It makes sense that Trolls have a higher base running speed, given that they have a longer stride. But I still feel like faster characters should be, well, faster. And it makes sense that a Troll can outpace an elf if neither are trying, but once they start 'pushing', the Troll has a lot more mass to move around, and the Elf has a lot more streamlining.

You need muscles to run fast. Ask a Rhino, the fastet living creature on land. A cheetah may have more acceleration but in top speed the rhino is in front. Same goes with elves and trolls. In my opinion.

Runners use steroids to increase strength and muscle mass in order to run faster. They don't take them to increase their agility and flexibility.

you need to carry your body-weight . . so if you're stronger you can carry it faster i sez!

I've never associated and overabudance agility with the speed and stamina for running.

Take a look at Olympic sprinters they're basically solid bricks of muscle in a roughly human shaped assemblage.

Game balance, pure and simple. Strength needed some linked skills, in order to prevent it form being totally useless.

That does make sense, in an unfortunate sort of way. A question: What would the game look like if Unarmed Combat were a Strength skill, and Running was an Agility skill?

Both broken and completely retarded?

I am a world class lifter, master of the jerk and clear!

And, also master of the impentrable jade lotus style of martial arts for some reason. My strikes always strike true because my muscles are massive and rippling!

Heh. Point taken. Although I've seen RPG's that do both.

I'm pretty sure Dragon Ball Z follows that doctrine and D&D to the bafflement of myself and fellow players for years.

The non snarky question is wether or not you'd base damage of agility? If you didn't do some bizarre game balancing trick, making melee troll of doom would be that much easier.

Granted if you min/maxed his agility to make him stronger I guess he couldn't run particularly quickly at his opponents.

Well, to me (i.e., if I were designing the system - shudder at that thought for a moment), [Agility + Unarmed] is used to punch/kick, but [Strength + Unarmed] is used to wrestle/grapple. Either way, Strength determines damage.

So you just need Strength to catch a fish?

I don't follow?

Omae, if you need to GRAPPLE a fish you probably shouldn't be in the water

But nah Hentai you do have a point there, wrestling is an event where strength probably plays a bigger role than agility. That said you still need a great deal of agility as a wrestler to apply your strength quickly and appropriately. Another example I would give are line backers, for the longest time I thought they had an easy life of just running in very short straight lines. It turns out what they do in all that mess is pretty damn agility intensive and that while being huge and strong go a long way, you need to be quick enough your feet to be good at your job.

So it's a balance but I still have to come down with agility being the key to good technique and strength being the deciding factor in damage.

To me, though, the same thing applies to running. Sure, strength is useful up to a certain point, but you also need agility to coordinate the movement.

Perhaps Agility+Running for short sprinting (within a single Simple Action), and Strength+Running or even Body+Running for long distances/durations?

If I was going to change it, the only change I would make would be to adopt Body+Running for long distance running. IMHO, Strength is by far the biggest contributor to short sprinting, which appears to be backed up by the size of the modern Olympic sprinter.

*nod* So, like in RL, you can hard-max Gymnastics or Running, but not both. I can work with that. It still feels weird having a 450kg guy outrunning a 90kg guy, though.

I can totally be with Strength and Running.

Now, if i recall...isn't Jumping linked to Agility? I'd be willing to put that at Strength as well-I always thought you needed to be, well, strong to power yourself through the air(and those jumpers seem to be built pretty damned strong). But Hmm...thinking about it again i do have trouble seeing a short-legged proportioned alot of upper body troll jumping easily between two buildings. I see more of a muscular elf being able to fly it.

Unless Im misremembering things because our Vappu(Labor Day) party was yesterday.

But i'd at the very least leave it for yeah, balance purposes. How much more useless can the poor Strength stat be?(Hell, with Martial Arts and stacking DVs now, you don't even need strength to hit like an assault cannon.) I guess i was one of those ''Strength Favoring'' folks, even though there's a bit of disadvantage behind it. I'd at least like it to do, well, something. When sams dump the score you gotta wonder.

And Doc, i know what you're talking about-I used to also think linebackers were just like big walls, until i saw more of the training and the like. It is pretty intensive stuff and I can understand why Agility, Body, AND Strength have their uses in about any kinds of athletics.

Heh. I really need to get Arsenal; I want to build a Capoeira / Parkour martial arts adept with an insane amount of Gymnastics.

...what?

Where are you getting your data about the top speed of a rhino? I'm pretty sure rhinos top out at about 35 mph. I know cheetahs are something like double that.

I'm not arguing the "you need muscles" part, or the "elves versus trolls" part in Shadowrun, yadda yadda. I just think your logic there in the middle is a little fuzzy/misinformed/misremembered/something.

