Alright folks,

First post here; just wanted to ask those of you with more knowledge than me (that'd be everyone) for a bit of advice regarding combat in Shadowrun. I'm using the 4E rules and am slowly beginning to get my head around them, though this is easily the most intimidating rule book I have ever seen for an RPG (though admittedly I've only played D&D 4E and Deathwatch up until now).

Anyway, question about combat:

So, when someone is attacking you it seems from the book like you get a chance to either Dodge, Parry or Block. Given anyone with a Reaction of 2 or higher can default on a dodge check this means that for every attack you will get at least 1D6 with which to avoid it. And, if they succeed in this roll, regardless of whether it's a single shot from a pistol or a point-blank full auto with a mini gun, they are avoiding that hit. So first of all, am I right in saying this?

Following on from that, if we assume that the dodge fails and the attacker scores 3 hits, this would mean that I would have to equal or beat the 3 hits on (Body + Armour) - AP D6. This is where I'm getting confused and the source of this is two-fold. Let's say in scenario one the attacker is shooting at me with a Colt America; it has no AP and does 4P damage. So would we add the 4P to the 3 scored in the hits rolled in order to determine how many hits I would need to have my armour absorb the damage, or does the damage of the weapon used only come into play once we're actually applying damage?

Scenario 2, the dude is hitting me in unarmed combat so he still has no AP but he's also adding STR/2 for the Damage Value. Let's say his strength is 3 so he's adding 2. Again, does this mean he is adding 2 to the 3 hits rolled before and challenging me to score 5 hits in order to absorbe the damage?

I guess the things that are causing me problems here are that it seems wrong for every player to get two chances to avoid getting hit: first by avoiding the attack itself and second by absorbing the hit into bodily strength and armour. Am I right here? In other games I've played (Deathwatch in particular) each character can dodge only one attack per round of combat and this seems far more reasonable. Aside from this issue I'm also just getting hung up on working out how to run combat quickly.

Sorry if this is really wordy, but combat in this game is hard to grasp (not even onto The Matrix or Drones yet, God help me).

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me,

P.S. Any good tips you experienced guys have got for a newbie regardless of whether they deal with this issue or not would also be greatly appreciated.

My replies in bold.

You find SR intimidating after DW?
It took me hours to make my first character there ^^


Well, you need at least the same number of successes as the attacker. So, if there's only one success for the attacker, yes, you can avoid that attack entirely when you roll one success on your hypothetical D6. However if he has more successes, you just reduce the net successes.
There is a slight misconception though: If you only use 'reactive dodge' you don't need to default on reaction. This would only be necessary if you wanted to use full defense (which takes up your next action), and even then, this would be pointless without either dodge or gymnastics skill.
Concrete example:
Trogboy shoots at you with his shotgun. He rolls Agility 3 + Longarms 3 and has a smartgun for a total of 8 dice in his pool.
He rolls 3 successes.
Now you try to dodge (the only reaction available, you can't parry or block a firearms attack, obviously) with your reaction of 3.
You roll 1 success and now you're in trouble, as the next roll is damage resistance.


You roll for damage resistance in every case when you're hit (except when you have hardened armour, but let's not get into this right now).
In your scenario you now need to resist a damage code of 4P+3 successes = 7 with your Body+Ballistic Armour (let's say Body 3, Armour 5)
As the weapon doesn't have an AP value, 8 dice to come up with 7 successes to resist the full damage.
However, let's say you roll 3 successes, you just subtract that from the 7 and take 4 damage (knocking you down automatically, as it is more than you have body)


Well, I'm not sure what you mean with adding to the DV.
His DV is 2 (Str/2, rounded up), and he adds his net successes from the attack test.
When he has hit you, he'll do 5 Stun damage which you need to stage down, in this case with Body+Impact Armour
In close combat, however, you can also defend by blocking or parrying the attack, which usually gives you more dice to not get hit at all.


