Ok so as a runner my GM pulled this trick out on me and I just kind of feel it was a little annoying. We got jumped by two guys with guns one had a submachine gun the other had an Ares Predator. The guy with the machine gun got gibed before he could act but the other guy surprised me so he shot me twice. However I knew that my reaction sucked so I was wearing more than enough armor. (Something akin to 15 or so) However the pistol is loaded with capsule rounds packing Narcojet mixed with DMSO. This means that I have to soke 10 damage twice with a body of 5 and I only take 16 stun so I don’t die out right but I drop like a sack full or door knobs.

Is this right? If it works like that then why bother using anything other than a hold out pistol armed the same way? 2 shots will kill most any one (3 to 4 with a troll maybe) and they are not illegal.
So why would you ever not use a pistol loaded with capsule rounds that have Narcojet mixed with DMSO? Is the armor just useless?

And with DMSO why have dart guns?

DMSO (Arsenal P.82)
Capsule Rounds (Arsenal P.34)
Contact vector (SR4 P.244)


Also just for fun total cost of knocking my mage on his ass in 2 shot from some random ganger
Capsule rounds = 30 ¥
DMSO = 10 ¥
Narcojet = 50 ¥
So for 150 ¥ you too can drop just about anything that has a body

DMSO+narcojet is, and has always been, very powerful in SR.
The only reason why you don't just use a hold out is the range, but other than that you're right: even in a holdout, it can be dangerous.

But you have to keep in mind that:
* Dwarves have a bonus to resist toxins
* Armors can be equipped with chemical protection
* 150 ¥ is expensive, and if you miss, you've lost 90 ¥.
* It's not hard to kill someone with two regular bullets either.
* ...Or with a spell which also ignores armor.

So it is powerful, but you pay the price, you can protect yourself from it and it's no more powerful than other things... Hardly game-breaking, just a way to get around some problems (such as a troll tank when you don't have a mage to stunbolt him).

In SR3, that Stuff was horribly powerfull.
10D Damage. which you resist with natural Body.
Means without cyber you need to roll 8 times a 10 to get the damage to nothing.
Rolling one 10 is hard enough allready, on a 6 sided die. On a bad roll, EVERYTHING drops like dead.
But here comes the pinch, not immediately. It does not hit and you go down.
It hits, and you have about one minute or something if i remember correctly. Now think about that.
One Minute. One Combat round is supposed to be about 3 seconds worth of time.
That means 20 combat rounds, before you drop. In most cases, that's enough to make everybody
else on your side aware of the problem AND take care of most of the other side of the fighting.

Paintball guns loaded with various things are almost alway underestimated and are usually horribly effective.

My 3 main ones are contact tranqs to knock you out, acid to destroy armour and cause repeating damage, gloop to slow you down.

Like you said, why bother with anything else.

Because Stick-n-Shock is cheaper, and electrical damage is so freaking powerful.

Why Narcojet?

Because Twist swears by it, and he's been in the game for quite a long time.

Sir Twist, indeed.

A strange thing to remove from the official rules>shrug<

Because shooting people with DMSO'd K-10 is just hilarious.

This item plus:
I think this means this stuff is just as potent and rapid as you suspect.
For a prime runner, the cost might not be prohibitive,
but to a ganger... 90 a shot is rich!

Bwuahahahaha....and everybody is whining because mages are oh so powerful. Great.^^

Mages have something that is accessible only to mages.

This is accessible to anyone..... mages included....

Is that so? I play a mage, i have no access to the matrix. I am absolutely without protection unless i get a proper support by e.g. a hacker. This is why we work in teams. If you need protection from magic, take a mage. If i need protection from physical harm, i take a samurai. Isn´t it simple sometimes?

A Mage can shoot just as well as most Samurai.
And since the Shooty and Matrixy Bits don't have to be implanted to work just as well, you can be as good a hacker as most hackers too!
The only thing a Mage can NOT do well is Technomancing stuff. Everything else he can do at about 60 to 80% of the level the original Job can do.
At least, as of SR4 it seems. And even in SR3 it was derogatory called Adept Run, because they could do everything everybody else could do.
And reasonably well too. In some cases even better than the original Jobs to boot.

And, when runs start getting low due to the heat being on, Mages can hire themselves out for Birthday Parties for the Corpies!

