Sure, a Great Dragon has 10 counterspelling dice, but the Mage only needs one hit to get the stunball off, and the GD has around 14 stun damage boxes. So two beginning Mages seem to be about enough to smoke him... is this right?

But the GD has Armor plus body to resist a physical attack, that's over thirty dice (body 25 + Armor 12). Compared to Willpower plus Counterspell, it's not the same.

Plus a specialty, and he's got some other shit, I'll have to ask him.

Yeah, one noob mage would just hurt the GD, I'm saying two noob mages would smoke him like a loosie.

Personally, I'd like to completely debunk this situation he's suggested. But the fact remains that half-team of Mage runners can win intiative and kill a Great Dragon in one turn...

Spellcasting 6, magic 6. Specialization in combat spells. Power focus 3. Mentor spirit.

That's 19 dice.

That's a pretty strong focus on powerful spells, though.

I don't see how you would get a mage up to 25 starting easily, or really at all.

If you're including Edge, then sure.

Now getting a sammy up to 19 is easy. 25 is hard, but doable.

As far as I can tell, 19 dice versus 23 dice still leaves the dragon unscathed on average. It's true that if the mage gets lucky on his spellcasting and the dragon unlucky on his resistance things could turn out differently. That's why the dragon has a bunch of Edge.

Also, some of those same toys the mage is using to boost his spellcasting pool can also be used by the dragon. I can't imagine a great wyrm without a power focus (which I think can be added to counterspelling tests), and at least some level of initiation, possibly including Shielding, Absorption, and/or Reflecting metamagic techniques.

Aid Sorcerry, Force 6 Spirit. 25 right there.

Better make that a Force 3 Combat Spellcasting focus. A Force 3 Power Focus is availability 15 and outside the grasp of a starting character.

In any case, you could throw in Edge. Hell, you could overcast and summon a Force 12 Spirit of Man and throw it in to cast a spell at Force 24 with a dicepool of 24. You could really go to town.

And Twist Fate doesn't actually work, since it requires te use of actions and can't be aborted to. As per the riles, the only use for Twist Fate is offensively to counter the point of Edge someone spends to try to save their punk ass from a dragon's attacks.

But Counterspelling foci do! So does magical guard from bound spirits. And Shielding dice apply. And the Dragon can also spend Edge.

So even if you've got your 25 die pool with the rule of 6, you're looking at an average of 10 hits. The great dragon is looking at a dice pool of about 30 and can reroll failures. So you don't do crap to him even if you get the jump on the wyrm.

Now, a sniper rifle with ExEx is a totally different ballgame. A decent dicepool fired from a long distance and total concealment means that the Dragon doesn't even get a defense pool. Suddenly he just has to resist the damage, and even with his 20 points of hardened armor (15 after AP), he just isn't going to soak it all. A Street Sam or two with an uninterupted line of fire can call a shot right in the eye and just plain kill Lofwyr. In that respect, he's just like any other public figure. Snipers could totally kill him.

That they haven't yet is mostly testament to the fact that he's really careful.

-Frank

Bound spirits can add their force to the spellcasting roll, that inflates the dice pool even more. I just didn't think that any beginning characters could hope to touch a GD, and there's a definte chance for the GD to lose given this situation.

Don't worry. We're working on it.

Well, and I think that is the trick...getting to that specific situation when it just comes down to who's got the biggest dice pool. I know what you are trying to do, but the reality of it is that you won't be facing off with a GD in a prime situation...but, I suppose if you do have the time to get all your preparation in before meeting, even a noob could take out a poorly readied GD.

I think that is the key to the whole of it. If someone got the drop on a GD they have already pulled off the miracle.

I actually like GD being somewhat vulnerable if you get past their legions and planning and treachery. Not some freaking Tarsque-like monolith that you need a flock of Stirges to bring down.

But then I've never had a dragon make a personal appearance in a game, and I never want my PC to meet one, nor do I expect to ever GM a game where the player's characters will meet one.


P.S. What selfrespecting plotdevice GD, intended as an unkillable NPC, isn't going to be Initiated a bazillion times over with some Metamagic to boost Counterspell dice pool and have some focus on his body that gives him an extra fistfull of Counterspelling dice for all spell catagories?

The one that got smart and took the Harlequin route. That is, "to be an unkillable plot device you can't have stats at all."

Wow, now that I think about it one of my characters has met 3 of them. Hestaby, Ghostwalker, and Hualpa. Thats insane, my gm is insane.

Not quite. If he's running a SOTF-like campaign, I can see you meeting much more than those 3.

...a few of my characters also ended up meeting GDs, & quickly retired afterwards.

Tomoe: Lofie, Hestaby and some GD from Hong Kong (forget the name)
Leela: Rhonabwry
Desert: Hestaby
Lana Lane: Rhonabwry, Hestaby, and a Sea Dragon (again, the name escapes me)

Not a good pattern here.

