How would you deal with a PC who researched rolled and now uses a force eighteen armor spell (Said PC is a troll full hermetic magician with 18 body and high combat pool). His total armor is something like 25+ with all gear on, and he has shielding metamagic (initiate grade force 3).

Our game is a Mercenary game, aka extremely combat heavy. What poses a serious challenge for this monster?


Thanks in advance,

Curugul

How about Gas weapons?

force 18? does he have a library/lodge @ force 18 and a spell design skill @ 18

Big deal. He's asking to take a 9M or so hit everytime he casts the spell. Okay, he researched it. Doesn't mean he'll cast it immediately or everytime. Getting a sustaining focus will be 1) expensive, 2) difficult, 3) cost 18 karma. He'd better hope he didn't learn it exclusively, cause you can't stick those in a sustaining focus. Even if he does pull off the magic, he's got some glow around him, aka shoot me, I'm a mage.

Sheilding does jack against physical threats with the exception of elemental manips. Has he calculated out how his armor reduces his combat pool? Factor that in. Also remember that hardened armor doesn't stack. The armor spell doesn't create hardened armor.

With a few rules from the basic book and CC, that cuts the character down to something more managable.

Check out the thread on how to rail against a mage. Make him deal with snipers or even drones. He still has to deal with vehicles and such, which might not be all that easy. He's got a magic of 9? Doesn't mean he's up against spirits, especially if they dogpile him or attack his foci.

When in doubt, there's always missiles, rockets, gernades, and whatnot that can hose his day. Has the opposition discovered the wonders of indirect fire? If that takes out his group, then your only opposition is this troll whom you're just going to x-team into a smear.

I like the Gas ideas.

Don

A force 18 spell has a learning TN of 36. There's very very little chance he learned this spell legitly. And even if he did manage one success, he has to sit there without intteruption for 18 days straight learning it. Anything that interupts this forces him to start over with a new test.

Since the troll's existance is silly to begin with, just be silly in return. Put him up against a decent grade 3 melee adept with Pentjak-Silat 9, Improved Pentjak-Silat 9, Distance Strike, Killing Hands: Serious, and Aptitude: Pentjak-Silat. He's throwing approximately 27 dice with a base TN of 3 before his Centering: Melee metamagic technique is used.

It's now a ranged attack, meaning the troll can't counter the attack at all (at best he can dodge, but that gives him a higher TN anyway). The adept's Strength is irrelevant; at worse he's doing 2S damage and most likely 2D with a ton of extra successes the troll has to counter with his Body Test before he has a chance to stage the damage down.

But if that's too much trouble, just have a sniper make a Called Shot to bypass his armor with a high-Power weapon loaded with a Glazer round (+2 Power and +1 Damage Level against the now-unarmored opponent). Even the Armor spell is not immune to the asinine rule, and every single piece he has is completely ignored. And wouldn't you know it? Him shooting that one round before having to reload gives the rest of the team time to find cover and deal with the threat while the troll is rotting away on the street.

25 points of soft ballistic, but what's his impact? An opponent stealth adept with a tazer can do harsh things to any bum who thinks he's invincible. Especially if the stealth adept greets him right after said bum takes a shower at his own housing.

Toy, don't Glazers do +2 DL against unarmored/+1 DL against armored?

I'm not sure, but if memory serves its +2 Power/+1 Level against uarmored and armor is doubled against, well, armored opponents.

CC, pg38

Glazers are +2 Power.

Against unarmoured targets, +1 DL.
Against armoured targets, Power is reduced by twice highest armour rating.
Against barriers and vehicles, double barrier/armour rating.

Looks like a pretty good sniper round.

Ah, my mistake. So, basically, they're EX-EX and flechette combined.

Regardless, problem still exists of everything short of an assault cannon with APDS not having enough power to even scratch this troll. But, as Doc pointed out, this is not a terribly sensible problem, and there's little reason to hold back the opposition.

I'm just wondering how the guy managed to hit a TN 36 to learn this legendary Armor spell. He'd have to roll on average about 45,000 dice to hit such a TN, and even then the time it would take is non-trivial.

