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Grunt and Lieutenant building

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amiller

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« on: <05-24-13/1501:45> »
Hey everyone,

New to the boards.  I am DMing a game and I want to build a bunch of grunts and lt's at the ready, ex: Security Guard - Rifle; as a security guard who specializes in rifles, and Magical Cult Member - Combat; a mage who specializes in combat spells.

I get that most people put 3's and 4's in attributes (with 4's for the more important attributes), but I am looking for about how many bp's should i give each grunt and lt?

Or am I completely going down the wrong road with this.  Any help woud be appreciated, and thanks in advanced.

All4BigGuns

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« Reply #1 on: <05-24-13/1506:59> »
Hey everyone,

New to the boards.  I am DMing a game and I want to build a bunch of grunts and lt's at the ready, ex: Security Guard - Rifle; as a security guard who specializes in rifles, and Magical Cult Member - Combat; a mage who specializes in combat spells.

I get that most people put 3's and 4's in attributes (with 4's for the more important attributes), but I am looking for about how many bp's should i give each grunt and lt?

Or am I completely going down the wrong road with this.  Any help woud be appreciated, and thanks in advanced.

Don't give a number of build points when making opposition. For most opponents, they should have both attribute and skill around 2 less than the average PC in the party with around half the "extra" bonuses that the best PC in a particular skill has.

The most important enemies should be, at best, equal to the average member of the party (likely to be quite a bit below the best PC).

This should give the ones who like so-called "challenge" what they want, yet make things easy enough for the ones who build characters who are better at a given task.
« Last Edit: <05-24-13/1508:50> by All4BigGuns »
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emsquared

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« Reply #2 on: <05-24-13/1619:14> »
Nothing wrong with building opposition by BP. There are some (weak) templates in the core book.

I put 150 BPs in Professional rating 0 NPC Attributes, and around 80-100 BP in Skills, nothing over 3. Also gave them a 1 in 3 chance of having/using Cram or Jazz. That might be some tables Pro 1 or 2... I tend to do fine tweaking of Initiative, weapon mods and Armor out-fittings to really delineate those 1-2 Professional Ratings from 0, because really that's what delineates your average Joe from someone who knows, at least somewhat, what they're doing in combat.

Liuetenants I did 180-200 in Attributes, plus minor Augs (cyber eyes/ears, smartlink, low level Initiative increses, muscle replacement). 100+ BP in Skills, up to 5. Also possible drug use. Pro 3-4.

Our table tends to run hot...
« Last Edit: <05-24-13/1645:56> by emsquared »

amiller

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« Reply #3 on: <05-24-13/1710:12> »
Hey everyone,

New to the boards.  I am DMing a game and I want to build a bunch of grunts and lt's at the ready, ex: Security Guard - Rifle; as a security guard who specializes in rifles, and Magical Cult Member - Combat; a mage who specializes in combat spells.

I get that most people put 3's and 4's in attributes (with 4's for the more important attributes), but I am looking for about how many bp's should i give each grunt and lt?

Or am I completely going down the wrong road with this.  Any help woud be appreciated, and thanks in advanced.

This is actually what I was looking for... i agreed that the ones in the book were not that good and I wanted to have some variety and in a test run we demolished the Security grunts lol.  Any other advice is appreciated.

emsquared

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« Reply #4 on: <05-24-13/1812:19> »
I'm leaving for the weekend shortly otherwise I'd see about putting up the NPC templates I did:

Rent-A-Cop (also basis for Humanis member or "bar patron" or any Joe-schmo) (Pro 0)
Corp-Sec (also basis for Lonestar or KE beat-cops) (Pro 1)
Corp-Hacker/Rigger (or any low-level NPC hacker) (Pro 1)
Corp-Hermetic Mage (Pro 2)
Tactical Response Team-member (Pro 3)
Special Forces (Pro 4)

Ganger Thug (Pro 0)
Ganger Anarchist (Pro 1)
Ganger Enforcer (also basis for "skilled" Lonestar or KE officer - but short of like a Tactical Team) (Pro 2)
Ganger Shaman (Pro 3)
Ganger Chief (Pro 4)
Ganger Troll (Pro 4)

You get the idea, I basically use these as, or to improvise, any combatant NPC needs that arise.

