I was wondering if other people could give up some examples of Shadowrun games where the player character(s) did something(s) absolutely mind-blowing, whether it be incredibly subtle or absolutely theatrical. Especially anything on the level of the 'jumping twenty meters into a helicopter manned by an orc with a machinegun to save his compadres and his girlfriend" example given in SR3, or anything else just absolutely spectacular and cinematic.

Most memorable was a character on a Radio Shack tortoise trying to hack into a satellite link with a computer skill of 3. TN: 24, Roll: 28. Lacks some of the flair, but nobody forgot that roll. I died in the same game from +2 Reach weapons (which back then gave +2 AND -2). Never played a non-cyber, non-magic type character again.

Sphynx

So far, I've:

Leapt 12 metres straight up to land on a 3rd-floor balcony (Hydraulic Jacks and SR physics mesh well !)

Jumped down a 20m chute to land on the head of an enemy infiltrator, snapping his spine. Grabbed the lip of the chute, flipped up and out to halt downwards momentum, quickdrew my SMGs on the fall, and then filled the other enemy in the room with a four 3-round bursts. Of H-EX ammo. Ambidexterity is fun!

Jumped up onto the roof of a house, ripped the tiles up, crashed through the ceiling, executed 4 kidnappers, and got the hostages out unharmed.

Chasing an ambulance with an abductee, I shot my grapple line onto its roof, swung over (we were going at better than 100 kph at the time), swung down the back, punched in the rear windscreen, and shot the evil-doer (needing an 18, mind you!)

In my previous game, I used my PhysAd powers to jump over twenty metres between buildings that were 40 stories up, grab an enemy, then use the "Throw" maneuver to hoik him over the side.

Whee!

Playing an utterly munchkinized troll, I was part of a Fuchi special ops team engaging a team or runners on a rooftop. When their rigger popped up in a helicopter gunship and started up the minigun, I had Jenn climb King Kong-style up an antenna assembly, then jump over to hang off of the chopper's hull. She bent the gun far enough that it broke the servos or whatever inside, rendering the gun useless. She was just peeling her way inside the cockpit when the heli shook her off. Got to love inhuman strength.

#1: human physad with no stealth skill whatsoever was trying to sneak past a border checkpoint with the rest of the team. open roll defaulting to attribute in front of the entire group. got a 26! so here's how the gm played it out "the rest of you get to the other side and look back to see if he's following you then you feel him poke your shoulder and ask "what's taking you so long? let's go!"

#2 dwarf hermetic mage: we were trying to stop a military convoy and steal something out the back, we figured the best way was to steal the entire truck. we didn't figure on them having helicopter backup. the rest of my team shot it up with some effect (the 4 of them managed to get it to a M) then my mage launched a powerbolt at it. finished the sucker off and it started coming down... right on top of the mage's head. fortunately he already had his armor spell up plus his normal armor and on it's way down he cast a strong barrier in the way to take a little bit of the impact. helicopter came down in a huge fireball around my char as you could see the field of the barrier crackle and fail. as my team was getting ready to drive away figuring i was dead they saw me walk out with fire crackling off the magical armor. took a serious after managing to get 2 successes to stage it down. coolest tale that mage ever tells

Very nice stuff.
Now, the question is, does super-rolling only tend to occur when intense physical action is occuring, or when more mental tasks like charisma are involved? Or how about using both at the same time for that oh-so-bad*ss flavor?

One time in my old group there was a character having sex (don't ask) and rolled a 46 or something obscene like that. GM said the, uh, recipient nearly died and had to be resuscitated.

One time a character rolled about 121 (or maybe even higher) for a test to do with creating a weapon focus.
Now that was surreal. Do you have any idea how long it takes to roll that kind of result?

Heroic things are thigs I define as not roll-played but role-played, as in it wasn't just a lucky dice roll but also excellent action description as well as often a very good dice roll

Like the runner who shot down a helicoptor with a heavy pistol: A scene almost straight out of an action movie; being pursued down a street on a motorcycle whilst a helicoptor with an MMG is pursuing you and your team. You have one bullet left. Screech to a break, turn around to face the incoming helicoptor, MMG gunfire tearing up the pavement around you. Aim and open fire with the last bullet, which shatters through the windscreen (or whatever they're called on helicoptors), killing the pilot, sending the helicoptor crashing to the ground as the runner drives from the explosion on his motorbike...

