I'm torn appart. Arsenal's Martial arts quality allows up to 20 BP, that's four choices of "advantages" (ex. : reducing attacker in melee penalty, +1 Gymnastic dodge, etc.) in one or more "schools" (Krav Maga, Firefight, Arnis de Mano, etc.). This also allows, at character creation, the purchase of up to two maneuvers per 5 BP spent on the Martial arts quality, the maximum being eight maneuvers for 20 BP spent.

The problem starts relatively simple. I know 100% I want to take Two Weapon Style. Having no room for Ambidextrous, I'm thus picking Off-hand weapon. Plus : Watchful guard for longer lasting defense DP; Riposte for retaliation; Disarm for humiliation; Iaijutsu for easy weapon access (see below); Full offense for extra dice at range (no brainer, it only makes one more exposed versus melee).

Then it gets more complicated : what do I pick for the last maneuver ? I have both Herding and Finishing move in mind; the first being helpful with Gun Kata as well as melee, the other helping only with melee weapons. What about melee attacks ? They take a complex action, require STR investment to gain an edge against "ranged attacks in melee", and guns bypass defenses easier.

This imposes a choice between three styles of fighting :

1. Gun Kata (Grammaton Cleric style) : Krava Maga and Firefight, reduce "attacker penalty in melee" penalty to 0, then pick one between ready weapon as free action and take aim as free action (I'm not settled on the issue). "In melee" attacks are done through guns at point blank, thus strength becomes less important, which saves BP. Guns can be either simply Hardened (cheap)... or equipped with Vibro swords, which gets more expensive for how little melee is actually done.
2. Gun and Blade (Pirate style) : improve Blades DV by +2 ? Increase Gymnastic dodge by +2 ? Krav Maga ? Arnis de Mano with damaging disarm ? Finishing move becomes useful if melee is used (sacrificing complex actions). Here, either two Ares Alpha with Vibro swords underneath can be used, or just a single one with a Vibro sword in the other hand for melee purpose.
3. (Fire)arm and Hammer : improve Clubs DV by +1 ? Increase Gymnastic dodge by +2 ? Krav Maga ? Damaging disarm seems useful here too, as does Finishing move. But the question of investing in STR/melee or not comes to haunt me again...

The parameters are as follow :

• Minotaur ghoul; not fomori, minotaur is a compromise for flavor here.
  
  

  Inspiration for the character can be gleaned from this picture (http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/561/beastmenes550x756.jpg). He's a modern version of the Minotaur Doombull (Warhammer Fantasy, Beastmen army), a cannibalistic creature with Bloodgreed (a bloodlust that makes it eat corpses after battle, like ghouls), Frenzy (~Berserker), Fear (~intimidation), etc. This roughly translates into a (playable) character with...

  
  
• 15 BP spent on SURGE III (Metagenetic Improvement [AGI+1] and Satyr legs, Berserker, Critter spook), this leaves me with 20 BP. Enough room for martial arts. The character has Combat Monster as a negative quality for flavor reasons, and other ones.
  
  

  Obviously, the setting would have to allow for such a dangerous character. Globally, the character has a personality shift when he goes on rampage. He's very loyal and friendly when calm, but Berserker makes him very brutal. To avoid fits of rage in unfortunate circumstances, He has a biomonitor set to release dopadrine on more than one auto-injectors... just in case he goes Berserk in a nursery, for example. Also, his weapons are all configured with a Safe Target System; his contact lenses and ear plugs turn off if he approaches his friend within melee range while on berserk rampage.

  
  
• Attributes (not final) :
  
  • BOD 14... 15 on berserk
  • AGI 5(8)
  • REA 7(11)
  • STR... either STR 8(10) or STR 12(14)... +1 on berserk.
  • CHA 1
  • INT 4
  • LOG 3
  • WIL 3
• Weapons (see below):
  
  • either... two Ares Alpha, with Melee hardening and equipped with underbarrel Vibro swords (Automatics and Blades skills at 5); this setup opens up the possibility of quick-drawing one gun after the other in one pass (Iaijutsu), shooting once with each, and gaining the benefit of Two Weapon Style because each is also a melee weapon.
  • or... a vibro sword in one hand, and one melee hardened Ares Alpha with underbarrel Vibro sword in the other (Automatics and Blades skills at 5)
  • or... a Mace/Sledgehammer in one hand and a melee hardened Ares Alpha in the other hand (with no underbarrel weapon) (Automatics and Club skills at 5)
  • or... a simple setup : Vibro sword in one hand, melee hardened Ares Alpha in the other (Automatics and Blades skills at 5, Clubs at 1)
  • or... even simpler : two melee hardened Ares Alpha (Automatics and Clubs skills at 5); same benefit as first setup, except Clubs instead of Blades.

