The best tool in the box of pacifists in SR4 is a spell whose name would probably get blocked by the censor programs here at work. But suffice to say it's an AoE spell that whittles down dice pools pretty niftily in a manner that doesn't piss everyone off. No killing, and it doesn't even harm someone (until your street sam takes advantage of their near-catatonic states to blow their brains out unresisted). I think that spell would unarguably fit even the strictest of definitions of pacifism, and it has real, pragmatic benefits, as well. Less people wanting to kill you is a way better reason to use non-lethal methods than "principles," but where they can overlap, that's groovy. A month or so back, my character got to use this method to try to prevent a race riot. A good time was had by all, even the opposition (which rarely gets said). Of course, the problem with AoE sustained spells is that someone can step out of the area, which wouldn't be possible with the single target version. Someone ended up accidentally getting outside the effect area, threw a molotov, and my friends machine-gunned the whole crowd (which got a lot less disturbing after I'd dropped my spell).

Still, as I'm sure has been said millions of times, non-lethal methods are a runners friend, where possible. But relying solely on them is going to make you at least as unflexible as the guy that only has lethal weapons. Shock gloves are easy enough to carry around though, that there's really no reason to be in a situation where you can only take someone down by killing them (provided they're a person and not a machine, in which case GI Joe says it's ok to kill them wholesale).

Hi everybody, I have been lurking on these forums for a while and felt compelled to speak up on this. I have played a total pacifist character before in SR3 in the Barrens. He was a street Doc Shaman that used runs to fund his clinic in the barrens. It was interesting working with the rest of the team because they were where not against killing. I pretty much had to figure out ways to prevent combat from happening or mitigating its effects. This often involved using physical barrier spells, levitate in clever ways, and mist and darkness spells. I was a very valued member of the team and was able to bring characters back from the brink of death. I even attached a replacement cyberarm to one of the street kids that had it ripped off by ghouls. The community ended up protecting my clinic and it became a neutral ground for gangs. And I couldn't even count how many people I treated for various wounds illnesses and other medical problems. He ended up retiring after getting enough money saved up to run his free clinic for several years.

Anyway that was one of the most successful and longest running characters I ever played. Just in the last run on Saturday, with a different character, I used a levitate spell to move a floor to ceiling shelf to block a stair case which had several armed gunmen coming down it. It completely ruined the combat the GM had planned and I got bonus Karma for it.

So it IS possible but it is very difficult and challenging as you have to be very creative at finding ways to prevent and stall combat as much as possible.

I'm at a home computer, so I can say Orgasm.

As much as people laugh about this spell, it's true. I mean, Stunball does damage. It's not permanent, but it leaves nasty headaches.

Orgasm? No bad side effects. And you're right, a good time is had by all. Unless, well...the bad thing happens that you said. But it can indeed work.

I agree with flexibility-I mean, keep the options open. You don't always maybe want gel rounds-as you said, they are useless against drones and the like.

But I still think there is indeed rarely an instance where you are FORCED to kill the oppositon, when knocking them out can work just as well. Wetwork, I mean, you're signing on to kill someone, that's aside. Otherwise, I still stand by the fact that if you kill in Shadowrun, you kill because you want to-though I'm sure some might disagree there. The juiced up Adept that hits for 11P with Killing Hands can just as easily turn Killing Hands off and knock them out to tie them up. My buddy actually played a character that earned a good 160+ Karma, was a heavy weapons and gun expert, and a big game hunter...and never killed one human or metahuman in his entire career. Knocked out? Sure. But never killed.

I'm sure I might not be thinking hard enough, but aside from taking wetwork, I'm trying to think of a situation where you'd be forced to kill-ok, someone blackmailing the character into killing someone or else the runner's girlfriend dies and the runner's out of options could count, Ill give you that.

I'll also say that people of course end up dying due to accidents...say, hypothetically, the stun rounds end up knocking down a thin beam and a bigass thing falls on a guy and kills them, or in the process of stick-and-shocking the driver of the car, the car crashes and people die from their wounds.

Sure. I agree that most of the time, killing isn't necessary.

My current character isn't a pacifist. But he tries not to be a dick. At the beginning of the campaign, he was shooting "bad guys" along with the rest of the group. But then on one run, he and the infiltration specialist were sneaking into some place, and we saw the proprietor standing in a room before he saw us. I nailed 11 hits or something ridiculous like that on my infiltration roll, and I was thinking "oh, badass! This is like a game of Tenchu," so I snuck up and slit his throat. Everyone at the table (except for the particularly murderous street sam's player) got a blank stare and said things like "uh, dude... he was unarmed." Guy probably wished us harm, but it's not like we were really in danger of dying. I felt like a dick. So since then, I've tried not to kill unless I have to. I don't mean ABSOLUTELY have to, but I try to make sure I have a little more reason than just "it'll look cool" (which is usually reason enough for me to do just about anything else). Being a shaman helps a lot in this regard, as I mentioned above. If I were a street sam, I'd have to start keeping a taser on me or something.

