Adramelek Art, Part 2!

So once again I got some amazeballs art done by the awesome https://twitter.com/azazaz246642https://twitter.com/azazaz246642 !Thanks yet again.

This is an awesome piece depicting him in a sort of 'victorious' stance-maybe holding his fist up to signal the gang that he did his duty. As we see he's probably crunched a few skulls wherever he was...well, he cleans up only the worst of the worst so it's okay. >:D

Nice unhinged grin, scary eyes, creepy looking blood and lovely looking accessories. Love this so much! 

As folks may have seen I've done another story, Night Shift! Hope you enjoy!

3e Chargen Basics, Part 1

Well, if new editions have these, then maybe old should do!

Like any edition, character creation has its pitfalls, though IMHO, there's a lot less-on average-in 3e than there is in newer editions. A few reasons(not an extensive list):

-No Perception skill to remember. I dunno how many times I've seen people build and forget this. (Note: on the odd event that I DO run 5e-which I don't think I've done since the year it came out, maybe a few months later-I have ditched the skill and just make you roll Intuition and Logic, like the old days. Yes, this gives people a couple of extra skill points. No, I have no issue with this.) In 3e, it was an Intelligence roll vs. a particular TN determined by the GM/situations. The Perceptive Edge gave you a -1. Bits of 'ware could lower the TN or add extra dice, depending.

-Con was rolled up into Negotiations. In most games-even a little more mohawk-based ones-being able to fumble a quick lie is kinda nice to do. All you needed to do was plug 2 points into Negotiation, or even specialize for 1(3), and 3 dice is actually nice.

-Palming was rolled into Stealth.

-Glitching wasn't a thing in most cases; there were a couple edge cases(like a failed Monowhip roll) that it could come in. If you rolled a ton of 1's you could fail horribly(GM discretion) but generally speaking you weren't worrying about 'small uneven die pools.'

-The fact that skills stood on their own, and the average TN being 4, meant you could grab like a couple of points in some of those other skills and call it a day. You didn't need to push for very high numbers and die pools.

-No worrying about odd/even numbered Will/Body because everyone had 10 boxes to a condition monitor, end of story.

-In 3e, Initiative was less end all be all than the earlier(or 5e). You could get away with 2 dice and a decent Reaction as a combat character due to how things worked, particularly in melee. Sure, higher Initiative was great(particularly for a gunner), but it was less 'pushed' in those days, where now if you're not sporting 3d6 as combat, it's sorta like the older days(apparently.)


Now there were a few pitfalls, of course:


-Riggers and Deckers could run into some issues assembling their gear.

-Mages could sometimes run into bits(despite being extremely powerful.)

-Speaking of magic, unless there's a specific character reason, Willpowers of over 3 were highly desirable, because that was the TN a mage had to roll against to fry you with a Mana spell. (Body was for Power-based spells, and it was probably desirable to aim for a 4 there too if you could. Low Willpower could be quite painful.

-Like any game with a lot of crunch, a few things could get a little overwhelming.

-Because Skill cost was determined on your Attributes(raising a skill past an attribute cost 2 for 1), players could end up spending too much on skills when they wouldn't have had to if they had just, say, upped a particular attribute by 1 more point.


With that said:


Basic Chargen Advice


Some of this will vary depending on chargen system used. I'll base this mainly on Priority since it's the main way, but I'll drop tidbits for point-buy and BeCKS as well.

1. If you're going Rigger or Decker, you're highly suggested to look at Priority A Resources. Decker, certainly. Rigger, you'll be the most comfortable. Both archetypes need some expensive gear(cyberdecks, vehicles, drones, programs, other bits), and Riggers need some sort of costly 'ware as well(VCRs are hefty in Essence cost, and if you can get them Alphaware, it does wonders.) Deckers need less in terms of 'ware but there are certain bits that are wonderful for them, and given you'll be pushing a lot of nuyen for a deck and programs, you'll want as much cred as you can do mess with. (Street campaigns notwithstanding, of course.)

2. Samurai are tricky when it comes to nuyen. You'll probably find yourself, if you want bioware, needing more than 400k(once you add in lifestyle, weapons, ammo, armor, gear, and maybe a vehicle), but sometimes 1,000,000 is too much. This is where point-buy or BeCKS win out; you get the 650k price point or fully customizable nuyen. That said, the 'samurai' archetype can run a rather wide gamut of 'types'-razorboys can get away more with the 400k since they tend to basically go spurs, reflexes, and some light muscle augments. A typical Sam is probably better sitting at the million in Priority(or 650k+). As someone who plays sams a lot, I've had them go from 400k to around 800k, depending on how much bioware I get.

