I will go about this from a different perspective. It is not that I don't like the Infected... They make great antagonists. As NPC's. I hate them as PC options because I do not think they make good protagonists. Maybe in a game with one or two players, they could make a good story. In a group of 5-8 players, They are a distraction. And at my table, they would be killed the first moment they were verified (and possibly even as soon as they were suspected, depending upon character) as infected.

That said... I like the Racial Extension Book. It gives some great options.

That would be Run and Gun, the only core supplement actually on the "coming next" list(minus the rigger stuff, their apparently getting their own book).

Ah, all the vehicles in arsenal were one of the prime reasons it was such a good supplement... it vastly expanded the basic vehicle reportoire as well as including modification rules even if it wasn't a true rigger supplement.

Just from a development perspective... I think pathfinder did it right. (the battletech side of catalyst did something similar.. main core rulebook, advaned rulebook... construction rulebok... etc.)

They started with the core rules.

Then they did the advanced rules options in the advanced players guide. Expanding the options for everyone. And no, things like playable infected don't expand the option for everyone...

Then they switched to making class specific splat books. Really outside of other weapon options to stuff in drone weapon mounts... run & gun doesn't sound like the singularly great resource arsenal was.

Course the hard part is waiting for it all

The more books to cover it all means having it all spread out further in release dates.

It's good business, just so sloooooooww

It's difficult to pick the right path. I loved the Pathfinder Advanced Player's Guide. The concept of a single advanced book to opt into is great. But they also have Ultimate Combat and Ultimate magic, creating an awkward three tier system to the game.

SR4 had a solid system where each book enhanced a major portion of the game, together functioning as an advanced tier. Five advanced books feels like a bit much, though, even if the breakdown was pretty sensible.

For my own part, I'd like to apologize for the tone I personally took. Frustrated as I was, I went a bit too far with it. That said, as I mentioned in a previous post, I at least am done wasting time arguing so hopefully we can move on.

On topic - one thing I'd like to see in the supplements is something of a global setting update book. A lot of neat places in the Sixth World haven't really been talked about in books since 3E or earlier, so knowing what the state of some of the world's more interesting locales in 2075 is would be really useful for being able to run campaigns there. It's kind of hard to come up with even just a basic mission in such places if you don't whether the major players, movers, and shakers are still the same after 10 or 20 years in game. So if we had like an Updated Sixth World Almanac or something, with an extry on the current state of all the major locales you could visit and work, that'd be really cool.

~Umi

Looking again at that 'coming soon' section, I have to admit a bit of frustration, though I completely understand why they're doing this route.

My frustration stems from the push for newbie oriented material. I get it, a desire to engage new audiences. The boxed set is probably a good idea, I've seen success with the revamp of the D&D boxed set for example. On the other hand of those 6 products, maybe 1 pertains to the new setting (The Deep Shadows stuff). The type that I am, I will probably end up buying the Cannon Street Companion Arsenal Samurai guide v.5 like I did with all the other gun books, though I'd probably just prefer a 2 page pdf or something on how to cleanly convert previous edition guns to new stats. Tho even that can be taken care of via dumpshock post

I wouldn't mind a good update to Corporate Enclaves or the like, I like it when they give sizable focus to things like LA or Neo-Tokyo, etc. Is there a place that hasn't really be used yet? Florida? Texas? A middle east country? Spain?

Still waiting on an update for Tir Na Nog.

(*psst* Critias! You should totally do a PDF in the style of "Land of Promise" but for Tir Na Nog instead!!!)

Wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the guy being a jerk immediately before my reply.

In any case, I've cast my vote as it were, and have no skin in the game otherwise. If the rules are there, I'll ignore them like I've always done. If they get done and someone uses them, ok by me - doesn't mean I have to like it or not say I don't want them.

Infected:
Maybe not underpowered: Goblin
Not underpowered: Ghul (may be slightly overpowered)
Rest underpowered

Generally Underpowered:
AI's
Free Spirits

Were:
Usefull as Magic-Users (Adept, Mystic Adept, Magician), all other builds = underpowered
Most times an Magician would be more powerfull as an Human.

Thats my take on 4e Runners Companion.

