Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: firebug on <09-29-14/2019:55>
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I'm thinking about GMing a bounty hunter focused game, or perhaps including some bounty-hunting between more average runs. It seems like a good way for there to be combat (potentially lethal combat) without it necessarily meaning somebody royally screwed up, which my players would like, while still being varied enough to give everyone a role.
But how does one get into bounty hunting? I don't know anything about it, in real life or in Shadowrun. How does one collect on bounties? Where do they find them? What kind of registering, if any, is necessary for it? When a target is captured alive, where do you bring them usually? If you killed them, what do you need to do to prove it?
Finally, I'm curious what kind of targets would have bounties. I know some of the "higher pay" ones-- Toxic mages, influential criminal organization members, HMHVV like vampires or wendigo... What would you consider an "entry level bounty"? Something appropriate for fresh characters as their first?
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In the modern world, the most common bounty is someone who jumps or skips bail; bondsmen often use bonafide bounty hunters (licensed, even) to capture (not kill) people who leave the bondsmen with the bill.
Might be a good intro-level gig to introduce them to the system; I imagine it would be much the same for various critters, but I'm not confident as to what would constitute appropriate level prey for starting characters. Toxics, mobsters, vampires and wendigo all sound like pretty dangerous foes to me.
You could also have them track down the missing dolphin of some sportsball team, or maybe a lost dog or something... ;)
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I gave my players a mission into the deep parts of the Redmond Barrens to hunt and kill as many Gabriel Hounds as they could get their hands on. The client was a talismonger who wanted the specimens brought back and preserved in a very particular way.
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Gabriel Hounds. That must have been a weird session.
I suppose finding someone who tried to skip on bail would be a good first mission. I suppose what they have to do depends on what kind of person the target is, and why they were in trouble in the first place.
Would someone who was (or still is, technically) part of a crime outfit, or maybe just a ganger, make sense? They got caught, but tried to just run and are hiding out with their allies somewhere?
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Sounds plausible to me; I'd recommend Running Wild for ideas on other targets.
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Gabriel Hounds. That must have been a weird session.
Yeah the first time they saw a hound, it looked like a naked bum digging through the garbage. But the team ended up hitting their quota - problem is, they missed the Crimson Crush caravan out of the Barrens, and had to stay the night. That was when they met an Incubus that nearly crushed one of their skulls before they realized what was happening. Sneak attacks are awesome. :)
That was a session where I kind of just wanted to remind the players that there are things that can kill you beyond guns and blades. They certainly respect the deep parts of the Barrens a lot more now, I think. It's been a while since I've done a run like this - maybe I should do another.
One of the runs I did with critters involved delivering a bunch of critters to the Fort Lewis Zoo. Electric Martens, Stoats, and those hallucinogenic frogs. They got ambushed en route by the team that was originally supposed to handle the run, and the van carrying the critters flipped. The critters escaped into the alleys, and the team had to save the martens from being eaten by demon rats, while the rest of the team fought off their ambushers. Great session.
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I've used bounty hunts for people as a premise for a small mission - usually to round up low time criminals that have done something wrong locally, and usually posted by one of the police corporations (I use "dead or alive" posters that are tweaked from the real world FBI website). Especially useful if the "bounty" has skipped outside the jurisdiction of the police corporation (Lone Star, KE, Minuteman, Texas Rangers, etc), but is still wanted for a particular crime (zone hopping in Denver is fairly good fun, as are the various no go zones such as the Barrens or the SOX). I also imagine that corporations use bounty hunters to track down missing corporate citizens or individuals who have wronged them somehow - having a team of bounty hunters turn up mid-run leading to a three-way firefight is also amusing.
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There's a few hints in the 2010 CMPs about Bounty Hunting. In Sprawl Wilds we got a run where being a SINner lets you get the full bounty, while otherwise you need a cop (who takes a cut) for it or risk your fake SIN on a check. In the first of two Bounty Hunting runs, the Bounty Hunter might make clear to the players that he himself would have a far easier time cashing the Bounty than a Sinless Runner. So high government-bounties likely require a SIN, or a rating 6 fake one to get through the checks unscathed.
