[Shane Granger]

I have a game going now, with three players, the only problem is despite my warnings none of them really put anything in to combat skills, There's a face and illusionist and a hacker, the hacker has some minor long gun skill  (2 with an agility of 4)   and the face has a 1 in throwing  with a 3 in agility  but other than that they're all about combat avoidance . I'm just worried there all going to get torn apart when they can't avoid combat any longer. They almost died fighting a pretty low level troll. now I'm afraid to really throw anything too heavy at them, i don't want any of them to die off so soon, they only had the characters for a couple sessions. I was thinking about making up an NPC to help them out, but I'd rather just leave it to them if I can..

So should I go tough love and throw them head first into a pile of trolls, just to open their eyes to how easy it is to get killed in this game, or cater more to their skills and hope they're lucky?

[The Cat]

I have a game going now, with three players, the only problem is despite my warnings none of them really put anything in to combat skills, There's a face and illusionist and a hacker, the hacker has some minor long gun skill  (2 with an agility of 4)   and the face has a 1 in throwing  with a 3 in agility  but other than that they're all about combat avoidance . I'm just worried there all going to get torn apart when they can't avoid combat any longer. They almost died fighting a pretty low level troll. now I'm afraid to really throw anything too heavy at them, i don't want any of them to die off so soon, they only had the characters for a couple sessions. I was thinking about making up an NPC to help them out, but I'd rather just leave it to them if I can..

So should I go tough love and throw them head first into a pile of trolls, just to open their eyes to how easy it is to get killed in this game, or cater more to their skills and hope they're lucky?

I would start off by askign them what kind of game they want.  if they want a low combat sneaky-sneaky game, forcing them into a pink mohawk shoot em up bang bang game will only cause trouble (to pick the two extremes).

Assuming they do want a bang-bang game but not to reroll characters, run a few infiltration missions with low combat to get them some karma to spend and let them get up to specs for combat.  If they want a bang-bang game but simply don't want to drop points into combat skills, you're kinda out of luck and if they don't listen to reason, you mayhave to make an example of someone.  At the least, put them into a serious combat situation with an easy escape route.  Don't make it too easy and stress it was luck they got away with their skins relatively intact.

[Walks Through Walls]

I would personally recommend against having an NPC especially just to save them in combat. It will most likely result in either them completely relying on the NPC which will set a bad president or they will resent the NPC taking over in combat. Neither one is a good situation for the longevity of the game.

It is good to cater to what the group can succeed at, but I wouldn't want to do it to the point where you loose some of the flavor of the game. In my opinion the gritty you can die from any fight and it is a violent world is a big part of this in Shadowrun.

I agree with the Cat it is important to be sure what the players want. Talk to them and let them know what you are thinking of as the type of game you want to run. If after this discussion you still need them to get some combat skills, and even a sneaky game will result in some combat in my opinion.
I see three possible ways to go about this. I'll put them below in the order I think would probably be preferable for me as a GM

1) Do an off the books fight with them vs some trolls or even just gangers to make sure they understand the combat rules and how bad off they really are. (you can tell them all day, but until they see it sometimes it just doesn't sink in) Then when done let the players rework their characters with your help to make them where they can survive combat. If they don't want to I wouldn't push it, but I would tell them don't complain if you die a violent death at some point.
2) (only if you decide against #1 if you do the first I would make this one third) Look to see how much edge each character has. Hopefully one if not all of them have more than 1 edge. If so hit them with a hard combat scene. If you would kill a character with multiple edge remind them they can burn a point of edge to survive.If they all go down then I would have an NPC with an agenda bail them out in exchange for a favor, and I'd make them do something nasty to repay the debt
3) Run a few adventures playing more to their strengths with a few light combat scenes or kill NPCs around them to try and encourage them to buy some combat type skills. Some times you just can't get everything you want or need at character creation and this will allow them to pick up the needed combat skills.

Hope all this helps and welcome to the fun of being a GM in the Shadowrun universe.

[Shane Granger]

Thanks for the tips , I really like the idea of a npc bailing them out, or making them burn a edge point. I think the next session I'm going to set up a stealthy run with a nice ambush somewhere in there. With a npc ready to come to the rescue if need be. Not to sure what he/she will ask them to do to return the favor though its gotta be nasty....