[Mithlas]

Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner".  This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going.  Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.

A nemesis (which is basically what this idea boils down to) is a great way to challenge a character even in their field of specialty, and doesn't necessarily have to threaten the other players. Have a character who's an uber martial artist? Have another one come by and declare that the other team members are beneath notice/not to be involved, then let the beatings commence. Or hacking. Or tanking. Or...

[RHat]

Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner".  This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going.  Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.

A nemesis (which is basically what this idea boils down to) is a great way to challenge a character even in their field of specialty, and doesn't necessarily have to threaten the other players. Have a character who's an uber martial artist? Have another one come by and declare that the other team members are beneath notice/not to be involved, then let the beatings commence. Or hacking. Or tanking. Or...

A nemesis is one way.  I'm more talking about as a run tactic - get everyone looking one way so that they're not looking at what you're doing.

[I_V_Saur]

Try simple. There's a fucking Sea Wolf, ten feet from the party. In the time you put it down, it's put its teeth into at least two crunchy party members. So, you tank it. Problem being, you're now facing it solo, because a bunch of Blood Kites, or its mate, show up. Nature loves to fuck with people.

You're trying to grab some hot RnD from Ares. So is a party full of Shifters, who want to use it themselves, for whatever reason. Having some animal nature to them, they're almost guaranteed to scuffle over their objective. If they aren't the same animal, or aren't pack animals, they'll work separately, fighting 1v1 and trying to separate the party to make things easier for themselves. Since it's a rival team, it's totally within mission parameters. Considering the average Shifter mindset, (Not without exception, obviously) of Meta with a touch of 'beast' lurking under the surface, this would be the perfect situation for them to lose it to the animal within.

No need for illusions or doppelgangers. Just set up a tactical situation where the best solutions aren't always the ones you pick. Yes, it would be best to stick together against the first Sea Wolf and dispatch the second quickly after, but no, that's not going to happen in that situation. Yes, it'd be a brilliant idea to get the Shifters caught in their own lines of fire, but no, they're not going to get close enough to each other to try, because they're loners forced to work together by circumstance.

[Glyph]

Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner".  This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going.  Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.

A nemesis (which is basically what this idea boils down to) is a great way to challenge a character even in their field of specialty, and doesn't necessarily have to threaten the other players. Have a character who's an uber martial artist? Have another one come by and declare that the other team members are beneath notice/not to be involved, then let the beatings commence. Or hacking. Or tanking. Or...

I'm trying to picture a nemesis challenging the character in tanking.  "Oh, so you can take a Panther round to the face, huh?  Well, look at me, I can take a Thunderstruck round to the face, bitch!"

[Mithlas]

Considering the average Shifter mindset, of Meta with a touch of 'beast' lurking under the surface, this would be the perfect situation for them to lose it to the animal within.

Flip that around - shifters are animals that can turn into metahuman forms, and have greater intelligence than the animals tend to.

Of course, I don't think any of the books have a good go-over shifters (even Runner's Companion which devotes a section just to how to create a shifter character).

[Mirikon]

Hell, put him in an arena fight with reasonable doppelgangers for the rest of the team in his "corner".  This serves as a distraction to allow the rest of the team to get the job done for so long as he can keep on going.  Let's you challenge him without the fight spilling over to the rest of the team.

A nemesis (which is basically what this idea boils down to) is a great way to challenge a character even in their field of specialty, and doesn't necessarily have to threaten the other players. Have a character who's an uber martial artist? Have another one come by and declare that the other team members are beneath notice/not to be involved, then let the beatings commence. Or hacking. Or tanking. Or...

I'm trying to picture a nemesis challenging the character in tanking.  "Oh, so you can take a Panther round to the face, huh?  Well, look at me, I can take a Thunderstruck round to the face, bitch!"

I suddenly got the idea of a Flesh Form Beetle Spirit wearing milspec armor, who relies on mundane weapons and tactics most of the time, to keep people from figuring out about his true nature.

[Reiper]

Considering the average Shifter mindset, of Meta with a touch of 'beast' lurking under the surface, this would be the perfect situation for them to lose it to the animal within.

Flip that around - shifters are animals that can turn into metahuman forms, and have greater intelligence than the animals tend to.

Of course, I don't think any of the books have a good go-over shifters (even Runner's Companion which devotes a section just to how to create a shifter character).

I agree, it didn't do a great job at it.

