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From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Andrew Norman)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Wed Sep 26 05:15:01 2001

Message no. 1 Hi,

Name: Bullet Deflect
Cost: 0.5 per dice (max dice equal to skill in weapon)

The adept with this power can use a sword (or any other metal
weapon) to deflect bullets heading towards them.
For each bullet in a initiative pass that the adept attempts
to deflect the player rolls the dice against a target number
of 2 + (number of bullets shot at the adept this round). The
adepts next action is at +4 TN (apart from deflecting bullets)
due to the violent moves needed to deflect bullets.

Example 1:
Adept (A) rolls 18 for initiative. (3 points of bullet deflect)
Gun Bunny (GB) rolls 21 for initiative.

GB fires burst at A (and hits) on 21
A rolls for the first bullet with 6 dice against TN 2
A rolls for the second bullet with 6 dice against TN 3
A rolls for the third bullet with 6 dice against TN 4

GB fires burst at A (and hits) on 11
A rolls for the first bullet with 6 dice against TN 5
A rolls for the second bullet with 6 dice against TN 6
A rolls for the third bullet with 6 dice against TN 7

GB fires burst at A (and hits) on 01
A rolls for the first bullet with 6 dice against TN 8
A rolls for the second bullet with 6 dice against TN 9
A rolls for the third bullet with 6 dice against TN 10

Example 2:
A rolls 18 again
GB1 rolls 25
GB2 rolls 21

GB1 burst fire at A (hits)
A rolls 6 dice TN 2, 3, 4

GB2 burst fire at A (misses)

GB1 burst fires at A
A rolls 6 dice TN 5,6,7

GB2 burst fires at A (hits)
A rolls 6 dice TN 8,9,10

....

What do you think, over powered ??

I would make single shots from a single opponent almost worthless if you
have the number of dice up a bit. But a NPC with this power sure would
put the wind up the characters ;)

-Andrew

--
"What a piece of worke is a man! how Noble in Reason? how
infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and
admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension,
how like a God? the beauty of the world, the Parragon of
Animals;"
- Hamlet, Shakespeare

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Wed Sep 26 08:20:01 2001

Message no. 2 Andrew Norman writes:

> Name: Bullet Deflect
> Cost: 0.5 per dice (max dice equal to skill in weapon)

Is there any reason that the Adept in the examples was rolling 6 dice, even
though he only had a level of 3 in the skill?

> The adept with this power can use a sword (or any other metal weapon) to
> deflect bullets heading towards them.

Could they use, for instance, their own gun? "<blam, blam, blam>, Adoofus the
Adept sqeezed off a quick burst at the bad guy. <fzzt, whzzze, twang>, he
deflected an incoming burst with his Ares Alpha."

> For each bullet in a initiative pass that the adept attempts to deflect
> the player rolls the dice against a target number of 2 + (number of bullets
> shot at the adept this round).

You mean the number of bullets that were, or would have, hit the Adept this
Turn, or this Pass? From the examples, I take it to mean that bullets that
were fired at, but did not hit the Adpet are not included. I also assume
that you mean per Turn, rather than per Pass.

> The adepts next action is at +4 TN (apart from deflecting bullets) due to
> the violent moves needed to deflect bullets.

What if he has no more actions? Is his first action of the next Turn
penalised, or not?

> What do you think, over powered ??
>
> I would make single shots from a single opponent almost worthless if you
> have the number of dice up a bit. But a NPC with this power sure would put
> the wind up the characters ;)

It makes things like sniper rifles, assault cannons, missile launchers, and
pretty much anything else that only fires single, although very deadly,
rounds pretty useless. I feel that it has a bit of a balance problem,
therefore.

It might be better to, perhaps, set the TN to be the Power of the attack. A
weapons Power is more or less it's armour penetrating capability, which is
often a measure of it's velocity. Each success would counter one of the
attackers successes. There would be no limit on the number of rounds that
could be deflected, nor would there be any cumulative modifier throughout
the Turn. Heck, you could probably even tone down the +4 modifier, or even
do away with it.

Although the above idea has the problem that it makes the Power less
powerful, in that actually deflecting bullets is quite difficult. OTOH, I
get the idea that you want the power to be able to, more or less, easily
deflect bullets. In which case you will need some large drawback, like the
+4 modifier.

Keep in mind, if you're designing Powers like this, that "it'd be cool to
have an NPC with this Power - it'd keep the runners scared" is usually an
indication that the Power is too good. If you're thinking of not letting PCs
get access to the Power, it probably means it is overpowered.

