Here's an idea for a houserule for you: reduce the accuracy of all weapons in your game by -6 and reduce damage of all weapons by -3. That way it will be harder for characters to hit and when they will do hit, it will be less damage. That should drag combat out into the wee hours of the morning for you.

Personally (and I know others have already said it in this thread), I like combat being deadly. Guns are bad, mmkay? If James Bond or The-Gunfighter-With-No-Name pulls a gun on you, you should be scared. Even if a street kid pulls a gun on you, you should be at least a little nervous.

Y'know:

A freind of mine was shot last year. He carries concealed (or he did, I don't think he carries as often now) all the time. Problem wasn't that the other guy had a 'bigger' gun. The other guy had it in hand, and he didn't.

And to suggest he wasn't scared of the gun pointed at him simple because he carried and knew how to use is disengenious, and wrong. Its ruined him for video games, when the TV points a gun at him he goes all 'fight or flight' and wigs out.

Game characters never... and I DO mean NEVER-EVER react like this.

Just sayin'.

...I agree, if game characters acted like people in RL they would approach things a lot more cautiously than they do. However, this is what make the game fun for your characters will perform things you have far more common sense not to do. In RL if the same kid waved a SNS at me, he gets my wallet & no argument. Simple.

I've been mugged before & while the perp only got way with 10$ he did about 800$ dental damage when they knocked me down. In RL I often get nervous when I hear footsteps coming up behind me at night and have even been spooked by joggers who I didn't hear until they were right behind me. It is good that I don't pack when on the streets or know some deadly form of martial art.

And even 18 dice aren't THAT lethal with Pistols. I mean, Gunbunny runs up and shoots Joe Average right? Ok, 18 dice statistically that's about 6 successes. We'll say Gunbunny is using a Predator with EX-EX Ammo because he likes being REALLY deadly. Joe Average attempts to dodge, with his Reaction of 3 he gets 1 success. So, He has to soak the predators 5+1 with an AP of -2 and the 5 more from Gunbunny's deadly deadly accuracy. Since this is supposed to be Joe Average, not even a sec guard, we'll give him a leather Jacket (2/2) which is negated by the AP, so Joe has to soak 11 with his 3 body. Curse you Joe, you soak 1 and fall unconscious and bleeding to death with 10 physical on you. Just enough to fill his damage track.


Sounds deadly huh? Not really. If you EVER have a runner with body 3 and a leather jacket then they better not be following you on runs. Unless you are a Technomancer there is NO justification for reaction 3(or less) Body 3(or less) and less armor than Bodyx2. None, if you are a runner or a sec guard or anything of the sort. So will they be effective? Yes. Will the completely dominate and kill any security team? Hell, they probably won't even manage to kill 2 a pass without some lucky rolling. With Range, darkness, glare, smoke, etc. and the opponent having cover.... Well, his successes went down to average 3 or 4 or less and the average dodge goes up. So... not as bad as you would think. And not as overshadowing. Have the GB shoot people once and let the less bad ass combat characters finish off everyone. Still important still get the pleasure of shooting someone, but you can do it with a dicepool of 6 or 8 because of the negatives the already shot guy has.



Chris

In my experience having one combat monster in a group of characters of middling to decent combat able characters hasn't been a problem.

Normal security guard level opposition tends to be disabled to a initiative pass worth of automatic fire/casting, no matter if your offense pool 10 or 18, shooting them really really dead or just hitting them hard enough to make them drop makes no difference in the end.

This allows everyone to participate meaningfully in a goon type combat situation, by using their firearms or spells.

When the big guns come into play, the team usually is outgunned, so trying to fight your way out by trying to shoot all the police/security dead usually isn't an option anyways. So fuck yeah, everyone will be happy to have the samurai be the last one out, throwing massive amounts of dice in the general direction of the opposition, to hopefully slow them down enough for everyone else to do their magic thing, being it hacking yourself a new escape route while the mage is busy fending off the astral assault, sweet talking the captured guard/secretary to give out the access codes to the helicopter or calling in those favors the don still owes you.

