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Thread: General Shadowrun Questions
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2015-04-05, 06:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
[QUOTE=Rakoa;19065911
How the heck is anyone expected to survive this? Did I miss a rule somewhere?[/QUOTE]
The best defence is to shoot the other guy in the face first (or with a Troll get a Mage to Stunbolt him)All Comicshorse's posts come with the advisor : This is just my opinion any difficulties arising from implementing my ideas are your own problem
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2015-04-05, 07:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Shadowrun is a game of rocket tag, a troll can, if lucky, survive a couple of rounds from most weapons, slightly more with augmentation, but your best defences are armour and cover, except for one very specific adept build that gets 20+ dodge dice. But most of the time you'll be relying on good armour, and cover.
Bare in mind that this isn't significantly more deadly than a troll with an Assault Cannon or Machine Gun, this is effectively an overkill saving tactic. To create a character who can survive it, I can think of two ways:
1) adept, Magic 6, improved reflexes 3, combat sense 5, Reaction 6 (9 with IR) and 4+ Willpower gives 9+5=14 dice when dodging, and they probably have a high enough intuition to hit 26+ initiative fairly often, likely going first, and can drop their initiative to gain another 4+ dice on every defence test.
2) troll, exceptional attribute (body), 11 body, heavy military armour, gives IIRC about 25+ soak. Also gives 14 physical HP, with each cyberlimb pushing it up by one.
My actual suggestion for efficiently dealing with such a character is an elf, agility 6, reaction 6, strength 5, intuition 6, heavy weapons 6, muscle augmentation 3 muscle toner 3, cerebral booster 2, and the biggest heavy weapon they can afford and carry, I suggest a MMG. This gives an initiative of 14+3d6, average 25, as well as a defence pool of 14, and 15 dice on an attack with their heavy weapon. It's also technically a legal starting character, just like the suggested adept. If a player tries to play this and you need a counter, I suggest an Ork ninja with a Highland Forge Claymore, it deals enough damage to reliably one shot an elf (including overflow if they have less than 10 armour) as I discovered.
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2015-04-05, 11:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2013
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Thanks for the replies! The main reason I asked was because I was going to put the party of runners up against a heavily-armoured Troll with a nasty Assault Rifle, then I got into the rules and now I'm thinking that the four of them would last four rounds.
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2015-04-05, 11:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2014
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
I'm not sure about 5e, but in 4e the extra damage value given by auto fire doesn't contribute to piercing armor. If the guy you're shooting has an armor value of 10, that 16P doesn't matter, all that matters is the damage from each bullet as well as net hits. So it's generally likely that an automatic weapon is still going to fill stun boxes first if the target has proper armor, as opposed to a big ass sniper rifle.
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2015-04-06, 08:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
More like 2.
To counter that kind of enemy you need vision when the opposition doesn't. Let your players hack cameras or otherwise get some image feed of the crazily armored madman going their way. Then, once warned in advance, they can play smart and lay traps, grenades, indirect fire, etc... Also try to keep open a way for them to do the smart thing and just avoid the encounter altogether. That would be the reaction of most shadowrun teams I've seen. Actually in the game I'll have to GM soon, I'm pretty sure that if I whip out your mayhem troll, my players will try to avoid fighting him (or her, would be funnier) at all costs. One caveat though is to leave a way out explicitely opened. In a number of shadowrun games I've been in we were quite often pitted against overwhelming opposition as the GM wanted us to do the smart thing and avoid the enemies. As we didn't see that there was a way around, we had to plow through the unbalanced encounters. When we proved awesome at that the guards, all the guards, hell even the security from a damn dentist were given paramilitary training, assault rifles, my grenade launcher was nerfed, nerfed, nerfed and nerfed to the ground. And then drones were introduced. Subsequently dice were fudged on his part, edged was burned on ours and fits were had all around.
Never underestimate the tactical value of a mission control sending a crypted overlay with an escape path.
