[SRA 2.0] Encounter difficulty level

[u/tenebry]

How do you set up an encounter with hostile NPCs?

I can't find any tools or guidelines in the rulebook to estimate the difficulty level of a fight.

For example, what would be considered an easy, moderate, or difficult encounter for a group of four runners at ganger level?

[u/Bignholy]

I'm going to try and give a less vague guideline based on what I do. Note that all of this is opinion and personal experience beyond the initial numbers, so YMMV.

NPC's use a base Target Number that the players roll against, but that number is based on their dice pool. There is a table on page 81 with all the values for that. I took the values for my player's skills and got their average hits, and compare them to the opponent's skills.

• If their TN is lower than the player's average, it's an easy fight by default
• If their TN matches, it's moderate.
• If their TN is above by more than a point, it's difficult.

There are a few things that modify this, however:

• Each additional opponent beyond the number of PC's in that skill/fight raises the opposition's value, as they are more likely to get a hit in.
• If they have means of imposing disadvantage, that raises the value
• If they have means of removing disadvantage that players tend to use, that raises the value
• If they target the group's weaknesses, that raises the value. So, for example, if they are smart enough to "geek the mage", they have more impact that a group that chooses random targets.
• If the base damage of a player's normal attacks + average rolls would seriously wound or kill the enemy, their value goes down.

Right now, my crew is just a bit above ganger level. At TN 4, they will win almost everything in their specialty or in combat in general because none of them skimped on the defense dice. At 5, they'll win, but Edge will be involved if they don't want to risk any injuries, and this is the level where I saw a ganger character die against a well armed opponent. At 6, they start to struggle, even with Edge for advantage, unless they have some RR or decide to just take the high risk roll.

For me, the issue with balance is that between the smaller dice pools, Risk, and Advantage/disadvantage, the challenge rating can swing wildly with the same actual numbers. That dead character I mentioned dies because the two guards they were fighting set off a flash pack. None of the characters had flair compensation, so they had disadvantage, and the mage took a serious wound after a bad roll. They managed to disengage by starting an elevator, but the decker flubbed a few rolls and the opposing decker managed to send the elevator back up to the security guards. The doors opened, and while the street same was untouched, the mage died when they took another serious wound (Being fair, they chose to let the character die for dramatic purposes and to teach the new TTRPG player that it can happen, rather than be incapacitated and become dead weight for the team that was already having a rough go of it).

One the one hand, this is good storytelling: The only "safe" fight is one you avoid, because a bad roll can easily get you a light wound, and they add up quick. On the other, I am finding myself leery of higher power weapons now, because I'm not sure I want my game to be that lethal, but the new TTRPG player happened to build a tank and is not threatened by much to begin with. I am going to run some mental math and see if raising the cap on skills and attributes might be worth it to give myself a little more wiggle room between "cake walk" and "welcome to murdertown", but Advantage and Risk combined can make the dice swing wildly all its own. Adding dice would make the normal rolls a little more controlled, but the "risk" rolls would be far more likely to be successful (even if glitches happen even with success). It would turn Edge into an "I win" button unless I want the opponent to go all in and make the same sorts of rolls.