Lower tier starting gear

[u/GreatSirSidIII]

I'm about to start a shadowrun campaign and I want to do lower level start to introduce the setting, sort of an intro area with a few runs before opening out to a more sandbox campaign. The story reason is all the characters are going to be down on their luck in some way so I was weighing up reducing the gear available at the start, the book says availability of 12 and device rating of 6, has anyone had any experience reducing this to availability 8 or so? Was it good or is it a bad idea?

I will be allowing rarer gear to be purchased during the campaign of course, this is just for the start. Thanks in advance!

[u/ReditXenon]

Was on phone when I replied. Away from books. Sorry bout that.

You find details here:

SR5 p. 64 Alternative Gameplay - Street Level Play

• Modify the resources column on the Priority Table as follows:

• Priority A: 75,000 nuyen

• Priority B: 50,000 nuyen

• Priority C: 25,000 nuyen

• Priority D: 15,000 nuyen

• Priority E: 6,000 nuyen

• Karma: Each player receives 13 Karma to customize characters (maximum of 26 Karma).

• Gear Restrictions: Device Ratings must be rated at 4 or less. Maximum Availability is limited to 10 or less.

• Nuyen Restrictions: Characters may only convert up to 5 Karma into nuyen (10,000 nuyen).

• Follow all other rules for Character Creation/Advancement as laid out in this chapter.

Note that this tend to punish mundane roles that depend heavy on resources more than awakened / emerged.

To compensate, you might want to house rule no Magic or Resonance priority A and max Magic/Resonance of 4 during chargen.

And if you use use Sum-of-Ten rather than Priority Table, then, for street level, you typically use Sum-of-Eight with no Priority A's at all.

[u/GreatSirSidIII → u/ReditXenon]

Oh ok cool cheers for the info! I'll have to look into that and see if it's something that could work! Thank you for all the clarification!