Sometimes, you have to change from the outside in.

No matter how much cyberware you have or how many grades you've initiated or how big your deck is, there comes a time when you're going to end up in a massive firefight, or penetrating a building, or some other circumstance where crawling around in a duster with a shotgun just isn't gonna cut it.

The Suit
A full-body suit of form-fitting body armor, preferably with five points of Thermal Dampening
Combat Vest (12 small equipment pouches)
Load Bearing Harness (4 large equipment pouches)
Military rucksack, with quick release mechanism
Forearm guards
Snake mesh socks
Desert Goggles (Smartgoggles may be substituted)
Night Vision Contacts (if needed)

The suit gives the most protection and usefulness for the least encumbrance. Very much a paramilitary outfit, the combat vest, load bearing harness and rucksack provide sufficient room for all your little toys, widgets and ammo. Plus, the suit is acceptable for all environments, as more extreme environmental gear can easily go on over the form-fitting body armor. Appropriate camouflage clothing over top is recommended.

In addition to the suit, and whatever toys you decide to bring-I suggest you fill your pouches-it is essential to bring four things:
1) Primary Weapon - Typically a shotgun or assault rifle, adepts or magicians might consider a katana or a laser crescent axe a suitable primary weapon, while deckers and riggers will almost certainly consider their deck the primary weapon. In any event, primary weapons must use quick-draw holsters when possible.

2) Back-Up Weapon - Typically a handgun, the size and style depending on the user. Collapsable weapons such as an extendable baton or telescoping staff may also work. Tasers are also a good choice. In any event, the Back-Up Weapon should be in a concealed holster.

3) Blade - Always have a blade in your gear. Not necessairilly a big, scary knife to gut snakes and hillbillies, but something that can cut through anything you need to cut through. Vibroknives and the small Cougar fineblade are ideal.

4) Gloves - Be them stun-gloves, Hardliner gloves for unarmed attacks, or just surgical gloves, you don't want to leave fingerprints.

Sums it up nicely.

Oh good, a discussion.

I think what you're disagreeing with is the combat vest, load bearing harness, and military rucksack. While I agree that these might seem mercenary-like, they're popular fare for professional criminals in movies and television these days. While obviously not what you want to walk down the street with, during an actual penetration they can be ideal.

The Vashon Island line is essentially another type of camouflage gear.

Snake mesh socks and forearm guards might seem silly to an extant...until you've run into an ankle-high strand of monowire or needed just that little bit of edge in melee.

Smartgoggles are a good choice, but I gave desert goggles as first choice due to the flare protection.

I guess it's a matter of gaming styles, though. My preferred get up is:

Concealed Quick-Draw Holster
Forearm Guards
Form-Fitting Body Armor (Full Suit) [4/1, not counted for layering]
> Chemical Seal 4, Thermal Dampening 1
Hardliner Gloves
Smartshades
> Infrared and Low-Light Vision Mods if needed
Snake Mesh Socks
Vashon Island Actioneer Line (Full Suit) [5/3, 4/2 for purposes of layering]
> Fire Resistance 4, Nonconductive 4

Then add Ruthenium Polymers and a full suite of scanners to the Vashion Island suit, the gloves, and the extra hood the FFBA provides and you can effectively become invisible at a moment's notice.

This outfit not only fits anyone with a Quickness of 4 or higher comfortably, but it adds a nice amount of protection (Ballistic 7 and Impact 3), increases the Concealability of items underneath the long coat, includes ample ammo pouches, and is largely inconspicious in many areas outside fo the Barrens. Even if it does draw attention, it's relative blandness and its covering of your most identifying features (body frame, eyes, and hands) tend to make you hard to describe to others. The armor treatments are far superior to Thermal Dampening 4/5, too, in that they provide protection against the various types of attacks you're likely to encounter if things do get ugly, whereas Thermal Dampening 4/5 is trumped easily by the Ruthenium Polymers anyway.

That's a far more professional look than a paramilitary get-up and provides just as much versatility. It also lets you go nearly invisible when needed without comprimising your ability to blend in with the populace when you need to. You can go straight from a meet at a popular nightclub to an actual mission without having to stop and change, too.

Also note that FFBA with thermal dampening isn't available at chargen (Avail 12), and after chargen it's difficult to procure if your GM is being a hard-nosed about getting armor of any kind, and FFBA in particular. A Victory "Rapid Transit" Hvy Jumper, however, has an Availability of 4, so you can pack its maximum rating (4) of Thermal dampening in without a fuss. Considering that plus FFBA is the max an average (Quickness 3) character can carry without CP restrictions, it's actually a great idea for the Qui 3 beginner to get those plus the helmet, netting you an armor rating of 5/6. All this, plus you get the neat color-changing feature out of the rapid transit suit makes it great for infiltration wear on a budget, and it's considered ordinary wear so you're fine for most street purposes.

