Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Shamie on <09-30-12/2249:20>
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Hello to all
Well i had my second game of SR4 a few hours ago and it was a dissaster thing was the first one was so good but after that game i found out i got some rules wrong, reading again i tried to implement the rules correctly and the game colapse.
First thing: Damage resistant test
At first i miss that rule so resolving combat was different lets say for example that Lu attacked Isao with a gun. 6p with AP-2
Lu rolls pistols + agility and got a 2 hits
ISao roll Rection and got a 1
So Lu got 1 Net hits that add to the weapon DV for a total of 7P so now we compare wether or not those 8P of DV surpass or not the Balistic armor of isao as he has 8 it doesn’t so isao receives 7 points of stun damage.
However for what I understood in the rules isao had to rolls a body + armor (isao, being an orc he has a +3, so lets said he had 8 in body) so that would mean isao would roll 16 dices to reduce damage. And this really mess our game as a enemies were no one would really get any damage done. And ork with armor was near unstoppable.
The second thing were wired reflex.
Are combat phases a turn inside the turn?
The problem with that was that the entire party had wired reflex rating 2 except the technomancer, wich was boring for him because it felt like he lost 2 turns in every turn.
I wanted to ask more experience DMs how do they handle this things, I felt wired reflex force everysingle enemy to either get it or its equivalents or be killed in the first turn as a character could fire 6 shots from a pistol in one turn with wired while he could only shot 2 shots.
And at the same time I felts like damage resistance test made any fight against the ork with body 8 useless. I put him against an NPC with unarmed combat of 15 and when the thought the NPC made a pretty good gapple she couldn’t do anything as the ork had 15 dices to reduce any net hits that had come from the attack every turn.
I was thinking of using my missinterpretation of the rules and remove wired reflex from the game because I don’t like how it force every PC and NPC to have it or be useless in combat but maybe im seing this in a wrong way.
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Okay, let's address these one at a time.
First off, yes it's body+armor to soak damage from a weapon. You roll whatever the armor type that's applicable to the attack (ballistic for projectile weapons, impact for melee) adjusted for any special effects of the weapon and/or ammo. So let's say that Isao has a Body of 8 and is wearing an armored jacket. He rolls 16 dice minus the number of -AP applied to the weapon. In this case, -1 AP, so he rolls 15 dice to soak 7 boxes of stun damage. If the damage of a weapon is greater than the armor of the target, it's physical damage.
Second, yes and no. Basically extra combat phases are sort of like extra turns, however you can't move more than your standard movement rate for the entire collection of combat phases. So say a human has three combat phases. He can move 30 meters total. it's up to the player how they chop up that movement. And the Technomancer should have been doing something in VR or AR, which owuld have brought htem "up to speed" with the rest of the party.
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Actually, it isn't up to the player under RAW how to divide movement. Without house rules you divide movement rates by the highest number of passes, so if a bunch of 1 IP people are fighting a 4 IP badass, everyone gets their movement cut to peanuts (which is why I house rule movement rates to per pass rather than per turn).
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It's not hard to kill anyone is shadowrun. Give that ork some Long/Full Bursts; he'll soon learn to not stand out in the open.
Honestly, the first thing guards should be doing when they see enemies who are obviously using Wired Reflexes or similar is call in backup. Give your 1 IP enemies a dose of cram or jazz, so they can keep up with the PCs. Basically, every character that expects combat should have access to 2 Initiative Passes (and your technomancer should be doing his own thing in the Matrix at 3 IPs, anyway). Even if your players all have 3 passes, that should only give them a moderate edge over their enemies (don't forget to give security guards the Home Ground quality, to get them more on par with your players).
Besides, the guards shooting at the characters shouldn't generally be their primary threat. The bigger threat is that they can put the facility on alert; activating turrets, drones, ect.
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Running over to slap the big "Call the po-po(-equivalent)" button.
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On the fist matter, I recommend considering the alternate rule explained on page 75 of the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary core rulebook - instead of rolling the Damage Resistance test, you simply subtract the armor value from the damage done. It keeps things moving pretty fast by cutting down on rolls, but it does make it a little harder to cause damage to heavily armored characters.
As for the idea of an indestructable Orc with 16 dice for damage resistance... a shot from a heavy pistol, an Ares Predator IV for example, has a minimum 6 damage value for a successful attack, meaning that a target would need around 18 dice to regularly shrug off the damage or have some seriously good luck with his dice. Wounds add up, even the little ones, as every 3 damage results in a wound penalty that drives their dice pools to avoid getting shot towards zero - and with multiple shots against them the defense drops as well, and burst fire or full-auto can reduce that defense even further.
Your "indestructable" Orc could end up having a character shooting and SMG at him in two short burst per Initiative Phase, which would mean his first Reaction roll would be at -2 (because of the wide burst rules) and his Reaction roll to avoid the second burst would be at -3 (2 penalty from wide burst + 1 penalty from being attacked more than once). If you have more than one shooter, you quickly have an Orc with no defense at all against incoming damage other than to roll Damage resistance.
For Initiative Passes, it seems like you are saying that you think a guy with 3 Initiative passes gets all 3 of them at the same time, and that is incorrect - everyone gets to take their turn once no matter how many initiative passes, then those that have 2 passes take another turn, then those with 3 passes take another turn, and so on all in order of their Initiative rolls.
If you had that right and still don't really like what it does (which I personally don't like it either), here is a house-rule I use that is basically lifted from Shadowrun 2nd Edition:
-Leave all the augmentations as they are in the book, and change nothing about the character sheet.
-When rolling initiative, instead of rolling dice equal to the initiative score of the character, roll a number of dice equal to the character's Initiative Passes and total the result (pip or number total, not number of hits).
-Add the character's Initiative Attribute to the total rolled. That is when the character takes their first action.
-Subtract 10 from each character's initiative roll, if they number is 1 or greater that character also acts on that initiative.
-Subtract 10 from each of those results, characters that still have a 1 or greater number act again on that initiative, repeat that process until no one has a number 1 or greater remaining or the character has a total of 4 times that they act.
-Re-roll each round.
To put that example in practice, let's say you have a wired guy with 3 Initiative Passes and an 11 Initiative score, a completely average guy with 1 Pass and a 6 Initiative Score, and 3 goons with 2 Passes and 8 for their Initiative score.
