Powerball Everything!, congratulations, you have won Shadowrun Options

[jzn]

Powerball didn't get that much use in previous editions of shadowrun, because you had to match what was usually a very high target number, in order to mess people up. That has changed! In this post, I will tell all you mages how to absolutely cripple the enemy, with a single powerball. Your teammates will love you, and your GM will kill himself!

Here's the method:

1- look at your enemy. Try to see as much of them as possible.

2- cast a level 6 Powerball.

3- When the GM is determining available targets, inform him that a powerball will target not just the people in the radius, but, their weapons, their gear, and their cyberware.

4- make your roll. You will need 4 gross successes for this to be absolutely effective, so make sure your character is set up to reliably get 4 successes on the powerball.

5- your GM will make the appropriate Damage resistance tests. While the metahumans you targeted might resist taking damage from the spell, it won't matter. None of the Guns, electronics, or visible cyberware gets a resistance test, and counterspelling cannot be used to protect them. Gun-sized gear or smaller is not likely to have more than 6 boxes of structure, so if you get 4 successes, you will destroy all visible guns, armor, comlinks, cyberware and gear, automatically. If you're lucky, the actual enemies will take a little damage, too, but that is just icing on the cake.

Ok mages, now you know! Now, go out and win Shadowrun!

[ludomastro]

I am reminded of that old saying, "What is good for the goose, ..."

[AllTheNothing]

Powerball didn't get that much use in previous editions of shadowrun, because you had to match what was usually a very high target number, in order to mess people up. That has changed! In this post, I will tell all you mages how to absolutely cripple the enemy, with a single powerball. Your teammates will love you, and your GM will kill himself!

Here's the method:

1- look at your enemy. Try to see as much of them as possible.

2- cast a level 6 Powerball.

3- When the GM is determining available targets, inform him that a powerball will target not just the people in the radius, but, their weapons, their gear, and their cyberware.

4- make your roll. You will need 4 gross successes for this to be absolutely effective, so make sure your character is set up to reliably get 4 successes on the powerball.

5- your GM will make the appropriate Damage resistance tests. While the metahumans you targeted might resist taking damage from the spell, it won't matter. None of the Guns, electronics, or visible cyberware gets a resistance test, and counterspelling cannot be used to protect them. Gun-sized gear or smaller is not likely to have more than 6 boxes of structure, so if you get 4 successes, you will destroy all visible guns, armor, comlinks, cyberware and gear, automatically. If you're lucky, the actual enemies will take a little damage, too, but that is just icing on the cake.

Ok mages, now you know! Now, go out and win Shadowrun!

Once implanted, cyberware becomes part of the person so you can't target it separately from the rest of the body, it's a good tactic thought, the downside is that it destroyes possible loot.

[pbangarth]

Step 4 is not as easy as you might think.

[The Neutronium A...]

Step 1 could also be an adventure unto itself after the GM has encountered this trick once.

[Panzergeist]

As long as your GM is being thorough enough to allow this, he should also be having grenades and such damage gear. So the powerball is effective, but doesn't do anything that mundanes cant do.

[DireRadiant]

I wonder why no one has thought of this before.

[pbangarth]

Maybe most of us remember earlier versions of SR where the number of targets was limited?

[Whipstitch]

I had already thought of it. Didn't you guys notice that the Ram/Wreck/Demolish line of spells are for all intents and purposes limited versions of the Power line of spells? It even outright calls them variants. That said, I've never really allowed it since it steps too heavily on the toes of elemental spells for my tastes, particularly since the devs seem to take special care to point out that it is those spells that affect virtually everything in the area to some extent as opposed to the Power spells which are fluff wise a direct channeling of energy into targets. I just kinda figured it was against the spirit of the rules if not the RAW to handle it that way.

[pbangarth]

So, what does this mean? Is there a destructive all-encompassing spell-from-hell out there?

[Draco18s]

So, what does this mean? Is there a destructive all-encompassing spell-from-hell out there?

Lightning Ball. Few, if any, electronics (cyber?) have Electrical resistance built in. That was one of the main reasons why we stuck with 3rd edition for a while (I couldn't give my drones electrical resistance and a single low force electric ball knocked ALL of them out, if not nearly destroyed them entirely).

[Adarael]

I only deal with the 'cinematic' destruction of objects with powerball. I.E. important stuff, guns, cans of gasoline, baskets of kittens.

I also do the same with the effect of grenades on equipment. Remember, if you're gonna powerball the fuck out of your enemies, remember that you SHOULD be doing the same with grenades. And that includes the effects on stuff like the floor, and walls.

[Synner667]

I also do the same with the effect of grenades on equipment. Remember, if you're gonna powerball the fuck out of your enemies, remember that you SHOULD be doing the same with grenades. And that includes the effects on stuff like the floor, and walls.

I can't count the number of times Player Characters have lobbed grenades into a room, then run in after they go off, and wonder why the floor won't support their weight and the walls won't support the weight of a roof.

It's like they forget what the grenade actually did.

