91/08/30 Here are house rules & clarifications I use for my Shadowrun Campaign. For the most part I've adopted the Errata FASA has published to the net. I'll be revising this as I think of things I forgot. Comments are invited. SUPPLEMENTS I use the Grimoire with the changes noted below, but not most of the stuff from the Street Samurai's Escalation Guide. Ask first about anything not in the basic rules. METARULES Every GM has certain metarules for their campaign that are more significant than the system's rules; for example when setting target numbers, deciding if something is possible at all or not, and setting the overall atmosphere of the campaign. Here are mine: 0. In nature there are neither rewards nor penalties, there are consequences. 1. Attitude is everything 2. Style over substance 3. Life on the Edge 4. The Future is disposable BACKGROUND Massively revised, but outside the scope of this document. Most importantly, No Deathcamps and it's only 2041, not 2050. Mages are very rare. Gun control laws are very strict, and heavy armor is uncommon. People without Social Identification numbers are non-people, without rights or responsibilities. Elven lifegamers are an important subtheme. GENERAL Target Numbers (Here's the big change!): If the target number is higher than 10 you lower it to 10 and subtract the difference from the skill used for the test. E.g. Skill 6 vs. Target 12 means you roll 4 dice vs. a 10. Skills don't reduce below 1, so for example Skill 6 vs. Target 19 means you roll 1 die vs. a 14. Rule of 6+: For every 6 over the target number count another success. E.g. if your target is 4, rolling a 10 counts as 2 successes, a 16 as 3, etc. Every where the rules say "auto-success" you should change it to say "Automatic 6." You can only burn 2 karma for an autosuccess *if* you can show why things should happen that way. CHARACTERS Attributes cost 3 * the current value to improve, but with justification may be improved more than one level, up to species max. Cyber Rating starts at 0 and increases according to the essence cost of cyberware added. Alpha and Beta cyberware may not be taken at character creation. The higher your cyber rating, the less human you are and the harder you are to heal. Characters with appropriate backgrounds may concentrate or specialize in more than one area of Etiquette and/or Language when starting out. Metahumans are different than the book's, but that falls more under campaign background. Elves have moderate to severe allergy to Cold Iron, Trolls have severe allergy to sunlight, Goblins have mild to severe allergy to sunlight. Typically the larger a Goblin is the more severe the allergy; properly speaking Trolls are just a big subspecies of Goblin. Cold Iron doesn't mean steel, either. The actual allergy severity for PCs is determined by 1d6 + (extra stat points gained for being a metahuman) + Magic Rating - Cyber Rating - note that human mages can have allergies too! All metahumans have lowlight vision; none have thermographic vision. METHOD 1 Use 43210 for priority allocation, not sum-to-10. Metahumanity costs 2 in Race, but gets no reduction in price for Magic. Putting a 1 in Race means you start as human but may goblinize during play. Everyone gets 10 Karma at the beginning, which they may save, spend on skills, stats or spells, or use to bond foci, if a mage. Spell points may be used to bind foci instead of buying spells. First bonding costs should be paid, as per the grimiore. (2 points more per rating than the basic rules show, e.g. a power focus costs 7 karma per rating to bind the first time.) Mages with Tech 3 get 400,000Y. Greedy mages shouldn't whine when the inevitable happens. Note that Power Foci cost Y100,000/rating. Mages usually make all their own fetishes & foci, using someone else's can be dangerous. A mage may choose her beginning magic rating from 1 to 6. For each point of magic rating a mage may choose one magical ability, see below under TALENTS. Physical Adepts get twice the number of points they put in Magic Priority to buy adept powers with. They must put at least a 2 in Magic Priority. Your Cyber Rating is limited to twice your Tech Priority in initial creation. METHOD 2: ALTERNATIVE CHARACTER GENERATION SYSTEM Instead of using the archetype system, you can design the character by taking 350 points of Karma and building him. Stats cost 1 for the first point, 3 * the current value to increase one point. Skills, spells, and languages cost the same as if you bought them in play; you get your native language at INT+2 for free. Magic costs 50 karma for Magic Rating 3, and can be bought up from there like any other Stat, Magic 6 costs 86 Karma (50+3*(3+4+5)). If you want to be a Physical Adept, buy a Magic Rating and then spend it on adept powers. Metahumanity costs 20 Karma to be a Goblin or an elf, 40 for a troll, and the attribute changes are applied *after* buying the stats. 