Stuff of legends.

how about exiting a sub, that was

a) 120 meters below surface
b) not having any diving gear
c) killing a paranormal fish on his way up
d) actually surviving the dive
e) and finally swimming to the shore, which was 10 kilometers away.

as a gm i gave him almost everytime a -2 TN for his taks, because he played it out that well, everybody was stunned and horrified at the table. but the targetnumbers were still high.

gm: swimming tn4. defaulting roll 8.
pc: *rolling dice* damn, highest was 6
gm: ok, you swallow salty seawater. to get you back above the surface, roll a 10.
pc: *rolling dice* a 10, YES!!!
gm: you succesfully manage to stay above the sea-level. now roll swimming. tn 8

etc
etc
etc

he barely survived it. and i let him roll dice all the way back to shore. (aprox. every 100 meters. for 10 kilometers)

i know, i am evil.

he got 25 karma for this run. guess what he learned for all the karma

Chinese?

Maybe how to use a radio to call help?

But as Ronin said,

Hmm, I remember my 300 or 400 karma mage going to meet with some gang members...

They are trying to indimidate him and the guys he is talking to pull open thier armored jackets to reveal pistols... A quick illusion later, he pulls open is jacket to reveal that he is wrapped in (illusionary) explosives. The negotiations seemed to go quite smoothly after that.

hmm but isn't a single success rolled, even if it is 121 still only a single success, meaning you managed it, but only barely
yeah yeah I know, I'm being picky, I'd probably give some bonuses to anyoen who scored a success with a high roll as well.

#1) SR1, Psychotic combat mage, in the last encounter of "Ivy & Chrome", downs an attack 'copter with a hellblast. Picture the scene in MIB2 where they shoot down the spaceship...only the mage was a bit closer - he did survive after the 'copter skidded into him....barely.

#2) SR1, again - Bodyguard kills a dragon with a single round from a Colt Manhunter. Veeeeery lucky shot. Same bodyguard snap-shoots a BTL chip at 100M in the middle of a fire-fight - just happened to see it out of the corner of his eye....

#3) SR2 - munchkinized Bio-Troll (how much bioware can you stuff?) ran around the edge of a barracks, straight into 2 guards - killed them both with his combat axe, then flipped the switch to warm up his mini-gun, stepped into the barracks, and emerged 2 rounds later at the other end, after having killed all of the guards in the place (6) with one sweep of the 'gun...

#4) Same bio-troll, after shrugging off a point-blank shotgun blast called-shot to the face (he DID have a helmet on...), chased down the fleeing guard, grabbed him by the back of the neck (crunching a few vertebrae, and swung his axe....at the wall, cracking it. He then PUNCHED the guard right through the cracked wall, and dropped him outside - from about 9 floors up!

#5) Team is staking out a Humanis joint, when a semi starts to leave. Mage, not one to lose an opportunity, turn invisible, and jumps on the back of the trailer as it speeds. Using his mono-knife, carves a peep-hole in the back, and sees a platoon of guards, and a tank inside! Orders his Water elemental to kill anyone inside the tank, and takes out the platoon with a ManaBall. Carves a doorway in the back of the trailer to get in, and starts sneaking to the front (still invisible!). Carves another doorway at the front of the trailer. At this point, the rigger in the semi tweaks to the fact something's wrong, and seeing that everyone in the trailer is dead, uses machinegun on the tank to start taking pot shots around the trailer. Mage takes out the machinegun with a ram spell, so the rigger disconnects the trailer! Mage makes a jump for it, using the last service from his last elemental (an Air elemental) to propel him onto the back of the semi's cab. Tank bursts through the now-careening trailer, and starts to engage the rest of the team (following in their armored car) using the main gun. Mage climbs around the cab (still invisible!) and uses his monoknife to punch a hole in the side of the cab. He then stuffs a grenade in the hole, and climbs back to the back of the cab - grenade blows, killing everyone inside (chunky salsa), and cab heads straight for a building. Mage finally drops invisibility, and jumps for it, casting Armor on himself in the hopes of being able to survive the road rash (he did, barely). As the rest of the team evades now-runaway tank (shooting everything in sight, as it operates on it's last command) and drive up, mage pulls the rigger's remote deck from the decimated cab, jumps in, and the team makes their escape. As Lone Star is dealing with a runaway tank, the mage hands the remote deck to the team's decker, who extracts the control codes from it and anonymously phones them in to 911. Whew!

#6) Same mage, ever one for action, is trying to get to the roof of a 'scraper as fast as possible, and the elevators are down and locked. Can't levitate outside, as there are snipers around. So he charges up the stairs, using a spirit's movement power to go faster. He's moving so fast the the guards stationed halfway up couldn't react fast enough to stop him, so he just drops a grenade in their laps as he breezes by...

I don't like high target numbers; they aren't the standard for success in SR. Multiple dice exceeding the TN is. What I really enjoy is getting as close to mathematical certainty with your rolls as possible.

For example, Arthur, my assassin, was at a stuffer shack with a ganger he was hitting up for information. A rival ganger pulled a gun on the clerk and decided he wanted to start something. Two shots broke the gun out of his hand, and screwed up his hand a bit. After zipping behind a food isle, he grabbed a woman, and held a handblade to her throat. Before he could get all fiendish, a 14-dice Ares Predator shot to the head came in, garnering 7 successed.

