Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: summers307 on <03-17-13/1909:53>
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So one of the PC's in my group discovered that in the initial character creation, if he just buys all of his limbs as obvious cyberlimbs and an obvious torso, he can have amazing attributes AND armor (33 ballistic and 30 impact) just through those. The only drawback so far is that he has an amazingly low essence score, but he's a tank (almost literally) so he doesn't need it.
The problem is that not only is his armor way over the top, he hits like a howitzer with a light swing, He can be dog piled by 5 custom drones that I designed to be like ED209 from the Robocop, since he didn't have to spend any build points on attributes, he had 350 points into skills. Firearms, close combat, athletics, and even diplomacy WITH tailored pheramons so he can barter to make his cyberlimbs better
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I don't want to feel like I have to punish him for finding a way around the system and maximizing like a bawse, but I can't make a combat scenario that's difficult for him, and it's getting boring now having him roll along. He of course will not change characters and I hate it when PC's undermine the system so they can hog the spotlight.
I need creative drawbacks for heavy cyberlimbed PC's. Can cyberlimbs be targeted? How can I hurt them? Can they be hacked? CAN ANYONE HELP ME?!
Bonus challenge, if the choice can come from the core rulebook it would help even more.
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"Hello sir. Do you have a license for all that nice shiny chrome?"
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Make a spell that uses Essence as the resistance pool. Or even better, the threshold! ;)
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So one of the PC's in my group discovered that in the initial character creation, if he just buys all of his limbs as obvious cyberlimbs and an obvious torso, he can have amazing attributes AND armor (33 ballistic and 30 impact) just through those. The only drawback so far is that he has an amazingly low essence score, but he's a tank (almost literally) so he doesn't need it.
The problem is that not only is his armor way over the top, he hits like a howitzer with a light swing, He can be dog piled by 5 custom drones that I designed to be like ED209 from the Robocop, since he didn't have to spend any build points on attributes, he had 350 points into skills. Firearms, close combat, athletics, and even diplomacy WITH tailored pheramons so he can barter to make his cyberlimbs better
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I don't want to feel like I have to punish him for finding a way around the system and maximizing like a bawse, but I can't make a combat scenario that's difficult for him, and it's getting boring now having him roll along. He of course will not change characters and I hate it when PC's undermine the system so they can hog the spotlight.
I need creative drawbacks for heavy cyberlimbed PC's. Can cyberlimbs be targeted? How can I hurt them? Can they be hacked? CAN ANYONE HELP ME?!
Bonus challenge, if the choice can come from the core rulebook it would help even more.
You allowed the character into the game, so it's all your mistake. You should have just said "no" to the character before play began.
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Magic would probably defeat him with ease. If he didn't put points into Attributes, he wouldn't have much of a defense against, say an Influence spell.
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Megh he has lots of armor but I`ll bet he`s not had a good hard look at the knockdown rules or thought to up his body any?
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Spells. All you need is spells.
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First, let me say that Guns is completely correct. You are an idiot for letting that monster get into play. What you should have done is take a phone book, and beat the player with it until he stops trying to break the game.
Now that you have to clean up your mess, without thinking hard, here are my ways to beat the human tank:
Stunbolt/Manabolt - Watch the player's reaction when his walking tank gets taken down on the first initiative pass.
Control Thoughts/Actions, Influence - Watch the other players beat the offending player after the group gets wiped because someone had no Willpower to resist mental influence.
Demolish Cyberware spell - 'Nuff Said.
Gas grenades, full of your toxin of choice - Because cyberlimbs don't help against poison.
Hacker - Seriously, this guy is just BEGGING to be hacked.
Infected - Low essence, you say? Well, that will make him easy pickings for this vampire over here...
Bugs - The guy is likely to be overconfident. Turn that against him. Go to a meet, Stunbolt. He wakes up in a coccoon, and gets to sit there waiting to be invested while the rest of the group has to decide whether they save him or not.
Police/Corpsec - Check his license/SIN for the cyberware and weapons regularly, pretty much any time he's walking openly outside the Barrens. Just getting to a meet should have him stopped by the cops at least once. Treat the same as some idiot walking down the street in milspec armor.
Viruses - Viruses can be a lot of fun. Two really fun things would be one that inverts all his controls, so to move his right arm up he has to think about moving his left leg to the side, and so on, and one that makes Grimmy pop up and ask if he'd like help with every complex, standard, move, or free action he takes, EVERY SINGLE TIME, regardless of the settings. And he must answer verbally, every time, or it keeps asking, in his AR (set so others can see/hear it).
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Emp grenade or herf gun.... Big pile of metal ready to melt with a flamethrower spell would be my answer
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I will say magic... let him be possessed by a spirit and becoming a vilain bodyguard for a few sessions and let him find a way to free (stop) him himself.
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I would double-check the rules for cyberlimbs to be sure this character is kosher. At character creation, typically you have to make tough choices between armor and having decent Attributes (remember, each limb has to have Body, Strength, and Agility bought up separately for it, and you use the average for those). Plus, this guy will have little other 'ware, such as initiative boosters.
Others have already brought up magic (really, it is a vulnerability for any mundane character who is not a fomori with astral hazing), gas, and the fact that the character is very conspicuous. Hacking, not so much, really, unless he keeps the wireless active on his 'ware (most runners don't).
Full auto narrow bursts are good - he is not likely to dodge that well, and while it will still be stun, and he will probably soak most of it, it can still whittle him down. Don't be afraid to use sniper rifles or assault cannons against a character that logically would attract that kind of firepower. Obviously, the gang down the street isn't likely to have one, but people who know they are going up against the team that includes the full-cyber monster will plan appropriately.
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I would double-check the rules for cyberlimbs to be sure this character is kosher. At character creation, typically you have to make tough choices between armor and having decent Attributes (remember, each limb has to have Body, Strength, and Agility bought up separately for it, and you use the average for those). Plus, this guy will have little other 'ware, such as initiative boosters.
Others have already brought up magic (really, it is a vulnerability for any mundane character who is not a fomori with astral hazing), gas, and the fact that the character is very conspicuous. Hacking, not so much, really, unless he keeps the wireless active on his 'ware (most runners don't).
Full auto narrow bursts are good - he is not likely to dodge that well, and while it will still be stun, and he will probably soak most of it, it can still whittle him down. Don't be afraid to use sniper rifles or assault cannons against a character that logically would attract that kind of firepower. Obviously, the gang down the street isn't likely to have one, but people who know they are going up against the team that includes the full-cyber monster will plan appropriately.
The gang down the street could use improvised weapons very effectively. Paint to blind the target? Set him on fire even? Improvised explosive? Rope his feet with a chain and lift into the air? All ambush attacks of course.
However, the best answer, is to talk to the player and sort something between yourselfs. You mention that they are taking the spot light, is this impacting the enjoyment of other players? Are you only running combat missions where tanks will rock, or is their negotiations, investigation, stealthly break and enters, etc were the other players can shine?
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Nothing a little Control Thoughts can't fix.
"Kill your friends."
>: D
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Post the sheet. I have a feeling that not everything is entirely legitimate, and while I could be mistaken, it is certainly possible.
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Don't be afraid to use sniper rifles or assault cannons against a character that logically would attract that kind of firepower.
I'd be a little careful about simply attacking him with bigger guns, from a GMing standpoint. With some players - like the kind of player who'd create that character - that strategy can sometimes start an arms race between the player and GM which ups the general power level of the game in ways you might not want. Also, it wouldn't take him out of the spotlight, because those attacks are still within his area of expertise.
Quite aside from anything else, he might pick up the assault cannon at the end of the fight ;).
Attacking him with magic as others have said - especially with fairly innocuous, common spells that blatantly take advantage of his low attributes to work - or hacking is probably a much better strategy because a ) it will give him reasons to consider a more balanced character next time around and b ) it gives some of the other characters a chance to shine.
Turning a character's dumpstat against him using low-tech, easily available means: the time-honoured weapon against the wildly unbalanced PC!
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Very valid points all of you, and first off thank you for the ideas.
The two things in my defense are 1) I wasn't the GM when the character was designed, so I couldn't veto him. I voiced that I thought it was over the top and was ignored. 2) I'm still a REALLY new GM, and though I'm fluent in the art of being a GM, just not so for Shadowrun yet.
Magic was my first way to go. I do want to mess with him but he's made it openly clear that he thinks only magic can mess with him.
I have gone over his character sheet AND we use chummer for character creation. I'm not gonna post it yet simply for this. (Also I was wrong, he did burn quite a few BP on body, intuition, and reaction. It's mostly his agility that was enhanced and he only uses tasers since they're more effective then guns in close combat).
If his fake licences fail for his cyberlimbs, is he supposed to be arrested? And if so is he scrapped or something for his illigal tech (which would leave him as a frail torso that I would find hilarious).
And lastly, because this one called to me before, how does hacking an individual go, and what can you do to them. Sourcing pages will be cool from 4E.
Thank you everyone, and Mirikon especially for that charming and thought provoking list ;)
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I've seen characters like that before.They're possible, and chances are he either didn't know you had no experience as a SR GM, or counted on it.
As soon as the game became yours, you got veto rights. Should have double-checked everything, and simulated a 1v1 against a Prime Runner of some sorts, to figure out who is the most combat capable. Then check other major areas - 20+ dice is totally possible in a Face, at chargen. If you can't create something that can reliably take them down, one on one, tell them to roll up a new sheet, that this is not the other guy's game, it is yours, and you have your own balance to keep.
