Let's Build: A Rigger

I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret. I love Riggers. I rarely get to play, and most of my groups don't have a PC rigger, so it's a rare day indeed when I get to show my love for the guy in the van with the shotgun. Did you ever notice the Rigger almost always has a shotgun? Or, is it just my groups. Anyway. In honor of Gun H(e)aven 3, and my now un-closeted love of Riggers. I'm going to build a PC rigger. Normal build rules, no street level here, and we shall see how he comes out!

As you may know from my earlier Let's Build, I prefer human characters. However, I'm going to set myself a challenge with this one, and will build a Metahuman rigger. I'm also setting myself the goal of building a character that isn't going to be content with sitting in his car, and letting his drones have all the fun.

Now comes the hard choices.

I want to have a large pool of money, so my initial thought is to assign Resources to Priority A. However, I've said I'm not going to run a Human, and if I want to run a Troll, I really should make Metatype my Priority A. I think, in this case, I'm going to have to let money, and my leftover Karma keep me afloat. So, Resources gets Priority A.

With that settled, Priority B gets Attributes. As I strongly feel that your attribute scores should be as high as possible.

That leaves me C, and D. If I make C skills, then D has to be my Metatype, which in this case would mean Elf (0) Which, if I must admit, is hardly ideal. However, I don't want to have 22 skill points either.

Elf (0) it is then.

Resources: A - ¥450,000
Attributes: B - 20
Skills: C - 28/2
Metatype : D - Elf (0)
Magic: E

Attributes
Body: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Agility: 6/7 - 4 pts.
Reaction: 5/6 - 4 pts.
Strength: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Willpower: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Logic: 5/6 - 4 pts.
Intuition: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Charisma: 3/8 - 0 pts.
Edge: 1/6

I went for a more general spread, maxing out Reaction for the piloting skills, but at the same time, not leaving any real holes in terms of a weak attribute, or a low limit. The advantage of playing a non-Human character is that you don't have to spend points on the boosted attribute, to still have a solid attribute. Charisma in my case, with no additional points, is still a 3.

Qualities
As I've stated earlier I love qualities. I think it's a great way to add flavor to a character. For my Rigger, I had a few in mind. However, I have a slight issue, my Edge attribute is a 1. This, is a very bad idea. So, I'm going to plan on bumping this to a 3 with Karma. However, that means that my 25 Karma I'm given has been spoken for, so any positive qualities must have a matching negative quality to balance out the Karma.

SINner - Corporate SIN: This is a huge 25 point negative quality I take very rarely. However, I love the back story possibilities that come with it. In my case, I'm going to say it's a Mitsuhama SIN

Juryrigger: This is another favorite of mine, I love the idea that I can coax just a little more life out of scrap, and it dovetails nicely with...

Gearhead: Yep, I'm the pilot you're looking for. This is a great 11 pt. positive quality. It let's you get just a little more bang out of your equipment when you really need to. Plus, when added to the bonuses from Juryrigger, you can make a drone do magic, for 1D6 minutes, then well, it bricks itself.

This leaves me with 4 extra Karma, for Contacts.

Next, we need skills. This is always a hard part for me, as I want to take points in absolutely everything, and then have to scale back until I'm in budget. For this character, budget means 28/2. Let's start with the skill group.

For the skill group, I'm going with Engineering. This gives me Aeronautics Mechanic, Automotive Mechanic, Industrial Mechanic, and Nautical Mechanic at a rating of 2. Useful for a vehicle based character.

For the rest of my skills I've taken the following:

Skills:
Perception: 4
Gunnery: 4
Heavy Weapons: 3
Automatics: 3
Pilot Aircraft: 5
Pilot Ground Craft: 5
Hardware: 2
Electronic Warfare: 2

Skill Group:
Aeronautics Mechanic 2
Automotive Mechanic 2
Industrial Mechanic 2
Nautical Mechanic 2

While I'm not going to be a rock star in combat, and I'm out of my depth in social situations, the character has a good spread of combat skills, vehicle skills, and can fix his own gear, a valuable skill set for someone who's expensive toys get shot at.

