Powerlevel and Lethality, How do you stay alive in combat? Options

[MYST1C]

1 out of 10 times, no matter how you stack the odds in your favor, you fail.

To avoid that I've switched my CP2020 games to Fuzion's dice mechanic: instead of 1d10 you roll 3d6.
3x1 means critical failure - roll another 2d6 and subtract them (end result: Stat + Skill + 3 - 2d6).
3x6 means critical success - roll another 2d6 and add them (end result: Stat + Skill + 18 + 2d6).

Of course, I've also adapted Fuzions slightly different difficulty/target number chart...

[DocTaotsu]

hehe... I seem to recall that there is a KE or LS division devoted to performing runs and hunting down runners. They would make interesting but utterly terrifying employers.

[Fortune]

Heck, even watchers can meat shield if your magician is from a Possession tradition.

Possession Tradition Watchers do not Materialize. Watchers are the same for every Tradition.

[Whitelaughter]

Really? Is that an errata, or have I missed something?

[Siege]

To avoid that I've switched my CP2020 games to Fuzion's dice mechanic: instead of 1d10 you roll 3d6.
3x1 means critical failure - roll another 2d6 and subtract them (end result: Stat + Skill + 3 - 2d6).
3x6 means critical success - roll another 2d6 and add them (end result: Stat + Skill + 18 + 2d6).

Of course, I've also adapted Fuzions slightly different difficulty/target number chart...

I never cared for Fuzion much - although my crew did tweak out the original crit charts. The whole "auto self-mutilation" thing just seemed a little absurd, even for us.

Mind you, this is the same crew who coined the phrase "I parry the desk...with my face!" (Back story: The "face visor" gave a 3 in 10 chance of taking the hit instead of the actual face. So for cinematic humor value, the hapless Corp PC kept fending off an enraged Yak hitter wielding, eventually, a desk. With nothing more than a face visor and a vengeful die.)

-Siege

[Synner]

Really? Is that an errata, or have I missed something?

I believe Fortune is referring to the fact that Watchers do not have the Materialization power and so cannot swap it for Possession (as Possession tradition spirits do). Hence Watchers are usually astral-only beings for both types of traditions.

The exception is if you chose to use the Corps Cadavres and Living Dolls Optional Rule (p.95, Street Magic) which specifically grants Possession tradition Watchers the Possession power they do not have by default.

[Fortune]

Really? Is that an errata, or have I missed something?

Watchers are not one of the Basic Spirit types, but are a special type summonable by all Traditions. They are specifically described thus ...

WATCHER SPIRITS
A watcher is a simple type of servant spirit. Some experts consider watchers to be a tangible expression of the magician’s own consciousness, molded from the fabric of astral space, while others consider them the bottomfeeders of the spirit world. Watchers exist solely on the astral plane. They can never leave the astral plane, either to materialize in the physical world or to ascend to a metaplane. They may, however, manifest in the
physical world (see Manifesting, p. 184). The Force of watcher spirits is always 1. A watcher’s attribute ratings are equal to its Force (though watchers do not get Edge).

No Errata is necessary.

[Fortune]

The exception is if you chose to use the Corps Cadavres and Living Dolls Optional Rule (p.95, Street Magic) which specifically grants Possession tradition Watchers the Possession power they do not have by default.

Forgot that! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif) I hate Voodoo!

[Whitelaughter]

Thanks everybody, I'd forgotten that cadavers were an optional rule.

[shrugs] Well, it's up to the GM whether or not you can use them as bullet shields. (And hackers/riggers should be using stolen cars as bullet shields).

Interesting that Corps Cadavres and Living Dolls get the Artisan skill. I suppose that makes them useful for painting your house; although a band that is truly made from zombies would probably make a name for themselves as a heavy metal band.

[Falconer]

Interesting... just had this discussion the other day... we were about to head into something when I asked are we loading nonlethal or lethal.... and everyone looked at me like I was insane. "Lethal of course, I don't have anything nonlethal". (I arrived late also, and didn't realize we had moved into the barrens, so lethal IMO was perfectly acceptable). Soon thereafter I learned I was the ONLY character who seemingly carried any non-lethal weaponry and ammo under NORMAL circumstances. (taser, SnS, gel, and plain vanilla basic ammo... non-combat specialized mage)

Of course less than a quarter way through the first pass someone calls to try and take some of them alive for questioning... since I'm not a gunbunny and not really a combat mage either... my reaction to this is screw you. Next time bring non-lethal ammo if you want people alive! Proceed to cast 'increase reflexes' on the sniper I'm hiding with boosting him from 1 to 4 IP's and hide below the low wall on the roof while he proceeds to empty an entire SMG mag in a single combat round killing everything in sight.

Also, it seems everybody carries Ex-Ex or something else with a 'F' rating all the time... Just for arguments sake... you get pulled over for speeding... the cruisers scanner picks up that you're armed... so the computer checks to see if you have a license... officer finds that you have patently illegal ammo... what happens?! Not talking losec here, say a nice neighborhood where you're just trying to fit and and avoid attention and an armed response. As a generous GM: do I have the officer take a bribe and confiscate the goods off the table... do I feel less enthused and have the officer take him into the station to pay his fine... do I give his ID's and such extra scrutiny and let the dice play out... (really having your good quality fake SIN and all it's associated licenses blown and potentially gaining a criminal SIN would be a PITA). If I'm feeling really generous let the char try and fast talk his way out.

But overall, I'm of the camp... why leave corpses if you don't have to. Granted in SR it's oftentimes quite called for. But still to leave yourself w/o even the option to decide when less than lethal force is desirable. Frankly, that's what I'm seeing reading this thread. The posters saying kill em all let the spirits sort em out... haven't really made a case for why it's in your interest to leave corpses instead of unconcious bodies in your wake.

