Return-Path: EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU!PKARPAS Received: from EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU ([129.133.10.10]) by snow.white.toronto.edu with SMTP id 10293; Thu, 17 May 90 15:08:05 EDT Date: Thu, 17 May 90 10:53:54 EDT From: Kono Satee Subject: Shadowrun Errata To: ggray@wpi.wpi.edu, v133nnuw@UBVMS.BITNET, v102jq23@ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu, spardron@dahlia.waterloo.edu, dmccart@swtec1.intel.com, silver@ms.uky.edu, cks@snow.white.toronto.edu, gjs%ukc.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk, dan@engrg.uwo.ca, sbauer@cup.portal.com Message-Id: <90May17.150805edt.10293@snow.white.toronto.edu> N 10-MAY-1990 11:24:52.65~ Date: 10-MAY-1990 11:24:12.96 From: Kono Satee Subject: Shadowrun Listing to be put in SF Acct. To: jdoty@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU Date: 9-MAY-1990 23:21:59.85 From: Kono Satee Subject: Shadowrun Errata Listing To: pkarpas@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU Tom Dowd's e-mail address is: 71061.744@compuserve.com A current errata is available directly from FASA. If you would like it, please send a SASE to: FASA Corp 1026 West Van Buren Chicago IL 60607 Att: SHADOWRUN Errata. The Shadowrun mailing list's e-mail address is: flashlife@amd.com To be placed on the list, send e-mail with your name and mail address to: flashlife-control@amd.com If you happen to have any official (i.e. FASA) errata/Q&A that is not included in this compilation, PLEASE e-mail it to me! My mail address is: pkarpas@eagle.wesleyan.edu Thanks to all who helped me put this together. You know who you are! Peter Karpas 5/1/90 ========================================================================== Circa September, 1989 Mercurial (another adventure) shipped yestderday, and here's a schedule for most everything else: (prices subject to change) Available Now! #7102 Shadowrun GM Screen/Adventure $10.00 Shadowrunner Miniatures from Grenadier Corporate Sector Miniatures from Grenadier October #7302 Mercurial $8.00 Skin of burnished silver, hair of brilliant liquid gold. The name is Maria Mercurial, and she is the hottest rock and roll performer around. Your job is to protect her. Unfortunately this bodyguarding job is far more than it seems. The lady had a past she can't remember. A deadly past which is rapidly catching up with her. Mercurial is an adventure for Shadowrun which takes players into the high speed backstage of the mega popular, and the dark reality of lies, betrayal, and a world populated by two types of people... users and used. November #7303 Dream Chipper $12.00 In Shadowrun, the substance abuse of the 19th and 20th century is as archaic as 8-track tapes. Now the escape of choice is the BTL or Better Than Life chip. Plug it in and physical pleasures, desires, and hopes suddenly pale by comparison. Some 'experimental' chips are missing, and you've been hired to find them. But, an investigation of simple theft is turning into a grisly trail that seems to have no rhyme or reason. Now you are beginning to wonder..is it possible for these chips to program someone to be a serial killer? Dream Chipper is an adventure for Shadowrun. December/January 7104 Street Samurai Catalog $12.00 You're the ultimate fighting machine. A predator-for-hire in the savage urban world of Shadowrun. You've devoted your life to honing your combat and martial skills. The tools of your trade are microfilament strangling wire, Sub-dermal armor plating, and a Remington Roomsweeper Heavy Pistol. The Street Samurai Catalog is an expansion for Shadowrun, with which you can outfit yourself with the latest equipment available on the black market; retractable hand razors, thermographic cyber-eyes, enhanced reflexes, and maybe a crossbow . Whatever you need to get the job done, you can get it. They won't be cheap, and remember, watch your back - but you already do, otherwise you'd be yesterdays news. The Street Samurai Catalog is an Expansion for Shadowrun. #7301 DOA/DNA $8.00 There is always somebody who thinks it is easier to steal an idea than to do real work, so there will always be lucrative opportunities for Shadowrunners. Aztecnology, is a company on the cutting edge of genetic research. It began as a simple datasteal, but somewhere it went wrong...now you've lost the goods, lost your contacts, and your only chance is to get out of SeattlePPfast. There is just one problem: The only way out leads trough the heart of the deadly Ork underworld, a dark labyrinth beneath the city where your first move may be your last. DNA/DOA is an adventure for Shadowrun. #7201 Seattle Sourcebook $12.00 With Indian territories to the east and north and Elven lands to the south, Seattle the hot spot for intrigue, adventure and shadow-work. This book provides players of Shadowrun all the vital information they need to run campaigns in Seattle. [compiler's note: All of this is currently available] ========================================================================== Circa September 13, 1989 =================================================> This is a compilation of the questions asked in the first 165 (or so) messages of the ShadowRun topic on GEnie. For those of you joining us late, it's substatially easier to read (at about 15 pages) than the 90+ pages that the original postings took up. Man, I love this game. I'll post more as it goes up. Please Note: Questions are from everyone, answers are from Tom Dowd unless otherwise noted. I have cleaned up the grammar and spelling where I can, but I've certainly missed some things. Please don't blame me, I blame Da Boyz. Because I hope to have Tom sanction this as an OFFICIAL compilation, I have followed standard FASA procedure and not inculed an index. Sorry, I hope the headings are self explanatory. -Steve Kramarsky I really have to thank Steve for doing what I have just been to lazy to do myself. These answers are as official as you're going to get right now, a copy is going to FASA for final approval, but I don't see any problems. Future Q&A will be posted periodically as volume demands in additional files. -Tom Dowd [FASA.SUPPORT] ===============================================> COMBAT:::> Q1. What is the range for Shuriken? -->A1. I would use the same range charts for both the Shuriken and the Throwing Knife. Q2. What are the numbers for Hand Razors and Arm Spurs (Conc, Reach, Dmg)? -->A2. The damage code for Hand Razors is (Str/2)L2 (effectively a knife that can't easily be taken away) and Spurs are (Str)M2 (a sword that can't be taken away). Both have a Reach of 0, and are completely concealed if retracted, and blatantly obvious (not concealable) if extended. Q3. Why are Throwing Knives more concealable than Shuriken? Why does the Roomsweeper have such a high concealment? -->A3. The Shuriken people are most familiar with (the small stars) are really no more that a painful distraction. We are really refering to their larger brother, the Shaken, which is about the size of a Throwing Knife, but more difficult to conceal. The Roomsweeper has such a high concealment because it is little more than a grip and firing chamber. It is a shotgun with the barrel completely sawed off. Drop the concealment, however, to 7. Q4. We ran a test combat between a Gang Member and a Street Samurai with them both using pistols and they couldn't affect each other. Is this right or did we miss something? -->A4. Generally you will find that unless somebody does real, real well, or somebody screws up bad it will work out to be just about a stalemate. There are a variety of reasons for this, including the use of Dodge Pool dice and armor. It fundementally comes down to that the average shadowrunner is wearing too heavy armor for pistols with conventional ammo to penetrate. (Remember Explosive Bullets.) Q5. How many shots in a burst ? I found the rule on full auto fire and recoil, but as soon as my players wanted to use full auto, I was asked, "Now how many shots does that take?" "Aack," choked I. "Three," I said, "per burst." Is this reasonable, dead wrong, or what did I miss? -->A5. Bad wording in there. In autofire you fire *bullets* not real bursts as we know them. So you would fire 3 bullets, or 4 bullets (3 or 4 seperate, individual to-hit rolls). If your players haven't complained about three bullets per burst, stick with it since their clips don't last as long! Q6. Does the Ingram light MG use Gunnery or Firearms when fired? And how many shots does it have? -->A6. The Ingram Valient uses Gunnery when mounted on something, and Firearms when carried Rambo-style. It is belt fed, and normally carried with a box of 100 shots. (see page 136, Ammunition chart) Q7. Which catagorys of weapons can the silencer be used on? -->A7. A silencer can be mounted on any Pistol, SMG, or Bolt-Action rifle. It cannot be mounted on an Assault Rifle or any Heavy Weapon. Q8. What weapons can players use? (meaning the Hvy Vehicular weapons mainly) -->A8. I'm not sure what you mean about players using Heavy Vehicular Weapons. If it's a Heavy Veh. Weap. and it's mounted on a vehicle, they can use it with Gunnery Skill. Heavy Vehicular Weapons cannot be carried. Q9. Is there any limit to the # of weapons that one player can have smartgun adapters connected to? (e.g. can he have his smg AND his pistol linked) -->A9. The number of weapons that can be tied into a smartgun link is a GM call. The game doesn't deal with multi-weapon fire (ambidextrous fire), but knowing a little about dealing with split-crosshairs (multiple crosshairs) [Right Mike S.?] I would negate the smartgun bonus if you allow it. Doing it normally is a +2 modifier. Q10. [p.59] If the ranges for the Shuriken and the Throwing Knife are the same, then why differentiate between Aerodynamic and Non Throwing Skills? -->A10. [p.59] If the Throwing Knife were more aerodynamic, you would be able to throw it farther. Think about what you can and can't reasonably thow with each skill. Q11. [p.64] Can you draw a sword/gun and attack in one action? I don't see why not but implications say otherwise...Is facing important? Can I spin and shoot someone behind me with no penalty? This would seem to be more difficult than just shooting. -->A11. [p.64] I would call drawing a weapon an action. As for the rest of the question: Shadowrun is a storytelling game system (though admittedly parts of it seem otherwise) and as such is not a tactical combat game. Situational modifiers like turning and shooting are situational and subject to the type of game the GM wants to run. Sometimes I allow things like that, sometimes I don't. It depends on what's happening. I also tend to be a little more fluid with the slower Reaction Time characters than with the super-reflexes types just to be nice. Q12. [p.64] At what point exactly can an opponent intercept? Is it retroactive? Can I move within 1 square of an opponent then diagonally past him (thus out of his interception range)? -->A12. [p.64] If at any time you move within 1 meter or less of an opponent he has the option of immediately executing a free physical attack on you. You can dance and roll all you want, move to a meter or less and the Troll will tear your arms off. It's that simple. (oouucchh!) Q13. [p.65] What is the Target # Bonus for Laser Sights? -->A13. [p.65] A laser sight performs the same function as a smartgoggle, except that it produces a semi-visible, trackable beam of laser light back to the sight. (very dangerous in certain situations against certain foes) It gives a -1 modifier. Q14. [p.67] Does using your Dodge Pool to negate all hits from a Monowhip cause the wielder to check for damage against himself? What constitutes a miss for these purposes isn't clear. -->A14. [p.67] It is our intention, nasty us, that if you miss your opponent for any reason, check for damage against yourself. Being reasonable, I would say only do it if your opponents Dodge Pool negates the attack completely, but then again nicking his armor could mean the swing was thrown off and..... Q15. [p.69] If I understand the grenade procedure correctly, it's possible to shoot a grenade launcher projectile at short range behind yourself ?! (unlikely, concurred...but possible!). Also, the scatter diagram is fine for hex based maps, but all the examples in the books use squares, neccesitating an 8-way scatter diagram (use a 2d6 weighted for overshots system?). -->A15. [p.68] Yes a grenade can scatter behind you, especially if you lob it at something so close that you are within the blast radius. (Call it fate.) Again, see above regarding the storytelling vs tactical combat rules systems. (I however do like your weighted 2d6 idea....) The other point is that the diagrams use a square pattern primarily for example purposes. We technically do not use any kind of a tactical grid in Shadowrun. Feel free to use any you wish, however, if it make you more comfortable. Q16. [p.70] In Critter Combat, are the references to Defense and Dodge Pools reversed? If not, I'm real confused... -->A16. [p.70] No the Dodge vs Defense Pool references are correct. Think of Dodge Pool as blindly getting the h*ll out the way of something, while the Defense Pool is like parrying. Animals generally dodge, but the usually don't actively parry. (Usually...) Q17. [p.71] Vehicles/Characters Onboard- How do you define a fixed weapon? Specifically, if a weapon is mounted on a Harley Scorpion, can the rider fire it while he's driving? -->A17. [p.71] If it is physcially attached to a vehicle, it's a fixed weapon. If you completely move its position, it's not. A character attempting to drive and shoot gets a +2 target modifier for trying to do too much at once. Q18. [p.135] Isn't the Ruger Super Warhawk Concealment a little low? -->A18. [p.135] It's a big gun. Remember, the number listed is the target Number for someone else's Perception save. Q19. In Combat, do you use the first success when figuring damage increase? If you do, a weapon code of 4M1 would automatically get boosted to S with any [one] successful hit. How about a Staging 2 or 3 weapon code? More examples, please. -->A19. The first success is `wasted' making the success. Only *extra* success are used to modify effects. So, you need 1 *extra* success to increase a Staging 1 weapon, 2 *extra* successes to increase a Staging 2 weapon, and so on. Q20. Here's a question about armor shredding. Since it's tough to phrase, I'll ask it by example: I fire my 4M2 Ares Predator. I hit the guy! I hit him BAD -- 9 successes -- bringing my damage to deadly + 2 categories. Unfortunately, he is wearing an armor jacket (ballistics 5). He gets 5 free successes. His dodge pool give him another 3 successes and he gets 2 from Bod. What happens? Do I miss? Is his armor shredded down 2 places? If so, before or after the 5 auto successes? Same example, but he totally screws up except for his armor. Now, it is shredded, right? (Or does it protect ITSELF from being shredded when its 5 successes go off...?) However, now we have the question of my "extra" successes. It seems to me that, according to the rules, his 5 successes reduce the staging 2 steps to M. Right? Does it mean anything that I got 9 successes (2 past deadly)? A. Okay, by example: Firing a Heavy Pistol (4M2), our Hero gets a full 6 successes (he has a Firearms of 6). Two successes bring it to `S' and two more bring it to `D'. He has two success remaining. Since these equal the staging of the weapon, he reduces the effective Ballistic Armor rating of his opponents armor by 1. If he had only 1 success after raising the damage to `D' he would be unable to do this. This reduction in armor takes effect *immediately*, as far as this attack is concernd. (Note: It was not our intention that this reduction be permanent, but I kind of like that idea and will try to fly it past eveybody else. TD) This means that the number of Automatic Successes generated by the armor is now reduced by 1, before any Resistance Tests are made. Dodge/Resistance Tests are made and applied after this. He must now reduce from Deadly (ie 8 successes to eliminate completely.) ARCHETYPES and RACES:::> Q1. On page 53 under archetype creation and modification the rules state: "Notice that there is no reason to assign priority 1 or 2 to magic." yet, they also state: "the decker was designed with these priorities: Magic: 1; Attributes: 2; skills: 4; tech: 3; race: 0" This implies that you must use a 0,1,2,3,and,4 when assigning priorities. The first paragraph in this section states "To create an archetype, assign a priority from 0-4 etc. etc. -- The sum of the priorities must equal 10. That implies that it doesn't matter as long as it adds up to 10. Which is the case? -->A1. The truth of the matter is I don't know where that sentence "The sum of the priorties must equal 10." came from, it's plain wrong. You have only five priorities that you can assign: 0,1,2,3,and 4. No other options, and you must assign all of the numbers. Ah, editors. Q2. Under the chart for priorities it states that the tech at priority four gets 1,000,00 nuyen. Is this all for the cyberware and other equipment as it states in the paragraph above? If so, what "other" equipment can be bought, or is there an unlimited selection? Is the money that is left over converted into the credstick money or is it lost? I felt that this made characters have all that they at the beginning of the game. A decker could start off with a Fairlight Excalibur if he wanted. -->A2. The 1 mil nuyen is for any equipment you want to buy. Any. It does NOT translate into credstick cash afterwards, however. The cash you start the game with, that is, the Lifestyle money that you roll for, not the money from your Tech allocation, can be used to buy off the shelf stuff, but not stuff that needs to be modified orcyberware. Yes the decker could start with a Farirlight Excalibur, but then he would have nothing to put in it, programs, utilities, etc. Plus no other stuff. Dumb Decker. (psst, hey kid.... Buy A Real Lifestyle!) Q2b. How does a starting Mage choose his spells? -->A2b. Each character must have a Priority assigned to Tech. The first number represents the amount of pre-game resources he can purchase, while the second number is the number of Force Points a Mage can aquire spells with, at a 1:1 point/cost ratio. A mage also gets the money (those focuses and fetishes cost bucks.) Q3. I just wanted to make sure that when buying skills at the creation of a character that the cost is one point per skill level. -->A3. Skills cost 1:1. no matter what the skill level, as long as you are starting from scratch. If you are improving your skills later, the poceedure is very different. Q4. How does the street samuari figure his essence? I figure he has around 7.1 off his essence, for a -1.1, or death. Here's how I got it: .2 or .4 Cybereyes w/ low light is either .2 or .4, but Im not sure if I need cyber replacement before I buy the low light option. 1 for Dermal Plating (2) 2 for Muscle Replacement (2) 0.2 for Retractable Hand Razors 0.5 for Smartgun link and 3 for Wired Reflexes (2). The total depending on weather the eyes are .2 or .4 is .9 or 1.1 over 6 which is dead. Is there some way to get a higher essence so he could do this? How should we fix him? -->A4. Remove one level of Muscle Replacement and he'll be fine. Q5. How come elves have no attribute penalties? I think at least a -1 Body would be appropriate. -->A5. None of the metahumans really have attribute penalties. If you add up all the +s and -s you'll see they net out to +3. Their penalties come from their Allergies, and the fact that you must allocate Priority 4 to be a Metahuman. Q6. The Lifestyle Yen amounts on P. 51 conflict with those on p. 148. -->A6. The chart on page 51 reflects the amount of *starting* credit your character has, and with that as a reference roughly what his Lifestyle/social class is. The p148 section refers to how much per *month* you must generically spend to maintain that lifestyle. We don't worry about normal day-to-day expenses as long as you make the monthly payments. Q9. InFirst Run, [p.207] Wiley's Attributes/Skills say to replace his Stealth with Firearms, but the Street Shaman Archetype has both, rated at 3. Also, it says to allocate his Fighter Spell package of 10pts. as we see fit. Can players do this with their Archetypes? -->A9. [p.207] Again I, having written Food Fight, fell victim to changes in the Archetypes that never filtered everywhere they were supposed to. Ignore it. No, players cannot do this with their starting characters, unless they create new ones using the proper rules. Q10. When buying skills for a beginning character using 1 pt for 1 level, how do you handle concentrations and specializations ...meaning how much are they? Example please? -->A10. When using Concentrations or Specializations you buy the cost of the General Skill and then apply the Conc. or Spec. modifier, no real extra cost. Example: I purchase Firearms at 5. (5 points). Now, I want to Concentrate in Pistols. Concentrations are at +1 over the General Skill, which means Pistols become a 6, while the General Skill itself drops by 1 to 4. Firearms = 4 Pistols= 6 If I specialized the result would be: Firearms= 3 Ares Predator= 7 The cost remains 5, you just juggle the Conc. and Spec. mods around. NONCOMBAT EQUIPMENT: Q1. Where do I find the Inner-eye clocks? Prices or whatever? -->A1. If I were Gamemaster (and I may yet be!!) I would allow a time- display automatic with a Retinal Display Link, and any amount of memory. Q2. What about a price list for common items? How much does a room at a hotel cost? Meal costs? Standard items? -->A2. The Equipment pages (135 - 141) do list costs for the equipment listed. Unfortunately, if we printed every type of gear imaginable there would be little room for anything else. Besides, what would we then put in the Tech Manual?? We cover lifestyle stuff in a very general fashion in the `Lifestyles of the Rich and Shadowy' section. Pages 148 - 149. That should answer some questions. Q3. Can I mix smart goggles with other kinds of goggles (Thurm/low light)? (I wanna have low-light smart goggles) -->A3. I see no reason why you can't mix different types of goggles. Go to it. Q4. [p.122] Shouldn't the Armored Vests and the Lined coat have concealments? -->A4. [p.122] Makes sense to me! Subtract its combined Ballistic and Impact ratings from 10, and that's the Target! Pretty neat, eh? (for a real quick fudge anyway....) Q5. [p.123] Shouldn't Dataline Taps, Signal Locators, and Voice masks have ratings? -->A5. [p.123] Sure! Dataline Tap is Rating: max 6, Weight: N/A, and Cost: 1,000 x rating. Signal Locators do not have a Rating for themselves, but I would rate them at 5 vs a Jammer. Voice Masks have a 2d6 Rating as listed since they are randomly distorting your voice, and you never now what you are going to get. Q6. [p.125] How about a sound amplification mod for CyberEars? -->A6. [p.125] Coming Soon. Q7. [p.126] And a magnification mod for CyberEyes? Also, how many minutes- hours can a camera record? -->A7. [p.126] See Above. How about .5 Mp for a single high-resolution image? Q10. How about some prices for services like 8 hrs bodyguard, Decker run vs. Code-Green system, spell casting, etc? -->A10. All those things you listed are basically What Can The Market Stand? (How much will you pay?) Q11. [p.139] The vidscreen display price is 500Y. -->A11. [p.139] Ooops! Thanx! Q12. [p.141] Aren't Hovercraft a little more difficult to manuver than wheeled vehicles?