Never Deal with a Shoggoth: A CthulhuPunk Shadowrun Story

Game Master Loup Blanc

Finally added the Commlink and even bought a Micro-Transceiver to be extra-tactical.

Ended with 43.980 out of 45.000 Nuyen spent, so I rounded it to 44 grands to account for the Legal Licenses. I know Effin said same price as the illegal ones, but as these don't need to be very good toappear real I thought a mere 100 Nuyen a piece was too cheap.

That puts at +10 to my -Low Style- starting funds roll so...

Hollah Hollah Make some Dollah: 3d6 + 10 ⇒ (2, 5, 5) + 10 = 22

... which multipliedby 50 means Nick has a grand total of 1100 Nuyen to his name. Not bad.

Gameplay's open! Post in to introduce yourselves and say what you're doing, what you're shopping for, where you are in the store, whatever. Right now it's a completely regular night.

Hey Nick Sarge! Wanna have a character hook!

Our characters have a lot in common. All of them happen to be fermented in some way, and we can't make it a day through without one of them!

I keep thinking that our characters might've met by chance. Not anything l33t, or exciting, or even cute. One day while mulling over life and staring into a half-empty glass, a girl sits down next to you and says, "You don't look like the kind of guy that would let a lady drink alone." She buys you both a round and the two of you talk about guns and gangs and the best way to kill a man and you impress each other with your knowledge of how to make a good mixed drink.

What do you say? =)

(Exactly how well we know each other, I leave completely up to you. From drinking acquaintances to crazy ex's that you hate to work with and anything inbetween, I leave you to creative license. =)

Last few notes with respect to Wraith:
1. Skinlinks! You want your glasses and weapons to be able to talk to each other without having to go through your commlink. Smartgun systems need three things: Smartgun system (in the weapon) - some sort of way to connect them - Smartlink/Image Link.
2. Your total roll for Alcohol is 5. She'll have to be *very* careful with the type of alcohol she drinks. Especially because random people just won't know what particular type of grain is in an alcohol. (Most people think vodka is only made from potatoes, this is untrue.) Maybe the olfactory booster will help? I don't think it's a huge deal, but expect it to come up eventually given it's a pretty serious allergy. ;)

Oh, so I rolled Perception, but given the large amount of variables that can go into such a test, I wasn't sure how you'd like to handle them. I figured I'd roll just in case since that'd save time, but if you prefer rolling perception tests I won't complain. :P

I'd say generally speaking, roll if it's something you actively want to do. If you just get into a situation where you'd probably want to, I'll roll for you. Either way whatever best saves time without posting to someone else that they should roll.

Sounds good!

So, here are some last minute observations about character sheets (I'm on leave this week so have incredible amounts of time to waste). ;)

Wraith:
1. Chummer says your Body is a 9, not an 11?
2. Your armor should be Ballistic 14/Impact 13 (with everything on), and 12/9 (without the Secure PPP on).
3. With a Logic of 1 and an Intuition of 2, you only get 9 free ranks of Knowledge skills. You'll have to cut down on those.
4. You listed contacts under your skill section (as 12), but have your contacts laid out earlier (as 16). I think that's just a holdover from a previous character sheet?
5. Your Ruger doesn't have a skinlink. That might have been intentional, but I just wanted to make sure.
6. Ammunition is bought by weapon type, not by weapon skill group. So ammunition types are Light Pistol, Heavy Pistol, Submachin Gun, Sports Rifles, etc.
7. Antidote Patches are for specific toxins. So, you'd have one for CS/Tear Gas, Narcojet, etc.
8. Your commlink is running a bunch of programs so it's response is going to take a hit. Given you're not using it for hacking, this isn't a huge deal. You would probably have only the Analyze and Empathy stuff running normally, and switch on the others as needed. (This is essentially how Phineas' is run). I'd recommend an Agent program though, since your character doesn't have much in the way of computer skills.
9. My math might be off, but it seems like you have 4,206ny remaining?
10. And no Fake SINs or licenses (but tons of restricted/forbidden gear). This may also be intentional, but I just wanted to make sure.

Victoria:
1. Victoria is still taking an Agility/Reaction hit if she's wearing the FFBA and suit at the same time.
2. Skinlinks, or some way for your glasses to talk to your weapons. I'm guessing through your commlink? (As in Paladin's case, not a big deal since your commlink is good.)

I just deleted half this post. I'm just posting this and hoping for the best.

Still sad over how much I just deleted. :_(

Hey, FNF, seeing as how almost every weapon in the world that is 1) Small and 2) fires full-auto uses 9MM, can my autopistol and SMG share the same bullets?

