Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Shango on <04-12-12/1859:43>
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I have noticed a trend in my games (both as GM and player) to go for shock weapons whenever possible.
Probably because a shock attack is usually around 6S and the target only gets to use half of their impact armor in the resistance test.
Even if the armor is insalated, impact armor tends to be lower than ballistic, so it is still more efective.
Am I missing something here?
Does insulated armor make you totaly immune to shock weapons or do extra succeses not add to the damage from them?
I guess it's not really THAT big a deal, but it does kinda lessen the "Life is cheap" attitude of the earlier versions of the game.
-Erich
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Life may be cheap, but massive body counts tend to make you very popular with the local law enforcement.
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It depends on the runners (and the run). One of my characters uses shock frills frequently. However, when the runners were confronted with a corporation black op that was gathering up street people and turning them into 'Changed' to provoke an incident, the SMG came out very quickly.
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The Yamaha Pulsar started this trend when it switched to capacitor rounds instead of the wires. That I believe became the Stick-N-Shock rounds which are (IMO) too prevalent. Basic ammo is cheap, but the moment that a taser type ammo becomes comparably priced, it becomes a much more attractive option, especially if you don't need to change your weapon, just the magazine. Anyway, Dunkie put a prize in his will for coming up with a non-lethal alternative, so I think that has something to do with it.
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The other thing in their favour; they are completely legal. No licence to be checked, no nothing. That's tasers rather than shock ammo mind, but it is a big thing - and personally, it made little sense, so I made them restricted in game.
The advantages of shock weapons in close combat is you can dumpstat strength, and the advantage of shock weapons in ranged combat is you can pick a small, easily concealable pistol and just rock the casbah. I'm ignoring the whole lethality and theme thing at the moment, because different people's tables have different expectations, but the mechanical advantages of a decent damage output for very little will always remain. Unless house ruled.
Which you can do. If you don't like them, then there's a number of changes out there; ban SnS, rule it gains not DV benefits for burst fire, and so on. I know I did.
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Actually the whole "We need to take him alive, use SnS." *burst fire* "Umm... he's dead." amuses me to no end. I had to stop play for a good while and would burst out laughing throughout the night because of it. Add in some fryings of internal commlinks with needed info and it becomes less attractive.
I don't agree with it but some argue that if you use less lethal ammo so will the opposition. (Who checks that in a firefight? Seriously?) Runners who get taken alive don't have much fun.
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Parker likes tasers (http://youtu.be/o34nkAe9L3Q), good enough for me.
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The other thing in their favour; they are completely legal. No licence to be checked, no nothing. That's tasers rather than shock ammo mind, but it is a big thing - and personally, it made little sense, so I made them restricted in game.
I actually happen to be sitting near a police officer as I read this and so I asked him about the subject. Apparently, at least in my neck of the woods, tasers really are 100% legal and unrestricted. In fact, shooting someone illegally with a taser is considered, legally speaking, to be the same exact crime as dropping them with your fist.
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The other thing in their favour; they are completely legal. No licence to be checked, no nothing. That's tasers rather than shock ammo mind, but it is a big thing - and personally, it made little sense, so I made them restricted in game.
I actually happen to be sitting near a police officer as I read this and so I asked him about the subject. Apparently, at least in my neck of the woods, tasers really are 100% legal and unrestricted. In fact, shooting someone illegally with a taser is considered, legally speaking, to be the same exact crime as dropping them with your fist.
Well there we go. Maybe its my British 'If its a weapon, licence it" showing through - where is your neck of the woods? Still strikes me as illogical, in SR at least, but nice to know how it stands in real life.
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Tasers require certain occupations and insurance in Canada. But we have really, really strange weapon laws.
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I'm in Texas and I'm pretty sure you can just walk into a store and buy them. Then again you can shoot somebody if they come onto your property, including your car.