As for how to damage something like this, well if he's got 18 body and a force 18 armor spell his buddies are all deltaware zombiies or running around with custom-built MPCP-24 decks. This is superhero-level stuff you've got here; send them up against guys taken out of comic books.

Spell like that would attract lots of nasty attention. F-18 glows like the sun in most cases, astrally that is. Any and all manner of evil nasties would likely be attracted to the bum. imagine if everyone he drops suddenly starts getting up as a sheddim controlled thing-killer, and of course, since he brought it upon the party, there's no extra Karma awarded for the waste of resources.

And, I'm thinknig that witha glow like that, he's visible from space, so have fun the next time he pulls that spell on ares turf outside of a building. (orbital weapons platforms anyone?)

Gas weapons-- the Armor spell is ineffective against gas.

Knockback. Armor does nothing to reduce the knockback of an attack. (Use Gel rounds for best effect.) Even with his high body, a high power attack will knock him flat.

Astral attacks (aka the Watcher Attack Pack™). Have spirits start attacking his focus. Win or lose, he's got to go astral to deal with them-- but once he does, he then runs into 6 force-6 watchers plus whatever other force 8-10 spirits are appropriate for your game. His physical armor now does him no good, and the Friends in Melee modifiers will chew him apart.

The Chunky Salsa effect. Get him in close quarters with a high-powered explosive.

Naval-scale Weaponry. In a merc campaign, you better believe that the tank gunners will be pointing their main guns at the glowing troll. A Vaporizer round will eat him for lunch.

Background counts and mana warps. A minor mana warp will start damaging his sustaining focus.

Don't forget about drain, either. Unless he's got a Magic of 18, he'll be taking physical drain from the spell, that can't be healed magically.

If all else fails, I find that dropping an office building on them works.




-karma

What I'd personally do is this:
In a routine run-gone-bad (these are bound to happen when a combat mage troll thinks he's invincible) someone happens to fire an ATGM at the runners, hitting the troll with a few successes. The troll stages the 7D attack down to a Moderate and is only mildly pissed off, much to the enjoyment of the player and disbelief of the missile gunners.

People hear stories of an unstoppable troll. A nearby reserve artillery battallion puts a missile launcher on 24-7 standby in case the troll is spotted. A few blimps or tiny surveillance drones hang high in the sky, following the troll's every move. The next time the troll is 25 meters away from anything people don't want blown to bits, they fire a rigger-ridden Sea Saber at him.

You can reasonably have about 30 dice against a TN of 2 for the attack roll (ramming), and there's very little the troll can do to dodge. He'll be facing a 120D + 40 Over-Damage or so Anti-Vehicular damage.

But then my group is currently in a war-zone, so I guess I don't count. Plus I'd never let a character have a Force 18 Armor spell, for reasons mentioned above.

What's his Sorcery? The Force might be 18, but unless his Sorcery Skill is ungodly also, he's probably walking around with a tenuous 3-4 successes. Dispel the damn thing. If it's in a focus, he's gotta replace the spell and pay the Karma again.

If it's not in a focus, then he's got +2 to any other spell he casts anyway.

If he's breaking the game, tell him. If he prefers to be a munchkin, munchkin right back. Put him up against a force 30 Manabolt (he's obviously proven that super force spells aren't THAT hard to come by).

Want to be legal about it? Anything higher than Force 4 is Illegal, so get Lonestar after him (If he can survive almost anything, then he's gotta have a reputation). They can't stop him? He becomes public enemy #1. Lonestar requsitions the use of a battleship to stop the nation threat. Armor, Schmarmor; he can't soak 1L N. He should feel very proud to be the most wanted Man in SR history and you've given him a story to tell his children (b/c telling any hardcore SR fan will just get him a 'WTF? Force 18??? What are you, stupid?!' response).

