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

[Fuchs]

@Fuchs
I'm sorry, but the moment I start believing you have a better insight into firearms or heavy weapons is the day hell freezes over. So, as long as we discuss SR topics, we have to work with what SR offers us. And that is the rules.

If the rules were changed to resemble what you believe to be realistic weaponry, dragons would have to be adjusted accordingly, so your new rules still portrait them as nearly impervious to harm.

Andersrum wird ein Schuh draus, like we use to say over here.

I think I said long ago that you and the rest are basing all their arguments on the assumptions that dragons are impervious to harm.

I don't. And that's the whole point. I do not start with "dragons are gods and invulnerable" because that would mean that weapons are useless, and magic rules supreme. And that's simply not fun. It's "where man meets magic and machine", not "Mage: The Ascension". If devs are ready to wreck game balance on the altar of dragon worship, that's their problem. But their fluff does send out a signal - wrongly I believe, going from the rules - that magic is top dog.

As far as having better insight into firearms than you, I don't know. I do know I have better insight into firearms than whoever wrote the rules on firearms for the last 4 SR editions. And I know my assault rifle has a better range than what they wrote for the first two editions.

[Malicant]

Ok, let's assume we are in a city, with lots of buildings. And now, let's add a weapon into it, that has an effective range of 20-50 kilometers and ignores most obstacles bye obliterating them. Sure, that's something every one will put into every urban area, because one of the 20-30 GD might decide to go Gojira. Also, ignoring the huge energy consumption and cost of said weapon, of which you of course put at least 10, or 20 per city. Just to make sure the GD can't dogde all of them. Also, you build a fusion plant for every railgun defense grid. Just in case. Because money grows on trees. Sure.

GDs have not hit real countries (i.e. europe/northern america) enough to make anyone care enough.

Anything else to add, Mister Realistic?

"Shhh. My common sense is tingling" -Deadpool

[Fuchs]

edit: oh, nevermind. i'm done with this argument until Fuchs (or someone) starts actually addressing the counterpoints that have been made.

Why should I? You ignore counter points (like to your assertion that mage research was useless) as well.

And the general picture is pretty much easy: One side starts with "Dragons are invulnerable to weapons". And the other starts with "Dragons are not invulnerable to weapons". Then both sides extrapolate, and justify their assumption.

So, you won't ever convince me that any argument has merit since I consider the very base of the arguments - that dragons are invulnerable to weapons - as completely wrong.

Going by the rules we have in the books, it is wrong - heavy weapons in the book will kill the dragons we see statted out in the book.

What I am interested in - or was - is how one can reconcile this assumption - dragons are invulnerable - with the assumption that they are not gods, and ruling the earth. And so far there was not really much that convinced me that.

But once again: I consider the ruling that dragons can't be hurt by weapons stupid. I noticed the devs said long ago that they think it's ok, so that's how canon is in SR.

[Fuchs]

Ok, let's assume we are in a city, with lots of buildings. And now, let's add a weapon into it, that has an effective range of 20-50 kilometers and ignores most obstacles bye obliterating them. Sure, that's something every one will put into every urban area, because one of the 20-30 GD might decide to go Gojira. Also, ignoring the huge energy consumption and cost of said weapon, of which you of course put at least 10, or 20 per city. Just to make sure the GD can't dogde all of them. Also, you build a fusion plant for every railgun defense grid. Just in case. Because money grows on trees. Sure.

GDs have not hit real countries (i.e. europe/northern america) enough to make anyone care enough.

Anything else to add, Mister Realistic?

"Shhh. My common sense is tingling" -Deadpool

You don't need a fusion plant for railguns by the very rules you quote. Those are light weapons, for vehicles. A taurus light gauss cannon costs 200K by arsenal. That's a drop in the bucket for security. And they can be used to deal with other targets as well - vehicles, drones, etc.

How do you think the no-fly and zero zones work?

[Malicant]

I think I said long ago that you and the rest are basing all their arguments on the assumptions that dragons are impervious to harm.

