Rather Silly Questions, Help needed Options

[RedeemerofOgar]

"Bean" is an English (American?) slang term for "to hit."

Specifically to hit on the head. From Carnal Knowledge by Charles Hodgson:

BEAN * The term bean is sometimes used to mean "head," as in "he was knocked on the bean" or "you've had a bean shave." This usage may feel like it has been around for a long time, but in fact it didn't enter English until 1905. It came from baseball, where a ball pitched at the head of a batter was called a "bean ball." The tradition of the Twelfth Night king's cake links the bean not to the human head but to the figurative head of a group. Twelfth Night is also known as Epiphany and is celebrated on January 6 -- the end of the twelve days of Christmas. A cake is served in which a bean has been hidden. The finder of the bean becomes king for the night. The Mardi Gras festival has adopted this tradition, replacing the bean with a tiny figure of an infant.

[Draco18s]

The more you know, knowledge is power!

Urk, I think I need my sanity bird again. That kind of reply is a clear indicator of loose marbles.

*Squak* it's ok Jim, everything will be all right Jim, I'm here for you Jim.

[BnF95]

Oh yes. Lots of fun. A previous game of mine we were hired to take a hit out....on ourselves. The Johnson didn't know who he was hiring (our public awareness wasn't high enough...yet) but did know who needed to be dead.

We took the job.

We did the job.

We got paid.

We laughed like hyenas about the solution: make-up + bums + video editing.

Now there's an idea.

Is the shaman able to summon a spirit? Could the rigger use a drone? Couldn't the shaman use Stabilize spell and stim patches? A trauma patch followed by a stim patch?
Than runners are survivors, if they can't save him at least they can save themselves.

The shaman specializes in assault spells, doesn't have stabilize (or heal). Stim patches (hehehe, only the troll has them, and the rest have no idea where he keeps them), trauma patch was already used to stabilize him. I've no idea why they are bothering to drag his carcass along, other than out of friendship and team spirit I guess.

Regarding dragging the 350kg(771lb) Troll a meter every three seconds with five average Joes is actually fairly impressive, even without the added weight from the Trolls modifications and gear. The movement rates in Shadowrun are freaking broken if you really look at them and figure human/elf/ork walking rate is roughly the equivalent of 3.33 meters a second/10.9 feet per second/ 7.45mph. Sure, 1m per combat turn seems painfully slow by comparison, but given the variables it seems a touch fast to me.

Hell, have you tried dragging one of your buddys around when he's passed out from drinking too much alcohol? Dead weight is a bitch to drag around under any circumstances. If your players are really complaining, get five of them to drag you around with you being limp, see how easy that is. Now imagine adding about 265kg minimum, an extra two feet or so in height and take in consideration all the gear the players may be carrying, what the troll is carrying, the added stress of "Holy crap, they shot Fritz!", the terrain they're trying to drag the troll over, etc. etc. 1m is more than generous.

Good point on that.

[Beetle]

I read somewhere on these boards that "walking" is supposed to be jogging and "running" is a flat-out sprint. In other words, your walking rate is as fast as you can go without compromising your aim significantly.

heh, that may be true and it comes down to poor wording on the authors part, but even the running rate without the additional bump from a run test is nigh professional athlete flat out sprint speed. eh, i mean it rarely comes up in my games anyhow, but I was just commenting for the benefit of the poster to how the raw speed is listed. However thinking about walking rate as jogging makes a lot more sense to me in the scheme of things.

@BnF95 -- Thank you.

[AllTheNothing]

Now there's an idea.

The shaman specializes in assault spells, doesn't have stabilize (or heal). Stim patches (hehehe, only the troll has them, and the rest have no idea where he keeps them), trauma patch was already used to stabilize him. I've no idea why they are bothering to drag his carcass along, other than out of friendship and team spirit I guess.

Good point on that.

The troll deserves to die, if you have a slap patch on yourself you are better to tell to the team where you keep it (especialy if you're the only troll in the group), it can make the difference betwen life and death when dreck hits the fan; seriously, everyone should have at least one trauma patch and one stimpatch on themselves (and the rest of the team should know where).
The shaman deserves to die too. No matter the buildt, no matter the mindasset, the heal spell is a no brainer for anyone breathing, it should be the very first spell in any magician repertoire. Also blasting your way around might be fun but summon a spirit with elemental attack once and tell it to go to town on the target, it will net you much more total damage for your drain than a spell could; not to mention that shamanism is big on spirits.
Aside from this some of your team's problems seem to stem from teamwork, or more accurately the lack of teamwork, I would suggest to drive the point home.

[Draco18s]

Mind that the Heal spell takes minutes.

[Tyro]

Mind that the Heal spell takes minutes.

Which is why nearly all of my characters have First Aid

[AllTheNothing]

Mind that the Heal spell takes minutes.

Yet it's still a life saver.

[Draco18s]

Which is limited to skill rating number of boxes. It also takes combat turns times the number of boxes attempted (and you want to attempt as many as possible, as once you give first aid you can't give it again--just like magic). It's not fast by any means (for my group, combat is over by the middle of the second turn--it's easier to finish shooting, then heal up).

[AllTheNothing]

Which is limited to skill rating number of boxes. It also takes combat turns times the number of boxes attempted (and you want to attempt as many as possible, as once you give first aid you can't give it again--just like magic). It's not fast by any means (for my group, combat is over by the middle of the second turn--it's easier to finish shooting, then heal up).