3. Spellslingers can be made either way; you can go low Resources, higher on the Skills/Attributes and get your foci and libraries and stuff in-game(Hermetics have a higher cost), or you can pump Resources and use them to get foci, extra spell points(25k/point, yes, they're expensive, Sorcerers can make out pretty insane here). Both ways are perfectly viable. Even min-maxing this can be tough, since Attributes and Skills are tougher to raise in game than the start(unless you're doing BeCKS), but foci and the like you'll have to go through talismongers to get and bonding foci costs Karma as well. I'd just make the 'character call.' My own personal preference is to go richer for Hermetics and lower-Resources for Shamans.

4. Out of all the attributes, Body, Quickness, Intelligence, and Willpower are good for any and all archetypes. Strength and Charisma are the two more 'specialty' stats that fall to more limited archetypes. You're free of course to make lots of 'hybrid' characters if you take the appropriate steps(and they work quite nicely in 3e!) 3e, for the first 3 Priorities, is fairly kind with the attribute points, so you probably won't have to 'dump' anything unless you're doing a very specific specialty build(like the Magic-Using Dwarf who is resistant to a lot of magic. Or, hell, what I did with Adramelek boosting his Strength.)

You can almost never go wrong with a good Body and Willpower for any build.

5. That being said, throwing 1's in stats should be a very 'character centric' thing, IMO. I mean, an actual 1. Playing a Dwarf with 3 Strength might make him a low-end Dwarf, but he's still as strong as an average human. He's not sickly. (I imagine a sickly Dwarf, Ork, or Troll would be even weaker than that-the Infirm flaw would actually make this possible.) A 3 Charisma Elf is a little surly for an elf maybe, or not as 'magnetic', but he's still, again, on par with a typical Human or Dwarf or something. I'm not saying don't use 1's-I'm saying use them for specific character bits. Otherwise try to stick to 2's for your 'lower stats'.

6. Skill-wise, for a regular powered game(ie; not a street/ganger level game), I like to have a primary skill at 6 and a couple of others at 4-6. After that you can divvy up depending on skill points. For people coming from more recent editions, you often don't need the bigger die pools, since it's the Target Number you're looking at, and the average TN in SR3 is 4(and can be adjusted up or down, making things harder or easier.)

Good skills for any archetype to take 2-3 points in: A ranged weapon(Pistols is good since it opens up everything from tasers to heavy pistols, which are actually quite dangerous in this), Computer(back in these days, a point or two here is quite common for almost anyone), Negotiation. For a good melee backup, Clubs(so you can have Stun Baton access), or Unarmed(you can get shock gloves if you're of more moderate Strength.) Stealth and Biotech(First Aid) are also nice if you have a couple of points left from taking skills at a higher priority, though you can usually get away with defaulting to a decent Quickness with Stealth(since most Stealth is an open test.) I didn't list Etiquette since that's common for any build to take.

Naturally this is easier or harder depending on your skill priority. Even if you're at the last 2 priorities(D or E), you can usually afford a few points to throw around. The beauty with SR3 is that most archetypes get their main bit covered in 2-4 skills. A great example is the Troll Combat Mage sample character; his skill points are 27, and he's maxed out on his Sorcery and Conjuring, while still having an Etiquette skill, a melee skill, a gun skill, and Intimidation to boot. Nothing fancy, but he's not a one-trick pony and he covers decent ground.

7. Cyberware and Bioware. Some 'all-purpose' 'ware for any archetype includes(you do not HAVE to buy these, mind you, but they're nice to have if someone asks 'What is good all purpose cyberware'):

-Datajack. It's a wired world, and datajacks allow you to access a lot of stuff. 1k for a regular version.

-Knowsoft Link. This enables you to load Linguasofts and Knowsofts(you need Skillwires for Activesofts). Both of these are inexpensive(the softs themselves can run money; average level 3 soft is about 2700 a pop.) Also 1k for a standard.

-Smartlink. Even if you're a non combatant, a smartlink(not an eye mod these days but more of a full piece of headware and it runs .5 essence), can help you cover yourself very efficiently in a firefight. That -2 to the TN is wonderful; it reduces short range TNs to 2, medium to 3, and long to 4(which is the average TN!) This is big and it allows someone with 3-4 points in a backup firearms skill to be legitimately deadly with their piece(and it even enables smaller arms like light pistols, especially in conjunction with good ammo, to be a little more dangerous) It's only 2500 for a Level 1.

