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 l