[X] My Assistant

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Hell, one time I had a face who knew his cover was about to be blown failed his perception check and critically glitched his infiltration roll (which I also make in secret*) while trying to find a spot to lay low for a second while the team got to work creating a diversion. He ended up huddling in the corner of the break room next to a vending machine, completely oblivious of the secretary who promptly screamed and hosed him down with Pepper Punch and eventually tasered him on the next round. I mean, of course she was going to respond properly; she's technically one of the last people you see before getting into see the facility director in a world in which people have guns implanted into their arms.

*I let them stipulate whether they want to buy off glitches and 0 hit tests with Edge, before the roll, I just prefer that they don't know they've screwed up their stealth rolls until somebody spots them; kills the suspense.

We solved this dilemma by not actually rolling until they have been put into a situation where they might be spotted... at that point, the security team (drone, watcher, whatever) rolls its perception check while the infiltrator rolls his stealth... missed rolls are immediately obvious and initiative is immediately rolled... This tends to eliminate the "I rolled 9 Successes, so I am gonna go through this place with no real regards to what I am doing" syndrome...

Keep the Faith

[Ravor]

How do you handle glitches and crit glitches?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

How do you handle glitches and crit glitches?

Normal Ways... Spending Edge can negate, convert of course, however, when not obviated, then the glitch causes an immediate reroll for the opposition if they failed initially, and a crit glitch draws attention to the infiltrator, whether the opposition failled or not...

Has worked out great for our group... infiltrators tend to think about what they are about, rather than treating the infiltration like it was a walk in the park, knowing that the opposition had no way of detecting them...

Keep the Faith

[Whipstitch]

We solved this dilemma by not actually rolling until they have been put into a situation where they might be spotted... at that point, the security team (drone, watcher, whatever) rolls its perception check while the infiltrator rolls his stealth... missed rolls are immediately obvious and initiative is immediately rolled... This tends to eliminate the "I rolled 9 Successes, so I am gonna go through this place with no real regards to what I am doing" syndrome...

Keep the Faith

Man, that's a simple fix. I tend to overthink things sometimes.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Man, that's a simple fix. I tend to overthink things sometimes.

Yeah, It has worked wonders for us...

Keep the Faith

[toturi]

We solved this dilemma by not actually rolling until they have been put into a situation where they might be spotted... at that point, the security team (drone, watcher, whatever) rolls its perception check while the infiltrator rolls his stealth... missed rolls are immediately obvious and initiative is immediately rolled... This tends to eliminate the "I rolled 9 Successes, so I am gonna go through this place with no real regards to what I am doing" syndrome...

Keep the Faith

Eh... that just means you still roll immediately.

It is the difference between:
"Hey, where did Bob go?"

"Damn, I'm good."

and

"I can barely make you out, Bob. But I think you are just fine."

"OK."

Remember even your own teammates can try to make Perception against you.

[Cthulhudreams]

Sure. But why not shoot him with ammunition that won't kill him, and thus eliminate any chance you have of learning who sent him, what he was coming for, how he found the weaknesses in your defenses, and so on. You may learn nothing in the interrogation - although that's highly unlikely - but it costs you very little to try, given the possible benefits. Since nonlethal means are at least as effective as lethal means, you can afford to knock him out, try to find out what he knows, and then kill him if you want to. If you kill him first, you lose any other possibilities.

Okay, some things about shadow run

A) It's a 'two shot' enviroment. If you get hit, you are then going to die with the second shot because the wound penalties mean you won't be able to dodge properly

B) Everyone has actual armour. Some of it is quite effective. All of your threats are going to wearing armour that is better than what the cops have today (because it has fully body coverage and is rated IIA), and many of them are going to be wearing stuff that is rated Type V and is quite difficult to penetrate (FFBA + chamelone suits is 14 dice? and is definately within easy reach of orks.)

C) Ammo is insanely expensive, and stick and shock is AMAZINGLY expensive.

D) Your options are normal bullets, gel, APDS or stick and shock.

Effectiveness of those options

1) Gel is out: Typically it's just going to bounce and the extra two dice are not helping
2) SnS: Strong option, counted by non conductive armour. If armour modifications mods on FFBA and Chamelon suits stack due to the override provision in FFBA, it is completely useless I play that it doesn't, but it is unclear).
3) ADPS: Will kill people, highly effective vs shadowrunners
4) Normal Bullets: Not as good as APDS, may struggle vs tougher characters.

It obviously depends on the enviroment, but it's typically much more effective to go with the APDS and cheaper too. Stick and shock is worth considering if you do want to capture people, but seriously it's hard enough to stop your guys on the door dying, and it is both less effective and more expensive than APDS.

Whereas the Use of Force mandate specified by your employer is very much a concern, in the future as in the past. If nonlethal measures were vastly less effective than lethal ones - as they are today - then yes, jumping right to the killing is reasonable if the opposition is highly lethal, but that's simply not true in Shadowrun.