-Cybereyes. In these days, cybereyes were nice. They were only .2 essence(they didn't come in levels), and instead of capacity, they allowed .5 essence of modifications for free, making them a much better deal than now(where they take capacity, and you end up saving Essence a lot of times just getting eye mods unless you literally buy everything on the list.) A standard cybereye loadout would be the eyes, with low-light, thermographic, a display link, and flare compensation. Standard wise this would come to a total of .3 Essence(.2 for the eyes, .1 since there are .6 worth of mods), and it runs a total of 14k. If you get Alphaware, double this cost but it's only .16 Essence total(since the eye mods won't 'run over'.) An Image Link runs 600 more nuyen and a base .2 essence cost, but it enables images instead of just the text of the Display Link.

This standard 'Any-Archetype Cyberware Loadout' will run 18,500 and 1.1 Essence. Alphaware doubles this cost, but will lower the Essence cost to under 1.

As for Bioware, there are two 'all purpose' pieces that stand out for any archetype. Bioware, mind you, is more expensive than Cyberware, so probably won't be taken unless you're packing Resources B+, but you can keep this in mind:

Enhanced Articulation: Probably the 'Holy Grail'(or unholy, depending on your outlook) of bioware in these days. It adds one die to any skill that involves movement or precision. This means combat, athletics, stealth, and even B/R skills. Oh yeah, it gives +1 Reaction too. At 40k and .6 Bio Index I can't think of another piece of 'ware that's legit more bang for the buck. (I actually think this is better in 3e than the Suprathyroid, which I'll get to later. I think they're close, mind you.)

Mnemonic Enhancer: Another hated-by-GMs(okay, I don't care, but some do), loved by players piece of Bioware, this is not a combat or even action related piece, but helps with thinking and learning. At 15,000 nuyen and .2 Bio Index per level, it gives +1 die for Memory and Language Tests, and -1 Karma per level of learning new skills. Not just knowledge/language skills, mind you, but all skills. At level 2 and 3, you could also default to INT for Knowledge Skills at only +3 instead of +4, which was a nice bonus. At level 1, you got a +1 die to all Knowledge skills.

Both of these, maxed out, will run 100k and 1.2 Bio Index, but you could spend it worse.

This entire 'Any Archetype' package, non Alphaware or cultured, will cost 118,500 nuyen, 1.1 essence, and 1.2 Bio Index. Basically, if you're new, not playing a spellcaster, and are just asking 'What can I get that will help me no matter what I do almost', this is it.

As an aside, you can lower Bio Index cost, but the cost of culturing non cultured Bioware is a whopping 4x the cost, so you won't be doing it unless you're rich. It lowers the BI cost by 25%. You can't cultured already cultured bioware; it's already worked into the cost.

I suppose I couldn't get through this section without mentioning the Suprathyroid Gland. As the holy spirit to the father and the son above(or unholy, again, depending on your outlook), this has a hefty bio index cost of 1.4 and runs 50,000. It grants +1 to Body, Quickness, Strength, and Reaction. It's one of the best pieces, yes. (Increases to Quickness can ALSO increase regular Reaction.) It's downside is that you need to pay +40% for Lifestyle costs(which can actually add up; so your 5k/month Middle lifestyle becomes 7,000 a month, and if you happen to be sporting a high, you're paying 14,000 a month. Finally, it's not compatible with a Metabolic Arrester, which is actually a pretty nice piece for front-line types, so you need to pick stats or 'less chance of bleeding out if brought to D damage.'

8. Armor. Basically a Secure Jacket or Secure Long Coat will take care of most everyday armor needs for any archetype, and for an extra 250, add forearm guards for an extra point of Impact armor. The Jacket is 5 Ballistic and 3 Impact, and the Long Coat is 4 Ballistic and 2 Impact, but adds 50% to the Concealability of any item underneath of it.

Form-fitting body armor is also a nice bonus to grab. It goes with armor stacking rules in terms of halving the lower piece but doesn't count against any stats for layering. Also nice for any archetype.

A Security Helmet is nice but you will need GM approval for that given it's Availability. I can't understand why there is no bit of head armor for a lower Availability in SR3 but there you go.

