Troll Weapons, Hell, I'm bored... Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Switch to: Standard Linear+

[Mercer]

Spinning off from the various threads about how trolls are big but they still use the same gear as puny hoomans, I'm thinking about the Full-Borg weapons that CP2020 had. Basically, weapons that were too nasty to be used by any human arm, but that big, scary cyborgs could use. I never played CP2020 (why have hamburger when you can have steak?), but I had a habit of picking up the supplements for it on the theory everything is useful for conversion purposes. 'Borg weapons come from something called Blackhand's Street Weapons 2020. Several do damage to non-cybered arms that try to fire them, others are just big. One is a 15mm "SMG", another is the Hellbringer .666 Magnum.

I mean, its a neat idea. And if you consider that either cybernetic or troll arms (or cybernetic troll arms, for that matter) exist in SR, it seems like people would make weapons specifically for them. (CP also has weapons specifically designed to take down 'borgs, which would be the type of weapons you'd want to take down trolls.)

An easier way is just to consider weapons modified for trolls to be lighter weapons in their hands. A troll-modified Heavy Pistol is basically a Hold-Out to them. Trolls should probably get a concealability bonus right off the bat. A troll-mod Shotgun is used a lot like a Heavy Pistol, a troll-mod AR is a Machine Pistol, an LMG becomes an SMG, and a HMG becomes an AR. That might be pushing it a little, but its what I'm picking for my jumping off point. Likewise, trolls might get a bonus to recoil to represent the have four times the mass of a normal human, or they might not double the recoil penalties for Heavy Weapons. This might exacerbate the problem of trolls as combat monsters, but hey, they're already monstrous. Personally, I can see a guy who's 3 meters tall and 350 kilos using a .50cal like an Assault Rifle, but if thats a bridge too far we can knock it down to one class. (HMG's become MMG's, LMG's become AR's, AR's become SMG's and so on.) Troll-modding weapons doesn't just mean making the handles bigger, it can mean fundamentally changing how the weapon is used.

Well, that's guns, but it stands to reason that other weapons would be similarly nasty. A Combat Axe might be used like a hatchet. This is getting periously close the TWSNBN, but I'm willing to cautiously explore it. A throwing knife that fits comfortably in the hands of a troll is going to be bigger than one used by a human, its not going to be the same sized blade on a huge handle. It stands to reason that such a blade would do more damage when it pierces someone-- now, is that just going to be a function of the troll's higher strength, or should the weapon itself do more?

I haven't even begun to think about game balance yet, which is not to say I won't. But for right now, let's think about what sort of weapons trolls would use if they really are as big as the system says they are, and worry about balance later.

[Ancient History]

"No offense, miss, but that weapon would've broken your back the first time you fired it."
"Because I'm a girl?"
"No. Because it's designed for use by people with two backup spines."

[Ustio]

Well theres no need to really mod the melee weapons to much as they take body mass into account (via the STR/2 part of the damage code)

As for fire arms a first step would be Strength/Body based recoil modifiers followed by some rules on using long weapons in one hand (non of this DnD style increasing damage and calling it the same thing)

The main difficulty would be would be working out how to scale up weapons do we just make a bigger calliber pistol for trolls or do we do something else with the extra space (like bigger ammo capacities or longer barrell lengths), part of me thinks that it woould depend on weather the reason for the upscaling was mechaniclly driven or setting driven.

Mechanically driven -
Trolls can use a HMG like i would use an assault rifle (once the grip/trigger mechanism and stock have been adjusted). A troll heavy pistol uses .50 (or other silly size) rounds for a base damage of 6p/-2 (a WAG no flamming please)

Setting driven -

Ares breaks into the troll market with the Hercules mk1, a varient of the Predator modded for trolls, to keep R&D costs down it uses the same mechanisms but uses a 50 round box mag in the (much larger) pistol grip and has a longer barrell (upping range a bit) they also built up the casing so it dosnt look like a troll holding a toy.

Ingram could release a troll modified HMGs, which would have the obligatory modified grip/trigger mechanisms but would drop the bipods and replace with an underbarrell grenade launcher and include a sturdy mounting point for top mounted scopes and the like. (I know that they come with a top mount as per BBB but how many real woorld HMGs come with one?)

[MYST1C]

[Mercer]

[HappyDaze]

[Stahlseele]

[Jaid]

[Fortune]

[Spike]

I see the only real difficulty here is how Shadowrun handles damage and combat in general.

Scaling up damage in Cyberpunk was easier as the range of potential was wider, and the ability to resist it generally smaller. An ordinary person could be capped by a light pistol with shocking ease, upgrading to an assault rifle didn't mean necessarily instant death to all before you, but DID make the character measurably more dangerous, and cyborg/anti-cyborg weapons were overkill against most targets.

