There are many different aspects of Shadow Run that allows for GM interpretation. Frankly, that's part of the awesomeness of the game. However, I'm curious to see how everyone else handles this particular aspect of our favorite RPG.

~ Reasonable Resistance ~ There are a great many games that carefully craft the numbers to allow GMs to issue challenges to PCs without overpowering them. To the best of my understanding, this is not the case for SR. It gives a great number of stat blocks for various NPCs and critters, but fails to enact a method of deciphering WHICH challenges to use and in what quantity. This is particularly annoying to me coming from a D&D background. I'm used to plugging my party's level into an equation and it produce a list of beasties with which I can give them a sound thumping without squashing them hopelessly. In the few months I've been trying to re-pick up SR, I have had 4 games with my players, and I have yet to give them a challenge without pinning them behind a car with no hope.

What tricks do you all have? Are you the equation type like me? Do you just "sorta know" based on the characters? I know that part of the challenge includes the environment you engage in due to factors like technomancers hacking cars and various magic shenanagas, but is there a way to identify what environmental details affect the challenge and how much? Discuss!!!

Bad news: In 11 years of GMing Shadowrun, I have yet to come up with a good way to answer your question. My answer is usually reinforcements. Start out with enemies that you expect to slightly under perform with respect to the players. Then, if they start going down too quickly, they bring in reinforcements who are a little better. Doesn't always work, but you can usually work in at least one wave of reinforcements.

The other thing I do is simply avoid combat. I can't take it out of the game entirely, but I make sure that everyone who sits at my table knows that Shadowrunning gets harder the moment the trigger is pulled. Authorities get notified, cameras start recording things they wouldn't have otherwise, etc. Most of my teams are made up of quasi-pornomancers and ninjas, as a result, which has it's own complications, but since I find combat to be the least fun aspect of any RPG, it works out for me.

I might be able to help, as I do sort of use an equation when designing SR encounters.

The first thing you need to do is have a solid, numerical understanding of your players. You need to know how many IPs they have. What their main range/melee dice pools range. How much armor, body and reaction dice they have going for them.

Once you have a firm baseline there, you can start to craft encounters to challenge, over/underwhelm your players, by the numbers. Now, this isn't exact, things such of tactics (cover, ambush, etc), special powers (if you get into critters) and magic (spirits, spells, etc) will skew this basic concept and nothing, save experience will give you a good feel for that.

So, if you look at the average dice pools used to make attacks, what I normally do is set them equal to give them a challenge. Drop them by half to make an easy encounter and double them (or at push them to the cap of 20) for a really tough encounter. And that is with the same number of combatants.

I do the same thing with reaction/dodge and damage resistance, although it is likely that even mooks could have pretty respectable defensive dice pools.

IPs end up playing the biggest role. I usually don't pit the players against better IPs, but I will match them if the opponents are supposed to be strong. For mooks, I'll leave them at 1 IP but burn a point of edge or pop some combat drugs to push an extra IP if I really need to.

It's hard. Shadowrun doesn't lend itself to straight fights. You very often end up with one side beating the other by a wide margin. This can be due to superior stats, but very often is the result of one party simply out-thinking or out-planning the other. There is no "equation" nor ever likely to be. After a few combats you get a feel for whose capable of what and what can threaten them and what can't. But it will never be as accurate as something like D&D because that system is built for such balance, with big buffers of hit points and standardised damage. In D&D you never have to scale the damage done to the opponents by a fireball massively because the PCs managed to lure their enemies into a small room. But grenades work exactly like that. So how could you assign a value to a grenade in a formula when poorly used it will do little but cleverly used will do far, far more. I've had NPCs get the drop on PCs by good stealth skills and grab them from behind with a knife at their throat. There's simply no good way to ever properly balance that in the D&D sense. Even when you have a "balanced" encounter, it tends to quickly go one way or the other, rather than both factions grinding each other down to near exhaustion.

So ultimately, what I end up doing is accepting the way it is and rolling with it. I make sure that the objective isn't "walk into three successive rooms and kill the guards in each", but "get object X without letting an alarm be sounded which would bring Lone Star down". Most battles in Shadowrun are running battles. The PCs don't want to get bogged down in one place because their enemy is usually better resourced then they are and will win the long fight.

So one way, is to rely on that and have scattered opposition that can co-ordinate and reinforce as needed. It doesn't matter as much then if the PCs kill the three guards, because you have another five ready to pour into the room. You're then less likely to over-estimate the PCs and kill them because you can adjust the reinforcements as you go.

But ultimately, there's nothing wrong with the PCs coming up against something too powerful for them, because unlike D&D, running away or hiding is a big part of what Shadowrunners are supposed to do.

If a D&D party approached a standard dungeon by disguising themselves as ambassadors, being led directly the Big Bad End Guy and then assassinating him, bypassing all the opposition, then the DM would probably regard the adventure as a failure. In Shadowrun, that would be a success.

I guess what I'm saying is that whilst experience will teach you to balance opposition (i.e. if one side as a magician and the other not, then Team Magic will have a big advantage), D&D and Shadowrun play very differently and you'll never be able to run Shadowrun in the same way as a D&D game, because the rule system itself is against you.

I don't know if that's helpful or not. I'm more advising you to dodge the question, than providing answers. But those are my immediate thoughts.

Khadim.

