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Posted by: hyphz Jun 19 2011, 11:12 PM

Ok. Example on page 149.

Twitch the Elf has 3 IP and can run 25m/turn. So "he'll move 8m per IP and, if he stopped in the middle to help a friend up, he'd be moving only 16m this turn."

That just makes no sense at all to me. If we assume that helping up his friend is a Complex Action, there doesn't seem to be any rule that says he has to stop moving for a Phase in order to perform it. In fact, as I understand it, if his friend was 25m away he could have moved all 25m in his first IP and then helped the friend up as the Complex Action, leaving him with two IP worth of actions left but no movement.

Also, can you perform your actions before your move, after your move, during your move, or any of these?

Another example problem I thought of that also confuses me. SlowGuy has 1 IP and FastGuy has 2 IP. BadGuy has 1 IP. Initiative order goes SlowGuy, FastGuy, BadGuy.

Case 1: SlowGuy is behind cover and wants to head to other cover 10m away. He walks 10m in IP 1. Done. FastGuy does the same. But because he has 2 IP, he ends up moving only 5m in IP 1, which means he's out of cover when BadGuy gets his phase on IP 1, and BadGuy shoots at him. So FastGuy gets shot at and SlowGuy doesn't. What??

Case 2: My response to Case 1 was to say that FastGuy can use all 10m of his movement in his first IP if he wants (which is where my interpretation of the Twitch example came from). But here's a trickier case. SlowGuy wants to move between the cover points and shoot at BadGuy in the process. He has a single shot pistol. He declares the action of firing in the middle of his move and gets his shot off. FastGuy wants to move between the cover points and use his superior speed to fire _twice_ at BadGuy. This should take him the same amount of time as it took SlowGuy to fire once, but it seems there is no way for him to do it without BadGuy getting a shot off at him in the process, even though SlowGuy took the same amount of time and couldn't be targeted.

Posted by: HunterHerne Jun 19 2011, 11:32 PM

The only fix to this is what you as GM decide.

I, personally, don't usually bother with movement, as it is almost never important. But in the cases it is, I use the highest number of IP's, and use that to determine what each person moves during each IP. If characters want to delay actions for another IP, they can.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 19 2011, 11:47 PM

You are misunderstanding something here:
Max movement is divided by max inipasses.
So even if you have more ini passes, you do not run faster.
you just have more opportunities to do something WHILE you run.
In the example with the slow guy, the fast guy and the bad guy, the slow and the fast would, of course, both be in cover.
But the slow guy used his one IP to get there and does not get to do anything else this turn. Fast guy gets to do more stuff.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 19 2011, 11:51 PM

So when you get an active phase you can either move OR take action, not both?

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 19 2011, 11:55 PM

Movement has certain actions assigned to it i think. I am not sure though.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 20 2011, 12:03 AM

Your movement is totaled across all IPs (in one Turn). You can take special actions (Sprint, Run) during IPs, but normal movement is not an action.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 20 2011, 12:05 AM

So you can move your whole allowance in your first IP if you want to?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 20 2011, 12:08 AM

No. Movement rate is per Turn, not IP. If necessary for precision, you can divide it *evenly* between all IPs. This isn't necessary all *your* IPs, either. If you have one IP, and Bob has 4, then there are still 4 IPs in that Combat Turn. You move 1/4 your rate in each one (whether or not *you* act on all 4 IPs in the Turn).

Sprinting (only possibly while Running, which is a whole-Turn mode) muddies things somewhat. Alas.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 20 2011, 12:34 AM

Ok. This makes some sense, but seems to result in an even stranger paradox. It means that SlowGuy can get shot at as he crosses a 10m open area if FastGuy is present, because he'll be in the open in BadGuy's turn in IP 1 due to FastGuy's presence forcing 2 IPs. But if SlowGuy smashed FastGuy over the head and knocked him out to make him non-participant in the combat, there would be only one IP, and SlowGuy could move his full 10m in one action, giving BadGuy no chance to fire at him.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 20 2011, 12:41 AM

It is indeed strange. It's 'fair' (or, realistically unfair) when you think about it, though. With 2 IPs, Bob is just *faster*. He can easily shoot Slow-Joe in mid-run. If Bob's not there to shoot, then it hardly matters when the Combat Turn (which is always the same ~3 seconds, regardless of how you slice it) 'ends'. Right?

If it would help, you could always divide all Turns into 4 (or 5); technically, those IPs are always there, but we ignore them when no one acts on them. Either way, you're moving the same distance in the same number of seconds.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 20 2011, 12:46 AM

Right. But my problem is that FastGuy ("Bob") is SlowGuy's _ALLY_. BadGuy still only has 1 IP; he's no faster than SlowGuy. It's just that FastGuy's presence forces there to be 2 IPs which means that when BadGuy gets his phase, at the end of IP 1, SlowGuy is only halfway through his movement, instead of having completed it (as he would have done if his ally FastGuy were absent, as there would only need to be a 1 IP)

Posted by: Bigity Jun 20 2011, 01:03 AM

Yup there is that particular problem, which you could solve with house rules or something.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 20 2011, 01:21 AM

That's not really a glitch, as I said. If SlowGuy is running to cover during the Combat Turn, the BadGuy *should* get a chance to shoot him. His movement is *not* complete until the Turn is complete. It would never finish when his own action phase did (unless he chose to *stop* moving early). It's not 'SlowGuy does everything, then BadGuy goes', for movement.

Posted by: Faelan Jun 20 2011, 01:48 AM

If it has you chapped over it, just make sure your players are okay with it and make initiative passes resolve in order, that is to say the guy with 1 IP waits until the guy with 4 IP has finished three of them before you even compare initiative results. That is the realistic way of doing it, however your players might bitch and moan when they are the ones getting screwed. The reason it is set up as it is, is so that everyone gets to go before getting hosed. Your game, your table, do as you please. Personally I would simply split movement for everyone into 4 phases per round. You continue moving on passes you don't go on. Solves your spatial problem and keeps the initiative set up the way it is in RAW, though I think my idea might be cool for a particularly brutal kind of game.

