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SR4-02 Extraction - Questions for the experienced GM

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khirareq

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« on: <08-02-12/1431:26> »
I absolutely love this mission and can't wait to unleash it upon my characters, but I have some questions.

Spoilers ahead!  Don't read this unless you've already read/played the mission.  Especially if you are in my group.
[spoiler]
The scenario with Lin Yao Chang is one of my favorites to visualize, but the constraints it puts the GM's in have me a bit flustered.  Lin Yao Chang objective is to lop off Parker's head.  Except he won't actually do that; he's relying on his assassin to do that.  He's just gonna stand there.  Unless somebody attacks him, in which case I assume he'll respond.  Oh yeah, and he's supposed to get away at the end.

Now, I've looked over Lung's assassin in some detail to help me prep.  He can do some pretty neat stuff - 20 dice to unarmed combat, with infusion giving him 17 damage at ap-2; yeah, that'll hurt.  He could probably take out a significant portion of the squad if he were so inclined.  Except he's not; scenario says he just watches.  Defensively, he is not all that; he uses 14 dice to dodge if on full defense, which is nice, but he only resists with 15/10 dice, and has 11 boxes on each track.  Worse, he resists stunbolt with 5 dice plus cover; he doesn't have the innate counter spelling of his assassin counterpart. Assuming good cover (which isn't nearly as cinematic, but maybe necessary) that's nine dice to resist what will likely be around 14 or 15 dice of damage.  Is that enough?  What about if a drone unloads and takes nine dice from his dodge pool?  Maybe I'm being a little paranoid, but I've got a team of 6 runners and they can lay out some serious hurt.  How do you keep him alive?

They also neglected to mention the mode of his escape.  I was thinking a Ruthenium coated Nightsky parked behind him would do the trick.  I was also thinking about having a Force 6 Guardian Spirit in it, using Magical Guard on Chang and Concealment on the Nightsky.  That would solve a couple of problems, I feel.  What do YOU think?

Also, the scene with Andrews in the club - the mission says that the scout team will send in KE if the location is public, and that's an awfully public location.  I figured the runners would get a call from Tosh warning them, then a bought off KE HTR team would come in looking for them.  What do you think?  How did you handle the scene?[/spoiler]

Thanks for your help!


lurkeroutthere

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« Reply #1 on: <08-02-12/1642:12> »
[spoiler]If you feel your mages are going to ROFLstomp any part of a mission, especially at the level some of these boys and girls play at you can never go wrong with some counterspelling and other support. Chang works for a dragon, getting spirit or even full blown mage support should be fairly trivial, sustained boost willpower spell is also an option, though not as elegant.

I've only played this and read it but we kind of cake walked the ambush. If it's a split party scenario Lin Yao will rule the day. Otherwise yea he'd likely be best not even playing his hand against a full shadowrunner team. The biggest advantage the assasin will have is of course an attempt at surprise. If the characters don't notice him sneaking up they've got to beat him on the surprise roll to act against him. That could buy him time to accomplish his objective.[/spoiler]

"And if the options are "talk to him like a grown up" versus "LOLOLOL murder him in his face until he doesn't come back," I know which suggestion I'm making." - Critias

No team I'm on has ever had a problem with group think.

Bull

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« Reply #2 on: <08-02-12/1710:53> »
The thing to keep in mind with all Missions is that they are a guideline, not a hard set of rules.  Almost every Mission will need to be adapted for the players involved. 

Bull