Firearms:

• Defended against with [Attribute]
• Ranged
• Simple Action
• Penalty vs. adjacent combatants

Close Combat:

• Defended against with [Attribute] + [Skill]
• Melee
• Complex Action
• Interception

Melee is inferior to Ranged combat in SR4, which few contest. While Melee does have some distinct advantages, it is generally agreed they do not compensate for the three distinct advantages using a firearm gives - Simple Action to attack, no skill on Defense, & the distance advantage.

This is an issue that has bothered me for quite some time, as I somewhat strongly feel the two should be roughly balanced against each other. When I began my current game, I brought this issue up with my players and asked for their opinions, proposing adjusting Ranged Defense to Reaction + Dodge (+ Dodge if on Full Defense) in an attempt to balance the two against each other. My players voted against that option, instead suggesting making melee attacks a Simple Action if I wanted to make them more powerful. In the end, I decided to try the Simple Action approach, but have found it quite unsatisfying (I do not think anyone has even used this ruling - players or me - and one of the players is an unarmed specialist).

As such, I am revisiting my original idea; instead of making close combat more effective directly, doing so by reducing the overall effectiveness of ranged combat. I will not be implementing this change in my current campaign (unless all players vote for it), but am interested in opinions on this house rule for potential future campaigns.

There are three primary effects I foresee from this change.
1) Melee combat becomes viable (in comparison to Ranged) - this is the desired result, & so I do not see any problems arising because of it.
2) Combat in general becomes less dangerous - this is not necessarily a bad thing, & if it becomes a problem, can be easily compensated for by increasing opposition.
3) Dodge becomes a "must-have" skill - this is the potential problem I am concerned about. If the change brings the importance of having Dodge up to that of other notable skills, such as Perception, there will be no real issue. However, if it makes Dodge the single most important skill, it becomes an issue, and one I am unsure how to fix.



Observations / Suggestions?

I toyed with another, smaller houserule:

When in melee range, use melee rules - even for 'ranged' attacks.

We use the same houserule. (It wasn't even intentional)
I'm the GM and didn't even notice that this was not the default rule until we were about 2 years into our campaign.
Goes a long way to increase the survivability of HTH combatants.

I see no reason to change anything. The firearm IS superior, but melee is still needed when the distance is short. There is a reason why people adopted handheld weapons over fists and feet. The distance weapon is the next logical step--and firearms are the current implementation of personal distance weapons.

Rather than change the rules, change your attitude. Put melee combat where it belongs and use the right tool for the job at hand.


***

If I were going to change the rules, I'd simply change damage. It is less disruptive and the higher damage reflects the truly nasty nature of impact weapons hitting the body.

For hands, feet and biological weapons, I'd set damage to STR/2 + x.

For any sort of handheld weapon, I'd use STR + x, unless it was crudely made or not intended for fighting. At that point, it would be STR - [1,2,3].

Lousy rules, completely unnecessary. That and "don't bring a knife to a gunfight"

There's lots of ways to get your ranged defense pool up... or penalize the other guys. One of the biggest is the good old 'full defense'... learn it, love it and how to use it.

Melee has two big rolls (which actually make combat MORE deadly, not less). The first is movement control, melee is one of the few things which can pin people in position unable to move. The second is, penalizing defense pools. By 'pinning' a target in melee, I make it easier for my allies to shoot (-3 defense, in melee... normally slightly offset by the GM by -2 cover from ally.... but when your pool starts bigger, 1 for 1 trades are normally in your favor).

And makes people using firearms more worried about keeping their distance.

There's a reason why people are trained to keep a minimum distance: People trying to bring a gun to a knive-fight usually end up dead.

Guns kill people. You can't dodge bullets. Swords kill people too, but you can dodge them. More importantly though, why are you/your players taking melee combat skills if they suck? Guns are cheap. Spend a day looking through alleys, and you'll probably be able to pick up a free Predator.

Now, I'm not saying that Melee is bad, nor underpowered.