This post has been brought to you by Victory Sportswear. Victory: it's for winners.

The Actioneer Longcoat may not be worn with the Suit Jacket, how do you get 5/3? Going strictly by the wording in CC, while you may layer another longcoat, you simply cannot wear the Longcoat with the Suit Jacket.

And if you are being really literal about it, the Actioneeer Line Long Coat cannot be worn with anything with an asterisk. Also apart from the concealed holsters, the ammo clips pockets do not have a specified holding capacity (it can range from the anal GM of 1 to the ultra-liberal GM of as-many-as-you-can carry).

No such animal as a "default" suit, just the same way as there's no "average" Shadowrun. You've always gotta dress for the occasion.

My preferred getup is an ordinary comfortable gray sweatsuit and a heavily armored van.

~J

Huh. Personally, I prefer a snappy grey suit and an unarmored cab. But that's me.

If one takes AH's approach as one method, how about those disagreeing draw up similar laundry lists?

On the job.

For camouflage work I like the rapid transit jumpsuits, with 12 internal colour patterns on there photovoltaic covering (and shouldn’t be to hard to increase that) you have several tradesman’s outfits, jogging outfits and very camouflage pattern you may need. Far cheaper and easier to obtain than ruthenium (indeed available at char gen) giving most of the benefits.

What you where underneath it is up to you.

Edward

Ruthenium Polymers are available at character creation (Availability 5 for both the polymers and the scanners, and both are 100% legal). Your average human has just under 2 square meters of surface area, so that's only about 20,000-30,000 nuyen for the ruthenium polymers, which is worth the cost when you consider it can do everything Photovoltaic weaves can do plus tons more. Shoot, the eight extra scanners cost more than the ruthenium does...

My players just finished a module of mine a few runs back where they happened to pick up lightly armored "Armando and Armando" custom taylored tuxedos. These are the kind of UV-tres-chic clothes that you simply cannot buy in stores. I expected the duds to just go in the runners' closets after the run, but much to my surprise (and their karma-fication), a run or two later, they pulled out the clothes again, in order to spend some yen on a beyond-tres-chic dinner at a shadowy Japanese restaurant (think a 5,000 nuyen meal). The clothes got them past the door.

Remember, the 2060s are just as superficial a time as the 2000s are. The clothes make the man.

My current char has spent more than 5K on a meal, of cause he had to spend about 100K on clothing and pull strings to get a table but it did suitably impress the girl, and distract him from what the blood mage had been doing (dunclzan’s bequest was good for the money), what is beginning to bother him is that he is making a habit of this. After other negotiations where concluded for his second arcolegy run he demanded in addition a table for 2 at a romantic high class restaurant 2 days before the run, and 2 weeks at a 5 star resort when he got out, of cause when the Johnson is the head of security for novatech you know these demands wont be difficult, or even expensive, to grant, and he knows I met my girlfriend on my first arcology run. (the Johnson on that run also worked for novatech and was nice enough to give her a job).

Edward

Your char met his girlfriend through your Johnson? Isn't that a bit, umm, suspicious? And even if he onlym knows she's some chica you pulled out fo Deus' clutches ... I'd still worry. If only because he has a great handle on you.

And he got her a job? Jeez. Get her a non-Johnson job ASAP! Otherwise, it may soon come that the Johnson tells you to <insert suicide mission the char would give the Johnson the finger for if asked> or else your chica is gonna be handed to you in several of those nice blue garbage bags.

Any of Battletech's Assault Mechs.











What?

LMAO!
you get a karma

double post

A couple of obvious (in hindsight) additions to every professional shadowrunner's kit are:
1. a decent pair of combat boots, looking at say a -1 TN for tests to retain footing on unstable surfaces, and most likely steel-capped or better;
2. a pair of shin and knee guards, we used identical stats to the forearm guards.

You're not going to get far if you don't look after the one form of transport you can allways rely on...your legs!

but up the TN for sprinting tests in steel toes. they are hard to run in, and you don't really get used to them either. on the up side, most combats can be polished, and worn to look like dress shoes

Load bearing gear for the urban shadowrunner.

Yah, that shit is funny, but the vest isn't bad. Make it out of spider silk and I am sold.

