QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Feb 13 2010, 11:49 PM)

Outside of extraterritoriality, guards aren't going to be using forbidden items. Flechette is the best restricted option.
First of all, extraterritoriality might definitively be the case. Runners often operate against the big Megas.
And even if not - forbidden items are forbidden for normal citizens. You can't get a personal licence for plastic explosives, but a demolition company could certainly get some sort of certificate or license for using such. So could any other legitimiate company for legitimate reasons. Lone Star will have access to heavy weapons if need be, and they don't even have extraterritoriality, at least not in Seattle.
That said maybe small time security companies won't have access to APDS, machineguns, etc. In which case, the runners probably won't have much difficulty getting past them.
Also, against the average shadowrunner with heavy armor (not going low-key on social infiltration missions), Stick n Shock is much better than Flechette, and cheaper. It also means they don't really need assault rifles, smgs and machine pistols will do the same damage.
QUOTE (Larme @ Feb 14 2010, 12:41 AM)

Orly? :O Did they instate diminishing pools for all extended tests, or just get-getting?
All really. RAFO:
http://shadowrun4.com/resources/sr4a/sr4a_changes.pdfQUOTE (Larme @ Feb 14 2010, 12:41 AM)

You ever GM for 12 people? If you do, you\'re some kind of GMing god. Regardless, you missed my point. What kills people in Shadowrun are a) numbers and b) tactics. Tactics typically means the enemy finding cover in places where the runners don\'t have any. And numbers is obvious. Runners take a penalty for every attack they dodge. If 12 guys focus fire, especially if using weapons that negate dodge dice like assault rifles, they will start to hit. And once you start getting hit in Shadowrun, you start getting hurt, and then you start to lose. My point is, no matter how strong the runners are, if they bull their way into stupid situations where they\'re vastly outnumbered, they can\'t mathematically survive. As the GM, you have to ensure that such situations exist, otherwise every mission is just a cakewalk and they don\'t have to think about how to accomplish the task.
I was responding to your rather broad statement. Gear is important, and even more so for shadowrunners. Tactics and numbers are also important. BTW I've done a scene kinda like the one you describe. I think it was about 14 gangers firing at one supertroll at the same time (ignoring the other runners for the time being). Result? The Trog was one stun box away from going down, but the team managed to kill/disable/scare them all. Ok, they had a various assortment of smgs, shotguns, pistols etc., but focus fire meant that Trog had almost no dodge and almost every round hit. Being able to soak 8 damage easily means you can take a punch. Still, some stun almost always creeps through, so anyone will go down eventually. If these thugs had been better equipped, they might have taken down Trog quicker and then taking down the others more easily.
In another scenario, the party's mage (while high on Kamikaze at the time) was confronted by 2 Lone Star cadets with Colt America light pistols, was shot down, and arrested.
In any case, the reason why runners have to be careful is that no matter how tough they are, they will eventually face tougher opposition in terms of numbers, gear AND tactics if they ignore the dangers. Yes they can sometimes brute-force themselves through security, but then they'll have to make a quick getaway and probaly spend alot of resources laying low afterwards. The best runs are handled silently, quickly, and with minimal collateral damage.
QUOTE (Larme @ Feb 14 2010, 12:41 AM)

Well, sure. Having one uber person and a bunch of noobs makes life difficult. Either the uber kills everything easily or the noobs die. That can be solved by putting limits on character power, for sure. But it can also be solved by helping the noobs to build comparable characters. Party imbalance is a problem you get with a complex system like Shadowrun, where one guy spends 400 BP and gets shit, and another guy spends 400 BP and gets Cyborg Rambo. The problem with placing soft caps on availability to correct this problem is, of course, that they are soft.
So if for some reason you don't want to play Cyborg Rambo or Super Possessed Warrior with 20-30 dice pools, then you're a noob and need help

What if you want to play say one of the sample characters? What If we want a game where everything isn't min-maxed and people make choises based on character rather than power? I'd rather limit the extreme munchkin than have to force everyone else to play the same way. What do you mean by soft caps?
QUOTE (Larme @ Feb 14 2010, 12:41 AM)

Even if you limit the uber character\'s starting power, he\'s still likely to build right up to the max, while the noobs are likely to fritter away BP without considering the consequences. You\'ll still have an imbalance. And that imbalance will be increased during play when the uber character uses superior knowledge of gear to buy all the good stuff he couldn\'t start with, while the noob isn\'t sure how to spend their cash efficiently.
Maybe, but the differences will be less extreme. Dice pools will be similar. A tank with 20 dice in soak works ok, and is not so bad compared to the hackers say, 9 dice.
My players are ATM all noobs, but some are more used to number crunching than others. Still, so far it seems all the PCs have their areas to shine in. And even the troll street samurai fears the hidden mage
QUOTE (Larme @ Feb 14 2010, 12:41 AM)

Either way, it comes down to the GM getting involved in the chargen process. Either ask the power player to make a less powerful character, or help the non power players to make something a little less worthless. If you try to house rule your way out of the situation, you just get tangled in a net of new rules. Each tweak opens new exploits, and each fix compounds the problem. The best way to correct party imbalance is to go in and do it manually, rather than monkeying with the gear buying system and hoping that it sorts itself out.
Not a bad approach - and I'm doing this as well. In fact I have just scrapped my rather inconvenient karma-based chargen for these exact reasons. I've tried to ask the players to make less powerful characters since they're supposed to be noob runners, but the troll still wants as high body as possible, two rating 5 starting combat skills etc. etc. Gear seems to be the most unbalancing game mechanic in this game, so I want to limit the gear at this point. Even with good skill and attribute, the runners really can't get that many dice. So far I think 12-13 dice in attack is the highest, which suits me fine.
QUOTE (Larme @ Feb 14 2010, 12:41 AM)

By the base rules, they can\'t get the most rare and obscure gear from day one. If you think APDS is the most rare and obscure, that's a little confusing to me. IMO, the really awesome rare things are lasers, flamethrowers, autocannons, military armor... stuff you're not going to get until you've saved a large chunk of change and waited a significant amount of in-game time for it to arrive. There is always room to go up in Shadowrun if you have imagination. Even if characters feel geared to the max, they can start working on building a super hideout, or maybe acquiring facilities to produce even better prototype level gear. The only limits in Shadowrun are imagination, and that means that the limits themselves are imaginary. You can only stop growing when you run out of ideas.
EDIT: Oy. It placed a backslash after every apostrophe.
I think of APDS as fairly rare yes. They are forbidden, pretty high availability (not available from day 1 but maybe day 2). If this wasnt the case, why is gear limited to av. 12 at chargen? Sure, the runners will get hold of some APDS some day, but it might take several runs to do so, maybe getting some rep and contacts. But yeah they will get it.
Also part of the reason to limit items is the joy of gradual improvment. There is a reason why you can't start with a Vorpal Axe in D&D at level 1. Just like you can't start with MBW 3 in Shadowrun. You are supposed to have to work your way up. And while the normal setting assumes the runners are not complete noobs (like in mine), it also assumes the PCs are fairly fresh and unheard of.
Prices could be used to control this, but they are not. Items costing less than 100k is can be bought at chargen, unless they have a high availability. Thus, there is another mechanic to handle the gradual improvement of gear, and that's supposed to be Availability. I just take it a but further than the RAW does.