Superhuman Stories, Characters who are just *that* cool. Options

[Gyro the Greek S...]

I was wondering if other people could give up some examples of Shadowrun games where the player character(s) did something(s) absolutely mind-blowing, whether it be incredibly subtle or absolutely theatrical. Especially anything on the level of the 'jumping twenty meters into a helicopter manned by an orc with a machinegun to save his compadres and his girlfriend" example given in SR3, or anything else just absolutely spectacular and cinematic.

[Sphynx]

Most memorable was a character on a Radio Shack tortoise trying to hack into a satellite link with a computer skill of 3. TN: 24, Roll: 28. Lacks some of the flair, but nobody forgot that roll. :P I died in the same game from +2 Reach weapons (which back then gave +2 AND -2). Never played a non-cyber, non-magic type character again. :P

Sphynx

[Nightward]

So far, I've:

Leapt 12 metres straight up to land on a 3rd-floor balcony (Hydraulic Jacks and SR physics mesh well !)

Jumped down a 20m chute to land on the head of an enemy infiltrator, snapping his spine. Grabbed the lip of the chute, flipped up and out to halt downwards momentum, quickdrew my SMGs on the fall, and then filled the other enemy in the room with a four 3-round bursts. Of H-EX ammo. Ambidexterity is fun!

Jumped up onto the roof of a house, ripped the tiles up, crashed through the ceiling, executed 4 kidnappers, and got the hostages out unharmed.

Chasing an ambulance with an abductee, I shot my grapple line onto its roof, swung over (we were going at better than 100 kph at the time), swung down the back, punched in the rear windscreen, and shot the evil-doer (needing an 18, mind you!)

In my previous game, I used my PhysAd powers to jump over twenty metres between buildings that were 40 stories up, grab an enemy, then use the "Throw" maneuver to hoik him over the side.

Whee!

[Boondocker]

Playing an utterly munchkinized troll, I was part of a Fuchi special ops team engaging a team or runners on a rooftop. When their rigger popped up in a helicopter gunship and started up the minigun, I had Jenn climb King Kong-style up an antenna assembly, then jump over to hang off of the chopper's hull. She bent the gun far enough that it broke the servos or whatever inside, rendering the gun useless. She was just peeling her way inside the cockpit when the heli shook her off. Got to love inhuman strength.

[Raptor1033]

#1: human physad with no stealth skill whatsoever was trying to sneak past a border checkpoint with the rest of the team. open roll defaulting to attribute in front of the entire group. got a 26! so here's how the gm played it out "the rest of you get to the other side and look back to see if he's following you then you feel him poke your shoulder and ask "what's taking you so long? let's go!"

#2 dwarf hermetic mage: we were trying to stop a military convoy and steal something out the back, we figured the best way was to steal the entire truck. we didn't figure on them having helicopter backup. the rest of my team shot it up with some effect (the 4 of them managed to get it to a M) then my mage launched a powerbolt at it. finished the sucker off and it started coming down... right on top of the mage's head. fortunately he already had his armor spell up plus his normal armor and on it's way down he cast a strong barrier in the way to take a little bit of the impact. helicopter came down in a huge fireball around my char as you could see the field of the barrier crackle and fail. as my team was getting ready to drive away figuring i was dead they saw me walk out with fire crackling off the magical armor. took a serious after managing to get 2 successes to stage it down. coolest tale that mage ever tells

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Very nice stuff.
Now, the question is, does super-rolling only tend to occur when intense physical action is occuring, or when more mental tasks like charisma are involved? Or how about using both at the same time for that oh-so-bad*ss flavor? 8)

[Dragoonkin]

One time in my old group there was a character having sex (don't ask) and rolled a 46 or something obscene like that. GM said the, uh, recipient nearly died and had to be resuscitated. :eek:

[Ronin Soul]

One time a character rolled about 121 (or maybe even higher) for a test to do with creating a weapon focus.
Now that was surreal. Do you have any idea how long it takes to roll that kind of result? :)

Heroic things are thigs I define as not roll-played but role-played, as in it wasn't just a lucky dice roll but also excellent action description as well as often a very good dice roll :D

Like the runner who shot down a helicoptor with a heavy pistol: A scene almost straight out of an action movie; being pursued down a street on a motorcycle whilst a helicoptor with an MMG is pursuing you and your team. You have one bullet left. Screech to a break, turn around to face the incoming helicoptor, MMG gunfire tearing up the pavement around you. Aim and open fire with the last bullet, which shatters through the windscreen (or whatever they're called on helicoptors), killing the pilot, sending the helicoptor crashing to the ground as the runner drives from the explosion on his motorbike...