Posted by: Makki Jun 20 2011, 02:03 AM

we solved it otherwise. Not perfect either so but works at our table, because it doesn't come up often. Every character can move 25m per round in total and can divide this number however he wants. Some chars might appear to run faster than others, but on a 3sec average they're all equally fast.

Posted by: Udoshi Jun 20 2011, 03:53 AM

This, basically. The absolutely easiest way to avoid headaches when thinking about movement rates and multiple passes is actually pretty simple: Just realize/assume that all four initiative passes exist, whether or not anyone can act in them.
This solves the issue of an 1 pass people actually being faster than people with multiple passes. Instead of taking their entire Combat Turn's worth of movement at once, they take 1/4 of it when the start moving, and keep going a bit more as the passes progress.(1/4 more on pass 2, 1/4 more on pass 3, the last fraction on pass 4, then its a new turn)

Walking does not take an action at all.
Running takes a Free action, and has some dice pool bonuses/penalties for attacks and defense.
Sprinting is a simple action that adds 2 meters per hit to your Running rate(so it doesn't help if you are Walking). Its the most annoying to deal with, if you're dividing movement by passes. I would just assume that each hit adds a half meter(2/4) immediately, instead of adjusting later movement because of it.


Another decent houserule I've seen involves changing the length of a combat turn to be Four seconds instead of three - that means one second per pass, and also slightly adjusting the movement tables to be divisors of four. (Human/elf/ork goes to 8/24, dwarves to 8/20, trolls to either 12 or 16(walking)/32). It cuts down slightly on the 'powerwalking shadowrunner is faster than olympic runner' syndrome, but also makes the combat math a lot easier to think about on the fly when everyone has their per-IP-movement rates readily available.

Posted by: Brazilian_Shinobi Jun 20 2011, 12:13 PM

We did something similar. We set the movement rates at multiples of 4 and decided that everyone always had 4 IP's for movement purposes. It does make a bit more book-keeping however.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 20 2011, 10:02 PM

Is there a reason why you can't say that someone with more than one IP can move as far as they like in IP, as long as they don't exceed the overall limit in the Combat Turn?

So FastGuy can move 10m on his first IP if he wants to, but will then be unable to move on his second - and if he decides to run at that time will only be able to move 1.5m (23m run speed, / 2 because he is only in run mode for one of 2 phases, - the 10m he has already moved = 1.5m)

Does that break anything else?

I'm not sure I like the "there are always 4 IP" rules since that means that BadGuy can shoot either of them when they are 2.5m along their movement, and paradoxically could NOT shoot them if they were out of cover at the end of their move.

Also, can you do actions before a move, after a move, either, or both?

Posted by: HunterHerne Jun 20 2011, 11:25 PM

He should be able to get the chance to shoot them, in my opinion. They still have things they can do, and the next turn will be in cover.

It doesn`t matter. The system doesn`t care about what you do for movement, as long as the penalties you rack up apply.

Posted by: Udoshi Jun 21 2011, 12:06 AM

There is a problem with this. Running still takes actions.
Its unfair to force the faster guy(the one with more IPs) to spend more actions(free actions ARE valuable) to move the same distance if he wants to start and stop.
Fortunately, its an easy fix: Running and Walking now BOTH don't take actions. You decide which mode of movement you're taking when you move, and apply the appropriate penalties for the rest of your action phase.

Your bolded example: What? That doesn't make sense.
If someone is out of cover, and its someone elses turn, then yes, they can be shot.
I think you are misreading into things. There are always 4 IPs, but only for calculating movement. It doesn't automatically give everyone the ability to act in them.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 21 2011, 12:24 AM

Right, but if there are always 4 IPs and BadGuy can only act in one of them, then the only chance he has to shoot anyone else that turn will be in IP 1 (ie, when they're 2.5m along the movement). They'll finish moving and arrive at their destination in IP 4 and BadGuy won't be able to shoot them at that time because he can't act then.

Won't a guy who wants to run for an entire Combat Turn have to spend all his free actions maintaining that mode, no matter what? The only difference I guess is that with the method I suggested, if he moved 23m in his first IP this would commit him to spending his later free actions on maintaining Run mode.

Posted by: HunterHerne Jun 21 2011, 12:36 AM

So he gets a shot off. What's the big deal? If the PCs are "walking" to the cover, that seems a little, overconfident to me, at least roleplaying wise. In reality, if I was shooting you, and you walked out from cover, to go to more cover, it makes sense that you risk beng shot. If you bolt, you might make it, then act when you can. Spend edge for another pass if you want.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 21 2011, 12:54 AM

Under "as many IPs", FastGuy gets shot at 8m instead of 5m if he runs, but he still gets shot. SlowGuy wastes movement he doesn't need.

Under "always 4", FastGuy and SlowGuy both get shot at 2.5m if they don't run or 5.75m if they do.

Spending Edge doesn't help. The only way it can help is if they go _after_ BadGuy in IP 1, move out after he's spent his action, then use Edge to go first in IP 2 and get to the cover before his next one. But that seems a bit specific.

So, why do something that's going to create a penalty if it doesn't help you?

Posted by: Bigity Jun 21 2011, 01:25 AM

The thing is, turn-based systems are abstract. Any changes you can add will still be abstract in other ways, and just make it more complicated or cause issues in other situations. Combat in SR is a very varied system, with melee, ranged, magic, spirits, decking, rigging, etc. There are going to be areas that feel a little flat.

When you keep looking at combat turns as 3 seconds, and not X number of passes, it isn't so jarring. People are running, ducking, shooting, dodging constantly most of the time. Having more passes just means you react quicker and so have more meaningful opportunities in the three seconds that other folks might not have.

