Just How Tough?, How many bullets can you eat? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Switch to: Standard Linear+

[Uberjoel]

A N00B question here if ever there was one. Since I haven't actually played SR, I don't how actaully how deadly the game can be. If I have a Troll, with 6 Atrribute spent on Body, that gives me 11 right? How much further can I crank this with Cyber?

Plus, what kind of punishment could such a character take? Small Arms? Heavy Weapons? Satisfy my curiosity!

[Brazila]

You can take this much further. A few ideas for starters...
Your body is 11, but you also get your dermal armor die unless you cyber over that. A crazy body is great, but a crazy body with good armor is Nuts.
While I would never play something like this you could....
Pick up the toughness edge
Take a bonus att. point edge in Body
Grab up Titanium Bone Lacing
Grab up R3 Dermal Sheating
Suprathyroid Gland
Armor Jacket
and Bam you are a TANK, But be advised if your GM is any good, he is going to smell this character's cheese a mile away.

[Edward]

I don’t know exactly but it is quite possible to create a character with sufficient body and armour that he can soak 3 round bursts of shotgun fire all day (ok occasionally he will get unlucky but you know what I mean.) and this is a starting character.

Of cause you spent much money and essence on doing this.

Edward

[Kagetenshi]

Armor is critical. A Body 30 MagicTroll won't expect to stage down a heavy pistol shot more than once or twice. Putting it another way, that means that an illegally durable character still can't reasonably expect to fully soak unless the attacker gets only one success.

~J

[Uberjoel]

Is it possible at all to suck up the damage of the big machine gun in the core? I don't remember its name, but it was something like 18D damage. How many dice do you have to be rolling to suck that?

[Kagetenshi]

With one success on the attack test, you need to be rolling 1728 dice to soak without armor if my calculations are right.

Edit: correction, 1944. I forgot you had to get another success to cancel with the attacker's success.

On the other hand, if you can get sixteen points of ballistic armor, you can do it with a mere ten dice.

~J

[Uberjoel]

And how many points of Ballistic Armor can one get? IIRC, the armor available for starting characters only had ballistic ratings of around 3.

[Kagetenshi]

Realistically, not using magic, somewhere around six is generally the top. If you aren't going for subtlety you can get a bit higher. High-force Armor (the spell) would be the best way to hit 16.

With six points of armor, Mr. Übertroll only needs 324 body dice to expect to soak a single-success FA shot.

~J

[Modesitt]

It depends on how your GM feels about layering.

If he only allows two layers, the best you can get at char gen with just the BBB is probably Armored Jacket+Longcoat for 7 ballistic. 8 with titanium bone lacing. A Ballistic Shield can give you another 3 for 11. Armor Spells can send the whole thing straight into crazy land. There's a couple other pieces of ballistic-boosting cyberware and bioware in M&M.

If he allows more than two layers, the skys the limit. Remember: It only messes with quickness tests and combat pool. Heavy Weapons is linked to strength. Kung-fu is linked to strength.

[RedmondLarry]

[Kagetenshi]

[Edit] Note to self: pay attention to FFBA.

~J

[Nylan]

I was just about to comment on that Kage

[Glyph]

You guys need to remember that ranged combat works differently than melee combat. You compare the successes, then use the net successes to determine the outcome. This means a high Body is very good to have. But weapons that do Deadly damage are tough to deal with, since unless you dodge them completely, you need 8 more net successes than the attacker to soak the attack completely. Unfortunately, weapons with a Deadly damage code also tend to have a high Power, making that task even more difficult.

Armor is vital, because it determines the Target Number that you are rolling against for your resistance test. A high Quickness it very good to have, since it lets you laver armor better. Even an armored jacket and a full suit of FFBA (which a troll with a 4 or 5 Quickness can wear without penalties) can make a big difference, though, reducing your TN to soak a heavy pistol round from 9 to 2.

Armor only affects your Target Numbers, though. You also want to raise the attacker's Target Numbers. Move and run during combat, take cover, and try to use darkness or glare in your favor. And know when to run like hell. Even an 18 Body won't save you against a Panther Assault Cannon or a full-auto weapon with maxed-out recoil comp.

[Necro Tech]

Remember that layering armor drops your quickness for determining ground speed. 16 points of armor is good and all if you are sitting in a fox hole and never plan on moving out of it.

Side note, when layering, you count all pieces when determining total armor value, not just the highest two. Also, the quickness penalty only applies to balistic armor going over your Quickness stat. As related to me by Mike and Rob, it is a suggestion to only have 2 layers. As long as it seems logical, go for it and suck up the penalties.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Kagetenshi]

It's possible to read them like that, but it's explicitly incorrect.

