Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Ioannis Fikouras <j07c@***.UNI-BREMEN.DE>
Subject: Dragon Killers
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 18:06:05 +0100
First of all I wana say that I am glad that the question intrigued
you chummers.
Now as for the ease of killing them, dont get me wrong I dont like
it either, and I HATE AD&D, never ever compare SR with that despicable
system.

So about the postings that said something about vehicle armour.
My reply is "APDS" this ammo negates all benefits gained from
vehicle armour as the armor rating is also halved.Then imagine this
one Ares LMG with a damage code of 7S (I think) now with the built in
gas compensator (2)+gyros+extra gascompensator(4) etc. The sammie
could practically get away with a 10 or more bullet full burst.
Ok this makes the damage code 17D , now the power is halved as u said
to 8D but the dragon has to halve his armor aswell (APDS) so with
all the Combat Pool and the Good Carma of the Street Samurai can
u honestly tell me that the dragon could survive this????

About the magic, I dont know about u guys but my GM (and ma as a GM
and player) see Spell Locks, Quickened, or Anchored spells as an
invitation to hostile mages to fuck u and your party hard.
All it takes is a litle astral trip only takes a few seconds
(never hurts to do a bit of scouting around) then u cast some
offensive spell through the gate the Lock creates, the target is
surprise and your Astral speed is far superior to his. That means
that by the time he realises what has happened and tries to go astral
to hit you, you will be gone (if he survives).But the bottom line is
that he looses his Lock/Quickened spell whatever AND the karma spent.

So I hope I have covered everything, feel free to respond

(I love this .......)

--

Strong am I with the Force... but not that strong!
Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall.
That is the way of things ... the way of the Force.
Message no. 2
From: Ben Jordan <jordanbd@***.BELOIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dragon Killers
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 14:46:19 +22310502
Er...as I understand it the dragon is a duel natured being. It should not
only be able to see you go astral the moment you do, but it should be much
better at astral combat than you are. Particularly if it is a Shaman or
Mage in addition. If I were to try an astral attack on a Dragon in my game
I would be making a new cha. two minutes later. Don't forget the spirits or
elementals. They can be of some use if assigined to cover a mage and attack
him the moment he goes astral. This assumes the dragon figures out that you
are a mage early.

I must admit that the Group Karma Pool in SR2 does make these things easier
though. We kill more things by rerolling dice for successes...poor critters
just don't have a chance. The pools of other shadow teams tend to cancel
ours but critters usually do not function in teams constantly. Of course
some of the more intelligent ones probably would if given the
chance...notably dragons.

There is also a slight matter of how it is that you happen to have LMG's and
Panther Cannons just sitting on Joe samuri. Admittidly we do this too, but
it rarly is feasable without a Gyro mount. Those have their little problems
too.

Finally there is the little matter of "if you do not survive the first round
all of this is moot." Sure you could probably hurt the dragon with the
first attack, but if it wins the first reaction role you are probably going
to be short one cha.'s services--possibly perminantly. And with the
reaction locks I mentioned earlier it will probably get the first shot.
Even going astral requires that it be your turn to act and only a heavily
cybered elf or human could beat a 5d6. (Or a 5d6+4 if the dragon locks extra
dice and reaction.)

Another question is could a Dragon become a physical adept? That could give
it even more dice. Not a pretty picture.
--

Ben-ha-meen
--you have been watching that test pattern for hours--
--yeah, but I want to see how it ends--
Message no. 3
From: Jason Larke <jlarke@******.CSS.ITD.UMICH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dragon Killers
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 16:35:28 -0500
In all the discussion of using karma to kill dragons, nobody
yet has mentioned karma on the dragon's side. Which can make
a difference. In my game, a small dragon would have a threat
rating of 4 or 5 and a few karma points; Rhonabwy, who made
a guest appearance, would have something close to an 8, and
more karma than all the runners combined.

Kind of a deterrent, no? :)


+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Jason Larke- jlarke@*****.edu- Computer geek, philosophy major, bassist|
| "Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash, from Army of Darkness |
| I don't speak for anyone except myself, so drop it. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Message no. 4
From: Neal A Porter <nap@*****.PHYSICS.SWIN.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Dragon Killers
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 11:23:02 +1100
>
> First of all I wana say that I am glad that the question intrigued
> you chummers.
> Now as for the ease of killing them, dont get me wrong I dont like
> it either, and I HATE AD&D, never ever compare SR with that despicable
> system.
>
> So about the postings that said something about vehicle armour.
> My reply is "APDS" this ammo negates all benefits gained from
> vehicle armour as the armor rating is also halved.Then imagine this
> one Ares LMG with a damage code of 7S (I think) now with the built in
> gas compensator (2)+gyros+extra gascompensator(4) etc. The sammie
> could practically get away with a 10 or more bullet full burst.
> Ok this makes the damage code 17D , now the power is halved as u said
> to 8D but the dragon has to halve his armor aswell (APDS) so with

Two points.
1, Where did the charecters get APDS!!.
2, as to halving the Dragons armour, if I remember correctly the average
Western Dragon has about 12 points of armour { Not sure as dont have book
with me}, halve this gives 6. Your damage is now 2D, with the dragons body
of 15ish you ain't going to get very far. As well as its Threat rating dice to
throw into any test it feels like. So one test for its 'combat' pool, then another
for body resistance. So say the Dragon has just 4 dice TR, this gives
effectivly an extra 8 dice to doge and resist. For a grand total of 23 resist
dice. It will fail about 1/6 of the time, so about 19 successes. 8 of these
to bring the damage to nothing, leaving 11 to overcome any successes from
Mr Samuri. The Dragon probably wont even notice you, if your lucky!.