I don't. And that's the whole point. I do not start with "dragons are gods and invulnerable" because that would mean that weapons are useless, and magic rules supreme. And that's simply not fun. It's "where man meets magic and machine", not "Mage: The Ascension". If devs are ready to wreck game balance on the altar of dragon worship, that's their problem. But their fluff does send out a signal - wrongly I believe, going from the rules - that magic is top dog.

Wrong. We, or at least I, don't start there, but arrive there after looking at the facts given by SR. See the diffrence?

As far as having better insight into firearms than you, I don't know. I do know I have better insight into firearms than whoever wrote the rules on firearms for the last 4 SR editions. And I know my assault rifle has a better range than what they wrote for the first two editions.

I never said how much I know about weapons, or even that I know more than you. I just question the depth of your knowledge to make a call how to make realistic (whatever that might be, I don't even believe in reality) rules. I know a certain german game you might be familiar with that tried that road for a medieval setting. It was hillarious, not remotly realistic and a bother to even think about playing it. Since that game if anyone pull the "realistic" card in a RPG discussion I go on red alert. There is no such thing as realistic in an P&P game and can never be. How can we simulate something, we don't really understand?

If on the other hand you are able to prove with a mathematic formula why a dragon will be hosed by a Browning M2, I will STFU. Good luck.

[mfb]

sue me, i missed one post in 15 pages.

Initiation itself was researched. New spells, new metamagic techniques, new summoning techniques (watchers) were researched, all within a few years (SR1 to SR4).

Of course you still have to learn the stuff, but you can build upon what is there. And it's very much easier (and safer) to learn techniques and spells someone else researched already than to do it yourself.

there is very little information available which speaks with any authority on the subject of who discovered what and how they went about discovering it. no doubt some mages used the scientific method. but there are also many instances of mages discovering those techniques all on their own, with no method whatsoever. research is one way that works for some people, but it doesn't work for everyone--and there's no evidence that it works better than any other method.

And the general picture is pretty much easy: One side starts with "Dragons are invulnerable to weapons".

verifiably untrue, and i'll thank you to stop putting words in my mouth.

[Malicant]

You don't need a fusion plant for railguns by the very rules you quote. Those are light weapons, for vehicles. A taurus light gauss cannon costs 200K by arsenal. That's a drop in the bucket for security. And they can be used to deal with other targets as well - vehicles, drones, etc.

How do you think the no-fly and zero zones work?

The big railgun is a ship only weapon. Guess why that is. The light version is still a Maingun, so it's fair to not call it a light weapon. You would still need some power to operate it. I don't know how much, and I tried to exxegerate in my previous post.

But now let's hit the gold. No fly zero zones. Now, you claimed to know something about weaponry, if that's the case, you sure know what kind of weapons are used against airborne targets. Slow firing big guns, or rather fast firing guns? And in what category will a dragon go, I wonder. The Railgun is the only threat in the rules to a dragon. But you will not really hit him with it, so, there goes that bubble. By rules it's difficult, by realism impossible. Great.

And you also missed my point why no one will use a railgun in a city. It will tear the city a part. Deconstruction is rather counter productive as a defensive measure. Every miss or even hit will also flatten severel buildings. That has to suck. Unless you are Horizon, they can even make money by putting the right spin into it . (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

Also, 200k per gun, so to make sure you are safe you have like 10. That's already 2 million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and now you need maintenance, personell and an unspecified amount of power. That's a little much to ask for the little possibility of Gojira. People will rather refuse the possibility of beeing attack by a GD than spend 2 million buck just in case. Per city.

[Fuchs]

How can we simulate something we don't really understand? I don't know.

But I do know how to simulate something we did understand. In my old gaming group, everyone was in the military. Different branches, but we all had training with assault rifles. We all had training with hand grenades. We shot them and threw them. Most had a personal pistol or revolver as well. Half of us had had taining with the Panzerfaust. One of us was a Lt. in the mechanised infantry. He had done a lot of training with just about every small arms our army has. Another was a non com in the explosive specialists - the ones ready to blow up our bridges and tunnels. He went ove the explosive rules. I and another were artillery - not much use for our knowledge in the game, but we chipped in when it came to tracked vehicles a few decades old. Then there was the guy from the Stinger company. Some experience with guided man portable missiles came in handy.

