Move-By-Wire seems to be very popular with the runners nowadays...but for some reason, I just can't get my head around ''sticks your body in a constant state of seizure and then programs it to move properly'' and ''eventually gives you brain cancer and possibly makes you a vegetable''. I think i'll stick with my Wired 1 or maybe 2 or synaptic boosters, even though they aren't as good, thanks. If being a little behind means not being an epileptic with brain cancer after a year, i'm all for it.

yeah so? if the samurai is not able to do that, hte samurai has become obsolete . . if any other build, including the mage and or decker can do the same combat feats more or less, the samurai is still obsolete . . so the samurai SHOULD be the combat ruler . .

Move-by Wire isn't for Sammies! No halfway decent Samurai can take full advantage of the Reaction boost. As Frank says, MbW is for grunts.

I dunno, I'm kind of with nathanross on this one. I also don't see reflex enhancement as a common thing (SR4). In fact, if you look at the sample NPCs in SR4 (starting on p. 275), you'll see that line grunts (and even their lieutenants) typically don't have reflex enhancement (see Coprorate Security Unit and CorpSec Lieutenant). It's only when you get to the criminal underworld leutenants and the Tac Teams (Red Samurai in this case) that you start seeing IP2, and IP3 starts happening at Professional Rating 6 (Tir Ghosts, and other special forces).

For me the real big difference in power occurs between 1 and 2 IP. Between 2 and 3 is not such a big deal, but someone with IP 2 acts twice as fast as IP 1. I've been considering actually scaling up IP by 1 (so a normal person has 2 IP, and then enhancers increase that accordingly up to 5 IP). That way the difference won't be so massive. We'll see though.

I like the 5 IP maximum... As relating to the other IP thread going right now, all movement speeds are divisible by 5! Maybe not a standard 2 IPs for mundanes, but maybe using the 4+ hits on the Initiative roll gets you a bonus pass no matter who you are as was talked about earlier. Then mooks every now and then get the second pass, and the 4 IP people can possibly get the 5th pass. 5th pass only available by luck

I increased movement speeds to all be divisible by 4, and the problem I see with what you propose Nightwalker, is that just about every character I have ever seen with 3 IPs has an initiative score of between 10 and 15. So, they will on average get that extra pass, and 4IP people are in the same boat so you have 1 and 2 IP people occasionally getting to be 2 and 3 IP people and 3 and 4 IP people almost always getting 4 and 5 IPs respectively, so there is still a large disparity on the upper end of the spectrum.

Chris

I totally agree with you there. Then again, I have very much gone with Synaptic Boosters as my standard initiative booster. Because of their low essence cost. Sure MBW has a bunch of boosts, but, honestly, you can get the same or BETTER level of augs for the same essence cost.

I've been puzzling over the quandry generated by IPs for a while. Not only does every mook have to have an IP boost available (drugs or 'ware, both of which might be 'harvested' by the PCs, given half a chance, and fenced, making it tough to govern PC nuyen), but all your players will invest in IPs through 'ware or magic, because they are so powerful (shooting your pistol twice vs shooting your pistol 6 times is pretty much a no-brainer), rather limiting the builds one can see.

I was going to ditch IPs in meat combat altogether. I reasoned that a sammy with increased reaction would likely go first, and be harder to hit than someone without them, without the problem of the sammy chewing through a gang of 6 halloweeners or similar before they can even close to melee range or pop off more than a few rounds.

In the end I chose not to follow that route, since super fast street sams are fun and important to the Shadowrun flavour. I just changed what you could to with extra IPs. Being able to fire a full-auto burst three times made no sense, so a weapon is limited by its cycle rate. eg. You can fire a semi auto pistol only twice in a full combat turn, although you can choose to fire those rounds in separate initiative phases, thus negating recoil. You could also fire several short bursts, but you could not fire more total rounds than would be possible for an unaugmented character firing a full auto burst. Magic is also limited to one spell per combat turn, preventing mages throwing off three full power mana bolts in the time it takes another character to fire an Ares Predator twice. Fluffwise this is because it takes a certain period of time to summon the mana for the spell. In this scenario bonus IPs are most useful in melee combat, making sammys more samurai-esque, swinging left right and centre with their mono-katana.

I suspect that this will go down poorly with many, but I feel it makes IP enhancements more balanced.

