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onlyghostdanceswhiledrunk
Ok so yes its fairly scary concept, voodoo drake mystic adept.... I was captivated by an approach to drakes which made it fun for me as its been said alot that they arent as strong in areas as most other builds...


Anyways the campaigns i play in generally allow 10 karma starting bonus so thats included here as well.


Metatype: Fomori (45bp) + Western Drake (65 bp)


Attributes: 170

Meta form

Body: 6
Agi: 4
Rea: 5
Str: 8
Cha: 2
Int: 3
Log: 1
Wil: 5


In drake Form:

Body 10
Strength 13

In drake form and possessed by f4 guardian:


Body 14
Agi: 8 (it specifically says that dracoform bumps the max and aug max numbers pg 75 RC)
Rea: 9
Str: 17
Cha: 4
Int: 4
Log: 4
Wil: 4



special atts: 40bp

Magic 5 (40bp) (1pp used for adept, 4 for casting/summoning)

edge 1


Qualities: +20 net

Pos:

mystic Adept 10bp

- voodoo tradition. - Combat: Guardian, Detection: water, Heatlh: Man, Illusion: Guidance, Manipulation: Task, Drain: w + C,

possession tradition.

mentor spirit (5b): Sun, Legba (its been cited more often that legba is associated with the sun as the old man of the crossroads

- +2d6 guardian spirits, +2 d6 health spells must spend 2 edge to negate or downgrade glitches/crit glitches.

Neg:

- flashbacks (+10bp) - torture - Aztechnology - Trigger (the insignia of the delta clinic where the black ops research is done)

- Paranoia (+10bp) - its always a setup!

- Combat Monster (+10bp)

- In Debt (Jameson) (+5bp) - Paid that fixer for intro to the shadows.


Qualities/ effects from racial(s):

Fomori:

- Arcane Arrester

- Metagenic Imp (Body)

- Thermo Vision

- +1 Reach


Drake:

- Shift Drake

- Immune to HMVV

- Dual Natured in Dracoform (only)

- May learn assensing or astral combat without being otherwise magically active.

- aura unless masked in either form is ALWAYS a small dracoform

- Adept Powers always work in both forms

- Dracoform extras:

- Elemental Attack (Fire)

- Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Low-light, Smell, Thermographic)

- Hardened Armor 4

- Mystic Armor 4

- Natural Weapon (Claws and bite) [(Str/2 +2)P , AP0]

- May learn dragonspeech from other dragons or drakes with the power as a metamagic technique.


- As dual natured beings in dracoform use normal physical atts and Unarmed Skills as well as natural weapon attacks (including the

breath) on BOTH PLANES!

- Western Drake: bigger than other drakes and have wings which allow me to fly at 2x movement rate. (+1 reach, +4 bod, +5 str)


skills: 86bp

Unarmed Combat (Natural weapons) 6(+2) 26bp
Dodge(Ranged) 1(+2) 6bp
Perception (Visual) 3(+2) 14bp
Exotic Ranged Weapon (Elemental Attack) 1(+2) 6bp
Summoning (Combat:Guradian) 4 (+2) 18bp
Spellcasting (health) 2(+2) 10bp
Etiquette (Street) 1(+2) 6bp

Adept Powers: 1pp

Killing Hands .5
Elemental Strike (Fire) .5

spells: 3bp + 10karma

Increase Reflexes
Trid Phantasm (bought with karma)
Fashion (bought with karma)

Gear: 3bp for focus, 8bp for gear = 40k nuyen - 30k for focus = 10k

Sustaining focus r3 (3bp, 30k) (tattoed on chest, shows as a marking in scales in drake form)


havent finished gear or contacts etc but just wanted advice on that bit.
Udoshi
If you're going for a troll drake, I would almost certainly try to maximize your natural strengths. In this case, Surge. There are a few qualities I would consider.
Dermal Alteration: Granite Shell:(15bp) 7/7 hardened armor in drake form is definitely worth considering.
Dermal Deposits(10bp): Stacks with your natural troll armor. Or it would, if fomori had it. In this case, it gives it back
Elongated Limbs:(5bp): +1 reach is well worth considering, and with the Fashion spell at your disposal, getting gear that fits you isn't really a problem.
You could fit granite and limbs in surge 2, giving you plenty of points left over. Fluff it as kind of a gargoyl-ey drake. I am unsure what downsides to take. Astral hazing could be hilarious, with counterspelling and arcane arrester at your disposal, but it will screw you more than anyone else until you can initiate and grab the relevant metamagics to deal with it.