EDIT: Though the above still stands, I guess I could say a few practical things. Low initiative can make a big difference. Particularly if the low-initiative side has few IPs as well. He who shoots first often shoots last. If the opposition acts after the PCs, which they often do, they can see their numbers severely reduced before they even get to act. And if the PCs have the IP advantage, they'll feel more comfortable using actions for Full Defense, which means they'll take even less damage. Magic is a killer. If it's not countered, it can carry a battle all by itself and very easily. Spirits progress from being fairly weak and easy to deal with, to being absolute monsters. Get them to Force 6 or beyond and they rapidly become very dangerous indeed. Never forget modifiers for multiple opponents in melee or repeated dodging of different attacks. It makes multiple opponents more dangerous. Seemingly little things like cover or visibility modifiers can prolong fights lending a little bit of a D&D "wear each other down" aspect to combat. Keep an eye out for the levels of armour on people. Once it starts overmatching the PCs' base damage by a decent margin, it can lend a lot of staying power to the opposition. The best way to gauge the opposition is to run some test fights yourself before the players show up.

Regardless of you're perceived notions, I believe each of you have provided some invaluable insights into my question. Simple fact is, this isn't D&D and can't be handled as such due to it's goals. D&D wants you to kill the monsters and loot the room while SR has much more sophisticated motivating factors. However, I believe you have all hinted at what elements a GM could use to manipulate combat to his/her needs.

Dashifen stated that (while avoiding fights altogether would be preferable) backup support is a viable element. You're opponents not getting it done? Have them call their buddies! We are basicly saying that there is strength in numbers and number of invisible opponents is fully in the GMs control.

Deek brings up a good point in that we need to have a fair understanding of the effectiveness of our PCs. Grunts with awesome ballistics armor are lunch to fire elemental summoners. While this is tricky territory due to the fact that PCs will have differing talents along the skill tree, I believe at least a basic understanding of your PCs abilities is essential to providing them proper challenges.

Knasser's comment might be the most helpful yet. He highlights how balance doesn't exist in SR like in other games. While in D&D you WANT to bring the party to near death, in SR doing that is probably going to be the end of the run. He also notes that GMs do have another element to add to our arsenal to control combat: modifiers. Placing our opponents in areas that provide THEM with the modifiers gives them a huge advantage. Although, we may want to think of ways that we can introduce those modifiers midway though combat so we could only use them if we want to prolong the fight. I'll have to do some thinking on that....

Final bit. That is a major bit of information. As lethal as SR can be, it's conceivable that the first shot will kill/severely wound one of the combatants. With that in mind, as long as the PCs survive the first IP, they are in an INCREDIBLE position to wipe our their opposition. That brings to mind that removable/destructable modifiers for the NPCs may be a good way to balance the fight should one want to prolong it (ie burning brush they are hiding behind, or slowly filling the area with water to limit their stay).

This is wonderful information! Forgive my preachy post, but it helps me process when I write things out. I'm slowly building a better understanding of the many ways to run this game. So far, I'm impressed ^_^ I just wish there was a manual somewhere detailing the kind of answers you guys are giving me. I guess that's what dumpshock is for!

My advice would be to start with a few fights - heck, make that a few runs - that you feel confident will be cakewalks for your players. Watch how well they perform there, and from that evaluate what they should be able to deal with - though be warned that in serious fights, most PCs are going to have a rather narrow margin between "fine" and "fine red mist" and that simple changes in tactics - or who can set the situation up in their favor - can cause dramatic changes in the outcome of a fight.

Another thing to consider would be finding ways to give your characters fights that will be challenging, but provide little real threat of long-term consequences. For instance, a recent run saw the team hacker - who was getting rather too arrogant for her own good - taking a drubbing from an AI contact of hers who happened to be working as a Spider at the site we were breaking into. A few aspirin and a large bribe later, the AI in question agreed to edit the logs to show that there had been no attempted hack that evening.

Dashifen, deek, and Knasser had good ideas, both are great ideas. Just try to remember that even when dealing with mooks that "should" be an easy encounter for PCs, things can get out of hand quick depending on what the players do. 5 mooks concentrating fire on one person will ruin somebody's day.

Add to that the fact that if the PCs slip up or do something stupid, it is possible to get the sky called down on them. What might have been a very safe encounter to start with starts looking a bit rougher when it escalates, like if the attack helicoptors and HTR vehicles start showing up.

On a final point, I don't think that balancing IP should always be done... It is the Sixth World, those that can afford initiative boosters or have need of them will probably have them, so if they bumble enough to run up against that sort of opposition, they'll just have to deal with it.

See, my solution is: I do not try to balance the security goons or what not to the PCs. I balance it to the level of importance of the facility. My security are professional. They have flash-bang grenades, gel rounds and lethal rounds. Their response is to sound an alarm, and try and delay the PCs as long as they can(while trying to keep from getting killed) so that the HTRT gets
there. My HTRTs usually have an Ork or Troll Heavy, a Combat mage, 1 close combat, 2 shooters. They open with Ultrasound goggles on, and smoke grenades. These guys have Stick and Shock and APDS/EX-EX. These are for a low end facility(I fighre that HTRTs are shared between facilities).

For high importance facilities, you have guards with Wires, and SMartlink. They carry Stick and SHock and APDS ammo.

Basicly, if the players are getting into a fight with guards...they need to think their way out.

Amen to that... So refreshing to see security with some intelligence behind them...

Things that helped me provide more challenging combats:

1) Spread out/come in waves. Put guards in different rooms/corridors so that the PCs can clear them. This works a lot like your standard first-person shooter. Even weak opposition seems pretty tough when the PCs have to advance into it. For example, I sent mooks with 1 IP, small dice pools, and machine pistols against typical SR4 PCs. Because the mooks were spread out in several waves (and using available cover and full defense) they seemed a lot tougher to the players.

2) Full defense. Mooks can get 4-6 extra dice by abandoning their next action to take full defense this turn. It really helps them take less damage.

