This was brought up by Boomfist in the Boosted Reflexes thread. It also brought to mind something I have been thinking about almost since the start of SR4: "Are SR4 Initiative passes too cheap?".

In SR3, you were never guaranteed 4 passes. At most, Move-by-Wire 4 + Reaction Enhancers 6 guaranteed you 3 passes (depending on base Quickness and Intelligence), with a high chance of 4 passes. Since Initiative was Reaction + Xd6 (max 4d6), IP max usually stepped up by 6, not 10 as it is in SR4.

Is this too much? I know the new 6 is 4 and the new 3 is 2, but now, the new 3 IP's is 4. Shouldn't we have stepped down in passes, not up?

*shrug* so combat is now over faster with slightly less fumbling with initiatives.

personally, I think the changes to initiative are a good thing. Getting to 4 IPs is a major thing (capable only by very dedicated adepts and mages at chargen), and having 1 IP isn't quite so detrimental (although not reccomended).

One neat thing is that it's possible for the guy with 1 IP (Reaction 5(7), Intuition 5 and Reflex Boosters 2) to act -- once--before the guy with 3 IPs (Reaction 3(5), Intuition 3 and Wired 2).

In a way, street sammies have suffered the most from the transition to SR4, because adepts and mages are close to parity with them now. In SR3, sammies could have astronomical Reaction scores that put their initiatives through the roof. Adepts couldn't compete, and mages were even worse off - the increase reflexes spell only gave the extra dice, not the accompanying Reaction bonus, so even at +3, it was still more equivalent to wired reflexes: 2.

Yeah, I have noticed this for a while, mainly in the case of mages. Should things be like this? It is just the natural outcome of separating the Initiative score from the number of IPs.


This is also due to the new rules against combining Reaction Enhancers and Wired Reflexes. Also the lack of Boosted Reflexes + Synaptic Accelerator.

And as I was saying before, normally at start, adepts, mages and sammys were limited to 3IPs, and 4 was only really reliable for sammys with Move-by-Wire and Reaction Enhancers (Lots of Reaction Enhancers!). Now Adepts and Mages are the ones who start with 4IPs and the sammys have to save up quite a few grand for it, though they usually act first in the passes they have.

I still say in order for something to be "too powerful" it has to be something not available to everyone, making the entire thing something of a moot discussion.

Yes, obviously going more times in a fight is better than not. Yes, it's something that's been in Shadowrun since day one. No, I don't think it's a problem. Because, yes, everyone has some way to do it (there are enough different ways to get initiative boosts, be they magical, chemical, cybernetic, or biotechnological in nature, that all but the most gimped of character concepts can get extra actions).

It's like saying "hit points are too powerful" when playing D&D, or insisting that "horses make people move too fast" playing a cowboy RPG.

The thing is, I'm not comparing Shadowrunners to each other, but to the world around them. Only in very high security, military, or against prime runners should you encounter Initiative Enhancement. This means that the runners with 3 if not 4IPs have a very real advantage over the people they are fighting.

You can't really compare this to D&D, since as you go up in level, the enemies scale to match you. In Shadowrun, unless your GM runs it like D&D, corp sec always gets run over by prime runners. The things you face when starting out will be trampled by you later in your career. If security guards get IP enhancement relative to the PC's, it would be one fucked up world.

If you think everyone working corp security is Deputy Barney Fife, and you think the only folks your "prime runners" are ever going to fight are corporate security, and you think corporate security only travels in pairs, and you think corporations care enough about their employees (rather than their bottom line) to not give those employees combat drug inhalers, you're absolutely correct.

I have a problem with this premise. The availability of low level Wired Reflexes and drugs mean that even Joe Security and Gary Ganger can have multiple IPs.

I'm not saying that shadowrunners will only ever run up against meat targets, I'm saying that most of the people in the Sixth World are meat targets to the shadowrunners. Sure, you will accept runs that involve harder targets and more security, but still, you advance faster than the targets you are going against. This is natural since not everyone is as focused and determined as the shadowrunners.

The reason (if you can look further than the GMs twisted mind) you end up taking harder runs is due to the money you can get out of it. There are only a certain number of easy data steals of low level extractions that can be done before the market lowers in value. You need to move up with your skills/abilities to keep getting work, and this is the reason for the power creep.