1's remain as 1's. For half price you can be human but have the possibility of goblinizing later. This is still being tested: Cyber Rating costs 25 Karma for Rating 1, and can be bought up from there like any other stat. The actual cyberware costs no money during character creation up to your rating, but requires a check for magic loss. Alpha and Beta cyberware is unavailable. All the Physical Adept powers except automatic successes and astral perception are available in cyberform as well. [TESTING: When buying Cyberware with Karma, alpha cyberware counts as 1 rating less for cyber rating but costs as 1 rating higher, and Beta counts a 2 less/higher. E.g. you could buy Wired Reflexes 3 (Normally Rating 5) as Alpha and it would only make you Cyber Essence 4, but would cost 70 Karma (Rating 6, with the first point costing 25 Karma). ] Contacts are free if you provide their name & background and I like them, if you make me do the work they're 1 Karma each. Buddies, Gangs, and tribes cost 5 karma each. Followers cost 20 but aren't recommended. (Who wants to watch the NPCs having all the fun?) There's no initial 3d6x1000 roll for cash. Resources are bought like any other stat, with the rating being the number of 0's after the 3d6 roll, in nuyen. That is, for 10 Karma you get 3d6x1000 nuyen. For 19 Karma you get 10 times as much. That can be used for buying whatever makes sense keeping the 4 Laws in mind. You can buy your first month's lifestyle in advance. You can keep half of whatever money you don't spend during creation. Remember, cyberware is free, although skillsofts aren't. Firearms and armor are double price, and not a good idea. You can start with half of any Karma left over, plus 5 points. DICE POOLS o Dice Pools, pg 64 (1P) The section under the Dice Pools header should read - A Dice Pool is a number of additional dice that you may roll when determining your success at something or resistance to something. Each player starts combat with all Dice Pools at their full allowance. These dice can be used as needed, but each is used only once during the turn. Each of the character's Dice Pools is renewed to full value at the beginning of any of his actions, at which time all remaining dice from the previous action are lost. The Pools are not renewed at the beginning of the following combat turns, but only at the begining of the character's actions. Dice Pools may not be used in a combat round in which the character has been surprised. COMBAT Initiative: Rule of 6s does not apply. Instead of the breakpoints in the rules (11,17,23) I use 8,15,22 for 2,3,4 actions - the same 7 that actions step down by. This makes it much easier to keep track of things, and also gives the unboosted a decent chance of 2 actions. You can hold your action to a later count, at which point your next action will come 7 counts after you do move. When your turn to move comes you should already know what you plan to do and have the necessary dice if any in your hand. State your action and roll the dice. If you're not ready when your turn comes you'll be considered to be holding. All weapon attacks stage up one wound level per 2 extra successes, and stage down by their listed staging. All unarmed attacks stage up one level per extra success, and stage down as listed. Cyber weapons are armed combat, except for razors & spurs, which can be used as either. Physical attacks that stage past deadly eliminate a point of armor for each excess success, if the power of the attack is greater than the rating of the armor. The weapon can't eliminate more points of armor in one hit than its staging. Stun (Mental track) attacks that stage past deadly spill over to the physical track in most cases, but not for magic. Armor: Ordinary armor (up through combat jackets) gives 1 auto success and its rating in extra dice. Heavy armor gives 2 auto successes and its rating in extra dice. Helmets don't add. Dice from armor are not affected by any target number modifiers. Each point of impact armor worn subtracts one die from your dodge pool. Large critters (Body > 10) may be considered as vehicles for damage purposes. Dodge: The target number for Dodge is 4 for most attacks, 5 for things that scatter - grenades, shotguns, autofire bursts, 6 for things like miniguns and dragonbreath. If the dodger has more successes than the attacker, the attack misses entirely; otherwise the dodge successes are added to those from armor and body. Resolving damage: Subtract dodge successes from the attacker's successes; if less than 0 then the attack missed. If there are still successes left, now subtract successes from armor and body resistance test, then apply the net successes to stage the attack up or down from its base damage. Instead of the conventional damage scale of 10 boxes each for mental and physical damage, you have one track numbered 0 to 12. When you take damage, roll 2d6 for hit location and mark off 1 box for a light wound, 3 boxes for a medium wound, 6 boxes for a serious wound and 10 boxes for a deadly wound, starting at the number rolled and counting down. For stun damage, mark with a /. If the box already had a / change it to an X, if it already had an X skip it. For physical damage, mark with X's and skip any boxes that already have X's. If your lowest mark is at 9 or higher, you have a +1 target penalty. At 