Assuming you took the Common drake from your drake stat gains. You forgot to list the Reach benefit. 1 from troll, 1 from drake, 1 from limbs. 3 natural reach base is very well worth considering. You could potentially get 4 through martial arts.

Those are my at-a-glance comments. You may want to pick up a Summoning/Binding focus for guardian spirits. You also forgot a magical lodge. If you're willing to go more down the adept side of powers, there are plenty of good things you can do down that route. Heightened Concentration is one of them, and it makes you a fantastic self-buffer. If you dont mind swapping to a different tradition, a Mind over Matter swap could be worth considering, as it lets one of your drain stats do double duty. Troll metavariants agility, intuition, and logic all share the same natural cap of 5, so there isn't really a reason to prefer one over the other.
Draco18s
QUOTE
Exotic Ranged Weapon (Elemental Attack) 1(+2) 6bp


You can't specialize in an exotic weapon.

QUOTE (Udoshi @ Dec 4 2011, 12:07 AM) *
If you're going for a troll drake, I would almost certainly try to maximize your natural strengths. In this case, Surge. There are a few qualities I would consider.
Dermal Alteration: Granite Shell:(15bp) 7/7 hardened armor in drake form is definitely worth considering.
Dermal Deposits(10bp): Stacks with your natural troll armor. Or it would, if fomori had it. In this case, it gives it back
Elongated Limbs:(5bp): +1 reach is well worth considering, and with the Fashion spell at your disposal, getting gear that fits you isn't really a problem.
You could fit granite and limbs in surge 2, giving you plenty of points left over. Fluff it as kind of a gargoyl-ey drake. I am unsure what downsides to take. Astral hazing could be hilarious, with counterspelling and arcane arrester at your disposal, but it will screw you more than anyone else until you can initiate and grab the relevant metamagics to deal with it.


Due to the fact that he doesn't have armor being worn, of any kind, Granite Shell is probably worth considering. One of the rare instances I'll say that.

Dermal Deposits is also an idea, check with your GM on how he thinks "normal" armor and "hardened" armor stack.
(Also be aware that the drake's innate Mystic Armor is the critter power and not the Adept Power. The critter power version grants the drake 4 armor on the astral plane).

Astral Hazing does not do what you think it does. It does not reduce the Force of any spell cast from outside the area to the character inside it. Plus it would be Super Bad for this character who is a fucking mage. Gogo Magic 2.

All in all you have a solid melee bruiser, I just don't see much application towards any other endeavor. He has some ability to summon spirits (9 to 11 dice), but due to his tradition, utilizing those spirits is going to be tricky (low force spirits are going to need prepared vessels, and I don't know what the rules are on that, but you may not have the skill dice to pull off the preparation). He's also going to have trouble getting into melee range with ranged combatants, as his armor is low (only 4--or 7 with the Granite Shell--which is enough to shrug off punches from unarmed Strength 1 humans).
Udoshi
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Dec 6 2011, 11:35 AM) *
Astral Hazing does not do what you think it does. It does not reduce the Force of any spell cast from outside the area to the character inside it. Plus it would be Super Bad for this character who is a fucking mage. Gogo Magic 2.


No, I'm fully aware of what it does. I just didn't elaborate on the ways to turn it into an upside for you. Frankly, astral hazing is the best 'worst' negative quality. It DOES do some neat things for you, like helping punch spirits(force reduced to by -4), hindering astrally percieving mages from zapping you with spells.(background counts are a penalty to astral visibility, and mages take vision penalties on spellcasting tests due to mystic-targeting-link-stuff) Any spell in the background count, including sustained ones(like mind control) have their force reduced by 4 - combined with fomori's arcane arrester, you are very, very magic resistant. Unfortunately, you will pretty much never be able to benefit from magical healing. Its worth considering, but its probably not a good idea to take it on a character you actaully want to play.

