Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 01:20 PM

It has struck me that a character can suffer further damage by simply resting (critical glitch on the healing roll) but can keep 'running to his heart's content without his injuries being aggravated by all the exertion.

I'd like to fix this, so how does the following house rule sound?

For each full day not devoted entirely to rest an injured character must make an Edge test with a threshold of the sum of his physical and stun wound modifiers. Failure incurs an extra box of damage to each track that contributed to the threshold. This extra damage is not considered a new injury for the purposes of first aid or magical healing.

Example:

A samurai and a shaman have just dispatched a security team but got hurt in the process. The samurai took 7 boxes of physical and 2 stun whilst the shaman took 3 physical and 5 stun. They press on with the run and are still going 24 hours later. They both roll an Edge (2) test and both fail. The samurai gains 1 physical damage but no more stun whilst the shaman gains 1 physical and 1 stun. Had the shaman rested for an hour or two to drop his stun down to 2 he'd have only had a threshold of 1 but would still have had to make the roll.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 01:26 PM

Note - I do not allow natural sleep to be used for healing stun. If one of my players spends the night recovering his stun damage he runs the risk of sleep deprivation if he doesn't get his normal sleep in as well. YMMV

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 21 2011, 04:19 PM

I like the premise, as I am a big fan of gritty game styles, but I don't know about the execution. Part of it, is that you might be over simplifying. According to the Fatigue Damage rules (SR4A 164), a character jogging at his base running rate can do so for (Body+ hits on running test) x 2 minutes, and starts taking fatigue damage (treated as stun, max 6 boxes). After taking 6 boxes, characters make a Body+ Willpower (2) test, and if they fail automatically stop, are exhausted, and may not take part in strenuous activity until they have rested. Damage modifiers apply to both these tests. If they glitch, I wouldn't balk at an additional box of damage. And if they crit glitch, I wouldn't be surprised if you make them roll an Edge test or break something (or something less sever if they pass the edge test).

Posted by: Summerstorm Aug 21 2011, 04:24 PM

Hm... edge-test with threshold wound modifier... that is... insane. Most people can't make that.

I mean just a normal dude who had a bit stun-damage from sleep deprivation Which you don't let them regenerate through sleep will DIE -well ok, will fall over exhausted- after ten days or so, while leading a normal life Work/sleep, having afternoon activities. Just because he doesn't sit down and stares at the wall for 2 hours?

Well, i like the whole deterioting effect - Also as a greater effect: I like my Move-by-Wire, Reflex Boosters, Brain-altering cyberware etc. to RUIN a man long-term. And the healing times WAY lower. Someone totally shot up shouldn't be up and running after two days bedrest.

And i also agree that bad wounds should get worse over time. And the WORST wounds should get worse in even a small amount of time. In a game i designed, a hyper-realistic modern-day system i had THREE condition-monitors because of that. Bloodvolume, Shock and Trauma. As well as wound-effects per organs/limbs.

But i wouldn't like to have all that in my shadowrun. Just have the GM make judgement calls on that without rules... worked for me so far.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 21 2011, 04:25 PM

Isn't sleep healing stun the whole point?

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 21 2011, 05:08 PM

That's the general idea I had. I will likely always allow it, but I already use gritty rules, and am not afraid to allow wounds get worse with even minor glitching (though "worse" is usually a doubled wound modifier, or doubled healing interval. Even so, with only body or will... and negatives from environment...)

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 21 2011, 05:33 PM

This. When I read, "I do not allow natural sleep to be used for healing stun" I literally thought "LOLwut?" If sleep doesn't heal stun damage, what the hell does?

