[X] My Assistant

[nathanross]

Our group has adopted Franks Initiative. Pretty much you roll Reaction + Intuition as normal, but instead of adding it and using that for Initiative, the number of hits scored on the test is your Initiative. Not too bad a system; it keeps the sammy from always going first, and even leaves the possibility that you may not go at all (Initiative 0 = no go).

Of course, you can still use Edge to go first in a round, get another IP, or add edge to the Initiative pool to roll. Also, if anyone gets 10 hits, they get another pass free (the last bit is my own). Never had someone get that many hits, though.

[Crusher Bob]

[...]
Wired Reflexes and other initiative boosters allow characters to gain one pass per success on the initiative test, up to a maximum of the initiative booster rating. For instance, a character with Wired Reflexes 2 gains 2 initiative passes from his first two successes on the initiative test, but would require a total of 4 successes to gain a 3rd initiative pass.

Here's some probability tables to show what that does:

No wires:

0-1 hits: no passes
2-3 hits: 1 pass
4-5 hits: 2 passes
6-7 hits: 3 passes
8+ hits: 4 passes

CODE

            NUMBER OF PASSES
INIT   0       1       2       3       4
3     0.74    0.26    0       0       0
6     0.35    0.55    0.1     0       0
9     0.14    0.51    0.31    0.04    0
12    0.05    0.34    0.43    0.16    0.02
15    0.02    0.19    0.41    0.29    0.09

Wired 1:

0: no passes
1-2 hits: 1 pass
3-4 hits: 2 passes
5-6 hits: 3 passes
7+ hits: 4 passes

CODE

            NUMBER OF PASSES                    
INIT   0       1       2       3       4
3     0.3     0.67    0.04    0       0
6     0.09    0.59    0.3     0.02    0
9     0.03    0.35    0.48    0.14    0.01
12    0.01    0.17    0.45    0.3     0.07
15    0       0.08    0.32    0.39    0.2

Wired 2:

0: no passes
1 hit: 1 pass
2-3 hits: 2 passes
4-5 hits: 3 passes
6+ hits: 4 passes

CODE

            NUMBER OF PASSES                    
INIT   0       1       2       3       4
3     0.3     0.44    0.26    0       0
6     0.09    0.26    0.55    0.1     0
9     0.03    0.12    0.51    0.31    0.04
12    0.01    0.05    0.34    0.43    0.18
15    0       0.02    0.19    0.41    0.38

Wired 3:

0: no passes
1 hit: 1 pass
2 hits: 2 passes
3-4 hits: 2 passes
5+ hits: 4 passes

CODE

            NUMBER OF PASSES                    
INIT   0       1       2       3       4
3     0.3     0.44    0.22    0.04    0
6     0.09    0.26    0.33    0.3     0.02
9     0.03    0.12    0.23    0.48    0.14
12    0.01    0.05    0.13    0.45    0.37
15    0       0.02    0.06    0.32    0.6

------------------

First impressions:

Low initiative guys are screwed, since they will quite often not get any actions at all. Even a pretty fast guy with init 9 still chokes around 14% of the time. On the other hand, he gets another pass around 31% of the time...

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

Hmm one thing I never wondered, does it stacks?
Can a mundane take combat drugs AND spend an edge to have 3 passes?

As I read it, yes - you can even spend an edge for an extra pass with wired reflexes...you just can't have more than 4 passes total.

[Chibu]

Well, I'm curious as to what the point of having multiple IPs is if you can still only cast one spell and still only shoot two dudes.

If you actually run that way... I know I for one would stop using guns and magic altogether and just make a sammy with a katana. Sure, there's no range, but at least I can attack 5 times as fast as anyone using a gun. Basically then melee combat, unless of course you're nerfing that as well, is infinitely superior to magic or guns. But really, why would you nerf the whole combat system? Guards are allowed to have reaction enhancers too... like i said before, if you can't keep up with the SOTA, you should stay out of the game.

Also I would like to point out that my wire doesn't like you. It twitches every round that it's not allowed to shoot, and every time it comes closer and closer to finding a target... My wire has a mind of it's own.

[Fortune]

For fluff (and balance) reasons, I limit spells to one per combat turn. I justify this by saying that mana must be channelled through the magician's body, to cast the spell, and how fast their brain works has no bearing on how damaging this is to the mage (channelling too much mana causes drain, at least by my interpretation of magic fluff).

So how do you deal with multi-casting, which is a common thing for my characters?

