Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Sliver on <05-16-11/1719:03>
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In the campaign I have, one of my players has, unfortunately, created an overpowered melee-based character. We have one done one run in 4th edition (Just now switched over), and I allowed him to make the character on his own as we had been playing 3rd for a quite a while.
His melee weapon does base 10 damage, and he rolls 19 to hit. This is completely legitimate and broke no rules in the book.
The book says "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you shouldn't." I agree with this statement, and it's always been my policy when it comes to this, but he completely disagrees with him. The only way to get him to balance his character (Or preferably make another one, I absolutely hate this character), is to pull my power as a GM and make him switch. In which case he would bitch, like crazy. He would complain until I just gave in and let him do whatever. Alternatively, if I continued to put him in legitimate situations in which he cannot do anything else, he would call me out as trying to punish him and single him out.
Keep in mind, normally he's a great guy. It's just this character, and this incident. I'd rather not piss of my close friend, and I'm at an odds at what to do. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Have him post it here so we can take a look. I've built a fair number of characters and I'm not sure how he's gotten to that base damage. The pool I believe, but the damage seems a little high. Even after about 200 karma, one of the best melee fighters I've seen was only able to get to 7 or 8 as a base DV for his attacks.
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On the social issue, if the dude is a friend, just tell him that this character isn't the right one for the game. Maybe let him have his fun with it for a bit and then have him retire it and move on. Or, if he refuses, just make sure that the time it takes him to get from range to melee gives the others a chance to act. Suppressing fire can also help keep him pinned down so that ranged fighters, mages, hackers, etc. have to take out the NPC or drone doing the suppression before he can charge into melee and become a whirlwind of death once more.
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He MUST have a weakness, use it to challenge him and the team.
If he's super deadly but weak willed hit him with control thoughts or a suggestion spell/power
Or show him he's still disciple level, bring in a prime-level martial-arts adept/street-sam to beat him, teach him restraint and put him on path to rounding out his character.
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you can get high DV and dice in melee. But it's still melee. Shoot at him. From a few hundred meters away. From the sky with drones. He's a sitting duck there.
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I'm curious to how he receives 19 dice on a melee attack that does 10 DV damage. Do you have his statistics available?
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Have him post it here so we can take a look. I've built a fair number of characters and I'm not sure how he's gotten to that base damage. The pool I believe, but the damage seems a little high. Even after about 200 karma, one of the best melee fighters I've seen was only able to get to 7 or 8 as a base DV for his attacks.
I might have been mistaken, the DV is probably somewhere around 8. But the problem is the fact that he rolls on average +8 on the hit, making the DV 16. It's hard to not die from that one. Also, I once made an unarmed character that I never used that hit with 11. I combined critical strike and bone lacing 3. So, it's not too hard to do.
And to those who suggested that I throw characters that exploit his weakness at him, the problem is that 1) He'll bitch that I'm trying to shut him down, and 2) It's no fun that way, because everything I throw at him will either get completely raped or just destroy him.
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I'm curious to how he receives 19 dice on a melee attack that does 10 DV damage. Do you have his statistics available?
The DV is probably around 8, but the 19 is something I'm sure about
- Base rating of 7 (With Aptitude quality)
- +2 because of a specialization
- Weapon Foci, force 5
- Agility of 5
There, Dice pool of 19.
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Imp in his foci
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I'm sorry, what? Imp?
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I'm sorry, what? Imp?
I'll PM info I swear I didn't make it up but I can't find it now... I thought it was in Digital Grimoire
Running Wild!
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And to those who suggested that I throw characters that exploit his weakness at him, the problem is that 1) He'll bitch that I'm trying to shut him down, and 2) It's no fun that way, because everything I throw at him will either get completely raped or just destroy him.
How high is his Notoriety/PA? If he solves every one of his problems with physical violence, that should reflect upon his reputation in the shadows. If anyone's heard of him, there might just be a good chance they'd rather spend 100+ nuyen on ammo to pray, spray, and keep him away from the one place they know he's going to wreck them - in their faces. Word gets around quickly and people are going to adapt and plan accordingly.
