There's a caveat to the 21 foot rule.

The pistol wielder isn't allowed to shoot until the blade-holder starts his move. If the shooter and knife-holder get an equal "go" command the shooter wins most of the time.

The 21 foot rule is for law enforcement, not combat.

@Kirk
The 21 food rule is valid in every encounter. It is mesures the time you need to recognize a threat draw your gun, aim and fire.

It is not about some bullshit of two people standing opposed to each other, waiting and the guy with the gun can aim the whole time.
Thats not happening in real life.

Of course this rule is mostly important for police officers, because they have to deal with such situations. A sniper is quite more effective in a military confrontation, than a guy charging a bunch of soldiers with a knife. (The guy might take out one soldier, even this is questionable due to armor)

The experiment I was talking about was something else: They did not test the 21 foot rule. They had two guys in close quaters one is aiming the gun at the other. The guy with the gun is making the move for the trigger and mostly got stapped. (That was melee distance) (So I stand with the 21 foot rule and this experiment)

And the fact that you are quite lost with a gun, if already in melee combat (close range) is undisputed.

But remember, we are talking melee range here.
Wars are mostly not fought on such short distances.
To say firearms have to be superior in this distance, otherwise the military would not use them is like saying taking the car needs to be faster than walking if I want to visit a friend 50 yards away, otherwise cars would be useless.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm... 21 Food Rule... That's the rule that they have to have 21 different types of meals for Military Rations, right?

Exactly. It is late and I should go to sleep...

Wait - did you just dispute my post by confirming it?

DRAW, AIM and fire? No action till the other guy moves?

Yep, you did.

And while we're at it, I will dispute the "lost with a gun if already in melee combat" argument. That depends on (a) definition of 'lost' and (b) training/experience (on both sides of the fight), and maybe © circumstances. Law enforcement with emphasis on capture/subdue against knife-armed foe? Yes, you're right, almost always. Soldier or other "kill intended" situation against unarmed foe? Other guy almost always loses. (That started being validated when the simulations started using airsoft, tasers, and other nerve-impacting tools. Turns out the pain of getting shot in the leg or arm matters.)

The Tueller drill is a valid law enforcement training tool because it replicates the environment and conditions common to law enforcement. When the environment and conditions are changed the drill isn't as successful. The knifewielder moves just as fast, but the ready weapon and willingness to shoot on sight remove most of the problems.

Which takes how many actions to put the gun back together again, again?

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize the scenario was for a guy rushing to move through the air shaft so that he could get to his destination vent at just the moment his target is walking by.

I'd say 'yes', regardless. If the vent is inexplicably big enough for a person, it's easily big enough for the gun.

In the scenario that occurred, it hadn't been obvious that the guy that needed to "get dead" was in fact needed dead until combat broke out. The character in the vents had been watching for several moments prior, but in no way would have known that she would need to jump out and slash two guys.

Also:



Big enough for a gal with neoteny (and various augmented "I can fit in small spaces" bonuses): yes. Big enough for a grown man: no.

Even so: big enough for that person, big enough for the gun.

As someone who often deals with use of force in professional situations, almost exclusively with out the aid of tools and/or weapons I can say if anything Shadowrun's Melee Combat systems is on the gentle side. Had I designed it I'd have cranked the Damage Codes significantly because I know just how easy it easy to receive or deal out an injury to someone in a close quarters situation. Especially when you add in concrete and steel, which most urban scenarios are abundant in.

Having been stabbed, kicked, bit, punched, body blocked, tackled, spit upon, hit with fecal matter, attacked y multiple opponents, broken up fights where multiple opponent, and multiple armed opponents I can say it's pretty easy to get hurt whether you're trying or not. Some people are just damned tough, but it's pretty amazing how much damage can be done in one or two hits with just a fist, let alone adding in a weapon.

Yeah, Hollywood has conditioned people to think of guns a uber-powerful shock cannons that can knock people across a room. Which isn't true.

Your average Louisville Slugger bat can generate impact forces ten times that of a pistol.

It's just that for firearms, all their force tends to be concentrated on a tiny little point. So it really doesn't need to be THAT powerful to be deadly.




-k

And I'm okay with the game not being a perfect simulation. I mean, it's a game. Not, you know, punching people in the face.

