But by that logic, doing anything BUT stealing everything that isn't nailed down in D&D (particularly 1E/2E and OSR games) "isn't really playing D&D". Helping people? Achieving goals? Not D&D!

So that seems wrong. SR is an RPG. It is not "about missions". It's about whatever the group and DM want it to be about. Shadowrun Missions play is different thing from normal play (just like Encounters with D&D). Some groups love theft, others hate it, it's a playstyle choice (usually more mohawk than mirrorshades).

I agree re: 'ware prices though, and that more theft isn't the best solution to 'ware issues. More money helps the samurai more than the adept though, a lot more - the adept needs to spend a ton of karma to leverage his money. So it helps, a bit at least.

You can love something with flaws. The only reason I like it currently is because hero lab hasn't come out with their SR5 pack yet and I'm old and tired and sick of making characters by hand so the little bit of ease gained by priority is nice. Its still poorly designed, the attribute and skill priorities scale poorly and have too low of a bottom, the resources could probably edge a bit higher E as well, and the racial priority table just sucks. I get what they were thinking, Troll gets + 8 attributes, what would 8 more attributes be worth on the attribute table? Well it sure as hell isn't equivalent to the 20 points B attribute priority gives you. There is extra value in that it is additive, meaning a B troll a attributes has 32 attribute points effectively but B in what is game mechanics wise just a attributes priority modifier reduces the other priorities that actually do something on their own far too much.

I can't wait for the point buy or karma build system, priority really sucks for a lot of builds.

Actually the best solution is to stop making Shadowrunners that are the 'best of the best'. It is in the metahuman nature to seek security and stability, and waiting for your next payday or bullet is not a life anyone chooses without extraneous circumstances being quite severe.

(I can expand much further on this, but I rather not derail this threat further)

The troll combat monster is best build depending on the team you mean for him to enhance. If the team is low on support magics, become a mystic adept (weapons and alchemical spells). If it does have those, go all out Adept (perhaps a few bits of ware).

Making Cyber cheaper also means more awakened use the cyber again.
Which should not be a design goal.

You could always compensate for that by giving Awakened characters greater penalties for losing Essence.

Average Joe has just under 6 Essence to toy with before they kill themselves trying to cram more in. Maybe for a Mage or Adept it should be equivalent to about half that? The 'ware would still cost the same amount of Essence for a Mage of Adept, just make them suffer Magic loss twice as easily - for every 0.5 points of Essence you lose, your Magic drops one point.

Justify it with "because magic" and boom, you're done.

~Umi

D&D is high fantasy, although it is more expandable in setting than Shadowrun. Besides which, D&D has this really useful prybar called "alignment"; if you don't want the paladin stealing everything that's not nailed down, just nudge him with it. And even for those of evil alignment, stealing everything isn't usually worth it, because the encumrance outweighs the resale value of mundane items. The only time in D&D where stealing everything, including the nails, is acceptable is when you let a kender loose in a D&D game. And I feel pity for everyone else in that game if that happens.

At any event, Shadowrun is about Shadowrunners, who do Shadowruns. Not petty criminals who jack cars and steal office supplies. While there are variations on this theme, the core of the game is doing missions for and against corporations. The mohawk/mirrorshades divide doesn't actually matter, because both styles can and do take on Shadowruns.

I always felt sensitive system should be a 0 point disadvantage all awakened got. But I prefer the older editions feel where magic really did not play well with tech.

While a lot of this is certainly a matter of opinion, shadowruners are supposed to be *good* at what they do. Shadowrunning is supposed to be dangerous, and Darwinian; you become a good shadowrunner by being the 'best of the best'.


They kinda tried this with Shadowtech: Bioware didn't affect Essence, it affected something called the "Body Index", which limited how much bioware you could fit. Awakened characters, however, lost Magic equal to the body index. 3e went for an even more complicated rule, which never worked satisfactorily either. It's not a bad idea, but variable essence costs by archetype are kinda messy to use, and haven't worked historically.

Bioindex was fun in SR2.
Where it was straight up Body.
And there was Bioware that gave more Body than it cost in Bio-Index.
In SR3, Bio-Index was Essence+3.
And Magic was lost equal to Bio-Index/2.

This just isn't correct, Cain. Even the SR 5E core book has examples of campaigns that do not involve playing shadowrunners! Every previous edition has done too, and 2E particularly had an absolute profusion of sourcebooks which supported all sorts of campaigns which didn't involved "shadowrunners doing shadowruns". It is absolutely not wrong to run a campaign about stealing stuff. SR 5E has adequate rules for handling such a game (as did SR 2E, I can't speak to the rest).

You, as a ref, can run any campaign you want. If you don't want people in your campaign stealing and selling things, and you want every shadowrun to be against a corporation, that's coo. That's your game. That's not "what shadowrun is", though, it's "what Cain's campaign is".

