Does anyone else have an issue with Reaction being figured from Quickness and Intelligence?

My problem is that, like most game systems I've played (White Wolf, HERO, AD&D, etc.), combat emphasizes--and rightly so--acting quickly and often. The combatant with the most frequent opportunities to act usually wins (duh). Naturally then, Shadowrun PCs bend over backwards to maximize their Initiative, since this does two things:

1. Places them higher up the initiative totem pole (i.e. who acts first, second, third, etc.);

2. Provides them with more opportunities to act.

As a result, Reaction tends to be a priority Attribute. Since it's figured from Quickness and (more problematically) Intelligence, I find that PCs end up looking like a bunch of pulitzer-prize-winning chess grandmasters. Apparently, when Nobel laureates get tired of the spotlight, they run the shadows.

In theory, I understand why Reaction is figured from these two stats. I follow the logic, I just don't like what happens when one follows the logic all the way to its conclusion: characters (PCs and NPCs alike) with a whopping high Intelligence that doesn't suit their personality or background, just so that they can keep up in combat, which is an integral part of SR games.

My (tentative) solution would be to make Reaction an Attribute like the others: have the PCs spend Attribute points on it at character creation. This would require tweaking the priority system a bit, to give them more points at each level, but should be manageable.

Questions, comments? Am I completely out to lunch on this?

While I understand your complaint, the current system is definitely not set up to deal with the added cost of another core attribute.

The group I was/am playing with had straight 6s for everyone's intelligence (except for one guy; he was kind of an idiot with an intelligence of 5). Not that it didn't make sense for anyone, but it was questionable as to whether everyone's stats actually fit his or her respective backgrounds.

That said, I must admit I'm less a fan of a hard numbers rework in this case than I am just talking to your group of players and coming to a sane solution. Namely, that characters whose personalities and backgrounds wouldn't mandate high intelligence don't powergame just to take crazy stats. Still, this won't work with every group (mine included, but, then again, nothing remotely sane works with these people, really), which leaves you with the unpleasant task of reworking all the numbers to allow for an additional core attribute. Alternatively, might want to halve the effects of intelligence on reaction or cap intelligence's benefits at 3 or 4.

<cough> Intelligence is not so much a matter of what you know, as how effective you are at processing information. It might be more accurate to call the game stat "perception" rather than "intelligence," but the point is that your reaction time is based on how quickly your brain can get the message that "Now would be a good time to draw the gun."

I consider 9 to be a genius-level intellect, anything over that is superhuman.

Likewise, Shadowrunning is an occupation that requires a decent amount of intelligence, and quickness too. Most professionals should easily have at least a 4,5, or 6 in either stat to be realistically running the shadows. If they didn't then they would most likely end up being cannon foder or dog chow. Maybe you need to ask your players to act more like their character would, i.e. intelligently.

Veracusse

SR Intelligence isn't really just perception, it includes pretty much every form of intelligence (other than social intelligence, which is part of charisma), it governs your ability to learn, to memorize, creativity, all of it gets lumped into a single stat. Part of the intelligence stat does affect reaction, thus the averaging with quickness. This has some problems, but overall I find it works out ok, and is far simpler than things like the White Wolf system where it is broken into 3 parts. I also usually don't have too much problem with people boosting there intelligence just for reaction, as it gets you one point of reaction per 2 points intelligence, it's just not worth it to try to squeeze every last reaction point out at the expense of many other things. Most characters I make have intelligence of 5 or 6, but that's because I usually play magical or technical based characters, the few combat characters I've made have intelligence 4, rarely 3, but they have so many other ways to boost their reaction, the extra point out of a high intelligence just isn't worth the effort to get it that high. I also tend to agree with the sentiment that a reasonable intelligence is required to be a decent runner, 3 is pretty questionable and below 3 is unthinkable, a recipe to get yourself and your team killed.

You could try and follow how the Intelligence attribute works for critters, that is it is divided into two rating e.g. 2/4, one is the Intellect of the character in terms of IQ, puzzle solving etc, and the other is Perception.