The boy had 5 combat pool. Even if he rolled all 4s, he'd still have 9D coming in.

Needless to say, he was dead before hitting the floor.

That's the sort of certainty that I like. Rolls with far too many successes to fail.

Control Thoughts with 10 sucesses against two different mages.. O yeah... I dunno how that happend but it did.. and it was sweet to see the mages both cast deadly force combat spells at thier troops.

A couple here - this'll be long. These aren't my PCs, either - just PCs from my current game.

#1: Cooper, Physad, on Harlequin's Back: During the first desert-post apocalyptic world, in the final battle with Oscuro and his horrible minions (like 150 guys against a thousand), we're battling tooth and nail just to keep our heads above water, because this is the first game with these characters. Cooper realizes what's going on and that we need to steal this bird's hood from Oscuro. So he says, "I'm gonna run full-tilt toward Oscuro. Screw anyone that gets in my way." The GM says, "Um. There's an army in your way." Cooper sez, "Okay. I can work with that. I wanna try running across their heads, jumping from person to person. They'll never expect that." The GM, incredulous, eyes the tables, and comes up with a difficulty of 22. Cooper nails 2 successes - a 22 and a 24. Cooper was, if anyone would like to know, an Atheletics monkey. And used like 12 dice of the amorphous team karma you get at the beginning of HB.

#2: Shin Rau, Physad (Ninja), in Hong Kong (Brainscan, I believe). We're procuring Aneki-sama for use in our wily plans to shut down the Deus and his horrible mechanical minions. Unfortunately, as good as our cover was, I couldn't keep three mask spells sustained AND talk a blue streak at the same time. Shit, I had to be helped *walking*. So some tibetan (yet very Shaolin) monks take umbrage to our theft-of-CEO, light themselves on fire (magically), and proceed to come try and beat us down. While I'm getting my head smacked around by Monk A, Monk B rushes Shin, who's just crushing blow'd a 2 meter hole in the wall of a nearby building he was hiding in so he can join the fun, too. The monk rushes him. Shin sez, "Hmm. Okay. I'm just gonna hook his leg with my foot when he tries to kick me, sit down, and snap his knee." The plan works perfectly, snapping the monk's knee (Moderate wound) - and Shin expects the monk to give up. Nope. So Shin, incredulous, does the same thing to his other knee (Moderate wound), and stays seated, interlocked with him. He then proceeds to shatter the monk's right elbow, turns off Killing Hands, and punches the monk twice in the throat and elbows him in the head. 'Heroic' may not be the right word, but 'really ridiculously cool and vicious' is close enough for me.

#3: Tick-Tick, demolitions expert (and tech-wiz), in Seattle. Disclaimer: Tick-Tick routinely does heroic things with regards to demolishing buildings, objects, and unruly people. This is one of her non-explosive exploits. After deciding we needed to steal a few things from the UCAS military, we decided to hit an APC rolling down to Ft. Lewis. We had a really simple plan to blow up some k-rails to block the 5, jump the APC, and make off with the goods. Plan goes off perfectly, except we'd forgotten the APC would probably have an autocannon on a turret (it did) and not be so concerned about K-rails (it wasn't.) It stopped for a turn or two, and then decided to roll over some of the other cars on the 5, using them as a ramp up over the rails - all the while unloading on us with the turret. Shin-Rau luckily crushing blows the turret, bending the barrel and rendering it inoperable. Seeing the APC roll up over some cars to escape, Tick Tick narrows her eyes, says something to the effect of 'You cheeky bastard!' and unloads on the front right wheel (all metal) with her... handguns. Yes. Handguns. Apparently she'd stashed some APDS from previous dealings, because with her *pair of handguns*, she managed to core the axle of the APC and blow the wheel off. That was pretty freaky - but worse was that she didn't look particularly surprised. That's a hard-ass woman.

On a not so well prepared run, my group had a job bodyguarding a suit that picked up some gear. After easily having picked up the case they made their way back to the remote airfield, and as they left no guard and didn't scout the field they were met by two henchmen politely requesting the gear claiming they had a sniper covering them. (Hey, they were green).

Anyway, they tell the suit to run for it! Blam! When asked why, one player said: "Well I thought they might have been bluffing, but I didn't want to check out for myself..."

He'll live forever in infamy in our minds, that coward! But atleast he did survive, and since noone was going to say otherwise when they got home, they did all they could..

I remember once in a game i ran one of PC's was getting chased by a corp car with 2 goons in (not quite but my Pc didn't know that) baiting them into driving into a wherehouse (one was a ghoul Physad the other a mage).