Next, I get to spend my money. This part always makes me feel like a kid at Christmas. Remember we took Resources A, so we have a whopping ¥450,000 to spend.

Let's start with the easy stuff first. Lifestyle: Low, 3 months. This takes ¥6,000 but guarantees me a safe place to sleep, and a place to park my vehicle. I'm also going to add on the Special Work Area perk, bringing the per month cost up to ¥3,000 and the total bill up to ¥9,000. For the sake of back story, I'm going to say I live in a loft over a garage.

With Lifestyle in the bag, I usually buy my armor, primary, and secondary gun. In this case, I'm going to hold off, and skip to the vehicles and drones next as they will take up a large portion of my money.

For starters, my two vehicles. One for work, the other for play.

GMC Bulldog (¥35,000)
- Rigger Interface (¥1,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
Suzuki Mirage (¥8,500)
- Rigger Interface (¥1,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)

I took Gunnery, and Automatics, because I wanted to be able to un-mount the guns from my vehicle if needed, and carry them.This obviously packs more punch with machine guns, but the assault rifles are not exactly weak tea. This helps to make the character more well rounded, as well as keeping me from being tied to my vehicle. Having two weapon mounts on the Bulldog lets me un-mount one gun, while providing covering fire with the second weapon. While Ideally I'd love to have Heavy Weapon mounts, the availability is simply too high.

For the vehicles, and later the drones, and as my personal weapon I'm taking the Colt Inception from Gun H(e)aven 3. With an Accuracy of 7, and a 10P damage code, it's a rock solid assault rifle. Keeping one rifle across the board makes life easier as you can share clips, and ammunition across all your vehicles.

Colt Inception x 4 (¥9,000)
- 10 clips (¥50)
- 1000 Rounds Explosive (¥8,000)
- 1000 Rounds APDS (¥12,000)
- External Smartgun (¥800)

One thing I found when playing Shadowrun 5th Edition is that when buying restricted gear, especially ammunition, it's best to buy in bulk at character creation, as it can be a pain to source in game.

Now, drones, this is one area where we have far too few choices in the core rules. There are, in total, 11 drones in the core rules. Eleven. Some of those 11 are not restricted. The ones that are, some are well worth the money. My personal favorite is the MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone. It's highly modifiable, and that makes it ideal for Shadowrunning. On the ground, the GM-Nissan Doberman is a rock solid choice. For less offensive operations the Lockheed Optic-X2 is a great VSTOL spy drone, and it's not even restricted!

Remember, you don't have to bring every drone on every mission, and it helps to have a variety back at home, so that you can pick and choose to fit your mission profile. With that in mind, I've grabbed the following:

1 x GM-Nissan Doberman (¥5,000)
- Built in Standard Weapons Mount
2 x MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone (¥10,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥5,000)
1 x Cyberspace Designs Dalmatian (¥21,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥5,000)
1 x Steel Lynx Combat Drone (¥25,000)
- Built in Heavy Weapons Mount

For the heavy weapon mount, I'm going to pick up a really inexpensive LMG from Gun H(e)aven 3, the Krime Wave. At (¥2,000) it's an absolute steal. Also, it can handle a clip, and belt, and can switch feed sources. I'm going to add a smartlink for the following setup:

Krime Wave (¥2,000)
- 2 clips (¥10)
- 500 Rounds Explosive (¥4,000)
- 500 Rounds APDS (¥6,000)
- External Smartgun (¥200)

This stable of death and destruction gives me a wide range of options for mayhem, and for a surprisingly reasonable price tag!

So far, I've spent ¥175,060 of my ¥450,000 budget.

Let's look at what else I'll need.

