Need help making a gang., Mr Rigger wants to do this RAW. Options

[ShadowDragon8685]

Okay, here's the deal. I need to make a gang that is clearly overpowering to a spider-rigger in a bunker. But they don't have much in the way of nuyen.

The gang consists of:

Five trolls, one of whom has an obvious cyberarm. These are the gang leader's personal bodyguard.

Six orks and four humans. These should be more or less the cream of the thug crop, but most of them should still be regular thugs.

Sticks, a barrens mage who has initiated once, likes to summon spirits, and carries an Ithica combat shotgun loaded with APDS.

One Force 5 Spirit of Air. This is Sticks' personal "bodyguard" spirit.

Five Force 3 spirits (may or may not be air; Sticks likes Air, but he'll use whatever's good.) One of these is already in proximity to the rigger, the others are on drone-defeating duty.


The gangers are inside the second chamber (the meeting room) of the rigger's bunker. At least one of the drones inside has proven to be extremely lethal at melee combat; the Force 5 is on duty to smash it when it makes a hostile move. The other drones are..... Fuck, how the hell did he get.... Nevermind. I'll post his character sheet for audit after I'm done this post.

Anyway, I want him taken out, dumped naked in Glow City with his commlink, and a call placed to the first contact on his list to pick the dumbitch up. He wants to roll this out, so I need to roll it.

I don't know the first thing about magic. At least one other ganger should be a mage, and a couple of them, possibly the trolls, should be PhysAds. The gangers can be quite beefy on karma-improvements, but poor for nuyen.

How do I build this? How do I even go about starting this? All of my personal experiance is with hackers and gun-bunnies. (Sticks' shotgun and APDS represent the largest recent expendature of funds the gangers have available. They can have some minor cyberware, but not a lot. Bio is right out.... I just don't know what's appropriate.)

[Wasabi]

Your player reads these forums. Just an FYI. :-)

Secondly, if his character isn't appropriate to your game ask him to change it. Its your game, your veto, and all that matters is that the players (whichever ones make it in) enjoy your game.

I think this situation is sucking up a lot of your time and patience and probably hurting your other players having a good time.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Wasabi]

Just for the record, a millionaire rigger SHOULD pawn shotgun wielding gangers.

If you want to escalate he needs a new adversary.

[Ddays]

If those spirits are indeed bound, the rigger is gone, gg.

Those spirits are worth A LOT. Astral in, engulf, no more character unless he has tons of wards up. One of those is a spirit of man? 6 dice on influence v willpower for the rigger to show himself. Basically, just remote services all your spirits on the rigger and knock him out before he can order the drones to attack.

[Ravor]

You know, as long as Sticks has his spirits then until the Rigger can get his bunker warded Sticks has the upper hand because he doesn't need to throw away his men. Just summon spirit after spirit and IF the Rigger manages to win then Sticks just summons another one until drain makes him rest for a bit.

Also the gang needs to hit his supply line and lean on the Rigger's contacts to get them to hang him out to dry.

However in a straight out fight, everyone dies and Sticks should be smart enough to realize that.

[fistandantilus4....]

Trid Phantasms, Improved Invisibility and Silence spells will stop the drones from being able to spot whom ever they're placed on. jamming devices, if they have any , could help. There's also the "seige" angle. They could simply try and wait him out, making sure he can't call for help.

But really, as has been said, unless the guy is under a number of wards, just send spirits after him. If he's all spider-ed out, he probably won't even know the elemental is there until it engulfs him. Might as well lightning bolt his gear while he's at it.

[Talia Invierno]

(I don't ask why, or why in this manner.)

If the bound aspect creates too high a nuyen level, try substituting a single high-level summoned spirit with Concealment (I think you can go to twice MG for Force) and a swarm of watchers.

[Ddays]

Eh, if Sticks is a master enchanter and survival expert, no reason why he can't just scrounge up all the materials himself.

[Glyph]

Honestly, I think you are making these guys far too powerful for a group of gangers in the Barrens. Go to page 275 of the main book, and check out the two Halloweeners grunts. A barrens gang might be a bit tougher, at the expense of having even more meager gear, but not by much. An unusually tough mage leader could be plausible, but making several of the others adepts is kind of pushing it.

When you start making initiatate mage gang leaders and their troll adept lieutenants, it makes it look like you are trying to "get" the player. Wasabi put it best, but I will add one caveat: that any mage with even mediocre summoning ability should be able to take out a parapalegic rigger, when they know where he's holed up.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Yes, but...

I'm just frustrated that all my ways of "dealing" with this character are split evenly between "get ground to hamburger by his defenses" and "bunker-buster bomb, save against 50P".

It's like there's no options besides killing him outright by something he literally cannot save against, unless he HoGs.

[Ddays]

Just have your mage astral into the compound and find out where he is.

Once located, spirits make mince meat, honestly, he's not nearly as well protected as you think he is.

Of course, it's all moot now that he's quit.

[ShadowDragon8685]

No, I KNOW that, Ddays.

That's my problem. "Spirits make Mince Meat". Basically, he's daring me to say "you get killed. You don't know what from, or where from. You're dead."

And damnit, if I DO say that, I look like a bully. If I don't do anything, I let him walk all over me. If I try to give him a warning "Wake the hell up and smell the soycaf" shot, I get called a railroader!

[fistandantilus4....]

[ShadowDragon8685]

At this point it feels more like crossing maglites than playing a game...

[Jack Kain]

The Gangers could steal a high quality jammer and screw up the Riggers transmissions to his drones. No signal, no good drone defense. And lets face it assaulting him directly is stupid. Is bunker needs power from somewhere the gangers could cut the power.

