Ok, I've been running a game for a little bit but I'm getting a little frustrated.

There isnt much guidance about creating enemies for player characters as far as suggestions for stats and actually generating raw numbers. The bad guys I do try to create generally get stomped on (To be fair, the group works VERY well together) but I want to create situations where the enemies give the players a rough time but dont slaughter them all.

Is there any helpful advice about creating shadowrunner foes that goes a little more in-depth than core does??

Have you had a look at the sample grunts on page 281 of SR4A?

You're probably not going to like this because it's a ton of work but...

Run through your important combats with dummy versions of your PCs. Figure out what they're going to do at each juncture of the combat and figure out how to compensate. Obviously, if you do this, you don't want to overcompensate; you never want to eliminate all of their primary options, but enemies get to be prepared and competent too. If during this mock battle you find you can't actually predict what kind of craziness your PCs would try, either you don't know them very well or they know the rules better than you do, in which case you need to bone up a little.

This can be a lot of work, because you need to step through all of your important encounters to to see if they're challenging or not, but it can also be really rewarding. Just assume your PCs will do the most optimal thing at each part of the encounter and ask yourself if there is a glaringly obvious flaw in their strategy. Work out what the tactics are for multiple enemies ahead of time. I find relying on raw numbers, no matter how big they look on paper, is never as effective as walking through the experience.

If there are enemies of individual PCs, then don't have them come at the group when everyone's together and geared up. Instead, have them take some cheap shots at individual team members when they are at a nightclub or similar situation. When the sammie is only wearing an FFBA shirt and only has a holdout, and doesn't have teammates around to back him up, those several thugs have suddenly become more threatening.

And they don't have to directly confront the PCs, even then. Have someone lean on one of their contacts, or have someone try to run one of them off the road. Have them paint a threatening message on the wall of the sammie's apartment, or leave harassing messages on the hacker's commcode. Or have them start spreading vicious rumors about the group.

The biggest advantage runners have is that they are usually the aggressors. Enemies can turn that around. They don't have to be as good as the PCs - a schmuck with a hunting rifle can be dangerous if they are coming back from a run, exhausted and wounded, only to have someone sniping at them from cover.

The best part is that if you don't need to make the enemies as tough, you don't have to worry as much that some NPC with a high dice pool will get lucky and out-and-out slaughter a PC. But with good tactics, you will still be able to make them sweat.

Hm... i think i am in a REALLY small minority here, but as far as opposition goes i never scale them to the player characters.

If i prepare an adventure, run or sidestory i always go from the other side: What would be there? If there is maybe a hidden base or something, there will be few but elite defenders. If it goes against an insane "fun" gang there will be numerous suicidal but bad fighters. Against a Wiz-Gang: Many low class spellslingers. If the runners target something of extraordinary value for a corp: Elite Team of runners or HTR with tactical support. I rely on the wisdom of my players/their characters to know when to not take a job, or plan an unusual approach.

Like i always say: You can always run. (Not really true - but the gist of it is ok)

Overall in the campaign i am running now all opposition was stomped so far. (Mostly REALLY bad). But it all hinged on lucky rolls, edge, and good stealth. For example:

Team is fleeing from a scene, but attracted HTR response who intercepted. In a Team vs. Team battle the HTR would have had the upper hand, maybe their mage support was a tad lighter. BUT my runners could disable the vehicle of that threat and escape before they could do the same. Head-on avoided.

Well, overall i prefer to think about realism: Corps don't lower security because the one team (they don't know about) has fewer members. Nobody begins hiring Cyberzombies or Cyborgs for no apperent reason, just because the team is pretty powerful in a fight. Low security guards do not get Wired reflexes 2 or M-B-W systems, just because the runners are fast. I always keep eyes on the world, not the players and their characters.

And it didn't cause me any problems yet. Other than the mage of the team steals a lot of spotlight in contrats to the others, since she is faster, stronger, better and has her own team (spirits) to fight with. But even though she wouldn't have come far without the others and their support. (Senses, knowledges, support skills, and meatshielding *g*)

GRUNTS!.

The Grunt Survival Guide.

Same here. To me it never made sense that opposition scales with the PCs level.

I agree with much of this. As I tell my players, I scale my opposition to the world and like you, I tell them that running away is always a valid tactic in my game. I play my NPCs in accordance to their stats; stupid or clueless NPCs do things dumb, smart or skillful NPCs do things better.

I've always believed that enemies should go for the PCs (or their counterpart) in anyway but head-on. They could funnel information about the PCs to other, more dangerous parties, lean on Contacts, etc. They might also just have the resources and web of influence to annoy the PCs at any given opportunity. Maybe Lonestar shows up at the mage's apartment with a search warrant one day because the enemy has been pulling strings. Does one of the PCs have a friend/dependent/or family member that can get jumped on their way back from a bar one night?

I don't think the actual numbers on an enemy count so much as how they're played.

I think that that the actual numbers on an enemy should count towards how they should be played. But if the GM wants play a dumb enemy as a smart one, I think that it would only be fair that a dumb PC can be played as a smart one too.

That is very true.

I know this won't help much, but welcome to Shadowrun!

Say what you will about D&D, but the Challenge Rating system is a surprisingly elegant solution to this problem.

A completely fake solution that keeps you from learning how to judge these things for yourself, but yeah, it is a solution. (Like using a cheat sheet for a test; sure you get the answers, but you certainly won't learn the material.)*


Sorry, if it has been mentioned: But have you tried having them battle themselves? Sometimes the way to challenge a group is to use their own characters agianst them, but not really their actual characters, just carbon copies and, as you have had several encounters with them, you shoulc have a good idea of the tactics they use. That is also a good way of slapping down those players that want to abuse the system (not saying that yours are, just that it can be used thusly). I think that was the basis behind the Slavers series in OD&D - one of the best adventure series put out for OD&D, imo.