To replicate this for characters have players at Char Gen buy the Intelligence stat as normal, then if they want to they can split it like a specialisation e.g. the initial intelligence is 4, they then state that their Intellect is 3 and Perception is 5.

Reaction would be calculated from Perception and used for Perception tests, whilst Intellect would determine starting Knowledge Skill Points and karma cost for increasing them in game.

If using the Build Points system Intellect and Perception both costs a number of BP equal to their rating (rather than double the rating). Therefore you could have ratings of 3/4.

In terms of karma cost to raise these stats after char gen, then simply halve what the normal cost would be to raise Intelligence to the same rating.

The good thing about this is that unless, and until, a character wants to differentiate their Intellect from Perception they can create characters and increase Intelligence with Karma with no changes.

Better way to do this might be with an edge that adds a certain number of dice to perception based tests only.

i know what u mean, velocity... players always wanna be super human in some way.
but it's not as big a problem as you make it sound like.

Lucyfersam's got a point when he says intelligense isn't worth going for if you want high reaction.
what players usually do hunt is cyberware like boosted reflexes or bioware like muscle toner.

and also, i think shadowrunners are quite intelligent in general. the job demands a high IQ and/or a sharp mind.
and also, in the book, it says that having a high intelligense attribute doesn't necessarily turn you into a genious.
a person can have spend most of his life in the slums and never opened a book, but still have a high intellignse.

Yes, that every cop would have. For example, an edge that, for each level, gives an extra die to perception tests in an investigative environment might work for a detective. Customise and make broader depending on the character. What it really comes down to is training and/or innate ability with sensory perception independant of the person's intelligence, and though my personal feeling is that it should be an additional mental stat, that's obviously not a modification suited for the game as it's currently set up.

Back when I first started on this forum, I discussed this a bit. We had, at that time, House Ruled that Reaction and Perception were base attributes, not calculated. We increased the number of Attribute points, BP's available etc at Char Gen to compensate. In the Astral, Reaction used Perceotion as it's counterpart.

We're back to basics now, but I agree, it's dumb. Then again, Quickness being more dexterity and adroitness seems like a dumb attribute as well.

Sphynx

Just a complimentary skill to intllignece called "perception" used for perception purposes. Make it either knowledge or active whichever suits you. Problem solved.

they've already got one. it's called Stealth. Stealth has an Awareness specialization, that--guess what!--acts as a complimentary test to perception.

sure, it's kinda odd that all the perceptive guys are also all the sneaky guys. but, hey, nothing's perfect.

He's completely right, btw.

I remember the collective of Sams with Encephalons, because it boosts your INT!! Every fricken Sam was apparently a genius, and yes, that is fricken stupid.

Sunday.

Tangenting back from perception/intelligence to the original question: I'd follow up on a couple of the earlier responses and suggest that Reaction consists not only of being able to react quickly, but also knowing how to react: quick (and hopefully accurate) analysis of available information.

Returning to the perception/intelligence stream, this suggests that it isn't only the perception aspect of intelligence (or whatever variant you houserule that constitutes perception) that matters.

It's true, though. Most won't. Most of the one who survive, however, will. That doesn't mean people are restricted to playing intelligent characters in the shadows— after all, statistically, most shouldn't be— but it does mean that most people, wanting to play characters that'll survive, won't want to play characters of average or below average intelligence.

Honestly, I don't agree with this, and think that people can and ashould play interesting characters, some intelligent and some not, but it's going to vary from person to person, group to group, and game to game.

I do have a player in a game whose character has an intelligence of 1. He's survived just fine, and actually done quite well, though that is admittedly in no small part due to what I call the Snoog Factor (Snoog being the character's name).
Basically, he either rolls disproportionately well or rolls 1s, and most of those 1s are on perception tests ("You see a bunny.").

~J

Wow, thanks to everyone for their replies. Let's see, where to begin...