You've come up with a situation that exposes this particular flaw of an abstract system, but there are many such flaws all over the rules. If it's an issue for you, make a house rule and press on

Posted by: HunterHerne Jun 21 2011, 01:38 AM

Who are you trying to help? Personally, I think you should do what feels right to you. I like the fact that PCs should think before they act. In reality, if I was either of those PC's, I would never try to go for cover over that exposed an area if I already had cover. Also, the PC's shouldn't know who get's to act, in what order, and a GM could delay action on the NPC until someone reveals himself. I would.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 21 2011, 01:43 AM

"Stick and Move! Stick and Move! ... ... ... http://youtu.be/Vfg5d2w0Iao"

Posted by: Epicedion Jun 21 2011, 05:48 AM

The best solution here is to simply not think about it too hard.

In most cases, players know where they need to move and that shouldn't change much during the middle of a combat turn. Movement isn't (often) "I go 3 meters then turn and go 2 meters and then... ." Rather, it's "I run to cover," or "I charge into melee combat," or "I go out of cover, over this obstacle, and as far down the hallway as I can."

If you try to cut movement down into IP segments, you're just going to drive yourself and your players crazy. Moving one or two meters during each initiative pass is simply too granular and will take too long.

What I've found is that the combat system is abstract enough to handle abstract movement. Let someone say "I'm running to cover" and if they can make it, they get the benefits of the cover that IP. But then allow them to change their minds about their final destination on the next IP, and bend that line of movement a little, so long as it's not egregious. And again on the next IP, until they run out of IPs. As long as they ultimately don't go farther than they have movement (and as long as they don't do anything ridiculous, like head for cover and then decide they really wanted to go the other direction altogether), it turns out okay. In the middle of a given turn, any inconsistencies about exactly when and where things happen can be chalked up to the fast-paced confusion of combat.

This also gives a little bit of a movement advantage to the people with the most IPs, since they get more ability to fine-tune where they are at the end of the combat turn.

When you ditch the mentality that Shadowrun combat has to be extremely precise (and break movement down into ultra-fine segments), you end up with cooler things happening and happier players.

Posted by: Udoshi Jun 21 2011, 01:55 PM

1) This is wrong. Delaying actions are useful, and you should read up on their rules.
This is not a hard concept to grasp: I hold my fire until I see someone to shoot. Someone with only 1 ip is perfectly able to choose to act in a later IP.

Yeah, you don't need to houserule a system that isn't broken, just because you don't understand that there's a system in place that already allows what you're trying to do.

Teleporting 1IP people is a problem with the -basic- movement rules, not one the suggestions we are discussing.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 21 2011, 02:04 PM

Usually, SR4 is not played as a tactical miniatures game, so this stuff rarely matters. *If* you find yourself in a situation where a player says, 'nuh uh, I ran 20m in IP #1, he *can't* shoot me!'… then just remind them that's stupid and shoot them. A rare problem with a simple solution.

Posted by: sabs Jun 21 2011, 02:16 PM

the way I run IP.

I take the Max IP, and divide movement rate by that. (so If someone has 3IP, I divide all movement by 3).

If you have 1 IP:
IP1: Start/stop move, Action, Hold Action.
IP2: You keep moving in the direction you picked, heading towards your end point (if it's less than a full run) or you can use a held action.
On IP3 You keep moving towards end point or you can use a held action.

if you have 2 IP
IP1: Start/stop move, Action, Hold Action
IP2: Start/stop move, Action, Hold action
IP3: Use Held action

if you have 3IP
IP1: do what you want
IP2: Do what you want
IP3: do what you want

If you had someone with 4IP then you divide everyones movement by 4.

Basically if you have 1IP you only move so far in 1 IP, but you can't change your movement/react to later IP's unless you actually have actions.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 21 2011, 02:16 PM

Heh...
Problem Solved...

Posted by: sabs Jun 21 2011, 02:18 PM

It's a Free action to start moving, and set an end point. If you wish to change your endpoint, you need another free action. That seems logical.

And Clearly if you have a held action, you can carry that into later IPs. Why wouldn't you be able to, that's stupid.

Posted by: DireRadiant Jun 21 2011, 02:29 PM

All movement and actions by players in whatever IP are Declarations of Intent. PC with more IP get to declare more stuff.

Resolution is done by the GM as to what happens during the course of a Combat Turn.

Just because a player says "My 1 IP guy instantly goes 20m and is behind cover" doesn't mean they instantly get teleported 20 m while no one else gets to act simply because that is their single declared action. For the duration of the turn they are traveling that 20 meters. So the multiple pass character is acting during the 1 IP characters movement. At some point during the 1IP declared movement, fast guy gets to act.

Divide into Declaration and Resolution. Players declare actions, GM resolves them.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 21 2011, 04:55 PM

I did read up on that, but even that by RAW seems to limit him to being targeted at the halfway mark, because the delaying rules say you can only delay until "the next" initiative pass - not till any later initiative pass.

Also, when you delay do you have to delay your entire Phase? Or, can you start moving on IP 1 and then delay the "action" part of your Phase until IP 2, or do you have to move and act in a single IP? This is another problem I've had as I'm not clear on whether you move and then act, act and then move, choose one or the other or can split the movement up.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 21 2011, 05:02 PM

Well I guess that sort of answers the question I've had floating in my head for a while, because the stats and system seem to make it resemble a tactical minis game (with the massive tables of precise gun ranges, etc). After all, saying that a person can walk 10m in a turn seems to imply to saying that if they need to move 10.1m they must run and take penalties, and thus the difference between those two needs to be tracked.

But the follow-up question to that is that if it's not actually meant to be done with these detailed systems then how is it done? Too many of the answers seem to come down to the GM making all the decisions. But I do know my players will want some kind of consistent understanding in advance of what's going to be going on. Otherwise they'll say I might just as well decide who is going to win the fight and save some dice wear. I like the "always 4 passes" idea but it does seem quite complex, it reminds me of the original Champions or SFB active segment systems which I guess is what this has been based on.

Is it normal to do actions in a "PBEM turn" sense, where everyone declares their intents in initiative order then the GM resolves all the actions at once? I can see why that would help but at the same time it seems to contradict RAW which says explicitly that those with higher initiative scores _act_ before those with lower initiative scores (not just declare, act).

