Invincible Troll, Help with an annoying player/character Options

[Teulisch]

I see two problems here. first, the GM is having a problem thinking of the right response to a problem the runners create for their enemies. second, the players are getting overconfidant, and thus reckless.

Damage mitigation has 3 parts: dont get hit (cover/visibility), get out the way (reaction+dodge, reduced by every atatck in a pass), and soak (body+armor). you want to use the first two more than the third whenever possible. that third one can easily fail to work well enough to keep you alive.

Invisibility does nothing vs ultrasound. and hes making a LOT of noise. so we know where he is, and what hes doing. Now, if my team has a drone rigger, piloting something with ultrasound sensors and an LMG, then the drone can deal with the troll while the rest of us shoot at the enemy we can see... from behind some very good cover, while screaming for help. send in HTRT or the like. If its a big enough threat, and outdoors, send in a helicoptor. If its Ares, go ahead and use a Air-to-Surface missle.

IF you cannot be harmed by small arms, any enemy with sense will bring in a bigger gun as soon as they can. maybe a LAW rocket or RPG. It all depends on what the HTRT is bringing to the party, and what their rules of engagement are.

Now, you want to put some real fear in your troll? para-animals. some of their powers are just plain nasty.

As for the players- it may be a good idea to sit down with them, warn them that if they continue the behavior the enemy will respond accordingly... and then start giving them more jobs where the johnson says 'destroy everything, high body count' to act a distraction for the actual run. show them that you will respond to force with even more force. offer them a job to create a 'distraction' at a military base. Tanks? oh yeah theres tanks. if they have fun doing that, then let em. Shadowrun can be played at many power levels, and theres no reason why every team should avoid combat. those that do just live longer.

[ShadowDragon]

Sounds to me like all you need are some well placed grenades. He might survive 1 or 2, but it should definately make a nice dent in his cocky attitude.

[warrior_allanon]

i got 4 little words for you

Sniper
and
Panther Assault Cannon

[Firewall]

[Dissonance]

In that it's not just possible, but incredibly easy?

[fool]

you could always have a hacker make his life a ilving hell.
Troll porn subscriptions delivered directly to his ar feed
no more money
tips to lonestar pour in about the guy
or if in combat, his trusty alpha locks up or misfires a grenade (especialy good if he's wearing it slung over his shoulder instead of firing it)
btw a warhawk taking out a city master could be done by any type of character with a decent pistols skill.
mana barrier between him and his team (would that stop counterspelling?)
physical barrier between him and his team (stop cover fire)
anything on full autoshould hurt even a burly troll, and security teams are known to carry gyromounts just for such purposes

[Glyph]

(Edit: this is referring to the Panther cannon sniping tactic)

GM fiat never solves an attitude problem. It risks alienating every player at the table, and it gets you nothing but comtempt - it shows everyone is that you had to resort to arbitrarily killing a character that you couldn't handle.

The GM would be better served by using some tactics to neutralize the team's preferred M.O. (and it's not being cheesy to have people ready for those specific tactics - if you use the same tactic every single time, people will start getting wise to it). And the point is to challenge the troll, and let the other party members contribute more, not to crap all over everyone's fun by being a munchkin GM and deliberately geeking characters.

[lorechaser]

Glyph beat me to it.

If the GM geeks the troll with some obscene beast, then the Troll player wins anyway. He made the GM cheat to win.

And then the Troll becomes the dwarven combat mage that has 4 init passes and rolls 25 dice for area mana bolts 4 times a round.

There is nothing wrong with neutralizing the troll. 1. Street teams come standard with horrific nasty trolls in general. A good corpsec squad is going to come loaded for troll, as it were. 2. After 5-6 runs, this guy's gonna get a rep. People that are likely targets will prep. And people talk - I mean, look at the mailing lists and networks we have now. Imagine 75 years from now, how much people will talk. News about him will be out in a week, and there will probably be constant chat rooms dedicated to how to deal with him, and people like him....

[Zen Shooter01]

I agree with Glyph about that arbitrary killing thing.

