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TheMadderHatter
So I have a player who's proposed playing a troll who's got chem glands for a LOT of interesting chemicals, claiming that the continuous administration method will stave off the crash Stun damage of his chosen cocktail of K-10, Kamikaze, Nitro, and Ripper. Said troll is also to have various augmentations to bring him up to strength 15 even without the drugs, so I have to ask: do drugs improve attributes beyond their augmented maximum?
otakusensei
QUOTE (TheMadderHatter @ Dec 20 2010, 05:52 PM) *
So I have a player who's proposed playing a troll who's got chem glands for a LOT of interesting chemicals, claiming that the continuous administration method will stave off the crash Stun damage of his chosen cocktail of K-10, Kamikaze, Nitro, and Ripper. Said troll is also to have various augmentations to bring him up to strength 15 even without the drugs, so I have to ask: do drugs improve attributes beyond their augmented maximum?

Juicers are from that other game...

But seriously I didn't think you could get a K-10 gland. And if it turns out you can, don't tell my players.
Mäx
QUOTE (TheMadderHatter @ Dec 21 2010, 12:52 AM) *
So I have a player who's proposed playing a troll who's got chem glands for a LOT of interesting chemicals, claiming that the continuous administration method will stave off the crash Stun damage of his chosen cocktail of K-10, Kamikaze, Nitro, and Ripper. Said troll is also to have various augmentations to bring him up to strength 15 even without the drugs, so I have to ask: do drugs improve attributes beyond their augmented maximum?

By RAW i would say no, as the augmented maximums is a general rule and there's no exception to it mentioned concerning drugs.
But thats not really a problem as none of the chem glands are RAW legal, as i highly doupt any of the drugs are naturally occurring substances, what with being designer combat drugs and all.
Yerameyahu
Ditto: chem gland for natural substances only (almost entirely attack toxins), and it's munchkin silliness to claim that you can avoid the crash. Punch your player in the face.

Seriously. If 'continuous dosing' were possible (for the purpose of never crashing), you could just as easily do it with an autoinjector.
InfinityzeN
Nothing can bring you past your augmented maximums, even spirit possession (which increases you normal stat maximums). Also that is not how chem glands work, the never suffer the drawbacks or substances other than natural ones. Continuous release means he will always suffer both the additions and the drawbacks.


You want to really mess with his head? For the K-10, let him have it (even though it is against the rules) then just make him roll edge *EVERY* *SINGLE* *ROUND* until he fails and goes permanently berserk. Then smack the player for coming up with such a munchkin idea.
yesferatu
I believe the augmented maximums determine how much their metatype frame can hold.
You couldn't put a pair of elephant legs on a human.

If that's the way he wants to play it...make the damn thing permanent.
Every so often, he'll just beat a team member (or random stranger) to death on the street.
Someone cuts in front of him in line...beat them to death on the street.
Lone Star officer tells you to wait for the light...beat him to death on the street.
Your mother asks why you don't call...beat her to death on the street.
That should create the proper disincentive.

There's a reason people don't like drug addicts.
Raiki
QUOTE (yesferatu @ Dec 20 2010, 06:57 PM) *
If that's the way he wants to play it...make the damn thing permanent.
Every so often, he'll just beat a team member (or random stranger) to death on the street.
Someone cuts in front of him in line...beat them to death on the street.
Lone Star officer tells you to wait for the light...beat him to death on the street.
Your mother asks why you don't call...beat her to death on the street.
That should create the proper disincentive.

There's a reason people don't like drug addicts.



You sir, are a magnificent person. I just shot mellow yellow out of my nose from that.




~R~
Yerameyahu
I disagree with yesferatu. Someone on K-10 would also beat people to death *off* the street.
tagz
I imagine parts of them would wind up on the street, sidewalk, the store window, hood of a car, on top of the traffic signal... and lots in between druggie's fingernails.
otakusensei
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Dec 20 2010, 11:17 PM) *
I disagree with yesferatu. Someone on K-10 would also beat people to death *off* the street.

I like the image of the juiced up troll repeatedly dragging someone outside specifically to beat them to death in the street.
Yerameyahu
On a side note, you can get a K-10 cybergland. … It's just an autoinjector, though.
Headshot_Joe
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Dec 20 2010, 08:27 PM) *
On a side note, you can get a K-10 cybergland. … It's just an autoinjector, though.

So you'd end up with a Trollier version of Bane?
Glyph
The initial premise is moronic. Claiming that continual admission of a mix of tailored combat drugs will stave off the crash stun damage is like saying that continually drinking shots of vodka will stave off a hangover.