A good way to run it might be to give it a set TN for deflecting, say 4, and
modify it in the same manner as Dodge tests. If someone shoots the Adept
with a single shot, he can deflect it needing only 4's. Bursts give him +1
to his TN per 3 rounds. It might be good to have his successes subtract from
the firers successes, like a Dodge test. If he exceeds their successes, he's
deflected the attack; otherwise he must resist (or dodge?) the attack with
the reduced number of successes. Having it based on successes, rather than
automatically allowing it to deflect incoming attacks is better, in my
opinion. The +4 modifier for the Adepts next action is probably fair enough
in this case, too.

It might be worth paying attention to what the Adept is deflecting with,
too. If he's deflecting with a sword, Barrier Rating about 10 or so I guess,
then if he starts deflecting assault cannon rounds, he'll quickly end up
with a shattered blade in the air around him and a hilt in his hand. If you
go this way, you might also allow Adepts to use the Power with anything that
they happen to have in their hands, too. Thus they could deflect with, say,
Squishee drinks (for little effect other than a 1 time squishee explosion
;-)), their neighbours annoying dog (for damage to be resisted by the dog
;-)), the deckers deck (for damage to be resisted by the Adept from the
decker for trashing the 5 million nuyen deck ;-)), and so on. Obviously,
hard, non brittle, objects like metallic melee weapons would be the best
:-). Items like impact detonated grenades would probably be the worst :-).

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Andrew Norman)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Wed Sep 26 08:35:03 2001

Message no. 3 Damion Milliken wrote:
> Andrew Norman writes:
> > Name: Bullet Deflect
> > Cost: 0.5 per dice (max dice equal to skill in weapon)

> Is there any reason that the Adept in the examples was rolling 6 dice, even
> though he only had a level of 3 in the skill?

Sorry ... my mistake I meant to say he had spent 3 points buying the power

> > The adept with this power can use a sword (or any other metal weapon) to
> > deflect bullets heading towards them.
> Could they use, for instance, their own gun? "<blam, blam, blam>, Adoofus
the
> Adept sqeezed off a quick burst at the bad guy. <fzzt, whzzze, twang>, he
> deflected an incoming burst with his Ares Alpha."

I cannot see why not ... but it the ares made out of metal or only the barrel ?

> > For each bullet in a initiative pass that the adept attempts to deflect
> > the player rolls the dice against a target number of 2 + (number of bullets
> > shot at the adept this round).
>
> You mean the number of bullets that were, or would have, hit the Adept this
> Turn, or this Pass? From the examples, I take it to mean that bullets that
> were fired at, but did not hit the Adpet are not included. I also assume
> that you mean per Turn, rather than per Pass.

I meant (cannot remember the term) the TN goes to 2 everytime the adept
rolls for initiative.

> > The adepts next action is at +4 TN (apart from deflecting bullets) due to
> > the violent moves needed to deflect bullets.
>
> What if he has no more actions? Is his first action of the next Turn
> penalised, or not?

Not sure at the moment. I think that it probably would.

> > What do you think, over powered ??
> >
> > I would make single shots from a single opponent almost worthless if you
> > have the number of dice up a bit. But a NPC with this power sure would put
> > the wind up the characters ;)
>
> It makes things like sniper rifles, assault cannons, missile launchers, and
> pretty much anything else that only fires single, although very deadly,
> rounds pretty useless. I feel that it has a bit of a balance problem,
> therefore.

I think trying to deflect a AVM with a table knife could be amusing ;) Thats
why I specified bullets .. a missile or cannon round explode on proximity
or impact so deflecting them would cause the round to explode.

> It might be better to, perhaps, set the TN to be the Power of the attack. A
> weapons Power is more or less it's armour penetrating capability, which is
> often a measure of it's velocity. Each success would counter one of the
> attackers successes. There would be no limit on the number of rounds that
> could be deflected, nor would there be any cumulative modifier throughout
> the Turn. Heck, you could probably even tone down the +4 modifier, or even
> do away with it.
>
> Although the above idea has the problem that it makes the Power less
> powerful, in that actually deflecting bullets is quite difficult. OTOH, I
> get the idea that you want the power to be able to, more or less, easily
> deflect bullets. In which case you will need some large drawback, like the
> +4 modifier.

The idea was that the first few shots wouldn't be too hard ... but once the
bullets started flying it would rapidly get worse. The increased TN was put
in to try and make it an exclusive action ... ie you can only really stand
there and deflect bullets.

