How do you reduce lethality, 5th Edition Options

[Mordoth]

Since starting to play 5th Edition, seems like there are lot more instances of near party wipes occurring when there is combat. It's become common for 2-3 members to be in overflow and the rest seriously injured. We've even had several members have to burn edge to avoid total death.

The main thing I can pin-point is the change to automatic fire rules, i.e. now they reduce dodge instead of increasing damage. So I'm looking for ideas on how to mitigate some of this lethality.

I played 4th Edition pretty extensively, and it seems like lethality has quadrupled in 5th Edition.

[Umidori]

Increased lethality was one of the design goals for 5E. Consequently, it'll be pretty hard to drop it back down to 4E levels without major modifications, at which point you have to ask why you don't just play 4E instead.

That said...

I don't see much difference in the automatic fire rules. It used to be you could choose to do a "Narrow" burst for more damage, or a "Wide" burst to reduce the enemy's dodge pool. In 5E, all they did was make it so that all bursts are "Wide". So I suspect you're on the wrong tack with that idea, even though it sounds reasonable enough on the surface.

Of course, there could be a ton of other factors playing into things.

Do you apply all appropriate combat modifiers, including visibility, light levels, wind conditions, weapon ranges, movement modifiers, prone modifiers, superior position, et cetera? These sorts of modifiers can do a lot to limit an attacker's dice pool, making it easier to defend against attacks. I know the bookkeeping can seem like a pain, but it really does change the way fights play out.

Do your players make smart tactical choices? If you want to survive, you need to know how to utilize cover, how to move around the battlefield effectively, how to prioritize your targets, how to coordinate as a team, and perhaps most importantly, when to cut and run.

Do you take into account the Professional Ratings of NPCs? If a group of eight ordinary gangers or corpsec guards try to take on the Runners, all you have to do is take out two of them and the rest will run away. If a GM ignores their Professional Rating and has the same group of eight mooks fight to the bitter end, the opposition ends up having a lot more chances to inflict damage and either wear the Runners down bit by bit, or get a lucky roll and just plain cream someone.

~Umi

[Lobo0705]

I second everything Umidori said.

If you want to stay alive as runners, you need to maximize your chances of survival. Suppressing fire, flash grenades, smoke grenades, spells to decrease the attacker's dice pools, ambush, are all very important.

I would say the most important thing to surviving combat is also minimizing the amount of times you get into it.

Get into big firefights, over and over again, and you are going to get killed eventually. A bomber pilot in WWII had only a 1% chance of getting shot down, but if you fly 40 or so missions, that number gets real high, real fast.

As an aside, having never played 4e, 5e with its whole "You can only shoot once per IP" seems much less dangerous than 3e. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Mordoth]

Do you apply all appropriate combat modifiers, including visibility, light levels, wind conditions, weapon ranges, movement modifiers, prone modifiers, superior position, et cetera? These sorts of modifiers can do a lot to limit an attacker's dice pool, making it easier to defend against attacks. I know the bookkeeping can seem like a pain, but it really does change the way fights play out.

Do your players make smart tactical choices? If you want to survive, you need to know how to utilize cover, how to move around the battlefield effectively, how to prioritize your targets, how to coordinate as a team, and perhaps most importantly, when to cut and run.

Do you take into account the Professional Ratings of NPCs? If a group of eight ordinary gangers or corpsec guards try to take on the Runners, all you have to do is take out two of them and the rest will run away. If a GM ignores their Professional Rating and has the same group of eight mooks fight to the bitter end, the opposition ends up having a lot more chances to inflict damage and either wear the Runners down bit by bit, or get a lucky roll and just plain cream someone.

~Umi

In reply to your first point I've quoted here. I doubt all the appropriate modifiers are being applied by the GM.

To the second point, we're not really getting a good description of the type of things we can take advantage of to utilize cover.
The team formulates a general plan, but once it's going, there's not much that it tactical.

From what I have seen, ALL NPCS will fight to the last man, to the bitter end. NPC's cut and run?!?! Perish the thought, not in our GM's world chummer.