~J

[Snow_Fox]

I'll repeat, armor is vital to cut down on the power of the incoming rounds. The very first time we played, we had an ork, the character was running on tough and fast and didn't have money to waste, so instead of armor to back up the hand guns we all had, he went for an uzi. The first fire fight we were in, we all discovered exactly how much protection a white cotton t-shirt provides against incoming fire.

[mmu1]

The best ballistic armor you can get at chargen without getting into arguments as to whether you can layer more then 2 pieces or using magic is FFBA + Armored Jacket + Kevlar or Titanium lacing + Orthoskin (level 2 and up) for 9 points total.

If you have that and a body of 9-10 you usually don't have to worry about getting hurt unless the opposition starts to use shotguns or assault rifles loaded with EX shells in burst mode. Of course, that's still no reason to assume you can shrug off gunfire, since one guy with APDS rounds can still ruin your day...

[GenoSicK]

Just to get things right, NOBODY can be a real "tank" in SR. One of my char is a BIG mothe*******. He's a troll with 17 dices in Body, and a Light Military Armor. I know, it sounds big, it sounds awfully though. But as soon as your playing in mercenary (like he) campaign or just moving up the ranks and playing no more street level, you'll begin to find APDS or grenades in the hands of the opposition. And that is NO fun.

For example, this char was caught with a regular armor layering of 9 ballistic (that's a lot) by a goon with an AR, regular ammo, well, he just fall down after the first burst, just because the guy in front of me was prepared.

In SR, doesn't matter how tough you are, you have to play tactical if you want to live a bit longer than the street corner.

[toturi]

APDS has an Avail of 12. Even in a merc campaign that shouldn't be too common.

[Kagetenshi]

It only takes one round and good skill.

~J

[toturi]

yes, but how likely is that one round going to get to the good skill with an Avail of 12 tacked on?

[Austere Emancipa...]

Hardened armor might be a bit tougher to break through, but you can usually get by with AK-97+GV4+ShockPads+UBWeight/Foregrip+EX-Ex for a no-penalty 16D. Those should be coming out of your ears in a merc campaign.

[mmu1]

[Kagetenshi]

[toturi]

With Hardened Armour, it is still almost impossible to break through.

Take a troll for example, ok, the best he can were without penalties is a medium military armour. Quickness 5 + Bioware 3 = 8 If he is wearing a helmet on that armour, you are looking at a base 10 Power

[Tanka]

toturi: Isn't the Max round down? So that would be 7. Nail him with 'ware instead and give him a nice pump up to 9. (Or 10 if you also give him the Suprathyroid.)

It's possible to be a tank, if you don't mind all the social penalties for it. If you've got MilSpec, be prepared for the Star to be on your ass 24/7. If somebody says "Yeah, the guy had MilSpec!" Guess who's gonna be at your door?

Alternatively, there's (if you can afford it) going full-body replacement. You can get quite a bit of extra armor from that. Currently, a forum game I'm in, the GM is allowing me to play a Cyberzombie (yes, you read that right). He currently has 11/10 when he's naked, and 19/15 when he's fully-clothed. Said GM interprets that cyber-replacement armor is dermal and doesn't count towards calculating the most you can wear from Quickness. Body 11, so can take most rounds with no problem.

Now, most people never get to play Cyberzombies (hell, most never see them), or can get the funding to successfully get alphaware replacements (so you're still alive, if barely), let alone all the armor upgrades.

Not to mention that, for most purposes, cyberlimbs suck ass.

[Bane]

Just of of curiousity, *cough* because I would never actually do this *cough*, what do you guys calculate the max starting body to be?

A friend and I got it up to 28. Just wondering what you all have come up with.

[Botch]

I got 33 with NSRCG. Apparently "Fluffy" got 34, saw it in a thread somewhere, seemed kosher enough at the time.

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Tanka]

Burn enough points for being a Troll Adept (metavariant, perhaps) (putting every ounce of Adept Power into increasing Body), add some Cyber and Bio, cast a few spells and have them Tattooed... You can get up there pretty well. I'd run the numbers, but that isn't really the point of this thread.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Remember the Racial Max limit, which you can't get higher than, I think 20 for a legal starting character without ghouls, surge or genetech (RAM 13 for an ExceptBody Cyclops, 20 RacMax). There's not a whole lot you can do to get higher than that -- Dermal Sheath and Bone Lacing are the only permanent ones and then there's AttrBoostBOD for 6 (or maybe a few more if your GM allows initiation).

Spells to inrease BOD won't work at that point, because the TN will be insane.

[Tanka]

They work based on principle that, AFAIK, you don't roll at chargen except for things that need it, like if you start with Combat Sense or somesuch. Granted, I could be dead wrong, but I'm willing to live with that assumption at this point.

Edit: Heh, wait, +Bod spells are based on successes as to how much + you get... Right, wrong Edition! *vamoose*

[Wounded Ronin]

I think the best policy as a new player is to avoid trying to macho out of heavy weapons fire. I mean, if you are inexperienced and misappropriate your combat pool you could still be screwed.

