Throwing implies it. I realize which thread this is, but seriously. Death loogies!

Fukimi-bari? What?

ongoing damage from the cat. (note: a cybertooth warform biodrone is also a 'cat', which is a wonderfully vague word that has a common accepted meaning that isn't necessarily quite the same as the official meaning )

Not quite sure if this qualifies completely, but has anyone else noticed that you use Unarmed Combat for retractable cyber spurs, but Blades for forearm snap-blades, which are just external cyber spurs?

Just be glad that Exotic Melee Weapon isn't required for either.

Really I thought it was just blades? They are on the blades table Page 337, of the 4th main book.
But they do seem to keep showing up as unarmed combat on NPC sheets. I don't really follow that logic.

Well no, the text for Forearm Snap Blades states that it's an external version of Spurs. Spurs are Unarmed Combat, but Forearm Snap Blades are listed as Blades. Odd.

Spurs use the Blades skill, not Unarmed. "Cyber-Implant Blades" is even listed as an available specialization for Blades.

Off the top of my head, only shock hands use Unarmed.

EDIT: Here we go. Augmentation, page 169, lists all the different cyber-weapons by what skill they use. Ironically (and hopefully it will be errata'd away), it lists shock hands under Blades. At any rate, it does list all the other weapons and what skill they use (Exotic Melee Weapons for the fangs and horns, that sort of thing).

It would be a totally understandable house rule (to me, at least), to change cyber spurs, hand razors, etc, over to Unarmed Combat. The direct neural interface brought about by paying Essence for the blade makes it feel like a part of the user's arm/hand and allows him to blah blah blah use the regular Unarmed Combat skill with it. I can see it making sense either way, and lumping it into Unarmed kind of helps the sammie that wants to be able to hit hard and stab with an implanted weapon, without also being an expert fencer.

Bah. This is what I get for thinking about something at work with no books printed and posting it the moment I get home.

Working in a guard shack for 8 hours with about 30 minutes of actual work gets to you. I'm sure others around here know what I'm talking about.

No harm, no foul, man.

My job wasn't sitting in a guard shack, but it was sitting in a cubicle from 11pm-7am, six nights a week...and, much like yours, with -- on a good day -- remarkably little going on. Turns the brain to mush about halfway through the shift, and there's not much you can do about it. And like I said, it wouldn't be the worst house rule ever, to lump all cyber-implant stuff into Unarmed.

My home away from home 3 days a week is a 10-foot cube made of basically windows framed in cinderblocks with an ac/heater, a couple of phones, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and the gate controls. I get to play Security with the truck drivers that come through my area. I added in an after-market radio though, otherwise 9/10 times the guards in there would be asleep.

Oh, and since I'm in Texas, we have an obligatory cattle field on the other side of the 3-lane road, complete with longhorns. Right next to the trucking gate for an airport. Seriously.

Most of the time I bring my books with me and look them over (when else did you think I have the time to come up with the crazy things I do), but the people who can get me fired are making sure work is very boring lately. We've had a few people get fired for having their cellphones on them, not even neccessarily being in use.

Or. to quote ultimate hawkeye

"Shouldn't have left me my fingernails, dummy."

Oh my thats up there with popcorn as the most inane weapon in the game. Plus no need for ammo most of the time.

I just stumbled across this:

And only 2 pages later...




-CJ

Now I wonder if you're the guy I'd be yelling at for bills of lading for that area.

Bills of lading?

EDIT: Oh, no. I only handle the security aspect, which is verifying drivers are who they say they are and not allowing certain peoples (mainly minors, but also unregistered drivers) from entering the property. All the shipping stuff is handled by a different gate.

EDIT EDIT: That doesn't stop some people from getting upset with me though. I tend to take a duck in a rainstorm philosophy when that happens though.

Heheh. I wonder because security handles the BOL's for mah business. They verify the truckers (usually), ensure the bills are signed and then file them away so they can complain later when I ask for them.

the Changes in 20A pdf states that databombs were made more dangerous by giving them ridiculous damage output. I'm assuming that change just didn't make it into all the places in the book.

Seriously it's just another one of those things that make me disregard 20A entirely.

Why?

They be hatin'.

It's not what it should be - a well thought out update to the product. It's just the same mostly crappy editing and proof-reading as before, with a few rules changes that don't seem to have been thought through. The single best thing is the index.

In my current group we are disregarding everything that's not in the errata for SR4 basic. It's mostly a matter of not even having the book, but I wouldn't want to use some of those things, either.

[RANT]
Look, a rating 6 Databomb by the new rules does a MINIMUM of its rating as damage, and on average 21 boxes! And chances are you'll be hit with 30 or even 36 boxes. That's just ridiculous. NOTHING in the entire fricken game does that amount of damage. If it did Rating D6 boxes, a little better, you would more often be closer to the average. But rating times 1d6 is just....

