Hey guys, I have been considering sticking with 4a for awhile & I was considering porting a few aspects from 5e in to 4a & would like opinions, the major one I am thinking about is limiting attack actions to 1/round, this would bring Melee user's to be on a semi-equal footing in 4a.

Are there any glaring problems I am missing with making this seemingly simple change?

Off hand I don't think so.

On a similar note I've contemplated using the SR5 Initiative system as well for SR4a.

I personally like the idea of an Adept Blade user being viable & limiting everything to 1 attack allows those wishing to use blades to become viable again, & the initiative system is another thing I have been thinking about, but I'd have to make sure I like it fully (have yet to see it in actual play yet)

I think you'll run into some weirdness when you start working with one-attack rules and the lower damage codes of SR4 weapons. Pistol and SMG users rely pretty heavily on the double-tap to deal their damage, so you'd probably see a lot of combatants go from severely wounding their targets to lightly wounding them. Full Auto users can probably just crank into complex bursts to compensate.

Re: initiative, the SR3/SR5 mechanic is really clean compared to the SR4 mechanic, for the players and the GM alike. A 4 man table starting a firefight with a 5 man security squad involves about 80 dice clattering around in SR4 (compared to something like 15 in SR3/5), and GM notes that look like:

Player1 - Init 12 - 2IP
Guard1 - Init 10 - 1IP
Player2 - Init 9 - 3 IP

and so forth, which is a minor but persistent pain in the ass compared to:

Player1 - 27
Guard1 - 15
Player2 - 9

which is nice and neat.

I could probably adjust damage codes slightly, don't wanna make too much of a change, might run a mock battle to see how it would handle. My only issue with modding the init system in 4e is having to mod all of the powers/gear that mods init as well.

another change I was considering was the damage codes for melee weapons, as we've seen in sr5 melee codes became str+ instead of str/2+, any opinions on this?

As an option presented in SR4a, page 75, "More Lethal Gameplay": Increase the DV of weapons by 2 across the board and don't convert Physical Damage to Stun if the DV doesn't exceed the Armor rating.

might do something like that, but will have to do some testing before I make any certainties in my changes

Last I ran Shadowrun that was one of the optional rules used, and it seemed to work okay. Initially tried it due to a friend's complaint about the reduced lethality of combat from SR3 to SR4 (a mechanic I still have issues trying to keep straight in my head).

If I run another 4e game, I might work in the whole part about adepts getting something out of mentor spirits. I've already been using the "how to pay your players" to a degree.

Well, here's the deal for me, I am introducing a few new players to Shadowrun & I want them to have a full set of options. & as it is in 4e. lets face it. you have to choose to be a pure melee character for concept, definitely not for damage output, which I have always found to be a shame. So making a few small changes to allow melee weapons to be an active part of short distance combat makes sense to me.

Can anyone else see anything I might be missing other than small arms damage being subpar with 1 attack action?

The whole only-one-attack thing is actually not playing very well, IMHO.

Players with a simple action attack constantly have to try to find something productive to do with their other simple action and when they feel under pressure, they get all kinds of funny ideas, which you then have to rule on the spot based on whether it is sort of like an attack or not. It is surprisingly hard to be consistent with that :
throwing a chair, yes;
throwing a chair against the ganger's head, no;
throwing the chair in the ganger's way, yes, if he currently has no intention to move;
no, if he is planning to move in that direction;
???, if he might want to move in that direction later;

I don't even see the in-game logic in that. Well, I assume that they were expecting people to use the other simple action for small change stuff, such as reloading, aiming, etc. But you only have to reload so often and with wi-fi it is mostly free actions anyway. And aiming is not that attractive, when hitting good isn't the issue.

