Our group has managed to spawn a lot of high-dodge melee adepts for the new edition, for some reason.

My idea for a counter: Gun lockers with shotguns full of buck. Wide choke plus short burst = -7 dodge, -3 damage (9 with the cheapest shotgun on the market), +4 armour, can hit up to 2 targets within 3 meters.

Cheap and simple, having a gun locker full of shotguns makes sense in universe. Out of universe most hits will deal 3-4 stun after soak (not counting the troll), which is enough to be a threat to the players without one-shotting them. Our primary dodge-bunny is rocking 13 dice to dodge to the average security guard's 7-8 dice. The shotgun solution reduces that to 6 dice, which makes the guards a threat again without resorting to giving them full auto weapons (and lets face it, would YOU give Joe night-guard an assault rifle?)

Thoughts?

Sounds ok, just don't overdo it.

If a player makes a character that specialises in dodge and you design the campaign around nulifying that they won't enjoy playing that character. You wouldn't feel so justified by your decision if they'd made all cybered trolls that laugh at buckshot. Then it's be "A locker full of assault cannons makes sense"

Just mix it up. Give every 4th bad guy a shotgun. you'll find it more effective anyway because you'll need guys with hand cannons to deal with the non-dodging players

If any of the opposition have the money and the clearance for an Enfield AS-7, they can use a Long Burst, knocking the dodge penalty up to -10.

~Umi

Sounds reasonable as a strategy as long as you keep it in perspective. A lot of police departments now issue shotguns to officers for when their pistols won't suffice. (though not for accuracy reasons, they really don't have the drastic point in the general direction and you're guaranteed to hit that most people think they do) Just keep them in the locker until an alarm is sounded, because most security guards are not walking around with those at all times.

Other solutions for dodge-ninjas you might want to consider:

1. Chemical means- Drones or turrets that dispense tear gas or any of the other fun combat chemicals. Your runners will probably upgrade to respirators or similar. But it makes sense for corps to use these, since the law suit for your drone accidentally tear gassing an innocent person is cheaper than the wrongful death law suit.
2. Surprise and cover! Guards should be cautious and intelligent. If an alarm's going off, they're not going to stand-out in the open and fire at you obviously. They'll probably use security systems to track you and then find secure positions to ambush from. They can hit even the best dodger if the dodger doesn't know it's coming and then they have little chance of returning fire if the guard has taken a safe position. With drones you can even have them reasonably using ultrasonic or other tech to shoot through walls once they've been detected.

I've always been a fan of CS gas and neurostun.

I've always been a fan of CS gas and neurostun.

I guess it depends on how secure "secure" is...7 dice is pretty much more than a mall guard, less than the actual cops rent-a-cop so they might not have lockers full of them waiting to blast away. They might have a few squirreled away in a control room, but probably not enough that after the alarm goes off everyone files through to up-arm.

Of course, these rent-a-cops are probably smart enough to realize they don't want to die after the first security camera watches Elf-Ninja the assault sam tear through the one guy...so they might just call in heavier reinforcements, and try to slow the runners down environmentally once they realize their lives won't buy more than three seconds while a stopped elevator can buy minutes.

Or they may just get out of the way and figure the pay isn't THAT good.

Therefore, through the intelligent self interest of wanting to live, they might nullify the runner advantage in raw combat AND be more successful at preserving assets long enough for someone actually trained and armed to deal with this to show up.

yeah, dodging is kinda the melee adept's equivalent to the damage soak street samurai. it's fine to mix in some shotguns, but don't make *everyone* have a shotgun. if you make it into a competition, you're just going to encourage them to cram in even more dodge... if you make 20 dodge dice a requirement for a milk run, your players will do everything in their power to build for that. if 13 dice lets them dodge fairly often, with the occasional guard armed with a shotgun causing problems, there's at least a *chance* they'll decide that traceless walk sounds cool enough to consider. but ultimately, if you make it so that it's a choice between having a chance to dodge or picking up a power that lets them run on tree branches, well... running on tree branches is kinda cool, but not getting shot is both cool *and* practical.

Would mêlée specialists attract standard cops or htr units? Obviously somewhat circumstantial, but what would your rule of thumb be?

Also: 3 skill + 3 agility + 1 laser sight isn't out of the question for security staff, which gives them a healthy 7 dice.

that depends. if your melee specialist takes down half a dozen regular security, they're going to start attracting HTR teams just like anyone else.

At the same time tho, if all your runs are 'milk runs' because whenever it comes to combat the slashy dodge munchkins always...dodge and slash, and thus making the outcome inevitable unless facing an actual Dragon, the group needs to discuss why they're playing.

