Actually, no, it's not. If it were, then the death penalty would keep people from committing murder, but it doesn't. At least, not to my knowledge.

Even if MCT wasted a bunch of runners for stealing from them, and if word got around in the Runner Community who did it and why, the result wouldn't be, "Damn, I better not mess with MCT!", it would be "Damn, amateurs like those guys better not mess with MCT! Still, I'd better be careful when I go on that run against them next week..."

On the other hand, if the runners' death looks like "accidentally caught up", then where's the deterrent?

As to the Instagib: a lot has been said here anyway, so I'll just be summing it up.
a) Corps don't kill runners in revenge.
That's against the entire system, and there's no point. They know that the runners dropped off whatever they stole, so they aren't getting it back that way. If they kill them, there's hundreds more waiting to take their place, and no corp wants it any other way. They'll make files of the runners they can identify, put in everything they find (prints, pics, DNA, habits, weapons, bullets, MO...) to make a profile. Either to use them in their own runs against their competition, or to know what to prepare for ("Okay, we've been assigned guard duty to this hotshot biochem R&D guy. We know of these teams that have done extractions from us before; we don't have names, or faces, but here are their preferred methods, some programs their hacker used, a list of spells their mage prefers... they like to use tasers, so you'll be getting insulated armor..."). Hell, if they find out who their fixer is, they might even hire them if they're good!

b) People might kill runners in revenge, but they're not omnipotent.
BJ's "After the Fight" is an old and good example. Yes, ordinary people might go after the runners for revenge, but they leave tracks. The fence in the shop that Max talked to might mention to the runners, "Hey, there was this guy in the other day who asked about those chips you sold me...". Max might be spotted when trailing the runners, either by them or somebody else ("Yo, how much it worth to ya if'n I tell ya who's the guy been trailin' ya?" Okay, that was atrocious...). Give them fair warning that someone is after them. Then, if they don't react to the warnings, pull the plugs.

Yes, it does. Earth is an infinite mana barrier. Search has a modifier -mana barrier's force to dicepool. Thus, they can't search. Ritual tracking won't work, as that just says they have to find you somehow. Tracking the link between your blood and you doesn't work, as astral tracking has a threshold modifier of +mana barrier's force if the target is behind one. So, they can never find you.

When you send your team on wetwork and they are smart about it, what chance does the target have? That's right, none, if done right, an assassination done by a decent sniper is very hard to notice and avoid.
So it does happen that the players piss off the wrong people and there's nothing you can do but insta-gib them to conserve coherency in your game world...
Last session I mastered (Not SR but SLA Industries) I killed one of my players with a headshot from a sniper...
In short, a sociopathic player with no social skills was looking for a girlfriend and after a long time, he found one...
She was very much like him, and was also a sniper...
He cheated on her and when she called him on it, he just said all the wrong things...
She took care of it in the most efficient way she could come up with, ahe knew where he lived and his routine, there was no way for him to get wind of it before it happened...
The player in question wasn't offended and he didn't leave, he even said it was what he would have done if the situation was reversed...
Now I am not in the habit of killing of my players without giving them a chance, but sometimes it happens...
The world of SR (or SLA) isn't a fair place...
But it'll probably be a long time before I do it again...

I shouldn't post after 2 AM. Not that it changes my opinion any, but I get quite a bit snappier than usually.


For Arkon, I'll point out that SLA is more or less explicitely a horror themed game, compared to Shadowrun, which generally isn't. Things that fly in SLA (murderous ex-girlfriends actually being a real threat...) probably don't in SR.

A more compareable SLA example: You get hired by IA to investigate a serial killer who might be a Necanthrope. As soon as you accept the BPC said Necanthrope teleports into the office, several cloaked Stigmartyr agents step out of the shadows, and everyone opens up on you because the entire investigation was one of those things that they just couldn't let you know....


Not particularly horrifying, entirely possible within the setting as written, but unfun for everyone except the giggling monkey GM. Just stupid.

I included several reasons why some random NPC wouldn't try this. Never mind that 'some random NPC' also has to get ahold of some seriously hard to get equipment that is probably beyond 'random NPC' ability. Particularly when WM 'called me out' on letting the players get lots of armor, which means that in theory, our 'Random NPC' is getting stuff that the targets can only dream of touching... so yeah, this is just something 'anybody with a grudge and 20k to blow can pull off so why doesn't it happen more' :rolleyes:

And I'm gonna get a Mk-19 to stick in a pop up turrent in my Nissan so I can clear traffic on my way to work. Hell, it'll take some belt tightening to afford it, but actually getting the gun? No sweat. Gotta get it done before someone else thinks of it!


-Spike, who knows that the Superthyroid gland has an availabilityof 20, and hopes that the AGL, at a minimum, is even worse, cause if it's easier to get than a stupid Superthyroid he's gonna froth at the mouth because internet threats are just silly....

It strikes me that the biggest obstacle to someone getting revenge on runners, is finding out where the runners are hiding. Of course, this is made somewhat easier with tracking magic, but you don't have to use that. The blood smear was inadequate to make a material link, or the mage doing the tracking screwed up or something.

If you want to make your players more careful have news get back to them that someone they pissed off is looking for them. It is even possible to hang them out to dry for a while, depending on their contacts loyalty. If they're really cavalier about things then their hunters might find them, and then either organise a hit or a kidnapping or whatever. It's not unreasonable for them to get some warning if they're reasonably paranoid. If they are clueless enough to make themselves a target, have them be kidnapped instead of instagibbed.

It is worth pointing out that the corps are not going to want to obviously break the law in their hunt for the runners. IF they were happy to break the law (with Thor shots, kill teams or simply a sniper drone) they wouldn't need deniable assets for their runs in the first place.

Personally I've just had the star come to my apartment (never hack from home)... Luckily being a squatter all my belongings fit in a duffle bag, so snatch it and my guitar case and head out the back door as their coming in the front. Now just needed to find a coffin hotel to crash in for the night, and squatter hole searching the next day.

