Melee is commonly considered inferior to ranged because you first have to close the distance, and is resisted with two dice pools (three on full defense), as opposed to range's one (two on full defense).

I am currently considering a way to balance them, and am asking for what you would see as the pro's and con's.

Make ranged defense work as Reaction+Dodge, with full defense Reaction+Dodge+Dodge/Gymnastics.

The primary cons I can currently see with the issue are as follows:
Dodge may become a must-have skill
How having two pools on regular defense will stack with cover.


I decided to try decreasing the power of ranged instead of increasing that of melee (by removing one of the defensive pools) because Shadowrun is the first game system I have seen that takes parrying into account, and I see no reasonable reason to remove it.

Melee is inferior to ranged IRL also. I don't see any reason to make them equivalent methods of combat. Melee has its own advantages (maneuvers, high DV values possible, completely legal, quieter).

I would allow characters in melee with a ranged combatant to defend against it like it was a melee attack, thus adding Dodge/Close Combat skill...
This would keep the advantage of ranged combat when you have range, but make melee the undisputed master of... Well... Melee...
But I don't think this fix alone would bring them up to par, a lot of the problem also stems from the fact that shooting is a simple action while hitting is a complex one, changing melee attacks to simple actions would make it much more balanced too...

Disclaimer: these are just ideas I'm throwing out there, an appart from a gut feeling I cannot prove nor disprove anything about them...

Exactly... Why do you think punching someone would do as much damage as shooting them?

Now, when it comes to melee weapons, I could see how you might think a sword could equal a pistol in damage, which is why I generally add 1 to the DV of all melee weapons. But unarmed combat shouldn't be particularly lethal.

I disagree. Whats the force contained in a bullet vs the force contained in a solid punch/kick.

Geeze, melee has been pretty vicious in my games so far...though I do like the idea of using melee-style defense pools when defending against a point-blank attack.

True enough. Im a huge fan of melee over ranged generally in SR just due to the style(though I do like to pull out more gun-types now and again.)

I can see where some problems are; but they do have other advanages, like Tarantula pointed out.

Melee +'s:

Quiet. (Ok, so you can silence some guns, too, but ill count that there.)

Very high DVs possible, and you don't need to have super strength to get that far; a little old man who'se a master can have a crazy high DV. Making a melee master can easily have DVs in the sniper rifle range with little minmaxing or sacrifice involved.

Lots of manuvers; the Riposte manuver is amazing in itself, allowing the takedown of several people if you're defenses are good enough. All the manuvers about are good.

Lots of martial arts styles to give other benefits as well.

While it can certainly leave behind blood, it generally doesn't leave behind ammo.

Impact armor, on average, is lower than Ballistic on most armor. (yes, there are little addons like shin and forearm guards that can help, but typically, yeah.)

And yeah, somehow, even though Gene 'God Hand' hits harder than a truck, he doesn't need to register his fist.

Melee -'s:

Complex action. Unless you're ready to do alot of action-borrowing and have defensive manuvers(read; Riposte), you aren't attacking as often.

Have to be close, naturally. A troll with a polearm(+3 reach) still has to be close. And have to be close means you have to close in, usually in a dangerous situation unless you have a good stealth skill and are ninja climbing on the ceiling.

Defender does indeed get more stuff to defend with; however, this you could almost see as the tradeoff factor of a well built melee guy having a higher DV to hit with.


Firearms +'s:

Many times, a simple action. Lots of Semiautomatic and Burst-fire options.

It basically guarentees a free +2 die pool with a smartlink.

You attack from range.

Silenced, it can be quiet(though not as quiet as melee), but not every gun is like this.

Some guns have insane range indeed.

Less dice to defend with.

Variety of ammo; AV and AP take care of that pesky ballistic armor.

Options like supressive fire can make it a literal pain in the ass for melee to close.

Hiding and firing behind cover is always an option.

Firearm -'s:

You need licences for them, generally. Even though they are cheap and not that tough to get, you need to have em.

Louder on average, even a silenced gun isn't as quiet as someone sending a knife-hand through someone's throat.

Within 3 meters, the minuses start piling up. Firing into melee with your friends there is likewise a bad idea.

Generally, lower DVs, unless you get into The Big Guns, and even then.

(I can't say ''leaves behind evidence'', however, since i hear all guns are caseless these days. Unsure here.)

Specialized ammo is more expensive and hard to come by; making Ballistic armor still a pain in the ass sometimes.

Only one martial art really devoted to firearms.

Guns have ammo. Ammo can run out. 'God Hand' Gene's fist isn't running out unless it's cut off. And then he still has his other fist and two feet. And his head.

Guns have to be smuggled past security. So do knives and swords, but that's the beauty of ceramic blades.


And there are ones im missing. Honestly, they sorta even each other out; though I have to say Firearms indeed have some goodies on their side(the being able to lay down supressive fire to hold back melee folks and shoot from almost full cover from a good distance is really excellent.) But at the same time, so is having a very deadly, perfectly legal and quiet method of dealing with problems.

...another disadvantage is that a single melee attack is a complex action while someone with a semiauto or burst fire weapon can squeeze two shots/burst off in an IP.

Finally there is firing a ranged weapon when engaged in, or into a melee scrum. I think this should incur stiffer modifiers. Also, if you glitch, you have a 50/50 chance to shoot yourself or your ally (if firing into melee) or miss entirely. If you critical glitch, you shoot yourself or your ally.


