Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: raggedhalo on <11-21-11/0536:23>
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Hi folks,
I'm after some help again!
One of the players in my game* is playing an Adept (Invisible Way, but not with the Way of the Adept stuff) specialised in the Infiltration team role - stats under the spoiler, below. She's got about 40 Karma total and all players in my game start with 56BP of additional skills (Computer 2, Data Search 2, Dodge 2, Etiquette 2, Infiltration 2, Perception 2, and one of Blades, Clubs, Pistols, Thrown Weapons or Unarmed Combat at 2) and (Charisma + Intuition)x3 BP of extra Contacts. They all also got the 10-point SINner Negative Quality over and above the 35BP cap because of how the campaign started.
Metatype: Elf
Body 3
Agility 6
Reaction 3
Strength 4
Charisma 4
Intuition 4
Logic 4
Willpower 3
Essence 6
Magic 5
Initiative 7/1
Edge 3
Initiate Grade 1
Metamagic: Adept Centering
Positive Qualities
Adept
Astral Chameleon
Catlike
Double-Jointed
Natural Athlete
Negative Qualities
Bipolar
Poor Self-Control: Thrill Seeker
Scorched
Signature
SINner: criminal
Weak Immune System
Active Skills
Athletics Group 3
Computer 2
Data Search 2
Demolitions 4
Dodge 3
Escape Artist 2
Etiquette 2
Hardware 4 (5)
Locksmith 3 (4)
Perception 4
Software 2
Stealth Group 3
Tracking 3
Unarmed Combat 3
Knowledge Skills
Ares Macrotechnology 3
Civil Engineering 3
Competitive Gymnastics 3
Security Companies 3
Security Design 3
Security Procedures 3
Languages
English (N)
Japanese 3
Sperethiel 3
Contacts
Fence (5/3)
ShadowSEA (varies/2)
Spider (3/3)
Street Doc (3/2)
Adept Powers
Cloak 2
Gliding
Improved Ability: Hardware 1
Improved Ability: Locksmith 1
Improved Senses: Audio Dampening
Multi-Tasking
Nimble Fingers
Traceless Walk
Wall Running
The rest of the group consists of an elven technomancer rigger (Fire Support/Transportation), a human technomancer hacker (Matrix Support), and an ork voodoo magician (Close Combat/Fire Support). They're soon to be joined by a human Asatru magician (Investigation/Magical Support).
The problem we're having is two-fold, really:
1. Whenever we get into combat, she gets really bored; everyone else has multiple Initiative Passes, she only has one (the technomancers tend to be in VR; the rigger uses drones, of course, and the hacker attacks enemy commlinks, usually having prepared ahead of time)
2. She feels out-shone in her own area of expertise, because she believes that between drones and hacking the technomancers uncover more information and so on than she could ever hope to.
I'm aware that a lot of this is down to my approach as a GM and/or the players' approach to the situations they find themselves in, but I'd really appreciate some input on ways either to rejig the character (within the broad concept of "Parker from Leverage") or ways to change up the kinds of challenges they face in adventures to make sure there's a role for the Infiltration specialist without taking away from the technomancers' fun.
*: she's actually my girlfriend, which makes this sort of problem extra fun, as I'm sure you can imagine
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I'm aware that a lot of this is down to my approach as a GM and/or the players' approach to the situations they find themselves in, but I'd really appreciate some input on ways either to rejig the character (within the broad concept of "Parker from Leverage") or ways to change up the kinds of challenges they face in adventures to make sure there's a role for the Infiltration specialist without taking away from the technomancers' fun.
My suggestion is rework the powers to boost her IPs so she's able to keep up in combat. Not 100% familiar with Adepts, but that seems like the most reasonable solution would be to rework her powers so she can get the extra IPs to keep up with the other combatants.
As for the other problem... yeah, riggers and hackers have a substantial edge over flesh-and-blood infiltrators in information gathering, which is pretty much the way things work in the real world. Your best bet would be to create situations where a 'human touch' is needed. Perhaps places where they can't smuggle a drone in, but a person could bluff/con/bribe their way through security?
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I'm going to hate myself for saying this, but ... You have a houngan on the team. Have a loa ride her character, but let her RP its actions.
