Tag: shadowrun 5e

Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Shadowrun: London Falling

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Product– Shadowrun: London Falling

System– Shadowrun 5e, Shadowrun 4e

Producer– Catalyst

Price– $12 here http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/140722/Shadowrun-London-Falling

TL; DR– Fun adventures, not by favorite execution. 83%

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Basics– Let’s run in jolly future England!  London Falling is a series of Shadowrun convention specials that have been updated and formatted for public play.  Players get to take part in slightly harder than normal runs that decide the fate of 2070’s England in adventures that are part of the Shadowrun Missions living game.  Can you handle the pressure of these runs and get home for tea time?

Mechanics or Crunch-Get ready for hard mode!  The con Shadowrun Missions are all made with a “big risk, big rewards” mentality, and it shows.  What’s here is hard core Shadowrun.  It’s fun and done well, but you might have to keep this in mind when you run the adventure as newer players might not stand a chance. 5/5

Theme or Fluff- Overall, the adventures are well done.  Seattle is fine, but it’s fun to run in a completely different location for once.  However, I think since this is a different place, I’d like more background for my players and myself as a GM.  Sure, I can hand wave some stuff, but I’d like a small section to help me better understand the world as I present it in game.  One mission has this, but why not the others? Also, some of the descriptions of locations and layouts are not done as well as I’d like.  It leaves a ton up to the GM to decide.  I can work with that, but I’d like there to be a bit more to help me set the scene.  4/5

 

Execution– While I’m overall happy with the crunch and fluff of this product, the execution is semi-lacking.  A major flaw is the lack of contact sheets and adventure summary sheets in the back of the book!  These are already Shadowrun missions adventures, so those sheets exist, so why are they not here?  That knocks of some of the score.  What is interesting is some of the mix between 4e and 5e as the contacts get the full treatment of how each type of contact will give you some information.  But, some of the contacts are all mixed up.  Art, your default Mr. Johnson for several of the missions, isn’t given a full rundown until the second mission.  That’s kind of strange as he’d be really helpful if presented in the first one.  That kind of summarizes the execution as a whole.  What is here isn’t bad, but I’d just need a bit more and a bit better organized.  3.5/5

Summary– If you want some Shadowrun Missions, then you’re going to get this.  If you know your Shadowrun, this is a great resource for more easy to run, quick to prep missions.  However, if you don’t have all the Shadowrun world lore or an encyclopedic knowledge of 2070’s England and London, you’re going to have a tougher time running these adventures.  I did enjoy them, but I need more.  I need my mission sheets.  I need more information as I love Shadowrun, but don’t have the near 30 years of real world background to run these missions as well as a Seattle run.  These are fun missions that are hard core with some hard traps but also some great rewards, so new players may need a bit of extra help to survive and win those rewards.  New GMs may need a bit more background to know all that is going on in the world.  Overall, it’s an ok book that provides some fun missions, but requires lots of extra work from your GM. 83 %

Daily Punch 4-30-15 Friends with Benefits quality for Shadowrun 5e

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I’m reading tons of Shadowrun lately.  Let’s put in a positive quaility that I thought of when I read about ally spirits…

Friends with Benefits

Cost: 10 Karma

You’re slick, and anybody who knows you just wants to help you.  This even goes for the spirits you keep around you.  When you spend karma to improve an ally spirit, decrease the cost of each individual improvement by one karma.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 3-25-15 Loyal Servants Lifestyle Option for Shadowrun 5e

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I’ve been catching up on some Shadowrun, and I thought of this as I went through Run Faster….

Loyal Servants

Be it your loving parents, a wife/husband, or the kindly butler who rescued you from the orphanage, you have someone(s) who serve you in maintaining your house, but won’t turn you over the the first goganger who offers them money.  The people who maintain your house are loyal to you and will never provide an opportunity to hurt you or any information about you.  This does not guarantee their safety.  Increase the security level and limits by 1, and reduce the available points of the lifestyle by 3.  The base lifestyle must be medium or higher to take this option.

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 3-3-15 Lite Ice program for Shadowrun 5e

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How about some love for Shadowrun?  What if you could get a touch of black ice for you deck?

 

Program Avail Cost
Lite Ice 6+6xRating R Rating x 10,000Y

 

Lite Ice was reverse engineered by back alley deckers who’ve had their brains burned a few too many times by Black Ice.  When you have this program active, any device or icon you have a mark on and has three boxes of matrix damage takes a -1 to all actions.  The target takes additional penalties for each full three boxes of matrix damage beyond the first three up to the rating of Lite Ice you have running.

 

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 2-27-15 Support quality for Shadowrun 5e

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I always like when another character helps another character in an RPG.  Support classes might not get the accolades they deserve, but behind every troll tank is a medic keeping that meta standing!  How about a quality to help those players?

 

Support

Cost: 10 karma

You don’t have the lime light too often, so you’ve focused on helping those who are in it.  You’ve got skills to pay bills, but you let the others cash those checks.  When you assist another character with an action, in addition to all the dice you normally provide when you succeed at a check, the character also get a number of dice equal to 1/4 of the dice pool you used for that skill.  Normal limits apply, and the dice pool you count from does not factor in edge if you spend it.

 

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 2-15-15 Knowledge is Power quality for Shadowrun 5e

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If you can use a what you know in DnD, how about being able to do the same in Shadowrun?

 

Knowledge is Power

Cost: 5 karma

You know how to walk the walk, but more important, how to talk the talk.  So much so the silver-tongued devil that you are is almost as impressive as how book smart you are.  When you make a Charisma roll with any skill in the influence skill group, you may add your ranks in a relevant knowledge skill to the dice pool.  You must be invoking the knowledge to gain these bonus dice.  You can not gain these extra dice on a roll where you do not mention the skill.

 

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 1-29-15 Expert Social Edge idea for Shadowrun 5e

~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 7 Comments

In Run and Gun on page 126, there are several combat edge ideas added to Shadowrun.  What about being able to use edge in a non-combat setting?  How about being an expert in something? (Most likely to bull drek about it latter!)

 

Expert

You’re an expert.  People know your an expert because other people say your an expert.  That’s how it works.  When you make a social test and have ranks in a knowledge skill, you can spend a point of edge to add those ranks to your dice pool.  You must explain how being an expert in the specific skill adds to the use of this skill in this context.

 

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 1-14-15 Paladin Program for Shadowrun 5e

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I’ve been reading a ton of Shadowrun lately and thinking about how to protect your friends as you do matrix overwatch.  Here’s my idea

 

Paladin (TM)

Practice safe matrix activity, always use Paladin(TM) brand overwatch!

Sometimes you can’t protect all your friends gear at once.  Sometimes your friends get hit, and then they wine later.  With Paladin(tm) running, your friends reduce all hits dealt to their matrix gear by one box if you have those PAMs slaved to your deck or RCC.

 

Thoughts?

Daily Punch 1-12-15 Air Rifle for Shadowrun 5e

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I got a present for Christmas.  No it wasn’t from Red Rider, but it was an air rifle.  Funny thing about air rifles, the Austrians used to use them to fight the Nazies.  Maybe it’s not that bad a weapon.  Here are my stats for it.

 

Gun ACC DAMAGE AP MODE RC AMMO AVAIL COST
Air Rifle 5 2S or 5P 1 SS – 1 BB 2 100 Y

An air rifle is not a weapon that will take down your average dragon.  However, if you aim right and know what you’re doing, you can do some serious damage.  When you make an attack with an air rifle, if you were hidden when you made the attack you are still hidden.  The weapon normally does 2S damage.  However, if your target glitches his or her dodge roll or is unaware of the attack, the damage of the weapon is 5p.