Troll with a Combat Axe.
Strength: 16 is easy, right? 18 is even possible I think.
Agility: 6 Since we're making a melee character, we can probably swing it.
Combat Axe - DV: (Str/2)+4P Reach:2
Axe Skill: 4? Yeah, ok.

So, base DV: 12.
We roll our Agility+Axe = 10 dice.
But we have a friend in melee, taking us to 11 dice.
The defender (using his gun) can take a -3 from our reach.
d6 → [1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6] = 4 hits. Cool.

The defender will dodge. We'll give him 10 dice for his (Dodge + Reaction). But then he get's a -3 from our reach, leaving him with 7.
d6 → [1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6] = 2 hits, leaving us with a net 2 hits.

DV: 14.
Defender rolls Body(4) + Impact(4) = 8 dice
d6 → [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6] = 3 hits.

Defender takes 9 boxes of physical damage.

Yep, I'd never play a melee character. That dude with the gun didn't even die!

*Troll stabs himself if the face with the Axe and dies*

Chibu...

Good trick (especially w/ pistols above). Melee harden the pistol, get the clubs (pistols or block/parry) skill... and use it to parry the incoming blow.

Ending of Cowboy bebop was great in that way.. classic case of gun adept vs. sword adept.

Hell yeah! I definitely agree. One of my favorite characters did just that. I eventually had a custom Pistol made whit the 'sight' on the top replaced with a sharpened blade that formed around the barrel for the absurdity of counter attacking (SR2/3 if you have more net successes on counter attacking, you hit instead). However, Mr. Random Security Guard probably doesn't have that =( Poor guy...

Edit: Do note, that I was simply trying to explain that I believe that melee combat is already good enough. If you still do not agree, that's fine as the game should be fun for those who play. But after showing 9 boxes of physical damage, I can't really think of a good way to 'balance' it more than that... I suppose that, I think that if you made it STR+X DV (as opposed to STR/2) in most cases it would turn out to be similarly powerful to guns. However, when a troll like that shown would be doing a base of 20 DV... I think that becomes quite out of balance.

Sounds like one of those stupid gunblades from final fantasy.

Really, though just treat it like a bayonet or survival knife and you're fine.

Well, it's probably not what you want to hear, but melee combat *is* less effective than guns IRL. That's why even the countries famous for martial arts carry assault rifles. You can bet the Chinese military is trained in kung fu or something of that sort, but you can also bet they don't go charging into battle armed with nothing but tai chi swords. That would be highly insane.

Now game wise, if you want a game that's more cinematic, more kung fu oriented, more choppy and less shooty, than go for it. Might be fun. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with balancing melee and ranged combat, other than the issue of realism. But realism shouldn't get in the way of game mechanics, because the system's not that realistic anyway. IRL you can't dodge bullets -- you can make yourself a hard target, but you can't literally dodge them like you do in Shadowrun. And IRL, there's a huge penalty to trying to block a sword with your hands, but not in Shadowrun. So, whatever floats your boat. I prefer the status quo, however, because guns are clearly superior in any kind of quasi realistic world.

Yeah, Final fantasy minus the hugeness and (overt) absurdity was the inspiration. And yeah, i was planning to put on a bayonet, but it would have looked dumb on a pistol and well. And looking dumb is not an option in a cyberpunk game

'Attitude' has nothing to do with this. Nor does realism (although someone trained staying out of the line of fire is usually capable of doing so).


Which creates an inconsistent rules set, which is (in any game) at best undesirable. Further, damage is not the issue I am attempting to address, & increasing it could potentially unbalance it.


I covered those two advantages already, & as I stated, they are not enough to offset the downsides.


1) You do not 'dodge bullets' - you move out of the line of fire (aka you see where the gun is pointing, & move so it's not at you).
2) I did not say melee sucks - it still has some uses, but is greatly inferior to ranged. Also, we are not powergamers - we typically play what we want to play.
3) Using an extreme case in an attempt to justify melee being as effective as firearms does not support your position (16 Strength is not easy, & impossible except on a Troll). Further, firearms can easily obtain similar damage.

