So here's kind of a weird question. Restricted gear requires licenses. Okay, sure; most of us just fake them. What about SINners who, you know, actually qualify to get licenses, though? What would the process be? How much would it cost? Would it be possible to start with them at creation? Is there anything in the books on this, or is it strictly houserule territory?

I would assume you could go about getting them in an entirely legal manner should you choose. But here is the catch, you fire a bullet and kill goon A. Lone Star matches the striations on the bullet to the gun that is registered to you. Sorry.

Which is why you change out the barrel and firing pin, if it doesn't use caseless ammo, of the weapon after you get your license and keep it in a safe for when you have to re-qualify. Good reason to have some ranks in Armorer eh?

Or, you know, have the Erased quality. Too bad that ballistic evidence just keeps disappearing.

I mean, I realize that it presents its own set of challenges; in fact, these kinds of things are what lead me to believe that going this route wouldn't actually negate the disadvantageous nature of the SINner quality. (That is to say, being legal doesn't mean you get a free pass on certain common SR problems.)

It does, however, make border crossings that much simpler! unelss of course, you have a criminal SIN.....

Which is a higher point cost, and for good reason.

I don't want to get distracted, though. Is this a possible thing in SR4A?

... kinda hard to do, if the gun in question is a laser weapon.

Also hard to do, if you're using a smoothbore (like a shotgun, for example).

Right right, i was just throwing out a random example i thought of





I would allow it in my game, provided you had a) the contacts and b) the story to back it up

So you would require contacts? Is that in the rules?

Basically what I really want to know is, is there a process hidden in the books somewhere or am I going to have to figure out how I want to run this on my own?

I think this is never mentioned as an actual rule in the SR4 books. The authors didn't consider that some Shadowrunners would want to be doing legal stuff it seems

Someone said that these kinds of rules are in the SR3 books, if you're looking for guidelines. I've seen ideas introduced to have a real license cost as much as a fake one.

I'd charge a lot less than that. Rx20, perhaps. Remember, an actual license ties the object(s) in question to your SIN ...

Sure, when they find your pistol. Which means when they have enough evidence to get a search warrant for your residence. Which is likely to occur never. And when they do it seems that there is no ballistics match as that gun was turned into razor blades a few hours after the shooting.

True true. Although the costs here are so small compared to everything else, I don't think it matters too much...

An actual license would not have a rating, since the rating of a fake license is there to determine how well it passes inspection and checking. A 'real' license would always pass muster since it is completely bonafide.

Well, that's blindingly obvious. I can't believe I missed it; thanks for pointing it out.

So what would that license cost, then?

Honestly, it should just be rolled into lifestyle and said that you have them. Anything further is just trying to create another needless money sink.

So if you're a SINner, but you have a Squatter lifestyle ... you can have every license you could imagine? Pilot, Firearms, Concealed Carry, a Medical Practitioner's license, maybe a Magical Practitioner's license, and so on?

Wow, those licenses must come CHEAP.

Pretty sure that there's some fluff about a gun license meaning they have the ballistics on file. That might be from an earlier edition, though. Anything in 4e about licenses like that?

Well, it might be, the guys who write this stuff have no idea how gun laws actually work or why. And no, it still won't help after I clean the barrel with a stainless steel bore brush and shoot a few thousand rounds through it.

If they have the ballistics on file, and that file says you were the last legal owner but you can't providelegal paperwork proving you sold it to someone else?

You're on the hook for whatever the gun was used for.

Actually, here's a thought, though: Do they really keep track of that?

As we see in the sample characters (the Gunslinger Adept has the most obvious incidence of this), you don't have a license for your particular gun--you just have a license for a particular make. To me, this implies that what licenses are really for is the right to posses a firearm of a restricted make. In other words, it seems that licenses are mostly there for the purposes of Lone Star looking at you and going, "Are you allowed to own that, citizen?"

EDIT: ...You know what, never mind. The Street Sam has one for each Predator, the Enforcer just has one Gun License, and the Weapons Specialist just has two "Licences." What.

Some licences are going to need skill ranks. They don't hand out real pilot licences at the Stuffer Shack counter. Also, some licences would necessitate membership of a regulatory body - it's fine to pilot things for a hobby, but surgery is another matter. So if your genuine SIN doesn't say you're a genuine doctor of medicine you can't easily justify having the associated licence.