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 05:41 PM

Well I wouldn't shout down that interpretation, but I don't really like the idea of 7-8 free healing rolls per day. Stun damage can represent much more serious injuries than a bit of a headache and with that many rolls you could clear a full damage track without changing your routine at all. Even the slower healing options don't make it very interesting.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 05:43 PM

Extra sleep.
Maybe I should have clarified - in my game sleep can stave off sleep deprivation and it can heal stun, but not both simultaneously.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 21 2011, 05:50 PM

I… guess. Stun damage is *supposed* to heal fast, that's why it's stun. That's why it's so easy to inflict, that's why we bother with Physical damage. *shrug*

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 21 2011, 05:51 PM

And the purpose of that is... what, exactly? Sorry, but this smacks of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty to me: making the game harder for the sake of making the game harder, or (worse) for the sake of punishing the players, rather than because it adds anything to the experience other than frustration.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 05:55 PM

Well, damage tracks with less than three boxes don't factor in at all and it's only one extra box per day.
Maybe it would work better to roll for physical and stun tracks separately so the thresholds don't stack.

Ultimately I'm looking for a way to make it hurt for, say, a guy with two bullets in him to carry on as though nothing had happened. Putting a time factor on the need for healing is also attractive to me. I just don't know what's likely to be too much in terms of both penalty and complexity.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 21 2011, 06:01 PM

A guy with two bullets in him can't carry on as though nothing happened, because he has penalties from those wounds. The least amount of damage a single gunshot can inflict, before the soak roll, is 5P (a hold-out with one net hit). If the victim manages to soak that down to less than 3P (entirely possible), it is assumed that he suffered a grazing or otherwise non-impairing wound.

Basically, I think you're trying to fix something that isn't broken. If a character gets hit badly enough to impair him, that's reflected with wound penalties. If he doesn't get hit badly enough to impair him, why inflict artificial penalties?

Posted by: CanRay Aug 21 2011, 06:03 PM

Sorry, the idea at the start of this thread made me think of something: "Don't those bulletholes hurt?" "Nah, I'll just walk it off." "They're in your legs." "I'll crawl it off."

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 21 2011, 06:11 PM

Haha. Not what I thought, but not a bad one.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 06:11 PM

That's a fair comment, not that I agree. Imagine someone kicking the crap out of you until you fall unconscious. When you awake 8 hours later would you expect to feel like you do on any other morning? I would venture that you'd sleep longer than usual and awake still feeling somewhat sore.

For the player the inconvenience can be relatively minor (sleeping for twice as long will most often be quite sufficient) and I think it's because it's minor that you got the fake difficulty impression, if you don't mind me conjecturing so.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 06:19 PM

Ah no, I meant more like how a guy with bullet wounds would normally put everything on hold until he got himself sorted instead of carrying on and risking the wounds deteriorating further.

I do want to hear that RAW's not broken (if people think it) so thanks. My motivation is to create a sense of "Crap, if I don't take care of this I'm in trouble" or "Hey guys, I dunno how long the mage can keep this sh*t up".

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 21 2011, 06:21 PM

I agree with you, by the standard rules. But, if I have a guy in my games who was beaten unconcious from only stun damage, with Will 3 and Body 3, they wouldn't get a healing test. In fact, if they were beaten unconcious on the street, that's another -2, so they need at least a med kit rating 3, some kind of fast healing, medicinal aid, or a combination of the above to even try a standard test. Or, they could spend edge and longshot. In this situation, I might even cause more trouble, like physical damage the longer they are exposed (either one box every body hours, or maybe a test using whatever the absolute negative value to the test is.) until they longshot enough times to heal somewhat well, or burn an edge to survive.

Edit: Each hour I would roll an edge test to see if someone notices (threshold dependant on where he gets beaten at), and calls for aid.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 06:27 PM

I've always thought of stun and physical injuries having a little overlap, whereby things like contusions and minor tissue damage can fall in either camp with the abstracted damage track system separating them according to how long they'll take to heal. Like, a club and a fist can cause very similar types of injuries but you get over the effects of one rather quicker than the other. But maybe that's just me.

