Back when my friends and I played shadowrun in high school (must be 8 years ago now). We played 3rd ed, and after we did a few runs we quickly realized something:

There was only one rule in Shadowrun: "Go first, Go often."

Seriously, it was apparent from then on, that to be any kind of useful in 3rd ed, you had to have at least 2, more likely 3 initiative passes. I had a Gunslinger Adept who took down Das Uber Troll in one round with his Ares Preditors because I got to shoot him 12 times (3 passes, 2 pistols, 2 shots per pass. Meanwhile the troll got off a total of 2 shots with his shotgun.

Now, with 4th ed, it is easy for everyone to have at least three passes without trouble at char creation. Street Sams can get level 2 Wired Reflexes (Or Cerebral booster, if you have the cash). Mages can buy the 'Increase Reaction' spell and put it to a lvl 3 Sustaining focus for an extra 2 passes, and Adepts have a power that will let them have up to 3 extra actions (for 5 points)

Even non-combat characters like a Face or infiltrator can buy Wired reflexes for little cash (only 32,000 for level 2, not a lot of cash, considering.)

So, my question, has anyone ever run a character with less than 2 initiative passes, and, if so, how did they stand up in a normal shadowrun campaign? I like playing varied characters, but to be useful in a firefight, it seems to me that getting extra actions is an essential part of character creation. It either gives you a huge advantage over non-enhanced guys, or it evens the playing field against advanced guys.

Very oddly
he was a rigger though he only had one meat pass. so far hes been unneeded as in the 300BP game we have a 4IP comabt monster and a few high IP hiters as well though his recon drones are usefull as are the nurostun nades in his doberman.

IF you can do the whole planny sneaky thing and the need for ini passes just never comes up because you avoid all those occassions, then no, you obviously do not need those extra passes . .
now if you are in a game where bad stuff tends to happen, where the response on slightest error can be catastrophal? then yes, you will need those extra passes . .
if you are a dedicated face, what would you use the ini passes for anyway?
you are not supposed to be in any position where you might be needing them.

Everyone should just call the cops anyhow.

Of course there is more than one way to play Shadowrun. People do all kinds of different things with their 30+ Initiative Score.

~J

My point is that it is better to have and not need, than to need and not have. Every Shadowrunner (even a face or infiltrator) should expect to come across some firefights in their career.

In the World of Shadowrun, most people don't need to be sped up. In the Game of Shadowrun, which situates itself in a subset of that world, the need is far greater.

I'm of a similar opinion. most fights effectively last less than one combat round, and the suprise round usually ends the argument.

Initiative passes are crucial for combat-oriented characters. They are not essential for support characters such as techies, faces, support/summoning mages, and the like.

Shadowrunning involves dealing with contacts, negotiating deals, searching for data or information, and stealth, not merely combat. A good team should be able to handle all of these things.

But while these things are equally important, they aren't equally enjoyable by most groups, so usually some aspects of shadowrunning will get glossed over, while other aspects get more "screen time".

This goes both ways - you can have groups where they prefer chewing the scenery with a cast of colorful NPCs and making elaborate plans to bypass or bamboozle the security setup they are going up against. A single IP might be good for most players, while the sammie, with 3 or 4 IP, is bored most of the time (he doesn't have to be, since sammies can be faces or covert ops guys, too - but I am assuming someone focused mainly on combat).

Conversely, you might feel bored if you have a face, hacker, or what have you, and your role gets fast-forwarded. "Okay, you talk him up to 20% more pay." "All right, your hacker turns off the alarms and opens the doors to the compound." And then... fight time! Even if you are useful to the group, you don't feel that way, since most of the time you are sitting bored, watching the sammies and combat mages chew up the opposition.


So really, there is NOT "One way" to play shadowrun. The rules and setting cover such a wide variance in power and tactics that you can go in all kinds of directions. Which is also a potential drawback - so be sure that you are in sync with your group! If their play style is all action, then maybe your face could only sling 12 dice or so for social situations, but have 3 IP and a good pistols skill. If their play style focuses on roleplaying and infiltration, maybe your sammie could be slightly less tough but have more social and infiltration skills.

Flashing a smile at several pretty girls and asking if they want to see your heavy pistol.


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But to be on topic, four out of six of my players only have one initiative pass. They do just fine because not every punk they come across has 3-4 initiative passes. Unless you particularly enjoy having your player characters have a very short lifespan, you need to tailor the encounter to what you think they can handle. by handle I mean without having Doc Wagon haul their carcass out of the barrens every couple of days.

I do it with mages all the time and it's never really been a problem, although usually I do pick up Increase Reflexes at some point or another. Wired 1, however, always hit me as a goofy half-measure anyway. If you're not going to put any real investment into being a combatant, then odds are you should keep your silly head down or at least stick to ambushes in the first place. If you're not willing to make the leap to wired 2 and a good, solid double digit dicepool in a firearm, then you really have no business trying to play at being Billy Badass. Nobody but a combat monkey has any business being on the wrong end of burst fire, it's just too deadly. Take some Jazz, keep your butt behind cover and save your points and essence for doing whatever else it is that you do. If all it takes to even the odds between your character and an opponent is Wired 1, then they're a mook and the Samurai can probably use the guy as a toothpick, so stand back and let the man work for chrissakes.

