Killing Great Dragons, The end is coming Options

[Fortinbras]

I don't think any U.S. president has ever personally razed a city with his fiery breath and deadly magic. That nets you a couple grudges.

Andrew Jackson committed genocide and ignored a Supreme Court order not to do so.
But his wife had just died, so...

EDIT: And Grant razed Vicksburg. Ah, Ulysses S. Grant. The Zap Brannigan of the Civil War.
And some nobody congressman from Missouri obliterated two whole Japanese cities.
And James K. Polk shelled Mexico City into oblivion.

[PoliteMan]

If his GM agrees. If it's something a player wants to do and the GM doesn't, it won't happen.

Well, the players and GM need to agree on what kind of game they want to play. I kinda assumed they'd already done that.

[longbowrocks]

The trap you know nothing about. Right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Depends on how detailed the fortelling is. If it's detailed enough, the GD can lay a wonderful trap, which will consequently have tighter parameters for success. The more completely I am betrayed, the better my chances.
It's the difference between knowing they'll try to stop me because I will shoot someone at some point, and deciding to wear insulated clothing because they expect me to use a gun that fires icicles, and thus I expect them to use some sort of heat based countermeasure.

[longbowrocks]

Andrew Jackson committed genocide and ignored a Supreme Court order not to do so.
But his wife had just died, so...

EDIT: And Grant razed Vicksburg. Ah, Ulysses S. Grant. The Zap Brannigan of the Civil War.
And some nobody congressman from Missouri obliterated two whole Japanese cities.

I actually meant personally. Like personally. As in gutting every person that got gutted. Dragons have a way of not having to command troops.

[hermit]

Well, there's that, but how many of Einstein's thoughts were ever dedicated to "How can I survive today without any these people killing me?"

Presumably a lot before he emigrated to the states. It's why he emigrated, after all.

In addition to minds that are preoccupied (with managing a corporation or what have you) there's also the fact that there are too many possible threats to do more than a background check of your immediate vicinity when you're famous, or especially controversial.

Shadowrun dragons are much better at multitasking than metahumans. Seriously. Lofwyr's idea of entertainment is watching every cable channel at once. I am not making this up.

I don't think any U.S. president has ever personally razed a city with his fiery breath and deadly magic. That nets you a couple grudges.

No, US presidents have to order nukes dropped instead. Which has happened. Or have their soldiers massacre civilians and carpet half a country with chemical weapons, which also has happened. And that's not even getting into what badly chosen words and invasions can do for the US' reputation ...

And Grant razed Vicksburg. Ah, Ulysses S. Grant. The Zap Brannigan of the Civil War.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Andrew Jackson

Also he really hated the Natives.

I actually meant personally. Like personally. As in gutting every person that got gutted. Dragons have a way of not having to command troops.

Bullshit. All dragons have an army of henchmen (Corp troopers, national troops, hippie-esque shamans, bizarre spirits) at their disposal. Even Sirrug has. Besides, since when is gutting people personally required to make someone loathed?

Depends on how detailed the fortelling is. If it's detailed enough, the GD can lay a wonderful trap, which will consequently have tighter parameters for success. The more completely I am betrayed, the better my chances.

Why lay a complex trap for you? This is not the 1960s Batman series. Hed just put out a bounty on you and see the Shadows eat you alive.

[Fortinbras]

No, US presidents have to order nukes dropped instead. Which has happened. Or have their soldiers massacre civilians and carpet half a country with chemical weapons, which also has happened. And that's not even getting into what badly chosen words and invasions can do for the US' reputation ...

Yeah, I'm still saying genocide of our native peoples trumps all that.

And Zachary Tyler and U.S. Grant did personally raze cities to the ground.

[Fortinbras]

I actually meant personally. Like personally. As in gutting every person that got gutted. Dragons have a way of not having to command troops.

And I mean like personally. Andrew Jackson personally set fire to entire villages of Seminoles in his Indian campaigns. He set the darn fires!
The man was shot approximately 18 times. In one duel, he let the other guy go first, got shot, then took his shot, killed the guy and walked off the bullet wound. He once coughed up a bullet at a state dinner he received in a duel over the honor of a New Orleans prostitute.

There is no evidence I can find that Andrew Jackson was not an Immortal Elf.

[PoliteMan]

Ain't this getting dangerously close to political talk? Suffice to say, numerous leaders have done very bad things but none of them have personally pulled a Godzilla impersonation.

[Fortinbras]

Ain't this getting dangerously close to political talk? Suffice to say, numerous leaders have done very bad things but none of them have personally pulled a Godzilla impersonation.

