Melee is how a physical adept with a weapon focus kicks the ass of a spirit.

It's how you hold your own in a brawl or bar fight.

It's also how you punch someone in the face, which may be more satisfying than the alternatives.

Unfortunately, that's not the case with Shadowrun with how dice pools are built up.

For example. I have a firearms based character that's hyper specialized in sniper rifles. I'm talking around 20-21 dice in his pool without using Take Aim, yet he is still capable of taking character down with one or two melee attacks. It all has to do with how disgusting Agility is a stat. I have 9 Agility and no more than 2 in any non-firearms group weapon skill. Combined with a specialization I easily see 13 dice in my pool as a base. If I attack an unaware opponent, which I almost always do, you're looking at just adding 4 damage from net hits, or I could call shot for +4 damage and get 3 net hits and my little old Cougar Long Fineblade is suddenly dealing 12P damage that is now just being resisted by body and armor. I didn't even realize how stupid potent my melee attacks were when I created my character. Unarmed isn't as bad, considering I can't take a called shot (at least I don't think so) but I'm still dealing 7S damage with that. The only drawback is I never spent anything into dodge. I'm an opportunist, my defense is not being seen, but even if he does get seen and gets in a fist fight, it's not a guarantee that my character will lose, especially if he (which he usually does) have his knife on him.

I see nothing forbidding you from doing a called shot with an unarmed attack. Also a troll with bone lacing/bone density and some martial arts (and some adept powers if you wanna get obscene) can get ridiculous amounts of unarmed base damage (which is one of the very sepcialized ways to build a really effective melee character.

But you're talking about sneaking up on an unaware opponent. That's normally a death sentence no matter what you're using for a weapon.

Has anyone tried to link the melee skills to Strength instead? Bring back the fear of trolls!

Would be nice housrule that improves trolls' melee dice pools by 4-5 on average. Also you could finally build a strong but clumsy bruiser who is still deadly in melee. I like it.

But all the strength 1 monowhip pixies would bitch like crazy.

Ranged is better then melee - but it should be even now ( in the boring present) , if you have a pistol or a gun you can kill a guy with one or two shots , with a two seconds - just like a round in shadowrun.

You have to be some kind of super ninja if you want to kill someone with bare end in a few seconds , therefore it makes sence that ranged is better then melee.

If you're talking about close quarters combat a knife is every bit as deadly as a gun.

Guys, c'mon. When you bring real life into it, God kills kittens. It's not a road we want to go down.

true dat.

Psh, why would you *let* them get within knife range? (Don't actually respond, we already had at least one whole thread about knife vs. gun.)

You know this thread is just going to end with someone trying to come up with a gun that shoots knives so you can have ultimate flexibility.

Why wouldn't you sneak up on an unaware opponent to attack them?

Huh?

Or just duct taping a knife to the end of their assault rifle. Or taping an ares predator to that monosword you keep under the lined coat. Best of both worlds imho

I think a gun is already the best of both worlds.

Doesn't that already exist?
I thought that was the whole point of a flechette gun.

Phsst.. leetle flechettes.
*Heavy Voice*

I want beeg gun that shoot.. Da! Dikoted Monoswords... Beeg sword that keell tiny man!

That doesn't make melee combat good, it just means taking the skill is some times necessary.



Whether you want to admit it or not melee on the whole took a big power hit in 4e, it took a smaller hit in 3e. Many want there games to go that way so they say, well guns trump melee that is how it should be, or don't bring a knife to a gun fight etc. 4e has improved unarmed combat quite a bit in some ways, but the base rules of unarmed combat make it hard to compete. Even assuming no full dodge, its reaction+skill that defends against it so you are put in a situation that unless you are hyper dedicated you will hit less often than guns and will have less net hits. Use a Katana on a Str 5 guy its DV 6 AP-1. There is no Ammo that kicks it up a notch so it is at roughly the same level as a heavy pistol with ex explosive ammo. Except the HP gets to shoot twice, gets range, and is dodge by a smaller die pool. Unless specialized to a high degree you will be lucky to get more than 1 net hit and since it is a complex action you are done right there. So 7 DV even against a body 3 guy in a long coat you aren't jacking him up too much 3-4 boxes. Sure he is hurt, but about 1/2 as hurt as from with a gun. This doesn't even add in things like automatics etc which quickly get things into the instant kill range.

