We all know the potential penalties of K-10. Permanent berserk, auto death in the eyes of the game world. 18S damage at the end of the duration, unresisted. Both minuses that make the idea of using K-10 risky to say the least. But the benefits are great as well. +3 to Body and Agility, +6 to Strength, +1 to Willpower and, greatest of all, +3 Initiative Passes, not to mention Pain Resistance 3. So is it possible to reap the benefits of this combat drug without being struck down by the penalties?

My first question is about the Berserk consequence of K-10. K-10 causes the user to automatically go berserk in a manner similar to Bear rage. Bear rage states that the raging character will go into a rage and "go after" his attackers. Does this mean the Berserker retains some modicum of control over his own actions? Rather than losing all mental faculty, is it possible that the character simply becomes overcome by rage and is forced to take actions that will harm his opponent without being forced to abandon all semblance of civilization, dropping his sophisticated tools in favor of fists? Basically, can a Berserking character use a gun, sword, or magic?

Is it possible to rectify 18S unresisted? Obviously the first and most obvious answer to this is Regeneration, but not all of us are shapeshifters and not many of us want to deal with the side effects of Immortal Flower. The answer may not exist, but is there another way to deal with 18S damage without Regeneration?

The test at the end of the Berserk duration is an Edge test. Is it possible to spend Edge on this test?

And my final question is, is it worth it? Is there a character build that can take advantage of K-10 without being better served by some other method? Is there a reason to justify a risk of permanent Berserk?

Well you cant take edge on edge tests.
And well for 15 bp you can make it so you can pop k-10 like candy. Though its iffy just take immunity k-10 its man-made and immunity stops all ILL effects.

The only characterI ever made to even get near K-10 is an Elven former UCAS army Lt. from chicago. He got caught behind the wall and had a roach eat his arm. He keeps a shot of K-10 in an auto injector 'cause...
" The next time I see those bastards,I'm gonna eat their arms!!"
He also has a bad Longhaul addiction
" I can feel 'em watching me when I sleep!"(crazy grin)

I haven't tried to build a repeat K-10 user but may try that out later.....it sound crazy if it would work....

Of course you can, since you are only prohibited of spending more than one Point of Edge on a single test.
And the edge test itself does not cost you a Point of Edge.

Hummm I sure i've read that you can't specifically.

The whole "unresisted" thing in itself is a bit weird for me. Ok, it is supposed to wreck you up near (or beyond) death (as a normal human), but to just say: Na, no matter who you are, no matter what you have only the sum of your boxes count (and existing wounds) is a bit strange.

I would just say: Whenever something is stated as "unresisted" make it ~30% more and let them resist. Say K-10 would be 24 Stun but you could roll it down it becomes more viable for extreme (edge+body) characters. but still is insane enough to not let them do it too often.

In real life there are people crashing harder or easier too, why not in Shadowrun? Let them enjoy their stats/qualities/luck with their dice/whatever. I don't like having a blunt effect without giving a chance to change it. Yes, i let them even soak damage against a aimed headshot with Ex-Ex and 7 hits. Just telling them: Boom, headshot you are dead is just not nice.

Back to the topic: weirdly i think a massivly cybered troll/ork has a nice chance for using it. (Although not much of a reason except the speed). Against all intuition: Cyberlimbs/Torso gives more hitboxes even against withdrawel-shock (which should hit harder since he has less meat, fat and blood). And an Paineditor could alleviate any effect till you can get "repairs".

I'd have to say your wrong on both points I'm afraid.

Edge use prohibits SPENDING edge more then once on a single test. The example we have here is an edge test and does not spend any edge. Therefore a character is perfectly within their rights to spend an edge on the test. I also looked up all mentions of edge in the index and found nothing to support that you cannot spend edge on an edge test.

Immunity does not filter out parts of a toxin, it blocks the entire thing. That is the RAI to my understanding. That it has the word "ill" in there is a misnomer. It seems to me it was clearly missed in editing when they updated the book from SR4 to SR4A, as before the inclusion of capsule rounds in Arsenal there wasn't a lot of consideration as to resisting the effects of drugs, and they missed it on the Anniversary rewrite.

If you want to be a stickler about it, then yea, by RAW it says "ill" and is open to GM interpretation of what that is, but it's clear that you'd be doing it for exploiting purposes and nothing else. It's similar to SR4's spirits that had Reaction multiplied instead of added with a set amount. The result was ridiculous and anyone with any real judgment could see that they should add instead. Of course, I'm sure some players and GM's argued to keep it, mostly as they likely wanted to use that mistake to their advantage despite it being detrimental to playability.