I will go against my usual policy of not recommending SR4A, and say, buy it. Because it is thicker than the normal SR4 book. Hit the player in question with it.
Mäx
QUOTE (Glyph @ Dec 21 2010, 09:37 AM) *
The initial premise is moronic. Claiming that continual admission of a mix of tailored combat drugs will stave off the crash stun damage is like saying that continually drinking shots of vodka will stave off a hangover.

You do know that the drinking more to stave of hangover does work, right?
Summerstorm
QUOTE (Mäx @ Dec 21 2010, 01:45 PM) *
You do know that the drinking more to stave of hangover does work, right?


Sure... at the cost of drinking yourself to DEATH.

So yeah... he will die after a few minutes of continuous injection. and most likely insane and convulsing in pain, ripping himself apart.

Have fun.
KamikazePilot
QUOTE (Mäx @ Dec 21 2010, 11:45 PM) *
You do know that the drinking more to stave of hangover does work, right?


to a limit. at the end you still get the hangover and really bad feeling when they pump your stomach at the hostpital though smile.gif
Brazilian_Shinobi
QUOTE (Summerstorm @ Dec 21 2010, 10:29 AM) *
Sure... at the cost of drinking yourself to DEATH.

So yeah... he will die after a few minutes of continuous injection. and most likely insane and convulsing in pain, ripping himself apart.

Have fun.


You can't make an omelet without making someone permanently deaf, as my granpa used to say... grinbig.gif
CeeJay
QUOTE (Mäx @ Dec 21 2010, 12:17 AM) *
But thats not really a problem as none of the chem glands are RAW legal, as i highly doupt any of the drugs are naturally occurring substances, what with being designer combat drugs and all.

Apart from the fact, that the original idea of continuous drug use to stave of stun damage won't work, I allways thought that the restriction to "naturally occuring substances" is a rather lame way to keep the gland's power under control.

I mean, what is a "naturally occuring substance" anyway? How can you be sure, that there isn't some kind of obscure deep sea snail that produces a cocktail of chemicals with an effect like K-10? Only, nobody ever discovered the snail, so biochemists had to "reinvent" K-10. Does that make K-10 a "naturally occuring substance"?
Or it's actually the other way round. We know next to nothing about how K-10 or other designer drugs are produced. Maybe the key compounds are obtained through fermentation with bio-engineered micro-organisms? This would make K-10 a "naturally occuring substance", doesn't it?

In the end, a chemical gland is just a cluster of cells able to produce and secrete a predetermined chemical. Chances are, these cells are bioengineered anyway, so why can't they produce any given drug or chemical? I mean, you are paying a lot of nuyen for the gland anyway... a gland costs 30.000 nuyen.gif plus 100 * drug cost, that are 120.000 nuyen.gif for a K-10 gland!

Sorry for the rant... feeling better now smile.gif

-CJ

Yerameyahu
The book gives examples. The purpose of chem glands is basically so you can spit venom. Yes, it is very limited; no, there's no good reason to assume that they can synthesize complex designer drugs.
Dr.Rockso
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Dec 20 2010, 11:17 PM) *
I disagree with yesferatu. Someone on K-10 would also beat people to death *off* the street.

I disagree with Yerameyahu. Someone on k-10 would beat people to death *WITH* the street. silly.gif
Draco18s
QUOTE (Dr.Rockso @ Dec 21 2010, 10:40 AM) *
I disagree with Yerameyahu. Someone on k-10 would beat the street to death *WITH* people. silly.gif


FTFY. wobble.gif
Sengir
QUOTE (InfinityzeN @ Dec 21 2010, 12:48 AM) *
Nothing can bring you past your augmented maximums, even spirit possession (which increases you normal stat maximums).

Since I read that section recently, redlining cyberlimbs explicitly can. Considering drugs as redlining the body sounds like a fair assumption...and because it's bones and tendrons which are pushed over their safety barriers, make the resulting damage physical. Sounds like just the kind of batshit insanity I associate with combat drugs cool.gif

PS: The player also needs to spend a simple action to shout "blood for the blood god" and produce various inarticulate manly sounds biggrin.gif
TheMadderHatter
Not that I'm for encouraging this sort of thing, but I'm with CeeJay on that anything as optimized as a designer drug is probably messing with the (in this case meta)human interactome, which usually means it's either a polypeptide or small molecule made enzymatically, so it's conceivable that a transgenic source for it could be found--and, given the expense of synthesizing either of those types of substances normally, probably already exists.

