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Mystic Mongol posted:How so? I can still cast spells to drop ice sheets to control areas, give myself more initiative passes than pretty much anyone, knock people out cold, layer worn armor with the armor spell, place grenades with perfect precision using magic fingers, and I have a gun which I can use to shoot people dead. Plus there's no restriction on armor worn in Shadowrun. I'd have to give up a hell of a lot more than an endless supply of invincible murder summons to be gimped. I honestly think Shadowrun works better with a FATE style system, modified for Shadowrun of course. Edge is almost a fate point honestly. If you follow the book's guidelines, character advancement is just something that does not happen in any kind of meaningful way. If you use the guidelines for karma rewards and nuyen, after a year of playing once a week, you'll only have around 100 Karma and have earned only 42,000 nuyen. Thats 21 adventures (2.5 sessions per adventure), earning 5 karma on average and 2,000 nuyen per runner. If you want money, you basically have to go out of your way to steal or take things. (Very classic D&D there in a sense, the gold you get from a quest always pales compared to the amount you find in the dungeon or in the form of loot). 100 karma seems like a lot, but it really isn't. You can use it to raise up the things you are bad at, to become only normal (6-8 dice), but its incredibly karma expensive to raise the things you are good at (going from 10 dice to 14 dice). This is obviously somewhat intentional, but it really means that after character creation, you are fairly set in stone. Mages, Skillwire users, those with real strong versatility, maintain that and can do different things. If you don't start with versatility, you can never really obtain it, you can just be less-bad at certain stuff. And that is why Spirits are so strong. They are incredibly versatile, each having their own array of powers.
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Jan 27, 2011 23:51
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Young Freud posted:Crossposting for Tias, since he closed the thread in TFR. I love you man  The reason I made the threat was because I was working on a tailored revolver for a troll character made by a talented gunsmith. This will work beautifully!
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Jan 27, 2011 23:55
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Tias posted:I love you man I've had some thoughts on how ammunition is handled in Shadowrun over the last couple of years. I used to be of a mind that every existing caliber needed to be converted out, but I've figured that the guns have been standardized and homogenized to a point that calibers are pretty much the same. Think of how 9mm Parabellum has been in service worldwide for over a hundred years now, 7.62mm NATO for almost 50 years throughout many countries (and if they don't use it for their indigenous weapons, they use it for export), and the number of 5.56mm-caliber rifles has grown over the last couple of decades, almost to the point it will eventually eclipse the 7.62mm Soviet AK. For a quick idea of caliber-size Holdout: Really light pistol round like .22 or .32 caliber. May even be proprietary cartridges, especially given the size and nature of some of the guns. Light Pistol: 9mm Parabellum analogs, although 5.7x28mm may substitute that in at least a few cases, especially with the FN 5-7C. Machine Pistols also use this caliber. Heavy Pistol: .357 SIG or 10mm, with the exception of a few like the Roomsweeper (.410 shotgun), the Viper Slivergun (flechettes), and the Super Warhawk (.44 Magnum, .454 Casull, or, now, .500 S&W) Submachine Gun: A big debate, since these are no longer pistol-caliber carbines and the like but more of an intermediate cartridge between pistols and rifles. I might go with some sort of +P+ version of 5.7x28mm or a cutdown 5.56mm NATO cartridge, like the 5.56x30mm MARS or MINSAS or the 6x35mm KAC. Also, I would say a few take Assault Rifle cartridges, but the reduce barrels limit their damage. Assault Rifle: 5.56mm NATO or 6.8mm SPC. Essentially, a light, high-velocity cartridge standardized by the world's military-industrial complexes. Also, given the timeframe, this might be a caseless telescopic round, similar to the G11 or the newer LSAT program that is meant to be replacement for everything using cased small arms cartridges. Machine Guns: the Light MGs/SAWs are obviously using Assault Rifle cartridges, while Medium MGs use a .30 caliber/7.62mm sized round and the Heavy MG uses .50 caliber rounds. Sport and Sniper Rifles: these all have varying damage ratings, so I figure this may be a moot point. A few of these rifles nowadays use almost-proprietary calibers, because snipers and large game hunters tend to have niche markets compared to security and military customers. Also, I think that SR4 still utilizes the "accuracy equals increased lethality" damages of previous editions, but with a smaller deviation. Also, if you really need to know, I always figured that Lt. Autocannons were 20mm (maybe even 14.5 or 15mm, since the Vigilant does less damage than the Vigorous Assault Cannon) and Heavy Autocannons in the 30mm. That makes the man-portable Assault Cannons in the 20mm-25mm range, although maybe launched at a lower velocity.
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Jan 28, 2011 00:44
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That's.. really well thought out. Mad props  I also always thought the hold-out was inspired by the Gibson/Bloodnet favorite "Anarchists special" - a very small semi-auto 9mm or .22 that could be hidden anywhere, the largest part being the barrel and magazine
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Jan 28, 2011 00:56
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I'd edit, but I'm close to passing out and can't be arsed: I nearly completely agree with your cartridge/shadowguns comparison - my own project is coming up with weapons tailored to non human/elf/ork metahumans, and so I've tried to think the current weapons industry into the 2070s. This probably (IMHO) means that very few corporations, whether A or triple A, delve into making weapons tailored for dwarves and trolls or (even worse) sapient critters. Because.. when you think about it, there's not a whole lot of profit trying to market guns to a demographic like trolls, who make up 5-10% of the global population, is there? So the key is becoming, or knowing, a proficient weaponsmith. This is where I was asking for .500 revolver cartridges, because it seems like a round that would be both tactical and manageable for self-defense for your average wealthy troll.