SR4 mechanics encourage non-lethal force. The fastest and most effective way in the game to take a single living opponent out of a fight is Stunbolt. Not to mention Gel round are pretty much more effective against organic opponents than regular ammo. Pragmatism states that you use the most effective means at your disposal to stop a threat, so non-lethal measures are the order of the day. In practice, the game doesn't give you much of a mechanical choice.

I feel like it would make for a much better game if the lethal measures were, across the board, much more effective in taking out targets than the non-lethal measures. That way the runners have to make a serious choice. Do they opt for the lethal measures which might lead to a high body count and all ramifications thereof? Or do they go with the non-lethal options, trading off effectiveness for better PR?

In my games, Gel Rounds and Stun Grenades don't exist. Mages can still Stunbolt/Stunball, but no one else has anything close. Even the damage from Tasers and Stun Batons wears off VERY quickly.

The way I roll it is that if you have a big dice pool and you're using something like gel rounds/stun grenades/blunt weapons/tazers/fists and if you roll high enough, you will overflow the damage. It used to happen in SR3 all the time. A character would club a guard unconscious, i'd make the roll, it'd stage up into hefty physical damage and blood would start pooling under the guard's head. Same with gel rounds, internal bleeding. Tazers? Oh boy. Fists? Hell, ever now and then in Australia a football player gets in a punch-up with a bouncer, and one of them was killed instantly with a punch, I think. He might have hit something on the way down, but with the abstract nature of rules, that could explain an overflow. The only thing I probably wouldn't rule stages up into overflow is stunbolt/ball, although I could easily explain that too. The only truly non-lethal spells are the least effective.

A lot of runners say "i'm a pacifist runner with morals and a conscience" which just means that they load their SMG with gel rounds and rock and roll.

With the right skills, a few good rolls and some ingenuity, I give runners the possibility of pulling of a lot of runs without firing a shot. That's why I usually require combat spec characters to have secondary skillsets, Because I've found if they don't have another role, they're sometimes likely to crack out the grenades and automatic weapons just because they haven't done anything yet.

The street sam in my group insists that a sniper rifle firing gel rounds is perfectly non-lethal. We're all waiting for him to crush someone's skull with it.

The above situations is why sometimes pulling hits is a good idea. That's how my buddy managed going burst-fire with gel rounds and rarely overflowed more than Light damage in SR3. I wouldn't say blood pools around the guards head at 1-3 boxes of overflow; i might signify that as being unconsious with a couple of broken ribs from the force of the shots, perhaps.

And as for hitting something on the way down? I mean, people trip and fall and do that without a blow landing. It can happen, sure. I actually remember a case where a fellow, who happened to know martial arts, had to go to court due to the death of a guy, and while I believe he got off on self defense, the fact he knew martial arts was played against him.

Funny thing is-he didn't even hit the guy. He simply caught the punch and grappled him down; but due to the other guy's struggle(i believe the guy was drunk) and just really, really bad luck, the guy ended up hitting his head in the fall and later dying from it. They managed to prove, though, that the manuver was not meant to kill the fellow. Basically, it could have happened in any situation. Judging by the sound of the guy's condition, he could have fallen onto the pavement with the punch alone. I've seen some barfights around here that the bouncers have to break up, and you can tell they are actually very careful on how they do it; they both try to get a good grapple on the guy, but also make sure that they aren't hitting their heads and the like on the way down; in fact they try to keep them up with a good purchase on them.

I guess because I've played in so many past games where the real lead and blood was flying, when the runners make a genuine effort to keep things non-lethal I tend to go much easier on them.

There are still worlds between a pacifist and the use of not-so-lethal (non-lethal is actually an euphemism) force.

And while I appreciate those who pick the stunning route, rejection of necessary violence is a no-go on a Run.

Sure, you might argue about 'necessary'. But you better do that afterwards instead of on the run.

The term I hear tossed around a lot now is "less lethal." Since, you know, there are lots of weapons that can kill, even though they're not designed to.


I don't really see being a True Pacifist in the shadows as viable, long term. Maybe you could get away with a few runs, but eventually, its going to be come a major liability. That's speaking of in-the-field shadowrunners, mind you. If you're planning on going in to a target, you better be willing to do violence if need be. Being in hostile territory and unwilling to fight is bordering on suicide. Something will eventually go wrong and then you're stuck: do you stick to your ideals or do you cave and protect yourself or others from harm? I think there is room for True Pacifist who works in a support role: a Face, doctor, hacker, or even a magician could make a viable True Pacifist.

On the other hand, I think there's a great deal of room for a character that tries to use non-violent means whenever possible. Infiltrators are a great example. They don't want to get caught, if the do, something went wrong and its time to cut their losses and run like hell. In the process of running, they very well might need to fight. Next to a street samurai, I can think of few characters that would be a worse liability than a True Pacifist infiltrator.

-paws