Challenging vs. deadly?, large PC group balance Options

[Psiclops]

I am running a campaign for a group of my friends that has grown fairly large, seven currently, and growing to eight starting next session. I've maintained a pretty tight hand, so not much munchkin activity, and they are fairly fresh characters (none over 20 karma). However, I am finding it difficult to present them with a challenging encounter that isn't spectacularly deadly as well. Either their numbers overwhelm the opposition rather quickly or players are about to become dead.

I prefer to run a PC friendly game(I would rather not kill my players, as I have many intertwining plots relating to each of them), but I'd like to find ways to still have meaningful combat. I know this is fairly vague, but any suggestions out there?

[Kagetenshi]

The method that is simplest to set up (though fairly difficult to execute well) is to induce them to split up.

~J

[Herald of Verjig...]

I reccomend large numbers of opponents with bad aim and good cover. Preferably, just bad enough of aim that anyone who seeks cover is usually safe.

[pragma]

Make the most competent one GM, then you have a group of four and a group of three. Which are much more manageable. This also raises the possibility of crossovers, which are oodles of fun and can make for a more game world populated by other PCs (which can be pretty cool).

The other way of dealing with it is to keep action fast paced and confuse the hell out of them. Engage half of the group in a confined space, put illusions over them and feed them enemies so terrifying that they scatter (not necessarily lethal, just terrifying).

I've been in the same boat and it was tough. Good luck.

[Modesitt]

Solutions -

1. Deliberately make certain PCs useless. Make sure you don't make the same PC useless regularily or he'll get irritable. Example: The only way in is through a 13th story window, there's no way to get the troll's fatass in through the window, so he's gotta stay in the van.

2. Cut them all down to size. Example: The only way in to be through the high-quality metal detector. They'll leave all of their heavy hardware at home, but since there's so many of them they can still easily cut down better-equipped enemies with whatever they do smuggle in.

3. Don't have the enemies concentrate their fire. It's perfectly OK for one guard to focus on one PC, another on another, etc. Or randomly choose a PC every pass for a guards to shoot at.

4. Area Effect issues, from grenades to suppression fire to manaballs, are multiplied for large groups. It may simply not be possible for the group to get everyone healed up after a grenade goes off in the middle of them.

5. Try a mission sometime that involves only a minimum of combat or none at all. This does not work well if you want it to be dependent on contacts and your group is combat heavy. In one amazing instance, one player had 70 contacts. The other four had a dozen between them, four of them being generic fixers.

6. Put them in a situation where they can't effecitively concentrate their fire, such as by having enemies only be visible to certain characters. Example: House of mirrors. I had SO much fun running that.

We can give you more specific solutions if you just list off their basic archetypse and what their common approach is in combat, ie slings a manabolt, fires off an SMG burst, etc.

[Apathy]

How about you make them 2 teams in opposition? One set up with a run to guard somebody or something, and the other to steal it/them? Then you don't have to track all the opposition, you'd just have to referee.

If you're worried about lethality, have the actual rough stuff happen in an airport (or even better, on a sub-orbital), where they can't bring their high-powered toys or magic, (and couldn't use them anyway for fear of de-pressurizing the cabin).

Or, force them to split up during the mission (one team creates the distraction, and has keep the horde of bugs occupied, while the other sneaks down into the termite mound to rescue the little aboriginie girl before she gets invested.)

[Thomas]

[hyzmarca]

Define challenging. Some people would consider a run challanging if it requires intelligent tactics. Others would ignore tactics and consider a run that resulted in massive karma burning to be challanging.

How do your PCs work together? Are they are well-corodinated Mission Impossible style unit with approperiate specialists and support personel for every situation? Are they are highly efficient and well armed SWAT team that systematicly takes the enemy down? Do they just randomly shoot anything that moves and hope they don't kill their teammates by accident?


What are the PC Archetypes? Some Archetypes are better suited to certain types of runs than others. If there is a good mixture it is possiblle to create some elaborate runs that utilize all of their specialzations and require strong teamwork. If they are mostly combat types then runs that require subtlty will be very challanging.

A siege type run would provide a challange for combat heavy groups. Put them in a fortified building with limited resources and an unbeatable army trying to knock down their door. They will get reinforcements but have to survive and hold down te fort untill then. Bugs make good enemies for seiges. A good mixture of fleshforms and true forms will require tight physical and astral security.

For further elaboration see Assualt on Precient 13.

[Vaevictis]

Grenades. Superflash, stun gas, concussion. Non-lethal, but makes things considerably more difficult for your group -- and is completely believable.

Also, runs that require simultaneous strikes will make things more difficult without making them more lethal. ie, you have send one team to one floor of the building to ice the security, which opens up a window for the other team to insert on another floor at the same time -- but the first team has to stay on that floor to keep the security on ice. Stuff like that.

[Psiclops]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will certainly be using some of this advice.

As for details, they are an odd bunch. 2 physads, 2 shaman, 1 rigger/bodyguard, 1 dwarven thug, 1 faceman, and 1 cybered redneck.

[Shadow]

Two words: Cybered Piazmas


Once you have the party down to a managable size things should work out better.