But as to how to take care of runners, and place a hint. Hire lower runners (or gangers) if its just revenge (because you really aren't going to get anything out of them), if you patch into one of said people's cyber eyes it also allows you company to test the runners to see if you'd be interested in hiring them. So hire a small gang of barrens denizens and send them to "rough someone up". You can pay 5k, and possibly kill your runner or at least scout out a potential hire. If it goes bad, its blamed on gang violence, not some 20k drone in the sky that is likely to be tracked itself back to you. Even companies have to worry a little when performing out side of their extraterritorial spaces.

All companies use runners, they are the deniable assets. Taking out runners achieves nothing other then flexing your own ego. But sending deniable assets to find out who they were working for, and scout out potential talent to be used does work nicely. Companies also don't want any form that can be traced back to them, its bad for their public relations. And if it got out that the people they attacked had broken into their company and stolen valuable information, well thats even worse because it shows how unsecure their facility is.

I would say murderous ex-girlfriends fit perfectly in SR, especially amongst shadowrunners, life is cheap and SR is dystopian, but if this doesn't work for you, how about Franky Vice, another runner, who happens to be a good sniper, the players where supposed to become his friend, but sold him out, the guy decides to get even, same story from there on...
IF the players can kill NPCs without giving them a fighting chance (which they can) than so can NPCs, what's good for the goose and all that...
I'm not saying it's fun and should be done, but sometimes it's logical and would require sacrificing coherence in the game world to not do it...

This example makes no sense from any point of view, the BPN (not BPC) would never have been issued if they would kill anyone who accepts it as soon as they accept...
Stigmartyr is the 'reality police' they don't deal with these mundane things...
And Operative (the PCs) are expensive assets that SLA Industries doesn't sacrifice for nothing like this...

Yes, you're right, 'some random NPC' wouldn't pose this kind of threat, Franky Vice, who's been a runner himself for 12 years, however isn't 'some random NPC'...
Do I have to suddenly make Franky a lobotomy patient just to give the players a chance or do I do what Franky does well and has done for 12 years?

Sorry, BPN, was thinking of Eve Online or something.

Part of WM's defense of the entire concept was, in fact, any random schmoe with 20k could do this, and might just to beef up their rep.


But back to Franky Vice. First of all, this isn't some random bolt from the blue as you leave your house. By your account, they've met franky, introduced them to eachother, have plenty of interactions with him. Presumably, as the GM, you've done your part to drop some subtle hints, give them an Idea what Franky is capable of, and let them know that Franky just might take a shot at them...

More, Even without horribly gimping Franky, the characters do have a fighting chance. Once that first shot has gone off (sorry buddy, one of you has to burn edge to survive), they have the chance to take defensive maneuvers, cover, whatever, move on Franky's position and take him out. If he gets away, they have the chance to track him down.


WM's drone of doom is equally effective at wiping out entire parties as it is lone runners. Taking cover is only a tiny bit effective, and dodging not at all (explosives tend to be that way). Hell, the Drone of Doom is capable of taking out the entire runner team and half of the local Lonestar precinct all at the same time. Their only chance to fight back is to have a fairly high force spirit capable of taking it down already on call, or someone NOT in the AOE of its Rain of Grenades with an assault cannon ready to go, with plenty of vision mods to overcome its stupidly high stealth skill/camoflage, and the range to shoot back.
Its essentially random and impersonal and will pretty much end the game by its lonesome.


And its much worse than the Shadowrun game I walked away from years ago where the GM threw in an Uber-ninja bomber/serial killer as a personal nemesis for the party from the very first game session. As I recall, aside from the paranoia of 'this random dude is out to get us, we know he's leet, we know he has bombs, and he's probably invisibly watching us right now', the most memorable encounter was when my character was blown up while I was not even there in the toilet, no rolls, just dead PC.

I count that as at least half as stupid, no more, than the Drone of Doom. At least 'Leet Ninja bomber Serial Killers' can, in theory, be fought, and are actually more likely to exist and do their thing than the Drone o' Doom.


EDIT::: Sure my example could happen. SLA is all about all the different departments not talking to each other. If Internal Affairs thinks a SLA employee is doing ritual serial murders, and Stygmartyr knows that its one of their Necanthropes, and he's doing it to counteract the effects of Bitterness, and they believe the BPN will lead to any of that being exposed, they can and will shot first. Everything in the book says that's how Stygmartyr operates. Of course, any GM actually DOING that is guilty of being a raging asshole.

Just like any GM putting out Drones o' Doom in Shadowrun is guilty of being a raging asshole. Which is why I put out what I did.

I think we're on the same page...
Insta-gib is acceptable in certain circumstances, but it shouldn't be because the GM is powermad or a jerk, it should make sense. Sense in the reason why and sense in the execution, as in that drone of doom may indeed be over the top...
But how do you avoid the insta-gib when it isn't just the easiest thing to do, but by far the most likely?

Couple other ways for you to reasonably not insta-gib PCs...

Conflicting loyalties/agendas within the corp

Its been mentioned several times in this thread that the PCs might get tipped off by a contact. Consider though that the angry corp executive that ordered the relatiation against the PCs might not be without enemies. Say a rival finds out about the retaliation and decides to make the angry executive look bad.

1) He could tip off the PCs. ("You don't know me, but you've been made. Yes it has to do with your last job. They're on their way. Get out now.")

2) Maybe the rival feeds false info to the drone controller/team/whatever ("No, the data is wrong. The target was 2100 Applegate Roadd, not 2100 Appletown Place. Who did you just attack!?")

Heck, maybe its not a rival, exactly. Maybe its a disgruntled underling... like an overworked secretary who's been passed over for a raise several times now.

Bad Data

Sometimes people just get the wrong data. A bad street address. A bad commlink code. Faulty scanners on the drone. A rigger that stayed out too late partying the night before... Human error is an amazing thing. Or maybe that's just a way to rationalize the expenditure of Edge to stay alive.

More Useful if Alive

Its been tradition in our campaigns to keep a very tight lid on the number of "real" runners out there. Sure, lots of people claim to be runners, but that's typical of posers. Those real runners are valuable assets that help maintain the balance of power between the corps, govt, and other big players.