That said, most of the people with the capacity to intelligently put together a screening library for something like this are going to be squirreled away in the megacorps, so it'd be difficult to get the necessary genome, and even with Shadowrun levels of supercomputing I can't imagine the Extended Test covering de novo protein design and binding optimization programs designed to make a completely new product stably in vivo, so it's a non-issue.

There's also common sense saying to simply disallow it.

On a related note, the player's given up his aspirations of drug-fueled rises to super-metahuman levels of combat ability, although he's been asking after putting the chemicals in gas grenades and throwing them into large crowds when a distraction is called for.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Sengir @ Dec 21 2010, 11:25 AM) *
PS: The player also needs to spend a simple action to shout "blood for the blood god" and produce various inarticulate manly sounds biggrin.gif


Or
"FOR ARMOK!"
"FOR THE ONE TOAD"
Fauxknight
He'd be a good candidate for borrowed time? I'd imagine he'd have multiple organ failures well before 3d6 months had passed though.
Glyph
QUOTE (TheMadderHatter @ Dec 21 2010, 08:41 AM) *
On a related note, the player's given up his aspirations of drug-fueled rises to super-metahuman levels of combat ability, although he's been asking after putting the chemicals in gas grenades and throwing them into large crowds when a distraction is called for.

That's... kind of dumb. Even K10 only makes you go berserk after you've been wounded, and considering its availability and price, that would be an expensive distraction. Not to mention the hit to the team's reputation, and possibly other repercussions, for those kind of tactics.
Dr.Rockso
QUOTE (Glyph @ Dec 21 2010, 01:26 PM) *
That's... kind of dumb. Even K10 only makes you go berserk after you've been wounded, and considering its availability and price, that would be an expensive distraction. Not to mention the hit to the team's reputation, and possibly other repercussions, for those kind of tactics.

Think of it this way: you throw a gas canister into a large crowd. The crowd sees noxious fumes, and bolts. There's a VERY high probability someone is going to get injured in the resulting chaos, making them berserk. The berserker then does what berserkers do best: hit things until his hands fall off. He will almost invariable hit someone else who's taken a dose of the blood of kali. And so on.

The downside, of course, is now you have a crowd of nigh unstoppable maniacs. Hope you were far away from the crowd.

EDIT: That being said: Yeah, there are definitely cheaper methods for a distraction. I prefer Warp myself silly.gif
Draco18s
QUOTE (Dr.Rockso @ Dec 21 2010, 01:34 PM) *
EDIT: That being said: Yeah, there are definitely cheaper methods for a distraction. I prefer Warp myself silly.gif


Better distraction. Hack a [large building]'s PA system.

"Alert: A toxic chemical has been released into this building's HVAC system. The symptoms are hysteria, fear, and sometimes violence."

Voila. All the panic of a real biological attack without any of the expense.

(A gas grenade with a harmless green/pink/orange/yellow smoke does much the same thing)
Dahrken
QUOTE (Dr.Rockso @ Dec 21 2010, 07:34 PM) *
EDIT: That being said: Yeah, there are definitely cheaper methods for a distraction. I prefer Warp myself silly.gif

Well at 500 nuyen.gif a dose - the amount to affect a single target - it is not that much cheaper than the 900 nuyen.gif of K-10...
Mickle5125
QUOTE (Dahrken @ Dec 21 2010, 12:49 PM) *
Well at 500 nuyen.gif a dose - the amount to affect a single target - it is not that much cheaper than the 900 nuyen.gif of K-10...


that's almost half the cost...
Sengir
Read the descriptions of other Combat Drugs like Cram and Kamikaze, it should be obvious that a K-10 user is not going to be calm and rational until he pricks his thumb. In my mental eye, it's more like he's running beserk, digs through a plasteel wall with his bare hands to get MORE ENEMIES MORE BLOOD, realizes he's hurt, and goes even more BLOOD MORE BLOOD KILL PURGE.

Hey, what happened to those cool berserker chips anyway? I think I need to hack some sim modules...
Dr.Rockso
QUOTE (Sengir @ Dec 21 2010, 02:24 PM) *
Read the descriptions of other Combat Drugs like Cram and Kamikaze, it should be obvious that a K-10 user is not going to be calm and rational until he pricks his thumb. In my mental eye, it's more like he's running beserk, digs through a plasteel wall with his bare hands to get MORE ENEMIES MORE BLOOD, realizes he's hurt, and goes even more BLOOD MORE BLOOD KILL PURGE.

Hey, what happened to those cool berserker chips anyway? I think I need to hack some sim modules...

