[Djinnocide]

I was hoping I could get some of the more seasoned GM's here to share their techniques for designing a good combat encounter.

I'm finding that, as a new GM, I get so bogged down with keeping track of things like Initiative, Condition Monitors, Modifiers and every other damned thing in the game, that I rarely have the mental capacity to make interesting NPC choices on the fly. For my game group, combat is one of those things that, while enjoyable, it's by far the most complicated thing to do, so I try and keep everything moving nice and fast, but that often comes at the cost of things being distilled down to "This NPC is taking a shot at you, let's roll some dice and move on to the next person".

While preparing my next session, I had the idea to start making combat turn notes in the same way I'd make conversational notes (NPC motivations) and Plot summaries. This allows me to walk through some possible outcomes of a combat encounter, and give the NPCs some pre-canned actions which is something I hadn't thought of until recently.

Anyhow, if anyone reading this has any personal techniques they like to use to plan out a combat scene I'd love to hear them. I'd also really appreciate a macguffin type list of exciting surprises you've used in the past that have really gone over well in a game. I realize for the most part that in realistic combat, a person is going to take cover behind the closest barrier and shoot until the other guy is dead, or if they've got some military training, attempt to flank the enemy and get the upper hand, but it would be nice if you had any flavorful, cinematic ideas for your approach to combat as well.

[Csjarrat]

First thing i always try and remember is that NPC's are people, and people are terrible fighters. we're generally much more convinced by self preservation than dying for a salary (especially if we have wife/kids back home)
training overcomes that fear, so I try and make a note of who i'm sending into the fight as a GM and what they are fighting to achieve.
a gang encounter against shadowrunners is likely to involve larger numbers of untrained, unskilled and poorly armed combatants in a loose alliance against a small team of highly skilled and well armed runners.
The gang are likely to be fighting the runners for infringing into their turf, interrupting a drug deal etc etc. They are going to back down and run as soon as they see a fight is unwinnable, but to make this fight scene "better" for all involved, i'd use a lieutenant with leadership skill to co-ordinate their actions and instil the discipline to keep fighting that they otherwise wouldn't.

Police patrols are trained to basically take cover and call in backup whilst protecting the public from immediate danger. These guys realistically are not going to rambo out of cover and lay down full auto bursts, so making combat more entertaining against these guys might involve a backup car arriving in the runner team's flank or rear arc, responding to the original police call for more backup.
Aerial drone support or police helicopter assistance could be another way of throwing in greater challenge against seasoned runners, but i wouldnt chuck anything in that heavy if my guys couldnt deal with it; having your full team arrested and put in jail counts as a TPK in my book! :-)

Corp security arent that different from beat cops, except that they have lines of communication to spiders, security riggers, security mages and HTR.
As a first protocol i'd have them bunker down in cover and start making calls for help. Security riggers will launch combat drones to assist, with the on-call spiders manipulating doorlocks, cameras and attacking wireless gear to hinder the team. HTR will arrive in 5-15 minutes to do what they do, so you could always have your team working against the clock to escape HTR after they overhear the security team call them in.

for main story hooks, you can go to town by making a prime runner level character as a boss-fight in a yakuza warehouse for example. Plenty of cover, firelanes and elevation means there is plenty for your team to take advantage of and if the prime runner is supported by mooks, they can be quite a challenge. Just make sure to roll some dice first to make sure they aren't going to one-shot your weaker team members!

so in summary;
-figure out who is fighting, and why.
-figure out how they escalate the fight or escape it
-draw out the combat area, give your players maps.
-present threats from multiple angles, don't allow it to get into a static slinging match.
-change the threats occasionally and don't be afraid to split the team too; ie have the spellslinger get into a bar brawl, or the rigger meet an enemy hacker etc.

[Csjarrat]

also; use unconventional weapons. drones with grenade launchers deploying tear gas/CS gas/sleeping gas, fichetti pain inducers, supersquirts loaded with hallucinogenics etc etc. feel free to experiment!
using stuff that is a bit off-the-wall can really change up the standard tactics of seasoned runners

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Something I sometimes do is a 'professionalism check' by rolling a d6 against the pro. rating of the NPC.  Get higher than their rating, and they do something decidedly non-optimal given the situation.

For example, in my last session the technomancer had placed a comm-call to a security guard that was pinning down his teammate.. I decided the fairest way to see if he 'wastes' his action by seeing who's calling him in the middle of a firefight was with a professionalism check.  He passed, and smartly let this call (meant to distract him) go to voice-mail.  Had he failed, he would have 'wasted' his action dealing with the sudden unexpected call.

[Djinnocide]

Those are both great replies, thanks guys!

