Didn´t I just see someone resurrect a 2008 post? We wouldn´t have trouble with time-limited licenses, no?

Heh, it's always interesting to read stuff that I've posted awhile back and had forgotten. Some stuff are interesting and others, meh.

I think I saw posts from you before... stuff keeps collecting over the years.

It's allowed in this instance due to the tread containing this post:

Is any of this making sense to anybody else, cuz I'm lost.

This was an awesome thread tho...

There is no such rule, it's just toturi who thinks that. There are example NPC grunts who for simplicity share the same stats just like typical orcs in D&D share the same stats. I don't think there's an RPG that doesn't have some sort of "grunt" template where several minor enemies share the same or similar attributes.

Of course that does not at all limit what stats any NPC in SR4 can have, and it is up to the GM to decide on this. Anyone with a bit of sense who reads the NPC chapter in SR4 understands this.

Hmm already answered, but this is what happens when you necro a strange thread in the ass.

Nothing says low budget killing like the AK-97. 4-5 guys firing suppression with AK-97's while the rest of the gang goes for aimed fire will chew though defenses like nobodies business.

Doubtless, and the AK is one of the most common weapons world-wide for a reason. Cheap, durable and good performance.

It may have been thread necromancy, but I'd never seen this thread, which is truly awesome.

This, actually. It gives me plenty of ideas for a DocWagon-themed game I'm running in the near future.

Tuesday, you can stop reading this thread now.

As we've established, the environment is the best way for someone to take down high-budget opposition.

One of my personal favorites (also an IRL method used by special forces)

Bury a nail shallowly underground. Place a bullet, face up, on top of the nail, so that just the tip (or not even that) barely pokes through. Someone steps on the bullet, pushes the nail/caltrop tip into the bullet's primer rocket, and BOOM! Instant lindmine! Blow your foot clean off. Indoors, when buring is not an option, one could just attach the bullet in the same manner to the tip of some caltrops, although this method is more visible.

Now, this can be combined with some of the other tactics outlined here to turn any room into an instant hellhole. Indoors, you tape the bullet to caltrops, scatter them in the middle of the room, and then cover the ground with oil and soap. Burn off some rubber in the next-door room, and let the smoke filter into this rom (to keep people from seeing the caltrops. Intruders walk into the room, slip on the soap (inadverdantly giving them a nice coat of oil. The gasoline-based rubber burning would mask the scent of the oil (but not the soap!), giving the runners the impression that the gangers just poured soap water and stinging smoke into the room to slow them down. The runners walk a little bit into the room (no caltrops yet, to allow all the runners to get in before the fun starts), and FWOOSH! Simultaneously, one runner gets his leg blown off, and the bullet combustion sets the whole room ablaze.

Other ideas:
Replace any commercial fire sprinkler system water supply with something unpleasant (gasoline, any variety of chemicals)
Attach a grenade to the wall near a door, and run a line between the pin and he door. The door moves, the grenade blows. But you've heard that one, probably.
String a wire across a doorway (or any room!), tripwire style, and hook it up to a car battery.
Hook a doorknob up to a car battery (I like car batteries!)
Hook an entire elevator floor up to a couple car batteries, which could easily enough be adhesive-glued to the floor of the elevator.

While we're on the topic of elevators:
1. Glue a couple HE grenades to the external roof of an elevator, so that they're touching the sheave (cable).
2. Attach the pin to a string, and attach the string to the cable of the counterweight.
3. Wait for some sucker to move the elevator. The elevator activates the armor piercing grenades, which would not only chew through the cable, sending the elevator (and the runners inside falling down the shaft, but it would be quite likely to blow a sizable hole through the elevator roof, giving the runners some of that explosive action.

I'm trying to think of something that involves the fire sprinkler system and the electricity system. I'm not sure if there'd be enough water present in the air to condut any lethal volume of wattage. If it did work, though, the runners would would be faced with (or more likely, in the middle of) a room that's filled with raindrops soaring through the place, and lightning bolts buzzing from droplet to droplet. Scary stuff!

Hm, and since I wasn't here for the original barrens/z-zone debate... I always picture the gaza strip, rather than the favelas or Mogadishu when I think barrens. Somewhere where things still work... after a fashion... but noone not native wants to go there. Walled off and contained, with lots of violence around the edges.

EDIT: and the gangs (hamas, etc) providing most basic services.

You got it, Doc.

Shock traps + water are just going to blow your breakers. If you want to do it, get nails long enough to penetrate a rubber sole and have them hooked into the mainline. Car batteries aren't going to do the job you want.