I guess just ask yourself if you only follow the letter of the law, or if you care about it's spirit.

I don't see anything about that in SR4A.

Has this been discussed on DS before? Is this a Quality... I can't find it? Why would immunity be selective, and not make the character immune to all effects, including the good ones. effectively nullifying the drug as a tool? I see in the description of the critter power that immunity stops "attacks", but if it is the genetic modification, that covers all effects, doesn't it?

Check under "N" in the qualities. It's listed as Natural Immunity. SR4A p 92.

It doesn't say "immune to the negative effects of a single disease or toxin." The fact that it latter says "with no ill effects" is just a reiteration, not a 'limitation' on what the quality affects.

Thanks. Search-fu glitched.

K, so it sounds like Edge is spendable on the Edge test, the only real way to deal with 18 Stun without Regneration is to bite it with a Pain Editor and deal with the 8 physical, and Natural Immunity prevents all effects of K-10, not just the negative ones. Ok, that answers my middle 2 questions and something I hadn't thought of, but what about the effects of Berserk? Is there RAW on the exact level to which a character berserks, or is it a GM call? And do you guys think there's a build where it's really worth it to try and run with the advantages of K-10 and mitigate the penalties as best you can?

Sooner or later your PC goes berserk permanently. I don't see any way around that except limiting the usage to however many points of Edge you want to spend. I suppose careful management of that resource could keep you going for a while. Same for the WIL +CHA Test(3) to avoid going berserk. What, once or twice a session (or whatever the refresh period your GM allocates)? Would it be worth setting aside a couple of Edge points to keep you safe, in exchange for all those benefits in combat?

Maybe. Put 10 or 20 more BP into Edge at chargen, and that would be more than compensated by the bonuses of the drug.

Oh... wait a minute. What about addiction tests?

K-10 seems like an "OH SH--!" item to me. Everyday use and you're going to get burned, sooner or later the damage or the edge test will catch up to you.

That said though, there are things that can make it less deadly.

Carry Dopadrine on you at all times. Cancels berserk for the duration of it's effects, so good when you need self control and want to use k-10. There is a -1 to all physical actions, but the bump from K-10 should still give you an edge in most areas. You could even speedball the K-10 and the Dope together to take at the same time. Also, if you become permanently berserked the Dopadrine can keep you sane... for a little while, but that might be enough for a GM's mercy "experimental procedure" or whatnot. Try and keep that dope in your system all the time though and you'll burn out in no time.

Hit yourself with a slap patch just before the duration of K-10 expires. I bet you could talk your GM into letting you buy some that have a 30 second delay before they kick in. Can make a stabilization test if you overflowed (cause you likely didn't pop K-10 at a sowing circle, you popped it at combat where there's other sources of damage) and the stim one can get you up and moving long enough to get out of a dangerous situation.

Consider the "Will To Live" quality as extra damage overflow boxes might be very helpful to a PC that uses K-10 regularly.

Cyberlimbs grant an extra hit box per limb. That will help with that high 18S DV and not dying.

Keep the team mage close and make sure he knows the heal spell and the stabilize spell.

All I can think of at the moment.

There are instances where the rules call for an Edge test where you can not spend Edge on the test, but K-10 isn't one of them.

The problem with allowing Body to soak unresisted stun is that the damage is supposed to be neurological. Though, if a drug is less effective on a bigger char, then the damage should be less acute... But, at least in the case of K-10, duration isn't affected by body.

Posted this in the wrong thread, though I see tagz was nice enough to mention Dopadrine here.

I don't think the PC gets a Will+Cha test to avoid Berserk, the drug's description says it happens automatically. They'd definitely have to save at least an edge point or two for the Berserk tests but with potentially 12 dice to the test it's fairly unlikely for them to not get a single hit. As for addiction...K-10 would I suppose be a stimulant with no listed physical dependency so a Willpower + Logic test with a threshold of 2 for a mental addiction. It's not a recreational drug by any sense of the term so unless the character was in combat every week it seems like they'd be able to avoid becoming addicted. Are there any more addiction rules that the ones listed in SR4a? These seem pretty highly dependant on the GM.

The only use I found for K-10 so far was loading it into capsule rounds or injection darts. But what is nice to have when things get rough is a tooth compartment with Kamikaze.

...What possible use would shooting someone with K10 have? Any other more legitimate method of killing them would be less expensive and you could probably pay someone off to kill them rather than loading k10 into injection shots.