[Deuce]

Great info! I too always find it more difficult to remember that the NPC's are people and will act according to their natural 'self preservation' instinct.

[Mmurphy]

Also remember, don't tailor the fights to the characters strengths and/or weaknesses.  Tailor the fight to what the corp, gang, mission, group the characters are going against would have.  The best way I can explain this concept is with the use of 'levels'.  I know ShadowRun do not have traditional 'levels' but the concept is still the same.  If all the characters are level 1 and they take on level 1 bad guys (because they are level 1) and then take on level 2 bad guys when they become level 2 and then level 3 for level 3, you will run into the issue of "why raise your level?"

Make the 'level' of the scenario based on what Mr. Johnson is going to pay and let the characters figure out how/what they are going to do.  For example, if the characters are all 'newly created' and a Mr. Johnson offers them 1,000,000 nuyen for a run, the characters should run from this offer.  The pay is nowhere near their experience or abilities.  If however, the characters all have 300+ karma and a couple of million nuyen in the bank, the 1,000,000 offer may be about right based on what the characters are capable of.  There have been many times in the past (when I GM) where a Mr. Johnson does not do his/her research on the runners and just takes the advice of a fixer.  Mr. Johnson needs runners who are above average, and can handle difficult situations.  The characters need to look at the job and decide if they should do it. 

Also (and probably most important), talk with the players (not the characters).  Find out what they want.  If the players want lots of combat, then the world is darker with gun/fist fights, backstabbing, and general mayhem happening all over Seattle (or what ever city you are in).  If the players want more of the intrigue, sneaking, and/or infiltration, then the fights become more of the consequences of being seen.

Going back to the 'level' concept, if runner team breaks into corporation A and all the opposition are level 1's, then 4 weeks later break in again and now they are level 2's, what is the benefit of getting better (increasing through karma)?  Keep corporation A as level 1's and if the characters keep going against level 1's, start giving them a bad reputation or make their costs increase so they have to earn more just to live.  Allow them to go back and run against the level 1 corporation for quick nuyen if they need it, but make whoever is offering them money start asking them to run higher levels.  Think of it like real life, what ever hourly rate you make now, is this what you want to make in 5 years?  Assuming you can live (even uncomfortably) with what you make now, don't you want more.  To get more, sometimes you have to do more (at least in the profession I am in).

Remember, NPC represent people, but PC need to represent people too.  Too many times I hear PC's say something like "Well, of coarse I would not do that, I am a professional.....".  What I hear being said is "I am a robot with no emotions or feelings and am perfect in every way"..

[Dracain]

5e has a great section about professional articles in the GM section that I would suggest checking out, but other than that, I suppose my favorite tip is to give it some dramatic flair.  When my Street Sam shoots a guy I don't say "you hit for X damage, and that is more then his body, so he's knocked down", I say "As you fire your sniper rifle the bullet catches him hard in the shoulder, knocking him clean off his feet and doing X damage".  Tell them how things look, it instantly makes a combat more memorable, turning a normal dice roll into a story they will remember. 

[Insaniac99]

You can also encourage your players to describe it:

PLayer: "I'll use my Mono-whip and split my attacks to attack all three guards standing at the door"
GM: "Roll it"
PLayer&GM: *Rolls*
GM: "Okay, that will kill all three, now describe it"
Player:  "As I approach the three guards I whip my arm in a flash and there is a shocked look on the guards as thin lines of blood appear before they crumple to the floor"

If you have good players it is even better when they glitch or critically glitch to have them describe how it happened and why.

[Beaumis]

Combat is the most fun when can focus on what NPCs do in contrast to how they do it (the mechanical side). So here's my advice:

• Put some of the work on your players shoulder's. Unless your players are metagaming munchins, let them track initiative.
• Let players keep track of their modifiers. You don't need to double check their numbers. If they cheat, they cheat themselves. Tell them once when things change, and let it be their problem from then on.
• Visual aids help to keep track of modifiers as well. Different colored glass beads or pebbles for positive and negative modifiers can help players keep track.
• Preparation is key. Have sheets with condition monitors and the like ready for your goons. Personally, I like to take down their key stats and monitors on a fourth of a normal sheet of paper. Info cards basically. That way, I can just swap through the sheets when their actions come up. Also helps with initiative orders.
• Standardization on things like armor can be awesome and allows you to focus on the exceptions.
• I find a small chessboard and a few minis behind the screen helps immensely with keeping track of relative positioning. Tablets and such also work fine. Or just play on a battlemat.
• The rules for buying hits are a huge time saver when used right. For instance, my normal goons simply buy hits for damage resistance tests. (I vary on the 4/1 rule and 3/1 basic math formula depending on the challenge.)
• Not everyone's cup of tea, but for misc tests I have often used hit arrays in the past. Take the pool and buy hits as normal. Then roll a d6. A 1 is glitch, a 2 is -1 hit, 3 & 4 are bought hits, 5 is +1 hit and 6 is +2 hits. Unless your goons take a lot of modifers, this can speed up things considerably.
• Speaking of modifiers, remember that the corp build their security with their guards in mind. So if the facility lowers the light levels to save power, they likely have equipped all their guards with low light vision.