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Jan 28, 2011 01:00
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Tias posted:Because.. when you think about it, there's not a whole lot of profit trying to market guns to a demographic like trolls, who make up 5-10% of the global population, is there? They do have a disproportionately large number of goons and security guards among their number, as society tells them they're too stupid to be MBAs but perfect for beating people into a pulp. I imagine guns, clubs, and leather jackets are some of the things that isn't hard to find in troll sizes, unlike surveying equipment, sliderules, and crochet needles.
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Jan 28, 2011 10:09
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So my game did not go at all like I thought it would. Urgh. Somehow it turned into an interrogation/investigation/car chase/nightclubbing session.
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Jan 28, 2011 10:40
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Mystic Mongol posted:They do have a disproportionately large number of goons and security guards among their number, as society tells them they're too stupid to be MBAs but perfect for beating people into a pulp. I imagine guns, clubs, and leather jackets are some of the things that isn't hard to find in troll sizes, unlike surveying equipment, sliderules, and crochet needles. You're probably right, I'm just annoyed there aren't any gently caress-off super revolvers in the books
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Jan 28, 2011 14:00
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Back in 3rd edition, I made a weapon system I called the Meta-Human Carbine. It was essentially an assault carbine similar to the Interdynamic MKS prototype from the '80s. The magazine fit into the pistol grip, so it could be used as a heavy machine pistol by trolls. A human-sized operator could use it as a rifle (because the pistol grip was so thick, they would have to use both hands and the folding stock extended and shouldered, but you're assumed to be doing that with a rifle), while a dwarf could fold the stock and use it as a bullpup carbine. If I was looking to making troll-specific weapons, I'd look into the 'borg weapons from Cyberpunk 2020 or even the Homo Superior-suited guns from Ray Winninger's Underground for inspiration. Also, thanks to you, I'm considering modelling out a snub-nosed Night Guard (an 8-round revolver) chambered in .500 S&W. Thing's going to be huge, considering the 5-round cylinder for the Model 500 is 2 inches in diameter. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Jan 28, 2011 |
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Jan 28, 2011 17:52
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Swags posted:So my game did not go at all like I thought it would. Urgh. Somehow it turned into an interrogation/investigation/car chase/nightclubbing session. They never do. Be glad that they didn't go hide in the warehouse full of rigger--the next adventure would be a run to scrag the fixer who sent them to that 'safe' location. Protip: The next time the runners decide to ignore people or groups searching for them, park an APC outside the nightclub and have a half dozen armored dudes rappel in through the front wall (whee shaped charges!) while a pair of phys-ad assassins dressed as ravers try to get close and shank 'em. Aim for one maiming. Don't worry about the party getting loot these guys drop--there are more heavilly armed swat teams outside, and lonestar is on the way! time for a fighting retreat! Seriously, give whoever has knowledge shadows a roll to know that staying would be suicidal, and if they stay anyway, kill half of 'em. It's pretty key to setting that, occasionally, shadowrunners need to leave the country for a couple months. If the heat gets turned up too much, there's nowhere they can hide--there are just too many eyes, spirits, cameras, and snifferbots in a city to hide if enough people are looking for you.
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Jan 28, 2011 18:23
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I need some help here... See, we're starting up a Shadowrun game, and I've decided that being a magical kung fu troll man seems like a fun time. Unfortunately, I have no drat idea how to build a character. The book basically just goes "Here's 400 points! Do what you like with them!" "Umm, can I get some vague guideline at least?" "Hahaha, gently caress no!" So, Adepts. As said, I want to be a kung fu troll, though I'll be picking up a couple of pistols because they're useful. How viable is this idea, how do I make it viable, and what sort of ballpark attributes, skills, stats and gear should I be aiming for as a a starting character?
