Greets,

I was thinking of ways to kill a Great Dragon.

Obvious ones are a thor shot and a nuclear weapon. What other ways are there?

What about character assassination instead, such as with Lofwyr?

Any other ideas?

Maybe you could feed him a cow full of C-12.

-Massive amounts of high explosives.
-Less high explosives, used on collapsing a building or something.
-Highly magical beings such as massive spirits, high-magic magicians, adepts with funky abilities.
-Emplaced weapons, especially railguns.
-Missile swarms.
-Bioweapons.
-Nano-dissassemblers.
-Radiation.
-Smashing large, high-speed vehicles (HCSTs & Suborbitals) into them.

There are many ways to do so, but none are exactly easy.

Specialized magic rituals maybe. One of Rat's novels had something about that I think. You could always just wait another 5000 years and kill them in their sleep.

However, the easiest way would probably be to have another Great Dragon (or two) get into a battle to the death with the one you want dead. This would not be an easy thing to accomplish, but if you could somehow managa to learn the absurd rituals and etiquette of dragons, you might be able to trick them into something.

I'm not sure character assassination would really work. Lowfyr is already known for eating people who upset him. What could you possibly say about him to make him worse?

More practically though, unless this is the focus of the campaign, no one should really be killing Great Dragons. Cannon has dictated that PCs are not good enough to do so. Specifically, I believe Survival of the Fittest mentioned that should any of the PCs attempt to kill a Great Dragon, they will cinematicly fail. I know that this has brought on much "discussion" on these forums before, so take it as you will.

Large (7) initiate group of talented (skill 7, magic 7+) ritual casters with a material link, idealy working in an area with a favourable background count, secure from back tracking (some sort of highly warded and/or underground fortress) good Edge stats and a good cross section of foci? Or is this just a different kind of nuke?

Several months of binding force 12 great form spirits to jump the dragon in astral, preferably those with regeneration - this IS just a different kind of nuke.

You may have trouble pulling these off without someone noticing. And is someone notices its a fair bet that a G. Dragon or his agents are paying to know about it.

A *stupid* number of drones running VERY heavy and AP intensive wepons?

Slowly build up radiation poisoning in his food supply?

Seriously, to be sure just hurl huge rocks at them from space. And even then make sure you can't be linked to it. I know the various dragons are not on the "same side" but it is in ALL of their best interests that Great Dragon Slayer be a VERY short lived carrer move.

I thought the Great Dragons were statted in Dragons of the Sixth World? As they say in D&D that which hath been statted can be killed.

This is a thought exercise. Or are all canonical characters beyond killing (although I would be curious to see if Harlequin bleeds rainbow if you slit his throat), even in the theoretical realm of what-if?

Suggested GD stats are given as an additive bonus to the base dragon stats in SR4. I don't know if any of the named ones are statted out in DotSW.

Nobody's beyond death, in my games. At least not technically. Practically, I don't think any players I've ever had would be able to succeed at killing one, but that's more a matter of 'not enough money or karma to realistically succeed'.

If a Great Dragon gets caught with his proverbial pants down by a well-equipped hit squad that's done careful planning, and is packing the requisite hardware... Well, let the dice fall where they may.

All of the suggestions above fit rather well especially Adarael's suggestions. In "Never Deal With a Dragon." I believe Sam Verner and company were able to kill a regular dragon with a large missile, so if you multiple that by some factor, it would be realistic to kill a great dragon in some way shape or form.

Wanted to chime in about the aftermath of killing one though. First politically, we can all know about the death of Big D and the meteor known as Dunklezahn's will which changed the landscape of the 6th world corporate and political structure. But physically I believe there is this huge large black hole or vortex floating around in the astral world by the Watergate Hotel where he died. Anyone and anything that has entered in or around that area has not returned.

Some of what has to be remebered is the stats in the book are "baseline" - the Great Dragons are customized from that, mostly up.
Killable: yes, Easy: F$%^ no.

The write up for Ghost Walker in the Missions felt about right: mechanincally killable. But get real. Several quickened spells at force 24 with a silly number of hits: dispelling such a thing could kill you, let alone hurting the dragon now that you've dropped his force 24 armor spell.
Several force 10 elementals in attendance, just in case someone "jumps him", I'm not sure the radiation thing would even work - a cure toxin or other useable spell would probably be on their rosters. I'm not sure I would want it to work: a Toxic Great Dragon? I'd really rather not.