Also remember - both Agility and Strength are a form of 'muscle' (which is why Muscle Toner works the way it does, and which is why Muscle Replacement adds to both). Strength reflects how forcefully the muscles can contract, while Agility reflects how quickly they can contract while still under proper control.

It's to do with the origins of D&D. It wasn't always an RPG, it began as a heroic wargame with the turn representing a minute of combat. Hence, your strength made it easier to hit because it helped you penetrate their armour and defeat their parries. This is also why HP improved rapidly; it represented a degree of danger sense developing and therefore additional narrow evasions - and in the wargame form it represented additional troops coming under your command.

By the by, the one minute turn was maintained through to second edition. Third edition officially changed the turn length to 6s, in line with a number of common house rules and as depicted in the Baldur's gate series. I honestly think that this choice causes the system to make quite a bit less sense, though it does bring the actual game mechanics in line with how people would naturally describe the play of combat based on the way things work - which is also quite important.


Strength score is a rough measure of strength per unit of body mass. Quite a bit of that 90kg guy is his internal organs and skeletal structure. A lot less of that 450kg guy is going to be those things and hence he has a lot more strength output per unit mass, corresponding to a higher strength score.

I've seen a wildlife report where those guys where hunt by a rhino and fleeing in their jeep with at least 70mp/h and the rhino was still close and that for some minutes.
While a cheetah maybe faster. It can run about 45 - 70 mp/h in his first 650 yards but then needs to rest before its heart explodes.
So the rhino will win about time and distance.

So i took the obviously comparison between elve and troll.

And to Grappling:
You need to be agile to get a grab on somebody. If you get the grab you'll need to maintain that grab or want to improve it you need agility again to get a better grip and the damage is implied by strength, so the rules catch that up very exact. But if we're talking about joint locks that is another thing. There you must be very abstract like Grapple then finishing move. Else it will be hard to find a rule against that.

I can give an example that might not be realistic at all, but in videogames, namely racing games, you notice how some of the 'Heavyweight' cars have the slowest acceleration, but the best top speed-likewise the lightweight classes tend to have faster acceleration but worse top speed. They both have their benefits in the game; the lightweights can recover a bit faster if you make mistakes from them-but if you're really good with the controls, the heavyweights have the speed advantage at the end; but try not to mess up with em, it takes awhile to get back in the race.

That being said, can anyone vouch for that being realistic at all, with real-life racing? Im not too familiar with the real-life mechanics as I am with the computerized ones.

(and i know cars and people are quite different, but for some reason this sprang to mind.)

I still think you're just plain wrong on this one. I really just don't see a rhinos landspeed (and you did say "top speed" very clearly) as being anywhere near that of a cheetah. The fact a rhino can run for a longer time period has never been in doubt (or we'd all be wondering why Running wasn't linked to Stamina), I just remain convinced a cheetah has a higher top speed by a significant margin.

ElFenrir, I think that mostly has to do with engine sizes. The bigger the car, the bigger the engine block, the more horsepower.

Racing games and real-life racing are not particularly equivalent...in real-life, the two variables in acceleration are power (principally torque) and weight, with the aim being high power and low weight. Heavy vehicles do not tend to accelerate well unless you give them lots and lots of power.

Top speed on the other hand is a function of power (principally horsepower) and aerodynamic drag. Again, being lightweight helps here, as you require less power to get to your top speed, but aerodynamics conquer all eventually.

In both cases, the nearest parallel is likely Strength, as that provides your power - and SR4 doesn't really care about weight or drag on a person scale.

Ahh, i follow you there. So when building up a car, they basically aim for the most power in the engine as they can-while keeping the weight as low as possible.

And i guess paying attention to things like drag/weight in a game might just be too much unecessary bookkeeping in the end. Unless, i mean, the game is based on that sort of thing.

I do recall though, with trolls, they are apparently proportioned a bit different from humans; their legs are alot shorter compared to the rest of their bodies. A human that's 6'4'' and a troll that's 8'4'', judging by some pictures, have legs of not that different of lengths; most of the troll's extra 2 feet comes from his upper body.

Now, dwarves have lower run-speeds(despite being stronger than humans), due to also, their shorter legs by the look of things-like trolls they seem to be more 'topheavy'. This is why Im wondering why Trolls have more movement speed than humans-I mean, a Strength 5 troll is not as strong as a Strength 7 human(even if the human is cybered a bit), just like a Strength 5 troll and a Strength 7 human are equal-and if their legs aren't that much longer-for some reason i'd think they'd be about even.