Your "jacking cars and stealing office supplies" examples don't make much sense in SR 5E. Most cars are worth virtually nothing - only a few cars are worth stealing (those with an availability code - you can hand them over to a fixer or the like for loyalty x5% of the price RAW), and office supplies, none of which will have an availability code, are worth nothing, so wouldn't be stolen. What 'runners are more likely to be stealing is:

A) Light, high-value items possessed by their enemies - cyberdecks, RCCs, expensive guns and explosives, magic foci, some drones, etc. etc.

B) Vehicles they can use to make a getaway in and which have an availability code.

C) Maybe cyberware/bioware if they have the right contacts and a certain lack of ethics (or very odd ethical codes).

Frankly, runners who don't steal cyberdecks are kind of playing it dumb, RAW. A 400k nuyen mid-range cyberbeck at, say, 20% of value is 80k - only very dangerous runs will pay that much, RAW.

It is a mirrorshades/mohawk issue, too, because mirrorshades refs are likely to stress all the difficulties getting away with this kind of thing - i.e. checking all the devices for trackers etc. (still, faraday bags will sort that out), enforcing the hilariously long and difficult owner-change process etc. (24 successes on an extended test, suckers!).

Rating B troll = +8 attribs.
Rating E attribs = 12

Rating E human = +1 attribs
Rating B attribs = 20

Its more even than it looks. The human comes out ahead by and edge and a special attribute.
The biggest problem with meta table is the sillyness of even having a human a with +9 special attribute, that there is a poor pick.
Picking a high metatype forces you to play to that types strengths, if you pick troll as your B then make him a techie, hes gonna suck. But if you pack on some armor and a melee weapon, he's gonna be scary, frankly scarier than a human is capable of being in the same roll.



Any pick on attribute table above a D is above average. Every shadowrunner has an A, B, and C pick. If you dont make plain dumb choices, you are going to be good at what you do without having to be minmaxed for it. A good GM will match the adventure to you, and a pack of good shadowrunners with flaws is a lot more fun to play than a pack of munchkined 'perfect' shadowrunners.

Interestingly you could perform the far easier 'Format Device' matrix action then turn off your stolen goods.

This obliterates the software in the device and stops it connecting wireless - you make it a throwback essentially.

You could now use it, work with it, tinker with it, sell it, etc. safely as it no longer broadcasts it's location to the legitimate owner and the the legit owner can't send commands to it.

It would also mean that glitching or whatever on the test to change owner won't alert anyone so you can just keep on trying until you succeed eventually.

Also, potentially, get a mark on the device's owner. Use Spoof Command to send the device a 'change owner' command and a few minutes later you can now be the legit owner of the item. Dunno if that's a correct reading of the rules though.

More like format it, turn it off, and burn out any hidden RFIDs.

Just because you wipe the drives and disable the wireless antenne doesn't mean it hasn't been tagged as well.

~Umi

It was also fun for trolls, who could pack in more than any other metatype. A hugely augmented bio-troll, with 5.99 essence worth of cyber on top of that, was just scary to contemplate.


Those examples are what I mentioned as "variations on a theme." The core of the game is about shadowrunners, and the default assumptions of every edition, 5e included, is that you will be playing shadowrunners. You can do other things, but that requires changing quite a few things.


Hey, I wasn't the one who said you could profit by stealing everything that's not nailed down. But, to clarify: in several editions of Shadowrun, but especially 4.5, there was a complaint that at the low payout rate for most shadowruns, the team would make more money by stealing cars and turning them over to chop shops. That argument lingers to this day. And if your table would rather play GTA: Seattle than Sahdowrun, that's up to you. However, it also isn't the default assumption of the game.


Mugging deckers for cyberdecks in the schoolyard is also not part of the core game; you can do it, but it changes the game from Shadowrun to Lunch Money.

And it covers both sides; Mohawk playstyle emphasizes team loyalty, so turning on your team decker to jack his cyberdeck is frowned upon.

@Cain:
I still remember squishy fondly.

@Cain:

For as much as you talk about what Shadowrunning is "supposed to be", you seem to fail to realize that humans tend to keep their best interests at heart and don't make fundamentally absurd choices just because a story concept calls for it.

Realistically speaking, Shadowrunning would not exist as a profession if it didn't offer rewards that were worth the risks. If a Shadowrunner has to go to twice the trouble for half the pay of something mundane and boring like stealing cars, no one is going to be a Shadowrunner to earn their living rather than a car thief. More pay and less danger? Who wouldn't do that instead?

Now, you're right - the entire idea of the game system is that you play a Shadowrunner, not a Carjacker. But if the PCs don't have a logical reason for being in their particular line of work, it all falls apart.

From a storytelling standpoint, it fails because it isn't believeable that these people would go to all the extra trouble of running for a mere fraction of the pay they could get elsewhere. If Shadowrun was a movie, people would be stopping and saying, "Hold up, this makes zero sense - this is a giant gaping plot hole. Why would anyone do this instead of just stealing cars or whatever? This is stupid."

From a game mechanics standpoint, it fails because a substantial portion of character progression comes from earning money - and since players want to gain power as quickly as they can, it then follows that they want to gain money as quickly as they can. If your game system rewards the characters more for doing things other than what they're supposed to be doing, then your game design is a failure.