Dispite its high power level Shadow run is far more "mortal" scaled then D&D (where killing dragons typically has pathetic repercussions - EXP. and riches). Top end PC's in D&D can re-write creation, take a unbelivable and stupid amount of damage and little to no effort is made to make the setting or abilities "believable". Heck I would compare such jugerknots to Great dragons... do you think your 20th level Wizard ™ can take your Shadowrun character?***

*** No one answer that, PLEASE

Killing Dragons....

Context.

Are we talking about a Great Dragon standing on one side of an arena facing X number of opponents who go at each other at the drop of a hat?

or

Are we talking about an almost unimaginably strong and smart experienced magical creature who has survived untold millennia of predation by entire races, powerful bands of immortals, and other creatures of it's own kind, against a group of PC shadowrunners?

Stats vs Stats, we can imagine numbers that might get big enough.

Tactics vs Tactics, there are tactics we can't even begin to imagine that the great Dragons will use. How can the runners counter that?

Personally, I wouldn't say that there is anyone (in Shadowrun) who is beyond killing. As I noted, should there be a campaign centered around this, it would be fine. However, it seems that, for the most part, the system is designed to be able to reflect beings a physical and mental scale similar to those of a human. It does not seem to quite reflect things as accurately as we would like. I'll use Strength as an example. The average human (ya know, folk like us) has a strength of 3. in Shadowrun (4th specifically, but the same things with different terms apply to the others as well) strength of 3 is three times as likely to achieve 1 hit on a base strength roll than someone with a strength of 1. However, strength of 1 is supposed to be the minimum that a person can have and still be able to function. The same is true for Strength 6 vs 3. Twice as many hits with 6 than three. These numbers scale linerally when used for tests. But if this is the case, than I personally would have a strength of 6 as I am able to lift and carry at least twice as much as the average person that I know. now, obviously this is not the case as Strength 6 is supposed to be really quite strong, and were I writing up a character sheet for myself I would probably only put a 4 in strength, I'm no superman and I know people who are stronger than me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the system is bad or anything like that. Only that I don't think that it will scale well. Even with a strength of say, 40 (I think I saw listed somewhere but I'm not recalling an exact number so this is a guess), I don't think that it quite shows mechanically the actual difference in strength that the flavor of it implies.

As for the Immortal (that is to say, unaging ) Elves. Their attributes will generally be able the same as your runners I would assume, but their magical power is supposed to be incredible. For instance in Earthdawn there is a (Circle 15, the highest possible, which I think it can be assumed IE's could have attained) spell for Nethermancers that called something about Army of the Dead (don't feel like looking it up) that brings to 'life' anyone who is burried within some number of miles radius of the caster (Note: this does take either a number of days or weeks), and one that can create a living being. Other Disiplines have similarly powerful magic. This is also not to mention that most of them have fought numerous Horrors, which make your elementals and insect spirits look like silly toys.

And no, all cannon characters are obviously beyond killing as they offed Captain Chaos for no good reason. (Yes I'm still bitter)

As for ways to do it? The other posters responses have been pretty much on it. Mostly, planning and resources. If you hit with enough of well... anyhing. You can probably do it. If you only THINK you have alot of firepower, like Aztechnology back in Denver thought, and attack a Great Dragon (Ghostwalker) you'll lose (like they did).

I think the hardest part of it all would really be to get the dragon/whomever into the trap. It's hard to do a co-ordinated nuke-strike on a dragon as it can fly away or use magic to, say, hurl the nukes away (which incidentally, would be much easier than soaking the damage from them exploding).

P.S. Yes, Harlequin does bleed rainbow. Or clear depending on his mood... and the weather... and the tightness of his shorts.

<James T. Kirk voice>

PCs. Just. Get. Used. By. Dragons.

</JTK voice>

Orbital Lasers, Thorshots, Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Great Dragon ATGM, Gauss-Rifles, Miniguns, Panther Cannons, Troll-Bows.

Make sure that whatever you do, you spend edge, it'll force the dragon to spend edge to negate your use of edge.

There was a long thread on this. Using RAW the magical ritual assassin team ate the GD for lunch.

force 24? the drain on that is 15...

that spell must have hurt, no matter what...

the real trick isn't getting something powerful enough to hurt the dragon. the trick is getting the dragon into a situation where you can even try to hurt it.

but yeah, if you can get the dragon in your sights, you can kill it.