Meanwhile, non-police/army bounties may very well be easier to handle, since they likely do not care that much about your lack of a real SIN. And if you're helping the cops with something, they may cut you some slack and pass the bounty along to you. Such as done in Burn, where the bounty for the terrorists gets passed on to the players.
Oh, and several of my players have fake Bounty Hunter licenses. They're rating 4 out of chargen, so not good enough to reliably beat a Rating 6 system, but if a weaker system is used that's still plenty, if a system is used at all. Who knows, if you haven't made a mess they may just look "yup, it's a license" and be fine with it.
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One of my favorite NPCs in an old campaign was a bounty hunter I basically designed off of today's NASCAR. His armor was completely covered in sponsorship logos and he was constantly shilling for products--"I was nervous when I saw the Wendigo come over the ridge, but then I remembered I was packing Ares-brand munitions!" His SimSense line (Thrill of the Hunt) was a big seller. He was 50% a fraud, but it was a fun to blend the dystopian with the comedic in a Running Man sort of way. In a world with P2.0, I have to imagine bounty hunting is big business.
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Yup, Grendel makes a good living thanks to P2.0.
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Yup, Grendel makes a good living thanks to P2.0.
Also the runners doing all his dirty work for him ;)
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P2.0 is like a youtube kinda thing, right?
A ganger in the Barrens, I realize, probably wouldn't have a bounty worth going after as a group. I guess that'll be the hard part. Finding something big enough that they pay being split won't be pathetic, but that won't result in everyone getting murderlated.
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In game-terms: The Horizon P2.0 network acts as a contact of Loyalty 1 and Connection 3.
“Some of you may be wondering what this means for you. It means simply this: You will be increasing your prestige, your ‘street cred,’ without increasing your exposure. Our understanding of your lifestyle indicates that the need for a certain amount of anonymity can sometimes prove inconvenient in accessing the more public fruits of your labors. Horizon understands. One ping to the maître d’ from a link bearing our P2.0 signature, and you are perfectly situated in between the restrooms, bar and kitchen, in an isosceles love triangle."
It's also used for a media empire by Grendel and Wulf, so it can serve as Youtube & Twitch, where you can get money for videos under circumstances, like Grendel does.
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A minor aside, but you have to have a valid SIN to collect a bounty in the UCAS.
The nuyen from the bounty could be part of the payment, PPV revenue from the P2.0 another part, appearance fees (once their Public Awareness gets high enough) another part, and so on.
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Yup, as I referenced to before. Here's a quote I based that on:
"If runners are able to kill the wendigo, they can claim a 15,000Ą bounty on the critter. Claiming the bounty requires a valid SIN, or risking a fake SIN against a Rating 6 verification scanner (Using a Forged ID, p. 267, SR4A, or Checking a Fake SIN, p. 368, SR5). Otherwise, runners can attempt to fence the bounty through a non-Knight Errant contact, getting only 4,500 nuyen. Finally, if they go through Hua or a Knight Errant contact, they can get 7,500 nuyen for cashing in their bounty."
I imagine a Rating 4 system can be used as well, if the GM doesn't want to force people to have a Rating 6 fake SIN to be able to score bounties.
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I think I get it.
So for a team of runners, perhaps a mafia man would make sense. Since he'd reasonably be pretty dangerous himself and possibly be hiding with other highly-armed men, the bounty would be pretty high... At least 20,000, yeah? Not a high ranking guy, but someone moderately connected.
Mmkay, so they need a high ranking SIN to pull it off if they're not using their actual one (which would probably be a bad idea if they do anything even questionably legal still). And there'd be different pay outs depending on who they're able to turn it in to, getting half if they go through a contact in the same organization and less if they just use someone else.
I do like the idea of them beginning to just get montly revenue from P2.0, that'd be a neat way for them to feel like they're making names for themselves.
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You could have the front of the group with a valid SIN and then have his "team of associates" as the typical SINless Shadowrunners. The NPC I referenced earlier did something similar with his "production team.") If they run their fake SIN every time they collect, they'll eventually get dinged.
