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mintcar
I want some feed back on my thoughts. Should I make a thead?

I did
Eyeless Blond
mintcar makes an interesting point. Combat would probably be most elegent to handle via an interrupt system, something that would work like this:

-Combat is resolved in 5-second turns (yes I know this is alot, but keep reading.)
-Initiative is rolled, as a Reaction test vs. TN 4. Count the number of successes for each person; these are the number of Interrupts you get for that turn. Also add up each open-ended die roll together; this sum is your initiative score and determines turn order.
-Actions are declared for the 5-second turn in reverse order; lowest initiative score to highest.
-Action types are split up by the amount of time it takes to do them; typical Simple actions would take 2 seconds, Complex actions 4 seconds, "Free" actions 1 second, etc.
-There are no "passes"; everyone gets the same amount of time worth of actions (High-level Move-by-Wire might get "virtual seconds" to add in with interrupts or something; see below.)
-The GM orchestrates the combat turn, counting through the seconds, calling for and making rolls as needed, and generally having the bullets/spells fly in the most cinematic way possible. smile.gif Of course it's suggested that those with the higher initiative score get preference in terms of what they do, but there are exceptions to everything.
-Now for the Interrupts. Any time during the turn, a player may interrupt the action and change what he's doing. Depending on what action he's doing this may or may not cause the current action to fail; jumping out of the way of bullets, for example, will probably cause you to fail the spell you're casting, or at least up the TN considerably for violent motion.
-Interrupting the action for any reason requires using an Interrupt. If a previously-declared action becomes meaningless for whatever reason, the player must still use an Interrupt to do anything differently. In extreme cases, the character will just stand there looking like an idiot if he has no Interrupts and his declared action is completely inappropriate (shooting full-auto when his gun is out of bullets, etc).
-All use of Combat (or any other) Pool for dodging requires use of an Interrupt.

Unfortunately this kinda think would require an insane amount of bookkeepping, with everyone declaring their actions beforehand, but then that's sorta how it's supposed to work now, isn't it?

Anyway, how's that sound, at least for a proposal? This almost certainly won't be in SR4, but it's a good idea, yes?
Kagetenshi
I'm going to say no. Looks to me like you get about the same amount done as you do during a pass under the current system, but it takes at least as much time as the entire turn does now. Everything just ends up taking way too long to do, both in-game and out-of-game.

~J
Eyeless Blond
*shrug* Then change Complex Actions to one second, Simple to 1/2 second, Free to 1/4, and the whole Turn back to 3 seconds. The point wasn't so much to have people doing things faster, but to have people simulate that quicker reflexes don't let you do more; they just let you react to changing circumstances more quickly.
Commiekeebler
Eyeless Blond,

I like the sentiment of making a realistic, tactical combat system, but what you propose requires a lot of book keeping, it would be slower than SR3, especially for big battles. It's not the length of the combat turn that matters, but how you wield it... err, I mean, the complexity of the things done inside of it. Keeping track of actions simultaneously taking place can be difficult for the GM. What we're losing here is the discreet 'fire and forget' bookkeeping of SR.

You're introducing additional TN numbers for actions due to being distracted in the middle. The player must first declare action, commit to it, wait for others to interrupt/distract/maim/kill him, then roll at the end before deciding the next action, so the bullets he fired won't hit his target til next action.

There'll be lots of mutual double kills, just like real life, but at the cost of GM's sanity I think.

I like the idea of initiative as a reaction test but your wording isn't clear on what you meant.

mintcar, I like the idea of opposed success in firefights (who hits whom in a shoot out? possible answers: combatant A, combatant B, both, neither). Need to figure out the right mechanic tho.

Doing many things with one roll opens up a new can of worms though: a single badass samurai can shoot multiple people with one roll, especially with a full-auto weapon. How do we resolve that?
Commiekeebler
I keep wondering what's it like to have superior reflexes and eyesight.

Human eye can see 24 frames per second. Technically, it can see more than that, but the brain can't interpret more than 24 frames per second, discarding the other information the eye sends it.

How many frames per second does a cybereye with vision magnification and microscopic vision need to process to notice a bullet flying through the air? 900? How many frames per second must the brain understand in order to give your inhuman move-by-wire the proper command to dodge the said bullet?

