Ok, this may have been discussed in the past. If it has I am sorry, but for those of us who missed it can we discuss it again please?

I am trying to figure out the rules on how melee combat would work when you have some combatants trying to shoot guns, some trying to cast spells, and still others trying to grapple.

My main question is this, let's say you have 100 people in a fight armed with various weaponry. Say there is plenty of room to maneuver so movement is not a factor. One guy has a rifle with a bayonet attached. Let's say he is the slowest one out of all the combatants, but he is the best one by far with melee combat.

I am having a problem visualizing this encounter in the context of the rules. If the one guy with the rifle and bayonet was like 7 or 8 meters from the nearest opponent how would the following play out? Let's say the bayonet guy goes last, maybe he is drugged and his reaction is mud? Who cares. Anyway, goon number 1 is jacked up with a 20 reaction, he has a sword raised over his head and charges the bayonet with a yell. He gets to move his 8 meters to melee range and takes a swing. I already stated that the bayonet guy is the king of melee so after a series of feints, blows, and counters? while the rest of the mob is in a time freeze the bayonet guy kills goon number 1 with a nice thrust to center chest.

Now it is goon number 2 who had a reaction of 19, he gets his movement rate of 8 meters. He runs across engages with the bayonet master and gets himself killed as well.

(time out) here is the first question. Does the second goon get any kind of friends in melee bonus because the 1st guy had already engaged in melee with the guy even though the first guy is dead? This is just a crazed goon, not a tactical genius. He could have maybe held his action and advanced forward together with his slower friends, but he didn't. He rushed forward on his reaction pass and got whacked.

As far as I can tell he does not get friends in melee, because none of them are in melee range. So goon number 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and so on get to act in order of reaction until it is a virtual pile of bodies in front of the bayonet guy.

Just for arguing purposes let's give the bayonet guy a reaction of 1 so he goes dead last in the pass. Now he has already killed 19 goons, or more if they rushed at him in pairs or teams of up to 5? He is such a melee monster he has killed 50 of them in one combat pass. Now it is his turn. On his action he gets to fire at the mage who has been levitating overhead.

Does he get any penalties to fire? Just the +2 for being in melee? Or since there is no live opponent in melee with him does he not even get that? Or alternatively, what if just one of them had survived? Could he take a couple of steps back on his movement and shoot the mage with no penalties at all? Or if he was a spell caster could he sling a spell after all that?

I guess what I am asking is if melee combat is a complex action, a series of feints, attacks, and counters, why would a figure be able to defend himself from someone alot faster than himself and then step out of range on his sword and shoot him with no penalty? Shouldn't the caster or the shooter lose his next action if he is engaged in melee?

Maybe I missed something in the rules? Is it possible to kill 50 goons in one pass? IS it then possible to step back from a mob of guys trying to grapple you and shoot them even when you are slower and can't move as far? Maybe some even won the melee and damaged you? How would this work?

Yes, by Canon, the uber-leet bayonet master can theorectically kill all those goons all in one pass - reminds me of the L5R CCG card Come one at a time...

The bayonet guy doesn't get a range penalty if there is no one (alive) in melee range of him.

And physically speaking, there is no way 50 guys can surround Mr Melee because assuming each Goon occupies 1m, a circle with a radius of 7-8m has only 44 combatants.

ahhh, good point on the surround thing. hehe he I thought the rules were unbalanced. Of course if some were in the next ring out and these just happened to be slower in reaction but had better movement rates they could still pile on with the rest.

Since this is the correct way it works don't you guys think this area should be fixed? And the next logical question would be what to do about it?

First thing that comes to mind to me is to treat it like one swing is one attack so to speak. Treat it just like ranged combat in that there is no such thing as a counter attack unless it is your turn in the pass, or maybe you have the adept power of counter attack! That would prevent one slow melee master from killing dozens of goons without breaking a sweat and still get to finish drinking his cup of tea on his pass or figuring out the secret code to the computer file he was working on or any other complex action he was taking. See my point? You just can't have the series of feints and maneuvers as described and have it make even a bit of sense in all situations, but you can if you treat it just like ranged combat. And if you did thing my way you could never get more than the max goons surrounding you in melee either. They would all get their attacks and fill up the physical space around you, which is 5 people from the rules? On your pass you would get a -4 target number to your swing (which I disagree with as well since I have been in melee plenty of times).

