What? No. I was just joking back. I was saying "crap" and "poop" and stuff like that. If I'd actually been ranting or raving, it would've been more colorful. Yes. "Colorful."

Melee combat needs to be based on Agility, IMO. Melee combat should be affected by all physical stats. You can argue that some matter more than others, and you'd probably be right, but you don't want to make any of them irrelevant.
Reaction determines initiative.
Agility determines the attack.
Reaction resists the attack.
Strength determines the damage.
Body resists the damage.
If you switch the attack rolls to anything else, Agility isn't useful anymore in melee combat so your house rule needs to include a use for Agility.

I've had several melee battles in my recent campaign and have never had an issue. The two best ones were my troll adept player vs an entire gang of scrubs and Sam the Street sammie vs another gilette.

The troll adept has some ridiculous base damage, but average dice to hit. However, although some people may gripe that you can only make one melee attack per action, that is not exactly true, as you can split your dice pool to hit multiple opponents. This is exactly what he did, dropping three in range (thanks to reach), charging and dropping three more with his extra initiative pass (they were all clumped up due to terrain). Yeah, it won't happen every time, but 6 gangers splattered in 2 IP is pretty damn good.

Sam the Street Sammie has Strength 7 cyberarms with twin spurs and 6 in cyberweapons (specialty spurs). The boosted reaction doesn't hurt either. She slices and dices pretty well.

I should add now that I remember it I did make two changes:

1) I reinstated the +1 dice pool bonus from third edition for using two weapons at once. This just seemed like common sense to me (why else would Sam have two, if not to cut and parry with both?)

2) I don't allow the -3 dodge penalty to apply to firearm attacks made in the same melee.
For example, if A & B are fighting in melee, and C is a short distance away:
A is -3 to shoot B and C, but neither has a dodge penalty.
C can shoot A or B and either would get a -3 dodge penalty.
If C was also in a separate melee, C would be -3 to shoot A or B but A and B would be -3 to defend.

I just didn't like people being able to shoot point blank at no penalty. My players seem to like it.

What happens if we allow it to be more like a called shot.

The defender can chose to parry for Reaction + Weapons skill or Block for Reaction + Unarmed skill, or Riposte for Reaction + Weapon (or unarmed) (threshold 2).

If the Defender wins the net sucesses count as net hits on a hit against the attacker. The Riposter is generally only going to work when vastly better then their attackers. (effective 6 dice penalty); however, if a group of kindegarten kids are attacking Jackie Chan, somebody is going to get hurt

Don't forget that Strength plays a major role in subdual combat - if a high Strength troll gets ahold of you, you are in bad, bad trouble.

Strength does increase damage, but not by that much compared to the necessary investment of points. Nevertheless, melee chars should have no problem doing severe damage with each blow. No need to increase that. Strength is very important for fights on an equal level, where larger numbers of net hits are unlikely. Even more going up against armored targets.

@Sir Killfist: Melee players should take note of their environment. Basic damage can go way up, maximum strength/2 +3 for cybered chars (unarmed) and even higher for others. If you find your DV lacking, compensate. Currently one of my players is frustrated because he is lacking real enemies in close combat (once he manages to reach melee, the fight is over).

We use the melee rules as written. I´d still prefer less skills under both agility and intuition, but that would be my only reason to change things around.

I can't help but wonder how many of the people who insist only one or two attributes matter in melee have ever been in a real fight, or gotten much hand to hand training (be with an eastern martial art or western boxing or wrestling), etc, etc.

Depends if fighting at bars counts as real fighting.

Well lets see 5+ years Wu Shu, and my female Philippina/Hawaiian teacher could walk under my punch.

She always said it was not strength but body alignment, she would stand on various body parts, if you body was aligned correctly, the body part held fast.

I can still recall the first session where she had opening and closing our hips....

She is very fast, and can do remarkable maneuvers, but there was her teacher a 70+ year old Chinese female that regularly, whipped my teachers butt.

So yes I have used what I was taught, I was assaulted in a park late one night by 4 persons, I walked away with some bruising, as for them....

She was right, I did not think about what I was doing, I applied the most correct attack/defense movements/patterns, with little conscious thought.

This is a game, that uses abstract concepts/ideas on combat and or melee combat.

Is it like anything in RL no, but then I want to play something more enjoyable than RL close combat.

