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tete
I know this topic has come up from time to time and I know they have been around since 1e but honestly its less fun if people have to wait and wait and wait for the wired reflexes guy to finish. So how about having every +1 IP instead count as a +1 hit on initiative rolls. They still probably get to go first but no one is sitting around waiting for their turn. Any better suggestions? cyber.gif
Heath Robinson
I hate to pimp my own thread, but perhaps I made something not long ago that might be of assistance.
Glyph
If you have that house rule, you might as well keep reaction enhancement and get rid of all of the others. Because no one will spend 160,000 nuyen.gif , half of their Essense, or three Magic points, for a piddly +2 bonus to initiative.

So what do you do to gimp the faces and the hackers, so that the sammies don't get bored "waiting for their turn" during negotiations or hacking?
KCKitsune
I see no problem with having IPs. If your Face, Hackers, or Mages are bored then tell them to get cyber/bioware to make them faster. I know that I have a combat mage with Synaptic Booster 1. Before anyone says that a Sustain Foci works better, I like the idea of NOT lighting up the Astral when I need to sneak into a place. Also if your foci is shut down then what? A synaptic booster works no matter what and it's bioware so it can't get damaged too easily and it's a bitch to detect.

The only think that I don't like is that Sammys no longer move at superhuman speed. I remember the intro story in SR 2 core rulebook where Nameless and the Phys Ad were moving at something like 50 KPH and Nameless snapping the neck of the Adept because she moved just a few millimeters out of position.
Dragnar
QUOTE (Glyph @ Jan 26 2009, 05:17 AM) *
If you have that house rule, you might as well keep reaction enhancement and get rid of all of the others. Because no one will spend 160,000 nuyen.gif , half of their Essense, or three Magic points, for a piddly +2 bonus to initiative.

So what do you do to gimp the faces and the hackers, so that the sammies don't get bored "waiting for their turn" during negotiations or hacking?

This. Especially the last part. Yes, a combat specialist is more useful in combat and he gets to hog the spotlight for a while, but every other character gets the same for his special niche as well.
Waiting until the sammy resolves his two or even three actions for every one the face gets to do in combat involves less waiting than the sammy sitting idly by during a whole negotiation scene.
I'm with Glyph in that I think that change would do more harm than good.
IceKatze
hi hi

Not that I dislike extra initiative passes, but if you do get rid of them, the bonus should be something cool that is impossible to get any other way. Personally I would give people a combat pool a la SR3 in exchange, but thats because I so miss combat pool and it's resource management aspect in the game.

That is a very nice thread Heath. smile.gif
JFixer
I think you're much better off simply limiting the amount of time he has for his turn down to 90sec per go. Set an egg timer if you have to. Practice rolling dice fast.

I totally stole an idea from Aron and I went out and bought black six siders, and colored the 2-3-4 sides with permanent marker, and the 1s I colored red. Now I roll twenty dice and count 123456 and he got six successes. Bang. Has speeded up dice rolling quite a lot for my group, particularly if I'm rolling several times. Use your little turn sheet, run a few mock combats just to practice moving faster. Don't let him take five minutes to make 1 seconds worth of actions, and remember that as his pass is going along, he's only moving just a little ways, so don't allow him so long to think on it.

Just don't let him. Go faster.
The Pat
As discussed in other posts, we (our group) decided to rule out any powers/equipment that give you additional IPs. Works well for us, because no one feels useless in combat. There are a lot of people in favor of multiple IPs, since they constitute part of SR "feel" and I don't argue with this.

Only thing for us is: We tried out a lot of variants for handling multiple IPs, and just leaving them out is the best solution for us. Sams are still combat monsters with all the other cw they pack (and not having wired reflexes leaves a lot of cash and essence for this other stuff), but all players can now participate in combat without feeling left out. It has proven to be the best (most fun) solution for our game.

You are free to argue against it - but just try it out. SR still is cool to play without IP-monsters wink.gif

The Pat
tete
QUOTE (Glyph @ Jan 26 2009, 04:17 AM) *
If you have that house rule, you might as well keep reaction enhancement and get rid of all of the others. Because no one will spend 160,000 nuyen.gif , half of their Essense, or three Magic points, for a piddly +2 bonus to initiative.

