Shadowrun

Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: FrowningMirror on <08-27-19/0236:44>

Title: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: FrowningMirror on <08-27-19/0236:44>
Hi, I've been reading the sixth edition and it seems to me having strength is a liability now for close combat unless you are unarmed.

As far as I can tell, DV is no longer strength/2 (round up) + the weapon DV, it's simply the weapon DV

In close, you get a strength + reaction attack rating, however, this disappears when equipping a combat axe which has a static number

Unarmed combat is also the only time you can use grappling (fair enough)

Is there any incentive to have strength on a weapon in 6th edition?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <08-27-19/0243:59>
Yep... your strength sets the threshold for someone to take your weapon away from you. (See Wrest edge action).

Mind you, this is an unopposed roll...  so if you go into combat with a weapon with low strength, you'll be fighting unarmed before long :D
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <08-27-19/0251:07>
Well, unless you want to be instantly disarmed, or your opponent to grapple you... You also use it against Binding and Engulf.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0348:29>
Mind you, this is an unopposed roll...  so if you go into combat with a weapon with low strength, you'll be fighting unarmed before long :D
I don't follow this reasoning. The opponent rolls their Strength with a threshold equal to your Strength, correct? Isn't mathematically the same thing as an opposed Strength roll, but where the defender rolls 100% hits? Seems like it being unopposed favours the defender here.

Also, isn't this quite a big move? Someone told me the attacker first has to win a melee attack, then choose to do no damage, then spend Edge, then roll again to attempt the disarm. I'm not saying that's impossible but those are a number of non-trivial steps to pull this off.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0353:21>
As far as I can tell, DV is no longer strength/2 (round up) + the weapon DV, it's simply the weapon DV

In close, you get a strength + reaction attack rating, however, this disappears when equipping a combat axe
I must admit, I don't understand why Strength doesn't at least play a part in the Attack Rating computation for melee weapons.

Weapon DVs being static rather than deriving from Strength I could maybe understand, and has been pointed out to me, it can have some nice effects (ie. they make backup melee weapons a viable choice for non-auged Strength monsters.) And I don't find it too jarring for edged weapons. But the idea of clubs doing the same damage regardless of Strength is something I can't get past.

I also don't like how a lot of Strength-build characters are going to do considerably more damage unarmed than armed. 5e had a version of this, with the unarmed combat skill using the Physical limit, which could be sky-high for combat characters. I didn't like it in 5e and I don't like it in 6e.

Another houserule idea floating around that I liked was the put a minimum required Strength rating on some melee weapons, the same way that the bows in No Future are computed.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <08-27-19/0408:37>
Unopposed means no using Edge against it. You don't get to roll Body + Strength to resist, but simply have your Strength as threshold, meaning you lose on a tie as well. If you're going 8 Body, 2 Strength as melee Troll, expect to be disarmed because they only need 2 hits, not face an edgeable dicepool of 10 dice.

All they need to do is use Block as Minor Action against your attack, then on a successful defense, they can use 2 Edge for Wrest to roll against your Strength as threshold to disarm you.

In situations where brute force matters, such as breaking down barriers, Strength is used.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0434:30>
Unopposed means no using Edge against it. You don't get to roll Body + Strength to resist, but simply have your Strength as threshold, meaning you lose on a tie as well. If you're going 8 Body, 2 Strength as melee Troll, expect to be disarmed because they only need 2 hits, not face an edgeable dicepool of 10 dice.
I agree about Edge but why did Body suddenly appear here? Your counter-example is rather arbitrary. Consider a 2 Body / 8 Strength troll. Under RAW, the opponent is rolling against a static threshold of 8. With your proposal, the opponent is rolling against 10 Edgeable dice. As the defender, I'd prefer the former scenario. I don't think this proves anything either way.

Also, as GM, I'd likely allow the defender to use Edge on the attacker's roll. Why wouldn't you allow that? It seems very reasonable. I see the use of a static threshold tied to Strength here as little more than a small mechanical speedup to skip one dice roll compared to if the roll was opposed, very similar to if the character chose to buy hits on the roll but at a very generous rate of exchange of 1 die = 1 hit.

And finally -- surely approximately zero melee builds in 6e will even use weapons anyway? They can't disarm your fists, which also do more damage than a Panther XXL.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <08-27-19/0441:55>
We are explicitly talking here about Strength and melee weapons, so there's nothing arbitrary about the example. If anything, 'yes but an 8-Strength character' is arbitrary because we already established those will likely use unarmed attacks. So we're specifically talking here about Melee weapons with low Strength.

As for Body: Because Body + Strength is used against tackling, against Levitation and against Binding. So most likely, if Wrest was an opposed roll, it'd face Body + Strength, not just Strength like you're assuming with your 1-die-1-hit claim. As such, it's not a sudden appearance: It's the likely alternative of the threshold.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0451:39>
not just Strength like you're assuming with your 1-die-1-hit claim
Huh? It's not a "claim", I'm not making this up, it's RAW. Isn't it? RAW is: opponent rolls against the defender's strength as a static threshold?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <08-27-19/0507:09>
Yes. But a threshold is NOT the same as 'you're basically buying 1 hit per die'. Because if it involved dice, it'd be an opposed test and you wouldn't be rolling a single attribute to resist. So it's NOT equivalent to an opposed Strength roll, because it's not an opposed Strength roll. It's Close Combat + Agility [Opponent Strength]. If it were an opposed roll, it'd still not be an opposed Strength roll, it would be Close Combat + Agility vs X + Strength, where X likely would be Body, given similar pools. So RAW this is NOT an opposed Strength roll, and even under a different rule it wouldn't be.

Also, Disarm is NOT 2 attacks. You Call a Shot, spend 5 Edge to make it a Disarm attempt instead, then roll the normal attack. Not sure why someone told you different.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0518:14>
I'm sorry, I am deeply confused what's happening here. The OP was observing that in their opinion Strength doesn't matter much. I'm talking about how I understand the RAW. And you're... proposing a houserule that makes Strength matter less, by including Body in the mechanic? Is that correct?

Also, Disarm is NOT 2 attacks. You Call a Shot, spend 5 Edge to make it a Disarm attempt instead, then roll the normal attack. Not sure why someone told you different.
Oh, probably I misunderstood, not someone told me wrong. So there are two similar "take the person's weapon" mechanics -- one offensive (Disarm) and one defensive (Wrest)?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <08-27-19/0520:05>
I'm sorry, I am deeply confused what's happening here. The OP was observing that in their opinion Strength doesn't matter much. I'm talking about how I understand the RAW. And you're... proposing a houserule that makes Strength matter less, by including Body in the mechanic? Is that correct?
It is not. I was explaining why the terminology you were using is incorrect.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Jimmy_Pvish on <08-27-19/0641:51>
5 edge to disarmed me?
That's an absolute win!!  8)

And edge action [Wrest] can only be use IF they use minor action to block your attack first AND they need to spend 2 edge to do that.
So, it's not happen as often as you might thinks.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: focke on <08-27-19/0648:49>
It is looking like this is something I am going to house rule. I'm going to assume that all damage listed is for a str 3 individual. So that would be an unarmed damage of 2 (str/2 round up). So a combat knife that has DV of 3 I'll change to str/2 round up +1.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0708:18>
It is looking like this is something I am going to house rule. I'm going to assume that all damage listed is for a str 3 individual. So that would be an unarmed damage of 2 (str/2 round up). So a combat knife that has DV of 3 I'll change to str/2 round up +1.
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <08-27-19/0708:51>
It is looking like this is something I am going to house rule. I'm going to assume that all damage listed is for a str 3 individual. So that would be an unarmed damage of 2 (str/2 round up). So a combat knife that has DV of 3 I'll change to str/2 round up +1.
That does mean you're devaluating unarmed combat again, and it means that theoretically you can reach 10P with an Axe vs 5P with a big gun. So a risky houserule. Your table, but I think it's a very bad idea, since that 10P is still BEFORE net hits. At that point you're basically saying 'either go huge-strength melee, or don't bother with combat at all at my table'.

Wrest is actually rather easy to happen, so I wouldn't underestimate it as a GM weapon against abusive players.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0724:03>
It is looking like this is something I am going to house rule. I'm going to assume that all damage listed is for a str 3 individual. So that would be an unarmed damage of 2 (str/2 round up). So a combat knife that has DV of 3 I'll change to str/2 round up +1.
As a houserule, how about:

Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/0749:43>
The maxed troll will a axe who is doing 8p with his fists. Maybe more with bone lacing etc. so I’m not sure it’s broken. Maybe compared to guns but if so unarmed already is.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0754:17>
The maxed troll will a axe who is doing 8p with his fists. Maybe more with bone lacing etc. so I’m not sure it’s broken. Maybe compared to guns but if so unarmed already is.
Note that I'm suggesting reducing unarmed damage as well - "Shift unarmed damage to Str/3, rounded up"

I forgot that bone lacing does +DV though, and that messes up the scaling I was aiming for. Hmmm. Maybe just drop that? Keep the AR adjustment through the bone lacing tiers, and make bone lacing work like knucks ie. switch S damage to P.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/0801:22>
That’s all bone lacing ever should have done. I mean in previous editions it got to +3 which is a swords damage. Really glorified breads knucks hitting as hard as a sword.

That being said this edition the easy fix would have been to give both weapons and unarmed a set damage. But have close combat use strength as the linked attribute for its dicepool. It would roughly pan out to 1/3+ base damage based on average hits. Use agility in calculating the AR instead of a fixed AR for weapons etc.

The more I read the main book the worse a lot of the basic math looks.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <08-27-19/0813:27>
If you want to keep the game unplayable from constantly having to rerun all the math, then yes, the 'basic math' won't fit. But to me, it looks like 'not everyone will like the simplifications but it does mean better playability, even if it's partially at the expense of realism'.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Lormyr on <08-27-19/0824:46>
If you want to keep the game unplayable from constantly having to rerun all the math, then yes, the 'basic math' won't fit. But to me, it looks like 'not everyone will like the simplifications but it does mean better playability, even if it's partially at the expense of realism'.

Where as I firmly believe they could have, and should have, succeeded at both playability and better than partial realism.

Lots of acceptable solutions have been discussed by folks here, including but not limited to:

- Melee weapons having a strength requirement to wield, and bigger weapons doing more damage.*

- Melee attack pool being strength + close combat.

- Weapons having low base damage (some like +0 but lethal/+1/+2), plus 1/3 of strength.

*This one is now especially a missed opportunity for me as I recently discovered that they did add a strength requirement to wielding machine guns unassisted. We added strength requirement for firearms, and still couldn't make it a factor of some kind for melee? Lol. That is amazing in all the worse ways.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/0829:36>
*This one is now especially a missed opportunity for me as I recently discovered that they did add a strength requirement to wielding machine guns unassisted. We added strength requirement for firearms, and still couldn't make it a factor of some kind for melee? Lol. That is amazing in all the worse ways.
And it's exactly how bows work! They need a minimum Strength equal to their Rating to use, and do Rating/2 damage with Rating/2 Attack Rating.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/0836:16>
If you want to keep the game unplayable from constantly having to rerun all the math, then yes, the 'basic math' won't fit. But to me, it looks like 'not everyone will like the simplifications but it does mean better playability, even if it's partially at the expense of realism'.

The problem is it’s not better playability. There is no ease benefit to have fixed damage with melee damage but scaling strength based damage with unarmed. One system for close combat is easier than 2 and in this system super strength gets you past assault cannon damage.

 The math behind ritual magic is completely borked it is non functional, alchemy as well. No force for spells but force for spirits where unstoppable force spirits can quickly be summoned. That was bad in 5e but I think it got worse in 6e. The damage at a base level seems to work with no soak but with system mastery you can get pistols shooting at base 8d. and this is before power creep supplements come out making body only soak pools less playable than 5es massive soak pools. If this was a min max issue it’s easier to deal with but it’s just basic combat options.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Tecumseh on <08-27-19/1142:08>
I'm tracking this thread closely because it's something I intend to house rule as well.

I'm not here to rain on 6E because there are a lot of things which are interesting and that I'm eager to try. But, for both game balance and realism, I don't like that an unarmed troll can lower his or her DV by picking up a weapon.

I've had the same debate in my head about how to scale damage, especially when light pistols do 2P and heavy pistols do 3P. But, at the same time, given the range constraints of melee weapons vs. ranged weapons I'm not sure it's a huge issue for me. But there are secondary ramifications, like how to scale the damage of thrown weapons, which don't have the same range constraints as melee weapons.

Not that I want to add more rolling, since we're trying to streamline things, but one thought was to roll Strength and add the hits to the base DV. The problem is what if you have an above-average roll and all of a sudden the Strength 8 ork is adding +6 DV to an attack, which is potentially catastrophic to a target now that soaking is Body-only. But maybe that's the one-shot attack that people are looking for. I'll probably have to roll through a few encounters to see what works best.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/1155:19>
I've had the same debate in my head about how to scale damage, especially when light pistols do 2P and heavy pistols do 3P.
I had the same thought. In moving from 5e to 6e, looking at how firearms damage codes were compressed:


In each case, the change is significantly greater than halving the damage in 6e. It's often closer to reducing it to a third of the old value.

But unarmed damage went from (Str) to (Str/2) -- and that's rounded up, so it's always 1/2 or better.  Similarly, bone lacing's DV buff went from +1/+2/+3 to +1/+1/+2, which is the same -- it's halved then rounded up.

This means there's a significant shift in the balance between firearms and unarmed combat in 6e that favours unarmed characters.

Now, one's opinion may vary, but I found melee characters strong enough in 5e. I have a giant in my group created by someone who is in no way an optimiser who does 15P melee damage with a Physical Limit of 14. That's plenty IMO.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/1200:22>
There is no ease benefit to have fixed damage with melee damage but scaling strength based damage with unarmed. One system for close combat is easier than 2 and in this system super strength gets you past assault cannon damage.
I suppose the devil's advocate extension of this is -- why doesn't unarmed combat have a static damage code, too? Why does Strength affect how much damage I do with my fists but not with a club?

(I am not suggesting that's a good idea. But it does restore the internal consistency that is missing from 6e.)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/1230:28>
There is no ease benefit to have fixed damage with melee damage but scaling strength based damage with unarmed. One system for close combat is easier than 2 and in this system super strength gets you past assault cannon damage.
I suppose the devil's advocate extension of this is -- why doesn't unarmed combat have a static damage code, too? Why does Strength affect how much damage I do with my fists but not with a club?

(I am not suggesting that's a good idea. But it does restore the internal consistency that is missing from 6e.)

I’m actually for that. But like I said I’d make the dice pool based on strength and AR modified by agility. Base damage of 1 or 2. You might want to give it combat options similar to burst fire all out attack or something. +2 do but you AR drops for the attack and DR drops for the combat round by x. It is one system for all of close combat and strength has value for close combat characters.

Imo like 5e certain damage values break the system. Basically if before net hits on the attack are even looked at most soak pools die or drop to an attack the DV probably got to high. Trolls punching for 11dv does that in 6e. Heck assault rifles, called shot, explosive ammo, with a long burst do that here as well. When it’s just hitting that ends the fight it doesn’t work in a system designed about scaling through net hits.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/1252:18>
Imo like 5e certain damage values break the system. Basically if before net hits on the attack are even looked at most soak pools die or drop to an attack the DV probably got to high. Trolls punching for 11dv does that in 6e. Heck assault rifles, called shot, explosive ammo, with a long burst do that here as well. When it’s just hitting that ends the fight it doesn’t work in a system designed about scaling through net hits.
Agreed. From what I've read, attacks are all-round more survivable in 6e; the reduction in soak roll dice from the armour change is more than outweighed by the lower damage codes. (This is the other side of the "samurai can't one-shot people any more" discussion.) And I don't mind that, I think the higher end of 5e's damage codes wouldn't hurt for being reduced a little.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <08-27-19/1257:36>
*This one is now especially a missed opportunity for me as I recently discovered that they did add a strength requirement to wielding machine guns unassisted. We added strength requirement for firearms, and still couldn't make it a factor of some kind for melee? Lol. That is amazing in all the worse ways.