There is not only one Way to play SR (and there is not only one Way to play D&D)
If you have combat focused Chars and campaign it is definitely more important than if you have a different kind of Chars or game.But it's not all

HougH!
Medicineman

The thread name isn't what the thread is about. The actual question he's asking is "are multiple IPs vital to all PCs?"

If all you do is have combat, then extra IPs are vital. All combat is not the only way to play SR4.

I happen to be running a game with two very bored combat monsters whose extra IP's just give them more time to be bored. All the problems seem to get solved with stealth, contacts, and diplomacy. Although, I am making a concerted effort to reverse that for at least a couple of encounters.

I've ran combat characters with 2 IPs very successfully, but they A. Hit very hard, so they made it count, B. Had a lot of very good defensive maneuvers and abilities; lots of Gymnastics, good Reaction/Body, etc, and sometimes C. Had some good ranged coverage(or at the very least, were in a party with a strong ranged character.) Hell, I ran a combat character with 1 IP before, and it worked(the whole party had 1 IP, however-and one of them was a combat mage with a lot of good spells, so we had a fairly easy time in combat. We also played smart.)



Even though I usually have the role of ''close combat guy'', I ALWAYS make sure they have a spread of other skills. Anything; it depends on the character. Some are secondary Faces, some Techies, etc. But it helps a whole lot, I find. My current one has a lot of Athletics leaning toward Freerunning/Parkour as a pastime, but this, coupled with a good Stealth, Perception and Shadowing skill lets him also preform as a very good scout/outlook man as well, during the times we need to stake out an area.

It's not too difficult to pick a secondary, even under the more stringent BP system. But it helps a whole lot. (Also, this current character runs 2 IPs, and does quite fine. Surprise attacks are a wonderful thing.) Come to think of it, it's kinda rare that I end up with more than 2 IPs, I almost always find other cool little bits and pieces to get with my characters instead.

As for the question of one way to play-nope. You can play the game any damn way you want. You can play it like a bunch of gangers with a knife and a crack habit, or middle, or like our games(the higher end of middle-powered...kind of just under the high-powered ceiling, but doesn't quite cross over to high-powered territory. I call it ''Gritty Manga Style''), or all-out super-pro high-powered-you-guys-hunt-dragons-and-horrors-on-your-spare-time. Whatever's the most fun.

Our last group, we were basically a specialized team of thieves/artifact hunters. Only 2 people in the 5 person team had more than 1 IP (and they had 2 IPs). The most useful person in the entire team was the unaugmented, mundane human woman with every skill imaginable and mediocre attributes. Nothing like hiking for 3 weeks thru an Awakened Jungle to negotiate with naga for a mystical artifact... Heck, our mage's most useful spell was "Shape Earth." And the Adept's most useful ability was Linguistics. And when we got into combat, we were likely already screwed ("run away" is a viable strategy). The campaign lasted 2 years, and we had a blast.

In our current campaign, we have 3 of the 4 people with 4 IPs, and the TM (mine) with 3 IPs (keeping in with a lifelong tendancy to have the slowest character in every campaign). If we don't get in a fight in a session, we wonder what we did wrong... And we're having a blast.

So, no, I don't think you need to have lots of IPs to have a great campaign. Some sort of agreement among everyone at the table on what kind of campaign everyone wants to play is necessary, though.

Whee, that good old question again. Some people can live with the IP thing, some people can work around it, and other people get bothered by it. Just a matter of what floats your [gaming] boat.

Me, I run a pretty varied campaign with some combat-oriented characters, a face, a funny troll mage who wears a shakespearean princess outfit, and a weird combat medic that wears armored lederhosen. They get split up a lot too. So everyone gets into combat, everyone does face-to-face social work, and so on. For combat the multiple IP thing was bothering me enough that I just houseruled that everyone gets 3 IPs, there are always 3 IPs in a Turn (to get around having to recalculate movement), and any cyberware/bio/adept power/spell that gives multiple IP doesn't exist anymore. It's still important to go first, so the combat types load up on reaction / initiative enhancers and the like, while the non-combat types don't.

The combat types still steal the show because of their ridiculous dice pools, so thus far I haven't had any [strong] complaints. Then again maybe my players are just being nice. Everyone knew ahead of time though, that I was planning on this so...yeah, whatever works for GM+players I say go for it.

I've experimented with a houserule where players gain extra single/complex actions per combat turn instead of extra IPs. My players were reasonably happy with this as it let the mages and unaugmented types contribute regularly to the action instead of having to wait for pass 2 and 3 to finish. It's also easier for me to manage as a GM.

We haven't really playtested it much, but it seems to work reasonably well.