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Uberjoel
A N00B question here if ever there was one. Since I haven't actually played SR, I don't how actaully how deadly the game can be. If I have a Troll, with 6 Atrribute spent on Body, that gives me 11 right? How much further can I crank this with Cyber?

Plus, what kind of punishment could such a character take? Small Arms? Heavy Weapons? Satisfy my curiosity!
Brazila
You can take this much further. A few ideas for starters...
Your body is 11, but you also get your dermal armor die unless you cyber over that. A crazy body is great, but a crazy body with good armor is Nuts.
While I would never play something like this you could....
Pick up the toughness edge
Take a bonus att. point edge in Body
Grab up Titanium Bone Lacing
Grab up R3 Dermal Sheating
Suprathyroid Gland
Armor Jacket
and Bam you are a TANK, But be advised if your GM is any good, he is going to smell this character's cheese a mile away.
Edward
I don’t know exactly but it is quite possible to create a character with sufficient body and armour that he can soak 3 round bursts of shotgun fire all day (ok occasionally he will get unlucky but you know what I mean.) and this is a starting character.

Of cause you spent much money and essence on doing this.

Edward
Kagetenshi
Armor is critical. A Body 30 MagicTroll won't expect to stage down a heavy pistol shot more than once or twice. Putting it another way, that means that an illegally durable character still can't reasonably expect to fully soak unless the attacker gets only one success.

~J
Uberjoel
Is it possible at all to suck up the damage of the big machine gun in the core? I don't remember its name, but it was something like 18D damage. How many dice do you have to be rolling to suck that?
Kagetenshi
With one success on the attack test, you need to be rolling 1728 dice to soak without armor if my calculations are right.

Edit: correction, 1944. I forgot you had to get another success to cancel with the attacker's success.

On the other hand, if you can get sixteen points of ballistic armor, you can do it with a mere ten dice.

~J
Uberjoel
And how many points of Ballistic Armor can one get? IIRC, the armor available for starting characters only had ballistic ratings of around 3.
Kagetenshi
Realistically, not using magic, somewhere around six is generally the top. If you aren't going for subtlety you can get a bit higher. High-force Armor (the spell) would be the best way to hit 16.

With six points of armor, Mr. Übertroll only needs 324 body dice to expect to soak a single-success FA shot.

~J
Modesitt
It depends on how your GM feels about layering.

If he only allows two layers, the best you can get at char gen with just the BBB is probably Armored Jacket+Longcoat for 7 ballistic. 8 with titanium bone lacing. A Ballistic Shield can give you another 3 for 11. Armor Spells can send the whole thing straight into crazy land. There's a couple other pieces of ballistic-boosting cyberware and bioware in M&M.

If he allows more than two layers, the skys the limit. Remember: It only messes with quickness tests and combat pool. Heavy Weapons is linked to strength. Kung-fu is linked to strength.
RedmondLarry
QUOTE (Uberjoel @ Sep 22 2004, 09:34 PM)
And how many points of Ballistic Armor can one get? IIRC, the armor available for starting characters only had ballistic ratings of around 3.

Starting characters with enough strength to carry armor, and quickness 7 (so no layering penalties), might start out with something like the following:

Secure Jacket (5/3)
Rapid Transit Heavy Jumpsuit (2/4)
Form Fitting Body Armor, Full Suit (4/1) [does not count for penalties]
Industrious Line Hard Hat (0/+1)

For Ballistic they get 5 + (4/2) = 7
For Impact they get 4 + (3/2) + 1 = 6

Sum of Ballistic for penalty calculation = 7
Sum of Impact for penalty calculation = 8

By having the Sum of Ballistic no higher than Quickness, and the Sum of Impact no higher than one over Quickness, there are no penalties to Combat Pool or for Layering.
Kagetenshi
[Edit] Note to self: pay attention to FFBA.

~J
Nylan
I was just about to comment on that Kage
Glyph
You guys need to remember that ranged combat works differently than melee combat. You compare the successes, then use the net successes to determine the outcome. This means a high Body is very good to have. But weapons that do Deadly damage are tough to deal with, since unless you dodge them completely, you need 8 more net successes than the attacker to soak the attack completely. Unfortunately, weapons with a Deadly damage code also tend to have a high Power, making that task even more difficult.

