First question: I've got a player that's going to be playing a drake summoner who has designed his own tradition. Obviously, his Combats spells are Fire to fit with the Dragon mythos. He currently has no attack spells that are Fire-based, instead he's using Iron Feather and Lightning Bolt. I strongly dislike the rules for Electricity damage and think that he is taking Lightning bolt just to abuse the broken rules. I also think it's MASSIVELY outside of this tradition. Ignoring GM Fiat, is there anything in the rules that would allow me to veto this power? If it matters Air (which I personally think is where electricity fits as an element) is his Illusion school.

Second question: We're going to be heading to Bogota. For now, they're on the Amazonian side. How likely would it be for the average Aztechnology soldier to have the non-conductive armor upgrade? What about various spec op teams or mercenary units?

Third question: Should I just let him be and let him kill something every round, regardless of how tough if actually is?

Lightning Bolt like all indirect combat spells has very high drain and is relatively easy to resist. So in my opinion Electricity damage is not overpowered...when it's coming from Lightning Bolt. Combat-wise, Stunbolt is the spell to worry about.

Stick'n'Shock ammunition, on the other hand, is a wee teensy bit overpowered. Nothing like a semi-automatic weapon that can fire 2 Force 6 Lightning Bolts per turn and fire 30 Force 6 Lightning Bolts before taking a Simple Action to reload...with no Drain whatsoever.

Also strictly rules-speaking, Combat Spells being associated with Fire Spirits doesn't require you to have/limit you to Fire-based combat spells.

Secondly, I don't imagine that the average Aztlaner GI would be rocking the non-conductivity, but for special forces types? Almost certainly, along with their Military Armor and Chemical Seal. SF in SR is not to be uh, F'd with.

Thirdly, I wouldn't necessarily nerf him, just adapt enemy tactics accordingly. If he's really dropping one hostile every round, then he should be drawing SERIOUS heavy fire accordingly. Ever heard of "Geek the Mage"? It's a valid tactic. And spellcasters in games I GM have learned to keep their heads down because of it.

Given how common tasers are in the 6th world, I'd be very surprised indeed if the standard Azzie soldier was without non-conductivity 6 on their body armor.

Won't claim I can help with the first question but for the second, if the rules are broken then the army in-game would have spotted it. Therefore, I'd expect non-conductivity to be damn common. Hell, my team of Denver runners upgrade to it for everything and they expect the NPCs to do the same.

First off, TALK WITH THE PLAYER. Voice your concerns about his choices. If he can give you good, convincing reasons as to why he has Fire as his Combat element, but is using Electricity instead, let him. If he pegs the BS detector's needle, on the other hand, tell him that you're not going to accept the character and he needs to do a rebuild.

Secondly, given the existence of SnS ammo, tasers, and enemy mages with lightning bolts, it is completely possible for Aztechnology soldiers to have non-conductive armor; remember that all warfare is an ever-escalating race between warhead and armor, and that every time in history (save once, and that lead to half a century of cold war) that someone invented a way past the other side's armor, the armor got modified to compensate. (i.e. invention of the rapier was to get through the gaps in plate mail and into the fleshy bits underneath; the armor then got little disks of metal to cover those bits).

Thirdly, if he's killing something every round, well, have the baddies react accordingly and with a brain. If sending in infantry is just gonna get them fried, Artillery is your friend. Look at the real life example of the sniper that the Russians called "The White Death"; when they found out that he was operating in an area, they just started shelling the place, rather than send in troops that would just get killed. Put eye-popping bounties on his head. Have Amazon and Aztechnology dragons start showing up, trying to recruit this new, very lethal drake, and being rather (i.e. lethally) annoyed when he turns them down. Leak intelligence that a target that he'd be a fool to pass up will be at XYZ coordinates in two days... and when he shows up, an entire unit of dragon-hunter spec-ops is lying in wait. Have the enemy soldiers be ready to alert high command that they've encountered powerful enemy resistance... not knowing that high command is willing to bomb the area, even with them in it, just to be rid of this guy. And so forth.

Basically, if he's gonna spec himself out to be a one-drake killing machine, respond in a manner in which a rational enemy would respond to such a killing machine.