[hyzmarca]

[Method]

And don't tell them everything thats going on in a given combat situation- make them use actions to make perception tests....

[Psiclops]

You have very valid suggestions. The current group is a mixture of very experienced and completely new players, nothing inbetween.

Despite my somewhat overbearing attitude, I have a soft heart. I just can't bear to punish the new ones for their inexperience. I suppose it would do them good to lose a character or two for REALLY egregious errors though. In fact, one of them recently decided it would be a good idea to hand over an initiated mage working for Tir Tairngir to LoneStar. They also decided it was a good idea to divest him of his foci and ONE OF HIS FINGERS!!! first. I think a couple of them may end up dead from that move.

I like the suggestions that involve taking lower power NPC's and making them last longer or fight more effectively. This will provide additional challenge, make my players think more about their strategies, improve their tactics and keep the "deadly" factor down.

[Method]

Well if the inexperienced PCs go down in combat with non-leathal wounds that gives the other players in the group a new focus: saving thier teammate (or if they are not friends: makeing sure he doesn't fall into enemy hands...). That presents a whole new challenge and makes the combat more interesting.

So present them with stiff resistance initailly and see if you can deal out S damage to one or two of the newbies (provided they do something dumb). Then have the opposition back off a bit and "wait for the team to make a mistake". Its a classic snipper tactic, actually.

[Method]

Also (coming back to Kagetenshi's idea) one good way to split a large team is to have one of the members get captured by security about midway through the run. Then the team will have to split up: half to finish the objective and the other half to rescue thier buddy before the corp goons can torture him into revieling the teams plan...

This post has been edited by Method: Jul 18 2005, 09:46 PM

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Trolls with 17 body, 11 Willpower, and Hold-out pistols. Nobody's going to push them over, but at the same time, they're not going to turn your players into little stains

[mmu1]

[Method]

Hmmm... I wouldn't call that rail roading or contrived.

Capturing one of the runners seems a perfectly logical tactic a corp security team might use... (come to think of it thats kind of the point). And the group has a choice weather they want to split up to save thier friend or let him die. :]

Also you can give the captured character a chance to pull off a Bond-style escape (just so he doesn't feel rail roaded either). Although if he did something dumb that got him captured in the first place than maybe not...

[Edward]

Personally I wouldn’t allow bond style escapes. Moby if they have supplies of explosives hidden on there person (and the search check didn’t find them) but most bond style escapes rely on wanton stupidity on the case of the villain and I don’t to that to my security guards. Once captured you always have 2 guards with guns pointing at you or your in a rum with structural walls and a security door, if you can get out of that situation good fore you.

Edward

[Digital Heroin]

That's a bit on the extremist side, isn't it now? I mean even a terrorist doesn't usually have any guards personally assigned to him. There just isn't enough manpower to warrant having one, let alone two guards on a single person in most corps... even the megas have personnel issues...

[Edward]

I think a corp. could spare 2 guards to take the prisoner to his cell, especially if it’s a shadow runner.

Most of bonds escapes revolved around being left in a death trap or having a guard open the cell because he was “sick” or hiding. Try those tricks in my game and there will be 2 guards with guns before the door gets opened. Unless they are very tight for security personnel. (in witch case how did they catch you in the first place.

Edward

[hyzmarca]

Bond style excape? Not really, unless he has bond-style gadgets. The oral slasher is great for this, I think. However, there is nothing wrong with letting them wake up earlier than expected. Maybe they weren't given enough drugs to keep them sedated and they are able to claw their way out of their cocoons just in time. Because their captors didn't expect them to wake up their gear hasn't ben secured and thus they have a fighting chance.


Certainly Bugs make the best captors. The psycological effect of barely crawling your way out of a coccoon while an insect tried to devower your soul is much greater than the effect of being captured by Megacorp security. However, it give the GM an excuse not to just give the captured runners some cortex bombs or psychotropic conditioning.

[toturi]

There's something I've been thinking about. Psychotropic conditioning can be used to "positively condition" someone. So what if that someone's positive conditionings clash? If someone was positive conditioned towards Ares but was afterward conditioned by Aztech and was somehow convinced that Ares interests and Aztech interests were in direct conflict towards each other, how would he act? Consider that the programs used were equally strong/have the same amount of success/etc.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Well, either the different conditionings would sort themselves somehow (either: oldest unless overpowered by a new one or newest in case of ties), or the two would create a critical indicisive situation in the host. Depending on the exact nature of the psychotrope (read: GM whim), such a critical indicisiveness could easily put the victim in a severely impressionable state or an extremely resistant state.

Really, even with psychotrope and many other tricks, a human mind is a very confusing and functionally unique system that tends to behave irrationally when priorities conflict. Of course, generalizations are irrelevant because of the many variances, and the exact results should be a GM adjustment of what the player thinks the character would do when faced with strong conflicting predispositions.

To bring a real life example, I knew a kid who was a Squaresoft fanboy and avid Disney hater. Sometime, he got ahold of Kingdom Hearts. While playing it, he seemingly couldn't stop talking, switching between anti-Disney hatespeak and Squaresoft adoration with no apparent logic or purpose.