[oxford]

So i have a PC who has munchkined the hell out of his character, i try not to second guess their build but his character has destroyed every challenge i have thrown. He is a troll w pimped out military armor and all the fixings, w mystic armor  his total armor comes to over 40/40. His attacks and str are ridiculous and he has arcane arrestor so mages have a hell of a time affecting him (they usaly don't get a chance w his adrenaline surge). Tranq darts dont work due to military armor, and with the party nothing last much longer than one round. Any advise to challenge this PC?

[Black]

Swarm of Spirits of Man force 6 with either reduce willpower or influence....

NPC with edge and Levietate... straight up...

More missions which don't require combat or require subtle combat to avoid drawing attention from KE.

Tunnel combat were explosives (including explosive rounds) etc may trigger 'bad stuff' (ie Aliens movie scenario)

Its pretty rare for runners to be able to use military armour without attracting serious attention... and most shadowruns require... being subtle...

[OFTHEHILLPEOPLE]

Pure Spirit Mantis group. 

The horror.  The pain.

[Crunch]

Honestly, the first step would be to sit down with the player and explain what you perceive the problem to be. A lot of time a simple conversation about expected power levels will let you come to a mutually satisfactory solution. I find that the "arms race" model tends up being pretty punitive and not fun for anyone. While taking the character out of their element, or separating them from their gear, can both be fun as story devices they're pretty unsatisfactory solutions to the problem at the table.

So my suggestion is just talk it out. Sit down and say "look, this is the issue I'm seeing, what resolution can we come to that will let all of us have fun at the table." Having a conversation with the group of players can also be a useful tool. Talk to the players about what power level they'd like to see and then tailor the game appropriately.

[Mirikon]

So i have a PC who has munchkined the hell out of his character, i try not to second guess their build but his character has destroyed every challenge i have thrown. He is a troll w pimped out military armor and all the fixings, w mystic armor  his total armor comes to over 40/40. His attacks and str are ridiculous and he has arcane arrestor so mages have a hell of a time affecting him (they usaly don't get a chance w his adrenaline surge). Tranq darts dont work due to military armor, and with the party nothing last much longer than one round. Any advise to challenge this PC?

Before I start, let me say that this is entirely your fault for allowing the character into play to begin with. One of the DM's primary responsibilities is to check over charsheets before play to make sure that broken crap like this doesn't see the light of day. For that, you should be beaten about the head with a phone book. Now, as far as suggestions go:

1) Does he sleep/eat/bathe in armor? No? There's an opening.

2) Someone running around in heavy milspec armor, whether they're a troll or not, is going to be VERY noticable. Not only that, but his teammates will be very noticable, too. They should all be getting some heavy notoriety just from being around him, bounties posted on their heads, their contacts should be drying up because they're just too hot, etc.

3) Question the build. Question it long and hard. Honestly, a build that obscene should never have been allowed in play to begin with.

4) Dragon with Demolish Armor.

5) Capture his family/whatever few contacts are still talking to him, and kill them if he doesn't strip out of the armor. If he strips out of the armor, multiple long full bursts of SnS.

Honestly, though, take the player aside, tell him that the build is unbalancing the game, and give him the option of either reworking the character to not be obscene, or allow him to transfer Karma over to a new character, which you'll actually check over before blindly allowing it into the game.

[The_Gun_Nut]

How is he getting the mystic armor, btw?

[Shadowjack]

Trolls can often be pretty scary. When you look at their racial stats, it's very tempting to build on their strengths. Here are some ways you could deal with him:

1. Have your NPC's use weapons or spells that cut his armor dice in half.
2. Set up a brutal ambush and focus fire him
3. Knock him into water, forcing him to exit his suit
4. Attack him when he's not wearing his armor. If he always gets to use it, I think you're not challenging him enough
5. Snipers
6. Similar opposition in terms of damage resistance
7. Try to get the group split up and get him to duel someone of equal or greater power
8. Attack him with a vehicle

I'm not suggesting you be cheap but these are some ways you can challenge him. I think it's fair as long as you don't go TOO far with it. If he has enemies, it shouldn't be a secret that he's tough to deal with so NPC's should be able to make suitable plans to deal with him too.

