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Magic fingers and foci

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catrone3

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« Reply #45 on: <03-23-18/1042:45> »
the book says mid level not high level, so if they did learn quickening, they would need more than 8-10 hits on the armor spell of probably force 10 if they wish to soak with ease. which is fine as I did the math wrong on the last post and included the hardened mystic armor into the soak pool for physical damage thinking the critter power was like the adept power. So the damage should have been higher if they didn't have armor spell and if they did it should have been about the same.

They also are not ones for going invisible in any game I have seen them in or heard about them in. Spirits can be a thing from them, but not many GMs use them as it adds more pieces to the board for combat when there may already be more to do than the GM likes. the only possible issue would be deflection, which would depend on where or not the GM thinks about it or thinks it is needed. Assuming they will do more than combat sense and possibly deflection is a bit odd. I could see combat sense which unless the GM edged it or actually had a dragon use reagents you are looking at a force 7 or 8 combat sense so that the drain can be soaked with ease. that is 1-2 extra hits on dodge, so you would still hit but just 1-2 points less of damage and the terracotta would take 4-5 passes and the barret would still be in 3. if you add a similar in deflection then you could possibly miss, but on average you are looking at 5 passes for the barret and 7-8 passes for the terracotta. So at that point and that point only would your team be fighting for their lives for more than 3 seconds on average. Dragons are still not that dangerous to fight

It comes off as monumental because they are overhyped. If you have the right gear for your character and you aren't a team only rocking nothing bigger than an alpha then you are going to have a very hard time with a dragon. However, I don't play that kind of character in any game, I always play the one with the big sniper rifle. Marcus tried to say that I must be kidding myself when I am not, and I took down the dragon when the GM had hardened mystic armor counting towards physical damage. Was it difficult on the team, yes, but I was also confident in my combination of weapons and skill that we could get it over with quickly.

SSDR, I was only talking about a standard dragon not being difficult, greats (if we aren't using their stated self from older edition and converting it to 5e) have no stats and thus always win.
« Last Edit: <03-23-18/1053:40> by catrone3 »

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« Reply #46 on: <03-23-18/1054:21> »
Fair enough, I did misunderstand and thought you were talking about greats.

Still, regular dragons are no joke at all.  Yes, a team can take virtually anything down with a good plan and a good ambush, dragons included.  However dragons are smarter than your PCs.  Presuming that a Dragon won't turn your plan against you is a dangerous idea.

And even if you do pull it off and bag yourself a dragon, you've just signed your own death warrant.  For the rest of your runner's short life he'll be the subject of vengeance from other dragons.  And you can bet they can think up a better ambush than your runner can.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

catrone3

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« Reply #47 on: <03-23-18/1106:05> »
Well I wouldn't say that I did this with a high level PC, the skill values were still that of chargen, the only difference was the gun itself. My character at the time had about 50 karma, I would have killed two but the GM who ran the first one had the dragon peel off after it took 13 physical damage from my rifle (the seattle adventure with the commlink). The second one I did kill, but it was because the GM didn't have it peel away, the second GM did make the mistake of having hardened mystic armor count towards physical damage so it didn't have an armor spell on it. The character never had another dragon come after them before they got benched.

Marcus

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« Reply #48 on: <03-23-18/1219:37> »
What does being a high level initiate have to do with it marcus, they have a set amount of hardened armor. You did read where I said you have to have a "powerful enough distraction" right? Let me do the math as to how this worked for you so that maybe, just maybe you will understand how a rifle did all the damage and took out the dragon.

First off, the rifle character will not be next to the rest of the team, that is the purpose of the distraction. They will instead be pushing their range and have all range modifiers negated through the proper combination of gear. They will be using either the barret or the terracotta, no aim action taken because you will be doing the called shot bulls eye burst with a complex SA burst. This will net an ap of either -16 (terracotta) or -22 (barret), the rifle character is skilled with their rifle and is rolling 24 dice versus a classic western dragon who's dodge is 16 (for at least the first shot, depends on how the GM is thinking and how good the distraction is) so you have a 50 50 shot of getting 3 net success, possibly more. Now if it is the barret, the dragon has just lost most of its hardened armor if it is terracotta it does still have some left so this will be slower. When it comes time to soak the dragon will on average soak 13 of the 18p you managed to do with the terracotta but only 9 of the 17p you managed with the barret. Their condition monitor is only 17 for physical, so you either just took 30% of its health or 50% of its health.

So it can be done with a rifle quite quickly if you have a team that can keep its attention for 3 combat passes, not sure why you think you need all of the stuff you mentioned.

A force 12 combat sense spell takes that to a 24 vs 28, and now on average you miss, and Combat sense doesn't care about any distraction, or range. You won't beat it on surprise test ether, and a 12 isn't even pushing it for a dragon. You may have GM who doesn't understand how to run a dragon in SR, but trust me, any GM who does understand what they can do, will shut you down easy, and pack your team up in a doggie bag for snack time later.
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catrone3

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« Reply #49 on: <03-23-18/1259:07> »
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A force 12 combat sense spell takes that to a 24 vs 28, and now on average you miss, and Combat sense doesn't care about any distraction, or range. You won't beat it on surprise test ether, and a 12 isn't even pushing it for a dragon.

force 12 adding 12 dice is assuming you get 12 of the 24 dice for spellcasting as successes when the average (over 50% chance of getting this value) will be 8 successes. So while that would be a worst-case scenario, I was doing the math for an average case scenario. Now you may be ignoring dice and just choosing things when you GM, but that is not how I myself GM. As for 12 isn't even pushing it for a dragon, that is pushing into physical drain for the average dragon as their magic is only 10 on average with a drain dice pool (assuming centering and mid-level being half of their total magic) of 23. This means that anything past 8 success becomes difficult and can cause damage, and if it is getting the 12 success on a force 12 spell then that will just deal physical damage.

