You don't know anything about the game we were playing or the players themselves, and you're still throwing insults like that? Originally, most of our pools weren't beyond the 8-10 range. Unfortunately, that meant that when the street sam and I got into a fist fight with some dockworkers on cram, I got my a** handed to me in the first IP and the street sam had to take the rest of them on himself. After that, 3 of us decided to change out characters(with the GM's encouragement) because of how ineffective we were. We made our characters with the power level HappyDaze was running the game at in mind. The breaking point came when we were fighting a Toxic Shaman in a R:2 Background count(Magical Complications), with Haida pirates shooting at us(Multi-phase Resolution System) in the middle of a rough storm(Numerous Modifiers for lighting, wind, and rain). The 7 seconds of the fight we got into, took more than 3 hours to resolve, and we still weren't done.

If HappyDaze had a problem with our characters, he could have said no to mine(The Psionic Tradition Mystic Adept) at least, the 3-4 days before game when I sent it to him.

As a side note, most of the group disagrees with the way some of the rules interact as well and we're House Ruling the aspects of the game we don't like and are moving on. If you still think we're a bunch of munchkins take a look at the House Rules thread I posted awhile back. The rules themselves recently got chopped due to lost connection while editing, but you can see the kind of responses we got.

I've mentioned some of the events once or twice.

Seriously though, I take the darkest parts of the Sixth World and crank things up a notch, the world is literally a shit hole, wageslaves can and are executed at the whims of management, stepping in and stopping a father from selling his daughter's body for drugs is likely to get you shunned, ect, ect...

Throw in a PvP attitude where the proper responce to thinking another PC might rape you is a prempetive strike and a dicidely Pink Mohawk slant on things and you've got my games pretty well pat.

IEs do exist, but since they had to result to some really nasty Blood Magic in order to keep enough Mana built up in the downcycle they tend to be some pretty sick and twisted fraggers.

Oh, and for the most part, I focus on the tech side of things, although magic does have its moments.

And although it might sound like a blanent counterdiction considering my starting points, I try to play everything as straight laced and "realistic" as possible.

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As for house rules ... hmm, let's see, off the top of my head...

Essence Loss only affects your Max Magic, not your current, but everyone and everything with the exception of Horrors has a Hard Cap of ( Magic 9 ), ( Magic 10 ) if they buy an Initate only Edge. (Yes, this means that with my second house rule, the only real reason to Initate past Grade 3 would be for the metamagics, even when you get cybered.) And yes, Dragons are probably Horrors, thanks for asking.

Enhancement is only good for whatever Rating your x1.5 would be, no more ( Reaction 1 ) characters boosting their stats up to ( Reaction 9 ). They could get ( Reaction 4 ) however.

Betagrade cyber can be fairly easily found, but forget about Delta.

Although "Blood Magic" is considered "evil" and has bounties, it is perhaps the most common magical tradition of all.

Banishing only gives you drain if the Spirit wins.

Astral Combat is LoS, and is a "must have" ability for anyone who dabbles in the Astral.

All spells cast while in Astral Space must be overcast at max Force, and the drain can't be soaked.

While hacking, a Decker is limited by his Logic Rating in the same manner which a Mage is limited by Force. Technos may choose either Logic or Int at character creation.

I don't really use the book traditions, magic is personal so make your own fragging tradition. Spirits tend to be downplayed in my group, but thats just a personal choice.

No, you may not use Banishing to "Catch them all".

I don't really use Avalibility Caps at char gen, but we instead have a verbal understanding about what is and is not reasonable. Of course, since I tend to do most of the actual "book keeping" portion of char gen for most of my players it isn't really a problem either way.

Quickening can either use Karma to "tie off" the spell, or the Mage may power the spell with a point of his Magic, he gets the Magic back after the spell is dispelled.

SnS is not "Spirit Bane", sorry.

Yes, Direct Combat Spells are more "effective" than Indirect ones, but are you willing to be laughed at by all of your magical buddies for being a wimp?

Edge is a "magical ability" that all metahumans have, and is the ability to tell the universe is go frag itself. This means that "Pink Mohawks" are going to have higher Edge than Ice Cold Pros or corp drones anyday.

*EDIT*

In play it basically boils down to trying to take away as many dice as possible from the other side while stacking as many mods in your favor as possible.

Oh, I almost forgot, Mages can only use one of their IPs on "magical" abilities, and Deckers can only hack with one IP while in AR.

Speaking as the Street Sam that Womabt was refurring to, my highest dice pool (before modifiers) was 11. For Automatics. And I was basically tearing through opposition at a rate far above the rest of the team, mainly because of my extra IP's. I did have 7 edge, so on exactly 7 rolls I could do some pretty awesome things, but otherwise, I was neither min-maxed or munchkined or whatever else you care to label it as. Since combat in SR takes so long, I was de facto monopolizing table time, and it wasn't even enjoyable for me, more like tedious dice rolling.

As Wombat stated, the last combat took THREE HOURS. I don't think we even finished it. If you have some constructive advice on how to speed combat up, I would appreciate hearing it. For myself, I am inclined to do away with the Initiative pass system completely. Either going back to SR2 initiative or just having no passes at all.

Runners should be trying to complete their objectives and GTFO, not sticking around to mow everyone down.

I try to keep combats small and decisive though. A big battle royale like what you're describing isn't really my style, i'd probably make it more impressionistic. Runners should be trying to complete their objectives and GTFO, not sticking around to mow everyone down.

If it's the players trying to figure out what to do that is slowing things down, you can try having them read FM 90-10-1 AN INFANTRYMAN'S GUIDE TO COMBAT IN BUILT-UP AREAS which will hopefully give them some pointers.

The 7 seconds of the fight we got into, took more than 3 hours to resolve, and we still weren't done.

We got to Pass 3 of Turn 2, so less than 6 seconds in >3.5 hours.

We got to Pass 3 of Turn 2, so less than 6 seconds in >3.5 hours.

Whoa.... can i say to you: "With all respect, but you are doing something wrong"

Unless that is the objective. These generalities you're throwing out aren't doing you any favors, Shinxy. As HappyDaze described it to me in another thread part of the objective was to neutralize this group of pirates, which pretty much guaranteed the team would see some direct confrontation. You could call that an adventure design flaw on HappyDaze's part, but then that only makes his argument stronger. Shouldn't the system be flexible enough to handle small decisive combats and a "battle royale" (to a reasonable extent- its not supposed to be a tabletop war game)?

I can only conclude that the players and GM are bad at consolidating modifiers and making good use of their time.

When i am the GM i rule it this way: When it is your turn, you say what you are going to do. No thinking, no asking for advice, NOTHING. (When they are in a battletec, er Tacnet you can ask a SHORT question every combat turn. Like: "Where should i go? Who should i take next? Anyone injured?) If you don't know the rules of whatever you are doing (Spell, power, cyberware etc.): Well, too bad... you have no time to look it up. (You can have the book open and such, but no "Hm... which page is it again? Hmmmm... let me read for bit")

This all motivates people to know/learn what they can do and also prevents this

Actually, it punishes those that don't have time between playing sessions to look shit up. It's a fucking game. A player that never looks at the materials between sessions isn't doing anything wrong and shouldn't be punished.