Title says it all. This isn't for munchkining, BTW, my primary char's Magic is 6 and we have yet to see any focus of any type of greater force than that. We do have a M4 shaman in our party and a F6 Detection Focus left over in the plunder from a team we ambushed.
While number of foci bound is limited by Magic and foci active is limited by Logic, we couldn't find anything binder-specific (other than Karma) limiting the Force of a Focus.

I don't see any limit to the Force of a focus that can be possessed and bound by a magician, other than the obvious ones of cost ( money and karma) and availability. A focus of that power will stick out in the astral, though. One should be prepared to defend possession of it, as attested to by the way your current party acquired it.

As one GM years ago told a player who manufactured a F8 weapon focus, "That's cool. Two days later a dragon shows up and says, 'You are too small and weak to possess such a device. I will hang on to it for you until you are ready.'" Heavy-handed, I agree, but the basic idea is that the more sparklies you possess, the more unwanted attention you draw.

Peter

Boy I wish that would've been me, as in SR3 and SR4 I can easily take out a dragon. Either way he has a point, assuming you can get one there is no limit to what you can bind.

He wouldn't want to have any other foci, though, for addiction.

And I wish we had some proper stats for dragons? I'm fairly sure that an adult dragon is going to have more than TWELVE FRIGGING MAGIC. Or LOFWYR.

Lofwyr invented a new kind of math to express his magic rating with.

There isn't a limit to the Force of any focus, but you are generally limited to (Magic x 5) Force worth of foci in general. At least at character gen.

And the physical expression of that magic rating is a picture of Lofwyr giving you a stiff middle talon.

Analogy time!

And that's the biggest problem with great dragons and immortal elves. Not that they are powerful, not that they are more powerful than the PCs are, and not even that they are more powerful than the PCs ever will be. The problem is that their level of power is completely disproportionate to the rest of the game world.

I don't have a problem with a great dragon who can maul a group of experienced runners, or an immortal elf who has double-digit levels of initiation and knows a few spells and metamagical techniques that no one else does. I do have a problem with dragons who can fight a modern air force and win, or immortal elves with high triple-digit initiations. Not because I have a problem with super-powerful NPCs, but because I have a problem with stats that make no sense in the context of the rest of the game world.

Beings like Lofwyr and Ehran should survive because in addition to their personal power, they also take sensible precautions and have contingency plans within contingency plans to deal with threats. They shouldn't survive by being no-selling bastards who laugh at nukes.

To be honest, that's one thing SR4 has done better - giving reasonable (but still formidable) stats for dragons and keeping the big players behind the scenes where they belong.

Ah common guys take a look at a "Great" Western Dragon, he only has like 23 boxes of health. That's completly doable once you get past his Hardened armor of 24, once again doable. Why not to long ago I posted a simple build on the thread " Punch and ...something" about the two pixies. I put together a pixie that can strike for 24-30+ Stun at minus half impact armor (w/ 20+ dice not including Edge of 7). That little guy can knock a dragon out in one shot! even if I didn't do enough stun/physical then the dragon would have to test or be "stunned" due to elec damage, and he only has like 25 BOD, barely enough to withstand the "Stun" Effect.

EDIT: The extra damage came after realizing Energy Aura can indeed go above +4

There are people in this world more powerful (if you would), or at the least better than you in every way. If your family was killed by illiterate criminals and you dedicated your life to study, you would never be as brilliant as Stephen Hawking. If you swam every day, you would never win Gold Medals like Michael Phelps. You would never become Dalai Lama, you probably won't be elected leader of a major nation and be able to order around generals and tanks and nukes and shit. That's real life, those are people you can't be - or at the least have very little chance of being.

That's okay though, because you can still deal with them. Lofwyr, bless his mighty claw, probably still has to use a big trode net to surf the Matrix when he doesn't want to just look over his minion's brain or use the screen. A TM or full-blown hacker can run rings around him in that arena. Harlequin and Ehran the scribe, despite their ancient elven wizardliness, needed some go-betweens to actually go do things. You might never be the president of Peru, but in Shadowrun you can negotiate terms with him while he combs his alpacas.