My most recent character I'm doing is a sammy but I've only got one IP normally. Mild Addiction to Jazz, and an auto-injector, helps me get the edge though if it gets rough. Infiltration, gymnastic dodge and retractable climbing claws for primary. Carries a gun with Stick-n-Shock for drones. Its amazing how many more possibilities, and ware there is for a starting character if you don't have more IP's. Once he saves up some money then he'll be looking to get Synaptic Boosters (he's still got 2.9 essense left to fill).

I think if starting characters weren't able to get more than 2 IP's to start with it would balance things out alot more, and allow for more interesting characters, since they wouldn't be spending half their essense or more than half their nuyen just to get that 3rd initiative pass.

You are right there. As some have pointed out on the forums, the rate of fire even with 4IPs is still less than modern day firing rates. It does decrease damage per turn by quite a bit and may even drag things out more. I am more for bringing down the top end and raising the bottom end though, but that is just my opinion.

My goons get Jazz poppers if they're going to need extra IPs. Far cheaper than wired reflexes.

Okay, if you want to end the reign of the characters getting two or three passes in a row in the high IPs, try this home rule.

Ditch the IP system entirely. Get yourself a clock. Seriously. An analog one with the numbers and stuff. Put it on the table. Point the big hand at the 12, and put a marker at 12 for each character in the fight, plus one for the bad guys (or more, if you're tracking their initiative separately). At the start of combat, everybody rolls their Initiative (+1 dice pool for each additional IP they'd have gotten, if you like), and for every hit a character gets, his marker moves counter-clockwise one "hour" (to 11, then to 10, etc.). If people are rolling ridiculous Initiative dice pools, go every half-hour; just keep it consistent. Once everybody's done that, move the big hand clockwise until it gets to the first marker. That character takes their Action Phase. When she's done, she rolls her Initiative again and moves her marker counter-clockwise one space per hit. Then move the big hand clockwise to the next one, and so forth. Break ties using the method prescribed in your hymnal.

Obviously, you don't actually need a clock, just something that loops, but there you go.

I do like this idea, though maybe not as a solution to Initiative Passes. Its a very intriguing set up though.

What happens if say, you have the big hand on 6, the player acts, rolls Initiative again and gets another 6 hits? Does she go again immediately or does everyone else get to go again until the big hand gets around to 6 again? I'm trying to understand this different approach.

If its possible for someone to get 12 hits, then you would goto the 1/2 hour increments (meaning they would need 24 hits to go full circle). If they are able to get 24 hits.. then yah they should go again... Or roll again with a different set of dice.

At least as I understood it.

So, no one acts more than anyone else, its just that wired folks act first/faster. Then we have initiative that is similar to most other RPGs...higher roll goes first, no multiple actions per turn. Doesn't feel like SR to me...and I don't see why you need a clock to count initiative.

Does Aaron have a bunch of analog wall clocks he is trying to sell?

No, the marker would end up on the 12. You don't move the marker back to 12 before rolling again, you move counter-clockwise from where you are.

Not entirely accurate. People with the higher Initiative (and now that I think about it I suppose that each extra IP should give you more, like +3 or +6 or so) get more actions, they just get them more interspersed among the slower characters' actions. The higher-Initiative characters will start lapping the lower-Initiative ones, thereby getting more actions.

I worked on developing my own rpg system (more fantasy based than cyberpunk) for a few years. I think I'm going to jot down this idea for initiative if I ever stop playing shadowrun long enough to start working on my system again.

Knock yourself out. Just don't forget to give me a shout out in your credits. =i)

Keep in mind that the practical ROF for most firearms is limited by the user, not the weapon.

Most handguns can fire far faster than most shooters can pull the trigger. As an example, the Glock 18 machine pistol can fire nearly 60 rounds in 3 seconds, and is mechanically nearly identical to the semiauto Glock 17.

Automatic weapons are similarly limited, since only drones (like today's naval CIWS) can practically change targets while firing at full auto.

The real limiting factor is recoil, which the game already models, and how fast you can go through the see-decide-aim-shoot reaction cycle, modeled by IPs.

Ahhh...I understand now...interesting concept.

Will do

I'd theorized this before but it always came down to the objective was to have the lowest Initiative possible (which of course leads to a hard cap at 0, and how to handle that as well). I had never thought of putting it on a clock, and moving counterclockwise, while initiative moves clockwise. This would provide what I was looking for. There would still be a cap but putting it closer to 20 (and only counting hits) makes it near impossible to reach.