Unless all you want to do is resist damage, you need a ranged weapon in addition to the cyberspurs. I don't know about your games, but there have been alot of places in my games where either you can't get to them, or you have to cross about 100 meters of turf to do so. I would recommend an Ingram Smartgun X, an HP MP-5 TX if you want Semi-Auto fire. Or if you really want a decent concealable and non-threatening firearm then the Yamaha Sakura Fabuki is good.


Chris

Updated sheet with different skills (dropped exotic ranged and cyberspur, picked up pistols, and an ares pred). Plans are to later replace ares pred for a heavy cyberpistol.

Massive overhaul, better damage taking ability, room for the pain editor once he can get ahold of one, biomonitor so he knows when to stop while pain editors active, wired reflexes, a gun, armor on the limbs, all sorts of jazz to make him much better overall. Any suggestions? (I did ditch the adrenaline pump too, as well as all used 'ware).

I'd consider getting rid of Dodge in favor of Gymnastics since you already have Unarmed to fall back on if you happen to get threatened with ranged and melee attacks in the same round. There's some real drawbacks, of course; there's no Ranged/Defense specialization for Gymnastics and your character is likely to have his hands full thanks to the shield and gun combination, so you very well could end up with no passive melee defense at all in some situations. Still, I'd say it's worth considering since your troll can soak just about anything short of a monowhip or stun baton anyway.

Stun baton? Please. He has 11 impact armor left. +6 from his non-conductive armor... 17 armor for a stun baton. +13 body, is 30 dice to resist a 6S attack. He can buy the hits to take nothing at 4/1, and is likely to get 10 hits on an actual roll. As far as "incapacitation" body + willpower = 17 dice vs threshold 3 to not fall down. Easily done. He takes a -2 for being zapped however, probably makes him mad.

Monowhip... 21 impact -4 = 17. Means its gonna do stun. 17 + 13 = 30 dice for damage resistance. 8P he can buy the hits to not take damage from the monowhip too.

I favor dodge... it fits the character more, I can spec it for ranged with karma, and I don't have to worry about my hands being full. (Not to mention people punching me get the fun of my shock frills). Not to mention he can just defend with reaction + dodge (instead of unarmed) for melee attacks. Besides which, whats he need gymnastics for?

Balance tests, breaking falls and leaping, mostly. Like I said, it is merely something to consider. Your character by design already overkills many defensive tests, so I figured that perhaps taking Gymnastics over pure Dodge wouldn't exactly put him at terrible risk of life and limb.

And how often do you expect him to be needing to make those sorts of tests?

Could always buy him a grapple gun. Or stick one in his leg...

It's really a matter of preference. Gymnastics isn't really all that great if you treat it as something you only pull out in emergencies. Now, on the other hand, if you're like my old athlete with 12+ dice in all Athletics skills and actively can treat it as an advantage rather than a safety net, you can start doing things that are borderline evil. It's amazing how easy it is to ambush everyone when you have some gecko tape, a chameleon suit and the ability to leap or climb onto nearly anything you want, after all.

Chameleon suits, oh how I love you thermographic vision. And gecko tape? Good luck with anything thats wet.

Gecko tape isn't actually all that necessary for climbing when you already have a dozen or so dice to play with.

Have you ever looked at the modifiers for climbing?
For a brick wall. -2 flat. How high, lets say 2 stories. Distance in meters x 1.5. Roughly 6 meters. 10 dice, you average 3 hits, it takes you 2 combat turns. Thats a long long time.

Oh radar sensor, how I love thee.

Thought: Radar sensor would have all the disadvantages of radar, too.

Dark night? Sammy using radar sense to detect everything?

Horde of squirrels. (In the air, a flock of birds works just as well).

See, unless you set the sensitivity to ignore small movements (and/or unmoving targets), you can get lots and lots of clutter. If I remember correctly, for sea search radar, even wavetops can produce clutter.

Apparently radar got better. I'd think using it to see through walls would be an issue too. Especially with all that piping and such. But it isn't.

Okay firstly... there's very little reason to shoot the troll. Generally if a guy's big skill is pistols it's because it's not a street samurai. He's the team mage, face, medic... etc. And the pistol is his backup weapon (or primary weapon when magic or whatnot isn't apllicable). His range caps out at 60m, he doesn't close that fast. If you're after a very flexible single weapon... I'd recommend a SMG. Unfortunately you lose the heavy pistols -1AP, but the ability to fire SA/BF/FA is pretty usefull.

Also, your electronic goggles. I've seen this on a few players. But you can't get something w/ more than 12 avail in chargen right? So how do you get all those mods on a single pair of goggles? Or do most GM's look the other way because you can easily say put perception(3) and flare compensation on a pair of contacts, then put smartlink plus low-light... etc on a pair of actual glasses/goggles keeping it all under 12.