And if there's anything anyone should know by now in Shadowrun, its that nobody - and I mean nobody - is beyond an ass whoopin' (and possible untimely and messy demise). The fact that a shadowrunner going head to head with a great dragon might be considered a once-novel form of suicide is irrelevent, you might as well ask what the chances are for a drunken hobo with a Wednesday night special to assassinate the president in public. I have faith in y'all's abilities to tread lightly around those who can maim and kill you with nary a thought, because we humans have been dealing with things like that for centuries - we call them by different names though: royalty, politicians, cats (never, ever underestimate cats) and I believe evolution has twisted and bred in our species a stubborn knack for cautious greed when dealing with such people. Even a three-ton lizard has some angles you can work ("I know you have spells for blades, bullets, and magic, but tell me: how are you with military grade lasers? No don't answer me right away, that was just to distract you from the nanite-delivered toxin.")

First off I love your reply, however the things you describe all have to be custom tailored by the GM, as anything that has stats can and will be beaten by a player. The Great Dragon you mention and the Elf, do not have stats so therefore are unkillable (at least I haven't seen them) yet the critters/Spirits/NPCs listed on paper so far can be defeated with nary a thought. I didn't make Superspeed the Hedgepixie to kill a Great Dragon, it was after the fact that I noticed I could one shot 1 or 2 Dragons a turn (incidentally with Setup he has 40+ dice not including Finishing Move). Yes there will always be more powerful people than you in the game, they only tend to crop up after you have made your appearance however. Even then if the GM is not skilled at creating characters even something they make can be inferior to the task at hand.

Of course, Ragewind, your analysis assumes that the pixie can get close enough to the dragon to punch it. That's where the true power of these 'immortal' entities comes from. They have been around long enough to know about Arnold Schwartzenpixies and have millenia ago figured how to deal with them two+ metres away.

Peter

Once again the GM needs to Tailor make the dragon (/cough Metagame /cough), as the Dragon has no stats, the ones presented in the book have no way to stop the pixie. If you want to go that route one would assume the Pixie in question has done its homework and can get up to the Dragon. However theorizing on the supposed cat and mouse game between the dragon and the pixie has no end and is not worth arguing. I learned this speaking to Tarantula as both sides fire suppositions back and forth they fail to realize the pixie can still Murder any great dragon at whim (That of course have stats, saying he "Knows your coming" without being able to prove it within the rules of the game is worthless)

Incidentally Superspeed can only be a recent creation as he/she requires Bioware. Which , of course, didn't exist a millenia ago. Not exactly enough time nor a indication of even knowing about said Pixie if you ask me. Also considering its a brand new shadowrunning character, I doubt the Dragon would even know of the pixies existence.

This is just a pixie I made while at work, I am sure many others here could make something much more deadly if given the chance.

I belong to the school that says a team of six can kill anything by itself, if they can get to fight it. So yeah, dragons are vulnerable according to their stats. But right from the beginning of Shadowrun we have been told/warned/indoctrinated that dragons, especially Great ones have plans within plans with backups for the backups that fail. I don't see anything wrong with that. Let there be unattainable goals. It makes the dreamers happy.

Peter

The critters section stats an average great dragon out. It is not impressive. Shadowrun is a world of mystery, myth come to life and ancient demigods that sit astride the earth and make it quake in terror. Yes, you're going to be able to say "HEY, HARLEQUIN" and then put a panther round into his crotch - but Harlequin is going to have fifty billion ward spells around his crotch that don't trigger wards and aren't going to be noticed by anyone except another IE who is looking, or a GD. Let's not even get started on Lofwyr - he probably has spells that trigger if his hide won't cause it to bounce off. He probably gets Predator Massages - he hands a team of really, really pissed off dracophobes predators and 50 clips and tells them to have fun, for christ sakes. These people are, in the fluff, unstoppable. If one of them really decides to do something, it gets done unless another of them stops it, or they run into a comparable force - like Deus.

Ragewind, you are misremembering the setup maneuver. It lets you add the net hits to your next attack roll, not all of the dice.

Emphasis mine

This is exactly what I am talking about, we don't actually know what they can/cannot do. Thus making them Immune to anything we can do. The second they begin to existent in the game, with a full compliment of stats and abilities, with a break down of their operations and supposed power structure, then and only then can they be killed. Anything else is hearsay and supposition, and not applicable to my argument. Don't be fooled, I am not asking nor wanting anyone to stat them out, I don't want to kill them nor does anyone I know want to. My point was (once again) that Superspeed can kill a Great Dragon as presented in the Shadowrun Rulebooks without breaking a sweat, and if a GM were to bring said dragon in to take my Rating 8 foci it better have stats since I am not handing it over all easy like. Incidentally if they hit the pixie they would probably instant kill
Superspeed ...as its a pixie not a Troll.