Its like any other unbalanced character, just because player A made supersniper that always hits and pretty much kills anything when his conditions are met, doesn't mean all his conditions must be catered to, nor does it mean if player A turns around and complains "But its unfair to approach from my weakpoints" doesn't mean you need to listen to that either.

If you're a GM and you don't mind things being a cakewalk and catered, that's fine, more power to you and your group. On the other hand, if the rest of the group, or the GM could reasonably say based on mechanics, "Yknow what, lets not even run combat, it'll be faster to just say that you, as usual, slice and dice everything. Lets move on with the story"...that might need to be addressed.

sure, and that's why sometimes you do face people with shotguns and fully automatic weapons. it just shouldn't be every enemy in every encounter.

now, sometimes, it will make sense. i mean, if you get stuck fighting an HTR team, they're probably going to be using burst weapons at the very least. one or more may even have a fully automatic shotgun, since it is quite an effective weapon. heck, sometimes you'll be facing an enemy that knows your team and has specifically prepared for them. but it shouldn't be the default standard thing for every person to carry a shotgun.

Of course not! Even in shadowrun every citizen walking around with a shotgun slung over their shoulder is ridiculous. Also, shotguns are way too heavy for security to carry about with them even if it's a high security area. Pistols or tazers are your standard security side arms for a reason.

It wouldn't be too unreasonable for on site security to carry shotguns. Not every guard but maybe one in three or so. That's if you actually have physical patrols, if on site security only responds to alerts raised by electronic or magic security then it could be even more common. I'm kind of just using my experience with military security on base. Strictly stateside/friendly country (not combat zone) you see gate guards with shotguns about as often as you see pistols. Part of that is because a shotgun is much better at disabling a vehicle, but intimidation and stopping power plays in as well. More so stopping power. Of course I don't think we have a lot of issues with people dodging gunfire. Though I would love to read that sitrep.

Shotguns are scary.

I'm not sure if this is still pertinent to the conversation but i did a break down on the math awhile back.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...49&hl=slide

Oh yeah, SR after action reports sure make for much more interesting reads then real world ones.

things were going well until the (random encounter) arrival of Shedim/Devil rats/Mutated Devil Rats/Ghouls/Insect Spirit Forms.

A weapon skill of 3 represents "good enough to know what I'm doing, but not a line professional." The supply clerk who qualifies on his rifle twice a year in the Army is a 3. Better than, perhaps, most of the public, but he doesn't train on it consistently. So is a low rent security guard who has to know enough and perhaps certify with his weapon, but is largely focused on procedural things and softer security skills.

4 is the new average for a beat cop or other committed weapon user who needs to be ok with it, maybe goes to the range a few days one month, maybe shoots in the simulator the other month because the bullet budget isn't big. Likewise, their raw motor control (AGI) is more developed through muscle memory. The core book has "professional rating 2" security averaging in at 4 AGI and 4 in their primary service weapon (pistol, usually), with a 3 in "that weapon you might have to get out of the locker" (The book example being an SMG but shotgun would be equally likely I think). So, 7-8 dice prior to any equipment bonuses for a competent enough low end security guard.

A 3/3 guard, by core, would be an off-cost guard and reflect an off cost organization.

But truly, if you want to provide an actual challenge for your players without resorting to making every security guard a Red Samurai, play the security guards like people who want to live instead of targets who need to be serviced to get to the next room.

That means avoiding direct firefights with runner teams that look like SEAL Team 6. If your low end guard action is usually " and I stand up from behind my box in front of 4 cybermonster/mage/technomancers who are carving a blood trail through my building so that, though I die, one of them might get bruised ribs" your just feeding the dicebeast for the joy of killing npcs. Which, granted can be amusing and delightful for pcs, but not if it becomes dicepool overmatch - the game.

much more likely is something like suppressing fire after the first one or two get wounded badly, with the wounded targets either crawling into cover or being pulled into cover while the suppressing fire is going on, and wait for the bigger guns. the first of which will probably be drones (you can have a hardware shutoff for them in the facility, turn them on and then have a rigger or two provide a bit of extra oomph from offsite assuming you aren't going after someone big enough to have onsite HTR teams.

I want one of these for one of my characters.

~Umi

It is very awesome indeed... But I still prefer the 2-Bore myself (2-Gauge vs. 4-Gauge). It is almost a Punt gun. And the Solid Core Slug is just stupidly brutal (at 3500 grains).