Proposed rule: The player gets to choose one FIXED attribute of (REA,AGI,STR) used with his close combat skill. Thats even RAW because the GM can call skill + appropiate attribute instead of standard attribute anyway.

Effect:
- Players choose their strongest attribute, higher DP = more damage
- Strength is now the best attribute for close-combat-types to have.

You would be going back to trolls ruling melee again, then. Take a troll, and give him the Exceptional Attribute quality to start out with 11 Strength. Add muscle augmentation to boost it up to 13. Add in a troll's reach, and you're at 14 dice already. Get the Aptitude quality and a skill of 7, a specialization, and 3 dice of adept improved ability, and you're rolling 26 dice, assuming that you're using unarmed combat. If you are using a force: 2 combat axe weapon focus, it goes up to 30 dice (2 more from reach and 2 more from the weapon focus).


It seems too easily abusable to me. Like I said, trolls already rule melee due to their reach and damage soaking ability. Making it easier for them to hit people, too, doesn't make as much sense to me.

i think you meant "add muscle augmentation to boost it up to 15". if not, your math is off by two dice.

it's worth pointing out that a human or elf with this build would be throwing 20 dice on unarmed attacks, or 24 dice on axe attacks. a dwarf or ork would be throwing 23 and 27 dice. so a maxed-out troll gets, at most, six more dice than anyone else. all the rest--the specializations, the weapon foci, the aptitude--kinda cloud that.

Also as the rules are written with an elf who does the same with agility he gets 12 dice from his stats instead of whatever from the troll in strength. So whats worse 12 dice in everything fighting from one stat or 16 dice from one stat for just close combat.

Personally I think the agility monster is much worse. Pick your poison once you have a system where stats add into skills and different races get stat bonuses you will have X race rules Y situation occurring. And with skill caps there is no catching up with skill to compensate for the weaker stat.

gah too farkin slow, need to hotsim things i guess.

I didn't say so (sorry), but I was assuming a char-gen example, so limited by Availability to Rating: 2. Post char-gen, you might as well add a suprathyroid gland to raise Strength to 16.

And the elf would be 4 points behind, not 3 - there's that point of reach. And the elf was previously the most broken example. And even so, the elf also won't be doing nearly as much damage (unless they pick up monowhip for their weapon, but specializations aren't allowed for exotic weapon proficiencies, so that's 2 more dice lost to the troll). The troll with 13 Strength will have a base of 7 damage before factoring in weaponry, bone lacing/augmentation, and/or crititcal/penetrating strike.

nm.

Why should superstrong trolls NOT rule melee combat? How is that worse than agility-elves ruling melee and several other things, including nearly all kinds of firearms?

I have to throw in with the melee trolls should rule crowd. An elf or a human getting into a fist fight with a troll better be a highly trained individual. Most combat sports have weight classes for a reason. A (naturally) large individual generally has an advantage over someone smaller. Sure, if someone is a truly muscle bound/overweight/unskilled whatever, they very well could end up losing a fight (former sumos haven't done so hot in the UFC, for example, since they're both overweight AND trained in an art that's largely ritualistic), but when talking about trolls we're not talking about guys who pursue strength to the exclusion of other goals. Trolls are only marginally clumsier than humans and can be twice as strong as humans. A toned and conditioned troll can weigh 300 kilos without being overweight or muscle bound. What we have here, gentlemen, is basically a fraggin' bear who can learn kung fu. As such, I find it reasonable that they could learn to be pretty damn dominant in hand to hand combat.


[EDIT]
Anyway though, I'm easily able to live with either agility or strength being used as melee's "to hit" stat. I just rather dislike how easy it is to almost totally disregard the strength part of the equation via shock weapons and monowhips. I find it kind of goofy that even your average 5-8 strength troll is better off using a monowhip or shock glove in many scenarios. I guess I'm saying I'd rather just play around with the damage values a bit (I'd love to see troll bows nerfed and strength based melee in general buffed) and leave the rest well enough alone. Including all attributes into melee combat is a fine idea, but it seems to get handwaved away in practice.

The problem with strength is that while it only applies to a narrow field, it makes you MONSTEROUS at that field. The aforementioned troll with 13 str could do 15P with a bow and some arrows, and not have to worry about carrying legality (unless you're going to start qualifying those "arrows" as javelins), and more if you switch over to custom arrows, like hollow shafts filled with... explosive foam. or something else in the realms of silly

It it not as widely useful, but properly applied can be deadly. The Hulk example, he waited until he could hit, and ended it in one shot.

