Not terribly useful as it's an opposed test. Once you get your critical success, the target gets his own chance to roll an opposed Defense test with his own pool. So a mere 5 hits may not do it.

-Frank

Actually, isn't that the other way around? A crit is when you score 4+ net successes, usually meaning beyond what you need. No matter what he rolls, you beat him by at least 4. Which, on the right called shot, could be all it takes

He can't dodge a constant stream of large bullets forever.

Looks like it's just me and you buddy. Anyways, so I have to agree, in what places is it actually better, not even factoring cost, to use a CZ? The rules surrounding them makes it pretty much impossible for them to hide. In SR3 they were dark and left impressions, but nowhere near the scale that of background count that they leave in SR4. I can see them wiping the floor with anyone on the open battlefield (especially in Heavy Military Grade Armor), but why would they guard a corporate facility. Wouldn't the terrible background they leave everywhere they go drive the employees mad? How the hell can you work in that kind of atmosphere.

Well, you could have an above-ground low-security typical corporate facility, then a tunnel to the high-security facility, and the cyberzombie guarding the tunnel. It would not get close to the workers and researchers in either facility, unless summoned to deal with an emergency. People moving supplies along the tunnel, or commuting into the high-security facility, might sometimes get a brief really spooky feeling, though, as they pass through the tainted zone.

Somehow that reminds me of the Borges story about the minotaur in the labyrinth, "House of Asterion". Also the ubersoldaten in the secret laboratory in Norway in "Return to Castle Wolfenstein".

Are cyberzombies good for anything besides combat? If part of their essence cost is geneware, headware and and brain boosters, might a cyberzombie be both the guard for the research facility, and also one of the most diligent and methodical researchers? Monomaniacal, LOG 8+, and several ranks in Cybertechnology is probably a resource set worth applying during all the many days that your lab *isn't* being infiltrated by shadowrunners.

Cyberzombies might be a good way for a corp to harvest resources from the Renraku Arcology (depending on whether that's been picked clean yet) or from the remains of Chicago or any other area with good stuff but too dangerous for ordinary workers. Insect spirits have probably learned to stay away from the CZ when it goes scavenging, eg find an abandoned bank and crack open the lockboxes one by one, fishing for documents of interest and other valuables. Shedim might find CZs fascinating... so close to death, and yet not quite available for possession. Hm, a shedim would just *love* a recently-killed CZ as a host body, no? That would suck: PC team expends lots of sweat pumping APDS into the CZ, it drops, it seems down for the count, yep it's really dead, PCs break out the beer in celebration... and then the corpse rises!

The CZ dual nature is a curse. If it has no magic/astral backup, just send a mage with spirits to manabolt him to death from above.
If it has, you can trap him with FAB or other means to block astral beings and get a nice stationary target to shoot at.

Of course the usual explosive (booby trap or car with Movement power filled with explosives), small and inconspicuous recon drone+target designator+guided weapon, or mortar should also work well.

As for how/why deploy such a thing, I think one of the best use is the cyborg assassin from Jeter's Farewell Horizontal. A killing machine sent to hunt down and kill someone. The best thing isn't the efficiency (a good cyberzombie should be able to get the job done if the opposition isn't really prepared, but any contract-killer should be able to pull the job) but the fear factor which can be quite useful.

Problem being that the attacker rolls first. So there's no threshold when he has the option of buying critical success. It's really only an option for the defender.

-Frank

I put my vote in for a DP-maxed heavy weapon specialist with a portable gauss rifle or PAC.

That has actually a good chance of bouncing of the CZ. Single shot weapons will not do the trick. Insane DVs or ideas are needed.

Wow, this thread ran away while I wasn't paying attention ...

