The sticky-sock bomb mentioned in "Saving Private Ryan."

I don't see why you couldn't make a grenade that would stick to a target -- you just have to figure out how to throw it without having it adhere to your fingers.

The closest I came was loading a splat ball with a core of C-4 and a radio detonator.

-Siege

Ok, so if we suspend disbelief a little bit while at the same time stretching our imagination, we can assume that sticky grenades are feasible in Shadowrun. Ruleswise, I'd say that such a grenade...

• ignores rules for bouncing (if not set to detonate on impact)
• requires both a Str[8] (to remove it) and a Qui[8] (to avoid having it stick to your hand) test to get rid of, using a complex action
• provides a -1 TN modifier for the Thrown Weapons test
• is not available as a mini-grenade version
• can be outfitted with a high-pitched siren, to stress targets even more [no rules effect, just fluff]
• costs about 1.5 times as much as a standard grenade, and has a SI of maybe 2

Yeah, but it was still a fun game.

The fact they saved shotguns until the Cthulhu-esque part was irritating, but oh well.

And who, the frag, puts a scope on a pistol?

-Siege

I could see it for mini grenades. Perhaps a shell that breaks apart a few meters past the barrel, at the same time the grenade itself becomes live? Under that shell is the sticky minigrenade.

JaronK

Say, don't canon hand grenades also have proximity mine modes?

Getting back to underrated weapons, Capsule rounds are amazingly powerful while rarely used.

They act like a gel-round so each hit does stun damage to the target. Load it with something deadly, like DMSO/Cyanide, and your target will not only have a stun modifier, but a physical one (Even if they stage down the Damage from the Cyanide below D) as well. Or give them some Hyper and watch your target scream and tear his off flesh off from the pain. Of if you want them alive there's pepper spray, or a wide range of sedatives. There's really so many wonderful things you can put in capsule rounds.

Only problem with capsule rounds is the cost/benefit ratio of using 1,500 nuyen to knock out a guard, as opposed to the cheap gel round

Drugs, as a whole, are overrated. The whole "next combat turn" delay for effects makes them useless for silencing a guard before he can call for help or the like.

There's nothing overrated about Laes, though. It's insanely overpowered. You have to make 12 successes against a Body (6) to avoid being knocked out and it erases an hour's worth of memories per success you failed to make. Hardened armor is of no help against it, so it can take down even a great dragon... especially if mixed with DMSO. And the best part, he won't even remember you were the one who screwed him over, assuming you live through the rest of the Turn.

I'm not saying drugs are useless. Far from it, in fact. They've got their good uses (knocking out someone you want to capture who is a noncombatant, large hard to kill things, sewing confusion and havoc in buildings, etc). It's just that 50% of the time when someone is using them, there's a much cheaper, just-as or more effective solution out there.

Possibly the best exception to this is Pepper-Punch capsule rounds. 60 for 10 (just twice what normal gel rounds cost) and anyone you smack with them is going to really feel it after a turn or so. Great for CZs, or other hard to take down monsters which don't have chem shielding.

I don't know as a GM if I'd allow LAES to affect a Great Dragon. When you can recall, clearly I might add, what someone said to you four thousand years prior, I doubt some little cocktail cooked up by the elves will bother you too much. That drug works on meta-human physiology, not dragon.

The Styer TMP.
Why Small, concealable and supression fire.

Moving on, in the Cyber-Implant combat world handblades are king. STR+3(L) damage. Dikote them as you've got STR+5(M). Equip two on an STR 6 Character and for a very low price you've got 16M melee. Mount it on a hideous str 11 troll and it's power becomes 24M, add in off-hand cyber-implant and you throw 9 dice at chargen for it.

Huh? How are you getting +2 power from dikoting? Your math is also odd... dikoted paired handblades should be doing (str * 1.5)+4 (M) damage. So 6 str = 13M and 11 str = 20M.

Anyway, I prefer the improved hand razors. One point less power and a lot more cash, but slightly more essence friendly.