3) Soften up the PCs with light area weapons like flashbangs or nausea gas. Some big penalties get the players concerned about being incapacitated and help to make things easier on your mooks.

4) Put one competent/tough leader in with the mooks. You can throw in the off duty SWAT Troll, the adept with the neat powers or the guy with all the cyberlimb armor and he'll really give the PCs trouble. This especially works if that guy comes during the second wave and so wasn't wiped out by the first volley from the PCs . . . .

Just spreading out and using full defense helped extend the duration of my combats without adding undue risk to the player characters. Adding some really good leaders to the mooks can actually put the PCs at serious risk, so use with caution.

I agree with this.

Combat, once you get to rolling the dice, can be very lethal. Situations can go to hell very quickly. NPCs can die very fast, so can PCs. My word of advice as a GM is not to get attached to your NPCs, especially if they are not Prime Runners. It is very difficult to provide any "reasonable resistance", that is why I put the guards in my facilities according to how well defended or important that place is. If your runners are smart, they'd try to avoid combat in those well guarded at all.

You can also design the environment to suit the situation. Maybe the security head had designed the place with spotlights that would negate vision penalties for the guards but give glare to the intruders, but the bean counters at HQ thought that it was a needless expense or maybe the lights broke and they didn't have the budget to repair. I always try to remember that what someone can design someone else can take apart. So if you decide that the facility is a high security area, designed by someone with a high Security Design skill so that you can put in more security measures against the runners, you could to allow the runners to use their Security Design knowledges to find a way to bypass some, most, or even all of the security measures. Same thing for the guards themselves, they might be lowest bidder rent-a-cops, or simply more up market thugs, who have no inkling of Security Procedures or even basic tactics. Play them realistically. Dumb guys do dumb things. Even smarter guys do dumb things on occasion (probably when they thought themselves so smart but critically glitch that Security or Tactics roll). Dumb guys do not coordinate their fire, they point and fire. Some dumb guys may be scared enough to fire from behind cover (fail Composure, perhaps), others may have try to be a hero in all the worse(non-self-preservation) sense of the word.

I use the RAW stats of the Grunts. Right now, there are 2 books with clear examples of Grunts in them - those in SR4(since I have only SR4 and not SR4A) and those in Ghost Cartels. Although both sets of Grunts use the same classification system, those in Ghost Cartels are far more lethal than the basic Grunts in SR4. Take a look at both sets and then use them as appropriate.

I'm a big believer in running the world like it would if it made sense. Most criminals are throwing 4-6 dice, so security needs to be capable of handling that and simply delaying 'runners until backup arrives.

You should also be unafraid of making things simply hectic with extra stuff happening to throw your team's plans off-kilter. Perhaps someone (i.e. not the 'runners) tries to do a ram-raid whilst the 'runners are inside their target. It's not direct opposition, but it'll make 'em sweat bullets.

I think it's funny that you think the CR system results in fair challenges. Most dragons will TPK a correctly leveled party, particularly early on because they can fly and typically the party cannot.

Anyway that aside, the correct play here is to sit down and discuss with your party on the tone of the game. If you want to play ultra black covert ops, the party can have hugely overpowered security guards and stuff, but the defensive security dicepools need to be about 2/3rds to 3/4ths of those of the parties to ensure that they can consistently overcome it.

So guards should have perception DPs of 10-12 to resist Stealth DPs of 16-18, if the challenge should be reasonably pain free. DP 12 resisting 16 is tougher.

Combat is much harder to balance because it is 'rules of engagement' driven, as well as whoever has surprise. If your party isn't constrained by social norms - like not just murdering people because that attracts police attention - you'll be very surprised by how many people they can kill in an ambush. A sniper can kill four guys before the other team even knows what is going on, and the sniper is a piss weak combat archtype. A cyber-troll tank with an automatic grenade launcher might be able to manage 30+ kills in one IP.

Conversely one guy with a rifle can easily TPK the party.

One thing to keep in mind is that shadowrun is a game of the proverbial "eggshells with hammers", so Deek's approach of using the PCs' dice pools as a baseline for the opposition could often result in a dead party. A group tossing 20+ dice attacks could still get chewed up by a group tossing 12 dice attacks. Also, numbers are a factor. A sammie with lots of dice can get challenged by two or three guards intelligently coordinating their attacks.

Considering that runners are near the top of the heap, physical combat-wise, they should steamroll over most other opposition. In a straight-up fight, that is. The trick is to make it harder for them to get that straight-up fight. PCs have the advantage of being the aggressor, coming in with prior planning, while the NPCs have the advantages of in-place security measures and being on their home ground. Although this set of advantages can also get turned around when PCs get someone gunning for them (rivals, cops, etc.). Do what other posters have said - have mooks come in waves, use elementary tactics, and take advantage of security features (such as - spotlights that negate darkness penalties for the guards, but give glare modifiers to the PCs).

Also, challenge them in areas outside of combat - shadowrunning also consists of dealing with shady contacts (PCs need these people to function outside of the system. It's not really wise to threaten the guy who can get you an assault rifle or a fake ID), doing legwork and sifting through potential misinformation, and planning (overdone, this can bog down the game, but generally, simply crashing the front gate with guns blazing should not go well for the PCs). Be sure that non-combat people get a chance to shine, too.

Just to ensure that we are all on the same page, I by no means meant to portray that I'm a huge combat enthusiast (on the contrary). I was simply asking the question in a vacuum. We all know the guy that spends his character gen time making a guy that is "just the most awesome weapons expert ever!" As GMs, we are obligated to throw him a bone every now and again. While avoiding combat is sensible (and frankly a lot more fun ^_^), not everyone will feel that way. Let me digest the info I've gleaned so far...