In summary:

• Agreed, a CZ is a hell of a big investment for any company, thus it wouldn't be alone without backup (which is the hypothetical situation I'm talking about here).
• The best ways to kill it seem to be heavy weapons fire from afar, traps doing OMGWTFBBQ damage, or a few attacks such as astral mages sniping them from outside their background count
• CZs are impossible to use in stealthy situations in SR4 - they are totally obvious, and very very scary enemies, like dragons. But then again - I like them that way! If I want a stealthy powerful cyber-thing, I'll use a cyborg instead. Cyberzombies are the big bad that you know you're going to face, and are starting to panic about game sessions before you actually meet them (when it comes in via drop-ship, or parachute, or pulls up in the back of a citymaster, along with its support team)

This has of course raised another question which I'll ask in another thread ...

Called shot should do the trick with regards to armor.

Well, Immunity (if that can be bypassed it will start raining Exploding Cow Vampires. From Outer Space!) is still there and he has a way better chance of dodging a single shot that you of hitting him. And if you hit, it will be barely, so he will soak a good chunk.
It's a CZ. With insane attributes. Awesome. Think big! DVs below 20 shouldn't even be considered

Rocket launchers are clearly needed. That's how you defeated the Tyrant-X in Resident Evil, that's how Cyberzombies should be finished too.

One would need stats to judge how good a chance to dodge the CZ has. If one takes the basic build, we're talking 20+ DP for hitting stuff: 9 (atttribute)+6 (skill) +2 (spec) +1(RefRec) +2 (Smartlink). More if we use exceptional attributes and elven race. Even more if we add adept. Without going full defense, that's a bit hard to dodge.

Like all zombies...Shotgun blast(s) to the head.





::::Of course, I know this wouldn't work, but really, someone had to say it.::::

There's always the "spirit suicide bomber" tactic: Give sufficiently high-force spirit a bag with lots of explosives, and tell him to run/fly next to CZ and push the button.

Don't forget that you have to be aware of the attack to be able to dodge it.

Think of every violent mindless first person shooter you've ever played. That's a job for a cyberzombie. There's a stalemate, and the enemy is well fortified, and you need the situation resolved. A special ops team could probably make it in, but they lose effectiveness as they take casualties, they are fundamentally tactically minded and human, they will take cover and retreat if the situation dictates it. A cyberzombie punches a hole through a wall and basically runs through corridors whole-sale slaughtering goon upon goon, and with his extreme attributes, armor and ware, not to mention his psychological state, he "genuinely does not care who lives or dies" including himself. (Quote from a nihilist operative in Global Frequency).

Speaking of Global Frequency, if you can get your hands on Volume 1, there's an issue called "Big Wheel", where a team of GF operatives are sent into the Big Wheel, a north american government facility, where an extremely augmented human has gone berserk and killed everyone, and it's a matter of time before he punches his way out of lockdown (he's powered by three small nuclear reactors) and sprints to L.A. He is essentially, a cyberzombie. The team realises that he saw himself in the mirror. When they ask HIM why, he screams "They took away my genitals, why would they do that? They put a wire in my brain that stimulates sexual pleasure when I kill".

Are you dense, or something? On the one hand you are talking about bypassing armor. It is not hard to get it up to 20 in a CZ. On the other hand you deliver a dice pool of 20. welcome to Longshot country. Now a CZ can have a reaction of around 15. Not that hard to dodge, actually. And even if you hit, there is still up to 12 points immunity left. Single shot will not cut it.

A gauss rifle is semi-auto, not single shot. And that's a minimum of 20, as I said, can be higher with more stuff. Anyone posting CZ stats?

Now, if not going the "bypass armor" route, there's sniping with called shots to rise the DV by 4. With a DV of 9, and AP4 for a gauss rifle (or, if going Barrett, add the APDS AP rating to it, provided your GM doesn't veto it), that's a hefty punch.

Ok, I don't know what kind of rules you use, and what kind of hairsplitting you are familiar to use, but I for one was not talking about firing mechanism, but about how many bullets are send flying per shot. And that is one, also called a single shot or round if that makes you more comfortable. Second, the Gaussrifle has a damage code of 9P -4AP. That is a little lower than dishing out above 20 damage.