9. Gear. For an all-purpose set of gear, good again for any archetype(I'll just go ahead and list everything including armor and such, note this isn't exhaustive or 100% required):

1 Firearm with concealable holster, ammo and spare clips(cost varies)
1 Melee Weapon(if applicable skill)(cost varies)
Armor of choice + forearm guards(cost varies but probably between 900-1100)
Pocket Secretary(2,000: Note if Resources E this is a bit stiff)
Phone of choice(between 50-150)
Pager(10)
2-5 50-100 nuyen certified credsticks for bribes, emergency funds etc
1 month of lifestyle of choice(from free to 100,000)
A Squatter lifestyle bolthole(100/month)
Forged Credstick(R1 to 6, which costs from 1,000 to 30,000)
Knife
Pocket Flashlight
Medkit
Trauma Patch
Survival Kit
Chemsuit(200 nuyen per rating up to 6 at chargen, nice for emergencies and even rainy days)
Respirator


A note on Forged Credsticks:

Back in the day, there was no constant wireless reading of your credsticks, so these were less vital to have at high levels. A lot of common places only have low level readers(talking Stuffer Shacks and the like, and I'll go as far as to say I houserule that buying Nukit burritos or BucketBurgers can be done via certified cred since these places just want your money). Due to this you weren't forced to keep them on hand(and indeed, the way SINs worked back in the day, you just basically said 'yeah, I have a SIN' or whatever to your GM, there was no flaw.) So you could go buy legal crap easily. Forged Credsticks are nice for the prudent, and it was cool to keep something on hand(hence why its on the list), but unlike today where it's 'Get a R4 Fake ID at all times', back then it was more 'If you have a SIN and want to protect it somewhat, look into one of these.' They are fairly popular with Faces, however, which I do suggest to get a couple of them at decent ratings.

That basically takes care of Part 1! In a second part, if folks want to see it, I'll cover more Character specific suggestions.

Some Quality to Edge/Flaw Conversions

One of the bits in the later editions I liked was that there was a few really cool Qualities that didn't show up in 2e or 3e. While I don't like how they feel a bit too 'necessary' nowadays, I do like some of the flavor they offer.

I actually think converting a few of them to SR3 would be possible, while still keeping the older days to the 'Edges and Flaws feel more like bonus bits than requirements' methods. I feel this will work out fine, given the overall limitations of numbers(I find that it's much easier to 'cap off' in the old days than the new days, where people can take stacks of 3-5 point Edges and such; most of the time it's difficult to take 'stacks' of Edges. I mean even finding like five 1 point Edges that fit your character can sometimes be difficult(I mean it could work, but it would be a pretty limited pile).

Some qualities would need heavier reworking than others-like Tough as Nails. Will to Live handles overflow, and Toughness Body dice; in the old days, the condition monitors never changed; not even for Great Dragons. It could, perhaps, be changed, but it might be changed to one level, become a 4 point Edge, and state that you get a -1 TN to all Damage Codes. Yes, that's expensive but that's also pretty damned huge. A Troll with 9 Body(+ the 1 Dermal Armor bonus die) would be able to probably shrug off a lot. I'm not sure if I'd even want to put it in like this(I'm just using this as an example), but I would want to playtest this one fairly well before putting it in. I think I'd personally be content to leave SR3 alone with just Will to Live and Toughness.

Some I feel pop over easy. 'School of Hard Knocks' etc, would just act like Collect/Tech School, in SR3(which instead of spending points 1 for 2 you defaulted at less, and since you could stack them, they could be quite useful to be able to default to either Academic or Background knowledge skills at only +1 TN. Bringing in this would allow defaulting to Street at +1.)

Some conversions wouldn't work too well due to 'the times'-Sensory Overload Syndrome is something caused heavily by wireless stuff, so in a wired world it wouldn't really have a home.

Others need some work; usually the old Composure tests were just Willpower tests, but they only ever needed a success or two(not too many 3 or 4 threshold tests.) That being said, the TN was typically 4-6(6 being on the high end.)

SINner in those days wouldn't fit so much; particularly the way we play(where you just up and say at the start if you want one.) Back in the days when you didn't need to constantly broadcast it, having one was less of a disadvantage. Others like Hawk Eye would have to be drastically increased; shifting from Medium to Short would be HUGE for like a 1 point Edge. Plus Perceptive already lowers TNs by -1 and it's a 3 point Edge. (TN shifting is sort of a big deal in the old days; it's worth much more than adding or subtracting a die.)

Signature I'm surprised never made it in in the first place, that seems to be a solid -2 point Flaw that grants - to target numbers for tracking in regards to a certain act; given SR3 has a different way of tracking things like street cred, it will need some adjustment. Probably some sort of easier TNs for things like Memory Tests, Intelligence and/or Knowledge Checks IRT the person. A -2 feels about right for 2 points.