The Pc turns the bike around and starts to ride towards the 2 corp folk as they are getting out of their car. The pc heads towards the ork ghoul leaps off the back of the bike swinging a dikoted katana, we roll dice the ghoul takes a lite wound, (which is ignored due to pain resistance) catches the balde between hands (i run a manga/anime style game). the Pc realising She was out matched lets go of her sword (that a 5K sword) proceeds to run over the car and get onto the bike before it falls over a speeds off. Laugh!! i was on the floor!!

Well, since one of my PCs commented on everybody’s character but his own, I should point out a few things he’s done that have been spectacularly impressive.

Since our group is essentially a collection of non-runners turned towards illegal activities, when they eventually decided to embrace shadowrunning full-time there was some thought as to how they should present themselves. He decided to rename everyone with angelic names, and had everyone dress in similar business suits at meets. Since they had subtle, high-grade communication gear, he had everyone take synchronized turns speaking for the group, creating a really eerie overall effect.

For some time, he talked about designing a magical cigarette lighter, created by combining a few custom spells. The lighter produced a flame that looked like a tiny, hovering luminescent ball of energy. He presented me no opportunities for NPCs to steal the idea, and his plans to go into production were watertight. So the street mage (already armed with several business-related skills) became a corporate businessman. One game (one game!) before my plans to take everything away from him came to fruition, he created an involved backup plan of money laundering and stock manipulation (which he, again, had the skills to back up). Now, he’s taken his work back underground and has a whole crapload of money across several international accounts. It may not have been very heroic, but it was really impressive.

On a slightly more heroic note, he managed to take out a Chimera assassin with one shot. I designed the guy with all-delta grade cyberware, enough stealth gear to choke a Dragon, and a few rule-breaking stealth grapple line mods. He rolled well enough on his Perception test to see where he was, and dropped the guy with one stunbolt, despite massive magical defences. End result: my spooky-doom NPC goes up in a cranial bomb-induced explosion in the middle of downtown Seattle, and the players dust themselves off and go home for coffee.

Back in 2nd ed. I had a human face/sammie. Had also paid for a gang and a buddy for him. Everywhere he went he made contacts! I always liked when he was accosted by a small ork street gang in the barrens (not his turf) and robbed at gunpoint. He could have probably killed them all but he paid them, then investigated them. Found out all about them in a couple of days. He had a teammate courier an invitation to the guy in charge (who was also the guy who robbed him) to an office he rented. He played "corp player" to the hilt and did the ol' carrot and the stick" routine. Basically...

Me: "You robbed me of 500 nuyen. This is unacceptable. Have you anything to say?"

Ork: "Hey, biz is biz."

Me: "Indeed. Well spoken. In fact, I find you an enterprising young man. I propose that, Instead of having a "long sleep" or spending some time in the penitentiary, you keep that 500 nuyen as your first week's pay. You now work for me. I'll provide you with hardwear to get you started"

At that I pulled out a secure longcoat and H&K 227 with underbarrel grenade launcher for every gang member and 100 rounds of ammo for each gun. Needless to say, they accepted my offer. Making a leadership roll from hell they became ultra loyal, too! I started to make enough from them to support a low lifestyle and begun a "gang franchise" scheme! A small gang in every neighborhood using the same name. Too cool!

Well,let's see I was in a team of runners that held out in the middle of what seemed like at least 10 nasty spirits(force 6+ of unknown type) with a mass of lesser spirits (we think watchers, but still unknown) and all sorts of people.(armed with things ranging from rocks to old small arms). Even with a great battle plan and place not one of the characters had ammo by the time it was over.

It was a good thing that my character was a vodun with a force 5 great form in me(one of the war ones),and we had two shamans. with out those two things it would have been ugly. As it was only 1(out of 7)pc died,and that was just how the dice rolled.

well, here's something more theatric and "doh!" from my friend Troll's game:
(it's a two-parter, cause it was a cliffhanger session)

our party had been "hired" by Aztech on a "retainer" basis. (we were on the lam from Ares after one of our many building-demolishing "stealth" runs. generally, when ordered to sneak we exploded stuff, and when ordered to explode stuff, we snuck real good... and then exploded stuff.) so we were corp-runners-for-the-day for the Az, and they flew us out to India to "deal with" a problem in a rather profitable mine. seems they breached some sort of chamber-with-evil-temple dealie whilst digging their latest big-honkin transit tunnel. (using those HUGE tunnel-diggers they used to make the Chunnel, or something very similar... but rigger-controlled.)

we got all our people down into the chamber... and had just spotted the temple-o-trouble when "AHH! BEETLES!" ya know, the classic horde-o-bugs routine. our popguns were just not cutting it, and we beat a fighting retreat, blammiesmages firewalling at full blast, and Giant-sammie (named Schweetums, after the muppet) blasting away with his GUN<tm>.

so the whole party is scrambling madly up the sloped cavern floor towards the mine-tunnel, and we say "hey, where's Frenchy?" (our Quebequois dwarf rigger)

just then, he BUSTS through the cavern wall in one of those diggers! and then the GM called the session and we went on a 3-week christmas hiatus. awgawd.

