A houserule that requires houseruling is a bad houserule? You don't say.


Yes - that's exactly what'd make them capable of raising their PP count by 2 per initiation grade.

In my experience, the measure of a mage's ability is by far not the spell count, but how well those are chosen and used.
A mage can ruin your day with direct combat, illusion or mind-control spells at any time, and he only really needs one of each to do that.


So you not only handwave "no specializations with skill groups", but actually add a spec for free? What's the reasoning?

I too would like to request Nath's list. I dislike Mind Probe.

Heavy Pistols retains it's Armor Penetration, also some have higher base damage. AP -1 may be the difference between life and death for a runner, especially when facing a Spirit. The -2 Concealability mod doesn't do all that much difference against trained eyes, and every runner worth his salt has a concealable holster anyway. At least, in my games and in every game I've played with Light Pistols have been ignored. If you really want a concealable gun you go for a hold-out with Stick&Shock anyway.
SO yes, it's intentional. My NPCs will keep using Heavy pistol against the PCs when appropriate still




Why so confrontational? I'm not hand-waving anything, It's a house rule. The reasoning is:
1. Specializations are so powerful that losing access to them is generally not worth it. Players were always splitting up the groups after chargen anyway.
2. If you train excessively with a lot of different weapons you are likely to develop a preference and higher aptitude with one kind. Why can't SEAL teams be Specialized in Automatics just because they have Firearms 6?
3. Skill groups seemed overpriced compared to simply raising the skills you need - Shadowrun already rewards specialization (with lowercase s) too much. This makes it easier to be an all-rounder.
4. Giving skill groups to NPCs makes things easier, and the extra 2 dice really help.

Now, if you only want one skill out of a group, you take the skill. If you want 2 you may already consider getting the third or fourth really cheap. If you wanted 3 you would have gotten it without this house rule anyway, and simply splitting it up to Specialize later.

Beg your pardon, never meant it to sound confrontational. Of course it's a houserule, but one I don't understand.
Skill groups are meant to represent generalist knowledge, and already cost less than taking skills individually. Do you really feel that price difference is not sufficient as it is?

Have you considered just letting them split them up on chargen?

Wait, you not only use player character creation rules for NPCs, but you don't break up their skill groups at creation either? Why? Do you use mathematically precise approach, with the BP you spend per NPC strictly limited?

I am not sure getting four skills for the price of two and a half is all that overpriced, but that is a matter of taste of course.

Sorry, I have yet to write down a list. I came up with that rule only after the current PC were created (previously, it just was a yes/no at chargen). So far, I decided Availability on the fly whenever a player asked for a particular spell.
Spells that threaten public safety (Invisibility, Mask, Levitate, Ignite...) have been 8R. Combat spells stood at 8F (as per the rules). Spells that can threaten national security (Mind Probe, Control Thoughts, Control Actions) are 24F. Basically, if you find such formula, the guy selling it is a rogue CIA agent or something like that.

I did not want to forbid many spells at chargen, but the use of the Restricted Gear quality for spell that would have Availability in the 9-20 range is an interesting idea. It would force player to make an extra effort to have ubiquitous spells like Invisibility at chargen. But it's not going to be popular with those who play mages I guess.

Alright. The price difference would be sufficient if you could get all useful skills in one group, but quite often you are "dumped" a less useful skill into the group. And some skill groups only have 3 skills anyway.

Now, as it seems you let them split them at chargen, why not just let them keep their group and their specialization(s)?

Also, I think you misunderstood: I Don't generally use PC chargen rules for NPCs, I usually assign points wherever I see fit. And it really speeds it up by taking skill groups when appropriate. Gangers? Close Combat group fits nicely, and the added specialization means they won't lose out any because of it either. The premade Mooks in the book has skill groups, and I can't really see why they would give up 2 dice like that.