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Ideally, the SINner front would want to obtain corp status at some point, so they can legally use Forbidden weapons for bounty hunting. Not sure how much money and paperwork you'd need for that, although I seem to recall there being a topic about starting your own company somewhere.
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I imagine the cut would be relatively smaller with bigger bounties, and if the 'bounty' comes from a Corp they might just say "we apply a 10% 'cleaning fee' to the reward we give you", which would be corp-talk for laundering the cash. ^_^ Plus if you do a contact a favor by taking a job, I imagine they'll also take a smaller cut. Take Assassin Nation, Tosh passes the bounty along without taking part himself.
Related: I referenced Burn before, that should be Assassin Nation.
And yeah, P2.0 would be a nice way to have realistic bounties without crippling the income.
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I might establish a kinda thing where, they can get someone in KE to cash it for them (but only get half) or perhaps get someone to "lessen the security" an effectively lower the rating of the verification system for that bounty at a lesser percentage. Against an R4 system, an R6 SIN doesn't have a high chance of being exposed. If I knew how to use AnyDice, I'd figure out the chance of getting 6 hits on 8 dice but I'm sure it's real low.
In general I'm uncomfortable with players making use of their legal SIN much. I really get the impression it's not intended to work that way, and seriously, it would just make it so painfully easy for them to be arrested at any moment's notice if they do anything with something legally bought.
I imagine the cut would be relatively smaller with bigger bounties, and if the 'bounty' comes from a Corp they might just say "we apply a 10% 'cleaning fee' to the reward we give you", which would be corp-talk for laundering the cash. ^_^ Plus if you do a contact a favor by taking a job, I imagine they'll also take a smaller cut. Take Assassin Nation, Tosh passes the bounty along without taking part himself.
Yeah... Or maybe I'll make it so like, a contact used takes a percentage based on their Loyalty. Like... 5%% at 6, then 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50% at Loyalty 1. Not counting special cases like with Tosh. The catch here of course being they will occasionally have to do things for that contact, possibly without pay. The Loyalty 4 KE Contact says "Hey, there's this criminal that just escaped... I've been a great friend to you, and hear me out. I want you to catch him before we post a bounty, and let me say I did it. Look, okay, there's a chance at a promotion and I'm sure this will help me nail it. You owe me, so come on, be a pal."
I'll wanna read more about P2.0 so I can really understand what it is so I could understand how/when the runners would be able to make money from it and such.
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Since I'm sure your players will ask, 6 hits on 8 dice is just shy of 2%.
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Don't forget ties require checking and only net hits means a burned SIN. You could check my Accuracy Tables (http://tinyurl.com/acctables) as well, which note 11.37 for (8,5) and 385.94 for (8,7). So a Rating 4 checker vs a rating 4 fake has ~9% busting chance, and vs a rating 6 fake it's about 0.25%, with 56.08 = <2% chance to get checked or busted.
As for AnyDice, what you want to do is use d{0,0,1} for normal dice and d{0,0,1,0,0,1,1,1,1} for rerolled dice. Exploding dice are a bit more complicated and require using a rough estimate or 1000 vs 1001, since the highest value is the only one that can explode.
So for example:
output 14d{0,0,1}-13d{0,0,1}
output [highest of 0 and 11-15d{0,0,1,0,0,1,1,1,1}]
output [highest of 0 and [highest of 2 and 12d{0,0,2}]-15d{0,0,1,0,0,1,1,1,1}]
output [highest of 0 and [highest of 2 and 14d{0,0,2,0,0,2,0,0,2,0,0,2,0,0,2,0,0,4}]-15d{0,0,1,0,0,1,1,1,1}]
The first can be used the odds at winning with e.g. 14 vs e.g. 13 dice.
The second would for example be someone Centering against 11 Drain with 15 rerolled dice, where results under 0 are filtered into 0. Useful for all kinds of soak calculations.
The third is resisting the drain of summoning a Force 12 Spirit with the same 15 rerolled dice, illustrating that Oversummoning isn't a real risk if the defender uses Edge, even with 15 drain dice. It applies minimum drain as well.
