[Neongelion]

I'm about to run a game, and today's session was everyone making characters. Now I'm new to 5th edition Shadowrun, and I've only been introduced to the setting and 4th edition system about a year ago, so my experience is not that much. The ork street samurai has an armor rating of 19, while he has an 18 to hit with blades inside his cyberarms. And the mystic adept/cat shaman not only has access to the invisibility spell, but he can also get Concealment from air spirits. The other combat specialist seems normal enough, I haven't looked at his sheet yet. The technomancer and other mage seem a bit more balanced.

But I'm most worried about this ork with 19 armor. How on earth are you supposed to hit someone with that much armor, combined with their body, to soak damage? I'm not familiar with 5th edition so I'm not sure if a 19 armor is "normal" or not, but it seems like anything short of every single bad guy having armor-piercing rounds with ridiculous skills in shooting will present a tangible threat to this character.

On one hand I want to challenge my players, but on the other I don't want to make things extremely difficult or ignore their strengths and play on their weaknesses (at least, not all the time). This ork player says he likes being like Wolverine and just gutting people with the knives in his cyberarms, so I'm going to give him plenty of opportunities to slice up baddies with ease. The shaman player clearly wants to be a sneaky dude, so I want to make him feel like being a very good sneaky dude. On the other hand I don't want everything to be a cakewalk.

The shaman, meanwhile, appears to seem like he is able to be invisible, all the time. I get that other magicians can see him in the astral, but when they kill the security mage, then it seems like they can basically waltz into a corporate facility and never be spotted.

So beyond discussing this with my players (which I plan on doing), what else should I do? Does this seem balanced, relatively speaking?

[RHat]

...  I'll just put it to you this way:  If a technomancer is the source of your notion of "balanced" from a combat (or, really, any) perspective, your notion desperately needs to be adjusted upwards.

[Neongelion]

Well again, I'm not very familiar with Shadowrun, and less so than 5th, so I think that's my purpose here.

[Shadowjack]

You'd be surprised how brutal this game can be. There can be a lot of "Hahaha this is easy, I'm stomping everyone!" moments. It gives you a sense of security and then BAM! - one lucky shot from a pistol and your hard to kill PC is nearly bleeding to death. It is good that players can build strong characters because the challenges they will face can be incredibly difficult. Remember too that combat is just one form of role playing, much like how the decker plays scenes in the matrix... it is all part of the story and the experience. A combat monster generally should kick ass in combat.

However, there are plenty of things you can do to keep him in check. APDS rounds or Fire based attacks are good options to consider. There are several attack spells that don't have to worry about Armor. Tasers are pretty nice too. That should be enough to get you started.

One last word of advice: Pace yourself. Don't worry too much about putting tremendous challenges forth before you have a good feel for the rules because it is very easy to overestimate what the PC's can handle. Also, there is a lot of luck involved and crazy things are simply going to happen

[RHat]

Well again, I'm not very familiar with Shadowrun, and less so than 5th, so I think that's my purpose here.

Well, to put it simply, 19 armour might seem high, but armour is just soak dice; having high armour doesn't make you invincible by any means, and that's not really that high of an armour number to begin with.  Invisibility doesn't mean you can't be detected (especially if it isn't the the Improved form), and Concealment is only a perception penalty.  Also, melee has pretty notable disadvantages.

You've got to keep in mind the swing on Shadowrun - anyone can be killed by anyone if the dice happen to go that way on one shot.

[Tarislar]

My group has a Troll w/ 30-ish soak dice.  So he's very good at being a "tank"  but let me tell you, even that won't save you forever when more & more guns are pointed at you.

The 19 Armor + Body is a good amount, but its still only 8-9 average hits, and if your doing 9-10ish damage at a time, well it will start to add up.  Especially when the low roll comes out & you get 3 hits on 29 dice.

I think the group will be easy to challenge.  Just start small, & then upgrade for the next encounter or adventure.  Don't TPK them just because you don't have "sizing opposition" down yet.
If they get through a couple fights too easy, add 25% more guys to the next one & then see how they do.  Often it won't take much to make a big difference.