I'm not terribly sold on the poor man's landmine with the nail/bullet combo. It's way too easy to shift the point off the primer before/during the step. It would be more expedient for a gangbanger to juryrig a shotgun or assault rifle to fire with a tripwire, but then you're losing a shotgun or assault rifle.

I can't get past the notion that street-level opposition is going to readily annihilate their homes to stop a bunch of 'runners. Traps to slow or push them into killzones, that I can see. But to be ready to level a building to kill five guys? That's maybe a bit much.

The cabin wouldn´t drop much in case of modern lifts, as the brakes work in case of cable failure. The explosive action on the other hand would be a grenade attack without deviation, with (being generous) a +4 dicepool mod for the damage resistance test. Deadly trick.

The emergency brakes rely on the integrity of the elevator's walls and roof to operate.

Ok, one could call the mayhem caused "sufficient to destroy the whole cabin". I assume the cabin would have a lot of holes, but survive.

Every living being inside would be red mist, so the difference is just in the flavour.

Ignoring the difficulty of keeping a pullet properly aligned on the nail, especially when trod upon, and the silliness of holding the bullet yourself as you try to tap it into place on top of said nail, no, it wouldn't blow your foot off. If a NORMAL bullet doesn't blow feet off, this certainly won't, since it lacks the acceleration from the barrel. IF it worked, I would be surprised if it did more than leave a nasty bruise and make a loud noise. After all, last I checked, shadowrunners don't normally go around barefoot.



This one's very neat but you'll need to make it a phosphorous grenade, and even then it won't actually start the sprinklers for a while. The sprinklers in normal buildings are activated by sufficient continuous heat to melt a ball of wax. Without that, it'll never start (and even if it did, a standard grenade doesn't leave enough fire following the explosion to reliably light your gas).



Do keep in mind that in a standard building, each sprinkler operates INDEPENDENTLY. A fire under one sprinkler means one sprinkler goes off.


I wonder if it would be possible to take advantage of the raise floors/drop ceilings common in most office buildings these days. It's possible to stuff a LOT of explosive punch under those raised ceilings, and it would be pretty easy to tuck a pressure pad in there, and the drop ceilings have enough space for easily two squads of drop bears.

Setting up a spike trap under a raised floor isn't hard. Heck, the Bastard Operator From Hell series is chock full of office traps an enterprising mook can set up. Best of all, there's a lot of physical traps that hackers can activate as well. Worth the read.

Makes me think of the mythbusters episode where they put bullets in an oven and heated it up until it went off vs. a loaded gun in the oven. IIRC, the bullets outside of the gun while it made nasty dings inside the oven, they just weren't as nasty as the loaded gun as it went through the barrel of the gun, etc...

I think that a temporary tube to stick the bullet landmine in would help. But one would be better of building "zip"gun/rifle traps. Just a smooth bore tube packed with power and shot or made to load a certain caliber round. Sure SS and a bugger to reload but build them in the the walls just wallpered over or the floors ect and you an set up kill rooms the when trigered volly a good number of muskets across the room. If you have much more to burn nuyen wise do the dame but with metalstorm tech to allow multiple uses or have it set to volly a set amount of tubes only, with tigeres setting off different any maybe slightly overlapping sets. I would treat like supressive fire aganst a suprised target at least the first time it happens.

There are some real gems around these parts. Personally I'm a big fan of the search engine, not because its user friendly (it certainly isn't) but because I'd rather see necromancy of quality threads than rehashes of the same old drivel.

Hear, HEAR!

As I have stated before, these stats are the ones printed. There is no rule that all Grunts use the same stats, but there is a limited amount of stats printed for Grunts. The NPC Grunts are example of those NPCs of their caliber and skillset.

If the GM wants to change or alter them, he is free to do so, but then those altered stats would be no longer RAW. Anyone with a bit of sense would understand this. So if you want to say "I as the GM decided to screw the PCs over and stat these gangbangers with good tactical skills and ingenious minds, when most of their peers spend their time, bullying people and getting doped out", then it is up to you.

Cheap SMG's and Heavy Pistols

Capsule Rounds with DMSO/ Pepper Punch

Pepper Punch Grenades

It WILL incapacitate som of the team and also affect the other half.

-Ambush
-Dice bonus for the opposition being in a known territory

I don't think that adding a 1 or 2 point knowldge skill (especially one that fits in with the ganger's background) as screwing the players. And really, that is what we are talking about, 1 or 2 in a knowledge skill.

Your emphasis on playing using only RAW grunts is countered by the second line of your sig.