As you said it's easy to be decent in combat. Being a really good shot isn't that hard either. But thats okay. Especially since there's people for whom it is just plain fun to be the best shot in town. The Street Samurai example character in the BBB can probably take out one or two squads of the very expendable security goons all by himself. As long as it's made obvious that shooting people really hard doesn't actually solve anything, there shouldn't be any problems in that regard. After all the streetsam has to keep up with the guy that can make reality do his bidding by looking really hard at it, the other guy who makes people disappear from the net in his spare time and that one dude that goes golfing with the mafia don because he can tell good jokes.

You can always have the mage on the opposing side use my favorite spell in the game.... Wreck Gun! You can't shoot someone if you don't have a gun. Have the mage use edge to go first. All you need to do is cast at force 6 and get 4 hits to beat the OR of the weapon and the gunbunny has his weapon fall apart in his hand.

Sma: The problem isn't restrained to 'my current group'. Nor is it 'this kid should mechanically be able to jack a player reliably' anywhere near what I am suggesting.

Lets say that this punk can only meaningfully inflict four boxes of damage after soak. Hey, that might even be on the high side (which, to be honest, for a gunshot wound is pretty lame, but whatever).

Now, mechanically, the player can shrug that off as nothing. First aid kit, some mojo, whatever.

The CHARACTER however, is just going to know that hurts like the almighty dickens. It might also nick something vital. Its 'non-trivial' to him.

It goes beyond just that too. Given a chance to kill a king (from my earlier post) the player shrugs off the almost certaintee that he'll die in the process. As long as he succeeded...

Suicidal actions, as long as they are successful, are disgustingly commonplace among 'PCs'.

And this all too often reflected in 'Game design' terms, with absurdly complex security arangements, abnormally competent 'politicians and executives'... or simply 'unstated' critters (Great Dragons, Harlequin)...

Like I said, its complex, but that sort of casual 'non-concern' is really just a pale shadow of the real issues that can crop up.

...one of the reasons I also like Call of Cthulu. You get shot, you usually die. You take a fall, you break something. You run into some nasty horror, you go insane and then die. You come across a book or scroll, you don't open it and read it. This is a game where you have to think about the consequences of your actions or it's time to get out the dice & a blank character sheet. The element of imminent danger is always there literally right in front of you.

I've had an investigator (a reporter) survive through three sessions so far. That is a "promising" career in the game

Sometimes I wish Shadowrun had something like a "Sanity" score. A lot of runners I have seen (some of mine included) would be candidates for a rubber room where they are spoon-fed by the nice men in white suits.

I don't have a problem with gun bunnies myself. It is when the mage starts summoning force 6 and higher spirits when the fun begins.

How in the world is "Pistols at 7, Agility at 7 (modified by cyberware), a smartlink, and specialization in pistols" a munchkin? It's like 85 BP, there's lots of points left over to be a face or a hacker+rigger too.

If you want to talk characters, what character is cooler than The-Gunfighter-With-No-Name or James Bond (not counting Roger Moore of course ).

It isn't a munchkin from the viewpoint of points invested. It's ridiculous from the perspective that no starting character should have stats like that. It's ridiculous. People with natural 7's are supposed to be legends. It's unreasonable.

Well, again, this is SR4, not D&D. "Starting" characters in SR4 are not 1st level farmboys, they are already highly trained and highly experienced adventurers.

If that was the case, then it wouldn't be an option for normal chargen, and instead only be listed among the optional rules for higher Karma games.

It's not about the -1 dice. It's about the significance of that level of skill. Step away from the mechanics for a moment.

Ultimately, there are certain considerations you have to make beyond base rules.