Correct me if I am wrong, thanks.

Granted that the rules break down when you put it in such a manner, but the only way I see that is possible the Mr Melee can take out that many number of Goons is that the Goons have no melee skill. Otherwise, all there needs to be is 1 guy to survive and all the others behind him is going to have an easier time.

Somehow the more I think about your above scenario, the more I hear Agent Smith whispering in my head..."More...."

Official rules do result in the situation you describe.

A few observations:
A) Each Attacker running into melee has a +4 penalty due to the run. This penalty lasts the rest of the combat turn.
B) Once the bodies around him make the ground uneven and slippery the running penalty becomes +6 instead (Running, SR3.108).
C) Bayonet on Rifle gives defender +2 reach.
E) If defender has to use even 1 Combat Pool on each defense, he'll soon be out of Combat Pool.
F) If each attacker uses a Karma Pool for reroll, they might cause the defender to use Combat Pool and/or Karma Pool. Eventually he'll run out.
G) Official rules allow each attacker to run up and stand by the defender on their initiative, and then they all get the friends-in-melee bonus on their next action or when the defender attempts to hit any one (or all) of them.
H) A strict reading of the rules allows each attacker, on his initiative count, to perform a Move and a Delay Action (a Free Action). And when the 6th attacker declares his action the first five, now all within reach, declare that they are intervening and using their delayed action to strike the defender. Those 5 would get the friends-in-melee bonus on their attacks.

And finally, our team's house rule, with results like (H) but it feels a lot better to us:
(I) Multiple attackers can Delay Action on their initiative count and then rush in together, thus all getting the same friends-in-melee bonus. We use this house rule for PCs as well as NPCs. It's simple and easy.

I was actually banking on the +4 target number to let the adept with the bayonet win every time. Good point about the +6 TN when the ground around him becomes covered with bodies and gore though. I'm not sure as a referee I would allow G though. On the declare action part of a round you would either be in the melee or not. I would not allow you to be a part of the melee just because you were standing within melee distance. If you declare your action as making a melee attack you are in the melee, but you have to make the attack or delay your action to make the attack. But everything else you said is right on.

As far as tactics go, the whole group could move as a free action to surround the adept on their various initiatives and delay actions to make the melee attacks then once they had all surrounded the adept they could interrupt his action to all make their attacks with the friends in melee bonus to offset the running penalty. They get a -1 TN for the adept standing still though, unless the adept had been continually moving from last combat turn (he doesn't suddenly stop moving if he had been walking along until he gets a chance to have his next chance to act).

I just watched the new movie Resident Evil when it opened here yesterday. I was thinking about the horde of zombies surrounding the heros of the story. They had no tactics. They just mindlessly rushed forward and I was thinking a really top notch adept with a bayonet on his rifle could take them all down by the rules and still be able to fire his weapon as well.

Along these same lines 14' spears or pikes do not get +3 or +4 reach, so an adept could never be ringed by a hedge of spears either. In a situation where there is either very little or no access to ranged combat, but where there is a mass of people, I don't know, in a prison riot or something? a melee adept could really clean house.

I think it would make more sense just to have the melee combat work like ranged combat in that each figure makes a single attack (or multiple attacks with penalties) that are not counterattacked with an active skill that would normally take a complex action. You would still have the feints, blocks, and thrusts looking for an opening to make a good clean attack, and the defender would still get his chance to counter attack (on his initiative). The major difference would be that the jacked up figures would get more chances to make clean shots on the slower combatant, which is much more realistic. This would be a much more accurate reflection of combat and would eliminate absurd situations where a single figure could use a complex action over and over to kill a nearly limitless number of potential foes even before he is allowed to react. And this is the heart of the issue, why should anyone be allowed to roll his skill dice over and over and over when normally it is a complex action to roll them just once? I hope everyone sees my point? It is a game mechanic that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

A suggestion is to treat melee combat just like ranged combat. Do not allow the defender to roll any other dice than his combat pool and body dice to defend? I wouldn't oppose him rolling his melee skill dice to defend with either or make him decide how much skill dice to put into defense and how much to save for his counter attack? But this is simply to represent his defense. The attacker in this case still has to get past his guard even though he may have more opportunities to do so due to increased speed.

