[PretzelCoatl]

My gaming group is new to Shadowrun and we recently had encounters made difficult by critters' use of edge.  Our group consists of two humans with 5 edge and various other races with only 1 or 2, and we had to make willpower + logic tests against a critter with a pretty sick magical ability that ended up thrashing our party pretty severely.

I'm wondering what you all consider to be the "normal" or "expected" rate of edge accrual, because our last two combats had a critter with 4 edge, and then two critters with 3 edge each. Considering that the first critters was using edge on AOE attacks, matching it would have required the group of six to spend a total of (6 group members times 4 applications = ) 24 edge just to draw even with the critter. The second combat with the two critters with three edge each were using single target spells, so that would have only required a total of 6 edge from the group to draw "even" with the critters' use of edge. However, the group as a whole has only about 16 edge, meaning we can't even begin to keep up.

First reading the rulebook gave me the impression that edge usage was a somewhat uncommon event, and that edge accrual was somewhat uncommon as well. I am intimately familiar with the bullet points on page 56, reposted below, but those are very much up to GM interpretation as to what constitutes phrases such as "good," "heroic," "important," "particularly," and so on. Now, however, I'm reevaluating how common edge usage is expected to be, so, again, I'm curious as to whether or not there's an expected, or "normal,' or "typical" return of edge on a per-fight or per-session basis, since right now the 1-5, average 3 edge per combat situation is...unbearably rough on us.

[Reaver]

Speaking as a GM, Edge usage boils down what I expect that encounter to mean to the overall story and direction of the game.

Is the encounter a "trash" encounter, and really means nothing to the over all story? Zero Edge.
     I could care less what happens, the Street Sam guns down 4 on the Frist pass? OK.

Is the encounter there to provide some clue, drama, setting piece or other needed Story element? Maybe 3 edge, MAX.
   the scene has to last as long as I need it to, so I'll use edge to prolong it.. But this can only drag on so long! I better have a back-up plan if this was something really important!

Is the encounter pivotal to the Game, Story, Campaign in some way? Yes, up to 3 Edge. MAX.
   Some times that really rewarding "Fight" can be cut too short by a really unlucky roll.... time to edge it! But players need their victories!

[maxcarrion]

It's up to the GM to decide on edge usage.  It can turn an easy fight into a good scrap or a hard fight into a TPK - it's restored at 1 point for a good nights rest up to your maximum so a heavy week will leave anyone struggling and using 2 points in a day isn't sustainable for long.

Edge is your reserve tank, it's that last little push, it's a bit of luck when you need it.  Even if the critters are stated with 3 edge you need to ask are they at 100% and are they willing to spend it, if they've already been scrapping they may not be, if they need to hold some back in case this isn't the end for them then they may not use it, especially as an opener.  Wild critters especially know that they may still have to fight for food and may not have a safe place to sleep so they need to keep that emergency tank for life and death situations. 

What's the critters motivation?  If it's really hungry and spots 1 PC made of meat it may well edge a pounce to try and get something to eat.  If it's a guard dog then it will intimidate and snap but probably won't edge until it feels seriously threatened - so defense rolls, escape rolls etc.  If you've ever seen someone back a wounded animal into a corner, that's what edge looks like.

[Jack_Spade]

Yeah, as the others said:
A GM should be very careful what he spends the NPC's Edge on. Just because they have the stat, doesn't mean they should use it - or that they have it at full capacity.

Unnamed NPCs (aka Mooks) should only use group edge and even that sparingly (e.g. to keep the fight going for a moment longer, so story elements can fall into place according to plan).

Edge is meant as plot armor for the pro- and antagonists of a story, not to give irrelevant NPCs an attack boost.

[Tecumseh]

I am very tight with NPC use of Edge. Most of my NPCs only get one point, which they will generally use to stay alive, either for a Soak roll or to burn on Not Dead Yet for story-important NPCs. A boss may get more than one point, but generally no more than three.

Another approach is to use Group Edge (see p. 380 of SR5), with the group's pool equal to their Professional Rating. A group of gangers might get one point total, while a squad of K-E cops could have three points between them, etc.

[PretzelCoatl]

Interesting! OK, thanks; this has been very informative.

Followup question along the same vein:

How often do you typically *restore* edge to players? Per session? Per encounter? How many encounters do you have per session?

Because all of those answers about NPC edge have very little meaning without also knowing how much edge the players are getting.

[Jack_Spade]

p.56 core has the details on how to regain Edge:

REGAINING EDGE Your character gets one point of Edge back after a fulfilling meal and a good night’s sleep (at least eight hours); additionally, the gamemaster can reward players by refreshing a single point of Edge in exchange for inventive or entertaining actions in the course of a gaming session. [...]
Good roleplaying.
- Heroic acts of self-sacrifice.
- Achievement of important personal goals.
- Enduring a critical glitch without using a Close Call (you get a point of Edge back to balance the scales a bit; this should be used judiciously, though, so as not to always let the players off the hook when they roll a critical glitch).
- Succeeding in an important objective.
- Being particularly brave or smart.
- Pushing the storyline forward.
- Having the right skills in the right place at the right time.
- Impressing the group with humor or drama.

Personally, if my players do something well/some good I usually reward them with getting edge back, otherwise whenever they had a good nights sleep.

[Slipperychicken]

I think of edge as a "GM-cookie" or a "benny". It's an OOC boon for the GM to reward in response to strongly positive behavior like great roleplaying or making everyone laugh. So maybe one or two times in an average session?


I've heard my own GM grumble occasionally about the 1/day refresh and how it allows PCs to edge all of their important downtime rolls. It's made me have second thoughts about that particular edge refresh mechanic.

[PretzelCoatl]

As mentioned in my original post, I'm intimately familiar with page 56 and when Edge is refreshed. I actually screenshotted the entire section and pasted it into my character sheet as a reminder.

What I'm curious about is the rate at which you GMs hand out edge, because I think that the amount of NPC edge spent is best compared with the amount of PC edge restored. As an example, in the session I mentioned 4-5 points of NPC edge were used, affecting 14 player rolls, and PCs received 0 edge for the session and 0 edge for the combats. That's not necessarily typical for us, but we haven't had enough sessions for me to say what a typical rate is. Ideally, I'd like to expand my understanding of the mechanics so that I can build a baseline of edge accrual and spending. While page 56 does state what should restore edge, as mentioned, it does not define the very subjective words like "good" or "important," leaving it entirely up to GM purview. So much so, in fact, that the chart is really more of a suggestion than a rule.

Anyone have any ideas?

Slipperychicken: our GM made it impermissible to use edge on downtime roll because he saw the same issue.