I'm a big fan of false or incomplete information. Maybe the 'runners got intel that there is a vampire with a ghoul entourage, but it turns out just to be gangers on Renfield - they share a lot of the same characteristics, and Renfield will pop you as HMHVV-positive on tests.


Entirely possible that their "normal" is different from yours - I know my "normal" is far and away from others'. Also, ghouls are actually quite amazing, actually. I'd love to play one, especially one that turns during gameplay and has to cope with the stresses of his new condition.


Rigging is also completely acceptable. It only takes money to get good at Rigging, using the Remote Control rules. Invest a bit in a decent drone and you can go into confined locations against ghouls any time without fear of catching the disease. Just remember to bleach the crap out of the drone before you touch it again...


Burning Edge to get a Critical Success is only allowed if the dicepool is high enough where that would be a possibility...


Glitching/Critical Glitching. Since there's a possibility of failure, roll them dice.

Jaid.

How do you fail a roll that requires no success to succeed? Why do you even roll it? Because what I hear you say, is that if you manage to get 8 successes on the resistance roll on the first go, then the power of the disease is reduced to 0, and the 9 subsequent resistance rolls are against Power 0, meaning that you succeed by rolling 0 or more successes. In other words, you can't fail the roll. Even with a dice pool of 0 you will always succeed, because you need no successes. Arguably even a critical glitch will succeed, because you still meet the requirement of no successes, in order to succeed on the roll.

Also, if the disease can be beaten by getting 8 successes on the first roll, why go through the trouble of describing that you have to make at least 10 rolls?

I agree with you that the rules (like many other in SR...) could have been better and more clearly written. Hands down they could. But your logic just doesn't add up for me. To me, the "IF" statement simply refers to the situation where you get enough successes to completely counter the Power 8 disease attack. The rules tell us to make at least 10 resistance tests for the HMHVVIII disease. They tell us that the test is a resistance test against Power 8 with a -6 penetration modifier. The rules tell us that unresisted Power of a test carries over to the next test, where it is added to the power of the new test. But obviously there is nothing to carry over to the next test, IF you manage to resist the full Power 8 of the test. But that doesn't mean that you don't get hit by the next test of the original type (Power 8, Penetration -6), unless you've already made all 10 tests, and don't have any unresisted Power left to resist against.

I realise that we are probably going to have to let this go with an agreement to disagree in the end, but I'd still like to know why you need to make a test that can't be failed, given that it has not power to affect you in the first place?


/Kyrel

Technically speakinjg, a critical success in SR4.5 is four *net* succeese. So burning a point of Edge would cure you right off the bat.

As for why you roll a test, there's always the chance of critical failure. Sometimes, because of drama or situation, you should make the roll, even if you're highly unlikely to fail. I typically only do it for comedy value, but I would make someone roll in combat, too.

As an example: I was playing in a D&D 3.5 game fighting a dracolich. In the first round, the fighter managed to connect with a disrupting weapon, which forced a save or die on the dracolich. The DM grinned and said: "Fine, but he only will fail on a natural one." He rolled, and got a nat 1. Dracolich became instant dust. Same thing happened to a room full of elder vampires when I threw a Sunburst on them. Four of them rolled Nat 1's.

Crits happen. As do critical failures. Sometimes it's worth rolling them, and only the GM can know when that is.

I agree Cain. As long as there is a chance of success/failure, you should roll the dice, regardless of how little the chance is. A dice pool of 1000 and a threshold of 1 success can still fail, even if the odds are astronomically against it. But the question is, "can you fail a roll that can't fail"? If you need no successes to succeed, why do you need to roll? And can a (critical) glitch still fail, if there is not point of not succeeding?

I agree with your Dracolich example, but what if a roll of 1 had also succeeded?

There's a difference between "cannot fail" and "highly unlikely to fail". In the 3.5 rules we were using, a nat 1 always failed on a save, so he had to roll, especially since it was in the middle of combat.