The impression I got was that a SINner could get most restricted gear without too much trouble. It would just require some time, money, paperwork, and perhaps a competence check(like getting a drivers license).

Forbidden items you'd actually have to have a profession reason to own(such as a locksmith owning lockpicks).

A few folks have mentioned a possible reference in an older edition--anyone know where that would be?

I'd think the cost on a legitimate licence should vary with the country/corp, and depending on the license. When I was in high school there was one foreign exchange student from Europe who was keen on getting her drivers license in the states as opposed to back home. I don't know how accurate her info was, but she said that to initially get a drivers license in her country cost the equivalent of USD$2,000.00 where in my area it was about $20 (in 1990's money).

My family also had an exchange student years back, from Germany. He likewise cited the high costs of taking the tests there, the equivalent of multiple thousands of dollars. In Germany (and much of Europe in general) car ownership is far less prevalent than in America. Gas costs more (because their governments don't artificially lower the prices), traffic is more stringently policed, licenses are harder to qualify for and afford, and there's a lot more public transportation combined with less urban sprawl and more walkable or bikeable distances. The net effect is that there is a smaller percentage of the population who own and drive vehicles, but those who do are also significantly better drivers.

That said, I've also met a certain young and wealthy woman from Turkey who was legitimately surprised and annoyed that she couldn't just buy a driver's license here in the states (this being within the past five years). And don't even get me started on drivers in mainland Asia - that shit's scary.

~Umi

You might not have meant this, but just for the record, skill checks are not for run-of-the-mill situations so one shouldn't have to actually make a roll to qualify for a drivers licence.

I've always wanted to make up a character after the ghost in the shell character that flew into the country legally with a custom cyber-arm with inbuilt pressure blast shotgun that loaded quarters, or just about anything.

In one of my games, the whole team except for the SINner got stopped at the airport. He then had to find a way to get them out before foreignt officials figured out who they really were. T
That session was a ton of fun, as both he and the rest of the team tried to think of ways to escape.

The Sixth World is, if anything, more intrusive, and less protective of privacy, than the real world rightnow.

And right here, real-world, in the U.S. ...? They do in fact already keep track of that stuff - just, not centralised as much as fingerprint databases are. Firearms manufacturers have to keep (and IIRC, give to the ATF or FBI) a "fingerprint" for each weapon they manufacture - a record of the barrel marks it leaves, plus it's serial number. Gun sellers have to keep records of which serial number gets sold to which person.

Put those together with ubiquitous database cross-checking via the matrix, and extensive SIN registries? Yeah. They do indeed keep track of that.


Full stop. Don't even ponder using the sample characters as examples here.

Well, Americans already start hyperventilating in German traffic...but that seems to be somewhat symmetric, when my brother got home with his Texan license I really wished for an ejection seat

That wasn't my point.

Even if you have Medicine 7 (Surgery +2) ... if you have a Squatter or Street lifestyle for whatever reason, I think you can't afford the application fee to get a medical license as a surgeon. Nor the renewal fee to keep any prior-existing license going. Ergo, "just roll it into lifestyle" doesn't always work.


No, but having 1+ rank in the relevant skill is a reasonable prerequisite. Or else, proof of owning (and being able to use) the relevant Skillsoft, I suppose. Either way, IC it boils down to "prove you can do this without defaulting".

And there is a seriously major problem. Too many people think that defaulting means not being able to do something at all, yet at the same time, those same people complain when people have more than a rank or two in more than one or two skills.

Defaulting works for many things. After all, your First Parachute Jump is a Defaulting Roll. However, I, for one, believe in the Skill Rank Descriptions.
A Doctor WILL have a Rank 3 (Professional) in Medicine, BEFORE he gets (or at least as part of getting) his License. He might even have a Speicalty as well.

Defaulting doesnt mean you cant do it. It means you can try but you arent very good at it, thats why incompetent specifies that you CANT default.

This I know, but people wanting the "do it without defaulting" seem to always pop up (as in the case prior to my last post), and as I mentioned, those same people make complaints about "overpowered" and other such drek when they see more than a few skills over 1 or 2. Such things irritate the ever-loving piss out of me.

Out of curiousity, How many Skills are you currently performing at a PROFESSIONAL rating at? MOST people will never have more than a few skills at or above a 3 in game terms.

Thats generaly the way i play it, i have 1 skill higher then all the rest (we will say a 5) mabye 1 or 2 skills at 3, and the rest at 1 or 2. (sans specialties and enhancements of course)

You expect it to make sense?

In the real world, people are licensed. That's why you have a drivers license, not a ford f-150 license. You also get a license that allows you to carry a concealed weapon in public. The only place I know that restricts the weapon by serial number is Las Vegas, though NYC probably does too for the politically connected few who can get one. Everywhere else it's allows any pistol, or even any weapon. Nobody collects bullets, because the characteristics of the barrel change over life, and it doesn't work anyhow. NY State spent an estimated 40 million dollars on their CoBis program (which was cartridge collection), which resulted in exactly zero prosecutions over the 12 year life of the program.

I'd say it was included in middle or higher lifestyles. For lower lifestyles I'd say probably about 1,000 nuyen per liscensed weapon and is good for 1 year. Runners that are part of Ares might get one as part of their day job.

I can see the 1000 per license but with one alteration to the above. Make the lifestyles available for not having to waste cred start at low (I can kinda agree with Street and Squatter having to pay, though in most cases that'd be moot since Street and Squatter are likely to be very rare lifestyles to be taken).

There should be no rating value for a legal license. Remember, the rating of a fake SIN/license is used to set a threshold for checks to determine its validity. I would say the pricing is probably somewhere between 50 and 100.

Dragging in things from the other forum, are we? Bad form, Sir. Bad form.

Besides, all you need to "not default" is a 1. Not a 3, not a 4, not a 5. Just 1.






The character he's referring to? Lemme count ... sixteen skills at 4, seven skills at 3. So, twenty-three skills at Professional or higher. Plus five Knowledges at 4, one at 3, and a language at 6.






You forget that part of buying a license-required item is that you then have to register that weapon as being owned by you.

Except why do you, a former accountant need restricted or illegal cyberware and an illegal weapon.

I think that's starting to get into the oddness of the legal system. If we use modern times as an example, the answer is, who cares? You can legally own it, so if you want it, it's yours. SR's a different matter, of course, but I'd guess that the same thing applies. That is to say, if you're legally allowed to own it, they don't ask too many questions unless they've got a reason to.

EDIT: This only applies for Restricted gear, of course. Forbidden is a whole other turkey.

Me too... My goal is to eventually raise them all to a 3, but it never works out that way in game.
Ahh Well.

It was not a comment about Characters, it was a comment about People. Very Few People have more than a few skills at the professional Level or above. VERY FEW... Saying that, my character design philosophy follows that trend. I would LIKE my characters to have all their skills at 3+, but it is just not all that realistic. What tends to happen is that I get my focus at 3-4 (possibly raising them as the game progresses (occasionally a 5, and rarely even a 6, might creep in there, but only if I have the concept to back it up), and then I take skills that support the rest of the concept at 1's and 2's. My goal is to eventually raise those to a 3+, but as I said previously, that rarely happens. And for good reason. Very, Very, Very few people can claim such skill in so many varied endeavors.

I honestly think skills should cost a lot more to raise, including in character gen. "New rank squared", for example. Flipside, I'd like to see each skill rank contribute more than 1 die to your pools. That'd involve a radical redesign of the entire game, though.

...

Maybe something like that will happen in 5th. Or 6th.

I am actually okay with the way it works now, as long as people do not abuse it (Guess what, they do)...

I would lower the limits, though. 1 Skill at 5, or 2 at 4. Everything else at 3 or less. No group higher than 3 at chargen.
This would work, I think. You would see a lot more diversity at that point. And characters would make a lot more sense.

Generally how I approach Character Gen now. Most of my characters follow this guideline, and they are pretty good with these limits.

Well, for combat (magic aside), part of the problem is 4th's inflated Armor values. Someone with Body 4, wearing an Armor Jacket (described as "the most popular armor on the streets"), is getting 12 dice to soak, which is a generally reliable 4 hits. Then factor in their Reaction+Dodge, and, you can see why shooters want die pools in the 20s, if they can pull it off.