Shadowrun Anniversary Edition
By
Agonus,
Posted on: 2010-08-09 13:20 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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Except shadowrunners are the subjects in question, and smart ones will have all their gear with the wireless capacity removed. |
Originally Posted by Snowlily
Gotta remember, most devices aren't designed for Shadowruners.
 their made by Megacorps who want your (their) stuff to be on display for everyone to see. |
You have one commlink to run software, with no wireless at all, hard-cabled to any gear that needs to be networked together.
You have a second commlink in Hidden Mode that ONLY deals with team communications and data, only physically hooking that to the first commlink when absolutely necessary. It is not hooked up to your other gear in any way.
You have a third commlink in Public Mode, that has nothing that a normal citizen wouldn't have. It is connected to nothing. You turn this off and take out the batteries when you're actually shadowrunning somewhere civilian commlinks are not supposed to be.
You have a half dozen more commlinks turned off and de-batteried as backups, in case you have to destroy and toss one of the others.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
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And if all of those operate with optical circuitry? |
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Monitors are essentially data output devices. And with appropriate application, you CAN manipulate the data displayed, not just monitor it. But that's like putting white-out on the screen since and writing on it since it doesn't actually affect the data being worked on.
Things like cybereyes, smartlinks, etc, are input/output devices. So your options are somewhat broader. Again, I'm not saying any of this is easy, or fast. I'm simply saying that, with the right tools, it can be done. |
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
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Most of whom I'm on a first-name basis with.|
Originally Posted by NinjaPirate
I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about actual employees of Catalyst and their freelancers.
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But if you can get official clarifications, head on over to Dumpshock and let them know. Since Catalyst employees and freelancers hang out there and THEY'VE been waiting on official clarifications for quite a while. -karma |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Great!|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Most of whom I'm on a first-name basis with. Better yet, I'll just ask Jason to post the stuff there himself.
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You do understand why I'm a little incredulous that you claim to be able to get official release answers when guys who literally worked in offices down the hall from the guy couldn't?
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
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Okay, just so I'm clear on the point you're talking about, this is the section you have questions for? |
Originally Posted by NinjaPirate
I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about actual employees of Catalyst and their freelancers.
But if you can get official clarifications, head on over to Dumpshock and let them know. Since Catalyst employees and freelancers hang out there and THEY'VE been waiting on official clarifications for quite a while. -karma |
Note: This comes from the SR4A book.
Spending Edge
When you spend a point of Edge, you can choose to have one of the following happen:
- You may declare the use of Edge before rolling for any one test (or one interval roll on an Extended Test). You may add a number of extra dice equal to your full Edge attribute to the dice pool. All dice (not just Edge dice) rolled on this test are subject to the Rule of Six (p. 62), meaning that if you roll a 6, you count it as a hit and roll it again.
- You may declare the use of Edge after you have rolled for one test. In this case,you may roll a number of extra dice equal to your full Edge attribute and add their hits to the test’s total. The Rule of Six (p. 62), however, applies only to the additional Edge dice rolled, not the original dice pool.
- You may re-roll all of the dice on a single test that did not score a hit.
- You may make a Long Shot Test (p. 61) even if your dice pool was reduced to 0 or less; roll only your Edge dice for this test (the Rule of Six does not apply).
- You may go first in an Initiative Pass, regardless of your Initiative Score (see Initiative and Edge, p. 145). If multiple characters spend Edge to go first in the same pass, those characters go in order according to their Initiative Scores first, then everyone else goes according to their Initiative Scores.
- You may gain 1 extra Initiative Pass for that Combat Turn only (see Initiativeand Edge, p. 145).
- You may negate the effects of one glitch or critical glitch.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
There's actually a small mountain of unclear stuff that gets debated endlessly on Dumpshock, but the Edge use was what I remembered as the last big arguement.
"You may re-roll all of the dice on a single test that did not score a hit."
This line could be interpreted in two ways:
You may re-roll individual dice that did not score a hit.
or
You may re-roll if entire test did not score any hits.
The "you may re-roll" could apply to EITHER just the failed dice, or the entire test. Either interpretation is technically correct by the rules of English word and grammar usage.
It'd actually be great if Jason could get on the Dumpshock boards, ask them for a list of clarifications that need to be made, and actually UPDATE that damn Shadowrun FAQ that has been in dire need of updating for the longest time.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
The other thing to keep in mind is where and how you are operating. If today, you walked around with a cassette walkman or an 80s brick cellphone, you'd get wierd looks. People with hard wired systems will get odd looks, and suspicious ones in sensitive areas. If the plan is to blend in and go undercover then you are making yourself look like a target. If you only run around in black form fitting armor at night and the solution to any problem is 'kill it', well that may not much matter to you though :7
Heh, true.
