WWSD?, The reality of augmented attributes Options

[knasser]

It was requested, so here is an updated version of "What Would Samurai Do?" Taking three moderately augmented examples of 2070 metahumanity (including a troll), and using more or less typical rolls without Edge use, we can see just what they're really capable of. Everything is drawn to scale. The only thing that isn't 100% RAW are the lifting results because the lifting rules in SR4 are useless. I've used my own extrapolations for that.

Link is here:

What Would Samurai Do? II

The fight results were worked out by a friend who wrote a program to automatically calculate the outcomes of Shadowrun fights. Three-thousand run throughs of each fight were computed! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

If you want to print the full thing out at A3, there's a link to a larger, print resolution image on my site.

Comments?

K.

[X-Kalibur]

I actually bust out laughing when I saw the car jumping picture. Gotta love trogs.

[kjones]

Nicely done, mate!

The 4:1 figure is interesting - it makes sense, but it's useful from a mission-design perspective.

[Dr.Rockso]

I actually bust out laughing when I saw the car jumping picture. Gotta love trogs.

I tried to restrain myself and it came out as some sort of cough/giggle hybrid. My co-workers must think I am insane.

Comments?

Great stuff. Might have to print out a couple of copies and pass them around

[Axl]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Stahlseele]

Yay, the Khadim delivers again ^^

[Draco18s]

You forgot to label the dragon. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Of course, I want to see those same challenges as done by a strength 40 flying reptile (assuming he didn't just fly).

[McCummhail]

Solid work as always!
I know a friendly trog player who needs to see this.

[the_real_elwood]

Augmented Troll: Can standing jump on a car, but might as well just flip the thing over.

Hah! Top notch stuff.

[knasser]

Wow! People love the car-flipper. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Thank you for all the comments. I'm really glad people like it. @Draco18's: You're right - I did forget to label the dragon. My bad. She's called Susan, FYI.

I don't know if there's much more to add to the picture. I did think about doing something where the characters are being shot - a Stand There and Take It example. I thought given the abstract nature of the Shadowrun damage rules though, it wouldn't work quite as well as the other examples.

Here's a question - how many people play augmented attributes for what they're worth in the game? The original WWSD came about when I realised neither I nor my players had really considered just how that level of ability would affect your life. I know since doing this, it's livened up my game a little. When I run a Samurai character now, I'm always keeping in mind that a first floor window is actually a viable exit for example.

Incidentally, back on the dragon: Whilst I could scale the Hell Hound accurately (1m tall at shoulder) and even get the Thunderbird about right (3m wingspan), dragons are a little fiddlier due to lack of a real one to draw on. What I did was find a dragon that looked reasonably inline with a Western dragon in Shadowrun and guestimate its 30m wingspan. I think I'm not far off. If anything, it's slightly small, though that's balanced because I picture Shadowrun wyrms being a bit more slender in build than this one. Even so, looking at the size of the thing makes you realise how huge they are.

[Squinky]

Awesome stuff. I agree, it seems like in shadowrun games lots of times it is normal to have that agility 7, its just some dice to add to your roll. I loved your first one, and i love this one as well.

[Karoline]

Awesome stuff. I agree, it seems like in shadowrun games lots of times it is normal to have that agility 7, its just some dice to add to your roll. I loved your first one, and i love this one as well.

Very true. Easy to forget how superhuman even a 7 in a stat is, despite how common it is among runners. Someone with seven strength beats world weightlifting records with minimal effort. The other stats are a little harder to visualize, but 7 agility is basically able to compete in the Olympic gymnastics, 7 reaction is "My spidy sense is tingling."

[Stahlseele]

I do.
In SR3 maxed out Strength, Quickness and Body MEANT something in a Troll.
I can cleave vehicles in half, i can throw people farther than my heavy pistol shoots, i can use my Arrows as Anti Air Projectiles.
I can take shotgun blasts to the chests and laugh about them, i can knock out dragons with a punch.

[Mordinvan]

It was requested, so here is an updated version of "What Would Samurai Do?" Taking three moderately augmented examples of 2070 metahumanity (including a troll), and using more or less typical rolls without Edge use, we can see just what they're really capable of. Everything is drawn to scale. The only thing that isn't 100% RAW are the lifting results because the lifting rules in SR4 are useless. I've used my own extrapolations for that.

Link is here:

What Would Samurai Do? II

The fight results were worked out by a friend who wrote a program to automatically calculate the outcomes of Shadowrun fights. Three-thousand run throughs of each fight were computed! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

If you want to print the full thing out at A3, there's a link to a larger, print resolution image on my site.

Comments?

K.

I may have just found a new desktop

[nemafow]

This sir, is being printed and passed around at my SR session tonight. Great work!

[Method]

Its interesting to me that the 3 builds (including the troll) seem to be equal in an unarmed brawl.

And I like the dwarf (or child) in the trolls lifting pic.

Great work, as usual Khadim.

[nemafow]

Its interesting to me that the 3 builds (including the troll) seem to be equal in an unarmed brawl.

And I like the dwarf (or child) in the trolls lifting pic.

Great work, as usual Khadim.

