[Neongelion]

So I'm starting up a 5th ed Shadowrun game in the future to see how the rules work in practice. I really think it's a massive improvement from 4th, but combat, at least to me, still seems a bit slow and clunky. I've recently read the rules for Numenera, and one of the things that game does is basically make combat much more manageable by having three "range bands":

immediate distance 10 feet (3 m), short distance (anything greater than immediate distance but less than 50 feet (15 m), and long distance (anything greater than short distance but less than 100 feet (30 m).

There are some rules for tactical decisions (cover, prone/higher ground, surprise, etc.), but ultimately exact positioning is irrelevant. If someone's in short range, it doesn't matter if it's 20 feet away or 45 feet away, it's the same.

Now as I understand it, the group I'm playing with likes tactical combat a lot, like Pathfinder's or normal Shadowrun's. I don't want to change it to the point where it basically alienates it to them, but I plan on discussing the matter with them, maybe to reach a compromise of sorts.

Any suggestions? Could this work?

[Csjarrat]

to be honest mate, the weapons are balanced for different range categories. if your pistol can shoot to long range, why take a sniper rifle? i'd advocate keeping combat as-written, especially if your team are tactical anyways.

i would imagine that outside of pre-planned ambushes, most SR combat is going to happen at short-medium range categories anyway. just have your players note down the range band of their primary weapon and make it their responsibility to know and act accordingly.
if you're planning a run as a GM, any pitched battles should be very roughly mapped out with the length of the room, available cover etc. this will give you rough range bands to be concerned with.
any char with a smartgun also has a range finder so can ask you as a GM which range band they are in.

i find that if you make combat too simple, your players tend to default to "shoot first". thats fine if you want it that way, but bad if not.
I prefer having my baddies have lots of cover and ability to out-range the goodies to force them to think smart and keep their heads down.
if the baddies are stood in the open and range isn't much of a factor, combat isn't challenging enough and the PC's (who are much better than mooks to start with) will just walk through armies of mooks without breaking a sweat.

[martinchaen]

With the range (heh, pun intended) of weapons present in the Shadowrun setting, I think you'll find it hard to break down range into that kind of system. Impossible, no. Difficult, yes.

That being said, here is my suggestion.

During Basic Training in the Army I trained at three different ranges; 50m for sidearms, and 200m and 500m for rifles.

You "could" boil your ranges down to three or four categories, and simply state that modifiers only apply in those ranges regardless of weapon type used.

This would obviously skew mechanics in favour of short range weapons (pistols, SMGs, tasers, etc) that currently take massive penalties if fired at 200m (if even possible).

If your group likes tactical combat, I'd say go for it. It honestly isn't that bad in my experience. As a GM, you could always "ensure" that combat took place in close quarters instead of at 1000m ranges

[GiraffeShaman]

I keep a notecard with the ranges of weapons types that enemies will be using that session and that the players commonly use. I also keep a notecard with a breakdown of various firing modes, the bullets they use, the defensive penalty they impose, and so on. I did this because I knew these two areas where I'd be flipping quite often to in the book and this saves valuable time.

I also keep all mooks and LT stats on a separate notecards for each mook or LT.

I'm finding mook wound tracking a little clunky, especially since one of my players uses electricity and imposes an additional environmental effect modifier. I haven't really found a solution yet and would appreciate hearing one if someone has one. Only thing i've found is to have seriously wounded mooks just surrender, which quickly removes them from the combat and I don't have to track them anymore. (I don't want to use electronic means. I'm trying to avoid Decker attacks)

[RHat]

I actually haven't heard anyone complaining about SR5's combat taking too long - in fact, most groups seem to find it's a lot shorter (primarily, this is because it's a high defense environment - you roll to soak less often, but it balances out because when you do get hit you get hit hard).  In any case, implementing something like that isn't going to be at all satisfying in a game where your weaponry runs the gamut from holdout pistols to sniper rifles to heavy machine guns.

But really I'm curious as to what perceived problem you're trying to solve here...  It's not like you can't just have the players right the ranges in just under the rest of a weapon's stats.

[Shamie]

What do you mean by "the combat takes to long" ?

You mean a combat scenario take too long? or that individual attacks/deffense/soak takes to long?

If you mean the second one i would suggest using a dice thrower to make 50 or 100 throws and use the results for the NPCs attacks, deffense and soak.