6, a +2. At 3, a +3. If stun damage goes past 0 you fall unconscious, if physical damage goes past 0 you're "dead" (in quotes, 2050 medical tech being what it is). Healing erases boxes from lowest to highest. Explosives are handled very differently from the book, but so far they haven't come up. Resonating, shaped, and Fuel Air Explosives make military-grade munitions very deadly. Hand to Hand Combat Unarmed Combat can be concentrated or specialized similar to Athletics. Offensive dice are used when attacking only, your defense pool is based on general skill. Defensive dice are used in defense pool only, attack is based on general skill. This gives a nice variation on how people do their fighting. Boxing and karate would be Offensive styles, while kung-fu and aikido would be defensive. When attacking, a person may choose to do physical damage instead of stun, but they must add +2 to the target number. (This is the inverse of the subdual rule). Grenades: Roll the Grenade's power in dice vs. the distance in meters from where it landed to the target to stage up its base damage. When resisting grenades, their power is reduced by 1 per meter for offensive grenades, 1 per 2 meters for defensive grenades. (The book may get this backwards.) Firearms: Shotguns are Power 5 at short range, and drop one power level per range mod (5/4/3/2). Slugs are power 4 at all ranges. Flechettes go against half the ballistic rating of armor. [Tentative] You can't mix silencers and gas vents on a gun. Revolvers can't have either. Autofire: My design goals are that someone using autofire only roll each of his skill dice once to resolve hitting, and that each target only need roll body resistance once. Anything done per round is far too slow. 1) Firers can allocate their skill dice among as many targets as they like, down to one die per target. Rounds are expended at the same rate for all targets. Single shot uses 1 round, and does the base damage listed. Burst uses 3 rounds and is resolved as one attack with +1 damage code (not +1 force as in the rules). For example, an HK does 5M3 fired single shot, so it would do 5S3 on auto. To calculate recoil penalty count the number of bursts fired, if firing a weapon with a power greater than your strength one-handed, double this number, if firing any weapon braced or using a bipod or tripod, halve it. Subtract the weapon's recoil compensation from the result and add any positive result to your target number for loss of control. 2) Suppression fire: You can spray down an area to make people keep their heads down, but it's not very effective. Fire one burst per hex and add the number of contiguous hexes to your target number, but halve the recoil penalty before subtracting recoil comp. If anyone moves though any of those hexes before your next action roll to hit them at base damage. Smartgun links can be used. Example: Chalkdust fires 15 rounds into 5 hexes as covering fire, and has recoil comp 1. His Target number at short range will be 10, 4+5+(15/3)/2 - 1 At least it keeps their heads down. Dice used from dodge pool count vs. all bullets fired as part of the same action. Falling: 4m2 damage (varies according to type of ground) staged up by an opposed test between meters fallen and quickness (athletics dice may be added), then that damage is resisted by body and armor. CYBERWARE [TESTING: Internal smartlinks give -1 target number and add 3 dice to firearms skill. External smartlinks add 2 dice but do not affect target number. ] Increased reflexes puts a terrific strain on the system, at the end of using wired or boosted or increased reflexes you should check for fatigue vs. body, with the power taken from the number of consecutive turns of use up to 10. Every doubling of time above 10 adds +1. E.g. 1 minute of constant use is power 11, 1 hour is power 17! --- Method 1 --- Essence Drain React Init dice Wiring 1 2 L1 +2 +1 Wiring 2 3 M2 +4 +2 Wiring 3 5 S2 +6 +3 Boosted 1 L1 +0 +1 Boosted 2 M1 +2 +1 Boosted 3 S1 +2 +2 [TESTING: Method 2 cost 2 +1, interval 5 3 +1, interval 4 5 +5, interval 4 (and maybe an experimental +3/3 version) or maybe Essence Drain React Interval W 1 2 L1 +2 5 W 2 3 M1 +4 4 (at base reaction 4+) W 3 5 M2 +6 2 (at base reaction 6+) B 1 .5 M1 +0 5 B 2 1.5 M1 +1 4 (reaction 3+ required) B 3 2.5 S1 +2 3 (reaction 3+ required)) Wiring costs essence like this: 0.5 per point of reaction up to double your native reaction, then 1 for 1 up to triple, then 2 for 1, etc. It costs 0/1/2/4/8 essence for an interval of 8/6/4/2/1 (interpolate to find values inbetween) with unwired people having an interval of 7. Your native reaction plus increased reaction plus interval must equal 8 or higher; if its less than you get a +1 to ALL target numbers per point under 8 because your CNS has been thoroughly hosed. Currently in my campaign interval 4 is as short as is available to PCs without a really good song & dance, in the hopes of delaying the inevitable escalation. Cost can be reduced up to half by .5 per success needed to reduce drain to nothing (e.g. L1 reduces cost by .5 points, S2 reduces cost by 3 points) This is with everyone