Well it effectively lets you roll twice, I.E.

1) I roll 20 dice, get 6 hits w/ Setup

2) I actually punch the guy with 20 dice and get 11 hits

3) add 6+11 = 17

Sure its not done all at once, but the end result is the same.

We do have a rough guideline know what they can do - anything an ED Wizard, Swordmaster and Lightbringer could, and a few things that are purely Draconic in nature. Or, for Aina, Nethermancer tricks. For Alachia, bitchqueen tricks. It says in the back of the original Harlequin adventure "Harlequin does not have stats because Harlequin can do whatever you want." And as has been said - most people can kill the great dragon as presented in the book at the end. A reasonably high grade initiate mage could one shot them with the burning of edge.

If I want Harlequin to oil up, do ten lines of coke and ride his bike out the window screaming "NANANANANANA" he can, and he'll laugh doing it and probably cause the requivalent of a thor shot impact at the bottom which he floats out of.

Sorry Ragewind, but i'm pretty sure you are wrong with your example below...





reading the section,



so, step two would actually be roll 20 dice, + the net hits from the setup maneuver.
This is a lot different than adding the first amount of net hits to the second amount of net hits.

Still helpful, but only adding the net hits to the dice pool of the second attack is no where as powerful as adding twice the attack dice.


Max,
Dunedin, NZ

I always assumed the GD stats in the books (unless for a specific GD) were for the average new GD. Named ones were going to be different than the 'average/typical' baseline.

I think Ragewind has a point, that any creature that has stats within the rule structure is both empowered by them and limited by them. One thing that many people overlook, including I think Ragewind, is that the stats include Mental Attributes. If a character, PC or NPC, is played correctly, those stats should affect how she approaches the world around her and how she interacts with others, plans, reacts, etc. They are just as important as the Physical Attributes.

One example where people often grossly ignore this factor is with spirits. Over in the 800 point thread, I have a Voodoo magician, Uncle Zola, who can survive summoning and binding Force 12 spirits without the use of Edge. Such an entity has INT and LOG of 12, and is WAY smarter than Uncle Zola. He should not be able to just manipulate this being without getting his ideas and wishes twisted and handed to him on a plate unless he is very, very careful or very, very placating. Great Dragons at the back of SR4 are at that level of intelligence and higher and have lived for thousands of years.

Ragewind... rages?... against the handwaving aspect of saying such beings can handle anything you throw at them. But, come on! You think Einstein couldn't have grasped that Unified Field Theory if he had had a couple of centuries at age-25 processing power? Assuming a hyper-intelligent being has the ability to outthink a PC of ordinary intelligence is not dodging the efforts of the PC's player. Assuming it cannot do so is the player dodging the obvious.

Peter

I am more then my stats. Stats are merely numbers. My stats will not defeat you. The things that are not my Stats will defeat you.

Most often, you will defeat yourself by defining me by my stats.

This is the weird thing about shadowrun. The dragons as written up are very tough, but individually beatable. What makes them especially hardcore is when you consider that they own private armies.

But then like one of them solos the entire iranian army, or everyone's army in Denver, without support. Which makes no sense as militarys have super bad ass guns, and in those cases the dragon's private army of badassery isn't standing around.

Well I typically ignore the mental stats of such creatures due to the fact that no matter how Clever and Experienced they are made out to be. The GM who is running them typically isn't. Now this is even more true online where everyone here is a faceless Icon. I do know people who are so "Evil" that when I play in their games my character litterly walks around making Spot checks every two seconds. Goblins or Go Gangers in his game should never be taken at face value, as he can create some deadly combos or situations. I myself am quite experienced in this area as well as my players frequently struggle with tasks they initially thought was going to be easy. In essence it becomes a arms race to see who can out think the other, but 90% of the time the GM's either do not posses the capability to create something so intricate or they do not want to be bothered to do so.