I restrict hacking/decking to 1 AR action per turn, although I will re-evaluate this when Unwired comes out. Driving, meanwhile, comes up rarely enough for it not to be an issue.

What about Hackers who are acting in more than one node/window/host/whatever? Do they also have to just hang around for 3 or 6 or 9 seconds until they can act in a specific node?

[ornot]

So how do you deal with multi-casting, which is a common thing for my characters?

I may have misunderstood your point, but as I understand it you're asking about casting multiple spells with one magical action in one IP and stacking the drain. If you're channeling all that mana at once then fair enough. It's a risky stratagem as you might just kill yourself, which offsets the power to throw stunbolts at 3 people. What you can't do is throw 3 stunbolts at three people in each of your three IPs risking only regular drain damage.

What about Hackers who are acting in more than one node/window/host/whatever? Do they also have to just hang around for 3 or 6 or 9 seconds until they can act in a specific node?

I should have been more clear. If you have multiple IPs and are multitasking, you can only use one action per active persona. This is a little bit of an iffy example, as the RAW matrix rules could do with clarification, and I fully expect to change my opinion when Unwired comes out.

Well, I'm curious as to what the point of having multiple IPs is if you can still only cast one spell and still only shoot two dudes.

If you actually run that way... I know I for one would stop using guns and magic altogether and just make a sammy with a katana. Sure, there's no range, but at least I can attack 5 times as fast as anyone using a gun. Basically then melee combat, unless of course you're nerfing that as well, is infinitely superior to magic or guns. But really, why would you nerf the whole combat system? Guards are allowed to have reaction enhancers too... like i said before, if you can't keep up with the SOTA, you should stay out of the game.

Also I would like to point out that my wire doesn't like you. It twitches every round that it's not allowed to shoot, and every time it comes closer and closer to finding a target... My wire has a mind of it's own.

Mulitple IPs are devastating in close combat, and great for defense. That is my intention. Close combat as written in SR4 is somewhat gimped IME. You can only attack once per IP, rather than double-tapping with an Ares Predator typically for more damage.

I don't much want to give every guard the PCs run in to wires, because then they will, without doubt, take to killing and organ legging everybody they come across, and amassing far more nyen than I want them to.

I understand you play SR3, in which the rules for wires and initiative were quite different. But luckily for you, in SR4 genetech can fix your problem with cyberpsychosis.

[Crusher Bob]

The obvious solution here is to have your character develop the juggling skill at high levels. Then you just juggle enough guns to get the full ROF your extra init passes can provide.

[ornot]

The obvious solution here is to have your character develop the juggling skill at high levels. Then you just juggle enough guns to get the full ROF your extra init passes can provide.

It would certainly make for an interesting twink.

My character is Bozo the clown, gun juggler extraordinaire... Fear my cascade of lead!

[Shiloh]

My biggest problem with initiative enhancers is that everyone takes them because they are so very useful. They make you better/more effective at ranged combat, melee combat, hacking in AR, driving, spell casting. Hence every character has some combination of wired reflexes, synaptic accelerators or increase reflexes spell, at the expense of other options.

I'm very much of the "Isn't that the *point* of cyberware/augmentations? To make you *better*?" school of thought It's why unaugmented grunts take combat drugs and spend Edge to get ahead. In some ways the increased initiative levels are the defining factor of the elite in a tactical situation. It's already the difference between a pro and an amateur: the pros have *time* to do stuff, where the amateurs are always *rushing*.

I think the problem stems mostly from people playing optimised characters; does anyone going the WiRef route buy Level 1? Not many, I'd think. Rating 2 is the "sweet spot" for nuyen and essence cost, and probably intended to be that way by the game designers. This gives consistent performance equal to an unaugmented grunt security guard munching '70s grunt candy and hitting the natural adrenaline rush that I like to think Edge can simulate. So a 'Runner's *peak* performance (with Edge) is only one pass better, but they can keep it up for their whole career rather than burning out their Edge in a few seconds and their organs in a few years.

It was a different game, but a fond memory of a CP game with modified initiative and recoil rules was the time the two combat-focused characters in the group having variously disabled the half dozen gang members before the Face (no reflex boosters) even got his gun drawn and pointed at a bad guy. That's a *trope* of the Cyberpunk genre, and we (the creators of the rules mod) were pleased that we had managed to capture the atmosphere of bullet time so well

I think the secret was in actually breaking down the norm's draw and shoot into draw-steady-shoot so the player didn't feel like they were inactive, but could just see the trainwreck of the gangers' fate develop faster than he (or the gangers (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) could cope with. That was a phased system (think Car Wars or Star Fleet Battles) with 10 phases per round and a max of 10 actions which I've always thought were better than strict turn-based or the IP mechanism that SR4 is using; smartlinks reduced the standard penalties for snap-shooting and the combat characters could cope with the remaining penalties and the recoil penalties for firing every opportunity they got.