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Jan 29, 2011 06:06
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Captain Hats posted:I need some help here... Troll adepts are pretty loving viable. The only problem is that if you focus too exclusively on punching stuff and shooting things you won't be able to do much else but that goes equally for pretty much any specialized character soooo. First you need to choose 35 points worth of negative qualities. Then you have 435 points to work with. This is both necessary and hilarious. Adept costs 5 points, you'll want Agility and Magic as high as possible and probably Strength too, ideally all of them to 1 point below your natural maximum -- the last point in any stat costs more and it's probably not worth it. As for skills you'll want Unarmed Combat (specialized in Punching Stuff or melee attacks, i forget what the specialization is called), Pistols (specialized in whatever kind you'll use), the Athletics skill group, and whatever else looks interesting if you still have BP left over. Maybe infiltration? Or some kind of driving skill? Con? You also need to save some BP for money, though not a lot. Adepts are pretty gear-independant. Remember to trick out your gun with a smartlink. As for adept powers you'll want Killing Hands, Critical Strike with a rating equal to your Magic, and whatever the Reflexes one that gives you more initiative passes is, at the highest rating you still have points for. If you have AIM/MSN feel free to hit me up to talk about tabletop RPGs with an internet stranger. AIM is biggaygayra. MSN is professorcutshimself hotmail com. (not actually a professor, do not cut self)
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Jan 29, 2011 07:17
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You can spend up to 200 points on attributes. Generally, you want to spend 200 points on attributes. Magic and Edge do not count against this limit--raise magic to 4 or 5 independently, and edge to 3 or 4. Remember that a 3 is human average in a stat. Understand that pretty much no one isn't below average in at least one stat. Your primary stats are Strength, Body, and Agility, probably in that order. Don't max out a stat unless that one stat defines your character--your character is probably defined by his mystic powers, so don't take anything at the troll maximum, it costs too much. Don't take an Edge under 3, it's there to save you from skills you don't have and being a troll physad will take most of your points. Choose the physad powers that look like fun. Don't take astral perception, it's borderline useless without a large point investment in the assessing skill and stats you're not likely to have. Think about how cool it would be to knock arrows out of the air with your bare hands, then don't take it because everyone uses guns. If you don't mind being radically stronger than everyone else at the table (unfairly so) take the power that makes your unarmed attacks elemental, and choose sonic. Punch holes in tanks. Buy the unarmed skill at at least 4. Take the Athletics skill group at 4 or so, which includes Gymnastics and anything else a kung fu dude wants to do. Look at that, most of your points are gone, how did that happen. Don't take the dodge skill, Gymnastics does everything dodge does, and a bunch of other stuff to. No one knows why this is. Consider the stealth skill group, or individual stealth skills, carefully, you might not see yourself as a sneaky type but everyone needs to disappear occasionally and it'll be nice if you can. Take one rank in ground vehicles, and specialize in the type of vehicle you use. Consider a few points in Con, you'll probably need to lie eventually and it'd be nice if they didn't see through you instantly. Use specializations to lower your costs, you'll need every point you can get your grubby mitts on. Go ahead and take pistols, but specialize in the type of pistol you intend to use. Buy a pistol. You're going to be bad at a lot of things. You're not going to have much equipment, but you hardly need it. Consider taking restricted equipment to allow you to take military armor. Consider a sneaking suit. Consider a crowbar, a monochainsaw, rope, handcuffs, rfid tags, a tag eraser. Get a fake SIN. Get a second fake SIN. If you have some spare points, get a docwagon contract. Get a month of lifestyle, so you have somewhere to live. End character generation with at least 1200 nuyen unspent. Buy an el'cheepo commlink, leave it in hidden mode forever. You don't know what you're doing with it, but that's fine. Buy at least one contact. Make him interesting. Get a few interesting advantages, they're cheap for what they do. Get all 40 points of disadvantages, you're probably broke as hell. Consider debt, if your DM will let you get away with it. Don't take combat paralysis. Use the SR4 CharGen, it's slow to load but otherwise great. I... think that'll do ya. Am I missing anything? E: Shouldn't have spellchecked, got nerdserved. Mystic Mongol fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 07:18
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Mystic Mongol posted:Use the SR4 CharGen, it's slow to load but otherwise great. I found this SR4 Excel Character Sheet to be far more superior. Has everything from Arsenal, Augmentation, Runners' Companion, Street Magic, and Unwired including customization rules from Arsenal and Unwired, and the SURGE and Metahuman Variants from RC.
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Jan 29, 2011 08:12
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I am really curious how you guys are having your players routinely bind spirits over Force 6. Unless a character is very specialized towards summoning spirits, initiated multiple times, or has Sacrificing, binding anything over force 6 is like playing russian roulette. A force 8 spirit gets to roll 16 dice to resist binding and does two physical for every single hit it gets. The summoner need to both somehow beat that 16 dice AND survive the damage. The average is 10.6, but sooner or later the spirit is going to roll substantially above average and have a serious shot at forcing a reroll. It's also not invulnerable by any measure. A gun bunny with a sniper rifle can reliably drop a force 8 spirit in a single initiative pass. quote:So, Adepts. As said, I want to be a kung fu troll, though I'll be picking up a couple of pistols because they're useful. How viable is this idea, how do I make it viable, and what sort of ballpark attributes, skills, stats and gear should I be aiming for as a a starting character? Damage: You need to be doing enough damage to reliably kill a trained opponent in one attack. If you aren't doing that, you are not contributing as much to combat as any other combat character in the party will. Metatype: Ork costs 20 BP and gives you +3 body and +2 strength. Troll costs 40 and gives you +4 body, +4 strength, +1 reach, and +1 natural armor. You get +2 DV and +1 reach on your unarmed attacks if you pick up Muay Thai for 12 BP whereas 20 BP on troll gets you +1 dv and +1 reach. Something to consider if you get into a serious BP crunch and need to keep your murdering up to par. Attributes: Because you round up to figure out how many health boxes you have, your body should be an odd number. Same goes for Strength. Logic is an OK dump stat for an adept. Intuition is not a good dump stat. Skills: Both above posters say buy Specializations at char gen and both of them are wrong. A specialization costs you 1 BP or 1 karma. 