getting 1d6 for initiative. Int'l Essence 8 0 7 .5 6 1 5 1.5 4 2 3 3 2 4 1 8 ] MAGIC SPELLS A mage should be able to describe all her spells. If you don't know what it looks like when you cast it, you probably shouldn't be taking it. Mind Probe and Analyze Device are either rare or non-existent. Analyze Truth is more like Detect Strong Emotion. There are urban legends of Shamans with a Machine Totem, but they're just legends. :-) Clout has M1 drain and does (force)L1 stun in damage. All stun combat spells are one drain code higher (e.g. Sleep is D1). All control manipulations are one drain code higher. Spells with Deadly drain require explicit GM approval - they're rare. p92. Armor (Body armor or dermal armor) does NOT help against combat spells. All combat spells do damage on the physical (rather than mental) track unless explicitly noted, such as sleep. Area physical spells damage everything in their area of effect. Area mana spells damage everything living within the mage's view in their area of effect. The area of effect can be adjusted as stated in the rules. A mage can take damage from his own spells. You don't get to pick & choose your targets within the area; everyone gets hit. Control spells are vs. willpower, and need threshold (net successes) equal to the target's willpower. If the target is aware of it he can resist with willpower. Levitate Person requires a willing subject. The target number is 4+Cyber rating or Body, whichever is higher. [Testing] If you shapeshift someone no resulting stat can be higher than the number of successes of the spell. Shapeshifting someone with cyberware inflicts a (4+cyber rating)D1 wound on them, resisted by Body *before* the shift occurs. SPELLCASTING Drain is resisted by Magic Rating instead of willpower. Spell resistance tests are made vs. the Force of the spell, not sorcery. Fetishes & Exclusive only add dice to the spell, they don't change its force. At casting time, the caster can hold back dice from her Sorcery pool to maintain the spell. Each die holds the spell for one minute; the caster cannot end it early except by attacking/dispelling it, and cannot use the die in the meantime. Only Sustained and Permanent spells can be held in this manner, and once the duration of the hold ends the mage cannot go back to sustaining the spell--it drops. If you lock a spell that you cast with dice from a magic pool or focus those dice can't be reused until the lock is released. Likewise if you use an elemental to aid a spell that elemental continues to count vs. your Charisma limit, and cannot use another service until the spell it aided ends. Modified Rule of One: If you get as many 1's in the success test for a spell as the force you've learned it at, it's a fumble. A successful Sorcery skill test with a target equal to the number of 1's rolled will reduce the fumble to a mere failure. The Original Rule of One also applies - if *all* the dice come up ones, its a fumble and you don't get your sorcery check (although you can still pay a point of karma to make it only a failure.) Drain must still be checked regardless of outcome. So if you have a Force 1 spell and add 6 dice from your Magic Pool, if any of the 7 dice comes up as a 1 you lose. If you know it at Force 3 and cast it at Force 1 (plus the pool) you need 3 or more rolls of 1 for a fumble. It makes sense to me that pumping a lot of power into something you're not very good at is rarely a good idea, and it gets away from the "Buy every spell at 1" attitude that otherwise prevails. When doing ritual sorcery, add the circle/lodge's rating to the force the ritual leader knows the spell at, for the purposes of the modified rule of one. If the Leader makes his test to reduce the fumble to a failure then everyone's OK, if he blows it then each member of the circle must make his own success against it in order of Reaction (and yes, they can take up to their Sorcery in dice from the common pool to aid their resistance, if they choose). Those who didn't make their roll suffer nasty effects, probably based on the number of dice that were in the pool when things went bad. The actual form of critical failure depends on the nature of the spell, but an example might be that those who failed take physical damage equal to the drain code, staged up according to (# of 1's) vs. the rating of the drawn circle. Plus they may suffer the effect of the spell. Then check for Drain (with everyone getting any dice left in the pool to add to their willpower, as usual) - with the target numbers adjusted for the damage just taken. Drawing a ritual circle requires a ritual sorcery skill roll vs. the circle's rating, and extra successes reduces the time required to draw the circle. Base time is 1 hour per rating for a circle, which must be for a specific spell, and 1 day per rating for a lodge, which is all-purpose. SPELL DEFENSE As in the book, with the addition of: Counterspell - if you know the spell being cast at you, you can use an action to add dice up to the force you know it at your spell defense vs. it, but must then check for drain just as though you had cast at that force. You