RULES QUESTIONS AND HOUSE RULES

RULES QUESTIONS AND HOUSE RULES

This thread will be used for general Shadowrun 4e rule discussion and queries.  Please post any questions you have here with any page and book references you can offer.

Shadowrun 4th Edition Books

Encryption rules:

Urban Brawl - the highest rating blood sport on the trix!:

CredStick house rules:

am i allowed to change my character's drones, vehicle and some stat based stuff around?
the template lacks some of the creativity i like to see in my characters. as well as the characters function is to be a driver and next to nothing else.
i would like to add cracking to his stats. change his abilities so they are legal.
change the car to a land rover rather then a van.
change the drones he has into a roving hub, a GTS tower and some cyberspace design dragonflies.

is all this possible or should i try and make less changes?
also this runs parallel with my original idea for my character aside from the wheelchair.

angry_dan wrote:

am i allowed to change my character's drones, vehicle and some stat based stuff around?
the template lacks some of the creativity i like to see in my characters. as well as the characters function is to be a driver and next to nothing else.
i would like to add cracking to his stats. change his abilities so they are legal.
change the car to a land rover rather then a van.
change the drones he has into a roving hub, a GTS tower and some cyberspace design dragonflies.

is all this possible or should i try and make less changes?
also this runs parallel with my original idea for my character aside from the wheelchair.

Thats a lot of changes how about you post up what it is and what you want it to be so i can take a look.

Also unless you get your ass into the other thread and start aiding in the planing stage the answer is defiantly no.

ill get right on that. ill put the character stuff in my character thread and ill put up an some info and such in the planning.

i just looked over the chr you were playing last week, its good to see you didnt even change the name on the template you were given lol.

It looks like a fairly well made and stereotypical rigger.

What abilities aren't legal?

Quote :

change the drones he has into a roving hub, a GTS tower and some cyberspace design dragonflies.

Please explain in your own words what this actually means.

And changing the van to a land rover is going to require you reverse engineering the van to figure out how much it cost EDIT: and any drones you wish to change over for that mater.

they use 210 points in his abilities. i can reverse engineer the van no problem as well as the drones.

ok GTS Tower (LTA Carrier Drone) on pages 121 and 122 in arsenal

Cyberspace Designs Dragonfly (Aerial Hunter-Killer Minidrone) on page 117 in arsenal.

Roving Hub page 198 and 199 of unwired.

Rover Model 2068 (SUV) on page 109 in arsenal.

the system is to use the roving hub as the master drone with all the others slaved to it.

Did you check to see if it was a 400bp template at all?

it is. says so at the bottom. it was a bit last minute using him.
i was hoping to tweak him before i used him.

angry_dan wrote:

it is. says so at the bottom. it was a bit last minute using him.
i was hoping to tweak him before i used him.

Ok here is what you're going to do;

You are going to build your character from the ground up using that chr as a template.

You are going to note where all the bp's and dollars are spent.

I am going to allow you to alter 75bps of the character which can not include the following;
Contacts
adding magic or resonance to the character.
The characters name, sex or race.

You can how ever add additional contacts if you so wish.
Please note that changing how the money was spent counts as a BP change for example; If you change a drone that cost you 10k¥ to something/'s of the same value it counts as 2bps altered.

it shall be done.

can you link me a pdf of the rule book please matty?

I've updated the first post with a link to the books for peeps.

I asked around about the encryption rules and this is what i got JD,

Quote :

The rating of your program determines how hard it is for the Decrypt program to break through. The higher the rating, the better the encryption.

So, for instance, let's say I'm making a call to Steve, and I don't want folks listening in. I can use my rating 3 Encrypt program to encrypt the link, at which point I choose a "key" so Steve can decrypt it. I choose "F. Scott Fitzgerald," and since Steve knows this key in advance, he enters it in and we proceed with our call.

Joe wants to listen in, but doesn't know the key... but he does have Decrypt, rated at 2. He rolls Electronic Warfare + Decrypt, and needs to get six successes (my program rating x2) before he can start listening in. If it takes him enough turns to get those successes, then he might miss out on vital parts of the conversation.

ok i have a question about jamming on the fly. pg 92

it says you use a commlink, radio or anything that can be programmed to produce sound.
my question is can i use my drones sensors in order to jam on the fly?
the second question is in doing that can the vibrations from the jamming extend the jamming signal through the fence?

angry_dan wrote:

ok i have a question about jamming on the fly. pg 92

it says you use a commlink, radio or anything that can be programmed to produce sound.
my question is can i use my drones sensors in order to jam on the fly?
the second question is in doing that can the vibrations from the jamming extend the jamming signal through the fence?