Stuff of legends.

[KawikaKeAloha]

how about exiting a sub, that was

a) 120 meters below surface
b) not having any diving gear
c) killing a paranormal fish on his way up
d) actually surviving the dive
e) and finally swimming to the shore, which was 10 kilometers away.

as a gm i gave him almost everytime a -2 TN for his taks, because he played it out that well, everybody was stunned and horrified at the table. but the targetnumbers were still high.

gm: swimming tn4. defaulting roll 8.
pc: *rolling dice* damn, highest was 6
gm: ok, you swallow salty seawater. to get you back above the surface, roll a 10.
pc: *rolling dice* a 10, YES!!!
gm: you succesfully manage to stay above the sea-level. now roll swimming. tn 8

etc
etc
etc

he barely survived it. and i let him roll dice all the way back to shore. (aprox. every 100 meters. for 10 kilometers) ;-)

i know, i am evil.

he got 25 karma for this run. guess what he learned for all the karma ;-)

[Solidcobra]

Chinese?

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Maybe how to use a radio to call help? :D

But as Ronin said,

[Crusher Bob]

Hmm, I remember my 300 or 400 karma mage going to meet with some gang members...

They are trying to indimidate him and the guys he is talking to pull open thier armored jackets to reveal pistols... A quick illusion later, he pulls open is jacket to reveal that he is wrapped in (illusionary) explosives. The negotiations seemed to go quite smoothly after that. :grinbig:

[TheHawkMan]

hmm but isn't a single success rolled, even if it is 121 still only a single success, meaning you managed it, but only barely :)
yeah yeah I know, I'm being picky, I'd probably give some bonuses to anyoen who scored a success with a high roll as well. :)

[Just Pete]

#1) SR1, Psychotic combat mage, in the last encounter of "Ivy & Chrome", downs an attack 'copter with a hellblast. Picture the scene in MIB2 where they shoot down the spaceship...only the mage was a bit closer - he did survive after the 'copter skidded into him....barely.

#2) SR1, again - Bodyguard kills a dragon with a single round from a Colt Manhunter. Veeeeery lucky shot. Same bodyguard snap-shoots a BTL chip at 100M in the middle of a fire-fight - just happened to see it out of the corner of his eye....

#3) SR2 - munchkinized Bio-Troll (how much bioware can you stuff?) ran around the edge of a barracks, straight into 2 guards - killed them both with his combat axe, then flipped the switch to warm up his mini-gun, stepped into the barracks, and emerged 2 rounds later at the other end, after having killed all of the guards in the place (6) with one sweep of the 'gun...

#4) Same bio-troll, after shrugging off a point-blank shotgun blast called-shot to the face (he DID have a helmet on...), chased down the fleeing guard, grabbed him by the back of the neck (crunching a few vertebrae, and swung his axe....at the wall, cracking it. He then PUNCHED the guard right through the cracked wall, and dropped him outside - from about 9 floors up!

#5) Team is staking out a Humanis joint, when a semi starts to leave. Mage, not one to lose an opportunity, turn invisible, and jumps on the back of the trailer as it speeds. Using his mono-knife, carves a peep-hole in the back, and sees a platoon of guards, and a tank inside! Orders his Water elemental to kill anyone inside the tank, and takes out the platoon with a ManaBall. Carves a doorway in the back of the trailer to get in, and starts sneaking to the front (still invisible!). Carves another doorway at the front of the trailer. At this point, the rigger in the semi tweaks to the fact something's wrong, and seeing that everyone in the trailer is dead, uses machinegun on the tank to start taking pot shots around the trailer. Mage takes out the machinegun with a ram spell, so the rigger disconnects the trailer! Mage makes a jump for it, using the last service from his last elemental (an Air elemental) to propel him onto the back of the semi's cab. Tank bursts through the now-careening trailer, and starts to engage the rest of the team (following in their armored car) using the main gun. Mage climbs around the cab (still invisible!) and uses his monoknife to punch a hole in the side of the cab. He then stuffs a grenade in the hole, and climbs back to the back of the cab - grenade blows, killing everyone inside (chunky salsa), and cab heads straight for a building. Mage finally drops invisibility, and jumps for it, casting Armor on himself in the hopes of being able to survive the road rash (he did, barely). As the rest of the team evades now-runaway tank (shooting everything in sight, as it operates on it's last command) and drive up, mage pulls the rigger's remote deck from the decimated cab, jumps in, and the team makes their escape. As Lone Star is dealing with a runaway tank, the mage hands the remote deck to the team's decker, who extracts the control codes from it and anonymously phones them in to 911. Whew!