Two: please explain how you get (13) augmented body? I see no cyber which is a body adjustment outside of cyberlimbs. (are you just averaging them w/ the body? 14*4+11)/5=67/5==13. This makes sense to me, but I don't see where in the rules it says to do it for calculating net body (and physical boxes in particular). If you do so do you also include the head as a seperate area... I'd say no, as there is no 'head of vecna' in the game (but we have cybertorsos, and limbs). Also body armor is treated as an aggregate of chest + headpiece bonus, so it makes little sense to break that up.

Anyhow I come up w/ 8 + 13/2= 14.5 == 15 boxes physical... not 19. What am I missing?


FYI: I'm new to SR4 I've been lurking the forums for about 2 months now, so please explain to me how I'm getting this wrong as I'm simply applying a literal reading of the rules. And trying to read in common sense where they're not explicit.

Three: any GM worth his salt is not going to just accept armor 24/21. That armor isn't everywhere and is based on summing disparate parts that the rules say to average. That's just blatant dropping common sense and metagaming at its worst. I can't see myself accepting any chars claims that he's mobile and has more armor/body than an ares citymaster armored vehicle!

The cyberarm rules state clearly that the armor only pertains to checks involving the cyberarm. ...."in any other case, take the average value of all limbs involved in the task (round down). If a task requires the careful coordination of several limbs, use the value of the weakest limb." Cyberarmor is listed as an augment right alongise of STR/AGI/BOD and to my reading is affected by this as well. (it makes zero sense that a bullet which hits the the left arm gets an armor bonus from your right leg, left left, and right arm, let alone any natural armor on a cyberlimb replacement!). The text pertaining to armor in particular says it's both ballistic and impact, but DOESN"T say that it adds to the full users armor test.


Here's how I breakdown the armor into 5 zones (it's unfair to treat the head as a 6th area for averaging armor)

Head+Torso: 11/9 (helmet, jacket, + NA)
Limbs (x4): 10/8 (jacket, cyber, no NA)

So I come up with:
Ballistic: 51/5==10
Impact: 41/5==8

So by my tally your armor is 10/8, w/ a +6/+4 bonus if the attack is coming from your shielded direction (don't even try to claim you have a 360 degree shield, that whield will cover 90 at absolute most 120 degrees of arc on your shieldarm side). Nothing to gripe about 16/12 is pretty damn good for a full body frontal aspect.


Now onto my reply from the other thread to keep it from going offtrack: sniper deadliness as it affects you. I'm limiting myself to chargen equipment and cheap stuff I could buy w/ starting cash and connections after chargen (APDS, cost 70... pay 2-3x book for 10 rounds).

Making a twinked out character like yours here. Yours is designed for as much possible damage soak while still being offensive enough that people will actually bother shooting him as opposed to going for the squishies. So I'm twinking out on the sniper here as well slightly. 6 in his weapon, +2 spec, +2 smart, 8-9AGI, scoped, +4 take aim (8 prof in his weapon). I think I got all the big ones... so we're starting at roughly 22 dice. For mission, say that your 6/6 doctor friend has pissed someone off and you are his weak spot (he'll do anything for you), to send him a message they're going to assassinate you. (you have no idea this is coming, no reason to expect it). We'll say he's a lightly cybered adept just for arguments sake.

Now here's a clarification I don't understand fully in SR4... it says a surprised character may not react in any way. Does that mean they don't even get reaction dice to avoid the first attack?
*snip* Answered my own question. no reaction whatsoever, treated as a pure success test for the attacker. So that's 6 less dice on your defensive rolls below. Page 150. Defender is unaware... gee why couldn't they put that in 'surprise'....

Weapon options...
Assault Rifle, 6P AP-1 AR's,
Hunting Rifle, PJSS 9P AP-1 (2 shots),
Sniper Rifle, Walter 7P AP-3

The Sniper Option:
By my reckoning: Your head only has 2/3 armor. You have nowhere which is armorless but you have areas where your armor is weak. Again, I'm calling 16/12 frontal armor and 10/8 rear armor. I will make a called shot to your head. By my reading of the rules you can't call a shot until after you've done a take aim action, which limits you to one called shot per round. Similarly, your radar sensor only has a range of 15m (it says to reference the MM-wave radar in the SR4 book).

To me that means from the front, if I shoot you in the head I need to get by the shield and take a penalty on my dicepool based on your total armor. That's pretty substantial, it's a -14 dice pool modifier ballistic or -9 dice pool impact. But AP completely eliminates your armor. At this point choice of ammo is a technicality, probably frangible +2DR vs giving you 2points of AR is worth it. If frangible, that's 7P + 2P + 13dice - reaction resisted solely w/ 11 dice body + 2 dice armor. And IIRC you took that cyberthingy which gives -1 damage for 3 or more lethal damage. Those numbers get worse if the sniper is to your side or rear since you lose your shield. Will it kill you... probably not. A truly evil sniper would use gel... because....

