[skalchemist]

Here is a proposal for handling melee weapons in our upcoming campaign.  EDIT:  I'm 100% certain this idea has been proposed elsewhere, but I can't find a place where it has been proposed clearly in a way that has been discussed without distraction.  Forgive me if I am being very redundant.

The goal is to provide some mechanical benefit in melee for a high Strength without disrupting the system in other places and trying to alter the rules as little as possible in a consistent fashion.  I'm interested in your feedback...

For unarmed combat, we know that the DV is Strength/2, and the AR is Strength + Reaction.  So, we assume the table values for melee weapons are actually the "Reasonably Competent Fighter" values.   A "Reasonably Competent Fighter" has Strength 3 and therefore Unarmed DV of 2, and Reaction 3.  Given this fact, we arrive at the following:

EDIT: noticed an error here, that has been corrected.
Melee weapon DV = Unarmed DV + (Table Wpn DV – 2)
Melee weapon AR = Reaction + Strength + (Table AR – 6)

I feel this rule is consistent with the unarmed rules, and doesn't lead to utterly insane damage values.  A Strength 9 Troll/cybered-up street samurai will do 8P damage with a combat axe, for example.  That is a lot of damage, but compared to other sources of damage not unreasonable.  A Panther Cannon with explosive rounds and a Force 6 spirit Engulf power both are 8P, and heck a frag grenade does 8P at Near range.   It feels like Shadowrun to me that the biggest troll on the block with an axe can hit you as hard as an Assault Cannon firing explosive rounds. 

One slightly weird outcome is it would mean that all a knife does is turn your damage into physical damage from stun.  I can live with this.

What do you think?  Are there potential downsides I am missing?  I recognize some of you might not see any need for a house rule, which is cool, I really don't need you to try to convince me of that.  I'm more interested in emergent properties of the proposed rule that would screw things up elsewhere.

EDIT: from that other big thread on melee weapons, I see a lot of people are interested in Agility having more meaning in melee combat.  I get that, that's cool as well, but I'm not really interested in that conversation here either. 

[Xenon]

• I personally think that unarmed combat is currently scaling too well with strength. Not sure I agree that the solution to this issue is to give all melee weapons the same overpowered scaling.
• I personally like the fact that an agile (but not maybe physically strong) elf in this edition deal more damage with chains, whips, stabbing weapons and slashing weapons (such as cyber razors, knifes, mono whips, katanas etc) than a strong (but maybe not very agile) troll. Your change break this :-(
• But at the same time I think it make sense if a physically strong (but maybe not very agile) troll deal more damage with blunt weapons, cleave weapons and general 'heavy' weapons (such as knucks, club, combat axe, claymore etc) than an agile (but maybe not very strong) elf. Your change fix this.

[skalchemist]

After posting the above, some more thought made me realize that a number of weapons would need some alteration to make sense with this rule.  For example, Extended Baton and Sap.  Also Monofilament Whip.  So I withdraw the claim that this rule is simple to implement; it really would require about a third of the weapons table to be altered. 

I'm personally ok with that but I do see that as a downside to the proposal I didn't see when I first typed it.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Personally I’d set unarmed damage to 1. Bone density etc would just turn it to physical damage, no damage boosts. The close combat would now be based off strength while the AVs would have a agility component. 

[Sphinx]

I'm currently considering these house rules for melee:

• Unarmed damage value starts at 1S instead of half Strength (one less than a sap or extendable baton). Bone lacing, bone density, and other modifiers apply as normal.
• Players may choose to make melee attacks using Strength instead of Agility as the linked attribute.
• If a player chooses to make an unarmed attack with Strength instead of Agility, then the unarmed Attack Rating is calculated with Agility instead of Strength.

I haven't playtested it yet.

[Leith]

I think this works out to be more or less the same as SR5. I like the AR though, unarmed AR gets very high and melee weapons don't, a scale adding unarmed AR into weapon AR is a good idea. However some AR values are very low.(shock gloves?).

[DigitalZombie]

@ OP I proposed a similar rule in the house rules thread. The same dmg values, just a different AR calculation.

Personally I think that if DR is calculated by Main dmg resistance attribute (body) + equipment modifier ( armour).
 Then it would make sense to have AR calculated the way: main dmg attribute (strength) + equipment modifier (weapon)

Now naturally that would leave unarmed slightly behind the curve. Unless the kept their + reaction rule or something.

Regarding Sap and extendable batons, their current rules are sub-par already so extra houserules would be needed anyway if you want to include them in a meaningful way.