Ok Dan this is an interesting question and to help you better understand my answer im going to break it down for you so lets start from the start.

angry_dan wrote:

ok i have a question about jamming on the fly. pg 92

It helps if you make reference to the book when you quote a page # but never mind, i found it.

angry_dan wrote:

it says you use a commlink, radio or anything that can be programmed to produce sound.

No actually it doesn't. What it actually says is this;

Quote :

Jamming on the Fly
Sometimes you just don’t have the right tool for the job, and you have to do the best you can with what’s at hand. Jamming on the fly is when you really really need a jammer and you don’t have one—but you do have a commlink, or a radio, or something that you can program to spit noise into the other rigger’s bandwidth. Like most techniques, jamming on the fly is somewhere between

It doesn't make mention of sound anywhere for one main reason, jamming is the act of blocking radio transmission.

Radio transmission 101;
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by electromagnetic waves with frequencies significantly below visible light, in the radio frequency range, from about 3 kHz to 300 GHz. These waves are called radio waves. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space.

Sound 101
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.

So while they have similarities they are actually entirely different creatures. what jamming on the fly is actually suggesting is that you can use anything that is able to transmit radio signals as a make shift jammer in a pinch.

"Wow that's interesting Matt!" i hear you say "So how does jamming actually work?"

Good question!

Wireless communications (for example the Matrix) utilize radio communications to transmit from point A to point B and so on. The radio signals are intricately constructed patterns which are transmitted and then translated into data upon being received via the intended radio receiver (for instance Bluetooth, wireless network card, digital radio etc) and these intricate patterns are generally referred to in the data world as packets.
"Noise" is the catch all phrase for unintelligent radio signal either intentionally or unintentionally created. Most devices that receive or transmit radio signals have systems inbuilt to counter act a certain amount of noise, whether its the pure brute force of signal strength or the slightly more subtle technique like
[url=FHSS]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-hopping_spread_spectrum[/url]. Jamming utilizes intentionally created Noise to swamp an area of radio bandwidth with random crap packets which overwhelm all other signals and corrupt most packets that are transmitted through the area. This means that any signals that do manage to get through are generally unrecognizable and untranslatable when they arrive at the intended receiver.

Which brings us to the next part of your question.

angry_dan wrote:

my question is can i use my drones sensors in order to jam on the fly?

Yes is the very simple answer.

Because they are a node with a matrix transmitter they could be used to as a jamming device. It is worth pointing out that they wouldn't become a direction jammer so while they were jamming they would not be able to communicate back to their hub or vice versa. There jamming output would probably be of a signal strength one rank lower then their standard signal value as it requires a lot more power to jam a decent range of bandwidth then it does to transmit.

angry_dan wrote:

the second question is in doing that can the vibrations from the jamming extend the jamming signal through the fence?

This brings me back to my point that jamming involves radio signals and not sound so vibrations are mostly irrelevant, however in saying that a cyclone fence can become an ad-hoc antenna for receiving and transmitting radio signals (it may buy you an extra 50 meters or so in range).

For the purpose of receiving signals it would simply require you to connect you existing antenna to the fence via a material with a very low electrical resistance value (like some speaker cabling or something.) Jamming however is all about transmitting a radio signal and utilizing a poorly constructed antenna like a cyclone fence would require some alterations to your transmitting device (your drone in this case) and large amounts of power to over come the electrical impedance value of the fence.

If you have any further questions please dont hesitate to ask.

i feel smarter.
thanks matt.

in order to use a cyclone fence to become a transmitter for the jamming signal;
would i be able to connect my dragonflies to the cyclone fence then resonate the jamming signal through the fence overlapping the drones signal range and jamming range?
i dont know if i have written that right.

Side Note: Deus Ex 1,2 and 3 are all on sale on steam at the moment. Its a good way to get a feel for the augmented world if your interested.

thanks for the info of the deal for deus ex.

question is about the Nordkapp Zugmaschine (Tractor Trailer) page 110 arsenal

i know im being a real bastard with changes and everything.
i have been rule learning and getting info as i have been building.

so to the question. does the trailer add 24 body or does it go to 24 making its body 6?
what is your ruling of having my GTS tower landing inside the Trailer if i put a large landing rack inside?
if i put fold up bunks and put a workshop in it can i still fit the large drone rack?

so think real steal design.

Ok after many request i separated the general forum for shadowrun and the character section.

Re cred sticks

Taken from Unwired

Spoiler:

So i may have been slightly over zealous with you JD but as it states many places won't accept them as currency including banks. So when it comes to the uper crust areas/shopping centers they are likely to be a no go item.

They are basically like a check when it comes to cashing one.

Ok i put up some fluff regarding Urban Brawl and my official house rules re credsticks in the original post.

If you have any questions or issues raise them now before next session when i lock them in!

EDIT: Ignore any rules mechanics (for example armor values etc) from the urban brawl link as they are all from 2e, most of the fluff is still good tho.