The following rules are modifications to the Shadowrun Second Edition. They were created and playtested by Craig Sanchez, Dave Hoops, Walt Schellin, John Jacobson, Josh Karabin, and Linda Naughton.

MOVING THROUGH THE SHADOWS

Keep in mind that running is not an exact science. GMs should feel free to round off when calculating meters per phase (to avoid dealing with numbers like 1.2 meters per phase.)

EXTENDED RUNNING

A character can sprint for a number of turns equal to half his Body before he begins to lose steam. After the base time has passed, the character begins taking "fatigue" wounds. The base damage is a 4L (stun), and may be staged using the Athletics skill (or the Running concentration).

Each time a character makes the skill roll (successfully or not) he is able to run for an additional number of turns equal to half his Body. Once that time has passed, he takes another light fatigue wound (which he may attempt to stage down using Athletics), but this time the power is 2 higher than the previous roll. The cycle continues in that manner, with the power level increasing by 2 every time the character runs a number of turns equal to half his Body.

Eventually, the runner will take enough stun damage to convince him to stop running, or he will reach Deadly on the stun condition monitor and will collapse from exhaustion. He's not unconscious, simply unable to continue any sort of strenuous activity.

Fatigue wounds are effectively the same as stun damage, but they reflect exhaustion and aching muscles more than actual damage. Fatigue should not contribute in any way to a character's unconsciousness due to other stun damage, and especially not to his death. Fatigue damage is healed just like normal stun damage.

If a character is not sprinting, but is merely running or jogging, the GM should increase the base time he's able to move before he begins taking fatigue damage.

DEADLIER OVERDAMAGE

If the GM wishes to add an extra level of lethality to his game, he can invoke a variant on the Overdamage rule stated in Fields of Fire. Instead of a weapon doing overdamage when its power is greater than twice the target's Body, the variant is to use 1.5 times their Body (round down). For an even deadlier game, use the character's Body (un-multiplied).

Example: GoldenEyes has a Body of 5. Under the old overdamage rule, it would take a weapon with a power level of 10 to invoke the overdamage rule (making it impossible to kill her in one shot instantly with anything less than a heavy machine-gun or a shotgun.) With the new system, a weapon with a power of 7 or higher would have a chance of killing her in one shot.

STAGING

The easiest way to treat this is to name the damage levels above Deadly as "Deadly Plus 1", "Deadly Plus 2", etc. The "Plus" numbers refer to the number of damage overflow boxes that will be marked off if the damage is not staged down at all. It takes two successes to stage the damage levels which are above deadly, just as it does normally.

Note that this rule is independent of the overdamage rule. If a weapon's damage is brought up to "Deadly Plus 2" due to autofire, it doesn't matter if the power is high enough to invoke the overdamage rule. If the character doesn't resist the damage, he takes a Deadly wound plus two boxes of damage overflow, regardless of his Body and the power of the weapon. Yes, the Sixth World just got a little scarier.

Example: If a weapon did a base damage of Deadly, and fires a three round burst, the power would be increased by 3 and the damage code would become "Deadly Plus 1". It would take the target 2 successes to stage the damage down to merely Deadly, then another 2 after that to stage it down to Serious.

UNMANNED EXPLOSIVES

Instead of using the Throwing roll to stage the damage of a grenade (or even worse, not staging the damage at all... making it impossible to kill anyone with a grenade), the GM should roll half the grenade's power level (round up) against a target number of 4. Successes on this roll are used to stage the damage. This rule can similarly be used for other explosives (C6, C12, etc.). Note that the Demolitions skill does not stage the damage code of the explosives, it simply raises the power level.

Example: Fenris has left 6 kilos of C-6 laying around (careless of him, isn't it?) and it inadvertently gets set off with the unfortunate Obsidian standing a few feet from it. Because there was no inherent skill in setting the explosives, the GM decides that the power level will not be affected by Fenris' Demolitions skill. The power is determined by the formula on p.242 of the Shadowrun rules, and is a 15. The damage code is Deadly. To determine what happens to Obsidian, the GM rolls half the power of the explosives, 8 dice, against a TN of 4. He gets 5 successes. Obsidian rolls his Body against a TN of 15, and gets no successes (not surprising). The power of 15 is more than enough to invoke the overdamage rule on poor Obsidian, so he takes a Deadly wound plus 2 boxes of damage overflow. Sadly, due to his low Body, this kills him.