[7.62]

Well I don't have access to my rule book right now so I will just stick with the ideas that pop into my head and leave the game-fu to others. I'll throw ideas out point by point. Oh, and one caveat, most of my experience is with SR3 but you should be able to convert ideas as neccessary.

[cx2]

All this aside it is reasonable that if they do regularly use these tactics the security people will catch wind, especially if they target places guarded by the same people (star or knight errant contractors esp).

It should be a small matter for them to realise the threat and make sure all teams have at least one of the following:
Magician or mystac adept
Adept with astral perception
Or most likely a guy with ultrasounds.

Only needs one. Once they confirm who it is they're being attacked by they call in the HTR team and tell them they're using invis. The security ohn site performs a holding action and sits tight as best they can.

HTR team turns up, leaving citymaster (s) before entering los and approach on foot. Probably minimum 1 city master, a mage/shaman, a rigger in the citymaster with a doberman or steel lynx (and possibly rotodrone), two or three guys with rifles, and possibly a phys ad. Like already mentioned a copter is a very real option, and given what they use them for today this would certainly qualify. All the HTR team should have ultrasounds since they were forewarned.

I don't see security as usually carrying ultrasound as standard, but if there is someone rampaging whilst invisible I can see them distributing them in limited fashion.

And giving a rotodrone a sniper rifle with APDS might help if its in fairly open space. Maybe doberman or steel lynx with assualt rifle or lmg, using ex-ex. We'd be talking the cream of the HTR teams too, along with the "not quite full scale war but not far off" gear they keep ohn standby.

[James McMurray]

[Thanee]

Especially, if said troll runs amok in the streets... it's probably to be expected, that some security unit will then answer with rather deadly force.

Bye
Thanee

[Geekkake]

If the troll is causing such enormous headaches for the Establishment, I see no reason why said Establishment wouldn't start leaning on the J or the team's fixer that originally got them the job. One of them will talk. And once the Establishment finds out who's causing all these issues, it's a relatively small thing to hit the troll's car with a missile or two. Or their house. Or place landmines under their mattress.

Who says the Big, Pissed Party has to attack the problem toe-to-toe?

[Butterblume]

Just killing the troll because he's resilient in combat isn't fun.

[Geekkake]

[Butterblume]

I never said hurting the troll badly because he imagines he is invincible isn't fun :P.

[Zolhex]

First off let me say no I did npt read the whole thread but I did have a thought if someone else has come up with this then ignore me lol.

A physical Adept that is a gun specialist with astral sight.

Gun either a ranger arms or heavy machine gun full auto narrow spread either useing EX-EX ammo.

His armor being what full suit with helm 12/10?

EX-EX + weapon ap modifiers gives him -5 ap and either 9p or 10p damage.

If you go full auto narrow spread up goes the damage and with astral vision he is not invisibile to the adept as he can see the spell outlineing the troll.

On the other hand he is not protected 24 hrs a day have a pissed off corp stake him out anf kill him when he is not expecting it like when he first gets up in the morning and runs out for a bite to eat.

[hobgoblin]

in the end this is what the notoriety and so on was introduced into SR4 for.
slap mr uber-troll with some scores of that, and watch of his life goes down the toilet, fast...

[Firewall]

[Shrike30]

[Lagomorph]

I think just about every thing has already been suggested already, but I'll put in my own opinion.

The biggest problem that I see in our SR game and others with this type of problem is the D&D style Monster tactic of stand out in the open, wait to be attacked, then rush up and die.

Improving the tactics will help a lot: Use cover, Attack first, use automated defenses, and most importantly, RETREAT. Yep, retreat. The guards should get the hell outta there and come back with HTRT and more guards if they are totally out matched.

Useing IR Smoke Grenades and US Vision will make the team just as blind as the guards are. If the Smoke coveres up the troll also, his counterspelling will go down leaving him vulnerable.

And lastly, read through the entire book and then, go over the character with a fine tooth comb, the player may be violating some rules or using bonuses where they don't apply. (like using bone lacing body bonuses to resist poison or other non damage related body tests)

That's really all you should need.

[Masterofthegame]

[Brahm]

[Masterofthegame]