[SR 4] Is Bloodsucking Only For Suckers?

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

See that NORMALLY in there?
This means there are exceptions to that rule.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
Korwin
Duke
Posts: 2055
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 6:49 am
Location: Linz / Austria

Post by Korwin »

It looks more like an backdoor to me, if they (rules writers) want to change their mind.
Red_Rob wrote: I mean, I'm pretty sure the Mayans had a prophecy about what would happen if Frank and PL ever agreed on something. PL will argue with Frank that the sky is blue or grass is green, so when they both separately piss on your idea that is definitely something to think about.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

Korwin wrote:It looks more like an backdoor to me, if they (rules writers) want to change their mind.
Considering that the very next sentence is an optional rule that allows spells to clan up Drain in more superheroic campaigns, I think you're right.

-Username17
Captain_Karzak
Journeyman
Posts: 102
Joined: Wed May 26, 2010 10:19 am

Post by Captain_Karzak »

I have another question related to critter regeneration and other awakened critter powers that utilize the Magic Attribute:

Does a Power Foci augment those kind of abilities?

Also, as I'm reading the books trying to build my character, how much BP is worth devoting to Gear Nuyen (for a magician)?

[EDIT] Looking again at Power Foci, I can spend 20 BP for 100,000 Ny. 5 BP for the Restricted Gear Positive Quality, and 4 BP to bond a Force 4 Power Foci.

Is that a good allocation of 29 BP at character creation?

We will definitely earn more than 125,000 Ny over the course of a few adventures, so that 25 BP spent on Gear Money is not a durable advantage. The 5 BP spent on Restricted Gear Positive Quality is a reasonable investment because you can buy the Quality during character creation, and reserve it's use to purchase an item anytime after the game starts. Binding a Force 5 Power Foci would set me back a cool 40 Karma. That sounds painful.

Edit: Things you can buy with BP cost a variable amount of Karma. It's never really a fixed ratio, like 2:1. If I spend 4 BP to raise a skill from 0 to 1, then I could have accomplished the same thing by spending 2 Karma. If I spend BP to raise my Cha from 6 to 7 (assuming racial max of 8), then I've spend 10 BP to accomplish what would take between 21 and 35 Karma (depending on Errata). So is that the mentality I should have when allocating BP during character creation: always aim for the best BP:Karma ratio?
Frank already did all this math for us several years ago! http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=15012

EDIT notes - fixed Foci cost
Last edited by Captain_Karzak on Wed May 04, 2011 9:50 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Lethe
NPC
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:23 pm

Post by Lethe »

Captain_Karzak wrote:Looking again at Power Foci, I can spend 25 BP for 125,000 Ny. 5 BP for the Restricted Gear Positive Quality, and 5 BP to bond a Force 5 Power Foci.

Is that a good allocation of 35 BP at character creation?
Note that Restricted Gear lets you get an item with an Availability up to 20, and a Power Focus has Availability (Force * 5)R, so you can only use it for a Power Focus up to Force 4.

As for whether it's a good allocation of BP, I'm not really experienced enough to say. Another player in the game I'm in started with one, and it's certainly a powerful boost.
Captain_Karzak wrote:Edit: Things you can buy with BP cost a variable amount of Karma. It's never really a fixed ratio, like 2:1. If I spend 4 BP to raise a skill from 0 to 1, then I could have accomplished the same thing by spending 2 Karma. If I spend BP to raise my Cha from 6 to 7 (assuming racial max of 8), then I've spend 10 BP to accomplish what would take between 21 and 35 Karma (depending on Errata). So is that the mentality I should have when allocating BP during character creation: always aim for the best BP:Karma ratio?
FrankTrollman wrote:Ugh. This is why I dumped Karma, it encourages people to do shitty things. Since it costs less Karma to buy up to a 5 and then a six than to buy up to a 6 on two skills, taking two fives is objectively more expensive in the long run than taking one six.
From http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=99743
Last edited by Lethe on Wed May 04, 2011 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Captain_Karzak
Journeyman
Posts: 102
Joined: Wed May 26, 2010 10:19 am

Post by Captain_Karzak »

I have a question about Gymnastic Dodge: Why is it considered superior to just buying regular dodge?

It seems like regular dodge applies against all attacks, unless you are surprised, and counts for double on full defense against melee attacks.

Gymnastic dodge only applies when going full defense.

