[Ratboy]

New to the system, trying to prepare for GMing, and I'm wondering if the following impressions are correct:

1) Unless you are specialized & optimized (mix/maxed?), you really don't stand a chance.

2) An optimized magician is so deadly (esp. if a summoner who gets concealment from a spirit), there's not much that mundane opposition can do.  (E.g., with low-level direct spells using just a Willpower defense, it's nearly an autokill per IP without drain if a character is optimized for it.)  Perhaps with the defense degradation (-1 per attack), several opponents could overwhelm the magician, but that isn't really relevant with a summonted beast.

3) Characters start relatively powerful, but advance slowly from there.  E.g., hackers easily start with Rating 6 programs, while Rating 7 is so much more difficult to obtain. 

4) Hacking is rather tedious and slow.  Do GM's come up with "virtual worlds" for their nodes (see "Reality Filter") and describe them to players, or do you just do dice-rolling ("Okay, now I try to hack an admin account....")  I guess I need to keep reading Unwired, but I'm confused about how these networks exist...are the data files and everything in one node, or are there different nodes for CPU, data files, etc.?  I.e., if a player hacks in, does he get access to everything at once, by searching, or does he have to hack from node to node?

I guess that's it for now.  Are these impressions correct, or am I missing something?  I appreciate anyone who takes the time to respond, and if there's an FAQ for new GMs that addresses these things, please point me to it!   

Thanks!
Ratboy

[UmaroVI]

1&2) In general, at a medium to high level of optimization, combat is rocket tag. A reasonably good magician can drop one target per IP. A reasonably good street samurai can do the same. Offense is easier than defense and winning fights is generally about getting the drop on people/going first/ganking them. The converse here is that even a fairly optimized character is not capable of just laughing off moderately competent, well armed opponents; being a badder dude generally means you are better at going first and better at dropping people fast, not that you aren't vulnerable to being counterattacked.

Spirits do deserve special mention because they are kind of a balance problem, in that many problems can be solved simply by getting a sufficiently high force spirit to do it and this is something to pay attention to as a GM.

3) Yes.

4) Hacking is indeed a terrible clusterfuck, if that's what you're getting at.

[Ratboy]

In general, at a medium to high level of optimization, combat is rocket tag.

So, a starting party is evidently not a group of "individuals showing promise but just getting a start"... They are already better than veteran level in at least one skill.  Not what I generally picture for a starting party.

Spirits do deserve special mention because they are kind of a balance problem, in that many problems can be solved simply by getting a sufficiently high force spirit to do it and this is something to pay attention to as a GM.

Well, when a spirit can convey--to a starting character--Concealment that gives a -6 to Perception without even overcasting, it pretty much guarantees that element of surprise against opponents, but also to ongoing mayhem.  Seems like near-invulnerability for the character against most low-mid corporate security teams.  (I suppose they could try to attack using Blind Fire [good luck!], even if they don't see the summoner.)

SO....as you put it, "something to pay attention to as a GM".  Any recommendations on how to reasonably and fairly counter this problem?
 

3) Yes.

I like starting parties having the ability to do some things, not just sit there totally feeble.  But doesn't it get boring to have characters advance slowly?  I'm considering starting with 300 BP or perhaps capping at lower skill levels to start.  Is that common?  Unwise?

4) Hacking is indeed a terrible clusterfuck, if that's what you're getting at.

Glad it's not just me thinking that. 

I'm figuring I'll have one of those omnipowerful NPCs  come along and clear all of the Matrix issues for the party, if I can't come up with a better solution.   

Thank you, UmaroVI, for your help.  Your character generation assistance was invaluable to me, and I appreciate the GM advice.

[GiraffeShaman]

I'm figuring I'll have one of those omnipowerful NPCs   come along and clear all of the Matrix issues for the party, if I can't come up with a better solution.

There's a halway version of this gambit as well. For example, the party doesn't have a hacker. You give them an npc for the run from their fixer and they have to get him inside the corp site to do his thing. He gets the paydata but something happens to him or he sets off an alarm. Alternatively, you could roll it either in a abbreviated manner, even as much as shortening it to one single roll for success or failure of various degrees.

