Who says they will never come up? You're reasoning to unlimited interrupts are perfectly sensible is that situation A never comes up. But there is nothing in RAW stating that situtation A won't happen. In fact for a very underpowered gang, or a horde of ghouls guess what we're in Situtation A, and it breaks. The best rule is one that doesn't rely on a situation never occuring.

Oh wait there it is paragraph 12, page 872, line 3, "Never ever ever let a martial artist with these maneuvers fight more than 2 maybe even 3 people at the same time." Its right between "Never ever ever let your hacker copy an infinite amount of agents to load onto an infinite number of systems and then let him hack a system", and "Never ever ever have your team run multiple runs against the same nuclear fallout area with a background count 6."

Since Larme said that raw states that I can't have my runner team constantly do runs in a rating 6 area. I didn't say the whole world, if you read my post, just that their missions would only be occuring in one.

Remember "NEVER EVER EVER!"

Eh? Matrix actions RAW don't use an attribute. That isn't a "grey" issue at all. They just don't. Whats grey is if this is a good thing or should be changed.

AR actions in a turn? That isn't grey either. Depends on your IPs. Again, the "grey" part of it is whether the RAW should be changed.

You are correct in that these are apt examples. RAW interrupts are unlimited. The "grey" issue is whether you think this should be changed or not.

Feel free to state that you think a house-rule is in order, or whatever, but please, make it clear that your recommendation is not RAW.

But shouldn't someone who spent hundreds of BPs becoming a MA Master be able to own "a very underpowered gang" or "a horde of ghouls"?
I don't feel it's the interrupt actions that need limiting...
It's the number of melee attackers per round...
Should 100 NPCs all be able to make their melee attack at the same guy?
6 guys beating up the same guy will already get in each others way unless they are well trained...
We use the following interpretation:
There is no limit on the number of actions you can borrow...
If you borrowed an action, you still get your free action at your init...
Defense DP mods do not reset until you have a non-free non-interrupt action...
This works out very well, our adept, if he is smart with his borrowing can kick ass and take names...
On the other hand, I've seen him go down several times because he borrowed too many actions...
Last session, he almost died twice because of this, now he is very wary about borrowing if he's not sure he can finish the job quickly...

So, there are different ways of dealing with it, and they work for different people...

Please calm down. This is not worth getting worked up over, and I don't want this to degenerate into flames.

I think that your examples prove my point. If you're facing a very underpowered gang, who gives a damn whether a guy with riposte can beat their asses? They are very underpowered, i.e. easy to beat. A one trick pony that can beat up underpowered gangs is like... whee. A horde of ghouls is more to the point. But even so, all that means is that the riposter gets tons of actions. So what? That's not broken. You just don't like people acting that many times that quickly. You are hung up on trying to make the combat system seem more realistic, when it's actually quite abstract. That it is unlikely for a whole ton of people to attack in melee is just one reason why riposte doesn't need to be nerfed. The other justification, of course, is that it's just not that powerful even in the rare circumstances where it could be used to full effect. I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch because a master martial artist can totally pwn a whole bunch of ghouls. Good for him! Not a system problem.

So a ton of gangers just pile up around our martial artist in the course of 15 seconds... 5 turns (he only has 1 pass), but he's interrupted (we'll be nice and say that only 6 rushed him per pass, and every one was dropped by Riposte and Finishing Move)... He can of course keep walking during this, so their rushing him as he walks down the alley. And the gangers aren't worried after all he's one guy and there's 120 of them, and he's obviously using non-lethal so at most their going to get some cracked ribs. So there's just a string of laid out bodies behind him.

So 6 people x 2 interrupts x 4 passes, is 48 per pass over 5 turns is 240 interrupts or 12 minutes. So he's put on this massively awesome display of combat prowess and at the back of the alley is the gang leader with a hold-out pistol (their low budget, but this is okay, he has plenty of time to reload, he'll be putting rounds into the corpse long before the 12 minutes is up), who proceeds to shoot him for 12 minutes while he can do nothing but walk back down the alleyway.

Is it a simple action to open a door? Heck we'll make it a touchpad so it is. He entered this alley through a door, which one gang member closed before attacking... So he walks around the alley for 12 minutes getting shot at because he's borrowed so many actions.