Point of clarification: that rule is not new to 6we.  It was in 5e, too.  not that anyone ever bothered to use it, most likely...
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hephaestus on <08-27-19/1342:08>
I know people are arguing over the effectiveness of strength builds versus melee weapons, but has anyone looked at the strength limits in general? CRB6 RAW states you do not need to make a strength test up to 10*Body^2 kg, so an augmented Troll would be able to lift a 13*13*10 = 1690 kg (3718 lb) object without needing a strength test. To put things in perspective, an average mid-sized car weighs around 1590 kg (3718 lb), and a 20-foot steel construction girder (18" x 40" I-beam) weighs a measly 364 kg.

So why, I ask, would a STR 13 Troll bother with a weapon, when they could pick up a car or a construction girder, and swing it (AGI+Close Combat) or throw it (AGI+Athletics) at an enemy? Even if you impose a dice pool penalty for an improvised weapon, the mass alone should do roughly the same damage as a grenade.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Banshee on <08-27-19/1358:47>
I know people are arguing over the effectiveness of strength builds versus melee weapons, but has anyone looked at the strength limits in general? CRB6 RAW states you do not need to make a strength test up to 10*Body^2 kg, so an augmented Troll would be able to lift a 13*13*10 = 1690 kg (3718 lb) object without needing a strength test. To put things in perspective, an average mid-sized car weighs around 1590 kg (3718 lb), and a 20-foot steel construction girder (18" x 40" I-beam) weighs a measly 364 kg.

So why, I ask, would a STR 13 Troll bother with a weapon, when they could pick up a car or a construction girder, and swing it (AGI+Close Combat) or throw it (AGI+Athletics) at an enemy? Even if you impose a dice pool penalty for an improvised weapon, the mass alone should do roughly the same damage as a grenade.

Quote
Characters can lift [(Strength x Strength) x 10] kilograms naturally; if they need to raise the weight over their head, the multiplier drops to 5. Making a Lift/Carry test increases your effective Strength by 1 per net hit.  It also does 1 Stun damage, resisted by Body. The damage increase by +1 each combat round you continue holding or carrying the weight.

so lifting is strength2 not body ... but the lift/carry check is body + willpower
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Serbitar on <08-27-19/1411:09>
I know people are arguing over the effectiveness of strength builds versus melee weapons, but has anyone looked at the strength limits in general? CRB6 RAW states you do not need to make a strength test up to 10*Body^2 kg, so an augmented Troll would be able to lift a 13*13*10 = 1690 kg (3718 lb) object without needing a strength test. To put things in perspective, an average mid-sized car weighs around 1590 kg (3718 lb), and a 20-foot steel construction girder (18" x 40" I-beam) weighs a measly 364 kg.

So why, I ask, would a STR 13 Troll bother with a weapon, when they could pick up a car or a construction girder, and swing it (AGI+Close Combat) or throw it (AGI+Athletics) at an enemy? Even if you impose a dice pool penalty for an improvised weapon, the mass alone should do roughly the same damage as a grenade.

Typical example of rules not being consistent with each other. Letting strength scale by a power law but damage linearly is a problem. However this is a problem in many RPGs, as most of them scale linear, as people tend to think linear.

And frankly, most designers are not math savvy enough to design something different.

Using a log scale is eliminating a lot of those problems, also the goblin vs goblin and dragon vs dragon problem.

On a linear scale goblin str 1 and goblin str 2 have good chance for both to succeed while dragon strength 100 has absolutely no chance to win against dragon 200 strength in a linear system. Although in both cases the strength difference is a factor 2
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-27-19/1414:52>
So why, I ask, would a STR 13 Troll bother with a weapon, when they could pick up a car or a construction girder, and swing it (AGI+Close Combat) or throw it (AGI+Athletics) at an enemy? Even if you impose a dice pool penalty for an improvised weapon, the mass alone should do roughly the same damage as a grenade.
So
(1) be a troll
(2) be above your opponent
(3) have something heavy and big to hand

...and you can just drop 1.5 ton objects on people's heads. I like it. I guess we don't ever let the troll get the higher ground (Anakin)!
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <08-27-19/1512:45>
So why, I ask, would a STR 13 Troll bother with a weapon, when they could pick up a car or a construction girder, and swing it (AGI+Close Combat) or throw it (AGI+Athletics) at an enemy? Even if you impose a dice pool penalty for an improvised weapon, the mass alone should do roughly the same damage as a grenade.
Superior application of their force, same as anyone using melee weapons. Granted, a troll's weapon would need to be well-engineered and therefore costly, but it would totally be worth being able to slaughter elephants in a kosher manner, granting a monopoly on the local kosher elephant meat market.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Lormyr on <08-27-19/1514:56>
Point of clarification: that rule is not new to 6we.  It was in 5e, too.  not that anyone ever bothered to use it, most likely...

I somehow missed it entirely in 5e.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <08-27-19/1529:11>
Point of clarification: that rule is not new to 6we.  It was in 5e, too.  not that anyone ever bothered to use it, most likely...

I somehow missed it entirely in 5e.

Because Sniper Rifles were better, in expert hands anyway.  Nobody used Machine Guns except as Drone or Vehicle weapons. 
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <08-27-19/1533:03>
Yeah, I'm looking forward to the decline of rifles as a close combat weapon option.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Banshee on <08-27-19/1534:44>
Point of clarification: that rule is not new to 6we.  It was in 5e, too.  not that anyone ever bothered to use it, most likely...

I somehow missed it entirely in 5e.

Because Sniper Rifles were better, in expert hands anyway.  Nobody used Machine Guns except as Drone or Vehicle weapons.

oh, I don't know about that, I had a troll that had a customized Stoner-Ares that used it like it was a SMG
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/1605:38>
I know people are arguing over the effectiveness of strength builds versus melee weapons, but has anyone looked at the strength limits in general? CRB6 RAW states you do not need to make a strength test up to 10*Body^2 kg, so an augmented Troll would be able to lift a 13*13*10 = 1690 kg (3718 lb) object without needing a strength test. To put things in perspective, an average mid-sized car weighs around 1590 kg (3718 lb), and a 20-foot steel construction girder (18" x 40" I-beam) weighs a measly 364 kg.

So why, I ask, would a STR 13 Troll bother with a weapon, when they could pick up a car or a construction girder, and swing it (AGI+Close Combat) or throw it (AGI+Athletics) at an enemy? Even if you impose a dice pool penalty for an improvised weapon, the mass alone should do roughly the same damage as a grenade.
Yeah. I talked about it in the troll size thread. I thought cars weighed more than that when I posted but that was probably a kg to lb conversion error on my part. But yeah a troll might be able to pick up a compact car over his head and drop
It on you. I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to adjudicate that. Levitate got weak in comparison. 50kg a hit now with a framing bizarre stipulation that you have to keep them in sight to maintain concentration on the spell. That’s not how sustaining spells works dammit. Unneeded change on that end but I like the new strength lift rules.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: FrowningMirror on <08-27-19/1617:54>
To be honest I don't completely mind strength being removed from melee weapon combat. A big problem of (at least 4th and 5th) was that strength was a secondary stat unless you had a very large pool of like 25+ dice (which is likely going to kill most everything anyway). This is due to agi being both hit % which directly translates to 1:1 damage for extra dice after a confirmed hit, while strength is immediately 1:2 on the weapon DV without being tied to hit % at all.

For unarmed, Strength is easier to raise now that it is 1:1 worth its points and has been granted attack rating now to balance agility having hit %. Perfection.

But as soon as you pick up a weapon its a mess.

First off, an elf with 2 strength is more threatening than than a troll with 13, both using heavy blunt warhammer clubs. This is strange aesthetically, but I'm sure some minimal strength rule will be added in a later combat book to address this.

The second problem is fighting unarmed folk. You might end up with 4-5 strength to your weapon build to counter the very specific scenario of people dropping their weapons to disarm you. I'm getting vibes that this is how the developers want it to look like. However, how many people will you run into that prefer unarmed combat over the sword, magic, and gun folk?

The last problem is the only way to make weapons have a high damage threshold is agility, magic and the weapon itself. Agility is always maxed out for every combat build, so nothing new there. Magic is expensive to raise DV and dice now and can be done with unarmed builds anyways. Weapon foci can get you 3 or so dice but it still lags behind unarmed strength build. This leaves your weapon itself; big or obvious weapons might be confiscated limiting your damage output, there is nothing that puts you at higher than 5 DV combat axe right now.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: GuardDuty on <08-27-19/1621:47>
I think it's important to note that unless the rules state specifically that "lift" means "lift over head", the strongest people in the world only overhead press half their deadlift.  Maximum lift, I would assume without more information, would mean off the floor to an erect stature, arms fully extended down, holding an object with adequate places to fully wrap your fingers around.  Change the way you grip it, arm placement, etc, and your lifting capacity can go waaaay down, and likelihood to injure yourself can go up drastically.

Also, if you've ever seen a video of someone pulling their absolute max, you know there's no way they are using that as a weapon.  Even taking a step or two would probably rip their hamstrings, wreck their back, or tear their biceps off.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <08-27-19/1634:42>
Point of clarification: that rule is not new to 6we.  It was in 5e, too.  not that anyone ever bothered to use it, most likely...

I somehow missed it entirely in 5e.

Because Sniper Rifles were better, in expert hands anyway.  Nobody used Machine Guns except as Drone or Vehicle weapons.

oh, I don't know about that, I had a troll that had a customized Stoner-Ares that used it like it was a SMG

Like I said, Vehicle mounted   :D
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/1640:13>
I think it's important to note that unless the rules state specifically that "lift" means "lift over head", the strongest people in the world only overhead press half their deadlift.  Maximum lift, I would assume without more information, would mean off the floor to an erect stature, arms fully extended down, holding an object with adequate places to fully wrap your fingers around.  Change the way you grip it, arm placement, etc, and your lifting capacity can go waaaay down, and likelihood to injure yourself can go up drastically.

Also, if you've ever seen a video of someone pulling their absolute max, you know there's no way they are using that as a weapon.  Even taking a step or two would probably rip their hamstrings, wreck their back, or tear their biceps off.

Yeah it’s one ton above your head 2 ton dead lift. 3 hits on a lift test would get you to average compact car over your head at strength 13, you take exceptional attribute strength as well and only 2 hits on the lift test.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: GuardDuty on <08-27-19/1702:08>

Yeah it’s one ton above your head 2 ton dead lift. 3 hits on a lift test would get you to average compact car over your head at strength 13, you take exceptional attribute strength as well and only 2 hits on the lift test.

Personally, I am ok with a maximum strength character being able to lift a compact car overhead, as long as they walk through the steps it would take to get there.  Can't just grab it by the bumper and lift, because the leverage would rip the bumper off.  You'd probably have to lift one end up and climb under it first.  Any damage you take while holding it aloft would risk it dropping on your head too.  If you can't manage it all in one turn, well then anyone that gets hit by it kind of deserves to.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/1705:40>
Same. Though it’s some pretty epic imagery.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-27-19/1808:18>
(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  ::)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <08-27-19/1821:29>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-27-19/1849:13>
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  ;)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: focke on <08-27-19/1856:05>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-27-19/1917:39>
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 (https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/cw3357/possible_6e_houserule_to_put_strength_back_into/ey8jt94?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)):

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. 
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: FastJack on <08-27-19/1920:36>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/1928:25>
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 (https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/cw3357/possible_6e_houserule_to_put_strength_back_into/ey8jt94?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)):
  • 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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-27-19/1936:44>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-27-19/1945:48>
They probably should have had multiple versions for people who just wanted to be Mr Stabby or Dr
Kickems.

Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-28-19/0522:57>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: FrowningMirror on <08-28-19/0747:24>

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
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-28-19/0825:37>

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 :P). 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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Lormyr on <08-28-19/1258:05>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <08-28-19/2221:12>
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. 
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-29-19/0012:19>
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.

Maybe but you are still taking multiple actions to kill someone.  If you have the strength where grapple would be part of your normal arsenal you may just take them out with one punch, and even if it takes you two that is the same place the grappler would be.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-29-19/0406:05>
Maybe but you are still taking multiple actions to kill someone.  If you have the strength where grapple would be part of your normal arsenal you may just take them out with one punch, and even if it takes you two that is the same place the grappler would be.
How often, in your SR career, has a ganger/Mafia soldier/beat cop/corp security guard/HTR team decided to drop their weapon, close up, and grapple with your character? Rather than shooting you, casting a spell at you, hacking your stuff, and so on. And in 6e, should you decide to roll with a low Strength, how many times can your GM decide this particular enemy is going to grapple you, before it starts to feel painfully contrived?

While we're on the subject, how many of the sample NPCs in the CRB have enough Agility+Close Combat to pull this off against, say, a Shadowrunner with Strength of 2 and a point or two of Edge to use on the test?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <08-29-19/0942:53>
Low Professional Rating Mooks are cannon fodder and should be treated as such.  They'll swing baseball bats, fire tasers and pistols and in general make a nuisance of themselves. 

Gang Leaders, Police Sergeants, HTR, Swat, Named Corporate Security goons and Henchmen, Big Bads, and such would be the ones likely to pancake a low Str Weapon user. 

Ganger Token # 5, you're correct, won't ever bother.  Fluffykins McScaryface the Troll Halloweener that runs the territory from 32nd street to I5?  He'll mess you up.

One of Shadowrun's strengths is the GM toolkit is huge so you can mix up the challenges to the players  to keep things from getting stale.  Grappling, disarming, knockdown, trips, or just plain old shooting and hitting.  Lots of options.

There are absolutely drawbacks to low Strength weapon users, but it's not necessarily crippling.  If someone wants to play Hit Girl or whatever, they can, but there are risks. 
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-29-19/1025:17>
Agreed, Grappling and Disarming gives an incentive not to dumbstat strength as a melee character, unless you are very dodgy. But here´s the thing: This often-cited "Pixie with a Combat axe" example[1] is not the real problem here.

The real blunder is the fact that high-Strength characters can easily rule out many weapons once they hit a certain strength level. Bringing a Knife to a fistfight (or Cyberspurs, Clubs, Swords...) should give you an advantage, both from a realism and a balancing POV (your fists are always there and don´t need to be "drawn"). But once you bulk up enough, your fists will always be strictly better than melee weapons - even without stuff like Bone Lacing. So you have a situation where a reasonable, realistic tactical option - grabbing a melee weapon - suddenly puts you at a huge disadvantage.

And just look at the Damage Codes of some of the melee Weapons! Some of them are so low that you can´t help but ask yourself if they were originally conceived under the assumption that the base Melee damage would still be added to them. An extendable Baton has an AR of 5 and a Damage Code of 2Stun[2]. Go up to 3 Strength and 2 Reaction, and you already hit the point where this weapon has no purpose whatsoever.

And why does the Streetsam Archetype even use a Sword when his Strength 10 alone is enough to punch harder and with a better AR than with his fists?

