Shadowrun XS Introduction & Attributes

INTRODUCTION
As a long-time GM of Shadowrun, I’ve seen 3 editions come and go. SR4 is the best developed game yet, but there are still some areas that I feel compelled to adjust. This site is a depot of my thoughts. If you like what you see let me know. If not, keep it to yourself! ;0)


When you see irritable Lofwyr you’ll know he’s ranting or trying to justify rules changes. What do you mean “irritable” and “ranting”? Someone is awfully close to getting flamed!!




ATTRIBUTES
Attributes and skills define your character. They are the numerical representation of nearly everything your character can do. There are basic, derived and special attributes.

Basic Attributes
Basic physical attributes include Agility, Body and Strength. The basic mental attributes are Charisma, Intelligence and Willpower.

Agility represents your character’s fine-motor control, dexterity and speed. It is linked to most physical skills, including combat skills.

Body reveals your character’s physical integrity – how much damage he or she can take. It is rarely used for skills.

Charisma represents your character’s social intelligence and empathy. It is linked to most social skills and used when interacting with animals or spirits.

Intelligence is your character’s mental acuity and perception. It is linked to most knowledge, technical and magical skills.

Strength is your character’s physical power. It is primarily used to determine carrying capacity and melee combat damage.

Willpower indicates your character’s mental integrity. It is used to resist wound effects and drain from spellcasting. It is rarely used for skills.

Whose idea was it to split Intelligence into Intuition and Logic? SR3 attributes weren’t broke, so they didn’t need to be fixed. You’ll also notice, Reaction has been moved back where it belongs, under Derived Attributes.




Derived Attributes
Derived attributes use the basic attributes to determine their rating. Anything that changes a contributing attribute may change the derived attribute’s rating. Derived attributes include Composure, Health, and Reaction.

Composure represents your character’s coolness under fire and resistance to disturbing encounters. It is the sum of your Intelligence and Charisma.

Health indicates how quickly your character heals and his resistance to disease and toxins. It is the average of your Willpower and base Body attribute (“base” meaning before racial or any other modifiers are factored in).

Reaction represents your character’s reflexes and combat speed. It isn’t linked to skills, but, rather, used to determine turn order in combat and avoid being surprised. It is average your Quickness and Intelligence.

Yes, you need some new attributes! Health provides a mechanism to ensure that trolls heal at a similar rate to other metahumans. Now they can get sick too! Composure was introduced in SR4 as Wil+Cha. Why Charisma? Heck if I know. Intelligence makes more sense to me. It’s also more prominent here because it will be tested frequently for everything from resisting suppressive fire to facing fearsome piasmas!

Special Attributes
Special attributes work differently then those describe above. They are either unique to some characters or calculated unusually. The special attributes include Combat (or Astral or Hacking) Initiative, Essence, Karma (replaces Edge), Magic and Resonance.

Combat Initiative determines how many actions your character may perform in a combat turn (more on this in the future). All characters start with a combat initiative of 1 unless magic or implants increase the rating.

Astral or Hacking Initiative is available only to characters who can astrally project or running a cyberdeck with cold or hot sim, respectively.

Essence is your character’s spiritual integrity. It is degraded by implants and chemicals. The Essence cost of cyberware and bioware is subtracted from 6, the starting rating. An equal amount is subtracted from any Magic or Resonance rating the character may have.

Karma represents your character’s luck, divine intervention or ace-in-the-hole. It is a powerful attribute that can save a character from death or simply land a lucky punch. Starting characters have rating 2, except humans who begin play with Karma 3.

Magic indicates the degree to which your character has awakened. He or she can access magical skills. Reductions in Essence affect the Magic rating. Characters may not have Magic and Resonance ratings

Resonance is similar to Magic, but the two are mutually exclusive. A technomancer’s Resonance rating indicates the level of attunement with virtual magic that flows through the matrix. Reductions in Essence also affect your character’s Resonance rating.

There’s a lot to cover here, so try to keep up! Changes to Initiative will be covered in an upcoming Combat section. Essence is slightly modified such that you suffer the full loss from cyber- or bioware – none of this 6 minus the cyber Essence cost minus the bioware Essence loss x0.5 crap! Edge has been liquidated! It was insolent. Besides, it was called Karma in SR3 and that was cool. Magic and Resonance are unchanged from SR4. What? Are you surprised?

CHARACTER CREATION
Given the adjustment to Attributes, the starting Build Points (BP) will be 350 BP total. You may spend 150 BP on basic attributes. The remaining BP are used to purchase metatype, Magic or Resonance, Skills, Qualities, resources and contacts.


Stop your whining! I shaved off 2 Attributes and gave you a free point of Karma.