Runner's Companion.pdf - Free

Simon Wentworth (order #1132857) 9Suites: This consists of one bedroom and a bathroom connectedto a central living room and possibly a kitchen nook anddining area. Luxury suites have luxury comforts and more thanone bedroom or bathroom than a normal suite. Security is topnotch,including well-armed (and discrete) security guards, secureelevator access, an on-site spider, an on-site magician or patrollingspirits (possibly both), and wifi inhibiting wallpaper and wardsaround each room.Buying a permanent LifestyleBuying a permanent lifestyle is detailed on p. 262 ofShadowrun, Fourth Edition: it costs 100 times the monthly cost.However, it is possible to purchase only a portion of the totallifestyle. For example, you may wish to buy the Necessities categoryto reflect your purchase of a home. To figure out your price, add upthe LP for the categories you wish to purchase. Then, divide thoseLP by your total Lifestyle Point cost. Finally, multiply that figureby your base monthly lifestyle payment, and then by 100.Kat o’Nine Tales likes her nightlife. She decides to purchasethat category permanently, to reflect her permanentmembership in all the hottest West Coast clubs. Her Highlifestyle Entertainment cost is 4 LP. Her overall lifestyle is20 LP (High), or 10,000¥. To buy the category, Kat needsto spend (4 ÷ 20) x 10,000¥ x 100 = 200,000¥.After a permanent lifestyle category purchase, your remainingmonthly cost is based only on the point values of the categoriesyou did not buy.The following month, Kat only needs to spend 20 LP– 4 LP = 16 LP, or 6,000¥ to pay for her high lifestyle.A Lifestyle that has been permanently purchased cannot beupgraded; in order to change some (or all) aspects of the Lifestyle,you must first sell it, then purchase the new one (see Buying ALifestyle, p. 262, SR4).AvailabilityRegular (legal) lifestyles have standard Availability, whichmeans they are always available. In the 2070s, online rental postings,easy electronic applications, instantaneous ID and creditchecks, and (most importantly) instantaneous cred transfers meansthe actual business of moving can be taken care of in a matter ofhours. Of course, finding the right place can take significantlylonger. However, adding qualities to a legal lifestyle automaticallymakes it subject to the Availability rules presented here.Non-legal lifestyles (such as safe houses) or lifestyles purchasedwithout a SIN have an Availability equal to their totalLP value ÷ 2 (round up). The final cost of the lifestyle representsthe Availability cost for purposes of determining the interval(Availability Interval, p. 303, SR4). For urgent needs (such as a safehouse the characters need now), the PCs or their fixer can roll aCharisma + Negotiation Test, with the hits determining what levelof place they can find at that particular moment. Gamemasterscan balance PC requests for Postive qualities with appropriate (ordevious) Negative qualities, to bring the Availability down to thenumber of hits scored.Runner’s CompanionQualities affect the Availability of a lifestyle. For every 1point Positive quality, increase the Availability threshold byone. Conversely, for every 1 point Negative quality, decrease theAvailability threshold by one.Pistons is looking for a safe house for her team and herselfafter a botched run in Seattle, and they need it NOW.They want at least a Low lifestyle for the place (10 LP).Pistons is particular, so she asks her fixer to make sure ithas an Escape Tunnel (+3), is Inconspicuous (+2), andis Security Conscious (+2), for a total of +7. Her fixer’sthreshold for finding the perfect place is (10 ÷ 2 = 5) +7, or 12. Based on the cost (10 LP + 7 LP = 17 LP, or7,000¥), the normal interval would be 2 days. The fixercomes up with 5 hits on his roll. Since Pistons needs thatsafe house now, he offers her a plain vanilla Low lifestyleflop house (Availability 5), or he also knows of one that fitsher requirements, but it comes with a few “minor problems”(7 LP worth of Negative qualities, to bring the total availabilitydown to 5). Or, she can wait a few days, he’s suresomething will come up… At 233¥ a day (7,000¥ ÷ 30),Piston decides to take the safe house with the “minor problems”…hmmm, wonder what she’s gotten herself into?Maintaining Multiple LifestylesAt some point in their career, every shadowrunner needs aplace to lay low. Having a safe house available (or two or three) canbe invaluable when you’re cooling off after that hot Aztech datasteal. Or, perhaps your runner maintains two lives, partying socialiteby day, covert-ops specialist by night. You might have a familyto support that knows nothing of your illicit activities. Whateveryour reasons, figuring out the costs is fairly simple. Calculate thepoint value of each lifestyle separately, determine each lifestyle’snuyen cost per the Lifestyle Point/Cost Table, p. 153, and thenadd together the separate nuyen costs. (Add the nuyen costs, notthe points, to determine the total cost of the lifestyle).Ma’fan maintains a safe house (11 LP total) in additionto her high-class penthouse suite (24 LP total). Hertotal lifestyle costs for both lifestyles are 2,600¥ + 40,000¥= 42,600¥.RoommatesWhen two or more people share a home, they can share thelifestyle costs, although having extra people increases the totallifestyle costs. Each additional person beyond the first adds 10%to the nuyen cost of the lifestyle. It’s up to the roommates to decidehow to divide the costs amongst themselves.Player characters may also choose to live with one or moreNPCs. In that case, the gamemaster must decide what portion ofthe base costs the NPC will shoulder. (If gamemasters find playersabuse this option just to save money, they can feel free to assignvarious lifestyle qualities to help keep game balance—and bringsome humor into the game).Player characters who are supporting dependents (by takingthe dependent quality on p. 104) will normally pay all (or most)of the cost of the dependents’ lifestyles (base and individual). Arunner with two children, for example, would pay 120% of thenormal base cost of their shared lifestyle.advanced lifestyles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159