help with a run Options

[Fyastarter]

Ok the gm has kindly given us a week to plan a run :D.

So i thought i'd give you all the information i have to hand, and see if anyone can figure a angle i didn't think of yet.

There is a box in the hands of a small team numbering 5+ (ish), they may or may not have magical backup. They will be transporting this box from a point A to point B, the Johnson wishes us to intercept them at a point C of our choosing, then take the box to a point D in a timely manner, the pay off is 20k :nuyen: + a small bonus if things go quiet, plus 3000 :nuyen: expenses.

Details

Setting = denver early feb end of year of the comet, just after cas takes control of the old aztlan sector. Point A is somewhere in the old Azzie now CAS territory Point B in the UCAS area somewhere.

Speculation:- we strongly suspect the johnson to be ares, we figure the box has something juicy that was was aztecs that whoever is transporting wants out from under ares nose.

We have a code to a tracer contained in the box (we don't know how the johnson obtained this code).

We beleive they will travel by road, that they will use two vehicles and we are will assume that they WILL have magical support probably astral, then johnsons info indicates the vehicles will not be armed but potentially have speed enhancements and the couriers will have smgs (makes sense in the confines of a vehicle), we suspect they will have armour but not necesarily be chem proof, or flash/glare resistant.

What is known about potential routes they could take one is qucker but involves dodgier areas of town others take longer but will have much higher traffic flow.
We definately want to take them in the CAS sector.

Our team

one cat shaman/face ex star investigator
one ork bodyguard subtle bio/cyber
one ork rigger simarlar to above (these two are both ex azzie subsiduary, the rigger is not a full rigger no hostile takeover of the vehicles, which btw we don't know if they have a rigger for them).
one astrall asskicking type adept (very specialised at kicking ass on the astral plane)
one cyber goon twinkus maximus kill machine whose player is also of the unsubtle mindset
Oh wait maybe two of those
And a sub zero paranoid decker

Current plans

Quiet way, attempt to bluff a blue light pull over sceanario posing as drug squad (we have details on how knight errant drug squads operate etc). If they go quiet :wobble: we then render them unconsious take the gear and go.
if they go noisy then its every runners back up plan kick ass grab the target and go.

Second way is use our astral combat specialised astrally projecting adept (how? i don't know) to kick the driver sqaure in the astrals then respond to the crash scene either as concerned citizens (carrying tranq patches natch) or as the emergency services.



Thats all i can remember right now, feel free to let me know if yo want more info

All helpful suggestions, scathing but constructive critisism, or amusing anectdotes welcome

[Sicarius]

maybe you could have the decker break into the grid guide, so when they come to an intersection, the opposing vehicles think they still have a green light, and boom, smack into the courier vehicle. than you arrive on the scene as your good samaritans, knock out anyone still concious and grab the goods?

potential risks would be if they were a good enough driver they could avoid the crash, i suppose you do it the hardway then. other potential problems would be if the package is real fragile it might not survive the crash. and the resulting traffic jam might ruin your escape plan.

[coolgrafix]

Assuming there are only two land routes, you could easily cause an accident on one route, thus forcing them onto the route of your choice.

When intercepting vehicles, I've always been a fan of the smash and grab persuasion. Perhaps a little overwhelming force (Shock and Awe™, anyone?) could work wonders. You're a little weak in the spellslinging category, so perhaps the heavy hand is your best angle.

Your cat shaman could summon a city spirit to provide a number of services: concealment, accident, movement, etc.

Question: Do you have access to a rocket or missle launcher? =)

[coolgrafix]

Was just reading the Rommel thread and it seemed appropriate to cross-post a bit:

[Smiley]

Maybe snipe a tire or two at a stoplight? Better yet, NOT at a stoplight, causing a crash test. It could be done at a predetermined area where other things also causing crash tests are set up ahead of time. This stops the car and maybe causes stun damage to the box guards.

[Slump]

I'll second that if they have two routes, force them to pick yours. If one of them goes through a dodgey area, then you can persuade some gangs to have a fight, thus diverting your target to the nicer area. From there, causing an accident is probably your best bet. With any luck (ha!), your foes will be mostly incapacitated by the wreck and you guys just have to walk up and walk off. Somebody following in astral could be a problem, though. Got any bhargests?

Hacking gridguide is definatly something I would look into, regardless of which path you intend to take them on. If nothing else, you can slow star's response, because someone will actually have to call it in manually, rather than having gridguide automatically call star to the accident. Personally, I would stay away from high explosives, except as a last resort. Nothing calls the cops faster than explosives. If you thing things will get hot, try to divert them to the bad neighborhood, where firefights are pretty much a matter of course.

