Blood spillage, how brutal are you? Options

[James McMurray]

Our group has had two runs so far. The first involved a single combat (spirit lightning bolts PC, PC kills spirit, PC runs like hell). The second one was a single long combat. In that long combat nobody died until after they'd been knocked out by stun damage (stick shock from me, gel from others). They wouldn't have evern died, but we were being paid to teach them a lesson and that's how the Face deciphered that command.

What about you guys? Do your teams shell out the cash for the nonlethal weaponry and pump out the stunbolts or do you light their fires until there's nothing left but charcoal?

Side question: if you combine damage types between party members, have you found fights to be harder when enemies stand up longer?

[hyzmarca]

It very much depends on the character and the game. For the most part, my characters use standard lethal weapons. A few are ideals that opt for nonlethal whenever is possible. A few are idealists who opt to kil leveryone whenever possible just to make a point. A few are the kind of people who use nonlethal weapons because so much more fun can be done after the unconscious victim is taken to someplace private.

In games where leaving witnessess causes bad things to happen deadly violence is more prevelant and in games where the authorities take murder seriously nonlethal is more prevelant.

[eidolon]

We tend to do whatever the job calls for. When it's left up to us, we do what fits the character. When the characters disagree, we discuss it in character, and come to an agreement. If any character can't live with the choice, they'll walk (has only happened once, that I can recall).

[Ravor]

Well my current character carries Regular and Ex-Ex rounds for her Predator (With a Gas Vent System, despite being against the RAW, so no silencer.), but for her silenced Colt America she carries Gel and Regular rounds.

Against guards, gangers, ect she tends to use lethal force, but against various non-combatants she tries to subdue them quickly and quietly.

On the other hand, our Kantana Bio/Adept Combat Monkey is completely unable to deal any Stun Damage even if he wanted to, which I don't think he does.

Our Decker tends to deal Stun Damage simply because she's in love with the new Tasers in melee combat, at range she carries both Regular and Gel, but I've only seen her use Regular rounds.

[Dashifen]

hyzmarca's right: it depends on the character. With six players around my table every weekend, we have a number of people who show restraint, and one guy with a penchant for powerballs ....

[Clyde]

Generally lethal. If the bad guys aren't taking prisoners, why should we?

[Azralon]

We've got a mixture of S-dispensers & P-dispensers in our group. It's unfortunate from a pure combat efficiency standpoint, but it's circumstantially useful to have two equally valid options.

Our semi-noncombatant faceman runs with a Fubuki and shock rounds, as it upgrades the damage code and the tazering effect helps supplement his low defensive capacity. Also that semi-exotic weapon fits his particular style. However, he'll load APDS if he thinks he'll need it.

Our troll adept beatstick has Killing Hands, of course, so she's got options. She's also got a combat axe (what troll adept doesn't?) and an airburstable MGL-12.

The second melee character is a human all-bioware martial artist (8 skill, specialized, plus a 9 Agility) with Bone Density 4. I often joke that he's a troll hiding in a "bland Asian human" costume. While his Bone Density lets him do Physical damage, we let him also choose to do Stun despite what the rules (fail to) say. He's also extremely lethal with an SMG when ranged damage needs to be done.

The other co-GM and I have magicians as part-timer PCs (he's got a Raven shaman, I've got a Dark King hermetic) for when we're not running. The shaman is, predictably, more about mind control than damage-dealing, but he's got Lightning Bolt available for when things need to get blasted. My creepy cyberdoc mage has a slightly "reinterpreted" Hippocratic Oath to deal with, so throws exclusively Stun damage (Stunbolt and Clout). Besides, you can't probe or control the mind of a dead guy.