Be glad that he just nerfed himself and took and indirect combat spell instead of stunbolt/stunball - because these are far better than every indirect spell (F6 Lightning Bolt: Drain 6, F12 Stunbolt: 5 Drain - Indirect spells can be dodged with reaction+counterspelling and are restisted with body+half armor, direct spells can't be dodged and are resisted with willpower+counterspelling)

What Neurosis said: the type of spirit associated with Combat spells has nothing to do with which Combat spells the character learns or can learn. Fire spirits are also associated with Combat spells in the Hermetic tradition, yet I've never heard anyone suggest that Hermetic mages should only be able to cast fire-based Combat spells.

My advice would mirror bibliophile20's.

Okay, thanks guys! So, I've already talked with the player, that's what brought me to the boards. I didn't realize Lightning Bolt was indirect, so hopefully that will make things a bit easier on me since it's easier to negate. I've already warned him of "Geek the Mage," so he's not going to be surprised. I hadn't thought of having random dragons stop by and try and forcefully recruit him, thanks for that idea Bibiliophile20. After seeing everyone else's comments about S'n'S, I'm definitely feel guilty having the rank-and-file have non-conductive. I've house-ruled S'n'S to be shotgun-only ammo and so it's nowhere near as wide spread, meaning that they probably wouldn't plan for it (and by extension, lightning-based attacks). Spec-ops and mercenary units will still have it for sure though.

No problem--after all, that's one of the occupational hazards of being a drake. When you first shift, I think it was described as there being a little chime announcing to all of the dragons on the planet that there was a new drake on the market. Come and get it, while supplies last!

Lightning Bolt shouldnt' be too bad, and nothing in the rules limits what spells you need to take or can take. The player doesn't seem to be that overpowered in my opinion. If being a drake was going to be an issue, before he created the character would have been the time to mention stop that.

I don't think the rank and file security guards would have non conductive armor. (The exception is if the PCs have made a name for themselves against this corporation and the corporation learns the PCs are up to something and are therefore ready for the PCs, and it is well known they have this guy that casts eletricity damage, then perhaps they have some non conductive armor.)

I think the easiest solution would be to have an enemy mage summon a spirit. This could be a nice challenge. Maybe have a really nasty troll with the non conductive armor (and make his armor really stand out like he is the leader of the group. I.e. don't just add non conductive armor, but add other options to the armor perhaps even making it military grade armor. Give him a weapon that makes him stand out as well, maybe an obvious cyber arm and cyber eye. Make him someone special so that it doesn't come off as a I'm just messing with you type of character, but someone who in the game world really would have taken those precautions)

Of course any kind of special forces may have it. (Perhaps the corp has a special forces unit specifically designed to take mages out.)

Hell Hounds are always fun.

Or maybe there is another drake that works for the oposing team?

Make sure the players continue to have fun. Give them challenges but don't just try to screw one of them over. Also Opponents with Edge can always even the odds.

I'd disagree with this. I would say most non-swat cops or patrol men may have some sort of nonlethal weapon on them - whether its a stun stuck, mace, or stick and shock rounds. Because sometimes you don't want to make a bloody massacre in the news, and nonlethal rounds can often be quick takedowns. Electricity is a fantastic, rechargable way of doing so (there's a whole slew of electric/sonic crowd control weapons in arsenal). Having your security force's own gear have built in insulation to prevent accidental friendly fire is cheap enough to be cost effective .

edit: I wouldn't necessarily say it would be at max rating, but most armor comes with stock mods from 1-3, and I can easily see some form of nonconductivity and/or chemical protection being part of standard security armor.

Relying on combat to challenge your players is not the best GM plan.

I fully agree with this post - my corporate security forces always have a taser and/or a stun baton, and their armor normally has 2-3 points of nonconductivity, a biomonitor and fire resistance 2-3.

Lightning Bolt isn't an excessively powerful spell, and you're not obligated to match spirit and spell elements. Maybe you can convince him to also take a fire spell just for flavor reasons though? Ignite (Manipulation) is a versatile and effective spell.



It's more common for security guards than for soldiers. Tasers make good low- to mid-range weapons, with good damage output, AP and they're more or less legal to carry, so security guards will face them regularly.

