You could also use 4 + Base IPs hits = +1 IP. An unaugmented person needs 5 hits, a 3IP Street-Sam needs 7. It gives the slower characters more of a chance to get free IPs, and still keeps the wired-up crowd from constantly getting them. I'd keep it capped at 1 free IP, and you can't spend Edge to get additional IPs, otherwise there'd be some serious shenanigans.

You could also do 4 + 2*(Base IPs) = +1 IP, depending on how common you wanted freebie IPs to be for your group.

But the subtract 10 rule is from SR1 - 3 and not 4. Back then all 6's exploded. I understand the desire for variance and outliers, and they do still exist, but it never made sense to me that a Phys Ad with 1 rank of improved reflexes, under the old rules, could potentially get more actions in a turn than a MBW zombie. It just shouldn't happen outside of an ambush/surprise round.

Then again, it also used to cost extra to get a trigger to turn off your wires so you didn't look like an active, paranoid schizophrenic on nova coke.

I don't think initiative dice exploded. Having Reaction 8 and +2d6 Initiative (SR3), which is about what you would have with top-level Quickness and Intelligence plus Improved Reflexes 1, would still limit you to 20 Initiative, which was only worth 2 passes. There would also be a slight chance (snake eyes on Initiative) that you would only get 1 pass.

The Reflex Trigger in SR4 is part of the Wired Reflexes package, costing a Free Action to switch on/off -- and if you play it by the book, switching on your Wired Reflexes in Round 1 doesn't give you your bonus until Round 2.

Now, I don't have my SR3 book, but I did play it quite a bit, so bear with me. You have reaction 8 + 2d6. You roll your 2d6 and get 3 and 6, reroll 6 and you get a 5. This means you get to add 11 to your reaction. If you had rolled a 6 on the reroll it would explode yet again. (This was also why a TN of 7 was silly, any 6 you reroll turns into at least a 7, so yes, 7 = 6....) That means with some luck on your 6's there was no ceiling, while the other guy with 4d6 doesn't get a single 6 and is stuck with his 2 passes (because his base was likely above 14 really). Just food for thought on the matter and I could be wrong and mixing in SR2 rules even.

Yup, there's an outside chance something crazy would happen. ... Yup.

I looked it up. Rule of Six didn't apply to initiative rolls. Initiative rolls were simply tallied. Your 2d6 roll of 3 and 6 would add 9 to your Reaction to get your initiative score for the turn.

Oh, while I've got the SR3 book open, the Street Samurai archetype had Reaction 11, and +3d6 Initiative (with his initiative source stats at their natural maximums). That was including Wired Reflexes 2 and Reaction Enhancer 1.

That meant his initiative ranged from 14 to 29 (middling out at about 22-23), giving him at least 2 passes and at most 3. Probably 3.

Comparatively, the Weapons Specialist had Reaction 7 and +2d6 Initiative (again with the source stats at their natural maximums), which included Boosted Reflexes 2 (+1 Reaction, +1d6 Init).

That meant initiative ranged from 9-19 (1-2 passes, probably 2).

Boosted Reflexes were like a proto Synaptic Booster, and were only marginally effective compared to Wired Reflexes, at greatly reduced cost and Essence loss, as opposed to being an expensive light-Essence equivalent.

You could take 6 Reaction Enhancers (compared to 3 in SR4) and stack them up with Wired Reflexes, getting something like a +12 Reaction and +3d6 initiative bonus from the two. This meant that you could have something like 18 +4d6 Initiative, topping out around 42 (5 passes) in a turn on a good roll.

Of course it'd cost you 860,000 before you factored in the need to mitigate some of that 6.8 Essence loss with alphaware.

I'm gonna do some self-nitpicking on the house-rule I proposed, see if I can find any obvious flaws. I'm going to use the pregens from the SR4A book for consistency.

I'm not a statistician, but here's the assumptions I'm making:

• One hit is assumed for every 3 dice rolled. If there are 2 dice remaining, one extra hit is listed as possible.
• Every 4 hits results in an extra unaugmented Initiative Pass; no extra IPs are gained unless this exceeds the augmented value.
• When Edge is added, one die is added for every 6 being rolled (i.e., one die in six explodes). These extra dice are added before the 1 hit:3 dice calculation. This is only performed once; the single extra die that would be added if another multiple of 6 were reached won't affect the results.
• I didn't check this for adding Edge after the roll, or using Edge to reroll.