I guarantee if you are being pummeled by 5 guys equal to you in size, strength, and skill you are either covering up and trying to get away or you are mostly absorbing their blows at 5 to 1 so you can get a chance to hit just one of them and hope you get lucky. In that situation your best chance is to maneuver so that they have to react to your movement and you try to keep as few of them in swinging range as possible for as long as you can and hope for the best. I also guarantee you are not roboticly engaging each one in turn with your full skill dice and attention. The +4 TN for friends in melee is because you can't compute in your brain 10 knees, 10 elbows, 10 fists, and 10 feet coming at you anywhere near as well as you can just 2 of each. It would require alot more positioning and leaving yourself open for someone when you are surrounded. It can be done, but not likely successfully against equal opponents.

The "stationary target" modifier does not apply to someone who is alert and defending himself, even if he's staying in one place. It applies to someone who is unconscious or tied up in a chair, for example. Or for striking a stationary door.

Where is that stated?

Edit: also, is that just for melee or for ranged as well?

~J

I stated it. So it's just my interpretation. Does anyone know how is it played by FanPro GMs at official conventions?

And it is listed in the Ranged TN modifier table (p. 112),
but not in the Melee TN modifier table (p. 123), so it's not an official modifier for me to apply it to striking a closed door.

I can easily see how GMs would apply the -1 for Ranged fire against someone that was staying in the same "hex", but we don't unless the character isn't aware that he's in a battle. For characters that are aware they're in a battle, we think of them as ducking and twisting and turning as they either try to avoid being a stationary target or try to get a bead on someone else.

I would rule that stationary target dose not apply to somebody that is defending himself because he is not stationary. Defending yourself involves moving. You may not cover any ground, you might even not move until your opponent is committed to his swing but you will move before the blow strikes, otherwise your not defending yourself are you.

Edward

Perhaps add a +1 modifier for each melee combat a character has already been involved in during the current Combat Turn?

So, the first goon rushes, and dies. The next gets a +1, and still dies. The tenth gets a +9, and because limbs can only move so much in a Combat Turn, and it takes time to recover a bayonet from someone's spleen, the master will eventually fall to numbers.

This could also keep PCs melee masters from mowing down 3 guards in one combat turn so easily.

I would definately apply the -1 for stationary target to anyone being shot at, whether they know they're in combat or not. Ducking and dodging are what combat pool represents.

I'd never apply it to melee combat. I guess you could surprise someone though and deny them their combat pool, which would probably be worse anyway.

Stationary means still. A person who's on their feet, and aware in a combat situation is hardly still. The base target number for shooting at someone within short range is 4. There's no -1 if they're still, there is however a penalty if they're crossing somedistance, at whatever speed. A lamp post is stationary, a combatant is not.

I always took the stationary bonus as meaning a target that did not use movement on his last action, but I can see that dodging by it's nature must involve some sort of movement. It's not like the figure is dodging the actual bullet, it is more that the figure is stepping towards cover, turning a side profile to make less of a target, crouching down just at the right moment, knocking over a table or shouting to distract the shooter, whatever it takes not to get shot I basically, etc...

No, dodging is not nessecary. Combat is visually a chaotic thing to watch. even poeple who are not transiting across space are in some kind of motion. They're pulling out guns, readying weapons, looking around, they're flickering, or twisting, or doing something. A "stationary" target is one which is not moving at all. A lamp post does not move. If I were in the middle of as firefight, I'd be covering my eyes from the flash of guns, screaming, reaching for my own gun, looking around for my freinds, and moving, even if not transiting.

At melee range (1-2m), there should be only 6 opponents to Mr Melee. Therefore if he uses only 1 combat dice per opponent then, he should still be OK with a normal combat pool of 6-8(however, how the hell he got such a lousy initiative with a "normal" combat dice pool is beyond me).