Even on the high end, the AP capability of electrical attacks (like shotgun-SnS, or tasers in the generally short-distance combats you get in a jungle) are important and make those guns effective especially against heavily armored opponents, but they compete against other BGS, so it's a toss-up: if the enemy uses them a lot, it's time to armor your troops against them.

There's only so many armor mods you can stick into any suit of armor, and Bogota has an extreme jungle environment, which probably means you need to stick some sort of climate and perhaps anti-bio/chem-warfare mods into the armor too, so it's possible they couldn't also put in non-conductivity.

So, final verdict: sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. If the players have the appropriate Knowledge skills, they might be able to recognize the armor, or the uniform and know whether those regiments typically carry non-conductive armor.



Offense is generally stronger than defense in SR. It's not too hard to get the dice pools to kill a guard or two every IP, 3 IPs in a row. However, the PCs are almost as fragile, and a handful of guards concentrating their fire on a single PC stand a good chance of dropping that PC in one round too. This is how the game is; don't get too attached to nameless NPC guards.

That doesn't have to stop you from having enjoyable, challenging combats. But you should adjust your expectations a bit; expect the PCs to blow through most NPCs pretty quickly. They have to, because otherwise they're dead themselves. Even letting NPCs live long enough to sound the alarm can be disastrous, so they really need to triumph at high speed in nearly every combat if they want to do a mission perfectly. This means there is actually a great deal of pressure on them to not slip up even once, which alone can make things exciting.

Second, consider that everyone knows they're all fragile; nobody wants to die. So NPCs will try to make it harder to hit them, by taking cover a lot, and not standing closely together as easy grenade, wide burst or Stunball targets. Also, they can and should throw a lot of grenades, because those are dirt cheap and quite scary.

PCs can't just walk onto the middle of the battlefield and shout "bring it on!", they'll be dead by the end of the IP. Once they realize they need to be careful, the kill rate slows down a bit.

Yeah, Aztlan soldiers don't need non-conductivity because they have 20 other guys with assault rifles, a couple mechanized infantry with autocannons and mobile artillery support to tear you to pieces.

If you can ever avoid fighting against an army, you should do that.

First, points to bibliophile20 for bringing the Ultimate Sniper into the thread. I read some of his history through a random research tangent some months back and was shocked and amazed by the whole story.

Second, there have already been some great suggestions on how to handle the bit of a lapse between the Drake's tradition and spell choices. Ultimately, the choice is more thematic than anything. That said, if the character has a tradition that favors the element of Fire for combat/battle usage, I would expect a character following said tradition to at least make some effort. If a player in one of my games decided to make a magician of say, an Asatru tradition and took Thor (~Dragon Slayer) as a mentor, I'd be expecting a whole lot of lightning and storm themed magic from the character. It wouldn't necessarily matter if Air was the type of Combat Spirits tied to the tradition because that would still be in keeping with the overall theme of the tradition. Otherwise, why choose that flavor for your tradition or for that character in particular? The choice of Traditions and Mentor Spirits are all thing you can use to add more depth and background to a magician character and squeak a few benefits out too. Blatantly disregarding or trying to abuse that would sour my opinion on the character concept.
-Note: I'm pretty sure there is a Norse Shamanic tradition in one of the books already, but I just randomly chose the example above, nor was I inclined to go digging at the moment.

Third, its all about reaction. I've told my players on numerous occasions that I am not personally trying to kill them. I never try and single anyone out unfairly or anything else of the sort. Those statements come with a huge BUT though. If you are playing a character who is not covering their tracks or constantly blowing things up in flashy fashion, you are going to start attracting attention. Sure, some bad guys are going to be idiots and not think twice about charging the Street Sam who just chopped their buddies to shreds, but not all of them. Probably not most of them. I just very thoroughly warn my players that I work very hard at getting inside the heads of all of the NPCs moving around in the game and I will have them react and act appropriately in response to the players actions and any other stimuli that may happen to affect them. In practice, it gives me a bit of a headache sometimes, but I have a great deal more fun running the game when I really throw everything I can into roleplaying the NPCs that way.

That's not exactly true. Drakes are hunted down by dragons that hear about them for two reasons:
1) If they're a free agent, the dragon wants them working for them.
2) If they're not, they're not working for me, therefore they have to die.

In any case, do be aware of the "these aren't in the book, but should have been" rules about drakes/shifters:

1) Shifting is a complex action.

