Somewhere in the BBB they give a list of the "rating" of NPC as they compare to the PCs. I can picture the page in my head, an I know it's in one of the final chapters -- perhaps the one called Beyond the Shadows. Does anyone have that list handy that they can post? I'm working on a bit of software to generate groups of people for my games and I thought I might as well use the canon rating names

-- Dash --

AVERAGE (Rating 1)

Average NPCs are untrained and unfamiliar with combat situations. They tend to react clumsily, slowly, and without a plan. Examples of Average NPC's are pedestrians, wage slaves, and so on. Average NPC's will stop fighting or flee immediately after receiving a Light wound.

SEMI-TRAINED (Rating 2)

Semi-trained characters have some training and/or combat experience. They will remain in a fight until the situation is obviously no longer going their way. They tend to act deliberately and with a plan, but do not have the cool head of the tru professional. Examples of Semi-Trained charactes include street cops, low-ranking corp security guards and the like. Semi-trained characters will stop fighting or run immediately after receiving a Moderate wound.

TRAINED (Rating 3)

Trained characters have received special combat training, and in general know what they are doing. They are not stupid and will not take foolish chances. Some examples of Trained characters are bodyguards, mercenaries, ranking or experienced street cops, corp security guards and so on. Trained characters will stop fighting or withdraw immediately after receiving a Serious wond.

PROFESSIONAL (Rating 4)

Professional NPC's live for combat. They will fight on till the bitter end, or until personal motivation dictates otherwise. Examples of Professional characters include shadowrunners, elite law enforcemnt or security characters, or other important NPC's (in the GM's judgement).

I hope that is what you needed. Actually hmmm...let me include the numeric ratings, cuz that could be what you meant.

If you're interested Dash, I just completed a similar thing to create quick NPC's for situations. If you'd like, I can toss them up on my website for you to grab. It's a simple Excel worksheet that generates low-level guards (of varying quality: from the rent a cop to the experienced security force), to a few typical gangers. Nothing that a group of shadowrunners will have too much trouble with, but still a challege for lower power level games.

It generates their stats and a few key skills somewhat randomly. But then calculates the combat pool and so on.

Sure .. that's pretty much what I was working on. Send it to djg7 @ lehigh.edu and I'll check it out. Thanks!!

-- Dash --

No prob -- I'll send it when I get to my comp at home. . . I'll type out what did though so you can modify it as necessary to suit you. There's four basic Guard archetypes and two Ganger archetype, coded as Guard 1, Guard 2, etc. . . They get better as you go up from the lower numbers to the higher numbers.

Guard 1: These are the rent a cops that small business's can hire. Not very experienced, not very good, but better than nothing.

Guard 2: These are typical Lone Star Street Cops, or a Corp guard -- trained to do what they need to, but not particularly good.

Guard 3: Experienced Cops or Guards

Guard 4: SWAT equivalent, for Lone Star or Corps. These will give a runner group a run for their money.

Ganger 1: Poor gangers; basically, ghetto youths with clubs, knives, and an occasional gun

Ganger 2: Better equipped ganger, supplied by BTL/drug sales.

Attributes are basically 2d6/2 with some modifications (ie. Ganger1 Str is [2d6+2] /2) for each archetype.

Skills are likewise somewhat random with modifications. (Guard 1 pistol skill is 1d3, shotgun 1d10-7 (with a negative number meaning they didn't have the weapon and 0 meaning they had no skill in it).

Otherwise, the rest is made to print out 4 of each archetype on a piece of paper.