Overpowered:
Pixie

No, but i would say that the big collection of qualities did do that,
And really so did the metavariants, even if one didn't want to play any of them doesn't mean that they didn't add a lot of options for everyone.
Also the Bp/karma gen are quite a big deal for the SR5 companion.

i'm a bit confused here.

are you suggesting that the advanced players guide *didn't* have anything that was only useful for some people (say, feats that only improve magic use that would be of no value to fighters, or combat feats that aren't of any use to wizards), or are you suggesting that because there will (probably) be playable infected in the SR5 advanced player's guide equivalent, which won't be of use for every single player, that there cannot possibly be other things in said book that will be useful to other players?

because i'm pretty damned sure that the book in question is not going to consist solely of rules for playing the infected. it will probably have the rules for surge, maybe some lifestyle qualities, almost definitely more positive and negative qualities, and various other stuff that will make the book over all useful for almost anyone who wants more options in their SR5.

not every single thing in the APG was useful for every single concept. not every single thing in the upcoming SR5 book will be useful for every single concept.

but if it's going to actually do what you *claim* to want, ie expand options for everyone, it has to expand options for the people who want to be able to play vampires and wolf shapeshifters too.

Wow Jaid... just wow... your analogy is utterly and completely flawed. I must surmise that you're completely unfamiliar with the product in question.


You argue for a monstrous manual... by claiming it should be in an advanced players guide! The vast majority of garbage in runners companion belonged in 'Running Wild' not in the companion. The vast majority if banned from play both officially (missions) and from the vast majority of private tables I've been at.

The book does not need to include anything for all the things which should be NPC only. Which are generally only disruptive to the play of everyone else at the table. Most of the Runners companion book was swiss cheese so full of holes and problems. I sincerely doubt it had any playtesting at all... just let the freelancers throw stuff at the wall and see what the line dev allows to stick. The feats section had a lot of questionable entries (albinism vs. taking an allergy to sunlight...)

People advocating to play vampires and the like are no different than people advocating to play bugbears and other monstrous humanoids (or weirder) in DnD play. Yes you can look at the monstrous manual and make it up... but it's not something the vast majority of the playerbase does.


The APG included more options for races and favored class
Added the trait system (demi-feats)

Rounded out the class system by filling some missing niches.
A divine bard (inquisitor), a divine sorcerer (oracle), a non-magical martial bard(cavalier), a technologist (alchemist)
Tossed out new options for each of the existing classes by adding archetypes. The archetypes are good enough that in PF I haven't even bothered with prestige classes I'd rather just stick with the basic class! (I'd call that a good improvement... a good way to allow some flexibility and customization of class concepts without going down the prestige class problems).

A bunch of new feats anyone could use provided they met the prereqs... your argument that only some classes benefit could also be applied to the core rulebook. That also has some feats that only certain classes can use... 'natural spell' anyone? (druids only).

A bunch more equipment... the magic item section.
A bunch more spells for the casters to pick from.

But nowhere in that book is any new races which you are advocating.

The APG simply added a ton of new options to the existing classes, introduced a few more. And greatly expanded the game.

Well that is a rather extreme opinion, one that I do not share but that's ok we simply can disagree on this one (every table is different anyways). While I never played an infected character, i could very well imagine having one in my campaign. In open games they could indeed be a nuisance but I keep to closed campaigns anyways. HMHVV is highly infective and in the way the infected are portrayed they make sense as an option.

One could also say, that runners definitly need to be highly moral characters but to be honest, they often aren't or at least not without fault, hipocrisy or double stundarts... erm I mean standards. They often kill or seriously hurt people and do even worse things than that. Monsters come in all shapes and colors and often got a story to tell. Shadowrun (to me) is not about black and white on two sides, it's all a grey mush in the middle.

ETA on rigger's black book 5?

Three days after 6th is released.

Yes RBB5 followed by the announcement for SR 6th edition!

Right after they make Rigger 4?

Been done...

Aside from the April Fools joke?

no.