Posted by: Nebular Jun 21 2011, 05:38 PM

There can be situations where everyone declaring their actions at once could be detremental. FastGuy might kill BadGuy before SlowGuy acts, meaning that SlowGuy now has wasted actions (or would need to re-declare what he's doing if you allowed it). It would also mean that players lower in the Initiative wouldn't be able to react to something that happened higher in the Initiative order. For example, BadGuy uses an overhead crane to move something over top of SlowGuy and intends to drop it on him during the next Pass. If SlowGuy has already declared his actions at the start of the Pass, he's now in trouble since he would (in theory) need to stick with his previously declared action rather than diving out of the way to save his skin. I've always found it easier to just get action declaration when it's the individual player's turn. Then nobody needs to remember what they originally declared if the series of actions before them takes a little longer than expected and can react if things go differently than they had originally planned.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 21 2011, 05:51 PM

If you're going to HR that all turns have 4 passes, you may want to set it at five instgead. Then you don't have to change movement rates or rfework your entire system when a rigger, hacker, or technomancer gets 5 passes.

Posted by: sabs Jun 21 2011, 05:51 PM

Well, in your case, he could abort to Full Defense, and dive out of the way.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 21 2011, 07:36 PM

hyphz, movement covers the whole Turn. You can move however you like during your actions, as long as the total doesn't go above the limit. (So, move-act-move, act-move, whatever.) Non-running is a non-action, so you don't have to worry about it. Running lasts the whole Turn, and it does affect rolls, so you do have to 'keep track'. It's pretty simple: 'are you running?'

If precision matters, then you have to divide the total—but in all other cases, you just roll with it. You can play it like miniatures, but I'd venture to say you shouldn't, and reiterate that I really think this is a rare case.

Posted by: DireRadiant Jun 21 2011, 09:45 PM

You do it to the level of precision you need. While the rule offer the ability to be very precise in small steps, the vast majority of the time you do not need to do it that way. Choose what level of precision you need to have the most fun. Some people choose to have meters of movement and mid IP actions matter, that's fun for them. When you need that, then you need to work at a high level of precision. Break it down into teh small steps.

When you don't need the steps, skip em. Choose the mode you want to play in, and adjust as needed.

Posted by: DireRadiant Jun 21 2011, 09:47 PM

When you read the rules, you'll notice that IP is actually described as Declare/Resolve, Movement is an entirely different section independent of the Turn Order, and Actions list, and that it says

"If a character mixed his modes of movement during a Combat
Turn and it becomes important to know exactly how far the character
moved in a particular pass, simply divide his Movement Rate by the
number of passes in that turn."

Posted by: hyphz Jun 21 2011, 10:43 PM

So in a single Phase, you can declare running, move to somebody 10m away, use a Complex Action to attack then in melee, then move 10m back again?

It's not precision I'm worried about, it's consistency and stability. I know my group will not like any suggestion that I am changing the rules on the fly for every situation. Also, if I do anything other than what's in the book it's my own responsibility. I really am having trouble with the idea that this game has been around for 20 years and yet does not have stable and agreed-on rules for something as fundamental as player movement! Surely there's an official standard somewhere?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 21 2011, 11:00 PM

AFAIK, yes… if there's just one IP in the whole Turn. You can mix any bits of movement into your actions. You can't take a Sprint action and a Complex action in the same IP, though (cuz that's too many actions).

I'm not sure what you're talking about at the end there. It's black and white in the book: you can move your Movement during a Turn, and *if* you need precise per-IP chunks, divide by total IPs (of everyone involved, so probably 4 or 5). The circumstances of 5 physical IPs are very rare, so 4 is usually fine. That's stable, official, and agreed on. If you wanted, you could always use the move/4 numbers, and make PCs declare each IP—this would be functionally identical to the normal 'simple' rules. Either way, people are moving the same distance, in the same time, with the same exposure to attacks, etc.

In the case of your 'Spring Attack' example, obviously precision is required. You would use per-IP distances, if anyone in the combat had more than just 1 IP/Turn.

Posted by: Cain Jun 22 2011, 12:12 AM

This +1.

SR4.5 is an abstract game with a lot of detailed options, but it's definitely not meant to be a tactical miniatures game. Trying to resolve exactly where anyone is and what modifiers apply to them is a headache. The best thing to do is simply handwave a lot of it away: just tell them: "You're at short range for that gun" or "You have cover". If you're using a protractor and slide rule to plot out exact placement, you're just going to frustrate yourself.

I had a similar problem in SR3, but I haven't figured out how to best apply my house rule to SR4.5. Basically, actions were declared and resolved in reverse order. That's right, the slowest guy went first. The trick here was that people with higher scores could "seize the initiative" and interrupt someone else's action. The beauty of this system was that mages and other slow characters got involved in the combat right from the start, so they didn't wander off for soda while waiting for their pass to come up.

I haven't thought about how to apply this to SR4.5 because of a difference in the way turns work. But the basic idea is sound, I'm just not sure about precisely how to implement it.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 22 2011, 02:42 AM

Really hate those reverse/declare systems. So complex, and everyone feels like they're getting screwed. I understand the concept's appeal, but… oh well.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 22 2011, 12:03 PM

Well, I can understand that, and I'd like to be able to do it that way. But at the same time, if you're not supposed to think that through, how are you supposed to think about what to do?

I have a player group coming from D&D 4E. They do tend to be very tactical players. If they see that the rules given to them allow them to have a character dart out from behind cover, run 10 metres up to flank the bad guy, shoot him twice, then run back to where they originally were in a single Action phase, they'll want to do it. Now if I'm going to say they can't do that, that's fine, but they'll want a set of rules to work within that clearly state they can't do that and enable them to calculate what they can and can't do. If they have to run every action by me in advance then they'll feel they can't plan ahead or pull off surprise tactics and they'll be upset by that.

That plus the fact that I still don't understand the Twitch the Elf example from the book (I did ask about this at the start of the thread but it may have been missed) are really making me unsure about how the heck to run this, even though I'd really like to. Is there a full complete combat example somewhene?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 22 2011, 01:37 PM

Bad players, alas. But yes, the simple answer is that no one can spring attack, so they shouldn't feel bad. They can instead fire from cover… because they're using guns, not melee. Melee is stupid, and stupid runners die fast.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 22 2011, 02:18 PM

Melee has it's place. But, in a world of firearms, the person that brings a knife to a gunfight is either very, very good or an idiot.

