Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Lighthouse on <02-21-15/1418:30>
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I have one player that through RAW rules has over 30 soak dice, an air tank, and maxed out the quality magic resistance. This character using edge was shot with a Barrett sniper rifle and only took one point of damage. I feel that the character throws off the game balance. I am trying to scale the difficulty up but I am worried if I go to far it will be a TPK. The last run I threw a blood mystic adept vampire at them wearing armor and with immunity to normal weapons. They took him down way too fast. How do I make my runs challenging to the party without killing everyone?
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Use spells that target Willpower, instead of trying to shoot through their Body/Armor. Direct spells wreak havoc as well by consistently hitting 1-3 damage without too much effort (even with Magic Resistance). Contact and injection vector toxins can also do some horrible things. There's ways to mess with soak-beasts.
I'm not sure how that coincides with the group taking down your big-bad all that fast, since it's a matter of taking hits, not dishing them out. That might just have been a bad introduction of your vampire, in all honesty. I mean, why would a vampire (a natural predator) go after them as a group, when they're fully prepared? Ambush tactics, stalking, etc. should all be in the repertoire of HMHVV victims.
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The player has magic resistance and a high willpower. You are right about dishing it out and the vampire not attacking them. they stalked the vampire to his lair during the day and would have surprised him had they not brought rotodrones. It was actually the spell casters and their spirits that took down the vampire because immunity to normal weapons doesn't affect that. It did give the team more to do than usual so it was a plus.
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Sit down and tell your players to stop being cheese-monkeys. If they want to play that way, and you don't, then you're not playing the same game. If push comes to shove, throw a dragon down their throats.
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It's only one player which is why it's throwing off the balance.
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Only one damage by a Barrett? That's more luck then anything else - that's at least 15P, AP-6. That's an average of 8P or 8S stun damage (depending on how much of the soak pool is damage). Can't really fault people for rolling well. And if the sniper is using APDS (which he should) it should be 9P on average. APDS works well on high-soak targets (though, admittedly, also on low-soak targets).
Can the player dish out the damage as well as he can take it? If he spend a lot of his resources on defense, his offense might be lacking - and in that case, it's not a big deal. People should be good at what they focus at - and there's always the option of targeting squishier players.
Willpower spells probably won't work well if he has maxed Magic Resistance - they tend to be weakish (being balanced by the lack of defense). But if his Willpower is low, it should still work. Contact and injection vectors still work indeed. So do inhalation vectors - he has to turn on the air tank, so unless he runs it all the time you might still surprise him without it active.
Spirits work well - Critter powers aren't affected by Spell Resistance (except for Innate spell). The straight damage will face the same problems as before (although it still has enough damage and AP to be dangerous), but spirits have loads of nasty effects like Fear and Confusion that he'll be all but defenseless against.
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The sniper was using APDS. The players response to my feelings has been that when it comes to dishing it out the player is not that effective (and this is true the player has few dice to actually hit something and is mostly melee anyway) They have a high willpower and an internal air tank. I didn't know spirit powers were not affected by magic resistance. It is not completely unbalancing just tricky which is why I allowed the character to exist.
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30 soak dice is not a huge deal (the tank archetype has more than that). That's 10 hits on average, and damage can go up a lot more than that. And the character is still vulnerable to threats from any other vector than a direct physical attack. Honestly, from the descriptions of blood mystic adept vampires with immunity to normal weapons, and Barrett sniper rifles firing APDS ammo, it sounds like the GM is the one who needs to tone it down.
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It's only one player which is why it's throwing off the balance.
My statement still stands - just change all plural noun forms to singular noun forms.
This is clearly causing you stress, so let the player know that things are out of whack and tell him to get it back in shape. If the player wants to play with this character, make the rest of the players aware that this is going to result in getting their characters killed. They'll get it together.
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I think the core issue is it is hard to balance the different archetypes in SR. So I was starting with the sam because I understand the combat rules the best. Being the toughest character I was trying to judge what the team could take based on the Sam but if the sam goes down the rest of the party would be challenged (depending on what tactics they take) to face the difficulty. But as I think about it that isn't a good way to judge difficulty because the mages, and the decker, and the rigger are going to handle problems differently. So to formulate my question better. How do you determine how hard to make a scenario? How do you determine how tough the enemies should be? How do I determine what force the spirits should be at? What the matrix defenses should be like?
