How to fix Chase Combat, From the Compromise thread... Options

[Ryu]

As you pointed out, that's already been factored into the rolls you need just to survive. It seems highly unfair that you penalize them again for going fast, when you're trying to get away. As for the change in distance, it is "instant" in that they suddenly jump from long range at the end of last turn, to short range at the start of the new turn.

Now, I don't mind the concept that people should be penalized for going fast, especially in tight areas. What I don't agree with is that it doesn't help them get away. Once you make the roll, you've successfully held your speed. There should be an advantage for doing that, as opposed to no bonus or even a penalty. They've been penalized once, why do it again?

I´m penalising both parties for going insanly fast on the driving test. I penalise the slower party for trying something reckless on the maneuver test.

Both are going insanely fast, the party with a better vehicle has a relative advantage.



Regarding the "Picard Maneuver": You can not avoid discrete distance jumps in a round-based combat system that uses abstract distances. This is an artifical problem. You will get nothing but a few "threads of infinite length" out of it. The GM should remove all vehicles that are not conceivably able to keep up from the chase combat.

[Wasabi]

I don't think its broken at all.

My own take is:

1. That the movement power of a Force 10 spirit allows x10 movement but that doesn't mean the frame of the vehicle can sustain that kind of stress. The movement power is better used to reduce the oppositions movement than to increase your own. Its like a Nitrous Injection system that can last for hours and if you were to try that the vehicle's structural integrity would take a SERIOUS beating and fail before the spirit's service expired.

2. Regarding speed Ryu just said it best. It can provide a modifier or penalty to the test but you can either hang or not. On a straightaway in the desert there isnt any maneuvering to be done, just tests to maintain control of the vehicle and those aren't hard at all.

3. A "Maneuver Test" is just that, its an attempt to outmaneuver the other. In every chase the GM, IMO, needs to apply modifiers that reflect the possible speed attainable in the area and the environment constraining maneuvers. So as an example, a car that could go 300 in rush hour might be weaving through cars, cutting up an emergency lane, etc., in order to lose a pursuer or to gain ground on the prey. If you are on a racing track then the maneuver test would be against a static threshold to maintain control of the vehicle at a high speed. Examples of both are listed in the BBB.

4. Picard maneuver? Not by RAW: "Chase Turns: Time during chase combat is measured by Chase Turns. One Chase Turn is one minute long (20 Combat Turns)." [BBB, p161]
The speed of a chase combat is 1min per test. Thats 60sec per maneuver test or 20 combat TURNS. Tests are required every Combat Turn to maintain control but every CHASE Turn to close or lengthen the distance between pursuers and prey. At 3 passes per turn thats 60 actions for a VR rigger only one of which CAN involve closing and 19 others just to not lose control of the vehicle.

So really, what you have is the ability for a vehicle to spend 2 min *minimum* to close from long to close range and another minute to attempt the Cut Off maneuver. 3min in Shadowrun game mechanics is a lifetime!!!

[Aaron]

Here's a question.

Do you want an awesome and cinematic chase scene, or do you want to simulate reality?

Once you have your objective in mind, it's pretty obvious where to go from there, I think.

EDIT: No, you don't get both. Real-life car chases are actually pretty boring. And by "boring" I mean boring in the narrative sense; I'm sure it's quite exciting for those in the chase.

[Blade]

The way I deal with it:

* Chase/Tactical combat only happens when there can be a chase. A westwind will outrun a dodge scoot in a few seconds on a deserted highway. But at rush hour, there will be a chase since the higher speed of the Westwind won't have much impact on the chase.
I might also throw in a few modifiers in some cases to reflect that one of the vehicle has some advantages over the other one (for example if the Westwind take a road with little to no traffic for a few meters before getting back into heavy traffic, it will get a bonus because of its higher speed).

* The rolls and choice are made at the beginning of each chase combat turn, but it takes the whole chase combat turn to lead to the outcome. For example if the Dodge Scoot is chasing the Westwind and wins the roll and decides to get from long range to close range. I'll explain it by saying that after a few seconds the Westwind has to suddenly brake down to avoid colliding with a car, and about 1 minute after the beginning of the chase turn the Dodge Scoot has gotten at close range with the Westwind.