[FuelDrop]

Hmmm...
Well, using things like Flash Pacs and smoke grenades can help. Using Gel Rounds for their knockdown bonus or S&S for electricity benefits should frustrate your GM a little and may get him to respond in kind which will make combat a lot more survivable (also, stun tracks tend to be shorter than physical).

knockout gas and gas masks work great until the GM starts giving every foe ever a gas mask, but you should get one session of surprise out of it.

after you've taken out a bunch of hostiles tell your GM "I'm calling out for the enemy to surrender" and roll intimidate. Either he blatantly ignores your legitimate use of a skill, your enemy respond, or you rolled crap. Suppression fire can help in this situation.

[Cain]

You know, I've noticed the opposite. It's been my experience that one-shot kills are very rare in SR5. Now, I haven't tried working with grenades or area attacks yet, but so far, I've found that it's really, really hard to one-shot anybody, and if people go down, it's because they've been hit multiple times. Based on that, if you're having trouble, maybe you're getting outnumbers in the open a little too much? Cover is your best friend in a firefight.

[RHat]

To the second point, we're not really getting a good description of the type of things we can take advantage of to utilize cover.

Try asking. Also, try asking why the hell a bunch of gangers are fighting to the last man, when that's the last thing in the world it makes sense for them to do. Try asking specifically about whether this or that modifier is in play. It may well be that your GM isn't thinking about this stuff; perhaps, if prompted, he will start.

[RHat]

You know, I've noticed the opposite. It's been my experience that one-shot kills are very rare in SR5. Now, I haven't tried working with grenades or area attacks yet, but so far, I've found that it's really, really hard to one-shot anybody, and if people go down, it's because they've been hit multiple times. Based on that, if you're having trouble, maybe you're getting outnumbers in the open a little too much? Cover is your best friend in a firefight.

I don't know - there's a lot of ways to get one-shot in SR5.

[Cain]

I don't know - there's a lot of ways to get one-shot in SR5.

Well, it might be a YMMV thing, but here's an example of what I mean.

We were playing through the first Chicago Missions run, when we encountered the sniper. In addition to me, there was a sample street samurai, fresh out of the book, and a decker, who stayed out of the fight. The sam got hit three times by the sniper, and was still fighting (although he had taken a fair amount of damage). In return, we hit the sniper twice, one of those being a Edged hit for sixteen successes. Despite that, he still got away. None of us managed to kill anyone, and the only reason the sam took so much damage was because he was caught in the open.

Granted, my experience with SR5 is less than others, but so far, the only times I've seen someone go down was from multiple hits.

[Umidori]

Man, sixteen successes must be the WORST feeling the world in SR5 thanks to weapon accuracy.

That said, what kind of sniper aims for the Street Sam?

~Umi

[ShadowDragon8685]

Man, sixteen successes must be the WORST feeling the world in SR5 thanks to weapon accuracy.

That said, what kind of sniper aims for the Street Sam?

~Umi

One who's reasonably confident that a Spirit will take longer to track him down amidst the mass of living things nearby/the massively hostile Astral environment, than the street samurai's cyberears-linked audio triangulation will take to zero in on his location and start paying him back and forwards with launched explosive weapons.



Anyway, no matter the edition, remind your GMs that most people aren't fanatics. Even professional soldiers will cut and run if they sufficient casualties.

The exception, of course, being if they have nowhere to run to. Sun Tzu wrote of what happens when you corner an enemy where he can't get away; he fights to the last, because he has no alternative. That's going to remain true for as long as folks are trying to kill each other, IE, until there's more than one sapient being with an axe to grind left in the universe. Even a bunch of bangers will shoot it out to the last man if you corner them in a warehouse and the only doors are behind you, and corpsec will fight to the last even if they're not red samurai, if they have no avenues of retreat and no confidence that they can surrender without being summarily capped to prevent them from talking.


[e]Of course, remember that perception is important in this. If the enemy doesn't recognize a valid way of retreating as such, it's as good as having no retreat as all.

On the other hand, if they don't realize that a potential avenue of escape is not (such as if you have hidden assets in play along that path, assets such as, say, a concealed machine gunner or trigger-able explosive charges,) then so much the better for you, if for some reason wiping them out is preferable to just letting them leg it.

[Cain]

Man, sixteen successes must be the WORST feeling the world in SR5 thanks to weapon accuracy.