Ares Crusader II Smartlink (¥830) (my backup gun)
- 2 clips (¥10)
- 100 Regular Rounds (¥200)
- Concealable Holster (¥150)

Actioneer Business Clothes (¥1,500)
Urban Explorer Jumpsuit (¥650)
- Helmet (¥100)

Hermes Ikon Commlink (¥3,000)

Fake SIN Rating 4 (¥10,000)
- 10 x Fake License Rating 4 (¥8,000)

The point of the fake SIN, and licenses, is that it gives me a cover story, to help put a line of defense between myself, and the corporate SIN I bought as a quality. Plus, it gives me the option to carry some of my restricted gear, including the drones, and the guns on them, legally. Always a good idea.

Aircraft Mechanic Shop (¥5,000)
Ground Vehicle Shop (¥5,000)

Now comes the other expensive part of the package, Cyberware. First on the list has to be the Control Rig Rating 2 (¥97,000, 2 Essence) and the Smartlink (¥5,000, Capacity 2) in a set of natural Cybereyes Rating 3 (¥10,000, 0.4 Essence, 12 Capacity) in addition, I'm going to pick up Low-Light Vision (¥1,500, Capacity 2) and Vision Magnification (¥2,000, Capacity 2) Here's the cyberware in list form:

Control Rig Rating 2 (¥97,000, 2 Essence)
Cybereyes - Natural Rating 3 (¥10,000, 0.4 Essence, 12 Capacity)
- Smartlink (¥5,000, Capacity 2)
- Low-Light Vision (¥1,500, Capacity 2)
- Vision Magnification (¥2,000, Capacity 2)

So far, I've spent ¥325,000 of my ¥450,000 budget.

One piece of gear that I've not yet bought is a Rigger Command Console, mostly because the table for them isn't in the gear section. With that in mind, I want to pick up the most expensive one I can afford. With an Availability of 12, I can get the Proteus Poseidon. Device rating 5, Data Processing 5, and Firewall 6. For the low, low, price of ¥68,000

On top of that, I need to pick up a few autosofts, and cyber programs. Autosofts, are programs that run on drones, enhancing their abilities. The cost for these isn't listed in the first printing of the core rules, but has been released in the errata as follows:

Autosoft
Availability: Rating * 2
Cost: Rating * ¥500

Note: Don't take the above as gospel, always check your rule book, and any published errata.

I have the following drones:

GM-Nissan Doberman, MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone, Cyberspace Designs Dalmatian and a Steel Lynx Combat Drone so any model specific autosofts will need to be bought for the different drone models. This is another reason to only carry a small number of models.

I'm looking to buy the following list of Autosofts:
Clearsight 6 (¥3,000)
Electronic Warfare 6 (¥3,000)

[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Evasion 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Evasion 6 (¥3,000)

[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[Steel Lynx Combat Drone] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[GM-Nissan Doberman] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)

[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Stealth 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Stealth 6 (¥3,000)

[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[Steel Lynx Combat Drone] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[GM-Nissan Doberman] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)

That's ¥42,000 worth of software.

So far, I've spent ¥435,000 of my ¥450,000 budget.

I also want Encryption, Signal Scrub, Toolbox, Virtual Machine, Armor, Biofeedback Filter, Guard, Shell, and Sneak cyberprograms. That's ¥250 * 9 = ¥2,250 I'm also going to pick up all the Common cyber programs, for another ¥560.

This is the point that I really like, I've bought all the necessities, now I can buy things that are just silly. That is, bits of gear, or cyberware that I want, but don't consider critical. Unfortunately, I'm sitting on a measly ¥12,190. I'm going to spend that on a few extra hard to find bits of equipment.

- Krime Wave (¥2,000)
  - 500 Rounds APDS (¥6,000)
  - External Smartgun (¥200)

This brings me down to ¥446,010 spent, giving me ¥3,390 + (3D6 * ¥60) to start the game with.

All that's left now, is to assign contacts, and spend my karma. Remember, I'm boosting Edge to 3, which leaves me 4 karma to add to my contacts. For Rigger contacts, I like to keep it simple.