---

so when we resume, the digger-machine lands, and Frenchy proceeds to Crushinate the beetles. and then says "so, the temple is made of rock, right?" and the GM (who had spent massive effort designing this deathtrap D&D-style dungeoncrawl temple o evil) says "yeah, so?" and Frenchy proceeds to make an express lane to the final badguy confrontation, bypassing the entire temple complex. (largely demolishing it, as well. our trademark maneuver. :) Frenchy threatens the Evil-Priest type badguy with a taste of the old mining-drill. then our supersexay Elf shaman type just gives him the Astral equivalent of a chokeslam, and it's done.

---
that game produced SO many good stories. just the MacBadass clan alone is good for both the Booze Elemental and the Scotch Fairy incidents. and the session immediately prior to the mine runs actually produced outtakes.

Ok, so I'm playing a troll sammie with an emphasis on toughness. He's successfully shrugged off full-auto bursts from LMG's. In order to properly challenge him, the GM faces us with a cybered piasma on steroids.

The piasma hits the team while my troll is otherwise occupied, but once the alert comes over the coms, I come charging in. He gets there just as one combat turn ends, and another one is ready to begin. One teammate is down, another injured, and a third has gone full-auto with no noticeable result.

The GM says I get one action at the end of the round, but it can't be combat. So, I take a hit of kamikaze and charge.

The cyberpisama who's been more than a match for an entire team gets hit by a maddened troll using a shotgun as a club. What's more, it ends up dying after one hit... and that's swinging a weapon that does Stun damage. Needless to say, the GM was very impressed, as were the players... and the characters, once the hit of kamikaze wore off and they felt safe coming within ten meters....

Tim Yintin, 1.55m tall human physad, specialist of herboristry, massages, taoist sex, traditional Chinese first aid, acupuncture, parabotany and BIG BIG time athletics and unarmed combat master.
One of his friends is held captive after a failed run, by a BUNCH of toxic shamans (nice GM).
PC arrives, and as failed previous run had exposed the toxic shamans lair to authorities, who were quite mad at some of the stuff going on due to this toxic cabal, special troops are there launching full scale assault.
Small guy arrives on foot, in traditional Chinese robe, while nothing/nobody is able to give a run for its money to a free Force 12 Toxic spirit (very nice GM). The Thing runs amock among the elite troops, not one weapon inflicts any damage to the Thing (Immunity to normal weapons like armor 24, or try to toss any direct resisted spell against a TN of 12).
Then small guy walks straight to The Thing, engages it and kills it after 30 second combat, with his bare hands and feet.
Everybody just gapes at small guy.
Then small guy goes straight to building where are held many captives, gives two punches to the reinforced concrete wall and goes through a hole his size.
Comes out ten minutes later with a guy on his shoulders, stops to help cure all the wounded with strange leaves/herbs and just leaves on foot.
Last but not least, small man get astrally scanned by a few top notch army mages, who all perceive him as mundane. He in return bows to each of them beginning from highest grade initiate to lowest, in a perfect order.

Adepts rock!!! (crying munchkin GM)

so my character, physad with a few initiations, is the last one to cross the cat-walk and he hears a sound like the breech of a grenade launcher, quickdraw, kills the guy. but not after he, and the catwalk, takes pretty bad damage. the team leaves him for dead, who could take the explosion and the fall? well the GM makes the rolls behind the screen and passes me a note

so i write back blah blah blah. the team is trying to get out, and under heavy fire, when all of a sudden a roadmaster pulls up right in front of them, the hatch opens, and its my character "I can't believe you just left me! when we get back, we are having a long talk!"

im glad i thought to get that bone lacing done

Uh my best would be from back in the munchy days when I had a speedster named ThunderCrack (T.C. for short). He used a Warhawk and styled himself as a gun fighter . I think his inative was in the range of 19 +4d6 or so .
Any way one guy decided to start some trouble in a bar so I rolled inative . and had the guy way out classed . T.C. reached out with his first action and took the guys gun from hs holster , than used his second to unload the Pred , and used his third to put it back in the guys holster and smile.
Needless to say for some reason the guy decided to back down .

