What's the purpose of Ghostwalker?, The wizzworm doing what? Options

[Fuchs]

I really didn't bother with the other thread, because the premise made the whole exercise pretty futile to me - ie. you'd first have to figure out how many cascading Anchored/Quickened/spirit sustained barrier/heal/reaction/Att buffing spells and how many unique metamagics and abilities (ie. spell matrixs, spirits using powers, astral shift, metamagics that allows it to borrow a spirit's powers, unique Ally abilities, etc) a great dragon could have accumulated over its 10+ thousand year existance.

Strictly speaking, assuming artillery fire (or any other type of big gun) could track and hit him in the first place (through any Quickened multi-sense Invisibility spell and massive spirit Concealment, and multisense illusions it might deploy in a direct military confrontation), and the shells could then punch through the multiple Quickened and Anchored area and personal physical barriers, and that they could cause damage against his battle-ready magic-buffed Hardened Armor and his immense magic-buffed Body, then he's only going to be hurt until one of his myriad (Anchored, Quickened, Spell matrixed, Unique Enhancement, whatever) magical heal spells kicks in and heals him (or he uses the Regeneration power from a Force 20 possession plant spirit he's summoned and Channeled or whatever).

It's an exercise in futility because ultimately individual GMs can make a great dragon as durable and powerful (or as weak) as they want. As a developer I have to pull out all the stops and assume it uses every trick the most min-maxed character on earth can think of (at a power/Force level higher than anything metahumanly possible), uses them all at once, and then also has its own unique set tricks of tricks to account for those 10k+ years of experience and dragon kinds' distinct understanding of Magic.

And I assume that the military will have pulled out all stops during the last 40 years developping weapons to handle such threats. So, I'll meet your dragon, and raise it 40 decades of world-wide military research.

I simply don't see any dragon, or any magic they can deploy, as able to withstand the firepower a SR military unit can bring to bear. Once the matter of targetting the dragon has been solved - and I think that would have been solved decades ago, given the cyberware they have, and astral perception, which only requires to have a couple astrally perceiving people looking at the dragon, letting the system do the triangulation - there's not much the Dragon can do. Withstand the first shot? There comes the next, and the next, and then the next. Sometime real soon, the defenses collapse, edge runs out, and where once was a Dragon is now a piece of meat with holes the size of craters, rapidly falling down.

And his experience? Based upon a world that has gone, where metahumanity wielded weapons that do not even comapre to the weapons wielded in the early 20th century. It's like trying to tell people that a warrior from the roman empire would be very dangerous on a modern batltefield since he has 20 years of experience fighting with sword and bow.

In a world with nanoweapons, poison, bioweapons, taliored astral bacteria, and a mentality that embraces research and progress, and looks for ways to maximise efficiency of all components, Dragons can't rely on age old experience and magic, they'll end up dead sooner or later. Either they adapt, like Lowfyr, or they join the dinausaurs.

So, yes, it is an exercise in futility - on one side, we have dragon as dev pets, who are allowed all the advantages dragon fans can think of, and on the other side we have a metahumanity who is forced to act like the US military in Godzilla just so it doesn't rain on the dragon parade, all our own experiences, all the historical evidence of how conflicts drive development of weapons and tactics ignored.

Just so we can have Great Dragons play gods on the battlefield like some kiddie with an invulnerability hack in a FPS.

Sorry, I don't see it. Great Dragons can be formidable and daunting without cheap "invulnerability to damage, nyah nyah nyah" "powers".

[DocTaotsu]

that is basically the gist of what I was going for earlier. I want some things to evolve in the game but I don't want heavy handed excessive metaplot.

Hm... I think the whole wireless Matrix thing was an excellent tech evolution. What did you have in mind plot wise?

[Bull]

wow I have to disagree. I used to run a campaign in SR2 set in Denver simply because of how great the setting was. I mean you have access to all of the NA countries there. Border crossings, double dealings all in one convenient package and then the data haven. I do wish I had known what they were planning with GW coming there. I'd have loved to have built towards that. I also wish I'd had access to some of those pallets you mention. If for no other reason than to have all of the access cards since I only had one box and only got the two cards it had. UCAS and Souix Nation. Kinda funny, it was $25 for the whole boxed set. Times change.