2) If the shifter's Body is greater than the highest Armor value (regular clothing has armor rating 0), then the clothing is ripped apart and destroyed during Shift. If the shifter's Body is lower, then they injure themselves and are entangled in the armor. The DV is equal to the Armor rating. Since shifters regenerate, it isn't a huge issue, but extracting themselves might require some sort of Escape Artist test, or shifting back to human form. And likely is accompanied by much laughter and pointing of onlookers.

Source

Yeah, i was going to go ahead and chip in at the original topic, but then I realized everyone else pretty much had it covered and i didn't want to jump in on the dogpile

You may wish to consider looking at the sidebar in RC that allows drakes to change their breath weapon's element, and let your player breath lightning instead of fire, since its more thematically appropriate.

I've actually been reading the SR3 dragon book, so I'm getting to know the background fluff that (for some retarded reason) was left out of SR4.

Draco18s: Thank you for the info. I had already assumed that shifting was a complex action. As far as the armor thing, I was planning on handling it like D&D 3.5 where armor and gear it just melds into the new form and is unusable while they're shifted. I can't say I really like the idea of destroying armor or potentially maiming a player just because they didn't waste the actions to strip naked.

Of course, feel free to do it that way.

Although it was amusing in my game when we had to keep finding the bear shifter (troll) new pants.

Or when he took them off and asked me to carry them.

Ahhh... Bear Who Walks Through Walls... you were the best.

Yeah, hurting the player for not taking rational actions ('wasting' them) is what SR is all about. It's a modern-future game, not D&D.

IIRC a lot of it is in Running Wild.

Yup. Almost killed the mage with devil rats last Friday because the player didn't think.

He should be glad that it wasn't Demon Rats.

He almost wandered into their nest in the old warehouse manager's office. The devil rats had the second-rate nests around the building's periphery.

I think we've had a conversation at length about how our GMing styles differ before. ^_~ I actually agree that it fits the system, but we didn't know the answer so I made a call. I don't want to retcon it now, however, because after thinking about it I really like the idea of a raccoon shifter sneaking into the heating ducts of a museum in racoon form and then magically shifting back into his fully geared human form once he's inside. Besides, shifters as a whole in my universe tend to get a bad rap (they're not human and most people can tell, even if it's just "there's something wrong about that boy...") and they don't need more punishment from me.

Also, to further explain my comment about "wasting actions," I kinda see it as something that would be funny the first time a player forgets, but would quickly grow to old every time they forget specifically to tell me that they removed their armor. I take a lot of shortcuts around prep time because my group does NOT like picking and choosing loadouts for missions and things (regular legwork they quite enjoy though). For example, they all have two seperate lists of equipment: the "this stuff goes with me on every mission" and the "list of stuff I keep in my trunk/locker/garage at the safe house." If they're bringing anything extra, they tell me (and I will always ask), but we gloss over outfitting very quickly. I saw removing armor to shift as the same repetitive actions my players don't like to play through, which was a huge factor into why I made the call. I have also instituted a "sanity limit" to prevent the team from just handing over all the gear to a shifter and using him to sneak it around check points. Basically, they get 1-2 small (or broken down) weapons and anything they can fit into a tactical vest. Beyond that and the extra gear just appears off to the side (or on top of) the player. Yes, it's handwavium (or, as we say in my play group "Infused with DARK magicks!"), but it's a gentleman's agreement that I have with my players that works very well.

Oh, by the way, per fluff on page 82 of Conspiracy Theories (emphasis mine):

Told ya. ^_~

Lightning Bolt is probably in the bottom third of combat spells. Drake is definitely in the bottom third of player options. Chill.

You can make drakes work, I've done it. Had a fairly effective non-combat drake character (who blindly walked into a combat situation twice in almost as many game-minutes, almost got himself killed twice).

It worked and I had fun with it. Which was kind of the whole point.

My goal was to make every single BP I spent being a drake an advantage and I did.

Could you elaborate? I've seen drakes getting a lot of bad press here, so I'm curious how you did that.

Stripped down build of what I had. I took out all of the stuff that made my character more of a person and left only the raw bits that made the build a build (so it can be customized for others' use).

I was hoping for more of a description of the idea, less stats. I don't like reading stat blocks, that's why I avoided D&D...