1 BP is worth more than 1 karma spent anywhere else at char gen. It's better to buy a few skills up to 4 than a bunch at 1-3, diversify later. Unarmed: You need 6 unarmed. No discussion. When a gun bunny shoots someone, their target rolls Reaction and can spend a complex action to add Gymnastics or Dodge to their roll. When you try to punch someone in the face, they always get to roll reaction+dodge/gymnastics/relevant melee combat skill and can spend a complex action to further improve this. You need every die you can get if you want to hit a trained opponent. Adept Powers: Improved Reflexes 1 (1.5), and Improved Ability 3 (unarmed) (1.5), and Critical Strike are mandatory. Init passes are what separates you from the mooks. If you only take Improved Reflexes 1, take a drug addiction to a combat drug like Jazz that gives an extra initiative pass. Having only two init passes makes you a "good mook", not a serious combat character. Critical Strike lets you do enough damage to drop people in one hit like you need to be doing. Assuming you are a troll with a strength of 9, your base unarmed DV is 5. If you bought 6 critical strike, this would bring you up to 11D before other modifiers. Improved Ability is the signature trick of PhysAdepts and you need it. Killing Hands Notes: It's not mandatory. Check out the Hardliner gloves in Arsenal's Exotic Melee Weapons section, they allow you to do (strength/2)+1 Physical damage instead of Stun. If you specialize in Kicking or Martial Arts (Muay Thai), try to talk your GM into letting you get the same benefit from wearing special shoes/boots. You can also avoid picking up KH for general combat purposes if you can get the entire group to all use Stun damage. This is not as hard as it sounds. Gel rounds, chemical warfare, stunbolt, and shock rounds are all excellent. You might want to pick it up just for punching through Immunity to Normal Weapons, but a force 1 weapon foci can do that too. Elemental Strike: The best option for sheer murder, as suggested above, is Sound damage because it gives 100% armor penetration. Keep in mind the caveats: You must spend a Simple Action to activate it. This is equivalent to a gun bunny drawing his weapon, but because it takes a complex action to attack someone in melee you give up your first initiative pass and do zero damage unless you also quick-draw and fire a firearm that you are probably not very good at. Even once you've activated it it's only as good as the armor your opponents are wearing. If most of your opponents are wearing 6 Impact armor or less - which many of them will as that is how much an Armored Jacket gives - Two points of critical strike would be just as good and always on. Martial Arts: The Martial Arts positive qualities in Arsenal are very BP hungry, but a small investment is worthwhile. Both the advantages themselves and maneuvers are only worth 2 karma/bp and are fairly cheap so they are a good candidate for picking up post-chargen as long as you're sure your GM isn't going to really jerk you around on finding an instructor or on downtime. Muay Thai is generally best because of the kickboxing flavor (you can have stuff in your hands) but Boxing is defensible. Food for thought: Imagine your character was a human who used a monowhip (8P) concealed in a fingertip compartment. How would the troll be better than him? Also just a general warning, it's a very common mistake for new players to make combat monsters and regret it. Combat is a fairly small part of most games. You'll spend more time doing legwork, casing places, socializing, sneaking, running, and otherwise not punching people in the face.
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Jan 29, 2011 10:18
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So mages loving suck. At the game I ran, I had an assassin (Apnea, from my former post) attack the detective and the mage from the rooftop of their hideout. Was doing pretty good against the detective, and then the mage decides to Overcast a stunbolt and shove her face out her rear end in a top hat. Seriously, there's no armor for this? Standard elven assassin had 3 Willpower. Rolled them and failed, rolled edge and got one success, and she still loving went unconscious. (note: I am not opposed to rolling to make a dice sound and then lying about result, player just saw the die roll) So he shoved out 12 stun damage in one spell, and according to him the only thing that can really protect from poo poo like that is if I have a mage on the enemy side actively Counterspelling. Is this poo poo true? That seems a bit nonsensical, really. At this point it seems like the only way to stop a Technomancer from turning off your eyes is to have a Technomancer on your team. The only way to stop a mage is to have a mage. The only way to stop a Street Samurai or Adept is to have a Street Samurai or Adept (well, or mage with Stunbolt and a higher initiative). Is the only way to really challenge my party to constantly send them up against themselves?
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Jan 29, 2011 12:21
