Related to some discussions in the "No Surrender" thread. What cyber, gear, spells and tricks would your shadowrunner use to escape if captured?

I'm assuming for the moment that the best time to escape is very soon after you've been picked up. If you wait for the strip search and cyberscan your chances aren't too good

My #1 pick: Eyelights with Superflash. They're cyber, so it's hard to spot and hard to disarm. You can use them even if your hands are out of play. You don't need to make any preliminary motions to get them out. Finally, you can go after many opponents at the same time. Blind everybody, then run like hell

retractable handblade, to pop the cuffs or rope, or depending on the type of cuffs possibly simple strength will pop a bad link

The extended area effect verson of Turn to Goo (now, for a limited time in SR4, Munchkins rejoiced until they saw the resale prices for used cyberware).

So they Turn to Goo a few extra people with a couple cars tossed in. No problem.

If you could escape in the first place, why and how did you get captured? If you are captured, there is no escape clause for you. Because if you did, you would have done so already. A get out of prison card would be Diplomatic Immunity.

Voice Modulator with Secondary Pattern and Cyberears with a Recorder, both slaved to Headware Memory. Among the most underrated and unused cyber combinations in the game, with a wide variety of uses for a savvy character.

Another less-used cyber item is the Breakable Tooth Compartment with a transmitter inside. Make arrangements in advance with your fixer that if you ever trigger it, he's to hire a team to spring you (in addition to alerting your team of your location if they aren't captured with you, of course). A bit pricey since you're going to need to set aside enough nuyen to pay for the extract, but very effective.

(And also a good adventure hook.)

Body Compartments (with Lockpicks/Lockpick Guns, Synthetic Fingerprints, etc.), Flex Hands, Retinal Duplication, and High-Power Eye Laser Systems all have pretty useful and obvious applications for getting yourself out of a tight spot. Under the right circumstances, OXSYS Cybergills and Magnetic Systems might give you an extra option for escape methods or routes.

Something I've always wanted to try is an Auto-Injector loaded with a drug that fakes death as a last-ditch escape mechanism, but I've never been able to find a proper chemical for it, and there's the little matter of potentially becoming an autopsy subject; you'd probably need a Jolt-Alert system or something accompanying it to make sure you don't stay 'out' too long.

And if you add in the sheer volume of things you can sneak into a Cyberlimb's storage space, the options for escape are even greater. Of course, against the Star or similarly well-prepared opponents there's a good chance they're going to detect even above-quality synthetic cyberlimbs and look for hidden toys. If not, some thermite or C4 certainly might give you an out!

As for spells... well, if they're dumb enough to leave a mage in a condition where he can cast them, they may as well not capture him at all. A mage has more escape methods naked than a character built with every ounce of cyber in the game. Shapeshift, Physical Mask, Magic Hands, Levitate, Invisibility, Control Actions, etc. It's almost too easy.

My favorite character had three tricks for being captured.

1) Jumpsuit & Restraint Melters, from the Cannon Companion

2) A custom gun with voice activation.

Combined with his general success in cultivating an utterly harmless geek motif, it'd usually give him an opening for the trick everyone can use.

3) Running like hell.

eye tool laser

You might be better off putting the tool laser in a fingertip compartment. Is it good enough to burn through cuffs?

Assuming you are caught by the cops, I'd guess the sotry goes something like this:

They catch you.

They search you and take away anything they find.

If the situation is unstable, known mages, adepts, and maybe trolls, get several 'accidental' boots to the head.

They hold you at the scene until the situation is 'stable' (e.g. the shooting is stopped, etc).

Then they pack you in a cop car to go off to the police station.

At the station, they subject you to any searches they didn't have time/equipiment for at the scene. Then they do all your paperwork.

Then, you go into a holding cell, to await interrogation, the offer you can't refuse, or whatever.

Trying to escape 'at the scence' may offer the best chanes of succes, as the cops are hopefully busy with whatever brought them here. Of course, a botched escape attempt will probably lead to being shot while resisting arrest.