I believe Firewing was killed by the German military about 50 years earlier in the timeline (mentioned in Dragons of the 6th world). I can't remember how, though. I'm surprised Aztechnology couldn't take out Ghostwalker considering the resources they have probably dwarf the German military's 50 years ago. It may be that the writers are trying to impress on us how much of a Badass Ghostwalker is, even compared to other GD's.

I'm STILL pissed they killed off Dunklezahn. He had more charisma and character than all the Immortal Elves put together, x 5. Can we drop a Tac Nuke on Tir na nOg yet? I hate that place.

i'd rather they didn't. if they drop a nuke on it, that means they're probably going to want to write a sourcebook on it. and that just isn't worth it.

on the other hand, if the government is somehow overthrown and replaced with a bunch of nobodies, that is evidently not enough to get them to let us know anything at all about it except for a chance mention every now and then. so i'm rooting for that to happen.

My original concept for the campaign Red Dawn Rising was not a Tac Nuke...

Tactics vs Tactics? Of course the runners can counter that.

Remember it is still all stats in the end. Does the Great Dragon have the (Whatever) Tactics skill (presumably a Knowledge skill)? If yes, how much? Does the runners have any similar skills? If yes, how much? Is anyone using Edge? Is the skill Logic or Intuition? Is anyone defaulting? Opposed rolls, please.

not following you on this. how do you boil down tactics to an opposed roll? tactics are not the sum of your abilities they are how you use them.

when you gm do you give your players tactical information based on a roll they make or do they have to think for themselves? are your npcs tactics completely governed by a dice roll?

I had this conversation with one of my other PCs the other day. He's from that "other" game, where he's used to killing just about anything and everything and ignoring the fact there are times he should run away. The PCs are starting to net a few enemies from Saeder-Krupp and he asked why don't they just find this dragon and assassinate him.

I basically said this is Shadowrun, not D&D. Sure, dragons are killable. Great Dragons are another beast entirely (no pun intended). Basically they are ~7,000+ years old, Magic scores in double digits - similar Initiate Grades and stacked spells/focii up the wazoo. I then regalled him with the stories of Ghostwalker taking on the entire Aztlan army in Denver and destroying the teocalli.

Sure dragons die. Even Greats die during the history of the game (Lofwyr killed Nachtmeister, Dunkelzahn commiting suicide) but as for PCs ever killing a Great Dragon, I'm sorry I just don't see it happening. I compare the Great Dragons to Antediluvians or Methuselahs from Vampire the Masquerade. If you ever had to face one in combat, its over - instantly.

The old axiom in roleplaying is "if it has stats, it can be killed." For this reason, there are some NPCs I will not stat. Lofwyr is one of them. To put this in perspective. Mr. Darke in Threats was statted out. Lofwyr was not. Now if the Harbinger of The Enemy has a full write up and the most powerful of all the Great Dragons is not, then surely that says enough...

- J.

PS: I said it before, I'll say it again - if your PCs kill a Great Dragon then you fail at Shadowrun.

The entire Aztlan army would have used a good portion of that list and even they couldn't kill Ghostwalker.

As for the orbital lasers, thor shots and tac nukes - you really think a dragon would sit there long enough for it to work? Even then, I'm not so certain.... but those would be the only man-made weapons I can think of that would realistically have a chance.

- J.

You do realize that isn't how VX works?

There are a few parts of SR that really extra specially irritate me, and this is one. Ghostwalker and similar idiocies are essentially what Ancient History should have pointed to with his comment about Running The Asylum. It's "Oh See how cool we are! Don't you wish you could be this cool too?"

Muscle spasms. I think you tear yourself apart.
If I'm recalling my chemical weapons properly.

Pretty much. They are cholinesterase inhibitors, and cause all your muscles to, eventually, not relax. Among other things, this causes you to not be able to breath. The gross symptom I had described was people "doing the jerking chicken" in advanced cases.

in all probability, ghostwalker should have died when he attacked denver. frankly, he should never have relied on a frontal assault to begin with. just pretend that he actually came out of the portal months earlier, and when he overthrew aztlan in denver there were actually several planned uprisings nearby that had pulled aztlan's army out of the area and kept them busy, and that he then somehow rewarded those rebel groups once he basically owned denver. or whatever else works for you. in any event, while a great dragon is certainly a scary thing when it comes to actual combat, the scariest part is not that it's going to bite you in half. it's that if you actually made it to the dragon to begin with, the only reason is that it decided when, where, and how you arrived, and you've probably been flavored according to the great dragon's taste already and landed on it's plate just as it was sitting down for lunch. they aren't a threat in terms of what they can do to an army in combat, they're a threat because they'll out-think you on every level and your army will be shredded by their minions well before you reach them.

