Non shiva-arms trollBow, I felt bad about the Uber Troll Bow topic, so here's a better one& Options

[Glyph]

Martial arts can only get you up to +3 DV (an errata). You can't have betaware at character creation. The interpretation of elemental strike is a liberal one, but one that a lot of the people here espouse. Most GMs would question how the bone spikes would work in conjunction with weapon foci gloves or military armor, though. Combining two maneuvers is not specifically disallowed, but re-read the description of set-up. How exactly is this troll maneuvering his opponent here?

[Seerow]

Martial arts can only get you up to +3 DV (an errata). You can't have betaware at character creation. The interpretation of elemental strike is a liberal one, but one that a lot of the people here espouse. Most GMs would question how the bone spikes would work in conjunction with weapon foci gloves or military armor, though. Combining two maneuvers is not specifically disallowed, but re-read the description of set-up. How exactly is this troll maneuvering his opponent here?

-The bone spikes can be explicitly be used with armor, as long as you get it custom made. I assumed that custom made was assumed of any gear at char gen, like racial mods, but the char has the bp to spare to afford it.
-The weapon focus I considered sketchy from the start, and only included it when I saw someone else mention weapon focus gloves. It's really only +2 dice.
-I was honestly more curious about the kick working with the weapon focus. But again, that's just +1 die.
-Combining two maneuvers is actually encouraged. If you read set-up it specifies it's usually combined with finishing move. As to how the troll maneuvers his opponent there, he's got 17 strength, I'm sure he can think of something. In my flavor writeup, rather than maneuvering it, it was more of a lining up his strike



So let's see, take out weapon focus, 1 DV from martial arts, 1 die from reach, and 2 dice from weapon foci, this gives us 21 base DV and 23 dice.

Really, since I rounded down for my original damage calculation, if there's a 5 point quality (since I'd drop Martial Arts from 4 to 3) that gives me just 1 extra die, I can still have the on average 8 hits, and in the end only lose 1 DV and the ability to explode spirits as effectively as tanks.

If you don't count adept towards your quality limit you can grab aptitude for the extra die.


edit: actually, can you take adept power increase up to +4 if you have specialized skill? If so that gets the extra die pretty easily, just give up the flexibility of a second elemental strike.

[Glyph]

Yeah, setup works in conjunction with finishing move, but they are separate actions. I am talking about using full offense and kick at the same time as the other two maneuvers. But like I said, it isn't explicitly disallowed.

Yeah, you're right. I pondered how a glove weapon focus would combine with the bone spikes, and didn't even think about how it would combine with a kick. Easy enough to change it to a boot focus instead, though.

And sorry, but even with a 17 Strength, this troll won't be maneuvering a tank around. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Even with aptitude, you can still only have 3 points of improved ability, and magical qualities do count towards the cap (also, I missed it before, but a reflex recorder also counts towards the modified skill limit - you can only have two points in improved ability).

But you could raise your SURGE to level two and spend the extra positive quality points to get biocompatibility for either cyberware or bioware. And since losing a point of improved ability would leave you with a full point of Magic to spend, you could get smashing blow, although since it works on static barriers, it would have to be a parked tank. Nothing says it can't be combined with elemental strike, though.

[longbowrocks]

Martial arts can only get you up to +3 DV (an errata). You can't have betaware at character creation. The interpretation of elemental strike is a liberal one, but one that a lot of the people here espouse. Most GMs would question how the bone spikes would work in conjunction with weapon foci gloves or military armor, though. Combining two maneuvers is not specifically disallowed, but re-read the description of set-up. How exactly is this troll maneuvering his opponent here?

Awww. I think I know the answer, but if you were my GM, would you let me have 30 dice when using a sniper rifle?

[Seerow]

-On the combining maneuvers:

The use of a maneuver must be declared prior to any dice rolls. Unless otherwise noted, maneuvers may be used with other combat options in the same Action Phase. Gamemasters are encouraged to modify these maneuvers as they see it or to create their own

I read that as saying you can combine as many maneuvers as you want in one action phase unless the maneuver explicitly disallows it. In some cases this would be rather useless (say combining evasion with all out attack. Sure you get +2 to all defenses, but you unfortunately don't get any defenses), but for most cases it works fine. An all out attack kick is pretty easy to envision, as is one as a finishing blow.

