Like any sufficiently complex game, SR has some awfully strange situations wherein the rules as written..Well, turn out silly in probably-unintentional ways. List them here for hilarity and future errata!

Sadistic Healing: Since one can only be magically healed once per set of injuries, sadistic band-aids can pour all their hits into reducing permanency time. This heals no damage and prevents the injuries from being healed by another mage.

Urban Off-Roading: The Off-Road Tires in Arsenal add 2 to Handling off-road and subtract 2 on the pavement - the latter explicitly cannot push Handling below zero. So. if you happen to have a vehicle with negative handling, driving through Seattle with off-road tires improves handling greatly.

Drag Scooters: The chase rules in general are FUBAR. They're nicely cinematic to an extent..Until a rigger on a Dodge Scoot stays glued to a Westwind's bumper, then they're just silly.

And by silly, you mean awesome? yes?

This is when you mix the tactical and chase rules. Which is not RAW, but when the rules are applied in that way by the players and gm.

Obviously, but unless the designers intended this craziness, RAW is conflicting with RAI here, so it fits.

On with the silly!

This is where the Speed attribute comes in. If the Westwind has enough open road to outrun the Scoot, then the Scoot driver should be racking up Handling penalties from pushing his hardware too far. Some of the RAW doesn't actually have any rules.

i still say that the ramming damage rules are dumb.
and the result can't be intended either . .

Ah, how could I forget those? Next time my team needs anti-vehicle support, I'll just ram the opposition with minidrones. Wouldn't even need to load 'em down with explosives first!

It's expensive ammo, but it's better than most AV rounds.

SR3 Vehicle Combat was unneeded complicated . . true . . but the Ramming Damage rules were somehow much more useable . .

Except according to RAW, if the Scoot outrolls the Westwind, he can stay in Close range despite the speed difference.

If you want hilarity, there was the time we pushed a car to Mach 4.6. (The Movement power can be a scary thing ) Technically speaking, we should have been at massive penalties to escape for pushing way past out top speed; meaning the go-gang would have had an*easier* time keeping up with us. The GM simply handwaved the escape, which I feel was the proper thing to do-- but it wasn't RAW. (What happened to the car afterward wasn't RAW either, but it was funny. )

similarly a RAW modded T-bird with force 7 movement is actually faster than an astrally projecting mage.

Is that a problem? To me that seams perfectly reasonable but can force 7 affect it with the SR4a ruling?

It's kind of like the scene in Lone Wolf McQuade where Chuck Norris drives a 1982 Dodge Ramcharger out from underground. Notice how hard he pushes on the accelerator. If he didn't push as hard it wouldn't have worked. The rigger can accelerate HARDER than a normal person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQkyi1_l6po

Except that per SR4A, you have a penalty to your dice pool equal to -1 per 10 Speed difference, that is a quick and easy way to rack up penalties (Dodge Scoot - Top SPeed of 60... Westwind - Middle Speed of 120, Top speed of 240... net difference of 6-18, and a handling difference of 2, which can rack up some pretty serious penalties to the opposed test for position... now not so likely that the Dodge Scoot is gonna keep up with the westwind in almost any situation... barring more favorable conditions for the Cycle vs. the car... and even still, I am still gonna put my money on the car in this instance...

You'd need at least a force 10 spirit, the Banshee has a Body of 20

Except that this was SR4, not SR4.5. Except that the Westwind would also be facing excessive speed penalties under both. Sure, at a speed of 3000, the Scoot is going to be facing a negative dice pool, but so is the Westwind depending on circumstances. Then it all comes down to a Longshot test, and who's got the biggest Edge.

So, RAI means Rules As Intended?

Where are you getting "speed 3000" from... Westwind Speed is 240...
As for SR4 vs. SR4A... very minor differences, but the rule that I referrenced fixes the issue that is being complained about... so you have some penalties to the roll for "excessive" speed, so what... isn't that why you generally build with 16+ dice? Don't complain about problems if you are not willing to recognize the fixes that were added to correct the situation...


Oh, and btw, you should try a 12 dice pilot skill, going speed of 300, in restricted space, with moderate traffi, Edge of 2 and Bad Luck... it is a rush man... (for the record, pulled a critical success on the maneuver and did not plaster my passengers all over the side of the Towers)...

My Two Cents

Yes...