I'll cede that.
I just reckoned that politics of over 150 years ago was fair game.
And I do maintain that Andrew Jackson was/is an Immortal Elf. His accomplishments were matched only by his hubris and crimes against humanity. That reeks of Immortal Elf to me.

[hermit]

Yeah, I'm still saying genocide of our native peoples trumps all that.

It was a dick move, but back then, genocide was a lot less of a bad word than it is today.

And I mean like personally. Andrew Jackson personally set fire to entire villages of Seminoles in his Indian campaigns. He set the darn fires!
The man was shot approximately 18 times. In one duel, he let the other guy go first, got shot, then took his shot, killed the guy and walked off the bullet wound. He once coughed up a bullet at a state dinner he received in a duel over the honor of a New Orleans prostitute.

There is no evidence I can find that Andrew Jackson was not an Immortal Elf.

Yeah, he really liked the dueling. Wasn't aware he set villages on fire himself, too, though. Was it Jackson who ran a campaign claiming the other guy wants to hang everyone?

Ain't this getting dangerously close to political talk? Suffice to say, numerous leaders have done very bad things but none of them have personally pulled a Godzilla impersonation.

Alright, yes. However, whether someone mass-murders personally or by proxy doesn't seem all that relevant. Plus, Aden didn't raze Teheran alone, he had an army of spirits and Awakened to help him.

And I do maintain that Andrew Jackson was/is an Immortal Elf. His accomplishments were matched only by his hubris and crimes against humanity. That reeks of Immortal Elf to me.

So Napoleon was one, too? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Fortinbras]

It was a dick move, but back then, genocide was a lot less of a bad word than it is today.

Not according to the Choctaw it wasn't.

Yeah, he really liked the dueling. Wasn't aware he set villages on fire himself, too, though. Was it Jackson who ran a campaign claiming the other guy wants to hang everyone?

I don't think that was him. Most of the vitriol in the Jackson/Adams campaign was directed at Jackson and his wife. Adams was already grossly unpopular and had made some serious missteps as president. Jackson focused mostly on disparaging him as a coward.
Adams focused mostly on the reputation of Jackson's wife. It was so bad it is said to have killed her right before Jackson took office. To say he was distraught is an understatement.

So Napoleon was one, too? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

No, too short. Plus Napoleon avoided death though luck. Jackson avoided death through sheer force of will.

[Tycho]

Detect Enemies (extended) at Force 20+ with 20+ Hits counters most of the traps there are and 10+ Bound Spirts with Force 20+ are a good backup if you ever are in trouble...

it is like the 4-5km radar for enemies that try to kill you and with this much hits the great dragon knows what you wear, do, carry, general physiology and so on...

cya
Tycho

[PoliteMan]

Only works on living targets. Yeah, if you were gonna walk up with a gun that'd be be helpful but, um, I don't think anybody recommends that.

[longbowrocks]

Only works on living targets. Yeah, if you were gonna walk up with a gun that'd be be helpful but, um, I don't think anybody recommends that.

Ninja'd

[Wakshaani]

If you want to kill a Great Dragon, the first thing you have to do is assume that you won't live. Trying to kill one *and* get away with it is too difficult. Just go ahead and accept you're a martyr to the greater good.

(Of course, there's also Plan B, wher eyou start handing out magic swords to farmboys and hope that oens gets lucky.)

[Christian Lafay]

If you want to kill a Great Dragon, the first thing you have to do is assume that you won't live. Trying to kill one *and* get away with it is too difficult. Just go ahead and accept you're a martyr to the greater good.

(Of course, there's also Plan B, wher eyou start handing out magic swords to farmboys and hope that oens gets lucky.)

I always assumed that was a given.

[Ascalaphus]

Just wait until the mana downcycle, when the dragons get sleepy.

[Rubic]

My own plan involved a swarm of drones firing deepweed-DMSO splat rounds to start with. Yes, the dragon has a high body, and therefore a high soak against toxins. With hundreds of shots hitting him in a round, it's only a matter of time before he fails enough rolls to be out of edge AND be forced to astrally perceive, making it more difficult to defend against further drone attack.

[Christian Lafay]

My own plan involved a swarm of drones firing deepweed-DMSO splat rounds to start with. Yes, the dragon has a high body, and therefore a high soak against toxins. With hundreds of shots hitting him in a round, it's only a matter of time before he fails enough rolls to be out of edge AND be forced to astrally perceive, making it more difficult to defend against further drone attack.

