Nitpick: 31 or higher!

Not necessarily. Not in a judo match. Not in a grappling match. To the uninitiated BJJ often looks boring because the pace isn't always fast and a lot of the strategy goes whizzing over your head if you don't understand what you're looking for.

In boxing or muay thai or kickboxing you might see a lot of blurring but if the fighters clinch things won't seem fast.




Also, I would add: regardless of what Wired III is *supposed* to do the fact is that in game mechanics it lets a wired guy discharge around as many rounds from an SA weapon as a normal guy can discharge in 1 complex action from a FA weapon. So in effect it lets you work the trigger that fast. And hence our resulting mass confusion and despair.

This is a fun academic question. Here's my take on the situations:

If non-reflexed guy sees the wired guy moving at ridiculous speeds with these punches might he not just cover up and go for a clinch? All that speed matters less if you're being clinched. Then, if I were the non-reflexed guy, I might try going to the floor for a grapple or something, since I could theoretically try to sit on the wired guys' arms or something.

I guess that the point of this is that as long as the wired guy isn't moving so fast that the normal guy is completely irrelevant (a la The Flash) the slow guy still has a chance to possibly make that speed less relevant if he could go for some kind of grapple.

Like, although trying to specifically counter or block each move that the fast guy throws would be difficult for the slow guy, the slow guy could still act in ways that circumvent even a very fast fighter. Think slow but inexorable heavyweight judo, I guess.

He could look extra cool by constantly beating the slow guy to the punch.

This part is a misconception. DimSum is *not* throwing 5 damaging attacks. He is throwing a maximum of two damaging attacks, and has the potential to make three damaging defensive maneuvers by possibly turning a failed attack against the attacker. The semantics are important in this case for picturing the way it works. The defending is harming the attacker while on the defensive.

The attacker, being faster, is providing more opportunities for himself to be harmed. If someone throws one punch at me, I have one opportunity to damage him should that punch be executed badly, because he came to me. If he throws four punches then I have four opportunities to damage him without going on the offensive, because he came to me. he is delivering hismself to me and providing me extra opportunities for me to hurt him if his body is writing checks his melee skill can't cash.

My only question is, when a character has an action available, and is able to successfully counterattack, does that forfeit his action?

I'm still kinda new here, so don't flame me too much for asking questions... Thanks!!!

No, counterattacking does not mean the character forfeits his normal action. My adjustment only comes into effect after a character has used all his normal actions for that turn.

My problem with this is that you get certain bonuses for declaring full defense. For example, the player in your example could start utilizing Evasion, since he can't counterattack anyway and is out of actions.

My preferred solution is to rule that you can only change Maneuvers on your action. That way, slower characters can't swap from offense to defense quite so readily.

Alternatively replace either with being called a heretic and cast out for preaching heresy.

In which case include this additional line: "You'll ignore toturi and get on with the conversation."

Firstly, my entire point was that wired reflexes DO NOT MAKE YOU FASTER. They only make you react faster.

Next point, if I'm a trained kickboxxer, and thats the only art I've trained in, its ludicrous for me to attempt any grappling-esque moves more than a clinch, as I wouldn't know any. Grappling, is MUCH different than stand-up fighting. Also, just a nit-pick, but you don't "sit on his arms or something". Theres quite a lot involved in it. (As for my justifications for my reasoning, in my 9 years of primarily studying kenpo, we also learned a variety of other arts which excell at a particular area, jiu-jitsu for grappling for example.)

Regardless, a very large portion of melee fighting is distancing. Keeping your distance from your opponent exactly where you want it. If you have a longer range, just inside your range, but just outside theirs, and if your range is shorter, just outside theirs, and moving in to close in yours, and very close in theirs for attacks typically. But, this is happily negated with a "reach modifier" thats only available to trolls and their metatypes, which really has no where near the sort of impact such a reach would give.

Also, as a last note to grappling, I personally, would almost never want to resort to it during anything close to resembling a shadowrun. Why? Well, me and my opponent are on the ground, his friend comes by and starts kicking me in the head, with little to no difficulty. Also, it takes a bit more time than a stand-up match.

Right. I was making a hypothetical statement.

Actually, sitting on the arms can be quite effective. From a mounted position, you trap one, shift your girth on it...trap the other, shift your girth on it. Since I weigh 200 pounds I would do that all the time when playing judo. Yes, there is more to grappling than just sitting on the arms, but sitting on the arms is one tactic.

One of my favorite things to do was this: http://judoinfo.com/images/osaekomi/kami_s...hiho_gatame.gif but to try and cross the guy's arms over his face before laying on top of them. Extremely frustrating if your arms are splayed flat across your face and someone's gut is immobilizing you against the ground.

Yeah.