An amusing end to a spectacular display.

BTW Larme, I'm not upset, its just you saying your using common sense and that scenarios such as this are perfectly in your view of how it should work is just so laughable. You're trying to say that scenarios like this shouldn't happen and raw supports it.

So, 6 gangers with 4 passes attack the MA master in the first round, he interrupts all of the, successfully blocks and all that...
Start of round 2, MA master has a -23 to his defense DP and it will not refresh until he has payed back all his borrowed actions...
Can you say "hosed"?

Wouldn't ganger's #20+ realize that hes already dropped 20 of them, and that isn't likely to change, so maybe they should just let the leader shoot at him?

When does it refresh? Does it refresh when he borrows an action, since thats when he's taking his action? Or does it refresh during his actual initiative at the start of each turn? With my rules I go that borrowing an action refreshes it because thats when you are starting your action, this obviously wouldn't work in this case, because he can just keep borrowing a full defense whenever his actions get lower after all he's not limited on borrowing. So the likely refresh is during his initiative since he still gets a free action then. Unless you have some other house rule for when these refresh? (I believe raw says start of your next action, so that would be the interrupt, but I don't have a book) Little to say a different rules query...



No because when ganger 20 attacks this has only been going on for less than 3 seconds, and as far as he can see its just a flurry of flying arms and legs and can't tell who's winning. And with this many people its hard to tell that none of them are successfully hitting. Like I said this flurry happened in 15 seconds, Its taking longer for these guys to hit the floor then it is for the MA to take them out. In fact some of them are probably propped up against each other and not falling. After all he's taking 12 interrupts per pass, and acting at 48 x the speed of any mundane.

RAW states you get a cumulative -1 penalty for every attack after the first since your last action...
So if you hold your action, the penalty doesn't refresh, for example...
Could be read as free action or interrupt action, but we feel this isn't logical or intended (Interpretation, of course)...
So we count from the last time you made a simple or complex non interrupt action...

RAW as Arkon pointed out says a cumulative penalty since your last action. The easiest way to explain this is to break it down in initiative. We'll use a sample group of 3 groups of gangers (5 each) with different initiatives, and the master guy.

Group 1 Initiative: 11
Master Initiative: 10
Group 2 Initiative: 9
Group 3 Initiative: 8


Ok, combat starts, thats what they roll.
AP 11 Comes up:
Ganger 1.1 attacks, and gets owned.
Ganger 1.2 attacks, master at -1 penalty.
Ganger 1.3 attacks, master at -2 penalty.
Ganger 1.4 attacks, master at -3 penalty.
Ganger 1.5 attacks, master at -4 penalty.
AP 10:
Master attacks Ganger 2.1, ganger gets owned.
AP 9:
Ganger 2.2 attacks, master at -1 penalty.
Ganger 2.3 attacks, master at -2 penalty.
Ganger 2.4 attacks, master at -3 penalty.
Ganger 2.5 attacks, master at -4 penalty.
AP 8:
Ganger 3.1 attacks, master at -5 penalty.
Ganger 3.2 attacks, master at -6 penalty.
Ganger 3.3 attacks, master at -7 penalty.
Ganger 3.4 attacks, master at -8 penalty.
Ganger 3.5 attacks, master at -9 penalty.

This will continue until AP 10 of the next IP when the masters action comes up again.

The problem is that an interrupt is actually an action. But yeah to handle this unlimited interrupts you'll have to not allow full defense to reset defense pool (which is what I like to do).

Free action is also an action, one which you can take at any time, so I'll just use my free action to say "platypus" and reset my DP penalty...

You think 120 gangers spending 12 minutes coming after a guy in wave after wave of retards is a plausible scenario? I guess we are just on two different wavelengths. I've never seen a combat last anywhere near that long, definitely not a grand melee. In my world, after just a few minutes of Jet Li beating down everyone who comes after him, the rest of the gangers say "all right boys, we can't fight him, run away!"

Regardless, your whole point here is invalid. It doesn't matter whether it's reaslitic that someone is stuck for 12 minutes unable to act. There is no rule that says "follow the rules unless they're unrealistic." They're always unrealistic. If you don't like how unrealistic they are, house rule them.



