here's the thing. You don't actually have to be a 12 logic smart to RP being 12 logic smart. First off you can say that logic 12 dragons can see things coming like a the exact time to buy out a corporation when it's stocks are lowest. You don't have to be a logic 12 GM to say that free spirit had the for site to get black mail material on the 3 guys it will take to preform a hostel take over of a business that owns the patents you need to give share with the medical facility you also bought a rock bottom prices a competitive edge. If I could ACTUALLY figure out how to do that I'd be making a lot more bank than I am now that is for sure. But I could GM it just fine.
Secondly most any logic 12 NPC is very technical or very magical. BLIND YOUR PLAYERS WITH SCIENCE! yup just spit out some arcane/techno babble and you are good to go. Goes a long way for the feel.
Also you can make Sherlock Holmes level deductions. "Oh I see you have been set up with an Ares SIN and Renraku guts in your meta-link case. That's seem like a move Thatcher would make at this point in the game ... but you wouldn't know him by that name would you? Let me guess your Johnson goes by either Grant or Monroe.

Once again my point proven, some people just can't come up with this stuff, which is why I don't always include it in my ramblings.

That's too bad. Maybe folks should practice being smart as much as they practice being tough.

Peter

??? so what you are saying is that you can beat anything as long as your opponent doesn't know how to play the character??

i agree with pbangarth. when i run a game(which i thought my style was rather standard) you have to have much more than stats to do something of merit.

I don't agree with this assumption that these NPCs can automatically counter anything players can come up with. That way lies Mary Sue, and Elminster. It's the opposite of fun.

If a group of players really is gunning for a given NPC, they should have a fair shot at taking him down if they do their homework. Accomplishing the feat would be a good ending for a campaign, for example.

Sure, but high intelligence should not just be dismissed as an asset merely because the GM does not think himself capable of utilizing it.

Defeating a major opponent after long and continuous conflict is very satisfying. Always having the chance to beat something doesn't seem right to me. Pick anybody on Earth, and there are things she can't defeat, no matter how hard she tries. That's just life, and even more so in the dark Shadowrun universe.

What I was saying earlier about intelligence may come clearer with an example. I am a human. A lion could shred me six ways from Sunday. One combat round, and I'm dead. Guaranteed. The thing is, I know that. I now it better than the lion knows it. I also know how lions hunt, where they hunt, and how often they hunt. I know how big a rifle I need to kill it from 300 meters away so it can't shred me. I can bait it. I can trick it. I can drop food behind me and keep running if I happen to run across it. I can stay a continent and an ocean away from it. If I want to be safe from lions, I can make it so, and never be in danger from them, as long as I use the intelligence with which I was born.

Dragons are to hyperfast, pylon-driver punching, geared-to-the-sparkly-wings pixie shadowrunners as I am to lions.

Get over it. The lions do.

Peter

Also the easiest counter anyone can have against a killer pixie is a detect enemies sustaining focus. If you had intent to harm the dragon you would be totally shredded because it would win initiative and then proceed to blast you six ways from sundown. If your argument is "well I can get away with it when my GM is not very conniving" then maybe that is not the table for you is pretty paper thin. Your GM might also just let you get away with everything, because that is their play style and if so then it's also a lame argument.

If there is not a mana barrier, a physical barrier, a spirit, and some sustaining foci getting in your way then your GM needs to read up a little more on the rules. Having to set up against a dragon means that you need a single IP to get ready to punch it.... and thats when it hits you with a force 12 power bolt and you just die.... or you punch the barrier, it tells you that if you don't stop it's going to kill you, and if the detect enemies is still going off and you don't back down then it kills you.

Really? Most of the lions I know bitch incessantly about it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

As far as the PCs always having the chance to beat someone, I see PCs vs. things such as great dragons as being similar to street gangers vs. PCs. Most of the time, the PCs can obliterate any gangers that are stupid enough to get in their way. But, in the right circumstances, a ganger can be a danger to a PC. If a punk ganger can potentially kill a much superior PC, that same PC, given optimal circumstances, should have a chance against something like a great dragon.

I see both your point and Bira's about creatures with super-high intelligence. On the one hand, the GM needs to have a bit of slack in order to properly simulate a being of superhuman cognitive facilities. But on the other hand, it is lazy and dickish to simply handwave and say "The NPC automatically wins, he would know how to counter anything you could possibly do."