Sure, in the end it boils down to killing the GM's dudes, but I'd like to think there is more to it than that. I'd also like to think that every now and then we get to totally chump some squishy security guard.

Most of the people in the Fifth World are "meat targets" to the animalistic professional criminals that commit murder and robbery nowadays. I don't see it as a problem that the divide is exacerbated by the introduction of combat-oriented drugs, spells, and cybernetic enhancements in the Sixth World. In the same way that your average citizen is content to baah with the herd and trust in cops to protect them nowadays (and as such neglects to train, stay fit, or equip themselves towards self-defense), the same thing will happen in Shadowrun's dystopic future (where in addition to fitness, training, and weapons, criminals will have magical or technological enhancements on their side, as well).

I guess I'm just not seeing the problem/issue. Shouldn't people dedicated to combat (Shadowrunners, soldiers, psychopathic gangbangers, corporate security) outclass your everyday schmuck at...y'know...combat?

I'm not quite sure what you (nathanross) are complaining (debating ) about.

It seems that all three of us are saying that the relative availability of the IP-increasing 'ware and drugs means that some opponents will have multiple IPs. Not all, or most, or even none, but some. That seems appropriate to me, and is how I run things in my games.

Are you kidding? SR3 allows easily for 3-4 passes average (Init scores of 33 and so) for streetsams, and mages if you were careful about wards.

and I have a problem with the idea that your bottom of the rung security guards would be okay with replacing vast chunks of meat and throwing down huge heaps of nuyen for reaction enhancements so they can get into gunfights better to defend their minimum wage job where their employers won't even double up guards, supply decent weapons and armour or guarantee instant HTR when they have anything resembling an important target.

You'll find frequently in my games that bog standard grunt guards in anything but secure / high end facilities will try and roll over and survive when a six man runner team bristling with guns augs and magic drops silently through a ceiling vent with silenced weapons, I mean seriously whats a couple of meatbags with pistols versus a decent runner team? a speedbump at best, you and I know that, and they sure as shit do too.

all my guards will try and do is find an advantage or notify people further in so they have a chance at getting organised

For me ini enhancers in sr have always been a bit of a nobrainer, but in the 4th ed unaugmented people now have a chance to act before enhanced persons. That i really like about the new edition. Also if you consider not running around with active boosters all the time (mebbe due to it not looking very natural) they might not even be helpfull in every situation.

It sounds to me like you're confusing AAA corporate security with the rent-a-cops you see at your local mall. What makes you think they've got "minimum wage jobs where their employes won't even double up guards, supply decent weapons and armour, or guarantee instant HTR?" What kind of shitty facilities do your Shadowrunners get paid to pull jobs on?

I wouldn't say easily, but yeah, it is by no means rare. Normally, any good Street Sam has reaction in the mid teens and +3d6 initiative. This means 2 passes guaranteed, 3 passes normally, and 4 occasionally. Of course this is true, but you could still end up with only 2 passes. Nothing was ever guaranteed. You might say it's just nostalgia for the old days and you may be right, however, I think the stepping in SR4 is a bit too much. Also, Move-by-Wire has totally lost it's "Satan's fruit" appeal.

Finally! Someone is talking about Initiative!

As I have stated before in relative threads, I think Initiative Passes in SR4 are too pre-ordained.

In SR3, no matter how much "initiative" a player had, there was always a chance that they would be slow... or at least slower. Several Wired 3 characters had guaranteed 2nd passes (barring injury) in my SR3 game, but they still might be slower sometimes than many Wired 1 characters due to the roll of the dice. On average they would be going "first" but not always. And they never knew for sure how many passes they were gonna get (often 2, sometimes 3) until those dice were rolled. It was possible to build a non-wired character and actually get a second pass on a good roll. Those players were always excited when this happened.

With 4th Edition, passes are automatic for the most part. No matter how lousy you roll Init, you are gonna have that many passes. It has made the value of Init passes jsut sky rocket, with the unwired (or unmagicked) characters sucking hind tit every single turn. Maybe the designers actually intended to make assorted improved reflex type stuff that much more potent, but to me it has lost some of the ... zing. It's too predictable.

I jsut preferred the ...more randomness of the old initiative. And the fact that while it was more "likely" that you would get more passes, it really wasn't written in stone how many you had. Or how many that little shrimp you were planning on beating up had. You still always knew 9 times out of ten who was the bad ass. But there was always that "occasion."

