I'm not much of a SR5 guy, but a couple of people have asked me a few things, and since I couldn't find satisfactory answers, I figured I'd ask here.

Is there anything in SR5 that tells you how much cargo space a vehicle has? I found a small bit that tells me I can use a seat to hold 250 kg of cargo, which seems oddly specific for a book that doesn't seem to tell me how much cargo a vehicle can actually carry.

How the heck do you get 75 karma to play a drake? 25 at chargen, an additional 25 from negative qualities if I remember right..are you just SOL and have to accumulate 25 karma in game before you're able to shift? Assuming you're playing a basic game, and can't finagle the GM into letting something happen.

Shifters..no Regen and no allergies? How long does shifting take? Free? Simple? Complex? More? I looked for a generic "shift"power in the main book, and I don't see it in the other book either...

Once upon a time SR had cargo capacity for vehicles and someone decided that was too complex and drags the game down so they got rid of it. They kept things like the price for individual disposable syringes but got rid of that. Go figure. Basically just use a real world vehicle of a similar type to decide how much cargo something can carry. Don't think that works that well with things like thunderbirds/panzers/t-birds but for most other vehicles it works well enough.

For the Drake, yeah you are supposed to pay that extra 25 once you earn it in game. Says so right on pg 164 of Howling Shadows at the top. Kinda stupid but there it is.

Yeah shifters got hosed on this edition. No regen but hey, at least you aren't vulnerable to silver anymore either. For reasons.
I would put shift in the same category as something like Mist Form and have it take 1 complex action to move into or out of a form.

this has been erratea'ed !
SS now (Again) have Regen, and allergy Silver,etc.
Go check the official Forum for Patrick Goodmans Erratas
and IIRC it takes 1 complex Action to shift

He who dances with Shapeshifters
Medicineman

Ninja'd by MedicineMan


He who dances just 1 simple action to slow
Sendaz

Well, its good to see some errata coming into play.

I figured there might not have been any definitive cargo capacity given, but with how specific the rules were about using seats for extra cargo, I figured I'd check.

It was also pointed out to me that Drakes could use Karmagen in order to start play as a drake, so that solves that somewhat.

And good to see that shifters aren't completely different.

I'm glad it got fixed but why the hell was this missed in the first place? Like really, someone looked over the shifters and figured, yup, no regen or allergy, good to go. Bizarre.

And another question.

Chrome Flesh has a piece of cyberware called the Touch Link (p. 86) that says that it records tactile sensation, which allows it to be shared or replayed. It then states that you can "combine with a simrig for an outstanding experience."


Uh. A simrig can record sensory data and emotive data. Isn't tactile sensation..a sense? That's already recorded by the simrig?

I can understand if you just want to record a single sense (touch in this case) and wouldn't want to go the full simrig route, and its cheaper just to have the Touch Link. But if you're using a simrig, why would you bother with the Touch Link? The Simrig is already doing that.

Off hand, I'd say it's because whoever wrote up the touch link doesn't actually know how a simrig works or what it does. But that might just be cynicism on my part.

Maybe (I wonder) its the same reason Runners aren't allowed to buy Animals from Running Wild ?
Developer's Fiat (is that the right expression ? )
I don't know.....

HokaHey
Medicineman

At least in SR4A (IIRC), a Touch link heightened the tactile sensation (gave a bonus), so it was amped up a bit... combined with a Simrig, which does not amp senses (senses are just baseline), you would get a better tactile recording with the Touck Link than if you did not have it (and thus an outstanding experience)... May be a hold over from 4th Edition.

That would make sense. And if you look at the Cyberware package that its included in, it would seem that its being used that way, since other cyberware included in the package could boost the senses, but Touch Link in SR5 doesn't do that, it just records the input. So it would make sense if it boosted things, but it doesn't.

And in SR4A, the Touch link states "allows for the processing of tactile information (texture, temperature, etc.) directly to the user's neural system. This information is usually received via the user's PAN, but it can also be input from other sources." So that seems to me that is more used for reporting information. "We live in the desert, and the Touch Link is wired to my commlink to let me know if I start overheating and if I stop sweating."

So basically CGL seems to be using it like an olfactory or taste booster, despite it not saying it does that.

