I've got a character who's been caught by Knight Errant and is in custody. He's only there for twenty-four hours, but one of the other PCs has been captured and he needs to get out early to stop them. They've stripped him of weapon and comm link. He's in spare prison clothes since he was grabbed at a safe house in nothing but boxers and a t-shirt. No time for Knight Errant to raid his dresser. The guy has an internal comm link, but the Knight Errant precinct house is one giant Faraday cage for obvious reasons (an extra challenge the GM tossed in). The character has skin link, and reflex boost, but that's all. They did find a small amount of contraband on him, but not enough to arrest, just hold for 24-hour period. Any ideas on how he can get out? He's being held in the holding cells, the ones drunks are tossed into. We ended the session with him planning a break out, but I've come up empty. Any suggestions? Has anyone ended up in a similar situation, and if so, how'd you deal with it?

dunno, this is an instance I am glad i play a melee adept. :3, unarmed usually, and somewhat sneaky, but GL mate. dont see how u can get out without risking a fight, then due to that fight, a larger one, where they shoot at you. ooo incite a riot!.

Yeah, I figured that. I mean, the GM can't revoke that since he already put it in play. The only thing I can think of is call contacts to start something outside to draw Knight Errant's attention or something and I can get out during the ensuing chaos. Actually, would a Faraday cage scenario stop me hacking with skin-link or just sending a comm link message to someone on the outside? Because if skin-link still works, I can try hacking the system during my one phone call and cause fire alarms to go off or something. Hell, maybe, even bring the precincts electricity down.

not entierly sure on the faraday cage thing, I am guessing you are a hacker, since you have a com implanted. I beleive you can still hack things WITHIN the cage as it were, though it would be difficult, and nigh impossible to do in in VR without being noticed. as for my adept, I would troll the GM ( I have a troll adept) and punch through the wall, (probably die from gunfire soon after but hey, i ahve some edge >:3) 26 damage per hit to buildings. mwhahaha.

Read "Shadowrun Missions 04-07: Burn" for ideas.

Depends on how the Farday cage is deisgned - it would be logical to have the cells fitted with their own Farady cage to make sure nobody inside the cell can mess with the buildign's electronics along with a shielding of the building's outer skin to make sure nobody messes with them from outside. The Farady cage won't impair the surveillance cams and mikes - put the camera lens beghind an opticaly trasparent but radio opaque material and you're set.

In my opinion and since your charcter hasn't done anyhting seriusly wrong, the simplest solution would be to wait until you're released. If there's a time issue, the most effective course would be using some outside help to pay whatever fine you've incured and get out - the most effective contacts for that would be amongst roganized crime, they're more than likely to have the pulling power to get an early release for someone who's only linked to minor offenses. You'll owe them a fovr, but that woulmd be the best.

Of course it suppoe you're allowed to contact the outside world. Is there a 2070 equivalent to giving one phone call ?

The 'violent exit' option is in my opinion the least desrable option. you've got no gear and are i na place that's deisgnes to keep troublemakers in. Get ntoiced and odds are you'll be moved to a secure holding cell deepr inside the building and kept under tighter security rather than sotred in teh drunkard pen.

I would wait until release.

Regardless of skinlink and Commlink I'm pretty sure the holding cell/room is a faraday cage and has nothing on the walls that the skinlink could connect to.

he could perhaps hack the other peoples commlinks within the holding cell for shit and giggles while he wait.

Is the character SINner? If he's not, does he have a fake SIN?
- If he doesn't have any SIN, they can do whatever they want with him.
- If he has a fake one, and KE has reason to believe he's a Shadowrunner (or wants to hold him for more than 24 hours), KE can do a deep check on the SIN, find it's fake and treat him like a SINless (they can arrest him for using a fake ID, but that's probably a federal offense, and they might not want the FBI taking over the case).

Only SINners have rights.

If you have a SIN, you should have the right to call a lawyer. You should contact your fixer, and explain the situation to him, and that you need to get out sooner because you have to help a friend. Be carefull how much detail to give, since Knight Errant might be eavesdroping your call.
Then let your fixer decide what to do. He could hire a good lawyer for you, that could bail you out sooner. He could simply hire someone else, who helps your friend. He could hire a good hacker, that hacks knight errant from the outside and makes their system believe that, that you should be released now. Maybe he knows a corrupt cop that can help you.