> Keep in mind, if you're designing Powers like this, that "it'd be cool to
> have an NPC with this Power - it'd keep the runners scared" is usually an
> indication that the Power is too good. If you're thinking of not letting PCs
> get access to the Power, it probably means it is overpowered.

This was what I had thought about. Thats why I haven't actually put the players
up against an adept with this power ... yet.

> A good way to run it might be to give it a set TN for deflecting, say 4, and
> modify it in the same manner as Dodge tests. If someone shoots the Adept
> with a single shot, he can deflect it needing only 4's. Bursts give him +1
> to his TN per 3 rounds. It might be good to have his successes subtract from
> the firers successes, like a Dodge test. If he exceeds their successes, he's
> deflected the attack; otherwise he must resist (or dodge?) the attack with
> the reduced number of successes. Having it based on successes, rather than
> automatically allowing it to deflect incoming attacks is better, in my
> opinion. The +4 modifier for the Adepts next action is probably fair enough
> in this case, too.

Another thought that just came to mind. I could just add the number of dice
to the dodge test. Only if the adept is holding a weapon. In other words
he/she/it trys to dodge/deflect the bullets away from them.

> It might be worth paying attention to what the Adept is deflecting with,
> too. If he's deflecting with a sword, Barrier Rating about 10 or so I guess,
> then if he starts deflecting assault cannon rounds, he'll quickly end up
> with a shattered blade in the air around him and a hilt in his hand. If you
> go this way, you might also allow Adepts to use the Power with anything that
> they happen to have in their hands, too. Thus they could deflect with, say,
> Squishee drinks (for little effect other than a 1 time squishee explosion
> ;-)), their neighbours annoying dog (for damage to be resisted by the dog
> ;-)), the deckers deck (for damage to be resisted by the Adept from the
> decker for trashing the 5 million nuyen deck ;-)), and so on. Obviously,
> hard, non brittle, objects like metallic melee weapons would be the best
> :-). Items like impact detonated grenades would probably be the worst :-).

I like this idea. I might sit down and work out version two and
see what people think.

Thanks
-Andrew

--
"What a piece of worke is a man! how Noble in Reason? how
infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and
admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension,
how like a God? the beauty of the world, the Parragon of
Animals;"
- Hamlet, Shakespeare

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Downtym)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Wed Sep 26 09:00:01 2001

Message no. 4 On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Damion Milliken wrote:

> the deckers deck (for damage to be resisted by the Adept from the
> decker for trashing the 5 million nuyen deck ;-)), and so on.

Hell hath no fury like a decker who has had his deck broken. I would
single handidly rip Lowfyr's tongue out and wrap it around his scaly
throat if he screwed with my deck.
Imagine what I would do to a an adept....

[For some reason, I can see a decker with an adept's arm in his
hand. The decker keeps using the adept's arm to force the adept to
punch himself. The adept's "killing hands" is slowly breaking the
adept's face and the decker is chanting, "Stop hitting yourself! Stop
hitting yourself!"]

Downtym |
Email: gte138j@*****.gatech.edu | Post no bills

From:	shadowrn@*******.com (shadowrn@*******.com)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Wed Sep 26 13:35:04 2001

Message no. 5 In a message dated 9/26/2001 5:18:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
andrew_norman@******.com writes:

<< Name: Bullet Deflect
Cost: 0.5 per dice (max dice equal to skill in weapon) >>

I think they already have something like this. At least that's the way my
group's been using "missile parry". We found out later by reading that it's
supposed to be slow-moving missiles, but hell, we've seen enough action films
where the guy catches the bullet in his teeth that we go ahead and allow it
for the hell of it. (yeah, yeah, I know...munchie...)

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Valeu John EMFA)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Wed Sep 26 14:40:01 2001

Message no. 6 >> the deckers deck (for damage to be resisted by the Adept from the
>> decker for trashing the 5 million nuyen deck ;-)), and so on.

>Hell hath no fury like a decker who has had his deck broken. I would
>single handidly rip Lowfyr's tongue out and wrap it around his scaly
>throat if he screwed with my deck.
>Imagine what I would do to a an adept....

>[For some reason, I can see a decker with an adept's arm in his
>hand. The decker keeps using the adept's arm to force the adept to
>punch himself. The adept's "killing hands" is slowly breaking the
>adept's face and the decker is chanting, "Stop hitting yourself! Stop
>hitting yourself!"]

Yet one more reason for an Otaku. No deck to worry about getting trashed.
Or at least an ork/troll decker.

EMFA John Valeu
-AKA- TimeKeeper
"Don't put off tomorrow what you can do today, because it's just a
matter of time."

