 Is there such a thing as a 'good' Dragon? |
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 Dec 28 2006, 08:42 PM
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#151
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Running Target  Group: Members Posts: 1,150 Joined: 19-December 05 From: Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex Member No.: 8,081  |
I thought everybody knows that elves are evil, unless they are brainwashed (not the elves, because even brainwashed elves are still evil, but everybody).
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Dec 29 2006, 02:50 AM
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#152
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Not all dragons are megalomaniacal schemers. Most GDs are, but it is quite possible that Schwartzkopf honestly enjoys teaching in a university environment.
And Wendigos don't have to kill anyone. They only have to drain 1 point of essence per month to survive and they can easily limit themselves to 1 essence point per meal. Likewise, the essence drain does not have to involve anything resembling pain. The strong emotional connection required can be established by wild sex just as easily as it is by horrific torture, which is why most female vampires tend to be dominatrices. While Gilda, the voluptuous Wendigo in the leather corset with nipple holes and a zippered thong could probably do nasty things to you with her bullwhip, she could refrain from doing so unless that is what you really wanted and just give you the ride of your life while nibbling on your ear a little bit and then you can have your doctor put a cyberear in the resulting essence hole so everyone is happy except for the mages who will be losing magic. |
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Dec 29 2006, 03:02 AM
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#153
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 |
If you're an ordinary civilian who isn't magical and has no use for extensive cyber I suppose the best thing you could do with your Essence is have it slowly eaten by a voluptuous vampire. Um, does Essence ever grow back? |
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Dec 29 2006, 03:12 AM
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#154
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
No, but you could obtain the essence drain power by making an SR4 Power Pact with a blood spirit and use it on some ants or a cow or a squirrel or something. Actually, Vampires could essence drain cows and squirrels themselves and cut out the middle man, but that it far less fun and probably illegal in many States (but not Seattle). |
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Dec 29 2006, 03:17 AM
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#155
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 |
Hmm. I remember someone associated with SR saying about how he liked to think essence could come back as a symbolic thing, since it meant you could go the way of the cybered death machine and then come back and be all natural again. But I guess that was just musing and not cannon.
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Dec 29 2006, 04:14 AM
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#156
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
IMO, it is symbolic. When you cut away some part of yourself, you never get it back.
As if you'd want it anyway. Stupid Essence :cyber: ~J |
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Dec 29 2006, 04:20 AM
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#157
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Every point of essence you lose is one less time you can be brought the the highest plateau of pleasure by a voluptuous vampire. It is very important for that reason alone. |
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Dec 29 2006, 05:37 AM
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#158
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
So the best way for a corp to kill that pesky runner cybermonster is to just hire a vampire to have sex with him! That single point of essence drain will surely kill him!
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Dec 29 2006, 07:07 AM
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#159
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 571 Joined: 9-January 05 From: In the 9th circle of hell Member No.: 6,950 |
Beleve it or not, that trick does work fairly well. :-) Doesn't take long to drain a sammie with .5 essence.
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Dec 29 2006, 07:12 AM
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#160
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
I'm sure it leaves the vampire rather hungry though.
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Dec 29 2006, 07:26 AM
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#161
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 571 Joined: 9-January 05 From: In the 9th circle of hell Member No.: 6,950 |
Possibly. I kept Mortax's essence at 12 most of the time, so the few times I drained someone like that, they were real dreckheads. It was more a "FRAG YOU ASSHOLE". Pluse I got the fun of:
1. killing him 2. Watching him come back, and all the cyberware being pushed out. Very Painful. 3. Killing them again. Very good for when someone sends an assassin after you. Usually the guy who hired him too. |
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Dec 29 2006, 07:30 AM
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#162
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
See it's crap like that that I dont do vampires.
