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lordsah
So, I'll describe the dilemma I see in the melee combat rules and a house rule that I've used to address it. I'm wondering if folks have implemented similar solutions in their campaigns.

Normally for melee combat, Attacker A (call her Alice) initiates combat with Defender B (call him Bob). Say Alice and Bob have the same skill in Unarmed Combat, so Alice has a 50/50 chance of coming out ahead.

Now assume that Alice has wired reflexes and Bob does not. My personal experience (only a few years in martial arts) says that Alice, because she's faster, should generally come out ahead. She should block attacks and exploit weaknesses more readily simply because she has a quicker response time. The rules in SR3 don't address this, and it seems silly to me and some of my old-time players.

This assumption about reaction as it applies to melee combat seems to jive with Shadowrun fiction I've read (wired reflexes described as seeing things in slower motion, for example).

I've played in previous campaigns that any extra dice to initiative (through magic or cyberware) also get added to melee combat rolls. Alice with WW level 3 would get 3 extra dice on her Unarmed Combat.

I'm starting a new campaign with a batch of newbie players, so I'm taking the opportunity to re-examine some of my house rules. Does anyone else do anything like this? And for folks who've been playing for a long time: even if it's a good idea, do you think it breaks game balance?
Luke Hardison
I don't think that will be too bad on balance, lordsah, but keep an eye on it. If you don't play with power players or munchkins it probably won't be abused, but it has ... potential, especially with adepts and improved Unarmed / martial arts.
kevyn668
Eventually someone will take advantage of that system. Even if you players are complete newbs, at some point they'll discover they can "max-out" in melee or skimp in melee and then earn the dice back w/ reflex enhancement.

Just my two cents. smile.gif
mfb
wow. that's an incredibly simple fix, that sounds really workable. i may have to try that one myself.

i'd suggest that someone using the Quick Strike adept power gets +5 dice for that attack only.
Cain
This is an ongoing argument; there's been lots of suggestions made on this board.

IMO, it's completely unnecessary-- since melee ties goes to the attacker, given equal skill, the faster character will win more often.

My personal experience in martial arts is that speed is a function of skill, and not the other way around. Personally, I feel the rules adequately reflect that.

I'll even run some numbers, so you can see for yourself.
[ Spoiler ]


As you can see, speed is a huge advantage already. I don't see the need to add house rules to give speed even more of an advantage.
Herald of Verjigorm
First, A has a slightly better chance of victory than 50%. Why? Because the attacker wins in ties (if there are a positive number of successes). Having more actions means more combat events where you will win if it is a tie. It also can mean an action or two where you can switch to a gun, step back, and know that the opponent has already burnt all his combat pool. Not "fair" but clearly an option.

If you want to make faster people better in a fight, just change the "tie goes to attacker" rule into "tie goes to highest potential initiative." This way, the MBW-3 usually has an advantage when defending against the WR-3 in a melee and both have an advantage over the SN (slow norm).
Zazen
QUOTE (Herald of Verjigorm)
If you want to make faster people better in a fight, just change the "tie goes to attacker" rule into "tie goes to highest potential initiative."

It'd be funny to watch people take the Adrenaline Surge edge to win any tie wink.gif
Herald of Verjigorm
I am willing to accept that loophole because it prevents the person from installing anything that reliably increases initiative. A 1D6 initiative that wins melee ties will be much easier to deal with than a 5D6 with a SMG.
Zazen
Yeah, it'd be funny, not necessarily effective smile.gif
lordsah
I think everyone is getting hung up on my example of two folks being exactly equal except for increased reflexes. If you take out the rules and tell me about a guy who can move three times as fast as _anyone else_, seems to me that he should generally be able to mop the floor with them. Seems intuitive...

Cain, the only advantage to the faster character you laid out is that they can move first. The outcome of the fight you laid out was determined by only this fact.

Clearly, in ranged fights, high reaction folks have the very definite advantage--they shoot first, and that generally means they win. Perhaps leaving reaction out of melee is the only way to give non-hypered reaction folks a chance. A street sam is still gonna lose if he wades into a gang wielding chains and bats.

As for munchkins always taking reaction enhancers for fights...how is this different than things are normally? Every munchkin I've ever built had as much initiative enhancement that I could get away with anyway.

Does anyone know offhand where those older threads about this debate are?
toturi
QUOTE (lordsah)
I think everyone is getting hung up on my example of two folks being exactly equal except for increased reflexes. If you take out the rules and tell me about a guy who can move three times as fast as _anyone else_, seems to me that he should generally be able to mop the floor with them. Seems intuitive...

Cain, the only advantage to the faster character you laid out is that they can move first. The outcome of the fight you laid out was determined by only this fact.

