The ninth session.., .. near the end of my tether Options

[suoq]

It never occurred to me that he thought 1% meant that there wouldn't be someone with talent in whatever building Zod is getting levitated up to. It seemed so obvious that the locals, gangers, and thugs would have minor mages in their ranks that I never considered he thought 1% meant 0%.

[AppliedCheese]

Well strictly, its 1% magically active...if you split 50/50 adepts/mages, now your down to 1/200 people, and if you bell curve it from 3 as average, only 1/400 people is a "competent" mage, less than 1/1000 is a "4" and 1/10000 people is a runner class mage by inherent talent. You start talking 6s and 7s, and your literally looking at 1 in a million.

[Paul]

How do you know you're a nerd....

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Ok, but seriously, you have to look at how the world should work by now: Magic has been around. The Corps AND the organised crime know it's valuable. It's simply LAME to say otherwise, no matter what the books say. Being able to do magic is so much of an "I win" button that the corps will be licking their fingers over every mage they can find, and so will every cartel, or whatever. I think the deal with smaller corps not having them (and hence low magical security) is really not being able to afford them, because that value creates a demand, and the demand creates a price which small corps can't pay, save, say, for a few wards here and there.

And concerning mage stats, there is no formalized mechanism linking stats to amounts of education and training people receive, but I would say that the average mage WILL get more of that than the average non-mage. Adepts are a mixed bag, because they have only limited utility uses, and aren't universally useful as magical security (although adepts with astral perception can make and maintain wards). So personally I would do it something like this: Gangers and common criminals get the dropouts from mage school (magic 3 or less) and self-taught mages (around 2) from the really poor districts, corps get the regular schooled mages, that is 4s and up, while the organised crime elements will probably train their own (to 3-4 at least) (and possibly from a young age to build loyalty). Those who are bored with all of that become runners.

AND I have to adapt my game world the PCs, as in, adjust what I believe is normal. In my current group we are 100% magically active - one mage and four adepts. Where min-maxing is concerned we are much better off than hyphz, because simply put, the mage is the only really min-maxed guy, and he didn't do it very well (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . He's still a pain, but easy to annoy. In karmagen min-maxing is also obviously less of a problem, and hence most people have skills of 3-4 for their good fields, and 5s in their specialty, but usually not more. A "normal" specialist NPC can hence easily have 3-4 in their specialty without breaking the game world, so a "normal" mage can easily throw 8 dice for his spells, maybe more for a specialty. That is enough to hit a PC with a stunbolt! I even got through the mage's defenses in astral space, because all his nice sustained spells were not active there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) .

[suoq]

Yes, but really all you need is a dude who can see in the astral and a gun to take potshots at the mage while he's floating Zod 5 stories above the payment. Have a few other inhabitant of the tenement open up to defend their building and maybe, just maybe, there would be a fight scene, especially if the GM doesn't just say "you win, they all die" and actually rolls some dice and gives the people in the building the benefit of cover.

[Glyph]

My attitude about mages is, yeah, they're rare... so are doctors. But if I walk into a hospital, lo and behold, there are lots of doctors, all over the place! It's the same way with shadowrunners. Most shadowrunning teams have at least one mage. Most corporate compounds have at least one on-site mage, or wards and a patrolling spirit at the very least. Corporations, criminal syndicates, and gangs will all have awakened talent. It is only rare in the general population, not in the criminal, security, and corporate sectors that shadowrunners typically come into contact with.

[nylanfs]

The 1% is the same percentage as doctors to non-doctor's (at least it was a couple of years ago).

[Midas]

Single stats aren't niches. What when Zod has to check his assault rifle? Why, he uses his concealed machine pistol, which is fired with Automatics, instead. Dodge skill is pretty useless except in melee because using it leaves you pinned, as above.

You don't have to start super-specialized? Well sure, you don't, but that's kind of a lame thing to have to consider in character generation. "If I gain a few more karma I can be as good as I could have been at character generation if I hadn't deliberately allowed myself advancement room."

Can't get into a secure location? Unless it's an arcology (which in SR it might be, but hasn't been yet), the target is coming out sometime.

