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Thinking Out Of The Box: Custom Anti-Exsurgent Rounds

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Mon, 2013-10-21 09:50

bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture

Thinking Out Of The Box: Custom Anti-Exsurgent Rounds

So, my players, being the clever, non-linear thinkers that they are, did something very clever to deal with an infestation of exsurgent jellies. They loaded capsule rounds with a PH 13 alkaline and shot the acid-filled exsurgents with them. Given that the jellies have a very low PH biology--their secretions are acidic, and they can spit acid as an attack--simple chemistry means we have a violent and highly exothermic reaction... I ended up ruling that each capsule round would lodge in the main "bubbles" for one round (on the logic that, normally, bullets just pass right through and do minimum damage to the jelly) and dissolve, allow the alkaline to react directly and deeply within the jelly, doing considerable damage to the creature--I rolled 2d10+5 per capsule, and, thanks to the PCs having loaded up their drones' assault rifles, some of the jellies had 5-10 capsules in them by the second round of combat. It was... impressive. So, three points. Point the first, for an off-the-cuff "you're doing what?" GM rules call, opinions? Does this sound about right? Point the second, has anyone else had PCs come up with highly unusual weapon payloads, and is willing to share stories of excellent successes (or hilarious failures)? Point the third, my PCs are starting to feel that the Gunnery skill is overpowered, because the tactic they've been doing is having the drone AIs go on Full Defense, and have the PCs use gunnery to fire the drone's weaponry systems remotely, using a gyromount to keep the weapon stable during the evasive maneuvers of the drone. Is that generally accurate, or is there something I've been overlooking that brings gunnery back into balance? Yes, I know that you need a mounted or emplaced weapon to use Gunnery, but I've got a combat engineer with a CM and blueprints; I can't really take away his toys without being very obvious that I'm trying to do that, and, besides, that feels rather dishonest as a tactic and doesn't actually solve the problem.

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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

Mon, 2013-10-21 11:38

Decimator

Actually, water stops bullets

Actually, water stops bullets really well. Normal bullets would likely just stop inside the jelly. It sounds like these critters would care about having little bits of metal inside them about as much as having holes punched in them(not at all). The superbasic capsule rounds should work just fine. As for gunnery, are they fighting an intelligent opposing force? The opposing force should react to their tactics by attempting to suborn the bots, flank the team, or otherwise negate their advantage. The opposing force should be rigging the area with shaped charges. Seal doors. Force the team to move in a direction they want with each of those options. Bring heavier weapons to bear, like indirectly-fired single-shot thermobaric seekers. Remember that the team and bots are emitting wireless signals, so the opposing force should know approximately where they are. Really, the biggest one is to continually try to suborn the bots with a proxy through ectos. The opposing force should never let up. This is the major weakness of relying on remote control of any kind. In exsurgent-infected networks this is even worse, as the virus will eventually take over the bot, then move on to the controller.

Mon, 2013-10-21 22:37

Ilmarinen

I think the usual solution to

I think the usual solution to PCs using bases against acid-based enemies is to turn half the acid-composed enemies into base-composed enemies.

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[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Mon, 2013-10-21 22:39

Leodiensian Leodiensian's picture

Unorthodox Solutions

I really like that solution, actually. For balances' sake, have them be very contextual, that they have low damage normally but happen to have some nasty side effects against the acid based stuff. Actually, this thread's a little convenient because my friend Piotrus wanted me to join to post about some unusual PC solutions we pioneered in a game he ran. It's not a weapon creation per se. This was the Ego Hunter one-shot, if you're familiar with it. If not, the main x-threat of that scenario is a modified version of the cordyceps fungus, poised to contaminate a sizable Martian habitat. Research notes my character and another player named Elle found noted that the infection rate was extremely high but that medichines rendered you wholly immune. Medichines are common among those who could afford them, but this was not a particularly affluent area so the rate of infection would be pretty damn high. At this point, myself and Elle were posing as investigators but a main problem we were having stemmed from a severe lack of time and resources. We didn't have anything on us capable of containing this Big Weird Mushroom we'd found - but we did have medichines. So we ate it. Which probably wasn't the best idea - but it worked!

Tue, 2013-10-22 06:19

piotrus

Seemed like a decent idea to

Seemed like a decent idea to me (GM). Granted, it was a very much WTF idea, but yeah, the research notes were clear that medichines make one immune to the infection. Granted, we haven't fully considered the poisoning angle, but again, one could assume that [url=http://eclipsephaserules.wikia.com/wiki/Medichines]medichines[/url], which per official description "eliminate most diseases, drugs, and toxins ", should deal with that as well. Of course, eating Titantech can always be used by GM to mess up with PCs, which is another reason not to discourage this too much, lol.

Tue, 2013-10-22 09:01

Leodiensian Leodiensian's picture

Oh, if this was a campaign I

Oh, if this was a campaign I would have fully expected and even welcomed some kind of consequence (exsurgent diarrhea?) for ingesting it. But the game was a one-shot and I was in a borrowed body anyway so I was feeling reckless.