Breaking out yourself is very risky. If you fail, you will be confronted with charges that are way worse than what you have now. Even if you succed, they probably already have your biometric data and you will get "wanted" as a negative quality. You should only do that if all other options fail, and maybe not even then.

If you have no SIN they'll probably dont waste time with you unless they find something suspicious on you.

If you have no SIN and they plan to release you in 24 hours - wait it out and take no risk.

A FAKE SIN does not mean that they believe he is a Shadowrunning TERRORIST - but he can be:
-Just another criminal without a real SIN
-A SINner with a fake SIN so he can get into clubs or get guns wihtout troubling his real SIN

So, having a fake SIN that they discover is most likely MORE troublesome than NO SIN.

My troll would hopefully not have a problem since if they decide to beat him up or Tazer him into submission they will be very frustrated after a few hours of him completely ignoring them - Even if it is another troll beating him he would most likely shrug it off.

If your character is reasonable with a commlink then that would appear to be your only option.

Where is your internal commlink installed? If the faraday cage is just your cell and your comm is in, say, your head you could try poking your head through the bars to access the outside? A long shot I know.

If the cage is the whole building and not just your cell then you should be able to cause some problems internally at least. I assume there are guards etc with commlinks as well so you could spoof messages, distract them, maybe find one with a hard-line link to the building etc.

Waiting is undoubtedly the best option, unless it's not an option

Steal the SIN from one of the drunk guys in a pinch and bluff yourself out.

The way we play you should try to get the call for help out. A prison break will be hard to organize and flag the SIN used as criminal. KE guards are on the stronger side, and you have to be in a fighting shape after escaping. However, given the way your GM set things up, I suspect going for a dramatic escape (disable guard, take gear, get out) is the way to go in your case.

Try relaying a message via your one phone call or the next person leaving the prison - if you have programs on your link (say well-hidden backup copies), hack a guard. Then try to get out.

Police stations are full of alert and heavily armed people, with magical support seconds away at most, air support a minute or two away and full scale combat assault troops a few minutes behind them. And if you succeed you are now enemy # 1 of a worldwide massively powerful megacorp. You'll be lucky to last 8 hours before KE's ritual magical team kills you and everyone near you.

If you need to break out the transfer vehicle to the LS jail is a much better time, or even going after him in the LS jail.

I just do not see KE spending the resources to hunt down, and kill someone they had no charges against except for a 24 jail hold, if u killed a bunch of KE guards on the way out, mabye, knocked them out? probably not. that would just be going overboard imo if he doesn't kill anyone and gets out.

As has been mentioned previously, your best bet is to wait for them to cut you loose. Failing that, use your comm-call to contact your Fixer (unless you have a criminal defense attorney contact already,) explain that you're in the clink on minor charges and would like to get out early.

Chances are your Fixer can simply pay your fine for you and you'll owe him that and some extra.


One thing you should not do is turn on your implanted commlink's wireless. They'll spot a new node in a nanosecond. If you absolutely HAVE to try hacking anything, make it skinlink or bust. You should just be grateful they haven't seen fit to equip you with one of those headgear things that acts as a Rating 6 ECM field around your head.


Violent escape is going to be impossible for your character. A troll PhysAd with the combat chops to get out and the stealth chops to evade pursuit might make it. Even if you do escape, though, your first stop should be your magician buddy to use a Ritual spell to fry out the ritual sample they would have taken from you when you checked in.

Remember, it goes both ways: the sample they took of you is a ritual link to you, so you are a ritual link to it. It probably really steams them when, in the middle of their ritual "scry and fry," the sample they're using evaporates in a puff of smoke, wasting all their time.

However, to target that ritual sample, you need to trace it (you have to target a Specific sample, as you cannot just target them all at once. If it was that easy, Ritual Samples would be totally useless). And since you leave potential ritual samples everywhere you go, that is likely to be very, very, very hard to do (If Not Impossible). Which ones do you fry? The ons in the cell, the hallway, the bars of the cell, the walls, the doors, The handcuffs/zipties, the blood (or saliva) that was used to test for alcohol/drugs, the chair you were proceesed in, the desk you were sitting at, etc. You constantly shed potential ritual samples. You cannot not. Good Luck on that one.