Hilarious fun for me, tho !!

[Phylos Fett]

5- your GM will make the appropriate Damage resistance tests. While the metahumans you targeted might resist taking damage from the spell, it won't matter. None of the Guns, electronics, or visible cyberware gets a resistance test, and counterspelling cannot be used to protect them. Gun-sized gear or smaller is not likely to have more than 6 boxes of structure, so if you get 4 successes, you will destroy all visible guns, armor, comlinks, cyberware and gear, automatically. If you're lucky, the actual enemies will take a little damage, too, but that is just icing on the cake.

I can foresee a great deal of naked enemies around mages, as well as structural damage to all the building and so forth that happen to be visible to anyone casting these spells...

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Powerball didn't get that much use in previous editions of shadowrun, because you had to match what was usually a very high target number, in order to mess people up. That has changed! In this post, I will tell all you mages how to absolutely cripple the enemy, with a single powerball. Your teammates will love you, and your GM will kill himself!

Actually, I already thought of a pacifist mage with a powerball limited to non-living targets.

[Heath Robinson]

I'd quote various bits on the aura extending beyond armour and allow it to incorporate anything that doesn't extend massively out from the body. You can't target their commlink independantly. You can target the weapon in their hands.

[Malicant]

I'd quote various bits on the aura extending beyond armour and allow it to incorporate anything that doesn't extend massively out from the body. You can't target their commlink independantly. You can target the weapon in their hands.

If you can see it and they did not pay Essence for it, you can target it. Auras are not Anti-Magic Force Fields.

[kzt]

I'd quote various bits on the aura extending beyond armour and allow it to incorporate anything that doesn't extend massively out from the body. You can't target their commlink independantly. You can target the weapon in their hands.

It's area effect. You don't target it, it just dies.

[Method]

The BBB is pretty clear that area effect spells target "areas or points in space" at "the center of the area affected". How exactly did you figure that you can specifically target all the non-living things without harming the people in the AoE?

[Draco18s]

I can't count the number of times Player Characters have lobbed grenades into a room, then run in after they go off, and wonder why the floor won't support their weight and the walls won't support the weight of a roof.

My group did the math recently:

1 frag grenade can blow a hole through a plasteel wall.
1 frag grenade sitting under a person's feet as they stand next to a single wall just kills them (chunky salsa rules):
12 base damage + wall at 0m -> damage doubled. 24P +5AP (or Body + ~15 / 3 = 6 to 7 hits -> 17 damage, target is FLRM'd).
Even if the wall is considered to be 0.5m away (1 meter round trip), that's still 22P.

High explosive grenades kill the target, his dog, his neighbor, and the town he grew up in he's is in a 6 foot by 6 foot room with a 6 foot ceiling.

Also: grenades shouldn't deal double damage to objects, Mythbusters has shown us that it takes quite a bit of force to blow apart adhock blast chambers, something like a hand grenade won't do more than pepper it with shrapnel.

[Adarael]

Well, FRAG grenades won't. High Explosive grenades, depending on the type, might.

[Draco18s]

Well, FRAG grenades won't. High Explosive grenades, depending on the type, might.

Look at the rules. Explosives deal double damage against objects (such as walls, page 158).

A frag grenade does 12P, so 24P against the wall it's next to. A plasteel wall has 12 armor and 11 structure (page 157).

Barriers get double armor (unless the explosive is actually attached to the wall, in which case normal armor; this is not the case we're observing: a thrown frag grenade).

24P vs. 24 armor

Average hits: 8

24 - 8 = 16

16 damage to 11 boxes, 1 square meter of plascrete wall is blown away by the concussive force of the grenade.

Doesn't even matter where the +2 AP comes in, even pre-doubling (i.e. 4 additional armor) that's a statistical 1 less damage.

Regardless, the list of materials completely penetrated by a frag grenade are as follows:

Glass, drywall, interior doors, tires, trees, furniture, plastiboard, ballistic glass, hardwood, (lightposts, chainlink fence), densiplast, security doors (!!!), armored glass, Kevlar wallboard, plascrete, concrete*, metal beams*.

High explosives will statistically significantly damage (i.e. 3 grenades will do them in) reinforced concrete (2 to 3), and blast doors (3).

*Higher armor and structure, I haven't done the math, but I'd say it's pretty close. Dealing enough damage to these structures to the point of collapse is statistically plausible, though likely less than even odds.

[Red-ROM]

so now what? I'm supposed to let mythbusters tell me that cars dont explode when you shoot them?

[Draco18s]

No. Logic is supposed to tell you that frag grenades aren't supposed to penetrate 8 inches of concrete to the extent that a whole section of it collapses.

[toturi]

12 - 8 = 12

That's... some kind of funky maths I do not understand.

No. Logic is supposed to tell you that frag grenades aren't supposed to penetrate 8 inches of concrete to the extent that a whole section of it collapses.

Because I am not a jerk, I will refrain from pointing out how illogical that statement is given your previous unedited post.