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 21 2011, 06:32 PM

I don't see where your argument counters his statement in any way. In fact, I see both statements getting along quite nicely.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 21 2011, 06:48 PM

This is one of those situations where real-reality and game-reality don't mesh. In real life, it's completely possible to beat a person to death with your bare hands, without necessarily rendering them unconscious beforehand. In Shadowrun, it isn't. You must fill up your victim's Stun track before unarmed damage starts carrying over to Physical. It's one of those http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcceptableBreaksFromReality thingies.

Also, minor nitpick: if he's kicking me, I assume he's wearing boots, or at least shoes of some kind. Hard surfaces (like hardliner gloves, Arsenal, p. 39) convert unarmed damage from Stun to Physical.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 06:55 PM

I don't know much about densiplast, but I wouldn't rule that the leather and rubber that goes into footwear has the same effect. The kick maneuver doesn't mention it either.

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 21 2011, 06:59 PM

On beating someone to death w/o unconcious: Yes, it is possible, but how often does it happen, especially from someone not trained to deal lethal blows? (I would consider a drunken brawl where someone gets on top of someone and beats him to death to follow the concious-unconcious-dead line)

For the outliers, there are several in-game ways to have it done: If neither are wearing armour, glitches and crit glitches on the damage resistance test could, by the right GM, convert to Physical damage. Internal bleeding could result from an afformentioned glitch, or from the Severe Wounds rules (which I use in my games). In fact, these two rules cover just about everything that could happen. But, throw some armour on, and they get a lot less likely.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 07:06 PM

I'm quite happy for acceptable breaks from reality things per se, but they don't have to be accepted if there is an acceptable alternative too.

Also, the Severe Wounds optional rules in Augmentation do allow for killing a guy with your bare hands without filling the stun track at all. Specifically a critical glitch on the damage resistance test and possibly from heavy damage.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 21 2011, 07:27 PM

Fixed that for you. You never have articulated precisely why this houserule of yours is supposed to be desirable. What does it add, other than making an already offense-biased game even more offense-biased?

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 08:15 PM

Realism and/or drama. You crack a rib and then continue to run around fighting, shagging and drinking that same injury is going to get worse eventually. And I believe my original post did mention something about how simply resting can make an injury worse but not resting can't (barring certain severe wounds).

Also I do not accept your fix. An alternative only has to be acceptable to be a feasible option. If an alternative is desirable then the implication is that it is better than the current set up, which was not required for my statement. I'm not the only one fixing unbroken things it seems.

Posted by: Critias Aug 21 2011, 09:14 PM

I've just got to ask, but why Edge? I'm not entirely opposed to rolls that exacerbate injuries (in theory), but I'm not sure why you chose Edge for this one, instead of Body or Willpower, to show physical grit and determination.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 09:56 PM

Good question. I was going with the heavy damage mechanism and the notion that the bumps, scrapes and other myriad potential sources of injury-aggravation are largely down to luck (or misfortune perhaps). Also, I like finding/constructing new uses for the Edge attribute because I find my players tend to consider it a relatively unimportant stat. Not that they don't make good use of it, but more like it's a bonus rather than a core part of their character's make up. But Body/Willpower could well make more sense.

Posted by: Critias Aug 21 2011, 10:11 PM

Why not Body + Edge or Willpower + Edge, then? That way it makes sense for the big, tough guy to be less bothered by injuries, or for the grim, dedicated, guy to be able to tough his way through it...but you'd still be encouraging Edge at your table, and adding in some in-universe "luck" for it (not just the out-of-universe luck whenever dice are getting rolled).

I guess it just seems weird for me that BA Baracus is likely to torn apart by acting while injured, as Face whistles a jaunty tune to himself and ignores the bullet in his belly as their job progresses, y'know? It seems like stats besides Edge could play SOME part.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 10:26 PM

I like your thinking. The double-stat also makes it less of a threat.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 21 2011, 10:32 PM

I'm also now wondering whether the whole day of rest requirement is too strict. Perhaps if the character does get in a few hours of rest (maybe one hour per level of wound modifier, maybe GM call, maybe fixed at 2 or 3) that should be enough to keep stable as well as knock down the stun a little. I like the idea of a player having a medium option between heal and carry on regardless.