Assuming the Goons are defaulting to Attribute... well, no dice pool for them and they are almost certainly sushi. Oops... I just remembered... With all those mods, the Goons would simply stand there (if they have no skill) since the base TN before defaulting is greater than 8.

Well, if you're in a firefight and you're not moving (i.e. you're not walking or running, staying in the same place) your torso isn't going to move much at all, and that's what most people aim at. If you're standing up from crouching, or vice versa, then obviously it's moving and you could get a modifier for that. But people don't really tend to twist around Matrix style when then're in combat, they may be turning on the spot etc, but the position of their torso won't change a lot, just the orientation. Loading and firing weapons means your arms will be moving, but your body much less so (although it will a little I admit). The target is still pretty much stationary in my opinion.

i honestly can't understand the idea that someone who simply didn't take any move actions in the last round is a 'stationary target'. now, if they're standing around, unaware of your presence, smoking a cigarette? sure, that's stationary. if they're drawing a bead on you from behind a dumpster, flinching every time someone fires a shot, ready to duck down if it looks like the near-misses are getting to be a bit too near? that's not stationary.

What about somebody who is unaware of you sitting in a bar signaling at the bartender for another beer, tapping his friend on the shoulder to show him the hot chick that just walked in and looking around to see if any more do? This person is moving but is still a stationary target. Likewise, somebody flinching at gun shots isn't really moving much of their body and you can probably aim a shot at their stationary abdomen. Especially if those near misses were aimed at other people, the shot aimed at the flincher may not miss, so the flincher wouldn't have a chance to decide it was time to start ducking instead of just flinching. Throw the flincher behind a dumpster and give him a gun and the fact that he might duck behind it briefly is represented by the dodge test and the partial cover modifier.

As a canon argument, if a SINGLE gesture takes a free action, so does a flinch, which could conceivably be used as a shadowrunning teams communication signal for "I'm being shot at." I personally think adding in a free action to avoid the penalty is a better fit for the rules than simply ignoring the modifier.

In SR2 jacked up super-goons ™ went first and got all of thier extra actions before anyone else. This lead to alot of hyped up monkeys running around killing everything and then having no real threat left by the time all the "norms" went. In the "why we changed this" part of the SR3 MRB, this was explained in detail.

The initiative system now gives the uber-monkeys thier extra actions at the end of the round, so that "Joe norm" is still a threat. (Even if it is just a minor one.)

I read it as a game balance thing. Cause if the rest of the world moves in slo-mo, you win. Alot.

you might call the guy at the bar a stationary target, but i wouldn't, not if he's doing all that. now, wait until he stops jumping around so much? okay, that's stationary. basically, if someone is aware that they're in danger, doesn't want to be hurt, and isn't confined in some way, i'm not going to call them stationary.

The main point of this question was to highlight how absurd the melee combat is. We all agree that the melee master could kill 50+ attackers an initiative pass. And somehow still get his action when it comes around to him in the pass. Melee combat is a complex action. I can't figure for the life of me why they allowed a melee expert to be so over powered? Just for fun I could read a book with one hand and chop a horde of bad guys into little pieces with the other without even losing my place on the page according to the rules. Because when it gets to my turn in the initiative pass I get to do my action. Doesn't matter I got to roll my skill dice 50+ times. If there is nobody alive within melee range I don't have any penalties at all to do whatever I feel like, chase butterflies, read a book, whatever. What if I had been aiming a pistol in my off hand? I wouldn't even lose a bonus to hit that is piling up for three rounds, because on my action I get to continue aiming. Hope the pile of corpses doesn't block my view and get me pissed off. See how absurd it is? Melee attacks should be treated just like any other skill. You get one chance to score good clean damage dictated by how fast you are. When others try to hit you all you can do is try to defend. If you want to give melee skills a bit more power, then say they can role their skill dice to stage down damage. It works out exactly the same except you don't get any chance of killing 100 bad guys in two blips of a second. In addition, I think you should lose your action in any initiative pass you had to roll defense in. This will limit mages or gun bunnies just skipping away...la dee da... from a melee master swinging range to blast him with a mana bolt or a gun without the penalty for being in a melee.

that's almost as silly, though. suddenly, simply taking a swing at someone roots them in place, rendering them utterly unable to move.

