You do realize that isn't how VX works?

There are a few parts of SR that really extra specially irritate me, and this is one. Ghostwalker and similar idiocies are essentially what Ancient History should have pointed to with his comment about Running The Asylum. It's "Oh See how cool we are! Don't you wish you could be this cool too?"

Muscle spasms. I think you tear yourself apart.
If I'm recalling my chemical weapons properly.

Pretty much. They are cholinesterase inhibitors, and cause all your muscles to, eventually, not relax. Among other things, this causes you to not be able to breath. The gross symptom I had described was people "doing the jerking chicken" in advanced cases.

in all probability, ghostwalker should have died when he attacked denver. frankly, he should never have relied on a frontal assault to begin with. just pretend that he actually came out of the portal months earlier, and when he overthrew aztlan in denver there were actually several planned uprisings nearby that had pulled aztlan's army out of the area and kept them busy, and that he then somehow rewarded those rebel groups once he basically owned denver. or whatever else works for you. in any event, while a great dragon is certainly a scary thing when it comes to actual combat, the scariest part is not that it's going to bite you in half. it's that if you actually made it to the dragon to begin with, the only reason is that it decided when, where, and how you arrived, and you've probably been flavored according to the great dragon's taste already and landed on it's plate just as it was sitting down for lunch. they aren't a threat in terms of what they can do to an army in combat, they're a threat because they'll out-think you on every level and your army will be shredded by their minions well before you reach them.

I don't think the OP wanted to get yet another complaint about Ghostwalker, IEs and all that, but just ideas how to kill a Dragon. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif)

I'm sorry but your disagreement with canon does not change the facts.

The bottom line is, canonically speaking, an army tried and failed to take out a GD. You can alter your campaign so this never happened, or change events so that GW died, but at the end of the day, if you play with the established canon material, no human (or group of humans) has killed a Great Dragon - to the best of my knowledge that is.

- J.

It isn't VX, is the scary uncle of the BZ class of chemical agents. Just because exposition Bob is in the room does not mean he is telling the truth. Besides I wrote it spur of the moment. It is not the importance of the nitpick, it was that the entire Star Chamber and the high prince are dead.

Guys, do try to remember that Denver is a treaty city. The military forces stationed there are largely a token presence, to protect the few assets they have there. You're comparing one tiny military outpost to the entire military force of a developed nation.

Ghostwalker's war against the Aztlan forces in Denver was described as an eleven day campaign of hit and run attacks, supported by many powerful spirits (Ghostwalker is, canon, the best summoner in the Shadowrun/Earthdawn world. This guy has spirit back up coming out of his ass, possibly literally). In the opening volleys, which are described in detail, Aztlan manages to get something like three or four choppers in the air against him, at most.
This was a far cry from the entire Aztlan military taking him on.

In fact, on their home turf, Aztlan has taken on great dragons and won. They didn't get a kill, but they were able to publicly execute an Amazonian dragon whilst several greats tried and failed to stop them.

You know...I think there's a reason I don't pay attention to what Atzlan does.
That's positively revolting.

Ok -
1) It was an entire detatchment of the Aztlan army. I can't recall the exact size but it was everything they had in the Denver region. I can quote the book if you want to split hairs - heck it could have been an entire division.
2) That Amazonian dragon was not a great. And the GDs didn't fail to stop them, they weren't involved or acting openly. It's a bit hard to use all your power when forced to act through proxies. If they were it would have been a different story. Do you really think Mujaji and Hualpa going tag-team on Aztlan would NOT own face? Seriously?

- J.

but is that division on combat ready 24/7, with all man and materials?

Yes. Tactics is a skill like any other skill. You need to have the skill in order to know how use your abilities. In such a case, tactics is the sum of all your abilities because how well you use them can be in a skill in and of itself.

Tactical information is given based on Perception or some other information skill like a Knowledge skill for instance. Any decision they make is up to them, but if I think that they are acting outside their expertise, then I will call for a skill roll against a Threshold I determine with respect to the complexity of the action they are trying, like any other course of action they attempt. Similarly my NPCs tactics are governed by their dice rolls. The responses or tactics used by NPCs are linked to their stats.

just did a quick once over of the sr4 core. do you have anything official supporting the claim that tactics is an in game skill instead of actual player skill. in almost all cases a players characters abilities and experience far outweigh the actual players. anything your players think up tactics wise the character can too.

i make a perception test. im told details based on the roll. i come to my own conclusion based on that information and i (not dice or numbers) decide what i should do in that situation. are you saying the characters should be limited in actions based on what the gm thinks they should do? thats what it sounds like.

More likely it should be treated that whatever the player comes up with is what they're doing. If it's a sound plan (as opposed to "I'll escape the guards by jumping off the building") then their tactics roll indicates how good of a plan it really is.

For example, if the plan is in fact to jump off the building and the player rolls high on their tactics and the NPCs low, then the plan goes off without a hitch: they jump off the building (and have to deal with the consequences thereof). If the PC and the NPC(s) tie then it could be said that as the player is running to the edge of the roof one of the NPC guards gets there first, attempting to intercept (both of them might tumble over). If the PC rolls lower than the NPCs then it could be said that while a solid plan, the PC forgot to take into account that group of guys there, who all mob rush him and tackle him to the proverbial ground (no one goes over the edge).

