Shadowrun Custom Rules

SKILL UPGRADING

According to the rules, you have to do an extended skill test in order to upgrade skills. I think that's a needless level of detail, so we shall have none of that silliness here. Just pay the karma, and get the skill.

DIRECT COMBAT SPELLS

The removal of GM prompted 'net hits on target' to remove a step from spell combat. Joose and HereComesPete decided it offered too much insight into the skills of the target and removed some of the guesswork inherent in the spell casting process.

You the Mage pick your spell force and roll your magic + spellcasting +/- modifiers and generate a number. This number can then be used wholly or partly to up the damage value of your spell, it also ups your drain value as a result.

No matter how well you roll, you can only add dice up to the force the spell was cast at.

E.G. Roman, his manabolt and a rather exceptional roll of 9 hits.

He chose force 6 so the drain is 6/2 = 3. He then rolled Magic 5 + Spellcasting 5 - 10 dice and he got 9 hits. Because he chose force 6 he can then add up to 6 of his 9 hits to the damage value of the spell. If he adds all 6 then the damage value would be 12 and the drain would be 9.

If he had chosen force 9 for his spell he would have the option of adding all of those 9 hit dice to the damage value but would of course have to resist the drain too.

Regardless of whether the spell does anything to the target, the drain that Roman sets himself must be resisted.

A word of caution! Because Roman is overcasting here (his magic attribute is 5 but he is casting at force 6), any unresisted drain is taken as physical damage not stun damage.

AVAILABILITY

In HereComesPete's runs availability on gear is less dependent on availability and restrictions than the books suggest. If you're a drug user getting you next fix is a simple task of going to your usual sources and buying more. If you're a B&E specialist, picking up a new set of picks or maglock passkey is a case of paying a visit to your normal shady man in bar.

If you're buying enough through a contact related to your line of work then you'll pay no more than book price unless it's an unusual and hard to source item. If you buy enough then they'll start offering discount to keep you happy. Alternatively if you need something rare and from a source you've never used before, it may well cost you more than the book suggests.

Save yourself time, poke me on xfire/pm and see what you can get!