(But they move faster and over rougher terrains.) -->A12. [p.141] Actually, hovercraft are easier to manuever than wheeled vehicles, may move faster, and do not do well over rough terrain. Q13. If all you have is a datajack and some Mp's of memory, does that mean that it's really file cabinet in your head but with no way to access the memory except to download it to another source? -->A13. Yup, if you've only got the storage, you've got to download it somewhere to access it. If however you have a retinal display you can look at it yourself (assuming its pure information and not other weird stuff.) The file cabinet analogy is perfect, but think of it as computer disks in the file. They are there, but you need the computer to read them. SKILL USE and GENERAL PLAY:::: *************************** Note 1. THE RULES FOR DICE POOLS ARE SLIGHTLY IN ERROR!!! This is how they should read: A character's Dice Pool is renewed to full value at the beginning of any action, at which time all remaining dice from the previous action are lost. You do not renew your dice pool at the beginning of the Combat Turn, and you do get it in full on your last action. ************************** ************************** Note 2. The corrected Skill Web is in File #1471, Library 2. Download it. ************************** Q1. One thing that is confusing is The Rule of One. Does it mean that if you roll a one that one die is a failure, no matter what mods it has, or does it mean the entire roll is a failure? -->A1. As for the rule of One: only that die fails, not the whole attempt. The more ones you role, the worse you do, though there are really no rules covering just how bad. Q2. How much Karma is given out at the end of an adventure? -->A2. Check out page 160 for awarding Karma. Q3. [p.60] Vehicle Remote Ops Concentrations are not clear. Please clarify the sentence begining "If the category is the concentration..." -->A3. [p.60] Answers by example: Remote Vehicle Operation (Fixed-Rotor) is Concentration under Rotor Craft. Remote Vehicle Operation (Bell VR-50) would be the Specialization under the same skill. Does that answer your question? View the RVO skill as a Concentration, with an additional `What group of vehicles?' notation, and the Specialization being simply a specific skill. Q4. [p.61] Please imply which languages would be useful around Seattle, since this is obviously where beginning campaigns are to be based. -->A4. [p.61] Languages around Seattle? Good question. Boy Peterson is writing the Seattle book, so a lot of that stuff has been left to him. I generally would say the common ones; English, Spanish, and Japanese, with the various street-lingua skills being very much in evidence. Every city also has its ethnic communities, so you are bound to see almost anything. Q4b. [p. 61] I also suggest Salish since Seattle is surrounded by the Salish Nations...Hmmm... shades of John Wayne! :) -->A4b. [p.61] Yes! Indian Languages! (Sharp stick in the eye for me on that one...) Q5. [p.124] Will Electronics skill open a maglock? or (B/R)? -->A5. [p.124] Electronics skill can open a Maglock. I don't understand the Build/Repair intent. Q5b. [p.124] The only reason I mentioned Elec(B/R) is because that's the skill that requires tools to be used, and I thought you'd need tools to bypass a maglock. -->A5b. [p.124] If it makes sense that you can do something with a skill, do it. If the GM says no, try to convince him. If you don't, you don't. No problem, as long as he's consistent. Q6. [p.127] How does a character make skillsoft chips? Which skills apply? -->A6. [p.127] A character cannot make Skillsoft chips. Q7. [p.174ff] Do Critter powers such as Alienation, Fear, Compulsion, etc. requiresome kind of roll to affect targets, or are they automatic? -->A7. p.174ff] Our intention here is simple, though some would cry `cop-out' (and probably will, regardless). I personally hate games where the player's have memorized the stats of all the monsters and insist on quoting them to you as soon as the monster appears. In Shadowrun, the specifics of the Critter powers are up to the individual GM, and will/should vary slightly from animal type to type. Don't give them numbers, let them figure out the game effect for themselves. Q8. A couple places refer to an EBBM/EBM2 corp. What is it? what do they do? -->A8. EBM2 is European Business Magic (with a superscripted 2 after the final M). They do business magic stuff. Q9. Is there anyway to raise or restore Essence? The power gamer in me wants to know. Also the long term gamer in me would like to know as well. If there isn't, it would seem awfully hard for the cyber-using archtypes to add more cyber- junk once the character has been started. -->A9. At this time (and remember SR is a changing universe) there is no way to restore lost essence, other than Vampiric Essence Drain. There may be a way someday, but don't hold your breath. Bye the way, Essence loss is permanent. Q10. For Success Rolls, in the beginning of the book it says extra successes can be used to reduce time, but later it says divide time by the number of success. Clarify using extra successes in various situations, not just time reduction. -->A10. When we said reduce, we didn't mean subtract; we were using it in a non-specific sense. Extra success are usually used to increase an effect (when you are the aggressor) or reduce an effect (when you are the aggressee(?)). In combat they will increase the damage, or reduce it, depending on who is rolling. In the Matrix, they are the primary basis for whether you succeed or not. In Magic they'll determine how much damage a spell may do. Unfortunately, each area uses them a little differently, so exact specifics would be lengthy. The only time successes divide into anything is during a task (time reduction). MAGIC::: Q1. What services can Nature Spirits perform? (is there a section missing?) Their stats are missing from the Critters section also. -->A1. The Nature Spirit stuff will follow shortly in a seperate library file. Watch for it. Q2. Can Magic pools be used to resist drain? -->A2. Yes the Magic Pool can be used to resist drain. Q3. [p.78] How much does a Computer Media Hermetic Library Cost? -->A3. [p.78] See page 140 for the price of a Computer Media Hermetic Library (MP x100Y) Q3b. [p.78] OK, then how many MP's does a Hermetic Library Require? (This should have been the question in the first place, my fault.) -->A3b. [p.78] 1 Rating point requires 10 MP of memory. Q4. [p.83] Ritual Teams - "A Team member can 'spot' the target is Astral Space". Should this be "...from Astral Space" ? Or does the target also have to be Astral to be spotted by the forward observer? -->A4. [p.83] "A Team member can `spot' the target *from* Astral Space." is the way it should read. Ritual Magic is the only time something in Astral Space can affect something not in Astral Space. IE: A Mage in Astral Space cannot ambush his enemy who is not in Astral Space. The two must be in the same plane so that their.....um, sorry can't get into that right now (secret stuff about why/how magic works), but they must be on the same plane to affect each other. Ritual Teams have the time and power to penetrate from one to the other. Q5. [p.84] "Any magician who sees the target" Does 'seeing' here apply the same rules as 'seeing' targets for casting spells? Or are we going to see mages monitoring Security Cams? -->A5. [p.84] The intention is that if you see the Mage, you know he's the victim of a Sending. (It's a metaphysical perception thing.) If the `viewing' mage is astral, then its automatic. If you as a mage are the subject of a Sending, *you know it*!. Sense of impending doom, all that stuff. Q6. [p.92] Do mana bolts, darts, etc. really cause physical damage? If so, how do you cause stun damage? -->A6. [p.92] Only the Sleep spell does Fatigue damage. Q7. [p.95-96] What's the effective difference between Confusion and Stink? -->A7. [p.95-96] As near as I can tell, their really isn't one. It's a question of style: Confusion confuses, while Stink makes you retch. How bad do you hate the guy you're going to zap? Q8. [p.96] Why is Chaos an S2 and Control Actions an M2? -->A8. [p.96] It has to do with the way Magic works more than anything else. I believe Control Actions has a much greater chance of failure because of the Threshold required, so we're also sort of being nice....(don't get use to it.) :) Q9. [p.96] Speaking of Control Actions, will the target slash his own throat or frag his chummers without resisting the spell (i.e. Control Thoughts)? If so, it should Drain a lot more than Moderate. -->A9. [p.96] Additional action related saves are up to the GM, but the reason it is an M2 is because he can frag his friends (at +4 of course). Q10. [p.151] Magic Items - while the bonding table is present, the procedure to accomplish bonding is not. -->A10. [p.151] To bond an object to you for your use (if you don't do it, you can't use it!) you just expend the Karma. Real simple. Q11. [p.79] Does a +6 orichalcum dagger add +6 or +3 in Astral Combat? -->A11. [p.79] The dagger adds its full rating to the mage's Armed Combat skill when in Astral Space. [Please don't call it a +6 dagger... ;-( ] Q12. Suppose I cast Manabolt. (Staging 1). I throw in my entire Magic Pool and get 8 successes. Sucesses 1-4 stage the bolt up to Deadly. Does my opponent need to make 8 resistance successes or just 4? If he needs to make only 4, Manabolt is paradoxically not as good for a high power Mage as it's weaker cousins! Here's why: a spell with Staging 2 is not as likely to do deadly damage -- UNLESS you are fairly sure you are going to make a large number of successes. Consider an opponent with a fairly good Willpower (or better yet, one with dermal plating and armor against a Power- type spell...) He's going to get free successes -- about 4, say. It's all over for my poor Powerbolt spell . On the other hand, a "weaker" spell (say, staging 2) will give him some trouble. His automatic successes will not eliminate the full effect of such a spell-- as they would with the "more powerful" staging 1 spell. See a bug here? .-->A12 . Manabolt: Your problem lies in considering a Staging 2 spell to be weaker, it is not. The reason it is not is because the Mage throwing the spell can add some or all of his Magic Pool to his end of the Opposed Resistance Test (which could be mucho-dice). The odds are now greatly in his favor that he will acheive the successes neccessary to raise the damage level of the spell, while his opponent relying *soley* upon his Willpower dice (unless he's a Mage) has a far less likely chance to reduce the staging. There's an error in the rules that I believe was covered above: Only Dermal Armor protects against Physical Spells. Body Armor does *not*, at all. (Again, this has to do with the metaphysical way magic works. Think of it as microwaving someone. He cooks from the inside out.) MATRIX::::: Q1. About security codes/levels/ratings. In some places, the rules seem to imply that an entire grid or system is one color rating, and in others they imply that any node in a system can be any color. Which? ->A1. It is our intent that a Base Security Level (color) be chosen for the system, with added option of varying the Level from node to node if you choose. See Page 157, `Determine Security Codes' in the Quick Matrix Generation section. Unfortunately, when writing something that has a lot of situational considerations it's almost impossible to refer to each (let alone remember) when writing a specific sentance, lest said sentance take up the entire page. We try. Q2. The opposition for deckers in the matrix refers to a Corporate Decker Archetype, can you give us the stats on him? -->A2. The Corporate Decker Archetype is in the Shadowrun GM Screen pack (really the back of the adventure). Q3. When can the hacker pool be used, and when is it restored? -->A3. The Hacking Pool works just like every other pool. [See General Notes] Q4. [p.105] with MP's so cheap, am I correct in assuming that the Load/IO speeds are whats important in Decks? 20Y seems pretty cheap... -->A4. [p.105] I/O speed is *incredibly* important when you are download a 300mp file from the Fuchi mainframe and eight Corporate Deckers and a triad of Black Ice are rapidly homing in on you. 20Y is cheap, but it also means that 100Mp costs 2,000Y. It all adds up. Q5. [p.114] Can IC have a different rating than it's node? It all appears the same (ie. "a construct") until it is analyzed, correct? How about at Contact range? Can you discern the function of a specific node at contact range? -->A5. [p.114] IC can certainly have a different Rating than the node it's in. Remember, there are no Black Nodes (yet...) so it must be true. Until you analyze it correctly it looks like a harmless node. The functions of Nodes, ie: what it is, is currently discernable at Observation Range (if you can see it you recognize it), but what is lurking just beyond its prismatic walls is another story... Q5b. [p.114] Ok, at Sensor Range, it says you can perceive individual constructs for what they are. Does this mean Barrier appears as described under it's construct entry at this point? If not, please give me the slow and stupid version... -->A5b. [p.114] I think you are confusing System Constructs with IC. IC doesn't really have a construct, per se. It does have a Matrix form, but that form is variable. A System Construct almost always looks the same way. I say almost because some megacorps pay big bucks for custom architecture. At Observation Range you can identity what each of the connecting System Nodes are by looking at their construct. No matter how weird the construct gets, you will always be able to somehow tell the difference between say an I/O Port and a SPU. The only things you can't tell the difference between are CPUs and SPUs, from the outside. Inside you can, outside they look the same. (However, the megacorp may be stupid enough to make their CPU look unique. God bless `em.) At Sensor Range you can use your Sensor programs to probe a construct to learn more about it. The System Construct still resembles the System Construct, and certain IC effects will now be visible (like Barrior or Access) but you will never know Trapped Grey IC is present unless you can make an good enough Sensor roll (with enough successes) to detect it. A good GM will have you roll against the White IC and the Grey IC simultaneously, telling you the numbers for the White IC, but applying the dice results against the Grey IC target as well, without telling you. At Contact Range it's too late... ****************************** Note 1. To beat IC you need a certain number of successes based on the Level of the IC (Blue, Green, Orange, Red). This chart should instead read: Blue: 1 Green: 2 Orange: 3 Red: 4 ****************************** Q6. At what distance can you pass through a node without entering and/or activating its IC? Or do you just 'walk' in and out and only make Security Tests when trying to do something in the node? -->A6. You can't pass through a node without triggering its IC, even if you don't plan on doing anything (remember, it has no idea what your ultimate plans are, only what you are actually doing), unless you manage to Sleaze past, or some similar way of getting by. When you approach a Node you must first deal with the doorway IC, either Access or Barrior, if you slip past you're in. If not alarm sounds and stuff happens. If the White IC is trapped, then Grey IC activates and comes after you. If you do slip through then you can try and do stuff in the node, but don't screw up cause that will set off alarms. ****************************** Note 2. When an Internal Alert is sounded, all IC increase their rating by 50%, not +2. (ie: Red-8 become Red-12, etc.) ****************************** =========================================================================== Circa September 18, 1989 Article 8632 of rec.games.frp: >From: jennifer@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Jennifer Schlickbernd) Subject: SHADOWRUN: More Errata from FASA The following is a SYNOPSIS of further errata from FASA. These are answers given by Tom Dowd (co designer). I cannot post here the original questions without permission from either GEnie (fat chance) or each individual (don't have time to ask everyone). The reason I cannot post the actual text is because it would be a copyright violation unless I got permission from each individual posting. Please do not flame me about this, and send mail if you want further explanation. The rule of 6 applies to reaction. No comment on the rule of 1 applying to reaction. [compiler's note: this comment is later retracted....] Right now, there is no extra effect for extra successes in combat, but Tom likes the idea of +1 Force per Staging, or perhaps carrying it over to help the Drain Save. "In regular combat, if the guy has no armor then you've put the bullet between his eyes by raising it to deadly". Archetypes do not start with Karma. When you create a character you may purchase bonded magic items at only their nuyen cost. It is assumed you had the Karma and burned it acquiring them. [Editor's note: unlike Glenn, Carl, and Ken, I personally have no problem with this, they pay the money, they get the stuff. Why make them wait? The magic is not that strong to me. What's personally amusing is that all these guys play FH and they have a problem with *this* magic system? :) :)] When you enter a combat you automatically get your appropriate Pool, unless you are suprised, then you only get it on your first action [editor's note: that *appears to be* contradicted by the example on page 67, I'll try to let him know and get a new answer back SIGH] [A Shaman can conjure] as many spirits as he wishes, but I usually impose a +2 modifier for each additional summoning per currently summoned spirit or elemental. More than one of the same type in an area is fine, having conflicting spirits in an area might be problems. [from a previous discussion] If you want to upgrade your credstick you effectively have to buy a new one at the level you wish. Remember, each credstick is an identity with all the appropriate reference, cross-references, and back-history neccessary to make it appear as if it were a real identity. To have a false identity in place and have it be `tight' enough to stand up to `x' level of scrutiny, and then six-monthes later come back and say I now want to make it stand up to `z' level of scrutiny makes the folks who put together these things real miffed. Plus, it is alot of work to create the identity and to add on after the fact is as tough as doing a new one. Power Focuses: The rating of the Power Focus adds directly to the Magic Attribute, effectively raising it, but not really. This does allow you a higher Force rating break- point for when spells become dangerous. The rating of the power focus also adds directly to the Magic Pool for all uses. Compute Radius effects with the modified Magic Attribute. Only a chipjack can access a true, active, skillsoft. Credsticks: Buy the Rating to the previous level at the cost listed, and then continue to the rating you want. [this was an aside to another person] Ignore the line [in the book] about Astral pool working as your Defense Pool and everything works fine. Your Defense pool being your sorcery skill plus mods. [I assume this has to do with the fact that a magician in Astral combat can only attack with his sorcery skill, yet once he's attacked, the target can use his Astral Pool, which as written consists of Sorcery Skill, Magic Attribute and Astral Quickness Attribute, to counterattack. [page 90]. Still kinda confusing, but I'm afraid we will have to wait until another 'official' errata file is uploaded. [Assume the original question was about the Concealment rating for the various weapons]. The dice used are Intelligence dice (Perception). Add +2 to the concealment of any weapon or item with a concealment of 5 or better when you stick it under a long coat. Semi-Auto weapons will be able to fire 2-shots per Action as of the Street Samurai Handbook (a +10% cost modification does the job). Feel free to implement it now. ========================================================================== Circa September, 1989 Subject: FASA Errata continues (with an answer for Andrew Durston) Re Pools and Surprise: My answer should have read: As long as you are unaware of the attack or the attacker you do not have your Dodge or Defense Pool. In the case of surprise you would get your Pools back immediately after the resultion of the attack (since you know are aware of the attack and the attacker). Elemental Aid: [In regards to when a magician must spend an action to summon an already conjured elemental] Good question. I will check with the magical powers that be concerning that. My first guess is that Aid Sorcery and such requires no action, but physical service does. ******************************************** To Andrew: In response to your question regarding autofire recoil modifications it was our intention that the total modifiers be applied at once. Feel free however to use any other method that you choose. The reason for our use of that method is two-fold: simplicity and survivability. Shadowrun is not a skirmish mechanic and we make no claims that it is. We are trying to replicate a feel for an enviornment (in this case our cyberpunk/magic enviornment) and often we have choosen to do things to get the feel right rather than the reality. The reality of it is that in the real world the person with the larger, higher rate of fire weapon tends to be the winner. In the Shadowrun world many of the player-character's adversaries are armed with full-auto weapons. If we made them as deadly as they are in the real world (or as Aftermath portrays them) the life-expectancy of our characters would be very slight. The across- the-board negative autofire mod is a balance against the severity of those same autoweapons in normal combat. If you wish to play that one burst equals three bullets then feel free, however I think you'll find that playing one-bullet per burst means that your ammo last longer and you get the same effect. ;) The reason that the Power of the shot is increased by 1 is because we assume that when using autofire more than one round will be expended at an individual target. The bonus to Power is just a little push in the direction of simulating the effect of multiple round impact within the same general area. Obviously, the mechanic does not work if you spread you shots out with an end result of 1 bullet per target, but we felt that was less likely. Yes, guns in Shadowrun do not have the cyclic rate of real weapons, or other games. Again, it was a play balance decision. The current Soviet AK-74 has a cyclic rate of 650 rounds per minute, equivilent (roughly) to the 600 rpm of the UZI. At these rates the math is obvious: each weapon will punch out between ten and eleven rounds per second, and that means that you will empty the clip in two to three seconds. It also means that you can pump ten bullets per second into your target. This is reality, but I don't think it makes for a fun game. If you want absolute reality then I would make it three-bullets per burst, double the effective Power of the burst, and increase the damage code by 1 letter. This means that an assault rifle normally doing 5M3 damage will now do 10S3 damage. This is fine as long as it's outgoing fire, but how fine is it when it becomes incoming fire? And don't forget there could be an additional burst or two coming as well. Remember, what goes around, comes around. I apoligize if this sounds preachy (and an over-reaction) but I strongly believe that playability is a greater concern than reality. Absolute reality is pointless in a game since it defeats the purpose of it being a game. However, if reality is your thing feel free to make any and all changes you think are neccessary to make the game the way you want it. In that case, Recoil Option 3 is the best choice (first shot free with climbing incremental recoil). [stuff deleted] Tom Dowd ========================================================================== Shadowrun First Printing Errata and Rules Clarifications October 4, 1989 The following Questions and Answers were compiled by Steven Kramarsky from the Shadowrun Topic on the Game Bulletin board of GEnie. RULES CHANGES Rules Change 1 page 64: THE RULES FOR DICE POOLS ARE SLIGHTLY IN ERROR!!! This is how they should read: A character's Dice Pool is renewed to full value at the beginning of any action, at which time all remaining dice from the previous action are lost. You do not renew your dice pool at the beginning of the Combat Turn, and you do get it in full on your last action. Rules Change 2 page 81 and page 92: Armor vs. Magic Armor does not count as an Automatic Success against physical spells. Armor in fact has no effect against spells causing physical; damage. Rules Change 3 Page 115: Internal Alerts When an Internal Alert is sounded, all IC increase their rating by 50%, not +2. (ie: Red-8 become Red-12, etc.) Rules Change 4, Page 53: Archetype Generation When creating a magic-using Archetype, the Mage receieves the full nuyen value of his Tech allocation, except if he chooses Priority 3- Tech. At that time he only receives 150,000Y, instead of the 400,000Y listed. ARCHETYPES and RACES On page 53 under archetype creation and modification the rules state: "Notice that there is no reason to assign priority 1 or 2 to magic." yet, they also state: "the decker was designed with these priorities: Magic: 1; Attributes: 2; skills: 4; tech: 3; race: 0" This implies that you must use a 0,1,2,3,and,4 when assigning priorities. The first paragraph in this section states "To create an archetype, assign a priority from 0-4 etc. etc. The sum of the priorities must equal 10. That implies that it doesn't matter as long as it adds up to 10. Which is the case? Q>The line that "The sum of the priorties must equal 10." is plain wrong. You have only five priorities that you can assign: 0,1,2,3,and 4. No other options, and you must assign all of the numbers. Under the chart for priorities it states that the tech at priority four gets 1,000,00 nuyen. Is this all for the cyberware and other equipment as it states in the paragraph above? If so, what "other" equipment can be bought, or is there an unlimited selection? Is the money that is left over converted into the credstick money or is it lost? I felt that this made characters have all that they wanted at the beginning of the game? A decker could start off with a Fairlight Excalibur if he wanted. The 1 mil nuyen is for any equipment you want to buy. Any. It does NOT translate into credstick cash afterwards, however. The cash you start the game with, that is, the Lifestyle money that you roll for, not the money from your Tech allocation, can be used to buy off the shelf stuff, but not stuff that needs to be modified or cyberware. Yes the decker could start with a Farirlight Excalibur, but then he would have nothing to put in it, programs, utilities, etc. Plus no other stuff. Dumb Decker. (psst, hey kid ... . Buy A Real Lifestyle!) How does a starting Mage choose his spells? Each character must have a Priority assigned to Tech. The first number represents the amount of pre-game resources he can purchase, while the second number is the number of Force Points a Mage can aquire spells with, at a 1:1 point/cost ratio. A mage also gets the money (those focuses and fetishes cost bucks.) How does the Street Samuari figure his essence? I figure he has around 7.1 off his essence, for a -1.1, or dead, which is not a good way to start the game. Remove one level of Muscle Replacement, and lower his enhanced Strength and Quickness by one and he'll be fine. When buying skills for a beginning character using 1 pt for 1 level, how do you handle concentrations and specializations ... meaning how much are they? Example please? When using Concentrations or Specializations you buy the cost of the General Skill and then apply the Conc. or Spec. modifier, no real extra cost. Example: I purchase Firearms at 5. (5 points). Now, I want to Concentrate in Pistols. Concentrations are at +1 over the General Skill, which means Pistols become a 6, while the General Skill itself drops by 1 to 4. Firearms = 4 Pistols= 6 If I specialized the result would be: Firearms= 3 Ares Predator= 7 The cost remains 5, you just juggle the Conc. and Spec. mods around. SKILL USE and GENERAL PLAY One thing that is confusing is The Rule of One. Does it mean that if you roll a one that one die is a failure, no matter what mods it has, or does it mean the entire roll is a failure? As for the rule of One: only that die fails, not the whole attempt. The more ones you role, the worse you do, though there are really no rules covering just how bad. Vehicle Remote Ops Concentrations are not clear. Please clarify the sentence begining "If the category is the concentration..." Answers by example: Remote Vehicle Operation (Fixed-Rotor) is Concentration under Rotor Craft. Remote Vehicle Operation (Bell VR-50) would be the Specialization under the same skill. Does that answer your question? View the RVO skill as a Concentration, with an additional 'What group of vehicles?' notation, and the Specialization being simply a specific skill. Do Critter powers such as Alienation, Fear, Compulsion, etc. requiresome kind of roll to affect targets, or are they automatic? Our intention here is simple, though some would cry 'cop-out' (and probably will, regardless). We were trying to avoid the situation where the player's have memorized the stats of all the monsters and insist on quoting them to the GM as soon as the monster appears. In Shadowrun, the specifics of the Critter powers are up to the individual GM, and will/should vary slightly from animal type to type. Don't give them numbers, let them figure out the game effect for themselves. Is there anyway to raise or restore Essence? The power gamer in me wants to know. Also the long term gamer in me would like to know as well. If there isn't, it would seem awfully hard for the cyber-using archtypes to add more cyber-junk once the character has been started. Also what happens if the Essence drops below 0? At this time (and remember SR is a changing universe) there is no way to restore lost essence, other than Vampiric Essence Drain. There may be a way someday, but don't hold your breath. Bye the way, Essence loss is permanent A character who's Essence drops below 0 is dead. COMBAT What is the range for Shuriken? Use the same range charts for the Throwing Knife. What are the numbers for Hand Razors and Arm Spurs (Conc, Reach, Dmg)? The damage code for Hand Razors is (Str/2)L2 (effectively a knife that can't easily be taken away) and Spurs are (Str)M2 (a sword that can't be taken away). Both have a Reach of 0, the Razors a Concealability of 10 and the Spurs a 9 if retracted, and both are blatantly obvious (not concealable) if extended. How exactly do flechette rounds work? Flechette rounds work well against Ballistic Armor, but very poorly against Impact Armor. Halve the Ballistic Rating, double the Impact Rating, and use the higher of the two as the effective Armor Rating. How many shots in a burst? I found the rule on full auto fire and recoil, but as soon as my players wanted to use full auto, I was asked, "Now how many shots does that take?" Bad wording in there. In autofire you fire bullets not real bursts as we know them. So you would fire 3 bullets, or 4 bullets (3 or 4 seperate, individual to-hit rolls). Does the Ingram light MG use Gunnery or Firearms when fired? And how many shots does it have? The Ingram Valient uses Gunnery when mounted on something, and Firearms when carried Rambo-style. It is belt fed, and normally carried with a box of 100 shots. (see page 136, Ammunition chart) Which catagorys of weapons can a silencer be used on? A silencer can be mounted on any Pistol, SMG, or Bolt-Action rifle. It cannot be mounted on an Assault Rifle or any Heavy Weapon. Is there any limit to the # of weapons that one player can have smartgun adapters connected to? (e.g. can he have his SMG and his pistol linked) The number of weapons that can be tied into a smartgun link is a GM call. The game doesn't deal with multi-weapon fire (ambidextrous fire), but knowing a little about dealing with split-crosshairs (multiple crosshairs) negate the smartgun bonus if you allow p[layers to use it. Ambidextrous fire normally is a +2 modifier to the target number. Can you draw a sword/gun and attack in one action? I don't see why not but implications say otherwise. Is facing important? Can I spin and shoot someone behind me with no penalty? This would seem to be more difficult than just shooting. Drawing/shealthing a weapon is an action. As for the rest of the question: Shadowrun is a storytelling game system (though admittedly parts of it seem otherwise) and as such is not a tactical combat game. Situational modifiers like turning and shooting are situational and subject to the type of game the GM wants to run. Sometimes he should allow things like that, sometimes he shouldn't. It depends on what's happening. At what point exactly can an opponent intercept? Is it retroactive? Can I move within 1 square of an opponent then diagonally past him (thus out of his interception range)? If at any time you move within 1 meter or less of an opponent he has the option of immediately executing a free physical attack on you. You can dance and roll all you want, move to a meter or less and the Troll will tear your arms off. It's that simple Does using your Dodge Pool to negate all hits from a Monowhip cause the wielder to check for damage against himself? What constitutes a miss for these purposes isn't clear. It is our intention, nasty us, that if you miss your opponent for any reason, check for damage against yourself. Vehicles/Characters Onboard- How do you define a fixed weapon? Specifically, if a weapon is mounted on a Harley Scorpion, can the rider fire it while he's driving? If it is physcially attached to a vehicle, it's a fixed weapon. If you completely move its position, it's not. A character attempting to drive and shoot gets a +2 target modifier for trying to do too much at once. In Combat, do you use the first success when figuring damage increase? If you do ? A weapon code of 4M1 would automatically get boosted to S with any [one] successful hit. How about a Staging 2 or 3 weapon code? More examples, please. The first success is 'wasted' making the success. Only extra success are used to modify effects. So, you need 1 extra success to increase a Staging 1 weapon, 2 extra successes to increase a Staging 2 weapon, and so on. MAGIC Can Magic pools be used to resist drain? Yes the Magic Pool can be used to resist drain. What services can Nature Spirits perform? (is there a section missing?) Their stats are missing from the Critters section also. All of the Nature Spirit's stats are straight analogs to Elementals; Spirts of the Land same as Earth, Spirts of Man same as Fire, Spirts of Sky as Air and Spirts of Water as Water. Service is losely defined, but effectively can be considered to be one use of any of its powers or fulling of one simple request. How many MP's does a Hermetic Library Require? 1 Rating point requires 10 MP of memory. Ritual Teams - "A Team member can 'spot' the target is Astral Space". Should this be "from Astral Space"? Or does the target also have to be Astral to be spotted by the forward observer? A Team member can 'spot' the target *from* Astral Space." is the way it should read. Ritual Magic is the only time something in Astral Space can affect something not in Astral Space. Do mana bolts, darts, etc. really cause physical damage? If so, how do you cause stun damage? Only the Sleep spell does Fatigue damage. Do Spell Locks count toward the maximum number of magic items? Yes, and when the mage who cast them dies, they cease to work. Speaking of Control Actions, will the target slash his own throat or frag his chummers without resisting the spell (i.e. Control Thoughts)? If so, it should Drain a lot more than Moderate. Additional action related saves are up to the GM, but the reason it is an M2 is because he can frag his friends (at +4 of course). Magic Items - while the bonding table is present, the procedure to accomplish bonding is not. To bond an object to you for your use (if you don't do it, you can't use it!) you just expend the Karma. Real simple. Does a +6 orichalcum dagger add +6 or +3 in Astral Combat? The dagger adds its full rating to the mage's Armed Combat skill when in Astral Space. [Please don't call it a +6 dagger] MATRIX About security codes/levels/ratings. In some places, the rules seem to imply that an entire grid or system is one color rating, and in others they imply that any node in a system can be any color. Which? It is our intent that a Base Security Level (color) be chosen for the system, with added option of varying the Level from node to node if you choose. See Page 157, 'Determine Security Codes' in the Quick Matrix Generation section. Unfortunately, when writing something that has a lot of situational considerations it's almost impossible to refer to each (let alone remember) when writing a specific sentance, lest said sentance take up the entire page. We try. The opposition for deckers in the matrix refers to a Corporate Decker Archetype, can you give us the stats on him? The Corporate Decker Archetype is in the Shadowrun GM Screen pack. When can the hacker pool be restored? The Hacking Pool works just like every other pool. [See General Notes] Can IC have a different rating than it's node? It all appears the same (ie. a construct") until it is analyzed, correct? How about at Contact range? Can you discern the function of a specific node at contact range? IC can certainly have a different Rating than the node it's in. Remember, there are no Black Nodes (yet...) so it must be true. Until you analyze it correctly it looks like a harmless node. The functions of Nodes, ie: what it is, is currently discernable at Observation Range (if you can see it you recognize it), but what is lurking just beyond its prismatic walls is another story... Ok, at Sensor Range, it says you can perceive individual constructs for what they are. Does this mean Barrier appears as described under it's construct entry at this point? If not, please give me the slow and stupid versionI You are confusing System Constructs with IC. IC doesn't really have a construct, per se. It does have a Matrix form, but that form is variable. A System Construct almost always looks the same way. I say almost because some megacorps pay big bucks for custom architecture. At Observation Range you can identity what each of the connecting System Nodes are by looking at their construct. No matter how weird the construct gets, you will always be able to somehow tell the difference between say an I/O Port and a SPU. The only things you can't tell the difference between are CPUs and SPUs, from the outside. Inside you can, outside they look the same. (However, the megacorp may be stupid enough to make their CPU look unique. God bless 'em.) At Sensor Range you can use your Sensor programs to probe a construct to learn more about it. The System Construct still resembles the System Construct, and certain IC effects will now be visible (like Barrior or Access) but you will never know Trapped Grey IC is present unless you can make an good enough Sensor roll (with enough successes) to detect it. A good GM will have you roll against the White IC and the Grey IC simultaneously, telling you the numbers for the White IC, but applying the dice results against the Grey IC target as well, without telling you. At Contact Range it's too late... At what distance can you pass through a node without entering and/or activating its IC? Or do you just 'walk' in and out and only make Security Tests when trying to do something in the node? You can't pass through a node without triggering its IC, even if you don't plan on doing anything (remember, it has no idea what your ultimate plans are, only what you are actually doing), unless you manage to Sleaze past, or some similar way of getting by. When you approach a Node you must first deal with the doorway IC, either Access or Barrior, if you slip past you're in. If not alarm sounds and stuff happens. If the White IC is trapped, then Grey IC activates and comes after you. If you do slip through then you can try and do stuff in the node, but don't screw up cause that will set off alarms. EQUIPMENT What about a price list for common items? How much does a room at a hotel cost? Meal costs? Standard items? The Equipment pages (135 - 141) do list costs for the equipment listed. Unfortunately, if we printed every type of gear imaginable there would be little room for anything else. We cover lifestyle stuff in a very general fashion in the Lifestyles of the Rich and Shadowy section. Pages 148 - 149. That should answer some questions. Shouldn't the Armored Vests and the Lined coat have concealments? Makes sense to me! Subtract its combined Ballistic and Impact ratings from 10, and that's the Target! Pretty neat, eh? (for a real quick fudge anyway) Shouldn't Dataline Taps, Signal Locators, and Voice masks have ratings? Dataline Tap is Rating: max 6, Weight: N/A, and Cost: 1,000 x rating. Signal Locators do not have a Rating for themselves, but I would rate them at 5 vs a Jammer. Voice Masks have a 2d6 Rating as listed since they are randomly distorting your voice, and you never now what you are going to get. What is the price of the the vidscreen display The price is 500Y. If all you have is a datajack and some Mp's of memory, does that mean that it's really file cabinet in your head but with no way to access the memory except to download it to another source? Yup, if you've only got the storage, you've got to download it somewhere to access it. If however you have a retinal display you can look at it yourself (assuming its pure information and not other weird stuff.) The file cabinet analogy is perfect, but think of it as computer disks in the file. They are there, but you need the computer to read them. ========================================================================== SHADOWRUN SKILL WEB (Revision 10/1/89) Posted By TOM DOWD [FASA.SUPPORT] (c) 1989 FASA Corporation, used with permission. COMBAT SKILLS <-----0-------QUICKNESS | \____________ | | | PHYSICAL SKILLS <--0--BODY | | | | | 0-0-Stealth | | | | | | |-0-Athletics ^ | 0 | | |<---0--STRENGTH | |----0--Armed Combat---0---(B/R) | | \--Unarmed Combat | | | 0-0--0--Firearms-------0---(B/R) | | | \--Gunnery--------0---(B/R) ^ | | | | 0-----Projectiles----0---(B/R) | | \-----Throwing-------0---(B/R) | | | 0-------Demolitions----0---(B/R) | | | INTELLIGENCE--0->Sciences | | TECHNICAL SKILLS-----------------(--0--Physical Science-0 | | | | | | /-------------(-0-\ 0--| |--0--Computer---/---0--(B/R) | \-Computer Theory-0 | | \--Electronics----0--(B/R) | | | | | /-Cybertech------0 | 0--0--Biotech---\----0--(B/R) | / 0--/ \--------------(-0-/-0-Biology--------0 | | SOCIAL SKILLS <--0-<-CHARISMA | 0 | \ \--Military Theory-0-0 | 0--Leadership \ / | | \----------------Psychology-------0--|\ | | | | | /--Interrogation \-0--Sociology--------0 0 | |-0 | | | \--Negotiation 0---Magical Theory---------0 | | | | 0-----Etiquette (*) | WILLPOWER-0->MENTAL SKILLS | | | \-MAGICAL SKILLS | VEHICLE SKILLS <--0--REACTION | | 0--Conjuring | /--Ground Vehicles (B/R) | | | 0-Sorcery | | /--Hovercraft |-0-0---Bike | \--Car | _____________________________ | /--Boats (B/R) | When using a related skill,| | | |trace a path from the desired| |-0-0--Motorboat |skill to one in which the | | \--Sailboat |Character has a rating. You | 0 |need not trace the shortest | | /---Aircraft (B/R) |path. Count the number of | | | |circles you pass, with each | | | /-Winged |circle adding +2 to the | \--0-0--Rotor |Target Number | \-Vector Thrust | When defaulting to an | |Attribute, trace *from* the | |Attribute you want to the | |skill you are replicating | |_____________________________| ========================================================================== Circa October 2, 1989 From: jennifer@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Jennifer Schlickbernd) Newsgroups: rec.games.frp Subject: Yet more questions and answers from FASA for Shadowrun The following is YASOSRQA (Yet Another Set of Shadowrun Questions and Answers) from your good friend Tom Dowd. I sent him our questions in E-Mail, but I haven't gotten a response back, so I'm not sending anymore until I do. I also sent him Portal info, so hopefully he'll be joining us, and then he can do this himself. The following info was taken straight off the GEnie Games RT; I found out I can do that legally. ****************************************************************************** Q:Another question: according to the manual, you get +2 reaction for each level of Vehicle Rig Control. That means you could get the same reaction benefit (almost) as the equivalent in Wired Reflexes, and MUCH cheaper. Is that right? Also, don't you think Rig ought to be more expensive, considering that you get a lot more from it than Reflexes? A:Wired Reflexes not only give the +2 to Reaction per level, but an additional +1d6 per level to your initiative dice. If you have a vehicle control rig you only get the +1d6 per level when you are controlling a vehicle through your data jack. Because of that, Wired Reflexes is definitely your better choice if you intend to excel at non-vehicle combat. ****************************************************************************** Q1.If the weapon loads automatically (which in my opinion would be too much of an advantage), how many bolts does a crossbow hold? Finally, don't you think you made the heavy xbow just a little too powerful, considering how cheap it is in relation to other weapons of comparable (or less) firepower? 2. There is nothing in the manual on the subject of surprise (or it may be there, but I haven't found it yet). Suppose I'm sitting in a cozy spot with my handy sniper rifle, and the target comes into range. Now I draw a bead on him. Does this count as a combat turn? Do I have to roll initiative before I shoot? Say I roll and get 3 actions. Does this mean I get three shots at the target before he reacts (this being only the first combat turn and he doesn't know he's being attacked)? Similarly, suppose someone sneaks up from behind and starts blasting away at me, or a bunch of guards pops out of the doorway, guns blazing at the party? 3. I am not entirely clear on the resistance tests needed in relation to the use of plastic explosives. Can you give me a short but detailed example? 4. In regard to using Karma to increase attributes and skills. How many times can you use Karma to improve? Say I have 6 points of Karma and a charisma of 1. Can I use 2 points of Karma to increase it to 3? Or do I have to increase the charisma to 2, then to 3 (using 3 points of Karma in all)? Or do I have to wait until the end of the next adventure before I can increase charisma again? How about skills? Say I put up a point to learn Bike skill (which I didn't have before). Can I then put in another point to concentrate on two-wheelers? If I do that, do I get the +1 bonus for concentration (bringing two-wheel skill up to 2)? Or could I just put the 1 point in Bike and declare a concentration in two-wheeler? 5. I've been thinking about the autofire matter. Certainly autofire should be more powerful than a single shot. Suppose a burst was considered to be a standard number of bullets, say 4. Each bullet in the burst adds to the recoil factor, in this case +4 to target number (with reductions for compensators). There would be no penalty (except the +4) for additional bursts at the same target. If shooting at other targets (walking the fire), then each additional target would impose a +1 modifier. With multiple bullets in the burst, you have better justification for the increase in damage code. Note that two or more bursts at the same target would not up the damage code by more than one step; each burst would be resolved separately. A player could declare a "double burst" (ie 8 bullets) at a target, but that of course would increase the recoil penalty to +8 (before compensators). This also adds a certain amount of realism, since bursts are using more than one bullet, and after 5 bursts from an HK227, it's time for a new clip. A:The crossbow is indeed a most dangerous weapon (and a favored weapon of a certain street samurai of my acquaintance). Crossbows are single-shot weapons. I would say that it takes only one extra action to use a crossbow (we'll be nice and combine the draw, load, and cock moves into one action). Real crossbows are very, very dangerous things. We played it straight. (I could swear there was a section on surprise....grrr.) The way I work ambushes and surprises is that the target(s) get an appropriate Perception roll to notice the situation. If they do then they get to take an immediate action (in real gritty situations I have both the attacker and targets roll Perception saves and compare Successes). If the target(s) do not notice the attacker, then the he gets a free attack with his attack signifying an initiative roll. I've also used a system where the involved have made Opposed Resistance Tests against each other's Reaction Attribute. That seemed to work very nicely, but I've only done it once. Okay, a plastic explosive (3 kgs, Rating 6) detonates against a normal plywood wall (Rating 3). You have a Demolition score of 4. You roll your 4 dice against target of 4. At the same time, 3 dice (for the wall) are rolled against a rating of 6 (the explosive). You must generate 3 net extra successes to punch a hole through the wall. The wall's successes would be subtracted from your extra successes. How's that? You can spend as many points of Karma to up your skills/ attributes as high as you wish at any one time, assuming your GM allows such increases :). You must buy each Rating point separately. The +1 or +2 bonus for skills and concentrations applies only to creating Archetypes, not to buying skills with Karma. Everybody here is forgetting something real important in the game design/balance dept: Wired Reflexes. Do you want to be on the receiving end of a Street Samurai running at Initiative 25 and a full-auto assault rifle using the variant autofire rules you and the UseNet guest above proposed? Our Street Samurai, with the gawd-awful Init of 25 gets 4 actions. Assume he has a Firearms of 6, no even better, assume an Assault Rifle Concentration of 7. He can fire 8 shots per action in autofire. Over four turns he will churn out 32 bullets (that's at least one clip). Do you really want `realistic' autofire rules? I don't. Don't mean to be churlish, but please read my letter to the UseNet gent above, again. I'm very serious about playability vs reality. If you folks out there want the most realistic system for dealing with gunfire, here it is: 1) Determine if the attacker hits. (We will assume single- shot.) 2) Use your favorite system's hit location table to determine where the shot hits. 3) Incapacitate that area. If it was an arm, the arm is useless. If it was a leg, the leg is useless. A torso, abdomen, or head hit and the entire target is useless. Each limb shot has a 10% chance of resulting in death, while each torso or abdomen shot has a 40%. A head hit has a 60% chance. If you are using heavy caliber rounds double the percentages. Use your favorite bleeding rules to figure out how long it is until you die, if you haven't already. 