Rulings/Council Threads Update Announcement

Update on the Update

We have gone through the council rulings to find what was missing and have cleared the backlog. What needed to be added has been added. What needed to be re-examined has been re-examined. Missing rulings, rulings made without a mechanics head, confusing rules and some open play tests have all been considered and dealt with.

At this point the wiki rules represent the most accurate collection of Shadow Haven^Reloaded rules. No longer will you need to search council threads for things that are missing. Hopefully this cuts down on rules confusion and fatigue.

Note that a new page has been created to house rules on PvP. There is also an IC announcement that everyone should be aware of regarding violence against your fellow runners. It is linked in the rules, but for ease it is also here: PvP on the Haven.

List of Updates Made

Rulings/Awakened

• Council ruling: [Touch Spells and Punching]
  • • You may not combine a touch spell with another unarmed attack.
• Council ruling: [Channeling Houserule] (Item 189)
  • In regards to Channeling: When the spirit is in control, the spirit’s skills and mental and special attributes are used. When the summoner is in control, the summoner’s skills and mental and special attributes are used. In either case the lower values of the two are used to defend against Mana Spells or Powers, and damage is applied to both.
• Council ruling: [Switching Adept Ways] (Item 174)
  • The Thematics team may approve swapping Adept Ways. The cost will be determined case by case.
• Council ruling: [Channeling Clarification] (Item 165)
  • How does our new house rule on channeling interact with the use of foci while channeling a spirit? For instance, if I channel a F6 spirit as a magic 6 magician and remain in control of the resulting duel-natured entity (thus using the magician's mental stats and magic score), would I also be able to benefit from the use of a power focus?
    • Yes, you would benefit from the power focus.
• Council ruling: [Oversummoning] (Item 158)
  • Starting at Force 7 and increasing, the force of summoning a spirit is more than most summoners can handle. When a summoner attempts to summon a spirit of Force 7 or greater, the summoner takes unresisted physical drain equal to 1.5 times the difference between the Force of the spirit and the Magic of the summoner, rounded up, provided the spirit’s force is greater. This is in addition to the normal drain suffered from summoning, is healed as drain, and cannot be reduced by any means. Elementals over summoned at Force 7 or higher additionally reduce the damage by 2. (Just missing the part about elementals.)
• Council ruling: [detox and crash effects] (Item 166)
  • How is minimum force determined for a drug like Novacoke that does not have a damage value?
    • Addiction Rating = Mininium force
  • Can Detox remove the crash effects (other than damage, which seems limited to that which affects condition monitors, AFAICT) from drugs such as Novacoke and Kamikaze (essentially removing all crash effects from the former, while reducing the latter to 6S damage, unresisted)?
    • Yes (This was the missing part)
• Council ruling: [Ritual of Change Cost Reduction] (Item 68)
  • Raising the force of an ally spirit now only costs 8 karma per force increased, not 16. This change is retroactive - characters who have previously spent karma to raise the force of their ally spirits immediately receive the difference as a one-time bonus for free.
• Council ruling [Elemental Aura AP]
  • [Element] Aura spells do not have AP on the primary damage. Secondary effects may have AP as described by the effect.
• Council ruling: [Masking Critter Powers] (Item 96)
  • Extended Masking metamagic can now also affect critter powers in a way comparable to sustained spells.
• Council ruling: [Noble Sacrifice in Undecided Way] (Item 46)
  • Adepts and Mystic Adepts may take Noble Sacrifice as if it were part of the Undecided Way.
• Council ruling: [Great Form Possession] (Item 87)
  • If a character does not have access to Binding, such as with the Chain Breaker mastery quality, they may skip the Summon Great Form ritual and go directly from the Channelling metamagic to Great Form Possession metamagic.
• Council ruling: [Immunity to Pathogens buff] (Item 90)
  • If a given Disease does not, after Penetration, get past the Hardened Armor that Immunity provides, it does not build up with repeated exposure like most diseases do.
    • As an example, a +12 to Disease Resistance and 6 Automatic Hit level of Immunity to Pathogens would completely render a character immune to Power 5, Penetration 1 disease no matter how long they remain exposed to it.
• Council ruling: [FAB 3] (Item 147)
  • Please refer to the rules in 4th edition's Street Magic for FAB III mechanics.

Rulings/Character_Generation_and_Maintenance

• Council Ruling: [Attacking with Horns and Tusks]
  • Orks and Trolls are able to use their tusks and horns as “bioweapon implants” per Chrome Flesh Pg 120-122. These attacks can be made at normal +2 accuracy.
• Council ruling: [Log Buff] (Item 92)
  • Wakyambi elves, Xapiri Thepe and other metatypes with lower than 6 LOG are adjusted to have a maximum Logic of 6.
• Council ruling: [Shifter Attribute Improvement] (Item 85)
  • Increasing the higher value of an attribute between the metahuman and animal form will also increase the lower one for free. Karma costs are refunded retroactively.
    • Example: A bear shifter has 6 Strength in bear form and 3 in metahuman form. By increasing the bear form's 6 Strength to 7 and paying the appropriate cost, he may upgrade the metahuman form's Strength from 3 to 4 for free.
• Council ruling: [International Runners] (Item 150)
  • A lot of stuff about being international. This was already in the GM rules, but it should be here as well.