Haven't done the Pro 5s and 6s yet, because my players are a ways off from facing anything like that. You can pretty easily swap out primary weapons for some variation, just have a Pistol, Longarm and SMG (or something) picked out for each template, and roll a 1d. 6 to see if the low-level (Pro 0-2) guys are on Cram or Jazz to spice it up a tad.

This is the form I use http://pavao.org/shadowrun/cheatsheets/SR4Grunts.pdf

Reaver

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« Reply #5 on: <05-30-13/0123:33> »
I make my life easy, and just use the templates from SR4a and the 'contacts' book for about 95% of the opposition my groups run into. Just change up the equipment a little and their name tags (so 'Rent-a-cop' becomes 'mall cop', etc)
 For the other 5%, they are usually 'big bads' and I build them like characters with 300-600bp... Depending on just how big, and bad they actually are!
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amiller

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« Reply #6 on: <05-30-13/0144:12> »
What is this contacts book you speak of?

RHat

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« Reply #7 on: <05-30-13/0259:22> »
Hey everyone,

New to the boards.  I am DMing a game and I want to build a bunch of grunts and lt's at the ready, ex: Security Guard - Rifle; as a security guard who specializes in rifles, and Magical Cult Member - Combat; a mage who specializes in combat spells.

I get that most people put 3's and 4's in attributes (with 4's for the more important attributes), but I am looking for about how many bp's should i give each grunt and lt?

Or am I completely going down the wrong road with this.  Any help woud be appreciated, and thanks in advanced.

Don't give a number of build points when making opposition. For most opponents, they should have both attribute and skill around 2 less than the average PC in the party with around half the "extra" bonuses that the best PC in a particular skill has.

The most important enemies should be, at best, equal to the average member of the party (likely to be quite a bit below the best PC).

This should give the ones who like so-called "challenge" what they want, yet make things easy enough for the ones who build characters who are better at a given task.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this.  While they shouldn't be a constant thing, combat specialists should get to fight other specialists.  If someone's built a serious combat character, it's typically because they want serious combat to deal with.
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Mantis

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« Reply #8 on: <05-30-13/0851:49> »
What is this contacts book you speak of?
Contacts and Adventures. It is a little source book that you could get on its own and now I think it is included in the Runner's Toolkit. Check DrivethruRPG or BattleCorps.com

Reaver

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« Reply #9 on: <05-30-13/1405:20> »
What is this contacts book you speak of?
Contacts and Adventures. It is a little source book that you could get on its own and now I think it is included in the Runner's Toolkit. Check DrivethruRPG or BattleCorps.com

Yep. Good simple little book. Comes with a bunch of contact archetypes and few dozen adventure ideas.
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Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Ympulse

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« Reply #10 on: <05-31-13/2301:39> »
My personal rule of thumb is:

Grunts have 2-6 less dice than the PCs in whatever applicable skill test is being used

LTs are equal to the PCs or 2-4 below, depending

Caps are +2 to -2

big bads are purpose-built using BP and karma equal to the PCs +/- 20 Karma

Mithlas

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« Reply #11 on: <06-06-13/2127:24> »
That can vary a lot depending on what modifiers and expected opposition is - the last group my team ran against was a group of cybered, professional bank robbers. They had equipment granting them 2-3 bonus dice and were 2-4 dice up on the PCs. The PCs have invisibility spells and a mage who is paranoid and obsessive about exploiting air elementals' camouflage ability, and everybody else has chameleon suits. The PCs wiped the floor with the bank robbers (though a flubbed smoke grenade probably helped bring it from 'might have been even' to 'disaster for the defenders').