Metagaming NPCs… who help the PCs through existential apathy?

Out of question, just how much money is being paid to our unopposed slaughtering friends? Because, you know, if Kaz/Dae could afford them for a bit of flashy blackmail work, I'm thinking that Kaz can afford quite a bit more to have them killed by the very best.

And, right now, good old Goldman has full visual and AR logs of the entire crew. And, quite likely, now that he has been dragged to a warehouse, only not to go in, presented with a weird I'm lone star and I'm here to help situation, and then goes home...he has probably called somebody. Anybody really. Cops, Yak, whoever.

Assuming the Rings, like any good organization, have sources, and assuming Kaz will actually use those sources...indeed, may even incentivize them with large payments due...Goldman's logs are now Kaz's logs, second hand. In fairness, if the players have a fixer who will still touch them (loyalty 4/5+?) they should get a little warning that Goldman talked or questions were being asked, lots of them, and he heard the cops were on to something.

But it doesn't change the fact that Kaz is going to put 2 and 2 together here. His crew shows up to do what was paid for. Great. Then they clearly try to rip off Dae (because hey, Goldman knows he didn't go in, and 100k just came out), then she ends up dead. A quick favor at docwagon shows she died, well, just about the time the runners were there.

And you can bet Kaz has probably paid for whatever footage of the area there is too.

While mile away sniper to the face is considered in poor taste, having their next meet include "low armor, low weapons" clause, and then bushwhacking them with an escapable ambush by a very good team would be acceptable. It should be the sort of thing where maybe a player or two dies, and others are running out with large chunks o boxes blacked out.

Suspension of disbelief breaks down when NPCs break the rules. It's a consistent game world or none at all. That's my opinion at least. I just don't care if NPCs just level with me like in a computer game.



Good suggestions, but how much FUN are they? No consequences is stupid. Bad consequences is stupider still.

The entire point is to teach the PLAYERS a lesson, which means give them slim odds, not unbeatable odds. The players are having fun, or at least seem to, but they lack a challenge.

And let's face it, whenever a J requests "low armour/low weapons" in any non super-secure environment, you absolutely don't show up with low armour/weapons. You bring out the cavalry and do broad sweeps of the area to nail the bastards lying in waiting before the meet. If it's an AA/AAA environment you just decrease heavy weapons and put on the stealthy armour, and do the dirty of calling the star once trouble starts.

I was thinking something along the lines of making punishment unavoidable(i.e kidnap Zod, cut off a limb or two and then make the team go rescue him. Have Zod attempt to escape so he doesnt get bored)

Don't want to do that? Remember, Kaz is a major player in a fairly powerful gang. The OP doesn't necessarily have to hurt the players themselves. They have houses that can burn down. Family members that can be kidnapped. Kaz may decide an eye for an eye and start knocking off people close to the team.

I'm not suggesting the characters are murdered out right, but they have certainly gotten away with far too much with far too little consequences. This time they have gone too far and the consequences should be swift and severe. OP, I'm curious: What does their fixer think now that they've knocked off someone HE put them in contact with.

It's not about levelling with you though. A ganger will be a ganger. If you stat him out to have reasonable ganger-stats (like those the Grunts chapter in SR4A provides), provide him with gear that is in sync with the (monetary) means his gang has, and roleplay him like a ganger should be, he'll be a believable ganger, and able to fulfill any narrative function this ganger might have in your mind as a GM. And no sane player will ever ask you about how much karma he spent to get to where he is.
The same goes for Mr Johnson. If he's done high-stakes negotiation meetings for the past decade, and you give him attributes representative of that, and the gear he'd have been able to afford with all this dealmongering, he'll be a believable Johnson. The same applies to a Ghost or Red Samurai.

Keeping a consistent game world means NPCs should look, act, feel like they are who they're supposed to be. Players interact with these impressions, so judge them by them. If an arbitrary character generation system tells you you can't make them look like something when you should, players will far sooner lose that suspension when they don't find what they expect, than when you tell them you skimped on Availability limits, or gave the NPC far more karma than you'd expect.

You can still have a biometric lock or an anti-theft area bomb, if for nothing else then for vindictiveness.

Not to mention minimising loot value, and discourage looting in general.