I start with Charisma x 3 in free Karma, that's 9 points. With the 4 leftover Karma I have from Qualities, I can spend 13 karma on Contacts. Some people like to have a few very close contacts, while I find that can be helpful, I like to have a larger number of contacts. However, there's not much I can do with only 13 points.

Fixer: 2/2
Mitsuhama Inventory Clerk: 4/1
Parts Store Owner: 1/3

I grab the usual Fixer, and a Scrapyard owner, think your local Autozone, good for getting parts for the legal vehicles in my fleet. The Mitsuhama Inventory Clerk is your average middle-management drone, left over from my corp days. He can possibly provide me with sensitive parts, and intel, from within Mitsuhama. Not the best contact, but flavorful, and could open other options.

Final Attributes
Body: 3
Agility: 6
Reaction: 5
Strength: 3
Willpower: 3
Logic: 5
Intuition: 3
Charisma: 3
Edge: 3
Initiative: 8 + 1D6
Essence: 3

Limits
Mental Limit: 6
Physical Limit: 5
Social Limit: 4

There you have it! Feel free to comment if you think I've gone off the deep end, or more likely if my math is wrong!

Review: SR5 GM Screen

Man! It's the second coming of Christmas, or maybe it's my birthday come 9 months early. Anyway, hot on the heels of Gun H(e)aven 3 earlier this week, I just received a call that my local game store Games & Gizmos got in my copy of the Shadowrun 5th Edition GM Screen.

Now, I usually don't go for GM screens for a number of reasons. I've never felt the need to hide my dice from my players, and I usually structure my game table in such a way that a player would be unable to casually glance at my notes. For maps, and other items, I have a laptop, which keeps the master view of the map, so there's nothing to hide their either. But, I got talked into the Shadowrun one, mostly because I was curious.

You see, when a company like Catalyst sets the quality bar as high as they did with the Shadowrun 5th Edition Core Rules, you have to wonder if they can find a way to make a GM screen that isn't flimsy paperboard, doomed to be a creased mess inside a few sessions.

Well, I'm proud to say that the quality is superb. The screen itself is made from a hard paperboard, very similar, if not identical to the material used in a hardcover book. This alone makes the screen worth it's price. I cannot fathom damaging this screen enough to render it unusable. The back of the screen is a number of high-quality glossy fluff photos. However, it's the front of the screen that really shines.

I had seen a few promo pictures for the GM screen, and had been worried that the scatter table, for grenades, would be too large, as it seemed to take up nearly a quarter of one of the four panels. As I opened the screen it became quickly obvious that that wouldn't be an issue. While I'm curious about the positioning of some of the tables on the screen, I found that the majority of the data I would need to have to hand was present. All of the applicable modifier tables are there, combat, weather, noise, etc. As well as the weapon range table, which is something I always seem to forget. On top of these are a bunch of utility tables, success thresholds for tests, example test difficulty, and a smattering of other test related tables, all grouped helpfully together.

However, there were two tables that I found odd. First, was the assensing table. While other GM's might find it helpful, this isn't a table I have found much need for. Fortunately it's tucked off in near the bottom of a side panel, and doesn't attract much attention. The only other head-scratcher came in the form of the payout table. This takes up roughly a third of one of the four panels. Maybe it's just me, but I usually plan my payout, plus or minus Negotiation, as part of the run hook, and can't fathom a need for the table in-game. Maybe I'm wrong, but this seemed like a less than optimal use of the space.

However, don't let that dissuade you from picking up the screen. The test modifier tables alone make it well worth the money. I'm going to have it set up to hand for my next session, and I'm sure my players will be shocked when I actually remember to ding them a few dice for the fog and rain that is a Seattle standard.

And, We're Back!

It feels good to be back! Happy New Year everybody, as I'm sure you realize I took the holidays off. Between work, and family obligations I didn't have much time left to game. However, as things get back on track I'm going to be back to gaming, and writing here.

