 The Bugs are back, In PDF form... |
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 Oct 21 2005, 08:47 PM
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#1
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 78 Joined: 5-February 05 From: Lake Stevens, WA Member No.: 7,055  |
Bug City is now available in PDF format for download at the BattleCorps.com shop
Fear not... more PDFs will be forthcoming as time permits. |
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Oct 21 2005, 09:42 PM
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#2
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 26-July 03 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 5,029 |
Thanks for the heads-up!
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Oct 21 2005, 10:27 PM
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#3
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 470 Joined: 2-January 05 From: Quebec Member No.: 6,924 |
Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed bugs that had been away Haven't changed, haven't much to say But man, I still think them bugs are crazy |
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Oct 22 2005, 03:38 AM
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#4
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,070 Joined: 7-February 04 From: NYC Member No.: 6,058 |
Ah... It's going to take a lot of willpower not to get my hands on this thing and look up the stats of some of the things our group has been facing recently.
It's got me wondering whether we're just reasonably bad-ass (since bugs are supposed to be hugely scary, but we've handled a number of manifested ones rather well so far, through a combination of incendiary grenades, shock weapons, lost of Ex-Ex full-auto fire, willpower attacks with reach weapons and a little magic), or whether what we've seen, while nasty, is just the tip of the iceberg. |
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Oct 22 2005, 03:58 AM
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#5
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 109 Joined: 26-April 05 Member No.: 7,360 |
The stats and rules for Insect Spirits often changed slightly from one book to the next, it was deliberately done so that players could not just grab a book and know details about insect spirits that they shouldn't have been privvy to.
That having been said the three main advantages of the insect spirits have always been that true form spirits had some nasty powers that other types of spirits did not have (when a 2 meter long wasp flies down and stings you you're gonna feel it!), that the flesh forms could be almost impossible to spot (which makes them dangerously good at leading unsuspecting humans into ambushes), and that these spirits usually show up in large numbers (a mage gets a number of spirits equal to their charisma, an insect shaman can control a lot more than that, and an insect spirit queen gets a hell of a lot more). Put those three advantages together and its a veritable death sentence for all but the most bad-ass groups. Then again perhaps your GM is cutting you some slack? |
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Oct 22 2005, 04:17 AM
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#6
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
bugs aren't all that scary at force 1-3, maybe 1-4. i mean, they're not pushovers, but most runner teams should be handle them in groups equal to or greater than their own number.
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Oct 22 2005, 04:25 AM
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#7
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,070 Joined: 7-February 04 From: NYC Member No.: 6,058 |
Possibly, in terms of how many bugs we've faced at one time - our toughest encounter was with ~9-10 wasps ranging from 1.5 to 2+ meters in size, but then again, we haven't been going out of our way to look for them. (and we were able to avoid having to fight them all at once - some were distracted by a couple of drones, others we took out or wounded with long-range autofire before they could get to us) I'm pretty sure he wasn't pulling punches in terms of how tough they were, though - I had to soak Deadly wounds three times during that fight, and lost a point of Quickness to the venom... (and they sure as hell were higher force than 4 - a 16D burst from an assault rifle only marginally affected one of the toughest ones) |
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Oct 22 2005, 04:59 AM
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#8
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 109 Joined: 26-April 05 Member No.: 7,360 |
The insect spirits were always a personal favourite of mine as GM. But I had to make sure both not to overuse them and so annoy my players and also to give the group a fighting chance of survival because If I had ever sent my group up against 9-10 wasps they would not have gotten away with a fatality rate below about 50% (My group consisted of 5 players and no drone riggers). Perhaps my group wasn't quite as tough as yours or perhaps I was a little too nasty with the insect spirits.
To be able to even try to take down insect spirits with long range fire means you either ambushed them or saw them coming (and they must have been flesh forms to have been bothered by a rifle). That's a luxury I never gave to my players, insects like to hide. :vegm: |
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Oct 22 2005, 05:28 AM
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#9
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,283 Joined: 17-May 05 Member No.: 7,398 |
No, Materialized spirits (like the true form bug spirits) are not completely unaffected by firearms, they just have Hardened Armor equal to double their Force.
