Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Alternate System - Combat Rating
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
ShadowPavement
So, as my life seems to get busier and busier with work and family, I find myself with less time to work on gaming stuff (which I'm sure that plenty of others can understand).

Stating up SR goons has always been a time cruncher for me since they have the same array of fiddly bits as PC's do. So I came up with this little system to help me with the unimportant guys, the sec guards and gangers that the PC's are just going to shoot in the face anyway.

I'd appreciate any thoughts that folk have on this. Thanks.

Combat Rating System
Rand
Would love to be able to download it and fully check it out, because I know exactly what you are saying about time slipping away from you. How do I do that?
ShadowPavement
There should be a link right at the very top of the google docs page to download. It's right under the name of the file.

Edit:

Huh. Google docs is giving me an error when I try to download.

I've set up a separate download HERE
tete
First impression is that it would handle mooks very well. Kinda like a simplified version of professional rating.
Abstruse
Reminds me of the new D&D 4th Ed Minion rules...I like it.
Summerstorm
QUOTE (Abstruse @ Jul 24 2010, 11:50 PM) *
Reminds me of the new D&D 4th Ed Minion rules...I like it.

Reminds me of the old Wushu mook mechanic... don't like it.

Ah well.. maybe not "hate", but i find this unneccessary. I already have estimates in my head for "not-that-important" foes and npc's and only note initiative and current damage, as i am sure nearly every gm does that. And what is good in other systems isn't really good in others. Shadowrun, i think, THRIVES on complexity, variety. Just saying ALL CR3 are the same and feel the same.. meh... doesn't sit right with me.

This is one of the things leading to "Room 2: Partylvl/2 CR x 4 Kobolds... umm i mean Gangers / Room 3: CR3 Gangers & one Elite mook Boss encounter" thinking.
Five Eyes
Looks alright - but little details will make CR opposition weird in comparison to normal opposition.

* Ranged attacks vs. melee attacks: CR opponents are just as likely to dodge gunfire as swordplay, and CR3 opponents rolling 9 dice without full dodge "reads as" Reaction 9. That's one hell of a gang leader!

* Hit value versus Damage: If you have Unarmed 6 (punching) and Heavy Weapons 3 and a machine gun you're more likely to take out a CR opponent with your bare hands than the heavy weapon.
Mäx
QUOTE (Five Eyes @ Jul 25 2010, 02:05 AM) *
* Hit value versus Damage: If you have Unarmed 6 (punching) and Heavy Weapons 3 and a machine gun you're more likely to take out a CR opponent with your bare hands than the heavy weapon.

Yeah that hit value think is really wierd and i would personally hit any GM who tried to use a system like that with the BBB in the head at least twice biggrin.gif wink.gif
Its just bonkers when the what your shooting them with doesn't matter at all and you can shoot a CR 3 opponent a 100 times with a gaus rifle and get 2 nethits with every attack and the guy doesn't care at all and keeps shooting at you like a super terminator.
Voran
I like it. I'm all for streamlining, with the caveat that streamlining be balanced with need of story. Sometimes you need to change pace and have the popcorn minion blaze through, sometimes you need to have the 'this is serious bidness, fatality!' pace.

Some considerations, you may want to also look at related karma rewards, as in a sense, this makes some combat easier, less of a threat and consequently should be 'worth' less. Likewise, some things to be mindful are 'lewt' related. If in order to compensate for the faster pace at which npcs eat the dirt, monitoring the PCs for 'lewt the bodies' behavior that may also increase in frequency.

Kind of like, the overall sense behind the encounter/challenge rating system: Lesser challenges require lesser effort and can be addressed more frequently, so the pace of advancement needs to be monitored for both a balance of enjoyment, but also not getting to far ahead of yourselves.
ShadowPavement
QUOTE (Summerstorm @ Jul 24 2010, 10:52 PM) *
Shadowrun, i think, THRIVES on complexity, variety. Just saying ALL CR3 are the same and feel the same.. meh... doesn't sit right with me.


Meh. I don't buy this as an argument against using it. It's no different than using the same sec guard stats from the BBB. It's the GM's description and tone of the game that makes npc's different, not stats.

QUOTE
* Ranged attacks vs. melee attacks: CR opponents are just as likely to dodge gunfire as swordplay, and CR3 opponents rolling 9 dice without full dodge "reads as" Reaction 9. That's one hell of a gang leader!


I think this it's fairly reasonable to be tougher like this especially since the mooks don't get a soak roll against attacks. I'll have to play-test it a bit more to see how it works out though.

QUOTE
* Hit value versus Damage: If you have Unarmed 6 (punching) and Heavy Weapons 3 and a machine gun you're more likely to take out a CR opponent with your bare hands than the heavy weapon.


What's the problem with that? That's why you put the 6 in unarmed in the first place, so you could take out people in hand to hand. Makes sense to me, and in some ways equalizes out the difference between ranged and melee fighters.
ShadowPavement
QUOTE (Voran @ Jul 24 2010, 11:54 PM) *
Kind of like, the overall sense behind the encounter/challenge rating system: Lesser challenges require lesser effort and can be addressed more frequently, so the pace of advancement needs to be monitored for both a balance of enjoyment, but also not getting to far ahead of yourselves.


