[X] My Assistant

[Bigity]

ah. 'scuse me but . . doesn't the DR roll against Matrix come fro Will-Power/Deck and not Body? O.o

I think that depended on the black IC. Could either be stun or physical damage.

[Lobo0705]

Only on the high end damage weapons, though. It was still pretty easy to build around that in SR3.

Depends on what you mean by "easy" and "high end damage".

If you allow mil-spec armor and are playing pink mowhawk - then you are absolutely correct. We tended to be a little more circumspect in our approach, so we weren't wearing heavy security armor with a helmet.

A "normal" high damage resistance build character would wear Lined coat over armor jacket over FFBA - giving him a Ballistic of 9. Throw in Kevlar Bone Lacing and Orthoskin to bump that to a Ballistic of 11.

Now, without APDS, non-full-auto-fire and non-heavy weapons basically bounce off.

Add APDS to that now that changes alot. You are still shrugging off pistol fire, but now shotguns and burst fire capable weapons hurt you.

A Frenchi Spas on burst fire is 13D - meaning he's got to roll 8's on his resistance, and he is probably going down.

A Savalette Guardian (which you could get easily) - or the rarer Ares Thunderbolt, both HP, are putting out 12S damage, so you are needing 7's to resist.

Even burst fire capable SMGs and Assault rifles start putting a hurt on him - since they are powers of 10S and 11S respectively, and he is needing to roll 4's and 5's to resist.

If all you faced were SA pistol fire, you were fine, but shotguns, and SMGs are not really unreasonable to run into, even in non-pink mohawk games.

Don't get me wrong, it still made you very difficult to kill (especially if you add in a Platelet Factory and Trauma Damper) - but the idea of the Troll running around ignoring Panther Assault Cannon rounds are just not really realistic.

[darthmord]

I think that depended on the black IC. Could either be stun or physical damage.

Correct. The Black IC was doing physical damage that had to be resisted by Body. I was positive that it was wrong and I spent a good 15 minutes reviewing everything Matrix related concerning Black IC. Apparently SR2 troll brains are just as hard to fry as their bodies are to injure. Go figure... Makes me think of "Nyah!!! Missed all the vital spots" while electricity was coursing through his brain.

It was rather screwed up IMO. The Troll decker wasn't that great of one but he could certainly take the physical abuse from Matrix sources. He defined meat shield for us. It definitely was NOT something we expected from the adventure.

[Lobo0705]

I think that depended on the black IC. Could either be stun or physical damage.

It used Body, but the idea that he can't be hurt without rolling all 1's is not mechanically correct. If the node had Black IC in it, it was going to be at least an Orange (and probably a Red) node, meaning the power of the attack would be somewhere between 8 and 12 and doing S damage base. The only thing that reduced the power of the attack was Hardening of the deck, which has a maximum of 3. So even if he is running a deck that had a Hardening of 3, even with a large Body, He is needing to roll at least seven successes to reduce the damage to 0 - and his TN is somewhere between 5 and 9. While I'm not saying you cannot physically roll that, it is a long way away from saying that unless he rolled all 1s he couldn't physically be hurt.

[Stahlseele]

hardened armor was actually worth using in SR3.
it simply negated any damage with power below it's level.
and all other damage first lost a level in staging and then still got the usual treatment of deducting the number of the armor from the power of the attack.


so black ic really did use body then . . interesting . .
"Mungo Deck into Server." *Troll Mungo decks server one something fierce*
"Dis look like datastorage. Mungo take." *Puts HDD/SSD/Chip-Bank into Pocket*

[Lobo0705]

hardened armor was actually worth using in SR3.
it simply negated any damage with power below it's level.

This part is true.

and all other damage first lost a level in staging and then still got the usual treatment of deducting the number of the armor from the power of the attack.

This part isn't - that is only for vehicular armor (SR3 page 149).

And the only armor that counted as hardened was military armor. You could gel pack other armor, but then you couldn't layer it, which meant that sure your Armor Jacket now had a hardened armor of 5, meaning any holdout pistol bounced off of you (which it was going to anyways) - but if you got shot at by a heavy pistol it would hurt a lot. As opposed to being able to layer a lined coat over that armor jacket, over FFBA, giving you a ballistic of 9 - meaning that you can successfully resist even burst fire from SMGs or ARs (assuming they aren't using APDS).

[Epicedion]

This was part of the reason I was thinking to tighten up normal Armor and weapon Power into the typical Shadowrun rating 1-6 range (reserving the outside of the range for milspec, etc). I'd also keep armor-layering out of the game, because that gets silly.

In the above stuff, I figure for the Troll to take a deadly wound in one shot, with his ridiculous 12 soak dice, the modified attack would have to be something like 13D.

So, really, Trolls ruin everything when it comes to damage.

[Stahlseele]

Ahem?
You can't layer more than 2 pieces of Armor.
You take the highest Armor Number and then add HALF of the 2nd highest.
(Don't ask what happens if there are 2 numbers that are exactly the same)

It doesn't?
Really? I thought it did o.O
Because vehicle armor is considered to be hardened armor, not the other way around @.@

@Trolls ruining things both dealing and taking Damage . .
Yes . . well . . that's basically what their intended purpose is kinda.
So it's actually BAD if a Troll can't soak or deal horrible ammounts of Damage.
Because by then, he's not a Troll anymore. He may as well just be a tall Ork.

[Lobo0705]

Ahem?
You can't layer more than 2 pieces of Armor.
You take the highest Armor Number and then add HALF of the 2nd highest.
(Don't ask what happens if there are 2 numbers that are exactly the same)

In this particular case I had forgotten that it was a house rule that we had that said FFBA could also be layered, since it did not count for calculating penalties to Quickness and Combat Pool. However, strictly RAW, you are correct. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif)

If you had two of exactly the same, then it would simply be the highest + half of the other one (Armor Vest w/ Plates 4/3 over FFBA 4/1 would be 6/3 (since you round down).

I still maintain that it is better to have a 7 armor (Armor Jacket and FFBA) than a 5 hardened armor. It means that Heavy Pistols (power 9) are resisted at 2's, as opposed to 4's, which makes a big difference.

It doesn't?
Really? I thought it did o.O
Because vehicle armor is considered to be hardened armor, not the other way around @.@

Hey, no worries - it is hard to remember every single nuance of the rules (as indicated by my screw-up above) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[RHat]

Correct. The Black IC was doing physical damage that had to be resisted by Body. I was positive that it was wrong and I spent a good 15 minutes reviewing everything Matrix related concerning Black IC. Apparently SR2 troll brains are just as hard to fry as their bodies are to injure. Go figure... Makes me think of "Nyah!!! Missed all the vital spots" while electricity was coursing through his brain.

Maybe it was just having trouble screwing up his brain anymore than being a Troll had already done. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Draco18s]

It doesn't?
Really? I thought it did o.O
Because vehicle armor is considered to be hardened armor, not the other way around @.@

Vehicle armor is not considered hardened armor. Vehicles are simply immune to stun. The mechanical effect (in 4th, and only 4th) is the same.