Do most of you use Composure tests? Do you use this normally or just to punish Charisma dump characters. Have you found this useful to test Composure of guards, or is this too favorable for the runners?

Let me know.

I call for them fairly often, both for PC's and NPC's. One of my house rules is that any time a character takes enough damage to give them a wound modifier, they need to make a Composure Test with a threshold equal to their wound penalties in order to keep taking actions. Failure means that the character loses a number of Simple Actions equal to the difference between the hits they generated on their roll, and the threshold. Wound penalties apply to this roll.

It's kinda counter to my usual philosophy of the fewer rolls, the better, but it often actually speeds up combat, and, I've noticed, makes the PC's much less likely to completely slaughter mooks, since they generally get the fight taken out of them pretty quickly.

I also call for Composure Tests for "normal" things, like seeing scenes of incredible brutality, or first gunfights, or childbirth. That sort of thing.

that's a pretty cool idea.

Yeah, I find it makes my games run more smoothly.

I really want composure to be a part of the game (at least to sometimes get players to roleplay). However, it also says that after time some things become common place. If the characters are always shooting it out, wouldn't they get used to this in a very short time? Also, how do you account for inherently sociopathic Cybered character (assuming you take it that direction)? Also, does backstory ever come into play with your Composure tests?

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I call for a Composure Test for something, I rarely call for it again, at least if everyone passes it. I figure people get jaded to stuff when they're exposed to it enough.

As to the backstory thing, hells yes. I had a character that I was going to confront with the image of his dead wife and daughter; major Composure Test.

Doesn't Guts add to composure test too? Well, it doesn't ACTUALLY say that, but I would say it does. So yes, I would say background (as I see Guts as a quality based on a character's background) should play some role in composure tests.

For instance, let's say I have battle hardened merc, BHM, veteran of the Desert Wars. BHM has seen some crazy shite in the heat of battle, like someone's head being split open like a casaba melon, but maybe he has a soft spot for kids (ie has some of his own he still sends checks too monthly, whatever). So in the midst of a firefight (strengthened severly if he has the Guts Quality), BHM is pretty cool under pressure, able to deal with it. But when in a confrontation with young gangers, he just doesn't have the stomach for it. Of course, one of my requirements for my players is to at least give me SOME idea of who and what they are, and my troupe tends to go for very tragic characters, so maybe it's just us.

If I was the GM, yeah, I'd apply the bonus from Guts to a Composure Test for a lot of stuff. Maybe not trying to explain sex to your daughter, but a bunch of stuff.

TheGothFather, very very nice idea. It seems to me though that it would totally hose trolls though. Can you comment on that?


As for how I account for back story in composure tests, I put it in the threshold. I think how hard would it be to keep that particular character to handle that?

I usually apply guts to composture checks too.

I do not call them very often, but they have came up quite some times.
Examples:
-First time faced with shedim
-entering the ruins of a slaughtered village in Africa
-falling inside a common grave where villagers had been executed
-first time seeing a rampaging blood spirit
-being drained by same spirit
-doing an HALO jump without training
-parachuting from a careening airplane in flames.
-noticing the cute little girl is actually possessed by mantid spirit.
-First time facing a Vampire.
-realizing Pobre is not human.
-casting while wounded and under attack by a raging elemental... (focused concentration would apply to this one, IMO)

etc.

The usual shooting can't scare my runners any more. I do skip some rolls and/or provide modifiers according to character's backstory. For instance, the hardened Serb merc rolls fewer times than the high-class elf.

Cheers.

Max

This is exactly what I wanted to see. I really like when backstory can be utilized in a very real way in the game.

I've never called for a single one, ever.

I actually didn't even know they existed until this thread.

I call for composure tests fairly regularly; a wendigo nest, for example, had one of my PCs saying hello to his lunch again and it wasn't pretty when they got ambushed by that cyberzombie and assensed its aura...

Thank you

Honestly, I hadn't been thinking about balance issues when I came up with this system. It just seemed the most appropriate roll for the situation. Then again, there's always precedent, with Trolls also being screwed on any other Composure roll, and would therefore be more likely to faint/vomit/run away from seeing someone get killed for the first time.