Also: Does anyone know if a power foci applies to critter powers based of the magic stat if that critter is also a magician?
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

I figure it's because it basically lets you add skill+skill+attribute instead of just skill+attribute, if i got that one right.
Sorry, can't help with the focus questions. Not fond of mgic <.<
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

Captain_Karzak wrote:I have a question about Gymnastic Dodge: Why is it considered superior to just buying regular dodge?
Because what you get is:
SkillsClose CombatRangedCC + Full DefRanged + Full Def
DodgeReaction+SkillReactionReaction+Skill+SkillReaction+Skill
GymnasticsReactionReactionReaction+SkillReaction+Skill
Gymnastics + UnarmedReaction+SkillReactionReaction+Skill+SkillReaction+Skill

So all Dodge gets you over Gymnastics is a bonus dice pool in close combat. But you get the same bonus dicepool by taking a close combat skill instead. Also, Gymnastics is part of Athletics, so you can boost it with Enhanced Articulation and Sythicardium. Dodge is a combat skill, so its bonuses are minimal.

The only excuse for buying Dodge is if you already had no intention of spending points on any close combat skill or gymnastics. It's frankly a stupid skill and I would remove it from the list entirely if I was in charge of 5e.

-Username17
Quantumboost
Knight-Baron
Posts: 968
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Quantumboost »

@Power Focus: "A power focus adds its Force to all tests in which the magician's Magic is included." The magician's Magic is included in the tests for Critter powers that use his Magic. So, it appears yes, unless there's text elsewhere that says otherwise.
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

Well, under SR3, Power Focus added directly to the Magic Attribute.
Under SR4, it only gives Bonus Dice.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
Captain_Karzak
Journeyman
Posts: 102
Joined: Wed May 26, 2010 10:19 am

Post by Captain_Karzak »

Oh man, I read the table on 141 wrong :doh:. I though dodge added to reaction on all defender rolls, not just during full defense! Thanks for sorting me out.

Is full defense a good option? It's usually a terrible idea in D&D, but this is of course a completely different game system...

I mean if you have fewer IP's than your opposition, then you either do Full Defense or continue moving. But, if you have a reliable means of generating high numbers of IP's, would you actually ever want to go full defense - and by extension - would you need to buy gymnastics or dodge?
Last edited by Captain_Karzak on Thu May 05, 2011 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Murtak »

Captain_Karzak wrote:Is full defense a good option? It's usually a terrible idea in D&D, but this is of course a completely different game system...

I mean if you have fewer IP's than your opposition, then you either do Full Defense or continue moving. But, if you have a reliable means of generating high numbers of IP's, would you actually ever want to go full defense - and by extension - would you need to buy gymnastics or dodge?
Generally speaking, it is the exactly opposite of what you are thinking. If you have more passes than the opposition you can just keep going on full defense and still have a pass left to do something useful. If you have fewer passes, going full defense ensures that you do not get to act at all, while they will eventually get lucky.

Full defense is useful if any of these are true
- you have more passes than your opponents
- you can use your free action to move behind hard cover
- you will die if you do not go on full defense

And yes, you definitely do want a decent defense pool. Even if you are guaranteed to always go first. Even if you have a 9 reaction and are standing behind partial cover, half a dozen run-of-the-mill guards with assault rifles will kill you without full defense. You kick in the door, win initiative and are actually good enough to waste two of them in the first pass. Great. Now what? They may only have a skill and attribute of 3, but with smartlinks that is still 8 dice, and your defense pool goes down every time you use it. With partial cover you are three dice ahead, no two, one ... odds are, you will get hit by around three bursts of automatic fire. Not healthy.

Going on full defense however will easily add six or even more dice to that, more or less ensuring that you will not get hit at all. Do it once, twice of they are lightly cybered, then mow down two more of them. Start your next turn by killing two more. Done, without a scratch to you. As opposed to bleeding out on the ground of nameless warehouse.
Murtak
UmaroVI
Journeyman
Posts: 116
Joined: Sat May 17, 2008 2:05 am

Post by UmaroVI »

I've not been terribly impressed with it. If you have large amounts of it (less than about +6 full defense probably doesn't even up your odds of staying up in that example) it is useful in very, very specific circumstances, but most of the time it's counterproductive.

If you're not solo, and have team members backing you up, full defense is just taking yourself out of the fight. Full defense doesn't do jack to protect you from most magical attacks either.

I'd argue that a much better (and less BP-intensive) way to be prepared for the above scenario is to have a way of inflicting AE damage, such as airburst grenades.
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Murtak »

Of course it less useful the less dice you have. Which is why I said it is completely opposite to what Karzak's intuition told him. Full defense is good for experts, stinks for novices. Also keep in mind that full defense still works when losing initiative or being ambushed. "I'll just kill them all before they kill me" does not.

As for killing people with area damage, good luck. Unless they are right on top of each other, you won't. Sure, the guy you aimed at is toast, but everyone else takes damage as if from a grazing hit with a shotgun, less if they stand a bit apart, have cover or roll well. Smoke grenades and flash packs might be useful though.