can combine this with spell defense or spell shielding. [TESTING: People have intrinsic Spell Defense equal to (6-Magic Rating)/2; thus, mundanes have three dice of Spell Defense against spells affecting them (they can't protect other people with it). A Magic Rating 4 mage has only one die, and has to use her Sorcery for further protection. (Yes, this is hard on Physical Adepts.) ] If someone resisting a spell gets net successes vs. the mage, that stages the spell drain UP. For spells with multiple targets, only the largest number of net successes stages the drain up. E.g. if a mage gets 3 successes casting an M2 drain spell on someone who gets 5 successes resisting it, the mage now has to resist S2 drain, not M2. MAGIC FOCI Beginning mages may use their beginning karma to bind magic items, paying the first bonding costs as listed in the Grimoire (two points higher per rating than the bonding costs listed in the basic rules). Spell locks must be made for use with a specific spell. Once a spell is locked it is always on. The mage who cast the spell can end it, but then the spell must be cast again and the lock bound again to make it work again. The point of karma for binding is paid *before* the effect of the spell is known. Active spell locks cannot be stolen and stay active. When the spell goes down, the lock is taken out with it, though the Mage can simply deactivate if he chooses, which takes down the spell permanantly but keeps the lock intact. [THINKING ABOUT: To activate the spell lock you expend a point of karma, spend an action and touch it, then cast the spell and check for drain. The spell is now maintained by the lock until you take an action to deactivate it, or need to run an exclusive spell, do ritual sorcery, etc. Essentially all it does is remove the +2 penalty for maintaining a spell. ] Deactivating the spell does not break the spell lock. To break a lock you make a resisted skill test between sorcery (enchantment?) and the lock's rating. Note that leaving the spell running for long periods of times can have various side-effects, depending on its exact nature. Binding spell locks from dead mages is rarely a good idea, especially if you killed her. MAGIC LIBRARIES Find Mp on the Skill Memory Chart on page 127 for the library's rating. Multiply by 100Y for hardcopy; computer media is unknown. Hardcopy weight in kg is equal to Mp. Note that you CAN get libraries that are in concentrations (e.g. spellcasting) or specializations (e.g. Combat Spells) and use those lines from the chart instead, but its not advised. Mages guard their libraries jealously, there are no open stacks at universities. Double the cost & weight if the library's rating is higher than your skill. When you buy books that are over your head you tend to not know exactly which books to buy so you accumulate a lot of trash & redundancy. SPELL LEARNING If you already know a spell and want to learn it at a higher force level, the Karma cost is equal to the new force minus half the current force (round in favor of the player). You can add 1 learning die for each point of force in the lower spell. Note that learning a spell is the same as researching its spell formula, except you can add the force your teacher knows it at to your success dice when determining how long it takes. Teaching a spell to someone is much less common, because it makes you vulnerable to them. So mages tend to have apprentices rather than studios. You choose one or very few students, watch them carefully for a long time until you can trust them, teach them a few lesser secrets, and save your big secrets for only the very best student(s). More like what dojo's were like in classical Japan, rather than what they've become now. CONJURING Add Initiate Grade (which is Magic-6 or 0, whichever higher) to Charisma for the purposes of Conjuring. ELEMENTALS Drawing a circle now requires a success test of Conjuring vs. the Force of the circle, with successes dividing the base time of Force in hours. Each type and force of elemental requires its own circle, but the circles can be reused. You can inscribe circles within circles for additional protection if something goes wrong in a conjuring, but they can't cross over each other. Drawing two circles together gives a +2 on the target number for each, three circles a +3, since the design is more complicated. Ritual Conjuring is now possible. The leader gets all his conjuring dice, each of the others adds the difference between their Conjuring skill and the number of people in the circle. The circle must be drawn specifically for the type and force of the elemental and the number of people involved, but it can be reused. Mages can conjure without a protective circle. It gives the elemental a force vs. Charisma resistance test to reduce your number of conjuring successes. If it reduces your net successes to 0, it comes but is not controlled (oops!). If it gets net successes vs. you, it doesn't come and your drain is staged UP (ouch!). One can also preallocate extra successes to reduce conjuring time, e.g. to halve the conjuration time you subtract 2 of your