I spent a week getting a challanging run up. By that, I mean worked on it at work and at home. I had maps of the areas, I had a full PLTG set up for the decker. I put security cameras around the hallways, guards patroling, elite corp guards, even a corp mage in the astral plane. I put my team up against a large challange...and they bulldozed over it. They shot down my hard work in less then one hour. The mage used a medium ball lightning and dealt deadly damage to three corp security, and took no drain. The gun user rolled 10 dice on his pistol skill (that's not rolling any combat pool, chummer. That's just his straight dice), duel weilded, and somehow had enough recoil comp, low TN, and range magnification to roll a total of 15 dice on a TN 2. 7 successes on each hit. I added 2 for the second target he shot at, and his TN was still 2 because he had parts, edges, and skills that reduced it normally below two. He takes out two guards with light security armor on in one combat phase. That means that in my one combat turn that 5 guards were down to S or better and the other one was fried crispy.

What am I doing wrong? What are they doing wrong? Why the frag can't
I get this right?! They're suppose to die or something. *shakes head* And when I did get to the deckers part, everyone took a break! They're not suppose to do that! They're suppose to sit there and watch his RP in the Matrix. *groan*

Sometimes The Answer™ is an extra dry Dumpster martini.....which is to say sucking hard liquor straight out of the bottle. Players drive me to drink all the time.

P.S. Judging from the second paragraph i'm guessing this isn't a real post, right?

Unfortunatly, it is a real post. I'm sorry if it came across as phoney...but I seriously need help. I have no clue what I'm doing wrong.

For the combat portion of your post -

The best thing you can do is try to explain, piece by piece, everything that led up to the PCs having such low TNs and high amounts of dice. Very often, you will discover that you weren't actually enforcing all of the rules. Or worse, that your players are knowingly pulling one over on you.

To the best of my knowledge, these are the ways he got what he got.

Base TN for S, M, L, E ranges: 4, 5, 6, 8
His Pistol Skill = 6

Now, he's got an adept power that jacks up the dice he rolls for a combat skill. He put it up to rank 4 and now rolls 10 on all pistol checks. Then, he had an edge, I think, called Skill Aptitude where he can lower the TN for any roll he makes by 1. So now it looks like this.

Base TN for S, M, L, E ranges: 3, 4, 5, 7
His Pistol Skill = 10

Now he always weilds duel heavy pistols or, on rare occasions, duel machine pistols. He has abidexterity 10, lowering his main hand to +0 and off-hand to +0. And he has laser sights, so that lowers the TN again. But that's not where we stop. He says he has hand grips on each gun and heavy barrels, plus a strength of 5, which gives him a total of 4 recoil comp. So here's what he has on his shots at, let's say, a short range:

First action, first gun: TN 2, 10 Dice, no recoil
First action, second gun: TN 2, 10 Dice, +1 recoil, -4 recoil comp.
Second action, first gun: TN 2, 10 Dice, +2 recoil, -4 recoil comp.
Second action, second gun: TN 2, 10 Dice, +4 recoil, -4 recoil comp.

So what we have here is a character that can lower his recoil for a full round, have a TN of 2 for short range, and get around 7 to 8 successes on average. Even in heavy body armor, you can't step all that down. It's a base 9M damage. Let's say he gets 8 successes. That's D+2 damage. Even if they had heavy armor, which gives them around 6 to 8 ballisitics, you're looking for 8 successes to get under the D damage. Even if you do that, he shoots at you 4 times. And your dodge can't get rid of that, nor can your Bod of 7. So you're looking, best case, 4 M wounds, which is 12 boxes of damage. You die, automatically, in one phase. End of story. So I don't know what to do.

Laser sights can't be used when dual wielding, and it's partially your own fault for allowing that Aptitude Edge. Rolling all those dice at TN 4 cuts down on successes significantly. Don't worry about his recoil comp, it's kosher (and it's very easy to get).

And, as for the rest -- just make sure you're applying every single TN mod listed in the book. Double check the stuff for visibility, especially. I play street sams and adepts, so I know how easy it is to bypass a lot of those penalties, but that doesn't mean I automatically ignore them, all the time. Every little +1 and +2 adds up, real fast.