Here's another example of what I consider to be the cardinal sin of rules interpretation: picking the worst possible one. You complain that the riposter will be invincible because his defense penalty resets every time he ripostes. Is that the only possible interpretation? No. The other interpretation is that defense penalties only reset when you take a normal, non-interrupt action. I think the rules are ambiguous on this point. It's up to you to choose the rule that works the best. You have chosen the rule that doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Because it makes the riposte person invincible. Which you yourself have said that you hate. Instead of changing the way all interrupt actions work for everyone, why not change the way you interpret when defense modifiers reset?

As I see it, you want the rules to be broken so you can complain about them. This is a common symptom of dumpshocker angst. You have to paths available, then you stubbornly insist that only the stupid path is legitimate, then you cry about how stupid the stupid path is. Please. Pick the other path, and let us have some peace.

Going to the book on this one. SR4, 132. "3. Begin Action Phase
The acting character now declares and takes his actions, according to the steps below."

And SR4, 150, "Defender Has Defended Against Previous Attacks If a character has defended against at least one other attack (melee or ranged) since his last action, apply a –1 cumulative modifier for each additional defense roll."

I believe that the "action" they are referring to is the characters "action phase" and not last free, simple, or complex action. Otherwise, everyone would use their free actions to reset their defense pool. That isn't the case. When the characters action phase comes up again, then his defense pool resets.

You really don't read that well, or just skim. 120 gangers in 15 seconds, and he's stuck for 12 minutes due to interrupts.



The stupid path, is to not allow infinite interrupts, ok, call me stupid. You have to houserule and clarify an entire book, for you to have infinite interrupts. I have but one interpretation to make everything work, 1 interrupt per pass.
I'll take the STUPID simple way and fix everything with 1 sentence. You are just doing patch job on every little thing that pops, up no matter how many holes there are, and keep saying that your way is the best because you're here to reply to everything. Someone uses this in a game session, and suddenly they have game breaking stuff all over the place, that your answer made appear. So they have to get on dumpshock and say, hey this broke, and you apply another houserule, interpretation, definition, that is just as up in the air as the first one (but wasn't so much before your answer). When does defense refresh isn't an issue, until you can riposte indefinately.

So to reiterate your reply. "There are two paths, one is stupid, one is not, yours is stupid mine is not, so just give up and accept mine. Oh and you have dumpshocker angst, here's a tissue." Little to say, I really just need to ignore your posts, because everything you say just gets under my skin, it might just be me, but I've gotten that feeling in multiple topics (not just with Interrupts). So I think I'm gonna try and stop trying to debate this.

Just a note, there is no possible way for infinite interrupts. Simply because of the defense pool refreshing, theres a max limit based on just how high you can get your defense pool. Getting attacked by more than that many people in one combat round you will have no defense dice left, and you will die.

Granted, but it still can be ridiculously high. And all you need for a Riposte is a successful defense, which is a failed attack. You don't need hits to Riposte you just need the attacker not to get any. But even this doesn't irritate me so much as the time displacement, the instead of attacking you in 12 minutes, I'm going to attack you now. There gets to be such a disjoint between your action, and the action you are borrowing that it makes you wonder why we're even bothering having initiatives and turn order, and Initiative Passes. Since someone with 4 passes can't do any better than someone with 1 pass when it comes to melee. The only difference is he's borrowing actions from 5 minutes in the future, whereas the person with 1 pass, is borrowing from 20 minutes into the future. Does it really matter when one of them falls? Only if the winner was planning on stabilizing his opponent afterwards.

My matrix actions comment was based on earlier discussions that different writers interpretted matrix actions differently. Some were of the opinion that attributes were being used, just like in every other aspect of SR4 and others didn't. There are places in the RAW where both interpretations are in the underlying assumptions of the written text.

Same with AR actions. There seems to be inconsistency on whether a 4IP guy can take 4 AR actions or if its limited to 1 per turn. Otherwise, hot and cold sim give very little benefit to someone who can just swap between matrix and physical actions during his turn.

In any event, yes, I do agree that all rules discussions should be posted clearly whether it is RAW, an interpretation of RAW or a house-rule. There are plenty of examples of the RAW being vague enough to allow multiple interpretations.



