[ve4grm]

How do you go about making balanced encounters in SR5? Something that's challenging, but not going to steamroll the party?

I'm new to SR, so I started off running converted SR4 missions, in the hopes that that would teach me a bit about encounter balance. Ha! Nope.

Half the time, there are no numbers of enemies (you face a "group of Skraacha", for example), and I have no idea how many to use. Much of the rest of the time, numbers are included and they seem to be far too many. (We had one fight that listed 8 or 9 guards, the leader of the group, and 4 separate level 6 spirits. That seems like a lot for a beginning party.)

My group is a fair balance of rolls. Street Samurai/Tank, Covert Ops/Sniper, Drone Rigger, Combat Shaman, and Technomancer/Face. All but the Technomancer are pretty good in a fight, though the rigger is kind of squishy, and the shaman has Gremlins.

So how do I handle this?

[Michael Chandra]

Missions is balanced around parties of 6. The fight you're talking about is meant to be a really challenging one, requiring smart tactics from the Runners. There's a reason it offers multiple suggestions on how to make it easier on the players.

[ve4grm]

Ok, so with my party of 5, I should tone things down a bit. Gotcha. I didn't see it saying party of 6 anywhere.

That one, they actually got it done with a stealth assassination and a bear spirit as a distraction downstairs. There have been others along the same lines, though.

How about the random mook fights? What's good advice for sending mooks/grunts/gangers at a group of 5 like mine?

[Beaumis]

Since combat gives no experience in SR, there is little reason to have random mook fights in the first place. That being said, for a milk run fight that simply keeps the players happy shooting, an equal number of opponents with less than equal skill and equipment seems an easy solution.

[Michael Chandra]

He's talking about Missions, Beaumis, which tend to feature kinda-random mook fights from time to time.

The number is often hidden somewhere, if it isn't, just take equal to the PCs since they're not meant to be a big threat, just meant to shake things up.

[ve4grm]

Gotcha. Thanks, guys.