Secondarily? Use cover, with your bad guys. Jack those TN's up another +4 and see how well even the most dedicated pistol adept does. If both those sec-guards had leapt for cover, the laser sights hadn't been used, the Aptitude Edge (horribly underpriced for what it does, and it's even suggested you don't allow it for combat skills) hadn't been in account...(not even counting visibility, since I wasn't there and don't know).. he'd have been looking at TN's of (1st target) 8, 8, (2nd target) 10, 10, instead of 2, 2, 2, 2.

10 dice doesn't feel like much against TN 10, and a dude in heavy armor.

Critias has it right. As a GM, I would never allow the Aptitude edge to apply to a combat skill and no sighting type enhancement (smartlink, laser sight, image mag) works when dual weilding.

The recoil comp isn't a big deal since most sams i've dealt with usually have alot of it from one source or another.

The key to dealing with smart players is playing the npc's smartly. They should definitely be seeking any available cover. And like Critias said, be sure to apply visibilty modifiers to all tests.

..throw in some bad lighting or mist ect. Have the guards wait for backup instead of charging... use stun granades.

as for the mage... If the setting is right, add some background count. Give the guards a mage buddy the can shield them (adds grade to target number).

Alright. I might have to pull his Aptitude edge then. And you have to give me a viable argument, other then the GM and book say so, to tell him he can't use laser sights duel weilded. I don't want to have a 30 minute debate with him as he justifies how it works.

He's another thing. The mage had done a 6 force Ball Lightning. The character had a fetish for it, so it was 6 force for a drain of 5. Now, the ball lightning, I believe, has drain Force(DL+2). And because all elemental manipulation has a base TN of 4 to resist, which I still don't understand, he stepped up the damage from M to D+1 with 7 successes. The sec guards made thier resist rolls, two got only a few successes so they got fried, and another got an S wound. Now, when he rolls for drain, he rolls 8 dice, 6 Willpower and 2 Spell Pool, for 4 or 5 successes, for 0 drain. So he just fried a bunch of sec-guards, loaded down with armor that became useless, for 0 drain.

And another thing on the gun user. He also has improved initiative, so he's going at around 23-30. Those sec-guards had, maybe, 10. There's no way they could have gotten cover in time. He went before them all and killed them.

Oh yeah, almost forgot Strength 5 doesn't give you any recoil comp. So he only has 2 points per pistol (1 for heavy barrel and 1 or custom grips). Still enough to handle all the recoil if he just firing SA, but you also mentioned that he sometimes uses machine pistols. So that isn't enough to handle even a single burst from either pistol.

Did the character design the weapon himself? Because heavy barrel is an option under firearm design rules only. Some GM's don't allow players to design firearms because of how broken those rules are. The player can get the point of recoil comp elsewhere, but anything else is going to hurt the weapons' conceal.

I may be wrong about this since I don't play casters, but if he cast the spell at M damage and the drain is Force(DL+2), that means his drain test is against D damage. Meaning he actually needs 8 successes to stage it away (2 per level of damage).

With only 4 or 5 successes, he would still be taking M damage from the drain.

Okay, here's what you do.

Guards with 10 init get caught offguard all the time. But he's an adept, not a street sammie.

And don't just allow them to make one fight, and it's all over.

Example: They slaughter this group. They find the door is locked. It may take them a few seconds to open it.

In the next room, the guards are kicking over tables topped with hardened armor lined with ballistic material. From Ares Macrotechnology's own line of home furnishings, this functional table is a functional barricade. They're taking cover behind wall corners, and aiming rifles and spotlights at the doorway. Meanwhile, someone is shooting out or shutting off the room lights.

So bam. Your gunbunny adept kicks open the door, and finds himself in a Glare condition, and shooting into Low-Light. +4 right there, and I don't think he's got the ware or the gear to compensate. He's shooting at targets with cover ranging from 50% (TN +4) for the ones behind the barricades, and 75% (TN +6) for the ones behind the wall.

NONE of them have any TN +s to hit him. He's in a full lighting zone, and they have no Glare problems, because the spotlight is behind them.

So let's see. He's got +2 +2 +4 for +8, or +2, +2, +6, for +10. He is not gonna be hitting these guys. He can't even fraggin' see them, much less snipe at the parts of them not under cover. And you pull his Aptitude edge, damn straight.