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Hi all! I'd like to help my GM out, because while I don't think the character is cheesily built (though I must admit some bias, as it's my character), I do think that Lighthouse could use some tips on how to run encounters so that they are challenging without being overly so.
We've all played and run adventures where Runners have thoroughly mopped up on what we thought would be a difficult encounter. As a Missions GM, I have seen encounters that have absolutely stopped one group while another group just ploughed through it like a hot knife through butter.
So, the character:
Ork
B7 A3 R5/6 S7/9 W6 L3 I5 C2
PQ: Magic Resistance 4
NQ: Destinctive Style: Chicago Lightning Helmet
Prejusdiced (Outspoken) Non-CZ dwellers
SINner: UCAS
Uneducated
Skills:
Automatics 4
Intimidation 3
Perception 1
Pilot Ground Craft 6
Running 3
Unarmed Combat 6
Chicago Gangs: 5
Sports: 5
The CZ: 5
Russian: 6
Augs:
Bone Lacing Alum
Cyber Arm
Cyber Hand (Stated to equivalent natural/enhanced Agl and Str, +2 Armor each)
Orthoskin 3
Wired Reflexes 1
Muscle Augmentation 2
Equipment:
Bike Racing Helmet (Chicago Lightning Helmet)
Riot Control Armor
Ballistic Shield
Metalink
Medium Lifestyle (Recently upgraded from Squatter after GM blew up all of our old doss...es... dossi?)
About to make a bunch of purchases now that we have some down time.
Honestly, I don't see anything cheesy about it. Some might make an argument that stacking armor from cyberlimbs might be cheese, and while I disagree, I can see where they are coming from... but it's only 2-4 of the armor points. As Glyph says, the Tank 'archetype' has over 30 armor.
I'd also note that the GM is new to GMing, I think in general, much less a difficult crunch system like SR5.
Finally, it's easy to pick on the 'tank' because I have the single highest dice pool, in soak and have also padded myself against the easiest physical tank counter: magic. I'm an experienced Shadowrun player who has seen many a tank fall to a singular well cast stun bolt.
The rest of the team consists of a Hacker who is consistently hitting her limits on hacking and computer tests off of the Sony CIY-720 Cyberdeck; a Shaman who is well built and played by a very savvy and experienced RPer who consistently has a (minimally) force 6 spirit of man rolling with us, a Rigger, a Medic, and joining us for the event with the Blood Magic Mystic Adept Vampire was another mage who can bring a Force 8 spirit to bear without over summoning. We are all also pretty experienced RPers and Shadowrunners, so we tend to take our time and plan things out to give ourselves the best advantage in most any situation.
Fighting us in his bedroom after we neutralized his guards and security without the use of my tank's impressive soak and catching him mostly by surprise... well, I don't think it's the 'one character' that's overbalancing. A Force 6 and 8 Spirit, the Mages, a Rigger's Drone and a Street Samurai catching something mostly by surprise in it's bedroom is going to have a relatively easy time of it.
As an inexperienced GM, Lighthouse could really use a bunch of pointers on how to challenge a team of established-level Runners without going overboard, without relying too heavily on GM Fiat, and staying within the parameters of his campaign, which is on the surface a mob-war in Chicago (we've basically taken sides with MacAvoy against McCaskill) with a deeper (and ultimately more important) subtext of some crazy blood magic shit about to go down.
He could also use some advice on when he should expect that we are challenged and when he should be OK with us rolling over something. I think expectation management of how runs should play out is key as well. He's definitely been OK with us just powering through mooks, but I think us taking some of the more creative challenges he's laid out for us has taken him somewhat by surprise.
You can actually see the write-ups of our adventures here (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=19624.0).
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Figuring out balance like that is always a little dicey. The only game I saw get it mathematically correct wasn't a lot of fun to play. I've seen a lot of attempts in the industry but the success level varies a lot just by the nature of different party mixes and how they players themselves problem solve. I've had a group of runners call Lone Star to handle a terrorist threat, just because the players the risk/reward wasn't in their favor.