Now about the reaction, in other thread EB posted the idea of making initiative a sort-of open reaction test. Here's my variation on the theme to keep brainstorm going:
______________________________

You get your actions in order of your open Reaction test, for example: 9, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2.

Make that combat turn be 3 seconds. Why not?

Start spending actions in reverse order, going from the highest rolled die, to the lowest.

Each action is a "simple" action. In order to make a complex action, one must burn another action to "pad" it to size. So, with the Initiative roll as above, at 9, the character could burn the action at 4 to cast a spell (a complex action).

A character under attack may also burn one of his remaining actions to make a "reaction" - a dodge action, which refreshes his CP for the purposes of dodging only (use it all or lose it), but only once per attack. Such a reaction allows limited mobility, given that the character has room to move, he can move his Quickness in meters as part of a dodge action. Only characters aware of the attack (not surprised, not backstabbed) can make a reaction.

Simultaneous actions are simultaneous. You can still use reactions to dodge return fire, though.

If a character rolls doubles on Initiative (three dice come up as 5's for example), only one of them counts as a valid action, others can only be used for reactions or padding (so rolling a yatzee is very bad).
Eyeless Blond
Indeed. I said "more elegant," not, "more streamlined." smile.gif Something like this might be possible in a setting that caters to declaratory combat, like a game on IRC where everyone has to type their actions up anyway or a computer RPG. In games like that you can reasonably build up a long queue of actions without having any additional bookkeepping going on, but as a tabletop game or even a play-by-post game it would slow everything down too much.
Commiekeebler
Yeah it'd be fine for something like Jagged Alliance or Laser Squad Nemesis.

The specifics of table top roleplaying dictate simpler solutions though, as not a lot of us have computers implanted into our brains yet... cyber.gif
Kagetenshi
I don't agree that it's elegant, really. Quite the opposite.

~J
Fortune
QUOTE (Commiekeebler @ Mar 31 2005, 09:00 AM)
How many frames per second does a cybereye with vision magnification and microscopic vision need to process to notice a bullet flying through the air? 900? How many frames per second must the brain understand in order to give your inhuman move-by-wire the proper command to dodge the said bullet?

You don't so much dodge bullets as you do get out of line of fire of the gun. MBW doesn't help you dodge anyway (which is a function of Combat Pool, not Reaction), except for the associated Quickness increase, which can come from other sources just as easily.
Commiekeebler
Yes, that's what I'm saying, Fortune. Instead of being specific, FASA (and now Wizkids) just say 'you move faster, so you dodge faster', whereas this technology, pushed to the limits, could make a killing machine even deadlier by allowing it to see and avoid tiny objects moving at supersonic speeds.

Talk about dance between the raindrops eh?
Eyeless Blond
Nah; you'd need to be able to perceive and react several orders of magnitude faster, not just the 4-6 times as fast as in the game currently. It's an interesting thought, but it gets too close to that one movie that rips its title off of SR canon so it's also cheezy. smile.gif
Vuron
Bullet Time effects or Agents moving back in forth to dodge huge number of bullets might be visually stunning but certainly aren't possible within the SR universe at current.

Perhaps under previous conceptions of the SR Matrix in which deckers moved at the speed of thought (ugh) such effects were possible there but within standard reality it's just not possible.
Wireknight
One thing that I think Shadowrun's system is lacking, though most other systems lack it too, probably because it'd take some real thought and trial, not to mention probably enough error that it wouldn't work well until it was revised at least once, is the ability to interrupt others' intended actions. Right now it's handled subcontextually, with assumption that, if initiative is being rolled, the people involved are drawing guns and/or readying to attack. In reality, there's no real way to, for instance, shoot a guy who draws a gun on you. Chances are good, if his Reaction is decent, he can draw and fire in the same action. While, by the system, you may have just out-rolled his initiative and beaten him to this outcome, by the appearance to passers-by, you were the initiator of hostilities. It makes bodyguarding difficult to do in Shadowrun.

Another thing that's not handled so well is ranged attacks and ranged weapons, or spellcasting, in melee combat. If there are clearly defined rules for this, rather than a modifier that is uncertain in its application (i.e. do you just use the +2 modifier, or do you have to succeed an opposed melee combat test also), I haven't found them. It's never clear whether the guy in melee with a ranged weapon is simply screwed (unless they have a clubs skill to ward off melee strikes with their gun until they can shoot) or if the person they're shooting is screwed (since they don't have to worry about being interrupted or disarmed, they could pretty much use a ranged weapon in melee to overcome the entire need for an opposed skill test).
RunnerPaul
QUOTE (Wireknight)
One thing that I think Shadowrun's system is lacking
QUOTE
is the ability to interrupt others' intended actions.