As for the outshining her in her own field, well, gee. HERF guns, EMP weapons, Faraday cages, hardwired networks, and all sorts of other things can easily neutralize the utility of the technomancers. There is also no shortage of active and passive magical security measures that can limit sorcery and spirits. The problem with drones and spirits is that drones can get hacked, and spirits can get banished.
The only matter there is that there is a line between making it inconvenient enough that the the adept has to go in without pissing off the other four players as they sit on their asses waiting for the end of "The GM's Girlfriend Show."
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I'm going to hate myself for saying this, but ... You have a houngan on the team.
Have a loa ride her character, but let her RP its actions.
Yep... that'd boost her IPs alright. 8)
Since it looks like it'd be a Guardian spirit, definitely want to add whatever ranged-weapon skill she has to the spirit's Optional Powers, and/or Conceal, depending on what Force the houngan wants to summon at.
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If reworking the character is an option then redoing the powers to add initiative passes would fix some of the problem.
As far as getting out shinned one thing to think about is a mission where they have to sneak in and steal something physical. The mage and technomancers would be assisting, but the infiltration specialist becomes the star as it is her skills that are needed the most.
In the game I run the infiltration specialist doesn't do much scout work at all she often sneaks in just prior to the main group to get an advantage or help neutralize some aspect of the security for the rest of the team.
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I'm pretty sure the downdraft from most flying drones is magnitudes more likely to disturb some sort of air/mass pressure sensor that an adept with Traceless Walk.
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Thanks for all of this!
I guess the other big thing is that their last couple of missions have involved B&E into places where people could legitimately be (a casino and a brothel). Making it more of a secure facility makes it harder to explain random people wandering about and easier to explain security stuff being hardwired or offline. Thus, needs a (meta)human touch.
A bit of a rejig to get at least a second IP could work, as might a discussion about people getting to be the best at what they do. But of course, that needs to be backed up by the numbers. Hmm.
As for getting her ridden by a Guardian Spirit or something, my worry with that is that it would essentially make the houngan's Channeling metamagic a waste of his Karma. And that would be very sad indeed. Definitely don't want to hurt everyone else's fun but do want to make sure that it's more fairly spread around the group. Hmm.
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In our group we have a similar problem. Our infiltration specialist has only 1 IP as well (having gone the bioware route instead of the cyber route for background purposes) and he's our secondary combat characer. In our last run we had to get a classical car out of an impound lot guarded by SWAT (or at least their French counterparts as it was in Paris). And while in combat the player had indeed to wait a lot while the others had multiple IPs (a cybered street sammie, an astrally projecting mage and a rigger in VR), he did have a lot of things to do.
In fact, while we were beating up guards (and running a motercycle into a concrete barrier), stunbolting spirits and mages and hacking cars and driving them into each other, he was in fact the one who sneaked up to the truck containing the car (and three more) and got it out of the compound.
So it's possible to include someone like that with only one IP and yes, she will have to wait from time to time, but by selecting the correct target she has to be included. In this example the classic car sat in a truck with an armour spell around the back and as it was a 1970's car, it didn't come with a node for the rigger to play with, so they had to get it out in the truck and take it out later.
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There's always combat drugs, too.
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There's always combat drugs, too.
And you don't have to play up the addiction rolls like I do in my game.... I've actually got the same character who has a composure test of 5 dice.... on a test of (1) to get addicted to alcohol and sex. Two different tests, he tested how often he could pass that test after he got addicted to alcohol and got a hit every time. Seems luck leaves him whenever he has to make the test for real... XD
And that folks is why you don't let your players buy hits.... XD
Anyways, combat drugs was a good suggestion :D
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(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b143/CanRay/Transmetropolitan-DrugsAreGoodForMe.gif)
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My current character is an adept infiltration specialist, which I've had a lot of fun playing. I'll make the following comments based more on game mechanics than color/flavor, which vary from person to person and game to game.
Focusing on the distribution of power points, Gliding and Wall Running are both stunningly expensive (1 point each) and are only useful in very specific circumstances.
