Brings new life to the phrase "hard up".

-Siege

*rimshot*

Ah yes, Fallout... I remember killing the entire population of Shady Sands with a Red Ryder bb gun and a bag full of rocks. That, and shooting rockets at rats at point blank. What a shame you couldn't do groin shots with heavy weapons.

(Yes, I was a lot younger and a lot stupider back then, but it was still fun.)

What we've found to be a huge advantage to melee in our games is the lack of movement penalties for melee combat. The melee fighter can be extremely mobile without suffering the +4 running penalty.

A gunman who ran on Initiative 21 is still suffering +4 to his shots on 11 and 1 even if he stops moving. The melee fighter can continue to both run and attack without penalty.

Since a lot of our battles tend to be very mobile (i.e. the characters' main focus is usually something besides the fight), our melee experts have done very well

I am a little confused... you run out of ammo? Why? Did you not carry enough with you? If you wield a gun as a primary means of attacking/defending... you should never run out of ammo. Ever.

Having said that, being skilled in martial arts is just cool.

Few things manage to speak both style AND practically in a normally gunbunny sam like Edged 3/Knives 6, Ambidexterity-8, and a pair each of both dikoted survival knives AND dikoted vibroknives.

Remember, with very few exceptions, ammo from any Heavy pistol works in any other heavy pistol. Same goes for Assault Rfles and shotguns.

Need a quick ammo-recharge, neck snap that guard up ahead...

Wh- Vibroblades can be dikoted?! Whoa...just whoa.

I think they can...I think it's only monoblades that can't be dikoted. A vibroknife is otherwise a normal blade aside from the vibrofeature---why COULDN'T it be dikoted?

I would fiat that it doesn't raise damge, only imporoves battery life as one of the uses of dikote is to reduce friction.

*sigh* Game balance...Game balance...Oh game SCHMALANCE already. If you ask me, game balance is for use when you want SR to function like an arcade game. But, whatever floats your boat...Subtopic now killed so as to avoid a vicious debate within the thread.

Continue, gentlemen. (<----------I always think of All Your Base when I use that smilie...)

Multiple opponents can be dealth with fairly nicely using melee attacks. Hit as many as you want and if you use multistrike and close combat you get +1TN per opponent and only -1 power. {edit: and they get no reach.}

By itself this isn't impressive, but throw in Mr.Shock Glove and its pretty disgusting.

Shock gloves eat another power, but you deal a 7S stun that they resist with 1/2 impact and then get stunned by for power minus 1/2 impact minus successes on a body(4) or willpower(4) test.

Or you can be a real pain in the ass and take kung-fu with multistrike and multistrike(polearm).

The uber cheese head will dikote a polearm for a str+4D attack.

At +1tn per opponent, Str+4D, and 2 reach they are at TN2, 3, 4, 5, etc to hit them and all they need to do IS hit them, which means tying them in combat.

Strength 6 human gets a 10D attack and I don't think people are going to be wanting to eat that kind of damage.

I'm sure you could get away with something less cheesy if you take a telescoping staff with a screw in spear tip which you can dikote and end up with a Str+5M attack because a spear is just as long as a staff and the telescoping staff has a conceal of 5.

Under a longcoat that's 7. Say you also wear a merlin coat and the conceal bonuses stack. That's now a conceal 10 weapon and I don't see any real problems with this other than having to spend a turn screwing in the spear head.

Another really pain in the ass thing you can do is use a rattan stick.

According to the CC only armor worn in the location you target for a called shot counts for damage resistance.

A rattan stick to the face is Str+1D due to flechette rules and +1DL for the called shot.

TN7 with say, 6 dice for the attack is doable and if you go all out for the combat pool you can get 12 dice and you're going to slap them silly.

Say strength 6, and that's a 7D stun attack with no armor.

Hell, you don't really need the rattan stick. You just need a martial art that gives you -2TN to called shot, which heron kung fu does just fine.

You can use herding on your turn and force them into a wall. +2TN to them, -1TN for you.

You call a shot. Its TN6-1 = TN5. Just slightly harder than a normal attack.

If you slap them in the face you get a StrS stun attack, so let's say you're also wearing Mr Shock Glove.

Str-1S stun + 7S stun without a hope for armor means they are probably unconscious and sizzling, or barring that, really messed up because they're probably at a serious stun wound and have taken +2 as part of a disorientation most likely.

That's +5TN for anything so if they want to run for it they're not going very far because you get a free melee attack. At this point you can basically blow a kiss at them and they'd fall over dead as they aren't defending themselves and you're still wearing a shock glove.