-As to book focii, yeah we could do that, and that adds 2 dice back in, getting us back to just 1 DV shy of where it was before, still easily in tank killing range. Can afford to lose up to 10, this costs 2. Honestly even giving it fire resistance 10, which is as high as it goes unless there's something in WAR!, will reduce by 6 more, still leaving 2 damage to spare. This of course hinges on the foci and the spikes working together, could say there's some spikes on your feet as well (it does say they're all over), the boots are custom made with holes where the spikes are, you still kick with the boots, but the spikes are available to add some extra damage.

-I still think you're being really nitpicky with the flavor text on set-up here. If the tank is rushing along at full speed I could see the point of arguing it wouldn't work, but we're looking at a tank going at sedate speeds, or not moving at all, which is easy to imagine having a quick set-up, even if you can't physically move it. (That said I am curious what the physical lifting/moving capacity IS for a troll with 17 strength, hydraulics in the suit...). If you'd prefer, this could be done as a normal attack with finishing move, then it's just two kicks instead of one. I thought it was way more impressive to get it in a single kick.


-Bio/Cybercompatability wouldn't really do a lot of good here. The cost is already at only 1 essence, those traits only take off 10% of the cost, not the full thing. To get another point of magic, I'd have to be magic free. Also to clarify I only had 3 points of improved ability, I was wondering if upgrading to 4 was an option to get that extra die back.

-That reminds me, I didn't address the earlier comment of no betaware at char gen. I wasn't aware of that, and thought it was based on availability and cost. That betaware costs a pretty big chunk of change. The cyber compatibility would make up the difference here, and could go that route if needed. But it wouldn't gain any extra magic points to play with like you were implying.


edit: Wait I just saw what you meant with the reflex recorder. So take the improved combat ability down to 3, and instead of an extra elemental attack, pick up the walk through walls power.

So I dropped another die there, but picked 2 more back up via the weapon focus coming back in, so I'm at 24 dice/8 successes, right where I want to be.


the die pool is currently:
7 (agility) + 6 (skill) + 2 (martial arts spec) + 1 (reflex recorder) + 2 (increase combat skill) + 2 (weapon focus) + 2 (reach) +2 (all out attack) = 24


This gives us 8 successes on the initial attack, giving us 32 dice, sacrificing 4 to bring DV up to 26 leaves us with 28 dice, or 9 successes, giving us a DV of 35. Tank mans 16 damage bringing it down to 19. Fire damage goes from 35 down to 15. Total damage: 34, tank dies.




Alternative: Attack->Finisher, instead of using setup.

Same deal, but with only 24 dice, goes down to 20 with called shot. 20 dice gets us 6 successes, giving a DV of 32. This gets manned by the armor, and the tank takes 16 damage, then takes 12 fire damage. Holy crap the tank goes down even without the second hit.

If the tank is fire resistant, then the second hit should be enough to kill it with some to spare.

[Glyph]

Betaware is what I said is disallowed at char-gen, not bioware. Biocompatibility would let you keep your 'ware within that 1 Essence threshold.

[Seerow]

Betaware is what I said is disallowed at char-gen, not bioware. Biocompatibility would let you keep your 'ware within that 1 Essence threshold.

Did I say bioware in my post? Meh. Either way I had thought beta or even delta -was- available, as long as you had the money for it. That stuff gets pricey fast.

But in my edit I went with your advice, dropped a point of martial arts, picked up surge 2 and biocompatability (cyber), which with alpha lacing got me -exactly- 5 essence. Took off the extra rank of improved combat skill and replaced it with Smashing Blow, so he can literally hit walls for 60 damage.

Also redid all the math with the new by the book numbers.

[Seerow]

Okay stepping this up to a new level of silly.

We're no longer a troll. We are now a Sasobonsam Cyclops. Base str 15, everything else the same. The stat boosts are actually so high bp almost breaks even on this upgrade.

