I think it's important to point out that it's (a) an optional rule, not a mandatory one, and (b) if you do choose to use it, the cinematic rules (or "rule of four," I guess we could call it?) works for everyone, not only the "legendary" NPC. The player characters won't be rolling against a difficulty of 5 while the NPC has a difficulty of 4, in other words. The suggestion is there to crank up the over-the-top action when such a legendary, larger-than-life, character is introduced into your name (and as one explanation for how some of the less-than-legendary characters, like Kellan Colt, still manage to get by and survive whole trilogies of adventures and stuff).

It's not there to stack the deck against your players, it's there to hype them up and make the whole adventure over the top, because holy shit that's Lofwyr (or whoever), so things just get cinematic and amped up.

Again, not quite. The rule quoted said you could either do it for everyone, *or* just the legendaries who spent 100(?) karma.

My problem is breaking normal game mechanics (especially in such a dramatic way,) just to give special, named characters a virtually-unbeatable advantage. They're already special, named characters; they should have high stats, virtually-unattainable gear, and so forth. Lofwyr owns Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries outright. An entire AAA Megacorp marches, quite literally, at his command. Hestaby? Everybody likes Hestaby! If you don't like Hestaby, you're a Complete Monster and everybody who likes Hestaby hates you. They're already Great Dragons, they have vast stats and incredible powers and tend to have a ridiculous number of buffs at an obscene Force Quickened on them at all times. FastJack? He's FastJack. The dude's rocking a Rating 10 commlink with Rating 10 everything, he's literally the example character for someone who has a superhuman skill rating of 7 in hacking and computer, and chances are if an aug which was beneficial to a hacker has been printed in any rulebook anywhere, he has it in Deltaware. Also, he's quite possibly Damian Knight. Cross him in the Matrix and the only way you survive is because he was feeling benevolent and forgiving.

They don't need to hit on a lower target number than the players. That's like saying that your big bag evil guy and his lieutenants get to roll 2d20 and take the highest value in D&D. It's literally changing the core dice mechanic to give an NPC an unfair fundamental advantage. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm all for NPCs who should have unfair advantages having those unfair advantages, but they don't need to break core mechanics to do so. If it has stats (and I'm of the opinion that if it can interact with the players at all, it has stats,) then there exists the theoretical concept that they can kill it. If they're feeling crazy enough to plan it, ballsy enough to try, and get lucky enough on the dice, they should succeed.




I mean, I do actually kind of like the TN 4 thing, but it would be something that I'd feel would apply to 'Fated' characters, starting with the PCs. Anyone else would get it only if they're a very big name or a very important character - FastJack, any Great Dragon, Nadja Daviar, some of the older and more badass and edition-surviving JackPoint regulars, etcetera, important antagonists like anyone who's important enough to occupy a single-person slot on a criminal or corporate organization chart. Not random guys, not lieutenants, not even named-but-not-all-that-special characters.

The Delta is required for the fact that it's a metasapient.

Wrong thread, Lantzer?

While my statement was more generalized than that, yes you would Need Delta, or Type 0

No, he's just responding to a post prior to the whole "TN4 for Dragons" thread derailment.

You are incorrect, perhaps because -- and if so, I'm sorry -- the final wording chosen was unclear.

"To reflect this, gamemasters may wish to apply some of the "Cinematic Gameplay" rules (see p. 75, SR4A) to all characters [emphasis mine] when using these characters in a game."

The next paragraph continues with "If gamemasters wish to apply these rules in a more systematic fashion, charactes who have achieved 500 karma can spend 100 Karma to obtain Legendary status, which means they roll successes on 4s, 5s, or 6s." This allows a GM to implement the rule in their own campaign, for their own players, should they wish to do so. You'll note that "Legendary status" isn't a rule anywhere else, it isn't a power or ability listed on any of the NPCs statted up in the book, and there are certainly no notations of how much karma any of them have earned, or whether or not any of them have spent it on said status; this second paragraph applies to players or GM-created NPCs only. Only the first paragraph, which suggests utilizing the Cinematic Gameplay rules during a game that has these high-power, high-profile, characters, applies.