It only took a single simple free action to fire a called shot. Now you only need another second simple action to fire a followup shot. You don't get the -range cancel, and you don't get the +4 aim. But the +1recoil is handled by the shoulderpad. Second shot is pretty straightforward. No fancy trickshots cause you need to get it downrange as fast as possible. So instead of 22 dice, you're looking at 15 or 16. That's still probably a guaranteed hit. But it's against your full armor + body. Again 7P + 2P + hits - reaction. But chances are it doesn't beat our armor, making the damage subdual. If I had done subdual damage before though, this shot would be almost guaranteed to knock you unconcious (you've had no time or actions to apply a stimpatch, and none of your augments allows you to ignore stun damage yet right?

If APDS makes the availability roll. Same rifle, but we just shoot you in the back again center body (just for sake of argument we'll cover frontside shot as well). Called shot, but trade -4dice for +4damage. Again starting at 22 dice, we're only down to 18 dice. Against the front 16 front ballistic armor, I'm bringing -7AP to bear. So your armor is down to 9. Your body is 13 (we didn't target any particular locations, or maybe Dm calls it a chest shot and considers it 11). In any case we start at 11P + 18 dice - 6dice... so probably a net of 15P to resist with 22 dice (16 from the rear). Will it kill you... no. But the followup shot w/ it's 16 dice and 7P vs. reaction + body + 9 or 3 armor.

Frankly, the most surefire way to deal with you is to just resort to called shot Gel and knock you out cold, then finish off your unconcious form at liesure. If being TRULY evil (and I assure you I only mean this as an example of twinkdom)... If the opposition truly did it's homework... I guarantee we handload our own silver frangible magic bullets aimed at your head. The reason for frangible is that way the bullet fragments on impact leaving a lot of silver shards embedded in your head meaning you take 1 unresisted physical per minute til they're all removed. +4DV for being made out of silver +2DV for being frangible... +2armor for you though. The follow-up shot benefits because the presence of silver in your system gives you a -4 penalty on all rolls (reaction), though it wouldn't/would penalty your body check to resist damage? Best engagement range, probably ~1 klick, your chances to see/notice a hidden sniper at that exceptional range are next to nil

Hunting rifle: PJSS same deal... 2 more raw damage, but 2 less AP. The numbers work out roughly the same as above. Generally assured dam hits from P are better than -armor or dice pool. Drawback less range (750m), so the char needs a bit more stealth. Again best engagement range is probably about 600m (time to reload and take more potshots before you're out of range).

Assault Rifle: This is actually the trickiest. You need to engage close enough to get multiple rounds of fire. But far enough away that you can't close quickly. EG: say 350m. First shot, same as above... only you start w/ 6P -1, so don't do as much damage, so trade off 3 rounds for a narrow burst for an extra +2P -2dice bringing us up to 8P -1. But a frangible round to the head does the trick. The point here is to give you a nice batch of physical damage to give you a dice pool penalty (especially for running/sprinting). Afterwards, we're just gonna work our way through your entire 25point damage track over the course of say 1 or 2 IP's using 2 narrow bursts per IP.

Alternatively... go for the first round knockout as above. Instead of frangibles fire gel. Instead of a headshot, just do a -6dice, +6DR called shot short narrow burst. Goal being get at least 6-7 hits though roughly 30 dice of reaction, body, and armor. Your second followup shot is another short burst... goal being to get 3 more stun hits knocking you out cold before you can do anything.

Please explain how I got any of this wrong... I'm still learning.

No, I disagree w/ some of your comments. Like I said I'm new to SR4 (but not to shadowrun). So I'm applying a literal reading to the rulebook. I was reading this post as mostly someone trying to illustrate a problem in the RAW, or was I wrong? Frankly if this is a CORRECT interpretation of cyberware, I'd argue that these rules are pretty damn bad (and I like a lot of their systemic changes). But I disagree that the RAW supports many of your arguments. (not saying I have it all right by a longshot). But I see NOTHING (I want a quoted cite) here which argues for this reading.

Specifically: thanks for the bits about the areas... head averaging strikes me as the suck though as a bit of a pain w/ the round down bit.

To me a SMG is usefull because it's very flexible. Has longer range. And you can't execute covering fire w/o the ability to fire full auto. And a long narrow burst has it's uses! (-9 dice, +9damage, that's like assured hits, but w/ a higher chance to miss due to reaction, and a higher chance to glitch, the less dice you roll the more likely you are to glitch). But I completely missed the bit about can only fit a pistol sized item in the compartment, so it makes a lot of sense.