[Glyph]

Military armor stacks with mystic armor, but not with any other armor, so I'm not sure how he's getting 40 armor - 40 soak pool, I could see, but not that much armor.

You should probably challenge such a character obliquely - still let him play the badass he seems to want to be, and mow down some hapless mooks every now and them, but mix it up.  Maybe a job could be covert security work at a high-class society affair, where armor and weapons need to be discrete.  Or finding a slippery con man to collect a bounty.  Or replacing a prototype with a dummy, without anyone at the lab noticing the switch.

Don't take him so far out of his specialty that he is frustrated and twiddling his thumbs with nothing to do, but give him some challenges that aren't straight-up scraps.  This goes double if he took some glaring weaknesses or omissions in other areas to be so buff.  Don't be too vindictive, but if he is lacking in matrix awareness or social skills, then have the vulnerability come up occasionally in minor ways.

[oxford]

im thinking of throwing a succubus at him, he saves a civilian (little girl) from big mean corp security, then when he picks her up boom she spells him.

or, creating a mind control device that attaches to the victim and emits signals to control its mind, not magic and doesnt need physical contact, as long as it sneaks up on him could be awesome

thanks everyone

[Mirikon]

Eh, I'd be careful about throwing plotonium devices at him. That's a bad spiral to go down. Seriously, just take him aside, tell him that the character is unbalancing the game, and ask him to either tone it down or put together a new character with the same total karma as the old character had (and this time actually review the character before letting it into play).

And if you don't mind, throw the current monster up here so we can see just how the hell he got such obscene bonuses. Chances are something is seriously out of whack.

[raggedhalo]

Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle.  Halves your Armour then applies AP.  Job done.

But yes - particularly if you're a bit inexperienced, it can feel like you can't call the players on this stuff OOC.  You might not have realised it was worth setting ground rules, or known what ground rules you wanted to set.  That's fair enough.  The best route is always to have a quiet and mature conversation about why this character is a problem.

Failing that, play up the social angle as others have said - is this guy going to meets in his milspec armour?  How good is his Fake SIN and Fake License?  Why the frag are KE or the Star letting this guy walk the streets when he clearly intends to start something?

[Mirikon]

Exactly. Going anywhere in milspec armor should have people frantically calling for heavy response teams on the double. Or, in the Barrens, have the local gangers looking to make a name for themselves. Regardless, this goes way beyond 'pink mohawk' levels of crazy, into "Duke Nukem" territory. And you don't have an alien invasion to keep the cops off your back like he did.

[The_Gun_Nut]

Or stun bolt him.  Hit his weaker stat.  It doesn't matter that he has arcane arrestor.  You push hard enough, it will go.

Have the sniper team make a called shot to bypass armor.  Sure, they get a -(way too much) to their dice pools, but an advanced team has a team rating, which acts like a joint Edge stat that they all draw from.  If said troll gets way too frisky, the hammer can easily fall with 4 or 5 snipers making that call and using the team rating to buy a 4 or 5 dice pool (which is unaffected by the die penalty, since it starts at 0 for these purposes).  That should cut his soak pool in half (at least) and with surprise, those shots can't be dodged.

Yes, this is nasty.  But if someone is rolling around laughing off everything thrown at them, then the corps, or whomever, might decide to take care of business once and for all.  And this is a mild option.

Alternatively, it doesn't matter how many dice one has to soak.  Enough shots come your way, eventually you will run out of luck.  Even if every 3rd shooter does 1 box of damage, if you pump a platoon of goons at someone, they will go down.  Numbers matter.

[Shadowjack]

Don't forget to use Edge when attacking him. Edge is a really good tool for getting by soak pools.

[Black]

Throw them out the window (or blow the entire floor up...)  Falling damage is really... quiet bad.

Or talk to him and make sure he hasnt built a boring one trick pony.