Really? You can smuggle a machine pistol into a bar or a mall or an airport? MAD scanners would find it quite easily. Hell, a pat-down would find something as big as a machine pistol no problem. You are the GM and it is your gameworld, but if you think a concealed machine pistol is the leading edge of subtlety no wonder the Automatics skill is the only weapons skill Zod needs. I am willing to bet your PCs walk around in full armour all the time without raising an eyebrow as well. You tell us you want to challenge your players, but then seem reluctant to do so.

As for not being able to get into a secure location, sometimes that is the goal in SR. Wetwork (assassination) is only one of a number of "standard" SR jobs which include stealing MacGuffins/paydata, extractions, bodyguarding, finding missing people etc. In all the above cases (including wetwork), getting into secure facilities and/or traveling through high-security neigbourhoods may be required. As a GM, you owe it to your players to present them with different kinds of challenge, and to prevent their standard tactics from always being an Insta-Win button. For what it's worth, I think you are trying, but perhaps you could try a little harder.

As for one-trick min-maxed monstrosities, there is a reason that the GM has to approve any character that is brought to his table. For myeslf, I always want the character to have some internal logic as to his/her abilities, 'ware and skillset. How did Zod learm to be a god of Automatics? Was he trained in the military? Did he grow up on the mean streets and fall in with a gang? Or did some mentor come along, realize his talent and teach him? Or was it something else? Next you think about the background and think what other skills he may have garnered while learning to shoot the crap outta fings. What did he do before becoming a runner? Was he an assassin, or just a mob heavy? If the player wants the former background, how did he get to his sniper positions before he came across Dawg and his invisible levitation trick?

Take the PC's out of their comfort zone, force them to adapt, and occasionally throw a spanner in the works when they use their standard tactics. If you can achieve this, you will find you have ramped up the tension and your players will be so much more satisfied.

[Traul]

How did Zod learm to be a god of Automatics? (...) What did he do before becoming a runner?

2 words: vat grown. Background done (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

2 words: vat grown. Background done (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Heh, I had a character like that, but he was the min-maxed god of all-roundedness (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . Well... that was SR3, so there were fewer skills you had to have, but still...

[Glyph]

Zod, in game, has been challenged, nearly being killed by another sniper, suffering because he lacks B&E skills, etc. But the other side of the coin is that having his high combat dice pool should not be an instant win, either - and you need to learn how to deal with those, because Zod only has his glaring weaknesses because he was put together by a new player. You can certainly make a character with a dice pool of 20 or so, who also can function in other areas.

I think it boils down to having more mooks who use elementary tactics and don't bunch up together. Someone already gave an example of how a few mooks could take Zod down after he used his action to take the first one of them down. And honestly, I think Zod would probably enjoy the game more if he did take a few wounds, or have a few scary moments, here and there. And I think you're making progress in that area, you just have a few mental blocks - I can be the same way sometimes, shooting myself down with a bunch of reasons before I even try something. I think if you run scenarios a bit more fast and loose, and hold the NPCs back a bit less, the game will get better.

[Neraph]

The 1% is the same percentage as doctors to non-doctor's (at least it was a couple of years ago).

In America I think it's 0.5% - 1% are military servicemembers.

[Warlordtheft]

Well strictly, its 1% magically active...if you split 50/50 adepts/mages, now your down to 1/200 people, and if you bell curve it from 3 as average, only 1/400 people is a "competent" mage, less than 1/1000 is a "4" and 1/10000 people is a runner class mage by inherent talent. You start talking 6s and 7s, and your literally looking at 1 in a million.

I did the math problem in a thread, and taking the base rate of 1% or 0.5% across the general population and applying it to shadow runners, corp security, criminal outfits, and other subgroups is erroneous way to anylyze that tidbit published back in 2E (the 2050's to 2060's). And according to the book magic is getting stronger.

So a better method is to do it from the top down. Assume a population of 10 million. At a .5% that indicates that there are 50,000 mages of varying power levels. Most are 3 or 4 (50%), the 1's and 2's are probably perfecting their craft (20%-mostly younger folk), and significant % are 5 (let's say 20%), and probably 10% are a 6.

So there are 5,000 in this group with a rating 6 in magic, 10,000 with a 5, and 25,000 eith a 3 or 4.

