Does the movement penalty apply to melee combat ?
If you read SR3 page 108, you will say: Yes, of course, it affects all target numbers.
But, if you go to page 123 you will see no such penalty on the melee modifiers table, even though the firearms modifiers table has.
Then, in page 174 it says: "Astral combat uses the same rules as Melee ... astral character can attack other astral forms with no penalties for astral movement".
This lastry entry may or may not be of relevance, but either way the question remains.
Personally, I think the penalty goes go all target number, but my swordsman PC thinks otherwise...

No, Running penalties do not apply to melee.

But if you are the GM, you can say that it does.

Personally I would say no, they don't. Because otherwise it eliminates the advantage of a charge move which is a classic melee maneuver.

Or you could go halfway and rule your opponents movement affects the targeting numbers, escept when he has charged in which case it should be ignored.

Given that movement is an integral part of any sort of melee combat, the only penalties that would make sense is if you were fighting in melee and trying not to move your feet, or moving in a restricted space - like fighting on a log over a chasm, or something.

The way it's been described to me, is Shadowrun fighting is not 'I stand and take a swipe with my (insert weapon here)' it's a give and take, footwork, balance, and so on. How many actual fights do you see where people just stand there and don't move? Shoot, most techniques for fighting involve moving. Especially in unarmed combat. Moving is part and parcel with it.

The only thing I don't like about the movement only penalizing shooters view is I've seen spellcasters run in nice little circles to make themselves harder to hit while they fire off spells no penalty.

For magic it is fairly had to concentrate on doing something else while running and to focus on things visually, so you can easily justify a house rule modifier for that. I might give it +2 rather than +4 though.

We've started to faithfully apply movement modifiers to melee combat, and the results have been pretty interesting, to say the least. The typical action of the physad martial artist before was to run/leap in, whoop some tail, and let the teammates clean up the rest. Now they run in, stand just outside of melee range and let enemy combatants come to them, walking if they need to close the distance to strike. It has greatly reduced the importance of "Friends in Melee" rule, as the movement penalty tends to severely counteract the effect. We are considering using a "tackling" rule which allows running combatants to charge in, with the only thing the opponent can do is Full Defense.

All this is just an experiment, but it has given me and my group some food for thought.

two views

1) regular walking mods should not apply, because like it has been previously stated, melee is about movement. But modifiers for running should apply, especially if they're attacking in the middle of a running movement. A good attack depends heavily on balance, and balance in the middle of a flat out run is in shorter supply.

2) depends upon the attack while walking. If the attack is from the head, body, or arms, then no walking modifiers should apply, because the feet are being used entirely for movement and balance. If the attack is a kick attack, then yes, the walking modifier should apply if they're actually trying to walk somewhere and kick attack.

Actually... I would think the sensible thing to do is apply it only to those tasks where moving would be a distraction or otherwise make a task more difficult.

Adding movement modifiers to someone who's got a dance centering skill (or worse yet, a dance geas) would be silly, but legal, by the rules.

Something that movement is just naturally a part of just doesn't make sense to have movement modifiers applied to.

To take a ridiculus case, just to make the point about 'all tests' being a little too inclusive...

Why would anyone apply movement modifiers to a test for running faster? It just doesn't make sense. The flip side, why wouldn't anyone apply movement modifiers to trying to throw a fireball spell at someone standing on a building while running down the street?

you'd also have to add the running TN mod to the Athletics test for increasing your running speed. by the book, that's what you're supposed to do--but i really doubt that the authors intended that.

I'll concede it would be an awful penalty to something like dancing, but I'd rule you could dance without actually having to "move" spaces.

For Martial Arts, I can see both sides. Movement is a big part of it, like in all combat really--but here's something I see. When I spar in martial arts, we weave and circle around each other, but we don't go running down corridors taking jabs at each other--that's alot harder. When you're running full bore, your balance and positioning aren't as good as if you're in a decent fighting stance. Of course, since when does reality affect SR rules?

I think I'd only apply a movement penalty when a character is trying to hit his opponent 'in passing'. A character running past his target and taking a swipe with his sword should have a TN penalty, as should a stationary attacker trying to hit an opponent who is running past him.

realism is complex. what i might do, if i really wanted realism, is to say that the movement penalty is reduced by -2 for melee. i'd also say that using the Charging option reduces that modfier by a further -2. that makes it +0 to melee while walking, +2 to melee while running, and +0 to melee while running if you're using the Charging option.

I finally made up my mind about this. I agree that some movement is a natural part of a melee attack, so the walking modifier should not apply. As for running, well... most combat movements I know that require charging do more damage but are less eficient to hit or open your defense. So everytime my PCs decide to combine a running with a combat manuever he will receive a +1 penalty on his attack and most likely it will be also considered a charge (as in cannon companion). The +2 penalty for rough terrain will also apply when appropriate.