Dealing with a low body, How does one survive? Options

[Spookymonster]

Ye gods.... you're correct! Damn... this calls for a rethinking on a few of my chars. It's still useful (especially if you're casting mostly Force-1 spells or your GM is anal about leaving clues behind), but not really a bargain at 2 Edge points.
Thanks for ruinin' my day, Toturi... hope you can live with yourself...;)

[toturi]

Your Edge-fu is weak. 8)

[thunderchild]

Physical Mask yourself as a Decker.
a small, weedy decker who is clutching his deck and crying for his mommy.

[Siege]

Bullet shield? I thought that was the Troll?

The other reason why you want to keep your team protected from magical inbound -- teamwork gives the enemy more people to shoot at.

-Siege

[Zimbabwean Aardv...]

[Solidcobra]

Looking like a decker is good, until someone notes that you are awakened ("dude, the decker just threw a fireball at us, geek him!")
Being invisible is VASTLY overrated, you heard me, invisibility SUCKS!

Why?

Picture a firefight when all of a sudden one of the enemies go POOF! and disappear, what do you do? Suppressive fire a area of 6 meters, starting from that point, shooting 1 bullet at the meter farthest to the left and right (2 bullets), 2 bullets to the meters next to those (4 bullets, 6 in total) and then you fire the rest of your bullets on the two meters remaining (3 on the one the mage didn't disappear on, 4 on the one he did)
now, the mage will probably bleed, or scream, or both.....

And guess what? the sammy shooting has a TN of 4, and only 4 (base 4, +2 for suppressive, -2 for Smartlink, no range mods since he has electronic vision mag lots)

can we say "PWNAGE"?
besides, i've houseruled the invisibility spells to "max success=force", that makes the game more fun and possible, no "i'm using a force 1 invisibility spell and not even god can see me!" mages in my games!

yes, i dislike magic, you noticed?

[Solidcobra]

excuse me while i shoot myself in the head
i meant to say that the two meters in the middle of your field are shot with 2 bullets each......

[mfb]

unless you're using a (fairly common) houserule, vision mag of any type doesn't work with smartlinks of any type. and keep in mind that cover mods also apply--if you're the mage, you should be grabbing as much cover as you can, since cover doesn't affect your spellcasting (except elemental manips).

[toturi]

[Spookymonster]

Your training will be complete when you can snatch the pebble from Toturi's palm....

[Talia Invierno]

Yay, Kesh! Never mind magic: even non-magical armour is a Good Thing. So are environmental cover and high ground - very high ground - er, semi-angle-concealed-rooftops.

(One of my PCs currently has BD 6. I'm still amazed at how much damage he + longcoat + layered ultravest can absorb. It's the first time I ever slipped over BD 4, and only the second time I slipped over 2.)

[Arelius]

Just do not ever get shot.

[LoseAsDirected]

Don't forget to add a full suit of form fitting body armor.. It may be be a good idea to wear it around the streets, but it's perfect when on a run.. It even has a hood to prevent security cameras from getting a good look at your face.

By my rules, when layering armor, you can have 2 layers plus FFBA.. And half points, if any exist from the current layering, can be added to other half points for extra whole points..

Secure Long Coat (4/2) plus
Secure Ultra-Vest (+2/+1.5) plus
Full Suit FFBA (+2/+.5) equals
(8/4)..

Now, you'll get a huge penalty to any Quickness related tests, and lose a fair amount of combat pool dice.. But your survival rate improves dramatically.

[Rev]

Re: Shamanic masks.

If you actually look up the rules for noticing the shamanic mask it isn't that easy to do. I don't remember the forumula exactly, but it yielded pretty high target numbers.

The only time people will usually see it is when casting high force spells with a totemic bonus.

[RedmondLarry]

[Solidcobra]

isn't invisibility a vision modifier? those aren't calculated when using suppressive fire, only cover (invisibility is NOT cover), damage on self and +2.....
so, i was wrong, the TN is 6, nothing else.....
invisibility= visibility mod=not calculated for suppressive=i'm right

or?

[Solidcobra]

recoil isn't calculated either
i read out aloud....
"Apply modifiers only for the attackers wounds, the targets cover (If any) and a +2 for suppressive fire. The attacker may also not use his combat pool
me= right
pebble=snatched
training=done!
weee!

[Solstice]

Yessshhh.......very well then. I have read this entire topic. Now for a real question.