To start the new year off, I took the liberty of buying myself a present! Specifically, Gun H(e)aven 3 off of DriveThruRPG. This mini-supplement tips the scales at 38 pages. Containing 33 new guns, and a few new weapon keywords, and modifications the books not a "must have" but it's certainly a lot of fun, and with a price tag under $8 it's not going to break the bank either. One thing I really like about Gun H(e)aven 3 is that the weapons have both Shadowrun 5th Edition, and Shadowrun 4th Edition stats. This makes the book much more versatile.

As is the norm with Catalyst Games books, the quality is superb. Granted, this is only in PDF form, but even then, the coloring, and layout, is gorgeous. Every gun has it's own page, stats, and flavor text.

However, the one thing that I must say, and feel free to call me crazy, the book contains a number of "antique" guns. Old style revolvers, over-under shotguns, a number of gorgeous Winchester pieces. Makes me want to build a character that would make John Wayne proud. Little details like this really make the book worth the, tiny, price tag.

I will give you one peek, to whet your appetite.

M1 Garand
Acc: 5
Damage: 12P
AP: -1
Mode: SA
RC: -
Ammo: 8(c)
Avail: 3R
Cost: $1,100

The book is filled with in-game remakes of classic firearms. From the Garand, to revolvers in line with the Colt Army, to wild muzzle-loading muskets that you could literally hang on the wall of your flat, and nobody would ever think it strange. That dovetails nicely with two of the new weapon keywords. I've paraphrased below.

Vintage: An old weapon, can be modified but costs twice as much.
Cap & Ball: three complex actions to reload. Ammo code (cb)

While they aren't game changers, they do open up a load of fun ideas, blunderbuss shotguns, and homemade guns now have a rules-legal ammo code. Whenever possible, I like to use what's printed, and rules like this really make me pleased. All in all, for $8, I found this to be worth the money, and I sincerely hope that the rules, and firearms here, make it into Run & Gun, when it's released.

Fireside Chat: Game Settings, and Systems

What is Shadowrun? When I've been asked that question I usually embark on a long description of the game, the setting, and the fluff. This works for new players, and helps people understand what they are getting into, but it's limiting in and of itself. Let me give you an example.

I happen to frequent a local game store, as I like to shop local, and as chance would have it one of the fluff writers for Shadowrun 5th Edition also frequents the store. We got to talking, and she took me to task after I stated that Shadowrun was based in Seattle. Her point being that, as she wrote for Catalyst, she knew that the plot wasn't going to be Seattle-centric, and therefore I was wrong to state that Shadowrun was based in Seattle. This got me to thinking, first that it's silly for a person who is a representative of a company, however, peripherally, to be arguing with that same company's customers, and second, what exactly is meant by a setting, or really, a system at all?

Let's look at system first. There are two main game systems. The first, is a threshold based system. This is the D20 system, in a nutshell. You have a target, if you roll over it, you succeed, under it, you fail. You also have a success based system. This, is Shadowrun. You have a pool of dice, and if enough dice succeed you pass, if they don't you fail. If you want to describe Shadowrun in minimalist terms, you would describe it as a success based D6 system. That's it. There's no trappings of settings, or fluff, it's simply the system that is used, and the type of dice rolled.

Now, let's talk setting. Setting is where the game's fluff takes place. This is often confused as being where the game itself takes place, but once you remove the fluff, you're often left with very little in terms of setting. In Shadowrun 3rd, and 4th, edition the game's setting was Seattle. In my mind, this continues into 5th Edition as well. Regardless of the official cannon. Why does this matter? Let me explain.

For years now, I've wanted to run a role-playing game set in Prohibition. That is, 1920's era, New York City. In order to run such a game, I went looking for a set of rules who's fluff meshed with the setting I wanted to run. What I should have done, and this comes back to the discussion in the game store rather neatly, was adapt a game system, to fit the setting I wanted to play. What's to prevent me from taking the D6 based success system of Shadowrun 5th Edition, and dropping it into a 1920's era setting? Nothing. That's the great thing about viewing a game as a system, and not as a setting.