* Characters can act during the Chase combat. Let's say that now that both vehicles are at close range, and the passengers of each vehicle shoot at each other. The drivers do their chase combat rolls to determine what will happen during the next minute. But if the passengers want to act during these minutes, this will switch to tactical combat for about 20 combat turns during which the situation between the vehicles will evolve according to what was decided by the chase combat.

[Tarantula]

One guy drives better, they all get into Close range. It wouldn't matter what the other go-gangers rolled. If we beat every single biker except for one, they all can come into close range. Heck, they could all critically botch, and they'd still close the distance, pulling a Picard Maneuver.

You can't see one guy forcing you to go slow enough that the rest are able to be in close range also?

If they critically botched, they get to crash and suck it. They're outta the chase.


Your problem is not with the chase rules, but with them not fitting your view of what they need to do.

[Eryk the Red]

Your problem is not with the chase rules, but with them not fitting your view of what they need to do.

Tarantula, those are the same thing. His problem is with the chase rules, and the problem is they don't do what he wants. I'm with him on that. Realistic or not, it's silly and kinda lame that speed has no benefit in a chase. I have my own set of rules I use, but they differ greatly from the RAW.

I don't really care for the solution that "if one side is a lot faster, they just win, no chase", because it doesn't offer a grey area. There should be times when speed is a benefit, but not so great that it makes success automatic.

The "Picard Maneuver" is also a problem. It means that a group of vehicles in a chase only needs one of them to have a great driver (the rest can be slightly competent monkeys) to reap the benefits of outmaneuvering the other side.

I, personally, also don't care for chase combat operating on a different timescale from all other types of combat. I'd rather bring that back in line with the rest, also. Lots of cool stuff can happen in a minute of a movie car chase, why should we gloss over all that?

[Tarantula]

Tarantula, those are the same thing. His problem is with the chase rules, and the problem is they don't do what he wants. I'm with him on that. Realistic or not, it's silly and kinda lame that speed has no benefit in a chase. I have my own set of rules I use, but they differ greatly from the RAW.

I don't really care for the solution that "if one side is a lot faster, they just win, no chase", because it doesn't offer a grey area. There should be times when speed is a benefit, but not so great that it makes success automatic.

The "Picard Maneuver" is also a problem. It means that a group of vehicles in a chase only needs one of them to have a great driver (the rest can be slightly competent monkeys) to reap the benefits of outmaneuvering the other side.

I, personally, also don't care for chase combat operating on a different timescale from all other types of combat. I'd rather bring that back in line with the rest, also. Lots of cool stuff can happen in a minute of a movie car chase, why should we gloss over all that?

If I am in a car, and you are walking, and we have a 1 minute race, do you really need a "grey" area to tell you you lose? What if we give you a bicycle? You know that no matter what, that car is going to beat you, and there really isn't anything you can do about it. Same thing with a super tuned optimized etc. car vs a generic POS mobile.

The "picard maneuver" is not a problem. If I am running from the cops, and one cop manages to get in front of me, and slams on his brakes, guess what, I'm slowing down unless I want to hit him. And guess what else, his 3 buddies that were behind me, are now right next to me too.

I see the "picard maneuver" as lacking imagination to visualize possible ways it happened in the abstract context of chase combat.

[Eryk the Red]

Do you only allow chases between cars that go the same speed? Because that's a little ridiculous, and pretty boring.

The rules here fail to model what I'm imagining. The rules may work fine for you, but for me, I don't think I should have to envision everything completely differently to match the rules. It's not a lack of imagination. It's having a different one from you, and apparently the author of the chase rules.

The rules are there to serve me. I do not serve the rules. When the rules fail to serve me (and my players), they get changed.

[Blade]

It's not just about speed. It's also about how fast you can go and who's chasing who.

Bicycle chasing a plane = no chase
Plane chasing bicycle = chase (weird but chase anyway)
Bycicle chasing car on an empty highway = no chase
Car chasing bicycle on an empty highway = chase (weird too)
Bycicle chasing car during rush hour in a city = chase
Car chasing bycicle during rush hour in a city = chase

[Cain]

1. That the movement power of a Force 10 spirit allows x10 movement but that doesn't mean the frame of the vehicle can sustain that kind of stress. The movement power is better used to reduce the oppositions movement than to increase your own. Its like a Nitrous Injection system that can last for hours and if you were to try that the vehicle's structural integrity would take a SERIOUS beating and fail before the spirit's service expired.