And the NPCs aren't the ones deciding if their gear has RFIDs and taggants in it, etc. That'd be the corps.

Oh sure. It just meant I was having to think on my feet, and I'm not quite used to the setting yet.



That's a kind of tricky one. The thing is, we have an occasional fifth player who only shows up from time to time and always wants someone else to minmax his character for him, so what Zod's player actually do was to remake that character on the grounds that the original character - Mr. Happy Punch - wasn't proving to be very good.



Well, this is another kind of contradictory matter with the setting. Yes, the setting is dystopic and the fluff supports paranoia, but on the other hand the place si packed with bars and clubs. So the same people who are scared to pass by strangers in the street are happy to go hang out with them in a public place. Indeed, the fact that a place like the Cathode Glow can exist without everyone there getting mugged on the way home every night suggests that the social scene in Shadowrun Seattle is actually _better_ than that IRL.



I didn't use the table explicitly, but I just went and checked it. The problem with most of the tables is that the modifiers are so piddling compared to the difference between the relatively low pool sizes of NPCs and the massive idiot savant pools that specialized PCs can have. What this _does_ confirm is that there's no penalty for Faceman not having a badge or any evidence - the table does state that having evidence gives a bonus, rather than not having it giving a penalty.



Yes, but hardly anyone has a Sim Module which is required to generate the images. In some cases they are obviously meant to. I mean, this is something that winds me up: the obviously broken stats sheets for all the characters. I mean, let's take a look at the cast of the first Ghost Cartels arc, in terms of AR and errors:

Kaz: Broken AR rig (no sim module).
Dae: Commlink only, no AR.
Chikao: Broken AR rig (no sim module). Carries Shotgun with no ability to use it. Description states he may use "a submachine gun", but no skill.
Chulsoon: Functional AR/VR rig.
Caine: No Commlink. Carries SMG with no ability to use it.
Alec Littletree: Commlink improperly specified. Broken AR rig (no sim module). IP 2 for no apparent reason.
Xa Firebird: Broken AR rig (no sim module). Police infiltrator with no Con skill. (Guess he just hopes no-one ever asks if he's a cop.)
Ragers Gang: No commlinks at all. Carry Shotguns with no ability to use them.
Hand Banger: Commlink only, image link but no gloves.
Stand Over Men: Commlink only, no AR.
Ju Kon: Commlink only, no AR.
Yakuza soldiers: Commlink and gloves, no sim module or vision link. Carry Assault Rifles and SMG with no ability to use them. Useless Long Arms skill.
Morukai Shinomi: Broken AR rig (no sim module).
FBI ERT members: Commlinks improperly specified. No AR capacity or DNI, so presumably to talk to each other on an op they have to ring each other old-style.
FBI ERT sniper: As above. Has nonexistant skill "Sniper".
DocWagon Site Personnel: Commlink only. Vision link but no gloves. Have option to have Automatics skill but cannot carry any automatic weapon.
DocWagon Chief: Commlnk only. Vision link but no gloves.
DocWagon Spider: Functional AR/VR rig. Carries pistol with no ability to use it.
DocWagon Shaman: No commlink at all. Pistols skill lists no rating.

I mean, does anyone edit this stuff? But, even allowing for all the broken rigs and assuming they're supposed to be working, the majority of "normal" people (ie, not feature characters) do not have AR.

With a bemol on gear: even gangers get lucky sometimes, and nothing says "stay sharp even against punks" like a dumpster-mounted machine gun.

This is hilarious.

(As an aside, you don't NEED AR gloves. They are just a gimmick, and a fairly useless one at that.)

Wait, what? Sim modules are for experiencing VR - only a commlink and image link are required to see it. The AR gloves are only needed to interact with it.

Well, not 'VR' exactly, but 'simsense', which can include AR. (AR can be simsense, and it can *not*.) Sim module is simply assumed, all commlinks should have one built in (the book is 'confused', yes). The things you're citing are typos; treat them accordingly. Gloves are indeed unimportant.

*Everyone* has AR. "Commlinks are the universal Matrix access device, used by everyone to be online all-the time, control all of their electronics, access their ID and accounts, and enhance their experiences with augmented and virtual reality."