So what do you do to gimp the faces and the hackers, so that the sammies don't get bored "waiting for their turn" during negotiations or hacking?


Well I run hacking fast and loose (always have since 1e). You only use a program once against a system at most its always a vs test. Other things like data search are automatic the higher program rating just reduces how much time it takes. As for the Faces the Sammies are usually involved in protection and have things to do while negotiations are going down. Combat is the only place where my balance between player time breaks. Phase 1 is fine, Phase 2 isnt so bad but Phase 3 or 4 it becomes a one or two man show. In the old days I moved the phases in steps of 7 (instead of 10) with a maximum number of phases at 4. With 3e style of everyone goes on round one this worked pretty well with most people going 3 times (14 or higher roll) and even the slow guys usually going twice (7 or higher).

QUOTE (Heath Robinson @ Jan 26 2009, 03:03 AM) *
I hate to pimp my own thread, but perhaps I made something not long ago that might be of assistance.


Thanks its got a lot of good ideas smile.gif not sure what I like best. I kinda like the 2 IP and the no IP
Malachi
Ok, quick poll here... how many people have characters with > 3 IP's? How many?

I'm seriously confused by the repeated surfacing of the multiple IP "problem" where GM's mention that players are sitting while others take an ADDITIONAL "2 or 3 more actions."

I've been running SR for 10 years and I've never had a 4 IP character. Current I have 6 people in the group, with only 1 having 3 IP's in the "meat." The Hacker and the Rigger having 3 IP's in the Matrix. So that's 3 out of 6 with with 3 IP's, 2 more have 2 IP's (melee and adept), and 1 has 1 IP (the mage).
Prime Mover
Right now we have the hacker maxed out at 5 passes, adept rigger and sami at 3 to 4 and caster who was stuck at 1 recently got his improve reflexes spell and sustaining foci. Out of the box I've had players have to rely on drugs and edge to get extra passes until cash or karma allows them to "speed" up. For fluff purposes there might be a player who doesn't want to max out his passes but honestly if you want to compete in the shadows or even keep up with your own team it's evolve or die!
Prime Mover
QUOTE (KCKitsune @ Jan 26 2009, 12:25 AM) *
The only think that I don't like is that Sammys no longer move at superhuman speed. I remember the intro story in SR 2 core rulebook where Nameless and the Phys Ad were moving at something like 50 KPH and Nameless snapping the neck of the Adept because she moved just a few millimeters out of position.


Actually if your Sami has 4 passes and sprints through all of them he's moving damn fast 4 times as fast as anyone sprinting for one pass.
JFixer
Str+Athletics 8 Dice = ~3 Successes, or 3 meters per simple action. If he full sprints and nothing else during a round, any regular meta except a Troll is moving at 43m per combat round, that's per 3 seconds. In a minute, that's 860m, or .86km. That's 34.4mph, or, really damn fast.

Then again, a regular human without extra IPs is going 22.4mph... 8 dice is apparently the fastest man in the world.

A character who doesn't sprint is running half a k in one minute. That's 20mph, which is right up there with the fastest men in sports. They expect your ass to be /fast/ if you're running away from bullets...

Sprinting for four passes only makes you go about twice as fast as someone who doesn't sprint at all.
JeffSz
Besides a commlink, ammo, and a some medical supplies, I have issues with -anything- becoming mandatory to be a good runner.

Everyone and their brother seems to take anything they can to get more IP's so they can twink their character up - but that's not IP's being broken, that's players abusing them with metagame knowledge. At that point, it becomes necessary for everyone to escalate, and that's just not fun.

The average character in the SR universe would see some cyber in a catalog and think "wow, I can be faster with that!" - he wouldn't see seven different entries and think "Wow, If i get four of those mods, I can get three extra initiative passes!"
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (JFixer @ Jan 26 2009, 11:20 AM) *
Str+Athletics 8 Dice = ~3 Successes, or 3 meters per simple action. If he full sprints and nothing else during a round, any regular meta except a Troll is moving at 43m per combat round, that's per 3 seconds. In a minute, that's 860m, or .86km. That's 34.4mph, or, really damn fast.
The Running Test adds to the Running Distance (per CT) not the calculated distance per IP.
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