[Wounded Ronin]

I absolutely would not try to stop them posing as the drug police. If those vehicles have speed enhancements and they're carrying Pandora's Box they'll probably just speed away and you'll have something messy on your hands.

The best plans are simple. Of course, my plan is so simple that all the other players will probably reject it as being t3h unprofessional. Oh well.

BTW, I hope this is third edition because I don't know 4th edition.

Plan A: (sacrifice the "quiet" for the sake of results)

1.) Put your shaman and your astral adept on overwatch versus magic and spirits.

2.) Incapacitate both vehicles by "sniping" them with Lasher disposable rocket launchers. Since you have a lot of team members you can play it safe by firing 2 rockets at each vehicle. Since it looks like you'll have enough gunbunnies give each PC only one launcher so that after they fire they can drop the launcher and quickly do something else.

3.) Use 2 of your shootey characters to lay suppressive fire with some kind of machine gun down on the vehicles, one on each vehicle. Use the other two (whoever have the best shootey scores) to delay actions with "sniper rifles" or "sport rifles" and plink off anyone who tries to return fire.

4.) Make the shaman send a spirit over to the vehicles to check when everyone is finally dead.

5.) Take the package and escape.

Plan B: (more risk, more quiet)

For this one I figure you need all out offense to kill all the enemies before they make a noise, whereas the above plan has more defensive elements because you're leaving the magical people as backup instead of using them to attack right away.

1.) Use your gunbunnies to snipe out the driver of each vehicle. Use "sport rifles" or "sniper rifles". Once again, to be safe, it would be best to have 2 rifles per driver. You definitely need AV ammo for this.

2.) The shaman stunballs the crap out of the general area where the vehicles are. The idea is to take everyone out before enemy spells come incoming. The shaman should have a spirit on hand beforehand to go and check if everyone is dead yet or not. I guess the astral melee adept will still have to wait as a defense against spirits just because he probably shouldn't run up to the vehicles while they're being fired on.

3.) Load everyone who isn't already doing something into your rigger's vehicle and have the rigger drive up and ram the enemy vehicles. Everyone spills out of the rigger's vehicle with suppressed weapons and tries their best to grab the box. Once they have it they get back into the vehicle and everyone drives away.

This plan is more risky but will be quieter if it can be accomplished quickly.

[Lagomorph]

We had a similar run, here was our solution:

0. Follow at a discrete distance
1. Use gridguide to cause a massive traffic jam ahead of everyone
2. Rush up to target vehicles and use spray-sticky-foam to cement the doors shut on both vehicles
3. Have large Water elementals manifest in the vehicles and drown every one
4. After the screaming and struggling stops, pry open the doors (we used thermite bars)
5. Get item, and blast your way through the traffic jam, or use motorcycles which would have been smarter than what we did..

[Dog]

[Smiley]

That water elemental thing is genius...

[will_rj]

[Wounded Ronin]

I was assuming it was 23k each. Naturally, if it's 23k total, which would be slim pickings for such a big group, I guess you'd have to do something more economical and more prone to failure.

[Critias]

Shoot out the tires while it's driving along a particularly straight stretch of road (the straighter the road, the faster the driver goes). Lob neurostun grenades at the crashed car that's got the package (normal, or incendiary, grenades at the other if you want), and cover the vehicles (or suppress them, either way really) until you know the gas has had time to take effect. Retreive the package (put a bullet in each person's head, if you feel an urge, I guess). Drive away.

It doesn't have to be Ocean's 11. Just do it.

[hyzmarca]

If you have the time, have your magician pick up a mana version of physical barrier (not astral barrier). Since mana spells only effect living beings the cars will go right through it while the passengers won't. They'll be crushed into paste. You may have to do this seperatly and you may have to mask it to avoid detection by the magical security.

The only problem is that you're screwed if the box contains a living being.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Sometimes the best way is quiet.


Tip off Knight Errant or the Star (whichever is in charge here) that these two cars are mega-huge-ultra-mongo terrorists, with a huge bomb in a box. Get yourselves disguised as bomb squad - pay someone who's in the bomb squad to disguise you.

Have one of your magic types use a Trid Phantasm of a huge explosion, set off smoke bombs and incindiaries and the works, and escape under the cover of the conflagration.


Alternatively, tip off the cops that it's a drug runner or something, and when the cops haul them, bribe the evidence guy to 'lose' the box.


Remember, you can outsource. :)

[Tiralee]

Heh - Air elementals are fun in situations like this.

Q: How much space in a vehicle?
A: Not enough for that force 6 you just manifested inside.

Q: What's the fastest getaway we can achieve?
A: Hmm, I'm not sure, I'll just ask my Force 6 to assist in our movement and HOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLYGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDD! WE'RE GONMNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAA DIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE........



