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Clyde
I occasionally GM for our group and have often been frustrated that gunfights tend to be over in a round or two at most. Even when the goons had a lot of cyberware and magic and used good cover they tended to die quickly. Last Sunday I tried a different idea - I spaced the goons out over a large area instead of trying to make them faster and tougher!

The first shootout took place in a section of steam tunnels leading away from an underground parking garage. There was no light at all, so everyone was using thermographic. The team went through about ten meters of tunnel - at a right angle turn there were two company men about 20 meters up the tunnel (at another turn - think of a squared of "S" shape). The team overcame those two easily enough, but there was another pair about 10 meters past them. All told they spent 5 rounds moving and taking these four guys out - none of whom was particularly powerful. And that the team's troll got knocked out by stun damage was rather awesome as well. At last, but certainly not least, both the mage and street samurai had to reload while under fire!!!!

The second shootout took place in a corporate compound that was occupied by a bunch of wasp soldier spirits. The compound consisted of four buildings connected by walls with a walled garden in the center. The spirits were low force and armed primarily with SMGs. The team took out six by stealth, then got to mix it up with a couple more plus the leader in the compound. Most rounds were spent jockeying for position rather than actually shooting and by coincidence this fight ran for a full five rounds as well.

I'm totally psyched about how this turned out. So dumpshockers, what are your tricks for running out a gunfight?
sunnyside
Tactics are notably less important in SR4 but still there to some degree at least.

I find in situations where runners are up against corp security people forget the corp guys don't want to die. And their operating proecdure is to try and slow runners down until the heavy hitters they're calling in show up.

Meaning that they use smartlinks to fire around corners a lot. The try and ambush or fire from a hiding space a lot. Use lots of cover and go on full defense and fall back if they actually start taking fire. They also tend to try and pop out somewhere, fire and then get out of dodge.

Sometimes I enjoy these kind of firefights because the players are under stress for longer and it seems more like real life actually. As the players sneak around. And have to reload becuase they aren't getting the kind of results they like against people that always go on full defense when shot at (if you get a shot).
Clyde
Yeah, these guys didn't mind dying smile.gif

I found it was best to think of an SR4 firefight as being a lot like a game of Call of Duty 4 or Halo. The players are going to go into a room (or hallway or whatever) and shoot up several people who won't put up much of a fight. Then they move on an do it again. Every so often one of the bad guys will crop up behind them or on a flank and get a pretty nasty shot in on somebody. Edge usually takes care of that, but it keeps the players on their toes. The main thing that drug out these fights was the sheer physical distance that had to be covered.

I also found that it was effective to have grunts use a point of group edge to go first now and then. It lets them get a shot off and even when it doesn't do anything that has the desired effect of unsettling the team.
ElFenrir

I find tactics can come into play. But wow, i recall this one gunfight that was....arrrrrrg. It was back in SR2/3, so they used the old 'add to target number' rules, but it took for. eve. r. BOTH sides had such heavy modifiers that no one could land a shot; and there was barely any cover; it was a field near a compound, there was a chainlink fence surrounding us, but because both sides had good firearms no one could really get close to the other side...so we were running around and shooting at medium to long ranges. There was also partial darkness, light rain, and fog modifiers and small injuries when the shots DID get through.

The combat lasted over four hours, closer to five. After that, I LOVE when the combats are over fast and furious. Sure, some slow and easy ones are nice, but I think i have some sort of Tabletop Flashbacks if the combats start to go too long. I have to say though, 5 rounds is just fine. It's longer, but it's not SO long that the table begins to go insane. It's a fine balance; sometimes one can put too MUCH cover and resources in a room or compound and you end up with the classic four hour FPS deathmatch as the PCs and opponents are crawling all around the rooms, hiding, and either missing or grazing.

But don't get me wrong, im a strong believer in tactics too. I tend to use one part 'Redshirt Army' -these are the guys that of course have a gun, some armor, and CAN be dangerous if they roll well/the PCs roll bad...ive seen redshirts do a number on people-but generally, these are the mooks that get splattered, run away after a few shots, or a few get splattered, and the rest run away. They have morale. Some aren't even sticking around til the heavier units get there. The rest are more elite, or drones, but it also depends how fast the PCs can remove the redshirts from the equation and get the hell out; bonus points for hacking into any drones and the like they have.


Oddly enough, alot of times I don't even go out of my way to extend combats-it sorta happens on it's own. Ive used what I thought were excellent tactics, smoke grenades, and all kind of stuff and the PCs steamrolled them still. On the other hand, i've seen equivalents of the Naked Gun firefight where the guys were about a meter from each other take forever because both sides just rolled THAT horrible. biggrin.gif




Stahlseele
yeah, the one reason why close combat was so frigging deadly, aside from the STR based weapons doing more than enough ouchies, was the point that modifiers did not matter all that much . . if he's within 2m distance i just have to swing my weapon from left to right and i will frigging hit something . . our FIREFIGHTS tend to take longer because all of us don't have military/security experience but all of us have more knowledge about tactics and strategys, explosives, weapons, military vehicles, operations and the such than we probably should . . honestly, provided we get supplied with some gear, i could basically start my own mercenary outfit with sabotage and all that other nifty shit . .
there's a good way to deal with this . . have a troll on one side *g*
at least my SR3 Trolls would casually stroll up to the enemy even in the thick of combat and rather than shoot whack them over the head and be done with it . . Armor of 7 to 9 and 16 Body and Strength just meant that i could soak whatever it was they threw at me(mostly, aside from grenades with chunky salsa and other such things) and hurt them where it mattered most . . on their weaker impact armor . . and i did not even have as much modifiers . . yes, it was kinda silly . . but meh, that's why i play the troll ^^
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