Hi Dumpshock! I've been reading this for a few weeks, and I thought it might be appropriate to chime in with a question of my own, which is as follows; is it just me, or are there abilities/items that are simply useless?

The ability that led me to this question is the maneuver Set Up from Arsenal. It states that you can make an attack action which deals no damage, but the nets hits of which are added to your next attack action against the same opponent. Is there any conceivable situation where using Set Up would deal more damage than just attacking normally would? Even though the book suggests using it with Finishing Move, I can't see why Set Up => Finishing Move would be more effective than normal attack => Finishing Move.

And stacked foci. I might be interpreting the rules incorrectly (always a possibility), but if the effective force is the sum of all their forces, and the cost to bind the stacked focus is the same as it would be to bind all the individual ones, where's the point in stacking them?

I'm sure these aren't the only (seemingly) useless things in Shadowrun, but everything else (who takes slimworms? what do you do with two free actions outside of combat, such as the multitasking adept power gives you?) has at least the slightest possibility of being useful that I can see.

Set Up may not be that efficient or effective, and I'm sure one can debate that, but if what you've stated is correct, it has a purpose.

The more net hits I have generated on a single attack roll, the higher the modified damage value of the attack will be.

This makes it more likely that the attack will still be physical damage (especially if the enemy is wearing a lot of armor) and not get degraded to stun, and:

Shunts a lot of damage onto the target at once, possibly a) knocking the guy out in one shot instead of letting him heal or receive healing between the two otherwise separate attacks, or b) just punching through the normally way too tough damage resistance (body + modified armor value) of the target.

Generally speaking, will you get more damage this way? Absolutely not. Your overall, average damage (assuming you're using a weapon or if unarmed have a solid strength score worth talking about) will be worse using Setup, because your weapon damage code only factors in once instead of twice. However, it could be situationally useful.

A spirit of high force or chopping up a city master. I still don't like the cap at skill rating limiting you to +10 dice at most 7 with abitude plus 3 from adept power. It never sealed over powered even if I got all hits did happen ended up rolling 48 plus dice with a mono whip. I cleaved a heilcoper in two.

Finishing move is very situational in its usefulness. But that is a common theme in Shadowrun. Often, being adaptable is far better than being focused and good.

To illustrate the usefulness of Finishing Move, lets look at an actual situation.

Hotfoot, the elven adept, is a brilliantly skilled and deadly martial artist and a first grade initiate.

Muggins the part time bouncer, sometime Syndicate debt collector is nothing particularly special but is a troll. I, as a player or GM in the game, would like to see the brilliant elf fighter be able to beat up a troll bouncer. But what actually happens?

Hotfoot, Adept
Elf, Initiate Grade 1


Muggins, Bouncer
Troll


I don't think we need to bother checking who wins initiative. Hotfoot goes all in with an unarmed strike.

Combat Turn 1:
Hotfoot rolls 13 dice (-1 due to reach penalty), and gets 4 hits. Muggins gets 2 hits to block. Hotfoot deals (with Critical Strike), a deadly 8P damage. Wow! But now Muggins gets to soak and rolls his 19 dice to soak. Additionally, the damage is converted to Stun due to his armour exceeding the DV. So Muggins scores 6 hits on soak and takes only 2S damage.

Now Muggins gets to take a swing at Hotfoot. Scoring 2 hits, Hotfoot takes a chance and doesn't go full dodge. Hotfoot rolls 4 hits (even counting Reach penalty) and easily sidesteps.

The remaining passes all belong to Hotfoot so we'll just assume similar actions and behaviour as the first one. At the end of the Combat Turn, Hotfoot has got the troll down by 6S. Maybe 7S if the wound penalty has become a factor.

Now lets see that combat turn again with Set Up.

Combat Turn 1:
Hotfoot, knowing its another generic wall of damage soaking that he faces, uses Set Up. Again, Hotfoot scores 2 net hits.

Again, the troll swings uselessly at Hotfoot on his action.

In the second pass, Hotfoot has 15 dice (+2 from last time). That's still not enough he thinks so he uses Set Up for a second time, getting a nice 5 hits. The troll has already defended against a melee attack this phase so is down to rolling 5 dice. We'll still call it 2 hit success for now though. So three net hits to Hotfoot.

In the third pass, Hotfoot is ready to do some damage. Muggins is down to 4 dice to defend. As we were generous with rounding up last time, we'll be fair and round down this time, giving him 1 hit on his defensce. Hotfoot is now rolling 16 dice and scores 5 hits, so 4 net hits in total doing 12P. Hooray! Hotfoot is now actually inflicting injuries on the troll instead of just dazing him. Assuming that Muggins gets the same 6 hits on soak, then he's just taken 6P of damage.