Somebody show him the Girl Scouts of Death example please.

Evil Physad vs Girl Scouts

If that was for me, you'll note that I actually took part in that discussion.

I believe toturi was trying to address it to Rory Blackhand.

That's what I figured, but it's sometimes hard to tell.

I would like to think that you guys have been around the block enough times to tell the difference.

My interpretation would be that the first guy to attack would not get the benifit of the friends in melee rule, because no one else had started meleeing yet. The second guy to attack would have a minus 1 to his TN, and the defender a +1, even though the first attacker was dead, to represent the distraction caused by the first attack, the fact that killing off the first attacker put the defender out of position, etc.

So- The uber defender kills the first guy with no problem, the second is a little harder, the third is harder still...eventually anybody will get overwhelmed by shear numbers.

rory, you're still not addressing the fact that simply making a melee roll effectively freezes an opponent in place. movement is not a free action, it's something that takes place as part of your turn; if you lose your turn, you lose your action. that, right there, is a situation that can easily occur every game session. your fifty-versus-one situation is unlikely to come up in any game session. your cure is therefore worse than the disease.

besides which, your basic point is that a guy who's focused his entire life and magic on melee combat is able to whoop vast amounts of ass in melee combat. seriously, why does this surprise you? the problem, here, is not with the melee rules; it's with the initiative and movement rules. after all, in order to have their asses whupped, all of those mindless zombies are going to have to get into melee range with the troll--and how the hell are they all going to do that, when they've got so many of their fellows packed in front of them?

The spirit takes a Complex Action to create, so at typical minimum it'll take .75 seconds.

~J

Since melee seldom comes up in the campaign I'm joining, it haven't been that relevant but we do have a houserule, which I think works very well.
In melee the defender gets his counterattack as usual, but no matters how many net succes he have, he can only retaliate if he have an action left (it doesn't matter when he has this action) and choose to expend it on the counterattack. That means that it would be a hell to hit the melee master, but with only one action in a pass, he only can retaliate a single time (or do whatever he wants with his action).

A combat turn is 3 sec long. How long does it take a dead body to hit the floor and stay still? Don't allow the thugs to fill the dead man's shoes until the start of the next combat turn. Thus you only have 4 opponent "slots" to fill and empty per combat turn.

Edited for Bitbasher nitpicking

no, rory, not simple. the horde of bad guys still have to physically move past each other. ever been to a crowded concert, where everyone was trying to push to get closer to the stage?

in seven years of playing SR, i've never seen a situation remotely like this come up. if you want to inject some realism into SR, there are better places to start.

Well, people have covered most of it, so I'll keep this brief.

Also, the Adv Melee Combat rules are *optional* and some are downright retarded. The aptitude in melee is recommended against in the book. Under normal curcumstances against even half competent opponents the adept will lose.

Also, I give friends in melee to anyone that is joining in that fight. The defender can't tell which of the 20 thugs around him went first, so he has to divide his attention among them, as the melee takes the entire pass. Remember, therese are not single punches in sequence, this is a mob of people all fighting at the same time, the rolls just happen insequence to make things easier. I don't care if you've actually swung yet, if you have declared (and cannot change it) that you are going to swing on a target then you should count for friends in melee against that target.

hell, if you're just standing there looking threatening, you should count. i can't read your mind, i don't know if you're going to take a swing, or just glare at me some more.

Cirenya, that is close to what I am suggesting. I think the best way of handling it would be to just say if the defender in a melee contest gets more success than the attacker there will be no damage. The roll is just an abstract way of accounting for the fact that more skilled melee specialists are just harder to hit if they are aware of the attack and are able to defend. Only one small part of the rules would have to change if this were implemented, but a huge imbalance would be alleviated.

