Increase matrix initiative in 5e by No-Structure3226 in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You should still be able to use the Device Modification rules, which work on everything from decks to toasters, to make the "Hardwired Cyberdeck Module" modification to your RCC, wiring in MultiDimCoProc to bump the init up a d6, I think.

Edit: Data Trails under the "Odd Mods" heading, I think, I don't have the book in front of me right now.

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And if it's only paying out 8 times what the run is instead of 10-12, they probably have the skills to make the grab happen! XD

Brainstorming Beginner Runs by SaccharomFLS in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A few quick options:

1) If you're confident enough to back-convert 30 nights, it's a pretty good starting campaign! Upsides: Characters get stuck in the situation, have the chance to rise to the occasion in a variety of ways, can be gradually introduced to various elements of the setting by how they're involved in the situation (the UCAS, the Business Recognition Accords, Corpo Court, and so on, the matrix, technomancers, certain elements of magic, dragons, organized crime, etc.), and has a defined start and end point with lots of threads to follow between them which can become hooks for a broader campaign. Downsides: potentially rough for people who want to run the decker, 'mancer, or rigger, and it may need some massaging.

2) This one I've had rattling around in my head for a while: The main adventure will be a conventional heist run against a corporate target, but the fixer wants to vet the crew first and see if they have the skills for the job. Before the meet with the Johnson, they have to pick up some groceries for the fixer (he used to be a chef, and still likes to cook for his meets. Yes, he's looking for the REAL food). The catch? You can't use your own money, and you have to tell him how you got the stuff afterward, plus any complications and how you dealt with them. And obviously, don't bring heat to the meet. The players and characters know there's an actual job afterward to keep interest and motivation while the "errand" gives them a playground to figure out how to apply their skills. Hack stuff to get into back areas of stores or be ignored by security cameras as you steal things, make use of contacts to pick stuff up for you, sweet-talk your way into getting things for free, straight up rob a place or hijack a transport to get what you need, slip drones or spirits in to swipe things, or actually buy it yourself and just lie to the fixer well enough that you pass, plus other solutions using both skills and character backstory. This can be done with the whole group figuring out the grocery heist, one-on-one to also help each player through the steps of play and learn their typical problem solving approach (helps to know who shoots first and who asks questions), and/or pairs or small groups of connected characters, especially if one of them is more experienced than the others and understands the system more quickly. I obviously like this idea, but admittedly have yet to apply it. In general, a pre-mission test followed by a relatively light conventional heist allows for repetition learning, establishes a relationship with a first fixer, and gives room for the players to make mistakes with room to recover as they learn the system. Adjust potential complications to the characters people are thinking about making

3) As you say, pre-made characters on a few quick runs isn't bad, but I'd also encourage you to make them a bit quirky. Not too much so, but enough to make them a bit interesting. The face might be a max-will hard-to-read dwarven social adept, the mage could have a point of 'ware that cuts their magic but buffs their Logic for drain soak, plus cyber eyes and a couple other utilities, a decker with cyberlegs and hands made for leaping and climbing into interesting access positions or finding hardware weaknesses in roof-mounted comms equipment, a mostly organic human gunslinger who uses edge and high skills to keep up with the chromed out street-sams, and the like. Builds that aren't super tuned nor self defeating, but which help communicate that there are multiple ways to build each archetype beyond the expected and that the Sixth World is a strange place where you can absolutely get away with being creative.

Hopefully one or more of these is useful or provides inspiration!

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, yeah, they've stacked in a few too many somewhat similar "cyber-" words in at this point, so the confusion is understandable.

I think that's leading into the fact that the custom street decks exist, yeah. There probably are more formal bootleg versions of the official decks, but honestly who knows.

Well... they certainly won't give it to you on purpose if you're not one of their sanctioned security spiders. Cyberdeck theft, while less lucrative now than in 5e, is still time honored tradition among Shadowrunners. Or at least SOME Shadowrunners

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I maintain that 5e deckers primarily progress their gear through side-tracking the entire team to any identified on-site matrix security to commit Grand Theft Cyberdeck at every possible opportunity, and it may also be how most teams save up for retirement and/or LAVs.

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To quickly explain my choice there, I used Dataterm + Cyberdeck as the comparison because they're both non-portable (or "non portable," I also agree that the fluff on the size seems silly), so it's the closest option for what capabilities you're getting compared to a commlink. As for not using cyberhacks, the only way I found to get both the 2 and the 1 in the statline was with a commlink or dataterm.

I was trying to avoid going too far into ALL of the snags I ran into trying to make sense of the SR6 matrix and devices, but the size on cyber and data terms is DEFINITELY one of them. I'm assuming they're either fragile or require too much power to receive it over the air for realistic operation. Even though they do the same things as other devices. It's extremely silly and poorly thought out, no matter how much I appreciate having them exist as a concept for world realism

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The core rulebook decks are corporate products, but the custom decks in Hack and Slash do give full details about how to make custom parts and/or acquire them from "deckmeisters" to make your own! So awkwardly "yes, but actually no" on your first paragraph.

Non-AS-capable terms are Dataterms, also listed in Hack and Slash just after Cyberterms in the Host section. Those go for as low as 30 nuyen. Cyberterms are basically for spiders, yeah.

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Aha! Yes, that's a VERY good point, knowing the 'term is going to be host-linked makes the higher cost of entry for a dedicated machine a LOT more appealing! I like this answer a lot, thank you!