[Chibu]

Mulitple IPs are devastating in close combat, and great for defense. That is my intention. Close combat as written in SR4 is somewhat gimped IME. You can only attack once per IP, rather than double-tapping with an Ares Predator typically for more damage.

Oh, ok. As long as that was the plan. Fiar enough I guess (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I don't much want to give every guard the PCs run in to wires, because then they will, without doubt, take to killing and organ legging everybody they come across, and amassing far more nyen than I want them to.

Yeah... That could be a problem at first, but eventually you could say they're saturating the market with them and only get 1-2% for them. Or, just give guards extra based on Edge or something. Or have them sneak up on the players? I dunno, really it's your game and if everyone's still having fun then it works out fine ^-^

I understand you play SR3, in which the rules for wires and initiative were quite different. But luckily for you, in SR4 genetech can fix your problem with cyberpsychosis.

:O There's a flaw for that!? I've wanted to play a character like that for awhile now. But I haven't gotten around to it. I think it would make a great character that thinks his wire is talking to him. (Also, I think it makes sense to be a little messed up in the head after having massively invasive voluntary surgery (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

EDIT:
I think the only real problem I have with this thread is getting 0 actions. I suppose my group plays more balanced than the players you're talking about, but I just think I'd be pretty upset with no actions. Let's see... in the new campeign we're starting...
Mage: 1 IP every time
Face: 1-2 IP (50% for each) due to high intelligence
Speed Sammy: 3-4 IP - (50% each) Again, her job is to be fast.
Melee Adept: 2 IP every time
Tank: 2-3ish, I don't remember his actual numbers (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

So really, we're pretty evenly distributed. Sure some are much faster than guards, but some are on the same level, but good at other things.
Do your teams not look like this? Or does everyone have 2-3 IPs?

[ornot]

Various cyberpsychoses are offered as -ve qualities in Augmentation, so if your GM was cool with it you could have a character that engages in conversation with his implants. Amusingly there's software in Arsenal that lets you give your guns or (any other hardware) personalities.

But I digress. The problem I had in my games was that if anyone didn't have IPs out the wazoo they spent a good deal of time twiddling their thumbs while the street sams took shot after shot after shot. Basically, unless a character had WR or SB they weren't considered a combat worthy character, and I got tired of every character I saw having the same collection of 'ware. So with my changes, bonus IPs are still awesome (you can blow people away, with reduced recoil penalties, and still have actions to gymnastics dodge), but they're slightly less awesome since they don't increase a guns (already good) effectiveness by 2 or 3 times.

[ornot]

I'm very much of the "Isn't that the *point* of cyberware/augmentations? To make you *better*?" school of thought It's why unaugmented grunts take combat drugs and spend Edge to get ahead. In some ways the increased initiative levels are the defining factor of the elite in a tactical situation. It's already the difference between a pro and an amateur: the pros have *time* to do stuff, where the amateurs are always *rushing*.

/snip

Just noticed this...

Sure, the point of 'ware is to make a character stronger, better, faster, but I felt that the bonuses offered by multiple IPs was just too good when twinned with the damage dealing capacity of guns. A dual wielding wired 2 gun bunny is eminently capable of one bullet killing lightly armoured mooks, effectively dropping 12 enemies in one combat turn. Even if forced to spend more than one bullet on each guard, we're really looking at a minimum of 6 guards taken out each turn. However you slice it, that's a hell of a lot of damage capacity, ranged and with no potential backlash, compared to which melee, and even magic, suck.

[Zak]

However you slice it, that's a hell of a lot of damage capacity, ranged and with no potential backlash, compared to which melee, and even magic, suck.

You know that mages can get more than 1 IP too?
And melee sucks, no matter if you have 1 or 4 IPs.
Seriously, what is your point?

[ornot]

You know that mages can get more than 1 IP too?
And melee sucks, no matter if you have 1 or 4 IPs.
Seriously, what is your point?

Have you actually read this thread? Even just the OP?

If you still need to ask that question, then I'll try and answer it.

[Kerberos]

Just noticed this...