The question can be divided, but is highly inter-related :

Should melee (thus STR) be used ? If melee is avoided, then Damaging Disarm and Finishing move shine a bit less, since they're both melee. If I invest in melee, I can pick different "Advantages" than reducing "attacker in melee" penalty.
Can I go with just guns ? But it's an expensive setup for Martial arts (not nuyen or maneuver wise), because it occupies 3/4 of the available "Advantages" for reducing the "attacker in melee" penalty.

Thanks in advance !

Is 'don't waste BP on that' one of the options? Yes, I'd avoid melee.

It certainly counts as an answer. So, do you consider STR, melee-only weapons and maneuvers to be a waste of resources ?

never bring a knife to a gun fight and know how to use your gun in a knife fight. shooting is deadlier than melee, but melee has more flavor.
Yes I think maneuvers are a waste but they're fun. Your questions make no sense to me.
Should melee (thus STR) be used ? depends on preference
Can I go with just guns ? of course oO

For flavor I would go the Firearm and Hammer route, it just fits the archetype you seem to be going for better. A minotaur ghoul berserker isn't really a good base to go all Grammaton Cleric on someone with as it seems to be two entirely differant approachs to combat (I will gracefully and surgically kill everyone with one shot apiece while howling bloody murder and upon ending the fight eat their organs) and honestly the huge strength is essentially wasted on the Gun Kata style of fighter, Bale did very little pistol whipping in that movie. I suggest the warhammer and a hardened ares alpha.

Though my questions are very poor grammatically-speaking now that I re-read them, it is rather obvious that the questions aren't intended as a remake of the 19 pages long thread "What's the point of melee" (of which I read more than 8 pages before writing this question). There is a given context, and I gave as much detail as reason allows. Therefore, I think they do make sense.

'Should' and 'Can' here refer to either a normative standpoint (right or wrong according to a norm of in-game efficiency), or on feasibility. Both refer to an ideal 'best setup' in relation to in-game circumstances that are likely to come up, and conversely to its opposite : a very inefficient setup, which I really do not want to end up picking. A versatile character can face situations that are likely to happen. A badly designed character might have neglected to take into account what might realistically happen. It's not only a question of 'preference' when someone theorizes on an ideal : if Parachuting was a good skill to take under any circumstances (imagine a Shadowparachuter game, for instance), then it'd be a no-brainer. If melee was Excellent++, then it would be a no-brainer also. But just as Astral Perception is more useful or usable by some characters, I was asking whether or not melee -- given costs such as BP, nuyen and a certain cost of opportunity -- was going to be a significant plus, or a waste, for this particular character (and of course, conclusions may be generalized to some extent).



So then the choice of melee is a matter of preference between style and efficiency ? Given that preference and style is subjective, lets only talk about efficiency : how much more efficient do you think ranged is over melee and is any investment in melee a waste (for ex. : STR for a good DV, other bonuses to DVs, melee skill enhancements, maneuvers that are melee-only, etc.)



Thanks ! Would you leave STR at 8(+any 'ware) or max it to 12 ? And also, which "advantages" would you pick (of the possible 4 one is allowed) ?

What comes to my mind is picking any for of the following (I'm leaving stuff, but if you have a better idea, go for it) :

• Krav Maga's : Ready weapon as free action
• Krav Maga's : Take aim as free action
• Arnis de Mano's : Damaging disarm
• Arnis de Mano's : +1 DV on Clubs
• Ninjutsu's/Capoeira's : +1 or 2 Gymnastics dodge
• Krav Maga's/Firefight's : reduction of 1, 2 or 3 of the ranged attacker in melee penalty
• ...or something entirely different : +1 infiltration (Ninjutsu), etc.

for most of the time yes. but ofc one should know how to defend and attack in melee. There should be a compromise somewhere.
My approach for character gen always is: 1) what do i want him to do and 2) how can I optimize it.
You seem to skip step 1. But, none of your suggestions is totally useless and they will all work.