So, I created this solution to my perceived problem:

Roll your Initiative as normal: Roll X Init dice and add the successes to your Init score. This is your actual Initiative.

Then compare the number of hits you had on the roll to the below chart to determine Passes:

* 2 hits , you get your 2nd pass (if you have the appropriate gear/spells for it)

* 3 hits, you get your 3rd and 4th (if you have the appropriate gear/spells for them)

and then to jsut shake things up and make it fun:

* 4+ hits on your test, you gain a second pass (if you are unwired/unspelled.)


A non-wired guy is probably tossing around 6-7 dice on average for Init, so 4+ hits won't come up that often, but when it does, it will give them that nice lucky shot. And he is still only picking up a second pass occasionally.

A wired guy is probably tossing around 8-11 dice, so he is more than likely to always make his threshold for his multiple passes... but sometimes not. A little give in the system. A little "let's see how the dice play out."

Things to consider:
There are no additional dice rolls and it's really not hard at all to count your hits and figure out your number of passes, so, it doesn't slow the game down any.

It doesn't substitute a system for the game, only adds to it. So, major game balance isn't thrown off.

Anyway, I started using this with my players as a test and all of them decided that they liked the feel of it better, as well. And this was my issue! None of my players had ever actually complained about it. But, they thought the new way was more realistic, even tho' it actually can penalize the characters with any form of boosting... occasionally.

Vlad

sounds really nice, have to try that rule myself sometime (soon )

Well Wired I is 11000 Nuyen on the street. Used, maybe seven grand, it's probably safe to assume that a licenced company buying in bulk could get new ware for the used price. Costs 2 essence... I could see this being offered by most decent security companies and any company that has the budget for an internal security force as part of a benefits package or signing bonus. Sign a contract for X number of years and they'll implant it for you. Or you could take that 5 grand up front, but then it's your ass.

Recovery from something as well established as Wired Reflexes is probably fairly short especially with advances in NanoTechnology and the like. It would take a while to get familiar with your new reflexes but it's also possible that the ware would activate in stages letting your body slowly become accustomed to the feeling.

Basically, take a goon with Wired I give him a Preadator IV with a smartlink run through his glasses, and an armoured jacket. Most runners will still run over him in a round or two, but he'll likely slow them down enough so that the tac team shows up as they're leaving which is when it gets hairy. The key is to play them as if they are fighting to stay alive, not kill. Have them retreat, using their knowlege of the facility to evade the team, while small groups come out to fire off a few rounds before running away, but for the most part they'll hide as best they can, feeding reports to HQ and if the team wastes time tracking them down and killing them all they'll never reach their objective.

That's how I deal with security when it comes to direct physical confrontation at any rate.

I've felt since 3rd that they were too weak..

I liked running 60kph, I liked going 3 times before the mage went once. Bah, there too weak in SR4 now then your movement is over a combat turn and everyone goes on the 1st pass.

wait, where does it say that they can't be combined?

One other thing that I think we might be overlooking is the motivation of a grunt sec guard in a crappy section of town to scrimp and save and buy his own ware. Sure, the smiling face at the reception desk downtown might not need or want much ware but the guy sitting in the booth out in Tacoma by himself is going to know that it's probably worth it for him to eat nothing but soy so he can save up and buy that muscle augmentation or wired reflexes. Sure the job might pay crap, but it is a job and if he doesn't at least try and chrome himself up as much as possible he's going to end up face down over his desk with two holes in his head.

When it says that they "cannot be combined with any other form of Initiative enhancement except for reaction enhancers." (pg. 41). Also, what made Move-by-Wire so scary is SR3 was that it gave you extra actions as well as a mere initiative boost. And it had some pronounced negatives, as well.

In SR4, it is still a very good piece of 'ware. It costs the same, Essense-wise, as wired reflexes, but gives a higher Reaction boost, a bonus to the Dodge skill, and gives you free skillwires. All of the extra goodies mean that synaptic boosters actually have some competition - while wired reflexes are the pennypincher's choice, something you have until you can afford to upgrade to MBW.

i think because of the huge squabble about that very issue in SR3 (where they just did not write that synaptic and boosted are incompatible)they made it a point to explicitly write it in this time around

First, nice rules vladski! I personally would do something more like:

• 2 Successes = 2 passes (if ware allows)
• 3 Successes = 3 passes (if ware allows)
• 4 Successes = 4 passes (if ware allows), or 2 passes no ware

Of course, if you have a decent Initiative base (~10), 4 successes is no rarity. This would also give more value to stand alone reaction enhancers.


