Missiles and walking tank characters Options

[Chrysalis]

Greets,

I was looking through the missile rules and I was wondering not about a single missile, but more along the lines of two or more of them.

What I would like to do is take a Nimrod and load it with six missiles on each wing. I would then like to be able to fire off two missiles so that they hit the target at the same time.

Does each missile strike count as an individual hit?

What about instead I use two rocket casettes and fire off 4 short range rockets instead?

The second question is that there are characters out there which can boost themselves easily to 30 points of armor. If the above does not work in killing them. How else can they be killed? Or do I have to start looking at troll bowmen?

This is not a tabletop experience so refrain from the usual blah, blah, GM, blah, blah, bad playing, instead focus on it being an exercise in thought if you will.

-Chrysalis

[Drogos]

Split dicepool, because it would be two seperate attacks. This is similarly expressed through multiple IPs.

[raggedhalo]

If your target has 30+ armour, use a Mana Bolt spell. That should soon mess'em up.

[Blade]

I wouldn't split the dice pool since there's no problem of "dividing attention" here.
I'd rather treat them as burst fire: depending on how you fire (if you fire two missiles at the same target or if you fire a lot of small rockets), it'll either raise the DV or lower the Dodge DP. But instead of using the +1 per bullet modifier, I'd go with a higher modifier (depending on the size of the missile/rockets).

Another way would be to consider that most of the time, missiles are shot in pair to bypass explosive reactive armor: the first missile destroys the armor, the second one destroys the target. You could consider, for example, that the DV of the first missile is substracted from the armor of the target but that's making up a whole new rule instead of using an existing one.

Other ways to kill high armor characters include (on top of my head):
- Using a bigger gun/grenade/other
- Using armor degradation rules
- Gas, Seven-7 if they have gas mask and protection against gases.
- Crushing them under something massive/dense
- Falling from very high (falling damage use only half armor)
- Electrical weapons (half armor, most of the time)
- Spells that bypass armor
- Weapons that bypass armor
- Anything when the character is not wearing the armor (grenade in the shower drain, with a sugar on top)
- Crush their mind instead and manipulate them, push them to suicide...

[AngelisStorm]

Why not just use rules similar to the Barrage Rocket Launcher in Arsenal?

[ElFenrir]

If your target has 30+ armour, use a Mana Bolt spell. That should soon mess'em up.

This. Any sort of magic that's Mana-based(Mana bolt, Stunbolt-this can be even better since their Stun meter is likely lower), or a mind-controlling spell will work wonders. Having tons of armor is more of a case of looking to bypass it in a different way. No need for a troll bowman when the little dwarf mage can melt them with but a thought.

Now, if this is an exercise in ''how to bypass the armor without magic'', I find that automatic vehicle mounted assault cannons tend to do the trick. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Drogos]

A few gauss rifle shots would work wonders too.

[The Jopp]

Against "Tanks" i would rather go towards the "Incapacitate goal" instead.

The best way to get against "tanks" is not firepower but rather a combination of gear and tactics.

1: Get a few Dobermans with good sensors
2: Give them SMG's with good recoil comp & Stick N Shock Rounds
3: Glue Flash-Bang Grenades all over the drones (N.E.S.W)
4: Glue Flash Packs all over the drones (N.E.S.W)
5: Glue Smoke Grenades all over the drones

Set all grenades at Signal 0 and connected to the drone. Slave all grenades to firing the main weapon.

The drone will go full speed into melee range with target and detonate everything at once when it opens upp FA fire with the SMG.

The drone will take no damage since it is stun but the target will have to resist multiple disorienting attacks AND only have 1/2 armour against the Stick N Shock.

Against such an opponent i suggest doing it ina building for the chunky salsa stun effect.

[The Jopp]

Hmm, falling damage is a good thing too.

A nice rooftop and a FAST drone to collide with character and get them off the building.

No armour for falling AFAIK.