I can't help you on the wizard, though. I don't know much about SR's magic system, but that'll certainly give your gunbunny a run for cover.

And Blakke - there's nothing wrong with different colored laser sights.

Just put him in a multicolored strobe environment to prove to him that yes, you can defeat everything he comes up with. That'll not only make his sights invisible to him, but mess up his vision greatly.

Oh yeah, is he using low-light gear? You do realize a green dot's not visible when you're using low-light, right?

Yeah. I miscalculated. But whatever he rolled, I know he took no drain

And how many sec-guards should I load into a corp? Let's say the corp building it around 4 floors. And how should I deal with the movement. It's kinda sketchy with a grid.

As for Laser Sights and dual wielding not working, look in the bloody book. I can't reference the page number, but it's either in SR3 or Cannon Companion under dual wielding, laser sights, or something. If he wants to argue with you on that, your answer is, "It's too powerful. I don't care what the physics are; it's in the rules, and it's GM fiat. I'm not arguing with you; it's just the way it is." If he still complains, your response is, "Roll iniative. Okay, you go. What do you see? Nothing. Delay? Ok. Someone takes a shot at you. Dodge? Okay, you dodged it. Someone takes another shot at you. Oh, sorry, you're out of combat pool. Resist 14D from the sniper rifle. You're dead? So sorry. I guess the corp didn't like you killing their guards, and since they had all the camera footage, they made you."



For an adept to be that specialized, he has to be good ONLY with pistols, yes? Conspire to take them away. Give the enemy a half-decent vehicle -- one with vehicular armor 4 (or is it five?) is immune to his pistols unless he's toting AV ammo. A force 5 materialized spirit is the same; it'll be immune to any pistol fire from Immunity (Normal Weapons). Have same spirit use confusion power -- +5 to all TNs for runners, AND they have to roll Willpower(Force) just to act. Give the guards security or military grade armor (depending on the site; a standard corp outpost will probably just have security, but an Ares research facility might have military).

For the mage, give the opposing side a mage with shielding, and an initiate grade high enough to use it. Hah, you cast ball lightning? Well, guess what mister-badass mage, there's a mage doing shielding 4 on the four people in the group; your TN is at +4, and now they EACH roll 4 dice in spell defense before doing anything else. And, you might want to double-check, but IIRC, the shielding dice reduce net successes on the spell as a whole; you're basically rolling 16 dice to counter all the successes. Any one can reduce all successes against them, and together, they can make the whole spell fizzle. (iirc, not sure about elemental manipulation spells -- double-check rules)

Oh, by the way -- did you roll suprise for your group? In any building that rigged up, the opposing forces should be able to 1. Arrange for an ambush. 2. Arrange for "superior position" 3. Arrange for cover. Your guys should be suffering a suprise test on contact (with security team getting -2TN for ambush conditions), and suffering modifiers for cover and superior position.

Give the security rigger small unit tactics, and have him feed the security team with orders/information. Give them battletac cyberware, if possible. Apply the tactics bonus as initiative or combat pool. IIRC, it can also give additional TN modifiers on the suprise test. If you're feeling saucy, add a tactical computer. Remember, every two senses add +1 level of tactics skill to the user of the computer... in a rigger hooked up to a security system, that can be one heck of a lot of senses.

Give the opposing team thermographic vision goggles, and fill the hallway with smoke. Boom, +4TN for runners w/o thermographic vision, no TN for security team. Give opposing team flare-compensation, roll flash grenades down the hall, or wear flash packs.

Roll grenades down the hallway -- superflash, stun, neurostun, whatever.

Put the room they need to access in a sub-basement accessable only by elevator. While they're coming back up (or going down, whatever), the security rigger stops the elevator. Some guy on the floors above them starts dropping grenades down the shaft.

If your team is rigged, just make your security forces equally rigged. Make them bloody smart.

And as far as aptitude on a pistol goes... well, as I showed above, that's easily countered with the appropriate application of TN-inducing equipment and spells.

elemental manipulation.... remember they work as ranged attack: lighting modifiers, cover, movement ect.

edit: just read Vaevictis' post.
Sheilding (which adds dice and to target number) does not protect against elemental manipulation spells or indirect illusion. ... to my knowledge

OK. Those were the first problems with the game. The second one is the biggest one I have with dealing with the group. The gunbunny is completly against working with others, and when he does, he doesn't help planning on getting into places. I tell him that he has to help because no one else will do this, and he says he's playing his character.

