Troll Tank Options

[Sweaty Hippo]

I have heard on several boards of a "Troll Tank," that of a Troll that is armored up and has high Body, so that they can shrug off heavy machine guns and grenades.

I have met mixed reactions to this archetype, though most believe that only twinks/min-maxers would use it, and/or that they can break the game.

What are your opinions? Is it all that it's cracked up to be?

[Ol' Scratch]

I have heard on several boards of a "Troll Tank," that of a Troll that is armored up and has high Body, so that they can shrug off heavy machine guns and grenades.

I have met mixed reactions to this archetype, though most believe that only twinks/min-maxers would use it, and/or that they can break the game.

What are your opinions? Is it all that it's cracked up to be?

It doesn't really even take a troll to do it.

The current system is so blase that it's really easy to manipulate it to do all sorts of silly things. It's an inherent flaw in a system that basically revolves around a static difficulty and the only real variable is the number of dice you throw at that difficulty. So sure, you can easily get 20+ points of armor on a character and all but shrug off most attacks, that's more of a fault of the GM for allowing such a character into their game more than a fault in the game. Or more correctly, it's a fault of the game, but it's the GM's fault for not keeping it in check.

I'm also a big non-fan of trolls. They're the single largest reason why several rules are goofy and crippling to more normal characters. Melee damage being a shining example (where a normal character can only do 1 point of Stun damage with a punch... which easily gets ignored by other normal characters even without armor).

[Sweaty Hippo]

I know that every game has loopholes and flaws, but I still am relatively inexperienced with the rules. I am still reading through the BBB, and I didn't have enough time to play to see the game first-hand, so I mostly have hypothetical theories and asking more experienced players to answer my questions.

Is there any other character concepts that I should look out for?

[Tarantula]

Mr. Lucky. Blood mages. Mages doing channeling w/possession...

[Sweaty Hippo]

Mr. Lucky. Blood mages. Mages doing channeling w/possession...

Fortunately, I don't have any Mages in my group. But overall, Shadowrun seems to be a a rather stable system. I have not counted more than 5 "twink" types in the game so far.

[Ol' Scratch]

That's just it, Shadowrun doesn't really have "types." It comes down to the player and how determined they are to manipulate things to their favor. Most people, for instance, don't bat an eye when someone submits a character focused around Perception or Social Skills, but you can easily create some ridiculously broken characters around those two things. And that's without even really trying...

Basically, just watch out for any character with a regular dice pool over 15 or so. That's what most characters should be tossing on the table. A pool of 20 is pushing it unless they're extremely specialized and anything more than that is probably over the top and should be reigned in.

[masterofm]

An overcasting troll mage with channeling, high body, and FFBA. Watch as they shrug off anything!

[Sweaty Hippo]

How easy would it be for players to stumble upon these accidentally? Or are they so hard to find and combine that you'd have to intentionally look for ways to twink your character?

[Tarantula]

An overcasting troll mage with channeling, high body, and FFBA. Watch as they shrug off anything!

Not really an issue TBH. Body and FFBA doesn't mean a whole lot, and troll mages just tend to suck.

How easy would it be for players to stumble upon these accidentally? Or are they so hard to find and combine that you'd have to intentionally look for ways to twink your character?

Most adept builds can get pretty hyper-specialized. Mages are pretty easy to go absurd with too. Tank trolls like Brick are harder to "stumble" on, but you can get close without trying too hard.

Typically its the adepts with the social/perception like Dr Funk mentioned that get a little crazy.

[CanRay]

But how do we get the treads on the Tank Troll?

[hyzmarca]

Fortunately, I don't have any Mages in my group. But overall, Shadowrun seems to be a a rather stable system. I have not counted more than 5 "twink" types in the game so far.

5? Dude, your just playing with some very uncreative people.

