Let's say you get rid of the whole idea of "initiative passes." Everyone takes one set of actions per combat turn.

Wired reflexes, improved reflexes, etc. would have reduced functioning, so let's say their prices are reduced by a large amount (nuyen, drain rating, etc. all get chopped down). They would still give bonuses to initiative, possibly Reaction, or Dodge skill, or whatever.

Do you think a change like this would make Shadowrun 4 combat more or less fun for a greater number of players (obviously combat monkeys would grumble, but would it really make them terribly worse at what they do?)? Would it make character creation more fun if you didn't have to worry about IP boosters? Would it make throwing street thugs and goons at players more fun from the GM's perspective?

I don't have enough experience with the system to judge. I am curious what other issues a house-rule like this might bring up.

I was playing with a group of new players the other day, and one of the first things I noticed was that they made the mistake of not gobbling up enough IP boosters (my hacker and drones were running around with 3 IPs, while the street sam and mage had 1 each). It seemed lame to be stuck with 1 action just because you didn't realize how ridiculously important IPs were.

My Sunday Night game plays with 3 IP for all characters. Its more like 1 IP though.

The only noticeable gameplay difference, mages rock a few magic harder. A hidden difference, its easier to calculate movement.

It takes away some color. However, for ancient timers like myself... the fact that extra IP are after everyone acts took much more.

take some cram, spend some edge. its what my NPC's do. I don't think every character needs 3 IP's all the time. mages can summon spirits with 2 IP's, riggers and hackers get 2 or 3 when online (and when aren't they?) and drones get 3, so if you're a street sam that wants to be fast, sure, get move by wire. if you want to be a slow tank take cyber arms and torso loaded with armor and body and all those kinds of toys, then laugh at the guy that hit you 4 times to no avail. I like the "faster than humanly possible" option. but I think its not a big deal if you don't have it. let's face it, between Asteral perception scouting and all the matrix stuff, the super fast street sam is spending a lot of time sitting around waiting for his or her turn as well.

I'm assuming all the enemies only get 1 IP in that game too (unless they're boosted somehow)?

Hmm, here's an interesting idea. What if by default all characters get 2 IPs instead of 1? So instead of 1 IP dude vs 4 IP dude (that's 4 actions for every 1 action), it'd be 2 IP vs 5 IP (or 2.5 actions for every 1 action, at most). In the case of simple wired reflexes, that'd be 3 vs 2 instead of 2 vs 1. Still an advantage, but not doubly so.

Everyone has 3 IPs. Which means its basically the same as saying everyone has 1 IP, except for movement and a few other factors that carry over between passes but not turns.

Everyone gets the same IP.

My advice for anyone wanting to slow down combat and only give everyone one pass is allow anything that gives extra passes to equate to an bonus of 2x rating to all physical actions:

IE: Wired 3 character would get +6 dice to defense, +6 dice attack

A short time ago there were a couple threads that hashed this topic out quite a bit. One of them did a real good job compiling a list of suggested alternatives to the system. Now, I'm an old-timer and I remember the SR2 days. If your group's Move-by-Wire Sammie rolled a 38 for Initiative and you (the lowly Mage) rolled a 5, you had to wait while the Sammie took a pass at 38, another at 28, another at 18, and his final one at 8... and then it was your turn.... and there was nothing left to do.

SR4's system doesn't look so bad now, does it?

I'm tempted to limit Wired Reflexes to level 2 and jack up the cost and penalties (either you're a twitchy freak, or it's turned off), limit synaptic boosters to level 1 and raise the cost about 2.5x, and increase the cost of MBW to something silly (and that pesky temporal lobe epilepsy might show up more often, too...)

This will both slow down the game and give an edge to adepts, for whom spending 5 magic on 4IP suddenly makes loads and loads of sense.

Thats a great idea............NO
So your gonna make adept even more OP, their allready the only ones who can easily get 4 IP:s at chargen(especially know that SR4A lowered the cost to 1,5/2,5/4)
and you plannning make the other options even worse, thats a good idea.

Don't be suprised when you get handed charsheets for an all adept party.

I've heard of people dropping the price and essence of all of the reflex boosters, and having them only add to Initiative/Reaction instead; and everyone gets 1 IP-with the option of spending Edge to get another pass.

