I've been running a SR4 game since it was released and have run into a bit of a problem. All of my Shadowrunners have either magically altered reflexes or cybernetic augmentations that give them 4 I.P.'s.

With the exception of a few elites, most of the NPC templates in the game have only 1 I.P. Now I'm all for pro-player and have recognized the fact that the players are suppose to be tougher then most, but I've noticed that this has made the group a bit over powered. Even when you put big nasty trolls with Armor soak ratings in the 20's, the team still takes advantage of them pretty easily.

I'm wondering if there are any house rules, suggestions or creative ideas that could help even the power a bit while avoiding every combat being against overpowered encounters (Troll Mage in full armor with laser cannons coming out of his crotch) or jipping the PC's.

Improved IPs are really really expensive though, and given the nature of SR combat (over the first round someone makes eye contact), I'm also hardpressed to see how 4 IP is that much better than 3 or even 2.

If you have a melee level brawl, then 4 IP could be overpowering, but at range, when the order of the day are grenades and spells, getting the first hit is what usually determines combat for me.

Wired Reflexes Rating 3/Synaptic Booster Rating 3 aren't even avaliable at chargen and for their cost your Runners could just retire permanently. Wired Reflexes 3 also takes a huge chunk of essense, I forget how much exactly, but I thought it was around 5, which is basically your entire essence pool.

An adept who gets improved reflexes 3 is losing a lot of versatility for the same reason, since that's 3 magic points he could've spent on other things.

The only way to routinely get 4 IPs is the spell, and even so, the sustaining mage loses 2 dice to all checks or has to buy an extremely high power health sustaining focus. And you have to remember, it might get dispelled at any time or get detected by an enemy mage who then blasts them with lightning and put them all at -4 at combat.

Oh, and if you want your regular mooks to present some problems, just get them some combat drugs. The temporarily boost in IP is cheap and cost effective, and the fluff suggests that Lone Star and other security firms have no qualms about buying them.

Throw in enemies using full auto weapons with no quams about ammo usage which may encourage them to spend their first IP to go full defense.
Steal Lynxs with Ingrim White Knights an do the job quite well as drones always have multiple IP's.

When going full auto its often best to go wide burst when facing PC's as their ability to dodge will drop to nothing or near nothing and all the added hits. A drone could fire a single full auto from an Ingrim White Knight each IP at no penalty.

Or worse have two Steal Lynxs one lays down surpressing fire while the other makes narrow bursts at any individual targets who poke their head out.

For a real nasty bit of security the mage instead of making himself invisible makes the combat drones.

But in the end ambush is the real way to nab PC's.

I'm assuming that your PCs have a lot of karma, money and successful runs behind them. So they're good at their main jobs as well as being uber fast. If they're rookies who just maxed out initiative all together then this advice may not apply to you

-The NPC templates can be upgraded if your players all have 4 IPs. Throw them up against Navy SEALs, Tir Ghosts, Red Samurai, Ares Firewatch teams, etc. At this level of power it's appropriate. It's not that hard for a corp to afford Wired 1 or even Wired 2.

Now not every site can be defended by such elites. But the ones your players are going to should be worth it. At this point there's no reason not to pay them however much they think such a run is worth. They won't be buying Delta Move by Wire 3 because they already have it.

-Note than even goons with Wired 1 who take Kamikaze become equivalent to much tougher goons.

-Drones (whether in dog mode or controlled by jumped in riggers) typically get 3 IPs. They're also immune to stunball and tend to have high armor ratings. Try to convert some nasties from previous editions if you feel the stuff in the BBB isn't good enough. There was an Ares branded vectored thrust drone that had a ton of armor and could fly indoors IIRC.

-Spirits. Only 2 IPs but at high force levels they are close to bullet proof.
They are also hellaciously fast. One of my players who runs a mage calls rolling spirit initiative "the best part of my day."

-Threats. A single NPC who's got a cranked up initiative score and lots of IPs can do a world of good.

-Edge. This is a big winner. Your Grunts and minor Threats only need it for the one encounter that they take part in, so they can spend pretty liberally to go first. Expect your PCs to get upgraded Edge stats as this maneuver continues. Try to combine this Edge use with stun grenades, big spells, heavy weapons fire, etc. By putting PCs on the defensive you can totally adjust their tactics. Edge can also buy extra initiative passes. In this, it's effect is nearly invisible. Recall that the average stat is 3, and for humans average edge should be more like 4.

