[Shinobi Killfist]

Same. Though it’s some pretty epic imagery.

[Finstersang]

(Justified) rant alert:

Apart from the Lift/Carry Insanity: 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 (and also still have multiple perks at hands that allow them to further expand this damage, but not the damage of the weapons) is absolutely ridiculous. It´s a total fail in design from pretty much any angle:

Balancing: Hahaha nope. Absolutely not. The only thing that changed compared to 5th Edition Strengthfest is the fact that now, only one type of Melee Attack scales up with Strength. And lo and behold, it´s just the kind of weapon that everyone has ready all the time and doesn´t require any lame roleplaying or smart planning hassles about concealment and such. Don´t want to (ab)use that fact? Then just dumpstat Strength (you don´t even need it for stuff sprinting anymore) forever, and combine it with Impaired Attribute cheese. The new Powergamer´s favorite is either a Strenght 1 or a Strength 14 Troll. Now that´s some well-balanced design here, innit? 
 
Realism: Nope. Admittingly, it is kinda plausible that you can still deal a reasonable amount of damage with a Knife or a Machete even when you are a weak BTL-Junkie. I might even say that this is a small improvement compared to 5th Edition. But: The fact that you can hit harder and better (note that even the AR is fixed on melee weapons - and often piss-poor compared to the AR of a dedicated unarmed Combat specialist) with your bare fist once you reached a certain Strength score (and not even a pretty high one for most of them) is simply not realistic. Melee weapons are tools that are supposed to enhance the weilders physical strength, not restrict them by some arbitrary logic.     

Rule of Cool: Hulk Smash haha so cool lol argle bargle. But you know what would be even cooler? If Hulk would smash/slice/stab even better (or at the very least not  worse) when he takes the effort to bring a weapon or improvise one on the spot. Because that´s what players like in the long run. Getting rewarded for doing smart and cool stuff. Hulk Smash is cool maybe once or twice. Hulk guts you like a fish with the Ceramic Knife hidden in his underpants, that´s something worth remembering in the long run.

100% Strengthless melee weapons just suck, plain and simple. No one except some flaming 6th Edition apologetics (and hell, I´m even one myself every now and then...)* likes this. And of course there are ways to houserule it, but what about missions? Stop defending this mess. Own up and do something about it. Let the errata team handle it (if you don´t pay them, at least listen to them...), or at least address it in the Combat Supplement.       

*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 

[Michael Chandra]

With SR5 , I put together a list of houserules, even houserules I personally didn't like, and explained their upsides, downsides and my personal opinion on them. I was planning to do the same here, including using topics like these for inspiration to offer some semi-balanced houserules. I was all ready to put Shadowland to proper work. However, the return of the hostile attitude is really discouraging.

There's plenty of aspects of SR6 that I don't like and want to write up houserules for or advocate for adjusting in errata, but whenever my refusal to dislike a mechanic means my opinion gets labelled irrelevant because I'm a 'flaming SR6 apologetic', or any form of criticism from me gets a sarcastic 'oh wow you actually can disagree with something of SR6?' response, I really lose interest in trying to pretend any form of discussion, debate, or reason is possible.

So I'm afraid I'm going to postpone my houserules topic until October, and put my Grunt Templates on hold as well, because this toxic atmosphere sucks all the eagerness out of me and if I stick around here, I soon will lose willingness to even work on anything behind the scenes. Have fun y'all.

[Finstersang]

Aw come on, dude 

First, as I said: I´m somewhat of an "apologist" myself, mostly because I think a lot of the hatesinks really don´t deserve the heat. I´d rather focus my energy  - which sometimes consist of a little bit of rage - on the most relevant matters in the crunch instead of subjective grumbling a ´la "the art sucks" (I mean, really?) or "WTF why is there suddenly no caseless Ammo OMG this just more Magicrun". All in all, I really can´t say that 6th Edition is an absolute failure. I´d rather say that there are some really, really dumb bits that stick out more this time. 

Second: I don´t remember you defending anything about strengthless melee weapons yourself 

[focke]

Note this will scale very high.

Troll max racial Strength is 9, plus augs gives you max 13; 10+ is quite easy to come by. So Str/2 is going to range over 5-7.