I haven't played it, but reports said it worked well; it did lead to folks spending some points toward Edge, but they didn't end up with a whole party of Mr. Luckies or anything.

To be honest, i dont like the idea of changing the IP system to less actions per turn. Whenever i GM a game, we have a good spread of IP's with 1 (the non-com) 2 (the CC adept) and 3 (the gun-adept). Yes the 3IP adept tends to kill things in the face pretty damned quickly with his 6 Ruger shots every combat turn, but the characters with less IP dont really mind as they still do stuff, and have the option of burning edge to go again. They also tend to hold actions a lot.

If ever i did modify the IP system (which i probably wont) it would be to go with giving everyone 2IP's base, with bonus's staying the same. I dont think i would like it myself as a GM though with that may passes, as each turn would start taking a lot longer.

Thanks for making me miss the old days. And I used to play the Shaman.
There was plenty left to do though.

Is he wielding two Warhawks or did you forget that its a Single Shot pistol?

I'd wager dimes to donuts the gunslinger is using two Warhawks. Dual wielding gun adept is a fairly common build, and alternating between two weapons to ameliorate recoil/firing mode issues is one of the better uses for that setup.

On the topic of Matched IP's... Would you enforce that on all aspects of the game? Would spirits only have a single IP? How about Drones?

I will agree that when everyone has 3 IP's then it is no different than if everyone has 1 IP... However, that would seriously alter a great amount of technology and many options from the system... Any ideas on how to reconcile that? Just Curious... I know you were asking for opinions on that very matter...

We have had no real problems in our campaign between those with the single IP vs. those with the 4 IPs... Two of us also have 2 IPs and 2 have 3 IPs... Hacker has 4 in the Matrix or when Jumped into a Drone.

Two Obvious benefits for High IP's...
1. If characters possess 3 or more Physical IPs, then Spirits are at a possible handicap for those who are faster than they are...
2. Same goes for the Hackers who have 4 IPs in the matrix...
3. And don't forget that all drones have a base of 3 IPs...

These are reasons to seek out these pieces of equipment or magical augmentation. Without them, the sprites, spirits, and drones have to potential to run rampant over those with less IPs. it is whay it is good for a team to have a good mix of IPs, so that they have options to make a difference in the various scenarios that can come up in combat... when you have more options, it is a good thing...

By the same token, making all things equal in the IP category, well it removes some of the flavor of the game (but definitely not all)... The groundbreaking Cyberpunk roleplaying game by R. Talsorian provided only single actions per round for all character types... Matrix, Street Sam, Drones, and even the 'Borgs... unless something changed in later editions...

Just My Two Cents

The main reason I bring this up is for three reasons:
1. If 90% of combat monkeys need to have bonus IPs, then getting bonus IPs is practically a non-option.
2. IP boosts cost a LOT of essence/magic/etc. Think of how many new options you'd have if you didn't have to worry about bonus IPs as much.
3. Players with lower IPs simply don't get as many rolls (i.e., "stuff to do") in battle. This is perfectly fine if those shine in other, non-combat areas. Everyone should get the "spotlight" eventually.

I really like the "Everyone gets +1 IP" house rule (this would include spirits, mundanes, etc.). Instead of 1-4, you'd have 2-5 possible IPs for meat combat. The ratios between have/have-nots would be a little less overwhelming. Plus movement divides a little easier into 5's I think. PLUS you wouldn't have to rebalance the equipment/forms/etc. as much, I believe, since people could get away with the same # of actions for less.

My group has swapped to 1 IP per turn and it's worked out great. We simply made Wired/Boosted/etc IPs also add to Agility equal to their Rating.

Hey whatever works...

Cyberpunk does the same thing...

If you want items with extra IP to mean less, change the combat turn to 6 seconds, each pass being one second and let the characters go using my alternative initiative pass system:
IP Action
pass 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 x 0 0 x 0 0
2 x 0 x 0 x 0
3 x 0 x x 0 x
4 x x 0 x x x
5 x x x x x x

Characters go on a pass with an X in initiative order.

Did you steal that from Alpha Omega?

No really.

AO uses something very very close to that (it goes 3, then 3&6, 2-4&6, 1-3-5-6, and 1-2-4-5-6 IIRC, and getting up to the 3&6 level is remarkably easy (have 4 of 7 stats which make up Reaction at 11+ (average), getting the next level needs those same stats at 22+!)