And how much story time should I be giving the players? As well as nuyen? The gunbunny is big on individual action, which breaks down into him taking time to go find his brother who works for a 'harem' and taking him out to lunch. Now, I'm all for story and motivation and personal actions, but when he carves out an hour out of the game, because he says everyone has to be having personal actions every day, that just makes my prep and study worth less then drek.

I get hosed and hosed again because he thinks that the only thing that matters is role-playing him ording take-out, interacting with NPCs, and just sitting around. Interacting with players is fine. But...*sigh*

So what should I do? How should I deal with people like him who want hours of game time devoted to their story line? I mean, hell, I've put him as practically the main character in my story. What more does he want me to do?

Use environmental conditions to harass and hurt your players.

Ever played Half-Life or Half-Life 2? Or even Vampire: Bloodlines? I'm sure you know how much of a #^@# flooded rooms with electrified water are. Especially for the cybersammie.

Little nasty crawling attack drones that hide in shadows and leap out to slash and murderize work well, too.

Remember people, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a character that cannot be solved with the appropriate application of a sniper rifle, missile launcher, or in extreme cases, great dragon.

If the dude's a jackass, kill him.

Okay... Primadonna-Man should be tazered, I admit. Repeated applications may be required.

Alternatively, if you LIKE what he does alone, find it fun to RP it out, you might come back to him at another point in the week, between the games, to handle that stuff then.

I have not GM'd or played in a few years, but there were times that my planning was just steam rolled. Nothing I could really do, other than try and throw in some last minute modifications to step things up, like an initiate mage, that is chucking some spells at your street sam.

If that was way too tough I would make things more complex but having the mage channel spells through an optical overservation system. "now you have to find the guy who is locked in a vault. Throw in some paranormal elements like a few spirits or cybered up animals. Security will also add an element to the game. A rigger controlling several mounted turrets can put a damper in your day.

As for one person dominating the whole gaming session, as a person that was witness to that, I can tell you it made me angry when my one friend was doing all his daily business, trying to get new ammo, trying to pick up an undersage girl, etc. Basically the GM took control, told him they would deal with that later on solo time, and basically forced him to get to the meet. After the meet, if there was something lacking, we could try contacts to recuit any talent lacking. We would negotiate with Johnson for supplies we were lacking to save fixer time. Most of the time for speed we avoided the decker, and paid for a contract talent. The matrix rules were terrible back then, so it was best to skip it. If someone is uncooperative, he usually either becomes the first target of the fight, or the group will give them a warning. Nothing like a stun bolt surprise to wake you up.

Giving the guy 2 different color lasers doesn't help him get the benefit while still using 2 guns. I mine I can see if 2 red dots are on a target the same as a green and red one. It’s all about being able to concentrate on 2 things at once while shooting 2 guns. That’s why sr says no laser sights or smart links when using 2 guns. I mean if the smart link can't handle 2 targets, I’d just get a better computer system a really computer can handle 5 mil targets at the same time easily. It’s more of the human brain to eye movement can't track 2 targets accurately to give him the neg to his target mods. Now maybe if he takes the edge/flaw of cross-eyed hehe it would only be a edge for shooting a gun and would give him Tn for talking to anyone eye to eye hehe then maybe I’d let him use the 2 lasers just because it would be funny when he talked to anyone.

I never start the PC's off too strong (ie: tons of magic, guns, cyberware) and let them earn most of it, but if that's how you wanna play, that's acceptable.

Combat: Modifiers! Cover, bad lighting... make the guards actively lead the runner's into ambushes or areas where THEY have the upper hand. Rigged Turrets are always depressing to run into, too.

Decking: I've grown skilled at running the Matrix & the Real World simultaneously, but maybe that's not to everyone's liking. My justification is: when two PC's are in two different buildings, what do you do? Same thing, here. My players have no problem with it.

As for the Individualistic Gunbunny: Do what you need to do.

CrystalBlue - tailor your enemies to your players. Use cover, use non-standard attacks, use cover-fire, use held actions.

I appreciate you need to be realistic in terms of what calibre of guard is guarding the place your players and getting into, but consider this...