My further contention, on a side issue though was that if a combatant was allowed to use his "skill dice" to defend himself with then he should be penalized somehow on his next action. In effect, the rules give him an unlimited amount of complex actions that he can perform even out of turn or a rates of speed he might not even be able to react to. If two guys are facing off in a bar, one of them has lighting fast reflexes, and the other is slow as molasses the faster guy should realistically be able to slap the slower one before he can even react. That is what reflexes are all about. With magic and cyberware it is totally realistic to consider you will have an inferior skilled fighter who is whipped up to inhuman speeds facing a slower, but more skilled fighter. By virtue of his speed alone the inferior fighter should be able to make more attempts at a good clean shot. Maybe a good way to play this out (I would be satisfied) would be to give anyone that was the defender of a melee attack the +2 TN/opponent that anyone else gets while they are actually in combat trying to do ranged combat. This penalty would stick with the defender of a melee attack until the end of his next initiative pass, this would prevent the really cheesy scenario of somebody stepping out of the middle of a hot and heavy brawl to take his turn with a game of darts nearby. While his opponents stand there patiently waiting for their turn to move again and restart the brawl, which with jacked up reflexes and only one initiative pass to move in might be several passes before they can, the dart player can light up a smoke, make a cell call, check his watch, do some first aid, etc...if the brawlers did not have any ranged weapons that is. Casting spells would be effected too. This way you could try to interrupt a spell caster. Some spells use the ranged weapon table anyway for targeting penalties.

Botch, that is a good point, I think it would vary by the weight of the body, how far the force of the blow slung him away from the defender, the air pressure, how early in the "several seconds" he died, etc... What if they were spirit forms? How long does it take for a spirit to disrupt? Since there is no penalty for uneven terrain in melee combat you could stand on a dead body. I never assumed that only just the five opponents could engage you in one pass though. on a hex graph 6 can surround you swinging daggers, but only a +4 penalty would apply even if they had a couple of guys chopping down at you from ropes hanging down over your head, and a couple more trying to stab up into the soles of your feet thru the grate you were standing on. And if they were all armed with swords 12 of them could stand back a meter and blast away at you, give them polearms and it gets absurd again. Let's not even discuss a ring of pikemen standing 15' away or how you are going to connect a hit on one of them...since there is only reach 2 weapons...cough...and you can only move when it is on your initiative pass...cough. Let's also not talk about getting overrun by a horde of those pikemen, spearmen, polearmsmen, swordsmen, and dagger wielders in stadium seating where each could easily attack over the others head. This solution can reduce the number of attacks from insane to absurd, but it still leaves the melee skill potentially used over and over and over with no penalty at all to your rendition of the Three Little Maids opening when it gets to your turn to act in the initiative pass.

BitBasher, I said starting character didn't I? But as I was slowly typing that reply out with my two fingers my mind was wandering. I originally planned to use a whip in the off hand because it is listed as a secondary weapon on that incomplete chart, but changed it to monowhip, because it sounded cooler to use on a horde of zombies and we were talking alot of dice here which I just can't see getting if it was just a whip doing stun damage.

mfb, in my younger day I did go to a few concerts. I was just explaining it in game mechanics. If the zombies had the exact same stats it would be a random roll of the dice to see who actually went first. If you are the zombie standing in row 3 slot 12, get picked to go first, and want to rush the stage, in SR you can delay your action to move and make a melee attack on the meat at center stage if a path becomes clear. It really doesn't matter where you are in the crowd, if every ghoul trapped in the crowd declares a delay action to move and attack. Eventually some ghoul in row one will get his turn and be killed, if a ghoul in row 2 had been delaying his action he will suddenly go as soon as it is clear. In the meantime it is a free action to gesture...can I suggest lots of arm waving and growling? This situation came up in a game I played in, though I am sure I have not had nearly the chance to play as you have. It was ghouls instead of zombies, they were weak, but there was an endless supply of them. An endless supply is what was described to us, so we had to hold them at bay long enough to rig the entrance to the cave with explosives and make a break for it.