"stuff you don't want" is not the same thing as "stuff that doesn't expand the game".

it doesn't matter if *you* want it. if you really genuinely want something that provides good stuff for everyone, then you have to accept that "everyone" means "even people who don't like the same things you like", and deal with the fact that some stuff simply isn't going to appeal to you. ignore the stuff that doesn't and move on with your life.

monster manuals have never been a solid reference for playing a character. that's why any race that is a remotely popular character option in D&D gets expanded on in other books, because people don't have enough information to actually play a character based on half a page of text that probably only talks about how their military goes about trying to kill you if you tick them off.

if you're actually serious about getting a book that is for everyone, suck it up and deal with the fact that you are not everyone. otherwise, stop lying to yourself and admit that you're being selfish and you want a book that appeals to you, not to everyone. alternately, you can just keep pretending you're on some sort of holy and noble quest to stop other people from having fun in a way that has not received your official stamp of approval, but don't be too surprised if people aren't interested in hearing you blather on about how important it is that they not pollute the sacred canon of shadowrun by the vile act of wanting to play a character of a different race than those contained in the hallowed core rulebook.

but seriously, if you're going to spend all your time telling other people what they're allowed to find fun in while playing a roleplaying game, please let me know now so i can put you on ignore and i won't accidentally read your rantings about how wrong it is for people to want to try something different again.

But I like my Half-troll, Half-dragon, Half-celestial squirrel beast.

That's rich... Jaid chastising others for going on opinionated rants.....

No Jaid, the topic isn't what expands the game... that's an extremely low bar. Anything 'expands the game' as it joins the SR5 canon. It's what makes the best use of the publishing schedule.

The thread is about what should the emphasis be on coming out the gate. Something that the vast majority of players won't use or be allowed to use. That is my opinion... The mere fact that the runner's companion followon is on the list for coming out soon... shows that my opinion doesn't matter and that I'm not the line dev. I can only guess the sparklies pay more than the old school. (or they figure the old school will buy most everything anyhow).

It's my OPINION... you can feel free to disagree with it... or even take issue with my rationale. The core of that rationale is that most of runners companion was so badly done that it was banned from play or only used as a GM resource. Many of the feats were commonly banned or vetoed from use (in debt, astral hazing, etc.). Advanced lifestyles another thing which got nixed from most games I saw.

Shadowrun really doesn't have a DM's guide... anything which is fodder for the players is also fodder for the GM. Which is why I feel something which quickly expanded out the core would be more useful to more people.

I'd be positively overjoyed to hear your basis for claiming this.

And you can state your opinion without being completely insulting to those that think otherwise.

Else you sound like a self-righteous ass.

Is that even legal on the internet?

I find that to be one of the more repugnant elements of the Internet.

I make it a point to correct this whenever I can on whatever corner of the Internet I happen to be on.

It's not actually, as i said earlier "Run and Gun" is the only core rule book in the upcoming releases list, but it really should come out soon.
You may not like it, but the fact is that it's the only core rule book that expands options for everybody.

see, there's a difference between having an opinion, and thinking that your opinion is the only correct choice. i have opinions. you have opinions. everyone has opinions.

the thing is, that doesn't mean any one of us gets to present our opinion as absolute fact, or gets to tell other people what their opinion must be (although you can certainly present information that supports or disproves certain opinions).

for example, you seem to have a twilight fixation. because someone wants to try playing a vampire, they must love twilight and want to be edward. or because someone wants to try roleplaying a bear shifter bear shaman, they must secretly be a furry. and not only that, but you seem to think that people are not entitled to be what they want to be in the first place, such that liking twilight is a cardinal sin (and, well, as for hating furries, you'd hardly be alone in that one... i think most of the internet hates furries). but maybe someone wants to play a vampire because it's different. maybe they think it will stretch them to RP something that looks at humans and thinks of food, and, let's face it, maybe they want to try and roleplay someone who got infected and is struggling with the moral issues and is struggling to maintain a relationship with some idiot human girl who thinks that he's not going to hurt her because he loves her too much (or whatever the plot of twilight is supposed to be, if i've summarized it wrongly, given i'm going from something like third-hand information here). and that's ok too.

quite frankly, i don't care if you like something that i don't. that's fine, you're entitled to that. you're entitled to an opinion. i don't care if you dislike something that i like either. in fact, i share your dislike of many things. for example, i've not actually seen the twilight movies nor read the books, have no desire to, and think they're kinda dumb.