So, it was easy to throw out the worst offenses (Ammo weight, range). Replacing rate of fire was easy as well - we simply assumed we shot more than the rules said per burst. That alone changed combat significantly, since reloading was needed. We also upped damage a bit, iirc, so people took more cover, but we generally tried to act in a firefight in game acording to what we had been trained to.

[Fuchs]

The big railgun is a ship only weapon. Guess why that is. The light version is still a Maingun, so it's fair to not call it a light weapon. You would still need some power to operate it. I don't know how much, and I tried to exxegerate in my previous post.

But now let's hit the gold. No fly zero zones. Now, you claimed to know something about weaponry, if that's the case, you sure know what kind of weapons are used against airborne targets. Slow firing big guns, or rather fast firing guns? And in what category will a dragon go, I wonder. The Railgun is the only threat in the rules to a dragon. But you will not really hit him with it, so, there goes that bubble. By rules it's difficult, by realism impossible. Great.

And you also missed my point why no one will use a railgun in a city. It will tear the city a part. Deconstruction is rather counter productive as a defensive measure. Every miss or even hit will also flatten severel buildings. That has to suck. Unless you are Horizon, they can even make money by putting the right spin into it . (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

Also, 200k per gun, so to make sure you are safe you have like 10. That's already 2 million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and now you need maintenance, personell and an unspecified amount of power. That's a little much to ask for the little possibility of Gojira. People will rather refuse the possibility of beeing attack by a GD than spend 2 million buck just in case. Per city.

I doubt that. We're spending a lot more on defense, for an even smaller chance. My company wasted ammo for about 300K in a single afternoon for dubious training purposes. Dumb ammo, artillery grenades, not misiles.

As far as railgun efficency goes - by the rules, it's not that difficult to hit something fast with a railgun compared to a machine gun. And as far as collateral damage is concerned - we got a long history of destroying towns we defend. Nothing new.

[Particle_Beam]

What? You're seriously saying that rich and mighty people aren't going to spend money on guns in the dystopian Shadowrun future of North America, where crime, violence and weapon smuggling runs supreme? Especially the corps and nations who can easily afford the money because they get attacked by terrorists daily? Where megacorps being attacked by High Force Great Form Spirits sent by eco-terrorist groups is quite common? Where the balkanization of the former U.S.A. has led to the formation of several smaller countries all hostile to each another (the PCC annexing the Ute Nation, CAS and UCAS blaming each another, crazy seccessionist moves leading to cities becoming independent and then in turn being almost conquered by elven fashistic troops, imperial japanese marines landing and "pacifying" other interests for peace, cities getting invaded by huge insect spirits, rogue A.I.s scheming around with fission reactors and holding arcologies hostage etc.)?

North America by 2060+++ is practically a permanent war zone. And everybody's itching to press the nuclear holocaust button. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Lyonheart]

Now, you claimed to know something about weaponry, if that's the case, you sure know what kind of weapons are used against airborne targets. Slow firing big guns, or rather fast firing guns?

Actually most WW2 battleships would open up at long range against aircraft with there main batteries loaded with flak shells. In fact I think a 2070 heavy cruiser would likely be a real threat to a GD, seeing as how it would likely be heavily warded and have astral spotters and have the sort of missile, laser, and coil guns to really lay the hurting on a GD as well as being important enough to warrant a significant number of Mages / Spirits.

[Caine Hazen]

Once again, this is descending into a circular bout of arguing and sniping. We have asked that all parties involved please stop. I think everyone here should step back, agree to disagree and approach the subject matter from other points.

[Synner]

But once again: I consider the ruling that dragons can't be hurt by weapons stupid. I noticed the devs said long ago that they think it's ok, so that's how canon is in SR.

