[dezmont]

While a neat idea splitting stat requirements for weapoks creates some big problems. It increases melee MAD for people who want to also use bows or throwing weapons, and makes it harder to be a samurai who is also sneaky which is important.

Agi linked melee would be way better overall unless the damage gap was absurd. Your basically locked out of high conceal weapons if you use str and agility helps all your important skills, so saving 4 attritube points and 4 attributes worth of augmentation would always be worth it. Its like the current problem with melee atts but worse.

[penllawen]

I just wanted to put in the image that convinced me there was a problem with the lack of strength adding to melee damage.  Imagine an arena combat between a troll unarmed monster and a street kid.  How do they weaken the troll to make the fight more even? They strap Ares Hardliner Gloves on him.  Suddenly his massive, powerful fists are identical in damage and AR as the kid.  The 13 strength troll hits exactly as hard as the 1 strength kid.

Eh, I care more about realistic scenarios runners will encounter than hypothetical cases the rules aren't meant to cover to begin with.

The rules aren’t meant to cover what happens when a strong character puts on knuckledusters?

[Xenon]

While a neat idea splitting stat requirements for weapoks creates some big problems. It increases melee MAD...

'MAD'?

and makes it harder to be a samurai who is also sneaky which is important.

If you have more agility then strength and if you wish to remain sneaky then you should probably also bring an agile weapon (such as a knife or a katana - which will still be resolved with Close Combat + Agility just like today) rather than a heavy cleave or blunt weapon (such as a two handed highlander claymore - which would arguable be more suitable for a stronger, and perhaps less sneaky, character).

[Ghost Rigger]

While a neat idea splitting stat requirements for weapoks creates some big problems. It increases melee MAD for people who want to also use bows or throwing weapons, and makes it harder to be a samurai who is also sneaky which is important.

Rolling Strength into Body would be a more elegant solution to melee MAD than cutting it out of melee damage, yet I'm the first one here to propose it.

[Michael Chandra]

Since there's plenty of agi-weapons and strength-weapons, it won't bring up that big a multi-attribute-dependancy.

[Xenon]

melee MAD

...more elegant solution to melee MAD

What is melee MAD?? :p

[Michael Chandra]

"Multiple Ability score Dependent" is what MAD normally stands for, and splitting between Agi and Str weapons actually makes it less MAD I think.

[dezmont]

What splitting does is essentially just make large weapons worse as now they don't fire off your primary attribute. So to use an axe you still need agility, reaction, and intuition, but now you need strength as well. To make it worse, to use a concealed melee will always require agility, which makes the stats bias harder towards agility.

Its less MAD than 5es damage system because light weapons are still pseudo-monowhips, but making big weapons roll strength+melee is a pretty strict nerf to em and not really a buff to strength. Especially as if you have really good strength you may as well go unarmed.

Like by definition taking something that used to require one attribute and now making it require two or else lose utility is increasing MAD. That is what MAD is: You need more attributes to do the same thing as before. Now to use a concealed weapon AND a big sword you need strength AND agility, while before you just needed agility. And going strength without agility isn't viable anyway so... your kinda now in a weird spot where either big weapons need to be so insane that small ones don't 'work' which isn't fun, or big weapons will be useless because getting +1-2,  or even +3 DV isn't worth an entire other attribute to augment.

I don't buy into the whole 'Str is now useless in SR6' argument mind, because strength was never really that good in 5e or 4e either except for armor stacking and some minor gymnastics stuff that had plenty of solutions outside of Str already. But removing stuff from an already weak combat strategy to shove into a stat that isn't doing much of anything isn't going to make Str better, it just makes the already weak thing weaker.

[Xenon]

What splitting does is essentially just make large weapons worse as now they don't fire off your primary attribute.

If you are a troll with strength 9 (and maybe agility 4) then you will benefit from using a zweihander
If you are an elf with agility 7 (and maybe strength 4) then you will benefit from using a katana

So to use an axe you still need agility....

Why?

To make it worse, to use a concealed melee will always require agility, which makes the stats bias harder towards agility.