Use waves of guys or backup to flesh out opposition
Use positive and negative modifiers to manipulate the outcome
Don't introduce teams with higher stats than the PCs without a great reason

Obviously these have exceptions/need explanation, but I believe we all understand what I'm getting at. Sence it's still early, my brain hasn't kicked into overdrive yet. Here's hoping this info helps the n00b GMs out there.

No defense constructed by humans has even been insurmountable by a properly configured offense, even if that offense is a nuclear weapon or tungsten telephone poles.

Yeah, it sounds like we all are on the same page. SR combat is pretty deadly and most GMs like seeing their players avoid combat and find other solutions to the problem.

My current campaign, I started my team in a sort of 4v4 paintball match against another department in their corp. A hit was registered as a kill, but it was interesting to see them work through a two-story office building against a very undermatched team. When the hacker got a bead on the opponent, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. When the runners had no idea where they were, it was fairly evenly matched, although overall, with equal weapons, equal armor and limiting the runner to 1IP, the runners did a ton of damage and only took a couple boxes throughout the five matches.

But those are the sorts of things to work towards to get a good feel about your group. Now, I did only focus on physical combat...when of the more complex things that a GM has to think about is when you start adding matrix attacks and magic attacks to the mix!

Actually because of the lethality of the game system, there are 2 valid strategies to adopt -

1) Avoid combat

2) Initiate combat

The key is to determine when you should avoid and when you should initiate.

Another thing to remember is that the waves of guards came from somewhere, they have to be directed to the scene, they can be ambushed or mislead or confused en route.

Manipulating the modifiers can work both ways, but are the guards smart enough to do so? Are they smart(Logic or Intuition) enough or have the necessary savvy(the correct Knowledge skills)?

That can be a pitfall for the GM - using their tactical knowledge instead of remembering that the NPCs don't share his omniscient point of view or knowledge of the PCs.

For most mooks, it is probably less a matter of being smart enough, and more a matter of being specifically trained to do certain things to take advantage of the security features of the area they are guarding. So on the one hand, they can perform tactics that mere grunts wouldn't think of on their own. On the other hand, they won't be as adaptable as NPCs who are truly intelligent would be. For example, they might fall back to a designated position where the sentry guns can provide supporting fire, even if the sentry guns have already been blown up by the PCs. A savvy team can use these logical, but predictable tactics to their advantage if they have done enough reconnaissance to be aware of them.

Making combat challenging without creating a good chance of a TPK can be difficult.

One major issue is how clever are player/character tactics. Someone who thinks "hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle" is a universally best tactic is going to be challenged by a much less competent defense that someone who either avoids combat or uses stealth and ambushes to remove security forces without creating loud noises (There is a reason why stunball and stunbolt are really high on the list of spells every combat mage should have). The reason is that the first group will fight it out with pretty much all the guards every time, and eventually someone will get lucky and get 12 successes with their alpha.

However my feeling is that you need to play the serious professionals as serious professionals. Guys on a SWAT or HRT team take down heavily armed dangerous guys with magical support for a living. They know how to do it, they understand what can go wrong and have tactics designed to maximize their capabilities and minimize their opponents capabilities, and have plans for what to do if things go to hell. If your players feel that shooting it out with a Lone Star HRT or a Knight Errant Firewatch team is a survivable option you are doing something wrong.

However the opposite could be the same. Some runner teams that specialise in brute force methods take down SWAT/HRT for their living, some of these guys were ex-SWAT/HRT/Ghost/Firewatch. They know how to do it, they understand what can go wrong and have tactics designed to maximise their capabilities and have plans so that things go to hell for the other guys. Turn it around, if you feel that your Lone Star HRT shooting out with your runner team is a survivable option, then you are doing something wrong.

No, there are ALWAYS more cops. The cops are choosing when to show up and how. By the time they show up there isn't any way out. No "runner team" can show up with 40 force 4 spirits, a pile of steel lynxes, strato 9s, a half dozen warded Tbirds, a pile of warded armored vehicles, 500 liters of neurostun and dozens of guys in fully sealed combat armor backing them up.

And if you somehow do bring down a KE Firewatch team they will simply kill you. Boom! Don't go into the "who can bring more force to bear" game with Ares. You'll lose. These are the guys who got away with nuking downtown Chicago.

I agree with Kzt. In shadowrun it is impossible to win if you start a war vs society. In D&D which is really an iron age society and a level 20 wizard can kill any number of peasants, frag the king and apoint himself Chief Badass and everyone is going to start paying him now, no question, because he is the biggest badass around and not doing so is going to get you set on fire.

If a shadowrun team walked into Ares and kneecaped the C.E.O and said they are the boss now, they'd get swarmed by a zillion guys with tanks, guns and nuclear fire. More to the point, killing the C.E.O wouldn't change jack, as the next replacement would step up to the plate.

You see, it is not who can bring more force to bear. The game world can eventually bring more force to bear. But the question is who can bring more force to bear now. Cops do not choose when to show up and how, they show up when and how they can. It takes an act of GM fiat for the cops to choose when and how to show up. It might seem that there are always more cops, but by the time, you manage to kill the 1 billionth cop, I think the cop population would be scrapping the bottom of the barrel.

When someone shows up with 40 force 4 spirits, a pile of steel lynxes, strato 9s, a half dozen warded Tbirds, a pile of warded armored vehicles, 500 liters of neurostun and dozens of guys in fully sealed combat armor backing them up, the party ain't here no more. It becomes a waste of time and effort. This is the advantage a commando squad against a division of soldiers, or even 300 against a force that vastly outnumbers them. It is not absolute superiority that matters, it is relative superiority that counts.