Really, what I was trying to simulate was how much potential injury has to temporarily incapacitate someone, and whether or not the character is able to grit his/her teeth and keep going. I suppose that you could rule that Trolls are simply unused to pain, since they get extra armor that protects them for most of their life. Really, though, I think it's just a limitation of the existing rules.

In SR4, trolls aren't at a substantial disadvantage for Composure. They have the same WIL range as humans, and soft-max troll CHA is 3, which is on par with most Shadowrunners anyways. You could choose not to buy CHA over the minimum of 1, but that's a character design choice, and see the thread on CHA 1. I imagine that if you sized up a thousand trolls at random, perhaps the bottom 10% would have CHA 1, 80% would be the middle of the bellcurve with CHA 2, 9% would have CHA 3 or 4, and the top 1% would have Exceptional Attribute (or adept Improved Attribute) for CHA 5. Now, whether those rare CHA 5 trolls stand out like social peacocks, or prefer to stay low-profile and play to stereotype so they can catch people off their guard, that's an interesting question.

I'm running a troll sam PC with WIL 3 CHA 3. On a run, he used Subdual Combat to kill a guard, and I figured that his first experience of actually feeling someone die in his grasp would result in a nausea attack. He'd killed before, and fought unarmed before, but not choked/crushed anyone to death before. I didn't bother with a Composure check since comabt was over, and it took less than a minute of the troupe's time to establish a bit of characterization. Other players accuse me of running a "Lawful Good" shadowrunner, for RPing such qualms...

I think I might have rolled Composure first time he fought an elemental spirit and/or insect spirit.

In our games, we usually call for a composure test (or willpower test in other games, or save vs will, whatever seems appropriate for the system) anytime the person runs into something very out of their element. Like running into ED-209, watching as your building is assaulted by a toxic shaman and bug spirits, assensing a spirit and getting a feeling of power way beyond what is normal, etc etc. Standard shootouts usually don't prompt them unless one of your teammates is gibbed in such a way as to cause you to pause for a second.

I can't remember my GM ever calling for a composure test. I've rolled a few on my own for my character when I've been in a situation outside of my element. I do this just as my own "How close am I to loosing control" trying to find my runners breaking point. So far the technomancer (only 19) has successfully stayed away from any wet work, or too much that really forced him to confront anything. Alot of composure tests were made on his part for his interactions with an AI that is currently sleeping on my living commlink (and as long as I avoid dead areas for wireless it should remain sleeping).

Come to think of it there might have been a couple composure tests in our last run, when a couple of our members were being questioned by hospital security (while carrying a gift filled with medicine recently swiped from the pharmacy).

Oh yeah, and Great Dragon Shedim. That was definitely a composure test.

...this is a good idea. Another quality that could affect this roll (in the case of wounds) is Increased Pain Tolerance.

I agree, backstory should come into play.

In the last session, the Short One was charged with carrying out the assassination of a Mob capo at his upscale home. During legwork, it was learned the target had a strong fondness for "joy toys" so it was decided to hit him after the party at his home was over. KK and the team's sammy slipped in during the party (using chameleon suits) & hid themselves in the house until he turned in hsr striking at a most "opportune" moment. Part of the deal was to make it look like a Yakuza hit (she has Yakuza knowledge) which is why she instead of the sammy was the actual hit person.

In all it was a quick but pretty graphic event almost reminiscent of the anime scene from Kill Bill 1. Now for some characters, such as the matrix specialist, seeing this go down this would easily require a Composure test. On the other hand, for KK this sort of thing his more the norm for her as it is part of what she is trained for as described in her background.

Now in the previous session where she racked up a substantial body count (which included several unarmoured targets), maybe a composure test or two and some afterthought would have been more in order for her as that was more random mayhem than the efficient style she was trained in ("maybe I should'a used Stick n' Shock on those hombres back at the saloon or just busted their jaws with mah "lightning bolt punch"...").