Wasn't my idea. I would apply a patch as well.

Next time I play, so doing that.

Shadowrun: The definition of better living through chemistry.

Where are you getting that? Slab works immediately, just like any other drug (not poison). How long do you have to wait for K-10 to hit your system, or Jazz? There's no speed because it is instantaneous and there's no resistance (technically) because it's a drug.

You put it in a Super Squirt so you don't even leave a mark (although that takes an Exotic Weapon - big deal), or a capsule round in a light pistol/holdout to leave as little a bruise as possible. Better yet - a splash grenade, so it affects everyone in the radius and uses a skill you're more likely to have anyways.

Where are you getting that rule from, though? Very few drugs work instantly in the real world. I don't see how that'd change in a few decades so that every drug works instantly. Even 3 seconds (one Combat Turn) is pushing it.

The rules are not specific as to the Onset Time of Drugs... Feel free to do what you will, but don't tell us that it is what YOU think it is... Onset time is left up to the GM... And Drug Resistance Tests are Optional, and generally special cases, and are also under the purview of the GM...

What is RIGHT in your Game may not be Right in another... However, note that the majority of games that I have played in, at different tables over the life of Shadowrun, tends to make drug use an immediate effect, and no resistance roll...

And note, in the real world, if you inhale it, it is nigh instantaneous, as it enters your bloodstream within a second or so...

Keep the Faith

The Hell is your problem?

I'm the one who was asking if anyone knew if there were rules for it. I wasn't "telling" anyone a damn thing. Learn to read. Or, more correctly, understand what the fuck you're reading. It's even more baffling since in the same breath you go ranting off about some house rule of yours as if it's written in stone while simultaneously bitching at me for some ill-perceived attempt to do the same.

Get a clue.

Ok, we all know the Internet is evil and leaches out inflections of speech, so let's get a hold on here. Let's calm things down and I'll be getting back to you on that drug thing.

I guess the reason why I believe it is an instantaneous effect is because of the listed duration. Many of these drugs have a duration and an effect. Well, when does the duration start, and when does the effect kick in? I imagine it going like this:

Player - "I take a Jazz popper. I rolled a 3, so it lasts for a half hour."
GM - "Ok, you now have +1 Reaction and +1 IP for the next half hour."

Also, while normal drugs don't happen immediately (and I can argue this pretty easily - even alcohol affects someone at the first sip), I'm fairly certain that the super-drugs of the Sixth World happen pretty dang fast. Picture a Minority Report drug, when he takes a popper on the bed.

Another thing to keep in mind - Slab is a sedative used in surgery. I'd think that not only is it highly effective ("He needs another dose?!?"), but fast-acting as well.

I can and do understand that there should be a resistance roll, especially since we are weaponizing it here, but it should be a Toxin Resistance Test with at the very least a Power of (conservatively) 8, probably closer to 10 or more, and if the Power is not reduced to 0, the full effect goes off. I personally run it with a Power of 8 in my games, to give everyone a sporting chance.

In fact, a group I was running got to meet Slab Capsules in their home base after pulling a run that resulted in 18 age 65+ people stolen from an elderly assisted living place. They ended up killing 5 guards, stealing one of the corpses (to feed a ghoul), kidnapping a guard that was knocked out, and kidnapping the holistic shaman on duty. Not to mention excessive property damage involving Smashing Blow and F12 Powerballs. And the best part?: No-one edited the video footage, and most of the group did not wear helmets/masks.

They were taken by a guy from the company they did the run on (after they made the dropoff), had blood samples taken for clones to give his corp bodies, and some samples for Ritual Links so he had a weapon "on call." This was an informative mission that taught my newbie group to always check the camera feeds and cover up while on duty.

It just seems a little odd compared to things like Narcojet or Pepper Punch. I mean, in the real world pepper spray (of which Pepper Punch is an updated version) has a pretty immediate effect, but by the rules it takes at least 3 and up to 6 seconds (the end of the following Combat Turn) to kick in. And then there's the whole thing about Narcojet being tailored for combat situations, so you'd think one of the priorities there would be to make it act as quickly as possible... but you still get until the end of the Combat Turn to react to it. At least if I'm remembering those rules correctly.

In the end it comes down to game play being more important than reality. No one likes to be on the receiving end of a "save or die" mechanic, let alone a "just die" one. And that's pretty much what would happen if Slab worked as described in the book without any kind of Speed or Power. There wouldn't be any reason to ever use anything else, really, except against drones and vehicles. One shot, even if staged down to almost nothing, knocks anyone out. Then you can just slit their throats or anything else that tickles your fancy.