Assume the CZ stats to be at possible max for this thread. Meaning around 10-15.


Come again please? 13 damage +hits -dodge versus around 20 (-4 AP) armor is less than impressive. Hefty punch would be 25+ damage vs 20 armor.

Yeah, in my mind I had a CZ on something like Essence -5, and a good few (if not the majority) of their implants being Beta or Delta grade. I haven't done any maths, since this is not really a twinking thread, nor am I considering exact maths or stats here, I'm thinking in broader terms.

Of course, this is a pretty rock solid CZ, since with 11 essence you can *easily* have an armour rating of well over 20 (you get 10 for free just for being a cyberzombie on -5 essence), when combined with Body, that could be 35 dice dropped on a damage resistance test versus physical weapons, with any DV of 10 or less (after dodge, and without automatic fire modifiers to the DV) bouncing off harmlessly?

Just buying successes that's going to drop any damage dealt by 8 damage. The dodge roll (with ridiculously high reaction + dodge) is going to mean very few net successes, and (to a cyberzombie) full defence isn't such a bad idea, unless your opponents consistently have three or more passes per turn.

The CZ I am thinking of is going to have rating 3 move by wire (I'll call that a given), so with 4 passes every turn, they can give up their first pass or two on full defence, while everyone tries to shoot at them hopelessly. Then, when the enemy runs out of passes, the CZ fires back and rips them to shreds with <insert big gun here>.

The problem with attacking a cyberzombie with physical weapons, on foot, is that you have to be doing so much damage that you are garunteed a one-hit kill, and I don't think that's possible ... otherwise the cyberzombie is going to go next, take hard cover, and then come get you (or shoot back with its own sniper rifle).

By my reckoning you need a few big vehicles to provide the kind of cover you need to avoid the CZ one-shotting you after your first init pass. Also, because those vehicles can have rocket launchers, capable of firing enough rockets together that the CZ doesn't just edge the first DR test and ignore the damage.

That's another thing - think of Rule-of-6 being applied to that first damage resistance test with 35 or so dice? Wow ...

APDS would add another 4AP to a barret.

But the suicidal spirit carrying 25 kg of rating 15 plastic explosives should do the job (DV: 15*5).

Now you're talking.

Can anybody say "hand of god"?

But yeah, that would do it - now transporting 25 kilos of explosives to the cyberzombie without it seeing you coming and leaving quickly, or putting good distance between itself and the explosives, then firing an EX Explosive shell at the payload and blowing the whole lot at a distance.

Hmm ...

Spirit carrying the charge, aided by movement power. CZ's not going to outrun that one. And with 75DV, you don't need to get that close...

And for hand of god, just send in the next batch.

Summon a possession spirit powerful enough to take the force hit from the background count and still reliably possess the cyberzombie. You need at least two services. Spend one service to have the spirit possess the cyberzombie. Don't spend the other. Instead, bind or re-bind. Congratulations, you now own a cyberzombie for as long as you can keep that reduced-force spirit bound. If your GM remembers the old metaplot-essential fluff about how possessing spirits can never leave a cyberzombie due to being trapped by the same magics that keeps it alive it may even be immune to disruption.

Just don't flub your binding/re-binding roll! Critical Glitching that = one VERY angry free spirit inside a cyberzombie, that wants to do nothing more than murder you and everyone you have ever met (and then coerce poor runners to give it all of their karma).

Say ... there's an NPC idea ... a free spirit inside a CZ that goes around coercing people to give it karma, or else it blows their heads off. Kicks puppies in its spare time.

*runs off and makes notes for his campaign*

How bout having a profound discussion about the meaning of life? The cyberzombie should then mention something about glittering C-Beams at the Tenhauser Gate and tears in the rain, and then die.

Does FAB-II form an astral barrier? FAB-IIb doesn't, but I'm not sure whether FABII does.
If it does, you fill the area around the CZ with FAB-II with chemical mortar shells (if in the open) or grenades/spray (if inside a building) and voilà, you've got a paralyzed (and blind) CZ! Just be careful with his (cyber)guns.