[1]...which is pointless anyways, as there are no Pixies in 6th Edition yet, and we they don´t know if they will have some additional "common sense" restrictions on weapon sizes this time  ::)
[2]... which is weird enough, because this also means that a Sap is strictly better RAW. Maybe another mistake?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-29-19/1053:58>
Maybe but you are still taking multiple actions to kill someone.  If you have the strength where grapple would be part of your normal arsenal you may just take them out with one punch, and even if it takes you two that is the same place the grappler would be.
How often, in your SR career, has a ganger/Mafia soldier/beat cop/corp security guard/HTR team decided to drop their weapon, close up, and grapple with your character? Rather than shooting you, casting a spell at you, hacking your stuff, and so on. And in 6e, should you decide to roll with a low Strength, how many times can your GM decide this particular enemy is going to grapple you, before it starts to feel painfully contrived?

While we're on the subject, how many of the sample NPCs in the CRB have enough Agility+Close Combat to pull this off against, say, a Shadowrunner with Strength of 2 and a point or two of Edge to use on the test?

Sort of how I see it. There may be certain player builds like a super dodgy character where a group tries to grapple him so future attacks are more likely to hit. But how may combat passes have past before they figure that out and how many are left in the fight when it happens. Is it still worth it?

And even if a GM does, in most cases that sounds better than being shot or stabbed or punched by the high strength dude who thought this was a good option.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: FrowningMirror on <08-30-19/0606:18>
Actually the damage codes are pretty high for melee considering everything comparatively does less damage this edition, it's just (lol) unarmed can be that ridiculous
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-30-19/0811:47>
Actually the damage codes are pretty high for melee considering everything comparatively does less damage this edition, it's just (lol) unarmed can be that ridiculous

That‘s my point as well. The title of this thread might as well be “Melee Weapons useless for strong characters“. That‘s a lot less believable than the notion that some scrawny nerds can master the blade.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <08-30-19/0908:21>
Actually the damage codes are pretty high for melee considering everything comparatively does less damage this edition, it's just (lol) unarmed can be that ridiculous

That‘s my point as well. The title of this thread might as well be “Melee Weapons useless for strong characters“. That‘s a lot less believable than the notion that some scrawny nerds can master the blade.

It's easy to agree that there's problems with suspension of disbelief when you do less damage by picking up a knife. Unfortunately, a fix is less easy to agree upon.

People are going to express opinions regardless. But if they express constructive ideas on addressing this issue, their opinion just might actually help affect a change for the better.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-30-19/0916:47>
But if they express constructive ideas on addressing this issue, their opinion just might actually help affect a change for the better.
I did:

It is looking like this is something I am going to house rule. I'm going to assume that all damage listed is for a str 3 individual. So that would be an unarmed damage of 2 (str/2 round up). So a combat knife that has DV of 3 I'll change to str/2 round up +1.
As a houserule, how about:

  • Shift unarmed damage to Str/3, rounded up (scales from 1-5S; Strength 7 still punches as hard as an Ares Predator shoots.)
  • Knucks don't have a damage code; they do the same damage as unarmed, but P instead of S.
  • Keep the fixed damage codes for melee weapons.
  • To use a melee weapon effectively, you need a minimum Str equal to its damage code minus 1 (so a 5P combat axe needs to be wielded with Strength 4.) If you don't have the minimum, either you can't use it at all or you take a penalty (eg. can't earn/spend Edge.) Strength of 2 is still enough to use a combat knife and do the same damage as an Ares Predator.
  • Maybe tweak that min Strength on a case-by-case basis for some weapons. Monowhips might not have a requirement, for example, as muscle power doesn't do much there. Same for shock gloves/stun batons.
In a later post, I also suggested dropping the +DV for Bone Lacing (which i had forgotten about.)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-30-19/1012:47>
Or there's the other option that's obvious and commonly suggested: rolling Strength for Close Combat. Perhaps with the Attack Rating then being modified by Agility.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-30-19/1111:02>
I´m currently having this (https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/cw3357/possible_6e_houserule_to_put_strength_back_into/ey8jt94/?context=3) little houserules suite cooked up, already posted it in another thread here as well. It´s a bunch of adjustments, but the most important part is this one:

For every 2 Point of Strength (round up) above the weapon´s base Damage Code, increase the damage Code by one.

Example: A Human with strength 5 and a Sap (Damage Code: 2) has a base damage code of 2 + (5-2)/2 = 4 (round up). Compared to attacking unarmed, that´t 1 additional Point of Damage. It´s not much, but it´s something.

Given the simplicity, the math works surprisingly well, even in fringe cases: It basically means that every Melee weapon (except Monowhips, Shock weapons etc. ....) will at least deal a bit more damage than your fists, as long as there are no Dermal Deposits, Bone Augmentations, Knucks etc. at work. Yes, this 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.

Since you don´t add the the full Str/2 to the Base Damage, the maximum Damage doesn´t go totally through the roof (as long as you don´t stack up critical strike, but that´s another story  ::)). A very dedicated Melee-Troll (Str of 14 with Exceptional Attribute) would deal 5+(14-5)/2=10 Damage with a Combat Axe, compared to 7+1=8 Damage with Unarmed (+ Dermal Deposits) or 9 Damage with Titanum Bone Lacing (or even 10? Do they stack with Dermal Deposits?). If the latter is considered reasonable, then 1-2 Points of additional Damage with the biggest Melee Weapon in the game won´t be the straw that breaks the camel´s back  ;)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Tecumseh on <08-30-19/1310:00>
I said it over on Reddit, but I really like Finstersang's house rule and will be using it (once I actually transition one of my 5E campaigns to 6E). It's clean, it's straightforward, it has a logical consistency that the 6E rules occasionally lack.

Right now I'm not worried about DV codes in the 0-3 meter range (or 5 meters with the Long Reach quality). If someone gets that close, let them have their fun. My bigger concern would actually be an NPC turning a PC into paste via the grappling rules, but that's a fear I want the players to feel in their hearts.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <08-30-19/1616:12>
Unopposed means no using Edge against it.
It does...?


why doesn't unarmed combat have a static damage code, too? Why does Strength affect how much damage I do with my fists but not with a club?
Street samurai switching to a katana at close range even if he only have a strength of 3-4 is rather iconic. In this edition this can be done. In previous editions you should just keep using your assault rifle, unless maybe you had a an augmented strength rating of 8+. This is a good change in my book.

Troll going berserk dealing physical damage and punching through brick walls with his bare fists is also rather iconic. Hulk also don't use a tiny katana. He just smash things with his fists.


From what I've read, attacks are all-round more survivable in 6e
Combat is actually generally a lot more deadly in SR6 compared to previous editions. You need to play quite a lot more tactically in this edition.


This one is now especially a missed opportunity for me as I recently discovered that they did add a strength requirement to wielding machine guns unassisted...
Point of clarification: that rule is not new to 6we.  It was in 5e, too...
For reference:

SR5 p. 430 Machine Guns
MMGs and HMGs could be carried by someone with Strength of 8+ and 10+ (respectively), but they work better as vehicle-mounted weapons.

SR6 p. 257 Machine Guns
A light machine gun is bigger and heavier than most rifles, while medium machine guns and heavy machine guns can only be carried by someone with Strength of 3+ and 5+, respectively, since they are designed as vehicle-mounted weapons.

(which also mean that a heavy combat axe should probably not have a higher strength requirement than 2+ or so - at which point it doesn't really add any value and might as well not be added to begin with)


So why, I ask, would a STR 13 Troll bother with a weapon...
They don't. For pretty much the same reason why Hulk don't use weapons.

...except maybe a custom made troll bow? ;)


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
Average attribute ratings are 2 in SR6 (intentionally lowered from previous editions).

Average strength unarmed combat is DV 1S
Knife is DV 2P
Combat knife is DV 3P
Survival knife is DV 4P


...Don´t want to (ab)use that fact? Then just dumpstat Strength
If you have a focus on melee weapons then you don't need super human strength (which I find to be a Good Thing(tm)). But you can also not dump stat it, you still want to have some 3-4 strength (because of Wrest and Grappling).

...which seem to fit quite well with the strength values that street samurais in lore and on pictures (if you google or look at illustrations in the books) seem to have. But unlike previous editions you will gain a tactical advantage by using your katana over your assault rifle, even if you don't have super human strength (which, again, I find to be a Good Thing(tm))


*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  ::)
I am on this side of NDA and I am defending it.

Don't bother replying please because you DO come off very hostile.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-30-19/1627:11>

why doesn't unarmed combat have a static damage code, too? Why does Strength affect how much damage I do with my fists but not with a club?
Street samurai switching to a katana at close range even if he only have a strength of 3-4 is rather iconic. In this edition this can be done. In previous editions you should just keep using your assault rifle, unless maybe you had a an augmented strength rating of 8+. This is a good change in my book.

Troll going berserk dealing physical damage and punching through brick walls with his bare fists is also rather iconic. Hulk also don't use a tiny katana. He just smash things with his fists.
"Because it's iconic" is not a counter-argument to "this doesn't make any sense."

Particularly as your value of "iconic" is shaded very pink mohawk, and not everyone plays pink mohawk.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <08-30-19/1629:19>
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
Average attribute ratings are 2 in SR6 (intentionally lowered from previous editions).

Average strength unarmed combat is DV 1S
Knife is DV 2P
Combat knife is DV 3P
Survival knife is DV 4P

A lot of this.  A large part of the advantage, such as it is, in a high strength character getting benefit out of something like a knife is the switch from what may be a higher amount of Stun damage to Physical damage.

Of course, the assumption breaks down a bit when you factor in Dermal Deposits/Bone Lacing/Bone Density.  And most any character built for close combat will have at least one of those.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <08-30-19/1634:16>
A lot of this.  A large part of the advantage, such as it is, in a high strength character getting benefit out of something like a knife is the switch from what may be a higher amount of Stun damage to Physical damage.
Eh. ~10 boxes of Stun or ~10 boxes of Physical, they're down for the count either way, especially with the new rule about damage boxes, PR rating, goons, and Composure tests. If dead matters to you, shoot them in the head later.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <08-30-19/1638:08>
True.  Unnamed Mooks don't even have separate Stun and Physical CMs.

(not that that's new... was the same in 5e as well)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <08-30-19/1656:41>
And Stun tracks tend to be shorter. It´s often better to deal Stun unless you fear that your opposition will get away and have time to patch up.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <08-30-19/1824:33>
Troll going berserk dealing physical damage and punching through brick walls with his bare fists is also rather iconic. Hulk also don't use a tiny katana. He just smash things with his fists.
So you've never read World War Hulk or watched Thor: Ragnarok. For that matter you haven't seen any media where the Hulk picks up a large heavy object (such as a car, a rock, a tree or a telephone pole) and smashes his opponent with it, which means you've seen somewhere between very little and no Hulk media at all.......I think we can safely ignore your opinion on what is and what isn't iconic.

Let's not kid ourselves. Trolls wrecking house with large melee weapons is just as iconic as trolls wrecking house with their bare fists.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <08-30-19/1840:38>
I’d say a troll with a wallacher combat axe is more iconic than brawler troll in shadowrun. Even if one of my favorite characters I’ve made was Yos the troll boxer. Alas drones with assault cannons at long range don’t mesh well with a melee combatant.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <08-30-19/1913:41>
Troll going berserk dealing physical damage and punching through brick walls with his bare fists is also rather iconic. Hulk also don't use a tiny katana. He just smash things with his fists.
So you've never read World War Hulk or watched Thor: Ragnarok. For that matter you haven't seen any media where the Hulk picks up a large heavy object (such as a car, a rock, a tree or a telephone pole) and smashes his opponent with it, which means you've seen somewhere between very little and no Hulk media at all.......I think we can safely ignore your opinion on what is and what isn't iconic.

Let's not kid ourselves. Trolls wrecking house with large melee weapons is just as iconic as trolls wrecking house with their bare fists.
The weapons that people argue about in this thread are small knives.

Don't think anyone have issues with a 13 strength troll dealing 7P damage by hitting people with a small car or 7P by punching through people with his bare fists.... Same skill. Same damage. Probably similar attack rating as well.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <08-30-19/2132:56>
The weapons that people argue about in this thread are small knives.
Well too bad that it the rules affect every single melee weapon possible instead of "uniconic" weapons. FFS, can't we forget this "iconic" discussion and get back into the realm of basic sense where stronger guys hit harder?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <08-30-19/2150:30>
But if we go back to that route than melee weapons will eventually become pointless unless you have a an augmented strength attribute of 8+ or so

I really like that a lot of people are using katanas again, even if they only have an augmented strength rating of 3-4 or so. Think ninjas.

If you go heavy strength then you instead focus on unarmed (and possible heavy troll bows) which will do massive damage. Think hulk.

But if we were to complicate the rules then I guess it would make more sense if blunt weapons ("clubs") should be made strength based (either if strength directly affect damage or that strength influence how much damage they do by being part of the attack pool) but perhaps keep "blades" (and "whips") mostly agility based (fixed damage based where hits are generated from agility and skill, as-is).
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Mustakrakish on <09-10-19/0112:32>
I think that the best solution is to just allow players to use their STR on Melee rolls if their STR is higher than their AGI.

Or, get a bonus +1 damage if their STR is twice the DV of the weapon.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hephaestus on <09-10-19/1250:27>
Or just add STR back into the damage code at 0.5x on top of DV.

Going with the troll example: A troll that can put their fist through your skull and touch the wall behind you should be just as able to pin your skull to said wall with a knife, or a pen, or a fragging spoon.

This argument has been going on since the QSR came out, and it's just going in circles. The rub is in 6th edition, high STR characters have been pigeonholed into unarmed combat to be able to use their strength. This is restrictive to builds, and not very much fun. The flip side is that with the reduced damage values, allowing full STR back into the damage values makes high-STR characters potentially 19 DV melee gods.

So go down the middle at STRx0.5 and let players strength matter.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Kirklins on <09-10-19/1321:41>
The compromise I think I'd do is existing dv or 1/2 str, whichever is greater. Just adding str (or half) makes all melee a bit too high a dv, I think.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Mustakrakish on <09-10-19/1418:27>
The compromise I think I'd do is existing dv or 1/2 str, whichever is greater. Just adding str (or half) makes all melee a bit too high a dv, I think.

But then all weapons do the same damage if you have STR 12 for example. And I think that a two handed axe is much more deadly with such STR than a knife.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <09-10-19/1439:46>
Well, speaking as a Devil's Advocate here...

Is a big scary Troll really going to do MORE damage with a knife than by making full and horrific use of his dermal deposits and bone lacing?

Even if the knife gives +1DV, +2DV from your augmentations is still the no brainer option...

And as a related thought:
Remember that scene in Deadpool 2 where Juggernaut rips DP in half with his bare hands?  You think he would have done MORE damage by stabbing him?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Mustakrakish on <09-10-19/1448:48>
Well, speaking as a Devil's Advocate here...

Is a big scary Troll really going to do MORE damage with a knife than by making full and horrific use of his dermal deposits and bone lacing?

Even if the knife gives +1DV, +2DV from your augmentations is still the no brainer option...

And as a related thought:
Remember that scene in Deadpool 2 where Juggernaut rips DP in half with his bare hands?  You think he would have done MORE damage by stabbing him?

True, but if a little boy will hit you on the head with a frying pan it won't heart or be as lethal as a fully augmented troll.

It's like those Strongest Man attractions when you strike with the hammer on a button and try to ring the bell at the top. You hit with the hammer and it measures how hard you hit, no matter how skilled the person is or how agile he is, it won't help him ring that bell.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <09-10-19/1450:10>
No one is talking about a troll with a knife. It's always a troll with a combat axe or a sledgehammer.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <09-10-19/1450:57>
Well, speaking as a Devil's Advocate here...

Is a big scary Troll really going to do MORE damage with a knife than by making full and horrific use of his dermal deposits and bone lacing?

Even if the knife gives +1DV, +2DV from your augmentations is still the no brainer option...

And as a related thought:
Remember that scene in Deadpool 2 where Juggernaut rips DP in half with his bare hands?  You think he would have done MORE damage by stabbing him?