Do you guys watch what happens in Iraq? I ask because if you do, you'll see people get killed for driving up to checkpoints all the time. I am unclear on exactly what you think the difference is in threat environment is. Please clarify.

@Cost estimates: I know you can multiple so

3 people at checkpoint

5 people for each person at the checkpoint to run the other 2 shifts, one to be on training/sick and one to be on leave.

Medium lifestyle = 5k a month, thus once we include long term savings, we can say that salaries are 6k a month (we're not talking rentacops here)

Indirect costs of employment: twice a persons salary, approximately

Total cost = 3 * 5 * (5000 * 2) * 12 = 1800000 Nuyen

If I am over inflating the cost, please tell me EXACTLY which cost area you disagree with. This is a significant underestimate as it does not include capital costs such as the checkpoint and equipment, and no-one is allowed to take a lunchbreak.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Eh... that just means you still roll immediately.

It is the difference between:
"Hey, where did Bob go?"

"Damn, I'm good."

and

"I can barely make you out, Bob. But I think you are just fine."

"OK."

Remember even your own teammates can try to make Perception against you.

No, Of course they can, but the big difference is that you will not have people rolling tests every time they get a chance just to hopefully improve their infiltration threshold (which good GM's should curtail anyway)... it is IMMEDIATE rather than static... which, as I have said, tends to make people actually think about what they are doing rather than relying upon their nigh impenetrable infiltration successes of 9... it fosters a whole different level of interaction and caution. You never know how well you are gfoing to roll until it has possibly been defeated... Win-Win in my book

Keep the Faith

[toturi]

No, Of course they can, but the big difference is that you will not have people rolling tests every time they get a chance just to hopefully improve their infiltration threshold (which good GM's should curtail anyway)... it is IMMEDIATE rather than static... which, as I have said, tends to make people actually think about what they are doing rather than relying upon their nigh impenetrable infiltration successes of 9... it fosters a whole different level of interaction and caution. You never know how well you are gfoing to roll until it has possibly been defeated... Win-Win in my book

Keep the Faith

If you do not want people rolling tests every time, then shouldn't you make it static? Also house ruling tests like this makes it nearly impossible for Stealth type characters to work - if for every person they encounter (who then makes an opposed Perception test), they must make a Stealth skill check, it would mean that the odds of them eventually rolling low becomes a very real possibility and almost impossible to actually sneak or hide. In this case, you might as well just go in with guns blazing.

Unless of course, that is the type of campaign you want.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

If you do not want people rolling tests every time, then shouldn't you make it static? Also house ruling tests like this makes it nearly impossible for Stealth type characters to work - if for every person they encounter (who then makes an opposed Perception test), they must make a Stealth skill check, it would mean that the odds of them eventually rolling low becomes a very real possibility and almost impossible to actually sneak or hide. In this case, you might as well just go in with guns blazing.

Unless of course, that is the type of campaign you want.

It is not the amount of rolls tht is the issue, in general, we roll when it is dramatically appropriate, when there is tension... Static is boring and removes the illusion of danger, especially when you know that there is no way in hell that the individuals can see you (you made an exceptional roll with a high number of successes and are wearing equipment that will remove dice from their perception)... doing it this way brings back the tension BECAUSE you could roll poorly and be discovered... it injects an amount of potential danger back into the scenario...

And yes, it is the type of game we prefer; as I said, I have been in the other type of game, where the characters check each other with perception checks until they are effectively hidden (ie, they continue to roll until they get an acceptable roll, in their opinion)... it ruins the suspense and tension of the game...

Of course, the other option would then be to have the GM to secretly roll infiltration for everyone, but a lot of people do not like this solution (and the GM has better things to do anyway)... our way is a very happy medium, you are still in control of your own dice, but you do not have knowledge of the outcome before hand... it is quite a nice compromise...

Keep the Faith

[Saint Sithney]

If I am over inflating the cost, please tell me EXACTLY which cost area you disagree with. This is a significant underestimate as it does not include capital costs such as the checkpoint and equipment, and no-one is allowed to take a lunchbreak.

The part where they get paid in nuyen and have a hope for retirement where the corp doesn't simply liquidate them and their savings just to increase their 3rd quarter profits. These guys are nothing more than house slaves who don't know it because of strict information control and a lifetime of brainwashing. Hell, I'd also assume that they have a low lifestyle. Barracks life for years. Corpsec is property, not people. What are they going to do? Quit and get tossed out on the streets with nothing?

[Cthulhudreams]

Right, the problem with that is

A) You're going to get second rate personnel. I'm assuming we're guarding serious stuff, which means we have serious professionals with skill ratings of 4 and stats in 3-4 area. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys, and in the 6th world VITAS is going to ensure that labour shortages of skilled personnel are even more acute than than today, remember that the black death laid the foundations for the end of serfdom.