Barring that, hiding behind reinforced walls as cover does wonder. Or sending a spirit to duke it out with the troll.Last edited by Alberic Strein; 2015-04-06 at 08:26 AM.
I'm here to kick ass and call you names... And I'm not very witty.
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2015-04-06, 04:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2014
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
One thing I'll add (4e again, I dunno if this is still applicable but I assume so) is that you'd be amazed how useful true Stun damage is. One encounter the GM sent one of those Infected trolls with the rocky faces (zoo doo something or whatever, I forget), wearing military grade armor sans helmet. I, as the sniper, was plinking away at his head with a .50 cal, but thanks to several layers of ridiculousness the GM had built into this character, it wasn't going down...thing negated 9 boxes of damage flat with Adeptness, armor, augments, racial bonuses, etc, and had great Body scores to neutralize more as well as a ridiculous Physical damage bar. Someone finally hit on the idea of deliberately KO'ing it since straight hurting it wasn't working...a few flashbangs later, this thing (which didn't have a spectacular Willpower save) was on the ground. Then I simply pressed the barrel of my rifle to its neck and pulled the trigger.
The lesson here is that just because an enemy is bulletproof doesn't mean the runners can't take it down another way. I'd advise against the clichéd set-piece videogame cop-outs like "Oh, by the way there's a crane with a shipping crate on it that just so happens to swing right over the thing, but give them room to work. And as long as you don't go down the list of everything they could do and work against it, you have.
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2015-04-06, 06:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
I don't know 2E/3E terminology, but that sounds a lot like creating a valid account. It's certainly an action you can take, but you'd have to be hacked pretty far in already to have the authority. There's no Validate program in 4E; what I'm thinking of is (I believe) just a function of the Edit program.
Not only are Stun tracks usually smaller and Willpower usually lower, leaving other combatants alive is frequently the better choice anyway. Murder+theft calls down the heat much more than theft alone.
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2015-04-07, 12:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Aside from "have fun", i think the key to GMing is putting your players into situations where they need to make a choice that has no perfect outcome available. They will hate you for it, but they will be back at the table session after session.
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2015-04-07, 07:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2011
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Oh, sure. You still need to sleaze your way onto the host, and beat the control attribute before you can plant your password. Which get's harder the more powerful a password you want to have.
I agree with this, too. Don't kill anyone you're not being paid to. Unless they're a toxic or insect shaman. Then kill them.Last edited by Lord Torath; 2015-04-07 at 07:39 AM.
Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season
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2015-04-07, 08:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Also, burn the body. It's in the best interests of "Extraterritorial Security".
Stun is definitely my preferred method of taking targets down. Though there are those rare occasions when you 'over-stun' someone and it spills over onto their lethal damage track... and kills them anyway.
(Two incidents that I recall: One with my mage overcasting a stunbolt, another with the team streetsam mowing someone down with a gel-filled machine pistol)
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2015-04-07, 08:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Or you just funnel them in another area of the city. Start an extortion racket.
Yeah, this stuff is why my next character is a/an policeman/MI5 agent/ex-policeman with a machine pistol and stick-n-shock rounds, rapid fire stun is the fastest way to take down an ork or troll, and a good many GMs forget non conductivity (which is why I point out stick-n-shocks to all new GMs). And unlike a pure combat build I'll have useful investigative skills.
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2015-04-07, 08:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
All Comicshorse's posts come with the advisor : This is just my opinion any difficulties arising from implementing my ideas are your own problem
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2015-04-07, 11:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2014
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Also, the ridiculous Troll unarmed adept my GM gave me as a pregen, since my character wasn't done the first game.
Even when I didn't use Killing Hands, the poor saps still took about half a track's worth of Physical damage. It was gruesome.
As his unconscious body bounced into the street, trailing blood, I opted to shout after him "Shoulda been a troll!"
