4th Ed Initiative, What's your take? Options

[vladski]

My credentials:
-I've been playing 4th edition since it came out (bought the book when it was released at Gencon 2 years ago)
-I have played 3rd edition since basically it was released.
-I've been the main GM for both versions for my group the entire time I have played SR.
-I have played in the GenCon Tourneys since pretty much I started playing. Last year I managed to win (with the rest of my team) the the tournament after years of struggling. A highpoint of my life. :P


Okay, that out of the way, I want to say I love Shadowrun. Both 3rd and 4th editions. I think each have certain things going for them, but over all, I do like the more streamlined 4th edition a little more for ease of play. I am going to be doing some "comparing" of games here and I hope that is okay. I am not wanting or trying to start an edition vs edition argument. But I do need to do the comparisons to explain my problem.

There's one glaring change that was made to the game that I jsut don't quite understand. It seems broken or unbalanced. That is the "new" initiative.

Previously, no matter how much "initiative" a player had, there was always a chance that they would be slow... or at least slower. Several Wired 3 characters had guaranteed 2nd passes (barring injury) in my gaming group, but they still might be slower sometimes than many Wired 1 characters due to the roll of the dice. On average they would be going "first" but not always. And they never knew for sure how many passes they were gonna get (often 2, sometimes 3) until those dice were rolled. It was possible to build a no wired character and actually get a second pass on a really good roll. The players were always excited when this happened.

With 4th Edition, passes are automatic for the most part. No matter how lousy you roll Init, you are gonna have that many passes. It has made the value of Init passes jsut sky rocket with the unwired (or unmagicked) characters jsut sucking hind tit every single turn. I know it's a change in the game. Maybe the designers actually intended to make assorted improved reflex type stuff that much more potent, but to me it has lost some of the ... zing. It's too predictable.

I personally really liked the old variance and it's the only major part of 4th Edition that jsut leaves me a little cold every time I run it.

So chime in. Give me your opinions here. Does anyone else feel this way? Does anyone else use any house rules to make it feel more like 3rd Ed. in this aspect? I don't know that I even would want to play a non-official rules game, but I would like to hear others thoughts.

If this has been brought up before, I apologize, but I have never seen anyone discuss Initiative in this aspect on the boards here.

Thanks!

Vlad