QUOTE (Dakka Dakka @ Dec 30 2012, 06:14 PM)
Unless your PCs have seriously high soak pools sniper situations are very binary. Either the sniper misses or a character is dead. With a sports rifle the minimum damage will be (7base+4called shot+1net hit)P and AP -1. Real sniper rifles with better ammunition are worse.
Snipers are horrible recurring villains because they they have ludicrously low requirements compared to other comparable archetypes of similar offensive power. At the most basic level they have a two stat build (Agility + Intuition) and are virtually unkillable unless you also have a marksman with a ludicrously high perception pool. They are also highly effective against ALL PC archetypes unless you build hardcounters the sniper. In which case, you've probably countered far more opposition as well by doing so. Since they are NPCs they don't need to be bound by the same creation rules as the players. I have a PC sniper (who doesn't always play a sniper, in fact he rarely does that role). I throw 21 dice ignoring take aim bonuses. I have 22 dice on visual perception. My disguise check is 12 before situational modifiers and that's frankly good enough to foil my own perception check at least 50% of the time thanks to all the penalties you get regardless. My infiltration check is 15 ignoring environment so for all intents and purposes, it's easier to spot him when he's still rather than moving (another issue I have with the rules and sniper situations). I'm not confident that I could spot myself. I am confident that I would kill myself before I spotted myself. I believe I have an unspoken gentleman's agreement with the GM. As long as I act more like a dedicated marksman and not a sniper, we shouldn't be facing snipers....
Buying hits at 4:1 means 4 hits after a called shot which is in total +7 damage on top of the base weapon damage. I use a Barret with EX-Ex most of the time so that's 17P/-5AP on the low end with the top end being about 20P/-5AP. APDS if I have a heavy armored target so 16P/-8AP to 19P/-8AP.
The rules of Shadowrun are not well equipped to handle a sniper situation. This is one situation where you're better off going cinematic and not using the sniper to attempt to kill the PCs. It isn't like another PnP RPG where attacking while hidden causes you to be revealed (at least it doesn't say you become unhidden). You need the perception check to know where the sniper is and until you do so, the best you get is a blindfire attack against him where your attack against him is so horribly gimped it's not even worth it. You use Intuition instead of agility (so probably a loss of 4-7 dice for any gunbunny) and you take a -6 penalty so all told it's about -10 to -13 dice and he gets to defend against the attack. The opposed test of a sniper vs the spotter is absurd as well because of the nature of perception penalties and the bonuses you can actually get for the situation. I honestly cannot find a way to effectively get more dice on disguise than I can on infiltration which leads to the absurd situation where it's always easier to spot the hidden sniper than the moving sniper. Most everything you can do for disguise that would legitimately apply to the situation is also permissible for infiltration or in the situations where you get disguise but not infiltration it's evened out by a bonus you get from infiltration that you can't get for disguise.
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QUOTE (Umidori @ Dec 31 2012, 04:55 AM)
For a good story, you want your sniper to be frightening, not lethal. You want them to be unseen, but not undetected. You want the players to live in dread for a short while, but you also want to give them a golden thread of escape or retaliation. They need to know that they're in the deep end, but they also need to know that they can actually try to do something about it. Escape should be possible. Counterattack should be possible.
Snipers are ambushers. They get in position, take a few shots, and move. But they're ultimately not strong enough to handle a fair fight. If your players get too close, they can turn the tables with little to no effort. Likewise if your players take cover and slip away, the sniper is going to have a hard time following them.
~Umi
For a great example of what snipers should be in a cyberpunk world, watch the episode of Ghost in the Shell 2nd Gig where Saito explains how he got recruited.
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QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Dec 31 2012, 09:35 AM)
I've taken a look and there's a possibility for a team of PCs to spot a sniper.
