Yes. You are utterly and completely alone on this. No one on Dumpshock has ever used statistics before.

~J, devoted to killing the "Am I the only one who..."-style phrase

Really? your STANDARD one? The way I see it, only munchkins have that much in terms of die. Realistically an adept would have a 6 in their gun skill or hand to hand, assuming 2 handed that makes 9. Your estimate is double that, you adding full combat pool?

However TN of 2, where the hell did that come from? TN in melee is 4.

And I'm telling you that it's only "feasible and effective with the right skill set" if you're fighting a completely inept baffoon who's managed to get his hands on one of the hardest-for-anyone-outside-of-special-ops-groups-to-get-their-hands-on items in the game. Which is not going to be the case 99.99% of the time. If you see someone in MilSpec armor, they're likely to be a highly trained combatant, easily your equal if not your superior, in both ranged and melee combat.

I don't care if it's a starting runner or one who has 50 Karma under his belt. The rating of someone in MilSpec armor is almost always going to be Superior or thereabouts. That's always relative to the runners current capabilities.

Oh, I see how your mind works. Only RUNNERS can obviously be good in hand-to-hand combat because they're attacking someone in MilSpec armor. Nevermind that someone in MilSpec armor is likely going to be really good in hand-to-hand combat, too. That's just crazy talk, right?

Why my chump is carrying a sword? Okay, so a Renraku Red Samurai, for instance, can have MilSpec armor just fine, but whoooooooa... sorry guy, but only Shadowrunners are allowed to have swords (or ANY other melee weapon or unarmed skill, apparently). Gotcha.

And a TN of 2? What land of make-believe do you game in? No conditional modifiers whatsoever? TN 4 modified down to 2 with... what exactly (Aptitude only gives a -1 TN bonus). Right. Get a clue, man. If you want to try and prove a point, at least be realistic about it.

So you're saying that a guy with 8 dice vs. TN 4 getting 5 successes is "statistically questionable" (even though he scored only 1 success above average) while the guy with 12 dice getting 8 successes is apparently horribly skewed in favor of the 8 dice guy? Please. I even crippled the 8 dice guy down to 4 dice, total, with only one success... and your 12 dice guy still didn't come close to 10 successes. Hell, even statistically, 12 dice isn't going to give you 10 successes against a TN of 3. And that's assuming no other modifiers whatsoever.

Actually, Kage and you are both a bit off. Average for a starting Adept; in my experience, is 12, skill+ImprovedAbility (hard to factor in WeaponFoci since by Canon, you can't bond one at char-gen anyhows), after all, anyone who's played the game knows that you tend to have at least one specialization in order to be useful.

Calling appropriate usage of character points 'munchkin' is a bit off too. On the other foot, it'd be considered idiotic to call an Adept with any less a valuable member of an elite team used to infiltrate and extract from powerful corporate structures.

Munchkin is the guy who plans on how to roll 50 dice by making sure he has the highest Strength possible (so that karma expenditure is minimal, and done via Bioware), a weapon focus to bond, and starting contacts to the magickal group he wants to join. 12 dice is just the typical Adept. (and 50 is a waste of karma, though convincing my friend of that will take more energy than I have)

Sphynx

I didn't say 'standard'. I said starting.

6 skill + 6 improved physical skill (edged weapons) + 6 combat pool. Legal for a starting character. I am vaguely aware of the idea of using karma to bond to a weapon, although I have never seen it done in any of the games I have played.

If you want to call it munchkin, that is, of course your perogative.

No less than people cried "Bullshit" on the TN of 2. TN is 4, -1 for reach, -1 for aptitude. That would be TN 2

Of course someone in hardened armor is going to have decent hand to hand skills. That's why I gave him 6 in Martial Arts in my example (12 dice with combat pool).

You think it's unrealistic that a character orienated for close combat to have superior close combat skills to someone who has more well rounded combat skills?

Okay, now I am starting to wonder if I am being trolled.

I will give you the Renraku bit. Allthough I have played ShadowRun for over a year, I have never played in the ShadowRun world (my first game was in the StarCraft universe, and the second in the Battletech univere).

On ther other hand, I did give Mr Hardened Armor Unarmed skills.

I covered this elsewhere.

Sigh.

Where exactly did you pull the phrase 'statisically questionable' from? I questioned your methods, not your results.