Armor is vital, because it determines the Target Number that you are rolling against for your resistance test. A high Quickness it very good to have, since it lets you laver armor better. Even an armored jacket and a full suit of FFBA (which a troll with a 4 or 5 Quickness can wear without penalties) can make a big difference, though, reducing your TN to soak a heavy pistol round from 9 to 2.

Armor only affects your Target Numbers, though. You also want to raise the attacker's Target Numbers. Move and run during combat, take cover, and try to use darkness or glare in your favor. And know when to run like hell. Even an 18 Body won't save you against a Panther Assault Cannon or a full-auto weapon with maxed-out recoil comp.
Necro Tech
Remember that layering armor drops your quickness for determining ground speed. 16 points of armor is good and all if you are sitting in a fox hole and never plan on moving out of it.

Side note, when layering, you count all pieces when determining total armor value, not just the highest two. Also, the quickness penalty only applies to balistic armor going over your Quickness stat. As related to me by Mike and Rob, it is a suggestion to only have 2 layers. As long as it seems logical, go for it and suck up the penalties.
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (Necro Tech)
Side note, when layering, you count all pieces when determining total armor value, not just the highest two.

That is one interpretation of the rules. If my memory serves me, that's the less common one on Dumpshock, but it is possible to read the rules like that. Up to the GM as always, like Modesitt said.
Kagetenshi
It's possible to read them like that, but it's explicitly incorrect.

~J
Snow_Fox
I'll repeat, armor is vital to cut down on the power of the incoming rounds. The very first time we played, we had an ork, the character was running on tough and fast and didn't have money to waste, so instead of armor to back up the hand guns we all had, he went for an uzi. The first fire fight we were in, we all discovered exactly how much protection a white cotton t-shirt provides against incoming fire.
mmu1
The best ballistic armor you can get at chargen without getting into arguments as to whether you can layer more then 2 pieces or using magic is FFBA + Armored Jacket + Kevlar or Titanium lacing + Orthoskin (level 2 and up) for 9 points total.

If you have that and a body of 9-10 you usually don't have to worry about getting hurt unless the opposition starts to use shotguns or assault rifles loaded with EX shells in burst mode. Of course, that's still no reason to assume you can shrug off gunfire, since one guy with APDS rounds can still ruin your day...
GenoSicK
Just to get things right, NOBODY can be a real "tank" in SR. One of my char is a BIG mothe*******. He's a troll with 17 dices in Body, and a Light Military Armor. I know, it sounds big, it sounds awfully though. But as soon as your playing in mercenary (like he) campaign or just moving up the ranks and playing no more street level, you'll begin to find APDS or grenades in the hands of the opposition. And that is NO fun.

For example, this char was caught with a regular armor layering of 9 ballistic (that's a lot) by a goon with an AR, regular ammo, well, he just fall down after the first burst, just because the guy in front of me was prepared.

In SR, doesn't matter how tough you are, you have to play tactical if you want to live a bit longer than the street corner.
toturi
APDS has an Avail of 12. Even in a merc campaign that shouldn't be too common.
Kagetenshi
It only takes one round and good skill.

~J
toturi
yes, but how likely is that one round going to get to the good skill with an Avail of 12 tacked on?
Austere Emancipator
Hardened armor might be a bit tougher to break through, but you can usually get by with AK-97+GV4+ShockPads+UBWeight/Foregrip+EX-Ex for a no-penalty 16D. Those should be coming out of your ears in a merc campaign.
mmu1
QUOTE (toturi)
APDS has an Avail of 12. Even in a merc campaign that shouldn't be too common.

Maybe, but that just means anyone semi-serious is going to make sure they have some for when the shit really hits the fan...

My sam is really protective of his 26 rounds of APDS heavy pistol ammo. wink.gif
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (toturi)
yes, but how likely is that one round going to get to the good skill with an Avail of 12 tacked on?

If the person allocating available equipment is at all competent, very.

~J
toturi
With Hardened Armour, it is still almost impossible to break through.

Take a troll for example, ok, the best he can were without penalties is a medium military armour. Quickness 5 + Bioware 3 = 8 If he is wearing a helmet on that armour, you are looking at a base 10 Power
Tanka
toturi: Isn't the Max round down? So that would be 7. Nail him with 'ware instead and give him a nice pump up to 9. (Or 10 if you also give him the Suprathyroid.)

It's possible to be a tank, if you don't mind all the social penalties for it. If you've got MilSpec, be prepared for the Star to be on your ass 24/7. If somebody says "Yeah, the guy had MilSpec!" Guess who's gonna be at your door?