Remember the world shaping changes - those things didn't happen because the status quo wanted them to happen, those people with the gazillion force 1 million spirits, those huge armies of tanks, and fleets of warded T-birds. Those changes happened in spite of them and a relatively small number of people made them happen.

The game world needs to be internally consistent. If Ares has 10 Firewatch teams and you manage to kill off 5 of them, then there should be 5 left. And if they sent their best 5 teams and they lost, then the odds of the remaining 5 actually succeeding where the others failed are even smaller now.

Except they wouldn't send the remaining 9 one at a time. They have actual DIVISONS of armoured troops trained and equipped to US military standards. If someone blows away a firewatch team after doing something else to annoy ares, they arn't just going to send in the rest one at a time. They are going to send all the rest with a and entire division of MOUT trained troops.

These guys are prepared and have used nuclear weapons when the problem got big. Shelling city blocks for a moderate problem is entirely consistent. If someone gets a bead on you, you're going to be eating MLRS rocket barrages or 155mm rounds, even if you're using human shields.

They do not have DIVISIONS of troops waiting around for this to happen, those troops have other things to do. Why did they not send in those 10 teams in the first place? Who is going to pay for the expense of pulling those troops off whatever they are doing and transporting them to the area of operations? Also while it may be highly improbably difficult to take on 9 Firewatch teams, the runners may still might win if they had planned for that. Then the question would be why didn't they nuke the place in the first place? Whose head would be on the chopping block for that miscalculation?

Shelling city blocks of civillians may be entirely consistent, but is shelling entire blocks of corporate citizens of another corp worth the retribution to possibly hit a small shadowrunner team? They have used nuclear arms in response to a threat that they thought a nuclear response would be cost effective. Therefore make it so that the most cost effective response is to write off the cost of the lost Firewatch team/s and to recruit these runners. After all, if these runners are so good, then why not hire them to harass your competitors? Why keep throwing good money after bad?

There's a reason why I said 5 Firewatch teams. They sent 1 in. Oops. So they thought we could possibly afford to pull the 4 others in the same side of the hemisphere - maybe one or 2 which won the best Firewatch competition and sent them in. Oops. So the question is do you still want to bleed more money? The costs of training and outfitting those 5 Firewatch teams in all probability would outweigh the R&D budgets in an Ares department.

My players got hired by a former target on the basis of how dangerous they turned out to be. It caught them by surprise at first, but now they regard it as a mark of professionalism to be able to put aside personal issues.

Anwyay, everything that Toturi just said (only more rambling and wordy).

Another thing I've noticed is that the players' perception of resistance is not necessarily related to the actual level of resistance. Good modifiers, well spread out troops and the right atmosphere can make low level mooks SEEM like they're badasses and the players are barely surviving.

Distance is another key factor - the team can only cover so much ground in a turn. By putting the team's objective 50 m away they'll need about two turns to reach it on foot. That's true even if security is provided by a troop of girl scouts. . . .

Personally I'd recommend simply forgetting the idea of DnD Encounter Tables that are based off your party's level. Instead populate your world with "real people" and have them staff buildings with reasonable levels of security modified by their budgets like they do in real life, if the Runners charge into a situation where they are outmatched and die then them's the breaks.

In DnD you have "Raise Dead" as a safety net, in Shadowrun the best you can do is Burn Edge and use character pools when that isn't enough.

Now I have written and deleted my response several times. So bear with me.

There is an equation for combat, actually every situation in the game, but it is insanely complicated and requires you take into account abstracts of changing emotion and world view of both characters and players.
Broad principles are better than situational specific advice, so that you can apply and tweak as you wish. Basically I dont know your group.
I dont mean to be trite but the simplist advice I can give is read The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.

The way I ref difficulty, is well, obsessive. I seek to know the players and their character as well or better than they do. I form a mental probability tree of their characters actions/emotions (including chances of dice success) in the circumstances I will place them. With practise these become more exact and complex so I can see how they interact. So by changing the enviroment stimulus I can guide the characters and so the players through a challagening pathos filled experence by their own volition while taking into account random chance.

For combat this lets me guess how they will act and what they can throw at the problem.

My personal reminder list for difficulty and game experence.
1.Increase accuarcy not calibre. Being hit is scarier than a miss from a big gun.
2. Anything you give an NPC the players may get their hands on. See number one.
3. Probibilities of dices pools for average hits in specific circumstance gives a general guideline to damage out put. Scale accordingly.
4. More attacks means more damage.
5. Dont forget Karma/Edge in your calcualtions
6. Gear, numbers, terrain, tactics. These change everything.
7. Make it feel real.
8. Include healing capabilies of team/oppersition.
9. Always remember what the PC's can do.

For an example of number six: I took corps cadavers, gave them high damage weapons, good armour, simple tactics, numbers, defensive archetecture and wards/astral guardian spirits in situ.
Though low quality combatants these advantages over the runners balanced the field.

kzt has something of a point. In an all-out, no-holds-barred war between Ares and a team of Runners, Ares will win every single time. Clever tactics and appropriate use of your resources and the situation can let you last longer than you would normally, and inflict greater losses on your opponents than your numbers and abilities would seem to indicate, but you'll still eventually lose. In a battle between 300 Spartans and millions of Persians, the Spartans still all died.

Now, with that being said, if you've managed to cause things to escalate to an all-out, no-holds-barred war with Ares, you've already done so many things wrong. Ares isn't looking for a war with your team because you aren't worth that kind of time and money. Their bottom line takes a bigger hit from launching that kind of response than from shrugging and writing off their losses. And survival as a Runner team depends on your ability to keep it that way. Part of the key to success as a Runner is making sure that in all the megacorp's budget ledgers, the expense of leaving you out there occasionally doing runs against them is less than the expense of dedicating sufficient resources to take you down.