It sounds like you're in a high level situation, so don't skimp on the opposition. Mages need to get out there and either hammer him with offensive magic or use spirits to distract and harass. Throw CS, tear gas, neurostun, anything that doesn't rely on a Success Test to take effect - those aren't items that should be ruled out. If bounty hunters are contracted to turn him in, consider narcoject darts or DMSO+Narcoject capsule rounds.
Otherwise, you may have shot yourself in the foot by letting him get such a high rating weapon focus. I personally wouldn't go higher than 3.
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Again, I'd get the feeling that he'd complain if I kept throwing unavoidable opposition at him. Because if they tried to shoot him, he'll lose. If they don't he'll win. It's boring, and he won't have any fun if he doesn't win.
Does it make any difference that we're using the decreased difficulty system, where 4, 5, and 6 are a success? It gives the opponents the same advantage, but maybe backing away from that will get rid of him staging the damage up to 16 and one-hitting everything.
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19 Dice under WHAT Circumstances EXACTLY?
Standing mano a mano in broad daylight on an empty street?
Or under Duress where there can be such things like a -8 to the dice pool.
Former? Completely legitimate, as that situation simply does not happen.
The latter?
Tell him to come here and teach us how to do that.
Furthermore:
No, the opposition does NOT get the same benefit from the 4/5/6 as success.
Because NUMBERS of successes are important. So if you have more dice that can come up as success AND you get success earlier, then you will get MUCH more successes . .
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Again, I'd get the feeling that he'd complain if I kept throwing unavoidable opposition at him. Because if they tried to shoot him, he'll lose. If they don't he'll win. It's boring, and he won't have any fun if he doesn't win.
I'm sorry. But if you keep giving him melee opposition instead of guys shooting at him, you're just giving a very very very bad reflection of the SR world. Every guard has a gun. every medium facility has drones with guns. every other gang member has a gun.
A weapon focus is usually for nasty things like security accompanying spirits.
If he made a SR char that dies the first time it comes to a gun fight (so once per run), he did it wrong. If this spoils his fun, than he actually managed to loose a game where usually there are no winners and loosers, because the goal is to have fun together.
Never bring a knife to a gun fight is as old as the invention of gunpowder.
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Your melee expert needs to realize that "winning" does not mean standing on top of the bloody corpses of his enemies in every run; that's going to earn him a major backlash. He should know that the logic of this scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anEuw8F8cpE) applies, and to ignore that is foolishness when guns are cheap and plentiful.
Make him rely on his secondary skills to get the job done. Consider the idea that blood and bodies will compromise a job, making the ability to subdue opposition with nonlethal/less-lethal options a necessity. If he doesn't have anything notable there, then he's built a one trick pony and should consider retiring the old character for a fresh start.
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Your melee expert needs to realize that "winning" does not mean standing on top of the bloody corpses of his enemies in every run; that's going to earn him a major backlash. He should know that the logic of this scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anEuw8F8cpE) applies, and to ignore that is foolishness when guns are cheap and plentiful.
Make him rely on his secondary skills to get the job done. Consider the idea that blood and bodies will compromise a job, making the ability to subdue opposition with nonlethal/less-lethal options a necessity. If he doesn't have anything notable there, then he's built a one trick pony and should consider retiring the old character for a fresh start.
In fact, I just read about the notoriety today, and will start implementing that. Hopefully I can knock his character down a few pegs by shoving some of that in the campaigns. Anyways, if the NPC's are shooting at him, the runs usually take place inside. He can simply run up to them after one shot (That he will probably end up dodging, since he has a dodge of like 15). and murder them in a single strike.
On another note, I not only hate his character in a gameplay sense, but the character itself is annoying. His last character was an ex-IRA weapons dealer, this one is an 18-year old schoolgirl samurai who speaks "weaboo" japanese. Shit.
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Bwahahahaahahaha!
