That depends.. if you say he sparkles when he is out in the sunlight I might just have to drop a nuke on whatever city he is in. Only way to be sure you know?

I usually only play trolls . .

I'm Sorry.............

it's great fun to be able to defend a stupid decision with being in character sometimes ^^

Sounds like something our Paladin player would say in D&D...

Kill him! kill him with fire!
And the character too!

I was thinking something along the same lines

Guys, lend me a hand. I quickly need to know if the small size of a pixie limits the class of weapons he can use. Is it like in the games that cause cancer?^^

If it isn't (And It isn't, as far as I can tell), It damn well should be.

Yeah, Pixie Heavy Weapons Guy....i am coming. ^^

Given that you're only 45cm tall yes, I'd say your choice of weapons would be extremely limited. But when you can throw Force 7 lightning bolts does it really matter?

We really do not need to know all about your perverse sexual preferences you know...

I would agree with this. Unfortunately, tehre is a vocal minority that would insist that since it is not restricted explicitely, it is allowable.

If a Pixie can have Heavy Weapons, a Troll can have Vehicle class weapons. Or, gods forbid, Capital Class weapons.
http://lgliang.deviantart.com/art/Dakka-Lad-178511060

I'd allow for size-modified gear. It'd also have to be tremendously expensive compared to the original, and probably imported from Tir Na Nog or possibly France.

Well, whats about using collision rules because of recoil?

By RAW, you can even use a Gauss rifle. You won't even need metahuman customization, because you're not a troll or dwarf.

True. Though I generally don't see a reason for my caster characters to carry a gun regardless of stature. True, it's a complex action to toss a combat spell where it's only a simple action to get off a shot, but if I'm a true mage and the group is in a position where I need to draw a gun then we're probably already dead. Besides, it wastes Karma/BP raising a skill that could be better spent elsewhere (for you min/maxers) and I really don't think most mages would even bother learning to use a gun (for the character perspective)... they got magic after all!

Yep... Capital Class for the Win...

It is always nice to have the option, though. When you are in a Background count, Drain can become a burden. Always nice to have a drainless option for combat.

I have to admit that I think Pixies are the ultimate Minimaxer tool. As far as I can see they are better than other races at almost everything.

As an example I can create almost any character in DK's marvelous spreadsheet, change the race to pixie and typically get 50+ BPs back to spend on more goodness. (I am of course limited to a body of 2, the lack of strength just isn't an issue). I usually do this whenever I create a character, sigh, and go back to non munchkin version.

I do however like the idea of pixies in a game, but I want them to be very different to humans. A a consequence, when GMing Pixies I have introduced the following rule:

Pixies are walking Telesma on the hoof. If you harvest the blood, hair, skin etc from a pixie you can gather enough stuff to sell for around 10,000 nuyen a week. Given that Pixies have mostly no rights it's even legal to keep such a pixie. This is enough money to keep a team of 4 in a luxury lifestyle for life...

Back to the original question: Shapechange is another of the routes to power as a mage. It has a major disadvantage that makes up for it's awesome power: you cannot easily wear armor while shape shifted. So although you can get huge attribute buffs, you are very vulnerable to bullets. IMHO if you take away that disadvantage you make it the most powerful spell in the game. For example the "increase attribute" spells increase one attribute, this increases 4. As a GM I would just say no. Physical Mask is the spell of choice for the pixie that wants to pretend to be human.

Plus when you're in a fight with a dedicated counter speller on the other side being able to shoot is very important. I've seen our team mage shut down when hit for hit he was being countered again and again. Or just one decently powerful spirit with mana static (at least I think that's the spell.)

Selling off a dragon could probably buy you, your crew and their families a Luxury lifestyle.

Similar to a dragon, I'd like to see anyone try capturing a PC Pixie. Especially with some karma behind him.

That reminds me of the one time where one of my players jokingly suggested selling their team mage (a vampire). The mage player, in a laconic voice, asks him: "You sure you want to take on a 6th grade initiate houngan for a bounty of 6k ?"