Clearly, in ranged fights, high reaction folks have the very definite advantage--they shoot first, and that generally means they win. Perhaps leaving reaction out of melee is the only way to give non-hypered reaction folks a chance. A street sam is still gonna lose if he wades into a gang wielding chains and bats.

As for munchkins always taking reaction enhancers for fights...how is this different than things are normally? Every munchkin I've ever built had as much initiative enhancement that I could get away with anyway.

Does anyone know offhand where those older threads about this debate are?

Exactly, you are a munchkin and your Non-Canon house rule is just proof of that. Not that your house rule resembles anything near reality or enhances game balance.
Austere Emancipator
Don't take toturi too seriously, he just has a thing about canon. wink.gif

Couldn't find any of those threads on this forum, but I did find at least one long one on the old: Higher Initiative and Melee Combat
Capt. Dave
Munchkin...Minmaxer...How liberally some people apply these terms to players.
I think what toturi really wants his players' characters to look like is this:

Bob the Stuffer Shack clerk
B-3
Q-3
S-3
C-3
I-3
W-3

Electronics (Cash register) 1/3
Athletics (Restocking) 1/3

Total Pacifist Flaw
Severe Phobia (Shadowrunning)

People...we play Shadowrun to become characters in a world more interesting than ours, and beome characters more interesting, and well...better than the normal person. Now if a GM and his group have fun playing gas station attendants and quadriplegic accountants, then great. But realize that some people _gasp_
like to kill things and be a badass.
Austere Emancipator
Capt. Dave, you really seem to have misunderstood toturi. Had you actually read some of the stuff he has written here in the past, you'd know he certainly doesn't play SR like that. Quite the contrary, in fact. Your whole rant was completely pointless and missed by a mile. Which wouldn't've been so bad had you not tried to make the rant so insulting as well.

Do not make so hasty assumptions about people based on 1½ lines of text on a forum.
Capt. Dave
I apologize if I misunderstood toturi's style of play, but the entire stereotype of munchkins kind of bothers me. To me, a new rule that fits in with a certain style of play isn't munchkinish. Perhaps I was out of line, but people really need to stop throwing that description on seemingly everything.
kevyn668
How come we don't have a "Munchkin Smiley"?
grinbig.gif
DigitalMage
If you do include this house rule I would like to make a few suggestions -
First make it clear that these are extra dice - they do not increase the Skill and therefore do not raise the maximum for the number of Combat Pool that can be used.

If the Skill is less than the extra number of dice that could be gained, cap the extra dice to the Skill, e.g. a guy with Unarmed Combat 1 woudl only gain 1 extra dice from his Wired Reflexes even if they are rating 2 or 3. Fast reactions aren't always helpful if you don't know what to do with them!
Eyeless Blond
You know, I just had a bit of inspiration. It seems to me that Reaction should generally play a bigger role in combat. Not only would it help in melee to an extent, but also in ranged combat, dodging attacks, etc. If the world moves at one-third the speed to you, you should be able to do all those things better. In the same way, I'd imagine that the smarter you are the better you should be at using the computer and adapting to new situations in the Matrix, or the stronger your mental attributes the better you should be at casting spells.

There's already a mechanic for using attributes to assist in certain situations: dice pools. I'd say the best fix for such things, since you're already monkeying with the rules, is to change how Combat Pool dice are calculated. I'd suggest React + Wil/2, instead of the current (Qui + Int + Wil)/2, since Reaction is normally (Qui + Int)/2 already. Just be prepared for everyone running to boost their Reaction more than they already are.
lordsah
QUOTE (DigitalMage)
If you do include this house rule I would like to make a few suggestions -
First make it clear that these are extra dice - they do not increase the Skill and therefore do not raise the maximum for the number of Combat Pool that can be used.

If the Skill is less than the extra number of dice that could be gained, cap the extra dice to the Skill, e.g. a guy with Unarmed Combat 1 woudl only gain 1 extra dice from his Wired Reflexes even if they are rating 2 or 3. Fast reactions aren't always helpful if you don't know what to do with them!

Those are great suggestions. I think that's totally reasonable.

As for reaction...don't critters just straight up use their reaction as their combat dice? (I'm at work without my books at the moment). If I'm remembering that correctly, that's another argument that being faster _should_ help out your melee.

As for munchkinism...toturi shouldn't be so quick to judge. Like most well-rounded RPG'ers, I've played and GM'd both min-max and role-playing heavy campaigns. As for munchkinism in Shadowrun: that's the nature of the beast. Your min-maxer can barely find more fertile ground than Shadowrun smile.gif
Jpwoo
The adding reaction dice to melee skill as well as initiative makes things like wired very very powerful.

If you want to simulate wired effects on combat and melee how about this house rule.