You're right with your assumption. First you try to avoid (fully or partially) the attack itself. In DW you can only avoid fully, but imagine you could reduce damage by counting the degrees of success.
Let's say, your enemy has had 3 DoS in attacking you. Your Agility is 45, you roll 22. This is 2 DoS, so you don't avoid the attack fully, but you reduce the incoming damage by 2 (turn it into a glancing blow). I know, it doesn't work like that, though, so this is just an example
When you do not avoid the damage in total, you get to stage it down with your body and armour. In DW, this is a fixed rating, Incoming Damage-(Armour Rating-Penetration)-Toughness Bonus.
In SR, it's variable. Makes the game more random.


Yes, it can be overwhelming at first. Try to roll out a few combat situations to see the flow of the game. Maybe use the quick start rules.
Matrix and Drones are 'advanced', so don't worry about those, yet. Just ease into it and learn when it comes up.

Taeksosin seems to have covered everything with some good references thrown in.
Coming from D&D to Shadowrun can be a bit of a shock. One thing to remember about the combat in this game is it is deadly. It is a game of glass cannons. In D&D your characters are fine until they have no HP left. 100HP is as effective as 1 HP. In Shadowrun you get at most, 16HP, ever and most characters only have 10. Every 3 of those you lose, you take a minus -1D6 penalty to everything you do.
So with your scenarios of someone having to dodge and stage down a 7P wound, keep in mind 7P is most of your HP, and if you took all that damage, you would be at -2D6 for all actions as well as -2 to your initiative. Without the dodge and soak, characters would die quick. Characters still die quick, but at least they have a chance.
Another thing that speeds up combat is making sure the players know just what their characters can do and maybe establish some default actions. Make sure they know how burst fire works and what to add, how much AP a weapon has, etc. That way when it is their turn, they roll the dice and tell you the result. You roll baddy dodge, calculate net hits and adjust damage. Then soak if needed. Once you get used to it, it goes pretty quick and if your baddies are just mooks, it doesn't take long to take them out of fight. No need to kill them all.
You don't want to spend as much time being tactical and worrying about AOO is this game as in D&D for example. Also, you get just as much Karma (XP) for avoiding a fight as you do for killing all the baddies. Sometimes more, depending on the job. Characters should avoid fights if they can and use stealth, guile, magic and tech to trick, con and sleaze their way through the job. The guns come out when things go wrong.
Gun bunnies shoot, mages toss spells and end fights before you know it and the hackers foul up the best laid plans by breaking into things they shouldn't.
Have fun.

Thanks to both of you. That's cleared up a lot of misconceptions I had about the role of avoiding attacks when compared to absorbing them.

I think I'd better draw out some combat scenarios and run them myself to get the hang of this. One last question that I can think of though: When I created a test situation for a friend, I found it difficult to find the 'Monster Manual' equivalent section of the rulebook. There's a bit with critters following on from the stuff about NPCs, but nothing else that I saw. Should I just be making up my enemies or are there templates for them somewhere in this book that I've missed?

Yes and no. With ranged attack the defender only gets to roll their Reaction, unless they declare full defense, in which case they get to add their dodge skill to the dice pool. If you are in melee combat, as the defender, you can do one of the following: Roll your weapon skill + reaction to block, roll unarmed combat + reaction to block, or roll dodge + reaction to dodge.



When you say the dodge fails, are you talking about the defender getting no hits? Because what you do is compare the number of hits the defender gets to the number of hits the attacker gets. If the defender has more hits, then the attack misses. If the attacker has more hits, you subtract the number of hits the defender gets from the number of hits the attacker get resulting in the number of net hits. This is what is added to the damage for the attacker. (Example 1: the attacker rolls 4 hits and the defender rolls 5 hits... the attack misses. Example 2: the attacker rolls 6 hits and the defender rolls 3 hits... attacker has 3 net hits to add to the damage of the weapon). Yes you are correct in scenario #1. You, as the defender, must roll 7 hits from your body + armor to take no damage. However, every hit you score, lowers the damage by 1. If you get 5 hits on your body + armor test, then you only take 2 boxes of damage.




