How do you, as a GM, created balanced combat encounters for your players. I've tried searching but haven't found anything and figure there should be some kind of guide for this thing. So, discuss.
ps: Also, I'm new here. Found this game while dicking around at a hobby store with friends, bought it on an impulse buy, realized it has one of the most original RP settings I've seen in a long while.
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Creating balanced encounters
Tue, 2011-09-13 16:48
#1
CyborkMan
Creating balanced encounters
Tue, 2011-09-13 17:49
#2
Rada Ion
Re: Creating balanced encounters
I write scenes like this depending on the story at hand, if the players will run afoul of some elite Hypercorp operators with high end weaponry maybe I will have some support in reserve for them, or at least something to equalize the fight (heavy weapons, some kind of geographical leverage), or the scene could just be the players are out numbered and need to know when to surrender. I would say I usually just group NPC's into tiers for general use in a combat scene, then construct the group according to that template varying my numbers to achieve what I want the fight to be like on a threat level. So I have a player group storming a hypercorp facility on some barren forgotten asteroid hab in the middle of the Kuiper Belt. They don't have any support or backup of any kind, so maybe that should infirm me that if I want them to survive the fire fight they should have a reasonable chance of overcoming the first group of security (or there is only one wave of security and they all respond to the threat).
So I have three players with moderate combat skills, I think what I would do is have a range of NPC combatants for this combat, make one of them an elite ex-Medusa's Shield soldier, One is moderately skilled and two more with pretty basic skills (recruit level I guess you could say). That is my estimation of a good fight, that will be challenging and possibly might have a good chance of success if the players use their heads, skills, Muses and some TacNet software to find and grab a tactical advantage. In another fight I might make more bullet catcher recruit level NPCs, or more elite level if I want the fight to be really challenging. I think for me it has allot to do with the story first and foremost. If there is a team of elite level security guarding a hypercorp facility with ore at stake than the facility in the first example, I would beef the team up a bit. It is what it is. If it is a random street brawl maybe I would consider a little more latitude with what the combatants could be like since it could be very random. For me it is always directly related to the story at hand unless you wnat some randomness in your games, in which case you could generate some random encounter tables I guess.
Tue, 2011-09-13 23:27
#3
jackgraham
Re: Creating balanced encounters
This might not be the answer you want, but, here's the deal: EP requires some pretty advanced GMing skills when it comes to balancing encounters.
The key is to be very aware of the capabilities of the PC team. This becomes especially challenging if you have a group that's a mix between people who min/max for combat readiness and those who don't so much.
Maxims:
1. Know which of the PCs in your team can take punishment. Some of them will stack their armor like whoa and pick morphs with higher DUR stats than the norm.
2. Know which PCs have high damage output.
3. Consider how different damage types interact with the enemies you throw at them. (E.g., if they're not packing any AOE weapons, swarms can potentially murder them with impunity).
4. Know the PCs' Fray skills.
5. Be aware of how wound penalties (and any penalties from previously-accrued mental Trauma) will affect their skills.
Make sure you as GM have copies of the PCs' character sheets. With the wide range of customization EP affords players comes wide variability in the defensive capabilities and damage output of PCs created with the same amount of points.
From there, you have another important call to make: how you run combat. One approach is to treat the most combat-capable PCs as tanks and have the bad guys hit them harder, even when it might not make tactical sense for their adversaries. The other is to make the player 100% responsible for their character -- meaning, if they're playing a combat-fragile PC, they'd best duck down in combat, because if they make themself a target of opportunity, their ass is getting greased.
Incidentally, based on a few years of playing SR (which has a similar dynamic in terms of encounter balancing) with Rob, he tends toward the latter, you're-responsible-for-knowing-your-own-math, approach. And he wasn't much kinder the one time we actually got to play EP. :)
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
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Thu, 2011-09-15 00:08
#4
Quincey Forder
Re: Creating balanced encounters
I've had the same problem in Cyberpunk (3.0 and 2020 alike) so I started to work in waves.
Let's take an example
a small patrol catch the players' party either by accident (bad rolls) or Darwin Award worthy sheer stupidity.
If the patrol is stronger than the party, they don't call backup. if the party is stronger, they fight nastier. if they're wiping the ground with the patrol, they'll call in backups
be creative and vary the tactics. even the basic guard can have quirks and personality. he's the main character of his own story. Could be possible to circumvent without (physical) violence.
playing psychologist violence on them could be interesting.
