I am a complete nub to the game, but I just want to get an idea of the realitive usefulness and power of both types of combat. Anything thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Klinktastic

Bullets go farther, have a higher rate of fire, and are harder to parry. Also for most characters even small arms are at least as deadly as any sword they could wield and the high end of ranged combat rather trivially exceeds the capabilities of the high end of melee.

Melee has advantages, but power is not on that list.

-Frank

By default (just like in real life, most of the time), firearms trump close combat. That's no reason to be wholly unprepared for melees, however. There are always times you can't bring your guns to the party, times your metarace and/or augmentations can make for a truly fearsome strength score, times visibility modifiers will mean shooting misses against a determined opponent out to close with you, times that a fight starts while your opponent is too close for you to shoot well, times a knife is quieter than a gun, and on and on and on.

A good combat character is going to be well versed in both. But I'd lean (just like I do in real life) a little more towards the bang-you than the kung-fu.

the only time melee ever trumps guns is when the melee person ambushes the gun person.

Melee, however, is generally quieter than shooting, and doesn't need reloading.

What Critias said. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being competent in melee, I just wouldn't suggest going overboard, that's all. My most successful melee artist was an adept who focused his 'ware and power points on stealth and athletics rather than melee combat. Rolling 18 dice with a bound and attuned monowhip was plenty good enough for taking people down quietly on surprise tests.

Shadowrun is a near future setting, so ranged has more killpower than melee, because that's the way it is in RL. There's a reason armies gave up spears for rifles centuries ago.

But, especially in the dense urban environment common in Shadowrun, where stealth is a significant factor, and in places where the carrying an SMG isn't practical, melee can have great advantages.

There's one caveat I'll put on Platonic's statement, which is 99% correct:

The only time melee ever trumps guns is when the melee person ambushes the gun person or the person in melee is a physad with a high-rating weapon focus.

The ability to add a metric shitton of dice if you've bonded a weapon focus spear or axe is not a small thing, and can mean a whole lotta splat. In general you'll be far better served with a gun, though.

Melee also works good when it's 4 on 1. +4 to the dice pool of attackers -4 to the defender. But if the 4 attackers had guns they would probably kill the defender just as quick.

Falkenberg: "Ever think, Lieutenant, that every military generation since World War One has thought theirs would be the last to carry Bayonets?"
Slater: "No sir, I never did."
Falkenberg: "Few do. My old man was a CoDominium University professor, and he thought I ought to learn military history. Think about it: a weapon originally designed to convert a musket into a pike, and it's still around when we're going to war in starships."
Slater: "Yes, sir---"
Falkenberg: "Because it's useful, Lieutenant --- as you'll find out someday."

edit: I do think that ranged is generally more useful, but when you are prepared for male and the other guy isn't, then it's over. The deciding factor isn't surprise or whether you are an adept (Both helpful but not critical) it's whether or not you can get close enough.

I was gonna vote Magic but well, ranged can actually trump it at times.

It is useful to not specialize too much and not rely on guns. Those can be disadvantageous at times. And you don't have to be THAT strong to do some damage in melee; use a shock glove or get some forearm snap blades for something less conspicuous than an axe. Even 2-3 points in exotic melee for the monowhip can be extremely scary for even the nastiest Troll. (Provided you have a decent Agility score that is.)

There's a time and place for everything. Sometimes it's even advantageous for you to melee.

Yes, even Mages; low drain and with a +2 on touching attacks for unarmed.

two words--Combat Sense.

Nothing makes the gun bunnies more pissed off than the melee adept that they can't hit.

Stuff like ambushes and "four on one" fights and stuff all still holds true for guys with guns, though, too (just like in real life). Sure, if you bring three friends to whoop my ass in a boxing match, you'll do real well. But if I bring three friends to shoot at one guy, the same thing happens. All else being equal (skill, stats, etc), numbers = win, regardless of weaponry involved.

Four of ANYthing is better than one.

And I don't see how a specialized Adept with a bonded weapon focus still trumps a guy with a gun. If the guy with a gun has anywhere near the same points, nuyen, and availability to make "a guy with a gun," he'll just shoot the Adept while he's well outside of sword/poleaxe/whatever range, anyways. That's the number one reason guns are cool, after all -- you don't HAVE to be close to be dangerous.

a character built for melee can be just as powerful as one built for a gunslinging. They're just very different animals. A troll physad can dish out a shitload of damage with his bare hands. A elf gunslinger can throw just as many dice when he's plugging away with his pistol or SMG. Thing is there will always be those occasions where the trog is stuck at the far side of an open space while a sec-guard with an assult rifle is shooting at him and the elf might find himself in tight quarters grappling with a troll gangbanger. It's useful to have both because situations will arise where one or the other is nessesary.

The biggest downside to melee is that damage codes have to take troll strength into account. If you're a troll this is great, if not, it can hurt.

in an open field with perfect visibility, yes. In a complex environment, cosing the distance becomes easier. Using a gun at distances under a few meters is a lot more risky, as all of it's advantages go away. Longarms especially, because in a melee the other person is likely closer than the end of your barrel.