The most damaging melee weapon is a combat axe at 5P, which implies (str/2)+3 by your idea. So that's a maximum of 10P for a full buffed troll, and 7-8P for moderately optimised characters. That's really high compared to 2-4P for pistols, 5P for a sniper rifle, 7P for an assault cannon, or 8P from a burst-fire HMG.
[/quote]

I agree. But I would also like to see firearm damages go up. As the rules for 6th work right now it is quite easy to make a troll who can punch around 8-9P. So I don't see the same troll being able to swing a combat axe doing about the same damage as all that much of an issue. Also I find it odd that if a troll can punch at 8P, but then extends their spurs the damage drops to 3P. All in all I am quite impressed with 6th ed, and I'm going to try to convince my group to switch over. However, I am going to be making some house rules modifying damage levels.

[Finstersang]

I agree. But I would also like to see firearm damages go up. As the rules for 6th work right now it is quite easy to make a troll who can punch around 8-9P. So I don't see the same troll being able to swing a combat axe doing about the same damage as all that much of an issue. Also I find it odd that if a troll can punch at 8P, but then extends their spurs the damage drops to 3P. All in all I am quite impressed with 6th ed, and I'm going to try to convince my group to switch over. However, I am going to be making some house rules modifying damage levels.

Precisely my thoughts as well.

Here´s my current solution to this problem (crossposted from the subreddit):

• For every Point of Strength below a Melee weapon´s Damage Code, reduce the weapon´s AR by one. (A very soft requirement, acting as a small incentive to not totally dumbstat strength.)
• For every 2 Point of Strength (round up) above the weapon´s Damage Code, increase the weapon´s Damage Code by one. (This basically means that every Melee weapon will at least deal a bit more damage as your bare fists, as long as there are no bone Augmentations etc. at work. Yes, it 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. The worst you can stack up to without Adept Powercreep is 10 Damage for a Str 14 Troll with a Combat Axe. That´s a lot, but also requires dedication.)
• Beatdown (3 Edge): Usable on a Melee Weapon Attack against a single target. Add your Strength Score to the Attack roll. (Seems quite strong, but it´s actually just a little cheaper and strength-based version of adding your Edge Attribute to the roll - and without the exploding dice).
• Of course, some melee Weapons are exempt of the rules above. In the Core rules, these are Shock Batons and other Contact Weapons as well as Monowhips.
• The Critical Strike Adept Power is limited to 2 Ranks.

Note that these rules mostly aim at fixing that weird misbalance between Unarmed and Armed Melee. If you think that Melee is too strong compared to boomsticks (valid opinion, given the Assault Canon damage code of 7), these will not be enough for you. However, I don´t like the "Fist hits harder than Bullet, OMG" comparison you often hear, because a melee attack is not supposed to just cover one hit/slash/stab at a target, but a potential flurry of them. Also, close Combat already has the natural disadvantage of, well, requiring you to be close to your target. I think it´s justifiable from a balancing POV, even if it´s less realistic. 

[FastJack]

Please be respectful at all times. There's a lot of things that you may not like, but name-calling those that don't agree with you comes close to breaking the ToS. This is a reminder to everyone that even justified rants can be polite.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I agree. But I would also like to see firearm damages go up. As the rules for 6th work right now it is quite easy to make a troll who can punch around 8-9P. So I don't see the same troll being able to swing a combat axe doing about the same damage as all that much of an issue. Also I find it odd that if a troll can punch at 8P, but then extends their spurs the damage drops to 3P. All in all I am quite impressed with 6th ed, and I'm going to try to convince my group to switch over. However, I am going to be making some house rules modifying damage levels.

Precisely my thoughts as well.

Here´s my current solution to this problem (crossposted from the subreddit):

• For every Point of Strength below a Melee weapon´s Damage Code, reduce the weapon´s AR by one. (A very soft requirement, acting as a small incentive to not totally dumbstat strength.)
• For every 2 Point of Strength (round up) above the weapon´s Damage Code, increase the weapon´s Damage Code by one. (This basically means that every Melee weapon will at least deal a bit more damage as your bare fists, as long as there are no bone Augmentations etc. at work. Yes, it 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. The worst you can stack up to without Adept Powercreep is 10 Damage for a Str 14 Troll with a Combat Axe. That´s a lot, but also requires dedication.)
• Beatdown (3 Edge): Usable on a Melee Weapon Attack against a single target. Add your Strength Score to the Attack roll. (Seems quite strong, but it´s actually just a little cheaper and strength-based version of adding your Edge Attribute to the roll - and without the exploding dice).
• Of course, some melee Weapons are exempt of the rules above. In the Core rules, these are Shock Batons and other Contact Weapons as well as Monowhips.
• The Critical Strike Adept Power is limited to 2 Ranks. (Because what the hell, man?)