Restricted Gear in SR3 would probably be no more than a 1 point Edge in those days. The reason being is that there just isn't a lot that you'd want or need to buy with it. We never play with Availability at chargen as folks know, adoping the 'Take stuff that works for your concept' POV, but even then there is, when it comes down to it, very little that really shoots past it. Some of the stuff you can barely afford(high level Skillwires and Damage Compensators), some stuff is of limited use in a game where it would matter(some of the heavy weapons-some are perfectly legal at chargen anyway), and some is just extremely niche(Thermosense Organs?) 

I could see the most popular items with this being the Monowhip, APDS ammo, Tailored Pheremones, or one of the higher-level cyberdecks. Those are probably the big four. 

As an interesting note-between 3e and 5e, Vindictive and Combat Monster 'swapped costs'. In 3e, Combat Monster is a 1 point Flaw, while Vindictive is 2. In 5, Vindictive is a 5 point NQ, CM is a 10. 

Vendetta would probably fit as a 1 or 2 point Flaw, requiring a Willpower(4) test with 2 hits or maybe a (6) test with 1. If it's the latter, maybe 1 point. It's a 7 point NQ in SR5. Paranoia(7 point NQ) could be converted to a 1 or 2 point Flaw that gives a +1 to all Social tests for Contacts of less than level 2. (TNs are sort of a big deal, again, so this could be a 2 point Flaw.) 

Emotional Attachment could actually be worse in SR3 if it had the -1 TN adjustment for six months. For it to stay a 1 point Flaw, I'd argue that a +1 TN for a month or two at best; it would need at least a 2 point Flaw to be for six months, unless the disadvantage was changed. (Despite TNs being powerful, I'm hesitant to add or subtract dice, since in SR3 that's generally limited to ways of doing things.) This one would need some heavier playstesting too, IMO. (Most would need some measure of playtesting I feel, but some more than others, and I think some-like the Knowledge skill based ones-could be dropped in relatively as is.) Driven could make a nice 1 point flaw(I would test it making a Willpower(6) test, or a Willpower(4) with 2 successes needed.)  

(I'm also a big fan of some of the Edges and Flaws the Twilightrun website has. I'd have taken Large for both Downfall and Adramelek in a heartbeat. And I fragging love Weirdness Magnet.) 

Anyway just throwing a few basic ideas out. I might sit down and try to hack these out a little more 'official' for the houserule section soon. (I don't think I WANT to convert all of them, though. Again, I like SR2/3's slightly more compact list. I just think a few of them are really cool.) 

Little Places And Stuff

Here's some more worldbuilding!


The Devil's Den


The Devil's Den is a seedy heavy metal bar in Puyallup, not too far from Tarislar. The beer is strong, and the biggest known dude is a bartender named Ed-a human, perhaps in his late thirties or so-who resembles a thrash metaller whose ear is toward the ground often, and he sometimes has some rather nice tip-offs. (He's not a fixer, but he's part of a network that can sometimes put people in contact who are looking for jobs, or fixers themselves. He does know Spanky, the two being bartenders who sometimes show up at beer conventions.)  Ed chain smokes, has frizzy brown, long hair with a couple of grays lying around, a wiry but hard build(while you wouldn't call him a warrior or anything, more than one drunk has been tossed out onto the pavement by him, and he keeps a loaded Ruger under the bar), and dresses in too-tight jeans, sneakers, and ripped up t-shirts. Ed likes denim jackets when it gets cold. The Devil's Den specializes in thrash metal(including classic stuff from the old days), mostly cheaper beer and alcohol, greasy hot wings and Nukit burritos for bar food. It's metahuman friendly. You can go there with a certified credstick with a little on it and get trashed on the cheap if you don't mind the more stomach-churning stuff.


Torque


Torque is a bar on the outskirts of Redmond, seemingly a run-of-the-mill seedy bar with a theme of cars and driving, hence the name. However, several stories below ground, in a converted garage, it holds a more violent secret; a bloodsport pit is under here. Mostly not to the death actually(though they have their 'to the death' main attractions a couple times a week, most of these are high paying and high stakes and often end up in other bloodshed in the audience from losers), but definitely to the maiming. Cyber, bio, whatever is game(they occasionally have a mundane night a couple times a month-those fights tend to last longer and actually rake in some decent nuyen), and even occasionally a 'Man vs. Beast' night where they bring in a couple of hellhounds or something. (Their current hellhounds, Harker and Helsing, are undefeated; these nights are not regular, however. Once they even had a Greater Wolverine but after it killed the opponent and ripped up three spectators they tranq'd it, let it loose somewhere in the wilderness and never spoke of it again. It had made them too much money to kill without ceremony.)