You have a Troll in your Group! ^^
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In fact, I just read about the notoriety today, and will start implementing that. Hopefully I can knock his character down a few pegs by shoving some of that in the campaigns. Anyways, if the NPC's are shooting at him, the runs usually take place inside. He can simply run up to them after one shot (That he will probably end up dodging, since he has a dodge of like 15). and murder them in a single strike.
On another note, I not only hate his character in a gameplay sense, but the character itself is annoying. His last character was an ex-IRA weapons dealer, this one is an 18-year old schoolgirl samurai who speaks "weaboo" japanese. Shit.
A) How is he getting 15 dice to dodge firearms? You don't get to use your dodge/gymnastics skill vs Guns unless using Full Defense (which means he doesn't get to attack)
B) In combat, depending on his numpber of IP's, you can only move 15M per turn (approximately).
- With 2 IP's that means he moves 7m per action
- With 3IP's, it's 5m
- etc etc
We have some hard-core melee junkies in our group, but they are rightfully scared of 3-4 gangers at the end of the alley (say, 20m) with Uzi's. When you combine
- short wide bursts (-2 to dodging) with
- dodging multiple attacks (cumulative -1 for each additional attack) and
- a combat drug or two (for additional Ganger actions),
you can cut down pretty tough PC's before they can close into Melee range (especially if you add funky ammo like APDS or Ex-Ex... but that's probably not Ganger level)
Note: While your physad of doom is in melee combat, he/she takes some serious penalties to dodge other ranged attacks (-3 to defense pool from memory)... so if you spread your targets out, a few guys can take accrate potshots at him/her while your decoy NPC gets munched in melee...
C) You said you just switched over...I'm assuming it's the same SR3 character moved into SR4 (as I can't see how an entry-level PC begins with a F5 weapon focus). Regardless, there are several ways you can remove that focus from the equation:
- A spirit or projecting mage can deactivate the focus via Astral combat while sitting safely on the Astral plane. as the focus is dual natured, but the physad is not. Technically, an evil, evil mage/spirit could destroy that focus, but would prefer to deactivate it if they think they'll be able to keep it as loot afterwards...a F5 foci is awesome loot...
- Imps.... Running Wild Sourcebook, p.180. These little buggers infect a focus, and basically a force 5 Imp could render the focus magically useless at-will, unless the PC starts paying Karma to the imp for the privilege of using [i][b]IT'S[/b][/i] focus... This can be as annoying (or outright dangerous) as you, the GM, want to make it. And there is absolutely nothing the Physad can do about it except try to hire a mage to fix the issue...which is not easily remedied...Imps get banishment resistance and all sorts of defensive powers.... they SUCK!..perfect for annoying PC's ;)
D) Others have mentioned it, but it's important enough to say again: Use magic on them! SR4 phys-ads do not get the Counterspelling skill, so any decent mage can mess with a melee-physad six-ways from Sunday. Just for fun (/evil ;D ), use some Mental manipulations so he attacks his team-mates...just once.
E) Spirit combat: Yes yes, melee will munch the spirit, I heard you. No, ignore that and have a spirit with Ranged attacks (most elementals etc) hover 5m up, out of melee reach, and just harass this guy to death. Confusion powers, Innate Flamethrower spells etc
Note: Spirits have innate 3D movement, and it annoys me to tears when GM's just use spirits as melee fodder. There are so many cleverer ways to destroy runners via Spirit powers, especially from Range.
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A) How is he getting 15 dice to dodge firearms? You don't get to use your dodge/gymnastics skill vs Guns unless using Full Defense (which means he doesn't get to attack)
Combat Sense can give a starting character 6 dice. The shifter in our group has 15 dodge dice: 9 Reaction + 6 Combat Sense. It's even better for surprise, since the other guy in very unlikely to have 20 dice, meaning you get a free shot practically every combat.
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A) Oh, so you only get your reaction to dodge if you don't go on full defense? I wasn't aware of that
B) How do IP's factor into the equation? I thought your move speed each turn is based off of Agility
C) Nope, the players all wanted to make new characters. I saw nothing in the Foci section that limited the force of it. I had to limit him myself to his magic rating of 5.
