Character Creation & Retirement
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17PIr70BsNjXTwT6otQPuHZATcVuhJWJBlTccrjVnCSo/edit#
Things to Remember
Acceptance is not guaranteed.
Characters should not breach thematics.
Characters may be denied on grounds of, but not limited to:
Rules illegality
How well they fit in the community
How well they mix with the thematics of the world
Approved Books
Aetherology
Assassin’s primer
Better than bad
Bloody business
Book of the lost
Bullets and bandages
Chrome flesh
Cutting aces
Dark terrors
Data trails
Forbidden arcana
Gun heaven 3
Hard targets
Howling shadows
Kill code
Krime Katalog
Lockdown
No future
Rigger 5
Run and gun
Run faster
Sail away, sweet sister
Shadowrun core rule book
Shadow spells
Shadows in focus (all of them)
Stolen souls
Street grimoire
Street lethal
The complete trog
The Seattle gambit
Chargen Rules
These rules must be followed during character creation for your character to be deemed legal for play:
You may create a character using either Priority, Sum-to-10 or 800 Karma-gen (Point buy). All characters are made using Standard rules (unless you have access to a prime slot). Life Modules are not allowed.
We prefer the use of chummer for character creation. We allow Hero lab based on the availability of a chargen minion that has Hero lab.
You start with 3 character slots. You may buy additional character slots with GMP.
You must wait for 2 days after your character has been approved, to submit another one.
Along with base metatypes, all metavariants are allowed. Among metasapients, Centaurs, Sasquatches and Shifters are allowed as Legacy or special Prime options while the rest are banned. AI, infected and drakes are banned.
Your character must have a minimum age of 12 for orks or trolls and 18 for all other metatypes.
During character creation the minimum value of a permanently augmented average attribute, a character can have is 2. This is mandatory unless your character has a valid negative quality such as paraplegic. Even then you may not have more than a single attribute at an augmented average value of 1.
You can spend skill points on specializations for skills bought with karma.
You can take more negative qualities over the limit but you don’t get extra karma for them.
If you have cyberlegs, you will use full cyberleg agi for movement or average between your partial cyberlegs and your augmented meat agi, if you have partial cyberlegs.
You may re-group skill groups if the ratings for all the skills in the group are the same.
You may not initiate or submerge during character creation.
You must have at least 4 dice in etiquette.
Choosing negative qualities that will have little to no effect on your character will not be allowed, regardless of what the game mechanics say.
Mystic Adepts use second MAG attribute for Adept abilities instead of special PP rules.
Chummer Setup
Follow our Newbie’s Guide to Chummer as a general guide for Chummer installation and general guide on how to use Chummer.
Download the Neon Anarchy Chummer.rar file from Google Drive.
Extract the rar file somewhere to get a Neon Anarchy Chummer folder. The folder has all the necessary files set up and ready to use. You can use the Chummer5.exe inside the folder to run Chummer. But before you do, it's a good idea to check that everything is running as intended. Follow the next steps to simply confirm that chummer has all our custom files running.
Open Chummer.exe and go to Tools > Options. At the top of the screen, make sure your Setting File is set to Neon Anarchy. You will have to do this every time you start Chummer. The rest of the steps need to be done only once.
In the same window, go to the “Karma Costs” tab. Ensure that the “New Knowledge Skill Specialization” is set to 3.
In the same window, go to the “Optional Rules” tab. Ensure that the “Neon Anarchy House Rules” box is checked and its load order is at the top of the list. Then restart Chummer.
In the same window, go to the “Character Options” tab. Under “Sourcebooks to Use”, ensure that the Neon Anarchy box is checked.
Go to the “House Rules” tab and ensure all these are checked.
In case of any updates or issues follow This Video Guide on how to install our Chummer custom files. If you still have issues contact the Technical department.
Chargen Advice
If you are new to Shadowrun or are unsure about making a character, please read our Ultimate Guide to Shadowrun 5e Archetypes. It will help you build your first character.
