Hi,

I just bought the SR4 book. I've been playing SR since 1st ed.

I'm a bit confused on the Melee section.

The melee action seems to be

1. attacker strikes rolling his dice pool. Defender defends with his dice pool.
2. if attacker equals or exceed defender then it hits
3. if defender exceed attacker then the attack is stopped

My question is, when is the defender ever become an attacker?

On his Combat Phase in the Intiative ladder. Then he takes the attacker stance.

So, the text on not having a you-go, I-go is false?

That's what it looks like to me...

on your action, you may spend a complex action to make a melee attack. you roll agility+skill vs the defenders reaction+skill. if you score more net hits, then you roll your damage vs their soak. if you do not score more net hits, then nothing happens.

when the defender gets an action, he may make a melee attack if he chooses to. or he can fire his gun (at a penalty). or he can run away.

so if ubermelee guy is standing next to 3 gangers, and attacks one with his action in teh first pass, he rolls to hit. theres a freinds in melee modifier. then the three gangers get to act- two make a melee attack, and the third fires two shots with his gun. then the ubermelee guy gets his second pass action. melee attack. gangers do nothing as they only had the one pass. on the third pass he attacks again, and teh gangers do nothing. on the 4th pass he attacks again, the gangers do nothing. the next round, he attacks again. the gangers, if any are left standing, can run for their lives now on the first pass.

Now having extra init passes helps.
Before if you had loads of init.
And melee'd a superior opponent 2-3 times he could hit you in all of them, without init enhancers.
Now he can't, because you are moving faster. A big improvement in my opinion.
However now there is nothing stopping you from shooting at point black range the guy that just missed with his katana.
(except the -2 dice penalty).

Hope this has helped.

-3

Much like every system where you take turns rolling to simulate constant jabs and stabs.

Roleplaying and strategy games typically do their best to represent simultaneous combat, but in practice it's much easier for everyone around the table to "take their turn."

So, like Arkary said, it's all turn-based only from a purely mechanical standpoint. From a roleplaying point of view a lot of stuff is going on at once. That inset text is there just to remind you that the game mechanics are abstractions and shouldn't be taken as literal actions in their out-of-game sequence.

I've only skimmed the melee rules...


Is there anything about a counterstrike? If the defender scores more net successes, do they get to damage the attacker? Personally, I liked it that way, as it seemed more like "actual" close combat. If someone with lower skill/ability attacks, then the more skilled defender should be able to turn that around, taking advantage of the opportunity to strike at an opening...

There is no "free counterattack" anymore. SR4 gave that up, likely because someone with sufficient sword skill and one initative pass could kill a dozen guys in three seconds and THEN use his Complex Action to drink a cup of coffee.

Cool? Maybe. Realistic or game-balanced? Not so much.

I might allow a counterattack to happen like Interception. Spend a free action to make a melee attack against someone who just missed you with a melee attack.

But attacking a higher skilled opponent should not make him "faster".

How about allowing a counter attack when the opponent rolls a glitch?

For a glitch, I was planning on reducing the dice for his next action... stumbled, lost ground, etc.
Maybe on a critical glitch the defender's successes turn to damage?

I'm sure there will be a lot of tasty new melee options when the martial art style rules come out for the new edition.

I really like my own suggestion, here. Not only critical glitch, but every glitch, leaves you open for counter attacks. Critical glitch may give you a penalty as well. I think it's now a house rule of mine even.

The fact that melee combat is a complex action—combined with how it's always resisted by attribute+skill—makes melee combat that much slower and less deadly than ranged combat (as admitedly it should be), it doesn't really hurt to give combatants a few more chances to hurt eachother. The glitch mechanic is perfect for this.

Before you say "less dealy" look at the possible damage ratings of melee compared to ranged (assuming heavy pistols vs. monowhips or high strength).

In any given melee, you're only going to have a chance to toss out so many "free" hits like this. Any thoughts on what to limit this to?

How about 3

But I don't think it's likely to happen too many times with the same character in any given round.

If you're so bad at fighting you glitch that often, you'll probably just want to go full defense and scream for help. If that's not an option, you're probably dead anyway, the glitch rule will just speed things up.

Yeah. But a scenario were a good fighter faces 20 fighters with a dice pool of 2 could, although highly unlikely, occur. In that case the good fighter should a) be a bit sore from the last 10 or so attacks he had no way of blocking b) get, I dunno, 3 or 4 counter attacks at least. But even with less opponents and higher skills there is a small possibility of a high number of counter attacks.

I don't think it's likely to even be a problem, but just in case you may want to set a limit that seems reasonable.


<edit> Though I now realize that the 20 guys with a dice pool of 2 would actually all have dice pool 6 due to the friends in melee rule... So for the example to work they would all have to be cripples too )

See my edit there. Because they are 20 they are no longer outclassed, and the lone fighter would no longer get as many chances to counter attack. Seems to be working fine.

As a matter of fact a limit does seem like nothing but a safety measure. The chance of enough really bad attacks being targeted on the same opponent to give that opponent a disturbing number of counter attacks is very slim.

The guy would havet to be attacked by a party of like 4 combatants with wired reflexes 3 and an agility of 2, that never learned how to fight , or an entire village of cripples (that also don't know how to fight).

Allowing a counterattack factors in their skill, as you still have to hit them with your free attack, so thte glitches of trained fighters will be less severe than the glitches of untrained ones (who may glitch again on their dfense roll).

GrinderTHeTroll: You're missunderstanding me. My examples are just silly ways of trying to make the point that; there is really no need to worry about limiting the number of counter attacks possible due to your opponent glitching.

Off course you'd make lunchmeat of either pre-school kids or cripples, the point is that they would have to be that bad fighters to give someone any serious number of counter attacks due to glitches in one round. And even then the friends in melee rule will prevent the number of attacks from becoming rediculous.

I think if you were running a hong kong cinematic type game, you could go back to the earlier rules that let the more skilled combatant go on defense and kill the crap outta mobs of lower skilled attackers.