Knockdown is another factor. If I tag you for more damage than your Body with a ranged weapon, you'll fall down, probably into cover if you're clever. If I tag you for the same amount in melee, I just got a bonus.

The important thing is no matter how your GM handles falling, getting knocked down really sucks. Especially since once you've been hit you are subject to damage modifiers, which will start tearing down your initiative score whether or not you choose to blow an action on getting up. Drawing first blood has definite advantages, and it's easier to do with guns.

Subduing combat has a place, too, especially for stealthy types that could ambush a guard subdue them, drag them to a broom closet and get away quickly and quietly.

...as much as I like melee combat, I have to vote for ranged. Melee combat became even more at a disadvantage in the re-write when:

...the old counterattack rule was taken away (the Counterstrike Adept power isn't quite the same).
...the penalty for firing a gun while in melee or firing into melee was effectively eliminated.
...the effective power of a mundane (ie. non Adept) melee attack was reduced.

Both "work" indoors, but not all fights take place indoors. It was an SR3 moment ("better" melee) where three PCs charged the enemy and one took down the opposition while they had not reached the enemy ranks...

For the runner, silence can be worth much more than killing power. Do what you want, but don´t neglect either side.

Cyberzombie Troll Archers for the win!

...hey...

Which is most powerful? The one you decided to focus on the most during character creation.

You can make brutally effective melee-based characters, but usually ranged combat skills are the ones that get used more. As another poster said once:

It's truly a case of context being everything. Taking melee skills into a pitched gun fight is a bad idea. Grabbing a guy and twisting his sorry ass into a pretzel when no one is looking= good idea.

I think the poll tells one story, and then the commentry another

A) Poll: Ranged combat is clearly better overall

B) comments: Now after saying that I am going to have to point out that melee has a time and a place.

No, the poll is basically saying that "if you have to choose, in a setting like Shadowrun and reality itself, firearms naturally reign supreme" while the comments are "firearms reign supreme on the whole, but you can build a brutal melee specialist with ease, too; one just takes more work than the other."

I don't see how the poll versus commentary are telling two different stories. Choosing which is more powerful isn't a "guns are a 100, melee a 0!" sort of call. Maybe guns are a 51, melee a 49 (to any given poster), in which case the poll answer is still going to be "guns are the more powerful of the two."

It's quite possible to choose firearms for a weapon whenever you can, and still acknowledge that being well-rounded enough to acquire a competent skill level in melee combat is a good idea. It doesn't have to be a one or the other, all or nothing, choice (aside from when casting a "one or the other" vote in a poll).

Exactly, we'd probably get similar lopsided results if the poll was asking whether firearms or magic was more powerful, but it doesn't change the fact that while a good Mage can kill a man with her mind, a great Mage knows when to kill him with her gun instead.

The two are not incompatible. The number of situations in which a gun is more useful than a fist are so numerous that guns are more powerful. However; the number of times that fists are better is not 0.

Rocket Launchers are far and away more powerful than sling shots. That doesn't mean there is never a situation where a slingshot will be more useful than a rocket launcher.

Melee is an option that can only happen when ranged combat has failed. Therefore Melee's usefulness is dependent on the weakness of Ranged. Hoping your opponent is weak is not the same as being strong.

Ranged combat is more powerful.

According to the consensus here, ranged attacks are better than melee for the obvious reasons. But when engaged in close quarters to an enemy, I would rather have superior melee skills than have to rely on a gun; in that situation, the better hand-to-hand/blade handler will win ten times out of ten. For example, Kan (my character) is better at handling blades and unarmed combat, but he still carries an HK MP5-TX on him as well as his katana, shurikens and throwing knives.

But Kan is extremely talented at handling a ranged weapon as well...his bow. Many don't seem to realize that a bow and arrow is just as much of a ranged weapons as any firearm. And his shurikens and throwing knives come in handy as well...are those not ranged weapons as they are thrown rather than shot? That's something else you have to consider as well...and seeing as how I'm not limiting this to just firearms, I'm gonna give the nod to ranged weapons over melee.


--
Kan Kugarugu, Orkrunner for hire

Give me a MP5-TX in my hand at close range, and somebody else a sword in their hand at close range, and it's going to be an interesting situation.

A lot of handgun training (and to a lesser extent some of the training you get with long guns) revolves around using them at what are essentially contact distances... retaining the weapon, warding off blows with one hand while firing with the other, firing from the ground, firing close in to your body because you can't extend your arms, how to fire at point blank without pushing the slide out of battery, firing with your off hand due to the primary being grappled or disabled... useful stuff like that. So, "ranged combat" even has some hybrid skills that venture into the close combat area, intended to allow the weapons used for such to remain effective in situations where many would say they're too close to maintain an advantage.