Hmm, what didn't work with the Simple Action for melee? Did it swing the ball too far into the other court and make Melee way to effective?

The Dodge thing could be a concern. Good skills are good skills but 'must-haves' might not be a good idea.

I wish there were a way to work with the counterattack option that was in SR3, but to soften it a bit so it's not as overpowered. A limit, or a penalty imposed on every counterattack could be possible. This is leaning more toward the court of buffing Melee, but still. (Perhaps melee can get SR3 style Defender Wins counterattacks as many times in a round as half their skill, round somehow? It would also make having a high skill rating mean something.)

However, those oldschool counterattacks don't really solve the melee vs. ranged issue. I mean, guns *should* be dangerous, absolutely. But...there shouldn't be such a huge discrepancy in the name of fun. Problem is while melee combat CAN get very, very nasty, this requires the use of maneuvers, martial arts styles, and high skill/attribute ratings. If you want to get good with a gun, you need a smartlink and decent/skill and attribute.

The toughest part of this is managing to keep firearms still a very credible threat(being guns and all), getting melee so it's at least somewhat even, and making neither of them a total-nobrainer while preventing the use of any ''must-haves.''

I considered one way-make a martial art maneuver(usable with any melee style, not just unarmed), that sort of plays on Watchful Guard called ''Cautious Advance'' or something of that nature. Allow one with this manuever, to, while they are advancing only(to prevent what you mentioned with Dodge becoming a must-take for anyone), to use their Reaction + Dodge/Gymnastics Dodge to defend normally. (Though I don't think they'd be able to do this and Full Defend-or can you advance and Full Defend? If so, then Dodge would kick Gymnastics Dodge ass here.) Of course, they couldn't parry or block the bullets. It might help-they could use either Dodge or Gymnastics Dodge(which a melee is likely to take anyway), and helps to fix the biggest problem of closing in on gun combatants, which seems to be the biggest block to them. Of course, it's not an auto-gimme; a Gymnastics Dodge of 4 and a Reaction of 5 is still 9 dice, which, against an excellent shot, isn't a sure-fire win.

Of course, it becomes a 'must-have' for martial artists, and on top of it requires that the melee combatant HAVE a level of martial arts to begin with to purchase the maneuver, but it might be a starting point of sorts.

Heh, mentioning Cowboy Bebop reminds me of something my friend said-''Don't bring a knife to a gunfight-unless your name is Vicious.''

Even if guns are generally more effective than melee combat, magic and cyberware makes melee combat a possible solution as main combat skill for a character.

One way is to boost the character's stealth so that the enemy just don't see/hear/smell/touch him before it's too late, another is to boost the character's dodge abilities and speed so that the enemies can't hit him while he charges them. It might not help much at long ranges, but most fights in Shadowrun are close quarters anyway. But even then, it's likely that the gunbunny would have killed everyone before you got close enough.

And even in melee combat, a gun can still be very dangerous. Especially when it's a scattergun hidden in your arm.

First, just don't like it (evidenced by us just not using it). Second, I am of the position melee is excellent as it is - the problem is ranged being better in comparison.


All of which can be applied equally to ranged combat.

Yeah, I have a problem... I try really hard not to be condescending in my posts... but it comes out wrong alot. I don't mean it though... =\

Also, I agree with your points. And, I didn't know whether or not your players were 'powergamers' or not. Were they, I simply wanted to note that it could be hard to balance because of extreme cases.

Was using the "Dodge" skill what you were refering to in the OP when you said you were going back to your original idea of limiting Ranged Combat?

If Yes: I think that could actually work pretty well to get them to similar levels. As noted you can, in fact, dodge before a bullet. With being able to shoot twice as fast as melee still, it might not be quite enough to make them actually even.
But other than those two things, they do work about the same. Did you get a chance to try out using Dodge with ranged as well? I assume from the wording of your post that you did not, however, if you did, I was wondering how it went (even in fake scenerios).

IF No: Do you already have somethign in mind?

