So, I'm starting to feel like I'm in an awkard situation in our SRM group. There are four of us "core" players, and my buddy and I made the characters the other two pleople are playing: a human hacker/skill wires/gun bunny and troll weapon specialist/tank/interrogator (my build). We are both playing a Vodoo mage (way overpowered, his) and Mystical Adept melee fighter/recon.

The problem is, that after 9 (Denver) adventures, the combat has been so light as there's not been much for me or the Troll to do-- less for him, as we've only needed to interrogate someone once. BTW, the Influence spell can really make most social skills (excluding extended tests) superfluous. Then in the last big fire fight, the opposition was so easy (TR 4) that the weak armored, but very offensively skilled, hacker was just as useful as our weapon specialist. So, I now feel guilty that I made a character for someone that is not needed-- if the combat in adventures are this rare in SRM, and underpowered (granted, our starting characters would kill an archtype out of the book, as most SRM characters that's played at my tables before would also) then I guess our Troll will reroll when we official move to NYC on the 12th. But it sucks that he will lose all the Nuyen we've earned, b/c I didn't know.

So, do the other forum lurkers, posters, trollers, and the ilk also share this experience? Would we be better off to have another hacker specializing in a different area, instead of a Covert Ops/Sprawl Ganger/Weapons Specialist/Gun Adept/Street Sam/Mercenary archtype? Or another Vodoo mage, but at that point I think we'll quit playing Please give me some feedback on your experience, so I can start advising my chummer on what he/we should be preparing to do.


Thanks!

Shining the spotlight on each PC during a Mission is something that is done independently of what the actual mission is. Enabling each PC to do something useful during a Mission is also independent of what the Mission actually is. The opponents stats, aka Table Rating, is only one, and a minor one, indicator of the NPC effectiveness. As a GM running a SR Mission it's my job to get each PC involved and doing something useful, and sometimes that does mean the combat character choosing not to fight. If that's the case make it a fun dramatic choice everyone can admire.

No tweaking of the numbers or PC archetype mix is going to make things more fun if the GM does not present the opportunity for each PC to shine. There is a lot of latitude in the SR Missions for the GM to ensure everyone get's an opportunity to have some fun.

This sounds a lot more like the group figuring out ways for all of the members to do something useful, which is a problem regardless of what types of PC everyone is playing. It's for the group and GM to work out how to get everyone involved.

Note that quite often as a player I deliberately play in a style to force other PC to do things so they get their "turn" in the spotlight.

At TR 4--Your characters all have over 100 Karma, many of the Missions should be fairly easy. (The NYC Missions changed this by allowing players to choose their TR rather than basing it off Karma--you may want to choose higher if you aren't feeling challenged.) The Denver Missions were all written with the expectation that any group could sit down and play through them, but they are geared more towards beginning characters and players. That said, I've seen experienced teams gety mowed down in "The Grab" by the opposition or bite off more than they can chew in "By any means necessary."

I can make suggestions to the GM, but I'm curious to know what types of tactics people are using (both PCs and NPCs) as that changes a lot and can make a pushover into something complicated or hell on wheels into a cakewalk.

Food for thought:
-Is your team regularly carrying more than pistols? If so, are you addressing the fact that to smuggle stuff past borders takes work, or that you are standing in the middle of a high security residential neighborhood? Assault rifles aren't bad, but they take planning--is your team addressing that?

-Are NPCs making the follow-up rolls to shake the mental manipulations or is it being played off as the single resistance?

-Have you thought about jumping ahead a little bit--move past the introductory Missions and on to the later ones where lines have all been drawn and well-laid plans are being executed?

I haven't played any of the New York missions, nor will I likely ever, so my comments are focused on Denver.

As a GM one of the best things about the Denver Missions was the ease, of the rules. Every threshold was clearly laid out, Con, Perception and so on. Not having to track them let me the GM relax more, and have more fun while running the game. And Dangit, that's worth a great deal. Unfortunately, fixed targets are all too easy for specialists to break.

The teams Doctor rolls 16 dice for Perception and Assensing, nothing gets past him.
The TMs thread everything to 10 before going in, thanks to the doctor. Firewalls look like butter on a hot biscuit with them around.
The troll has platelet factory and damage comp... plus the Doctor is right there..

My group felt much the same. Everything was easy. However, sometimes we like an easier beer and pretzels type night.
When we didn't want easy, there was always a section (whose name I cannot recall) on how the GM could make the scene harder. Often, it was put into action.

Tactics from my prespective:
* I didn't let people spend karma for the first 12 missions. Still , we played with TR 4.
* My group has a full 6, always. Rarely, we hit 7. So for us, we had too many darned people for the Missions.
* TMs>>>> anything netwise put in the missions. srsly, even the other TM.
* Trolls. Our Troll Sammy took on the entire Triad squad sent after the party minus the Spirit. He called it and with his hyper focused build, bullets just tickle.

Bishop:
On the smuggling, in Denver it was pretty easy. Pay 500 to get past a guard with an illegal weapon, or that's what I thought it said at the start of every mission. That said, my group mostly used pistols. Once, they had to go outside of town and they took something bigger fearing the wide expanses. Something like 10k in border guard greasing was paid.

Mental Manipulations: Nope. My guys don't use em.

Later Missions: Just as easy but with really awesome writing. And, why miss having the developed relations with people like Dean? I recommend all the missions.

I continue to hold that the Denver Missions were the best thing published by Catalyst to date. There were hilariously fun and what more would one want from a game night?


BlueMax

-To address the last one first, this is Nathan, and we are playing the later ones now. The Grab was handled w/o incident due to a posessed target and a decker, as an aside.

-Influence goes permanete before a second test. Our mage casts at force 7 (w/ a dozen or more dice), the spell turns perm in 4 combat actions, 3 before the subject gets another break roll. He doesn't get another break unless confronted w/ its "wrongness".

-Two mods gave us coyotes for 200 nuyen a crossing for 3 or 4 different borders-- but honestly if it's not written in the mod, our GM has never brought it up, and we've never considered it. This would, however, make the weapon specialist seem even less useful. We normally carry pistols on our person (or a knife in my case). In two mods we had the gun guys break out AR's as we were supposed to be deep underground or out in the middle of BFE.