Downfall, the giant goth elven adept who shows up in a lot of the fiction I do(and who IS a PC or an NPC depending if I'm running or GMing-I don't GMPC), is a regular fighter here and he basically kept himself afloat after he exiled himself from Tir with money earned from this place.

Torque sells your run of the mill crappy beer and bar food, with the occasional load of slightly better quality stuff that makes it in.


Some More House Rules


The Stuffer Shack Doesn't Give a Drek About Your ID

No, seriously. I don't care if it's a subsidary of Aztechnology. You can buy a Nukit burrito with a certified credstick. So long as it's real cred, they'll take it. They just want your money. They're not going to background check you for buying stuffers. If you want to run the type of game that ID checks you for using the toilet that's fine but I sorta prefer a looser method, so I started basically using the Twilightrun website's tips(or some of them) in my games. Big fake IDs are more needed for stuff like better lifestyle purchases and so on. Middle you'll probably want to run at least a 4, unless you get away with a Middle lifestyle in a slightly shabbier part of town(this IS possible, but remember the security things.) Or perhaps there's that big ol' Snohomish house that the murders happened in that might be haunted and it's technically middle but we just want to unload it.

High+ you'll definitely want to sport a hefty fake ID to get unless you tell me your character is using a legit SIN(which is fine), but of course be careful with that.

Stuff you need some sort of ID for: Buying weapons(not black market, of course), buying property Middle or above lifestyle(Low...sometimes, if it's in a good neighborhood but just like an unfurnished loft or something, GM discretion), flying legally, buying legal vehicles, etc.

Stuff you can get away with generic certified cred for: Low class tube riding(First-class needs an ID), Stuffer Shack, McHughs, Bucket-Burgers, Soybucks, and others of that ilk.

Generally, forged credsticks are a little more useful in these days because of how checking worked. It was a simple test of Credstick vs. Reader. Rating 4-5 systems are not stuff you run into without going to banks or law enforcement, or other places like that(using Sprawl Sites as the old reference point for this.) Most of the time, you'd be running into 1-3 rated system. I mean, if you can afford a nice level one by all means do it(R5's run about 25k in SR3, R4 is 16k, R3 is 9k, R2 is 4k and R1 1k), but keeping an R1/R2 and certified cred on hand should be enough for menial stuff. I personally suggest an R3 for basic use if you can afford it(if you rock 60k or higher depending on the character this should be well doable. Priority wise this would be about Priority C.) Get an R4 or 5 if you plan on doing anything a little bigger.


Split Dice Dual-Wielding


Inspired a couple of decades ago by Blackjack(great site), I had started using that then and still do.

For one, I cut out the Ambidexterity edge. It's superfluous with this.

So the way this works is this, first starting for melee:

If someone wants to attack twice with two weapons, they simply split their pool between the two weapons as they see fit. Splits are done after adding any bonus dice(personalized weapons, Enhanced Articulation, reflex recorders) and combat pool. You can give as many dice to one hand as you want; this can be used strategically, for example, to keep a mook off of your ass while you're trying to lay down pain on someone else.

Or you could choose to attack one person twice. Now why do this? You could make a choice; you could choose to take a couple of decent stabs at someone, or one good one. Now how Dodge was handled for this; the person rolled Dodge once. It was measured against the successes. If, say, they got 3 successes with one hand and only 1 with the other, and the rolled 2 dodge successes, the first attack would hit but the second would miss. But-this was a lucky roll. If your pool was split, say, five and five vs. a TN of 4, that means there's a much bigger chance of you not getting the necessary successes. If you rolled 1 hit on each hand, they'd have avoided it all. On the converse, if you rolled enough, they'd have to soak twice. Risk and reward, basically. You have a better chance of just taking one stab with one weapon(with a full 10 dice), but they'd only have to resist damage once. Pays your nuyen, takes your chances.

As for Reach, this can only be done with a Reach 1 weapon or less(yes, even for Trolls.) If you use two weapons of varying reach, you count the lesser reach when rolling IF it's against one target(since you need to close in.) Against two different targets, though, treat as normal(since you're holding the other one at bay with the longer reach.)


Example:


Asmodeus, lieutenant of Nocturnal Sin, is the token razorboy and is about to throw down with another cutter of a nearby gang, because the glam-rocker usually can't keep himself out of trouble. While Asmo usually has his spurs as his preferred method of slicin' and dicin', they agreed on a legit, West Side Story style knife fight. Asmo draws his Cougar Fineblade Long, a nice knife to use indeed. 