When rolling initiative a player may opt not to roll some of their intiative dice. Each die not rolled will provide one extra combat pool die for that round.

So a character with 9+3d6 initiative could choose to roll 1d6 instead and their combat pool would be two bigger for that round.

The character in game terms is taking her time to observe the details around them rather than just getting as much done as possible.

Perhaps two combat pool dice per one initiative die skipped. though that may be too much.
lordsah
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond)
There's already a mechanic for using attributes to assist in certain situations: dice pools. I'd say the best fix for such things, since you're already monkeying with the rules, is to change how Combat Pool dice are calculated. I'd suggest React + Wil/2, instead of the current (Qui + Int + Wil)/2, since Reaction is normally (Qui + Int)/2 already. Just be prepared for everyone running to boost their Reaction more than they already are.

That logic makes sense. However, I'm a bit hesitant about that change ...Combat Pool is used for all kinds of stuff (Dodge Tests, Damage Resistance, etc). Game balance would be pretty upset by such a sweeping change.

I'm happy with Reaction as it applies to ranged combat...going first and going often is a tremendous advantage when you're shooting a gun. It was melee that seemed inconsistent to me, and adding the extra Init dice to the melee skill is a very targetted solution.
Cain
QUOTE
I think everyone is getting hung up on my example of two folks being exactly equal except for increased reflexes. If you take out the rules and tell me about a guy who can move three times as fast as _anyone else_, seems to me that he should generally be able to mop the floor with them.

Um, no. Raw speed doesn't matter in a fight. It doesn't matter how fast the other guy swings, if I know the blow is coming. Applied speed is what does the trick.

I've studied speed in martial arts extensively, and while I've met many people who can twitch much faster than I can, only well-trained people can match my applied speed. That's not because they can twitch their muscles any faster; it's becuase they can read my body language better than i can conceal it from them. Speed in martial arts is not about moving quickly; it's about giving the opponent as little warning as possible-- not "telegraphing" your moves.

Think of it this way. Raw speed should be a huge advantage when playing console games, right? You need to be able to press buttons very rapidly. So, does it follow that someone who's very skilled at Tetris should also be very skilled at martial arts?

Let's use an unfair example. We have Slow Joe who gets into a fight with Tung Fu Rue. Slow Joe has a reaction of 3 and skill 1, versus Tung Fu Rue with his skill of 6. Joe opens up with a huge haymaker, is caught readily, and gets pounded.

So, Joe goes out and gets a set of wired-3 installed. He immediately goes out and challenges Tung Fu Rue to a rematch. Joe goes first, and opens with the exact same slow arcing haymaker. Tung Fu rue has time to sigh before pounding Joe again.

See the point?

QUOTE
Cain, the only advantage to the faster character you laid out is that they can move first. The outcome of the fight you laid out was determined by only this fact.

Exactly. The faster character already has an advantage, all other things being equal. If the other guy is more skilled, then he should win, as illustrated in the Joe vs Tung Fu example. If things are close, then speed may compensate for lesser skill.

But under no circumstances should reflex boosters transform Clumsy Cal into Bruce Lee.
lordsah
QUOTE
But under no circumstances should reflex boosters transform Clumsy Cal into Bruce Lee.

And it won't . If a guy with Unarmed Combat 2 gets Wired Reflexes 2, then he only has 4 dice. Bruce Lee still has 6 (or whatever), and should consistently win. But crazy-go-nuts fast Bruce Lee (with wired reflexes) should consistently beat mundane Bruce Lee.

The way that I've always thought about wired reflexes is similar to 'bullet time' in Max Payne (I've only watched others play it). (Sorry for those who've never seen this game, but it succinctly describes what I'm thinking.) The game slows down once people start shooting, not too much mind you, just a bit. It gives the human player more ability to react to the NPC's shooting at him. As a result, the human player gets off several accurate shots for the meatbag's one. The player is far from invincible--too many baddies at once and you'll get ganked--and your shots are still limited on your aiming ability.

To me, that seems very applicable to melee combat. Red Reflex (I love these names:)) is boxing with Cochise the Ganger. Cochise starts to swing his chain, even pretty skillfully, but Red has that extra percieved half second to dodge that little bit more, setting him up for a better counter-attack.

[edited for spelling errors]
Smiley
QUOTE (lordsah)
I've played in previous campaigns that any extra dice to initiative (through magic or cyberware) also get added to melee combat rolls. Alice with WW level 3 would get 3 extra dice on her Unarmed Combat.

To keep things from getting TOO uber-badass, i'd suggest taking the difference between the 2 initiative dices and adding THAT to the skill of the quicker player.