Basically what it comes down to is I look at its capabilities first (Powers, Special Rules, Stats relevant to combat based on game system) before I look at how smart the thing is. In other words its something you cannot count on most of the time.

here's the thing. You don't actually have to be a 12 logic smart to RP being 12 logic smart. First off you can say that logic 12 dragons can see things coming like a the exact time to buy out a corporation when it's stocks are lowest. You don't have to be a logic 12 GM to say that free spirit had the for site to get black mail material on the 3 guys it will take to preform a hostel take over of a business that owns the patents you need to give share with the medical facility you also bought a rock bottom prices a competitive edge. If I could ACTUALLY figure out how to do that I'd be making a lot more bank than I am now that is for sure. But I could GM it just fine.
Secondly most any logic 12 NPC is very technical or very magical. BLIND YOUR PLAYERS WITH SCIENCE! yup just spit out some arcane/techno babble and you are good to go. Goes a long way for the feel.
Also you can make Sherlock Holmes level deductions. "Oh I see you have been set up with an Ares SIN and Renraku guts in your meta-link case. That's seem like a move Thatcher would make at this point in the game ... but you wouldn't know him by that name would you? Let me guess your Johnson goes by either Grant or Monroe.

Once again my point proven, some people just can't come up with this stuff, which is why I don't always include it in my ramblings.

That's too bad. Maybe folks should practice being smart as much as they practice being tough.

Peter

??? so what you are saying is that you can beat anything as long as your opponent doesn't know how to play the character??

i agree with pbangarth. when i run a game(which i thought my style was rather standard) you have to have much more than stats to do something of merit.

I don't agree with this assumption that these NPCs can automatically counter anything players can come up with. That way lies Mary Sue, and Elminster. It's the opposite of fun.

If a group of players really is gunning for a given NPC, they should have a fair shot at taking him down if they do their homework. Accomplishing the feat would be a good ending for a campaign, for example.

Sure, but high intelligence should not just be dismissed as an asset merely because the GM does not think himself capable of utilizing it.

Defeating a major opponent after long and continuous conflict is very satisfying. Always having the chance to beat something doesn't seem right to me. Pick anybody on Earth, and there are things she can't defeat, no matter how hard she tries. That's just life, and even more so in the dark Shadowrun universe.

What I was saying earlier about intelligence may come clearer with an example. I am a human. A lion could shred me six ways from Sunday. One combat round, and I'm dead. Guaranteed. The thing is, I know that. I now it better than the lion knows it. I also know how lions hunt, where they hunt, and how often they hunt. I know how big a rifle I need to kill it from 300 meters away so it can't shred me. I can bait it. I can trick it. I can drop food behind me and keep running if I happen to run across it. I can stay a continent and an ocean away from it. If I want to be safe from lions, I can make it so, and never be in danger from them, as long as I use the intelligence with which I was born.

Dragons are to hyperfast, pylon-driver punching, geared-to-the-sparkly-wings pixie shadowrunners as I am to lions.

Get over it. The lions do.

Peter

Also the easiest counter anyone can have against a killer pixie is a detect enemies sustaining focus. If you had intent to harm the dragon you would be totally shredded because it would win initiative and then proceed to blast you six ways from sundown. If your argument is "well I can get away with it when my GM is not very conniving" then maybe that is not the table for you is pretty paper thin. Your GM might also just let you get away with everything, because that is their play style and if so then it's also a lame argument.

If there is not a mana barrier, a physical barrier, a spirit, and some sustaining foci getting in your way then your GM needs to read up a little more on the rules. Having to set up against a dragon means that you need a single IP to get ready to punch it.... and thats when it hits you with a force 12 power bolt and you just die.... or you punch the barrier, it tells you that if you don't stop it's going to kill you, and if the detect enemies is still going off and you don't back down then it kills you.

Really? Most of the lions I know bitch incessantly about it.

As far as the PCs always having the chance to beat someone, I see PCs vs. things such as great dragons as being similar to street gangers vs. PCs. Most of the time, the PCs can obliterate any gangers that are stupid enough to get in their way. But, in the right circumstances, a ganger can be a danger to a PC. If a punk ganger can potentially kill a much superior PC, that same PC, given optimal circumstances, should have a chance against something like a great dragon.