The definition of intelligence is very broad indeed, you can be as dumb as a brick when it comes to academics but have the greatest common sense. Besides like some already said, intelligence is also how fast your mind reacts and processes information. If you have a problem with players making characters with uber intelligence, make the opposition that much more smarter. If you can't see increasing the intelligence on the opposition, then stuff them full of ware that increase there reaction and/or intelligence (i.e. cerebral booster, reaction enhancer, enhanced articulation, wired reflexes, boosted reflexes, synaptic accelerator, and move-by-wires). If the players want to be uber, make there opposition that much more uber.

kevyn668: wouldn't that be similar to the distinction between a passive use of skill (GM rolls it secretly, without telling the player unless something out of the "usual" was noticed) and active use of skill (PC listening/watching for something)?

Edit: re distinct and different uses of intelligence, the GM/group choice is to keep the attribute as general as possible (with the interpretive slack being taken up by individual roleplaying), to keep the attribute as general as possible and just accept that it will be used for everything possible, to subdivide the attribute (Hero-style) into more specialised attributes, to create specific complementary skills, or to create distinct active skills. The specific choice will depend on the individual group's style of play as well as the availability of karma (more skills, more need of karma, the more handicapped the player differently specialised).

House-ruling: we use Essence in place of Intelligence as a passive perceptive skill for events involving perceiving mana flow, and as a complementary skill for events involving living persons/spellcasting.

Worth noting that 3 is average intelligence, not the intelligence of someone average people would call smart or above average. 4 is above average.

IN 2, (base) QU 6, Muscle Replacements 4

I have to agree that having most characters have very high intelligences does seem pretty odd, however you have to look at Shadowrunners as not just above average criminals as was said above, but the best and the brightest. Many characters have as part of their back story worked their way up from the streets, and proved they have greater abilities than their peers. Lesser beings end up working for organized crime, running with gangs, in prison, or on a slab at the morgue. When you have a job that needs that special touch you pay the big bucks, and higher a runner team to get the job done.

That being said, creation of unbalanced and min-maxed characters should be dissuaded by the strongest means available. For example, players that have maxed out their Intelligence, Quickness, and Body, will in all likelihood have decided that Willpower, or charisma is not really that important to their "character vision", and will have something in the 1-2 range. These are the players that need to learn the lesson "balance is required", and the ones that should start meeting mages with lots of mana type spells. (Manaballs, reduce charisma, effect mind Etc.)

Anther option is have your players think about what a very high intelligence actually means. The odds are that someone with Genius level intelligence is not running the shadows because they “like to kill stuff”,
Having your players create their back stories, even if it is just quickly answering the standard 20 questions is a great way to have them think about what they are going to be doing in game, but you should also have them explain anything out of place such as the character with 6 Intelligence whose hobbies are “Cleaning my guns, and watching the Trid”.

i agree with dirge. runners are the brightest in the bunch, so i don't see why alot of genius-level intelligent people couldn't be running the shadows...

and if you begin thinking "but having such a sharp mind, they could be lawyers or corperate managers!".
this isn't always the case, 'cause alot of the time, a person can go unaware of excactely how sharp his mind is. let's face it: how many gangers and street samies have their IQ tested?
and also, people in general aren't as diverse in intellegt as the game mechanics make it seem. we're all members of the same race (metahumans excepted, but those who are brighter will have a bonus to int). and today, we still have just as many brain cells as we did when the homo sapiens sapiens forst evolved.

so having int 5-6 doesn't really make you einstein (whom i've been told was one of the dumbest stufents in his class).
bottom line: intelligense doesn't really make that much of a difference.

You have to realize, Int 6 is just the starting maximum. Humans can easily have a much higher intelligence; in Shadowrun, an unaugmented human could have an Intelligence of 10 or higher. An otaku can go up to 13, and even higher with cerebral boosters. But leaving them aside, someone like Einstien would have a Int of 10 or so; the average shadowrunner may be brighter than the average, but not *that* much brighter.

I consider Int 6 to be significantly above average, but far and away from genius-level. 9-10 would be about right for that. And since I seldom see sammies dumping enough karma into their Intelligence to raise it that high, I don't see the problem.

