Feedback on house rule, increased reaction and melee combat Options

[lordsah]

So, I'll describe the dilemma I see in the melee combat rules and a house rule that I've used to address it. I'm wondering if folks have implemented similar solutions in their campaigns.

Normally for melee combat, Attacker A (call her Alice) initiates combat with Defender B (call him Bob). Say Alice and Bob have the same skill in Unarmed Combat, so Alice has a 50/50 chance of coming out ahead.

Now assume that Alice has wired reflexes and Bob does not. My personal experience (only a few years in martial arts) says that Alice, because she's faster, should generally come out ahead. She should block attacks and exploit weaknesses more readily simply because she has a quicker response time. The rules in SR3 don't address this, and it seems silly to me and some of my old-time players.

This assumption about reaction as it applies to melee combat seems to jive with Shadowrun fiction I've read (wired reflexes described as seeing things in slower motion, for example).

I've played in previous campaigns that any extra dice to initiative (through magic or cyberware) also get added to melee combat rolls. Alice with WW level 3 would get 3 extra dice on her Unarmed Combat.

I'm starting a new campaign with a batch of newbie players, so I'm taking the opportunity to re-examine some of my house rules. Does anyone else do anything like this? And for folks who've been playing for a long time: even if it's a good idea, do you think it breaks game balance?

[Luke Hardison]

I don't think that will be too bad on balance, lordsah, but keep an eye on it. If you don't play with power players or munchkins it probably won't be abused, but it has ... potential, especially with adepts and improved Unarmed / martial arts.

[kevyn668]

Eventually someone will take advantage of that system. Even if you players are complete newbs, at some point they'll discover they can "max-out" in melee or skimp in melee and then earn the dice back w/ reflex enhancement.

Just my two cents. :)

[mfb]

wow. that's an incredibly simple fix, that sounds really workable. i may have to try that one myself.

i'd suggest that someone using the Quick Strike adept power gets +5 dice for that attack only.

[Cain]

This is an ongoing argument; there's been lots of suggestions made on this board.

IMO, it's completely unnecessary-- since melee ties goes to the attacker, given equal skill, the faster character will win more often.

My personal experience in martial arts is that speed is a function of skill, and not the other way around. Personally, I feel the rules adequately reflect that.

I'll even run some numbers, so you can see for yourself.

[ Spoiler ]

Adept Alice and Bystander Bob both have Body 3, Strength 6, Combat Pool 9, and Unarmed Combat 6-- identical stats, except Adept Alice has Increased reflexes 3, while Bob is unaugmented. We'll assume Bob has a base reaction of 6, which gives Alice a base reaction of 12. We'll also assume no armor, to make things easier.

They roll for initiative, getting a 4 on each dice. That gives Bob an initiative of 10, while Alice gets 28.

Combat phase 28: Alice attacks. Both use full skill and 3 combat pool dice. They tie, and Bob now has to soak a 6M. He uses all his remaining combat pool, but only rolls 2 successes with his body dice. He takes a light stun.

Combat Phase 10: Bob attacks. This time, they both only use their skill. Bob, rolling against a TN of 5, scores 2 successes; Alice rolls 3. Bob is hit again. Bob is out of combat pool, so he rolls his base body, only getting 1 success. He's now at a Serious stun.

New pass, Combat Phase 18. Alice attacks. She's still got 6 combat pool, but decides to reserve it. She rolls her 6 dice against TN 4; Bob is rolling 6 dice against TN 7. Alice gets 3 successes, while Bob gets 1. Bob is unconscious no matter what happens-- he doesn't have enough body to stange down another serious stun-- so he goes out like a light.

As you can see, speed is a huge advantage already. I don't see the need to add house rules to give speed even more of an advantage.

[Herald of Verjig...]

First, A has a slightly better chance of victory than 50%. Why? Because the attacker wins in ties (if there are a positive number of successes). Having more actions means more combat events where you will win if it is a tie. It also can mean an action or two where you can switch to a gun, step back, and know that the opponent has already burnt all his combat pool. Not "fair" but clearly an option.

If you want to make faster people better in a fight, just change the "tie goes to attacker" rule into "tie goes to highest potential initiative." This way, the MBW-3 usually has an advantage when defending against the WR-3 in a melee and both have an advantage over the SN (slow norm).

[Zazen]

[Herald of Verjig...]

I am willing to accept that loophole because it prevents the person from installing anything that reliably increases initiative. A 1D6 initiative that wins melee ties will be much easier to deal with than a 5D6 with a SMG.