How many spiders worth of silk would it take, anyway, and wouldn't it make it pretty expensive vs. Kelvar™?

As soon as spider silk can be produced synthetically (and I can tell you it's quite a way off), spider silk won't need spider farms any more. Spider farms aren't too lucrative, as it's pretty hard to train spiders to be milked for fabric all day - and as spiders tend to try to eat themselves rather than be good spiders and produce silk.

Yeah, steel toes + airports = make sure to Gold Bond your feet.

Interestingly, I prefer the half suit with a Secure Ultra Vest. Reasonable protection, double digit concealibility, and the ability to wear shorts and a t-shirt.

The big thing about looking professional is not drawing attention to yourself. If it's the middle of summer in Seattle you don't want to be wearing a black longcoat (people do, and they look like idiots and get pointed at).

Sometimes it means not having the 'optimal' amount of armor. But in those instances you just have to use your head, and availible cover.

Last I heard, the guys in the whit coats we working on splicing the genes that let spiders make silk into the cells that let goats make milk. You then just filter out the silk proteins.

Once you get the raw silk, you then just have to process it the way the spider does. The processing is probably harder than I make it sound, but at least you can develop it in parallel with the transgenetic goat milk.

Radical, dude!

the spider-goat experiments, besides being a sci-fi horror movie waiting to happen, have been largely unsuccessful as far as i'm aware. from what i remember last time i looked, it's too hard to harvest the protiens from the milk. it tastes great in cheerios, though, and is guaranteed to not turn you into a horrible flesh-spider freak with goat horns.

-Form Fitting Body Armor Level III with Chemical Seal and Nonconductive.
-Secure Long Coat or Secure Clothing with Thermal Dampening (optional), depending on season. (this combination provides a moderate degree of ballistic defense at very little weight without sacrificing concealability).
-Handgun of choice in a concealed quick draw holster (most likely strong side IWB, relatively easy access with only a short cover garment needed e.g. an untucked shirt).
-Extra ammunition in a pistol pouch - most likely one clip of gel rounds and one of EX or fletchette.
-Mirror shades tricked out with thermographic and optional smartgoggle capacity.
-Gravity knife with dikoted blade (should fit in a pocket. Any combat folder or OTF automatic knife will do as well if you prefer).
-Hardliner gloves (more discrete than shock gloves, probably fit in a pocket better too). Optionally, an extendable baton may be substituted.
-Flash Pak (highly concealable, primarily as a defensive weapon).
-Stim Patch (rating 6 or so)
-Trauma Patch
-Tranq Patch (patches can go in back pocket)
-PSec
-Microtransceiver
-Cigarette lighter, cigarettes (even if you don't smoke).
-Car keys. (Don't want to forget these, do you).
-Hideous, eight-eyed spider/goat hybrid with gibbering, venomous mandibles.
-Leash for spider/goat.

The Bag. The Bag takes many forms. Sometimes it's a really smart soft sided briefcase, other times it's a designer gym bag, and occasionally its a cast off army knapsack that looks like something you jacked from a homeless guy. It's got to carry many of the following items -
-Primary Weapon (compact SMG or cut down shotgun).
-Spare ammo in pistol or shotgun pouches velcroed inside.
-Concussion or gas grenades.
-C4 and detonators.
-Medkit
-Surveillance gear
-Spare spider/goat
-Whatever else suits your fancy.

Obviously, The Bag doesn't hold everything at once. But you're smart enough to tailor it for the job you've got to do, right?

Now for the opposing extreme...

How about a spell, etc... to throw off your gender and confuse the guards? heh.

(I know, there's probably some other thread to put this in, but this seemed the closest and most recent)

In SSG on page 49 Androgyne mentions quickening a shapechange spell on himself that changed their sex for a year. So yeah that would work.

Yeah, but wouldn't someone else call BS on something so blatently wrong if it was? Shadowtalk or not noone said "You're wrong doesn't work like that jackball."

Don't forget the ultimate in concealable melee weapons -- the dikoted tomahawk. See cc.18 -- the traditional ones are made of worked stone (and wood for haft, of course). Stone, of course, can be dikoted, so that's nice. But the best part is that it's (STR+1)S after dikoting, concealability 6 (+2 with concealable holster), and since it has no metal parts, it's completely undetectable by MAD. After trenchcoat, 12 concealability (or 11, depending on how you look at it). Good for throwing too, if you're into that kind of thing.

Mmm, tasty.

Yeah im sure that they'll have some kind of "Hard object" detectors though. Im sure it would ping on those.