If they had wanted to make databombs more dangerous a flat x2 multiplier would have been fine. Making the guy that places it make a roll and adding successes to the damage would have been fine. But like this? Who writes such crap, and then who checks it? Aparently NOONE thought this through. Everyone and their mother can put databombs in their commlink or other node. Yes, it's only matrix damage, and it will only kick you out, but still. You need quite a few dice to reliably resist dumpshock. Oh, and Technomancers? Ain't they fucked good. This would make technomancers very bad - and short-lived - hackers.

It's also a COMPLETE deviation from established mechanisms in the game. NOTHING does absolutely RANDOM damage. This is really a broken rule beyond all doubt.

[/RANT]

Hear, hear.

And add to that the fact that nobody's stepped forward to give a good explanation of what data bombs actually do..

They bomb you with data. Or bomb your data. Something.

Many things in the game do random damage, but not like data bombs. It should be 'roll Rating(*X) as a DP for damage'.

Databombs have imbedded blackout or blackice in them.

When is damage ever rolled in SR4? This would be a completely new mechanism.

All attacks do net hits damage. Yes, they have a base as well.

Poisons and toxins don't do net hits damage.

They do just their flat damage.

And they're not an attack.

I do think it's weird that Data Bombs aren't programs, nor run, and can be set freely (we talked about this in another thread, I think). There should be some limitations.

Databombs work pretty similarly to a toxin.

Actually not, as far as I can tell. They just do Matrix damage, like cybercombat, and knock you out of the matrix, giving you dumpshock. (5S or 5P).

However, Technomancers take this damage immediately as stun or physical damage (I forget how Feedback Filter = Charisma plays in this), which makes databombs - or anything that does matrix damage - all the more dangerous to them.

Do they? How many toxins roll 1d6 for damage?

I do think it *could* make sense for Data Bombs to be analogized as 'Matrix toxins'. They're *not*, at all, but it could make sense to do so. The way things stand, they're mildly related to 'demolition booby-traps', but we're already discussing how that's not very apt, either.

Sure, but the variable damage is calculated from a previous attack roll. Damage itself is never rolled in SR4, unlike in some other systems like for instance oWoD.

That's definitely true. I was only pointing out that there's a 'native' way to let the data bombs do random damage, and that many things in the game have an important random damage component.

What about summoning drain? That's pretty random, isn't it?

-CJ

It's random, but it follows established principles: you roll a number of d6s for a point of damage per (net) hit - just like any attack test.

Something that's so hard to explain what it even is shouldn't be that powerful.



They do Matrix damage, so, no. Also, what kind of lame bomb only damages the person handling it, not everything around it?



"Matrix toxin" is the best I've heard to far yeah, but that suggests ways to handle them "with gloves".

Basically any explanation about what data bombs are will likely lead to ideas about how to handle them or abuse them, because it's technology, and technology should be cleverly used.

*shrug* We know how to handle them and use them. You set them with Data Bomb, and you defuse them with Disarm, after detecting them.

we have a thing, about which the only thing we really know are the rules. Which seem strange to us, and not necessarily a good thing.

It does Matrix attack damage, whatever that is. I understand that it's nice to have fluff on things, but it doesn't change the crunch. Regardless of the fluff, you should change data bombs if you don't like how they work in your game. I still think they should be limited, because it's silly that you can place an infinite number of them, quickly, almost anywhere, and you're simply immune to your own. There should be tradeoffs.

How about the hacker has to play a real-life game of minesweeper to defuse them?

Which is exactly what the Defuse Program does... you win, you defuse the bomb, you lose, you take Rating(D6) or Rating*1D6 depending upon how you read it... Seems like Minesweeper to me... And yes, Databombs are extremely deadly now... So what...

No, actual Minesweeper, instead of rolling. It was a joke.

Pfft....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHY8NKj3RKs




-k

That. Was. Awsome.

That's an old still funny video whenever I watch.

Teacher: "THAT CLOCK IS GOING TO KEEP TICKING UNTIL IT REACHES NINE NINE NINE!"
Apprentice: "what happens then?"
Teacher: "NOTHING. you just suck!"

Got another one:
You can't learn non-defaultable skills in SR4A:
To learn a new skill you need to succeed at a INT+skill test with a threshold equal to twice the new skill rating, but you can't default on skills like Ritual Spellcasting.

Sorry to bump a dead topic, but... What? This sentence structure is more akin to something from South America than actual English. I do admit though, that some of those words are English.

You did thread necromancy to criticize someone's poor sentence structure from half a year ago? That is a sad, sad excuse for thread necromancy, sir.

I hope we have a punishment for this.

I was searching to see if a question had already been asked rather than asking it again (which I'm aware is another source of annoyance for forum regulars). I found a promising post, but I could only tell that the subject matched my query. Nothing more.
It's amazing what 12 missing characters, incomprehensible grammar, and a 60% hit rate on punctuation can do to a post.