Hi there,

I recently started my first campaign, with all SR newbies (myself included).
One of my players always dominates over the other players, so I thought I had a great idea: I made him warm for the sniper idea.

In our first run everything was more or less fine. He set himself up in a tree around the villa, and sniped the guards (I admit I forgot to ask how he could put a sniper in a tree) I also made sure he couldn't enter the villa (one of his contacts was inside, and he didn't want to be recognised)

The second run he got back to his old habits.
He took his sniper rifle, used it as a normal rifle and killed without trouble all the monsters I had set up (it was in a sewers, with devil, or was it demon, rats and wererats). He also has a katana, wich he never uses... I think he'd rather use his rifle as a club. At last, I made one of the wererats pin him to the wall to make him stop using it. And with the money he got from the 2 runs, he upgraded even more, so he always hits.

Are there any special rules for sniping? Do you have any ideas on how to handle him? Do you use any house rules for these situations?

Thanks in advance,
Brambles.

make the 'monsters' stronger. give them higher armour or something.

How is he getting the gun around? Have cops spot it, they aren't exactly tiny or anything. At least make rolls to have cops spot it, things of that nature, etc. The ammo is rather gun specific too, hows he getting more ammo? Does he have only one contact that can get him it? Maybe someone kidnaps that contact because they heard they can get this ammo, but the contact wouldn't sell, now he has to rescue his contact, but can't go get more ammo before-hand to do so.

Well. I suppose you could start by having his rifle bust in twain next time he uses what should be a fragile, highly precise instrument of long range destruction as a club. Or, really, any time he brings it into a motion intense situation. Such as battling wererats.

Afterall, last time I checked, snipers lay very still, and wait hours to take the perfect shot.

Afterall, a sight that's a hair of a milimeter off will really screw your aim over when you're sighting out two klicks.

-Now- as far as actually toning him down? I'm really not a fan of player censorship. If he happens to create a powerful concept within' the structure of the game, I applaud him. Perhaps you aught to suggest a few helpful augmentations to your other players, and include parts of your campaign that cannot be solved by mere combat alone.

For instance, give those electronics skills a spin. Or perhaps give your ex-KGB agent a chance to put his covert operations skills and stealth to use. And it never hurts to have a car chance, though I'd recommend you fudge the rules - Matrix/Vehicle rules have potential to bog your game down in sludge thicker than the coffee I make every morning.

-RoleModel

Another option, make it an infiltration style run, he can either play over-watch and stare at windows all day long (while the real base happens to be underground), or, move in with the rest of the team, include a crawltunnel that while the teamembers can fit, the 6foot long sniper rifle can't, because it doesn't have a waist to bend at.

And don't allow him to use the bonus from the rifle's scope when he is in anything resembling CQB.

Apply some common sense here. A non-carbine rifle is very likely to "hung-up" when fighting in close quarters. And have you ever used a scoped rifle IRL? Scopes tend to have a narrow field of vision, and short range moving targets have a very easy time escaping that field of vision.

Like AE said, make sure you are applying all the proper target number mods. If he is in the prone with the rifle sitting on a bipod and the target is standing still, it SHOULD be easy for him to kill it. However, if he's running around in doors, treating his rifle like an SMG, his T#s should much, much higher.

Don't let the rules override your common sense.

And, of course, the enemies could always use camouflage, or hide behind corners, or just be in a difficult place for you to get a shot (say doing something in the basement or deep within a building.

Give him jobs where he has to get his butt in the mud. Set up jobs where the emphasis is on speed, or where there can be no sign of his passing.

And then, of course, there's the fact that what goes around comes around. Remind him subtely (or not) that the bad guys can snipe too. See what smart tactics he comes up with then so he realizes NPCs don't always wander around in the open picking their noses.

I'm pretty sure the description for the barret rifle in the book says 5 or 6 feet long, and as I said, because the rifle doesn't have a waist to bend at. Quite simply, put in a 70º bend in said crawl-tunnel, enough so that someone can gradually bend themselves through it (requiring some athletics (escape artist) checks of course) however the dimensions of said rifle won't allow it to go. People can bend, a rifle can't. make a part where there is no physical way to fit a 5foot long chunk of metal through it, and now he has to leave it while they go in, or keep it and watch the exit.

Hmm... If anything, people usually complain about the use of sniper rifles from a distance, when the enemies have no chance to shoot back... but anyway:

You should post again and list what equipment he has on that rifle, which rifle it is, exactly, and how he actually uses it in "normal" combat. For example - he's not using the bonuses from the scope and a smartlink at the same time, is he? Also, a list of his vision mods would be useful...

Finally, you have to keep in mind that a properly designed team of runners that has adequately prepped for a run should be blowing through most enemies with little effort expended and little or no damage suffered - eventually, even the best team will run into bad luck, and someone will go down, but unlike in, say, D&D, the fact that no one got hurt isn't really indicative of an encounter that was too easy.

