Just curious to see., change clips or take drain in combat? Options

[Scandalous]

I just wanted to see how people make their characters. see what kinda players are really in the SR community.

[eidolon]

I've had to change mags before. The character used a pistol that held something like 10 rounds, and fired twice a pass. I've changed smg mags before because of bursts. I don't always pick a gun based on mag capacity, I go with what feels right for the character.

I haven't really ever played a pc mage, but my npc mages have passed out on multiple occasions.

[WhiskeyMac]

I had one of my characters pass out from drain the first time they cast Invisibilty. We might have been doing the rules wrong but it was hilarious. The character pops invisible then turns visible right away. I've had to change clips in combat before but that was against hordes of zombies. Never really against tactical npcs.

[Butterblume]

I voted absolutely not, altough once I changed my mag in combat. I didn't need to, of course, since the magazine was still half full, but I didn't want to get caught with my trousers down later in the combat.

We had to fight our way out through multiple swat teams (and we weren't even to blame, apparently one other runner team hit the target at almost the same time and triggered a heavy response).

[Thain]

I always, and I do mean always, peform a "tactical load" whenever their is a lull in the fighting... Say, we finish off the guards in Room A, and are running down the hall to Room B, will dump my mag(s) regardless of how many rounds they have left and reload.

Normally, I don't need more than 6-10 rounds in a fight. But, every now and agian, our GM likes to toss us a suprise. If I have to fight, say... a barghest... I don't want to waste any time reloading!

(But no, in four editions, I've never had a Magician I've played pass out from drain.)

[Xenith]

Lets see, I've seen magicians pass out at least three times from heavy drain, only one of those in Third edition. Another time I saw a magician almost die because of lethal drain. Interestingly, I've never seen a magician pass out from a spell that wasn't a combat or elemental manipulation spell (in this case the Third edition version). The third edition one was a bloody dwarf with 6 Willpower. The rest had a drain resist dice pool of 9-13. Just goes to show that even with large drain resistance you still need to be careful. That said, the stun drain was entirely after tossing about invisibly, increase reflexes, random combat spells, and various other heavy drain spells. The physical drain was because of getting shot... twice...

As for clips, yes, but mostly for NPCs. Combats, while there is usually at least one per session, are generally short and in small numbers. If they take very long they get loud and increasingly dangerous for all sides. If only my PCs would make better use of cover... heh.

[6thDragon]

I've never seen mages pass out from drain, but reloading happens often enough in our games.

[Kyoto Kid]

...in the case of KK4.3, "reloaded" (I voted #3), since she has Super Warhawks. She usually carries at least 4 speed loaders already prepped.

Violet never had to change clips with her Ares Viper, but with the Errata on Flechette ammo this may change in the future since she will be looking for a more effective weapon.

[Thane36425]

I've never had a mage pass out from drain. If you've got a high spellcasting skill you can cast rather lower force and still do damage. A Wolf Shaman (+2 combat spell dice) with a Spellcasting specialization in Combate spells (+ 2 dice) could cause a lot of a damage with spells that had a base of only 1 or 2 points of drain, especially if they are casting stun spells.

As for changing magazines, yes. If my characters are a getting low, they will change magazines during a lull to have a fresh one ready for the next fight.

[nezumi]

Would it be possible for you to edit this post to give it a vaguely informative title and subtitle?

[ludomastro]

My GM in college was brutal. I had a character that was always reloading due to the sheer amount of unfriendlies thrown at us. My favorite character was a sniper and sharp shooter. He almost never needed to reload.

[ornot]

Reloading happens frequently, although usually only in running battles. If the PCs are faced with only a handful of NPCs they usually drop them all without needing to. I blame the excessively large capacity of the Ares Predator.
A street sam player I know used to pack at least three or four magazines of varient ammo, and switched them out depending on the target (EX-ex for drones, flechette for unarmoured foes, APDS for Lone Star in combat armour, etc).

I've not seen many mages knock themselves out through drain, but it has happened. More commonly the mage will knock out the street sam with AoE spells instead! Occasionally the mage falls over too.

[ShadowDragon]

I GM a game, and my players usually only change clips when they need a new ammo type. Combat generally doesn't last long enough to run out of ammo. The mage has passed out quite a bit though.

[Mistwalker]

Suppressive fire tends to eat up a lot of ammo.

I have had mages drop from over casting, both stun and physical. Usually from a lot of spells, or damage and spells.

Had a PC almost pass out from casting Napalm, force 10. Though he did take out all the opposition with that one spell, allowing an easy escape.

[Thane36425]

Mages tend to get in trouble if they try a lot of one shot kills or throw around a lot of area spells. That's why I have my mages take skill automatics, pistols or shotgun for close range work and save the spells for long range sniper attacks, taking down unwary guards and the like. I rarely used area spells and then usually a stun variety or specialty anti-spirit one.

[Jack Kain]

[MaxHunter]

I am usually the Gm, but I can answer based on my group players' experience.

Mages do drop out on drain, albeit not very frequently. That happens mostly for the deadly combination of some unhealed drain damage + the casting of a killer spell. Last mage who dropped did it after trying to heal an overflowing teammate out from the gates of death. Health spells drain in SR4 is a bitch.

Clips run out and need to be changed a lot. Last session the team's heavy orc wasted four clips of his mossberg cmdt and the adept ran through his hk227 ammo fairly quickly (suppresive fire) There is a lot of tactical reloading too. Of course, last session's run involved wetwork in Beirut, so it wasn't the typical B&E.

However, If you need to reload for lack of ammo and you have NOT missed your previous shots with your predator, you should be running away, chummer.

Cheers,

Max

[Thane36425]

[fistandantilus4....]

[cetiah]

edit: removed (Ooops!)

[nezumi]

[lorechaser]

I picked "Every so often" because I'm the gun bunny of the group.

Long Wide bursts are often my duty, or short narrow. So I have a tendency to run out of ammo.

However, there's a reason I built my gunslinger adept with the Quickdraw power. ;) It's faster to drop your smgs back on their straps and quickdraw machine pistols than it is to reload them. And 3 hits on the quickdraw test (2 if you use the quick draw holsters) is trivial.

I find that my combat style is highly influenced by the Lobby Gunfight scene from the first Matrix.

Tactical reloading is 100% required.

And I've never seen a mage pass out *from drain*. I have seen a mage take drain, then suffer damage, and go down, when the mage would have been fine without the drain. So more often, it's "I need to undercast this spell so I don't pass out" rather than "I passed out casting too high a force."

[BishopMcQ]

I change clips less often in SR4 than I did in SR3, though it still happens with some frequency. In general, I carry at most 2 backup clips per firearm.

If I have chosen my shots well and blown through 60 odd rounds of ammunition, the Johnson lied about how easy this was going to be and the run is FUBARed.

The matrix style gunfights can be a great change of pace, and they certainly have their place in Shadowrun, though they aren't my daily affair.

[Butterblume]

Curious, I figure I will run out of ammo in SR4 faster than in SR3. Back then, a typical combat round for me was like aim,aim,aim,fire (with as much combat pool as possible), which basically equalled one dead opponent every turn.

In SR4, aiming isn't that über anymore, so there is no reason to do it instead of shooting ;).

[Thanee]

Changing clips happens, but it's a fairly rare thing.

Passing out from Drain is quite unlikely, though.

Bye
Thanee