Conclusion; SOTF is insane?

Hey leave the dragons alone monkeyboy, especially with a name like Steak.

Uh no offense but your definition of runner and mine must be different, cause any 16 year old punk with a gun who does shadowruns could be classed as shadowrunner. We're not talking special forces here, especially at 400 BP. Oh and not every newbie shadowrunner runs because they want to or even know which end of the gun to point.

Criminals yes, professional yes or no. Depends entirely on the character. I could have 500 points of really goofy skills.

Hard caps blow, we actually don't play with em. But that's just us.

You know I'm always impressed more by how well non elite characters manage than the
cyberninjas. Here's a freebie off the top of my head....

Juan Guapo
Stuffershack worker by day, shadowrunner by night.
Went to technical school but no corp will employ him even after repeated attempts to get a good job. Runs the shadows for extra income to help his ailing grandmother out and pay for the private school his two kids go to. Started by making deliveries for a 'friend' of his brother. Did his first B&E job last week and fired the gun he bought at a pawnshop for the first time. Scared he might be in over his head and might actually kill someone.

400 points sure, 500 even if you're feeling generous. Elite, not a chance.
But guess what? You'll almost never see realistic characters instead you see testosterone driven cybermonkeys with names like Max Payne with no motives or flaws besides "I like to set stuff on fire" and "I occasionally run out of ammo".

Blah ok now i'm ranting but I hate how everyone just assumes Shadowrunners are all 733t3 haX0rs or something. Nothing personal, I mean I know what age range the game generally draws.

That's a very cool character idea. Mind if I... *yoink*... thanks.

They are. Which is why we have shadowrunners and posers.

Now. Back to plotting the ultimate destruction of Lofwyr and all that he stands for.

Hrmmm strangely I agree. I didn't say everyone had to be from the movie Office Space even though that would be damn amusing, the casulties would be enormous. Might work as a one shot.
Even I can get nutty sometimes. I usually have to take a step back and remember this isn't a novel I'm writing and I do have to play longer than 300 pages.

Ok hmmm let me cut to the barest. I guess my take home message is:

Not everyone is special forces.

Think of your characters flaws. Real people have them, 3 dimensional characters have them.

You better have a damn good reason to be a freelance criminal.


I'll shut up now I think i'm getting incoherent and my wife thinks I need to be muzzled I'm scaring the dumpshock people.

Sure. For instance, one major character flaw I keep find popping up is the indecision of what to do with all these $#@!ing bodies...

Aw thanks, be my guest. I have a million.

Heh Ignite if you're a mage, or a bathtub and a really strong base if you're a sam. I.E. The Big Hit.
Thank you come again.

The question was really whether or not a small group of noob mages can take out a GD, and the answer seems to be a fatty NO.
In retrospect and thinking about the 2nd and 3rd edition flavor text that I've read, I think everyone agrees that nobody gets to prepare for their meeting with a GD, getting all their spirits in line and setting their foci properly. It just happens.

And if he doesn't smoke the Dragon on the first shot...

Great Dragons have 20 points of hardened armor and 20 points of hardened mystic armor. That means that astral attacks can pretty much fuck off.

But a Manabolt, while it has been established to be rather underwhelming in its chances of hurting a GD at all, will bypass Mystic Armor if you fire it off on the physical plane.

Still, you are much better off with an APDS round out of a sniper rifle and a called shot from long range.

-Frank

What Bull said.

I have never done it, but I'm thinking dragonhunt for my players sometimes in the future, campaign-style. Of course not a named GD .

I lived for a few years in eyeshot of the place where Siegfried reputedly killed the dragon Fafnir... just wanting to share that tidbit of information . Hey, that story even has dwarfs in it .

I'm not even too sure about that. I think if you're going to go dragon hunting, your best bet would be to pack a few nuclear devices in your knapsack.

So what? My starting sammy, built with 300 bps, can kill Damien Knight in 1 hit. He walks up to him, and shoots him in the head. I win.

This is of course to illustrate that the diffulty with killing anything or anyone does not lie in stat vs stat. It lies in getting the opportunity to strike at the target.

You will likely never get that opportunity with a GD.

Yeah, the way I explained to LP (the mage in my game) is that the stats in the critters section are only part of a Great Dragon's stats. The rest are connections and wisdom. It's totally reasonable for a Dragon to have 10 wagemages nearby to counterspell for him. If our GM tried that type of backup with an A level corp, we'd complain. I also told him that a group of noob mages would never get to prepare for a meeting with a GD. They would either meet an emissary or the Dragon would appear unnanouced.
The only Great Dragon that did keep any kind of predictable schedule was Dunklezahn, and he did get taken out (if you don't beleive the conspiracies).