Magic is a headache for new GMs. I'm still tripping over it here and there. Against all that Cyber, go the DnD route - Pitfall trap! Remind the players, before and after, that they've attracted the attention of some serious competitors with actual heads on their shoulders. If they've been running against literally anyone, they've probably made an enemy or two. Consider how big the bounty on his head would be, if Ares decided to bring him up on false charges, and consider how the guy would respond to seeing that yacht they were hired to defend during an off-coast voyage, sink. With them on it. If the bounty was high enough, it'd be negligible cost to hire the team and drop them to the drink. Then the party can contend with him, for bringing it down on their heads.
Check his mental scores. Is he Intuitive, or would he not notice the tac-team following his every move? Is he Logical, or can he not connect the dots that his Doc is filling him with poison during the upkeep? Is he Charismatic, or are his Contacts gunning for him? Is his Will strong enough to resist a barrage of drugs and BTL long enough to complete a very boring job, or is he going to make sure no Johnson hires his team again?
If he's not thinking straight, because he had a dumpstat, then take advantage of it.
Oh, and Chummer isn't perfect. It really, just isn't.
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I have to chime in here and say: This character sounds fine to me. The GM has a plethora of tools at his disposal to keep the game interesting and challenging. 33/30 is impressive but it shouldn't break the game once you're more familiar wtih how to GM Shadowrun. There are so many ways to deal with this character but the most simple is weapons like tasers, stun batons, flamethrowers, and lasers. Tasers are very inexpensive and cut his armor in half. Lightning spells do the same thing. There is even anti tank rounds which give -6 armor dice. Trust me, even the tankiest characters can go down when they get a bad roll or two. It does happen, and when it does, you will see him begin to sweat. Armor is pretty awesome to have but it does not guarantee victory.
It sounds like this guy is having some success in the shadows. With success comes enemies. Intelligent enemies will not simply throw goons with holdout pistols at this guy, they will come prepared and well equipped.
Above all, keep your cool. If he's doing well, he's probably having fun. I've been sucked into that bad train of thought so many times, "Wow. My character is so powerful... maybe even too powerful." Then some guy comes along with a pistol and puts me in a fatal scenario. It can happen quick and it doesn't take much. Roll up 33 dice and you can easily get only a few hits, meanwhile the guy with the pistol or katana uses his Edge and gets 8+ hits. A couple shots like that and most characters, even this guy, can be dead.
If you really feel like he needs a scare, feel free to have a larger number of goons attack him during combat. Give them a decent dice pool, the right weapons and a bunc h of attacks and there is a good chance he will feel the heat really fast.
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I'll second wanting to see the charsheet.
If he's that problematic, chances are high something's not 100% correct. 250k nuyen can only get you that far.
(Although I agree even cheesier builds can be made with those resources.)
But yeah, the first mistake was probably allowing it. Don't take it bad, we're human, mistakes happen and, yes, by RAW he's right, you can do that.
But that doesn't mean you should just let someone get away with having 1 str, 1 body, 1 rea and 1 agi and then boost it all to max with 'ware.
That's such an unrealistic character. How the hell did he even survive this long, how did he manage to get the money for that 'ware, what kind of disease does he have that he'd be born that way?
If he insisted he's born with those stats, I'd call it a medical condition which includes Sensitive System (amongst other things) which automatically doubles the amount of essence penalty the 'ware inflicts on his feeble, frail body.
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Spells
Stick-n-shock and/or tasers
Spirits
Chemical weapons
In general, simply using decent weapons with FA narrow bursts will still hurt. The damage will be Stun, but that doesn't matter - you can only soak so much.
High armor is useful, but it isn't invincibility because offense still scales better than defense and many things bypass armor.
Also, about half the suggestions in this thread are terrible. If you really can't deal with it, suck it up and directly tell him he needs to reroll because his character is too high-powered for your game - don't do passive-aggressive crap like make a customized Kill This One Troll spell.
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I'm agreeing with Umaro on this one, the bottom line is, if you as GM are actually bothered by this character, discuss it with the player. Tell him you're worried his character is unbalancing your game and try to think of a way to redesign it to be more balanced and reasonable. That said, if you like the character and just want to see how it's not as broken as it may feel...
Everything he listed can make that armor not as big a deal as it may seem. Best of all, they are all legitimate things that could be encountered in-game without it seeming like you are picking on anyone or pulling something out of your ass. I had a similar problem (my players were known for being min-maxers, and I wanted to show them that Shadowrun is not the kind of game where you can have one guy take all the hits and have another be completely frail and expect him never to get shot). One hit from a Stunbolt spell will immediately make him fear for his life. Even if he's got a Pain Editor, he's still suddenly gone from "I roll 30+ dice!" to "I roll 4 dice! D:" and it won't take much for him to start feeling the bite of what's likely considered a "safer" method of self-defense than a taser.
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FA narrow burst with SnS ammo. The AP from the narrow burst and the -half from the SnS would stack.
But yes, if the guy thinks only magic can defeat him, then I would do the LMG with SnS on full auto, or splash grenades (possibly overlapping splash grenades on an airburst link) with something fun like a DMSO/Laes cocktail. Even from a BF grenade launcher on an airburst link, that should take the guy down quite nicely. And then let him wake up without the arms and legs on his way to Asamando.
Also, I agree that talking with the player is a good first step. However, if you are saying that you have tried talking with the player and he refuses to change, either take the character out, and let him make a new sheet (which you WILL thoroughly check, and apply the phonebook treatment to the player as necessary until it is acceptable), or simply boot the player from the group until he agrees to behave.
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You want an original non magical way to "humble" him or jus hurt him alot?
Have some random guy with a car thats just rolling at over 60-200 (maybe the driver was chased by some cops? :P) run into him..even the average car with 10 body would do : 20 damage -half impact armor and there no non-conductive ect to add 6 to it....or take the Conestga Vista bus from arsenal..I mean at 60 even a roaming city bus can do that and hit him for 40 damage -half impact armor
"Oh hey look how bad ass my character is with his 30+ soak pool!" *gets hit by random bus that didint see him* Dead
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Ha! No offense Rider, but I think hitting your player with a bus counts as "pulling shit out of your ass." :P
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Send him a virus that makes him do the Thriller dance whenever combat starts.
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As soon as the game became yours, you got veto rights. Should have double-checked everything...
This. Since you didn't veto the moment you took over the game, you're screwed. Anything you do now will just make you look like an asshole. So basically, all that's left is to "suck it up" and deal.
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Send him a virus that makes him do the Thriller dance whenever combat starts.
This.
Rule of thumb, if a player gets cocky, and causes problems, use some Free Actions, take a called shot to their Ego. Silly stuff, painful but not lethal, will probably help. If he doesn't at least try to compromise, you give him a final warning, and turn his face red. Most players can shrug off being mulched horribly, but if you get real 'creative' about it, especially embarrassing things or horrifically mind-scarring things, it sends a message: "I am God in this world. If I tell you to roll up a new sheet, you'll be grateful."
Normally, you toe the line, or don't come down so hard. But when a player is pushing everything aside like flies, and refusing to allow you to properly balance things, they've lost the spirit of the game.
Embarrassing? Try letting him drown in pink jello. If he's fighting in a factory, and gets booted into a vat, while his teammates, without a tank, get mown down...Viruses through his system. Or, just put him in a position where Hans Brackenhaus wants him to do something he absolutely detests.
Horrifying? Bay 12 forums. Read up a while, you'll get some ideas.
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Have the entire contents of http://boards.4chan.org/y/ (NSFW) downloaded into their commlink, and set to come up every time they try to perform an action.
Nanites are also fun.
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Anyone spare a link so I can easier post his sheet?
PS: Thank you for all the ideas. I simply was looking for a creative way to remind him his character is still mortal and there's mroe to this world then guns. If these other ideas don't pan out and he's still OP, then I'll confront him to make a new runner. I was there though during the initial creation, and no one likes it when someone shoots down your creation when it took hours to make and keep legal (for what we all can see).
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I have to chime in here and say: This character sounds fine to me. The GM has a plethora of tools at his disposal to keep the game interesting and challenging. 33/30 is impressive but it shouldn't break the game once you're more familiar wtih how to GM Shadowrun. There are so many ways to deal with this character but the most simple is weapons like tasers, stun batons, flamethrowers, and lasers. Tasers are very inexpensive and cut his armor in half. Lightning spells do the same thing. There is even anti tank rounds which give -6 armor dice. Trust me, even the tankiest characters can go down when they get a bad roll or two. It does happen, and when it does, you will see him begin to sweat. Armor is pretty awesome to have but it does not guarantee victory.
It sounds like this guy is having some success in the shadows. With success comes enemies. Intelligent enemies will not simply throw goons with holdout pistols at this guy, they will come prepared and well equipped.
Above all, keep your cool. If he's doing well, he's probably having fun. I've been sucked into that bad train of thought so many times, "Wow. My character is so powerful... maybe even too powerful." Then some guy comes along with a pistol and puts me in a fatal scenario. It can happen quick and it doesn't take much. Roll up 33 dice and you can easily get only a few hits, meanwhile the guy with the pistol or katana uses his Edge and gets 8+ hits. A couple shots like that and most characters, even this guy, can be dead.
If you really feel like he needs a scare, feel free to have a larger number of goons attack him during combat. Give them a decent dice pool, the right weapons and a bunc h of attacks and there is a good chance he will feel the heat really fast.
Oh yes bunch o goons works well. Lots of people whittling down that precious defense pool/edge it`s scary how fast it drops if people get a serious mad on.
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Remember that Shadowrun is a game about penetrating security systems, The most lucrative shadowruns target the rich and the corporate, and these people know there are metal psychopaths like this out there. If the goal is to break into places, rather than compare who has the biggest gun, then this type of character becomes a liability to the team.
It sounds like you just want to have fun with it though. Just remember not to crush the rest of the team in the crossfire if that's the case.