If you want to be a really mean person get at least plastic bone lacing, heron style kung fu, and hardliner gloves.

Str+3M stun, which we'll call 9M stun. You can 1/2 that to make it phys so depending on your GM ruling, its either 4M or 5M if you get the hardliner added in for good measure.

Call a shot and a 4S physical attack, maybe even staged to deadly still isn't pretty as they either need to make 6-8 successes or use up some of that precious combat pool.

If they attack you, they lose however many dice they used. If they run, its even less to resist with. Chances are you can pop them for a 4S and then a 9S stun and get them +6TN to everything.

Only cost you 7800 nuyen for the lacing and the gloves. Not too shabby.

Plus you can be a real shmuck and take off the glove and slap them...but then it'd probably be clubs skill so you'd have to default to the martial art at +2TN

Um...I think only bladed weapons get a Damage Code boost from dikoting...

Yep. Bladed weapons get +1p+1DL from dikoting, and +2 barrier rating too I think.

Wouldn't it also technically count as a 1B/1I piece of armor if you choose to use it as like, a shield?

Yeah but then you'd suffer quickness and combat pool loss if you went over the limit.

I'm sure it could be arranged if you were an adept...right? RIGHT?

"Dammit, he's deflecting bullets with his pocket knife again. Stupid Max Payne Bullet Time Adept Powers...."

I've always wanted to play an adept with the power to control time, the missile mastery ability, and carry around a sack full of spoons, knives, and forks.

Then I could pin guys to the wall ala cartoons.

Hell, the missile mastery ability makes me fear any adept in my kitchen.

"OH DEAR GOD! NOT THE GOOD CHINA!"
"AWW CRAP NOW HES THROWN THE CAT AT ME!"
"Is that...a toaster? Arrghhhh!!!!!"

Sounds like the Blue Raja to me

You still need the guy with the Shovel though.

Oh yeah....I remember that movie. Mystery Men. I loved the Blue Raja.

So..the Sphincter is a ....toxic shaman? HAHAHAHAHA GET IT LOLOLOLzors.

Nope, a Path of Mage physad with all points in a knack "Stun Bolt" with a manifestation of noxious fumes.

While your answer was more in line with the rules, mine was funnier in a lame way.

True, the lameness of your post far exceeds mine

He wasn't called the Sphincter. He was called....



The Spleen!

There was Invisible Boy
The Bowler
Blue Raja
and Mr. Furious


Each of them would make awesome SR characters if you actually put the concept together.

Invisible boy had the best Gaesa I ever saw.

Knack: Improved Invisibility, when not being looked at.

The Bowler: Spirit Foci/Ally spirit (Spectre of Father)

Mr. Furious, Force 6 Strength Boost

Invisible Boy : Knack Improved Invisibility Force Geas : Can't be looked at. Not even by self.

The Bowler : Conjuring Adept with Ally spirit (Ancestor Spirit : Father) Homonculied into a bowling ball containing his skull. Force 8. Powers of Fear and three dimentional movement.

Mr. Furious : Physical Adept. Force 6 Strength boost Geas : Must be Furious. Pain Resistance: 6 Geas Must be Furious.

Blue Raja : Physical Adept. Missile Mastery + Missile Parry + Improved Throwing Weapons 6. Geas... Must use utensiles, only. And wear funny outfit.

The Spleen : Magician specalizes in Toxic spells. Geas: Must not perform any form of personal hygene, and diet of high gas producing foods.

Well...*apologizes for thread necromancy*

...You want to REALLY know when melee is useful?

Jungles.

I learned that the VERY hard way from being piked half the time in the Guadalcanal level in MoH: Rising Sun.

Such. A. Pain. In the hoop. Level...

Melee is very useful. Character caught by surprise by melee attacking adept/ork/troll/ganger etc?

Still gets to defend himself using Full defense - chance to reduce successes by attacker.

Using a gun in melee combat? + 2 TN (SR3 pg112) to shoot target.

Using gun as club in melee? Gun has to be melle-hardened or it will be damaged.

Unsilenced gun is much louder than unarmed combat, doesn't leave potential blood splatter that will be noticed by NPCs - i.e. take out a guard in a hallway from behind with a club - very little, if any, mess. Shoot the guard, and the bullet may pass right through, splattering the wall/floor with blood, something that will be fairly obvious to the next NPC who passes by. Not to mention the bullet hitting something else after it's gone through guard.