Sure, the point of 'ware is to make a character stronger, better, faster, but I felt that the bonuses offered by multiple IPs was just too good when twinned with the damage dealing capacity of guns. A dual wielding wired 2 gun bunny is eminently capable of one bullet killing lightly armoured mooks, effectively dropping 12 enemies in one combat turn. Even if forced to spend more than one bullet on each guard, we're really looking at a minimum of 6 guards taken out each turn. However you slice it, that's a hell of a lot of damage capacity, ranged and with no potential backlash, compared to which melee, and even magic, suck.

How do you arrive at that? Let's assume for the same of the argument that lightly armoured mook means reaction 3, body 3, and armour clothing and no dodge skill. Our gun bunny is using an Ares Predator. Our mook will soak/didge an average of 3 hits away, let's just say 3, and has 10 boxes. That means that our bunny needs 8 hits on average to take a mook down (5-9-3=10) which require and average of 24 dice. If he has to 24 dice with each gun he needs to have 48 dice in all, assuming he's ambidetrious. In reality a fairly min-maxed elven samurai might have agility 10 (exceptional atribute and muscle toner) + skill 9 (exceptional skill and specialization) reflex recorder +1 =20 dice, 22 with smartilink (which he can't use when splitting his pool), meaning just not enough to kill a mook in a round without splitting his dice pool, even under the somewhat genourous assumptions used here.

You really can't count on taking out 6 guards a round, even if you have characters like this fighting mooks like that, which they shouldn't be.

ETA: Granted you could use ex-ex ammo and then perhaps get 6 a round, but then the mooks could have dodge.

[Shiloh]

Just noticed this...

Sure, the point of 'ware is to make a character stronger, better, faster, but I felt that the bonuses offered by multiple IPs was just too good when twinned with the damage dealing capacity of guns. A dual wielding wired 2 gun bunny is eminently capable of one bullet killing lightly armoured mooks, effectively dropping 12 enemies in one combat turn. Even if forced to spend more than one bullet on each guard, we're really looking at a minimum of 6 guards taken out each turn. However you slice it, that's a hell of a lot of damage capacity, ranged and with no potential backlash, compared to which melee, and even magic, suck.

I think the problem here is that the mooks aren't being very bright. There's something wrong with the tactical picture. Let's say Sammy the twin-Ingram 14DP (no Smartgun bonuses) gunbunny has 4 IP which is 16 short burst actions, using 24 rounds of EX-Ex from each weapon. Doesn't even need to reload. Let's assume he's got enough snackies to not have any penalty on his offhand, even.

He's rolling 7D per hand. He's not got surprise, but the squad of mooks are in the open. He nails four of them. Maybe. The reason he gets to nail the other 6 is because he survives the remainders' return fire and the mooks stay in the open. If instead of just standing their ground and flattening light ammo* against his armour**, they dive for cover, pop thermal smoke grenades (always good for gimping any potential Mage Threat too) and lay down suppressive autofire, young Samuel isn't going to hit jack with 7D per attack. So maybe he wings another 3 because he can't miss, but he's exposing himself to the suppression fire. Maybe it's just that suppressive fire isn't sufficiently effective in the SR environment (good armour?).

*Next round*, the mooks have hit their autoinjectors and all blow Edge to reach almost-parity with the 'bunny. Or they keep with the suppression and use fire-and-maneuver to slowly flank him from cover. While saving their "adrenaline rush" for when the reinforcements arrive. Or just keep their heads down.

If all your fights are in featureless corridors where the sec-forces can't get out of the line of fire, then yes, your hero Samuel is going to cream them. And so it should be.

That the non-combatants have to sit around for 3 IP is, IMO, mostly a correct depiction of one of the genre's strongest tropes. Yes, you have to have >1 IP to be considered a combatant (unless, maybe you're a heavy weapons specialist, but even then...), but that's not, IMO, a Bad Thing tm. There are always some standard bits of a character build needed to fulfill a given role, and I don't get why that's a problem. There are a *bunch* of different ways to get those IPs, so it's not as if the characters are identical.

* They perhaps ought to be using a long and a short burst of Assault-rifle EX-Ex to even things up a bit.
** Possibly the reason that Samuel can just take it is the stacked armour and gelpacks etc...

[Zak]

Have you actually read this thread? Even just the OP?

If you still need to ask that question, then I'll try and answer it.

Yea I did. I was rude in my reply and you got to be rude too, so let me rephrase:
All you do is complaining about how good guns are, neglecting the possibilities of magic and the fact of inferior melee (which can't really be argued, except for a few extreme cases and they have been shown in other threads)
Variable IPs are an interesting concept which worked fine in older editions. Yet it will not change the balance between melee, guns and magic. All it might do is buffing those who are not considering combat to happen their line of work - hopefully because they do social or matrix based runs instead of B&E and not because of neglect.