Now you COULD use underpaid chumps, but then you're going to get underpaid chumps, who professionals are going to carve through like a hot knife through better

B) Second rate troops just don't rate as a threat to a cyber sammie. You're dealing with hostiles with synaptic boosters II coming at you. Second rate troopers cannot even hit them. If they don't have cyberware, training and professionalism, they are just not going to be able to deal with the tight professionals and fantatics coming at them.

Basically it boils down to if you choose to use the Pakistan or Egyptian army vs the American or Israeli's. The opposition are slick pros, and those others guy don't know how individual initative is spelt due to conscription and bad schooling. How can you expect them operate correctly in a very difficult and infomation rich enviroment? It's proven not to work.

You're looking for people who will die for they are protecting!

[Ravor]

Part of the problem is that in the setting, despite the population reduction the SINless masses represent massive unemployment that allows the serfdom to still be a valid policy for the corps, and of course, I disagree with the idea that Runners in general are nearly as skilled as Dumpshock makes them out to be.

Nova Hot facilities of course are the exception, but even there I see the truly badassed guards as being the HRTs and not the standard shift rotation.

[Cthulhudreams]

The problem is the SINless are extremely poorly suited to have jobs. At Rouke's drift, the Zulu's had a couple of tens of thousands of rifles - but because they didn't understand how rifles work they didn't understand that because the bullet fell off at range, you didn't point directly at the target. So their snipers couldn't kill the english in the compound. Despite outnumbering them literally 1000:1.

The vast majority SINless haven't been to school. They don't even know how to do formal arithmetic. Most of them probably don't even know what thermo-optic camo even is, let alone how that impacts you as a guard.

The SR4 enviroment actually requires a fairly in depth education about the range of possible threats, because you have to know exactly what independant spirits, summoning mages, cyberzombies, adept, cybernetics, hackers, riggers and possession mages can all throw down at you. You have to be aware of magical, matrix and mundane threats and be aware of how to deal with them. You have to know exactly how to deploy smoke to maximumly impede mages, and also how to recognise that someone is possessed, or notice the you smell something that shouldn't be there.

You have to know how to operate ultrasound, radar, UV, thermal and low light optical equipment. You have to understand what capabilities that gives the guy with the sniper rifle firing at you (for example, you need to know to stand back from the metallic wall so your body heat doesn't warm it up). You have to be able to order dozens of different drones.

Soldiering has changed radically with the introduction of technology - now the US army tries to focus its recruiting efforts on those in the top 25% of mental apptitude. The threat environment in the future has cyber and magical warfare tightly intergrated. Unless you understand all categories of threats, you will not be particularly effective at your job. The consripts are going to run away from spirits, because to them they are literally a creature of myth. They'll fire their pistols 'Gangsta style' and not hit anything at all.

A beat cop of a soldier is a product of 12-14 years of training. A SINless doesn't have any of that. They are in the masses of unemployed because they have no skills at all.

[Ravor]

Sure, but I'd argue that the invent of simsense has leveled the playing field, 'jacks are cheap and allows the use of knowsofts which should cover most of the background training that you rightly bring up as being important, sure, their active skillsets would be below par, but the knowledge that you aren't really anything special and will be discarded by the corps after they rip out the one piece of tech you need to be able to survive in the world should provide the motivation to get better and fast.

[Cthulhudreams]

Umm, if your guard is powered entirely by skillwires and knowsofts, you should just use a robot. They can work 24 hours a day and don't get distracted/relax, and are cheaper in every way.

I'd fully support entirely automated facilities. A human guard obviously has to be more capable than a drone.

[Ravor]

Drones are only really cheaper if you go the skillwire route, which I don't necessarily agree with, knowsofts and 'jacks sure, but skillwires are alittle much for a simple guard.

*EDIT*

Plus I'm not sure that Drones are smart enough in play to be able to relaibly think on their feet to trust without a Rigger's overwatch.

[Cthulhudreams]

But someone using chipped skills and no actual knowledge of their own is? When you knowsoft someone up, you're just giving them computer programs to execute. Drones are incidently way cheap, a drone costs less than a datajack + equipment for a basic guard.

Actually this might help us understand each other - what do you think a basic guard looks like? At a secure research facility or something. (not at the mall)

[Ravor]

Well remember that I see the corps as merely renting the guard's equipment to them in order to keep them and their children's children endebted to the corp for all time whereas drones need regular repairs and upgrades, ect...


Still when I get a chance I'll have to stat out a few guards again, I lost most of my notes recently.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The problem is the SINless are extremely poorly suited to have jobs. At Rouke's drift, the Zulu's had a couple of tens of thousands of rifles - but because they didn't understand how rifles work they didn't understand that because the bullet fell off at range, you didn't point directly at the target. So their snipers couldn't kill the english in the compound. Despite outnumbering them literally 1000:1.