The fourth is rather complicated. Rather than having exploding dice, an approximation was used where there's 5/18 chance to score 1 hit and 1/18 chance to score 2+ hits, with the 2+ set to 2 instead. So this would be a Force 9 Spirit Pushing The Limit (with 5 Edge) against Oversummoning, making it far more risky than the Force 12 without Oversummoning. The complicated nature is necessary because exploding dice are hard to boss around in AnyDice.*
The rough version, by the way, averages to 0.389 hit per die, instead of the real 0.4.
*: In fact, it feels as if I only get the right result if I remove one zero... Which is rather weird. So basically if I remove one 0, I get the right results. Here, try comparing these:
set "explode depth" to 10
output [highest of 0 and [highest of 2 and 14d{0,0,2000,0,0,2000,0,0,2000,0,0,2000,0,0,2000,0,0,4000}]-15d{0,0,1000,0,0,1000,1000,1000,1000}]
output [highest of 0 and [highest of 2000 and [explode 14d{0,0,0,2000,2001}]]-15d{0,0,1000,0,0,1000,1000,1000,1000}]
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Been reading Running Wild and ran into the Bounties on the infected in there. :)
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Been reading Running Wild and ran into the Bounties on the infected in there. :)
Oh thank you. o: I'll check it out.
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For the bounties on Infected, it depends on the area you are hunting in/for. I just pulled all of these from Running Wild so that you had a nice list in one post.
CAS
Bandersnatchii - 5,000 nuyen
Banshees 5,000 nuyen
Dzoo-noo-qua 3,000 nuyen
Fomôraig 1,500 nuyen
Ghouls 1,500 nuyen
Goblins 4,000 nuyen
Loup-garou 3,500 nuyen
Nosferatu 15,000 nuyen
Vampires 6,000 nuyen
Wendigos 15,000 nuyen
UCAS
Bandersnatchii 7,500 nuyen
Banshees 5,000 nuyen
Dzoo-noo-qua 2,500 nuyen
Fomôraig 1,500 nuyen
Ghouls 1,500 nuyen
Goblins 4,000 nuyen
Loup-garou 2,500 nuyen
Nosferatu 15,000 nuyen
Vampires 7,500 nuyen
Wendigos 15,000 nuyen
Those are the only two nations that are listed with bounties.
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Meanwhile in Parazoology we got 1000 per Sea Wolf Pelt, but that's more a hunting thing. And running into a Juggernaut (especially if their hardened armor is boosted to SR5) is a nice way of having to take out a tank for a huge bounty when you're hunting something else. :) The main problem there is that they do >40P damage.
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Meanwhile in Parazoology we got 1000 per Sea Wolf Pelt, but that's more a hunting thing. And running into a Juggernaut (especially if their hardened armor is boosted to SR5) is a nice way of having to take out a tank for a huge bounty when you're hunting something else. :) The main problem there is that they do >40P damage.
Yes, just a small issue.
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It just completely obliterates a SWAT car with 27 Body and 27 Armor in a single hit. :)
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Jesus. And that's in Parazoology? That's awesome. Or Running Wild? I never really looked through Running Wild... I didn't think that Shadowrun had D&D levels of "terrifying nonsapient creatures".
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If Juggernaut's are just slightly outside the scope of your players' abilities, I'd look at bounties on metahuman members of an organization that, for whatever reason, are outside the jurisdiction of the people offering the bounty. The blood mage bounty in Dunkelzahn's will is an obvious example, but I could see a corp quietly putting a bounty on members of TerraFirst! after a series of attacks.
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Juggernauts are in Running Wild, Parazoology is kinda filled with rather weak critters, the Sea Wolf the most dangerous one.
So on the low level you have outstanding warrents and Infected, as well as some rare paracritters, you go up to slightly-more-dangerous Infected and more dangerous criminals, terrorists are likely at 50k~200k depending on how big a fuss they made, and the blood/toxic mages are always a nice career ender at 1m reward each.