From what I have seen in my games, full defense is quite useful, at least if you get to add around half a dozen dice like my players do. Of course it does not get used against total wimps, but against anyone even moderately competent it tends to make the difference between taking a hit or three or not getting shot at all. Obviously if you have a large soak pool, a small full defense pool or are up against magical opposition full defense is rather useless. But given our barely-double-digit soak pools, 3 to 4 passes for every PC, not-too-many-mages-yet campaign it seems to be both used often and useful. Every one of them has at least once dodged something that would have seriously hurt them by using full defense. So - in my experience at least - having 4+ (and preferably 6+) dice in gymnastics or dodge will save your ass sooner or later, no matter how much offense you pack.
Murtak
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

Chunky Salsa and GrenadeStacking, if you wanna do the Math.
Combine for HILARIOUS effects of whole arcologies crumbling from a single grenade . .
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
UmaroVI
Journeyman
Posts: 116
Joined: Sat May 17, 2008 2:05 am

Post by UmaroVI »

If you have houserules that nerf the hilarious armor-stacking that's possible in SR4A, then full defense certainly looks better. Otherwise, if you're getting 6+ dice to full defence and a barely double-digit soak pool, I would argue that the vast majority of characters would be better off dumping the points they spent on the ability to full defense into having a better soak pool.

A magician or mystic adept can easily spend a few points to have enough AE to pull them through that fight. For everyone else, yeah, the grenade rules are stupid and most grenades suck, but it's quite possible to pull a win out of that fight. Several good ways to roll:

Drop a flash-pak behind you, then a Thermal Smoke grenade (1 simple action each with a grenade launcher, and with airburst link they go off immediately). The mooks are at -8 to hit you, so they can't roll any dice and thus automatically miss. You're at -4 to hit them (less if you have Ultrasound or Low-Light, which you might well) and you can easily still hit them, say, with some flashbang grenades.

Replace the Thermal Smoke with a White Phosphorus grenade. 8P, -1/m, 1/2 armor means that it will do significant damage to people right on top of it, AND it does the smoke effect too. So they still can't hit you, and it starts putting damage on them.

Find a pair of guards standing within 2m of each other; drop two WP grenades on them and they'll go down. That leaves 4 guards (probably lightly injured and on fire) with visibility penalties; you have a 6-dice lead on the first dodge and a 3-dice lead on the last. That's already better odds than full defense with a +6, which would leave you with a 8 dice lead on the first and a 3-dice lead on the last, and it's making pessimistic assumptions on how close the guards are standing.

Drop a gamma-scopalamine chem grenade, either a thermal smoke or white phosphorus grenade, and walk back around the corner. They now have until the end of the combat turn to find you and take you down before they are paralyzed. And they're in thermal smoke and/or on fire.

Actually, I thought you were assuming SS weapons. Full Defense gets dramatically shittier if you assume these guys are using assault rifles with 5 RC (trivially easy and cheap to get in any number of ways).

Tactics 1,2 or 4 I listed still works fine against them (tactic 3 will probably get you shot full of holes); AR's don't help you when you have 0 dice to hit, and also don't help you find someone around the corner when the room is full of thermal smoke.

Let's see how full defence does. I'm even going to be generous and assume you can get yourself +8 full defence. That's a 18 dice pool. Each guard shoots twice (short/short, both wide; I think they might do a little better with something like the first 5 doing that and the 6th doing a long wide but whatever). So your dice pool is 16 vs. 8 on the first shot, and you're getting 12 attacks, so this will go all the way down to 5 vs. 8 on the 2nd shot by the last guy. You can expect to get shot 4-5 times. That doesn't sound very good to me.
Last edited by UmaroVI on Thu May 05, 2011 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Silent Wayfarer
Knight-Baron
Posts: 898
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2009 11:35 am

Post by Silent Wayfarer »

DO I need a combat skill to simply drop grenades? No, right? Does any of this change if I have a grenade launcher?
If your religion is worth killing for, please start with yourself.
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

Technically, yes, you do. Thrown Weapons. But you can allways try to default on attribute for example . .
With a grenade launcher, you need launch weapons or something like that.
Maybe heavy weapons, maybe exotic ranged weapon grenade launcher.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Murtak »

UmaroVI:
Your assumptions are faulty. First off, you can not ever give someone more than -6 in vision modifiers, they will just shoot blindly for -6 instead. Secondly you assume that 8P (more like 5 to 6 for anyone you are not directly targeting) is going to hurt. Even assuming guards are as close to each other as you can be with body armor and assault rifles 6P is not enough to breach any sort of armor, so thats stun damage right there. Then they are going to score about 3 successes, reducing that to 3 measly stun damage. If they are spread out at all, thats is going to be 1 stun damage. Granted, they are now on fire. Thirdly, you are assuming the guards have no vision enhancement. Goggles are dirt cheap, so they might have the basics. Fourthly you assume that you can get behind hard cover using only your free action. Of course that will make full defense useless, infinite armor will certainly trump a fixed dicepool bonus. Fifthly you are assuming that anyone not using grenades will not kill any guards at all. Sixthly you assume that you are going to have incendiary grenades as your default ammunition.

