[Ryo]

I've been GMing shadowrun for a few months now, and I'm really starting to wonder about the function of multiple IPs in the system. Obviously my players jumped on them right away, I don't think anyone in any of the games I've run have had less than 2, and thus, the NPCs they come across always have multiple to compensate, but from all the combats I've run, I've probably hit the second Combat Turn maybe four times, tops. I've never reached a third Combat Turn.

So what this basically means is, apparently every gunfight, ever, ends in less than 6 seconds. It just seems silly to me when I think about it, and it makes some of the more cinematic moments I've wanted to try, like having the team pinned down by gunfire in a time sensitive situation, such as the building they're in about to explode, all but impossible.

So what I'm wondering is, if I completely stripped out multiple passes, and all ware and spells that grant them, what do I actually lose? If everyone only had one pass, what changes, other than the in-game time combat takes?

And has anybody else ever tried that?

[Trenchknife]

I've stuck with the IP system. 

Sidebar:
How often do you have your baddies hugging cover, popping IR smoke, using rain/fog, suppressive fire, and other means by which they can make it more difficult for the team of Shadow Runners to hit what they aim at?

If properly implemented, I've found that you can fairly well replicate the running gun battles in shows/movies.  Mind you...I'm usually a member of the team getting frustrated by my GMs penchant for these shenanigans.

[Ryo]

My baddies are constantly using cover and things like smoke and other vision modifiers, and the few times I've done suppressive fire usually ended with a grenade lobbed from behind cover in the direction of the bullets.

The one time I managed to almost reach a third Combat Turn, three members of the team were incapacitated and the fourth was outright killed, so a lot of passes went pretty fast without them while the mage mopped up the remaining enemies with spells and spirits. The only way I could imagine combat lasting long enough to eat up even half a minute of in-game time would require attacking my group with a virtual army, and a lot of spare magazines.

[Kylen]

What I see that you lose is the cinematic quality. If everyone can only do one or two things (depending on what they spend their pass on) per turn, then not only does it become more realistic, but the only other thing that happens is you get more 'turns'. This probably won't shrink your OOC time for combats, and the only difference between how long it takes your baddies to die ooc is probably a couple of minutes. Overall, if they are destroying your enemies in 2-3 IP, give or take, if everyone gets it, then it'll just end up being 2-4 or so combat turns. That's it.So instead of being able to run slightly farther before that there time bomb goes off, they can't go nearly as far.

Nothing else changes, really, so there's no change, either way. If your team is just good enough to be destroying most anything you put in the way, all yer doing is putting an actual turn count on it. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Nath]

I often advise to strictly enforce "Observe in Details" is a Simple Action. Counting how many opponents there are, how they're equipped, what are they doing, and did I hit or missed, or did my target dodged, and how bad is he wounded, what covers are available, and what are my teammates up to : such information should require spending one or several Simple Actions to get.

[Ryo]

I'm not sure how that shrinks the cinematic quality, unless 'cinematic' means 'Action Movies shot entirely in Bullet Time.' There's no functional difference between a pass and a turn that I can think of, so rather than the average combat being over in less than 3 seconds, they last from 6 to 12 seconds. A lot more interesting when it comes to running out of a building rigged to go boom.

[Exodus]

I often advise to strictly enforce "Observe in Details" is a Simple Action. Counting how many opponents there are, how they're equipped, what are they doing, and did I hit or missed, or did my target dodged, and how bad is he wounded, what covers are available, and what are my teammates up to : such information should require spending one or several Simple Actions to get.

That's about the best thing I've heard today. Unless the battles are high-noon gunfights players shouldn't know the disposition of their opponents.
I routinely get into the 3rd IP and onward to a second combat turn in my games even against equal-numbered enemies with every player in the game have some kind of combat focus..

Ryo, how do you usually run the OpFor? What squad tactics do they use? What kind of offensive and defensive gear do they have? Drones? Spirits? ETC.

[Shadowjack]

I sometimes wonder about extra ip's as well. It seems like nearly everyone I see has at least 2 and those with just 1 often seem to lose.

