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Cythereal posted:We were hired to do some feng shui adjustment on an office building. And no, not this office building. The neighboring ones. Roof pass, please.
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Jun 2, 2021 00:12
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Since astral perception is likened to something like a really fuzzy synesthetic experience of spiritual presences, but not material ones, and that outside of it ghouls are genuinely blind, such that our pal can't aim a gun, I wonder how good he's actually going to be at physical combat given that sight is also pretty important there. That's just my round of "groan, hand to hand isn't that easy", just ignore it. Also the proper way to bring around an assault cannon or recoilless rifle is to say "The big box? The boss's daughter found that the tankless water heater in her room was messing with her crystal alignments, we're bringing a solution to that." Works well enough.
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Jun 2, 2021 00:16
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That's all entirely true, but Gaichu is a Blind Swordsman and thus succeeds through rule of cool.
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Jun 2, 2021 00:37
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Stroth posted:Also "Why the gently caress do you have an assault cannon?" Cythereal posted:We were hired to do some feng shui adjustment on an office building. For those who may be unaware, this actually happened in Hong Kong: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hsbc-building-feng-shui-cannons
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Jun 2, 2021 01:32
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Xander77 posted:I wonder whether Gaichu is going to be capable of taking down a full SWAT team on his own now that he's a playable character. Stay tuned for an utterly shocking conclusion. To be fair shadowrunners in general tend to run over most corporate security, so killing a SWAT team is not wholly beyond the realm of belief even if he never pulls it off again under our control. I do like in-setting the standard police reaction to shadowrunners is "scared shitless" since their average combat experience of "beat up terrified orks or other minorities" means very little to somebody with automatic weapons, explosives, killing magic, and/or special forces training. Also SINless, which often means coming from backgrounds where they were some of the folks constantly beaten by police (and thus probably happy for payback) or being disavowed uber-elites with zero reluctance to kill. Definitely SWAT is about the minimum they'll deliberately send to engage runners, because the main danger to runners from your average beat cop is him hitting the radio and getting his buddies after you forever before he gets annihilated. I imagine when they can get away with it (i.e. they aren't trying to "make a point" by publicly bringing the runners down) the preferred method to wipe out runners by the police would be hiring other runners to do the job, why risk casualties to your biggest assets? SIGSEGV posted:Since astral perception is likened to something like a really fuzzy synesthetic experience of spiritual presences, but not material ones, and that outside of it ghouls are genuinely blind, such that our pal can't aim a gun, I wonder how good he's actually going to be at physical combat given that sight is also pretty important there. I seem to recall astral perception, at least for paracreatures like ghouls, is more than just vaguely sensing, they can see people clearly enough. I presume it has some range limit on useful perception (hence the firearms issue), and I believe low Essence people like your average ultra-cybered street sam are kind of fuzzy. Other likely issue is I think normally clear objects like windows are opaque in astral vision, so no aiming through a scope either. No colors or fine details for non-living objects either. But for pure "slicing somebody up with a sword", Gaichu should be just fine I believe since anybody he can tag with a blade should be visible to him. Might even be easier since regular visibility modifiers like darkness or smoke and the like won't bother him a bit. Admittedly a lot of sane ghouls that can do it will solve the problem by getting cybereyes, which since they work with your essence let them use them to see properly. Getting a surgeon to willing operate on a cannibalistic monster that could infect them and turn them into one of said monsters also is... a somewhat difficult matter to arrange though, even with street docs.
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Jun 2, 2021 01:33
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Yeah solid objects that are transparent to light are usually opaque to astral perception, so that's definitely a thing that would make using a scope kind of an issue
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Jun 2, 2021 02:38
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Hwurmp posted:you shouldn't compare present-day reality to cyberpunk fiction as a rule because it's too similar
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Jun 2, 2021 03:02
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JustJeff88 posted:because it's too similar  joke.
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Jun 2, 2021 03:03
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girl dick energy posted:Yes, exactly. That's the I genuinely wasn't sure, because I know sod all about the setting apart from what I've learned in these LPs. Apologies for killing the joke, Hwurmp.