Anyone trying to follow a personal agenda to eliminate a runner team (especially a good one) would no doubt get a serious talking to from their higher ups about their need to look at the "big picture." And in the worst case scenario, that vengeful exec might be sent for 're-training' or an 'extended management seminar' somewhere far, far away.

My favorite? Put out a sign: here there be Stonewall MBT's.


If the players persist on heading directly for the Instagibb at that point its on them.


If you, the GM, puts an Instagibb on a direct route towards them, however, don't be surprised if they fail to get out of the way; or upset that you smashed their toys (characters).


On thing to keep in mind: Most people, even rich people, aren't going to think about drones o' doom, or sniper armies when it comes to 'revenge' or whatever. Non-rich people are going to grab the nearest gun and go directly for their face. Non-gun minded people will try to run them over in the street.

Rich people hire people with guns to shoot them in the face.

All of which are fightable. All of which can lead to escalation, which gives the players a chance to head for the real source of the threat long before the Instagibb happens.

First its some thugs with shotguns. Once those die, its more thugs with shotguns and SMGs. Once those die, they get a miniature swat team style attack, and then the swat style raid with snipers providing overwatch (probably shooting out windows and whiffing the first couple of shots (reduce power by barrier rating and eliminate called shots to the head... we are talking about quick/hard to see targets, so the snipers aren't exactly performing to full spec...).

At that point your players have figured out that someone really really wants them dead, and is willing to keep upping the ante to get them. They'll hardly be in a position to complain if they get instagibbed five or six iterations later because they never tried to figure out how to stop the attacks.



And it may never progress to the instagibb phase, if the swat with snipers proves effective at kacking one or two of them, they'll just start seeing more of those, or the revenge minded guy is satisfied that he's got his blood, whatever. Remember, what the NPC's do is up to you. Saying 'its not my fault you guys got instagibbed, you shouldn't have pissed off that random NPC with 20k to blow and contacts who were arms dealers.' is no better than the Player saying 'Sorry I killed the party in their sleep, its what my character would have done after they told him he couldn't steal the expiremental bioweapon to use in our next fight.'

As usual I have come late to the party, as such most of the salient points have been covered.
I run a realistic game and have had several parties of varying power seeking the PC's. Every thing from a lone person to a couple of mega's. The ista gib only works if you think its easy.
The problem orginates not in the method but your perspective of it. As such till you change your perspective the problem will persist.
In a realistic world finding the PC, as stated, is hard and unlikely to be missed by runner's who survival required being prepared.
For example: have you considered all the ways that ritual magic tracking could fail? Perhapes they locate the PC in transit. Have you looked at all the difficulties face by finding the PC's amounst the shifting masses of the barrens? All the things that could go wrong just before the nade storm of death? Who controls the drone and how does it get there to work. Perhapes the drone is great but the rigger running it gets geeked before he can do anything on account of being in the Barrens. In short, look at what you would do if the party tried this and how you would provid interesting obsticles.
This should lead naturally to answering your own questions.
Once you know how they overcome these difficulties descern the flaws that work against them and alert the PC's accordingly.

The auto-blimp of doom would be completely ineffectual as a weapon against individuals walking down the street.

So, ASSUMING that the grenade launcher equiped drone has evaded patrols, has been able to find and identify the PC's from 50km away (despite that hat they're wearing), that the PC's are ALONE (no innocent children around that will turn the entire city against whoever is doing this), and that the drone has been able to maneouver to get an angle around any buildings in the way, let's shoot, right? BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM! 250m/s muzzle velocity of nades vs the sound of firing, 340 m/s. 50km. First off, the drone must know where the target is going to be in 200 seconds. That's how long it takes for the nades to get there. "Damn, he stopped to tie his shoe." But then, the sound is going faster. The difference is 53 seconds. The sound reaches the runner 53 seconds before the grenades.

The runner looks up in the sky where they hear the boom of auto-fire and sees smoke trails blazing towards him. He now has more time than any runner ever needs to run away from the impact zone.

If you've seen the movie Munich, generally the problem with killing people is ensuring you've got the right target, that the target doesn't move, and that you don't cause too much collaterate damage, specifically extraneous loss of life. There are much better ways to "geek" people. Happily shadowrunners are so paranoid and hopped up on magic and tech that when it comes time to roll "surprise", they are frequently able to get that "sixth sense" of danger before being blown to bits by the troll with a panther cannon that just stepped around the corner behind them.

Ironically, its someone else's Drone o' Doom that sat 50km out (with a Gauss rifle). We don't have the exact range on the grenade Drone o' Doom yet, but apparently its enough for a -2 to -4 visual penalty on top of the active camoflage, despite an utter lack of stuff to hide behind in the sky. Assuming its not actually firing blindly out of the clouds that is... a bit high for what it's trying to do.


Of course, it does make me wonder, all things being equal, why he didn't just point out that a replica of a WWII flying fortress is probably pretty cheap, and filling the bay with blocks of c14 with altitude detonators is probably not all that expensive if actual bombs are too pricy. A good old fashioned carpet bombing should be utterly lethal. Why isn't anyone doing THAT to kill runners. Its pretty much the same thing with more class and less chance of the stupid drone getting hacked...

Even the Gauss Cannon fired at it's max range, given my understanding of such projectiles, would take a good 15 seconds to reach it's target. However the system assumes all fire reaches it's target at the same instant it's fired, so for the time being I'm ignoring that in my 'Super-Sniper' drone.

I would prefer to use the Winter Systems Laser but it sucks and costs more.

On the subject of targeting, I pointed out in the thread I started about it that no such sensors exist. To use the Gauss or the Laser at max range you need a local spotter. Terrifyingly, the rules for indirect fire allow a weapon fired remotely by a competent spotter to be more accurate than direct fire with the same weapon.

Cover.

A target need not be in the open to be killed using a long range Gauss Cannon. You can fire that thing through a fair sized building no problem.

However, the point of this discussion is not the feasibility of different methods of wasting the Runners but given that such methods exist how to give the Runners a chance to avoid their doom.