STEALTH

A character using Stealth should make a Stealth roll against a target number of 4. This should normally not be modified except by conditions such as wounds and movement (making it harder to sneak while running). Usually the GM should just modify the target number of the person trying to notice the sneaking character. However, for situations such as attempting to move quietly over broken glass or dry leaves, the GM should feel free to impose a target modifier to the Stealth roll. Every success generated on the Stealth check increases the target number by 1 whenever someone is rolling to notice the sneaking character.

Note that the Stealth skill is by no means any sort of invisibility. Even if the character gets 10 successes on a Stealth roll, there's just no way to hide in the middle of an empty room from a guard who's looking in the room for you. Logic should always intervene even when dealing with strange target number modifiers.

CYBERWARE EFFECTS

It's not difficult to accidentally pull your bedroom door off its hinges when you're getting used to your new Muscle-Augmentation 4. What do the neighbors think when they see you running around at five times normal human speed? How do they react when they notice you lifting up your car when you've dropped your keys under it? How many pairs of shoes does the average street sam go through when he's consistently running at 30 miles per hour....Air Cyber: the latest in our popular line of shoes for the cyber-conscious. It's not a pretty sight when that same street sam running full tilt trips and falls.

In addition, there's the problem of cyberware maintenance. For most characters, this can logically be included as part of their lifestyle costs, but it can become a consideration when the characters have a very low lifestyle. Not all cyberware requires monthly maintenance. Things like headware memory and other items which don't get much wear and tear should not be subject to these costs. Bioware never requires upkeep, since it becomes effectively part of the body.

Most cyberware is powered by internal batteries. The average life of a cyberware battery is a few years, due to their efficiency and the ability to self-recharge to some degree. However, they do eventually run low and then need replaced or fully recharged. The recharging of the batteries is included in the general upkeep cost of the cyberware.

In general, the normal cyberware upkeep cost is equal to its base cost of the cyberware divided by 1000. For example, Wired Reflexes 3 would cost 500¥ per month in general maintenance. If the monthly maintenance cost is consistently not paid for some reason, the cyberware has a chance of failing when used. Every month the GM should roll a number of dice against a target number equal to the 2 + the time (in months) that the maintenance has gone unpaid. If a fumble is rolled, the system has failed catastrophically. If no successes are rolled, the cyberware degrades.

At first it begins functioning erratically and eventually it ceases functioning completely. The number of dice rolled in this test is determined by the quality of the cyberware, beginning with 3 dice for normal grade and adding a die for each improvement in grade (Alpha, Beta, Delta.)

TRAGICALLY UNHIP

One type of skill which suffers in this way is an Etiquette skill. A person who loses contact with a certain social circle for any length of time will become out of touch with the members of that community. They will no longer be up on current happenings, and may even lose some of their sources of information. This is especially true when there are long periods of time involved.

Like Etiquette skills, most Theory skills (Magic, Computer, etc.) also tend to be constantly changing, as new ideas are put forth in journals and posted on the Matrix. It's important for a character to keep up with new developments.

If a GM feels that a character is losing the "state of the art" in one of his skills, he may reduce the character's skill level to reflect the fact that he is no longer familiar with the current trends. However, the character doesn't actually lose any of the knowledge he already has. To reflect this, the character keeps his old skill rating, but as a specialization in "old tech", or "old trends" of whatever skill is being used.

RULE OF ONE WHEN DEFAULTING

Example: Scarecrow is defaulting and using Computer Theory in place of Cybertechnology, passing two dots on the skill web. His Computer Theory is a 6, so he rolls 6 dice with a +4 target modifier. However, since he has passed two dots, his effective skill is reduced to a 2 for the purposes of the Rule of One. This means that if two or more of his dice come up ones on the skill roll, he has failed miserably.

If the character is using the partial defaulting rule, reduce the average skill that is being rolled by one for every dot passed on the skill web. This is the added advantage of partially defaulting instead of defaulting normally.

Example: Fenris is once again partially defaulting with Quickness and Athletics (he does this a lot). His Quickness is still a 10 and Athletics a 2. He rolls the average of those two dice, a 6. He passes one dot going from Quickness to Athletics, so this reduces his effective skill rating by one for the Rule of One. So if he rolls 5 ones, he will fumble the roll.