but it doesn't matter. people like those things. they're entitled to it. i happen to live in a country where people are free to believe what they want and do what they like for the most part (so long as it doesn't harm others as a general rule), and i'm glad of that fact. i don't have any desire to like the things those people like, any more than i have a desire to enjoy football or baseball (which i have come to feel is the most boring sport to watch, though i admittedly have yet to watch a game of golf live so there could be some competition). but i believe they have the right to like those things, whether i like them or not. i can have different opinions. i can even believe that they're wrong, and that they should change. but that doesn't entitle me to belittle them and mock them in an effort to get everyone to be just like me.

i've played in far too many games where someone brought in a half-dragon vampire who was trained by a clan of ninjas as a child then grew up to study with the most powerful magician in the land (or the equivalent) to think that nobody is going to use the rules for non-standard NPCs to make cheesy wish-fulfillment characters. honestly, i'm sure i've done my fair share of coming up with backstories to justify ridiculous characters, or to make thinly-veiled copies of whatever i happened to like at the moment (i seem to recall a t-rex mutant i once made for transdimensional TMNT, for example... in fact, i distinctly recall *crying* because i couldn't get the character to be the way i wanted, which is all kinds of embarrassing now but hey, it was a big deal to me at the time).

frankly, you've probably done it, too. oh, maybe not with twilight and vampires, but you've probably done the equivalent with something else. but the thing is, while we've all had our awkward/embarrassing moments in the past, most of us seem to have managed to deal with that, accept that it's a part of growing up, and moved on... while you seem to be obsessed with shaming those who still enjoy those things, as if it's somehow worse than your hobby where you pretend to be a badass ork street samurai with cyber-arms and a panther assault cannon (or whatever it is that you prefer to play). frankly, tabletop RPGs have been "badwrongfun" for most of my life according to the average person, who would tell me that i should have been out playing hockey or something like that.

i'm sure there's plenty of people on these forums who have no interest in making centaurs or vampires or wolf shifters or catgirls. but most of us seem to be able to get by without making fun of those who do. why is that such a hard thing for you?

Definitely want some rules on making your own deck and stuff. The way I see it, a commlink is about 100x less expensive than its deck comparison. The Fairlight commlink is about 8k, the Excal is 800k. What I was thinking was an interim variant. A commlink provides you with two specific matrix qualities, Data Processing and Firewall, basically at their device rating. My thought was to 'build a deck' you take the basic module that's effectively that commlink and add modules to it. To add the 1st module (and integrate it) costs you about 10x the initial template you're using. You now gain a 3rd category at device rating. With this third module you also start to gain some of the stat boosting possibilities of a deck/host.

A deck has its device rating, device rating +1, device rating +2 and device rating+3 in general as its matrix values. So at the 3rd module, lets say you get the Device +1 rating. So you now have a 7 6 6 if you've got a fairlight commlink+module.

Oh, in this case I'd also rescale the effective device rating of commlink. I find it weird that a fairlight commlink has a better device rating than an actual excalibur. But I'm open to suggestions.

Adding the 4th module costs you, well, basically 100x the initial model. Why not 10x? Because its an integration issue. Less difficult (tho difficult) to homebake a cyberdeck with that first module, but to turn it to a 'full deck' requires much more effort and specialized materials. This 4th module gives you the 4 ratings, and +1 +2 values. To get the FULL values (+3) it basically costs whatever the difference remaining, if not already surpassed, in comparison to the deck.

So for a fairlight comm cannibalized and turned into a fairlight equivalent deck = 8000 for base comm. 80000 for the 3rd module. 800k for the final module = 888,000 which is about 60k more expensive than buying a excalibur outright, so you get all the 4th rating (+3) 'for free".

Anyway in general the idea is that 'crunching up your cybercomm to cyberdeck levels is more expensive in the longrun than buying a deck directly' but theoretically possible via B/R, and maybe you can save costs with good B/R.

...actually, this brings to mind something else that has been head-tilting to me: aren't these neo-cyberdecks supposed to be illegal now?

As of right now, I'm still not finished reading the Matrix chapter in SR5, but last I checked ordinary citizens (read: NOT government agents, megacorp spiders, or GOD) are even allowed to own a cyberdeck. So what the hell is up with the cyberdeck brand names?

Or is it really that all the shipments for cyberdecks meant for spiders are the easiest thing to steal in SR and are easily circulated in the black market?

I'm going to assume this is going to be explained more in the SR5 Matrix book but otherwise...yeah, I be confused.

