I'm toying with a fighter concept that uses combat drugs.

I've run into an interesting problem. Immediately, I settled on K10 with a twist of Dopadrine to combat the Berserk effect. I also lit on topping it off with a squirt of Nitro.

The problem is a prodigious amount of un-resisted Stun damage. K10 is 18 alone and Nitro is 9. That's total of 27 Stun dropping on my ass at the end of a few minutes. And that's best-case scenario assuming I take NO damage during combat.

That is a SHIT ton of damage and after playing with it, I'm not sure its possible to use that combination of drugs and NOT end up watching my nervous system go up like a cell phone hooked up to a car battery.

Ideas? Thoughts?

27 stun with overflow... you would be dead.

What did I miss?

BlueMax

He want's a solution that keeps stun damage to manageable levels.

I think the fact that the stun damage is unresisted means you don't have an option. K-10 is a kamikaze drug. Any systems that process toxins will diminish the positive effects of the drugs as well as the negatives. A Super-Platinum DocWagon contract is about the only chance you'll have to save yourself.

Only thing that's gonna mitigate stun damage from drugs is a trauma damper. -1 stun per hit. That's it. Congratulations, you only took 25 stun damage.

Simple answer, don't use K-10. Be smart and augment like a (relatively) sane person.

Actually, don't use nitro either. Speedball betameth and Snuff.

Not using K10, I can understand. But why not use Nitro?

Not really worth the hassle of 9 stun damage. You could use it now and then, but I wouldn't make a habit of it.

I hesitate to encourage the Kamikaze juicer, but...the Positive Quality 'Natural Immunity'(SR4A, p92) allows you to ignore the 'ill effects' of a specific drug once every (12-Body) hours. You could talk that over with your GM - he might be willing to let you develop a resistance to one or more of the drugs, possibly in exchange for some brutal negative qualities related to the addiction.

I would allow it in return for total rejection of all bio and cyberware below deltaware. He also couldn't be awakened/techno.

Not to turn this all upside down and complicate stuff, but:

I HATE when something says: "unresisted"

Why is it unresisted? Why does it damage one man harder than another, even if there might be some precautions possible? So my idea would be to crank the damage code up a bit, but make it resistable. But that of course is the choice of the GM/the group.

For example instead of making K-10 16S unresisted, make it 21S resisted. And voila, now somebody with a lot of edge and willpower and body could (if he rolls REALLY lucky) still be standing after that.

I think raising the damage code about 30% should be balanced anough.

Not neccery, just yesterday i made a Fomori adept with 23 point Physical damagetrack and around 20 point stun damage track.
No this wasn't really a viable character, but you dont have to go that far to survive the stun from K-10.

Not sure if it would help much but there is a an Adept power in digital grimoire granting an extra box of either stun or physical per level. Its called "Supernatural Toughness" and is on p18. If you had a magic rating of 6 you could get it 6 times to add 6 boxes to your stun track.

There is no combat drug better than "Sideways" on p94 of Augmentation. It gives massive dice bonuses and pain resistance for 2 weeks at a time with no addiction and only a 12 hour penalty of -2 intuition after the 2 weeks.

Sideways isn't a combat drug, it's a genetic infusion. Infusions are okay for people with high edge and decent essence, but the risks are extreme. Keep in mind the side effect roll, in which *you cannot spend edge*.

A critical glitch kills you. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 . Only GM fiat can save you.
Glitches and rolls with no hits "only" give you an annoying problem that can only be fixed by genetic therapy.

So, he had Willpower 24?

Supernatural toughness? I think someone said that power was in Digital Grimoire.

Great, now I have to make a new thread.

BlueMax

As somebody else pointed out, you're reading this stuff all wrong. I'm not sure where you get the "no addiction" part either, because right there in the Genetic Infusion description it says, "For purposes of addiction and effect, genetic infusions are treated as drugs with an Addiction Threshold of 2."