Yes it does mean that, but again, your hits on the body + armor reduces the damage by one per hit.



Remember that for each attack that you "dodge" after the first results in a -1 to your dodge (until your next action) So if you have a reaction of 6 and you have 4 people shooting at you, the first attack your dodge, you would roll 6 dice. The second attack from that person, you would have 5 dice. The second person would give you 4 and 3 dice for the dodge. The third person would give you 2 and 1 dice to dodge with. With the forth person, you would have no dice left to dodge with, so you would not get a chance to dodge their two attacks. Also, remember that you are only getting one chance to not get hit. The other chance is to avoid taking damage.

As for quick combat, it is not really happening in SR. It has a slow combat system. I try to speed it up by having the attacker and defender roll at the same time and to make sure that they have all their modifiers calculated ahead of time.



No worries. It takes some time to get used to the system and to learn all the ins and outs of the game. Just keep plugging away.

There are a few critters, spirits and dragons in the main rulebook, but what you're looking for is in 'Running Wild'. Which is a complete Monster's Manual. There's also a pdf supplement called 'Parazoology'
For metahuman opponents, you can just make up stats or use the archetypes.

The start of the Friends and Foes chapter has sample enemies. Running Wild expands a lot on non-metahuman enemies (that would be animals, infected, dragons, paranormal animals and more). Runners Companion has a chapter that has stats for more sample contacts than the core book has.

The best way to think of this in comparison to DW is that the defense roll (reaction +dodge etc) is equivalant to your DW dodge or parry and the Body + armour - AP roll is the equivalant of the TB+Armour reduction from the rolled damage. So there is no difference in what is happening just a difference is how damage is resolved

Well, the vast majority of "enemies" will be metahumans in Shadowrun.

And for those you typically have to make the stats yourself. Of course, you do not have to build 400 BP characters for these, you just pick attributes and skills and whatever else makes sense for them as you see fit (and best with an eye on keeping it fair and realistic; average humans have 3s in most of their ratings).

Of course, you could use some official (or inofficial) adventures to start off, which should have stats for all folks encountered.


As for the defense plus damage soaking rolls ... you have to keep in mind, that you typically only roll Reaction, which isn't an awful lot (esp. against a competent attacker). And if you go on Full Defense, it costs you a full set of actions to do so. Also, each attack after the first (during one initiative pass) will decrease your chance to get out of the way (-1 cumulative modifier for defense rolls for each attack after the first you defend against).

Combat in Shadowrun is extremely deadly (unless you are shooting a fully armored-up troll or something like that)!

Bye
Thanee

Combat may seem less dangerous at first glance, since you seem to have two chances to avoid damage completely, but it is harder to do than it looks, and your "hit points" are a very finite resource. Shadowrun is a very deadly game, even though you are starting out tough ("beginning" shadowrunners are more like mid-level D&D characters).

For quick stats for enemies, the Friends and Foes section has a selection of Sample Grunts (gang members, security guards, cops, etc.), and you can also use the contacts for other stats (fixers, mechanics, bartenders, etc.). And for tougher enemies, you can use the player character archetypes. Also, past the contacts section, they have some commonly-encountered critters, both regular animals such as wolves and sharks, and paranatural beings such as spirits, dragons, vampires, and devil rats. Unlike D&D, you don't really need a bestiary with hundreds of different beasties - the comparatively small section in the main rulebook should suffice to spice up encounters.

I'd actually drawn up three flash cards for enemies and then found the Friends & Foes section you guys were talking about! That makes things a lot simpler though.

Really appreciate all the help. Now that I've had the realities of the Dodge mechanic explained to me, combat seems a good deal more dangerous.

Would it be recommended for me to understand Matrix and Drone warfare stuff before running a game or do you think I can get away with winging that side of it and focusing more on the basics to get myself and my players familiarised?

