Not to tread on algcs' toes, but his poll got me to thinking: what DEFCON is your group usually operating under? I realize that a good group of runners adapts to whatever situation, but what do you see most of the time?

My current group falls somewhere between option one and two. We've got a couple of passable brawlers, but only 1 (!) gun in a group of 6. I voted "8" because we've got 2 adepts and a shaman.

Edit: And who voted number 1? What's the story there?

IIRC, Garland-sama, we've actually got 3 guns. Lucas has a Colt Manhunter and a Streetline Special, and Bubba's got a hunting rifle of some sort.

I stand corrected. But only one of them has much chance of being used in the near future.

Edit: The one that actually HAS been used.

I ran a game last year in which the heaviest weapon was a baseball bat with a sliding weight inside it. We did have a mage, though.

Heh. If it weren't for the ganger (played very well by JoeJones) and the shaman, that's where my group would probably be.

I'm surprised we don't have any 3rd world militias out there yet... C'mon guys, if even one of your team members is WALLHACKER!!!1! you're halfway there.

Guns like any item that shadowrunners have are tools. Given that ideal, you should bring the right tools to the job. You do not need to bring a tank to stealthy B&E and you shouldn't only bring a knife to forward assult on a machine gun nest.

So, wile my characters always tend to have guns, they always have guns that work for the job at hand. Or at least try to. Right now, I am playing a character with three heavy pistols. One witch is plastic,and an AR. These will change based on the run. He also uses knives.

My group is magic-heavy, gun-lite.

Where's the First World standing army option?

Your group has 40 points of vehicular armor and Thor Shots?

~J

"The rigger has a tank and/or a flock of drones."

I did the 2-3 with tons of magic option...before the last run the group had barretts and AR as the chief guns - but the ran up against a pro merc group that had a Panther AC, so the group is better armed now (and recovering from a variety of Deadly wounds)

Option 9. Totally.

Words I never get tired of hearing.

"Ok, I take cover by the side of the building and set up a claymore."

Explosives are Good.
Heavy Weapons are Good.
Artillery is King.

Yeah, I'm with the "where is the First World standing army option?"

Tonight's session involved the team's insertion being covered by orbital suppression fire.

In our previous campaign that was more strictly shadowrun, the only excuse for having less than 8 points of recoil on your long arm was that because it was either a full-blown sniper rifle (and was already on a bipod) or it was an 81mm mortar (also on a bipod).

I think we might play heavy.

O.K. I'm personally Guiltly of Putting my Running Group into the "as many guns as fit into the trunk of a car" Spot .... I can't help it , I'm a Pistol Specialist Merc with enought Holsters and guns to make our Gun adept Cry Foul . so here is the Load out(Note: this is just what my Sheet says he has on him at the moment) : (2) Ares Predator I , (2) Ares Predator II , (2) Gyro Jet Pistol , (1) Walther Palm Pistol , (1) Remington RoomSweeper , (1) AK-98 .... and a spare clip for each ... yeah lets hear it for Ammo B/R kits!

I went with "3 or 4 with magic", since my groups have always had a tendency to snatch up weapons as the need arose then keep them on ice for future necessity - nothing like have a Nakatomi Fuchi exec murdered by a gun registered to a Villiers Fuchi security team, back in the day. The whole "enough magic to choke a barghest", tho, is inaccurate. If you saw a mage OR shaman partnered with an adept, it was a magic heavy group for my lot. They just weren't that popular; in fact, thinking about it, in groups i've run I only saw four magical types in my career (one mage, one shaman, one sorceror adept and one physad specialising in knives), and usually not more than one at a time.

EDIT: I think I'm unusual in having the kind of group whose players said "Have we got a mage..? Okay, then I won't play one."

Voted 4 solely because of the wording of the question. That is the normal amount of firepower we operate with. As in, I go to the meet, I go see my fixer, I do a driveby for the run, etc. It is rare for the team, as a whole, to be caught with anything less than "a trunkfull of firearms" at our disposal. Obviously we only carry pistols to a meet, or nothing if its high class, things like that as the situation demands. But the firepower isnt far off.

