That is assuming that they even have the same biology - something that I would not. I don't remember if there is any canon mention of dragon biology (great or otherwise).

Personally I doubt if I would ever allow players to go up directly against a dragon.

That being said, it would make an absolutely wicked campaign to have the players get caught in the middle between two warring dragons.

Hell yeah! You could name it: Survival of the Fittest.

I thought it was called Survival of the Fittest, though I've never played it. Am I wrong there?

Edit: Doh! Moon beat me to it.

I am a smart-ass ninja.

I knew I was forgetting something.

In any case, another dragon would know the strengths/weaknesses of their own biology, so the players could get their "anti-dragon" gas there, or something.

Of course, the dragon who gave it to them might have thm all fitted with cranial bombs (or something sufficiently nasty) to make sure they don't use it on HIM.

Down this path lies madness... or SR5.

...I hate that module. Forced me to retire three really neat characters.

This is hogwash. Here's the original quote:

The reinterpretation of that is that easterns, westerns, feathered serpents, and sirrush are all magicians, while gorgons, wyverns, and such-like are not. But it was pretty clear at the time of original publication that there were western dragons that were not magicians. It was only later with the publication of "bruiser" dracoforms that the basic dragons were reinvisioned as all being spellcasters.

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This is contrary to the rules, and therefore wrong.

Yes, you can kill a great dragon with a sniper rifle or three. All you have to do is know where he is and gun him down. A called shot from a sniper rifle firing AP rounds is a base 12P with -7 AP. Throw down any amount of net hits and you're sailing through the hardened armor. Those 38 damage resistance dice are nice - but they aren't enough to stop all the damage. Get a surprise round in on it and a few samurai can cut it down before it can act (all 21 physical damage boxes).

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Except the PCC and the CFS, which ar bug-nuts.

-Frank

This is absolutely the case. There is a critter power called Immunity and Dragons don't have it. =) In the absence of Immunity (Toxins) all bets are off.

Hey, it worked for Carl Denham.

Note: Seems strange that dragons don't have a toxin immunity, since even Devil Rats are immune to Sevin-7. But it's all been thought through, I'm sure. They didn't have it in the last edition, either.

Hey, thanks! =) I can't even read my own rules quotes. Jaid was correct on the AP mattering for the Hardening.

However, the Fragmentation Rocket 16P/-2 still doesn't get around the Hardened Armor of 20+ without net successes and a direct hit. The DV goes down -4 per meter off target, so make sure you hit dead on. And even then, the thing is going to resist the damage.

Dude, so all these samurais are just sitting around near the Great Dragon waiting for the sniper to hit it? Get out! This scenario is ridiculous. It's not like you're going to just run into a Great Dragon in the middle of nowhere in a flat white plain sitting there alone, flatfooted, bound, and with all senses off. That's not what we're talking about.

In the "real world" (did I just say that?) Great Dragons are impossible to kill. Ask the Azzies.

You might be talking about Nachmeister, who was killed by Lofwyr. See here.

I love you too, man. (But I am on crack! )

Which brings us back to what I said at the very beginning - dragons don't survive because they're super-powered, they survive because they have vast cunning and a complete lack of all this mammalian morality.

And if this is so of great dragons, then it is more so of the vastly larger proportion of dragonkind that are non-great.

Dragons are lethal. Dragons are nasty. But they're not the staggering, bulldoze through anything monsters of D&D.

That looks like the Ancient History Symbol flashing in the sky!

AP doesen't matter until the resistance roll? Where did you get that from? As far as I can see AP adjusts the targets armor rating, and it is the modified armor rating that is compared to the modifed damage value to determine wether a weapon can hurt a spirit or not or wether a weapon causes physical or stun damage because of armor.

25 body vs 16 damage means on average 8 hits, thus the still the dragon takes 8 damage after soak (if you ignore armor). The armor will help of course, but alot it will be gone after AP.

It seems that "selected reading syndrome" affects us all. =)

Only one of those three uses is a Simple Action.

When something other than another Great Dragon or a tactical nuke takes out a Great Dragon in canon, you let me know. =)

In the meantime, have fun sneaking your team into the lair.

This is, perhaps, the most important thing to understand about our scaly overlords. Dragon thoughts are alien, different from mammilian thought entirely. Their beleifs, morals, ethics and ideaologies are unknown, as is their true capacity for what we would consider morally "evil" or "wrong".