There are ways to mitigate its downsides. Cleansing/Filtering is one of them, but its expensive and its benefits are only temporary, and the background count hinders your attempt to establish the filter.
The more hilarious solution is to take Geomancy, and aspect it to your tradition. It is an incredibly long-term thing to do, and most GMs will roll their eyes and shoot it down out of principle. But its definitely legal, and walking around with your own personal aspected domain is, frankly, awe inspiring. It will get you noticed. Much like cyberzombies. (Actually trying this in a game will probably earn you the same treatment as someone trying to play pun-pun.)

As for armor stacking, it works normally.
Worn armor only counts the best, unless you are wearing special things like FFBA
Things that explicitly don't stack (granite shell) never stack with things they say they dont(worn armor) but do with others(natural)
for things like hardened armor, the auto-bounce effect only references their base value. But, since hardened armor counts as armor on damage resistance tests, stacking up hardened and normal armor gives you more dice to resist attacks that wouldn't autofail anyway.
Encumbrance is only for worn armor, and things that say they count towards it(granite shell)
Worth noting: The FAQ also handles this exact same situation rather clearly: How exactly does Troll+drake+adept mystic armor+worn armor interact.

Worth noting, you can technically specialize exotic weapons through martial arts rules. Any weapon applies, including the exotics. Sadly, about the only exotic ranged weapon that comes to mind, that COULD be justifiable through that means, is the shuriken. And that uses Throwing Weapons anyway.
onlyghostdanceswhiledrunk
ok on the specializing in elemental attack but i hadnt finished the gear list, was planning on using fashion on body bag armor etc etc to make barding smile.gif can carry 27 pts of it when in possessed drake form.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Dec 6 2011, 08:12 PM) *
As for armor stacking, it works normally.
Worn armor only counts the best, unless you are wearing special things like FFBA
Things that explicitly don't stack (granite shell) never stack with things they say they dont(worn armor) but do with others(natural)
for things like hardened armor, the auto-bounce effect only references their base value. But, since hardened armor counts as armor on damage resistance tests, stacking up hardened and normal armor gives you more dice to resist attacks that wouldn't autofail anyway.
Encumbrance is only for worn armor, and things that say they count towards it(granite shell)
Worth noting: The FAQ also handles this exact same situation rather clearly: How exactly does Troll+drake+adept mystic armor+worn armor interact.


No, I meant, at what damage level do you take stun?
Udoshi
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Dec 6 2011, 09:29 PM) *
No, I meant, at what damage level do you take stun?


Well. Basically how Hardened armor works is that, instead of transfering damage to stun, it transfers it to nothing instead(bounce off). Hardened armor also counts as regular armor.
Regular armor
In both cases, downgrading happens when the AP-modified DV doesn't EXCEED the armor value.

If the incoming attack is equal to or less than than hardened armor (in this case 7) it is ignored entirely.
If the incoming attack is above the hardened armor rating, but not more than the total armor (lets say troll drake with dermal deposits/granite skin, so hardened armor 7 + natural armor 2 = 9) then the attack is downgraded to stun.

You're thinking about it too much. they all stack, but just have different trigger points(depending on how the stacks work) for downgrading damage.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Dec 6 2011, 11:44 PM) *
If the incoming attack is above the hardened armor rating, but not more than the total armor


That statement is unsupported by the rules, just so you know. wink.gif

I agree with it, but the rules make no mention of it.

Next question:

7 Hardened Armor + 2 Normal Armor vs. 7 DV -1 AP.

Stun or none?
Dakka Dakka
It's stun. The modified DV is compared to the modified armor rating. 7>7-1=6
QUOTE ('SR4A p. 295')
If the modified Damage Value of an attack does not exceed the Armor rating (modified by Armor Penetration), then it bounces harmlessly off the critter; don’t even bother to make a Damage Resistance Test. Otherwise, Hardened Armor provides both Ballistic and Impact armor equal to its rating.