successes. Hasty conjuring without a circle can be fatal, but you knew that already, right? Watchers don't exist. Each time a mage goes to sleep (a "day"), for each elemental he holds bound he rolls a Conjuring vs. Force test resisted by Force vs. Charisma. If he succeeds he doesn't have to check again for one "day" per net success. If the elemental gets net successes that many services must be expended to keep it bound. If it's a standoff he would be wise to expend a service, but doesn't have to. If services run out on this test, the elemental is freed. A mage may dismiss an elemental in his service at any time, taking an action to do so. Elementals cannot be burned for automatic successes, but an elemental used to aid sorcery adds its dice to both drain resistance and magic pool. SPIRITS A shaman must request all services at the time of summoning. You don't put nature on hold. Generally spirits will take a least-disruptive path to accomplish services; the more powerful the spirit the more blatant the path can be. Subtlety and etiquette in requesting service is a good idea. All spirits have Accident, Conceal & Guard as appropriate to their natures. Field spirits' Attack power is only vs. crops; they have a fertility power too. Desert & Prairie spirits have Confusion. ENCHANTING Anyone with the skill can do Enchanting, but only people with Magic can make items that require Karma to create. Mages and shamans must gather their own materials for any magical items they use or suffer a penalty. Materials gathered by people in your circle or group or that you are teaching count as gathered by yourself. Otherwise the materials inflict a -1 die penalty on all tests using them, unless money was paid for them, in which case the penalty is -2 dice. ASTRAL I use the Astral Combat system from The Grimoire, mostly. Although some mages talk of the Astral Plane as distinct from the Physical world, its actually like talking about a "black and white world" and a "color world." Imagine a fresh day where everything you see is new and vibrant and exciting - that's what assensing is like. The entire world is alive; assensing is just noticing that it is. [ Astral Projection requires a Sorcery test, with the target being (10 - your Magic rating), with modifications as listed below. Base time required is chosen by the mage (or shaman), and divided by the number of successes. At the end of this time the mage may enter the astral plane. When its time to leave another roll must be made, with the target number equal to the time spent astrally divided by the base time chosen. Time to leave astral space equals the base time divided by the number of successes on the test. If you fail, you can retry at a +2 (that includes the penalty for the additional time you just spent in Astral Space). Using a drum gives you a -1 to the entry & exit target numbers. Being in a lodge or appropriate hermetic circle adds its rating to your skill in making the entry & exit tests, and provides some protection for your helpless physical form while you're away from it. Hallucinogens give you a -1 to entry roll, but a +1 to exit if you try to leave before they've run their course. Having a Spirit Guide can add its Force to your skill for these tests, and totem bonuses or penalties may be appropriate. Generally Shamans don't voyage into the Astral Plane unless its necessary for righting some wrong or imbalance. After returning from your Astral Journey you must make a Drain Check using your Magic rating. The force of the drain is the same as your exiting target number before modification. If that's less than or equal to your Magic rating drain is M1 fatigue; up to twice your Magic causes S1 physical damage, beyond that is D1 physical damage. There is no upper time limit, but if you use Karma to reduce the drain or make your exit roll then your Essence is temporarily reduced by the amount of Karma spent (and Magic likewise temporarily lowered). ] HEALTH SPELLS Most health spells should require fetishes. Increase (and Decrease) Attributes has been changed. The target # is 4+Cyber Rating, the number of successes determines the increase, with staging 3 being L2 drain, staging 2 being M2 drain, staging 1 being S2 drain. Increases over racial max are halved, e.g. if you get 6 successes with the S2 version on a human whose current stat is 4, it will become an 8. The target may resist with willpower if desired. The basic version of Increase Reaction only increases reaction. To add initiative dice is a drastic effect, adding one to drain level and staging; then for each 2 points Reaction is increased by you add a die to initiative as well. When an increase attribute spell is dropped, the subject must resist vs. the same drain as the spell with power equal to # of successes. E.g. in the above paragraph the subject would suffer 8S2 fatigue when the spell dropped, resisted by body. There are various booster drugs that work similarly. Increase Attributes doesn't improve cybered attributes; the version that does is vs. target 4 and is +1 drain level, +2 drain staging (physical, drastic side effects) and much much rarer. Involuntary