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Remember that Shadowrun is a game about penetrating security systems, The most lucrative shadowruns target the rich and the corporate, and these people know there are metal psychopaths like this out there. If the goal is to break into places, rather than compare who has the biggest gun, then this type of character becomes a liability to the team.
It sounds like you just want to have fun with it though. Just remember not to crush the rest of the team in the crossfire if that's the case.
Which is why most of my suggestions aren't TPK material. Though if I was being evil, I'd have a few of their runs be against S-K. And then have Hans Brackhaus offer them a job to raid a facility under Cheyenne Mountain near Denver.
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Remember that Shadowrun is a game about penetrating security systems, The most lucrative shadowruns target the rich and the corporate, and these people know there are metal psychopaths like this out there. If the goal is to break into places, rather than compare who has the biggest gun, then this type of character becomes a liability to the team.
It sounds like you just want to have fun with it though. Just remember not to crush the rest of the team in the crossfire if that's the case.
Which is why most of my suggestions aren't TPK material. Though if I was being evil, I'd have a few of their runs be against S-K. And then have Hans Brackhaus offer them a job to raid a facility under Cheyenne Mountain near Denver.
If I hear "break into" and "Cheyenne Mountain" regarding the same run, I'm walking on that meet...
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Remember that Shadowrun is a game about penetrating security systems, The most lucrative shadowruns target the rich and the corporate, and these people know there are metal psychopaths like this out there. If the goal is to break into places, rather than compare who has the biggest gun, then this type of character becomes a liability to the team.
It sounds like you just want to have fun with it though. Just remember not to crush the rest of the team in the crossfire if that's the case.
Which is why most of my suggestions aren't TPK material. Though if I was being evil, I'd have a few of their runs be against S-K. And then have Hans Brackhaus offer them a job to raid a facility under Cheyenne Mountain near Denver.
If I hear "break into" and "Cheyenne Mountain" regarding the same run, I'm walking on that meet...
See, the trick is seeing who knows enough about Brackhaus to know who he is/works for, and even more to see who actually knows what the Cheyenne Mountain used to be, and what it is now.
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Remember that Shadowrun is a game about penetrating security systems, The most lucrative shadowruns target the rich and the corporate, and these people know there are metal psychopaths like this out there. If the goal is to break into places, rather than compare who has the biggest gun, then this type of character becomes a liability to the team.
It sounds like you just want to have fun with it though. Just remember not to crush the rest of the team in the crossfire if that's the case.
Which is why most of my suggestions aren't TPK material. Though if I was being evil, I'd have a few of their runs be against S-K. And then have Hans Brackhaus offer them a job to raid a facility under Cheyenne Mountain near Denver.
If I hear "break into" and "Cheyenne Mountain" regarding the same run, I'm walking on that meet...
See, the trick is seeing who knows enough about Brackhaus to know who he is/works for, and even more to see who actually knows what the Cheyenne Mountain used to be, and what it is now.
I just know that my first thought would be to grab your phone book and smack the GM with it several times...possibly call a rehab hospital so he could get off the crack.
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It's better than "break out of" and "Cheyenne Mountain" in one run. And by run, I mean runing away.
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Make him develop Astral Hazing next time he gets hit with a hard spell. Or maybe add some Advanced Lifestyle stuff to his house, like Gremlins rank 2. When his gun vanishes.....
And also, who's to say that a bus wasn't HIRED to crash into him?
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If he's got that much chrome, borrow a leaf from Daniel Keys Moran (either Emerald Eyes or The Long Run). He's not going to handle either deep water or heights well....
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Wild sprite or a feral AI would play havoc with someone who has that much cyber too and it would be a good plot hook to try and find a sufficiently strong enough technomancer or hacker to get rid of it.... Or have a recurring enemy who has enough pull to get a electron magnet to hook him a few metres up in the air
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If it's a wild sprite, do be aware that only a technomancer can deal with it permanently, and even then only through Decompiling. Crashing the sprite would only make it go away for (16-rating) days.
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Well that's a chance you accept when ya load up on that much ware, I've been in that situation myself (mind you it was simply a case of not being able to avoid all the lead that got thrown my characters way, rather than loading up at the start).... And as I stated that would be great way to get into an adventure that doesn't involved just shooting people in the face for money.
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It would, but it's just one of those things a GM needs to be aware of before hitting the group with a wild sprite.
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Apologies RHat I misunderstood what you were getting at
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Apologies RHat I misunderstood what you were getting at
Fair enough. If you haven't been around here for a little while, you might not be aware of just what the general opinion is on Decompiling and Banishing (specifically, that they're basically worthless). Given that Decompiling is trained only, it's a warning that should be offered because if there is a technomancer PC in the group, they may well have chosen to ignore that skill.
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Always a drop a point into it, if for nothing else than flavor. It's hard for me to imagine a Mage or TM that knows nothing about how to undo what they created. You can't put that much study into how to do something without learning at least a few tricks to cause that something to fail on the fly.
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Apologies RHat I misunderstood what you were getting at
Fair enough. If you haven't been around here for a little while, you might not be aware of just what the general opinion is on Decompiling and Banishing (specifically, that they're basically worthless). Given that Decompiling is trained only, it's a warning that should be offered because if there is a technomancer PC in the group, they may well have chosen to ignore that skill.
I wasn't aware that they are that badly thought of, but then again I think I tend to pick flavour over optimisation.... Not that either view on the matter is good or bad, it's a personal thing... I shudder to think what ppl would say about my current character
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Apologies RHat I misunderstood what you were getting at
Fair enough. If you haven't been around here for a little while, you might not be aware of just what the general opinion is on Decompiling and Banishing (specifically, that they're basically worthless). Given that Decompiling is trained only, it's a warning that should be offered because if there is a technomancer PC in the group, they may well have chosen to ignore that skill.
I wasn't aware that they are that badly thought of, but then again I think I tend to pick flavour over optimisation.... Not that either view on the matter is good or bad, it's a personal thing... I shudder to think what ppl would say about my current character
Exactly why I stopped posting characters on here a long time ago.
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Apologies RHat I misunderstood what you were getting at
Fair enough. If you haven't been around here for a little while, you might not be aware of just what the general opinion is on Decompiling and Banishing (specifically, that they're basically worthless). Given that Decompiling is trained only, it's a warning that should be offered because if there is a technomancer PC in the group, they may well have chosen to ignore that skill.
I wasn't aware that they are that badly thought of, but then again I think I tend to pick flavour over optimisation.... Not that either view on the matter is good or bad, it's a personal thing... I shudder to think what ppl would say about my current character
Exactly why I stopped posting characters on here a long time ago.
If I can put mine thru chummer so it looks a little neater than current scribble on my sheet ill post it.... Lysanderz I think that a lot of people see optimisation as being part of what makes their character come alive to them and that's why they do it (yes the fact that some of them have a group of absolute kick ass skills doesn't hurt either) where as you or myself simply enjoy bringing a more cinematic character to the table
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Always a drop a point into it, if for nothing else than flavor. It's hard for me to imagine a Mage or TM that knows nothing about how to undo what they created. You can't put that much study into how to do something without learning at least a few tricks to cause that something to fail on the fly.
I can think of a lot of concepts where it would be Wrong, for the simple reason that the character would never even consider doing it, at least not until game events change that outlook.
I do think one point is a good investment for the simple fact that there's the odd occasion where there's literally no other option to do what you need to do.
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Always a drop a point into it, if for nothing else than flavor. It's hard for me to imagine a Mage or TM that knows nothing about how to undo what they created. You can't put that much study into how to do something without learning at least a few tricks to cause that something to fail on the fly.
I can think of a lot of concepts where it would be Wrong, for the simple reason that the character would never even consider doing it, at least not until game events change that outlook.
I do think one point is a good investment for the simple fact that there's the odd occasion where there's literally no other option to do what you need to do.
Not to call you a liar, but I fail to believe you can justify a way in which you can learn any craft and not know SOMETHING about how to disassemble it. A chef knows that too much salt can quickly sabotage a dish, an IT guy knows how to turn the Wi-Fi off of something, a mechanic knows you can loosen a spark plug and keep a car from starting and a military guy will know how to take a component out of a gun to make it useless.
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Always a drop a point into it, if for nothing else than flavor. It's hard for me to imagine a Mage or TM that knows nothing about how to undo what they created. You can't put that much study into how to do something without learning at least a few tricks to cause that something to fail on the fly.
I can think of a lot of concepts where it would be Wrong, for the simple reason that the character would never even consider doing it, at least not until game events change that outlook.
I do think one point is a good investment for the simple fact that there's the odd occasion where there's literally no other option to do what you need to do.
Not to call you a liar, but I fail to believe you can justify a way in which you can learn any craft and not know SOMETHING about how to disassemble it. A chef knows that too much salt can quickly sabotage a dish, an IT guy knows how to turn the Wi-Fi off of something, a mechanic knows you can loosen a spark plug and keep a car from starting and a military guy will know how to take a component out of a gun to make it useless.
True, but does a programmer automatically know how to take apart a computer?
All of your examples basically include the knowledge to take those things apart as part of the base training. This is resonance (or magic, they work the same), there isn't really a real world analog. You can learn how to open up a doorway and greet the visitor that comes through, it doesn't mean you know how to get them to leave if they are there uninvited...
There are plenty of story examples where someone learns how to summon a monster and then doesn't know what to do once it gets there (or how to get rid of it). The argument I could see would be that being sufficiently skilled in Summoning or Compiling would allow a character to default on Banishing or Decompiling respectively. But RAW says you can't default on those skills period. So if you don't take, you can't do it.
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Always a drop a point into it, if for nothing else than flavor. It's hard for me to imagine a Mage or TM that knows nothing about how to undo what they created. You can't put that much study into how to do something without learning at least a few tricks to cause that something to fail on the fly.