I think skill groups are wonky in the first place of course. At character creation it makes sense to invest in some initially, then break them up right away. By RAW you can't reassemble it, so after chargen you are basically simply improving whatever skill you need the most. If it was just a chargen tool, there wouldn't be karma costs for it though. So it is assumed silly character such as the Weapons "Specialist" keep improving these hugely expensive groups and still miss out on specialization. The only skill group I routinely take for my chars is the Influence group, where 3/4 skills are very useful for their category. You only really need 1 melee skill tho, and you can make do with Automatics, and maybe pistols alone. It might seem like a bargain for 3 skill for the cost of 2.5 the cost of one, but not at lower skill levels with specialization. I'd rather have Automatics 4, Pistols 3 and Longarms 2, all with each own specialization (50 karma) than Firearms 4 (55 karma). Each of these skills gives as many dice as just having the skill group or more. And yes, you CAN usually stick to your specialization fairly easily. Semi-Auto? SMGs or ARs?) Sniper Rifles? Yes please.

Now, you can get all of these guns, don't have to fuzz about getting the best of them to mod to heck, with less bookkeeping and slightly more karma. I used to consider simply removing Specializations, but decided to do this instead.

Now you may not understand the need for this, but do you think it will be unbalanced somehow? Will single skills stop being attractive? I think not.

I do play Awakened almost exclusively, and I like the idea very much!

I don't think that fits well with the fluff. Especially at the beginning of the 6th many magicians had to be self-taught, and few of them would have been in the intelligence services. So the information is out there. I agree that a lot of spells should be forbidden to be sold and the punishment should be severe for buying or selling them, but they should not be harder to get just because they are more of a head-ache for the GM.

@Not all spells at Char Gen: This sounds pretty much just like a BP tax. Either the mage has to invest in the Arcana skill and then be out of the game to research the useful spells himself or he has to pay 8BP instead of 3 BP and can get a maximum of three such spells. Alternately he could spend the BP on a Black Market Pipeline and never have to worry. If you don't want some spells in your game just tell your players beforehand and they can decide whether they want to play in your game.

- Halve Essence Costs for all cyberlimb-related 'ware. We get far more interesting characters this way, I actually used a cyberweapon.
- Essence can be regenerated by spending Karma. Magic/Resonance is not recovered.
- SnS deals Stun (E) damage equivalent to the weapon it is being fired from. The primary advantage is range compared to tasers.
- Grenades don't suck.
- Battle Rifles have AR ranges and retain their damage codes. They're Full Auto, uncompensated recoil is doubled.
- Skill Groups can have one specialized skill at chargen. It just makes sense: if you have the Influence Skill Group you're still bound to be a better Liar/Negotiator/etc.


SPELLS
We're treating spells a bit more like Programs. They degrade and they can have options. You don't expend Karma to update Spells (and it's all or nothing), just a bit of nuyen perhaps or a lot of time meditating. Penalty is they become easier to Counterspell.

Spell Options include stuff like: Cast at 1 Force higher than normal max without suffering Physical Drain. +1 Dice on Multi-Cast, etc. These options cost nuyen instead of Karma. Spells don't have to be re-learned either with these new options, just added on to it via the monthly update. That is, as long as you have Arcana.

Oh, and Arcana uses your Tradition's second drain attribute.


Despite all this, our games are traditionally "low power" games.

Meaning?



Whut.

Grenades (Thrown): Less bounce, much more accurate. I don't have the rules on me, but with just 1-2 hits you can get pretty good results. Of course, this is for the damaging grenades. The smoke/gas stuff just gets even better by being more accurate.

Spell Degradation
The thinking behind it is that Spellcasters are all pretty in tune with the manasphere. So the more a spell is used, the more common it becomes in their "general awareness". Wagemages and Street Mages sling a lot of spells, so they gotta stay more current.

If a Mage doesn't update his spells that month by burning up some telesma or spending some time meditating or whatever's traditionally appropriate, then his Spells are treated as being 1 Force lower for Counterspell purposes (including for any Spell Barriers, etc) for each level of degradation.

It's a nuyen sink, basically. But only Runners can afford to regularly burn telesma to keep their stuff up-to-date.

I think a lot of arguments about adepts and initiating would be fixed if the concept of a "power point" was done away with. At my table there is no "buying a power point", there is "raising your magic attribute". With a magic attribute of x, you can buy x points worth of powers.