Gliding allows you to run (Magic) meters over a surface that won't support the character's weight. That's 5 meters for our Magic 5 elf, but she can already make it 6 meters with a running jump without too much of a challenge. A running jump is Agility (6) + Gymnastics (3) + Natural Athlete (1) = 10 dice to make the jumping test. That will reliably produce 3 successes, which is enough to make it 6 meters. Even a standing jump will make it 3 meters with the same dice. There are very particular circumstances where Gliding would be better but none that are common enough to justify spending 20% of her power points on it.
Similarly, the math behind Wall Running doesn't really justify it. In this case it's a Strength (4) + Running (3 + 1) test with the hits being the number of meters the adept may climb. That means the adept here can run up 2 to 3 meters of wall, which is more than I can do but seems decidedly underwhelming. At 2 meters I would expect the adept to stick her arms above her head and just do a pull-up; at 3 meters I would have her put on a pair of gecko gloves and do it in about ten seconds. (7 climbing dice + 2 for gecko gloves - 4 if it's a sheer surface = rolling 5 as an Extended Test versus a threshold of 3, which is doable. Or just have her stand on someone's shoulders.) Wall Running might be nifty to gain a tactical advantage in the middle of a firefight, but in non-combat situations it's expensive and largely redundant with other skills.
Dropping those two powers frees up 2 power points. I personally wouldn't choose either of the Improved Ability powers (Hardware and Lockpick) because they cost finite power points (10% of her total) and can be largely replaced by spending 4 karma to buy specializations in those skills. Furthermore, these two skills can be readily boosted with a maglock passkey (for Hardware) and an Autopicker (for Lockpick), so the additional dice she's gaining from her adept powers is, for the most part, lost among other bonuses.
Voilą, that's 2.5 power points, which is enough to pick up Improved Reflexes at level 2. There are other places to pick up additional power points, such switching out Multi-Tasking (which, like the above powers, is very niche) or using the optional rule to pick up an extra power point at initiation (instead of Adept Centering, which I'm guessing goes unused more often than not). There are also geasa and The Way of the Adept qualities, both of which I would endorse.
Then there's the larger question of what the character intends to do with those extra initiative passes. Currently her only combat skill is Unarmed Combat, which means she has to get up close and personal with her Body 3. It can be fun to be all stealthy and flank your opponents while your teammates keep them pinned down, but she would really benefit from Pistols for those situations where punching someone in the face isn't a prudent option.
Beyond that, some of her qualities don't make sense from a dice optimization standpoint. Catlike and Natural Athlete both cost 10 BP. Those points would be better spent raising the Stealth and Athletics skill groups, respectively, which would in turn boost all of the underlying skills by 1 instead of the subset of skills that are affected by those qualities. If she's looking for flavor, consider taking the Mentor Spirit quality and allow her to benefit from the mentor spirit bonuses. Selecting Cat would give her the color from Catlike plus some nice dice bonuses and only costs half as much.
Hope that helps. I like my elven adept infiltration specialist and hope that your girlfriend will eventually like hers too.
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There are plenty of ways to deal with the situation, without reconfiguring the character.
1. Isolated nodes. For real super-secret stuff, corps will often put them on nodes completely cut off from the matrix at large, meaning you have to be on site to access the data, at a dedicated terminal.
2. Guards that can't be hacked. Paracritters and spirits are going to be problematic for hackers and drones to deal with. An infiltration specialist is geared to get past them.
3. Iceburgs. Super-secret nodes usually have some nasty black IC. And spiders using Black Hammer.
4. Hacking works both ways. Make the hackers/riggers worry about a spider pulling the same tricks on the team.
5. Area jammers. For a really secure place, nix matrix communication, except by hard lines. Added bonus, screws with your team's tacnet and communications, as well as making drones less useful.
6. Multiple targets. It may be cliche, but having a switch in one part of the building that opens the mechanical door in another part of the building is an excellent way to screw with people trying to infiltrate your system. Making those controls 'closed circuit' via hard lines in the walls means that people either have to make a lot of noise blowing a door, or they have to sneak someone into the room to handle opening the door.
7. Encourage running instead of fighting. Shadowrunners should NOT be getting in knock down drag out fights. They should be shooting long enough to get what they came for and get away. Covering fire for the infiltrator while they get the art piece out of the case while the guards are bearing down on them is a great way to keep the infiltration specialist involved.