#6) Same mage, ever one for action, is trying to get to the roof of a 'scraper as fast as possible, and the elevators are down and locked. Can't levitate outside, as there are snipers around. So he charges up the stairs, using a spirit's movement power to go faster. He's moving so fast the the guards stationed halfway up couldn't react fast enough to stop him, so he just drops a grenade in their laps as he breezes by...

[Morphling The Pr...]

I don't like high target numbers; they aren't the standard for success in SR. Multiple dice exceeding the TN is. What I really enjoy is getting as close to mathematical certainty with your rolls as possible.

For example, Arthur, my assassin, was at a stuffer shack with a ganger he was hitting up for information. A rival ganger pulled a gun on the clerk and decided he wanted to start something. Two shots broke the gun out of his hand, and screwed up his hand a bit. After zipping behind a food isle, he grabbed a woman, and held a handblade to her throat. Before he could get all fiendish, a 14-dice Ares Predator shot to the head came in, garnering 7 successed.

The boy had 5 combat pool. Even if he rolled all 4s, he'd still have 9D coming in.

Needless to say, he was dead before hitting the floor.

That's the sort of certainty that I like. Rolls with far too many successes to fail.

[phelious fogg]

Control Thoughts with 10 sucesses against two different mages.. O yeah... I dunno how that happend but it did.. and it was sweet to see the mages both cast deadly force combat spells at thier troops.

[Adarael]

A couple here - this'll be long. These aren't my PCs, either - just PCs from my current game.

#1: Cooper, Physad, on Harlequin's Back: During the first desert-post apocalyptic world, in the final battle with Oscuro and his horrible minions (like 150 guys against a thousand), we're battling tooth and nail just to keep our heads above water, because this is the first game with these characters. Cooper realizes what's going on and that we need to steal this bird's hood from Oscuro. So he says, "I'm gonna run full-tilt toward Oscuro. Screw anyone that gets in my way." The GM says, "Um. There's an army in your way." Cooper sez, "Okay. I can work with that. I wanna try running across their heads, jumping from person to person. They'll never expect that." The GM, incredulous, eyes the tables, and comes up with a difficulty of 22. Cooper nails 2 successes - a 22 and a 24. Cooper was, if anyone would like to know, an Atheletics monkey. And used like 12 dice of the amorphous team karma you get at the beginning of HB.

#2: Shin Rau, Physad (Ninja), in Hong Kong (Brainscan, I believe). We're procuring Aneki-sama for use in our wily plans to shut down the Deus and his horrible mechanical minions. Unfortunately, as good as our cover was, I couldn't keep three mask spells sustained AND talk a blue streak at the same time. Shit, I had to be helped *walking*. So some tibetan (yet very Shaolin) monks take umbrage to our theft-of-CEO, light themselves on fire (magically), and proceed to come try and beat us down. While I'm getting my head smacked around by Monk A, Monk B rushes Shin, who's just crushing blow'd a 2 meter hole in the wall of a nearby building he was hiding in so he can join the fun, too. The monk rushes him. Shin sez, "Hmm. Okay. I'm just gonna hook his leg with my foot when he tries to kick me, sit down, and snap his knee." The plan works perfectly, snapping the monk's knee (Moderate wound) - and Shin expects the monk to give up. Nope. So Shin, incredulous, does the same thing to his other knee (Moderate wound), and stays seated, interlocked with him. He then proceeds to shatter the monk's right elbow, turns off Killing Hands, and punches the monk twice in the throat and elbows him in the head. 'Heroic' may not be the right word, but 'really ridiculously cool and vicious' is close enough for me.