Get him addicted to drugs/BTL. Oh how the mighty have fallen... AND you have an after school special. A game with a message... aren't you the quintessential GM. :)

Armor is a personal barrier around your body, but what does that mean? it stops combat stuf, but what if he tries to pick up a fork? Will it slide across the table? Will he ever eat again?

I'm assuming you're trying to find a noble, game response to a very ignoble action. You'll be hard pressed to find one. Your best bet is to tell the player they've broken the game.

Send him up against a troll adept with maxed strength, bioware enhanced strength,
titanium bone-lacing etc, adept power strength..and strength boost.


15strength+4 lacing+5 levels of adept power + 4 of bio/cyberware and give him strength boost of 10 levels.

Don't forget Killing hands D!.

28-38D unarmed combat. Even that badass can't stop that.

Send a Troll Go-Gang after him with some chains and a pack of stim and trauma patches!

The Troll gang tackles the mighty mage down and slaps him with patches until all of his Magic goes away.

overwhelm him with successes. aside from using the asinine called shot to avoid armor rule, a physad sniper lightly cybered and highly initiated can achieve a TN of 2, skill 10, improved rifles 10, combat pool + whatever other blah that adds dice, avg 28 dice we'll say, 23 successes.

so 14D from a barret, +23 successes

23-15 is 8, so hes taking a Deadly wound + 8 overflow. alternatively, you could instead fire from a sport rifle.

Leaving him with a Deadly wound and 6 overflow

then fire again, which the barret cant do.

TN of 2 again cause of a customized grip, 21 dice

18 successes, -15 soak, leaves 3

11 more boxes of dmg

Assuming my math is right. now, admittedly, I didn't add the trolls combat pool for dodging or soaking, but good bet he would blow it all on the first shot, assuming he had a combat pool of 7, he would still take a deadly wound with 2 overflow, leaving him with no combat pool for the second attack. I assume he would choose to soak instead of dodge since the TN is lower.


Given that he managed to research a force 18 spell, I dont think an assassin that skilled is unrealistic for the game.

Although a simple sleight of hand or magic fingers will leave this troll sans his focus.

First off, as pointed out above unless this is a 500+ karma game so far the GM flubbed in letting him have the spell, as he needed a force 18 lodge and a level 18 spell design skill, which is the killer.

The problem is also that shadowrun combat breaks down at skills that high. With that many dice either you take nothing, or roll bad and get annihilated. It becomes more and more binary assuming you dont cheat at dice rolls. Retire the campaign.

Thanks for all the great responses, most were very helpful.

I request clarification on one point:

It depends on who you ask. Most people think high force (> force 8 or so) spells are pretty hard to come by on the open market. Also, once he gets the forumulae he has to learn the spell with the TN 36 test in a lodge of a rating equal to or greater than the spell rating (also a rather impressive feat).

easy ways to address this:

• damage from crashes ignore armor
• damage from falling ignores armor (I think)
• gas attacks ignore armor
• viral and bacterial attacks ignore armor
• the toxic power sludge engulf ignores armor
• the air elemental power air engulf ignores armor
• narcojets ignore armor
• DMSO rounds ignore armor (I think)
• the knockdown rules ignore armor
• critter/spirit powers like confusion, and fear ignore armor, and aren't effected by sheilding
• a spell this high will attract spirits like crazy
• strain3 fab would love to eat this thing, along with the mage
• astral attacks ignore armor (if you can get him to project or perceive
• astral attacks against the sustaining focus (the physad with astral perception, smashing blow, and distance strike)

Why not have some LEGAL action taken against him.

1. Does he have a LICENSE for this spell (All spells above F2 are illegal and require a license)

2. Levitate. Levitate him fifteen floors up, hell, just levitate his left foot ans spin him around and around and around and around REALLY fast. Ooh, I'm getting dizzy.

3. Have an enemy mage mindprobe him for that spell and let them face an opposing team all with F18 armour spells.

4. Wards, wards, wards wards, wards and MORE wards.

5. Have Mr Harvey Orror pay him a visit.

6. Have a water elemental give him an enema. (Yes, due to his silliness he deserves it)

7. Use "Fashion" modified with a LOS to give him a non see through basic clothing or shape him like something out of Versace collection.