I bounced around the idea of removing additional IPs and instead granting a different, substantial bonus in its place.

One consideration was that IPs formed a discretionary pool, which could be spent to increase one's own hits on related rolls. The bonus would equal twice the number of additional IPs but could only be spent in limited amounts on a given thing.

i.e. Street Sam (WR 2) is attacked by two gun-toting thugs. He can use his WR to buy 4 additional hits on his defense rolls against their gunfire, but can only gain a maximum of 2 bonus hits on any one defensive check.

You could further customize this with specialized gear/expert systems/special foci for adepts that would increase the bonus or bonus cap in a given scenario.

i.e. Ares releases the "Best in the West" ™ cyberwrist enhancement, which improves wired reflex functionality for initiative and firing pistols.

It doesn't work that well for drones, matrix combat, or spirits, though.

Double post, oops.

"Champions" use this as well, though each turn is 12 seconds...

Oh, hey. A previous topic on the subject.

Very Interesting...

Thanks. Google doesn't like searching dumpshock for some reason, and dumpshock searches are really terrible.

I also remember the SR2 combat system. Everyone was praying that they rolled high for inits because if they didn't, their enemies might just TPK before anyone started. And conversely everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief when the combat monkeys rolled high for inits, everyone was going home safe tonight.

Very Much the Case in SR2... I was so glad to have the initiative system in SR4... At least I might get an action before I am obliterated...

Though if I remember right, SR3 had a similar system, can't look as my books are all gone now...

In SR3, you didn't have a set number of passes. Reflex enhancement just gave you extra d6's. Someone with 3d6 init was the equivalent of someone with 3 passes, but they weren't guaranteed a certain number of actions. You took your Reaction score (which I think was Quickness + Intelligence) and added it to your roll. You would then go in order of who rolled the highest number, and each init pass would subtract 10 from everyone's score. So someone with 12 + 3d6 might roll a 15 and go twice, at 15 and 5. Or, they might roll a 30, and go 3 times. SR4 works almost the same in terms of who goes first, because you roll init to determine that. But having bonus IP's is better than it was, since instead of just adding 1d6, reflex boosts give you a guaranteed extra action.

I don't think the system needs to be changed, though. The fact is, every single character archetype has access to reflex enhancement. Nobody has the right to complain about not having extra passes, because if they don't have them, that's their own choice. It's like if I stabbed myself and then told the government to make knives illegal so I couldn't do that to myself anymore. Now, obviously, some people might get screwed if they're newbies, they might not know how important IPs are. That's why it's important for a GM to help new players build their sheet. But if you have players who are unhappy with having 1 IP and they didn't know how much it would suck, all you need to do is let them change their character around, and retcon them so it would be as if they'd always had the reflex boost.

I think it makes a lot more sense to retcon a character than it does to demolish the main dynamic of the combat system and adjust the stats of every init boosting cyber, adept power, and spell. Not to mention you'd have to change the cost of binding spirits, and perhaps how difficult it is to summon them since they'd have less of an advantage. You'd also have to fix the cost of the simsense booster, as well as the piece in Unwired that gives you yet another init pass in VR. The cost of rigger adaptation would also have to change since you'd lose much of the advantage of jumping in. Every drone would probably need to be cheaper, too. It would be a bloody nightmare to try and figure out the new stats and prices of every one of these pieces of gear. You'd have to tweak, retweak, and re-retweak, and you might never find the right balance. And there are probably things left off this list that you'd miss, and have to fix after the fact. No, this is not a quick or easy fix. It's a core mechanic, and you'd have to be a masochist (or an obsessive person) to want to do the amount of work it would require to remove init passes from the game.

Agreed. That was my first thought regarding this thread. Even as a shapeshifter or drake, provided that they go Mage or Adept (or Mystic) they can get multiple IP in both forms due to the magic end of the spectrum. They could get cyber/bio, but it'd only work in one form.

(Reminds me that I was asked once what happened to cyberware during form change and I said that it's absorbed, not merely absent, i.e. if I get a cyberarm I still have all four (natural) limbs in drake/animal form, if I was missing the limb, but no cyber then some 'ware would cause death: Move By Wire, Wired Reflexes, Cyberskull, etc. as they'd leave the animal form without certain vital organs).

