Does anyone else find it weird, that Jumping is based on Agility!?

Also, somehow I think Running should be based on Agility and not Strength (altho Strength is not unfitting here), partially, because I really think Elves should be better sprinters than Trolls.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. Also weird... why do SMG folding stocks provide RC, but AR rigid stocks do not?

I'm pretty sure the running/jumping argument has been made more than once and probably at least one thread that spans multiple pages.

Hmm... I have tried search before, but didn't find much useful stuff... but I might try again with a bigger timeframe, maybe I just missed it.

Bye
Thanee

back to basics...

we have these attributes:

agility

body

reactions

strength

going by that, running is part body, part reactions. one to keep going the other to do so NOW...

jumping, part strength, part reactions, and maybe part agility for the landing...

both are a collection of a whole lot of things. doing either points towards being in good physical condition overall...

I think you got the wrong picture of what reactions are (or I do, who knows ).

I wouldn't use Reaction for anything done *actively*. That's Agility.

But other than that, I agree, that there is some influence of various attributes.

I'm thinking of just going against the streamlined system and actually use two attributes (added together and halved (rounded down)) in some cases (i.e. Climbing/Jumping/Running: (AGI+STR)/2 as you need both power and control for those tasks).

Thoughts?

Bye
Thanee

thing is, they have put reaction under the physical group of attributes...

Yeah, true reaction is more of a perception/mental thing for sure.

Bye
Thanee

If it has to do with...

... physical endurance, it's Body.

... accuracy or dexterity, it's Agility.

... pure reflexes and reaction speed, it's Reaction.

... pure power, it's Strength.

Running should have the appropriate attribute applied to it, depending on the use. Sprinting, strength is fine. For long distance running, it's more of a function of Body. If you are trying to keep your balance while running over something slick, then Agility would come into play.

I think the right answer is that it depends on what you're doing with the running test.

I think it's worth noting that Agility is not the Quickness of Shadowrun past. Interestingly, Quickness has been scattered among Agility, Reaction and Strength. I like not using Agility for Running, personally, because Agility, it seems, is not a reflection of speed. It's a finesse attribute, all about manual dexterity and quickness of body (not the same as speed). I never much liked the idea in RPGs that running fast and shooting well were a function of the same characteristic. I think that the designers were trying to reflect that running is athletic, and a function of muscle power, rather than being a simple matter of quickness. Everyone has their own way of looking at it, though. All that matters is that in your own campaign, everyone knows what their attributes represent, and you're consistent about it.

Yes, in general I agree with you. I just don't think trolls should be the best sprinters in the world, so to say.

The 'problem' is, as you say, that some aspects of overall muscle power are split between several attributes, there is no clear cut, as it would be needed to use only one attribute for everything (it's a fine abstraction, but in some cases, it doesn't work too well). That's why I'm using (AGI+STR)/2, to reflect that part of it is within both. I don't think Reaction or Body have much to do with sprinting, however. Body is used in Long Distance Running, of course, and some Strength, but that works well enough per the RAW, I think.

Bye
Thanee

I don't question your logic, makes sense to me. I, personally, though, like the idea that the guys who are so much taller than everyone else run faster. I realize, however, that that does run contrary to canon, in that trolls traditionally have proportionally short legs. I deal with it in my campaign by simply assuming that trolls do not have such cartoony proportions.

Heh. Well, trolls already have a higher base movement. I won't take that away from them, and even with the averaging, they are still very good at running.

Bye
Thanee

I will say that I was kind of amused by the image of the troll in my group zipping past the elf (he's a lot faster). It doesn't actually cause a suspension of disbelief problem, only because our troll is supposed to be very athletic, lean and muscular. But you can't help but see the image of the troll from the 2nd edition book (the one from the page describing trolls, holding a halberd) outrunning some wiry elf. Imagine how fast those little legs have to go!

Like the chase in Kung Fu Hustle?

Bye
Thanee

SR's Body really doesn't have that much to do with physical endurance... it's got a lot more to do with how big you are. A fairly overweight character might have a high body stat but be nothing special for Agil, Reac, or Str.

Agility is a measure of flexibility, the speed at which you can move your body (NOT the speed you can run at, more like how fast your sword arm is), and how smooth your movements are.

Reaction is closer to a mental trait, but it's rolled into physical for whatever reason. It's pretty close to agility, but rather than the sword-arm example of how well you handle your body in lithe maneuvers, reaction is much more about how quickly you can make your body respond (similar to reflexes) to incoming stimuli.

Strength is really simple; it's pure muscular strength, endurance, and ability to do hard work with your body. The most agile guy in the world is going to have issues jogging with a hundred pound pack on his back if he's not strong, and I don't care how big you are, if you don't have any real muscle, you aren't going to be able to go far with that pack, either.