I can think of a lot of concepts where it would be Wrong, for the simple reason that the character would never even consider doing it, at least not until game events change that outlook.
I do think one point is a good investment for the simple fact that there's the odd occasion where there's literally no other option to do what you need to do.
Not to call you a liar, but I fail to believe you can justify a way in which you can learn any craft and not know SOMETHING about how to disassemble it. A chef knows that too much salt can quickly sabotage a dish, an IT guy knows how to turn the Wi-Fi off of something, a mechanic knows you can loosen a spark plug and keep a car from starting and a military guy will know how to take a component out of a gun to make it useless.
True, but does a programmer automatically know how to take apart a computer?
All of your examples basically include the knowledge to take those things apart as part of the base training. This is resonance (or magic, they work the same), there isn't really a real world analog. You can learn how to open up a doorway and greet the visitor that comes through, it doesn't mean you know how to get them to leave if they are there uninvited...
There are plenty of story examples where someone learns how to summon a monster and then doesn't know what to do once it gets there (or how to get rid of it). The argument I could see would be that being sufficiently skilled in Summoning or Compiling would allow a character to default on Banishing or Decompiling respectively. But RAW says you can't default on those skills period. So if you don't take, you can't do it.
Let's take math into consideration, since it is abstract and not analog but follows specific rules as magic does. If you learn addition, by default you can subtract. Now can you subtract under pressure in the face of a huge mistake while the whole class is watching? Sometimes no. But that doesn't mean that after the incident is all said and done you can't sit down and analyze how you should have handled the situation. If you're summoning a spirit or sprite you obviously get a feeling that you're doing it right and get immediate results, so to me it makes sense that you can have a basic "feel" for how to do the reverse if you're not panicking (And when you summon a monster on accident, you panic like a motherfucker I imagine).
So maybe if your conjuring or compiling is like a 1 or a 2 I can understand you not having Decomp or Banishing, but anything above that and I consider you experienced enough to know how to undo what you did. So when I GM and a player takes 6 in conjuring and 0 in banishing, I nudge him and say "Brother, really? You're telling me that you're the stephen hawkings of summoning and don't know shit about how to get rid of them? I don't believe that."
When you do something
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For me I like throwing story at those that wish to break the system and go all out in this maner. Think about what the reaction of people around him would be. Cops would Harris the group even on the simplist of tasks. People in normal locations would make it hard for the team to be inconspequously accomplish even a meet with the Johnson. Certain establishments that have policies against weapons would not let him in. Life would be rough and people would fear him. In oth words the teams public awareness will start to rise rapidly.
In the shadows everyone would know of him, he's the crome jock that can't get the job done with attracting too much attention. Fixers and others wouldn't hire him or his team for most missions as the inability to blend or get past scanners makes the team a liability to the mission more than asset. In oth words the teams notoriety will start to rise rapidly, especially if he uses brute force to overcome obstacles that cold have been circumvented with subtler means in a normal team. If the team doesn't get hired you can start having them pay one or two months expenses before each run and if you are not already limit their pay on runs giving bonuses to negotiation rolls to the Johnson, since he has to hire a team that can't understand the concept of covert.
All in all I don't think combat should be removed, but in a world as presented by Shadowrun covert mission should be common as Johnson's don't want to be known, that's why they use an alias. Dock the team pay if the do something overt in a mission.
All of this does wo things, it's takes the amount of combat down in your game giving your players more to do since the combat monster would hog the spotlight otherwise, and it makes your players start to put pressure on the player that is causing the problem as everyone is now affected by his decisions.
Once they fEel this pressure make the character an offer to join a merc company or become the bodyguard for a fixer in the game. If the players have been money starved, are pressuring the player and they are having problems getting jobs done smoothly he will jump at the offer and you can write him out on and have the player make up a new character.
No matter what though keep your world consistent and somewhat realistic and these types of problems usually fizzle out on their own, and players will also tend to shy away from these situations.
Just my 2 cents,
Red
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For me I like throwing story at those that wish to break the system and go all out in this maner. Think about what the reaction of people around him would be. Cops would Harris the group even on the simplist of tasks. People in normal locations would make it hard for the team to be inconspequously accomplish even a meet with the Johnson. Certain establishments that have policies against weapons would not let him in. Life would be rough and people would fear him. In oth words the teams public awareness will start to rise rapidly.
In the shadows everyone would know of him, he's the crome jock that can't get the job done with attracting too much attention. Fixers and others wouldn't hire him or his team for most missions as the inability to blend or get past scanners makes the team a liability to the mission more than asset. In oth words the teams notoriety will start to rise rapidly, especially if he uses brute force to overcome obstacles that cold have been circumvented with subtler means in a normal team. If the team doesn't get hired you can start having them pay one or two months expenses before each run and if you are not already limit their pay on runs giving bonuses to negotiation rolls to the Johnson, since he has to hire a team that can't understand the concept of covert.
All in all I don't think combat should be removed, but in a world as presented by Shadowrun covert mission should be common as Johnson's don't want to be known, that's why they use an alias. Dock the team pay if the do something overt in a mission.
All of this does wo things, it's takes the amount of combat down in your game giving your players more to do since the combat monster would hog the spotlight otherwise, and it makes your players start to put pressure on the player that is causing the problem as everyone is now affected by his decisions.
Once they fEel this pressure make the character an offer to join a merc company or become the bodyguard for a fixer in the game. If the players have been money starved, are pressuring the player and they are having problems getting jobs done smoothly he will jump at the offer and you can write him out on and have the player make up a new character.
No matter what though keep your world consistent and somewhat realistic and these types of problems usually fizzle out on their own, and players will also tend to shy away from these situations.
Just my 2 cents,
Red
This is not a "consistent world". It is not "realistic". All it is is passive aggressive douchebaggery spawning from not having the balls to say "No. That character isn't acceptable. Please make something else." right from the start.
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This is not a "consistent world". It is not "realistic". All it is is passive aggressive douchebaggery spawning from not having the balls to say "No. That character isn't acceptable. Please make something else." right from the start.
You better believe it, Redwulfe! A4BG knows passive-aggressive douche-baggery when he sees it!
Personally, it doesn't seem to me like this player has broken the game. As demonstrated in this thread, there are lots of ways to nullify his advantage(s). But if it's ruining your, or other players', experience you just need to confront him cordially with that information. If he's responsive and understanding, great. If not, you and the rest of the group should decide what needs to be done. Although as others have said, you've allowed the character in the first place, it's really your responsibility now as GM to deal with that in the context of your story.
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This is not a "consistent world". It is not "realistic". All it is is passive aggressive douchebaggery spawning from not having the balls to say "No. That character isn't acceptable. Please make something else." right from the start.
Seems you skipped the 'passive' here, Guns. Chill a bit? He has his own points there, even if you don't like them. I don't either, but that's no reason to bite anyone's head off.
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This is not a "consistent world". It is not "realistic". All it is is passive aggressive douchebaggery spawning from not having the balls to say "No. That character isn't acceptable. Please make something else." right from the start.
Seems you skipped the 'passive' here, Guns. Chill a bit? He has his own points there, even if you don't like them. I don't either, but that's no reason to bite anyone's head off.
Indeed. A quick beheading is much better. Less chance of getting spinal cord stuck in your teeth.
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This is not a "consistent world". It is not "realistic". All it is is passive aggressive douchebaggery spawning from not having the balls to say "No. That character isn't acceptable. Please make something else." right from the start.
Seems you skipped the 'passive' here, Guns. Chill a bit? He has his own points there, even if you don't like them. I don't either, but that's no reason to bite anyone's head off.
I'm not going to sugar coat on this. It's his own fault that a character that isn't acceptable for his game got through, so he can either do the 'cordial chat' to deal with the situation or he can suck it up and deal with it.
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For me I like throwing story at those that wish to break the system and go all out in this maner. Think about what the reaction of people around him would be. Cops would Harris the group even on the simplist of tasks. People in normal locations would make it hard for the team to be inconspequously accomplish even a meet with the Johnson. Certain establishments that have policies against weapons would not let him in. Life would be rough and people would fear him. In oth words the teams public awareness will start to rise rapidly.
In the shadows everyone would know of him, he's the crome jock that can't get the job done with attracting too much attention. Fixers and others wouldn't hire him or his team for most missions as the inability to blend or get past scanners makes the team a liability to the mission more than asset. In oth words the teams notoriety will start to rise rapidly, especially if he uses brute force to overcome obstacles that cold have been circumvented with subtler means in a normal team. If the team doesn't get hired you can start having them pay one or two months expenses before each run and if you are not already limit their pay on runs giving bonuses to negotiation rolls to the Johnson, since he has to hire a team that can't understand the concept of covert.
All in all I don't think combat should be removed, but in a world as presented by Shadowrun covert mission should be common as Johnson's don't want to be known, that's why they use an alias. Dock the team pay if the do something overt in a mission.
All of this does wo things, it's takes the amount of combat down in your game giving your players more to do since the combat monster would hog the spotlight otherwise, and it makes your players start to put pressure on the player that is causing the problem as everyone is now affected by his decisions.
Once they fEel this pressure make the character an offer to join a merc company or become the bodyguard for a fixer in the game. If the players have been money starved, are pressuring the player and they are having problems getting jobs done smoothly he will jump at the offer and you can write him out on and have the player make up a new character.
No matter what though keep your world consistent and somewhat realistic and these types of problems usually fizzle out on their own, and players will also tend to shy away from these situations.
