That's my point. But yeah, I could have brought it out better.

The troll gets many bonus attacks. He should just not have the initiative to do that (what I referred to as "slow"). And unless he has wires to do the thinking for him, all he really notices of the ninja is punches coming from all sides at once, whith his brain trying to figure out what to do about it. That's what his initiative score represents, right? So how the hell is he to react sensibly on an ultra-fast furry ninja, then?

I have played an adept that got beat by a troll with less than half my dice. He was strong enough that i had to take the damage, and it was fastly downhill from there.

You guys aren't getting what I was saying..

It doesn't matter how fast you think, when you defend.

If you're fighting, you don't think 'I should duck' because there's a fist flying at my face. You duck, by reflex. No brain activity. Defending, even counter-hits, aren't actions. They're muscle memory. Reflexes, muscle memory, all the stuff that you train into yourself. You're training to fight.. well.. one of the things you train in is little one step combinations.. someone throws a backhand punch.. you don't even think, you step in, deflect and backhand. They're trying to knife you? You shift, slam their wrist with your hand, and clothesline the bugger. You don't stop to think about it -- you just react with the combination that's most ingrained and appropriate to the situation in your head.

You have to decide to attack. You have to decide not to defend. Someone with initiative in the 50s? They can attack a lot more. That doesn't mean that the other person all of the sudden gets overwhelmed. Fast and more skilled -- probably. Fast and less skilled? Probably not. That's the way it should be -- not initiative being so powerful that you can't help but win any and every fight against someone slower, which is what would happen, logically, for making counterattacks nonexistant once you've taken your last action. All you have to do is wait until they've taken their actions and then attack them in melee -- and that's even worse. So my kung fu master, skill 16, with no initiative boosts gets killed by some punk with 3 in brawling, because the punk attacked him in the 3rd phase of the combat turn? No. Of course not. Said punk should have been taken out as he started to attack -- he goes in wildly and gets flattened by the KFM's reflexive backhand while KFM continues doing what he was doing before.

Now.. if KFM had initiative mods as well, then he should tear the punk to shreds after backhanding him, on his own attack -- but that's because he chooses to attack said punk then. Conscious choice. KFM could let the punk run away and get his nose straightened.

Beyond that, your brain doesn't stop working over the combat turn, just because you're out of actions. The mental steps are a little bit faster, the physical steps are a little more efficient -- but they are not blindingly fast. If you want to see what it's like, watch some of martial arts tournaments. You'll see people who just keep attacking, they launch 3-4 attacks, and get hit back on a few of them. That's very comperable to this -- one person has high initiative, attacks multiple times, the other just defends and counters (low initiative). What you'll also find, is that the counters tend to score just as many, if not more, as the attacker -- and with comperable skill, are more likely to knock out said attacker.

Hermit, guess what.. those tournaments? They aren't Shadowrun. They're the real world.

Muscle memory does exist. It's the term used to describe actions which require no conscious action-- no thought required. At all. Do you need to think to hold a pen? To sign your name, or write a note? You think about what you want to write -- not the act of writing. Martial arts are the same way. You start, and you have to think about every component of every action. Then you get to the point where you think about every action on the whole. Then you start thinking about the actions in sets. Then you don't even think about the intermediate actions required in a set -- unless they're interrupted.

And when you see someone start to throw a punch, you don't think. You just block, or dodge.

Likewise, you're assuming that it applies to everyone -- it's trained into a person. It's 'born with, always had' it's 'developed'.

Likewise.. your 'Bubba'...

Right... really... 21 dice at target 8 vs 16 dice at target 5. Uh huh. KFM does not require combat pool.

Bubba: averages 3 successes.
KFM: averages 5.3 successes.

Now.. if you apply close combat.. then it's 3 successes vs 8 successes. Without combat pool. Might take a while, what with Bubba having troll fortitude... but, there's always combat pool.