How can stats bias harder towards agility since today ALL melee weapons are linked to agility (including heavy cleave and blunt weapons).

Especially as if you have really good strength you may as well go unarmed.

Not if unarmed have a base DV of 2.

And going strength without agility isn't viable anyway so...

Why?

[Leith]

What splitting does is essentially just make large weapons worse as now they don't fire off your primary attribute.

If you are a troll with strength 9 (and maybe agility 4) then you will benefit from using a zweihander
If you are an elf with agility 7 (and maybe strength 4) then you will benefit from using a katana

So to use an axe you still need agility....

Why?

To make it worse, to use a concealed melee will always require agility, which makes the stats bias harder towards agility.

How can stats bias harder towards agility since today ALL melee weapons are linked to agility (including heavy cleave and blunt weapons).

Especially as if you have really good strength you may as well go unarmed.

Not if unarmed have a base DV of 2.

And going strength without agility isn't viable anyway so...

Why?

Guns. Even if str is used for large weapons you're still gonna need agi for guns knives and grenades. And str is still mostly useless compared to most other att.
Frankly if it takes this much work to make the combat system good enough for the proverbial one to use, one should probably just stick to SR5. Or 4 or whatever your jam was. It seems like a lot of work to me is what I'm saying.

[dezmont]

If you are a troll with strength 9 (and maybe agility 4) then you will benefit from using a zweihander
If you are an elf with agility 7 (and maybe strength 4) then you will benefit from using a katana

But because Agility is objectively the better stat, and the Zweihander is not a strong enough weapon to be a 'build around' weapon, that doesn't actually make strength better. It makes the Zweihander worse.

Why? X2

Because giving up agility as your 'power stat' means giving up every single proactive skill Samurai have to assist in a run outside of combat: Sneaking, palming, lockpicking, and... jumping if they remembered to include rules to jump in SR6. You only have climbing with strength, which while useful is VERY easy and not worth deep investing into strength for. You also give up any ability to make ranged attacks, and if str only works on big weapons, you can't use concealed weapons at all, which isn't a dealbreaker but is a big ask and there is a reason Longarms rewards you with truly insane DV for making that sacrifice in SR5.

Combat axes are DV5 as opposed to a Katana's DV4. It is unrealistic to value that 1 DV (Which is almost never going to be a difference maker, which means it may as well not exist in most situations as the difference between a minimum damage of 5 and 6, with your final DV realistically being like 7 vs 8, won't result in you needing one less hit to down someone) as worth more than your augmentation applying to every single skill you roll outside of combat besides perception and athletics. And dual-investing into agility and strength means you may as well use unarmed, which scales on strength anyway for DV apparently at 1/2 str, which is a rule we have to infer based on all the rules that reference 1/2 str with unarmed in different contexts (like having dermal deposits, which increases that DV by 1, or the wrestling rules) but which still isn't remotely clear.

How can stats bias harder towards agility since today ALL melee weapons are linked to agility (including heavy cleave and blunt weapons).

They can't. However just slapping a str requirement onto a weapon doesn't make strength attractive. Strength is bad enough that it being required to use a weapon makes the weapon bad. This is ESPECIALLY true for melee, which already has very serious problems. If you took away 'big' melee weapons from agility users, your not pushing strength at all, your just pushing them to use guns instead because with guns they can always use agility. This idea of 'big weapons need strength' just penalizes melee users.

The opportunity cost for pushing an attribute to the point its viable for offensive actions is really intense in SR6. You need to justify that investment in other skill rolls, and while its fine to make a non-viable PC, if viability didn't matter at all you would be free to make a str 9 agi 1 troll with a combat axe right now. But viability and game balance do matter, and slapping a str requirement onto weapons without fixing why strength is not attractive isn't useful.

Guns. Even if str is used for large weapons you're still gonna need agi for guns knives and grenades. And str is still mostly useless compared to most other att.
Frankly if it takes this much work to make the combat system good enough for the proverbial one to use, one should probably just stick to SR5. Or 4 or whatever your jam was. It seems like a lot of work to me is what I'm saying.