The dev(singular) has said no such thing. Please provide a quote if you can, since in fact, the dev has said quite the opposite on a couple of occasions.

Edit: Sorry Caine, I was posting while your post went up. As far as I'm concerned my involvement in this thread is over, as you've pointed out it's going nowhere.

[Malicant]

How can we simulate something we don't really understand? I don't know.

But I do know how to simulate something we did understand. In my old gaming group, everyone was in the military. Different branches, but we all had training with assault rifles. We all had training with hand grenades. We shot them and threw them. Most had a personal pistol or revolver as well. Half of us had had taining with the Panzerfaust. One of us was a Lt. in the mechanised infantry. He had done a lot of training with just about every small arms our army has. Another was a non com in the explosive specialists - the ones ready to blow up our bridges and tunnels. He went ove the explosive rules. I and another were artillery - not much use for our knowledge in the game, but we chipped in when it came to tracked vehicles a few decades old. Then there was the guy from the Stinger company. Some experience with guided man portable missiles came in handy.

So, it was easy to throw out the worst offenses (Ammo weight, range). Replacing rate of fire was easy as well - we simply assumed we shot more than the rules said per burst. That alone changed combat significantly, since reloading was needed. We also upped damage a bit, iirc, so people took more cover, but we generally tried to act in a firefight in game acording to what we had been trained to.

So, you have experience with weapons. And from that you assume that futuristic fictional weapons must under every circumstance be able to kill fictional dragons, right? I will disagree, I guess. Especially, since knowing how to use a weapon and putting it down on paper with every single detail are diffrent things.

And seriously, who cares about Ammo weight? Or ranges (did you increase, or decrease them?)? Well, most military types I know, until I tell them to open their mind and let it go, since it does not matter in any serious gamesituation. But hell, whatever. And RoF was alway utterly off in SR, still I fail to care. It's a game. It works for me well enough.

Still, those issues are not really important when we talk about dragons and railguns. Just imagine the hardest/most effective armor used on a tank today. And now imagine a dragon beeing still harder/more difficult to penetrate. You still think he would be concerned if that was the case? And that is the case in SR, so... I guess GDs are still hard to kill.

[Malicant]

Actually most WW2 battleships would open up at long range against aircraft with there main batteries loaded with flak shells. In fact I think a 2070 heavy cruiser would likely be a real threat to a GD, seeing as how it would likely be heavily warded and have astral spotters and have the sort of missile, laser, and coil guns to really lay the hurting on a GD as well as being important enough to warrant a significant number of Mages / Spirits.

I wonder about the armor penetrating properties of flak shells. And WWII planes were build from light metals, basically, so back in the day flak was great. Last time I checked modern anti air-craft guns fire a gazillion rounds into the air in the hopes of hitting anything. There are sure exeptions to this, a you sure as hell don't need a gatling rate of fire to hit a dragon, but a railgun is flat out. that would be like shooting at a A-10 with a 120mm gun. Not a very likely scenario, I say.

And now I take a break from this thread, since nothing good will come out of me spouting my non sense here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/talker.gif)

Good luck in disproving the superiority of dragons.

[Lyonheart]

I wonder about the armor penetrating properties of flak shells. And WWII planes were build from light metals, basically, so back in the day flak was great. Last time I checked modern anti air-craft guns fire a gazillion rounds into the air in the hopes of hitting anything. There are sure exeptions to this, a you sure as hell don't need a gatling rate of fire to hit a dragon, but a railgun is flat out. that would be like shooting at a A-10 with a 120mm gun. Not a very likely scenario, I say.

And now I take a break from this thread, since nothing good will come out of me spouting my non sense here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/talker.gif)

Good luck in disproving the superiority of dragons.

I could continue to make a lot of different points, but it doesn't matter since your not listening. I will say the number on rule of RPG's of any sort is that if it has stats they will kill it.

[Kremlin KOA]

You do realise that all the smoke about how he could prepare and plan his assault looks even more "He's a dragon, he can do the impossible!"?

Not quite
Here is a mechanical analysis of the possible ways GW could do this, using only abilities mentioned in shadowrun sourcebooks.