It can be done in a lot less time then you think. A year to black belt -- training 4 hours a day (met someone who did it). 3 years to black belt, training 2 hours a week recreationally (first long term club membership -- 3 years, and if you stay on the schedule, you're a first dan black belt.)

As long as you don't disengage, you're fighting. So you don't need to have massive amounts of training for it to work in a fight. Your attention is on the person you're fighting. You just don't have enough initiative to attack.

Beyond that.. it's not restricted to people with tons of skill. People who really aren't that skilled, they don't know all the different techniques and so on, still defend and so on. The basics of defend/counter are drilled into you near the very beginning. They aren't the complicated ones -- but they're drilled in. Stuff like going down the training area, repeating the 'step-back, roundhouse' or 'shift-back, roundhouse' (in Taekwondo).. first and second class for people, at least in the family club. Don't remember what it was like with the others, been too many years.

And as for the wrong memory... that's why they throw fewer dice. Skill 6+, they throw 6+ dice, they have lots of skill, they have the good techniques built in.. Skill 1? They throw 1 die. They've got something, but whether or not it's the right technique, at the right time? Who knows, they could pull it off -- it'd be luck.

What there should be is a specialization for martial arts to 'attack' and 'counterattack', to represent people who train to fight offensively, and people who train to let people come to them -- beyond just full attack, full defense.

Average Joe in SR:

0 in any melee skill. Default to strength:

Human, elf: 3 dice
Dwarf, Orc: 5 dice
Troll: 7 dice

All at TN 8. Troll gets 1 reach to apply how he wants.

For some reason.. I don't think anyone with skill 3 in any unarmed combat skill will have too much trouble hitting (although hurting may be an issue with some.... at least the troll..)

Especially since skill 3 can throw combat pool in.

It's possible for the troll to win the round. But it isn't easy.. not in the slightest-- and that's assuming 'average' skill.

Tossing a few dice, assuming reach applied to martial artist and no combat pool used on attack tests (also known as: EEK! If he wins I'm gonna need it to soak!)

Troll/MA/Tie/no successes: 3/5/2/0

so.. 50% clear wins for the MA.. without wounds etc, since those will change things around a lot. This is just 10 different opening shots.. in the situation where the unskilled average guy is the toughest possible. Elves and Humans have the barest of chances, dwarves and orcs are somewhere in between.


Now.. the 'arms dangling down'.. .that sounds more like surprise then anything else. I'd more expect arms up, thumb inside the fist, and feet together or some such foolery... but even then, if they get really lucky and the fighter going at them stumbles on the way in, telegraphs the shot (SR terms, rolls no successes) the average joe just might manage to get some hard part of his body in the direct path of the fighter. Not likely, but possible. I wouldn't necessairily chalk it up to the same thing -- more likely I'd say the skilled guy tripped and Joe took the opportunity to hit him while he was recovering from the stumble.

Dawnshadow, I think the problem others are pointing out is that a high Initiative makes so little difference in a melee.

Example; Shadowrunner A has a combat pool of 8, a martial arts skill(pick any one) of rating 4 and Wired Reflexes 3, resulting a reaction of 5(11) and an average of 3 attacks per turn. Shadowrunner B also has a combat pool of 8, but has a martial arts skill of 6 and no wired reflexes, leaving him with a reaction of 5 and an average of one attack per turn.

Now it would make sense for Shadowrunner A's increased initiative to act as a counterbalance to Shadowrunner B's higher martial arts score, the fact is it doesn't. Shadowrunner A can have 3 or 300 moves in a combat round and Shadowrunner B gets to block each and every one. That high initiative only becomes an advantage when you are squaring off against an opponent who is significantly less skilled, so that extra attacks become extra opportunities to inflict damage.

High Initiative does not exactly translate into high speed, characters with good wires aren't moving about like they're in fast forward, but they are thinking and reacting faster. A high initiative should make a difference, the character with the lower initiative should feel like they are being overwhelmed. Their opponent is doing more in a combat round than they ever could and realistically that would force them onto the defensive. Instead the current shadowrun rules make it possible for the slower but more skilled fighter to beat an opponent solely through counterattacks and do it faster than they ever could by attacking, that shouldn't happen.