So, when ANY magical character initiates, at my table, they:
1. Increase their maximum magic attribute by 1 point.
2. Either
a) learn a metamagic feat, or
b) get a point added to their magic attribute.

No problem, no confusion.

You don't have to actually purchase that Magic Point? Wow...

I was thinking of doing this myself, after I started building a hacker with double cyber-arms and wires and discovered just how "ouch" the Essence costs could be. I realize that thematic element to it, but still, ouch!


I'll admit, this cracked me up.


This I really dig.

I'm getting all sorts of really good houserules from this thread.

Yeah, why not make those mages even more powerful!

Bye
Thanee

So far, the things that break the game are still drones, wired reflexes, and sustaining foci, specifically sustaining increase reflexes. Not letting the mage add a couple of extra dice to his magic skills.
This is at my table of course, YMMV.

@Not all weapons at Char Gen: This sounds pretty much just like a BP tax. Either the Sam has to invest in the Armorer skill and then be out of the game to make the useful weapons himself or he has to pay extra BP for the weapon, and can get a maximum of three such weapons. Alternatively he could spend the BP on a Black Market Pipeline and never have to worry. If you don't want some weapons in your game just tell your players beforehand and they can decide whether they want to play in your game.

Re: Harder to get - same as above. Why is it harder to get a Full Auto LMG than a Predator? Because the Full Auto LMG has more restrictions on it based on the danger. I can't imagine a government is going to regulate guns down to the model and firing type, but allow any and all spells to have the same level of availability and legality.

Tl;dr: Great rule!

Wired reflexes? Really? When the whole combat system is structured around having multiple passes, wired reflexes break the game?

The difference between spells and military hardware however is that spell formulae can be written down and copied on any sheet of paper*. A picture of such paper could even be distributed via the matrix. Military hardware on the other hand has to be produced, bought or stolen. The relative rarity of the item is responible for the number before the legality letter

* I know that not all traditions would find a sheet of paper an appropriate medium for a spell formula but what is appropriate varies by tradition not by spell. So spell formulae for certain traditions could be more difficult to (re)produce but not certain spells within the same tradition.

Usually, the fact that something is forbidden to be sold, and the punishment for buying or selling it is severe, does make it harder to get, fluff-wise.

My problem is spells like Mind Probe and Control Thought do not fit well with the fluff either. They're a headache for a gamemaster that tries to tell most any story of espionage black ops. That is, the very thing the game is about. I don't see why Johnson would waste their time and money on street sams, adepts and hackers, except as bodyguards for the mages who know Mind Probe, Control Thoughts and Influence and complete all missions by himself. And there should no such thing as meeting the Johnson face to face either. I don't see how any mage could be allowed in a 20 miles radius around the Washington Mall and the Pentagon and any other sensitive building if anybody could learn those spells.

I'm not saying it's impossible. There's the Arcana skill and spirit mentors and all that. I'm saying people are not going to openly teach or sell it. It can be printed on a sheet of paper. So do the schematics for a nuke or the formulae for chemical weapons. Sell those on a website and see what happens (actually, nothing you would notice for a while, and that's precisely the point...).

Regarding the beginning of the Sixth World, the fluff does not say the entire spells list of the 1st edition was available to any mages in 2011. Daniel Coleman only cast Armor and Ram or something similar when he escaped Abilene. To us, Arcana is just modifiers, thresholds and rolling dice, but maybe totems and immortals refused for a long time to teach the Mind Probe spell, and it took decades before someone actually designed and teach it before FBI or corporate security stormed his labs.

Well, the character creation system is all but BP tax. Positive and negative qualities have a cost solely based on how useful or detrimental they are. Contacts cost depends on Loyalty and Influence. Skills cost depends on whether they're considered as active or knowledge, and their range varies greatly: cost is the same between Running or Pilot Aircraft (actually Pilot Every-Godamn-Aircraft-In-The-Creation). Spells, on the other hand, all have the same exact cost. Makeup costs the same than Invisibility.