Their Rolls would be 3d6+11, 1d6+6, and 2d6+8 respectively. Let's say those rolls come out as 19 (2+2+4+11), 12 (6+6), and the 3 goons get 10 (1+1+8), 20 (6+6+8) and 15 (3+4+8), you would then have an initiative list that looks like this
20 - Goon 2
19 - Wired Guy
15 - Goon 3
12 - average Guy
10 - Goon 1 and Goon 2 for the 2nd time
9 - Wired Guy for the 2nd time
5 - Goon 3 for the 2nd time
2 - Average guy for the 2nd time
Then re-roll.
The rule makes it so that people without reflex boosters have a chance to act more often, and so that characters with maxed-out reflex boosters are not as likely to get as many actions - evening the playing field and making reflex boosting magic or augmentation less important overall.
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It's not hard to kill anyone is shadowrun. Give that ork some Long/Full Bursts; he'll soon learn to not stand out in the open.
Honestly, the first thing guards should be doing when they see enemies who are obviously using Wired Reflexes or similar is call in backup. Give your 1 IP enemies a dose of cram or jazz, so they can keep up with the PCs. Basically, every character that expects combat should have access to 2 Initiative Passes (and your technomancer should be doing his own thing in the Matrix at 3 IPs, anyway). Even if your players all have 3 passes, that should only give them a moderate edge over their enemies (don't forget to give security guards the Home Ground quality, to get them more on par with your players).
Besides, the guards shooting at the characters shouldn't generally be their primary threat. The bigger threat is that they can put the facility on alert; activating turrets, drones, ect.
actually it was the free taiwan mission they were on a boat againts the other runners in the mission. So it was a fight between shadowrunners.
Thing is it gave me the impresion that any combat build without wired reflex is useless, for example the bounty hunter in the Core doesnt have it and it seems to me that is a nice build but in a game where every character (ecxept technomancers and hackers, maybe) have wired reflex hes useless.
But that raises another question if everyone has wired reflex wouldnt be more simple if noone has them? If its something that gave such an inmense advantage to the point as you said that "any combat oriented character should have it" wouldnt be more simple if noone has it? or that wire reflex one gave you ONE more passes with no more rating?
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the bounty hunter in the Core doesnt have it and it seems to me that is a nice build
Most of the book sample characters are pretty terrible by the standards of most groups. Having additional IP is a major advantage in combat: that is why there is no excuse for for having less than 2 (remember how cheap cram/jazz are). A character with 3 IP is only slightly better than one with 2.
Also, remember that EVERYONE takes their first IP pass (meaning each character only gets one turn), then everyone with 2+ IP takes another pass, then everyone with 3+ IP takes another, and so on.
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On the fist matter, I recommend considering the alternate rule explained on page 75 of the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary core rulebook - instead of rolling the Damage Resistance test, you simply subtract the armor value from the damage done. It keeps things moving pretty fast by cutting down on rolls, but it does make it a little harder to cause damage to heavily armored characters.
As for the idea of an indestructable Orc with 16 dice for damage resistance... a shot from a heavy pistol, an Ares Predator IV for example, has a minimum 6 damage value for a successful attack, meaning that a target would need around 18 dice to regularly shrug off the damage or have some seriously good luck with his dice. Wounds add up, even the little ones, as every 3 damage results in a wound penalty that drives their dice pools to avoid getting shot towards zero - and with multiple shots against them the defense drops as well, and burst fire or full-auto can reduce that defense even further.
Your "indestructable" Orc could end up having a character shooting and SMG at him in two short burst per Initiative Phase, which would mean his first Reaction roll would be at -2 (because of the wide burst rules) and his Reaction roll to avoid the second burst would be at -3 (2 penalty from wide burst + 1 penalty from being attacked more than once). If you have more than one shooter, you quickly have an Orc with no defense at all against incoming damage other than to roll Damage resistance.
For Initiative Passes, it seems like you are saying that you think a guy with 3 Initiative passes gets all 3 of them at the same time, and that is incorrect - everyone gets to take their turn once no matter how many initiative passes, then those that have 2 passes take another turn, then those with 3 passes take another turn, and so on all in order of their Initiative rolls.
If you had that right and still don't really like what it does (which I personally don't like it either), here is a house-rule I use that is basically lifted from Shadowrun 2nd Edition:
-Leave all the augmentations as they are in the book, and change nothing about the character sheet.
-When rolling initiative, instead of rolling dice equal to the initiative score of the character, roll a number of dice equal to the character's Initiative Passes and total the result (pip or number total, not number of hits).
-Add the character's Initiative Attribute to the total rolled. That is when the character takes their first action.
-Subtract 10 from each character's initiative roll, if they number is 1 or greater that character also acts on that initiative.
-Subtract 10 from each of those results, characters that still have a 1 or greater number act again on that initiative, repeat that process until no one has a number 1 or greater remaining or the character has a total of 4 times that they act.
-Re-roll each round.
To put that example in practice, let's say you have a wired guy with 3 Initiative Passes and an 11 Initiative score, a completely average guy with 1 Pass and a 6 Initiative Score, and 3 goons with 2 Passes and 8 for their Initiative score.
Their Rolls would be 3d6+11, 1d6+6, and 2d6+8 respectively. Let's say those rolls come out as 19 (2+2+4+11), 12 (6+6), and the 3 goons get 10 (1+1+8), 20 (6+6+8) and 15 (3+4+8), you would then have an initiative list that looks like this
20 - Goon 2
19 - Wired Guy
15 - Goon 3
12 - average Guy
10 - Goon 1 and Goon 2 for the 2nd time
9 - Wired Guy for the 2nd time
5 - Goon 3 for the 2nd time
2 - Average guy for the 2nd time
Then re-roll.
The rule makes it so that people without reflex boosters have a chance to act more often, and so that characters with maxed-out reflex boosters are not as likely to get as many actions - evening the playing field and making reflex boosting magic or augmentation less important overall.
Oh i see, part of the problem was quantity. I think the Missions of SR have to be taken with a grain of salt. It should be at least 2 NPC enemies per character so in the case of the free taiwan it should have been 8 shadowrunners enemies instead of 4.
But that house rule is interesting, i may have to really memorize it before using it but sound interesting
Another house rule that got in my head was to put a -modifier for every IP for example: second IP you get a -2 then a -3 in your third IP then a -4 in your fourth IP for all actions
the bounty hunter in the Core doesnt have it and it seems to me that is a nice build
Most of the book sample characters are pretty terrible by the standards of most groups. Having additional IP is a major advantage in combat: that is why there is no excuse for for having less than 2 (remember how cheap cram/jazz are). A character with 3 IP is only slightly better than one with 2.
Also, remember that EVERYONE takes their first IP pass (meaning each character only gets one turn), then everyone with 2+ IP takes another pass, then everyone with 3+ IP takes another, and so on.
What is cram/jazz?