Maybe there is a missing rule that limits the amount of melee attackers on a single target? I'm sorry, but I have to believe there was some thought put into where the cap to this was. As it stands right now, letting the RAW speak for itself, you can have an infinite amount of baddies attack a single person and that MA master has the ability to interrupt all of them. Sure, eventually his penalties to DP are going to make it hard to think it would be worth trying again.

But just think of this. Interpretting the unlimited borrowing way, someone with 1IP is just as much a "master" as someone with 4IPs. Does THAT really make much sense? The 1IP guy's next available actions are all borrowing against combat turns that don't yet exist. Wouldn't you think a 4IP master would be better than a 1IP master in reactive combat?

There is no possible way use an infinite number of Riposte for the reason you just said, but there is still an infinite loop for Finishing Move. Even if you do no damage, as long as you hit, you can attack again. Of course, you might miss after a while, but let's say you always hit, but not hard enough to actually take down the guy, then you could be in a never-ending loop of Finishing Moves. The Defense pool of your opponent will go down with the number of attacks, but his soak won't.

[So let's say you keep kicking a big, tough troll, you might kick him for days and still not get anywhere, but as long as you hit... ]

The "majority" believe that it doesn't make sense for a Finishing Move to infinitely loop, even though there isn't anything in RAW to back that up.

I'd like to get back to the points made about the 1IP vs. 4IP defensive masters being equally capable of riposting...I think this is a BIG issue, even for the majority.

The 4IP character will have a higher reaction score than the 1IP character, so most likely his defensive pool will last longer than the 1IP characters. Also, he'll gain his actions back sooner, and be able to to take actions again considerably sooner than the 1IP character.

Wrong. All you need for riposte is a successful block/parry. To block/parry you need to have at least one net hit on your defense roll. If you fail, no block or parry, even if they miss.

Not necessarily, you get some reaction bonuses from more IP's, but that doesn't mean you have higher reaction than the person with 1 IP, there are plenty of ways to boost reaction without boosting IP's



But none of this matters until combat is done.

Well, even though RAW doesn't seem to limit borrowing, let's assume we limit it to only one action. Let's assume you have 4 IP. In IP 1, you're attacked before your Action Phase, you use Full Defense as an Interrupt, borrowing your next action (from later in IP 1). Your attacker gets shot by a friend of yours and is slower in IP 2, so you act first. You attack him during your Action Phase in IP 2. Then he attacks you. You are not on Full Defense, but you parry successfully and decide to use Riposte, borrowing your next action (from IP 3). IP 3 comes and your Action Phase comes before that of your opponent, but you cannot do anything because you already used up your action. Then your opponent attacks you and you parry again, and use Riposte again, borrowing your action from IP 4. Then, in IP 4, you cannot attack during your Action Phase because you already used up your action. But your opponent attacks you again, you parry and use Riposte again, borrowing an action from your next IP, i.e. the first IP of the next Combat Turn. Total actions in the Combat Turn for you: Full Defense, Attack, Riposte, Riposte, Riposte, for a total of 5, with one action borrowed from IP 1 of the next Combat Turn.

Now if you only had one IP. In IP 1, you're attacked before your Action Phase, you use Full Defense as an Interrupt, borrowing your next action (from later in IP 1). In IP 2, you're attacked again. You parry successfully and decide to use Riposte, borrowing an action from IP 1 of the next Combat Turn. In IP 3, you are attacked again, but you cannot use Riposte because you already used the action from your next Action Phase. In IP 4, you are attacked again, but you cannot use Riposte because you already used the action from your next Action Phase. Total actions in the Combat Turn for you: Full Defense, Riposte, for a total of 2, with one action borrowed from IP 1 of the next Combat Turn.

Does that make Riposte and Finishing Move worthless? No, I do not think so. There are several times these maneuvers will be useful. For example, if you only have one IP, but you take down your opponent (who has 4 in the example above) during the second IP, then you will not have to face his attacks in IP 3 and IP 4. Same thing with Finishing Move, actually. Also, taking an opponent down earlier sometimes means your opponents will have lower bonuses for "Friends in the Melee", which can help your chances.

If Interrupts are limited to one borrowed action, does it benefit higher-IP characters? Yes, it still does, because you potentially get to act earlier *more times per Combat Turn* than the guy who has a lower number of IPs.