Well, that shut him up.

Everyone has to sleep sometime, even a Pixie (or a 6th Grade Initiate Houngon Vampire... Besides, a 6th Grader is not that much of a challenge anyways. I mean really, how much does a kid know?).

There is no spell for that?

Eventually, you will succumb.

Well, the houngan maybe.
But he is a houngan for a reason.
Loa, ride me like a Horse tonight.
Keep my body safe, while i'm sleeping.
Retaliate with lethal force if neccessary.

Well, you probably will loose your sanity at some point...


Possessed or not. This only means you have to shoot him in the head with a big gun...
Well, I guess a pixie could be kind of hard to kill, because those little buggers my sleep in strange places.

True, in the case of a counter-speller you can't get past then the caster plays the support role instead (nuke is the least of a mages functions).

The idea of a spirit using mana static is like a troll ripping his own arm off to beat you with it.

I admit there might be a time when it would be nice to have a backup option in a fight but those instances should be rare or else what's the point?

Why should they be rare, though? I see it as business as usual in a lot of instances. If your Mage is not being challenged, then what is the point?
Besides, Counter-spell works against sustained spells too, you know. Sucks to have that levitate dispelled out from underneath you when you are 30 stories up; or have the mage go down from gunfire while he is sustaining it.

There's "challenged" and then there's "nullified" - forcing your mage to stop using magic and pick up a gun isn't challenging him, it's just turning him into a second or third rate gun-bunny. You wouldn't take your gun-bunny's guns away and try and force them to cast spells would you?

Challenging him would be making him find creative ways to use his spells in a different way.

And that's not to say mages shouldn't be multi-functional... indeed even somewhat specialized they are pretty much naturally multi-functional. Sure, they should have some skills to use if the situation doesn't call for magic... it's always good to be able to fill in the gaps.

Which is the point. You do not always need magic, and a Gun incurs absolutely no Drain. Sometimes that is preferrable. When I play a Mage, I tend to have a decent gun skill. Maybe not "Professional Rating," but at least the ability to be competant with the gun. Skill 2, Specialization and Smartlink is 6 Dice, so a Mage is probably throwing between 9-10 dice prior to any spells being cast, or Tacnets being added. Not too shabby in my opinion.

As for whether that is good or not, that depends upon the table. The mage I currently play is throwing 10 Dice for Guns, 11 Dice for Manipulation Spells (13 for Ritual Spellcast Manipulation Spells), and 7 Dice for non-Manipulation Spells. That sucks if you are at a powergaming table. But it is pretty sufficient for the things that I tend to use my magic for. *shrug*

Carrying a gun around and toting armour is also a nice way to fould the renowned tactic of "geek the mage first."

I put it to one demo group I was running for: "In Shadowrun, Magicians aren't necessarily squishy. Some of them are Trolls and a whole lot bigger and tougher than you. And can kill you with their brains."

Well, I guess it depends on what the opposition is. Your mage will be firering from cover, I guess, -1.
The opposition will have something between partial and good cover (-2 to -4), now we need also to look at visibility modifiers, here it is easy to get another -1.
So you end up with around -5 probably.
You still need one net hit. With 10 dice this means the reaction of your traget should not be too high...
(Well, using single shot and short burst afterwards is going to increase your chances...)

But still begs the question if it is not a better idea to stay in full cover, counterspell and be ready to help stabilizing somebody who got hit bad/drag him or her behind cover etc.

But I guess it depends on the opposition. If you are shooting your way through a horde of mooks with no dicepool it is the better option, I guess.

In case it wasn't clear, I meant it as "initiated 6 times".

Point is, unless you arbitrarily increase the bounty on a character's head, it's not worth going after them. Fighting an initiate mage for 6000? I wouldn't even do that if the character in question was just a normal human.