In addition, if you read the Ritual Rules for such things, the Sample you use to target what you are destroying is ALSO DESTROYED (Only usable once and never again). Really going to go through with that ritual now?

Makes me wonder, could any ritual link sample be used to connect to another sample?

Do you really want to go to all the trouble to localize the specific sample (not Metahuman Target) you are looking for? As indicated above, it could take you a Very Long time to do so.

If you have a material link, you do not need to localize the target - that is the main advantage over using astral spotters (SM, p.28).


No, as the sample must form an integral part of the target. You could create a symbolic link to the sample, if you know what their sample is (eg. if it is your finger, that should be easy - if they have a few skin particles, not so easy).

Actually, you would. I was assuming you were not using a Spotter since you were using a Material Link.
If you have a Sample of "Billy the Shadowrunner" then yes, you can just use that sample to Ritually Target Billy the Shadowrunner. However, as was posited above, IF I have Billy the Shadowrunner, and I wanted to eliminate the Ritual Sample that Aztechnology had, how would I actually target that Sample? Especially since every instance of DNA that has not degraded would be a viable target for the Ritual using Billy as the Sample. So, how do you target that particular Sample? Easy Answer is that you cannot. Even easier answer is that you will kill Billy with the ritual since your Sample is destroyed in the process.

So, the next question was... What if I take a Sample from Billy to Target another Sample from Billy?
My response is... Good Luck. You have to find the exact sample you want to destroy, since the ritual will not target them all at once. So, tell me, how do you plan on solving this dilemma without a Spotter, and an amount of time that exceeds the utility of the ritual? Easier to just send in a team to the facility it is located in, if you ever discover what facility it is located in in the first place (Also a Good Luck Premise).

Well, sample2 of billy can never be a sample for sample1, except when sample2 forms an integral part of sample1.

Lets take another example:
You can take a brick(1) out of a building, using it as ritual sample for the building. But you cannot take another brick(2) and use it as a sample for brick(1), because brick(2) is not an integral part of your target (namely, brick1).

There is no practical way out without killing a lot of people. And they have your biometrics.

KE knows enough and are powerful enough to be able to trivially create a symbolic link if needed. Realize that the sample is going to be behind a ward, how many mages in the players group know ritual magic and are from the same school?

A Single Mage can perform Ritual Magic. You do NOT need a group to do so.

Lets be clear about something that many people are overlooking, unless they've put in some new version of skinlink the character himself having skinlink doesn't do you any good if your in a wirelessly shielded room. In order for skinlink to communicate with something both devices have to have skinlink.

Honestly your best bet is probably just to sit tight and put up with it. There really shouldn't be any reasonable way for you alone to break out of prison with what you've described in 24 hours.

Sure, but all the really cool effects require a bunch of people from the same school with a lot of skill and a high magic rating. Otherwise wards and other factors make it pretty pointless.

Yup. KE and LS have a lot of experience in keeping people locked up. To be more precises, they have years and years of experience keeping people who are a lot more dangerous and skilled than your character locked up. Unless you have something totally off the wall, like actually being a free spirit with materialization, they have seen it before and have 4 different ways to counter it.

On the other hand, they also have cost and quite possibly comfort constraints. I think a lot of people in this thread are neglecting the reasons we don't throw everybody into maximum security prisons now. It's too expensive, provides easy criminal mentoring, and would be seen as harsh or even cruel to inflict on minor thugs. Most of that still applies in the Sixth world, and even applies to a corp with no direct humanitarian instincts.

It depends where he's locked up. Many shadowrunners could get out of your average low security, local jail in the US today; they're a long way from impenetrable. That isn't the point. Just make it inconvenient, and send the flight risks upstate. I'd expect a similar system set up in KE for the same reasons, and a guy you don't even have anything on is the textbook example of a non-flight-risk. Very few people will risk a breakout to escape 24 hours of jail. (Your PC, being quite an exception.) Indeed, the fact you aren't wearing a headjammer, etc. is a good sign this is low-security. So their goal here is not to keep you from escaping. It's to make it inconvenient enough to make you think of the long-term consequences.