Fortunately I don't need to worry about that with my group. They have the gear they like and don't really worry about the piddly stuff from mooks unless it's really good stuff. They have the sense not to try stripping armor off of guys they just wasted when there is the threat of more guys coming in.
Voran
QUOTE (ShadowPavement @ Jul 24 2010, 06:58 PM) *
Fortunately I don't need to worry about that with my group. They have the gear they like and don't really worry about the piddly stuff from mooks unless it's really good stuff. They have the sense not to try stripping armor off of guys they just wasted when there is the threat of more guys coming in.


You are a fortunate fortunate man smile.gif
ShadowPavement
QUOTE (Voran @ Jul 25 2010, 12:02 AM) *
You are a fortunate fortunate man smile.gif


I know. I'm truly blessed with this group.
Glyph
It's a bit too wonky. If you want to simplify, then have some "standard" mooks, and break down their typical dice pools (4 dice to dodge, 10 dice to soak with 6 of it being armor, 6 dice to block, 3 dice vs. social skills or spells, 7 dice to shoot, 5 dice to attack in melee).
Dr Funfrock
It's a nice system, but I'd agree with the other commentors that it needs some tweaks.

I'd suggest lowering Defence pool to 2xCR, and redoing the Hit Value rules. ShadowPavement's point about equalising ranged and melee fighters completely misses the fact that a DV2 punch will take a mook out as well as a DV8 battleaxe under these rules. That's going to be very hard for most players to stomach. Sort of thing that makes you aware of the mechanics, because they're pissing you off.

Hit Value needs to be compared to total DV (after adding net hits) instead of just net hits. I suppose we can leave AP out of the equation.
Let's say "total DV equal to 2xCR takes out a mook".

That feels a little smoother to me.
Five Eyes
QUOTE
I think this it's fairly reasonable to be tougher like this especially since the mooks don't get a soak roll against attacks. I'll have to play-test it a bit more to see how it works out though.


The essential problem is double-dipping. You're making defensive pools higher while also increasing necessary threshold for success simultaneously, which leads to silly situations where a character has more chances of harming a REA 11 prime runner samurai with two six-success attacks than he does of doing anything at all to a CR4 faceless minion. If characters have to spend Edge to drop a nameless goon, that seems to be contrary to the intent of having mook rules. ("We're not spending Edge fighting this dragon, we might run into some faceless minions on the way out of the building.")

Remember that while the numbers are linear, dice pools increase rapidly then slow down drastically. It's easy to produce enough dice to push 3 hits past a defensive pool of 9, but significantly harder to push 4 past 12, and harder still to push 5 past 15 or, god forbid, 6 against 18 (What's that take for a SA pistol user to do reliably, 36 dice?).

QUOTE
What's the problem with that? That's why you put the 6 in unarmed in the first place, so you could take out people in hand to hand. Makes sense to me, and in some ways equalizes out the difference between ranged and melee fighters.


Well, it doesn't - you still shoot more often* and it's just as easy to get shooty dice as melee dice, if not easier (although CR5+ opponents are better at dodging bullets than many borderline cyberzombies, so that'll be an even playing field). What it does do is dismiss any tradeoff between attack precision and attack damage - you always want more dice in this case. God forbid if you use a Warhawk or similar weapon that trades off firing speed for damage, because in that case you'd be suffering your drawback but not gaining the associated benefit. Or using expensive high-damage ammunition.

It would be a good idea in PDQ or another system that weights all character investment evenly, but it'll be inconsistent if used alongside a system that tracks multiple elements of weapon strengths and weaknesses, etc.

[*] This system does add some value to wide burst fire, which is good because we know that Automatics really needed the helping hand.
Mäx
QUOTE (Voran @ Jul 25 2010, 02:54 AM) *
Some considerations, you may want to also look at related karma rewards, as in a sense, this makes some combat easier, less of a threat

Only at CR1 and 2, after thats its prettty much the gunslinger adept takes down 2 or more enemies a turn while everyone else at the table goes to get coffee as their characters cant do jack shit to the enemies.
ShadowPavement
Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to work on this some more and see if I can smooth it out a bit.

hmmm..perhaps let the AP from a PC's weapon reduce a mooks action dice to defend, and maybe a -1 for burst fire and -2 for full auto.
deek
I love steamlining, which is why I basically simplify the mooks to basically attack dice and defense dice. I suppose I also add weapon damage, armor and then "other" dice (which can be used for non-combat stuff). So I agree, the personality of an NPC is 90% how the DM describes and interacts with the players and 10% the mechanics.

When the shit hits the fan, being able to glance down and know that the NPC has 6 dice or 15 dice to attack and 7 dice or 13 dice to dodge, just makes the game run faster and speeds up the amount of time I have to spend creating a half dozen NPCs that may not ever get used.