I'm talking about a situation that really happened. I was just a player in this game, when the driver (most definitely not a rigger or wheelman) managed to offend an entire go-gang. Now, we had a huge speed advantage on them (our car had been modded to have a top speed of something around 300; possibly faster, but let's stick with it since it's a nice round number). We weren't getting away, though, due to the way the chase rules were set up. So, we had a Force 10 spirit use the Movement power on us. 3000 meters/combat turn translates into Mach 4.6.

Now, according to RAW, this made no difference. The GM made what I feel was the right call, and simply handwaved the escape. However, by RAW, not only would the go-gang continue to have the advantage on us, *we* would be the ones to suffer penalties, making it easier for them to catch up.

Now, in our hypothetical Scoot vs. Westwind example, both vehicles would have exceeded their top speed by so much, they'd both be in Longshot territory. Then, it's literally up to luck: who has the higher Edge score?

Ahhhhh... Makes sense I guess...
As for the example... sometimes Luck is all that you have...

Bringing things slightly back on topic, the Rules as Intended clearly make it so the driver with superior skill has the advantage. The Rules as Written allow for some truly absurd situations, like successfully chasing down a car going Mach 4.6 without a jet. Neither is satisfactory. The Rules We Use may be a bit fluid, but are based on what'd be the most fun.

It looks like even under SR4A you need to spend some time wrecking a few of your opponents before you can escape. I like how chase combat is abstract, as even if you have a sports car with a max speed of 3000, there's no way to move that fast unless you're screaming across the open desert or an empty highway. If you're being chased through the city, you need to do more than drive fast, because the game assumes you're not able to simply drive in a straight line until your opponents lose sight of you. You have to spend some time using Cut Off to make them crash, or you could lay down some oil slicks, or you could very easily terminate all the opposition at once with a single zapper strip from your road strip ejector. Or there's always the good ol' fashioned machine gun... Either way, chase combat definitely has combat as an operative word.

That said, it really doesn't make sense for all situations, like if you're flying away in a helicopter and your opponents are driving motorcycles. Hell, technically, RAW says nothing about air or water. According to RAW, there's no problem with a jet ski chasing a sports car over land, or a motorcycles chasing a submarine under water. That's one of the "gaps" you need to fill in using common sense Although I could see some odd situations where it holds together, like a car using Cut Off against a helicopter, making a crazy maneuver that forces the copter pilot to crash (or almost crash) to keep sight of the car. But there's definitely an issue of RAW vs. RAI that everyone needs to be aware of when using chase combat because of how highly abstract it is.

Common sense will generally guide you to the correct solution...

I like the abstract nature of chase combat, but even under SR4.5, there's some serious holes. For one, the rules are still meant to represent a single chaser and a single chasee. Add in more vehicles, and things start to break down fast.

For example, let's say you're being chased by a go-gang. Your rigger is a vastly superior driver to most of the gang; but if even one of them beats him in the opposed test, they get to set the range and move to close range. Everyone else can botch, you can critically succeed against them, or what have you-- all it takes is one.

There's also no use for Medium range. You either want to be at Long range, or Close range. There's no advantage to being in the middle, and no reason why you should be there.

Please note that it is easier to acquire a target at Medium range than it is at long range... thus a use for Medium Range...

As for chase combat with multiple opponents, We roll each vehicle individually so that the pack does not move as a whole, it is individual, thus meaning that vehicles wioll continuously change position...

Also, for the Break Off Maneuver, I was under the impression that Multiple chasers raised the threshold of the Chasee to escape by +1 per additional chaser

And Once Again... it bares mentioning again that Speed differential imposes a penalty of -1 dice per 10 meter/Round difference to the slower vehicle...

It is very hard to outmaneuver that motorcycle based go-gang if their 'cycles are faster than your car, especially if there are more than one of them...

They can't automatically set it to close range in SR4A, they can change it by one step in either direction. That might be one thing they changed in 4A.

Also, while you're technically correct that the rest of them can glitch, it's not like glitches don't have consequences -- if they glitch the opposed test, they become uncontrolled and have to make a vehicle test at -2 or crash. And if they critically glitch, they crash. Regardless, I think that "sides" acting as one unit is there to simplify things, and also make them more exciting. It's a lot more fun when you have 5 gangers trying to jump onto your car, instead of just the one guy who made the test. It's set up for car chases to be intense and action packed, rather than "Look at me I customized my enginge VROOOOM gone!" But you could very easily keep track of the individual vehicles, it would require more bookkeeping but it's totally possible if that's what you prefer.