Really, though, the best solution would be to do all this, and reconfigure the character slightly to get her at least a second IP.
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Building on the stuff from Tecumseh, you can also give an infiltration specialist the nerve strike power. I like the idea of someone sneaking up to a guard and then using the Vulcan nerve pinch to drop him. A shot of laes later and he won't remember you when he wakes up. Can be very useful for those situations where you can't make a noise and since it drops agility or reaction and is not resisted with body, it can be used to take out trolls.
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The infiltrator in our group only has the one IP but our group is odd in that so do most others. Also odd is that there is no uber combat specialist so his automatics and unarmed combat come across as quite cinematic relative to the other PCs.
He just plays the covert ops specialist straight out of SR4A. (2 of my players couldn't be bothered with creating from scratch so just lifted the pre-gens. They do okay.)
What I quite enjoyed though is the other use he's made for his character: he shadows NPCs after meets/encounters. Therefore he's at times the one to provide some good info on where Johnson ended up after the briefing and after the run, he finds out where the delivered McGuffin ends up, revealing strong hints as to the true nature of their employer and/or motivation behind the runs. Johnsons can be quite crafty about covering their tracks vs PC hackers and magicians. The infiltrator shines when the Johnson is incorrectly positive that s/he is not being tailed. This has helped the group on more than one occasion to decide one way or the other on a course of action and feel good about it.
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Thrill seeker for infiltrator is not a good choice. Maybe if you want to play some more adrenaline type of actions, well infiltration always depends on Cool resolve more than thrill action...
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Thrill seeker for infiltrator is not a good choice. Maybe if you want to play some more adrenaline type of actions, well infiltration always depends on Cool resolve more than thrill action...
Says who? Ask Sam about it, I am going to give to him for free :D
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Indeed. Just because you get the adrenaline jumping over the security lasers or bracing yourself on the ceiling as the guard goes past, doesn't mean you're not an infiltration specialist, or are any worse at it than the person who coldly plans their moves.
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Also, disguises, lots of disguises. Work with the technomancer to get fake info to waltz right into places. O.ce youre in, sneaking is needed to avoid internal security.
The vampire adept in my group stole a DocWagon ambulance by getting a Doc contract under a fake SIN and letting the party put him in dormancy through lack of air. DocWagon opens his trachea en route to the hospital, he wakes up and dices them in the first round, drops an EMP to kill the systems.
Your gf isnt going to dice anyone, but drugs could let her pull off the dead body disguise.
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Your gf isnt going to dice anyone, but drugs could let her pull off the dead body disguise.
Hey, they make Hand Razors and Cyberspurs for a reason. :P
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Your gf isnt going to dice anyone, but drugs could let her pull off the dead body disguise.
Hey, they make Hand Razors and Cyberspurs for a reason. :P
Yea but with one IP and a low dicepool she's not taking a DocWagon crew even with surprise actions.
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Indeed. Just because you get the adrenaline jumping over the security lasers or bracing yourself on the ceiling as the guard goes past, doesn't mean you're not an infiltration specialist, or are any worse at it than the person who coldly plans their moves.
Sure
See those laser beams
Whoa. So many colours. Lets just dance throught it...
OOps. What was it..Presure pad? Hell. Why didn`t I took better look first...
IMO Sneak is think-before-act strategy, and it for sure shows on lifespan of infiltration specialits ;)
Personaly...mz onlyz iniltration experience is from computer games...like DeusEx:HR... and gaining Ghost achievment for stealth play wasnt anything you would get by jumping around high...
Well
maybe I understand the Thrill seeker quality wrong, and usualy part of good roleplay for character with this quality is to make carefull observations before jumping in...
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Another option I don't see listed here so far-and forgive me if I missed it-is change the game. Instead of making her character more combat effective change the importance of combat to the game? the nice thing about RPG's is there's more than one way to skin a cat. Find more ways to engage her character-and I hate to use TV shows as a reference point but shows like Fire Fly, Burn Notice, The Wire and more are great ways to take a look at non traditional approaches to combat, at times, in a group.
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Check out Parker from the TNT show Leverage.
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Check out Parker from the TNT show Leverage.
"No stabbing, no stabbing, no stabbing..."