Unless I'm not seeing something you are - your base melee damage is still (Str/2), Elemental Strike just adds an effect. With a Str 6 your base dmg is only 3P. That's less than a Light Pistol. Half impact armor is pretty impressive but for that I have 2 words: Stick-n-Shock. No armor from sound dmg? Ares Screech. Unconscious is just as good as dead.

Admittedly you can add bonuses to it from various sources (i.e. martial arts) but, by itself, it's not that impressive. One attack per IP and having to close range evens it out just fine IMO.


No, you can hit multiple targets (standing within 1 meter of each other and in melee range) you just split your dice pool.

I think you're misunderstanding me here; I was responding to a comment about elemental spells, not the Elemental Strike power, in that situation. An elemental attack spell cast at, say, force 5, is going to be better damage than a gun because it goes against half impact armor.

Not really, I told you that what you are talking about has nothing to do with the 21 feet rule


Both start their movement at the same time or one of them goes first. Depends on how you run it.The reaction time is not really the issue in such a test. Thats why the rule is incomplete. Meaning that an officer with a gun won't nessecary stand a chance even if the target is 40 feet away. (Since he needs time to realize the threat)


Well, I heard different.
If a guy draws a gun in close quaters at you, use the gun as a leaver to break is fingers and bring him to the ground, than shoot him in the head.
If a guy draws a knife in close quaters, get the hell out of there. There are no real defance techniques against a knife in close quaters if you are unarmed. Meaning you will probably get sliced.


http://www.bladecombat.com/knifemyths.html

I think they went a bit too far in nerfing close combat. Close combat happens a lot in the real world, and works. It's also a staple of cyberpunk fiction. It should work in the game.

As is, the damage codes are a little bit on the low side. A typical knife stabbing in SR isn't likely to be deadly (DV of about 3+hits, and hits are likely to be low because the defender gets Reaction+Skill to evade), which is odd. Perhaps the base DV of weapons should be bumped up a little bit. This would also make weapons more competitive with Critical Strike.

Why are close combat attacks slower than gunfire? In reality, they certainly aren't twice as slow - probably just around even. Moving weapon speeds to Simple would achieve two useful things: make them fast enough to be competitive with guns (on short distances!) and allow drawing and attacking in the first IP of combat.

The "double defense" against close combat isn't actually wrong per se. It is harder to dodge gunfire than defend against close combat attacks, because the bullets are just faster. On the other hand, cover very rarely applies to close combat attacks. The thing that's missing is allowing melee defense against gun attacks in melee range. Because slapping the gun aside should work; it's got a basis in reality and it's cinematic.

Finally, stuff like cyberspurs shouldn't be exotic weapons; make them Blades or Unarmed Combat as you see fit.

---

The way I see it, in SR you spend a lot of time indoors, meeting people at very close ranges (within the infamous 21 feet). Often, you'll have little time to prepare, and they'll be close enough to push aside your gun and slash you with cyberspurs. That's when you want your gun to have Melee Hardening and Club skills or a bayonet and Blades. A real Samurai can defend himself if the enemy comes to close, and that means you have to have some close combat skills.

Guns will still be good. Hitting people at range is always useful. But you just can't ignore close combat skills and call yourself a warrior.

Given normal lack of training, most people don't know how to take a gun away or how to lock it out of threat, much less the harder trick of using the gun to break his fingers. (Lesson. The thumb is weak. Step two is to grab the barrel and pivot it downward in their hand, breaking their grip. Step one is learning how to move out of the line of fire while preparing to grab the barrel. Be advised that if he shoots the barrel will burn your hand.)

Now there's a huge assumption you're making in here -- that the gun-holder doesn't want to shoot, but the knife holder intends to stab. If both are threatening (don't want to attack yet), you can beat either to the punch. Who wins - in either case - depends on training. If they actually attack, the knife wielder is marginally easier to defeat - again moreso if you're trained. I'm trained. I've taken away knives - two of them - without getting seriously cut or stabbed. I have a cut on my forearm from one of them. If the knife-wielders had been trained I'd probably have been stabbed, but circumstances required me taking them both.

As supplement, if you recognize they are drawing either weapon you can beat them to the punch. I've never had that opportunity in real life.

If the other person has a weapon ready and you are unarmed, the stay/run away argument has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to take the weapon away. It has to do with range. In two quick steps you're out of range of the knife. All you are for the gun-wielder is a little more difficult target. Attacking the gun-holder, assuming you believe he intends to shoot anyway at some point, is your best option for minimizing risk.