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Valeu John EMFA)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Wed Sep 26 18:05:03 2001

Message no. 7 Ok, from my previous posts you may have heard about one of my players.
He's the guy with the Goggles, the womanizer, the mechanic.
His name's Tools. He's an Adept.
We looked through MitS and tried to figure out what 'way' he was a part of.
Since he wasn't pigeonholed into a single category, we created the "Tinker's
Way".

Now, we decided to make him some new adept power ideas:

Stone Hands
Stone Hands does massive stun damage and increases the power. (The Hammer)

Magnetic Fingers
Magnetic Fingers is a natural version that is simular to the magnetic
cyberlimbs system.
The only difference is that this is much weaker and useful only for small
objects (like screws).

Any other adept powers that can be workshop related?

EMFA John Valeu
-AKA- TimeKeeper
"Don't put off tomorrow what you can do today, because it's just a
matter of time."

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Thu Sep 27 05:00:04 2001

Message no. 8 Valeu John EMFA writes:

> Stone Hands
> Stone Hands does massive stun damage and increases the power. (The Hammer)

This would be sooo good! Killing Hands might allow an Adept to to greater
than normal unarmed damage, but doing Stun damage is very often more useful
than doing Physical damage. Perhaps you could sort of split this Power into
two. One for doing Stun Killing Hands (think of a better name ;-)), and one
called The Hammer that adds Power to a melee attack made by the Adept.

> Magnetic Fingers
> Magnetic Fingers is a natural version that is simular to the magnetic
> cyberlimbs system.
> The only difference is that this is much weaker and useful only for small
> objects (like screws).

This sounds very cool. You could perhaps create an Adept Power version of
Magnetic Hands, and allow an Adept with this Power to do nifty tricks like
you describe above.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Andrew Norman)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Thu Sep 27 05:15:01 2001

Message no. 9 Valeu John EMFA wrote:
> Ok, from my previous posts you may have heard about one of my players.
> He's the guy with the Goggles, the womanizer, the mechanic.

[SNIP other powers]

> Any other adept powers that can be workshop related?

Detect Tool (or "Wheres that $!£4$£ screwdriver")
Cost: 0.1

By concentrating on a tool that the adept is familar with he/she/it
can determine its location. The less familar the adept is with the
tool the less precise the location.

-Andrew

--
==============================================================Andrew Norman
andrew.norman@***********.com
eServGlobal (UK) Ltd http://www.eServGlobal.com
Eastgate House
Carr Street, Tel: +44 1473 289 900
Ipswich, Fax: +44 1473 289 944
ENGLAND
IP4 1HA
==============================================================
"What a piece of worke is a man! how Noble in Reason? how
infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and
admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension,
how like a God? the beauty of the world, the Parragon of
Animals;"
- Hamlet, Shakespeare

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Bira)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Thu Sep 27 17:00:03 2001

Message no. 10 > > The adept with this power can use a sword (or any other metal weapon) to
> > deflect bullets heading towards them.
>
> Could they use, for instance, their own gun? "<blam, blam, blam>, Adoofus
the
> Adept sqeezed off a quick burst at the bad guy. <fzzt, whzzze, twang>, he
> deflected an incoming burst with his Ares Alpha."

For something even more cinematic and over-the-top, the adept in questio could
deflect the enemy's bullets with his own... The Bad Guy targets Adoofus the Adept with a
burst, and Adoofus uses his Ares Alpha to literally shoot the Bad Guy's bullets down!

--
Bira -- SysOp da Shadowland.BR
http://www.shadowland.com.br
Redator de Shadowrun da RPG em Revista
http://www.rpgemrevista.f2s.com

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Sebastian Wiers)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Fri Sep 28 08:55:05 2001

Message no. 11 >Any other adept powers that can be workshop related?

"Vice(like) Grip"- man, I can't say how many times I've wished I had this
one. It might be minorly useful in grappling combat, probably pretty
helpful when climbing, and you could leave the box wrenches at home.

-Mongoose

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Valeu John EMFA)
Subject:	New Adept Powers
Date:	Fri Sep 28 11:45:01 2001

Message no. 12 >>Any other adept powers that can be workshop related?

>"Vice(like) Grip"- man, I can't say how many times I've wished I had this
>one. It might be minorly useful in grappling combat, probably pretty
>helpful when climbing, and you could leave the box wrenches at home.

Then what'll he throw? (He's got a Non-aerodynamic Throwing weapons of 7
for a reason.)

EMFA John Valeu
-AKA- TimeKeeper
"Don't put off tomorrow what you can do today, because it's just a
matter of time."

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