Lets see

Troll Tank
Drone Rigger/ One Man Army
Melee Specialist Adept (doesn't even need to be a troll)
Dodge Adept (Gets beaten by the gun specialist, but can avoid most anything else)
Elf Gunbunny (Takes out pretty much everything)
Overcasting Mage
Conjurer/ One Man Army
Faustian (absurdly powerful, or not, depending solely on the GM)
_-Karmasucker (variety of Faustian who obtained the Karma Drain power, gamebreaking isn't the word for it)
Binkey (Centaur tank, quite literally)
Pornomancer, Leadermancer, (and other Social Adept varieties).
Little Black Book (Social character heavily focused on high loyalty+high connections contacts, can get just about any favor done).
Mental Domination Mage (absurdly versatile and absurdly powerful)
Heavy Weapons dude
Fire Support Guy (nothing quite like shooting things you can't see with a mortar or guided missiles)
Movement Specialist (usually an adept, but not necessarily)
_-Flash Jr. (Dude who focuses on running fast, can cover absurd distances quickly)
_-Submariner (High specialized in swimming, surprisingly powerful against vampires)
Robot Man (Either Cyborg in a tweeked drone, or a Free Spirit possessing an tweeked drone if you're using Karmagen)
Babythrower (Missile-Master Adept)
Mr. Encyclopedia (Dumps everything into knowledge skills, either totally useless or completely indispensable depending on your GM)
Karmagen Possession Free Spirit with a Dream Pact with a Troll Tank who owns two Panther Assault Cannons
Judas for a Megacorp (sucks for the other teammembers, but when that guy gets activated he'll be rolling in nuyen and equipment, depending on the GM).
Magical Stealth Specialist (Damned impossible to see if he's built right).
Mr. Perceptive (either the most useful character possible or the most useless, depending on your GM.)
And any number of post-Unwired Technomancer builds.

[Sweaty Hippo]

5? Dude, your just playing with some very uncreative people.

That, or we only created one set of characters so far, and didn't have enough time to pour over the options. I'm pretty sure that soon enough, my group will be able to spot "problem powers" with a hawk's eye. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[venenum]

But how do we get the treads on the Tank Troll?

With modular cyberlimbs... Duh. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Shiloh]

...The current system is so blase that it's really easy to manipulate it to do all sorts of silly things....

A lot of flexible games have this weakness. More than one edition of the Hero System/Champions rules has even provided extreme examples of the issue, as an illustration of how stoopid such manipulation can be. The *joy* of the flexibility is that you can go *partway* down the "exploitative" route of two or more roles and be a decent multirole character. And the joy of Shadowrun and the Sixth World is that it's quite possible to make the twinkidj irrelevant (with consequences for those who've abused the freedom they've been offered).

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

*shrug*
He's also exaggerating a bit that it's the current system's fault. Becaues nobody (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) had characters that could shrug off naval-scale damage in SR2 or SR3.

By the way, the minimum damage someone can do is 2(S), Dr. Funk. 1/2(1 strength) + 1 net hit. Not that it really matters. The difference is that in SR4 you resist with body+armor at TN(4) instead of body+allocated combat pool at TN(whatever-armor, minimum 2). It's a lot easier to get a bad roll when 2/3 of the posibilities are failures than when it was only 1 in 6, even if you do have a few more guaranteed dice.

Overall, damage is more likely to stick in SR4 than earlier versions. It just doesn't jump around quite as radically as it did in the L/M/S/D days.

[Stahlseele]

I have heard on several boards of a "Troll Tank," that of a Troll that is armored up and has high Body, so that they can shrug off heavy machine guns and grenades.

I have met mixed reactions to this archetype, though most believe that only twinks/min-maxers would use it, and/or that they can break the game.

What are your opinions? Is it all that it's cracked up to be?

oh hell yes they are all they are cracked up to be!

know why i mostly play trolls, and especially the combat heavy type?
'cause someone bloody well has to, or it just won't feel like cyberpunk shadowrun to me!
all those elves and humans and their stinky black ops style sneaky shadowruns. .
sometimes a run just requires the gentle touch of a vindicator in a crowded mall!

also: you may not get much to do in such groups, but if you do, you're worth about every last point of karma and build points that went into those things, because you can keep the other characters(the high charisma bitch, the close combat adept and the illusions heavy mage) alive when it comes to steel rain . .

and you get to do the heavy sigh and saying things like:"i told you so . . i knew this would happen . . this is all your fault!"

best part though? seeing the shocked expression on the face of just about everybody, if you can get up after being hit by a PAC with just one light damage to show for it . . or taking an Ares Great Dragon ATGM in stride with S physical damage and getting to say:"it's just a flesh wound, but now i am ANGRY! hand my my BIG weapon of choice this time!"