Ahum. How does being prejudiced for a -2 sound as a penalty for a lack of evidence? A Star officer without a badge? That can't be right.
Or even another +2 for the defender on top, because he just knows an officer can't do anything from his office without showing off an ID first? Possibly for having the real Star on speed dial?

AR is any form of sensation overlaying/interacting with reality. Looking at the McAzzie's sign, you might get:
1) A friendly female voice inviting you to visit the establishment. And offering to give directions
2) The offers and specials of the day, overlayed in crisp visual in the air beside the pole
3) The smell of freshly baked soyburger-with-flavorants filling up your nostrils as the sweet taste of soft drinks floods your tastebuds for the shortest while.
4) The warmth of a warm, dry restaurant heating your skin
5) The feel of each separate burger as you select them from the menu
And all of this is AR.
The methods for perceiving this AR tend to be different for all of them though. For sight and sound you'll need glasses and headphones with Image/Soundlink. For smell you'll need the cyber-nose, for touch, you'll need the feedback-clothing. However, a sim module and a way to access it through DNI will grant you all of this and more though. It's the modern way, but not the only one. And a lot of people will stick to the old ways of interfacing through fear of DNI, or simple monetary constraints.

This is the RAW: "The gamemaster should evaluate each situation and apply modifiers as he feels appropriate. The Social Modifiers Table (p. 131) provides some examples."

The trouble with this is clearly that in order to be elite in places the PCs often come drastically short in others, even well below average. And that's when suspension of disbelief breaks down, because you can't make a runner "believable" with BP-gen, unless you are satisfied with mediocrity. And by that I mean rolling 12 or less dice in KEY areas. I don't think runners NEED 25 dice to shoot, but they should roll 16-18 when grunts are rolling 8-12. At least mine do, maybe I'm already playing an inflated game. AVERAGE Joe 3+3 with a smartgun rolls 8, so that is the absolute baseline. Corpsec or cartel grunts get 4 + 3-4 + spec + smart in my games. And they still want reasonable other skills, even though they are never rolled at all. Unarmed, Perception, Stealth, etiquette, etc. What they don't get is tons of cash, because that's just really improbable, so they NEED those points from BPs alone. Of course these guys are not PR 1-2 idiots, they are PR 3-4, above average and with training.
In comparison, you can't make a character with mostly 3s, a few 4s and some mediocre gear/cyber, because once you factor in a few believable skills, you're over the cap! So you end up with one 6, a few 1s, and the skills you want, and then add on hyper-min-maxed cyber/gear to stay competitive or broaden out. Or maybe I just suck really badly at BPgen.

Seriously, try to build a "believable" ganger with BP-gen, and see that you'll end up with well over 400BP. To me it seems this edition the designers wanted PCs to play the zero-sum game, but then this is SR, where runners HAVE to be good, if not better, at some things, and still not suck at everything else.

However, with karmagen, these gangers/corpsec suddenly end up with using 300 karma or less. (On OLD attribute costs, just like the PCs in my group.)

I'm not sure what you mean by "enough time on a message board." I almost never use modules and when I do it's just for ideas and pre-gen'd thugs. The majority of my runs have very minimal planning and the run itself and NPC interactions are always ad-libbed. I don't consider myself any sort of "super GM" but I figure if I can makes stuff up on the fly and, with a little thought, figure out how a given NPC would react to the players then most anyone who should call themselves a GM should be able to also. GMing SR isn't for everyone and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to someone who has never GM'd before. Perhaps since he places so much emphasis on going by exactly what's in the book and allowing die rolls to solve everything he should start with something a bit more basic.


but it doesn't say that in the book! j/k


Not in the slightest - that makes it even easier to make that super elite specialist with not much (RAW based) room for advancement... it just leaves him a few points left over to maybe not be totally useless everywhere else.


That's not what I said at all. I said FastJack was a prime runner and, as such, can benefit from certain rule bending or breaking to help move the story along. If you want to let your players kill or out-hack your prime runner then that's fine, if you want to have him always be one step ahead of the players then run him that way. When it comes down to a final showdown, he'd of course be played straight but challenging. It's about the story, not the strict mechanics of it all. Your regular NPC's will all generally follow the rules since they are more like props and generally don't need the benefit of special treatment to keep the story alive.