The transport to the police station is another reasonable choice. But you'll be cuffed, etc, so getting out is going to be difficult.

Once you get to the station, getting out on your own is probably impossible.

So, the best choices seem to be cyber and/or bioware that will hopefully escape a quick search, will allow you to get out of restraints, and then kill or disable several cops...

So, fingertip tool lasers, restraint melters, flex hands, high escape artist skill, and similar to get out of the restraints.

Then, toxin gland, flash pack eyes, fingertip compartment monowhip, or other concealable things to help get out away.

with the eye, you have some more options, and it would be harder to detect as such, as opposed to the fingertip comp, especially if oyu have other eye-ware. Fingertip cyber = bad. Eye ware = normal. There fore less likely to look as close. Plus, you can always stare a cop down, then burn out his eye ball with the eye laser.

And a high-power eye laser (not even necessarily a tool laser) is less likely to burn out your cybereyes than a superflash eyelight...

Heh, lets see them try to cuff Mr. eye-laser pants. (with some large number of independent, eye laser packing eyes in his cyber legs...)

Question: I was thinking about having my character have a tiny retractable blade concealed in the fingertip of her glove (no cyber options available; the character is an awakened). Nothing big enough to do any combat damage, but perhaps small enough to saw its way through plastic cuffs (for metal ones, use the restraint melter). How much would various people charge for such a modification and would such a blade work on plastic cuffs?

The other thing that comes to mind is a hidden compartment in her glove (basically a thin pocket) with a lockpick inside.

[cue Latin sounding music]

Brazil.........

it's only a state of mind

You could always just bite the guard's face off. You know what your teeth do to steak? Yeah, they do that to people, too.

Right, so put in a sprayer in your finger compartment so you can squirt the guy's face with some steak sauce before you bite into his face...

Face? I always figured it'd be more efficient to go for the throat and try and take out one of the carotid arteries. Eh.

I had a shaman in sr2 with a couple of unfetished exclusive spells he could cast even when pretty messed up and naked for this sort of situation, chaotic world being one he actually used a couple times (casting it centered on himself to incapacitate whoever was holding him, and break LOS to everyone outside the area, then running away and going invisible).

Another charachter was just so freakishly strong and tough that he could batter down even most cell doors, break through walls, grab a hostage, run away under a hail of bullets, etc. A lot like the way that guy in "Sin City" would just survive more than anyone expected and get away much of the time.

My street sam charachter has some freakish athletic abilities that help him make ridiculous escapes, and a cyberlimb compartment where he could keep a few small escape items. He escaped some sticky situations by doing stuff like jumping out of third floor windows.

I also once made up some cyberware for a charachter, jaw bolt cutters, that I intended to use in this way.

A burgler type NPC had a toxin exhaler with some fast acting high target penalty but short duration drug (maybe atropine?) for up close emergancies and an internal air tank that let him escape the pc who had captured him briefly. It was pretty cool "You grab him (subduing combat), me: "he coughs", player: "uh oh", resist, you have these penalties, he gets out of your grasp (barely, charachter was stronger, or maybe the charachter dropped him and grabbed a med kit?), he jumps over the side and swims straight down (they were on a boat).

Another NPC had a bunch of grenades he used creatively to escape a coffin hotel some PC's had surrounded. He dropped a frag grenade out of his coffin making them back off, slammed the door shut, then dropped a couple smoke grenades out and escaped in the smoke (they did get him later, and were ready for the grenades).

In general I was relying on the ability to do something unexpected when an opportunity arose especially immediately after being captured, but unless you dedicate a charachter to it you usually need some luck or some underestimation by your captors to make an escape.

Fortunately the GM is often looking to give you an opportunity to escape in a cool way, especially if you put some effort into it. The thing I hated most as a GM was players to dim to take the outs I was giving them.

edit:

Oh yea, and I had a rigger who had a ripple of dumb rockets in his van so he could take out a wall or small building and escape.

