How long do your combats last? Options

[GryMor]

A 'running' gun battle isn't going to last very long if the opposition comes out of cover against people with hyper perceptions and reflexes unless the opposition is attacking in a stream (or dispersed and being overrun).

[Cain]

[GoldenAri]

1) typically about 3 combat turns, shorter if one side is ambushing the other. I have run some longers combats because I was dismayed that fighter were getting resolved in 10 seconds or less.

2)Here's how I've been drawing them out. First, be a real stickler for movement distances. At a fast jog (free action level movement) most character only go about 2 car lengths per combat turn. Second, be a stickler for environmental effects acting as penalties to peoples dice pools. Range, visiblity, movement, distraction, cover, and anything else you can imagine should be making your runners lives more difficult. If the runners aren't looking at a consistant -4 dice to their pools due to conditions then you aren't doing your job right.

[Tarantula]

Everyone seems to forget, -4 to runners dicepools means an average sec guard is looking at 2 dice to shoot them. Sure, the fight will take longer, but the runners are in almost no danger of being hurt.

[Ryu]

Even better sec guards won´t like the combination of target in cover (-4), being in cover (-1) and thermo fog (variable). So instead of shooting immediately, some runners give suppression fire, one studies the map to find the quickest alternative route, and one throws a grenade (variety depending on situation).

You can also have the guards do something else than shooting at the runners. Try short! retreats. The first runner going around the corner will be the only available target for all guards with LOS. And all will hold their action for that situation. Lets say it is only fair play because the runner knows it beforehand. Unaugmented guards have either numerical superiority OR no business in an open firefight with runners.

[yoshikisquall]

Not sure if this will help but we'll do search and find/hunt type of missions. One of our pickup missions is the Wal-Mart run. Basically the GM will draw out a Walmart that is known to host portals for many weird magical creatures. He then ruled it as 1 square = 1 foot, so to get from one side to another is a full out run (mods for that). On top of that the monsters will randomly appear in different places and can move at any given time. Even when my character finally breaks her way into the security room I'm taking mods since it's many screens to watch and Wal-mart has crappy security cameras that shoot at even crappier angles. Since we're hunting down the prey and it's usually one on one fights it can take some time and many rounds. If you have something like that, where there's lots of terrain and you're not sure where everything is located at that may help. Dont know if this makes sense... Sorry.

[sungun]

barricades and digging in can make a fight last longer, but as already pointed out, grenades and the like can break that up pretty fast. so throw in something the runners don't want to blow up. if a delicate mission objective is hanging out with the enemy, the team is a lot less likely to start tossing grenades that way.

fire, smoke, toxic gas can make everyone have to displace a lot while reducing attack dice pools. and once a fire gets started, it can move around pretty quickly with the right material around. you can use a fire to push characters around and cut opponents off from one another. a collapsed section of roof or wall with it's five foot wall of flames should add a turn or two while people move around to get shots at eachother.

negotiation mid-fire fight can be tough, but can be done, especially in situations where everyone has grabbed some serious cover. if everyone can be convinced to hold fire for a minute, people can talk out their differences. (while the adept sneaks around for a flanking maneuver.)

and if you can make a fight last a few minutes, a docwagon high threat response team can really do some funny things to a firefight.

[Dayhawk]

Typically 3 turns but that takes almos an hour sometimes.

Longest was 12 turns at 3 hours...

Granted last game we ran through 6 turns in under 30 mins. Having a pre-generated grid/map of the area and using figurines helped people make up their minds faster so there was less, "Umm so what do I see now?" quetions.

Must finish my mapping program...

[Kairo]

Wow, this thread got brought back from the dead....

I'd say for our group the trend is roughly 4 combat turns per battle. We don't have uber-sick phys ads or street sams. Our runners are pretty much 'average' to 'above average' in fighting. They just tend to spend their skills on a broad spectrum to cover more ground.

[DocTaotsu]

Typically no more than 3 turns. Between the sniper, the troll, and now the mage... people don't really keep their heads on their shoulders easily (Suppressing fire+called shot FACE+liberal stunballs=Not A Lot Of Awake/Alive People).

I did keep them occupied with 2 APC's full of Azzie infantry for about 30 minutes in game. Once they sorted out that tactical problem they applied liberal amounts of APDS to it until the problem drove away (short one APC).