D) I'm still in the middle of completely understanding the SR4 book, and none of my players use magic. I'm looking into it now.
E) Again, I'm still looking into spirits/sprites. I'll finish those when I'm done understanding the Matrix.
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A) How is he getting 15 dice to dodge firearms? You don't get to use your dodge/gymnastics skill vs Guns unless using Full Defense (which means he doesn't get to attack)
Combat Sense can give a starting character 6 dice. The shifter in our group has 15 dodge dice: 9 Reaction + 6 Combat Sense. It's even better for surprise, since the other guy in very unlikely to have 20 dice, meaning you get a free shot practically every combat.
I understand that it 'can' happen...our group's melee Physad has a reaction of 10 and a few ranks in combat sense for 13 dodge dice.
However when combining with multiple IP's and other powers, it's hard to get Max ranks in combat sense as well.
Our PA has:
- Improved Reflexes 3 (4PP)
- 3 Ranks of Combat Sense (1.5PP)
another 1.5PP of assorted powers (improved senses, nimble fingers, improved athletic skills etc)
A beginning Physad just can't have all this stuff at once:
A) Karma on a F5 focus (15 Karma/BP at character creation
B) Moneyon the focus (50k)
C) plus whatever house-rules and (hopefully) positive qualities were required to get an item with an availability of 25R)
so said Physad would be unlikely to also have a maxed out rank in anything ;)
Of course, if this is an Uber campaign, all such rules go out the window, and it's time to bring in either
- A hovering dragon with Blasting, poisonous or <insert elemental effect here>, as well as +2 reach so it can attack, but stay out of normal PC range.
- a Great Dragon in Melee combat with 30'ish dice in Melee and Twist Fate powers to both stop the PC using edge, and force the PC to reroll any successes
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A) Oh, so you only get your reaction to dodge if you don't go on full defense? I wasn't aware of that
B) How do IP's factor into the equation? I thought your move speed each turn is based off of Agility
C) Nope, the players all wanted to make new characters. I saw nothing in the Foci section that limited the force of it. I had to limit him myself to his magic rating of 5.
D) I'm still in the middle of completely understanding the SR4 book, and none of my players use magic. I'm looking into it now.
E) Again, I'm still looking into spirits/sprites. I'll finish those when I'm done understanding the Matrix.
A) Reaction + melee skill -or- Dodge -or- Gymnastics in melee combat, Reaction only in ranged combat.
B) All active combatants will get to act at least once in a combat turn before additional passes are examined. Unless a character explicitly has Reflex-boosting abilities, spells or cyberware/bioware then they will only have 1 initiative pass per turn. If your samurai girl doesn't have that feature then she is quite vulnerable to being singled out for a beating.
Regular movement speed is fixed. Humans move at a walk rate of 10 meters/turn, or 25 when running. If multiple IPs are effect then you divide the movement rate appropriately as it corresponds to the current pass. Imagine that if some gun-toting mooks are 15 meters away and the samurai girl runs at them, assuming she has four IPs, then she isn't going to be able to melee them until her third pass since she has only covered 12.5 meters at the second pass.
C) Starting new, a character should not be able to get a force 5 (Avail 25) weapon focus. At most a force 2 weapon foci (Avail 10) is admissible at character generation.
D) If they don't have a mage to back them up with counterspelling, then you can and should make them feel the hurt from this avenue.
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A) Oh, so you only get your reaction to dodge if you don't go on full defense? I wasn't aware of that
B) How do IP's factor into the equation? I thought your move speed each turn is based off of Agility
C) Nope, the players all wanted to make new characters. I saw nothing in the Foci section that limited the force of it. I had to limit him myself to his magic rating of 5.
D) I'm still in the middle of completely understanding the SR4 book, and none of my players use magic. I'm looking into it now.
E) Again, I'm still looking into spirits/sprites. I'll finish those when I'm done understanding the Matrix.
