Ok, I've made a bad guy for the PCs to fight. This guy has one primary weapon: a grenade launcher with an underbarrel flamethrower. The plan is to combo an oil slick grenade and a blast of the flamethrower. since this should be taking place on a staircase it should be a devastating combo... but my question is how the two attacks will interact.

Thoughts?

reverse it .... oil slick sprayer followed by a white phos grenade

... ow? Um, first I'd be sure that your PC's have a half-chance to survive this, then I'd probably go with the oil acting as 1/2 the flamethrower's DV per turn, not sure if there's rules for "stop, drop and roll" but two complex actions to put yourself out sounds about right (or one if you have fire resistance). Oil doesn't stay lit very well by itself, you'd probably want something a little more ignitable... barbeque lighter fluid? then again, get the fire to about 650 deg and the human body will start to consume itself via fire so... a hardwood fire can get up to 930 deg as a reference point. (cant remember if its c or f, i hate BTU's)

fire and PC's never seem to mix well.

On a Stair- or any Case really-, a super-soaker with slip spray is much more usefull in my opinion.
It won't kill people and other stuff, but it will take them out of the fight.

In other Words:"Implore him to Reconsider!"

Some more details, now that I've worked them out:
The guy is a crazed former chemistry teacher who lost his mind shortly after Chicago became bug city. He's been in treatment by doc wagon for a while, but a few days ago he broke out, stole some gear and vanished. Now he's hijacked a mafia chem microfac and has basically turned the place into a deathtrap. The mafia is calling the players in to push him out, and they could easily collect the bounty from docwagon as well if they take him alive.
Now this guy is an unaugmented mundane with a fear of drugs (because docwagon kept him drugged up) and almost no combat skills (1 or 2 points in a few skills.) who'll basically be using cunning tactics and a few autonomous drones to take on a group of highly powered (though not necessarily tactically brilliant) shadowrunners. He's had a few days to set the place up, and his delusional paranoia has him setting up for killing insect spirits that he believes are coming for him.

I am not pulling punches on this one. After all, it's a single unaugmented mundane schoolteacher (who used to do shot firing) against 5-6 professional shadowrunners.

He was a high school chemistry teacher?

Total Party Wipe. Calling it now.

That's pretty much the plan. but come on, I'm throwing a group of trained shadowrunners against ONE GUY with no magic, no augs, and less than 10 grand of gear. If they can't win this, well, I'm actually not going to be surprised. I'll put it this way: the fire suppression system on that staircase, the one covered in slippery and highly flammable oil? Full of napalm. oh, and some freeze-foam bombs at the top and bottom to prevent escapes. Even if they can tank the fire, they'll need their own air supply to be able to breathe! Plus, composure checks all around to avoid panicking as, you know, you're on fire!

Then there's the wonder of AMFO, ball bearings and industrial strength weed killer...

EDIT: I swear I'm not a killer GM, it's just that I'm sick of my players brute forcing the obvious solution to a problem until it goes away. Here, they will either get their asses handed to them with SCIENCE (No, the guy isn't wearing Dr Insano's goggles, but one day I will make a character that does. And on that day the megacorps' reign of terror will be over as a new reign of terror begins... MY REIGN OF TERROR! WITH SCIENCE!), or they'll play smart and think of a way around the strategically placed kill zone fest that occupies the most obvious entry. Their call.

I like your style. Remember to quite obviously have old security monitoring hookups on the windows from the outside, and see if they have the two brain cells to rub together and realize that noone will be answering them in the middle of Bug City.

I'll say, go with it and don't hesitate or pull punches. Unless you're running a pink mohawk campaign on purpose, there's no reason to treat your players like a bunch of brainless thugs. If they treat themselves that way, then they'll need to eat a few harsh lessons. I always let my players know ahead of time that there are things in the world that can, likely, one shot them without a significant chance of survival. I also let them know I will not inform them of exactly WHO or WHAT counts as such until they find out the hard way.

I would expect a TPK if they're REALLY that stupid. Don't actively pursue a TPK to the exclusion of all else. Go for the Ankh-Morpork definition of "suicide." If they piss off a powerful and dangerous person, that's suicide. If they do something incredibly stupid and die, that was a suicide. Every runner has the right to suicide, and it would be wrong to rob them of their true desire if they "earnestly pursue" it.