Right when the fight starts, the other guy realizes that Asmo is actually pretty damn dangerous from his movement(he's wired, has a cyberarm and a fair bit of 'ware), so another chummer jumps in. Well, no rules against that. Adramelek, Asmo's chummer, decides to toss Asmo his own Cougar Fineblade Long. This way, Asmo can stab at both of them. Asmo has an Edged Weapons of 4, Enhanced Articulation(he only has one cyberarm so he still gets the general full benefit), and a Combat Pool of 8(of which he can use up to four with.) Splitting is done after the pool, so after adding the combat pool, he has nine dice. He also has Wired Reflexes 2 so he goes first pretty easily. 

Asmo is no slouch at fighting(he also has an Unarmed Combat of 5 and a Cyber-Implant Weapons: Spurs of 5(7), so he can pretty quickly size up that his opponent's chummer is fairly scrubby. He can move somewhat, but he's no more than average(in fact, his Edged Weapons skill is only 2. He's more of a baseball bat guy.) Plus he can tell that he's unwired; he's a pretty bog standard gang member-he even only has a leather jacket(real, surprisingly, for 0/2 armor.) His actual opponent he can tell is pretty decent(though he can still tell he's better-I mean the drekhead did want to handicap Asmo by banning his spurs), and has slightly better armor; a secure jacket(3 Impact armor.) 

Asmo decides to split his die pool as follows; he's going to use six dice on the better opponent, and only three on the suckier one, more or less just to hold him off. Cougar Fineblades have no reach, but do Str+1 damage(9M, in his case, he's quite strong at 8, thanks to his cyberarm and muscle augmentation.) He's basically halfassing the other guy, mostly just trying to get him off-balance(read: blow his combat pool on dodging so he can't use it on attacking.) 

He rolls his two attacks: the first he gets 5,6,6,1,4,4; an incredibly lucky roll to be fair, 5 successes. On his second, he gets 5,5,2; still managing two. Asmo is doing really well. 

His opponents now get to roll Dodge(which is combat pool.) The better opponent has a Combat Pool of 7; he(well, the GM) decides to use four of it to try to save a little for a counterattack. He rolls 4,2,1 and 1, for only 1 success-but he still cuts down the successes by 1. He now gets to soak(vs. a TN of 5). His Body is a fairly spiffy 4, so he rolls those 4 dice(and the GM decides to use 2 of his remaining 3), for 1,5,1,4,5,3. He manages 2 successes, but Asmo still nets 2, which means he manages to shank the main guy for a Serious wound right off the bat. 

His chummer only has a Combat Pool of 5, being pretty bog standard. He uses three dice for a dodge attempt(saving 2 for an attack in SOME attempt to supplement it), and actually gets 2 hits! But...that's a tie, and they go in favor of the attacker. Nice try, but even Asmo's halfassed hand was enough to hit this guy. Still, he gets to roll soak; vs. a TN of 6, however, and his Body is only 3. the GM decides to use his last 2 combat pool dice in some attempt to help, and the 3,5,3,3,3 was not enough. He only takes a Moderate wound, though. 

The gangers realize they bit off too much and call it. They'll take the humiliation to live. Asmo takes their weapons and boots them in the ass out of there as they crawl off to find the gang's street doc they're shaking down for help. 

So as you see, there's a decent reason to use it vs. separate attackers, and it's cool to be able to actually pick how much you want to use. Against more equal opponents, someone might choose to equalize their dice.

For a quick run to use the 2 weapons on 1 person for:

After the fight, a rando runs in on Asmo, because he's drunk, pissed, chipped out, or some combination of the bunch. He's an ork, so probably has decent body(6, so actually average for an ork, but it's still tough.) He's also wearing a real leather jacket(0/2 armor.) He has a combat pool of 5(which Asmo doesn't know of course since combat pool doesn't exist in the world.) 

Asmo can now decide; attack once or twice. Attacking once with his all, or two swings. We'll do two examples of both. 

Attacking once with nine dice(a nice amount), vs. a TN of 4, Asmo gets 4,1,3,4,1,6,3,1,4, for a total of  4 successes. The GM decides to try to dodge with all of the combat pool to see if he can get lucky. 1,2,6,4,6. Well he doesn't dodge completely but he negates 3 of Asmo's successes. He now rolls his 6 dice vs. a TN of 6 to try to soak a little-6,1,5,4,2,6. Not enough to stage down(since Asmo still had a success), so he takes a Moderate wound for running in. 