Example: Omicron the Planet-Eating Planet w/ Edged Weapons 6 and 12+3d6
Versus Juice Lee w/ Edged Weapons 6 and 10 + 2d6

Ol' Omicron is a bit quicker and has one more initiative dice than Juice. Therefore, he adds that dice to his Edged Weapons while they're duking it out.

Although, that brings up the question: "What if there's a guy with 14+1d6 fighting a guy w/ 6+3d6? Which one is really quicker?"
To which i respond, "Bite me. I'm not FanPro."
Austere Emancipator
I suppose this might be a good time to advertise my medieval fantasy SR melee combat rules (part of the FR port)... But you know me, I'm above that sort of thing. wink.gif
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Smiley)
Although, that brings up the question: "What if there's a guy with 14+1d6 fighting a guy w/ 6+3d6? Which one is really quicker?"
To which i respond, "Bite me. I'm not FanPro."

I've always thought of the Reaction part of initiative as different than the dice (reflexes) part. The Reaction part is mental in nature: the higher your Reaction the faster you can mentally adjust to what's going on around you. Personally I see that as exactly the part of initiative that should be factored into combat: the higher your Reaction the more you get that bullet-time perspective, and the more time you have to reason out what to do next. This, IMO, is exactly what Combat Pool is all about. Really, shouldn't Combat Pool reflect how fast you are able to perceive combat situations?

The dice part is independent of every other attribute and skill you possess. IMO the dice measure only how fast you can twitch; it has nothing to do with how quickly you perceive time and therefore, IMO, nothing to do with your skill in combat beyond the fact that you almost always move first.

Adopting the change I'm talking about here, apart from making melee combat more realistic for wired-up cybersams, would also make spells like Increase Reaction more desirable. Honestly, how many of your mages, given the choice, would choose Improved Reflexes over Improved Reaction any day of the week? This would hopefully balance that out a bit.

The only potential complication that a GM ought to consider is that any cyberware, bioware or adept ability that increases Reaction (eg. Wired Reflexes et al)should increase in price about 10-20% to reflect the fact that Reaction is that much better now. Of course this caveat would apply to any solution that makes Wired Reflexes more powerful.
Smiley
I can agree with that. I've always thought of the initiative dice as randomness in action. Like how prepared you were at that second to act or how other factors in a setting affect how fast you respond.
So how would reaction affect melee combat, then?
toturi
QUOTE (Capt. Dave)
Munchkin...Minmaxer...How liberally some people apply these terms to players.
I think what toturi really wants his players' characters to look like is this:

Bob the Stuffer Shack clerk
B-3
Q-3
S-3
C-3
I-3
W-3

Electronics (Cash register) 1/3
Athletics (Restocking) 1/3

Total Pacifist Flaw
Severe Phobia (Shadowrunning)

People...we play Shadowrun to become characters in a world more interesting than ours, and beome characters more interesting, and well...better than the normal person. Now if a GM and his group have fun playing gas station attendants and quadriplegic accountants, then great. But realize that some people _gasp_
like to kill things and be a badass.

Min-max does not equal munchkinism.

I would not have used the word if the poster I quoted had not used those words to describe his characters.

And if you know me, my personal PCs are right on the edge of what the rules allow, not a step further.
Smiley
Besides, let your players "min-max" and "munchkin" all they wanna. BUT, like the man says, for every action...

If the players want to be gods among men, the threats they come up agains will just have to be adjusted accordingly. It's all just numbers, anyway. When one set goes up, let the other sets correspond.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Smiley)
I can agree with that. I've always thought of the initiative dice as randomness in action. Like how prepared you were at that second to act or how other factors in a setting affect how fast you respond.
So how would reaction affect melee combat, then?

Well, like I said earlier, all you need is a simple change to how Combat Pool dice are calculated:
QUOTE
There's already a mechanic for using attributes to assist in certain situations: dice pools. I'd say the best fix for such things, since you're already monkeying with the rules, is to change how Combat Pool dice are calculated. I'd suggest React + Wil/2, instead of the current (Qui + Int + Wil)/2, since Reaction is normally (Qui + Int)/2 already. Just be prepared for everyone running to boost their Reaction more than they already are.


The more I look at this idea the more I like it. There's no odd, esoteric rule addition here for people that only applies in a single situation for people to forget about in the heat of battle; dice pools in general and Combat Pool in particular are already central mechanics in the rules, and used all over the place. Further, this change doesn't alter *how* Combat Pool is used, merely how it's calculated. Finally, this only affects people with boosted Reaction. The proposed change is:

Combat Pool(revised) = Reaction + Wil/2
Combat Pool(original) = (Qui + Int + Wil)/2

Natural Reaction equals (Qui + Int)/2 as it is, so for non-boosted characters there's essentially no difference*. The only potential complication here is of course that boosting Reaction becomes that much better. Cyberware and bioware boosts should probably cost 10-20% more, and the first two levels of Adept powers that boost Reaction should cost a little extra anyway. I gotta say though I don't really have a problem with making the Improved Reaction spell better; right now noone takes it in favor of Improved Reflexes III, which is kinda stupid IMO.