A) vs Ranged attacks (eg Firearms) that's correct. It's just Reaction (SR4A p.153)
B) Nope. SR4A p.149
C) The limit is in the Starting notes and Availability rules: PC's can only begin play with items of Availbility of 12 or lower (SR4A p.86). Weapon Foci have an availability of Force x 5 (SR4A p.348).
Note1: There is a background Positive Qualities (Restricted Gear from the Runner's Companion sourcebook) a PC can get to start with a single item of Availability 20, but even that limits Weapon Foci to Force 4.
Note2: A starting PC must spend BP to bond with the focus (equal to the Karma cost).. SR4A p.87
D) Magic is scary :) I love it...
E) Spirits are nothing to do with Sprites. Spirits are magical (and nothing to do with the matrix). Sprites are kind of like Matrix Spirits (OK, hardcore technomancers are going to flame me for that statement, but as a guideline, it's a far call! :P ) and unless you have a technomancer in the group, you can pretty much ignore Sprites for while.
Edit: Dammit! Ninja'ed for like the 3rd time today! Must.Type.Faster! Curse you, Operator! Curse youuuu!... but +1 'cause I seriously laughed....
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Edit: Dammit! Ninja'ed for like the 3rd time today! Must.Type.Faster! Curse you, Operator! Curse youuuu!... but +1 'cause I seriously laughed....
When I get to typing things, I'm a fiend. :)
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Edit: Dammit! Ninja'ed for like the 3rd time today! Must.Type.Faster! Curse you, Operator! Curse youuuu!... but +1 'cause I seriously laughed....
When I get to typing things, I'm a fiend. :)
Obviously :P My problem is I've had a few brain farts recently and have misquoted several rules in thread discussions.
Ergo for the last few days I've been looking up rules pages before posting...hence epic ninja'ing ...
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Okay, so this information is really quite helpful.
1. Take distance into account
2. Increase his notoriety so it would make sense why more of their opponents know of his tricks
3. Reduce his foci, I wasn't aware of the availability limit or the nuyen cost.
4. Keep him from rolling dodge with his reaction, this should allow me to actually hit him, making him a glass tank
5. Make the standard success rolls only include 5 and 6. This should help as well.
Shadowrun is my absolute favorite game. I like D&D, but I'd sit down and play Shadowrun every day if I could. I'm working on some new characters and campaigns, and I can see myself being very active on this forum. I'm so happy that the forum is still active and the game is still popular. I'd hate to see it end just when it starts getting good, you know?
Thanks to everyone that helped me out. Especially for bearing with me and my lack of knowledge considering my recent switch (After a lot of convincing towards the group)
On another note, I have two questions. 1) Why is it that a melee attack is a complex action? I mean, you can attack multiple targets, but you can't attack the same target twice in the same turn with a +2 modifier? 2) Do any of you guys know of a way to find some new players? The group is starting to spread thin, and I'm having a hard time finding new reliable people to play with.
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1) Why is it that a melee attack is a complex action? I mean, you can attack multiple targets, but you can't attack the same target twice in the same turn with a +2 modifier? This was debated recently in a thread of mine, it's partly assuming some combo to land a hit, partly balance, but annoying.
2) Do any of you guys know of a way to find some new players? The group is starting to spread thin, and I'm having a hard time finding new reliable people to play with. http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?board=20.0
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1) Why is it that a melee attack is a complex action? I mean, you can attack multiple targets, but you can't attack the same target twice in the same turn with a +2 modifier? This was debated recently in a thread of mine, it's partly assuming some combo to land a hit, partly balance, but annoying.
Actually, I much prefer SR4 melee combat rules.
- Also, if trying to disengage from Melee goon A, Goon A normally gets a free hit in, so you can still get multiple attacks, just not all as part of the same Complex action
And melee combinations are a matter of perspective... If you're fighting a Goon with a single initiative pass, and your PC has 2-3 (which is pretty standard for a Melee specialist)., then you can hit the goon 2-3 times before he can really do anything.... that's a nice combination straight out of the box.