What if your character is not a mage, or a decker, or a rigger, but a techie type?

This is my first character and I'm running into some problems already on the very first run. She only has body 3 and athletics 3. Form fit body suit 4/camo suit 3 so layered ballistic of a 7 total. I'm not sure how layered works exactly.

So as we all know, Murphy's Law prevades every aspect of life even RPGs. So we know that sooner or later bullets will fly no matter how pro we are.

We stepped out of a doorway and an elevator door happened to open up in front of us. Well, several guards just wasted us at short range with assualt rifles. 6 successes. That seems like alot for your average military grunt but I did not say anything to the GM.

So how can I possibly beat 6 successess? I had nothing from my dodge pool (zero successess). So I of course have to roll my body (3) and use combat pool. I can't remember how much combat pool I used but I think it was all 8d6 or close. I still only got 6 successess which is pretty decent considering the # of dice involved. But alas I was not able to stage it down and I took a moderate wound. Had I got hit at the end of the turn after my combat pool was gone. I would have been dead no matter what. There seems to be some inequality among the combat system.
Statistically I have like zero change to survive any kind of non stun attack.

[Rev]

I think the problem is that you cannot be a real pure techie type, or stealth type, or face type charachter in a fairly heavy combat game.

If the group is you, and a bunch of idiots who want to fight everything they see you are going to die pretty quickly.

If the gm feels the need to constantly "challenge" the fighter types by pitting them against thier near equals in combat you are going to die quickly.

Basically unless the group as a whole can, usually, avoid combat alltogether you must do something to get yourself through it and that means upping your combat stats some.

I typically make stealthy, techy, facey charachters so I have learned this lesson the long hard way. In the end you will have more fun if you just go with the flow and make a charachter more combat oriented when that is what the game demands.


Edit: and as has been mentioned in this thread you should not be using combat pool for anything except dodging and resisting damage, and your first actions should be to hide (preferably full cover) and only in unusual circumstances should you try to shoot anything. Also the gm should probably be doing some sort of suprise roll in those circumstances, and your sam's should beat security guards and take a few of them down while encouraging the survivors to shoot the sam's rather than you.

[toturi]

[Teulisch]

Form fitting bosy armor (full suit) can accept up to 5 points of modification. Either Non-conductive (to stop tasers and stun batons) or chemical seal (to stop spray weapons, splash gernades, and capsule rounds) could greatly improve your protection. And according to errata, the FFBA does not give you any layering pernalties. So layer it with something else, and put the other type of mod on the top layer of armor.
anybody know if the dwarf/troll cost increase is before or after armor mods?

Personaly, i like quickness 9 (base 6 +3 from muscle toner), since that increases how much armor i can effectively have, as well as reaction and running speed. FFBA, Camo suit, and a balistic shield can get me an armor of 10/4, no penalties (and non-conductive 5, chemical seal 6, fire resist 2 as well). (an unaugmented elf could do the same with a large riot shield, getting 9/6 with a quickness of 7. other race 8/5 w/ small shield) weapons of power 10- are easy to soak with a TN of 2.

The best defense, i think, is not to look like a shadowrunner. The industrious line coveralls are rather nice. Carries a kit, which means a bulge in the pocket is normal and ignored, if the parts of the kit you can see are there. hide in plain sight.

For invisibility- Ultrasound vision (or goggles). i can 'hear' you, so unless your silent as well i have no vision mod and will know you an invisible mage. quick fix may be to carry a white noise generator(high frequency).

[mfb]

range still counts, for suppressive fire, because range isn't a modifier--it's the base TN. however, like the man said, vis mag will cure what ails you.

suppressive fire rules are in CC, in the Advanced Combat section.

ultrasound vision is not effective against invisibility for the same reason thermo isn't--invisibility affects the mind, not the eyes.

[toturi]

Thanks, mfb. Oh... hahaha... those rules...hahaha... First the guy dodging has got to FAIL his dodge test first! HAHAHA! Combat pool against TN 4 (only 1 bullet/m, he was only in 1m area), no successes? :rollin:

Only if he fails do you have a chance of hitting him, if he succeeds, you don't even roll! HAHAHA! And I thought someone had finally thought of a good way to hit an invisible man.

[mfb]

er... well, you can allocate more than one bullet per meter. and he still takes vision mods to his dodge attempt.

[Zazen]