For example, in a recent 3rd ed. game I was a player in, we had to break a Johnson assigned Decker into a corp site, so that he could steal some data. Our infiltration went quite well due to most of us carrying no weapons and cyberware. However, once at the target server, the Decker mumbled something about having it, then went unconcious. I assensed him, determined little, then treat spelled him. Still unconcious and we then realize we are all morons who haven't played Shadowrun in a year and forgot to bring a single stim patch. So, the big difficulty of the run becomes getting this camatose Decker out alive. My stealthy giraffe was trying to steal a stim patch off security goons, but never quite managed it. Kinda a clusterf of a run.

Some players may not take kindly to automatic failures though for npcs or even partial failures. I had fun with it though.

[Cass100199]

Don't read into it. It's all on the group. If your group's average pool is 8-9, then you, as the gym, tailor their enemies to not whack them on the first go around. There is a lot of optimization on this board, but a lot of it is crossing out redundancy, I.E. dodge vs. gymnastics, snipers taking longarms and being one trick ponies vs. automatics and using battle rifles, etc.

If you cut the BP, you're shooting yourself in the foot. If you don't want to do the slow slog up in stats, upping the BP is the better bet.

[JustADude]

Don't read into it. It's all on the group. If your group's average pool is 8-9, then you, as the gym, tailor their enemies to not whack them on the first go around.

An addendum:

For in-universe justification, think of it like this: If they're not good enough to stand a reasonable chance of getting the job done, they're not going to get hired for the job. That means the opposition is going to be challenging, but not above their pay-grade, because the Johnson would be stupid to waste his time on someone that can't hack it.

[UmaroVI]

One thing to keep in mind is that, while SR has its strengths as an RPG system, a character generation system that naturally encourages balance between different characters isn't one of them. How optimized your party actually is will vary widely.

To address your specific points:

Generally speaking, a group with a decently optimized mage can just run roughshod over any place without magical security. A huge amount of things that would seem like problems just aren't. Need to assassinate someone without magical security? They can do absolutely nothing about your mage sitting on the astral spamming Summon, the spirits manifesting, and attacking. Need to infiltrate somewhere without magical security? Concealment, as you pointed out, is really good. Obviously, you can concoct contrived situations where this isn't true, but...

The basic answer here is that everywhere that is meant to keep shadowrunners out and be a challenge for your group to go into needs to have at least basic magical security: modest-force bound spirits on patrol (remember that any magic shows up to their Assensing) and wards make things much less silly.

If you want less powerful out-of-the-gate characters, restricting BP like that is a bad idea as it actually makes people by hyperspecialists, rather than lower-powered characters. A good way to get lower-powered starting characters is to use the German-erratad version of karma generation (see Runner's Companion, but Race cost = bp cost in karma, and attributes are 5x, not 3x), restrict the number of starting points, restrict Availability, restrict the maximum karma spent on nuyen, the maximum for starting skills, and the maximum Magic and Resonance for starting characters. It's important that you do all of these or you'll have issues like Mages being better than everyone else because they don't care about availability or nuyen, or some such problem.

[UmaroVI]

Specifically, my recommendations would be:
600 (rather than 750) karma
Give out free Knowledge sp rather than making people pay for them
Availability 8 (with the Restricted Gear quality allowing 14 rather than 20)
Max of one stat at one-below-natural-maximum, everything else must be at least two below natural maximum (ie, a human could have at most one 5, and the rest 4 or less).
Max of one skill at 5, or two at 4. Rest 3 or less
Max of 4 magic or resonance.
Maximum of 60 karma spent on nuyen (born rich allows 80)

[lurkeroutthere]

RE: Concealment

Absolutely scrupulously enforce the difference between concealment and invisability. Concealment makes you more difficult to see if a perception test would be called for, but it doesn't do jack for you if there's no reason why a perception test would be needed. While it is still overpowered this distinction keeps the game from being all concealment power all the time.