Note that these rules mostly aim at fixing that weird misbalance between Unarmed and Armed Melee. If you think that Melee is too strong compared to boomsticks (valid opinion, given an Canon damage code of 7), these will not be enough for you. However, I don´t like the "Fist hits harder than Bullet, OMG" comparison you often hear, because a melee attack is not supposed to just cover one hit/slash/stab at a target, but a potential flurry of them. Also, close Combat already has the natural disadvantage of, well, requiring you to be close to your target. I think it´s justifiable from a balancing POV, even if it´s less realistic.

As for critical strike I actually prefer it be cheaper with unlimited ranks but a max damage. Basically I think it should be the power that lets 80 year old grampa sage to kick down walls. Something like max damage after critical strike is magic+3.

[Finstersang]

As for critical strike I actually prefer it be cheaper with unlimited ranks but a max damage. Basically I think it should be the power that lets 80 year old grampa sage to kick down walls. Something like max damage after critical strike is magic+3.

That´s... really not a bad idea as well.

It would mean that El Superfisto the Punching Adept could reach a point where he can do the same damage with his fists as with a melee weapon. But since there´s already a lot of Magic involved here, I´d say that the realism aspect is negligible.

I really wouldn´t cheapen the cost for each rank, though. The increased cost compared to 5th Edition is justified by the fact that the Power now affects every Melee Attack.

[Shinobi Killfist]

They probably should have had multiple versions for people who just wanted to be Mr Stabby or Dr
Kickems.

[Finstersang]

They probably should have had multiple versions for people who just wanted to be Mr Stabby or Dr
Kickems.

I think they tried to keep it as general as the melee skill itself, to promote more flexibility instead of the Weapon Type overspecialization you can see in many other RPGs. Which is a noble goal, but utterly defeated by making unarmed scale with Strength while giving all the other melee options fixed values 

BTW, another idea to fix Critical Strike :
The damage bonus from this power is limited by the amount of Net Hits the Adept akquired on the Attack Test.

In other words: You can take it as much as you want, but you will often miss out on its full potential if you don´t hit your target right. It´s a natural "soft cap" and fits the name of the power better. I think I like this one the most so far.

[FrowningMirror]

BTW, another idea to fix Critical Strike:
The damage bonus from this power is limited by the amount of Net Hits the Adept akquired on the Attack Test.

In other words: You can take it as much as you want, but you will often miss out on its full potential if you don´t hit your target right. It´s a natural "soft cap" and fits the name of the power better. I think I like this one the most so far.

Thought we were moving away from that kind of design philosophy

[Finstersang]

BTW, another idea to fix Critical Strike:
The damage bonus from this power is limited by the amount of Net Hits the Adept akquired on the Attack Test.

In other words: You can take it as much as you want, but you will often miss out on its full potential if you don´t hit your target right. It´s a natural "soft cap" and fits the name of the power better. I think I like this one the most so far.

Thought we were moving away from that kind of design philosophy

What design philosophy are you referring to? The limit/"soft cap" thing? 

My wording is a bit misleading here. It´s actually not a real "limit" at all. You could rephrase the whole thing without that nasty L-word as "For each rank in this power, you may count one Net Hit on your melee Attack as two hits when it comes to increasing the Damage Code of the attack." The result is the same.

Get the Power at rank 4 or 5 and you can still get the full benefit of it (a.k.a. one-punch a dude straight in the sun) as long as you manage to get that many net hits. While this is possible for dedicated Melee Adepts, it´s not 100% reliable, so there´s a natural incentive to not invest an insane amount of Points in this Power to boost your Melee Damage indefinetely (besides the fear that your GM might try to poison your Energy Drink ). And it fits the idea of scoring a "Critical Strike" better if it´s not a flat boost of the base damage and more reliant on the net hits instead.

[Lormyr]

Were it not for foci potentially greatly increasing one's power points, I wouldn't be worried about critical strikes. Max it out, hit for 13P, it would be literally all the character did with their "special" aspect.

Improved ability is better, since it will either add to damage at the same ratio due to carry over hits, or be the element that permits you to hit very high defense pool characters to begin with.

[Hobbes]

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.