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Other things to note about adepts- -If you DO just want to focus on being a combat monster and don't mind paying a bit of a BP premium for it you may be better off buying Synaptic Boosters 2 instead of using power points on Improved Reflexes. Synaptic Boosters 2 cost 160,000 nuyen and one point of Essence (and by extension Magic). This gives them an effective BP cost of 42 (32 for the money and 10 to offset the magic loss). Improved Reflexes 2 costs 2.5 power points, or ~25 BP (assuming you're using 20th anniversary, otherwise its worse). For a 17 point premium (and capping your Adept Power one level below what they would otherwise be) you effectively gain 1.5 power points to do with as you please. You can do a lot with an extra 1.5 power points, some of which would cost you quite a bit more than 17 BP to achieve, some of which isn't achievable through any other method but more power points. -A large investment in strength isn't really worth it, even moreso if you play a Troll or Ork. 5 strength is more than sufficient for most "reasonable" strength rolls and gives you 3 base DV (before weapons/powers/etc) to work with. To increase that to a base of 4DV with 7 STR you would need to spend 20 BP. That's really bad from an effectiveness standpoint- those same points could buy you +4 to unarmed DV by taking a smattering of Martial Arts Style qualities. Or you could use those points to get the synaptic booster upgrade mentioned above, get 1.5 extra PP and have 3 points left over. Two points of agility (which you should be maxing anyhow) would also provide you the same damage bonus via called shots, give you the option of increased accuracy if you needed it, and also benefit your gun attacks. Strength is woefully underpowered and while it can give you a boost once you've exhausted all your other avenues to damage bonuses it should be among your very last priorities. -Generally speaking Gobbeldygook is totally right about Specializations not being something you want from the get-go due to them being "overpriced" in terms of BP:Karma ration. That being said, they're still quite cheap for their effect and it can be very useful to start with one or two since giving you a higher chance of surviving the initial run can easily outweigh the loss of a couple phantom karma. You want to take the ones that are so broadly applicable they might as well be bonus skill points. For your purposes these are probable Pistols (Semi-Automatics) and Unarmed (Marital Arts), which will apply to something like 95% or more of all rolls you will ever make with those skills. Don't prioritize them, but there are much worse ways to spend your last couple of BP. -Skills: The advice given above is generally good, though unless you're planning on being a getaway driver I'd disagree its worth putting points into. You don't need to test under most conditions and even when you do defaulting off of a maximized reflex attribute should be fine for most scenarios. People haven't mentioned Perception- it's absolutely a key skill and something you should make sure you have at a reasonable level and then enhance with gear. I'm also a strong proponent of taking the Influence Skill Group at rank 1- it eliminates the defaulting penalty for essentially all social rolls and combined with a mediocre charisma enables you to handle normal social situations without them becoming a clusterfuck. You're not the party face but you also can do things like buying food in a Stuffer Shack without making the clerk suspicious and hostile. Get a rating 6 emotitoy (or Empathy Software if you like spending more than you need to/don't want an identifying detail) and you're suddenly pretty suave by normal standards. -Speaking of emotitoys (found in Arsenal) I don't think people have given a rundown on some essential/unusually effective equipment yet. Emotitoys are obvious, because they're a heavily discounted version of software that already gives a +6 modifier to most social rolls for only 3k. Form Fitting Body Armor (also from Arsenal) is another must have, as it lets you get much higher soak totals than you otherwise would. Heavy Pistols should generally be used over light ones and within that category there are a couple standouts. The Predator IV is a great cheap smartgun and is generally the default option. The Ruger Thunderbolt is also well worth a look as it is essentially a burst-fire only SMG in pistol form (and can easily be rendered nearly recoil-free via an underbarrel weight and personalized grip for 125 nuyen). Also, Stick-n-Shock ammo is ridiculously effective if you're not specifically trying to kill someone and its potency is not dependent on the gun it is being fired from. It makes a great upgrade to light pistols and holdouts chosen for their concealability or daily carrying. Plus the -1/2 armor modifier makes it *excellent* for loving up spirits, and people tend not to get quite as angry if you just knock their security forces out rather than leaving a bloody mess. Well worth the premium over regular ammo in most cases.
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Jan 29, 2011 12:49
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Swags posted:Seriously, there's no armor for this? Standard elven assassin had 3 Willpower. Rolled them and failed, rolled edge and got one success, and she still loving went unconscious. (note: I am not opposed to rolling to make a dice sound and then lying about result, player just saw the die roll) You're right, mages aren't balanced, and stunbolt is one of the worst offenders (then there's mass mind control which is even more powerful, but at least that has a chance of inflicting a tiny bit of drain (maybe...)). I dunno how to fix 'em, but a soak roll on direct attack spells seems like a start, along with adding a second stat to defend against mind-control spells (so it's Will+Charisma maybe, but that still won't have much chance against a mage's full dice pool most of the time). Other people in the thread have advocated harsher spirit summoning rules, eg: you can only summon a spirit up to half your magic before getting lethal drain, then the max level of spirit is equal to your magic. This seems like a good plan, because spirits really are amazingly tough and versatile. Sure the gunbunny can drop a spirit in one round, if they have armour piercing rounds and get the drop on initiative (a tall order against things which have Forcex2+2 init), but the spirit has so many ways to not even fight fair: 4/5 spirit types have concealment! Then there's the spirit of man's outrageous mind control power... Some people have fun in their games despite the magic imbalance, but I find it a bit like "SUPERMAGE SAVES THE DAY! Also his friends teamed up and killed a ghoul while Supermage was fighting the three dragons". I think the problem is they cover too many bases at once-- no need for a streetsam when your mage can summon things tougher than him (and gobbledygook, you don't need to bind them. Summoning disposable spirits is a better investment most of the time). I'm fine with mages being powerful, it fits with the story, but I think the designers overdid it in this case. By quite a bit.