Is there a disadvantage to having 3 IPs? If having 3 IPs is only slightly better than one with 2 ips, then a character with 2 ips is slightly better than a character with 1 ip?
But my question remains, if wired reflex or its equivalents is a thing that only exist for it own sake. "you have to have it because every other character has it also" and every combat turn is 1 turn with at leas 2 ips would be more easy to just remove it from the game so every turn would have 1? or if you really want to have a quick character you could have a rating 1 wired reflex (and it equivalents) giving you 2 ips max and that would be the max IPs avaible in the world.
Because i read the argument that it was the "cool thing" about being a combat character or at least the edge that a non combatant loses for his choices but truth it, it isnt. A PC has wired Rating two or three and i can tell you every combative NPC that the DM puts out there is gonna have the same. So that character isnt a special flower with reflex.
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What is cram/jazz?
Is there a disadvantage to having 3 IPs? If having 3 IPs is only slightly better than one with 2 ips, then a character with 2 ips is slightly better than a character with 1 ip?
But my question remains, if wired reflex or its equivalents is a thing that only exist for it own sake. "you have to have it because every other character has it also" and every combat turn is 1 turn with at leas 2 ips would be more easy to just remove it from the game so every turn would have 1? or if you really want to have a quick character you could have a rating 1 wired reflex (and it equivalents) giving you 2 ips max.
Cram and jazz are combat drugs. Look 'em up (both Core and Arsenal have them) they're great for giving to NPCs. As to IP passes: I tend to find that having 1 more than an opponent is a mild advantage, having 2 higher is a very large advantage (since you now can Full Defend against their attacks, while still returning fire, amongst other things). Generally, 4 IPs are pretty rare though, so long as you make sure your enemies have 2 (which they have no reason not to) they shouldn't be vastly overwhelmed.
IP disadvantages? You either have to spend a significant amount of resources to get them, or else risk drug addiction. Power has a price is Shadowrun. Characters should have to make sacrifices to be powerful (invasive surgery, a lot of spent money, using part of their magic potential, ect.).
I'm not sure how powerful your team is, but SR Missions are built around low-powered teams. You do need to mod them up for well-built characters.
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I'm guessing your group hasn't tackled magic yet.... but yeah having mutliple IP's is very good to take out most enemies :D.
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What is cram/jazz?
Is there a disadvantage to having 3 IPs? If having 3 IPs is only slightly better than one with 2 ips, then a character with 2 ips is slightly better than a character with 1 ip?
But my question remains, if wired reflex or its equivalents is a thing that only exist for it own sake. "you have to have it because every other character has it also" and every combat turn is 1 turn with at leas 2 ips would be more easy to just remove it from the game so every turn would have 1? or if you really want to have a quick character you could have a rating 1 wired reflex (and it equivalents) giving you 2 ips max.
Cram and jazz are combat drugs. Look 'em up (both Core and Arsenal have them) they're great for giving to NPCs. As to IP passes: I tend to find that having 1 more than an opponent is a mild advantage, having 2 higher is a very large advantage (since you now can Full Defend against their attacks, while still returning fire, amongst other things). Generally, 4 IPs are pretty rare though, so long as you make sure your enemies have 2 (which they have no reason not to) they shouldn't be vastly overwhelmed.
IP disadvantages? You either have to spend a significant amount of resources to get them, or else risk drug addiction. Power has a price is Shadowrun. Characters should have to make sacrifices to be powerful (invasive surgery, a lot of spent money, using part of their magic potential, ect.).
I'm not sure how powerful your team is, but SR Missions are built around low-powered teams. You do need to mod them up for well-built characters.
True enough they were new pcs, the standar 400 BPs and they plunge throught them without breaking a sweat.
Well the significant amount of resource im gonna guess you referr to having IP3 or 4 as 2 IP you can get in Character creation and all my players got money to throw to the roof, 250000 nuyens to spent and they didnt spend it all and buy enough guns, ammo and gadget to conquer a small nation guerrilla style. and their pc had nice stats.
Finally i decided against removing wired reflex as it could happen some players may want to be quick cutter/shooters.
However im against the "all combatant have to have it or they died" so im between
a) 2IP is maximun IPs that there are (instead of 4) and maybe i let IP3 for those legendarys commandos as NPC enemies
b) in the second IP gives you a -2 to all actions.
in the third IP gives you a -4 to all actions.
in the four IP gives you a -6 to all actions.
plus a permanent addiction to use it
mild 2IP
moderate 3IP
severe 4IP
I'm guessing your group hasn't tackled magic yet.... but yeah having mutliple IP's is very good to take out most enemies :D.
in the last game they tackled magic and it wasnt a problem, 1 spell per turn easy to manage. Ips doesnt apply to magic at least in my games. because for one i dislike the idea of a firehose of fireballs and as i told them "magic needs concentration wich is kind of difficult when you are a espaztic squirrel on red bull"
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You can feel free to houserule it, but in my experience as a GM, houseruling something before you have gotten used to it is ill-advised (reactionary house-ruling more so). Honestly, most games work just fine without editing IP; the GM just has to learn how to deal with it (it isn't just new GMs that can get blindsided, believe me). Remember that character built under normal rules tend to be fairly powerful; if you want to give them a combat challenge, don't throw security guards/crappy runners at them. Let them have a taste of Red Samurai (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1inVewGSC55fWofK1ssF_aNHQHYX2TSBYqsAcqNF5j78/edit). That'll teach 'em how to fight with strategy (and will give your technomancer something important to do).
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Honestly, I think you hit the nail on the head:
If you are a combat character(as in a PROFESSIONAL combat character), you are going to have Wired Reflexes, Synaptic booster,
or Move-by-wire. The reason is: you are someone who engages in combat for a LIVING. Non-combat, support builds can get away with not having it, but if you are a professional killer, then you should have it in some form.
Security Guard Grunts should not have it, because...their job is to observe, seek cover, and report. They *SHOULD* have bio-monitors slaved to their commlinks so that when they are knocked out or die, it sends a report(if they die..it should AUTOMATICALLY trigger an Alert, or if more then one guard goes "to sleep" in close proximity, especially after an adrenaline
surge from entering into combat). The High Threat Response Teams should be the ones with Init boosters and heavy ordinance.
Something to think on is that your team of runners are NOT a bunch of mooks off the street. The characters as generated are
supposed to have had about a year experience in the Shadows. This means they are veterans, and are, if not professionals,
then at least familiar with the concepts of "If you are drawing weapons, something has gone wrong" and "The best way to avoid getting shot is to shoot first and more."
