And now the fun begins..., MWAHAHAHAHA!!! *rubs hands in glee* Options

[NumptyScrub]

My apologies in advance, if you are getting fed up with posts regarding our particular gaming group then I completely understand if you want to ignore this topic. I'm hoping we're starting to take steps in the right direction though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

So, after reading your advice in the previous 9 threads regarding our mobile trainwreck of a perfectly good sourcebook, we, as a group, have decided to run a few one-offs to familiarise ourselves better with the various rule subsets present in SR4A; get a feel for how stuff works, scope out the power levels and dicepools, and put together house rules for the bits that don't make sense or are blatantly broken (loyalty 6 contacts who have access to THOR springs to mind). If you understand a thing, you can better prepare for a thing. I have volunteered to GM these sessions, as I tend to be more of an unprepared, bodge it together and make it up as I go along sort of GM (e.g. a bad GM). We all know there is going to be a lot of learning done here, so we may as well do it a chunk at a time. The first session (due next Saturday) is going to be all about magic.

The rest of the guys (Hyphz, Gazzor, "Zod's player", and our mustachioed 4th player) are busy making 750 karmagen awakened characters. I have given them free reign of all sourcebooks we can find, as I shall be making use of all the sourcebooks we can find as well. My expectation is for them to minmax the hell out of their chars, and I'll provide a range of NPCs, and we keep (slowly?) escalating the power levels until even Gohan and Goku would run away in fear. We'll also have all the sourcebooks we can scrounge to hand at the session, so we can iron out the RAW, RAI, and OMGWTFLOL as we go along, and hopefully end up with a working understanding of how magic in SR works, and also how we as a group want to use it.

The premise: Super Happy Magical Funtime Hitsquad (name TBC) will be contacted about a run to retrieve a McGuffin or 2 from a heavily, magically defended corp base. I shall be busy over the next couple of days putting stats together for guards, mooks, wagemages, wards, spirits and any other adversaries you fine people may believe would be available in a corp magical research lab. Not just defenders, but test subjects, experiments about to go hideously wrong, the whole nine yards. I like being creative with my speedbumps (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I have specifically used the term "throwaway characters" to describe these new PCs as I am expecting this to end in tears, either for the corp (unlikely) or for the team (much more likely). This is so we can get a feel for the whole magical spectrum in SR, from the subtle to the thaumonuclear. As such, I am hoping they can bring some of the thaumonuclear weaponry to the table themselves, and I am definitely going to try and uphold my end of the arms race for them to bounce off.

Which brings me to the point of making this thread: advice. I am seeking advice, both for my players in the form of build tips for their chars (750 karmagen, all options ticked in Chummer, I am going to be lenient with metatypes and traits as they are unlikely to survive anyway), and myself, in the form of suggestions of opponents and tactics. I'm sure you're all aware by now that we are a fairly action-oriented group so meeting big, scary bad guys they can try to explode in amusing ways (or get exploded by in amusing ways) is going to be expected. The first few they meet are going to be mooks, but it's only going to get worse as they progress deeper into the facility. Initially I'll be focussing my attempts at "balanced" opponents so we can play through the rules thoroughly, but purely as a thought experiment (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) what (barring dragons) would you guys consider almost insurmountable end-boss style challenges to a 750 karma all-mage (or at least all-awakened) group?

Since 3 of us are now members of the board, please feel free to post character suggestions right here in the thread. Regarding opponents for these guys, I suspect that there is enough breadth of options that they couldn't prepare for everything in advance anyway, so posting here should be fine as well. I'm happy to receive PMs if you have any particular favourites that you think deserve a spoiler tag.

I suppose the only other thing I can say at this point is, thanks for reading this giant wall of text, and all advice is gratefully recieved (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)