Just my 2 cents,
Red
Just by the fact that a chrome monster was created and stuck around for the second campaign, I'm guessing this is a pretty pink mohawk campaign. If it is, suddenly going heavily trench coat on the players is kind of dick. You can move the mission objectives to favor less combat and more planning/stealth/social engineering/magic shenanigans to keep other people in the spotlight, but potentially sabotaging the entire team's fun to make the guy who's already hogging the spotlight ship out seems like a bad idea. Explaining to the nice KE officer why he shouldn't take the whole team downtown for the 3rd time this week probably isn't fun.
Remember, the Face will be packing Tailored Pheromones (F), the B&E guy a pile of R/F gadgets, the Hacker's commlink is a pile of R programs and potentially damning logs, the Mage technically isn't supposed to know that pile of Combat spells, and even an R6 Fake SIN fails to a R1 scanner 3% of the time (ties something like 14%), and KE won't be packing an R1, so you'll have to head him off before he starts checking SINs. Every. Single. Time. Chromeboy is just a helluva lot more obvious in his F gear (and to be frank, while I disagree with switching campaign types, he probably should be more discreet about that outside executing runs).
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Looking to the future you may want to consider how you want to deal with this in general.
For the groups I dm/gm/storytell/ect one of the first things I like to do is talk with the group about what every one expects and wants. one of the subjects that I like to always cover is this one specifically "what do we want to do if one player or players character is starting to be a problem". For my group I am setting up runs for right now we call it the 4/5ths rule. If 4/5ths or more of the players agree that a character has become a problem, then in game the character gets put in a tough spot that is usually life or death. This is the warning shot, if things continue then the character is killed off in a apropos manner.
If a player has become a problem, then the group as a whole sits down and has the "hey listen man" talk.
It sounds like you and the group do not mind that your player's char is a combat tank to the max, aside from trying to make the combat mean something. I would say though that you probably want to keep an eye on how the other players are feeling about the whole thing. If every one is chill with it great, but if the other players are not... then you have more than just a balance problem.
As for a creative way to up the challenge in combat? Put some turrets on tracks and kite, make use of more traditional counter measures eg pit's, walls, large falling objects, air tight rooms that vent the air. The "traditional" dnd style traps can still work wonders, and can fit in perfectly especially if the group is hired to go poking around something's lair that has been around the block a few times or if you give them a modern twist.
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To deal with a character like this, whilst not resorting to outright PIDOOMA methods.
1. Have a quiet run go awry, and get a Lone Star SWAT team called in. Now this doesn't sound too bad for a tank, but such a team would no doubt include some sniper support, and seeing as a tank would be quite high priority, how much of that 33/30 is on his head?
2. If he dump-statted STR/BOD, then all those cyberlimbs will weigh heavily on his poor little legs, and he'll be very prone to injuring himself whilst doing everyday tasks.
3. Rating 1 tranq patches. Costs 20 nuyen x (stun boxes + physical boxes) and has is availability 2. Slap him with a load of these. If he dump-statted willpower, then he'll be unconcious in no time, and then the damage overflows into physical damage (which if he dump-statted body, will quickly kill him). Perfect if he's been kidnapped, and having realised what a potential threat he is, his captors decide to take no chances, but get a little to... enthusiastic with the patches. Hey, if he's going to break the system, so can you.
4. A dart rifle and my "headbanger cocktail" which consists of a mixture of gamma-scoplamine, narcoject, kamikaze, bliss, jazz ,novacoke and nitro. The cocktail basically massively ramps up his stats but leaves him unable to move, and then after about an hour, he gets hit with a huge amount of stun damage which cannot be resisted.
5. Have the team hired to provide security for a Horizon middle manager, only to have the group set upon by a large mob of anti-augmentation protesters (yes, I have been playing Deus Ex recently) who will gun for him as the most obvious target.
6. Well, there's always the chance he could run foul of a dragon...
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Dart rifle + Laes = Fun.
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and a military guy will know how to take a component out of a gun to make it useless.
Having had first-hand experience with "military guys", I can personally tell you that's not always true.
So maybe if your conjuring or compiling is like a 1 or a 2 I can understand you not having Decomp or Banishing, but anything above that and I consider you experienced enough to know how to undo what you did.
I get what you're saying, but I'd set the threshold at "above 3, I'm going to phone book you if you try to say you don't know how to banish". Sure, you could summon some things for a while without knowing what you're doing, but after a while you're going to realize the kinds of monsters that can bite you in the ass and you're going to move to cover.
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I may have already said this, but a bus hitting him at high speed by accident is improbable. A bus hitting him at high speed because the bus is worth 90k and his head on a stick is worth half a mil? Very likely.;)
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My combat mage has Banishing. Its called Astral Combat + Weapon Focus. And it works a helluvalot better than the Banishing skill.
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Always a drop a point into it, if for nothing else than flavor. It's hard for me to imagine a Mage or TM that knows nothing about how to undo what they created. You can't put that much study into how to do something without learning at least a few tricks to cause that something to fail on the fly.
I can think of a lot of concepts where it would be Wrong, for the simple reason that the character would never even consider doing it, at least not until game events change that outlook.
I do think one point is a good investment for the simple fact that there's the odd occasion where there's literally no other option to do what you need to do.
Not to call you a liar, but I fail to believe you can justify a way in which you can learn any craft and not know SOMETHING about how to disassemble it. A chef knows that too much salt can quickly sabotage a dish, an IT guy knows how to turn the Wi-Fi off of something, a mechanic knows you can loosen a spark plug and keep a car from starting and a military guy will know how to take a component out of a gun to make it useless.
Which are all very, very, very different acts from summoning or compiling. It's pretty much just hermetics and cyberadepts who take such a view of spirits or sprites. Pretty much any other magician or technomancer considers their spirits or sprites to be something far, far, far more than that. And if the character's conception of spirits or sprites is as something fundamentally alive, they would likely see banishing/decompiling as morally wrong and not learn it unless something demonstrated to them that they needed to. Hell, I've got a technomancer I'm playing in a play-by-post who has Compiling 6, but Decompiling 0 - and I even considered Incompetent (Decompiling); he's never been confronted with a circumstance where he'd need Decompiling, and thus the concept of it has literally never occurred to him - at least one of his sprites from his backstory has gone free, sure, but that one's a Loyalty 4 contact (which reflects how he treats his sprites and the view he takes of them).
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Which are all very, very, very different acts from summoning or compiling. It's pretty much just hermetics and cyberadepts who take such a view of spirits or sprites. Pretty much any other magician or technomancer considers their spirits or sprites to be something far, far, far more than that. And if the character's conception of spirits or sprites is as something fundamentally alive, they would likely see banishing/decompiling as morally wrong and not learn it unless something demonstrated to them that they needed to.
That's true, Infosavants and even more Technoshamans would be strongly disinclined to practice those skills. It would benefit them to know how, but they'd still not want to use those measures.
Either way, I'm still far more strongly inclined to build characters to a concept than dice pool maximization, but that's drifting from the topic.
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Also, I can't build pens that well, but I can sure as hell break them. Make the character trying to destroy a gun roll 2 dice if it's not a pistol. If it's a pistol, just unload it and break the hammer off. You have rendered it effectively useless. Repairable? Maybe. Usable in current state? Nope.
And if they glitch that roll.......
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Which are all very, very, very different acts from summoning or compiling. It's pretty much just hermetics and cyberadepts who take such a view of spirits or sprites. Pretty much any other magician or technomancer considers their spirits or sprites to be something far, far, far more than that. And if the character's conception of spirits or sprites is as something fundamentally alive, they would likely see banishing/decompiling as morally wrong and not learn it unless something demonstrated to them that they needed to.
That's true, Infosavants and even more Technoshamans would be strongly disinclined to practice those skills. It would benefit them to know how, but they'd still not want to use those measures.
Either way, I'm still far more strongly inclined to build characters to a concept than dice pool maximization, but that's drifting from the topic.
Oh, quite certainly. Optimization, to my mind, is useful only as a way to build the best and most accurate version of your concept.
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To the original topic: What to do with the player?
TALK TO HIM!!!!
Never ever ever ever ever EVER use the game to teach someone a lesson. In all seriousness, it always ends up with you looking like a dick. Any time you screw someone over in the game that is you stating quite clearly and publicly that you think what they did was sooooo unacceptable you're going to punish them for it. There isn't anything done here that needs punishing, just a conversation that needs to happen so he understands what's going on. If I was a player at the table and I got totally shafted and singled out by the GM like that.... I wouldn't be back. You're adults, so don't settle this like 4 year olds.
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To be fair, I think it's more that he wants a way to still be able to challenge the guy. And there are options. If I'm wrong at it is actually causing serious problems, then talking to him is best.
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Talk to him,
Its a better option than putting something together that is going to primarily target him, because once he goes down the rest of the team may be SOL.
Now if he's stubborn (some players are, I've had my share of them) and its disruptive to everyone else then take him out in a way that's not going to harm everyone else. As someone said, best way is have him routinely stopped by security, if he doesn't pass the check throw him in jail, have them disarm his 'ware or even begin removing his illegal stuff (and if he's obviously running any F gear, then he's SOL).
But there's lots of options, just remember, don't screw over the rest of the team.
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Once again, my read is that he's simply looking for ways to challenge the guy. Which does mean the bus method won't work, but still.
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This is not a "consistent world". It is not "realistic". All it is is passive aggressive douchebaggery spawning from not having the balls to say "No. That character isn't acceptable. Please make something else." right from the start.
Seems you skipped the 'passive' here, Guns. Chill a bit? He has his own points there, even if you don't like them. I don't either, but that's no reason to bite anyone's head off.
I'm not going to sugar coat on this. It's his own fault that a character that isn't acceptable for his game got through, so he can either do the 'cordial chat' to deal with the situation or he can suck it up and deal with it.
Said as much myself, earlier, 'case you forgot. Just no reason to be rude.