But, let's keep it a little closer to home. I have a group of players, and they've never been to Seattle. Tacoma means nothing to them, nor does Redmond, Bellevue, or Lake Washington. The setting, as it's presented, is meaningless. Why use it? I know we get attached to a setting, and we feel that we have to do whatever it is that the designer wants us to use, but why not set a campaign in your own home town? Have your players meet Mr. Johnson in your favorite local watering hole, and meet up for after-the-Run dinner at your favorite greasy-spoon.

Remember, it's your game, and your players game, if they want to keep the setting in Seattle, great. If not, great. Do what you want with the system, regardless of the setting.

Tactics: Riggers, Deckers, and Party Design

I'm a car guy. I love vehicles in Shadowrun. It always pained me in 3rd, and 4th Edition that most of my teams had an NPC rigger. Strictly from a mechanics, and flow perspective it wasn't feasible to have a PC rigger. Once the player had spent most of his money, and/or build points into a vehicle they had little incentive to get out of the vehicle. This meant that one player would usually sit out the run, until the group needed a quick getaway. This, to say the least, was no fun. Drone riggers fixed this to a point, but then the drones took over the scouting and combat roles, and other players who would usually be performing those roles ended up sitting twiddling their thumbs. In the end, most GMs, and most groups, abandoned the Rigger.

Even in 4th Edition, where the vehicle rules were better, few groups ran a PC rigger. When I picked up Shadowrun 5th Edition, I had low hopes for a lot of the mechanics. After reading through the Matrix rules, and wanting to build a Decker for the first time in a long while, I moved on to the vehicle rules. I fell in love with the amount of synergy between Riggers and Deckers. That was a master-stroke and one that has fundamentally altered the way I run, and plan, my games. You can no longer have a Rigger without a Decker. Opposing Deckers are now a massive threat to a NPC, or PC, Rigger.

This has prompted a shift in the metagame, the dynamic of the "Default" party. When I say default party I want you to think back to D&D, specifically early D&D. When you sat down to play D&D with your friends, as I often did, there was a default set of characters that had to be played, or the party never quite worked. You had the Fighter, the Mage, the Rogue, and the Cleric. Granted, some of these roles could be filled by other classes but the optimum build was always those four. Shadowrun, despite not having classes has an optimum build. In 3rd Edition you could do without a Decker, provided you had someone with good hardware skills. You needed a Face, but often times you could get away with another player taking some social skills, and a decent charisma. Usually, in my groups, that was your mage. There was no real call for a Rigger, in fact most of the time you only needed a car, and didn't even need the driving skill, 4th Edition was more or less the same. However, 5th Edition changed all that.

Let's look at the default build-point based 3rd Edition party.

- Street Samurai (Usually metahuman, Ork, Troll, etc.)
- Socialite (Elf, usually)
- Magician (Elf, or Human)
- Wildcard (Medic, Hardware guy, gun nut, decker, adept etc.)

The point being, with a Street Samurai, Social Character, and Magician, you had the game on lock. There was little you couldn't do with those three builds. The forth character was syntactic sugar, a nice to have, but not needed for the group to accomplish their objectives. The issue here is simple, you've reduced the game to a formula and whomever got stuck playing the forth man was in for a less than stellar experience.

With 5th Edition, things shifted. Sure, you can turn your network connectivity off, but the bonuses for wireless connectivity are huge. So, you leave your gear connected. Most characters won't even think about being hacked. As a GM, you let the following story play out. Runners get a job, they get hacked, badly, things go south, their gear goes haywire, guns won't fire, cyberware bricks, commlinks smoke and fail. Everything goes south. It's not hard to orchestrate, and it proves a point. So now you have to run a PC Decker, it's flat-out required. Now let's look at the default party again.

