[wraithdrit]

So I've played and run RPGs for YEARS. Everything from D&D to SR to Gurps. You name it I've probably played it.

Recently I started up a new SR campaign with my regular group. They are five moderately to very experienced RPGers, two of which have played previous editions of SR as well.

My concern is balance of encounters. Coming from D&D as the majority of games I have run, I've gotten a bit used to having at least SOME sort of litmus test of how tough an encounter is. So far with SR I've mainly relied on the Professional Ratings in the sample enemies in the main book to get an idea of how good the opposition is going to be or not.

In my first adventure, they went up against a few gangers to get their feet wet, but they had a drop on them and it really wasn't even a fight. Next the had to get away from a LMG armed drone, but once they ducked into their armored vehicle and sped away, the drone couldn't even dent it. I'm okay with these outcomes, the problem is that I'm worried that I'm either underchallenging them, or at worst not getting enough of a baseline for balancing future encounters.

Finally they went up against a low key security team from Saeder Krupp. The SKs were not on their home turf and wearing suits (with armor underneath of course) rather than Sec Armor. The PCs laid a fairly good ambush (taking out their pilot silently and waiting in the SK helo on the pad for the group to show. The door of the helo opened up, the PhysAdept jump kicked the closest guard, the mage stunballed the whole SK team, and the rest of the group opened up with SMGs, etc. The SKs managed to wound the PhysAdept before the next IP finished them all off. I had the team targeted at about a 3.5 Pro Rating.

So now my real question. With a typical group of starting 400 BP SRers, what is considered HARD, given (non-existent) even tactics and situation? 3? 4? If I know the SRers are gonna have the drop on them, can I bump that to 4 or 5 and expect that the fight will be of reasonable difficulty? If the enemies are going to be ambushing (which seems like in this system he who gets the first shot will win 9 out 10 times) should I drop it to a 2 or 3 so I don't kill all of my players?

I realize that on the fly adjustments will need to be done to make things appropriately balanced, I just want to get an idea where to start from.

Thoughts?
Wraith

[Medicineman]

To calculate the Balance of an Encounter
consider the Attackpool of an Attacker, the Damage and the Soakpool
and (very important !) the Initiatiphases
if 2 ,3 or all 4 points are higher its a challenge

with a challenging Dance
Medicineman

[wraithdrit]

So by this you mean if 2-4 of those are higher than what, the party average?

I suppose that makes sense. So do you ignore the Professional Ratings entirely when figuring balance?

Just curious.

- Wraith

[Medicineman]

So by this you mean if 2-4 of those are higher than what, the party average?

I suppose that makes sense. So do you ignore the Professional Ratings entirely when figuring balance?

Just curious.

- Wraith

If 2 Points (f.E. Attackpool and Damage) is higher than those of the Streetsam than its going to be a Challenge for the Party
I don't ignore it completely
 I calculate the Pools from the professional Rating.
a Prof 4 Guard has Attributes of 4-5 & Skill 4, so his Attackpool  is 8-12 (with Gimmicks like Smart, Specialisation, etc)

with a professional Dance
Medicineman

[Mercer]

Tactics are a big part of the equation in SR.  Unless an NPC is super-tough-- or unusually resistant to the things the runners can do, like a critter with Immunity to Normal Weapons going up against a bunch of sams-- a well-laid ambush will usually be over in a few actions.  On a level playing field most anything can be challenging, but to mangle a movie quote that just means there's little incentive to fight fair. 

Having NPCs use things like cover, lighting conditions and so on to their advantage is the x factor.  For me, SR is about managing modifiers-- you want as many penalties on your opponents as you can get to keep their dice pools low (or TN's high, depending on the edition).  In SR, any attack can potentially drop anybody.  It's just a matter of staging the damage up higher than it can be soaked.  When I play D&D, combat is about hitting as hard and as often as I can.  When I play SR, combat is about getting into that perfect spot where I can make that one devastating attack.  It's just a different animal. 

There's also a rock-paper-scissors nature to SR tactics.  A small insect spirit may be relatively weak, but if it manifests in the van with the rigger while the teams is elsewhere (good times), it can be very challenging.  A group without magical backup is ice cream for freaks if the team has a mage, and so on.  These are situations that can be very hard or very easy, no matter what the professional ratings say.