Challenging Mr. Chromedome is pretty easily done. Pit brawls with Paracritters. The Parazoology book gives a few nasties, and the GM can always think up a few more. This fits in with Black Trenchcoat as easily as Pink Mohawk - looking for Enchanting ingredients, versus some sort of arena fight against a Bunyip or five. A kick to the face from a Ghazu Horse is nothing to sneeze at, Snow Moose have BOD 11. Ambush from an Amikuk!
If he can punch out a Sea Wolf without breaking a sweat, send in a team of Warrior's Way Bear Shapeshifters. Or have Eagle Shifters bombard him while overhead, with Manabolts.
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This is not a "consistent world". It is not "realistic". All it is is passive aggressive douchebaggery spawning from not having the balls to say "No. That character isn't acceptable. Please make something else." right from the start.
Seems you skipped the 'passive' here, Guns. Chill a bit? He has his own points there, even if you don't like them. I don't either, but that's no reason to bite anyone's head off.
I'm not going to sugar coat on this. It's his own fault that a character that isn't acceptable for his game got through, so he can either do the 'cordial chat' to deal with the situation or he can suck it up and deal with it.
Said as much myself, earlier, 'case you forgot. Just no reason to be rude.
Challenging Mr. Chromedome is pretty easily done. Pit brawls with Paracritters. The Parazoology book gives a few nasties, and the GM can always think up a few more. This fits in with Black Trenchcoat as easily as Pink Mohawk - looking for Enchanting ingredients, versus some sort of arena fight against a Bunyip or five. A kick to the face from a Ghazu Horse is nothing to sneeze at, Snow Moose have BOD 11. Ambush from an Amikuk!
If he can punch out a Sea Wolf without breaking a sweat, send in a team of Warrior's Way Bear Shapeshifters. Or have Eagle Shifters bombard him while overhead, with Manabolts.
Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner". This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going. Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.
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Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner". This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going. Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.
A nemesis (which is basically what this idea boils down to) is a great way to challenge a character even in their field of specialty, and doesn't necessarily have to threaten the other players. Have a character who's an uber martial artist? Have another one come by and declare that the other team members are beneath notice/not to be involved, then let the beatings commence. Or hacking. Or tanking. Or...
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Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner". This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going. Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.
A nemesis (which is basically what this idea boils down to) is a great way to challenge a character even in their field of specialty, and doesn't necessarily have to threaten the other players. Have a character who's an uber martial artist? Have another one come by and declare that the other team members are beneath notice/not to be involved, then let the beatings commence. Or hacking. Or tanking. Or...
A nemesis is one way. I'm more talking about as a run tactic - get everyone looking one way so that they're not looking at what you're doing.
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Try simple. There's a fucking Sea Wolf, ten feet from the party. In the time you put it down, it's put its teeth into at least two crunchy party members. So, you tank it. Problem being, you're now facing it solo, because a bunch of Blood Kites, or its mate, show up. Nature loves to fuck with people.
You're trying to grab some hot RnD from Ares. So is a party full of Shifters, who want to use it themselves, for whatever reason. Having some animal nature to them, they're almost guaranteed to scuffle over their objective. If they aren't the same animal, or aren't pack animals, they'll work separately, fighting 1v1 and trying to separate the party to make things easier for themselves. Since it's a rival team, it's totally within mission parameters. Considering the average Shifter mindset, (Not without exception, obviously) of Meta with a touch of 'beast' lurking under the surface, this would be the perfect situation for them to lose it to the animal within.
No need for illusions or doppelgangers. Just set up a tactical situation where the best solutions aren't always the ones you pick. Yes, it would be best to stick together against the first Sea Wolf and dispatch the second quickly after, but no, that's not going to happen in that situation. Yes, it'd be a brilliant idea to get the Shifters caught in their own lines of fire, but no, they're not going to get close enough to each other to try, because they're loners forced to work together by circumstance.
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Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner". This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going. Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.
A nemesis (which is basically what this idea boils down to) is a great way to challenge a character even in their field of specialty, and doesn't necessarily have to threaten the other players. Have a character who's an uber martial artist? Have another one come by and declare that the other team members are beneath notice/not to be involved, then let the beatings commence. Or hacking. Or tanking. Or...
I'm trying to picture a nemesis challenging the character in tanking. "Oh, so you can take a Panther round to the face, huh? Well, look at me, I can take a Thunderstruck round to the face, bitch!"
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Considering the average Shifter mindset, of Meta with a touch of 'beast' lurking under the surface, this would be the perfect situation for them to lose it to the animal within.
Flip that around - shifters are animals that can turn into metahuman forms, and have greater intelligence than the animals tend to.
Of course, I don't think any of the books have a good go-over shifters (even Runner's Companion which devotes a section just to how to create a shifter character).
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Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner". This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going. Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.
A nemesis (which is basically what this idea boils down to) is a great way to challenge a character even in their field of specialty, and doesn't necessarily have to threaten the other players. Have a character who's an uber martial artist? Have another one come by and declare that the other team members are beneath notice/not to be involved, then let the beatings commence. Or hacking. Or tanking. Or...
I'm trying to picture a nemesis challenging the character in tanking. "Oh, so you can take a Panther round to the face, huh? Well, look at me, I can take a Thunderstruck round to the face, bitch!"
I suddenly got the idea of a Flesh Form Beetle Spirit wearing milspec armor, who relies on mundane weapons and tactics most of the time, to keep people from figuring out about his true nature.
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Considering the average Shifter mindset, of Meta with a touch of 'beast' lurking under the surface, this would be the perfect situation for them to lose it to the animal within.
Flip that around - shifters are animals that can turn into metahuman forms, and have greater intelligence than the animals tend to.
Of course, I don't think any of the books have a good go-over shifters (even Runner's Companion which devotes a section just to how to create a shifter character).
I agree, it didn't do a great job at it.
If you've ever read any of the Star Wars EU (Blasphamy to many, I know) I picture the mindsets of most shifters really close to what Saba Sebetine's (sp) view on everything is. Very feral, predator and prey like.
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4. A dart rifle and my "headbanger cocktail" which consists of a mixture of gamma-scoplamine, narcoject, kamikaze, bliss, jazz ,novacoke and nitro. The cocktail basically massively ramps up his stats but leaves him unable to move, and then after about an hour, he gets hit with a huge amount of stun damage which cannot be resisted.
Drugs vectored for attack are treated as toxins and thus, can be resisted.
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4. A dart rifle and my "headbanger cocktail" which consists of a mixture of gamma-scoplamine, narcoject, kamikaze, bliss, jazz ,novacoke and nitro. The cocktail basically massively ramps up his stats but leaves him unable to move, and then after about an hour, he gets hit with a huge amount of stun damage which cannot be resisted.
Drugs vectored for attack are treated as toxins and thus, can be resisted.
Incorrect. Combat drugs with beneficial effects followed by a detrimental side effect have no Resistance Test. Your statement is RAI, perhaps, but definitely not RAW.
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In some cases, however, a character may be drugged against their will. Characters who are naturally or magically resistant to toxins must also be taken into account, as must characters who have a buzz-killing Antidote spell or antidote patch applied. When a situation like this arises, the gamemaster may choose to call for a Toxin Resistance Test, as noted on p. 254, SR4A. The gamemaster determines the drug’s Power, as appropriate to its nature and effects.
As a standard rule of them, most street drugs have a Power of 6. If the Power is not reduced to 0, the drug still affects the character as normal. Alternately, the drug’s modified Power must still exceed the character’s Body for the drug to take effect.
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QFT
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If you've ever read any of the Star Wars EU (Blasphamy to many, I know) I picture the mindsets of most shifters really close to what Saba Sebetine's (sp) view on everything is. Very feral, predator and prey like.
The Nyx Smith Shadowrun novel Striper Assassin and the other novels Striper appears in give a good shifter characterization to go off of.
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In some cases, however, a character may be drugged against their will. Characters who are naturally or magically resistant to toxins must also be taken into account, as must characters who have a buzz-killing Antidote spell or antidote patch applied. When a situation like this arises, the gamemaster may choose to call for a Toxin Resistance Test, as noted on p. 254, SR4A. The gamemaster determines the drug’s Power, as appropriate to its nature and effects.
As a standard rule of them, most street drugs have a Power of 6. If the Power is not reduced to 0, the drug still affects the character as normal. Alternately, the drug’s modified Power must still exceed the character’s Body for the drug to take effect.
By your own example, the default is there is no test. The gamemaster may choose.
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4. A dart rifle and my "headbanger cocktail" which consists of a mixture of gamma-scoplamine, narcoject, kamikaze, bliss, jazz ,novacoke and nitro. The cocktail basically massively ramps up his stats but leaves him unable to move, and then after about an hour, he gets hit with a huge amount of stun damage which cannot be resisted.
Drugs vectored for attack are treated as toxins and thus, can be resisted.
Incorrect. Combat drugs with beneficial effects followed by a detrimental side effect have no Resistance Test. Your statement is RAI, perhaps, but definitely not RAW.
Actually, this is a bit of a problem with the rules. You're both correct, but in different ways. The stun damage from the drugs cannot be resisted, but the effects of the toxins can be resisted. Seeing as you've got a mixture of both, it's difficult to know if a rule takes precedence (and in that case, what the roll would be), or if you should just roll all effects separately, which would slow down game time. If I was GM, I'd just fudge it into a slightly higher than normal target number, due to the many drugs and toxins hammering at the body's defences, but maybe have them do less overall damage because of unforeseen side effects of mixing them.
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As a standard rule of them, most street drugs have a Power of 6
By your own example, the default is there is no test. The gamemaster may choose.