You already have the image of the char, so why not use a combat axe?

anyway, Str is no attibute to max out. Str 10 is already better than ~98% of (meta)humanity. damage is enough.

You have a couple options here. The first I'd do is ask your GM if the martial arts quality counts against your limit - it kind of doesn't make sense, since its basically a skill. I know i've seen a few GM's with houserules to that effect (Karenshara, for one, doesn't count technomantic/magical/martial arts qualities towards the limit, in order to mitigate the 'do i want to be an adept, or do i want to go to college, why are they mutually exclusive with my last 5 points?' problem)

One think you may have not considered: You can riposte with a gun, after parrying. Nothing prevents you from doing so. You don't actually need Strength, or an underbarrel weapon. You just need Melee Hardening, which is one mod slot, while underbarrel weapon is 3, and the right skill. If you check the arsenal improvised weapons table(17 or so), you will find that firearms/gunbashing/pistolwhips are Clubs.
Therefore, you need the clubs skill to parry with your melee hardened guns.

Iajutsu vs Krav Maga's ready as a free: This depends on your agility. The quickdraw is actually better. If you have a high agility, and regularly use quickdraw holsters, pick a better benefit with your martial arts.
Further consideration: Off-hand training only applies to melee weapons, but it does apply to a weapon group. Picking it for Clubs lets you use improvised-gun-parrying AND hammerstyle as an option. Definitely go for that. Sadly, it can't replace Ambidexterity for ranged combat.
Two-weapon style is also compatable with guns: You can shoot with one, and melee parry with the other just fine.(Clubs, since improvised, might break unless its hardened)
If you're worried about Strength in melee damage, ALWAYS make it and odd number - use muscle aug/toner if you have to. 9 strength for a 5 base damage, +1 Martial Arts Clubs DV is respectable.
Damaging disarm is ace.
When you consider this, Sangre Y Acero suddenly becomes an attractive style: It has one more ranged 'attacker in melee combat' reduction, which you need to get rid of the penalty, and it ALSO provides a unique 'reducing the one-vs-many' penalty, which lets you take two guys at once.
Other things to consider: as a metavariant, you can just *take* metagenetic qualities against your normal limit - on negative qualities, this means you can actually get points for them. DO you NEED surge 3? Can you drop it down, and use Geneware(genetic optimization, or perhaps the 10bp Genetic Heritage quality) to get the same effect?
PIcking up martial arts qualities in play is cheap and quick for the first few levels. The test thresholds are low, the training time is fairly short, even maneuvers can be learnt fairly fast - damaging disarm and +dv on clubs are good, make sure to get a sensei contact that can teach it to you in play.


Anyway. I've looked at this stuff before. Here's the long and short of it, starting with maneuvers:

Disarm: Ace. the -4 sucks, but if you have a good skill,reaction, specialty, its not bad. Its cheap lunch with two-weapon style(but not quite free) Damaging disarm is cheap to buy, and there's no reason the damage doesn't go up with net hits.
Finishing Move: Does not require a -melee strike-. Therefore, gun compatable.
Evasion: Surprisingly worthwhile. See below for explanation.
Full offense: Surprisingly gun compatable. You can use it, and defend against ranged attacks just fine.
Ground Fighting: makes you not "suffer the negative dice pool modifier for defending while prone". I believe the attacker still gets their modifier, but hey. If you're playing with enforced knockdown rules it can be useful - but it ALSO lets you more easily claim cover while not suffering a defensive penalty when using ranged combat. Then again, cover for a minotaur has to be big anyway.
Herding: Compatable with guns. You already picked up on this one. What you may not have considered is how you can use it with Suppressive Fire.
Multistrike: Not exactly great, but it can be made useful. You 1) get +1 dice(before split) whenever you attack more than one target with the same action, and 2) get +1 dice(before the split) when you Attacks with two melee weapons at once. #2 we don't care about. #1 is interesting. It does work with ranged attacks, but only if you're using two guns at once(same action), and shooting two different targets(normally -2 per additional target, the extra dice means its effectively a -1). In melee, you can always attack multiple opponents by splitting your dice pool. When you factor in situational modifiers such as Charging, or Specializations, you're able to -always- throw an extra dice to smack your main targets friend around. Whats not important is how many dice you're throwing(1 multistrike+2 charging+2 specialization=5, which is fairly reasonable), but the idea that if you get ONE net hit, then they have to defend against it - which gives them a penalty against successive attacks.
Off-Hand Training: Doesn't work with ranged weapons. Ditch it.
Riposte: You have to parry or block to start it, but you don't have to hit back with a melee attack. Parrying and shooting someone is valid, and fitting with the firefight theme.
Setup: Not particularly useful on its own. Its nice if you need more nets hits to deal with hardened armor. Where it becomes cheap lunch is in situations when you're already using other maneuvers that don't deal damage - Herding, called-shot to disarm, for example.