@ Talia: I think it depends on the situation. In the ambush scenario (the bolt being worked) it could be either. Even if the player doesn't actually say "I'm looking/listening for signs of trouble", he/she could get a roll for awareness/Perception. Although, I'd probably hit the char w/ a good penalty to the roll. This assumes that the character has some means of detecting the noise (amp, etc). But in the same example, the player could say the char was on the lookout and you'd get the same roll, probably w/o the penalty.

As for the "did you hear that gunshot", you could look at it like being in a crowded room and hearing your name in a conversation across that room. And that could be passive or active as well.

This is all pretty theoretical for me as the Perception/Intelligence/Awareness question has never come up in my group. I don't know if it would be unbalancing to make Stealth even more important/powerful by setting this precedent. Since every character I've seen has at least two dice in the skill, it could get out of hand in a hurry. I don't know how much I like this, now that I think about it. If it comes up, I'll probably House Rule it somehow. Maybe only make the Passive roll when its actually going to have an outcome more important than hearing your name across the room. Otherwise, the player will have to state: "I'm listening for my name across the room..."

Ideally, I think I'd like to say "though schloss, Awareness only works for detecting Stealth actions" but I prefer to avoid making policy based simply on preserving game balance. Given the opportunity, I'd retract my earlier comment and agree w/ DigitalMage.

It does make a reasonable amount of sense to have a fair number of shadowrunners with an Int of 5 easy and sometimes 6. As has been said, 6 is not absolute genius, although it is probably the starting point for what might be considered genius, and a lot of people with that level of intellect become disaffected with society and very well might turn to a career of shadowrunning.

Overall, I actually find that at least in our games the most overly raised attribute is willpower, as I'd say around 75% of characters I see have Willpower of at least 5, just to be able to function around critters and mages (and they still barely manage, leading to many people ending up with a 6 willpower).

Few comments. First, the original topic of the thread seemed to be centered around the idea that 'forcing' characters to have high intelligence (or quickness for that matter) in order to have 'needed' high reactions resulted in an absurdly intelligent group of runners, or disallowed players from playing more average intelligenced characters.

Flavor reasons aside (should be smarter etc) there is a flaw here; the fact that high intelligence is mandatory for high reaction. Im not going to go into the "you dont need high initiative" zone because its *VERY* group dependant, and most of the time you probably do need good initiative =)

For instance, a "typical" runner in our games might have quickness 6, intelligence 6, and boosted reflexes 1. Its small and cheap enough to fit most guys as some kinda initiative boost to get to the "two actions" average. Reaction 6 + 2d6 = range of 8 to 20, with an average of 13. Most of the time you get 2 actions.

Even if the runners intelligence in the above example was 2, look what happens. Reaction 4 + 2d6 = range of 6 to 16, with an average of 11. Still two actions most of the time.

The point here is that "initiative modifications" rather than raw attribute stats are where it matters in initiative mathematically. Yea, higher int might give you a point or two more if youre trying to max out your speed, but its hardly needed to go fast and in fact makes little difference (how you roll on the dice will have a far greater effect).

To me, personally, I like intelligence simply because of the free knowledge skills and extra perception dice it gives you. Plus its nice to be able to resist illusions. I dont always have int at 6 when I build guys, but it would be very rare for me to go below 4, I just cant stand sucking at perception during games.

Also of note, humans *cant* have intelligence past 9, thats their attribute maximum. The only way to exceed it is via intelligence boost spells or the exceptional attribute edge. No race can, except maybe shifters dont have the tables nearby. Bioware, such as the cerebral booster, counts as natural and as such is still affected by the limit. And there is no cyber form of int boost. Magic is the only way. And the difference from intelligence 1 to 9 is a mere 4 on the initiative roll; nearly the same effect is gained from the humble boosted reflexes 1 with a 3.5 average.

Intelligence is far, far more important for its other effects within the shadowrun rules system than its effect on reaction. While it does have an effect, its usually not enough to bump a character into the next higher "actions bracket"; making it at most a sort of "feel good" buffer that looks good on paper (yay high stat eye candy!). Of course you can set it up so that int will get you another action, but most of the time it wont land as such mathematically.