I suppose I should add some of my own to this

I had a player who made a character named John Lee, a human fixer. This was when my group was insanely large and actually needed a PC fixer to handle what they wanted. Lee was the fixer from hell. After the group stole a helicopter from an opposing team and dispatched their members, he went out shopping for modifications. Like AV autocannon rounds and AV rockets. (These came in handy later against the master shedim...not a high powered campaign, we promise ) Need that Mafia boss to come with you without his boys and not ask questions? Lee did. And the boss went. My players would come up with long, detailed lists of what they needed, and Lee would get them, adding a 10% gratuity fee, of course. For NPCs, he added a 25%, and for contacts he usually got things as favors. In the end, the armory the players maintained had several flamethrowers (pesky vampires), Thunderbolts, HVARs, HMGs, LMGs, a mortar /w HE, AP and AV shells, mil-spec armor, a Battletech 10 system with units for everybody, and a bunch of things I'm sure I have forgotten.

That campaign is currently on hold as several of the members, including Lee, have left for college, but when it comes back, I'm sure they'll find new ways to surprise me.

Next time I post, I'll let you all know about a PC named Godfried...the jack of all trades. which connections to Shiawase.

The character: An Elven Mercenary. Athletics of 3.

The setup: The team was out at an isolated corp research facility outside of Vancouver. The forest had been cleared around the installation. There was a fence a short distance away from the two-story building. There were guards at the corners of the chain-link fence in guard posts and two guards walking patrol on the roof of the building.

The idea: To sprint across the 100m of open ground, spring up onto the fence and then vault onto the roof of the building behind one of the guards.

The GM went a little lenient on me, but it still wasn't an easy task and involved several Athletics tests. Amazingly, I made all of the rolls with only three dice. Once up on the roof he superised the guards by grappling with the first one he landed behind and successfully snapping his neck. While holding him up and using him as a shield he quick drew his Savalette Guardian and shot two rounds into the other guard on the roof, silenced of course. I think the GM was so impressed he didn't bother with the other guards around the perimeter, heh.


This was on that particular character's first run. His schtick became doing outrageos things during runs. He would invariably always end up taking a deadly wound or nearly so. On another run, he took a huge amount of Stun damage in the first encounter and spent the rest of the run using stim patches throught the duration of it to stay concious. Quite fun. At the end of that particular mission we made our escape by stealing a T-Bird. Again, my character was the most qualified pilot, even though he only has like a 3 or so in the skill.

So, we take off and the air defenses are triggered. I manage to take out one battery of SAM's and then try to make my escape. Another battery fires off two missles at us. I manage to take out one with countermeasures, but the second one clipped us, sending us crashing into the ocean.

By this time I had accelerated the T-bird to top speed or nearly so, so we were facing certain death. The TN for the Crash Test was astronomical. I managed to succeed at it, quite crazy indeed. We were all pretty beat up, but alive amazingly. After being picked up by the patrol boats we managed to make our escape via boat.

Quite fun, quite crazy, probably nowhere near any sort of realism, but sometimes you just have to be crazy.

Hmm.... Orient and Tick-Tick... do we have some Bordertown fans here?

I'm still pretty proud of the time when playing Iamogo, our party was trapped on the top floor of a casltle with a bunch of armed dudes in heavy security armor on the floor below. We had no guns / ammo that could hurt the guys much, and they had a mage protecting them so spells weren't doing much either. Thinking quick, I had my speed sam (17+4d6 init) pick up the hierloom Claighmoor from over the mantleplace. The mage slapped his "improved invisability" spell lock on me (so he wopuldn;t need LOS to sustain the spell), and I went downstairs and got medieval on those bastaches. Str 9 + claighmore going against impact armor is nearly as good as APDS....
I didn't get them all, but I got enough of them to turn the fight in our favor, including chopping a troll clean in half.

It was my first Gen Con. I don't know what most people thought of the old "VS" campaign but for me, it was literally the only place I could get a game of Shadowrun in at that time. Anyway, a friend of mine and several other cool folks were at the table, including the GM who had flown in all the way from Australia. I was playing a human sniper, equipped with the the Ranger Arms SM-3. My friend and I were at about 4 or 5 karma pool, the other folks we were with were about twice that. Anyway, the adventure was something special for Gen Con and looking back on it, it was probably absolutely the most perfect run any character of mine was involved in.

The setup was that a Yakuza member called us together and tasked us with returning a sacred weapon that was stolen from them. At the end of the run, we ended up finding out it was something ridiculous, Weapon focus 6 (katana). One thing we were all sort of surprised about was the fact that our Johnson seemed to have an inkling of who did it. If we confirmed that he had it, we were supposed to get the object back from him. On the other hand, if he didn't have it we weren't to disturb him and we had to keep looking. Anyway, between the initiates in our group mucking about in the astral and my friend working his underworld contacts to the max, we confirmed that not only had the initial suspect done the deed, that in fact he was secluded on a mountain compound overlooking Seattle. So, we would be leaving Seattle for Salishe lands...

Our magic using types had found out the item was a focus (but not its level) and were really worried. Apparently, the guy who stole the focus was a well known phys-ad who had initiated several times and specialized in the Katana... It looked pretty grim, but we came up with a plan, and once we got out of Seattle, it worked like a charm.