Right. Evasion. If you're already using a riposte/finishing move build, then evasion is actually really nice. Here's why.
Interception baiting.
Understanding why this tactic works, and how to use it to your advantage means looking at how Interception attacks work.
It starts with Free Actions. 4A 146 or so: The Action Phase, Free Actions, and Delayed Actions. Free actions can -explicitly- be delayed and held to be taken later in the pass. Not using your free action can be a good thing.
4A 161 or so: Interception attacks. These are Shadowrun's versions of Attacks of Opportunity. If someone moves within a meter of you and doesn't attack, you can spend a Free Action to make a melee attack. This ALSO applies to character who want to move OUT of melee combat. (disengage).
Basically, if someone tries to run past you, you can hit them, or if they run away when you're already fighting, you can hit them again. As long as you have an unused Free Action. Its like football. It also means that trying to fight/push your way through a group of enemies to an objective can end up getting you hit twice per enemy - in which case successive-defense penalties can add up.

Interception -baiting- is where, basically, you run into/by/around a group of enemies - and dare THEM to use your interception attacks against YOU.
Yes, i do mean Run. As in, its a Free action, gives you a defensive bonus, and an offensive penalty. Walking is a non-action, Running is not.
If they DO intercept you, you use your defensive bonus from Evasion,(+2) Running(+2), Watchful Guard(there's probably more than one of them) to Parry/Disarm/Riposte ALL of them.
It also fits in with the mobile fighting that grammaton cleric- sorry, Firefight users tend to like.


If you're dual-wielding guns smartlinked(its device rating 2 or so, and wi-fi) guns, you're going to want to invest in a Tacnet 1 program and possibly Pilot Upgrade your guns(no slots, just cash). You can't claim the smartlink bonus while dual-wielding at all; but can run a Centralized Tacnet with yourself as the host, and each gun counting as a member.
Smartlinks come with a laser range finder and a camera, which is two sensor channels.
With two guns and yourself, the minimum-person limit is met.
A bonus die to attack and defense is a bonus die. This one's fairly cheap.


Firefight, as written, is a terrible style on its own. However, when you combine it with other styles(Krav Maga, sangre y acero, arnis de mano) then it turns into something kind of frightening. Being a firefighter is about negating as many of your own penalties as you can, whether its friends, or shooting into or out of melee.
Then you take it a step further, and put yourself in the best position to give your enemies penalties that you don't suffer. (enemy has a gun? Punch him, so he can't shoot you as well, then shoot him).
The ideal range for a firefighter to actually fight at is about 1-3, maybe meters.(depending on your per-pass movement speed). Close enough to claim the +2 point blank bonus for shooting, and to Walk(non-action) into or out of melee range, depending on the situation.

.... in practice, I'd honestly be surprised to find ANY gaming table that keeps track of all the bonuses and penalties in a fast, reasonable manner, that would actually make this work.

I would consider....

Kung Fu: Dodge bonus works on ranged attacks, if you're feeling like using Dodge instead of Gymdodging. that depends on your build, though. Yes, its the ONE non-melee dodge bonus.

Sangre Y acero can add the 3rd ranged attacker in melee penalty, and its second benefit helps with fighting more than one person.
Tae Kwon Do: the +1 MORE dice on charging attacks can be brutal. +1 dice when using unarmed combat to attack multiple targets has great synergy with Multistrike, but, sadly, you have to be using unarmed. (its also an AFTER the split modifier, which is awesome)
Abou Krav Maga's take aim: It can be great if you're using Vision Magnification(such as in cybereyes). However, a martial art with one of the '+1 Called Shot' bonuses can have a similiar/better effect for your Free Actions. (called shot for extra damage, +1dv/-1dice is now +1dv/+0 dice with pentjak-silat's bonus.) In general..... krav is probably better.
Personally, I wouldn't bother - its cheaper if you don't, and there are plenty of other things to use your free actions on, like Running everywhere.