SR4.5 doesn't have any guaranteed success, so there's always the chance of a critical fumble. That said, there *is* an autosuccess rule: you can just buy successes, which is allowed as long as there's no pressing danger (i.e., in the middle of combat). I would probably allow that to be used in this case. Characters with a low Resistance pool can't buy successes, of course, but then again they're at a greater risk for a botch.

You see what I'm getting at? There are times when you want them to roll, and there are times when you need a success test, just to make sure. Or, for comedy-- I've made players roll a lot of "not 1" checks to do simple but noncritical things. The results can be hilarious, and then you resolve things before you move on. For example, I had an Int 1 troll in one of my games. One time, he wanted to find his way to the meet, and asked if he could roll to use GPS. I said sure, why not? He critically fumbled. After chuckling evilly, I told him he accidentally installed Apple Maps, and now was in a sex shop next to the life size Bubba dolls. We all laughed, then we got him to the meet, slightly late and with a flogger strapped to his belt.

because you can still glitch. as i've noted a couple of times already, with 1 or 2 dice, it isn't even unlikely to happen.

Just my suggestions:

First of all, Ghouls have really good physical attributes, making them tougher than most opponents—but are by no means mindless, so they can be cunning too. This makes them nasty opponents, especially for newly built runners. On the first run I’d mostly err on the low side for the opposition, because the players may not make optimum use of their abilities yet, and of course sometimes dice just give odd results.

So, as a suggestion….a vampire with a ghoul partner. Once the vampire has finished playing with someone, the ghoul can eat them—efficient villains! To reduce the disease risk, the ghoul a) is technologically savvy and would rather shoot people, and/or b) doesn’t want to randomly infect people because it both creates more competition for bodies to eat and is apt to raise more o fa panic about ghouls, and he or she is clever enough to realize that it can more likely survive if it keeps a low profile.

Start off with some fairly low skill guards (enthralled), that the players should be able to take out fairly easily. This lets them get their legs under them. Do include one very high body troll with decent armor that doesn’t go down easily (20+ dice of soak, 13 box physical status track), to give them a feel for what ‘tough’ means in practical terms. That may be enough for one session, as it can be slow while everyone gets used to the rules, counting successes, etc. Maybe the characters even fall back and heal up.

Then have the ghoul and vampire pull a bit of an ambush at range (magic and a rifle respectively), but don’t make them too good at sneaking (i.e. moderately paranoid players have a decent chance of spotting it). Don’t block the player’s retreat, as it is possible that they will need to fall back. If it is looking too easy, then play the vamp’s back up plan of an enthralled para-critter, like a hell hound, coming at the players from the side, and give the vampire and ghoul a chance to escape. If the players manage to take one or both of them down, more power to them, but these evil creatures would rather un-live to fight another day than stand and re-die in their hide out. (they aren’t actually undead in SR, but I can’t resist the word play). Whatever happens, the vamp and ghoul leave the base, be it running for their lives or leaving a base because it is clearly compromised and no longer safe for them.

Let the players live knowing that the vampire and ghoul (or whichever one survives) have it in for the players. Then let them understand about how infectious ghouls are, so how scary having one ambush you from short range would be. Let them find a well hidden entrance to their new base after a couple of missions…with fresh tracks going through it. Have someone’s car or motorbike trashed by someone clearly very strong while they are on another run. Then finally hit them with the revenge attack once they are beginning to feel confident in what they can do, and make the villains smart about it (sabotage vehicles to strand them in a bad spot, be sniping at them from the dark, hit them with a wave of enthralled innocents, etc)

One of my groups decided to make some extra cash by hunting toxic and blood mages for the 1 million bounty on them. They successfully bagged two alive; a toxic shaman using corrupted beast spirits and a blood adept drake that had Cannabalized his stats to remarkable levels and picked up Regeneration. The one that nearly resulted in a TPK, and one that they still fear today, was the Radiation Mage. To this day they're afraid of him.

The only difference between them, and the relevance to this discussion, was the tactics I employed on the Rad Mage. Granted, he was Channeling a F8-ish Toxic Fire Elemental, but he also used certain spells to change the game (Orgy, but using pain instead of pleasure, and Bind).