The GM used the Rocket Booster rules to determine the damage to the car. That seemed handwavy, but perfectly acceptable. As for the duration of the Movement power, it shouldn't need to take very long to get away. However, by the rules, we would need to sustain that speed for at least 4 minutes before we could escape.

3. A "Maneuver Test" is just that, its an attempt to outmaneuver the other. In every chase the GM, IMO, needs to apply modifiers that reflect the possible speed attainable in the area and the environment constraining maneuvers. So as an example, a car that could go 300 in rush hour might be weaving through cars, cutting up an emergency lane, etc., in order to lose a pursuer or to gain ground on the prey. If you are on a racing track then the maneuver test would be against a static threshold to maintain control of the vehicle at a high speed. Examples of both are listed in the BBB.

Making high-speed vehicles roll Vehicle tests to avoid crashing is fine. However, you make that roll separately from the Opposed Test you roll at the start of each Chase turn. Penalizing that opposed test seems like double-penalizing the players.

4. Picard maneuver? Not by RAW: "Chase Turns: Time during chase combat is measured by Chase Turns. One Chase Turn is one minute long (20 Combat Turns)." [BBB, p161]
The speed of a chase combat is 1min per test. Thats 60sec per maneuver test or 20 combat TURNS. Tests are required every Combat Turn to maintain control but every CHASE Turn to close or lengthen the distance between pursuers and prey. At 3 passes per turn thats 60 actions for a VR rigger only one of which CAN involve closing and 19 others just to not lose control of the vehicle.

While the timeframe itself is a problem, the Picard Maneuver still happens, because distance changes can only occur at the start of a Chase turn. So, at 59 seconds, the car is at long range; at 1:00, he's at short range. Also, you don't get your normal actions during Chase Combat; it's either Tactical turns and normal combat, or Chase turns and Chase combat.

* Characters can act during the Chase combat. Let's say that now that both vehicles are at close range, and the passengers of each vehicle shoot at each other. The drivers do their chase combat rolls to determine what will happen during the next minute. But if the passengers want to act during these minutes, this will switch to tactical combat for about 20 combat turns during which the situation between the vehicles will evolve according to what was decided by the chase combat.

Dropping in and out of Chase combat would be a nightmare. The different timeframes would make the riggers essentially helpless, since they have to operate on vehicle time. The vehicles themselves would be sitting ducks, since their defense pools would only refresh every 20 combat turns.

You can't see one guy forcing you to go slow enough that the rest are able to be in close range also?

Not without making a Cut Off test first. And that assumes that he's got the speed to close the distance and cut us off in the first place.

If I am in a car, and you are walking, and we have a 1 minute race, do you really need a "grey" area to tell you you lose? What if we give you a bicycle? You know that no matter what, that car is going to beat you, and there really isn't anything you can do about it. Same thing with a super tuned optimized etc. car vs a generic POS mobile.

If I put you in my mom's old 85 Honda, and put you up against Lance Armstrong on his racing bike, you would lose that 1 minute race. A human actually has better acceleration than a car, you just cap out in top speed. For example, a fast human can cover 100 meters in 10 seconds; most cars can't do that.

It's not just about speed. It's also about how fast you can go and who's chasing who.

In other words, handwave it. That's exactly what we're trying to avoid. Saying the rules work because you handwave and/or house rule them, is a fallacy.

[Ryu]

There are still a few misconceptions about chase combat. Trying to put up a fight on part of the escaping party makes it into tactical vehicle combat.

The jump in distances is an automatic effect of the abstract distance system. If that is really your base of contention, do distance in meters, and have each vehicle advance due to the result of the driving test (as in: choose speed, roll test). Then you could define break-off distances depending on the surrounding area (ie: suburbs 500m, downtown 80 m) etc. Once the escaping vehicle has the required lead, the driver makes a vehicle stealth test, also modified for the surrounding area (ie: many sidestreets full of parked cars: +2, barren industrial zone -4).

[Tarantula]

Not without making a Cut Off test first. And that assumes that he's got the speed to close the distance and cut us off in the first place.