This goes back to what I said about different game styles. At the end of the day though, the whole double-dealing, border crossing, smuggling and spying type of game isn't really hat we played back in the day. Our game was definitely a bit more 80's Action/Adventure (Someone once described that genre as ReaganPunk), heavy on the action and personal story development.

Don't get me wrong, there were some parts of the Denver stuff I did really like, and it was a decent presentation. I especially liked the multiple-choice style of dealing with the plot, so the GM could adapt the setting as he liked. But on the whole, I just wasn't a huge fan of setting books in general. I liked the Target Books a lot more, because they just gave me an overview. I always made up the little details on my own. And most of our games ended up moving (at least for a while) into our hometown of Cleveland anyways, so we just made up everything whole cloth.

Shadowrun has always been a great setting, and has survived because it's such a strong but flexible setting, accomodating a lot of different styles and themes and genres. I think if it was a more specific, rigid genre or game, it never would have survived FASA going under, if it survived that long.

Bull

[Fuchs]

Shadowrun has always been a great setting, and has survived because it's such a strong but flexible setting, accomodating a lot of different styles and themes and genres. I think if it was a more specific, rigid genre or game, it never would have survived FASA going under, if it survived that long.

Indeed. I just wish that Great Dragons would be just one power among many, not the official no-one-can-ever-hurt-them top dogs. Reading how they are supposed to be able to walk all over the military - and by extension, over anyone else not being a great dragon, no matter if megacorp or not - really makes the setting poorer, and more one-dimensional.

To the devs: What exactly can stop a dragon, apart from another dragon? The military can't, mages can't, blood mages can't, spirits can't. Science can't, and their magic is superiour to anyone else's.

So - can anyone tell me, from our dev posters, what exactly keeps dragons in check, apart from other dragons or the dragons without scales but pointy ears, aka Immortal Elves?

[swirler]

Shadowrun has always been a great setting, and has survived because it's such a strong but flexible setting, accomodating a lot of different styles and themes and genres. I think if it was a more specific, rigid genre or game, it never would have survived FASA going under, if it survived that long.

agreed
white wolf finally realized that excessive overdone metaplots weren't really good
unfortunately wotc is trying them for 4.0 *shakes head in disgust*

some meta = good,
lots = bad

[Kagetenshi]

Hm... I think the whole wireless Matrix thing was an excellent tech evolution.

*Weeps*

~J

[Whipstitch]

I more or less side with the "GW is superfluous" people. He was an unwelcome addition to a lot of the games my friends were involved in, although now that sufficient time has passed and pre-GW games have largely been put to bed, it'd be a lot easier to implement the changes he brought about without undue stress on campaigns and perhaps become a net benefit. But generally I just feel that NPCs like Ghostwalker are best introduced via the backdoor in settings that weren't particularly fleshed out rather than tossed into an established runner haunt like Denver. It's part of the reason why I'm trying to make the conscious decision as a GM to make my games either short arcs or the "jet setter" type where I cart players around to different cities for different "brands" of Shadowrun rather than just pigeonhole everything into a Denver or a Seattle. I'm not really vehement about the stubject one way or the other but I guess I just prefer my GDs off to the side minding their own business for the most part.

[mfb]

And I assume that the military will have pulled out all stops during the last 40 years developping weapons to handle such threats. So, I'll meet your dragon, and raise it 40 decades of world-wide military research.

40 years of development by metahuman-level intelligence, versus tens of thousands of years of development by dragon-level intelligence--including further draconic development during the forty years the metahumans have had. i like realism as much as anybody--probably more than most. realistically? the dragons win.

[Ryu]

Indeed. I just wish that Great Dragons would be just one power among many, not the official no-one-can-ever-hurt-them top dogs. Reading how they are supposed to be able to walk all over the military - and by extension, over anyone else not being a great dragon, no matter if megacorp or not - really makes the setting poorer, and more one-dimensional.