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Jan 29, 2011 12:55
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quote:So he shoved out 12 stun damage in one spell, and according to him the only thing that can really protect from poo poo like that is if I have a mage on the enemy side actively Counterspelling. Is this poo poo true? That seems a bit nonsensical, really. You have it right: Combat in Shadowrun is deadly. People who are good at killing people kill the poo poo out of people who aren't good at defending themselves from whatever their method of murdering is, whether that be magic, bullets, stabbing, or chemical warfare. In my campaign that's been running for at least 40 sessions, I think I've had two combats last more than three turns. As for your specific situation: Your mage probably could have done more damage than that even. For every net hit he got, he could have increased the DV 1, but it would have also jacked up the DV of his drain on a 1:1 ratio. Recommendations for anti-magic in a combat scenario: Mages in the opposition, strategically pre-placed wards, opponents attacking from out of LOS (most windows in Shadowrun are opaque/one-way exactly so mages can't target people from the outside them, plus just attacking from around corners), pitch-dark areas if your mage doesn't have thermal or sonar cybereyes/bioware, opponents being sufficiently numerous and spread out that stunbolting one just means several others shoot him in the face, people with high body and/or willpower (ghouls are a good choice), the magic resistance quality, pain editors (for mages overly fond of stunbolt), drones (the high object resistance makes them a Challenge), and background count. Gobbeldygook fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 13:20
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Swags posted:So mages loving suck. At the game I ran, I had an assassin (Apnea, from my former post) attack the detective and the mage from the rooftop of their hideout. Was doing pretty good against the detective, and then the mage decides to Overcast a stunbolt and shove her face out her rear end in a top hat. Magic is loving bullshit in SR unless you have your own mage, mundane methods can't counter magic except by shooting it first. SR has the Wizard Problem almost as bad as D&D 3.x, and always has. You can houserule it to make it more equitable (allowing mundanes access to self-only counterspelling and nerfing spirit summoning go a long way towards closing the divide). That said, "active" counterspelling just means that you have a mage in the area who declares he's doing it and then all of his buddies benefit. If you allow a mage in the party you need to be prepared to bust out magical security to oppose him. Technomancers/Hackers are quite a bit easier to stop. They need a method of accessing any device they're going to hack. This means that turning down a device's signal to zero/using skinlinks or turning off a device's wireless functionality entirely will pretty much stop them dead unless they're absurdly close. The default assumption in SR4 is that everybody generally acts completely retarded about their wireless security. This lets hackers do neat things. But there really isn't any reason for either Shadowrunners or their serious CorpSec opposition to do things in this way. Plus there are things that you just can't hack- the best technomancer in the world isn't going to stop a bunch of Jazzed up Orcs with AKs. Gobbeldygook posted:Would it have been gone different if instead of a stunbolt, a Street Samurai had pulled out an SMG loaded with ex-explosive rounds, fired off a narrow burst Called Shot with a base DV of 12, rolled a dice pool of 15 after the called shot mod, and if the target was still alive just pulled the trigger again for another DV 8 base but now with a dice pool of 19? You'd have made a couple more dice rolls but I doubt the result would have been any different. Magic in SR is broken, broken, broken (by design) and going on about how deadly the combat system is doesn't change this fact. The game suffers a fundamental imbalance in that mundane tools don't equip you to deal with magical threats but magicians are equally or even more potent versus mundanes with no corresponding weakness beyond maybe starting to feel a bit drowsy if they need to deal with too many mundanes in a short period of time. LGD fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 13:21
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I realize I could have said "Well before you do that the sniper blows you up lolwut" but that doesn't really solve the problem. I know combat in Shadowrun is deadly, but I didn't know it was so decidedly deadly in favor of Mages. Also, it's hard as a player, let alone as a GM, to just say "And then you get blowed up" and tell them to do a character reroll. Making a character is kind of monotonous and boring and time consuming and killing someone with your DV 22 machine gun blast is a feasible way to ruin someone's night. I'm not saying I couldn't kill him. I'm the loving DM. I can tell him his character contracts a very virulent strain of the herp and his brain bleeds out his eyes. I'm saying it pisses me off that, in order to have a mage not be drat near invincible, able to one-shot anything and stack armor ridiculously, I have to plan a lot of encounters around loving him over. It's unfair to him, and kind of boring for me. Taking out the threat of Lonestar or Knight Errant just blasting someone to poo poo because he has spells that blow through their armor and are guaranteed to work is kind of BS. I like combat in my games to be threatening, but I want my players to eventually overcome the odds. I don't really want "Stunball!" and then the poo poo is done. An armored transport spewing goons loaded with AKs now means absolutely nothing, and that just irks the poo poo out of me.
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Jan 29, 2011 14:37
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Swags posted:I realize I could have said "Well before you do that the sniper blows you up lolwut" but that doesn't really solve the problem. I know combat in Shadowrun is deadly, but I didn't know it was so decidedly deadly in favor of Mages. Also, it's hard as a player, let alone as a GM, to just say "And then you get blowed up" and tell them to do a character reroll. Making a character is kind of monotonous and boring and time consuming and killing someone with your DV 22 machine gun blast is a feasible way to ruin someone's night. I'm not saying I couldn't kill him. I'm the loving DM. Too much grognards.txt for you, my friend. You've gone all huggy on us. You're stuck in a heroic fantasy mindset... you're trying to find a level appropriate challenge for a party. Great for D&D, bullshit double terrible for Shadowrun. Not only is it a lethal system (with overpowered casters) but runners are almost absurdly competent at a narrow band of skills, and almost exclusively offense oriented. A good threat in a shadowrunning campaign isn't another team of shadowrunners, who have similar skills and also kill when they act, because then you get to choose between (A) killing them instantly, which is bad GMing, or (B) not killing them instantly, which means they get killed instantly themselves. This is why I suggested maybe an awesome shadowrunner team isn't a good group of NPCs to attach names and faces to. A good threat to a team of shadowrunners is a corporate retreat with eighty security guards , a few dozen drones, some security paracritters, and four mages who hang out on the seventh floor with binoculars, counterspelling the crap out of everything, run by Herbert Josanus Austere, middle management slash arsonist. They can't react to changing threats as quickly as a shadowrunner team can, but when one too many alarms are tripped and everyone knows the runners are there, those numbers mean they are dead, dead, dead. The focus of the game isn't the balanced combat encounters of D&D, but instead a group of extremely dangerous professionals who still skulk in the shadows, trying not to much noise and always worried about being discovered. And that's a lot of fun, if the threat is real. I know runners are the cool people to design and play, but the PCs get to do that. Go do the non-glamorous stuff like worldbuilding, and if the runners are being too profile, go ahead and pop one in the skull with an explosive sniper round when he's standing on top of a car peeing on a knocked out cop. Don't kill him, just... drop him down to overflow boxes and remove an eye. The future is supposed to be scary. Gobbeldygook posted:I am really curious how you guys are having your players routinely bind spirits over Force 6. Unless a character is very specialized towards summoning spirits, initiated multiple times, or has Sacrificing, binding anything over force 6 is like playing russian roulette. A force 8 spirit gets to roll 16 dice to resist binding and does two physical for every single hit it gets. The summoner need to both somehow beat that 16 dice AND survive the damage. The average is 10.6, but sooner or later the spirit is going to roll substantially above average and have a serious shot at forcing a reroll. First of all, never bind. Binding is for chumps with a spirit under their magic. Just use spirits like grenades, replace and reuse. It's dead easy to make a summoning 5 magic 5 starting character with a mentor spirit and a summoning specialization, rolling 14 dice on summoning a favorite type of spirit without even looking at foci. Bam, summoning force ten spirits is now pretty easy. As for Russian Roulette--nah. Average roll on ten dice is three or four hits. Get ten dice to resist drain, add edge, and you can knock that down to a very manageable one or two drain taken. Unless the GM rolls eight hits or more on the spirit for determining drain, there's pretty much no chance you'll die. And the odds against that are pretty low... 1.6% chance of seven hits, 0.3% chance of eight. And then the spirit murders everyone forever with its amazing stats and super special powers, all for two boxes of physical damage and a vanishingly small chance of more. Did I mention physical drain can be healed with magic?