[Black]

I recently ran concealment as a visibility modifer in combat... is that wrong?

[lurkeroutthere]

It's not appropriate in my opinion, others may disagree.

[UmaroVI]

It definitely is not a visibility modifier. It gives a penalty to Perception and Assensing tests. Visibility modifiers also give penalties to perception tests, but Concealment doesn't provide a Visibility modifier.

It's also worth noting that Concealment only penalizes Perception. It does not penalize tests like the Rating x 2 test a millimeter wave detection system makes.

[Glyph]

One thing to remember about the power level is that it is not an absolute scale, but each individual player trying to find the right mix between specialization and generalization - more specifically, balancing being good at their main role and being able to function outside of that role without any glaring weaknesses.  The space on this continuum will vary by character concept.

A street samurai might want combat skill dice in the high teens, since combat skills are an opposed test with lots of potential negative modifiers.  But you can overspecialize even for a combat character.  A character with a dice pool in the 20's who can do nothing else is stuck in a rut.  Despite his skill, he will be little more than dumb muscle, sitting there bored while the other characters do legwork, interact with contacts, and infiltrate places where you can't go in guns blazing.  If the character has a slightly lower dice pool for combat, but can can spot an ambush, sneak up on someone, drive a getaway vehicle, interrogate someone, patch up a wounded teammate, and so on, then that character will probably get better, higher-paying jobs than the first character, even if he throws a few dice less for pistols.  So even for a more specialist build, you can be too specialized.

On the other hand, a lot of support skills don't need to be so high, since they don't suffer as many negative modifiers, and you often get an extended test to do them (and can do them during downtime, rather than when the pressure is on).  And some skills can't be as high, because not every skill has the same number of possible dice pool modifiers.  If someone is playing a private detective, they might have more average Attributes, a high perception, some data search, some stealth, some social abiity, and enough combat ability to fight off a security guard or too.  He isn't a powerhouse like the street samurai, but has more versatility.  Generalists, though, have to be careful not to spread themselves too thin.  If you do a lot of different things, try to do them moderately well.  Don't be nearly useless at everything; even generalists need some focus.

[raggedhalo]

If you use KarmaGen, check out the recent post Matthias made on these forums about how it's implemented in Hero Lab. 1000 Karma, max 625 on Attributes, Attributes cost (new rating x 5) Karma.

[Xzylvador]

1000 Karma?! That's pretty darned powerful if you ask me.
Even chars made with the recommended 750 are usually more powerful than a 400BP character.

Don't read into it. It's all on the group. If your group's average pool is 8-9, then you, as the gym, tailor their enemies to not whack them on the first go around.
<snip>
If you cut the BP, you're shooting yourself in the foot. If you don't want to do the slow slog up in stats, upping the BP is the better bet.

QFT.

Umaro's Archetypes are, in my opinion, probably a bit too optimized. For a group of new players and GM, I wouldn't recommend them. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot you can learn from those builds, but a lot of GM's don't want the beginning players to be better than NPC veterans/'elites', and they probably are.

I'll also second that cutting into the amount of BPs isn't really an answer to having more 'beginning' characters. You'll just end up with more heavily min-maxed ones; the kind of character that can kill 4 troll bodyguards before they notice they're under attack, but is incapable of using a computer or talking to a security guard without it ending in a fight.
Instead, talk to your players, explain that you don't want 20+ dicepools but you feel that ~12 in their "main skill" should be more then enough. Make sure to mention that this means you're building the game with with this in mind too! If you suddenly throw Force 9 Beast Spirits at them, they have every right to be upset about it. And explain to them that instead of cutting into their BP's, you want more 'rounded' characters. Encourage them to spend points in knowledge skills -more than just their free points- or buy some more contacts or grab skills that don't immediately seem to always be useful but simply fit the character. There's a lot of "Ex-army Spec-Ops" on this board with 25 dice for sniping and melee combat,  20 infiltration, but that apparently have never had any training in swimming, parachuting or diving and wouldn't know a grenade from a baby pineapple.