Tasers and Drones, RA:S Medusa vs. Steel Lynx Options

[DocMortand]

This came up in my last run...I eventually ruled (reluctantly) that there would be no effect, but I'd like to throw this up to the boards.

Here's is the Medusa stats (from RA:S, pg. 81) that pertain to this.

[Jrayjoker]

The electrical effect should work if you assume that the arms touching is enough to discharge the voltage. Also, what kind of grounding/insulating does the target drone have. A lightning strike will still FUBAR a car.

[GrinderTheTroll]

I think unless you've got something specifically that shield from the secondary effects, they still go off. Doing damage is not a requirement for secondary effects like that.

[Jrayjoker]

That is what I thought. I have seen it argued both ways, but the only time I wouldn't let a seconday effect go off is if the taser darts just plain missed.

[DocMortand]

Two things - 1) In the description it says Moderate or better damage, and 2)they bounced off the armor.

So you're saying that if the drone the Medusa was attacking didn't have the insane armor, it would have affected the drone?

And if so...what would it have affected? Dumped the rigger if rigged? Shut down random controls (and if so, what controls would be affected in a drone?)?

[BitBasher]

Yeah, as stated above secondary effects do not happen unless the attack does moderate or greater damage. If the attack can't get past the armor then it does no damage and therefore by definition gets no secondary effects. So yeah, sufficiently armored vehicles are immune to secondary effects.

[GrinderTheTroll]

Thanks for clearing that up. Is that all tasers, or just this one in particular?

[Jrayjoker]

Are you sure the secondary effects limitation isn't in place for a meat body, and not a drone. The damage required could be for contacting the body of a PC, but if the person were holding a pipe that got charges I would still let the secondary effects hit them.

[BitBasher]

Well the description in this case, and for the secondary effects of spells is fairly unambiguous, but your GM can alter it however he or she may want.

And Grinder, I don't remember most normal tasers having the "Moderate or greater" restriction... but I am away from my books at work right now.

[Fortune]

I don't remember most tasers having a 'screw over cyberware' feature either.

[BitBasher]

[DocMortand]

I'm pretty sure this is a special case for only the Medusa drone.

Personally, I think the secondary effects should affect vehicles the same as if it had damaged it moderate or better. But one thing I need to have defined is exactly what effects there ARE. It says in the description it "affects 1D6 devices/cyber-systems", but what does it do to them? Shut them down? Short them out? Overload them (causing explosions? And if this, then what is the power of the explosions?)?

This part IS ambiguous, unfortunately. And from the descriptions, it looks like it is talking about live bodies, not drones - so the drone example isn't really covered.

Is this sort of thing covered anywhere else? I.E. Electrical attacks according to R3R deal damage to riggers if the drone goes offline (this has been covered elsewhere), but it looks like most of this is Physical damage, not Stun damage. There's no description of what tasers would do against drones anywhere.

[waftalia]

i think in this scenario a table rule is needed ,to bad he didnt have one before hand.the trouble you get into with letting it effect the steel lynx without damaging it could ripple to other things,imagine a mobmaster rolling down the street and a guy running up with a taser gun and shocking it effectively shorting out all its electronic operations making it a pile of junk.that doesnt seem very plausible and thats why in the case of the medusa it states i think, moderate damage or better ,trying to insinuate that it does enough physical damage to actually penetrate the armor and get to electronic sources.

one would have to consider an item like a steel lynx ,basically an unmaned tank armored to the teeth the designers would implement some kind of isolator that would shield it from electronic surges.

[DocMortand]

Well at the time I just said it bounced. I think the way I'm going to rule it from now on is the way it says - if Moderate damage is done to a drone, the secondary effects happen.

I still would like to know what kind of cybersystems could be affected, and in what way tho.

[waftalia]

didnt i read somewhere that all cyber systems are optical not electricl ?doesnt that mean they cant be hurt by this type of damage or every magician would get lightning bolt and rid the worldof those pesky street sams,riggers,deckers,ect.....imagine a riggers car struck by a lightning bolt that not only bypasses his cars armor fries his electronic ports and wipes his car out but also fries all his cyber ware?

[DocMortand]

There is several lines of debate going on that...Frankly, the light in the optical system has got to be created somehow, it isn't done via candlelight. Hence I would think electrical should do damage still.

The advantages of optical are that it's faster than electrical, before you even ask.

Now back to the question, please.

[Kagetenshi]

And before we get back to the question, the other advantage to optical is that unless you've made it very badly the light transmission area acts as an airwall so a surge in one part need not necessarily destroy all optically connected parts the way electrically connected parts would be at risk.

~J

[DocMortand]

(And to neatly connect things)

Yeah, I agree...this is why I'd like to know what things I could affect with the secondary effects - that way the 1D6 systems actually affects portions, but doesn't spread thru the whole system.

[Sandoval Smith]

There are still metal bits in there. Even if it doesn' directly affect tranmission pathways, a random surge bouncing around a piece of cyberwear is going to damage compenents, overload servo motors, what have you. The effects are left up to the GM because detailing all the possible effects for all the possible pieces would be insane. It'd also really suck to have the dm roll a die, consult a table, then declare, "And then... sammie explode."

[Kagetenshi]

"Your head a splode".

That would be a great entry on a random table, now that I think about it.

~J

[mfb]

i think it's supposed to be implied. at least, my head has exploded enough times while looking through the rules that i assume it's in there somewhere.

[Nikoli]

Well, if the fibre optics were a nylon derivitive, that can carry a charge, even being an optical conduit.

Also, isn't vehicle armor halved like impact armor against tasers? forget he secondary taser and add a real taser.

[BitBasher]

[Nikoli]

Well, if it's neither impact nor balistic, it goes straight to the rigger to resist then, won't it?

[Botch]