 Melee and lots of init passes...bad? |
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 Apr 30 2004, 07:34 AM
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#26
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Shooting Target  Group: Members Posts: 1,616 Joined: 15-March 04 Member No.: 6,158  |
Right, and melee combat has Reach and Positioning, which are their equivalences even if the modifiers themselves are different.
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Apr 30 2004, 07:46 AM
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#27
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,901 Joined: 19-June 03 Member No.: 4,775 |
The modifiers themselves are quite a bit less severe than their ranged counterparts.
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Apr 30 2004, 07:47 AM
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#28
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,616 Joined: 15-March 04 Member No.: 6,158 |
Not enough for a flat 4 each and every time as BitBasher was trying to say. Oy. Whatever. Forget I mentioned anything.
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Apr 30 2004, 07:48 AM
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#29
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,685 Joined: 17-August 02 Member No.: 3,123 |
I'll chime in here with Bit to say that melee numbers are very often lower. You'll note that Reach and Positioning almost always result in lower numbers, whereas movement and cover never do. In my games they don't hit 6-8 unless there's some major outnumbering.
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Apr 30 2004, 07:49 AM
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#30
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 515 Joined: 19-January 04 Member No.: 5,992 |
Heh. I've got a friend who plays a mage (not a Mag Ad. A mage.) who does a pretty good job of taking out most people with a manriki gusari. While blindfolded.
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Apr 30 2004, 11:37 AM
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#31
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,965 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Edinburgh, Scotland Member No.: 2,032 |
It's worth noting that adepts with centering on melee combat can't use centering on melee in a counterattack. This is because they must use a free action to center, but cannot use free actions on other people's passes until the end of their pass.
Thus: Adepts with centering are more powerful attacking in their own phases. It's not a perfect solution, but it's one way the system gives an advantage to people who go first. |
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Apr 30 2004, 12:49 PM
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#32
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,616 Joined: 15-March 04 Member No.: 6,158 |
As far as I know, the effects of Centering don't just faulter after your immediate turn; it's only limit is that it only lasts throughout the phase in which the Free Action is taken (MitS p. 73, Using Centering, third paragraph). Since you can also initiate a Free Action during any other character's action, there's nothing stopping you from initiating Centering on a counterattack.
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Apr 30 2004, 02:22 PM
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#33
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
My house rule:
I have found this house-rule to be very effective and resolves most of the issues here. Assuming the defender is counterattacking and not dodging, then the attacker only needs one success to "hit". (If the defender is dodging, it's exactly as you would expect.) If the attacker has more sucesses, proceed with defender's body test and stage as normal. If the defender has more successes, again proceed to the damage resistance test, but any successes from the counterattack carry over. If the defender scores enough successes on his counterattack to stage the damage to nothing, then the damage resistance test is unneccessary. This method doesn't allow the slow-skilled guy to own the fast-lame guy, since slow-skilled can't do damage on his counterattack, but neither does it allow the fast-lame guy to whoop the slow-skilled guy, since Mr slow-skilled can counterattack so well he rarely needs to roll body, and when he does he only needs one or two successes anyway, since he's already scored so many on his counterattack. If you're worried about multiple counterattacks, a good rule is +1 cumulative TN to each counterattack after the first (or third, or skill/2, or whatever). |
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Apr 30 2004, 02:35 PM
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#34
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,138 Joined: 10-June 03 From: Tennessee Member No.: 4,706 |
If I were not to like the rules as they are (which I don't terribly mind... if you're not built for melee, for god's sake, don't get into it if you can possibly avoid it... besides which, the faster character almost always gets a positioning advantage over his foe.. if the fight is going badly, back the hell up, don't just stand there and die) I'd probably go with something similar to what Moon-Hawk does.
If the defender has more successes than the attacker, the attack simply misses (basicly making the defender act like he is on full defense lite most of the time). |
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Apr 30 2004, 02:57 PM
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#35
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 376 Joined: 14-July 03 Member No.: 4,928 |
How fast you move doesn't necessarily give you an advantage in melee. I've seen 60-90 year old karate experts beat 20-something-year-olds handily, despite the fact the 20-something-year-olds were in the peak of health, and far faster than the opponent who is 5-6 decades older than they are.
The 60-90 year olds had the advantage of timing.... which is knowing when to move, not how fast to move. When you see an old man stop a 20-year-old's lethal, blindingly fast strike with a two-finger pinch (yes, pinch)... you realize that really fast reflexes do not make you a better fighter. |
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Apr 30 2004, 03:00 PM
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#36
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,138 Joined: 10-June 03 From: Tennessee Member No.: 4,706 |
This gets into a discussion of speed vs. reaction. A case could be made that while the old guy might have a slower physical speed, his reaction is through the roof.