Saying "Agility is more important to unarmed combat than Strength" is an oversimplification. Different martial arts styles emphasize different attributes, and it's easy to concieve of styles that rely on lots of power to overwhelm an opponent's defense rather than speed and accuracy to bypass the defense. The way SR is set up, weak-but-fast always beats strong-but-slow, and I don't think that's always accurate.

For instance, Omar Andrés Narváez is the current world flyweight (112 lbs) boxing champion. It's a decent bet that his agility score is better than (or at least as good as) that of Lennox Lewis (former heavyweight champ). On video you can see a significant difference between the two in terms of hand speed. But if you pitted the two against one another in the ring Omar wouldn't last a round (IMO).

True, but that would be a function of DV and Damage Resistance, rather than Lewis's ability to hit Narvaez. Assuming that Lewis has much higher Strength and Body than Narvaez, and they have similar Agility and Unarmed Combat skills, Narvaez may Dodge around a bit, but all Lewis needs to do is land one punch and he could inflict more damage. Narvaez won't last simply because his hits won't slow Lewis down, but Lewis's hits will cause him Wound Penalties, and possible Knockdown.

They weren't doing 70 mph. Not in a jeep across the veldt. Rhinos top out at about 40 mph and can't keep it up for very far. Cheetahs do 60-70.

http://whozoo.org/students/obiibe/rhinos.htm
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/AlexSchuster.shtml

Trying to extrapolate the rules for metahumans running from rhino v cheetah races is an exercise in futility.

Well, in, say, melee in SR, Agility and skill, naturally, both come into play. To me, it makes perfect sense that the Body 4, Strength 4 dude with a 6 Agility and 5(+2) Martial Arts(with some + Martial Arts qualities), should be able to beat the modified 12 Body, 14 Strength, 3 Agility, 1 Unarmed Combat troll's ass. Sure the troll is three times his strength, but the other guy is rolling tons more in skill dice(the troll tossing a max of 5 if he uses Reach, the other guy 13. Not to mention Strength 4 guy might have +2 DV, hardliners, and maybe even some aluminum bone lacing giving him a DV equal to the Troll.) Of course, this takes skill into account too.

In the boxer examples, they very well might have equal skill-but Id be willing to bet the smaller guy might have a couple more Agility tacked on.

Hmm...let's say in SR, the 'lightweight' is Body 3, Agility 5, Reaction 4, Strength 3.
The 'Heavyweight' is Body 5, Agility 3, Reaction 3, Strength 5.

Both have stats above average-3 is still a little above the norm. The big guy isn't slow; the small guy isn't weak or flimsy(even those lightweights can no doubt hurt with a punch).

Both could have 2 levels of Boxing for +2 DV, Hardliners(for the hell of it), for +1 DV. Both have skills of 4(+2). So Lightweight is rolling 11 dice, with a DV of 5(2+2+1). He gets his 8 Blocking dice, and say the fast guy has a Dodge(Melee) of 2(+2), since he's a little faster. Big guy has 1(+2). So the little fellow has 12 dice on Full Defense, which will help his lower Body(he rolls two less dice for defense).

The big guy rolls 9 dice to attack(not bad at all), with a DV of 6. He gets 7 dice on defense(maybe a little tiny bit harder for him to get out of the way), 10 on Full, again, a little less but not bad.

To me, it seems about even. Big guy has a better chance of soaking the hits and dishes out a bit more-the little guy has a better chance of dodging, and dished out a little less. There may be a factor or factors i'm missing though.

I could do a Fighting Game crossover, but those aren't realistic at all(i love em anyway, though. ). Nowadays you have the whole 'Priority' thing which is really big-a character with crappy stamina, crappy power and just plain speed with mad priority is usually going to have an advantage over a character with mad speed, mad damage, good stamina but crappy, last-ranked priority. Some guys have speed but not strength, some vice-versa(and many times in fighting games the glacier-types are the ones that suffer many times), the Glass Cannons(the ones with lots of speed and strength, and even good priority-but really crap stamina.) And so on.

I kinda want to make a bunch of sample guys up(different fighter types) for the hell of it, but I dunno, it may just be my Vappu-hangover talking.

I think the whole top-speed issue has been pretty well handled, but "before its heart explodes."? Explodes? Seriously? It has a lot more to do with body-heat buildup. It would be more accurate to say they would die of a fever than having their heart explode.

I want to actually give one more speed vs. power situation; i kind of tipped the human in the above example a little far due to skill. Say they both have the same stats(Body 4, Agility 6, Reaction 4, Strength 4 for human, Body 12, Agility 3, Reaction 2 and Strength 14 for the troll, and both have a 1 in Unarmed.)