True, but if a little boy will hit you on the head with a frying pan it won't heart or be as lethal as a fully augmented troll.

It's like those Strongest Man attractions when you strike with the hammer on a button and try to ring the bell at the top. You hit with the hammer and it measures how hard you hit, no matter how skilled the person is or how agile he is, it won't help him ring that bell.
So clubs should use different damage rules than blades?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <09-10-19/1457:49>
No one is talking about a troll with a knife. It's always a troll with a combat axe or a sledgehammer.

Well, even if a combat axe or sledgehammer gave a hypothetical +2 or +3DV to damage, it'd still just be no net gain over bone lacing and such.  And going into the realm of +4DV is just crazy talk, given the larger context of 6we's weapon damage values.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Mustakrakish on <09-10-19/1501:01>
Well, speaking as a Devil's Advocate here...

Is a big scary Troll really going to do MORE damage with a knife than by making full and horrific use of his dermal deposits and bone lacing?

Even if the knife gives +1DV, +2DV from your augmentations is still the no brainer option...

And as a related thought:
Remember that scene in Deadpool 2 where Juggernaut rips DP in half with his bare hands?  You think he would have done MORE damage by stabbing him?

True, but if a little boy will hit you on the head with a frying pan it won't heart or be as lethal as a fully augmented troll.

It's like those Strongest Man attractions when you strike with the hammer on a button and try to ring the bell at the top. You hit with the hammer and it measures how hard you hit, no matter how skilled the person is or how agile he is, it won't help him ring that bell.
So clubs should use different damage rules than blades?

Yes, maybe. Blades are very much more based on technique, you can be a very strong person and you won't be able to cut with a blade the same as a well-practiced warrior. There many examples of it on Youtube.

But with a hammer, the harder you hit the more powerful the impact.

Just have blades attack with AGI + Melee, and clubs STR + Melee. That's it.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <09-10-19/1515:28>
Well, even if a combat axe or sledgehammer gave a hypothetical +2 or +3DV to damage, it'd still just be no net gain over bone lacing and such.  And going into the realm of +4DV is just crazy talk, given the larger context of 6we's weapon damage values.
And that is a problem with bone lacing damage being overvalued compared to heavy melee weapons. A normal sledgehammer allows a normal human to smash concrete; a particularly strong troll with a troll-sized sledgehammer should be capable of inflicting tremendous damage, like flattening a V12 engine block. And what about a troll weapon adept, who isn't going to have bone lacing? Why should he be doing less damage with a sledgehammer than with his fists?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <09-10-19/1531:23>
Well, even if a combat axe or sledgehammer gave a hypothetical +2 or +3DV to damage, it'd still just be no net gain over bone lacing and such.  And going into the realm of +4DV is just crazy talk, given the larger context of 6we's weapon damage values.
And that is a problem with bone lacing damage being overvalued compared to heavy melee weapons. A normal sledgehammer allows a normal human to smash concrete; a particularly strong troll with a troll-sized sledgehammer should be capable of inflicting tremendous damage, like flattening a V12 engine block.

So what would that look like to you, ideally? Tuning a troll with a sledgehammer somewhere between the 7P DV autocannon and the 12P DV anti-vehicular rocket?

Quote
And what about a troll weapon adept, who isn't going to have bone lacing? Why should he be doing less damage with a sledgehammer than with his fists?

Because if the Adept doesn't have about as much bonus DV from Critical Strike as he could have gotten thru cyber/bioware, then you're clearly not building a melee combat Adept anyway and the comparison to a sammy built for close combat is invalid.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-10-19/1537:31>
Is a big scary Troll really going to do MORE damage with a knife than by making full and horrific use of his dermal deposits and bone lacing?
Y'know, no matter tough those dermal deposits are supposed to be... why do we never talk about what dealing out greater-than-assault-cannon-damage is doing to the troll's poor hands, elbows, knees, and feet?

Alternatively, if they really are tough enough to stand up to that sort of abuse - why isn't said troll approximately bulletproof?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <09-10-19/1547:10>
Is a big scary Troll really going to do MORE damage with a knife than by making full and horrific use of his dermal deposits and bone lacing?
Y'know, no matter tough those dermal deposits are supposed to be... why do we never talk about what dealing out greater-than-assault-cannon-damage is doing to the troll's poor hands, elbows, knees, and feet?

Well, there are complaints about firearm DVs being "too low".  Not so many in this thread though, because it's about melee combat... but to expound on the assault cannon comparison.. why do you even NEED to hit even harder with a melee weapon when unarmed damage is already outpacing a fraggin' assault cannon? :D
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Lormyr on <09-10-19/1632:33>
Well, there are complaints about firearm DVs being "too low".

As far as the complaints go, do you know what they are too low in comparison too? If they refer to other model guns in the same category I can see that. Like a 2P ares light fire 70 vs. a 5P ruger redhawk because of burst fire.

But top end firearm damage is really high compared to potential soak pools. An explosive round loaded burst firing rpk hmg is 9P. That is plenty.

but to expound on the assault cannon comparison.. why do you even NEED to hit even harder with a melee weapon when unarmed damage is already outpacing a fraggin' assault cannon? :D

Past the fact that a fist hitting harder than an assault canon is ludicrous, I just want the damn damage system to make sense. I like the lower damage. I like the lower soak. Strength should impact melee damage, and there most certainly never be a case where an unarmed person picking up a club, let alone a polearm or axe, does less damage than had they just punched someone. Armor should reduce incoming damage.

Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-10-19/1637:20>
Well, there are complaints about firearm DVs being "too low".  Not so many in this thread though, because it's about melee combat... but to expound on the assault cannon comparison.. why do you even NEED to hit even harder with a melee weapon when unarmed damage is already outpacing a fraggin' assault cannon? :D
Sure. Personally, I’d decrease unarmed damage to Str/3, as I’ve posted previously. With small +DV for melee weapons.

Or observe that the thing that makes no sense is unarmed damage scaling with strength when (say) brass knuckle damage does not. So make unarmed damage a fixed code - knucks are 3P so maybe 3S - but roll Strength on the Close Combat Test.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <09-10-19/1641:04>
So what would that look like to you, ideally? Tuning a troll with a sledgehammer somewhere between the 7P DV autocannon and the 12P DV anti-vehicular rocket?

I don't know or care about such details. I'm never going to play 6e, so the only dog I have in this fight is that strength not contributing to melee weapon damage makes no sense from any perspective. It doesn't make sense from a simulationist perspective, it doesn't make sense from a gamist perspective and the tropes are not aligned for it to make sense from a narrative perspective.

Quote
Because if the Adept doesn't have about as much bonus DV from Critical Strike as he could have gotten thru cyber/bioware, then you're clearly not building a melee combat Adept anyway and the comparison to a sammy built for close combat is invalid.
And why can't he get it on his sledgehammer? Why does it have to be his fists and only his fists?

Well, there are complaints about firearm DVs being "too low".  Not so many in this thread though, because it's about melee combat... but to expound on the assault cannon comparison.. why do you even NEED to hit even harder with a melee weapon when unarmed damage is already outpacing a fraggin' assault cannon? :D
Because it's the only thing that makes sense. Everyone knows that being stronger lets you hit harder and that weapons hit harder than your fists. If not from practical experience, then from history, physics or even media. You can bring up fringe cases where the weapon wouldn't be an effective way to apply one's strength, but in the general case unarmed doing more damage than a melee weapon makes no sense and as written 6e turns most melee weapons into pool noodles.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-10-19/1709:38>
Well, there are complaints about firearm DVs being "too low".

As far as the complaints go, do you know what they are too low in comparison too? If they refer to other model guns in the same category I can see that. Like a 2P ares light fire 70 vs. a 5P ruger redhawk because of burst fire.

But top end firearm damage is really high compared to potential soak pools. An explosive round loaded burst firing rpk hmg is 9P. That is plenty.

but to expound on the assault cannon comparison.. why do you even NEED to hit even harder with a melee weapon when unarmed damage is already outpacing a fraggin' assault cannon? :D

Past the fact that a fist hitting harder than an assault canon is ludicrous, I just want the damn damage system to make sense. I like the lower damage. I like the lower soak. Strength should impact melee damage, and there most certainly never be a case where an unarmed person picking up a club, let alone a polearm or axe, does less damage than had they just punched someone. Armor should reduce incoming damage.

I’ll say my issue with the lower damage isn’t the lower damage itself. I’ve said it before it’s I don’t like how without rules mastery you need so many hits to kill a rando in one shot. Sure if you use explosive ammo, make a called shot with a narrow  burst now you only need 3 or 4 hits but needing7 hits to kill someone seems extreme. But at the same time I like the lower base damage. The problem I always had with high base damages is you can’t really reflect a grazing hit. The it’s just a flesh wound from every action movie in the 80s. So
I don’t think the base damage is wrong I think damage should scale faster like 2dv  per net hit. And I’d like less rules mastery methods like the burst fire explosive called shot stuff.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <09-10-19/1715:55>
Well, when it comes to non-combatants, you rarely need to actually fill a CM to eliminate them as a threat.

You shot/hit the PR0 Janitor for a paltry 3 damage? Well, yeah he's still alive but he'll still probably surrender and beg to not be killed.  Take his commlink, ziptie him so he doesn't wander off and verbally warn someone, and move on.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-10-19/1939:47>
Well, even if a combat axe or sledgehammer gave a hypothetical +2 or +3DV to damage, it'd still just be no net gain over bone lacing and such.  And going into the realm of +4DV is just crazy talk, given the larger context of 6we's weapon damage values.
And that is a problem with bone lacing damage being overvalued compared to heavy melee weapons. A normal sledgehammer allows a normal human to smash concrete; a particularly strong troll with a troll-sized sledgehammer should be capable of inflicting tremendous damage, like flattening a V12 engine block.

So what would that look like to you, ideally? Tuning a troll with a sledgehammer somewhere between the 7P DV autocannon and the 12P DV anti-vehicular rocket?

Quote
And what about a troll weapon adept, who isn't going to have bone lacing? Why should he be doing less damage with a sledgehammer than with his fists?

Because if the Adept doesn't have about as much bonus DV from Critical Strike as he could have gotten thru cyber/bioware, then you're clearly not building a melee combat Adept anyway and the comparison to a sammy built for close combat is invalid.

Critical strike and improved attribute cost 1 point each even with liberal use of Qi focuses you are probably not getting anywhere near the sam.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-10-19/1946:14>
Well, even if a combat axe or sledgehammer gave a hypothetical +2 or +3DV to damage, it'd still just be no net gain over bone lacing and such.  And going into the realm of +4DV is just crazy talk, given the larger context of 6we's weapon damage values.
And that is a problem with bone lacing damage being overvalued compared to heavy melee weapons. A normal sledgehammer allows a normal human to smash concrete; a particularly strong troll with a troll-sized sledgehammer should be capable of inflicting tremendous damage, like flattening a V12 engine block. And what about a troll weapon adept, who isn't going to have bone lacing? Why should he be doing less damage with a sledgehammer than with his fists?

Bone lacing doing sword damage has been a bit of stupid since I think 2e. It should just turn damage to physical and end there. It’s a glorified roll of quarters.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-10-19/1952:28>
Well, when it comes to non-combatants, you rarely need to actually fill a CM to eliminate them as a threat.

You shot/hit the PR0 Janitor for a paltry 3 damage? Well, yeah he's still alive but he'll still probably surrender and beg to not be killed.  Take his commlink, ziptie him so he doesn't wander off and verbally warn someone, and move on.

Even combatants can have a I quit threshold. The professional rating usually covered that. I haven’t checked it in 6e. That’s a patch to the issue though. A person shouldn’t need like 30 dice to kill a low rent combatant with a single shot with a pistol.(base 3 dc 10 hits, 8 net vs relatively Ave dude, 1 soaked.)

SR6 solves this with system mastery. The called shot, burst fire, explosive round so now my starting DV is 8 method). Id prefer system mastery dies in a fire of simplification and your damage just scale faster. Personal preference on game style.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hephaestus on <09-10-19/2018:39>
So what would that look like to you, ideally? Tuning a troll with a sledgehammer somewhere between the 7P DV autocannon and the 12P DV anti-vehicular rocket?

Damn straight, it would. If Señor Supersledge the STR 14 Troll swings a sledgehammer at something, it better look like a 16 DV frag grenade went off. He should be able to play chicken with a full-size car, and knock that fragger off the road with one solid swing. If you're going to skew that hard, it should result in some truly spectacular (and terrifying) results.

And as DVs go, the fact that an AV rocket does less on-target damage than a frag rocket is just plain stupid.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <09-10-19/2347:52>
Well, when it comes to non-combatants, you rarely need to actually fill a CM to eliminate them as a threat.

You shot/hit the PR0 Janitor for a paltry 3 damage? Well, yeah he's still alive but he'll still probably surrender and beg to not be killed.  Take his commlink, ziptie him so he doesn't wander off and verbally warn someone, and move on.
But that would mean following the rules and being satisfied with not being murderhobos.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <09-11-19/0638:53>
Well, when it comes to non-combatants, you rarely need to actually fill a CM to eliminate them as a threat.

You shot/hit the PR0 Janitor for a paltry 3 damage? Well, yeah he's still alive but he'll still probably surrender and beg to not be killed.  Take his commlink, ziptie him so he doesn't wander off and verbally warn someone, and move on.
Bold of you to assume that murdering the janitor wasn't the objective of the run.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-11-19/0652:31>
I’ll say my issue with the lower damage isn’t the lower damage itself. I’ve said it before it’s I don’t like how without rules mastery you need so many hits to kill a rando in one shot.
Well, when it comes to non-combatants, you rarely need to actually fill a CM to eliminate them as a threat.
Does your table spend more time fighting combatants, or more time fighting non-combatants? Unless it's the former, I think SK's point stands.

And yes, 6e has rules for "surrendered or other wise down/out" based on professional rating etc. But there's still plenty of common circumstances in-game where there's a big difference between "down" and "dead", not the least associated with the opponent's ability to raise alarms and be witnesses. So again, I think SK's point still stands.

Incidentally, according to CRB6e pg203, it isn't clear-cut how that rule works, which runs contrary to the airy manner in which it is being quoted in this thread to dismiss concerns about changed lethality in SR6 compared to SR5. The CRB says "You take their Professional Rating and compare it to the number of damage boxes they’ve taken. Once the total boxes exceed the Professional Rating, make a Composure test (p. 67) to see if they bolt." No threshold is given for this test that I can see. Beat cops (PR3) roll 5 dice on this test, HTR (PR6) roll 8. Which means they could easily succeed.

(The combat example on pg106 conflicts with this, and ignores the test, and says "This is also the point at which you compare the enemy’s injury level to their Professional Rating and determine if they are still in the fight. The Eye-Fiver leader has a Professional Rating of 3 and 7 boxes of damage, meaning it’s time to either sit on the ground and bleed or stumble away, because he’s done with this fight." More sloppy editing.)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <09-11-19/1024:46>
Got the drop on them or they're otherwise helpless?  Point of Edge.  Attack Rating vs. Jumpsuit?  Point of Edge.  2 free edge, do your Knockout blow or Shiv and carry on please.  Taking down PR 0 helpless and/or  unaware targets is mechanically simple and PCs have several high probability options to choose from.

See also, Narcojet injection Bolts or gas grenades. 
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-11-19/1040:12>
Yes again with rules mastery you can easily handle PR 0  targets especially if they are unaware. Great how about PR 3 in a fight how many gimmicks do you have to pull to do it. Why isn’t a highly trained super humanly agile runner with a pistol enough on its own without those gimmicks.

And narcojet yeah it’s damage is crazy high given the soak pools in this game. I guess we could also throw a grenade.

Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <09-11-19/1040:54>
Just have blades attack with AGI + Melee, and clubs STR + Melee. That's it.
This is also how it is done in some other RPGs (of which I guess GreedFall is the latest example).

House Rule that you use;
1. Close Combat + Agility (for blades and whips)
2. Close Combat + Strength (for blunts)

That way a Katana will be more deadly in the hands of an Elf while a Sledgehammer will be more deadly in the hands of a Troll.

Seems fair enough?


Going one step further with this you could probably also House Rule unarmed combat to deal a fixed DV of 2(S) and let the practitioner choose between linking it with Strength (for harder martial arts such as Boxing, TaeKwanDo or Karate) or Agility (for softer martial arts such as  Aikido, Tai Chi, and Judo).
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <09-11-19/1057:03>
Yes again with rules mastery you can easily handle PR 0  targets especially if they are unaware. Great how about PR 3 in a fight how many gimmicks do you have to pull to do it. Why isn’t a highly trained super humanly agile runner with a pistol enough on its own without those gimmicks.

And narcojet yeah it’s damage is crazy high given the soak pools in this game. I guess we could also throw a grenade.

So PR3 is a non-trivial threat to a runner.  One shotting a PR3 NPC isn't going to be a given for most Runners.  A Street Samurai with an AK-97 and Explosive Ammo?  Sure.  Narrow Burst the poor bastard into bloody chunks. 

And I consider things like Knockout Blow, Shiv, ect basic combat options.  Not gimmicks.  Like it or not 6E combat is balanced around PCs using Edge Actions on most attacks.  Totally okay to not like that.  But non-grenade spam combat should be using Edge frequently to eliminate threats quickly.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-11-19/1126:26>
PR 3 in a scale of 1-10 should be trivial. Looking at PR3 stats they should be trivial. These are not the enemies you should need to use a AK with explosive ammo and a narrow burst to drop in one shot.

I get that some people like the explosive ammo called shot long burst style of game play.

Me I think I shoot the guy should be 95% of the complexity. Put all the complexity you want into character design. But once you start rolling dice I want it quick and easy. Combat options should be to add flavor and unusual circumstances. Called shots should never be for increased damage that’s what your dice pool is for.

And edge may be a basic combat maneuver now but against PR3 enemies you shouldn’t need it. You are likely more than doubling their pools. One shotting one should be a given for the combat specialists. I’m not expecting the decker or mage to do it but the adept or street sam should. And honestly given the math in pools if you can’t one shot a PR3 guy you won’t a PR1 guy either as they are probably only taking one more damage.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Lormyr on <09-11-19/1128:36>
And I consider things like Knockout Blow, Shiv, ect basic combat options. Not gimmicks.

Like Shinobi I also find the edge actions and some of the general actions to be really gimmicky.

Like it or not 6E combat is balanced around PCs using Edge Actions on most attacks.  Totally okay to not like that.

This is pretty much what it boils down to. 6e is playable, and roughly as broken ("balanced") as 5e imo. It's just a very different animal than 5e, and that is going to be hard to impossible for some of us (myself included) to appreciate it in comparison. Fixing the issues with strength in melee and armor would go a long way for myself personally, but I also just don't care for the new edge system either, which is central to the mechanics.

But non-grenade spam combat should be using Edge frequently to eliminate threats quickly.

That is part of the problem with the system though. It was designed for characters to frequently be employing edge actions and boosts, but the resource gushes out far more quickly than it fills in. The pace is not sustainable.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-11-19/1141:21>
Called shots should never be for increased damage that’s what your dice pool is for.
I think I've said this before but I don't quite understand the thinking behind called shots in SR5 or 6. Surely the "I pulled off a good shot that does more damage" is already mechanically represented by rolling well (perhaps helped along by Edge)?

6e is playable, and roughly as broken ("balanced") as 5e imo. It's just a very different animal than 5e... but I also just don't care for the new edge system either, which is central to the mechanics.
My issue with Edge isn't the idea per se, it just feels too abstracted from cause ("I earned Edge because I had armour") to effect ("I shot the guy good.")

This, I think, is characteristically different from 5e -  I can't think of anything in 5e that feels as disconnected as Edge goes. 6e Edge is almost as abstract as something you'd get in narrative game like The Sprawl, but it's surrounded with the usual simulationist Shadowrun stuff like two pages of gun accessories each with bespoke rules. It feels awkward and out of place.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <09-11-19/1152:56>
If you don't like the NuEdge system in 6th, it's not going to be your favorite edition.  It seems too central to gameplay to ignore.  And by the time you're done houseruling it you're probably just better off with 5th. 

Totally understandable.  Personally, I play and run Missions so in a year it's what I'll be playing and running.  5th edition remains my personal preference though. 
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-11-19/1158:02>
Agreed. But conversely, I think it's not too difficult to extract large chunks of 6e and graft them onto 5e. I'm writing documents to that end about the action economy and Matrix rules.

Edit - which obviously I'd be happy to share in time, should people be interested.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-11-19/1244:21>
If you don't like the NuEdge system in 6th, it's not going to be your favorite edition.  It seems too central to gameplay to ignore.  And by the time you're done houseruling it you're probably just better off with 5th. 

Totally understandable.  Personally, I play and run Missions so in a year it's what I'll be playing and running.  5th edition remains my personal preference though.

I like the concept behind it but not it’s execution. One main thing I don’t like are edge actions. To me those would have been better represented by spending more minor actions. Like take anticipation. If it was shoot multiple targets 1 minor action and for each extra minor action spent one target is rolled at it’s full die pool. I’d be more for it. It gives extra actions and street sams more oomph for having having wired reflexes. When it’s edge everyone can do it and shooting 4 people quick doesn’t feel very magey just because I’m a decent agility elf and took firearms as a skill (though I also don’t think the improved initiative spell should exist, admittedly I’d ditch the new focus burst and over clock first those don’t like)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Typhus on <09-11-19/1401:30>
I'm also not a fan of the Edge part. 

It's too baked into everything, and not consistent in it's application.  Like much of the game there's way too much load placed on the GM to support the parts they didn't/couldn't develop.  The menu of Edge options and goofing around is too high, and causes near as much time loss as a simpler modifier system would have.  Then there's "Edge Actions", "Matrix Edge Actions", but no "Magic Edge Actions" or "Rigging Edge Actions".  Your gear, qualities, critter powers all impact it.  Then when you try to talk some things through, the rules discussions on interpreting them read like Kirk's Fizzbin explanations.  Haphazard is how I would characterize the system as a feel.  It also feel disconnected from the character's actions.  I'm not a fan of gating everyday combat options behind resource spends.  I should be able to roll to trip, disarm or make called shots any time.  Edge should allow specific outcomes I couldn't even attempt otherwise.

I will say that some of the new dice tricks might be salvageable as a backport or conversion option to an older edition.  When I look at what I like vs what I don't, the like list is very small.  There's only a couple of items that are really strong and not just at the "meh, yeah ok" level.  The main thing I appreciate is the action economy.  That has a home.  Conditions were already on my own radar, but their inclusion in 6E was a good call.  They are just way underused in 6E.  They could solve gear hacking and grenade damage in a heartbeat. The dislike list is about 3x as long as the like list, so it's not worth a fix attempt for me.  When I have tried to work on possible fixes, it breaks something else.  The "balance" is so tenuous if you pull on one thread, other parts tend to fall apart or require such an exhaustive rewrite that it would be easier to go with a wheel that's already spinning elsewhere.  Effort =/= Reward.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-11-19/1404:21>
Oh, yeah, statuses/conditions are good too. I forgot those.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-11-19/1512:23>
I'm not a huge fan of the armor system for statuses effects. Ablative isn't fun to track IMO.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Typhus on <09-11-19/1553:49>
If I was designing, I would reserve it for explosive effects, which are relatively rare.  So get caught in a blast radius of a frag grenade: -2 Armor from being shredded.  Applies Fragged effect to character.  Explosive grenade: -1 from burns, rips, concussion, etc., applies Concussed effect to character.
Stuff like that. 

Then you don't need the damage to take the character out of the fight to simulate the bad news of a grenade.  No more 30 nuyen auto-kills.  You won't be having any fun after getting hit, and you won't want to get hit again, but you can take at least one as your cue to rethink your life choices.  Same for panther cannon rounds. 
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-13-19/1836:38>
So, my two cents as someone new to the forums (but not the game), if I were to re-write the unarmed rules, I'd do something like this:

1. Give Unarmed Attacks a baseline damage rating.
Probably 2S, putting it on par with a Sap (which you can still use to take advantage of a Clubs specialty), a Knife (which makes the damage Physical and lets you use Blades and can still be thrown) and the Bike Chain (which still gives you a free Trip action).  So these weapons aren't invalidated and have uses, but unarmed is competitive.  Let Dermal Deposits still give a +1 to unarmed damage (free Knucks!) and Bone Lacing/Bone Density still gives its listed bonuses.  A troll with Titanium Bone Lacing would be hitting as hard as a Combat Axe... and I'm okay with this.  Similarly, putting Hardliner Gloves on a troll isn't going to make him hit any harder, just let him hit more lethally... and they won't be of any use to someone with Bone Lacing... but I'm okay with that too.

2. Make Strength the Default Close Combat Attribute.
This means that while the damage is baseline for unarmed combat, it will let your Strength be the determining factor in how hard you actually hit someone and damage them since it flows into the Base Damage + net hits system that every other combat method uses.  So stronger characters will have a better chance of getting net hits.  Special actions like Wrest and initiating a Grapple can still use Agility + Close Combat because, honestly, those actions still make sense as being about coordination and agility since you're not trying to hurt someone, just get a grip on them (and no matter how good a grip you get, prying a weapon out of the hands of the high Strength troll or actually restraining the high Strength ork is going to be pretty hard since those are contested by Strength).

3. Do away with Close Range Attack Values for most weapons.
Melee weapons with a Near Attack Value (Knives and Combat Knives for instance) would still have their listed vlaue.  And some exotic weapons like Bullwhips and Monofilament Whips can (and should) break this rule with their own attack ratings due to the nature of their use.  But what do you replace those Attack Values with?

4. Have the Strength + Reaction calculation for Attack Value apply to weapons classified as Unarmed.
So giving Unarmed Combat a baseline damage solves the problem that putting on a pair of Hardliner Gloves makes a high-Strength character do less damage.  This change makes it so that those same Hardliners don't make you somehow less threatening.  Knucks, Shock Gloves, Bike Chains and cyberlimbs with the Hardening or Shock Limb accessories are using the same Strength + Reaction calculation to maintain the same level of threat, with the weapon you're using determining the base damage.

5. Use Agility + Reaction for Close Range Attack Value of other melee weapons.
This is where the elf with a katana is going to excel.  You don't want to neglect Strength all together (anymore than a character who plans to use guns should completely neglect Agility), but the Agility based character is going to have an advantage in generating Edge to reroll dice, bump up their rolled numbers, use Edge Actions like Shank and Knockout Blow and add their Edge to their attack pool to compensate for a lower Strength for some potentially devastating hits.  A Strength based character can compensate with an average Agility (something the pure Unarmed character wouldn't necessarily need) and a strong Reaction (something a good combat character of any sort should probably have for Initiative purposes anyway).  But the Agility character is going to be more likely to gain an advantage and parlay that into results when using a weapon.

6. Exotic Weapons can break these rules.
Monofilament Whip is a great example of that already.  It should absolutely have an Attack Value of its own due to its nature.  And it's a weapon that should probably use Agility + Exotic Weapons to attack rather than Strength, which can easily just be specified in the description of the weapon.  Bullwhip is similar and should probably be Agility + Exotic Weapons and keep its default Attack Rating and let you get free Trips.  Exotic Weapons would just need to have these spelled out in their write-ups... but they're Exotic and special already, right?

EDIT:
Slight addendum I thought of after writing this up yesterday.  I realized that replacing the listed Attack Ratings of melee weapons with a calculated Attack Rating like unarmed has makes a Combat Knife and a Sword effectively the same (except the combat knife can be thrown).  I'd also dial the Combat Knife to 2P and the standard Knife down to 1P.  The 1P Knife is still useful because using it takes you from a 2S unarmed attack to a 1P armed attack so you're doing actual Physical damage, plus you can use a Blades specialty and throw the weapon in a pinch, while the Combat Knife is getting everything I said about the regular Knife above.

All the other weapons currently listed work just fine as is because even when the damage is the same, there's value to the weapon as it stands.  Katanas and Polearms have the same damage potential, but there's a big difference between wielding a katana and a polearm.  And when you get to Clubs, a Staff and Telescoping Staff have the same damage value, but... they're the same weapon, so okay.  (As an aside, I do question the COST of a Blackjack, but even in the RAW, I question 75 nuyen for a bag of sand.)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Tecumseh on <09-13-19/1956:49>
dartho45, welcome to the forums and thanks for writing up your thoughts.

I still like Finstersang's house rules (earlier in the thread on page 5) but the idea of tying an attack roll to Strength rather than Agility is an interesting one.

For the sake of discussion, let's take this another step: what would you do for thrown weapons? Obviously they are highly dependent on coordination and accuracy, which would suggest Agility, but doing so ignores the additional Strength that our larger metahuman brothers and sisters bring to the table. Would you leave the current (flat) damage values in place or would you attempt to adjust them somehow?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-13-19/2019:19>
dartho45, welcome to the forums and thanks for writing up your thoughts.

I still like Finstersang's house rules (earlier in the thread on page 5) but the idea of tying an attack roll to Strength rather than Agility is an interesting one.

For the sake of discussion, let's take this another step: what would you do for thrown weapons? Obviously they are highly dependent on coordination and accuracy, which would suggest Agility, but doing so ignores the additional Strength that our larger metahuman brothers and sisters bring to the table. Would you leave the current (flat) damage values in place or would you attempt to adjust them somehow?

Thanks for the welcome!  :)

As for Projectile Weapons... bit of a mixed bag.  Off the top of my head, I'd retain flat Damage and Attack for projectiles.  Bows and Crossbows I'd say use Agility + Athletics to hit the target (and Bows already have Strength factored into their use requirement in terms of "but you need to be strong to pull back the string" arguments).  Knives and Shurikens, I could see the argument for using Strength + Athletics to hit the target to determine that extra damage.

Since we really only have two examples of Projectile Weapons in the book right now (Bows and Sharp Thrown Things, basically), at this point in the edition, I'm okay handling this on a case-by-case basis based on the design of the weapon.  That may change if a more efficient solution comes along.

EDIT:
After considering this, I'm actually more comfortable with Strength + Athletics for throwing weapons.  I was concerned that this might neglect the argument for a lack of accuracy not being factored in, but you're using Athletics for the throw in the first place and the in-game lore behind Skills is that these represent your training in this particular area.  Even an Athletics 1, a Novice, means you've at least put in some practice with it.  So the Athletics portion of the attack is reflecting your skill at putting the knife where you're aiming, while Strength is the actual force of the throw.

So yeah, I'd be comfortable with Strength + Athletics for thrown weapons.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hephaestus on <09-13-19/2035:23>
Personally, I would use AGI+Athletics for the attack rolls, and take STR above DV to add to range.

Some of the ranges on thrown weapons are just impossible (who is throwing a knife out to 250 meters?). Amending the medium range to cap at 50m+10m/point of STR over the rating of the bow would mean higher STR characters can choose between more damage or more range when they buy a bow.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-13-19/2048:16>
Personally, I would use AGI+Athletics for the attack rolls, and take STR above DV to add to range.

Some of the ranges on thrown weapons are just impossible (who is throwing a knife out to 250 meters?). Amending the medium range to cap at 50m+10m/point of STR over the rating of the bow would mean higher STR characters can choose between more damage or more range when they buy a bow.

