So the new expanded creation book is out, and i am simultaneously excited and confused as there are noticeable changes from the last version. Are they deliberate? are they errors? List the ones you have found, and give an answer if you got one.

1: the Formori variant is described as having "increased muscular bulk", yet it is not reflected in their stats, as an increased body or strength. In fact the Body has taken a hit since 4e in which they had Increased Body. Is all that deliberate. I can kind of understand the 4s in the mental stats...kinda as a balancing act and make the variants a trade off though.

2:Naga: i cant help but notice they dont have a movement alteration any more; do they have normal move and swim speed now?

Shapeshifters do not regenerate anymore, apparently ...

Some notes of mine from a quick look with a sleep deprived mind, some good and some not so much:

Apparently those changelings with neoteny must always have altered equipment and such, rather than the choice to choose from the kid's isle in the department stores. I honestly still don't like the cost changes to lifestyle instead of said equipment itself.

Tough As Nails can be applied to Stun as well as Physical. Nice option for orks and trolls that have suffered from short Stun tracks in the past.

With the doubling of background count ranges from SR4, Astral Hazing has taken a stronger blow from the nerf bat than one might initially think. However, as it's worded it seems that you could be in the middle of a Rating 20 mana storm or the -24 of the void in orbit, and the Astral Hazer's in a cozy BGC zone of 3 no matter what.

Granite Shell now has a clearly defined benefit if you're also wearing armor. Also helps define the synergy with Hardened Armor and actually wearing body armor at the same time. With the damage increase from weapons, going up a point from the previous edition is simply keeping pace.

Unless I missed it, no drakes, A.I.s, or free spirit characters.

oof, i think i need to start buying 3e books

Does this mean they can cyber up, then?

That might mean they could cyber up, if they can keep their magicrating afloat, that is. There is nor mentioning of cyber in that context though. Also there is no mentioning as of why or what that change would be and why they are no longer dual-natured and do not suffer from silver as they did. Instead the fluff still hints to silver being a thing.

So, I still hope, that this simply is CGL editing and thus an oversight. Doing away with most of the cornerstones of the shapeshifter, without even so much as a note, would be quite a shitty move. Also the cost would be rather steep for an ability, that mages can do far better, just by learning a spell, and that also (without regeneration) leaves you so vulnerable (naked and unprotected), you may aswell eat a Grenade and be done with it.

Crossposting from the sticky thread :

Reading through the character creation seems to confirm it. Nowhere do I see anything stating that Shapeshifters can't have cyber or bio anymore.

Same is true for Infected. I really wonder if they playtested this...

The shapeshifter changes, if they are not simply errors of omission, are huge. But the rules for augmentation and infected are about the same as the SR4 Runner's Companion, the exception being that genetech is not explicitly disallowed (but they don't even have genetech in SR5, yet).

no kilttech, no cargopantstech either....

edit:


The Wear & Wolf Line from Talbot & Chaney Fashions Ltd features a new line of shape shifter friendly apparel.

Using sustainably sourced shapechanger fur specially enchanted and woven into tasteful Apparel Foci designed to be bonded to it's owner, these pieces transform along with the busy shapeshifter on the go (often taking the form of a collar or otherwise woven among their fur/feather/etc in their primal form...).

These outfits have no intrinsic armor value beyond normal clothing themselves (Armor 1-2 tops at GM discretion) and start at Force 3 rating so as to avoid embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions in some of the wilder areas like Chicago and similar.

Rumours abound of a projected 'War Wolf' Line, utilizing shifter bone and shells(presumably from a weretortoise or similar) to increase the armor potential of the range, however this still remains on the drawing boards at present as well as being very controversial due to sourcing issues.

how can cyberware morph with a changeling? wouldn't it just fall off or somehing

First off, just to avoid confusion, Shapeshifters and Changelings are different.

That said, the explanation as I've always understood it is that it's just the way the magic works. If you cast the Shapechange spell on a person, their original form stays "intact" and just gets replaced with a different one. Clothing and gear remain "part" of the original form, and all the spell does is shift you from one predetermined form to another - when the spell ends, you just go back to how you were when the spell started.

The same holds true for the Shapeshift power.

~Umi

Notice that shifter's MAG is "1" and not a range like the others? Seems to me that they're stuck at Magic 1 forever, unless an Awakened quality is chosen.

Indeed I did notice that, also it is not new. Cybering up sure is not an attractive option and especially hard if you want to do that at char gen and still be viable as a shadowrunner... (or may just a runner ).

The more I look at this however, the more it just has to be an oversight, that important powers and weaknesses (hallmarks even) just went missing. Nothing that is written there, gets close to balance cost and gain. By RAW, the most merit is gained in animal form. This form is rather handycapped in many situations, even in combat against anything, that is not the average civillian passerby, as there is no armor to speak of.

Most of the Attribute gains have a strong counterweight in reduced ones, especially a max of magic 5 and edge 4 (edge is huge in SR5 as most will realize). There often are gains in charisma, which probably won't be of much use while in animalform (with the exeption of shamans maybe). Movementrates are odd, only lions and dogs appear to have a normal walkrate, while the others get half the walkrate of humans.

