Rifters

Just read up on the use of speed factors in combat and how dodging works. According to the RUE pg 281, Speed x5 is the number of yards/meters covered in each melee round, not melee action/attack. So basically, you'd end up dividing your Speed x5 by the number of melee actions/attacks that you can do per round. That's how far you can move in one action.

Also, if you've already attacked your opponent and don't have an action left to use to dodge your opponents attack, you can use your next action to dodge (RUE pg 342).

These were just a couple of things I stumbled across that have come up or may come up in our games.

Benjamin wrote:
Just read up on the use of speed factors in combat and how dodging works. According to the RUE pg 281, Speed x5 is the number of yards/meters covered in each melee round, not melee action/attack. So basically, you'd end up dividing your Speed x5 by the number of melee actions/attacks that you can do per round. That's how far you can move in one action.I don't think I'm the only one bothered by this rule. Hopefully this illustrates the point of how you get slower as you get more attacks:

Let's say I have a starting character with a Spd of 12 -- average for a human and a modest 4 attacks per melee at level 1. If I go into combat, I know that based on this calculation I can move 15 yards per action. Doing a quick calculation figures this speed to be just over 8 miles an hour.

I'll throw an opponent with the same amount of attacks, 4, that is 10 yards away from me who is loading their weapon to fire at me and I have intiative. Given this scenario I'd have time to not only reach the opponent but to also attempt to disarm him before he ever had the chance to fire a shot at me.

Now that same character has leveled considerably. I still have a Spd of 12 but can now do double the attacks: 8 in case you flunked math horribly. Now in combat, based on the calculation, I can only move 7.5 yards per action. Did I get slower? No; you still move at just over 8 miles an hour but your attacks got faster so the amount of time it takes you for a turn is shorter -- and you will thus cover a shorter distance.

HOWEVER, let's take the above scenario with the same opponent and the same attacks as before, just 4.

Still 10 yards away, still loading his weapon. I can now only move 7.5 yards/action. I will spend my first action going 7.5 yards and a second action covering the remainder of the distance. It won't be until my third action I'd have a shot at a disarming blow and by then my opponent may have already had the chance to strike all because I can now attack faster!?

Clearly it's not the calculation that is at fault but rather the attack system. Given this kind of problem and the frequency with which I personally have GM'd a session that required making this same calculation for your characters, I see this as being a pretty big problem. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill but there has to be a way to fix this (perhaps a system of making those with fewer attacks only getting to strike every 2nd or 3rd attack?).

I see what Traek is saying, but I disagree. The speed atrtribute is a numerical representation of how fast a character can run. It is pegged to actual distance over time (speed x20 is number of yards/meters per minute) so speed x 1200 is yards/hour and speed x1200 divided by 1760 is good old mph. Since a melee rounds is defined as 15 seconds, and not as a variable amount of time. you have to use the math Ben outlines. Yes, it means that characters with fewer attacks move less per unit attack. The problem is that while a melee round is defined as a specific amount of time, an attack is a different amount of time for each character in question. I once used a system where a melee rounds was sub-divided into 15 smaller units, each representing a single second. I used a chart to determine what seconds characters acted on, based on their number of attacks/melee. The only issue was that it basically throws the initiative system away. It's something we could look at if anyone has any interest.

Wow, too much math. I think a part of my brain just ran away crying.

Repeat after me:
"Math is my friend...."
Deep breathing also helps.

One concern is that you wind up with the Shadowrun first edition combat system where, the speed-freaks get 5 attacks before everyone else (mainly mages) and everyone is dead before the slow folks even get one action.
Perhaps a staggering system might be in order, but most systems are prone to abuse. With staggering as the fast guy I can poor on the defense right before the slow guy acts. Then retaliate on my next action then poor on the defense again.
Also alot depends on the style of combat desired. Do you want alot of close combat or do you want long range fire fights?
One can go for a Choo Yun Fat style (where everyone poors buckets of bullets everywhere, but few people are hit) by heavily enforcing penalties (such as movement, wildfire, evasive action, terrain etc.,). Though very high bonuses can skew this system alot. This makes for long battles though and alot of calculations.
Or a more quick and deadly approach where everything over a 4 (with bonuses per RUE) hits and damage piles on fast (Unfortunately this tends to lead to the heaviest armor winning.)
Most things have there problems. Not sure I have found a really nice combat system.
I expect the best way is probably just applying common sense. Let the guy cover the distance even though the hard numbers say he can't.
Just my 2 cents. Most of all, have fun.
Rabon

Perhaps I should have mentioned the main underlying problem: I have seen many of you with more attacks (and insane movement speeds) that have been victims of a lot of damage from much slower NPCs. My response was to point out that the system (I disagree with Stewart on this part at least) is very much broken because it allows action after action, even if I can do 1 attack per second (15 attacks per melee) and my opponent can only do 1 per 3.25 seconds (4 attacks per melee). Still, if no one is concerned about it, I won't worry about it!

And I must say that this is no math cruncher... there are FAR WORSE SYSTEMS out there with math. Though admittedly, the more realistic the system, the more math is always involved.

why not use spd class for doging bonuses while running
rembering that a chaters spd*20 is their running spd per minnut multiply that number by 60*3 for feet per hour than devide by 5,000 for MPH
(round up)
a spd of 10*3600/5,000=8MPH
most chaters before about 20 would have spd class of 0
spd class 1-10 +1doge while runing
spd class 11-20 +2 to doge while runing
spd class 21-30 +3 to doge while running
spd class 31-40 +4 to doge while running
and you would countinue to give +1 per 10 places to doge while running
but you would not need to caculate this before you got to 20spd
I personaly have not game tested it yet but I think its fairly realistic

This actually might be a fair test... now I have but to get to a game

I've found that the the way I balance attacks out in my game is to break the Melee down into 4 rounds. So, if you have a character with 4 attacks you act once per round. However is you have 6 attacks you have 2 action on round 1, 1 on 2, 2 on 3 and 1 on 4. So in the case of speed and movement a character with 8 attacks is going to perform 2 actions per round to a person with 4 attacks 1.

This allows characters like Juicers to really utilize their speed and close on targets and also unload some extra fire on an opponent earlier in the fight. Just my 2 cents if anyone is interested.