Try to have a minimum of a low lifestyle before you leave character creation.
Take a look at this Basic Gear Guide for a starting character.
Min maxing is fine. But try to have a character that can function in a dystopian, oppressive society. This means both having the basic social skills like etiquette and/or con, skills for everyday survival like perception and skills to defend yourself.
Similarly, having a rounded character is fine but try not to spread so thin that you fall below average. Remember, shadowrunners are exceptional individuals and specialists. Their skill set should be significantly above average. A runner that has 6 dice in every skill may become a liability to the team or end up crumbling under a difficult situation.
Remember that while legal, making a character that is unlikely to fit into society due to extreme bio sculpting, ridiculous level of surge, extreme body modifications such as, tank liminal body can make it extremely hard for your character to function in society or remain a shadowrunner without getting easily found and have a target painted on your back. Not saying you should never explore these themes, but try to dial down a little on the freaks and weirdos even in a society as absurd and over the top as the 6th world.
When playing a magician or mystic adept, it may be a good idea to do some research into the tradition you pick. A lot of them are real and have cultural ties that should be respected and roleplayed accurately, so we hope to avoid PC's playing into IRL offensive stereotypes.
Metasapients
Approved Metasapients
Centaur, Sasquatch and Shifter.
How to play one
Approved metasapients can be chosen as player characters in one of two ways:
As a Legacy character (costs 1 legacy point per character).
By using a Prime Slot. Prime slots used this way don’t get the usual benefits of Prime Runner build. Instead you can make any approved metasapient using Standard build rules.
Centaur
Have a movement speed of (x4/x8/+4).
Their Lifting and Carrying capacity is twice that of a metahuman (SR5 152).
You can be either a Common Centaur (lower body of a horse, torso resembling metahumans and a horse like head) or a Lesser Centaur (like common centaur but with a head resembling a metahuman). All Centaurs have 3 digit hands.
In addition to the normal effects of burning out, a Centaur that permanently burns out to 0 Magic dies.
Sasquatch
Sasquatches lack the ability to speak but can understand spoken language. They have rudimentary knowledge of reading and writing due to their Uneducated species flaw. They can learn and communicate via sign language (eg: American Sign Language) with no issues whatsoever.
In addition to the normal effects of burning out, a Sasquatch that permanently burns out to 0 Magic dies.
Sasquatches don’t suffer increased lifestyle costs for being a sasquatch.
Shifter
Shifters are animals (wild or domesticated) that can mimic metahuman appearance (basically the opposite of the Shapechange spell). Their brains are wired like that of animals and they are reproductively incompatible with metahumans or animals outside of their species.
In addition to the normal effects of burning out, a Shifter that permanently burns out to 0 Magic, immediately turns back into its mundane critter form and stays that way for the rest of their life.
Neon Anarchy doesn’t use the provisional Shifter Errata.
Additional Character Slots
Additional standard character slots can be bought by paying an amount of GMP equal to: 20 x (the number of the extra slot you are buying, beyond 3). So, 20 GMP for your 1st extra slot, 40 for your 2nd, 60 for your 3rd and so on.
Prime Slots
An existing standard character slot can be upgraded to a Prime character slot by paying an amount of GMP equal to: 100 x (the number of the prime slot you are upgrading to). So, 100 GMP for your 1st Prime slot upgrade, 200 for your 2nd, 300 for your 3rd and so on. You may upgrade all of your standard slots to prime slots if you can pay for it. Prime slots use Prime level of character generation instead of standard. A standard slot that's been upgraded to Prime is persistent and reusable. That is, if the character occupying the slot is retired or dies, you can make another prime gen character with that slot. Alternatively, a Prime slot can be used to make a metasapient character. Prime slots used this way don’t get the usual benefits of Prime Runner build. Instead you can make any approved metasapient using Standard build rules.
