Patch Notes

2/1/2020

 * Lifestyles (and other periodic expenses) now trigger immediately after a character's first game in the month. Staff Roles no longer receive a Lifestyle voucher as part of their compensation. House Rules

1/16/2020

 * Implemented Sneaking as Simple Action and Attacking from Stealth House Rules

The Matrix

 * Implemented a large revised interpretation of the Matrix to improve clarity and ease-of-use of the Matrix component of the game. The Matrix
 * Added Rules Questions Archive answers for Commlink Accessories and Datataps.

House Rules

 * Added new rules that modify how Cover, Concealment (not the critter power), and Barriers work. House Rules
 * Added four armors to the Chemical Seal compatible selection, with caveat.
 * Fixed a missing Skill from the Cerberus Hound stat block.

House Rules
Alphabetized the list, with creation instructions, banned, and restricted items in prominence. Explicitly stated that the Stolen Souls NPC variant vehicles are banned.

Fiction Submission Requirements
Updated requirements to focus less on quantitative criteria.

Contacts
A consistent standard for interpreting the requests made of generic contact archetypes like Leaders, Chiefs, and Merchants has been provided in the request resolution section of the Contacts Rules.

Contacts
Reach for contacts has been updated for clarity. Swag purchases are always within reach unless the desired purchase is an Availability 20+ item belonging to a specific Major Setting Element outside of the reach, or if the runner is in-session and unable to meet the contact within his reach. The availability of swag categories to different contact types has been detailed, with room for adjustments on request.Contacts Rules

Krime Katalog

 * This supplement is now available for use in chummer5a 5.213.0. Please observe the following patches to gear in that supplement!
 * The Krime Party is banned. The Krime Confederate costs 21000nuyen, not 3500. House Rules
 * The Krime Ripper consists of two mounted machine guns; this allows it to split full auto attacks without losing dice pool penalties, but does not allow it to hit one target for 20DV, or for 10DV twice in one action phase. Rules Questions Archive

Disabled Flag System
This system has been replaced by the Rarity Rule. Character Creation Guidelines

Disabled PvP System
This pilot system has been determined unnecessary, and is now replaced by the PvP rule. House Rules

Disabled Seasonal Cap
This cap has been determined unnecessary to the server mission.

Revised Initiation House Rule
Standard Initiation may now be used indefinitely, and alternative Initiation rites have had their required practices modified to be less dependent on Side RPs / Personal Runs. House Rules

Revised Deltaware House Rule
This rule now simply specifies that Deltaware grade implants are available only from Connection 8+ Contacts with Reach containing a AAA corporation. House Rules

Revised Contact System
This system has been heavily modified. Please see Contacts Rules for the new system and the #contacts-conversion channel on the server for assistance updating.

Revised Game Selection System
This system is now organized for Individual Applications to games, with support for grouping types. Team Incentives have been discontinued. Game Selection

Revised Run Reward Formula
We now use the formula described by the Core Rulebook for run rewards, with up to 5 XP in Bonus Offers. See GM Primer for more.

Revised Side RP System
We now use Personal Runs requested in an on-server #run-requests channel. Run requests are not guaranteed fulfillment, though GMs are encouraged to pick them up. Once per season, each player may submit a Priority request that offers extra XP to the GM who runs it. Requests in the Side RP queue have not been migrated. Any nonstaff character that had an initiation in the queue is permitted to use a Deed Initiation on their sheet to compensate for this. See Game Selection

Revised GM Reward Structure
Runs now have a large itemized reward structure for different conditions GMs offer. See Server Works for details.

Restricted SINner (Corporate) to career acquisition only
Characters that started with this quality must buy the quality off prior to their next game. If they do not have sufficient karma to do so (or do not wish to spend 50 karma), they may 'refund' the appropriate karma amount, and then select Negative Qualities with Review Team approval until they have added qualities with a creation karma value equal to one half the refunded karma.

Restricted SINner (Criminal) to career acquisition only
Characters that started with this quality must buy the quality off prior to their next game. If they do not have sufficient karma to do so (or do not wish to spend 30 karma), they may 'refund' the appropriate karma amount, and then select Negative Qualities with Review Team approval until they have added qualities with a creation karma value equal to one half the refunded karma.

Modified Berserk Effects House Rule
Characters experiencing violent impulses are never required to attack fellow runners. All other targets are valid; attempts to prevent attacks on innocents or noncombatants may use any measure not including the actual death of the berserk character. House Rules

Modified Tough and Targeted Quality
Characters might be identified by any combatant NPC with a Perception + Intuition [Mental] (2) test, with modifiers applied by the GM for relevant skills or disguise efforts. Violent challenges may ensue, followed by a negative rumor on a loss or retreat.