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Honestly, I think you hit the nail on the head:
If you are a combat character(as in a PROFESSIONAL combat character), you are going to have Wired Reflexes, Synaptic booster,
or Move-by-wire. The reason is: you are someone who engages in combat for a LIVING. Non-combat, support builds can get away with not having it, but if you are a professional killer, then you should have it in some form.
Security Guard Grunts should not have it, because...their job is to observe, seek cover, and report. They *SHOULD* have bio-monitors slaved to their commlinks so that when they are knocked out or die, it sends a report(if they die..it should AUTOMATICALLY trigger an Alert, or if more then one guard goes "to sleep" in close proximity, especially after an adrenaline
surge from entering into combat). The High Threat Response Teams should be the ones with Init boosters and heavy ordinance.
Something to think on is that your team of runners are NOT a bunch of mooks off the street. The characters as generated are
supposed to have had about a year experience in the Shadows. This means they are veterans, and are, if not professionals,
then at least familiar with the concepts of "If you are drawing weapons, something has gone wrong" and "The best way to avoid getting shot is to shoot first and more."
Thing was in the game they werent professional hitman persay
They were a pair of russian mobsters with some contacts and a smuggler all with wired reflex.
But thats the thing, i dont want my game to be about veterans. I want it to be about professional or barely professional runners. How many bps would that take 300?
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If you want your team to be much starter-runners, then yes. 300 BP is reasonable. Anything exotic gets shut down instantly, as it's pretty much impossible to do anything outside the typical metavariants with it, but you'll typically end up with a bunch of people who only have 1 or 2 IP's, and no armor or weapons worth a darn. There's really no room to spend any Karma on money when you only have 300, so you should plan on giving them equipment for free if you have them start like this.
However, your main first point seems to have been that the technomancer with only 1 IP seemed to feel left out from everyone. Keep in mind that technomancers have 3 IP when they go VR. If there wasn't anything for him to do there, that's not IP's fault. That's poor mission planning, or poor character creation. Picking up a drone or two in character creation and putting some guns on them would give him something to do with those 3 IP's right along side the rest of the party. If he didn't pick any up, and you gave him nothing to hack, then yes. He'll feel left out, because he was. However, as soon as matrix things start happening, he won't feel very effective if you cut down his 3 (and later potential for 5, yes technomancers can get 5 with some karma) IP's, because hacking is usually a multi-IP process. If he's never able to hack through a simple door faster then the street samurai is able to hack his way through it, he'll never feel like he will have a place.
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bear in mind that 300BP characters wont be very good at most things, so you'll have to scale difficulty back quite a bit, and maybe give your team a vehicle instead of having to have someone use valuable (and scarce!) BP on one.
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bear in mind that 300BP characters wont be very good at most things, so you'll have to scale difficulty back quite a bit, and maybe give your team a vehicle instead of having to have someone use valuable (and scarce!) BP on one.
Or just have them take auto-cabs everywhere. ;)
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hehe, i can just imagine trying to hail a cab outside a renraku facility as the alarm goes off and the response team are shooting at you :-)
cab-"please enter your destination"
runner-"anywhere, just effing drive!!"
cab-"destination not recognised, please retry"
runner *dead*
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Yeah IP can be hard to manage if your a new GM like me....I had my street sam ton and a rigger go thru a warehouse of 20 thugs like it was nothing.
One nice thing i found to do if you want to get a better feel of combat and if your players agree to help is put your team in a warehouse and do "Horde Mode" make round of encounters...your player get ammo and health back each round and the ennemy get tougher and more diverse each round..i know its a bit silly but it helped me alot
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Thing was in the game they werent professional hitman persay
They were a pair of russian mobsters with some contacts and a smuggler all with wired reflex.
But thats the thing, i dont want my game to be about veterans. I want it to be about professional or barely professional runners. How many bps would that take 300?
Karma system is actually better for making more versatile, but less powerful characters. Give them 550 (maybe 600) Karma instead. You might also ask the players to justify their choices (how did you learn that skill up to 6?; how did you pay for your synaptic boosters?).
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Since no one spoke to this:
The reason that 3 IPs is less of a boost over 2 than 2 is over 1 is this:
1 IP = 1 action per round
2 IP = 2 actions per round, a 100% increase! You move twice as many times as someone with only 1 IP!
2 IP = 2 actions
3 IP = 3 actions. That's only a 50% increase, you move 1.5 times as someone with only 2 IPs.
Similarly, you only act 33% more times that someone with 3 IPs if you have 4.
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Since no one spoke to this:
The reason that 3 IPs is less of a boost over 2 than 2 is over 1 is this:
1 IP = 1 action per round
2 IP = 2 actions per round, a 100% increase! You move twice as many times as someone with only 1 IP!
2 IP = 2 actions
3 IP = 3 actions. That's only a 50% increase, you move 1.5 times as someone with only 2 IPs.
Similarly, you only act 33% more times that someone with 3 IPs if you have 4.
33% 1v1 but in big encounter i can tell you it sucks to have 1 or 2 IP when the whole group and half the enemy had 3 IP..make it 2 teamates and 4 ennemy (so 3 runner vs 4 enemy) at 3 ip each..thats 18 action before its your turn again...combine that with how ouchy some things are (melee specialist with high DV ,multiple burst called shots ect) And your gonna fell that 3 IP is almost mandatory
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33% 1v1 but in big encounter i can tell you it sucks to have 1 or 2 IP when the whole group and half the enemy had 3 IP..make it 2 teamates and 4 ennemy (so 3 runner vs 4 enemy) at 3 ip each..thats 18 action before its your turn again...combine that with how ouchy some things are (melee specialist with high DV ,multiple burst called shots ect) And your gonna fell that 3 IP is almost mandatory
If your enemies both outnumber you and are more competent than you, what the hell are you doing trying to fight them?
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2 reasons
First You dont know what your opponent as for gear just by the looks of it ( ok some of it is obvious but wired reflex arent
Second You dont always pick your fight in shadowrun..sometimes you get ambushed, double crossed..or even opposition isint what intel told you sure sometime you can run but other times your stuck fighting for your life
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But thats the thing, i dont want my game to be about veterans. I want it to be about professional or barely professional runners. How many bps would that take 300?
As I said, the 400 is representing about a year in the shadows. I am more inclined to say 350 if you want them to be
skilled, but not screwed. 300 is the "We are just gangers!" level. One thing I noticed you mentioning was that they
used very little, over all, of their BP for gear. Were you watching the availability levels of what they were getting?
Were they getting things modded(which drives prices up real quick). Also, I would play up that it is easier to detect
cyber-ware then Bioware.