If I put you in my mom's old 85 Honda, and put you up against Lance Armstrong on his racing bike, you would lose that 1 minute race. A human actually has better acceleration than a car, you just cap out in top speed. For example, a fast human can cover 100 meters in 10 seconds; most cars can't do that.

In other words, handwave it. That's exactly what we're trying to avoid. Saying the rules work because you handwave and/or house rule them, is a fallacy.

A cut off test forces you to avoid crashing. Outmaneuvering you causing you to slow down doesn't force you to make a crash test, but does put you in the range that HE wants you in.

I found quarter mile times for a 1985 honda civic S. 18.2 seconds. Quarter mile is 402 meters. 18.2 / 4 = 4.55 seconds to cover the distance.

Bicycle records that I"ve found here the shortest time for a 200 meter flying start was 5.523 seconds. Which means the car is going almost twice as fast. Your comparision is wrong.

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

Making high-speed vehicles roll Vehicle tests to avoid crashing is fine. However, you make that roll separately from the Opposed Test you roll at the start of each Chase turn. Penalizing that opposed test seems like double-penalizing the players.

Personally, I just roll them into one test, rather than testing separately - it seems to work better when you're using vastly different handling scenarios.

For example - a car chasing a motorcycle into a parking garage is going to have more issues with manueverability - a motorcycle might be able to take a shortcut between parked cars, while the car has to go the long way around. Similarly, a rotodrone chasing the motorcycle is going to have even worse problems since it has a 3rd dimension to worry about, but on a road during rushhour would have a huge advantage.

Looking at the results goes something like:

Critical glitch = you crashed.
Glitch = make a crash test, + see below.
Lost opposed test = too busy avoiding obstacles, opponent gains advantage.
Won test = You're lined up for a shot/You've broken contact, keep it up.

[The Monk]

Seems to me that Speed and Acceleration need to be abstracted. How about abstracting the Attributes themselves, for example Strength isn't the amount of weight you can press but rather a number from 1+. Make the Speed and Acceleration attributes the same as the handling attribute. Like handling it becomes the third attribute to a drive test (Reaction+Piloting+Handling).

This attribute then can be used in a number of different situations. For example if the Chase combat is happening in Open Terrain, and you are trying the Break Off Stunt, Make a Vehicle Test using Reaction+Piloting+Speed. If you are in Light Terrain use Reaction+Piloting+Acceleration. If you are in Restricted and Tight use Reaction+Piloting+Handling as normal.

These changes can be used for any Chase Stunts from Break Off to Ram. It can also be used for the Opposed Test. All you would have to figure out is what kind of bonuses different Speeds and Acceleration gives you.

For Speed how about dividing the number by 50 rounding down. So a Dodge Scoot with a Speed of 60 would have +1 for Speed, and a Suzuki Mirage with a Speed of 200 would have a +4.

For Acceleration divide it by 15 rounding down. So that a Dodge Scoot would have a +1 and a Suzuki Mirage would have a +3.

This isn't perfect but it incorporates Speed and Acceleration without having to come up with a new set of rules.

[Earlydawn]

I feel the need to point out that Adam has said that Movement was not meant for most of the applications that people attach it to. The specific circumstance of the comment was in regard to Aircraft Carriers, Heavy Bombers, and other strategic military applications, but be prepared that Movement may not be applicable to vehicles. I'll admit that anything van-sized or smaller seems reasonable to me.

[The Monk]

Quick question about Tactical and Chase combats. It says that drivers must spend one action driving their vehicles. Does this apply for drones on autopilot and Riggers too?

[Cain]

A cut off test forces you to avoid crashing. Outmaneuvering you causing you to slow down doesn't force you to make a crash test, but does put you in the range that HE wants you in.

I found quarter mile times for a 1985 honda civic S. 18.2 seconds. Quarter mile is 402 meters. 18.2 / 4 = 4.55 seconds to cover the distance.

Bicycle records that I"ve found here the shortest time for a 200 meter flying start was 5.523 seconds. Which means the car is going almost twice as fast. Your comparision is wrong.

We've established that the rules for outmaneuvering someone doesn't alter their speed at all. In fact, too much speed can be a liability in Chase Combat. At any event, even if you botch the test, you can still close to short range if your buddy makes the roll.