4) Repeat as necessary until everybody is dead. Isn't the fact that the average Street Samurai can fire seven bullets into someone in Autofire enough??? Why must we obliterate our adversary in one shot? Not all NPCs are bad shots folks, you should expect them to be just as good as you are. All autofire is multiple rounds. Why is it hard to take if we resolve it on a single round basis as opposed to groups of three?? Using our rules, the average Street Samurai will fire 6 shots. Why can't this be 2 bursts??? Ug. Apologies for the cynicism or which-ever attitude/emotion is up there. It's been a rough day. ****************************************************************************** q1. Do Mages start the game with items bonded, if not why? q2. Can you use knowledge softs without skillwires? q3. Why is Medic Library so cheap? q4. Can a mage lend dice to a vehicle in the case of area effects (example in a current battle, where about everything that could happen is happening, a fireball got thrown by one of their mages, one of our mages lent 10 dice for protective measures, we figured since it was an area of effect spell, the dice lent would affect everyone, but we're not sure). q5. Does the armor on a car give auto successes like body armor, how does it work against heavy weapons, or does it work the same, what about against spells? What if the spell is targeted inside the car (presuming the mage can see in? q6. How can a person effect an elemental and vice versa? Current thought is if the elemental is on the physical plane currently, then certain items might affect them but we're not sure. q7. Can you cast spells from astral space to normal space? q8. Spell Damage to car? q9. Is target number whatever is going against for vehicle? q10. How much damage would a missile do to buildings? q11. Body & Armor ratings for houses/buildings? q12. Can magic items be used by other magicians by bonding them? q13. What would happen with 1 kilo of rating 12 demo do exploding in hallway with people? A rough idea so that we can see if we're in the ballpark. q14. Can you fire all items of a vehicle at one target in a action, what if target is straight ahead? What if a rigger is doing the firing? (We know it says a rigger can only fire one gun per action, but the disagreement is caused by the fact that modern day helicopters can fire all their weapons at the same time at a target [my counterpoint is that only if straight ahead and it only seems like all weapons are being fired at the same time]). [Most of these questions are being caused by a certain firefight we are in currently, the only thing missing so far is hover vehicles and boats, almost everything that could happen is, otherwise] A1. Mages start the game with bonded items. We assume that they have spent what ever Karma they have earned to this point to purchase them. A2. Any skillsoft that replicates the performance of a skill requires a skillwire system. A datasoft, which is pure information, no skill, only requires a datajack. A3. A `Medic' library? (My brain is dead, where is this in the rules?) A4. A mage can use his dice pool to help out inanimate objects as well as people. The dice he uses work for whom or whatever he declares (ain't we nice. :) ) A5. Against heavy weapons the car's armor would give auto successes. Light weapons won't penetrate generally, so it doesn't matter. If you are hitting a car with armor 1 I would say that light weapons might work. Even area effect spells target individually (lots of individually for large area spells) so nothing provides protection for anything else. A car is no help against a spell thrown at a visible occupant. A6. If the elemental is manifested it can be hurt physically. Use only appropriate attack forms however. (Guns won't hurt an air elemental, etc.) A7. You can only cast spells from Astral Space to normal space through Ritual Sorcery, and then only non-combat spells. A8. Use the normal damage, but remember to use the appropriate value for the resistance test. See page 81. A9. I don't understand the question Bryan, can you rephrase? A10. They do the damage as listed, but against the Cover and Barrier rules found on page 67. A11. Again, see page 67. A12. Another Mage can use a magic item by spending the Karma for it. At that point the first mage no longer has power over it. A13. Everybody would go splat? Seriously, it would explode like a grenade doing 6d3 to the people around, and act like a Rating 12 explosive to the walls around them. If it's sitting in the middle of the hallway it might no affect the walls, but it certainly would the floor it's sitting on. Remember, 1 kilo of explosive only has a demolition radius of 1 meter. It does have an anti-personnel blast radius of 6 however. A14. A modern helicopter has some linked weapons, but what it really does is fire its weapons in rapid-fire succession. A Rigger does this with his increased reaction/init due to his Vehicle Control Rig. ****************************************************************************** Q1. Costs for the different types of Ice, for the security ratings of nodes? Q2. Costs for slaving doors and windows to the SPU? Q2a. Ie. what are building costs, essentially? Q3. Hermetic Circle for a house or similar type, what cost, ingredients, is it just a cast a spell. Q4. Example: If I use a spell lock on a fighter type to raise a stat, can you trace a line from the mage to the fighter, or is it just one way? Q5. If I use a spell focus with +4 intelligence and I have a 4 Int, can I now carry 8 magic items? Q6. How long can you sustain a spell for? Minutes, hours, days, etc. Q7. How long can you keep an elemental? Q8. How long can you keep an elemental bound to you? What happens if you go to sleep? Q9. Why isn't there a Ninja Archetype? Q10. Why is the damage from weather, fire, freezing, things falling on you, etc.. Q11. Will you be reflecting on artificial intelligence? Q12. What about a coldsuit to offset heat signatures? Q13. What is needed to evade missiles? Q14. Can we make Sun or Moon shamans, if so what are the limits? Q15. How come your ammo weighs so much (I was just reading through one of Jane's books on infantry weapons for some interesting ideas)? How come you don't have a little more variety of rounds too (including some of the sort of new ones, like the duplex rounds)? I not necessarily expecting a full answer to this one though. Q16. Some of our characters have tried introducing a new skill called assassination, the idea is that when using the skill you increase the efficacy of the weapon or attack. Methods we have tried so far is to increase the power level of the weapon, increase the dice rolled by a comparable number, possibly increasing the staging. Their are drawbacks (but personally I feel that it should be disallowed, at least for now), basically your not currently allowed to move during the turn and you need to concentrate on the target(s). A1: IC Costs are far beyond the ability of characters to pay. Why would your character's want them? The memory requirements for a system to used them are incredible. A2: Again, why the interest in this. This is all corp territory. Seriously, let me know why you're interested in this stuff. A2a: Millions. (Bad answer I know, but again: Why?) A3. See page 78. It's just a spell and some drawing stuff. A4. The astral connection runs both ways. A5. No, the limit remains at 4 since magic is only a temporary increase. A6. You can sustain a spell for as long as you are willing to endure the additional target modifier. A7 & 8. An elemental remains as long as it has services owed to you. If you go to sleep the elemental still cannot leave or attack you. It is at you command. A9. A Ninja Archetype? There are plenty of Street Samurai and such that'll tell you they are Ninjas, but they're not. At this point you can't be a Ninja, because they're not what you think they are. More to come. A10. Environmental rules will follow shortly. They're being trashed around even as we speak. (It's true! Would I lie to you??) A11. You may someday hear about artificial intelligence, but not for awhile. A12. A cold suit will show up in the eventual Company Man's Guide To Corporate Survival, or similar sourcebook. A13. You mean like dodging arrows? That's what you have a dodge pool for. :) A14. Official `other' shamans and such will show up in the Shaman supplement. Until then you are free to do what-ever you want. (You always are.) A15. Our rounds are heavier? We give all ammo a generic weight since we don't break everything down into calibers. So, some of our round may be heavier, and some may be lighter. You'll see the new Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot round in the Street Samurai Handbook. A16. An assassination skill??? I don't understand this at all. There are many different weapon skills used for assassination. What I think your people are trying to replicate is the amount of time that a hitter has sitting on his rooftop lining up his shot. That's called surprise and it means his target doesn't have a Dodge Pool. It also means his target number is probably low too. ****************************************************************************** Other stuff: ... Truthfully, however, it is too late in the game now to expect major refits of the system. As holes get pointed out (or fallen into) we'll try and clean them up, or at least deal with them in supplements. Case in point: The Matrix. When FastJack's Guide to The Matrix hits the stands those decker's'll be cryin' for the good old days. My logic behind all this is that the corps are actually right now having a h*ll of a time with deckers and are frantically looking at new and deadlier forms of IC. Some of them will be appearing soon. ========================================================================== Circa October 5, 1989 Article 11087 of rec.games.frp: >From: jennifer@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Jennifer Schlickbernd) Subject: Shadowrun-Important clarification regarding ELEMENTALS Yes, it's me again, I would normally include new stuff in one of my summaries, but I thought this was important enough for a single posting. Paul Hume (the designer of the Shadowrun magic system) states that the "gimmick" for elementals is [and I quote] 1) Conjure the spirit in "downtime" and bind it. 2) When you need it (or think you will) you call it to attend. If you don't use it, you've used up a service. GM can decide when the spirit gets fed up - certainly it would not hang around, all summoned up with nowhere to go, from one adventure to the next [end of quote]. I think this puts to rest any problems with magicians walking around with elementals all the time. This also at least implies that the spirits the shaman conjures do not need to be summoned again, they are always there, as long as it's not sunrise or sunset yet. It's also going to make the magician really think before he/she calls up that elemental..if she/he doesn't use it, he's wasted a service, yet if she/he calls it up and nothing happens for awhile, it could disapear, still wasting a service. I'd probably rule that air elementals didn't stay around too long (flighty sort) while water elementals (being harder to conjure) might have more patience. I'd also of course not have the elemental just up and go, he'd give some warning. At any rate, I'm very pleased with this response, I feel it balances the magician better against the shaman. ========================================================================== Circa October 13, 1989 From: jennifer@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Jennifer Schlickbernd) Subject: Re: Shadowrun To All: Here's the latest word on some Shadowrun stuff. Hot off the presses, a rules change and a preview of some neat toys and stuff from the Street Samurai Catalog, due out by December (we hope). New Weapons Include:::: Ares Monofilament Sword Wallacher Combat Axe Tiffani Self-Defender (H-o Pistol) Ares Light-Fire (L.Pistol) Ares Predator II (H.Pistol) Browning Ultra-Power (HP) Colt Manhunter (HP) Ceska Black Scorpian (Machine Pistol) Mossberg CMDT Combat Gun (Shotgun) Walther WA 2100 Sniper rifle Ingram Smartgun [tm] (Model 20t) (SMG) STEYR AUG-CSL WEAPON SYSTEM COLT M22A2 ASSAULT RIFLE Ares Man-Portable Light Machine Gun GE 'Vindicator' MiniGun Stoner-Ares M107 GPHMG (HMG) Long-Range SAM (missile) Ares Man-Portable Laser System Narcojet Weapons Armor-Piercing, Discarding SABOT Rounds Improved Personal Explosives (IPE grenades) Improved Capacity Clips and Magazines New Firepower [tm] Heavy Pistol ammo Form-Fitted Body Armor Ares Armored Riot Control Vehicle Cyberware: Advanced Communication Gear Sound/Sight Amplification Video Link Sense Link Cyberguns Boosted Reflexes Skill Hardwires Plus Rules for: Damaging Cyberware Repairing Cyberware Upgrading Cyberware Buying Custom Cyberware An article on Street Smarts by William "Wedge" Harkwood, plus Phony IDs/Credsticks, Racial Steet Samurai Varients, and a new Street Fighter Character Record Sheet. ************************************************ ASSAULT CANNON AMMUNITION -Use the high-stability HDX superplast explosive compound. Heat-stable explosive rounds for your favorite assault cannon. Available in individual rounds (10 pack) or belts of 100. Weight Cost AC Ammo 1.25 450 Belt 100 12.5 4,250 BELTED AMMUNITION -Buy in bulk at a reduced cost! Regular ammunition isn't the only ammo available in belted 100s. Check the list below for your favorite. Also available belted in 200s, 500s and 1000 round links. 100 belt 200 belt 500 belt 1000 belt Wt. Cost Wt. Cost Wt. Cost Wt. Cost Regular Ammo 5 175 10 325 25 800 50 1,575 Explosive 7.5 450 15 850 37.5 2,100 75 4,000 Flechette 5 850 10 1,600 25 3,800 50 7,500 Gel Rounds 3 250 6 475 15 1,050 30 2,000 APDS Rounds 2.5 650 5 1,250 12.5 3,100 25 6,000 Assault Cannon 12.5 4,250 25 8,350 62.5 19,500 125 37,000 >>>>[Yea, just what I want for Christmas: a 1000-round belt of explosive ammo. And let everybody know you're giving it too me, it'll keep the neighbors quiet.]<<<< -The Neon Samurai <16:31:31/11-29-50> ********************************************************** NEW RULE CHANGE!!! (Official!!!) When creating a new character, a magic-using archetype choosing Priority 3 for Tech only gets 150,000Y, not 400,000Y if he also takes the Force Points. *********************************************************** Tom ========================================================================== Circa November 2, 1989. The following is magical background material that was left out of the final version of Shadowrun. This is copyright 1989 by FASA Corporation and Paul Hume. Reprinted with permission. **************************************************************************** Magic is the art and science of causing change in conformity with the Will. "Magic in Theory and Practice" Aleister Crowley, 1922 MAGIC IN THE WORLD OF SHADOWRUN "...The exact moment of the Awakening is shrouded in uncertainty. We only know that during the chaotic opening decades of this century, certain individuals began to exhibit various abilities which had long been relegated to the realm of fantasy... At the same time, we observe the phenomenon of Unexplained Genetic Expression, which produced the so-called Awakened, the "elves," dwarves," and other human mutations given their fanciful designations by the popular press. This preliminary paper will demonstrate a significant correlation between the level of bioactive substances in the environment - industrial wastes, military bioagents, various radioactive contaminants - and the increased number of these mutations. It will, I trust, begin the long-overdue process of establishing a firm theoretical basis for magic, strictly so-called, in the realm of the physical sciences..." Introduction to 'Observations Towards a Theory of Somatic Mutation and Psionic Developments' Dr. Randall Grant, AAAS Conference, 2038. "...In the days of lost Atlantis these arts were known and practiced, before the passing of magic from their world sent the mighty continent beneath the waves. Through the dark times that followed, the secret knowledge was sheltered in hidden cloisters of arcane learning, against the time of need. During those ages, humanity incurred the most evil karma, forgetting that this planet is our Mother. Where we should have nurtured Her who bore us, we raped away Her forests, slaughtered our brethren, the beasts, fouled the very air and seas of this, our Mother Gaea. By the grace of the Mother, as humanity trembled on the brink of self-extinction, the magical forces returned to full flowing power, enlightening those whose spirits were evolved to receive the knowledge. The faerie folk returned to lead humanity into a better way, and the wise ones of the Tribes took up the leadership that should have been theirs. This knowledge transcends the petty science of that dying and deadly age of technology, as the wisdom of the parent transcends the perceptions of a day old infant. And it can be yours friends, by diligent study and purity of purpose, as taught by this school, a humble receptacle of the wisdom that was old when the shining spires of Atlantis were not yet raised to hail the morning sun. This complimentary text, 'The Path of True Magic,' is yours in return for a free will offering of 10 nuyen ..." Transcript of a broadcast of "The Hour of the Magi" (VIDSAT-31) Speaker: Doctor-Magus Arnold Ledbetter "...Hells bells, chummer, I don't know! NOBODY bleeding knows when magic started working again, or why! Why magic? Why anything!? Its THERE - who slotting cares WHY? Anyone whose brain isn't completely ossified can find indications that some kind of magic has been around for centuries. You have to dig into a lot of old records, and sift through a barking horrible mound of drek to come up with the facts, but they're there, right enough. All through the late 20th, you can see the trend building up, with all the looneytunes who used to PLAY at magic suddenly WORKING at it, and getting results too. All RIGHT, chummer, you want a theory, I'll give you a theory. Figure some kind of very long cycle in the planetary magnetic field - what? No, not centuries, dimboy, I said LONG! Fraggit, I don't know - millennia at least. When the field is cycling low, no magic, or at least none that counts. Let the field cycle high, and you start getting working magic again. There, that took about two minutes to come up with and I'll lay you nuyen to nutri-soy that its at least as solid as the drek some of these other idiots are laying out. Heck, I might even toss it into my next book, just to stir up the ant heap a little." Portion of an interview with sociologist Mullins Chadwick, which never did get broadcast What follows is excerpted from a NuWorld Datanews Net article by science editor Janet Orlov. Date: July, 2039. We know magic works. \_Why_/ does it work? \_When_/ did it start? \_How_/ does it function? All questions without good answers. Sometime during the big troubles in the 'Teens, people started doing magic. Maybe there was magic before, but if so, it was unreliable. Now it worked every time you did it right. During those years of chaos, magic and magicians became part of modern life. Some scientists have trouble dealing with the fact of magic. While they can't deny that there is \_something_/ that does all these things, they don't believe that it is "magic." There's been a lot of research to try and fit magic into their scientific model of reality - a fat lot of good it's done them, though, since magic appears to break most of the laws of physics, as they apply to observed phenomena in the normal continuum: what you and I call "the real world." The answer, according to many, is that magic uses a form of energy that just is not relevant to the physical laws of our universe. The descriptive mathematics of the theoretical physicist do not apply. Magic has been defined as the art and science of causing change in conformity with the will. The keywords are "art and science." Magic operates under strict laws within its own frame of reference, and therefore may be considered a science. However, it is also an art because it can only work when driven by a living mind. Like all arts, magic uses emotion and willpower to open the doors of consciousness. Thus, you have to be a poet as well as a mathematician to deal with theoretical thaumaturgy. A touch of sheer insanity seems to help, as well. While this remains a bitter pill for the more materialistic researchers to swallow, it appears to be the reason why our laboratories have no "magicometers." It is why no spellcasting programs run on our most sophisticated computers, why no batteries of magical energy power our cars or appliances. The only machine that can handle magic remains the living mind of a magician. The most widely accepted theory of magic is stated in the report of the CalTech research team headed by Drs. Akiko Kano and Arthur White-Eagle. Popularly known as the astral space Theory, this paper (which won its authors the first Nobel Prize in Metaphysics in 2036) runs to over 200 pages of abstruse mathematics and equally obscure philosophy. In popular terms, there is a parallel universe (astral space) which is similar to our own universe. However, the laws governing astral space are radically different. The theory posits, for instance, that entropy in astral space is reversed. So, a tiny amount of energy in astral space can generate a tremendous amount of force. The small amount of neural energy used by a magician in casting a fireball releases a huge blast of astral energy into our universe. The practical effect of this is that when a magician casts a spell, the formal ritual is just a kind of tuning mechanism. It links the magician's trained consciousness with the target of the spell, using astral space to connect the two. While the spell is being cast, the magician is connected to the target, as if they were both parts of one whole. Neuroscans of magicians during the spell casting process do show tiny, but measurable, changes in brain chemistry and the electrical charges of the neurons in certain portions of the brain. The bulk of brain cells displaying these changes are in areas of the brain whose purpose was unknown before the Awakening. Non-magicians, called "mundanes" by magicians when they don't think anyone is listening, display no organized brain activity in these areas. The entire central nervous system is pulsing with energy in working magicians, and is supposed to be linked to the actual direction of the spell energy. Tests seem to proves that enormous amounts of energy are burned up on a cellular level. This explains how magic can knock magicians out with fatigue, or even kill them. It also explains the loss of magical ability due to age, illness, and injury. Dr. Etienne Dumas at the Sorbonne is well known for his remark that "magicians are born and not made." Dumas was the head of the Sorbonne study of 2027, which determined that less than 1% of the world population was able to use magical energy, and mapped the basic genetic pattern which lets magicians do so. Since the magician's whole body is involved in channeling astral energy, it seems that the magician loses power if parts of it are lost, or if damaged cells do not match his basic DNA pattern exactly. This also explains the well-known aversion of magicians to cybernetic replacements. It will be years, perhaps centuries, before the ramifications of the Kano-White-Eagle theory and the theories of other researchers are fully understood. It may well be that magic will forever lie beyond the scope of physical science. While rumors of AI "sorcerers" in secret laboratories are rampant, there is certainly no evidence to support such speculation. That staple of children's adventure shows, the golem computer which wields science and sorcery to battle the hero, remains, for now at least, such stuff as dreams are made of. ========================================================================== Circa November 2, 1989 From: jennifer@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Jennifer Schlickbernd) Subject: Re: Shadowrun, rec.games.frp The following is copyright 1989 by Paul Hume and FASA Corporation, reprinted with permission. ******************************************************************************* DESIGNING MAGIC LEARNING A SPELL Before you can cast a spell, you have to learn it! You can learn it from a magician who already knows it, or you do it on your own \_if_/ you have the Spell Formula. Teachers Teachers cost big time nuyen. While he is coaching you one-on-one, for as long as it takes to learn the spell, your teacher can't do anything else. If he quits before you learn it, all the time you spent until then is wasted. Teachers charge what the market will bear, but a typical price is 1000$ times the Force of the spell, plus living expenses. \_Teaching_/ a spell does not take the Magical Power that casting it does. As long as the magician is still functional (at least 1 point of Power left) he can teach spells at any Force the student wants. On Your Own A \_spell formula_/ is the symbolic theory for the spell and is designed using Magical Theory skill. To learn on your own, you must have a copy of the spell formula that goes with his tradition. A shaman needs a medicine item like a painting, carving, set of runes, or medicine bag. A mage needs a written text. Once you have the formula, you can learn a spell at any Force you want, with any Force modifiers. If you've gotten hold of a spell formula for another tradition, you'll need to translate it before you can use it. Translation is a task like design but you don't need inspiration and you get a -2 to your target number. Getting It Down A shaman learning a new spell spends his time chanting, dancing, and carrying on. Shamans are party dudes! This whips up the kind of emotional peak shamans need to contact the spell energy. The shaman has to study in a Medicine Lodge with a rating at least equal to the Force of the spell. A mage spends his time in meditation, intense study, and formal ritual. He needs peace and quiet, and a library of Sorcery with a rating at least equal to the Force of the spell. Shamans and mages make bad neighbors and worse roommates. The differences between 'hermetic nerds' and 'party shamans'are a running gag on the popular trivid series \_The Odd Coven._/ Learning a spell is an unopposed skill test. You get your dice from Sorcery \_and_/ Magical Theory skills. The target number is the desired Force. Shamans get their totem modifier. A mage may get extra dice if his aided by an Elemental appropriate to the spell's purpose category. All target number modifiers for damage to the magician apply, as do distractions for maintaining spells, bad conditions, and so on. Learning a spell requires a base number of days equal to the desired Force. Divide this by the number of successes. Minimum time is 1 day. Spell learning costs Karma equal to the desired Force. If \_no_/ successes are rolled, the learning attempt fails. The magician has wasted his time, a number of days equal to Force. Fortunately for him, failed study does not cost Karma, but teachers will still expect to be paid. Never stiff a man who can throw a Fireball, know what I mean? FORCE MODIFIERS When learning a spell, you can accept limitations on its use. These \_Force modifiers_/ allow you to cast spells with Force higher than your Power without pushing. Once a Force modifier is chosen for a spell, it applies to that spell permanently. If you want to know the spell with different options, you must learn it all over again. Then you will now know both versions of the spell. Force modifiers are never part of the spell formula. A magician can use the same formula to learn a spell with a variety of modifiers. EXAMPLE: Neddy has a Power of 6 and he wants to be able to toss a killer Fireball spell. He accepts the Exclusive Spell modifier (-2) and learns the spell at Force 6. Neddy will be able to cast his Fireball spell at Force 8 without pushing, but he also has to abide by all the restrictions of using an Exclusive spell. Neddy's top of the line fireball affects the target with Force 8. He faces a Drain with Force 8. At least it ain't lethal. ******* end example Exclusive Spell (-2 Force Modifier) Restrictions: 1) You can't maintain any other spells when casting this one. 2) You can't cast any other spells in the same action as this one. 3) You can't cast any other spells while maintaining this one. 4) You can't use another magical skill while maintaining this spell. Fetish Required Reuseable Fetish -1 Force modifier or Expendable Fetish -2 Force modifier Restrictions: 1) You need some physical object to cast the spell, choosing what it is when you learn the spell. This prop is a \_fetish._/ The term comes from anthropology and means a ritual item used in "primitive" magic. Primitive to those mundane chummers, maybe. 2) You cannot cast the spell without the fetish. 