targets resist with Body. MAGIC HEALING The following is still being playtested and is subject to revision. Comments are invited. A problem with the by-the-book system is that you can pay 1 Karma for Treat Deadly at Force 1, then add your Magic Pool to heal everybody back to full health in a few minutes as soon as you're out of combat, with no risk to yourself. Drain almost never occurs, and even if it does you're fine again in a few minutes to an hour. So I want a system to add an element of danger to the more serious healing, and make it more expensive to be a healer, so it will be rarer. Right now there's no point except roleplaying to not take Treat Deadly 1 for every mage. [Under revision; may turn into some kind of Spirit Journey.] So instead of 8 different spells there's one skill, Heal, which is treated as a spell. The drain code is equal to the target's damage code, the drain staging (called S below) is 1 within the first minute, 2 within the first hour, 3 for the first day (for shamans, the next sunrise/set), 4 for the first month, 5 thereafter. In addition to the drain, the mage may take damage. The spell is an opposed success test, with the Mage's Force vs. the target's impurity (10-Essence or 4+Cyber Rating), The mage may add dice from her magic pool, focuses, totem bonuses, etc. If the first attempt fails the Mage can retry at a cumulative +2 to his target number. Base time is 1 minute for staging 1 or 2, 1 hour for S=3, 1 day for S=4 (or from sunup/down to sundown/up for shamans), and a lot of time for S=5 (they should be healed by then anyway.) If the mages makes net successes he reduces the target's damage downwards; the staging for this is the same as the drain staging. The mage may choose to use some of the successes instead to reduce the time, dividing the base time with them. If the Mage loses the opposed test, he takes physical damage from a N-W-S attack, where N is the number of net losses, W is the wound level he was attempting to heal, and S is the staging mentioned above. He resists with either willpower, and can add dice from his magic pool if he didn't use them all to cast the spell. This means that trying to heal badly wounded Street Samurai who skirt the edge of death anyway is very, very dangerous for any but the most powerful healers. Mages can use their spell defense vs. an attempt to heal, for example if they don't want to be taken alive. Example: Jojo has Heal 3 and a 6 die Magic Pool. His buddy Strat is Essence 6 (Impurity 4) and took two moderate and one light wound (7 boxes, seriously wounded) from a spray of bullets 40 seconds ago (but you should see the other guy!). Jojo casts Heal with all 9 dice behind it. He rolls 9 dice vs. a target of 4, resisted by 4 dice vs. a target of 3. Let's say he gets two net successes. After Jojo sustains the spell for 1 minute, Strat will be only lightly wounded (staging 1, 2 successes, down from serious). Jojo checks for 3S1 Drain, no problem with a Will of 6. Second Example. Bloodhawk eats a sidewinder missile (well, OK, a .50 caliber slug, let's not exaggerate) and is deadly wounded. Bloodhawk's essence is 2, so his impurity is 8. Jojo rolls 9 dice vs. a target of 8, opposed by 8 dice vs. a target of 3. On average Jojo rolls 1 success, opposed by 5 successes, for 4 net losses. So not only is Bloodhawk not healed, but Jojo takes 4D1 physical damage (resisted by willpower) in addition to the 3D1 drain for casting the spell (also resisted by willpower). If Jojo were really insane enough to go that deep into shadow after his friend, neither is likely to return. The heavily-cyberized are better off in the arms of Science; I find that desirable. Detox & Antidote should probably work similarly. METAMAGIC Spell Shielding - Adds Grade (Magic - 6, or number of times you chose this talent, whichever higher) to the resistance value of the individual subject, up to sorcery skill number of times. Note that to protect multiple targets with this power you must spread your dice among them. For example, Swimming Buffalo is Grade 2, Magic 8, Sorcery 6, therefore a 6 die Magic Pool. He could allocate 3 dice to each of 2 friends, each would be protected from the next 6 spells (or until SB takes his next action), getting an extra 3 dice on their resistance test, and giving a +2 target number to whoever's casting on them. TALENTS Mages are no longer jacks of all trades, and the line between mage and initiate is much fuzzier. Mages choose one of the following talents for each point of Magic Rating. Shamans can get an extra point of magic in return for accepting the limitations of only being able to conjure or cast what they get a totem bonus for. A mage who loses magic does not lose the associated talent so long as he has any magic left at all. Only mages with the Sorcery talent have spell defense. Powers Pre-req sorcery conjuring healing astral perception astral travel astral perception spirit journeying astral travel centering astral perception dispelling astral perception masking astral perception shielding astral perception, sorcery quickening astral perception Where the Grimoire says "Initiate Grade" for the 5 meta-magics replace it with the larger of (Magic - 6) and (# of times that power chosen). SKILLS Half the spent karma can be recovered when upgrading spells or upgrading specialization/concentration to a general skill. Example: If you have Firearms 5 and Pistol 7, increasing Firearms to 7 costs only 16 Karma, not 22. (10+12-(5+6)/2 = 16). MATRIX [Subject to change] The maximum Persona program (Bod, Evasion, Masking, Sensor) rating usable in a Cyberdeck is equal to its MPCP. The maximum for any utility program is equal to the associated Persona's value, or MPCP if no Persona is associated with the utility. Example: Fastjill has a deck with MPCP 6 and puts a Sensor 5 in it. The highest Analyze she can run on it is then a 5. If she improves her Sensor to a 6 she could run Analyze 6 (if she has one). To get better than that she'd have to replace the MPCP. Maximum hardening is 1/2 the MPCP. The formula for design points is (MPCP + Hardening) * (IO+Load)/2. Hardening is expensive. Red Nodes need 3 successes as stated in the book, not 4 as stated and then retracted in errata (and then stated again). Nodes on alert increase their ratings by +2, not 50%. Software degrades with time or use - the state of the art is constantly advancing. EQUIPMENT There's a lot more available than what's listed here! The future is not only disposable, but diverse and customized. E.g. there's a whole array of custom drugs & moodware available. FASA's clip sizes are ignoring caseless ammo; you can get clips twice the size indicated, or 3x at -1 concealability. Caseless ammo doesn't store as well as brass (especially if you get it wet) and is easier for sniffers to detect, but it's much lighter and smaller. It's also illegal, but what isn't? Most military weapons use caseless ammo & auto-eject the clip when its empty. HEADWARE A Datajack lets you plug into things, but doesn't have room for a chip. Chipjacks can only read chips, although you can get an adaptor that plugs in and does the job of a datajack almost as well. Once a chip is jacked in, you can download it into headware memory if you have enough, or leave it in. If you download or leave the chip in, then you can use any knowledge or language skills on it. Chipjacks with an active chip can't be used as datajacks. Skillwire: Your wire rating is the maximum number of skill levels you can have running at one time. If you have level 6 wires and 2 chipjacks, then you can run two level 3 skillsofts; you couldn't run 2 level 6 skillsofts. You could, however, switch between them in a single action. Also note that language softs do not need wires, so you could run a level 6 soft and a language soft at the same time. You can run any language soft with a standard datajack and a datasoft enabler. Active skills (anything that requires muscle movement) require skillwires, which include a free chipjack as part of the skillwire installation (no further cost and don't note it on your sheet.) (Note that FASA says all skills are active, but I disagree.) Note that some skillsofts come in two flavors - active and not. For example, a Japanese Language active skillsoft will allow you to make all the proper motions automatically. The Japanese Language skillsoft just gives you grammar and vocabulary, and the better ones cue you when you should do various things ("hand him your business card with both hands.") If you downloaded into headware memory, you need a datasoft link to access the knowledge in your headware memory, and/or a display link to display it on your retina/cybereye. A program enabler allows you to run headware programs, which I won't get into now - they're not listed in the book. Most commonly these are things like spreadsheets, so you can manipulate data either in your headmemory, or downloaded via datajack. Don't worry, your head's not big enough for a decker to get into. Honest! Programs cost extra. Note that not listed but also available are personality modules, with various character traits or even entire live or fictional personalities encoded. Generally files are not just simple bytestreams, but complex data structures with assorted handling software and hooks attached. Disentangling part of a file can be a tricky business. Generally chipjacks can't write to the chip, but you can get a chipburner and download from either jack into that. They're not cheap. Note that some of the chips you see on the street are very cheaply made, and can have ugly side-effects. Note that some Simstim stars have built-in recorders that burn the data into removable chips, which are then processed before being marketed. "Raw" memory is not a good thing to jack in. If you have a knowledge chip you just know it, the way you know your way around your house. You don't need a display link. Sometimes the link is useful, however, since sometimes you know stuff without being able to explain it to others, and the link lets you read it off to them. o Cybertech, pg 138 Add a notation for Voice Modulator at an Essence Loss of .2 and a Cost of 45,000 nuyen, and the Playback Option at .2 Essence Loss and 40,000 nuyen for Cost. -- 30 --