Melee damage from strength is always STR/2, round up. For most bang-for-your-buck, always pick an odd value. 9 is good. 11 is cheap if you count ware.

Am I the only person here that really thinks some folks are overthinking it?

Quake is who Quake is. He wrote a page about choosing a 4th maneuver.

A question unconnected to the OP but this seems like a reasonable place to ask it.

Parrying with melee hardened guns is clubs and we've already established you can riposte with the gun.

However, for the sake of two weapon defense, can you parry with a blade when carrying a gun in the other hand? how would this effect dice pools?

Sure, if the gun is a club. I mean, you can parry with the blade while carrying anything in the other hand (normal 1-hand defense), or you can parry with any two (Reach 0-1) melee weapons (2-hand defense, +1 DP). The GM might rule that you use the weakest skill, so it's only worth doing if your Clubs is as good as your Blades; AFAIK, it's not RAW that you *must* use the weakest skill for defense, though it makes some sense. The off-hand penalty doesn't apply either (again, AFAIK).

Melee is both a form of offense and defense and as a form of pure offense it just doesn't measure up very well to packing heat. I came to the conclusion ages ago that concentrating too much on strength and damage code is a bit of a red herring if you intend to do anything more with a knife than bully the unskilled. It's pretty damn easy to hit at least Strength 3, be it through Attribute Boost, Bioware, or a minimum racial modifier, and that's enough to threaten 6P plus hits with a vibrosword. Not an impressive number, but the opportunity cost is low and it's usually enough to hurt someone or at least have a chance at knocking them down if they're a human, and a stun baton is even less picky about who wields it.

If you really want to use melee to go after people as opposed to fending them off, than I would recommend concentrating on sheer dice pool instead of having an ungodly damage code, since it's simply more versatile. After all, if your target is unskilled enough that you can easily hit him then you should put down some pretty good hurt simply because 6 dice vs. 17 dice can hurt even if the attacker is only wielding a tooth pick. And if the defender is skilled? Then, well, the attacker is going to need all those dice because even a relatively mundane opponent like a Triad Posse mook can toss 10 dice to protect himself if you spook him into going on Full D and a Posse Lieutenant can throw around anywhere from 11-16. So yeah, you can often get by one-on-one with things like a bog standard 7 Agility+Rank 4 Close Combat package, but well, if I'm going to charge some guy who might just plain try to shoot me next pass, then I want to be pretty damn sure I'll at least stick him with some wound modifiers on the first swing. That's why I tend towards making sure I have Reflex Recorders, great reach, a specialization, optimized cyberarms or improved ability before jacking up strength. Such toys are expensive, but then, so is a point or two of another attribute.

I hold to this philosophy even when building an ork or a troll martial artist. Accuracy comes first, followed by general runner skills, then plain ol' Body. Pure, unalloyed damage code comes in as a bit of an also ran. I try to think of the strength score as a very nice bonus rather than something that dictates my decision making.

Lesee. Yes, you can. Explaining how/why it works means comparing it to the rest of the available defenses.

When you get shot, you get to roll Reaction.
When you get attacked in melee, you get to roll Reaction, AND
Block(add unarmed), OR Dodge(add Dodge) OR Parry(add a weapon skill).
So in your example, you just say 'i'm parrying with the sword', and roll Reaction+Blades.

Where it gets fucked up is Full Defense.
When you Full Dodge, you may add Dodge to both melee and ranged defenses. Yes, sometimes this means you may roll Reaction+dodge+dodge.
When you Gymnastics Defense, you do the same thing as Full Dodge, except with Gymnastics instead.
Where it gets fucked up with is Fully Parry, which specificlally makes you roll Reaction+(2xmelee skill) instead of adding another melee skill to the dice pool like all the other defenses do. Annoyingly, its melee combat skill, which means you can use Unarmed to full parry,which is counter-intuitive to the regular block defense.

Full parry annoys me. It should really just add another melee skill to the dice pool, same as dodge. I think the devs were trying to prevent people from applying two specializations to the defense pool, but failed miserabally because you can do it with combinations of dodge/unarmed/gymdodge anyway.

TLDR; pick the weapon you're actually parrying with, double it, add it to reaction, take -2 for it being an offhand(normally), and roll.

AFAIK, you must use Block for Unarmed, and must have a weapon to Parry. It rarely matters except in optimization, though.