Personally, I feel that it would take a lot to make a corporation expend that much effort in the first place. I'm not talking a standard run where some security guards get killed, something gets stolen, and a few other things get blown up. I'm talking about something like wiping a facility off of the map.

But the thing to remember is that the world consists of more than Ares vs. the PCs. If they lose several firewatch teams, they have to worry about the other corporations who still have a full complement of spec ops squads. They have to worry about which other corporations own those downtown buildings that they are blowing up in pursuit of the runners. Runners may be relatively weak, power-wise, despite their lethal abilities, compared to corporations. However, they have the potential to be a tipping point in the struggles already going on. Are they going to win if they go against the Yaks? Probably not. But if they do enough damage, the Yaks might find the mafia and the Vory moving in on their territory.

They won't send a second firewatch team. They will simply use standoff weapons, and the runners will spend the last second of their lives sharing their secret base with a 1000kg guided bomb. Boom.

This is the Miranda Warning used by KE:
"You have the right to remain DEAD. Anything you do will be used against you. You have the right to a coroner. If you cannot afford one, we will appoint a medical examiner for you."

I just find it hilarious that you don't think if the runners squashed an Ares firewatch team, they are 'just a small shadowrun team'

If the runner team are a sufficient threat that they can just curb stomp an Firewatch team with no casualties at all, they are a MASSIVE threat. Huge! They are like, more hardcore than platoons of the SAS. If the UK sent a platoon of the SAS into some african nation and they curb stomped the presidential guard (exactly equivalent situation), the locals would get seriously pissed off today. It would probably start a war.

Incidently, Ares has, what.. 200 Ares firewatch teams? If they are organised like the navy seals (the organisation the fluff draws comparisons with) and you are actually refering to a 'SEAL team' sized unit which would fit with the concept that Ares has 5 Firewatch teams, then the Runner team is probably as hardcore as the Australian SAS-R 1st Company.

That is an entire company of special forces soldiers. Huge threat dimensions here. HUGE. A company of special forces soldiers can unseat governments.



They seriously nuked chicago man. It probably had Ares citizens in it, let alone chumps working for Aztechnology.

Unless the response of Ares each time their Firewatch teams are defeated and suffers casualties to make them combat ineffective is to go nuclear, I must admit that I fail to see the link between the purported "huge" threat and nuclear arms. Yes, if a shadowrunner team can defeat a Firewatch team, then they are as strong a threat as any of the best Firewatch teams or even a threat on the scale of multiple Firewatch teams. And yes, a company of special forces soldiers can unseat governments, but I do think you are overstating the threat dimension if you are comparing a company of special forces to weapons of mass destruction. Yet you do make my point for me, if they are really as powerful as you say, then why not make use of them instead? Afterall, someone managed to hire them to hurt you. Surely it is well within the pockets of a megacorp to hire such highly talented individuals.

Ares dared to nuke Chicago because the powers that be signed off on it and that the Insect Spirits are a threat to the combined and individual interests of each Corporate Court member.

If 4 guys can take on almost 100 SAS troopers, then they are frikken super cyberzombies or something not shadowrunners in any conventional sense. I'd suggest you wouldn't be thinking 'shadowrunners' at that point. You're probably thinking Bloodzilla. You're probably going to have to escalate. Incidentally, presumably if they just blew up a firewatch team they are probably going to do something else next, and that could be bad for you!

Maybe Ares would like to stop whatever happens next. That will require escalation, or just letting them walk away with something that is protected by a full firewatch team. Target values that are protected by a full company of special forces troops include multiple high government VIP. If you where ares, and someone just blew away a firewatch team while they were trying to protect the CEO and the entire board, are you seriously saying that you'd just stand there, let the CEO and the entire board get fragged, and then try and hire the guys? This isn't going to work very well. Maybe people might notice that your entire senior executive is dead? This could be an issue for you I'd suggest.

What about if they are about to reveal your secret and highly illegal project to take over the world?

4 highly trained people who able to take on some of the best security a Great Dragon can hire (SR3 Survival of the Fittest) are just as likely to take down a Firewatch team.

There aren't any SR4 references or descriptions of Firewatch teams and their organisation. As far as I know, according to RAW, Firewatch teams are 5-7 people. So with reference to that, a full Firewatch team is 7 men, how difficult is it to take down 5-7 guys? Or even 15 people? Target values that are guarded by a team of 7 people even if they are the best of the special forces troops are not likely to be the equivalent of multiple high government VIPs. More likely just a high value research facility or a high value production facility.

In SR3, I am given to understand it's 16 in a squad per the fluff, but that doesn't add up with your statement that Ares only has 10 teams. If they only have 10 teams, there is 200+ a team. If they have 16 per squad, they have hundreds of teams, and 5 teams just kicking their heels in Seattle - so committing all of them is something they'd realistically do if the runners were annoying and killed quite a few cops.

So yeah, it is actually really quite a few guys as a big VIP in Iraq - like say Stormin' Norman warrants 3 Delta force guys in Iraq. US secretary of Defence only gets about that in GWII. Maybe a few more around that don't show up in the photos, maybe twice that? Call it the Secretary of State and the Defence Secretary then? That is a big pair of people to lose. You might be in trouble as Ares. If I killed the Australian Defence Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs they would be pissed. No-one would be talking about a job offer into the SAS-R

For reference, a SAS team is 4 guys, so if they allocate 2 teams (probably reasonable), that is 8 guys. Also special forces teams don't really guard facilities. Doesn't fit the mission profiles they are equipped to deal with.