3) You must have a fetish in your hand to use it. Digging it out of a pocket or pouch takes time. If you are wearing the fetish, you only need to touch it with your hand. 4) The fetish goes with a specific spell. You can't use the same fetish for different spells. Fetishes may be bought from a talismonger. His prices depend on the spell's purpose category. Since you can't substitute one from another, don't lie to your fetish supplier! A \_reusable_/ fetish is a durable object that you can use again and again. An \_expendable_/ fetish is used up or destroyed when the spell is cast - in other words, the spell needs ammo. Shamanic Fetishes Reusable: drums, rattles, knives, tomahawks, spears, carved wooden or bone wands, native jewelry, carvings, masks, and medicine bag, pouches filled with a complex mixture of minerals, herbs, and animal parts. Expendable: small packets of herbs, curiously shaped twigs, tufts of feathers or animal hair, small stones or crystals, crude miniature weapons, bits of bone, shells, and so on. Hermetic Fetishes Reusable: ornate wands, usually jewelled, rings, amulets and other jewelry, complex illuminated scrolls covered with diagrams. Expendable: small parchment talismans, chemical mixtures or potions, crystals or stones, painted charms, and so on. DESIGNING A SPELL FORMULA A magician can design the formula for any spell that is published in the game rules, so he can learn it without finding, and paying, a teacher. However, this does constitute a copyright violation in many jurisdictions. He can also design brand new spells, too. First the player must design the spell description according to the guidelines given in this appendix. Next, the gamemaster must approve the new spell. Then, the magician can design the Spell Formula. Until the gamemaster approves the spell design, your magician does not have the "inspiration" he needs to design the formula. Even a mundane can design a Spell Formula! Theoretical occultists are not common, but they do exist, rather like pure mathematicians whose work supports the physical sciences. Doing the Design Design is an unopposed Magical Theory test. A shaman must work in a Medicine Lodge with a rating at least equal to his Magical Theory skill. A mage or non-magician must have a Magical Theory library with a rating at least equal his skill. If the Lodge/Library rating is too low, you use \_its_/ rating instead of your own. The target number depends on the Wound Category of the spell's Drain code. Wound Category T# L 4 M 6 S 8 D 10 The time required is a number of days equal to the target number times 2. Like most tasks, the time may be reduced by successes. Minimum time is 1 day. If \_no_/ successes are rolled, the design process fails and the full time has been wasted. Try, try again. Once you've got it, what do you do with a spell formula? Well, you can sell it to individual customers, publish it yourself, or sell to a publisher (for profit or as 'public domain' magic). If you publish, you may put it in shamanic or hermetic form, or both. Of course, you just might want to learn the spell yourself. DESIGNING SPELLS FROM SCRATCH Designing a new spell is never going to be a by-the-numbers deal. Here are guidelines to help you calculate Drain and get a feel for the scale of spells. Hey, chummer. Magic is an \_art_/, after all! CAUTION!!! These numbers cannot take the place of a sense of balance in designing new spells. A Hurricane spell, even with a D6 Drain, would let the magician off lightly in return for devastating the countryside. The mechanics of such tremendous magics as the Ghost Dance, with which the Tribes attacked the old United States, are on another scale entirely from the Sorcery in the basic rules. Spell design should be an artistic endeavor, not an exercise in number-crunching to get a tactial nuclear spell for L1 drain. That is not what magic is about. We have tried to adhere closely to the guidelines, but even some of the basic spells in the game had to be written on a "that looks good" basis. \_Increase (Attribute)_/ is an example. DRAIN Drain is defined by a wound category. The first thing you need to do is figure out or choose a \_base_/ Drain. What the Drain means depends on the purpose category of the spell and, in general terms, how powerful the spell will be. Once you've got the base, you apply modifiers to get the final Drain code for the spell. \_Combat Spells:_/ The wound category for a Combat spell's Drain depends on the staging for the damage it will do. Damage Staging Base Drain 1 S1. 2 M1 3 L1 \_Detection Spells:_/ Base Drain depends on what is being detected and how much information the spell gathers. Spells can simply detect something. Is the target of the spell there or not? They can also analyze the target, returning facts about it to the caster. Analysis can tell you something simple Detect Life simply detects, but Detect Enemy analyzes the intentions of a living being. In addition, Detection spells can provide hypersenses. Type Base Drain Simply Detect living beings or magical energy L1 Analyze the above or detect non-living things M1 Analyze non-living things S1 Minor sensory enhancement (improves physical sense) L1 Major sensory enhancement M1 New sense (ESP, etc.) S1 \_Health Spells:_/ Health spells are, along with Manipulations, difficult spells to quantify. There are many variables to consider. Spells that treat diseases, poisons, and drugs have a maximum wound level that they can treat successfully. A spell that heals Light wounds cannot help someone with a Moderate wounds at all. Spells that treat diseases, poisons, and drugs also have this kind of maximum: a spell that can cure a Moderate infection will not affect a Deadly one. Spells that cause afflictions base their Drain on the severity of the condition: a spell that gives someone a Severe disease does Severe Drain. Health spells that benefit a character are intended to be unopposed. Thus, there is no benefit in reducing Drain for requiring a voluntary subject. Harmful Health spells, which would normally be opposed, increase the staging of the Drain. Health spells do \_not_/ get a Drain reduction for requiring that you touch the target. In fact, Health spells that can be cast at a distance actually \_increase_/ their Drain category. Affects Base Drain L damage L1 M damage M1 S damage S1 D damage D1 \_Illusion Spells:_/ Base Drain for Illusions depends on the senses affected by the illusion and its overall believability. Base Drain Obvious Illusion: L1 Single Sense Illusion: M1 Full Sensory Illusion: S1 \_Manipulation Spells:_/ Drain depends on an arbitrary measurement of the overall change in reality caused by the spell. The gamemaster has the final say in setting this. Manipulations that do lasting damage count as Drastic Manipulations. Change Base Drain Minor mental (heighten emotion, suggestion) L1 Major mental (mind control, amnesia) L2 Minor physical changes (appearance) M1 Major physical changes (attribute change, shape change) M2 Minor environmental changes (light, darkness, humidity) S1 Major environmental changes (weather, destruction, gravity) S2. Drain Modifiers Modifiers to Wound Category shift to Drain's Modification wound category Spell has area effect +1 Spell only affects caster -1 Spell requires that you touch the target (does not apply to Health spells) -1 Spell only works on voluntary subject. (Subject must know spell is directed at him \_and_/ must not resist) -1 (does not apply to beneficial Health spells) Drastic effects (spell has lasting impact on environment, is a non-Combat Spell that does damage, or has massive effects on environment, or has lots of side effects) +1 Limited target (spell only affects a specific race, species, or class of target. -1 Reduce wound category of damage caused (minimum is L) -1 \_Combat spells only_/ Spell does non-lethal damage -1 \_Health spells only_/ Spell that does \_not_/ require touching the subject +1 Spell that treats/causes symptoms only -1 If modifiers to the Wound Category call for a result worse than D, the modifier increases the Staging instead. Modifiers to Staging shift to Drain's Modification staging Drastic effects (same as above) +1 Physical spells +1 (default spell type is Mana spell) Healing spell that can be applied anytime +1 Health spell that is harmful +1 EXAMPLES OF DESIGN FROM THE GRIMOIRE \_Fireball, a combat spell Drain: D3 Type: Physical Duration: Instant_/ The spell staging is selected to be 2, which has a base drain of M1. It is an area spell, which increases the wound category to S. It is a Physical spell, which increases the Staging to 2. The extra special effect of igniting flammables counts as Drastic Effects which increases both the wound category and staging. Final Drain is D3. \_Detect (Life Form) Drain: L1 Type: Mana Duration: Instant_/ The spell simply detects living beings, which has a base Drain of L1. It is an Area spell, but this is offset by the Limited Target option, so the final Drain remains L1. \_Clairvoyance, a detection spell Drain: M1 Type: Mana Duration: Maintainable_/ The spell grants a hypersense, which has a base Drain of S1. However, it only affects the magician who casts it, which reduces the wound category to M1. ========================================================================== Circa November 14, 1989 Article 11292 of rec.games.frp: >From: jennifer@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Jennifer Schlickbernd) Subject: More stuff from FASA for Shadowrun (and correction of a previous post) I made a big mistake in one of my previous postings. I could have sworn I saw Tom Dowd say the rule of 6 applies to reaction, but now he's saying it doesn't and Paul agrees with that. So, the rule of 6 does not apply to reaction as previously reported. Quite frankly, I like the rule of 6 applying to reaction myself, I may keep using it. The text IS correct on page 81 under Resistance Test where it says that "The Target Number [for the resistance test] is the casting magician's Sorcery Skill Rating, with no modifiers". The GM screen is wrong. This to me is BS, BUT Paul Hume wants magic users to be very powerful against Mundanes. I explained to him that that really doesn't make much sense in a historical perspective (no society has ever not had a way to deal with people who can hurt/kill/maim people because of a special talent or attribute) but to him, there are so few magic users that society hasn't had a chance to react yet. I fully intend to use the Force of the spell as the test for the resistance roll, to give some balance to the magic users. Paul is now leaning toward using starting spell points as karma for bonding magic items. He admitted that the allowing of bonded magic items at the start of the game was a kludge, and that it was not really thought out. What actually happened is that you are supposed to use the Enchantment skill at the beginning of the game to make the magic items, but the Enchantment skill got taken out of the rules at the last second, and they didn't have a chance to come up with other alternatives. I guess we will see the Enchantment skill when the magic book comes out, but that won't be until spring I think. If you'd like to write for Shadowrun, contact Tom Dowd c/o FASA Corp., PO Box 6930, Chicago, IL 60680 for info. There are writer's guidelines for adventures. I'll ask about how obvious spells are supposed to be, and also try to get some astral combat questions answered. I'll post these things when I find out. ========================================================================== Circa December 19, 1989 The following is an (updated) schedule/description of upcoming Shadowrun products uploaded on CompuServe's RPGames forum. Reprinted with permission. ***************************************************************** (From Paul) The following are excerpts from Tom Dowd's Samurai Street Catalog - drool chummers and start saving up the nuyen... ARES AMERICA, WINTER 2050 CATALOG If you are a regular subscriber you'll notice quite a lot of difference between our last catalog and the one you're looking at.Firstly, you'll notice that we've streamlined quite a bit, and that's a direct result of your input. We've taken your suggestions and prestige weapons and equipment. Within these pages you will not find a single item that has not been subjected to, and passed,the most rigorous tests in the business. >From now on when you buy from Ares America, you'll have the security of knowing that you are buying the In addition to that, we've now instituted the best money- back guarantee in the warranty. No questions asked.On top of that you still get our phenomenal 60 days or 1,000 rounds warranty on Light Firearms and 30 days or 10,000 rounds on Heavy Firearms. The best in the business, because you demanded it. -Nathaniel Naidich, Director Of Sales, Ares America Ares America is a division of Ares Arms, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ares Macrotechnology Incorporated, Detriot Michigan. >>>>>>[Can you believe that guarantee drek,chummers?! My buddy Wedge burned at least 20 thousand rounds in his Valliant the first week he had it! Now admittedly, he's a bit intense.... What we've got here is, as you can tell, the current Ares catalog. Normally only available to subscribers and the economically gifted, I've posted it here on the public databoard for all to see. Nothing super-special in this part,but just wait until you get to Section II! (That's the section you can only get if you are a licensed police or security organization, with a valid credit rating.) The first part'll get you drooling, but Section Two will leave you wriggling on the floor. This posted copy isn't protected, so feel free to comment as you like. All you jokers who read this: beware!I've got no control over who says what in this file once it's up, so don't take anything you read as being chip-truth. But then again, you never know....]<<<<<<< -FastJack <14:34:27 10-07-50 THE REDSTONE SURVIVAL KNIFE -The perfect knife for that urban jungle you call home! -Not only the wickedest blade on the market, but comes with a small compass, micro-lighter, night-glow stick, and trauma patch in the handle! Manufactured to UCAS Marine specifications, the Redstone Survival Knife has finally been made available to the general public. Without a doubt, the finest quality workmanship on the market today. Conceal Reach Damage Weight Cost Survival Knife 6 - (Str)L3 .75 450 ARES PREDATOR II -The Premier Heavy Pistol now better than ever! -More Power! More Shots! Integral Smartgun Link! How can we make the best heavy pistol in the world even better? That's the question Ares Arms asked their R&D department, and the Predator II is the result. Redesigned to fire the state-of-the- art Firepower[tm] heavy pistol ammunition, the Predator now packs more punch than you would believe possible. Combine that with the new 15 shot clip and the intergral Ares Smartgun Link, and you've got a new contender for man's best friend. Type Conceal. Ammo Damage Weight Cost Predator II heavy 4 15 (clip) 6M2 2.5 550 >>>>[Admittedly this weapon is an excellent piece of craftsmanship, but you need not purchase it to get the benefit of the new Firepower[tm] ammunition. Take which-ever heavy pistol you own down to your local weaponsmith and have him rebore and refit the weapon to take the new ammunition. It will probably cost you only approximately 60 - 80 nuyen. Pick up one of the new heavy pistol clips sold later in the catalog and you will practically have yourself a new gun.]<<<< -Dodger <10:06:04/12-23-50> MOSSBERG CMDT COMBAT GUN -Rated best new weapon Desert Wars '47! -The combat shotgun of militaries world-wide! Maybe the best combat shotgun on the market today. The Mossberg CMDT Combat Gun is a proven winner in every climate, in nearly every situation imaginable. Comes with intergal laser sight, and the model SM variant has an internal smartgun link. Type Conceal. Ammo Damage Weight Cost Mossberg CMDT Shotgun 2 8 (clip) 5M3 4.25 1,400 CMDT/SM Shotgun 2 8 (clip) 5M3 4.25 1,900 CENTURIAN INDUSTRIES LASER CRESCENT AXE -The industrial strength welding laser personal combat weapon! -Safer than a monowhip, and just as deadly. Here's one for Mr. Ripley: designed by Centurian Industries for use against certain types of Awakened Critters, the Laser Crescent Axe mounts a self-focusing, multi-track welding laser into a crescent-shaped mounting. The crescent shape keeps the weapon from snagging, and the laser insures there's nothing left to snag on! Literally on the cutting edge of technology. Concealability Reach Damage Weight Cost Laser Axe 2 +1 (Str/2)S2 5.2 3,500 >>>>[The first time he saw somebody with one of these things my buddy Wedge figured there had to be a blade or at least a monoline in there, so he parried with his forearm plates, and was very surprised. He's not all that unhappy,though. Claims to like his cyberarm much better than the original. Like I've said, Wedge's a bit intense.]<<<< -FastJack <19:32:43/11-22-50> >>>>[Friend of mine had the opportunity to field test this weapon, and while the effect is extreme, the odds of knocking the laser out of alignment are pretty high. When he had it, the axe seemed to be down for repairs more often than it was working properly. Seemed that every third of fourth hit on armor knocked it out.]<<<< -Metalic Marauder <23:32:45/11-25-50> AND NOW - FROM THE CREAMY DREAMY SECTION 2 OF THIS PUPPY (Paul) >>>>>[For those of you who don't know, the Ares AmericaSecurity Catalog is a difficult publication to get. When asked, the Ares sales and public relations departments will hem and haw about it's existence. It's available only tolicensed law enforcement, military, and securityorganizations with a valid, current credit rating. Don'task me what they're trying to hide, but... Feel free to post and comment as you like.]<<<<<<< -FastJack <14:39:02/10-07-50> >>>>>[One of you out there downloaded this file from the data net just after I posted it and attempted to sell itoff to Ares' major competitor. You know who you are, andyour deck is mine for the taking. Remember that the next time you're in some cold, dark corner of the Matrix.]<<<< -FastJack <23:43:43/10-07-50> GENERAL ELECTRIC `VINDICATOR' MINIGUN -Electric driven, multiple rotating-barrel firepower. Based on the popular GE M134 hardpoint minigun design, theVindicator is a man-portable weapon of astounding firepower.High-density batteries provide the power needed to spin thesix rotating barrels, allowing the weapon to fire at anincredible rate. The multiple-rotating barrel design prevents barrel-warping due to excess heat, and the isolatedammo-feed reduces the dangers of cook-offs, misfires, andmiss-feeds. The weapon accepts ammo from either an external100+ round belt, or a smaller 50 round clip. Not for theweak-kneed. Type Conceal. Ammo Damage Weight Cost Vindicator LMG NA Belt 5S3 15 12,500 50 (clip) This weapon has a permanent rate of fire of 10 roundsper action. This rate cannot be adjusted. All recoil modifications are as per normal. >>>>>[Be warned, I recently had the opportunity to beon a run where this weapon is used. Once the rotatingbarrels are activated, you've only got about 10 minutes offire time before the batteries geek. It also takes a fewseconds {1 turn} for the barrels to get up to speed. Oncethey're there, however, it's major hosing time. Rock andRoll!]<<<<< -FastJack (04:23:19/11-23-50) >>>>>[Believe me, the electric whir of a Vindicator isextremely distinctive. Even more distinctive is the soundof it in use. It's not something you easily forget.]<<<<< -The Neon Samurai (23:43:05/12-08-50) AND - THE ONE YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR: ARES ARMS MAN-PORTABLE LASER -Finally, an efficient man-portable laser system! Ares Arms is proud to announce the first man-portable lasersystem with the ability to deliver enough joules of energyto truly make a difference. Built from seven different Arespatents, the Man-Portable Laser (MP-LAS) is the future ofsecurity and law-enforcement weaponry. Designed to be fielded by a single carrier, unlike someother inefficient two-man team weapons, the MP-LAS is aself-contained system capable of repeated, on- demand,delivery of high-powered coherent light. It's light weightmakes it perfect for quick-response, high-threat situations.Powerful enough to effect even armored vehicles, the MP-LASis a multi-purpose weapon perfectly suited for the varietyof volatile, not to mention unpredictable, situations thatthe modern professional finds himself in.The MP-LAS is powered by six high-performancepeak-discharge soft-batteries mounted along each of thethighs. These batteries, as a unit, are good for twentypulses of energy. The entire power system is designed foreasy replacement, and each battery package can be rechargedfor later use. Meet the future head-on: arm up with Ares and theMan-Portable Laser system. Conceal Shots Damage Weight Cost MP-LAS NA 20* 12M8** 30 2,500,000 *per battery package. (6 batteries required) ** 6L4 damage against vehicles Use the Sniper Rifle Range Table for determining RangeSteps. Decrease the Power of the weapon by 2 (-2) for eachStep after Short (ie: Medium (-2), Long (-4), Extreme (-6)).Ballistic Armor has no effect against the MP-LAS, and ImpactArmor is only one- half (round-down) effective. Up to threeshot may be fired per action. There is no recoil penalty. [ART NOTE:: The MP-LAS requires a full harnessconsisting of a light/thin backpack attached to twopower-regulator packs (also relatively thin) located on theleft and right front chest areas. There is a heavy segmentedbelt to which is attached a line of three battery-packsalong each outer thigh area (soft-packs held tight againstthe thigh). The weapon itself is linked to the back packvia heavy cable and resembles a short missile launcherrather than a conventional assault rifle.) >>>>[Can you believe this?? This isn't a security orlaw- enforcement weapon, this is a *military* weapon. Whatthe hell is it doing in a `security' catalog? Can we expectnext years catalog to include Seven-7 nerve gas,high-explosive, multiple high- velocity fragmentingclaymore-style mines, and low- yield sub-tactical nukes?Let's get some chip-truth here chummers: has Ares lost it orare they callously displaying the same blatant disregard for the `have-nots' as virtually every other security agency inexistence? I have always considered Knight-Errant to be oneof the more respectable security/enforcement agencies, butafter reading this document I see that I have been horribly mistaken.]<<<<< -The Neon Samurai <01:17:24/12-09-50> >>>>[Hey Neon, (lite)n up will ya? Har-har!]<<<< -Findler-Man <12:32:20/12-13-50> >>>>[I understand Winter Systems out of Manhattan isworking on a man-portable continuous (C-Beam) laser thatmight reach production within a year. Allegedly theprototype is able to maintain it's beam for up tothree-minutes at time and project up to two-hundredfeet.]<<<< -Hatchetman <21:45:03/12-17-50> >>>>[Don't believe anything, rather everything, you read.]<<<< -Nightfire <04:05:48/12-18-50> AND - FOR THE CYBER-JUNKIES OUT THERE - SOME NEW MODS EAR AMPLIFICATION This headware enhancement system boosts the sensitivityof either natural or cybernetic hearing systems. This is afull- spectrum increase, not the mid-range (average voicefrequencies) only increase common with some systems. Theeffect of the amplification system is similar to that of ashotgun microphone with the user hearing as if he wasten-times closer to the sound source. The Damperenhancement is greatly recommended with all EarAmplification systems. Essence Loss Cost Ear Amplification .2 3,5004 >>>>[Beware gunshots in small rooms. Ruins yourday.]<<<< -Findler-Man <19:31:42/12-19-50> BOOSTED REFLEXES This one-time electro-chemical treatment andmodification increases the body's natural reflexes withoutthe need for cybernetic response amplifiers and neuralenhancement circuitry. The recipient of Boosted Reflexes,however, can /never/ receiving either Wired Reflexes or aVehicle Control Rig. Boosted Reflexes is also notupgradeable. Essence Loss React Init Cost Boosted `Flexes 1 .5 - +1d6 25,0004 2 1.25 +1 +1d6 65,0004 3 2.8 +2 +2d6 140,0004 >>>>[Hey, has anybody out there been able to figure outwhy a bunch of deckers are commenting on stuff we'll neverhave any use for? Just thought I'd ask.]<<<< -The Neon Samurai <15:31:32/12-19-50> >>>>[Because somebody has to?]<<<< -FastJack <23:12:31/12-21-50> >>>>[Because we're really vile, malicious,back-stabbing, rumour mongers at heart?]<<<< -Findler-Man <03:42:45/12-23-50> >>>>[I'll buy that.]<<<< -NightFire <14:31:42/12-24-50> >>>>[You would, you get paid enough. Oh and hey,MerryChristmas.]