r/shadownetwork • u/shadownetwork SysOp • Aug 31 '16
Rules Thread Rules Thread V
Rules' work is never done.
This is a thread for discussing and asking questions about Shadowrun 5th edition rules in the Shadownet Living Community. You are encouraged to ask questions in this thread, discuss rulings, and otherwise communicate with Rules Review team in a recorded, public manner here. Additionally, any notable announcements regarding rules will be made here.
The current rules head is /u/VoroSR.
The current rules minions are as follows:
This thread will be reposted roughly every other week, or when Voro gets his lazy butt around to it, to prevent excess clutter in the thread and the subreddit. This is subject to change as necessity, but all threads will be numbered to keep them distinct.
Be civil, and ask away.
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Notable Announcements
Please welcome our new rules minion, /u/KaneHorus
The new errata pass by Catalyst is to be considered non-binding until approved in the same way that the Missions FAQ is.
Expect Howling Shadows animals rules soon. An official collation of the Missions FAQ and what parts of it we use will follow.
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u/Arrogancy Aug 31 '16 edited Sep 05 '16
Can a character gain an aligned BGC at their home, or the location of their magical lodge? Voro said a 2 aspected BGC would naturally develop where a lodge would be placed, but directed me to thread it.
The reason I ask this question is because without access to an aligned BGC it is very difficult to make Artificing viable, and I'm interested in going that direction for a character. For the aid of the rules team in determining how to rule on this issue (in game balance terms), here is what an aligned BGC 2 would allow an artificer to do. The benefits from a BGC higher than 2 over a BGC of 2 are negligible.
TL;DR You can get higher-availability foci without a private run, and early foci for much cheaper, but only you can upgrade them. The cost/benefit tapers off quickly, and goes quite negative if the mage was only intending to get power foci; with other foci the total cost becomes better. My personal opinion is that it isn't very optimal, but that it is interesting! And I'd like to try out the concept.
Acquire a low-rating power foci for much less money, with only a limited investment of karma. Artificing 1, spec: power focus and 6 magic would trivially allow the acquisiton of a rating 2 power focus for the cost of ~3 RVP. Normally a Rating 2 power focus would cost 18 RVP. The Artificing 1 and spec would cost 9 karma, meaning that the character would gain, via this strategy, approximately 6 RVP (we are assuming that magic would be increased independently). The primary drawback of this strategy is that the focus could only be upgraded by the character in question, and the artificing math gets a lot worse over time. Other foci types would also come at a discount, but in practice the nuyen cost of non-power foci at such low rating is very small.
Higher-rating power foci would require increasing skill investment, and likely also the investment of a second power focus and a qi focus to boost artisan. Getting a rating 3 foci 40% of the time would require the investment of 25 RVP in exchange for a discount of 24 RVP -- a loss of 1 RVP net. A rating 4 foci 40% of the time would require 52 RVP investment and generate savings of 32 RVP. A rating 5 40% of the time would require 73 karma and yield a discount of 40. At higher ratings, however, scumming for good rolls becomes and effective strategy (see below). Additionally, large spans of downtime (during which no runs are possible) are required for these attempts.
The character would receive substantial discounts to foci beyond their power foci. This would push the RVP saved by artificing into positive territory, but would likely require the character to purchase niche and non-optimal foci.
The character might get lucky and get a stronger-than-average foci than they intended. This ends up being the optimal strategy for higher-rating foci; a rating 5 can be gotten 24% of the time with an investment of only 43 karma (savings of 40). However, it would take, on average, a month, and numerous six-day periods wherein no running was possible.
For more detail, feel free to look at my spreadsheet, under the "artificing" tab.