>>56526
>I am thinking of trying to run a CP 2020 one shot but my big issue has been figuring out how to balance the game.
Balancing and CP2020 are pretty much an oxymoron. CP2020's most particular trait is you can kill both enemies and players in a single attack, unless you calculate in advance what kind of equipment and stats will your players have and ensure there are not many powerlevel differences between chars (biggest problem by far is social/technical characters don't get to do shit in combat due to how overpowered Solos are and how everything in combat is calibrated for Solos; even Cops suck in combat), or change the focus of the campaign not to favour full frontal combat. If you can calculate in advance averages for enemy rolls (look up https://anydice.com/ for that), you may design encounters so that your characters just take enough damage on average to feel threatened without outright dying, but due to how little margin of error the game leaves (did you receive 8 points of damage in a limb, something even some shitty rusty knives can do? Too bad, you may drop dead right now!). Otherwise, just do a social/stealth adventure, or an adventure where your PC could always get a position of advantage (ambushing, setting up traps, etc) if they think a bit, and then treat combats as a puzzle game, which is pretty fun as well.
Some tips, though:
<Don't let the players use a Nomad, or use Interlock Unlimited (https://datafortress2020.com/InterlockUnlimited.html) rules for them. Whatever you do, DON'T, and I repeat, FUCKING DON'T let them use their minions in combat. You don't want to break combat that much by adding 20 extra NPC to every battle.
<Either ignore netrunning and deck rules for netrunner characters in your one shot, or homebrew some different ones (I can give tips), or don't let them use netrunners, or do a netrunner-only game. Default Netrunning is too fucking slow, and it stops the game for the other players.
<Don't let your players get the heaviest armors and most damaging weapons, unless they have a good reason. Justify it in-game by saying you need specific licenses for that stuff, or that it's illegal for non-security personnel, or something like that.
<You could ignore the previous tip if you treat combat rounds as one second long (ROF and movement divided by 3), use your BODY * 10 as your health pool, and reduce armor SP in order to allow a maximum of 20 SP in the torso for the heaviest armors.
<Put a medtech in the party with speed healing nanomagic or something, because otherwise, wounds take months to heal, and that's not suitable for most one shots.
>Should I let them be badasses, give them like 80 points to play with, and let them run full gear and shit?
If it's a one shot, you may as well let them. I personally use a homebrewed "initiative table" where players order their priorities for their characters (money, stats, class skills, pick up skills…) using some arrays. The table is calibrated to let players go wild with their fantasies while still being slightly restrictive, so you end up with overpowered PC who could still die to a mischievous GM. The downside to this is you can get so many options if you prioritize brouzouf, the chargen can take real long (we are talking maybe 2 hours if your players are inexperienced and lazy, and you have to walk them through all the options; of course, you can always give them sheets you made yourself). If you are interested in the specifics, just ask, but the default chargen can do the trick as well.
>And then how hard should I make the enemies? Because I don't want to tpk before they get to the end.
Some sessions ago, a clumsy gipsy kid managed to almost kill a party member by stabbing him in the head with a small knife in one turn. That's how stupid lethal this game is. After that, they started ambushing every single encounter I gave them, and then they became hyperlethal, killing every single enemy on their surprise round (homebrew mechanic: in vanilla CP2020, ambushes don't always work like that). I don't wanna think what will happen if I ever ambush the players myself.
In another session with another group, a fullborg character almost died to the pilot of a helicopter they managed to crash. The guy happened to be in flames and gravely wounded, but still, he managed to put quite a bit of lead on the fullborg. He lost an arm. Go figure.
Basically, design encounters as a puzzle to solve via ambushes or traps. Otherwise, your players will die. Guaranteed.
