[lurkeroutthere]

I am a huge fan of hand to hand, but melee combat is at a disadvantage, and it should be.

Hand to hand's big advantage as others have pointed out is you can always bring your fists. I have a hard time envisioning places that would let you have a sword but not let you have a pistol, but there's a lot of places that won't let you have either, so your choices are either concealment or going without.

But if you have the chance to bring a weapon my advice would be to get a gun and get proficient with the gun.

[Carz]

  Great.  So you don't shoot, until AFTER taking that DV11, 18-die melee punch versus half Impact armor to the kidney.  Guess what?  I'm cool with that..

I don't see where you get that logic but whatever obviously i'm not going to debase you of your narrative. We can both win thought arguments if we set them up to favor our side.

I'm assuming that Pax is just commenting based on how the Delay rules work, which don't support "I ready to shoot when I see the Pixie" type actions. I know my current group was kind of surprised at that, having been used to systems that do allow specific/contingent 'ready' actions.


In the cat-and-mouse scenario of Shooter vs Melee, using terrain, the objective of the Shooter is to maneuver such that the Melee-ist must cover *more* than one movement's worth of ground to reach the Shooter (giving the Shooter a shot), whereas the Melee character's objective is to maneuver such that they are within one movement of the Shooter prior to being seen (allowing the Melee-ist to strike first).

The type of cover/terrain and the hide/spot type skills of each side will play into who gets the upper hand, naturally. Its just not a forgone conclusion that the shooter will get their shot before the Melee-ist can close in such a situation.

[Makki]

If some dangerous looking thing charges at me into melee, I'll just run away and keep shooting. The only speed bonus he has, are those sprinting actions he takes, while I use them for shooting. IF he doesn't use full dodge.

[blackangel]

I don't read all the thread but it reminds me a story about bullets that can never kill someone because you can always divide the distance between the shooter and the target by two. It's true mathematically except if you divide the range of the weapon and not the distance between the shooter and the target.

IMO first thing is : can with his movement the brawler get in contact range in one turn (if not the shooter has all room to shoot at him). After that, I'll probably divide the movement of the brawler by the highest IP (brawler or shooter). If the brawler as 1 IP against 4 IP for the shooter and is half his movement away he will be able to fight on the second pass with a delayed action. In the same example if he has more than 1 IP his first action was lost. I hope it was clear enough that you can understand my mind 

[Kylen]

I'd like to lay out a pair of ideas/thoughts.

A: I use a system based off of SAS/BESM, where Init was done as so:

Player 1 rolls a 23, with 2 passes
Player 2 rolls a 20 with 4 passes

1 goes on 23 and on either 12 or 11, depending on your GM. Player two would go on 20, 15, 10, and 5.

Granted, this is me not seeign a need for EVERY CHARACTER IN PLAY NEEDING TO REACT ON EVERY SINGLE TURN TO EVERY SINGLE THING. It makes initiative so bloody complicated, what with people rolling for it every time Initiative moved to a new person. But that's me liking certain things simplified to help save time.

B: Yes, we all know the cybered out 4 pass cyborg is going to riddle the Kung Fu Adept with 2 passes by the second turn no matter HOW you run your turns. This is why your GM should make opponents proper for the ENTIRE team. If your team is mainly melee characters, and only one or two ranged, then have the opposition often have chances to be surprised, or be stun baton/various edged weapon wielders. If your group is mainly gun bunnies, then adjust. If your team is mostly social hackers, well, then make it so they actually have to try to get the other person to think the way they want. It's called being flexible, and makes the game more fun.

[_Pax_]

  Great.  So you don't shoot, until AFTER taking that DV11, 18-die melee punch versus half Impact armor to the kidney.  Guess what?  I'm cool with that..

I don't see where you get that logic but whatever obviously i'm not going to debase you of your narrative. We can both win thought arguments if we set them up to favor our side.

  You said, "I don't shoot until I can see the Pixie".  Right.  So, with Infiltration 11 and Conceal 6, you WON'T see the Pixie, before she punches you .... rolling 18 dice with a base DV 11 punch versus half impact armor.

If your a sneaky ninja type and you've been seen [...]

  Full stop.  All but the most perception-oriented character, PC and NPC alike, is going to fail to see through Conceal 6, Infiltrate 11, and a simple camoflage jumpsuit.  Seriously - Infiltrate 11 is going to give 3.75 successes.  Conceal 6 is cutting your die pool by 6.  The camoflageis cutting it by another 4.  Even if you have Intuition 6 and Perception 6, your startign DP of 12 is down to 2.  If BOTH come up successes?  You're still short by 1.75 successes.  You have to get extremely lucky, and the pixie has to get extremely unlucky, for you to see it.

This isn't rocket science.

If you can hide, I can hide.