TheScamp, if those brownies were armed probably, fatigue would overcome even Bruce Lee at some point. As far as the amount of dice rolled you could still just use a bayonet at the end of your rifle to give it a +2 reach, drop the ambidexterity, change his skills to bayonet specialist. That would give him 20 dice, which is still over double what they get. And if I find a really broken rule I voice my opinion on it if I am interested in that aspect of the game. For example I know nothing about riggers. If you tell me you can make a bike that breaks the sound barrier I will say the land record is close to that now, but what practical purpose would the vehicle have if you need a flat open space to use it? If you say the same vehicle has VTOL capability and can convert to a sub in a simple action I will think the rules are broken to this extent, the fact is though that I can't think of another aspect of the game so overpowered as this is? Unlimited skill use not even on your turn with no penalties. If you can come up with an example as bad let me know. We can open a thread to see how to fix it.

BitBasher again, without advanced melee combat rules and aptitude I still get 36 dice needing a TN of 5. Which is alot more than your 8 with a TN of 4. And I get to roll all those dice over and over and over again, as many times as I can survive. If you just go with straight averages I make 12 successes per defense you make 4. So what is your idea of half way competent anyway? skill levels of 8? Stats high enough to give you 8 dice combat pools? Great, now you are making 8 successes and have a reasonable chance to kill me, having a skill level of 4 is half way competent in my opinion. Keep in mind the mindless ghouls on Resident Evil. If they were Troll adepts, with polearms, it kind of changes things around, huh? Not the point I am trying to make, player. Not sure I follow you about everyone declaring actions then acting? Here is a nit pick back at you. Only the acting character declares actions. So in your example only the ones who actually declare melee are involved in it until they get a chance to declare their action. Players could abuse the hell out of that deal. They can all stand around within swinging range of an NPC to give the friends in melee bonus to their melee specialist, who takes the NPC down before their turn, so they get to declare action to shoot or cast a spell since they didn't get to do anything. I'm also confused what you mean about the melee taking the entire pass? I just pointed out the rules say it takes the entire pass, but the melee master in my example could choose to spend his portion of the pass searching for his favorite radio station on his walkman if he defeats all his opponents before it is his turn, or he can spend his movement to walk over and unwrap a sandwich so he can have a snack ready for the next pass when 20 more goons try to rush him on their part of the pass. This is exactly what I am arguing is broken all this time for! Since you don't declare your action until you are the acting character the melee adept doesn't even have to seemingly participate in the battle at all. See my point now?

mfb again, what if I don't want you to think I am in the melee so you don't focus on me at all? I think you need to have declared your action and either be the target of a melee attack or the initiator of one. I could make ugly faces at you otherwise and impose a +1 penalty to your next shot even though I will not be engaging in the melee when it gets to my initiative pass. Not quite fair and open to lots of abuse.

*sigh*

The reality of unarmed combat is, attacking a well-prepared and highly skilled opponent is just dumb. The defender has all kinds of advantages.

People get all choked up because they think speed is everything in unarmed combat. Unfortunately, that's not the case; skill grants you speed, and not the other way around.

Let me give you an example, that isn't nearly as broken. Joe Normal gets mad at Anthony Adept, and takes a swing at him. Since Joe only has skill 1, he makes this huge slow haymaker at Anthony, which is easily parried and results in Joe getting pounded. Joe goes out, and gets wired-3 in order to give him an advantage. He comes back after Anthony-- and opens with the exact same slow haymaker. Since reflex enhancements don't make you move any quicker-- just react faster-- Anthony is able to defend exactly like he did before, and pound Joe yet again.

Unskilled opponents do not do well versus skilled opponents, and speed doesn't help this in the slightest. In your overly-broken example, I can point to several peasant uprisings where one or two armed knights did just that-- they waded through hordes of unskilled opposition. Having a chain whip certainly helped matters, as well.

I can tell that you're used to D&D style games, because you were complaining about interrupting spellcasters. The only way to interrupt anyone in SR is to have a held action; not a big problem, really. But you're going to have to realize that SR is a different system, with different rules, more approaching reality than the high fantasy bit you're used to.

edit: bah. i've never seen anything approaching a situation like this in any game i've run or played in, so i'm not going to worry about it.