The compound was literally on the side of a mountain, and as it turned out, a heavily wooded area. The team had acquired a security van, something a bonded courier might use. We had taken a look of some topos of the area and decided that I had a good chance of sneaking through the woods undetected while the rest of the group continued on the mountain road. I had my comgear, camouflage, a portable tree stand, and my trusty sniper rifle. The group feigned engine trouble to give me a headstart. Eventually, I got to an area where I felt I could set up my stand and sure enough, I was able to see the front of this guy's mansion very well and I even observed a few guards walking about. The group showed up about 30 minutes after I was set up, at this point we are maintaining radio silence. They sleaze their way to the front door and after the doorbell rings, a guard asks them what they want. Well, the story the two initiates who got out of the van were going with was that that had a special delivery for the owner of the mansion. The guard says he doesn't remember getting notice about a potential shipment, but that he would sign for it anyway. Our pseudo-delivery personnel say that since the occupant/owner can't sign for it himself, they'll have to take the package back since they're with a bonded company and they need his actual signature. The guard tells them to wait a minute and closes the door.

A moment later, a man wearing shades, boxers, a Hugh Hefner style robe and a katana on his back appears at the door, drinking a mug of coffee. He starts blathering on about how it is much, much too early for a delivery, particularly one from a company he's never heard of and in any case the companies he uses know he will not sign his name on an invoice. At any rate, he doesn't recall ordering anything that needed to be shipped lately and implies that if he doesn't get some answers PDQ he will resume with his morning workout in a more sanguine fashion than usual. One of the initiate decoys starts some rambling line of BS about being lost and how they're truly sorry for the disturbance and if they could just direct them to this funky address that must be his neighbor or something, great, and just one more thing...

Over my com's earpiece: "...take him out." I had all 6 of my rifle skill, and threw in 6 more combat pool and put in 4 of my KP just to help it along on an aimed shot to the head. My TN = 2 and I didn't roll any failures. Even after burning all of the NPC's KP on re-rolled resistance rolls, he couldn't' keep hims alive (No HOG for him). In the actual initiative round I took out a guard and the decoys ended up taking out the other goons and grabbing the item, which we returned to our Johnson. But I had actually gotten to use my sniper in the role he was meant to operate. I had heard other tables had been in a lot more trouble than us. It was a very satisfying feeling.

My chums and I were extracting some simsense chica from her corp hq when we ran into some security. My adept, dressed in overalls with an ID tag, went ahead of the rest of the group to secure our transport.

Imagine running into the carpark, unarmed and unarmoured and coming up against two sec guards carrying SMGs. They started to raise their guns as they were already on alert. They were standing in front of our trusty van 25m away, so I did the only thing I could do.

I ran straight at them, using my athletics and combat pool to dodge, dodge, dodge.

I pulled the ID tag of my overalls, and using the missile mastery power made a called shot for the first sec guards opened visor. He dies.

The second guard unleashes, FA at me and I use the rest of my combat pool, and burn three karma. I am standing 4 metres away from him at this stage, and dodge the lot.

He doesn't get a chance to reload.

2nd Edition Ork Razor "Yama"

The team pulls up to see 2 Banshees parked in front of the site we were suppose to sneak into. So our team stealthily start advancing onto the target without fear because we're drekhard. Little did we know that the Knight Errant goons are watching us the whole time and just when we had come about half way between our get away vehicle and and the building they let loose on us. Caught totally by surprise, the Elf Razor who was hiding behind a dumpster at the time was laying about 10 ft. away in a puddle of his own blood. Yama, had taken a serious wound from the GMC. Every one hunkered down to avoid the barrage that followed. Since none of our characters normally carried anti tank gear we were really upcreek with out a canoe. So Yama does the only thing he can think, he shoots his grenade launcher at one of the GMCs. Of course, I was reminded that his grenade would probably be useless. And I replied casually, that I was going for the turret that was aimed at my character. The gamemaster set the target number at 26 for all things considered and amazingly I rolled a 32... The GM made some rolls and as luck would have it (or the GM was being nice) the goons had the door open to load a new round into the turret, killing the poor inhabitants... This gave the team enough breathing room to get their fallen companion and get outta dodge.

The look on the GM's face was priceless...

Here is a story of magical inspiration:

My cat shamanist charachter & a sam had to kidnap this johnson we had just been talking too. We followed him and his two scary guards out to his car and they were about to get in when inspiration struck.

First I simultaneously cast a spell that made the sound of a gunshot come from the crowd momentarily distracting the guards then causing a panic and masked myself to look like the johnson.

Next I ordered the city spirit I had conjured earlier to alienate the johnson (making him invisible, intangible, and dispairing) until the car was out of sight then to hold him till my partner took over, while stepping into the car followed by the guards.