<<<<< -FastJack <02:33:16/12-25-50> ALL THIS AND MORE - INCLUDING: Rules for damage to cyberwear in combat (and how to fix it). Rules for custom cyber (the Chiba stuff man - hope the credstik is bulging, though), and more bang-bang, vehicles, armor, and other fun stuff. ========================================================================== Circa December 20, 1989 Reprinted from GEnie with permission. The following material is copyright 1989 FASA Corporation, all rights reserved. ************************************************************************ MATRIX OPTIONAL RULE---------------------> -----------------------------------------> For some time now, Deckers have ruled the information universe with barely any challenge. In response, the megacorporations have spent billions of nuyen in an effort to thwart them. Until now, little progress has been made. Recently, however, Winter Systems of New York has released version 0.7 of SCARM (Self-Correcting Architecture Modification) for installation in CPUs. What SCARM does is send out continuous "reset/revaluate/update" commands to the various IC systems under its control. In doing so SCARM induces each piece of IC to either reset completely (reverting from a crashed state) or revaluate the protocol of signals that have recently passed through it's node. In game turns, what this means is that Crashed IC will begin to 'revitalize' itself at a rate equal to the Rating of the system in wound levels per turn. So, a Blaster IC system in a RED-5 system would regain 5 wound levels per turn, until it was completely 'healed'. As soon as at least 1 wound level has been restored the IC becomes operational again. It also means that any IC that has been Sleazed will recheck the legitimacy of the signals that have passed through it. Ideally, the proceedure in this instance would be to reroll the full Opposed skill test, without the aid of the decker's Hacking Pool since he is not present to utilize it. This, however, would be unreasonable, especially if many IC systems have been sleazed. Additionally, technically the proceedure is now out of the hands of the Decker as the IC is doing internal checks that he can't affect. To simulate this entire process, everyturn after a SCARM roll 2d6. If the number rolled is equal to the total number of 'sleazed' nodes unsuppresed the Decker has been discovered and an Internal Alert sounds. Any further problems will result in an External Alert. Ah, but what do I mean by 'unsurpressed'?? Firstly, SCARMs do not occur every turn; there is only a 2 in 6 chance per turn that a SCARM reset notice will be sent from the CPU (check on the systems first action of that turn). So the decker really doesn't have to worry until the SCARM is sent. But what can he do before hand, you ask? Well, any IC system that the decker has either Sleazed or defeated in combat can be 'surpressed'. To do so, the decker allocates 1 die from his Hacking Pool to 'leave behind' to surpress that IC. (This reflects him allocating his own time and energy to continually watching that IC and making adjustements so it stays in the state he last left it.) A decker may recall 1 or more, including all of the dice he allocated for surpression at any time, but in doing so he makes that IC susceptible to SCARM. Once removed, the surpression die may not be reallocated. Only 1 die may be allocated to any single IC. In the case of 'hidden' and 'triggered' IC, if the Grey or Black IC is untriggered, only the triggering White IC need be surpressed. If the IC is already active it must be surpressed individually. SCARM must be installed in the CPU that controls a particular node. SCARM can be deactivated in the CPU through a normal system command, however, installation of SCARM usually also means a marked upgrade in the security IC present in the CPU for exactly that reason. The information above is (c) 1989 by FASA Corporation and used with permission. ---------------------------------------------> OK folks, how's this?? Comments? Tom (BTW: I included the (c) notice above since it is rules and such that we will be using and I need to indicate that we are using it and are the source so as to protect that same copyright.) AMMENDMENT TO THE ABOVE:::::: (gee, that didn't take me long....) When I say that a Hacking Pool die must be allocated, it is effectively permenantly allocated untilt the decker travels through a SAN, is dumped, or withdraws them. When ever the Hacking Pool is refreshed, the decker must effectively 'reallocate' those dice, reducing his Hacking Pool by the amount currently being used for surpression.. Dice may be recalled at any time anda are immediately usable. ========================================================================== Circa December 20, 1989 This is downloaded from CompuServe's RPGames forum. Copyright 1989 by FASA Corporation and Paul Hume, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Send comments to 71061.744@compuserve.com. ******************************************************************************* MINOR ADEPTS To create an Archetype who is a full-fledged magician, you must make Magic his highest priority, assigning it a priority of 4 (or 3 if the Archetype is a metahuman), just like it says on p. 53 of Shadowrun. But there are people who can do some magic, only in a limited area. These are called minor adepts. To create an Archetype who is a minor adept, you must make Magic his second priority (or third if he is metahuman). That is, a human minor adept would assign Magic a priority of 3, and a metahuman minor adept would assign Magic a priority of 2. Like regular magicians, minor adepts have a Magic attribute and can lose points from that attribute by suffering Essence loss or Deadly wounds. They can also gain Magic through Initiation. MAGICAL MINOR ADEPTS A magical minor adept, also known simply as a minor adept, can use one magical skill. Period. If he is a Sorceror, his magical work is limited to Sorcery - he can't use Conjuring or Enchanting to do magic. A typical minor adept will be a Sorceror. Oh, there are Conjurors and Enchanters too but most minor adepts prefer Sorcery - it is versatile and powerful. Whatever skill the minor adept picks, he follows the usual rules for using it. Magical minor adepts have to pick a tradition, like regular magicians. They follow the rules for that tradition in areas like spell learning, etc. Shamans get totem advantages, and so on. Minor adepts can use Focuses like any other magician. The main thing you lose if you create a minor adept, though is Astral Space. A minor adept cannot use Astral Perception or Projection at all! ASTRAL ADEPTS The astral adept is kind of the opposite of the minor adept. He can use Astral Perception and Projection like any other magician - but that is the only magic he can do! He can study and use magical skills and even spells that apply to Astral Space, but cannot use them on the physical plane to save his soul (not even then). SHAMANIC ADEPTS A different form of minor adept is the shamanic adept. As the name implies, a shamanic adept must be a shaman. This adept can only cast spells or conjure spirits for which he receives a totem advantage. For example, a shamanic adept of the Bear totem can only cast Health Spells and can only conjure Forest Spirits. Shamanic adepts do receive totem modifiers for these activities. They are subject to all the usual requirements of their totem. As you might guess, you cannot be a shamanic adept in a totem like Coyote or Raven, who receive no advantages, nor is it possible in a totem like Bat, where all spells receive a modifier based on time, or place, rather than Purpose. Shamanic adepts have the full use of their Sorcery and Conjuring skills in defensive magic, unlike specialized adepts, and are capable of Astral Sensing and Astral Projection. PHYSICAL MINOR ADEPTS A physical minor adept, also simply called a physical adept, dedicates his Magic to improving his body and its abilities. Powers attributed to legendary martial artists, warriors of the shamanic peoples, berserkers, and the like, suggest that this phenomenon existed to some extent before the Awakening. The first publicly documented physical adept in modern times was Francis Daniels, a engineering PhD and 4th dan ki-aikido black belt residing in the Washington DC metroplex. Much of our understanding of the powers of the physical adept are due to Daniels' research, conducted prior to his death in 2030, during the intense rioting in the Washington area that attended the collapse of the US government. If you are creating a character who is a physical adept, you distribute his or her Magic attribute to "buy" various improvements in the Physical Attributes, Reaction, the senses, and so on. Physical adepts may also "buy" automatic successes in certain Physical skills: most forms of hand-to-hand combat, Stealth, etc. These may be used to enhance any uses of the skill in a single action - they are refreshed at the same time that dice pools refresh. No improvement costing greater than 6 points is possible in any one area unless the adept is an initiate. Focuses do not give physical adepts any help at all. Like the specialized adept, the physical adept can't use Astral Perception or Astral Projection, though he can "buy" Astral Perception as one of his powers. Value Magic Improved Cost Physical Attribute .5 per +1 increase Reaction: +1 & +1 Initiative Die 1 +2 & +2 Initiative Dice 2 +3 & +3 Initiative Dice 4 +4 & +4 Initiative Dice 6 Physical Sensory Improvement: Low Light or Thermographic Vision, High or Low Frequency Hearing, Enhanced Smell or Taste, etc. Cost: .25 per Improvement Astral Vision: The adept can see things present in Astral Space: spirits, invisible beings, etc. but cannot see auras or analyze what he sees. A limited form of Astral Perception. Cost: 1 Astral Perception: The adept has the regular Astral Perception ability. Cost: 2 Automatic Successes: Athletic Skills .5 per success Combat Skills: Armed Combat 1 per success Unarmed Combat .5 per success Stealth Skills .5 per success Pain Resistance: Every point bought allows the adept to ignore or reduce the effects of filling in that many boxes on either of his Condition Monitors, as far as target number increases and initiative loss go. The adept is still incapacitated (knocked out or dying) when all ten boxes on a Condition Monitor are filled in but he does not get hit with the full penalties for wounds that don't take him down. The rating covers both Physical and Mental Condition Monitors equally - that is, if you have a rating of 4, you subtract 4 from the number of boxes that are filled in on either Monitor to see what kinds of penalties you get. Example: An adept buys 4 "boxes" of Pain Resistance. He takes a Light Wound (fill in one box on the Physical Condition Monitor). Subtract 4 from 1. The result is less than zero, so he does NOT get the +1 target number/-1 Initiative penalty. He now gets hit with a Severe Wound, filling in 5 more boxes, so he has 6 boxes filled in on the Condition Monitor. 6-4 is 2. He gets the penalty for a Light Wound. The poor geek gets zapped with a Sleep spell, but it only does Moderate Stun - fill in 3 boxes on the Mental Monitor. 3-4 is less than 0, so this has no effect on him. The rating in Pain Resistance is also a countermeasure for resisting pain, whether it is due to torture, magic, illness etc. You can add the rating to target numbers trying to affect him with pain (like for Interrogation using torture) or subtract it from his target numbers to resist things like that (like a Body save against the symptoms of a painful disease). Again, the Pain Resistance does not prevent or heal actual damage from these things, but keeps that damage from affecting the character's skills or concentration. Cost: .5 per "box" Killing Hands: Normal hand-to-hand damage does (Strength)M1 Stun damage. The physical adept may use his Magic to turn his Unarmed Combat attacks into deadly blows. The adept may choose to do his normal Stun damage or his improved, lethal damage, when using Unarmed Combat. Cost Formula: Damage Code: L=1 M=2 S=3 D=4 Staging: Costs 2 ^ (Staging-1). eg. Staging 1 costs 2 ^ (1-1), or 2 ^ 0, or 1. etc. Costs: (Strength)L1 2 (Strength)M1 3 (Strength)M2 4 (Strength)M3 6 (Strength)S1 4 (Strength)S2 5 (Strength)D1 5 (Strength)D2 6 (Obviously, forms of this power costing more than 6 points can only be achieved by initiates) MAGIC LOSS FOR PHYSICAL ADEPTS Physical adepts can lose Magic just like any other magician. When and if this happens, it will affect his improvements. The adept must give up a point's worth of improvements for every point of Magic he loses. If he gains additional Magic through Initiation, he can restore any lost improvements, or put the new Magic into different improvements. ========================================================================== Date: 5 Mar 90 16:17:24 GMT From: r_ellison@hpfcdq.HP.COM (Bob Ellison) Here's the latest I've gotten via email from Tom Dowd. He answers a few questions I had and provides some more info. I asked: - Do locational information spells provide sufficient sensing for targeting combat spells? - Since magicians need to see their targets, do visibility and cover modifiers apply to them? - Can a mage with cybereyes target in natural light? low-light? thermograph? - The research scientists in DNA/DOA have 7 intelligence, greater than human max... - What's coming out in the near future? Note that there is some dissension at FASA about whether thermographic cybereyes can be used for spell targeting, but Tom's opinion is detailed below. I also asked about their apparent difficulty with e-mail. They still haven't gotten anything from the net. I'm not enough of a guru to tell what's wrong, and I don't know a thing about addressing from the Compuserve side of things. Anyone else have any idea? Bob Ellison, HP Fort Collins ---------sent by Tom Dowd 3 March 1990 > Spells that provide locational information (the various 'clair' spells, and > detection spells) do not provide sufficient info for targeting. > > You'll note that Magicians when casting spells are subject to visibility/ > cover modifiers, so smoke grenades would work well against them. > > I am of the belief that thermographic and low-light cybereyes will work for > magic-targeting since the magician has paid his Essence for them and they > have therefore become 'part of him'. They are now his natural sight. Note > goggles will not work in the same way becuase they involve translation of > the image to another medium (electronic signals and then displayed). > > The average person in SR has to contend with racial maximums. Player-characters > do as well, but ocassionaly we'll let one slip through to represent the > as you say, 'special case'. Besides, who ever said their increase was through > 'natural > (whoops) 'natural' means? > > The Seattle Sourcebook should be going to the printer today (the color > sections are finally done) which means that it should come in in about three > weeks or so (and the stores seeing it shortly there after). > > The Anthology "Into The Shadows" came in today and should be shipping within > a day or so. It is a collection of short stories running $4.95. > > On a side note for BATTLTECH fans, the long awaited LETHAL HERITAGE is > now shipping and should be in stores in a few days. > > We have an adventure for SHADOWRUN called BOTTLED DEMON that should be out > by the end of this month. > > In the works are a half-dozen + more adventures.... > > PARANORMAL ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA is being written and will include about > 90 animals (all paranormal and interesting, no metacows here) many > with color illustration. Figure June or so. > > Also under development are ADVANCED MAGIC, ANARCHISTS GUIDE TO NORTH AMERICA > and a sourcebook about some rather unique interesting folks that I can't > talk about just now... :) > > As I stated you are the first person I've heard from, and I have no idea how > to send a message to you folks (so if you could fill me in I would be > appreciative.) > > Thanks for the E-Mail, hope to hear from you soon. > > Tom ========================================================================== Circa March 5-6, 1990 From: David Graham Wood To: 71061.744@compuserve.com(Tom Dowd) Dear Tom, I got your e-mail address in rec.games.frp (posted by Bob Ellison). I am writing on behalf of an aquaintance of mine who has some questions about Shadowrun. 1) Falling Damage: what kind of system do you suggest for calculating damage for falling? As an ad hoc system this was suggested: 1 meter = 1L1 for each extra 2 meters +1 power, +1 staging at each 10 meter mark +1 level (light, moderate, etc) e.g. a fall from 20 meters would be 10S10. 2) Life Style: Is there any cost (in either time or money) to increase one's life style, or does it immediatley go up as soon as you can pay the "rent?" 3) How does one deal with the following situation: Player has a "victim" dead to rights, i.e. the victim is asleep and the player has a gun to his forehead? Would this be an automatic kill? If yes, how would Karma be used in the reverse situation? If no, how would someone with say a Firearms 3 be expected to kill the victim? Should it make a difference in that situation if the player had a skill of 3 or 7? Might it be based on the weapon? 4) Spell Locks: Can you put a spell lock on an instantaneous spell? If so, would it allow multiple uses of the spell (with the original die rolls)? 5) Equipment: In some errata I saw posted over the net, I saw that in creating a archtype, that the "tech money" could be used to buy anything, including a Farirlight Excalibur. Was this comment meant to include the security items listed in _Street Samurai_? The previous questions are second hand, i.e. not my own. I may have worded them incorrectly. If they are blatantly inaccurate, it is probably because I did not understand the question as it was related to me. From: "(Tom) FASA" <71061.744@CompuServe.COM> To: David: Thanks your letter! Hope I can answer your friend's questions. 1)Falling Damage: I've been using this formula, and it should be appearing in print shortly- (Stories x2) D (Stories) Power= Height of Fall in Stories x2. 1 Story = about 3 meters. Minimum Power is 1. Damage Code= Always D. (Remember, you can kill yourself tripping over your own feet.) Staging= Height in Stories. (Again, minimum 1) 2)Life Styles= Ya pays yer money, ya gets the nice stuff. (Just make sure you pay.) If you can afford it, it goes up. (Minimum payment is 1 month) 3) Stuff like that is always a GM call. I would call him dead. If the GM allows it, he could spend Karma to wake up, etc. 4)Spell locks can never be put on an instananeous spell. Only sustained spells. 5) Tech Money can be spent on what ever your GM will let you buy. (It always pays to be nice to the GM) ========================================================================== Circa March 6, 1990 From: r_ellison@hpfcdq.HP.COM (Bob Ellison) More answers from Tom Dowd [stuff deleted] > Once in a node, does a decker have to continually fight the IC in the > node, once per turn every time she wants to try something? What if > she's just "sitting around"? -At this point, once you've beaten piece of IC you don't have to worry about it again during this game session. A decker attempting to do anything in a node however, must beat the node each time they try something. If you're just hanging out, technically no rolls are required, but a good GM can think of at least a dozen disadvantages to just floating around. :) > How exactly does vehicle combat work? How does it interact with normal > combat turns? -Let's say I'm chasing you. You want to increase the distance between us. If I agree (ie. let you) then it happens. If I don't then we get to make an opposed test to see who wins. The distance between the vehicles changes based on the speed of the vehicles. If you are going faster at 120 meters/turn and I am pursuing at 75, you can increase the distance by 45 meters per turn. Technically I can never close, since you are faster, but I can maintain the distance if I win our little dice contest. For the answer about Combat Turns, see the chart on page 72. > For kicks, about what stats would an almost-4-year-old Ork have? My > players sort of adopted one...[I know they're reading this, too...] A four year old Ork would be about the equivilant of a slightly stronger than average human. Ork 'puberty' hits about 7-8 years, with full physical maturity at about 11-12. Of course, that' s *physical* not mental maturity. ========================================================================== Circa March, 1990 From: David Wood To: 71061.744@compuserve.com I got the answers you sent. My friend was appreciative. But as is usual these kind of things generate more questions. 1) Weapon damage: If falling is considered Deadly, then tripping over your shoelaces is inheritantly more dangerous than being shot. Systematically, you would need a minimum of a skill 6 to do a deadly hit with a M3 weapon. One would infer that it is the skill that limits damage more than the weapon. The weapons that are considered more "dangerous/powerful" are those with higher staging values. Not only do these weapons make it harder to resist, but they also make it harder to increase damage, reducing the chance of "one shots" kills in the system. Was this a design feature, or something not considered? It se seems that .22 pistol should have a chance of killing somebody, even if the firer has only a modicum of skill. However, in the system, it is statistacally impossible for that to happen, without some outrageous skill level (and that means that the target has no armor and missed all his resistance rolls). Possible alternatives: 1) Perhaps all weapons should be rated deadly, thus forcing the target to resist the damage down. 2) When making the To Hit roll, for each die roll allow an extra success for each +5 over the target number (i.e. if the target number is 5, and the firer rolls 3,5,15 then it would be counted as 4 successes instead of the 2 that the system dictates). This is not meant to sound accusatorial. It was just a point raised upon reading the answer you gave me about falling damage. It may not even be feasable to make any changes to the system at this point. We were just interested in your views on the matter. From: "(Tom) FASA" <71061.744@CompuServe.COM> To: David: Yes, certainly higher stagapons are more dangerous, in certain situations. Becuase of the "Staging over Deadlule, Staging 1 weapons are also dangerous. If you look at the statistical curve for Dice Rolled vs Power you'll see that the Target Number is the driver, not the Dice. Interestingly, increasing the number of dice rolled does not dramatically increase the chance of a target number being made. Yes, falling starts at deadly, but if you trip over your shoelaces it's 1D1. Assuming a Body of 3, plus 3 Dodge Pool, there is only a small chance of getting less than four successes. And that's ignoring Armor, if it exists. Remember that the higher Staging number weapons cut both ways. Higher means harder to increase, as well as harder to decrease. Higher Staging weapons are more likely to do their Damage Rating, not higher Damage. Everything is opinion, especially when it comes to game systems, so to think you need to apologize for trying to show me the error of my ways. :) Tom ========================================================================== Circa March 11, 1990 >From r_ellison Sun Mar 11 01:23:44 1990 To: 71061.744@compuserve.com Grabbed a few more questions for you. Sorry, only one about astral space :-). When using autofire for (n) bursts with (m) recoil suppression, every one of the shots takes the modifier +(n-m) (if greater than 0) to the target numbers, right? My players complained a bit ("Why does the first shot take a recoil penalty?") so we experimented with giving the first burst +1, the second +2, etc (all subject to recoil suppression). This immediately unbalanced the game; less combat-oriented characters that had SMG's were doing more damage than their combat-machine counterparts with single-fire weapons. I'm considering a Champions variant, where the penalty accumulates, but the first autofire shot that misses means all the rest also miss (with ammo lost too). My questions: first, am I correct in that the basic Shadowrun rules give all autofire bursts the same penalty, and second, could you give any insight on what other autofire systems were considered for Shadowrun? Something easier to explain to characters (other than "that's the way it is, folks" :-) but that doesn't make characters without autofire weapons useless would be nice (of course, maybe those with autofire should have a edge...) While we're at it, was a damage staging system that had separate numbers for attack staging and defense staging ever considered? It's been discussed on the net before, but the "lethal" staging-1 attacks usually get absorbed by armor and body, while the "less-lethal" staging-5 (explosive ammo) attacks do at least a little damage (because our attackers use 6 dice to attack, and the defenders typically get 4 or 5 dice plus 5 automatic successes). Or maybe fixing the defensive staging at 2... this would clearly make staging-1 attacks more lethal than staging 3, regardless of the relative skill/armor levels of the two opponents... On to bows...one troll just acquired a Ranger compound bow and has 3 levels of image magnification in his eyes. He's doing something like 13M2 with a single hit, and with the 3 levels of image mag, everything's short range, so he can usually get 13D2 or better. So, is this just effective, or illegal (against the spirit at least)? More specifically, does image mag in the eyes count towards reducing the range of non- smartgun weapons? And can a bow user fire every action, or must he take an action after every shot to reload? In a similar vein, does a shuriken thrower have to take an action to prepare each shuriken before she throws it? How about throwing knives? Now, the astral space question...One mage chooses to "melee" another in Astral Space. The first gets the first action, and attacks with Sorcery skill. The second counterattacks with her Astral Pool. In general, the counterattack is coming with something like 2x the number of dice that the attacker is using (assuming the defender uses all her Pool). This usually means that the original attacker gets blasted but good (with repercussion and all). This suggests the strategy of waiting for your opponent to attack first...but then nothing happens! Am I doing this right? Oh, sorry, another A-space question :-)...Is there any reason for a "safe" mage (i.e. not in combat) to stay physical while healing herself? Seems like the wise mage goes astral, and heals herself there. If she's planning on healing any other mages, she'll wait for them to go astral, too, (assuming they can...) On thermographic eyes and spellcasting...one of my players (darn them, anyway :-) found the following on page 80 under "Spell Declaration": "In choosing a target or targets, the magician can cast a spell at anyone he can see. Binoculars, glasses, and other devices can enhance his vision, as can magic or technology that penetrates darkness. A magician cannot, however, cast spells at invisible beings or characters in Astral Space by using enhanced vision or Astral Perception." Oooo-kay. What difference will binoculars make? Do mages take range penalties in casting spells? Does "magic or technology that penetrates darkness" refer to light sources, or to low-light eyes? Is "enhanced vision" thermographic (that's the only enhanced vision I know of that sees invisible beings clearly)? Why can't a mage cast a spell at a target using an invisibility spell by taking the normal perception penalty? Sigh...