Adeus
Message no. 5
From: The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dragon Killers
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 23:12:51 -0600
> 2, as to halving the Dragons armour, if I remember correctly the average
>Western Dragon has about 12 points of armour { Not sure as dont have book
>with me}, halve this gives 6. Your damage is now 2D, with the dragons body
>of 15ish you ain't going to get very far.

Don't forget that hardened armor acts as a barrier as well: If the base power
of the weapon, unmodified by burst or autofire, is less than the armor (or
half, I'm not sure) then it won't penetrate. It'll make the nice "pinging"
sound.

As for getting the initiative astrally and hosing the dragon through his
Increase Initiative +3 spell, don't you think that if Mr Dragon is initiated
and just short of the All-Powerful Oz on the proverbial totem pole he would
have spent lotsa Karma on his Quickening, making it more difficult than just
a single action?

Finally, WHY would a party need or want to take out a dragon? I don't think
they're marketeable as assasin targets. And as plot devices, well. . .they
should be used sparingly. Once in a lifetime type things. ANd the fight should
be tough, and the dragon shouldn't get killed by a single attack or series of
attacks. He should plummet to his doom, or lose a protracted contest with
someone. Machinegunning a dragon just looks dumb. A bad movire.

I can't believe I hopped on this thread. I think it's a silly question to
begin with. It smacks of the proverbial "he has hit points, right? We can
kill him." And regardless of what you think of D&D, people used to argue
about this very topic frequently, and never resolved anything: either your
dragons are smart and tough, or they're meat. It's the GM's responsibilty to
make them the formidable opponents they ought to be.

J Roberson
"OK Sean, you see band of 200 Orks in standard battle formation, with the
Bone Eagle standards up front. They don't see you in the tree."

"I kill them!"

"Sean, Sean, you're only second level."

"Okay, I only hurt them."
Message no. 6
From: Ioannis Fikouras <j07c@***.ZFN.UNI-BREMEN.DE>
Subject: Re: Dragon Killers
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1993 13:23:47 +0100
Hoi Chummers

All your responses were very interesting, I admit that a dragon CAN be
very hard to kill, if u play him the right way. And as I have already
pointed out , thats the way I think it should be done.
thanx again and have a nice day.
--

Strong am I with the Force... but not that strong!
Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall.
That is the way of things ... the way of the Force.

GEEKCODE

GCS -d+@ -p+(---) c+++ l+ u+++ e@ m++(-) s/+ !n(-) h(*) f+ g! w+ t+ r++ y?
Message no. 7
From: Joshua Cain Hendriks <jch8169@******.TAMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dragon Killers
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1993 05:17:24 -0600
Von Herrn Roberson:

> Finally, WHY would a party need or want to take out a dragon? I don't think
> they're marketeable as assasin targets. And as plot devices, well. . .they
> should be used sparingly. Once in a lifetime type things. ANd the fight shoul

There is a possible design for such a undertaking:

Under the enchanting rules in Grimoire II, they discuss the fact that certain
taks may require "collection" of various materials (read: various parts or
bodily fluids) of Awakened species and Dracoforms. Admittedly, this would be
a categorically perilous occupation, and I do not mean to suggest that it is
particularly reasonable (similar to the reason that precious few bounties are
collected upon the pelts of Juggernauts). Nevertheless, a dragon's carcass
does retain some market value, so long as one does not run afoul of the
dragonslayer laws mentioned the the Black Book.

> be tough, and the dragon shouldn't get killed by a single attack or series of
> attacks. He should plummet to his doom, or lose a protracted contest with
> someone. Machinegunning a dragon just looks dumb. A bad movire.


> I can't believe I hopped on this thread. I think it's a silly question to
> begin with. It smacks of the proverbial "he has hit points, right? We can
> kill him." And regardless of what you think of D&D, people used to argue

At very least many of the mentioned deities did possess the singularly
endearing capability of striking their (potential) foes from great distances...

Imagine this scenario:

"Yeah, well...Wotan's got hit points. Let's go kill 'im!"

High atop the Tower Hlidskjalf, where the All Father surveys the Nine Worlds,
Wotan hears the Munchkin's self-damning words...and decides to demonstrate to
him the error of his ways, as he reaches for his spear, Gungnir...


Colonel Count von Hohenzollern und von Doom, DMSc, DSc, PhD.

Doom Technologies & Weapon Systems -- Dark Thought Publications
>>> Working on solutions best left in the dark.
<<<
[ Doctor Doom : jch8169@******.tamu.edu ]
^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
"Attack, attack, and when in doubt, ATTACK!" -- Frederick the Great of Prussia
Message no. 8
From: Robert Watkins <bob@**.NTU.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Dragon Killers
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 12:06:58 +0930
>Under the enchanting rules in Grimoire II, they discuss the fact that certain
>taks may require "collection" of various materials (read: various parts or
>bodily fluids) of Awakened species and Dracoforms. Admittedly, this would be
>a categorically perilous occupation, and I do not mean to suggest that it is
>particularly reasonable (similar to the reason that precious few bounties are
>collected upon the pelts of Juggernauts). Nevertheless, a dragon's carcass
>does retain some market value, so long as one does not run afoul of the
>dragonslayer laws mentioned the the Black Book.
>
IMHO, the reason very few bounties on Juggernaut pelts are collected is not
because they are hard to kill, but because they are to hard to kill whilst
leaving enough of the pelt intact. After all, enough high explosive will take
out a juggernaut (and they'd sit there waiting for it to go off!).


--
Robert Watkins bob@******.cs.ntu.edu.au
Geek Code: GCS d-(?) p---@ c++++ !l u+ e+(e-)(e*) m+(m-) s-/* n-(n---) h++(h*)
f g+ w+ t++ r+(r--) y+
Real Programmers never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers are around at 9 am,
it's because they were up all night.

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Dragon Killers, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!