The consensus seems to be that a Runners contacts should be employed to give fair warning and if such is not heeded then they got what they deserved.

As I've pointed out numerous times: The ability for such a thing to exist does not mean that a) it does, in fact exist
and b) that people are willing to use them


Most magic discussions that involve ritual assassination teams (using sympathetic links so they don't actually have to get a material link) are legal by rules and apparently unstoppable, even by stupidly high powered wards (20 and up). Eight hours after someone wants you dead, you die, no matter what. One supposes that its possible to have a ritual countermagic group up... though I'm not sure the rules support such a thing, but are all the worlds leaders really living in the center of a group of ritual countermagic specialist who's sole purpose in life is to stop the ritual assassin team of doom?

In real life someone could drop a nuclear bomb on you. Garaunteed to kill you, no matter what. More surgically, thor shot exists, and is about as devestating as our Drone of Doom, and your Gauss Cannon Drone happens to be a real close cousin.

I mentioned carpet bombing. It is exactly comparable to AGL grenade firing drones. Maybe scaled up a notch, but to be honest its a small notch.

All this stuff exists, yet amazingly enough criminals and terrorists continue to do business today, and shadowrun is obviously only different in that they get paid more to do so. That's it.

Why aren't we using stratofortresses and carpet bombs to deal with the mob? With 'Fallujah', which at least had the advantage of being open warfare, unlike random Joe Runner on the street?


Because its overkill. Because the costs are too high for the effect, because they are horribly inefficent for what they accomplish, and best of all, because once you start trying to do that to YOUR enemies, they'll start trying to do it to YOU.

All of that and a hundred other reasons exist, purely within the setting to explain why such over the top stupidly ham handed 'instagib' senarios don't play out a dozen times a day in Shadowrun.

Of course, the most important thing is: Its a game, its supposed ot be fun, and the GM dropping thor shot or Drones o' Doom on you at random intervals. IS. NOT. FUN.

Why in the name of the Seven Devils of Kimon do you NEED another reason?

Sorry?

Just because A-Bombs are possible does not mean people will build them or be willing to use them?

This is demonstrably an untenable position.

No: Just Because A bombs exist does not mean you use them to assasinate someone you don't like.

No, you use precision strikes with deniable assets that are equally overpowered and 'No Save, No Magic Resistance, No F* all' in their given area as A-bombs.

I was just trying to point out that applying rationality and logic to human behavior is often a loser....

Actually, the problem with the ritual assassination team, arguably the only truely 'surgical' option I mentioned, is that you have to get a collection of, what, 20 people... all of whom are extremely highly skilled mages who are all willing to work together (presumably for money) for the sole purpose of killing someone. I'm willing to suggest that using magic to ritually assassinate a target is a great deal more personal and specific than 'advancing human knowledge' to build a generic doodad, which happens to be capable of utterly devestating a bunch of faceless 'them' but might never actually be used.

People are amazingly capable of self deception that way, but I just don't see ritual assassination of providing that luxury, which leaves us with 20 or so sociopaths, all of whom are double digit initiates (if I recall the threads correctly) who can work together and not murder each other over the payment.

Pretty tall order in terms of organizing and forming these guys up... never mind pointing them at the target.

As for all the other options mentioned: I expect to see Drones o' Doom in the same places I see carpet bombing and 'indiscriminate' Thor Shots. In other words: not in Seattle unless you happened to earn the wrath of the entire corporate court, and continue to be a menace in their eyes.

Otherwise: open warzones. Thats about it. And one thing about war zones? Usually no one bothers trying to 'get that guy over there' its 'there is a target rich environment, go for it'. Lone dudes worry about snipers, battallions worry about Drone o' Doom.

Which, as I feel I must do takes us back around to the OP. Why are we not using Drone o' Doom on lone dudes walking the streets? Because its something used in hot warzones against battalions. It is a gross waste of resources and hidiously out of place against a lone dude on teh streets of Seattle. Add my other arguements add nasueaum and finish up with: And its a stupid, asinine thing to do to your player even if it weren't utterly out of place.

I think the useful ideas have been posted. Thank you.

Spike, I'm done with you. First you attacked me something I'm not doing. Then you graduated to forgetting your own posts.


I get it from


You also change your mind about the NadeStorm's effectiveness.




You attack me for running RAW without even reading it.

Because you are to lazy to look it up page BBB, Pg 145, Scatter Table "Airburst 1D6 meters – 1 per net hit (– Sensor rating)" . That means you can expect them to eat 3 grenades with a DV higher than 10 if the drone gets any hits. And the minimum damage is 7P -2. This is assuming your ignore the Sensor rating bit because I really don't see how it works in indirect fire like I've been talking about the whole time.


There is no point in debating this issue when you sling insults, change your opinion, forget what you wrote, fail to understand my basic position, and admit you don't know the rules in question.

I realize some of the confusion is my fault I did muddy the waters. I Threw out of lot specs, scenarios, motivations, tactics etc, with some mixing and matching. I intended to show the variety and easy of burring runners. The whole point of the NadeStorm was intended to address the position that it takes corporate level resources to slag a runner. Yes it isn't that practical. Yes even few moral enemies would be motivated to that extreme. I know some people seemed to get bent out of shape about it, but It' RAW. It's over kill. It's availability 10F. It's less than the cost of a run 4 man run. It's total bast zone is only 10 to 22 meters. Is that dumb? Yes, that's why I asked DS how to they avoid it.

-Peace

It's possible but highly unlikely. After all, unless you have a secret underground lair with internal air supply and provisions ready to be buried. Most would rather just ward the entrance, getting through a rating 6 ward is tricky for all but the best astral trackers.

This actually happened in my Barrens game when the PCs kidnapped Euphoria and instead of living in the crappy hotel provided by the module, used the underground lair they had found previously. Still, the enemy mage had ritual magic 6, magic 6, and basically built for being able to track down everyone, so he did even with the ward. In any case an unground lair is easy to defend.