Introducing a houserule and an actual cost would allow a player who wants to play a ninja-trained mage to have Invisibility and Levitate, but at a higher cost than his teammate who wants to play a explosive ordnance disposal mage with Magic Fingers and Analyze Device. The first is going to get advantage of his spell a lot more often than the later, much like Running versus Pilot Aircraft.

At which point people should start arguing that SR is made for optimization and that pussies shouldn't get a discount for being weak and silly things as "character concept."

Minding that most initial magic research was done by the shamans of an anti-government group, do you really think there are old spells whose formulae haven't leaked into the Matrix? Or that anyone is capable of suppressing the info that has already leaked?
Rules-wise, I like the rule, or at least the intention behind it. Fluff-wise, eh, it's not that great.

Nothing happens. Hell, go to Darknet, there's CP in HD on their imageboard mainpages, and nothing's happening to them.

I allow extra specializations.

Skill 1-3 = 1
skill 4-6 = 2
Skill 7 = 3

More when I have more time to post.

Do they stack? For example SCUBA diving in caves with specializations SCUBA and cave diving.

Never come up before, but I would probably say use the most appropriate spec. No double dipping.

Only in that most of the mooks don't have it. And if any of the players don't have it, they end up waiting 20 minutes before they get another turn. It doesn't make it unplayable, but it makes it so everyone has to have some type of initiative booster if they want to play. It's been a problem since 1st edition. Not really much to do about it. Even the silly "everyone goes on the first pass" rule just makes sure that the non-boosted get 1 action before they're forgotten about.

Yeah, good thread for getting ideas. Now, to con my GM into implementing some of them. Uhh, I mean convince...

Oh, and I should add that we halved some of the capacity costs of some cyberlimb stuff, namely some of the weapons. The Essence costs do get a little crazy, especially when a cyberlimb doesn't really add that much to a character (power wise) compared to other options.

Another rule I have in the proposal stage, chrome heavy too, is to allow Alphaware and higher Cyberlimbs to come "precustomized" to their owner's attributes. Saves some nuyen.

Why? Specializations are situational dice pool modifiers. If both conditions are met both dice pool modifiers should be applicable. Normally the same person cannot meet both (or several) conditions at the same time, but your houserule opened that possibility. If you don't want that, you would need an additional houserule.

The problem is there are different types of specializations. Some require the use of certain equipment (assault rifles, SCUBA etc.) others reference a task (HALO jump, cave diving, by spell category etc.) or a position (Urban, by terrain type etc.). More than one equipment based specialization nearly never applies to one test (there are semi-automatic hold-outs though), but they can sometimes be combined with one of the other two types. It depends on the skill in question and the available Specializations. It gets even more complicated if you allow non published specializations (which is a popular houserule).

Actually "non-publishes" specialties are meant to be if I recall the wording of the core book correctly, I believe the core rules encourage players to divert from published specialties saying "these are only a few of the options for specialization" or something to that extent.

So you're saying that it's broken from the point of view that PLAYERS who don't have more than 1 IP get the shaft? Yes? Because mooks don't usually have multiple passes by virtue of just outnumbering the players. Also, not all players need multiple meat passes. The rigger can jump in (cold for 2, hot for 3 (or more)) passes, the hacker won't generally be contributing a major amount directly in combat, but can be running the TacNet for the team and attempting to scramble their communication and possibly hacking something to give them penalties. You're looking at it too narrow mindedly.

Having large a IP count is as much a prerequisite for being efficient in combat as having decent combat pools or guns.
Why is the need to have combat skills and equipment (some of which gets pretty expensive) not a problem, but having a way to increase your IP is one?
I agree that the IP system is not perfect, and it does raise a few problems of its own, but the problem with mooks not having enough actions is not one of them. For Marx's sake, if it troubles you, just give your mooks IP boosters, why not. You're the GM, it's your world to play with, and unless your players use something like the pregens for the characters, there's precious little reason to stick to pregen opponents as they are as well.