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Apr 30 2004, 03:05 PM
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#37
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
And faster reactions DO make you a better fighter than someone with slow reactions, all other things being equal. It's just not the be-all and end-all of combat prowess.
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Apr 30 2004, 03:06 PM
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#38
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
That is contingent on the fact that the faster kid cannot react while the older man is making his move. How do you defeat someone who views all you moves in slo-mo? If I am able to react so fast as to be able to react to your block/dodge/etc, wouldn't I be able to literally predict your every move? For example. I throw a punch and you block, but as you are blocking, I see your block and am able to react to it fast enough to change the direction of my punch to hit you. |
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Apr 30 2004, 03:55 PM
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#39
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 376 Joined: 14-July 03 Member No.: 4,928 |
Strikes travel one of two ways, either straight (like a jab), or an arc (like a roundhouse kick). Once you start a strike, it's almost impossible to change the target of the strike. Try throwing a punch at the midsection of an imaginary target. Then try throwing the same punch to the same location and suddenly go for the "head," and you'll find just how awkward it is to change targets. I see a lot of posts where people want more twink out of their reaction/initiative boosts than the rules allow. It all comes down to skill level. If you really want to beat the crap out of NPCs, invest in a really high skill. If you're dumb enough to keep attacking someone in melee combat who has a higher skill than you, you deserve the beating. Just because your initiative is 40+, doesn't mean you're better than someone with an equal skill who's initiative is 6. High initiative simply allows you more opportunities to attack - they don't make the attacks better in any way. Once you start twinking this, then next someone is going to demand they should be able to beat up the massive troll with a body of OMG, serious armor, and a low initiative, just because they are 7 times faster than said troll, comparing their 40+ intiative to troll's 6.
Faster does not automatically = better. Laws of physics still apply - the faster you move, the harder it is to stop, and even harder to change direction. |
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Apr 30 2004, 04:32 PM
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#40
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Yes, that's right, laws of physics still apply. That guy with an initiative of 1 should not be able to make 200,000 *extra* counterattacks in a Combat Turn, just because his opponent has an initiative 1,000,000 higher than him. I apologize to the readers of this thread for the sarcasm of that retort, but sometimes sarcasm can only be properly responded to with more sarcasm. Frankly these kinds of remarks are ridiculous and completely out of place in SR; if laws of physics were going to be religously followed then there would be no magic, no metagenes, and *certainly* no shapeshifters. To talk about the total of all human ability to date we would have to limit out universe of discourse to initiatives no higher than 15-17 or so (Reaction of 9-11, init die roll of 6.) You simply cannot apply RL experience to SR concepts like initiative; even the lowliest of Wired 1 sammies may well have initiatives twice that of the fastest human currently in existence. |
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Apr 30 2004, 04:42 PM
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#41
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Physics is not discarded, merely extended. Magic=energy=mass. When shapeshifters shift, the extra mass becomes magic, which is then converted back into mass when they shift back.
~J, master of the rectal extraction method |
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Apr 30 2004, 04:45 PM
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#42
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 309 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,548 |
You quite possibly just opened an immense can of worms with people who believe that...oh, nevermind.
Personally, from now on, I think I'm going to say you need to spend an action to counterattack. This makes a lot of sense to me. |
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Apr 30 2004, 05:05 PM
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#43
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 376 Joined: 14-July 03 Member No.: 4,928 |
This is referring to actually trying to strike a target, not a character's initiative/reaction. Trying to compare RL to SR doesn't apply as you say, and the reverse is also true. Some game mechanics may be completely unrealistic, but they're there to provide game balance, so that a character with a particular skill, magical ability, or piece of cyberware/bioware doesn't suddenly become overpowering and skew the entire game in their favor. Melee Combat is an Opposed Test - and Game Balance is why someone with an initiative of 1 can defend themselves against more attacks than they have phases in a initiative Pass. And don't forget, even the guy with an initiative of only 1 can engage as many opponents in melee combat as he/she wants on their pass, with no restrictions based on skill, reaction or initiative. Allowing a character with initiative of 42 to endlessly attack a character with initiative of 6 with no drawbacks or chance of ever being hurt would completely skew the game in favor of the character with the high initiative. After all, they have absolutely nothing to lose by attacking a character who is out of actions in an initiative pass, if the defender is not allowed to do damage. If the creators of Shadowrun wanted characters with high reaction/initiative to be able to pummel characters with low reaction/initiative simply because they are faster/have higher initiative, they would have added rules to that effect to Reaction Enhancers, Boosted Reflexes, Wired Reflexes, Muscle Toner, etc, etc. As it is, only Enhanced Articulation adds both a reaction bonus (of 1), and 1 extra die to all Physical, Technical, Combat, Build/Repair and non-rigged/datajacked Driving skills. Otherwise someone with a low initiative who has used their one and only action in an intiative phase shouldn't be able to dodge bullets, resist spells, defend themselves in melee combat or anything else, cause gee, they're just too slow and out of actions. Consider the second paragraph of Melee Combat on page 120:
Melee combat is not Attack then Counterattack. It is simply a combat test, and the better fighter usually wins. Tie goes to attacker. That is the main advantage to being the attacker. Defenders always have to beat your successes. That is the disadvantage of being the defender. |
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Apr 30 2004, 05:12 PM
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#44
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 442 Joined: 23-April 04 From: Pennsylvania Member No.: 6,280 |
I think it goes without saying that anyone with that many attack opportunities, and that low of a combat skill should be doing something besides attacking in melee. I don't think there's anything unbalancing about standing toe to toe with a skilled martial artist and getting your ass kicked because you can't compete. Use one of your wonderful actions to run the hell away and throw a grenade over your shoulder.