My Missions character is an old man, though. Nobody particularly pays attention to what he's wearing. Hell, half the time if he's got his cane out and affecting a limp and palsy, most folks don't even register a threat from him.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
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Ah, you've met my usual gaming group... |
Originally Posted by Kai
The other thing to keep in mind is where and how you are operating. If today, you walked around with a cassette walkman or an 80s brick cellphone, you'd get wierd looks. People with hard wired systems will get odd looks, and suspicious ones in sensitive areas. If the plan is to blend in and go undercover then you are making yourself look like a target. If you only run around in black form fitting armor at night and the solution to any problem is 'kill it', well that may not much matter to you though :7
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Actually, we'd generally carry a "legit" generic PDA but only our decker and rigger would actually connect anything important to it (and their PDAs were very high end with lots of masking and security programs). Everyone else would just turn off their PDA once it was time for action (unless it was an undercover run) and use discrete comm gear and hardwired smartlinks if they were one of the two or three people who used smartlinks (or guns for that matter)..
Of course that team was also a bunch of psychos... nobody tended to hire us for stealth missions.
This was a group who created a diversion by buying a dirt cheap piece of junk used car, putting a $5000 full rigger conversion into it, and then sent it at an enemy base with drums of gasoline and explosives piled in the back connected to a giant fuse and a blow-up doll in the driver's seat. (Our rigger was absolutely nuts.) We also had a mage built around maxing out Edge and using it to throw tac-nuke scale manaballs 3-4 times a day and a troll adept who specialized in cutting things in half. We did "smash and grab", "assassinate", and "create a really big diversion" exceptionally well, but "subtle" wasn't our strong suit.
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
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So, as others have said, carry a "cover" commlink, PDA, etc, which is connected to wireless, but not to anything important on your body. It's not like you want to advertise your smartgun link while you're undercover, anyway.|
Originally Posted by Kai
The;other thing to keep in mind is where and how you are operating. If today, you walked around with a cassette walkman or an 80s brick cellphone, you'd get wierd looks. People with hard wired systems will get odd looks, and suspicious ones in sensitive areas. If the plan is to blend in and go undercover then you are making yourself look like a target. If you only run around in black form fitting armor at night and the solution to any problem is 'kill it', well that may not much matter to you though :7
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Still, 4e is better about giving hackers toys to play with, including drones, etc, that HAVE to be run by wireless. Messing with comms is still a useful thing to do, especially on stealth missions where raising the alarm can cause a big problem.
Having never played or looked at 4th edition (stopped at second, here)...
If I can have a wireless smartlink that will allow me to fire my pistols remotely, I'll take the chance of having it hacked, thanks.
"I shoot Mr. Johnson from the gun I left casually lying on the table..."
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Oh, no, that's cool.
But according to the SR4 setting, not only is your pistol wireless, so are your glasses, your shirt, your socks, your cyberarm, your belt buckle, your watch, possibly even your dog.
Using wireless is good.
Having it used against you is bad.
So any smart runner will limit his exposure to outside hackers.
This is generally done by limiting your wireless connections to a single choke point that's more easily defended, and shut off if necessary.
The default setting assumption, though, is that most people are walking constellations of wireless nodes, any and all of which can be hacked easily by even the basest amateur.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
I tend to compare your public PAN to Facebook...you don't put anything on it you don't want the whole world to know cause no matter how well you hide it some enterprising or bored tech savy person will find it, but it kinda helps to function, or at least look like you fuction, as a normal person if you have one that has things on it, even if its fake.
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My decker had a full set of rigger wires back when I played (I had the 1'st edition rules). |
Originally Posted by Castle
Your Decker should be hacking the enemies Smartlinks or tossing Drones at them during the action part of a run. In that regard, 4th and 4a are considerably more friendly than previous editions. You're right though, in that during the legwork portion the parts of the team not involved in such can get bored...but then, that's the case in any game where some characters specialize in non-combat and others specialize in combat.
A good GM can keep things going and/or integrate even the most hardcore min/maxed sam into the legwork mix. |
I ran the vehicles, and I ran drones. While I was never quite as good as the people who where combat specialized, I could certainly hold my own.
On a side note, both of the street samurai in the group also had decks. It was a secondary skill for both of them, but they made good backup.
Found this when I was cleaning out the garage. Don't recall ever reading the first book, and don't even know how many books are in the series, I think three. Hmmm, wonder what ruleset this book attempts to follow.
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Twitter: @Alpha_Ryvius
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Sweet. Looks like first or second edition. I never got into books like that, books based on pnp games. I don't know why, I guess I always felt I would rather be playing a story rather than reading about it. As I have gotten older, and have read sopme fo those novels, I found that trying to incorporate the games rules into a reasonable facsilmile of a story seems to fail, and seem silly as you read it.|
Originally Posted by Unknown_User
Found this when I was cleaning out the garage. Don't recall ever reading the first book, and don't even know how many books are in the series, I think three. Hmmm, wonder what ruleset this book attempts to follow. |
Still, it has not stopped me yet.
I have not got to the cyber section of 4e. I am curious to see what they say about the hardwired versus the wireless stuff. I would think that, even if your smartlink needs an inductiuon pad, that the software in your gun could still be hacked wirelessly. After all, the software in your gun is still active. This new technomancer stuff will be interesting.