Close lets you engage combatants at close range. Ranged lets you engage combatants at close range... and beyond. And there's nothing out there keeping you from braining the yahoo in front of you with the heavy object in your hands or punching him in the face with it. Not a hard choice, for me.

I always take a gun skill to at least 4 and I -almost- always take unarmed up to 4 and get the Parry specialization with some of my first points of karma. This is because of an important point that's been glossed over a bit so far: Gun skills are purely offensive while Close Combat skills can also add dice to defense tests regardless of whether or not you're on full defense. A nice benefit if you're like me and typically take Gymnastics over Dodge. Some extra dice in your back pocket is nice to have when the 'star is swinging that stun baton at your head.

...KK may not be the swiftest minded kid on the block but she does know that it's much better to take your opponent down from a distance. Even though she has extensive training (44 BPs worth) in both Blade and Unarmed combat, she more often than not chooses to use her six guns. Only when the "open" for a swift silent kill in melee presents itself will she take it.

One area where Melee (for an adept with Killing hands or weapon focus) trumps guns is when going up against critters with immunity to normal weapons. My Boxer Hannah unfortunately never came up against a spirit. Would have liked to see what her 8DV Killing Hands punch would have done.

Wouldn't Dodge be a better investment for a Gun-focused character instead of Gymnastics? You can use it on normal defense and full defense, and you might not have the room to use Gymnastics properly.

That is, if you're not going to pick up a melee skill.

Can't you use them in tandem? I'm pretty sure it's not an "either or" sort of thing. It's a "use one then the next" if not "use them both together in some situations" sort of thing, yes?

I'm the one, in case you care.

I'm not going to say that firearms are not less powerful than melee. But I find melee to be more potent.

The argument is always 'well, someone with a gun can attack the melee guy twice as the melee guy is closing to take one punch'. That's fine, if the opponents are 10 meters apart and in a area devoid of cover, etc, then of course the advantage goes to the guy with the gun.

But the truth is you're in a city like Seattle that's got six million people in it. That's double the current population as of 2006 (which isn't bad considering VITAS, etc). It's not going to be so cut and dried that person A wants to shoot person B who can't close in time. The setting matters. The people in the area witnessing (and providing cover) matter.

It's all dependent on the surroundings and the circumstances. If one ambushes the other, that creates a huge advantage that may counter discrepancies in power. With two identical characters (but one is a melee type and one a ranged) whoever gets surprise is more than likely to win the whole fight. But who wins can be as simple as whether they turn a corner and bump into each other (melee range!) or one stalks the other and sets up shop on the roof across from his home.

So the GM really defines which is more potent. Using RAW, I find melee to be more potent due to a few points.

Ammo. A ranged character can run out of bullets/arrows/knives, whatever, but a melee character's fist would never go 'click click click' and do nothing.

Concealibility. There are many places with MAD dectectors and chemsniffers built into the front door. If you try to bring a gun in (even a ceramic one), the ammo itself may give you away. Barring extremely illegal bodymod cyberware, the average pugilist will not have that concern that his fists will be confiscated.

Legality. If Lone Star stops you and decides to physically search you, there's not a lot you can do short of palming to hide that heavy pistol. If you have a permit, you might walk away with a fine paid, etc. But the melee guy will be patted down, warned about the stun baton, and sent on his way while Lone Star is grilling the ranged guy over if the gun's been used in any crimes lately, etc.

I do realize a katana-wielding melee character is asking to have the serious problems in terms of concealibility and legality as the same ranged character with an assault rifle, so I am aware that the gear itself has a large part of this discussion. A monowhip is just as hard to spot as a holdout pistol and does twice the damage, but in terms of legality one of those is getting you thrown in jail the second the Officer doing the patdown finds it.

I could, in fact, counter the 'well, the melee guy has to close to attack so the ranged guy wins' argument with 'so the ranged guy is trying to find the melee guy in a crowded noisy bar, and the melee guy steps up behind him'. It's an entirely situational debate. I would like to point out the difference in how many runners spend time in crowded noisy bars compared to runners that hang out in wide-open park spaces.

I'm sure we could have gear-based debates all day 'well, if the melee guy is wearing a chameleon suit..', 'well, the ranged guy has ultrasound and APDS' and each of those is valid as well. But it really depends on the GM to determine where the runners are and the surroundings will determine which is more powerful more than a comaprision of gear or damage potential will.

But the guy who can attack twice a pass and at range cannot use his attack in all situations. His basic method relies on ammunition of some type, and he can be disarmed. The melee character can go anywhere and retain the same level of threat regardless of the setting. That's potency.

You can take all that stuff you just said about melee, and then factor in an Adept with Distance Strike, and then all those 'advantages' can be given to Ranged Combat (in SR) as well.

Have I mentioned before that I absolutely hate Distance Strike??!

Well, as explained in the Symbolic Link thread, Magic is the ultimate distance weapon.

But the point remains - you can sniff out guns pretty easy, but the character with Bone Density and the Orthoskin Shock upgrade is as dangerous as always, no matter where he is.