Kind of out of time. Sorry.

[Shadowjack]

One thing I love to do is envision a unique situation to my group. Most groups have faced gangers on the streets, but if you stage the combat in a clock tower it gets an extra dimension of flavor. Different environments allow for different possibilities, such as tossing a ganger or two off of said clock tower.

Another tactic I like to employ is bringing third parties into a fight. It adds chaos, confusion and fun and the players won't see it coming if you haven't done it before. In a recent session I had gangers show up somewhere unexpected near the objective on a run and combat ensued. But when I saw the gangers were no match I decided to bring in some security guards that I hadn't planned on even being there and it turned a fairly standard scene into a really cool one. The players had to decide if they should continue fire on the gangers or go for the security guards. It's possible that two parties could team up in this situation as well, in fact, the security guards finished off the gangers while the gangers attacked the security guards and the runners attacked them both. It was neat.

One last piece of advice before I go: Don't always let the pcs have cover. Put them in tricky situations with bad vision, traps, etc. And above all: Keep them guessing! Bring something different to each session and soon you will find yourself with a solid repertoire of  tricks and tactics to enhance your games

[Djinnocide]

You can't put a price on what you guys are sharing (especially for a new GM). Thanks for that.

As kind of a side question, Shadowjack, how do you go about stats when you improv an unexpected variable like the security force into a combat situation. Combat really is the thing I find myself spending the most time on when I'm getting notes together for my session and I try and have all of the info for a potential encounter laid out in terms of NPC info before a session starts, so the idea of adding something unexpected and not knowing what to do for stats is giving this beginning GM an anxiety attack just thinking about it.

[Csjarrat]

vehicles are all statted up in the main book so dont worry too much about winging it. if your players are causing mayhem down in the docks, there is a patrol boat statted up that has a r3 sensor suite and a pair of LMG mounts by RAW. if your players are causing mayhem on the roads, there are plenty of cars and armoured cars statted up to use as a base. most shadowrun combats against HTR or law enforcement, the runners should be running from anyways, so dont be afraid if "the man" is too powerful for them to deal with, this is shadowrun, not rambo-run after all :-)
always remember that law enforcement will escalate quickly. if the beat cops are outnumbered, they'll call in backup. the backup will call in specialists, the specialists will call in air support and air support will call in the frickin national guard lol :-)
realistically though, the runner need to learn to run from any fight they can't win in less than 5 combat turns. if they haven't figured out that basic thing by their 3rd chargen, they should probably stick to pathfinder or more "heroic" RPG's

[Shadowjack]

You can't put a price on what you guys are sharing (especially for a new GM). Thanks for that.

As kind of a side question, Shadowjack, how do you go about stats when you improv an unexpected variable like the security force into a combat situation. Combat really is the thing I find myself spending the most time on when I'm getting notes together for my session and I try and have all of the info for a potential encounter laid out in terms of NPC info before a session starts, so the idea of adding something unexpected and not knowing what to do for stats is giving this beginning GM an anxiety attack just thinking about it.

There are a few ways you can go about that:

1. Use the example npc opposition from the core book(the ones with professional rating)

2. Choose a number and  assign it as the rating for all attributes and skills of the npc/group. So if you chose '4' they would have all attributes at 4 and all skills at 4. Basically just focus on the skills they need for the weapons you decide to give them. Try to choose weapons that make sense, security guards of a minor place might have pistols, at a major place maybe assault rifles, gangers can have clubs and smgs, etc. Just try to pick suitable weapons.

3. Start working on a resource for your campaigns in which you have created an assortment of stock npcs. For example, all the stats of a rookie ganger. Then if you need them you can just flip to them and use them on the fly without the players even being aware you threw them in.

One last note: Since the players can't see the npc stats you can actually get away with using stats of someone they faced previously and they will not notice. Switch the gear around slightly and no one will figure it out.

[Godwyn]

Going with what Shadowjack said, I make extensive use of the Professional Rating npc tables, pp. 381 onwards.  I take the stat and skill values presented, then match up their skills with their actual role when I diversify them.  For a lot of runs, the similarity works well.  Corporate security throughout the entire Corp will tend to be pretty similarly armed and trained.  Play it off in game, and then when security shows up at the facility that looks different or is armed differently, the players will notice.