Even if the gun is silenced, using explosive ammo, or EX ammo still produces a noise almost as loud as a gunshot when it hits the target. The only advantage to using a silencer here is that it's much more difficult to determine where the shot came from.... a case of "phut...BOOM!"

A fistifight may draw a little attention to yourself in a public place, Gunfire puts your PC in a friggin' spotlight, and depeding on the security rating of the place your in, may have local authorities hunting you.

Lotsa good reasons to have melee skills.

See, for silent ranged combat you use a heavy crossbow with dikoted crossbow bolt heads.

I don't see why this can't be done, and you'd have a 7D attack with no sound. Even if you can't dikote the heads, that's still 6S with no sound.

Of course Melee is useful! Didn't you all play Metal Gear Solid?

I don't understand how you can fail to see that melee is powerful. If you take a troll with a dikoted claymore who is a physad you can roll 12 dice vs TN 2 for something like 13 D damage resisted by impact armor.

That is almost as powerful as an assault cannon.

How can you say that melee isn't powerful?

Also, remember that if the whole party gangs up on one big boss, the boss suddenly gets like +4 TN to his melee when they beat him down en masse. The people I play with have done that trick more than once.

Melee is very useful. More powerful than small arms if you twink it right.

Of course a troll with a dikoted claymore can't really walk around town with that claymore.

Extendable Baton would work nicely. 9 conceal when collapsed, 5 when extended, Str+1M stun, 1 reach.

Say a 10 strength troll, that's 11M with 2 reach and you can conceal that weapon fairly well.

Get some plastic bone lacing and you can have tons of fun with that troll.

12M stun or 6M physical. Since you can wear shock gloves (conceal 9) that could be 11M stun +7S stun (shock) or 5M phys with a 7S stun(shock).

Then again, a troll walking around town will probably have people running in fear of them or be running from the police so the conceal doesn't really matter.

Well I'm sure after enough Panicbutton alerts the police will just up and drop some mortar fire on his position or something.

It's a troll physad. Your point?

I'm supposed to have a POINT?!

I rule that this thread constitutes cruel and unusual PUN-ishment.

EDIT: ...Must not interpret Siege's comment in a disturbing way, must not interpret Siege's comment in a disturbing way, must not...

FURTHER EDIT: Drek. That means I already did...

You mean I'm getting a dikoted Ork for Christmas!??!!

A dikoted Night One half-ghoul were-Citymaster?

With two smartlinks?

As a hidden unlockable character in FF7, Rainbow Six 3, and Halo?

To get back on the topic

realworld situations where hth skills are useful.

Combat in inhabited areas. (what we silly norwegians often call our military small unit tactics training). First of all, you're not going to be carrying tons of ammo in such a scenario (something I enforce in the game as well). this means that if you come upon an opponent and he hasn't discovered you, slit his throat, choke him out, whatever, the ammo for your SD is sacred. (this is a lot more viable in a shadowrun than in the real world where he most likely will hear you, but since the mp5 is trained on him, all he gets for his effort is a couple of rounds)

Disarming: sure you can plunk a couple of bullets in him, but he will either still be a threat or mortally wounded, not good in a case where you might have to move your mark a considerable distance.

just about any surprise situation, hit him before he manages to react or draw his weapon,(this is in the scenario that both are surprised).

gaining your opponent/victim/extraction mark/hostage's cooperation, sure a gun to the back of the head persuades just about anyone, but so does a good solid grasp of how to lock someone down as well. and a bit of pain can loosen the tongue quite easily.

Indeed, but chances are if you're using a pistol to shoot at someone they're at close range and thus that pistol is all you're going to have in/at hand to beat someone's noggin' with.

bayonets are nasty. Str+2M and reach 2. Best part is they can be detached and that AR can actually be disassembled and left in the trunk of a car as opposed to a halberd which is kind of hard to hide.

"Is that a halberd sticking out of a metal base?"
"uhh...no. Its umm...a lamp."
"With no lightbulb?"
"Oh well lah-de-dah Lookit me I'm Mr Asksfourthousandmillionquestions."
"Look, all I'm saying is..."
"Its not always about YOU you know. You people disgust me."
"But I'm not..."
"There you go again! That's it! I'm sick of your shenanigans! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"
"But its my house and I pay the rent. You're just freeloading."
"I think its a LITTLE late for THAT, don't you think?"
"No, not really. Not at all in fact."
"Why are you always so difficult?"

Clarification:Bayonet on a rifle is str+2M and reach 2 as per the CC. If you just use it as an edged weapon its a standard knife, which is apparently Str(L).