*Yes, we all know there can be a small difference due to rounding differences, but if you really want to be anal about that sort of thing you probably already use fractions.
phelious fogg
From a game balance prespective, Combat Pool is more to help non-combat characters from being creamed. Personal I'd be in favor of chaning how melee works in the following manner.

To block an attack you can use your skill at TN4, success's canceling the attackers successes. You get no counterattack.

To counterattack you can use your skill at TN5 sucesse's canceling the attackers, and net sucesses damaging the attacker. Tie goes to attacker.

The main reason for this is so you have to debate between countering and just blocking. And, I hate the adept power "coutnerattack" in that it means an adept is better at counter attacking than actual attacking.

"Why cant I kill it" adept asks.
"Because it isnt attacking you" GM answers.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (phelious fogg)
From a game balance prespective, Combat Pool is more to help non-combat characters from being creamed.

That's a good point. Maybe Int or Will should do double-duty in Combat Pool die, ie:

Combat Pool = Reaction + Wil OR
Combat Pool = Reaction + (Int + Wil)/2

I always liked the idea of more Combat Pool anyway, particularly for dodging. As it stands combat looks far too deadly, at least on the surface. But then I don't much like all the different ways for Magic characters to lose Magic, or how cyberware surgery can go all screwy so easily, but that's mostly my D&D background talking.

QUOTE
To block an attack you can use your skill at TN4, success's canceling the attackers successes. You get no counterattack.

To counterattack you can use your skill at TN5 sucesse's canceling the attackers, and net sucesses damaging the attacker. Tie goes to attacker.

The main reason for this is so you have to debate between countering and just blocking. And, I hate the adept power "coutnerattack" in that it means an adept is better at counter attacking than actual attacking.

"Why cant I kill it" adept asks.
"Because it isnt attacking you" GM answers.


Eh. Problem with this is that anyone who's ever done any kind of combat knows that the best defense is often a good offense. That is, counterattacking is often easier than pure defense partly because it gives the attacker something extra to think about other than beating on you, and partly because defense is inherently reactive, as opposed to proactive attacking. Actually I think the rules for melee combat are pretty much fine as they are.
Voran
Maybe some sort of target number modifiers based on your initiative roll?

In combat in SR, it seems a high init roll is great for ranged combat because it allows you to put more bullets in the air than a slower init. For melee, a defender can defend pretty much as often as they get attacked, regardless of how many init-based actions they had for that combat round. A higher init char seems better off holding back their combat pool as much as they can and burning on their last init-passes rather than blowing their load earlier on, so its more likely the higher init char has more of their combat pool left than a lower init one. Otherwise there isn't much else a melee type seems to get out of having a higher init.

Maybe basing something off init, instead of bonus dice to init, would be a little more balanced? A character with high bonus init dice, can still roll crappy on their init. Theoretically even with something like a 6+3d6 you can end up with a 9 or 10. Maybe bonus dice based on the number of init passes you get, which acts like combat pool for that total round. So the bonus isn't static, you'll get some benefit from speed, but won't always have the speed advantage, because sometimes, well...you roll bad.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Voran)
Maybe some sort of target number modifiers based on your initiative roll?

In combat in SR, it seems a high init roll is great for ranged combat because it allows you to put more bullets in the air than a slower init.  For melee, a defender can defend pretty much as often as they get attacked, regardless of how many init-based actions they had for that combat round.  A higher init char seems better off holding back their combat pool as much as they can and burning on their last init-passes rather than blowing their load earlier on, so its more likely the higher init char has more of their combat pool left than a lower init one.  Otherwise there isn't much else a melee type seems to get out of having a higher init.

Maybe basing something off init, instead of bonus dice to init, would be a little more balanced?  A character with high bonus init dice, can still roll crappy on their init.  Theoretically even with something like a 6+3d6 you can end up with a 9 or 10.  Maybe bonus dice based on the number of init passes you get, which acts like combat pool for that total round.  So the bonus isn't static, you'll get some benefit from speed, but won't always have the speed advantage, because sometimes, well...you roll bad.

I don't really like this rule much. The biggest problem I see is that a good roll in initiative counts double. Getting a high roll for init is good enough; why make it worth even more just because the guy happenned to get lucky?