I don't think the OP wanted to get yet another complaint about Ghostwalker, IEs and all that, but just ideas how to kill a Dragon.

I'm sorry but your disagreement with canon does not change the facts.

The bottom line is, canonically speaking, an army tried and failed to take out a GD. You can alter your campaign so this never happened, or change events so that GW died, but at the end of the day, if you play with the established canon material, no human (or group of humans) has killed a Great Dragon - to the best of my knowledge that is.

- J.

It isn't VX, is the scary uncle of the BZ class of chemical agents. Just because exposition Bob is in the room does not mean he is telling the truth. Besides I wrote it spur of the moment. It is not the importance of the nitpick, it was that the entire Star Chamber and the high prince are dead.

Guys, do try to remember that Denver is a treaty city. The military forces stationed there are largely a token presence, to protect the few assets they have there. You're comparing one tiny military outpost to the entire military force of a developed nation.

Ghostwalker's war against the Aztlan forces in Denver was described as an eleven day campaign of hit and run attacks, supported by many powerful spirits (Ghostwalker is, canon, the best summoner in the Shadowrun/Earthdawn world. This guy has spirit back up coming out of his ass, possibly literally). In the opening volleys, which are described in detail, Aztlan manages to get something like three or four choppers in the air against him, at most.
This was a far cry from the entire Aztlan military taking him on.

In fact, on their home turf, Aztlan has taken on great dragons and won. They didn't get a kill, but they were able to publicly execute an Amazonian dragon whilst several greats tried and failed to stop them.

You know...I think there's a reason I don't pay attention to what Atzlan does.
That's positively revolting.

Ok -
1) It was an entire detatchment of the Aztlan army. I can't recall the exact size but it was everything they had in the Denver region. I can quote the book if you want to split hairs - heck it could have been an entire division.
2) That Amazonian dragon was not a great. And the GDs didn't fail to stop them, they weren't involved or acting openly. It's a bit hard to use all your power when forced to act through proxies. If they were it would have been a different story. Do you really think Mujaji and Hualpa going tag-team on Aztlan would NOT own face? Seriously?

- J.

but is that division on combat ready 24/7, with all man and materials?

Yes. Tactics is a skill like any other skill. You need to have the skill in order to know how use your abilities. In such a case, tactics is the sum of all your abilities because how well you use them can be in a skill in and of itself.

Tactical information is given based on Perception or some other information skill like a Knowledge skill for instance. Any decision they make is up to them, but if I think that they are acting outside their expertise, then I will call for a skill roll against a Threshold I determine with respect to the complexity of the action they are trying, like any other course of action they attempt. Similarly my NPCs tactics are governed by their dice rolls. The responses or tactics used by NPCs are linked to their stats.

just did a quick once over of the sr4 core. do you have anything official supporting the claim that tactics is an in game skill instead of actual player skill. in almost all cases a players characters abilities and experience far outweigh the actual players. anything your players think up tactics wise the character can too.

i make a perception test. im told details based on the roll. i come to my own conclusion based on that information and i (not dice or numbers) decide what i should do in that situation. are you saying the characters should be limited in actions based on what the gm thinks they should do? thats what it sounds like.

More likely it should be treated that whatever the player comes up with is what they're doing. If it's a sound plan (as opposed to "I'll escape the guards by jumping off the building") then their tactics roll indicates how good of a plan it really is.

For example, if the plan is in fact to jump off the building and the player rolls high on their tactics and the NPCs low, then the plan goes off without a hitch: they jump off the building (and have to deal with the consequences thereof). If the PC and the NPC(s) tie then it could be said that as the player is running to the edge of the roof one of the NPC guards gets there first, attempting to intercept (both of them might tumble over). If the PC rolls lower than the NPCs then it could be said that while a solid plan, the PC forgot to take into account that group of guys there, who all mob rush him and tackle him to the proverbial ground (no one goes over the edge).

Not that this is to allow the players with high tactics to rob banks without being seen, it falls under the heading of "you've been detected, but you panned that this might happen, what do you do?"

sounds better than what toturi was saying. but it still seems unnecessary. if you start treating tactics soley as mechanical,which it shouldnt be, you end up with scene based resolution. shadowrun isnt scene based its round based. going by raw if he is closer to the edge and its his action he jumps off. maybe the opposition could make an athletics test.

it sounds good on paper but if the scene is already set and your players come up with a great plan but fail a roll, what happens? does the scene randomly adjust to fit the roll?

really all this about tactics being an opposed role is house rules. so it still stands that tactics is a player skill not a character skill.

