Cover penalties and combat dice pools Options

[draglikepull]

Before I get into this in any detail, I'll just say that everyone in my group is playing the characters they originally created when we first started playing, so they aren't exactly maximized. I point this out because I'm looking for advice other than "the characters should be built better" because I know they aren't optimal.

In the campaign we're currently running, combat is taking an excruciatingly long time. From what I gather, part of this is just that combat takes a long time, however, some of my players are getting bored with how long it's taking and how little damage they seem to be doing. A big part of this is the cover penalties.

At -4 for good cover (which most characters seem to be behind for the most part, leaning around corners, over boxes, etc.) some of the characters are effectively crippled. As an example, one of our characters (somewhere in the middle in terms of combat effectiveness) has 3 agility, and 3 in pistols, with a revolver specialization. That means, after including -4 for the enemy's good cover and -1 for the PC being behind cover, his dice pool is down to 3. Against an NPC with a reaction of 3 or 4 (pretty average), the PC will only hit successfully half the time. After damage reduction he's generally only doing about 2 damage. 2 damage every other round of combat seems to be very small, and is very frustrating for the player, who feels like he's doing nothing.

Compounding the situation is that die pools that small have a higher tendency to glitch or critically glitch. In our last session, one player critically glitched twice in the opening 3 rounds of combat due to his die pool of 3. I realize that's statistically unlikely to happen often, but one other PC and an NPC also critically glitched during those three rounds, always due to low die pools.

One way we've gotten around this a bit is by reducing the cover penalty in half, to -2 for good cover. However, damage still seems somewhat low against moderately powered enemies, and a 5 on 5 combat can take upwards of an hour and a half. Is there any way to speed up combat without making it too deadly? I'm worried that any other changes I make would either render cover useless (which I don't want, I think cover is important to keep players from being reckless), or greatly increase the odds of the PC's dying.

[Moon-Hawk]

[Backgammon]

As a sort of house rule, I've often reduced cover penalty based on how solid the cover was... I mean, that wooden crate may be concealing the other guy, but if you miss and hit the crate, that bullet is going thru the crate anyway... So yes, it's harder to see the guy, but if you miss and hit the crate, no biggie...

However, I think the more logical answer to your question is that the players, and the NPCs on your side, should reconsider their tactics. Ok, everyone is behind cover.. ok let's shoot at each other till we run out ofr bullet?? How bout half the team provides suppressive fire from behind their cover while the other half starts flanking?

There's nothing 'wrong' about everyone being behind cover. It is, however, pretty stupid everyone stays put and shoots it out forever. Flank! Retreat! Advance!

[Moon-Hawk]

[Kyoto Kid]

[edit]...didn't think another post was going to slip in ahead

[Marwynn]

[James McMurray]

Use your action to move around cover and blast them.

[Ravor]

Of course, you have better pray that some of them aren't "holding" an action just in case the runners try something that crazy as well as hope that you finish them off with your attack.

[odinson]

[Dashifen]

[Moon-Hawk]

[James McMurray]

[James McMurray]

[Ravor]

True, it's more of a knee jerk reaction that I get whenever people give solutions which would get the runners killed in my games. :cyber:

[sunnyside]

Ok you've got two issues. On the dice pools.

First off don't forget about the aim action. If your low pool guys starts carrying a warhawk instead of the pred he'll hit a little harder and be able to add one to his dice pool every time. More if he takes a little time. Also I don't apply the -1 for cover unless they'll ducking up and down or in uncomfortable cover. A gun bench is technically cover, let me assure you that my accuracy goes up instead of down, but I'd consider the hood of a car "even". That put his pool up to a healthy five, though generally range will eat up a little of that.

Also bear in mind that this situation is fairly realistic. I live in philly and when a shooting makes the news it seems that typically guys will be shooting at each other from cover or while moving and after maybe a hundred rounds have flown through the air all they'll have managed to hit are a couple school children they weren't aiming at. (and of course it being philly nobody saw anything but that's besides the point). It also seems to happen in the military with slightly higher "dice pools" I remember Iraqi war coverage of fighting with insurgents in a building where the soldiers fire their weapons until the barrels ran hot while under return fire but casualties on both sides were low (at least until they brought in a tank or whatever).