I let the car go a few blocks, then started pretending to be nauseous and coughed out "pull over" (thus avoiding voice identification). I got out of the car, guards in tow and stepped into an alley feigning sickness.

Finally I cast chaotic world centered on myself using a bit of spell defense to keep myself standing completely incapacitating the guards and preventing them from seeing what was about to happen, dropped the mask, left the alley (though getting a bit dirty with the +4 T#'s or so from drain and the illusion) blended into the crowd and dropped the spell.

Meanwhile back at the club my partner spent about 30 seconds wondering where I had disappeared to until the johnson appeared out of nowhere in the clutches of a city spirit to be easily knocked unconcious and tossed in his trunk.

A few minutes later I gave him a call to explain it all while walking back to the club.


Best part is, no unusual rolls. Slightly worse than average even.

Well it's a Cyber-Hero story but it applies and I'll NEVER pull off something like that again.

San Francisco, dark future, my character, a japanese assassin, born and bred for the purpose, jacked with enough military grade cyberwear to choke a horse, has fled the Yakuza after the "accidental" death of his "Uncle", and is now hiding from the Yakuza and trying to build a new life for himself, under the assumed streetname "Tokyo Joe".

Hooks up with the PCs, because hey, they're the PCs dammit and we go about our business of trying to survive. Big problem, no street cred. No one knows us, no one knows our names, no one knows not to mess with us (cause we're the PCs dammit!)

One of the PCs gets into a fight in a bar, with some bad people, members of the biggest, nastiest street gang in San Fran, the Cyber Punks, heavy on the obvious cyberwear and generally known as badasses. It comes down to weapons drawn about the time I walk in. I do my damndest to talk everybody down but again, no one knows us and we have no street cred. The long and the short of it is, I manage to figure out it all started between my friend and this guy Seamak, a lieutenant in the Cyber Punks and a generally grumpy SOB. Seamak, during the very tense conversation let's it known he's not much for guns, preferring to beat people to death with his hands (or blunt objects), so I offer him a compromise:

Everybody puts their guns away, and Seamak can face me in the pits (the local Bloodsport, 2 guys in a pit, do the math), which works for him since he'll be able to kill me in front of all his friends and he likes that idea. Good thing is, no one gets shot and me and my friends are allowed to leave after we clear up the rules for the next night, he asks if armor should be allowed, I answer it'll have to be since I can't take mine off (Dermal implants) he tells me to choose weapons, I say none, he says no good, pick something, so I say blunt (staves/bats...)

The next night, at the Pits, the place is packed with the usually crowd and close to the entire Cyber Punks gang. The music is pounding, the lights are flashing, the crowd is rowdy as all hell. In my dressing room/filthy concrete closet, I'm getting dressed, black pants, black boots, no shirt and a short staff I chose at random since I'm not planning to use the damn thing. At the appointed time, I get introduced and there's general booing and screaming of obscenities about my mother by the Punks. Seamak walks in, wearing full CID without a helmet and a baseball bat with spikes sticking out of it. The crowd goes wild chanting "Seamak! Seamak!" and Seamak is looking at me with a smirk on his face.

The ref (fat smelly owner/operator) signals for the fight to start, we're standing at opposite ends of the pit and and I bow to Seamak and snap the staff over my knee, dropping the pieces to the side. Seamak test swings his bat a few times and explains to me how fun it'll be beating my skull in. We start circling each other as the crown above is going mental, Seamak moves in for his first attack but I've got him on initiative...

(My attack roll was 3, which on 3 dice is 1-1-1 also known as a critical strike, also known as max damage. My location roll was also a 3 =) Meaning right in the face.)

I ducked and stepped into his guard and violently straight armed him in the jaw, and with a sickening bone cracking sound, send him into a nice curved arch that finished with his crumpling to the floor like a sac of potatoes. The crowd was suddenly very silent and after a few seconds, the music stopped. I looked up at the shadowy faces drowning in the colored lights and spoke:

"My name is Tokyo Joe and I wish to be left alone."

I then turned, and disappeared back down the concrete tunnel that had brought me to the pit.

The Cyber Punks never bothered us again. Seamak lost a little street cred for the couple weeks he was recovering in hospital as people were saying "He obviously wasn't so tough". The day AFTER he got out, they found 3 members of another gang, mutilated beyond recognition in an alley and in blood on the wall the words "Seamak is back"... his street cred recovered after that, and mine was etched in stone.

Sunday.

Well, to be fair, it's like a lot of action films -- it looks cool unless you actually understand how unlikely and improbable the whole scenario ends up being.

-Siege

well, "In our games" if it's not physically possible, it doesn't happen. If it's extremely difficult the TN reflects that, and we never have to suspend disbelief.

Sure, if you know how it works in real life.

Not everyone has experience scuba diving, casting spells or running like a SEAL on steroids.

-Siege