Now if you specialize with melee combat are an adept or whatever you can fairly easily get your fists up to 10DV base with -3 AP, maybe even elemental effects if you want. Now you start looking like a heavy weapon in damage. Unfortunately it is hard to ride the in between area where you are good it is effective but people and cars don't explode on contact.

The problem is simple mechanics: the system thinks you actively avoid being struck in melee, so you get two stats to avoid damage; however, they think you stand still for bullets, so no one gets Reaction + Dodge. In addition, they allow one skill (Dodge) to apply to both Ranged and Melee, so everyone has it. If one combat is defended by twice the amount of dice than another, it will be inferior. It's a big screw.




It's not though. In addition to the melee rule break, you have a spirit rule break here: that all spirit skills are equal to Force of spirit. I have a 175 career karma, knife fighting, mystic adept with a weapon focus 3. At this level my buddy can summon a F9 spirit and not risk any drain-- it's just his pet level spirit. It can kick my tail.

It get's a DP of 18 (give or take, depending on the spirit) to defend, and I get 19 to attack (A 5, Blade 6, Imp Ability 3, spec +2, foci bonus 3). If I win, I can't kill it in one hit. Then it moves back and uses fear on me, which Spell Defense doesn't work again, and I defend with my Willpower of 9 (impressive amount) vs. it's 18 dice again. I run like a girl, and it kills any mundanes I'm with. BTW, before it gets to Fear, my buddy that can summon it, can cast a force 10 stunbolt to disrupt it.

You can pretend that Adepts using melee are cool in SR4, but I can tell you through many adventures that it's not the case.

I don't really agree with that. Ranged combat tends to get hit with a lot of really shitty modifiers, especially the -2 attacker/+4 defender dice for both being in good cover.

In a way though, that makes good sense. Even the fastest fists in the world won't travel faster than a bullet, plus their much larger. Larger target + moving slower = more opportunity to get out of the way. I don't think it's a matter of actively avoiding vs. standing still, it's just much easier to dodge a fist/knife/sword/etc than it is to dodge a bullet. The mechanics reflect that. Melee is powerful in the right situations; just like a T-bird with quad HMGs is powerful in the right situations. But you can't exactly sneak a T-bird past Lone Star.

I must admit to speaking based on theory.

Until I know better, I'll defer to your experience.

Thanks, -- N

Say Agi 7 unarmed 5, that's 12 dice hitting a mook with rea 3 dodge 3 = 6 dice, you get 2 hits. You're a strength 5 human, that leaves you at 5DV. Even if he has only body 3 impact 4, you're doing 2-3 boxes of damage. And that's for a complex action, from a very skilled softmaxed guy with some muscle toner - and he needs 4 or 5 actions to knock out a mook, and if the mook starts full dodging he's looking at 7-8 actions? That's ridicolous. But then you can add in muscle aug 2, bone density and 15BPs of MA and you're now doing 7DV more, and it is physical, so now you have an even chance of killing a mook per action.

The same guy with even a light pistol with ex-ex ammo gets to add smartlink dice and roll 14 dice at the same skill against rea 3 dice, throw in a few modifiers you're still looking at 4 hits, netting you not one put two 9DV -1AP attacks per pass, he gets 8 dice to resist and he is looking at a total of 12DV.

I think melee is neat. I've heard it described as a "BP sink", and I suppose that can be true, if you focus on it you can really make some combat monsters. The fights in my sig are examples of melee combat I mocked up, to demonstrate what you can do with various cyber and adept melee skills. A properly stated troll can kill just about anyone if his fist lands, and you can make 'em big enough that firearms range from a distraction to a minor inconvenience.