Re: above 16 and high cost items... yeah you have 40k in starting cash (+extra) avail to get a 18F item.... uhhuh (considering the mere LOAN of a 50k item is a rank4 favour I'd hate to see what the stealing of it is). I think I was within reason to stating that I'd be able to get a 16F very cheap item (APDS) especially if I'm paying 3x the market rate w/ the right contact (say arms merchant/fixer 2/2). Besides I was just using it as an example of trying to roleplay a starting character on a mission. (your characters have never had to try and get gear they didn't have/couldn't get in chargen for their first mission?). From my reading of the rules (and other forum posts, since it seems like some GM's have their chars burning through it like candy), getting APDS isn't that difficult (at least if you have a week or two to wait), the hard part is explaining it to lonestar if they find it! Then again if he already has a 10F sniper rifle... what's a 10 rounds of 16F ammo on top of it. (really... 2 tests a day for a 16 extended target vs. 1 test a week vs. a 18!).

Regarding Called Shots:
You're right and wrong I think. I was misreading page 149, but so are you. "A character can aim (see take aim) and then call a shot at the time of attack." So if we enter the initiative pass the sniper actually shoots. He's used up his take aim actions prior to this IP. This IP he actually calls the shot and fires on his first aimed shot. Then uses his second simple action to make a followup shot.
I was misreading the rules to read that the character took "take aim" as a requirement to even do a called shot. Nothing under called shot reads that, simply provides an explicit exception to no free actions or take aim is disrupted. Or am I misunderstanding

You're also forgetting the last bit. "any of the following may occur, at the player's choice and with the GM's agreement." Last line....
"The Gamemaster may also allow other specific effects for called shots IF HE CHOOSES". It then gives some examples.
Number1 is out, because technically no part of you is unarmored (you have at least 1 point of armor on EVERY location, even your face... Also, it makes emminent sense as a GM... There's a completely armored vehicle bearing down on your friends. What do you do? Does it have any weak points? Roll knowledge/whatever... yes the armor over the engine maintenance hatch is weaker than the rest. Player, called shot on the hatch to try and disable the engine. GM: looks at option1, okay that'll be 8 dice to reduce the armor by 8. Player I'll take it, as I can't hurt that thing any other way. (maybe he can/can't... IC he doesn't think so).

It makes zero sense in the above context that a player could make a called shot against your hypothetical mystic adept either and bypass 'all armor'. His magical armor, plus natural armor... how do you bypass it... it's everywhere. I'd allow the player to bypass any worn armor and take a shot at an appropriate location w/ an appropriate diceroll. (really it almost ends up a wash, as the best option is almost always +4DV/-4 dice... those 4 dice would only give you 1.33 hits on average... but you're gaining the net equiv of 4hits in damage. 4 hits is roughly 12dice of soak right then and there. So from that angle, my proposed attack is suboptimal from the math angle. The only time it's good is if you're expecting the other side to invoke edge... reducing your dice pool and his dice pool at the same time... smaller dice pools are harder to explode bigtime. Otherwise it's a complete wash.

Do you agree that the above is a logical reading of the rules, and a valid non-powergaming player/GM interaction supported by RAW? If so, why could a sniper not take a body shot against your troll in the back, and only apply your natural armor and jacket?

BTW: I also noticed another mistake I made.. frangible is errataed to +5AP not +2. So replace w/ EX-Ex or the like at +1DV/-1AP.


Your bits re: adept. I disagree. The adept is going to need to maintain the armor spell giving a nice dice pool penalty (or he's going to need to pay bigtime for a high force sustaining focus... 15BP for a force5 sustaining. Being generous w/ a ton of skills spent and a maxed out magic attribute... 9 dice... 3 hits is about all you can expect for extra armor on a typical test... so yeah cast it at force5 and hope you get lucky (mystic adepts are really short on points I'm noticing). You're only paying what 6-7BP per limb! w/ 2 points armor per). And at that the armor you're accumulating for each limb caps at 4(x6, 5 limbs + torso) and no way do I give a cyborg w/ a completely cybered body 24 points of armor, just because he has 4 points of armor augment everywhere. And that is at a mere 300/point.

For offense, your limbs have basically agi6 for almost free (1BP of so,base 3 plus 3 for a mere 750!! (so that's what... .15BP). As opposed to what 40BP to actually raise AGI to 5. You're not getting much sympathy from me here. As such an adept is clearly tanking, but again I have no reason to shoot him until he's actually a bigger threat than someone else! It would be an interesting experiment to see how much armor you could do using a mix of magic, man, and machine though. (basically this ends up what's the BP cost of essence, plus extra for magic...)