Alternatively, there's (if you can afford it) going full-body replacement. You can get quite a bit of extra armor from that. Currently, a forum game I'm in, the GM is allowing me to play a Cyberzombie (yes, you read that right). He currently has 11/10 when he's naked, and 19/15 when he's fully-clothed. Said GM interprets that cyber-replacement armor is dermal and doesn't count towards calculating the most you can wear from Quickness. Body 11, so can take most rounds with no problem.

Now, most people never get to play Cyberzombies (hell, most never see them), or can get the funding to successfully get alphaware replacements (so you're still alive, if barely), let alone all the armor upgrades.

Not to mention that, for most purposes, cyberlimbs suck ass.
Bane
Just of of curiousity, *cough* because I would never actually do this *cough*, what do you guys calculate the max starting body to be?

A friend and I got it up to 28. Just wondering what you all have come up with.
Botch
I got 33 with NSRCG. Apparently "Fluffy" got 34, saw it in a thread somewhere, seemed kosher enough at the time.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Glyph)
You also want to raise the attacker's Target Numbers.  Move and run during combat, take cover, and try to use darkness or glare in your favor.  And know when to run like hell.  Even an 18 Body won't save you against a Panther Assault Cannon or a full-auto weapon with maxed-out recoil comp.

Right. I had my runners use an interesting tactic. The mage summoned 3 Air Elementals specifically to sustain an Improved Camoflage spell on each of them, effectively adding a +4 to all TN. That coupled with the low-light conditions, put the bad guys at about +8 constantly. I had the bad guys constantly doing 2 bursts-per-action and barely wounded them throughout the night.

It was costly though, about 5k per Elemental (15k total) and the run was about 35k payoff.
Tanka
Burn enough points for being a Troll Adept (metavariant, perhaps) (putting every ounce of Adept Power into increasing Body), add some Cyber and Bio, cast a few spells and have them Tattooed... You can get up there pretty well. I'd run the numbers, but that isn't really the point of this thread.
Austere Emancipator
Remember the Racial Max limit, which you can't get higher than, I think 20 for a legal starting character without ghouls, surge or genetech (RAM 13 for an ExceptBody Cyclops, 20 RacMax). There's not a whole lot you can do to get higher than that -- Dermal Sheath and Bone Lacing are the only permanent ones and then there's AttrBoostBOD for 6 (or maybe a few more if your GM allows initiation).

Spells to inrease BOD won't work at that point, because the TN will be insane.
Tanka
They work based on principle that, AFAIK, you don't roll at chargen except for things that need it, like if you start with Combat Sense or somesuch. Granted, I could be dead wrong, but I'm willing to live with that assumption at this point.

Edit: Heh, wait, +Bod spells are based on successes as to how much + you get... Right, wrong Edition! *vamoose*
Wounded Ronin
I think the best policy as a new player is to avoid trying to macho out of heavy weapons fire. I mean, if you are inexperienced and misappropriate your combat pool you could still be screwed.

My advice always is treat it like you would real life. Basically, no one would ever stand there smiling and let someone open up on them with a .45 even if they did have very good armor. It's just not a smart thing to do, even if you are almost certain that the .45 round will be completely stopped by your armor.
KarmaInferno
How about cyber armor? Remember it stacks with any other armor.

"I have enough onboard armor to shrug off anti-tank ammo."

"So, any downsides?"

"I can't move. Plus, uh... I gotta go to the bathroom. Gimme a hand? Hello?"


-karma
Zeel De Mort
We all know how to do this, but just as a distraction here's a high body at creation effort:


Troll
Exceptional Body
Phenotypic Alteration (Body)

Gives you base body of 13(20)

Then factor in...

Toughness +1
Suprathyroid +1
Calcitonin Synthesis +1
Titanium Bone Lacing +2
Dermal Sheath 3 +4
2x Full Cyberlegs +2

For 24 body on damage resistance. All legal at creation as far as I can tell. All availability 8 or less, and I don't see any mention of gene tech needing a beta-equivalent clinic or the like.

You could make him an adept too, but with all that stuff installed he'd have magic 0 anyway, and if you started taking it out to get power points I'd wager you'll end up at about the same figure, or worse.


Hmm technically you could only start with your body at 12 if you go by some people's interpretation of the rules, which I don't. smile.gif

Anyway, 24 isn't bad I guess. Spend a LOT of karma and you can get that up to 31.


