Actually, the average cop is a lot better than the average thug. They get formal training in various armed and unarmed techniques and are required to demonstrate skill on a regualr basis. You don't (thank god) run into Matix and Platt types very often.

I had an instructor who'd seen Bill Jordan shoot. Jordan was hitting quarters shooting from the hip at 25 yards IIRC. Jordan could draw, shoot and hit in 0.27 seconds.

The instructor said that if anyone could learn to shoot like Jordan he'd teach things totally different, but guys like Jordan are just weird anomalies and the way they do things only works if you are as gifted.

I've never been a cop, but I was a probation officer. I was cautious, but never felt overwhelmingly threatened by the 'average thug' - too bad I was exclusively assigned felony offenders requiring 'intensive supervision' (typically drug and violence charges up to aggravated assault). Caseload of only 12-15, and most of them were trying to stay pretty straight, but when they went bad, it was pretty ugly. I hated that job and actually went back to corrections after only a year.

i don't think punching someone should be as fast as shooting them. squeezing a trigger is a tiny motion, punching someone is a big one. big motions should take more time. upping thhe damage of bladed weapons makes more sense to me.

making melee a simple action would actually make it a lot more useful than changing thhe DV of certain weapons, because of what you could combine it with. you could melee targets that would otherwise be out of reach by sprinting and then meleeing in thhe same pass; you could knock someone down with a melee attack and then shoot them, making it harder for them to dodge.

I think it's too unbalancing for some characters to have melee actions as simple whilst others have it as complex, no matter what the cost. It becomes a compulsory purchase for anyone who wants to melee and it's bad when one option becomes the only sensible choice.

But I'm not against the idea of them becoming simple actions for everyone. I'd have to think about it, but I don't object to melee combat becoming more deadly. It would make melee combat the preserve of the very brave or crazy. Which could be good.

I would agree with that except for the fact that there are other positive qualities that give benefits that you have to pay for. Same thing with adept powers, specifically, Nimble Fingers, allows many simple actions change to free actions, so there is already a mechanic for this (the mechanic is pay karma/bp/magic points get a reduced action time).

But, I do agree that it makes sense for melee to be a complex action, from a realism point of view...but that isn't as fun in the game...

@sunnyside
Oh, I certainly agree, the strategy to subdue or even disarm first is a the best way to use melee...and again, I am going to see how our next few sessions go with just using RAW. I missed out on subdual, disarming and interception, three things that would have been used during this PC fight and I think that would have balanced everything...

Bullets are definitely another case where Tis better than give than receive. Even the little "wimpy" bullets are bad. As someone once pointed out in a discussion of hold-out guns, "I've never heard of anyone saying that they enjoyed being shot with a .22 or .25".

An average person with some skill with a pistol can shoot someone at least 6 times, more if not worrying a lot about aiming, in 3 seconds. I'd suggest not going there.

Well nimble fingers converts some limited simple actions to free ones, such as emptying a clip from a gun. I take your point, but I think a power that converted melee attacks from Simple to Complex is a different order of magnitude entirely. I'm not against doing that necessarily. I just think that making it other than universal makes things very unbalanced. There are other powers you can buy that improve melee, that's not thhe problem. It's that any character that wants to be a melee combatant takes this power as a pre-requisite every time.

I personally think that the best solution is upping the damage of (most) melee attacks. My reasons are as follows:

1. Switching melee attacks to a simple action severely tips the balance in the favour of those with extra initiative passes. That may be realistic that they win, but it already is considerably in their favour and this magnifies things to a much greater level. A character with WR2 got a couple of extra attacks which won most fights. But now he gets four extra attacks. The scaling has just shot up.

2. Increased damage seems more realistic to me. I'm not an expert on this, but when a light pistol firing 9mm does 4P, I would think that Mr. Average (Str 2) would do more than 2P. I don't know much about guns, but I have done some martial arts training against knives and even against someone who doesn't have a clue what they're doing, it's way too easy to see the sort of damage you would take. Get a friend to pick up a big fat red marker and try to slash and stab at you. Do it naked so you can see where exactly you would have been slashed open. (Don't let anyone see the two of you doing this).

