GM needs serious help Options

[blakkie]

[Jrayjoker]

[Vaevictis]

Remember people, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a character that cannot be solved with the appropriate application of a sniper rifle, missile launcher, or in extreme cases, great dragon.

If the dude's a jackass, kill him.

[blakkie]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Okay... Primadonna-Man should be tazered, I admit. Repeated applications may be required.

[Slacker]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Alternatively, if you LIKE what he does alone, find it fun to RP it out, you might come back to him at another point in the week, between the games, to handle that stuff then.

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Nyxll]

I have not GM'd or played in a few years, but there were times that my planning was just steam rolled. Nothing I could really do, other than try and throw in some last minute modifications to step things up, like an initiate mage, that is chucking some spells at your street sam.

If that was way too tough I would make things more complex but having the mage channel spells through an optical overservation system. "now you have to find the guy who is locked in a vault. Throw in some paranormal elements like a few spirits or cybered up animals. Security will also add an element to the game. A rigger controlling several mounted turrets can put a damper in your day.

As for one person dominating the whole gaming session, as a person that was witness to that, I can tell you it made me angry when my one friend was doing all his daily business, trying to get new ammo, trying to pick up an undersage girl, etc. Basically the GM took control, told him they would deal with that later on solo time, and basically forced him to get to the meet. After the meet, if there was something lacking, we could try contacts to recuit any talent lacking. We would negotiate with Johnson for supplies we were lacking to save fixer time. Most of the time for speed we avoided the decker, and paid for a contract talent. The matrix rules were terrible back then, so it was best to skip it. If someone is uncooperative, he usually either becomes the first target of the fight, or the group will give them a warning. Nothing like a stun bolt surprise to wake you up.

[Qillin]

Giving the guy 2 different color lasers doesn't help him get the benefit while still using 2 guns. I mine I can see if 2 red dots are on a target the same as a green and red one. It’s all about being able to concentrate on 2 things at once while shooting 2 guns. That’s why sr says no laser sights or smart links when using 2 guns. I mean if the smart link can't handle 2 targets, I’d just get a better computer system a really computer can handle 5 mil targets at the same time easily. It’s more of the human brain to eye movement can't track 2 targets accurately to give him the neg to his target mods. Now maybe if he takes the edge/flaw of cross-eyed hehe it would only be a edge for shooting a gun and would give him Tn for talking to anyone eye to eye hehe then maybe I’d let him use the 2 lasers just because it would be funny when he talked to anyone.

[ShadowGhost]

[Nyxll]

[Yoan]

I never start the PC's off too strong (ie: tons of magic, guns, cyberware) and let them earn most of it, but if that's how you wanna play, that's acceptable.

Combat: Modifiers! Cover, bad lighting... make the guards actively lead the runner's into ambushes or areas where THEY have the upper hand. Rigged Turrets are always depressing to run into, too.

Decking: I've grown skilled at running the Matrix & the Real World simultaneously, but maybe that's not to everyone's liking. My justification is: when two PC's are in two different buildings, what do you do? Same thing, here. My players have no problem with it.

As for the Individualistic Gunbunny: Do what you need to do. ;)

[Enigma]

CrystalBlue - tailor your enemies to your players. Use cover, use non-standard attacks, use cover-fire, use held actions.

I appreciate you need to be realistic in terms of what calibre of guard is guarding the place your players and getting into, but consider this...