I do, however, see a little contradiction in your statements that characters should be able to ignore caps post char-gen but NPC's have to "follow the rules"


Well given that this is still the same response to the first time you said it just once would have been enough to make your feelings clear on it. I don't disagree that Karmagen is preferable that's what I use.. though I think the free metatype far outweighs the "no free knowledge skill" penalty.


So don't point build them. If you're familiar with the SR world and you know how powerful your characters are, just make them suitable to wherever they're supposed to be and enough of a challenge to make the mission fun.


That's what I've been saying but your other statements in this post seem pretty contrary to that argument


Being gullible enough to send a Nigerian Prince $500 to get a part of some lump money transfer is one thing. Not letting some random stranger in your house, much less believing this blatantly BS reason to be there, is totally different. If you want to let the dice decide this one you'd skip having the player come up with some weak story (since he'd never be as clever as the Face) and just roll - however, I'd also break this down into several rolls (once to get in, once to convince the husband it's okay, and another to convince the husband to come along for a ride) each with modifiers depending on appropriate conditions (the primary of which would be how the runner is dressed and what part of town the victims live in).

On the other hand, a runner doesn't particularly need to be shooting much better than your corpsec (12). A runner is a package of skills, contacts, and flexible morals, not a one man army or anything. Being a 'very good' shot is perfectly fine for most roles; being an *incredible* shot is a very specific character.

And even the sam can get away with sub-15 dicepools, as long as he's carrying the armament to make up for it. Long wide burst tends to say "I hit".

Which I grant is ridiculous, I believe characters should really start at their metatypes "average" and work from there. Having to spend your first chunk of points simply not being an invalid is simply a waste of the players time and really encourages the "I'm a mage so I'll leave my strength at 1 so I can squeeze a few extra BP/Karma out of it." type of stat-monkey's who aren't usually "characters" at all.


And when reviewing the character inform the player that he's too specialized and will probably be spending a lot of time with nothing to do


Social skills are not mind control.
Also, as has been said, make sure you apply the modifiers from the Social Modifiers table. (SR4A pg 131) They tend to stack up things in the defender's favour quite rapidly.



Totally agree - if your characters are over-specialized find their weakness and press it to show them why over-specializing wasn't necessarily the best kind of character to bring

Wow... Really?
12 Dice is NOT Mediocrity. Where do you get that impression from?
Average Joe is 3/3 in your game? He has a Professional Rating with Firearms? Really? Wow. That is your problem right there. Average Joe is likely 3/0 or 3/1 at most. Average Joe does not have professional levels in combat skills. Corp Sec, with 4/4+ Spec and Smartlink is Vetreran Corpsec, who have been around the block a few times. They likely have all the skills you listed, but not at 6. Likely not even above a 3.

I built a believable Ganger with 300 BP, and he is quite good at what he does, with no need for rampant min-maxing. He has 19 Skills and 3 Languages. He has a total of 36 Karma Earned. Two Skills at 4, and One At 5. He is quite believable (His Skill 4 is in Artisan: Customizing Bikes, A Pistols Skill at 4 (Raised with KArma), and a Pilot Skill he finally managed to raise to a 5), and he has several skills in Auto Mechanics (Active and Knowledge) to support that). 300 BP, not "Well over" 400, as you claim. You have to be happy with the Dice pools. His Driving Dice Pool is pretty good (Above 14 with bonuses from the vehicle). Everything else is 11 DP or Lower (Specialties abound). He had a real shot at going big (and legit) in the Combat Biker Leagues, before he was arrested and thrown in Prison.

I will say it again. The game world assumes a certain level. If you choose to play above that level, you will have issues. Elite does not require that you have 20 Dice...

Just a quick aside (as it may not have been the policy all along, or the policy for the adventures in question, or whatever), but current Missions writers are told not to list a commlink if it's not central to the character. To save page space and word count, cut down on equipment list clutter, that sort of thing, we only list the commlink if it's pretty central to the character; a hacker, a corp executive that's in the adventure 'cause they have some MacGuffin files, stuff like that.

If YOU are writing the story for the players, then you've already lost that fight. Well...