*I don't hate it that much, just busting chops.

I wouldn't call it fake, an experienced DM will use the CR as a guide and tweak encounters from there - but what it gives you is a handy list of ranked enemies that you can search for in a table.

The PACKS idea posted on this board is a good start, but I wish for GM's toolkit that would give us a wider variety of pre-generated threats.

Just because you have an army of mooks doesn't ever mean that they're led by the same. A 'dumb' PC is relative - just as your player may know something the character won't, the character will likely know something the player doesn't. That's why we have Perception rolls, among other things.

On another note, predictability is always a runner's weak point. Use that street cred and public awareness rating they've got to think of a few things. They have a shadow rep for doing things a certain way? Your Johnson who's classified as a 'PR Specialist' catches wind they may be in your area, and you can change up a few things in order to make their lives hell. A team with a rep for drones doing the work meets some cheap anti-drone security and wide-spectrum EW jamming.

Even better justification - Make a generalized group of 'runners similar to your party. They're the 'contractors' your company hired to keep people like your players out. Have video drones shooting tape while they set it up and sell it on TLC. Extreme Makeover: Corporate Security Edition would be a hell of a show to watch.

That I would definately go for, also - like when they put out these sourcebooks, give us examples of the NPCs we could use (as GM) or have to deal with (as PCs). Give me some corporate mucky-mucks and thier lackey's and bodyguards, the scientists that can be found in the research facility the PCs are breaking into, etc. A large NPC tome would do wonders for this game, those are the "monsters" of shadowrun, so why no "monster manual?" (The critter book is OK, but also doesn't have enough to it, and doesn't cover non-critters at all.)

I think the critter book is awful. In order to find a specific critter you want to use you have to know either it's name or where in the world it's from. It's already happened a couple of times where I've said to myself, "What was the critter that could do that?" and I find myself leafing through the book page by page. And that's only if they aren't covered by a specific chapter. It's like a scavenger hunt to find anything in there.

Why couldn't we get a nice table/list? It's like the designers have never played RPGs before.

(I know that's not true about the designers, but to me the lack of a master critter list in the critter book is an oversight. That's the first feature I thought it would have.)

Yeah, the layout was weird and problematic, but some of the critters were pretty-cool.

But, definitely play to your players' disadvantages. Is there something missing in the group skillset? Something that they aren't very good at defending against? Use that.

Like magic.

Lawl.

I'm sure I have no idea what insect spirits you're talking about, Doc.



I actually think that PR experts are a runner's worst enemy, regardless of their skillset. Goddamn string-pullers. What quicker way to screw up a good team than to make their contacts dry up? One good splash on the evening news is all it takes for some people to decide that the PCs are too high profile to deal with. Enemy hackers or other data hoarders are also good. They can keep leaving 'anonymous tips' for Lonestar or other people that can make life miserable for your team.

Well, of course. Any publicity is bad publicity for a 'runner.

If I'm making goons, I tend to take the max amount the character can have in a stat (Unmodified, so, for example, 6 for a human), and roll that many dice to figure out the stat. Based on the number of successes will be the stat.
(EX: Rolling for a Generic Mugger, I'll roll his Reaction, with a Dice Pool of 6 since he's a human... I got 3 successes. Thus, his Reaction is 3)
Gear is pretty simple, if they're just little guys, give 'em light pistols, maybe a pair of hand razors or a knife... If they're mini-bosses, give'em something that the players could use, and if it's a boss, completely make that character. Stat him out, and give him a backstory.

The system has worked so far, and though it creates either really weak, or really strong goons (Usually though, they're average, boardering on sub-par). I am trying to figure out how I can institute the PC's growth into the system, for example, for every bit of street cred they have (Max, doesn't count for spent street cred), maybe the goons get that much BP to spend... I dunno'.

I wouldn't scale the whole world to the PCs (a mall security cop won't go from pistols: 2 to pistols: 6 just because the PCs gained Karma), but jobs would tend to be scaled more towards the level of the PCs, because, well, they are getting these jobs from fixers who have a halfway decent notion of what the runners can do. That's not to say they won't every get a milk run, or be set up to be patsies, or get a job that's over their head. Generally, though, jobs will tend to match the capabilities of the team.

Enemies, it depends. Starting enemies (from taking them as a quality) are supposed to be about the same level as the players, but enemies they make during play can range up and down the spectrum. Professional rival types, by definition, will have a rough parity with the group, although even there you have a lot of wiggle room.


To be brutally honest, while I wouldn't make weak grunts inexplicably stronger or powerful NPCs inexplicably weaker, I would metagame with enemies that I create specifically to interact with the PCs, creating them with their main function of challenging the PCs in mind.

This.

That would depend on the situation and various other factors. Let's say one (or more) of the runners have the skillset as well as other qualities that allows him and the team to keep a very low profile or throw high profile evidence off their trail. Remember just because you as the GM engineered a scenario where the runners contacts dry up doesn't mean that they can/will go after these people.

GM: Nobody wants to be associated with you, because someone leaked a trid of some people looking like you guys holding up the Stuffer Shack last week.
Player 1: OK, and?
GM: And what?
Player 1: My PC lies low, so if you want to run a game, you got to think of something. Or we can sit here and twiddle our thumbs and drink beer. More beer?

It's that the PCs don't make enough money to be worth doing jobs against pitiful opposition. Plus you still leave some evidence even with a trivial crime, and it's expensive to take all the countermeasures. If your 200 karma team is still taking 5000 jobs something is very odd.

It's much, much worse than the previous critter books.