Sir Twist. The luckiest Shadowrunner ever.

Robert N. Charnette forever baby. I loved his introductory books.

You know, everybody laughed at me when I made a merc with Blood Filter 6, a Nepheritic screen, and chem protection on his armor. And then he got hit by DMSO+Narcoject and laughed at everyone else.

Page 254 of SR4A:
"Immediate means the Effect is applied at the end of the Combat Turn the victim is exposed to the toxin."

So, in the situation described, his character would still get his action before the toxin's effects kicked in. Makes it useful as a way to drop someone non-lethally, but you have to be willing to risk whatever they're going to do this round (Remember, the cyberzombie passing out from the drugs after he's blown away you and your team does not improve your survival).

As a note, my ass was saved from narcoject by having a biomonitor connected to my autoinjector, with stimpatch juice in it. A cheap and effective way to survive being narco'd.

Narcojet is better balanced than before.

A Speed of Immediate means that the damage is applied at the end of the Combat turn.

A street samurai can kill a whole lot of people in 1 combat turn.

My group doesn't use it that much for take downs unless the target is un-enhanced with one 1P and taken by surprise.

Otherwise there is more than enough time to sound an alarm.

Do not forget shot at Capsule Round act first as Gel round and as double whammy liquid from round is all over you..

Why the heck do you want to do Birthday parties? Kids are annoying little drek heads who's only redeeming factor is they scream really good when you dump acid on them.

No the better gig is to work for a clothing place and use the fashion spell to turn cheap clothes into chic (or if you got the mojo to spare, Luxury) clothes. More money and less headaches... unless you like seeing kids running around screaming because you dumped acid on them.

I prefer dropping acid on them... "Hey little kid, why drink and drive when you can get high and fly?"

I prefer to drop hydrochloric acid on them... If you use enough there is no body to ID. j/k

Why shoot 4 gangers with 4 narcojet gel rounds when you can airburst a narcojet splash grenade between them?

DMSO 10Â¥
Narcojet 50Â¥
Splash Grenade 20Â¥ with 10m Radius

It's cheaper for more potential targets.

Narcoject sucks compared to Stick'n'shock. I used to think it was great but that immediate onset time might as well be an hour.

Double tap with S'n'S is just as effective, actually is immediate, so no screaming for help, and is far less likely to flat-out kill the target.

I do occasionally still use Narcoject but in Splash Grenades and Mortars where the targets are not an immediate threat and surprise is not a consideration.

Am I the only one who noticed Slab?

Slab > Narcoject.

Narcoject has the possibility of overflow, which may kill someone you did not mean to. Slab drops them for one hour minimum.

EDIT: I know someone is going to bring this up: yes, Slab is more expensive than narcoject. But you get what you paid for.

If you're not protected against chemical threats, stuff like narcoject will easily drop you.
If you're not protected against electrical threats, stuff like stick'n'shock will easily drop you.
If you're not protected against ballistic threats, stuff like bullets will easily drop you.
If you're not protected against magical threats, stuff like manabolts will easily drop you.
If you're a runner and aren't protected against one of the above, you're doing something wrong and deserve to get dropped easily.

Protected from doesn't necessarily mean that you have a resistance to it. Not being exposed to it in the first place is being protected from it.

Right you are. If you manage to get the drop on all you opponents and whack them before they manage to throw whatever nasty surprises your way, I'd assume you won't get dropped. Which is kinda like being protected against everything at the same time. But you should never leave home without wearing non-conductive body armor, chemical protection, a respirator and your mage buddy, just in case. Better to be safe than splattered with narcoject...

I've added as a house rule/fluff that one of the main benefits of using Nacroject is that it is very hard to overdose someone with it.

Being a 90 pound weakling smoothie and getting a troll size dose might put you in the hospital but it is not going to instantly kill you.

Same for getting a double or triple dose.

Even a rhino size dose might not kill you if some one gets an some antidote patches on you.

The extra safety at least explains the expense.

To be fair, if you read the paragraph entitled Concentration SR4A p255, you will note that there is no hard and fast rule stating that two doses equals two Resistance Tests.

It's entirely up to the GM and implies strongly that multiple doses received during the onset period should merely increase power by a number determined by the GM.

I would suggest adapting the auto-fire rules...

That's why you should load two pistols with differend chemicals and shoot them once with both.