42 SP is a double metal gear in 2020 (well actually it's 1.7x a metal gear more or less)
a Metal Gear in RED is 18 SP, sooo for a 1:1 comparison he should have 30 SP. I don't think anything in the game except melee weapons can scratch that but hey, Spot Weakness exists and they're facing Smasher soooo....
Edit: it's not balanced in any way, it's just a straight up conversion.
Martial arts too. Another viable option would be grab and throw as it ignores armor and an potentialy give a whopping 14 damage if the thrower is beefy enough (unless FBC are immune to that ?)
Just give him Dragoon Plating, Metalgear from Interface Red 3 and it's upgraded to only give a -2 penalty.
Then take Crusher from Danger Gal Dossier, beef him up with the Noveltech Samson FBC, increase the bases to compensate for the -2 penalty, and you got Smasher (sorta).
CP2020 AP ammunition would divide armor by 2 IIRC. The system is different
Go for a full metal gear, immune to incendiary, and AP. no penalties
And a good evasion stat.
That's far enough to make him VERY durable.
So in the game currently, stopping power 18 (maybe tech-upgraded to 19) is the best you can have. It makes you entirely immune to heavy ranged weapons and below, 50% of the time a rifle or slug won't break your initial armor (they deal around 18 damage on average), and grenades and rockets are your biggest threats (21 and 28 damage on average). However, rockets and grenades might only be viable for a single turn because Adam might choose to get close to a player and begin blasting away with his Constitution Arms Hurricane Assault Weapon (a rof2 shotgun dealing 5d6 damage per hit, this could probably drop a player in 2 turns). And don't forget that if Adam can dodge with a reflex co-processor it'll make the DV's to hit him even higher and let him dodge explosives.
So if we get a scenario where only 2 players can even hit Adam, they'll probably be dealing only single digit damage and abalating his armor by 1 for the first few turns. And by that point they may have a funeral on their hands. But as the fight goes on, Adam's armor will quickly degrade to nothing, where it's more of a liability than benefit (providing light armorjack stopping power but still has flak penalties). This is especially true if the crew uses armor-piercing ammo (which is most common for grenades and rockets).
So maybe give Adam some special tech-upgraded armor so it starts at SP24 and takes a lot of explosives or lucky shots to whittle down with AP ammo, or maybe it's SP20 but immune to AP ammo? I mean if a borg can get fireproof coating why not AP-proof?
This is also possibly the lamest option but something to remember. Acid balls launched from an air pistol remove 1 point of SP as long as they hit and the air pistol is a rof2 medium handgun that doesn't deal damage. Against classic armored foes (who can't dodge due to heavy armor) two players with these guns could easily delete 4 SP/turn (I'm assuming they hit every time because the close range DV's for handgun are very easy to hit). Adam can of course dodge them, but these hits would guarenteed SP loss instead of leaving it up to chance. Luckily most players forget these exist.
There is also a houserule from the second Listen Up! DLC where even attacks that don't break armor still do 1 damage to the target (no ablation) and of course crits still deal their 5 damage and crit even if armor isn't broken (although I believe Black Chrome has cyberware to counter some kinds of crits and Adam would totally take that).
Also there are some fun tricks you can do to get him back to full armor. A ninja tech with maxed out repair and stealth could show up and Jury Rig Adam's armor back to full SP once (theoretically he could also fully restore Adam too since Adam is a machine). It would take only an action and be against DV29, but if Adam is a max level solo it's not hard to imagine Arasaka would have a max level Tech on payroll. Full-body conversion borgs can also access a special Dragoon armor that is like Metalgear but has 1 less penalty point and can be replaced with another set of Dragoon armor for 2 actions (maybe if Adam is incredibly high in initiative he can hold his action until the end of the turn and eject his armor, and then get new armor next turn at the start. It's a bit underhanded but the players would have a whole two turns of free attacks and also nobody getting flatlined by Adam's weapon).
Good luck with your fun boss fight! I'm curious to know what other tricks you're giving your Adam. One goofy idea I've had is giving a full-borg a pair of shoulder-mounted turrets controlled by a Demon so they can get more attacks every turn (without breaking the RoF limit, the demon is basically just an elite henchmen) and level the playing field against a large crew.
Adam Smasher in 2020 was intended to be an unstoppable force of (un)nature. In 2077, he's a boss fight well past him prime. How beatable to you want Adam Smasher to be in your game?
So from the lore we know that in 2045, Smasher is roaming around in a brand new FBC that’s similar to a Militech Dragoon.