Speaking personally, I'm hesitant about the option of factoring Strength into things on the fly.  Especially when one of the stated goals of 6e is making it more math-light (ymmv on whether that's successful, or a good thing, but I'm going into this with that mentality in mind).

Additionally, I'm personally okay with some of the crazier ranges of thrown weapons.  The Attack Rating drops considerably between Near and Medium range, making them less dangerous and potentially giving a decently armored opponent that Edge they needed to turn your 2's against you because you decided to throw at that range.  And to me, it harkens to character concepts like ninja assassins throwing blades out of the shadows from nowhere and cutting down their enemies.  I'm okay with a little suspension of disbelief for the rule of cool.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-13-19/2144:07>
Personally, I would use AGI+Athletics for the attack rolls, and take STR above DV to add to range.

Some of the ranges on thrown weapons are just impossible (who is throwing a knife out to 250 meters?). Amending the medium range to cap at 50m+10m/point of STR over the rating of the bow would mean higher STR characters can choose between more damage or more range when they buy a bow.

Almost all the ranges are hinky since they unified the charts.  50 meters with a pistol isn't a easy shot. Its about ease though.  Still yeah outside of max strength trolls no one is throwing a knife 250 meters.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <09-14-19/0231:44>
If you're throwing vases and chairs we're definitely using Strength. O.o
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-14-19/1038:44>
An edit I added to my first post above:

EDIT:
Slight addendum I thought of after writing this up yesterday.  I realized that replacing the listed Attack Ratings of melee weapons with a calculated Attack Rating like unarmed has makes a Combat Knife and a Sword effectively the same (except the combat knife can be thrown).  I'd also dial the Combat Knife to 2P and the standard Knife down to 1P.  The 1P Knife is still useful because using it takes you from a 2S unarmed attack to a 1P armed attack so you're doing actual Physical damage, plus you can use a Blades specialty and throw the weapon in a pinch, while the Combat Knife is getting everything I said about the regular Knife above.

All the other weapons currently listed work just fine as is because even when the damage is the same, there's value to the weapon as it stands.  Katanas and Polearms have the same damage potential, but there's a big difference between wielding a katana and a polearm.  And when you get to Clubs, a Staff and Telescoping Staff have the same damage value, but... they're the same weapon, so okay.  (As an aside, I do question the COST of a Blackjack, but even in the RAW, I question 75 nuyen for a bag of sand.)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: BeCareful on <09-14-19/1909:55>
"Have you felt this bag, no pun intended? If you read the brochure, you'll see the 'sand' has been chemically formulated to cause the maximum time of unconsciousness, with no lasting brain damage nor memory loss if used correctly and responsibly, see warranty!"

But yeah, I do like how all these ideas are going, and hope that maybe some of them get put in the Extra Combat book.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shadowhack on <09-14-19/2356:20>
Hi, I've been reading the sixth edition and it seems to me having strength is a liability now for close combat unless you are unarmed.

As far as I can tell, DV is no longer strength/2 (round up) + the weapon DV, it's simply the weapon DV

In close, you get a strength + reaction attack rating, however, this disappears when equipping a combat axe which has a static number

Unarmed combat is also the only time you can use grappling (fair enough)

Is there any incentive to have strength on a weapon in 6th edition?

The only reason I can think of for them to change the rule would be to prevent my troll street samurai, Biggie Blast, with strength 8 from causing twice as much DR by hitting someone over the head with a club as he would from shooting someone with his Ares Predator 6 on an average roll. On the other hand he can do DR5 physical damage with his fist (dermal armor) so they really aren't nerfing strength to much.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-17-19/0806:37>
Hi, I've been reading the sixth edition and it seems to me having strength is a liability now for close combat unless you are unarmed.

As far as I can tell, DV is no longer strength/2 (round up) + the weapon DV, it's simply the weapon DV

In close, you get a strength + reaction attack rating, however, this disappears when equipping a combat axe which has a static number

Unarmed combat is also the only time you can use grappling (fair enough)

Is there any incentive to have strength on a weapon in 6th edition?

The only reason I can think of for them to change the rule would be to prevent my troll street samurai, Biggie Blast, with strength 8 from causing twice as much DR by hitting someone over the head with a club as he would from shooting someone with his Ares Predator 6 on an average roll. On the other hand he can do DR5 physical damage with his fist (dermal armor) so they really aren't nerfing strength to much.

I don't get the feeling this was done to particularly nerf anything.  If anything, it moved Strength into more of a niche category than other Attributes.  In the RAW, while it's got some uses like basic Carrying Capacity and preventing Grapple and Wrest, it's main draw is Unarmed Combat.  So in the RAW, if you aren't interested in Unarmed Combat, it's not really something you need a whole lot of.

The problem I've found is twofold:

1. The niche thing that Strength does... Unarmed Combat... it does it VERY well.  Too well, in fact, to be honest.  It's not hard at all to become a monster at unarmed combat since your Attack and Damage both scale with increasing Strength.  So the stronger you are, the better you are at Unarmed Combat.  Yeah, you need Agility to hit the broad side of a barn, but thanks to Strength adding to your Attack rating too, chances are very good you'll get some Edge to help you manage landing that blow.

2. This niche system exists alongside and in juxtaposition to melee weapons which follow the same combat system as firearms.  IE: No scaling Damage and Attack values.  This was stated to be done to make Agility characters effective with melee weapons and I would say it does achieve that goal.  But, when laid alongside the Unarmed Combat system, it just doesn't measure up.  If you end up in close quarters, fighting with melee, most combat-focused characters with even decent strength are better off throwing a punch than pulling a club.  Factor in even basic Bone Lacing or the Killing Hands Adept power and even the advantage blades have in dealing Physical damage goes out the window.

So this creates situations where weapons are useless to high Strength characters (or even moderate Strength characters) if they have some way to do physical damage with their bare hands like Bone Lacing or Killing Hands.  So the problem isn't that Strength has been nerfed.  It's that the one thing Strength does well, it does so well that it has become the ONLY way to fight in Melee if you want the best results.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <09-17-19/1209:36>
I said it before... but I kinda like the fact that big hulk trolls get to do massive damage with their fists. It is also not like the unarmed combat damage for a troll is "free", it require that you make a rather heavy investment into an attribute that most other people don't need more than maybe 3-4 in and in this edition Trolls also start from strength 1 like all other races. Coupled that with that you in this edition need to spend a minor action to move and it only let you move 10 meters combat turn which in turn make it much harder to actually get within range to deliver your punches (at least when compared to previous edition where you could teleport charge people with ease).

And I also like the fact that a street samurai will now benefit from switching from an assault rifle or sniper rifle to a katana in CQC (even with mediocre Strength) or that the nimble elf adept get to slice people up with her magic weapon focus without being required to have a strength of 8+.



Having said that, for people that still consider this to be a major issue a house rule could be to link all 'agile' weapons to Agility and link all 'heavy' weapons to Strength (where 'agile' weapons include, but are not limited to; knives, bike chains, swords, whips, etc. and 'heavy' weapons include, but are not limited to; clubs, axes, hammers, zweihanders, etc.)

Then give unarmed combat a fixed damage value of 2S and let the player choose if he or she wish to link it to Agility or Strength to represent if the player is using a 'soft' or a 'hard' martial art. (where 'softer' martial arts could for example represent; judo, aikido, jujustu, tai chi, etc. and 'harder' martial arts could for example represent; boxing, karate, kick boxing, tae kwon-do etc.)



That way you can still build your character towards Agility (and in that case you probably don't need more than maybe 3-4 Strength even if you have a melee focus) as I talked about in the beginning of the post, but this also let you build your melee character towards Strength (in which case you probably don't need more than maybe 3-4 Agility) and where a Troll will probably benefit (at least slightly) from picking up a sledgehammer or combat axe compared to using his fists - but a strong but not super agile troll will probably also benefit (at least slightly) more from using his dermal plated fists than a flimsy knife or katana (which kinda make sense). Unarmed combat damage will also no longer scale off the charts.

Win - Win ?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <09-17-19/1224:51>
I said it before... but I kinda like the fact that big hulk trolls get to do massive damage with their fists. It is also not like the unarmed combat damage for a troll is "free", it require that you make a rather heavy investment into an attribute that most other people don't need more than maybe 3-4 in and in this edition Trolls also start from strength 1 like all other races. Coupled that with that you in this edition need to spend a minor action to move and it only let you move 10 meters combat turn which in turn make it much harder to actually get within range to deliver your punches (at least when compared to previous edition where you could teleport charge people with ease).

And I also like the fact that a street samurai will now benefit from switching from an assault rifle or sniper rifle to a katana in CQC (even with mediocre Strength) or that the nimble elf adept get to slice people up with her magic weapon focus without being required to have a strength of 8+.



Having said that, for people that still consider this to be a major issue a house rule could be to link all 'agile' weapons to Agility and link all 'heavy' weapons to Strength (where 'agile' weapons include, but are not limited to; knives, bike chains, swords, whips, etc. and 'heavy' weapons include, but are not limited to; clubs, axes, hammers, zweihanders, etc.)

Then give unarmed combat a fixed damage value of 2S and let the player choose if he or she wish to link it to Agility or Strength to represent if the player is using a 'soft' or a 'hard' martial art. (where 'softer' martial arts could for example represent; judo, aikido, jujustu, tai chi, etc. and 'harder' martial arts could for example represent; boxing, karate, kick boxing, tae kwon-do etc.)



That way you can still build your character towards Agility (and in that case you probably don't need more than maybe 3-4 Strength even if you have a melee focus) as I talked about in the beginning of the post, but this also let you build your melee character towards Strength (in which case you probably don't need more than maybe 3-4 Agility) and where a Troll will probably benefit (at least slightly) from picking up a sledgehammer or combat axe compared to using his fists - but a strong but not super agile troll will probably also benefit (at least slightly) more from using his dermal plated fists than a flimsy knife or katana (which kinda make sense). Unarmed combat damage will also no longer scale off the charts.

Win - Win ?

While I´d still prefer my "add half the difference of Str and the Base Damage to the Damage Code" solution, this is certainly another good way to solve the Fists > Combat Axe problem, especially if you also think that Fists > Guns is a huge realism problem.

Personally, I´m ok with Melee Combat having more damage potential than Firearms, since melee requires you to also get close to the target. It´s less realistic, but a bit more "balanced" in turn; Like how in many FPS the melee options deal more damage than the boomsticks.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: wraith on <09-17-19/1543:02>
It is looking like this is something I am going to house rule. I'm going to assume that all damage listed is for a str 3 individual. So that would be an unarmed damage of 2 (str/2 round up). So a combat knife that has DV of 3 I'll change to str/2 round up +1.
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.

Someone with more than double the unaugmented human potential maximum strength hitting you with an axe should hurt a lot, yes.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <09-17-19/1633:13>
But honestly... should it hurt MORE than the unarmed attack? Would Juggernaut have done more damage than ripping Deadpool in half if he hit him with a combat axe instead?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-17-19/1658:53>
Also don’t forget that an assault cannon is a mildly scaled down tank cannon; 20-25 mm calibre, or about the same as a modern anti-aircraft gun. It’d leave an exit wound the size of your torso. Should any amount of getting punched exceed that?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <09-17-19/1721:04>
But honestly... should it hurt MORE than the unarmed attack? Would Juggernaut have done more damage than ripping Deadpool in half if he hit him with a combat axe instead?

Not necessarily, but he also should not do significantly less. And bear in mind that we are not just talking about hyper-augmented Trolls with Strength 13-14 and Bone Lacing here. With a Strength of 3 and no additional damage helpers on top, you are already on par with an awfull lot of melee weapons, and your AR is likely already higher.

Adding the full strength/2 to the base damage scales up pretty damn high, true. Up to 12P, to be precise (5P Base Damage + 14/2 from a max-strength Troll). However, it would still only add 3-2 more damage to the already insane damage potential of a Str 14 Troll with maxed Bone Lacing (14/2 + 2 from the Bone Lacing = 9, +1 from Dermal Deposits if you GM allows it to stack). And that´s all without adding critical strike to the mix ::)

Adding [Strength - Base Damage]/2 (round up) to the weapon is a solution that scales a bit less extremely. An unaugmented Human with Strength 6 could raise the Damage of a Combat Axe by one, or the Damage of a Baseball Bat by 2. A Strength 14 Uber-Troll could deal 5+9/2=10 Damage with a Combat Axe (that´s 0-1 point of Damage more than what is already possible RAW with Bone Lacing!) or 3+11/2=9 Damage with a Basaball Bat. Sure, that´s pretty high, but it needs a lot of investment and doesn´t really exceed anything that´s already possible RAW. In fact, even with this houserule, bone lacing would still be the favourable option, since you will have a ridiculously high AR as well.

Also don’t forget that an assault cannon is a mildly scaled down tank cannon; 20-25 mm calibre, or about the same as a modern anti-aircraft gun. It’d leave an exit wound the size of your torso. Should any amount of getting punched exceed that?

Realisticly, no. From a balancing POV, it can be justified. And it´s a little bit less unrealistic if you assume that "any amount of getting punched" may translate into "getting ripped in half by a up mutated human with artificial Bones and Muscles" and not just to "you recieve a very hard punch".

One thing is for sure: That sentiment is still more believable than "luckily, the mutated human with artificial Bones and Muscles picked up a sledgehammer to hit you with, so he´s only doing half the damage"  ::)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Lormyr on <09-17-19/1722:45>
Including ammunition types and firing mode, firearms damage ranges from 1P to 9P.

Strength scores range from 1-14. If all melee attacks DV were equal to base weapon plus 1/2 strength, it would work out quit well if those base DVs were:

Small weapons: DV0, but damage is P (knives, clubs, brass knuckles, ect.)
Medium weapons: DV1 (pretty much all 1 handed melee weapons)
Large weapons: DV2 (pretty much all 2 handed melee weapons)

I personally would even add an additional +1 or +2 down that board, primarily due to combat balance of melee doing a pinch more damage because ranged has every other advantage.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: wraith on <09-17-19/1729:02>
But honestly... should it hurt MORE than the unarmed attack? Would Juggernaut have done more damage than ripping Deadpool in half if he hit him with a combat axe instead?

I mean, yes?  Leverage is a thing, and a heavy bit of metal on a stick hurting more than a punch is pretty non-controversial?

But honestly... should it hurt MORE than the unarmed attack? Would Juggernaut have done more damage than ripping Deadpool in half if he hit him with a combat axe instead?

If by 'mildly' scaled down you mean exponentially scaled down.  Modern tank main armaments are 120mm, and the rounds they fire are roughly the same size as a Panther cannon, if a bit shorter at 'only' 980mm and 18.6kg.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-17-19/1800:16>
Well at the super hero level the fist might be better as weapons would break in their hands before using half their strength. But, Max troll isn’t even Spider-Man strength it’s closer to captain America strength. My kind is blanking in 1-2 ton lift strength hero’s right now. FASERIP remarkable range. So yeah a combat axe troll should be more deadly than a trolls fist. Weapons may have to be reinforced for them a bit but there are racial cost mods for a reason.

Part of the problem as someone alluded to is even elven street sams with a 3 strength probably unarmed attacks are better than their katana attacks. I’m not saying bone density is required but I expect it will be on 95% of the street sams. 2+2 and your damage is katana and your AV is higher. And chances are it’s a freebie as you bought it for the 4 soak dice on the cheap. Probably at delta level.

Personally all the bone mods in the world at best should do is change your damage to physical. It’s just brass knucks. But that’s on 2e, 3e, 4e and 5e we well.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-17-19/2041:18>
But honestly... should it hurt MORE than the unarmed attack? Would Juggernaut have done more damage than ripping Deadpool in half if he hit him with a combat axe instead?