[ElFenrir]

Has anyone here actually tried 'Edgeman' when it comes to IPs? A character without any IP boosting ware(maybe other ware, hell, even alot of other ware, but no IP increasing ware), and just pump Edge to high levels(6 or 7, depending?)

If so, how does it work? I imagine part of it is how often Edge refreshes(last we played i think we did once per scene or so, which means edge could refresh several times per night, if there were alot of scenes.) But if the Edge refreshes at a fair pace(it doesn't have to be uber fast), I imagine it might be an interesting way of going about it.

[ornot]

I'll try to address the points raised as best I can in limited time.
Shiloh We're still working with more than 6 guards to counter a single gun specced runner. That's not a small patrol, and it would have to be bigger to take into account the rest of the runners. That's reasonable for a HTR, but somewhat overkill for a standard patrol in a moderately defended corp office complex such as one would send an out of the box running team into. One can construct a reasonable threat for our hypothetical runner team, either by tooling up the guards with 'ware and combat drugs, or having large numbers of them, or outfitting the facility with drones and oodles of passive defences. That doesn't change the fact that guns and IP boosters are a no brainer for any PC interested in combat.

Kerberos The character being discussed is a chargen legal, relatively balanced gun bunny, only using the BBB. I think what you're failing to appreciate is the sheer number of (minimum) 5P damage resist rolls this sam can inflict in one combat turn.

Zak I'm not just whining about the effectiveness of firearms. I'm trying to rebalance their effectiveness with respect to melee. I'm not even suggesting variable IPs. I'm just restricting what you can spend additional IPs on. IMO, by RAW magic is fairly well balanced with respect to guns - quite possibly more potent due to the limited resistance dice available to most character types - but again, by restricting the use of IPs for spell casting, it makes IP enhancements less important for magicians.

[Kerberos]

Kerberos The character being discussed is a chargen legal, relatively balanced gun bunny, only using the BBB. I think what you're failing to appreciate is the sheer number of (minimum) 5P damage resist rolls this sam can inflict in one combat turn.

I'm not failing to realize that at all. He will clearly massacre random mooks. His build seems designed to massacre mooks. However he can't kill 12 in a round, and even 6 is a stretch, I ran the math and it doesn't work out. His effectiveness also drops rapidly against higher quality opposition or if modifiers are being applied.

I'm certainly not denying that Wired Reflexes are extremely useful, or even a must-have for a lot of character types, and you can certainly nerf them in you game if you want. However nerfing them should be done on the basis of a realistic assessment, not on a greatly inflated estimate of the mook-killing capacity of a character optimized for mook killing.

Really I don't see how random mooks will ever be a challenge to an even slightly optimized sam. It's easy as pie to build one that can roll 17 dice on his guns, 15 on dodge and soaks with 14 dice. Just using BBB and without min-maxing much. No 3,3,3 mook will ever stand up to that, even if you nerf wires. As I said you certainly can nerf them if you feel it enhances the game experience, but you also need to up the quality of the opposition.

[Shiloh]

I'll try to address the points raised as best I can in limited time.
Shiloh We're still working with more than 6 guards to counter a single gun specced runner. That's not a small patrol, and it would have to be bigger to take into account the rest of the runners. That's reasonable for a HTR, but somewhat overkill for a standard patrol in a moderately defended corp office complex such as one would send an out of the box running team into. One can construct a reasonable threat for our hypothetical runner team, either by tooling up the guards with 'ware and combat drugs, or having large numbers of them, or outfitting the facility with drones and oodles of passive defences. That doesn't change the fact that guns and IP boosters are a no brainer for any PC interested in combat.

I still don't see the problem with that. As has been shown, to my satisfaction at least, the shootist *can't* drop 4 guards in 1 IP, and even if he could, the problem is not IP based, it's just that oor Samuel goes *first*, and gets 4 shots before the guards can even react. Now, in a "...standard patrol in a moderately defended corp office complex such as one would send an out of the box running team into..." I'd reckon 2-man patrols would have "verisimilitude", and at *that* point, IPs are irrelevant because both guards are down, 1-shotted by a 14DP called shot narrow burst to the head each before they can even act.

Multiple IPs only even enter the equation in a target-rich environment, which is why I based my roughly worked example in such a situation.