That said, what kind of sniper aims for the Street Sam?

~Umi

Luckily, it was an Edged hit, which blew the limit out of the water. Still, it should have dropped anything!

And I know, I know. Geek the mage first. We didn't have a mage, and the sam was in the open.

[FuelDrop]

Luckily, it was an Edged hit, which blew the limit out of the water. Still, it should have dropped anything!

Yeah, even a holdout should have dropped any non-troll non-milspec target with that many hits.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Luckily, it was an Edged hit, which blew the limit out of the water. Still, it should have dropped anything!

And I know, I know. Geek the mage first. We didn't have a mage, and the sam was in the open.

Yeah... Makes me wonder how the Sniper REALLY survived.

[Kyrinthic]

The main thing I can pin-point is the change to automatic fire rules, i.e. now they reduce dodge instead of increasing damage. So I'm looking for ideas on how to mitigate some of this lethality.

As the next poster said, all SR5 changed was removing the narrow burst.

you need, on average 3 dice per hit in a dodge pool (well any pool really). This means 3 points of a wide burst in SR4 to get an extra success on an opposed test, effectively. Or 3 points per extra damage if you have landed the hit. It can also be wasted when shooting someone with a low enough dodge pool.
A narrow burst was straight +damage, or 1 to 1 damage if you land the hit.

Effectively speaking, SR5 you are somewhat more likely to get tagged, but a LOT less likely to get one-shotted.
The kind of damage numbers a high pool automatics user could get with burst fire in 4th were scary enough to make the trolls look for cover.

Other than that, as everyone has said, tactics are everything, and avoiding or minimizing fights is the best way to not die.

[mister__joshua]

As the next poster said, all SR5 changed was removing the narrow burst.

you need, on average 3 dice per hit in a dodge pool (well any pool really). This means 3 points of a wide burst in SR4 to get an extra success on an opposed test, effectively. Or 3 points per extra damage if you have landed the hit. It can also be wasted when shooting someone with a low enough dodge pool.
A narrow burst was straight +damage, or 1 to 1 damage if you land the hit.

Effectively speaking, SR5 you are somewhat more likely to get tagged, but a LOT less likely to get one-shotted.
The kind of damage numbers a high pool automatics user could get with burst fire in 4th were scary enough to make the trolls look for cover.

Other than that, as everyone has said, tactics are everything, and avoiding or minimizing fights is the best way to not die.

Whilst this is true for burst fire, note that for all other combat the reverse is true. Due to defense being based on 2 stats instead of one, and base damage numbers being higher across the board, as a general rule you are less likely to get hit but more likely to be seriously injured/killed when you are.

[Draco18s]

Following off some of this:

Do your players make smart tactical choices? If you want to survive, you need to know how to utilize cover, how to move around the battlefield effectively, how to prioritize your targets, how to coordinate as a team, and perhaps most importantly, when to cut and run.

This. So much of this.

There have been so many firefights I've had characters in where the collective damage taken by the party averages out to something like 6-8 boxes per character and I've had no more than two.

Why? Because I wasn't stupid and took cover behind a thick wooden object, making myself a poor target while the rest of the team bum rushes the opposition.

Do you take into account the Professional Ratings of NPCs? If a group of eight ordinary gangers or corpsec guards try to take on the Runners, all you have to do is take out two of them and the rest will run away. If a GM ignores their Professional Rating and has the same group of eight mooks fight to the bitter end, the opposition ends up having a lot more chances to inflict damage and either wear the Runners down bit by bit, or get a lucky roll and just plain cream someone.

Borrowing a rule from a completely unrelated game where each player actually controls a squad....

Morale.

The way it worked in Albedo was that your underlings had a morale score. It generally started at "2" unless reasons. Being shot at would reduce it by 1. Explosions occurring "nearby" anywhere would reduce it by 1. Being injured would reduce it by 1... You can see where that's going. A commander could also spend actions to give his morale points to his underlings (your prime character had three attributes, physical, mental, and social, and would take morale damage to the social score, which was generally 4-7, but you could also give those points to your underlings).

At positive morale values they'd obey orders as normal. At 0 they would cower in fear, but could be motivated to continue. At negative values they'd cut and run, screw the chain of command.

