Virtual Battle!, Defeat Mongo The troll Options

[Nikoli]

Actually, it's not.
Only basic is.

[The White Dwarf]

Good god cant you GMs think for yourselves.

Decrease Charisma was said, and you didnt even look it up. Go read it.

Any magician anything cast at D will do it simply because the mages get enough dice to win, again as said above.

Or failing magic, you can always default to the gun of doom:
Franchi w/ SL-2, loaded with Capsule rounds, loaded with DMSO and Atropine

1) fire a burst at troll, twice
2) watch troll resists 11D stun from gunshot, with -1 dodge
3) laugh maniacally
4) watch troll try to resist a 6-dose of atropine, which comes out to 4D deadly overdamage even with his cyber
5) the math, with 11 body he will get 5 successes taking a serious, and the tn mods from the chemical (which arent a result of pain per se)

Not enough you say?
... well theres the glorious step 6) add additional goons shooting him with this. each one will fire in a single initiative pass and thus before the speed of the atropine. thus it will all add up to one dosage. another burst of 6 does 1 box of damage and makes the dmg code 10D-over. 3 bursts is 2 boxes + 16D-over. etc.

If using atropine is too deadly, use gammascopolamine with the excuse that the guards were using non-leathal means to capture intruders for interrogation (hey this drugs a truth serum too how bout that). They just panicd and OD'd the troll.

Just one of onehundredthousandmillionbilliontrilliongooglplexgigawatt ways to kill a troll...

[Kagetenshi]

Actually, it is. There's a note in the FAQ suggesting it be disallowed, but by canon it's perfectly available.

~J

[Nikoli]

Wierd. I had always played it as per GM approval

[Kagetenshi]

It's a pretty common houserule, though I'm not entirely certain why. Now that the mnemonic enhancement has been nerfed, there really isn't anything that gamebreaking available…

~J

[A Rodent of Unus...]

[Eyeless Blond]

You want to kill this guy? Drown him. Cyberlegs and titanium bone lacing don't float very well, nor does much of the gear he's likely carrying. He's also got problems against diseases, toxins, and the like; I'd expect him to get sick an awful lot. Or, hell, just send a dragon or orbital cow after him. You're the GM; killing your players is easy, 'cause you're basically God.

You want to, "show him the error of his ways," instead?Well, with a Charisma of 2, and likely a low Ettiquite score, his huge amounts of bioware and cyber are going to make him stick out like a wolf among chickens. Lone Star will have a helicopter and three squad cars following this guy around any time he strays out of the Barrens, and it's not likely he'd ever be allowed to stay anywhere else for long. SR is a much more social game than, say, D&D; if you can't fit in with the crowd you're in much more trouble than if you have a Body of 1.

Mind posting the rest of this guy's character? Including just what you think are "relevant skills" likely isn't enough; everything is relevant sometimes. Also, what chargen system did this person use? I count this characer has spent 31 points on attributes, which is illegal under Points and impossible under Priority. Is that right? And with the loadout that it seems he has, he's got only 21-23 points left for skills, yes?

[Garland]

Internal air tank as discussed before. If he's not too far out to sea, he could walk to shore. The blood filtration is for the toxins problem, I guess. I still wonder if the air tank is really such a great idea for anything other than this, though.

[Eyeless Blond]

Then have open-ocean battles. This guy's pretty well neutered on the ocean anyway; his attacks work best close-in in melee, not ship-to-ship. And if he falls overboard, well, he's defaulting to Bod--at ar *really* high TN--to keep afloat.

[Apathy]

If I understand the question, it's not that you want to be kill the troll, but you just want to know that the troll is not invincible. I think most of the people here would agree that he's still vulnerable to a lot of situations: Anything with very high power levels (burst or automatic fire, called shots, grenades, drones, falling, crashes, drugs) or that tests against willpower (spirit powers, spells) will take him down almost as easily as anyone else.

I would say that he's set up as a 'one-hit wonder', and the only situation they can take him to would be an unambiguous fight. Walking in with a shiny new dikoted staff and a riot shield (can you use a shield and a two handed weapon simultaneously?) and being an enormous troll will ensure that people start shooting at him first, giving everyone else a chance to duck behind cover. I don't think he'll last any longer than anyone else in the ensuing combat.

