For the second game in a row our PC's have been swamped with combat situations. 5 PC's, only 2 are combat proficient, and of course it is the non-combatants that are always the trouble makers.

It has been a long process for the PC's to even kill 2 rivals, and 4 minions. Does anyone have tips, or a better way to mix it up?

Less targets.

Better weapons.

Lazy @$$ non shooters step it up.

Is the group fairly new to the rules and looking a lot of stuff up? Also for initiative are you quickly tallying using the X.X method where success equals the integer and the advantages are after the decimal point?

10 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Is the group fairly new to the rules and looking a lot of stuff up? Also for initiative are you quickly tallying using the X.X method where success equals the integer and the advantages are after the decimal point?

So yes I go with the X.X method usually, adding blue or black for the PC's suspicion or lack thereof.

But we don't really look things up. We all have good/basic understanding of the rules, the PC's and I stay within reason.

Last session, during a street fight, I let the PC's go, in pairs, at the same time. It kinda worked, it kinda didn't.

What's their xp level? I'm assuming fairly new, because a pair of more advanced Joe Guns should be able to make short work of the adversaries you list.

Can you describe for me the pacing of the encounter? It's entirely possible that your group just needs practice with the system, but it sounds like there's more to it. Is it option paralysis? Metgaming? Players fumbling around with their sheet when it's their turn? Interpreting the results of a roll?

10 hours ago, Shaheed the Gand said:

So yes I go with the X.X method usually, adding blue or black for the PC's suspicion or lack thereof.

But we don't really look things up. We all have good/basic understanding of the rules, the PC's and I stay within reason.

Last session, during a street fight, I let the PC's go, in pairs, at the same time. It kinda worked, it kinda didn't.

Ok thanks I just needed some of that basic information. I think the next question I want to ask is, what do you feel the perfect pace of combat would look like for you? What are you shooting for ideally?

themensch:

The pacing is slow in general. The PCs know what they want to do, they are just not good. Hahaha, everybody is still very inexperienced as far as XP goes. Even my main-cannons get these turns of weak rolls and misses and it keeps everything going one more round.

Archlyte:

I kind of want it more like a Stars Wars movie I guess. They miss a lot: 1 Doc, one Theif, one slicer. So I kind of narrate their misses to illustrate it to be more "Star Wars."

I would say patience for the xp, and some opportunities for better weapons will take care of the issues.

2 hours ago, Shaheed the Gand said:

themensch:

The pacing is slow in general. The PCs know what they want to do, they are just not good. Hahaha, everybody is still very inexperienced as far as XP goes. Even my main-cannons get these turns of weak rolls and misses and it keeps everything going one more round.

Hm, perhaps you're right in that the challenges might be too hard.

Say, have you listened to any of the live play podcasts like Dice For Brain, Campaign, or any number of other quality podcasts I can't recall presently? They might shed some light on where things are falling down.

4 hours ago, Shaheed the Gand said:

themensch:

The pacing is slow in general. The PCs know what they want to do, they are just not good. Hahaha, everybody is still very inexperienced as far as XP goes. Even my main-cannons get these turns of weak rolls and misses and it keeps everything going one more round.

Archlyte:

I kind of want it more like a Stars Wars movie I guess. They miss a lot: 1 Doc, one Theif, one slicer. So I kind of narrate their misses to illustrate it to be more "Star Wars."

Ah ok I see, it's like they are coming off as incompetent and you want it to have more like the movie flow. Like where they tend to dispatch or evade lesser bad guys in exciting situations? I think @themensch has the right idea.

As far as dealing with minion groups, keep in mind that your average "Mook" (street ganger, syndicate tough guy, dockyard rowdy) is going to be brave as long as his buddies are there. Once a group of minion mooks starts taking casualties, they're going to look for a way out of the fight. Now, if theres a rival or nemesis to keep them 'brave' they'll stay in the fight but only so long as their boss is still giving them orders. Once the boss drops, the mooks are going to beat feet for the nearest exit. I wouldn't have every single group of mooks run when they start taking casualties...you don't want your players to get the idea that every group of minions is a pushover and easy XP's. Groups of stormtroopers or corporate security, however, will stand their ground. They're too well-trained, well-paid, or just plain too **** stupid to cut and run. But having the odd group of mooks run like **** could speed up some of your combats.

18 hours ago, Shaheed the Gand said:

I kind of want it more like a Stars Wars movie I guess. They miss a lot: 1 Doc, one Theif, one slicer. So I kind of narrate their misses to illustrate it to be more "Star Wars."

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: keep them moving. A multi-turn firefight serves no one's interest. The party needs a goal, and they either need to be chased by or be chasing another party. This means at least half the checks aren't going to be shooting, they will be any other type of skill check to flee, hide in the ventilation shafts, rouse the locals, create traps, close the blast doors, open the blast doors, etc. If the party is under assault, make it clear they'd better get out of there or they will be overrun. Don't let them sit still for more than a couple turns.

The only duels that should last more than a couple turns are epic finales.

That and we had one encounter, which was our first real combat encounter for 4 weeks which ended up really dragging out into a courtyard fight with potentially more reinforcements showing up, as we were coming to the end of our session time and it didn't seem like we would be resolving soon, I made the suggestion of "well since the mansion is just there could we make a scene transition, just move everyone into the hallway through the main door, collapse some debris/close the ray shield behind us/barrier for a momentary respite behind us and just keep whatever's out there for lingering threat during our next encounters?" It worked out fairly well and eventually we were able to recover our target against overwhelming odds just by scene transitioning and playing to the objective.

Of course it was a bit of a generous thing to request a scene transition, especially as I feel if we ran it by the mechanics a lot of the players might not have made it (at least one character was surrounded and in all honesty likely would have required rescue to bail out) but I felt it saved a lot of time on the GM's part in setting up next session.

Eventually that combat interspliced with skill checks lasted for the last two hours of the previous session and roughly 2/3 hours in the next, broken up into a large encounter, a much smaller encounter of moving combat and a pitched battle infront of our destination as we provided cover for the retreat but having the players face overwhelming odds and letting them know up front that not everything can be won by straight up engagements can work wonders. Keep the scenes transitioning so it isn't just one hefty blob.

I have two suggestions:

1. Maybe encourage your players to add a little role playing to their combat rounds. This doesn’t work for every group, but being a little more descriptive, coming up with something funny to say, doing character voices, all can add a lot of fun to otherwise dull and repetitive combat. Make pop culture references (eg. “My character looks anime as **** when he knocks the stormtrooper 20 feet back onto his behind”). Keep trying until your group finds what type and amount of RP works best for them. It’s awkward at first, but once everyone gets used to it it can be a blast.

2. Simply reduce the difficulty of the fights until your characters get better. Use nothing but minions, but give them better weapons to make sure your PCs still feel threatened.

If your pcs are not combat characters than they also should run. If they stay and fight make it obvious this is stupid, have an alarm blare calling all troopers to their location etc. But yes, more mooks less bosses works. Or one or two bosses but no mooks.