Which are significant. If you break out now, you better believe the next time KE catches a whiff of your biometrics, they'll have a name to put on it. Now, I doubt they actually took a ritual sample. (Again, expense, on a non-flight-risk, noncriminal dude. Not worth the fridge space.) But they still have your DNA, picture, prints, etc, if they want them. (Unless you've been utterly paranoid about leaving prints, DNA, etc. Unlikely when woke at oh-dark:30 in a safehouse.) Those WILL be left at a future crime scene. Making them interested in you now ensures they keep them; otherwise they may well not bother with the paperwork. Clearly, the safest solution is to wait them out.

On the other hand...if you cared about safety, I doubt you'd be a shadowrunner. (10% annual survival rate? YEEK!) So how, exactly, should you best go about your foolish derring-do? It sounds like you're a hacker. If so, your best bet is to play to your strength. Hopefully you snagged a bit of face as well, as it can help set up the right circumstances. You need to get in contact with some electronics. Most electronics will be carried by guards. (Check your fellow cellmates for electronics; you may be able to work through one of them, so THEY get caught. It'll take a few seconds (possibly even a minute) for guards to come interrupt a connection attempt from the holding cell to (say) the security cameras. In that time, you may be able to set up a back door for easy access, release an agent that will hack into the database, and persuade them to release you (either directly, or by making you look like subtly bigger fish than you did at first; maybe a distant relative of their supervisor?) or any other shenanigans that come to mind. If your fellow cellmates aren't equipped, they are, at least suggestible. (Being drunk and all.) Spread rumors. Make a couple of them fight. This brings guards, guards bring commlinks. Palm one, or slip an agent on it, or whatever. (Exact hack details should be carefully considered...)

So, what if Mr. Jailbird isn't a hacker? Still possible; just steal the identity of someone who will be released sooner. I don't know how KE identifies people in their jails, but in a low-security, bulk holding cell, it probably boils down to their say so, and no contesting by others. Maybe bribe somebody? "Gimme your ID card, and I'll give you 1000 in hard nuyen on the outside?" (Again, being drunk does influence one's suggestibility...) Or threaten them:

"You know that guy over there?"

"The trog er, I mean troll, yeah?"

"Went to grade school with me. Nice kid. Bit of a temper problem maybe, but a real nice kid. And I was just talking to him you know?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, seems he's not happy I'm stuck in here. And I don't like to see him upset, you know? So, how 'bout you give me that ID, and keep quiet when the guards come for you."

"But I need to get to work tomorrow!"

"Sure thing kid, I understand. I mean, he'll be a bit upset when I tell him about you I'm sure. But he did seem to be feeling randy, so maybe that'll counteract it somehow..."

Now, they maybe check your biometrics on the way out. Or maybe they don't. You have a few seconds outside your cell to hack and swap Mr. TrollBait's ID with yours. Or, if not a hcker, fall back on more social engineering. Some combination of bribes, distraction, and hacking may very well prove sufficient. If nothing else, you're a lot closer to the exit. Make a break for it, and hope your team is there to cover you!

Nobody has an ID card or comlink in the detention block. That is all taken at booking. Along with your shoelaces, belt, pocket knives etc. And unless you can change cells the only people you can swap with are the people in the same cell as you. Your cell mates are probably not going to be telling you that they were arrested for raping their young niece, shooting a clerk in a stop and rob, or hospitalizing their girlfriend, instead they are going to tell you how it's all a BS. Some of them are NOT going to be released in 24 hours, even if they tell you they are. And boy, when the KE detective finds you in the interrogation room instead their suspect they are likely to be kind of irate....

Anyhow, I tend to doubt that KE has their ID or prisoner database available via wireless inside the detention block. I also suspect that an unknown node popping up inside the detention (which can easily be localized to a single cell) will attract attention that you don't want, which will be followed by your built-in comlink being neutralized in some fashion before further inquires are made of you in an interrogation room.

It's just 24 hours in the life of the sinless. Sit down, shut up and just deal with it like everyone else does.

Yea Byrel's scenario has a lot of "the opposition is dumb because I'm a PC" coming off it.

It doesn't take a whole lot of security to keep locked up. Statistics wise successful jailbreaks are staggeringly rare.

You may have a point; I have exceedingly little actual SR PnP experience. (The downside of living out way up in the UP.) Perhaps I overestimate the ability of one, fairly resourceful dude to break of KE jail.