If you want to house-rule SR4, rather change all simple actions that are attacks to complex actions. Oh, hell, just get rid of simple actions, this is a failed experiment anyway. Any other decent RPG system has either switched to all-actions-take-the-same-amount-of-time or some sort of initiative time system with different actions using different amounts of time units. After having just read the NWoD rule update in God Machine, ... It is such a contrast to how SR5 fails to modernize the system in any way. I wish the authors had at least read Fate, Scion, Savage Worlds, D&D, ... I am not saying that these systems are better, but they offer interesting insight on how to empower players, to attempt handling vastly different power levels inside the same game, to write really short, but concisely playable rules, and to have mathematician-approved game balance. As it is, SR stays an 80s game.

really? why are they not just using a take aim action? thats an additional dice for your DP that can help you shoot better. I find in most cases, an Aim action can never hurt.

Because it is Lame?

Lame indeed...

You could consider making it 2 simple actions per turn (2 simple=1 complex) and instead of extra initiative passes, you add an extra simple action. (so 2 passes becomes 3 simple actions). It makes things move faster because people are doing all of their actions at once rather than constantly switching whose doing what. It also limits people to a maximum of 5 attacks (2+3 extra from additional initiative passes) a turn instead of 8. The reduction in utility of additional initiative passes is mitigated by the fact that you are more likely to go first and you get to take all of your actions before the other side can respond. And since the number of attacks for your low end attackers hasn't changed drastically, the damage codes should play about the same. It also eliminates the irritation of dividing movement between phases.

Though, it's not clear what your goal with porting over the 1 attack is, so I'm not sure if this would get what you're aiming for. If you just want melee to be competitive, there might be better ways than changing the way actions work. Like using range and cover modifiers for ranged attacks so that it's hard to hit certain targets unless you engage them in melee.

my goal was to make Melee not seem as such of a...waste, granted guns are the obvious choice in 4e, & most gun users do far more damage than melee users especially considering things like Short Burts, Long Burts & FA modes. Also, the fat that Melee users need high Strength to keep up in damage well (a maxed out Cyclops is still only doing 8+5 or so damage before net hits & thats with the highest possible strength they can get meanwhile, my sniper can do almost that & get 2 actions /round essentially doubling my total damge)

In that case, limit engagement distances and give big penalties while firing in melee with someone. You could port over the str+damage rule instead and then you've got melee doing some serious harm to make up for attacking less often and hitting less often.

Personally, I've always been okay with melee being a worse option, but I can understand people wanting it to be a part of the game. I think the way to make it useful is not to make it the same or better than ranged combat, but different. It's more interesting if it's situationally better or worse, i.e. sometimes even your gun adept sniper with 15+ dice to hit something with his rifle will reach for his combat knife because it's preferable to the other weapons at hand. If you have any missions involving office spaces and hallways, melee might be the better option.

Real advantages of melee:
No ammo
Sometimes easier to use in close quarters (except obviously giant axes, etc.)
Silent/low noise
Potentially more concealable (no detection by chem sensors and can be smaller, though not always)
Less likely to hit a friendly
Gets by ballistic fibers

No ammo is already in the game. The sound thing could be useful and can be applied for perception rolls. Concealability bonuses are already there for knives and for chem sensors. The ballistic fibers thing is there in SR4 with impact versus ballistic armor. There aren't any rules for hitting friendlies beside suppressive fire and critical glitches, so that ones out the window.

So I guess the remaining thing to get rules for is the close quarter combat advantages. Some ideas for bringing that into play:

1. I think the shooting in melee penalty is 2 dice and the point blank shot bonus is 3 dice, so the gun men currently has the advantage. So start by only applying the point blank shot bonus when not engaged in melee (which I've always assumed was the intent of the rule). Then the melee fighter gets a boost when engaging a gunmen at close range.
2. Next maybe make defending against a melee attack a simple action, unless you are also fighting melee (i.e. you only get the dodge/gymnastics/melee defense bonus to your reaction when actively avoiding or engaging your attacker), now when fighting melee you've got a much better chance to hit the gun man or you have reduced them to 1 attack a pass.
3. Apply the conceivability penalty of a firearm as a negative modifier to any attempts to attack with it while engaged in melee (or give it as a bonus to the defender), since bringing a rifle to bear on an opponent is hard if he's close enough to stab you in the throat. Note, this penalty goes away if they decide to use the rifle as a club.

