The amount of hit generated by searching these words is staggering, as is the lack of a conclusive answer.
Recently in our game we have been buying and selling a lot of gear, some of it (whom am I kidding, most of it) Forbidden and the present system feels inadequate to our needs.
First of all, it leaves a lot of questions to be answered. What if I want to buy several units of the same item? Ащк example, I'm buying 50 rounds, not ten. Do I make five five rolls or I make one stacking all values? If i make several rolls, do I make the acquisition simultaneously or one item after another? Also, wouldn't someone inquire if one party starts to buy a lot of F-rated gear? And not only police, but also mafia?
Was there any clarification of the buying-selling game in Shadowrun? I've thought of some patches to bring the process up to my expectations, but I'm always eager to heed official ruling.

I'll assume you're using 4a rules for lack of a specific mentioning: Page 312 of the 4a handbook has a listing of prices, if you're buying 50 rounds of the ammo, determine total price, lets say they are 8R ammo & lets say they are 80Y for 10 that means for 50 the price will be 400Y, you reference 400 on the chart, we see that it has an Interval of 1day on an extended test, you need to roll your Negotiation+Cha+modifiers to reach 8 dice. Every Roll you make counts as 1 day of searching, so lets say you make 2 rolls, it takes you 2 days to find that 50 Ammo.

so TL;DR

1. Calculate the Total cost of the item or items you wish to find.
2. Find the price you need in the chart on Pg. 312 of SR4a
3. Roll Cha+Negotiation+modifiers in an extended test.
4. ???
5. Profit

And Availability Rating remains the same?

Yup, we're playing Anniversary. Previous editions had it some other way?

Just in case, the tweaks that I came with:

1. Fencing gear checks have a lengthier interval, the same as with buying stuff, not fixed 6 hours for everything.
2. Just as a character can reduce the price of a fenced item by 5% to gain additional die, he can sacrifice one die to raise the selling price by 5% (Base cost for fencing starts at 30% as written in the book)
3. When buying an F-rated gear, there is a chance that the deal would attract unwanted attention (I stole the idea from Rogue Trader). Each piece of gear generates one 'trouble die'. The pool is rolled for the interval (haven't decided which one though, be it an in-game time or rather one-per-story roll as with Enemy trait), and depending on the number of hits generated, the scale of the trouble will rise (again, I'm set on using Enemy chart as a guideline)

@2: Well, now a good face (DP: 18) can sell an Avail 12 item (+12 on fencing roll) for 130% of its original price and still have a DP of 10 to make the roll.
@3: According to p. 312, SR4A, a glitch on a buy/fence roll does exactly that - attracting unwanted attention.

So far the second point isn't proving to be much of a hindrance, I mean the raise is %, so if you're fencing drugs costing 5 nyuen per dose, you're not getting much. Of course, if you're fencing, say, a military helicopter, it can get out of hand. But let's be honest, if the team got a helicopter and are selling it... well, it won't get worse.

Yeah, I've read it, but it occurs far too seldom for my taste. I mean, if the team sold that helicopter, someone would notice it for sure.

to the right contacts, in the right underground market...no one may notice...however they sure as hell noticed the theft, & there may be a higher police presence anyway.

Have you considered just saying that each hit on the fencing roll above the first gives 5% extra?

Sure, if they just waltz into the military compound, hotwire the heli and fly off. If on the other hand they either forge the documentation that they are authorized to take the heli away or forge a requisition form, the theft may only be noticed well after the helicopter has been sold.

I'll give an example:

The elven adept Face/Surgeon Mark has CHA 7, Negotiation 6 (Bargaining +2), Kinesics 3 and improved Ability 3 (Negotiation) for 21 dice, and is a SINer with a 10h Day Job (freelance surgeon) and First impression.
The face has a connection, Bob the Shiawase Cyber/Bioware Wholesale Trader (Con 3 Loy 3). Bob has CHA 5 and Negotiation 5 (Bargaining +2).

Mark buys a bunch of Rtg. 5 Skillwires from Bob, and applies for a discount (SR4A, p.288, Favors). Mark rolls his Negotiations+Loyalty (DP of 24) against Bobs Negotiation (DP of 12). If both take 4, this results in a 30% discount, for a total of 8500nY per R5 Skillwires (+15% for Connection 3, -30% discount). Bob needs ~14 days to deliver a single Skillwire system (interval 2 days) and 7 weeks to deliver 2+ (interval of 1 wk).

Now Mark tries to sell his R5 Skillwires for 10.000nY a piece (=100%), resulting in a -14 DP mod, for a total DP of 29 (21+ Avail 20-14) on a (10, 2 days) extended test. By taking 4, he sells one Skillwire System every 4 days, getting 2500nY in profit.

Now repeat as often as you need.