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Jun 2, 2021 03:06
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Fun side note: Their dual-natured existence means ghouls are real handy for dealing with insect spirits.Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:Yeah, APDS rounds are military grade stuff. It's not gonna be carried around by some random traffic cop. I think they're harder to source than explosive rounds, which are already not something you find at the average sporting goods store (even considering the sort of things you'll encounter if you go hunting in Shadowrun). I think the only type of ammo that's even more restricted than APDS rounds is depleted uranium rounds, which might be a literal war crime to use in the SR universe. Good luck getting your hands on it though. Either you have some *serious* arms dealing connections or you know a very good and specialized machinist to make the bullets individually. For the curious, rarity in 5th edition is governed by the Availability system. Each piece of equipment is assigned a number value and a letter code of R, F, or nothing. The higher the number, the rarer it is meant to be. R means its restricted and you better have a (fake) license for it (and not try to carry it onto a plane or into a courthouse). F means it's forbidden and is just straight up illegal for almost everyone. Don't get caught. Nothing means it's legal goods that anyone can theoretically buy off the shelf. The books are careful to note that the numbers given reflect rarity and legality in Seattle specifically, so if you've got a campaign in Havana, Atlanta, or Lagos you should adjust accordingly (or don't, lazy copying is the secret to happy GMing). Availability also somewhat limits what you can take at character creation, with you being limited to items with Availability 12 or lower. Want to buy a piece of gear? If it has a rating, you need to find it. This is done by using the availability number as a dice pool to roll against your or your contact's Negotiation + Charisma pool. Regular ammo is rated 2R, so odds are pretty good that you can get it by scoring just one hit (a 5 or 6) on your test. APDS is a 12F (seriously, don't get caught), so on average you're going to need to be rolling 4 hits or better. If you're willing to pay a hefty surcharge, you can get more dice to represent the doors opened by throwing money at a problem. There's also a whole system for how long an item takes to get as determined by its value range and the net hits you got, but I seriously draw the line at players having to keep a loving calendar YEAH THAT'S RIGHT I'M LOOKING AT YOU ADDICTION AND TRAINING RULES 
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Jun 2, 2021 03:28
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Because ghouls can see an invested insect spirit in someone? Or is there more they are capable of against insect spirits in particular?
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Jun 2, 2021 03:51
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Broken Box posted:Because ghouls can see an invested insect spirit in someone? Or is there more they are capable of against insect spirits in particular? They can, theoretically, harm True Form insect spirits that are highly resistant to mundane damage. But they'd have to be using their bare hands and teeth to do so. A mage or an adept with a magic sword is a much better bet.
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Jun 2, 2021 03:55
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MadDogMike posted:Yeah, I'm impressed the clues were there for people who knew the setting. Certainly was persuasive enough as a theory to make me go "eww" when Taz grabbed a bite of the meal even before the actual reveal.
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Jun 2, 2021 04:51
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I've always found that if the description is "It looks like pork" but they don't say "it is pork" its always human flesh.
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Jun 2, 2021 06:10
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Xander77 posted:I wonder whether Gaichu is going to be capable of taking down a full SWAT team on his own now that he's a playable character. Stay tuned for an utterly shocking conclusion. This is the subject of the critically acclaimed Rutger Hauer movie "Blind Fury".
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Jun 2, 2021 10:44
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The Lone Badger posted:They can, theoretically, harm True Form insect spirits that are highly resistant to mundane damage. But they'd have to be using their bare hands and teeth to do so. A mage or an adept with a magic sword is a much better bet. Well, that’s good. Just so long as the insect spirits don’t get turned into ghouls and start hungering for
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Jun 2, 2021 12:35
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Not only can they harm the bugs, but the bodies of people the Bugs have taken over still have enough metahuman essence to sustain ghouls. There are communities of ghouls and others with HMVV in the bug infested ruins of Chicago, surviving by hunting the insects. Edit: Or there will be, we may not be there yet in the timeline. Servetus fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jun 2, 2021 |
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Jun 2, 2021 13:13
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The Lone Badger posted:They can, theoretically, harm True Form insect spirits that are highly resistant to mundane damage. But they'd have to be using their bare hands and teeth to do so. A mage or an adept with a magic sword is a much better bet. There's a lot more ghouls than magicians  And yeah they should be able to see invested spirits as well, though the masking metamagic works just as well on them as anyone.
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Jun 2, 2021 14:17
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I had heard/read about Gaichu a little before but somehow I was under the illusion that he was like an ancient ghoul Samurai from actual ancient Japanese times or something like that, not semi-recent Also I hope his melee focus doesn't mean he starts rendering us useless, even if we have a little magic on our side.
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Jun 2, 2021 14:46
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I remember absolutely nothing about Gaichu in terms of combat performance but that's probably because I was playing a fairly optimised troll physad and I'm sure that Kanfy is going to show how that turns out
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Jun 2, 2021 15:20
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Kanfy posted:It's definitely an interesting design choice, Blitz and Racter were both likewise optional of course, but they're introduced almost from the start and you have to very purposefully refuse their help for them not to join. In Gaichu's case a strict roleplayer for example might just kill him right away before the option even comes up, and as you say the Whampoa job itself doesn't stand out from the list of runs in any way beyond being listed first in the menu, so it's entirely possible to do it way late in the game without ever realizing there's a fully fledged companion you've been missing out on. First, time I played, this is literally the last mission i did before triggering the endgame. It was cool to have a mission randomly end with recruiting a bonus runner, but obviously I wasn't happy to find it so late in the game. Fortunately, I was playing a punch troll, so I probably wouldn't have used him much even if I found him early. The PC was already filling his team roll. I dont know fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Jun 2, 2021 |
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Jun 2, 2021 16:09
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Taz is definitely too interested in non-violent interaction to ever be fully optimized but yeah, a well-built player character pretty much always end up outshining crew members and this is certainly no exception. As has been said an actual powergamer would probably bench Gaichu permanently since the dedicated melee role is already taken, but that's not a concern in this LP and we'll happily be blade buddies with him whenever people want to bring him along.