Like I said, I don't have a problem with super-powerful NPCs, but they should fit the universe they are in. In the Shadowrun universe, one of the major premises of the genre is that no one is invincible. Great dragons and immortal elves should need their centuries of cunning to survive. For all of their power, death should still be a possibility for them, even if a remote one.

From the pixie puncher? Not likely. He's a one-trick pony who would not get close enough to use his schtick, and even if he did, a great dragon's twist fate power, if nothing else, would mess him up something fierce.

Actually after I actually built him fully, he can do a gamut of useful things such as Hacking, and even some Negotiation better than most players can do. All while being nearly undetectable and stealthy AND with the stopping power to kill a Dragon. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

The funny thing about Twist Fate is its useless if the character doesn't use Edge to augment a roll. The only real application of it is to make a person reroll his successes. The person however can just pop a edge to stop it, however and the dragon cannot twist fate that spent edge to stop the counter for the first twist fate. In effect the dragon just helplessly watching as his heart is ripped out. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lick.gif)

In reference to masterofm think of this saying...

"I can do anything better than you"

If said dragon has all these barriers or a Detect spell etc etc, then they create a mechanical effect in game that can be bypassed or circumvented with another mechanical application. Something that is particularly interesting about Shadowrun is there is a counter to everything out there. Even some of the more powerful characters I have created, such as 100+ armor or 100+ DV still can be stopped by other things in the game sickeningly easy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dead.gif)

As other people have stated there should always be a way to succeed and Shadowrun always gives that way. The example about the Go-Gangers is excellent. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)



I also don't like this statement, the people I game with are very intelligent and clever. However no one but God is infallible and people can just forget or simply be ignorant. You also need to take into consideration the cognitive powers of the player who is facing off against the GM's creations. You can sit here can say because of X , Y, Z you cannot kill Lowfyr or whatever. However what if I said, Even with X,Y,Z I can kill him because of H? Once again therein lies the problem, if you begin to represent him with in-game stats he can be killed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

Today , incidentally, I found out a Force 1 Radiation Elemental can kill any living object in the game with little or no effort (Dragons not excluded). It was very humbling, Even Lowfyr would die to this strategy since its so subtle. Nothing exists in the game (to my limited knowledge) to prevent said strategy, unless you want to wave your hand dismissively and say "he does because I say he does" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

The concept of Shadowrun is no matter how powerful you get there is always something better. Dragons are on such a larger power scale that you fail against them. If they do have stats they can be theoretically killed. However anyone with detect enemies can detect malicious intent. Radiation is malicious intent, punching someone is malicious intent, any spirit or person who wants to hurt that being has malicious intent. You can't really kill a dragon as long as they have the spell up. Drones don't do enough damage, and dragons are very perceptive, and magical.

I have also seen a lot of what you have written up Ragewind and let me just say a lot of your arguments on what you can get away with are very very thin. If your GM lets you basically get away with everything, and all the loopholes or vaguely worded SR text (and there is a lot of this.) Your whole thing about your pixie puncher is thinking that the minute you want to kill that dragon you won't be instantly vaporized.... which is what would pretty much happen if you want to try to get close to engage in punching a dragon.

If your basing your whole defense on the ability to use the detect hostile intent spell, then how about this...

Dragon is sitting in a building sleeping/watching tv/playing a vr game or in some way shape or form distracted.

I walk up to the building, open the door and look at the dragon, and walk up to it to say hi.

As I finish my move near the dragon, a messege pops up on my AR screen, reminding me that Dragons are worth money to the right people, or maybes its just a message I recorded however long ago. The point however is clear...Kill it

Now that I am next to the Dragon and get the idea, his spell goes off saying "HEY SOMETHING WANTS TO HURT YOU" by then its too late as he is already dead.

Or alternatively

The dragon is Walking/Flying/Surfing/Sliding around the place, and the above happens. Maybe some agent program takes control, or a suggestion spell kicks in. The possibilities are endless, no matter what the dragon ends up dead (assuming I can do enough damage) and thereby the spell is circumvented. Now you will undoubtedly say "He umm he has something else!", well then whatever it is I am sure there is a counter somewhere, but I am not here to kill a dragon so I don't want to get entrenched in a debate.