You referring to SR2 Initiative? With teleportation like movement and Twitch the cyber sam moving 3 times before anyone else? Yeah, those were the days. I've sometimes wondered if bringing it back would be such an issue. Sure, it would make combat more a thing for those who built their characters for it, but in certain groups I don't think that it would be an issue.


Well, it depends what you take "cannot be combined with other forms of initiative enhancement" to mean. In the FAQ it states that they cannot be combined. Still I think it is really up to the GM. I don't really care, and I think it is only fair to allow the poor Sammy to kill his humanity for the ability to go first. Also, it's not like Reaction Enhancers are cheap.

Thanks for the compliment!


I toyed around with exactly what you suggest, but I decided I didn't want to overly penalize those who spent so much aquiring that upper echelon 4 passes. (Frankly, in my current game, no PC actually has 4 passes.)

I wanted there to jsut be some chance of not getting those upper passes and thought the threshold target of "3" to be completely fair. 4 successes is hard; basically to get the same odds as the guy going for 3 passes, you have to increase the dice tossed by about 3, and the typical guy with 4 passes doesn't have an Init that's three dice more than the guy that's capped at three passes.

The "4 successes is hard" concept is also why I used that threshold for a non-wared/magicked person to get the second pass. In SR3, it was typically a person that maxed or nearly maxed their initiative roll. This retains the same flavor.

That was my reasoning, anyway. I simply tossed out my house rule for comment and as a suggestion to anyone that wanted to tinker with their own game. Try it using your modifications with your group and see how it goes. I would almost bet that either way, they would enjoy the change. I was really surprised at how enthusiastic my group was, considering they ALL are at least "2 Passers."

Initiative passes was the first thing that jumped right out at me when I first started running SR4 as a change I wasn't thrilled with. It's nice to see that others are not exactly sure of it as well. It's a topic that I haven't seen discussed much on the forums.

Vlad

When it comes to 4 passes...honestly, i don't think i ever saw someone who had 4 passes in SR4. My first SR2 street sam, only because the GM hinted to me that i could stack synaptic accelerators with boosted reflexes. (And his reaction still wasn't through the roof, so he still really never got to go 4 times. He just rolled 4d6+...7 i think it was. He basically averaged 19-23, giving 2 or 3 passes.) The only way i could get 4 passes was if i rolled a 24, yes, 6's all around, for a 31(31,21,11,1.)

In SR4, typically we run into 1-2 pass people in our games. Jep, we aren't the speediest bunch in the world. One one game that had 3 magically active people(me, playing an adept, my friends ork combat mage and my other friends elven spirit master), all had 1 pass...and we did just fine and dandy. We even went against some scary folks, and we did well...we utilized Edge(in the case of my guy), spells, and spirits, and managed to get by. Our last game i think the fastest of us..again, we had 2 passes. (It's pretty funny, our dice pools tend to be a little larger than the average folks around here-our specialities usually run 13-17 dice after things like smartlinks, secondaries 8-10, thirds 4-7 or so. But we tend to have less than average initative.)

I gotta say i like the option of letting a 1 pass person go twice if they hit 4+ successes on their Initative roll. Though again, since we don't go that often anyway, i doubt we would even have to use the 'go less' option.

Anyhow, nah, i really don't see the problem with Initative at all. Those drug poppers work wonders for unwired mooks, and yeah, wired 1 are cheap enough that at least more 'elite' guys could have them. And yeah, it's doubtful anyone but the high end company man would have anything higher. Wired 2 aren't *loads*, but for Joe Guard At the Door it is. It's probably his year's paycheck. And ive seen instances(hell, been there on the other side), where low-Initative folks can get a leg up on their faster fellows.

If anything, SR2 speed-wired sammies were the ones that could make the others cry. Mine wasn't twinked for initative...but if you DID twink for initative, it could get scary. You know the drill, crank Quickness and Intelligence, add in said bioware, pick up the Wired 2 and any other boosters and you're going 3 times before the mage blinks. of course, 3 turns, filling the room with SA bursts each time...yeah.