There's a formula I got from the old Treasure Table forums that I keep in my head when designing encounters that breaks it down to mechanical challenge plus a unique element.  Challenge is basically the dice pools of the opponents in whatever test they are opposing the PC's on, whether it's combat or social or whatever.  The unique element is that thing that makes it a dynamic situation.  Nobody really remembers dice pools, but they remember the things that made the situation special. 

[Fizzygoo]

I haven't found a really good metric through which to gauge balance in Shadowrun encounters, and while I'm still testing things out I'm nearly-totally (almost) convinced that for Shadowrun there really shouldn't be such a thing.

I use Professional Rating as a guide for how experienced I should play the NPCs (which includes a rough estimation of skill and quality of gear though not always) as well as group edge (players hate it when they hear you make a roll behind the screen and then make a secondary roll right after counting hits; "oh crap, the GM's using edge!" hehe)

I plotted the BP (skills & attributes, not including equipment costs) vs Professional Rating for the Grunts & Lieutenants out of SR4A (only) and got these two handy (ha!, sarcasm there) equations:

Y = BP, X = Professional Rating

For Lieutenants: Y = 6.357X² + 34.857X + 180.21
For Grunts: Y = 3.3056X³ - 18.024X² + 65.861X + 103.48

And the Lieutenant Prof Ratings of 2 & 3 didn't fit the curves "nicely." Rounding to the nearest 25th BP, they came out to:

Prof Rating	Grunt BP	Lieutenant BP
0	100	175
1	150	225
2	200	325*
3	225	300*
4	275	400
5	400	525
6	575	625

* The Lone Star Lieutenant came out to 307 while the Corp Security Lieutenant came out to 325, even though the LS Lieutenant has a higher Professional Rating.

Surprise is deadly, cover is key, and information is life.
For example; the SK kill outside the chopper. With a 4+ Professional rating the SK leader would have probably called in to the (now dead) pilot, "we're approaching the tarmac, warm the bird up." If the PCs thought of monitoring the communications they have to Con the leader. If they didn't think to monitor the communications, well, now the whole SK team knows their pilot isn't talking and something's up and they sure aren't going to just waltz up to the helicopter like a kid to candy store How different would the fight have been if the characters, watching stealthily from inside the chopper, saw the door to the helipad/roof swing open and only a small lone thermal smoke grenade jump out from the darkness beyond.

So basically, the higher the professional rating the more those NPCs are communicating with each other in ways that help to ensure their survival.

There's a great editorial article by Roger E. Moore in an mid 80's Dragon Magazine where he tells the story of the hardest dungeon he ever went on (1st ed. D&D). In short form; The characters were around 10th-12th level and it was an old-school dungeon where the first level has level 1 monsters, 2nd level - level 2 monsters, and so on. The PCs all want to make their way to the 8th - 10th levels because that's where the good treasure is. But the DM set it up that there was a small tribe of kobolds living on level 1...it was their home and the kobolds had dug tunnels, made secret doors and simple traps. Within a few rounds the DM had the 10th level characters running, screaming, from the kobolds. The little bastards would shoot and run, wait for the PCs to pass over hiding holes only to pop up and crossbow bolt them in the back all Red Dawn style, and so on. By the time the party got to the lower level the mages and clerics were out of spells and everyone dangerously low on hit points. The party rested, continued on, maked a great haul from the lower levels and then realized with horror, that they were going to have to go through the kobolds to get out. These are low-intelligence NPCs who just know their home and have adapted their environment to suit their needs...very deadly for PCs.

Even with a professional rating of 6 and the greatest gear...that NPC is going to be in trouble if he/she is successfully ambushed by the PCs. The more I GM Shadowrun the more scared I get at ambushing the PCs with deadly force. Surprised characters cannot dodge or react to that which has surprised them. So what was a Pistols + Agility vs. Reaction (or Reaction + Dodge) is now just a Pistols + Agility roll. Which means some punk with a 5 DV, -1 AP gun with laser sight and having taken aim, is rolling around 6 dice (2 for skill, 2 for Agility) and a really mean GM could decide to use the 2 dice from his Professional Rating of 2 as edge to roll a total of 8 dice with exploding 6's. Unless this punk rolls really well, on average (when not using edge) he'll have the PC resisting 7 DV at -1 AP. Now imagine 8 to 12 of these punks all waiting in their secret hide-y holes in their favorite alleyway as one of their members leads the PCs in a chase through this kill zone. Sure, the PCs might roll really well on the Surprise, but all the punks get a +6 bonus to their rolls for lying in wait and none of them will be surprised by the PCs. Sure it's only one IP worth, but it's a deadly IP.