Do that with some K10. Make the dragon go nuts and have every company feel like donating a Thor Shot against it's butt, haha.

[JanessaVR]

All this discussion is, to me, just highlighting how schizophrenic the depiction of Great Dragons is in Shadowrun. Going strictly by the core rules, they are distinctly underwhelming. Powerful, yes. Mind-blowingly awesome, not so much. Going by the novels and some sourcebooks, they’re all but invincible forces of nature.

Take, for example, War! (which everyone seems to hate) p. 31, where the GD Sirrurg practically wipes out a city (or a good chunk of it) *with one spell*, somehow using his Twist Fate abilities to do this. A re-reading of the core rules (either original or SR4A) does not reveal the ability of Twist Fate to supercharge Combat spells into mega-WMD’s as far as I can see, but nonetheless this particular GD has no trouble pulling that off; Ghostwalker also handily took over Denver without any real difficulties and Aden was apparently badass enough to trash Tehran all by himself. Essentially, this seems to boil down to “SR authors make GDs as powerful as they feel like at any given time with no regard to any other published materials.”

If that’s the case, then the SR world of 2070-ish really makes no sense as presented. If GDs have those abilities, then they’re not really awesomely powerful magical creatures, they’re Physical Gods. I mean, really, at that level of power, what’s the practical difference between them and Cthulhu? And if that’s the case, why the heck do they bother becoming “grand masters of manipulation” of all the lowly mortals inhabiting the Earth? If they have this much power at their casual disposal, the entire world should been under outright dragon rule within a year or so of the GDs awakening – say by the end of 2012 at the latest. Why should Lofwyr bother with all his various machinations and corporate raiding when he can just (apparently) march into any area and say “I’m in charge now. Oh, you guys disagree? [BOOM, a city is gone.] Anyone else disagree?” Hence, I would argue they need to be scaled (heh) down a bit or they necessarily dominate every single aspect of the entire world, to the exclusion of anything else.

[Rubic]

All this discussion is, to me, just highlighting how schizophrenic the depiction of Great Dragons is in Shadowrun. Going strictly by the core rules, they are distinctly underwhelming. Powerful, yes. Mind-blowingly awesome, not so much. Going by the novels and some sourcebooks, they’re all but invincible forces of nature.

Take, for example, War! (which everyone seems to hate) p. 31, where the GD Sirrurg practically wipes out a city (or a good chunk of it) *with one spell*, somehow using his Twist Fate abilities to do this. A re-reading of the core rules (either original or SR4A) does not reveal the ability of Twist Fate to supercharge Combat spells into mega-WMD’s as far as I can see, but nonetheless this particular GD has no trouble pulling that off; Ghostwalker also handily took over Denver without any real difficulties and Aden was apparently badass enough to trash Tehran all by himself. Essentially, this seems to boil down to “SR authors make GDs as powerful as they feel like at any given time with no regard to any other published materials.”

If that’s the case, then the SR world of 2070-ish really makes no sense as presented. If GDs have those abilities, then they’re not really awesomely powerful magical creatures, they’re Physical Gods. I mean, really, at that level of power, what’s the practical difference between them and Cthulhu? And if that’s the case, why the heck do they bother becoming “grand masters of manipulation” of all the lowly mortals inhabiting the Earth? If they have this much power at their casual disposal, the entire world should been under outright dragon rule within a year or so of the GDs awakening – say by the end of 2012 at the latest. Why should Lofwyr bother with all his various machinations and corporate raiding when he can just (apparently) march into any area and say “I’m in charge now. Oh, you guys disagree? [BOOM, a city is gone.] Anyone else disagree?” Hence, I would argue they need to be scaled (heh) down a bit or they necessarily dominate every single aspect of the entire world, to the exclusion of anything else.

It's easier to break something than to build it or protect it. Also, the stats in the book are for stock great dragons, not NAMED great dragons. They also, in so many words, say, "Hey, go wild with this!" As for twist fate...

Let's say a dragon tosses a dragon-sized power ball on a city. We're looking at about 24 Force overcast max for a STOCK great dragon. Nowhere in the critter listing does it give a MAXIMUM rating for essence or stats for these guys, only what's usual. Let's say that, despite being alive for several millenia and having your very being tied intimately to the ebb and flow of magic does NOT grant the eldest great dragons any higher than 12 Essence, meaning about 24 magic hard cap including the 12 initiation levels, so 48 max overcast on the force rating of the powerball. That 48 force will affect the area, probably enough to decimate a city. Add in the artifacts the dragon has found/made to add to their magic pool, drain soak pool, anchored spell effects on anchoring foci... and this is still in the process of adding up dice. It's already ludicrous and we can justify a large metropolitan area being leveled by the spell at this point for a capped out dragon who's had time to build up more wealth and power than China, the U. S., and the U.K. on a bender combined!