My opinion remains: I at least want to be able to generate opposition based on the same rules. That means that either EVERYONE breaks the limit of 6 on skills, or NOONE does. Face it, 50% of Fastjack's powers should be contacts, not ridiculous DPs. Software+skill+whatever bonuses you can muster is simply the limit to that, and every available bonus to a prime runner should be in generally available books, too, with the exception of maybe 1-2 dice worth of extra special custom gear. Really not more than that.


But I would say about three dice above the rest.

I was talking about 3 attribute/3 skill professionals as being average for their line of work. And smartlinks SHOULD be so common by now I give them to everyone.

And the same goes for everything, really. If it makes sense for the character to have something, add it in. Ubiquitous gear shouldn't be listed, or Catalyst can start printing books on bible paper.

Of course. But if you find yourself having to break those limitations to make for a character that can stay ahead of the PCs game, either you are doing something wrong, or you're suffering from a game that's hyper-inflated.
Like TJ just said, a dice pool of 12-14 does not mean you're avearge. It means you're the best you can possibly be without augmentation.

Personally, I'm fine with the half-dozen truly legendary people in the setting being literally beyond the players. Maybe I'm just less Mohawk, but runners are just talented nobodies. They are not FastJack. Plot-magic *wins*.

That really depends on the context, if it makes a good story, and if it's just more fun that way. To be punny.. as a general rule, NPC's should not break the rules; but there can be exceptions. The key here that I think is bugging you is that a lot of groups fall into a this mode of "GM vs Players" that usually results in a death spiral for the group as a whole. Tabletop RPG's are meant to be fun collaborative adventures where players and a GM get together to craft an imaginary world and tell a story together (though I think that's the most corny way to describe it possible). If your games are nothing more than stat based skill rolling slug fests then you've really missed the whole point.


Um, no - you'll find that most players would never put "having fun" and "being taught a lesson" in the same statement. The goal of these games is to have fun, not for the GM to use it as a medium to educate/preach to his players. I'm not saying you shouldn't throw them the odd moral dilemma but let them do it their way and let the world react as it would. Have them make intuition rolls to see if their characters realize the negative consequences that will result from their actions. If they succeed tell them what will happen. If they do it anyway it was their choice to accept the consequences. Not saying don't try and make those consequences fun, but certainly don't dumb them down just because some players don't think it's as much fun unless they're able to get away with whatever. And for someone who has repeatedly advocated "suspension of disbelief" one would think you'd be against dumbing down the consequences since that will certainly break it.



If you assume such an obvious request would really be a sign of a trap (and if it is that's really sad) - maybe there are other reasons... like he doesn't want a blood bath. That's not to say you shouldn't sweep the area first... you should always be doing that regardless. Just because Johnson isn't setting you up doesn't mean someone else isn't.

No it doesn't, because it's just a writer (or worse, a GM) talking out of his ass. There is no MERIT in just saying "things happen", you have to make them happen in game with transparent mechanics. I can watch movies I want stuff to just happen.

I may be alone in this, but people like Fastjack don't make appearances in my games. Not only does my story line not revolve around them, because I hate using other people's Mary Sue's-but I also tend to prefer much lower powered games. If you see a Dragon in my game, pretty much it's time to generate a new PC.

If you build your NPCs correctly though, you don't have to "make things happen." They'll be able to back up anything you'd want them to do, with the ingame ability to do it.
Which will surely fall to smithereens if players start cranking out every last dice they can on their schticks, and inflating their dicepools into the 20s, or even 30s. At that point, you're stuck at aiming for their bad legs, while hoping they don't kick you with their good ones in time. That, or getting lost in an arms race, and losing all credibility one way or the other.

You do understand this is one NPC (and it doesn't have to be Fastjack, that's just the name the OP threw out) who is the characters nemesis/ally and part of your arcing plot. No, I'm not dictating the story to the players - I'm adapting a general plot to the actions of the characters. If my arcing story line requires their nemesis to be available later on then he's going to be able to slip away or stay off their radar as required to progress things further. If they come up with some truly clever way to trap and kill him then sure, it will happen because they were inventive and clever and it would be fun. If they just want to roll some dice on data searches to track him down and then put a bullet in him it's simply not going to be that simple.

But Hey - you love the rules so here:

Fine. A net -4 is still piddling. Faceman has some ridiculous 20+ dice pool for Con, and even though I ruled Goldman would be better than the average bear at Negotiation, the massive difference is still barely affected.