- Street Samurai
- Socialite
- Magician
- Decker

Still looks awfully formulaic. But, let's take it one step further. Why take a dedicated Socialiate? Your Magician, if they are a conjurer they will have a solid Charisma. So, your Magician becomes your Face. If not your magician, pick a character with a decent Charisma and tack on a Negotiation skill.  It's not hard to imagine. So now we have an empty spot. What do we do? We take a Rigger. Why? Because noise forces them to be johnny on the spot, and drones are incredible. Plus, it's nice to not have to walk to the meet.

So now your baseline party looks like this:

- Street Samurai
- Magician (with Negotation)
- Decker (possible with Negotiation, if the Magician isn't a conjurer)
- Rigger

Everyone has a job to do, there's enough overlap to handle injuries, and nobody is left sitting out because they've done their part. 5th Edition solves the wildcard character problem, while promoting synergy within the team, and making your Rigger, and your Decker into best friends.

Fireside Chat: Mages

I wrote two blog posts on the magic rules in Shadowrun 5th Edition, specifically Spellcasting, and Conjuring. I wanted to take a moment and write one more post about an interesting opinion I read online while building my canned characters for my first session.

"Being an aspected mage actually penalizes for taking power limitations at priority C.  (At priority B, aspected magicians are equal to magicians at least in terms of the karma value of their bonuses.)  At priority D, obviously there isn't a comparison.  The obvious conclusion however is that nobody should ever play an aspected magician except at priority D, unless you are going to be a conjurer, and even that is debatable.  (Of course, then there is the question of why you would ever want to be a magician instead of a mystic adept, since Mystic Adept > Magician > Aspect)."

Courtesy of Ricochet here

Now, let's look at this a bit closer. At priority A, there's no Aspected Magician, so you have to choose Magician, or Mystic Adept. I cannot fathom why you would take priority A for Magic. By taking A in Magic you are selling yourself short. So much of the game focuses on Attributes, and Skills, I cannot fathom why you would waste A on Magic. Especially when B is nearly as good, and leaves your top spot open for Attributes.

Priority B is where I like to start with every Magician I've built. I look at it like this: If I'm building a human Character, then Mystical Adept, Magician, or Aspected Magician all make sense. Remember, if you're going to take Magician, you might as well take Mystical Adept. You don't have to buy the power points, but having the choice doesn't cost anything, and can leave interesting growth options open to you down the road. If I'm building a non-human character and I'm not going to have a large number of extra points to add to my Edge, and Magic, then I prefer the Aspected Magician at this level, as the one higher point in Magic can help offset the lack of special attribute points from the metatype. That being said, a full Magician at priority B can be solid with a non-human metatype, you need to balance the metatype choice, and the rest of your priority choices though.

Priority C is the first level where I'd actually consider taking an Adept. You have a reasonably high Magic, and you've left Priority A, and B, free for attributes, skills, or metatype. Though again, I'd caution against taking Priority A as anything other than attributes. For Magician, Mystic Adept, or Aspected Magician I have to agree with Ricochet. The skill group for the Aspected Magician simply isn't enough of a benefit to make me not want to take the full Magician or Mystic Adept. Magic 3 is still solid, especially if you're playing a human, or other metatype with a few special attribute points to bolster your magic rating.

Priority D, this is an interesting one. You're left with Adept, or Aspected Magician. You get no spells, or skills, for free. Why would you bother taking Priority D for Magic? Honestly, I would only take Adpet at this Priority. Given that all Adepts have to buy power points with Karma you might as well take Attributes, Skills, and Metatype/Resources as A, B, and C, and use the special attribute points to up the magic attribute, and the skill and attribute points to build a solid foundation for a character. I can't advise taking Aspected Magician at D, as there's simply too many demands on your skill picks, and karma, to make a mage work at such a low priority.