On the one hand, I agree with everyone on the board who says that firearms SHOULD be better than melee weapons. In the real world, they ARE better, pretty much every time, unless you're trying to deal non-lethal damage.

On the other hand, I realize that this is a game which sometimes sacrifices realism in favor of balance, or of promoting certain play styles. So if you want to make melee combat a valid alternative to firearms because you like encouraging bad-assed axe weilding beserkers to charge the machine gun nest, and you don't care about realism, there are several ways to make melee more effective.

An idea that I've been toying with is to allow melee combattants to use their choice of either agi or str as their linked stat for unarmed and melee weapons (with exceptions for specific 'finesse' weaponss like monowhips, which could never default to str). Strength is an easier stat to pump than agility, especially for orcs and trolls. This makes the troll polearm melee specialist very very scary. There's also a decent arguement that for some styles brute strength would make more sense than agility as a linked stat. But it means that there's no longer any contest between the frail-but-agile elf versus the brutally-strong troll in HTH or using a sword.

I was going to write a long explanation of this, with supporting material and design elements, but then I thought, "meh." So here's the short version.

My suggestion is to stop thinking of it as Reaction + Skill vs. Reaction + nothing and start thinking about it as Reaction + Skill vs. Reaction + cover.

This isn't the greatest idea I've found. It's cool on the surface, but not in practice. It's been toyed around with, and what happens is that Strength goes from being rather dumbed down to kind of uber.

3 of the 5 regular races get Strength bonuses(don't forget Dwarves have equal strength to Orks.) It would greatly swing that in their favor. The damage, IMO, is just right; the Strength is halved, making it not too bad, and with the additions of other outside damage modifiers(Critical Strike, +DV to different melee styles, bone lacing, etc), it basically equals out, which is a good thing.

The problem with linking Strength is that it actually is an *advantage* in the end, even with a human or elf. If you are making a straight-up melee combatant with little in the way of ranged(enough to cover yourself), you likely are not going to really care about pumping Agility at all at that point. The +1 Agilty Elves get ends up being an average of 1/3 of a success. But pump Strength on any of those races(hey, they can get to 9 and there are ways to take it higher than that), and not only do they get their die pool, but their damage all in one shot. Agile fighters would then be more at a disadvantage at the end of the day rule-wise, since they would always have lower damage. At least now, overpumping Strength will give a few more DV, true, but you can't neglect Agility or you'd never land a hit.

To put it more simply, imagine(assuming you can choose)

Elf Dood A goes the Agile route. He takes a basic 3 strength, +3 DV martial arts, and a 6(9) agility with cyber or bio(hey, restricted gear is cheap.). He gets Ceramic Bone Lacing(+2 DV). His skill is 6. Die Pool=15, damage Str/2+2(5), +3=8P. It's scary, no doubt. BP cost for Attribues are 20(strength 3) and 40(Agility 6).

Elf Dood B goes the Strength route. He takes, instead, a 4 agility(well, a 3, but the elf +1), 5(9) strength with cyber, same bone lacing, and chooses to link to Strength. His skill is 6 as well. Die Pool=15, damage Str/2+2(7), +3=10P. BP cost is 20(Agility 4), and 40(Strength 5.)

So the second guy gets everything the first guy does, for the same costs, and is better in the end. The only thing Elf A has is that if he really wants to learn the agility based skills, he'll be a lot better at them in the end-but for a character who has no interest in them, it becomes rather pointless. (Stealth would come in handy.) Put races with a Strength bonus in and it becomes more than a no-brainer. (The one way this might balance out is if the character also wanted to be an expert in firearms, stealth, and the like. But in THAT case they'd likely boost Agility over Strength.)

I mean, I want to see Strength and melee boosted as much as the next person, but this isn't the way to do it, sadly, IMO. I really thought about it myself, but after looking at it-decided against it.

You know, I loathe the concept of 'balancing ranged and melee combat.' The idea of balance between these two is like 'balancing' armored and unarmored combatants. There is no balance. That's the point of ranged combat. It's one of the reasons why we have guns and don't run around sticking eachother with swords any more. In an Exalted or Final Fantasy type game, sure, I could see it. But in Shadowrun? No.