I mean, if you managed to dose someone with it without them noticing somehow, that would work, but shooting them with it? Them suddenly gaining superspeed is not on my list of 'oh hey that seems like a great idea'

My perception of someone who uses K-10 is that mundane runner who just got cornered in a corp facility, and auto-injected himself with it.

Chaos. There are few things which cause more chaos and distraction than one or two corpsec guys turning into raving madmen and starting to tear their colleagues into shreds.

Kanada Ten's legacy will last a long, long time.

But berserk in the bear description says that they would still retain enough of their mental faculty to go after you first.

Ahhh... But if you use an Aerosol Grenade mixed with DMSO and K-10, and then you drop it into a group of ordinary people, you would then have a pretty good instant distrtaction...

And a note... with K-10, you do not go Beserk until and unless you actually take any damage... so for the Troll/Ork Tanks out there, they may never even suffer the effects of the Beserk state, though I would not count on it happening ALL of the time... eventually Karma does catch up to you...

Keep the Faith

if they fail, they stay berserk permanently.
Does this mean the character is permanently in a state of uncontrollable violence or does this mean any conflict, even when not under the influence of the drug, may provoke another rage?

The former.

Even without the "bear berserk", the roleplaying effects will be extreme. Read the descriptions of other combat drugs like Cram or Kamikaze, and then imagine those effects times 100

And of course for an effective distraction, other people should see a person starting to run berserk out of the blue. A silenced shot from a dark corner and nobody will know what happened.

Holy crap you're right. How did I miss that? All right, so does the Kali user get a Berserk resist test in the same way a Bear magician does? K-10 says they go Berserk automatically upon being wounded so I think it would act like Bear rage as if the Berserker got 0 hits on his Will+Cha test, so it would last either for 3 rounds or until the target was incapacitated, and then the character would make the Edge test to avoid falling Berserk permanently. Doesn't this mean that the Kali user might have to make multiple Edge tests during the duration of the drug if he gets wounded, falls out of it, then gets wounded again? I know with the way Shadowru combat usually works this is unlikely when a character has 4 IP, but is it true?

A dumb question: AFB, but doesn't the Edge test only require one hit? So if you have four Edge, you could just reliably buy a hit and be golden?

Also, is there any way that a permanently Berserk character could be cured of that state medically? Neurosurgery, implants, magic? What sounds feasible, if one was to make something up (perhaps as a character goal)?

And an interesting story note. We're all talking about this permanent Berserk state as something to be avoided. Something I introduced in my game at one point was a group with a very different perspective. It was a mostly Bengali Hindu gillette gang (of the Kalikula Shaktiist sect), your average grrl-power razorgirl outfit with a bit of a Temple of Doom flavor. Basically, they treat their combat drug highs as a quasi-religious experience; the intellectual self, the illusory experience of being individual, is suppressed by animalistic fury and union with Kali. So to be permanently stuck in that state, to them, is like being able to reach their own psychotic nirvana with a needle. it's something they actually seek out, although they don't have the funding to get K-10 regularly. The only reason the cops haven't come down much harder on them is they're in Rapid City in Sioux country, and the police are hesitant to risk suppressing traditional mystic practice (as they perceive the Anglos as having done to them) in the name of dealing with the occasional violently strung out miscreant.

I partly did this because the local girl gang (our setting is Minneapolis) is portrayed much more positively and I wanted a counterpoint to that, so I added these girls in when the team visited Rapid. Was also a bit inspired by a friend who grew up there telling me that there was a surprisingly big community of Bangladeshis in town (as well as Japanese, so it became a Japanacorp town), and what I can remember from an undergraduate course on South Asian religion.

Considering the implications of failure on the Edge test, I doubt most game masters would let you just buy the hit with 4 Edge dice. I doubt there'd be a way to reverse the Berserk of it became permanent, it seems like a neurological effect that damages brain tissue, although considering the tech level of 2077 it's not impossible with brain tissue growth. As for seeking out a permanent Berserk state, maybe from an in character perspective of a zealously religious character it'd be a good thing, but permanent Berserk seems like the kind of thing that gets your character sheet taken away by the GM.

Oh, absolutely it would be. Aside from the fact that there's not much actual roleplaying that can be done at that point, I mean, if that was the character's big goal then their chapter of the story is essentially done.

I see your point regarding GM fiat on the Edge test. You wouldn't want players just to stop worrying about it. Does seem possible rules-wise, though.

