"Epic Level" Shadowrun

Question

Recently I've run into an issue with my Shadowrun campaign for a number of reason, the most key of which is that my players have hit the 180-250 karma level where they've started to ascend to levels of power that would lead to them being considered action movie heroes with better life expectancy.

Some background:

• Most of the players are "owned" as it were by a prison megacorporation (slightly non-canon) and sold out as mercenaries with either cortex bombs or magical doohickeys to keep them from escaping. I've used this to tone down guns, but the mages remain very, very deadly.
• My players started out last August/September as either entirely unexperienced roleplayers or non-Shadowrunners, so I've taken a low-lethality stance (we've had two deaths the whole time, and one came after no less than five "Are you sure?" prompts that the player ignored and the other happened when a player decided his chronically hospitalized character [courtesy of grenade-jumping] should just pass away rather than being a burden), so killing them is out of the question.
• The players actively press for "assault cannons", which I find an iconic Shadowrun weapon to the point where I won't ban it; I've retooled them to have a higher cost and Street Index, but I need to handle when the players get out of jail.

I've been throwing vehicles at them, but most of them go down in a shot or two, mostly due to assault cannons, though the mages have been known to manabolt or stunbolt pilots of vehicles and steal them or let them crash and burn.

Last session I had a drone-adapted main battle tank suppress the players, and one player by dumb luck of incredibly difficult rolls managed to rip its hatch open, get another player in, and that player then rewired it (via phys-adept centering plus electronics genius) to roll through the city blowing up stuff at random to cover their escape.

How can I keep the awesome flowing when my players are at such a high tier of power, without restricting their character development or relying too heavily on narrator judgement? They're so powerful already that nothing I throw at them is a challenge unless it's a drone, and that's tedious.

Does anyone know of SR-3 content that's like epic level stuff for d20?

Answer 1

The scale and power of the Big Ten should not be undersold. Nor should the power and insanity that one experiences with a Horror. Shadowrunners are just a bunch of dudes, really. They're just really good and professional dudes. Ticking off the different corps or governments of the world can and will buy retribution from those corps if the cred is enough. And having the prison being a major hub of the players and where they are kept, there's a really good answer to this.

Have a mega corp purchase the Shadowrunners.

Honestly, this is the natural progression of your game. You are having the runners hit a Karma level that screams retirement or world-changing efforts. They can't continue to play as random chaos anymore. They are too powerful to continue to ignore, from a mega corp standpoint, and are good only two ways. Theirs or dead. The runners have shown Saeder-Krupp that they are good and can piss off a great dragon. If I was running Lofwyr as a business man, I would see the potential that these runners could offer, given that I could buy and contain them. Else, I'd just buy them to have them executed to get them out of my hair. As a great dragon that's in charge of the most profitable Big Ten in the world, I have so much cred that I can throw at a problem, I might as well bury the players in mountains of it to suffocate them.

Really, the best you can do at this point is show the runners that they can't be ignored anymore. No matter the power level of a PC in Shadowrun, there is always something bigger, tougher, and meaner. I'd go so far as to tell you to sic a cyber zombie or two on them. Not the player driven ones, but an honest to god walking abomination of magic and technology. From the flavor of the game and the durability and deadliness of it, it's the perfect thing to send at the players if you want to test them at this point. And most corps can claim to have one in their back reserves to clean up messes like your Shadowrun team if they absolutely have to.

But even if they can down the cyber-zombie, there's still the question of where they go. And honestly, I think it's time to roll new characters. A year-long campaign that's sprouted a few 250 karma players means it's time for a change of scenery. Have the runners take on their last challenge, break free from the prison they've been in or die trying, and retire the campaign. Keep all the flavor, even put some of the old PC's in as NPCs in the world if they survive, and roll up new characters. It's the kind of thing I see and say "It's been a good run, so let's go out in the biggest bang we can and start fresh". But, again, that's my two cents on if I was running the game.

Answer 2

I played a high-level SR2 game for quite some time, and know others who did also, and although one cannot necessarily use existing adventures, the system handles it just fine.

Here are some points to keep in mind:

1. SR3 does not give high-karma people immunity to multiple low-karma people, especially if the low-karma people are well equipped. Sniper rifles are more than a match for most armor--and while you can dodge a single sniper easily enough, try dodging two or three or five consistently. Explosives are hard to resist and easy to use. Even an adept specializing in hand-to-hand combat is still in danger, due to TN penalties, from three or four adversaries. Your most powerful magician will be hard-pressed to do anything given three or four lower-level mages shielding each other and countering anything the magician does. Likewise with multiple entry-level deckers against one skilled one. Likewise with lots of cheap drones against one rigger with good equipment. And so on. Let the mechanics work for you, here: as they grow in power and take on bigger jobs, assume that they're going to go up against more resources, which can simply be more of the same.