Yes. Those are for standard(for lack of a better word) defenses.

You can, however, full parry while unarmed. Its worded so that it can have the functionality of a full block, without introducing more confusing terminology.

Right. Good, I was concerned for a second there. It *is* a 'Full Block'.

You are mistaken here. You are only restricted to 20 BP in a single martial art, since there are only 4 bonuses. At CharGen you could take several martial arts with a total of 7 (35 BP) bonuses, allowing you to buy 14 maneuvers. Afterwards you can have an infinite number of bonuses als long as you have the karma and your GM does not forbid it. Bonuses form different martial arts stack, except for DV bonuses, which are capped at +3.

There's a lot of excellent material to process here, and thankfully ! Several misconceptions of mine were rectified. I'm currently redesigning the character. Once I'm done, I'll overthink* and write a page for a few details.

*Major degree in sociology and master in philosophy = not inconspicuous. I've been revealed.

From a purely crunch POV, Take Aim As A Free Action is THE SHIT.

In a lot of fights it is irrelevant, since they take place at short range. Additionally you still need another Free Action (which then becomes a simple one) to call a shot. Much better are the Hawk Eye Quality and/or an Improved Range Finders.

But Take Aim As A Free Action is just one extra die on your first attack most turns. For nothing! I don't see how range enters into it.

He's saying that the primary purpose of Free Take Aim is to use zoom. +1 Take Aim is usually nothing compared to the effectiveness of Free Called Shot. It's debatable, but reasonable.

Ghouls lose their eyes (effectively Blind), so they get replaced by cyber/bioware : this is incompatible with Hawk Eyes (rules-wise), but still works for Improved Range Finders.

--

A strategy I'm trying for the new build is the "extreme walk/run speed" :

Not that I know I can go beyond 30 BP of SURGE (entering the "35 BP" cap on qualities), I can take Satyr Legs AND Celerity. A modest interpretation means +100% walk/run on a troll metavariant. (Speed is very flavorful for ghouls too.) 15/35m per Combat Turn becomes 30/70m.

(A more 'intrepid' approach -- which I know not the validity -- would add the second increase as an bonus to the first, meaning 15/35 * 1.5 (rounded down) = 22/52; ... * 1.5 (again, and rounded down) = 33/78m.)

Obviously, this means the character could 'walk' and still 'outrun' the majority of foes, or run up to them extra fast (getting the +2 defense bonus to DP). For a gunslinger who's little afraid of melee, this basically means denying foes their combat advantage by reaching melee quicker. Also, such a high 'movement reserve' means that the character could enter and leave melee range at will, provoking intercept attacks and retaliating with many disarm and riposte maneuvers all the while maintaining optimal distance : point blank within 1m when necessary, or beyond 3m if need be. Range issues are also lowered, because getting up close is another way of 'increasing range'.

Also, if walk speed is comparable to run speed (35 base for trolls, 30 or 33 with this char'), this saves me a free action since I don't need the Run action as much.

Does that make sense ?

Oh, don't do that. No one likes the superrunner. But seriously, it doesn't usually matter in play. I guess it depends on the GM, but that's my take. But, if you do want it, just search the forum for the last time someone wrote it up.

I wouldn't worry about the running range at all unless you're really into the flavor or are just doing this as a thought exercise. I mean, you have 14 Body, 11 Reaction, 8 Agility and enough skill to just plain hose people down with an Alpha--his backup plan is apparently better than many runner's first option. His fighting is more than fine. There's no grand prize* for getting in close range with a gunslinger and trying to turn it into a fist fight. They can still fire back at you unless you disarm them-- in that sense they're no different from some mook with a few points in Clubs or Blades. So the big advantages are that the fact that they'll face a net loss of a die due to being at point-blank (+2 dice) but locked in melee (-3 dice) and you can attempt to hurt them even if you don't have a gun of your own. After all, just about any prime runner type worth taking seriously will have Dodge, Gymnastics or a Close Combat Skill of their own, and generally it's a bit easier to get melee defense pool bonuses than it is to get melee offense bonuses. In other words, if you can defend against guns in shadowrun, you can likely do as well against fists. Better, in a lot of ways, actually, although cover and smart use of light smoke and strobes can do wonders.

*I suppose the satisfaction of bringing a knife to a gun fight and winning might count for something. Never saw the appeal, myself, but I guess some people swear by such characters.