Ok, now lets suppose that in a population of the 10 million, 1% are law enforcement/security, 1% are organized crime, 3% are street gangs, and 0.1% are shadow runners. That means there are 100,000 cops/security, 100,000 in the mafia, yakuza, etc, 300,000 in various street gangs, and 10,000 runners. Let's suppose that for the cops/corpsec, 10% are mages of magic 3 or higher, organized crime is 1% mages at level 3 or higher, street gangs are 1% but rating 1 to 4 (mostly 1-3). Runners are 20% mages, ratings 3 or higher.

Cops/Corp Sec have 10,000 mages out of the pool that is 40,000.
Organized Crime has 1,000 mages out of that 40,000.
Runners have 2,000 mages.
Gangers would have 3000 mages.

That would leave about 27,000 mages of rating 3 or higher doing corporate research/medicine/entertainment. It would also leave about 7,000 low level mages learneing their craft. Of the population 44,000 are not illegally practicing their craft.

You can adjust the assumptions and percentages to nothing of course, but that to me wouldn't jive with SR.

[NumptyScrub]

Really? You can smuggle a machine pistol into a bar or a mall or an airport? MAD scanners would find it quite easily. Hell, a pat-down would find something as big as a machine pistol no problem.

Well, in fairness there is a weapon mod that helps there: ceramic components / plasteel components, and it is a no-brainer for the concealable weapon you want as your hold-out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

It may have been "playing it wrong" but in the first session my infiltrator snuck into a club past 2 troll guards and a MAD scanner, while carrying his sniper rifle and an AR for Zod. He was invisible (force 5), and timed it to go in at the same time as a punter, letting the punter take the fall for the alarm bells (I rolled 9 hits on the infiltration test to sneak past and time it). Is this broken and should have been punished, or a creative use of team skills?

Take the PC's out of their comfort zone, force them to adapt, and occasionally throw a spanner in the works when they use their standard tactics. If you can achieve this, you will find you have ramped up the tension and your players will be so much more satisfied.

This I completely and unequivocably agree with. Hyphz is by nature a cautious guy, and tends to try and play it safe. I don't think he's doing the setting justice keeping things toned down, when we are quite obviously running rampage in a high tech city. Bring the pain, and let the dice fall where they may, we can always reroll new chars (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Well, in fairness there is a weapon mod that helps there: ceramic components / plasteel components, and it is a no-brainer for the concealable weapon you want as your hold-out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

It may have been "playing it wrong" but in the first session my infiltrator snuck into a club past 2 troll guards and a MAD scanner, while carrying his sniper rifle and an AR for Zod. He was invisible (force 5), and timed it to go in at the same time as a punter, letting the punter take the fall for the alarm bells (I rolled 9 hits on the infiltration test to sneak past and time it). Is this broken and should have been punished, or a creative use of team skills?

It's nice, actually, with the exception that a high-class club would probably have a ward active around the entrances. Wards aren't really that expensive - a few grand every few months.

The problem with the tactic is that the fall guy will obviously be searched, and if they find nothing they are going to get suspicious that they got a (probably huge) alert on their scanners.

[suoq]

in the first session my infiltrator snuck into a club past 2 troll guards and a MAD scanner, while carrying his sniper rifle and an AR for Zod. He was invisible (force 5)

You got into a club carrying a sniper rifle and an AR, past 2 troll guards and a punter, while the scanners sounded an alarm without bumping into anyone?
And when the alarms went off the whole club didn't turn to look?
or at least the 1-2 people in the club who could see astral didn't turn to see why the scanners are going off and see you and the guns glowing bright as daylight?

How long did you remain in the club, sustaining that invisibility, while no one opened their third eye?

[Paul]

You got into a club carrying a sniper rifle and an AR, past 2 troll guards and a punter, while the scanners sounded an alarm without bumping into anyone?

"My friends and I are happy to see you, and would like to buy you a drink. Or two...."

[Cheops]

It's nice, actually, with the exception that a high-class club would probably have a ward active around the entrances. Wards aren't really that expensive - a few grand every few months.

The problem with the tactic is that the fall guy will obviously be searched, and if they find nothing they are going to get suspicious that they got a (probably huge) alert on their scanners.