On the other hand, remember where this guy is:


The ONLY cellmates he has have Drunk and Disorderly or similar; they're all getting out quite soon. Also, the only reason he's only wearing just spare prison clothes, is not a thorough search. It's because they captured him "in boxers and a T-shirt." It sounds, from the OP, like they didn't actually search, strip, reclothe like they would do at most (all?) current jails. Reading the OP, this comes across as a very lightly guarded, casual imprisonment, designed mainly to just let folks sleep it off. If these guys weren't searched, the guards aren't expecting a jailbreak. The scenario I'm envisioning, it would be completely plausible to wait for a shift change, and then sweet-talk a guard into just letting you out 'cause you're done with trouble for the night. (I actually knew a cop who did this to a DUI guy IRL. And then caught the guy driving home later...)

So far as the details: his commlink is probably ALREADY on, possibly in hidden mode. Unless someone comes by and scans for hidden nodes, it's secure. Obviously, he's not going to go active with it, but passive. So, unless this holding cell is wired to detect any wireless transmissions (trivial to do, but probably would be triggered regularly anyhow by the random drunk's link, and wouldn't matter for anyone but a hacker, as the building is a Faraday cage) he'll be fine till he tries breaking into something. Then he'll have to rely on whatever skillz he has to avoid triggering an alarm. Which might well be quite tough.

Statistically, breaking out of prison isn't that uncommon: 1 in 200 state prisoners (in the US) escaped in 1998. And that's STATE prisoners. Most local jails don't compare to the state pen, and this is a precinct level 'house'. Indeed, as that article notes "The vast majority of escapees are "walk-aways" from community corrections facilities that have minimal supervision." It may just be my reading of the OP is different, but that sounds like a reasonably similar circumstance. Escaping from jail isn't that hard; avoiding the consequences for it is nearly impossible. It's a bad idea unless you NEED out.

"community correction facilities" are halfway houses, not jails in police stations. I used to drive by one, I figured out what it was by seeing the weight benches in the backyard of what looked like a small apartment building. These typically have no security other then maybe someone to break up fights. The residents are just required to come back every night, show up for their counseling and get occasionally drug tested. If you walk away they will just call the cops.

Escapes from inside police stations are very unusual. Probably more unusual than escapes from prisons, since there are a lot more armed guys in a police station and prisoners are not there for very long. It will definitely get KE management attention, which translates into what the cops call a heater case. Which means everyone who knows the PC will get an opportunity to spend quality time with KE.

Interesting. I didn't recognize the lawyer-speak there. But yeah, if he manages to break out, he's gonna pay. In the fragmented sixth world politics, you might have a better shot at permanent escape than today, but you'd probably have to dodge KE-run areas at a minimum. Maybe pack up and move to Denver...

Wow, my worldview is very different from that of many of the people who posted in this thread.

Breaking out is a crime of opportunity. If your GM has the same kinds of ideas as some of the people posting in this thread, and your incarceration was just a plot hook, then try to figure out a way to get out that your GM thinks is plausible.

Don't you have teammates? Can't you call them and get them to do what you can't do because you're in jail?

Oddly enough, the police monitor and record the calls that prisoners make today. One assumes in SRworld they do the same with much more advanced computers, plus have further ways of tracing and IDing who the criminals they catch call. Like being able to call up the history of the location of recipients comlinks. Do most runners even take phone calls from KE? Would your characters? Would you appreciate a teammate who called you up from jail, given what this provides to KE?

Perhaps you'd rather that they call a lawyer? Do you have a layer that you have set up for these situations?

And if you are really confident that all they are going to do is turn you loose in 24 hours and have no idea who you are, sitting tight, and politely keeping quiet is the best thing to do. Sinless streetscum don't get 200/hour lawyers to show up, hence if a lawyer shows up he's more significant than they though.

Why? You are still constrained by your Lodge, every participant needs the spell, and you can only receive an amount of teamwork dice equal to your Skill (TOTAL). So MAX of +7 Dice (NOT +7 per participant). And you do not get a break on Drain, nor does any one else. No real benefit there, if you ask me. *shrug*

Good point. Originally I typed to call a contact, but revised that to teammate. If you had a lawyer contact, maybe they could pass along a discreet message without much hassle. It's probably best not to call out to anybody.

I remember that the original scenario had something that just simply had to be accomplished before the scheduled release time. I don't think that the PC will be doing it, unless the GM gives the PC the opportunity to get out of jail earlier.