Absorbed is how we do it too...

Shifters, if I recall, get 2 IP's anyway, according to RC. So they're already in the clear.

They do?... Must have missed that, Can you point out where in the text it mentions that?

Now, I COULD be wrong here...but if so, they really should clean up this in the RC, since it really looks rather like they get these.

In the ''Creating a Shapeshifter'' chart, page 86 of the RC, the Initatives/Passes are listed like so:

Fox: 4/14(20)
Wolf 2/12(18)

and so on. Now, I know the number in the brackets is the Augmented Max; the second number is the Initiative score(and it makes sense-the Wolf's Reaction and Intuition scores are 6 each, for 12, and augmented of 9 each, for 18.)

However, I don't think a Wolf has a max number of 2 passes, period, and this number is not in brackets. We have been reading this as the number of passes that they start with because of this. It makes sense, since out of brackets means natural, brackets means augmented, and that IP's aren't able to go over 4, anyway. I'm guessing if they only started with 1 IP, it would read 1 on the one side.

Wolf 2/12 (18) = Minimum of 2 for Initiative (1 Intuit, 1 Reaction), Natural Maximum of 12 (6 Intuit, 6 Reaction)... 18 is the Max (both at 9)... Nowhere in the document does it mention Initiative Passes at all, and when this is the case, it is assumed that a single IP is what you start with...

Hope that this clears this up for you...

Ahh, just misread it then. No problems here.

(Note: Part of me, believe it or not, is still on SR3 mode...when I see ''initative'', I still see that big ol' equation at the bottom of ''X plus X.'' So when I see INI and 2 numbers, my brain, for some reason, still thinks ''ahh, passes/reaction'' for some unknown reason. )

Edit: Ninja'd, naturally.

Hey, No Problem...

Well anyway, I wasn't really including shapeshifters and other non-human entities in my general statement above -- they're sorta outside the normal realm in the first place, they'd only rarely be shadowrunners, and most of them have more drawbacks than benefits. You pay for coolness/being different. But yeah, even they can achieve reflex boosts by being spellcasters or adepts. The point is, the GM should warn everyone to get some sort of reflex boost to start off, otherwise it really isn't fair to those people who had no idea when building their characters. But if someone makes an informed choice not to have boosted reflexes, that's their choice and they live with the consequences.

if my primary role is not combat, I don't mind having only 1 ip. I'd rather spend my resources on making me a better decker, or face or whatever. Until I got a lot of karma my sam was pretty much just a gun bunny. I didn't complain that I couldn't gather info like the face or decker, or complain that I couldn't contribute in astral combat. The out of combat stuff probably takes up more game time than the in combat time. Its like fighters in every class has ot be as good as them in the fight because it wouldn't be fair otherwise, but they can all massively exceed the fighter in pretty much everything out of a fight, and somehow that is balanced.

The problem is, the consequences are pretty much total irrelevance when combat starts. Which is fine if you're playing, say, the team hacker who is never involved in meat combat. Multiple IPs are a force multiplier, so that anyone who doesn't invest in them has made categorically the wrong choice - there's no tradeoff between using those resources for other things to compete.

Most games with combat, video game or otherwise, attempt to strike a balance beween "speed" and "power", so that both are meaningful choices. That's not an option here - you can either have more IPs or you can suck at combat. I'm fine with people who devote resources to combat being good at combat, in the same way that our technomancer is a better hacker than our rigger. What I *don't* like is that IPs are nonoptional if you want to be good at combat, blowing every other option and concept clean out of the water.

I would like the "speed boost" implants, spells, and powers to be reconsidered in such a way that, while they remain a valid investment for their cost, they aren't absolutely necessary to be a capable combatant. Making more concepts and characters viable makes the game better by ensuring that every Street Sam doesn't have essentially the same (optimal) loadout of 'ware. Variety is a good thing.

I have some questions about the OP style of play in the game he belongs to:

Is the game combat heavy? Is it just a series of combat after combat? Are there any non-combat related story points? Do you infiltrate? Con? Negotiate? Climb? Is there a lack of varity in the story? If there is, who is at fault? Does the GameMaster not give any alternatives, or to the Players not take any?