IF you were going to require gangers to come up with ideas for defense that they could see in any one of a hundred action movies or comedies, then the application of situational modifiers to the rolls could easily make up for the lack of skills. Also true for the social roll to convince others to follow along.

And now to get the train back on the tracks. How about and Ewokesque (ha, yes I used Ewokesque in a sentance) attack with concrete blocks or something on ropes swinging out of an ally to hit the PC's car. Or to hit that Ares riot control vehicle.

I can't believe I'm actually wasting my time with this, but:



Emphasis mine.

RAW enough for you?

Since that 1 or 2 points in a Knowledge skill that would otherwise default, that can well be a difference of 2 or 3 dice. Really, what we are talking about is the difference between a success and no success at all.

My emphasis on using RAW is reinforced by the second line of my sig.

The ideas for defense that they can see in the trids they could roll using a Memory Test (if they can even remember what they had for dinner last night). But executing it right so that it actually works, now that's where the Knowledge skills come in.

IIRC in the Star Wars RPG, Ewoks used to have bonuses to primitive trap construction or something along those lines. So if your ganger was an Ewok, sure go wild.

No, because while that rule is RAW, its execution is not. The NPCs statted in the book are As Written. That Rule is As Written but the NPCs the GM customises would not be (unless the GM happens to be one of the writers and he puts them into an SR book), as you have quoted and I have already stated.

This argument is silly. The rulebook even says the stats are guidelines and not concrete. If you want to argue for the sake of arguement, choose something worth kvetching about.

On subject, I just don't see static defenses to be in a ganger's best interest. Sure, there will be a few, but the point behind most gangs is to have a presence in their areas, lest others muscle in on their territory. To that effect, they would use a more 'active' style defense system based on scouts and reaction forces. I'd think it would be more difficult for the runners to get to the doss in question as the opposition would mount an active defense away from their location. Booby traps would be nice, but they wouldn't be incredibly destructive.

No, I am arguing for the sake of RAW, and that is something worth "kvetching" about.

Except the rules say those statted out NPC's are merely exemplars, templates that can be used for the sake of ease of play and are not in fact meant to be complete.

Except that the statted NPCs are the ones that are As Written and while the rules say that if the GM wants to build an NPC that fit none of the labels, he should not feel obliged to shoehorn the character into the rules, that does not mean that the character he creates is necessarily RAW.

All toturi responding with, as I read it, is that any PCs, GM made NPCs are not RAW they might follow RAW or they might not but seeing as any thing you make that on wirten can't be the RAW its not.

No, you're not. You're arguing for your interpretation of RAW, and given the arguments you've put forth it's my opinion that your interpretation isn't worth bupkis.

You are specifically taking something that the authors have expressed as not concrete and arguing that it is. It's a tired argument and one I wish I didn't have to see.

It does not matter what your opinion of my interpretation is. Especially since I am not arguing my interpretation of RAW, but am stating the RAW. That the NPCs in the books do not have something. I am taking something the authors have expressed as examples in the book and arguing that that is as they have written. It is my opinion that if you can see the Beat Cop as it is written in the book as having a Body of 5 or the Tir Ghosts having a Stealth Skill group of 7, you need help.

The authors have expressed that the NPCs as samples but have statted them concretely.

Ahhh... nothing like a good ol' Dumpshock Semantic Meltdown to start the day.

You can argue that Leviticus bans them all you want, but I'm still going to enjoy cheddar and a slice of tomato on my burger.

If your contribution is to lord over your interpretation of RAW, then you've contributed. If that's it, kindly move along. I'd much rather discuss low-power tactics so I don't have to throw an army of mooks at my players than argue semantics.

In Vietnam, toe-poppers used small sections of bamboo to act as a channel for the bullet/nail combo to ride in. Useful for supply route denial and required allies to constantly re-sweep 'cleared' trails. Cheap, but required more time to set up than a tripwire or punji stick because of all the digging involved. In urban environments it would be less useful because all the traveled paths are paved. If you were going to do it you'd need a small rock drill to cut a hold in the concrete or asphalt. Drill hole could act as the channel for bullet/nail, eliminating need for bamboo/pipe/whatever. Once the holes are in place arming/disarming would be easy - just drop the bullet in the hole or use a piece of tape to fish bullet back out.

That's the whole point! If they have "low-power tactics" such as people have discussed here, they won't be mooks anymore!

These are low cost/resource tactics but more likely to be the product of Hannibal Smith than a slum kid who slotted "The best of Urban Brawl 2070".