I normally start with a threat level I know the party can handle and crank things up each following run or encounter in different combinations until things start to stick. I also find the combinations tend to be the key.
Peter
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Also it can be a good idea to mix Hard and Soft threats for sake of variety, and it also rewards players for their builds.
For clarity, a Hard threat is one built to the party's strengths. If the group is a crew of combat monsters, then throw them up against some elite 'wared up combatants backed up by drones. Are they going to win? Probably, but such a head on clash will probably get their blood pumping. Conversely a magic heavy group could face off against a Blood Magic coven.
A Soft threat however, is one that exploits the group's weaknesses, and this in no way, shape or form needs to be combat focused.
How do you balance it? The short answer, you can't. The long answer, you could spend a whole lot of time crunching the numbers and trying to make the perfect encounter, but simply put players are unpredictable and will almost always ruin your plans. Go with what you feel is right, and err on the side of being too powerful... without the threat of characters dieing, there's not a whole lot of point, and the payoff for the players is bigger if they manage to defeat something that almost killed them.
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Couple more things:
As a result of showing our faces in an early run, Lighthouse had the mobsters hit our homes. In the case of Rollrgrrl, this was her squatting community in the CZ, including non-combatants and children, that she was fond of. It also happened right after Rollrgrrl spent her first runner paycheck on improvements (working for the People), like purchasing a couple of weapons for the guards and buying toys and other necesstities like blankets and stuff, for the other residents.
Having it burned out and many of them killed shortly afterwards was like smashing her in the feels with a brick. Very well done and just the type of response that I felt was entirely suitable. In a story-centric game, these are the elements that really make it memorable.
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Also, Top Dog, can you point out where you got the information regarding Critter Power and Magic Resistance? I don't see it under the Quality itself, nor in the Critter Power section (though I may be using what my wife calls my 'man eyes', you know, the eyes I use to find shit she needs in the cupboard). It seems like it should work, as Critter Powers are 'Magic'. I do get that Magic Resistance specifically says "Spell Resistance Test" and a Critter Power isn't, by the mathlish that is Shadowrun, a 'Spell'... but is that further clarified elsewhere, or is that the (legitimate) basis of your interpretation?
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The problem arises when one character can take a massive amount of punishment and the other characters cannot. There is no "tank" in Shadowrun, contrary to the Archetype name. There's no "aggro" and no "taunting" or any of those other video game mechanics. So the best way to defeat a character like that? Don't engage them - kill their allies, friends, family, etc.
That's why building a character who can survive a small explosion to the chest will generally result in the rest of the characters getting killed. Diversity is the solution here. Also, ask yourself why the character would do this kind of thing? Why on earth would a shadowrunner make themselves nearly immortal - it does nothing to help the mission's success if the character cannot do other basic tasks like lying (Con skill), getting Mr. Johnson to like him (Etiquette skill), hiding items on your person (Palming skill), etc.
So really, JaydeMoon, what you've built is a character that cannot do some of the basic tasks of a shadowrunner. Presumably this is because other character can "take over" for those tasks, but all three of the examples I gave are things that everyone needs to be able to do, even on a basic level. If you want to know what makes a character cheesy, it's the lack of diversity and metagaming knowledge of your teammates' skills. Sure, everyone should know what someone is good at and bad at, but your character is ridiculously bad at all aspects of being a shadowrunner that don't involve shooting automatic weapons or hitting someone with your fist.
Lighthouse, if you want to challenge this character, take it out of the CZ and into a situation involving socializing with non-CZ residents. The outspoken prejudice, lack of social skills, lack of stealth skills, and lack of covert options will make this character crumble in seconds.
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A decent force fire spirit and engulf solve basically anything. Force 6 is 18P (+net hits) -6AP. And it only gets more ridiculous with higher forces. Starting characters can dish out 36P -12AP if you forgo the exceptional magic attribute. Good luck soaking that. It is not like that 26 dice for the attack roll won't generate some net hits.
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:o
So judgemental! ;)
So what you are saying, Namikaze, is that you disagree with the tank archetype in general. I suppose that's a legitimate viewpoint.