It sound like a communication problem between your GM and yourself. By your explination, the games seems to center on a multitude of combat heavy antagonists. This may be the game he wants to run, and you may have to fit to his specification of it, or count yourself as a casuality. If this is not the game you want to play, speak with your GM, see if he can offer an alternative. Of course, If you wants something done right, you may have to run it yourself.

Combat is not the only place to get glory.

Well I disagree with your basic premise that you need multiple IPS to not suck at combat. That is perhaps true for a gun bunny, but for say a Mage I don't think so. A force 7+ stunball is quite impressive even if only used once a CT. Would the mage be better with 3 IPS and throwing 3 stunballs, sure. But that doe snot mean you suck if you don't have it. And that is at a basic level, he could of summoned a spirit in advance and now has multiple actions since he has himself and the spirit doing things. A pure face sure will be substantially less effective than the gun bunny if the face only has 1 IP. But oh well, you aren't a combat mosnter role. All the decker etc roles can have multiple IPS out of the gate by just going hot sim, so for them eh whatever command a drone already.

So basically IMO the only type of character that to be as good as they need to be at their role that needs multiple IPS, and that is the physical combat monster types, and well so they are basic things they need one of them is some level of extra IPs. There going to need a high skill in a combat skill or two to in order to fullfill there role, is the need for that bad as well.

Basically I think you may be worse in combat than you could be with only 1ip, but that does not mean you suck.

Wow only one? I though for sure this would have been a recurring topic. It is an interesting discussion but to me multiple Ip vs single IP is 6 in one a half dozen in the other talk. Either you are going to finish the combat in a single round or everyone is going to get to participate again. I applauded the change in combat to give everyone an action before the additional IPers got to go again. Before that multiple IPs would finish the combat before some characters got to do anything and that was just no fun.

That's pretty much same as complaining that some way to inflict damage is nonoptional if you want to be good at combat.
Or armor

High damage is not necessary. You could focus on electricity-based attacks and KO enemies without inflicting damage. You could be a grappler, use toxin smoke-bombs, or cast the Orgasm spell. Plus you have a choice between stun, physical, matrix, etc. damage. There are lots of different ways to achieve the same thing: that is, to disable your enemies.

Lots of personal armor isn't necessary either. You could have lots of Reaction and Dodge instead of high Body and Armor. You could rig drones from far away in your underpants if you wanted to.

IPs don't have as much variety. Like Five Eyes said, there's not really a trade-off involved.

Yet about half of the examples in your counterargument involve summoning or piloting something with multiple IPs in order to remain competitive, and one involves saying, "Well, it's okay for you to suck at combat if you're the face."

Think of it as analagous to the attempts at making it so that someone achieving most goals has the option of using magic OR 'ware to do it with. I want it to be possible for someone playing a primary combatant to take the resources that would have been used for IP enhancement, choose something else, and still be roughly as effective. There is no way that I know of to do this, short of your Magician option, which has its own problems, as per the recent overcasting-and-combat-magic brouhaha. It's just that I can't think of a single damned implant that would provide the same "bang for your buck" for a combatant as IP increase 'ware. It's fine if it's a damned good choice, but it's so much better than the others that you'd have to be a damn fool not to take it - and that doesn't do the game any favors, in my mind.



Can't tell if you're serious or not, but: The fact that "can deal damage" and "has multiple IPs" are equally foregone conclusions for any serious combat character is kind of the problem I'm having.

We just started, so I don't know the style yet. We started with Food Fight, so heavy combat was to be expected.

My main concern is that "get lots of IPs" wasn't immediately obvious to a few players who never played before, and even though they were a street sam and a mage, they both only had 1 IP. My drone with a taser was outshining them simply because it got 3 rounds of actions while they and the enemies only got 1 each.

Whatever the style, I guess I come from the D&D 4th Ed. school of game balance. If I was GMing, I'd like to see every character be useful IN combat and useful OUTSIDE of combat. If a character specializes too much in one or the other, I'd rather see them shift in the other direction. Combat should be fun for everyone, but so should social encounters. The huge IP discrepancies make this more difficult to achieve.

Those are all ways of inflicting damage (kinda) and you much have one of those to be any good at combat, so my point stands.

Should have written "to not take damage" instead of "armor", but i was lazy.