Rewnding, Asmo decides instead to for two swings-using five dice with one hand and four with another. With his first roll, he gets 5,3,6,1 and 5, for a total of 4 hits(much luckier than before!) His second hand, he gets 6,4, 2, and 3, for 2 successes. 

The Ork only gets one Dodge roll. The GM decides to throw down all five combat pool dice again. He gets 6,3,2,6, and 1, for 2 successes. He doesn't dodge, as he tied, but he does negate successes from both hands(leaving 1 net 2 and 1 net 0.) He gets his resistance rolls, and this he gets to make two of. Had the GM saved combat pool, he could have added this to both. 2,1,6,4,3,3 for the first(negating 1 success), and 6,3,1,2,5,2 for the second. He can't stage down, and takes two moderate wounds, which add up to six boxes, and now he's Seriously wounded. 

Now this worked out great for Asmo this time, but had he have gotten unlucky with the successes(only, say, getting 1 each hand), the ork would have dodged completely. Even one more success would have negated the other hand and he'd have been net normal. 

I feel this rule makes dual-wielding more fun(and can make some opponents a little hairier, along with letting players feel badass sometimes ginsu-style), but it DOES mostly benefit more skilled players; someone with a Weapon skill of 3 is not likely going to want to dual-wield them. It also pretty much means that unless you're an Adept, you're going to want to put Combat Pool into the attack. And, of course, Reach 2+ weapons are out. I've seen it in action, and it's pretty sane all told, especially with how the Dodge rule works in SR3.

With Firearms, you can only have a Smartlink or Laser Sight count for one gun(yeah, even a laser sight is difficult to aim two of; you're focusing more on one thing.) You can only do this with Pistols, Machine Pistols or SMGs(yes, even Trolls.) The rule that uncompensated recoil for one gun counts toward the other sticks. The firearm rule is fairly good for laying down some basic cover fire with one hand while trying to plug someone with another. You can use different firing modes too; so you can use, say, your Ares Predator to try to mess someone up, and your Crusader MP to keep someone off your(or a teammate's) back.

Food Prices

For real food, I just rule of thumb that it's somewhere between 5-10 times the cost of soy. (A newer book has it at 5 to 20, but I like to imagine as time goes by more and more, that real stuff ends up getting even more scarce due to soy equivalents becoming even better; as in, there isn't as much of a need for real stuff.) So in the 2050s(or well, SR1 to 3 timeline), I like to have it around 5-10 times the cost.

Still Growing!

Having fun growing the site, just adding more bits and bobs in. Probably will do some more detailed write-ups especially now that I find myself possibly going to play Adramelek in an upcoming 3e game if all goes well. So he'll need his detailed backstory sketched up.

There are a few similarities between him and Downfall, which is sort of amusing since now I can kind of make them, in the side fiction I do, a bit of friendly rivals, not unlike, if one has ever played Warriors Orochi 3, Kojiro and Zhang He; only they're edgy cyberpunk equivalents. (They even sort of have the color thing going.)

In their case, they're two king-size troll strength elves who have some similarities of fighting style(while still being different-Downfall is more carefully and professionally trained and refined in how he fights and is about half a foot taller which gives him a bit of a different edge, Melek going more 'wild' even though he's clearly trained.) One was a noble who went heavily educated, one lived more of a slum life, one is magically active, the other is heavily cybered, they both tend to fight rather nastily though. I like the rivalry thing that can appear in the stories(and could even use one or the other as a contact. (And the more I look at them, the more I see Kojiro and Zhang He, heh. This was not intentional, but they say you do carry inspirations with you.)

They both even have significant others, though they're wildly different-Talon being the heavily cybered and wild, slightly grumpy elf that he is, Astarte being the chill(sometimes TOO chill) human mage.

This accidentally happened and it's pretty awesome since it's going to be very fun to write the gang in now with the main runner team(will give them a bit of an 'edge' too, since the runner team is actually, while they are louder than normal, fairly professional and well-schooled.)

Anyway, just giving a brief update, I should have the write-ups up soon! Been a bit busy lately with a lot of things, but I should be straightened out soon enough. Also been trying to fiddle with one of my own takes on 'Mohawks and Trenchcoats' for people who do still ask about what it means.

Neon & Chrome

So for this 'inktober', I decided, while I can't do it everyday, to try to write a few things this month. Hey, writing is still art!

Here's another short story; Neon & Chrome. It deals a bit with the Nocturnal Sin gang and two of its members, Melek and Astarte in particular, and just some fun goings on. It leans a little more slice of life as a lot of my stuff does.

(I'll probably do at least one 'run' oriented thing this month, or I'll try to!)