@OP: Like other posters, I don't scale the opposition according to the PC but according to the situation. A highly secure complex will be filled with efficient drones and tough cybered veterans while the small office will have nothing more than an underpaid and untrained guard who'll just push a panic button and hide himself as soon as he sees a gun.

But most of the time, the runners won't be sent on mission they can't succeed. A team with no mage won't be sent to a place guarded by a whole lot of high force spirits (except if no other team is available and Mr Johnson absolutely have to send a team there). And even when the odds are against them, the PC aren't doomed: the no-mage team can find a way to have the spirits sent away, or to infiltrate the place in a way that makes them safe from spirits (for example if they have a legitimate reason to be there). If a team gets in a fight they can't win, they can still run away or try to talk their way out of it... Most of the time, the opposition is made of humans (or human controlled drones), not of "monsters".

And actually, even if you found a way to find the "reasonable resistance", the "eggshell with hammers" style still makes it possible for either side to get wasted quickly: it's very easy for any half-decent NPC to severly wound or even kill a PC who's unaware of the attack (except if the target is a troll, or wears combat armor, or both). That's fine with me: my players know their PC can kill anyone they face just like any NPC can kill them.

This is one of the reasons my GM stated for recruiting my PC. It was explicitly because of his direct combat experience in special forces, this actually is getting me worried that we'll be running into Firewatch, since it appears that Ares is a major antagonist in our campaign. In theory, my character should be most suited to take charge in a situation where the fecal matter hits the oscillation device, but that's questionable due to two reasons. The first is that he hasn't been very open about his background since he's trying to hide his past because he's an escaped convict. Three sessions in, and I've dropped the first hints to any of the PCs about his past, and that's because he sees that he could use a bunch of drunken veterans to cause a disturbance that might aid in an infiltration.

The second reason he may not be able to take the reins in a bad situation is because he is with a group of PCs, and he's already presented tactics for accomplishing a mission using a different priority than what other characters think. Personally I see two values about a method to accomplish a mission, number of records that can possibly be created on a character (I call this visibility), and how high or low profile the mission tactics end up being. A low profile mission is one that may not be detected, but a low profile mission may also have high visibility. Since Ares is a major antagonist, and we know it is since Johnson has told us this, I believe that reducing our visibility more important that reducing our profile. Since every site we're hitting is Ares affiliated, that means that more and more records of us, whether it be visual or otherwise, are being made aware to Ares. On the first social engineering infiltration (high visibility), they didn't even bother to use disguises (I need to have a talking with them about that if my character was aware they pulled that stunt). I'm thinking that if they continue to social engineer in this fashion, that it's going to escalate our potential encounters quickly. In other words, Ares has a watch on people matching those descriptions, they get a match at some point and deploy a Firewatch team to the area in or near one of the Ares facilities. If that happens, we'll likely either have to scrub the mission or die. I have no reasonable expectation that our characters would be able to win against any specialized forces. Considering the allegations that Johnson has us looking for evidence, I could very well see a Firewatch team being used to stop our runners. On the other hand, if we keep our visibility low, even with executing high profile ops, Ares isn't going to be as likely to determine where we may hit next, and they certainly aren't going to pull all their Firewatch teams to protect every facility that could be hit, that would be way to noticeable to the other corps.

The moral is that you should act in a way that minimizes the enemy's ability to react to your ops. Runners have the advantage in initiative, but once the corps can start to track your movement or get hints and whiffs of where you are going to hit, you're going to be on the losing end and it's going to happen quickly. The encounter table from D&D works because the game is designed as a dungeon diving game where you usually face dumb to semi-intelligent creatures. Look at dragons alone as an example of how the encounter table fails, dragons are very intelligent and a GM who plays to the dragon's strengths will many times wipe a group of players of the appropriate party level. However Shadowrun is constantly against intelligent opponents and they will act that way. An intelligent creature that gets wounded will frequently run away unless there's an influence stronger than the basic survival instinct.

Perhaps you can quote your reference? By SR3 RAW, Firewatch has 5-7 per team (as in Knight Errant Firewatch Teams). I used 10 teams as an example, they could have more of course, but the point is that the amount of opposition should not be infinite.

3 Delta guys and a whole lot of other security guys who are not in the photos, perhaps an full MP company. Maybe for each visible guy you'd have 5-6 others in the background. So no, maybe for 7 guys, you have the Assistant Deputy Under-Sec State for Antartic Affairs or some relatively unimportant easily replaceable figurehead Cabinet position.


That's D&D. You can hardly one-shot anything unless you vastly outclass the target. But even a Great Dragon in SR can be one-shot.

It is a matter of playing to the opposition's weakness. If the facility has all the latest security features designed to detect stealthy intruders, you could sacrifice finesse and brute force smash your way in. But a facility geared towards stopping brute force attempts may be sliced open with a precise surgical strike.

D&D + Powergamers = One Shots. It happens less often at lower levels, but as you progressively get higher in level the opportunity against equal CR creatures gets higher and higher to the point that you need to give enemies extra hit points. Not hit dice, since this affects saves, attack rolls, and other things, not constitution since this affects saves, just raw HP bonuses. Stuff like Max hit dice + a bonus.

And yes, you need to tailor the intrusion to the defenses, but my point was that the more visible the runners are to the corp in question, the higher the chances that the corp pieces things together and can form a response that will savage the players if not kill them. If Ares knows that some runners are in Seattle that have been targeting Ares facilities, what do you think Ares is going to do? I'd imagine they would at the very least quietly buff up security in their facilities in order to stall any intrusions and get one to two Firewatch teams on station depending on the amount of area covered by important Ares facilities and the speed at which they can arrive on scene.