(I'm going to have to get a mage to research an invisibility-to-thermograph spell, since so many of my gunslingers have thermo...) Thanks for your time... Bob From: "(Tom) FASA" <71061.744@compuserve.com> To: Bob: The reason that autofire works the way it does is simpl that's the way it is. :) Actually, we tried it most of the ways you mentioned and couldn't get the game effect we wanted. The way the ,rather, that it currently works we though worked best. It's really that simple. Everything else we did through the balance out, as you noticed. (I don't like the first miss, all the rest miss since that's very weird to conceptualize beyond a game system.) Yes, we considered seperate attack/staging numbers, but discarded them for simplics sake. Plus, remember, the higher the staging number the more likely it is that the weapon will do the damage listed. SR is not a one-shot-kill game. If it were, it would not be any fun. Why is the damage level of your Troll with the bow going up to D from M? Everything else you described is working as intended, but I don't understand the increase to D. Single shot/use per action weapons can be used every action. Re-arming is assumed to be part of the action. The Astral rules as screwy and being 'fixed' for the Advanced Magic book. Until then all attacks/defenses should be based off Sorcery as the base skill, modified by the Astral Pool. I'm missing something about the Astral Space/healing question. Is there a reason that you're implying that Astral Space is better for healing? Is there something I'm missing?? :) Generally, only optical systems will allow magic to be cast effectively through them. So binoculars and scopes are OK, but TV/video systems are not. As long as the light frolm the target it not converted to another medium magic can be cast 'through it'. If it gets translated, then its no good. So, video, TV, etc. won't work, and neither will magic (clairvoyance spells) since they translate as well. Thermo eyes and low-light eyes are OK since once Essence has been spent for them they are effectively the sight organs. Howhat? :) Tom ========================================================================== Date: 19 Mar 90 18:37:49 GMT >From: r_ellison@hpfcdq.HP.COM (Bob Ellison) First, I've mailed your posting verbatim to Tom; but until his reply comes through, I feel obligated to make my own annotations :-)... > 1) A comment on combat and magic staging. Magic staging seems to work fine > as is, but combat staging doesnt work so well. I've "talked" with Tom at length about this. FASA is sticking to their guns about their staging system though. Their collective opinions: - SR is *not* a one-shot-kill system - The staging system was chosen after several other attempts, including a two-stage system (separate increase-damage and resist-damage stagings) because it worked best for them in effect, balance, and simplicity - You can change anything you want; just be consistent I think you may be backwards on the staging levels, though; I believe (at least looking at the spells that do damage) that lower staging is intended to be more lethal. With that, I'm considering switching to a system where the offensive staging is as listed, but the defensive staging stays at a constant 2... > 2) Power focuses... What exactly do these do.. They seem awful cheap if > they add to your magic rating. At 10,000 per rating (from corrected > second edition) its possible to afford a rating 10 power focus. Orichalcum > knifes seem real cheap too, the swords are MUCH more expensive. Ive > assumed that a 0 has been dropped off the end of the price. > > As to operation, do they always add to your rating, or only for the action > after you have activated them, or how? They do add to your effective Magic rating. This means that higher-force spells can be cast without risking physical drain (of course, when you're talking about resisting a 16S1 drain anyway, you're going to be on the Death Spiral). They may also add dice to your Magic Pool -- but I don't have the rules with me and I may have forgotten. They add to your rating as long as they are activated. Note that any magic item has a presence on the Astral Plane, however, and can be targeted and destroyed there. Activated magical items practically scream out,"Target! Target! Target!!!" :-), especially high-rating items. I would recommend that mages not walk around with active items above rating 1 (i.e. spell locks). > 3) The Burned-out mage archetype seems to have spent way over 400,000 Nuyen > on Tech. Skill-wire 4 is 400,000 alone.. I've asked about this... > 4) On Astral combat, can you confirm that its Sorcery vs SOrcery and either > side can add dice from the Astral pool? Yep. I threw the question back at Tom for clarification, and this is what he said. Remember that a lot of this will be reworked for Advanced Magic, though... > 5) On reaction, after thought it makes sense that the rule of six doesnt > apply to inititiative rolls, after all, that roll is not a test, but a > totalled up roll. Is that the official position? Yep. > 6) When do you first get your pools, at your first action, or at the start > of the round. I.e. can you dodge before your first action.. Does the pool > refill at the start or end of your action. I.e if you dodge before your > first action, do you have your full pool for that action, or after it. In the initial rules, I believe start-of-round and at every action except your last. The errata said something about this, too; I think they switched to every-action including last, but not start of round. We still play using the first way... [compiler's note: his quotation of the errata is accurate, with the addition that one STARTS out the fight with full pools] [stuff deleted] For real surprise attacks, I've been using the surprise-subduing rules, except I allow a weapon-bearer to instant-kill instead of just knock out her opponent. Seems to work okay (since they'll probably just kill the goon in a second anyway :-). #> However, many people seem to overlook the (admittedly tiny) fine #> print regarding magical items: they must be bonded to the user before they are #> any good. That means that your starting-out mage may possess a +10 magic #> focus, but until s/he expends some 40 Karma Points, it won't do him/her a damn #> bit of good. Mages are allowed to start with bonded items without paying the Karma. My players didn't try to abuse this (as difficult a temptation as it was...:-), so I didn't have to worry about enforcing balance. Some have suggested that the initial spell points given be used as a "karma" pool for learning initial spells (at 1 "karma" point per spell level) and for bonding initial items. Some have suggested giving all characters starting karma to bind items (or whatever else they want). [stuff deleted] Bob Ellison, HP Fort Collins ========================================================================== Circa March 20, 1990 >From: mkkuhner@codon1 (Mary K. Kuhner;335 Mulford) r_ellison@hpfcdq.HP.COM (Bob Ellison) writes: >For real surprise attacks, I've been using the surprise-subduing rules, >except I allow a weapon-bearer to instant-kill instead of just knock out >her opponent. Seems to work okay (since they'll probably just kill the >goon in a second anyway :-). You've never had a PC surprised? Your players must be better than I am. The surprise-subduing rules in the book will wipe out surprised PCs very nicely, even extremely good ones (at least that was our impression). This may explain why the best the Yakuza in _Mercurial_ can do is "The party is completely surprised and can only defend for the first round." Not that that isn't bad enough; but with real surprise the scenario would be over. >Bob Ellison, HP Fort Collins Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@enzyme.berkeley.edu ========================================================================== Circa March 20, 1990 >From: malcolm@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Malcolm Campbell) In <1450039@hpfcdq.HP.COM> r_ellison@hpfcdq.HP.COM (Bob Ellison) writes: [stuff deleted] I think you may be backwards on the staging levels, though; I believe (at least looking at the spells that do damage) that lower staging is intended to be more lethal. With that, I'm considering switching to a system where the offensive staging is as listed, but the defensive staging stays at a constant 2... Lower staging is stated to be more lethal in the spells section in my copy (Second Edition), but it seems the reverse is intended with weapons. >From some tests Ive bounced around it seems that under the rules, low staging is more deadly for low damage (L, and to an extent M) weapons, and high staging is more deadly for high damage weapons. Staging seems to have two effects: 1) High staging makes the weapon more likely to do its listed damage. For L damage weapons (and spells) you want low staging so that you can crank the damage up. For S and D damage weapons you want high staging so that the damage STAYS high. M rating weapons are stranger.. At this level the relative power of the weapon makes a lot of difference, high power weapons you want low staging, so that you can increase the damage lots, low power weapons you want high staging so that the damage stays reasonable. Of course power has effects at all levels, but with M rated weapons it seems to change the effects of staging more dramatically 2) High staging makes armour less effective. This seems to work very well. Not so intuitive though.. A Katana (StrM3) is more effective than a Sword when the user has less strength - which is great. But it can be less effective than a sword at high strength, which also works (I can argue sword vs katana all day - but do it by mail :-)) > 2) Power focuses... What exactly do these do.. They seem awful cheap if > they add to your magic rating. At 10,000 per rating (from corrected > second edition) its possible to afford a rating 10 power focus. Orichalcum > knifes seem real cheap too, the swords are MUCH more expensive. Ive > assumed that a 0 has been dropped off the end of the price. They do add to your effective Magic rating. This means that higher-force spells can be cast without risking physical drain (of course, when you're talking about resisting a 16S1 drain anyway, you're going to be on the Death Spiral). They may also add dice to your Magic Pool -- but I don't have the rules with me and I may have forgotten. They do add dice to your magic pool, which you can use to resist drain.. :-( The problem is that you can cyborg a mage, then pull his Magic attribute back up with Power focuses very cheaply. And he ends up with more magic pool as well.. They add to your rating as long as they are activated. Note that any magic item has a presence on the Astral Plane, however, and can be targeted and destroyed there. Activated magical items practically scream out, "Target! Target! Target!!!" :-), especially high-rating items. I would recommend that mages not walk around with active items above rating 1 (i.e. spell locks). [stuff deleted] ========================================================================== Circa April 21, 1990 Article 20617 of rec.games.frp: >From: pkarpas@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Kono Satee) Subject: Re: Shadowrun questions / ANSWERS from Tom Dowd! In article <28662@ut-emx.UUCP>, ifan572@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) writes: > In article <17970@eagle.wesleyan.edu> pkarpas@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Kono Satee) > writes: >>can't put EVERYTHING you own on your deck. The deck simply can't handle that >>much memory and storage. This is extremely important, because it limits the >>number of programs you can have loaded at once. Usually, for a powerful > > Do you have a page number for the limit on memory and storage that can be put > into a deck? I couldn't find one. In fact, on page 105 (2nd printing), it > says "you can load as much of it onto a deck as you can afford" (it being > onboard RAM). OK, I heard from Tom Dowd (one of the authors) this morning. He says that there IS a maximum memory. He's pretty sure it's a 2.5x multiplier, but he's home and he didn't have his original copy of the text (it's at work). In any case, until he tells me differently, that's what I'm using. [compiler's note: the 2.5x multiplier applies to the RAM which comes with deck, i.e. a Fuchi Cyber-7 which comes with 200mp can have a maximum of 500mp RAM loaded into it. I have no idea how this would apply to the deck design rules.] He also told me a correction about Off-line storage. I quote: "Offline storage really only costs 10 x mp. Major typo (sorry)." That should answer our lingering question about why off-line storage costs so much more. The answer is that it doesn't! If I hear anything more, I'll post it. -- Peter J. Karpas PKARPAS@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU or PKARPAS%EAGLE@WESLEYAN.BITNET "The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side." -- T. Roosevelt "There is no place I know which compares with pure imagination." -- W. Wonka ========================================================================== Circa May 2, 1990 [compiler's note: Most of this stuff has been printed earlier, in fuller form, but it's still nice to have it all put together] Shadowrun (TM) Rules Clarification and Errata The following was compiled by Steve Kramarsky from the Shadowrun Topic on the Games Roundtable, Scorpia's, on the GEnie Information Network. Page 805, Games Bulletin Board, Category 7 (FASA). (1P) denotes 1st Printing, (2P) denotes 2nd printing. ** Notes from the typist, Jonathan Drummey - dutchman@wpi.wpi.edu: I've corrected quite a few spelling errors in this, and as there is no copyright notice on the errata sheet, it is my belief that you are free to copy and distribute this sheet as you will. ** <<< RULES CORRECTIONS >>> * Rules Correction 1, page 64, Dice Pools (1P) * THE RULES FOR DICE POOLS ARE SLIGHTLY IN ERROR!!! This is how they should read: A character's Dice Pool is renewed to full value at the beginning of any action, at which time all remaining dice from the previous action are lost. You do not renew your dice pool at the beginning of each Combat Turn, and you do get it in full on your last action. * Rules Correction 2, page 81 and page 92, Armor vs. Magic (1P) * Armor does not count as an Automatic Success against physical spells. Armor in fact has no effect against _physical_damage_when_caused_by_ _magic_, except indirectly (Toxic Wave). * Rules Correction 3, Page 115, Internal Alerts (1P) * When an Internal Alert is sounded, all IC increase their rating by 50%, not +2. (i.e. Red-8 becomes Red-12, etc.) * Rules Correction 4, Page 53, Archetype Generation (1P and 2P) * When creating a magic using Archetype, the Magician received the nuyen value of his Tech allocation, _except_ if he chooses Priority Tech-3. At that time he only receives 150,000Y instead of the 400,000Y listed. * Rules Correction 5, Page 81, Spellcasting Tests (1P and 2P) * The final sentence on page 81 is incorrect, as is the sentence after it on page 82. The target of a magical spell receives only the initial Resistance Test, not an additional damage reducing Resistance Test as the two sentences state. << ARCHETYPES AND RACES >> ## On page 53 under archetype creation and modification the rules state: "Notice there is no reason to assign priority 1 or 2 to magic." yet, they also state: "the decker was designed with these priorities: Magic: 1; Attributes: 2; Skills: 4; Tech: 3; Race: 0." This implies that you must use a 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 when assigning priorities. The first paragraph in this secion states, "To create an archetype, assign a priority from 0-4 etc. etc. -- The sum of these priorities must equal 10. That implies that it doesn't matter as long as it adds up to 10. Which is the case? ## -> The line that "The sum of the priorities must equal 10." is just plain wrong. You have only five priorities that you can assign: 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. No other options, and you must assign all of the numbers. ## Under the chart for priorities it states that the tech at priority 4 gets 1,000,000 nuyen. Is this all for the cyberware and other equipment as it states in the paragraph above? If so, what "other" equipment can be bought, or is there an unlimited selection? Is the money that is left over converted into the credstick money or is it lost? I felt that this made characters have all that they wanted at the beginning of the game. A decker could start off with a Fairlight Excalibur if he wanted. ## -> The 1 mil nuyen is for any equipment you want to buy. Any. It does NOT translate into credstick cash afterwards, however. The cash you start the game with, that is, the Lifestyle money that you roll for, not the money from your Tech allocation, can be used to buy off the shelf stuff, but not stuff that needs to be modified or cyberware. Yes, the decker could start with a Fairlight Excalibur, but then he would have nothing to put in it, programs, utilities, etc. Plus no other stuff. Dumb Decker. (psst, hey kid.... Buy a Real Lifestyle!) ** Just a note from Jonathan - When creating Archetypes I also hold that the Archetype doesn't have to pay for surgery for all his neat cyberware. If as a GM you do make your Archetypes pay for surgery you're going to find that cyberized characters will start out with a lot less power. ** ## How does a starting Mage choose his spells? ## -> Each character must have a Priority assigned to Tech. The first number represents that amount of pre-game resources he can purchase, while the second number is the number of Force Points a Mage can acquire spells with, at a 1:1 point/cost ratio. A mage also gets the money (those focuses and fetishes cost bucks.) ## How does the Street Samurai figure his Essence? I figure he has around 7.1 off his Essence, for a -1.1, or dead, which is not a good way to start the game. ## -> Remove one level of Muscle Replacement, and lower his enhanced Strength and Quickness by one and he'll be fine. ## When buying skills for a beginning character using 1 pt for 1 level, how do you handle concentrations and specializations...meaning how much are they? Example please? -> When using Concentrations or Specializations you buy the cost of the General Skill and then apply the Conc. or Spec. modifier, no real extra cost. Example: I purchase Firearms at 5. (5 points). Now, I want to Concentrate in Pistols. Concentrations are at +1 over the General Skill, which means Pistols become a 6, while the General Skill itself drops by 1 to 4. Firearms = 4, Pistols = 6. If I specialized, the result would be: Firearms = 3, Pistols = 5, Ares Predator = 7. The cost remains 5, you just juggle the Conc. and Spec. mods around. ** Another note - where concentrations and specializations are described, the rules also state that there can only be ONE concentration or specialization for each general skill. So one can't be specialized in one's Ares Predator and HK227 at the same time! ** << SKILL USE and GENERAL PLAY >> ## One thing that is confusing is The Rule of One. Does it meant that if you roll a one that die is a failure, no matter what mods it has, or does it mean the entire roll is a failure? ## -> As for the Rule of One: only that die fails, not the whole attempt. The more ones you roll, the worse you do, though there are really no rules covering just how bad. ## Do Critter powers such as Alienation, Fear, Compulsion, etc. require some kind of roll to affect targets, or are they automatic? ## -> Our intention here is simple, though some would cry "cop-out" (and probably will, regardless). We were trying to avoid the situation where the players have memorized the stats of all the mosters and insist on quoting them to the GM as soon as the moster appears. In Shadowrun, the specifics of the Critter powers are up to the individual GM, and will/should vary slightly from animal type to type. Don't give them numbers, let them figure out the game effect for themselves. ## Is there anyway to raise or restore Essence? The power gamer in me wants to know. Also the long term gamer in me would like to know as well. If there isn't, it would seem awfully hard for the cyber-using archetypes to add more cyber-junk once the character has been started. Also what happens if the Essence drops below 0? ## -> At this time (and remember SR is a changing universe) there is no way to restore lost essence, other than Vampiric Essence Drain. There may be a way someday, but don't hold your breath. By the way, Essence loss is permanent. A character who's Essence drops below 0 is dead. << COMBAT >> ## What is the range for Shuriken? ## -> use the same range charts for the Throwing Knife. ## What are the numbers for Razors and Spurs (Conc, Reach, Dmg)? ## -> The damage code for Hand Razors is (Str/2)L2 (effectively a knife that can't easily be taken away) and Spurs are (Str)M2 (a sword that can't be taken away). Both have a Reach of 0, and are completely concealed if retracted, and blatantly obvious (not concealable) if extended. ## How many shots in a burst? I found the rule on full auto fire and recoil, but as soon as my players wanted to use full auto, I was asked, "Now how many shots does that take?" ## -> Bad wording in there. In autofire you fire bullets, not real bursts as we know them. So you would fire 3 bullets, or 4 bullets, etc. (3 or 4 separate, individual to-hit rolls). ## Is there any limit to the # of weapons that one player can have smartgun adaptors connected to? (e.g. can he have his smg AND his pistol linked?) ## -> The number of weapons that cann be tied into a smartgun link is a GM call. The game doesn't deal with multi-weapon fire (ambidextrous fire), but knowing a little about dealing with split-crosshairs (multiple crosshairs) negate the smargtun bonus if you allow players to use it. Ambidextrous fire normally is a +2 modifier to the target number. ## Can you draw a sword/gun and attack in one action? I don't see why not but implications say otherwise... is facing important? Can I spin and shoot someone behind me with no penalty? This would seem to be more difficult than just shooting. ## -> Drawing/sheathing a weapon is an action. As for the rest of the question: Shadowrun is a storytelling game system (though admittedly some parts of it seem otherwise) and as such is not a tactical combat game. Situational modifiers like turning and shooting are situational and subject to the type of game the GM wants to run. Sometimes he should allow things like that, sometimes he shouldn't. It depends on what's happening. ## Does using your Dodge Pool to negate all hits from a Monowhip cause the wielder to check for damage against himself? What constitutes a miss for these purposes isn't clear. ## -> It is our intention, nasty us, that if you miss your opponent for any reason, check for damage against yourself. ## In Combat, do you use the first success when figuring damage increase? If you do, a weapon code of 4M1 would automatically get boosted to S with any [one] successful hit. How about a Staging 2 or 3 weapon code? ## -> The first success is "wasted" making the success. Only extra successes are used to modify effects. So, you need 1 extra success to increase a Staging 1 weapon, 2 extra successes to increase a Staging 2 weapon, and so on. ## On page 66 it says that "Each step past Deadly Wound eliminates one point of armor from the target." Is this reduction permanent, or only for the purposes of that shot. ## -> It was our intention that the reduction be solely for the purposes of that shot. However, the idea of a permanent reduction sounds interesting. Run it that way if you like, and remain constent within your game. ** I like the idea of permanent reduction m'self, and if the object/person survives, some sort of a permanent marking/scar from the damage. ** << MAGIC >> ## Can Magic Pools be used to resist drain? ## -> Yes, the Magic Pool can be used to resist drain. ## What services can Nature Spirits perform? (Is there a section missing?) Their stats are missing from the Critters section also. ## -> All of the Nature Spirits' stats are straight analogs to Elements: Spirits of the Land same as Earth, Spirits of Man same as Fire, Spirits of Sky as Air and Spirits of Water as Water. Service is loosely defined, but effectively can be considered to be one use of any of its powers or fulfilling of one simple request. ## How many Mp's does a Hermetic Library require? ## -> 1 Rating point requires 10 MP of memory. ** I go for the fantasy-style mage, with the huge libraries. I just use the same Mp ratings as the General Skills on the Skill Memory Chart on page 127 in the 2nd printing, with a cost of 100Y/Mp. Hardcopy has twice the weight as the book and costs 10,000/rating point. I've found this to work in keeping starting players from having libraries with 9 ratings. ** ## Do mana bolts, darts, etc. really cause physical damage? If so, how do you cause stun damage? ## -> Only the Sleep spell does Fatigue damage. ## Magic Items - while the bonding table is present, the procedure to accomplish bonding is not. ## -> To bond an object to you for your use (If you don't do it, you can't use it!) you just expend the Karma. Real simple. ** However, it is not clear in the rules whether or not someone besides a magician could bond an item. My guess is to make it a GM call. ** << MATRIX >> ## About security codes/levels/ratings. In some places, the rules seem to imply that an entire grid or system is one color rating, and in others they imply that any node in a system can be any color. Which? ## -> It is our intent that a Base Security Level (color) be chosen for the system, with the added option of varying the Level from node to node if you choose. See Page 157, "Determine Security Codes" in the Quick Matrix Generation section. Unfortunately, when writing something that has a lot of situational considerations it's almost impossible to refer to each (let alone remember) when writing a specific sentence, lest said sentence takes up the entire page. We try. ## The opposition for deckers in the matrix refers to a Corporate Decker Archetype, can you give us the stats on him? ## -> The Corporate Decker Archetype is in the Shadowrun GM Screen pack and will also appear in Sprawl Sites. ## When can the Hacking Pool be used, and when is it restored? ## -> The Hacking Pool works just like every other pool. (See General Notes.) ## Can IC have a different rating than its node? It all appears the same (i.e., a construct) until it is analyzed, correct? How about at Contact range? Can you discern the function of a specific node at contact range? ## -> IC can certainly have a different Rating than the node its in. Remember, there are no Black Nodes (yet...) so it must be true. Until you analyze it corectly it looks like a harmless node. The functions of nodes, i.e.: what it is, is currently discernable at Observation Range (if you can see it you recognize it), but what is lurking just beyond its prismatic walls is another story... ## Ok, at Sensor Range, it says that you can perceive individual constructs