It takes you twenty minutes to process a single turn? Really? Mayhaps you are doing something very odd here.
I think the longest turn for us is about 2-3 Minutes or so. *shrug*

Besides, Drugs are cheap for mooks... *shrug*

It takes me about as much to process a 4 IP turn as well, but we're playing over IRC, so it's naturally slower.

Valid points. After thinking about it on my trip today, I see no reason why not either.

LOL, with my job and all my typical first response is almost always NO to a request. Once I look at the options/rules, I tend to be pretty open minded. If I'm starting to do that in my game...I need a vacation.

Rankings aren't just the literal difficulty, though. I mean, any armorer can make a gun. Any hacker can make any program. Everything is made by someone. And there's not that much difference between making, say, a sport rifle and an assault rifle. But they have different AVs.

Just because you *can* write it down doesn't mean people are going to. If it's highly illegal, and the penalties for doing so are heinous, then it's going to be high availability and forbidden.

In our world, at this moment, 3D printers can, with the right blueprints, print and assemble all the parts for a gun. But there are rules and restrictions around it that mean people won't generally do so.

Also, I hate to do it, but - game balance. We hand wave enough stuff in SR under the twin banners of "cool" and "balance."

The upside to that rule is that a runner who *has* learned it may well decide they don't care about the rules governing it, and start scribing it like mad, making tons of money.

Ahhh... That makes more sense... Got it.

As far as fluff goes, Native American Nations Volume 1 actually says SAIM veterans were still keeping some techniques secret in 2050. As a warring faction between 2011 and 2017, the SAIM only edge over the US government was magic, and it still was after 2017 when they became a government, with US as hostile neighbours. Publishing anything on the Internet would only have helped the US and weakened the SAIM, while being quite useless to shamans who could have much more secure meeting places in the astral space.

And again, fluff does not say what "old spells" are. Coleman used Armor and Ram to escape, while casting Mass Control Thoughts or Actions on the guards would have been a much better plan. Spirits powers probably gave the bulk of the SAIM magical support. The Truth Dancers may not have had more than Analyze Truth to work with.

Fluff says a bunch of megacorporations staff and fund labs searching for new spell formulaes. It somehow implies the entire catalog wasn't designed between 2011 and 2017, and quite a number of spells have been at a later date.

Fine then; there are still ways to research or be taught any spell you like, and minding the number of magicians in the world (millions of capable ones, give or take), it's hard to wrap my mind around the idea that they haven't uploaded everything there is to be uploaded already. Look at the Internet: you can't teach yourself to brew explosives or drugs or what have you without massive experiment costs, but the Internet has all the recipes.

Reimagine the internet where there is no free speech and where illegal information is hit with a very fast denial of service / takedown.

There's a damn good reason ShadowLand BBS nodes were always transient.

Data Havens have everything up to top-secret corp research data (...rumours).

Oh sure. There are data havens.

But getting into them is hard.

Which, I do believe, raises the availability number on anything they contain....

To 24F? Data Search tests find anything in the Matrix in but a few hours!

You use an average of 5 seconds per player per pass? Thats extremely fast, even if most of them only say "Im running over there" and points on a map.

For someone asking the GM a question, firing a gun or casting a spell, computing results, GM rolls defense, GM rolls soaks and notes damage. Repeat last parts if SA or burst. This generally takes at least 30 seconds in my game, even if the player is efficient.

20 minutes for a single turn? Sure, if there is alot of characters with multiple IPs, questions for the GM, and maybe checking a rule or table or two.

The combat we had last time (6 gangers with 2 cars, 2 PCs with 2 IPs and 1 car) took 1.5 hours, and probably lasted 4-5 rounds.

This is basically the minimalistic combat, where none of the gangers had multiple IPs, only 2 PCs were present (only having 2 IPs due to drugs), no magic, cyberware or hacking.

How many players do you have? We have 3-4 players in any given situation. Most of our combats are over in a couple of turns. Say 5-15 minutes at most (for a Really long Combat). Only on rare occasions do we go over 15 minutes for a combat sequence (we have had one or two with close to an hour, but that was with Many, Many opponents with many, many iterations of 3-4 Passes). Though it has happened. Note that I said Sequence, too. Some sessions contain 6-10 such sequences depending upon the circumstances, though not all of them are guns blazing. Quiet takedown for the win.