A physad burgler charachter had a spell knack edge for magic fingers, which I figured I would someday use to escape something (never used it). It wasn't very useful in general because you would almost always end up taking moderate or serious drain, but if it's that or die it could have been just the needed suprise.

In general most of these strategies are to have some resource in reserve that gives you one more shot to get away just as you are being captured, often taking some damage, drain, or spending a hard to get peice of gear as you do it. I almost always put one in every charachter.

Then there's Night Angel

A raging Quickness with phenomenal reaction, high Stealth, Electronics & Athletics Skills. Couple this with superior Security Systems/Procedures knowledge and Fast Talk. Finally there are her 4 levels of Muscle tone & the double jointed edge. All cyber is alpha & Beta internal headware (save for her reaction enhancement) & the rest is cultured bio.

Should she have the misfortune to run into a guard, it's then it's simply time for a little "Goodnight Kiss" (Chemical Gland - arsenic w/Spit Vector)

Odds are, if it's full of names and numbers of people who have screwed you over, then it is genuine. The cops just don't know that you're not 'buddy-buddy' with them, that all they've done is screw you over.

My characters generally just kill whoever it is that tries to lock them up. They are perma-escapees!

Failing that, if they're bound, beaten, drugged, and shipped across the country by shadowy villians (and choose not to resist because their kidnappers weapons aren't pointed at them, but rather at their best friend's children)? Well. Then we kick to death three times our number of Trolls in melee combat, and claw our way out of the gutters of Charlotte, NC and get back to Seattle.

Uhhh...hypothetically.

Once, my most long-running character was captured by "plot device." (not much else can capture a character with a sufficient karma pool) After several weeks of intense torture, I did something... desperate. You see, MUCH earlier in my running career, I had broken in to a highly secure magical research site. I wasn't able to get what I came for, but I DID find over a half dozen free spirit true names that the place had managed to discover. As I was but a neophyte runner then, I held on to them (and memorized them) until I was able to put them to use. Free spirits where, at the time, well above my power to handle (especially spirits of unknown power!) Well, I never had a good opportunity to use them, and two weeks of hallucinogenic torture in a dungeon (by your grandmother, no less!) will do strange things to a man. I called those free spirits -- ALL of them, using their free names. Then bargained for my freedom (a dead man's switch that released the true names to the net was a good bargaining tool -- ALWAYS be prepared!) For certain, it was a debt I was paying off for a LONG time, but it made for a VERY memorable escape. Though, I think those spirits may someday kill that poor character.

LinaInverse:

How about using diamond chips epoxied to the fingernails?

I saw that in one of THE PUNISHER comics about 20 years ago.

Frank Castle glued some man-made diamond chips to the fingernails of each hand--except for the thumbs.

He later used them in a close-combat situation to incapacitate a felon--sliced the radial artery in one of the guy's wrists, as I recall.

Just a suggestion, mind you.

About as useful as brohopcp's suggestion, but it might be less likely to be detected.

--Foreigner

Detachable cyberhand (so you´re cuff-free) with a retractable snap blade inside the cyberarm (so you can fight back). Probably that´s not the most effective escape method, but at least it´s surprising

The way I figure it, there's not much point in worrying about escape clauses, because, playing a combat sorcerer who can slaughter everyone in a room with a glance even after being stripped of all gear, bound hand and foot, and gagged, there's little to no middle ground between "fully combat-effective" and "totally incapacitated", and "totally incapacitated" takes enough doing that it's less painful for everyone involved to just move straight on to "slowly cooling corpse".

So if they've figured out that I'm a mage, they're probably not going to be particularly interested in trying to keep me as a prisoner, and if for some reason they are, I'm really not going to like what they do to me. Better to go down fighting and take an honor guard with me to Valhalla.

And if they haven't figured out that I'm a mage, I need no special solution to turn them into dogmeat whenever I feel like walking away. There're no surprises I could conceal that'd be more effective than my inborn magical abilities.