And they're only restricted, in spite of coming with a hot sim. What is with that?

It's called Bait.

They want deckers to use premade decks rather than build their own, because then they can load up the psychotropic stuff as well as trackers and other fun bits in it like if you use a Renraku deck and cross into the Renraku grid it alerts said grid and does a datadump on your activites to date.

Governments and corporations make a lot of money on illegal stuff today... no reason this hast to change in a an alternate dystopian future is there? Also hacking is usefull for espionage and as we all should know by now, we shouldn't have anything to hide anyways...

As for the Gun Book as "the only expansionuseful for everyone":

In theory it might be correct, that it could be useful for everyone, but not any more than the companion is; especially when you talk about things that aren't allowed at a table.
As a player, I did not have very much use for the SR4 Arsenal, as it wasn't allowed in the game I played in. The companion however was and I found the additional options (especially on qualities) helpful and fun.

So advanced combat rules and minmaxed guns might be allowed in some games, while they are banned from others... also guns can be used to shoot people, and wouldn't that be evil?

Aaaaaand this is why we can't have nice things.

I'd say its the opposite. It is why we DO have nice things

Heated arguments can help demonstrate the amount of emotional investment that is in place, even if the argument makes no freaking sense and achieve generally nothing.

If we do get the (probably) inevitable Runner Companion Mark 5, I wouldn't mind further expansion on lifestyle. I know some dislike the idea of splitting things even more, but I've always felt some of the categories could generally be split more than they were.

Comfort: Not so much, its pretty basic. "What are your decorations/furnishings"
Entertainment: Covers multiple areas that might be useful to spread out: In-home Entertainment, Out-of-Home Entertainment.
Necessities: Seems to cover Clothing, Shelter, Utilities, I'd also say "Wireless" which is sorta a function of Utilities but also an outlier.
Neighborhood: Can be as written.
Security: Locks/related and Personnel/Drones.

Alternately qualities to add to base ratings that give you bumps up in those areas:

Clotheshorse: You like Clothes, and they are a priority, your necessities rating is 1 (or 2 or whatever) higher than your base. (+ points or +nuyen, whatever)
Shut-in: Your Entertainment is important, but you hate going outside to play. -1 Out of Home + 1 In Home rating to Entertainment, etc.

And while I'm fiddling with Lifestyle stuff, may I present an alternate take on "Permanent Lifestyle". The way I've played it, and understand it, is when you buy a lifestyle you're actually purchasing a property and static qualities. The complexity of having to first sell off the permanent stuff if you want to upgrade an existing quality further seems to represent a more static investment.

Instead of buying a static lifestyle by taking monthly cost x100, you build upon the "This sum represents investments, trust funds and so on that take care of payments" part where you're setting aside a fund that provides you such and such percentage (based on the investment) each month that can be used specifically towards lifestyle stuff.

So as before, you figure out what lifestyle quality you want and you pay x100 that amount to set aside as an investment pool. This can be any amount, but you get 1 percent per month of that amount to be used towards lifestyle. So as before...base Middle lifestyle would cost 500k for a permanent lifestyle. In this case, you can put aside 500k (assuming you had it) and now had 5k a month you could spend as you desired on lifestyle stuff. So you could use these returns for a Medium lifestyle across the board. You could also use it for two low ones (2k a month each), or (if you were insane) 10 squatter level ones a month, or whatever combination. You could also use it to offset higher costs, so lets say you wanted a High lifestyle, you could subsidize part of it with your 5000 per month, and have to come up with the other 5k per month yourself.

Like a permanent lifestyle you could sell off the investment fund if you needed the cash, using the current S5 rules, if a couple of months to unload, 2d6*10 to determine percentage of return. No sin? 1d6*10. In a rush? also 1d6*10.

The pool could feed itself, or get worse. Lets say you've got 500k in your pool, getting 5k a month. If you decide for some reason to live with a single low lifestyle instead, spending 2k a month, that other 3k a month can go towards other things, or be re-invested in your fund. But it doesn't start paying increased returns until a year worth of contribution. So at the end of 12 months, purposefully living a lower lifestyle and investing all that 3k per month back into the fund, you end up with 536,000 in the fund. Next year you start getting 5360 a month. If you kept living that low lifestyle, at the end of 12 months you'll have thrown 40320 back into the pool, for a grand total of 576320, and get 5763 a month, etc.