Russian Mobsters? as in Vory? Are you playing up the stuff about the Vory with them? Are they actually the Vory equivalent of "Made Men"? or are they wannabes? I can see a smuggler having Wired...I would also expect the smuggler to have a VCR, and kick ass command program, and an expensively modded vehicle. As for the Vory, well...what is their job? If they are soldiers for their bosses, out there fighting the other gangs, etc...I could see them going with Wired, as it is cheap and
easy(ish) to get compared to the better options like synaptic booster and move-by-wire.
Also....I see one thing you can easily do to counter the combat monkey-ness of them: throw some NON-COMBAT runs at them.
If they are so elite, though....then it calls for a) the creation of a long term storyline and b) The Sandwich.
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2 reasons
First You dont know what your opponent as for gear just by the looks of it ( ok some of it is obvious but wired reflex arent
Second You dont always pick your fight in shadowrun..sometimes you get ambushed, double crossed..or even opposition isint what intel told you sure sometime you can run but other times your stuck fighting for your life
Wired Reflexes are obvious in effect, in not appearance. What I meant by my previous question is: Why are you not attempting to flee the enemy that both outnumbers and outclasses you, once this becomes apparent?
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Not every players want to run away at the first sign of resistance..i mean i won fight while outnumbered..sometimes its for challenge ( love getting myself beat up to learn what my limits :P) sometimes some guy on your crew wanted some cheap BP and picked combat monster and im no one to drop my teamates now matter how dumb they are..other times the GM makes it so you cant walk away from it.
I was just explaining that IP 3 from wired reflex,improved reflex or increase reflex or what ever can get you some IP is nigh mendatory if you want to be effective..or just survive
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I was just explaining that IP 3 from wired reflex,improved reflex or increase reflex or what ever can get you some IP is nigh mendatory if you want to be effective..or just survive
It's really not though. Having more IP is very helpful, but the advantage isn't overwhelming unless your opponent has at least 2 more than you.
Like I said, there is no reason that anyone expecting combat should have only 1 IP. Drugs are cheap and plentiful. Only people who need to excel in combat (street sams, rapid response teams) need more IPs.
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Im not saying its tough to get..im saying he is right thats its mandatory to some extend. especially with numbers..just put some squishy runner..a technomancer or a face thats pro built for there roles (not optimal by some people standards i know but im setting examples here)
Just put 2 cops with some Cram..its nothing very threatening to combat runners but if they decide to hit your squishy (wich they might very do vs techno or mage) or heck even a combat runner street sam..if they get those 4 shots of stun baton.
So your right that IP isint threatening until your opponent has +2 over you but in team fight when people start focusing you really feel those +1 IP times 7
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If you want your team to be much starter-runners, then yes. 300 BP is reasonable. Anything exotic gets shut down instantly, as it's pretty much impossible to do anything outside the typical metavariants with it, but you'll typically end up with a bunch of people who only have 1 or 2 IP's, and no armor or weapons worth a darn. There's really no room to spend any Karma on money when you only have 300, so you should plan on giving them equipment for free if you have them start like this.
However, your main first point seems to have been that the technomancer with only 1 IP seemed to feel left out from everyone. Keep in mind that technomancers have 3 IP when they go VR. If there wasn't anything for him to do there, that's not IP's fault. That's poor mission planning, or poor character creation. Picking up a drone or two in character creation and putting some guns on them would give him something to do with those 3 IP's right along side the rest of the party. If he didn't pick any up, and you gave him nothing to hack, then yes. He'll feel left out, because he was. However, as soon as matrix things start happening, he won't feel very effective if you cut down his 3 (and later potential for 5, yes technomancers can get 5 with some karma) IP's, because hacking is usually a multi-IP process. If he's never able to hack through a simple door faster then the street samurai is able to hack his way through it, he'll never feel like he will have a place.
This is kind of my fault i dont quite understand something about the matrix. It said in the book that in order to use it you need a near device with connection, one example in the books was that in some deadzones the left a trail of toasters. But in the game they were in a boat in open sea and he wanted to hack the GPS and intruments of the other boat. How would that work? can he access the matrix from the boat? if not how does the GPS works them
Im not quite sure here but what metavariants are you talking about? because i only allows for the normal human, ork, troll, elf and dwarf. Besides the first thing they do is to get 50 bps in equipment 250,000 Nuyens and buy their stuff they never have had a lack of money.
hehe, i can just imagine trying to hail a cab outside a renraku facility as the alarm goes off and the response team are shooting at you :-)
cab-"please enter your destination"
runner-"anywhere, just effing drive!!"
cab-"destination not recognised, please retry"
runner *dead*
Well last week we had Vort the eco-friendly machete weilding troll adept who went everywhere in a bycicle and was very smug about it ;D
But thats the thing, i dont want my game to be about veterans. I want it to be about professional or barely professional runners. How many bps would that take 300?
As I said, the 400 is representing about a year in the shadows. I am more inclined to say 350 if you want them to be
skilled, but not screwed. 300 is the "We are just gangers!" level. One thing I noticed you mentioning was that they
used very little, over all, of their BP for gear. Were you watching the availability levels of what they were getting?
Were they getting things modded(which drives prices up real quick). Also, I would play up that it is easier to detect
cyber-ware then Bioware.
Russian Mobsters? as in Vory? Are you playing up the stuff about the Vory with them? Are they actually the Vory equivalent of "Made Men"? or are they wannabes? I can see a smuggler having Wired...I would also expect the smuggler to have a VCR, and kick ass command program, and an expensively modded vehicle. As for the Vory, well...what is their job? If they are soldiers for their bosses, out there fighting the other gangs, etc...I could see them going with Wired, as it is cheap and
easy(ish) to get compared to the better options like synaptic booster and move-by-wire.
Also....I see one thing you can easily do to counter the combat monkey-ness of them: throw some NON-COMBAT runs at them.
If they are so elite, though....then it calls for a) the creation of a long term storyline and b) The Sandwich.
Not, really they spent 50 bps in gear 250.000 nuyens and they brought all the augmentations the wanted with 6Rating and 12Availibility cap so they started with assault riffles with every single addon avaible, granades, wired reflex R2 etc etc. and they still got 10 or 20 bps left for extra skills
If understand correctly here at character creation you can only get items with Rating 6 or below and items with avaibilty 12 or bellow (no matter if it is 12F, 12R or 12)?
They were arms dealers russian mobters my problem was that every member of the party ended up with wired reflex because they expect some kind of combat, they werent really street samurais of commandos but all had to have them.