The upside: 4 more points of strength for even more siliness
The downside: Apparently being infected caps magic at 5 instead of 6. So we re-lose the barrier
Upside: If we progress the character a little bit further, his potential is even sillier. While we only have 18(21) str, his cap is actually 21(24) even without any genetic optimization siliness.

Actually... do multiple drugs stack? If so we can shoot up with some more drugs than just kamikaze to take advantage of this higher cap. [edit: Or I guess I could just switch to K10 even if they don't stack, getting us up to the cap 21 (24) str]


Anyway, str is up to 24 from 17, raising base DV by 3 more. Everything else stays the same. So with no set-up, but doing an all-out kick, we're looking at a DV of 35, or damage actually done of 19+15 fire damage, or 34 damage, against a tank with 26 boxes of health.



note: This is a case of me just pulling stuff off the character builder spreadsheet. The infected/cyclops thing may have something that prevents it from working with surge that I'm unaware of, at this point I'm just throwing stuff out to make this unarmed damage even sillier.

[Draco18s]

Bobson would like to remind everyone that Bear Who Walks Through Walls also had very good armor values and could have pushed his damage a few points if he'd exchanged some survivability.

14 dice (before armor). 6/4 lined coat. Regeneration.

He also had 3 IPs. So ~90 cm of rubble every 3 seconds.

[Seerow]

Bobson would like to remind everyone that Bear Who Walks Through Walls also had very good armor values and could have pushed his damage a few points if he'd exchanged some survivability.

14 dice (before armor). 6/4 lined coat. Regeneration.

He also had 3 IPs. So ~90 cm of rubble every 3 seconds.

Just shy of 1 mile per hour, not too bad. Not quite walking speed, but an impressive speed to be burrowing through reinforced material regardless.

[Draco18s]

Bobson would like to remind everyone that Bear Who Walks Through Walls also had very good armor values and could have pushed his damage a few points if he'd exchanged some survivability.

Due to 44 / 13 being slightly more than 3, Bear actually gets a full 1x1x1 m cube in 3 seconds (101 cm on average). So 0.75 mph.

So yes, not walking speed, but a fair clip.

[Stahlseele]

*nods*
the highly demanded street level characters . .
with these characters, everything else becomes level with the street pretty fast ^^

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I don't have the book on me right now, but IIRC, it takes a simple action to "throw a weapon". Is throwing all of them for one action a house rule?

What are you talking about? Throw a Shuriken (Simple Action) and Deal Damage starting at 10p.
Throw all of what? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

You can make 2 Simple actions a turn (throw 2 Shuriken, grenades, knives, whatever). More if you split dice pools to throw multiple weapons in a simple action.

Please clarify your question, as I am not sure where you are going with it...

[Yerameyahu]

I think he's asking, where does it say you *can* "split dice pools to throw multiple weapons in a simple action"?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

edit: Wait I just saw what you meant with the reflex recorder. So take the improved combat ability down to 3, and instead of an extra elemental attack, pick up the walk through walls power.

What is this elusive "Walk Through Walls" power you keep alluding to. No such power.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I think he's asking, where does it say you *can* "split dice pools to throw multiple weapons in a simple action"?

True, but if you can KICK two tgarget with a Split pool, and you can SHOOT two target with a split pool, why would you NOT be able to THROW two objects with a Split Pool? Simple Logic there. I will admit that it is a table call, however.

[Yerameyahu]

It sure is. Sneaky of you to imply that it's not. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Haha.

[Seerow]

What is this elusive "Walk Through Walls" power you keep alluding to. No such power.

It's not really walk through walls, but Smashing Blow doubles base DV against barriers and structures, which is what we're referring to.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It's not really walk through walls, but Smashing Blow doubles base DV against barriers and structures, which is what we're referring to.

Gotcha...

[longbowrocks]

why would you NOT be able to THROW two objects with a Split Pool?