~Umi

In the game I'm currently playing in we did a run where we got paid about 3K each to rob a liquor store and to steal 10 cases of beer to distribute to the local gang to frame them for the attack (The mafia owned the store).

The group happened to have a flatbed truck that we had ... /ahem.... aquired somewhere and so in the middle of the run we decided to steal considerably more. It ended up being about 6 pallets of spirits, as well as a pallet of beer for the gang.

So after we got paid we had enough money to buy a half decent sin (It's a street level campaign) and so as the face I got a rating 4 SIN as an alcohol salesmans. After walking into a mall with several bars I was approached by a few traders looking to buy. We ended up selling 4 pallets for 160K!!

Seems like alcohol theft is now the go

Which is why I get what they are getting at but it really does fall apart as you are spending too high in your resources to get a small boost in attributes. Yeah the 20 to 20 kind of matches up but 8 of your points are in a forced location and you have lowered caps in mental stats, along with heavily lowered options. It only pans out if you play to your strengths and even then you don't look great.

not to mention that just because attributes doesn't scale ridiculously in A & B doesn't mean that every other category doesn't.

skill A or B vs skills D is a stupid huge difference. D is barely enough to tie your shoes, A is enough to make you an expert in multiple unrelated fields.
resources A or B vs resources D is a stupid huge difference. D is enough to have like one piece of crappy cyber, A is enough to spend all your essence twice over if that was allowed, or start off with the best chargen-available cyberdeck and the best chargen-available bioware to pair it with. or basically as good of rigger 'ware as you're ever going to get (used muscle toner 3, reaction enhancer 3, VCR 3) with cash left over for a few combat and scouting drones.
special, well, not as big of a difference as the other two perhaps, but still huge. D is that you're barely special at all, A is that you're starting off as a highly skilled expert in the field (unfortunately, even a good technomancer still kinda sucks, but that's neither here nor there)

it's only race and attributes that kinda suck. well, them and technomancers, but that's a discussion that's been covered elsewhere numerous times.

It depends on what you mean by a good GM matching the adventure to the group. Some people take it to mean that the GM will upgrade the adversaries to the "level" of the characers in order to give them a "challenge". I take it to mean that the GM will not so much as modify the NPCs as run them to react appropriately to the PCs; if the NPCs as written are outclassed when the intent is that the NPCs outclass the PCs, then they will act appropriately outclassed by the PCs.

Seems like a reasonable reading - but it might leave a record of who you changed it to for the original owner, so you'd need to edit that too, I'd think.



... Why would you do that? That's a completely bizarre suggestion that makes no sense. You steal from the other side. Not your own. My point is that any 'runner who doesn't have a faraday bag to shove stuff like enemy cyberdecks into is kind of a chump.

Sure, but those RFIDs should show up on your matrix perception check when you're playing with the item itself (you're surely checking the device out first right!) and so a hopefully simple action should allow you to deal with those too. Or, if the device won't be screwed by it, a Bug Scanner + Tag Eraser combo.

General other question. Can you turn the wireless off on a device that you're not the owner of? You can't just grab a top of the line cyberarm and turn the wireless off and run away with it right?

As Eurhetemec says, if you can do the Spoof Command to switch owner you'd need to Edit File too to make the records legit. However...if a hardware test is the normal way to change owner then that implies that the ownership is stored on the device itself, not on the SIN/Comm/etc. of the persona that has the device.

I.e.: the Ares pred. has an 'Owner' field populated with the owner's id rather than the owner having a list of 'owned devices'. It's a bottom up system rather than a top down system.

Otherwise how would tweaking with the electronics of the device change who owns it? If changing the hardware changes ownership then it can't also have a counterpart stored on some nebulous matrix location else you'd have basically every stolen item with a glaring paper trail somewhere on the matrix which is not implied anywhere.

What, you've never seen character turn on each other for money?

Look, you were the one suggesting that you could resell cyberdecks and cyberware for a huge proft, and not doing so would be stupid. Well, the easiest targets are the ones right next to you. If shadowrunnng was only about money, you'd see people mugging the decker and selling the street sam for spare parts a lot more often. Selling out your teammates can be profitable, but luckily, its not one of the assumptions of the game.

Umi: you're assuming that power is the primary motivation for a character. Shadowrunners can have a variety of reasons why they do shadowruns. In the early days, it was a kind of Robin Hood thing: you did it to strike back at the corps (incidentally taking their money was a side benefit). Granted, the low payout rates in SR 4.5 and 5 don't help matters, but that is easy to fix.

Also, cash doesn't equal power. I've run many low cash games; rewards were usually in the form of favors, which under the right circumstances could be traded for toys. So, instead of saving up for that cyber upgrade, the sam agreed to perform so many runs for someone else, and then got his new shiny. I found that worked much better than fisftuls of nuyen.