While I have a lot of issues with the SR6 combat system that make it feel, frankly, unusable, the fact that all weapons are pseudo-mono-whips is probably a straight up buff to melee and not actually the problem here.

[Leith]

Ya. I like SR6 much more than 5 despite it's many shortcomings.
Also i think the relative uselessness of str and the insane levels of unarmed damage kind of work together. In the sense that, while it stretches my suspension of disbelief, the only reason to buff str past 2 or 3 is unarmed damage.

[Xenon]

But because Agility is objectively the better stat...

Ah-ha! So the issue might be that Agility is used for a lot of other things, except combat, while strength is not.

You also give up any ability to make ranged attacks

Both archery and throwing weapons scale with strength.

and if str only works on big weapons, you can't use concealed weapons at all

This idea of 'big weapons need strength' just penalizes melee users.

There are more weapons and attacks that would make sense if they are linked to Strength. Fist fighting, wrestling, karate, knucks, clubs, saps are all easy to 'conceal' but could still be linked to Strength...

Combat axes are DV5 as opposed to a Katana's DV4.

Today an agile (but maybe not very strong) elf will deal more damage with a combat axe compared to a strong (but maybe not very agile) troll. The elf would also deal more damage with the combat axe than with a katana.

If the axe is linked to strength instead then it would deal more damage in the hands of the troll than in the hands of the elf, but the elf would still deal more damage than the troll if they both used a katana.

Not sure about you, but I think this feel more 'realistic' than treating the combat axe as a 'pseudo-mono-whip'.

And dual-investing into agility and strength means you may as well use unarmed, which scales on strength anyway...

Not if unarmed have a base DV of 2.

But viability and game balance do matter, and slapping a str requirement onto weapons without fixing why strength is not attractive isn't useful.

But it could be useful if strength was attractive enough on its own, yes?

So what about this suggestion:

Rolling Strength into Body would be a more elegant solution to melee MAD than cutting it out of melee damage, yet I'm the first one here to propose it.

OK, so this change is a little bigger (as it will have an impact on the metatype priority table and list of augmentations etc), but it does solve the whole issue with the attribute not being as attractive outside of combat when compared to agility ;-)

You could have a focus on Robustness (or whatever the combined Strength/Body attribute would be called) to take a lot of beating and to deal a lot of damage with a combat axe (big slow troll) or you could have a focus on Agility to be great at sneaking and deal a lot of damage with a katana (small agile elf).

As primary 'muscle' of the team you would probably put more or less focus on both attributes (no matter if you even have the Close Combat skill or not).

Ya. I like SR6 much more than 5 despite it's many shortcomings.
Also i think the relative uselessness of str and the insane levels of unarmed damage kind of work together. In the sense that, while it stretches my suspension of disbelief, the only reason to buff str past 2 or 3 is unarmed damage.

Agreed.

I guess that, before I go too deep into this discussion :-), I should mention that I am actually fine with the rules as they are and that strength is mostly an attribute you don't have to focus on, unless you go unarmed combat, archery, throwing.

But at the same time I find root causes and fix problems for a living and I like the direction where this discussion is going so I would like to spend some time exploring the topic.

[MercilessMing]

omg, combining two attributes would have enormous downstream effects... please don't tell me anyone's considering that as a real solution for this issue.

The key to good houserules it to make it as simple as possible and consistent with the other rules as possible.

Agility and Strength are both thematically important attributes in close combat.  Super-human strength, either from tree-trunk arms of a troll or the vat grown fibers of a street sam, are as important to pay off to players as super agile katana wielding elves and magic ninja adepts.

I suggest people either go back completely to STR based damage codes, or completely to static damage codes, and let people roll STR *or* AGI as the table feels is appropriate for weapons.

[Leith]

Thing is, if you use str for dice pools in attack rolls, regardless of how damage is worked out, what you end up with is something very like D&D. And str is a pretty useless stat in that game too. Only 1 class MUST have good str and most of them can happily dump it. In a game where guns, explosives, cars and gecko gloves are just a few money away why bother with str at all? I mean making CC and Athletics more str dependant is a good fix but str will still be a suboptimal investment.