Ah, ok. I thought that simsense was the only way to view AR, although surely if all you have is a commlink (no vision link) you can only see AR if you pick it up and look at the screen (like those iPhone AR apps which do a good job of making you look goofy).

Oh, and I'm.. um, kinda surprised at the decision that people's commlinks shouldn't be listed unless they're critical to the character. That presumably means that if someone decides to hack it, the GM has to wing the whole thing, which kind of hurts the point of having a whole chapter on Matrix rules!

AR isn't just visual (though it's the main one we think of), so you can mess yourself up by thinking in terms of 'see' or 'view' AR.

It's easy to wing, that's what Device Ratings are for. Boom, done.

So your whole group is one trick ponies?


ImageLink = AR
Simsense = VR

I'm not sure where the idea that "every comlink includes simsense" comes from because I've never seen it stated that way. If you don't have a simsense implant then you use trodes to experience it (Check out the movie "Strange Days"... which is probably where they got the idea) SR4 p328 "Trodes: This net/headband of electrodes and ultrasound emit-ters enables the wearer to experience simsense and are used with a sim module. Trodes are often concealed under headbands, hats, or wigs." This would also be why a comlink implant and simsense implant are two different things. To experience AR without implants you'd need glasses/goggles/etc with an image link in them. To *interact* with AR without implants you'd need AR gloves though as a house rule you might want to allow voice commands on the nicer comlinks if they don't want to wear the gloves.

VR is simsense; simsense is not VR. What is a 'simsense implant'? Simsense can be experienced via any general-purpose DNI: datajack, implanted commlink, trodes. Ooh, you must mean the implanted sim module, that also works; I've never seen anyone get one, though.

You can interact with AR through eye-tracking, verbal commands, gloves, and a dozen other ways. It's not a house rule.

My Cyberlogician had an Implanted Sim Module, right up to the point that he upgraded it to a Sim Rig.

Really? I'd have to ask, as a player, how the heck do you know what rules were being followed to create the NPC? How do you even know the stats of the NPC? Especially if the GM is rolling behind a screen.

And even if you are able to divine the stat line of the NPC, how do you know there isn't a damned good reason for him to be tougher than you think he should be? You don't.

Unless the GM is being utterly blatant about making ordinary encounters inmpossibly tough, I just don't see how the NPC creation method should matter a fig to the players.

I'm not advocating the undetectable sniper from over the hill with 18 dice and a called shot to the head - no dodge Zod. I'm not even advocating the "you wake up, go to your truck, start it, and roll soak for 20 DV of explosives." As much as they might deserve them.

I am advocating the other side starts actually acting, instead of sitting around like MMO NPCs waiting for players to cross the magic "aggro" line. Maybe thats hiring a runner team to hit them. Maybe its an ambush-meet. Maybe it just means giving them a fake job, and then calling the cops ahead of time or during it. These are all survivable. But they all have a chance of the truck getting blowed up, players getting killed, etc. Something, anything, to make a full up organized crime ring (which is pretty pissed off) more than "and then sir chumps-a-lot dies to your mighty dice pool, because thinking is waaay over rated"

As far as low armor, low guns - most meets are in either a) someone's safehouse or other organization, or b) someplace pretty public. That makes it the default. Walking down main street in full body armor with helmet, and dual uzis in tow, is likely to generate significant questions. As is going to a bar or club, even a Runner Bar (which is a pretty hawk concept to begin with), like that. And if Mr. J actually invites you into his house, you can bet he'd prefer you don't come capable of shredding the place. As a matter of fact, his response to full armor jackets coming through the front door with a shotgun will probably involve the panic button...or at least a request backed up by a gun drone to kindly leave the equipment with the receptionist.