Standard guard, with cyberware 'subsidised' by the corporation which he's paying off in his salary. Thus Boosted Reflexes 1, Plastic Bone Lacing 1, Smartlink 2. Give him an armoured vest at 650 nuyen, and an automatic weapon because he's vicious - Smartgun perhaps, at 950 nuyen. So far he's cost 26,600. Probably it would be a good idea to buy some ammo as well. Rather than EX ammo and making him fairly useless and likely to blow up the place he's guarding, use Splash rounds - Pepper Punch is good and cheap. I think the cost per round is now about 17 nuyen, which is pricey so he only gets three clips or so. So, this guard now gets taught to use the gun he gets and specialises in it because it's the only one they issue - realistically he could have a skill of even SMG 4 (Smartgun 6). Part of that training is to use the d**n folding stock, so he's firing with 3 points of recoil comp. Guard gets taught to never go around in groups of less than two and use cover. So, this guard is now quite deadly if used correctly - a smartlinked weapon, with which he'll probably hit. Players who are munchkinised with huge combat pools roll a 5 to dodge because he's taught to fire controlled (three round) bursts like he's supposed to, so at the very least he costs them pool. If he hits a player, that player likely takes stun damage at a low level (reduced power of stun rounds) but then likely cops +4 or so because of the pepper punch. If he shoots a corporate employee by mistake they're pissed off and bruised but not dead, which is a fiscal advantage in the expensive rounds. That's a cheap and very effective guard from a corporate perspective.

For a more vicious guard, spend two grand on a SPAS-22. Use gel shot rounds or gel rounds, or splash rounds, and it's a very tough player that doesn't take some stun damage from a successful hit. Assume the corporation is shelling out for cyberware at a larger scale. Forget initiative other than the bare minimum - he'll never beat a shadowrunner anyway. But, he can be hard to kill - spend 40K on a trauma damper, 24K on a dermal sheath 1 and 7.5K on plastic bone lacing. Now you have a guard with six or seven dice in damage resistance, who can't be taken down with a single hit. Assume he has maybe 40K more spent on enhanced articulation - he's faster and more accurate. Pay out 50K more on Toner 2 and 10K on a reflex recorder. He can now wear security armour (which is stupidly costly) or he can just layer a jacket with form-fit (the corp will pay 2K for form fit if it's spent that much on implants). For less than 200K you have a fast-response officer packing 7/3 armour, with seven dice in body resistance, realistically with a specialised 7 or so in SPAS skill, rolling 9 dice because of implants before combat pool, with a smartlink and a decent initiative score (probably something like 6 +2D6). His gun does 10S standard and it makes a loud noise to attract other guards. He also is taught to use cover and travel in packs of two.

In combat, think of things this way - every single combat-trained NPC must do whatever he can to get a minimum of +3 to the target number of other people to hit him. Doesn't matter what his target is to shoot back, always cover your own a** first. Thus, NPCs run, use any sort of visual cover they can (covering to just above your knees is still 25% and thus +2 to be shot), they use smoke, they crawl out of sight, and so on. A good rule of thumb is that every NPC who has decent combat training will secure a minimum of +3 to be shot THEN take a shot back. Also, first instinct of anyone with a radio is drop into cover and call for backup.

However, the nastiest thing you can do to a group of players is a set of simple, cheap cyberware and equipment - biomonitor (liked with an autoinjector and trauma-patch equivilent, or not), datajack, subdermal speakers, transducer, linked to external GPS and radio. Basically, guard has a constant signal sent to the command post of his vital signs and location. The radio is set up with a bit of encryption (maybe level five) meaning there's no realistic chance of a PC group decrupting in any meaningful way. Radio gear is set up so that if the link to the guard (via datajack) is broken, the radio broadcasts an alert and GPS location. If the vital signs flatline, it broadcasts an alert and GPS location. Also, since he has a transducer, "mentally" hitting the radio's panicbutton is a free action. Anything suspicious, an alert is triggered. This setup is also good for secretary-type staff. Also, you can't see him use the radio since it's all hands-free and no subvocalising, and since it's a constant encrypted signal it's very hard to determine how often he's checked in with command.

Remember to think smarter with your NPCs. They don't need to be massive six-foot Rock-equivalent security guards with millions of nuyen in cyberware to survive, they just need to run for cover, use smoke, call for backup and set off alerts a the very first opportunity. They also need to support each other, use covering fire to burn up shadowrunner's combat pool, and hold actions.