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Apr 30 2004, 05:26 PM
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#45
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,965 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Edinburgh, Scotland Member No.: 2,032 |
The ordering, with the attack and defence happening simultaniouly before the adept can take his centering action, implies that it is not possible to center in defence.
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Apr 30 2004, 05:26 PM
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#46
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Traumatizing players since 1992 Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,282 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Las Vegas, NV Member No.: 220 |
Also, if you can change the direction of a blow mid swing you're power with said blow drops to a miniscule fraction of it's original force.
Either way, it makes sense one can make multiple counterattacks, because theres a lot less motion involved in a counterattack. When you attack offensively you have to move to the attacker, anticipate an opening, shift body weight and swing. Moving to the attacker and positioning takes time, most of it actually. Defensively you have to see the swing coming, because inherintly swinging opens you up someplace. Once a swing is comitted its fairly easy to exploit assming you're good enough. The attacker is drastically shortening the amount of motion the defender needs to get in a sucessful strike. Theres far more conservation of mementum in a defensive strike then offensive. |
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Apr 30 2004, 05:34 PM
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#47
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
This is of course a valid point, but I do want to say: People are using the example of the extremely slow, extremely skilled person against the extremely fast, extremely lame person in order to make the point, but the problem still exists when the speed difference remains large, but the skill difference is very small. Even a skill difference of one or two leaves the slow defender able to whoop his attacker quite handily. In reference to my previous optional rule: Yet another variant of that rule (and you'll have to read up the thread and read my suggested rule for this to make sense) is that the defender can still do some damage, but the defenders successes have to start staging up from nothing (or from base damage, as a different option) AFTER they've already staged the attacker's attack down to nothing. I never bothered to implement this option or test it, but in the EXTREME case of mismatched skill and speed it would still allow the slow person to damage the fast one. |
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Apr 30 2004, 06:33 PM
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#48
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,138 Joined: 10-June 03 From: Tennessee Member No.: 4,706 |
If you're getting your rear end handed to you buy a much slower combattant, don't keep pressing melee on them. Where's the idea that "He's better but I'm faster so I should be able to kill him in the way I want to even though he's better at it than I am" coming from? The real advantage of having a high initiative in melee is that you can force melee combat instead of having your foe back away and shoot you eighty times or make the inverse decision to retreat from hand-to-hand yourself. Take two characters:
Character A: Unarmed combat 6, initiative 9, unarmed Character B: Unarmed comabt 5, inititiative 29, Pistols 6 & Heavy Pistol What in the hell is fast character B doing in melee with slow character A? He jumps him, finds out the hard way that A is a hardcase and should quickly realize "He, this ain't workin'!" When A uses his turn to attack B, this is only reinforced. Now it should be A's job to think "Hey, screw this" and pull out his gun to shoot B. In my limited experience in hand to hand combat, a very small difference in skill has often made a huge difference in the outcome of the fight. The only time you should get into a melee encounter with someone is when you know you're better than them. |
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Apr 30 2004, 06:55 PM
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#49
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 153 Joined: 16-February 04 From: Ohio, USA Member No.: 6,083 |
Wouldn't that be bad role-playing if you know the skill level of the ememy? Shouldn't the game master keep that knowledge from the players until they commited to the fight? You may figure out that the other guy is better than you after he thumps you once or twice.
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Apr 30 2004, 07:01 PM
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#50
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Yes. But after a round of combat, it's usually pretty obvious that melee just isn't working.
~J |
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