Let's even try reversing the situation. You're chasing a drone, which is trying to make it back to it's controlling rigger's van. All three of you roll: The opposing rigger wins, you come in second, and the drone comes in last with a botch. Because the opposing rigger won, he places both the drone and himself at Long Range. So, we not only have a Picard Maneuver or two, as the drone moves to the van, and the van moves to wherever; we also have it so the rigger's Ground Craft skill helps a rotodrone move better.

I tried looking at your link for quarter mile times, but it didn't work. At any event, even if your numbers are right, cars usually don't accelerate equally over the quarter mile. They start off much slower, and then build up to speed.

For example - a car chasing a motorcycle into a parking garage is going to have more issues with manueverability - a motorcycle might be able to take a shortcut between parked cars, while the car has to go the long way around. Similarly, a rotodrone chasing the motorcycle is going to have even worse problems since it has a 3rd dimension to worry about, but on a road during rushhour would have a huge advantage.

Supposedly, these sort of modifiers are applied from the Terrain table. Unfortunately, it's a set of Threshold modifiers, which don't apply on opposed tests. I can see forcing one roll per turn, to keep control of the vehicle; but I think applying the penalty a second time is a bit much.

I feel the need to point out that Adam has said that Movement was not meant for most of the applications that people attach it to. The specific circumstance of the comment was in regard to Aircraft Carriers, Heavy Bombers, and other strategic military applications, but be prepared that Movement may not be applicable to vehicles. I'll admit that anything van-sized or smaller seems reasonable to me.

While I can see the reasoning, the way it is written, Movement does apply fully to vehicles. While I admit the effect was extreme, you have to remember that I had to summon and bind a Force 10 spirit, without getting killed. Once you pul that off, it actually seemed like a bit of a waste to use up a service like that. It was hilarious, though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Wasabi]

Quick question about Tactical and Chase combats. It says that drivers must spend one action driving their vehicles. Does this apply for drones on autopilot and Riggers too?

Since all drones are vehicles per RAW and all vehicles must have 1 action maintaining control By RAW, yes.

I totally never made that connection until you asked. Huh. Nice catch!
It slightly nerfs riggers which considering their stupidly good ability to put loads of firepower where its needed a slight nerf probably isnt a bad thing...

[The Monk]

Along with the above suggestion, how about adding a new Chase Combat Stunt: Speed Up, make an Opposed Vehicle Drive Test (everyone in the chase rolls) if you win, you may increase the speed in which the chase is happening by up to Acceleration times net hits. This lasts until the Terrain Type ends, or until the GM determines that it is impossible to keep this speed up.

Note this would require the GM to set the speed in which the Chase Combat is happening (this should correspond to the Terrain Type). He would also need to figure out what kinds of negative modifiers to give for vehicles going above their maximum Speed. And he would need to make a chart describing the modifiers for going above the safe maximum speed in each Terrain Type.

These modifiers should be applied in the following turns for any Vehicle Tests.

Also make a chart describing the actual range in meters for each Engagement Range for each Terrain Type. This could be used for determining the ranges for weapons such as firearms.

[TKDNinjaInBlack]

does anyone else see the real problem with the mentioned scenario? Movement makes your car go faster by a multiple. As far as i am concerned having GMed, the Crash test goes up by the same multiple. Oh wait, you are going ten times your max speed? The threshold to not crash and die is now 30. Oh, you fail? guess what, you all die because now your 10 times the max speed limit makes the crash have so much momentum there is no way you could survive. You are all splattered goo on the inside of your crushed can of a vehicle plowed into a wall. Movement is not a viable option ever if you want to use the rules. Sometimes you have to use common sense. You know the reason racers around the world race formula one cars that pretty much top out at 210 mph? it's because you can't turn and control a car beyond that. Speed records for land travel are only set in salt flats where control isn't an issue. No man made road exists without turns, let alone at least some form of traffic to deal with and maneuver around. To think that you'd be able to use movement in any kind of urban or even rural setting outside of a flat desert is absurd.

Now, coming from some experience I wasn't proud to have shared in when I was a captive passenger in a car chase years ago, top speeds of vehicles don't count at all when driving in any kind of urban setting. There is too much maneuvering and controlling and turning going on to ever hit anywhere near a top speed. Want an important variable... acceleration. That's way more important than top speed in any kind of city. Even if you have straight roads, you have intersections with cross traffic, pedestrians, driveways, and other factors that keep top speed from being attained.