Hmm, the moment i’m facing a cyberzombie i know a few things.

1. Im in over my head
2. I’m not paid enough for this job
3. IM GOING TO DIE!

With this in mind I would do the following. First make sure that im not within corp owned territory or lure (run like hell) the zombie out to city owned areas.

Then I’ll call the local security, lonestar, knight errant and the national guard and tell them some cybered up psycho is wandering aound shooting people. Hell, my fake SIN identity pays taxes and is entitled to SOME protection from those evil corp machinations.

I'm actually serious about talking the cyberzombie down. It's already got a predisposition for despair and suicide.

In second edition rules it did, now it does not. You weren't able to move through the astral forms of non-dual critters in the old rules. FAB back then stood for "Fat Astral Bacteria" because they had an astral form despite being microscopic (barely). So once released into the air they formed an impenetrable astral barrier until removed by physical means.

The astral plane doesn't work like that any more and FAB has been retconned into being something else.

-Frank

Tactical nuclear bomb.

Couldn't you just... Drop a building on it?

Might not work.

Stick with my idea.

Yeah, a sufficiently skilled face can talk a cyberzombie to death, due to the CZ's tendency to get lost in the details. All you have to do is get the CZ to pay attention to your voice to the exclusion of everything else. It is, however, not entirely reliable.

But it's worth the effort. You might get rid of the bard ehrrm I mean, face. It's a win-win-situation.

Plus there's the very real chance the CZ is smarter and more charismatic than the PC, has activesofts for all applicable skills and has enough dice added to its various pools via the ungodly amounts of ware that the PC is the one who winds up making out with their Predator.

Except that you can see what the enemy rolled before you spend Edge, let alone burn it. And besides, when you burn Edge, you score an auto-crit. So no matter what the other guy rolls, your roll will automatically be 4+ successes above his.

Hmm. I have 16, soon to be 18 dice for social. Think I can con the CZ into dying?

In the case of a good face, unless its an elf CZ, I find this hard to imagine. As far as I know, there is no Charisma boosting 'ware.

And who has ever heard of an elf CZ with a 7+ charisma? Thats not the kind of thing you turn into a CZ

"We had a horrible accident, and there's only one chance he'll survive. Prep him."
"But, you can't! You know what'll happen!"
"I don't care, I can't stand the thought of losing him. Prep him now!"

So how about steel-lynxes with full-autofire heavy machine guns? They could probably get off a shot before he destroyed them both.

Also, what happened to FAB-III? Couldn't you launch a few FAB-III grenades at him, the clouds attack him and he's suffering damage and MORE essence loss (doesn't that kill a CZ?). And no nephrytic screen or body armor can protect against that. And it will take care of flying mages, too.

These FAB-III-grenades take ages till they devour him. By that time, any simple sterilize-spell which surely is standart for the Cybermancy-team will have eliminated those little buggers. Meanwhile, you got killed by the Cyberzombie at least a dozen times.

The problem with FAB III is that it's far too slow to be efficient. I toyed with the FAB-III grenades idea against spirits for a while, until I read the actual FAB rules in Street Magic...

Dr. Phill as a 3rd level Iniate Social Adept. Or even better Jerry Springer!!

Tossed together some stats for a CZ and a Borg gave one a grenade launcher and one a Panther Cannon. With 50+ dice for each on damage resistance tests and both having large reaction dice pools and hardened armor. (CZ hardened at 12 with -6 essence and its immunity to normal weapons and Borg counting all armor as hardened due to drone status) I could'nt really hurt either with one with a full loud out of ammo.

When did "after you have rolled for one test." turn into "after other people have rolled dice in response to your test." ?

-Frank

Run it over with a rigged GMC Bulldog van. If the van is going 65km/hr, and you have a solid rigger, you can do a 32 w/ 10 hits or so, pretty easily. splat! That said, I have no idea what a cyberzombie is.