Can that really be right? Yep - looks it. By chaining some Set Up maneuvers, Hotfoot has swapped doing 6S to the troll over 3 attacks, to doing 6P in one final devastating strike!

Now this is a slightly arbitrary example. It shows how Set Up can allow a highly skilled but slighter of build character to actually damage a fairly standard brute. Facing off against a moderately better armoured opponent it still wouldn't be enough, but then in such situations, the martial artist would probably be using a weapon which would even it out. If the martial artist isn't an adept with a high-level of Critical Strike, then they still probably wouldn't be doing Physical damage against the troll, but then they might find Set Up useful just to score any damage on their opponent at all! Also, you can use the effects of maneuvers with other powers. For example, the Elemental Strike wasn't used but could have been on the final attack, and it would have made the power more effective.

Set Up isn't brilliant, but it is situationally useful and worth having, particularly if you are more the Bruce Lee type than the Bruce Willis type.

Regarding your other question about Stacked Foci - yes, they're very useful (again in the right circumstances). Firstly, they are a way around the maximum number of foci you can bond (you are likely to hit this limit before you hit the limit on total force unless you are exceptionally wealthy). Secondly, it lets you mask "more" foci with Extended Masking than you would otherwise. As you can only mask an additional 1 aura (e.g. a foci) per Initiate Grade, Stacked Foci can be very useful!

Khadim.

Set Up seems like it would also be handy for when you've got that one last Edge to spend on offense -- a few Set Up actions to build up your die pool should be handy, in order to really maximize your Rule of 6 and whatnot. The more (dice) the merrier!

Well actually, it would be a way of getting multiple Edge points spent on a single attack. Say if Hotfoot spent an Edge point on the first Set Up action, then chained it to the second and spent another in the next phase, followed by spending Edge for a re-roll on the last, actually intended to damage the opponent attack.

Terribly, terribly inefficient use of Edge, but you could do it for some absolutely critical fight against a do-or-die opponent who was just too tough to damage normally.

Note that you could also use Set Up for a Called Shot, kind of a melee version of Aim.

On a separate note, this thread is actually making me reconsider my stance on Martial Arts rules and Maneuvers. Previously I've never bothered with them seeing them as a sop to those people who wanted unnecessary detail in their abstract combat system. But looking at them with fresh eyes, I'm going to reconsider whether that was right. Set Up, for example, is actually a nice little tactical option.

K.

Well, yeah. That's where the Rule of Cool comes into play. Every now and then a GM should throw a dedicated melee guy a bone. Not every Shadowrun game has to be Heat or Ronin crossed with Elves and cyberware. Sometimes you've just gotta watch a bunch of Jean Claude Van Damme flicks or something, get out the dice, and let a PC punch a dude's head off or something. There's nothing like a dramatic rooftop fistfight, lit only by the Adept powers of the two martial artists involved and the occasional crackle of lightning or something.

The Martial Arts rules are another aspect of SR4 I don't have on principle, at least from reading through them and trying to digest them without any practical experience (read: gameplay) under my belt. I like that they add tactical options to a system I feel is otherwise too simplistic (what can I say, I really miss Combat Pool), and I've always been a combat-character sort of guy anyhow, so they're right up my alley.

The unfortunate thing about them (in my admittedly limited SR4 character-building experience) is that parts of the Martial Arts rules take up Quality points. I hate that. Hate, hate, hate. I'd like it a lot better if they just cost build points, period, but weren't specified as coming from that capped-at-35 Positive Quality "pool" you've got.

Oh yeah. Our group has some very descriptive GMs. We are also kind to every type. My GM did a great description of our team's rifleman getting that awesome shot. He also described my guy, getting a 15P hit on someone after successes, kicking a man's head right from his body.

It kept our morale up that night, making us feel like total badasses.

Set up is as said-situationally very useful. It's not as always-useful as something like Kick Attack-which I changed to Lunge Attack in my games, so people actually can take a variety of martial arts and aren't all Tae Kwan Do masters, which is what happens. This way, if someone wants to be the Savage/TKD master, like my fella, Kick Attack works, but my friend's boxer also gets the Reach, since he's trained to do big, lunging punches which likely have a Reach benefit, as well. In other words, some styles aren't automatically more win-oriented because they kick more, and choice of style becomes much more open and flavorful. Other of those ''always-useful' i find are Watchful Guard(melee is already at a bit of a disadvantage, being able to start those penalties later is great).

That's untill the sami steals your kill with his Ares Alpha. Indiana Jones was cool, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cdYrBsWhtk

Well! Thanks for the perspective, Knasser. It never occurred to me that someone could chain setups.

Also, Critias... now all I can think about is how you'd work "the occasional crackle of lightning" into visibility modifiers.

Hmm...Elemental Strike: Light?