As a complete aside, the PSU course is decent. A weakness is it has a tendency to cause overconfidence; people overestimate how badass they are now that they know how to use a knife. OTOH, you get the same weaknesses from certain firearm combat and unarmed combat instruction as well. If things go well, you'll either never have to learn otherwise, or learn it the easy way.

@Kirk

Thats quite easy. Fingers break easy. And a handgun makes a hell of a leaver. If you do not break them, he is still falling down and well after shooting the guy in the head, it does not matter.


No, I do not. Two guys 21 feet away both need to ready there weapons on the go. The guy with the knife mostly wins.

And yes, in reality a person with a knife is mostly less dangerous, than a person with a gun. But that has nothing to do with the gun or the knife per se. It has something to do with the psychlogical effect, that stabbing a person takes more guts than shooting one. There is a reason, mass executions were handled by shooting and mostly not by stabbing. (Unless there were no guns)
And knifes are mostly a weapon of oppertunity. Some scared girl picking up a knife is not that dangerous compared to a guy who is walking around with a loaded gun.
But this has something to do with the mentals status of the avarage guncarrier compared to the avarage population.
If you get yourself to meet some guy carrying a combat knife around, this is not a factor anymore.
Than you have to consider the qualities of knifes.
I mean I once grapped a knife by the edge and said, do something. Bad thing if the knife is not sharp enough to cut through my skin.

What I am going at is the following:
If you are comparing weapons you have to assume both sides are willing and able to use them. And both weapons are really "weapons".

Irion,

You say that last sentence, and then talk of the Tueller test and holstered/sheathed weapons. Those are mutually incompatible positions.

Look. I'm speaking from training and experience. In a particular experience: two people at or inside 21 feet, both with weapons holstered/sheathed, both willing to attack, the knife-wielder wins. The reason is that it takes longer to bring the pistol into ready condition.

If both weapons are drawn and readied already, the gun-wielder wins. If it's outside 21 feet the gun-wielder wins. If the gun-wielder is willing the knife-wielder isn't, the gun-wielder wins.

I'm also speaking from training and experience when I say that using the handgun as a lever for breaking fingers doesn't happen. Seriously, grab a plastic handgun or something of roughly the right shape and play with it trying to lever it for breaking fingers. At best you get a forefinger stuck in a trigger guard, and even then everything has to go exactly right to break it instead of having it slip out.

The mass execution and scared girl and so forth comments are irrelevancies. We are, or were, discussing the issue in context of melee in shadowrun. That means we're usually dealing with people with readied weapons; excepting where negotiations go bad and surprise ambushes occur, of course. The law enforcement mentality and tueller conditions don't apply, much less non-combatant and average population issues.

L.O.L. Nothing you can do against a Knife? You need to find a better self defense instructor.

Also, a knife has to strike you to hurt you, meaning an attack puts their limbs in reach of your own limbs, giving you an opportunity to disarm them. A gun can be fired from the hip, where you have no chance to swipe at it.

I dont care if the opponent is three feet away, I would prefer any automatic pistol to a knife.

Oh, and the comment, 'Theres a reason soldiers carry knives'... yeah, its to cut stuff. I dont think they are going to drop their guns and pull their knives b/c an opponent closes within 21 feet...

Your posts are a riot to read though, so please keep it up

My friend who introduced me to shadowrun has a cousin who was stabbed. Her step dad attacked her in the middle of the night and stabbed her 12 times in the chest with a kitchen knife. She survived... I agree knives should be able to kill with one shot, but so should a .22, but I dont think ramping its damage up would make any more sense.

I think real life has people glitching on their dodge tests, and in dramatic situations people are burning edge for critical successes... that is what gets people killed with one stab from a knife. That and called shots for damage.

Melee doesnt need to be a simple action... you are already allowed to attack as many opponents as you like with one action. Its simple for a skilled runner to drop two guys with one complex action in unarmed... just split your dice. You just need a monster dice pool to start with and maybe surprise or edge.

I agree about cyberspurs. Cyber-Implant weapons should be a specialization of unarmed.

It is a specialization of unarmed. And the original thing about cyber weapons being exotic? that only applies to unusual locations (Spurs in the elbows/knees. for instance). In the wrists, it uses blades, same as Forearm Snap blades.

Are you even reading this thread?