-Tir

The Legend of the Silver Brumby. 2059 style

[ShadowDragon8685]

Why not just ask the Force 6 to 'move' the vehicles in question about 80 miles outside the city in a short time, where you ambush them with HMGs? :)

[Fyastarter]

coupla points

forgot to mention the cat only does sorcery and is focussed on disguises and stuff, the characters are all quite new, and i would prefer to keep this non lethal to the guards if at all possible.

I'm liking the gridguide thing but i haven't read much rigger 3, any pertinant points i should be aware of?

The tire shooting could be good.

We have access to a panther cannon is that good? [deadpan]

The reoson its 23k is this is our first run not done off our own back.

[Oracle]

Some of the plans here simply make me laugh.

Shooting the vehicle with a rocket launcher or even an assault cannon or laying covering fire with a machine gun is a great idea. I assume that the Johnson does not want the package in one piece?

The same goes for the water elementals. The idea is not bad, but who says, that the case is water resistant? Just imagine the Johnson's face realizing, that you just gave Aztechnologies new electronic prototype a bath. :D Priceless! ^^

The idea with the manabarrier: Well, I am pretty sure, that people inside of a closed vehicle are safe from death by crushing. I don't have the page reference ready, but I would bet a pitcher of Guinness on it. Someone on a motorbike would not be.

Sniping the drivers out of the vehicles will also pose a small problem if the windows are polarized. Same goes for the use of stunball spells.

Shooting tires seems to be a good idea - until one realizes that those vehicles will almost certainly have runflat tires. No crash. Vehicles escaping.

However I like ShadowDragon8685's idea of "outsourcing". It poses its own risks but is possibly the most quiet way.

[Anythingforenoug...]

I did one of these type of runs for my players after watching the movie Ronin, and the way I set it up was that every member of the protection squad had an identical case chained to their wrists-with one containing the package, and the others all containing weapons (smg's). So, I would ask, how would you deal with decoys like that? Another thing I did when I did this type of run as part of a larger story was to have the case very large and very heavy and in the trunk of one of the cars (there were three cars then, each with an identical case). Similar problem there, multiple cases, so how do you know which one is wich, and the added problem of it being difficult to move.

Another problem to consider (If your GM is anything like me) is anti-tampering measures. What if the case is rigged to explode if it deviates from normal conditions (is bumped, if the right code is not entered at the right time interval, if it has a GPS receiver and it moves too far off the route etc...). It does not need to be a huge bomb, if the device just destroys the contents of the package, the whole operation is a wipe. Do you have someone who can handle electronics like that at the scene? You mentioned that it has a transponder, which will allow you to track the package, but that also means that any back up they have can be following it as well. Which might also mean that some or all of them are following in an unmarked car at a distance, and that a helicopter/drone can drop on you right quick. So you will either need to disable it right away before you move the package, or if you are doing something clever, separate the package from the transceiver, so that the tracking device goes one way and the package goes another.

Another thing to consider is if the package has magical protection, is it warded, or is there an anchored spell attached (is an Elemental going to jump your asses, or is a stun ball going to go off, or both, if someone who's aura was not present when the spell was anchored touches the case?) It sounds like your astral back-up guy is good for this sort of thing, but is it going to be a situation where he has to deal with that and other problems at the same time (do you need to control the situation for that)?

Sorry that this is more questions than anwsers.
AFE :nuyen:

[Oracle]

The multicase problem can be easily solved by the transponder.

A ward can't be placed inside of a movable object. So the case will have no warding. A magical barrier might be possible. But what kind of use would that have?

[Smiley]

[Oracle]

The second version is quiet. No obvious shadowrun happening. And no shooting.

[HullBreach]

Would it be possible for you to get access to the vehicles prior to the transport run? If so, this could go really smoothly. A well concealed drone with a narcoject in the backseat (or under a front seat) comes to mind.

[Chance359]

Take a page from the movie Heat (and taking a shot at playing rommel for a minute)

Have your decker keeping track of them using grid guide, manipulating traffic flow to get them into the target area. Your astral adept will be doing their thing, providing cover from the astral.

You have your rigger and or decker reprogram a total of four cars (all of which you have to steal before hand). One car will be used to block the road ahead of the target vehicles. The Vehicle number 2 will be used to block the road behind the targets (this one can be used as an emergency escape vehicle).

The other two vehicles will have the auto pilots programed that when they recieve a comm call or radio signal they will rush forward ramming into both of the target vehicles.

Once the vehicles have been disabled, lob tear gas into both vehicles, wait about thirty seconds, breach one vehicle, drag the occpants out, cuff them and gag them. If the package isn't in that vehicle, repeat on the second vehicle.