Why don't you try the short scenario from the quick start rules?

http://www.shadowrun4.com/wp-content/uploa...y%20Booklet.pdf
Very compact. Personally, I don't think that matrix and vehicle rules are a 'must have', but they open up a lot more possibilities for the runners.
My players currently run with a chipped face, a tanky ork, a mage and a hacker and they seem to weather most situations fairly well

As a fairly new GM myself, I admit I also find the SR combat rules daunting, albeit for a different reason.

The basic stuff is fine. It's all the situational modifiers that get me. Keeping track of vision modifiers, cover modifiers, the various ranged and melee modifiers, the different DV values for destroying barriers, the different DV values for fall damage, the Action costs of various less common actions, which types of weapons or ammo are resisted with which type of armor, how many dice off for attacking a different target with a second simple action, wound modifiers, modifications to wound modifiers via Pain Resistance or the like, etc, etc.

I keep reference sheets on hand, but it still slows combat down a lot because I can't remember every exact detail and I sometimes confuse one modifier for another because I expect them to be more standardized when they really aren't. It also doesn't help that my players are quite green themselves and are always forgetting the modifiers as well, so I can't count on them to keep track of their own dice without oversight. Something we're working on, so that eventually I only have to keep track of the NPCs and not EVERYTHING.

~Umi

Addendum - Reminds me, can anyone tell me why arrows do such crap damage to barriers? Had a trollbow try to shoot out a Force 2 Physical Barrier and it failed because it doesn't deal the normal DV of the arrow, but rather the set DV of 1 listed for "projectiles" under the barrier destruction table. I assume that listing is meant for things like rocks and throwing knives and whatnot, not giant 10P arrows. Seems kind of stupid that a high-strength arrow does half the barrier damage of a single no-strength bullet.

If I were you (and I was a long time ago ), I'd politely ask my players to not play a matrix/rigger type until everyone has a good grasp on the basics. You can use an NPC hacker (contact) to do any hacking that needs to be done, just make sure at least one PC has a hacker contact. Rigging can be ignored for quite a while, though it does add more depth to the game (as does matrix).

Just my 2¥
-D

Yep, I would also stay away from the Matrix stuff for now (it just adds another level of complexity), and have some NPC handle it "off-screen".

Bye
Thanee

I kinda sorta did that with my first few sessions. Player had his heart set on a technomancer, so I just kinda handwaved and went for rolls that I thought made sense. Mucked it up horribly then, and am still unmucking today.

Regarding opposition, my advice is to go with what the skill levels mean and double it for the typical skills + attribute dice pool (before modifiers). I forget the page, AFB. If your facing a standard rent-cop guard in a lightly defended area he is at most rolling 6 dice, maybe 7 or 8 with a laser sight or smartlink. You might want to make stat cards for some generic NPC's like that, and keep them handy.

Also to keep in mind, your starting 400 BP runner is not the equivalent of a 1st level D&D character. They are more like a 4th or 5th level character.

Also, critters are generally not as challenging as the two leggeged huminoid opposition. Your going to find that it is easier to create stats on your own for most NPCs. Also, critters can be cybered as well.


For example in my campaign a typical security guard makes 1,000 nuyen a month for a low lifestyle.

His stats (human) would look something like this:

Body: 4
Agility: 4
Reaction: 3
Strength: 3
Charisma: 2
Intuition: 3
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3
Initiative: 6 (1 IP)


Active Skills would be:
Pistols:3
Automatics:2
Unarmed Combat:2
Clubs:3
Dodge:2
Perception: 3
Ettiquette (corporate) 2 (4)

Knowdge skills
Urban Brawl: 3
Matrix games: 2
Security Procedures (Parent corp): 3 (5)

Gear would typically be:

Armored Jacket (8/5)
Commlink (treat as a device at rating 4)
Ares Predator, 1 clip stick and shock, 2 clips regular ammo.
Smart googles.

As mentioned, there are similar stat blocks in the book. You can use those to get an idea of how things go. Also a group of "mooks" have a combined edge pool that they can use (that can range from 0 to 5). Remember to use it since that helps create a more challenging enviroment for the players.