Dunno about other people, but I've never had PCs turn on each other for any reason - even RP based. I guess they've all just felt that their continued cooperation is more valuable longterm?

To be fair, though, my players are actually rather well behaved. I could easily see a more rowdy table having problems with loyalty. Heck, I could ever see the most reasonable team of runners in the world turn on one of their number if it was a real troublemaker - like, someone suffering from "Too Stupid To Live Syndrome" who is making life hell for the rest and/or going to get everyone killed.

I suppose I ought to count my lucky stars that my table is so pleasant.

~Umi

Same here. I've never had my players turn on each other in that way. Honor among thieves and all that. The worst I've seen was in CP2020 and that was macho teenage competitiveness, not backstabbing (we regularly saw two players who had competing plans agree to one plan only to revert to their own, diametrically opposed plan, when the actual run happened). So there were a lot of angry words and chest-bumps and finally after a ton of this, "Let's go into VR and settle this!" (which, hilariously, ended with them killing each other's avatar at the same exact moment) and so on.

Full disclosure: I was one of those two players Then I stopped being a teenager and suddenly it all seemed terribly silly!

Cain - I've specifically said "enemies" several times. I have no idea why you continue to think "enemies" means "friends"! You should be stealing from the enemy. It is silly not to, UNLESS you have a ref who ignores the default payout mechanics (which is fine, SR5 isn't really balanced by them) and pays you so much that stealing things is not worth your time. If you're doing runs for 10k/per PC and the like, though, you would be a chump to not take the enemy's decker's deck (after he's dead) and sell it (after appropriate repairs/precautions), especially on harder runs. Even a loyalty 3 fixer can give you 15% - if you had a loyalty 6 one, it'd be 30%! Of potentially hundreds of thousands.

I guess the lesson for refs here is, if you don't want your PCs doing that, either pay them enough that it's not worth their time, or make sure the enemy decker gets away, or his deck somehow gets fried beyond repair (not really possible from cybercombat RAW in SR5 afaik).

Personally I'm fine with them stealing that kind of thing and just figure it into the reward structure of the run.

Remember, I still agree with you that cyberware should be a fair bit cheaper in general!

you know, you *can* sell stuff yourself at considerably better than 5% of book value per loyalty of a contact. there are rules for it right in the book. if you have a good face (and if you don't, why not?) you should be able to get 30-40% without too much difficulty.

(also you should probably ignore the part where you can't sell stuff that isn't restricted, because that's nonsense... sure, they may not be as interested since it's easy to just buy one from a store, but expensive stuff being sold at a significant discount should still be attractive. i'd keep the rule around for very small things, but expensive things or large volumes of inexpensive things shouldn't be only worth 1-2 nuyen when sold. or, alternately, i'd like to buy my 2 nuyen car, please, mr GM).

Honestly, its only skills that are really broken for what they get you, and thats mostly due to the skill groups on top of the normal skills. At least when you compare karma values. Resources is also debatable, since the rate of 2k nuyen for a karma is kinda crappy.

But look at it like this,
Average value determinations:
Average attribute costs:
1-6 = 100
average stat value for human = 100 / 5 = ~20 karma per attrib point

Average skill value
0-6 = 42
average skill value = 42/6 = 7 = ~7 karma per skill point

Skill groups:
0-6 = 105
average value = 105/6 = 17.5 karma per skill group point

Nuyen = 1 karma = 2000 nuyen

These are somewhat generalized, they assume an even spread along the ranges, but players usually buy a lot of capped skills / attribs, and a few low rank ones to fill holes, rather than an even spread. I think that such actions dont really impact the comparative value too badly, since it applies to both skills and attributes.
Attrib values are figured for humans, other metatypes often get more bang for their buck, the troll who buys a 10 str gets a lot more value from those attrib points than a human going to 6.
Finally, I did not try to realistically compare the special and metatype columns with this because they dont match up in a way that is comparable. trying to realisticalyl price 'special stats' or magic rating is near impossible.

That said, the priority table in karma values:


Attribs compares reasonably well to skills or resources other than those extra groups.
Overall investing in skills or resources early gives you more of a leg up at the start, but investing in attribs or metatypes gives you more later, as skills are easier to raise with karma than attribs, and resources can be gained alongside karma, its also a lot easier to round out a bit of cash or skills with the starting karma than to bump an attrib point or two. All items feel like valuable choices.

I think they are more balanced than some believe, the bits that stand out to me are in the weird special point values in some of the metatype tree (mostly the slow human progression vs other metas, going from B to A on meta gives a troll 5 special and a human 2?), the 'starting points' for the E value of some columns (resources particularly), and skills need less skillgroup points on the higher picks.

Wait, they still sell the Adobe?

I'm well aware, but, I dunno man, it's a lot of time and rolls when you can get 30% "instantly" just from a loyalty 6 fixer and forget about it! As "why not?" the answer is usually "because the group is only 2-4 people and none of them decided to be a face", which is I think a reasonable answer.

i don't feel that resources really scales linearly. it's fine as a hack for spending the limited amount of bonus karma they allow, but the simple fact is that the difference in terms of how much it benefits you between, say, 200,000 nuyen and 20,000 nuyen is a lot bigger than 10 times.

