[Shinobi Killfist]

And just in case it wasn't mentioned, Grappling someone with low Str is easy. 

" make an unarmed Close
Combat + Agility test. Instead of making the net
hits into damage, the attacker rolls Strength + net
hits vs. opponent’s Strength. If they succeed in this
test, they have wrapped up and restrained the opponent."

and

"Break free: In this action, the defender tries to
break out of the grapple. This is a Close Combat +
Strength test, using their unarmed Attack Rating...."

So Pixie with a Combat Axe better one-shot everything or they'll get pinned and choked out.  No edge needed.

Maybe but you are still taking multiple actions to kill someone.  If you have the strength where grapple would be part of your normal arsenal you may just take them out with one punch, and even if it takes you two that is the same place the grappler would be.

[penllawen]

Maybe but you are still taking multiple actions to kill someone.  If you have the strength where grapple would be part of your normal arsenal you may just take them out with one punch, and even if it takes you two that is the same place the grappler would be.

How often, in your SR career, has a ganger/Mafia soldier/beat cop/corp security guard/HTR team decided to drop their weapon, close up, and grapple with your character? Rather than shooting you, casting a spell at you, hacking your stuff, and so on. And in 6e, should you decide to roll with a low Strength, how many times can your GM decide this particular enemy is going to grapple you, before it starts to feel painfully contrived?

While we're on the subject, how many of the sample NPCs in the CRB have enough Agility+Close Combat to pull this off against, say, a Shadowrunner with Strength of 2 and a point or two of Edge to use on the test?

[Hobbes]

Low Professional Rating Mooks are cannon fodder and should be treated as such.  They'll swing baseball bats, fire tasers and pistols and in general make a nuisance of themselves. 

Gang Leaders, Police Sergeants, HTR, Swat, Named Corporate Security goons and Henchmen, Big Bads, and such would be the ones likely to pancake a low Str Weapon user. 

Ganger Token # 5, you're correct, won't ever bother.  Fluffykins McScaryface the Troll Halloweener that runs the territory from 32nd street to I5?  He'll mess you up.

One of Shadowrun's strengths is the GM toolkit is huge so you can mix up the challenges to the players  to keep things from getting stale.  Grappling, disarming, knockdown, trips, or just plain old shooting and hitting.  Lots of options.

There are absolutely drawbacks to low Strength weapon users, but it's not necessarily crippling.  If someone wants to play Hit Girl or whatever, they can, but there are risks. 

[Finstersang]

Agreed, Grappling and Disarming gives an incentive not to dumbstat strength as a melee character, unless you are very dodgy. But here´s the thing: This often-cited "Pixie with a Combat axe" example[1] is not the real problem here.

The real blunder is the fact that high-Strength characters can easily rule out many weapons once they hit a certain strength level. Bringing a Knife to a fistfight (or Cyberspurs, Clubs, Swords...) should give you an advantage, both from a realism and a balancing POV (your fists are always there and don´t need to be "drawn"). But once you bulk up enough, your fists will always be strictly better than melee weapons - even without stuff like Bone Lacing. So you have a situation where a reasonable, realistic tactical option - grabbing a melee weapon - suddenly puts you at a huge disadvantage.

And just look at the Damage Codes of some of the melee Weapons! Some of them are so low that you can´t help but ask yourself if they were originally conceived under the assumption that the base Melee damage would still be added to them. An extendable Baton has an AR of 5 and a Damage Code of 2Stun[2]. Go up to 3 Strength and 2 Reaction, and you already hit the point where this weapon has no purpose whatsoever.

And why does the Streetsam Archetype even use a Sword when his Strength 10 alone is enough to punch harder and with a better AR than with his fists?

[1]...which is pointless anyways, as there are no Pixies in 6th Edition yet, and we they don´t know if they will have some additional "common sense" restrictions on weapon sizes this time 
[2]... which is weird enough, because this also means that a Sap is strictly better RAW. Maybe another mistake?

[Shinobi Killfist]

Maybe but you are still taking multiple actions to kill someone.  If you have the strength where grapple would be part of your normal arsenal you may just take them out with one punch, and even if it takes you two that is the same place the grappler would be.

How often, in your SR career, has a ganger/Mafia soldier/beat cop/corp security guard/HTR team decided to drop their weapon, close up, and grapple with your character? Rather than shooting you, casting a spell at you, hacking your stuff, and so on. And in 6e, should you decide to roll with a low Strength, how many times can your GM decide this particular enemy is going to grapple you, before it starts to feel painfully contrived?