Consider that:
1) Mark could sport the following: Tailored Phereomones Rtg 3 and Enhanced Pheromone Receptors Rtg. 3 for another 5 dice
2) Bob could be a loyalty 6 contact

1) and 2) result in another 20% discount for Mark, for a net win of 35%

3) Replace the R5 Skillwires with Alphaware R6 Toxin Extractor (Avail 18-, 240.000nY)
4) Mark can sell it for 160% in 2 wks. (CHA 7, NEG 9+2, Kinesics 3, Pheromone Stuff 5, First Impression 2, Avail 18, -26 for +130%) -> he now made a net win of 228000 nY in 2 weeks of downtime, with 156.000 nY starting capital.
5) The original deal is completely legal, to get the advanced deal completely legal, remove the R3 tailored pheromones. He now gets 10% less discount and can sell it for 145% in two weeks for a net win of 168.000nY (Loy 6) / 144.000 nY (Loy 3).
6) If you roll it, Mark gets more.

When theorizing pornomancy-level dice pools, don't forget the +6 from that lovely emotitoy (or just the empathy software if you don't want to bring a furby to negotiations).

Well, i could also add a 15 CHA surge glamour dryad mysad, but sometimes it is enough ^^

The roll itself is extended, so I can just roll until I get the price I want?




Yeah, I get the idea, but we are playing shadowrun, not retailrun, aren't we? Because if we do, a lot of different things kick in. For example, You can't sell to the same people you buy from, so that Mark type would have to find a new market, which carries risks and expenses. Or you can't buy that amount of gear in the first place, you have to obtain it some way (for example, one of the guys is organ-legger). Quite a number of the traits work only when you talk face to face, so the fixer has to be physically present at the negotiation and probably has to go all the way, speak with every man working the line. And So on.
On the top of that, what's actually wrong in that scheme? Quite a lot of them work that way in 'real life'. There's a good quote from The Little Golden Calf: 'Don't talk like that! I'll outlive all of you! You don't know Panikovsky! Panikovsky will yet sell and buy you all! And then sell again -- but at a higher price.'

What i mean is yeah, you can get ridiculous dice pools. My 'casual socialiser' elven shaman has around 20 dice on Negotiation just because he has that much Charisma to soak Drain. If I wanted to go pro with Negotiation, I would have around 35 dice without factoring possible Street Cred, which will bring it over 50. But there are not many characters of the type. And if there are, they are easily countered by characters with 50 dice of soak or 20 levels of base damage or they can just mindrape everything because they are starting-points mages.

These are extremes, and every extreme usually break the game.


Btw, can you throw the original pornomancer build at me? Never seen it, only various derivatives.

You can only add an amount of Street Cred equal to your Charisma. But you probably knew that already.
From your post, it implies that your Charisma is 16+.

'Mere' 15 ) I did cost me a lot, but dying from Drain is way more expensive
But as I said, I'm not a fixer at all, and the character has nothing to do with fencing stuff, we actually have a proper Face.

Playing a Pixie or an Elf (which often amounts to the same thing, damned dandylion eaters)?
Dying from Drain happens so very infrequently that I think it is a Myth.

Yeah, an elf
I noticed that I start dying when i start casting physical combat spells like fireballs or elemental area ones. F/2+7 Drain is nasty. Manabolts on the other hand...

Yep, F/2+7 is Nasty.
Which is why the Absorption Metamagic is awesome.

Yeah, only that Absorption can kill you just as easily. That's what stopped me from using it in the first place. As far as i understand, you can't switch it off, it automatically stores energy, so if I get targeted by several mages at once, the BOOM!! would be very spectacular and gory.
But i think we digress and that will probably get us in trouble )

Oh, just Multicast some of the F/2+7 spells and all that stored energy is gone. And finding buyers for skillwires should not be that hard, it is easier in shadowrun to find a job if you have one.

Ok while we are all on this, I kind of got into some of the territory of buying / selling gear. So I see for every 25% you increase the price of the item you want you can get additional dice to make the roll, but the time frame for getting the item still stays the same. Is there anything on wanting to get it sooner? Say we know because of the price it says it will take two days to get the item, but is there a way to get that in a one day delivery time instead of two?

If you look below the chart that shows interval times you'll find modifier table, things such as a flooded Market or a bare market & such, these are modifiers to the base price. also for some things like a Car or such things you can buy it used for a discount which can possibly impact the price to make it a different interval.

Bump. So, no one has answered. Is there no way to get items faster then the time interval that is in the main rules? Or is this something that is going to have to be house ruled with in reasonable intent?

The only thing I can think of is to try to lower the price to squeeze into another category. Buy used, buy stolen, etc.

ahh I see. Okay, well then that still puts a lot of items on the two day wait list. Okay.

Try "Rushing the Job", p.65, SR4A, or the optional rule to spend edge to halve a test interval (SR4A, p.75)

that could theoretically work Nil, assuming the players are the ones doing it, if it happens to be a 3rd party such as a fixer getting the stuff, the GM would have to let that happen.

Well, the players could ask their fixer to rush the job - for a fee, of course.