Chem grenades though, those can work. Perhaps more importantly, having knockout grenades as your default ammunition makes sense.
Murtak
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

6p is before burst/full auto fire for the assault rifle
and then it breaches not hardened armor just fine.
well, moderate ammounts of armor, anyway . .
Last edited by Stahlseele on Fri May 06, 2011 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Murtak »

Actually 6P is what I came up with for grenades. Assault rifles will definitely hurt more.

My side of the example again: 6 guards, in jackets, helmets, assault rifles, 3 in all stats and relevant skills, visors with basic vision enhancements and smartlinks. One gun bunny, close to maximized dicepools, 4 passes.

Assuming the runner wins initiative, he should be able to kill 2 guards. 4 in a very specialized setup, but 2 should be doable. He should also be able to do so with grenades by the way. The question, as inspired by "is full defense even worth it if you are good at combat?" is "how do you survive the other 4 guards?". And the answer is: look, active dodge is useful here. If you can not get behind hard cover those 4 remaining guards are going to get off 8 shots and you don't want to get hit at all if you can manage it (a single hit would probably be acceptable). You might get partial cover or something, but even then we are looking at attacks pools of 6, versus a defense pool of 9, shrinking to 4. That pretty much guarantees getting hit. Actively dodging will get you to 15 dice, shrinking down to 10, which looks quite safe, and still decent even if you can't get into cover.

Whether or not you can use grenades to get less people to shoot at you is almost irrelevant. Unless you can use grenades to ensure you never get shot at by a couple of guards, you still want a decent dodge skill (or substitute). It's really quite simple. If you were going to barely get hit, 6 additional dice will pretty much ensure you won't. If you were going to get shot up by multiple guys, 6 additional dice will, even assuming all attacks hit, make you take 2 less damage per attack. Now if you don't expect to get hit at all, if you expect the attacks not to hurt anyway or if you expect to only get shot once until your next pass - then an active dodge is not worth it. But I would expect every runner to be in a situation where a couple of people try to riddle them with bullets. And at that point, a decent dodge pool is a lifesaver.
Murtak
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

Shadowrun4 basically worships the double tap. It pretty much doesn't matter how accurate you are, you are not going to drop anyone in less than 2 hits. On the flip side, it pretty much doesn't matter how much armor you're wearing, you are not going to take much more than 2 hits without going down.

Soak pools are pretty much meaningless, since the difference between a cosmic and massive soak pool and a naked man with a minimal body is seriously just 2 to 4 hits before you drop.

The defense roll is pretty much 100% of how survivable you are in combat. The soak roll is a fucking formality.

-Username17
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

SR3 Soak on the other hand was silly in the opposite direction, seeing how you could get to 10 points of ballistic armor easy and take a burst from a shotgun to the face and just need to roll enough 3's with your body attribute to survive without so much as a scratch . . Seriously.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
UmaroVI
Journeyman
Posts: 116
Joined: Sat May 17, 2008 2:05 am

Post by UmaroVI »

Murtak wrote: My side of the example again: 6 guards, in jackets, helmets, assault rifles, 3 in all stats and relevant skills, visors with basic vision enhancements and smartlinks. One gun bunny, close to maximized dicepools, 4 passes.

[...]

And the answer is: look, active dodge is useful here.

[...] Actively dodging will get you to 15 dice, shrinking down to 10, which looks quite safe, and still decent even if you can't get into cover.
No, no it won't. In this situation, trying active dodge will get you dead. You appear to be doing the math wrong.

Okay, active dodging gets you to 15 dice. There are 6 guards with assault rifles. It is completely trivial to get 5 RC, which lets them do 2 short wide bursts each without recoil penalties.

Guard 1 shot 1, 8 dice vs 13 dice.
Guard 1 shot 2, 8 dice vs.12 dice.
Guard 2 shot 1, 8 dice vs. 11 dice
...
Guard 6 shot 2, 8 dice vs. 2 dice.

You're going to get shot quite a few times and die.

I suppose you can debate whether any setup will let you live through this. However, the active dodge will absolutely not save you in this situation. Try again.


[/i]
UmaroVI
Journeyman
Posts: 116
Joined: Sat May 17, 2008 2:05 am

Post by UmaroVI »

Murtak: Incendiary Grenades are crap. Look up White Phosphorus grenades, from Arsenal. They are 8P vs. 1/2 armor, and throw in Smoke.
Post Reply