[Medicineman]

hmmmm,
19 Pts armor is High but not the Tip of the Iceberg. I've got Chars with an Armor of 22 or 24 (with Helmet) thanks to Cyberarms.
But you can do more than just try to shoot at him. ever considered an Ambush with Fire,Electricity or a Pit/Trap ?
ever tried to use Gas or Drugs ?
And an Invisible Mage can still be noticed by Ultrasonic,Radar or the Nose of a Guarddog.
You should use all possibilities of a Hightech World and one that is used to Magic for the last 50+ Years

 

This ork player says he likes being like Wolverine and just gutting people with the knives in his cyberarms, so I'm going to give him plenty of opportunities to slice up baddies with ease.

thats cool , I like it. (The Player is limiting himself to close combat) Its a good Idea to give him something to Chop of
but how will he fare against a Roto-Drone with an S&S SMG ?  
Your shaman may be Invisible, but what will He do against Guarddogs, Goose or  a Ward ? 
Yeah SR can be tricky but its also Your Job as a GM to do some of the "tricks"

HeyaHeyaHeyaJa
Medicineman

[Namikaze]

I'd hit the 19 armor guy with poisons, gases, gel rounds, etc.  All of these are intended to take him out of combat.  Suppressive Fire is really useful as well.  Have him run into a room, and then have a drone open up with suppressive fire and watch him piss himself when he has no cover and has to lay prone and pray.

[Furious Trope]

I want you to grab your copy of the core book.

Go to page 405. Look at Hellhounds.

Laugh. Laugh and laugh.

Dual-natured, immune to fire, and they can breath fire for 10P w/ -5AP while rolling 8 dice for it. They can do this, on average, once a second (~3 initiative passes/combat turn).

A little astral perception for your invisible mage, A little magic fire to remind your high armor sammy there are many things to worry about. Hellhounds are widely used as guard dogs for important things because they're trainable, smart (logic 2, intuition 4), and coordinate well.

As a plus, while threatening, they're also not impossible to kill. With six body and 2 armor they're actually pretty easy targets if you're willing to kill a dog. Granted, a dog who can breathe fire. But still.

[Medicineman]

Aaaaand
Awakened Critters are F******* expensive to train and maintain
lots of Players will have quite some fun when they  know that killing the Beasts costs some 50.000 or 100.000 ¥ to a Megacorps.
So the GM has a challenge and a kind of double reward for the Players, when the Chars kill some of the Critters
Its just the same with Monowire.
I like GMs that use Monowire because it means more booty for my Chars


with a double Dance
Medicineman

[ZeConster]

I should probably point out that even with 4 hits, if you encounter enough halfway-competent guards, chances are good someone will pierce through that Invisibility spell, since Concealment doesn't apply to the roll made to resist the spell. So you'll have to cast at Force 5 or 6 or use Edge or use Reagents, and unless you've got good sneaking skills, you'll also have to cast a spell to make no noise, since cheap earbuds can add +3 to Perception (hearing), partly canceling out Concealment; and at that point, there's still guard dogs... Invisibility + Concealment is far from an unbeatable combo.

[RHat]

Also, there's one thing that's really fun with people who depend on Invisibility:  Rain.  The game usually takes place in Seattle, after all. 

[Namikaze]

I do think that I may have come up with the nastiest weapon in the game.  A dart or other injected ammunition type, filled with CFD-infected nanites in a suspension that keeps them active - blood for instance.  Shoot someone with this as a GM, and you've given the character (or what makes up a character's soul, personality, whatever) a timer until destruction.

I'm not sure that this would work on a guy with 19 points of armor, but what if he killed an infected someone up close and personal and got the blood anywhere near his skin.  *shudder*  I've been reading too much Stolen Souls fluff, and not enough of the crunch I'm sure.  But still, it's terrifying to think of something like that being available to GMs now.

[Neongelion]

Cool, every single one of you guys has definitely put things in perspective, thank you!

One other thing I should ask, is it normal to have your Edge attribute maxed out at character creation, especially when it comes to humans?

[TormDK]

Cool, every single one of you guys has definitely put things in perspective, thank you!

One other thing I should ask, is it normal to have your Edge attribute maxed out at character creation, especially when it comes to humans?

Sure, if you use your "B" on Metatype.