Have there be cover, the gangers can take cover and hurl a grenade over by the drone.
Drone Explodes. Cover protects gangers.

Have them attack after the Rigger leaves the bunker. There is no reason the Rigger should be able to stay in his bunker and conduct all his shadowrun activities.
Most buildings the runners go into should have Wifi blocking paint to keep outside hackers from getting in to the system. The same would apply to controlling drones. So its easy to have run require the hacker/rigger/technomacner. Actually go inside.

Give a simple run, pick up X and point A and bring it to Point B.

Point A is located in a matrix dead zone in the Barrens. Point B is several miles outside the city limits. (also no wireless matrix access).
The gangers should draw him out of the bunker.
It could be as simple as an attack when going to meeting the Johnson.
I can easily see a Johnson not working with a runner they don't meet in person.

If he's able be a shadowrunner from with in his bunker. The problem is not is character is to powerful. Its your to kind a DM.

Lastly, if he spends all that time in the bunker, with armed drones around. LoneStar or other law enforcement might actually get interested enough to investigate. Part of being a shadowrunner is people NOT knowing how to find you in person.

[Jaid]

i don't see why the rigger being present or absent at meets is relevant from the johnson's perspective, unless each runner is being hired separately.

the johnson isn't paying 8k credits 5 times, he's paying 40k to the team. how the team spends that money isn't his problem. if they wish to subcontract out to a bunker-rigger, that's their prerogative... so long as the job gets done the way the johnson wants. the rigger not being there simply means yet another layer of deniability for the johnson ("oh yes, i asked those P.I.s to find my <insert whatever here>, but this crazy rigger they hired i had nothing to do with! clearly that burned-down research building is entirely the fault of those horrible, unethical P.I.s!")

of course, from the perspective of the rigger, it should be concerning... as a johnson, i *certainly* would not meet with a drone present, so if the rigger wants to know what's going on at the meet (for example, how much is *actually* being paid to the team, and whether or not he's getting an equal share) or especially to have input on the meet (for example, say, negotiating for a contact to store/repair/maintain drones if the team has to travel to another city, or the precise nature of payment that comes in the form of equipment...)

so yeah, such a character could theoretically work, as a subcontractor working for actual shadowrunning teams... provided the other team members trust him enough, and he also trusts them.

and of course, the wifi-inhibiting stuff is a valid point, though the remote location not so much (satellite links are cheap and easy to get).

however, such a degree of trust should be extremely rare in the shadows.

[Jack Kain]

Satellite links also say. "SHOOT ME AND THE DRONES STOP!" Now that would irk a rigger. Taking out the satellite link and his drones go dark.

[bibliophile20]

[DireRadiant]

Influence the Rigger to come out of his bunker nekkid and give the gang his drone control codes.... and don't kill him...

[toturi]

[laughingowl]

[Trigger]

[hyzmarca]

My first question is simple; why is this gang after him? Until I know that, I can't really help you very much.

My second question is even simpler; does it have to be trolls with cyberarms?

If at all possible, I'd drop the Troll idea and make him face The Spiders. They take on insect spirits professionally and they're mostly mundane followers of the Spider totem with a few Shamans in the mix. Because of their emphasis on fighting Insect Spirits, they understand the need for intelligence, planning, and preparation.

If they can't be The Spiders due to plot reasons, the rest of this still stands.

To start out with, these are not stupid gangers. They understand the importance of human intelligence and have talked to people who live around the area, people who have seen drones being brought in. They know what to expect.

The first stage of the assault involves activating a makeshift RF jammer, something bulky cobbled together from old car batteries, parts of broken microwave ovens, and a lot of aluminum foil. About rating 3, give or take. It may or may not disrupt his control of the drones.

Second, you have an Air Spirit (or two) with the ability to throw lightening bolts scout astrally, but not directly attack him. Assume that it can't reasonably materialize without risking being machine gunned during the requisite complex action (which is true, any sane person would quickdraw a spirit-busting weapon while the thing is busy materializing and kill it before it gets its second IP a drone riffer should have an autocannon turrent guarding his Sanctum Sanctorum).

Third, they crack the place open with their very own homemade Thermic Lances (reach 2, DV 20P, fire elemental effects, loses 1 point reach every 10 CT , must be extinguished or discarded before reach is reduced to -1 or else the wielder takes 20P damage, can only be ignited once, uses an exotic weapon skill) and Thermite burning bars.

To take out drones, there are two gangers wielding AK-97s loaded with Stick n' Shock, and they will be supported by the Air Spirit once they are inside. In melee, the Thermic Lances wil prove very effective against drones, though the gangers will be defaulting.

Once they've cracked the last bit of security, he really has no choice but to surrender, though he can continue to fight. Have them S&S him if he does, or have the magician stunbolt him. Autocannons and drones can't fire in two directions at once, so they're pinned between the gangers and the spirit. Whichever they shoot at, the other takes them out, assuming that they're fought one at a time.

And when they get him, they don't kill him, they forcibly enlist his help in taking out a giant hive in an Alchera beneath the Seattle sewer system. Thousands of hybrid merges. Thousands of them.

You could also make one of the gangers be a Technomancer and have them fight for control of his drones.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Basically, as soon as the mage plays the Spirit card, the battle is over as the rigger is the literal sitting duck. And this is the moste likely thing to happen IG.
OG, on the other hand, it doesn't really matter anymore wether they kill him or extort protection money - he's pissed and leaving anyway.