Indeed. Most of these were built in Chummer prior to us having even a basic understanding of the rules, and certainly prior to us having a good feel for dice pool sizes (e.g. how many is adequate, or good, or exceptional). When we realised that 20 dice was attainable (just) at chargen by clicking bits to see how big it could get, we made the DnD-like assumption that since we can get to 20 dice right away it must be "slightly better than average", and therefore 10 or less must be incompetent. This has turned out to be a highly erroneous assumption

My current sniper guy Caine is a 1.5 trick pony, Infiltration is 20 dice and Longarms is 15, but he is still obviously gimped everywhere else (Hardware of 2 means every maglock is a critical glitch waiting to happen). I'm putting together a rebuild using karmagen to see if Hyphz is ok with me swapping over to a more balanced (but still highly effective) char now that I understand the game better, and also understand the need for a balanced spread of skills (and synergistic skills at that) better

Note that all of the players are having fun. Yes, even Zod's guy is enjoying it, he's just realised that hyper-shooty is a blatant one trick pony and that we could actually do with a hacker to complement our existing skillset, hence replacing the "mediocre" (10s in most skills) melee character that got used mostly for the contacts and social skills I bought him.



As one of the players in this game, I agree wholeheartedly. We're having fun, but a couple of the guys need to be reminded that this is not DnD and you can't do the whole "we run into the building like it's a dungeon and kill everything, before looting the corpses". A short sharp shock that leaves half the team incapacitated would be an effective way of underlining this concept. We've been TPK'd before by being idiots, and that might be a perfect way of weaving character rebuilds into the plot

Jesus, how do you do that? I thought 8-9 dice on attack should be enough for a beginner, maybe 10 to 12 if I built something less versatile!

Seriously? IMO, the first DP is mook territory. Even someone with absolutely minimal investment (Agi 3, Skill 1, Spec, Smartgun) will have 8 dice to shoot. Professional combat characters should have 12-18 dice with their main form of attack to be even remotely viable, unless you're scaling down the opposition.

How about Agi 4, Skill 4, nothing else? I can bump this up to 10 dice with a laser sight and 11 with smartgun. In melee, it's Agi 4, Skill 3, Spec. Pools this size were fairly large in NWOD, and SR4 has a very similar mechanic, so maybe it's my bad habits speaking.

Well, there's no reason not to pick a specialisation for your gun, since you don't loose anything with it. In melee, remember you get reach bonuses, and personalized grip is very cheap for what it does.

The biggest difference between NWOD and SR4 is the abundance of augmentations, whether magical or implants. Agi 4 becomes Agi 6 for a mere 16000 , and adepts can get weapon foci that grant DP bonuses.

Oh, but when a PC is throwing around 30 dice then you just have to accept that he might be every bit as good or better than a prime runner in his specialty. Which means you can't push him around anymore. I can't just make NPCs who suddenly have a skill of 8+. If the PC in question has already added up every single bonus there is in the game for his one schtick, then that's the end of the line. He's reached it, and there can be noone better in that narrow field , because the rules say so. Everything else is down to luck, which I have to accept.

If I want to beat a guy like that then I just have to use BIGGER stuff - like Dragons, for instance. OR I have to take him out of his element, and target his weaker skills, of which there will probably be many. A comparable Prime Runner with 200+karma probably won't have these weaknesses anymore.

I'm in the lucky position as the GM to not run with a group of hyper-specialists, so I don't need to over-specialize my NPCs either. I make them as tough as I feel is realistic, which isn't too weak, actually, but even so, they often have to use strength in numbers.



You are falling into the basic trap of writing plot instead of scenario. A scenario always leads to another scenario, which is open. Plot often leads to a rail, because you need certain things to happen. I recently constructed a rather large fight against an experienced runner group, which went unexpectedly well for the PCs - so what? The dice rule the game - or at least the outcomes of actions. However, due to luck and planning, I managed to have the mission critical guys survive. If they hadn't? Well... tough luck, back to the drawing board.

And then it can also happen the other way around: The PCs kidnapped some drug-dealers for questioning, and I had not thought about what they would do with them - well, I had assumed they would just let them "vanish", so that they could not divulge any information about the team. However, they let them go... So... I have to change my scenarios, but since there is no firm plot, I have no real problems.

I keep advocating this site for advice, to little effect so far: http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/mi...ode-design.html
This guy is in no way affiliated with me, but I really like his insights, and have had very good success with this method since I've started using it.

For example, you make a Node for an NPC, and give him certain characteristics, abilities, goals, etc. And then you run him like an automaton - he does stuff, and reacts to stuff. But he's not sacrosant, because its no problem if he doesn't meet his goals, or dies along the way.