EDIT: An example:

Yeah, you can make some combat monsters if you sink the BPs into it, but that's not really the point. Almost everything else, drop 16 BPs for 4 skill, and you're quite competent if it is linked to a boosted attribute. If you're an average sammy and does that with unarmed combat, you have a hard time tickling a single guard - and as much as I like unarmed combat, not just backup but also to control people and situations where drawing guns just send the wrong message, it isn't and shouldn't be your main combat trick.

I don't know when people got it in their heads that melee should be on equal footing with firearms, if that is in fact what some people believe.

I suppose you could concoct a scenario in which melee is awesome, but there is a reason firearms exist.
As long as a gun attack gets resisted with reaction alone, it will have an advantage.
As long as a gun attack is a simple action, and can therefore be done twice an IP, it will have an advantage.

Base game mechanics give guns a huge advantage over melee attacks, but how hard is it to point and pull the trigger?
There's really no way around that.

Uhh...okay?

Where did I say melee combat was good? I was just out to answer the "what's the point of melee?" question.

Just take an Ares Monosword and mod it with a personalized grip and an underbarrel weapon - Ruger Super Warhawk. Now you have the best of both worlds.

<edit> Also, you can give it a custom look and call yourself Squall.

I kinda like my tiger shifter adept build i made a couple of weeks ago, moves 50m a combat turn in her natural form and hits for 9P(e) AP-half.

I seem to remember that hand to hand combat in 3rd edition placed every attack as an opposed check, where even the defender had a chance to score an attack. I always liked that mechanic as a distinction between ranged and melee.

of course, I could be remembering it wrong, or it may have been a house rule. 3rd ed (and Shadowrun in general) has been out of fashion in my group for a while.

No, you're remembering it correctly. A properly skilled SR3 close combatant could tear folks new assholes on their actions, and then do so again when they pitifully attempted to attack him. It was good times, if you spent your points right.

Sorry, I misunderstood you then.

I don't mind by default guns being better.(I think it should be just as good if its your area of focus, its a game not reality) But melee combat should be more effective than it is for a trained but not totally focused fighter. I'm a fairly big guy, but I suspect if Tyson would knock my ass out with a single punch.(even giving him the +2dv for boxing he probably wouldn't in the game) The rules make that a virtual impossibility unless you are an adept or something. Now sure armor plays its role, but a half assed guard will be dropping net hits by a decent margin and the base damage is kind of sucky. Being that by default it is a complex action and stun I don't think it would have broken the game for base damage to be strength and not strength/2 for example. When you get hit heck even grazed by a 9' tall 1,000 pound wall of muscle it should damn near kill you, not give you an owie.

The Mystic Adept in my game is doing a good job of downing mooks with his Katana. Not his main trick but has gotten some nice kills.

Gangers beware.

And how many BPs do you have to sink to make a super-effective 4 pass gunslinger?

Its not a fair comparison unless you look at what it costs to do both.

I wouldn't say I disagree with you, but Tyson's not going to blow the back of your head off with a punch.
Should a strength 5, not even human max, punch do the same damage as a bullet? I don't think so.
In the 9 footer's defense, killing somebody in SR requires doing at least 20 boxes of damage.

I don't think the argument has been that you can't make super effective either for a lot of points. The issue is the trained but not super effective guys get very little except for defense out of melee combat skills. So you can make a solid gun guy who is diverse and his gun skills work out well, you can't make a solid unarmed guy who is diverse and his unarmed skills work out well. You can make awesome either for lots of points, and they will both work out really well in there focus.