Also keep in mind he isn't the first person to snipe. Any facility that someone is going to pay shadowrunners to break into is going to have built their defenses with a sniper in mind. Here are just a few ideas off the top of my head.

1.) Terrain. Something as simple as a wall can provide partial to total cover. Moving things indoors eliminates the possibility to snipe entirely. Depending on who owns the surrounding land, they may also have cleared it of trees and bushes that would provide cover for a sniper.

2.) Another sniper. Put the defending sniper up in a tower with a clear view of the surrounding terrain and he should be able to give your sniper a challenge to take out.

3.) Tightened security. When the perimeter guards stop reporting in, someone is going to notice. If the rest of the team still have to get inside to do whatever it was the Johnson wants when the place seals up tight and the HTR teams are called out, he may have to rethink his strategy.

4.) Drones and sentry guns. Unless he is using AV ammo, it isn't too hard to make that sniper ping off the side of a drone or vehicle. Sentry guns can go undetected until someone is unfortunate to trigger them. That will give the other runners something to deal with even after all of the guards have been sniped.

5.) Grenades, mortars, etc... Chances are the defenders will have a general idea where your sniper is after a shot or two. Some explosives lobbed in his general direction may not take him out, but will probably keep him too busy to snipe.

6.) Smoke/IR Smoke. Instant cover, especially if the defenders have ultrasound scopes or ware to defeat the smoke will the runners and sniper have to deal with the full modifiers.

I didn't see anyone mention this, so....

In the core rulebook, the section about the Ranger Arms sniper rifle says that because of its precisely aligned parts and whatnot, it doesn't stand up well to normal combat use. The number of turns it is used in a normal combat role becomes the chance on a 2D6 roll that its precision parts become unaligned, giving it a +2 TN modifier to all tests (scoped or not). Now, I don't know anything about rifles, so maybe the RA is just a really lousy gun or something, but it seems to me that all sniper rifles should suffer that same penalty (except maybe the Walther MA-2100 which specifically says it is free of design instabilities).


Also, can I ask what you used as the Availability limit for your starting characters?

So basically you could weaken the option with a lot of house-rules. You can do that already.

~J

Tarantula:

IRL, the Barrett Model 82A1 (known to the U.S. Military as the M-107) is 57 inches (144.48 centimeters) long, has a 29-inch-long (73.67 centimeters) barrel and weighs 34.6 pounds (11.9 kilograms).

It also can be disassembled for transport: just remove a couple of pins, and the upper and lower halves of the receiver separate. When disassembled, it will fit in a medium-sized carrying case--the longest part is only 38 inches (96.52 centimeters) long.

Here's a link: Barrett Rifles: M-107

Here's a disassembly video (you'll need RealPlayer): Barrett M-82A1 Field Strip video

TheOneRonin:

You left out a couple:

H-S Precision Takedown Sniper Rifle System ;

EDM Arms ;

and

Barrett Model XM109 25mm Semiautomatic Payload Rifle

The latter is probably the closest thing to a real-life Panther Assault Cannon.

--Foreigner

The main solution without a house rule is to start having the npc's play smarter.

When the first guy dies to a sniper all the others hide and backup is on the way. Backup that knows they are facing a sniper and so are ready for it with big elementals, astral guys to find the sniper, drones to snipe back, heavy weapons that out range the sniper, high force bullet barrier spells, etc.

But a house rule would also be nice, because shadowrun doesn't have a rule to prevent this.

If the guy is a real jerk the next time he starts to climb a tree just say "roll body against 14S APDS".

given the high power of most sniper rifles, few free spirits are going to be laughing them off.

I'll have to disagree with you there, mfb. It's easy for a Free Spirit to get a few points of Spirit Energy, and even F4 + SE4 makes the Materialized form of the spirit immune to all Sniper Rifles, F4 + SE3 against non-Explosive ammunition. It's not even a stretch to have a Force 6 Free Spirit with 6 points of Spirit Energy and the Personal Domain Power, for a whopping Immunity: Normal Weapons-36, and a slew of other kick-ass abilities.

Unless of course you declare that because of the wording of the Spirit Energy section in mits.114 SE doesn't count as bonus Force for Immunity, in which case it has to be a Force 7/8 Free Spirit.

[Edit]Note: I am not endorsing the use of powerful Free Spirits -- in fact, I rather they be few and far between. I am merely pointing out that they can be plenty powerful, and hard to stop through use of (non-magical) force.[/Edit]

Or just use magic to make his sniping life a lot harder.

Cops remedy this problem for me easily.

Have more runs take place in public joints.

i tend to assume that there are a lot more force 3 0SE spirits running around than force 3 3SE spirits, AE--lots of weaker spirits, in other words, and progressively fewer stronger spirits. that's not backed up by anything in the books, though.

