(Lots of) drugs and attribute maximums Options

[TheMadderHatter]

So I have a player who's proposed playing a troll who's got chem glands for a LOT of interesting chemicals, claiming that the continuous administration method will stave off the crash Stun damage of his chosen cocktail of K-10, Kamikaze, Nitro, and Ripper. Said troll is also to have various augmentations to bring him up to strength 15 even without the drugs, so I have to ask: do drugs improve attributes beyond their augmented maximum?

[otakusensei]

So I have a player who's proposed playing a troll who's got chem glands for a LOT of interesting chemicals, claiming that the continuous administration method will stave off the crash Stun damage of his chosen cocktail of K-10, Kamikaze, Nitro, and Ripper. Said troll is also to have various augmentations to bring him up to strength 15 even without the drugs, so I have to ask: do drugs improve attributes beyond their augmented maximum?

Juicers are from that other game...

But seriously I didn't think you could get a K-10 gland. And if it turns out you can, don't tell my players.

[Mäx]

So I have a player who's proposed playing a troll who's got chem glands for a LOT of interesting chemicals, claiming that the continuous administration method will stave off the crash Stun damage of his chosen cocktail of K-10, Kamikaze, Nitro, and Ripper. Said troll is also to have various augmentations to bring him up to strength 15 even without the drugs, so I have to ask: do drugs improve attributes beyond their augmented maximum?

By RAW i would say no, as the augmented maximums is a general rule and there's no exception to it mentioned concerning drugs.
But thats not really a problem as none of the chem glands are RAW legal, as i highly doupt any of the drugs are naturally occurring substances, what with being designer combat drugs and all.

[Yerameyahu]

Ditto: chem gland for natural substances only (almost entirely attack toxins), and it's munchkin silliness to claim that you can avoid the crash. Punch your player in the face.

Seriously. If 'continuous dosing' were possible (for the purpose of never crashing), you could just as easily do it with an autoinjector.

[InfinityzeN]

Nothing can bring you past your augmented maximums, even spirit possession (which increases you normal stat maximums). Also that is not how chem glands work, the never suffer the drawbacks or substances other than natural ones. Continuous release means he will always suffer both the additions and the drawbacks.


You want to really mess with his head? For the K-10, let him have it (even though it is against the rules) then just make him roll edge *EVERY* *SINGLE* *ROUND* until he fails and goes permanently berserk. Then smack the player for coming up with such a munchkin idea.

[yesferatu]

I believe the augmented maximums determine how much their metatype frame can hold.
You couldn't put a pair of elephant legs on a human.

If that's the way he wants to play it...make the damn thing permanent.
Every so often, he'll just beat a team member (or random stranger) to death on the street.
Someone cuts in front of him in line...beat them to death on the street.
Lone Star officer tells you to wait for the light...beat him to death on the street.
Your mother asks why you don't call...beat her to death on the street.
That should create the proper disincentive.

There's a reason people don't like drug addicts.

[Raiki]

If that's the way he wants to play it...make the damn thing permanent.
Every so often, he'll just beat a team member (or random stranger) to death on the street.
Someone cuts in front of him in line...beat them to death on the street.
Lone Star officer tells you to wait for the light...beat him to death on the street.
Your mother asks why you don't call...beat her to death on the street.
That should create the proper disincentive.

There's a reason people don't like drug addicts.

You sir, are a magnificent person. I just shot mellow yellow out of my nose from that.




~R~

[Yerameyahu]

I disagree with yesferatu. Someone on K-10 would also beat people to death *off* the street.

[tagz]

I imagine parts of them would wind up on the street, sidewalk, the store window, hood of a car, on top of the traffic signal... and lots in between druggie's fingernails.

[otakusensei]

I disagree with yesferatu. Someone on K-10 would also beat people to death *off* the street.

I like the image of the juiced up troll repeatedly dragging someone outside specifically to beat them to death in the street.

[Yerameyahu]

On a side note, you can get a K-10 cybergland. … It's just an autoinjector, though.

[Headshot_Joe]

On a side note, you can get a K-10 cybergland. … It's just an autoinjector, though.

So you'd end up with a Trollier version of Bane?

[Glyph]

The initial premise is moronic. Claiming that continual admission of a mix of tailored combat drugs will stave off the crash stun damage is like saying that continually drinking shots of vodka will stave off a hangover.

I will go against my usual policy of not recommending SR4A, and say, buy it. Because it is thicker than the normal SR4 book. Hit the player in question with it.