While we're on the subject, how many of the sample NPCs in the CRB have enough Agility+Close Combat to pull this off against, say, a Shadowrunner with Strength of 2 and a point or two of Edge to use on the test?

Sort of how I see it. There may be certain player builds like a super dodgy character where a group tries to grapple him so future attacks are more likely to hit. But how may combat passes have past before they figure that out and how many are left in the fight when it happens. Is it still worth it?

And even if a GM does, in most cases that sounds better than being shot or stabbed or punched by the high strength dude who thought this was a good option.

[FrowningMirror]

Actually the damage codes are pretty high for melee considering everything comparatively does less damage this edition, it's just (lol) unarmed can be that ridiculous

[Finstersang]

Actually the damage codes are pretty high for melee considering everything comparatively does less damage this edition, it's just (lol) unarmed can be that ridiculous

That‘s my point as well. The title of this thread might as well be “Melee Weapons useless for strong characters“. That‘s a lot less believable than the notion that some scrawny nerds can master the blade.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Actually the damage codes are pretty high for melee considering everything comparatively does less damage this edition, it's just (lol) unarmed can be that ridiculous

That‘s my point as well. The title of this thread might as well be “Melee Weapons useless for strong characters“. That‘s a lot less believable than the notion that some scrawny nerds can master the blade.

It's easy to agree that there's problems with suspension of disbelief when you do less damage by picking up a knife. Unfortunately, a fix is less easy to agree upon.

People are going to express opinions regardless. But if they express constructive ideas on addressing this issue, their opinion just might actually help affect a change for the better.

[penllawen]

But if they express constructive ideas on addressing this issue, their opinion just might actually help affect a change for the better.

I did:

It is looking like this is something I am going to house rule. I'm going to assume that all damage listed is for a str 3 individual. So that would be an unarmed damage of 2 (str/2 round up). So a combat knife that has DV of 3 I'll change to str/2 round up +1.

As a houserule, how about:

• Shift unarmed damage to Str/3, rounded up (scales from 1-5S; Strength 7 still punches as hard as an Ares Predator shoots.)
• Knucks don't have a damage code; they do the same damage as unarmed, but P instead of S.
• Keep the fixed damage codes for melee weapons.
• To use a melee weapon effectively, you need a minimum Str equal to its damage code minus 1 (so a 5P combat axe needs to be wielded with Strength 4.) If you don't have the minimum, either you can't use it at all or you take a penalty (eg. can't earn/spend Edge.) Strength of 2 is still enough to use a combat knife and do the same damage as an Ares Predator.
• Maybe tweak that min Strength on a case-by-case basis for some weapons. Monowhips might not have a requirement, for example, as muscle power doesn't do much there. Same for shock gloves/stun batons.

In a later post, I also suggested dropping the +DV for Bone Lacing (which i had forgotten about.)

[penllawen]

Or there's the other option that's obvious and commonly suggested: rolling Strength for Close Combat. Perhaps with the Attack Rating then being modified by Agility.

[Finstersang]

I´m currently having this little houserules suite cooked up, already posted it in another thread here as well. It´s a bunch of adjustments, but the most important part is this one:

For every 2 Point of Strength (round up) above the weapon´s base Damage Code, increase the damage Code by one.

Example: A Human with strength 5 and a Sap (Damage Code: 2) has a base damage code of 2 + (5-2)/2 = 4 (round up). Compared to attacking unarmed, that´t 1 additional Point of Damage. It´s not much, but it´s something.

Given the simplicity, the math works surprisingly well, even in fringe cases: It basically means that every Melee weapon (except Monowhips, Shock weapons etc. ....) will at least deal a bit more damage than your fists, as long as there are no Dermal Deposits, Bone Augmentations, Knucks etc. at work. Yes, this also may lead to situations where a smaller Melee Weapon deals the same damage as a bigger one when combined with a certain Strength Score. However, there´s still the AR difference, which is usually in favor of the better weapon.

Since you don´t add the the full Str/2 to the Base Damage, the maximum Damage doesn´t go totally through the roof (as long as you don´t stack up critical strike, but that´s another story  ). A very dedicated Melee-Troll (Str of 14 with Exceptional Attribute) would deal 5+(14-5)/2=10 Damage with a Combat Axe, compared to 7+1=8 Damage with Unarmed (+ Dermal Deposits) or 9 Damage with Titanum Bone Lacing (or even 10? Do they stack with Dermal Deposits?). If the latter is considered reasonable, then 1-2 Points of additional Damage with the biggest Melee Weapon in the game won´t be the straw that breaks the camel´s back 

[Tecumseh]

I said it over on Reddit, but I really like Finstersang's house rule and will be using it (once I actually transition one of my 5E campaigns to 6E). It's clean, it's straightforward, it has a logical consistency that the 6E rules occasionally lack.