Firstly premises and assumptions:
1: All discussed abilities are used, even those that have not yet been given stats
2: Great forms may be more skilled in areas than lesser dragons
3: Ghostwalker, aka Icewing, is the foremost Summoner amongst Great Dragons. As such his conjuring group skill is 9 (I see that as a low figure for the greatest immortal summoner in the world, but it will do)
4: For the purpose of this exercise GW will be without any useful foci for his prep research (either he has no foci, or his foci are not useful for this task)
5: Assuming here GW has no additional magic stat, but that he has sevral initiate grades and metamagics.

Note: Fuchs if you disagree with 3 then please instead assume a force 3 power focus for GW, not unreasonable for a Great dragon, or for any initiate magician.


COurse of events
a: GW goes and gets his body (he can sense where it is) this takes a few minutes.
b: GW Notices big ass settlement nearby.
c: GW summons a force 9 Sage spirit with the knowledge skill "That town near where GW left hsi body" (ok it is the 'Denver' skill but GW doesn't know that yet)
d: GW rolls his dice pool of 21 and scores 7 hits. the spirit rolls its 9 dice and scores 3 hits GW has 4 net hits. GW also has 26 dice for drain and thus gets an average of 8-9 hits. thus insuring that drain almost never happens
e: GW channels the spirit and uses a service to gain access to its knowledge skill. He muses for 5 minutes or so on his newfound knowledge and then commits it to a dragon memory crystal (standard, not the great crystal of memory)
f: GW then summons a Sage spirit with "Denver Politics" as a knowledge skill, at force 9 (this means the spirit has a skill value of 9 in that skill at skill 7 you are the political science equivalent of Hawking or Einstein)
g: GW muses for another 5-10 munites then commits this all to a memory crystal.
h: GW summons 2 more spirits, once again at force 9, one by one of course. The first has knowledge skills in CAS, UCAS and Aztlan. The second has skills in Ute, Pueblo and Sioux Nations.
i: More memory crystal goodness.
j: GW looks at the accumulated knowledge and decides Aztlan is too close to the Horrors and needs to be bitch slapped. But hsi previous skill 'downloads' have told him that tactics have changed.
k: GW summons another spirit, this time at force 12 (risking a box or 2 of stun drain, oh well) This one has skills in Urban warfare tactics, Mechanized infantry and Tank tactics, Air combat tactics and Combined arms tactics.
l: GW spends an hour or so looking at the map of denver in his memory crystal, cross referencing it with the data on the various sectors and needed targets. He identifies likely tarets and makes his rolls on the tactical skills. He gets an average of 8 successes per skill roll and plans accordingly.

Note that a tech savvy magician of a possession tradition can do a similar, if lesser, form of this trick. Also a hacker can do something similar, if much more limited, although the hacker finds it much easier to do.


EDIT: also agreeing with Synner again, sorry Caine I didn't see your psot (it took some time to get the research done for this one) I am trying to change the approach but I am not sure if this post is a big enough change

[Fuchs]

There's no need to change, I am bowing out. As I said - I disagree with the idea that a dragon can withstand heavy weapons. It runs counter to what Shadowrun is for me - a game where everyone and everything can be shot, and so has to act accordingly. Something GMs used to emphasise whenever a new group started.

The rest of the argument boils down to

"GW can do this"

"Runners did the same for decades, people should have counters to it"

"Nope."

"Tanks can kill dragons"

"No they can't"

"Magic means GW wins"

"Does not, tech will have advanced to the point of making dragon killing easy"

"Nope"

As I said, we're operating from very different assumptions. In my games, GDs are mortal, and usually only venture out from fortified positions with the amount of security a US president currently has becuase they are not significantly more invulnerable than any human compared to what weapons are out there. They are still a scary power but not because they can shrug off bullets, but because they are experts at plotting and planning, and have a lot of wealth and influence - like most corp execs.

