I have a question that came up twice during our gaming session today, regarding melee attacks that involve acrobatics.

The character in question is a melee adept that likes to perform acrobatic stunts as part of a melee attack. Here are the two specific examples:

1. Spring-boarding off of a piece of playground equipment into the back of a moving pickup truck while attacking the gunner with dual-wielded daggers.

2. Using the roll-bar of the aforementioned truck to swing out and back through the passenger window and kick the driver in the face.

How does one resolve these kinds of attacks?

Do you simply add a modifier to the attack to make up for the difficult maneuver, or do you require a separate Athletics roll before the attack roll is made? If you do use a modifier, is it at the GM's discretion, or is there a canon-based example that would help clarify this issue?

We chose to go with the modifier, as it seemed more consistent with the rest of the combat rules.

On a similar note, I'm still somewhat confused on which modifiers apply to ranged combat only, and which ones apply to both ranged and melee combat. Do melee attacks suffer from an "Attacker Moving" modifier, or a "Target Moving" modifier? Do these modifiers apply to charging attacks and flying jump-kicks, or is movement not factored into melee target numbers?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Play Exalted.

Failing that, an acrobatics test with an insane threshold, and then roll the attack at a penalty (and then knock one off the penalty for every success over the threshold) to represent the fact you're spring-boarding off a rocking horse onto the back of a moving pickup truck with a pair of daggers.

I would def treat that as 2 seperate actions, and treat it as a multiaction since they are part of the same manouvre.
I'd make sure any acrobatics is resolved first, since if that doesn't succeed the attack can't proceed. Maybe even get a bonus to the attack if the acrobatics part goes extremely well.

I have to admit, I've wondered the same thing, especially in the case of melee adepts with the Great Leap power. I always wondered whether you could close distance in combat with Great Leap.

I'd only ask for dicepool splitting if the attack is supposed to be in the same IP as the acrobatics maneuver.
Same here, except that i'd give the superior position modifier if the acrobatics roll succeeds, not only on critical successes. Maybe even the charge modifier.

Apart from the situational TN modifiers that pop up occasionally the only modifiers that apply to melee' are listed on p123 SR3. Movement modifiers for attacker or defender don't apply.

In order to understand the relationship between melee attacks and acrobatics, you must first journey to Parmistan via Elbonia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gTkUcXGF_Q

I'm going to disagree with your interpretation of events. What's happening isn't that there's an attack involving acrobatics going on; instead, what is happening is as follows:

(It should be noted that under no circumstances should it involve "dicepool splitting", as this isn't Sorcery)

1: the character uses Athletics to reach a position from which attacking is possible.

2: the character attacks.

Under the circumstances, then, situation #1 would involve a standard Jumping test with (IMO) a TN bonus for the playground equipment and a TN penalty for the moving vehicle. Situation #2 requires an Athletics test. In both cases, a successful test means that the character is in position for a melee attack; I'd give the targets Superior Position ("[…] if he is standing on stable ground while the opponent is not"), though I could see denying the driver that if the vehicle's autopilot is disabled or the driver otherwise does not relinquish control over the vehicle.

~J

So you're saying that every city should have randomly place pommel horses to assist the acrobatic melee adepts in combat?!? I like it...




My first instinct was to resolve it exactly how you laid it out, including the Superior Position, but the combined action won out in the end.

The reason I went the opposite direction was because of complex actions. Using a skill, Athletics in this instance, is a complex action. Making a melee attack is also a complex action. It did not seem reasonable at the time to allow the player to make two separate complex actions in the same initiative pass, even if they were to occur simultaneously.

I really liked the idea of the Athletics roll first to determine position, as that could have some great cinematic consequences if it failed. Imagine the character missing his Athletics roll, and all of the hilarity that could then ensue. I did reason that if the combined attack roll failed, we could simply role-play the scene appropriately, but I do feel that the separate tests would have been much more appropriate.

Again, my only reservation was allowing a character to take two simultaneous complex actions in the same initiative pass. I'm thinking that Athletics might be the one skill that it would be appropriate to make an exception for, and this would apply to all characters. I'm sure the Street Samurai would also enjoy firing full auto while leaping across rooftops and doing barrel rolls...

Sounds like a new house rule has been born...

** As an afterthought, what are the opinions on allowing other Athletic rolls while attacking? Would you allow a character to make a sprint roll in the same turn they are attacking, with either melee or ranged combat? **

Sprinting and shooting a maximum of one long burst is perfectly OK according to RAW, but attacking in melee isn't. And I would not change that. 25+m should be enough for any charge. People with more than one IP could even use all but their last IP for sprinting and still get to attack in the same round.