As a more general problem with this rule, it's yet another special modifier or condition, applicable only in a very specific context, and doesn't very well relate to any other rule in any book. One of the most important considerations when designing house rules or indeed game systems in general, is the issue of rules mastery, that all the different subsystems of the rules are similar in ways that make it easy for people to apply what they know of one section to another. SR already does a rather spotty job of this many times, which is why so often even veterans are sent scrambling to their books even in the middle of game sessions to figure out how to make a particular System Test or how astral combat works against a barrier. We certainly don't need extra-special house rules adding even more particular cases to the ruleset. In the best case it'll be a barrier to entry for new players in your group, as you have to take even more time to explain the ins and outs of your alterations, and in the worst case you'll forget what you house-ruled and forget to use the changes at all, or only use them sometimes.

I'm still sticking by my original idea to include Reaction in Combat Pool somehow. It's a simple change that does the job and is fairly easy to remember so long as someone puts a sticky note on the page with the Dice Pool formulae.
Cain
QUOTE
And it won't . If a guy with Unarmed Combat 2 gets Wired Reflexes 2, then he only has 4 dice. Bruce Lee still has 6 (or whatever), and should consistently win. But crazy-go-nuts fast Bruce Lee (with wired reflexes) should consistently beat mundane Bruce Lee.

And he does. The example I posted earlier proves that.

We can modify the example so we have Jetfast Lee versus Old Man Ty Chee; both with skill 9 and 12 combat pool dice each. The numbers don't change that much. Jetfast Lee gets to instigate more attacks, and so he'll win on ties. All other things being even, he's got a huge edge.

Being fast provides a small advantage, which is all it really provides in real life.
Zazen
QUOTE (Cain)
Think of it this way. Raw speed should be a huge advantage when playing console games, right? You need to be able to press buttons very rapidly.

If you just want to mash buttons, sure. A lot of damn good it'll do you versus, say, Viscant's 'Gief (Viscant brought Zangief to the top of the Marvel vs Capcom character tier, using an impressive slow-and-steady zoning tactic combined with his world famous "triple option". He often used slower playing modes to put his opponents off-guard). I don't know a damn thing about martial arts, but I know my way around a video arcade. Being quick is nothing compared to making good choices.

Case in point, last time I hit the arcade I was greeted with some impressive competition around the MVC2 machine. I was in awe of one players impressive Blackheart/Capcom, and another player proved to be a formidable Magneto/Storm rushdown expert. I'd also just come from a bar where I'd sucked down 4 beers, 2 bourbons and a gimlet while watching the first half of the super bowl. I couldn't walk very well and my reaction time left a lot to be desired, but I had enough experience and raw ability to rack up 23 wins before the urge to piss became too great.
Cain
Zazen-- you also prove my point. Raw speed is meaningless without skill. That's why speed is a function of skill, and not the other way around.

Using video games as an example-- let's say we have a guy who only knows how to pull off one move, like Ryu's fireball. He challenges you, and you beat him readily. He goes off and drinks two liters of pixie dew-- that's mountain dew almost-but-not-quite supersaturated with pixie stix powder. He comes back twitching like mad and foaming at the mouth, and mashes buttons even faster than before. Will you have any more difficulty in beating him?

The same thing happens in martial arts. If the other guy doesn't know what he's doing, his speed won't help him much at all (and can actually hurt him quite a bit). If he does know what he's doing, then his speed can become an advantage; but his speed will always be a result of his skill, and not a cause.
Zazen
QUOTE (Cain @ Mar 24 2004, 05:31 AM)
Zazen-- you also prove my point.  Raw speed is meaningless without skill.  That's why speed is a function of skill, and not the other way around.

Hey, as long as you 'spect the 'cade. smile.gif

QUOTE
Using video games as an example-- let's say we have a guy who only knows how to pull off one move, like Ryu's fireball.  He challenges you, and you beat him readily.  He goes off and drinks two liters of pixie dew-- that's mountain dew almost-but-not-quite supersaturated with pixie stix powder.  He comes back twitching like mad and foaming at the mouth, and mashes buttons even faster than before.  Will you have any more difficulty in beating him?


The fact that he chose Ryu in the first place means that he has already lost nyahnyah.gif
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Cain)
The same thing happens in martial arts.  If the other guy doesn't know what he's doing, his speed won't help him much at all (and can actually hurt him quite a bit).  If he does know what he's doing, then his speed can become an advantage; but his speed will always be a result of his skill, and not a cause.

Interestingly enough, *my* idea--changing how Combat Pool dice are calculated--already takes this into account, the same way defaulting always takes this kind of thing into account. When defaulting from one skill to another you only get half as much Combat Pool as normal, and defaulting to an attribute means you can't use any at all. Thus if you can't throw a punch to save your life, you *still* can't throw a punch to save your life.