[masterofm]

A troll possession logic tradition mage with FFBA and a magic score of 5 (4) give him 9 body so FFBA would be able to give you 27 armor on top of that 9 body. First step is get channeling. Second step is oversummon a force 8 spirit and possess you. You now have 16 hardened armor, 17 body, and 43 armor..... so how does this suck and is not totally the tank master? He can absorb 10 -3 ap shots, but it would take a total of 17 P/S + ap from a normal weapon to even crack it. Let me say that again. He can take the 4 for 1 rule on a sniper rifle. As a mage you beef the troll with 5 wisdom and some counter spelling and they can take any physical punishment as well as be able to combat spells as well.

Why does a possession troll mage/tank suck? Please I would love to know why. Why? Also even cheesier was hooking the possession mage into a huge steel golem and giving him animate.... oh yeah you would also possess the golem because it would mean that all the troll mage had to do was counterspell the golem and the mage inside couldn't be targeted (put in an airtank on the mage so he could be completely sealed inside of his tank) It would take a while to open up the golem for him to hop in and out, but such cheese! That or use turn to goo and then step out of the puddle and let the huge steel "golem" reform Oh yeah and my GM would never let it happen... he would describe it as "game breaking"... go figure... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Tarantula]

FFBA doesn't give 27 armor, the best is 6/2.

Second, how does a LOGIC based troll mage successfully conjure a force 8 spirit? Especially with a magic of only 4?

Lastly, where do you get 43 armor from?

Also, you said overcasting troll mage, not summoning possession based troll mage. Trolls with lots of body flinging spells that have P drain around aren't too scary, possession is bad, but having a troll do it doesn't make it particularly worse.

[Stahlseele]

you can't melt steel, it would only work on organic matter. also, the goo has a barrier rating equal to . . the barrier rating in this case i guess, but usually to the body attribute of the gooed . .
further more troll mages suck, because under build points, with 400, they will lack in many cases, due to race cositing and magic costing and both costs added together meaning you have allready spent about a quarter to one half of your starting points, if you happen to have some bad luck . .
under karma build using 750 karma, that option would be much more viable though . .

[Blade]

From what I've seen a "moderate" troll tank (not completely maxed-out) can be taken down quite easily with several aimed burst of Gel rounds. And if you apply some armor degradation rules, he'll probably won't be able to shrug off too many grenades either. Don't get me wrong: they are tough but they aren't invincible (the SR3 tank characters I've seen were much worse if you didn't apply armor degradation rules).

I don't have a problem with that: trolls aren't just big humans, you have to stop thinking in humans terms. And I don't consider it game breaking either: Shadowrun isn't just about killing people and resisting damage.

[Stahlseele]

Shadowrun isn't just about killing people and resisting damage.

every time someone says that, a combat twink loses his dice

[Ryu]

I have heard on several boards of a "Troll Tank," that of a Troll that is armored up and has high Body, so that they can shrug off heavy machine guns and grenades.

I have met mixed reactions to this archetype, though most believe that only twinks/min-maxers would use it, and/or that they can break the game.

What are your opinions? Is it all that it's cracked up to be?

"Your body armor may be strong - our gunner doesn´t care".

[ElFenrir]

5? Dude, your just playing with some very uncreative people.