So there was no edge to have it in the end: Troll heavy bruisser 3IPs, sneaky ninja commando 3IPS, han solo smuggler 3IPS and so on. It felt like in the 2072 the whole world was populated by spastic shadowrunner on redbull.
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Just an aside, you can do more than 1 spell per turn... there are consequences but the mage if he really wants can throw four F6 Stun bolts.
The difference is with each successive casting it gets +1 Drain Value. That and you split your dice pool 4 ways. So If you have Spell casting 16 Dice then each roll only gets 4 dice with an average chance of a hit being 1.33 which is easy to resist.... so most people don't cast more then 2 because the dice pool gets very low especially with moddifers.
So first stun bolt is F6 / 2 = 3 DV*
Second F6 / 2 = 3 +1 DV*
Third F6 / 2 = 3 +2 DV*
Fourth F6 / 2 = 3 + 3 DV*
These drain value's however are resisted each time with the FULL resist drain pool. So the first few castings if you have 9 or so you'll only be taking on average 6S from all of this... While potentially hitting someone 4 times with about 7S (if they don't resist anything)
Extreme sckewed example but i'm at work here so xD sorry! Just thought I'd make you aware of that.
*Disclaimer = Not the real drain value just an example to show how you can do multiple castings.
Also Mages have good ways to give people more Initiative passes for those who do not have IP's of 1 or higher. If they get a few foci they can bind them to the foci to give other team members on the job improved IP's and improved Reaction. :D
Mage = teh awesome. xD
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Just an aside, you can do more than 1 spell per turn... there are consequences but the mage if he really wants can throw four F6 Stun bolts.
The difference is with each successive casting it gets +1 Drain Value. That and you split your dice pool 4 ways. So If you have Spell casting 16 Dice then each roll only gets 4 dice with an average chance of a hit being 1.33 which is easy to resist.... so most people don't cast more then 2 because the dice pool gets very low especially with moddifers.
So first stun bolt is F6 / 2 = 3 DV*
Second F6 / 2 = 3 +1 DV*
Third F6 / 2 = 3 +2 DV*
Fourth F6 / 2 = 3 + 3 DV*
These drain value's however are resisted each time with the FULL resist drain pool. So the first few castings if you have 9 or so you'll only be taking on average 6S from all of this... While potentially hitting someone 4 times with about 7S (if they don't resist anything)
Extreme sckewed example but i'm at work here so xD sorry! Just thought I'd make you aware of that.
*Disclaimer = Not the real drain value just an example to show how you can do multiple castings.
Also Mages have good ways to give people more Initiative passes for those who do not have IP's of 1 or higher. If they get a few foci they can bind them to the foci to give other team members on the job improved IP's and improved Reaction. :D
Mage = teh awesome. xD
actually it says in the Core that you only need to split you dice pool while casting spells in the same action phase would that applied to casting also during IPs?
If so that would also apply to shooting and melee wich would make a whole lot sense.
I mean like i said to a player who wanted three fire bolts in the same turns during IPs "so let me get this straigh you think you could muster the power of magic, a dicipline that requires concentration while acelerated and performing the appropiated spellcasting for three spells in 1 second each? i think not"
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Don't think of "You can do one per turn". Think of the fact that it's a complex action. You get one complex action per IP. You do not have to split dice casting only one spell per IP.
This is kind of my fault i dont quite understand something about the matrix. It said in the book that in order to use it you need a near device with connection, one example in the books was that in some deadzones the left a trail of toasters. But in the game they were in a boat in open sea and he wanted to hack the GPS and intruments of the other boat. How would that work? can he access the matrix from the boat? if not how does the GPS works them
Im not quite sure here but what metavariants are you talking about? because i only allows for the normal human, ork, troll, elf and dwarf. Besides the first thing they do is to get 50 bps in equipment 250,000 Nuyens and buy their stuff they never have had a lack of money.
You need to figure out what your technomancer's range is, then figure out the GPS's range. This is based on signal, and can be found on 222 SR4A. If the two are within mutual range, then they can communicate, and he can hack it.
In runners companion there are a slew of different things you can make a character. From variants on the typical 5, to shapeshifters, spirits, even AI.
Keep in mind, that you don't have to let every character convert 50 BP into nuyen. If it makes no sense for the type of character they're playing to have 250K worth of stuff, tell them they have to take less. Also, money not spent in character creation is lost, it does not transfer over, giving them funds. The only money they get is based on their Starting Money roll found on 88 SR4A. Another thing to keep in mind that their rating 2 wired reflexes eat up 3 essence. This makes them harder to heal, and limits the amount of implants they can get in the future. Anyone magical can also tell that their missing essence, and cybered, at least if they get enough hits on assensing. For their weapons, keep in mind that there are only so many modifications a weapon can hold, so they can't get it with everything. On top of that, open carrying a weapon is going to draw suspicion, and if they don't have high ranking fake permits, they could be in a world of trouble quite quickly if they get the cops eyes on them.
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Just an aside, you can do more than 1 spell per turn... there are consequences but the mage if he really wants can throw four F6 Stun bolts.
The difference is with each successive casting it gets +1 Drain Value. That and you split your dice pool 4 ways. So If you have Spell casting 16 Dice then each roll only gets 4 dice with an average chance of a hit being 1.33 which is easy to resist.... so most people don't cast more then 2 because the dice pool gets very low especially with moddifers.
So first stun bolt is F6 / 2 = 3 DV*
Second F6 / 2 = 3 +1 DV*
Third F6 / 2 = 3 +2 DV*
Fourth F6 / 2 = 3 + 3 DV*
These drain value's however are resisted each time with the FULL resist drain pool. So the first few castings if you have 9 or so you'll only be taking on average 6S from all of this... While potentially hitting someone 4 times with about 7S (if they don't resist anything)
Extreme sckewed example but i'm at work here so xD sorry! Just thought I'd make you aware of that.
*Disclaimer = Not the real drain value just an example to show how you can do multiple castings.
Also Mages have good ways to give people more Initiative passes for those who do not have IP's of 1 or higher. If they get a few foci they can bind them to the foci to give other team members on the job improved IP's and improved Reaction. :D
Mage = teh awesome. xD
actually it says in the Core that you only need to split you dice pool while casting spells in the same action phase would that applied to casting also during IPs?
If so that would also apply to shooting and melee wich would make a whole lot sense.
I mean like i said to a player who wanted three fire bolts in the same turns during IPs "so let me get this straigh you think you could muster the power of magic, a dicipline that requires concentration while acelerated and performing the appropiated spellcasting for three spells in 1 second each? i think not"
I think you may have miss understood.....
This example is taking into account the mage's first initiative pass.....