You don't drop a gun you already have out.
You draw a knife instead of a gun when the opponent is inside 20 feet (also with no weapon drawn).

I head plenty of things, meself.

When I talk to a guy with actual personal first hand experience in the subject, though, I tend to listen more to that guy.




-k

For shock fists and that's about it. Most of the rest fall under Blades, not Unarmed.

True. It is listed under blades, as well.

@DamienKnight

I was not saying that. You should read what I write.
It is mostly, evade the knife and try to hit the guy hard or get cut and hit the guy hard. There are no blocks that would really work on a knife.
Or in other words: Every block has a high possibility you still get injured.
For that you do not need a good instructor, every instructor who is not a complete idiot is telling you that.

For example:
If you do a sideblock against a punch and you do it right you won't get hurt.
If you do the same thing against a knife, you possibly do not get hurt.
If a push a gun away from my body, I do not get shot.
If I push a knife away, I probably do not get sliced.

You do no get into godmode if you have a knife, it is just the simple fact, that even trying to hold on to your knife might seriously injure your opponent. Thats why fighting bare handed against a knife is such a bad idea.
If I have grapped the arm with the gun, it is no longer a threat. If I grapped the arm with the knife it is still a threat.


Because I can't touch you there or what? Because I would not move.



Strawmen argument.


So you would be killed.


Well, if you go at it like that, you are dead either way, I guess.

Yes: you are dead either way. That's how SR4 works, so obviously everything is fine.

And your Practical Experience comes from where, exactly, Irion? It Sounds like you are just repeating things that you have heard. Do you actualy have ANY practical experience in this regard?

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Kickboxing, Kungfu, Akido, Swordfighting, Jiu Jitsu, taekwondo and some seminars. Nothing really deep so. Only dambled in it for some years each.
So yes you are right. That is just basic knowledge, nothing deep. But I said that already.

This is one of those things where frankly I don't even really care that much about practical experience given the inherent issues with sample sizes and all the variables such as the skills and speed of both parties, mental state and the specific weapons involved. I think ultimately you just need to accept that exercises like the Tueller drill are designed and evaluated through the prism of officer safety and due caution and thus isn't really concerned with "picking a winner" in a close range confrontation. From that standpoint, getting cut at all is reason to rethink your approach even if the officer ends up being the last man standing. Given that neither handguns or knives are known for being instantly incapacitating mutual injury is definitely on the table.

And is, in fact, by far the most likely result.

By practical experience I mean have you EVER had the actual experience of having to put your training into use, or is it still theoretical for you? You keep talking about studies and whatnot, but you have yet to say that you have ever been placed in that situation. Others, who have been in that situation, actively disagree with some of your points, and yet you dismiss that as not fitting your theoretical knowledge. Do you have any Practical Experience with the situation or not?

This is very true... And is very often the actual case, as at least one person above has stated.

I have seen a knife pulled in a confrontation, but without the intent of use. Their unarmed opponent backed up and grabbed one of the knife wielders friends and tried to put him in a headlock, I guess as an attempt to take a hostage or get a meat shield? This happened outside a study hall at a university where my friends and I were playing shadowrun. One of our players was asked to give a ride to someone he barely knew. He agreed, and when he stepped outside, some other guy showed up and started harassing the guy who asked for the ride. The guy asking for a ride got scared and pulled a large pocket knife, so the harasser grabbed our friend.

The instant our friend was involved, our GM started walking toward the guy, but one of our other players (used to be a football player in highschool) ran and clipped the harasser and brought him to the ground. They wrestled a bit until our friend who he had jumped recovered, then he proceeded to kick the harasser in the face until they broke apart.

Was really surreal afterward, when campus police showed up. They separated us and asked us all how it happened. First time I had ever been interrogated.

In the end, the guy who pulled the knife had run off. Later we got ahold of him and told him the Campus cops wanted to talk to him, and he got banned from campus for pulling a knife. We ended up inviting the guy to play SR with us and he became an integral part of the group. His characters were always psychopathic, and he was a little crazy himself. I boxed him once when he was a little drunk and he was losing, so he threw off the gloves and tackled me, and we proceeded to grapple around a yard full of broken beer bottles. I had to sleeper hold him to near unconsciousness before he calmed down.

Another time we were all wrestling at the gym. I put him in an arm lock and he BIT my LEG! Anyway, thats off topic.