Hmm. That's an interesting question, and one with a whole lot of stuff going on in the background that I'll want to think about. Sets up some presumptions about the world and whether it's like ours, since SR kind of handwaves/ignores the questions of calibers. I'll get back to you on that. (For now sure, cause I don't think it'll be game-breaking within the span of one combat/adventure.)

1) Why am I taking an penalty for my armor? The core rules or horrifically laid out and I don't remember there being a rule about that anywhere.

2) Yeah, linked through the commlink.

Ooo! I can be helpful! =D

Vic, I'm assuming that you're using the 20th anniversary rules? The Armor section in Gear starts on page 326, and the rules for Armor are on page 160.

Page 161: If either of a character’s armor ratings exceeds his Body x 2, apply a –1 modifier to Agility and Reaction for every 2 points (or fraction thereof ) that his Body x 2 is exceeded

Your auctioneer is 5 Ballistic, and your Form-Fitting is 6 (half that because it's cool =) gives you a total encumbrance of 5+3 = 8.
Your body is 3. Twice that is 6.
Your Armor encumbrance of 8 is greater than 6.

That help? =)

1) Why am I taking an penalty for my armor? The core rules or horrifically laid out and I don't remember there being a rule about that anywhere.

Armor "Encumbrance" is buried on page 161. If either armor rating is more than double the character's Body you start taking penalties. FFBA gives its full value to your armor (unlike other armors that don't stack at all), and adds half its value to your total for purposes of encumbrance.

So, your Encumbrance max without penalties is: 6 (BODx2)
Your current Encumbrance is: 8/4 (5 from the Actioneer Suit and 3 from the FFBA, with Impact being 3 and 1, respectively.)

She could wear an FFBA shirt (you round down with FFBA armor encumbrance, according to Arsenal pg. 48.) with the Actioneer Suit. With the full suit FFBA, you're looking for something that has a Ballistic armor of 3 max. Or something with a 2 and getting either some PPP or a helmet/mask, or whatever fits the character.

Alternatively, you can get the Actioneer Suit made with YNT Softweave (War! pg. 160). It reduces the encumbrance value of the armor by the character's strength. Your encumbrance would be 1 from the Actioneer and 3 from FFBA, so you'd be well under. I'd ask about this one first since War! is a really poorly balanced book with this being a pretty good example. It's armor, so it's not the biggest thing in the world (stacking armor in Shadowrun is an art), but it can get pretty silly. It's just a really oddly written piece of gear that leads to really weird armor setups. But it works if that's your thing.

Edit: Ninja'd!

That.... is horrifically cheap for what it does. I'm gonna go for it. Not that it matters for this scene, since Victoria isn't actually wearing her suit right now, just her Form-Fitting Armor.

Hey Phin! Seeing as you dispense advice and wisdom like it was your last day on Earth, may as well ask now.

This would be far future advance, but I do believe when Shoggoth start appearing and the proverbial s%$! hit the non-euclidean fan, Nick will need to put more bullets on the air. Are there any other ways for non adepts and non mages to get additional Initiative Passes or only Wired Reflexes cyber/bioware?

I mean, you can't spell Hastur without spelling Haste, better keep up with him.

Yeah, encumbrance is a kind of hidden mechanic, but definitely worth keeping in mind, I sometimes alter it and there is a way around if you get military armor and HOLY DREK F*CKING YNT SOFTWEAVE

Damn. That's pretty nice. I will allow it because it goes off Strength, so you're still investing some way or other to get a character who can wear super heavy armor, and it mainly works for the big beefy folks anyways, but damn. Good to know.

Yeah, encumbrance is a kind of hidden mechanic, but definitely worth keeping in mind, I sometimes alter it and there is a way around if you get military armor and HOLY DREK F*CKING YNT SOFTWEAVE

Damn. That's pretty nice. I will allow it because it goes off Strength, so you're still investing some way or other to get a character who can wear super heavy armor, and it mainly works for the big beefy folks anyways, but damn. Good to know.

Yeah, War! is, all around, a really terrible book if you're looking for balanced rules. There are spells and gear in there that just break all the usual rules.

Nick, both Cram and Jazz (drugs, pg 256) give those things. They might even stack.
You just gotta be ready to dance with the devil in the pale moon light.
...
And make addiction rolls. That too.

Hey Phin! Seeing as you dispense advice and wisdom like it was your last day on Earth, may as well ask now.

This would be far future advance, but I do believe when Shoggoth start appearing and the proverbial s~#& hit the non-euclidean fan, Nick will need to put more bullets on the air. Are there any other ways for non adepts and non mages to get additional Initiative Passes or only Wired Reflexes cyber/bioware?

I mean, you can't spell Hastur without spelling Haste, better keep up with him.