Plus Improved Hand Razors just look cooler. In any case, it's actually debatable if Hand Blades gain the +50% bonus (the rules only specify Hand Razors and Spurs, though the end of the rules section implies -- but never specifies -- that it applies to all cybernetic weapons used in tandem).

Plus, imagine the reaction of the colleagues of the guy who just got knocked out by baby powder... or the faces of the sec guards once they realize what those shadowrunners are shooting at them.

For a little extra fun, substitute itching powder for baby powder. Same blinding/choking effect with an amusing bonus.

I'm seriously thinking about lye capule bullets. Lye doesn't eat through plastic the way acid does but the ffect is much the same as medium strength acids. And being Lye in solid form is must the consistancy of salt That would make for a painful (though fairly slow) secondary damage.

To clarify, lye is not an acid. In fact, it is sodium hydroxide, or NaOH— which makes it a base, and, in fact, quite a potent one. Being a base, it is exceedingly corrosive when active in water. Unfortauntely, dissolved in water, it'd probably melt capsule rounds, and as a solid (usually in powder form), it is more or less inert (though, for obvious reasons, easily activated). It would make a terrible component to capsule rounds.

Besides, capsule rounds should not be doing much damage on their own, and filling them with talc is just damn silly. There's no real weight there and rather little with which to justify any stun damage. Congratulations on solving that security guard's dryness issues.

Make the round dual-chamber. Water and powdered lye in different chambers. When it hits, they mix.

Potentially prone to failure in midair, so use this in something burst-fire.

~J

You might've been, but a lot of crazy shit gets thrown around quite seriously with capsule rounds, and I figured it was worth pointing out.

Anyway, 'personal dryness issues' tends to refer to people having trouble with remaining dry, not the other way around. Or, at least, so the stuff seems to be marketed. That wasn't a really serious comment, in any case.

[edit]

A dual chambered round with the water in the fore chamber for density and the lye in the rear chamber (with less relative density) could sort of work. It'd be drag stabilized, though it'd still be ridiculously light (looking at a round where the fore end of the round is less than 1/10th the density of lead and the aft is even less). If you want to suffer a 75% reduction in range for a round that's really not going to be all that combat effective, I guess there's no reason to stop you. It's a pretty unrealistic concept to begin with, but I guess if you're really set on it, you've already got enough problems without feed issues, jams, and in-weapon detonations.

I realize you don't think that lye is not an acid. I still felt it was worth providing more information on, as was quite clear from the fact that it was a clarification and not a correction..

And, no, dry, inactive lye does not burn the shit out of you. Dry lye thrown on you that combines with moisture in the air and on your skin, however, is notably unpleasant. It would not work just fine as a powder, and would make a pretty useless small arms munition.

Hmmmm... While were thinking of fun things to put in Capsule rounds.

How about some HF (hydrofluoric) acid in some Teflon (PTFE) capsule rounds.

Fun ensues!
mcb

Red Devil drain cleaner is 100% lye. Not matter how dry you think you are it will burn you. It is far far more then just unpleasent as it will remove most of your skin. I have burned by it myself and I know 100% for a fact it does this.

Why does it matter if they're teflon coated?

So things don't stick when you cook on them.

~J

Of course, Potassium put in a thin sheath suspended in water inside a capsule round. When the round impacts, the sheath is ripped and the two mix. A "violent reaction" is understated as the two have quite an explosive reaction. And the great thing is is that they are mostly inert when kept sealed together. Alkaline metals rock.

Wraith, alkaline explosive rounds have been discussed (specifically, a frangible jacketed sodium based round) recently. There's not even any need for a water buffer because all necessary moisture for the reaction is supplied by the target. Problem is that it's still very light and not terribly explosive. It makes a terrible bullet whose only advantage can be easily surpassed by a traditional explosive round. Add that to the fact that they'd make for pretty unreliable ammunition and there's not much reason to pursue it.

As for hydrofluoric acid, wasn't aware that teflon was the only thing it could be contained it. I can't say it'd make a great small arms munition, though.

Bah. All your practicality is getting in the way of my cool factor

~J

I believe teflon is sometimes used in bullets anyway as an armour penetration aide, though you'd really need something heavier to make the bullet hit the target.

JaronK