We have strictures against killing our young, against cannibalism, child abandonment and many other practices that reptiles in the natural world engage in as regular forms of behavior. Who is to say what dragons are capable of?

Remember, immortality breeds evil - the longer you live, the less you care about the niceties (To a point, and yes, it's a generalization. Not all immortal beings have to be evil, but come on, this is a dystopian future - Absolute power corrupting absolutely and all that).

Excuse, me. They have the Magical Skills Power, not the Sorcery Power.
However, the fact that it is "observed in individuals" doesn't mean that not every dragon has it. It just means that individuals have been observed using it.

All of the fluff about dragons has stated that spellcasting is something that they learn to do when they first hatch, that it is as natural to them as breathing.

Dzitbalchen was ritually executed (sacrificed) by Aztlan. World governments can stand against dragons; at least the big ones can, piddly little Middle Eastern poop-pits, not so much.

But, dragons have more than their stats. They have layer upon layer of magical defenses, as well. At least, the smart ones do. Alamaise would have been roasted in Night's Pawn if he hadn't had the presence of mind to take his Bat Anti-Anti-Vehicular-Laser Pill. (Of course, Almaise doesn't count because he is an Ultimate NPC)

Dragons care for their young, for the most part. They're not above eating other dragons' children, however. This is especially true of half-metahuman children. Thermail committed suicide by impaling herself on a rather sharp mountain peak after her hatchings were, mutilated, by a depraved dragonkin magician whom she had befriended.

...getting the drop on a GD, easy? Maybe if I had a 300 karma character with maxed out Reaction (9). Of course, the GD has a Reaction of 11 (if he's a Western) and no doubt will have either a Detect Enemies or Combat Sense spell on a Force 6 sustaining focus.

Even if the character did manage to sneak up and tag him he rolls 35d (- any for AP from the weapon/ammo) for his soak roll With a damage track of 16 it will take more than one shot to bring him down. OK so he's wounded (barely), but now it's his turn...

Of course this is based on the generic GD in the Critter section. Like PCs and major NPCs I am certain the GD "personalities" will be much tougher than this to deal with.

In short, my PC might have an outside chance, one about as good as bringing down a T-Bird with a with a tennis ball in one throw.

As to the re-roll of the failed Edge attempt, this does not necessarily guarantee success. If the GD chooses to use his Twist Fate after the PC applies all her Edge for that action (I don't see why he wouldn't since it is a free action), that means all hits, including those gained through the use of Edge, are negated. It is conceivable that a PC could use up her entire edge for that one "lucky shot" re-rolling failures only to have it totally wasted, while the GD only needs to spend one of his.

[Note: I do not allow a PC to re-roll failures unless she gets at least one hit on the initial test (similar to the old Karma Pool rules). This also goes for NPCs.]

As you mention, GDs are rather smart (Logic/Intuition of 13) and don't usually take unnecessary risks. True, any living thing can be killed, given a big enough hammer is used (in this case a Thor Shot, railway tank car size FAE, or focused solar beam from space - forget any spells unless you want your mage go *poof* from overcasting) There's a reason the GD is on top of the Food Chain.

Mind you I generally do not like GDs (or IE's for that matter) and rarely if ever use them in my campaigns outside of maybe a passing reference. I have dealt with them as a PC and usually that resulted in sending them to the Home for Retired Runners.

Do you have a source for this? I don't think Dzitbalchen or his sibling are confirmed Greats.

We ended up having to kill a little dragon once, used AVRs. IIRC, we went through 6 before he croaked, and he manballed one PC DEAD, another just gravely injured. (we were very spread out) I think someone did minor damage to the dragon with a spell also. The Armor spell the dragon had kind of sucked, as I think it gave him effectively 16 points of hardened armor. I was kind of bummed how my cranked up steel lynxes LMGs with APDS just shredded the building he was in but didn't do anything to him at all.

But he did make a fine rug.