Looking at this, extra actions (if unaugmented) aren't likely until you have an Initiative of 11 or more. Once you have a 12+, you can effectively count on getting an extra IP; someone with good enough reflexes might be able to compete with the low-grade wired types (making the Reaction Enhancer worth purchasing if you're close enough to that magic number).

Even if your Initiative is really low, spending Edge before you roll makes an extra IP a lot more likely, unless you have both low Initiative and low Edge. (The Street Shaman reflects this.) Someone who invested heavily into Edge might get dramatically better results. So using Edge to increase your Initiative roll, instead of just buying an extra IP, will generally benefit you more.

I don't see a way to exploit this, really -- the only way you could absolutely guarantee an extra IP would be to have an Initiative of 16 and buy automatic hits, but if you've got that much, you might as well roll and take the chance that you could get lucky and get a third one. The odds of you only getting 3 hits on 16 dice are really really low.

*Can* you Edge an Initiative roll at all? Just wondering, it doesn't matter much.

Can't I just spend edge to get an extra IP?

Yes, but LonePaladin was comparing the benefit of buying an IP versus Edging the roll.

Yes and yes. You can even spend edge to go first in an IP.

Yes to both questions. I wanted to see how the numbers would play out on average, to see if my idea turned out to be really broken. It doesn't seem to be; you need an Initiative of 10-11 to be able to consistently get 4+ hits.

So, your run-of-the-mill street sam, if made like the example one, won't really be going first very often, but they'll always get their standard 3 IPs. Someone who's gone for maximum Initiative, though? Let's see what's doable at character-creation, specifically avoiding anything that adds IPs. (I'm also not using anything out of Augmentation or Unwired, as I don't have either book.)

• Start with a human. 0 BP.
• Take Exceptional Attribute (Reaction). 20 BP.
• Buy Reaction to 7, Intuition to 6. 75+65 = 140 BP.
• Buy Edge to 7. 65 BP.
• Rating 2 reaction enhancers. 0.6 Essence, 20,000¥ (4 BP).
• Rating 2 adrenalin pump. 1.5 Essence, 60,000¥ (12 BP).

So, for 241 BP, you have someone with Reaction 7(9/11), Intuition 6; Initiative 13(15/17), 1 IP. That'd leave only 159 points for everything else (stats, skills, gear, etc.).

On an average roll, their Initiative will be 20 with 2 IPs; if the pump's active, they get 22-23/2 IPs. When they spend Edge on the roll, with everything running, they get 24 dice -- assume 4 explode, so 28. This translates to 9 hits on average, so their Initiative would be 26 with 3 IPs.

Sure, this guy can't do much with any skill, but he's always the first one out the gate. It might be possible to make a working character with what's left, but it's really a one-trick pony.

I ran into a guy in Missions (character was a Prime Runner, so not new) that had 4 IPs and a 20 Initiative.

He never even rolled Init. He just bought 5 successes for a total of 25 and still usually went first in combats.



-k

You can't actually choose to buy hits, right?, especially not in clutch situations. But I get the joke, of course.

I'd say that a DP of 20 for Init might qualify as "exceptionally large".

I wasn't the one running the game, but I saw no harm in it. He was almost certainly going to go first ANYWAY, and it sped things up.

It's like a martial artist I once played in that Cancer Game. For damage rolls, he rolled 1d4 and added a ton of modifiers for OMG damage. I often didn't bother rolling and assumed minimum damage, because rolling wouldn't have made much of a difference and it sped things up.


-k

Yes, I do see that. Still, it's removing the possibility of even a glitch, etc. I'd say it's not what that rule is talking about.

I have to say that I really hate the buying-hits rule. Players only roll dice when the result matters. If the result doesn't matter enough to worry about the degree of success/failure, why would they be rolling dice in the first place?

Well, there's the trade-off factor. If you roll dice, you'll usually get 1 hit per 3 dice, but have the usual statistical variances coming into play, plus the off chance of rolling a glitch. Buying hits is a trade-off; you won't glitch, but get fewer hits as a result.

How did he get that dice pool?

Spellcaster of some sort, if I remember correctly, and I think he was a poster child for Focus Addiction.




-k

I tweaked Initiative to allow a bit more random, echoing SR3:

You roll your Initiative as normal (Roll dice and add hits to Initiative stat). Then, compare the number of hits (ie. 5's and 6's) you had on the roll to the below chart:

* 2 hits , you get your 2nd pass (if you have the appropriate gear/spells for it)
* 3 hits, you get your 3rd and 4th pass(if you have the appropriate gear/spells for them)
* 4+ hits on your test, you gain a second pass (only if you are unwired/unspelled.)