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The blood mage bounty in Dunkelzahn's will is an obvious example, but I could see a corp quietly putting a bounty on members of TerraFirst! after a series of attacks.
Would it make sense for them to do that rather than just hire runners? I guess if they wanted them arrested instead of killed, or they wanted it to be more "public" than runners would allow...
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You'd hire runners against specific targets, if you know where they are and all that, but sending a signal could involve "these individuals we offer these bounties for" and just see if someone decides to bother.
Speaking of Bounties: Gordo Buck, former Skraacha and former Finnegan family goon, has a bounty on his head by the Finnegan family, because they're too busy to track him down. So there's those too, organised crime bounties on traitors that ran.
Of course in my own Shadowrun Campaign he already got hunted down, but the Finnegans don't know that.
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Haha. I didn't think about bounties posted by groups other than "legal" groups. I suppose if you have the right contacts, any group can just post outstanding bounties that you could do.
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Iif Aztechnology wants to send TerraFirst! a message, but doesn't want to send its own people to do it, a bounty on a "notorious terrorist organization with a long history of indiscriminate attacks on civilians...[enter the Azzie PR machine rolling footage]" makes sense. Shadowrunners are deniable assets, this would be for groups looking to take credit for taking out bad guys. It also dumps all of the issues of legality and jurisdiction on the team (much like Dunkie's will does) instead of the corp. Just make sure you collect someplace that counts as extraterritorial for the sponsor.
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Oh by the way, if I translated the Juggernaut to 5th... It'd do 66P damage, without changing its stats up. The 10 dice to attack means it'd theoretically possible for day, a dodge adept to melee with them... But one swing... Even with only -3 AP. And 12 Hardened Armor. Seriously, that's ridiculous. I never saw these before. XD
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Oh by the way, if I translated the Juggernaut to 5th... It'd do 66P damage, without changing its stats up. The 10 dice to attack means it'd theoretically possible for day, a dodge adept to melee with them... But one swing... Even with only -3 AP. And 12 Hardened Armor. Seriously, that's ridiculous. I never saw these before. XD
Ever since the size comparison picture of the Juggernaut ran back in Paranormal Animals of North America, I've wanted to toss one into a campaign of mine. Good lord, that freaked me out.
Also, after missing a nimble runners for a few rounds, a juggernaut is going to boost his Agility and end things quickly.
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"Most governments offer a significant bounty for the destruction of a juggernaut. (It is perhaps instructive that very few juggernaut bounties have ever been paid out.)"
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66P is adding half its Strength too much. It had (Str/2)+3P/-3, so it'd get +21 and become 45P/-3. Still strong enough to crush a Knight Errant SWAT car (27/27 if you use the all-attributes-times-1.5 thing from Stolen Souls) in a single hit, and a Stonewall tank (36/28 in SR4) might get one-shotted if it rolls poorly. Let that sink in for a second: The toughest tanks out there might get one-shotted by a pissed off Juggernaut. Of course they likely will easily kill it if its Hardened Armor isn't boosted.
Well to be fair the Smart Armor gets added, but a poor roll still kills it.
Still, 14m length and >7000 kg...
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66P is adding half its Strength too much. It had (Str/2)+3P/-3, so it'd get +21 and become 45P/-3. Still strong enough to crush a Knight Errant SWAT car (27/27 if you use the all-attributes-times-1.5 thing from Stolen Souls) in a single hit, and a Stonewall tank (36/28 in SR4) might get one-shotted if it rolls poorly. Let that sink in for a second: The toughest tanks out there might get one-shotted by a pissed off Juggernaut. Of course they likely will easily kill it if its Hardened Armor isn't boosted.
Still, 14m length and >7000 kg...
Well I mean, it has 42 STR and a 24P natural weapon. In 5th edition, you wouldn't halve it's STR. That's what I mean by "if I just translated it to 5th". Oh, am I doing Natural Weapon wrong? Alrighty then.
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Yeah, the value listed is with Strength taken into account already, so it's not 24P+21 in SR4 but simply 24P. Natural Weapon used to be listed as a fixed DV but is still based on (Str/2)+X, nowadays they make more clear it depends on the Strength so raising/lowering it also impacts the damage. Which means an SR4->SR5 conversion simply adds half the Strength, and maybe add a tiny bit if felt needed.