If you're not a Pixie, you're not hiding nearly as well as the Pixie is.

Your entire strategy predicates on the enemy waiting and sitting and staying in a place that plays to your concealment power when i have a hard time believing that such is the case.

  "A place that plays to my concealment power"  Guess what, Chuck: that's the entire planet Earth.  Seriously.  Every inch of it.

Oh, and here's a fun thought for you: how often do most people look straight up ...?  Answer: very very rarely.  Yet, Pixies can fly - so while a shooter is scanning the area round them, North South East and West?  The pixie is directly overhead, forty meters up ... fully concealed in the open air, and deciding between punching the shooter in the face, or punching him in the groin.

Because my entire original point was, "the Concealment power is awesomely good for melee types".  Nothing more, nothing less.  Doesn't matter if it's the melee guy's own innate ability, or one lent to him by a spirit.  Concealment is simply awesome, end of line.

I'm assuming that Pax is just commenting based on how the Delay rules work, which don't support "I ready to shoot when I see the Pixie" type actions. I know my current group was kind of surprised at that, having been used to systems that do allow specific/contingent 'ready' actions.

  No, I mean that the Pixie is not going to "be visible" until s/he attacks.  (And I didn't bother with the possibility of the attack being from surprise, which adds a whole 'nother layer of hurt to the mix.)

The type of cover/terrain and the hide/spot type skills of each side will play into who gets the upper hand, naturally. Its just not a forgone conclusion that the shooter will get their shot before the Melee-ist can close in such a situation.

  Especially with the Concealment Power thrown into the mix.  Chopping six dice out ofhte shooter's "see the other guy" pools is pretty much a trump card (especially as it stacks with camoflage / ruthenium cloaking).

[acolyte99]

I think the heated discussion about the concealed pixie (or any other concealed character) results from having two different ideas about the order of things concerning being obvious and  the possibility of using Infiltration and with that to force a Perception roll which will be affected by Concealment.

Interpretation 1: obivous things are noticed without perception roll. One can't roll for Infiltration standing right in front of somebody or in a featureless corridor, without cover or breaking of LOS or distraction.  There is no Infiltration roll possible -> no Perception roll -> Concealment will do nothing

Interpretation  2: The Concealment power gives me some breaking of LOS or cover (as the power description says, it mystically hides me), so I can roll infiltration even if standing in front of you. When I roll infiltration, you roll perception and then the -x from Concealment comes into effect.

I'm undecided which interpretation is correct. The second one allows a concealed character to be only attackable after he has hit and then only with blind fire.

You decide at your table if you determine "obiousness" first and then consider Concealment or vice versa.

[Mirikon]

In my opinion, this is a foolish dichotomy. Any character worth their weight in nutrisoy is going to have both ranged and melee options. Not having both is a fairly glaring weakness, and weaknesses can (and should) be exploited. Both melee and ranged attacks have their niches, just as the different types of ranged weapons have their niches. I will agree that, on the whole, ranged has more niches than melee, however.

Football is a great parallel for this discussion. You've got a ground game (melee) and a passing game (ranged). Your ground game takes time, but if you do it well, you can get reliable yards, and don't risk giving up big plays like interceptions or sacks. Your passing game can turn the tide in a hurry, and can score points from a long way away. However, the two play off eachother. If you don't have enough of a passing game to keep people honest, they'll stuff their defenders in the box and shut down the run. If you don't have a run game to speak of, then you're going to see a lot of blitzes and double coverage on your receivers, shutting down the pass. You need to be credible in both to succeed against anyone in the same league as you.

Melee is best in stealth situations, in areas where spraying a crowd with lead is a Bad Thing^TM, in restricted environments, or when getting ambushed by people who use melee. If the feral ghouls jump out from around the corner at you, then it would be a good idea to know some melee skills to defend against their attacks, yes? Nothing ruins the ninja B&E job like the sound of automatic weapons fire, right? And we all know that high civilian casualties makes for you being put at the top of KE's "To Do" list, don't we?

Ranged attacks are more generally useful, as they should be. And having a hacker is more generally useful than having a Face. But when you need that Face, you'll be sorry if you don't have one, right?

As a personal opinion, I think the builds best suited to melee would be street samurai, ninja-style infiltrators, and combat mages. Street samurai already tend to have high armor and ware to boost their abilities, which makes melee more survivable. Ninjas are best in stealth mode, which is one of the areas that melee shines in. And combat mages just need a manabolt or other combat spell to provide ranged ability, which means they can switch from melee to ranged without even switching weapons. Also, anything that has ITNW is going to fear that weapon focus.