What Medicineman says is also key and a good metric for using spontaneous/improvised NPCs. Their Professional Rating equals their Attribute and Skill ratings (then adjust for metatype and gear modifiers). And 2 to 3 times their PR (minimum 2) equals the number of active skills they have. All as a rough estimate for doing things on the fly. 0-1 PR probably no augmentation or magic. 2-3 PR basic augmentation and/or very limited magic. 4 PR alphaware and/or some magic. 5 PR betaware and/or good magic. 6 PR beta and maybe deltaware and/or superior magic.

And on a surprise attack, if the ambushers are able to deal 6 boxes of damage to a PC...that drops them by 2 dice to all pools until healed. So if it started out with nearly equal Attack Pool vs PC Soak Pools, the NPCs are now at an equivalent +2 over the wounded PC(s) which just made it far more challenging for the party. 

A small insect spirit may be relatively weak, but if it manifests in the van with the rigger while the teams is elsewhere (good times), it can be very challenging.

Love it! and also agree with Mercer.

[wraithdrit]

For example; the SK kill outside the chopper. With a 4+ Professional rating the SK leader would have probably called in to the (now dead) pilot, "we're approaching the tarmac, warm the bird up." If the PCs thought of monitoring the communications they have to Con the leader. If they didn't think to monitor the communications, well, now the whole SK team knows their pilot isn't talking and something's up and they sure aren't going to just waltz up to the helicopter like a kid to candy store How different would the fight have been if the characters, watching stealthily from inside the chopper, saw the door to the helipad/roof swing open and only a small lone thermal smoke grenade jump out from the darkness beyond.

The were monitoring coms and had dressed the rigger up in the pilot's gear (luckily he had a full flight helmet on). So the rigger had given (after a quick corporate knowledge role) an appropriate affirmative response.  One thing that could have borked their plan was if the SK mage had astrally perceived after arriving on the roof. I decided to leave that one to chance and rolled for it. Lucky for the party the mage let his guard down. I had already mentally prepped this team as being a little green, and not top of their game (because I was afraid they would wipe the party otherwise).

All that being said, thanks for the added info. Seems like those two Lts, were just built wrong. I made myself a little guide that showed for each pro rating what the average skill and attribute was. It tended to up by like an average of half or quarter point plus better gear each pro rating.

Next thing that scares me about balance is multi PCs on one foe sort of encounters. I want to have a big bad guy (awakened beastie) in the next session. I just don't know how to make him not instant bullet fodder without making him ridiculous. I think I may go with Immune to Natural Weapons or something like that. Not sure yet. What have you guys general found was appropriate for this sort of thing? With PR grunt groups, I generally make it +/-1 of the number of party members. But what about 'solo' type mobs. Insane body and armor?

Thoughts?

[squee_nabob]

Combat in SR is very swing-y due to several mechanical choices (it is easier to hit than to dodge, unless you have plenty of armor most people can be 2 shotted by SnS rounds (especially burst fired)).

 I would not try to balance your encounters to make them challenging, instead add encounters that make sense for the story and that the players can defeat. It is much easier for the game to recover from PCs destroying a group of enemies, than a group of enemies destroying the PCs (because they may be dead or in jail). If you don’t intend the combat to be a challenge and instead just another element in the story, then overwhelming violence is a tool in the PC’s toolbox when they plan a run (do we want covert ops or overt and cops?).

[Zilfer]

For example; the SK kill outside the chopper. With a 4+ Professional rating the SK leader would have probably called in to the (now dead) pilot, "we're approaching the tarmac, warm the bird up." If the PCs thought of monitoring the communications they have to Con the leader. If they didn't think to monitor the communications, well, now the whole SK team knows their pilot isn't talking and something's up and they sure aren't going to just waltz up to the helicopter like a kid to candy store How different would the fight have been if the characters, watching stealthily from inside the chopper, saw the door to the helipad/roof swing open and only a small lone thermal smoke grenade jump out from the darkness beyond.