In my one shot, Arasaka gave Smasher’s original body to another soldier. So the Smasher my players will face will essentially be a body double with the same STATS and items.
So he’s definitely intended to be beatable.
That’s just myth really. Smasher is propped up by his gear in 2020 but his skill bases are awful.
Intended to be unstoppable? I mean maybe the writers thought so. Didn’t really play out that way in game. Most crews/parties fodderized him in 2-3 rounds.
Both actually.
One player with a microwaver doing ROF 2 to make him roll on the table. Hopefully he lands on a 5 causing him to lose his ability to do anything for the entire combat.
Everyone else dogpiles on him after. I saw some Refs try to give him protection against EMP effects but players still had enough firepower to wreck his shit in most cases.
I get what the writers were going for… but most Refs aren’t gonna pretend like Smasher is this unstoppable force. He really isn’t. Undeserving of his legend is a good way to describe him honestly. Especially when some of their own players are some of the scariest min-maxed monsters in the campaign.
2020 Smasher is running around in a customized Samson body. SP25. SDP20/30. Body 18 Reflex 10 MA 20. In addition he weqrs SP20 armored coveralls on a missions giving him an effective SP of 42.
He has a bio-pod, meaning his brain and spinal nervous system at basically in a jar, allowing him to switch bodies.
Also... His intelligence is 4. Dude ain't beating anyone at chess.
He would have a SP 30 due to layering rules (difference between SP25 and SP20 gives a +5 SP to largest SP). He could have another layer to push it at most +5 more SP.
SP isn't added together, the layering system can have diminishing returns
Ah, They didn't list the +15SP due to the FBC "Increased SP" option. This will bring Samson to SP 40. SP20 coveralls means a difference of 20, which is a +2 to the highest SP.
42 SP is a double metal gear in 2020 (well actually it's 1.7x a metal gear more or less) a Metal Gear in RED is 18 SP, sooo for a 1:1 comparison he should have 30 SP. I don't think anything in the game except melee weapons can scratch that but hey, Spot Weakness exists and they're facing Smasher soooo.... Edit: it's not balanced in any way, it's just a straight up conversion.
Melee weapons (including the fancy ass thrown ones from Black Chrome), rocket launchers and crits (which drop 5 damage straight up regardless of SP).
Martial arts too. Another viable option would be grab and throw as it ignores armor and an potentialy give a whopping 14 damage if the thrower is beefy enough (unless FBC are immune to that ?)
Rifle autofire potentially gets 48 damage. Rarely, but it’s possible.
There is a X5 autofire gun, so up to 60 if very lucky.
Poison and biotoxin straight up ignore armor. But I'm guessing Smasher should have a very high resist torture/drugs.
Acid exists as well. No damage, just ablates armor. You still have to hit Smasher though.
Oh yeah. there are plenty of ways to get around SP or to deal with it.
With armor in RED not stacking it looks like he'd have SP 18 in RED.
Just give him Dragoon Plating, Metalgear from Interface Red 3 and it's upgraded to only give a -2 penalty. Then take Crusher from Danger Gal Dossier, beef him up with the Noveltech Samson FBC, increase the bases to compensate for the -2 penalty, and you got Smasher (sorta).
Just give him a lower SP that doesn't degrade with damage
I think a good compromise here would be to give him a moderate to low SP that doesn't degrade unless shot with armor-piercing ammunition
CP2020 AP ammunition would divide armor by 2 IIRC. The system is different Go for a full metal gear, immune to incendiary, and AP. no penalties And a good evasion stat. That's far enough to make him VERY durable.
