House Rule: Melee Damage Stats, Any Opinions or Suggestions? Options

[Ol' Scratch]

I've slowly been absorbing all the new 4th Edition rules over the last few weeks and am compiling a (surprisingly small) list of house rules that I intend to use when I start GMing again. That said, there's one in particular I'd like to hear opinions on from everyone else, particularly if it'll affect anything more than what I've already looked into.

The house rule basially works as follows:

House Rule: Melee Damage Stats
All melee weapons with a variable Damage Value has "Str/2" replaced with "5" and AP increased by +2. Thus your average unarmed attack will do 5(S) damage with a +2 AP modifier, a combat axe will do 9(P) damage with a +1 AP modifier, and a monofilament whip will do 8(P) damage with a -2 AP modifier.

Divide Strength by one-third and round down. This is then applied as a negative value to the AP rating of a melee weapon, improving the penetrating power and thus increasing damage indirectly. Thus a Human with Strength 4 will add a -1 AP modifier to their melee weapon while a Troll with Strength 14 will add a -4 modifier.

Personal Note: Consider changing the Strength-to-AP modifier from 1/3 to 1/2 and increasing the base AP modifier to +3 instead.

Reason for the rule: I didn't much care for the fact that average runners didn't stand much of a chance of doing any damage in melee combat, especially against someone wearing even casual body armor, nor did I care for Stun Gloves and Monofilament Whips dominating melee character arsenals. I also never cared much for the fact that in most games, Strength affects the damage directly rather than improving how penetrating an attack is.

I'm hoping this change will improve things quite a bit all around, making melee combat a little more balanced while still giving strong characters a significant advantage.

All that said, does anyone see anything problematic with this house rule? Maybe other rules I've missed or applications that won't make very much sense?

Thanks in advance.

[Fortune]

On first glance I don't really see any problems with it ... other than actually going through all the weapons and statting them out, that is. I rather like the rule for basically the reasons you stated, to bring back the flavor of melee by bringing all the non-fixed weapons in line with the few that are fixed, damage-wise.

[Dancer]

Seems to make Strength almost irrelevant in how much damage you do. Being punched by a Strength 11 cybertroll only does an average of 1 more point of damage than being punched by a Strength 2 elven hacker.

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

You would probably need to add in a fixed bonus for things like Bone Lacing and Dermal Plating, etc, as well.

[Dancer]

[Fortune]

[Ol' Scratch]

[Dancer]

[Ol' Scratch]

[Dancer]

[Ol' Scratch]

Ah, I played out a few scenarios with all three variations of the house rule and now I see what you're saying. It does need a little more work, though I'm still partial to the main goal of it.

I think it would work nicely if Armor had more impact on how damage was resolved. That seems to be what's thwarting it.

[Narmio]

Hmm, Dr Funk, I agree that something could be done to make Melee a bit harder hitting, but I don't think reducing the effect of strength is a good plan. The house rule I've been considering for a while is to replace all instances of "Str/2" with "Str - 2, min 1".

Oh, and this:

[Ol' Scratch]

Hmm? Armor just adds extra dice to the Damage Resistance Test as opposed to doing anything concrete. That's why this house rule is having so little impact, because all the AP change is doing is lowering how many extra dice you get on the DRT. Lower armor by three points and you get an average of only one DV less due to those dice.

[Ddays]

The biggest problem I have with strength is that it's completely useless for non melee characters.

That's why I'm implementing carrying capacity in my game. Far from being a useless bookkeeping as the core rule book describes, having a limit to the amount of guns, ammo, and gear a 1 strength rigger can have on his body (not to mention crucial loot) makes 3 strength the must have in my games.

[Ravor]

Completely off the top of my head and I won't even pretend that it's remotely balanced, but if you want armor to do something why not have armor count as auto-hits against damage?

You'd have to rewrite the DV and Armor Values to keep from breaking everything of course...

[Dancer]

Didn't previous editions also have high strength providing some recoil compensation?

[Ol' Scratch]

Sure did. It's another house rule I'm considering, but there's already enough options to get recoil compensation up to 9 or so just in the main sourcebook (and doubtlessly even more in Arsenal). Such a rule would just make it even easier, but it's still something to consider.

And armor does sort of work like "auto-hits" against damage, just at a 1/3rd ratio. Which, again, is why the AP change I'm considering isn't working out too well. The problem with changing it to a 1:1 ratio instead of adding dice is that it'll muck up ranged combat, and I don't really want to completely rewrite the rules. :)

[Ravor]

Ok, if 1/1 hits is too powerful, what happens if you change it to a 1/2 instead?

[Ol' Scratch]

I'd have to cook up some examples, but I don't see it as being much of a fix over the effectively 1/3 now. It might though, will give it a shot in a bit.