Space Dragons, boldly taking over more stuff Options

[Draconis]

[ChicagosFinest]

Harlequin is the most powerful caster on the planet with initiation in double digits. Remember the highest mortal initiate I've heard of is 10. Maybe Harlequin has other points deadicated to skills in general (knowlege and action skills) after all they had to have kep up with technology or even trend setting it (Leonardo) themselfs. D&D and shadowrun that comparison cant be made. People are constructive during their time weather mortal or imortal.

Dragons in the down time could have been astrally exploring, planning, pursuing their own agendas. Basically imortals have to adapt they live through and past everything.

Now the question is how do you kill the IE's? Is it a reference to highlander I see?

[mfb]

[FrankTrollman]

Well, Dunkelzahn was apparrently awake for part of the down cycle, and this in no way prevented him from spending some time drowning his sorrows in booze, collecting novelty popcorn, and generally making an ass of himself when he thought the other immortals were distracted. Harlequin is the most powerful magician on the planet - and he seems to have spent about a thousand years doing a sad clown impersonation singing songs for alcohol.

The more we know about the immortals, the more they just aren't that amazing. As magical theory advances, it catches up with draconic and immortal magic at a frightening rate. Sure, Harlequin has been doing magical research for like 6000 years. But there are seriously over 6000 magical researchers on the planet today - they put in more man hours researching magic in one year than Harlequin has put in his whole life.

The population of Earthdawn was really small compared to the population of the sixth world. There were less potentially powerful creatures back then on demographics alone. The leftovers have a huge head start, but not an insurmountable one. You could probably kill Lugh Surehand with a correctly colored Laser - he never lived in an era where that kind of attack was even possible and he has no defense against it. Underneath all his magic, he's just a man.

Want to get rid of Surehand for good? Say it with me:

A Ki Raaaaa!

-Frank

[Draconis]

[mfb]

[ChicagosFinest]

But do you look at it as an education standpoint? Having lived longer makes them way more well rounded knollege wise than those researchers who spend night and day on one project.

For example... I could be in my lab all day working on the coolest mojo that does x,y,z mechanically while harlequin could do it with just the x. Why? Because he has had a longer time to observe differant magic and learn about various traditions. They may not no everything but they know a lot more about things than they let on. Harlequin may be surprised by the invention of the lazer and not have a defence for it but I'm sure he knows the general theory of how one works and who might try and use one aginst him.

It's like the notion that whatever idea you thought about odds are someone has thought of it first type scenario. What would be original to Harlequin if he has kept up with the times noting, thats why my spell i spend all that time in a lab trying to make seem cool wont work against him.

[fistandantilus4....]

Another way of putting it is that those 6,000 researchers are are pretty much starting at at the same point. Yes, they together would all be doing a year of researhc equalling 6,000 years. But that's the same thing as saying that 12 1st graders would collectively know as much as a high school senior. Sure there are the permafried exceptions, but those 6,000 researchers are still learning Harlequin's A,B,C's. There are going to be new things H hadn't considered. Example : in ED there was no straight out "Heal" spell. You had to be a questor of Garlen to do that. Things do change, there will always be innovation. Wasn't it somewhere in the 40's when someone was quoted as saying "we might as well close the patnet office, everything that could be invented already has". Or somethign to that effect

[ Spoiler ]

Linkage incase you care, it's a 'semi'-quote I guess

[Draconis]

You guys are too literal. I think Frank is simply talking about man hours of research not skill. Yes Harly is bad ass but he's no god. Hell 12 of those 6,000 researchers could be completely nuts and making good progress in a line of research old H would never even have considered or considered as unworkable.

If you have some highly specific research goal, yes you want Harly on your team. He'll probably have some idea of getting there. You want R&D grinding you go with the 6k guys.

Oh and speaking as a researcher here in silicon valley myself I'll take the 6,000 guys that are moderately skilled and working on completely different lines over one prodigy any day.

[Draconis]

[fistandantilus4....]

That always happens when you talk about great dragons. Go check out the "Great Dragons" thread for example.

If you want a list of things "they" can do and "you" can't, I'd suggest checking out the Shadowland site. Ellery had a neat list of Metamagics over there.

[Wakshaani]

[hyzmarca]

18 magic is not so high that they might as well not have stats. It isn't even high enough to reliably stop a Main Battle Tank if you convert some SR3 vehicles to SR4 stats.

Really, if you can potentially kill a GD by hacking into a Thor-Shot then they aren't ultimate NPCs (lets face it, any half-decent hacker with a satellite uplink some rating 6 programs could steal a thor shot).

[Wakshaani]

[Xenith]

What stops someone from killing a Dragon/Immortal Elf, even most other Dragons?

Retribution. And centuries of continuos paranoia. Stats are not always needed to be uber. Killing people/things has repercussions. I know several ways for a single Devil Rat to kill a troll.

PS I want to see an immortal ORC, damnit. Elves are so overdone I feel like making stirfry.

[eidolon]

[hyzmarca]

[kzt]

[knasser]

One of the principles of Shadowrun is the Eggshells armed with Hammers style of play. I.e. people (and dragons) are often able to dish out far more damage than they can take. I'm going to repost my comment from a thread a while back to show why I think Great Dragons don't have to be invincible to match the fluff. It was in response to someone who asked if great dragons weren't that tough then how come one managed to hold off the frigging Tir army.

[Dissonance]

I am vaguely reminded of the rules nonsense from SOTA 2063, now. In that one of the tanks in that book could absolutely butcher the damage code, given how vehicle limbs did damage.

It ended up that the only thing that could kill the aforementioned tank with arms was another tank with arms. As for the actual amount of damage the thing did? I can't remember the exact figure, but 140 seems to be sticking out in my mind.

[Ophis]

[knasser]

[Ophis]

Yeah, he was always my favorite ED NPC ruled Kratas (a theives city) and ran the best spy network in Barsaive, I always thought that he was the "Brightlight" mentioned in the azzie book. There is a stark resemblance between Adam Alone (pictured in a colour section in the SR2 BBB) and Garlthrik pictured in the ED mainbook. I seem to be alone the belief he survived into SR times, AH says there isn't enough evidence.

[eidolon]

Hey Ophis, could you tell me where I might find SR references to Adam Alone? You've got me interested. Unfortunately, I gave all of my ED stuff away to a friend as a birthday gift a few years ago, so I can't really chase down stuff on Garlthrik. (Yes, another one of those "well, I never thought I'd need it/use it" moments. :()

[ChicagosFinest]

Im surprised he did not get a little more face time. Thats a big contrast to those wacky elves! Maybe hang out in the troll kingdom or something