This is one of the only failings of a priority based build system. You end up with character builds that simply aren't as good, or aren't even viable. In the end, you're going to see a lot of Human Mystic Adpets. If this was intentional by the designers, or not, this is definitely the way I see things going.

Attributes: A
Magic: B (Mystic Adept)
Skills: C
Metatype: D (Human (3))
Resources: E

That's your cookie-cutter mage build, in my opinion.

I'm curious though, does anyone have an idea for a character that doesn't seem possible? I'd like a challenge. If you can think of a character concept post in the comments, and tell me what the character concept is, and what you'd pick for Metatype, Attributes, Skills, Resources, and Magic. I'll pick a few I like and see if I can actually build them.

Run Recap: First Session!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, or at the very least, a great weekend. As I mentioned in an earlier post I ran my first Shadowrun 5th Edition game this past Friday. I had planned to run a four player street-level game. I had developed a run that should have been a challenge, while highlighting a number of the mechanics in the game.

Once I arrived and got the session started I ran into the first of a number of hurdles. My forth player was a no-show. He'd been called into work, and wouldn't be able to make it to the game. This meant that my group was going to be down either their mage, or their primary combat character. Figuring it would be easier to work around the lack of the gun fighter I handed out the three pre-generated characters, explained the basics of the game including skill tests, limits, and opposed tests, as well as covering some of the language I would be using in game, and we got started.

As this was both a one-shot, and a new group, I kept things informal, allowing table chat, and questions as they came up. If this was a more serious group I'd have kept the cross chat to a minimum but I found that in this case it helped move things along as the one experienced player could field questions as they arose, freeing me to ad-lib a less dangerous version of the run.

We began with the meet. I went with my usual method when I have a new group, each player gets a call from their fixer, or other main contact. On the call they were told that a job was in the works, but the timeline was short and they needed to get to the '12 Stone Steps' I cut out a lot of the pre-meet work that I had planned. I let the players wander around the Tacoma waterfront, described the environment, and the police presence. I had made it clear to the players that they would need to play nice with police, and all three of my players took it to heart and showed up to the meet with small arms, under jackets, in concealable holsters. In the end, it worked well, and the descriptions of the police provided enough dramatic tension to keep the players involved. As my players staggered into the bar over the course of an hour and a half of in-game time I played up the bouncer, worked in a few concealed weapons rolls, and was lucky enough to have the bouncer spot one of my players guns, and give him a bit of trouble. As none of the characters knew each other I was able to work the meet in such a way that the group formed organically, with each player coming to the table when I needed them to.

This is one of the things I love about Shadowrun. You can effortlessly side-step the problem you run into in every D&D game, that is, why would a bunch of strangers meet up at a tavern, and go treasure hunting together. It makes no sense. At least in Shadowrun each player arrives at the meet with the idea that they are there to do a job, and get paid. Much simpler.

Once the introductions were completed, the players, and Mr. Johnson squared off for some negotiation, and then the players went their separate way to work their contacts for information on the new gang pushing BTLs in Tacoma. This wasn't part of my original plan, but I found that having the players decide their own next steps generally works well. I had planned a table of extra information, but as I was running a player short, I ad-libed and after some money changed hands, each of the players had a piece of information. Some of the information was duplicated by multiple players, but when the group got back together they were able to plan their next few steps.

I had deliberately designed the run to have a few safety features. One of these was the fact that several of the characters had Lone Star ties, and Lone Star was actively surveying the gang that the runners were targeting. This allowed me to bring in reinforcements if the run went south. This also made the players reconsider a direct confrontation, as the police are nearby, and would get involved. While this wasn't my objective, I found the fact that the players themselves took the time to talk about the pros and cons of a direct confrontation as a good sign. In the end the team mage used an improved invisibility spell, and went out to do some direct reconnaissance.

Unfortunately due to time constraints that's as far as we got, and I'll have to save the rest of the run for another day. All in all I thought it went incredibly well, and I'm looking forward to another game in the near future.