As for moving to a flanking position you've got two mechanical options. In the first the other PCs just shoot whatever they have really quick and you just say that the NPCs keep their heads down for an action. The second way is that everyone else pops up and holds an action. The first NPC to pop up and aim at the other guy gets a bunch of shots his way which might knock him down or should at least give him a penalty, thus giving the PC on the run a better chance. The PC running for cover gets +2 for running and can use a full defense action for more die, making up for leaving cover.

Finally your char could use some edge to hit.
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Now aside from that you've got the issue of combat speed in shadowrun.

First consider that typically runners can't afford a shootout. Reinforcements are almost always on the way, whether it's more gangers in the barrens, corp special forces in a corp facility, or lone star most anywhere else. They don't have the luxury of a long shootout (note in real life it also tends to end poorly for a perp if they get pinned down for much the same reason, except spirits and drones can get to the scene a lot faster).

Another thing you can do is make shadowrun dice (mark up the two, three, and fours so they look like the body of the die, mark the "one" one color and the five and six a different color. That way when you roll you don't have to check the numbers you just see successes and ones).

An even faster method, especially for your NPCs is to have an automated dice roller (have a copy of matlab? I'm sure there is other stuff). That way you can roll piles of die at once. Personally on the table top I queue rolls for NPCs (roll a bunch ahead of time and write down the numbers than just read them off when I need five grunts to shoot or whatever).

Finally, and I'd wait until your players are experienced, you can make them play fast. Many players tend to put combat on pause while they consider their actions, or generally they're just slow. However their characters have all of a half second to decide what to do. Therefore as you go around the table demand rapid actions. If they hem and haw treat it as their character taking an "observe in detail" action.

This is helped by having the players know how many dice they should roll so they can do it while they describe their action, so you might want to houserule that the only things that apply penalties to dice pools are things that the character would know about (are they running, are they wounded). Things you'd have to tell them (range, cover, visibility modifiers) are applied as dodge bonuses. This also makes the glitch situation more realistic. If you glitch because you were shooting while running and wounded that makes sense.

I'm pretty sure the devs did things the way they did because when you do things this way you have to give potted plants a dodge roll. But I think it works better.

[James McMurray]

I was a bit terse with it, but moving out of cover doesn't have to be a banzai charge. Other characters can provide covering fire, you can have your most defensive guy do it and then immediately switch to total defense if they're storing up actions, etc. If there's a rigger in the group, disposable drones make good cover-breakers.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Lilt]

I'll add another call for grenades, where available and viable (not when you're trying to keep things stealthy).

Also, your guy's kinda average. I'm not saying he's bad, he's just average. Why are you complaining that you can only hit something, something that's very hard to hit at that, half the time? If you want someone who can hit reliably, boost your skill and/or get some tech boosts (smartlink ETC). You get karma and cash for a reason.

I'm not trying to say your character's badly designed, you probably got a lot from the other stuff you spent money on, but at the end of the day Runners are supposed to be a cut above the rest. You want opponents to only hit you half the time, and so any rule that lets you dive behind something and lower the rate at which you're taking damage is good.

Remember, you're shot at every session, most mooks/NPCs only last/appear in one. Anything that favours defence favours you.

[laughingowl]

Its also a house rule... (or house interpertation).

But teamwork rules might want to be considered.

Per Cannon, the player could instead of taking a shot provide a few extra dice for the sammy. (arguably pot shoots to force the npc out from cover).

A stretch though not prohibited would be giving the sammy extra dice on his dodge when he stands up and gets shot. The question is does the player make a 'dodge' roll himself (straight canon) or do you argue he is helping the sammy dodge by pot-shoots at the security guard.

Also a little tactics can help alot. The sammy should be going first (either naturually by initiative or delay your actions)... You might not kill people but you certainly can hit (since they now have penalties) easier and likely finish off any of the sammies targets.