SV's aren't just for the PC, they work for NPC too.
if you want some nasty ideas, I suggest you read Electrical Church (Jeff Somers) and the new Suicide Squad. Encounters will become quite interesting!
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Thu, 2011-09-15 08:43
#5
GreyBrother
Re: Creating balanced encounters
Hmmm for bigger fights, i try to divide the fight up in stages or phases based on this nice article from the Angry DM: http://angrydm.com/2010/04/the-dd-boss-fight-part-1/
I compare the Damage Output and what the players can take. But thats only for anticipated fights. If they pick up a fight in a bar, i usually eyeball it on what would be fitting for some dude who spends his virtual immortality in a bar. That means, that TPK isn't just a possibility, but a realistic and likely outcome of the fight.
But planned encounters, well, first i look what my players can dish out and note that number, draw an average on "damage per round" and note down what their armor can suck up and how exactly wounds come into play in the game system of use.
Then i come up with the narrative of the fight. How i'd like to have the background move, how NPCs react, what reinforcements are available, special battle maneuvers they perform. Then i divide that narrative up into different phases which reflect the flow of the battle and stat those phases out (yes, every "phase" features its own NPC created and is basically swapped out). You just have to watch whats the goal of the phase and how each phase could cripple the PCs.
A good curve for such an encounter is starting with something the PCs can handle without worrying too much (Reaper morph looses 20 DUR for example) in phase one, while phase two presents a real challenge because damage is dished out like its sales season. The trick in the planning of this phase is, knowing what the players can endure and for how long. You can certainly create this phase with a damage output in mind, that makes the entire military of a third world country green with envy. But word of advice here: When you do that, you better make this phase timed, it wears off by itself and the players just have to endure it. Phase three is ideally more of a "curb stomp", killing-the-last-remnants kind of affair which gives the players a sense of accomplishment.
Lets make an example scenario:
A firefight between some allied NPCs and enemy NPCs with the PCs joining the fray. The battle looks bad for the Friendlies in the beginning, but as the PCs add their muscle to the fight, things begin to look up and the enemies react.
Thats phase 1. The enemies realize probably that there are new enemy elements in the area, but don't consider them any more of a threat than before.
After some enemies got croaked, we switch to phase 2. The enemy force got their nose bloody, but their fighting spirit is still there. They call for heavier artillery, inject themselves with combat drugs and target specifically the PCs to bring them down.
Phase 3 presents the enemy force as tired. Combat drugs wear off, they suffer exhaustion effects, some guys fled the battlefield. Its time for a counterattack. A little change in the statblock can do wonders to present those states.
Sat, 2011-09-17 15:05
#6
Thantastic
Re: Creating balanced encounters
*edited because apparently words and phrases were eaten by the internet when it first went up...
I agree with the maxims for planning out the math mentioned above with the additional caveat of ranges and firing options for weapons. (in all seriousness it's an invitation to wipe the party on a few atypical die rolls if you aren't intimately familiar with their Fray scores, armor types and values and what their combat math looks like for chance to hit and damage) Generally for "easy" encounters (where pcs should take 01 Wounds ea.) relevant npcs' skills should be 0 - 10+ points below the average of the same skill for the group,
- average encounters (expect each pc to take 1-2 W) npc skills should be at 0-10 points above the average of the relevant skills for the group, and
- difficult fights (2+ W each, decent chance of 0-1 PC demise) should only be used very rarely in combat situations and are generally best when the npcs don't totally outclass the pc skill levels but when they're especially dangerous due to terrain/gear/other circumstances being in their favor. Anything beyond that is an invitation for a party wipe, and personally if a tpk happens I only want it to happen with some planning that it's the likely outcome and it serves a story purpose.
In EP the intended story purpose of the fight is equally if not more important since pcs should usually be in a position to reinstance without too much hassle when they die. I try to ask myself what's the story experience you're going for? Is the fight happening in the story as a serious attempt to thwart their efforts or more to highlight a plot point/create tension or atmosphere? When planned explicitly as ways to support and expand the story it's easier to pull in non-combat elements or whole encounters that still have the pcs acting in opposition to almost anyone/thing else.
Balancing the encounter then becomes an exercise of editing and restraint - determine what needs to happen to set the tone and stop there. You can narrate or abstract combat at the point it becomes clear to the pcs they're totally outmatched or are clearly wiping the floor with their foe and they surrender. Since the pcs are going to make more die rolls than any npc your players are going to be on the business end of crits and statistical extremes much more often than anyone else in the game.