Ah... that was thug, not slug. No wonder it made no sense when you abbreviated it. Heck in SR you could probably pay a lot less for a marginally skilled sniper. I'm sure the Swat and HRT snipers in SR get 20-30 a year, and they can easily do an op a week, if not more. Prorated you get better rates.

I know you are all 'done with me' now, whatever that means, but since you seem so caught up on it, how about I take the time to actually do a 'test fire' senario of 20 AGL spread and see what we'll do. Traditionally, however, area saturation explosives are much better at taking out large groups of people than individuals. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the spread of grenades will be confined to a six foot circle around our hapless Joe Runner. It'll take a couple of hours before I get it back to you, I mean we ARE talking about rolling 20 different scatters, and computing the distance from the target for each one here.

Which, incidentally, is only one reason I haven't gone over teh RAW on this: Its going to suck donkey balls.



Aside from the fact that you missed that I have two seperate points: One that its incredibly stupid to look for ways to Instagib your players anyway...

the big one here is that you seem to think this sort of this is logical or even necessary. Though for some reason you seemed to think I was the one allowing crazy levels of armor. ??

YOu know how it's easy to 'burn' a runner? Send a twenty man streetgang after him. Use a modicum of common sense and play the gangers like individuals. Twenty half skilled jackasses shooting big macho guns (heavy pistols and SMGs) over the course of an IP or two will do a number on anyone.

Hey, they did it just to prove how macho they were. In other words for free. You want to use corporate level assets? Send in a proper HRT (SWAT) team that uses actual tactics. That is, three or four sniper positions, each with multiple shooters covering all the angles, guys with heavy weapon emplacements (that is, Machine guns) behind bulletproof sheilds, lots of SMGs and never less than four guys at any one location. If you STILL can't kill your players with minimal losses, read up on the tactics actually employed by these people. They don't really lose all that often.

And when they win (I'd say.... just about always... unless the other guy runs away first) you get to keep everything but the cost of expended munitions... which you then write off from their training budget or something. I mean, these guys have a salary or wage, right? that means you were paying them anyways.

But I'm guessing you utterly ignored everything I said, both to crizh and others except for those couple of perceived slights. You got your dander up because I'm tired and bitchy and don't feel like tolerating over the top stupidity and excuses for it to occur... or even stupider 'reasons for it not to occur'... like you need one. when was the last time anyone employed an automatic grenade launcher, in any capacity within a major metropolitian area outside of open warfare?

Never, right?

So what makes it fair game in Shadowrun?

Alrighty then. Where to begin. First of all, the entire process took much less time than I thought. Simply put: as of right now an automatic Grenade launcher does not exist in Shadowrun, and your entire concept hinges upon the GM allowing you to treat 'drum fed' as 'not an unusual feed mechanism' for the 'fully automatic' upgrade.

I for one, don't see that happening for most GMs out there, not because fully auto GL's are that far out (they aren't) but because as of right freakin' now, there isn't a single iota of rules compatability between grenades and autofire. In other words, as near as I can tell, he'd be working from scratch.

So: as of right now, not even possible, blowing that particular 'Instagib' right out the window.


But that's hardly fair, after all, previous editions AND the real world both support fully automatic grenade launcher fire. Lets go with the 'best case senario for your 'instagib' and the worst case.

Best case? We treat it as we do existing burst rules, and since you're shooting a single target that you expect to surprise, you add the amount of firepower to the DP. Peachy. Doesn't make a whole metric fuckton of sense, but we're talking pure rules here. Congrats, you just did a single 19DV to this guy with your full auto narrow fire. Screw the fact that your drone is taking a long shot here (penalities greater than the maxium dice pool of 12), with airburst you're rolling a d6 scatter because amazingly enough the Devs didn't imagine anyone would honestly need this level of granularity for autoGL... since they didn't intend to put them in the game. So, honestly your 19 DV is probably going to drop from scatter so 13-18 DV. Painful, yes. But perfectly easy acheive short of a 20k drone (and honestly, if you are doing this I see the cost of the drone climbing MUCH higher. You want those 6's after all, and that gets pricey).

And honestly? I've seen characters on these boards that even take a dead hit here as stun damage, then proceed to soak enough of it to hobble into cover. Meanwhile, there went half your ammo and all your deniability as you turn half a city block into an urban warzone.

Option 2 is to roll it as wide burst, sort of, and compute scatter for each shot independently. You still aren't going to hit (still longshotting), so instead you get a crapload of 4-9 dv hits, all of which are stun, all of which are soaked individually. If you get lucky you'll stun him to death. Again, however, we're talking 'hard core street sam' material, with a 6+body and a minimum of 10 points of ballistic armor, so... not too likely.


So: Yeah, you do have to get lucky to kill a hard core runner with this. That doesn't mean its not incredibly lethal to entire neighborhoods. Most people don't strap on that much armor as a general rule, and bodies of 2 or 3 are the norm.

Its a crowd clearing device, not an assassination device. Its purely military/warzone equipment and amazingly enough, last time I checked Seattle was not a warzone. For that matter, given the 'hard military armor' or even 'light security armor' that is probably standard issue in warzones its probably a marginal performer there too.

Its a crazy, over the top scheme that comes from reading too much and thinking too little, and it has the additional sterling quality of proving that the GM is a spastic moron with social issues.

Why do you need an air supply, have the same earth spirit guard everyone and they won't suffer suffocate. Why would the runners ward (something that takes hours and causes decent drain, and a link to the mage) an entrance, when the mage can merely have a bound elemental, to be used for that purpose just in case. Hell, you can buy the MRE's on your way over to the meeting place to hide.

In any case, you won't have to defend your little bubble, as no one will find you there.

United States vs. Seretech Corporation, 1999.

Seriously though, if your setting is such that gangs might have military weapons, it could happen.

All the other stuff about it being pointless, overkill, inefficient and silly still hold, but on the other hand, a remote controlled drone shooting a pantload of explosives has a certain je ne sais quois.

EDIT: Of course it depends on the context. If the GM just rolls a whole bunch of dice and says "okay, resist 14, 12, 12, 13, and 10 physical damage" then that sucks donkey balls and he might as well just say "burn a point of Edge, also it's Tuesday and your apartment is a still-smoking heap of slag".