The were monitoring coms and had dressed the rigger up in the pilot's gear (luckily he had a full flight helmet on). So the rigger had given (after a quick corporate knowledge role) an appropriate affirmative response.  One thing that could have borked their plan was if the SK mage had astrally perceived after arriving on the roof. I decided to leave that one to chance and rolled for it. Lucky for the party the mage let his guard down. I had already mentally prepped this team as being a little green, and not top of their game (because I was afraid they would wipe the party otherwise).

All that being said, thanks for the added info. Seems like those two Lts, were just built wrong. I made myself a little guide that showed for each pro rating what the average skill and attribute was. It tended to up by like an average of half or quarter point plus better gear each pro rating.

Next thing that scares me about balance is multi PCs on one foe sort of encounters. I want to have a big bad guy (awakened beastie) in the next session. I just don't know how to make him not instant bullet fodder without making him ridiculous. I think I may go with Immune to Natural Weapons or something like that. Not sure yet. What have you guys general found was appropriate for this sort of thing? With PR grunt groups, I generally make it +/-1 of the number of party members. But what about 'solo' type mobs. Insane body and armor?

Thoughts?

I made an Adept not to long ago, gave him six magic, and initiated him a few times on the generator giving him power points for each initiation, and then got things to augment him up like Increase Attribute (body), Increase Reflexes (2 or 3), and then Supernatural toughness (physical 6) and same with stun.

Before editing it down to where he we more an all around guy, the troll had 23 physical track and 9 stun track so i dropped the physical track by dropping the body and adding one more body to the increase attribute i managed to get the stun higher. A lot of playing around with this troll but in the end he has

13 Body,
20 Physical track,
and 15 stun Track.

Which i decided AGAINST putting lots of heavy armor on him because i figured it wouldn't be fair for me to drop this monster into a campaign that will be happening this weekend.

Needless to say my backstory for him is he's an ex-military, and his code name is "Bulletstopper" if anyone asks him why he's called that he'll either point to a wound, or pull out a light pistol and shoot himself in the head. With 13 dice to roll, +1 for being a troll he should be able to soak quite a bit of that damage, and I may edge that just to be badass. xD

You could try to make them somewhat like that. A lot of the time your not going to be able to have a group vs said character. A 1 vs 1 would be more fair fight, if you can get that to happen.

>.> on a side note, i made another guy incase any mages get out of control that I could throw at my group. I may play him as a PC too not sure. He is called "Mageslayer."

Gave him SURGE III and took the any spell thrown at you is halfed in Force, and then took the Astral Hazing. So anyone magical will not like this guy at all..... I'm not too worried about someone throwing a F12 fireball at him.... xD

So yeah, 1 bad guy isn't going to work most likely, if you can instead make a "squad" or rival shadowrunner group i think that would be better.

[Mercer]

Big Bad's are tough to do in Shadowrun.  Designing a thing (a person, critter, spirit or vehicle) that takes a little bit of damage from attacks and can be worn down over a period of time is a tricky thing to do.  It happens on accident all the time, but it's a very fine line to draw on purpose.  Bad guys either end up getting all but wiped out in the opening volley, or the most damaging things the PC's throw at them tink off and the runners are royally boned. 

This also goes back to the rochambeau aspect of SR.  Characters tend to be highly resistant to certain things and more vulnerable to others.  The samurai might have 20+ dice against bullets, but only 10 against spells, or 5 without spell defense from a mage.  A group of runners will generally throw a lot of different attack types at a bad guy, and he has to be pretty good against all of them or it's a short fight.  It's tough to make a big bad who can do that on his own, but it's easier if the big bad has littler bads whose job it is to buff and defend them.

As an example from the players' side of the table, I was playing a samurai in a friend's game where the other four characters were a rigger who never left the van and three mages.  When we went into combat, the mages-- who didn't like being shot at any more than the rigger-- would hit me with buff spells and maintain them.  So I'd be a sammie with divinations like Enhance Aim and Combat Sense, sometimes Invisible, usually glowing from the Armor spell, and often times with spirits concealing me and giving me the movement power.  Tons of spell defense and an elemental or two and a projecting mage made things easier as well.  (This always gave me the idea of a group of magical runners who would pick up a bum, buff the bejesus out of him, use control manipulations to make him go on a run, and then at the end they'd just scrub the astral signatures off of him and leave him in the street with a vague memory of what happened.) 