To the devs: What exactly can stop a dragon, apart from another dragon? The military can't, mages can't, blood mages can't, spirits can't. Science can't, and their magic is superiour to anyone else's.

So - can anyone tell me, from our dev posters, what exactly keeps dragons in check, apart from other dragons or the dragons without scales but pointy ears, aka Immortal Elves?

Not a dev, but still answering. What stops you from making Great Dragons into one power amongst many? Or, more precisely, why don´t you see that they already are? The CAS pushed Aztlan out of Denver, with more than silent Pueblo support. SK has a rep based on Lofwyr as Ares is based on Damien Knight, but the dragon has actually eaten very few people. Tone their influence down. For all their capability, dragons take little interest in metahumans. Who cares if a few amongst thousands of rich, inhumane investors worldwide are dragons. Corps should fear the dreaded omega order, not GW on a personal vendetta. As I said, I like SRs Great Dragons, but they never come up in my game. A setting with corps=evil and superpowerful, citizens = corporate slaves, runners = fighting The Man is what I call one-dimensional. The fantasy elements help to change that.

(There are actually a few powers that can kill a GD, a rebuild Gestalt being one of them. The only thing stopping Aztlan from thor-hammering Denvers town hall while GW is in it is the war that act will cause. Plus anything they try is associated with considerable failure costs. Several humans with bootloads of enemies are alive for the same reason. If you are dead-set about controlling them, have it that the Black Lodge issued a warning about playing for power to all dragons, even Lofwyr (Who was reported to assign less priority to business lately, IIRC). Their primary-tier lodge should be able to deal with GW.)

[swirler]

well what was his name Hezlich? (I can't find it right now) got wiped out in the first book of the first trilogy. Im not saying it would alwasy happen that way. Just saying it can.

[Kagetenshi]

Haesslich. He wasn't a Great.

Edit: wait, I'm finding some sources that say he was. I could have sworn he wasn't, can someone confirm?

Edit^2: AH's GD+IE page doesn't have him listed.

~J

[Synner]

Indeed. I just wish that Great Dragons would be just one power among many, not the official no-one-can-ever-hurt-them top dogs. Reading how they are supposed to be able to walk all over the military - and by extension, over anyone else not being a great dragon, no matter if megacorp or not - really makes the setting poorer, and more one-dimensional.

Do not confuse dragons with the handful of Great Dragons out there. That said there's 7 billion of us against twenty something of them and most of them don't get along.

To the devs: What exactly can stop a dragon, apart from another dragon? The military can't, mages can't, blood mages can't, spirits can't. Science can't, and their magic is superiour to anyone else's.

You must have misread what I posted. At no point did I say a prepared military couldn't take out a great dragon.

I noted some of the ways Ghostwalker could have executed his takeover of Denver. A lot of fuss is being over something that should be obvious: Ghostwalker in Ghost Stories was playing for the cameras... He could have done everything he did without ever showing his snout. He did it in public to make a statement - and because he's that kind of guy. Great dragons don't go one on one with the military unless they've got a good reason and have stacked the deck in their favor.

I also noted that I considered your exercise futile (especifically playing off the premise that a prepared great dragon would face a modern military in a battlefield environment). I still believe it is, because no great dragon is that stupid - and the average great dragon is more intelligent and savvy than the most intelligent human being on Earth, and, with a few honorable exceptions, all the greats have several hundred years of fighting human forces, studying human psychology, and working on (or paying someone to work on) responses to those vaunted advances the military have been making for the last 60 years.

Modern militaries, most corporate armies, and some extremist groups, would be prefectly able to take down a great dragon (and its army of spirits) in a standing fight or if they were holding a hardened target. In those instances it is simply a question of pumping enough heavy firepower, spirits, spells, and distractions at it until its defenses collapse and its spirit backup is taken out. There's no doubt in my mind that in a standing battle, with control and knowledge of the field of battle, a prepared military would (eventually) win. Which in turn is why such a stand up fight is never going to happen.

In Amazonia the three great dragons had the help of free spirits and paracritters as well as thousands of metahuman allies. Tehran was only levelled because the Iranians had no significant magic to back them up.