The only thing I can think of is 'dead men tell no tales'... and even that doesn't hold with spirits and astral quests if it's important enough now. That and the ubiquity of cameras and image recorders. Do you really trust that your decker has managed to find/wipe out all the image recordings. Frankly, if I were the GM I'd be asking my players to justify why are they using lethal force when they don't have to and slowly work up consequences over time.

[Whipstitch]

Nobody ever said a damn thing about killing everyone all of the time. Ever.

[Whipstitch]

blagh. Double post.

Well, I'll try and make something useful out of it.

I'd like to think I've been rather polite up until this point, but I'm getting kind of tired of the strawman argument that implies I advocate senseless slaughter as a sensible play style. Killing everyone doesn't make you friends. That's stupidly, patently obvious. What I argue against and what I'm sure Ravor was initially arguing against in his offhand remark is the goofy idea that using non-lethal ammo will consistently make people appreciably less likely to kill you in the midst of a combat, something that's actually been brought up repeatedly before on these forums if not in this conversation. Going in with guns drawn and expecting the guards and Lone Star to not just plug you with whatever they have on hand is rather naive since you have already branded yourself as the enemy and because people generally don't appreciate getting shot at with anything, even if it does turn out to be so called less-lethal ammunition. There's long term psychological benefits to not killing everyone, but there's also short term psychological benefits involved with being able to threaten death by Panther Cannon. The promise of mercy carries a lot more weight when you wield death in your other hand. Speak softly and carry a big stick, and all that. Add in my belief that the Sixth World doesn't grind to a halt to mourn Joe Guard and you'll have right there a short version of all my previous posts were ever meant to convey.

P.S.

I also suspect you guys must run your games a lot differently than I do, because dealing stun damage all the time simply isn't an option when I'm your GM, and I genuinely believe the game works better balance wise the way I do things. Ever notice how many neophyte GMs (and I am a neophyte) wander into Dumpshock to complain about how their mage just stunballs everything to death? That li'l niggle has a funny way of becoming a non-issue when a good 60%+ of your NPC aggressors are drones or in vehicles and are thus non-living and immune to stun and pack natural object resistance. Taking out a vehicle can often spell death for the occupants and taking out a small swarm of drones with an HE grenade is probably bad news for any live security standing in their midst-- security deaths in my games are often essentially collateral damage. I'm basically a huge believer in making PCs bring the right tool for the right job, in other words, and often times stick and shock is mostly a good option for back up weapons and heading to the meet.

[Whitelaughter]

Sure, Ravor was just pointing out that there's a point when you need to be willing and bale to blow the opposition away; but Falconer isn't the only one who has played with a group of psychotics. Shadowrunners need to be flexible. If you can't, frex, take prisoners, you've crippled yourself. And there'll be lots of people determined to make that crippling literal.

[Wounded Ronin]

I've been playing a lot of SWAT 4 and that actually deals with lethal versus less-than-lethal attacks since as a police officer you're not authorized to use deadly force unless a suspect is pointing a weapon at someone. Deadly weapons (like MP5s) are more likely to "drop" a suspect quickly, but because of police procedures you're at risk as you have to pause and demand surrender before opening fire. On the other hand, if you're using a shotgun filled with beanbag rounds, you can open fire whenever you like, since it's not deadly. It makes it much easier to surprise the suspects and lets you act on your hair trigger reflexes. I feel it's easier to beat everyone into submission with the beanbags pre-emptively than it is to wait for them to aim at you before trying to beat them to the shot.

So I could see a really big benefit with non lethal rounds in situations where the user specifically wants to avoid killing at all costs while at the same time minimizing the risk associated with doing so. But unless attacking quickly and pre-emptively while at the same time not killing anyone is a priority, it's hard to imagine that the drawbacks of non lethal would overcome the advantages of lethal.

[Ravor]

Wow, I'm not sure if I should be flattered or worried that people know my arguments just as well if not better than I do.

Well considering that I'm a Dumpshocker I guess I should conclude that you are all my Ally Spirits now, so where in the nine hells did I put my Dikote, I know I still have a stash from way back in 206x .... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/facelick.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

[DocTaotsu]

yeah, the only times my players have used less than lethal has been on missions where they were told specifically to minimize casualties or take everyone alive.

Otherwise it just more sense to fill the room with spinning doom.

[kzt]

We mostly avoided killing because we figured that corp y doing blatantly illegal and "unauthorized" whatever was unlikely to be willing to call the cops when certain critical parts of said illegal experiment went missing. Questions they didn't want to answer would be asked. If a dozen guards were killed and the entire building blown up in the process it's pretty hard to avoid the cops being quite interested in the people who carried it out no matter whether the corp wants the cops involved or not.

[Critias]

I think the closest I've ever come to having to pull punches was once when two of us got hired to wipe out a freighter full of Triads, and were specifically forbidden from pulling head shots on anyone because one of them had a headware computer chock full of files that were the target of the whole thing.

[martindv]

So just throat shots instead.

[Whitelaughter]

Wow, I'm not sure if I should be flattered or worried that people know my arguments just as well if not better than I do.

Well, you only have to remember the posts; we had to do the whole mindwipe/rebuild, work out how your opinions would fit in with your fellow hosts, plan contingencies in case you randomly met someone from your real past, and so on - so it makes sense that we know you so well.
Don't worry, we did a fine job, you should have a happy life - until the activation codes kick in, anyway.

[Siege]

So just throat shots instead.

Well...yeah.

Considering how difficult it would be to confirm a kill on a torso shot, all things considered - separating the head from the neck is the next best option.

Although, I gotta admit, that's one hell of an argument for the torso-fitted brain pod...

-Siege