One time when I was a senior in high school a Freshman who I suspect was on meth attacked me a with a pair of scissors. He came at me screaming with an overhead stab. I had a size advantage on him and had practiced the move a thousand times in martial arts class, so it was fairly easy for me to jump forward and grab his wrist when it was at full arc, then step past him while pulling his hand down behind me with both my own hands. He went to the ground and I twisted the scissors away, then sat on him for a minute until he stopped seething, then let him up and he ran off.

My Shorin-ryu karate instructor Studied in the Philippines, but got most of his fighting experience as a bouncer. Besides teaching a number of disarm techniques, his general advice for fighting an opponent with a knife is this:

1. Run Away
2. If that is not possible, then accept that you will not fight a knife weilder without getting cut. If you decide ahead of time that you know you are going to get cut and accept it, it will be less shocking when it happens, which it almost always will.
3. Pre-empt them by attacking the second they start to pull a knife.
4. Dont try and dodge over and over, you cant keep it up. Most opponents who are intent on cutting you will succeed within three swipes if you are simply dodging away.
5. If they already have it out, they will expect you to recoil as they strike. Watch for them to begin a strike and immediatly go for their attacking arm.

My own experience was against an inferior opponent, so its not the perfect example. In martial arts class we practiced against opponents wielding wooden knives, and sometimes practiced against an opponent wielding a permanent marker (obviously not a day when we were wearing our Gi). It was a great way to practice disarming without getting cut.

Still, I have shot pistols from a variety of positions, and feel confident that if I had a gun in hand and someone attacked me with a knife, I could use one hand to intercept their knife attack (probably getting cut or stabbed) while I kept the other hand out of their reach and used it to shoot them.

I would never jump into a knife fight for fun, sure, but I would never grab a knife to defend myself over a reliable firearm.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Of that: Not enough to make a judgement on that. Sorry.
As an example of what I mean:
Once on some party a drunken guy thought it to be funny to strange me from behind with a chain.

First I thought to throw him over but then I realised that his attempt was futile to begin with. The guy was too weak compared to me.
So the risk of breaking stuff from the host was less than the nucance to be strangled by that guy. (I probably could have sung an opera at that point)
He realised that it might not be a good idea to continue if the other guy does not even bother to stop choosing the music.

This practical expirience would still not bring me to the conclusion that a strangle attack is "not much of a problem". I would rather go with the theoretical dangers I know from guy who have a training background or medical background or both.



Whats stopping the guy with the knife to do the same thing. And holding unto an arm with a pistol is much easier than holding on to an arm with a knife.

Was Curious, that's all...

No - the fact of the matter is that no game system that uses hit points (or damage capacity which, when you boil it down is the same thing.. 1box = 1hp) can effectively represent the seeming randomness of real life combat/weapons/injuries. There's no magic number of points everyone has that gets ticked off as they take damage... when someone gets injured it's the degree and location of the injury, a mysterious mix of physical factors, and not a small amount of blind stupid luck. Let take someone getting hit in the head with a baseball - sometimes this will result in concussion, sometimes including getting knocked unconscious, sometimes you'll just get a big welt on your head, but, in extremely rare circumstances, if it hits you at just the right spot and at just the right angle it can kill an otherwise healthy person. Similarly for taking a bullet or getting stabbed... one person gets stabbed in the chest and falls over dead within seconds, another gets stabbed in the chest 12 times and lives.. nothing to do with how tough they are or what their overall health is (or how well they dodge), it's just random blind luck that those 12 stabs didn't hit the right spot on the one person but the single stab on the other person did. Could you equate that to Edge? Maybe. But that still doesn't cover a single stab killing someone, in game terms.

Naturally a game that reflected this wouldn't be much fun unless the goal was to avoid combat or everyone ran around in full armor all the time. On the other hand, what this means is, if you stick strictly to RAW, you can't sneak up behind a guard and take them out by cutting their throats or snapping their necks (common movie tactics) because the rules don't make allowances for that.

My point is you can't relate in game damage and lethality to what would happen in real life - the core of the combat system is not realistic and as such the effectiveness of any type of attack is based on arbitrary values designed to make combat dangerous and exciting but not instantly lethal.

So how 'bout that Elemental Strike, huh?

That's what this thread is about? I'd honestly forgotten.

Apparently we're all going to unzip shortly and compare scars.

