If you can be strong, then you can also be weak.
Weak Willed
Bonus: 10 karma
You flinch at snow flakes. Even the lightest of taps sends you to the floor. When determining you stun boxes for damage, the number of hit boxes you have are 8 + Willpower/4.
Thoughts?
If you can boost physical, why not stun?
Strong Willed
Cost: 15 karma
You take a licking and keep on ticking. Bullets hurt just as much as ever,but you don’t flinch away from a punch. When determining you stun boxes for damage, the number of hit boxes you have are 8 + Willpower.
Thoughts?
How about a quality to increase your physical boxes for Shadowrun?
BEEFCAKE
Cost: 15 karma
You ate your soy-Wheaties and guzzle so many vitamins the gym lunks at GNC have you on speed-dial. It takes a special kind of stupid to try to take you down. When determining you physical boxes for damage, the number of hit boxes you have are 8 + body.
Thoughts?
I’m teaching at a college, and in chem class we’re covering specific heat. Water has the highest specific heat I can think of. Let’s use that in SR!
Scald
(INDIRECT, ELEMENTAL)
Type: P Range: LOS Damage: P
Duration: F rounds Drain: F + 2
Geyser
(INDIRECT, ELEMENTAL)
Type: P Range: LOS (A) Damage: P
Duration: F rounds Drain: F + 4
You know why the Stuffer Shacks Soupper Bites burn you so hard? It’s the filling! A few crazy mages are doing the same to their enemies. It’s a tougher spell as it mixes water and fire magic at the same time, but it hurts like the dickens! This spell hits either one target with a ball of super heated water or several targets. The target(s) are all dealt fire damage as heat with none of that nasty extra fire in the area. This damage is treated as fire for purposes of resisting and reducing damage. However, what does happen is the targets are covered in boiling water that sticks on the target doing damage. At the start of the targets first action each turn on its first initiative pass that turn, after the first the target is delta force – the number of rounds since the spell was cast fire damage again as the boiling water burns the target over time. A target can avoid the subsequent damage by using a complex action to remove its soaked clothing or by brushing off the water. If a mage critically cliches while casting this spell, the spell goes off prematurely and coats the mage in the water causing damage as if the spell was cast on the character.
Thoughts?
We all have that friend who have has splitter on a splitter on a splitter when it comes to his jankey old laptop’s USB. You know that would happen in the 6th world, so let’s get those rule out there.
| Module | Availibility | Cost |
| Dual Socket | 5 | 4,000Y |
Dual Socket
This module is a splitter module. When placed in a module slot, the module slot can now contain two different modules. No deck can ever benefit from the same module twice. When a deck is dealt damage, for each dual socket module in the deck increase the net damage by 1.
Thoughts?
Product-Data Trails
System– Shadowrun 5e
Producer– Catalyst Game Labs
Price– $25 here http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150001/Shadowrun-Data-Trails?affiliate_id=658618
TL; DR– Great flavor, but almost no crunch! 82%
Basics-Want to ride the matrix? Want to be a digital cowboy? This is the new book for you covering how the matrix of 2076 works and the new toys to play on this matrix. It also provides a brief history of AI. The book adds new cyberdecks, add-ons to all the matrix toys out there, new qualities, and even has a section on how to play an AI character.