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Indeed. Just because you get the adrenaline jumping over the security lasers or bracing yourself on the ceiling as the guard goes past, doesn't mean you're not an infiltration specialist, or are any worse at it than the person who coldly plans their moves.
It doesn't mean you are any worse, only less useful.
Since seeking the thrill is by definition risky (=high chance of failure), they choose (Roleplaying!) not to take extra precautions that would make an infiltration easier/more safe. Risky actions tend to fail more often and make the infiltration specialist much less useful. I.e. if he fails on every third try, the target suddenly triples their defenses and makes it almost impossible to reach your goal from thereon...
Of course with good enough a composure pool, he might restrain himself from any risks during runs, to be a pure off-time thrill seeker ;-)
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Sure
See those laser beams
Whoa. So many colours. Lets just dance throught it...
OOps. What was it..Presure pad? Hell. Why didn`t I took better look first...
...which is what Traceless Walk is for ;-)
Don't forget that Thrillseeker doesn't mean idiot, it has a specific mechanical effect: "the character tends
to jump into risky situations without considering possible consequences and dangers. When confronted with an obviously risky proposition or dangerous situation, the character must make a successful Composure (2) Test to avoid blindly jumping into the thick of things." (pg. 107, Runner's Companion) It means she's well up for infiltrating stupidly dangerous places, but by and large her raw talent sees her through. Plus a Composure Threshold of 2 isn't very difficult, most of the time.
It does mean she tends to rush in when others would wait, but she's solid enough (especially since some rejigging of points to give her Invisible Way and all three level of Unseen Hands!) at what she does that she usually gets away with it. Usually.
+1 to the person who mentioned Parker from Leverage, given that said character was a big influence on this one ;-)
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There is more than just two types of sensors ;) but IMO traceless walk si a good argument. On the other side, I completely agree with Lethe, that jumping in risky situations means the character would be much less usefull for the team...from professional POV, I would like to remove such adrenaline junkie from my team ASAP to remove high risk levels even on the simple job. As an individual, character like this may become legend...if he lives long enought.
Its the same like the situaton that happes in my group...Magician with high social skills also takes the Bards Tongue quality (IMO SR3 or some other RPG, after RC was out we renamed it to Poor self control - Talkative or something like that) Bad thing is, that the character works also as a face for the team. Well, he worked...Second time his poor self controll leads to the disastrous consequences for the job and team, he was instantly executed by one of his teammates with silent agreement of others. At any other POV beautifull character. As a team member, unplayable. When your teammate becomes pain in the ass, and talking didnt help, get rid of him.
And as you talk about "Specific mechanical effect", I would penalize character on Karma awards if the roleplay is just sit and wait if I meet the thresshold...thrill seeker must be part of every step.
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And as you talk about "Specific mechanical effect", I would penalize character on Karma awards if the roleplay is just sit and wait if I meet the thresshold...thrill seeker must be part of every step.
Her roleplaying of it is absolutely fine. She makes the tests when necessary to see if she just jumps in, and roleplays being very antsy and impatient if she does succeed.
Incidentally, your story about straight-up murdering a "teammate" because of unprofessional behaviour makes me think that I really wouldn't enjoy playing at your table. If all you're interested in is the absolute "best"/most professional (by your definition) characters then where's the space for colour, fun and enjoyment at your table? Characters without flaws that might occasionally trip them up get pretty dull.
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In fact, that wasnt my doing. It was team`s doing.
Im almost less restrictive GM you can find. It was about character-player`s actions and team response. Who am I to policy them, until they hide the body well, I dont have a problem with such behaviour.
On the other side, I didnt had a problem with that characters tendency to tell everything to everyone...he just didnt realized that we are playing Shadowrun. And when he was about to get some info from mafia contacts, and the suituation ended up with mafia contacts exploiting his info completely without even need to intimidate, they just continued asking politely and nicely, and that ends up with target assasinated, team catched on crime scene "in flagranti" in perfect setup based o his info and another syndicate blamed for hiring the team, making them "wanted dead or alive" even when they was able to escape from ambush, well, I can see that some more-military-less-hippie thinking team members (like Oni who spent his childhood on Yomi island) simply eliminates the one responsible for that mess.
Still..good luck for the game, Thrill seeker needs it more than standard :)