-Ambush. This one is much harder to pull off, but characters lying in ambush get +6 on surprise tests. Stick it to your players once in a while. Again, feel free to use stun grenades.

There. That's 7 different ways to outdraw your PCs (Elite Grunts, Grunts on Drugs, Drones, Spirits, Threats, Edge and Ambush). With this many ways to keep things interesting you shouldn't even have to repeat yourself very often!

Don't forget to split up your team and give them something to keep one or two characters occupied while the others fight (protect the hacker, disarm the bomb, climb up the escape ladder, etc).

Try putting four mooks on the table. One samurai with 4 IP can take 4 enemies with 1 IP each, but only because he can do amazing things with a full defense action. Even then, it's hardly automatic.

4 guys with assault rifles and agility 3, automatics 3, and smartlinks is going to chew through the vast majority of 4 IP characters unless that character starts edging or otherwise going into crazy town. Each one fires two short, wide bursts and it just really hurts.

-Frank

Be sure to spread those 4 mooks out and put them in heavy enough armor to take the grenades. . . .

Spirits aren't fast enough to consistently go first against wired runners unless they're at least Force 5 though, and even then only if they're Air or Fire Spirits. They cleaned up the stupidly high initiative ages ago in the errata.


And yeah, the dangerous thing about high end initiative boosters isn't so much the amount of passes as it is simply the fact that they get to go first and can afford to charge a full defense action. Combat drugs, multiple mooks, the Home Ground quality and automatic weapons are really, really useful against such tactics and even the most low budget security force should be able to afford some Jazz, 400¥ AK-97s or 500¥ Uzi IVs (much better; they have a stock and laser sight) or shotguns w/ wide spread on hand for emergencies. With Home Ground, 3 agi, 3 longarms and some jazz, even a mook with an old shotgun and no smartlink tosses 8 dice to defend his turf and can give his opponent a -4 reaction penalty to defend. Of course, the real trick is surviving long enough to get their shot off to begin with...

trouble with shot guns its that boost to armor, especially counting the errata rules for flechette ammo

The idea is to start hitting at all, and by reducing the opponent's reaction you can make up for the armor penalty to an extent by making it easier to score more net hits and thus raising your DV back up. It's also only really necessary to give the first couple of mooks firing a chance at chipping in some damage; by the time it gets to the 3rd or 4th mook the runner is looking at a multiple dice penalty merely for prior defense checks whether or not they were ever actually hit. If they get chipped at enough by the first couple of mooks it's entirely possible that the 3rd or 4th guy can tighten up the choke or make a called shot to increase DV or whatever. When you're GMing a high powered group you do eventually hit the point where Joe Security dealing a couple of stun is a minor victory in the quest to softening the team up before the Red Samurai arrive. The death by a thousand cuts approach can work rather well, especially since squads can arrive mid-combat and force surprise checks while the pcs are distracted, wounded and low on ammo.

I think that's why the low-level security is most useful for containment rather than confrontation. Instead of directly engaging intruders, they surround and dig in, using Cover and Held Actions to compensate for their lack of full defense actions and low Initiative. They aren't their to apprehend elite runner teams, only slow them down enough so that the elite response teams can get there. Typically, the only thing that's going to get there once it goes to Combat Turns is an astrally projecting mage, or a hacker who can jump into drones already on site.

... Or a Spirit or three.

Another thing is that even though runners of an elite level of ability are very rare, the jobs they are hired to do will put them up against elite defenses. If something is valuable enough that someone is going to hire runners like that to steal it, those that own it are going to have it properly defended. I liken it to being a major league pitcher. Sure, the number of people that can throw a 100mph fastball is pretty small, but those that can are always trying to throw it past the very small number of people that are pretty good at hitting them.

I think your real problem is, as some have said, you have high end runners but you are treating them like they are fresh out of chargen.

I mean, if they have played long enough to get the 100k for the wired 3, they obviously are on the higher end side of things. If your just grabbing the pregened basic goons and hoping that they will do anything one on one you are way off.

You need to either send out a large number of guys with good equipment, or a small number of elite people. Also don't forget about things like the penelty for getting fired on multipul times.

Also keep in mind that Wired reflexes 3 takes up 5 of your 6 essence, which means they don't have much of anything else. And the bioware version costs an outstanding 240k, so either way your looking at a huge investment.

