[Squirrel]

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.

[Jayde Moon]

 

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.

[Herr Brackhaus]

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.

[Top Dog]

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.

---------

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?

[Namikaze]

*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.

[Jayde Moon]

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.

[Namikaze]

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.

[Lighthouse]

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.

[Namikaze]

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.

[Lighthouse]

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.

[Glyph]

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).

[Lighthouse]

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.

[Shaidar]

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.

[ScytheKnight]

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.

[Spooky]

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!