As for the whole "you take them unawares" stuff:
a) you need to know their true nature first. A magically disguised pixie won't be identified as a pixie by just everyone.
b) you need to find out where they sleep, if you wish to take them down sleeping. And get past the security of their lifestyle.
c) "detect hostile intent, extended" means that you won't take them unawares while blending into the crowd.

So, unless it's something personal, or the pay is dramatically increased, you're basically performing underpaid wetwork.

I would allow 'heavy' weapons for pixies but as one said, when you're 45 centimeters tall weapon options are kinda limited.

Pistol: SMG sized (size varies from hold-out to heavy)
SMG: Rifle
Shotgun/Rifle/A-Rifle/sniper Rifle: Shoulder mounted or Tripod
LMG/MG: Tripod
Larger: N/A

Shoulder mounted weapons have X2 uncompensated recoil modifier unless braced.

So, can i have my 45 centimeter tall Space Marine with wings and a shoulder carried laser cannon now.

Good rule of thumb: Any given weapon is four times larger for a pixie.

Pixies are on average 18 inches high (45 cm), which is one quarter or so of a human.

A handgun is normally say six inches in length along the barrel. To a pixie it is the equivalent of two feet long, about the size of an SMG or very short carbine.



-k

Yes, I know Elfenlied, I got that. It was just funnier the other way.



True... Can't argue those points...

I can argue with these points quite easy: Shadowrun has a basic premise that anyone can be captured/killed easily if its worth their while. This is reflected both in fluff and crunch. The point of the disadvantage as I proposed it was to make it more worth peoples while for a pixie, than for a human, to counterbalance the approximately (underestimated) 50 bp advantage for being a Pixe.

Let us all remember that shadowrun has a large variance on die.

• If you are running Physical Mask to avoid being spotted as a pixie then you need to maintain a high force spell. If you have a low force spell, it will be seen through quite easily. Maintaining a high force spell is hard: either you have a very very expensive foci, or a bound spirit which you are torturing to death, or you are maintaining it yourself (-2 to all actions).
• You don't know how well you have cast the spell, so you don't know how many successes you have. Given the large variance you will occasionally roll only 1 or 2 successes.
• Detect hostile intent needs to be a high force spell to actually work reliably all the time: see the above comments
• Even masking is an opposed die roll. Average die don't matter: given the variance on the die, you will be spotted if you interact with a lot of people.

Basically if your pixie is paranoid, hiding all the time, avoiding most human contact, then they can have their security. If they wander around and interact with people, given shadowrun die variance, they will be spotted.

I agree with you, especially with the bolded part. Since we don't have actual RAW bounty values for pixies, I'm going to assume that it's somewhere in the same range as for the infected. And at those rates, I do not consider it "worth my while" to go out of my way to hunt those critters, especially with their high percentage of mages.

With your houserule, however, one of my characters might actually give it a shot if they had some hints about the whereabouts of a NPC Pixie. If I were DMing for a group with said houserule, and one of the players was playing a Pixie, I would exclude them (the other players) from that rule, since it would lead to unnecessary amounts of backstabbing and bad blood among the players.

Indeed... My reluctance to hunt said creatures is that is is not really "Worth My While" to do so. *Shrug*
Could it be made to be worth my while? Almost certainly, but the pay should be better than a few thousand nuyen.

Yes.

Mostly it was just a way to encourage Pixies to be secretive and hidden. Metahumans have many fewer bps but can safely interact with the rest of the world

which also means that asuming they're built about human lines of height/width ratios and density they're 1/64th of the weight - a lot of firearms will end up being heavier than the pixie trying to handle them.... Recoil compensation is an absolute necessity for pixie-adapted guns, unles you want them to double up as propulsion systems.

The entertianment potential of that would almost be worth it

Time for an enterprising armorer to work up some gyrojet guns

I have brought up the incident before where my pixie character attempted to fire a full size Predator pistol, and critically glitched.

The cartoon trope of a pixie shaped hole in the drywall behind her comes to mind.

In hindsight, making the attempt with two dice was probably a mistake.




-k