Trying to 'balance' ranged and melee combat is like trying to 'balance' Hendrick's Gin and Natty Ice. There is no balance. One is clearly superior.

Best argument so far. However, because you are bringing in situational modifiers, I respond with (although not exactly equal - usually) it being Reaction + Skill + Reach (or Friends in Melee) vs. Reaction + Cover.

Ranged combat still comes out ahead. Situational modifiers should never be included as a 'standard' modifier, & thus have no place in discussions revolving around said standards.

You speak as though having a skill isn't a situation. Is armor a situational modifier, or is resisting damage really Body + Armor? Or is the difference that the skill is not on a table?

Look at it this way: defense is [attribute] + [ability to mitigate opponent's accuracy]. In melee, that's your ability to put yourself or your weapons somewhere that will counteract your opponent's attack. In ranged combat, it's what's between you and your opponent. This way, you have your parity.

In case I need to support my point further, would anybody who is not me and has experience in the infantry care to chime in on whether cover and concealment ("C & C" in the lingo) just happens to be there or is something you arrange for yourself?

And that's pretty much the reason why you should keep your distance while using firearms, as well as the point of my houserule.

I've never bothered to mess with unarmed house rules. A pure melee adept can dish out plenty of damage under the current system and while making changes will empower non adepts it would seriously tip the scales further for melee adepts.

True, but if you're not behind cover in a gunfight your ass deserves to be shot.

I completely understand your position on making the game fun for your group; what I would suggest is to bring back the old-school auto-counter from SR3. Get rid of the "Riposte" maneuver. That way, a martial arts expert, when close up, will be absolutely and entirely destructive against an opponent; as it should damn well be! Like in real life, if someone with no (or low) unarmed combat skill comes in close-quarters combat with an unarmed master, their ass will be absolutely kicked. If they try to get away from said martial arts master, then there's the consumate attack of opportunity.

Thinking about it, that might be the most legitimate and realistic approach. Is it overpowering? Maybe, but that would be offset by the fact that your martial arts adept would have to be either patient, or wade through a storm of bullets to get that close to the target(s).

Yes, but how many melee adept specialists really come in handy against an assault rifle that's 30 meters away? Either way, they're gonna fight the battles they can win.

Plenty if you build it right. Sufficient IPs to spend on full defense while running toward the shooter, along with enough levels of Combat Sense. Maybe there's something nifty in the martial arts; I don't feel like looking it up right now. =i)

Cover is situational, because it is not a constant - the amount & location of cover can (& usually will) vary.
Reach & Friends in Melee are the best comparison there, because they to are situational.


Skill is not a situational modifier, because it is constant. If you have 3 Dodge, you always have 3 Dodge.

Bringing a knife to a gunfight when the gunman has a clear distance advantage will tend to get you killed - that's kind've the point of guns, isn't it? If assault rifles can be beaten by swords even in their element, why are there assault rifles? Swords are much cheaper.

Luckily, it's easier to turn a gunfight into a knife fight than to do the opposite. Throw a Force 6 Destroy Gun spell over the enemy squad, charge!

Triads tend to be very fond of these tactics in my Sixth World.

More often then not firefights take place in a building or on a city street were ranges are fairly close. One of my players has played his melee adept on and off for years. Tossing grenades when out of range or quickly closing for the hand to hand kill. With added martial arts moves he's become even deadlier.

If you're going for realism, this isn't a very solid rule - closing to melee while under observation is a solid way to get shot. Melee out of a stealth approach, however, is certainly a viable option. I do like the idea of using melee rules for a ranged weapon while in melee, though, with an increasing penalty as the firearm gets larger.

The average range of a modern urban engagement is 19 meters, which anybody can cover without making rolls in a singe Combat Turn.

Also, it's true: you couldn't close across an open field to engage a gunman in melee combat, and I couldn't close across and open field to engage a gunman in melee combat. Then again, neither of us have magical abilities or technological augmentations.