I also agree wholeheartedly with your observation that taking the character out of the CZ will cause MAJOR issues for the character. This has been pointed out and suggested to the GM by myself. But I think your criticisms of the character as being 'cheesy' are unfair if you are basing them solely on Lighthouse's questions on how to challenge a party in general (he clarified his question) and upon seeing only the crunch for this particular character.
No, she's not a Mary Sue, she's a fully fleshed out character with a full backstory explaining who she is and how she got to where she is, who has glaring weaknesses that are not ignored by anyone at the table, least of all myself. While you indicate that it's problematic that my character doesn't fit well as a Shadowrun professional because she lacks a variety of skills (is that a criticism for any character that takes Priority D for skills?), I think it's actually a positive quirk of the character. YMMV. This isn't a Missions table where Distinctive Style doesn't mean a damn thing, but a continuing campaign where there are very interesting results that have great meaning for the characters and the players playing them.
I suppose we can suggest ways to punish the party because there's a relatively unskilled Tank in the group... or we can suggest ways to challenge the group that aren't (equally) cheesy to the characters and that may provide depth of story.
EDIT: Additionally, all of the players are having a lot of fun at the table, including Lighthouse, I think that Lighthouse is just a bit frustrated that his Big Bad got very easily defeated (it escaped, by the way, I expect it'll be a bit of a recurring villain, and probably smarter next time we see it). The focus is on the tank because it's the easiest bit of crunch to see, but again, that vampire wasn't beaten in a single round of combat because my character has 30+ soak dice and magic resistance.
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Best way to challenge combat characters: tactics. Make the opponents numerous (too numerous if that's what you're going for). I don't care who you are, you're not taking out a 20-man tactical team with air, matrix, and magical support unless you have similar capabilities.
With overwatch (i.e. people and/or drone in spotting positions), you can have a team of gangers pose a reliable threat to a team of professional runners simply through volume of fire. Have the opponents take potshots at the team, then fall back to a better position. Hound them through the streets of the CZ until the team is forced into the radioactive wasteland that is the Cermak blast crater. No matter how tough someone is, a bit of radiation and some fatigue goes a long way to wear a team down.
Use suppressive fire; the team may not take much damage (the tank in particular), but the negative modifiers to all actions can be debilitiating in other ways. In short, make the team believe they have no other option to run (enforce this choice if you have to, but be aware that this very well could end up in the death of several characters). If the tank goes rushing into melee combat by himself, he'll be alone when he realizes that the enemy is simply too numerous to actually defeat. Good way to end up in a chop shop, just before the ghouls are about to start ripping all that cyber out of the character.
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Also, Top Dog, can you point out where you got the information regarding Critter Power and Magic Resistance? I don't see it under the Quality itself, nor in the Critter Power section (though I may be using what my wife calls my 'man eyes', you know, the eyes I use to find shit she needs in the cupboard). It seems like it should work, as Critter Powers are 'Magic'. I do get that Magic Resistance specifically says "Spell Resistance Test" and a Critter Power isn't, by the mathlish that is Shadowrun, a 'Spell'... but is that further clarified elsewhere, or is that the (legitimate) basis of your interpretation?
I was, at least partially, mistaken. Though I think my conclusion still stands.
For some reason I was assuming the character was an Adept - probably because I play them too much. The Spell Resistance power, that Adepts can take, does specifically mention that it only affects spells. Of course, that's named differently, so that should have been a hint (also, Adepts usually make poor tanks, relative to Street Sams). At either rate, Magic Restance does mention Spell Resistance checks specifically, and by looking at the Spell Resistance power we can tell that innate powers aren't counted as spells for resistance test (the same applies to counterspelling, by the way). So I think my interpretation stands. But I can't find a specific rule either.
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As for the Tank discussion, I think Namikaze does have a point. You seem to have an awful lot invested in being hard to hit and not much in hitting back. I don't agree that that's automatically a bad thing, but it makes ignoring you a decent choice - your allies are easier to kill, and likely a great deal more dangerous. For the same reason, though, I don't think it's a serious balancing issue. After all, you don't fault the Face for your social encounters having to be designed for his dice pool - this character's strength is being hard to take out. It's not impossible to do so, though. Most of the things that will seriously hurt your other players will still hurt this character somewhat; an Ares Alpha still has a fairly decent chance of doing some damage, after all. It's just that it takes more - but that's because that's the character's strength.