[Tex Muldoon]

Beef up your enemy stats a slight bit. Also how much karma are you awarding per game. I don't have this problem in my games but i also only give out like 3 karma per session.

[Valashar]

Something else to remember in order to balance those with multiple IP is that suppressive fire lasts until the next IP of the person shooting, not the next IP in general. So have a couple 1 or 2 IP mooks let loose with the lead firehose from cover on their last IP of the turn. Overlapping fields of suppressive fire makes for a very tough time for the PCs to stick their necks out or close distance.

[flatlyne2001]

With some abilities/drugs only lasting a small amount of turns having multiple passes makes them useful.

[Crazy Ivan]

Despite how frequently this topic comes up, I still haven't found an answer, and i don't see many posters on here coming up with solid alternate ideas. And in the interest of fulfilling my desire to find a workable, logical system that is still abstract, but realistic enough in terms of speed both unaugmented and augmented (well, what Shadowrun represents as augmented). Kind of annoyed that the other thread got locked, but such is life.

So here's a system I came up with on the fly--

Base Initiative Score is Reaction+Intuition (Nothing new here)
To roll initiative- rolls your score, count hits. Add hits to Initiative Score.
For every set number (5 is what i came up with, though its untested)- An extra SIMPLE action is taken. Or, if luck is especially favorable to you, you can spend two SIMPLE actions to get a COMPLEX action.

Augmentations (magical and otherwise) give their Reaction bonus, but not the bonus pass. Instead, they only give a single SIMPLE action per pass they would have normally received. And they can turn in 2  SIMPLE actions for a COMPLEX action. Any of them can be turned into a FREE action should the need/desire arise.

Thoughts? I'm open to criticism, as long as you offer at least a reasoning why. I've been in fights enough to know that speed is everything, and sometimes you get that extra step, and other times you don't. Nothing in combat is perfectly predictable. But at the same time, giving complete combat turns is insane.

[StarManta]

As I read that, there are no multiple IP's at all, but every hit on the Initiative Test gives you an extra Simple Action?
Sounds good as a concept, but the devil for this one would certainly be in the details (and in the play testing). For example, when exactly are those Simple Actions taken? If the player gets 6 hits, does he take his 8 Simple Actions in a row or do the other players get to go in between?

Also, I think Free Actions should be just that - free. They're chosen as things that one can do concurrently with other actions, like talking.

Incidentally, my next campaign will probably be an experimental campaign where we try different things like different ways of laying out Combat Turns (as well as different ways to earn Karma, etc, etc.)

[Crazy Ivan]

Honestly, I'd playtest two ways of handling the question of when to take the actions
1. Take them after everyones actions (in Initiative order), essentially a second pass of actions as allotted. (More fair, as everyone gets to act at least once in combat).
2. Take them in addition to your regular actions, representing your speed (more realistic, less fun?) Some people are that fast. But a fast character can wipe EVERYONE out quickly before they get to act if this is abused.

As I read that, there are no multiple IP's at all, but every hit on the Initiative Test gives you an extra Simple Action?

Not quite. For example- A character with Initiatve score of 6 rolls 6 dice, gets 2 hits, bringing his total intitiave to 8. He gets his standard array of actions, plus an extra Simple Action. Say a character with Initiative 9 gets 3 hits, bringing his score to 12. He can get either two extra simple actions or a complex.

You're right about Free actions, now that i think about it in practicality (sorry, minds been tired, my daughter was just born and my brain is not functioning at full capacity), Free actions should be almost arbitrary as long as they don't break the realms of reality.

By all means, let us know how your experiments go StarManta.

[Ryo]

One thing I've wanted to try is to change Wired Reflexes and the like from simply giving +X to initiative, they give +X to Reaction and +X to Intuition, because there are literally no ware that give bonuses to Intuition, and that's just weird.

As for passes themselves, one possible houserule I've considered is to have passes be divisions of the Initiative score. So if you have two passes, and an initiative score of 18, you can either go once on 18, or cut that up however you want to go twice, like once at 14 and again at 4. This would probably be combined with the above idea, so that you'd have an initiative score high enough to divide your turns up well.