Assuming my best players are going to be around 12-14 dice for their best skills, I usually just slot NPCs as easy (6-8 dice), challenging (9-14 dice) and experts (15-20 dice). With those pools in mind, I don't worry about if they have a skill or not, I just pick a slot and roll with it. I know that I can create an NPC with any numbers I want, but I don't want to spend the time creating a bunch attributes, skills and gear when all I really need is the final number.
Mäx
QUOTE (deek @ Jul 26 2010, 09:48 PM) *
I love steamlining, which is why I basically simplify the mooks to basically attack dice and defense dice. I suppose I also add weapon damage, armor and then "other" dice (which can be used for non-combat stuff). So I agree, the personality of an NPC is 90% how the DM describes and interacts with the players and 10% the mechanics.

When the shit hits the fan, being able to glance down and know that the NPC has 6 dice or 15 dice to attack and 7 dice or 13 dice to dodge, just makes the game run faster and speeds up the amount of time I have to spend creating a half dozen NPCs that may not ever get used.

Assuming my best players are going to be around 12-14 dice for their best skills, I usually just slot NPCs as easy (6-8 dice), challenging (9-14 dice) and experts (15-20 dice). With those pools in mind, I don't worry about if they have a skill or not, I just pick a slot and roll with it. I know that I can create an NPC with any numbers I want, but I don't want to spend the time creating a bunch attributes, skills and gear when all I really need is the final number.

Thats sound pretty neat and much less likely to throw the players against unkillable opposition like the OP:s system.
ShadowPavement
*Thread Necro*

So I use my streamlined bad guy rules for the entirety of the Queen Euphoria run for my group. Things worked out pretty well for the most part and made book keeping a breeze.

However there were some wonky bits that came up and I had to fudge even my new rules more than I liked. I also found that I wasn't as comfortable with the PC's weapon damage not being taken into account for with mooks as I thought I was going to be, and on reflection I realized that I had really just come up with a different system for combat, which I shouldn't have done. The SR4 basic combat rules are simple and intuitive enough and work great, why reinvent the wheel.

So I sat back down and revised the rules a bit keeping in mind that I need to fix the mook building, not the combat system.

So HERE are my revised streamlined rules for building bad guys in SR4.
Neurosis
Glanced over this quickly (original link).

Is it correct that bad guys can't be taken down through attrition and that they require one excellent shot to drop them?

If so, I don't like that. In general I don't like this because I think NPCs having real stats is a good portion of the fun in SR.
ShadowPavement
QUOTE (Neurosis @ Oct 25 2010, 03:18 AM) *
Is it correct that bad guys can't be taken down through attrition and that they require one excellent shot to drop them?


Yes, this was true in the original version.

QUOTE (Neurosis @ Oct 25 2010, 03:18 AM) *
If so, I don't like that. In general I don't like this because I think NPCs having real stats is a good portion of the fun in SR.


After play-testing I ended up not liking it either which I why I decided to revise it.

Hopefully soon I'll get a chance to test the revised version and see how it works.
TheScrivener
I definitely appreciate the idea, especially for mook-heavy combat, but even the revised one seems too extreme. You're basically saying that every mook of a given level is mechanically identical except for a couple equipment bonuses. Perhaps a set of "templates" could be developed, with pluses and minuses for each number? for instance, a martial artist with +1 IP, +2 to hit, -1 to damage, or a spirit-summoning mage with +1 to spirit Force and -1 to spell power. Just off the top of my head. I think you're on to something, though, it just goes a tad too far in the genericizing. Of course, the "flavor" of combat is significantly influenced by the GM's description, so if you can carry combat with mostly that it's cool.

The other issue though, is that now your players know exactly what the stats of the enemy are as soon as they see how many dice are rolled for one test or are told what the armor piercing value of one attack is. Kind of hard to avoid metagaming then.
ShadowPavement
QUOTE (TheScrivener @ Oct 25 2010, 03:39 PM) *
The other issue though, is that now your players know exactly what the stats of the enemy are as soon as they see how many dice are rolled for one test or are told what the armor piercing value of one attack is. Kind of hard to avoid metagaming then.


They have to know what I'm doing to get that far wink.gif

I have good players who aren't metagamers. I've been honest and told them what I'm doing, hasn't changed their play at all. Though with the wrong group it could definitely be an issue.

I do like the the idea of templates though. Hmm....Have to think about how to do that.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Summerstorm @ Jul 24 2010, 06:52 PM) *
This is one of the things leading to "Room 2: Partylvl/2 CR x 4 Kobolds... umm i mean Gangers / Room 3: CR3 Gangers & one Elite mook Boss encounter" thinking.


Hey hey hey. Kobolds can be a challenge for a 14th level party if you use them right.
E.g. they know that they're "mooks" and stop acting like it.
(Take 40, put them on a ledge above the party, fire arrows, run away, repeat).
TheScrivener
If you're going to be using groups of 40 enemies simplification like this system is definitely something you want!

My brain is definitely turning on the "template" idea. I'm gonna start cross-pollinating with some D&D books, come back later.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012