Right now I'm not worried about DV codes in the 0-3 meter range (or 5 meters with the Long Reach quality). If someone gets that close, let them have their fun. My bigger concern would actually be an NPC turning a PC into paste via the grappling rules, but that's a fear I want the players to feel in their hearts.

[Xenon]

Unopposed means no using Edge against it.

It does...?

why doesn't unarmed combat have a static damage code, too? Why does Strength affect how much damage I do with my fists but not with a club?

Street samurai switching to a katana at close range even if he only have a strength of 3-4 is rather iconic. In this edition this can be done. In previous editions you should just keep using your assault rifle, unless maybe you had a an augmented strength rating of 8+. This is a good change in my book.

Troll going berserk dealing physical damage and punching through brick walls with his bare fists is also rather iconic. Hulk also don't use a tiny katana. He just smash things with his fists.

From what I've read, attacks are all-round more survivable in 6e

Combat is actually generally a lot more deadly in SR6 compared to previous editions. You need to play quite a lot more tactically in this edition.

This one is now especially a missed opportunity for me as I recently discovered that they did add a strength requirement to wielding machine guns unassisted...

Point of clarification: that rule is not new to 6we.  It was in 5e, too...

For reference:

SR5 p. 430 Machine Guns
MMGs and HMGs could be carried by someone with Strength of 8+ and 10+ (respectively), but they work better as vehicle-mounted weapons.

SR6 p. 257 Machine Guns
A light machine gun is bigger and heavier than most rifles, while medium machine guns and heavy machine guns can only be carried by someone with Strength of 3+ and 5+, respectively, since they are designed as vehicle-mounted weapons.

(which also mean that a heavy combat axe should probably not have a higher strength requirement than 2+ or so - at which point it doesn't really add any value and might as well not be added to begin with)

So why, I ask, would a STR 13 Troll bother with a weapon...

They don't. For pretty much the same reason why Hulk don't use weapons.

...except maybe a custom made troll bow?

The fact that basically any Character with a higher-than everage strength score deals the same or less damage with a knife than with his/her fists

Average attribute ratings are 2 in SR6 (intentionally lowered from previous editions).

Average strength unarmed combat is DV 1S
Knife is DV 2P
Combat knife is DV 3P
Survival knife is DV 4P

...Don´t want to (ab)use that fact? Then just dumpstat Strength

If you have a focus on melee weapons then you don't need super human strength (which I find to be a Good Thing(tm)). But you can also not dump stat it, you still want to have some 3-4 strength (because of Wrest and Grappling).

...which seem to fit quite well with the strength values that street samurais in lore and on pictures (if you google or look at illustrations in the books) seem to have. But unlike previous editions you will gain a tactical advantage by using your katana over your assault rifle, even if you don't have super human strength (which, again, I find to be a Good Thing(tm))

*You know what? Apart from me not wanting to come of too rude here, I´m not even sure if I´ve even seen anyone this side of the NDA defending it 

I am on this side of NDA and I am defending it.

Don't bother replying please because you DO come off very hostile.

[penllawen]

why doesn't unarmed combat have a static damage code, too? Why does Strength affect how much damage I do with my fists but not with a club?

Street samurai switching to a katana at close range even if he only have a strength of 3-4 is rather iconic. In this edition this can be done. In previous editions you should just keep using your assault rifle, unless maybe you had a an augmented strength rating of 8+. This is a good change in my book.

Troll going berserk dealing physical damage and punching through brick walls with his bare fists is also rather iconic. Hulk also don't use a tiny katana. He just smash things with his fists.

"Because it's iconic" is not a counter-argument to "this doesn't make any sense."

Particularly as your value of "iconic" is shaded very pink mohawk, and not everyone plays pink mohawk.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

The fact that basically any Character with a higher-than everage strength score deals the same or less damage with a knife than with his/her fists

Average attribute ratings are 2 in SR6 (intentionally lowered from previous editions).

Average strength unarmed combat is DV 1S
Knife is DV 2P
Combat knife is DV 3P
Survival knife is DV 4P

A lot of this.  A large part of the advantage, such as it is, in a high strength character getting benefit out of something like a knife is the switch from what may be a higher amount of Stun damage to Physical damage.

Of course, the assumption breaks down a bit when you factor in Dermal Deposits/Bone Lacing/Bone Density.  And most any character built for close combat will have at least one of those.