[_Pax_]

Interpretation 1: obivous things are noticed without perception roll. One can't roll for Infiltration standing right in front of somebody or in a featureless corridor, without cover or breaking of LOS or distraction.  There is no Infiltration roll possible -> no Perception roll -> Concealment will do nothing

Interpretation  2: The Concealment power gives me some breaking of LOS or cover (as the power description says, it mystically hides me), so I can roll infiltration even if standing in front of you. When I roll infiltration, you roll perception and then the -x from Concealment comes into effect.

  The thing is, technically?  Quite often, those perception rolls are being made for everything.  Especially smaller things ... like Pixies, for example.  They are only an average of 18" tall, which is something less than HALF the height of a doorknob.  And then, have the tendency to fly, putting them up out of the plane-of-interest most humans pay attention to (we evolved to look for ground predators, not predatory birds)..

  Have you ever walked down the street, and not noticed something sitting right out in the open ... but your companion(s) did?  You just failed a perception check to notice something "obvious" and "in plain sight".  As a related example from my own life: walking along a strip-mall style shopping center one day.  I, personally, noticed nothing out of the ordinary.  My lovely lady, however, instantly pegged to someone's used works (er, syringe etc) sitting on the brick windowledge of a store.

  ...

  And I'll give you an interpretation 3, which is my pesonal take on it: even without infiltration ... even in the middle of a mile-across featureless paved public square, at noon on a cloudless day; if the Conceal power would reduce your pool to 0 or fewer dice, then Infiltration isn' even necessary: you do not, CAN NOT, see/hear/taste/smell/feel the presence of the concealed creature or object.  Period.

  And 6 dice of reduction?  Reduces the great majority of Perception pools to 0 or less.  Yes, it is in fact that badass.

  (It's also the primary survivability trait of Pixies.  I mean, seriously, Body 1-3, Strength 1-3?  Even with Softweave, they're not going to be able to wear enough armor to take a good hit from a gun, or a knife, or anything at all really.)

[lurkeroutthere]

Eh i think your analogy falls apart.

In order to perform a successful silent takedown with a melee attack you need to get the enemy in one shot. Unless you are supremely gifted with melee (aka a melee focused adept) good luck taking people down in one shot with a melee attack.) otherwise you might as well have gambled on a silenced shot. Sure it's not perfect but it's a damn sight better then throwing your melee attack and then not doing quite enough to incapacitate them.

Likewise if jumped by a feral ghoul because of the wonky way defense rules work I can actually use my dodge skill, the same skill i can use for full defense ranged wise, to avoid the shot.  Even if i don't have the above though? I'm missing one or two dice, no that big a deal especially if i've put those dice into something actually useful.

In short, while some form of unarmed training is a good move for everyone, you don't really ever want to build a strategy around it. If, despite that, you want to build a strategy around it you better be an adept or someone with an exploitable "trick" in melee as otherwise your just not going to drop people in melee fast enough to matter.

[lurkeroutthere]

Honestly Pax, I doubt anyone cares about the survivability of pixies, their 18 inches tall and have a body of 3. They go outside of their primary habitat they die, seems about right to me. You want their small size to be taken into account when it might support your perfect world scenario but not when it comes to things like actually finding gear or affecting the enviroment. Your pixie melee build has to come into fly/mosquito range all the time and flies and mosquitos do in fact get noticed, and are a lot smaller.

[_Pax_]

Honestly Pax, I doubt anyone cares about the survivability of pixies, their 18 inches tall and have a body of 3. They go outside of their primary habitat they die, seems about right to me. You want their small size to be taken into account when it might support your perfect world scenario but not when it comes to things like actually finding gear or affecting the enviroment. Your pixie melee build has to come into fly/mosquito range all the time and flies and mosquitos do in fact get noticed, and are a lot smaller.

Okay, my first response to this little tirade is: "What.  The.  [CENSORED]??"  Seriously.  What in the nine bleeding hells crawled up your ass and died??

You want their small size to be taken into account when it might support your perfect world scenario but not when it comes to things like actually finding gear or affecting the enviroment.

  Excuse me?  Not accounting for their size for gear?  Where did I ever suggest anything of the sort ?  And really, "affectign the environment" ...?  I don't even know what you're talking about, there.

Your pixie melee build has to come into fly/mosquito range all the time and flies and mosquitos do in fact get noticed, and are a lot smaller.

  Those same mosquitos and flies are sometimes not noticed, eitehr.  And that's without a magical ability to conceal themselves from all possible senses.

  ...

  Look, fine, you hate pixies.  Stop making it personal.  Be an adult, or at least pretend.

[lurkeroutthere]

You taking it personal does not in fact mean I'm making it personal. Your outrage doesn't affect me in the slightest. That's all the further I'll really take it because we skidded past the point of diminishing returns.

[Noctem]

right so anyway I'll go ahead and ask for a thread lock now.....

[FastJack]

Thread has been locked since it no longer serves any purpose.