Completely silly of course. You're better off taking a more practical character (like an Ork, Human or Elf) and bolstering him up. You can still get well into the teens for bod that way AND fit in cars and have a good combat pool, initiative, quickness (for all that armour) etc.
GenoSicK
A friend of mine tried this afternoon, and he went to 35.
If I remember : troll, adept, cyber, and egdes.
something like expetionnal attribute, toughness, surge dermal deposit, 6 point with adept, some point over the racial modified attribute still with adepte some implants, and I forget somethin I think... Can't remember what though... cyber.gif
Zeel De Mort
Well yeah, as I say cyber and bio will mess up your magic a bit, but maybe you can squeeze another point or two out that way. SURGE would work too I guess, although I'm not that keen on it and more importantly I don't have the rules for it!
GenoSicK
Not only 2pts, geas are for something, don't they ? biggrin.gif
Cain
Hm, let me fire up NSRCG and see what I can do...

Troll adept changeling, made with 125 pts:

Stats:
Max Body: 11
Bonus Attribute: Body: +1
Toughness: +1
SURGE: Dermal Deposits: +1

Augmentations:
Alpha Titanium bone lacing: +2
Alpha Dermal sheathing: +4
Suprathyroid: +1
Calciotonin: +1

Magic:
geas 5 points of magic loss.
Add Imp. Body x 6: +6

Total: 19/28.

Now, even on a less munched-out troll, I find the dermal sheathing to be serious overkill. Orthoskin is a much better buy. My stock troll archetype generally has about 16 body dice to soak with, and that's plenty-- with the aid of a helmet and a riot shield, he soaked a full-auto blast.
Kagetenshi
Wow. With enough karma pool, that troll might even survive ebola-plus.

~J
Zeel De Mort
Hmm, good points.

Revamp:


Troll
Exceptional Body
Phenotypic Alteration (Body)

Gives you base body of 13(20)

Then factor in...

Toughness +1
Suprathyroid +1
Calcitonin Synthesis +1
Titanium Bone Lacing(alpha) +2
Dermal Sheath(alpha) 3 +4
2x Full Cyberlegs(alpha) +2
Be a Ghoul +2
SURGE: Dermal Deposits: +1

I don't have the rules for SURGE, but I'm guessing Dermal Deposits is +1 on damage resistance and compatible with everything.


Be an adept too and take 8 points of Improved Body with geas to make it cost 6, then other geas on 6 points of magic lost.

Eh, where are we then..

35 body

I guess that's getting pretty decent.


Add in Genetic Immunisation (Ebola Plus) and you can survive that too!
Kanada Ten
You cannot geas all six points of Magic Attribute: once the actual Magic Attribute reaches zero the character in mundane. Secondly, adepts cannot have more levels of a power than their magic attribute regardless of the cost. In theory you could initiate twice at chargen if the GM approves (costing a great deal of money), but by canon adepts cannot purchase the spell points required to do so.
Tanka
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
[...]but by canon adepts cannot purchase the spell points required to do so.

Which is stupid, at best. How else are they going to bond any weapon foci they come upon?
Kanada Ten
Once the game starts they aquire karma as normal. I allow spell points to be purchased by adepts for the purpose of bonding foci, as do many GMs, but as for initation...
Tanka
Yes, that I understand. You'd also have to disallow other magically-active types from initiating to be fair.

But for not buying any spell points for use of bonding foci at all is little more than ridiculous.

"Here, these things were virtually designed for you, but you can't ever, ever, ever have them at chargen! Have a nice day."
toturi
QUOTE (tanka)
toturi: Isn't the Max round down? So that would be 7. Nail him with 'ware instead and give him a nice pump up to 9. (Or 10 if you also give him the Suprathyroid.)

Negative. The Racial Max is one of the few things in SR that is rounded up. Which is why it is more effective to Exceptional an even numbered Max attribute to an odd numbered one, then vice versa.
Zeel De Mort
Hmm good point with the geas and power limits. All that cyberware unfortunately comes to 5.08 essence. Well, you could tone down the bone lacing and geas 5 points of magic then.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (tanka)
"Here, these things were virtually designed for you, but you can't ever, ever, ever have them at chargen! Have a nice day."

Given how much they cost…

~J
Joker9125
Using starting character rules I made a troll mage with like 17 points of balistic and 15 points of impact. and a 16 body to. Caint quite remember all the stuff i did to him but ill post his cheesiness when i get back to my dorm
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