I never really had a problem with how the following handles that issue:
A player character can delay an action until a later Combat Phase in the same Initiative Pass. During the declare actions part of that Combat Phase, the character must declare that he is intervening. Characters who have held an action and intervened in this manner go before anyone who is normally taking their action during that Combat Phase.(SR3, p.103, Delayed Actions)

The above rule seems to cover everything you mentioned you were looking for in the way of "interrupting other's actions", could you expand on how this rule has fallen short for you in the past?
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Wireknight)
One thing that I think Shadowrun's system is lacking, though most other systems lack it too, probably because it'd take some real thought and trial, not to mention probably enough error that it wouldn't work well until it was revised at least once, is the ability to interrupt others' intended actions.

Held Actions.

~J
Wireknight
How, exactly, does it work on a mechanical level? Sure, you can intervene... but what form can that intervention take? If you see a friend about to be shot, and you move between them and the opponent, how is it treated on a rules level? Attack is suddenly redirected to you? You resist damage, and friend also does but gains some armor/dodging bonus?

It's a good concept, and there are tons of those in the rules. The only problem is the rather nebulous implementation(or lack thereof) of the aforementioned concept.

[edit]
The only real form of intervention in the situation that I outlined above, that has developed and clear mechanics, is to shoot the shooter. That's a good idea, but by the rules it's not very certain at all to result in your pal not getting shot. You have to deal "D" damage to the target with one attack, and, if they're a pro, chances are they'll take their shot up and until (or possibly a bit beyond, with edges, adept powers, or bioware) incapacitating damage is dealt to them. Unless they're already wounded, and significantly, S damage simply will not suffice.
[/edit]
Rev
I'd put in a highly simplified version of knockdown:
On a serious or deadly wound a charachter is knocked down.
If a player wants to they can do the resist test on a serious wound, if the gm wants to they can have an npc roll to resist, but in general only the most motivated enemies will even try to stay up.

Thats the way I have run it and it works great. Never had a pc ask to resist and I have never done a resist roll for an npc (npc's get knocked down all the time, players occasionally). Generally people who take serious wounds in one chunk are fine with falling down given that I run my npc's such that they usually will ignore a downed seriously wounded opponant who isn't obviously continuing to fight. Once a person takes a serious wound in one shot lying in or crawling to full cover usually fits in nicely with thier plans. Knockdown exists, and happens to npc's a lot, but rolls are very rarely required.

Could put the more accurate and cumbersome knockdown rules in an advanced combat section of the new combat (aka cannon companion) for those who want them.
mfb
heh. i'd ask for resist rolls all the time. my main char does some of his best work when he's at S+. though your idea does have merit; it's usually not worth rolling for knockdown if the attack is only M or L.

how about this: knockdown only occurs if the damage of the attack is S or greater before dodge/soak. to resist knockdown, you take the highest die on the target's soak roll and compare it to the Power of the attack. if the soak die comes up higher, the target stays standing; if not, he goes down.
DrJest
That's got a lot going for it, actually. Base Power, or Power modified by armour? I'd favour base Power myself.
Commiekeebler
QUOTE (Wireknight)
In reality, there's no real way to, for instance, shoot a guy who draws a gun on you. Chances are good, if his Reaction is decent, he can draw and fire in the same action. While, by the system, you may have just out-rolled his initiative and beaten him to this outcome, by the appearance to passers-by, you were the initiator of hostilities. It makes bodyguarding difficult to do in Shadowrun.

A little bit of statistical info from the real world, if you don't mind:

Average distance of a shoot-out in the street: 7 meters (21 feet)

Average outcome: double homicide
Kagetenshi
Source?

~J
Critias
The range part sounds about right from what I've read, but not the karmic-strike double fatality part.
Austere Emancipator
Sounds especially dubious considering that it would require both shooters to die very quickly yet not instantaneously, so basically hitting the heart or the largest arteries in the thorax, or just perforating most of the thorax, but without hitting the CNS. Anything less and the last guy standing can get help and is very likely to survive, anything more and he doesn't get a chance to shoot back.
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