2. Are the PCs really the most powerful people in the world? That seems hard to believe. So, make adversaries who are similarly skilled, or who possess rarely-found abilities (but who might be worth deploying, given how important the situation is). As one example out of many, consider cyberzombies. No ordinary entry-level team of runners should encounter one, or if they do, only one. But your team, now? Maybe they'll find themselves doing something so important that their adversaries have assigned two cyberzombies as guards (or as assassins...).

3. Shift the emphasis of the games from raw power to puzzles and mystery, where the characters' combat abilities are critically important but only after the right portions of the mystery have been solved. One can also set things up so that the characters have an advantage if they split up (e.g. if they need to perform some sort of physical search), which then makes it easier to give them a challenge individually. (You can't do too much splitting up without disrupting game play, but it can be very effective if done sparingly and for good reason.)

4. Develop superior tactics in response to theirs. Manabolt on pilots? I generally disallowed that anyway, as the aura isn't really visible through physical objects. You probably can't change that, but you can use tinted glass. Assault cannons? Fine. Let the opposition have assault cannons too and see how they like their vehicles being destroyed (and don't forget rules for crashing and damage and so on). Do they take walking for granted? Monowire trip lines. And so on. This ends up turning into constant escalation ("I can't see the pilot? Okay, I have my fire elemental manifest in the cockpit!"), but you should be able to get quite a few adventures' worth of excitement before they've figured out a counter to every trick you can come up with.

5. Go beyond traditional SR plots. Break into a facility and steal something? How dull. Have the job be to break into a facility and make something. They can't just shoot it out until they're done; they'll have to be much more clever about it. Have them get involved in a coup (or preventing a coup) in some small country. Have them get hired as bodyguards--now instead of gaining the luxury to plan everything out and spring a surprise, they have to react to the surprise.

These sorts of things kept my games going well into the high hundreds of karma. Because of the dice mechanics, even characters with thousands of karma are not invincible, though they are very, very capable.

Answer 3

I'm curious about the sorts of adventures the PCs are getting into at this point in the campaign. It may be that more lethal individual encounters are not the answer. You may just need to have the PCs get noticed by a truly powerful opponent. When PCs get really badass, one of my favorite GM tricks is to determine that a bad guy the PCs took down a while back was a friend/relative/lover/whatever of a powerful politician/dragon/dragon-politician/CEO/whatever.

This powerful enemy sees the PCs as a problem. The enemy can bring large numbers of goons/warriors/critters/whatever to bear on the PCs, but more importantly she can grease palms, get the PCs on Most Wanted lists, engage in smear campaigns, turn their friends against them, and so on. The PCs can't fight these attacks with weapons. They have to start thinking more strategically, because they face and opponent that can overwhelm them with numbers. While they may be able to take out a drone-adapted MBT, a cavalry troop of them is a different story.

Once they realize they can't blast their way through everything, they'll seek to avoid combat, instead of initiating it at will (at least when going up against #1 Powerful Enemy's minions). They'll have to probe for weak spots, conduct more thorough intel-gathering, and forge alliances in order to take down #1 Powerful Enemy.

I freely admit that this approach only works if you actually want to shift your campaign to one focused around a single extremely powerful enemy.

Answer 4

Lets address a few of your issues.

First as has been pointed out your heroes have attracted attention. They will need to escape the prison. The prison is not going to let them go even if they have reached the end of their supposed sentence. So what I would do is start applying pressure from the prison that will increase the hero's desire to break free. The challenge to get out should serve for a few good adventures.

Once out they will need to keep their heads down. Anytime they get any signifigant hardware have the prison catch up with them and force them to choose to flee and give up their heavy gear or stay and be caught. I would probably even warn the players that these types of purchases attract more attention. This will help keep the damage level low.

Answer 5

I have run several high level games for Shadowrun. I currently run a 3rd edition game where the characters are over 500 karma and have over 10 million apiece worth of deltaware and cultured bioware in them. I am at the point where I have run every 2nd and 3rd edition module for them that exists and I am focusing on Shedims and The Enemy (Horrors) using the limited information that exists as canon. They all have gyromounts and every gun has anti-vehilce ammunition and assault cannons and so on, 15/15 armor, etc. The trick is, to know their weaknesses, spring traps, use the environment - drowning is a real thing, and make other super powerful NPC's to go up against them, use things that regenerate, have dragons play a real part in your game. My characters have actually shot at Ghostwalker in my game, luckily they were able to escape. You just have to up the power level, yes they can stroll through a lot of stuff without breaking a sweat, but not every run has to be an huge thing. Put them in situations where they have to use skills they don't have, or only have 1 die in. Like suddenly having to figure out how to parachute, etc. It's not that hard. Just photocopy their characters and use them as the basis for NPC's if they are really tough.

Answer 6

Ichoran made some really excellent points about how to counter some of these issues, depending on how or when it needs to be done.

Something my players seem to frequently forget is the common sense rule. Anything that you have as a player character, the enemy may also have. In fact, they may well have access to better goods because of who they work for. You drop them into a hot zone? It's hot for a reason. Arm the NPCs with anti-vehicular rounds. That gives them a leg up against anything your players are piloting AND halves their own armor if they get shot.