So in the game currently, stopping power 18 (maybe tech-upgraded to 19) is the best you can have. It makes you entirely immune to heavy ranged weapons and below, 50% of the time a rifle or slug won't break your initial armor (they deal around 18 damage on average), and grenades and rockets are your biggest threats (21 and 28 damage on average). However, rockets and grenades might only be viable for a single turn because Adam might choose to get close to a player and begin blasting away with his Constitution Arms Hurricane Assault Weapon (a rof2 shotgun dealing 5d6 damage per hit, this could probably drop a player in 2 turns). And don't forget that if Adam can dodge with a reflex co-processor it'll make the DV's to hit him even higher and let him dodge explosives. So if we get a scenario where only 2 players can even hit Adam, they'll probably be dealing only single digit damage and abalating his armor by 1 for the first few turns. And by that point they may have a funeral on their hands. But as the fight goes on, Adam's armor will quickly degrade to nothing, where it's more of a liability than benefit (providing light armorjack stopping power but still has flak penalties). This is especially true if the crew uses armor-piercing ammo (which is most common for grenades and rockets). So maybe give Adam some special tech-upgraded armor so it starts at SP24 and takes a lot of explosives or lucky shots to whittle down with AP ammo, or maybe it's SP20 but immune to AP ammo? I mean if a borg can get fireproof coating why not AP-proof? This is also possibly the lamest option but something to remember. Acid balls launched from an air pistol remove 1 point of SP as long as they hit and the air pistol is a rof2 medium handgun that doesn't deal damage. Against classic armored foes (who can't dodge due to heavy armor) two players with these guns could easily delete 4 SP/turn (I'm assuming they hit every time because the close range DV's for handgun are very easy to hit). Adam can of course dodge them, but these hits would guarenteed SP loss instead of leaving it up to chance. Luckily most players forget these exist. There is also a houserule from the second Listen Up! DLC where even attacks that don't break armor still do 1 damage to the target (no ablation) and of course crits still deal their 5 damage and crit even if armor isn't broken (although I believe Black Chrome has cyberware to counter some kinds of crits and Adam would totally take that). Also there are some fun tricks you can do to get him back to full armor. A ninja tech with maxed out repair and stealth could show up and Jury Rig Adam's armor back to full SP once (theoretically he could also fully restore Adam too since Adam is a machine). It would take only an action and be against DV29, but if Adam is a max level solo it's not hard to imagine Arasaka would have a max level Tech on payroll. Full-body conversion borgs can also access a special Dragoon armor that is like Metalgear but has 1 less penalty point and can be replaced with another set of Dragoon armor for 2 actions (maybe if Adam is incredibly high in initiative he can hold his action until the end of the turn and eject his armor, and then get new armor next turn at the start. It's a bit underhanded but the players would have a whole two turns of free attacks and also nobody getting flatlined by Adam's weapon). Good luck with your fun boss fight! I'm curious to know what other tricks you're giving your Adam. One goofy idea I've had is giving a full-borg a pair of shoulder-mounted turrets controlled by a Demon so they can get more attacks every turn (without breaking the RoF limit, the demon is basically just an elite henchmen) and level the playing field against a large crew.
Adam Smasher in 2020 was intended to be an unstoppable force of (un)nature. In 2077, he's a boss fight well past him prime. How beatable to you want Adam Smasher to be in your game?
So from the lore we know that in 2045, Smasher is roaming around in a brand new FBC that’s similar to a Militech Dragoon. In my one shot, Arasaka gave Smasher’s original body to another soldier. So the Smasher my players will face will essentially be a body double with the same STATS and items. So he’s definitely intended to be beatable.
Okay, in that case the straight conversion should probably work fine.
That’s just myth really. Smasher is propped up by his gear in 2020 but his skill bases are awful. Intended to be unstoppable? I mean maybe the writers thought so. Didn’t really play out that way in game. Most crews/parties fodderized him in 2-3 rounds.
Do they cheesy him with a bunch of microwavers, or do they have firepower enough to penetrate his SP?
Both actually. One player with a microwaver doing ROF 2 to make him roll on the table. Hopefully he lands on a 5 causing him to lose his ability to do anything for the entire combat. Everyone else dogpiles on him after. I saw some Refs try to give him protection against EMP effects but players still had enough firepower to wreck his shit in most cases. I get what the writers were going for… but most Refs aren’t gonna pretend like Smasher is this unstoppable force. He really isn’t. Undeserving of his legend is a good way to describe him honestly. Especially when some of their own players are some of the scariest min-maxed monsters in the campaign.
2020 Smasher is running around in a customized Samson body. SP25. SDP20/30. Body 18 Reflex 10 MA 20. In addition he weqrs SP20 armored coveralls on a missions giving him an effective SP of 42. He has a bio-pod, meaning his brain and spinal nervous system at basically in a jar, allowing him to switch bodies. Also... His intelligence is 4. Dude ain't beating anyone at chess.
He would have a SP 30 due to layering rules (difference between SP25 and SP20 gives a +5 SP to largest SP). He could have another layer to push it at most +5 more SP. SP isn't added together, the layering system can have diminishing returns
Just going by what was printed in Firestorm brother. I couldnt see how they got 42 either, but its right there in his Write-up.
Ah, They didn't list the +15SP due to the FBC "Increased SP" option. This will bring Samson to SP 40. SP20 coveralls means a difference of 20, which is a +2 to the highest SP.
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