That said, anytime we do an actual *run* it could scale up to "heavy weapons and explosives" and I would say moderate (not insane) amounts of magic. The big stuff is there, but its only retrived when people have prior knowledge of its need. And magic is ever present but usually not to an extent that we can overwhelm something with magic alone. Weve had a few groups like that, it really changes the game so we try to keep it to no more than 2 magicians outta 5 ppl, roughly.

I voted the last option. Apart from the street sam who has overwatch with heavy weapons (always heavy weapons) and the rigger with his army of drones and requisite tank-like vehicle, the otaku(with her tribe) is ready to deck into Ares and gain control of a Thor shot if necessary. The mage has maximum Great Form elementals on standby. Enough magic to choke a barghest is an understatement. 1 normal adept, 1 magical adept, 1 mage, 1 shaman, even the otaku has SURGEd Astral Sight.

I went with option four, although technicly i'm the one carrying an arsenal of weapons. However with my Valiant lmg I shot down a couple Dragon choppers that caused a seven block fire, and another member of the group blew up a fairly large piece of the earth with C12, killing 3-4 squads of Red Samurai, and if it had been a second later, it would have killed Villiers as well.

Option 3 would work as well.

Usually we carry hand guns with the sami's keeping something extra, like SMG's or shotguns, in the trunk.

We have a pretty good mix, but in general our group likes overkill. I myself carry a pair of titanium-laced fists and an Ingram, we have a troll that seems to like to carry a PAC and HMG around with him in public (with hilarious consequences), a ninja physad who's just about the only stealthy one in the group, a gunslinger with akimbo pistols, and a pyromaniac of a mage. Very often our GMs are frustrated by our sheer need for brute force and our general lack of tactics often gets us into trouble. Still, it makes for a lot of cool explosions...

Quick question:

Exactly how much magic do you need to choke a barghest? Do you need 2-3 Gandalf-equivalents, or will a Gnome aspected mage shoved into the barghest's mouth sideways work?

^_^

Is the gnome albino?

At present my group can do fists, knives, heavy melee weapons, hold out pistols, heavy pistols, SMGs, rifles, shotguns, ARs, grenade launchers, LAW rockets, LMGs, missiles and just about any explosive, mine or type of grenade. We don't typically use sniper rifles because they're hard to come by and our GM usually won't use them against us if we don't use them.

We also have some infrequently used weapons like spray tanks, water carbines, narco-jet and spear guns.

Our team is (usually) pretty smart and only break out the big guns when called for. Yes this has left us outgunned sometimes, but it has also helped us avoid all kinds of nasty police attention.

Hmmm....sniper rifles are hard to come by, yet you have missles, LAWs, mines, and machine guns. Just take a sport rifle and throw a Mag 3 Thermo scope and a bipod on it, you'll be set.

My character, an Adept by the name of Nightshade, doesn't know how to use a gun, but, likes to loot bodies, so, he has about the Armamant of a small country, though it's spread out over a few countries in which he has purchased property. And, one of my running mates like big guns, but, i don't let her use them much, i try to keep the 'shadow' in effect. Other than that, there are 2 Mages and the rest use mostly melee.

Individual characters don't have too much in the way of armament.. I think the one with the most is the Magician Adept, who's got an smg, a brace of dikoted throwing daggers, a couple dikoted swords, a dikoted weapon focus, and a big vibrosword.. the group on the whole has access to more guns then should be admitted to by anyone, ever.. and has used them on multiple runs..


Meanwhile, every PC is awakened (the Sammie has astral perception)

My character owns enough nerve gas to take out several city blocks. He came across it by accident, and fortunately he's enough of a weapon nut that I could justify buying it in-character. I say fortunately, because we're in Chicago and Bug City is fast approaching, and I'd hate to metagame.

The rigger is desperately trying to figure out a way to justify buying a crop duster drone.

Mostly pistols and blades for me, although I did... "aquire" a cannister of FUGU-8 one time (don't ask). Unfortunately, I never got to use it. We ended the campaign and started new characters before I thought of anything really awesome to do with it.