Using your numbers... 30 Seconds for the PC's is 1.5 to 2 Minutes per pass, Most of our combats are over in 2-3 passes (4.5-6 Minutes - so 9-12 Minutes with equal opponents). And currently, the highest pass initiative is 3 (1 Player) with the others haveing 1 (or two with a Drug Boost). Like I said, most of our combat sets are over in less than 15 minutes.

F just means you can't have a license for it, and has no bearing.
24 means that it takes a certain time interval to find (which ends up being more directly related to the cost of the item, not it's availability*).

And Data Searches specifically cannot find sequestered information.



Followed by a nice table.



I'd say a highly illegal spell would fall into "hidden or actively hunted and erased." And would qualify as at least "intricate or specialized" if not "obscure."

And with an interval of 1 minute for searching "the entire matrix" that gives us...(Data Search + Browse) - 1 extended test (24, 1 minute).

I don't know about you, but a threshold of 24 is pretty high for maximum 11 dice (no specialization). Definitely not a "sure thing" On average those 11 rolls (with the -1 per roll rule) will get 22 hits.

The average starting runner is not likely to have a comlink with a system/response of 6/6 and a 6 in data search and a rating 6 browse program.

Let's be more reasonable, for a non-hacker mage. A 4 data search skill and a 3/3 system. That gives 7 dice, (9 with specialization**).

9 (15) hits on average.

And even then that will likely only tell you where the information is, not the information itself.

*A $100 item with a rating 24F can be located in as little as 12 hours (though will either succeed or fail by the end of the 6th day; and you can pump up to 2.5 times the cost into extra dice: pay 350% get 10 more dice, expediting the process (even defaulting on a Charisma of 3 and buying the extra dice, you have a better than 50-50 odds of success, on average getting the item on day 5)), but a $10,001 item with an availability of 1 takes a minimum of a week.

**Even this is pushing the believability of "non-hacker."

It's either "secret and hidden" or "Hidden or Actively Hunted and Erased". So you're getting the info, not the node location. Secret and hidden is stuff like top secret corp plans, research data and that.
Without the -1 per roll rule, which is optional, you're getting your formula, as I said, in but a few hours even as a non-specialist - but if you're a part of a competent team, you're very likely to have said specialist.

The corps and the governments have done those same searches, and are watching those formulas. If you use them, you'll find that someone is now actively tracing you. And now it's a thing. So you have to get more discreet locations, which are harder to find. Those have IC on them, or the like. Now they're protected or secret, and you can't even access them.

Plus, there are an ass ton of slightly modified formulas that *look* like Mind Probe, but are actually Mind Erase (Self).

Also, those searches for explosives and the like done today? Run them in Singapore, China, even Germany. They don't come up so easily.

You should tape a session or something (Big Brother simulation) so we can hear how efficient you are

And yes im used to many opponents and initative passes, I hardly call sniping or tasing one lone guard a "combat", even if it uses combat rules. Im talking about the real fights that lasts at least 3-4 passes or more.

We had a long combat which actually lasted close to 30 seconds in game... it was a brawl against orks, using improvised weapons, unarmed, bats etc. (all with 1 IP). Must have been at around 10 rounds. Think that lasted more than 1 hour at least.

Uh. No. Data that is actively hunted and erased would keep it from being public knowledge. So any publicly accessible locations would need to be secret and hidden. Because it if was known about, then it'd get erased.

Or we can skip strait to "protected and secret: N/A" and be done with it. Congratulations, it's on the matrix, but no one can ever find it. Mission Success: 24F valid.

I can think of such "justifications" for any way to punish the players and limit their options.
That doesn't mean that sits well with the RAW or fluff, for that matter, too. Or adds anything to the game experience.

So in your classification that "Actively hunted and erased" category does not exist at all? Good going, what else can I say.

Nice, twisting my words. Awesome.

What I said was, things can be both. There are some things that will be one or the other, but that the categorizations are not mutually exclusive.