Wired is pretty much your only option (beside drugs and Nick doesn't seem the type, but maybe I'm wrong). You don't have to go more than Wired 1. It's not a huge Essence hit and it'll do the job. In general one extra pass is the norm for "combat" characters, two is for people that really want some overkill, and three is for when you really want to emphasis that you're the fastest of the fast. Melee characters tend to need more passes than ranged simply because it's harder to disengage from close combat. Fights in Shadowrun tend to end in two initiative passes more often than not. Either they're dead or you are. This isn't an exact science, and there are plenty of exceptions, but it's a solid expectation. It's all about bang for your buck and one extra pass will usually see you through the day.

With that said, Phineas can cast Increased Reflexes on Nick if it's an absolute *must* situation. He'd rather have it himself, and sustaining both would be...rough. But if it had to happen, he could.

Also, the reason I've got time for all these posts is that I'm currently on leave. So I've got tons of time this week and not much to do with it. ;)

Oh, I should also add: There's a place in the game for non-Wired runners. If you want to put bullets downrange, drones are *far* superior than any streetsam is ever going to be. So as it stands, being a non-magic, cybered-up warrior is already going to be rough if your goal is to shoot things and do damage. You need to bring something else to the table.

Nick's got street smarts (he has the group's highest Intuition), he's subtle (his 'ware is pretty normal detective stuff, nothing crazy), and he's got experience that the rest of the group doesn't have. If I were optimizing him I'd probably go higher on Shadowing and Tracking? There's all sorts of cool stuff Adept PIs can do, or crazy cybered-up PIs. What they can't do is appear to be normal every day detectives.

Looking through War! I remembered that it gave the stats for military commlinks, and I can't wait until I can finally get my hands on some of that sweet milspec tech. Those things can make you as unto a god when you're fighting in the Matrix.

I actually recommend avoiding that book almost entirely. The stuff in there has very little relation to the rest of the game.

The main problem with the book is that the writers just didn't know the rules to the game and the editing, as admitted by Catalyst afterward, was non-existant. So, they just upped the scale of everything in the book to do ridiculous things. (Why would milspec commlinks be better than the things that hackers can make? I'd get hardening. The military makes really simple equipment that can't break *really* well.)

There are several spells in that book that simply break the rules of magic. Slow shouldn't exist. There's a spell that does what it's meant to do already. But what it *actually* does is make you immune to being shot for around 5000 bullets. But you've also got stuff like Recharge, which fully recharges anything fully. What? So, power station or car battery? The scale doesn't matter. Again, what? Who thought that would be a good idea. If you base it on amount power back, then fine. It, at least, wouldn't invalidate the setting nearly entirely. The Designate spell breaks two rules: It's intelligent (which sorcery specifically is [/b]not[/b]), and it interacts with technological sensors in a way that shouldn't be possible. The whole book is a pile of awful, sadly.

Oh, I know the book is terrible, but there are a few decent things in it. The commlinks are basically mentioned in SR4 Core, but have GMs decide their cost and availability. Most of the weapon modifications/ammunition aren't horrible, either. Most of the problems come from the fact that they felt the need to stat things like orbital lasers, or the aforementioned magic-breaking spells. Even the non-game breaking stuff has terrible editng; high-powered chambering as a modifcation is 7R, but the bullets themselves are something like 22F.

Still, I like the few things from the book that aren't completely terrible.

Heh, fair enough. :)

Given the theme of this campaign, we might need one of those orbital lasers to nuke R'lyeh from orbit or something like that.

We could always hack into an orbital satellite and drop a Thor Missile on it. They automatically annihilate everything within 200 meters of the impact zone, and deal a ton of damage beyond that point. The only way to kill Cthulhu is point-blank annihilation.

God, that book can be stupid.

Be careful with War!, yeah. Some neat things in there, a whole lot of stupid. And it's funny that you think Cthulhu wouldn't already be in control of the satellites and their weapons. But then, would I be so cruel?

A couple quick notes on initiative: first off, in this game, I'm thinking I won't really be using the whole "simultaneous actions" thing. I don't think it'll work as well in PbP as it would IRL, because it'll be harder to adjudicate things after the fact, so who goes first will be deferred one way or the other. I'm thinking that in general I'll defer it to whoever has the larger dice pool. (I know the book has a way to do that already, but going by Edge? Really?)

Secondly, more pointed: Sylvie, I rolled 10 dice for this combat and it doesn't really matter much, but how is your Reaction boosted to 7 if it has a base of 4? I might be misremembering how the Adept power works, but I think it follows the usual restriction of how much an attribute or skill can be boosted.

I believe I can answer the question pertaining to her Reaction; the game rules only specify that your augmented maximum is equal to 1.5x your natural maximum, not that you can only raise your stats by a value equal to 1.5x your current Attribute. It's more that there's very little reason to boost your character's augmented attribute by more than ~3, as you won't see any boost from that after increasing your natural attributes. Now, characters with higher natural maximums can get away with more boosts, but the logic remains the same.