Actually, if I remember right, it was 6, maybe 7 people tops. They're willing to work together because they're of the same tradition. Much the same as it takes roughly the same amount of people to be able to reliably create and maintain cyberzombies. Roughly the same skill involved too.

Plus, the ritual team could be a "Ritual Use Control Thoughts To Make Someone Call The Police And Turn Himself In" team ...

Okay, so you need seven or eight double digit mages who are also sociopaths (it could be argued that Cyberzombie teams (which from what we know DOESN"T require magic in the double digits.. though what we know is about the process amounts to bupkiss), since you can at least rationalize the process as 'life saving'.

I don't know about you, but as much as I have in common with, say, local book club I could theoretically be a member of I wouldn't necessarily trust them to help me murder someone, and some book club members are really... special.


Though the idea of a ritual 'vigilante mind control circle' just makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.

Just three comments:

1) Unless said auto grenade launcher is fired on corporate property, it is extremely likely that whoever ordered the punative strike and everyone involved in it will be going the way of the dodo very soon. AAAs are very powerful. That does not mean that they have carte blanche to use patently military hardware willy-nilly in public, such as full-auto-shelling a residential area. Even if you believe that a AAA has the power and influence to wantonly do this and have municipal governments ok it, you have to recognize that the other AAAs won't stand for this behavior, because that would violate the detente they have, by virtue of bringing their milspec gear out in public over some fundamentally trivial shit. This doesn't mean I don't agree with the tactic just the specific weapon. Loft 3 drones instead of one, have them snipe instead.
Note: this assumes that the target wasn't living in a Z-zone. If he was in a Z-zone, have at.

2) The player can still Hand of God it. If you tell them they can't HoG the attack, well, then it seems kinda like you're just saying, "*I* am punatively punishing *you*, not your character." And I don't think that's such a good plan.

3) Keep in mind the very finite time blood can be used as a ritual sample. I'm sure they jumped on that shit like starving orks on a quarter pounder, but make certain you keep viability times of blood in mind should you do this sort of thing again.

I just had a vision of the advert for Genewipe you could make with some of the ideas in this thread.

I've been toying with some anti-dna SR stuff for a couple of years now but I try to keep these ideas to myself for fear of ending up on a watchlist....

The best one I have is the open DNA registry. A privacy group starts to collect DNA samples from volunteers, it keeps a record of the SIN's of the participants but nothing else. When the sample group is large enough it starts to sell random sample packs anonymously online. Donors can use these packs to spread DNA from hundreds of other members of the registry all over any area they don't want to be positively forensically linked to. At some point this breaks the back of DNA as a forensic tool. It slips from 'beyond a reasonable doubt' to less than 'the balance of probability' and becomes circumstantial evidence at best.

In SR this is even better because it forces ritual teams to track down dozens of people any one of whom might spot them, track them and frag them.

First I'm really not trying to "defend" the Nadestorm here, but Automatic grenade launchers so dominated this thread as to be what it's about now.
So to roll with that - question: Do people think that the air burst scatter rules are dumb and should be house ruled? I've fire a fair number of guns for civilian, but have never seen a live grenade let alone an automatic launcher. Further I don't really have a meaningful guess as to what a 2070 Airburst system should do for accuracy. People seem to think 20 HE grenades will level blocks and slaughter people by the dozen. RAW says the blast zone of all 20 grenades is 22m (10 from HE and 12m from max airburst scatter ignoring sensors). If you consider only the radius you can expect "structural material" to take 1 more damage the Radius is 16m. Is this just an absurd rules artifact? Are HE grenades blasts larger and more powerful than that? more devastating that this?

Because I'm not coding for school or work right now and I like transparent circles, here's a doodle. Hit F5 to reload and re-randomize

As Reference for my fellow metrically impaired, I offer a 22m banner and Street. At least that's what google image search tells me.

Hey, Spike,
"Simply put: as of right now an automatic Grenade launcher does not exist in Shadowrun, and your entire concept hinges upon the GM allowing you to treat 'drum fed' as 'not an unusual feed mechanism' for the 'fully automatic' upgrade."

The Mk 19 Grenade Launcher is a belt-fed automatic 40 mm grenade launcher or grenade machine gun that entered U.S. military service during the Cold War, first seeing action during the Vietnam War and remaining in service today. The Mk 19 fires 40 mm grenades at a cyclic rate of 375 to 400 rounds per minute, giving a practical rate of fire of 60 rounds per minute (rapid) and 40 rounds per minute (sustained). The primary ammunition for Mk 19 is the high explosive dual-purpose M430 grenade. Upon impact, the grenade can kill anyone within the radius of five meters, and wound them within the radius of 15 meters. It can also punch through one inch of homogenus steel armor see Rolled homogeneous armour with a direct hit(0 Degree Obliquity) , which means it . . .
So that's a Real Life ™ weapon that's been around since the Vietnam War, which renders "I for one, don't see that happening for most GMs out there, not because fully auto GL's are that far out (they aren't) but because as of right freakin' now, there isn't a single iota of rules compatability between grenades and autofire. In other words, as near as I can tell, he'd be working from scratch." sorta silly.

Weavermount's original question related not to the effectiveness or desirability of the InstaGibb, but rather to 1) what precautions, both proactive and reactive, characters could/should take to protect themselves from individuals or small groups, not AAA's, from kacking them and 2) how to put the fear of the InstaGibb retribution into the hearts and minds of the players so they would not play sloppy characters. You, yourself, pointed out some other low-cost ways to kack the characters in amongst the raging about the stupidity and bad GMing of anyone considering it.


"But that's hardly fair, after all, previous editions AND the real world both support fully automatic grenade launcher fire. Lets go with the 'best case senario for your 'instagib' and the worst case. "
Thanks for the recognition of the real world, but, again, it's not about the form of the InstaGibb, but about a game that has "realistic" parameters and includes vengeful Johnsons, victim family members, punked gangs, etc.