My point is that guns and IP boosters *should* be a no-brainer for combat characters. Same as guns are in modern games, and muscle-powered weapons are for a low fantasy game. Going up against a swordsman who's as good with a sword as you are with your fists isn't generally advised. "Wired Sams taking unwired people apart" is a basic staple of the genre. If you think it's gone too far, by all means do something about it in your game, but before changing the rules drastically, it's worth seeing if it's really the IP imbalance that's the problem.

Kerberos The character being discussed is a chargen legal, relatively balanced gun bunny, only using the BBB. I think what you're failing to appreciate is the sheer number of (minimum) 5P damage resist rolls this sam can inflict in one combat turn.

Is shooting 16 people in 6 point armour with 5P, actually that effective? With 3 (average) body to resist, that's 4 Stun damage apiece. And all bar the first 4 will be returning fire (maybe only once) unimpaired. If that doesn't turn Our Sam into hamburger, there's something *else* wrong with the rules.

OR

Is shooting 2 people twice each with 5P (likely the best he can get, firing with both hands) the best way to start the gunfight? Surely better to one shot each of them with a full dice pool.

*Either way* his following IPs will largely be wasted, either because he's been cut in half by the return fire, or because he's either won in the first IP or the targets have gone into cover and he's going to have to expose himself before getting another shot.

Zak I'm not just whining about the effectiveness of firearms. I'm trying to rebalance their effectiveness with respect to melee. I'm not even suggesting variable IPs. I'm just restricting what you can spend additional IPs on. IMO, by RAW magic is fairly well balanced with respect to guns - quite possibly more potent due to the limited resistance dice available to most character types - but again, by restricting the use of IPs for spell casting, it makes IP enhancements less important for magicians.

What I think everyone else doesn't get is why you want to do this. Bringing a knife to a gunfight is a mistake unless you have "something special" to even the odds (like Adept Powers, being invulnerable or the like). Magic is the next step in that escalation: bringing a gun to a magefight... Fortunately Mages are pretty rare, so most of the time guns are the trump suit.

[ElFenrir]

You know, about numbers and return fire....

Ive seen characters take crazy hits. A sam with Dermal Sheathing, maybe Bone lacing a good Body(say, and Ork with 7 body, not hard to get at all), good armor, a helmet, and maybe even FFBA, has a crapload of dice to roll on Defense.(7 Body, 14 Ballistic Armor is 21 dice AFTER the Dodge, in which he probably has a what, Reaction of 6 or 7 modified if he's a sam, and that's a couple of hits. (22 or 23 if he has bone lacing. And this is not even a totally twinked character.) Tack this onto the fact if the mooks are throwing somewhere between 7 and 10 dice(given smartlinks, skill, range modifiers, etc.).

He's also got a physical track of 12, and probably an Edge of at least 2, maybe 3. He'll likely be knocked out before he's turned to hamburger. Unless they want to keep plugging his unconsious body while the REST of the party is shooting flash-bang grenades and full autofire at them, the Sam will probably live through alot of return fire.

Me and my buddy talked about it last night; these days it's almost like you have to TRY to kill someone. Most of the time they end up more or less knocked out.

[Shiloh]

You know, about numbers and return fire....

Ive seen characters take crazy hits...

Aye, and what I'm saying is that maybe *here* is the problem, rather than IPs.

[ElFenrir]

In a way, making stun damage the 'preferred way to take down opponents' might not be a bad thing, though.

It can save a long-running and fun campaign(captured PCs can escape, of course), it can make for interesting villain returns, and in a way it sort of pushes the PCs toward more non-lethal combat. The way i usually run it, i tend to make the force greeted with more equal force. A group of PCs tossing flash-bangs and using gel rounds are less likely to have the HTR team called than the team armed with panther cannons and HMGs with AV rounds and frag grenades turning the oppositon into chunky salsa.

But i guess it's how deadly you want your game. We play a 'moderate' game, leaning a bit toward some action oriented things were the PCs can die; but more often get knocked out. Death usually comes if one of us makes a really big mistake.

Ah, sorry for derailing the topic. It doesn't totally have to do with IPs, what i brought up, but i guess it could tie in somehow. Well, combat is affected by numerous factors of course-IPs are one of them.

[ornot]

Some valid points have been brought up. The way the game is structured makes guns and multiple IPs the obvious choice.

However, like the OP, and 27% of poll responders, I feel IP boosters are too ubiquitous due to their power. Hence the goal of my house rules is to make them less attractive, by making them less useful for gun bunnies and combat mages. In this situation WR can be the 'something special' needed to 'bring a knife to a gunfight'.