Certainly not by the fact that every spirit going free automatically gains 1 point of Spirit Energy, or the fact that it only costs a meager 5 points of Karma for the spirit to gain 3 points of SE. Also, the PCs in my games tend to rarely summon (non-Watcher) spirits of Force lower than 4, so I tend to think that others will generally go for F4+ too.

Although, with only one clear way for Free Spirits to gain karma, and that requiring a lot of interaction with people, I can see how GMs might opt for rather low SEs for most Free Spirits.

A simpler thing would be having a Free Spirit who knew the Bullet Barrier spell.

Since one point of Spirit Energy is very cheap Karma-wise, is the equivalent of 2 points (or 4 points, if the sniper is using APDS) of Bullet Barrier, and is extremely useful for a number of things other than just protection, I rather go with that. But of course not all Free Spirits have choice in the matter, having been given the ability to cast spells before going free.

no. all materialized spirits get 2*force hardened armor against normal weapons; SE is added to force for all force-dependent effects.

First, don't use house rules to bring him down. It weakens your position as a source of authority because the players will see you "breaking" the rules to pull down one of their own, and they're going to be more likely to argue with you the next time you need to make a ruling where canon is ambiguous. The players aren't the enemy, but use all caution when dealing with them.

Second, there aren't special rules for sniping per se--it's just using a sniper rifle to pick someone off from a hopefully hidden position. You could apply things like called shots and taking aim (which I hope any good sniper would do) to make it an actual "snipe", but there aren't official rules for it. Nothing really says you can't use it up close, though it'd look damn silly.

Third, the rules are your friend. As someone mentioned, remember to apply all TNs. Lighting is rarely perfect. Remember smartlinks and imaging scopes can't be used together. People move, have cover, concealment, and so on. Raise the target numbers. Make the enemies smarter. If he begins to snipe, maybe one resourceful person will pull out a smoke grenade (and have thermo so he can see through it) or a thermo smoke grenade (and ultrasound vision [which is a crappy penalty, but it'll probably be lower than his]). Don't forget having most firearms without a permit is illegal--and that Star Beat Cop has his intellegence vs the rifle's concealability to notice it. If he does have a permit, what about a valid SIN? if it's fake, it might fail against a verification test. If it's real, what the hell is he doing carrying a sniper rifle down the street anyway?

Fourth, try runs that don't directly involve killing things. I mean, as a twist you can throw in a combat or two, but the original plan wouldn't involve it--a few runs where the one trick pony can't do his silly trick might encourage him to diversify. (Careful with this one though, don't overdo it)

Finally, what's good for the goose is good for the GM. in my old D&D games, my players and I had a kind of "truce" where neither side would use overly deadly / cheesy tricks. They enjoyed it because I didn't through instant death spells at them until one failed a saving through by sheer statistical probability and I enjoyed it because the "boss" fights were interesting and memorable. If your player is willing to be cheesy and snipe all day, try using enemy snipers in your plots. It might get the point across.

In the excellent Cyberpunk sourcebook "Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads" they suggest the following technique for players who constantly use tactics that are within the letter of the rules but defy common sense:

Use their own tricks against them.

Next time they go on a run, have every guard armed with a sniper rifle and using it in close combat. Then you can say to your player: "All right, you're very smart for figuring out that sniper rifles make powerful weapons even in close combat. But we both know that while it's legal under the rules it's a silly thing to do. Let's both just quit and play the game with an idea toward common sense realism and not just clever rules lawyering."

Whenever you have a rules lawyer munchkin out there, call him on his bluff by using his techniques against him. He'll be quick to realize how dumb he's being.

I just ask my players to please behave, if not realistically, at least in a similar fashion as characters from grounded action movies like Ronin would. Heck, even characters from a Bond Movie or MI. But if, for example, they can't think of a single movie in which a character is using a sniper rifle to storm a building, there's probably a good reason for it...

There are many good reasons for not using a sniper rifle as if it were an assault rifle. I told my PCs that if they forced me to make up tons of pointless houserules just to curb behaviors that everyone know intuitively to be absurd, It would piss me off. And when I'm pissed off, PC die more easily.

i like Charon's answer, myself: "stop being stupid."

yeah, but those stat blocks are only suggestions, not The Canon Definition For All Secguards.

It doesn't have to be all the secguards, just the one or two that happen to be close to the sniper in question. *grin*

Here's a thought, mfb:

A large-caliber Capsule round filled with a small explosive charge (think of a Gas round) and FAB bacteria.

What would THAT do to a free spirit?

Or, for that matter, any other magically-active or dual-natured lifeform?

--Foreigner

Still a force of 1. High force takes up meters of space, IIRC.

in open air, yeah. should be able to compress them, though i'm not sure how healthy that'd be for the bacteria.

It's fine in most cases, assuming you can sustain them (agar nutrient solution, whatever).

It's probably cheaper (per effect) to anchor spells to the bullet than get all wonky with FAB.