Not to mention the old melee defense skill of SR3 essentially subverting this in the sense that you DIDN'T want to keep whacking at them too much if their skill was too high(though they changed the initative order at this point.)

Sorry I'm late to respond, I've had 9 BSOD in the last four days. Fucking win32.

Anyways, I'll correct you here.

Any good streetsam has 3d6+20 Init average. Minimum of 23, max of 38. That's 3-4 passes with an average of...29, two short of 4 passes.

i usually try to start out my SR3 Chars with a Reaction of 9 and 2D6 initiative . . that'S a minimum of 11 and a maximum of 21 if rolling well(seldom enough) and it leaves room for improvement by means of synaptic acceleracers later on and does not take away too much essence to get either . . but then, i try to start my characters with at least 3 . . MINIMUM of 2 whole Essence points and a Maximum of 5 Bio Index Points . . for a beginners group that's plenty and not too far ahead of the other (non combat characters) so the GM does not feel the need to up the ante either

...and given a decent reaction one could conceivably get 2 IPs on 1d6 initiative or 3 with 2 dice. True, it was an outside shot, but still within the realm of possibility.

5 Reaction: 2 IPs on a roll of 6

9 reaction: 3 IPs on a roll of 12 . I had quite a few characters with a 10 & even 11 reaction score who had only 2d6 initiative.

There was also an edge that allowed the rule of 6 to apply on initiative rolls for characters with no initiative enhancement.

...so one did not necessarily need to be a "reaction monster" to get multiple IPs, just lucky with the rolls.

[edit]
ahh bloody hell, Stahlseele, you beat me to the punch.

^^
good thing can be said twice without fail *g*

I said a good street sammy, not a great street sammy. On the low end, I can see a sammy with reaction in low teens +2d6. I'm trying to go for the middle ground here.

So far the max I've been able to make at char-gen is a Night elf with Quickness 8(12), Intelligence 8(10), Reaction 11(20), Initiative 20 + 5d6. Combat Pool: 14. Now to put it plainly, this fucker is a monster. His initiative is almost, if not in the CZ zone. Of course this relys on the GM allowing Boosted Reflexes stacking with Synaptic Accelerator, but hell, why not? His Initiative range is anywhere from 25 - 50 (3-5 passes).

Ware used:
Synaptic Accelerator (2)
Boosted Reflexes (3)
Enhanced Articulation
Muscle Toner (4)
Cerebral Booster (2)
Reaction Enhancers (6)

If anyone knows how to break the 6 IP barrier without Move-by-Wires, please let me know.

Better build than what you propose and it only goes up from there if you get Quickened Improved INT/QUI, which is insanely easy.

The avail on Expendable Foci is static, so a F12 Expendable foci is what, 20K or something? For +12 dice?

Anyways, get a mage, have him throw 50+ dice on each spell, soon enough you've got +8 to each, which is, +8 total to reaction, putting you (If you're an night elf) at...29-30 base Reaction. Upgrade to Wired 3 to grab 31+4d6, which is: 35(4 Passes) to 55(6 Passes).

Nice! I always love a good way to abuse spells. The build you linked to didn't seem to be that absurd. I guess there was still some room to grow rather than starting with maxed Quickness and Intelligence. I was hoping for something with a chance of 50+ at char gen. I guess with a good enough mage backing you though, anything is possible.

Possible? Yes. Likely? No.

The problem with the proposed quickened spells is that in SR3, the TN is equal to the Attribute to be increased, and the Attribute is increased by one for every two successes of the spell. So to increase a Quickness of 11 to 19, you would need to hit a TN of 11 a total of 16 times - just 50 dice isn't likely to cut it there.

simple suprathoid gland . . in SR3 that thing gave +1 to quickness AND +1 to reaction again, so you would come to 51 maximum
and then there's exceptional attribute for intelligence and bonus attribute for quickness