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Mmm, juggernauts. The only critter in the world that just wanders into a lake and walks around for a while with its mouth open in order to eat - then walks back out of the lake and keeps on going.
Note that the above is for a full-grown 'adult' one; considering the difficulty of killing such a critter, I would think that juggernauts of that size would be, well, exceedingly rare. Make those the 'Great' versions, with smaller ones (reduced stats) being more likely. And I would think that every nation that has juggernauts inside their borders would make a concerted effort to put tracking devices on them, and once they get beyond a certain size, use them for A-10 Warthog target practice. Otherwise, well, where in Seattle does the 14m juggernaut go to eat? Pretty much everywhere, you know? if you don't eliminate the problem before it becomes severe, you sort of deserve everything you get ...
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That was something I was curious about. If it leaves swathes of destruction and eats everything, even if it wasn't constantly moving to search for more food, it'd be so obvious, and since it's nearly a godzilla level threat (one in a city could honestly knock over buildings) they'd have KE or LS or whomever on it to kill it immediately. Unless Shadowrun PETA is fighting for them not to be eradicated and somehow winning, then they'd be killed on sight and they're NOT subtle, so unless the pop out of the ground fully grown, birthed from the core of the planet, I don't see how they can just "show up".
Like, they say nobody's gotten a chance to study one, but there's no given reason why tracking chips wouldn't work. Even assuming they don't know if such things have a nest or how they have babies or whatever, if there's one, you'd look for the rest and destroy them. Maybe that'd be the bounty? "A juggernaut was killed in the area recently, a bounty will be given to anyone who happens to eliminate any offspring if found."
The "how did it get here without being found when it's MO is a swath of destruction" thing bothers me the most.
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Oh, I'm sure that PETA, Greenpeace, and a host of other groups are out there protesting and making sure the damn thing isn't wiped out. But then you have bounties on juggernauts over a certain size. As for movement, well, since it CAN breathe underwater ... *evil grin* Up from the depths, thirty stories high, breathing fire, standing in the sky ...
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The "how did it get here without being found when it's MO is a swath of destruction" thing bothers me the most.
I'm guessing the way large swatches of land are uninhabited nowadays in the chaos of the Sixth World. Plus if it stumbles upon an entire herd of 2000 animals and kills most of them, I imagine there's not that much collateral damage.
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And I would think that every nation that has juggernauts inside their borders would make a concerted effort to put tracking devices on them
Putting a tracking device on one (or more) could make for a good run for teams not quite "up to the task" of taking one down. Not sure anyone is ever up to the task... ;)
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Yeah, no kidding.
"Here's the Barrett 121 we'll be loaning you for the operation."
"And one of these will take down a juggernaut??"
"Oh, heavens, no. A Barrett 121 is necessary to get one of these" -- holds up a 121 shell encasing a tracking device -- "into the thing. A Barrett 121 taking down a juggernaut??" *laughter*
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Note to self, give Juggernaut Regeneration and either 16 or 18 Hardened, and a quality that gives them extra Overflow boxes. Right now they seem too easy to take down. Maybe give a power that negates the effect of Bull's Eye Double Tap, so you can't actually kill one with just a 121.
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Err, I'm pretty sure you can't kill one with a 121. Hell, I'm pretty sure you can't kill one with an AVM, falling building, or fragment-forging-cascading-chain-spell-detonation sequence.
... look, has anyone out there ever actually killed one of these things? Or are these like the Tarrasque?
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Given their fluff they should really have Regeneration at the very least. They are being described as getting seriously pissed off if you unload with rotary autocannons and their stats do not really reflect that.
So regeneration and maybe mystic armor so a mage can't just whack it from astral space too easily.