Now, this doesn't account for a possibility of the dragon trying over and over again to get the highest armor and such as he could. However, are you as the GM going to keep rolling to try and get the highest power spell with as little drain or are you going to just roll once. If you roll multiple times you are then once again doing a form of GM cheating that can make any game become unfun for players very fast.

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« Reply #50 on: <03-23-18/1425:09> »
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A force 12 combat sense spell takes that to a 24 vs 28, and now on average you miss, and Combat sense doesn't care about any distraction, or range. You won't beat it on surprise test ether, and a 12 isn't even pushing it for a dragon.

force 12 adding 12 dice is assuming you get 12 of the 24 dice for spellcasting as successes when the average (over 50% chance of getting this value) will be 8 successes. So while that would be a worst-case scenario, I was doing the math for an average case scenario. Now you may be ignoring dice and just choosing things when you GM, but that is not how I myself GM. As for 12 isn't even pushing it for a dragon, that is pushing into physical drain for the average dragon as their magic is only 10 on average with a drain dice pool (assuming centering and mid-level being half of their total magic) of 23. This means that anything past 8 success becomes difficult and can cause damage, and if it is getting the 12 success on a force 12 spell then that will just deal physical damage.

Now, this doesn't account for a possibility of the dragon trying over and over again to get the highest armor and such as he could. However, are you as the GM going to keep rolling to try and get the highest power spell with as little drain or are you going to just roll once. If you roll multiple times you are then once again doing a form of GM cheating that can make any game become unfun for players very fast.

Dragon can have whatever resources the GM feels is appropriate, pushing a 24 casting pool to 36 in single spell category is very easy to do at that level. As a GM you should know it's not hard, if you want the result to be 12 then take the steps to make it 12 or 14 or 18 it's not a mathematical challenge, pick the average you want and get the pool 3 times result; Problem solved. How to do it easy foci, edge, contacts there's as many ways as you can dream up. The phrase GM cheating just makes me laugh. You clearly have read the mods, they say to do what want/need to do tell your story. It's the GM's game man, it's their job to do whatever they need to tell the story they wanna tell. It's also worth noting any time a team has trigger the summon dragon condition the party has epicly screwed the pooch, so kids gloves are off the team gets whats coming to'em TPK or otherwise.  As to drain forget it, the dragon won't take any at force 20+, reagents are cheap.  Dragon's scale better and have greater base values and basically unlimited resource, I care nothing about armor it's easier to make sure the characters miss, and there lots of way to do that. Combat sense is just the most simple and efficient method.

But there's no shortage of more intrusive and destructive methods to reach the same result. Come on now I've been gaming for decades man, I've seen all the tricks.

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catrone3

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« Reply #51 on: <03-23-18/1509:27> »
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It's the GM's game man, it's their job to do whatever they need to tell the story they wanna tell.

Yea, see this should never be the case, the GM's job is to create a setting in which the players can create a story. If you run a game as it the GMs story, deal with it I bet you change players often because that is railroading and players are not fond of that. Players are there to have fun and play their character and build their character's story, that is the point of any RPG game regardless of the setting.

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As to drain forget it, the dragon won't take any at force 20+, reagents are cheap.  Dragon's scale better and have greater base values and basically unlimited resource, I care nothing about armor it's easier to make sure the characters miss, and there lots of way to do that. Combat sense is just the most simple and efficient method.

I try to forget the FA reagent rules because those are stupid and make reagents way to powerful, plus would a dragon really be willing to destroy some of its own scales to cast a spell, much less use reagents? Remeber, dragons find reagents distasteful to use. Either way, making a character always miss always upsets players because eventually, they will just say fuck it was dead and leave the game. A thing we as GMs should be trying to avoid, especially as good players are a rare find.

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Dragon can have whatever resources the GM feels is appropriate, pushing a 24 casting pool to 36 in single spell category is very easy to do at that level. As a GM you should know it's not hard, if you want the result to be 12 then take the steps to make it 12 or 14 or 18 it's not a mathematical challenge, pick the average you want and get the pool 3 times result; Problem solved.

You are right, they can have any stats you want if you just up their magic rating when it comes to spellcasting. However, making something a challenge instead of a "welp the dragon/baddy is here, we are all now dead" without a chance of survival is more around the math, because multiplying the successes isn't always the best way to go since you may base the successes you need off of the average you have seen a player roll in terms of successes and those all just happen to be really good rolls and not the statistical average.

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It's also worth noting any time a team has trigger the summon dragon condition the party has epicly screwed the pooch, so kids gloves are off the team gets whats coming to'em TPK or otherwise.

If this was the case, then adventures that are written for your average runner (not prime runner) would not have a dragon coming after them as something that could happen on two of the four possible options. Especially while also having it be possible to get away from the dragon, so having it where the gloves are either on or off is bad GMing. The gloves should never be on in the first place, it should always be a challenge, but one where it is the player's story and you as the GM just fill in the pieces.


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But there's no shortage of more intrusive and destructive methods to reach the same result. Come on now I've been gaming for decades man, I've seen all the tricks.

I am guessing you are referring to killing a dragon with this, but why would you want something more pink? The idea would be to end it quickly and disappear not leave even more evidence than you already are that you were there.