Okay, flame me later, but...

Does the (admittedly) cinematic edge of "High Pain Tolerance" scare all you GM's out there?

Ok, it's not a cheap character-creation (10 point for level 5) but being able to ignore 5 points of damage, either Stun or physical, has got to be a massive advantage for any mage/shaman.

Ok, say I cast, well, anything below a level 7 spell.
If I really mess my drain roll, in most situations, I'd have the same offensive capabilities as a retarded banana.

Now I can ignore the stun modifier of that botched spell, rip off another one and (hopefully) loot the still-steaming bodies.

Yes/No?

L.

Useless compared to the following wiz tactic:

Cast Armour at force six. Buy a Secure Jacket w/ Gel Packs.
Hardened Armour of 11/9. 11/11 w/ Helmet. That means nothing short of a heavy rifle is going to so much as touch that character. I see him falling down a lot, but oh well.

Focus concentration = +1 TN for nigh-invulnerability.
Sustaining focus = +0

If I'm not mistaken, only the specific piece of armor with the gel packs attached counts as hardened. The rest is considered normally.

You're certainly not mistaken!

On the topic, yeah that's nutty. You could also leave a Pain Editor on all the time giving you +1 willpower and no stun modifiers at all. You can even stay awake after you hit deadly stun!

But neither beat the Trauma Dampener, which just lets you never take stun damage.

And Fortune/Zazen, from a numbers/mechanics point of view, how would you handle an Armour spell with a SecureJacket w/ GelPaks? Armour is outside the jacket so it gets hit first, reducing the power of an 11 down to a 5, and then the 5 Ballistic on the jacket is hit next reducing that 5 to a 0 because it's hardened. You suggesting the Armour spell is hit after the jacket is?

Sphynx

As combat is abstract anyway in Shadowrun, I'd probably work it out the other way first.

It's moot though, at least on my part, as I don't have Gel Packs in my games. I've never really had to make that ruling though, as I have never had a player want them.

Another thing could be a Reinforce spell on a characters Formfitting with Gelpacks. The characters armour gain an armour value of 10/7 and it is hardened.

Add a sustaining foci for that.

*Reads above*

So, an albino gnome with exceptional attribute WP and pain editor should be quite nice then?

With a Trauma Damper you can cast Light damage Manabolts, Stunbolts and Powerbolts like crazy and never worry about drain - do them Force 8 (Exclusive for cost) and use all possible spell pool dice for the sorcery test. Add in a Combat Spell Foci and a Sustaining Foci for Armor 6 coupled with Formfitting 3 and an Armor Jacket. Add in Aptitude Sorcery and you are good to go, you Munchie you!

Cast the spell at Moderate damage against tougher opponents - odds are you reduce 4M drain to Light even with a Willpower of 4...

Then the jacket! Let's DIKOTE EVERYTHING!

I resent that comment about the retarded banana...

Fortune, you hold 'em, I'll Dikote 'em!

Works for me!

I didn't suggest anything Zazen, YOU agreed with Fortune that "only the specific piece of armor with the gel packs attached counts as hardened", thus suggesting that you apply layers seperately. I'm only asking how you do that.

Sphynx

How about doing it like this.

You have say Vest+Plates gelpaked (4/3) under a lined coat (4/2)
Total is (6/4) of which 4/3 is hardened. If all elements are hardened and stack (as apposed to layered) then thats a kick ass armour rating.

Or thats how i would do it.

Well, I don't know about Armour spell, or the (small) amounts of armour you get get from 'ware, but there's no stacking conventional armour layers

That helps, thanks.

Yes, I'm of the opinion that stacking the Armour spell over Gel Packed does indeed provide more 'Hardened Armour' than the armour itself applies, because of Shadowrun's abstract system.

Sphynx

hmm, i recall a easy resolve on this. first look to see if the hardend armor (no spell!) alone stops the attack. if it does then the next part is mute. if not then reduce power by the effect of both the armor and the spell but disregard the part about some of ti being hardend...

Right, that's how I treat it despite it not being canon. Just like vehicle armor. Though in this case it works kind of the other way around since Armor surrounds the mage.

But in the end it's effectively the same. While the Armor spell itself isn't hardened, it softens the incoming blow enough that the gel packed armor just might be enough to completely ignore it. Knockdown is still in full effect, however.

Afterall, Gel Packs have got to be useful for someone. As they stand, they're all but useless. They also come with enough hindrances to make them something you don't go around wearing 24/7 unless you're some kind of munchkin or something that doesn't care that their armor is blantantly obvious, heavy, uncomfortable, gets knocked down just about everytime he takes a hit (ignored or not), and affects Quickness and Combat Pool a lot more easily than other armors.

It depends on if you see the armor as being a barrier that the bullet/whatever hits before it gets to the armor. If you view it like that then you effectively have armor spell + hardened armor all being hardened.

In my game it certainly wouldn't. The only thing that would be "hardened" would be called shots to the head. For all other purposes, it would function as regular armor unless the real armor the character is wearing is also hardened.

"Real armor" being something that covers the chest, I imagine?

As far as I'm concerned, yes, at least the chest. Any armor that only supplies a +X bonus isn't "real armor" in my book, it's a modification to "real armor." So the same holds true for dikoted forearm guards, too.

I always found gel packs to not make much sense as "hardened" armor. To me, hardened armor should cover the entire body - that's the only way I can justify it totally negating attacks up to a certain power level. If someone wears an armor vest with plates, with gel packs, suddenly that streetline special bounces off his face, arms, or legs?

But back to the original subject of mage munchiness...

There are all kinds of ways to ignore Drain using Edges or bioware, but the best way to negate Drain is to not take it in the first place. Cast comparatively low-Drain combat spells instead of damaging manipulations, consider taking a few of them fetish-modified to lower the Drain, and use various means to get a lot of extra dice. Extra dice are great, because they are dual-purpose. Most of the time, you can allocate them to completely resist Drain, but when you absolutely need to take your opponent out, you can cut loose. If you max out a human mage to sling the most possible dice on a spell without resisting focus addiction, you wind up with a character where you can roll up to 36 dice - but such a character is very limited. You are better off taking one Force: 6 specific spell focus for your favorite combat spell and a sustaining focus or two, and having a slightly broader selection of spells.


By the way, if you're wondering how I could get 36 dice: Bonus Attribute/Intelligence and Albinism to get Intelligence and Willpower of 7, and spend some spellpoints to intitate once for a Magic rating of 7. That gives a Spell Pool of 7, plus Sorcery/Spellcasting: 5/7 - 14 total dice so far. Fire elemental mage for 2 more dice, bringing it to 16. This character can have up to 14 points in foci active at once, so get 2 Force: 6 and 1 Force: 2 specific spell foci for a combat spell like manabolt. This brings it up to 30. Finally, have a Force: 6 fire elemental use its power of Aid Sorcery for 6 more dice, for 36 dice. Just barely doable with 120 points, better with sum-to-ten, and impossible with Priority (since you can't get a mage with A: resources).

The controversy!