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Pretty sure they're completely legal here in GA, too. And the legality thing is something that can't be understated, especially as it applies to SR. Getting into a high security public event? Your Predator will get you busted, but you might get waved through with that taser.
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While they may be completely legal to carry around the town as a whole, there are lots of restriction on where you can carry them. For instance, in most states (MO and AR I know for a fact) they are not allowed on college campuses.
Using them on someone unprovoked is much more likely to wind you up with court mandated therapy than getting in a brawl with someone as well. They are considered a less than lethal weapon.
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Stick n shock used to fairly popular with by players for some time. They still keep a clip as standard in their weapons and swicth to the explosive rounds only when required. Keeps the body count down (and gives me rematches sometimes, so I'm happy :) ).
I have started making non-conductivity standard for some of my security forces and the lone star/ke, and skilled enemies (eg rival runners). That has made the ammo less effective, but not so much that its not still very popular. The effectiveness of an electrical damage roll can not be understated, and a poor roll on my part (standard rolling style for me) and resulted in plenty of hard-core enemies twitchy helplessly while the runners finish them off...
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I prefer Gel Rounds myself. Yeah, not as much damage, but you knock a bastard down on his hoop, it'll make him think twice about getting up again if I have to reload to something more lethal.
I have to admit, I like the multiple options for ammo. ;D
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Actually the whole "We need to take him alive, use SnS." *burst fire* "Umm... he's dead." amuses me to no end. I had to stop play for a good while and would burst out laughing throughout the night because of it. Add in some fryings of internal commlinks with needed info and it becomes less attractive.
I don't agree with it but some argue that if you use less lethal ammo so will the opposition. (Who checks that in a firefight? Seriously?) Runners who get taken alive don't have much fun.
Ya know, we just finished a game tonight, and one of my players made a really good roll with her stick and shock on a guy who had already taken 9 stun. He overflowed to 10 body. Good thing she had a trama patch.
I guess I really shouldn't complain to much. My players are really roleplaying the young shadow runners (average character age around 20) who really don't want to get a blood thirsty rep.
-Erich
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the biggest problem I sometimes face with my taser is range.
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Tasers require certain occupations and insurance in Canada. But we have really, really strange weapon laws.
i blame the british influence, deferring to the queen and and all things british law, and all that.
could be worse, could be all things french.
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could be worse, could be all things french.
sadly we get a lot of that in Canada as well
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Actually the whole "We need to take him alive, use SnS." *burst fire* "Umm... he's dead." amuses me to no end. I had to stop play for a good while and would burst out laughing throughout the night because of it. Add in some fryings of internal commlinks with needed info and it becomes less attractive.
I don't agree with it but some argue that if you use less lethal ammo so will the opposition. (Who checks that in a firefight? Seriously?) Runners who get taken alive don't have much fun.
Ya know, we just finished a game tonight, and one of my players made a really good roll with her stick and shock on a guy who had already taken 9 stun. He overflowed to 10 body. Good thing she had a trama patch.
I guess I really shouldn't complain to much. My players are really roleplaying the young shadow runners (average character age around 20) who really don't want to get a blood thirsty rep.
-Erich
There's nothing wrong with that, it could lead to some interesting experiences where somebody they spared does "insert horrible thing here". How would the characters feel about it? Stuff like that.
My group mixes it up sometimes we go into full "Let's do the whole village!" mode and sometimes it's only half the village ;D
On topic, it really depends on your players and their characters. My current character (Yes CanRay, I play and GM) has a similar mindset to Rigger X where if somebody could possibly jeopardize the mission they are going down hard.
Tasers and SnS are good mechanically but I don't find them dominating ammo loadouts.
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My current character (Yes CanRay, I play and GM) has a similar mindset to Rigger X where if somebody could possibly jeopardize the mission they are going down hard.