I hate realism in my SR. Yes in the real world guns are better than a sword, but in the real world there aren't 10' tall monsters wielding battelaxes and not someone going Danny Rand iron fist on you and punching holes in bank vault doors.

The RL guns are better, in a shadowrun setting they are thematically equal, and I'd like the rules to reflect that more. Personally the change I'd make is just the penalty for extra targets, a cumulative -2 dice for each additional target on all attack rolls. A melee expert stabbing 3 people in an action is fairly fitting for the concept of absurd melee guys, and fits the setting for what razorboys and adepts should be able to do.

Real life combat isn't turn-based, either. As soon as I break cover, someone shoots me IRL. But in Shadowrun, if it's not their turn they have to stand there while I run across the open space But show me an RPG where combat isn't turn based, and I'll show you an RPG with an unworkable combat system.

Whatever floats your boat....

Exalted, Feng Shui and other RPGs break the combat sequence into segments with each action taking a number of segments to perform. That way, combat isn't exactly turn-based.
I've house-ruled the initiative and combat resolution rules in SR4 so that actions happen simultaneously and while it's true it's a bit more difficult (especially when you're used to the RAW) it's still playable.

I still don't see any issue w/ the RAW here. Musp you haven't made any good case, you've only dismissed out of hand any observations of the differences. Calling them merely 'situational'. Ranged combat has ALWAYS been preferable to melee throughout history... archers were highly trained and prized troops if you had them, even in an age dominated by men at arms and peasant levees or armored knights.


Seriously.
Look at all the NEGATIVE dicepool mods on the ranged combat chart in SR4a.
Now compare that to melee (off-hand weapon, negative... the rest are all positive situationals or affect both equally).

Now look at the defense chart, okay a lot of mods... then more than half the chart adds things only relevant to 'ranged combat only'. Of those ranged combat only negative mods.. outside of 'defender in melee'. The rest are only for using certain 'spread attack' weapons (grenades, automatics, or shotguns).


Now consider the game setting, in shadowrun most combat is indoor/urban, room to room... and closing distances for melee is trivial normally. If they do it, they normally run (automatic +2 defense, and -2 ranged attacker dicepool). And they use full defense (tons more dice) and cover if they can. Once they're there... effectively the fight ends when one of them is dead/knocked out due to the interception/AoO system for getting out of melee.

If it's an adept... they'll be adding combat sense on top of that even (plus their augmented reaction stat).

Plus you ignore, that most melee types carry a backup ranged weapon (pistol or SMG typically).. so even if they're sprinting they can attack, or use covering fire to put the other guys heads down while they close.

Good point Falconer, melee is a great way to break stalemates because of how many negative mods it eliminates. You just have to make sure you have more dice than the enemy, or you'll whiff just as likely as not.

If you would actually look at the Ranged Combat Modifier chart, there are only three applicable modifiers to a Ranged vs. Melee comparison.

Attacking from Cover
Attacker Running
Attacker in Melee Combat

The first & second are almost always going to be exclusive from each other, & countered by Smartlink (of which melee has no comparable option).
The third is one of the few advantages I already listed & took into account for melee.

There is no significant difference in situational modifiers, & every other suggested tactic applies equally to ranged or melee.

You're leaving out the ranged-only defense bonuses as well, though. Why are you taking such a hostile tone anyway? The point of this thread was to equalize melee and ranged not because it needed to be done, but just to make things more interesting. That's fine. The people who think that it's unnecessary can hardly dissuade you from a house rule that isn't based on necessity in the first place, can they?

I have come to the conclusion from this and other threads that Muspellsheimr reacts with hostility towards ideas he disagrees with. But I don't think it's because he is actually hostile - it's just how he posts.

No, Musp just has problems w/ accepting counter-arguments gracefully. There's a few others. The only reason really to bother replying isn't to convince the poster, but so that others can see their arguments are off base and ignore them. Especially newer players who don't know better. I'll admit I've had my exotic rules readings as well, but I tend to accept the light when people post and give me the rules cites to back them up. Just remember it's not an argument to be won, it's a public discussion.