...Critical Strike Adept power, Bone Lacing Cyberware, Bone Density Bioware, Killing hands Adept power.

IRL, it is a bad idea to take a knife to a gun fight. However, it is an equally bad idea to bring a gun into a knife fight. Melee combat is not inferior, it simply takes a bit more training to be effective than firearms, and lacking the range, has a disadvantage made up for with it's increased versatility.



Yes, you should be able to parry a gun in melee.
As for firearms taking a simple action, I don't want to change to much until I know how the first small change works, and so am currently running under the assumption that the martial arts will make up for it being a complex action.

Not really, it isn't. Assuming both fighters have their weapons ready, gun wins. And, in the case of when shadowrunners need to fight, generally, they can have their weapons ready ahead of time.

Energy of a bullet is a useless number, always has been. How many kids did you kill in fistfights in school? How many of your friends got killed in a fistfight? Did anyone you know get killed in a fistfight? Without a secondary event, like falling down and breaking their skull, or having 4 guys stomp on him for a few minutes?

Not about Force, it's about Kinetic Energy.

Ke = 1/2 MV^2 and all that.

Mass * Velocity Squared. Yes the bullet is small... but the Bullet comes out of the gun with way more velocity than a Punch could ever have, and you square it to get Kinetic Energy. Ke is what hurts you when the punch lands or the bullet hits you.

How many kids can actually punch equally well as a professional such as a boxer/kickboxer?

The average man can close 20 feet and attack with a bladed weapon before a trained officer can draw and fire a handgun. Handguns, when you have distance, are generally superior for obvious reasons. However, a gun in melee range is significantly more difficult to hit with, and easier to disarm, than a knife. Add that a pocket knife can easily equal or exceed the damage of a 22 round.

Yes, firearms have a distinct disadvantage in a knife fight, similar to how knives have a disadvantage in a gunfight.

I assume by force you mean energy, and a bullet transfers far more energy than a punch. Kinetic energy is .5*mass*velocity^2, meaning velocity is a far greater factor than mass.

A punch transfers roughly half the kinetic energy of a bullet.

Edit: Wow, I was late to the party!

True, and a punch is spread over a larger area, resulting in greater distribution, decreasing the raw power even further. But this can work to your advantage sometimes - greater chance of knockdown, and less chance of the attack simply passing through the body leaving a nice little hole that doesn't do much.

How many boxers/kickboxers kill someone in a single blow to the body or head? Not many.

But how many people who get shot in the body or head die? Most.

Exactly, hence less damage (generally) and the fact of it being stun rather than physical.

Your first statement is true, excepting Chuck Norris of course. The second? Not so much. I read an article about drug-runners getting into shootouts with feds and border patrol officers in Baja. Turns out that at anything further than point-blank range firearms are more likely to disable than kill. One suspect was shot 20+ times with a variety of calibres (9mm, .45 and 12 gauge buckshot IIRC). Of course people can easily be killed by a single bullet to the right spot, but in the heat of a firefight that's going to be the result of pure luck more often than not.

On a personal level, I think I'd rather face a poorly trained rent-a-cop with a light or heavy pistol than a poorly trained orc with a combat axe (in SR of course, IRL I'd simply zig-zag away from the firearm and run like hell from the axe (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )

How many boxers/kickboxers go around fighting people and punch them full out without gloves on? Not many.

Edit: I'll agree that the fact that unarmed does stun damage is enough to show the difference in power between unarmed and firearms.

Read what I said again. Assuming both fighters have their weapons ready.

And in SR, this is moot, since via the initiative system, you can be chest to chest, and yet someone can quickdraw and fire their weapon into you twice before you get a chance to punch/knife/whatever them.

Another point to bring up about firearms - the average handgun is accurate to aprox. 15 feet without a good amount of training. Moving targets, even moving directly away, makes a shot significantly more difficult. Running away in a zig-zag pattern, the typical firearm user would have to be quite lucky (or you be unlucky) to hit you - and if you do get hit, it will rarely be more than disabling, and most often simply painful.

EDIT: Maybe we could get this thread back to the original topic?

No, it's not that either.

It's that the bullet puts a hole all the way through your body, destroying or damaging whatever organs it hits, and often causing all sorts of internal bleeding. Bigger bullets make a bigger wound channel, bullets that expand or tumble make even bigger would channels. The more tissue that is destroyed the more likely it is that something important (like your liver, aorta or spinal cord) gets damaged. It doesn't correlate well to KE or momentum.

If you could punch you fist through someone's chest and out the back (through the ribs, their lungs/heart, and through the ribs again) that be roughly the damage that a close range shotgun hit does. I strongly suspect that nobody can actually punch like that in the real world, not matter what the karate "black belt in a year" guy tells you.

My other point for melee damage is that its possible to get into the high teens with adept powers and martial arts (as well as cyberlimbs/trolls/etc) for damage. Throw in killing hands or bone lacing and now you are hitting harder than sniper rifles.

The energy of the bullet is actually the more important factor.
http://www.ballistics-experts.com/Forensic...cs/Overview.htm
http://www.freshpatents.com/Low-lethality-...20060283068.php


You kill people by imparting energy to their system. Not from the penetration of the round. The penetration may also be a contributing factor, but the shock imparted to the body by the impact of the round to a point on the body is where the damage comes from.