One of the things that disappointed me in rules was that insect/arachnid shamans were all evil. Spider totems are very common in many cultures, and were not considered bad.
Insect spirits go waaaaay back to second edition and Bug City, they were the Big Bad Horrible thing for some time
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I do not see how that is confusing.|
Originally Posted by NinjaPirate
There's actually a small mountain of unclear stuff that gets debated endlessly on Dumpshock, but the Edge use was what I remembered as the last big arguement.
"You may re-roll all of the dice on a single test that did not score a hit." This line could be interpreted in two ways: You may re-roll individual dice that did not score a hit. or You may re-roll if entire test did not score any hits. The "you may re-roll" could apply to EITHER just the failed dice, or the entire test. Either interpretation is technically correct by the rules of English word and grammar usage. It'd actually be great if Jason could get on the Dumpshock boards, ask them for a list of clarifications that need to be made, and actually UPDATE that damn Shadowrun FAQ that has been in dire need of updating for the longest time. -np |
Let's say that you are rolling 10 dice on a test. You get 2 hits. That's not quite good enough, so you spend that Edge to re-roll the dice that did not hit. You re-roll 8 dice.
Next time you roll, you get 0 hits. That certainly isn't good enough, so you spend that Edge to (again) re-roll the dice that did not hit. You re-roll all 10 dice this time.
You see, your second interpretation is simply a way of expressing the first when all dice fail to hit. In other words, BOTH interpretations are correct. In both cases, you are re-rolling FAILED dice (in other words, dice that did not score a hit).
hope this helps.
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Oh I know Kai, wished I had picked up Bug City, as you put it. I liked the idea.|
Originally Posted by Kai
Insect spirits go waaaaay back to second edition and Bug City, they were the Big Bad Horrible thing for some time
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Then I also liked the idea of the insect spirits winning.
For an arachnophobe, I seem to have an obsession with them.
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Like on "Leverage"...
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Originally Posted by Castle
Your Decker should be hacking the enemies Smartlinks or tossing Drones at them during the action part of a run. In that regard, 4th and 4a are considerably more friendly than previous editions. You're right though, in that during the legwork portion the parts of the team not involved in such can get bored...but then, that's the case in any game where some characters specialize in non-combat and others specialize in combat.
A good GM can keep things going and/or integrate even the most hardcore min/maxed sam into the legwork mix. |
If I quote #'s, they're from City of Data.
Global: @Kazari
It was either Taunt or Purple Triangles of Doom. I stand by my decision!
-BackAlleyBrawler
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Both interpretations are grammatically correct.|
Originally Posted by JetFlash
You see, your second interpretation is simply a way of expressing the first when all dice fail to hit. In other words, BOTH interpretations are correct. In both cases, you are re-rolling FAILED dice (in other words, dice that did not score a hit).
hope this helps. |
However, under the second interpretation, if you score even one hit on the test, you CANNOT use Edge to re-roll ANYTHING. You're stuck with just adding Edge dice to the roll, which can suck if your Edge score is low.
I've seen enough people on both sides of the arguement to conclude the rule is simply worded badly.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
That's actually the name of the sourcebook if you want a good read, Black It deals with the containment of Chicago(Bug City), you can pick up the PDF cheap on Drive Thru RPG
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That interpretation really makes no sense to be honest. Shouldn't that Edge spent on a 1 hit test be as effective as one spent on a complete failure? Don't just look at the wording, look at the intent of the rule. Is Edge intended to increase the odds of success, or is it just meant to be insurance against failure?|
Originally Posted by NinjaPirate
Both interpretations are grammatically correct.
However, under the second interpretation, if you score even one hit on the test, you CANNOT use Edge to re-roll ANYTHING. You're stuck with just adding Edge dice to the roll, which can suck if your Edge score is low. I've seen enough people on both sides of the arguement to conclude the rule is simply worded badly. -np |
Besides, if there is a question as to what the rule is, then the GM decides. House rules override official rules, after all.
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I don't necessarily disagree with you. But as I said, I've seen numerous folks on both sides of the arguement. |
Originally Posted by JetFlash
That interpretation really makes no sense to be honest. Shouldn't that Edge spent on a 1 hit test be as effective as one spent on a complete failure? Don't just look at the wording, look at the intent of the rule. Is Edge intended to increase the odds of success, or is it just meant to be insurance against failure?
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Most of the time, if you see extended arguements over any given rule, it means the rule is unclear, not that the folks arguing are being unreasonable.
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Besides, if there is a question as to what the rule is, then the GM decides. House rules override official rules, after all.
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Also, some games, like the official Shadowrun Missions campaign, cannot use house rules.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
Again, I have greater resources available to me than you do.
Gimme a little time and I'll pull an answer for you.
But if you can get official clarifications, head on over to Dumpshock and let them know. Since Catalyst employees and freelancers hang out there and THEY'VE been waiting on official clarifications for quite a while.
-karma
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered