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Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0 $24.99
Average Rating:4.5 / 5
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Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0
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Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
by Martin B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/16/2018 18:54:49

Quick Hits: Good book, but has a lot of fluff

Overall, this is a good accessory. Its greatest quality is the amount of variant rides and such it offers, which is what I wanted out of the book. Readers will be happy with the ways you can customize your rigger; however, the volume of add-ons is more like a chapter or two in the core rulebook as much of the book is dedicated to "establishing the mindset" of a rigger.

That's my main criticism: it has a lot of fiction; “reviews” of the items from “real-life” shadowrunners; etc. Unfortunately, there was probably too much of it – at least half of the text was a setting piece, so it's not much of a real “rules crunch” supplement. I think readers would have been better served with a smaller book with less fluff (and a lower price).

Also, as others point out a lot in these Catalyst books, the editing could have been better, but it did not detract from the overall readability of the book.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/07/2016 19:02:11

So much editing fail in this book. The errata listings on the official shadowrun forums are massively long with no response from Catalyst who just stopped issuing errata a couple years ago.

They just wholesale left out key rules points that forced the freelancers to respond on the forums with "what was cut accidentally".

Line editing for Srun 5e continues to terrible, please Topps pass this franchise a competent team!



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
by Sean H. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 01/05/2016 16:17:05

Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0 provides a wealth of vehicles and drones to expand the mobility (and other) options for riggers and other vehicle oriented characters, but especially riggers. Do you need this book? As a GM, probably, it provides such a depth of additional vehicles and drones that it helps to flesh out the world considerably, if you game uses vehicles at all, put it on your list to acquire. If you are a player, if you are playing a rigger or vehicle oriented charter, you will want to pick this up, otherwise, it can wait. Overall, another solid entry in the sourcebooks for the new Shadowrun. (Now we just need a used vehicle lot for 5th ed.)

Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0, is a Core Rigger Handbook for the 5th edition of Shadowrun, so what does that mean? It means that this book is full of information on riggers, what they do and how they do it, and the vehicles and drones they do it with, in the Shadowrun world.

The book begins with one of the ubiquitous fiction sections, then it looks into what life is like for a rigger including eight views from various riggers about their lives, ranging from Doc Wagon pilot to racer, military rigger to construction operator. It then discusses the various roles that a rigger can fill and a very brief overview of the various vehicles and drones that they can use.

Next, All the Angles, gives some in-game advice on how to get the most out of drones followed by new rules on repairs, electronic warfare and swarms. This is followed by On the Bleeding Edge which provides more positive and negative qualities for those who drive and ride, and new life modules (for that alternate character creation method).

After some more fiction, we get to the part everyone can enjoy, more vehicles: ground vehicles, water vehicles, air vehicles and more drones than you can shake a tire iron at. Ground vehicles range from personal transport to big rigs with a subsection of security/police vehicles, truly something for everyone. Water vehicles range from water ski-like vehicles to motor sailors and luxury yachts (but nothing bigger). The air vehicles section is fairly small but has helicopters, helicopter gunships, t-birds and even a couple of zeppelins.

Next, in the Automated Army, drones! Beginning with who manufactures drones in the Sixth World and then moves into how drones can be modified, it then moves into a catalog of drones from the smallest (mosquito-sized) to massive construction machines and everything in between including a wide range of humanoid drones for work and security uses. Again, something for just about every use.

Building the Perfect Beast provides rules for modifying vehicles from the basics of improving engines and adding weapons and armor to various unusual things, such as secondary propulsion systems (though, oddly, neglecting wheels), ram plates, and much more. Almost any variant that can be imagined can be built, if one has the time, money and skills.

The final rules section is Maximum Pursuit which introduces slightly expanded rules and new maneuvers for the various vehicles types and drones (and passengers!). It adds some complexity but not an excessive amount and if one wants to have vehicles play a more important role in their campaign, it increases in options and, thus, complexity, may be required.

The last section of the book is a compilation of all the vehicle and drone statistics from all of the Shadowrun (5th edition) products so far, seven pages of small type.

Rigger 5.0 is a solid sourcebook but for my tastes, has far more fiction than is needed, space that could have been used for more vehicles and drones (what most people will be buying the product for). The art is generally good but there is a whole set of Dodge vehicles that are given a very distinct set of descriptions and the art does not match that.

Note: Read more reviews and other gaming articles at my journal https://seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com/



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
by Nick E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/25/2015 20:23:39

Overall a great book, heaps of vehicles and drones, new qualities, life modules, modifications for all your toys, and best of all the contents pages are well laid out, clear and unambiguous.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
by Robert P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/23/2015 09:38:07

Pros: Plenty of specific rules for upgrading Pilot programs and providing autosofts. Lots of vehicle and drone modifications. Lots of vehicles and drones. Anthroform drones are back, and they're awesome. Don't expect them to replace metahumans anytime soon, but if you feel the need for a Deployable Mariachi Band, this book has you covered. Their more versatile (and a little tougher) than their equivalent in non-anthroform drones, but tend to have lower Body and Armor, and are overall quite balanced. Rules for upgrading vehicle and drone stats, for vehicle stunts, and for getting the most out of your piloting. Great Table of Contents.

Cons: Chapter order is a little strange (vehicle modifications are after Drones and Drone Modifications, while the Vehicle List is before the chapter on Drones. Drone and vehicle modification rules are separated, but since Drones can use Vehicle OR Drone modifications (that's an exclusive or -- its one or the other) this isn't a huge issue.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Shadowrun: Rigger 5.0
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
by Josh B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/19/2015 18:04:51

I need to preface this by stating that I had a good deal of personal hype and hope for this book. I have been working on some things for a while and as a stopgap was trying to reverse engineer the drone and vehicle stats from 4th edition into something that fit in 5th. I think I did ok-ish... but this book does amazingly well, and more.