So, trust me. These optional rules aren't in place to further stack the deck against players, I assure you. The rules are there to help the players just as much as the NPCs, and to make the whole game a little wilder and more over-the-top when such characters are sharing the stage with your players.

I thought ShadowDragon was quite eloquent and it was a interesting read. I agree 100%, when I read that the...Ghost Dragon? I cannot remember the name.. took over that one city I was like Noooooo that would never happen.

Now to be honest, regardless of how powerful they show up in Street Legends, they are not immune to Radiation, meaning one invoked Force 8 Radiation Elemental with the Storm power can depopulate a multi-mile section of the planet ( I think F8 is something like a 160 mile radius, and Detect enemies would not catch that since its not directed at them). After that Harli and everyone else has 1d4 days to live.

Critias, yeah, I was only going on the wording quoted in the thread. It certainly seems like 'you only get it if you spend 100 karma' is given as an option. Thanks for the clarification.

ShadowDragon, my point was that, given you'd already said their stats were unbeatable… how could one more advantage matter? Like I said, there are clearly much bigger systemic issues, from your perspective.

… What's a radiation elemental? Is this Order of the Stick, or is that a Toxic thing?

I don't know if you have me on ignore, you're ignoring me the old fashioned way, you just haven't responded to my posts yet, or what...but your indignation is not justified, because what you describe is not the case. The rest of your post makes it clear this is something you feel strongly about, and with good reason, and it makes quite a bit of sense -- but it rails against a non-existent issue.

The rule in question does not work like you seem to think it works.

No harm, no foul. Just...maybe next time you correct someone, you should read the actual rule you say they're getting wrong, y'know?

I did. From the quote I read (from you, in the Artisan thread), it didn't say that. I agree: the wording is misleading. However, I had no reason to assume the quote was wrong or inadequate.

Actually, Ghostwalker taking over Denver I can see. Denver was in a fucked-up five-way Cold War Berlin situation where five nations were trying to lay claim to it. Nobody's going to drop orbital weapons on Denver when there's the chance that getting any collateral damage on someone else's section of the city will spark another Big One. After the immediate battle was completed, you're facing a city which five nations and now a Great Dragon lay claim to, but only the Great Dragon has any military presence within. You'd either have to have gotten all five nations to agree to re-conquer Denver together, or go with more reasonable option of legitimizing Ghostwalker's claim to the area of Denver as his ancient nesting grounds and in return he lets you (minus Aztechnology, who pushed far too long and hard on him,) keep nominal control over your districts.







Likewise. I was under the mistaken belief that it applied only to BigName NPCs as an extra advantage.



They have stats, thus they can be killed. It takes some doing, but Lofwyr offing that other one who was crowding his Germany a little too much for his liking proves it's more than possible.

Thus, giving them a ridiculous extra advantage annoys me. Frankly, I'm thinking of stripping their whole "lol no you didn't get to spend Edge after all" power, because it's cheese of the highest order and rubs me incredibly wrong.



Toxic

Oh, thanks.

Show us on the doll where Twist Fate rubbed you, ShadowDragon. Still, I think the point stands: the problem isn't being annoyed by one or the other advantage. The problem is that you have a fundamentally different position on what *all* their stats should be. I agree: if you don't like X or Y, leave them out… but you should also address A-W, probably first.

Me, I also hate the rating: 50 this and the Force: 50 that. Actually, the bigger problem is that magic is uncapped when everything else is capped. But for most PCs, it is more of a theoretical problem; great dragons illustrate the problem graphically. Personally, I think even a great dragon should be SOL going up against a modern tank or aircraft, call for backup against a squad of cyberzombies, and be at least slightly worried by an entire team of runners with decently powered mages and heavy weapons. Instead of no-selling everything like Superman being attacked by a common mugger, they should, while still being powerful, have to rely on tactics, planning, and security precautions like everyone else.