And if you want to have some more instant combinations, just get some of the Maneuver's described in the arsenal sourcebook, such as:
- Follow-up - You hit the target, and can then use your next initiative pass as an immediate follow-up...that's a two-hit combination right there
- Sweep attack - Normally, if you attack to knockdown, it's just a pushover, no damage. With this maneuver it's the equivalent of always pushing them over then dropping the elbow or sinking the boot in.... as a single complex action that's a neat combination.
Note: If you're really nasty, you can use Sweep first, and then utilise Follow-up.... right there is an instant three hit combo leaving an opponent prone and in really bad shape...
IMHO, Melee combat has really improved under SR4 rules. It used to be an instand grinding machine, but now at least you need to put some BP/Karma into performing an insta-kill :)
And if you're an unarmed numpty (*cough* like me *cough*) if you have a spare IP you can cinematically risk punching someone without them automatically killing you as an instant counterattack... they get to laugh at your feeble attempt first, and THEN knock you into the next room....
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There's two things I can suggest to help as well.
One is pretty much what was said before about a low body count, but make it critical. For instance, the Johnson wants some embarrassing data destroyed from his own office. He's friendly with everyone there, including the security staff. He can give detailed info and assistance, but he won't pay if anyone is killed or permanently hurt.
The other thing you can do is just not try and challenge him. If it's just one player in the batch that's a combat monster, raising the challenge to meet him is making things hard for everyone else. Instead you can make enemies that are a challenge to the group as an average.
He'll squish them, sure. Before he starts combat count his dicepool. If he can buy enough hits to beat the opposition's defenses, don't even bother to look at his dice or your own. Just let him pick who he wants to kill and say he's dead. No anger, no passive aggression, just move on to the next player.
One: it's a time saver in combat, two: if he complains show him how statistically these guys can't survive a hit so you just don't want to waste time, three: he'll probably get bored with his own character since it becomes "I kill an orc." (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1098).
It's what I did. He toned it down with his next character.
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My suggestion would be to write him as Batman and just go with it. He seems to really love his character so just make him play it out. Once you just accept he will dominate average combatants he becomes David Carridine in Kung Fu. Fighting only gets you so far in adventures and if that's the part he likes to play let him do his part. Sometimes the adventure is going to bench him from the out set and he has to play fish out of water with that. Exorcising evil spirit out of a house, seducing info from opposition, deductive work of any kind, car chases, etc. Just because he has a strong nitche doesn't mean you can't let him have that one and let other PC's shine in others roles. I had a phys ad Triad assassinin my game who everyone thought was Batman after awhile. He was great at advancing the story so far and then the others could step up. His best stop was beating a flying invisible mage out of the air by using 3 frozen Snickers bars as projectiles in Grand Central Station. Mage lost his concentration and passed out on his bounce. Really fired up the crew and they had a awesome time that session.
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Well one of my players have an augmented troll character. He has 19 damage boxes and Military armor 18/16
Well five Igbo gangers, firing full automatics and +4 DV, rolling just 2 dices to hit, take him dow to 3 boxes and the rest of the team had to save his ass. Just zuse a bit of tactic...and if it doesnt help, Stun him fith Bolts, fry him with electricity etc. What you described is nothing close to indestructible character ;)
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How about give him exactly want he wants, a worthy opponent, a foil. Make him work hard to take the guy down. You don't want him to take him down in one runner. Make him work for it. make him use those secondary skills to find him and do leg work. give him the encouragement to round out his character. Make it something he will tell stories about for years.
there are things like damaging disarm from the martial arts, throwing and such.
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Someone who killed his father?
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Rivals are excellent. They bring out a lot of great stories in game. Also you can have an open challenger systemwith a character. Like the legendary gun fighter who keeps moving from town to town because new gunfighters keep showing up to challenge him. Bruce Lee was said to get challenged several times a day to fights while making movies. They would walk up and tap their foot three times on the ground and then he would step over to them and set them down. I hear it can get annoying to be persued in this manner.