The Human is rolling 7 dice to attack, 5 on normal defense. The troll is only rolling 4 to attack(5 with Reach) and 3 dice normal defense(say they both have Dodge 2, bringing them up to 7 and 5 on full.)

The human, IMO, still has the advantage here-for one, ties in defense go to the defender. The troll's gonna be hitting, on average, 1-2 hits on his attack. The human can probably match this on his 5 dice normal defense-making it really tough for the troll to nail a hit. The human, though, with 7 attack dice, even though he's only wearing the troll down a bit(say they are both doing stun damage), is probably going to hit more often-especially with the troll's mere 3 defense dice. Will the troll lose every time? Probably not, the human could make some bad defense rolls(and has less dice to soak, even though he'll probably be able to alleviate a little with his better dodge), and the troll won't have it too terribly hard to soak the human's average 3-4S that he's dishing out. The fight might well go on for awhile, with the human getting missed more often, the troll soaking more often-but IMO, the smaller, faster guy still has the bit of an advantage.

The problem with the Body argument is that there's been more than a few pro boxers who crossed the weight classes, and did just fine despite being quite a bit smaller. James Toney probably has the widest weight class championships, but others have gone through quite a bit. Even with gaining weight, a person's Body score wouldn't go that high. So, it's not a matter of Body, it's a matter of fitness and strategy. If any stat should be linked to unarmed combat, I'd go with Intuition: reflexive strategy and the ability to keep your head under pressure are the most important components of a fight.

As for the speed vs power goes, Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do probably have the fastest hand speed of any martial art. Wing Chun is often criticized for a lack of power, but Jeet Kune Do includes training in the One-Inch Punch, which teaches you how to generate a hell of a lot of power in a very small distance.

I'm in agreement there actually, I would much prefer an Intuition attack over Agility (Melee and Firearms both). But then we'd have Perception and Attack in one stat, and it would be the uber stat.

Don't forget Intuition is also the other half of the Initative stat.

Yeah. It would have been way too uber. At least the way it is now, it makes people choose about jacking their scores.

Actually, I could definitely see Intuition for Firearms, but Melee just requires too much actual physical movement and finesse.

7.5 meter
--------- = 16.777022190408 miles per hour
second



http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1351...oologists-.html

If that article is accurate. Though it is 16 yrs old, maybe someone was wrong.

It's not just that. Most martial arts that I've participated in don't have defenders completely dodging attacks. Instead we take just enough of the edge off the attack so that it's not debilitating. Instead of taking the kick to the head, you make it glance off the shoulder. Or the side kick hits your elbow instead of your solar plexus. If I had twice the strength and twice the body compared to my opponent though, my strikes don't have to be as precise in order to do damage. Even the punches he blocks will knock him down. What's more, because I don't have to worry about his [lack of] power, I can take more aggressive/offensive stances. People who have done both boxing and mma often note that mma fighters can't punch as effectively because they have to stay in a more crouched stance to avoid getting taken down. If I outweighed my opponent by 150 pounds I would not have to worry about him taking me down, so I would feel more free to let the fists fly.

Responding to Cain: Yes, sometimes boxers have been known to change weigh classes. But they actually bulk up when they move up a class. And not many fighters are successful in doing so at all. They don't weigh in at 120 pounds to fight a 140 pounder. It's my opinion that fighters who are successful in this generally win because they have much more skill than their opponents that compensates for anything they give up in strength. Except for the heavyweight matches, in just about every professional boxing, wrestling, and mma match I've ever seen the participants cut weight to get down to their fighting weight, and they do this because being bigger and stronger is a HUGE advantage.

Reading all of this, Im wondering why so many things in fiction sorta base the 'better' fighters off the ones who are either faster, or more balanced. From tabletop RPGs, to RPGs(generally, the best characters in console games are your balanced guys), fighting games(the most prevalent ones, again, are either faster or more balanced), and so on.

For example, while I find Agility based melee fighting works fine in games-why do you think alot of tabletop games go that route? Is it more balanced in the sense that it sorta 'forces' you to worry about 2 stats(well, for a good melee fighter-4; Body is important and Reaction shouldn't be ignored either). I guess if it's Strength based, then worrying about Strength and Body are the only stats...thus making it easy to make a melee killing machine? (Like it's hard now. With aformention MA rules and good melee weapons you don't need to be strong-thus, again, the Agility guys end up with the advantage-since it's Agility based).

What do you all think?

There be no Jumping Skill in SR4. Jumping is a specialization of the Gymnastics skill, and Agility is definitely the appropriate Attribute for gymnastics.

Agility < Strength...

Video proof!!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1075642935159965104

I wasn't stating that Strength, or indeed any physical Attribute is not important to gymnastics. Merely that Agility is the most appropriate if you had to pick just one.