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2015-04-07, 06:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2014
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
The gun adept in my 4e game, on a mission where they were kidnapp..."rendering extraordinarily" an exec so he could be coerced to sign divorce papers for his wife, turned and, instead of, say, telling her to hit the floor, shot the exec's new soulmate with a stick'n'shock round.
Rolled all 2 dice from her Body to resist, and of course she snake-eyed. The party mage was able to save her, but only just.
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2015-04-08, 02:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2014
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2015-04-08, 03:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2007
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
It wasn't the recoil that worried me, it was more the potential ricochet from firing a weapon like that essentially into the ground at your feet.
Aside from "have fun", i think the key to GMing is putting your players into situations where they need to make a choice that has no perfect outcome available. They will hate you for it, but they will be back at the table session after session.
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2015-04-08, 07:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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- In my library
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
I may be playing in a game of 4e soon, and as I've only played 5e before, I have a couple of questions:
1) how do initiative passes work? Because the synaptic booster says it adds to them.
2) is there any way to make a pistol user competitive in combat, or should I just go for a machine pistol/SMG? I'm intending to play a cyber-based elven bounty hunter who uses a single pistol. Currently going Agility 7, Pistols 6, muscle toner 3 to get 16 dice in my pool, in addition to the 11-13 in my dodge pool.
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2015-04-08, 10:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2014
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
1) Unlike in D&D, where a round of initiative has people each go once through the initiative list, Shadowrun has initiative passes, basically meaning someone with more than 1 IP can act more than once each round. So, let's say we're looking like this:
Regular guy: 1 IP, rolls an initiative of 8
Drug guy: 2 IP from taking Jazz, rolls an initiative of 10
Cyber-samurai: 3 IP, rolls an initiative of 20 (welcome to shadowrun)
Adept: 2 IP, rolls an initiative of 11.
Here's what one round looks like (at least according to my GM, I think there are some houserules at work here)
Cyber-samurai
Adept
Drug guy
Regular guy
Cyber-samurai
Adept
Drug guy
Cyber-samurai
And now it's a new round.
As you can see, extra initiative passes are great. Not as hilarious as they were in 3e, where the cyber-samurai rolls some hilarious number for initiative and then it looks like-
Cyber-samurai
Cyber-samurai
Cyber-samurai
Cyber-samurai
Cyber-samurai
...the dead guys?
As for your second question, I rather recommend dual-wielding pistols. It may split your dice pool, but the Ambidextrous quality takes away the penalty, and with the dice pool you're rolling it's not a horrible thing to split. Also, you can either go for a big gun or a fast gun to compensate, as well as use Tasers, because as discussed above Stun damage is actually pretty great.
Also, a minor thing: the Dodge skill does not apply to bullets unless you take a Full Defense action. But you can take Combat Sense as an adept which does boost your Reaction check in defense, even against projectiles. Be an adept unless you're a cybernut, adeptitude is great. Even if it's not a word. It's not even necessarily mutually exclusive. As long as your Essence is still above 2 or so, you can still benefit from 2 magic points' worth of adept abilities, there are a lot that are just .25 or .5 that are pretty cool.
As I said it to the GM, I looked him in the eyes and specified it was at a safe angle. Because sometimes this guy screws with people when he knows they just forgot something important.
"I walk towards the safe."
"...you just walk right up to the safe?"
"...yes?"
"Ok, you tripped the laser tripwire that you forgot was there."
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2015-04-08, 11:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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- In my library
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
So it's basically separate from initiative, instead of them both being rolled into one as in 5e? that's cool.
As for your second question, I rather recommend dual-wielding pistols. It may split your dice pool, but the Ambidextrous quality takes away the penalty, and with the dice pool you're rolling it's not a horrible thing to split. Also, you can either go for a big gun or a fast gun to compensate, as well as use Tasers, because as discussed above Stun damage is actually pretty great.