There are reasons why the pistol might do more damage in some locations or for some reasons, but these are already taken into account with the rules for net hits and the fact that it's a simple action so you can fire more often. Shadowrun has an abstract damage system and in that case, I think knives in the hands of Mr. Average should be as damaging (and probably more) than a light pistol.

3. The reason for melee being a complex action whilst firing a pistol is a simple one, is, I think, because that is how it is in real life. Up close melee combat is much more involved with dodging, advancing, trying to get past each others guard. It possesses a degree of interaction between the opponents that firing guns at each other does not. Yes, you could take longer firing a pistol, but this is covered by the aiming rules. Melee simply is more complex than shooting at someone.

4. Increasing the damage of melee weapons wont affect the play of a lot of characters because it still suffers major disadvantages compared to guns. In the hands of a very high strength character, bows can be very powerful indeed. But you don't see many characters carrying them because, well, there are too many reasons why guns are better. So I don't see many negative consequences.

5. Increasing the damage of melee weapons will have an effect that, at least I personally, think is a positive one. It makes melee more deadly. I think requiring a slightly higher degree of craziness for people to go charging in to hand to hand combat adds more flavour. I want players to see it as a risky situation that could all too easily go wrong.

So given these reasons, I'm in favour of upping the damage of at least edged melee weapons. The only problem I have is trying to balance high-strength characters like trolls. I'm not yet sure if I should however. Trolls really are nature's melee combatants.

I agrees with this. Anyone I know who ends up fighting at the bar never ends up fighting very long before someone hits the ground. Upping the damage to str not str/2 would be reasonable. Unarmed attacks still do stun damage so it's not like they are deadly. A knife would do 3p on an average human (str 2). Thats comparable with a light pistol.

The thing that bugs me is being able to block melee weapons with unarmed. In your example with the red marker I would wonder how many of the marks would be on your forearms as your tried to block his attacks?



On a side note, the players ended up being captured and losing their equipment last game so they did make use of unarmed and it did turn out ok. They switched to guns as soon as they killed the first armed guards though.

Quite a few. (I would like at this point to emphasize that my martial arts experience is not solely limited to drawing lines on each other). Of rather more concern actually, was that there were a lot of lines on my legs. That femoral artery is a big target. All in all, it was an effective way for my teacher to introduce the whole subject of knife defence.

Blocking unarmed is possible though it's more grapple really. I'd certainly prefer to have my tonfa (the only weapon I'm actually any good with other than my body). I could use a knife, but I wouldn't. They are nasty.

So you're say if on simple action 1 they put a bullet between their attackers eyes they'd still have the -3 penalty to shoot target number 2?

Also with disarming do you guys think their should be some kind of test or a triggered attack of intercept if the gun guy decides to draw and fire their back up weapon.

At least would the -3 apply to a quickdraw attempt?

I think that that's exactly the point of that modifier. The penalty is for while engaged in melee; moving out of melee, the character is no longer engaged. The penalty is moot unless the shooter is cornered or unable to disengage.

I do agree with that in principle. I just think my logic tree goes.

-did the shooter win at an intercept attack roll
-is the melee guy neutralized (such as if the first shot downed them)

If neither is true the -3 applies, because via SR movement the melee guy should be able to keep up. Especialy considering the shooter has to sidestep instead of move forward.

The fingertip compartment is a very smart move when it comes to monowhips. Probably the only safe way to transport something like that.

If a player bought microwire and built a poor-man's monofilament whip, it'd get treated like a monofilament whip. Those things have a 'forbidden' code for a reason, it's your (or your GM's call) how stridently that's enforced.

You're character named Johny M. by any chance

On that note, I *heart* William Gibson. But anyone else notice his later stuff doesn't seem as good as his older stuff, like Johnny M. and Neuromancer?

OSUMacbeth

everybodies early stuff is better than the later. Least ways in music bands. "They were so much better before they sold out man."
The thing that I heard about William Gibson, is that his latest work isn't set in the future, but involves all the really whacky techno stuff that's viable today.

Actually most writers get better for the first few books as they learn to write better and get better at arguing with editors,etc. If they get famous they typically develop Clancyitis and decree that every precious word that they lay on paper is sacred and can't be edited, and their books go to crap as they balloon into huge plotless masses of goo.