is a Sharp divide between Enlisted ranks and Officer ranks, at least in the American Military. And I have often seen Senior NCO's with more pull and Leadership ability than the Officers around them.

NCO's lead, Officers "supervise".

I have noticed it depends on the age of the soldier, assuming one has a choice.

When you start pushing your 40s or 50s, that officer position with the cushy office starts looking more attractive. Either that or retirement.

Really, though, most don't get that choice. To get offered an officer position from enlisted ranks isn't that common. The US military at least seems to prefer officers drawn from colleges going straight to OCS.



-k