[masterofm]

Two words - Sonic damage. Also tanks if they can possess themselves can have upwards of 40-50 armor and immunity to natural weapons.

[Ryu]

Borrowing the rules for the Fleche Hail barrage launcher sounds like a good idea for multiple-rockets attacks.

For high-dv targets: All kinds of automatic weapons are nice, my current characters preference is Combat Shotgun or LMG anyway. Combat shotguns can be medium-drone mounted easily. Yes, you might need 2-3 good hits, as opposed to only one in other cases. But a dv pool of 30 isn´t immunity to normal weapons.

[Neraph]

Use a Slab Capsule or a Slab Chemical Grenade. For the next (10 - Bod) hours, he's out like a light.

[Mickle5125]

bring out the gun bunny adept with the dicepool higher than his armor pool and call a shot to bypass his armor. That much armor means that he's focused on soaking everything, not dodging it, so you should have a good chance at connecting, even if you don't have a massive dicepool anymore.

[Scoot]

How about preventing them from getting such armor in the first place?

[hobgoblin]

on the topic of vehicle carried launch weapons from arsenal, do each weapon need its own weapon mount?

i dont recall ever seeing a rule for that...

[Kev]

bring out the gun bunny adept with the dicepool higher than his armor pool and call a shot to bypass his armor. That much armor means that he's focused on soaking everything, not dodging it, so you should have a good chance at connecting, even if you don't have a massive dicepool anymore.

Keeping in mind, of course, that the GM rules the armor can even be bypassed in the first place.

[Ryu]

on the topic of vehicle carried launch weapons from arsenal, do each weapon need its own weapon mount?

i dont recall ever seeing a rule for that...

Weapon mounts are generic. One weapon at a time goes without saying (IMO).

[Larme]

I don't know why people get concerned about "unkillable" tank characters. It was a MUCH bigger problem in the past when armor reduced Power to zilch, and then with one Karma reroll virtually all Body dice were guaranteed successes.

All tank characters suffer from one major problem: DV is better than damage resistance in Shadowrun. Each DV requires 3 dice on average to resist. An anti-tank missile does 16P -2 AP, requiring 50 dice to soak, and that's assuming no staging up from successes. No tank troll is immune to that kind of firepower. Even though it might take multiple shots to bring him down, once he starts getting hurt he needs to flee, otherwise he'll get taken down given enough shots. When DV and damage resistance escalate, DV will pretty much always win in SR4. Even a full narrow AR burst with ExEx, available to everyone in chargen, will do serious damage to the tankiest tank troll.

There is a point where DV reaches its limit, but short of magic there's no way for damage resistance to beat it. And when you're talking magic, you need a mage to fight it. That's the sad truth of SR4 magic, is that mundanes without magical support are fucked. A huge possessing spirit, along with maybe an overcast Armor and a Physical Barrier can make someone virtually invincible, but all it takes is a rival mage to dispel the spells and banish the spirit, and your tank is back to autofire food.

IMO, what you really need to watch for is the gymnastics twink. It is possible to get more Gymnastics bonuses than it's possible to get bonuses to attack, i.e. gymnastics twinks will always have more dice than shooting twinks and should be statistically unshootable... Except for wide full auto, but then the dodger just has to be tough enough to soak base damage, which is quite doable.

[ElFenrir]

The thing is, a proper ''tank twink'' will be all of the above.

They more than likely:

-Will be a troll. Possible with extra Body on top of this.
-All the damage-soaking and armor adding Ware possible.
-Tons of armor on top of this. Full military with the perks, etc.
-Probably lower Agility/Strength. They're made to soak hits, not dish them-more points for other things.
-Twinked Reaction. This is where the Gymnastics Twink comes in. Lots of Gymnastics and also stuff to increase Dodge.
-Possibly figured how to get Arcane Arrester in there, to help with Magic. Either way, Willpower will be as high as they can for Stun boxes.
-Maybe even Dodge on top of it if they don't have a Melee skill. Just to stack Dodge.