You're also assuming he's cast armor and got all his hits in one go w/ no soak. You've already drained his casting pool by at least 3 for 6 points of mystic armor, leaving only 6-10 dice on the casting test probably. (and 5 BP per point of armor (10BP * .5 per basic rank in magic, this goes up if you're maxing!), which also would apply to a cybered up mystic adept! Frankly by my reading of SR4... mystic adept is the most disadvantaged character of all coming out of chargen (if he goes spell heavy... why not just be a mage, and not waste 1 point of magic on the required ability to percieve astral in the first place while not being able to go astral). Theoretically he could become one of the most powerfull (basically has access to everything except astral travel)... but the BP/Karma to do so are staggering (very much karma limited and not $$$ limited). But I'm digressing...

Furthermore, some of those means you stated could be cast and applied on TOP of your troll. Nothing's stopping the party mage from casting an armor spell on you upping your already obscene claimed armor rating. He'd definately get more hits than the mystic adept... and could also use a sustaining focii. The problem is the trolls' so tough that it doesn't make much sense to shoot it in the first place.



Now onto why I disagree w/ your READING and interpretation.

Now to argue a bit (hey it's fun and everybody learns ). Also I asked 2 of my friends one who's a huge srun fan and both who GM. They both agreed that you're misreading these rules. That the armor is an augment to the cyberlimb and would be averaged on the check. EG: if you have spent 5 essense and 400k for full body prosthesis (alphaware). Then put 2 points of armor on everything, you wouldn't have +12/+12, you'd have +2 armor on everything. It abandons ALL sense of common sense and requires reading one sentence to say way more than it actually says to claim otherwise.

Also your starting body is not a test, so the cyberarms don't add to your starting hitpoints outside of their 1 per cyberlimb. Your essense is 11, 8+6==14 (+4) a real tough guy.

page cites...
Page 140,
"5. Damage Resistance TEST", "The defender rolls attribute + modified armor value...."

Page 336: table
Cyberlimb Enhancements:
Armor is NOT listed seperately from Body, strength, and agility. It is by definition a Cyberlimb enhancement. If it quacks like a duck, is listed as a duck, and is added like a duck. It's a duck barring ANY QUOTABLE text to the contrary!
Page 335:
Cyberlimb Enhancements:
"...--enhancements from other cyber- or bioware systems have no effect. Cyberlimb enhancements use up the Capacity OF THE CYBERLIMB THEY ENHANCE".... goes on to say when to average, when to only take the cyberlimb, and when to take the minimum of all involved. (minimum of all involved is important for called shot, later)
EG: two 4 point armor bumps from two different cyberlimbs don't help each other by my reading.
And here's a critical passage:
"When a particular limb is used for A TEST". It doesn't say skill test, it doesn't say opposed test, it says TEST. Gee what do we have above... but a Damage Resistance TEST!

Under Armor the EXACT test:
"Armor: Armor installed on cyberlimbs is both Ballistic and Impact".
It DOES NOT say it adds to the users total armor rating. It simply states what type the armor is. Under Cyberlimb enhancements it states when this armor would apply... for tests INVOLVING the cyberlimb in question. There is ABSOLUTELY ZERO rational basis for claiming that a cyberarm enhancement acts as a cumulative armor bonus in the same manner as a helmet, which explicitly states (+1/+2) on the chart!

I see no reason using all the quoted passages that cyberlimb armor would be handled any differently than cyberlimb body in a full body test. A non-called shot is a full-body damage resistance test.

This is made worse, because in my experience... generally in shadowrun cyberlimbs were very powerfull because they were usefull. You get some guy w/ smartlinked pistol he doesn't need to expose his body. Lets say he's in the parking garage, and a fight breaks out. Now he takes cover behind a structural concrete member, and the only thing exposed is his cyberarm, he can see what his gun sees (w/ a tunnel vision penalty since it's a narrow sight picture). But the only thing they can shoot and hit is his arm which is highly resistant to damage from both worn armor and it's CYBERLIMB ENHANCEMENT armor and it's potentially high body. (emphasis required). Now throw on how cheap it is to get a limb w/ a maxed out stat, and it gets worse. I can get AGI8 for a mere 1BP... 5000, 3base, +3 customize (4500), +2enhance(500). If I'm only using a 1 handed weapon like pistol/SMG who cares!



Hopefully armory will include rules for piecemeal armor. (EG: the armor vest, is actually much better than a mere 4/2, but its net effect when averaged out over unarmored limbs/head is only 4/2. Since aggregate armor ot me reflects someone shooting at you in general... and might hit your arms/legs/armored torso/or (un)helmeted head giving a statistical distribution.

Falconer, I don't have Augmentation, but I think it clarified the rules for cyberlimb armor. I was interpreting it the same way as you before, but apparently I was wrong.