We've got a technomancer, too, but he's the "pasty nerd" type with Incompetencies in the athletic skills and anything manly like that. He prefers to not venture out into the Big Blue Room so any damage coming from him is going to be drone-based.

~~~~~

So are fights longer because we're mixing damage types? We've been playing weekly since October, and I recall only two combats in which an opponent would have dropped one or two IPs sooner if we had been throwing homogenous damage.

The tradeoff of being able to take prisoners for interrogation is well worth it, though. Nothing saves your butt in Shadowrun more than good intel.

[Edward]

for reasons of take down power I prefer non lethal.

In holdout weapons stick and shock dose more damage than anything else.

In a heavier weapon gel rounds will do more damage than anything other than exex, gel is cheaper and easier to get (available at char gen)

And stun tracks are typically shorter than physical tracks so you take the target out of the fight much faster with non lethal weapons.

Edward

[nick012000]

[Azralon]

[Big D]

Gel has another advantage, too... it's technically legal, as long as you have the fake license for it.

[Azralon]

[stevebugge]

[Teulisch]

you should always have the option of both. even if you dont want to do lethal to people, your going to need to shoot drones, vehichles, and doors from time to time. a gel round dosent have the same tire-popping ability as regualr ammo.

shock glove, tasers, and gel rounds for stun. Bone density, and regular guns for physical. smoke and flashbang gernades for those visibility modifiers.

and of course, the smart runners will have respirators.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Edward]

Personally I prefer the stick and shock for its extra dice penalty and chance the target will curl up on the ground

For a hold out there is no other ammunition

Edward

[James McMurray]

That's why I went with stick shock. I'd rather knock them out then knock them down, and the automatic -2 dice is just nasty.

[Ankle Biter]

My characters have mellowed recently, I used to go for dropping the opponent any way possible, but now my characters prefer to avoid killing.

Even my bloodyer characters from 2nd/3rd ed took the time to trauma patch combatants I had dropped that were only guards doing their jobs, and most of the time opposing runners were captured and turned over to our Johnsons.

I have the philoshophy that killing people limits your options as to what you can do with them from that point forward, keeping them alive on overflow then using a force 1 heal spell on them will keep them out of the picture for the foreseeable, while still leaving them available for interrogation later.

Also blood is harder to clean off than... uh... drool? Stun is the way forward, but to keep somebody down for a potentially prolonged fight shiv them till they are nearly dead then do a low level heal on them.

[James McMurray]

Blood also tends to draw more enemies. If you take out a corp site with no bloodshed, management will be pissed, but most Sec gaurds will just be glad to be alive. If you kill half of them, the other half may go hiring a runner team of their own.

[Kyoto Kid]

I agree, lower body count often means less attention for the characters. Another good reason for knocking someone out is that it takes longer to recover (there are no spells to heal stun damage) and you have someone to hogtie for interrogation later.

For the most part, my PCs (and even some NPCs) prefer to use non lethal attacks be it Gel Rounds, Stick & Shock rounds, Flash Bang Grenades, baseball bats or fists.

Yeah, Hurricane Hannah does have Killing hands, but that is usually reserved for things that can't be touched by normal weapons. Unfortunately for her ranged attack (Compound Bow), there aren't any non lethal options, yet (would be nice if they had included "Hammerheads" the arrow equivalent of Gel Rounds in SR3 CC).

KK4.1 is the only difficult character of the bunch since there are no subdual rules when using bladed weapons (eg "the flat of the blade") that I have been able to find. Hence, she tends to rely more on her Super Warhawks loaded with Gel rounds rather than her Katana unless it is absolutely necessary.

[Nasrudith]

Nonlethal can be better, after all you'll gather less attention for knocking out a ton of people then killing a ton of them.

[Big D]

Once you control the battlefield, you can always spend half a minute killing the sleepers if you have a reason (like witnesses) to do so.

[NightHaunter]

My group appears to do both at the same time, or whatever whim takes them at the time.
Example 1: Twitch, The Ork Former Merc, switched from a gel round pistol to aluminum bone lacing when he took a little bit of damage!
Causing the gel rounds fired later to be lethal!
Example 2: Glow, The 16yr old Cat Shaman Elf, with fibreoptic hair, was tranq-ing some guards. While Twitch and Briggan, the Dwarf Hacker/Rigger, were shooting other in the head, execution style, on the other side of the room.

[Edward]

So can anybody give a tactical reason to use lethal weapons?

Impact armour is often lower.
Stun tracks are often shorter.
Gell rounds increase knockdown.
Stick and shock imposes a -2 dice pool if the target /dose/ resist
You make fewer enemies.
In order to do moor damage than gel rounds you need to move up to EXEX.
You don’t have to worry about failing to penetrate armour and getting some damage on the wrong track,

The mix and mach is the worse in my opinion because you wind up with an enemy on 8 physical and 8 stun, if everybody had bean dealing the same damage (even if it was a little lower) he would be out buy now.

Edward

[NightHaunter]