Hoy Chummers!

I keep reading threads about Corp Sec pulling back and calling for magical backup, or big guns, and so on. Yet, with the way my players take to what little combat we see, I don't find the passes to fit in a call. Good, bad, indifferent, I don't care but combat in 4th can be fraggin deadly. Between frequent overcasting of AoE, (ab)Use of Edge and FA from Automatics ( from the Styer TMP and up!) a character can dish out quite a few boxes in one IP, and this is without carrying the bigger more visible (audible) stuff with them. (No actively sustained spells, unmasked foci, Assault rifles, grenades as tiny as they may be). Note: I play with the mooks only have 10 boxes ( one track for all damage ) rule.

The following assumes that there isn't an ambush either way, nor that parties were braced for combat. The assumptions are an attempt at scoping. With those assumptions fights either last 1-3 rounds or the opposition was insurmountable.

Instead of focusing on the details to change the number of rounds to something appropriate.
* Considering the deadly nature of combat, how do you keep the bad guys up?
* When do you call for backup?
* How many average joes with guns is a low end sec squad (5 dice to shoot at the party, 3 passive defense)?
* Does every sec squad have a mage?


* Moving up to a guards rolling 6 - 8 dice, how cybered are they/
* How common are they?
* Do they have a mage?

Basically SR has made guns vastly more accurate to shorten combat to a playable length. And players can actually move a lot faster and do stuff significantly faster than real people can. As such you also need to assume that response time of reinforcements is a lot faster than they would be in reality. Think of it as the Jack Slater world from the Last Action Hero.

Similarly the security teams all pretty much have to be a lot tougher than makes logical sense to make the game interesting, etc.

I think I am toughening up my "average" Joe. Besides, why would Joe soypack even try to fight Shadowrunners (or even armed gangers)

A real life animal loose on the farm?

Not only does that date me, it proves I listen to Tesla. May Rod have mercy on my soul.

Firstly, I think 5 dice to shoot is really low, even for regular rent-a-cops. I asume anyone paying for their lifestyle with a gun in hand (even if they don't usually use it) will have a competent agility of 3, a skill value of about 2 (possibly even 3 in better trained facilities), a skill specialisation for the gun they use on duty (which is usually the only one they wield, why wouldn't they specialise?) and a smartlink, as those are dirt cheap and greatly amplify their combat ability.
That comes out at about 9 dice, which is the mid-level mook standard in our groups.

Secondly, a corpsec squad doesn't have to actively call for backup. as soon as they're under fire, about a bazillion sensors will detect the gunfire, the guys in their field of vision (they're wearing cheap vision enhancements slaved to a security node, don't they? Noticing stuff is part of their job. The more important part, even) and their rapidly dropping lifesign (curtesy of a biomonitor embedded in their uniform). Add the fact that a mental cry for help via wireless is a free action and it doesn't matter if none of them are conscious at the start of the second round; the corp is alerted.

Now, in "our" corporate world, the regular corpsec patrols don't have mages in them at all. The mages patrol on the astral and on their own. That way they are much more mobile and less easy to disable.
Those grunt patrols are usually almost uncybered, if at all. Most of the useful stuff they carry around, as it's easier to keep SOTA and transfer to the next guy doing the same job that way. A smartlink, perception enhancements, access to the security system (usually via trodes embedded into the helmet) is all they really need. The corps know that those squad can't stop a professional runner team anyway, their job is merely to spot them. No need to waste too much money on them.

The guys getting called if an intrusion is detected are usually trained for firefights with professional criminals. They usually have an agility of 4, a skill of 3 or 4, a specialisation on their regular duty gun and a smartlink, adding up to 11-12 dice.
They almost always have a mage with them, as counterspelling is vital against criminal spellcasters.
They have backup from at least one spyder, controlling half a dozen drones or more. Drones are a lot cheaper than human security personell, so they're a good way to boost numbers and impervious to small arms fire to boot.
Most of the guys in the squad have some way to boost their reflexes, as fighting a cybersamurai otherwise is really difficult. At the low end, it's a drug enhaler, usually (second hand) wired reflexes. Having a boost of more than a single IP is really rare.
They may have ware to help them resist damage, but a heavy armor is a lot cheaper and usually sufficent.
They may have ware to raise their shooting dice pool, but usually not more than 1 or 2 dice at most. Training up another member for each squad is usually more cost efficient.
All in all, they aren't all that cybered up, either. I figure anything above 25k is bad business sense, as it's cheaper to just hire another guy.

Now, those guys send out to geek runner that became to much of a PITA or are suspected to own any valuable paydata still, they get all the cool bling. The corps produce that stuff, they pay a fraction of the market value. AND they're rich. Don't mess with those guys.