Now, we have an unreasonably high potential from a Great Dragon and all their toys, you may ask "How does 'Twist Fate™' factor in?" Good question! The answer is that, with that really high spell, somebody may spend edge to survive, or possibly to counter them (another Great Dragon using Twist Fate, for instance, who likes the status quo). Well, by spending a single edge in a single turn, that great dragon can negate any one other person's spending of edge, basically telling them "I like the way things are right now." Alternately, they can Twist Fate to make the structure of the city re-roll it's soak successes and keep the result, which will no doubt be less than before.

[HunterHerne]

All this discussion is, to me, just highlighting how schizophrenic the depiction of Great Dragons is in Shadowrun. Going strictly by the core rules, they are distinctly underwhelming. Powerful, yes. Mind-blowingly awesome, not so much. Going by the novels and some sourcebooks, they’re all but invincible forces of nature.

As stated, in the rules, it says that GD`s have access to things the players will never have, up to the GM`s discretion. This can be an over powering number of things I can`t even think of all of them.

Take, for example, War! (which everyone seems to hate) p. 31, where the GD Sirrurg practically wipes out a city (or a good chunk of it) *with one spell*, somehow using his Twist Fate abilities to do this. A re-reading of the core rules (either original or SR4A) does not reveal the ability of Twist Fate to supercharge Combat spells into mega-WMD’s as far as I can see, but nonetheless this particular GD has no trouble pulling that off; Ghostwalker also handily took over Denver without any real difficulties and Aden was apparently badass enough to trash Tehran all by himself. Essentially, this seems to boil down to “SR authors make GDs as powerful as they feel like at any given time with no regard to any other published materials.”

"I spend edge to modify this test." Also, as has been stated, maybe the spell required being "powered up" to have any effect, using the released life energy of the recently deceased (To me, that many dead would create a temporary BG of at least 2 or 3, which could have been aspected to Sirrurg "the Destroyer" naturally. Who knows.)
Ghostwalker had a whole host of spirits with him, several likely bound, and probably had a lot of preperation (including spirits sustaining many defensive spells on him)
Aden, yes, he burned down Tehran. Before magic was understood, and likely had at least a few protections as well.
To me, these aren't out of the scope of Great Dragon ability, but most of the awesome things they have done were prepared.

If that’s the case, then the SR world of 2070-ish really makes no sense as presented. If GDs have those abilities, then they’re not really awesomely powerful magical creatures, they’re Physical Gods. I mean, really, at that level of power, what’s the practical difference between them and Cthulhu? And if that’s the case, why the heck do they bother becoming “grand masters of manipulation” of all the lowly mortals inhabiting the Earth? If they have this much power at their casual disposal, the entire world should been under outright dragon rule within a year or so of the GDs awakening – say by the end of 2012 at the latest. Why should Lofwyr bother with all his various machinations and corporate raiding when he can just (apparently) march into any area and say “I’m in charge now. Oh, you guys disagree? [BOOM, a city is gone.] Anyone else disagree?” Hence, I would argue they need to be scaled (heh) down a bit or they necessarily dominate every single aspect of the entire world, to the exclusion of anything else.

Draconic nature in most, if not all fantasy settings has them as manipulators, striving towards a future goal (Meta)humanity can likely never understand. Personally, I think it's more like a game to the dragons, and what fun is playing the game if you overpower everyone all at once?

[JanessaVR]

Let's say a dragon tosses a dragon-sized power ball on a city. We're looking at about 24 Force overcast max for a STOCK great dragon. Nowhere in the critter listing does it give a MAXIMUM rating for essence or stats for these guys, only what's usual. Let's say that, despite being alive for several millenia and having your very being tied intimately to the ebb and flow of magic does NOT grant the eldest great dragons any higher than 12 Essence, meaning about 24 magic hard cap including the 12 initiation levels, so 48 max overcast on the force rating of the powerball. That 48 force will affect the area, probably enough to decimate a city. Add in the artifacts the dragon has found/made to add to their magic pool, drain soak pool, anchored spell effects on anchoring foci... and this is still in the process of adding up dice. It's already ludicrous and we can justify a large metropolitan area being leveled by the spell at this point for a capped out dragon who's had time to build up more wealth and power than China, the U. S., and the U.K. on a bender combined!