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Jan 29, 2011 18:43
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Also, in addition to discussing Shadowrun, we should play Shadowrun! Who's up for a PBP? I will run a PBP if there is interest here (I tried to run a maptool game a while ago but we couldn't schedule enough people to get on at the same time, so it died).
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Jan 29, 2011 18:51
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I'm totally up for a PBP, provided there are no bullshit gimmicks like it being set pre-Crash 2.0 or whatever. (My previous experience with Shadowrun was DMing it, so it'll be fun to finally be able to play )
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Jan 29, 2011 18:52
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Yah, OK. What's the pitch? Can I play a murderer with magnets in his arms and rocket feet?
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Jan 29, 2011 18:58
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Madman Theory posted:I'm totally up for a PBP, provided there are no bullshit gimmicks like it being set pre-Crash 2.0 or whatever.  How did you kno-... no, actually I'm thinking Chiba City Sprawl (the kind of area the first part of Neuromancer was set in) because I already made a map of the area for a game I never got around to running! Plus I've run a lot of stuff in Seattle and am looking for a change. Basic idea is non-Yamatos, disgraced corporate employees, trolls, dwarfs, foreigners and other criminals who aren't allowed in the arcologies live in the sprawl. Usual sprawl issues like ghoul infestations, food shortages, gangs vying for territory, corps exploiting whatever's of value. Good place for a bunch of disparate characters to join together and smash things for money.Mystic Mongol posted:Can I play a murderer with magnets in his arms and rocket feet? The murderer part, sure. The magnets and rocket feet, aaaaaaahm, possibly? Is that a real thing? In Shadowrun?(!)
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Jan 29, 2011 19:23
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children overboard posted:The murderer part, sure. The magnets and rocket feet, aaaaaaahm, possibly? Is that a real thing? In Shadowrun?(!) Have you read Augmentation?
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Jan 29, 2011 19:25
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Arsenal posted:Skimmer Discs: A modular plug-in for cyberfeet, these ground effect platforms are based on microskimmer drone technology. When in use, the discs create a directed ground-effect cushion under the character’s feet, allowing him to hover a few centimeters above the ground. Ducted fans and some practice at controlling inclination provide thrust and direction. Skimmer discs allow the character to move at twice his normal Walking and Running Rates (see Movement, p. 138, SR4) while hovering 10 to 30 centimeters above the ground. Excessive weight (at the gamemaster’s discretion) or particularly rough terrain may make it difficult to maneuver skimmer discs. Arsenal posted:Magnetic System: This system consists of a series of electromagnets mounted along the length of a limb. When the system is activated, the limb can hold on to or cling to ferrous-metal objects more strongly. Note that in the 2070s, many metals are nonferrous, semi-metallic polymer compounds, including those used in weapons and cyberware. Ferrous metals are still used in heavy vehicles (big cars, trucks, maglev trains), large constructions, building support structures (railway bridges, railings, beams, cables), and so on. Ferrous metal can also be added to devices such as gun grips to take advantage of a magnetic system, making dropping or disarming the gun almost impossible. The magnetic field produced by this system, when active, provides a –1 dice pool modifier to all wireless Matrix Tests made by the character. Lookin' forward to the recruitment thread.
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Jan 29, 2011 19:46
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Mystic Mongol posted:As for Russian Roulette--nah. quote:Did I mention physical drain can be healed with magic? quote:Neither Stun nor Physical damage resulting from Drain can be healed by magical means such as sorcery or spirit powers. quote:Taking out the threat of Lonestar or Knight Errant just blasting someone to poo poo because he has spells that blow through their armor and are guaranteed to work is kind of BS. I like combat in my games to be threatening, but I want my players to eventually overcome the odds. I don't really want "Stunball!" and then the poo poo is done. An armored transport spewing goons loaded with AKs now means absolutely nothing, and that just irks the poo poo out of me. Second, the armored transport of goons is still a threat. A mage can only cast spells on what he can see. If the goons are picking out targets through one-way glass and firing through pintle mounts or turrets, the mage can't target anyone inside the transport. Or you could just have a mage hanging out inside the transport with the goons all hopped-up on Nitro or Kamikaze to steel their wills against magic. If they do leave, they live in 2070, they know how magic works, and will spread out to avoid all getting blown up by one spell or grenade.
