Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Cthulhutech on <12-02-12/1819:26>
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So I got to thinking about a type of character I'd like to try to make. It basically centers around the use of drugs to accomplish what a street sam would with cyber. The question I had was whether or not drug effects stack? For example, if I shoot a character up with a mix of kamikaze and K10 and get the benefits (and drawbacks) of both? I should note that I'm well aware of the pitfalls of such a character, and I have no illusions as to how playable this character would be. In fact I can see it rapidly becoming unplayable! I'm just doing this as a fun little experiment...and maybe as a NPC in my current game at some point.
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My gut reaction would be to go with the D&D mantra of "same bonuses don't stack". Meaning if you had a +3 Circumstance bonus to a roll and a +1 Circumstance bonus to the roll, you'd have a +3 to the roll, but if you had a +3 Circumstance bonus and a +1 Enhancement bonus, you'd have a +4. Especially since K10 is an advanced form of Kamikaze, I wouldn't allow it.
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Makes sense, and that's kind of what I was going to go with. The Kamikaze/K10 speedball is probably a bad example, but I just came up with it on the fly. So a better example might be this. Mixing K10 with Betameth; would that give me all of the advantages of K10, plus the advantages associated with Betameth? The two drugs don't buff the same stats, so going with the "like bonuses don't stack" line of thinking, this should be possible.
Doesn't help that the "mixing drugs" section in Arsenal is hopelessly vague and useless on the subject, either!
Edit: on another note, I just thought of a pretty nasty speedball. K10+Immortal Flower...
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I would have thought the simple fact the game refers to mixing drugs makes it clearer; drugs can be combined & still take effect. The things that don't stack specifically say they don't stack, and that's not drugs.
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I would have thought the simple fact the game refers to mixing drugs makes it clearer; drugs can be combined & still take effect. The things that don't stack specifically say they don't stack, and that's not drugs.
Pretty much. I wouldn't allow a K-10/Kamikaze speedball, since it's likely the same "Active Ingredients", but most others would be fare game... if you're willing to risk it.
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Upon thinking about it, if one did a Kamikaze/K10 speedball, I'd just have them go straight to the 'overdose' rules.
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I'd say that like bonuses don't stack,but you can take the better of the set. (If, for instance, one gave you +1 Bod, Agi, Rea, and Str, while another gave you +2 Bod and +2 Str, while a third gave you +2 Rea, you'd wind up with +2 Bod, +1 Agi, +2 Rea, and +2 Str, plucking teh best of all the shots.
I'd, personally, give you the worst were-off of the set, with +1 for each drug in the mix. (So, in this case, the worst effects would hit with +2 power.) ... helps keep people honest. :)
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I'd say that like bonuses don't stack,but you can take the better of the set. (If, for instance, one gave you +1 Bod, Agi, Rea, and Str, while another gave you +2 Bod and +2 Str, while a third gave you +2 Rea, you'd wind up with +2 Bod, +1 Agi, +2 Rea, and +2 Str, plucking teh best of all the shots.
I'd, personally, give you the worst were-off of the set, with +1 for each drug in the mix. (So, in this case, the worst effects would hit with +2 power.) ... helps keep people honest. :)
Heck, that's nicer than I'd be... I'd make them take the crash for all of them, straight up.
Of course, I'd also allow the bonuses to stack up to Aug.Max as well, which means the example would give +3 Bod, +1 Agi, +3 Rea, +6 Str.
But, then again, I like "big risk, big reward" type scenarios.
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I'd say that like bonuses don't stack,but you can take the better of the set. (If, for instance, one gave you +1 Bod, Agi, Rea, and Str, while another gave you +2 Bod and +2 Str, while a third gave you +2 Rea, you'd wind up with +2 Bod, +1 Agi, +2 Rea, and +2 Str, plucking teh best of all the shots.
I'd, personally, give you the worst were-off of the set, with +1 for each drug in the mix. (So, in this case, the worst effects would hit with +2 power.) ... helps keep people honest. :)
Nah, with mixing drugs, just have ALL of the effects of each one hit with increased power. (I despise drugs of any form in-game or out)
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See, I confess that the 80's did a numbe ron my head, and I just cannot give enough love for the image of a big beefy guy with tubes sticking out of him, filled with a bunch of different colors of combat chemicals.
It just screams cyberpunk at me. I'd love to see more in that field, but, I think I'm essentially the entire demand, so. :)
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See, I confess that the 80's did a numbe ron my head, and I just cannot give enough love for the image of a big beefy guy with tubes sticking out of him, filled with a bunch of different colors of combat chemicals.
It just screams cyberpunk at me. I'd love to see more in that field, but, I think I'm essentially the entire demand, so. :)
For that, I'll play Rifts where there's Juicers.
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I for one would like to see the equivilent of a juicer in shadowrun. I think it is cyberpunk and I think we need a new mundane type.
Also.while I will never play rifts, I have always liked the. Juicer concept
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Well, there was this (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=8158.msg146428#msg146428) thread. ::)
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The B&E adept in my Ghost Cartels campaign (currently on hiatus) used an inhaler containing a mix of Cram and Jazz to get up to 3IPs, as I was happy to let them stack. The roleplaying as she came down off first one and then the other was almost as hilarious as the reactions of the other PCs to her super-manic behaviour beforehand ;-)
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You can have seriously bad things happen to you if you combine two kinds of off-the-shelf medication, or if a doctor gives you a prescription without knowing that you're already getting a prescription from another doctor. Combining drugs, or taking multiple doses of a single drug, generally gives you little extra benefit, sometimes less benefit, and often drastic negative effects. That's just normal, not-even-illegal drugs - I don't want to even think about what speedballing nitro and kamikaze might do to a character. I think cardiac arrest would be likelier than a combination of the bonuses.
I never played Rifts, but didn't juicers have something implanted that regulated the doses of all those chemicals? If you house ruled such a piece of 'ware, then speedballing combat drugs becomes at least marginally plausible.
I would also allow combat drugs to stack with bonuses from other sources - I could see someone with kamikaze, an infusion of sideways, oxyrush nanites, and an adrenal gland. Still, the disadvantages are that you are getting a temporary boost compared to an augmented person or an adept who has those abilities 24/7, and that generally, there is a hell of a crash afterwards.
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You could refit the Adrenal Regulator / MPC bridge mechanics for that. No?