Learn to tell the difference if you wish to survive.

Cover is your friend. Until the weapons come out point out the fact that you don't have any cover any longer, only concealment. (M2-HB, anyone?).

Posted by: hyphz Jun 22 2011, 02:40 PM

That makes sense, but melee suddenly doesn't look so stupid if you can kick the gun user in the head from 10 metres away without getting shot before, during, or after - which is why I mentioned that in my earlier post

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 22 2011, 02:57 PM

If you are under 10m distance from somebody, chances are you will be there before a gun can be drawn/aimed your way . .

Posted by: Warlordtheft Jun 22 2011, 03:20 PM

The best solution for a game involving the 25mm or 28mm minitures I find is to go with 1"=2 meters. Now that you have that scale you can map out. Honestly I'd just divide the movement by 3 or the IP of the highest number of IP's in play should this become an issue. 9 times out of 10 though, this won't be an issue as the 1 IP guy is too busy dodging bullets to do much else (if they are smart).

Not that RAW is screwy in this regard ---as in the case of the 1IP human guy charging 25 meter to the 3 IP guy (troll street sam standing still). The 1 IP guy goes second (normally) and would get mowed down. On the off chance he spends edge or otherwise goes first he can run his full distance, engage in melee. But by raw on the second IP is not engaged in melee (IIRC) as the distance covered by the 1IP guy has only covered 2/3rds the distance (assuming he needed to run the full distance of 25 meters) and would get shout at and blown away.

OH..idea-moves involving a charge or engagement of the enemy result in the attacker delaying their attack until just before the targets last IP of the round unless they both have the same number of IPs-or the distance covered is equal to or less than attackers movement in terms of 1IP of the defenders. This works cause you divide the PC's or NPC's movement by the number of IP's they have.

Example 1:Ron the sec guard charges tammy the troll street same. Ron's charge move is 25m he has 1 IP< and spends edge to go first. Tammy has 3IP. Ron's charges the full 25 meters to tammy. Due to this house rule, Ron's attack is delayed until the 3IP. Tammy mows down Ron while he is at 8meters away on the first IP.

Example 2:Bob the sec guard charges tammy the troll street same. Bob's move is 25m he has 1 IP< and spends edge to go first. Tammy has 3IP.
Bobs only needs to cover 6 meter to get to Tammy. Due to the fact that 6 meters is less than 25(Bobs Speed)/3(Tammy's IP)=~8 meters, Bob's attack is not delayed and may immediately attack.


As you can see from the example here-while it is possible for it to become an issue, the scenario is a rare one indeed.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 22 2011, 03:23 PM

7 Meters is the generally accepted Distance (the 21 Foot Rule)...

Posted by: HunterHerne Jun 22 2011, 03:35 PM

But that is in real life, where "most" people could never get what would effectively be multiple IPs.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 22 2011, 04:10 PM

This is true...

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 22 2011, 05:02 PM

Fast Guy gets in his 3IP exactly as far as Slow Guy does in terms of Movement.
Fast Guy can, on the other Hand, act 3 times in the same time Slow Guy can.
Bad Guy can only shoot at slow guy, if bad guy goes before slow guy.
Bad Guy can only shoot at fast guy, if bad guy goes before fast guy.
Or am i misunderstanding something here?

Posted by: Mäx Jun 22 2011, 05:25 PM

You're fundamentally misunderstanding how the system works here, the number of IP:s doesn't matter at all.
If your moving your full allowance from cover to cover, then the bad guy can shoot you nomatter how many IP:S are involved, as your movement always takes 3 seconds(the length of one combat turn) and the bad guy is acting during those same 3 seconds, so your exposed to his fire while moving.

Posted by: sabs Jun 22 2011, 05:32 PM

What if I'm moving less than my combat speed?

Posted by: Warlordtheft Jun 22 2011, 06:08 PM

Depends....as stated in my solution the 1 IP guy may get there fast enough if he is close enough.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 22 2011, 07:00 PM

Does the example in the Runner's Toolkit explain any of this sort of thing? Or does it at least describe how to duck the issues in front of players?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 22 2011, 07:03 PM

Yes. There are circumstances (short distances) where you can legitimately 'get there' in 1 IP. Typically, this would be (Movement rate)/4, though it varies slightly if there are only 3 IPs in the Turn, etc.

What no one can do is 'spring attack'; you can't move 10m, melee, move 10m… without others having a *chance* to act. Because it is impossible, we needn't fret about it. Now, you can pull off things similar to this if you have extra IPs, because you could wait until slower people wasted their actions. Still, they had the possibility of shooting you, if they'd chosen to.

hyphz, I really don't think this should be a big problem for your group. Explain to them that, no, it doesn't work, because movement rate is per Turn (not IP); if they tried it, they would be exposed to attack. The basic rule is 'if it seems too good to be true, it's not!'.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 22 2011, 07:13 PM

Then you are not chuck norris.

Posted by: sabs Jun 22 2011, 07:21 PM

that doesn't make any sense.

My full round speed is 20M
I want to move 5M to cover, but according to you, that's going to take me the full 3 seconds..

why? and what does that have to do with Chuck Norris.

Posted by: Mäx Jun 22 2011, 07:37 PM

No it will take you exactly 0,75 seconds, for witch time you will be vulnerable to incoming fire.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 22 2011, 07:38 PM

It is called a 'joke'.

Because that's a situation where precision matters, your GM would use Rate/IPs (4), so you could indeed move 5m in that IP. Technically, anyone aiming at you during that IP still has the chance to shoot you, though (you're still in the open during the whole IP). If the cover were 20m away, people could shoot you during all 4 IPs.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 22 2011, 07:43 PM

Chuck Norris has only 2 Speeds: Walk and Kill.