Those crazy Winternight ones you mean?
Sengir
Exactly those
InfinityzeN
I so need to build a mixed melee/pistol sammy for the 800 point thread with a K-10 filled auto injector, a fetish for spikes & chains, with the favorite color being red, and a tendency to spout off about the blood god.
TheMadderHatter
QUOTE (InfinityzeN @ Dec 21 2010, 04:30 PM) *
I so need to build a mixed melee/pistol sammy for the 800 point thread with a K-10 filled auto injector, a fetish for spikes & chains, with the favorite color being red, and a tendency to spout off about the blood god.

Will he wield a monofilament chainsaw in one hand and a Gyrojet pistol in the other?
Yerameyahu
Nope, chainsaw is two-handed. biggrin.gif
Faraday
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Dec 21 2010, 03:03 PM) *
Nope, chainsaw is two-handed. biggrin.gif

Exotic Weapon: One-handed Monofilament Chainsaw
Yerameyahu
*shrug* It's an Exotic Melee Weapon already (and an extra -2), but I was just teasing. It doesn't really say how many hands. smile.gif Per Arsenal, 2-handers include anything the GM says, and it's just an extra -2 DP penalty (total, -4 for the monosaw).
InfinityzeN
I was thinking more along the lines of a "Power" (aka Vibro) Sword or Axe. Why oh why does the gyrojet pistol suck so hard? Oh well, High Power ammo mod...
darthmord
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Dec 21 2010, 01:42 PM) *
Better distraction. Hack a [large building]'s PA system.

"Alert: A toxic chemical has been released into this building's HVAC system. The symptoms are hysteria, fear, and sometimes violence."

Voila. All the panic of a real biological attack without any of the expense.

(A gas grenade with a harmless green/pink/orange/yellow smoke does much the same thing)


Do you have any idea how easy this is in TODAY'S facilities? LOL
Draco18s
QUOTE (darthmord @ Dec 22 2010, 09:45 AM) *
Do you have any idea how easy this is in TODAY'S facilities? LOL


Very. indifferent.gif
pbangarth
QUOTE (InfinityzeN @ Dec 21 2010, 04:30 PM) *
I so need to build a mixed melee/pistol sammy for the 800 point thread with a K-10 filled auto injector, a fetish for spikes & chains, with the favorite color being red, and a tendency to spout off about the blood god.
Do it! I miss that thread.
Sengir
QUOTE (InfinityzeN @ Dec 21 2010, 10:30 PM) *
I so need to build a mixed melee/pistol sammy for the 800 point thread with a K-10 filled auto injector, a fetish for spikes & chains, with the favorite color being red, and a tendency to spout off about the blood god.

Remember, belief makes reality as far as magical traditions are concerned. So Khorne is a perfectly valid adept tradition biggrin.gif
TheMadderHatter
QUOTE (Sengir @ Dec 22 2010, 01:49 PM) *
Remember, belief makes reality as far as magical traditions are concerned. So Khorne is a perfectly valid adept tradition biggrin.gif


Perhaps with an Incantation Geas of "Blood for the Blood God"?
Saint Sithney
QUOTE (TheMadderHatter @ Dec 21 2010, 08:41 AM) *
Not that I'm for encouraging this sort of thing, but I'm with CeeJay on that anything as optimized as a designer drug is probably messing with the (in this case meta)human interactome, which usually means it's either a polypeptide or small molecule made enzymatically, so it's conceivable that a transgenic source for it could be found--and, given the expense of synthesizing either of those types of substances normally, probably already exists.

That said, most of the people with the capacity to intelligently put together a screening library for something like this are going to be squirreled away in the megacorps, so it'd be difficult to get the necessary genome, and even with Shadowrun levels of supercomputing I can't imagine the Extended Test covering de novo protein design and binding optimization programs designed to make a completely new product stably in vivo, so it's a non-issue.

There's also common sense saying to simply disallow it.

On a related note, the player's given up his aspirations of drug-fueled rises to super-metahuman levels of combat ability, although he's been asking after putting the chemicals in gas grenades and throwing them into large crowds when a distraction is called for.


Any chemical that makes a person's neurons fire 4x faster is more phlebotinum than polypeptide.

Sure lots of crazy stuff comes in plants and fishes, but none of that stuff alters the laws of physics like K-10 does.
So, I'll agree with you that there is a real life rationale for meth glands, but it doesn't work in game, for multiple reasons.
Sengir
QUOTE (TheMadderHatter @ Dec 22 2010, 08:27 PM) *
Perhaps with an Incantation Geas of "Blood for the Blood God"?

How about Condition Geas "be covered with the blood of the pathetic weaklings you just slew for His g(l)ory"?
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