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Jan 29, 2011 21:40
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Gobbeldygook posted:Second, the armored transport of goons is still a threat. A mage can only cast spells on what he can see. If the goons are picking out targets through one-way glass and firing through pintle mounts or turrets, the mage can't target anyone inside the transport. Or you could just have a mage hanging out inside the transport with the goons all hopped-up on Nitro or Kamikaze to steel their wills against magic. If they do leave, they live in 2070, they know how magic works, and will spread out to avoid all getting blown up by one spell or grenade. Alternately, all the low-level goons have area cranial bombs tied to biometers, and force 12 Stunballs could cause overflow...
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Jan 29, 2011 22:01
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Gobbeldygook posted:Might have wanted to check errata in the past couple of years. Oh, did they fix that? Thank god. You could never clean up drain in previous editions, I don't know why they decided to change it in 4e but going back is 100% right. Still, spending a point of edge and taking two wounds to get a force ten spirit to do the run for you? Deal. And when you've got a giant water elemental mulching security teams for you, you don't need to overcast spells. Mostly what you need is a folding chair and a lemonade. E: Looks like you can still cure drain damage with first aid? And a rating six first aid kit is cheap. Plus, it takes a single complex action. Mystic Mongol fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 22:27
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children overboard posted:Also, in addition to discussing Shadowrun, we should play Shadowrun! Who's up for a PBP? I will run a PBP if there is interest here (I tried to run a maptool game a while ago but we couldn't schedule enough people to get on at the same time, so it died). Throw up a recruiting thread, Between interest posted here and those that don't read this thread, I'm sure there will be enough for a game.
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Jan 29, 2011 23:01
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I'd also be interested in a PbP game.
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Jan 29, 2011 23:34
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Okay, thread's here. Ended up scrapping the Chiba idea for something I liked better! http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385482
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Jan 30, 2011 05:45
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Anyone who is looking for a pbp game, this one just started needs a few more players: Recruiting thread Game thread
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Feb 8, 2011 07:23
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ltr posted:Anyone who is looking for a pbp game, this one just started needs a few more players: Pre-Crash wankery =  I mean if the Crash and Technomancers and poo poo rub you the wrong way you really should just make it a 3rd ed game.
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Feb 8, 2011 07:58
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Aww, c'mon. You can have fun pre-crash. I bet you could run a drat fine Bug City game in 4e, fer example.
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Feb 8, 2011 10:17
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I'm not denying that you can have fun pre-Crash, but the background of 4th is so tied into the mechanics w/r/t hacking that changing the background completely fucks it up. Also, 3rd ed was okay if you kept an eye on your players to make sure no one was lost, gently caress the haters.
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Feb 8, 2011 10:29
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Let's talk Pink Mohawk plot ideas. My first time GM'ing Shadowrun 4E (or any SR for that matter) was sort of a failure. People liked the setting (ice pro/gutterpunk setting in Hamburg), but the repetitious cycle of run-legwork-run-run was too boring for the players (me too, for that matter. We switched GM now and again, and I didn't find playing that enjoyable either) - reading about the crazy git who had a cloned Hitler in his campaign got me thinking about what I like about SR and how I can reapproach the setting. So I'm thinking about writing an entire prefab campaign of the Pink Mohawk persuasian. My own draw to the setting has always been the crazy rear end shenanigans that come into existance when tweaked-out punks with magic and cyber pull out all stops against the machinations of dragons, mad sects and evil conspiracies - I got into it by reading Black Madonna, and the whole Dan Brown-on-acid-versus-the-loving-Pope thing got me hooked. So, what are some good ideas for a whimsical, balls-out crazy campaign? Both ideas for individual runs, twists on the existing run types we all know and love/hate or suggestions for overarching campaign plots are welcome. E: I can't remember who wrote it, but someone itt also had a campaign involving a C6 golem, riding a magic something-or-other to drop a loving oricalchum-enhanced tacnuke on a volcano.. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about! Tias fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Feb 8, 2011 |
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Feb 8, 2011 20:12
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Tias posted:E: I can't remember who wrote it, but someone itt also had a campaign involving a C6 golem, riding a magic something-or-other to drop a loving oricalchum-enhanced tacnuke on a volcano.. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about! PierreTheMime posted:Our gaming group has been running Shadowrun since the release of 3rd Edition and contained it in the same game-world this entire time. Needless to say there's a lot of history (and mystery, what with the 10-year jump from the 2060s to 2070s). I'm super-pumped about the current Shadowrun story-arc "finale" we're currently undergoing. As of the last game our "heroes", along with Caimbuel Harlech and 200 Orc underground members wielding cheaply-purchased antique AK47s, are riding a spirit-driven flying platform out to Mount Rainier to confront a powerful horror that is performing a ritual at the top of the mountain and has driven the entire city of Seattle into chaos. The players may have completely enabled him by stealing various powerful artifacts for him (including the Spear of Destiny). While there's plenty of room in Shadowrun for corporate cyber-warfare and more "normal" events, never doubt that runners are capable of battling anything with the power of magic, hacking, and one or more machineguns. We, as a gaming-group, were under constant threat of our 3rd Ed. GM of a run to assassinate the pope. An Emperor Palpatine pope with an army cybersoldiers.
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Feb 8, 2011 21:36
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