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Jun 2, 2021 16:12
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raverrn posted:This is the subject of the critically acclaimed Rutger Hauer movie "Blind Fury". Which was quite a decent and underrated movie, and I'd like to point out that Mr. Hauer's combat tactics against people with firearms heavily feature the advanced kata known as Don't -- where at all possible he breaks contact and avoids them altogether; when that's not an option he relies on situational awareness to keep out of LOS until he can get close. As someone in the movie points out, that fancy butter knife won't stop a bullet. And he's right, it doesn't.
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Jun 2, 2021 16:58
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Gaichu and my Punch Adept synergized really well, but I was playing on just regular hard difficulty IIRC. There was one mission that ended up being a massive bloodbath with Gaichu and Punch Girl surrounded by dead bodies at the end.
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Jun 2, 2021 17:07
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paragon1 posted:For the curious, rarity in 5th edition is governed by the Availability system. Each piece of equipment is assigned a number value and a letter code of R, F, or nothing. The higher the number, the rarer it is meant to be. R means its restricted and you better have a (fake) license for it (and not try to carry it onto a plane or into a courthouse). F means it's forbidden and is just straight up illegal for almost everyone. Don't get caught. Nothing means it's legal goods that anyone can theoretically buy off the shelf. The books are careful to note that the numbers given reflect rarity and legality in Seattle specifically, so if you've got a campaign in Havana, Atlanta, or Lagos you should adjust accordingly (or don't, lazy copying is the secret to happy GMing). Availability also somewhat limits what you can take at character creation, with you being limited to items with Availability 12 or lower.
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Jun 2, 2021 18:41
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RabidWeasel posted:I remember absolutely nothing about Gaichu in terms of combat performance but that's probably because I was playing a fairly optimised troll physad and I'm sure that Kanfy is going to show how that turns out On my playthrough I used him a lot like how Kanfy (offensively) used Glory in the last game: a way to quickly and efficiently flush people out of cover
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Jun 2, 2021 20:18
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Gaichu's combat style best described from my experience using him: Miss Miss Miss Hi- nah, just kidding. Missed again
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Jun 3, 2021 03:16
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GhostStalker posted:My GM just let me get APDS ammo (plus Explosive rounds) with no problems because my Street Sam’s day job was as a gunsmith, so synergy! i dmed sr for half a decade off and on and never used those damned rules once
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Jun 3, 2021 03:37
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FoolyCharged posted:Gaichu's combat style best described from my experience using him: Guess that blindness was a bigger problem than we thought
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Jun 3, 2021 04:09
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Yeah..... I never liked using Gaichu in combat. I feel like they WAY undershot his stats for what his introduction apparently has him doing.
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Jun 3, 2021 04:22
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HK is easy enough that you mostly pick for content rather than the best possible team, although Kanfy did fix the difficulty curve to be much harsher on him.
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Jun 3, 2021 07:18
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I never really had a problem with Gaichu’s attacks missing a lot. I liked using him a lot.
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Jun 3, 2021 07:23
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I played as a mage when I last ran through Hong Kong, which meant Duncan and Gaichu both got a decent amount of work for me.
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Jun 3, 2021 08:41
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In the Epilogue there's a couple of missions you can kinda run full melee with melee PC, Gaichu, Racter with melee-spec Koschei, and full-nonlethal Duncan. It's pretty entertaining but I'm not sure how viable it is with the difficulty up.
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Jun 3, 2021 10:48
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Alright let's dial it back a little bit here, we are still lightyears away from the bonus campaign and don't know anything about its nature at this stage. Let's stick to the present when it comes to any specific mission content.
Kanfy fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Jun 3, 2021 |
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Jun 3, 2021 10:52
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I'll admit, I hammed up his accuracy a bit. The person who said they used him like glory was pretty accurate. I feel like the hit rate was pretty similarly bad. The big difference between the two is that glory has her pile of medkits and revive kits whereas gaichu has some interesting combat moves that I won't steal kanfy's thunder on, so gaichu lacks a solid, reliable action option.
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Jun 3, 2021 13:38
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Anyone else want to see Gaichu vs. Daredevil in a Marvel Shadowrun crossover fanfic?
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Jun 3, 2021 13:44
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One would think that a melee-range character would be inherently more accurate than a ranged one.
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Jun 3, 2021 16:32
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I think the primary issue is that being a melee character means that every attack has significantly higher stakes. As a ranged attacker, if you miss, oh well. You're still behind cover, life goes on. If you're in melee and you miss, your rear end is hanging out in the open in perfect position for immediate reprisal. So even if melee characters miss less often, when they do miss, you notice and remember.
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Jun 3, 2021 16:37
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| # ? May 29, 2024 22:37 |
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FoolyCharged posted:Gaichu's combat style best described from my experience using him: Ah, the Eiger Effect.
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Jun 3, 2021 17:25
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