Touchlink has always been weird because it does nothing a simrig can't...but overpriced. inferior products exist in real life, maybe it's supposed to reflect that.

Well, in 5th its cheaper and less essence intensive than an Implanted Simrig. 1000 nuyen and .1 essence compared to the Simrig's 4000 nuyen and .2 essence. Which makes sense since it reads as a limited simrig for touch sensation only.

The real oddity in 5th is that half the description makes it a limited simrig, but the other half the description, and the actual use in a cyberware (in cyberware packages) in the book treats it as a sensation booster.

It's cheaper, but the fraction of the price you pay is still bigger than the fraction of the functionality you're getting. Even going by the classical view of five senses, Touchlink delivers 1/5 senses for a fourth of the price (Essence doesn't really compare due to rounding). And in reality homo sapiens has far more than five senses, "records tactile sensation" does not even include proprioception.

If that's actually in the book now, that'd be awesome.
If it's not, it goes back to a forum post from like 5 years ago now, where I got a writer/developer to answer the question. Look for "moose in power armor."

I think the basis of it is that some of the other shift abilities state that it takes a complex action, rather than there being a definitive errata for it.

Off to Street Grimoire for a moment. The Ways seem to work differently than in 4th edition. If I'm reading it right, you don't get the Adept point discount for all of the levels of a power that you have, just one level (so for instance, if there was a way that allowed me to discount Mystic armor, and I had 4 levels of mystic armor, only one of those levels would be discounted, for a total of 1.75 adept points, rather than 2.00). You also don't get a discount on powers that already cost 0.25 points.

So if I'm reading that right, and I've read it a few times, why does the Beast Way list Animal Handling as an option to get a discount for? Since its cost is 0.25 already, you can't discount it, and since its only one level of the power that gets discounted, its not like you can buy 4 levels and get the discount that way. Am I missing something?

Alert! There are two different powers in 4E called "Mystic Armor"!
One is the adept power, the other is a critter ability, they do not do the same thing!

I...didn't say they were? I was just using it as a simple example for the sake of argument.

Not to mention its a 5th edition thread, so telling me about the issues with mystic armor in 4th edition isn't exactly helpful

Now the question is, am I wrong about how the Ways work in 5th, or is there a reason for a 0.25 point power to be mentioned in the Ways.

New Question! How exactly does "Custom Fit (Slack)" work exactly?

According to the rules, you have to pick a specific piece of armor for the custom fit item to work with. Makes sense. Then the rule says "The custom fit combination then allows the character to use either the base armor, or add on the stack bonus for that set of gear."

So lets say I'm a Zoe fan. I pick out a Second Skin (6/+2) suit and an Executive Suite set (12 armor).

I assume the +2 in the Second Skin suit is the stack bonus? Is there anything out there that actually says that's the stack bonus, or do you just sort of assume? And if I'm reading that right, it means you'd have 14 total armor out of it, 12 from the Executive Suite and +2 from the Second Skin?

However, if I were a Mortimer of London fan, and wearing a Summit Dress (7 armor) and picked up an Argentum Coat (12/+4) I would just use the Argentum coat's armor rating of 12, since 7+4 is only 11?

I assume that's why they let you pick - because sometimes the base armor will give you better protection than the stack bonus and whatever it is stacking with.

So it seems I'm reading it right. Just sort of odd that I don't think they mention anywhere "Oh hey, the number to the right of the slash is the value you add."

That's fine, I just have to point it out because there were situations in SR4 (yes I see the SR5 tag: I'm not familiar with SR5 enough to know if this is still the case) where it was possible for a player to have both and assume they stacked (and the answer is: they do because they do different things, but no because the values don't add to whatever it was you were thinking of: only one applies).

Yes, SR5 retains mystic armor as the name for both a critter power, and an adept power. It also retains combat sense as the name for both a spell, and an adept power.

But there really is only one thing that looks like a bonus because it's prefixed with a +, so compared to some other stuff in R&G that seems like an easy fix

Does anybody have the German version at hand and can check if it was clarified there? Because I was quite certain that I read something to the effect of "it's armor value/ stack bonus" somewhere, but couldn't find it anywhere in the PDF...