That was a very cool move actually. This group seems to be doing a very good job of making up for each other's weaknesses through teamwork. The huge alert is really no different than if they'd had a hacker go in and edit the scanner. At least with this method it doesn't leave any digital trail. Warding is correct -- unless it was a bar that catered to mages in which case they may only have wards around the manager's office/safe (so that people can go in with their fashion/physical mask/shapechange/orgy/resist alcohol or whatever).

I've come to a conclusion in SR4 that there is actually no point in bothering with magical defense. All that magical defense does is create a "hacker problem" for mages where you get stuck playing out 20+ mins of the mage trying to deal with stuff that no one else can deal with so the rest of the party just tunes out. Actually making your business dual natured is MORE likely to result in magical problems than if you don't. There isn't too much that a mage can do to an office safe that isn't easy to defeat with matrix/physical security or at least make very obvious (eg. camera sends an alert as soon as safe is no longer visible in its current spot, hidden pressure sensors wired to warning light on the bar).

As to the magical problems this group is having I wouldn't worry about them too much. Eventually the day will come when Dawg isn't around when the rest of the group needs him and then their weaknesses will be glaringly obvious. Having an easy time of things through clever plans and ideas is a reward for Shadowrun just like nuyen and karma. Personal annecdote so YMMV: clever planning is the one reward that will be talked about long after everyone has forgotten their characters's stats.

[hyphz]

I think from some of the previous posts I've spotted a major math error we've been making that could tilt things dramatically in Zod's favour.

[Yerameyahu]

Ha! Oh boy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

You got into a club carrying a sniper rifle and an AR, past 2 troll guards and a punter, while the scanners sounded an alarm without bumping into anyone?
And when the alarms went off the whole club didn't turn to look?
or at least the 1-2 people in the club who could see astral didn't turn to see why the scanners are going off and see you and the guns glowing bright as daylight?

How long did you remain in the club, sustaining that invisibility, while no one opened their third eye?

The punter goes in with you in tail, the alarm goes off, you squeeze past and rush it to the toilets, where you drop the invis in a cabin. Now what you are going to do with two big guns in a club is a question I won't bother to answer. Why you would even WANT to take them I even don't know, because probably the Elan with S&S would serve you just as well in a place where noone has either a big gun nor heavy armour.

[hyphz]

Oh. Another question - Do I need to be using all the supplements?

My original plan was to use the corebook and Arsenal only, but the problem seems to be that the supplements take away as much as they give. Unwired, for example, might give some power ups to hackers but it also introduces secure slaving and other things which make things harder or remove handwavium. So is it really needed to have them all in mind?

[Paul]

As the GM you determine which books are allowed, and what in each book is allowed.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

As the GM gaming group you determine which books are allowed, and what in each book is allowed.

That's how it should be...

The GM gets a bit more voting power because ultimately he has the most work, and generally if he has serious reservations people should listen to him, but that doesn't mean that if four players in the group want to include something, and the GM doesn't, that he isn't out-voted. Ultimately, you have to decide such things as a group, because the GM doesn't win if his group is unhappy (and vice versa, naturally).

However, since you are all new to the system, it might be a good idea to add slowly. You might, for instance, introduce stuff from Augmentation as new tech bit by bit. That's obviously a change from canon, but... makes things more manageable, and the players have to accept it when you say you simply don't know this stuff, yet.

Now, to give you something more substantial to go on:

I would include:
Augmentation: Yes, it beefs up PCs, but generally SR isn't the same without it.
Street Magic: Selectively. This one is not as necessary as Augmentation, but as an old SR3 player I often miss things without including it.
Unwired: I actually like this book, because it gives you possibilities as the GM. You just have to watch out for where 4A overrules it

I have reservations against:
War
RC if you don't get rid of a lot of stuff; Obviously karmagen (in a possibly errata'd/house-ruled form) is practically mandatory

The splattier splats you might as well exclude, even though their impact on the game should be minor. You might consider Way of the Adept, and This old Drone, because it adds options and flavour stuff. You might also consider Spy Games, because it finally includes a lot of options which didn't exist previously.

[Paul]

That's how it should be...

At your table. At ours my players have elected to allow me to determine this. There is no one true way.