@Granite Shell: this makes you pretty much unhireable as a Shadowrunner. You are not able to wear any armor in human form and you look like The Thing. On top of that as all drakes you look like a dragon on the astral.
Ryu
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Dec 7 2011, 02:12 AM) *
The more hilarious solution is to take Geomancy, and aspect it to your tradition. It is an incredibly long-term thing to do, and most GMs will roll their eyes and shoot it down out of principle. But its definitely legal, and walking around with your own personal aspected domain is, frankly, awe inspiring. It will get you noticed. Much like cyberzombies. (Actually trying this in a game will probably earn you the same treatment as someone trying to play pun-pun.)

"No my friend, not even a Fomori/Western Drake is large enough for GEOmancy." Hilarious indeed wink.gif


You can get all your combat skills by being possessed; it would justify fighting possessed whenever possible. Points saved can improve Spellcasting and Summoning.
Dakka Dakka
QUOTE (Ryu @ Dec 7 2011, 08:09 PM) *
You can get all your combat skills by being possessed; it would justify fighting possessed whenever possible. Points saved can improve Spellcasting and Summoning.
Only until you get Channeling.
Ryu
11 karma, 15 if you figure in Arcana 1. And a 10 karma head start is available.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Dakka Dakka @ Dec 7 2011, 11:37 AM) *
It's stun. The modified DV is compared to the modified armor rating. 7>7-1=6


7 hard, 9 total. So is it 7-1 = 6 + 2 (stun*) or 2-1 = 1 + 7 (none**)?

*7 is greater than 6 hardened (requires a roll), but less than 8 total (so not physical).

**7 is not greater than 7 hardened, ignored.
Udoshi
QUOTE (Dakka Dakka @ Dec 7 2011, 09:37 AM) *
@Granite Shell: this makes you pretty much unhireable as a Shadowrunner. You are not able to wear any armor in human form and you look like The Thing. On top of that as all drakes you look like a dragon on the astral.


I'm going to point out this is a misconception. Granite shell does NOT make you unable to wear normal armor.
It just doesn't stack with it. You get either-or, and suffer encumbrance for all of it.
A troll drake, however, has enough body they can pretty much wear whatever they want.

So in human form, it would be advantageous to wear armor with a value greater than 3 or 4 (if a regular troll).

The thing, Though. that's pretty apt. now that I think about it, ben grimm had to have a hell of a Disguise skill.

Draco: One thing that 4th doesn't support is an order-of-armor-layering. Like, which outer layer gets removed first, or which armor value the AP takes away from first - which, in this case, makes a difference.
In this case, I would add the AP of the attack to the attack's DV before comparing it, instead of subtracting it from the armor, because the outcome of the attack depends greatly on which armor is penetrated 'first'. It preserves the intended effect of hardened armor(weak things bounce off) and incorporates regular armor's purpose(downgrading damage) without needlessly complicating things. Bear with me:

So 7P ap-1 vs 7 hard + 2 natural(9 total). With this reverse AP method, this is effectively 8 damage. It beats the Hardened armor, so isn't negated entirely, but doesn't beat the armor total, so is reduced to stun. For the following Damage Resistance test, the ap -1 still knocks a die off the soak test, as normal.
Basically instead of reducing the armor, just add it to the DV when you compare it to the armor.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Dec 8 2011, 06:20 PM) *
Draco: One thing that 4th doesn't support is an order-of-armor-layering. Like, which outer layer gets removed first, or which armor value the AP takes away from first - which, in this case, makes a difference.


Precisely the point I was trying to make.

QUOTE
In this case, I would add the AP of the attack to the attack's DV before comparing it, instead of subtracting it from the armor, because the outcome of the attack depends greatly on which armor is penetrated 'first'. It preserves the intended effect of hardened armor(weak things bounce off) and incorporates regular armor's purpose(downgrading damage) without needlessly complicating things. Bear with me:

So 7P ap-1 vs 7 hard + 2 natural(9 total). With this reverse AP method, this is effectively 8 damage. It beats the Hardened armor, so isn't negated entirely, but doesn't beat the armor total, so is reduced to stun. For the following Damage Resistance test, the ap -1 still knocks a die off the soak test, as normal.
Basically instead of reducing the armor, just add it to the DV when you compare it to the armor.


Effectively, that's "subtract from the HA first."
Yerameyahu
God forbid the mysad possession Fomori drake not be SURGED, with Hazing. smile.gif It'd be silly not to get the full set.
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