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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Ramming Damage with a large weapon mounted

Posted by: evilgenius Mar 18 2007, 06:57 PM

Hey all.

I have a player who wants to generate a pretty interesting character who'll use a melee weapon while passing the target, driving by on a vehicle (motorcycle).

He's wanted to know how driving by quickly would affect hitting somebody with a combat axe, monosword, or something similar.

I figured that I would add one to the damage for each extra step on the ramming damage table, but also a penalty of one die on the melee test.

That would be:
speed: 21-60 meters / turn, -1 die to hit, +1 to damage, but a one die penalty to a vehicle test to not wipe out.
speed: 61-200 meters / turn, -2 to hit, +2 to damage, but a two die penalty to not wipe out.
speed: 201+ meters / turn, -3 to hit, +3 to damage, but a three die penalty to not wipe out.

Does this sound reasonable? Should it do more damage than that?

Also, he enquired about mounting a "lance" on his bike. It's a sick idea, but he's looking at ramming people and skewering them with a big honkin lance, mounted like a side-car. I told him it would be an epic pilot vehicle test to not wipe out, but he's fine with that...

How would a lance modify the vehicle ramming damage? I was going to say that it would provide armour penetration -4 or something, and maybe +1 damage... Is that reasonable?

Posted by: evilgenius Mar 18 2007, 06:59 PM

One other question;

What would be the damage for two bikes, on either side of the road, driving towards the target with monofilament wire (monowhip) strung between them at various heights (knee, waist, neck) etc? This one's stumped me completely. I would imagine it would be lethal as all hell....

Posted by: bibliophile20 Mar 18 2007, 08:32 PM

QUOTE (evilgenius)

After WWII, in Germany, they had to weld large poles vertically to the front fenders of the jeeps, and that was when Marines wore leather neck collars. Why? Because some of the locals would string piano wire across the road at driving neck height. A bunch of Marines got decapitated before they caught on to the trick.

So compare piano wire to monofilament and... yeah. Slice and dice. Monofilament's already something that, if you're not careful with it, will just lop off a limb, but for that application, I would just call it the "Industrial-sized Cheese Slicer" and be done with it.

(If you want to be very evil, you can string monofilament nets in some very paranoid corp corridors; intruders detected, nets are lowered (and damn near impossible to see) in the long straight corridors that lead towards the entrance--in other words, the corridors people will be sprinting down.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Mar 18 2007, 09:14 PM

Links, please? (Preferably without graphic images)

Posted by: bibliophile20 Mar 18 2007, 09:50 PM

QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)

Links, please? (Preferably without graphic images)

I can't, unfortunately. This is from some of my old history books, all of which are at home due to lack of space in my dorm, and apparently my Google-Fu is too weak to find it online.

But both before and after the war ended (but mostly before) they would string the wire up at two heights: neck height for a Jeep driver and waist height for someone standing out of a tank turret.