Also, a minor thing: the Dodge skill does not apply to bullets unless you take a Full Defense action. But you can take Combat Sense as an adept which does boost your Reaction check in defense, even against projectiles. Be an adept unless you're a cybernut, adeptitude is great. Even if it's not a word. It's not even necessarily mutually exclusive. As long as your Essence is still above 2 or so, you can still benefit from 2 magic points' worth of adept abilities, there are a lot that are just .25 or .5 that are pretty cool.
I considered going adept, but I'm not sure how augmentation effects it in 4e (if I have 4 magic and go from 6 essence to 5, does my magic go to 3?). I don't want to go dual-wielding pistols, so my actual build will probably end up depending on how well my fellow players grasp the system, maybe leaning more towards a hacker/technomancer as I have a feeling that the rest of the group will be going combat (which is why I want to make pistols competitive), with the bounty hunter ready incase they need a combat guy.
I considered tasers, but in the end I'm willing to shell out the money for stick-n-shocks instead (wow, they are so much better than in 5e, I'm considering just taking them and a light pistol).
Do you know where I can find a 4e sheet with a gear section? Because the two I've found don't have one.
Anyway, my current plan for statlines is:
Bounty Hunter: elf; B 3, A 5/8; R 5/7; S 3, C 5, I 4, L3, W 3; various cop/bounty hunting skills.
Technomancer: human; B 3, A 3, R 3, S 2, C 4, I 5, L 4, W 3, Res 5; various 'techie' skills and complex forms.
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2015-04-08, 12:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2008
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
So there was this one adventure where the team was being paid to deliver a small box from one end of Denver to the other, no questions asked, within a specific amount of time. At some point they stop by a stuffer shack for snacks. The team rigger is hot-simmed into her vehicle, listening on police bands to get an idea of where cops are and planning a route around them. The technomancer is helping out with this project from the passenger seat. The sniper in the back seat of the car meanwhile is hitting on the team's mage.
The gun adept picks a fight with some gangers in the shack after a... colorful exchange about their respective choice of attire. It was a short fight that spilled outside, but somewhere along the line the adept dropped a riot grenade and it rolled under the car. The rigger freaks out and tries to pull out of the parking spot while the sniper (at the same time) attempts to reach under the car and kick the grenade away. It ends with me calculating how much damage an open car door does to one's face and the rigger screaming painful obscenities through the car horn.
...I forget why I'm reminded of this from your post, but it was a funny moment in my mind.
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2015-04-08, 12:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2008
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2015-04-08, 02:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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- Boston, MA
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
It does take up an action. By the way, dual-wielding pistols lets you get off four shots per Initiative Phase -- even four long or short bursts, if you can handle the recoil. Left+Right with one Simple Action, Left+Right with another Simple Action. And the target's defense decreases by 1 for every attack aimed at them, so even with you splitting your die pool, you're increasingly likely to score some net hits.
Exactly that, yes. If your Essence drops from 6 to 5.95, your magic goes to 3, in fact. But it doesn't drop again until you're below 5.
If you have access to Arsenal, the best electrical damage available is a Defiance taser modded to semiautomatic fire ... though its range is pretty short. The Ruger Thunderbolt is also a great choice, and the Morrisey Elan is the ultimate in sneaky (with no drawback in terms of damage if you're using stick-n-shock). With just the basic book, the Yamaha rapidfiring light pistol is strong thanks to a burstfire mode with very little recoil.
myth-weavers.com isn't terrible. Not a lot of space for any one thing, but you can actually re-label the boxes at the bottom and put in more detail about your choices there. Look at this character I have in an ongoing game for an example -- of the six boxes from "Description" to "Horseman Mods", only one of those was originally labeled the way it appears now.
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2015-04-08, 05:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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- In my library
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Well, it's also how I normally use it in 5th, but that's because I'm used to people running fast characters, and it makes my bookkeeping easier. If I was in a group of only 4 PCs again, I'd probably run it by the book, although I actually like fast characters destroying slower characters (although I've never seen anyone get more than 3 turns, but I assume the more out there adept builds do fairly regularly).