As I said, RAW doesn't seem to limit action-borrowing to only one, but I think the rules work pretty well if you do, so I will be using that in my games, I think. Do with that what you will.

You didn't have finishing move in there.

CT 1, IP 1, you're attacked, use full defense (spending your action from that IP now).

CT 1, IP 2, you are attacked again, you parry successfully and go to riposte, borrowing an action from IP 1 of CT 2. You hit with your riposte, and go to finishing move, but you can't, because you only allow one borrowed action out. Finishing move is worthless when combined with riposte in your examples.

There's nothing wrong with that. Just Finishing Move cannot be combined with Riposte. You can still finishing move on your own turn after a successful attack.

Sorta, but then that makes riposte worthless. You attack, succeed and finishing move, borrowing your next action. He attacks you, you block, but can't riposte because you've already borrowed your next action.

You might as well just pick one or the other, cause they both don't work with your ruling.

They both work depending on the scenario.

I close with the opponent attack, then finishing move.
or
Opponent closes with me, I parry and Riposte.

It's options, as I create characters with melee, I'd prefer finishing move more than riposte, because then its all under my control vs under my opponents control.

It's worthless *when combined with Riposte*. It's not worthless *in general*. Personally, I think that it's no big deal that one wouldn't be able to combine Riposte and Finishing Move. Both maneuvers are still useful on their own. And one shouldn't forget that a maneuver's only 2 BP. Considering the cost, I think that it's ok if a couple of those don't turn you into Chuck Norris.

Hmm.. there's one I haven't heard or voiced before. 2 BP for a maneuver that could give a 1 IP person effectively more IP's than a 4 IP person. Can't believe I never thought of that. Thanks Triggerz, something fresh for this!

(Honestly I can't believe this hasn't been brought up yet)

You misunderstand. I was calling the path stupid not because it's your path. I was calling it that because you agree with me that it's stupid. Let me show my work more clearly:

You think that infinite interrupts is stupid.

The reason it is stupid is that each time someone uses an intercept, their defense penalty resets itself, so it's actually very easy for a master riposter to kill 100 guys in one combat turn.

So you see, the only reason why infinite ripostes is stupid is that you've made the interpretation that defense penalties reset every time you intercept. That interpretation is stupid by your own admission, because without it, infinite ripostes is not stupid. Infinite ripostes is just fine if the person has a -20 after 20 people attack him. By the numbers, the most ripostes anyone could reasonably get before their dice pool becomes 0 is 20. By using this valid interpretation, you totally destroy any problem with ripostes being infinite. Yes they are theoretically infinite, but only if you have an infinite dice pool, which you can't have. Your own interpretation of defense resetting is not a stupid ruling, it just creates a result which you yourself agree is stupid. So instead of creating a new rule, why not fix your initial mistake? Make defense reset only when someone takes a non interrupt action, which is a valid interpretation, and you won't need to nerf interrupts.

Your way works. But two wrongs don't make a right. I think the entire problem stems from your bad interpretation of defense modifiers resetting. The solution is not to make another bad ruling and limit how far ahead you can borrow actions. The solution is to fix the original bad ruling. I don't think your ultimate solution will destroy your game. I don't think it's horrible. It will probably work. But it seems like an arbitrary limit you're placing on martial artists. The only reason you need to make this limit is that your defense resetting ruling makes them way too powerful in the first place. If you fix that, the problem ends right where it began. By refusing to do so, you're doing what people on Dumpshock always do: choosing a ruling that they don't like, insisting that it's the only possible ruling, and then making a fit about how bad the rules are. Instead of doing that, choose an interpretation that leads to a result you don't hate. The system isn't broken, you're just reading it to be that way. It's all on you.

The pleasure's all mine. And long live the Chuck!

Chuck Norris doesn't have to interrupt, you'll just wait for it.

I think I get why I prefer my way of handling this...
You limit the amount of interrupt actions, which limits choice...
I don't limit anything, I just clarify which actions count for defense DP refeshes...
It is also obvious by your examples you haven't used the rules as I use them, our adept has 3 IPs and he thinks long and hard about borrowing too many actions, as overextending yourself is a death sentence...
So while they are, as I have stated and showed before, theoretically unlimited, they are in practice limited and can be very dangerous if overused, that alone balances out...
You also say it makes a 1 IP guy as good as a 4 IP guy, which, again, is just not true, if you get 4 actions in a round, you don't have to agonize over borrowing 3 actions, if you have only 1...