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Agreed PiXeL01, otherwise I can just Bull's Eye it with a 121 on a tripod with gas vent 3 from a km away. Fire at a -7+Willpower, score 6 hits average vs none and then Edge the next shots, -22 AP means no Hardened Armor even if it gets nearly-doubled so only 17 dice vs 14+nethits damage. First hit does 14 damage, next hit does 6+, the guy goes unconscious after the second hit and you just keep firing until it's dead.
Maybe 12 Hardened Armor BUT add "Negative AP/3, Positive AP doubled" as special ability. That would cut even Bull's Eye into only -8 AP.
Sidenote: Give me your suggestions, people, so that ZeConster will hate you in 3 weeks time!
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Do not give Michael any suggestions - even with Apex Predator and Initiation Grade 5, I'd have 15 dice to the beast's 14, which only gives me a ~60% chance of it not trying to murder me on sight.
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Here's one for you, Michael; Drop-Juggernaut infected with HMHVV, complete with Regeneration. Best of ALL THE WORLDS! :D
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Why not a cyberzombie juggernaut instead? All that natural armor, coated in yet more armor!
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Hardened Armor 12 is a bit low compared to how much spirits have in 5th edition. And with AP it doesn't even get the new "+half rating in hits" since it eliminates it all... Honestly I think the problem is Bull's Eye. ...It's broken, that's all I can say. Waaaay too many things are able to be overcome with starting gear using that attack, and at only a -4.
If I wanted it to actually be harder to kill... Hmm... I'd consider a houserule to make it so the free hits from Hardened Armor always apply at full regardless of AP, maybe? Though that could/would just make spirits hella busted.
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Mrm... I think I mainly want to cancel out Bull's Eye, without completely nerfing indirect spells. I forget, did it have protection against direct spells? I guess its Body and Willpower help greatly there. So 16 (18?) Hardened Armor, Regeneration and something against Bull's Eye...
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Time to dredge this up again, on topic.
For bounty hunting, intelligence gathering seems pretty important. But I'm not sure how to handle it.
What should my players begin knowing? What methods would allow them to find the target without me making it too easy (and making them wonder why KE didn't just send their own guys and thus not have to give a bounty)? What kind of legwork will their contacts be able to provide?
This is something I often have difficulty with. I'm never sure how to pace the players finding information about their objectives because I have no idea how difficult it should be or how many steps there should be.
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Police resources are limited, especially when it comes to deckers, and the law and extraterritoriality is also in the way. Shadowrunners can hack into protected systems and score information, then combine that. They can also talk to people who wouldn't talk to the cops, pick up on hearsay that the cops would never hear about.
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Hmm... That all works. If the target is an escaped mafia member, though, I'm not sure where they'd get the info then. Unless they have a contact who'd just already more or less know (which I'd like to avoid if I can).
Would this one have to be more of a "go to the area where he was missing and ask around"? I could probably GM that... Maybe.
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Canvassing, sure. Search his place for suggestions; talk to his friends for favorite vacation spots. The cabin in the woods is a classic. Also, in SR, if you have a drek-hot decker, get his SIN (or his fake SIN) from whomever and do a dive into the records. Look for buying patterns, that sort of thing.
The decker really is the best SR-modern detective.
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I don't know how any of that would play out. Especially the hacking part-- Looking into someone's records just by knowing their SIN is way beyond the current hacking rules, and if it's easy, that opens a huge can of worms.
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It's kind of a silly show, but honestly you might want to check out a couple episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter for flavor. They do actually show some of how they track people down.
As you suspected, it's a lot of human intelligence gathering. They question family, ex-girlfriends, co-workers, neighbors, or people in the local drug scene. When did they last see them? (Are they lying?) What vehicle was the person in? Who owns it, what's the license plate, can they track it? Where did they like to hang out? They'll stake it out.
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While keeping the ideas of the real world and how bounty hunting from previous posters, keep in mind that this is a cyberpunk dystopia. It would not be out of place to have to gun down some hombres, Old West style.
If you want to really mess with your Runner's moral compass, see how they react to the old "Double bounty for dead."
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Better - double bounty for alive, but turned over to someone who is not the authorities, with the sure and certain case that they'll be tortured. Think Mason Verger and Dr. Hannibal Lecter...