Shadowrun Rigger 5.0: How to Get the Ultimate Hot-Rod Companion for Your Game

Rigger 5.0 is the ultimate hot-rod, jet plane, speedboat, and more companion for Shadowrun. With dozens of new vehicles and drones, more detailed rules for vehicle chase and combat, and customization rules, this is a book that every rigger needs to get ahead of the competition and stay there. Get the feel of laying down hot rubber in the cold shadows of the Sixth World and a taste for speed, danger, and a good, clean getaway.

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In practice, a properly played pet-class tends to be utterly OP. Both my own experiences playing magic-users, in particularly shamans, and the stunts I saw riggers pull off in 3rd edition...well. Let's just say that both riggers and magic-users tended to be the sole survivors when everyone else died. This issue, much like deckers being separated from the group while in the matrix, is to a certain degree system-immanent. Shadowrun, as a whole, is very much a ROLEplaying system that derives its appeal mainly from the superb flavor of the lavishly constructed world depicted in hundreds of glorious novels and flavor text, less so from the rules that support it. At least to me. You may well come to different conclusions, but those are the ones I drew for myself.

Why all this lead-in? There's a reason for that. The core-book, rigger-wise, did not provide much in the range of options, which pretty much renders this an almost required addition to make the concept of the rigger as diverse and rewarding as it should be. This is, thus, for all intents and purposes, the central core book for playing riggers and, as such, it can be considered an obligatory purchase for all groups of runners featuring a rigger, so ka?

Great. There are some things you need to take into account though. If you've been purchasing the SR books, you will expect a certain amount of metanarrative in the plot-lines of the fluff accompanying the crunch. In this book, while present, we get less of these, so yes, this is a huge, crunchy colossus. We begin this book, thus, with introductory fiction as well as a rigging 101, which also introduces and explains the respective tasks and things to be aware of when playing a rigger - this general introduction to the matter at hand certainly is appreciated, as it does establish a base-line for interaction of riggers with other characters; it makes them feel slightly less like a subsystem of their own. It is also here that we get game-rule explanation on repair/scavenging for parts as well as electronic warfare, including brief sections on swarms.

Positive and negative qualities, including various life modules, allow you to customize your rigger according to your own preferences and, as a whole, they seem to be pretty much in line with SR's 5e established contexts.

After this section, we dive right into the vehicle-section, which, while perhaps the original intent of rigging as a whole, its essence, is in practice only the secondary calling of riggers: From helicopters, to t-birds and zeppelins, the chapter is massive: From Ares Segway Terriers to Thundercloud Mustangs, the motorcycles are diverse and pretty cool. Similarly, the cars and haulers presented are awesome. Why? Because a *ton* of them come with absolutely stunning full-color artworks that really drive home the unique flair of SR: When you first look at the rendition of the Mack hellhound with its massive cannons...you drool. More than a bit. The armed and deadly BMW Blitzkrieg bike also put a smile on my face. But the vehicle-section is not, in the least, in fact, reduced to land and air vehicles - boats, from Aztechnology Nightrunners to the bubbled Evo Water Striders or the sailed Corsair Panther, even looking at these vehicles will make you want to pilot these - something no other rigger book has ever accomplished for me. I already mentioned the ample aircrafts, so what about the things most riggers pilot in game?

On a more formal nitpick, while I really enjoy the SkyGuide as an option, I do think that some unique means of getting a modified, illegal access to SkyGuide benefits would very much be within the means of a good rigger's purview....but this is just me nitpicking. From minidrones to more massive ones, this section also sport various different options for riggers, with ample of neat artworks - though less of them than for the vehicle section. And yes, this includes anthropomorphic drones. While this chapter, as a whole, is pretty inspired, it is in the following chapter that fans of riggers from previous editions will get the delightful tools to create their very own customized drones and vehicles.

And the modifications are VAST in scope. As in: there are so many options herein, it is just putting a smile on my face. Alas, the aforementioned issues within the precision of rules-language becomes more apparent here: Let's take the basic weapon mount, one of the most common modifications a rigger will employ: The book differentiates between fixed and flexible weapon mounts...which is pretty cool and makes sense. Fixed mounts need you to maneuver the drone/vehicle. Simple, right? Well, it would kinda be...but Shadowrun, as such, has no facing rules in the traditional sense, which requires the GM to basically maintain that the expenditure for a flexible weapon mount actually makes sense, when, at least to some extent, the rules should have provided some reason as well.

Mark Dynna, Jeff Halket, Jason M. Hardy, Adam Large, Aaron Pavao, Scott Scheltz, R.J. Thomas, Malik Toms, Thomas Wiloughby - that would be the team that brought you this book and they did, as a whole, a nice job. The massive book is, at least in my opinion, the best rigger book I have seen so far. The rules, as a whole, prove to be less prone to abuse and creation of super-drones than previous editions...though riggers, as has become a tradition in Shadowrun, can end up being nigh untouchable killer-characters. This is, however, probably not a bug, but a feature, depending on your own take on the subject matter.

As I've mentioned before, if you even remotely consider the option of playing a rigger, then this book pretty much should be considered to be a must-have addition to the game and I certainly get the amount of love this book has garnered. At the same, the book is not, as some may have you believe, a perfect take on the concept - as mentioned before, there is a significant array of errata to be found on the world wide web. This does not mean that this book is bad; quite the contrary. In contrast to the takes on riggers of previous editions, this book feels more like an organic component of the main game, less like an add-on. Particularly in direct comparison with 3rd edition's rigger-supplement, this is almost a complete success; definitely in the aesthetics department. 2ff7e9595c