That's... actually cool enough that I'm considering it (either with the cyber or a reflexed out adept), although my dicepool dropped to 13 dice, I think a 7 die shot and a 6 die shot should still give me on average every other hit.
Exactly that, yes. If your Essence drops from 6 to 5.95, your magic goes to 3, in fact. But it doesn't drop again until you're below 5.
If you have access to Arsenal, the best electrical damage available is a Defiance taser modded to semiautomatic fire ... though its range is pretty short. The Ruger Thunderbolt is also a great choice, and the Morrisey Elan is the ultimate in sneaky (with no drawback in terms of damage if you're using stick-n-shock). With just the basic book, the Yamaha rapidfiring light pistol is strong thanks to a burstfire mode with very little recoil.
myth-weavers.com isn't terrible. Not a lot of space for any one thing, but you can actually re-label the boxes at the bottom and put in more detail about your choices there. Look at this character I have in an ongoing game for an example -- of the six boxes from "Description" to "Horseman Mods", only one of those was originally labeled the way it appears now.
EDIT: another question, can a character be both a technomancer and an adept/magician/mystic adept? I know it would be an extremely weak character, and probably impossible RAW in all editions except 4e, but I'm just wondering. I've always seen technomancers as 'matrix mages', although I know that's just because I like to see magic evolve to fit with cultures.
Thanks for the pistol advice, but if the GM okays it, I'll be playing Snow, an Anglo-Chinese technomancer. Some of the advice on pistols might make it into the character, but I want to play around with technomancers and fill out a roll the other players will likely ignore.
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2015-04-08, 05:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2007
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- The DownUnderdark!
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Aside from "have fun", i think the key to GMing is putting your players into situations where they need to make a choice that has no perfect outcome available. They will hate you for it, but they will be back at the table session after session.
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2015-04-08, 05:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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- Boston, MA
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
Well, sure, but the troll's body had already proven nearly impervious, right? So by the time the slug managed to get all the way through that adamantine flesh, it had lost a lot of its oomph. The thing you really ought to be amazed about is that it managed to penetrate the troll at all, not that it caused a small explosion on the underside.
[/tongueincheek]
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2015-04-08, 08:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2014
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
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2015-04-08, 09:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
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- Bottom of a well
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
My in-person group has decided to play shadowrun 5e for at least several months coming up soon, and as such have been putting together characters.
I was the first to complete my character, using a form-fillable PDF for my records. Unfortunately, it can't be saved without freezing its state, and I don't want to record everything over again when I need to update her with new karma.
Double unfortunately, I accidentally closed the window without saving.
Anyone have a good, fillable 5e sheet? Also, any suggestions for good ocean pun based names for a runner?
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2015-04-08, 09:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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- In my library
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
These are the ones I use, but I don't know if they're the same ones, and I've never used a printed out sheet from them..
For names, remember that with runner names, the simpler but more unique names are generally better, so something like Wave or Tide? My current character goes by Snow, but that has nothing to do with her in any respect, except for being the literal translation of her name.
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2015-04-08, 10:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2008
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- Bottom of a well
Re: General Shadowrun Questions
That's the sheet I used. It won't let me save the data typed into it without rendering it uneditable...
Also, I figured that names like that are actually likely to be extremely non-unique... I was going for a one-to-two word pun, like "Shore-Thing." I had made a shaman in the past who specialized in remote reading locations and acting as mission control, and so went by "Spyrit" pronounced like Spy. Something creative (and so more likely to be unique) but a little silly (and therefore less likely to be imitated).
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2015-04-08, 10:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2009
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Re: General Shadowrun Questions
I get that, the only reason why my character has such a simple alias is because she uses her real name quite a bit (she's a SINner, going to take advantage of that). I'm not that good at thinking up puns though, so I can't help you there.
What .pdf program are you using? It may be a problem with the program and not the sheet, although I don't think that's likely. Can you explain the exact problem?