Six levels of Super natural toughnes(stun) for that, but becouse of the way that the char generator i used had it laid out(seperate power for stun and physical) i actually had 12 levels of that power.
So one character can only have one or the other of those tracks.

Oh and you left one important word out of that quote, i said around 20 might have been only 18 or 19.

So this power adds a damage track slot per point of the power, yes? Don't you still need Willpower 12? Er, 11 I guess, since you round up. Hmm, dwarf 7, exceptional attribute 8, genetic thingy 9... There must be 'ware that can make up the last 2 points. Allright, I believe you now!

Well metagenetic improvemt willpower gets you to 10, then Braveherat genetic invusion gets you to 11.
Rating 3 Adrenaline pump raises that to 14 when its active.
And then you can pop your combat drug of shoice to raise it to 15(max) and a total of 22 boxes in the stun track(assuming 6 levels of supernatural toughness(stun))
Begoming a Ghoul or Goblin can raise that willpower with 2 points and then if your GM allows atribute bonuses from multiple drugs stack, you can speed ball 2 drugs of your shoosing to arravi to your new augmented max of 18 and 23 boxes in your stun track.

only problem is that its when he comes down from those drugs that he need the extrra stun track.

My take on unresisted damage is like direct combat spells.

With a direct combat spell (eg. Manabolt), you roll to counter or resist the spell. If the spell hits, it damages you, no resistance. With an indirect spell (eg. Lightning Bolt), you roll to dodge the lightning, and if it hits, roll to resist damage. The difference is the lightning bolt comes from outside, where as the manabolt affected you internally.

With drugs, you purposely take them into your body. This is an internal, or direct, source of damage. A concussive blow to the head is an external, or indirect, source of damage. If you were force fed a drug, you may have a chance to resist the attack, like spitting out the pill or making the needle spill. The only problem is, this contradicts the rules for toxins.

I'm not saying this is the best way to do things. This is just my interpretation of why the "unresisted" rule exists.

Yeah... And the Rating 3 Adrenalin Pump could also result in 18 points of stun as well when it shuts off... not a good choice in my opinion...

Keep the Faith

Yeah, pain editor is the better option for +willpower. It also happens to have the benefit of ignoring damage penalties.

Honestly, adren pump sucks.

At the very least, it is definitely a gamble... We had a guy in our group who had one, and it was only Rating 2... The two times that he activated it, he sufferred 10+ Damage after the duration (10 and 12 respectively), which killed him both times (He burned edge to stay alive)... it was quite entertaining actually...

Keep the Faith

I put up a whole thread about he massive magnitude of the Adrenal Pump suckage. One of my players keeps it on his character just to prove its useless in its current form.

BlueMax

Heh, old news. Just house-rule it; the damn thing's hard enough to get anyway.

Sorta. If a game has a glaring problem, it should be fixed.

That's my story and I am sticking to it.

BlueMax

I like it as opposition gear. If you need to turn a pack of gangers into a tactical nightmare in a hurry, give them Adrenal Pumps. So what if it KOs them when the effect runs down? They just need to win the fight! It has that self-destructive berserker vibe that makes bad guys *scary*. It's also fun if you imagine that the "guard dogs" weren't asked before it was installed, maybe as a scanner-proof combat drug for a suicide strike team.

I certainly wouldn't risk anybody I wanted to live with one, though.

Whether it is a direct combat spells, drugs, or the massive rules fail that is the adrenal pump unresisted is lame IMO. While I am sure someone can pull up a drug which has identical effects on everyone, generally bigger, heartier people shrug off drugs better than others.

They do, but then they also "shrug off" the beneficial effects- normal level dosages simply don't have full effect. That's why so many drug dosages are based on body weight. I think its safe to assume that a user of Kamikazee or Nitro ups his dosage to compensate if they are " bigger, heartier people", because they still get all the same benefits- meaning they should get all the same drawbacks.