Trying to bring the back to the original topic. But the key here is would the FW team use the same tactics and gear as a bunch of gangers? Or course not. The Ares FW team is more disciplined and better equipped, has tacnet software, as much drone, matrix and magical support as it wants. No-I don't think the runners should stand a chance to begin with. But the key here is not the stats of the Firewatch team, but how the executetheir attack. If a group of runners wiped/beat one out-well I think after the smoke cleared and everbody chilled, sombody's rep would sky rocket. So much so Ares might hire them.

I agree that a Firewatch team would probably not use the same gear as a bunch of gangers. They might not use the same tactics, if they are smart enough to do so. But how they execute their attack is determined by their stats, good stats mean good tactics, bad stats mean bad tactics. If they have no form of Security or Tactics skill among themselves, then they default on that roll, by rights.

My point is that by RAW, it might not be something that is within the runners' control. If the runners' Public Awareness is high enough to attract attention, then it is high enough to attract attention.

Not to resurrect a thread that everyone has weighed in on, I DID have a couple of comments.

The major point has been that a GM should play opposition in a vacuum. If the PCs are attacking an Ares facility, they should run into Megacorp caliber resistance. While I understand (and agree to a point) the concept, I have to disagree with foundation on which the argument is built.
The fact is that my job as GM is to provide an entertaining experience for the players. I should NOT be sending my PCs into Ares territory without one heck of a good reason for how they can survive. The foundation for D&D is combat and with that comes the need for balancing combat to the enjoyment of the PCs. While SR has a much wider foundation and does not NECESSITATE combat, it remains a major motivator for the game. With that in mind, I have to be able to offer combat to the "munchkins" in my group without necessarily pitting them against hopeless odds.

It sounds more and more like the solution is to find new ways for "munchkins" to get their combat fix. Fact: Shadowrun is deadly in both directions. There is a good chance neither the attacker nor the defender will make it to the next IP. I'll keep thinking about this. It just seems to me that we are so rapped up in canon that we are loosing sight of making sure the PCs are having fun. Maybe I'm wrong...

A firewatch team would not use the same tactics as a ganger, no might about it. I would add that a FW team spends it's spare time going through tactical simulations, a ganger would not (more likely the ganger would rough up the locals, drink or pop BTLs).

@Tricen:

First of all, there are a lot of ways to play Shadowrun. Most of those who have voiced the point of view you mention (me included) are people who prefers a more realistic approach, and probably a more tactical combat. In such games, combat is dangerous and, as such, will often be the last resort. Even the players don't necessarily want combat during the session. If I send my PC inside an Ares Facility, they'd probably get fake IDs and do the whole run with social engineering and, if I deal correctly with the situation, my players will probably enjoy it more than if they just shot their way inside.
It looks like you might prefer games where combat is a more common situation, so our ideas might not suit your style.

But even then, I guess there are some things to keep in mind. Contrary to D&D, what will do the difference between two groups in a fight won't be the "level" of the groups. It won't be their gear. Though both can help, the difference will be made by the tactics. A surprise attack is deadly: the ambusher has the initiative, his target is unaware of the attack and can't dodge so he can safely trade 4 dice for a +4 to DV. Two ex-ex shot of assault rifle later, the victim is probably dead. Cover is very important too: no matter how many dice the character rolls to shoot, he won't be able to hit a character who's hidden behind a wall his ammo can't shoot through. Because of this, it's very hard to say what a PC can or can't survive.

For example in my first campaign, I had a PC who wasn't good at combat (he was the team's face). He survived nearly every combat even against powerful enemies without geting hit once because he was careful, stayed behind cover and did not hesitate to run away. The first time he got a severe wound was against an untrained guy, who was hiding under a desk while the character was searching a room. The guy waited for the character to be close enough and shot him in the head.

I'm not sure i follow the logic of "Oh if we beat up enough on a corp, they might hire us because their that good" one thing my runners bear in mind is to never let it get personal without damn good reason. Usually runners can prevail against their corp opposition because they choose the time and place of the encounter to some extent. If a runner team makes a corp suspect their being gunned for the corp is going to assign some intel guys to grab all they can on the runner team. Then their going to send a firewatch team or a smart munition after individual members or the team at an inoportune time. In short the greatest defense SHADOW runners have against their opponents is the Shadows. I would presume theres a huge weeding out threshhold that seperates Joe Runner from Wolf and Doc Raven. By the time you are a "Well known Runner" you need to have resources of your own, or a reputation that keeps the corps from just thorwing a JDAM at your expensive new permanent middle lifestyle.

Admittedly, I have to give that to you. I suppose I'm finding it hard to believe that so many people are of the same mindset. Maybe SR attracts people of a common ilk? Regardless, you are right. Though I want to be clear. The reason for all this questioning is that I am introducing a new group to SR and their experience is entirely D&D. Even I have had little experience with how others run SR games. These players tend to the D&D mentality. It seemed reasonable to assume that there was a population that played this way as well. Perhaps that population doesn't post here often . To reiterate, what you are saying is that most players WISH to actively avoid combat, they are not FORCED into avoiding it by poor GMing. I can get behind that. Thanks for the comments.

@Tricen
I'd venture to say, after a couple combats in SR4, your players will start feeling their survivability increases by avoiding combat. Because of much of what has already been mentioned, once the runners are found out, alerts are made, reinforcements sent and generally speaking, time for the runner to get the hell out of whatever they are in.

I've started with a group of DnDers as well, and the mentality is there to stand up and fight...but that only lasts while they are lucky. Once they take a couple bullets, avoid resisting all damage and see wound modifiers piling on...they start to think a lot differently.