Good point.

Re-reading all advice I have received since december, it's quite obvious that several items are subject to disagreement, for ex. : Celerity was suggested by Ryu, MedicineMan and Glyph back then. Obviously, if +50% is enough (Satyr Legs), I could swap Celerity for First Impression, or more Martial Arts.

Well, it's not like Celerity+Satyr Legs is a bad idea, by any means, but life is often about opportunity costs so I'm a li'l curious as to what else you think your character might be lacking before signing off on the speed demon route. For example, I wholeheartedly agreed with Glyph's suggestion back when it was just a matter of replacing a bit of dermal armor. Things like this are a tough call because whatever is "fast enough" depends a lot on context. After all, numerically, troll variants get the most out of things like Celerity and Satyr Legs due to having such a high base to begin with. But in terms of raw utility, there comes a point where you're really just running up the score, as it were-- if you can get to the guy and club him to death with his own arms in a pass, well, then clearly you were fast enough. In house-to-house fighting 50 meters or so in a combat turn is pretty nasty already, after all. The open field might be different, but then, I'm not a big fan in charging about outside of cover in those cases. Often times the problem with being a melee character isn't "How do I kill this guy before he shoots me?" but rather "Okay, I've killed this guy, but now his friends are shooting at me."

First Impression?

Really?

You know how it is.
"Sure, he might look like a bloodthirsty cannibal that would as gladly talk to us, as munch on our femurs, but hasn't MoM been telling us we need to give people who are different a chance? I think we should give him one. What do you say? I think behind the cataracts he once had a wonderful pair of bright blue eyes to believe him on."

Actually, it is 29/69 as you round down for each application of +50% to the Base Speed...

So, 15/35 Adds 7.5/17.5 rounded down to 7/14 per additional +50%

So 2*7/17 = 14/34 which is added to 15/35 for 29/69...

Just wanted to point that out...

I'll just bet you did. It's important, we're talking about one entire meter.

I'm pretty sure it's 15 *(0.5+0.5)

It is... 15 + ((15*.5 Rounded Down) + (15*.5 Rounded Down))... which is 15+7+7 = which is 29...



Sorry there Yerameyahu, it is the geek in me, it just could not resist... And yeah, a Whole Meter *Shrug*

Hehe. Actually, I'm not sure if the game ever specifies whether to add bonuses first, or to calculate them sequentially. There's the classic augmentation-discount question, but it honestly is never spelled out (AFAIK). I'd always err on the side of simpler or weaker, but this is a case where it disagrees.

Contrary to Glamour, which applies only to seductive/manipulative social tests (specifically NOT intimidation), First Impression applies "whenever attempting to fit into a new environment—such as infiltrating a group or trying to meet contacts in a new city" and gives "a +2 dice pool modifier on any Social Tests during the first meeting". 'Any social test' : this includes intimidation, right ? Intimidation "allows a character to make people do what they normally might not, simply out of fear inspired by the character’s in-your-face appearance or behavior". If I encounter a recalcitrant guard on duty (meeting for the first time) in a new environment (his workplace) and tell him that he's better just hand me his weapons or else he won't have fingers or eyes to ever use them again, then that seems like a fine opportunity to impress someone.

Sounds shaky, but what else is new?

If you're also arguing along the lines of "I'm a runner, a big one, people should pee their pants when I turn up, so scaring people is my role in things, and acting out my role in things makes me fit in" then go for it.
By RAW, you are absolutely right.

Good first impression for a bodyguard or ganger is not really the same as a good first impression as a social worker. Obviously knowing when the time allows for aura of evil or benevolence is part of the game. Though I doubt being a goody-two-shoes is really the point in SR.

@Whipstitch : Good point. For the 5 BP opportunity cost, what would you suggest instead ?

Adept. <3

Another, often-looked over point of First Impression is that it applies to Matrix-based meetings.
For example, if your fixer likes to use anonymous chatrooms - it still helps with 'netiquette'.




I've looked at this before. While the point of 'nobody likes a super-runner' is valid, going adept and taking a spirit pact for Movement, combined with a high loyalty contact(so you can actually keep the bonus in case of a dick gm) is a solid tactic.

Its also very expensive, especially if you have a high body - and also hilariously/game breakingly fast at High Force - but doable. At a low/middle level force, it can make the 'no-action powerwalker' actually cover good distance.