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You mean???...now you dont...
Vash Stampede
:)
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Well, I think you're looking for the Gung Ho Guns. Man, it's been a while, but I still think that's one of the best group names I've ever heard.
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If a player has put a lot of character resources into being very good at something, let them be very good at it. If he wants to be insanely good at hand to hand combat, thats fine. And give him chances to use it. If thats what makes his character cool for him give him the chance to enjoy it.
The thing to do as well is to make sure there are plenty of issues that can not be solves by punching someone in the head. Ranged opponents, magical opponents, trolls that roll 22 dice to resist melee damage, etc. Also, put in social and technical challenges where punching the guy makes things worse instead of better. Runners need to figure out, and figure out fast, that no matter how good they are at something someone out there is better (Prime Runners) or that opposition can just bring so many more guys to the party is doesn't matter. You can be Bruce Lee's ghost with Wired Reflexs 14 and a dozen guys with machine guns is still a dozen guys with machine guns. If you build the adventures right playing smart and playing as a team will be more important than any one character. If a runner, or a whole runner team, uses violence as a first response rather than a last option then then escalating violence will be the inevitable result, and the opposition will usually have more resources in the long run. Being a successful runner is often about getting away without giving the target to much of a reason to hunt you down and take it personal. If you leave pile of corpses everywhere you go, they start to take it personal.
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Someone who killed his father?
Probably that 6 fingered man. He is into some shady stuff with the prince.
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Is he walking around with his fathers sword too?
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If a player has put a lot of character resources into being very good at something, let them be very good at it. If he wants to be insanely good at hand to hand combat, thats fine. And give him chances to use it. If thats what makes his character cool for him give him the chance to enjoy it.
The thing to do as well is to make sure there are plenty of issues that can not be solves by punching someone in the head. Ranged opponents, magical opponents, trolls that roll 22 dice to resist melee damage, etc. Also, put in social and technical challenges where punching the guy makes things worse instead of better. Runners need to figure out, and figure out fast, that no matter how good they are at something someone out there is better (Prime Runners) or that opposition can just bring so many more guys to the party is doesn't matter. You can be Bruce Lee's ghost with Wired Reflexs 14 and a dozen guys with machine guns is still a dozen guys with machine guns. If you build the adventures right playing smart and playing as a team will be more important than any one character. If a runner, or a whole runner team, uses violence as a first response rather than a last option then then escalating violence will be the inevitable result, and the opposition will usually have more resources in the long run. Being a successful runner is often about getting away without giving the target to much of a reason to hunt you down and take it personal. If you leave pile of corpses everywhere you go, they start to take it personal.
You could do worse for a signature than "Spam, Spam, Spam". Just saying.
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Well the spam, eggs and spam only has little bit of spam.
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Is he walking around with his fathers sword too?
That's the guy. He hangs out in the grove of the moaning tree with the creepy albino. That's why I stay in the theives forrest away from the drama.
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Well the spam, eggs and spam only has little bit of spam.
But he's Baron Spam! Spam, Spam, Spam! It brings out my inner Python. Of course I may be wandering off topic.
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Yeah, but the Prince is putting together a brute squad. There was a botched snatch and grab on the Princess.
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*Looks at the Troll* He is the brute squad!
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Anybody want...a cod?
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Yeah, but the Prince is putting together a brute squad. There was a botched snatch and grab on the Princess.
See that's the drama I am talking about. Kingdom was so much cooler when the Prince stayed out hunting and Miricle Max was hanging at the castle.
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Yeah, well, not like any of us could do anything about it. It'd take a good team of Runners, and a miracle.
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We have a Stepvan.
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Well, why didn't you list that among our assets in the first place?
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What I wouldn't give for a Holocost Cloak.
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I've got this Insulated Suit, will it do?
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Commenting on the original topic, I just put together a tank of a troll, who is also hideously nasty in melee combat. She's good at soaking damage, because that's what she's there for as a team role: to grab opposition's attention so the squishier mages, hacker, combat rigger, and face have a chance to not be blown away in combat. While being powerful in combat is rewarding, the goal is to enable the other players to strut their stuff.
