Pun-Pun and Bloodzilla, And other infinitely broken characters Options

[Cain]

Somewhere along the way, I lost the link to the original Bloodzilla writeup. So, I'm opening this thread to all the Pun-Pun's of Shadowrun. What are the infinitely disgusting combos that people have come up with?

For the record, I consider Mr. Lucky to be seriously underpowered for this thread, so the sky's the limit. Feel free to repeat the most borken concepts you can possibly deliver.

[Kyoto Kid]

...unfortunately my worst most munched PC was from 3rd ed: Gracie the Met2000 dwarf merc with a reaction of 18 who could stand her ground going full lead hose with only a +1 TN modifier and who took out a Medusa drone with her twin dikoted Cougar Fineblades (#34).

...though there was Lady Meggan Grande (NPC) who basically rolled a 36ct cube of dice (- 1) on an opposed negotiation test. And that was without throwing in her Edge of 8.

[edit - addendum]

...of course there was reason to munch out Gracie, for one, we were encouraged to do so by the GM as he was runnng us through Brainscan.

[FrankTrollman]

Sigh.I wish people wouldn't call them "Pun-Puns" because Pun-Pun is actually weak cheese. Not only does it not actually work as written, all it really ends up being is a very slow growing unlimited physical attribute hack that requires the intervention of an extremely power optional NPC to start (and is thus both less interesting and less powerful than a simple Artificer Skill Dancer), but even allowing for the ludicrous interpretation of the word "a" that it relies upon, the original Pun-Pun still got overconfident and was one-shot killed by The Word.

But I digress. The original "Bloodzilla" wasn't even called that. It was in the middle of my rant to Lars "What the hell are you doing with the threats section!?" during the Street Magic writing process. It was right next to "Is it too much to ask to have just one complete playable toxic tradition in the book?" and "You can't have an Earth/Water spirit, that's the entire fucking point of having distinct spirit types." I don't think I will ever forgive him for that.

----

Basically, Bloodzilla (which is an excellent name, I wish I'd coined it myself) is an infinite power loop because the limits on Essence drain are force dependent. So with the bullshit energy drain that Lars wrote up for Blood Spirits, they get +1 Force (and thus +2 max energy drain) for every 1 point of Energy Drain. Even a Force 1 Blood Spirit can be a Force 181 Blood Spirit after you wax a kindergarten full of retarded kids. Hell, after you chupacabra some goats.

Even regular Blood Magicians can rival the power of Great Dragons with relatively little fuss. The limits on conjuration are almost entirely Drain related. With the Sacrifice metamagic and a bound hobo, you can reduce your drain by like 14 boxes if you really care - which is enough and more than enough to survive summoning Force 20 spirits. Those will, in turn, drop kick the shit out of Ghost Walker, which is just good times all around.

Are we counting Agent Smith as a character? That's a pretty easy one, as every 5k Commlink you buy or steal from a store can run two more Agents, and you can fit as many in your backpack or the boot of your car as you can convince the gamemaster is reasonable.

-Frank

[Cain]

Actually, I'm the one who came up with the Agent Smith army, which forced an errata on Teamwork tests. Because teamwork tests had no limit on members, you could load up on a few hundred agents and one-shot Z-O.

Even with the errata, the Burly Man Brawl is a valid (and nasty) tactic.

[Synner]

For the record and to avoid spreading erroneous misconceptions:

"Bloodzilla" is missing exactly six words from a power description that were mistakenly cut in editing through no fault of the writer who included it in his write up - contrary to what Frank's opinion. Those six words impose a cap on the increase to Force that can be achieved through Energy Drain and its variants. The text to be added back in has been in the Street Magic errata for over a year now, although the change of license has delayed our publication of the same.

Also contrary to Frank's belief a sample Toxic tradition (for a typical "Poisoner Toxic" ) was indeed written up and included in final drafts. It was a development decision to cut it - again, not the author's decision - based on the fact that "Toxic traditions" are in fact individual, enormously variable and highly personal. It was intended to be, and will eventually be published in a long-delayed Street Magic add-on.

As for the "fix" to Teamwork tests, sorry to break it to you Cain, but it had nothing to do with Agent Smith. It was listed for errata as far back as the initial release of SR4 - in fact, if you check, my very first response to one of your criticisms of the Teamwork rules (not the Agent Smith thread which came later) included "the fix".

[toturi]

[Stahlseele]

well, around these parts of the web there was the troll with the . . 30 to 40 dice for climbing tests . . and on another board there was an elf with 20 to 30 dice for everything that was somehow connected to agility i think . .

[FrankTrollman]

You've got a nerve on you Peter, I was there. And whether it's contrary to belief or not, there aren't even five Toxic spirits with the same theme in the book, and Lars refused to make a system for creating toxic spirits for general use. You can't have a toxic magician without writing original content yourself, and there aren't even any fucking guidelines for doing it. That was a shamefully lazy move. I said it at the time, I hold to that sentiment, and I'm not retracting anything.

He didn't forget to include guidelines for creating the originl content he is insisting that every single gamem master produce. It didn't get cut at some later date through no fault of his own. He fucking straight up refused to do it, and instead wrote up some specific spirits which you can't use without writing additional original content yourself for which there are no guidelines.

It was a dick move, and you supported him doing it.

---

And I've seen at least three versions of your "6 missing words" and while they often stop infinite power, it really isn't terribly important because not one of them prevents anyone with Blood invoking from being able to kick the crap out of Lofwyr and Hestaby at the same time.

Also most of them run into flat incomprehensibility the moment they start interacting with Free Spirits and Background Counts. And it doesn't even begin to address the fact that the "weakness" of Evanescence does not affect blood spirits and never has!

-Frank

[Synner]

[Stahlseele]

ok guys, we'll settle this like men . . Frank and Synner, Snowballs at 20m *g*

[Buster]

[Synner]

[Blade]

What's that Steet Magic add-on? A free add-on that will be available on the website (or possibly holostreet)?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Magus]

Oh god please not HoloStreets, there would be no telling then when we will see it.

[toturi]

[Bull]

Frank, Synner... Play nice.

Also, I suspect that public message boards are not the place to be discussing behind the scenes developmental decisions.

Bull

[bibliophile20]

[Synner]

[Demonseed Elite]

Frank's posts here are pretty out of line and Peter would probably be better served not responding to them, in my opinion. I've gotten my hand slapped a few times for pushing the NDA discussing writing development, but man, you don't attack co-authors or their draft work during the development process on a public forum. That's unprofessional and disrespectful.

[Kerris]

This type of drek makes me hate these boards. Let's try to get back on topic, shall we?

I've never made a really broken character, but I did make a medical adept who's rolling 22 dice on medicine tests, and 26 dice on diagnosis tests. (Could do better, but I wanted some well-roundedness as well)

[swirler]

[FrankTrollman]

[Spike]

And that's the sort of thing I read Dumpshock For.... :D

[Bull]