#3: Tick-Tick, demolitions expert (and tech-wiz), in Seattle. Disclaimer: Tick-Tick routinely does heroic things with regards to demolishing buildings, objects, and unruly people. This is one of her non-explosive exploits. After deciding we needed to steal a few things from the UCAS military, we decided to hit an APC rolling down to Ft. Lewis. We had a really simple plan to blow up some k-rails to block the 5, jump the APC, and make off with the goods. Plan goes off perfectly, except we'd forgotten the APC would probably have an autocannon on a turret (it did) and not be so concerned about K-rails (it wasn't.) It stopped for a turn or two, and then decided to roll over some of the other cars on the 5, using them as a ramp up over the rails - all the while unloading on us with the turret. Shin-Rau luckily crushing blows the turret, bending the barrel and rendering it inoperable. Seeing the APC roll up over some cars to escape, Tick Tick narrows her eyes, says something to the effect of 'You cheeky bastard!' and unloads on the front right wheel (all metal) with her... handguns. Yes. Handguns. Apparently she'd stashed some APDS from previous dealings, because with her *pair of handguns*, she managed to core the axle of the APC and blow the wheel off. That was pretty freaky - but worse was that she didn't look particularly surprised. That's a hard-ass woman.

[Cakeman]

On a not so well prepared run, my group had a job bodyguarding a suit that picked up some gear. After easily having picked up the case they made their way back to the remote airfield, and as they left no guard and didn't scout the field they were met by two henchmen politely requesting the gear claiming they had a sniper covering them. (Hey, they were green).

Anyway, they tell the suit to run for it! Blam! When asked why, one player said: "Well I thought they might have been bluffing, but I didn't want to check out for myself..."

He'll live forever in infamy in our minds, that coward! But atleast he did survive, and since noone was going to say otherwise when they got home, they did all they could.. ;)

[=-_RaVeN_-=]

[Shockwave_IIc]

I remember once in a game i ran one of PC's was getting chased by a corp car with 2 goons in (not quite but my Pc didn't know that) baiting them into driving into a wherehouse (one was a ghoul Physad the other a mage).

The Pc turns the bike around and starts to ride towards the 2 corp folk as they are getting out of their car. The pc heads towards the ork ghoul leaps off the back of the bike swinging a dikoted katana, we roll dice the ghoul takes a lite wound, (which is ignored due to pain resistance) catches the balde between hands (i run a manga/anime style game). the Pc realising She was out matched lets go of her sword (that a 5K sword) proceeds to run over the car and get onto the bike before it falls over a speeds off. Laugh!! i was on the floor!!

[Orient]

Well, since one of my PCs commented on everybody’s character but his own, I should point out a few things he’s done that have been spectacularly impressive.

Since our group is essentially a collection of non-runners turned towards illegal activities, when they eventually decided to embrace shadowrunning full-time there was some thought as to how they should present themselves. He decided to rename everyone with angelic names, and had everyone dress in similar business suits at meets. Since they had subtle, high-grade communication gear, he had everyone take synchronized turns speaking for the group, creating a really eerie overall effect.

For some time, he talked about designing a magical cigarette lighter, created by combining a few custom spells. The lighter produced a flame that looked like a tiny, hovering luminescent ball of energy. He presented me no opportunities for NPCs to steal the idea, and his plans to go into production were watertight. So the street mage (already armed with several business-related skills) became a corporate businessman. One game (one game!) before my plans to take everything away from him came to fruition, he created an involved backup plan of money laundering and stock manipulation (which he, again, had the skills to back up). Now, he’s taken his work back underground and has a whole crapload of money across several international accounts. It may not have been very heroic, but it was really impressive.

On a slightly more heroic note, he managed to take out a Chimera assassin with one shot. I designed the guy with all-delta grade cyberware, enough stealth gear to choke a Dragon, and a few rule-breaking stealth grapple line mods. He rolled well enough on his Perception test to see where he was, and dropped the guy with one stunbolt, despite massive magical defences. End result: my spooky-doom NPC goes up in a cranial bomb-induced explosion in the middle of downtown Seattle, and the players dust themselves off and go home for coffee.

[last_of_the_grea...]

Back in 2nd ed. I had a human face/sammie. Had also paid for a gang and a buddy for him. Everywhere he went he made contacts! I always liked when he was accosted by a small ork street gang in the barrens (not his turf) and robbed at gunpoint. He could have probably killed them all but he paid them, then investigated them. Found out all about them in a couple of days. He had a teammate courier an invitation to the guy in charge (who was also the guy who robbed him) to an office he rented. He played "corp player" to the hilt and did the ol' carrot and the stick" routine. Basically...