Magically speaking, had the Blood Mage Gesalt not been caught unprepared by the attack, Ghostwalker would have been in for a serious fight. Were modern militaries willing to target a great dragon in a stand up fight with a significant cadre of combat magicians (let's say 40-50), their maxed out great form bound spirits, and backed by ritual magic sendings they'd also pose a significant challenge. The Black Lodge and Mystic Crusaders are other potential menaces with the resources and power to take on a GD (not without serious losses but them's the breaks).

More importantly though, a highly trained, exceptionally well equipped, high power black ops unit like a Firewatch team or a Wildcat unit stands a pretty good chance too.

If, on the other hand, a great dragon choses to involve itself in urban guerrilla warfare, employs hit-and-run and terror tactics, attacks mostly soft targets, and applies its superhuman intelligence to maximize surprise, seed chaos and misdirection while doing so - a modern military (national or corp) fighting in an urban environment (even if it is its homeground) is pretty much screwed.

So - can anyone tell me, from our dev posters, what exactly keeps dragons in check, apart from other dragons or the dragons without scales but pointy ears, aka Immortal Elves?

The fact that if modern metahumanity (or a portion thereof, such as a nation or major megacorp) were to percieve them as a threat and put the concerted effort into making their life miserable (targeting lairs, killing its allies, undermining it's powerbase) and/or eliminating them - the puny humans would (eventually) win (and the other GDs wouldn't help since they'd percieve anyone requiring help as a loser).

[Bull]

Haesslich. He wasn't a Great.

Edit: wait, I'm finding some sources that say he was. I could have sworn he wasn't, can someone confirm?

Edit^2: AH's GD+IE page doesn't have him listed.

~J

Haesslich was simply a feathered serpent (The weakest of the dragon races, at least physically) in the employ of corp, IIRC. Taken down by a minigun. If you gotta go, that's a decent way to do it.

Didn't work so well when I tried it on Perianwyr when we played through Mecurial though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Lost my first tricked out, rigged out Bulldog and my first mini-gun because of that SOB. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ork.gif)

Bull

[Bull]

So - can anyone tell me, from our dev posters, what exactly keeps dragons in check, apart from other dragons or the dragons without scales but pointy ears, aka Immortal Elves?

As a side note, Synner is the only "Dev" (Developer, I'm assuming, unless there's some new street slang I'm unaware of (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ) that actively reads and posts here. Adam has a whole closet full of hats at Catalyst, but I don;t believe any of them could be properly called a "Dev Hat". The rest of us that have been involved with Shadowrun were just freelance writers, at best (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Fuchs]

40 years of development by metahuman-level intelligence, versus tens of thousands of years of development by dragon-level intelligence--including further draconic development during the forty years the metahumans have had. i like realism as much as anybody--probably more than most. realistically? the dragons win.

Uh... sure. A few million scientists vs. a dozen lizards. And most of the dragons are buisy staying alive and in power. Yeap. They'll out-research humanity. As they have done in the eons before, witness their towns and tech and all... what's that? They don't have such?

Gee, guess they are not really that godly as researchers then.

[Fuchs]

If, on the other hand, a great dragon choses to involve itself in urban guerrilla warfare, employs hit-and-run and terror tactics, attacks mostly soft targets, and applies its superhuman intelligence to maximize surprise, seed chaos and misdirection while doing so - a modern military (national or corp) fighting in an urban environment (even if it is its homeground) is pretty much screwed.


The fact that if modern metahumanity (or a portion thereof, such as a nation or major megacorp) were to percieve them as a threat and put the concerted effort into making their life miserable (targeting lairs, killing its allies, undermining it's powerbase) and/or eliminating them - the puny humans would (eventually) win (and the other GDs wouldn't help since they'd percieve anyone requiring help as a loser).

If the great dragon simply has to switch to guerilla warfare to become unbeatable by the military, the military can't beat a great dragon.

So, what is it? If a nation wants a great dragon dead, can they do it or can't they do it, no matter if the dragon goes gurellia?

[mfb]

research is not the only route to power, in SR.

[Fuchs]

research is not the only route to power, in SR.