So i'll do an example of what a mage like mine might do.
Say two mooks come out of a door and are here to get me. I win initiative and I have 2 IP's and they have 1 IP.
Well I definately want to take at least one of them out figuring these ganger mooks have low will power and assuming I don't have Stun Ball and only Stun bolt I'm going to try and knock them out.
I don't want to overcast and take a good amount of drain this early in the adventure so I'm going to cast low.... I have some odd 16 dice to spell casting so I decided I'll make sure to take one out, hoping I can take whatever slugs the other one throws at me or that i can dodge it.
So I tell the DM I'm using my complex action to spell cast, and I'm going to do two F6 stun balls. In order to cast 2 spells, I have to split my 16 dice of spell casting. So I decide each spell will have 8. I get about 2 hits on both, and the mook only has 3 will power. Average of one so each Stun ball takes it's toll of 7S and 7S. Dropping that first guy out of commision.
Resist drain with a low force is an easy feat, for stun bolt I THINK the real code is 6F / 2 = 3 - 1 = 2 DV so I really probably don't even need to roll but I will for DM's sake of getting no hits. With 11 or so dice it's easily made. Now for the second spell I cast in the same round it's 6F / 2 = 3 - 1 = 2DV +1 for being an additional spell = 3DV easily made again but if I had done another one.... it'd be +2. Ect.
Mook 1 is out cold, and mook 2 gets his turn he fires at me possibly does some damage (hopefully I got a good reaction / armor to cancel out most of the damage and hopefully it's physical so I can just HEAL spell it later).
Next is IP 2 oh look I have IP 2 and mook doesn't. So I'm going to do the same thing since it was so effective on the last one. IP 2 I spell cast and cast 2 F6 stun balls splitting dice evenly between. Same result, that the mook goes down to stunbolts to the chest. I haven't killed them so I now have the choice whether I need to kill them or if I can just leave him there to wake up with a really bad headache.
As you can see in 1 Combat turn I casted 4 spells with only 2 IPs. Now most people won't split their dice pools to cast mulitple spells but if you have enough dice it's quite possible to do. If i had kept all my dice in 1 Stun bolt I would have gotten about 11S compared to 14S from two bolts just going by averages, but it would have been harder to resist. That mook either one could have gotten lucky and rolled all hits with my average of 2 not being high enough to affect him.
But yeah I just wanted to let you know you can cast multiple spells in one IP it just ADD's to the Drain....
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Really, I think the real issue would be that the players built for the type of game they wanted out of the whole deal, and he's just complaining about it because he wanted lower powered (and thus less enjoyable, IMO) than the players wanted.
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Really, I think the real issue would be that the players built for the type of game they wanted out of the whole deal, and he's just complaining about it because he wanted lower powered (and thus less enjoyable, IMO) than the players wanted.
Well balancing encounters is hard in shadowrun..at least for newbie GM..you dont have a challenge rating table like in DnD to tell you how to do it. I wish someone would do new "Professional" level thugs sheets rather then having to experiment with the game
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Well balancing encounters is hard in shadowrun..at least for newbie GM..you dont have a challenge rating table like in DnD to tell you how to do it. I wish someone would do new "Professional" level thugs sheets rather then having to experiment with the game
I can write some up for you, if you'd like.
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Well balancing encounters is hard in shadowrun..at least for newbie GM..you dont have a challenge rating table like in DnD to tell you how to do it. I wish someone would do new "Professional" level thugs sheets rather then having to experiment with the game
I can write some up for you, if you'd like.
Sure that would be nice
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I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with as well :D
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Don't think of "You can do one per turn". Think of the fact that it's a complex action. You get one complex action per IP. You do not have to split dice casting only one spell per IP.
This is kind of my fault i dont quite understand something about the matrix. It said in the book that in order to use it you need a near device with connection, one example in the books was that in some deadzones the left a trail of toasters. But in the game they were in a boat in open sea and he wanted to hack the GPS and intruments of the other boat. How would that work? can he access the matrix from the boat? if not how does the GPS works them
Im not quite sure here but what metavariants are you talking about? because i only allows for the normal human, ork, troll, elf and dwarf. Besides the first thing they do is to get 50 bps in equipment 250,000 Nuyens and buy their stuff they never have had a lack of money.
You need to figure out what your technomancer's range is, then figure out the GPS's range. This is based on signal, and can be found on 222 SR4A. If the two are within mutual range, then they can communicate, and he can hack it.
In runners companion there are a slew of different things you can make a character. From variants on the typical 5, to shapeshifters, spirits, even AI.
Keep in mind, that you don't have to let every character convert 50 BP into nuyen. If it makes no sense for the type of character they're playing to have 250K worth of stuff, tell them they have to take less. Also, money not spent in character creation is lost, it does not transfer over, giving them funds. The only money they get is based on their Starting Money roll found on 88 SR4A. Another thing to keep in mind that their rating 2 wired reflexes eat up 3 essence. This makes them harder to heal, and limits the amount of implants they can get in the future. Anyone magical can also tell that their missing essence, and cybered, at least if they get enough hits on assensing. For their weapons, keep in mind that there are only so many modifications a weapon can hold, so they can't get it with everything. On top of that, open carrying a weapon is going to draw suspicion, and if they don't have high ranking fake permits, they could be in a world of trouble quite quickly if they get the cops eyes on them.
Oh i see, but would the technomancer be able to do a google search from there conecting himself near the GPS on the boat.
He wanted to search all the public data from a guy they heard about so basically "googling: main villain" would that be possible near a gps in the middle of the sea?
Really, I think the real issue would be that the players built for the type of game they wanted out of the whole deal, and he's just complaining about it because he wanted lower powered (and thus less enjoyable, IMO) than the players wanted.
Well that is one interesting assumption you got there ::) , your insight of my group of players is trully deep its like you have been DM for them for the past 6 years. So when they told me afterwards they didnt like the aspecst i post before they were in secret telling me with their eyes "ignore our complains, please".
talking serious here, high powered games can be fun so does low powered. We prefer walking the curve from low powered to high powered. If i wanted a low powered game i would just put IP2 for everysingle character so everyone has them, that old lady in walking with a cane ip2, hobbo without a leg IP2 and just jam wired relfex on everything as the universal equalizer.
The issue was kinda resolve actually Character creation in SR4 isnt for trully "starting characters" but for veteran characters we dont like playing new games at that level
so i guess im gonna only allow bp 300 and Availibilty 8.Well balancing encounters is hard in shadowrun..at least for newbie GM..you dont have a challenge rating table like in DnD to tell you how to do it. I wish someone would do new "Professional" level thugs sheets rather then having to experiment with the game
I can write some up for you, if you'd like.