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Oct 22 2005, 01:54 PM
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#10
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,070 Joined: 7-February 04 From: NYC Member No.: 6,058 |
A 6-round burst from an assault rifle loaded with Ex-Ex has the potential to "bother" quite a few spirits, if backed up by enough successes. But, yes, we came across them while they were trying to wipe out some contacts of ours, and were able to attack them at long range first. BTW, I guess I haven't actually made it clear - we're in Bug City right now. So all the bugs are doing other stuff besides just sitting in hiding, waiting to spring out at our one group. |
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Oct 22 2005, 02:00 PM
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#11
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,065 Joined: 16-January 03 From: Fayetteville, NC Member No.: 3,916 |
Bugs swarm - its what they do.
And being able to walk away from 9 Wasps is no small feat - without knowing the exact numbers, I'd guess the GM was going easy. Swarms of bullet resistant Bugs tend to call it a day for most runners. -Siege |
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Oct 22 2005, 04:24 PM
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#12
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 831 Joined: 5-September 05 From: LAX, UCAS Member No.: 7,687 |
Joy! :D I love these guys (Rob & Adam). Really. I send em one measly email mentioning I would like a Bug City PDF (among others), and a week or so later, BAM there it is!
(Admitedly, it's probably just coincidence that they were working on the exact book I mentioned first on my list, but it's still way cool) 8) |
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Oct 23 2005, 12:30 AM
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#13
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 109 Joined: 26-April 05 Member No.: 7,360 |
Perhaps this is where the difference is. In my games burst fire, full auto, ammunition type, or any other add on to a firearm's power made no difference (unless they specifically targetted a vulnerability of the spirit). If the base power of the weapon did not exceed twice the spirits force you could throw a thousand rounds its way and it wouldn't bat an eyelid. So at force 4 assault rifles stop affecting spirits, and 4 is the lowest force I can ever remember giving to an insect spirit my group encountered. 6 was more common. mmu1, I guess it should have been clear when you mentioned a desire to get the Bug City PDF that that was where your group was, and you are right, that changes the circumstances under which you are likely to encounter insect spirits. I should think your greatest danger will be running out of ammunition. |
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Oct 23 2005, 12:57 AM
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#14
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
When did that stop being how it worked?
edit: adding the past tense helps. |
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Oct 23 2005, 04:23 AM
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#15
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 123 Joined: 7-October 05 From: Glow City Safehouse Member No.: 7,821 |
Well, here is where it depends on which rules you are using. For 2nd edition, it is stated on page 218 the it gave armor "equal to twice the creatures essence"
On third edition it's on page 264, and states give the same armor rating as second edition, with the new rule of "...if the power of the damage does not exceed twice the creatures essence, it automatically has no effect." and "Immunity to normal weapons has no effect against combat spells or weapon foci." Autofire and Ammo are not covered so there is no reason not to assume they don't count. What you seem to be thinking of is "Hardened Armor" which functions like hardened armor for creatures. This is covered Directly above Immunity on pg. 217 of second edition and pg. 263 of third edition. For hardened armor it is the base damage of an attack that counts, unmodified by burst or autofire. Even then, ammo still counts. This is further clarified by the full rules for this on pg. 53 fields of Fire for 2nd Edition, and pg. 51 of Cannon companion for 3rd edition. 4th edition... give me a couple of minutes and I'll edit it in. [Edit, in fourth edition they change the wording to the Modified damage rating. pg. 288, with the Immunity following Hardened Armor except now both powers are on the same page.] |
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Oct 23 2005, 04:29 AM
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#16
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 109 Joined: 26-April 05 Member No.: 7,360 |
I know that force x 2 in hardened armour is the RAW, but the fact that mmu1 mentioned the ExEx ammo and burst fire suggested to me that this had made a difference. No mention was made of magical support, and if you are in a group with no magic user of any kind then a spirit of force 5 or higher, using the official rules, is a death sentence.
Perhaps mmu1's GM houseruled this to give the players a chance? It just seemed a lot more lenient than it would have been in one of my games. In one of my old games a group of mundanes with assault rifles blazing away at a rapidly closing swarm of Wasp Spirits were basically wasting ammunition. Unless they were using chemical rounds loaded with pesticides. |
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Oct 23 2005, 04:32 AM
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#17
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 123 Joined: 7-October 05 From: Glow City Safehouse Member No.: 7,821 |
Refer to my post above. mmu1 has the rules right through all relevant editions.