See, I think several of my old groups would brute force it in such a way that the kill zone would be useless. And I know this from experience because they had a run to deliver a package to a paranoid demolition expert (who thought he was entirely off the grid) and he had a very heavily booby trapped layer.

Expected brute force player responses to "get that guy out of the building without destroying it and maybe take him alive":
1. Narcoject grenades fired through windows. (tried this one, he had hardened windows to they bounced off)
2. Drill a hole in the wall and pump in slab. Send in a spirit to see if the guy was wearing his respirator. (he had a separate air supply system to his secure room)
3. Make a deal with one of the junkies they supply to deliver a "package" to this particular building in exchange for drugs. See what happens to the junkie. (yes, my group did this to get into the paranoid demolition expert's safehouse) Bum rush the place avoiding all the defenses the junkie triggered.
4. One guy without magical back up? Form a perimeter. Send in the spirits to deal with him. He burned the air spirit? Well, time to switch to the fire spirit.
5. Aerosolized low grade high explosives and put it near the air supply of the building (the mob should be able to supply that). Even if he has a chemical filter on the air supply, the explosives will blow it away on the first blast and then they can pump in whatever they want. And if it's low enough rating explosives, the guy will probably even survive. (I can't really fault them for this approach, since it's something I thought up with two part explosives to blow a facility as a player.)
6. Cutting charges to break in through any given wall, chances are there aren't defenses situated around a random wall. Or tunnel into the place. (they also tried this on the demolition guy)
7. Set up a sniper and just peg the guy when he leaves or goes near a thin wall (he has to get food and move around somewhat).

Just consider that brute force might not mean doing what you expect.

@thorya but those responses are all thinking type responses; it appears that (much like the situation i am in) the players dont think of anything more than hack n slash kick down the door loot the room style of play.

Maybe I don't get what he means then, because the above is how my players usually kick down the door and loot the room.

i.e. Kick down the wall. Kill everything with fire, Magic items and gold don't burn anyway.

Fun additional idea for preventing doors being kicked down. The demolition expert had taken cheap hollow foam doors and replaced the foam with ANFO and shock sensitive explosive. So that any force strong enough to splinter the door would cause it to explode. The door's gone in one kick, but so is the foot that kicked it.

I think what hes been saying is the guys dont consider alternatives besides oh hey lets go through that obvious doorway thats probably trapped, dont do legwork etc.

We always used fly-spies and/or spirits with concealment to do things like check out the stairs. If there is a guy with a gun there we won't walk up the stairs. We might appear to walk up the stairs via Trid Phantasm, or just levitate up an imp invi grenade for him depending on the mission.

Coulda fooled me. . . Though at least you aren't hitting them with KE IV/DMSO Capsule rounds and claiming the full 8P(Acid).

Give the first round of traps an out rather than just "You die. Do better legwork". That staircase as described is just a very heavily fluffed up version of a Sphere of Annihilation in a statue's mouth unless they're packing serious Fire Resistance. Unless they can get through a wall (in which case, the explosive they would use to do so explodes due to Fire -> chunky salsa). The out can be as simple as the Johnson saying (straight up, not as a missable offhand comment) they sent in some thugs/rent-a-cops/whatever, but they all died horribly, though. The first wave's buddies showing up for revenge (and having to keep them from setting off too many traps near you) can even be a complication!

I would however, never use the actual GL/Flamethrower combo until the last fight. Use (mechanical or hardwired) traps instead (or as you said, Drones). Because if the PCs ever see the man with the GL, they will request an Initiative roll, they will win it barring Edge (and they have Edge too), and they will bring him down before he can move, if they've been able to brute force their way through corpsec.

This is fair(ish):
Johnson: "We sent in some cheap goons, they managed to get themselves killed. We're still looking for Bob's body. But it's one guy, shouldn't be a problem. It'll be easy"
Cut to stairs. . .
GM rolls secret Perception test (4) for traps, at a -3 for distractions since the players aren't describing any paranoia. No one makes it.
Sammy: I charge the stairs!
GM: You trigger a tripline, dispensing oil, white phosphorus, and sealing the exits. You'll be soaking 8P until this guy runs out of napalm or you find a way out. Go. By the way, Composure(2) every time you try to do something to avoid panic.
Hacker: Did I buy Alkahest? No. Well, shit.