Not that this is to allow the players with high tactics to rob banks without being seen, it falls under the heading of "you've been detected, but you panned that this might happen, what do you do?"

sounds better than what toturi was saying. but it still seems unnecessary. if you start treating tactics soley as mechanical,which it shouldnt be, you end up with scene based resolution. shadowrun isnt scene based its round based. going by raw if he is closer to the edge and its his action he jumps off. maybe the opposition could make an athletics test.

it sounds good on paper but if the scene is already set and your players come up with a great plan but fail a roll, what happens? does the scene randomly adjust to fit the roll?

really all this about tactics being an opposed role is house rules. so it still stands that tactics is a player skill not a character skill.

I'd like to think that 50 years later the GDs had found out how to better deal with metahumanity's pesky technology - spells to keep warheads from detonating in proximity to the GD would be a big help - but with Ghostwalker, that's a bit far-fetched unless he was dealing with such things in his metaplanar retreat. The whole thing still feels like a bad hack job to me too.

I Just looked it up. They took Firewing out with two missiles from a helicopter, and then s/he fell into the SOX. Of course, there are the traditional rumors of "Is it really dead" but since we haven't heard anything about it since, seems Feurschwing or however it's spelled got punked pretty easily.

Are there Spoiler Tags here?
Contains Spoilers about SOX.
Well, more or less. Novel-Stuff.

Disclaimer: This posting has been Edited 5 to 10 Times now.

what book is that from? id like to read it.

Usually the scene is set after the roll is made. So the scene doesn't change but was decided before the scene. If the players come up with a great plan but fail a roll (or some similar situation), then it simply means they have overreached themselves, it can mean several things - I allow them to continue but I will not award karma for good roleplay since they obviously do not have the skill to come up with such a good plan (the dumb ass PC coming up with a genius tactical plan is not good roleplay, IMO), I tell them that their PCs do not think such a plan is feasible, I allow them to continue but the opposition is ready to handle whatever they are doing. The key is although the actual result is not set in stone, it will be not be good for the PCs.

I abbreviate (whatever appropriate) tactics to simply tactics, but I know of at least one tactics skill that is canon.

ok, say i walk into a room, the kind of opposition in that room as well as my ability to cope with said situation is decided by a die roll before i can do anything. thats what its sounding like to me. if thats not how it works give an example.

if the characters have a logic or intuition of 3 then there mental capacity is similar to the player. if its higher then the character is better than the player.

the only tactics skill i remember is small unit tactics which just added to the initiative score. that was in sr3. i havent seen its sr4 equivalent.

really it sounds like you dont plan the run out in advance but generate it based on the rolls instead of the actual players abilities.

im going to give you an example and tell me how you would resolve it with the mechanics youve proposed. it seems like its very metagamey.


ok my team has gotten a copy of the floorplans, security details, work schedules for the gaurds. we study it and devise a way into the building going by the information weve learned. the plan is created by the players not by a dice roll.

say we are using our stealth tactics to enter the building, make our stealth rolls and all.

from the sound of it before we even enter the complex a roll is made to determine whether our plan works or not/whether our characters could devise the plan.

if thats the case a player could just max out the linked stat and tactics skill and not have to actually devise anything but just rely on the dice to do the work for him.

The tactics skill I was refering to is not an active skill as far as I know. It is in Runner's Companion, IIRC.

Yes, the roll is made to see whether you actually succeed in devising the plan. I might allow the plan to go through but as I said, no roleplay exp since you did not roleplay an group of characters who do not have the vaguest idea of how to coordinate and plan(assuming you default). I will not allow a character to skate on "tactics" just because his player is a tactical genius.

That too is true. Just like a socially inept player can still choose to play someone with high Social skills or someone who never fired a gun to actually play a John Woo gunfighter. Don't you let your dice do the work when your character shoot someone?

i decide whether i shoot someone. i might even decide how if i call a shot. i decide when to take cover and when to run away. thats tactics.

if one of your players who if emulated by the game probably has no tactics skills by the game standards isnt allowed to think up what his characters can do all you are left is a railroading gm who decides what you do and when you do it.

if i the player can devise a plan on my own with the informatioon my character knows why do you think they couldnt have done the same. now if the character has an intuition/logic of 1 or 2 i might understand it. but if i devise a plan in a few minutes and my character has possibly a few hours ,in some cases days, to devise a plan. why would you claim its invalid because of a dice roll? if the know a situation before hand and plan accordingly why take it away from them? im not saying that a plan cant go south or backfire but it should happen because of the tactics not because luck of dice says yes or no.

what is the effect of the tactics skill you mentioned earlier and what page can i find it?

The best thing that I have seen for Tactical Use in SR4 is the Tactical Network... used properly, it will give you a very definite edge in almost any scenario... if you don't use it, well, you will be at a significant disadvantage against those who do...