[RHat]

My problem with the built in bullet time is more or less how low end unaugmented characters are made out to be, but even that problem is all because a combat round is 3 seconds instead of just 1. If you watch, or are in, a sparring match you'll notice that, with stance changes and all the minor movements you'll be making a strike once every second. I know it's all supposed to be abstracted, but people are capable and smart without superhuman ability. That's just my main beef with shadowrun in general, and it just comes down to how many seconds a combat turn is.

My problem with the built in bullet time is more or less how low end unaugmented characters are made out to be, but even that problem is all because a combat round is 3 seconds instead of just 1. If you watch, or are in, a sparring match you'll notice that, with stance changes and all the minor movements you'll be making a strike once every second. I know it's all supposed to be abstracted, but people are capable and smart without superhuman ability. That's just my main beef with shadowrun in general, and it just comes down to how many seconds a combat turn is.

A melee roll does not represent one strike.  It would be pretty ridiculous if it did, regardless of the timescale.

[Glyph]

Two more Simple Action attacks can also be quite powerful.  Basically, multiply your 2 pass damage by 1.5, and that's roughly your 3 pass damage.  To be able to add that much to make your 2 passes just as powerful would take a lot.

Not just that, but being able to expend on of your passes on full defense as an interrupt action.  Against enemies with only one initiative pass, typically you can go first, then go on full defense, then attack again.  I see 2 IP as good for a character who can fight and do an number of other things, while 3 IP is where you have become more focused on the fighting aspect (although you can still be good at other things).

[Shadowjack]

Keep in mind, if the characters have less passes than usual the GM can always adjust his NPC's accordingly and everyone can still have a great time. But in a difficult campaign I would say that most combat oriented characters should have 2-3 passes. If you don't want to spend a lot on them you can always use drugs such as Cram and Jazz.

[Aryeonos]

Well, I understand that RHat, but then you wouldn't need to fluff it so much. In a fight, with swords or clubs or fists, you are constantly making slight feints and the like, but you'll usually each make a strike once a second, and then go on the defensive or take a second to analyze your foe. I would assume you could accomplish similar reasonable results in a firefight, but probably with allot more taking cover or moving around. And that's just it, my only real problem with shadowrun is the timescale of combat actions. I think a reasonable complex action using a computer should be around 3 seconds if you do it perfect the first time, probably longer and it does go on longer with the thresholds of extended tests, and that's without DNI and the like.

[RHat]

That's not at all true.  You don't strike and stop, you strike, and then strike, and then strike, and then strike, some of which you actually intend for an opponent to block to manipulate their guard and so on...  1 second isn't really a reasonable time scale for the interplay between one person trying to attack, the other person trying to attack, the first and second person both trying to defend and avoid getting baited into a trap, and so on.  3 seconds is every single person's action, not the timescale of each single action.

[Aryeonos]

Because you defend during their turn, it's simultaneous action, not I punch you then you punch me. It's even described that way in the book. I just didn't feel like writing out a transcript of a duel. 3 seconds doesn't make sense for allot of things in combat, like for instance, you find me the minigun that fires at 400 rounds per minute. But as an abstraction of events and movements it works out okay, and combat moves along, it's still not terribly fluid in allot of ways but far far more flexible than most systems. I'm just never going to buy that a normal person or any weapon, will be shooting that slowly or infrequently. I recall A4BG mentioning splitting dice pools to attack twice with one simple action and one weapon, maybe I'll try and give that a try in combat and see how that works out.

[RHat]

Ever gone to a firing range?  A bit of time is required after a shot before making the next one if you're to have any accuracy at all.  There's a specific number for handguns floating around out there.

[Mirikon]

Ever gone to a firing range?  A bit of time is required after a shot before making the next one if you're to have any accuracy at all.  There's a specific number for handguns floating around out there.

And the guys who do quickshot challenges laugh at that number.

[RHat]

Ever gone to a firing range?  A bit of time is required after a shot before making the next one if you're to have any accuracy at all.  There's a specific number for handguns floating around out there.

And the guys who do quickshot challenges laugh at that number.

Who would, perhaps, be considered as having more than one Initiative Pass?

[Eugene]

The most important consideration is relative IMHO.  Every PC should ideally be within 1 IP of each other most of the time, unless your players don't mind a lot of waiting in a fight.

Also, if you look in the adventure supplements, there's a much greater expectation of power and speed than there is in the main book.

[Ernie55]

I'd second Rhat's point about needing time between shots to recover and adjust aim. When I was in the cadet's, many moons ago, the standard taught by the British army was 1 round every 6 seconds for accurate semi-auto fire. Obviously suppresing fire etc is different.

Also, as with any game system, 'need' with be decided by your local situation or meta.

[RHat]

I'd second Rhat's point about needing time between shots to recover and adjust aim. When I was in the cadet's, many moons ago, the standard taught by the British army was 1 round every 6 seconds for accurate semi-auto fire. Obviously suppresing fire etc is different.

Also, as with any game system, 'need' with be decided by your local situation or meta.

Which is quite a bit longer than the time for a more trained individual, certainly.  That's a couple Take Aim actions before each shot.  But no matter how short you can make that window, it will always be there.

And I get kind of annoyed with the "it will vary by table" lines in these sorts of discussions; subjects like this require a baseline to have any point.

[Ernie55]

Which is quite a bit longer than the time for a more trained individual, certainly.  That's a couple Take Aim actions before each shot.

Very true, it was all about the aimed shots, although that was based on medium ranged squad based fire and move firefights and trying not to completely burn out you ammo right away. CQB was a fair bit different.

The different tech in SR does account for some of the speeding up in my mind (as well as it being an abstract kinda game), smartlinks and more sophisticated weapons making it easier to stay on target.

EDIT: The baseline to me is the professionalism ratings of the Bad Guys listed in the main rulebook and how you want your runners to stack up to them. In those only the top 2 tiers outta six are packing extra IPs, the spec forces and super elite corpsec. What you come up against will clearly vary by table, depends on what your GM feels. So as an example I'm currently in a tabletop game where all the PCs started at 300BPs because the GM wanted a lower powered game where we're runners just starting out, rather than experienced professionals

[RHat]

Missions content is a good baseline.  Published modules are a good baseline.  And so on.  The core book alone isn't quite enough.

[UmaroVI]

Two more Simple Action attacks can also be quite powerful.  Basically, multiply your 2 pass damage by 1.5, and that's roughly your 3 pass damage.  To be able to add that much to make your 2 passes just as powerful would take a lot.

This actually isn't true, because the third pass always happens last. Shadowrun is very alpha-strikey, and frequently the third pass happens after the fight is over, or the fight was decided by logistics before the first pass.