But yeah, I was mostly just wondering if there were any actual rules on the subject that I missed. Thanks for confirming.

What's even worse (by RAW) is using Capsule rounds with Oxygenated Flourocarbons. Shoot once. Shoot again. Walk away.

EDIT: For anyone who's seen Zombieland: Double Tap.

Interestingly, by extrapolation of other texts, going VR and drug usage should also go by the same time limit of the Immediate speed for Toxins. If you look at going VR/Hot Sim, you have to wait for the next Combat Turn to get the effects. Logic would dictate that drugs should work similarly.

So I'm curious, why is this for people who've seen Zombieland?

~J

The nebbish hero has a list of rules for surviving in Zombieland. #2 is The Double Tap.

"During that pause, when you're not sure if the undead is really dead, shoot them again. If this lady had been a little less stingy with her ammo, she could have avoided becoming a happy meal."

It's a great movie, you should try and catch it if it's still in theatres.

Right, but the term double-tap is preexisting and well-known. I'm still not seeing where the Zombieland reference adds something.

~J

The problem here is that you are working on 2 different time scales: even if the drug takes 1 or 2 turns to work, it is still immediate compared to the 30 minute duration.

I cannot see any chemical kicking in faster than the next combat turn. If it existed, it would have been weaponized and we would have a toxin doing that. I'm happy with drugs being all "Immediate", but this has to have the same meaning as for toxins.


Don't blame you players for that. Shadowrun: the only game where you play a criminal and you can't find a hood in a shop.

...have you not seen the film? It's a running gag, and a pretty funny one. To put it differently, I LOL'd, so Neraph's joke worked, 'nuff said. YMMV.

Ok, the "running gag" is the part I was missing.

~J

Read my next post, reiterated below.

I always viewed that as a metagame issue, namely that the designers didn't want to deal with the issue of being able to reroll Initiative in the middle of a round (sorta like mixed magazines are forbidden, presumably to avoid the question of what happens when someone gets hit with a burst containing one each of Flechette, EX-EX, and AP rounds).

~J

Oddly enough, I got the idea for my favorite Lycanthrope killer from a Shadowrun novel - SMG with alternating explosive and silver bullets. Striper Assassin, IIRC.

For all those people suggesting a capsule round with narcojet:

You do realize that narcojet is an injection vector, and capsule rounds provide a contact vector... right?

So basically you've coated them in something that would be really dangerous to them if they decided to gather it all up in a syringe and inject themselves with it, but is otherwise harmless to them.

So yeah, capsule round + narcojet = pointless.


Also, I haven't read the entire thread yet, but if it wasn't cleared up about the surprise round in which the guard can act but can't react to the attack, it basically works out that the guard uses up an action, and then the group attacks, thus generating a 'surprise round' in which the guard can't really do anything meaningful.

Because a combat turn takes place over 3 seconds, and an IP can be less than 1 second, it basically shows that everything happens simultaneously (fractions of seconds between characters doing things) so the guard can be in the process of doing something (his action) right as he gets hit by the surprise attack. Thus he still gets an action of some kind, but doesn't have a chance to react to any new stimuli. (See how much of a conversation you can get in in about 3/4th of a second)

So basically guard has already declared his turn's action to 'eating a doughnut' when he gets hit with the SnS, and doesn't have time to change it. Thus he gets an action, but it can't be one that reacts to the attack in any way.

By RAW that doesn't work if one bothers to actually read the rules of the chem. Oxygenated Flourocarbons is administered in a five liter treatment. Its designed as a blood ssubstitute in the absence of a proper donor. Instead of an IV of blood and IV of P4MO. You can't possibly fit the five liter treatment into a capsule round. Capsule rounds can

Now onto the main subject, one of the best says to do a run with a zero body count is to simply avoid combat. During one of the official Denver campaign missions I think it was "An Ounce of Prevention" though Its been so long I can't be exactly sure which run it was. Due to some good hacking and the faces charm. All combat was avoided. We more or less ghosted the whole run. Depending on the run, proper planing and execution can do wonders.

Intimidation and picking your targets can work well. Say your Johnson double crosses you and he and his bodyguards draw weapons.
Obviously you can't completely avoid the body count as the traitor Johnson must be eliminated so he can't come back to haunt you later. What about the bodyguards? well if you quickly take out the guy signing over their cred you may be able to convince them to simply leave.

Capsule rounds loaded with paint can be an effective intimidation tool, for your ace marksman. A paint pellet delivered directly to the forehead can give the nice impression of I can kill you in the blink of an eye.