Ok, I missed the original line that brought up the topic.

Thanks for the help guys. I just get sick of my corp guards getting run over. I do make sure that the normal ones, the ones that get trained and get paided the big nuyen, alwasy travel in groups. But I've never thought rigger setups and such. I'd like to know more about how Small Tactics Units is used and how a rigger facilitates this.

But, mind you, I don't want to kill the PC's. I just want to show them that they're mortal. That they can bleed. We use a lot of rules from other books, and I don't think I'll be able to take away the customized pistols from the gunbunny. He'll bitch about how it says that he can do it in the rule books. *sigh* I need a group of you guys to run for. Cause I know I'd be able to run a game without getting complaints and grinding the game to a halt with unneeded drek.

One guard with a held action and a shotgun arranged so that the choke spreads the shot as wide as possible by the time it hits the players. Then show them how the rule that turned them into hamburger is in the book, and would they like to keep playing that way?

I'm not a big fan of houserules, though I use them when necessary. I'm all for having a consistent agreed-upon set of rules. Sometimes, though, people take things too far.

Riggers: If you've got Vehicle Armor 5, it takes a 12M attack minimum to affect the vehicle—anything with L damage or with lower power is bounced automatically. This doesn't apply to AV rounds, but they're hard to get. Weapons mounted on vehicles have their recoils halved before other recoil compensation. If you manage to stick a tactical computer into a Rigger you can get that Rigger to be able to do things like get extra combat pool, give extra combat pool or points of initiative to everyone they're communicating with, and use full combat pool on surprise tests. Also, ramming tests eat characters.

~J

Also regarding the ball lightning: don't forget armor modifications. Since you're using sec armor you hace canon companion; use it! Sec armor has 15 points of mods built right into it: in an age of mages throwing fireballs and lightning I'd be sure to spend those points on Fireproofing 4, Nonconductive 4 and Chemseals 4. You can also slip in more mods under that as well; unarmored clothing if I remember right can pack 2 points of mods on it.

And yeah, visability and cover are big ones in terms of raising TNs. From working in a precious metal processing plant I can tell you right off that most security checkpoints at those kinds of places are deigned for guards to get partial cover even if they're surprised; usually they're behind a counter or something that gives them the bonus.

Ball Lightning is +1(DL+2). So casting it at force 6 (with fetish = force 5) Moderate gives a drain code of 3D. So he needs eight successes to stage that to nothing (six if he has a trauma dampener, which is why those are so horribly powerful). So, either he succeeded with every die he rolled or he's got a trauma dampener, in which case he was just lucky. Or you calculated the Drain wrong.

other things you can do;
1. use the hell out of chokepoints, even a simple corner and combat shotgun work well against runners. If there being ornery let them "sneak" deep inside complex let them "find" the target but make sure that what they find is a decoy. keep guiding them through a maze like area then shut the entrances to a room equipped with fiber optics and then fill it with smoke and nasty spells from a couple of initiated mages, Say g'nie gracie

2. make good use of the rules in SR3 about running into fences, i.e. t5he gunbunny is in a running battle with some corps guards and they retreat he runs forward in low-light glare conditions over rough terrain into a small 2-3 meter drainage ditch (takes falling damage)and lands in slippery sewage type junk, after he gets to the top of the ditch he runs through some bushes and runs into a monowire fence, after the he hits a low, meter-meter and a half high electric concertina wire fence. IF he is still in the action then he finds himself in a corp ambush.

This teaches him several lessons.
1. he is gonna get screwed being the hero to the exclusion of the other PC's.
2. He needs to be more careful and be a slower mover, (sometimes the aggressive fast approach is not the best approach).
3. If he is still alive, then he is going to be arrested or killed, both of which can definitly affect a persons attitude!

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR YOU TO DO IS TO GET CREATIVE AND EVIL
but of course that wont be hard


EDIT: you can also use interior design objects to slow him down, say he is in a manufacturing plant or nuclear power plant, have something leak, either the nearest steam conduit or electrical or, well, you get my idea, have holes in floors that they cant get over and ambush em, in short do w/e it takes!

What's an initiated mage? And can they cast spells when they're not there?