There are no long bursts in 3rd Edition...

3rd Edition rules are pretty specific on the fact Sprinting is a "Use Skill" complex action. This is the exact problem I ran into with the previous examples I've cited, which want to combine an Athletics "Use Skill" complex action with a "Melee Attack" complex action. Is it okay to use two simultaneous complex actions in the same initiative pass, or would it be just a hefty modifier on the Melee Attack for the complex acrobatics maneuver?

Sorry, I overlooked the SR3 tag. Everything i said concerns SR4. You may disregard it.

I agree with the decisions concerning 2 complex actions; however, that could make things less than fun for the player and the character concept he had in mind. Some cinematic feats could also enliven your group.

To incorporate the cinematic concept my solution would be to allow an acrobatics roll as a complimentary skill roll to the attack roll, but raise the Target Number for difficult ground. Or judge how complex the acrobatics maneuver is and raise the TN accordingly. TN is usually a major factor in melee, so this offsets combining 2 complex actions in a single pass.

I wouldn't allow 2 complex actions in the 1 pass so if you consider such acrobatic attacks to require 2 complex actions to perform then the attack must come in the next pass.
However movement can be combined with actions and with the situation you have described the swing could be movement perhaps using the charging rules.

Despite the rule below I would allow an acrobatics test in lieu of a quickness test to decide the outcome of such perilous movement. As for penalties consider the rules in the SR Companion p46 for combining rappelling with shooting where both are simple actions and at +4 to both TN.

No problem, I knew that you were thinking of SR4. I hope I wasn't too harsh in my reply.



My group is very into the cinematic play style, and nobody had any problems with the stunts the adept was attempting. In fact, I encourage such cinematic game play, and have even gone so far as to warn the players to expect such things during action scenes, such as the two guys that will inevitably be carrying a mirror across a busy road right in front of the character's high speed chase, or perhaps some crates full of chickens...



Delaying the attack until the next initiative pass would have ruined the moment, and probably upset the player in question. In the first scenario, it might have been reasonable to have him jump into the truck the first turn, and then attack the next turn, but in the second scenario, I see no way that you could reasonably split that attack between two separate initiative passes.

Your idea of a +4 TN for rappelling and shooting seems a reasonable place to start, and this mirrors the decision we made at the time. We were looking specifically at the "Attacker Running: +4" and "Attacker Running (Difficult Ground): +6" modifiers as our starting point. That was the reason for the second part of my question, as to whether these apply during normal melee combat, but it appears that they do not.

I am still torn between Kagetenshi's stance that the Athletics roll should proceed the attack roll, or just adding a hefty modifier to the attack roll itself.

For TN mods, I still think Superior Position is the place to go, even if the TN mod isn't big enough to handle quite how inferior the inferior position is.

It's a potentially-dangerous swamp, but it is my opinion that there are some Uses of Skill that ought not be Complex Actions (but are not otherwise specified). If I get some time in the morning I'll see if I can think of any way to make that, if not more based-in-preexisting-rules, at least more rule-like instead of GM-fiat-like.

(On the other hand, combining it with the attack roll suffers the same lack-of-rules-grounding problem, and additionally suffers from ignoring the actual athletics portion; it's only GM common sense (read: fiat) that keeps a Body 1 Athletics 0 character with decent melee from doing precisely the same thing.)

~J

I really think that the Athletics roll would be the best option, especially given your last example of the "high melee/low athletics" attempting the same stunt.

The more I think about it, the more I think this might just become a new house rule for our group.

Since movement happens separate from yet simultaneous to your other actions during the initiative pass, you are allowed to close the ground between you and your opponent as long as you have the movement points available. Using Athletics to do this (i.e. spring-boarding) is accomplishing the same result, but with a bit more dramatic flair.

I do feel that this is different than Sprinting, which is using Athletics to move faster and further than you normally could otherwise. I'm thinking that we should leave Sprinting alone for the time being, but to allow an Athletics roll for any specialized form of movement, as long as the character already has the movement points needed for the action. This allows the athletic characters to shine, yet keeps everyone from sprinting every turn as an free complex action.

Like I said before, this was my first instinct from the beginning, but we went with the +4 modifier at the time for the sake of expedience.

Hey, Kagetenshi...

Any further thoughts on the matter?