But it's not really a broken build. For tank builds, full narrow bursts are no fun. For Neo builds, full wide bursts are no fun. For both, the group's mage and his counterspelling dice are greatly appreciated. Otherwise, stunballs are no fun. For both, really windy days are greatly appreciated. Otherwise, neurostun grenades are no fun.

*nod* My search-fu is weak, but Peter confirmed that cyberlimb armor stacks directly with worn armor, no averaging. If I recall correctly. I'll keep looking.

To further clarify, in the thread Augmentation Q&A, FrankTrollman and Synner(AKA Peter Taylor) agreed in an unofficial capacity that armor stacks directly as the intent was that someone made completely of freaking metal would be hard to hurt. Keep in mind a cyberlimb is FULL metal. No bioware, no non-capacity costing cyber no nothing except machine, so getting 4 armor from replacing a limb with metal makes sense when you think about it.

Also, for the called shot to bypass everything but back armor, that's fine if the GM agrees with it, but going with precedent, it doesn't matter that it is center mass you get a -1 per point of armor you bypass. SR doesn't follow logical rules sometimes, and alot of people make houserules, but for comparisons sake here on the forums, the rules as they are written are all we have. Plus the generally accepted clarifying tidbits that drip in occasionally via Demonseed Elite, Frank Trollman, and Synner(sorry I don't know the names of any of the other writers that browse the forums here). Also, Falconer, keep in mind that hopefully Tarantula would check with his GM about the relative power level of the game before building or proposing this character, so while it might seem insane from your view it might fit in quite well in the mid power games Tarantula plays in. It all depends on the GM and other players. I've got a Troll mystic adept(possession tradition) with 20-ish armor in my game and it doesn't bother me in the least, it was a legal build and I have no problems challenging him without reducing the team to uselessness. Mmm, stick and shock and spells.


Chris

Thanks for the pointer to the thread. Synner's only official comment is that this will be addressed in a future FAQ but doesn't say how. He said unofficially he leans towards Trollmans interpretation. I sincerely hope they actually playtest this heavily before just going w/ a single authors barely considered comments in a forum.

Accepting this w/o comment means that you accept that a character can be rolling over 60 dice between reaction, body, and then over 40 dice of armor! Last I checked even your full narrow burst from a HMG, or an anti-tank rocket is going to be hard pressed to get to 20P. (and even then, with that many dice... edge multiplies that quite a bit for things which actually might manage to inflict a point or two of stun damage). Seriously... even this starting chargen troll.. after a single mission should have the scrip to double his cyberarmor and buy full body armor and helmet. (4*4+10/8+2/2+6/4+1)==35/31 (he gains potentially 11 points of armor 7000 for the body armor, and a mere 2400 for the extra 8 armor augments).


Armor augments are in the basic book... so after your limbs. It's only 300 per point of armor... 22 * 300== 6600 nuyen (and 44capacity out of 90IIRC). So for 6600 nuyen in augments you too can be nigh invulnerable.... For a full body armor adjust doesn't that strike you as amazingly cheap?! (again, 5BP per armor for an adept, and it only goes up once you factor in initialization and magic raise costs). For a local armor adjust that price is very fair! How many BP's is a full body armor adjust worth. It just strikes me at 1point for 1 point it's a bit too good. Similarly, I understand Franks position that 1point local for a 1/6 point global isn't that good (especially w/ the round down). Strikes me that a simple point is for every 2 points, or for every 3 points 1 point of global is simple, and doesn't result in a massive dice pool which renders every weapon in the game (even the heaviest support weapons) irrelevant.



I repeat my earlier comment. I sincerely hope that they will address piecemeal armor in the equipment book (EG: sum up the percentiles, chest counts for 30%, head for 5%, arms count X%, legs count Y%. For every 3 points cyberarmor, gain 1 point full body armor). And use that as an oppurtunity to clean this issue up.

Oh well, i won't pollute this w/ any more posts... thanks all for the help and some of the corrections. (but anyone who even thinks about pulling something like this when I'm GM'ing gets their charsheet torn to shreds). I've learned a lot about SR4's shortcomings quite quickly.

Uh oh, someone called in toturi. I feel a rules smackdown coming.

Chris

Re: not shooting the troll...
We're not talking about your average run of the mill troll here... we're talking about an EXTRA BEEFY (maxed body) troll sporting no less than 4 shiny cyberlimbs full armor and a ballistic shield!
I'd say that profession 2 would know that means call for heavy weapons or retreat... and profession 1 would get the idea in a shot or two. I agree on a normal troll profesional 3, but those are some pretty extenuating circumstances.

Tarantula:
I'm not touching armor/body/whatever in this thread anymore...

No... my bit about we both misunderstood (or I misunderstood you).