First Aid can't be used to heal wounds that were partialy healed with magic; but magic can be used to heal wounds that were partialy healed with First Aid. So First Aid first, than Heal spell; High First Aid skill + rating 6 Medikit (even better if "possessed" by a Machine Sprite) followed by an Heal spell can drasticaly reduce the recovery time (so find a place out of sight in which you can low down for the time required and you're fine).
EDIT: Also Heal needs Drain x 2 combat turns for becoming permanent and has a Drain of (Damage Value) - 2 (so you can cast maximum force, without overcasting, that it doesn't change) and you can use hits on the spellcasting test to reduce the time by one combat turn; in the midle of a fight it's alot of time but after it can get back on your feet exceptionaly fast.

[tr0n]

I had a similar situation back in SR3. I was playing a Troll Combat Mage and he wasn't a small guy in the least bit. We were on our way out of a corporate extraction when things went horribly wrong. The Troll ended up throwing something like a Force 8 Powerball at a HTR Helicopter that was shooting at the group while they were fleeing the compound. This promptly knocked him out on the front doorsteps, but did manage to take down the very unfriendly airtillery. Hellhounds unleashed & corporate security guards made things even more complicated. The group had been posing as a laundry crew of some sort IIRC, so they managed to have one of the big carts near the doors. I don't remember how we managed to get out of there alive, but we did. I'm sure it was the GM just being generous, which with ours at the time, that was a rare occasion.

My point being, my Troll wasn't a chromed out sam and he wasn't carrying a ton of gear and it was going to be impossible for my team to rescue me by a drag/carry maneuver. They got lucky and something nearby with wheels.

[Sir_Psycho]

Troll runners should be required to carry folding stretchers on their backs.

[yukongil]

that's why I liked the user-friendly carry rules in Earthdawn. Troll go down? No problem, subtract from your dex to add to your strength until you can carry him, take your strain and away you go!

[Draco18s]

First Aid can't be used to heal wounds that were partialy healed with magic; but magic can be used to heal wounds that were partialy healed with First Aid. So First Aid first, than Heal spell; High First Aid skill + rating 6 Medikit (even better if "possessed" by a Machine Sprite) followed by an Heal spell can drasticaly reduce the recovery time (so find a place out of sight in which you can low down for the time required and you're fine).

Oh yes, you get back on your feet fast, but you can't really do anything in the middle of a fight.

[RedeemerofOgar]

EDIT: Also Heal needs Drain x 2 combat turns for becoming permanent and has a Drain of (Damage Value) - 2

I've been trying to figure out what that means, actually - what is that Damage Value referring to? The DV you are trying to heal? The DV you manage to heal after successes? The total damage the target has taken? The damage he has taken in that "set of wounds" since you can't try to heal a wound set more than once? An example or two would have been very helpful. Since you brougt it up and the thread topic is appropriate, I'm hijacking.

Sample question: Sam the Sam, Sampire, previously took 7P, and was magically healed by a different mage who actually knew the system, say, 2P, leaving him with five boxes of physical damage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) He gets shot up again, as Sam the Sam is much better at looking cool and shooting things than at actually dodging. Sam the Sam has taken an additional 6P of damage, putting him at 11P total. Bad day for the Sampire! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bubba the Love Troll, Master Mage, pulls Sam the Sam behind cover and casts Heal on him. Lets say for the sake of argument, Bubba has Magic 5, Spellcasting 6, and a R4 Power Focus, for a total of 15 dice. The Sampire is an adept with 2 points of cyberware, knocking Bubba's poll down to 13, an expected average of 4 successes, but they really need their Sam right now, so he's planning to burn an Edge to reroll failures, which should on average bring him up to 7 successes. Given that the Drain does not change based on force, and 7 is higher than his magic already, he casts Heal at Force 10 hoping to get lucky. Bubba ends up rolling 8 successes total.

First question: Does Sam the Sam heal 8 boxes or only 6 boxes? Does that answer change if the same mage had performed both Heal spells?

Second question: What is the Drain on this spell?
a) 4 (damage from the last set of wounds, minus 2)
b) 6 (damage healed, minus 2)
c) 8 (maximum attempted healing, ie force of the spell, minus 2)
d) 9 (Sam's current total physical wounds, minus 2)

Third question: Why can't Heal target the Stun damage track? Would it be reasonable to allow it to do so, or to allow a different spell to do so? Is there one that already does that I have overlooked?

[Draco18s]

Damage the character has before you heal.

D

[Dreadlord]

"First question: Does Sam the Sam heal 8 boxes or only 6 boxes? Does that answer change if the same mage had performed both Heal spells?"
You are still limited by the Force of the Heal Spell, so Bubba can heal up to 10 boxes at Force 10. He only got 8 successes, so all 8 are used to heal with.

"Second question: What is the Drain on this spell?
a) 4 (damage from the last set of wounds, minus 2)
b) 6 (damage healed, minus 2)
c) 8 (maximum attempted healing, ie force of the spell, minus 2)
d) 9 (Sam's current total physical wounds, minus 2)"

C. In my opinion, the spell should have been based off of Force just like every other in the description, since it effectively is that way anyway since Force limits the successes of the Heal as normal.

"Third question: Why can't Heal target the Stun damage track? Would it be reasonable to allow it to do so, or to allow a different spell to do so? Is there one that already does that I have overlooked?"
I believe it is for balancing, as well as setting and lethality. Since most of the time Drain is Stun, it would be silly to allow you to Heal Drain with a spell. Plus, sitting down and resting for a while will get rid of it. You can always slap on a patch to ignore the mods for a little bit anyway.

[Tyro]

<snip>
Since most of the time Drain is Stun, it would be silly to allow you to Heal Drain with a spell.
<snip>

Damage caused by Drain explicitly cannot be healed magically.