I'm thinking about reinstituting threat ratings in my game, primarily because it means I don't have to track pools for several different combatants all at once. What downsides am I missing?
For average threat ratings I would probably base it off of their professionalism rating, but also go by feel. If someone needs to be a supreme badass I can always just give them more threat dice.
Full Version: One more house rule
Unless I have specific NPC's that are pivotal to my storyline, I don't really bother calculating individual pools. So most gangers will have similar stats, armor, weapons, pools, etc. just to make my life easier. Special NPCs get some paper or computer space if required.
I don't like threat ratings, they get to add extra dice to just about every roll, but you can always add it as desired or when you'd like.
I don't like threat ratings, they get to add extra dice to just about every roll, but you can always add it as desired or when you'd like.
i like using pools because they allow me to scale the bad guys up or down, depending on whether the players are winning or losing. makes it easier to fine-tune those climactic moments.
if you drop NPCs combat pool, they won't be able to dodge; NPC mages with no spell pool can't use spell defense. if you use NPC riggers and deckers, there are consquences for that as well. in general, NPCs will be able to deal more damage, but they'll have a harder time surviving hits.
if you drop NPCs combat pool, they won't be able to dodge; NPC mages with no spell pool can't use spell defense. if you use NPC riggers and deckers, there are consquences for that as well. in general, NPCs will be able to deal more damage, but they'll have a harder time surviving hits.
using the guidelines from Prime Runners, one thing you could do is to get the average good karma (not karma pool, since race and flaws can change it) from the team and divide by 10 to give you an average Threat Rating. then adjust as per Prime Runners - if you want tougher opponents, increase the TR, if you want weaker opponents, decrease the TR...
if you base it off the Pro Rating, you'll never have anyone with a TR higher than 4...
if you base it off the Pro Rating, you'll never have anyone with a TR higher than 4...
I use a version of the threat rating rule where I simply split the threat rating into several threat ratings such as Combat, Magic, Rigging, Matrix e.g.
I do this to avoid the absurdly well rounded NPC's that a medium to high threat rating gives. Works pretty well for me. I'd never bother to use pools for NPC's, since that's too much work for me. If you can handle it that's probably better, but it's not for me...
I do this to avoid the absurdly well rounded NPC's that a medium to high threat rating gives. Works pretty well for me. I'd never bother to use pools for NPC's, since that's too much work for me. If you can handle it that's probably better, but it's not for me...
| QUOTE (mfb @ Jan 11 2005, 02:56 PM) |
| If you drop NPCs combat pool, they won't be able to dodge; NPC mages with no spell pool can't use spell defense. if you use NPC riggers and deckers, there are consquences for that as well. in general, NPCs will be able to deal more damage, but they'll have a harder time surviving hits. |
But if you are a bastard GM you can just add (TR) dice to every roll: Combat; Spell Defense; everything. And then adjust accordingly.
Or you can just wing it. But then again, there's nothing as amusing as listing all the active chars (PC and NPC), and their pools on a website (if you play online), and seeing the reaction of the players when they see that one of the NPCs has a CP of 14, and it's not even the highest pool they have.
Doggbert: great idea! Consider it swiped. 
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