But your character is seriously lacking some essential skills he should have.
(As for why a shadowrunner would make themselves nearly immortal - so he won't die, of course. It might not be the most rational of choices, all things considered, but it's certainly not inconceivable. Plus, backstory - perhaps all the defense is from an earlier time when it was useful?)
Also, how did he survive that Barrett hit with just 1 box? Did you roll that much above average?
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*snipped for ease of reading*
I gave my opinion on the character. And yes, I think it's cheesy. But that doesn't mean I don't think it could be fun. The problem here is that somehow the term "cheesy" equates to "not interesting." And that's almost universally untrue. In fact, the cheesiest characters I've ever seen have routinely had the most convoluted stories too. This is partly because the player is attempting to explain how the cheese came to be in the first place. And in the process of trying to make a cheesy character fit into the world, the story gets interesting very fast.
However, no one was asking about if the character was interesting or fun. Lighthouse was expressing his frustration with your character, and the fact that he feels that to challenge your character he'll have to put the rest of the group at risk for a TPK. If you're okay with putting him and the rest of the group in that situation, then by all means keep doing what you're doing. But if you aren't okay with that, then I think it's reasonable to go back to the drawing board.
EDIT: Honestly at this point we know who the GM and the player in question are. This is a discussion that you two should be having, and not in public with the rest of us. Lighthouse asked for assistance, and when the community has offered assistance, you (Jayde Moon) decided to defend your character. If you want to defend your character, do it to Lighthouse. He's the GM, and his rulings are final.
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Also, how did he survive that Barrett hit with just 1 box? Did you roll that much above average?
It was an edged roll, the post-roll option used to reroll non-hits.
EDIT: Honestly at this point we know who the GM and the player in question are. This is a discussion that you two should be having, and not in public with the rest of us. Lighthouse asked for assistance, and when the community has offered assistance, you (Jayde Moon) decided to defend your character. If you want to defend your character, do it to Lighthouse. He's the GM, and his rulings are final.
Partially. Mostly I am trying to redirect the responses to what is actually the question.:
I think the core issue is it is hard to balance the different archetypes in SR. So I was starting with the sam because I understand the combat rules the best. Being the toughest character I was trying to judge what the team could take based on the Sam but if the sam goes down the rest of the party would be challenged (depending on what tactics they take) to face the difficulty. But as I think about it that isn't a good way to judge difficulty because the mages, and the decker, and the rigger are going to handle problems differently. So to formulate my question better. How do you determine how hard to make a scenario? How do you determine how tough the enemies should be? How do I determine what force the spirits should be at? What the matrix defenses should be like?
If I am defending my character, it's because the focus has been on that character and I am trying to redirect it to the actual question. Honestly, I could make the same high defense character and fill it with useable skills to, you and I both know that. Mostly I am hoping that this very experienced resource of the Shadowrun Forums can give some suggestions about creating encounters and scenarios that are challenging, but that aren't about punishing a single character's build, which is what he's really looking for.
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The problem with doing that is that the characters have to be more well-balanced in order to avoid the appearance of punishing a single character. If each person only has one thing they do really well, then any situation not dealing with that one thing can be perceived as "punishing." Otherwise, the spotlight gets passed around and inevitably someone will take up more spotlight time than everyone else.
I could try to explain more about why having ultra-specialized characters is bad, but generally those are the key points. If the characters at your table are ultra-specialized, the GM is going to have to put them into scenarios that will favor some characters over others. If the GM wants to challenge the whole group, he has to put the group into a situation that no one is specialized to handle, which will very likely result in a TPK or at least a failure.
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I think that specialization is a general problem with SR. The rigger was bored for most of the combat last game because he was on overwatch and couldn't think of anything to do. He eventually got in on the action but it was a less than ideal situation. (he only had a grenade launcher and it was in a cramped area with a person they needed to protect) I think what Jayde is going for is a character new to the shadows with a lot of room to grow skills wise. My major mistake was thinking ok here's the highest soak pool base my badguys on taking them down. So I made an armored vampire. The two mages tore him a new one. I spend hours on runs and still have players think of a solution that works better than I planned and makes the run easier than I thought it would be. I hope everyone is having fun. I am but I would at some point make them work hard for their nuyen. They do also use good tactics which I don't want to punish them for just challenge them.