Because it is explicitly stated that you can split your pool to shoot two targets with pistol sized... Oh, thanks for saying that. I had two rules mixed up in my head. I can see throwing two weapons with one action now. The issue is though, the with 12 AGI the game will allow you to ready up to 6 shuriken. How can you throw all those with a simple action?
Also, if someone says "six arms", then let's just say the character has 14 AGI (7 ready shuriken)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Because it is explicitly stated that you can split your pool to shoot two targets with pistol sized... Oh, thanks for saying that. I had two rules mixed up in my head. I can see throwing two weapons with one action now. The issue is though, the with 12 AGI the game will allow you to ready up to 6 shuriken. How can you throw all those with a simple action?
Also, if someone says "six arms", then let's just say the character has 14 AGI (7 ready shuriken)

It is a step that you will not have to perform later (Prepare Weapons)... So what if you can't divest yourself of all of them immediately.

Ready 6 Shuriken/Knives. Throw 2/3 with First Simple Action, Throw 2/3 with 2nd Simple Action. At that point, you have thrown withe 4 or 6 Thrown Weapons in One Pass.

Where is the Problem?

[longbowrocks]

It is a step that you will not have to perform later (Prepare Weapons)... So what if you can't divest yourself of all of them immediately.

Ready 6 Shuriken/Knives. Throw 2/3 with First Simple Action, Throw 2/3 with 2nd Simple Action. At that point, you have thrown withe 4 or 6 Thrown Weapons in One Pass.

Where is the Problem?

Because you might as well just shoot a gun then.

First pass:
Ready 6 Shuriken/Knives with first Simple Action. Throw 2/3 with 2nd Simple Action. At that point, you have thrown withe 2 or 3 Thrown Weapons in One Pass.
Second pass:
Throw 2/3 with First Simple Action, Throw 2/3 with 2nd Simple Action. At that point, you have thrown withe 6 or 9 Thrown Weapons in Two Passes.

For a gun:
Don't ready. No need to ready. Shoot twice with first simple action, shoot twice with second. At that point, it's 4 shots in one pass.
Second pass:
Shoot twice with first simple action, shoot twice with second. At that point, it's 8 shots in two passes.

Add AP or DV or incendiary or toxins or whatever floats your boat and sinks the other guy's.
(pic of Bill O'Reilly)
You can't explain that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Imaginary Bill O'Reilly demotivator aside, I prefer to use one weapon and not split my dice.

On the other hand, if you can throw once per hand per simple action, I guess that isn't as bad as it sounded. It just doesn't scream "Death from above" to me.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Because you might as well just shoot a gun then.

First pass:
Ready 6 Shuriken/Knives with first Simple Action. Throw 2/3 with 2nd Simple Action. At that point, you have thrown withe 2 or 3 Thrown Weapons in One Pass.
Second pass:
Throw 2/3 with First Simple Action, Throw 2/3 with 2nd Simple Action. At that point, you have thrown withe 6 or 9 Thrown Weapons in Two Passes.

For a gun:
Don't ready. No need to ready. Shoot twice with first simple action, shoot twice with second. At that point, it's 4 shots in one pass.
Second pass:
Shoot twice with first simple action, shoot twice with second. At that point, it's 8 shots in two passes.

Add AP or DV or incendiary or toxins or whatever floats your boat and sinks the other guy's.
(pic of Bill O'Reilly)
You can't explain that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Imaginary Bill O'Reilly demotivator aside, I prefer to use one weapon and not split my dice.

On the other hand, if you can throw once per hand per simple action, I guess that isn't as bad as it sounded. It just doesn't scream "Death from above" to me.

Sure, except that my Ninja Throwing Adept does more damage with Shuriken than a gun has any hope of putting out, unless it is an Assault Cannon or Barrett (or a Fully Automatic Weapon with Full Long Bursts).

Did you miss that I was also throwing 4-6 Shuriken per Pass if I so desired? Generally do not have to do that more than once per ready action for my targets to be down.

And they are totally silent...

And I can use ANY thing I can pick up as a Weapon for throwing purposes (yes, even the paper clip), even in situations that you will never have access to a gun...

It is a niche build to be sure, but it is definitely viable.

And for a single weapon with no splits, The NJTA will generally do more damage than the Gun Bunny...2 Shots = 2 Simple Actions = 2 Throws.

[Stahlseele]

And they are totally silent...

Untill they hit.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Untill they hit.

Yep, Until they Hit... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)