And you're right that there's no reason to be in Medium range, it's just there as a buffer between Short and Long. If you're at Long range, they can't pull you into Short by beating you in the opposed test just once, and likewise you can't blast away from Short to Long just by winning once. The advantage to being in Medium range is that you're one round away from making it to Long and starting to Break Off, and the reason to be there is that you started in Short and you want to try and escape. I don't think that's a hole, it's another one of those "it's not a flaw, it's a feature" things.

Thanks, You explained that better than I was doing...

The bookkeeping isn't "more", it's a nightmare. If you have a ten-member go-gang, you'd need to keep track of ten bikes and their relation to each other, plus the people they're trying to chase.

But the best roll per side doesn't work, either. Let's put the Westwind and the Scoot on the same side, only this time we'll put a rigger in charge of the Westwind. Despite the fact that the Scoot may well be looking at a negative dice pool in order to make the opposed test, because the rigger will win the test each time, the Scoot gets to stay in close range of the Westwind.

And gods help you if there's more than one "side". Then you've got the issue of someone possibly wanting to be a CLose range to one target, but Long range to another; while another side may want something different. It becomes a chaotic mess.

Bookkeeping can get crazy with multiple vehicles. I use miniatures to defend against this. Draw 2 lines down the center of the map for the road and we literally use Hot Wheels to represent all of the vehicles with little markers that help me keep track of which miniature has what stats. Works like a charm and the players love it too.

Oh yeah, hello everyone. Long time lurker - first time poster.

You joined 21. of june TWO YEARS AGO and just now wrote your first 2 Postings? O.o;,
welcome aboard, don't step on the drake.

Yeah, and I was reading here with no account for a good year before that! Ah well, better late than never.

I don't think that the best per side "doesn't work." Your objections are based on realism, not on utility. If it doesn't make a fun and enjoyable game, then it doesn't work. If it does, then it works great.

But I don't even think you have to look at it as being unrealistic. If I understand you, your gripe is that because a Dodge Scoot is so much slower that a Westwind, it makes no sense that they'd keep up with each other just because the Westwind rolled well. I think you're looking at it the wrong way though. People on the same "side" are actively trying to keep up with each other, and allow each other to keep up. The Westwind stays apace with the Scoot because it wants to, not because the Scoot starts driving 4x faster than its top speed. The rigger's success might simply be to lead the Scoot through traffic in such away that both vehicles pull ahead of the opposition, or it might be to turn off at the right time, when the opponents don't expect it. However you want to explain it, there has to be an understanding that vehicles on each side are consciously trying not to ditch each other. If they don't care, then they can't really be represented as the same side in this system. You can picture this scenario as a Dodge Scoot going 300 meters per turn, and then throw up your hands and say it doesn't work. Or, you can picture it as a Eurocar going closer to 100 meters per turn, and the Scoot managing to keep up just barely. They pull ahead not by going faster, but by being more clever than their opponents. The only time where speed is the sole factor, or even the most important factor in a chase is when you're in the open desert with no terrain, and it's simply a race. But that scenario falls pretty well outside of what chase combat represents.


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It doesn't sound that hard to me. First of all, you couldn't be Short from one party and not be Short from all other parties at the same range. You couldn't be in range to jump onto a truck, but also be at Long range from another group that's also jumping onto the same truck. Now, you could be, for instance, Medium from one party and Long from another. That simply represents that you're in front of the guys you're Medium to, and the guys you're Long to are behind them. Or vice versa. But the bookkeeping sounds pretty easy -- just create a matrix for each party, with a row and a colmn for each opposing side. Then, when Corpers become Medium to Runners and Long to Cops, you just change the values in the table to represent that. If I understand correctly, only one winner of the Opposed test gets to change the ranges. That would be a nightmare if all of them could try and change ranges at once. But all you do is step the ranges for the one party who won, however that party wants. It would probably work best with an Excel sheet, because that way you wouldn't have to fill multiple pages with charts, or continually erase.

Didn't that happen in Die Hard 4?

While I like over-the-top games, part of fun is suspension-of-disbelief. A realism violation can cause just as much unfun as a utility problem.

And it's not just that the Scoot could keep up with the Westwind; it's that it'd be a relative Long Range to the chasers, regardless of their speed. Similarly, a rigger's skill at handling a mini-blimp might mean the Scoot can outrun much faster opposition.


It depends on how you handle the opposed test. If you're handling it as "scaled by how well you do", then that very situation can happen. If you handle it as "Best roll wins", then you run into a different set of issues.