"Its a crazy, over the top scheme that comes from reading too much and thinking too little, and it has the additional sterling quality of proving that the GM is a spastic moron with social issues."
That's a lot of personal attack from someone missing the OP's point. Maybe you have trauma from a bad GM, maybe you have social issues or are spastic, as the personal attacks might indicate. Maybe you're just tired and cranky. Personally, i've played in Weavermount's game and consider him a good GM, putting time and effort into creating layered and realistic scenarios, with plot and character development and good attention to offscreen actions having onscreen effects. It's not about whether one should have a TPK. We all agree that's a pretty bad plotline for a game. It's about 1 and 2 above.



On a slightly different note (and off-topic of this thread but replying to above replies), silly "'cuz then our characters'd be dead" arguments aside, why wouldn't the occasional corp take a zero-tolerance attitude toward runners? It's totally canon with regard to MCT and Saeder-Krupp. As i recall, it was even considered acceptable for runners to ask for more money when running against particular corps. That seems like an effective deterrent and market advantage. And a good argument for players running their characters like professionals who understand their being alive relies on subtlety, infiltration, clean ops and scrubbing their trail. That means mages cleaning up their signatures, noone showing real faces, leaving no material traces, etc. Ie. not running like a bunch of dungeoneers going to mug an orc.

How exactly one would rule fully auto grenade launchers by RAW aside, encouraging players to play their characters as reasonably smart is a laudable idea.
If PCs are lax enough to be tracked down, then it is true that some corps can and have taken retribution upon runners. It is, however, up to the GM how the corp or syndicate or whatever chooses to take this retribution. Even so, PCs can run and hide and the heat will eventually have to die down, or the GM is effectively wasting everyone's time, and might as well just say "you've pissed off too many powerful people. There is nowhere left on earth to run, and sooner or later you'll run out of ammo. Make new characters".

That's a pretty good plan. Of course, not all runners will come up with it, as my team didn't.

Stormcrow:

You obviously did not read this thread, or even (though requiring slightly more thought I suppose) that post very throughly before you commented.

I mentioned, several times, that the existance of a real life AGL was a given. I've even eluded to having fired one, I think, but since I don't like to pull that "I'm a real life expert' internet crap I haven't made a deal out of it. I HAVE made several points that such weapons exist AND where they are used (that is Warzones rather than urban assassination) and why.


The point I was making was that the shadowrun rules, as written, for both Autofire and Grenades poorly interface with the existance of a weapon that, at best, is a marginal item for a Shadowrun game. Sort of like having rules for 155mm artillery. Yes, such weapons exist, however there is little need for rules for them because shadowrunners should not realistically be firing them or taking fire from them.

Ditto the Mk 19 or its decendent in another 62 years, and the lack of rules covering it reflect that.


As such, Shadowrun (not the real world) does not have them. Because they require (as my example just showed) MORE RULES. Using the autofire rules with a Grenade launcher gives you VERY SILLY results. Thus, 'creating' an AGL for use in game, with the express purpose of instagibbing a single character, is equally VERY SILLY. and if you honestly NEED such a weapon, you'll have to develop a few more rules for it first unless you like VERY SILLY results.



And WeaverMount: Add another 10m to your diameter, as that's radius, not diameter on the blasts. True, the outer rim of that is only lethal to windows, small children and housepets, but thats the sort of thing you find in urban zones.

And you are merely looking at the numbers, which seem small. A 32m blast zone is a circle around 100 feet wide and is bigger than my house. And yes, the scatter rules, for this senario are seriously underwritten. Could that be because the Devs honestly don't want people laying down bursts of 10 grenades at a time from a fucking zepplin?

Just a thought.



EDIT:::: To be honest there are quiet a few minor flaws with the grenade rules. The Airburst scatter, when limited to a single launched grenade is actually sort of fine by itself. The issue that comes up is that in many cases simply launching a grenade (airburst) with no skill at all is perfectly acceptable as, with the airburst rule, you essentially never miss. This is at least partially true of most of the explosives on that table: The idea of not landing within the blast radius is almost unconceivable (I think one type of grenade (aerodynamic?) has a 3d6-4m scatter, which means an utter wiff on the toss still has a 50% chance of 'hitting'... though those odds include the 'laughable' 1P' catagory, which if you are wearing armor is just peachy. Its those unarmored guys (there have to be some out there... maybe not PC's...) who have to soak it with their 2-3 body dice that really need to worry...

To steal a note from other games, scatter for 'autofired grenades' should be computed from the previous grenade in the burst/auto, not from the target. There is nothing to support this in SR, but then I've also pointed out there is nothing to support ever firing grenades on full auto at all, and the only rules we have are somewhat silly when applied without rational thought. Once you compute scatter from the previous grenade you get a much more reasonable 'line' of explosions potentially 50m long... with blast radius 70m and 20m wide, most of a football feild. Potentially because it won't be straight like that, more like a dropped string... But then you have to account for 'walking fire to the target' and other things... maybe 'wide bursts' reduce scatter to a single line, roll to determine axis and for average distance between grenades... but this is already getting as long as the existing rules for Grenades so I'ma drop it.

Scenario #1
Cop 1: "We've got a report of some weapons fire."
Cop 2: "Better send a couple units and check it out."

Scenario #2
Cop 1: "Someone's carpet bombing Seattle."
Cop 2: "Fuck this, send in the military!"

As I recall, "multiple explosions" is one of the requirements for Lone Star to load up multiple Citymasters and storm the barrens. You want to use full-auto grenade launchers? Be my guest, the technology is definitely there. But expect a reasonable response. Even if you're a corp and it's fully extraterritorial, this is still a PR nightmare which is almost never worth the bother.

Hey spike, you to managed start talking about rules, reading posts, and stop bashing random stuff. Welcome to a discussion forum . Guess you got some sleep or something

Joking aside, I'm pretty sure that the RAW AGL scatter is in fact 22m as I show here.