Oh, but magic- Magic I love. Your team is assaulting an established/entrenched force? Make sure the enemy force has initiates on their side, who've used their heads and prepared to defend. If they've been there long enough, depending on what they're doing, maybe the area has generated a background count that's beneficial to the home team and not the PCs.

Establish vantage points, like the old lighthouse that overlooks the field, or the top-floor rooms of buildings in the area. Put one or more enemy magicians there who have some manner of optical zoom, so they can observe the battlefield without any real penalties.

• Standard visual/aural check: Counter with Invisibility/Silence, or phantasm, etc.
• Team is doing thermo checks: Have the rooms insulated.
• Team uses drones/vehicle sensors: Make it Improved Invis/Physical illusions.
• PC Mage peeks at the astral, to check for spirits or invisible magicians: Counter this by having your opposition inside a warded area, but make it a masking ward, so from the outside everything appears mundane and normal.
• PC Mage decides he's going to scout from a great distance out: Defending team established perimeter alarm wards, they're harder to detect the stronger they are. To add to the sneakiness factor, make it a triple ring of wards. The outermost layer is only rating 2 to 4. Middile ring 5 to 8. Core ring 10+. They've been here a while, they can all pool their talents to make these wards.
• Team mage starts getting mana-bolt happy: Make sure the defense has shielding, that'll increase the PCs target numbers. Combine it with Reflecting, your PC is potentially hurting himself. Use Absorption instead, the enemy eats the power thrown at him and uses it to hurt the PCs, or do whatever else he wants with the mana.
• Is your PC magician being extremely offense-focused once the fracas begins? Have the enemy hit him with something nastily debilitating at a goodly force and then quicken it on the PC. Obvious things are attribute lowering spells, but maybe your NPCs like to slam people with Slow Death (Src: Target: Awakened Lands) or their own custom offensive health spells designed to inflict diseases, or allergies against what the local mundane troops will be using to try and harm them. The PC may wind up taking so much extra damage due to the allergy issue that they can't even focus to perform magical deeds at that point. In extreme cases, throw something at them that will drain their essence.
• Team wants to use spirits of their own: Make sure one of the opposition is talented Shamanist or aspected Conjurer. (no need to keep using full magicians, they're more rare and expensive). Give the defenders decent power or spirit foci. Masking will let them hide their own magical nature (and their foci), so they could be out on patrol with regular troops. If they're able to use dice for spell defense, let them also learn Absorption, Reflecting, or Shielding. As specialists in spirits, make sure they have Invoking, so they can call down great form spirits if they wish. Give one of them Channeling and that great form spirit can suddenly be something that makes your NPC faster, stronger, tougher, and immune to mundane weaponry. If this enemy force has been there a while, they may well have multiple spirits prepared to begin with, so they won't get knocked out in the heat of battle, and there's nothing that gives away who the controlling magician might be. Let them use the Movement power of a great-form to make everybody among the enemy forces move faster.
• Maybe your team is stealthy and lucky, but they decide to quietly geek one of the sentries guarding the area. You've got magical talent on the scene. Make part of the security sweep involve using Sensing(also Target: Awakened Lands) to monitor the astral terrain and phenomena. A new spike in the background count from a murder happening may catch their focus. That could be worth re-positioning a defending strike squad and put them on high alert.

Something I've only used once, just for the big FU factor of it, I put together a small squad of complete mundanes who were jungle tactics specialists, but each one carried a magical anchor designed to activate automatically if they ever received enough damage to hit deadly or beyond. They get hit, they fall over seemingly 'dead'. Most PCs immediately change their focus of attention when they see an enemy drop because there are other threats, meanwhile NPC #3 is being hit with a high-force healing spell that has no visible special effect or source. While backs are turned, maybe he decides it's time to use his grenade launcher.

When all else fails, if you are for some reason of the "I don't want to kill my players" mentality- hey, that's fine. Don't kill them. Maim them. Cripple them. Blow off limbs. Magical healing doesn't fix an arm that's been turned into mushy pasta and spread across a dozen meters of terrain. Use the Wound Effects and Permanent Wounds caused by the trauma they're taking on the job. You can (almost) always get a replacement leg, if you can get back to a safe harbor, but Attribute losses (page 128, SR3 core rules) aren't just permanent, they lower your racially modified attribute maximums.

Your crew won't be dead, but enough losses that they simply can't recover via new and improved 'ware, and through zero amount of physical or mental training, and they may discover they just need to be retired, they are no longer at the top of their game. This could potentially open up avenues for them to escape their corporate overlords, who don't see them as worth the investment any longer, which also gets rid of their sources of goodies. If they survive their attempt at running and somehow don't get their brains pasted, then it's a whole new life of trying to get rid of everything the corp put in them, to disappear.

Look at the various locations there is good game material for, or invent your own. Their only way out may require submerging themselves into entirely new environments where they just haven't developed the adequate skills, and they'll probably have zero connections. You don't have to kill them, but you can beat them down enough that they'll be back at low-tier runner levels, and still able to have some fun with their new 'freedom'.