Commanding Voice, my Adept recently picked up this power and likes the command word. "Throw your guns at me" drop your weapons has the disadvantage of they can pick them right back up. But throw your guns at me puts them at my feet. Or at least some distance from their owners.

Not if you're clever about it.

One of the most useful chemicals in Shadowrun is DMSO, which soaks directly through exposed skin and into the bloodstream. If mixed with another chemical, Narcojet being the popular choice, it turns an Injection vector chem into a Contact vector.

The rules don't make this obvious, but you pick up a trick or two...

My general rule of thumb is that, if it looks like everyone on Dumpshock is agreeing about something, it's probably not wrong (have you ever seen these folks disagree?).

Just my 2 .

We'll pretend that the Chemistry Major in me didn't just die a little and move strait on to the fact that it would mean that you would only be able to fit half a dose of narcojet into the capsule (Chemist in me is being quiet) which should in theory have at best half the power of a regular dose of narcojet.

I suppose the real problem is that there is no mention of how much narcojet is in a dose, so maybe you could fit a whole dose and the required amount of DMSO into a capsule round.



While not technically a melee attack, I'd imagine that hitting someone with a capsule round would have the same impact armor reduction to effectiveness. After all, something as simple as a shirt would reduce the effectiveness some, and something like an armored vest would reduce it even more.

I suppose I'm just not a fan of "Hey look, 10 extra stun damage." though they do at least get to resist it separately from the stun caused by the capsule in the first place.

It's not hugely common, but there have been some consensus shifts in my time (the two I think I remember offhand are how II, security cameras, and Object Resistance interact, and on what the proper range for Mindprobe is).

~J

If you put in DMSO, it turns the vector to Contact.

EDIT: And I'm late to the party again..

It definitely happens, but I would rather go do something outside (or drink), and come back months later after they have worked it out.

You haven't had a disgruntled guard pelt you with a gun yet? What's your GM been doing?

Heh, yeah, it's the stuff comedy movies are made of. Changing the word 'at' to 'to' could save alot of trouble though.

Welcome to the Land of Ambiguity! Population: The Shadowrun Rules.

DMSO's entire point of existing is for this very thing. It's simply a game mechanic given a name that's kinda-sorta similar to the effect, in the same vein as things like Dikote. The same is true of a "dose." It's not an actual dose, but a game mechanic with a name. One "dose" of a substance can be combined with DMSO to change one aspect of it to another without changing anything else about it (which includes Power, Penetration, Speed, etc., and yes even volume), and one "dose" is a set amount of the substance that produces the described effects. Technically you could use it with Oxygenated Flurocarbons because the five-liter limit is purely flavor text and not an actual rule, but anyone with half a brain will throw that one out into the Land of Obvious House Rules even if it doesn't have a work visa.

Likewise, you can only fill one "dose" of a substance into a capsule round, a single cigarette, or a huge-ass slap patch. Whereas you can fit 100 of them into something as tiny as a bottle of perfume or cologne. Oh, and apparently a single "dose" is all you need for a splash grenade, but that same game-mechanic-with-a-name known as "splash grenade" has the miraculous power of expanding that single dose so that it has full effect in a ten-meter radius.

It's one of those things you just have to smile and nod your head at or else you get so wrapped up in minutae that you can't even play the game because you get lost in them.


I believe it's half-impact + full Chemical Protection. But I could be mistaken. I'd have to look it up.

Yeah, guess you're right.

It is Bod + Chem Protection with a bonus of full Impact if delivered via a melee attack. I was just saying that delivery via capsule rounds seemed highly similar to a melee attack, as I figure that with ranged attack they are more thinking about darts. Though I suppose having a large splash of the substance over you would be alot harder to not come in contact with than a simple little blade slash. Ah well.

Slightly off topic question? Am i the only person who just pretends SnS rounds don't exist? I find as a GM this measure has served me wll as the damn things are silly. Of course I also strip electro damages minus even if you make the check rules. I will note that I do this universally for PC's and NPC's like a good GM.

WOW... Just WOW...
You should ask yourself the same thing my friend...
You are quite mistaken there...


Keep the Faith

Nah, tazer bullets are cool. (And useful for fighting spirits.) I do wish they would "fix" that they all do the same damage; bigger bullets should have bigger batteries. Getting tazed by a 12gauge shell should be worse than getting hit by a .22.

(But I'm also sad my grenade launcher can't fire cones of flachettes, like tanks and Alternity allows.)