The vast majority SINless haven't been to school. They don't even know how to do formal arithmetic. Most of them probably don't even know what thermo-optic camo even is, let alone how that impacts you as a guard.

The SR4 enviroment actually requires a fairly in depth education about the range of possible threats, because you have to know exactly what independant spirits, summoning mages, cyberzombies, adept, cybernetics, hackers, riggers and possession mages can all throw down at you. You have to be aware of magical, matrix and mundane threats and be aware of how to deal with them. You have to know exactly how to deploy smoke to maximumly impede mages, and also how to recognise that someone is possessed, or notice the you smell something that shouldn't be there.

You have to know how to operate ultrasound, radar, UV, thermal and low light optical equipment. You have to understand what capabilities that gives the guy with the sniper rifle firing at you (for example, you need to know to stand back from the metallic wall so your body heat doesn't warm it up). You have to be able to order dozens of different drones.

Soldiering has changed radically with the introduction of technology - now the US army tries to focus its recruiting efforts on those in the top 25% of mental apptitude. The threat environment in the future has cyber and magical warfare tightly intergrated. Unless you understand all categories of threats, you will not be particularly effective at your job. The consripts are going to run away from spirits, because to them they are literally a creature of myth. They'll fire their pistols 'Gangsta style' and not hit anything at all.

A beat cop of a soldier is a product of 12-14 years of training. A SINless doesn't have any of that. They are in the masses of unemployed because they have no skills at all.

What you fail to realize in all of this is that you can acquire all of that training by enlisting in a Corporation and serve a stint in Desert Wars... you will learn all about everything that you just ran that comprehensive list of when it comes to environment, and opposition and threat assessment... at that point they move from the Desert to the Facility to become guards... No Formal schooling or knowledge other than hard life experience... MANY of your lower level guards for corporations would probably see something of a similar scenario... Experience trumps simple training every day of the week and twice on Sundays...

I knew a grunt in the Marine Corps that was not very bright when it came to classical education, and he scored the absolute minimum on the ASVAB test for entrance into the Military, but his experiences in both the grunts and in the Gulf War led to some pretty in depth knowledge in those things that you enumerate for a competent corporate security guard... and he was capable of operating every piece of equipment in the Marine Corps arsenal (Radios, UV, Thermal and even Low Light Optical Equipment), as well as most of the various weapons from light pistols to heavy machine guns (Including Rockets, Mortars and explosives)... you do not have to be cream of the crop (education wise) to be effective at your job...

And by the way... a typical beat cop serves in this capacity in the first year after Graduating from Cop School... not the 12-14 years you are ascribing to them... they must gain teh experience on the street just like any other beat cop... now whwen they have teh expereince of being on teh job for 14 years, then yes, they are very skilled...

Not all SINless are SINless because they have no skills...

Keep the Faith

[Dakka Dakka]

I get your point that you don't necessarily need academic education or aptitude to be a competent guard. On the other hand, once a guard has become skilled, through whatever means at his disposal, he is no longer part of the faceless masses of wage slaves. He is a trained professional and if his employer won't pay him accordingly or give him the necessary equipment to survive, he will simply leave to take a job with someone who pays better, unless the SR setting has changed in a way that there is even a surplus in skilled employees.

The problem with security guards, I asssume is, that the necessary skills are at least thought to be taught or learned quicker than a lot of academic or other professional skills.

BTW Those of the SINless who have skills will a) apply for one ASAP b) wouldn't want to become CorpSec Guards in the first place.

[3278]

This is one of those threads that just gets stranger the longer it goes on. I'm going to chalk it up to differences in play style and life experiences, and leave it at that.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

This is one of those threads that just gets stranger the longer it goes on. I'm going to chalk it up to differences in play style and life experiences, and leave it at that.

Really? Oh well...

Keep the Faith

[3278]

Really? Oh well...

Yeah. I've been in these situations before, and it generally ends up leading to a couple of guys listing off their qualifications, which just makes it look like I'm swinging my big dick around: this does no one any favors. That said, for purposes of credibility, I guess it wouldn't be a terrible idea for me to post to the "who the fuck are you, again?" thread.

Suffice to say I'm not convinced Cthuludreams knows what he's talking about, but people should do what works at their own tables.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah. I've been in these situations before, and it generally ends up leading to a couple of guys listing off their qualifications, which just makes it look like I'm swinging my big dick around: this does no one any favors. That said, for purposes of credibility, I guess it wouldn't be a terrible idea for me to post to the "who the fuck are you, again?" thread.

Suffice to say I'm not convinced Cthuludreams knows what he's talking about, but people should do what works at their own tables.

Yeah, everyone has their own opinions, and sometimes you just have to let it go...

Keep the Faith