Posted by: sabs Jun 22 2011, 07:50 PM

Chuck Norris is a tool

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 22 2011, 08:12 PM

Uhm . . only if the OTHER people have 4IP's right?
Else they get to go once, maybe twice and then you are scot free, right?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 22 2011, 08:15 PM

Yes, obviously. It's too much trouble to keep repeating (divide by N:N=max IPs of anyone in the combat).

Posted by: hyphz Jun 22 2011, 09:16 PM

In RAW, it seems to be possible. Declare run mode, then you have 23m movement for your turn. Move 10m out, melee, move 10m back. You have moved a total of 20m in the combat turn so you get the -2 penalty but that's all. You only need one IP to do this (by RAW) so no-one else gets a turn to attack you.

And what about poor old Twitch? Is his plight to remain unexplained?

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 22 2011, 09:26 PM

And this is only discussion, because it's not like it was back in the day, when the one guy who had initiative out the ass went and went and went untill he was spent and then everybody else got to chime in, when it was their time . .

Posted by: Faelan Jun 22 2011, 09:26 PM

I recommend you read the Movement section again, it is pretty explicit. By RAW it does not operate anything like you are suggesting.

Old Twitch had to stop because of simple common sense, I realize in D&D 4E everything is spelled out. Also Twitch if he had Gymnastics might have gotten away with continuing to move while helping up someone, but SR4A and really most games out there leave that adjudication to the GM to fit his tables particular style of play.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 22 2011, 09:33 PM

Except that in RAW, it is not possible because that 23 Meters of movement happens over 3 seconds. If the opponent has 3IP, you move about 8 meters per IP, so you are cut down before you ever close to your target.

Gun Fu trumps Sword Fu unless your Melee combatant is very very smart about he engages his targets...

Posted by: CanRay Jun 22 2011, 09:57 PM

What about my Fighter-Doken attack? Have a Troll toss a sword-wielding Dwarf and Sword Fu just turned into Ranged Combat!

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 22 2011, 10:02 PM

Heh... Yep, a Fastball Special is good, assuming you can throw the Dwarf a Goodly number of Meters.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 22 2011, 10:05 PM

"Throw me"
*WHAT?*
"Throw me! . . But don't tell the elf!"

Posted by: hyphz Jun 22 2011, 10:34 PM

But as you've said - the movement section has nothing to do with actions. That includes the fact that it doesn't say you can't move and take a Complex Action in the same phase. Twitch suggests you have to give up a phase worth of movement for a Complex Action which doesn't seem to be duplicated anywhere else.

Saying "Well, it's common sense you can't move and help someone up, that's a special case action" doesn't seem to fit either, since actions that _are_ described in the book don't follow the same common sense. You could, for example, move, fire a mounted gun, and then move away from the mount in one IP.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 22 2011, 10:37 PM

Just to add biodiesel to the fire: What about Parkour?

Posted by: Stahlseele Jun 22 2011, 10:53 PM

uses swimming speeds.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 23 2011, 12:31 AM

Again, no. You can do this if (and only if) you have only one IP, *and* no one else has more than 1 IP. However, it doesn't mean no one else can attack you, during IP 1, 2, 3, 4, (or even 5). I don't understand why you think it does mean that.

I don't know what this Twitch business is, but it sounds like roleplaying. He *chose* not to move while performing an action, because that made fluff sense.

Posted by: Udoshi Jun 23 2011, 06:51 AM

No.


No, see:



Sorry hyphz, as direradiant and Yerameyahu point out, it doesn't work like that and you can't teleport around the battlefield like that.
While you CAN do a sort of spring attack - move-attack-move, its a bad idea for a few reasons.
1) Interception attacks. Trying to disengage means free attacks against you. Those are Free actions, so you can interrupt other players turns with them.
2) You don't get your full Combat Turn movement speed all at once in one Pass. You only get a portion of it. You don't move 20 meters in total all in one go. You move about 5 meters before your turn ends, and you're open to retaliation by everyone else in the combat.
2a) it IS possible to PowerWalk your way into and out of melee range, without using actions, but not with the way you're trying to do. Sadly, it relies on critter powers and other movement rate multiplication tricks, and is so outside the reach of most players to actually pull off.
3) The rule on 4a 149 is the main reason I suggested dividing everyone's movement by 4 all the time. Flexible movement rates and annoying in-combat math that varies depending on who's fighting is just bad rules. You ALREADY divide movement by passes(because the rules say so), so doing it all the time actually makes sense.
4)Almost every other game system out there has a flat movement rate each time a player goes, and NOT having clear rules about it leads to the current confusion and rules clusterfuck we are currently discussing.

Posted by: Mäx Jun 23 2011, 06:58 AM

No you can not, your either moving or you standing still using the mounted weapon, it's totally imposible to do both of those thinks simultaniously.

Posted by: Udoshi Jun 23 2011, 07:13 AM

Actaully, you can.

Non action to Walk over.
Complex to shoot.
Free action left. You don't need to use it, but you could, for example, go Prone with it and use your remaining movement to crawl away. Or a called shot when you fire.

You just can't do it with the speeds and distances that hyphz thinks you can.

Posted by: TheLaughingBandit Jun 23 2011, 09:08 AM

I generally solve this by saying the first IP is the movement pass. Period. It makes it far easier to deal with the rest. If I want to get overly technical, I can say that if you move like that the first pass, you need to give up your free actions during the following IPs or have your movement divided by how many IPs you have and chose to use. Makes it very simple.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 23 2011, 07:02 PM

Ok, I'm starting to get some idea of how this goes now, so can I post a few clarifying examples to check?

1. A wants to run 23m and give a gun to B. A can declare this in IP 1, but A will not actually get to B until next Combat Turn, and technically will hand over the gun at that time too.

2. A wants to move 10m and give a gun to B. He has 1 IP. In IP 1 he declares a run and holds his Simple actions. In IP 3 he arrives at B, unholds and gives B the gun with his action for that IP.

3. A wants to move 10m and give a gun to B. A has 1 IP but B has 2. In IP 1 A declares a run and holds his Simple actions, and B holds. In IP 2 A moves and B loses his second action because he cannot keep more than one held. In IP 3 A arrives at B, unholds and gives B the gun, then B unholds and fires.