All that for a cost far steeper than that of a troll and an effective doubling of the main attributes karmacost once generation is completed.

While the whole setup appears to be rather bad, love- and thoughtless, the trait-chart alone reeks of "unfinished", "unpolished", "unedited", "untested" and "error" and it appears to ignore over 20 years of canon. Comparing this to the setup of an infected, only supports that impression.

I really hope for a clarification, that edits regeneration, dual-natured and the silver-problem back in (where it they belong). These are canonical things that have been major hallmarks of SRs shapeshifters (and even beyond SR).

Methinks
CGL included Shapeshifters because everybody expects them to be in the Book and Players wpould be quite disappointed if they weren't in there (like Drakes or AIs) but the Devs have no heart for animals thats why they (apparently until Erratta come out) nerfed them so that only few players want to play them.
Me personally I never played Shapeshifter but what I read from the Forums they are extremely inferior compared to other Metavariants now in 5th Ed.
Arbitrary cost for Metavariants has already been a Problem in SR4A , so I didn't expect any better now

He who dances with Wolves
Medicineman

This general sentiment has unfortunately been my takeaway regarding 5E as a whole.

When the corebook was coming out, I was immensely excited and had great faith in the product I was buying. I finagled my budget especially to afford the book as soon as possible the month it came out, willing to purchase it sight-unseen based off only the three PDF previews. I very quickly came to regret my purchase immensely - a complete 180 on attitude, because the book ultimately felt rushed, unpolished, and completely unprofessional.

Every book put out after, I've refrained from buying entirely, waiting to see what others thought of them. Every single one has been reported to be unfinished and full of omissions and errors. I've still yet to acquire any of the books beyond the corebook, because I've yet to hear of any fixes to these problems.

There's a general perception that these forums in particular are just full of bitter old whiners pining for the impossible nostalgia dreams of their halcyon days of playing the earier editions, but I'm a relative new-blood, joined up late in 4E, was super excited for a "modern" upgrade in 5E, threw in my lot with impatient eagerness and great faith, and came away feeling like I got burned for doing so. I wanted to like the system so very badly, which makes it even more disappointing that it turned out so very awfully.

There is a basic expectation of minimum product quality that has repeatedly and consistantly failed to be met. The books in this edition are just universally flawed on the most fundamental of levels, and I've seen absolutely zero indication that any of those flaws are ever going to be addressed, much less fixed satisfactorily.

I went into this edition with quite a lot of goodwill and faith, and all of it has been completely wiped out by negative experiences. I keep hoping that maybe things will start to turn around - maybe if I keep checking in every six months, I'll witness a slow trend of improvements and fixes to both upcoming and released books, and maybe after a while of steady improvement my faith will have recovered enough to buy a few of them and start trusting that I won't regret it entirely again - but my better judgement tells me not to get my hopes up.

~Umi

I have been with SR since SR1, I do however not miss anything about SR1-3. SR4 was a good step in the right direction and I welcomed it. However, as I already knew where it was going, I was not all to exited for SR5. SR5 is not all bad, it takes a few things from SR4 and builds on them in a good way. Sadly it often enough is a (probably nostalgia-driven) step back into the retro zone of SR3. The worst things however is the carelessness, that leads to poor judgement calls, bad writing and the sorry state of the products deliverd. All that, despite of some very good thinkers and writers.

What shall I say, I really want it to be good, but it keeps disappointing. SR5 also is the set we play at our table so that's that.

It really helps to speak german though. While no massive changes are allowed, the german edition still is better by a far bit.

This is getting side-tracked though; sorry for that.

and cheaper too, so it doesn't hurt as much to pay for the last 20 wasted Pages

with a last side-tracked Dance
(I'll try , really )
Medicineman

At least when it comes to clothing, the descriptions in RC heavily implied that clothes are not affected by the magic, although they may be affected by changes in size and volume. I'd apply the same rule to other loose external gear, only cyberware becomes part of the original form and disappears while being in the alternate form


At least that's how it was for 4th, how it's supposed to be for 5th is hard to tell because there is no Shift power in RC...the rules for forms other than baseline norms (including metavariants) are nice, but otherwise the shifter section clearly is the low point of RC.

If we are still talking about shapeshifters, neither clothing, nor gear is transformed with the shifter. The mistform of the infected however is a different thing, it takes basic clothing, foki and augmentations into account. There also is an optional rule, that would allow for additional gear to be part of the transformation, depending on how much essence the infected has.

Nagas are different, the attributes are the same but they lost the uneducated quality (all metasapients lost this) and gained the cold blooded quality which does make sense. They also have no movement penalty this edition and their venom is now is the venom critter power which means it is tied to magic and so a starting Naga has less power then the weakest changeling venom trait. Not to mention some weird math in the character creation.

Actually, I was talking about the spell, but it seems I had conflated two concepts. Cyberware and whatnot are affected because they're paid for with Essence, clothing and gear are not. I may have been figuring mistform in there somewhere subconciously as well.

~Umi