Speaking from personal experience, both sprinting and distance running are strength exercises. On the short sprint, you're using the power of your muscles to accelerate very quickly, and to push your body to go faster than you could normally maintain a run. On long runs, cardiovascular fitness is important, but it's your muscles that take the brunt of the abuse... lactic acid buildup, the risk of strains and cramps, and the repeated cushion-compress-pushoff acts of running. About the only thing agility is used for in this equation is not tripping over your shoes. I haven't competed at a serious level as a swimmer, but most of those rules hold true there, as well.

What most people think of as being "agility" going into this kind of physical activity is actually skill. A skilled runner doesn't have to be agile (I'm certainly not more agile than the average Joe), but once he's learned the proper way to move his upper body, place his feet, meter his stride, and lean into a sprint, he's really done with anything that could really be considered Agility-related, and he's done it by learning Running. Everything beyond that is his muscles pushing him faster, and keeping him going when he's tired. That's strength.

thats realy the thing about running. its only so much technique, the rest is pure power. same with jumping. thats you dont see just straight vertical jumping in a olymic event, there have to be some element of technique in there to seperate out people. only when both connect you get a good result...

and SR body is basicly just the same as d&d constitution. nothing more, nothing less.

so hows this:

for short range sprinting, you go (AGI+STR)/2

for long range marathons you go (BOD+STR)/2

in the first, its more important to keep yourself balanced while getting max energy output. in the second, its more important to maintain a steady rythm...

funny thing is, that you can use the (AGI+STR)/2 for jumping to, as it allso have everything to do about quick releases of energy...

People who are physically fit tend to have higher Bod ratings due to the fact that they're larger and denser than someone with the same built but no real fitness to speak of. Go work out a lot, running, lifting, or whatever it is that makes you happy, and in addition to becoming Stronger, your Body will get sturdier. We all know those wiry, muscular, super-fit guys who have a body that could best be described as 3-4, and we all know those huge dudes (Body 6) with lousy endurance. The abstraction ports most of the fitness-related stuff over to other statistics, leaving Body to pretty much represent physical size and stability.

You could argue that an agility of 1 would make doing nearly any physical task difficult. If you don't have enough control of your center of balance to keep it under a weight bar, you're going to drop it a lot (despite it being a Strength related activity). If you don't have the manual dexterity to properly work the pedals and shift gears in a car, you're going to grind the transmission to dust or crunch into cars occasionally (despite it being a Reaction related activity). If you aren't very flexible, then doing some of the underwater twists and maneuvers that make SCUBA go well could be an issue (despite it being a Body related activity). Hell, if your agility is really low, you might trip and stumble while trying to advance menacingly on some poor soul, ruining your Intimidation check (a Charisma related activity, not even physical).

Rather than figuring in the effects of every single statistic on a given test, Shadowrun simplifies everything down to using the statistic that (in their minds) contributes the most to being able to successfully do something. Asides from a "this guy can't tie his shoelaces, which makes running hard" situation, the model where agility is just as important to running as strength and endurance just doesn't hold up. A guy with Str 4, Agil 2 is going to be able to jog with a pack a hell of a lot further than a guy with Agil 4 and Str 2. Two guys with the same level of physical fitness (Strength) and skill at Running are not going to see amazing differences in returns running laps just because one of them is a lot more agile than the other. The same thing holds true for jumping... being more agile doesn't matter for squat if you can't physically push your frame the distance you're trying to jump... and you can learn to be agile in the specific ways required to jump long distances (that is, you can learn the Jump skill) without a serious increase in overall Agility. The statistic that contributes more than any other to running/jumping is Strength, and that's why it's the primary attribute linked to the skill's use.

Maybe Orks have better stamina, racially, than humans. This is represented by their higher score.
I'm not meaning to be snarky, I'm just saying sometimes the setting implies the mechanics, and sometimes the mechanics imply the setting.

Agil + Jump, eh? Missed that one.

Ok, the arguement for Body being endurance as well as size is pretty convincing, once I think about it... that'd be why things like Diving are linked to it.

I think this largely comes down to how much we think the various stats contribute. I'm pretty happy with the way the book does it, but if your interpretation of the way the stats interplay is that Agility covers more of what goes on in Running than my interpretation, go for it. Averaging the two stats is a decent mechanism for expressing that.

The Body influence in Long Distance Tests is also taken directly from the book, BTW, not a house rule.

I mostly think that the physical attributes are not so clear cut. Muscle power is not just Strength, but also represented in some way in Agility (and even Body to a lesser extent). After all, to be fast and precise with a weapon, you also need muscle power.

Of course, one could go even farther with all this, but I think Athletics is one of the cases, where that really comes into play, while the other skills work pretty fine as is.

Bye
Thanee