I thought you were saying a sniper could make 2 called shots in a round. Call first shot, take aim it through to the next round. Next IP: Fire (simple), call shot (free), Snap Shot fire again(simple). I'm reading it that the call is taken at the end of take aim. I never took issue with your comment regarding specialization (I reread spec and realized it didn't give 2 more ranks in the skill for that weapon it just gave a +2 pool bonus). If I'm wrong I'm wrong...

Called Shots again:
It's not house ruling when the book explicitly says for the GM to play it off the hand and give an appropriate effect for penalty. Why else would the book go out of it's way to say any other effect the player and GM agree upon or the GM feels is appropriate! A GM's job is to arbitrate a game and not make it a rules fest. Generally I feel it's the GM's job to eyeball things and use the tables and such in the book as a guideline and quickly say yeah you can do it, it'll be 5 dice penalty though, go ahead and roll and keep things moving smoothly. Really, what's the dice mod to shoot the tire out on a citymaster? (depends on circumstances and GM's call)

Frankly, the more I've thought about this the more I've revised my thinking... while I think 1:1 dice pool trades are fair (armor for attack dice). It's not really evident that a helmet is all that weak (they're normally pretty damn tough!) just they rarely get hit so abstractly they don't add that much armor. Though when the head does get hit they're a lifesaver.

Basically less dice on my side means I have more chance to miss outright because your react dice aren't reduced... it simply means that if I'm not rolling edge, you have less dice to explode on edge. Only if edge gets involved does it even seem to matter. Really the best trades are almost +1DV/die, especially if the -dice can be offset somenow... (a die rolled is only a 1/3rd of a hit by the law of large numbers, if I can trade it and not roll it and still get the effect of a hit +1DV risking missing).


SMGs:
I was only offering it as a helpfull suggestion to make the troll more of an offensive threat. But you got some things wrong... covering fire does NOT have a dicepool penalty. It says fires 20 rounds of ammo, and the recoil and covering fire unaimed spread are assumed to counteract each other. So you're firing straight skill Agility + skill, vs. Reaction + Edge of everyone in the suppressed zone.

Your other example of a narrow salvo misses something important as well. -9 dice REDUCED BY RECOIL COMPENSATION. Gas3 and a cybergyro (you have a cyberarm... unfortunately it's an F item though) can really cut down on the recoil. Simple action 3rd bursts can pretty much be completely covered by recoil compensation.

But I missed the point you couldn't hide it in a smuggling compartment so it makes a lot of sense to just go w/ the basic pistol. Also you don't have much in the way of F items.. so it makes little sense to get the cybergyro except to fire a pistol on the move either.

Lastly:
You said mystic adept not magician: Mystic adept casting a spell is NOT going to have that many dice. Maxing armor is a matter of getting 10 ranks in mystic armor, leaving 1 magic for sorcery purposes... so only maybe +3-5 more on a force 5 spell w/ no attributes yet inviested to soak the 5 for casting that... (or 15BP for a force5 sustaining focus...)
Also you're looking at 75Bp for the magic6 alone (10mys adept, 65 magic) before even starting into all of that. You gained all your abilities off 50BP worth of equipment! (even your offensive agility for your pistol Mr Agi: 1 troll). Without even going into the extra spellcasting skill costs and spellcosts, etc.. you're already well ahead.

if we are talking char gen, it would be 5 ranks of mystic armor (6 at best depending on how you read the rules). max rank is limited to your magic attribute...and with one being used for spells, you get 5. (although i conceed that i might be mis-interpreting that part, so for the sake of argument, lets go with 6). still makes the max rank 6.

I see the crux of the matter being that Falconer is taking the Cyberlimb Enhancement rules and applying them to Armor. And I can see how he could do so: specifically Armor is listed under Cyberlimb Enhancements.

But if we choose to apply those rules in that particular section to only those enhancements specifically and explicitly stated in that section only, there will be no confusion and all this "Hit Location" wrangling is moot. Armor may be a type of Cyberlimb Enhancement, yes. But its explicit exclusion from the Cyberlimbs Enhancement rules section sets it apart from the other Cyberlimb Enhancements in that averaging the stats values do not apply to Armor values.

Called Shots by RAW have 4 options:

1) Target an area not protected by armor.

2) Target a vital area to increase damage.

3) Knock something out of the target's grasp.

4) GM specific effect.

I will leave out option 4 in this discussion as different GMs have differing opinions as to what they will allow.

Option 1 (which is the most pertinent to this thread) If the attack hits, the target's armor is ignored for the damage resistance test; the target rolls only Body.

I do not see how Falconer can misinterpret this actually. It is quite clear, the target rolls only Body. Of course, the GM may disallow this but disallowing this option or modifying it throws it into option 4, which get us nowhere.