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They do also use good tactics which I don't want to punish them for just challenge them.
Yeah if your players are tactically taking your missions apart, you don't want to punish them for it at all. I spend about 4-5 hours on each mission, and then the whole game takes about 4 hours to complete. I've had more than a few games where the players have ripped through them really fast. The thing I do is try to obfuscate all kinds of parts of the mission, and encourage a LOT of legwork. Then, when the players rip through my bad guys it's because they spent all that time working on finding ways to neutralize them, not because my bad guys are too weak. In the case of the armored vampire, was there any way to avoid telling the players it was a vampire? If the characters are new to shadowrunning, they might have to spend time figuring out a) that the character is a vampire and b) how to defeat a vampire. That legwork is essential - if they had done that, then it makes sense that they'd tear through him. If they didn't do that, it's pure metagaming and that kind of thing should be stopped.
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They didn't even know about the vampire. The two mages summoned spirits and then the two mages and the two spirits ganged up on the vampire and the vampire's spirit. I was worried about a TPK so I didn't want to make the spirit to powerful. I made it a 6 and it was killed in the first action. The vampire lasted a full combat turn against the entire party but was at some minuses from stun so decided to bail releasing ghouls to cover his exit.
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One thing Shadowrun has never been able to do well is "end-level boss" type fights. Numbers and teamwork really matter in fights. Single enemies tend to either get taken down in one round by a group, or, if you overdo them, they will shrug off every attack and then kill the entire party. Weaker but more numerous foes who use some basic tactics (using cover, not clustering together, etc.) can be more of a challenge.
Also, characters in Shadowrun tend to be all over the place in overall experience and effectiveness. Don't try to challenge the entire group at once; instead, give each team member their moment in the spotlight. Give the team a variety of jobs and obstacles, and don't stress as much about challenging them. It will arise naturally - don't try to force it. This isn't like D&D where you get experience points for killing monsters. In Shadowrun, the optimal solution is a lateral one that avoids a fight altogether, or at least makes it an unfair one.
Enemies will do this, too. A hitman after the group will target the decker, not the samurai. A decker after the group will target the samurai, not the other decker. If they go after the rigger, it will be when he is at the bar knocking back a few, not when he is in his tricked-out van. This is why runners go to such lengths to protect their anonymity. Problems don't have to all be straightforward fights. The group can be set up as the fall guys by someone, get hit on by someone with a jealous significant other, get badmouthed by rivals, be blackmailed by a crooked cop, and so on. Having the sammie's doss get burned out and some innocents get caught in the crossfire was one good example - and the sammie's high soak pool didn't help a bit (although again, a decent soak pool is hardly the most potentially unbalancing thing out there - there are two mages on the team, and Squirrel already pointed out how tough high-Force spirits can be).
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I ran a season 05 mission and almost killed the entire party (this was with a different party). Luckily the enemies just wanted something the party had and it didn't even cause them to fail the mission but I didn't think that it would be that challenging.
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I ran a season 05 mission and almost killed the entire party (this was with a different party). Luckily the enemies just wanted something the party had and it didn't even cause them to fail the mission but I didn't think that it would be that challenging.
The best runs are that challenging, and only ingenuity and luck make it survivable on a regular basis.
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Don't be afraid of nearly killing the team. As the DM of my D&D game says.
"If I make players fear for their character's lives, I've done my job. If a couple of characters die, those are the risks of the world. Only if it's a TPK then I've failed to create a proper encounter."
We've had some close calls in this game, and characters have been lost. As for the TPK, perhaps raise the issue with your players, ask how comfortable they are with that possibility. If they don't mind too much there being a real risk of a TPK, that gives you more leeway in how hard you can push them.
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Lighthouse, I can send you a mission that I created, so you can see some of the possibilities. I have run two completely separate runner groups through it, and both groups have hated it, for different reasons. It sounds like this mission might be something you can try out to hopefully get a better feel of what your team is capable of, and how to challenge them. Let me know if you would like to see it.