A non-wired guy is probably tossing around 6-7 dice on average for Init so 4+ hits won't come up that often, but when it does, it will give them that nice lucky shot. And he is still only picking up a second pass.

A wired guy is probably tossing around 8-11 dice so he is more than likely to always make his threshold for secondary and tertiary passes... but sometimes not.

My group found that they enjoyed it and it adds no extra hassle or time to the game, nor does it change "mechanics" What it does do is create some spice. You should never take anything for granted.

Vlad

Magician, 2 sustaining foci (health), Increased Initiative, Increase Reaction?

I've rediscovered simultaneous actions in recent years. Burning Wheel has a lovely combat resolution system that captures the chaos of combat rather than the 'one action after another' system so prevalent in most RPGs.

For me, one of the more annoying things about the initiative system in SR is that when someone gets knocked out of commission in a given phase it usually wouldn't be apparent for up to several seconds, i.e. 2-3 IPs. I am not happy with withholding that information from players and thus forcing them to pump a corpse full of bullets as it crumples to the ground over two IPs, but I'm also not happy with meta-game hand-waving.

I'm currently helping design a system (not for use in SR, though I guess it could be adapted) that uses initiative to determine the order in which actions are declared and resolved, with the effects taking effect simultaneously at the end of the turn. Worst initiative score declares first and proceeds to best initiative score declaring last. Reminds me of Battletech way back in the day*, where winning initiative means you are granted the advantage of having your opponent commit themselves to an action without knowing what you're going to do. It's a subtle thing but sometimes decisive.


* I assume Battletech initiative still works this way but since I haven't played in >15 years I can't say for sure.

How does it work?

What makes you think that the results of actions only become apparent later? Results from any IP are apparent as soon as they happen. So no, the corpse does not drop in the next round.

That's similar to the way oWOD Initiative works. The actions however do not take place at the end of the turn but in order of the initiative. Slower characters will generally become aware of the results of faster ones as they happen, but have no way of interrupting them. Faster characters can act and interrupt anytime at or after their Initiative.

If someone reads the rules of SR carefully this is what should de facto happen anyways.
GM: Player with the highest Initiative, state your characters actions.
Player: I wait and see what happens (i.e. delay Action)
GM: OK. Next in line is one of my goons. He will shoot your character in the face.
Player: No he won't, at least not untill after I have shot him first.
GM:

I like the idea of most 'realistic' initiative systems, but I'm not prepared to enjoy the contrived reverse-time stuff, or a bunch of secret-ballot stuff. In the end, game-ier is better.

I agree, the more "realistic" an Initiative system gets, the less fun it usually is at the table. If you make it too realistic, nothing distinctively cool ever happens, since the mechanics to simulate those things become too complex. Most RPG turn-based systems follow the flow of a cinematic-style fight, with the action focusing briefly on an individual and then moving to the next individual. You get to say "hey, remember that fight where my character jumped off the fire-escape and landed on that street sam to keep him from shooting a grenade into the rigger's van?" And then another player says, "Yeah, that was just before my character shot the gas tank on the troll's flamethrower with a tracer round." Each moment like that is a distinctive piece rather than a part of a jumbled mess.

I've gotten a chance to playtest my Initiative house rule, too! Refresher: critical success (4+ hits) on the initiative roll grants an extra IP. Any extra IPs from ware/etc adds +1 to that threshold per extra IP.

This worked out really well. The players got into a big firefight with a bunch (6) of Lone Star cops, and instead of mowing through them in one combat turn as usual, they managed to stretch the fight out for 3 combat turns with only 2 Lone Star fatalities (and one unconscious Lone Star mage) before the hacker got the van moving and the infiltrator CS gassed the remaining agents (which effectively prevented pursuit). It worked out so that one or two Lone Star agents would get an extra IP each turn, and the extra actions really kept the pressure on the team to stick to cover.

In the course of the combat, the team also picked up a couple of extra actions, which (combined with their gear), still gave them a significant edge over the cops. The extra variety in the combat turns really forced them to think and take very decisive actions when they had the opportunity, rather than rely on their own extra IPs to clean up.

We also learned that Fichetti Security pistols really aren't very effective against someone with Titanium Bone Lacing and a Lined Coat. Well, the Lone Star guys learned that, anyway. Just before the CS gas.

I like this rule, I must say.


(And they should have had TBolts. )