My advice always is treat it like you would real life. Basically, no one would ever stand there smiling and let someone open up on them with a .45 even if they did have very good armor. It's just not a smart thing to do, even if you are almost certain that the .45 round will be completely stopped by your armor.

[KarmaInferno]

How about cyber armor? Remember it stacks with any other armor.

"I have enough onboard armor to shrug off anti-tank ammo."

"So, any downsides?"

"I can't move. Plus, uh... I gotta go to the bathroom. Gimme a hand? Hello?"


-karma

[Zeel De Mort]

We all know how to do this, but just as a distraction here's a high body at creation effort:


Troll
Exceptional Body
Phenotypic Alteration (Body)

Gives you base body of 13(20)

Then factor in...

Toughness +1
Suprathyroid +1
Calcitonin Synthesis +1
Titanium Bone Lacing +2
Dermal Sheath 3 +4
2x Full Cyberlegs +2

For 24 body on damage resistance. All legal at creation as far as I can tell. All availability 8 or less, and I don't see any mention of gene tech needing a beta-equivalent clinic or the like.

You could make him an adept too, but with all that stuff installed he'd have magic 0 anyway, and if you started taking it out to get power points I'd wager you'll end up at about the same figure, or worse.


Hmm technically you could only start with your body at 12 if you go by some people's interpretation of the rules, which I don't. :)

Anyway, 24 isn't bad I guess. Spend a LOT of karma and you can get that up to 31.


Completely silly of course. You're better off taking a more practical character (like an Ork, Human or Elf) and bolstering him up. You can still get well into the teens for bod that way AND fit in cars and have a good combat pool, initiative, quickness (for all that armour) etc.

[GenoSicK]

A friend of mine tried this afternoon, and he went to 35.
If I remember : troll, adept, cyber, and egdes.
something like expetionnal attribute, toughness, surge dermal deposit, 6 point with adept, some point over the racial modified attribute still with adepte some implants, and I forget somethin I think... Can't remember what though... :cyber:

[Zeel De Mort]

Well yeah, as I say cyber and bio will mess up your magic a bit, but maybe you can squeeze another point or two out that way. SURGE would work too I guess, although I'm not that keen on it and more importantly I don't have the rules for it!

[GenoSicK]

Not only 2pts, geas are for something, don't they ? :D

[Cain]

Hm, let me fire up NSRCG and see what I can do...

Troll adept changeling, made with 125 pts:

Stats:
Max Body: 11
Bonus Attribute: Body: +1
Toughness: +1
SURGE: Dermal Deposits: +1

Augmentations:
Alpha Titanium bone lacing: +2
Alpha Dermal sheathing: +4
Suprathyroid: +1
Calciotonin: +1

Magic:
geas 5 points of magic loss.
Add Imp. Body x 6: +6

Total: 19/28.

Now, even on a less munched-out troll, I find the dermal sheathing to be serious overkill. Orthoskin is a much better buy. My stock troll archetype generally has about 16 body dice to soak with, and that's plenty-- with the aid of a helmet and a riot shield, he soaked a full-auto blast.

[Kagetenshi]

Wow. With enough karma pool, that troll might even survive ebola-plus.

~J

[Zeel De Mort]

Hmm, good points.

Revamp:


Troll
Exceptional Body
Phenotypic Alteration (Body)

Gives you base body of 13(20)

Then factor in...

Toughness +1
Suprathyroid +1
Calcitonin Synthesis +1
Titanium Bone Lacing(alpha) +2
Dermal Sheath(alpha) 3 +4
2x Full Cyberlegs(alpha) +2
Be a Ghoul +2
SURGE: Dermal Deposits: +1

I don't have the rules for SURGE, but I'm guessing Dermal Deposits is +1 on damage resistance and compatible with everything.


Be an adept too and take 8 points of Improved Body with geas to make it cost 6, then other geas on 6 points of magic lost.

Eh, where are we then..

35 body

I guess that's getting pretty decent.


Add in Genetic Immunisation (Ebola Plus) and you can survive that too!

[Kanada Ten]

You cannot geas all six points of Magic Attribute: once the actual Magic Attribute reaches zero the character in mundane. Secondly, adepts cannot have more levels of a power than their magic attribute regardless of the cost. In theory you could initiate twice at chargen if the GM approves (costing a great deal of money), but by canon adepts cannot purchase the spell points required to do so.

[Tanka]

[Kanada Ten]

Once the game starts they aquire karma as normal. I allow spell points to be purchased by adepts for the purpose of bonding foci, as do many GMs, but as for initation...

[Tanka]

Yes, that I understand. You'd also have to disallow other magically-active types from initiating to be fair.