Sometimes the easy fights are the ones that hurt the pcs the most when they burn through resources unnecessarily, walk away with trauma from the slaughter they inflicted or the horror they survived and the real challenge is to hold themselves together long enough to finish the mission. (One very memorable session I played in took a very different turn when someone at the table was checking a casualty and quietly said "These aren't neotenics...": conscripted child-soldiers, you will be missed...)
Knowing the attitudes of the characters can be extremely helpful in designing encounters as well. When the lone surviving guard surrenders do the pcs off her anyway, assuming she has a backup, or do they take her along with as a prisoner? How much time will they spend arguing about it - long enough for the better-armed reinforcements to arrive? Balancing the setup along with the planned impact on the group - physical, mental/emotional and/or story - then becomes a bit less focused on the math and can be a little more forgiving for adjustments on the fly.
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Fri, 2011-09-16 08:00
#7
jackgraham
Re: Creating balanced encounters
Oh, yeah, this is an excellent point. I can see NPC *tagonist stress coming into play in a big way if the PCs use open/obvious psi sleights in the right way, introduce sufficiently horrific AR hallucinations, or commit atrocities.
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
Fri, 2011-09-16 14:15
#8
Quincey Forder
Re: Creating balanced encounters
There is that great scene at the beginning of Electric Church where SV in NPC could come in play
Transposed to EP, it'd be something like this:
an illegal petal/coffee shop in Little Shanghai, and a raid by the VNSPM just waiting for an excuse, and only one exit.
Great set up, though I believe Morgan would have done a better use of that than Somers did.
(Cfr the prelude's raid on Kovacs' hideout in Altered Carbon)
Atmosphere and ambiance wise, it's excellent.
—
[center] Q U I N C E Y ^_*_^ F O R D E R [/center]
Remember The Cant!
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Wed, 2011-09-21 01:44
#9
nezumi.hebereke
Re: Creating balanced encounters
In regards to the 'my game just exploded' scenarios, I've seen the following issues cause the most problems (and require the most GM creativity to address):
- The guy with the crazy tech, like multiple egos stored and hot-swappable in his head, serious nanotech skills and equipment, etc. These are each their own issue, but be aware of them and figure out how to handle things when they get out of hand before you start the mission.
- The dude with 12 or more armor (I'm looking at you, DA Mercenary!) This guy is going to walk through your encounter blasting everything in his way. You need to use some serious AP rounds (which will make just about everyone's armor useless), lots of horror, or creative tactics to make the game threatening to this guy.
- The player who is too crazy creative and has off-the-wall ideas which you are convinced should work (but don't know how to get around). My only solution is to buy this guy lots of beer before you start.
- The guy whose character is too weak to be much use. Most skills are around 50 or below, the weapon does less than 2d6 damage and no AP, etc. If you want to see a rough game, put the Mercurial Scavenger next to the DA Mercenary and see what happens!
- Fringe cases, like swarmanoids, infomorphs, etc., which are easily addressed, but require specialized equipment.
- A poor understanding of the hacking rules.
In general for a COMBAT mission, every character should have around the same amount of armor, WT and DUR (excepting the infomorph or swarmanoid, of course). As a GM, it's your job to control how much gear is available to the party, due to time, resource or legality constraints, and to make sure the laggers get the necessary gear to catch up. Generally AP will be below armor, so I just add AP to weapon damage (and will mention this again, so adjust the math to match your party). Weapon damage should be at least an average of 6 points above armor. I personally don't like battles with a lot of 'you miss, he misses, you miss, he misses', so I tend to keep fray around 50% or below, but I shift armor and, more importantly, weapon damage and special abilities up and down to adjust the difficulty.
In INVESTIGATION/ADVENTURE missions, combat really should be enough to shake them up (so average weapon should do an average of 6 points of damage above armor), but not enough for a likely kill. I like to throw slightly weaker combatants, but give them a tactical advantage like an ambush so initially they come off as really scary, but after the first round they get mopped up pretty quickly.
In a HORROR adventure, really anything goes, although since they shouldn't be fighting the big bad monster as much as running away from it, I tend to crank the weapons damage up pretty high (especially the AP -- the fact that they are 'naked' is more important than the fact that they are wounded). I am happy to absolutely butcher a party in a horror adventure, but you do need to hold off said butchering long enough for them to get some fun out of it, so I depend more on environmental circumstances to let them get scared, but not dead, until you're actually ready to kill them.