Sylvie, FYI:

1) If half or more of the dice pool rolled come up as 1s, then a glitch results.

2) You can spend an edge to re-roll all of the dice on a single test that did not score a hit.

And burning Edge is different from spending Edge. Burning Edge means it's gone, and usually is only used to avoid Certain Death! =)

That was...unexpected.

I think Phineas is about to give a rather incorrect impression about the level of his power. Unless that spirit manages to roll incredibly well too.

Yeah, but she's closer to 1/3 of her rolls being 1s, as opposed to half.

As the GM (and others) said, that's definitely not a glitch. Half or more of the die pool for a glitch. That and no successes is a critical glitch. Also, glitches don't necessarily mean that you fail a test.

But yeah, it's *really* tough to glitch on a 15 die roll. :P

Ah. Thanks for the info, guys!

Before I post: can I ready actions in Shadowrun? Like, if Nick waits for Mr. Bathrobe to do anything eldritchy to show him some noir respect with his iron?

Time to geek the mage!

I don't want to be a smartass, Vic, but you misspelled geek. You also misspelled damned fragging mage.

So...Phineas is still probably going to summon that spirit given he's surrounded by a bunch of crazy people that just opened up on some other unknown people. It may not have anyone to fight...right now. But that's not why he's summoning it anyway. (Meaning I still need a roll from the spirit to 'resist' summoning.) ;)

Whose turn is it?

I'm still waiting on the summoning resist roll. Sadly, I can't really do anything until that happens.

Yeah, sorry all. I've been swamped with work for school way more than expected, and between that and some personal stuff going on I've had very little energy or willpower to do much creatively, so I haven't worked up a post for this that makes any sense or does anything. Things will slow down by tomorrow afternoon, so I'll be posting then if all goes well enough. Again, my apologies for the sudden slowdown here. I am excited for the prospects of this game and all of your characters.

It's cool! I'd rather have a great SR story later than an okayish one now.

As a side note, I had a dream where I saw FNF's next post, and we all TPK'd for whatever reason.

Yo bos! Been busy the last couple days, gonna post tomorrow morning, but I say I am really pleased with all the things that have gone on.

Real nice RP, fellas, reeeal nice.

I need to come up with a better way to differentiate between Phineas thinking and him talking to the spirit. I'll work on it!

hyperkinetic

Oooo! Nice word! I'm gonna try to live up to that! =D

Just waiting on NPC responses.

Yep, I'll be updating when I can. I'm sick right now so I'll try and get a post up that's coherent, but between that and some stuff going on with my roommates right now, I may not be updating until tomorrow. I'll do my best to keep it moving though.

So...I tried to make it clear that Phineas wasn't planning on joining them when leaving the Shack. He's much happier to stay there and talk to the cops (having done nothing even close to wrong himself), and fully intended to give medical aid to anyone left behind that wasn't dead. (Like the clerk's girlfriend.)

He did, of course, plan to give his fake ID to the officers instead of his real SIN. But yeah...he figures he's much safer there than with the borderline psychopaths that shot up the joint. :P

He's sending the spirit off with the woman and child and expecting the spirit to conceal them. It is, after all, why he summoned a spirit with Improved Invisibility. If she doesn't want that sort of help, that's fine. It's still going to follow her wherever. (And stay in contact with Phineas.) Or at least it should, given that's what it was told to do.

Whoops, sorry, yeah. I meant to make it clear that not everyone has to go to Nick's place, people can stay behind at the Shack if they want. Thus, anybody who is heading out the back is guaranteed to get there unmolested.

If anybody wants to hang at the Shack for the rent-a-cops to show up, they absolutely can. I'll even go so far as to say that nothing bad is bound to happen, although obviously if you pick fights then trouble starts. It's up to folks to decide what they want to do--obviously some people are more comfortable with chatting up Knight Errant than others.

All that said, I'll probably hold off on updating the situation at the Shack until I update with stuff at Nick's place as well, just to keep track of things and (hopefully) avoid a situation where one group is done with stuff way before another.

No worries. I just wanted to make sure that didn't clash with what you had going on. I don't mind (especially given Phineas is the odd man out) if things progress with the other players getting to introduce themselves to each other and roleplay a bunch with each other before we move on. I won't feel left out, I promise! (The benefit of splitting the party in pbp is the pacing!)

On Money:

Hey, I played in a 5e game once and they had a crazy rule where you could swap 1 Karma for $5K, and vice versa. Do we also have that rule in 4E?

Preemptively, I think that's a great rule. Some builds just run on Karma and care not for the dross of gold. But others don't need l33t skillz0rZ as much as they need to replace their weak, weak flesh with the latest ChR0m3.
Jus' sayin'. =)