Also Drones can in fact deal enough damage, not the other day I noticed a post about STR 30+ bows....

I disagree with this statement, nothing is to powerful to kill in any game If It Has Stats

Shadowrun is unique that a "1st" level character can concivably kill anything with relative ease, other games like DND makes you REALLY work for it (120 damage at 1st level!) typically your character cannot do these things until a much higher level.

How?

I don't remember the specifics, but as Neraph explained it to me even if you are able to reduce the Radiation damage down to zero, you have now been exposed to it and now have a rating of radiation equal to "Light", if you keep sending the elementals after your target they will (in short order) gain a rating of "Severe", which gives them 1-4 days left to live no matter what. Very interesting, when I get more time I will go read up on the radiation rules and see if there is a way to downgrade the level of severity, maybe some Gene Therapy might mitigate it, but that certainly takes more than 1-4 days.

the thing with great dragons is they are always over prepared. typically somewhere along the lines of charisma in bound spirits of a high force. maximum anchoring foci if there is such a thing. each one with force 12 detect enemy and force 12 power bolt or some similar death dealing spell. and maybe even a few powerful free spirits in its employ(read as bound for life) if anchoring foci count towards you limit in foci i believe i read on here that the max was magic times 5. thats at least 40 death dealing anchoring focuses waiting to trigger. and on the point of a more armored dragon say he has 5 force 12 free spirit with endowment of immunity to normal weapons on him. that 24 times 5 hardened armor plus his natural armor plus a high force quickened armor spell.
then we have magical compounds such as immortal flower that bestow regeneration.

everything i just stated is perfectly fine rules wise to third edition and from my understanding would still be applicable in forth edition

a great dragon doesn't rely on one gimmick it relies on a thousand fail safes.

"As I finish my move near the dragon, a messege pops up on my AR screen, reminding me that Dragons are worth money to the right people, or maybes its just a message I recorded however long ago. The point however is clear...Kill it"

Bad example. Anyone who was a shadowrunner would know a dragon is worth bank and would want to kill it. Detect enemies makes it so that you can't get the drop on your foe. You don't actually get to one shot the dragon because it knows exactly what you are going to do and what you intend to do the instant you decide to do it. Guess what that means? Its time to roll initative and see who wins! There is no magical "suddenly I blindside you and get first strike" as your intentions are clear to it, and if it wasn't expecting for someone to try to pull that crap on it then the Shadowrun world is run by dinosaurs who live underground and control things via tree roots soaked in a substance immune to lava.

What you fail to realize is that dragons don't just have stats they also have skills as well. A great dragon will see you coming from a mile away. It will hear you, it will smell you, it will assense you with astral window. Having a dragon stupid enough not to have its defenses up is probably going to be killed by another dragon, not a team... That or a magical ritual mage hit squad might pull it off as well. Sure the pixie can one shot a dragon, and many things can one shot other beings in SR if they are built for it but you don't always get the chance. Sure the pornomancer could convince the dragon to kill itself (thank you very much stupid social rules table) but that dragon will probably not want to sit at the same table as that runner. I mean would you? What do you think your logic score actually is? Is it 12? Would you let a runner team waltz up into your layer and not be prepared. You know for a fact you are a walking pile of money that most people would shit themselves just to get a crack at your toenails and you are just going to walk around defenseless? If you were a dragon worth millions and millions of (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and you also have quite a stash of magical belongings and wealth that it has horded as well would you leave yourself defenseless? Get real. If the dragon is watching T.V. it is only because it wants to lull you into a false sense of security. I mean you do go well with ketchup.

The nice thing about detect enemies and detect magic is if you try to go hostile the dragon sees it coming, if you are effected by a spell the dragon sees it coming.

Runners come prepared, and so do dragons. Even when you are going up against gangers most shadowrunning teams play it cautious so why should dragons be stupid enough to watch T.V. without detect enemies and detect magic up and some spirits watching its back. I mean your a team meeting with a gang so the first thing your team does to show that your trustworthy so your team deactivates all of their foci, turn all their weapons into the gang, let yourselves sit in a mana static so the mage is no longer a threat, and tranq patch yourselves before talking to them. A shadowrunner team having no defenses or gimping their potential defenses sounds just as ludicrous as a dragon not having its defenses up.