However, to carry your analogy further, what happens when two almost equally-skilled video warriors are playing on different screens, and one screen has a lower framerate, or a half-second time delay? Or if one unfortunate soul is using a controller that has a half-second delay built in? Which guy is going to come out on top? Obviously the one who's not moving and reacting half a second slower is going to have the advantage, especially if he knows what he's doing and how to exploit the advantage. That is what we want to add to the game with this rule: in a competition between two experts the one who can react faster should have a real numerical advantage over the guy who simply can't keep up.

Or, to look at another example, everyone remember the Spider Man movie? Remember the first time Parker's spider-sense went off, when Flash Thompson was trying to beat him up? This is the kind of advantage I think Improved Reaction should give someone. When you can move and react to someone so quickly that they appear to be moving in slow motion, dodging should be fairly easy, and striking back shouldn't be so very difficult, even with little to no skill.
Cain
QUOTE
That is what we want to add to the game with this rule: in a competition between two experts the one who can react faster should have a real numerical advantage over the guy who simply can't keep up.

But that's exactly what happens under the current system. All other things being equal, the guy with the speed superiority will have the advantage.

Let's look at the numbers. If you have skill 6, and are rolling against TN 4, you can expect half your dice to succeed and half to fail. If you really want to get into it, there are 64 possible outcomes, but we shouldn't need to go into that level of math.

When comparing successes on six dice between two people, there are only 3 possible outcomes-- Fighter A will have more successes, Fighter B will have more, or they will tie. However, there are 36 possible combinations of successess for each fighter. We'll graph it as follows:


1 2 3 4 5 6

1 T A A A A A

2 B T A A A A

3 B B T A A A

4 B B B T A A

5 B B B B T A

6 B B B B B T

A = Fighter A wins
B = Fighter B wins
T = Tie.

As you can see, the probability is 15:36 that Fighter A will win (or 5:12); 5:12 that Fighter B will win, and 6:36 (1:6) that they will tie. So, fighter A will succeed sroughly 40% of the time.

Now, let's say Fighter A is faster, and is more capable of instigating melee attacks. That means he wins ties. The probability of victory is now 21:36, or 7:12. That means Fighter A now succeeds roughly 60% of the time! That's a 20% advantage under these conditions, which seems to me to be a rather significant numberical advantage.
BitBasher
QUOTE
However, to carry your analogy further, what happens when two almost equally-skilled video warriors are playing on different screens, and one screen has a lower framerate, or a half-second time delay? Or if one unfortunate soul is using a controller that has a half-second delay built in? Which guy is going to come out on top? Obviously the one who's not moving and reacting half a second slower is going to have the advantage, especially if he knows what he's doing and how to exploit the advantage. That is what we want to add to the game with this rule: in a competition between two experts the one who can react faster should have a real numerical advantage over the guy who simply can't keep up.
Thats all well and good byt reflex enhancers in SR Do NOT make you move any faster, (no movement speed increase) nor do they make your brain process information faster (combat pool). This makes that analogy completely flawed.

Oh, and I used to be able to play a formidable ryu. The "Shoryuken > all other close attacks" made him a big fat pain to fight against if you had a really good sense of timing. I worked in an arcade when the original MVC came out so long ago.
Zazen
QUOTE (Cain @ Mar 24 2004, 03:22 PM)
Now, let's say Fighter A is faster, and is more capable of instigating melee attacks.  That means he wins ties.

Actually it just means he wins more ties. Fighter B still wins some ties.

If A has 3 actions per turn and B has 1, then A should win 3/4 of the ties. That makes 19.5 of the 36 scenarios in his favor, or a 54.16% chance of victory. Going three times as fast thus gives him a whopping 4.16% advantage nyahnyah.gif

edit- Actually A's chance of success in this case are even worse: 52.04%. We've neglected to consider the cases when a side rolls zero successes.
Zazen
QUOTE (BitBasher @ Mar 24 2004, 03:55 PM)
Oh, and I used to be able to play a formidable ryu. The "Shoryuken > all other close attacks" made him a big fat pain to fight against if you had a really good sense of timing. I worked in an arcade when the original MVC came out so long ago.

He was a good character in MVC, but that particular tactic would leave you in a world of pain against a skilled opponent; it is woefully easy to bait you into doing that and nail you during recovery. You can't play MVC like Street Fighter.
BitBasher
I know, I wasnt suggesting that tactic in exclusivity. Baiting doesnt work after you get in the habot of using peripheral vision to watch your opponents button presses. I got payed to play that game for nearly 1 year 8 hours a day 3 days a week. biggrin.gif Graveyard shift in the local arcade.
Zazen
QUOTE (BitBasher @ Mar 24 2004, 05:22 PM)
Baiting doesnt work after you get in the habot of using peripheral vision to watch your opponents button presses.