So here, you have a tank who can not only knock down hits with their big Gymnastics Dodge/Dodge Skill, but then absorb whatever's left, if there is anything. Unless they have Arcane Arrester, though, a nice solid force Stunbolt can put them down rather fast.

[hobgoblin]

Weapon mounts are generic. One weapon at a time goes without saying (IMO).

to bad that, given how one could have multiple missiles on a single mount in rigger3.

[Shadow]

Using nothing but the rules how does a starting character get 30 armor and not have any degredation on his attributes? Arn't there rules about having more armor than your Agilty/reaction having a negative effect on said atributes?

Not saying you can't get 30 armor but how likely is it that you need a scenario to stop it?

[ElFenrir]

You can have armor up to twice your Body in points with no modifiers-there's also a custom armor rule that allows Body x3.

A troll tank with a body twinked up to the 11-12 range can indeed have 30+ points of armor with no minuses.

[Shadow]

So for the second part of my question, how likely is it? Will he have 3 in all his other stats?

[Jaid]

The thing is, a proper ''tank twink'' will be all of the above.

They more than likely:

-Will be a troll. Possible with extra Body on top of this.
-All the damage-soaking and armor adding Ware possible.
-Tons of armor on top of this. Full military with the perks, etc.
-Probably lower Agility/Strength. They're made to soak hits, not dish them-more points for other things.
-Twinked Reaction. This is where the Gymnastics Twink comes in. Lots of Gymnastics and also stuff to increase Dodge.
-Possibly figured how to get Arcane Arrester in there, to help with Magic. Either way, Willpower will be as high as they can for Stun boxes.
-Maybe even Dodge on top of it if they don't have a Melee skill. Just to stack Dodge.

So here, you have a tank who can not only knock down hits with their big Gymnastics Dodge/Dodge Skill, but then absorb whatever's left, if there is anything. Unless they have Arcane Arrester, though, a nice solid force Stunbolt can put them down rather fast.

if everyone else in the party is dead other than the troll, then the troll's unkillable nature isn't terribly relevant. this isn't D&D 4th edition, where the fighter can *force* stuff to attack him instead of the squishy and far more dangerous wizards/warlocks/rangers/rogues/etc. if the troll won't die, but isn't very powerful offensively, then the solution is to kill everyone else while you wait for the bigger guns to show up, because there is always something scarier than the troll. in order for the troll to be a contributing member of the team, they need to be more than just hard to kill.

also, you could just use stuff like nets, and even the largest dodge pool will suffer when 20 HTR drones show up with fully automatic weaponry mounted on them (dobermans with AKs are pretty cheap, after all). it's just a matter of time before the tank is taken down, particularly since early on in the process, unless all the other characters are also tanks, he will be fighting alone; there will be no covering fire, no defensive spells sustained on him, no friendly counterspelling, no extra targets, no matrix support, no drone cavalry coming to the rescue, and no real hope for him to survive a sustained shootout, because sooner or later the other side is going to come in with more resources on their side than the tank can handle, and then he will fall just like the rest of the team.

in the end, being really hard to kill doesn't count for much in shadowrun, or in any other game for that matter, unless you can convince people to attack you instead of everyone else.

[Shadow]

So in the end this scenario is far from likely, if it happens, you as the GM let it to happen, and if you didn't want it you should talk to the player before this point. 30 Armor and 15 body is a lot of dice, but not when 10 guys are shooting at you with HMG's loaded with AV ammo. The great thing about SR4 is the lethality goes up with the number of oppenents you are fighting. No matter how many dice you have eventually someone is going to get in there and drop you. Then your dead.

That is if the GM even wants to bother with a brute force attack, Like Elfinrir said, any sort of magical attack that is mana is going to destory him. And if he is counting on a mage for backup, well that much armor is going to draw out serious operator's to take him down. So the mage is going to be toast from 2k meters away by a well aimed sniper round.