Are those right?

Posted by: Warlordtheft Jun 23 2011, 07:50 PM

yeah, but just because I'm on DS I'll nitpick Scenario 1, he will get to B at the end of the current combat turn.

Posted by: Udoshi Jun 23 2011, 08:35 PM

Emphasis mine.


haha what?
You're actually houseruling quasi- teleport movement BACK into the game, when it actually doesn't work in the first place?
Instead of using the sane approach?
for the love of god, why?

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 23 2011, 09:13 PM

A Touch of Insanity?

Posted by: hyphz Jun 23 2011, 09:50 PM

Yes, but too late to act, as in IP 4 he'll still be doing the last quarter of the movement - right?

Posted by: Bigity Jun 24 2011, 01:10 AM

Maybe his game is based around a squad of Warp Spiders.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 24 2011, 01:52 AM

Heh... Maybe...

Posted by: Warlordtheft Jun 24 2011, 02:46 AM

Effictively your delaying the simple action of handing the gun off till the end of last IP you move on.
Using 24m for simplicity in the following example:
1st IP:Run 6 Delay action
2nd IP: Run 6 more
3rd IP:Run 6 more
4th IP: Run 6 more, hand off gun to Player b.
Player B who held his action readies the gun and shoots.
End combat turn.

Posted by: MYST1C Jun 25 2011, 01:16 PM

Back in SR2, IIRC, the system was:

1. Roll Initiative.
2. The (N)PC with the lowest Initiative declares first.
3. Repeat step #2 for all involved (N)PCs in ascending order of Initiative rolls.
4. The (N)PC with the highest Initiative then starts to resolve his actions (i.e. he declares then immediately acts).
5. Repeat step #4 for all involved (N)PCs in descending order of Initiative rolls.

This was meant to reflect that Initiative-enhanced characters had better situational awareness and faster reflexes and thus could react to anyone slower than them. Of course, this also meant that characters with low Initiative propably never resolved their actions as they had already been killed or incapacitated by then – frustrating for the players if this struck their PCs...

SR2 was deep in Pink Mohawk territory and the combat system IMHO expected all PCs to have some sort of Initiative enhancements.

Posted by: Mäx Jun 25 2011, 01:41 PM

Can't be done, once character a is done moving that 24m the whole 3s combat turn is over.
That character could do it for 18m, moving of witch only takes the first 3IP:s.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 25 2011, 03:58 PM

Handing the gun takes no time, only an action. There's no reason to rule that way, Mäx.

Posted by: Mäx Jun 25 2011, 04:35 PM

So wish i could post the Star trek double facepalm picture right about know.
So your seriously saying that actions take no time at all, then why exactly are we limited in the amount of actions we can do during that one 3s combat turn?

Posted by: Epicedion Jun 25 2011, 05:22 PM

Actions can be taken before, during, or after movement. There's no rules-backed reason to say that the end of the turn must coincide exactly with the end of movement, and that after that last movement is fully taken there can be no more actions. If you still have actions to take during the last IP, you can take them after you've moved.

In that sense, actions take no time. You're simply allotted them.

Posted by: hyphz Jun 26 2011, 02:28 PM

Ok. Sorry, one more question..

Since you can use delaying to take your Simple/Complex actions at any point in the turn, what is the practical difference between these and Free Actions? I mention this only because the rulebook seems to highlight that Free Axtions can be taken at any point in the turn after your Phase, but this seems to be true for other action types as well.

Also, it was really interesting to learn that SR2 used PBEM style initiative. What did 1 and 3 use?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 26 2011, 04:10 PM

It's very simple, Mäx: you have actions, not time. Time is not important in SR4, actions and IPs are. Obviously, they are related in an abstract way, but that is *not* a reason to start inventing rules like 'there's no time at the end of your phase to act'.

hyphz, they're different 'size' actions, which is a big enough distinction for me. I've never really thought about the Free action feature of being taking any time. You get 1 Complex + 1 Free, or 2 Simple + 1 Free, or you can trade anything larger in for more Free.

Posted by: Mongoose Jun 26 2011, 04:39 PM

The only reasonable way to use the current movement rules is to assume there is a constant number of IP's. AFAIK, the most possible IPs in the game is 5. Somebody, somewhere in the world has 5 IPS, and (seeing as they are a hacker, so can affect things almost anywhere in the world) they might do something that affects your combat. Thus, for movement purposes, you have to assume there are 5 IPs, right?
Except, that kinda makes for crap game play. Diving for cover is pretty much not an option, even against totally un-augmented enemies. Also, having everybody move 5 times per turn is just a pain in the ass.

I'd compromise by having everybody move just 2 times per turn, using half their move rate. If there's only 1 IP (rare), then you add a second IP just for movement. If there more than 2 IPs, that's fine- you get to pick which 2 you want to move in. Keeps the math simple, and (IMO) simulates the fog of combat nicely; once bullets start flying, friends and enemies are often not where you expect them to be.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 26 2011, 04:44 PM

You can dive for cover, you just can't 'dive' 20 *meters* for cover.

I'm sure any of these are valid (that is, fun) ways to play the game. The RAW way is to ignore it until it matters, and then to use the most IPs anyone has. If that's too flexible, then do feel free to screw with it, heh.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 26 2011, 05:06 PM

http://youtu.be/Vfg5d2w0Iao

Posted by: Aku Jun 26 2011, 05:07 PM

In order to use a simple/complex action at another time, other than on your IP, you need to have it held. So, lets say Slowguy is the last guy in the turn to go, and it hasnt reached his turn yet, he cant stop fastGuy by shooting him in advance, he could, however, use a free action to yell "FastGuy coming in, 10 o'clock" over the teams com.

Posted by: Mäx Jun 26 2011, 07:44 PM

Who's inventing anythink, moving your full speed takes a full combat turn, so quite obviously you can't take your action after that as the combat turn is over.

Posted by: Cain Jun 26 2011, 11:10 PM

There is a limit on how many free actions you can take. Beyond that, there's very little you can accomplish with a free action. Your simple/complex actions were how often you could do something useful.