Total possible penalty to attack -8, enough that even your hyper specialized dumpshock build might pause for a second to consider. Most likely penalty -2 or -4, which is enough that you might see your generalists trying for a pistol whip now and then.

That makes melee the clearly superior up close choice (except maybe hold outs and pistols), while still keeping ranged as deadly as it was. And something I try for with any house rule, it doesn't just target one archetype. Gangers with knives will benefit from this without being completely shut down when it's turned on them and it gives even a street sam reason to invest a little in melee instead of just dumping everything in their one weapon skill of choice.

Thanks for the suggestions Thorya, sounds pretty reasonable & without having to figure out ways of properly adjusting gear too much. I admit, while reading your post, I immediately began thinking of a Dual Pistol user who has under-barrel knives on his guns to defend with while he shoots his opponents in close range lol. I have just always felt that the Sword Adept builds, which are often considered underwhelming compared to Gun Adepts. or the Cyber Sword Master builds, which are also more or less weaker than their gun brethren, should be viable builds without having to cater the game completely to them.

You forgot one additional Melee perquisite, Thorya...

4. Bring back the reactive Counterstrike of SR3 for Melee Combat. Made Melee combat truly awesome, in my opinion.

Much like the Adept power? or something different? I never played SR3 so I am not overly familiar with it.

Melee was an opposed attack roll. The winner did damage even if they were defending.

This! I loved this about earlier editions... I really miss having the skilled master killing the ganger on the ganger's attack.

Indeed, it was very Bruce Lee standing in the middle of a gang of mooks and crushing them as they raced in to their doom.

And it potentially made Melee Combatants bad-ass.

Which is why you used the grenade or sniper on the kung fu master

Unless it was Chiun, then you just bow, pay homage (and some gratuity) and leave quickly......

Indeed....

Because Chiun "is better than that."

The Best Defence is a Good Offense and nothing says it better than the following;

Interrupt Action: Counterattack/Riposte
(-5 Initiative Score)
A Character may choose to Counterattack(Unarmed)/Riposte(Melee weapon) a melee attack.
Here the character replaces their normal defence roll with their appropriate attack roll for one attack, modified as appropriate(Weapon reach, positions, etc...)
If the attacker generates more hits than the defender, the attack hits as normal and there is no further defence roll by the defender though armor & body rolls still apply.
If the defenders attack roll scores more hits than the attacker then the attacker's attack is countered and the defender deals damage to the attacker. Again there is no further defence roll, but armor & body rolls still apply.
Additional hits modify damage as normal and in cases of a tie, the attacker wins.
This is a one time attempt, good to try against one attack, unlike going for Full Defence.

This will not offer as much DP as the Block, Parry or Dodge interrupt actions, which stacks a skill on top of the Defence roll, but then they are designed to protect whereas the point of Counterattack/Riposte is to turn the attack back on the aggressor.
The trade off is it cuts down your own initiative plus if you fail on the attempt you can not fall back on the defence roll, so have to rely on armor / Body to ride through it.

For most Block/Parry/Dodge will probably be the more useful. But for the combat monster wanting to lay out a little extra hurt it can make for a more cinematic fight.

Not bad, Sendaz... Not bad.

Started with a dual blade fighter concept in SR4, and noticed Riposte in Arsenal on page 160 when I was looking through the maneuvers:

"A character with Riposte who successfully parries or blocks a melee combat attack may make an immediate attack on her attacker, even if it is not her Action Phase in the turn. Making a riposte is considered an interrupt action, however, and uses up the character’s next available action."

By my understanding, not what it was in SR3, but close. Just gotta take a martial arts style specialization first. At least one doesn't have to be an adept to be able to take this ability.

Yeah, not like it used to be, but is pretty nice. Indeed... No need to be an Adept to perform this maneuver. Of course, in SR3, you did not need to be an Adept either. Reactive Melee was awesome, and I was sad to see it go. There are some ways to sort of recover the feeling, but they all pale in comparison to what came before.