One thing to keep in mind with close combat skills is that they operate both as a potential defense pool AND a potential source of offense. So if you don't really wish to take Dodge for whatever reason (and there are some decent reasons, such as if you're already a full-bore armor tank or a gymnastic dodger), grabbing Unarmed is a pretty versatile option since even a wimpy hacker can give someone a good jolt with a shock hand when they're not just riding the defense dice. Unarmed is also the only skill linked to breaking out of a subdual hold. Remember, your cries of "But that's suboptimal!" won't stop a melee attack from dealing damage all on its own. Melee is genuinely the weak sibling in Shadowrun, but that is because it is relatively easy to account for and to counter it. But if you fail to do so it can still kill you just fine. And one of the best ways to account for melee is with melee. I think a lot of the problem here is that people have a hard time quantifying just how much that defensive option is really worth, since it can more or less be replaced with a couple of other skills that are arguably just as versatile if not moreso.

I call that the difference between stun and physical though. Yeah tyson wont be blowing the back of my head off but he will ko me so get me to the same 10 boxes of damage his is just in the stun track. So it is less damage when its 5 boxes to 5 boxes, you heal quicker, you are bruised and not actually hurt etc. But they are both effective. Add in that bullet is being followed by another bullet and it at range and you still don't have to worry about guns/bullets being trumped by a fist. So at least the top 10% of humanity strength guy actually hurts you when he hits you and it is effective. Right now its not particularly effective unless you drop a lot of points to to do.

Maybe Tyson uses lots of called shots for +4DV along with the boxing training for +2DV on top of say... 5 Str. That gives him 8DV with probably a pretty good dice pool.

And I'm sure this is going to be yelled down, but you also keep forgetting the roll the dice play in the game. After all, just cause you can roll 18-19 dice with your gunslinger doesn't mean you're going to be hitting with all those. I've seen plenty of examples of someone going in with 5 dice beating someone much more powerful.

Anyway, to OP: it looks like you got some good advice and you're going for it. Don't worry what anyone here says: read the rules for yourself, see how they work for you, and fix them accordingly.

It's easy to forget now with all the ear biting, prison time and face tattoos, but ol' Mikey was very solid defensively at his peak. The entire style he was taught was based in large part on head movement and keeping your gloves up, then ducking in and coming back up and annihilating the other guy as they left themselves open. Mike was a helluva counter puncher; in a lot of his knockdowns the other poor bastard still had an arm wagging around out there from a slipped punch as they got pummeled. It's enough to make me wish there was a neutered version of the Counterstrike power for martial artists. Plain ol' Riposte just isn't doing it for me.

I guess in a way, to make melee useful again would be to add kinetic screens like in Mass Effect, that work well vs firearms and high velocity stuff, but don't do so well vs close quarter combat. But that's more along the lines of Shadowrun 6 or 7.

I Dune not know what you are a talking about.

BlueMax

Tyson lives in a world where damages isnt STR/2 but has something more to do with STR + (BOD/3). There is a reason fighters have weight classes.

I've found if you take the /2 off, HTH guys are more effective. The turns spent running into HTH (because fast guys no longer move fast, they just get jumpy) are suddenly rewarded.

BlueMax

Yeah, but Tyson is Strength 6, Boxing: 6 and you're like Body 3, so that's really no surprise, heh. The bottom line is, Shadowrun's combat system isn't tethered too strongly in reality. It's a game element designed to facilitate cinematic style battles. It's ridiculously hard to model real world combat into a game. So most games don't really even try. Shadowrun was one of them.

And Shadowrun isn't the only game where guns override other forms of combat. Hell, I played in a Champions game once where we were all using pre-gens. I took Seeker, the iconic martial arts ninja (the blond guy on the cover of the old Champions games). The GM shot him DEAD with a regular agent with a gun. And this is Champions, where dead is very hard to do.

Yknow, it still trips me out that Captain Picard was in Dune.

The real answer to the question "what's the point of melee?"

Its fun to pretend to stab/bash/slice imaginary enemies, of course.

Because it's hard to intimidate with a firearm.

You start cutting pieces off with a big fraggin' knife, and not only do you have an ear for your collection...

"I was goin' ta get an ear, too..." - Jayne.