[Mäx]

The initial premise is moronic. Claiming that continual admission of a mix of tailored combat drugs will stave off the crash stun damage is like saying that continually drinking shots of vodka will stave off a hangover.

You do know that the drinking more to stave of hangover does work, right?

[Summerstorm]

You do know that the drinking more to stave of hangover does work, right?

Sure... at the cost of drinking yourself to DEATH.

So yeah... he will die after a few minutes of continuous injection. and most likely insane and convulsing in pain, ripping himself apart.

Have fun.

[KamikazePilot]

You do know that the drinking more to stave of hangover does work, right?

to a limit. at the end you still get the hangover and really bad feeling when they pump your stomach at the hostpital though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Sure... at the cost of drinking yourself to DEATH.

So yeah... he will die after a few minutes of continuous injection. and most likely insane and convulsing in pain, ripping himself apart.

Have fun.

You can't make an omelet without making someone permanently deaf, as my granpa used to say... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[CeeJay]

But thats not really a problem as none of the chem glands are RAW legal, as i highly doupt any of the drugs are naturally occurring substances, what with being designer combat drugs and all.

Apart from the fact, that the original idea of continuous drug use to stave of stun damage won't work, I allways thought that the restriction to "naturally occuring substances" is a rather lame way to keep the gland's power under control.

I mean, what is a "naturally occuring substance" anyway? How can you be sure, that there isn't some kind of obscure deep sea snail that produces a cocktail of chemicals with an effect like K-10? Only, nobody ever discovered the snail, so biochemists had to "reinvent" K-10. Does that make K-10 a "naturally occuring substance"?
Or it's actually the other way round. We know next to nothing about how K-10 or other designer drugs are produced. Maybe the key compounds are obtained through fermentation with bio-engineered micro-organisms? This would make K-10 a "naturally occuring substance", doesn't it?

In the end, a chemical gland is just a cluster of cells able to produce and secrete a predetermined chemical. Chances are, these cells are bioengineered anyway, so why can't they produce any given drug or chemical? I mean, you are paying a lot of nuyen for the gland anyway... a gland costs 30.000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) plus 100 * drug cost, that are 120.000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for a K-10 gland!

Sorry for the rant... feeling better now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

-CJ

[Yerameyahu]

The book gives examples. The purpose of chem glands is basically so you can spit venom. Yes, it is very limited; no, there's no good reason to assume that they can synthesize complex designer drugs.

[Dr.Rockso]

I disagree with yesferatu. Someone on K-10 would also beat people to death *off* the street.

I disagree with Yerameyahu. Someone on k-10 would beat people to death *WITH* the street. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

[Draco18s]

I disagree with Yerameyahu. Someone on k-10 would beat the street to death *WITH* people. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

FTFY. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Sengir]

Nothing can bring you past your augmented maximums, even spirit possession (which increases you normal stat maximums).

Since I read that section recently, redlining cyberlimbs explicitly can. Considering drugs as redlining the body sounds like a fair assumption...and because it's bones and tendrons which are pushed over their safety barriers, make the resulting damage physical. Sounds like just the kind of batshit insanity I associate with combat drugs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

PS: The player also needs to spend a simple action to shout "blood for the blood god" and produce various inarticulate manly sounds (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[TheMadderHatter]

Not that I'm for encouraging this sort of thing, but I'm with CeeJay on that anything as optimized as a designer drug is probably messing with the (in this case meta)human interactome, which usually means it's either a polypeptide or small molecule made enzymatically, so it's conceivable that a transgenic source for it could be found--and, given the expense of synthesizing either of those types of substances normally, probably already exists.

That said, most of the people with the capacity to intelligently put together a screening library for something like this are going to be squirreled away in the megacorps, so it'd be difficult to get the necessary genome, and even with Shadowrun levels of supercomputing I can't imagine the Extended Test covering de novo protein design and binding optimization programs designed to make a completely new product stably in vivo, so it's a non-issue.

There's also common sense saying to simply disallow it.

On a related note, the player's given up his aspirations of drug-fueled rises to super-metahuman levels of combat ability, although he's been asking after putting the chemicals in gas grenades and throwing them into large crowds when a distraction is called for.

[Draco18s]

PS: The player also needs to spend a simple action to shout "blood for the blood god" and produce various inarticulate manly sounds (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Or
"FOR ARMOK!"
"FOR THE ONE TOAD"

[Fauxknight]

He'd be a good candidate for borrowed time? I'd imagine he'd have multiple organ failures well before 3d6 months had passed though.