And there it is in a nutshell. Why do we need to resort to thor shots or focused solar beams from space? A great dragon is protected by informants, spies, hackers, spirits, divinations and revenge arrangements. These are just as effective against a plot to assasinate by Thor shot as they are against a plot to assasinate by sniper rifles, rocket attacks and planted bombs. In fact given the logisitcs of these super methods, whether it's the level of people involved or the heavy munitions that need to be sourced, these sorts of attacks should actually be easier to get advanced warning of than the handful of unknown dragon-haters who get some surplus military gear and lie in wait. But both the Thor shots and the home made bomb are capable of killing the dragon. What makes the difference is not firepower, but getting the drop on the dragon.

So why start pretending that dragons are indestructable short of concerted efforts by megacorps?

The original question was about dragons. To bring great dragons into the equation makes as much sense as to talk about humans and then bring mages into it. They're one in a thousand and are such a different area that they need to be treated as a separate issue.

A hardened armour spell?

The ultimate rug, though!

It began like this...

And a better analogy would be: "When asked about humanity, why bring up the strongest and best among us?" Because the strongest and best are illustrative of the ideal.

Runner Havens. I don't believe that he was a Great, but either way it does set a precedent.

Got it...

Runner Havens pg 125...

Caveat: All answers are from a GM perspective, and will vary. Here's my take:

Welocome to DS! You may want to refill your Valium and Prozac, and if you smoke, by a carton before you settle in to read the forums.
Tray table locked, and seat back upright? Here we go!

1) Dragons are similar in that they're conniving, mysterious and very powerful. Dragons have their own hidden agenda, and tend to remain elusive and discrete. Yes they are dangerous, even more so in that they have a lot more lackeys and co-conspirators available. More info in Dragons of the 6th World (good source material, still suitable for 4E)

2) Street Magic is vital unless you want to downplay magic. Any of the Target:wherever books are good for info on those locations. While many of the plot lines in Threats are null, the ideas and insight are still useful.

3) Matrix is completely virtual. There is no overlay, and given the proper software, it can look like whatever you want. Example, in the matrix, Lone Star's HQ looks like a big gold star, but if you have a powerful enough filter it can look like a wooded meadow, arusty star, or a bucket of dead fish. Astral is the real world, just a different way of seeing it. A wall in the physical will be a wall in the astral. The main difference is that the light comes from living things and their auras (including the Earth). Purely fabricated things, like a computer, look like a dark shape with no emotional or living contect. Emotions can leave a recognizable residue in astral space.

4) Corporate law on corporate territory, local law everywhere else. It's not a simple tier, think of international law now.

5) There have been very few references, but most religions exist as they do today, and have factions that embrace/resist the virtues of magic/technology. Go with your own comfort level.

6) Yes, but cyberdecks are slower than technomancers and full VR, and I'm assuming a bit quicker than AR. AR vs VR is a hot topic, and should be addressed in Emergence... A deck is just an interface tool. It is a little slower, but if it can run current software, it should battle IC and surf as well as a comm.

So I guess mana-cycle down-time doesn't count towards that.

Dragons = Magician

Sapience:

Awakened Sapient crittres are cpable of all magical tasks and follow the same rules for magic as normal characters.


Dragon can intitate, learn meta-magic, or do anything (and then some) players can.

So SR4 all dragons ARE magicians ... now I house rule they can also be adepts (since I like the thought of phys ad dragons and or mystic adept dragons).


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For the evil though and the sniper rifle == dead dragon...

Poession based dragon

Immunity Normal weapons = gain armor equal to twice its magic ... treated as hardned. (not gets hardned armor), All examples I have seen allow this to stack with other armor (spells, actual worn, etc)... nothing canon prevents this from stacking with actual hardned armor (and presumably would).

So Western Dragon Possesion style: Hardned armor 8 Magic average (9).
Force 9 (stun drain) spirit riding the host. (channelling naturally for dragon).

So Hardened armor = 8 + 9*2 = 26 (versus non-magic weapons)
Body equals: 24
Damage resistance = 60 dice

Yummy

(edit fixed quote code)

Isn't that what channeling is for?

Personally, I'd never let possession and hardened armor stack. Not only does it make dragons even more indestructible, but as soon as Arsenal comes along and gives us hardened personal armor it'll make PCs nigh indestructible as well.

In DRagons of the sixth world Wyrm Watcher posed the theory that when a dragon sleeps part of it remain active and that includes hibernation. he goes on to theorize that dragons learn while sleeping which explains how they we abel to seemingly seemlessly move from hibernation into the sixth world.