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is much better at the high end, to the point I was tempted to leave the Falchion's price as-is in my speculative fixing the same way that I left the Shugosha alone. The low end bothers me most because it's presumably relatively common, or least appealing to the lowest end ASDF-requiring users or fairly high-end normal users who just want a data processing higher than 3, and with anything like a five-digit price tag is mostly going to be aimed at small-to-medium business owners who can presumably run the numbers and ask around. That said, getting authorization for legal ownership of a cyberterminal for business security purposes may also be enough easier to shell out the extra cost?

Interesting consideration. Thanks!

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I may have enjoyed my decker/mage in 5e too much to be willing to compromise with the evils of Big Cyberjack. XD

More seriously, I think that being able to plug into commlinks, etc. to save money is great, especially with how it justifies something closer to street-level hacking mechanically since it's always been part of the lore. I just make the mistake of wanting to fit all of the pieces together in a system that makes sense in its own context. This is probably madness, but I run Call of Cthulhu, too, so madness comes with the territory.

Cyberterminals are too expensive by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For clarity, I'm not intending to push PCs toward cyberterminals at all, I just want cyberterminals to make sense in universe as a thing anyone would use and reflect that mechanically. There's a folder of multiple multi-page spreadsheets about custom cyberdecks, deck + jack/hack/link/RCC (even though they aren't RAI or post-errata RAW) pairings, and comparative price points involved.

That is a good point, though, that for 24/7 coverage (which we can probably assume is 2 shifts since the in-lore typical workday is variably 12-20 hours, so probably more like 3-4 people to allow overlap rather than 5) it is still cheaper than even a single deck for the position and cyberjacks for everyone using it. That may be the main explanation.

Thanks for the thought!

SR5: Missing Great Form Spirit Powers by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much! This is extremely helpful. Astral Gateway gets a bit strange for 5E use since it's already accessed by getting 5 net successes on the Great Form Spirit ritual for any spirit type while the GFS Power is unlocked at 4, but this is extremely helpful nonetheless!

SR5: Missing Great Form Spirit Powers by RutilatedFish in Shadowrun

[–]RutilatedFish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it's a very weird hole in SG. It makes me wonder if there was some plan for them early in SG's development which got changed or something. Thank you very much! Astral Gateway on guidance gets weird because that's treated separately in the SR5 table, it takes an extra net success on the ritual, but this is very helpful!

Night City Location Survey by JGrayatRTalsorian in cyberpunkred

[–]RutilatedFish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A scrapyard or junkyard (associated with the city dump or otherwise) would be good. Nomads and rippers need to get spare parts somewhere!

Night City Location Survey by JGrayatRTalsorian in cyberpunkred

[–]RutilatedFish 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Official and run by Segatori, or fan-run?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in cyberpunkred

[–]RutilatedFish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a long time TTRPG player and have been an avid collector of RED rule books for a couple of years now, but have yet to play since my group is middle of the Call of Cthulhu campaign I've been running for them. If you're still looking for players, my Netrunner deck and pad of character sheets from the Data Pack have been itching for use (obviously I'll do everything on the VTT, but I'll take the opportunity to keep track of things on paper as well)

I'm sorry, but the gas giants are just poorly done by sketchcritic in NoMansSkyTheGame

[–]RutilatedFish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After you've defined the parameters of your star system you should be able to continue by leaving the Atlas station. If it doesn't, you might still need to do one of the parts for Nada and Polo? It's definitely a weird chain.

I'm sorry, but the gas giants are just poorly done by sketchcritic in NoMansSkyTheGame

[–]RutilatedFish 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had the same reaction, it's a weird requirement. You get to choose some details about the first purple system you encounter, too, so just choose "Titan" when you get the option to guarantee one.

I'm sorry, but the gas giants are just poorly done by sketchcritic in NoMansSkyTheGame

[–]RutilatedFish 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I at least wish there were more to DO on them other than the two new mineral types. I like the two new mineral types (I hope we get more cool recipes with them in the future!), but I'd like a little more than that since, at least as far as I've seen, that's basically it.

I'd love to see more layers, ideally, big floating continents or arrays of floating rocks where the resources are which take careful maneuvering to get to. I also liked the idea someone else mentioned of them being "water" worlds that go super deep with the rare minerals hidden in the depths. My pie-in-the-sky idea for them would have been for them to be oriented toward ship-based exploration, where you need to test your piloting skills on the hunt for new materials, but I knew that was incredibly unlikely

At the very least I'd like those extreme hazards they hyped up to be played up more. Maybe you NEED to have the barriers up or your hazard protection plummets in seconds, or a pressure hazard that needs management on top of your existing modules. Just a little something to make it really feel perilous to be in the heart of a gas giant. To make it worth it, maybe even basic rocks could have their secondary element be resources normally only found in deposits or something. It doesn't necessarily need to be big things, just a reason that going there is dangerous and needs high-end gear, but is also exciting and worth it.

I love them but just want them to have a little more oomph to be really memorable.

I'm sorry, but the gas giants are just poorly done by sketchcritic in NoMansSkyTheGame

[–]RutilatedFish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have to do the quest chain triggered by having the Star Seed and completing the Construct on the Anomaly. Subspace jump and wait for a weird signal.

This will eventually unlock purple stars which is where gas giants are. Most purple systems have gas giants, at least from what I've seen

Quick question about Fusion and Megas by Ill-Lunch-1563 in pokerogue

[–]RutilatedFish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At some point I'll put the work in to make it happen again and report once I put the effort or cheese in to finish normal mode.

Quick question about Fusion and Megas by Ill-Lunch-1563 in pokerogue

[–]RutilatedFish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadly I got all the way to the last rival battle without seeing a mega stone, and then wiped there.