Bastards the lot of you!!! :P
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It ain't the damage code of S'n'S ammo (capped at 5s no matter the weapon IIRC) it's the electrical damage. And I don't usually have a problem with it... Unlit players start using for easy kills (KO them then slice up the helpless)
It's their 'right' I guess... Just as long as they understand word gets around... And payback is a real evil bitch!
But sometimes you DO need that guy alive, and a taser or SnS is the way to go!
Besides, from a career perspective, what would you rather go down for? 300 assault and battery charges (taser) or 300 murder chargers (ex-ex ammo!) the smart runner goes with the first one, does his 10 years (probably the max he would get) in a min security jail, comes out and drops off the face of the world (thank you mr. Hacker).
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But sometimes you DO need that guy alive, and a taser or SnS is the way to go!
Just be sure you don't do 20+ Stun to a guy with most of his Physical track gone. Then you end up with a Stick'n'Shock round lodged somewhere in his frontal lobe.
Don't laugh. It happened a couple weeks ago. Our Jewish Ninja Elf Sniper can't seem to not one-shot-kill people. ;)
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And for the love of god, if you want him alive don't forget to switch to Stick and Shock. Nothing says, "Whoops...owned," like planting an APDS from a barret through the guys skull that you wanted to question.
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And for the love of god, if you want him alive don't forget to switch to Stick and Shock. Nothing says, "Whoops...owned," like planting an APDS from a barret through the guys skull that you wanted to question.
Hey, be fair! The one time that particular mix-up happened wasn't a time we were trying to question the guy, specifically. There were plenty of other victims for us to interrogate.
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Well, would have been at least ya. ;D
The look on his face when he realized was absolutely priceless though. Gotta love wall of shame trophies. I'm still absolutely shocked at how many people have accidentally been killed with SnS ammo in that game though. I blame missions for giving people such low armor ratings.
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I blame missions for giving people such low armor ratings.
Well, really, it is realistic. The heaviest armor I've seen in the books that you can wear "casually" without gimicky layering, supplementary protection and tailored gear (i.e. FormFit, PPP and Softweave ;)) is something like 7/7 for Steampunk or 8/6 for an Armor Jacket.
I really doubt most of the Gangers and thugs you deal with in Missions aren't going to be on the same level of Adequately Cautious (like paranoia, but they really are out to get you) as a Runner when thinking about their apparel... assuming they can even afford that stuff.
EDIT: Corrected "...are going to be..." to "...aren't going to be...". Very, very important difference there.
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When it's hard to make your next meal, even armoured clothing is beyond your reach...
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When it's hard to make your next meal, even armoured clothing is beyond your reach...
Whereas Runners will blow through enough money to pay for several months of a nice, cushy Low lifestyle, the kind where you have a pad we First World dwellers would consider run-down-but-livable, instead of the drekholes the these Gangers live in, and call it cheap. I mean, seriously, if you can afford a Cybernaut with System & Firewall 9 and a couple high-end programs, you've already spent more than you'd need to retire comfortably.
I guess what I'm saying is that Runners are definitely on the right side of the Bell Curve when it comes to their abilities and budgets, and Missions pretty well reflects that.
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When it's hard to make your next meal, even armoured clothing is beyond your reach...
Whereas Runners will blow through enough money to pay for a couple months of a nice, cushy Middle lifestyle, the kind of luxury that these Gangers only dream of, and call it cheap because they're used to thinking in terms of 1,000¥ increments and make the readies to back up that thinking.
Not to mention all the money blown on NovaCoke snorted off of strippers. ;D
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When it's hard to make your next meal, even armoured clothing is beyond your reach...
Whereas Runners will blow through enough money to pay for a couple months of a nice, cushy Middle lifestyle, the kind of luxury that these Gangers only dream of, and call it cheap because they're used to thinking in terms of 1,000¥ increments and make the readies to back up that thinking.
Not to mention all the money blown on NovaCoke snorted off of strippers. ;D
I think that's covered under your "Entertainment" category. Just gotta get it at High. ;D