Lets see

Troll Tank
Drone Rigger/ One Man Army
Melee Specialist Adept (doesn't even need to be a troll)
Dodge Adept (Gets beaten by the gun specialist, but can avoid most anything else)
Elf Gunbunny (Takes out pretty much everything)
Overcasting Mage
Conjurer/ One Man Army
Faustian (absurdly powerful, or not, depending solely on the GM)
_-Karmasucker (variety of Faustian who obtained the Karma Drain power, gamebreaking isn't the word for it)
Binkey (Centaur tank, quite literally)
Pornomancer, Leadermancer, (and other Social Adept varieties).
Little Black Book (Social character heavily focused on high loyalty+high connections contacts, can get just about any favor done).
Mental Domination Mage (absurdly versatile and absurdly powerful)
Heavy Weapons dude
Fire Support Guy (nothing quite like shooting things you can't see with a mortar or guided missiles)
Movement Specialist (usually an adept, but not necessarily)
_-Flash Jr. (Dude who focuses on running fast, can cover absurd distances quickly)
_-Submariner (High specialized in swimming, surprisingly powerful against vampires)
Robot Man (Either Cyborg in a tweeked drone, or a Free Spirit possessing an tweeked drone if you're using Karmagen)
Babythrower (Missile-Master Adept)
Mr. Encyclopedia (Dumps everything into knowledge skills, either totally useless or completely indispensable depending on your GM)
Karmagen Possession Free Spirit with a Dream Pact with a Troll Tank who owns two Panther Assault Cannons
Judas for a Megacorp (sucks for the other teammembers, but when that guy gets activated he'll be rolling in nuyen and equipment, depending on the GM).
Magical Stealth Specialist (Damned impossible to see if he's built right).
Mr. Perceptive (either the most useful character possible or the most useless, depending on your GM.)
And any number of post-Unwired Technomancer builds.

Keep in mind, some of these are more twinky than others. Being a melee fan, ive played some melee dudes who could hit like mack trucks(and human/elf at that), but compared to Possession builds, Mage twinks or firearm twinks, I can attest they are the least of your worries for combat twinks.

Some of these other builds aren't necessarily too terribly twinked(like the Running Man), but, IMO, if you're new to the game, the builds to most look our for are:

A. Any twinked magician builds(Bloodzilla, possession specialist)
B. Any twinked social builds(some of them can completely throw things off)
C. Really twinked firearm builds
D. Mr. Lucky.

I can't attest to how broken Technomancers can get, so I dunno if they should be in the ''top public enemy twink'' list. Melee specialists are down there, they are too easy to shut down, though in their ELEMENT they are really excellent. Stuff like Mr. Perceptive, etc, are also more situational twinks.

[Glyph]

How easy would it be for players to stumble upon these accidentally? Or are they so hard to find and combine that you'd have to intentionally look for ways to twink your character?

Most builds with high dice pools are the result of logical choices in character creation. For example, if you are playing a mage whose main specialty is casting offensive spells, then you will get sorcery: 6 with a specialization in combat spells, have a Magic of 5, get a power focus: 2 for extra dice, and get a mentor spirit that gives a bonus of 2 dice to combat spells. You haven't done anything unusually cheesy, but you have 17 dice for casting combat spells. It is similarly easy to get about that many dice in firearms. Generally, characters with high soak dice against one type of damage, or high dice pools in resisted dice contests with lots of potential negative modifiers, are not as overpowered as they might seem if you only look at the high dice pool.

Social skills can reach the highest levels, due to so many things that stack, but the GM regulates what they can and cannot do, and needs to set reasonable limits. If it's "You get 10 successes, he really likes you," it's not so bad. It's when you have "You get 10 successes, you talk him into giving you the keys to his car, then shooting himself" that you run into problems.

The real cheese comes from "creative" rules interpretations. For example, possession mages are a viable choice, but a munchkin might get 1 for all physical Attributes and say "I have the spirit possess me for the day, with the command to basically 'be me' for the day" as a way of trying to weasel around the limitation of being limited to a number of services from the spirit.

[Nigel]

I wouldn't classify it as twinkery per se, but I have a wonderful Rigger/Face that throws around 23 dice when talking to people, and about 17-19 when driving (I forgot the specific calculation). He gets something around 20 dice when shooting with his drones and cars. If I wanted to, I could disrupt everything with a few sentences - with a very lucky roll, I stopped a Humanis club from trying to kill several Japanese Elves. It was a crit with a total of something like 30 successes - but that earned us a lot of extra money, karma, and street cred.

Not all twinking is combat. Remember the value of contacts and talking. Social does require cooperation from the GM to be effective, however. If you have one who's heavily against that sort of playing, I don't recommend trying to twink out a social build.

And I really have no idea how this thread got to general twinking, from tanking.