That was what I first thought, I was very surprised and thought I was reading it wrong.
Is this 100% correct Knasser? Samurai doesn't seem as uber as they should be in knife or brawling compared to
the other characters?

[Karoline]

Its interesting to me that the 3 builds (including the troll) seem to be equal in an unarmed brawl.

Yeah, seems odd. Did the troll brawling take into account the troll's natural reach and armor? He should be doing on average 3 extra boxes of damage, should be getting an extra 1/3rd of a hit, and should be soaking 2 extra boxes of damage. Actually, I'm surprised that unarmed gangsters can even injure a troll without a dozen or so of them. Str 4 is a base of 2 damage. With body 13 and 1 point of armor, the troll should be soaking almost 5 boxes of damage on average. Their Agility 3 + unarmed 2 + friends in melee (max 3 isn't it?) 3 = 8 dice to fight against the troll's 5 + 4 + reach 1= 10 dice to defend, and the gangers need on average 4 net hits to injure the troll... Yeah, I'm thinking you really do need about a dozen average gangers to take down the troll sammy. Maybe the friend didn't program the program properly. I might try whipping something up.

Edit: And yes, I'm taking into consideration the diminishing defense pool. It'd take about 4 gangers for the 4th to even have a chance to hit the troll, and it would take 11 to get the 11th to have an average of almost 3 net hits against the troll, which still isn't enough to do enough damage that the troll can't soak it. I think the troll can actually take a virtually infinite number of unarmed gangsters on.

[Karoline]

Okay, so, looked over the rules a bit to make sure that I wasn't missing anything obvious, and yeah, the troll has a good change to take on absurd numbers of opponents.

Troll:
Str: 13
Agility: 5
Body: 13
Reaction: 5
IP: 2
Armor: 1
Unarmed skill: 4

Ganger:
Str: 4
Agility: 3
Body: 3
Reaction: 3
IP: 1
Armor: 0
Unarmed Skill: 2

The gangers will roll (At best) Agi 3 + Unarmed 2 + FIM 4 - reach 1 = 8 dice to attack, and the troll will be rolling Rea 5 + Unarmed 4 = 9 dice to defend. So, on average the first one will miss entirely, the second and third are more likely to miss than hit, and only by the fourth ganger, when troll is down to rolling 6 dice, do the ganger have a decent chance to even hit (Remember, defender wins ties). So, 4th ganger has one net hit on the troll. With strength of 4, the base damage is 2 with a +1 from a net hit. The troll can buy the 3 hits to soak that damage, so no worries there. Gangers 5 and 6 are in similar situations, and not till ganger 7 is there a good chance of 2 net hits, which brings damage up to 4. No, with 13 body and 1 point of armor, a soak pool of 14, the troll can't quite buy the hits, but getting 4 hits on 14 dice is fairly easy, so he will usually be able to soak it all up. From about the 8th ganger on though you start having a chance of actually doing a box of damage if troll gets unlucky and ganger gets lucky and then troll gets unlucky a second time. Once you get that 3rd box of damage, things start getting a bit difficult thanks to wound modifiers, but you basically need about 8+ gangers to really have a hope of ever getting there, even ignoring the fact that the gangers will loose two people per combat turn (Sammy has 9 dice to attack and ganger has 5 dice to defend, average 1 net hit, base strength 13 means base damage 7 + 1 from hit is 8 damage, possibly physical with bone lacing, which also might add a point or two of damage into the equation. Might not quite drop the ganger, but it'll likely make him rethink attacking the troll.

So yeah, think the chart needs to be changed to show the troll taking on at least 8 gangers. I might write up a program to see how often a troll sammy wins against 8, 9, 10 and various other numbers of gangers, and perhaps how damaged he is after the effort.

Edit: Oh, forgot to soak for the ganger, average 1 box less damage, so 7 points not taking into account any kind of bone lacing. Still the sort of thing that might get the ganger to go sit down for a bit.

[Method]

There is that little cluster of three apparently-unrelated ganger icons off to the right of that graphic. Maybe a formating error and these are supposed to be in the trolls pile o' dead (making his total 7 to others' 4)?

[KCKitsune]

Okay, so, looked over the rules a bit to make sure that I wasn't missing anything obvious, and yeah, the troll has a good change to take on absurd numbers of opponents.

You have to remember Karoline, knasser did put in that the gangers do have basic cyber/bio. Consider that Wired Reflexes 1 costs "only" 11,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ... that might make the fight a little more fair.

[Draco18s]

You have to remember Karoline, knasser did put in that the gangers do have basic cyber/bio. Consider that Wired Reflexes 1 costs "only" 11,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ... that might make the fight a little more fair.

Still, a troll could take 4, easy, even with that cyber.

[KCKitsune]

Still, a troll could take 4, easy, even with that cyber.

It would be nice to know what budget knasser was thinking about when he said "basic cyber/bioware"

[Blade]

I loved the first one, and this one is even better! Thanks a lot!
Though, I'd love to also have the normal human and normal troll for comparison purposes.

[Dumori]

Also look at the > before the gangers on each image. This could mean that 4 was the min that hurt the troll a few times in his testing of 3000 fights. XD