Shadowrun 5th Edition Combat Rules Summary

Glossary

• Combat Turn: A three-second chunk of time where players act in order of their initiative
• Composed of a series of Initiative Passes
• Initiative Pass: Chunks of a Combat Turn.  Characters get one Action Phase per Combat Turn. Typically, all characters are guaranteed an Action Phase on the first Initiative Pass, but subsequent passes will depend on how high their Initiative is.
• Action Phase: When a character acts.
• On an Action Phase, you can perform either one (1) Complex Action or two (2) Simple Actions.
• Additionally, you may always take on Free Action per Action Phase.
• If you do not use your Free Action, you may use it at any point until your next Action Phase, even if it's during another character's Action Phase.

Useful Links

• General rules cheat sheet

Initiative (p. 159-160)

• Initiative Attribute
• This is a derived value that depends on summing two other Attributes, depending on the Initiative Type.
• Physical: Reaction + Intuition
• Rigging AR: Reaction + Intuition
• Matrix AR: Reaction + Intuition
• Astral: Intuition * 2
• Matrix (cold-sim) VR: Data Processing + Intuition
• Matrix (hot-sim) VR: Data Processing + Intuition
• If it's Physical Initiative and your Reaction is 3 and your Intuition is 4, your Initiative Attribute is 7.
• Initiative Dice
• Each Initiative Type has a Base Initiative Dice.  Certain upgrades (such as Wired Reflexes) can give you more dice to roll, but it's not improvable with Karma.
• Base Dice:
• Physical: 1d6
• Rigging AR: 1d6
• Matrix AR: 1d6
• Astral: 2d6
• Matrix (cold-sim) VR: 3d6
• Matrix (hot-sim) VR: 4d6
• Edge can be used to give yourself the maximum 5d6 dice for a single Combat Turn.
• (House Rule) Only gives you +2d6 dice (still limited to 5d6)
• Initiative Score
• This is the sum of your Initiative Attribute and a roll of your Initiative Dice.
• For example, Astral Initiative is (Intuition * 2) + 2d6
• If you had 5 Intuition and rolled a 3 and a 6, your Initiative Score would be (5 * 2 + 3 + 6) = 19
• Ties are resolved in this order:
• Edge
• Reaction
• Intuition
• Coin Toss