Need nuyen payment for bodyguarding!, bro has my book, need to write up a run Options

[Deuce]

hey all, i just needed a bit of help as per what the going rate according to the companion is for bodyguard work. I know, i could make it up, but i want a generalized area of what the book said and my bro is currently in possession of said tome.
thanks in advance

[Trax]

The baseline is 200 :nuyen: a day. You raise it on the variable of his/her lifestyle and the kind of people after them.

[Crusher Bob]

Working backward from lifestyle costs:

A professional bodyguard should have a medium lifestyle with a yearly cost of 60,000Y

Assuming he works 5/6th of the year (bodyguarding is not the steadiest of work) to meet his lifestyle costs, he needs:

(60,000 * (6/5))/365 around 197 Y a day. So the 200Y number is a pretty good starting place.

This amount will get you someone with maybe 4 in the important skills and 20K or so in cyberwear.

Someone at the level of a starting PC (5-6 in important skills, 90K+ in cyber would pull much more than that).

[Crimson Jack]

That's an interesting way of looking at it.

[FrostyNSO]

May as well pay him with peanuts....

[Trax]

I thought the lifestyle cost was for the person hiring the bodyguard for protection from the big bad people who want his head on a platter. The more dangerous the people chasing you, the more money you are willing to spend for protection. Not the bodyguard himself.

[Deuce]

sadly my players runners are not SURGE stricken elephant people....actually, as of yet i don't even use SURGE...
so peanuts are sadly out...
so, base pay for someone with skills to bodyguard a visiting musician with at least a minimal fame(lets say on a subcultural level)would probably fetch around 800 to 1,000 nuyen a night/day?

[Crusher Bob]

No prices should exist in a vacuum. In determining how much something should pay, lifestyle is a good place to start.

Also, note that the numbers you derive from lifestyle are, the actual bottom of the line. You can't get any cheaper than that and still get the job done. Asking for the lowest price something will go for will get you the shoddiest thing that might do the job (thus Frosty's comment about peanuts). In SR economics, someone risking their life for you at 200Y a day is esentailly working for peanuts.

Also, are they getting a bodyguard to improve thier insurance rates or to actually protect themselves for something? A single guard can't provide sufficient time or defensive depth to really protect you from anything 'serious'. A team of 4 actually on the job is probably a minimum. Of course, to provide 24 hour coverage, you need people to spell off that team of 4...

[Deuce]

scenario:
(i will keep this short because a player of mine visits infrequintly)
-visiting artist
-playing at club two nights
-racial hate group bait
-manager believes in hiring local talent

should pay be a flat rate for all involved, or what i would think is the obvious ???nuyen each- possibly half upfront and drinks on the house..the rest when the job is "over"

and are we talking lifestyle of the runners, OR lifestyle of said employer?

[blakkie]

@ Crusher Bob

Working for 200 :nuyen:/day gross would be crazy. You aren't figuring overhead costs or days off. Salary working stiffs generally only put in about 190 to 200 days/year, depending. Plus have you seen the price of ammo nowadays? ;) Well maybe that's small potatoes compared to armor and medical coverage (or the bills if you are self covered).

A rough guess is that those things alone put you more into the range of 400+ :nuyen: /day.

EDIT: And that assumes a steady long-term contract. Day to day or even week to work you could basically double or more.

[FrostyNSO]

You never hire local talent for that kind of job. You're just asking for a plant...Maybe the manager is looking to off his bad little musician?

[Crusher Bob]

Normally, the manager would call a local bodyguarding company and describe the job. They would give him a quote and if he said yes, the company would start the job... Also notice that the chasing after a kidnapped protectee is not the job of the bodyguards (ie it's not in the contract, that's what the cops are for).

As for how much the agency would quote the manager 2500Y (for the whole time period) would probably be an absolute minimum more is likely (4-6K) this would get a team of 2 or 3 people who would cover the artist while 'out' and probably one person to cover the artist while in the hotel room. If the artist is going to be 'out' alot add another 1-2K to the price (as you'll need more people to cover the shifts).

If the PCs are not local bodyguards, why is the manager hiring them? Either they have a very good reputation (so $$$) or they will work for less than the bodyguarding company but still look impressive.

[edit] after having read recent posts
I got the impression that the manager was a local, hopefully he can find some already established guards that would be trustworthy (he does this sort of thing regularly, right?). If the manager is comming in with the artist, then either they'll just bring thier own guards or will need a glowing recommendation from one of their regular contacts about 'the pcs'.

[/edit]

[Squinky]

I just wanted to post my opinion on the pay rates listed in the book. It's crap, and equivalent to equiping yourself with thousands of dollars worth of cyber to make a fry-cooks wage....

[Deuce]

only work for high paying corp jobs then...just say no to bodyguarding.

[FrostyNSO]

Seriously. Forget bodyguarding.

I'll just take a 3 point day job flaw for 5000 a month and use my wired reflexes to flip burgers at speeds that will astound.

[Deuce]

which would make any team mate with the suprathyroid gland quite happy...
"Keep it coming cook!"

I think we have stumbled upon runs of the future....is this what sr4 has in store for us?!

"Flip burgers at the speed of light with the new wireless matrix 2.0!!!!"

[Jrayjoker]

I never do bodyguard jobs for less than 500 :nuyen: /day plus medical expenses. And that is for every member of the team.

The burger flipping is all virtual though.

"I want a hamburger, no, a cheeseburger."
"You'll have nothing! And like it!"


"The world needs ditch diggers, too."

Name that movie...

[Bearclaw]

So how much do you "200 a day is crap" think the average body guard makes?

Anyway, the average working year contains about 260 working days. To make the 60K necessary for Middle lifestyle, you have to make :nuyen: 231 per day, 260 days a year. Now this is going to be for the run of the mill professional bodyguard, essentially a big security guard with an extra six months of training. Not a hardend pro with 6's in everything and 500K in cyber.
A person with shadowrunner level skills and cyber shouldn't be wasting his time as a bodyguard at all.

[Bearclaw]

Oh yea.
Where did you guys get the 200 a day number anyway? I couldn't find it in the SR Companion.

[BitBasher]

[Trax]

[Smiley]

[Deuce]

bodyguarding for 200 nuyen a night is gold to the low level campaign "runner"...remember, we are not all power gamers who get awarded 1,000,000 nuyen per run so we can just repair our cyberzombie torsos.
Shadowrun is better when it is gritty and survival(through cost of living and other various elements)is something to strive for.
just my point of view.

Edit:
that wasn't an attack on anyone here neccessarily(<--bad spelling, i know)...i just try to strive for more realism..and essentially the realism of getting paid that much nuyen is that the cred will be coming from a corporate or government source more than likely. Which of course in my games is a double edged sword.

[FrostyNSO]

Our group has been making an average of 15-20k per run. Minus lifestyle, minus run expenses, and good god if somebody gets hurt...

That's not a lot of money for putting your ass on the line.

Now, putting your ass on the line for 6000 if you work every night that month. Minus lifestyle, expenses shouldn't be much. Now if you get hurt, ouch!

I guess that'd be better for low-powered guys, but still. I guess it all depends on if you want to live a low lifestyle for the rest of your life.

[Smiley]

For that amount, you might as well be working at Stuffer Shack. That's not worth risking death on a regular basis.