I'd like to think that 50 years later the GDs had found out how to better deal with metahumanity's pesky technology - spells to keep warheads from detonating in proximity to the GD would be a big help - but with Ghostwalker, that's a bit far-fetched unless he was dealing with such things in his metaplanar retreat. The whole thing still feels like a bad hack job to me too.

I Just looked it up. They took Firewing out with two missiles from a helicopter, and then s/he fell into the SOX. Of course, there are the traditional rumors of "Is it really dead" but since we haven't heard anything about it since, seems Feurschwing or however it's spelled got punked pretty easily.

Are there Spoiler Tags here?
Contains Spoilers about SOX.
Well, more or less. Novel-Stuff.

Disclaimer: This posting has been Edited 5 to 10 Times now.

what book is that from? id like to read it.

Usually the scene is set after the roll is made. So the scene doesn't change but was decided before the scene. If the players come up with a great plan but fail a roll (or some similar situation), then it simply means they have overreached themselves, it can mean several things - I allow them to continue but I will not award karma for good roleplay since they obviously do not have the skill to come up with such a good plan (the dumb ass PC coming up with a genius tactical plan is not good roleplay, IMO), I tell them that their PCs do not think such a plan is feasible, I allow them to continue but the opposition is ready to handle whatever they are doing. The key is although the actual result is not set in stone, it will be not be good for the PCs.

I abbreviate (whatever appropriate) tactics to simply tactics, but I know of at least one tactics skill that is canon.

ok, say i walk into a room, the kind of opposition in that room as well as my ability to cope with said situation is decided by a die roll before i can do anything. thats what its sounding like to me. if thats not how it works give an example.

if the characters have a logic or intuition of 3 then there mental capacity is similar to the player. if its higher then the character is better than the player.

the only tactics skill i remember is small unit tactics which just added to the initiative score. that was in sr3. i havent seen its sr4 equivalent.

really it sounds like you dont plan the run out in advance but generate it based on the rolls instead of the actual players abilities.

im going to give you an example and tell me how you would resolve it with the mechanics youve proposed. it seems like its very metagamey.


ok my team has gotten a copy of the floorplans, security details, work schedules for the gaurds. we study it and devise a way into the building going by the information weve learned. the plan is created by the players not by a dice roll.

say we are using our stealth tactics to enter the building, make our stealth rolls and all.

from the sound of it before we even enter the complex a roll is made to determine whether our plan works or not/whether our characters could devise the plan.

if thats the case a player could just max out the linked stat and tactics skill and not have to actually devise anything but just rely on the dice to do the work for him.

The tactics skill I was refering to is not an active skill as far as I know. It is in Runner's Companion, IIRC.

Yes, the roll is made to see whether you actually succeed in devising the plan. I might allow the plan to go through but as I said, no roleplay exp since you did not roleplay an group of characters who do not have the vaguest idea of how to coordinate and plan(assuming you default). I will not allow a character to skate on "tactics" just because his player is a tactical genius.

That too is true. Just like a socially inept player can still choose to play someone with high Social skills or someone who never fired a gun to actually play a John Woo gunfighter. Don't you let your dice do the work when your character shoot someone?

i decide whether i shoot someone. i might even decide how if i call a shot. i decide when to take cover and when to run away. thats tactics.

if one of your players who if emulated by the game probably has no tactics skills by the game standards isnt allowed to think up what his characters can do all you are left is a railroading gm who decides what you do and when you do it.

if i the player can devise a plan on my own with the informatioon my character knows why do you think they couldnt have done the same. now if the character has an intuition/logic of 1 or 2 i might understand it. but if i devise a plan in a few minutes and my character has possibly a few hours ,in some cases days, to devise a plan. why would you claim its invalid because of a dice roll? if the know a situation before hand and plan accordingly why take it away from them? im not saying that a plan cant go south or backfire but it should happen because of the tactics not because luck of dice says yes or no.

what is the effect of the tactics skill you mentioned earlier and what page can i find it?

The best thing that I have seen for Tactical Use in SR4 is the Tactical Network... used properly, it will give you a very definite edge in almost any scenario... if you don't use it, well, you will be at a significant disadvantage against those who do...