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Oct 23 2005, 04:37 AM
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#18
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,065 Joined: 16-January 03 From: Fayetteville, NC Member No.: 3,916 |
Hellhound sums it up rather well - unless you had ammo factories secreted in various vital organs, more than a couple of Bugs would massacre mundane elements.
By the time a squad whittled down one Bug, the others would have swarmed them and in hand-to-hand, "game over man, game over!" -Siege |
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Oct 23 2005, 04:40 AM
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#19
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 123 Joined: 7-October 05 From: Glow City Safehouse Member No.: 7,821 |
Ammo always was a problem. I was merely pointing out that Autofire weapons would work until the ammunition ran out. mmu1 was playing the rules right, not taking it easy on his players rule wise.
[Edit: On the flip side I fully admit he was probably giving them abundant ammo, which is abnormal for most Bug City campaigns.] |
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Oct 23 2005, 04:47 AM
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#20
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,065 Joined: 16-January 03 From: Fayetteville, NC Member No.: 3,916 |
Gotta love gyromounted miniguns. :grinbig:
-Siege |
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Oct 23 2005, 04:52 AM
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#21
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 123 Joined: 7-October 05 From: Glow City Safehouse Member No.: 7,821 |
Why not, it worked in Aliens didn't it? Oh.... wait a second.... ;) |
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Oct 23 2005, 08:11 AM
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#22
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,070 Joined: 7-February 04 From: NYC Member No.: 6,058 |
I'm actually a player in this campaign, not a GM - and we do have a shitload of ammo - for now. As things worked out, Bug City happened just as we rolled back into town in our Citymaster from a very combat-heavy run for which we prepared heavily, and had tons of ammo left over. (hundreds of rounds of Ex ammo, limited amounts of AV and APDS, plentiful incendiary and white phosphorus grenades...) Of course, this probably will not last, but as we managed to pick up some combat-oriented magical support later, I think we'll be fine. That said, I'd like to correct - again - the incorrect impression that we took out 10 wasp spirits in some kind of a straight-up brawl. We actually spotted them from long range, and saw they were attacking a place of business of one of our contacts, who holed up and was using drones to fight back. We attacked, and in the surprise round and the first round of combat, two wasps went down, and another was badly wounded. Roughly half of the remaining ones headed for us, while the others kept going after our contact's defenses. We dropped another one and wounded one more before they were on top of us, at which point a melee ensued, and three of us were able to seriously injure and drive off three wasps (with my street sam character and a shifter PC soaking up a lot of damage). We then moved in, and drove off the remaining four wasps, through a combination of incendiary grenades (which softened them up and gave them wound modifiers) and Willpower attacks. (a street sam with a Willpower of 8, a Charisma of 4, a staff and 7 points of impact armor can actually do well against spirts, especially with friends in melee to even out the odds) Does not having all 10 swarm us at once constitute going easy on us? I guess it's a matter of GMing style. Should a 16D burst from a rifle take out a wasp spirit? Hard to tell without knowing the stats... (and despite my stance earlier in the thread, I guess I don't really want spoilers ;)) |
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Oct 23 2005, 12:24 PM
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#23
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 109 Joined: 26-April 05 Member No.: 7,360 |
Having now read that more detailed description of your Wasp encounter mmu1, I retract my earlier statements. Doesn't sound like your GM was going easy on you at all, he/she gave you a situation that both gave you some idea of how nasty the insect spirits could be whilst allowing you to survive the experience. That was something it took me as a GM a while to get right.
When it comes to insect spirits give me splash grenades and an Enfield AS-7 with a full drum of capsule rounds. A bit of Pesticide Paintball to tick off them buggies. :D |
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Oct 29 2005, 11:41 AM
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#24
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Target Group: Members Posts: 8 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany Member No.: 1,088 |
I would like to know, if this .pdf-file is full searchable? regards Stefan |
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Oct 29 2005, 04:59 PM
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#25
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Yes. They all are.
~J |
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