The biggest piece of 'soft balance' I have is a gentlemans' agreement with my players on escalation of force.

To whit : 'If you use it, so will they.'

Making them think a bit before pulling out the military hardware has done wonders on the long-term for keeping my campaigns under control.

That's starting to overdo it. Outside of Logic: 1 or certain negative qualities, a character isn't really "stupid", and even a low-Logic character can come up with plans, especially if they are in the character's areas of knowledge. If a low-Logic enforcer who used to work for the mafia gives the rest of the team advice on how to approach the don, then even the hacker/face would probably be well advised to heed it.



That works if you give characters with high-powered weaponry jobs that suit their power level, or if using an assault rifle brings a much stronger police response than using a pistol does. It breaks the logic and feel of the game, though, if the entire world suddenly becomes tougher as the PCs do. I think a better way to handle such escalation is to give the PCs tougher jobs, rather than having the neighborhood gang get Ares Alphas because the team's street samurai just got one.

Actually, we do something similar, but not with hardware. Hardware and items are easy. If you have it, the GM can take it. This, alone, secures the game to a great extent.

However, we use the "if you can, I can" in terms of dice tweaking combos. If you can stack 22 dice on a sniper shot, then so can I. This is especially effective in house rulings when rules are not clear, but it applies to everything. You can also do this and keep Lone Star responses, or shows of force, on a believable level still.

I agree with this approach. Except that I do not simply give the PCs tougher jobs, my NPCs offer the PCs tougher jobs, but it is up to the PCs to accept them.

There may be a knee jerk response to the PCs' escalation, but unless there is an across the board escalation of firepower, the entire world doesn't become tougher as the PCs do. For example, there's a gang war brewing, the syndicates are bringing in heavier firepower, assault rifles are flooding the black market, then the police will then respond by increasing their firepower. But they are not going to all wear non-conductive armor just because a small group of criminals are using Stick and Shock.

No, they're already wearing it because logic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

FTFY.

They don't wear it because one group of criminals are using stick&shock, they wear it because tasers are cheap, legal, silent, good at downing people and everyone that could reasonably afford one should carry one.

The "if you can, I can" approach to game balance runs into the same problem as "If you use it, so will they." Namely, that it only makes sense for opponents who are at the same level as the PCs. So sure, a sniper who rolls 22 dice will occasionally run into NPCs who also roll 22 dice (or maybe more), but such NPCs should be comparatively rare. A 22-dice sniper is better challenged with tactical challenges (finding the right spot, getting to that spot, dealing with aerial drones and patrolling spirits, etc.), greater numbers of comparatively weaker enemies, and occasionally running into problems outside of his main specialty. Running into another master sniper could be great gaming session, but it is limited as a game balancer, because specialists with such dice pools should not be an everyday encounter.

On the other hand, someone with that level of skill -will- inevitably piss off people who can afford to hire people as good as he is and send them after him.

That being the case, the people that could be hired would have pissed off other people that are that good. In the end, you'll end up with it being the Highlander of snipers.

At least pretend to make sense if you're going to mess with my words, toturi. Given the power and prevalence of tasers, and the low price of Noncon, all the cops would have it.

If for no other reason, to protect themselves from "friendly fire".

What is this "make sense" you speak of?

You are assuming that the sec corps have Noncon as a budget item given the above reasons, I am assuming that the penny pinchers and bean counters would take it off.

It's cheap (and they probably get a huge discount). You might as well say that the guards don't have armor or guns. Avoiding failure saves vastly more money than skipping this protective item.

Actually this is a little anti-intuitive. But maybe the fuzz and rent-a-cops might NOT want non-conductive for another reason. If they're knocked out nobody can say they didn't do their job and better to be tazed unconscious than filled full of lead.

Toss in an auto-injector with slab tied to a biomonitor to put the finishing touches on the 'play dead' method of rent-a-cop survival.

... this hilariously reminds me of Robot Chicken ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jdQqjcsfC8

Hahaha, Falconer. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The corps may well have a huge discount. But do they pass the savings onto the guards? Do they instead pass the costs onto the rent-a-cops? And do these rent-a-cops and the corps that hire them want the non-conductivity? Remember the escalation from the rent-a-cops having non-conductivity may well be to use more lethal options. Are there death benefits to be paid? Will there be morale issues due to higher mortality rate? Would the higher sec guard mortality increase the insurance premiums (maybe not for the guards themselves but for the valuable researchers)? By how much does having this protective item avoid failure?

That's absurd. I know you're just having fun with any hypothetical support for your initial position, but still. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You're positing that they're deliberately making their guards less effective (… why do they have guards, again?) so that shadowrunners won't get mad and switch to real bullets (because they care about dead guards when all their priceless stuff gets stolen). Falconer's reason was more believable. I'm not sure when we went to 'crappy rent-a-cops', btw, but I didn't say that; you said 'police' to begin with, so are these the same thing? Again, you might as well not give them armor and guns if you're so worried about escalation and death benefits.

Yera: Because most low life style cheap guards aren't anything more than human tripwires. Really their only purpose in life is to act as a tripwire and with something with a little more brains than a drone hopefully to pull the alarm, and then buy time for the actual professionals with real guns to show up. They're really little more than a delaying tactic and to keep things from getting too easy to break into.


Oh, rent-a-cop unit #6 just had his biomonitor go down... time to call in the real security the high threat response squad or SWAT.

Come on guys, the job ads clearly state the Corporation has the best interests and safety of its employees at heart.

I can see where you misunderstood. My statement about Stick and Shock and non-conductive armor wasn't entirely clear in the first place. The "police" statement was in response to heavier firepower. "They" however was a more general reference to the game world.

I am not worried about escalation and death benefits. I am simply suggesting reasons why non-conductive armor is not prevalent (IIRC, as seen in RAW corp sec grunt examples).

22 dice is lowballing it. A human could get 12 dice from Agility, 7 from skill, 2 from specialization, 2 from smartgun, 1 from a reflex recorder, and 1 from a tacnet if he's running drones. Then he can Take Aim 3 times for another 3 dice. There's also the +1 from synch, though that doesn't apply until after the 1st round of combat. He could get a +2 from shooting you at point blank range. Yes, I did just suggest an aimed point blank sniper shot. So that's 28 dice and 30 at point blank.

There's also an additional +3 from a Rating 4 Tacnet, but drones cannot contribute enough sensor channels to qualify for a rating 2 Tacnet so the sniper would need 5 meatbags just to provide him with sensor channels. That would raise the dice pools to 31 and 33 for a normal shot and point blank....

There's also the conditional bonuses based on target size. +1 dice for something with 8 Body or more and +2 dice for something with more than 12 Body. So that would be (with everything else considered) 32/34 for shooting a troll point blank and 33/35 for shooting a dragon point blank...





While it sounds cool to have a sniper Highlander series, it think it would just be monumentally dull.

I guess, Falconer, though that hardly seems cost-effective. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Drones would be cheaper and plenty smart. Think of the death benefits! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Besides, if *those* guys are expendable, the 'real guards' you mention obviously aren't… and I never agreed we were talking about 'crappy rent-a-cops' in the first place.

The rent-a-cops are nothing more than a PR stunt. They're there to make it not look like "Dose damn roberts turk mah jerb!"