Generally speaking if runners are fighting for more than a couple rounds it usually a clear sign they've lost the element of surprise and no matter what the immediate results are, something big and nasty is going to show up shortly and ruin your day.

*Points at his players*
Better keep fleet of foot, I have a whole page devoted to "To Serve Cornered Runner: A Corps Sec Approach"


And yeah, wow. This was one dead and buried thread. Oops.
A final note, I just can't imagine any sort of intense gun battle going on for more than a couple minutes unless players are carrying embarrassing amounts of ammunition.

[deek]

Same here...3-4 combat turns max. Granted, all of the runners have 3IPs, so that is still a lot of actions, its just that gametime, its only 9-12 seconds...

I run 4-hour sessions, and I can only really get one combat in per session and still advance the story arc.

[Gargs454]

Our combats also tend to be on the order of 3 turns. Occasionally 4, but usually 3 is a long combat for us. All of which makes it amusing to me when the GM says "You hear the sounds of an approaching chopper" indicating the cops are on the way. Obviously, they would not normally be able to respond that fast, but it makes for a better game that way.

Cover and other modifiers are about all you can do to draw out the combats when the runners have multiple Initiative passes, mages, snipers, wide burst machine guns, etc.

[Stahlseele]

our battles last untill one party of the fight is dead and the other one is running to get out of there . . or something in between *g*
usually our fightsif facing larger groups tend to actually take some in game minutes(yes, minutes, i'm a tactical (read coward) player), so i tend to stick to cover and try to single out targets to kill and take my time aiming . . really annyoing if the GM let's a target stay in your line of sight for 3 turns of targeting just to have him drop (into cover or because of something else) before you can get the shot out with a -4 TN <.< . . in RL Time? dude, half to a whole day for one fight is more or less the norm with us x.x . .

[Feshy]

I think I have seen exactly one long fight in Shadowrun.

A street sam that had managed to survive the deadliest set of missions I had ever thrown at the players had earned the attention of a cyberzombie. He had actually escaped this cyberzombie on three or four separate occasions, but had never managed to kill it. Well, I figure the player's had enough, so I mentally noted "Okay, today the zombie leaves for a week long vacation so the player can get things together."

Well, somehow the player wound up at the airport, lightly armed, that very same day. I can't let a coincidence like that go.

"He's here? He can't have tracked me here too... Wait... why is that lunatic essence-hole wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt?"

Neither had heavy weapons, and the sam didn't want to get even close to melee range with that thing, so the whole fight was a protracted running battle through an airport, with both sides being regularly distracted by security (and both the sam and the zombie were very tough targets.)

[Ophis]

Three rounds is a long combat, mostly due to players going in for ambushes and any advantage they can get.

I think the longest we ever had was about 5 rounds.

[Samantha]

The team defeated 4 slightly lower powered to higher powered enemies. In one round. At the end of IP 3, there was no one left.

[arathian]

Usually between 2 and 5 turns. This is a lot of action though when everyone has 2 to 4 initiative passes.

For making the combat last longer, try a few of these: good cover, long range, Chameleon suits, Invisibility, visibility modifiers, infiltration, Ork/Troll goons, counterspelling dice, Background Count, Pain Editors, regeneration, Immunity to Normal Weapons, vehicles, high reaction, full dodge, ballistic shields, heavy armor, reinforcements, and group Edge.

[MaxHunter]

from the proverbial "1 pass" to really long battle involving skirmishes, tactical retreats, smoke grenades, long rounds of healing while sustaining suppressive fire, etc. Most combats end real fast and the one who surprised the other end up the winner.

I second Arathian's ideas, plus that of glossing over some parts of the combat. Still, Shadowrun is not a good game for protracted battles. Else it would be called Mercenaryrun

Cheers!

Max

[Fortune]

from the proverbial "1 pass" to really long battle involving skirmishes, tactical retreats, smoke grenades, long rounds of healing while sustaining suppressive fire, etc. Most combats end real fast and the one who surprised the other end up the winner.

Since he agreed with me in another thread, I'll agree with Max. Well, that's not the only reason ... I do actually agree with his statement too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Serial_Peacemake...]

Well I believe the longest fight I ever ran lasted something like a half minute. Though it would have been longer if I had realized it was very, very tactically unsound for the opposition mage I was running to attempt to banish the mages spirit.