But that's hardly the life of a shadowrunner, sitting on their investment. You're not retired yet, right chummer?

Consequently it can also be reduced. Lets say you've got a modified middle lifestyle costing 5.5 or 6k a month, but still getting 5k a month from your investment. New month comes up and you have to pay. You can choose to pay the difference out of pocket. You can choose to use the 'missed payment' mechanic. Or you can use to pay the difference out of the fund. Similar to the reinvestment, this depletion of the fund doesn't really hit you until the next year. So if you're 1k light each month and having the fund pay it out, it continues to pay 5k a month, but at the end of the year the fund has dropped to 488k. Which means next years monthly returns will be 4880, making you even shorter on rent and if you continue to pay it out of the fund, can deplete it.

Can change the turnaround time to quarterly or bi-annually if you like.

This somewhat helps against the "Haha, gangers burned your house down!" twist, but if the GM is being particularly mean, or punishing you appropriately for doing something really stupid they can still do the 'hacker went after investments' 'economy really really sucked'.

In general tho, it should allow a runner char who's made the decision to yknow, save and plan for a hopeful future, the flexibility of being able to sorta take care of themselves, but not be locked down to a specific location.

I think we can and do... opnions about what that is, differ strongly though.
When one creates things, for the use or entertainment of others, the only thing that is sure is, that someone will not like it.

I've seen "cyberdecks are Restricted but come with a Forbidden hot sim" justified as since corps make and use them the hot sim is allowed for use. I guess the question then is why corps are selling these decks since assumedly they wouldn't want them in the hands of criminals.

Criminals would sooner or later, build these things themselves or steal them.

More importantly though, I do not think, that they don't want criminals to have these. By makong these things restricted and in many cases even illegal, corps make a lot of money and gain quite some power. Security measures for example, justify and sell themselves much better under these circumstances; ...and it does not stop there.

militaries, paramilitaries, security corporations that aren't run by the people that manufacture decks, governments, private individuals needing to defend themselves from people that have decks...

there is a legitimate market for cyberdecks, that's why there are corporations that make and sell them.

and in fact, that legitimate market is probably much larger than the illegitimate market. i mean, i think someone threw around some quasi-official numbers that there are 100 (edit: this was supposed to be 500) shadowrunners in seattle, which is a bit of a hotspot. now consider that if 100 of those are deckers (which is probably not *too* far off, having it at 1/5). that's a pretty small market when you consider that every corporation needs to have access to one (potentially through a security company). heck, probably the seattle military forces alone have more decks than that, and that's before we consider it's smack dab in the middle of the NAN, and each NAN military force in the area (which you gotta expect they do have) will *also* need cyberdecks.

and that's before we consider the businesses.

The number of true deckers under each corp is limited, but there are lesser 'corporate deckers' in larger numbers. Like most things, you get a pyramid, with the most talented (Or politically connected) on top and a base holding them up.

For Seattle, it'd be safe to assume that each Mega has one "Top guy" decker who's the go-to guy. He certainly has teh best tech available and he's *likely* to be the most skilled as well, but not neccessarily so. He'll have a couple of lieutenants that take care of most things so he can concentrate on more important matters, a third level for "Equal to starting PCs" talent, and lastly there's a level below that for the grunts, or grunt-like corporate deckers.
So, for example, if I was doing up Aztechnology's decker forces, it'd look vaguely like so:

Bob, skill of 10, best hardware.
Jack and Jill, skill of 8, hardware minus a step.
Eenie, Meenie, Minnie, and Fred, skill of 6, hardware -2 steps.
Generic grunts, skill of 4, low end hardware.

Vague handwavey motions are involved there.

The grunts do the routine work of being security spiders rather than be decking hotshots. There's probably 16 of them, giving Aztechnology around 23 Deckers in Seattle, but only 3 are on "penetration duty" (Jack, Eenie, and Meenie), while the rest are on defense. Bob has to go to meetings and deal with suits, so he's usually too busy to deal with problems, but if a PC decker gets past the first level, Jack and Jill will drop a note about the issue on his deck. If teh PC takes down Jack or Jill, then Bob puts them on his "to do" pile. If the PC gets past both Jack *and* Jill, then Bob makes that PC his #1 priority.