I love how everyone's issues with SR3 keep hijacking every thread about SR4.

Yeh....
Mainly the trouble come from this point :
In reality, initiative has a lot to do with the skill, as the quickness.
So basically a well train man will be fast (lot of attacks), cool minded (he won't have is consciousness easily fooled and his reflexes will easily anticipate-good init).

The point is here to admit it won't be realistic on that with SR4 (as in SR3). But I hope it will be not to bad, and easy to play !

Heh, you guys are tryong to wrap the real world around game mechanics...It's a game system, not really meant to emulate real world physics/combat/etc - it's a games system.

I don't really think they've messed too much with initave, but thats just a guess.

I'm really more interested in what the plan is with magic - in partiuclar at char gen. what is the effect of having to buy up magic points? What effect will one point vs 4, vs 6 be on the character? When does astral perception/projection kick in? At one point, or is it staged as your magic increases? Does that mean that a mage that looses magic points faces the possiblity of loosing the abilty to project? As their 'spirit' becomes more blooged down by the cyber....

Magic is a big piece of the Sr world, I'd consider it the defining piece. I'd really like to know how they are changing it, and if the changes will be explained in game, or they will just be rules changes and left at that...

Mage a: "Grounding? Whats that?"
Runner b: "Thats what happened last year when that shamen fragged you in astral space and us poor slobs guarding your meat got zapped."
Mage a: "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about....."

Doesn't happen. It's immensely difficult to change an action once you're committed. They have a far better chance at starting to change what they're doing -- but actually changing it? Not likely. They have to change their own momentum -- the most optimistic for their side, is that they don't have to oppose their current momentum, and so are only a partial action behind where they would normally be. The more realistic, following from the same path, is their reflexes kick in and they start to move backwards to avoid the blow, as an example. This is not 'from still' though, this is from 'attack', so they have to arrest their own mometum first... and they're nailed, because even with faster transmission of signals, they've just taken up the advantage from faster signal travel from brain to body.

And, Hell Hound, the game mechanics already penalize people for it. Combat pool has to be very carefully rationed when you've got 4 initiative dice and reaction near 20. It penalizes the defender equally, which I disagree with to an extent, but but can live with.

I like the suggestion of making initiative dependent on skill to an extent, but I don't entirely see the point -- since right now, counterattacking is all the person with low initiative can do.

Everything I can think of that would give the attacker an advantage, well, short of surprise, applies to the defender more so, from everything in my own experience. Unless you really are that much physically faster (not reaction or initiative), it's really hard to overwhelm someone. Nobody just stands there and lets you throw attack after attack (at least, nobody who's trying to win). They interrupt the flow of your attacks and try to turn the flow around.. because you don't win a fight by blocking and dodging. Exceptions exist, but they aren't common.

I have always felt that Initiative must to some extent imply speed. Not running speed, since that has as much to do with limb strength as with how fast the limbs move, but how quickly you could throw a punch or kick, or draw a weapon, or any of the other physical actions you can perform in combat. Wired Reflexes changes how many physical actions you can perform in each combat round so it must influence your speed, if your limbs still move like your wading through mud then it won't matter how fast messages are transferred down the nervous system, your not going to get in extra moves.

I also don't think the game mechanic does penalise characters with low initiatives. Certainly counterattacking is all a character with low initiative can do in a melee, but that is all they need to do. A counterattack allows you to hit your opponent back, and there's no limitation on damage or how often you can counterattack. Both combatants have to split their combat pools up amongst all the attacks, thus advantage goes to the fighter with the biggest combat pool, regardless of their initiative. You are right that some fighting styles are reactive, they wait for the opponent to come to them, but even a practicioner of such an art should find themselves hard pressed when dealing with someone who is three times as quick as they are, and that's how fast Wires can make you.