Theme or Fluff-Let’s start things a bit different than most of the reviews I write. Let’s focus on the theme first. Of all the things Catalyst does, covering the story of their world is the absolute best thing they do. This book has tons of world building elements: all the fiddly bits of the 6th World’s wide web, covering how the matrix works, how it’s made, how to interact with it, its history, and providing me with extra story bits for any games I run. Every aspect of the world gets a bit built on it. For the SR vets out there, this book might be a little overkill. However, for anyone who hopped on in Shadowrun 5th edition, this is an absolute essential to provide some much needed history and context to how people use the internet of the future. 4.75/5
Mechanics or Crunch-I started with theme, but theme shows how much this book is missing from its crunch. The book adds an impressive amount of story but doesn’t really have the mechanics to back it up. For your average decker, what’s here is good. You get new toys and add-ons to all the old toys to keep you fairly happy. However, even there you don’t get near as much as the other gear books. Technomancers get even less. For the rest of the 6th world, it’s not entirely worth it aside from a good reference on how the basics of the matrix work. But the best example of how mechanics don’t back up fluff is in how different matrix hosts work and defend themselves. A good chunk of one chapter is spent on how different companies defend their hosts. But, no real mechanics are given either identifying what type of ICE is used or how they attack. Furthermore, I’m glad I got a good briefing on how AI altered the matrix, but including a section on how to play them is pretty much useless for the majority of GM and players. If they included that as its own small book, I’d buy it in an instant. As a section in a core book, it’s just not a great use of space. 4/5
Execution– The thing Catalyst doesn’t do well is format their books. First and foremost, a book by Catalyst is only useful if you’ve completely read the book before and memorized the general locations of things in the book. As a quick reference to thumb through, you will be lost. The chapters are not named in a way that helps the reader, the book doesn’t have an index, and none of the new additions have a quick reference area to speed use later on. Catalyst knows how to write fiction, but their fiction bleeds a bit too much into their mechanics. In sections discussing how to create an AI or a host, the first part of the chapter will be the world story of it, and the second part will be the mechanics of it. But, nowhere in the middle will it give the firm shift of when one section ends and the other begins. All of those things are hard negatives, but what is here does read quickly and is enjoyable. The back and forth of the characters is fun while drawing the reader in deeper. This isn’t the best book I’ve read, but it’s a decent overall book. 3.5/5
Summary-Here is the quick question to help you decide if you need this book: do you spend most of your Shadowrun time in the matrix? If yes, then you buy this book. If no, maybe you’re good with what’s in the base book. As someone who’s deeply invested in the 6th world, I loved learning about the new wireless net. I just wasn’t overwhelmed by some significant parts of the book. I’m glad I know how to run an AI now, but odds are good I never will, especially as someone who almost exclusively focuses on Shadowrun Missions. I’d also like Catalyst Game Labs to overhaul their books a bit and really change some aspects of production to help the readers find what they need more quickly. Making those changes will really make me love their books. With that said, as someone who loves Shadowrun and the matrix in particular, I’m glad I got this book, even if I can’t use chunks of it. 82%
I’m catching up on my Shadowrun. Let’s get some positive qualities out there!
Slumming It
Cost: 3 karma per rank (1 to 3 ranks)
When you were in the cradle you mommy told you stories about how the little girl in red was tricked by the wolf looking like granny? Well you make your avatar look like crap to be a little more like the big bad wolf and little red….except this wolf gets to eat the little one! You purposefully make your matrix avatar look like a crappy standard avatar to lure matrix security, deckers, and spiders into a false sense of security. For every rank you have in this quality, you gain a +1 bonus to your dice pool for all checks that use the firewall attribute of the device you are using.
Thoughts?
How about a negative quality for Shadowrun 5e?
Tunnel Vision
Bonus: 7 karma
You are hyper focused. No minute detail escapes your notice. However the major details slip right by. When you make a Intuition+ Perception check to observe something, you must ask a detailed question regarding one situation, person, or object. You can a +1 bonus for to the dice pool, but you only get the exact answer to your question. You can never receive general details for any perception check. As an example, you can look at people in the street and ask about on person in the street. That one person may be the important target, but you may also be asking about a random person uninvolved in anything you care about.
Thoughts?
Product– Shadowrun: Run Faster
System– Shadowrun
Producer– Catalyst Game Labs
Price– $25 here http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141788/Shadowrun-Run-Faster?term=Shadowrun%3A+Run+Faster
TL; DR– The Shadowrun edition catch-up book. 87%
Basics-Time to dust off that chrome plated centaur! Run Faster is an edition catch-up book. While the main Shadowrun book had a comprehensive book of characters, Run Faster fills in the smaller gaps by adding all the subtypes for each metahuman race. This book also has a chapter discussing how to make your vampire and all the subtypes for that as well. In addition, Run Faster adds new archetypes, qualities, quick start packages for traits and gear, and rules for how to build up your house.