20,000 nuyen is pretty much enough to buy something extremely minor, or it lets you just sit on it and do nothing at all for a while, because you have nothing you really need. with 200,000 nuyen, you can buy something that will have a major impact on your character's effectiveness, or several somethings that combined have a major impact.

simply put, 20,000 nuyen is almost like having 0 nuyen for some archetypes. it just isn't a useful amount of resources. nobody is going to throw that in the trash can or anything, but it just isn't worth a lot because the stuff you need to define your character is way more expensive than that.

to put it another way:

if i put A into resources, it defines my character to a large extent.
if i put A into special, it's almost entirely defining my character.
if i put A into skills, it is again pretty much defining my character. i'm the guy who knows how to do just about anything.

if i put A into attributes, i'm a bit above average.
if i put A into race, well, i probably shouldn't have. but all it really does is let me play a troll.

the same applies with priority B to a lesser extent, and to a significantly lesser extent for C.

the problem is that while "full magician with high skills" and "wired-to-the-gills street samurai (or other gear-dependant character)" or even "guy who knows how to do everything" are fairly solid character archetypes "troll" is definitely not, and "slightly above average in most areas" is arguably an archetype, but is decidedly lackluster.

when i choose resources A, i'm deciding what i'm going to be. when i choose race A, it's pretty meaningless, and the primary impact is that it locks me out of choosing a real focus for my character. race A is pretty much defined by what it denies to me, while resources, special, and skills A are defined by what they let me do.

and attributes A is just plain dull and boring, and doesn't particularly define my character at all. a street sam with resources A will look very different vs a street sam with resources C, but a street sam with attributes A will not be all that different from one with attributes C, even though good attributes are fairly important for a combat character (and you don't have a ton of options for dump stats, either; you need intuition for perception, initiative, and defence, social skills are important for everyone, and willpower is what you defend against magic and mental attacks with. on the flip side, strength is your melee damage and adds hugely to your physical limit as well as being useful for running and such, agility is your offense pools, reaction is defence and initiative, and body is your soak).

If I put A into meta, I'm a troll, with max edge even, thats pretty iconic, or at least character defining in any event.

Each of your sentences could be said with the A changed to B, B is still very defining and important, so none of those super defining things require an A rank. All of these are pretty much a sliding scale, and adding karma into make them even more fuzzy. You shouldnt be defining your character by these anyhow, they are the tools by which you communicate a character, not the method of defining them.

For example:
A resources means you have whatever ware your essence and the starting restriction limit allows. B resources means you can be cybered up almost as much, but have to make somewhat more careful choices, but there isnt anything you cant pick. C resources means you can have select ware, a few of the most expensive items are off the table, or will take most of your money. D resources means you might have a piece or two of ware, but you arent cybered up. E resouces means you're broke, you might have a cyber eye or something.

So you can play a hardend street sam archetype with A, B, or C resources, and the character could play almost exactly the same, even if the combat stats would be slightly different.

I think in a numeric standpoint, attributes does just fine. A point in an attribute adds to a lot of skills, and most archtypes have at least some use for most stats, enough to look at that 24 wistfully anyhow. I've thrown around a few builds with 24 points and still wished I had more. the more I poke at it, the more it stands up in a lot of ways.

The special category and the metatype are the only two that really noticably define a character. Meta is significant, its what you look like and how the world is likely to interact with you by default. Being a mage/TM/adept is also significant, but all of those can be done on rating B or C in most cases. Take magic as a C, but add a couple more points from metatype and spend some skillpoints there, since you used your A on skills, poof, you may as well have picked A magic from a character defining standpoint.

I cant think of a single character type that cant be build several different ways using different A picks, only the Decker comes close, and frankly stepping down a deck to go resources B isnt as world ending as your gut tells you.

"troll" is not a character concept. "street samurai" is a character concept, or "decker", or "face", and so forth.

but troll is not. i could make 10 different trolls and each of them could be drastically different from the rest. you can't really make 10 different "street samurai" characters and each one be completely different. one might have a bit more skills, another might have better gear (and really, the difference between A and B in resources is huge, though you are right that in some archetypes it won't gain you much, like deckers), but they will overall have a lot in common (although once again, i don't agree that A resources and B resources are very comparable, you've got something like 70% more resources in A than you do in B).

but troll? that's not something that defines your character. if i ask what kind of character you made, and you say "a troll", it tells me very little about what your character can do. if you say you made a street samurai, then it doesn't matter whether you made a troll or an elf, i can figure that you've got some combat 'ware, your skills will be somewhat combat-focused, and odds are pretty good your dicepools in stuff like climbing and running are pretty good, as well as dodging and soaking damage.

if you're going to be a street samurai, you need good resources to get the job done. the only reason you need to pay priority A for troll is that someone arbitrarily decided it was that expensive. it simply isn't valuable enough, and it makes some character concepts far more painful than they need to be. they're not drastically superior in combat; their high strength is worth more damage in melee, which means *gasp* they do about as much damage as guns, their high body and natural armour is helpful in soaking damage, but not nearly as much as just having the right armour and 'ware. it's not character defining, it shouldn't take away from your ability to define your character in other ways.

