I don't quite get where you're coming from on this Herald. I'll be the first to admit I can screw up my reading of the rules but in my copy of SR3 it has a section called "Grenade/Explosive Damage (Optional Rule)" on page 119. This is the source of overdamage, not any chunky salsa effect.

However I do see your point on the power, they do rating times the square root and not rating power. How odd, I've never noticed that symbol before. It's very faint is my only excuse for the screwup.

Still I'd round it to 112 seeing as the decimal place is an 8. Which gives it about And it'll still kill any dragon instantly.

Dragons don't destroy tanks. They arrange for tanks to be destroyed.

claws and teeth aren't going to do much good against 40 points of armor. on the other hand, Move Earth could flip the tank pretty easily. and, of course, a dragon with Magical Skills (Conjuring) has the option of just telling his great form fire elemental to materialize inside the tank. on the other hand, any military that sends an MBT out without a high-force ward on it is just stupid, so the elemental idea might not work so well.

hm. arguing with myself again. time for my meds !!

Maybe loads of injector type ballista bolts filled with nanite cutters? I like the idea of filling a dragon full of that radioactive chemical myself (Doom? I think it was)

eh? how so? unless your idea of "lightly armored" is 7+, a MAW or LAW fired with any amount of skill will put a sedan at M, minimum. a sedan's only got 3 body, pitted against 7S or 6S, even if the sedan has 6 points of armor, it can only stage it down to M, assuming the attacker got only one success and you're not using optional staging.

I think he wants to put the sedan into the Deadly range with 1 shot.

a very very very very very very large football shaped c-12 explosive thrown by an troll ex-football quarterback turned shadowrunner ,right down the dragons mouth.

yeah. LAWs and MAWs should, ideally, be AV weapons. since they're, you know, specifically designed to be used against vehicles.

The Dragon Hunting Team
Can it be done with starting characters?

Yes.

You can all go home now.

What? No parting gifts?

All you need is a decker, mabey an otaku, and just arrange to hack a Thor Shot station =p *dons flame retardent gear*

Oo! Oo! Do we get the home edition of Dragon Scrabble?!?

To answer the original question: No.

Think your nuke math is off there AE...

Assuming that commercial explosives = TNT and we want to 'emulate' a 5kT tac nuke. That would require 5000 Kilos of Commercial explosives (and less C-12).

Almost, CB. Kilo-TONS

with means to emulate the 5Kt tacnuke, you need 5000 tons of commercial explosives....

I made the same mistake when I first glanced at it.

A 5Kt tac nuke releases the same approximate amount of total energy as 5000 tons of TNT by defination. However, how much of that nuclear energy is actually useful in the form of a weapon is debatable. To have the same destructive effect of a 5Kt nuke you do not necessarily require 5000 tons of TNT.

Now, my question: How much karma does the dragon have? Unless it was born yesterday or just got down fighting off a small army, it's probably going to have a karma pool.

Yeah, as people are mentioning, you can make a great troll close combat psycho with the ability to drop a dragon in close combat... the trick is getting him into close combat. Still, if you can get him in close, he can murder the poor dragon. Usual set-up:

Troll with max strength, two Dikoted cyberspurs. Amidexterity 6... and is Aptitude: cyber implant combat allowed? Plus make him blind (will make sense shortly). Anyway, give him Improved Ability cyber implant combat 5, motion sense, and ultrasound vision, plus blind fighting, so even blind he has no vision penalties at all, and can throw 18 dice before combat pool, doing 19S damage (roughly). With Pentijak Silat 4, close combat, and close combat: cyber implant combat, he ignores the dragon's reach, and of course he'll need cyber implant combat (spurs) 5 (7). Now here's why you went blindness: give him flash packs taped to his gear. Now the dragon's looking at significant vision penalties, and your adept isn't. Adept should be hitting on 4s, with the dragon hitting on 6s or worse, and the adept is going to tear the dragon to bits.

JaronK

Dragon's thoughts: Annoying mortal... uses flashpacks... Seems to want to fight me... Is cybered... Oh, I just remembered I have magical skills... I wonder if six force four spirits would be enough...

Assuming, of course, he doesn't just powerball you on the spot.

Well, like I said, the hard part is getting him into melee in the first place. That's the rest of the team's job. Sending in a large host of elementals would be a big help, as would threatening the dragon with enough rocket launchers and other heavy support to make it want to stay low to the ground.

JaronK

Actually regular Dragons have pretty Crappy Initiative, only about Equal to a high-level human with Wired 1. A Samurai is quite likely to get the first hit in.

my 5 cents.
-you can kill a `by the book`unmodified dragon with starting chartacters relatively easily, one of the things I have always loved of SR is its`nobody is invincible` character. Hell, even Lofwyr would go down if caught with his pants down..

now a combat with a Dragon should be epic, memorable. and have the feel of a chess match before the actual encounter. depending on how well they do at the `chess level` how well prepared the Dragon is. if the Adult dragon is prepared and fully expecting the runners and knows where /when, they are dead. <same is true for any enemy with enough resources in sr>, if on the other hand the Dragon is caught completely by surprise it will be killed, no sweat. <assuming decent weapons,e tc etc.. prob before its first action>
now your runners will be somewhere in between these two extremes, ideally you should prepare the finale with the Dragon in different ways depending on how prepared it is for the runners, a) relatively unprepared, only with permanent spells active and a few minions <not his best, who keeps his best minions at home on guard duty??>, automated defenses, some spirits, etc etc.
b)expecting trouble: all suitable spells on, effort being done in astral search, minions available depending on his estimate of incoming trouble, etc.
c) sure someone will try to kill him, and having a good idea when: as above but also add hired help as the Dragon can afford and feels it is necessary <probably a no-win for beginning chars >

-small detail: all adult Dragons are from the previous cycle and thus have odd magics available to them.. look at ED books for flavour but mana level isnt high enough for the high circle spells..

--phew, first big post of the new year
DS

DS

kagetenshi, i meant that it's the best of both worlds from the standpoint of someone who doesn't have a VCR. for being non-riggers, dragons are really badass in vehicle combat.

Ah, that's true.

~J

Hmm. Rigging dragons...

Not to mention dragons are dual natured...

Ghostwalker used spirits to shield himself from missiles. Additional to the dozen spirits, I suggest the average adult has Deflect, Increases INI active all the time before we discuss Anchored or Detection Spells.

Is there any canon information suggesting Dragons normally use those spells at all times? Or for that matter even typically pack multiple quickened spells?

After all, things like increased INI have some bad consequences in the game for fluff and day-to-day stuff, and I imagine Deflect could get really annoying fast if, for instance, every time you tried to type on a keyboard Deflect made you press 10 keys.

Actually, take a look at the book Never Deal With a Dragon. You have dragons changing shape, Lofwyr hiding behind a protective barrier, and even a dragon that uses a spell to cause a landslide.

Yes. . . does that section say Dragons always have improved Initiative and Deflect (Or some other spells) on themselves at all times? The question isn't whether dragons can use magic, but how much they quicken on themselves all the time.