[JucaBala]

Guys, one thing that always bothered us in SR4 and 5 is how you need to have more than one initiative pass to be effective, and how having less than the opponent was crippling. This meant that either everyone had the same number of passes, or the one who got more seemed to "steal the spotlight" during firefights, so I was thinking of ditching it alltogether.
How would you guys do? I was thinking that maybe you could take extra actions with a penalty (like -2 for each Simple/Interrupt Action, and -5 for each Complex Action, and things like Wired Reflexes would give you like +2 or +3 dice per level only to compensate those penalties. What do you think?
Thanks!

[Reaver]

Well, first off, we should look at why having extra initiative passes is a good thing, and why most runners should definitely have them.

Runners, for the most part, are criminals. They make their living, if not from directly illegal actions, from questionable actions taken against generally larger, more powerful entities. As such, time is the biggest factor for any criminal. The difference of a few seconds can mean the difference between getting away, and getting surrounded by an HRT team!

From the get go, everyone is against the Runners. the Corps will use the runners and leave twisting in the wind; Or just shoot them dead. The Police will arrest them on the spot for the crimes they have committed, the "tools of the trade" they carry (both inside and out of their bodies)... and the citizen will rat them out every chance they get out of fear, spite or apathy.

So, anything that gives them an edge, any edge is welcome.

Now, Mechanically. Extra initiative passes function as extra chances for the players. (Note that most NPCs don't usually have extra IPs! Only those usually backed by a corporation, or the police. And even then they are limited to the more skilled) Usually to offset the larger numbers of NPCs over the course of an adventure.

Think about it. Over the course of a single run, a team might engage in a half dozen  fights against the same number OR more enemies each time.... with out the extra passes to help balance out those numbers, the players are not going to survive long! eventually someone will roll poorly, just a single time, and then the modifiers start to stack up.. and it slides down hill fast.

Now, Speaking as someone who usually plays with just 1 or 2 passes (to start..), yes it can be a little annoying, but down forget, those initiative passes came at a significant cost! Both in terms of Essence and cash! (for cyber) or Karma (for adept powers/spells)... That type of investment should be rewarded, not punished...



***

And on a different line of thought: just what can a Samurai do  with an extra 5 essence and $220k??? Mega damage soak? Mega dodge monkey? Mega shooter?

Are you not just trading one issue for another?

[Dudesomebody]

  I actually made a post about alternate initiative rules for 5th edition you might find helpful, A fellow forum crazy by the name of CigarSmoker gave a really great run down and even had a downloadable list of actions and when you can use them from 6th edition. Everyone was pretty helpful though

Link to forum post https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=30274.msg527274#msg527274

Quote from CigarSmoker, downloadable pdf is under his post.

Attached is my list of all the SR 6 actions ... i use it as Excel file so i had to comprimate it a bit more.

(I) means when it is your turn, (A) means anytime.

Without the book some actions are a bit cryptic but you should be able to build something up with this. I dont want to make the book obsolete ^^

Major Action everyone gets 1,
Minor Action everyone gets 1 too + another one from the basic Initative dice.
So thats 1 Major Actions 2 Minor actions.

Every Initative Dice beyond the first gives another Minor Action.

You can trade 4 minor in 1 major.

So with the Adept Power Increased Reflexes III for example you could attack twice and move using walking speed.

[JucaBala]

Thanks for the answers, guys! About the survivability, I think that is not a huge problem for our group, what bother us is that any character that has less levels on initiative enhancers than the others feels much less combat capable than the rest, and is this what I want to alleviate.
Of course, if it is expensive, it has to give huge bonus, but this is part of the problem - everyone has wired reflexes, and it is such a large essence sink that the cyberimplants in the characters looks almost the same "combat kit".

[Reaver]

If it makes you feel better, it was worse in older editions.

Now, the extra turns are back loaded. For editions 1 to 3, they were front loaded...
So... phsyco sam, with 5 turns would go 3 times before hacker harry....


Hell, combat was "smoke time" for me back then.... i would just ne finiahed my smoke and the 3 combat monkeys would be wrapping up their murder spree..

[Michael Chandra]

Yeah, at a certain point almost no fight lasts past the first two passes, so the only thing that matters is how high you rolled, not how many passes that gives you in the end. Extra initiative becomes just interrupt-currency.

[Xenon]

To be fair, it used to be even worse in earlier editions where all the extra initiative passes was taken out before anyone else got to act at all. A wired up street samurai could often both start and finish an entire combat scene on his own before anyone else (including the opposition) got to act even once.

...so I was thinking of ditching it alltogether.

To some extent, this is actually what they did in 6th edition.

In that edition everyone always just gets one action phase each, but if you have high initiative you get to use a few more Simple Actions during your action phase (or if you were really wired up then you could even trade in a bunch of simple actions for another complex action).

People that use to only have one initiative pass in the 5th edition feel like they get to act quite a lot more often in the 6th edition.

[Sugarpink]

To be fair, it used to be even worse in earlier editions where all the extra initiative passes was taken out before anyone else got to act at all. A wired up street samurai could often both start and finish an entire combat scene on his own before anyone else (including the opposition) got to act even once.

...so I was thinking of ditching it alltogether.

To some extent, this is actually what they did in 6th edition.

In that edition everyone always just gets one action phase each, but if you have high initiative you get to use a few more Simple Actions during your action phase (or if you were really wired up then you could even trade in a bunch of simple actions for another complex action).

People that use to only have one initiative pass in the 5th edition feel like they get to act quite a lot more often in the 6th edition.

And I must say as someone who has been playing 6 quite extensively now, I feel this intiative system is a true joy.