I don't, I just look at what's probable. If I know that I'm packing most of the existing bonuses in the game, and SHOULD by all means be among the best of the best, and then an NPC walks all over me, then I will get a feeling that something is off. Of course I won't go about demanding an explanation during the session, but I'll ask the GM afterwards how his NPCs did that, and if he doesn't want to explain, he'd better be damn good as a GM or else I'll walk away. If he just tells me that his NPC had 35 dice to best my 25, then I'll ask him respectfully to actually build NPCs like that next time, and see how he reaches such numbers. It doesn't matter how much karma he gave them, what matters is that he builds them by the rules, because if he can get 8s or more in skills, then I'll be damned if I won't also get them. (That being said, with karmagen, I've never even bought a 6, and the highest DP I've chosen to get together both as player and as a GM was 19 or so before edge. I obviously don't expect to be unbeatable at that level. I'm arguing principle.)

...and I had to take a completely different set of powers for my Adept, to say nothing of that disadvantage doubling Essence costs for cyberware. I think someone needs to look at him in the "An Archive of Adepts" thread and drop some advice.

Here's some pointers, after skimming over him:
-You're spread very thin skill-wise. BPgen discourages this, but if the DPs are sufficient, then it's alright. However, buy some specs as soon as you get Karma. If you get a chance to redo your character, drop some of the non-essential skills (e.g. computer) and get either two skills at 5 or one at 6.
-You only have a single IP. I'm assuming you intend to be a combat character, since the description says "bodyguard adept". As a combat character, you absolutely need at least 2 IP, 3 are even better. 4 is a luxury, and generally not needed until much later.
-Is there any reason why you started with magic 3? Get magic 5 if you can, that way, you can also afford an IP enhancer.
-Try to take advantage of the full 35 BP negative qualities available to you. Use the additional 20 BP to increase your magic to 5.
-Get hardliner gloves with personalized grip.

Other than that, he looks fine, and is a refreshing alternative to all the hyper-specialists that frequent these boards.

I can ditch one point from Etiquette or Computer (it's more of an afterthought, Computer is more likely as I will - again, after doing it L5R - back it up with high Logic if I have to use it) and one from Driving. Using them, I can either up my Pistols skill to 6, Automatics to 5 or Blades to 5, or split those two among those three skills. I can also free up to 5 BP from gear by ditching two months of lifestyle and the car (I checked again, I gave the price of the car as 16000 in the generator), and that's another skill point, and then some.

The reason is lack of points. I can shift 1 point from Charisma to Magic and either turn Edge down to 3 or take 10 BP of disadvantages, crank Magic to 5 and take Enhanced Reflexes to solve those two problems.
Where do I find those? Also, I see another improvement for Melee combat: ditch two points' worth of Lifestyle and four points' worth of Contacts, then dump it all into a Force 3 Weapon Focus. Because, if there's something better than a katana, it's a magical katana.

Elf, Agility 7 (w/exceptional attribute Agility to make it cap at 8 ), Adept, Attribute boost Agility 3, Improved non-combat Infiltration 3, and Infiltration 7 (with the skill boosting perk for Infiltration to allow me to buy 7 ranks)
also Longarms 4 with a smartlink
with all that done plus the BP spend needed to actually buy kit, everything else is one or 2 ranks and effectively useless, as I have found to my detriment

Funnily enough when Zod's player asked my what my longarms skill was and I answered 15, he said "only 15? You're not going to be able to one-shot anything with a skill that shit" which shows our (lack of) understanding regarding the usability of dice pool sizes at the time. I now know 26 dice is indeed awesome, but that even 6 dice is useful if you need to climb a rope or open a maglock

Now that I know 10-15 dice is in fact enough to get by, I'll be respeccing my karmagen build to max at that and have a much better range of skills at 5+. Still looking at being the group infiltration ninja, just less ninjy and more robust

Attribute and skill are usually the most expensive ways to boost a dice pool. That's why the NPC samples in the book are so weak: they are built to minimize the space they take in the book, and by doing so they miss the boosts that make a difference. SR almost needs a different system to track NPCs: don't give individual stats, only dice pools.

Agreed, which is roughly how we handle them. Professional Rating is usually close enough.