8. Drop a Cow on him.

9. Give him Amnesia, he just forgot all his spells and have to relearn them all over again (one dice roll would be enough but it is STILL that little killer with a TN of 36)

10. This is too horrible to mention but it includes Britney Spear songs, 50kg of butter, a padded room and the entire collection of encyclopedia britannia from 2000. And the room will be locked with the offending person thrown inside it.

Ah hell, I'll mention it anyway. The PLAYER must sit in that room listening to ALL of Britney Spears albums covered in butter and may only leave once he has memorized the entire collection of books.

THEN the same procedure will be taken with the CHARACTER. This will ensure that the player has learned to ROLEPLAY.

I notice many comments about "high karma level games" and other assumptions based on what people associate as being neccessary precursors to a force 18 spell.

So, I will ask:
What's the sorcery skill?
What's the karma pool?
What's the spell design skill?
What's the ettiquette?
What's the initiation grade and the magic rating?

I've seen a roll of 36 on 4 stealth dice. Although it does require an obscene number of dice to be statistically reliable, that doesn't mean it can't happen with less.

The omnipotent Called Shot rules care nothing for logic. There is no armor it cannot bypass.

Well, it looks like most of my basic responses have been covered, yeah. But there's one that should scare the bejesus outa anyone - essence drain.

Have fun losing magic rating, buddy.

Yes, generally speaking, "researching" and "buying" are different things. Hence my confusion.

Some questions:

1 What is the troll's etiquette?
2 What is his willpower?
3 What is his sorcery?
4 How does he have a body of 18?
5 How many people in the world do you think have a spell design skill of 18?

A force 18 armor spell should be perfectly balanced if you are using all the rules. He should have a wizmungous spell design skill and lodge/library, and there are plenty of ways to circumvent armor, not least of which is chemical weapons. Hoever, don't go all cheap on him by having a whole squad of enemies somehow be armed with squirt guns. At least have an enemy realize he's using an armor spell or is otherwise indestructible before breaking out the gas grenades. Last but not least, there is always high exlosives, vehicle scale weapons, and the chunky salsa effect.

Due to the upgrading gear rules, A starting character could have a rating 18 lodge for 9000 nuyen in less than three weeks. He only needs to buy 3 rating 6 lodge materials and spend 18 days setting it up. The rules are in SR3, pages 166-167.

Almost forgot the big one. Net Guns. The large Net rounds will take down your troll, armor or no.

I'm not sure if anyone's brought this up, but he's also got to be able to cast it. Assuming that he's not really a great dragon in disguise, he's going to be taking very high level physical drain every time he turns it on.

And doesn't a sustaining focus have to be at least as high as the spell it holds? Can you say "focus addiction"? He'll lose all his magic in no time flat. If I mis-remembered this, and he's got this mega spell in a dinky little focus, then just destroy the focus going through a ward, or attack it with spirits, or whatever.

At Grade 3 and assuming no Magic Loss, he'd have to have some other focus on at the same time as the Force 18 sustaining focus in order to worry about Focus Addiction. It only kicks on when you exceed twice your Magic in total Force. It's probably why he "stopped" at Force 18.

Likewise, a Drain Code of 11M Physical, while annoying, isn't really that bad for a munchkin since he's doubtlessly always going to keep it activated (who cares about the blue glow, right?). If he has a Trauma Damper, he really only needs two successes anyway, and while unreliable, it can happen when rolling in excess of 18 dice (remember, he can put a bunch of Sorcery dice into the Drain Resistance part since only one success is required to cast Armor).

Good point, thanks MT.

My opinion:
If the GM was mistaken about the rules for acquiring and learning high level spells, he should retroactively take the spell and focus back, refunding the charater's money and karma and allowing the PC a chance to spend it on something else.

If the GM wants to let him keep the spell and screw him over anyway, then ram him with a drone or gas him.

If the players are actually at a level where they could legitimately acquire and use spells of this magnitude, then he should consider retiring the characters.