While I agree with the 'no gods' principle, I do also think that runners shouldn't be able to change the world (meaning, in massive ways). It's so boring, to me, to hear that the GM let some players destroy a city, or kill Dunkelzahn (yes, I know), etc. Talk about not 'deserving' it.

Right here, above my sense of fair play and behind my sense of good sportsmanship, just left of my creativity.




I don't have a problem with their physical stats as-presented. They are, after all, Great Dragons. They should be massively powerful titans in the physical arena, and they're both ancient and incredibly cunning, so they should have mental stats to match.

Even their Magic ratings are only slightly overstated, I'd say. Frankly I think they should land somewhere near the rest of their stats - not Magic 50 or some ridiculous horse-shit, but in the mid-teens to twentysomething. High, and higher than is practical for a player character to reach unless he's been active nonstop since Shadowrun 1st Edition, but not so ridiculously high that it's like "lol bucket of dice you just lose."

What pisses me off is Twist Fate. Edge isn't just any stat. Edge is a Hero Stat. Most people in the world don't get Edge at all. Edge is the measure of the difference between a normal mortal man and a hero, someone with the power to reshape the world for good or for ill. That stat, Dragons shouldn't get to have higher than 6, 7 with the Lucky quality, same as anybody else.

It pisses me off that they actually wrote down that a Dragon can spend a point of his own Edge and no-sell a player's Edge use.




*Resonance isn't capped.

I don't think a Great Dragon should be that weak. Ripping apart a tank or blasting a jet fighter out of the sky should be nothing to a Great Dragon. It should be the fact that tanks and jets tend to come in squadrons that should worry him.

I also don't like the idea that Cyberzombies are some kind of heinously incredibly strong unkillable survival-horror monster. The frame of it is still a human; more machine than metal, yes, but I don't think a cyberzombie (barring the specific application of protective magic) should be far more unkillable than, say, an anthroform war-drone being piloted by a jarhead or a remote rigger just by virtue of gaining ItNW for some ridiculous reason equal to twice its negative Essence score.





See, I'm of the opposite.

It's so boring to me to hear that the players are scum-scuckers who can never accomplish anything huge and will never amount to anything more than a rat who managed to escape the rat-race. They may start that way, but the right player character in the right place, at the right time, with the right stats, equipment, planning, backup, heavy artillery, and no small amount of luck, should be able to make a mark on the world that resembles that a Great Dragon would make.

They have to earn it, of course, but the possibility should be there.

Fair play and sportsmanship? What RPG are you playing?

I'm fine with great dragons being more than just big magic beasts; Twist Fate is unique. And I'm fine with great dragons being somehow so magical that fate indeed affects them differently. But, I don't care strongly either way about Twist Fate specifically.

How can that be boring? It's a game about being a shadowrunner (not an Exalt), which is a fun-filled life (albeit short) of killing, stealing, etc. Oh well. My point is that I've never seen or heard of anyone actually earning it. The GM basically hands the PCs everything, after all. We can never know if it was a 'real' challenge, etc. I don't think it's a game of heroes or 'deserving' things in the first place.

*shrug* Cyberzombies aren't human anymore, frame or otherwise. They're tragic and evil spirit-host hybrid abominations.

With that build, you should seriously consider getting some Karma for a Magic raise and by 'Smashing Blow'

It was a old post when I was a fresh faced newbie who thought 20 Armor was a big deal, you could probably do better nowadays with the extra books and such. I thought it was a neat idea honestly, but so is a six armed person suppressing a area six times with full auto grenade launchers.

Fixed.

The anti-tank weapon of the future will be a troll - with a giant slingshot - that fires a pixie adept with smashing blow at the tank.

I can see armies of elves dressed in green running around with butterfly nets catching more ammunition and putting them in jars for later.

Make them shine and we have those silly Stargate weapons.

Are you talking about Scrotax the Impregnator?