And taking Resources A leaves open many concepts - Street Sam, Decker, and Rigger, first off. Your concept doesn't really set in until you consider another priority or two.

Well, if you believe shadowrunners should be only be driven by profit, then they'd be selling each other out for money. If you believe they've got morals-- "Honor among thieves"-- that's cool too, but that's a different place on the spectrum. Stealing everything, including the nails, IMO is somewhere past selling each other out on the spectrum, and hits "killing your teammates and selling them for ghoul chow" territory.

In the current incarnation, shadowrunners are professional criminals, but the operative word is "professional". You don't go out of your way to steal extras, not if it jeopardizes the mission. If they happen across your path, that's fine, but you don't make a special effort for bonuses if it's not convenient. So, I'd slow down acquisition of enemy cyberdecks by placing enemy deckers in hard-to-reach locations: a secured room onsite, or maybe even completely offsite. Even if you incapaccitate the decker, going after his deck for extra profit is hard-- not impossible, just extra effort. Then they can decide if it's worth it or not. I wouldn't just leave enemy decks lying around in a pile of random treasure.

yes, but troll doesn't really get you any closer to any type of character. it just makes you a troll. when you choose priority A or B as resources, it's because you're going to use that to define your character's abilities. you can purchase different kinds of resources, but that choice is having a major impact on what your character can do.

when you choose priority A or B as troll, it doesn't shape your character's abilities much at all. you don't look at shadowrunner A who is an ork of a given character type, and then look at shadowrunner B who is a troll with the same character type, and see massive differences. you don't even really see that much of a change if it's human vs troll. what you will see, is that the troll has a heck of a lot less of the stuff that actually makes them function. if that's combat augmentations, the non-troll will have more and better. if it's skills, the non-troll will have more and better. if it's special stuff, the non-troll will have more and better.

unless of course it's attributes, in which case, both of them will pretty much have an equal amount of unimpressiveness, because attributes is almost as crappy in terms of what it gives you (i say almost because at least attributes can be spent wherever you want them, rather than being assigned to a specific thing).

now, it's fine for trolls to cost more than other races. they have more goodies, after all. the problem isn't that they cost more, it's how much more they cost. particularly since it's taking a pretty big bite out of stuff that actually makes your character able to do stuff.

Yes and no - even if you're making a troll decker, making that character a troll gets you most of the way to making that character a combat decker.

no, it really doesn't.

it gives you strength and body. it gives you no agility (and actually lowers your maximum), reaction, or intuition, no combat skills, no combat 'ware, and since you're now looking at gear A/race B (or race A/gear B), you've got skills and attributes competing for priority C, and both suck since you want to have high mental and physical attributes plus a crapload of skills to pull this off (and even if you take skills C, the 6 skills across 2 groups that you need for basic competency in hacking can go to 4... leaving 2 points and 2 group points to cover off all your other bases)

in contrast, a human combat decker can go resources and skills into A and B (whichever order you prefer), actually have the skill points to cover basics and both areas of focus reasonably well, and attributes at C. heck, they can even put race in E and be an adept hacker if they want (although that certainly makes for some very difficult choices).

your top two priorities make a *huge* difference. unless they're troll race or attributes, in which case they're just taking up valuable real estate that could be put to better use elsewhere.

i have no problem paying a price to be a troll; obviously, if there wasn't some cost, it would be flat-out superior to being a human. my problem is that the appropriate cost is down in the bottom 2-3 priority picks.

Well, yes and no. Trolls are designed to make excellent brutes, be they street sams or adepts. Troll mages are rare, troll deckers aren't seen very often, and I haven't even heard of a troll technomancer. The troll attribute spread suggests that a tank approach is best. You don't rely on finesse, you rely in raw power, in both melee and ranged combat. With that reduced Quickness, you have a lower chance of hitting, so make up for that by getting high recoil weapons (which you can absorb) or high power weapons, so every hit hurts more.

So, if you're going for a tank-style brute force fighter, choosing troll *does* get you closer to your concept. It also suggests certain roleplay choices-- even if you don't play big and dumb, playing bull in a china shop is fun. Of course, you can go against type-- I had a troll who did needlepoint in his spare time-- but that's only funny because it is against type.

i can make an excellent brute that is not a troll as well, though.

if i tell you i made a brute, that would tell you far more about what the character can do than if i told you that i had made a troll.

and the main reason you don't see many troll mages is the same reason trolls shouldn't cost so much; once you've blown your high priority picks on being a troll, the cost to add anything in that does not almost exclusively focus on what the troll has is prohibitively high.

i can make a character of almost any other race as almost any character type with a reasonable level of effectiveness. why should trolls require that i make a brick and nothing but a brick to be effective when everything else is so comparatively versatile?