Next we come to targeting priority for the Grunts: (or why Grunts will shoot the troll first)

Is the troll a crowd? No, while he is certainly large, he is not technically a crowd, for the purposes of my argument, I will use noticing the troll is carrying a shield and has shiny cyberlimbs to have a Threshold of 2 with a +0 total given that the troll certainly stands out in some way but the guys are going to be distracted(being rushed by a troll does that to people). Using the RAW grunts, only at Professional Rating 3 do we actually see a Perception skill. All lower level grunts default, so they are at -1 dice. The Humanis goons have dice pool of at most 2. 2 dice for 2 successes? You must really worship the dice gods if you really think you can roll that with any certainty. Halloweeners are not much better and neither are the Corp Sec. Hence Professional Rating 3 for the Grunts to notice they are outclassed.

Thank toturi, I couldn't think of any other way to explain it that would help him get it.

Stahlseele, trolls run faster than you, and they can reach farther.

Also, once you're running away, you're out of the fight for a while, he can focus on shooting everyone who didn't run away first.

Last I checked Buster, a Q&A thread was not official errata.

Last I checked Tarantula, I never said it was. But I bet it's the best we're going to get for at least a year...

Alternate build. This one has:
Unarmored: 16/18 to soak (10 BOD, Toughness, trollskin, Mystic Armor 4, +2 for Physical damage from Bear Mentor Spirit)
With armor, shield and helmet: 29 vs ballistic, 32 vs impact, 25 vs falling, 23 vs. fire, electric, etc. (non-physical and half impact)
Evade ranged: 9 (Reaction) Evade melee: 15 (Reaction+Block)
Full defense ranged: 25 Full defense parry: 23
Will use Edge vs. mind control and pornomancers.
Not designed as a playable character (would require contrived back story).

STR 5
BOD 10
REA 5/9
AGL, INT, LOG, CHA 1
WIL 5
MAG 5/2
EDGE 5
INIT 6
INIT PASSES 2
Troll; thermographic vision, +1 Reach, +1 armor
Toughness (+1 to resist damage)
Adept (Mystic Armor 4)
Mentor Spirit: Bear 5
SKILLS
Dodge (Ranged) 6 (
Exotic Melee: Shield (Block) 4 (6)
Perception 1
First Aid 4
GEAR
Body Armor 8/6 900
Helmet 1/2 100
Taser Shield 2/6 700
Medkit R6 600
Respirator R6 600
AUGMENTATION
Reaction Enhance 3 .72 30K
Wired Reflexes 1, Alpha 1.6 22K
Bone Density 4 1.2 80K
Orthoskin 3 .75 90K
Platelet Factory .2 25K
Cyber 2.32 + Bio (1.15/2) = 2.32+.57=2.89 essence cost

You can't have a rating in a power higher than your actual magic score, so you can have mystic armor 2 and 1PP of other powers.

Reaction enhancers don't stack with wired, so your reaction is actually 6.

You unarmored have 14/14 (16/16 for P damage, though the likelihood of that is low).
Brick has 21/21 (bod 13, +cyberlimb armor of .
With armor, shield and helmet, you have 25/28.
Brick has 36/33.
Evade ranged for you is 6, melee is 12.
Brick ranged evade is 5, melee is 9.
Full defense ranged for you, 12, melee, 18.
Brick full defense ranged is 9, melee, 13.
Both can do edge vs mind control and/or pornomancers.

Brick is actually playable, alternate isn't. And Brick still tanks better.

The rating of adept powers can't go above the Magic rating, so you can't have 4 points of mystic armor. You could have 2 points of mystic armor and 2 points of combat sense, though. Strictly by RAW, adepts can't take the mentor spirit quality. The reaction enhancer: 3 is over the Availability limit. So is full body armor, but you have it listed as 8/6, so I assume you actually meant an armored jacket or camo suit. Ranged full defense is Reaction plus Dodge - Dodge isn't doubled (you are thinking melee full defense).

Not very playable, but mainly because, like the initial version of the other build, he is too limited - no ranged skills, depends on his shield for offense as well as defense, and to top it off, he only has about 100 Nuyen left, so he's going to start the game living in a cardboard box.

His backstory wouldn't need to be too contrived, though. Off the top of my head - big dumb SINless troll recruited by a new company trying to compete with DocWagon. They cybered him up, taught him how to do basic first aid (and he got better with experience), and sent him out to be a big meat shield for the other combat paramedics. Unfortunately, a series of "accidents" sent the fledgling company under, and the big guy got kicked to the curb (along with the others, but they had more in the way of savings and future career options). Now he's wandering the mean streets of Seattle with little other than the gear from cleaning out his locker and the clothes on his back, wondering what he will do next.