Standard guard, with cyberware 'subsidised' by the corporation which he's paying off in his salary. Thus Boosted Reflexes 1, Plastic Bone Lacing 1, Smartlink 2. Give him an armoured vest at 650 nuyen, and an automatic weapon because he's vicious - Smartgun perhaps, at 950 nuyen. So far he's cost 26,600. Probably it would be a good idea to buy some ammo as well. Rather than EX ammo and making him fairly useless and likely to blow up the place he's guarding, use Splash rounds - Pepper Punch is good and cheap. I think the cost per round is now about 17 nuyen, which is pricey so he only gets three clips or so. So, this guard now gets taught to use the gun he gets and specialises in it because it's the only one they issue - realistically he could have a skill of even SMG 4 (Smartgun 6). Part of that training is to use the d**n folding stock, so he's firing with 3 points of recoil comp. Guard gets taught to never go around in groups of less than two and use cover. So, this guard is now quite deadly if used correctly - a smartlinked weapon, with which he'll probably hit. Players who are munchkinised with huge combat pools roll a 5 to dodge because he's taught to fire controlled (three round) bursts like he's supposed to, so at the very least he costs them pool. If he hits a player, that player likely takes stun damage at a low level (reduced power of stun rounds) but then likely cops +4 or so because of the pepper punch. If he shoots a corporate employee by mistake they're pissed off and bruised but not dead, which is a fiscal advantage in the expensive rounds. That's a cheap and very effective guard from a corporate perspective.

For a more vicious guard, spend two grand on a SPAS-22. Use gel shot rounds or gel rounds, or splash rounds, and it's a very tough player that doesn't take some stun damage from a successful hit. Assume the corporation is shelling out for cyberware at a larger scale. Forget initiative other than the bare minimum - he'll never beat a shadowrunner anyway. But, he can be hard to kill - spend 40K on a trauma damper, 24K on a dermal sheath 1 and 7.5K on plastic bone lacing. Now you have a guard with six or seven dice in damage resistance, who can't be taken down with a single hit. Assume he has maybe 40K more spent on enhanced articulation - he's faster and more accurate. Pay out 50K more on Toner 2 and 10K on a reflex recorder. He can now wear security armour (which is stupidly costly) or he can just layer a jacket with form-fit (the corp will pay 2K for form fit if it's spent that much on implants). For less than 200K you have a fast-response officer packing 7/3 armour, with seven dice in body resistance, realistically with a specialised 7 or so in SPAS skill, rolling 9 dice because of implants before combat pool, with a smartlink and a decent initiative score (probably something like 6 +2D6). His gun does 10S standard and it makes a loud noise to attract other guards. He also is taught to use cover and travel in packs of two.

In combat, think of things this way - every single combat-trained NPC must do whatever he can to get a minimum of +3 to the target number of other people to hit him. Doesn't matter what his target is to shoot back, always cover your own a** first. Thus, NPCs run, use any sort of visual cover they can (covering to just above your knees is still 25% and thus +2 to be shot), they use smoke, they crawl out of sight, and so on. A good rule of thumb is that every NPC who has decent combat training will secure a minimum of +3 to be shot THEN take a shot back. Also, first instinct of anyone with a radio is drop into cover and call for backup.

However, the nastiest thing you can do to a group of players is a set of simple, cheap cyberware and equipment - biomonitor (liked with an autoinjector and trauma-patch equivilent, or not), datajack, subdermal speakers, transducer, linked to external GPS and radio. Basically, guard has a constant signal sent to the command post of his vital signs and location. The radio is set up with a bit of encryption (maybe level five) meaning there's no realistic chance of a PC group decrupting in any meaningful way. Radio gear is set up so that if the link to the guard (via datajack) is broken, the radio broadcasts an alert and GPS location. If the vital signs flatline, it broadcasts an alert and GPS location. Also, since he has a transducer, "mentally" hitting the radio's panicbutton is a free action. Anything suspicious, an alert is triggered. This setup is also good for secretary-type staff. Also, you can't see him use the radio since it's all hands-free and no subvocalising, and since it's a constant encrypted signal it's very hard to determine how often he's checked in with command.

Remember to think smarter with your NPCs. They don't need to be massive six-foot Rock-equivalent security guards with millions of nuyen in cyberware to survive, they just need to run for cover, use smoke, call for backup and set off alerts a the very first opportunity. They also need to support each other, use covering fire to burn up shadowrunner's combat pool, and hold actions.

[blakkie]

[blakkie]

[Herald of Verjig...]

Ok, I missed the original line that brought up the topic.

[blakkie]

[CrystalBlue]

Thanks for the help guys. I just get sick of my corp guards getting run over. I do make sure that the normal ones, the ones that get trained and get paided the big nuyen, alwasy travel in groups. But I've never thought rigger setups and such. I'd like to know more about how Small Tactics Units is used and how a rigger facilitates this.