Or well.. actually now that I think about it. I've -never- run into vampires. I did run into some wierd ass cyberzombie once that seemed to work for some major mojo dude we never managed to track down. It's kinda scary when the guy takes several rounds, and a direct hit from van loaded with explosives and still gets up again. I also didnt much enjoy the .50 cal MG he fired in our direction either. |
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Dec 29 2006, 08:00 AM
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#163
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 571 Joined: 9-January 05 From: In the 9th circle of hell Member No.: 6,950 |
The scene with several rounds fired describes where the quote in my signiture comes from.
Vampires are a major pain to deal with. My advice: Have someone with a weapon focus go after them. They have to make a check to see if they can regen. And then they still have to make the regen test. That or c-12. Both are pretty effective. Turn on flame aura when they bite you, hellblast, grenade surrounded with wood. Mortax actually spent a good bit of time killing off vamps. Most of his essence came from his contacts with a warden at a prison. Mostly the sex offenders wing. (background reasons.) If anyone he killed turned, he killed them and burned anything that was left, just to be sure. |
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Dec 29 2006, 08:07 AM
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#164
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
Yeah, I just love regeneration in SR3 (Not. I've never been on the good side of it).
I remember we went paracritter hunting once for some J for.. something dont quite remember the real purpose behidn it. BUt this one damn critter would NOT DIE!! I mean we were plugging this thing with a barret (me) a panther cannon (Some troll dude, dont remember his name) several assault rifles and all the rest. Just when we thought it was dead the fragger would regenerate and get back up again. Oi that was fustrating, we started wishing we'd brought along a LAW or two. |
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Dec 29 2006, 08:10 AM
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#165
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
At this time I must point out that vampires keep any cyberware that they had in life according to SR canon. (Total Eclipse page 29)
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Dec 29 2006, 08:26 AM
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#166
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 571 Joined: 9-January 05 From: In the 9th circle of hell Member No.: 6,950 |
Ug, not this one again.
Again I pose this question: Cyberzombie, option one. option 2, you take a sammie with a few mill worth of cyber, have a vamp bite him. Now you have something with insane init,str, quickness, can turn into mist, and has regen. If it really works that well, why are there cyberzombies? At the very least, why are there not more vampire sammies? And you know corps would jump at the chance. Cheaper, better in some ways, and some corps use bug spirits for guard animals, so no moral issue. (Keep in mind, never read anything past 3rd, and not quite all of that.) In any rule book, there is no mention that I am aware of in rules or flavor text referencing this. Only in novels, and apperently this run book (I guess I'm going to have to find this one and read it). There was a long thread on this once before, and I posed the question of why no uber sammi with regen question there. The best answere I can think of if you want to consider all novels cannon and this run book is to say it was a mutation. I think it is a stretch, but any paranormal critter you run into could have slightly different powers than what they should. If this was something that was commen, I think we'd see corps using them. Hell, they are experementing with Dzoo'noo'qua, why not cyber vamps if the are possible? |
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Dec 29 2006, 08:37 AM
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#167
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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 |
I seem to have quoted those very facts from SR4 itself on the 22nd. |
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Dec 29 2006, 08:39 AM
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#168
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
The Enhanced Attributes power is tied to essence and maximum augmented essence is tied to base essence. The .1 essence samurai will have a .2 essence maximum, meaning that his vampire powers will give him a whopping .2 extra points of every physical attribute, rounded down. The 1 essence samurai can actually live for more than a month but is limited to 2 points of Enhanced Attributes and must feed every month or else.
As for cyberzombies, assuming that they can be infected and the Enhanced Attribute power survives the extreme essence loss that burns out any magical potential by canon, they'll have penalties to his attributes instead of bonuses. And their maximum essence would be twice a negative, which is still a negative. |
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Dec 29 2006, 09:08 AM
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#169
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 571 Joined: 9-January 05 From: In the 9th circle of hell Member No.: 6,950 |
True, however, the enhanced attributes I was refering to was more from the ware than the vamp. I was more pointing out that if you take your avarage streetsam, turn everything into beta and delta (hence the multimillion note), you can have a very good sammie, who can turn into mist and regen. His essence will srill be 1-3, so he doesn't have to feed constently. It was the regen and mistform part I was pointing out, mostly. Afterall, how many people do you think would say yes if we took a pole: Are vampires a pain in the hoop to kill?