I'm not saying counterattacks should be removed, far from it. I think the SR combat system is better than any other system I have played (which admittedly is not a hell of a lot). To be honest I rarely encounter this situation, the players I have GMed tend to just shoot people rather than get that close. But I would like to see even martial arts masters forced to think twice before taking on a halfway decent fighter with wired reflexes.

Someone going slow as mud doesn't get the same benefits from wired reflexes.. reaction, and therefore initiative score, is partially dependent on quickness after all.

Likewise, I don't see why it needs to increase the speed of someone's actions. I can see people reacting faster, see them launching attacks faster, but I don't see how speeding up the signals would make the body faster -- or why it should. A portion of the time taken is mental activity, another portion is lag time for signal transfer - those two get cut out. The twitchiness overrides the mental activity, the lag time is reduced directly. I don't think the combat turn (3 seconds) is so short that it requires superhuman speed to get multiple actions. I picture, especially in melee, a certain amount of feinting, give and take, and time spent not on the attack or defense. Someone with the initiative boosts, tends to launch more attacks -- they see the opening, they attack. They react too fast for the hesitation that leaves you missing legitimate openings. They don't, however, have any faster motion of hand or foot -- that's exactly like running speed.

Initiative boosts make sense in ranged combat, but in melee they're potentially a serious liability because of the combat pool issue. You can't attack someone 5 times and throw in max combat pool, or even close to max, in one combat turn.

Low initiative.. you can. But then you're screwed on the counterattack. The 'penalty' to low initiative people fighting high initiative people is based on them in theory never knowing how many counters they have to make-- they therefore can't judge how much combat pool they can use. Applies differently in different games.. ours, we can guess usually within an action, just by order of events. Not always -- and usually it's restricted to the high end. We can't judge if someone's got low initiative or not. Nobody has low enough to give a benchmark, unless injured. The slowest is 11+3d6.

You can judge an opponents initiative fairly easily actually. If they act after you in the first initiative pass they are going to have the same or fewer actions than you, if they act before you they will have the same or more actions. Once the first combat round has passed, unless your opponent deliberately did nothing for their last one or two attacks you are going to have a very good idea how many moves your opponent has, and If you have fought that opponent before then you know before the fight even starts what you can expect (unless something has significantly changed their initiative).

I can see we are not going to agree on this issue, I feel that things like wired reflexes or improved reflexes (the adept power) should improve a characters physical speed in addition to improving nervous system response, and therefore should provide benefit in melee combat irregardless of combat pool or skill rating. You feel that wired reflexes is solely improvement of nervous system response and so should not be of any advantage in melee, and possibly be detrimental. I don't see anything changing our repsective points of view any time soon and to be honest we have kind of hijacked this forum from it's original purpose. It's probably time to let it rest.

Probably, Hell Hound. It has been interesting though.

OK, time to try and make up for some of the space I've chewed up in my off topic discussion. Not that I didn't find it interesting as well Dawnshadow.

Shadowrun consists of a lot of sourcebooks that contain optional rules and large amounts of gear. Naturally the rules are pretty much history as a result of the changes being made for fourth edition but what about the gear? I doubt that all the cars, bikes, drones, helicopters, planes, boats, APCs, submarines, guns, knives, cyberware, bioware, nanoware, armour, electronics, alchemical radicals and every other little piece of equipment that has appeared in all the various SR sourcebooks is going to end up in the one main rulebook. I understand there is a new Magic sourcebook planned for 4th edition, so what about equipment? Are we going to see another edited reprint of the Street Samurai Weapons Catalogue and similar equipment books or will the main rulebook have rules for adjusting existing gear (like altering damage codes for weapons, if the damage system actually changes). At least some pieces of equipment are going to have to change, Smartlinks for example currently alter the target number for firearms tests but apparently SR4 is going to have a fixed target number.