hey all,

after running a few combats with the new rules, it seems that it leans toward players maxing out their reaction and body attributes. is this correct or does the armor players can wear make up for that gap enough?

Willis

I've seen a lot of build-a-traditions that rely on Intuition, and combine with Reaction for a high Initiative.

A hit evaded means no damage, so i think the max reaction+dodge approach will be more effective.

Historically, character defenses come in three varieties: dodging, soaking, and debuffing the opposition.

SR4 readily offers methods of increasing your ability to dodge (Reaction, Dodge, Gymnastics, etc.) and soak (Body, Armor, Platelet Factories, etc.) damage. Debuffs (smoke grenades, cover, illusion spells, etc.) exist but are not prominent.

So don't be too surprised when characters interested in survivability seek to advance one or more of those defensive elements. It's gonna happen, and happen quickly because few people enjoy it when their character dies.

To answer your question about armor: it's very valuable. You can wear an armor rating that's double your Body attribute without penalties, meaning you just potentially tripled your soak dice by putting on an armored jacket or some such. Armor is much, much easier to get a hold of than implants and so on.

Also, if you're attacked with something that has a modified Physical damage value equal to or less than your applicable armor rating, then any resulting damage you take after soaking turns into Stun damage. Stun damage heals (roughly twenty times) faster than Physical and, most importantly, doesn't eventually kill you when your Stun track fills up.

So, yeah, armor is very important. Not getting hit at all is better, but every attack you have to dodge (using Reaction) before your next initiative pass is a cumulative -1 penalty on the next dodge roll. So you're going to want some of both types of defenses (or all three if you can swing it).

thats why I stun my enemies, it basically makes their armor they have on half effective

Don't forget toxins, which ignore most armor compeltely.

Another effect the deadliness of combat may have is to make people look towards better ways to actually avoid combat via stealth, magic, and tactics.

The trick to avoiding the player-GM arms race is for the GM to play opposition smarter, not harder. Make sure your NPCs use cover, talk whenever they can, rather than fight, and generally act like they actually care whether or not they get to see their friends and wives again.

No defense is possible against a surprise attack. That pulls out the dodge option and makes combat hugely deadly for the surprisee. My players have been highly creative in finding ways to get in the cheap shots because of this.

one of the key points to survival in shadowrun, is not getting shot at in the first place. that while you are ready for a gunfight, you go out of your way to avoid it. its very easy for a team of runners to be outnumbered, and outgunned.

when you do get into combat, soaking that damage is your most reliable defense. cover and visibility and good for limiting how many rounds are coming your way at a time. if everyone who runs around that corner gets shot dead, the guys behind him are gonna want to rethink going around that corner.

the first line of any defense, is being aware of where the enemy is. if you are suprised, you may take heavy losses before you can get off a single shot.

personaly, i like a mix of ammo to choose from. a predator, a yamaha taser, a shock glove, smoke and flashbang gernades. generaly explosive gernades are a bad idea to play with- in adition to the risk of not throwing it far enough, it ups the ante a bit. a guy using tasers and gel rounds will see enemies that are more willing to risk walking into his fire. a guy using EXEX and HE gernades will see a LOT more calls for backup (unless your jamming all the enemys comunications).

The old "if you're getting shot at it's gone wrong" argument doesn't work, as different runs call for different things.
The arms race is also a bit bogus, as there is more than one way to skin a runner!

ah, the beauty of a point based build system