That just doesn't sound like a high-level tactic. Proper jump-in combo starters have instantaneous startup (most often jab or short). The moment they hit the button is already too late to dp.

It sounds like you were playing people who were starting their combos way too early.
Cain
QUOTE
Actually it just means he wins more ties. Fighter B still wins some ties.

If A has 3 actions per turn and B has 1, then A should win 3/4 of the ties. That makes 19.5 of the 36 scenarios in his favor, or a 54.16% chance of victory. Going three times as fast thus gives him a whopping 4.16% advantage

I think you misread my math...

On any given roll, assuming six dice per side, the odds of any one person winning outright is 5:12, and 1:6 that they will tie. Because the instigator wins ties, he has a 7:12 probability of victory, in the situation I described.

My math only covers one roll-off, and not the series. In a series of 4 clashes, there are 144 possible outcomes; but that reduces itself right back down to the 7:12 odds I quoted earlier.
QUOTE
We've neglected to consider the cases when a side rolls zero successes.

Oops, you're right. Let's redo the numbers:

X 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
0 N A A A A A A
1 B T A A A A A
2 B B T A A A A
3 B B B T A A A
4 B B B B T A A
5 B B B B B T A
6 B B B B B B T

A: Fighter A wins
B: Fighter B wins
T: Tie
N: No result.

So, out of 49 possible outcomes, we have a 1:49 odds of nothing happening, 21:49 odds of Fighter A or B winning outright, and 6:49 of a tie. So, the instigator has 27:49 odds of victory, or 55% chance of victory. Which doesn't sound like much, except his opponent only has a 43% chance of victory, since no successes on either side results in nothing happening. That gives our instigator a solid 12% improvement-- not great, but not that shabby either. If I could get a 12% increase in the odds in Vegas, I'd be going for it.

As I said, though, this is for only one roll, and not a series. As the calculations progress, the odds shift further. Basically, as things grind on, the slower person is at progressively worse odds of victory. And that's not even including injury modifers, which make these calculations even more complex.

Basically, speed does provide you with some advantage; but the biggest advantage comes from an increase in skill. Which is as it should be-- it doesn't matter how quickly I mash buttons, if I don't have the skill to back it up, you'll trash me at MVC.
Zazen
These 49 possible outcomes aren't equally likely, besides all that. I was just kinda sorta working within what you'd started, but a real analysis of the situation would require me to be something other than really high right now.
Cain
Hm? Assuming TN 4, they are all equally likely. Injury modifers will change things, as will intelligent tactics (and having a higher initiative allows you a better selection of tactics).
Zazen
No, the number of successes for each combatant follows a normal distribution curve, identical to flipping 6 coins and counting heads.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Cain)
Hm? Assuming TN 4, they are all equally likely. Injury modifers will change things, as will intelligent tactics (and having a higher initiative allows you a better selection of tactics).

No, no they're not. To give a very simple analysis of why, let's look at the (1,1) case and the (3,2) case. The probability of hitting (1,1) case, player A must roll 1 success against TN 4 and player B must roll 1 success against TN 4. The probability of A rolling one success is 6*(1/2)^6 = 3/32. Thus the probability of both A and B rolling 1 success is exactly 9/1028. If you don't believe me then you need to go over your discrete probability and/or combinatorics (aka counting problems.) smile.gif

Now for (2,3). The probability of A rolling 2 successes against TN 4 is 15*(1/2)^6 = 15/64. Similarly, the probability of B rolling 3 successes against TN 4 is 20*(1/2)^6 = 5/16, so the combined probability is 75/1028.

If you go over the math in a bit more detail you see there is a greater probability of 3 successes than any other number of successes. I'm too damn lazy to do all the calculations in detail for this random variable, but suffice it to say that the number of ties--and thus the faster person's advantage--is slightly greater than an equal-probability model would admit.

On the other hand, remember that the faster person won't *always* be the instigator; the slower guy gets to make some attacks as well. They'll in fact be trading blows for the first X rounds, until the guy with slower reaction runs out of actions and (presumably) withdraws for the rest of the Combat Turn. Which brings up an interesting point about initiative: high initiatives in combat aren't very useful compared to pure Quickness, as the Quick guy can stick and withdraw somewhere the pumped-Reaction guy can't follow*.

All that said, I still think that Combat Pool should be based on Reaction and Willpower, rather than Int, Quick, and Willpower. The correlation just makes more sense to me, and it would entice more people than the Rigger to go for "intelligent" increases to initiative, like Reaction Enhancement, than stuff like Wired Reflexes--which I really think should be bumped up to 3.5 Essense cost as it's much too good a deal as-is.

*This of course assumes I'm reading the movement rules correctly, which I'm not sure I am.
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