I see both your point and Bira's about creatures with super-high intelligence. On the one hand, the GM needs to have a bit of slack in order to properly simulate a being of superhuman cognitive facilities. But on the other hand, it is lazy and dickish to simply handwave and say "The NPC automatically wins, he would know how to counter anything you could possibly do."

Like I said, I don't have a problem with super-powerful NPCs, but they should fit the universe they are in. In the Shadowrun universe, one of the major premises of the genre is that no one is invincible. Great dragons and immortal elves should need their centuries of cunning to survive. For all of their power, death should still be a possibility for them, even if a remote one.

From the pixie puncher? Not likely. He's a one-trick pony who would not get close enough to use his schtick, and even if he did, a great dragon's twist fate power, if nothing else, would mess him up something fierce.

Actually after I actually built him fully, he can do a gamut of useful things such as Hacking, and even some Negotiation better than most players can do. All while being nearly undetectable and stealthy AND with the stopping power to kill a Dragon.

The funny thing about Twist Fate is its useless if the character doesn't use Edge to augment a roll. The only real application of it is to make a person reroll his successes. The person however can just pop a edge to stop it, however and the dragon cannot twist fate that spent edge to stop the counter for the first twist fate. In effect the dragon just helplessly watching as his heart is ripped out.

In reference to masterofm think of this saying...

"I can do anything better than you"

If said dragon has all these barriers or a Detect spell etc etc, then they create a mechanical effect in game that can be bypassed or circumvented with another mechanical application. Something that is particularly interesting about Shadowrun is there is a counter to everything out there. Even some of the more powerful characters I have created, such as 100+ armor or 100+ DV still can be stopped by other things in the game sickeningly easy.

As other people have stated there should always be a way to succeed and Shadowrun always gives that way. The example about the Go-Gangers is excellent.



I also don't like this statement, the people I game with are very intelligent and clever. However no one but God is infallible and people can just forget or simply be ignorant. You also need to take into consideration the cognitive powers of the player who is facing off against the GM's creations. You can sit here can say because of X , Y, Z you cannot kill Lowfyr or whatever. However what if I said, Even with X,Y,Z I can kill him because of H? Once again therein lies the problem, if you begin to represent him with in-game stats he can be killed.

Today , incidentally, I found out a Force 1 Radiation Elemental can kill any living object in the game with little or no effort (Dragons not excluded). It was very humbling, Even Lowfyr would die to this strategy since its so subtle. Nothing exists in the game (to my limited knowledge) to prevent said strategy, unless you want to wave your hand dismissively and say "he does because I say he does"

The concept of Shadowrun is no matter how powerful you get there is always something better. Dragons are on such a larger power scale that you fail against them. If they do have stats they can be theoretically killed. However anyone with detect enemies can detect malicious intent. Radiation is malicious intent, punching someone is malicious intent, any spirit or person who wants to hurt that being has malicious intent. You can't really kill a dragon as long as they have the spell up. Drones don't do enough damage, and dragons are very perceptive, and magical.

I have also seen a lot of what you have written up Ragewind and let me just say a lot of your arguments on what you can get away with are very very thin. If your GM lets you basically get away with everything, and all the loopholes or vaguely worded SR text (and there is a lot of this.) Your whole thing about your pixie puncher is thinking that the minute you want to kill that dragon you won't be instantly vaporized.... which is what would pretty much happen if you want to try to get close to engage in punching a dragon.

If your basing your whole defense on the ability to use the detect hostile intent spell, then how about this...

Dragon is sitting in a building sleeping/watching tv/playing a vr game or in some way shape or form distracted.

I walk up to the building, open the door and look at the dragon, and walk up to it to say hi.

As I finish my move near the dragon, a messege pops up on my AR screen, reminding me that Dragons are worth money to the right people, or maybes its just a message I recorded however long ago. The point however is clear...Kill it

Now that I am next to the Dragon and get the idea, his spell goes off saying "HEY SOMETHING WANTS TO HURT YOU" by then its too late as he is already dead.

Or alternatively

The dragon is Walking/Flying/Surfing/Sliding around the place, and the above happens. Maybe some agent program takes control, or a suggestion spell kicks in. The possibilities are endless, no matter what the dragon ends up dead (assuming I can do enough damage) and thereby the spell is circumvented. Now you will undoubtedly say "He umm he has something else!", well then whatever it is I am sure there is a counter somewhere, but I am not here to kill a dragon so I don't want to get entrenched in a debate.