No, But advancements in science have transformed the earth, and warfare, very, very throughly in the last 100 years. A dragon could have had 10'000 years of experience fighting romans, greeks, celts, arthurian knights, and would have no experience fighting airplanes, bombs, or nuclear weapons.

And, even a genius like a great dragon won't be able to match the pace of a team of scientists.

Dragons will end up out-researched in all instances, tech (which is a no brainer, no dragon developed tech), and eventually magic too, simply because a few million minds beat a dozen geniuses.

And just as handguns made sword training obsolete, some day - not too far away - dragon's magical advantages and knowledge will have been rendered obsolete by (meta)human research.

[mfb]

again, research is not the only route to power, in SR. it might not even be the best route to power, because magic--one of the most potent tools one can have in the pursuit of power--is ultimately a personal experience which cannot be recorded or directly transferred. the most you can do with someone else's magical research is maybe use it as a guide for your own magical development.

technology is a means, not an end. if the end goal is to be able to unleash massive destruction, or control/influence people, or protect yourself, technology is one means to that end. there are other means, and if a dragon can master one or more of those other means, he can largely mitigate his lack of knowledge in the realm of technology.

[Fuchs]

again, research is not the only route to power, in SR. it might not even be the best route to power, because magic--one of the most potent tools one can have in the pursuit of power--is ultimately a personal experience which cannot be recorded or directly transferred. the most you can do with someone else's magical research is maybe use it as a guide for your own magical development.

technology is a means, not an end. if the end goal is to be able to unleash massive destruction, or control/influence people, or protect yourself, technology is one means to that end. there are other means, and if a dragon can master one or more of those other means, he can largely mitigate his lack of knowledge in the realm of technology.

I think you underestimate research and modern science and especially modern scientific thinking. Your view about magic also runs counter to both canon, rules and lore - mages are able to use formulas to pass on new spells, and metamagic techniques. That's how Shadowrun handled magic, so I don't know why you would think humanity won't tackle magic research with the same zeal they tackled technology.

[FlakJacket]

Uh... sure. A few million scientists vs. a dozen lizards. And most of the dragons are busy staying alive and in power. Yeap. They'll out-research humanity. As they have done in the eons before, witness their towns and tech and all... what's that? They don't have such?

Because of course they're not going to take an interest in following programs that might threaten them or are actively trying to find ways to kill them. You know that's a job that would probably best be done by hiring freelance deniable assets that commit crimes for money. We could even give them a nifty name, something like say... shadowrunners. Yeah, I like that name, very catchy.

[Ryu]

@Fuchs: The key is to figure out why the GDs are still alive. Lack of experience could have killed Ghostwalker; the Gestalt was (fortunately for him) not something he hasn´t faced before. And he only has to learn what tech can do, not emulate it himself. (If SR5 offers dragon power armor, plus back-mounted Large Vehicular Gauss Cannons on top of extremity mounted lasers, I´m so joining your crusade...)

[Fuchs]

@Fuchs: The key is to figure out why the GDs are still alive. Lack of experience could have killed Ghostwalker; the Gestalt was (fortunately for him) not something he hasn´t faced before. And he only has to learn what tech can do, not emulate it himself. (If SR5 offers dragon power armor, plus back-mounted Large Vehicular Gauss Cannons on top of extremity mounted lasers, I´m so joining your crusade...)

Well, I think GW is still alive because the devs want him to be alive, no matter what they have to ignore to achieve that.

[swirler]

Haesslich was simply a feathered serpent (The weakest of the dragon races, at least physically) in the employ of corp, IIRC. Taken down by a minigun. If you gotta go, that's a decent way to do it.

feathered serpent? I thought he was a western and the one that worked with that other mage chick, the assasin, was a feathered serpent. Hmm I'd like to see stats on some of the novel characters. Thatd be pretty cool

[FlakJacket]

Actually, thinking about it, Charcoalgrin would've been a much better Dragon to bring in for a variety of reasons.

Gods, Maels on the dumpshock forums? It must be snowing in Texas or something. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That aside since I only know a little about the whole Earthdawn setting what was Charcoalgrin all about and why would she have been a better fit for taking over Denver? You've got me curious.