Should it hurt like hell when Juggernaut rips Deadpool in half?  Absolutely.  But when Colossus rips an axle off a ruined bus and smacks Juggernaut in the face, that should also hurt.  When Hulk swings his big axe at Thor he should send him flying across the arena to smash into the wall.

A giant Strength 14 troll doing catastrophic damage with his bare hands is a good thing.  But when that same troll hits you with something, it should probably also be catastrophic.

But this isn't just limited to super strong characters.  Let's take an elf who goes full Agility 7 and a Reaction 5 because he wants to have a strong Initiative.  He takes a Strength 3 because he doesn't want to just dump Strength so he can handle some Grappling and Wrest attempts, but it's not a focus.  This character has an Attack of 8 with his bare hands and a Damage of 2S.  This is on par with most melee weapons, so nothing too crazy, right?

But then let's take that character and start adding augmentations.  We're talking combat characters, after all, right?  We'll assume a heavily cybered street samurai concept  Well, you're going to be in a lot of fighting with that katana you're planning on using and you want to be able to take a hit.  Let's spring for some Bone Lacing.  We'll go big since we're planning to do a lot of fighting, so let's go with Titanium.  In addition to its defensive bonuses, this also turns your damage into Physical, adds +3 to your Attack rating and +2 to your damage.  So now, without any further modification, we have an Attack Rating of 11 and an Unarmed Damage of 4P.  Right off the bat, that's better Attack and equal damage to the katana you're going to be wielding as a high-Agility character.  And since you're using Close Combat for both actions, that Agility you invested in is going to be just as useful to you for punching as it is slicing.

The only advantages the sword still has going is access to the Shank Edge Action and probably a Specialty in Blades for two extra dice if you plan to be good at that sword.  So there's still some reason using a blade over punching, but they're easily on par now.

But that's just one augmentation.  We're a street samurai, right?  Let's add on some Wired Reflexes, or some Reaction Enhancers.  Or maybe both since they can work together as long as they're both wireless.  Or play it safe from the hackers and go with Synaptic Boosters for the same effect.  Those are going to push your Unarmed Attack rating higher, but the katana's going to stay at 10.  A little Muscle Replacement or Muscle Augmentation is also going to boost your Unarmed, but not your katana.  At what point does the extra two dice to attack with and access to one Edge Action get outweighed by simple stats?

Unless you intentionally gimp your Strength/avoid Bone Lacing or other similar powers, then even the high Agility characters are going to suffer from their Unarmed being a more viable option than their weapon of choice.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-20-19/0701:26>
And I also like the fact that a street samurai will now benefit from switching from an assault rifle or sniper rifle to a katana in CQC (even with mediocre Strength)
I don’t see how that is true. A Strength 3 / Agility 9 / Reaction 9 firearms-focussed character with mid-tier bone lacing already does katana-grade damage with their fists. The katana has AR 10, their fists have AR 12. So why are they bothering to carry the katana - which can be seen, and will attract attention, and takes a Major action to ready - when they could just start punching instead?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-20-19/1031:35>
So, the more I think about it and stress test things, the more I'm becoming convinced that Bone Lacing/Bone Density may be the bigger culprit in the melee/unarmed disparity, as Shinobi Killfist pointed out earlier.

I know this might be a Shadowrun sacrilege, but hear me out a minute.

If we take out the Unarmed bonuses and just say that Bone Lacing/Bone Density only make your damage Physical, the system becomes a little more balanced.

A super strong, Str 14 character would do 7P. A combat axe is 5P. A Minor Action to call the shot raises this to 9P or 7P, but if you have a specialty in Blades (I'm assuming a specialty in Blades because if your specialty was in Unarmed, you wouldn't be mad about that axe in the first place) and burn a single Edge for Shank, this becomes 7P with the axe while using the same dice you would use to punch, while that 9P also means losing 4 dice. That's fairly competitive and still justifies a big troll carrying that axe.

The Str 3-4 elf with a sword is only going to be doing 2P with a punch, making his sword or katana the more damaging option.  Even the Str 5+ sword elf will be doing about the same damage as his sword, but with dice and Edge, there's reasons both would be useful, giving him options.

I think the unarmed bonuses from Bone Lacing/Bone Density might be an artifact from older editions that doesn't work with the changes to weapons.

Now... what this doesn't fix is the disparity in Attack Rating. A fully augmented Str 14/Reaction 10 (either Str 13/Reaction 10 or Srt 14/Reaction 9 is available out of the box without a whole lot of struggle if you do pick the right priorities) character could punch some dragons without granting the dragon Edge. That katana is always going to do 10 Atrack.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Finstersang on <09-20-19/1042:43>
The bone augmentations enhance the problem, but they are not the culprit. It makes sense that you deal more damage with bone lacing than without, and it´s at least not totally unbelievable if that´s sometimes enough to make some smaller melee weapons obsolete.

The core problem is that unarmed scales with Strength twofold (Base Damage and Attack rating) while Melee weapons don´t scale at all. It´s a terrible choice that should note have made it in the finished (hard to call it that...) published rulebook.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-20-19/1043:19>
I agree with all of that, I don’t think the +DV for bone lacing is important - it’s plenty worth getting for the soak effects. And it’s well out of balance in SR6e. Most ranged weapons had their damage values divided by about 1/3 in 6e; but unarmed damage and bone lacing’s +DV we’re both only halved, and both round up, too.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-20-19/1258:07>
And I also like the fact that a street samurai will now benefit from switching from an assault rifle or sniper rifle to a katana in CQC (even with mediocre Strength)
I don’t see how that is true. A Strength 3 / Agility 9 / Reaction 9 firearms-focussed character with mid-tier bone lacing already does katana-grade damage with their fists. The katana has AR 10, their fists have AR 12. So why are they bothering to carry the katana - which can be seen, and will attract attention, and takes a Major action to ready - when they could just start punching instead?
OMG I just realised.

Speaking of the idea that 6e is good because it powers up iconic weapons like katanas to the point where they are useful for some characters who previously couldn't benefit from them... Hand razors only do 2P. They make no sense for almost anyone. A character with Str 3 and Bone Lacing 1 does more damage by punching. You can't get much more iconic than Molly Millions, the O.G. razorgirl. But she doesn't reasonably exist in Shadowrun 6e.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-20-19/1312:05>
The bone augmentations enhance the problem, but they are not the culprit. It makes sense that you deal more damage with bone lacing than without, and it´s at least not totally unbelievable if that´s sometimes enough to make some smaller melee weapons obsolete.

The core problem is that unarmed scales with Strength twofold (Base Damage and Attack rating) while Melee weapons don´t scale at all. It´s a terrible choice that should note have made it in the finished (hard to call it that...) published rulebook.

But does it still make sense for bone augmentations to do extra damage?  They're already turning your punch from Stun to Physical, which is a good enough reflection of "I hit harder than normal" all on its own.  And without that extra damage factored in, Str/2 damage actually seems to scale into the existing system just fine in terms of Damage.

Is it the only problem?  No.  But it's a big one.  A very big one.  Taking that out solves a LOT of the disparity.  And frankly, like the system or not, it is the current system, and it's a lot easier to take away bone augment damage boosts than it is to go into the ENTIRE system of weapons stats and rescale everything or go back and redo it to factor Strength back into Melee.  A tweak is a lot better than a re-write.

Now, as I said, the OTHER big problem is the scaling Attack on that I'll agree with you.  Scaling that based on Strength + Reaction causes some serious issues.  It has symmetry with the Magic and Matrix systems of combining to Attributes to get your Attack Rating (ie: Magic + Tradition Attribute and Attack + Sleaze), and I'm pretty sure they have similar origins in the design process.  However, once you factor in augmentations, the numbers that doing this for Unarmed Combat spits out are... frankly crazy.

The Magic Attack Rating is going to top out at 14 pre-Initiation and Matrix is going to top out at 18 with current listed equipment.  The Matrix one seems a little high, but when you consider that Matrix Defense can top out at 21 right now, it's internally balanced.

Current Unarmed Attack Rating tops out at 27 (with bone augments working as RAW, but this only goes down to 24 if you take the proposed action of taking bone augments out of the math).  Two of the three sample Dracoforms have Defenses listed of 26 and 24.  So top level Unarmed Attack Rating could punch a dragon and not give them Edge.  With that in mind, either Unarmed Damage needs some sort of fixed Attack Rating, or the scaling system needs to be dialed back a LOT, because it's way out of the range of other weapons.

Scaling Attack Rating, I don't think it can be solved with just a tweak.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: GuardDuty on <09-20-19/1316:49>
Quote
OMG I just realised.

Speaking of the idea that 6e is good because it powers up iconic weapons like katanas to the point where they are useful for some characters who previously couldn't benefit from them... Hand razors only do 2P. They make no sense for almost anyone. A character with Str 3 and Bone Lacing 1 does more damage by punching. You can't get much more iconic than Molly Millions, the O.G. razorgirl. But she doesn't reasonably exist in Shadowrun 6e.

Not a very good example.  Hand razors have never been good, and have typically been outshined by both hand blades and spurs, with a similar essence cost and for hardly any more nuyen.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-20-19/1318:13>
Current Unarmed Attack Rating tops out at 27 (with bone augments working as RAW, but this only goes down to 24 if you take the proposed action of taking bone augments out of the math).  Two of the three sample Dracoforms have Defenses listed of 26 and 24.  So top level Unarmed Attack Rating could punch a dragon and not give them Edge.
Huh, on that note, a barehanded strength 2 wageslave thumping a dragon on the snoot only grants it 1 Edge. The exact same Edge outcome as a Strength 13 / Agility 10 troll going H.A.M. on it with a two-handed sledgehammer. That feels weird, too.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-20-19/1322:29>

Not a very good example.  Hand razors have never been good, and have typically been outshined by both hand blades and spurs, with a similar essence cost and for hardly any more nuyen.
I wasn't the one who kept playing the "but static damage codes are good because katanas are so iconic" counter-argument; and you definitely don't get more iconic than hand razors in my opinion. Molly Millions! Come on!

But spurs are the same though, just 1 point higher (DV 3P.) You get the better damage from unarmed at Str 5 with tier 1 bone lacing, or at Str 3 with tier 3 bone lacing. So that's another iconic weapon confined to the dustbin of mechanical near-irrelevance.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: adzling on <09-20-19/1346:34>
is this thread an attempt to prove that 6e's melee damage is borked?

If so congratulations, mission accomplished!
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: darthor45 on <09-20-19/1805:12>
is this thread an attempt to prove that 6e's melee damage is borked?

If so congratulations, mission accomplished!

Well, that's not the attitude I was approaching the conversation with, but you're welcome to your own opinions.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Serin_Marst on <09-20-19/2002:18>
Looking at that maximum unarmed AR, I wonder if maybe we're approching this from the wrong angle.

Fix unarmed at 2S (maybe bump it to 3S with S 7+ like the hardening limb mod).  Then tweak the AR of melee weapons so that their AR replaces one of the attributes in the unarmed AR equasion.  if 2 is considered average this edition, reduce listed AR by 2 then AR + R for quick weapons and AR + S for heavy weapons, leave monofilament and shock weapons as is.

If you go back to 1e-3e this mirrors the interaction of S and armor in the FASA editions, like ranged AR does with DR.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-21-19/0750:55>
The bone augmentations enhance the problem, but they are not the culprit. It makes sense that you deal more damage with bone lacing than without, and it´s at least not totally unbelievable if that´s sometimes enough to make some smaller melee weapons obsolete.

The core problem is that unarmed scales with Strength twofold (Base Damage and Attack rating) while Melee weapons don´t scale at all. It´s a terrible choice that should note have made it in the finished (hard to call it that...) published rulebook.

As they have always just been glorified brass knucks that’s the damage they should be doing. Back to 2e they have been doing sword
Level damage and that never made sense. And devalued many other attack ware like spurs or razors.

But it’s just part of the problem and makes it more apparent earlier. Though if a street sam using a katana is a iconic image you want it is pretty necessary to change. I don’t think street sams will ever switch to a katana due to short range. They’d just shoot at point blank again. Potentially giving your opponent edge is a small penalty. Using a major to switch weapons is a bigger penalty.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hephaestus on <09-21-19/0842:17>
As they have always just been glorified brass knucks that’s the damage they should be doing. Back to 2e they have been doing sword
Level damage and that never made sense. And devalued many other attack ware like spurs or razors.

I never really understood why having a harder material grafted to your bones did more damage. I can see changing your damage code from S to P (and maybe a flat +1 STR), but no matter what material you are punching/kicking with you're still swinging with your normal body. If you wanted more damage, take STR 'wares.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: steelybran on <09-21-19/0846:50>
As they have always just been glorified brass knucks that’s the damage they should be doing. Back to 2e they have been doing sword
Level damage and that never made sense. And devalued many other attack ware like spurs or razors.

I never really understood why having a harder material grafted to your bones did more damage. I can see changing your damage code from S to P (and maybe a flat +1 STR), but no matter what material you are punching/kicking with you're still swinging with your normal body. If you wanted more damage, take STR 'wares.

Mass, actually.  The more your arm weighs, the more energy in the blow.  Force is equal to Mass * Acceleration.  The heaviness of the arm, in this case, is 1/2 the formula of how hard you hit something.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hephaestus on <09-21-19/0907:24>
As they have always just been glorified brass knucks that’s the damage they should be doing. Back to 2e they have been doing sword
Level damage and that never made sense. And devalued many other attack ware like spurs or razors.

I never really understood why having a harder material grafted to your bones did more damage. I can see changing your damage code from S to P (and maybe a flat +1 STR), but no matter what material you are punching/kicking with you're still swinging with your normal body. If you wanted more damage, take STR 'wares.

Mass, actually.  The more your arm weighs, the more energy in the blow.  Force is equal to Mass * Acceleration.  The heaviness of the arm, in this case, is 1/2 the formula of how hard you hit something.

Since they are only replacing a portion of the bone with plastic/metal (say ~50%), I don't think you would be adding nearly enough mass to account for such a drastic change in damage. I mean, most industrial polymers are as dense or less dense than bone, so no additional mas per volume. And since Ti is only about 2.4x more dense than bone (4500 kg/m3 vs 1900 kg/m3) you would only be adding a kg or so to the mass of the arm of an average human. That is why I said maybe the +1 STR, but not a ramping damage code.

EDIT: And also, having more mass doesn't mean your muscles have been augmented to be able to swing that mass with the same effectiveness as with your normal bones, so slightly less acceleration.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <09-21-19/0933:49>
Personally I think that bone lacing and dermal deposits should simply switch the damage code from S to P, without actually adding any extra damage value to the attack...

Assault rifles will probably still remain the perfect all-round weapon if you want something that is highly efficient in both indoor and outdoor battle. In this edition assault rifles can even be used at 1500+ ranges (which is a bit crazy to be honest).

Sniper rifles are kinda niche but they seem to be highly efficient (even more so than assault rifles) once you start talking about ranges beyond 500 meters (and even more so beyond 1500 meter ranges)

I don't think anyone will spend the action economy to actually switch weapon in ongoing combat (unless you get to trigger some sort of quick draw alternative or your weapon cannot be used at all for this range), but if you enter a CQC area (indoor apartment for example) it seem to make sense to switch to a Katana rather than going in with an Assault Rifle or a Sniper Rifle (if you have the skills to use it).

In many situations I also think we will see people using a pistol or a SMG (or two) as their go-to all-round weapon - rather than an Assault Rifle (as in this edition pistols and SMGs seem to be highly useful up to 250 meters, which is a bit crazy to be honest). And I also think we will see street samurai characters with the ambidextrous quality; wielding a SMG (for wide burst anticipation) in one hand and a katana (for intercept or, more commonly, block into wrest) in the other.