Anyhow... back to your regularly scheduled post.



Okay... lets run down your list..
Attacking from cover is NOT exclusive w/ running, I've sprinted into cover and attacked from it... it's not uncommon to keep running between cover to get a better position or flank/remove an opponents cover, or to *gasp* close into melee range
Melee penalty... I actually call this one in the favor of ranged. (there's a few things in play, point blank (+2), attacker in melee (-3); then defender in melee attacked by ranged attack (-3 defense). -1 to my attack pool for -3 to yours is a tradeoff.

Now admit that you're ignoring the other 90% of the table.

Full chart comparison
Ties:
Off-hand: tie
wound penalty: tie
Visibility penalty: tie
Reach/aiming aids: Tie (troll w/ axe +2 reach, vs. smartgun/laser sight/tracers)

Melee wins: (melee bonus only, or ranged penalty only)
Attacker Running: melee wins (no penalty), ranged (-2 penalty)
Attacking from cover: melee wins (no penalty), ranged (-2 penalty)
Multiple targets: melee wins (no penalty), ranged (-2 penalty)
Friends in melee
Superior Position (best ranged can do is eliminate cover... melee gets a bonus)
Opponent prone (especially w/ the amount of damage melee weapons do, incidental knockdowns are more common or martial arts which give attack to knockdown while still doing damage)
Charge attack
Recoil
Attacker in moving vehicle (no corresponding penalty
Attacking someone else while melee'd (see above... in this case you only get the penalty)

Ranged wins:
Aimed shot (not an option for melee, really only seen for snipers or krav maga though)
Attacking melee'er (point blank - in melee, vs. defending against ranged while in melee)

Already accounted for:
Pointblank... never applies unless you're in melee (or offing a helpless target, so I include it w/ in melee)


Now onto the defender chart:
Ties:
Surprise (ninja clones vs. snipers)
wound penalties
Defender in moving vehicle
Previous attacks
Defender prone

Ranged Wins: (defense penalties that only go to ranged attacks)
Attacking guy in melee
Spread attacks (shotgun, automatics, grenades)

Melee winst: (defense bonuses that only go to ranged attacks)
Defender running (and you control whether you're running or not)
Partial cover (no it's NOT mutually exclusive w/ running... they normally go together especially for melee guys closing in ranged combatants)
Full cover


By my tally up there... melee comes ahead 13 to 4. That's why I say you're ignoring the book.


Quite frankly... one of the reasons I hate DnD is that it's almost impossible to play an archer or ranged combatant as the system is heavily melee biased. All you'll do w/ these house rules is do the same thing to shadowrun.

While it is true that the there are more modifiers for melee combat, that really does very little against the huge massive weight of ranged combat is ranged and you lose precious passes closing range, its a simple action not a complex action. All those mods do is help cancel the defense dice disparity since in melee you get skill+attribute and not just skill.

The shadowrun setting and fiction makes melee combat a potent force, the rules do not without some seriously abusive character builds.

I partially disagree w/ that... most of the good melee builds I've seen are the B&E ninja types... and the melee makes a great silent combatant. And they rarely have too much trouble getting to point blank ranges. I think one of my favorite was a classical ninja packing throwing knives (for ranged use, some of them drugged), and a sword.

For the most part... SR combat is fought at extremely close ranges in room to room situations, where melee range is trivial to reach. So you're not wasting nearly so many IP's. And oftentimes the common melee combatants aren't players but summoned spirits I find. Who just materialize right next to the target and pin it down.

I don't think people realize how complementary the two approaches are in SR.

I do agree, the simple to fire is a big advantage though. But lets face it, guns are that dangerous, and w/ 60 years of improvement.... which is likely to improve more... melee gear or ranged gear?

Really about the only improvements to melee are better materials.

thwe
Actually the improvements to melee are materials, vibrostuff, ridiculous size and strength, and magic fist of death.