Synaptic Accelerator (2)
Boosted Reflexes (3)
Enhanced Articulation
Muscle Toner (4)
Cerebral Booster (2)
Reaction Enhancers (6)
suprathoid gland

quickness 14,
intelligence 9
willpower 5
combat pool 14
reaction 13(21)
initiative 3(5)
makes for a minimum score of 26
makes for a maximum of 51
ok, you can drop either exceptional intelligence or bonus quickness, because either one will suffice to give the last point of reaction you needed and the other one will do squat *g*

main problem i see with this build is
a) no cultured bioware on char gen in SR3,
b) 1.4 Essence left to do anything else with
c) 5.4 Bio-Index while the Max safe Bio-Index is 4.4
d) 50k nuyen left in the build like it is now
e) 18 points for active skills if you ain't using 20 points of flaws to balance that out to 38 which is against the rules of SR3 again i think

but with this setup you could boost everything quickness related for cheap for quite some time
you would ALLWAYS have 3 passes, you would have MOST of the time 4 Passes, you would SOMETIMES have 5 passes and you would SELDOM get to the 6 Passes . . but remember, shooting guns creates recoil, so a single pistol would have +5TN from Recoil while in the 6th pass, which would most of the time come out at 10+TN considering there's not much room for either smartlink or some eye-stuff in there . .

Woot! +1 to Reaction max! That said, this is purely stat masturbation. The actual character I designed had everything except the all the Reaction Enhancers. He did have plenty left over for skills though. As for the reasons against this build:

a)Seriously? Does that mean upgrading Standard to cultured or just all cultured (meaning no Cerebral or Mnuemonic at char gen)?
b)only 1.4 essence left? Seems like enough for me
c)Safe Bio Index + Cyber Essence loss = 8 right? That means 8 Bio index if no cyber is installed.
d)only 50k left? I used to build characters on 5k, 50k is cake.
e)My build has 30BP left for skills. While not a lot, add in a smartlink and some vision magnification and base TN(2) to shoot. Sure it may get harder to aim, but damn you have plenty of time inbetween that no one can interfere with.

your bio-index is essence+3 meaning with an essence of 6 you start out with a bio-index of 9, and as you lower your essence, your bioindex drops as well, so on 1,4 Essence your bioindex is 4.4, the above mentioned ware needs 5.4 bio-points so you are 1 whole point above your bio-index and get stress every month for each single bio-implant, as far as i remember those rules.
furthermore it had been asked how to get that last +1 to reaction so one can in fact get the 6th ini pass and i provided an answer to that question.
additionally no cultured means no cultured whatsoever in char gen.
and how'd you get to 30 points for skills? how much did you put into attributes? just enough to get quickness and intelligence up to maximum? i put 27 to 30 points in there so i had some points to spend on other attributes as well.
and 50k ain't enough for a good car in SR3 . .
and as i stated before, i myself don't lower essence below 2 on a starting character, most of the time i don't lower the essence below 3 at all . .
but maybe we should continue this somewhere else to end the thread-napping *g*

I'll try and post the sheet later today. As for this thread, I was kind of hoping for some more response, but I guess the Initiative test successes rule is a pretty cool advancement, and worth starting this thread in the first place.

IP's are a little broken IMO, from a fluff perspective anyway. A person with lightning fast reflexes due to magic or technology *should* move faster than those who don't have those enhancements. Having a blur come in and beat your ass before you realize what happened made more sense than everyone going at the same time, then the superfast guy going repeatedly after everone else has moved.

That said, I know my group modified old style SR2/3 IP rules and it ended up very similar to SR4. Basically everone went on one pass, subtract 10, go through again with anyone who has Init score left, repeat until all passes done. It still ended up more flexible than current SR4 guaranteed passes though. I think I do like the house rule presented here and might try to get it worked into my group's games.

4 IPs, even 4 guaranteed IPs doesn't seem so bad to me with the new initiative system. Even having a character that almost always goes first each pass isn't all that bad and really isn't a far cry out from the 3rd edition system.

2nd edition was broken, used to have a character that rolled 12 dice before adding combat pool with his pistols and had an initiative of 24+4d6. To put that in perspective that's your average 'meat' person getting shot six to eight times before they get a chance to act and nearly every shot would be lethal... or your average group of six security guards all getting dropped before they get to move.

Or one really bad bad guy eating a couple 24 dice (full combat pool dump) called shots to unarmored spots before they get to go (killed a feathered serpent in some adventure like that).

Seriously. If I were Mr Johnson and wanted stuff from a buildingwhere the guards were one obese guy with a taser and an 80-year-old guy with a stun baton, I wouldn't hire runners, I would send my PA.

And by PA I dont' mean Physical Adept, I mean Personal Assistant. The sorta androgynous kid who, despite having had seven scalding nonfat cappucinos thrown in his face, still sometimes gets my order wrong.

Or maybe some low-level street gang.