In Shadowrun the light pistol is a joke that even grandma can laugh at, and the difference between an assault rifle and a rocket launcher is a few pips... where do you squeeze the damage codes of 'extra crunchy' weapons?

Now: An extra large predator that does the same damage? that's something I'd expect to see, just because it is easy to build even now, and mechanically requires little work to integrate, though good luck keeping munchikens from trying to take it just for the extra ammo capacity and range (if you have that...).


Of course, given the position trolls are in now (seriously, when was the last time people talked about casually dealing with a troll short of anti-tank weaponry? Ditto since the new armor encumberance means they can wear more armor than most other players without penality) do we really want them to have even more 'troll only cooler toys'? I mean Troll Bow....seriously.

[Stahlseele]

Magic and Gamma Scopolamine and other Trolls with Bows/Close Combat/heavy/automatic weapons go a long way *g*

[Mercer]

Troll with a STR 3, brain fart. (My brain ate a lot of fatty thoughts over the holiday.) A better example would have been STR 5 Troll and a STR 5 Human, to ask if trolls should get a size bonus to damage independent of their STR.

@HappyDaze: It should be easier to hit a troll-sized target as opposed to a human target; if hitting one thing has a certain difficulty attached to it, hitting something almost twice as tall and wide should should be less difficult. Although I think figuring out how to apply those bonuses and penalties is going to be a headache. Should everybody get a +2 dice pool to shoot or swing at trolls, or should trolls get a penalty to dodge and parry attempts, or both? Its a little clunky, though it is another example of how the troll's size is ignored by the system.

@Spike: Valid points, although strictly speaking making a Shotgun into a Heavy Pistol for a troll doesn't change anything mechanically, it just allows a troll to use a Defiance T-250 the way a human used a .44 Magnum. The Shotgun would look like a Heavy Pistol (albeit, one with a 2' barrel and a 4" wide cylinder that chambers 12ga rounds), but mechanically there wouldn't be any difference between a troll firing it and a human firing a normal T-250. (A human could even use the 12ga Magnum, but he'd hold it like a Shotgun and suck up the penalty for using a troll-mod weapon in human-sized hands.) It's essentially a fluff fix (at least until someone makes a dual Shotgun wielding troll phys ad, but I can worry about that tomorrow). The only real mechanical change would be giving trolls a bonus to weapon concealability, since it might be easier to hide something on a 3 meter tall guy than it is on a 1.8 meter tall guy.

[Cthulhudreams]

Trolls cost 40BP at char gen, and you don't really seem to get 40BP of value of that. And you have to pay 20%? more for post character generation equipment too boot. Savage.

So it's probably entirely reasonable to make a 'troll only' bonus that even a super strength human gets, (fluff justification due to a trolls sheer mass and size) and it probably won't be particularly unbalanced. I've seen 1 additional point of recoil comp for every 6 points of strength or part thereof, and that would probably work. You could even add 20% to clip size too boot.

[HappyDaze]

[Critias]

[Fortune]

What they said!

[Blade]

A shotgun is a troll's pistol.
A rocket launcher is the troll's shotgun.
A Vindicator is the troll's SMG.
A Panther cannon is the troll's Rifle.

[GentlemanLoser]

Hi! Old SR player (And CP202 and ED among others!) coming back to SR4.

Just wanted to add a few thoughts to this, as I'm kinda leaning towards the 'Trolls don't fit in SR' position.


Cyber only weapons

Not only did CP2020 have the 'borg only guns (things like Rail Guns IIRC), but it also had in the base book the heaviest of Heavy pistols, the Malorian Arms. this pistol could only be fired by a user with a cyberarm, as the recoil was to great for a meat arm and the cyberarm could lock itself in position when shooting.

I think the borg weapons did damage from thier recoil if used by a non borg, but its been a while!

Cyber only firearms would be a nice addition to SR, maybe they'll be inlcuded in Arsenal? ;)

As already mentioned, hopefully STR/BOD rules for recoil will be bought back.


Troll Weapons

ED had a nice take on this, with weapon sizes. Trolls could use one size up of weapons in a single hand, over the smaller races. Reach hasn't really covered that side of things.

IMO Reach should have been a trade off (as mentioned above) to a bonus to hit Troll in Ranged, due to thier size.

But Trolls should be able to use larger weapons (both in one hand or two) to the smaller races (with Dwarves probably taking a penalty on this...), which should be reflected by the wepaons stats.