for what they are. Does this mean Barrier appears as described under its construct entry at this point? If not, please give me the slow and stupid version... ## -> You are confusing System Constructs with IC. IC doesn't really have a construct, per se. It does have a Matrix form, but that form is variable. A System Construct almost always looks the same way. I say almost because some megacorps pay big bucks for custom architecture. At Observation Range you can identify what each of the connecting System Nodes are by looking at their construct. No matter how weird the construct gets, you will always be albe to tell the difference between say an I/O Port and a SPU. The only things you can't tell the difference between are CPU's and SPU's, from the outside. Inside you can, outside they look the same. (However, the megacorp may be stupid enough to make their CPU look unique. God bless 'em.) At Sensor Range you can use your Sensor programs to probe a construct to learn more about it. The System Construct still resembles the System Construct, and certain IC effects will now be visible (like Barrier or Access) but you will never know Trapped grey IC is present unless you can make a good enough Sensor roll (with enough successes) to detect it. A good GM will have you roll against the White IC and the Grey IC simultaneously, telling you the numbers for the White IC, but applying the dice results against the Grey IC as well, without telling you. At Contact Range it's too late... ## At what distance can you pass through a node without entering and/or activating its IC? Or do you just "walk" in and out and only make Security Tests when trying to do something in the node? ## -> You can't pass through a node without triggering its IC, even if you don't plan on doing anything (remember, it has no idea what your ultimate plans are, only what you are actually doing), unless you manage to Sleaze past, or some similar way of getting by. When you approach a Node you must first deal with the doorway IC, either Access or Barrier, if you slip past you're in. If not alarm sounds and stuff happens. If the White IC is trapped, then Grey IC activates and comes after you. If you do slip through then you can try and do stuff in the node, but don't screw up cause that will set off alarms. << EQUIPMENT >> ## What about a price list for common items? How much does a room at a hotel cost? Meal costs? Standard items? ## -> The Equipment pages (135-141) do list costs for the equipment listed. Unfortunately, if we printed every type of gear imaginable there would be little room for anything else. We cover lifestyle stuff in a very general fashion in the Lifestyles of the Rich and Shadowy section. Pages 148-149. That should answer a few questions. ** There's more in the Seattle Sourcebook and some stuff about money and crime in Sprawl Sites. ** ## Shouldn't Dataline Taps, Signal Locators and Voice Masks have ratings? ## -> Dataline Tap is Rating: max 6, Weight N/A and Cost: 1,000 x rating. Signal Locators do not have a Rating for themselves, but I would rate them at 5 vs. a Jammer. Voice Masks have a 2d6 Rating as listed since they are randomly distorting your voice, and you never know what you're going to get. ## What is the price of the vidscreen display? ## -> The price is 500Y. ## What is the Essence Cost for a Voice Modulator? (Page 128) ## -> The cost is .2 Essence for the basic unit, and an additional .2 for the playback unit. ## If all you have is a datajack and some Mp's of memory, does that mean that it's really a file cabinet in your head but with no way to access the memory except to download it to another source? ## -> Yup, if you've only got the storage, you've got to download it somewhere to access it. If however you have a retinal display you can look at it yourself (assuming it's pure information and not other wierd stuff.) The file cabinet analogy is perfect, but think of it as computer disks in the file. They are there, but you need the computer to read them. ** Final stuff now ** SHADOWRUN (TM) and MATRIX (TM) are trademarks of FASA Corporation Copyright (C) 1989 FASA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. FASA Corporation P.O. Box 6390 Chicago, IL 60680 ========================================================================== SHADOWRUN PROBABILITY TABLE (compliments of John Kingdon) Shadowrun Probabilities Target Number: 2 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 83.3 2 97.2 69.4 3 99.5 92.6 57.9 4 99.9 98.4 86.8 48.2 5 100 99.7 96.5 80.4 40.2 6 100 99.9 99.1 93.8 73.7 33.5 7 100 100 99.8 98.2 90.4 67.0 27.9 8 100 100 100 99.5 96.9 86.5 60.5 23.3 9 100 100 100 99.9 99.1 95.2 82.2 54.3 19.4 10 100 100 100 100 99.8 98.5 93.0 77.5 48.5 16.2 11 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.5 97.5 90.4 72.7 43.1 13.5 12 100 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.2 96.4 87.5 67.7 38.1 11.2 13 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.8 98.7 94.9 84.2 62.8 33.6 14 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.6 98.1 93.1 80.6 57.9 15 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.3 97.3 91.0 76.8 16 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.8 99.0 96.2 88.7 17 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.7 98.5 95.0 18 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.5 97.9 19 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.8 99.2 20 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.7 Target Number: 3 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 66.7 2 88.9 44.4 3 96.3 74.1 29.6 4 98.8 88.9 59.3 19.8 5 99.6 95.5 79.0 46.1 13.2 6 99.9 98.2 90.0 68.0 35.1 8.8 7 100 99.3 95.5 82.7 57.1 26.3 5.9 8 100 99.7 98.0 91.2 74.1 46.8 19.5 3.9 9 100 99.9 99.2 95.8 85.5 65.0 37.7 14.3 2.6 10 100 100 99.7 98.0 92.3 78.7 55.9 29.9 10.4 1.7 11 100 100 99.9 99.1 96.1 87.8 71.1 47.3 23.4 7.5 1.2 12 100 100 99.9 99.6 98.1 93.4 82.2 63.2 39.3 18.1 5.4 0.8 13 100 100 100 99.8 99.1 96.5 89.6 75.9 55.2 32.2 13.9 3.9 14 100 100 100 99.9 99.6 98.3 94.2 85.1 69.0 47.6 26.1 10.5 15 100 100 100 100 99.8 99.1 96.9 91.2 79.7 61.8 40.4 20.9 16 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.6 98.4 95.0 87.3 73.7 54.7 33.9 17 100 100 100 100 100 99.8 99.2 97.3 92.5 82.8 67.4 47.8 18 100 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.6 98.6 95.7 89.2 77.7 60.9 19 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.8 99.3 97.6 93.5 85.4 72.1 20 100 100 100 100 100 100 99.9 99.6 98.7 96.2 90.8 80.9 Target Number: 4 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 50.0 2 75.0 25.0 3 87.5 50.0 12.5 4 93.8 68.8 31.2 6.2 5 96.9 81.2 50.0 18.8 3.1 6 98.4 89.1 65.6 34.4 10.9 1.6 7 99.2 93.8 77.3 50.0 22.7 6.2 0.8 8 99.6 96.5 85.5 63.7 36.3 14.5 3.5 0.4 9 99.8 98.0 91.0 74.6 50.0 25.4 9.0 2.0 0.2 10 99.9 98.9 94.5 82.8 62.3 37.7 17.2 5.5 1.1 0.1 11 100 99.4 96.7 88.7 72.6 50.0 27.4 11.3 3.3 0.6 0.0 12 100 99.7 98.1 92.7 80.6 61.3 38.7 19.4 7.3 1.9 0.3 0.0 13 100 99.8 98.9 95.4 86.7 70.9 50.0 29.1 13.3 4.6 1.1 0.2 14 100 99.9 99.4 97.1 91.0 78.8 60.5 39.5 21.2 9.0 2.9 0.6 15 100 100 99.6 98.2 94.1 84.9 69.6 50.0 30.4 15.1 5.9 1.8 16 100 100 99.8 98.9 96.2 89.5 77.3 59.8 40.2 22.7 10.5 3.8 17 100 100 99.9 99.4 97.5 92.8 83.4 68.5 50.0 31.5 16.6 7.2 18 100 100 99.9 99.6 98.5 95.2 88.1 76.0 59.3 40.7 24.0 11.9 19 100 100 100 99.8 99.0 96.8 91.6 82.0 67.6 50.0 32.4 18.0 20 100 100 100 99.9 99.4 97.9 94.2 86.8 74.8 58.8 41.2 25.2 Target Number: 5 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 33.3 2 55.6 11.1 3 70.4 25.9 3.7 4 80.2 40.7 11.1 1.2 5 86.8 53.9 21.0 4.5 0.4 6 91.2 64.9 32.0 10.0 1.8 0.1 7 94.1 73.7 42.9 17.3 4.5 0.7 0.0 8 96.1 80.5 53.2 25.9 8.8 2.0 0.3 0.0 9 97.4 85.7 62.3 35.0 14.5 4.2 0.8 0.1 0.0 10 98.3 89.6 70.1 44.1 21.3 7.7 2.0 0.3 0.0 0.0 11 98.8 92.5 76.6 52.7 28.9 12.2 3.9 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 12 99.2 94.6 81.9 60.7 36.8 17.8 6.6 1.9 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 13 99.5 96.1 86.1 67.8 44.8 24.1 10.4 3.5 0.9 0.2 0.0 0.0 14 99.7 97.3 89.5 73.9 52.4 31.0 14.9 5.8 1.7 0.4 0.1 0.0 15 99.8 98.1 92.1 79.1 59.6 38.2 20.3 8.8 3.1 0.9 0.2 0.0 16 99.8 98.6 94.1 83.4 66.1 45.3 26.3 12.7 5.0 1.6 0.4 0.1 17 99.9 99.0 95.6 87.0 71.9 52.2 32.6 17.2 7.5 2.7 0.8 0.2 18 99.9 99.3 96.7 89.8 76.9 58.8 39.1 22.3 10.8 4.3 1.4 0.4 19 100 99.5 97.6 92.1 81.2 64.8 45.7 27.9 14.6 6.5 2.4 0.7 20 100 99.7 98.2 94.0 84.8 70.3 52.1 33.9 19.1 9.2 3.8 1.3 Target Number: 6 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 16.7 2 30.6 2.8 3 42.1 7.4 0.5 4 51.8 13.2 1.6 0.1 5 59.8 19.6 3.5 0.3 0.0 6 66.5 26.3 6.2 0.9 0.1 0.0 7 72.1 33.0 9.6 1.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 8 76.7 39.5 13.5 3.1 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 80.6 45.7 17.8 4.8 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 83.8 51.5 22.5 7.0 1.5 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 86.5 56.9 27.3 9.6 2.5 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 88.8 61.9 32.3 12.5 3.6 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 90.7 66.4 37.2 15.8 5.1 1.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 92.2 70.4 42.1 19.4 6.9 1.9 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 93.5 74.0 46.8 23.2 9.0 2.7 0.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 94.6 77.3 51.3 27.1 11.3 3.8 1.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 95.5 80.2 55.6 31.1 14.0 5.0 1.5 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 96.2 82.7 59.7 35.2 16.8 6.5 2.1 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 96.9 85.0 63.6 39.3 19.9 8.2 2.8 0.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 97.4 87.0 67.1 43.3 23.1 10.2 3.7 1.1 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 7 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 16.7 2 30.6 2.8 3 42.1 7.4 0.5 4 51.8 13.2 1.6 0.1 5 59.8 19.6 3.5 0.3 0.0 6 66.5 26.3 6.2 0.9 0.1 0.0 7 72.1 33.0 9.6 1.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 8 76.7 39.5 13.5 3.1 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 80.6 45.7 17.8 4.8 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 83.8 51.5 22.5 7.0 1.5 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 86.5 56.9 27.3 9.6 2.5 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 88.8 61.9 32.3 12.5 3.6 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 90.7 66.4 37.2 15.8 5.1 1.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 92.2 70.4 42.1 19.4 6.9 1.9 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 93.5 74.0 46.8 23.2 9.0 2.7 0.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 94.6 77.3 51.3 27.1 11.3 3.8 1.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 95.5 80.2 55.6 31.1 14.0 5.0 1.5 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 96.2 82.7 59.7 35.2 16.8 6.5 2.1 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 96.9 85.0 63.6 39.3 19.9 8.2 2.8 0.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 97.4 87.0 67.1 43.3 23.1 10.2 3.7 1.1 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 8 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 13.9 2 25.8 1.9 3 36.1 5.3 0.3 4 45.0 9.5 1 0.0 5 52.7 14.5 2.2 0.2 0.0 6 59.2 19.8 3.9 0.4 0.0 0.0 7 64.9 25.3 6.1 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 8 69.8 30.8 8.7 1.6 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 74.0 36.2 11.8 2.6 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 77.6 41.4 15.2 3.9 0.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 80.7 46.4 18.8 5.5 1.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 83.4 51.2 22.7 7.3 1.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 85.7 55.7 26.6 9.4 2.5 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 87.7 59.8 30.7 11.8 3.5 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 89.4 63.7 34.7 14.4 4.6 1.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 90.9 67.3 38.7 17.3 6.0 1.6 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 92.1 70.5 42.7 20.2 7.6 2.3 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 93.2 73.5 46.6 23.4 9.3 3.0 0.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 94.2 76.3 50.3 26.6 11.3 3.9 1.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 95.0 78.8 53.9 29.9 13.4 4.9 1.5 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 9 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 11.1 2 21.0 1.2 3 29.8 3.4 0.1 4 37.6 6.4 0.5 0.0 5 44.5 9.8 1.2 0.1 0.0 6 50.7 13.7 2.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 7 56.2 17.8 3.4 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 61.0 22.1 5.0 0.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 65.4 26.4 6.9 1.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 69.2 30.7 9.1 1.8 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 72.6 35.0 11.5 2.6 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 75.7 39.2 14.1 3.6 0.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 78.4 43.2 16.9 4.8 1.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 80.8 47.1 19.8 6.1 1.4 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 82.9 50.9 22.8 7.6 2.0 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 84.8 54.4 25.9 9.3 2.6 0.6 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 86.5 57.8 29.1 11.2 3.3 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 88.0 61.0 32.3 13.2 4.2 1.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 89.3 64.0 35.5 15.3 5.2 1.4 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 90.5 66.8 38.7 17.5 6.3 1.8 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 10 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 8.3 2 16.0 0.7 3 23.0 2.0 0.1 4 29.4 3.7 0.2 0.0 5 35.3 5.9 0.5 0.0 0.0 6 40.7 8.3 1 0.1 0.0 0.0 7 45.6 11.0 1.6 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 50.1 13.9 2.4 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 54.3 16.9 3.3 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 58.1 20.0 4.4 0.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 61.6 23.2 5.7 1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 64.8 26.4 7.2 1.4 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 67.7 29.6 8.8 1.9 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 70.4 32.8 10.5 2.4 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 72.9 35.9 12.4 3.1 0.6 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 75.1 39.0 14.3 3.9 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 77.2 42.0 16.4 4.8 1.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 79.1 44.9 18.5 5.7 1.4 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 80.9 47.8 20.7 6.8 1.7 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 82.5 50.5 23.0 8.0 2.2 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 11 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 5.6 2 10.8 0.3 3 15.8 0.9 0.0 4 20.4 1.7 0.1 0.0 5 24.9 2.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 6 29.0 4.0 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 33.0 5.4 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 36.7 6.9 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 40.2 8.6 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 43.5 10.3 1.5 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 46.7 12.2 2.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 49.6 14.1 2.6 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 52.4 16.1 3.2 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 55.1 18.1 3.9 0.6 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 57.6 20.1 4.7 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 59.9 22.2 5.6 1.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 62.2 24.3 6.5 1.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 64.3 26.4 7.5 1.6 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 66.2 28.5 8.5 1.9 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 68.1 30.6 9.7 2.3 0.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 12 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2.8 2 5.5 0.1 3 8.1 0.2 0.0 4 10.7 0.4 0.0 0.0 5 13.1 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 6 15.6 1.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 17.9 1.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 20.2 1.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 22.4 2.4 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 24.6 3.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 26.6 3.6 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 28.7 4.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 30.7 4.9 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 32.6 5.6 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 34.5 6.4 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 36.3 7.2 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 38.1 8.0 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 39.8 8.8 1.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 41.4 9.7 1.5 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 43.1 10.5 1.7 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 13 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2.8 2 5.5 0.1 3 8.1 0.2 0.0 4 10.7 0.4 0.0 0.0 5 13.1 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 6 15.6 1.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 17.9 1.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 20.2 1.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 22.4 2.4 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 24.6 3.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 26.6 3.6 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 28.7 4.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 30.7 4.9 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 32.6 5.6 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 34.5 6.4 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 36.3 7.2 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 38.1 8.0 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 39.8 8.8 1.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 41.4 9.7 1.5 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 43.1 10.5 1.7 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 14 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2.3 2 4.6 0.1 3 6.8 0.2 0.0 4 8.9 0.3 0.0 0.0 5 11.1 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 6 13.1 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 15.1 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 17.1 1.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 19.0 1.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 20.9 2.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 22.7 2.6 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 24.5 3.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 26.2 3.5 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 28.0 4.1 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 29.6 4.6 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 31.3 5.2 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 32.8 5.8 0.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 34.4 6.4 0.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 35.9 7.1 0.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 37.4 7.7 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 15 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 1.9 2 3.7 0.0 3 5.5 0.1 0.0 4 7.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 5 8.9 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 6 10.6 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 12.3 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 13.9 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 15.5 1.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 17.0 1.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 18.6 1.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 20.1 2.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 21.6 2.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 23.0 2.7 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 24.5 3.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 25.8 3.5 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 27.2 3.9 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 28.6 4.3 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 29.9 4.8 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 31.2 5.2 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 16 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 1.4 2 2.8 0.0 3 4.1 0.1 0.0 4 5.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 5 6.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 6 8.0 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 9.3 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 10.6 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 11.8 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 13.1 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 14.3 1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 15.5 1.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 16.6 1.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 17.8 1.6 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 18.9 1.8 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 20.1 2.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 21.2 2.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 22.3 2.5 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 23.3 2.8 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 24.4 3.1 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 17 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 0.9 2 1.8 0.0 3 2.8 0.0 0.0 4 3.7 0.1 0.0 0.0 5 4.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 6 5.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 6.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 7.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 8.0 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 8.9 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 9.7 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 10.6 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 11.4 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 12.2 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 13.0 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 13.8 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 14.6 1.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 15.4 1.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 16.2 1.3 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 17.0 1.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Target Number: 18 Successes Needed Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 0.5 2 0.9 0.0 3 1.4 0.0 0.0 4 1.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 5 2.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 6 2.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 3.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 3.6 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9 4.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10 4.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 5.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 5.4 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13 5.9 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 14 6.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15 6.7 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 16 7.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 17 7.6 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18 8.0 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19 8.4 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 8.9 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Source Code for the Shadowrun Probability Listing: #include #define MAXDICE 20 double pwr(); double fact(); double comb(); double calculation(); main() { int targ; /* target number */ int dice; /* number of dice */ int die1; /* probability die counters */ int die2; int die3; int scscnt; /* success counter */ double prob; /* probability of success on one die */ double probs[MAXDICE+1]; int scs; /* number of success wanted */ int count; /* miscellaneous counter */ FILE *outfile; outfile = fopen("probs","w"); fprintf(outfile," Shadowrun Probabilities\n"); for (targ = 2 ; targ <= 18 ; targ ++) { fprintf(outfile,"Target Number: %d\n",targ); fprintf(outfile," Successes Needed\n"); fprintf(outfile,"Dice"); for (count = 1 ; count <= 12 ; fprintf(outfile,"%6d",count++)); fprintf(outfile,"\n"); scscnt = 0; for (die1 = 1 ; die1 <= 6 ; die1++) for (die2 = 1 ; die2 <= 6 ; die2++) for (die3 = 1 ; die3 <= 6 ; die3++) { count = die1; if (die1 == 6) { count += die2; if (die2 == 6) count += die3; } if (count >= targ) scscnt += 1; } prob = scscnt / 216.0; for (dice = 1 ; dice <= MAXDICE; dice++) { fprintf(outfile,"%3d ",dice); for (scs = 1 ; scs <= dice ; scs++) probs[scs] = 100.0 * calculation(dice,scs,prob); for (scs = 1 ; scs <= (dice <= 12 ? dice : 12) ; scs++) { probs[0] = 0; for (count = dice ; count >= scs ; probs[0] += probs[count--]); fprintf(outfile," %5.1lf",probs[0]); } fprintf(outfile,"\n"); } fprintf(outfile,"\n"); } fclose(outfile); } double pwr(base,exp) float base; int exp; { double run; int count; run = 1.0; if (exp > 0) for (count = 1 ; count <= exp ; count++) run *= base; return run; } double fact(n) double n; { if (n == 0) return 1.0; else return n*fact(n-1.0); } double comb(n,r) int n; int r; { double dn; double dr; dn = (double) n; dr = (double) r; return (fact(dn)/(fact(dn-dr)*fact(dr))); } double calculation(dice,scs,prob) int dice; int scs; float prob; { return pwr(prob,scs)*pwr(1-prob,dice-scs)*comb(dice,scs); } -- Peter J. Karpas PKARPAS@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU or PKARPAS%EAGLE@WESLEYAN.BITNET "The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side." -- T. Roosevelt "There is no place I know which compares with pure imagination." -- W. Wonka -- Peter J. Karpas PKARPAS@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU or PKARPAS%EAGLE@WESLEYAN.BITNET "The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side." -- T. Roosevelt "There is no place I know which compares with pure imagination." -- W. Wonka -- Peter J. Karpas PKARPAS@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU or PKARPAS%EAGLE@WESLEYAN.BITNET "The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side." -- T. Roosevelt "There is no place I know which compares with pure imagination." -- W. Wonka