With the Exceptional Attribute Edge humans can have up to a 10 Intelligence, if you're allowing edges and flaws into the campaign.

kevyn668: nor really has it come up in ours. Mostly we adapted the rule as a way of allowing mundanes to possibly detect mana flow and to have an edge where living beings are involved ... call it the Force, if you will, or even just that way we have of sensing when we are being watched.

Judging by what I've seen in various groups, I'd say that some shadowrunners are exceptionally bright and some are ... rather the opposite, just as in the general populace. (Not all runners are genii who've determined that the corporate world isn't the place for them!) However, shadowrunning generally is far less forgiving of missteps, and thus selects for intelligence medium- to long-term in any case ... also, to a lesser extent, for reaction. Thus 5s, 6s, and higher will tend to be far more common among those who have been shadowrunning for some time than among starting characters.

One hopes that the PCs will be among those shadowrunners who survive.

Talia: thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

about the high Int, I agree w/ you and most of the other posters here: Its like "Street/Shadow Darwinism".

I like trying different things but there's a certain type of charater that I perfer and they tend be smart guys. I've been RPing for almost 20 years now and I've only played a char ONCE that I didn't like and I was forced into b/c the D&D group I was w/ demanded that I play that type. I'll never do it again.

Seems like alot of people want to be fast, or at least first to move. Hmmm.

I use to have players who used slow characters and had some really nice character background behind it, but they eventually realize that when its combat time, the faster guys always seem to move most of the time, making the slow guys get really bored. As a result, everyone now wants to become faster, and faster, and faster... i think ill post a thread on this.

The exceptional attribute actually allows an attribute to have a natural value as high as 11, not 10. Either way, I'd agree that an intelligence of 6 doesn't make you a genius, even if it does say so in a book somewhere. Putting it above that might be more like it though, and coupled with appropriate knowledge skills is probably what exceptional scientists and the like would have.

While it's true that the difference between an idiot (int 2) and someone very clever (int 6) is only a couple of points of reaction and combat pool... that's still quite a big difference to people who are going all out for speed and combat power (and let's face it, plenty of them do). If you've already squeezed in the wired-3 and every other treat your bank balance/body can handle, those couple of extra points can really give you the edge. Or if you're making a starting character, you'd likewise be tempted to put both intelligence and quickness at 6 if you just HAD to be the fastest, since there's a limit (1 million nuyen and 6 essence) on how much artificial boosting you can get.

I'd also agree that a lot of shadowrunners are condisderably brighter/more perceptive/quick-thinking than ordinary criminals, or in fact ordinary people in general.

Intelligence is, as has been said, pretty useful for other things besides reaction, making it a more valuable stat in what you gain than, say, charisma. It shouldn't really be like that, but it is. Intelligence affects reaction, combat pool, hacking pool, spell pool, astral combat pool, control pool, knowledge/language skills, perception, defence against illusions and other magic effects, quite a number of skills, and other things besides. Charisma, if you're not awakened, affects... social situations and social skills (of which there are only eh, 5 I think, and most people only take a couple of those at most), fighting spirits, and hmm, can't think of much else! Not that those aren't good things to be good at, but just that intelligence affects a lot more stuff than charisma does so I guess that's why so many people have it high.

Anyway, this debate has been had before...

While I agree to the main setiment of the thread, Id argue that the people benefiting the *least* from high intelligence are the speed fanaitcs.

Unless the GM is being seriously hard on his players, they will in all likleyhood not be coming up against anything remotely as fast as a speed-centered character. He will be far above them in initiative already, and a few points wont make a difference. If theyre rolling 4 or 5 dice for initiative, the varience of the dice makes a far greater impact on their speed for that combat turn.

Two guys with initiative of 10+4d6 and 12+4d6 will go first pending on their die rolls in roughly half the combats. It all has to do with statstics. The difference in getting either 12 or 16 on 4 dice, which average at 14, is roughly the same. Thus the 10 reaction player and the 12 reaction player have equal chances to roll equal amounts off the average and tie initiatives. While there is a small advantage, its largley eye candy on the paper within the first statistical standard deviation of rolling.

The bottom line is that, in terms of initiative in shadowrun, being lucky is better than being smart =)