But for not buying any spell points for use of bonding foci at all is little more than ridiculous.

"Here, these things were virtually designed for you, but you can't ever, ever, ever have them at chargen! Have a nice day."

[toturi]

[Zeel De Mort]

Hmm good point with the geas and power limits. All that cyberware unfortunately comes to 5.08 essence. Well, you could tone down the bone lacing and geas 5 points of magic then.

[Kagetenshi]

[Joker9125]

Using starting character rules I made a troll mage with like 17 points of balistic and 15 points of impact. and a 16 body to. Caint quite remember all the stuff i did to him but ill post his cheesiness when i get back to my dorm

[Uberjoel]

My. God. I had no idea it'd get like this. :-) Thanks guys. For my actual char, I'd probably be using less 'ware, no magic, no bio. More grit than munch, but thanks to you guys I now have a better idea of the possibilities. I think I figured that with only priority B in Resources I could get about 16-17 soaking dice, which isn't too bad with some armor thrown in.

The idea was for actually two trolls, immigrants, who don't speak much English and are running the shadows to send money home to their ma. :-) Now I've just gotta figure out his bro. How sneaky can a troll be? :-D

[Cain]

Zeel: Don't forget that Ghouls lose 1 essence, dropping you right back where you started. Also, phenotypic alteration only raises the RML, it doesn't actually allow you to put any more attribute points into it at start.

Nice try, though. I think mine might be as far as you can push it and still be strictly legal-- munchkinous, but unarguably canon. I invite anyone who wants to borrow that layout to have fun; it's one hell of a one-trick pony. :spin:

Uberjoel: I just happened to be working on my "generic troll" setup today. I'll post him here for your perusal.

Name: "Generic Troll #23"

Body 12 +4 12(16)
Quickness 5 0 5
Strength 11 0 11
Charisma 1 0 1
Intelligence 4 0 4
Willpower 4 0 4
Essence 6 1.27
Run Mult. 3
Magic -2 0 0
BioIndex 0 0 3.4
Reaction 6 (2) 6 ( 8)
Init. Dice 1 (1) 1(2)

Active Skills
Clubs(STR) [6]
Off-Hand Clubs(STR)/Riot Shields [4/6]
Shotguns(QCK) [5]
Projectile Weapons(STR)/Pull Bows [4/6]
Athletics(BOD) [4]
Pistols (QCK) [1]
Stealth(QCK)/Sneaking [2/4]
Etiquette(CHA) [1]

Bioware:
Suprathyroid
Orthoskin 2
Enhanced Articulation
Calciotonin Synthesis

Cyberware:
Titianum Bone lacing
Smartlink 2
Flare comp (Retinal mod)
Wired Reflexes 1

Edges/Flaws
Incompetence: Pistols -2
High Pain Tolerance 1: +2

As you can see, he's devestating in melee combat; standard loadout is a riot shield in the off hand and stun baton as primary. That way, he best exploits the shield penalty in his favor, adding +2 to his opponent's TN's while being able to reduce his via Reach. The pull bow skill becomes truly evil when combined with a Ranger-X bow and dikoted EX-Explosive arrows; his arrows can shoot through armored vehicles.

And speaking of armor, his BVD armor (Armor rating when wearing normal underwear) is 2/2. We add FFBA 3 and an armored jacket to this, and we have a street layout of 9/5, with no penalty. For our "Sublety not required" missions, we add the aforementioned Ballistic shield and a security helmet* for a total loadout of 13/8. You will be losing combat pool at this point, but you hardly need it; I've successfully soaked 17D hits using straight body.

*Yes, I know you can't start with a security helmet. However, you can pay down the availiability, so for a measely 3,125:nuyen: you'll have an availiability of 2, easily done in game.

This post has been edited by Cain: Sep 24 2004, 03:17 AM

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Glyph]

Aptitude: Stealth helps with theft or alertness, but is not that useful for sneaking, which is an open test. For sneaky characters, my favorite two Edges are Blandness and Poor Link.

A troll's main disadvantages in sneaking are his size and higher Signature to be detected by sensors. But a troll can start out with a 6 in Stealth just like anyone else. Ruthenium or camouflage suits help, as well as thermal dampening.

A mundane can start with an effective Stealth of 10 - skillwires + CED: 3 + enhanced articulation, although I personally dislike using skillwires for core character competencies such as etiquette and stealth.

An adept can start with 12, of course, using Improved Ability/Stealth. They also have powers such as spell shroud, sixth sense, and traceless walk which are useful.

Mages can use invisibility and stealth spells, or have a spirit use its concealment power on them (if a shaman). Also, spells like oxygenate (to breathe underwater) or levitate (to fly) can get them into hard-to-reach areas, while spells like alter memory or influence can be used to cloud the minds of security personnel, or even subvert them into helping you.