Now, we have an unreasonably high potential from a Great Dragon and all their toys, you may ask "How does 'Twist Fate™' factor in?" Good question! The answer is that, with that really high spell, somebody may spend edge to survive, or possibly to counter them (another Great Dragon using Twist Fate, for instance, who likes the status quo). Well, by spending a single edge in a single turn, that great dragon can negate any one other person's spending of edge, basically telling them "I like the way things are right now." Alternately, they can Twist Fate to make the structure of the city re-roll it's soak successes and keep the result, which will no doubt be less than before.

It's not how much force the GD can achieve inside the area effect of its Combat spell - I readily concede that anything caught inside that area is pretty much dead-no-save. It's the *size* of the area in question. A Force 48 spell would be about 288' in diameter (1 meter radius * Force). Bad enough to trash a chunk of downtown, but Sirrurg should *not* have been able to affect such a large area in *one shot*, so my point about SR writers making it up as they go along stands. If they'd said that he spent the next 15 minutes firing off those shots one after another, I would concede that the city was toast, but no matter how you slice it, he should not have been able to affect such a large area at once.

[PoliteMan]

We're looking at about 24 Force overcast max for a STOCK great dragon. Nowhere in the critter listing does it give a MAXIMUM rating for essence or stats for these guys, only what's usual.

I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a stock GD. I'm fairly sure every GD worth the name appeared in "Survival of the Fittest", sure a GM could uncover a new GD for their game but the idea that there are just a ton of stock GDs lying around and the named ones are somehow more powerful than those GDs simply isn't supported. I'm all for customizing the GD stats, lower stats for Masaru, higher Logic for Llofwyr, higher Summoning/Binding for Ghostwalker, but we're talking about a few points here or there.

It's already ludicrous and we can justify a large metropolitan area being leveled by the spell at this point for a capped out dragon who's had time to build up more wealth and power than China, the U. S., and the U.K. on a bender combined!

The wealth and power they accumulated while they were...sleeping or partying on the metaplanes? The wealth and power they acquired after they awoke from a world where non-magical technology equaled iron crafting to one where the cyberspace and cyberware are springing up? The one with the giant megacorps already consuming all the worlds resources?

We accept that Llofwyr was able to buy out a founding member of the Corp Court with a pile of gold he had in his cave not because it makes sense but because Llofwyr as a scheming CEO is cool. You don't really need to stretch that any further.

If you want Great Dragons to be Super-Genius Godzillas in your game, go for it. That's not the published rules and while it can be fun to play against insanely powerful dragons, if I wanted that I'd go back to Rifts where it's built in.

[Rubic]

It's not how much force the GD can achieve inside the area effect of its Combat spell - I readily concede that anything caught inside that area is pretty much dead-no-save. It's the *size* of the area in question. A Force 48 spell would be about 288' in diameter (1 meter radius * Force). Bad enough to trash a chunk of downtown, but Sirrurg should *not* have been able to affect such a large area in *one shot*, so my point about SR writers making it up as they go along stands. If they'd said that he spend the next 15 minutes firing off those shots one after another, I would concede that the city was toast, but no matter how you slice it, he should not have been able to affect such a large area at once.

48 is the unassisted overcast. With a magic rating of 24, they can utilize a Power Focus to boost their magic anywhere from 24-120; the maximum total force of all bonded foci cannot exceed magic x5, but SR4A does not say it cannot all be one focus. If we grant that the dragon will have 2-4 sustaining foci for maintaining defensive spells, then we can guess at a Force rating of 1 or 2 times their Magic rating for a Power Focus. That gives us 48 from magic + overcasting, and another 48 for a Power Focus. 96 Force spell. This is neglecting the "Dragons get better than you" fluff thus far for spells available.

Radius of 96 meters, squared times pi, gives us 28.953 sq km (rounded) for a dragon who's defending himself.

Max potential damage would be 168 force total, probably terminal levels of drain, and 88.668 sq km (rounded again) for a dragon who's just focused on making the area cease to exist at all costs. Long live the memory of President Dunkelzhan!

If you want Great Dragons to be Super-Genius Godzillas in your game, go for it. That's not the published rules and while it can be fun to play against insanely powerful dragons, if I wanted that I'd go back to Rifts where it's built in.

The lowest listed logic for a standard dracoform of any kind is 8. Great Dragons start at +5 to that (13). How is that not Super-Genius Godzillas? It IS the published rules and stats. SR4A pg 303-304
edit: also SR4 std 296-267