Yeah, there's always a choice involved in situations like this. By default, armour has no limit on what modifications can be added to it, while vehicles can accept a number of weapon mounts equal to (body /3) rounded down. The choice is whether to use new books or not. If you do, there's a standard rule you can choose to follow.
Considering you need to make a Body + Protection test and get six hits, I'd say the caution is less about limiting who can roll, and more about saving unnecessary rolls and surface wear.
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As a standard rule of them, most street drugs have a Power of 6. If the Power is not reduced to 0, the drug still affects the character as normal. Alternately, the drug’s modified Power must still exceed the character’s Body for the drug to take effect.
Or, trying to shoot a guy with body 6 or higher with "broke the game lol" toxins won't work.
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You could use Narcoject. But Narcoject actually annoys me a lot, because it deals 10 stun, and is resisted by Body. So either you do someone 10 stun, he gets at least one success (which is probable even for someone with body 3) and he merrily continues on his way, or you give him two, and put him to hospital for few weeks, because he now has, depending on how lucky he is, 8, 9 or 10 physical.
So that thing either don't work, or almost kills someone. If it did 12 stun, or 6, that would work okay. But nooooo, the person who did that rule wasn't thinking.
EDIT: ahem, sorry for ranting. It just annoys me. Yeah, I can houserule that away, I shouldn't have to.
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If a toxin is applied at concentrated levels (more than a single dose), the gamemaster may increase the Power of the toxin as he feels appropriate, as well as increasing the damage it causes or its other effects by an appropriate amount.
I'd apply that to getting hit twice, too.
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This is not a "consistent world". It is not "realistic". All it is is passive aggressive douchebaggery spawning from not having the balls to say "No. That character isn't acceptable. Please make something else." right from the start.
Seems you skipped the 'passive' here, Guns. Chill a bit? He has his own points there, even if you don't like them. I don't either, but that's no reason to bite anyone's head off.
Except he's already said he wasn't GM at the time of character creation and raised concerns that were ignored. So there's no excuse for the tone.
I'm not going to sugar coat on this. It's his own fault that a character that isn't acceptable for his game got through, so he can either do the 'cordial chat' to deal with the situation or he can suck it up and deal with it.
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@Ghoulfodder: It's already been stated by another, but here you go. The moment he took over as GM, he should have done a character audit and denied any character that wasn't acceptable. Since he didn't take that opportunity, he has no right to gripe. Period.
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Hello everybody!
So after all the advice given here, I took to the campaign again and tried a few new tricks. The enemy psyker was fine, problem was the mage in the group is REALLY good as counter spelling, so no skin off anyone's teeth there.
Gassing the group was highly effective, and going full auto with a sub machine gun actually dealt physical damage to the troll. Even better was that because he took the low pain tolerance negative quality he start immediately panicking (gas) and fell apart for the rest of the encounter. Also, I threw a boat at him. PRICELESS!
Thanks to him realizing that I was no longer ignorant to things that could hurt him and me focusing more on what the rest of the group can do to contribute, I ran the best session ever last Saturday. Thank you everyone who contributed an idea my way, it will not be forgotten anytime soon.
I'm glad I didn't veto his character now. It was more satisfying when he realized he wasn't immortal anymore :)
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have a hacker/TM NPC hack and disable the crap outta his cyberware
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Congradulations, now don't forget to let him have his "invincible" moments. Everyone needs their moment to shine.... just like me dropping my F14 Orgy on a crowd of people with the dice pool both edged for hits and edged for soak.... xD I'm an Edge Addict I admit it.
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Honestly? I can't remember more than one or two times I've spent Edge on anything other than downgrading a critical glitch to a glitch.
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Honestly? I can't remember more than one or two times I've spent Edge on anything other than downgrading a critical glitch to a glitch.
I generally make characters with consistantly 5-6 edge.... <.< that's why I'm called an Edge Addict though I mostly DM so my character's don't get play. xD
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Heh. I always have other things to spend those BP on. Like more skills, spells, or gear.
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Yep, everyone always has something to spend something on. XD
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Most my players have 3 to 5 edge and they expend it every session. Sometimes for that 'it must die' roll, sometimes for the 'cwap, I just leapt through a skylight to avoid sniper fire only to find that I am in a shopping mall and falling 10 flights...." to the 'cwap, thats a lot of damage, time to edge my soak roll' to 'these are not the drones you are searching for' moments. But I refresh every session and so the guys know that can spend away during the game.
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Hello everybody!
So after all the advice given here, I took to the campaign again and tried a few new tricks. The enemy psyker was fine, problem was the mage in the group is REALLY good as counter spelling, so no skin off anyone's teeth there.
Gassing the group was highly effective, and going full auto with a sub machine gun actually dealt physical damage to the troll. Even better was that because he took the low pain tolerance negative quality he start immediately panicking (gas) and fell apart for the rest of the encounter. Also, I threw a boat at him. PRICELESS!
Thanks to him realizing that I was no longer ignorant to things that could hurt him and me focusing more on what the rest of the group can do to contribute, I ran the best session ever last Saturday. Thank you everyone who contributed an idea my way, it will not be forgotten anytime soon.
I'm glad I didn't veto his character now. It was more satisfying when he realized he wasn't immortal anymore :)
I'm glad to hear it went well, and that he seemed to take the discovery of his lack of immortality fairly well. It'll probably make him a much better players having to be able rely on others as much as they rely on him.
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@Ghoulfodder: It's already been stated by another, but here you go. The moment he took over as GM, he should have done a character audit and denied any character that wasn't acceptable. Since he didn't take that opportunity, he has no right to gripe. Period.
He's not griping, he's asking for advice. Which is why we are here, and thankfully other people have provided some.
Just saying "You screwed up, deal with it" is not productive. A good GM learns from their mistakes, and there are always ways to fix it. The player wanted to play a tank, the GM learned how to cope with said tank, everybody wins.
You stated your opinion that he should have disallowed the character on page 1, which is fairly unhelpful seeing he already allowed it, and you're still harping on the guy on the same point on page 7. How's does that help?
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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@Ghoulfodder: It's already been stated by another, but here you go. The moment he took over as GM, he should have done a character audit and denied any character that wasn't acceptable. Since he didn't take that opportunity, he has no right to gripe. Period.
He's not griping, he's asking for advice. Which is why we are here, and thankfully other people have provided some.
Just saying "You screwed up, deal with it" is not productive. A good GM learns from their mistakes, and there are always ways to fix it. The player wanted to play a tank, the GM learned how to cope with said tank, everybody wins.
You stated your opinion that he should have disallowed the character on page 1, which is fairly unhelpful seeing he already allowed it, and you're still harping on the guy on the same point on page 7. How's does that help?
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
It's also fairly unhelpful to dig an old argument up after this long. No point reviving the thread if that's all you're gonna do, right?
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^Just going to say not everyone has the time to be on all day or check all the topics.
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^Just going to say not everyone has the time to be on all day or check all the topics.
Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that after a certain amount of time there's no point to bring a thread back up without new, constructive points to add.
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Zilfer is correct - was getting caught back up, and didn't look at the date.
You realize that your post is criticizing my post, about someone not being constructive, for not being constructive, right? Do you fail to see the irony?
I'll try to be more constructive in the future, like pointing out arbitrary statues of limitation that I just made up.
::)
-Jn-
City of Brass Expatriate
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I see the irony, yes. My only defense is timeliness - and a desire to nip a potentially inflammatory discussion in the bud. :P
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Come on give him a break it wasn't even 3 topics down yet last I saw.
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I think it was the fact that the thing he was complaining about was something that happened three weeks ago, and that the thread had moved on long, long ago.
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Since somebody bumped this, I just wanted to say I'm glad this had a happy ending! Glad we could be of service, OP, and glad you found ways to challenge your player. Just to recap, I think our basic suggestions were:
- Magic
- Hacking and Matrix attacks (being able to bench-press a truck doesn't help much when a technomancer is fiddling with your commlink, does it?)
- Drugs, gases and toxins
- Legal ramifications
- "Distinctive style" and the general lack of stealth that comes from being an obviously 'wared-up monster.
- Plain old superior firepower (full bursts from automatic weapons, distant snipers, superior numbers, etc.)
Let us know if any of these is particularly effective. I'd personally be interested in hearing more anecdotes. How exactly did the boat-dropping happen, for instance, and what was the outcome?
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Since somebody bumped this, I just wanted to say I'm glad this had a happy ending! Glad we could be of service, OP, and glad you found ways to challenge your player. Just to recap, I think our basic suggestions were:
- Magic
- Hacking and Matrix attacks (being able to bench-press a truck doesn't help much when a technomancer is fiddling with your commlink, does it?)
- Drugs, gases and toxins
- Legal ramifications
- "Distinctive style" and the general lack of stealth that comes from being an obviously 'wared-up monster.
- Plain old superior firepower (full bursts from automatic weapons, distant snipers, superior numbers, etc.)
Let us know if any of these is particularly effective. I'd personally be interested in hearing more anecdotes. How exactly did the boat-dropping happen, for instance, and what was the outcome?
Did anyone pay attention to the whole Paracritters suggestion, or am I barking at a wall?
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You forgot to add Fus Ro Da to your shouting, that's why the wall didn't hear. xD
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Since somebody bumped this, I just wanted to say I'm glad this had a happy ending! Glad we could be of service, OP, and glad you found ways to challenge your player. Just to recap, I think our basic suggestions were:
- Magic
- Hacking and Matrix attacks (being able to bench-press a truck doesn't help much when a technomancer is fiddling with your commlink, does it?)
- Drugs, gases and toxins
- Legal ramifications
- "Distinctive style" and the general lack of stealth that comes from being an obviously 'wared-up monster.
- Plain old superior firepower (full bursts from automatic weapons, distant snipers, superior numbers, etc.)