Yes, I am suggesting using more strict rules than just the base character creation rules, especially if your concern is making combat last longer.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Look, I'm obviously in the minority here, so I'm ready and willing to admit I'm wrong, but I suppose I still cling to the concept that someone with a rating of 7 in a skill is something above and beyond what we see everyday. Sure, other people may have bigger dice pools, but being the most skilled at something you can be is special, and shouldn't be regulated to the position of, "Oh, it's just another +1 to my roll." I still maintain that if what you want to be is an expert in the field, having 4 ranks in the skill will do that just fine. And if you want to be one of the best in the world, that's what 6 is for.

The thing is that there is a very finite range of skill levels ... 0 - 7 is a spread of 8. With the population of the world being so big, there are bound to be numerous examples of people with very high, or even ultimate levels of skill in any category you care to name. There is no way you could know every single person of such caliber, if for no other reason than some of them are quite private about advertising their level of skill.

And that's fine, but those people are still special and unique. I just feel that that level of skill shouldn't be within the grasp of a chargen character. I guess it boils down to personal preference. Though.. I suppose the topic has taken a step away from the original. Didn't mean to temporarily hijack.

Whether this character is min-maxed, munchkinized, or just a typical starting street sam in some games doesn't matter. What matters is that the character is disruptive to others' fun because of his high skill levels, or at least previous versions of him have been in the past, and this particular version was created specifically to show how a problem could occur.

There's a simple solution for anyone really interested in the fun of the other people they play with: use a different character.

The point is that they are not unique. There might be 100, or even 1,000, or even 10,000 people that can shoot at the very top level on the planet. You can't possibly know them all.

[QUOTE=farrenj]And that's fine, but those people are still special and unique. I just feel that that level of skill shouldn't be within the grasp of a chargen character. I guess it boils down to personal preference. Though.. I suppose the topic has taken a step away from the original. Didn't mean to temporarily hijack.[/QUOTE]

I agree with you in that I don't like starting characters being able to hit the hard caps at character creation. But the system is set up to discourage hard-maxing by making it more expensive. To truly be the "best of the best", you also need to have an exceptional Attibute and max it out. That's 30 points of positive qualities, an extra 35 points compared to soft-maxing your Agility, and an extra 4 points on that skill. That's 69 points spent to get two piddly dice.

The problem isn't people using the char-gen rules presented to them in a logical manner. The problem is that the system lets you start at the hard cap, and that there is too small of a numeric range for skills. Personally, I would recommend that you adopt Frank Trollman's house rules for skills, letting them go up to 9 or 10 but still limiting them to 6 or 7 at char-gen.



[QUOTE =James McMurray]
Whether this character is min-maxed, munchkinized, or just a typical starting street sam in some games doesn't matter. What matters is that the character is disruptive to others' fun because of his high skill levels, or at least previous versions of him have been in the past, and this particular version was created specifically to show how a problem could occur.

There's a simple solution for anyone really interested in the fun of the other people they play with: use a different character.
[/QUOTE]

You know, D&D must be a much, much better game than Shadowrun. They have a class called the warrior who is tougher (more hit points), has a better chance to hit, has better weapons and armor, and, you know, I don't hear all of the bard and thief players whining how the game isn't any fun for them, because the figher kills so much more stuff than they do, and the whole dungeon is harder in order to challenge the fighter.

What kills me is the ass backwards way that some people approach the problem of the Gun Bunny. Adding tougher opponents and more difficult combat scenarios is never the solution if the problem is spotlight stealing and player jealousy rather than an inability to challenge your players. After all, a min-maxed Gun Bunny by definition is going to be better equipped to handle negative combat modifiers being inserted into their enviroment. If you're fine with your Gun Bunny being good at what he does (and you probably should be; the man paid his build points), but don't want your other less specialized combat characters to be left behind, then you need to make enemies easier but more numerous, not harder and packing thermal smoke grenades. After all, if you only need 8 dice to start plugging security guards, what's the Gun Bunny going to do that's so much better than everyone else? Make people extra dead?

