Just How Tough?, How many bullets can you eat? Options

[Uberjoel]

A N00B question here if ever there was one. Since I haven't actually played SR, I don't how actaully how deadly the game can be. If I have a Troll, with 6 Atrribute spent on Body, that gives me 11 right? How much further can I crank this with Cyber?

Plus, what kind of punishment could such a character take? Small Arms? Heavy Weapons? Satisfy my curiosity!

[Brazila]

You can take this much further. A few ideas for starters...
Your body is 11, but you also get your dermal armor die unless you cyber over that. A crazy body is great, but a crazy body with good armor is Nuts.
While I would never play something like this you could....
Pick up the toughness edge
Take a bonus att. point edge in Body
Grab up Titanium Bone Lacing
Grab up R3 Dermal Sheating
Suprathyroid Gland
Armor Jacket
and Bam you are a TANK, But be advised if your GM is any good, he is going to smell this character's cheese a mile away.

[Edward]

I don’t know exactly but it is quite possible to create a character with sufficient body and armour that he can soak 3 round bursts of shotgun fire all day (ok occasionally he will get unlucky but you know what I mean.) and this is a starting character.

Of cause you spent much money and essence on doing this.

Edward

[Kagetenshi]

Armor is critical. A Body 30 MagicTroll won't expect to stage down a heavy pistol shot more than once or twice. Putting it another way, that means that an illegally durable character still can't reasonably expect to fully soak unless the attacker gets only one success.

~J

[Uberjoel]

Is it possible at all to suck up the damage of the big machine gun in the core? I don't remember its name, but it was something like 18D damage. How many dice do you have to be rolling to suck that?

[Kagetenshi]

With one success on the attack test, you need to be rolling 1728 dice to soak without armor if my calculations are right.

Edit: correction, 1944. I forgot you had to get another success to cancel with the attacker's success.

On the other hand, if you can get sixteen points of ballistic armor, you can do it with a mere ten dice.

~J

[Uberjoel]

And how many points of Ballistic Armor can one get? IIRC, the armor available for starting characters only had ballistic ratings of around 3.

[Kagetenshi]

Realistically, not using magic, somewhere around six is generally the top. If you aren't going for subtlety you can get a bit higher. High-force Armor (the spell) would be the best way to hit 16.

With six points of armor, Mr. Übertroll only needs 324 body dice to expect to soak a single-success FA shot.

~J

[Modesitt]

It depends on how your GM feels about layering.

If he only allows two layers, the best you can get at char gen with just the BBB is probably Armored Jacket+Longcoat for 7 ballistic. 8 with titanium bone lacing. A Ballistic Shield can give you another 3 for 11. Armor Spells can send the whole thing straight into crazy land. There's a couple other pieces of ballistic-boosting cyberware and bioware in M&M.

If he allows more than two layers, the skys the limit. Remember: It only messes with quickness tests and combat pool. Heavy Weapons is linked to strength. Kung-fu is linked to strength.

[RedmondLarry]

[Kagetenshi]

[Edit] Note to self: pay attention to FFBA.

~J

[Nylan]

I was just about to comment on that Kage

[Glyph]

You guys need to remember that ranged combat works differently than melee combat. You compare the successes, then use the net successes to determine the outcome. This means a high Body is very good to have. But weapons that do Deadly damage are tough to deal with, since unless you dodge them completely, you need 8 more net successes than the attacker to soak the attack completely. Unfortunately, weapons with a Deadly damage code also tend to have a high Power, making that task even more difficult.

Armor is vital, because it determines the Target Number that you are rolling against for your resistance test. A high Quickness it very good to have, since it lets you laver armor better. Even an armored jacket and a full suit of FFBA (which a troll with a 4 or 5 Quickness can wear without penalties) can make a big difference, though, reducing your TN to soak a heavy pistol round from 9 to 2.

Armor only affects your Target Numbers, though. You also want to raise the attacker's Target Numbers. Move and run during combat, take cover, and try to use darkness or glare in your favor. And know when to run like hell. Even an 18 Body won't save you against a Panther Assault Cannon or a full-auto weapon with maxed-out recoil comp.

[Necro Tech]

Remember that layering armor drops your quickness for determining ground speed. 16 points of armor is good and all if you are sitting in a fox hole and never plan on moving out of it.

Side note, when layering, you count all pieces when determining total armor value, not just the highest two. Also, the quickness penalty only applies to balistic armor going over your Quickness stat. As related to me by Mike and Rob, it is a suggestion to only have 2 layers. As long as it seems logical, go for it and suck up the penalties.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Kagetenshi]

It's possible to read them like that, but it's explicitly incorrect.

~J

[Snow_Fox]

I'll repeat, armor is vital to cut down on the power of the incoming rounds. The very first time we played, we had an ork, the character was running on tough and fast and didn't have money to waste, so instead of armor to back up the hand guns we all had, he went for an uzi. The first fire fight we were in, we all discovered exactly how much protection a white cotton t-shirt provides against incoming fire.

[mmu1]

The best ballistic armor you can get at chargen without getting into arguments as to whether you can layer more then 2 pieces or using magic is FFBA + Armored Jacket + Kevlar or Titanium lacing + Orthoskin (level 2 and up) for 9 points total.

If you have that and a body of 9-10 you usually don't have to worry about getting hurt unless the opposition starts to use shotguns or assault rifles loaded with EX shells in burst mode. Of course, that's still no reason to assume you can shrug off gunfire, since one guy with APDS rounds can still ruin your day...

[GenoSicK]

Just to get things right, NOBODY can be a real "tank" in SR. One of my char is a BIG mothe*******. He's a troll with 17 dices in Body, and a Light Military Armor. I know, it sounds big, it sounds awfully though. But as soon as your playing in mercenary (like he) campaign or just moving up the ranks and playing no more street level, you'll begin to find APDS or grenades in the hands of the opposition. And that is NO fun.

For example, this char was caught with a regular armor layering of 9 ballistic (that's a lot) by a goon with an AR, regular ammo, well, he just fall down after the first burst, just because the guy in front of me was prepared.

In SR, doesn't matter how tough you are, you have to play tactical if you want to live a bit longer than the street corner.

[toturi]

APDS has an Avail of 12. Even in a merc campaign that shouldn't be too common.

[Kagetenshi]

It only takes one round and good skill.

~J

[toturi]

yes, but how likely is that one round going to get to the good skill with an Avail of 12 tacked on?

[Austere Emancipa...]

Hardened armor might be a bit tougher to break through, but you can usually get by with AK-97+GV4+ShockPads+UBWeight/Foregrip+EX-Ex for a no-penalty 16D. Those should be coming out of your ears in a merc campaign.

[mmu1]

[Kagetenshi]