Mechanics or Crunch-This is the edition catch-up race book with a ton of extra character options as well. When a new edition arises, some people want their old, less represented races back. Here’s the book for that. Want to play a naga? Here you go! Want to play a vampire? We got rules for that! Want to play a centaur? SURE! Don’t like the new priority-based character generation plan for SR5? We’ve got several new ways to make characters from scratch now. It’s got enough chapters to bring some serious new crunch to your SR5 game. Some parts are not a useful. I’m a Shadowrun Missions game master, the entire section on vampires, while interesting, is completely useless to me. It’s well done, but something that might be better served as its own smaller PDF. There are also chapters that I absolutely love like the section on how to kit out your house. It’s amazing mechanics, but most of the Missions players will never be able to use them. What does impress me is the PACK sections. The preset packages will help you make characters quicker by giving you small, preset groups of skills, abilities, or items that you can plug into your forming character instead of slaving over the book for an hour. That, as someone who teaches the game often, will be the most useful thing out of this book. Overall, the book is amazing, but not the most versatile book for all players. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff- The core book tells some great stories on how the 6th world works. This book fills in gaps describing how individual creatures fit in it. It doesn’t just give how the freaks of the world survive, but it also gives how a basic dwarf is seen and judged. It’s got chapters on how the vampiric-ly gifted survive and try to thrive. It’s full of stories that will give you ideas for your next run. It’s a beautiful book full of great art to give you a picture of the world. This book will help you better understand the world of Shadowrun as a (meta)person who lives there. 5/5
Execution-Oh, Shadowrun, Shadowrun, Shadowrun. You honestly know how to tell a great story, but making that book useful, searchable, and easy to use is not your strong suite. Like all Catalyst properties, don’t expect an index. That right there hurts the book. Also, organization isn’t their strong suit either. Here is the textbook example of this boks problems. In the chapter on vampires and other infected, the book gives a table on the different types of infected on their stats. Thats a good start. However, not listed on that chart are the base creature that changes when infected, the type of HMVV that infects them, or their powers. Now that’s a large chart, so I can excuse the powers not being a part of it. But, I have to look up the specific infected for each type of virus and the creature it mutated from. As someone who hasn’t played a ton of the previous editions where that was a larger part of the game, I’m stuck reading text descriptions of each infected. Those get the point across well, but they don’t get the point across easily. And that’s the problem wit this book. Give me more to your tables and more tables. Give me a table with short descriptions of the qualities and the cost with them. That was done for 3.5 DnD, and it quickly got the ideas across. This book gets its ideas across, but not in a user friendly manner. 3.5/5
Summary-I am not an old gamer. I can not call myself a proud and ancient grognard-one who’s seen the rise and fall of uncounted editions. I’m actually a recent convert to Shadowrun. I joined up late 4e, and I have fallen in love with 5e. That said, I’m way behind my knowledge about the smaller details of the setting. This is a great book to fill in those gaps. I like learning how the individual races are treated. I like learning about the nitty gritty of vampiric life. I do think some mechanics are a bit useless to most of the player base, but that doesn’t hurt the book too much by providing extra information. What does hurt the book is Catalyst’s organization of the information. In the chapters where the book wants to tell a story, it tells amazing stories. In the chapters where it has a ton of crunch information to bring to bare, it does its job but doesn’t get much help from the layout. If you love Shadowrun, this is a fantastic book to learn about the world. If you want to get new players options for your SR5 game, this is a fantastic book. If you want to learn how to produce a book and need a guide as a refer to, this is not the book to look at. 87%
If you can stand tall, you can also fall quick.
Weak in the Knees
Bonus: 3 karma
When you take a hit, you don’t get to choose to take a dive-you just do it automatically. You’re a lightweight when it comes to taking a hit, falling more times than Glass Jaw Joe. When determining if you are knocked down from a strike, divide your physical limit by 2 (rounding down, minimum 1). You automatically are knocked down if you take five damage.
Thoughts?
Throat Punch Games 