I don't know where Leviticus bans the use of tomatoes, and the cheese/beef thing is only for preventing the mother's milk being cooked with the child. In the case of a hamburger, the beef is likely from angus, and the milk from a dairy cow - which is almost assuredly not the mother of an angus. I don't know where you got those ideas from, but they didn't understand the laws as written or the market as it is today.

10 DV at 2 meters away is only deadly if you're naked. Even then, with a body of ~4, you're not dead - just severely injured. If you had 2+ grenades, that's more of a problem.

The problem is with any decent amount of armor you'll only be taking a few (2-3) points of damage per grenade regularly, if at all. Three grenades just make you angry, and you patch up with First Aid before exiting the wreck (which, because elevator brakes are on the top and bottom of the elevator, will prevent the heap from moving). Basically you'll just tick off the team because they had to take a minute to patch up and take the stairs.

EDIT: Now a shaped charge set up on the top of the elevator is another matter. That is decidedly more deadly.

Are you-It was a joke, meant to outline the inanity of saying because it's written down, it must be interpreted exactly as such no matter how inane that is.

And now this is getting worse. It ends now. Grunt Survival Guide, not theological discussion or RAW discussion. Cripes, people.

Keep in mind that pretty much all building elevators have been tied into Matrix systems since at least the 2050s when SR1 shadowrunners were hacking in to open doors and call elevators. Unless it was built before the Crash of '29, it's most likely had security cameras, door locks and elevators tied into the matrix during the techno boom of the 40s and 50s.

An alternative to this - as seen in the movie Lucky Number Sleven - is the guard sitting on top of the elevator with a shotgun & monitor showing who is inside the elevator. Cheap, easy to wire up, and easy to replace and even semi-aim-able. Plus it gives the PC's a chance - if they're observant, smart and not cocky - to figure out there's someone up there, figure out where he is and take care of it.

Always exciting for your players when they figure out a trap.

Another low-tech idea? Large cages of devil rats on top of a drop-down trap door in the roof of the elevator. You stop the elevator between floors, and when they go to drop open the door in the ceiling they get a face-full of nicely infectious devil rat.

Alternatively, place a bucket full of kerosene on top of that trap door. When the PCs pop the door they get doused in kerosene - the fumes of which light on fire the second they try to shoot any of their guns.

I think that gangers are probably more likely to steal a large truck or 18 wheeler and use that to hit the PC's car. See the armored car robbery at the beginning of the movie Heat.

Also, ramming a car against a wall keeps the PC's suck inside as they can't open the doors. it doesn't take too much to toss gasoline on the roof of the car after that - works especially well if there are already bullet holes in windows for the gasoline to pour into the car with.

A power drill can make its own holes in the roof of the car, if the ganger doesn't mind the risk of being shot through the roof. After that gasoline on the roof means that any shots the runners make set it off, cooking them inside the car.

After you pin the car with a garbage truck against the wall, you could also unload at the windows with AK-47s (cheaper than bread in some countries) and then throw molotov cocktails. Easy and pretty risk free.

You wouldn't even need the molotovs unless the car is armored. Why bring the fire brigade into it if you don't have to?

As to the mention of explosives in an elevator - I feel like the rules for explosions in a confined space aren't being properly utilized. That can seriously amp up the DV on a grenade.

Simplest "explosive in an elevator" is to just have a mook pull open the service hatch at the top, throw a grenade in, and slam the hatch closed. It's a nasty one because a lot of the time you can catch the whole team. I'd call it a surprise test (with the mook getting the +6 for ambushing). A fast sammie might still beat him on the test and plug the guy before he can lob the grenade. Otherwise... ouch.

Also:


Three cheers. Couldn't agree more.

So, you guys that are arguing with him...have you just never read any of Toturi's posts before, or what? The guy likes the RAW, and that's that. He's not derailing the thread, the rest of you are when you reply and try to change his mind. Just let it be, and keep sharing ideas. Everyone wins.

Little surprised this one hasn't been brought up before: sex.

Think about what is most likely the state of an individual when they are getting their groove on? Surely that would help out enterprising grunts. At the very least a decent runner would keep a weapon nearby but sleeping in their armor and with full kit?

Other than catching them with their pants down, it could serve as a way to spy on them.

Hmm, and what about pick pockets? Lighten that armory they are carrying a bit and make a profit to boot. And give em a moral quandary too perhaps, even the toughest runners might not want to be known for having mowed down a pack of snot nosed, sticky fingered gutter punk children - or if they are the type to sink even that low, have the gang "accidentally" film them in the act.

Speaking of that, wouldn't there be other skill sets than just combat related ones that grunts might employ that would give runners no end of headaches if they pissed off the gang?