Mortax didn't have any cyber, and I didn't munchkin too much with magic. He had no more quickinings than he could mask. I stopped playing him because it was no longer fun. Vampires alone can get broken REALLY fast if you (player or GM) aren't carefull. I wasn't sudgesting infecting cyberzombies, I was sudgesting the uber regen sammie as an alternative. Cheaper in terms of rescorces and magic. Vampire cyberzombie....(shudders). I don't think that would work, I certainly hope it wouldn't. Cyberzombies are bad enough to try and take down without regen and mistform. |
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Dec 29 2006, 10:08 AM
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#170
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
Vampire Cyberzombie Maximum Troll. Comming to a run near you!
Now with regen and mistform flavours! Only 29.99 Million! Comes with free pine scented air freshner! |
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Dec 29 2006, 01:48 PM
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#171
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
But here is the problem. The ubber regenerating samurai, loaded up with cyberware, has less uncapped strength, quickness, and body bonuses than the uncybered vampire does. A 1.5 essence samurai vampire loaded up with deltaware is going to top out at +9 Body, +7 Quickness and +7 Strength. The uncybered vampire tops out at +12 to all of these and costs less. The only place where the cybered vampire outshines the uncybered vampire is initiative, due to the fact that Vampires do not have Enhanced Reactions. A cybered vampire with Wired 3 (delta) is a thing to fear since he still gets +7 attributes and has +3d6 to his initiative and a total Reaction bonus of +9 or +10 depending on if Intelligence is even or odd. The uncybered vamp only gets +6 Reaction due to quickness.
And we are supposed to be talking about dragons, and if they are evil or not which does lead us to Vampire Great Dragons with Wired 3. Are they evil and how many GMs would let me play one if they are? |
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Dec 30 2006, 01:17 AM
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#172
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 571 Joined: 9-January 05 From: In the 9th circle of hell Member No.: 6,950 |
lol, I think even Verjigorm would dreck it's self at that one. hmm, wonder if ol pale scales is infected... :cyber: |
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Jan 17 2007, 06:07 AM
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#173
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Actually, the best results from The Prisoner's Dilemma come when some the prisoners act as a team and all but one intentionally sacrifice themselves so that their chosen representative can benefit while intentionally sabotaging everyone who is not on the team. The individual winner is far less important than the winning team. While most of the team members will have the lowest score possible they will still benefit from being on the winning team and this benefit is far greater than the benefit of being on the tying team in a game where everyone cooperates. Metagame cooperation is always best when players are allowed to split rewards. It is like how stock car drivers will let team mates draft behind them and even pass them if this put the team mate in a position to gain an advantage for the team. The victor may get the glory but in the end it is the team points determine how much everyone gets paid. In cooperative ventures, acting so that everyone has equal gain is sometimes detrimental to the group as a whole. Sometimes it is far better that one temporarily suffers and another gets a disproportionate reward so that the entire team can be better off in the long term. |
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Jan 17 2007, 06:11 AM
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#174
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
But really how does this explain fraggers like Lofwyr? He certianly doesnt seem to be the type to be willing to 'take one for the team'.
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Jan 17 2007, 06:20 AM
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#175
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Nah, he's pretty much the guy who the team takes one for. He gets great publicity, attracts the big sponsors, wracks up the points, and usually gets first place. But, no matter how arrogant and egotistical he may be, the mountains of people who support his massive weight every day get a shitpot load of money for it and that is what counts. Sure, they could bust their asses for people who are less egotistical and more fair, people who share credit and who are somewhat democratic, and they might even be able to run business of their own; but, they wouldn't be bringing in the same amount of dough. Lofwyr is a giant egotistical nearly-indestructible financial genius target rallying totem figurehead. His employees make huge amounts of money while he takes all of the flack that comes from being in the spotlight. What's not to love? Edit: And there is that one time he let Talon channel him. :D |
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