Edge

Edge is a character’s luck, the favor of the gods, that unexplainable factor that allows her to beat the odds. A character’s Edge attribute represents the number of Edge points a character has to spend during game play. Edge points can be used for a wide range of benefits, as listed below.

Edge points that are spent are temporarily unavailable (see Regaining Edge), as luck will only take you so far.

A character’s Edge attribute never actually changes, even when Edge points are spent, unless the character permanently burns Edge.

Edge

Protecting the Principle

Edge Effects

Edge can affect your character’s world in a lot of ways. When you want one of these effects to happen, you must spend a point of Edge. A character can only spend Edge points on her own actions; she cannot spend it on behalf of others. No more than 1 point of Edge can be spent on any specific test or action at one time.

If you spent a point of Edge for extra dice and rolled a critical glitch anyway, for example, you cannot use Edge to negate that Critical Glitch since you have already applied Edge to that test. The uses of Edge are:

Second Chance

Re-roll all dice that did not score a hit on a test roll.

Close Call

Either negate the effects of one Glitch or turn a Critical Glitch into a Glitch.

Blitz

Interject mid-narration - while letting the GM finish her sentence.

In combat, you may use your full suite of actions (but be aware if your turn happens later what actions you spend are used up during your Blitz) and out of combat you may perform a task that realistically may be accomplished within 3 seconds.

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 everyone else's successive actions); you return to your normal place in Initiative order at the start of the following Combat Turn.

Sixth Sense

Even when caught unaware, a character can use this ability to spend a point of Edge and get a Defense Test.

In roleplaying terms, this could mean they catch a glimpse of the incoming attack in a mirror, trip at the right moment, or pay attention to the tingle running up their spine.

The point is they get lucky for that one moment and get a chance to avoid a lot of incoming pain.

Lucky Duck

A character can spend Edge for a teammate for the purposes of avoiding an incoming attack.

It costs two of the character’s Edge points and the teammate must be within range for them to see what is coming and warn their teammate (this includes commlink messages as well as audio and video systems).

This ability is used after an attack has been declared to make the attack miss.

Lucky Move

A character can spend Edge for a teammate for any Skill-related purposes.

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 task before your character blacks out.

Protecting the Principle

The character can choose to move up to 5 meters to place themselves between an attacker and a target and take the brunt of an incoming attack. There is no Defense Test, only Damage Resistance (Body + Armor).

This action can only be performed once per Combat Turn.

Regaining Edge

Edge is replenished at the beginning of every session. Additionally, your character gets one point of Edge back after a fulfilling meal and a good night’s sleep - at least 8 hours, 3 with a sleep regulator. Also, the GM can reward players by refreshing a single point of Edge in exchange for inventive or entertaining actions in the course of a gaming session.

Incidentally, that’s refreshed Edge points, not free Edge points - you can’t go higher than your maximum Edge.

Luck only counts if you use it.

Examples of Regaining Edge include:

Good roleplaying.
Heroic acts of self-sacrifice.
Achievement of important personal goals.
Enduring a Critical Glitch without using a Close Call (you get a point of Edge back to balance the scales a bit; this should be used judiciously, though, so as not to always let the players off the hook when they roll a Critical Glitch).
Succeeding in an important objective.
Being particularly brave or smart.
Pushing the storyline forward.
Having the right skills in the right place at the right time.
Impressing the group with humor or drama.

Burning Edge

Sometimes it’s not enough just to spend a point of Edge and hope for the best. Sometimes you need guaranteed results—or a miracle. In those circumstances, you can choose to burn a point of Edge, meaning it is gone and will not be recovered through the normal means (though in the future you can spend Karma to move your Edge up again). Burning a point of Edge has two potential uses:

Smackdown

Automatically succeed in an action with four net hits.

This has to be an action the character is capable of performing - they cannot, for example, score a success in a skill like Engineering (Automotive Mechanic) if they do not at least have ranks in that skill.

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 them and hopefully provide some quick healing.

The GM should devise the exact circumstances that lead to the character surviving the current threat.