Me: "You robbed me of 500 nuyen. This is unacceptable. Have you anything to say?"

Ork: "Hey, biz is biz."

Me: "Indeed. Well spoken. In fact, I find you an enterprising young man. I propose that, Instead of having a "long sleep" or spending some time in the penitentiary, you keep that 500 nuyen as your first week's pay. You now work for me. I'll provide you with hardwear to get you started"

At that I pulled out a secure longcoat and H&K 227 with underbarrel grenade launcher for every gang member and 100 rounds of ammo for each gun. Needless to say, they accepted my offer. Making a leadership roll from hell they became ultra loyal, too! I started to make enough from them to support a low lifestyle and begun a "gang franchise" scheme! A small gang in every neighborhood using the same name. Too cool!

[Playing Games]

Well,let's see I was in a team of runners that held out in the middle of what seemed like at least 10 nasty spirits(force 6+ of unknown type) with a mass of lesser spirits (we think watchers, but still unknown) and all sorts of people.(armed with things ranging from rocks to old small arms). Even with a great battle plan and place not one of the characters had ammo by the time it was over.

It was a good thing that my character was a vodun with a force 5 great form in me(one of the war ones),and we had two shamans. with out those two things it would have been ugly. As it was only 1(out of 7)pc died,and that was just how the dice rolled.

[kenji]

well, here's something more theatric and "doh!" from my friend Troll's game:
(it's a two-parter, cause it was a cliffhanger session)

our party had been "hired" by Aztech on a "retainer" basis. (we were on the lam from Ares after one of our many building-demolishing "stealth" runs. generally, when ordered to sneak we exploded stuff, and when ordered to explode stuff, we snuck real good... and then exploded stuff.) so we were corp-runners-for-the-day for the Az, and they flew us out to India to "deal with" a problem in a rather profitable mine. seems they breached some sort of chamber-with-evil-temple dealie whilst digging their latest big-honkin transit tunnel. (using those HUGE tunnel-diggers they used to make the Chunnel, or something very similar... but rigger-controlled.)

we got all our people down into the chamber... and had just spotted the temple-o-trouble when "AHH! BEETLES!" ya know, the classic horde-o-bugs routine. our popguns were just not cutting it, and we beat a fighting retreat, blammiesmages firewalling at full blast, and Giant-sammie (named Schweetums, after the muppet) blasting away with his GUN<tm>.

so the whole party is scrambling madly up the sloped cavern floor towards the mine-tunnel, and we say "hey, where's Frenchy?" (our Quebequois dwarf rigger)

just then, he BUSTS through the cavern wall in one of those diggers! and then the GM called the session and we went on a 3-week christmas hiatus. awgawd.

---

so when we resume, the digger-machine lands, and Frenchy proceeds to Crushinate the beetles. and then says "so, the temple is made of rock, right?" and the GM (who had spent massive effort designing this deathtrap D&D-style dungeoncrawl temple o evil) says "yeah, so?" and Frenchy proceeds to make an express lane to the final badguy confrontation, bypassing the entire temple complex. (largely demolishing it, as well. our trademark maneuver. :) Frenchy threatens the Evil-Priest type badguy with a taste of the old mining-drill. then our supersexay Elf shaman type just gives him the Astral equivalent of a chokeslam, and it's done.

---
that game produced SO many good stories. just the MacBadass clan alone is good for both the Booze Elemental and the Scotch Fairy incidents. and the session immediately prior to the mine runs actually produced outtakes.

[Cain]

Ok, so I'm playing a troll sammie with an emphasis on toughness. He's successfully shrugged off full-auto bursts from LMG's. In order to properly challenge him, the GM faces us with a cybered piasma on steroids.

The piasma hits the team while my troll is otherwise occupied, but once the alert comes over the coms, I come charging in. He gets there just as one combat turn ends, and another one is ready to begin. One teammate is down, another injured, and a third has gone full-auto with no noticeable result.

The GM says I get one action at the end of the round, but it can't be combat. So, I take a hit of kamikaze and charge.

The cyberpisama who's been more than a match for an entire team gets hit by a maddened troll using a shotgun as a club. What's more, it ends up dying after one hit... and that's swinging a weapon that does Stun damage. Needless to say, the GM was very impressed, as were the players... and the characters, once the hit of kamikaze wore off and they felt safe coming within ten meters....