I have no problem with people hitting the hard cap, or a soft cap like Frank's, as character gen BECAUSE most people, not all mind you, but most people who are that talented at anything start that way, or at least with a huge advantage over everyone else. Wild Bill had his agility at birth and probably qualified for a 4 or 5, maybe 6 or 7 in pistols at birth. I doubt he really sat around shooting targets and practicing his aim. Hell with medicine what it was back then I doubt he cared WHERE he shot people as long as it was kind of center mass they would probably die anyway and were at least out of the fight. In his Wikipedia article it even mentions he was very skilled from a young age.


I do approve of Frank's skill caps being at like 9 or 10 after chargen, because no matter how talented you start at you can always improve, and dropping a soft cap at char-gen just exacerbates the problem really. The lower the number range the less individuality between users and that's something that creates a problem, I think.

And again, char-gen runners might have been runners for years or an elite special forces officer or target pistol shooting champ before something happened. They don't all have to be from the Barrens.


Chris


EDIT: Oh, also, in DnD with the current books out you can create any archetype at any level and be just as effective as any other archetype. You start running into problems when you restrict things to the core books only, then the Druid and Cleric rule the world.

Ok, well, seeing as alot of nerves still aren't actually myelinated at birth I guess I should have used the phrase "from a young age". Sorry I didn't practice safe speech.


Chris

And yet Mozart's father gave up composing to spend time teaching his son when he "outstanding musical talent" became evident at age 3, and Mozart himself said Beethoven would "soon astonish the world" before he became 16. Not saying they didn't practice, I guess I wasn't clear earlier.


In my opinion, people with truly exceptional talent are born with alot of/most of it. I mean Wild Bill might not have bulls-eyed every shot at age 6 or whenever, but I bet he came damn close even the first or second time he picked up a pistol.

To be honest, I really think the Aptitude should be a BP/Karma discount instead of offering a higher level of skill. or maybe both. As a savant you start higher up on the learning curve, usually, and you progress alot faster. In my opinion, of course.



Chris

That's nice and all, but if you haven't noticed, Mozarts aren't exactly dropping out of trees ready to wow the world. Mozart was taught by an exceptionally skilled musician (his father was a respected composer in his own right) at an exceptionally young age. Beethoven was also taught by his father, who was by all accounts an ill-tempered drunkard who decided to make a musician out of his child whether the kid liked it or not. More than anything, I think people discount how quickly young developing minds can assimilate new skills. Every "prodigy" I've ever read about has had a Svengali of some sort in their life from the beginning. Genetics are bound to play some role in things, and there's definitely physical traits which can become limiting factors, but I think it's a stretch to say it's responsible for a majority of someone's talent. For every story of a Mozart, there's a quote from people like Larry Bird who once remarked to an interviewer that there were times he had a hard time sleeping at night because he would wonder if there was someone else out there practicing harder than he did. Talent is great to have, but I wouldn't discount sheer determination.

Michael Jordan didn't play basketball until he reached his early teens I believe. There's a balance between talent and skill and someone that reaches a 7 has found a way that works for him. It's not raw anymore, it's finely honed.

In short, impose limits and restrain yourself to enhance your pleasure. It's like bondage with dice.

The way the rules are written, having a high skill has only a partial effect on teh actual ability of the character so only tying the ability descriptor to the skill level is silly.

A guy with a 7 pistols and agility 3 rolls 10 dice, but is magically legendary because he has a skill of 7. While the guy with agility 5 pistols 5 who also rolls 10 dice is just an ordinary guy?

They should have measured ability by comparing dice pools:

so you get something like:
26+ you are probably breaking the rules somewhere
21-25 legendary
16-20 top name/olympic class
11-15 highly skilled
5-10 professionally competent

(at least for combat skills)

So to get legendary skill levels something like:
elf adept
AGL maxed at 10, skill 7 +3 from adept powers, skill specialization
gets you 22 dice to shoot someone, add 2 more for a smart link.

A guy with 14 dice (AGL 7, skill 7) just qualifies as 'highly skilled'.