Now, as far as maneuvers go in chase combat, I thought it had mentioned somewhere that one can only increase or decrease the engagement range by one level per chase turn, but I don't remember where I read that and I can't find it again. A reference would be nice if somebody knows where that's at. That right there seems to kill the "picard maneuver," but I can't prove that exists.

There should never be any reason to leave chase combat for tactical combat. It says at the beginning of chase combat that initiative passes are applied to the chase turn much like a combat turn. If your gun bunny teammate is bitching because he can't shoot 60 times and has to stick with just his 3 init passes, tell him to deal with it because the car is moving around and he can't get a good bead. The movies make shooting from a car look so easy... Not that I can speak from experience, but I can say that life has taught me that anything that looks like it can be done fairly easy usually has the opposite effect.

To those who say they don't like wrapping their minds around the rules because it makes things different than they imagined it... Dream up something different on your own time. The rules and dice rolls act as a third party in games. We forget that things don't always go the way we want them to, and just because he rolled better than us on that round and cheated us from getting away we get upset. It's the GM's responsibility to fill in the gaps and translate what the rolls mean to the players. Yes, he rolled better than you. That means you got slowed down by some traffic that pulled out in front of you. Now he's even with you and the rest of the gang is too. As players, deal with it and find a different means of a solution. That's where the roleplaying comes into play. Deal with is as your character would. Sometimes you do meet your match, even if it is by luck or some other outside event. in RL I can think of a hundred examples where I would have won "only if something hadn't have happened..."

[HappyDaze]

Sometimes you have to use common sense.

That would be in not applying momentum-based effects to the Movement power. If you do otherwise, people walking at 5x normal speed are going to be blowing out their knees and the whole power goes to shit. I agree that Movement is easily abused and problematic, but solutions that try to have the speed actually penalize the subject of the spell are going the wrong way. Instead consider having the power adjust speed by +/- (Force x 10)%. Now a Force 5 is increasing your speed to 150% rather than 500%. Much weaker, but more reasonable.

[Cain]

does anyone else see the real problem with the mentioned scenario? Movement makes your car go faster by a multiple. As far as i am concerned having GMed, the Crash test goes up by the same multiple. Oh wait, you are going ten times your max speed? The threshold to not crash and die is now 30. Oh, you fail? guess what, you all die because now your 10 times the max speed limit makes the crash have so much momentum there is no way you could survive. You are all splattered goo on the inside of your crushed can of a vehicle plowed into a wall. Movement is not a viable option ever if you want to use the rules. Sometimes you have to use common sense. You know the reason racers around the world race formula one cars that pretty much top out at 210 mph? it's because you can't turn and control a car beyond that. Speed records for land travel are only set in salt flats where control isn't an issue. No man made road exists without turns, let alone at least some form of traffic to deal with and maneuver around. To think that you'd be able to use movement in any kind of urban or even rural setting outside of a flat desert is absurd.

Considering that the only way you can reach those speeds is if you've summoned a Force 10 spirit, I'd say the spirit is powerful enough to know to control the velocity. Personally, I don't believe in killing players just because they used a powerful ability. You've already gone through quite a bit of hassle, to put yourself in the position to even go that fast.

There should never be any reason to leave chase combat for tactical combat. It says at the beginning of chase combat that initiative passes are applied to the chase turn much like a combat turn. If your gun bunny teammate is bitching because he can't shoot 60 times and has to stick with just his 3 init passes, tell him to deal with it because the car is moving around and he can't get a good bead. The movies make shooting from a car look so easy... Not that I can speak from experience, but I can say that life has taught me that anything that looks like it can be done fairly easy usually has the opposite effect.

I can think of a few cases. One would be if you summoned a spirit. Technically, a spirit can't participate in vehicle combat, since it has no vehicle skill to roll in the opposed test. Because of that, you'd need to go back to normal combat. Another example is if a person jumped from one vehicle to another, and engaged the passengers in melee combat. If you read the "close range" description, it even says that jumping from vehicle to vehicle is fair game.

To those who say they don't like wrapping their minds around the rules because it makes things different than they imagined it... Dream up something different on your own time.