Sorry, but it's a lot of typing to point out every single way that each of a drake's abilities are utilized.

However, first and foremost:

Drake has armor (human doesn't: shifting benefit)
Drake has higher stats (shifting benefit)
Drake is dual natured (shifting benefit)
Eastern drakes have hands (shifting non-detriment; allows sign language)
Drakes have no vocal chords (shifting non-detriment: see above)
SURGE chameleon skin quality (bonus dice to stealth while naked: shifting benefit)

Etc.

Oy, SURGE eastern drakes. It would be sad if that was the only remotely 'effective' variety of drake. That said, sign language seems like a hell of a detriment… how about drake trodes?

Dual-Natured is usually a drawback, and that amount of natural armor is usually considered worthless.

I was building for a specific roll (infiltration) and it was sort of "candy tech." It's by no means required.



Trodes don't work on drakes in dracoform.
The only other option is the Mindlink and Mindnet spells. But Mindnet's drain was way too high for my character to pull off, esp. if he wanted the extended range version.



Drakes are only dual natured in dracoform so it's less of a drawback than it is with other critters.
As for the low armor, yes, it is. But as I was specifically desiring that armor as a benefit (as opposed to a detriment) I took what I could. He was a college student of the computer sciences, he wasn't ever looking to get in a fight.
Admittedly, he did have the Mystic Armor adept power, because to some degree I knew that fights were going to be inevitable and that only 4 armor dice wasn't going to be enough.

Yeah, the lack of drake trodes is why I did the big smiley. Wishful thinking.

I kinda think it *is* required, though, which was my point. I would always want hands (especially if I lacked trodes). Any drake I ever sketched out seems to end up a SURGE Eastern Mysad, myself.

You can, with a lot of work, make drakes who are alright. But you can do that with anything, pretty much. If you put that much work into something more innately effective than a drake, it would be more effective in the end.

Really, I have no idea why people think Drakes are overpowered. At best, I might be willing to believe that very carefully built drakes might be on par with other options for some very specific roles. I think people just assume that because they are supposed to be rare, they must be OP.

For shooting a gun, if nothing else.



I've attempted a western drake rigger, but it ends up coming down to the vehicle modification rules. At what point does one give up and just allow the drake to mount turrets on a harness he's wearing?

Afterall, even an ultra-light aircraft capable of "being folded up into a suitcase" can take mounted guns (although it's a bit pricey and the commercially available personal flyer costs less and all around better stats).

Seadrakes I see as being the least viable (baring an ocean going campaign, even then an eastern would probably perform just as well, if not better).

Quetzaldrakes* the next least viable (they're what, exactly like westerns minus a few handy bonuses?)

*Portmanteau of quetzalcoatl + Drake

Draco18s, where do you get the ruling that they're only dual-natured in their drake form?

Edit: Never mind, I found it buried in Runner's Companion, but doesn't any one else find it strange that they're not dual-natured all the time?

Oh yes, everyone does.

They deserve one tiny little advantage… though they're sitting ducks if they ever actually use their ability.

Is there something I'm missing about dual-natured beings? I would think that would be an advantage, not a hindrance. I know that they're vulnerable to "physical" assault from the astral (which in my mind is countered because they can fight right back), but is there anything else?

Dual-natured beings are stuck with their normal body's movement (unless they are projecting, too), so astral mages can flit about zapping them with manabolts. They cannot turn their dual nature off (most people can do this by ceasing to astrally perceive), so they are hindered by wards (that's the biggest drawback), and more vulnerable to FAB III bacteria. Being a mage can mitigate the worst of this, especially with masking, but mundane characters can really suffer from being dual-natured.

One advantage drakes have, though, is that they have natural weapons, which they can use astrally, so they don't need to learn a separate skill (astral combat) just to defend themselves with. And being able to fly on the physical plane negates some of a purely astral opponent's maneuverability advantage (although they still can't match astral speeds).

Ah, right, I forgot about the wards. Didn't think about the movement thing though, that really sucks.

Again. given that drakes can turn it off, by becoming (meta)human again, it's not as big a drawback.

Yeah, only a drawback whenever they actually use their powers. Better than Ghouls (except they can easily remove it, and keep their buffs), worse than mages.

True, very true.