If you've ever read any of the Star Wars EU (Blasphamy to many, I know) I picture the mindsets of most shifters really close to what Saba Sebetine's (sp) view on everything is. Very feral, predator and prey like.

[Wildcard]

4. A dart rifle and my "headbanger cocktail" which consists of a mixture of gamma-scoplamine, narcoject, kamikaze, bliss, jazz ,novacoke and nitro. The cocktail basically massively ramps up his stats but leaves him unable to move, and then after about an hour, he gets hit with a huge amount of stun damage which cannot be resisted.

Drugs vectored for attack are treated as toxins and thus, can be resisted.

[Mason]

4. A dart rifle and my "headbanger cocktail" which consists of a mixture of gamma-scoplamine, narcoject, kamikaze, bliss, jazz ,novacoke and nitro. The cocktail basically massively ramps up his stats but leaves him unable to move, and then after about an hour, he gets hit with a huge amount of stun damage which cannot be resisted.

Drugs vectored for attack are treated as toxins and thus, can be resisted.

Incorrect. Combat drugs with beneficial effects followed by a detrimental side effect have no Resistance Test. Your statement is RAI, perhaps, but definitely not RAW.

[Novocrane]

In some cases, however, a character may be drugged against their will. Characters who are naturally or magically resistant to toxins must also be taken into account, as must characters who have a buzz-killing Antidote spell or antidote patch applied. When a situation like this arises, the gamemaster may choose to call for a Toxin Resistance Test, as noted on p. 254, SR4A. The gamemaster determines the drug’s Power, as appropriate to its nature and effects.

As a standard rule of them, most street drugs have a Power of 6. If the Power is not reduced to 0, the drug still affects the character as normal. Alternately, the drug’s modified Power must still exceed the character’s Body for the drug to take effect.

[Wildcard]

QFT

[GiraffeShaman]

If you've ever read any of the Star Wars EU (Blasphamy to many, I know) I picture the mindsets of most shifters really close to what Saba Sebetine's (sp) view on everything is. Very feral, predator and prey like.

The Nyx Smith Shadowrun novel Striper Assassin and the other novels Striper appears in give a good shifter characterization to go off of.

[Mason]

In some cases, however, a character may be drugged against their will. Characters who are naturally or magically resistant to toxins must also be taken into account, as must characters who have a buzz-killing Antidote spell or antidote patch applied. When a situation like this arises, the gamemaster may choose to call for a Toxin Resistance Test, as noted on p. 254, SR4A. The gamemaster determines the drug’s Power, as appropriate to its nature and effects.

As a standard rule of them, most street drugs have a Power of 6. If the Power is not reduced to 0, the drug still affects the character as normal. Alternately, the drug’s modified Power must still exceed the character’s Body for the drug to take effect.

By your own example, the default is there is no test. The gamemaster may choose.

[Maskerade]

4. A dart rifle and my "headbanger cocktail" which consists of a mixture of gamma-scoplamine, narcoject, kamikaze, bliss, jazz ,novacoke and nitro. The cocktail basically massively ramps up his stats but leaves him unable to move, and then after about an hour, he gets hit with a huge amount of stun damage which cannot be resisted.

Drugs vectored for attack are treated as toxins and thus, can be resisted.

Incorrect. Combat drugs with beneficial effects followed by a detrimental side effect have no Resistance Test. Your statement is RAI, perhaps, but definitely not RAW.

Actually, this is a bit of a problem with the rules. You're both correct, but in different ways. The stun damage from the drugs cannot be resisted, but the effects of the toxins can be resisted. Seeing as you've got a mixture of both, it's difficult to know if a rule takes precedence (and in that case, what the roll would be), or if you should just roll all effects separately, which would slow down game time. If I was GM, I'd just fudge it into a slightly higher than normal target number, due to the many drugs and toxins hammering at the body's defences, but maybe have them do less overall damage because of unforeseen side effects of mixing them.

[Novocrane]

As a standard rule of them, most street drugs have a Power of 6

By your own example, the default is there is no test. The gamemaster may choose.

Yeah, there's always a choice involved in situations like this. By default, armour has no limit on what modifications can be added to it, while vehicles can accept a number of weapon mounts equal to (body /3) rounded down. The choice is whether to use new books or not. If you do, there's a standard rule you can choose to follow.

Considering you need to make a Body + Protection test and get six hits, I'd say the caution is less about limiting who can roll, and more about saving unnecessary rolls and surface wear.