That said, things like Immunity to Normal Weapons and Regeneration go a long way towards making big bads stick around for a bit.  (That's why I like Insect Spirits and vampires.)  Although both can be overwhelmed when runners concentrate their fire.  Regen in particular is best used when the NPC can break contact for a round or two, or if the runners drop them and forget about them.  Immunity to Normal Weapons or Hardened Armor (basically the same thing, the difference is who gets them) is okay, but a lot of the time it just ignores the weaker attacks it wouldn't be taking damage from anyway.  It's also worth noting that neither of these things are that helpful against magical attacks, so the NPC still needs fairly hefty magical protections. 

If you're looking for something to base it off of, dragon is probably the best example of a big bad in the BBB.  Hardened Armor, Mystic Armor, high stats, lots of powers and magically active, plus the high intelligence.  It's an easy choice for the scariest monster in the basic book.  And I wouldn't call it "unbeatable" for 400BP characters.  (Once the dice start rolling, anything is possible.) 

[wraithdrit]

(This always gave me the idea of a group of magical runners who would pick up a bum, buff the bejesus out of him, use control manipulations to make him go on a run, and then at the end they'd just scrub the astral signatures off of him and leave him in the street with a vague memory of what happened.) 

I am SO making a plot around this idea. Except maybe instead of a bum it is one of the runners.

That said, things like Immunity to Normal Weapons and Regeneration go a long way towards making big bads stick around for a bit.  (That's why I like Insect Spirits and vampires.)  Although both can be overwhelmed when runners concentrate their fire.  Regen in particular is best used when the NPC can break contact for a round or two, or if the runners drop them and forget about them.  Immunity to Normal Weapons or Hardened Armor (basically the same thing, the difference is who gets them) is okay, but a lot of the time it just ignores the weaker attacks it wouldn't be taking damage from anyway.  It's also worth noting that neither of these things are that helpful against magical attacks, so the NPC still needs fairly hefty magical protections. 

If you're looking for something to base it off of, dragon is probably the best example of a big bad in the BBB.  Hardened Armor, Mystic Armor, high stats, lots of powers and magically active, plus the high intelligence.  It's an easy choice for the scariest monster in the basic book.  And I wouldn't call it "unbeatable" for 400BP characters.  (Once the dice start rolling, anything is possible.)

This is someone exposed to a virulent mutant strain of HMHVV. So the runners will have fought through ghouls and zombie like infected, only to find the source, and I wanted it to be a rather tough fight. I'll take the advice given on dice pools and such above and see what I can do with him, and give him plenty of edge so I can keep him around for quite some time.

- Wraith

[CanRay]

Isn't it a gymnastics check to hold your balance?

...

Misunderstood again, didn't I?

[FastJack]

Isn't it a gymnastics check to hold your balance?

...

Misunderstood again, didn't I?

And you wonder why you're not in a game...

[CanRay]

...

...

...

Yes.

[Mercer]

This is someone exposed to a virulent mutant strain of HMHVV. So the runners will have fought through ghouls and zombie like infected, only to find the source, and I wanted it to be a rather tough fight. I'll take the advice given on dice pools and such above and see what I can do with him, and give him plenty of edge so I can keep him around for quite some time.

Dice Pools and Edge will keep someone around, but the tactics and terrain will play a big part as well.  If the fight is taking place somewhere with a lot of obstructions and lighting issues, this will keep the attacking dice pools down, and it's also something the runners can use to their advantage.  (Background count is the astral version of this.)  A lot of cover will let opponents break contact and give them a chance for their Regen or healing magic to patch up some damage.  Things like that can prolong a fight that would have been over in a few actions had taken place in an empty, well-lit room.  It can also be pretty tense, since it's all about sneaking around and trying to get that perfect shot rather than just opening up at the cyclic rate.

I'm not sure what base creature you're using for the infected, but I'd take a look at the Bandersnatch.  I believe it's a sasquatch with HMHVV, but one of the powers they get is either invisibility or concealment.  (This is a classic monster as well, that first appeared all the way back in Paranormal Animals of North America.)  The monster description even mentions it basically being the Predator, although I guess anyone with an Imp. Invisibility spell would be pretty similar.