This is not:
GM: You see stairs. Narrow, Concrete, stairs leading to the entrance.
Sammy: I charge!
GM: The Exit behind you closes, filled with barrier foam. Hoses dispense oil onto the stairs, and you. Reaction + Agility to not slip.
Sammy: 5 hits. I'm a Sam, remember?
GM: The door opens and two grenades are thrown through. One is barrier foam, blocking the door. The other is a molotov. Soak 4P and give me a composure test.
Sammy: I soak. . . 5 points, no damage. Composure. . . 2 hits.
GM: Fire suppression kicks in. It's napalm. Soak 8P + Composure.
Sammy: I soak. . . 4. Composure. . . 0 hits.
GM: You panic and skid to the bottom.
Sammy: Can I just burn an Edge point now and skip the slowly dying over the next 5 combat turns part?


Edit: My problem is not with absurdly lethal Tucker's Kobolding. My problem is with Tucker's Kobolding without warning. That said, crazy chemistry teacher who thinks the bugs are out to get him is going into my Bull Sessions file.

It also might do well if you include Bug Spray/Insecticide as a key component to a few of the traps. Insecticide can work about as good as pepper spray (pepper punch?) on a person, and would be a key theme for somebody turtling against bug spirits. Raid-grenades, for example, or bug-spray-flamethrowers that use the chemical as an accelerant. "Hidden" passages that resemble bug burrows to encourage bug-infested drones to corral themselves into traps/killzones. Even taunting along the lines of "You brainless drones aren't gonna get me!" or "I'm gonna exterminate every last one of you!" (even graffiti would work along these lines.

Sounds like a plan. I think that KE IV is the anti-bug poison of choice?

They avoided a tpk. just. They failed the mission, but fled with their skins mostly intact.

Hammond Wilder, crazy chem teacher and shadowrunner thwarter.

It's the best insecticide, for certain. If a bug fails to soak the entire Power, the rules are basically there to tell you how many rounds it sticks around Berserk rather than whether it will die, unless it's a really, really tough bug. Other insecticides might be around in a Mafia microfac though. Raid is probably still cheaper (KE IV is Availability 8 and 10 Nuyen per dose, Raid is probably Availability 0 and 5 Nuyen per can, which is a lot of doses). Some insecticides are rather chemically similar to nerve gas, so production of organophosphate insecticide is a (thin) cover story for a microfac turning out chemical warfare agents.

The other nice thing about KE IV is that it's sort of toxic to humans, but not nearly as much so. It's mentioned to be toxic by ingestion (with lesser effects, specifics left to the discretion of the GM). The book doesn't treat on what happens if you happen to breathe in enormous quantities in a confined space either, which sounds like a likely outcome if the PCs aren't packing respirators or gas masks.

What'd they do?

I'm obviously too late to help but was wondering-were the runners attacking UP or Down the stairs? The risk would be the way gravity carries the oil.

They spotted the freeze foam canister that was supposed to block their escape and moved it. That meant that when the fire began to rise they weren't cut off from their escape and could run away. Also, the unarmed adep that the newest group member had made was outside the kill zone and dragged everyone else's asses out of the fire... literally.

Damn, that troll can tank like nobody's business. The fire did nothing. NOTHING! fortunately the smoke was another matter and caused him some serious problems.

My Troll tank recently found out he can only tank so much when he hugs an electric fence. Then gets rammed into it by a RoadMaster. Then runs into a Stunball Effect.

It was an interesting game.

Well, it's what Trolls are supposed to do usually . .
Also:
Canray got to play a Shadowrun Game! *shocked*

I call shenanigans. Canray never gets to play, we all know that.

The Troll tank PC I was GMing for...

Well, since our tank has a brother who's a fire mage all his armour has maxed out fire resistance. The guy behind him, on the other hand...

ah, poor guy x.x

Just a quick FYI:

Oil and other flammable liquids the fire just moves to the next area covered in the liquid. All of the surface area covered with oil must be smothered simultaneously. Stop, drop, and roll doesn't work for drek.

Fire needs 3 things or it won't burn, one or more of the following must be removed.

Heat
Fuel
Oxygen