Also, both groups of players wound up enjoying it, but both groups had something they truly hated about. Fun times!
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30 dice is not that ridiculous a soak monster if kitted up properly. As others have said, let him be really tough if that is his character's specialty. Some ways to make him feel his mortality other than a trio of grenade launchers-
1-Indirect spells, especially ones that target willpower.
2-High force spirits.
3-Punch him in the girlfriend rather than in the face. People have vulnerable points in their lives.
4-Drugs and toxins.
5-Shoot someone else for a while. If he is super tanky a savvy enemy might try to take out the soft targets first.
6-Control thoughts with an order to touch the mage/decker/medic in inappropriate places, preferably with a katana
7-Social Scenes
8-Four grenade launchers
9-Industrial wood chippers. If you ever see one in game call it a day and bug out.
10-Six letter word, starts with d, ends with n, the middle part sounds like panic and running.
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Spooky I am curious about your run and would like to read it.
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Hey Lighthouse, Glyph summed up the whole of things really well. If you'd like some examples of runs that I've done, I can send you some documents. They're written so that I can keep track of the things in my head, so they may not read easily. But if they can help you out, I'll send them your way.
A LOT of times I have to go off-script with my adventures. I've had to learn how to steer the ship back on course in order to resolve things sometimes, but most of the time the team ends up where I want them to end up anyway (even though they went offroading through some uncharted terrain to get there).
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Cool. What medium would you prefer to send them in?
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My current runner is a combat/b&e adept, but no social skills at all. The group and DM is ok with that and social situations are generally highly entertaining. This is usually do to my character making an ass of himself (unless he is buying beer for everyone). Granted our group is atypical, and our DM is running with that.
As far as dealing with your armored character, use the double tap called shot with a sniper rifle and adps, he/she will loose around near 18 points of armor with the right weapon. Again, will a pool of 9 for melee (didn't post agility of cyber arm) little will be hit in melee. Or challenge the character outside of combat, that will work as well.
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Fear. I find Fear is always the great equalizer. Whether it is a Spirit or a Barghest, I have lost track of the number of times a drek-hard Sammie has taken off and run down the street literally crapping his pants (or stood there crying and crapping their pants). It doesn't kill the rest of the party, and it doesn't necessarily kill the victim(unless they are trapped in a dead end!) It only takes a single failed Opposed Test to work. And even if it doesn't work, it drains Edge and ramps up the anxiety.
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I've been running a game now for about a year and a half now, and challenging the group really isn't that important of a thing. Make the game fun, entertaining, and give different people their chances to shine. I've learned in that time that some of the "easy" encounters will nearly wipe your group, and some of the "tough" encounters get rolled over like they are nothing. If the group comes up with an idea that you didn't think of, then cool. They are thinking about the game, and trying to solve problems. Sometimes your players will engage in paranoid conjecture, and their ideas will turn out to be much better than what you had planned. Take the ball and roll with it.
Now, for practical things. If the targets consist of 4-5 people, and one of them is armored up so much that I don't think my shot will hurt him, then I am not shooting at him. Pick a softer target. NPCs don't have to be stupid. They don't have to waste shots shooting at the thing they cannot hurt, shoot the things they can hurt. As mentioned before, there is no "aggro" mechanic forcing enemies to stupidly waste shots on the most armored target in the field. The tank has very high damage resistance, but enemies should realize that real soon (if not visibly obvious, then it's obvious after the first Barrett round doesn't drop the target) and react accordingly.
Falling Damage. Levitate Spells can be resisted, but if a mage levitates a heavily armored target, and floats him 20 meters into the air before dismissing, 20P -4AP is going to leave a mark
Shoot the air tank, then have a spirit of Air engulf the target. They can resist the damage without armor as they begin suffocating.
Environmental effects. Surround the tank with smoke grenades to reduce their offensive capability, and then just ignore them. Tanks can only tank, when someone is giving them something to tank. Like above, if the NPCs focus on softer targets and leave the tank alone with diminished offensive capability, then the bad guys are succeeding.