Not in the original post I quoted. You assumed Mr. Runner was the only combatant who was completley unopposed in combat, and even in that situation, he still would only barely get 10 successes. You also assumed that only your beloved little Mr. Runner was carrying a weapon, and in no way would the guy in the MilSpec armor, who obviously would have an ENTIRE MILITARY's resources at his disposal, would just be sitting there waiting for you to kick his ass. Because there's no way he might have a bayonet on his rifle, or be carrying a melee weapon. And god forbid there's no way that Tir Ghost or Sioux Wildcat under the armor woudl be an adept, either. No sir. Screw his Superior rating. That means nothing. Your beloved, intrepid Mr. Runner is the shit, baby, yeah! Nothing can stop him!

Not that it really matters anyway, because it doesn't matter how many successes you get in melee. A sword isn't slicing through hardened armor unless it's being weilded by a ridiculously Strengthed troll or the like.

Which, of course, you've decided is irrelevant to the entire discussion because you're unfamiliar with it what the rules actually say. Despite the fact that it's the entire basis of the discussion.

As I previously mentioned, the post I replied to made no mention of hardened armor, and thus I wasn't taking it as an issue. The issue was correcting your maths in your first post.

Yes, I didn't do an opposed test, because you didn't provide one in your example.

Yes my first 'Mr Runner' only got 10 succeses. The example needed 10 succeses, I produced a skill set that could produce those 10 succeses. When the issue of being opposed was brought up, I reasoned a way to get a signifigant amount of succeses.

Improved Ability, page 169 of SR3(BBB).

All combat and physical skills (Ie: Athletics, Stealth, Diving and Parachuting).

I think it's also allowed for vehicle skills, but that could just be our own House Rule... and in all honesty, from a 'munchkin' point of view, Improved Ability is the #1 reason to play an Adept, to exceed beyond the levels of a mundane(read StreetSam) in a skill. #2 is to have a weapon focus.

Sphynx

Reason 3 to play an adept:

Less paperwork for equipping, monitoring stress on systems and calculating repairs/upgrades and Essence holes.



-Siege

To be fair, the guy I described would basically know how to fight with a sword, sneak, and climb things. And maybe speak his native tounge. But really, that's not more unrealistic than changing into an eagle and then lightning bolting your enemies from miles away, using your very enhanced vision to spot them

Oh, and your spear and magic helmet.

Balance is only being able to use something when it grants all, absolute maximum benefits? That's pretty much the antethesis of balance. You can only use it in circumstances when it provides you 4 extra dice and then a 50% bonus dice on top of that, with a probable power increase to boot... ooookay. Balance, yeah.

Then you do critical fails non-canon. You have to have ALL ones on the attack test to critical fail or botch. Does your group always do botches like that? what is the actual mechanic you use just out of curiousity?

While I'm at it. If there were ninji in modern day they would definitely use guns, not swords. Ninja used whatever weapon got the job done, they used swords (at least in our bullshit romanticized version of ninja. In reality theu really didn't, see below.) in that time period because sword WERE the weapon used to kill people. Too bad ninja relly pretty well sucked at assassination according to japanese historical records. Thinking ninja would use swords and not guns or other modern, more effective weapons in modern day is pretty far from logical, and bordering on ninja fanboyism.

Ninjas didnt wear black pajamas (that was the invention of kabuki theatre. Stagehands wore black because the audience would know they were not part of the show, ninja, supposed to be invisible, wore the same costumes in the plays but were actors instead of stagehands.), and they weren't all that goot ad direct fighting. They were assassins and scouts, that dressed like normal people and used subterfuge and stealth to kill people and gain information. They were assassins and scouts for the military, and thats about it. 99% of the ninja bullshit is from western culture, and japanese movies, which incidentally never because really popular until the 60's.

Incidentally, this is one of my pet peeves

For a breakdown of real recorded "ninja" read this site. It shatteres a lot of the myths and bullshit people think they know:
http://www.illuminatedlantern.com/cinema/f...ures/ninja.html

That's right, everyone jump on the ninja bashing bandwagon.

Next time you get into a spot of trouble, just don't expect a ninja to help you.

Lee

(Proud member of Local Ninja Union #307; I Kill People and I Vote)

And flipping out and killing people!

And by cool you mean totally sweet?