But, mind you, I don't want to kill the PC's. I just want to show them that they're mortal. That they can bleed. We use a lot of rules from other books, and I don't think I'll be able to take away the customized pistols from the gunbunny. He'll bitch about how it says that he can do it in the rule books. *sigh* I need a group of you guys to run for. Cause I know I'd be able to run a game without getting complaints and grinding the game to a halt with unneeded drek.

[Kagetenshi]

One guard with a held action and a shotgun arranged so that the choke spreads the shot as wide as possible by the time it hits the players. Then show them how the rule that turned them into hamburger is in the book, and would they like to keep playing that way?

I'm not a big fan of houserules, though I use them when necessary. I'm all for having a consistent agreed-upon set of rules. Sometimes, though, people take things too far.

Riggers: If you've got Vehicle Armor 5, it takes a 12M attack minimum to affect the vehicle—anything with L damage or with lower power is bounced automatically. This doesn't apply to AV rounds, but they're hard to get. Weapons mounted on vehicles have their recoils halved before other recoil compensation. If you manage to stick a tactical computer into a Rigger you can get that Rigger to be able to do things like get extra combat pool, give extra combat pool or points of initiative to everyone they're communicating with, and use full combat pool on surprise tests. Also, ramming tests eat characters.

~J

[blakkie]

[Eyeless Blond]

Also regarding the ball lightning: don't forget armor modifications. Since you're using sec armor you hace canon companion; use it! :) Sec armor has 15 points of mods built right into it: in an age of mages throwing fireballs and lightning I'd be sure to spend those points on Fireproofing 4, Nonconductive 4 and Chemseals 4. You can also slip in more mods under that as well; unarmored clothing if I remember right can pack 2 points of mods on it.

And yeah, visability and cover are big ones in terms of raising TNs. From working in a precious metal processing plant I can tell you right off that most security checkpoints at those kinds of places are deigned for guards to get partial cover even if they're surprised; usually they're behind a counter or something that gives them the bonus.

Ball Lightning is +1(DL+2). So casting it at force 6 (with fetish = force 5) Moderate gives a drain code of 3D. So he needs eight successes to stage that to nothing (six if he has a trauma dampener, which is why those are so horribly powerful). So, either he succeeded with every die he rolled or he's got a trauma dampener, in which case he was just lucky. Or you calculated the Drain wrong.

[Spark]

other things you can do;
1. use the hell out of chokepoints, even a simple corner and combat shotgun work well against runners. If there being ornery let them "sneak" deep inside complex let them "find" the target but make sure that what they find is a decoy. keep guiding them through a maze like area then shut the entrances to a room equipped with fiber optics and then fill it with smoke and nasty spells from a couple of initiated mages, Say g'nie gracie :vegm:

2. make good use of the rules in SR3 about running into fences, i.e. t5he gunbunny is in a running battle with some corps guards and they retreat he runs forward in low-light glare conditions over rough terrain into a small 2-3 meter drainage ditch (takes falling damage)and lands in slippery sewage type junk, after he gets to the top of the ditch he runs through some bushes and runs into a monowire fence, after the he hits a low, meter-meter and a half high electric concertina wire fence. IF he is still in the action then he finds himself in a corp ambush.

This teaches him several lessons.
1. he is gonna get screwed being the hero to the exclusion of the other PC's.
2. He needs to be more careful and be a slower mover, (sometimes the aggressive fast approach is not the best approach).
3. If he is still alive, then he is going to be arrested or killed, both of which can definitly affect a persons attitude!

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR YOU TO DO IS TO GET CREATIVE AND EVIL :D
but of course that wont be hard :vegm:


EDIT: you can also use interior design objects to slow him down, say he is in a manufacturing plant or nuclear power plant, have something leak, either the nearest steam conduit or electrical or, well, you get my idea, have holes in floors that they cant get over and ambush em, in short do w/e it takes!

[CrystalBlue]

What's an initiated mage? And can they cast spells when they're not there?

[Spark]