It might be worth taking that kind of mechanic and apply it to the NPCs in your game. Each mook only has a point or three of morale and every time something untoward happens (grenade, buddy gets shot, etc) they lose a point. Their superior has a (larger) pool that he can spend keeping his guys in line, but if the mooks drop to/below 0 they run away. You'd probably have to find the right balance for your game, but it would certainly contribute to keeping the PCs alive.

[yesferatu]

I'm curious what threats your team is facing.
Would it be possible to scale down the response teams a little by dropping a member or changing their gear a little?

Every NPC can't have top of the line everything every time.
A standard security guard with a predator can't easily hit for more than like 10P even on a good hit. Maybe you don't need to 10 guards when 6 would do.
Or...if full auto is killing your players...don't use it as often.

***You could also run a simulated combat yourself to gauge the level of difficulty before running the session.***
It's possible your group is under-geared/powered or your NPCs might just be getting lucky.

*For the record, our group has found the opposite after switching from 4th to 5th.*

[Jack VII]

I'm still not entirely sure how something that wasn't in MilSpec armor or a high force spirit survived a 16 success hit from a weapon that can come close to reaching sniping ranges. Was this explained? (I'm also kind of shocked by a 16 success hit, but I guess it is possible with supremely high dice pools and Edge)

[Cain]

I'm still not entirely sure how something that wasn't in MilSpec armor or a high force spirit survived a 16 success hit from a weapon that can come close to reaching sniping ranges. Was this explained? (I'm also kind of shocked by a 16 success hit, but I guess it is possible with supremely high dice pools and Edge)

According to the GM, the sniper got a really good soak roll. He may have spent Edge, too. He was definitely wounded pretty seriously, but he did survive. Remember, the street sam took three direct hits from the sniper and was still in the fight, although he spent a lot of Edge to do so. Edge is really powerful.

[Epicedion]

According to the GM, the sniper got a really good soak roll. He may have spent Edge, too. He was definitely wounded pretty seriously, but he did survive. Remember, the street sam took three direct hits from the sniper and was still in the fight, although he spent a lot of Edge to do so. Edge is really powerful.

Enemy NPCs shouldn't have Edge unless they're Prime Runner level NPCs. More likely the GM just didn't want the sniper to die. I'm presuming it would require at least 15 hits to survive the shot, which is implausible unless it's a max Body troll in security armor with a riot shield with extra armor and body cyberware and still very lucky.

[Cain]

Enemy NPCs shouldn't have Edge unless they're Prime Runner level NPCs. More likely the GM just didn't want the sniper to die. I'm presuming it would require at least 15 hits to survive the shot, which is implausible unless it's a max Body troll in security armor with a riot shield with extra armor and body cyberware and still very lucky.

I don't have a copy of it, but she was using the stats in the first Chicago Mission; I don't know if he had Edge or not. I do know he had good cover, which in SR5 is a bonus to the defense roll. Since in SR5, you get two chances to negate damage-- defense roll and soak roll-- I think it's possibly less implausible than you're saying.

[RHat]

I don't have a copy of it, but she was using the stats in the first Chicago Mission; I don't know if he had Edge or not. I do know he had good cover, which in SR5 is a bonus to the defense roll. Since in SR5, you get two chances to negate damage-- defense roll and soak roll-- I think it's possibly less implausible than you're saying.

Not really, no. 16 hits with, say, an Alpha 27 damage before hits on dodge and soak. The base damage, unsoaked, of an Alpha is sufficient to kill almost anyone; the sheer number of hits that sniper would have needed to generate it ludicrous.

[Umidori]

I think where a lot of confusion is cropping up is that the actual statement was 16 hits - not net hits. If the opposition got 15 hits on their defense roll, I think we can all see how they survived.

~Umi

[Shortstraw]

Enemy NPCs shouldn't have Edge unless they're Prime Runner level NPCs. More likely the GM just didn't want the sniper to die. I'm presuming it would require at least 15 hits to survive the shot, which is implausible unless it's a max Body troll in security armor with a riot shield with extra armor and body cyberware and still very lucky.

Don't mooks get a shared edge pool and lieutenants get their own edge?