@Stalag

Well, but you would need to account for a luckshot, stab bypassing the armor too...


You can try to get close to it. The question is: Would it be worth it? You probably would need your character on an IPhone or even a laptop.

Back to Shadowrun:
If you get close to a guy melee weapons should be superior to ranged weapons. Thats just gamistic rule. Because if it is not that way, there is no sense in using melee weapons.
The easiest way to do that is allow to use reaction+dodge/melee if defending against a gun in close combat.
And while you can argue about firearms in close quaters, I guss with bows and assault cannons you are hitting a different thing.
But with the current rules it is as easy to fire a hold out pistol in melee distance and hit as it is with an assault cannon. Thats kind of silly in any way.

So I guess the best way to do it is:
First allow attribute+skill do defend against a shot in melee.
Second make the malus for beeing in melee depending on the size of the weapon. Lets say holdout -2 (offset by point blank) and assault cannon -8 or-10.

When comparing ranged and melee, that's not really a mcuh of an argument on favor of melee, as you can do the same splitting with a gun letting you attack 2 guys with one simple action.

It's also messy, because you can't attack the same guy twice. Which is odd; you can apparently kick everyone around you once, but not the same guy twice?

And with the heightened defense dice pool in close combat, splitting pools isn't too attractive, either.

I agree - even in arbitrary game terms, and accounting for the natural unbalance inherent that should be there, melee vs ranged is terribly unbalanced. (I was really just arguing against the silly level to which people were trying to apply RL examples to SR combat)
I might take it farther...

• Once two combatants enter "melee" neither combatant can perform "ranged" attacks against each other but ranged weapons can still be used to attempt to shoot a melee opponent.
• Using a ranged weapon against a melee opponent is a complex action
• Using a ranged weapon against a melee opponent still uses Agi+Skill but it incurs a die penalty based on weapon size:
  
  • Pistols (any type): -3
  • SMG's (or equivelant): -5
  • Rifle's (any type): -7
  • Assault Cannon: -9
• Bows, rockets, etc cannot be used to shoot opponents in melee
• When using a ranged weapon in a melee, the farther away your opponent is the easier it is to get them in front of the barrel; so instead of working out Reach as normal, apply the defenders Reach as a bonus dice. (If someone is standing 5 feet away stabbing at you with a spear then you'll have an easier time shooting them than if they're wrestling with you).
• Using a ranged weapon in melee to defend against a melee attack uses your weapons melee equivalent stats and the appropriate Close Combat skill.
• When defending against a ranged weapon in melee combat you can use Reaction+Dodge or Agility+Gymnastics to dodge the attack or Agility+Skill to parry the barrel or arm to point it away from you. Ranged weapons cannot be blocked.
• The above only apply when attempting to shoot your opponent while in melee, using your ranged weapon as a melee weapon (bayonett on a rifle, pistol whipping, etc) follows normal melee rules

Not exactly - if you have two guns you can split your dice pool and attack one target with a simple action with both (with a negative modifier to your off-hand if you don't have Ambidexterity). If you use burst or full auto with a single weapon you can attack multiple targets, at -2 per additional target, with a simple action. Which is funny because at that point you're better off just blowing a complex action and using suppressive fire instead (assuming you can go full-auto).

The closest thing I've seen was game systems that split the hit point pool into two groups - one usually representing "real" life-threatening damage and was usually very tiny, and a larger pool representing minor damage, stamina, luck, etc, basically the kinda of superficial stuff that you might recover quickly from.

Most standard attacks subtract from the stamina pool, but if that ran out, or the attack was a critical hit or a special type, points get taken off the Real Damage pool.

Shadowrun attempts a modified version of this, a Real Damage pool of 6 to 12 and a Stamina Pool that, rather than simply being a large pool that reduces, is a smaller pool that regenerates after each attack.

Where Shadowrun 4 kinda fails is the "random deadly damage" that can result from even regular attacks. It exists, in the form of spending Edge to get exploding dice, but since you have to decide to use Edge it's not as random as in earlier editions.



-k

You might want to look at the rules for shooting multiple people again...

Okay...

Where's the one I'm missing that says you can split a guns dice pool to attack two targets with a simple action?

You should Re-read "Attacker using a Second Firearm" and "Multiple Targets" again... 1 Gun, Split Pool, -2 to attack on 2nd target... I though that was pretty obvious...