We will probably also see some niche Troll-builds that will prioritize strength in order to use unarmed combat (close combat) and bow (athletics) rather than pistols/SMGs/Assault Rifles (firearms).
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Iron Serpent Prince on <09-21-19/1010:31>
I never really understood why having a harder material grafted to your bones did more damage.

I always took it as primarily psychological, mostly.

When you know your hand won't break when punching through a concrete wall, you tend to not instinctively hold back when pummeling a street ganger.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hephaestus on <09-21-19/1047:05>
Personally I think that bone lacing and dermal deposits should simply switch the damage code from S to P, without actually adding any extra damage value to the attack...

Assault rifles will probably still remain the perfect all-round weapon if you want something that is highly efficient in both indoor and outdoor battle. In this edition assault rifles can even be used at 1500+ ranges (which is a bit crazy to be honest).

Sniper rifles are kinda niche but they seem to be highly efficient (even more so than assault rifles) once you start talking about ranges beyond 500 meters (and even more so beyond 1500 meter ranges)

I don't think anyone will spend the action economy to actually switch weapon in ongoing combat (unless you get to trigger some sort of quick draw alternative or your weapon cannot be used at all for this range), but if you enter a CQC area (indoor apartment for example) it seem to make sense to switch to a Katana rather than going in with an Assault Rifle or a Sniper Rifle (if you have the skills to use it).

In many situations I also think we will see people using a pistol or a SMG (or two) as their go-to all-round weapon - rather than an Assault Rifle (as in this edition pistols and SMGs seem to be highly useful up to 250 meters, which is a bit crazy to be honest). And I also think we will see street samurai characters with the ambidextrous quality; wielding a SMG (for wide burst anticipation) in one hand and a katana (for intercept or, more commonly, block into wrest) in the other.

We will probably also see some niche Troll-builds that will prioritize strength in order to use unarmed combat (close combat) and bow (athletics) rather than pistols/SMGs/Assault Rifles (firearms).

I agree on all points.

Most urban/indoor operations aren't going beyond 50m or so, let a lone 250m, so things like heavy pistols and SMGs have more value as standard kit (the Praetor is my go-to in 6th). Having bone lacing (even without the STR buff) in those situations give you options when someone gets up close, so you could try to shoot at reduced AR or just punch/kick them for reduced damage.

I always took it as primarily psychological, mostly.

When you know your hand won't break when punching through a concrete wall, you tend to not instinctively hold back when pummeling a street ganger.

That could be true, so long as you don't mind leaving your skin on the wall.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: GuardDuty on <09-21-19/1055:55>


As they have always just been glorified brass knucks that’s the damage they should be doing. Back to 2e they have been doing sword
Level damage and that never made sense. And devalued many other attack ware like spurs or razors.

Actually, in 3E they went from (Str+2)M to (Str+4)M Stun in the CRB, but if you chose to do physical damage the power of the attack was halved.  Kinda sounds like bringing that part back would bring it more in line with other damage values in SR6.

On edit: Shadowtech (looks like 1E) also has them listed as doing half Power when they're used for physical damage.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <09-21-19/1118:19>
Most urban/indoor operations aren't going beyond 50m or so, let a lone 250m, so things like heavy pistols and SMGs have more value as standard kit (the Praetor is my go-to in 6th). Having bone lacing (even without the STR buff) in those situations give you options when someone gets up close, so you could try to shoot at reduced AR or just punch/kick them for reduced damage.
Same feelings. When I first saw the definitions of the ranges for the table, I was quite surprised. They seem unrealistic for many of the weapons, and also seem very concerned with a lot of long ranges that never get used at my table. Almost all our stuff happens at a range of no more than tens of metres. Other than that they seem fine, mechanically; they’re just... very leggy.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-21-19/1346:27>


As they have always just been glorified brass knucks that’s the damage they should be doing. Back to 2e they have been doing sword
Level damage and that never made sense. And devalued many other attack ware like spurs or razors.

Actually, in 3E they went from (Str+2)M to (Str+4)M Stun in the CRB, but if you chose to do physical damage the power of the attack was halved.  Kinda sounds like bringing that part back would bring it more in line with other damage values in SR6.

On edit: Shadowtech (looks like 1E) also has them listed as doing half Power when they're used for physical damage.

So much for my memory. At least this lapse I won’t blame on age. It’s just been a while since I played 3e so I forgot that twist.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-21-19/1352:13>
Most urban/indoor operations aren't going beyond 50m or so, let a lone 250m, so things like heavy pistols and SMGs have more value as standard kit (the Praetor is my go-to in 6th). Having bone lacing (even without the STR buff) in those situations give you options when someone gets up close, so you could try to shoot at reduced AR or just punch/kick them for reduced damage.
Same feelings. When I first saw the definitions of the ranges for the table, I was quite surprised. They seem unrealistic for many of the weapons, and also seem very concerned with a lot of long ranges that never get used at my table. Almost all our stuff happens at a range of no more than tens of metres. Other than that they seem fine, mechanically; they’re just... very leggy.

It’s whats lost for ease I guess. Heck a pistols short range going out to 50 meters is pretty insane in itself it’s effective range at 250 meters is crazy as well. Hitting a non moving target at 50 meters with a pistol in non combat situations requires a decent amount of practice. Most people I see at the range shoot at the 5-20 meter range with their pistols. 50 meters is like the end of many pistol ranges, it’s a brick wall past 50.

So while I get the idea of unifying distances for ease the ranges are off for imo the most common weapons used by shadowrunners. (Pistols)
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Noble Drake on <09-22-19/1506:42>
So while I get the idea of unifying distances for ease the ranges are off for imo the most common weapons used by shadowrunners. (Pistols)
Seems to me like the devs looked at a particular source of info on most commonly used firearms and saw a lot of assault rifles and shotguns as primary weapons so they set the ranges to fit those best and "squished" or "stretched" everything else to match that scale.

If I were the one making the choice on range scaling, I'd have basically set the scale to heavy pistol ranges - not because those get used most often in my experience, but because those ranges (or shorter ranges) are the ones most often coming up in runs (both of my own devising and published).

I can't say which weapons actually show up more frequently than others because, while I presume organized play has similar traits to organized play leagues for other games which I have experience where-in the characters are usually built with a concern of having the 'strongest' build for character type, I haven't actually played any organized shadowrun, and my personal groups of shadowrun players always manage to be players that want to use different types of weapons from each other (i.e. if someone has an assault rifle for their character, no one else will use an assault rifle even if they were also wanting to use automatics - they'd grab an SMG) so there's only one of each per game.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <09-22-19/1804:15>
Yeah I suspect our games a similar then. No idea what organized play looks like but in ours it’s all about weapons you can conceal. People may own a assault rifle. I think our street sam finally bought one 2 runs back. But it’s only pulled out for raids which are rare for us.

I think the issue is if you modeled the ranges after pistols ranges you’d need like 20 range categories to cover a rifle or the jump from pistol end range to rifle next range would be huge.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: SDTroll on <11-12-19/1130:11>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Shadowjack on <11-12-19/1133:07>
A house rule I've been testing a little is that significant strength disparities in melee combat earn edge for the stronger party. It's simple and makes sense.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <11-12-19/1140:24>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <11-12-19/1150:46>
"Random corpkid showed up to the wrong place at the wrong time, and now he's a witness to our crimes! Quick, KO him before he calls the cops, but don't kill him because that would attract the wrath of his corp."

That doesn't sound very 'hypothetical' to me.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Lormyr on <11-12-19/1203:43>
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 sensibly cover what should happen when a peak strength character attacks a significantly weaker character while both wield the same weapon?

I'd love for you all to run a small experiment. Ask any gaming friend who is not a literal idiot the following question and see what they say:

"Character A is a 2.6 meter tall, 400kg troll, with peak musculature for his species and size. Character B is a 1.8 meter tall, 78kg human, with fairly average musculature for his species and size. Both characters wield a battle axe of the same size and craftsmanship. Whom should inflict more damage with a successful hit to the same location of an identical enemy?".

I guarantee all answers will be Character A. Why? Because it is the only answer that makes sense.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: SDTroll on <11-12-19/1205:10>
Eh, I care more about realistic scenarios runners will encounter than hypothetical cases the rules aren't meant to cover to begin with.

OK, how's this.  While on a run, your group finds a pair of Hardliner gloves.  Turn to the ork unarmed monster with the 12 strength.  "Grab those, man, they are designed to make you punch even harder."
"Nah, chummer.  Those make me punch like a anorexic elf.  I do more damage without them."
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <11-12-19/1207:04>
"Random corpkid showed up to the wrong place at the wrong time, and now he's a witness to our crimes! Quick, KO him before he calls the cops, but don't kill him because that would attract the wrath of his corp."

That doesn't sound very 'hypothetical' to me.

Or Troll Bouncer vs typical Decker... "Oh god quick, give that Troll a knife before he kills me!"   : )

Yeah.  Not the best.  Unfortunately house rule and hope for Errata is what you've got at this time if this is immersion breaking enough to disrupt your table.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: SDTroll on <11-12-19/1211:22>
Something I was thinking about, what do people think of having unarmed based on strength, like it is, but having melee weapons add a smaller fraction of your strength to them?  That would make it less efficient for really strong characters to use small weapons, but not eliminate the value of weapons all together. 

For example, Unarmed is strength/2.  Melee weapons get Strength/3 added to their damage.  So a knife with 1P damage wielded by a strength 2 person would do 2P, more than the 1S they do unarmed, but a 12 strength character would do 5P with the knife and 6S unarmed.  At some point, the amount of force behind the knife becomes irrelevant, once it is all the way inside you and has cracked a few ribs on impact.  The numbers are just made up, it's the concept I'm considering.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Hobbes on <11-12-19/1215:39>
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 sensibly cover what should happen when a peak strength character attacks a significantly weaker character while both wield the same weapon?

I'd love for you all to run a small experiment. Ask any gaming friend who is not a literal idiot the following question and see what they say:

"Character A is a 2.6 meter tall, 400kg troll, with peak musculature for his species and size. Character B is a 1.8 meter tall, 78kg human, with fairly average musculature for his species and size. Both characters wield a battle axe of the same size and craftsmanship. Whom should inflict more damage with a successful hit to the same location of an identical enemy?".

I guarantee all answers will be Character A. Why? Because it is the only answer that makes sense.

Well they are.  Just arguably the result lacks verisimilitude, and don't match up with player expectations.  Which is a problem that lacks a good solution.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: skalchemist on <11-12-19/1250:34>
In our upcoming game we have decided on a house rule that says that if you pick up a melee weapon and use it your effectiveness will not decrease from what it was when you were unarmed.  So, taking the example of a katana (AR 10, DV 4P)

* you have Strength 3 and Reaction 2; your unarmed attack rating is 5 and unarmed damage is 2S. Using the katana your AR is 10 and your DV is 4P.
* you have Strength 5 and Reaction 7; your unarmed attack rating is 12 and your unarmed damage is 3S. Using the Katana your AR stays at 12, and your damage goes to 4P.
* you have Strength 9 and Reaction 3; your unarmed attack rating is 12 and your damage is 5S. Using the Katana, the only difference is your damage becomes physical; your AR is 12 and your damage is 5P.

A few outlier effects would not follow this rule, such as Bone Density Augmentation (which essentially turns your fists into melee weapons anyway), but otherwise I think it should work for us.  I'm not sure it is particularly "realistic" in any fashion, but at least it preserves for you average Shadowrunner some mechanical value for using a melee weapon without paying a penalty for doing so.  In theory, a person's reaction time and strength could get so large that it really doesn't matter that much whether they have a sword in their hand or not, or at least doesn't matter at the scale of attack rating and damage value increments, but that really wasn't the goal of the house rule.
 It was simply to resolve the cognitive dissonance of a Shadowrunner picking up a melee weapon and suddenly being less effective.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <11-12-19/1317:32>
From both a Realistic and Hollywood-Realistic point of view I think it could make sense if a strong (but perhaps not very agile) troll would fair well with heavy cleave or blunt weapons (such as your combat axe example). More so than an agile (but perhaps not very strong) elf.

But at the same time I think it also make sense if an agile (but perhaps not very strong) elf would fair well with more agile piercing and cutting weapons (such as a rapier or katana). Probably more so than a strong (but perhaps not very agile) troll.


One [elegant] solution to this could be that Close Combat is linked to Strength (rather than Agility) when wielding heavy cleave or blunt weapons (such as a zweihander or a combat axe).
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: dezmont on <11-12-19/1324:36>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: penllawen on <11-12-19/1326:58>
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?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <11-12-19/1416:32>
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).
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <11-12-19/1430:09>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <11-12-19/1435:17>
Since there's plenty of agi-weapons and strength-weapons, it won't bring up that big a multi-attribute-dependancy.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <11-12-19/1704:31>
melee MAD

...more elegant solution to melee MAD
What is melee MAD?? :p
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <11-12-19/1720:33>
"Multiple Ability score Dependent" is what MAD normally stands for, and splitting between Agi and Str weapons actually makes it less MAD I think.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: dezmont on <11-12-19/1855:44>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <11-12-19/1924:53>
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?
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Leith on <11-12-19/2045:10>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: dezmont on <11-13-19/0102:30>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Leith on <11-13-19/0207:45>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Xenon on <11-13-19/1152:26>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: MercilessMing on <11-13-19/1803:20>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: Leith on <11-13-19/2135:33>
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.
Title: Re: 6WE Strength useless for melee users?
Post by: dezmont on <11-14-19/0506:25>
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.
appropriate for weapons.

Depends on your goals. There is a difference between a 'write up/conversion' house-rule and a 'ruling/content' house-rule. There is a long and great tradition of people making, essentially, mini system hack houserules, and pretending the 'best' houserules are minimalist is highly deceptive. Entire D&D classes came out of houserules, as well as many popular play options like Gestalt.

Mixing Strength and Body IS something I have considered for a long time as a solution, and in some homebrew games I am making I find that in scifi settings that its hard to justify them as two different stats. Eclipse Phase, for example, rolls them into one stat called Somatics, along with MANY aspects of agility, and despite being very overtly based on SR Somatics isn't a god stat, its merely good, and its as bad to dump somatics as any stat but it doesn't feel like a catastrophe to do so and you don't feel OP for taking a lot of it. Just like it sometimes is important to look at the skills list and cut bloat (Bye bye Diving/Scuba, a real skill SR had for like ever for no gosh darn reason!) sometimes attribute bloat occurs as well.

In SR6 Strength only links to climbing, disarms, grapple rules, and unarmed DVs maybe. It doesn't even link to carry weight because... I dunno. That is such an amazingly small pool of things it does that it really is feasable to mix it into body without doing a total system conversion and just make it a side benefit to body, rather than something pretending to be its own stat. You would need to rejigger the priority table (you can't just remove an assumed number of points, otherwise you get 5e AI where, despite only having to pay for half the attributes other people have, they are MORE attribute starved because they didn't get compensation points for assumed 2 stat dumps that a meat hacker would have) and the metatypes, but it is a completely feasable 'write up' because the scope of impact is actually reasonably small (which is, in fact, part of the problem. Str isn't really good for anything in SR6). You also need to rebalance and adjust any augmentation that boosts strength, most likely by making it a more specific bonus and reducing costs. Ex: Muscle augmentation giving bonuses on jumping and carrying tests but costing significantly less than toner. Drugs would need to be rebalanced too. But, again, this is all totally doable stuff, and the stakes are low because you can just always 'elimiante' the strength bonus stuff if its too tricky to integrate it into a specific case body buff because, again, strength is effectively worthless in 6e already and no one is going to lose sleep over kami not boosting strength because in 6e no one was using it for its str boost anyway.