Thanks for that bit on calc'ing scatter from the last hit. That sounds pretty accurate. If I'm ever gaming in a context where it's workable I'll use it. A similar mechanic I like is from GURPS. Damage from auto fire in GURPS is calc'ed by the bullet with on attack roll. For ever increment of recoil your attack roll exceeds the TN you get an extra bullet that connects(ie. you beat your target's doge by 4, if your recoil is 2, then 3 rounds hit. If it was 3 then 2 rounds to hit. Not really going anywhere with that for SR4 (but 5 maybe...) I just think it's a good mechanic.

You forget, young padawan, that the explosion from a single Grenade is 20m total. Ten in each direction. When you have two grenades you add the distance between them. Without sensors, from a fixed aim point, two given grenades with airburst can land as far as 10m apart (on a what, one in six chance for scatter direction and 1 in 36 for both of them hitting max distance), making the total distance 30m, with 5m overlap in the middle. With multiple grenades the chances of two grenades landing directly opposite, at max distance from one another, increases rapidly.

HE Grenades have a blast of -2 per meter. They start at 10P so by 5m RADIUS they drop off to zero. 10P -(5m * -2P/m) = 0. You don't seem to be big on rules or math. Have you considered free form RPGs? That has been some of my favorite gaming.

BTW can anyone tell me if my links are working? It's the first time I've linked DS to my host.

Weaver: I don't click links from forums all that often, and numerous explosives have a -1/m rate (and the non-damaging grenades apply a flat 10m diameter).

Given that this is a forum discussion about the feasability of instagibbing player characters, not a nitty gritty discussion about pie charts involving high explosives, forgive for not posting with an open book.

Had I know I was preparing a legal brief or a doctoral thesis I would have ensured I knew exactly which grenade type we were disussing beyond all shadow of a doubt.

And if you load Frags, the blast radius zone climbs to a potential 34 meters across. As minigrenades are not limited so far as I could see to High explosives I feel perfectly justifed in hiding behind their comforting metal skirts as an excuse.

Why even bother with the volunteers? With a commlink, a few nuyen maybe, and a reasonable science skill, you have access to all the human genome stuff that's now online plus whatever's come out in the 65 years since today, you know how they do forensic mol-bio, and you have a reasonable little shadow lab. Given that today it's possible to synthesize, from scratch, an entire genome (granted this was done with a very small genome, but that's because it was just a proof of concept), you should be able to cook up a diverse gemish of decoy genetic fingerprints that matches a sufficiently large fraction of the population (for the purpose of screwing with the legal system) and fits in a spray bottle or a gas grenade or "smart dandruff" or whatever form you like.

As a note, the ritual team o death could easily be one guy, or two tops, as long as the target isn't a dragon or Mr. Magoo with tons of counterspelling.

How does that work out? With bound spirits? I was pretty sure they could only act as spotter and the spell still required 2 people minimum to cast.

Sympathetic magic still. It'll just take longer, which isn't that bad.

No example of the Ritual spell team of Death so far has, to my knowledge, excluded the spotter, even with the sympathetic magic... though I am no expert. What I do know is that if you want to burn through wards and bodyguards with counterspelling, you DO need more than one or two guys. That was the whole point of the Ritual Team O' Death, it was undefeatable.

More ordinary ritual magic is not the Ritual Team O Death until they start hitting 30 odd force spells as standard....

The spell of the ritual team o death was force 20, not 30. It does exclude a spotter, thats what sympathetic magic does. If you want to burn through wards, you need roughly 3-4 ritual guys, and 5-6 for super powered dragon style power levels. No, the whole point of the ritual team o death is that a single dragon with preplanned defenses (or Mr. Magoo with is near inifinite resources) couldn't defeat them. The ritual team o death is defeatable. Much as is anything else. By using enough numbers.

I really liked your bit on better scatter mechanics and was hoping we could have a discussion. Then you had to go and say something like this


After I had posted this. (I add underlines because I know how you hate to read posts and rules)

Plus the orginal post used 10P -2. Plus ever time you talked about numbers it was 10P -2. So where exactly does your doubt come from?

I have a really bad memory too. But I encurage you to refresh your memory before running your mouth. It helps avoid things like your last post.

It's an idea that's supposed to be legal and viable today, designed as an attack on the encroaching Police State I live in...

Weaver: You continuously attacked me over niggling crap while failing to grasp that I've been dealing with the big picture of logistics and, and curse you for making me use this gawdawful term 'social contract' of the situation.

I pointed out that a) this is an informal discussion over using grenade launching drones, not a legal or scientific discussion over the blast radius of HE grenades.

b) there are several types of grenades, with different blast radii, so a minor detail (like HE being -2/m) is only of limited relevance and the difference between a 20m and 30m potential blast zone is actually a non-sequiter. I used Frag Grenades specifically to illustrate the likely cause of the error, not because I 'failed to read' that you were talking about HE, an assumption very similar to the ones you've been making all along.

I have much better things to do with my time than post to every thread on the internet that catches my fancy with sourcebooks open and citing chapter and verse. When pointing out that burst fired grenades inside a major metropolitian area is catagorically a bad idea, who really gives two flying shits if they are HE or Frag? Stupid is Stupid. Do you think the citizens of Nagasaki cared if they were getting hit with the Fat Man or the Little Boy? Dead is dead, and burst fired grenades are burst fired grenades. Which was sort of my point.

So please, get off your hobby horse and understand that yes: you are right, if you restrict yourself to HE grenades then its 'only' a 20 meter blast zone, while 30+ meter blast zones are also possible if you just stick to 'grenades'. Given that one advantage of grenade launchers is the flexibility offered in payloads this is reasonable.

though for some reason you think that 'only' 20m make it any less likely to be overkill and creating lots and lots of collateral damage. We're still talking, at a minimum, a house sized blast zone, and much of that 'tiny' area is due to the rules not organically supporting what you are trying to make them do. This can also be evidenced by pointing out one simple loophole that came up in this discussion and was glossed over: Right now an airburst Grenade fired by a drone with a sensor rating of 5 or 6 never, never ever, misses. With a scatter of 1d6-sensor rating this is obvious, and as 'missing' simply means you use raw scatter...

Talk about reliably putting out the damage.