A Sword has a greater reach and damage than a knife because of it's size. But trolls should probably be able to use swords as knives and huge 8/9ft monstrousities as swords, with an increased reach/damage reflected by this.

[Stahlseele]

in shadowrun 3 there were special rules for trolls and big/heavy weapons. effectively, a troll could wield any 2 handed weapon in one hand with only a +1 modifier if i remember correctly.
Meaning a Troll COULD do akimbo with 2 LMG's for example. or use the STR+3Serious Damage(STR+4Deadly with Dikote) Pole Arm in one hand the way smaller races would use a Sword for example. And i think there was something that trolls get a +1 on power niveau if they are using 1 handed weapons in one hand and +2 on power niveau,if they used a 1H weapon in 2 hands. but don't nail me to that, i am just now waking up x.x

[Cthulhudreams]

[Fuchs]

I can't recall any regular player in all my groups ever playing an orc, dating back to 1991. A number of trolls were played though, two of them for years. Strength - which was used not just for melee, but also to compensate for recoil - and the lifting rules (for total gear and ammo) were important, as was body.

For troll weapons, I usually don't care much, I just tend to give trolls heavier weapons, shotguns, MGs, assault canons and the like. I feel the lack of size modifiers to get hit as a troll compensates enough.

[Cthulhudreams]

Cool, but I could draw the same conculsions from just surveying the group with the troll in it, but when we take a step back, and look at more groups that story doesn't repeat itself.

However, I only checked out five groups in welcome to the shadows, but there are like 25 on the first and second page alone. You could probably make some really compelling stats to do a great analysis of the argument by looking through all the groups and checking out troll, ork, dwarf (the likely suspects) metatype numbers. I honestly suspect that it will go Ork, Dwarf, Troll in order of popularity, but dwarves will be close to trolls!

[Critias]

First: One character out of twenty seven, huh? Sounds they're being played roughly three and a half times more often than their default population level in the setting supports. Much like Awakened characters, there must be some benefit to them for that to be the case, yes?

Second: Maybe people aren't playing them because possibly, just possibly, not all of us care only about numbers. There are plenty of other threads -- going on right now, in fact, still on the front page -- about how different Trolls are from other metaraces, how much uglier and bigger. At the same time, there's a thread going on detailing the differences between kick-in-the-door-because-it-looks-badass gamers and Bourne-Identity wannabe types. Trolls, and their stat mods (no matter how impressive) don't support everyone's style of play or mental images of their characters.

Third: No one said Trolls are "totally awesome." We just said they certainly get their 40 points' worth in attribute boosts. It is quite easily argued, in fact, they actually get their points' worth in one attribute alone, simply looking at things mathematically (Body and the extra soak bonus, for instance), and ignoring every other modifier they receive. If you are out to make a strong, tough, guy, there are very very few reasons not to make a Troll (aside from RPing itself). They can "get their points worth" and not be so "totally awesome" that more people should play them, all at the same time.

[Cthulhudreams]

I agree with you about RPing concerns and numerical issues as I stated previously, however that was my point with Orks being a much more flexiable chassis both numerically, and apparently from an RP perspective given the greater numbers.

Your point about ignoring all the other modifiers and then wow they get 40 points of body for 40 bps invested is not really useful because they do get negative modifiers. And when we compare them to our friends the orks, those negative modifiers are serious. Walking though common archetypes: Street sammie, Hacker, Rigger, Mages, Adepts, Technomancers, a trolls performance as all common archetypes is impacted due to stat modifications in key statistics (agility, Open question, Agility, all drain linked stats, agility, all mental stats). Orcs only loose on technomancers and a subset of mages.

So, I don't think you're getting my point about value. A troll invests his 40 bp and takes home some goodies and some problems that will impact whatever archetype he is working towards. An ork invests less BP, gets a large percentage in the goodies department, and has less downsides, downsides that may never enter play.

Maybe I could have phrased my orginial point better as 'If you want to be big green and ugly Orks > Trolls from a mechanistic perspective, and offer an (apparently?) more flexiable RPing chassis.' (a conculsion that has to be drawn from the popularity of orks over trolls if decisions are not numerical. Personally I think it is a combination of both as outlined previously.)

The racial demographics argument is not something I'd consdiered, otherwise you'd have to apply it to mages, so it never occured to me. Instead I'd expect to see 10% or so, based on playable races in the book, but my sample size is obviously not big enough to draw conculsions of seeing that.

[Critias]

I think you'll find "Why not just play an Ork, instead?" is something of an ongoing theme over in our "Do Trolls Really Belong In Shadowrun" thread. So you'll get no disagreement from me there. That is, however, a far cry from the actual initial statement (that sparked my disagreement), of "Trolls aren't worth the points."