Yes, there's still a ways to go; but going Troll gives you a lot of help with the "not dying" part of the situation, which means you don't need Reaction to the degree you'd need it otherwise - put some points into Intuition, Logic, Willpower, and Agility and you're good on Attributes; for combat 'ware, you're basically just looking at needing Muscle Replacement (Used Rating 3 is an option) and Reaction Enhancers or Wired Reflexes.

So, for that sort of character, you're looking for +4 Logic, +3 Intuition, +3 Agility, +4 Willpower, Karma for boosts to Reaction and optionally Charisma. That's Attributes D, and it works only because you're a troll.

Here's the thing, Jaid. When people say troll, they think brute. So, saying "troll brute" is actually a little redundnt. And you gotta admit, they do the brute thing well. No other race can compare to them in toughness or strength.

This works in game as well. Dumb uncouth trolls are a steretype, but that allows trolls to get away with social gaffes that would land others in hot water. And if you do play against type, that's a huge advantage. No one expects an intelligent troll, so playing dumb can give you surprise.

True, trolls can't do everything well. Which is good, if they did no one would play anything else! But even so, trolls have a lot of flexibility. A troll mage can be fearsome for a lot of reason, but having extra damage boxes means they can overcast and still remain standing. Troll faces aren't optimal, but a troll conman can be, if they play stupid. The extra strength can play into athletics, so a troll covert ops specialist can get away with Mission Impossible style physical stunts. And so on.

The point is that taking your A in metatype to be a troll is at least as defining as putting A in resources.

If someone asks you 'what is your character?' and you say troll, you gave them more information than 'I have 450k nuyen'. There is still a lot of room there, but the statement was a response to your comment in the previous post.

If you read the rest of the reply, it is immediately followed up by saying that the priorities help you define a character, but they do not define it for you. You can build pretty much any character with a fairly wide variety of prioritys. If you pick meta A, resources B, and attribs C vs Resources A, Attribs B, and Meta C, you can make very similar street sams, game-stats wise. The first one is a bit more predisposed to melee and soak than the second is likely to be, but you can still tell the same story.

The difference between resource levels is basically double each tier (except E, that one is wierd.), which is significant, dont get me wrong. But if you are kitting a person out in ware, the 275k you get from B is more than enough to do well, I think in many cases the A wont give as much punch there as going to A in attribs or skills often will. Resources C is a lot harder, you wont have 2 initiative dice, but you can get wired 1, a solid cyber limb, and some other boosts in a 150k budget, and with your A and B free, you probably have better base attribs and skills than the more wealthy street sams.

But thats off topic anyhow, the point I was trying to make in the first place is that in each case you can play the same character, even if the combat dice pools are slightly different from one to the other, the idea of a cybered up thug walking down the barrens can be just as fully realized.

This goes for pretty much every character concept. you mention "decker", "street sam" and "face" as character concepts, rather than Troll, and I couldnt agree more, since thats basically what I posted after all. I dont think Troll is a character concept any more than "resources A" or "Attribs A" are.

the thing is, troll only tells you anything about what the character does because it costs so bloody much it's hard to do anything else, so people usually make troll bricks.

like i said, picking troll for your race mostly defines the character in terms of what you cannot fit in because of it. we've seen people comment on how troll technomancers are nearly unheard of, and troll magicians are rare to see as PCs, because they are so badly optimized for it.

and that's the thing. why should troll technomancers be such an impossibility? why would troll magicians be more rare (relative to the total number of trolls) than human magicians (relative to the total number of humans)? there is no troll disability with magic, it's just that putting your priority in troll means that instead of getting flexible resources, you're getting resources that are very much set in stone, and you're at best only getting *equal* resources to the people who are getting flexible options (well, almost equal - the difference between attributes B and E is 8, while the troll only gets 7 more attribute points than a priority E human, and that pattern follows pretty closely through the rest of the table).

5 dice on soak tests is nice, but it sure as hell isn't the difference between a combat character and a non-combat character. if we have two characters who are mostly identical except that one of them has an extra 5 dice on soak tests, you don't look at the one without and say "oh, that's a <insert archetype here> and then look at the other and say "oh, that's clearly a combat <insert same archetype here> do you?

People make troll bricks because trolls make fantastic bricks.
You could make a troll technomancer, but he would suck at it, prioritys aside, his mental stats couldnt even equal the second best available deck if he had all the attrib points in the world.

A troll mage (though the game lore supports troll shamans more than mages, despite their terrible charisma) is quite doable, perhaps a bit less optimizable than a non-troll, but it sure makes 'geek the mage' a bit trickier at least. Throw A in magic, B in troll, C in skills, D in attribs/resources. You dont need a lot of cash to make a mage, since karma to attune the things off the bat is tricky to find in my experience, regardless of the mage type. 50k will get you a sustaining focus or the like though pretty easy. You will be tougher and stronger, but with worse soak than other mages, but far from impossible.