Again, I will agree with others. Take the group out of combat. Maybe they are being interviewed by a Johnson or contact, and he doesn't want the face doing all the talking. Maybe he wants to interact with each of the PCs directly, or separately. Have situations where multiple people need to socially engage in targets simultaneously. Imagine if the group is caught sneaking through some place and the guards wonder why the others are being so quiet. They should speak for themselves and answer the questions.
Looking at other posts here, it seems that halflingmage has covered pretty much most of the important parts. I specially like the punch him in the girlfriend (Gamer's Tavern? Or was that Fear the Boot? I forget). When the villains didn't have kryptonite, going after innocent bystanders sure did get to Superman.
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See my opinion here. (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=9496.msg167820#msg167820)
For the GM: Balance is team vs. opposition, and the opposition needn't kill to be effective. Apply pressure in ways that do not allow him to use Body and Armor to resist.
For the player: make sure your character cares for something besides money, armor, and guns. If you want to help your GM, give him levers to use - then allow him to use them.
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He didn't take damage because he edged the roll, so why are people talking so much about this?
Hell, we have a goddamn Troll wearing heavy mil-spec in our group and he gets regularly brought down by concentrated short bursts of APDS fire. They usually start with a low pool for dodging and with bursts, they'll keep taking hits in time and time again until their stun track fills. And in combat, it doesn't really matter in the short-term if it's stun or Physical which got filled, chummer. Another viable option would be to shoot at the other characters, too.
If your runners beat up the opposition, you need to step up your opposition. Build a group of Shadowrunners that have equal karma and throw them against your players. Also, if they're corp-controlled, let them have all that nice Alphaware cyber and really big guns. Have their Rigger pilot an attack helicopter. Just -don't- overdo it. Either give the players opponents they can actually defeat (an attack helicopter, for example needs atleast two rockets or a lot of APDS from a sniper- or assault rifle). Alternatively, make it -obvious- for the players that they have a way of escape which they will take when they finally realize that "oh drek, we're screwed". Or give them enough hints so they realize they'll get killed if they fight, then make the combat about pursuit and fending them off instead of killing all the antagonists?
Then again, letting the player soak up small-arms fire like it was nothing is letting him do "his thing" and letting him shine, so make sure you allow atleast a degree of that, too.
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Thanks Wyrm. Your statement about game balance makes a ton of sense. And thanks to everyone else. I have a lot of planning to do. Rubs hands together while laughing manaically.
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Best of luck! May your Runners be challenge without a TPK.
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30 dice is not a lot.
I view shadowrun as a team of specialist working as one, not a bunch of well rounded guys. Each person has his role on the team and the job they excel at. the creation mechanics support this paradigm, the game mechanically hurts you for diversifying.
and seriously you don't need high power. you can use call shots like (double tap), magic like nerve strike, ambushes, hand to hand combat (sweep/trip/subdue) it is very easy to challenge even the strongest shadow run character with just tactical options they give you in the books, without needing to go all nuclear.
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Nerve Strike is a good one...
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The bigger reason he survived that shot with so little damage was edge. But no a soak pool of 30 is not super high. My current runner is at 25-27 depending on what kind of main armor I am wearing. Granted, I am near my encumbrance limited, but he is by no means a tank. A tank Samie can hit into the ~40 if done right at character generation.
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If a players builds his character to absorb tons of damage (30 dice is good, but not insane), then give him opportunities to do exactly that--it's fun to shine the spotlight on players and let them show off from time to time. If you're looking for a way to challenge the character, use Reduce Attribute (Charisma) and a Mystic Adept to threaten him with a coma. Playing to a character's strengths is great, but you risk escalation to the point that other characters who don't have nearly the same number of soak dice find themselves up against opposition using alphas with APDS ammo.
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If a players builds his character to absorb tons of damage (30 dice is good, but not insane), then give him opportunities to do exactly that--it's fun to shine the spotlight on players and let them show off from time to time. If you're looking for a way to challenge the character, use Reduce Attribute (Charisma) and a Mystic Adept to threaten him with a coma. Playing to a character's strengths is great, but you risk escalation to the point that other characters who don't have nearly the same number of soak dice find themselves up against opposition using alphas with APDS ammo.
I agree. why punish the guy for following the rules. the game encourages characters who are specialist at thier niche. and 30 dice is not outrageous or game breaking.