However, if the goal is a normal stealthy shadowrun, he's going to get everyone else caught.

[Nikoli]

The troll will likely be wielding the staff one handed.

[A Rodent of Unus...]

Ah, cool, then he'll definitely be having his ass handed to him in melee combat. A +2 target number penalty is devestating.

[Luke Hardison]

[Eyeless Blond]

Yes, but it's more than counteracted with a net Reach of 3. :)

Like I said, the real way to "get" this guy is through Ettiquite and social situations. It's a fraggin Troll, walking around overloaded with ovbious (and heavy) cyberware and bioware, carrying a riot shield, a stave, and a shotgun! He'll be setting off police scanners from *orbit*. :P

[Tziluthi]

Lone Star: "Excuse me, sir? Do you have a permit for those?"

[TinkerGnome]

Troll's player: "Why do the cops keep showing up and questioning me?"
GM: "No idea. Everyone make me a perception roll. Okay, Mr. Elf, you see another human stop with his eyes bulging out. He sidles across the street and hits the PanicButton."
Elf's player: "Can I hear what he's saying?"
GM: "Something about a troll. He appears to have wet himself."

[Joker9125]

Actually alot of the suggestions i have seen here for challanging this character semm pretty bad. Ive seen alot of stuff like just shoot him with a rocket launcher or have 5 guys go full auto with smartlinks and assault rifles on him and hey heres an idea put him against a cyberzombie!!!! While these are all good ways to kill the troll theirs something you all have to remember THE REST OF THE TEAM WILL GET SLAUGHTERED!!!!! Hes wanting a way to challange this character without killing the rest of the team. While their is no easy answer the only thing I can say is alot of planning. Figure out a way to get him alone against one of the above and then have a reason for this badass bad guy to go away without killing everyone else. My earlier suggestion would work well if the other PCs are smart enough to stay down.

[Glyph]

Guys, I think his problem isn't so much that he has trouble hitting the troll, but that anything he uses to challenge the troll will out-and-out destroy the rest of the group.


But that doesn't have to be the case. He is a massive troll, carrying heavy weapons. He should take the brunt of the opposition's firepower, simply because they see him as the greater threat. So all you need to do is add some extra goons, and have them concentrate on the troll. And I don't mean try to take him out - if he can soak the bullets, let him. It's what his character was designed for. Challenge him, by all means, but there's a difference between challenging a character and vindictively targetting a character. Let him enjoy watching that security guard's eyes widen as he takes a pistol shot to the chest and just grins. Have people decide on discretion as the better part of valor when they see a half-ton troll lumbering towards them. Challenge him, but also let him enjoy being good at what he has chosen to be good at.


He is a tough character, and despite some people's compaints he is actually fairly well-rounded - Etiquette: 2/4 and Stealth: 3 should at least let him function outside of combat situations. He is far from invincible, though. Things like heavy weapons or full-auto fire can ruin his day. Despite all of that armor, none of it is hardened; with a bad enough roll, he could get wounded from a Streetline Special. He is limited in the places where he can carry a lot of that gear. Most moderately-cybered opponents will be going before him. While he may be tough in melee, it is an opposed dice contest. Any adept with Close Combat and Improved Ability in any melee skill could own him. He could have made a far more unbalanced character.

[A Rodent of Unus...]

I hardly consider a force 6 Manabolt to be broken or even inappropriate. It's standard issue for many mages, and it's going to easily take down a poorly built character like that.

[Joker9125]

never said a manabolt was broken or inappropriate.

[A Rodent of Unus...]

It was in reference to:

[TinkerGnome]

It's worth pointing out that the low-cyber human has a signature of 6. Our friend the troll has a signature of 4 or possibly less (if he got a suprathyroid). Drones often mount LMGs or better... say hello to target #1.

[Glyph]

Well, that did seem to be his main problem. I don't really count magic as one of those hard-to-balance factors, since it is generally effective against mundanes across the board.

But honestly, I don't think being unable to soak a Force: 6 manabolt is an indication of a "poorly built" character. I mean, for crying out loud, he has a Willpower of 8!

[A Rodent of Unus...]

But not the social clout to win over the friendship of the team's mage.

[Glyph]

Oh come on. A (relatively) low Charisma and Etiquette cut down on some of his options, but I don't think the team mage is going to not protect him with Spell Defense for not being a face.