If you're going to pull from movies/literature, i should point out that many martial arts films have a staple of "This bruiser killed my master in a fair fight, so now i must train and enter this tourney/track him down/fight the organization he (works for/runs)"

If, cinematically, a supertrained but elderly kungfu master can break a boulder with a punch, what do you think a reasonably trained but mighty mighty Troll can break? If your answer is "just about anything" then you might be paying attention.

Aikido is radically different from boxing, but specialization in either still yields a +2 dicepool. If you're looking for a place to make houserules, there would be the spot to start. Why not make each "style" provide something other than just a flat +2. Maybe Boxing allows you to use strength instead of agility (having boxed for 3 years, i can say this is not accurate. Boxing itself has a large number of styles and techniques, even if at its based level it is brawling. You can lose in boxing from a sheer technical standpoint, if the other guy is fast, uses lots of well aimed taps, and makes you look like an ameteur). Perhaps one martial arts form or another uses Intuition instead. Or it uses agility or reaction, and gives access to "counterthrows" similar to the adept power's first rank from street magic. Add spice and simmer for your own homebrew experience.

Lets look at those numbers. That Elf, who we'll call Quick Dick with 12 Agi and a 20 dicepool, lets pretend they have 4 str, for shits and giggles. Using a rapier (hey, if you're going stereo type, go all the freakin way) thats what, a +1? +2 to damage? They're doing, on average (buying successes) 4P with 5 hits, max of 9P. The Troll, who for Humor sake, will be named Captain Mc Angrypants.

So, QD is doing 9P (or 10 with that fireax) on average, given no successful dodge.

Captain McAngry pants might not be dead, but he'll be PISSED. so, 13 str to start with for him (to prove that COMPLETE MAX might not be needed here to prove my point) and a fireax. For arguements sake, lets say he has 9 dice from skill+stat. Then another 3 from reach. 12 dice, buys 3 successes (i know you can't buy successes on a combat test, but this is theory here). 13 str turns into 7P base, +3 base from the ax, +3 successes. 13P damage. Not bad, neh?

Or, change it up a bit. The Captain is really an adept. He throws down the ax, and whips out killing hands, and deadly strike 4, as well as bone density 2. Thats 7P +1(bone) +4(adept cheesemonkery) + 3(successes, hey, easier to buy skills, right?)

The Captain is doing 15P, on average, with his "bare fuggin' hands", enough to kill almost anyone in one hit before called shots, special ammo, or any other such silliness.

Yes, Quick Dick can pick up any gun and do more damage, but Captain Mc Angrypants can just as easily pick up a bow and out damage panther cannons.


Damn i ramble. My point though? As it is, average vs average across races, troll wins. Ultraspec vs ultraspec across races, troll still wins melee, and starts to do some rediculous things with bows. You know what? LET THEM. the poor troll's gone and paid 65+40+skills+magic+implants to do so. Dropping 100-200 points on melee/bows? Should be worth it.

BTW whipstitch, thanks for reminding me. I need to give my army of bears ninjitsu lessons.

for when they drop from the trees

Yeah, that's why my dream scenario would be compressing the damage ranges a bit, and changing melee attacks to simple actions. Ain't happening though. I'm in no rush to make strength the "to hit" attribute but I'm tired of not even considering anything but monowhips and shockhands for anything under 10 strength. I mean, I like fluff as much as the next guy but being melee oriented comes with enough hurdles even when making "optimal" choices.

The real problem is having trolls as a player race at all. They just don't fit in properly as one. They're entirely too large and too physically powerful conceptually to be "fair" next to the other available races. Shadowrun's system is simply too niched and specialized to allow generic rules that apply fairly to everyone.

Since there's not much you can do about removing them without having some handwaving going on ("a new VITAS plague sprouts up and targets only trolls the world over, eliminating nearly the entire population of them!"), you pretty much just have to deal with the fact that their stats are ridiculously overpowered in situations such as melee combat. You won't find a happy medium with any set of rules without either completely revamping who and what trolls are, or breaking said rules for everyone else.

Or you could always just say "No Troll PCs in my game," and call it a day.

Of course, the guys who want to play Trolls would have to then revert to just being "gigantic, even for an Orc!" instead, but the rest of their character concepts would be pretty much untouched.

It should also be duly noted that 300kg would definitely be on the extremely large end of the black bear population. Trolls are generally BIGGER than black bears.