Modified Wanted Quality
Characters might be identified by any combatant NPC with a Perception + Intuition [Mental] (2) test, with modifiers applied by the GM for relevant skills or disguise efforts. Violent attempts to collect may ensue, or alarms triggered, or an alert to the bounty issuer, depending on the personality of the NPC.

Modified Groveler Quality
Characters can expend 4 datachips as a free action to add their Submersion Grade to Fade Resistance tests. This bonus lasts for one test, and can only be used once per test.

Backfill Policy Update
We have expanded and clarified our Backfill Policy, as there was some confusion in how the previous iteration was supposed to be used. Hopefully, the newly written version will be clearer and better executed. Until 10/22/2020 Backfills will need to be approved by the Admin team or the Head GM, to ensure it is being properly utilized.

Anti-Harassment Statement Addition
We have added "Political Opinions" as a specifically protected group within our Anti-Harassment Policy. We strive to be an inclusive server, to a very wide range of opinions, views, and stances. We do not want anyone to feel unwelcome or encourage inflammatory behaviour centered around something like politics. We will still be holding any political conversations to the highest standard of respect, and this isn't an open allowance for people to use the server as a platform to proselytize their own political stances.

Full Flag Points rework
The old Flag Point system was a system carried over from Cast of Shadows, and it wasn't really serving the purposes we wanted for it. It was focused on limiting Character Generation options and trying to maintain a roughly equal power level of newly created characters. It didn't really do this very well either. The new system will hopefully be able to better estimate very loose power brackets of characters and provide some gentle gating to better help keep the mechanical power of characters more in line with our server goals.

Bonus Dice Exception Clarified
The Bonus Dice Limit rules wording has been changed, Mystic Adepts no longer gain the benefit of Adept Powers not counting against their Bonus Dice Limit. This change was made because the original goal of the exception was to allow Adepts to shine in specialization and be rewarded for it. MysAds being able to take advantage of it was an unintended effect. Given the already powerful toolbox of MysAds and their natural potency, we've removed this benefit from them to give Adepts a little more breathing room in their primary role.

Bonus Dice Limit Expansion
In the interest of trying to shift some more power into Face type characters, aside from them just being someone who puts more money into the team's pockets, we've performed a two-fold change. First, bonus dice are split into three categories. The second part of this change is that while Leadership Dice still follow the rules of Teamwork Tests, they are not themselves considered Teamwork Tests. This means they do stack with the latter. We'll be keeping a close eye on how this change seems to impact effective dice pools server-wide and may revisit it to tune it down a bit if it's too impactful.
 * Controlled
 * Controlled bonuses are things provided by any source listed in the rules, apart from Leadership, which the player has a degree of control or influence over. Examples include but are not limited to: Smartlink, Take Aim, Magical Foci, Qualities, Gear, etc.
 * Leadership
 * Leadership maintains its own rules, by RAW, but is now no longer included in the Bonus Dice Limits
 * Circumstantial
 * GMs are now allowed to provide bonus dice for clever execution or approaches to a problem.

Seasonal XP Cap
Characters may not accrue more than 150 XP per Season. This is per a character, not per a player.
 * 1 XP is equal to 1 Karma, or 3000 Nuyen
 * Serverworks and Side RP rewards do NOT count against this cap.

Astral Tracking changes
RAW Astral Tracking was in a strange place, where it took so long to actually try and follow a trail that it was only effective in the incredibly where cases that a runner was unable to wipe their Astral Signature.
 * The test for tracking an astral signature is now Assensing + Intuition - Mana Barrier or Background Count [Astral] (3 + kilometers). If you are tracking an unbound spirit signature, increase the threshold by 2. The interval now varies based on how you are tracking and how old the signature is. Astral forms have a base interval of one minute, and dual-natured trackers have a base interval of ten minutes. Multiply the base interval by the number of hours since the signature was active to get the practical interval for your specific tracking effort.

Lifestyle Penalties
In an effort to make Lifestyle levels actually feel like they matter, and aren't just some arbitrary character tax, we've added some elements of minor risk to them. (As a note, this was originally set to treat Medium as the breakeven point, but after feedback we've shifted it so that Low Lifestyles do not receive any negative effects.) More information can be found on the Lifestyle Events page.
 * We allow players to build lifestyles using the Run Faster Advanced Lifestyle options. We do not apply Fatigue damage, and seven lifestyle qualities have a new effect addressed on the first of each month in the Lifestyle Events document. Lifestyle levels below Low now have a similar effect. High lifestyle characters can now purchase gear at 8 or lower availability without making an availability test or waiting for delivery times. Luxury lifestyle characters can now purchase gear at 10 or lower availability without making an availability test or waiting for delivery times.