This gives you a traditional "Miniboss, midboss, final boss" type build, and gives you an idea about how common true decks are. The grunts don't even get actual CYberdecks, having "Matrix Consoles", immobile things in a building that are far cheaper to make but you can't take home with you. Only the higher level guys get to take stuff out of teh building.

Jill is stationed inside the Aztechnology Pyramid, being in charge of Matrix security for the HQ (Technically Bob is, but he's often busy, so she effectively runs it) while Minnie takes the other shift. Fred covers the times when those two aren't available in the HQ proper, but normally gets bounced around to provide part-time on-site protection for big projects outside of the HQ. Half of the grunts stay inside teh Pyramid, but the rest get asigned as needed.

Quality deckers are a valuable commodity and, as noted, are more difficult to replace than some CEOs! The corps are always hungry for 'em.

I also think that PCs aren't even going to be getting jobs to get data that would require them to deal with Jack and Jill all the time, let alone Bob. I imagine that for a run where they need to grab, say, 'Aztechnology's latest recipe for Mana Noodles-one bowl will fuel your bloo-ehm, regular mages all day!', they aren't going to be dealing with them. If they're hired to steal info for Aztechnology's latest combined Force 10 PowerSpellSpirit Focus that's actually a Magic-friendly cyberarm that doesn't take essence away and has max stats, they're probably A. Going to be dealing with Bob directly, and B. The Johnson probably isn't going to *hire* starting PCs for that job in the first place.

It's like physical security. I remember a discussion where a high damage code was considered 'too low' because it couldn't one shot people in full heavy body armor. The only guards wearing full heavy body armor, in the 5e book, are Elite guards; high end., not meant to be an easy solo. The Red Samurai are not the common guard. The common guards are Professional Level 2(who aren't even as high as fragging organized crime and literally one step up from gangers), with armor jackets, skills and stats from 2-4 and barely any cyberware at all(if they even had any.) Breaking into, say, a Tir installation that holds a new style of jacket isn't going to bring Kenshiro and Raoh, the twin Elven Bio-Adept brothers with full body armor, 9's in Agility and Strength, 10s in skills and the like, down on the PCs heads. (Unless they're a very paranoid fashion designer, but then I'd more play it for laughs in that case. )


(I think sometimes a bit too much paranoia happens on the side of the players-some is good, sure, but I think some players think their GM is going to be throwing an army of Decker Bobs at them ALL THE TIME-and I also think that on the side of the GMs, there is some overestimating on just how many amazing types there are and think that for some reason corps have armies and armies of Elite Guards around All the Time.)

Yuppers. The basics of scaling indicate that you have to have vastly more adequate people out there than elite, with several levels in between. Shadowrunners shoul dbe better than generic guards but not quite as good as rapid response teams, IMHO. You get in, bonk a couple of guards onna head and toss 'em in a closet, get inside, steal what you need, and get the heck out of there before the scary people show up.

'Runners who get to be too big of a problem get guys hired to take them out. 'Runners who survive that probably be hired.

Yeah, there comes that point: 'Look, fine, we no longer want to kill you. NOW we want to hire you!'

'Uhh...can you go back to trying to kill us, please?'

Hmm...depends also what you consider a rapid response team. I always thought SWAT was a rapid response team, and certainly I'd expect a normal-level Shadowrunner to be better than a SWAT officer(who are more around Level 3's in the book by the look.)

Unless you actually mean, say, Red Samurai as 'rapid response.' By the look of things, starting Shadowrunners are quite more adept than up to and including Professional Level 4 NPCs. It's when they hit 5 that the power level hikes up dramatically(and even then, the level 5 in the book I'd say is more even with a PC-they have higher skills but PCs can get better general stats to even out.) The level 6's are obviously superior, flat out.

Offhand, anyone know if Seattle maintains the "Washington State has no state personal income tax" thing in 2075?

Officially? I dunno.

Unofficially? I'd be STUNNED if they could continue that way, considering the situation of being surrounded by a foreign power. The UCAS government probably put some serious screws to them in the wake of the SHutdown as well.

Oh I have no doubt there's still Federal/UCAS tax, just woolgathering on State tax.

honestly, i'm not sure there even is a state that they're considered attached to any more. i mean, obviously, it isn't part of washington...