I think this one is invalid from a rules standpoint. The rules are unrealistic. Pointing that out does not make them any less the rules. It might be a reason to house rule, but it's never a justification for claiming that the RAW isn't actually the rules.

*sigh* Your rules aren't RAW either, just interpretations of the rules. And basically all you are saying is the rules are unrealistic why should it matter. Thats why we have rules so we have a system of physics that provide realism to our world, otherwise we can sit around throw dice and just tell interesting stories. Your answer is I know the way I read the rules is broken, but why should it matter I like things broken and unrealistic.

(Why do I do this to myself, why can't I just ignore them...)

I'm glad you brought this up, Larme. As the accumulating defense penalty does put an effective cap on the usefulness of infinite interrupts. That piece of it actually regulates itself, which is a good thing. That was the first thing I brought up in another thread (several weeks ago).

I suppose the real issue I have had is the limit on borrowing time. Even though this is abstract, I still have trouble wrapping my mind around the 1IP guy able to borrow as many actions as the 4IP guy, and thus leveling the playing field in reactive combat. I mean, the 1IP guy is borrowing 3 seconds ahead each time he decides to interrupt. That is proving hard for me to grasp in the spirit of RAW. It just makes the most sense, to me, that if RAW caps a combat turn at 3 seconds and 4 IPs (i.e. 4 complex or 8 simple action, plus 4 free actions), that everything else should fall into that same cap.

Otherwise, you have a 1IP guy able to perform, let's say 5 complex actions in a turn (I'll keep it reasonable), which would normally require 15 seconds to complete. A 4IP guy performing 5 complex actions would be completed normally in less than 6 seconds. Doesn't anyone see a major disconnect there?

Half of the attractiveness for riposte comes from combining it with finishing move. As Nightwalker voiced, under your ruling, no one in their right mind would choose riposte, because you're better off with finishing move when you control the terms.

Riposte has more flavor, then Finishing move. Thats about the only thing otherwise they are basically the same thing. Its more stylish to counter and attack then just to hit twice. The problem is riposte requires my opponent to be meleeing as well, which in a game with guns.. Those people are few and far between. If I could riposte a firearm that was close enough, then this would be more fun.

And to deek, I see the disconnect

Larme, I explicitly said that it was just a house rule I wanted to use. I never claimed the RAW aren't the RAW. I'm just saying: I think it makes sense to limit borrowed actions to one. First, it reduces the amount of weird situations that could happen when someone borrows many actions. Secondly, I think it makes maneuvers useful without making them overpowered. Thirdly, and this is sort of linked to my first point, I think it makes stuff easy to manage. Now that is only the way *I* personally choose to handle it. I explained my reasons and tried to show that it worked pretty well, but if other people prefer to handle interrupts some other way, I'm perfectly fine with that too.

I prefer Finishing Move too, as I like to be proactive in fights. But Riposte and Finishing Move have different applications. For one thing, you can only use Finishing Move on someone you have already attacked successfully. So your two actions have to be against the same opponent. With Riposte, you can first attack normally and take down a first opponent, parry the attack of a second opponent, then borrow an action to take down that second opponent. With Riposte, you use two actions too, but you can potentially take down two opponents instead of one, so it's not like Riposte has no use. As I said, I prefer Finishing Move, but Riposte is nice to have *even when you already have Finishing Move*. More options available, and that's always a good thing.

Triggerz... the only way to borrow many actions is by riposting incoming melee attacks. Finishing move requires you to have already attacked (and thus require you to have an action, or be riposting) and full defense lasts until your next action, so it only allows you to borrow at most 1 action at a time. (Since you can't go on full defense if you're already on full defense).

Riposte is limited by skill and ability to successfully block. Its also limited by how many idiots are willing to run into your meatgrinder.

Sure, but you could attack one, not drop him, borrow and finishing move. Get attacked, borrow for full defense, borrow for riposte, and borrow for finishing move, and drop two stronger opponents (ones that would take 2 attacks to drop (not that uncommon)) by having both of them and synergizing it.

Yes, it is. I still think it's worth the 2 BP if you have them.

[EDIT: Sorry. Browser messed up.]