But one dragon armies they ain't in my game, not even close. The battlefield, in my campaign, is ruled by the military using combined arms, high tech, and magic integrated to take the most advantage of indirect fire and range as possible. There's simply no place for a dragon, not since spirits (expendable assets) can do anything useful the dragon could do as well, and cheaper and without putting the dragon or any other mage into the line of fire.

It's not what the devs imagine, but it feels a lot more internally consistent to me, which may not have any direct impact on my game, but makes GMing it more fun.

With that I am out of the thread.

[DocTaotsu]

*applause*

Kremlin that was a well written response that seems to be a pretty reasonable answer to the question "Why GW kicked ass". I can't find anything that looks like you were really stretching.

[Kremlin KOA]

*applause*

Kremlin that was a well written response that seems to be a pretty reasonable answer to the question "Why GW kicked ass". I can't find anything that looks like you were really stretching.

*bows*
I humbly accept your praise

[Kremlin KOA]

There's no need to change, I am bowing out. As I said - I disagree with the idea that a dragon can withstand heavy weapons. It runs counter to what Shadowrun is for me - a game where everyone and everything can be shot, and so has to act accordingly. Something GMs used to emphasise whenever a new group started.

Pity, this was getting fun. Note i did not say he could nto be shot, i merely shot down your argument that he would have the inferior tactical knowledge.

The rest of the argument boils down to

"GW can do this"

"Runners did the same for decades, people should have counters to it"

"Nope."

"Tanks can kill dragons"

"No they can't"

"Magic means GW wins"

"Does not, tech will have advanced to the point of making dragon killing easy"

"Nope"

Umm my point wqas on a very different tangent to this line of 'reasoning'

As I said, we're operating from very different assumptions. In my games, GDs are mortal, and usually only venture out from fortified positions with the amount of security a US president currently has becuase they are not significantly more invulnerable than any human compared to what weapons are out there. They are still a scary power but not because they can shrug off bullets, but because they are experts at plotting and planning, and have a lot of wealth and influence - like most corp execs.

But one dragon armies they ain't in my game, not even close. The battlefield, in my campaign, is ruled by the military using combined arms, high tech, and magic integrated to take the most advantage of indirect fire and range as possible. There's simply no place for a dragon, not since spirits (expendable assets) can do anything useful the dragon could do as well, and cheaper and without putting the dragon or any other mage into the line of fire.

It's not what the devs imagine, but it feels a lot more internally consistent to me, which may not have any direct impact on my game, but makes GMing it more fun.

With that I am out of the thread.

And here we differ. I look at the dragon stats as is to work out their physical power. They, in SR4, are statted out to be about individually as tough as a tank or T-Bird. You may disagree but I find that reasonable.
Not individually indestructable, but about as tough as the aforementioned.

Their grasp on tactics would be based on their stats. at BASE, they have 12-13 dice on all mental stat based tests. this means that they are in the league with the world's best strategists before they train. After they train they are moving toward competing with Petey.

like I said, sorry to see ya go, I was having fun

[swirler]

sorry for my denseness, but dragons havent played much in any of the games I've ran or played in. Where is the info on memory crystals? I have not heard of these before. Back in my SR2 days I had planned on having a lower league corp being ran by a wyvern until I found out they aren't allowed to be sentient. well at least not like dragons are. I was kinda disappointed.

[Kremlin KOA]

sorry for my denseness, but dragons havent played much in any of the games I've ran or played in. Where is the info on memory crystals? I have not heard of these before. Back in my SR2 days I had planned on having a lower league corp being ran by a wyvern until I found out they aren't allowed to be sentient. well at least not like dragons are. I was kinda disappointed.

They are referenced in Dot6W, they are an ED tie in. basicaally they are magic crystals that dragons use to store memories. (they are also unstatted)

[swirler]

They are referenced in Dot6W, they are an ED tie in. basicaally they are magic crystals that dragons use to store memories. (they are also unstatted)

ah okay I have Dot6W I just have only read through some of it. I have little if much of any knowledge of ED. Thanks

[Nath]

I failed my own knowledge skill test to remember where the sage spirit rules were.