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So I'm getting more familiar with all the nuances of the game, and I came across the rules for viral ammo.

Forcing a TAG to make 2 BTS rolls for each hit when many tags have a negative BTS seems absolutely brutal.

Am I missing something, is viral ammo really that effective against TAGs? What's the fluff justification? It would seem to me a big giant robot suit should be less susceptible to viral attacks.

You need to read BTS. For armor roll the negative is a plus, the negative is only added to the roll the other guy needs to hack your unit.

That would make more sense, but I don't get that out of the rules I found.

This is all I could find in the wiki about BTS

Damage and BTS.
Some weapons use Special Ammunition that ignores ARM and can only be stopped with Biotechnologic Shield (BTS) protection. BTS Rolls are used to resist the Damage caused by these weapons, and function the same as ARM rolls, substituting the ARM value with that of BTS as a positive modifier.


so instead of d20+ARM its d20+BTS which if your BTS is negative would be d20-BTS.

Not saying I'm right, I just don't see why it doesn't work that way.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
That would make more sense, but I don't get that out of the rules I found.

This is all I could find in the wiki about BTS

Damage and BTS.
Some weapons use Special Ammunition that ignores ARM and can only be stopped with Biotechnologic Shield (BTS) protection. BTS Rolls are used to resist the Damage caused by these weapons, and function the same as ARM rolls, substituting the ARM value with that of BTS as a positive modifier.


so instead of d20+ARM its d20+BTS which if your BTS is negative would be d20-BTS.

Not saying I'm right, I just don't see why it doesn't work that way.

Its the part bolded, it could be worded better, but "as a positive modifier", mean as a plus.

I took that part to mean what I laid out, d20 + BTS just like ARM is a positive modifier to the d20 on the armor roll. But what you said makes sense, especially once I looked and saw nobody has a postive BTS and thought about how it works with hacking.

It would have been more consistent IMO to say you subtract BTS for hacking and add it for BTS rolls, but it is what it is. Thanks.

This stems from the fact that BTS predates the invention of viral and E/M, so the mechanic only had hacking in mind. Just remember that BTS is always a good thing and it's becomes second nature. In response to the overall question though, viral is still pretty nasty against TAGs since they will often have a higher ARM then BTS. Viral is just all around mean and very against 0-12 regulations you dirty Haqq/Tohaa you.

 BlueDagger wrote:
...and very against 0-12 regulations you dirty Haqq/Tohaa you.

...and this is coming from a Nomads player?

Plus, Ariadna also gets ready access to Viral weapons because they like shooting dogs.

@ bluedagger
Yeah I would agree forcing them to make two BTS rolls when their BTS is usually 2 points lower than their arm doesn't seem bad at all. Unfortunately not as good as what I initially thought :0P

@Absolutionist
Ariadna is why I was looking it up. I have a ton of merovingian stuff and I wanted to play with my loup garou. Lots of linkable viral options seems really solid.

I've got a mate who plays ariadna (several dogfaces in his list).
I've told him to watch out for viral weapons - as they stop his dogfaces transforming when hit - and he currently relies on them to do a lot of damage after they take a wound and wolf out (there are a few local players with haqqislam).

I play PanO and have no access to viral weapons I just have to shoot them to bits (or in the case of my JSA - chop them to bits with monofilament ccw).

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
But what you said makes sense, especially once I looked and saw nobody has a postive BTS and thought about how it works with hacking.

Ideally I guess there should be a model wearing just their underwear or something, and +BTS as a result

 Pacific wrote:

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
But what you said makes sense, especially once I looked and saw nobody has a postive BTS and thought about how it works with hacking.

Ideally I guess there should be a model wearing just their underwear or something, and +BTS as a result

Now that's something I'd definitely buy if the attribute on the model was +female. Ideally, 2 attributes.