This particular argument has been done to death all over the internet; the "broken glass and lava" argument. I would agree that wrestling with one guy in the situation you describe isn't really optimal. On the other hand, we're talking about shadowrun. IF some super Bruce Lee physad clone were to assault me with punches it might make less sense for me to try and box with him than it would for me to try and Gene LeBell him.

I would also disagree that grappling takes more time than standup. While it takes people a while to successfully grapple in the UFC when you have two heavily conditioned experts simply getting an arm breaker off would go much faster against an untrained person. It requires more conditioning and skill to be able to deliver a standing knockout with punches against an alert opponent than it does to glomp tightly onto someone and methodically twist his joints until they break. There's a reason that the current official military hand to hand combat manual is basically filled with stripped-down BJJ and not with boxing.

*Which* official military? Grappling might be taught to grunt soldiers, but IIRC, the Green Berets get trained in a striking style. Krav Maga, the offical art of the Isreal Military, involves a whole lot of knees and elbows and jabs.

As much fun as sitting on the arms sounds like, if you're grappling against someone with any modicum of skill in a ground-fighting art whatsoever, you will not sit on their arms unless you are massively stronger than them and brute force them into it.

Next, from a north-south position, like the gif shows, while beneficial, has its own slew of problems, if you're on top, and are able, you would 95% of the time be better off moving to a mount position, there IS a reason why it is considered the most advantageous position.

Lastly, in a real street fight, with someone well-trained against someone untrained (as in your example) would be extremely short. Any good shot that stuns someone immediately allows you to ensure they won't get up anytime soon with a good elbow to a temple, or similar move.

Just a note regardiing fighting in general... Most stand-up fights, between regular people on the street, end up on the ground. Actually, almost all of them do. Between two untrained people. The reason is, ground-fighting is slower paced, theres less chance of injury from strikes (as its harder to strike effectively while on the ground), as well as it being easier to neutralize your opponent trying to strike you.

With a trained fighter, I revert back to my distancing. A trained fighter will make it a very hard time for you to get inside and start grappling. Yes, its possible. If both are trained. Watch the tough-man or similar competitions, you get kickboxxers and grapplers mainly. It degrades into, can the grappler get it or not. If he can, 99% of the time, he will win. If he fails, 99% of the time, he fails attempting to come in, and loses the fight there (usually a knee to the face or similar shot).

So, in your example, of trained vs untrained, the standup fight will go faster, merely due to the faster paced nature of the style.

As far as the military using stripped down BJJ, well, the only time you will be wanting to engage in melee combat while in the military, is if your are entirely out of ammunition, or are otherwise seperated from your weapons. Also, grappling in such an instance could be a boon, as enemy soldiers are afraid of hitting their friend Bob who you are busy fighting with, just to try to help Bob out. In a shadowrun? I'd take stand-up over grappling any day.

It's what's in the Army manual for the grunts. I think you can get it pretty easily off the web on one of those sites that has a lot of the government military manuals; if not I can try to scrounge a link for you.

Also, Krav does have striking but it also has a lot of standup breaking. It's basically classical jujutsu.

I'm afraid I'm just going to have to disagree with that, because I've done that to people before who were decent judoka. Sure, it dosen't work every time, but what works every time against a trained person?

Yes, the mount is generally considered the best position. But you aren't always in the position to go for a mount. That's why you have other types of positions to fall back on. That's sort of like saying that since your rear cross is so powerful it's better to hit someone with that than your jab. Well, yes, but that dosen't mean the jab is a useless move.

A sucker punch could KO someone relatively easily. But if you're fighting with someone who is aware of you in many cases they would protectively shield their head with their arms and possibly retreat away from you pretty quickly so it would be less simple to land a decisive blow to their head.

Sprawl-and-brawl as opposed to grappling is a valid strategy. One isn't really clearly better than the other, but perhaps in the context of UFC grappling is more common.

Well the truth of the matter is that obviously it's best to have both. But if I had to chose one over the other, I'd actually go with grappling since that gives you more control over the enemy. In the context of a shadowrun you have a better chance of controlling an armed opponent's weapon if your knowledge and skills in the grappling department are strong.

Not in my experience, but I'm no expert in Krav Maga. From what I've seen, it's a nasty kajukembo vairant-- not many locks or throws, but a whole lot of strikes and breaks. It's definitely not a ground style, so you're right on that mark.

At any event, the thought that almost all fights end up on the ground is an urban myth. Grappling is a valueable skill, very useful in many situations, but it's hardly the be-all and end-all of fighting.

Actually, here's the thing. The average grunt soldier isn't likely to need HtH training at any point on the battlefield. Hand to hand only occurs after you've thrown your pistol at the other guy, and it'd be a very rare occurance for even that to have happened.

Joe Dogface HtH, therefore, isn't meant for the battlefield. It's meant to keep him safe in a barroom brawl. In that situation, arm bars and triangle chokes do become very useful, as long as you've got buddies to help out.