u/Thetimdog

So, last match, i had 3 SAMAS and 3 sky cycles hit the party (5 people, 7 levels ish) and i flat out knew they would solve that fairly easily, my biggest probably was realistically, how far behind would the army sloggers be? Like i knew i would need some BIG robots to get in on it to actually threaten the party, but I also don't think its realistic that the SAMAS and sky cycles hit literally 2 turns before the ground sloggers get there. Im just struggling with the need to throw more bigger guns at these guys vs the "realism" of the fact that these air vehicles should be MILES ahead - based on speed. Maybe not based on formation, and maybe thats the element i am missing. I do not know shit about military tactics soooo...

The other challenge is with 5 PCS and 6 enemies, even in SWADE which is rather faster it still took over 2 hours for 2 rounds of combat. Adding more enemies would just add more time. I feel like im at the stuck between "add more targets so it takes longer" or "add Better targets which makes it scarier but also increases the chance of a bad die roll flat out killing someone straight out".

So, yeah, advise would be appreciated. Im finding i am slipping further and further away from wanting to do these round by round combats... i love the story that is evolving as the campaign goes on, but feel like im sticking combat in because i think its expected, not because it does any advancement of the story.

I am DMing a Savage rifts campaign and typically, whenever anything important happens the players get a typed version of the fluff to go over later via discord. Its usually just a tool so they dont miss anything important along the way.

tonight i want to mix that up. They are going to eventually end up in the chamber of an ancient computer that will be popping out screens that will display once and then be gone.

I dont want to be as blatant as "You guys need to note this information, it will not be presented again" but if i dont give them any sort of warning, they may assume its as normal and miss a significant amount.

I was thinking of foreshadowing this by having one of their tablets give them a message earlier in the region, as sort of a bug, but when they try and see the message again its gone.

Do we think that's enough of a foreshadow? Any other suggestions on how to prep them to actually take notes on what i will be reading out because im doing it once and only once?

The reason being is this should be a chaotic onslaught of data from a failing and magic corrupted computer system, and if they have the exact wording to go over later, that's probably too much information.

Playing savage rifts, and one player is grossly overshadowing the rest. And its not who i would have expected at all - its a sniper focused headhunter. He has abilities that clear up to -6 in negatives, so essentially shooing with none every turn, and ends up with at least +4 to the average shot after these negatives are clear. He's very well min maxed for this. He's good at noticing and shooting, but very little else. The notice checks are almost always relevant though.

He now, wants to add a ton of cybernetics, which would increase all his physical stats by a dice, as well as shore up his h to H fighting. The problem is, i don't see how he cant afford it - money is rather dicey in the setting, as one of the party started with a 2Million dollar SAMAS and they have killed and captured A LOT of tech for the Tommorow Legion.

I expected the SAMAS player to be the issue to be honest, but hes been playing lower power tier and doing fun shit like punching or grappling people when it probably makes more min/max sense to just shoot them, and hes been using his level ups to get good at other skills so he does more other stuff. In short, hes not power gaming so is not overshadowing the others.

The sniper just notices and snipes lol. Headshots are generally no issue.

Designing the map to literally limit one player feels dickish, and takes away the one thing hes good at. The one thing he's good at is making it really hard for me to challenge the group however - last match he headshot two SAMAS, essentially one shotting them. (doing multiple wounds to the face even after saves and soaking).

Back to the pressing issue, he wants to just install like 5 new systems immediately. The whole campaign is based on "the more time you spend being off, the worst its going to get" so im pretty sure his party will be leaving him behind if he chooses to take the time for the surgery and healing. Any suggestions on how to wrangle this in without just having his tommorow legion superiors refuse to give him the time to recover from the surgery and installation?

(hes wants the upgrades that will add +1 dice to his vit, str, agility, fighting and 3 levels of cyber armor)

Cybenetics seem rather broken in that you can increase all stats by 1 dice, as opposed to the level up system where you can increase one per Rank. And he can still stack those cybernetic increases on top of the level up rank.

he's the only one trying to "abuse" the money situation, no one else is really hitting the money, and no one else can really abuse cybernetics as it will clash with thier psychic or magic abilities (or in the samad's case, hes just not)

I really dont want to push the player away from the one thing hes chosen to be good at, but hes so damn good at it i dont want to give him these "free" upgrades to help him be even better at it.

Any advice on how to wrangle him without it being a confrontation is appreciated.

I come to reddit a broken man, me and my group have spent many an hour trying to start a raptor breeding program and only found male dune raptors. Im now looking if anyone has a pity female dune raptor to trade or heck, even loan. I have one special phenotype male already (the orange one) and want to start trying to breed up some bad a$$ raptors. Can offer praise, or some perfect slinkers back in trade (have 4 phenotypes of them), or shortly a copy of the phenotype i have (not in game atm but i think its 5) as they tend to breed more quite quickly. Anyone flush with female dune raptors take pity on me?