But you can fit it into a modded flamethrower. Use the same rules as squirt gun, only with a BIG tank

Who says I haven't? but I've got a good reaction and ranks in the combat sense power, I don't know what the exact penalty for using a pistol or assault rifle as a thrown weapon are but I imagine they are quite hefty.
In any event being pelted with guns is better then being pelted with the bullets



No once again that does not work, Oxygenated Fluorocarbons is a blood substitute. Its basically temporary essence free bioware blood. There is no way to really effectively weaponize the chem.

(Applause)

Thanks, Doc, that was everything I was going to try and say, but twice as clear as I was going to manage. Well done.

Surprise only means that the guard cannot react to you. He most certainly call in that he's been shot.

Narcojet DSMO, while powerful, is not ideal for stealth takedown.

--



In a world where mental commands for objects is possible.... it's actually quite significant. The physical realm caps how quickly humans communicate. There's two major reasons why SWAT teams use hand signals to communicate. The first is that it's silent. The second is that you can convey more information faster using a hand signal instead of speaking it.

--

You need to make the distance between a stealth takedown and a non-lethal takedown. Narcojet and most of other chemicals are fine for the 2nd, but not good for the first. A stealth takedown prevents the target from being able to alert anyone, Narcojet certainly doesn't do this. A stealth KO requires that the stun damage be dealt INSTANTLY and enough stun damage is dealt in one IP.

If you need to perform a stealth take-down you are likely going to have to go with one of the following methods.

Stick-n-Shock + Burst Fire
Stick-n-Shock + High Armor Penetration
Coordinated attack by multiple PCs (more risky since the target may get to react between PC A and B).
Use lethal means.

Though here's a question of thought.... armor penetration + stick-n-shock how does it work? Does the AP apply before or after halving the armor values? For example, a Ares Desert Fox would have leave a person with 8/6 quality armor with 8/3 for stun damage halves to 1 or 2, or leave them with an effective 8/0 armor against stick-n-shock.

Contrary to other ammunitions the modifiers are not added to the default values but they replace them. So no matter what weapon is used the DV is always 6S(e) and AP is -half Even from a Sniper rifle. The only benefit of bigger weapons loaded with SnS is the possibly higher rate of fire and the range.

At this point, I am confident that called shots for more damage with SnS is the way to go. Unless there is some reason that wouldn't work....

The downside to that is that you would lose about a turn of secondary effects and it would do you no good against vehicles. Not that it matters, we're looking for one shot takedowns here...

Too late.

Now, mind you, the following is as RAW as off-the-cow can allow.

The game plays like this: Choose a chemical. Add one dose of said chemical (possibly with DMSO) to the cost (either x10 or simply normal cost - there's debate on this) of Capsule Rounds. Shoot someone. They are affected by one dose of the chemical as a Contact Vector.

Oxygenated Flourocarbons (heretofore OF) is a chemical. OF has a listed cost per dose. OF has a dose. OF's dose size is in the flavor text, not the crunchy-text. Therefore, you can put one dose of OF with DMSO into capsule rounds and shoot people. The first time would give them +1 Agi and let them hold their breath x2, the second (and subsequent) shot(s) would deal 15P damage with no Resistance Test allowed.

Logically, this should not be allowed, and I understand this. But from a pure rules perspective, this is completely legitimate.

It should be noted that while I understand the pure rules nature of these things, even in my games I do not use the rules absolutely pure and undiluted as RAW. I use the RAI as well, though I do make allowances that others would not.

Shooting the guard is an action of one of the surprising characters, thus the guard cannot react to being shot.

The surprise round for the person being surprised is the action that they were taking just prior to being surprised, and carry out before they have time to react to the surprising thing.

Right, but he can react to the sucking chest wound he just received.

I think there's some confusion about how surprise works;


From: SR4, p. 156

But if I look at that, I don't think you can really react to being hit with narcoject. It would seem like cheating to say "I can't react to you, mr. attacker, but I'll just phone someone who can."

By the rule you quoted, they very much can do that. The dropping prone and readying a weapon actions all but prove it. Those are reactive actions, they're just not actively reactive, if that makes any sense. The guard is dropping prone because he's being fired at, or readying a weapon because he's under attack. He just can't shoot you with it, but he's certainly aware and able to respond. He just can't do jack to you directly with that response.

The book specifially states

That's pretty explicit, don't you think?
I think the paragraph was meant to imply that they can still take actions not directly related to the surprise, such as reacting to things they already knew were there.

But it's obviously conditional as seen in the followup sentence: "The surprised character can, however, carry out other actions that are not specifically directed at any surprising characters, such as dropping prone or readying a weapon (but not firing it)." I think that makes it pretty clear that the sole intent of the rule is "you get to beat on them without worrying about them beating on you for one turn." If it were genuine surprise, they wouldn't even be able to drop prone or pull out their weapon.