Home
Edge is a special stat that represents your character's luck. It is not rolled like other stats (though the GM may occasionally ask for an edge roll to determine certain random instances of chance), but is instead spent or burned one point at a time. When you are out of edge, sorry, your luck has run out.
The following actions cost a single point of edge. Edge spent this way regenerates, typically at the end of a mission, though the GM may award edge for cool/amazing/amusing actions done in game. You cannot have more edge than your edge score, so if the GM gives you edge and you have yet to spend any, you just lost out.
Push the Limit: Add your Edge rating to your test, either before or after the roll. This can allow you to take tests that might otherwise have a dice pool of zero or less thanks to various modifiers in play. Using Edge in this way makes the Rule of Six come into play: for every 6 you roll, count it as a hit and then re-roll that die, adding any additional hits from the re-roll to your total. If you decide to use this function after your initial roll, only your Edge dice use the Rule of Six. This use of Edge also allows you to ignore any limit on your test.
Second Chance: Re-roll all dice that did not score a hit on a test roll. Second Chance cannot be used to negate a glitch or critical glitch, it does not use the Rule of Six, and it has no effect on limits.
Seize the Initiative: Move to the top of the initiative order, regardless of your Initiative Score. If multiple characters spend Edge to go first in the same Combat Turn, those characters go before everybody else, in order of their Initiative Scores; subsequently, the other players and NPCs take their actions according to their Initiative Scores.
This move to the top of the order lasts for the entire Combat Turn (meaning multiple Initiative Passes); you return to your normal place in Initiative order at the start of the following Combat Turn.
Blitz: Roll the maximum of five Initiative Dice for a single Combat Turn.
Close Call: Either negate the effects of one glitch or turn a critical glitch into a glitch.
Dead Man’s Trigger: When your character is about to fall unconscious or die, you can spend a point of Edge to make a Body + Willpower (3) test. If you succeed, you may spend any remaining actions you have on a single action before your character blacks out.
The following actions BURN edge, which means you permanently lose a point of edge (unless you spend karma to bring it back up).
Smackdown: Automatically succeed in an action with four net hits. This has to be an action the character is capable of performing—he cannot, for example, score a success in a skill like Automotive Mechanic if he does not have ranks in that skill. Limits have no effect on this—the character gets four net hits regardless of the applicable limit.
Not Dead Yet: There are circumstances—a bullet to the brain, a live grenade in the pants—that by all rights should result in a shadowrunner’s inevitable death. In these cases, a player may elect to burn a point of Edge in order to keep her character alive, against all odds. Note that this does not mean she entirely avoids the effects of the potentially fatal action. The bullet still hits their head, and the grenade still goes off. Instead of dying, though, the character manages to keep breathing somehow and maintain a thin thread of a pulse, giving others a chance to stabilize her and hopefully provide some quick healing. The gamemaster should devise the exact circumstances that lead to the character surviving the current threat.
Spending Edge
The following actions cost a single point of edge. Edge spent this way regenerates, typically at the end of a mission, though the GM may award edge for cool/amazing/amusing actions done in game. You cannot have more edge than your edge score, so if the GM gives you edge and you have yet to spend any, you just lost out.
Push the Limit: Add your Edge rating to your test, either before or after the roll. This can allow you to take tests that might otherwise have a dice pool of zero or less thanks to various modifiers in play. Using Edge in this way makes the Rule of Six come into play: for every 6 you roll, count it as a hit and then re-roll that die, adding any additional hits from the re-roll to your total. If you decide to use this function after your initial roll, only your Edge dice use the Rule of Six. This use of Edge also allows you to ignore any limit on your test.
Second Chance: Re-roll all dice that did not score a hit on a test roll. Second Chance cannot be used to negate a glitch or critical glitch, it does not use the Rule of Six, and it has no effect on limits.
Seize the Initiative: Move to the top of the initiative order, regardless of your Initiative Score. If multiple characters spend Edge to go first in the same Combat Turn, those characters go before everybody else, in order of their Initiative Scores; subsequently, the other players and NPCs take their actions according to their Initiative Scores.
This move to the top of the order lasts for the entire Combat Turn (meaning multiple Initiative Passes); you return to your normal place in Initiative order at the start of the following Combat Turn.
Blitz: Roll the maximum of five Initiative Dice for a single Combat Turn.
Close Call: Either negate the effects of one glitch or turn a critical glitch into a glitch.
Dead Man’s Trigger: When your character is about to fall unconscious or die, you can spend a point of Edge to make a Body + Willpower (3) test. If you succeed, you may spend any remaining actions you have on a single action before your character blacks out.
Burning Edge
The following actions BURN edge, which means you permanently lose a point of edge (unless you spend karma to bring it back up).
Smackdown: Automatically succeed in an action with four net hits. This has to be an action the character is capable of performing—he cannot, for example, score a success in a skill like Automotive Mechanic if he does not have ranks in that skill. Limits have no effect on this—the character gets four net hits regardless of the applicable limit.
Not Dead Yet: There are circumstances—a bullet to the brain, a live grenade in the pants—that by all rights should result in a shadowrunner’s inevitable death. In these cases, a player may elect to burn a point of Edge in order to keep her character alive, against all odds. Note that this does not mean she entirely avoids the effects of the potentially fatal action. The bullet still hits their head, and the grenade still goes off. Instead of dying, though, the character manages to keep breathing somehow and maintain a thin thread of a pulse, giving others a chance to stabilize her and hopefully provide some quick healing. The gamemaster should devise the exact circumstances that lead to the character surviving the current threat.