Rulings/Combat

• Council ruling: [Melee and Ranged Multiple Attacks] (Item 168)
  • If attacking with different ranged and melee weapons with different dice pools, take the lowest dice pool of the set and split that among the attacks.
    • Example: Overkill, a Nartaki, has had it with Johnsons screwing him over. The Johnson turns away with the prototype, without paying the team. This causes Overkill to draw a Barrens Special, A Knife, A Club, and A Laser Pistol. OVerkills knows how to use the Barrens Special, A Knife, A Club. They have 22 dice in those pools. But the laser pistol was more drawn in rage, and he only has 7 dice to fire it. Due to this, they divide their 7 laser pistol dice into their other 3 attacks.
• Council ruling: [Repeating Laser Price] (Item 55)
  • The Repeating Laser (LCD 209) now costs a mere 100k nuyen.
• Council ruling: [Bug Stomper]
  • Specify that no hardened armor is gained.
• Council ruling: [Technique stacking] (Item 90
  • Martial Arts techniques (including actions) may be taken twice to increase the benefit from 1 to 2 unless stated otherwise.
• Council ruling note: [Natural Weapon optional rule] (Item 17)
  • Already in Chargen rules. Just a note here.
• Council Ruling: [Location Specific Called Shots]
  • Location specific called shots
    • All net hits now add damage as well as allow you to select status effects for the target to resist. If the target fully resists all damage, they do not need to resist any status effects as normal.

Rulings/Custom_Mechanics

• Council ruling: [Clarification on Upgrade Rules] (Item 75)
  • Also applies to things in the armor that do not take capacity that change availability.

Rulings/Matrix

• No changes were made in Matrix Rules.

Rulings/Miscellaneous

• Council ruling: [drugs and toxins] (Item 88)
  • It is the stance of ShadowHaven that, mechanically, drugs are not toxins and are not subject to immunity to toxins.
• Council ruling: [Grapple Guns and Cyberarms] (Item 180)
  • Players may put 30m of microwire in their cyberarms for a cyberware grapple gun and Bionic Commando the world.
• Council ruling: [Computer Illiterate] (Item 145)
  • So long as the PC has a story of how they use the electronics while not being able to understand them, a PC may have the Computer Illiterate quality and still be a Haven runner. This can range from your fixer handling these tasks to just paying a street decker 50 nuyen to send a message.
• Council ruling: [Qualifying for Mundane Options] (Item 27)
  • Characters that have acquired a MAG or RES rating and continue to have any bonuses from the source that gave the MAG or RES rating do not qualify for mundane-only qualities, ascensions, or other options. Characters that previously had a MAG or RES rating and no longer currently have any benefits from the source of that aside from knowledge skills may qualify for mundane-only options, however.
    • Specifically, this means that non-dual-natured infected do not qualify for mundane-only options but a formerly awakened or emerged character who only retains knowledge skills and who has burned completely out would. (Just this specification.)
• Council Ruling: [Bilingual]
  • This quality can be taken post gen
• Council ruling: [Linked Attributes] (Item 28)
  • The Council votes to not overturn the ruling that states that the attribute linked to a skill test is whatever attribute currently being rolled on. Thus, the ruling that whatever attribute currently being used for your skill test is the 'linked' attribute shall remain in effect.
• Council ruling: [Restocking Hard Hives] (Item 83)
  • Consider the cost to restock Hard Nanohives to be ignored. It comes to about 21 nuyen a run, so whatever.
• Council ruling: [Cyberlimbs and skin mods] (Item 98)
  • For the sake of accepting skin modifications, the user should have a meaningful amount of skin left, at least two natural limbs. Torso counts as 2 limbs, head counts as 1, partial limbs count as half.
  • Smartskin cannot go over cyberlimbs.
  • Bone Lacing stacks perfectly fine with cyberlimbs, as a side note.
• Council ruling: [Gifted Healer] (Item 57)
  • Reduce penalties for First Aid and Medicine by 2 (SR5 p. 205-208) and for the Heal spell by 2 from any source other than BGC.
• Council ruling: [Beating Addiction] (Item 24)
  • In order to buy off the Addiction Negative Quality, you must remain off of the drug for (Addiction Rating)/2 runs, rounded up.
• Council ruling: [SURGE I and II unbanned] (Item 39)
  • Mood Hair should be in SURGE III and not in SURGE II and III.
• Council ruling: [Access to Cosmetic Deltaware]
  • 0 Essence cost cosmetic ware no longer requires 15/30 karma Deltaware Access run reward for Awakened or characters with Regeneration.
• Council ruling: [No Future Performance] (Item
  • No Future has some methods of earning income on p.60 and p.61. Downtime nuyen earning is heavily curtailed for good reason and will remain banned.
• Council ruling: [Wanted Clarifications]
  • Collecting bounties on teammates during a run is disallowed on ShadowHaven
  • Should a GM organize a private run against a character with wanted where NPC runners would otherwise be used, PC runners may join on that run. The GM should get the informed consent of all players involved and thematics department approval given the often tense and unfair nature of PvP in Shadowrun 5E.
  • GMs should attempt to restrict the impact of wanted to only the wanted PCs, not others on the same team.
    • Contact thematics if you want help with how to shield other players.
  • GMs are highly encouraged to use the wanted quality to complicate runs, as with all negative qualities.
  • Contacts will not aid in the collection of bounties on wanted characters except in extreme, rare situations.
    • Contact thematics if these extreme and rare situations come up.
  • GMs should keep the Haven’s rule on burning edge in mind when handling the wanted quality. The player must remain playable even after capture via our house rules.
  • Players may appeal to the thematics team or council should they feel the awarding of wanted during the course of a run was unwarranted.

Rulings/Rigging

• Council ruling: [Realistic Features] (Item 73)
  • Realistic Features may be used to make a drone or vehicle look like non-biological things, such as vending machines and groups of porta-potties, as appropriate.

Rulings/PvP

• Council ruling: [IC PVP Announcement]
• Council ruling: [OOC PvP Rules]