Resubmit Rules
Any GMP invested in the character being resubmitted (Regular or Special) isn’t lost but instead is “banked”. After approval of a resubmitted character, you must immediately reinvest all your banked GMP on that character in any way you please (you don’t don’t have to invest in the same way you did last time).
Regular Resubmit
After your character is approved, if you feel dissatisfied with your character you may resubmit them at any time and make any kind of changes and wait for a reapproval. Doing so will cause you to lose all your run rewards, except for one. You may choose which run’s rewards to retain.
Special Resubmit
If you were forced to resubmit a character due to major rules overhaul by us or your character ceased to work as intended due to rules changes, a resubmitted character does not lose any of their run rewards.
Retirement Rules
There may come a time where you would like to retire a character, because you have played as that character for a long time, the character has become too powerful, etc. These rules ensure that a retired character is not simply dumping it into the trash can and lighting all your time and effort on fire. Upon retirement any and all GMP invested into the character is permanently lost.
A character that is retired before they complete 10 runs and 4 months of downtime, does not get any benefits from retirement. Each Prime run counts as 2 runs. For characters that are retired after completing 10 or more runs and 4 or more months of downtime; these following rules apply.
Legacy Contact
A retired player character can become a contact. Once a character becomes a contact, all current and future characters of that player gain that contact for free, as soon as they leave character creation. Here are the rules for PC contacts.
For every 10 runs and 4 months of downtime the character has completed, they gain 1 point of Connection (up to a maximum of 6). The player must choose one of the three types for the contact. Connection of Legacy Contacts cannot be raised in any way.
Loyalty starts at 3 and can be raised as per downtime rules. Loyalty can also go down based on player actions. If the contact’s loyalty reaches 0, the player character loses that contact. If lost, the contact can be repurchased by going on a run to smooth out things, after which the character may get the contact back at loyalty 1.
If the retired character has completed at least 30 runs and 12 months of downtime. The contact can have two contact powers instead of one. They must meet the requirements for both powers.
At the original player’s discretion, legacy contacts can be acquired by characters of other players, using the Carousing downtime activity. Loyalty starts at 1. If the contact has two contact powers, only one contact power is available to other players (chosen when acquired).
Legacy Points
For every 10 runs and 4 months of downtime the character has completed, the player gains 1 legacy point. Legacy points can be used on the next character they create. All legacy points must be used on the next character and cannot be stored. Any unused legacy points are lost. If a character retires a second character before using up the legacy points from their earlier retired character on a new character, the legacy points from the earlier retired character are lost. Legacy points can be used to give the new character various boons during character creation. Unless stated, each boon can only be used once. Here is a list of boons.
Investment Return: You get back 50 GMP you have invested in your retired character. This boon can be taken multiple times.
Knowledgeable: The character gains an additional 21 Knowledge skill points.
Limited Prime: The legacy character you make can be made using Prime Gen rules in a standard character slot. This applies for just that character and does not upgrade the slot into a Prime slot.
Martial Artist: The character has no cap for purchasing martial arts during character creation and can buy as much as they can afford. In addition, they gain one martial art (comes with 1 technique) for free.
Next of Kin: You can either transfer the full run reward given for the run your character died in or a single piece of non-ware, non-tattoo gear, vehicle or drone (of no more than Availability 18 R/F and 200,000¥) to your next character. This option can only be taken if your character dies.
Qualified: The character has no cap for purchasing non-metagenic positive qualities during character creation.
Restricted Access: You gain the Restricted Gear quality for free (doesn’t count towards max quality karma limit during chargen). In addition, you can buy Betaware during character creation.
Special Snowflake: You can make the character an approved metasapient.
Well Connected: The character gains an additional 21 Contact points.
Character Death
Character death is rare in Shadowrun. Legacy points can be redeemed even if a character dies based on their number of runs completed (including the run they died on) and months of downtime, but the dead character cannot become a legacy contact. In addition, If a character dies after having played at least 10 runs, the player gets +1 Legacy Point for the next character they make.
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