Who do you geek second?, When the mage is dead Options

[hyzmarca]

Everyone knows the first commandment of Shadowrunning that God handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai - Thou shalt geek the mage before any other.

This begs the question, who do you geek second. Which archetype is so universally dangerous that you should consentrat all f your deathdealing upon after you have returned the enemy magician to the soft bosom of the creator?

Please, voice your opinions.

[Bearclaw]

Forget that. Geek the troll first. They're always bad news. You want to at least screw up his TN's before he starts swinging the combat axe or blasting with the auto fire shotgun (which they all carry, even the mages).

[Siege]

Situationally, it depends on who's carrying what and where they're positioned.

The troll or the heavy weapon, if applicable, gets my vote.

A placed sniper can seriously ruin anyone's day.

And let's hope they don't have a drone rigger providing overwatch and fire support.

Geeze...who do you geek second?

-Siege

[Kagetenshi]

Geek the Rigger first. Problem is, you usually can't geek the Rigger, so geek the Mage and then get the hell out of Dodge.

~J

[hahnsoo]

Waste Trolls, not ammo. :)

[Herald of Verjig...]

I prefer geeking the guy with the many IPE offensive grenades on his belt first. It usually geeks everyone else in a 15 meter radius in a nice big tie for second geeking.

[Paul]

The rigger. He could be six people at once. In fact my players tend to geek the rigger first, then the magicaly active.

[Kagetenshi]

Just hold an action for him to pull the pin.

~J

[toturi]

The other mage.

[Snow_Fox]

Trolls can soak up a lot of damage, do not waste bullets on them. they should be targeted by mages with mana bolts.

After geek the mage? Go for the lesser people with the guns. Sure the sammie is dangerous but take out his support force. Start piling up casualties around the sammie. no matter how good the sammie is, if he's got casualties to take care of he'll have to back off.

[Gyro the Greek S...]

Shooting everyone next would be a good bet.
If you're getting into a prolonged combat and the must-kill heavyweight has been taken down already, the best thing to do is to rack the opposition's target numbers up to make them as good as useless. Six injured guys is better than one dead guy and five perfectly healthy combatants.

[Snow_Fox]

exactly. once the casualties start to add up the opposition's ability to progress is reduced. Do they leave the wounded to fend for themselves? They cannot go forward.
Think of the scene in BlackHawk Down where the rescue mission finally digs in. The captain declares "We are combat ineffective!" They could still fight and hold the ground but they had so many wounded slowing them down they could no longer advance.

The opposition's sammie may have wired reflexes 3 and a skill of 8 with ingram smart guns, but he can't leave his team behind, and they are too wounded to go forward..

[Siege]

Ahhh, yes. The logic behind adopting the 5.56 round.

1. Which doesn't really count if the enemy is not worried about his casualties
2. Depending on the force and situation, you may not have the resources to treat the wounded in mid-conflict
3. In small unit conflicts, disengaging to treat the wounded isn't really an option in the face of an aggressive opposing force

-Siege

[Westiex]

Use area of affect weaponry. Geek the mage, the sams and seriously hurt the troll at the same time. As a side note, missiles also work well against drones ...

... but attract Lone Star like a donut shop with a sale on.

[Kagetenshi]

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Oracle]

[Kagetenshi]

Someone has clearly not read the Great Dragon ATGM entry recently.

~J

[Clyde]

After the mage, pop their fastest guy. Whether he's a samurai, an adept or a rigger jumped into a drone (I guess that's the drone you have to shoot) the speedster is the one with the most opportunities to shoot you. The big troll may look scary, but if he only shoots once for every three times the Sammy goes, then the Sammy gets the most bang for your buck.

Of course, you could just start with air timed IPE grenades and just geek everybody all at once :D

[Paul]

Man does nobody use riggers? A rigger is hands down the single most powerful character you can have on any professional team. Striking from a distance, not limited by any LOS restrictions, capable of using targeting programs, and heavy weapons en mass, able to coordinate multiple teams, drones and communicate with the authorities/back up or whatever near instantaneously all in the relative safety of an armored heavily armed vehicle.

Add in some Magical back up inside his vehicle, and he is nigh invincible.

A mage is limited by drain, and essence. Riggers are only limited by money.

[Shockwave_IIc]

For some reason the troll with a Grenade Launcher, SL2 and air timed using it like a shotgun reminds me of the CyberDemon from Doom.....

[Oracle]

[Oracle]

[Grinder]

Mine do in the nasty fights when they're forced to cast high-force spells. Or keeping multiple spells up (the +2 modifer for each sustained spell applies to the drain TN as well, it's a nasty house rule, i know).
But rarely had more than M drain after a fight, though.

[toturi]

Some mages are extremely tough to kill and targeting them will cost you the fight and your lives. A mage with Immunity to Normal Weapons(not a difficulty), decent armour(with the conspicuous Armour spell = me mage!) and concentrating on spell defense can act as decoy for any of the more fragile group members like the street sam, adept or troll who are concentrating on killing off your team.

So while geeking the mage first is a truism that is mostly valid, like most things in SR, you cannot always rely on it.