So... With 1 IP, plus 4 BP to buy Finishing Move and Riposte, you could act 5 times in a single Combat Turn? I'm not saying the rules don't allow it. The way I read the rules, there isn't any limit on the number of actions you can borrow. I'm just saying that I think the maneuvers are still cool and useful even if you are limited to 1 borrowed action, and that limiting borrowed actions in that way makes things more reasonable from my perspective. Anyways, your game, your rules. But I'll limit borrowing to a single action in my games.

You said, "First, it reduces the amount of weird situations that could happen when someone borrows many actions. Secondly, I think it makes maneuvers useful without making them overpowered."

My point was that the only way someone can borrow many actions is by using riposte. And that in itself is already limited by 2 different things. (Dice Pool and Idiots Willing). I don't think there is need for further limitation. That is all. The way you said it gave me the impression that you think many actions being borrowed is a common or unbalancing occurrence.

SEMANITCS I HATE THEM! But I will indulge in them anyway. An interpretation of the rules is RAW. It's taking the rules as written, and asking "what do these rules mean?" You can't read hardly anything as written without making a judgment call on what it means. Interpretation is nothing more than attempting to understand the RAW. It does not change the RAW.

I don't agree that the purpose of the RAW is to create realism. It is to create a game which functions in a fun and pleasing way. For some people, that means it moves along at a nice pace with a streamlined system and doesn't get tied up in knots about how realistic it is. And I think that's the direction that the SR4 rules generally take. For some people, it's not fun if it's unrealistic, so they can modify the RAW. But realism is neither here nor there when interpreting the RAW. You can't say "this interpretation is realistic, therefore correct." That's non sequitur. Realism is not a rule, it's just a preference. What you're saying is "I like this interpretation more because it's more realistic." But it is logically invalid to say that it's the correct interpretation based on realism alone.

But now I'm confused. You say you like things to be broken and realistic? So riposting against 5 guys without taking any penalty is realistic? Because that's what your interpretation does. Your interpretation isn't broken, because you limit the number of interrupts. But neither is it realistic. To be frank, I think you've made up your mind, and you're stubborn, and you're not going to be swayed by any logical argument to the contrary. You don't really want to find the best solution, you just want to be right. My advice to you is this: being right doesn't matter. Play your way, but don't argue for the sake of argument. "I disagree, thanks for the conversation" is a perfectly honorable way to end a debate. You shouldn't feel forced to defend your views after you've already made up your mind irrevocably.



Well, in that case, you're right! Your way to play is your way. I don't have any say over it, it doesn't effect me, and I don't care I just wanted to throw in my 2 yen to say that, in my opinion, realism is the wrong target to shoot for.

Well, in the example you gave above, a guy with one IP would drop the two guys in the first Combat Turn and then pretty much just stand there for the next 4 Combat Turns. The rules allow it, but I just think it's kinda weird and not worth the trouble. Simple is beautiful.

I don't mean to be annoying for the sake of it, but I want to point out that, no, RAW and an interpretation of RAW are *not* the same thing. If A = B and A = C, then B = C. However, if B does not equal C, then it must be that A does not equal B, that A does not equal C, or both.

In all fairness, the 1IP guy won't just stand there. He still has movement and still has a handful of Free Actions at his disposal. The real issue is why the heck can't he open the door down the hall? I mean, he can move around, even run. He can talk. Remove a clip using smartlink, etc. But he can't open a door for the next 12 seconds...

And you are always going to be faced with this oddness once you start borrowing from future combat turns. Even though IPs and other stuff inside a combat turn is abstract, once you move into the next turn, there is the reality of another 3 seconds to transpire. There's no way around that unless you decide to hand wave it.

And again, the easiest way to demonstrate this (sorry for reiterating this example) is by comparing the 1IP guy and the 4IP guy. The 4IP guy, in one combat turn, can attack first and then interrupt 3 times without going outside his combat turn. The 1IP guy, according to the majority interpretation, can do the same, but he is borrowing 9 seconds in the future to get those 3 interrupts. Which means, if that 1IP guy drops the 3 mooks in the first combat turn, i.e. 3 seconds, then we are stuck with a player that can move, talk and use free actions, but is incapable of opening a door or reloading his pistol for 9 seconds...