Um, dude? That's exactly the point of this thread. This is a thread designed to look for ways to fix Chase Combat. If you don't think there's a problem, no one is forcing you to read this thread. You're welcome to debate the merits of Chase Combat, and argue that the rules work as written. But you can't tell us that we're not allowed to discuss house rules and fixes, in a thread asking for house rules and fixes.

[Jhaiisiin]

So here's my suggestion. Chase combat works basically as designed... Winner declares range and you go from there, but that's the *final* range of the chase round, which lasts a minute. Yes, that means you have to figure out/abstract what happens in that minute. If you need to do tactical combat in there, you can. As ranges increase, take that into account for making some weapons non-viable for hurting your target. As ranges decrease, options will increase, including the option of leaping onto the opposing vehicle.

Example:

Joe Rigger and Biker Steve are in a chase. Steve spots Joe at long range and gives chase to the fragger. They both roll, and Steve comes up the winner. Because the chase is just starting, they're *still* at long range, and by the end of the chase turn (1 minute in game time), they'll be at the close range Steve wants.
So breakdown:
Crunch: Steve and Joe make opposed tests, with Joe coming up the winner. He sets the range which becomes applicable at the next turn (he needs time to *get* to that range)
Fluff: Steve spots Joe and guns it to get to him. Joe panics because Steve is a mean fraggin' elf punk and didn't like his sister being messed with. He peels out and tries to make his way down the road. Steve dodges cars and slips the narrow spaces between others while Joe gets slown down by cars refusing to let him pass. After 60 seconds, Steve has caught up and Joe is worried.

During this timeframe, Steve could be firing a weapon, or just focusing on driving as he tries to close with Joe. Once there, he could leap to Joe's vehicle if desired, or do other Close range crud.

Round 2:
Another roll and Joe comes out on top. He sets distance to long and starts to get away.
Crunch: Steve and Joe roll, with Joe coming out on top. By the end of the next 60 seconds, he pulls back to long range. Assuming Steve doesn't prompt tactical combat by jumping onto the vehcile or somesuch, then this just ends up with a range increase.
Fluff: Honking and screaming prove triumphant as cars part the way and Joe guns it to get away from Steve. Assuming steve doesn't do something like jump to his vehicle, fire at him, etc, then Joe just deftly maneuvers through the crowd. If steve does jump over, Joe still peels out, but now has to deal with the punk while not crashing.

Assume steve Jumps, keep the results of Round 2 (realizing that in 60 secs, the chase is moot because Steve left his bike behind), and enter tactical combat. Remember, Joe must spend the appropriate action each turn maintaining control or else he crashes, possibly injuring or killing both of them.


How's that work for you?

[TKDNinjaInBlack]

I can see where you don't believe in killing players for using powerful abilities, but might doesn't make right. I can think of more than a few examples where someone who uses a bit more power than they should have to do something silly met their ends because of it.

To streamline things, passengers and other entities involved can act during the chase turn. Their actions get spread out over the turn just like a driver's initiative passes do. It mentions it during passenger actions just under the maneuvers section. Chase turns themselves are semi-tactical.

I don't mean to point blame or start fights. Accept this as an apology. I came to this thread to find out what you thought was wrong with chase combat, and so far, everything I've read more or less seemed like the GM just got flustered and didn't account for any in game reason your team was now again in close engagement range. I personally have never had a problem with chase combat. When movement gets thrown into the mix though, things always get stupid quick. As far as blown out knees with movement and jogging, yeah, i'd totally see that happening. The physically conscious mage who goes jogging every morning but doesn't like to commit time to do it summons a spirit and has it use movement (Force 5) on him every day. I'd say that mage's knees need replacing 5 times as fast as the other joggers who jog the same amount of time. 5 times the distance, 5 times the wear and tear.

[Jhaiisiin]

Oh, in regards to the movement power, I understand it to be, well, magic, and it helps protect the target while moving it from one point to another. Maybe it creates a millimeter of space beneath your feet and the pavement so that you run normally, but cover 5x the distance due to the power. Your body isn't doing any more work, and thus no more stress is incurred. The same protection extends to accelleration and decelleration. The power slows stuff down or speeds it up as needed without negatively impacting the power.

However, if something unexpectedly gets in the way... like say a Wall, then you suffer damage based on crashing into it at the speed you were travelling at. So a spiffy human running along at 150m/turn gets to take damage if he goes from 150 to 0 due to an obstruction.