The first thing I want to note about the book in question is actually not what it contains, but what it lacks. Up until now almost every main book for the current Shadowrun edition has had a good deal of its content devoted to the ongoing metaplot with headcrashers and AIs and the like. Maybe It has to do with Deus, maybe not. It's interesting enough... but it is also something I would prefer to see left largely to Novels. When I am looking at a game, any game, the books I want are the ones with tons of crunch and enough fluff to keep me interested in and inspired with that crunch. I already have my ideas for my games, and tomorrow night the small team of runners hitting a gangs pseudo-fortress in an old public works building to get at the decker who sold some of them out won't have anything to do with Boston, head crash, AIs or anything else.

This book, thankfully, keeps more on task talking about riggers in general and primarily focused on the vehicles and drones needed to keep that aspect of the game going. Rigger culture and new rules are covered rather well in my opinion along with some rule tweaks that I think will make chases and other longer term travel far more interesting. It is especially nice to have a good way to put a rough MPH (Or KPH I guess) on things. But if you are like me you bought this for the vehicles, the drones, and the mods.

And boy do they deliver.

So long as you don't mind the 'counts as' to milk a bit more diversity out of what is already presented you will end up with a vast array of things ranging from commuter cars and bikes, to bigger civilian vehicles, up to milspec and commercial vehicles. Then you have boats of various shapes and sizes including housebotes. Helecopters, T Birds, even a Zeppelin or two.

The diversity in vehicles is nice and lets you give each runner who has their own mode of transport something a bit more unique than what is presented in the core book. Hell even if you aren't a rigger many of these things should be considered for characters who may have abnormal modes of transit or special/specific conditions just for the sake adding a bit of personality to the things.

Vehicle mods are mixed between old and new, with the old ones all seeming to get a very nice cost revamp to them. The rule-set designed to accommodate all of this actually makes for a very interesting setup since you don't have to apply all mods to one pool but have different pools for different types... which makes sense since you really aren't inhibiting your capacity for armor by shoving in better electronics or throwing in real leather seats. There is still a decent deal of kajoling to get everything you want out of these things, but A rigger with a vehicle or small stable he or she can baby will find it very rewarding. Just be wary if you are the GM because this is exactly the type of thing a cash heavy rigger will be looking to break at character creation.

Drones are likewise diverse, perhaps even more so. They give a good mix of military and non military drones with a wide array of applications. I still think the Shamus looks like a goat, but maybe that is the point. They even get into the huge and the humanoid, which with the right mods can apparently simulate a person to a decent degree, which gives me quite a few ideas for later.

Now with all of that said I think the Drone Mods are where this book falls flat, and would likely be my only real criticism. They have a good selection of them, and as implied before I like the 'realistic' mod as it allows you to ensure your drone looks far more real be it fly or new secretary for an exec. Unfortunately they don't leave much room for mods in most drones. The system is based on body like you see in previous editions and it could work, save for the simple fact that Drones by and large are not given enough points in body to accommodate... well... anything. They give a rule that lets you swap out a point of body for more overall mod points but many of the drones in there only have two or three body to start with and that just does not allow for anything at all.

Now granted if you are willing to tweak things a bit (I have my eye on one drone where I'd likely drop the speed and up the body by a couple points in a custom variant or something) then this might work out ok with some drones. But the fact is that in many cases you simply can't do anything beyond the stock creation and that can feel very, very limiting. I understand vehicles are bigger and there should be more options to customize them, plus it shouldn't really be possible to mount a Predator on a fly drone. But it still feels off to me. The problem also crops up a bit with vehicles (can't seem to stick a rank 3 speed mod in a sports car sadly) But at least then you can understand it may be a balance issue. Drones can have stats tweaked, but can't really fit much change of any sort to them, and it feels like basing it on body when so many drones of medium size or larger have body below what they 'should' really limits the customization.

But considering the gripes I've had at a few of the other books in this series, I frankly think that is a pretty small 'nitpick' to gripe about. In the past the overwealming amount of fluff, the details for locations I simply was not going to use and worst of all the insanely small amount of crunch for character growth in things like Data Trails left me a bit cold on continuing to buy the hard copies of these books. It wasn't really worth hunting down something like that when I might be buying a book for ten or twenty pages of crunch, maybe some semi usable expanded rules in the back and tons of stuff I didn't' want. This book appeals to me far more and gives me far more of what I am looking for in a book.

Now I want to make that clear because this is a very biased review. This is my impressions based on how I run my games or play my games. I am that guy who thought the 'complete' splatbooks for 3.5 and things like Weapons of Legacy were largely brilliant because he already had his own setting. I am that guy who disregards every shred of location based fluff in the Fantasy Flight 40K stuff because I know the setting just fine and I don't even run it in that area. I want weapons and armor and equipment and gear and abilities and things to shape characters and NPCs as I see fit, and if they are written well some nice expanded rules to help flesh things out. If that sounds like you, then I think this will be among the most satisfying books Catalyst has put out this side of Battletech's core stuff. If not, well I'd still recommend it as the book does cover the weak core book rigger setup, just take my gushing with a few grains of salt.

Me? I think I'll be seeing how my Adept can jam a Thunderstruck pop-up under the hood of his new Dodge Charger. God I love GM Characters.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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