[Zazen]

Yeah, it'd be funny, not necessarily effective :)

[lordsah]

I think everyone is getting hung up on my example of two folks being exactly equal except for increased reflexes. If you take out the rules and tell me about a guy who can move three times as fast as _anyone else_, seems to me that he should generally be able to mop the floor with them. Seems intuitive...

Cain, the only advantage to the faster character you laid out is that they can move first. The outcome of the fight you laid out was determined by only this fact.

Clearly, in ranged fights, high reaction folks have the very definite advantage--they shoot first, and that generally means they win. Perhaps leaving reaction out of melee is the only way to give non-hypered reaction folks a chance. A street sam is still gonna lose if he wades into a gang wielding chains and bats.

As for munchkins always taking reaction enhancers for fights...how is this different than things are normally? Every munchkin I've ever built had as much initiative enhancement that I could get away with anyway.

Does anyone know offhand where those older threads about this debate are?

[toturi]

[Austere Emancipa...]

Don't take toturi too seriously, he just has a thing about canon. ;)

Couldn't find any of those threads on this forum, but I did find at least one long one on the old: Higher Initiative and Melee Combat

[Capt. Dave]

Munchkin...Minmaxer...How liberally some people apply these terms to players.
I think what toturi really wants his players' characters to look like is this:

Bob the Stuffer Shack clerk
B-3
Q-3
S-3
C-3
I-3
W-3

Electronics (Cash register) 1/3
Athletics (Restocking) 1/3

Total Pacifist Flaw
Severe Phobia (Shadowrunning)

People...we play Shadowrun to become characters in a world more interesting than ours, and beome characters more interesting, and well...better than the normal person. Now if a GM and his group have fun playing gas station attendants and quadriplegic accountants, then great. But realize that some people _gasp_
like to kill things and be a badass.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Capt. Dave, you really seem to have misunderstood toturi. Had you actually read some of the stuff he has written here in the past, you'd know he certainly doesn't play SR like that. Quite the contrary, in fact. Your whole rant was completely pointless and missed by a mile. Which wouldn't've been so bad had you not tried to make the rant so insulting as well.

Do not make so hasty assumptions about people based on 1½ lines of text on a forum.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Mar 23 2004, 01:27 PM

[Capt. Dave]

I apologize if I misunderstood toturi's style of play, but the entire stereotype of munchkins kind of bothers me. To me, a new rule that fits in with a certain style of play isn't munchkinish. Perhaps I was out of line, but people really need to stop throwing that description on seemingly everything.

[kevyn668]

How come we don't have a "Munchkin Smiley"?
:grinbig:

[DigitalMage]

If you do include this house rule I would like to make a few suggestions -
First make it clear that these are extra dice - they do not increase the Skill and therefore do not raise the maximum for the number of Combat Pool that can be used.

If the Skill is less than the extra number of dice that could be gained, cap the extra dice to the Skill, e.g. a guy with Unarmed Combat 1 woudl only gain 1 extra dice from his Wired Reflexes even if they are rating 2 or 3. Fast reactions aren't always helpful if you don't know what to do with them!

[Eyeless Blond]

You know, I just had a bit of inspiration. It seems to me that Reaction should generally play a bigger role in combat. Not only would it help in melee to an extent, but also in ranged combat, dodging attacks, etc. If the world moves at one-third the speed to you, you should be able to do all those things better. In the same way, I'd imagine that the smarter you are the better you should be at using the computer and adapting to new situations in the Matrix, or the stronger your mental attributes the better you should be at casting spells.

There's already a mechanic for using attributes to assist in certain situations: dice pools. I'd say the best fix for such things, since you're already monkeying with the rules, is to change how Combat Pool dice are calculated. I'd suggest React + Wil/2, instead of the current (Qui + Int + Wil)/2, since Reaction is normally (Qui + Int)/2 already. Just be prepared for everyone running to boost their Reaction more than they already are.

[lordsah]

[Jpwoo]

The adding reaction dice to melee skill as well as initiative makes things like wired very very powerful.

If you want to simulate wired effects on combat and melee how about this house rule.

When rolling initiative a player may opt not to roll some of their intiative dice. Each die not rolled will provide one extra combat pool die for that round.

So a character with 9+3d6 initiative could choose to roll 1d6 instead and their combat pool would be two bigger for that round.

The character in game terms is taking her time to observe the details around them rather than just getting as much done as possible.

Perhaps two combat pool dice per one initiative die skipped. though that may be too much.

[lordsah]

[Cain]

[lordsah]

[Smiley]

[Austere Emancipa...]

I suppose this might be a good time to advertise my medieval fantasy SR melee combat rules (part of the FR port)... But you know me, I'm above that sort of thing. ;)