Pre-shot:
Player DP 10 (highest value) +5 (group bonus)
-2 distracted, -2 interfering element, -3 target far away, -4 ruthenium polymer coating: -11
So that's 4 dice to make a Threshold 2
After shot:
to notice the gun: -4 silencer, -3 distance, -2 interference, +2 standsout, +3 actively looking
DP 11 vs threshold 2
Noticing the sniper: -4 ruthenium coating, -3 distance, -2 interference, +3 actively looking:
DP 9 vs threshold 2.
A few notes. A silencer mod is -6 while the accessory is a -4. No reason not to have a mod on a sniper rifle, the weapon is already F class and you're pretty much frelled if someone finds you with that. The silencer is a a drop in the ocean. If you're trying to spot the sniper it's an opposed test Perception vs Disguise. If you're trying to hear the shot it's Perception vs Threshold 2.
So lets use myself. DP 22. -2 distracted, -2 interfering element, -3 for target far away, -4 for ruthenium/camouflage. That's -11 for a DP of 11. You're also ignoring visibility modifiers. I don't think most runners do daylight ops so that's almost certainly going to be involved.
I have a disguise check of 12 and I believe it's possible to get some bonuses to it, possibly up to +4, for a DP of 16.
Before the shot:
That 10 against 16 in an opposed check. A teamwork test can only permit as many bonus dice as the rank of perception of the person being assisted. I have 4 perception so with enough hits from teammates I'll be 15 perception against 16 disguise (ignoring visibility modifiers). That's not a good situation for the perceiver.
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QUOTE (_Pax._ @ Dec 31 2012, 06:08 PM)
He should still be using Subsonic rounds, for the -2. And if he's using an off-the-shelf gun, it should be something he intends to treat as disposable. Have him douse it in C-squared and abandon it on-site. (PErhaps with a few stealth RFIDs planted on it, just in case the PCs are dumb enough to want to KEEP it, but not run a tag eraser over it ...).
Subsonic is the one optional choice for a sniper. Hearing a silenced sniper shot is already going to be at -7 just from the weapon, then you're looking at another -5 from other modifiers. Unless the character in question is explicitly built towards raising the snot out of his perception check, he won't have a chance of hearing it.
My perception sniper rocks 20 dice to hear something, the rest of the team is at 12 or 13. One is a longshot to hear the gunfire. The other has 1 die to hit a threshold 2. Neither could hear my sniper PC firing his gun from distance without using edge and they're runners.
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QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Dec 31 2012, 06:24 PM)
I was refering to staying hidden with infiltrate, on the camoflague example I would totally agree.
Although how exactly does one camoflague using a ruthenium coated armor? You'd think anything additional would eliminate the effect of the light bending.
"You're trying to look like an invisible shrub?"
Staying hidden while firing while moving is not a situation a professional sniper would be attempting to do. It would be fire once then move and setup in a new position. This way you don't reveal yourself and hold off being found for as long as possible. Ruthenium provides a -4 penalty to perception. Camouflage provides a -2 if used in the right environment. A ghillie suit provides a -4. I don't think most people permit these to stack. It's not even necessary to make them stack to make it painful to spot a sniper.
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QUOTE (_Pax._ @ Dec 31 2012, 06:57 PM)
The bonus could be increased, to retain the impact. Say, off the top of my head, +6 instead of -4.
Penalties are preferred. Penalties that drop the other target to 0 dice in their pool forces longshots.
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QUOTE (_Pax._ @ Dec 31 2012, 08:17 PM)
Then again, we don't have Chameleon Coat treatments for sniper weapons yet.
Also, that's not so much a Hide, as it is "I'll just stay back from the window a little ways".
Basic optics. If you are in an illuminated area, seeing into a shaded area is more difficult than seeing things in the illuminated area. The best way to demonstrate this is go outside on a moonless night. Stand under a streetlight while your friend walks straight out into the darkness about 100ft. Have him then walk towards you until you can spot him. Most likely you will seem him somewhere within 10-30ft from the edge of the pool of light cast by the streetlamp. Stand outside the pool of light and you'll be able to spot him much further off. This is actually one of the things that makes the rape problem in central park in NYC so problematic.