That would be great :D
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If you're close enough to access a gps (Which connects to satellites), you're close enough to access the entire Matrix. That gps satellite is in range of other satellites and so on, until you've got the entire world, pretty much.
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I can write some up for you, if you'd like.
Wrote up gangers and rent-a-cops so far. I'll write up beat cops and rapid response teams soon. If you guys want to see my take on any other mooks, let me know.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p44GV268vK25FjitxCvdThNO03hcPk9-f-Rn3cqI2w8/edit
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Well balancing encounters is hard in shadowrun..at least for newbie GM..you dont have a challenge rating table like in DnD to tell you how to do it. I wish someone would do new "Professional" level thugs sheets rather then having to experiment with the game
I can write some up for you, if you'd like.
Count me in, I would love it.
Thank you sonsaku for posting and to all who answered. I am also a new GM for Shadowrun and this topic has helped me out greatly. This coming Saturday is my 2nd game and it seems I too must take a closer look at how we did things in the first game. We forgot that an armor value greater than damage value causes stun. But that mistake really sped up combat lol :o
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We forgot that an armor value greater than damage value causes stun. But that mistake really sped up combat lol :o
Really? You had them fighting people who had bigger Stun Tracks then Physical Tracks? Or are you meaning that
all damage went to one track?(Though, it should have all been going to the stun track, anyway..what sort of psychopaths
start with lethal ammo and trying to give the Corp incentive to hunt them down...)
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We forgot that an armor value greater than damage value causes stun. But that mistake really sped up combat lol :o
Really? You had them fighting people who had bigger Stun Tracks then Physical Tracks? Or are you meaning that
all damage went to one track?(Though, it should have all been going to the stun track, anyway..what sort of psychopaths
start with lethal ammo and trying to give the Corp incentive to hunt them down...)
I often only use one damage track for no-name grunts like security guards and go-gangers. Its easier.
That said, I have recently started using Herolab to run combats and that allows me to easily use both damage tracks etc.
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We forgot that an armor value greater than damage value causes stun. But that mistake really sped up combat lol :o
Really? You had them fighting people who had bigger Stun Tracks then Physical Tracks? Or are you meaning that
all damage went to one track?(Though, it should have all been going to the stun track, anyway..what sort of psychopaths
start with lethal ammo and trying to give the Corp incentive to hunt them down...)
Also you might want to note that badguys in this game are supposed to have only 1 track of health. So 8 boxes stun or physical. I started out doing both tracks for enemies but that just slows down the game keeping track of both. I remember reading it in the rules somewhere I'm sure someone could qoute it who has the books handy.
It gives the players another edge, and the bad guys less of one which in the end the players are the star of the show so why not give it to them eh?
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Speaking to the issue of having wired reflexes and the such take over combat, thats what it is supposed to do. The trick is to also highlight the other situations when those reflexes are useless. They can't do anything other than that, so when that character cant pull out his gun and shoot, he will be as useless as the techno mancer feels. Also, there is always the great equalizer. There is always some on better. One trick i have used in numerous rpg's across all systems, is when you have a pc group that is just unstoappable, use their characters as a basis for their main enemies. That way, you can boost up the villian to be just a hair over the pc's. Often its the enemy most like ourselves we have trouble defeating. There have to be radiant consequences for every choice the players make. If they offed a mob mook, someone is goign to want to know who. Murder is still a crime, and the authorities still are supposed to care, unless they have been bought off which makes for alot more fun when the mob and crooked cops get together and decide they can't have any more of mr wired reflexes killing their employees. Play dirty pool, its the name of the game!!!
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My, we have a lot of thread necromancy on these forums.
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My, we have a lot of thread necromancy on these forums.
It was like a week. That ain't exactly the end of the world.
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It was like a week. That ain't exactly the end of the world.
Never said it was, just making an observation.
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I personally think the game runs best when everyone plays within one IP of everyone else, because the OP is right that it can be unfun when you go once but everybody else at the table goes three times. Really it's worse because most every IP the sams have two shots! If the technomancer has a weaponized drone that he can control, he'll get two or three IPs to play in, so that should help solve that issue.
I'll admit to rarely seeing the invincibility problem except with spirits (particularly of the possession tradition variety). Even the guy who rolls 20 dice for damage resistance can get taken down by concentrated fire bursts in a round or three because of the -1 per additional attack rule.
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I personally think the game runs best when everyone plays within one IP of everyone else, because the OP is right that it can be unfun when you go once but everybody else at the table goes three times. Really it's worse because most every IP the sams have two shots! If the technomancer has a weaponized drone that he can control, he'll get two or three IPs to play in, so that should help solve that issue.
I'll admit to rarely seeing the invincibility problem except with spirits (particularly of the possession tradition variety). Even the guy who rolls 20 dice for damage resistance can get taken down by concentrated fire bursts in a round or three because of the -1 per additional attack rule.
Just remember when the person has their next action that -1 penalty resets so unless you have tons of people firing at said person they'll have that dice pool back in no time.
Also tell that to my ex-military troll with ~ 20 armor and 15 body :P and 15 Stun track connected to his 21 physical track with pain editor(i think that's what it is). :D
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am so very much stealing the "defend against the horde" idea for getting my players used to combat in SR.
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I personally think the game runs best when everyone plays within one IP of everyone else, because the OP is right that it can be unfun when you go once but everybody else at the table goes three times. Really it's worse because most every IP the sams have two shots! If the technomancer has a weaponized drone that he can control, he'll get two or three IPs to play in, so that should help solve that issue.
I'll admit to rarely seeing the invincibility problem except with spirits (particularly of the possession tradition variety). Even the guy who rolls 20 dice for damage resistance can get taken down by concentrated fire bursts in a round or three because of the -1 per additional attack rule.
Just remember when the person has their next action that -1 penalty resets so unless you have tons of people firing at said person they'll have that dice pool back in no time.
Also tell that to my ex-military troll with ~ 20 armor and 15 body :P and 15 Stun track connected to his 21 physical track with pain editor(i think that's what it is). :D
Not to mention that the penalty is to the test to avoid being hit, not to the damage resistance. House ruling otherwise is just asking for a TPK.
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Not that it matters but i'm home now looking at chummer and figured i'd mention his measly 5 reaction on top of the other dice, as well as the -1DV. (can't remember if that's from cyberware or being a troll... o.O' man i need to play shadowrun again)
Edit: I just noticed and to top it all off he has 5 edge.... o.O' man I want to play him again :D Thanks for the topic guys! maybe I can convince my group to play this weekend!