Really, guards should be there to (1) spot runners and (2) pin them down until the HTR can show up. That means taking cover, sounding alarms, locking doors, pulling down shutters, that sort of thing.

And always remember: These security guards might be getting their paycheck from the corp. They ARE getting their paycheck from the corp. But they also want to live. Unless they are all Professional Rating Max(hell, i think even HTR teams will back out and call someone stronger if they had to), these people want to go home. They don't want to die. I
They'll go so far(as mentioned, not necessarily facing them toe to toe...but locking down, using the alarms, etc, as well mentioned), but after that, if things look grim, security might just say screw it. They are getting paid, but those low level guys aren't getting paid enough to die.

There were a couple of times where the guards were bargained with. They lived, they got some 'dough' out of the whole things for keeping it quiet AND letting the runners into a certain area rather than keeping them out, and the runners ended up with a 'no body count' bonus. Everyone won.

Also, while extra IPs should be more common (cyber is cheaper, and combat drugs are pushed by companies who could care less about their long-term effects), there should be some mooks out there with just one initiative pass, so the super-fast guys can occasionally get to feel like they are super-fast. Just like in-between challenging the troll tank with full-auto fire and missiles, you should occasionally have some hapless ganger flatten his pistol rounds against the no-selling troll's body armor.

I may be wrong in this, but I have always viewed cybered reflexes as being as rare as magicians. Also, while LS may pop out the Jazz every now and then, whenever I think of combat drugs, I get the image of Asimov and red-eye in the first episode of Cowboy Bebop: totally messed up. They'd have to be paying me quite a bit to be willing to take that shit. I also like the runners to not feel like they have to take Wired all the time. A campaign with 2IPs is good for me. I almost prefer 3 to be the top end, but ah well.

To be honest, I was considering bringing back the Xd6 method. (Reaction + Intuition + Xd6) Not sure if that is the best thing to do though.

Being too busy to read all this, I'll add my 2 . My apologies if it's all been covered before.

Security teams in MOST facilities will be larger than 3-7 men during a shift (and by MOST, I mean the facilities that runners are likely to break into and out of). This is mostly due to the increased ammount of Corporate Espionage and Sabotage (read: Shadowruns). Add to that, even Mundanes can spend Edge to gain another IP, and now you're looking at a team of 2-5 guys with 2 IPs each who have the homefield advantage. Plus most general security personnel will simply try to keep the people locked out of or into sensitive areas and contact real threat reponse ASAP. And in life or death situations, such as firefights with Shadowrunners, my security guards are likely to surrender shortly after sending the distress signal to their boss. Due diligence is all they are required to put in, not lay their life on the line.

And when my runners become Prime, they go up against Mitsuhama and S-K. Zero Zone Policies FTL

I wish the multiple IP's weren't the norm for shadowrunners. They are just too easy to come by it seems, and thus if you don't have them you're not going to be able to keep up with the other runners, then as has been said the mooks don't stand a chance. So everyone needs 3 passes coming out the door, with hackers maybe only having 2 (and getting Move-By-Wire 1). This is a place where its sad to be a Technomancer, I made a non-combatant, because I have no way of getting more than 1 pass without taking a hit. I go VR and then I can keep up, but until I'm at a place where I can go unconcious for a minute or so I'm just following along. I've been thinking of getting some automatics skill, with some specialization in suppressive fire that way I can help out some... But I can command a drone to do that for me and he still gets 3 passes, though quite limited in commands I can pass him until I jack in.

As to the turn orders, for the most part your first initiative pass is for everyone so people can start moving at the same time (as in walking/running). The 1 IP guy might not reach cover until his second pass, but better then filling him full of lead before he can even start walking there. It evened it out for the mooks so they don't have to stop and stare for so long.

I like the idea...I'm gonna see if my players are up for it...

I prefer the 4th Ed Shadowrun Initiative Passes... In Prior editions my Ingram Smartgun toting Sam was the combat ruler... I could generally get into the 30's (sometimes even further) with my init roll... even cybered guards got at best 18 or so...

combat went something like this

Me: Burst Burst Guard: Bleed Bleed(die)
Me: Burst Burst Guard: Bleed Bleed(die)

If I was lucky... I could get another player to play a similar build... In which case most of the time we'd shoot to injur.. not kill... before they could move.. about 8 guards would have serious wounds or thereabouts...