Also, I don't know what you mean by "PBEM", but the basics went something like this: in both SR 1 and 2, you used a countdown style of initiative. You went from fastest to slowest, declaring and resolving actions in that order. The catch was, every time you went, you subtracted a number from your initiative score (7 in 1e, 10 in 2e) and went again on the new count. So, if you were playing SR2 and got an initiative of 34, you went on 34, 24, 14, and 4. The problem with this system was that fast characters dominated the entire combat, and slower characters often had their players wandering off. The combat would frequently be over long before mages and deckers ever got their turn.

In SR3, the concept of the "pass" was introduced. So, if you rolled an initiative of 34, you still subtracted 10 after your first action, and that would be your initiative for the second pass. You kept going until everyone was out of initiative. This meant that slower characters would be able to act in the first pass, they just tended to wander off after their turn was done. Some people here didn't like it for other reasons that I can't recall; you'd have to ask them.

Posted by: Aku Jun 26 2011, 11:10 PM

Play By E-Mail

Posted by: Udoshi Jun 27 2011, 10:11 AM

This is my preffered way to do things, except your numbers are a bit off. There's a definite rules hardcap on 4 meatspace IPs.

I'd also like to point out that shadowrun uses distances in Meters. A human movement rate divided by 4 passes is still 16 feet covered.
When you stop to think about it, its damn impressive distance covered in 0.75 seconds(3 second combat turn / 4 passes) from standing still to running.

If you think that makes for crap game play, then you need to reexamine the distances you use in your fight scenes. No, really. See next quote



For the record, 20 meters is 65 feet. This type of thing is pretty much the reason its necessary to tone movement back down to much more sane, reasonable levels. There's a difference between diving for cover behind a bar or table, and diving across the entire basketball court to take cover. (google tells me its 50' width, and either 84 or 94' depending on highschool/college or professional courts)


Taking a system with dynamic movement rates and turning them into flat movement rates just makes SENSE. Every other game system out there uses that system:
D&D 3.5? 30 feet per turn. (and lots of ways to increase it, most of which involve adding 5 or 10) 6 second turns.
AD&D/2e: Notable because each combat turn was a -minute- of combat, with a series of assumed attacks, counters, and parries between the dice rolling. It had fractional -attacks-, in that fast fighters would occasionally carry a strike over to the next turn, but NOT fractional movement.
Dark heresy? A little more complex, but still incredibly easy to calculate. Take your agility, divide it by 10, drop any fraction. Thats your Half Move speed in meters. Double if full moving, triple if charging, x6 if running. (for an average dude that breaks down to 3/6/9/18). This system uses 5 second combat turns.

The common theme here is: They all have flat values.

Shadowrun 4th? Its the only system where figuring out how far you go when you want to get away from the bad guys has the following steps:
Look up your movespeed based on your metatype
realize that its per TURN, and go 'oh wait, i can only take part of it now'
ask all the other players and the GM how fast ALL of the combatants are, and then divide that distance by 1 to 4, and wonder if .6666 repeating meters puts your outside of melee range or not.
Oh, and NOW you get to move.

Yeah, its just BAD rules fu.

Posted by: Mäx Jun 27 2011, 11:47 AM

Well rigging a drone is a matrix action and thus uses matrix iniative and IP:s, meaning a drone can have 5 meat IP:s.

Posted by: Udoshi Jun 27 2011, 03:14 PM

Thats an example of an extreme edge case in rules. Its one very specific example that happens to break the basic system, but the problem really isn't drones so much as the bad movement rules themselves

Besides, you lose 1 complex action each turn rigging, so its effectively 4.

I'm pretty sure the simsense accelerator was introduced just so the hacker wouldn't go 'wait, why can't i be as fast as the sammy?'

Either way, 4 vs 5ips doesn't really matter. The total rate of movement within a turn for all parties concerned doesn't change.

Assuming 5 ips, however, does make movement rate dividing math a lot simpler, because it gets rid of a lot of fractions.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jun 27 2011, 03:42 PM

You do not lose an Action to control the Drone as it is not mandatory... You can choose not to [control the drone] and just take the penalty of making a Crash test. Any competant rigger will pass that with room to spare.

And yes, dividing by 5 works out great for every one except the Dwarf.

Posted by: Cain Jun 27 2011, 09:20 PM

I'm going to say what I said elsewhere: just abstract it.

If a player suddenly wants extreme details, ask him what he wants to do. Let's say he wants to find the best cover possible. You, as GM, simply decide that cover is in reach (no action necessary), slightly out of reach (Dive for it! Complex or simple action), or out of reach (You can't get there this pass). Modify as needed for your own group, of course. Rather than trying to plot out exact distances and movement rates using a slide rule, just find out what their objectives are and tell them how to accomplish it. If it takes some specifics, express it in complex/simple actions rather than exact distances. As long as you keep the action flowing, no one will care.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 28 2011, 01:20 AM

I agree: even if you're using exact movement distances, I've rarely seen a SR GM give exact *terrain* distances.

Posted by: Warlordtheft Jun 28 2011, 06:31 PM

I've done before running the SR equivalent of a dungeon delve. The map I made had 1"= 2 meters. What I found was that the distance moved in each IP was minimal at best unless you were running. Most combats took less than 2 combat turns-I even had one guy complain that he felt like he was moving too slow until I reminded him it was a 3 second combat turn and he had 3 IP.

Also in general:
1. Spirits and Mind control are funky.
2. Fighting in a building usually results in it being short range.
3. Melee does happen.
4. Drones are deadly.
5. Grenades or missles in an enclosed space=chunky salsa.

Posted by: DamienKnight Jun 28 2011, 07:59 PM

If you have 25 movement, across 4 passes, and there is cover 8 meters away, you are going to get shot at. While you can move 8 meters in one pass, that movement happens spread throughout the pass, not instantly on your turn. You arent actually behind that cover until the start of your next initiative, so anyone taking a turn would have a chance to shoot at you.

Also, if they had a held action, they could shoot at you even if you were jumping toward cover 1 meter away.