Work with the sammy and get him in the habit if any one survives his burts for him to go to the next guard ... and the secondaries finish off the wounded ones. Their dodge rolls will be less (wounded), and the secondary shooters can likely finish them off (or atleast add even more penalties to their tests).

[kzt]

The first thing is that it's actually hard to find things that actually stop bullets. On an average street the only things that stop pistol bullets are fire hydrants, telephone poles and engine blocks. Neither of these will provide full cover, as there is at least 6" under the car though which to shoot your legs and fire hydrants/telephone poles just are not very wide.

Hiding behind a car door or an interior wall just makes you feel safe.

I'd remove the modifier for shooting from behind cover, as it just doesn't make sense. The most accurate position I've ever shot from was the foxhole supported position, in which just your head is exposed. It sure isn't less accurate than shooting offhand, which doesn't get any minus in the rules and is really much harder to shoot from accurately.

Once you find good cover it's actually hard to really use it. Most people expose a lot more than they think. (They do things like allow their back leg to stick out from behind the box, or expose the entire side of their chest.) So it's a lot more likely to be -2 than -4 unless they are a SWAT team or trained troops.


Anyhow, assuming the PCs are not doing full up blatant assaults with Alphas, grenades and drones with LMGs the obvious first trick is to reduce the chance of the PCs getting shot. As they are trying to be low-profile, carrying devices that are legal seems like a good idea.

So consider flash packs. Have everyone toss one BEHIND them (outside of the cover) at the start of the shooting. Adding a -4 modifier to the enemies dice pool will certainly reduce the odds of the enemy getting a hit. And not getting shot is always a good thing.

Add a (restricted) thermal smoke grenade and they enemies are at -8 dice before the PCs cover. Which typically makes it possible for the team to do the "run like hell" maneuver with a limited chance of a getting hit. It also makes it more possible for people to sprint to a flanking position and live if they want to fight it out.

Now to wear the opponents down, have the mage (they do have a mage, right?) use mana attacks on them. I'd suggest ones that won't nuke the mage from drain on a mediocre drain roll. The visibility mods effect them also, but a force 5 stunbolt does a minimum of 6 stun unless they make the resistance roll. And most people have a lower willpower than they do body and armor. Two hits will drop most opponents. And at 1 drain the mage should be able to keep it up for a long time, if needed. (Remember to shoot your pistol in their general direction as you do this).

[Dashifen]

[Ryu]

1.) If everybody has cover, shootouts should take long. We speed up things by forbidding OT-discussions between the players during combat. Actually rolling the tests is not what takes the time.

2.) The right tactics can speed up things. Much.

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Tactics. An average shooter with average attribute using outdated tech (no smartlink, no SM/AM-mode) SHOULD NOT DO SHOOTOUTS! His role should be finding a way out, or throw a grenade in the general direction of the enemy. Grenades are great indoors! If he does not want to use grenades, give him stick-and-shock ammo.

There is no KP-bonus for killing all guards. If there is combat at all, it should be running combat towards the target (around opposition) or the exit (again around opposition). Eleminating key enemies should fall to combat specialists (attribute 4+, skill 4+, smartlink).

If combat can´t be avoided: Anyone who cannot contribute to combat (method of choice) should work to improve the situation of the team. Create/destroy cover, do first aid, open doors, put out the lights etc. Combat will be over faster this way.

[sunnyside]

Oh for goodness sake kzt the cover rules don't need nerfing. Honestly they're pretty weak as it is in most situations. Just not the situation of low dice pools. And they aren't unrealistically high by any stretch.

Actually one thing I forgot to point out.

The game is called Shadowrun not shootout. I'm not sure if that's the origin of the name, but it is certainly a good piece of advice. Instead of getting tied down in a shoot out get some visibility mods on your side (shoot out the lights, throw up some smoke grenades, toss out some strobe lights or all of the above) and then run (+2 dodge for running and whatever you can get for full defense).

What I'm saying is that combat goes faster if the PCs simply evade it.

[Method]

[draglikepull]