And as far as curing it goes, I guess I'm just pondering the possibility of having a character's goal being medically retrieving a loved one from that Berserk state. Maybe they're in a padded cell, or for hard mode, maybe they're still running around in the Barrens breaking the heads of passersby.

IIRC, buying hits is only allowed in non-stressful situations.

Ah, that's the piece I was missing. Thanks.

Cellular repair would fix the permanent berserk state. Provided you can get the person in the tank.

Seems strange that you don't go berserk unless you take damage and you don't stay berserk unless you go berserk in the first place, but you can't just take that Thorazine hit preemptively and cancel the Berserk state before it happens, thereby avoiding the perma-berserk character death situation.

I think planning ahead and full knowledge of your options should be rewarded.

DMSO/Slab? DMSO/Slab.

Forgive me if I've misunderstood your grammar but Dopadrine can in fact be used preemptively to stop a character from going Berserk as per its description, meaning that if you speedball K-10 and Dope together you'll never go berserk during K-10's duration and thus won't run the risk of going berserk permanently.

I always assumed that it was a [1] threshold test, meaning that you need two hits to actually succeed, which makes it stupid difficult to keep from going all freakout forever.



Ah, yes Dopadrine. So ruling is, you only stay berserk if you go berserk, and you can't go berserk if you're on the Dope. So that -1 to all actions is all you need to trade for your massive body boosts.

Next problem: 18S from massive nerve damage. Cyber hands and feet for 4 extra boxes on your phys track all for a cost of 1 essence std?

I'm pretty sure you only get the extra boxes for each limb that you make cyber, not appendage. Even so, you'd still pass out from the stun. There's not really a good, consistent way of dealing with 18S without massive damage tracks and Regeneration.

The FAQ (houserules, I know) says cyber hands and feet are still cyberlimbs and therefore provide the same benefits. Stim patches will keep you awake (and counter some of the negative modifiers) until they wear off, but that's even more unresisted stun to contend with if you can't make it back to the van in time for heals. It's not rare for characters to pack an auto-injector clued to their biomonitor so that it stims them whenever they lose consciousness.

In SR4, Stim Patches just provide ain resistance – and contrary to SR3, there is no rule keeping you conscious with a full monitor through pain resistance.

So Pain Editor (ignore stun) and sufficient physical damage boxes means you can ignore the drug? You'll get massive penalties due to the stun and physical damage, but you might live.

Quick question: When does the damage kick in, exactly? Just wondering if a Possession Mage could snag someone, hit them up with K-10, run amok, then leave them twisting in the wind until they wipe out on the effect.

It's one of those gray areas. Onset times only seem to apply to Toxins for some reason, not Drugs. Though the Immediate onset time means that the Toxin kicks in at the end of a Combat Turn which, honestly, is what should be used for most "instant" type drugs. Despite a lot of Drugs not being quite that fast acting; Hurlg, for instance.

I think K-10 was intended (in terms of PC use at least) to be one of those "go out in a blaze of glory" type things. I had a SR2 samuria do something similar with regular Kamikazee; I knew using 3 hits (I think it was, under the old rules) would burn out all my implants (which was a LOT, like 5.9 essence and 4.8 BI, including effectively unreplacible wired 3). I still used Kamikazee on at least one or two occasions, because hey, if you are gonna die / cost your team more than your life is worth, what does it matter if your cyber is gonna burn out? I know on one occasion, I used itto kill a fairly powerful spirit in HtH while taking some heavy gunfire. I could se K10 helping with hijinks like that.

As Ancient History says, if you live go permanently berserk and happen to live through the experience (that stun damage is likely to kill yah, or at least leave you immobile) then maybe your team will scrape up the pieces and get you fixed. The GM might even make that easy to do, if they are the type to reward "heroic sacrifice". (And if that's what it was, rather than "getting your ass out of drek you never shoulda been in if you'd done any planning / research".)

The problem is that whenever one track is completely filled, you're knocked unconscious. So when that Stun overflows to Physical, you go down for a while and someone has to carry you.

Pain Editor prevents that.

Unless you have a pain editor.

EDIT: Bah, beaten to the punch.

To succeed at a threshold 1 test, you must meet or exceed the threshold, i.e. you need to roll at least one hit. With only one hit you don't get any net hits but you don't benefit from them anyways on the test we are talking about. (SR4A p. 63)

Regeneration. Now there's a thought. Play a shifter or a vampire with some kind of stim injector setup and you're good to go.

A shifter would work but a vampire is immune to K-10's effects. Maybe a Dzoo-No-Qua, I don't think they have immunity to toxins.