On the other hand, I couldn't bring myself to completely max out this character's damage resist pool at chargen: I wanted her to have average attributes mentally, plus minimal competency in the Basic Shadowrunning Skills. Athletics, Influence, Stealth, Perception. If a character doesn't have a little bit of each of those skillsets, how can they survive the shadows?
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Defaulting and Edge ?? ;)
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Unless his enemy has studied his Aggripa...which I have.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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Commenting on the original topic, I just put together a tank of a troll, who is also hideously nasty in melee combat. She's good at soaking damage, because that's what she's there for as a team role: to grab opposition's attention so the squishier mages, hacker, combat rigger, and face have a chance to not be blown away in combat. While being powerful in combat is rewarding, the goal is to enable the other players to strut their stuff.
On the other hand, I couldn't bring myself to completely max out this character's damage resist pool at chargen: I wanted her to have average attributes mentally, plus minimal competency in the Basic Shadowrunning Skills. Athletics, Influence, Stealth, Perception. If a character doesn't have a little bit of each of those skillsets, how can they survive the shadows?
For some reason, the concept of stealthy Trolls always cracks me up.
"I've got the weirdest feeling that I'm being watched."
I should make a Troll Ninja Physical Adept.
SNEAK! SNEAK! SNEAK!
"What the @#$% was that?!"
SNEAK!
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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For some reason, the concept of stealthy Trolls always cracks me up.
"I've got the weirdest feeling that I'm being watched."
I should make a Troll Ninja Physical Adept.
SNEAK! SNEAK! SNEAK!
"What the @#$% was that?!"
SNEAK!
We have that dilemma at the moment... the groups' Ork Sam with Body 10'ish also has Stealth at 14'ish dice.....
I just find it hard to rationalise the massive guy packing 3 layers of armour and an LMG being stealthier than the Body 3, Agi 6 physad....
But, 'dem's da' mechanics!
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I'm a fairly big guy myself (Over six feet, over two hundred pounds), and have been described at times as being "Scary Quiet" in the way I move. And that's without training or any real natural ability.
Of course, I've been described as "Scary" for a variety of other reasons. Usually these are terms of endearment, however, as one person put it: "When the apocalypse happens, I'm hiding behind you."
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I'm a fairly big guy myself (Over six feet, over two hundred pounds), and have been described at times as being "Scary Quiet" in the way I move. And that's without training or any real natural ability.
Of course, I've been described as "Scary" for a variety of other reasons. Usually these are terms of endearment, however, as one person put it: "When the apocalypse happens, I'm hiding behind you."
I've found that people are normally afraid of the scary guy knows all about the different weapons. Who they should be afraid of is the quiet guy who knows his holsters.
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I'm a fairly big guy myself (Over six feet, over two hundred pounds), and have been described at times as being "Scary Quiet" in the way I move. And that's without training or any real natural ability.
Of course, I've been described as "Scary" for a variety of other reasons. Usually these are terms of endearment, however, as one person put it: "When the apocalypse happens, I'm hiding behind you."
I'm 6'2 and 205, and I've never considered myself a huge guy. Never really had anyone comment on it, honestly.
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I never said huge, just big. Folks usually assume that small guys are the sneaky ones, not true.
I used to be pretty lean in school as well, and was picked for basketball. Can't play a damned game well for the life of me. Used to be decent at baseball despite not being able to run well and having an oversized strike zone. 'Course, I bat lefty with a right-handed grip, which confuses people.
And I know a bit about holsters as well, but everything I know is book learning. Canadian, remember? Not much of a chance at practical experience unless a few laws change.
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And I know a bit about holsters as well, but everything I know is book learning. Canadian, remember? Not much of a chance at practical experience unless a few laws change.
Hey, I'm Canadian and I have a PAL. You have access to a fair amount of firearms with a restricted PAL (though you still cannot touch prohibited weapons).