One small, but rather important, thing that I haven't seen mentioned above is that your damage soak formula is ever-so-slightly off. You don't roll (Body+Armor)-AP dice, you roll Body + (Armor-AP) dice. For most characters, this change is irrelevant, but for someone with low armor resisting a high AP attack, the result would be quite different.


Edit: Also, welcome to Dumpshock, Chummer. Watch your back, shoot straight, conserve ammo, and never EVER let your players see a build posted by Neraph.

Edit2, The Editing: Also, if you find the Shadowrun rules complex, I dare you to play a game of GURPS using anything other than the quickstart rules. =P

~R~

Negative. Dodge successes reduce the effective number of hit successes.

Example: Doughnut Dan, the Fatman, has a total Dodge pool of 3. Street Samurai Steven shoots at him with an Ingram Smartgun and accrues 5 successes. Doughnut Dan rolls his Dodge pool and comes up with a single success. Damage is then resolved as if Street Samurai Steven had rolled four successes; staging up the power of his weapon by four, and then Donut Dan rolls to reduce the power of the attack with his Body and Armor.

Example 2: Corporate Agent Smith shoots an Ares Predator IV at Neo-Anarchist Neo and accrues 4 successes. Neo, who is a PhysAd twinked to all hell to dodge attacks, rolls his mammoth Dodge pool and accrues 4 successes as well. The attack is thus resolved as if Agent Smith had not rolled any successes - and rolling no successes is a miss. Thus, Neo has dodged Agent Smith's attack altogether.




Damage is static, armor reduces it. If you're firing an AP -1, Power 5 weapon and score 3 hits, the power of your attack is 8, and the target reduces the amount of damage he takes, from 8 boxes, by the number of hits he scores on a BOD + Ballistic Armor roll, less one Armor dice, because of that AP -1. (This is a pretty common scenario if you have anyone firing an Ares Predator IV.)

In your scenario, the damage code is increased by the 3 net hits, assuming that the guy who attempted to dodge scored no successes. So the base damage of the attack is 7 Physical damage. Your target needs to roll his Body + Armor; every hit he scores reduces the damage he takes - from 7, to 6, to 5, to 4, to 3, to 2, to 1, and finally to zero. Statistically, to fully absorb this hit, he would need a dice pool of 21, so he's either a massively-armored soaktroll, or a Dragon, or very, very lucky.




Technically, he's adding his 3 net hits to the 2 from his Strength. And yes, that's exactly what he's doing - but do remember that soak isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. If the target of this 5s physical beatdown rolls four successes, he only takes one box of stun damage.




Do remember that your dice pool to dodge/parry attacks is reduced for each subsequent attack the person must defend against in any given combat turn. It's pretty intuitive if you've played Exalted previously, since it's a very similar mechanism. (Similar enough to trip you up on the differences, heh.)

As for how to run combat quickly, in my experience the tough part is prodding players to pay attention and resist against attacks; but thus is the nature of IRC. Cracked.com has a powerful lure, even in combat. Here's the steps of combat resolution in Shadowrun.

Step 1: Attack roll is declared, roll dice, count successes.
Step 2: Defense roll (if any is possible) is declared by the defender, roll dice, count successess.
Step 3: Compare defense successes to attack, and reduce attack successes by defense successes. If the result is 0 or fewer attack successes, the attack has missed altogether. Else, go on to Step 4.
Step 4: Add the number of remaining attack successes to the power of the weapon to get your base damage.
Step 5: Roll soak dice, reducing the dice granted by armor, to a minimum of zero, by armor penetration, and reduce the attack successes by the remaining damage value.
Step 6: Apply the damage value remaining to the character's condition track.

Not so tough, really, and very similar to Exalted.



It's okay. I found it a bit confusing when I first got into SR4 yonks ago. Then I put down SR4 for Exalted, and came back to SR4 and found it easy.




Caffeine, getting a good night's sleep before the game, and (if at all possible) planning to awaken from said good night's sleep about 90-120 minutes before the scheduled beginning of the game.