Also Drones can in fact deal enough damage, not the other day I noticed a post about STR 30+ bows....

I disagree with this statement, nothing is to powerful to kill in any game If It Has Stats

Shadowrun is unique that a "1st" level character can concivably kill anything with relative ease, other games like DND makes you REALLY work for it (120 damage at 1st level!) typically your character cannot do these things until a much higher level.

How?

I don't remember the specifics, but as Neraph explained it to me even if you are able to reduce the Radiation damage down to zero, you have now been exposed to it and now have a rating of radiation equal to "Light", if you keep sending the elementals after your target they will (in short order) gain a rating of "Severe", which gives them 1-4 days left to live no matter what. Very interesting, when I get more time I will go read up on the radiation rules and see if there is a way to downgrade the level of severity, maybe some Gene Therapy might mitigate it, but that certainly takes more than 1-4 days.

the thing with great dragons is they are always over prepared. typically somewhere along the lines of charisma in bound spirits of a high force. maximum anchoring foci if there is such a thing. each one with force 12 detect enemy and force 12 power bolt or some similar death dealing spell. and maybe even a few powerful free spirits in its employ(read as bound for life) if anchoring foci count towards you limit in foci i believe i read on here that the max was magic times 5. thats at least 40 death dealing anchoring focuses waiting to trigger. and on the point of a more armored dragon say he has 5 force 12 free spirit with endowment of immunity to normal weapons on him. that 24 times 5 hardened armor plus his natural armor plus a high force quickened armor spell.
then we have magical compounds such as immortal flower that bestow regeneration.

everything i just stated is perfectly fine rules wise to third edition and from my understanding would still be applicable in forth edition

a great dragon doesn't rely on one gimmick it relies on a thousand fail safes.

"As I finish my move near the dragon, a messege pops up on my AR screen, reminding me that Dragons are worth money to the right people, or maybes its just a message I recorded however long ago. The point however is clear...Kill it"

Bad example. Anyone who was a shadowrunner would know a dragon is worth bank and would want to kill it. Detect enemies makes it so that you can't get the drop on your foe. You don't actually get to one shot the dragon because it knows exactly what you are going to do and what you intend to do the instant you decide to do it. Guess what that means? Its time to roll initative and see who wins! There is no magical "suddenly I blindside you and get first strike" as your intentions are clear to it, and if it wasn't expecting for someone to try to pull that crap on it then the Shadowrun world is run by dinosaurs who live underground and control things via tree roots soaked in a substance immune to lava.

What you fail to realize is that dragons don't just have stats they also have skills as well. A great dragon will see you coming from a mile away. It will hear you, it will smell you, it will assense you with astral window. Having a dragon stupid enough not to have its defenses up is probably going to be killed by another dragon, not a team... That or a magical ritual mage hit squad might pull it off as well. Sure the pixie can one shot a dragon, and many things can one shot other beings in SR if they are built for it but you don't always get the chance. Sure the pornomancer could convince the dragon to kill itself (thank you very much stupid social rules table) but that dragon will probably not want to sit at the same table as that runner. I mean would you? What do you think your logic score actually is? Is it 12? Would you let a runner team waltz up into your layer and not be prepared. You know for a fact you are a walking pile of money that most people would shit themselves just to get a crack at your toenails and you are just going to walk around defenseless? If you were a dragon worth millions and millions of and you also have quite a stash of magical belongings and wealth that it has horded as well would you leave yourself defenseless? Get real. If the dragon is watching T.V. it is only because it wants to lull you into a false sense of security. I mean you do go well with ketchup.

The nice thing about detect enemies and detect magic is if you try to go hostile the dragon sees it coming, if you are effected by a spell the dragon sees it coming.

Runners come prepared, and so do dragons. Even when you are going up against gangers most shadowrunning teams play it cautious so why should dragons be stupid enough to watch T.V. without detect enemies and detect magic up and some spirits watching its back. I mean your a team meeting with a gang so the first thing your team does to show that your trustworthy so your team deactivates all of their foci, turn all their weapons into the gang, let yourselves sit in a mana static so the mage is no longer a threat, and tranq patch yourselves before talking to them. A shadowrunner team having no defenses or gimping their potential defenses sounds just as ludicrous as a dragon not having its defenses up.