...it used to be that the Synaptic Acceleration did not add to reaction, only initiative. It also only had two rating levels instead of three. In a way I think they made it a little too powerful even though it is more expensive. Also here mages have an edge as well. For 60,000 they can get a Force 4 sustaining focus 4 which will support enough hits on an Increase Reflexes spell to give them 4 IPs. For a Sammy to do that it is as mentioned 5 essence and 100,000 Yeah the Mage needs to bond the focus (8 Karma) but he saves both essence and over the Sammy.

Addressing the original question, yes I think that given the DP mechanics, IPs in 4th ed are more powerful. In previous editions it was almost a detriment sometimes to roll a high initiative as you had to apportion your combat pool over the entire combat turn. Mages had it doubly bad as they had to allocate their sorcery pools to both casting and drain for the same action. In 4th ed, you always get your full DP (minus negative modifiers).

Wards and other magical barriers work fine at messing up people who want to run around with spells sustained. Particularly when catching them by surprise, like in a high speed elevator shaft... You can drop it to get get through (if you know the ward is there), but then you have to put it back up. And if you are sending spirits on remote service, telling them to kill anyone with an active spell on them is a pretty good way to target the mages.

It's pretty easy to blow down a 4 pt spell. And if you are feeling nasty you could use "Awakened sapient critters are capable of all magical tasks and follow the same rules for magic as normal characters" on p290 as a reason why spirits have countermagic. Or you could just add Magical Guard as a standard power. I'd also tend to think that people trying to dispel their enhanced reflexes is a pretty effective way to distract the mage.

...but all the mage needs to do is recast the spell when he can get the chance. He's out no resources, no essence.

A Matrix Specialist or TM (especially with sprites) can frag with a Sammy's wires, weapons, and cyberlimbs as well. All of a sudden he's just standing there punching himself in the face or something.

Not to be mean, but if a TM gets at your wired reflexes and cyberlimb, it usually means one of three things:
A: You were captured. At this point you're screwed regardless.
B: You're pants-on-head retarded and left the wireless to your very body turned on for some unfathomable reason. Leaving your wireless access to cyberware turned is a perfectly reasonable risk for most people to take. Shadowrunners, however, are NOT most people. Take precautions, at least while you're on an actual run, anyway.
C: Your GM isn't really playing by the RAW.

Actually I think bioware that requires a trigger is subscribed to your PAN (IE wired reflexes) for you to use the trigger.

Cyberlimbs and the like have sensory inputs and the like which are also necessary for some functionabilities.

Then you have the stuff like musle-replacement and bone lacing which are just there and can't really be hacked. (Oh, we built in a break bones command in your bone lacing, real bright there)

If the technomancer gets past your firewall and into your PAN, he can then move on to hack your cyberarms and legs facing rolls of whatever device rating you gots. In my experience, most PCs have around 4 firewall, so unless they get their friendly neighborhood hacker to get their back, a hack on your comm-link and then your body parts may be perfectly likely. I mean, they put device ratings on cyberware for a reason.

Cyberlimbs don't have to be on your PAN; their base functionality basically works via DNI and has predated 2070 wireless tech by a gigantic margin. Hell, this is part of the reason why it's a trivial matter to have say, a datajack built right into your cyberarm. They're essentially li'l closed networks to themselves, honestly. You always have access to your cyberlimb's basic functions, but that doesn't necessarily mean your PAN does.

And no, bioware doesn't work via technological interfaces. Just about all of them require either some sort of trained muscular response to be activated if they need to be activated at all (most bioware is passive), or else they react to changes in your physiology like the Adrenaline pump does. The fact that bioware doesn't really interface that well with tech is the big reasons that a whole bunch of the cyberware dedicated to rigging and matrix activities haven't been made in equivalent but more essence friendly bioware versions. Off the top of my head the only activated bioware I can think of that's easily turned off and on is the Pain Editor; no idea how that one works, in all honesty.

Okay, so long story short: "IPs are awesome - get some."

Good point.

...yeah, I'm with you there, made having extra IPs a lot more valuable as you could get that first (or sometimes even first and second) shot in before anyone else moved. Had an adept in our group named Zippo (not my character) who frequently rolled in the 30s. Unfortunately he had little else as most of his power points were taken up by his Improved Reflexes. He was a good distraction however for us slower types to get in unnoticed though.

@apollo124. I don't think I ever had a Physad with more than Improved Reflexes I. Of course in previous editions any melee attack provoked a counter attack so you could have fewer IPs and still quite likely pound on an opponent who had more as the older version of the Short One (#78) often did.

I preferred the SR2 method where the Reflexes weren't bundled for Phys Ads. Inc Reflexes as "Magical Wired" is just too vanilla for my tastes.