Let us know if any of these is particularly effective. I'd personally be interested in hearing more anecdotes. How exactly did the boat-dropping happen, for instance, and what was the outcome?
-Magic: Helped, but the groups mage kept counterspelling like a sonnoffa bitch
-Hacking: Not had a chance yet
-drugs, gases, and toxins: Tear gas to be cute (forced him to flee a room), tranq patches from a martial artist gave him some stun, no toxins yet.
-Legal ramifications: Not so much yet, but the group recently drew the attention of the Coast Guard, so plot hook for later
-Distinctive style: Not yet
I_V_Saur: I did notice the paracritters, and they are going to play a big part in the next campaign
Anecdote: Allow me to recant the end of the last session we had. I'm rather fond and proud of it.
The PC's were chasing after a schizo drug lord who thought he was Long John Silver (from Treasure Island, though not from the Muppet Version). After the PC's invaded his ship (stolen cruise ship) and tore apart the aforementioned problems above, Silver escaped off the ship while initiating the self destruct on the ship. The troll got in the speed boat and chased after him while the group mage got above deck and tried to fling him off the boat with a spell. Meanwhile the group decker got to the cabins cabin and worked to disarm the self destruct while the captains security program attacked him.
After the mage couldn't get enough hits to counter Silver's strength and body, he got creative and scored enough to levitate the captains escape boat from the water. With vision magnification and an assault rifle, Silver shot at the mage and dropped him in two turns. By this point the troll was within 200 meters and closing, so Silver saw him coming and opened fire, this time going full auto and getting a few good hits a couple of times. What was particularly satisfying was that because the troll took the "low pain tolerance" trait since he's so tanky, he was falling apart pretty bad even though he only lost 2/3 physical a turn (and this was resisting 19 damage at a time). When he was closing in but still to far to return fire (his primary weapon is a taser) he hit the deck after he moved the boat to avoid getting hit. This was a mistake as the boat has far less armor then he does and almost sank after one turn of full auto.
Thankfully by this point the group hacker disabled the self destruct, hacked Silvers weapon and forced it to eject the ammo clip. The troll limped the boat to Silver, shot him with two taser darts, and rendered the infamous drug lord unconscious. The PC who was the troll openly said he wasn't sure if he was going to make it, and admitted that once I put some distance between him and his opponent he wasn't so confident in his build. He know is aware that I've wised up as a new GM to Shadowrun, and he, like everyone else at the table, should keep a back up character ready just in case.
And it's thanks to all of you guys that it happened. I don't approve of the flame war, but hey, it did get my thread to be a hot topic.
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Awesome, sounds like a lot of fun!
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And it's a good thing the drug lord didn't turn off his wireless. Nice move as to not piss the player off while still sending a message.
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That was a good way to handle it. You brought the PC's weaknesses (short range and Low Pain Tolerance) into play without ass-pulling nonsense, and you still let him have his strengths (since anyone else would have gotten hurt way worse by the shooting).
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Just wanted to make sure you know the counterspelling for your friends doesn't get the whole dice pool to their defence only the Skill + Defender's Attribute.
So if I'm playing my Character Bulletstopper and gets a stunbolt cast at him F12, and My other character Scythe who’s dice pool says ‘Counterspelling + magic = 11’ is actually only 4 because that’s Scythe’s counterspelling skill.
So Bulletstopper’s defense pool would be Scythe’s Counterspelling 4 + Bulletstopper's Willpower 3 = 7 dice….
Pretty weak defense pool compared to his usual 8 or so reaction, 22 or so armor and 12 body on top of that. <.< Yeah I’d rather get shot with bullets. I'd only give the Body part of the soak roll as well.
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Just wanted to make sure you know the counterspelling for your friends doesn't get the whole dice pool to their defence only the Skill + Defender's Attribute.
So if I'm playing my Character Bulletstopper and gets a stunbolt cast at him F12, and My other character Scythe who’s dice pool says ‘Counterspelling + magic = 11’ is actually only 4 because that’s Scythe’s counterspelling skill.
So Bulletstopper’s defense pool would be Scythe’s Counterspelling 4 + Bulletstopper's Willpower 3 = 7 dice….
Pretty weak defense pool compared to his usual 8 or so reaction, 22 or so armor and 12 body on top of that. <.< Yeah I’d rather get shot with bullets. I'd only give the Body part of the soak roll as well.
Hmmm......I need to brush up on the magic portion. I'll admit that as a GM I limped before I could walk, now I'm walking before I run. Magic has been minimal so far, but now that I have combat and matrix concepts more or less taken care of, now I need to work on magic rules and critter combat.
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Just wanted to make sure you know the counterspelling for your friends doesn't get the whole dice pool to their defence only the Skill + Defender's Attribute.
So if I'm playing my Character Bulletstopper and gets a stunbolt cast at him F12, and My other character Scythe who’s dice pool says ‘Counterspelling + magic = 11’ is actually only 4 because that’s Scythe’s counterspelling skill.
So Bulletstopper’s defense pool would be Scythe’s Counterspelling 4 + Bulletstopper's Willpower 3 = 7 dice….
Pretty weak defense pool compared to his usual 8 or so reaction, 22 or so armor and 12 body on top of that. <.< Yeah I’d rather get shot with bullets. I'd only give the Body part of the soak roll as well.
UPDATE:
thanks for the reminder Zilfer! I talked to the mage of the group and he was in fact using his entire dice pool for counter spelling and not just his skill ranks.
God I love these forums, this game has gotten so much easier because of this.
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You basically got mixed up between 'counterspelling' Counterspelling (best to call it defensive) and 'dispelling' Counterspelling. Dispelling uses Magic+Counterspelling, whereas Defensive uses (target Willpower)+(mage Counterspelling). So the full dicepool pretty much only applies when trying to fight a Sustained spell, e.g. an Illusion. It's an easy mix-up.
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Yeah no worries it was a few months before I caught onto that one along with some other tricks that can make Shadowrun deadly.... hell Hacking I thought Logic was used in hacking.... base rules it doesn't use Logic.....
<.< You get the Program Rating + Hacker's SKill Rating.... most sheets add in the Logic plus Hacker's skill for the dice pool..... tricky.
xD Ran a game recently and it was pretty fun to throw it up. I thought Melee was half impact armor was proven wrong. Aw well. xD
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Just use a Mind/Body control on him. Big George or whatever turns around and slugs Mage in the face, then unloads 2 tasers into Face. TPK in a few rounds.
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You know, and I know this is surprising, I don't find a TPK a constructive way to solve a party problem. In this case the PC who originally caused the biggest headache is still alive in that scenario. Besides, I've already solved the problem.
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It's probably already been pointed out, but armour does decay, and heavy use cyberware needs constant care. He's going to need to get his gear serviced frequently, and probably attracting the attention that he does, he'll be too hot for many doctors or dealers to even see, not just that but he'll probably be backstabbed with the doctors calling the police on him or implanting secret bugs and devices upon high paying request. Something to consider.
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Then make them keep in nonlethal. Besides, Mind/Body control spells are awesome. Why WOULDN'T the wagemage use it on that hulk who happens to be breaking and entering?
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It's probably already been pointed out, but armour does decay, and heavy use cyberware needs constant care. He's going to need to get his gear serviced frequently, and probably attracting the attention that he does, he'll be too hot for many doctors or dealers to even see, not just that but he'll probably be backstabbed with the doctors calling the police on him or implanting secret bugs and devices upon high paying request. Something to consider.
This is something that I wondered a little while ago. How would a GM monitor damage to cyberware, and how much would it cost to repair it? At what point is it damaged to where it doesn't function properly? If one of his contacts is a cyberdoc how does that affect how much he has to pay?
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Sorry I'm late to the party. I've seen a lot of good ideas for Captain Invulnerable, so I thought I'd toss a couple more onto the pile.
- Have a couple of his contacts start a blood feud between themselves.
- The leader of the enemy forces turns out to be one of his parents (or other beloved relative from his past).
- Give the team's initiate a metaplanar quest that lets him bring along his companions, then give the metaplane a medieval theme where Captain Invulnerable has to wear heavy plate armor that he can't remove.
- Whoever mentioned Knockdown is a genius. Give the bad guys gel rounds to maximize the knockdown factor.
- Barrier foam.
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It's probably already been pointed out, but armour does decay, and heavy use cyberware needs constant care. He's going to need to get his gear serviced frequently, and probably attracting the attention that he does, he'll be too hot for many doctors or dealers to even see, not just that but he'll probably be backstabbed with the doctors calling the police on him or implanting secret bugs and devices upon high paying request. Something to consider.
This is something that I wondered a little while ago. How would a GM monitor damage to cyberware, and how much would it cost to repair it? At what point is it damaged to where it doesn't function properly? If one of his contacts is a cyberdoc how does that affect how much he has to pay?
Be realistic about it.
7P, but all soaked? Okay, once, maybe twice that's fine. Fifth time, max, since he isn't dodging, he's just plain shrugging the damage off as negligible. Which probably means it goes 'ping' against his 'Ware.
At some point, step back and recount every shot that connected but didn't damage him, every one that did damage him, and every other thing, be it static interference, or just water in his Cyber, that would rationally impair a poorly maintained high-tech setup. Technology breaks down. Guns break things. Nothing can stand up to an HMG forever.
Even just gouging his wallet will remind him that there is a cost to badassery - but, you know by now he's learned his lesson. If he tries to blow more cash on Ware, to make himself even harder to kill, it's time to break out the juice.
Yeah.
Juice in the 'Ware is gonna be a bitch. Alcohol is worse, and if his Doc is a drunk, and then he runs up against some loco with a flamethrower...The look on the player's face would bust your gut, I bet.