I really think my only complaint with melee is its virtually impossible when splitting dice pools to smack 2 people in a single pass. As a complex action its biggest hit in power comes in that you are basically stuck killing 1 target at a time, instead of the 2-3 a ranged type can do with guns. Virtually everything SR gets its melee concepts from on a thematic level has people kicking multiple peoples butts in one move or series of moves that feel more like 1 pass and not 1 CT with multiple passes used. Splitting pools is basically another way of saying don't do X, if they would change that rule I think it would liven things up a bit for melee combat. You would still have to close on the target, all multiple targets would have to be in melee range but it would allow the melee monster to clear a couple of goons in one move. It would probably still be weaker than ranged combat, the gulf just wouldn't be as wide.

You haven't seen an adept w/ the 'counterstrike' and two weapon defense in melee then.... the combination of adept powers and martial arts can get rediculous, and almost all martial arts deal are heavily biased towards melee tricks.

That guy could pick up an extra 8 dice or so easy just by parrying counter-attacks in melee and he wasn't even ambidextrous. (two weapon... always considered to be on full parry against melee attacks). He'd just go in, rack up a lot of extra dice... then split the pool and attack twice w/ about 12 dice on each attack. (basically attack him once, and he'd pick up 3-5 dice... attack him again and there's another 3-5)

I think that's part of my problem... adepts in melee are very strong already. This just hands them even more. I can understand the reasoning, especially when thinking about street sams. I just disagree with it.

Well I'd call a counterstrike two weapons master a rare build and not representative of melee combat on the whole. You can totally make lots of builds ridiculous but for the most part melee combat is kind of sad in comparison IME.

Now I have seen a Troll with 5 levels of combat senses and counter strike, because I played him. I was attacked in melee by a group of 8 relatively touch gangers. I beat them, which my GM did not expect, but I never was rolling enough dice to take out two at once. Without even trying I can make a ranged guy who easily takes out two targets and can frequently take out 3 when he can bring out the big guns. If I am trying it just gets worse. On a side not counter strike is awesome in these kinds of situations, but usually why are you attacking the two sword dervish of death in melee combat, or the Giant troll boxer. Shoot him and you might actually connect, and he gets no bonus dice.

I've seen some 20ish dice melee builds, but again its a kind of artificial rare build. I prefer to balance things around the normas not the extremes.

No, I don't think that build is all that rare or specialized (given how easy it is to buy the enabling maneuver/adept power). Really it only takes 5BP for the .5 point of magic, and 2BP for the maneuver out of chargen, and only a handfull more karma in play). The hardest part is putting 2 + 2 together and realizing, adept power plus this == lots more attack dice in melee).

A dedicated melee build should be easily capable of hitting 20+ dice. (9agi, 6(9) skill, weapon focus, reach bonus, specailization...), and the weapon focus is a mod not available to the gun adept and reach/smartgun tend to be roughly equal.


My friend above, wasn't is far from min/maxed... He was getting a little frustrated w/ his char and his assumed ineffectiveness.

He started w/ wildcat IIRC...had no maneuvers. He was a rather straight up unarmed melee adept. (3IP's, mystic armor, killing hands, motion sense IIRC). Also importantly he's not ambidextrous (so that's w/ a -2 to the offhand defense). He was having a hard time of it, and getting beat to a pulp regularly, so I suggested the counterstrike/Two weapon setup to him. (unarmed melee adept, so I suggested he hold a club or something in his offhand to block w/ to qualify, since the GM wouldn't let him consider his other hand to qualify for the maneuver).

He was rolling about 12 dice normally (unspecialized as of yet)

He has no ranks in combat sense... he now understands why this was better than his mystic armor.

He has 1 rank in counterstrike, plus the martial maneuver... hardly a huge number of dice.

A half point of magic and 4karma to buy a maneuver is hardly that hard to pickup or that twinkish.

I also suggested he start packing smoke/flash packs and blind the opposition, use the maneuver which reduces blindfight penalties on top of motion sense to attack w/ no penalty when other people are effectively blind. He'll be pretty scary soon, now that he has a little bit of a clue.