Pillars of Faith - ShadowRun Game Information

    The following archetypes I've developed over 11 years of play. Many of the ones you see here have gone through several stages. The Weapon Specialist in particular underwent major changes when the Cybertechnology Sourcebook came out. In her original incarnation she had a Deluxe Gyro Mount as a built-in device in her Cyberarm. Which is more than 130,000¥ cheaper. One Archetype that never got to see the light of day is the Quick Draw Specialist. A player of mine came up with him, he took Resources as prioity A and bought Wired Reflexes III, a Smartlink and Cybereyes with Magnification III. As you might suspect the rest of his gear was a rather moot point. That reminds me, if you want to keep things at a sane level don't allow Concentrations that are higher than twice the General Skill and don't allow Specializations that are more than double the Concentration. If you've ever seen a character with Firearms at 4, Pistols at 6 and Ruger Super Warhawk at 26 then you know what I'm talking about. Speaking of sanity, it doesn't take long for your players to build their attributes up to racial maximums, unless he's a Troll. Why are attributes so much cheaper than skills?
    The Straight Cop is an Archetype that I've had for years and years. The Straight Cop is the only Archetype in here that comes with a Buddy Contact. Usually another Cop or a Detective.
    The Bug Hunter I created before I made my optional Psychics rules, so she came out like your typical Physad. She's easy to convert though. Just give her 15 Force Points worth of Physical Powers. The Conjuring Adept has a honking big Ally Spirit that was paid for in Force Points. She has a starting Magic Attribute of 5 because one point of Magic has to be sacrificed for the first point of Force rating for the Ally. Check the Grimoire p. 64 for more details on Ally Spirits. The Mercenary Mage is my answer to the overused Combat Mage. It seems that every supplement uses the Combat Mage as standard opposition for Runners. Of course my players knew a good thing when they saw one. I've had four players choose the Mercenary Mage. Two of which were playing Mages for the first time.
    I also went on a spree of Metahuman Archetype revamping when Shadowrun II came out. The Orks and Elves use the "More Metahumans" option from SR II. Meaning that they use C as the priority for race. Trolls and Dwarves still use priority A because I didn't get the impression that there were as many of them as Orks and Elves. And except for some rare spots in Europe, Ork and Elf populations are usually close to double or more than the population of Dwarves and Trolls. I could change that in the future if more players start using the stranger metavariants such as Shapeshifters and so on.
    The Dwarf Shaman uses the Sum to 10 System. If you're going to use that system though, I recomend that you don't allow players to assign more than one 0 as a priority. This avoids the 4, 4, 2, 0, 0 and 4, 3, 3, 0, 0 spreads that produce some of the most unbalanced characters in the game. The Dwarf Shaman's spread came out 4, 3, 1, 1, and 1. The Dwarf Mage has Resources as Priority E. It was either that or C, but after buying a Talismonger's Kit at 10K¥ I was left with a lot of Nuyen and Force Points that an Enchanter wouldn't be able to really use since even a level 1 Spell Type Focus would wipe out all her remaining Nuyen while leaving her with a bunch of Force Points that would have given her way more spells than the Concept calls for. Resources D is even worse because almost every other spellslinger has that spread for their spells and the Dwarf Mage is supposed to be different from other spellslingers. And 5K¥ isn't good for much, not even for a Hermetic Library, much less the talismongering gear. The only other option was the Build Points system from the ShadowRun Companion, but that automatically gives you 30 Force Points and from the start I didn't want the Dwarven Mage to have more than three or four spells.
    When I first made the Ork Rigger I didn't have the Rigger Black Book or Rigger 2. When Rigger 2 came out I tried to update his vehicle but I ran out of Nuyen. Trying to make a custom vehicle was no picnic so I threw in the towel and left him as he is. The Ork Decker though was made start to finish with Virtual Realities 2.0. The Ork Rocker was made in accordance with Shadow Beat. And with the Ork Street Samurai I gave him an update when Shadow Tech came out. The Ork Street Shaman I made for myself and got to use it on exactly one occasion. But it was fun and I got to burn through half his fetishes in one run.
    There's also a lot of Trolls here. No particular reason. Just that Trolls are so damn big and cool I like to have them around. No Troll Mage or Troll Stret Samurai. I usually just play around with the Troll Street Samurai's Cyberware from the Street Samurai Catalogue and the Contacts foldout from the Storyteller's Screen. As for a Troll Mage... I don't know, it just doesn't work for me. There are probably a few in existence, but for my money I'll stick with the Troll Shaman. Btw, I don't care how big your Troll is an Assault Cannon is a Heavy Weapon and you better know Gunnery if you're going to use it. Otherwise default from Firearms like the other bunnies.
    There are also a couple of Street Sam types that I developed that go outside the rules altogether. For these I took some cues from Cybertechnology, but left out all the magic mumbo-jumbo. The result are the Cyborg and the Ronin. Veteran Shadowrun players all know that the Street Samurai from the core rules book has always had a problem. Namely that he has more than 6 Essence worth of Cyberware. For players who wouldn't stop whining about that extra level of Muscle Replacement I developed the Ronin optional rules. In short you buy off the negative Essence with Attribute points. See the Cyborg and Ronin for full details.
    The Psionicist obviously uses my own Psychic rules. If you don't like that you can use him as a Physical Magician with a few minor adaptations. I know the first thing you're gonna do when you get your grubby little mitts on him is change Astral Perception to Improved Stealth or something similar. That's what my players did. Resist the temptation. Being able to use that Psi-Sword on an unmanifested spirit is worth the slow start. The Vamp is also an aberration particular to my campaigns. I take a cue from the Shapeshifter to introduce another Metavariant that is probably too powerful to be entrusted to the majority of Players. But who knows, players are full of surprises.
    I just had a look at Shadowrun 3rd Edition. I don't really know what to make of it. It isn't all that different from 2nd Edition. But the character generation system is sufficiently different to make all the Archetypes here obsolete. If I buy it I think I'll rework the Ork Street Samurai and see how it goes from there.

Shadowrun Game Information

ShadowRun Contacts

ShadowRun Archetypes