I put as many weapons that you can fit in the boot of a car however we do have an ares citymaster! and well i'm a weapons specialist need i say more?
our GM likes HMG, tripods, defilade positions and beaten zones! he dos'ent use tracers so we dont normaly know where they are fireing form.

torz x

um, let me think

Sam #1 (mine)
2 custome heavy pistols (basicly they can burst fire and she only uses gell rounds)
1 Telescoping staff

Sam #2
1 Aries preditior III
1 Sub machine gun (I can't remember which, it is our big gun)
1 Katana
Some spare clips with assorted ammo (I can't keep track, the sam liks to be prepaired)

Mage
1 Aries preditor
(and of corse her mojo)

My group's current maximum armament:

Noise: Walter sniper, Ares Predator, AK98, grenades, various vision enhancements, reaction +5 and wired 2
Flame: implanted flamethrower (combination of tool laser in the eye and air tank filled with methane; she uses it like a fire breather), Franchi SPAS, Ares Predator, grenades, C4, Wired 2
Tarantula: Singarms Ruthenium-polymer camo APC (almost never used, because we were extremely lucky to get our hans on this one, unarmed until we get the money to modify it), Bison w. turret (HMG), Steel Lynx w. HMG and Vogeljäger SAM launcher, Rotodrone w. Walter sniper, two ATT Schweber (large custom skimmers) with LMGs, HK227S, Ares Predator, Fichetti Security (a pistol that can fit into her desginer purse)
Abel: Physad, 2nd grade initiate, Franchi SPAS, Ares Predator, support spells (invisibility, telekinis)

Group pool: 4 LAVs, 4 magazines of depleted uranium ammo for heavy pistols, 5 magazines of AV (assault rifle), several flash packs and stun grenades

Equipment we take with us varies with the jobs we take, but Tarantula (the rigger) is usually in the background, pakcking heavy firepower, just in case something goes sour.

Well, we've got 2 groups at the moment,

When I'm playing:
Phoenix shaman (me) has weapons, but never brings them.
Blind physad with melee skills (yeah, he has blinfighting, no way he can use a gun.)
Face/Physad uses melee
Decker (hasn't had a chance to play alot yet so not sure about firearms.)

When I'm GMing:
Nightshade (physad, thrown weapons, like playing cards, ciggerets..see Chibu's post.)
Scrap (puma shaman. no guns usually, I think he sometimes carries a preditor)
Sammy with a monosword or dikote katana
Girl with 2 skills and a buch of skill wires heavy weapons/face
Troll mage (he caries around a vindicator, but never uses it. He wants people to think he's the sammy.)

The group I GM for tends to go stealth, mostly. So the girl typically ends up being a face more than a gunner.

Last group I had went like this.

Brick: My char the troll-tough human physad = Loved his Remingtons. Never went anywhere without his Trailblazer or Roomsweeper and brought the 990 if things were expected to be heavy/nasty. Always wore his custom Hardliner gloves too as they were his talisman geas for Improved Unarmed.

Jackie: bio-cybered lesbian former porn star built like China. = Good with knives, Cougar long blades and dikote knife, adept with clubs specializing in stun batons, but an inexperienced shot (2 pistols)

Niko-Chan: little Japanese teenager with cats eye bioware and decker with the pacifist flaw. Never went anywhere without her Narcojet pistol which she specialized in to the max.

G-Diddy: ex-gangsta, ex-pimp ork physad with the dual weapons skills in clubs, knives and pistols. Don't recall exactly what he carried, but he always had two pistols and two of either knives or clubs of some kind with him at all times.

Driver (a.k.a. Mullet): our rigger, used heavy pistols IIRC, and got a lot of use out of the dual Savallete Guardians in the pop-up turret of his Bison.

Wolf: The face and tazer using physad, had the tricked out cane that was a concealed stun baton and the Yamaha Pulsar that saw lots of use.

We had two different mage characters, one played by a player who left the group (played an elf poser) and the GM who rotated in as a player who had the Troll Shaman IIRC who had the colapsable staff (reach and smack you from across the room) and fire spells