Its like asking why people dont make half orc wizards in DnD, its not that you cant, its just that their racial benefits lie elsewhere, and a character is more effective if they play off those strengths rather than against them. On the other hand, a troll adept is quite doable (and effective), since that can play to the races strengths.

I find too many people look at the list and say 'oh, if I want to throw magic, I have to put A priority there' or 'oh, if I want any ware, I need A resources', its ok to not have a minmaxed character, almost any build can put a 5-6 in the most important stats for their role, and a few 6s in corresponding skills, and be an effective character, even if they are not the absolute best at the role.

Hitting chargen max for all your Mental Attributes as a troll is going to cost about 13 Attribute points - a stretch on Attributes E, where you have to make up the different with Karma somehow, but easily doable at D. A Troll Technomancer actually winds up being pretty doable at that point: Metatype A, Skills B, Resonance C, Attributes D, Resources E. A Troll Mage is actually even easier, because they only worry about 2 of their Mental attributes; a Troll Hermetic might max out Logic, soft-max Willpower, and then just throw some points into Intuition and/or Reaction.

Trolls that play against type have one massive benefit - the ability completely freaking TANK your Attributes priority, and still have a decent Physical Limit and survivability.

But I thought their chief weapon was surprise?

...surprise and fear? ...fear and surprise...?

I thought their two weapons were fear and surprise? ...and ruthless efficiency?

...their three weapons were fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency? ...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope?

...their four... no... Amongst their weapons.... Amongst their weaponry...are such elements as: fear, surprise....

I'll come in again.

~Umi

i get that trolls are good bricks. that's not a problem.

the problem is that anyone else can *also* be a pretty danged good brick, but trolls generally suck at being anything that is not a brick because they're giving up a high priority that could be much better spent elsewhere (oh, and also, while you don't need a ton of resources for a mage, having crap skills is gonna hurt. there's a *lot* of magical skills that add a fair bit to a magician).

the troll technomancer is likewise going to be awful. sure, he'll have decent body and strength, but he's a total non-threat in a fight, and decent body and armour is only the *start* of what you need to even make a good brick. you'll be taking extra damage compared to a real brick because your ability to dodge will suck (which can reduce damage right down to 0 in the first place) and nobody will care anyways because in order to be worth shooting you need to be a threat to begin with.

trolls can be a good brick, and that's the *only* area where they really remain on equal footing. for any other character concept, choosing a troll is costing you a lot (priority B+ is a huge deal), and gaining you next to nothing (seriously, how many characters do you design for purposes other than melee combat focused damage sponge that have 5+ in body *and* strength?)

likewise, attributes in a high priority gains you depressingly little.

NOBODY expects the Trollish Inquisition!

- Amongst - their weaponry are such diverse elements - as - : fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms...

Oh, damn!

~Umi

Any character that plans on getting hit benefits from a high Body... and Shadowrun combat being what it is, you better plan on getting hit. Strength doesn't help much outside of melee combat, but it does have uses, such as climbing and athletics. A Mission Impossible troll covert ops specialist is certainly possible.

While trolls are designed to play in one type, they can play against type and be effective. A combat decker troll would be very good, as he could take hits, fight back, and hack a system reasonably well. Troll mages can work too. And if you do create a troll brute, other races will be hard pressed to compete, sam or adept. Even though you take a hit to your Quickness, if you rely on autofire weapons, you can more than make up for that. In fact, troll strength is a clear asset in coping with recoil.

That was a play-against-type build, not a brick. He's gonna be better off than just about any other technomancers outside of the Matrix.

As for Attributes A, it depends on how you assign it. Something like +3 across the board? Not so great. Want to make something like a face/rigger/sam sort of troubleshooter? Grab Charisma, Intuition, Reaction, Logic, and Agility as primary (+4 each, for 20 points), average Willpower and Body (+2 each, for 24 total), and use Karma to increase Strength. Skills B, Resources C, Human D, and Talent E. Karma to Nuyen so you have 160k, and in all used grade you get Muscle Replacement 2, Reaction Enhancers 3, and Tailored Pheromones 2. Grab some basic drones (an RCC is probably out of the question for now, so you'll get a high-end commlink instead), some weapons, and so on with the remaining case. That's a pretty versatile but highly functional character that can have 13-17 (depending on specialization and smartlink) dice for a firearms skill, likely 12 dice for the Influence group... And 5 Edge for when you figure your dice pool is too small.

Alternatively, an Occult Investigator might run a similar priority set, with Magic and Resources swapped and SAP split between Magic and Edge. Attributes instead go towards Logic and Charisma (+5 to Drain attribute, +3 to the other), Willpower and Intuition (+4 each), +2 each to the rest. Karma goes to Resources, Qualities (Mentor Spirit in particular, with Dog, Dragonslayer, Eagle, Seducer, and Snake, being good and thematically appropriate choices) and spells/preparations (I favour Detection for this sort of character, but there's other ways to go).

IT's not that Attributes A doesn't give you anything - it's that it runs in many possible directions, and like any other "defining" option does need to interface with other priorities.