Posted by: Critias Aug 21 2011, 10:34 PM

The idea as a whole just comes down to how cinematic versus realistic a game you want to play. Given some of the built-in absurdity of the setting (trolls, mages, dragons, and everything else), I got out of my "realistic" phase pretty quickly, myself. In my opinion it's more fun and awesome for healing to be over with quickly and cinematically and for the players to get back into the action as soon as possible; keep the dice rolling, keep the game moving, and get single-player time sensitive stuff (like healing) over with as soon as possible to get the group back together.

*shrugs*

As always, YMMV.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 21 2011, 10:44 PM

I disagree in the most vehement manner possible. If both options are merely "acceptable" then there's no reason for the fix. Desirability is an implicit requirement for all house rules.

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 21 2011, 11:20 PM

I agree. The desire for a gritty, actions-have-consequences, but not adjusting the ruleset with new details is what motivated my choices, and provides the realism/drama Aerospider is looking for, at least in my opinion. But, to each their own.

Edit: I just realized I may not have been exactly clear, as he is looking for a way to cause injuries to exacerbate. I look at glitches as the reason to cause wounds to become trouble, and with wound modifiers are more likely, on all tests, not just DR and healing. Also, I randomly call for disease tests, which can represent infection, or just a lowered immune response during the injury period.

Posted by: Irion Aug 21 2011, 11:58 PM

First: Stun should heal fast. So after a night of sleep it should have been taken care of.
Second:Yes, the optional rules for heavy damage should be used if you want realism. (It is kind of silly not to use them and than complain about healing too fast)
Theired: Physical damage should be more severe. But it is kind of hard. The main issue here is, that most charactes do not have a lot of Hitpoints/boxes. Around 10 for the avarage guy and 13 for the max body troll.
So the troll body 10 troll needs 4 days to heal up on his own...

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 22 2011, 12:05 AM

Yeah, though I don't agree with that, so much. I want PC's to take into account the downtime and long-term effects of actions. And suffer appropriately for being a Troll who decides to tank a bomb because he can. My use of the rules means to heal full, it'd take him quite a bit longer. In one example on another thread, a Troll with 10 body and 20 damage would be completely healed in 3 days. In my game, in a middle lifestyle room and no care, he'd be unconscious for an average of 3 days.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 22 2011, 02:23 AM

I sympathize with 'getting the crap kicked out of you' not going away overnight. I just feel like you'd have Physical damage as a result, in which case it would *already* take longer. If you take only Stun damage, you were 'just knocked out'; cinematically, that just means a nap. 'Beaten up' means at least a little Physical mixed in.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 22 2011, 02:54 AM

Got a human with 19 boxes...
Just saying...

Posted by: suoq Aug 22 2011, 05:22 AM

If someone is kicking the crap out of a shadowrun wageslave (closest thing I can think to represent me in game), yes, that overflow* damage still hurts the next morning. Most (if not all) of the night I'm busy healing the stun damage. Until that's gone I can't even begin to heal the physical damage and that heals a lot more slowly.

* the excess stun damage that gets converted into physical because it wasn't precise work done by an Igor and, besides, everyone needs to get a last kick in, even if the guy is unconscious.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 22 2011, 03:01 PM

If you don't like the healing rules, here's a better idea:

Change the interval.

Stun is now 1 roll per day and Physical is now 1 roll per week.

That should keep your characters down longer.

(Because rolling six dice against a threshold of 1-18 isn't such a great idea. 6 boxes of stun + physical is barely incapacitating (-2 DP tops) but impossible for any character to actually GET the successes).

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 22 2011, 04:08 PM

Wow, even for me that seems a bit harsh...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 22 2011, 04:19 PM

Personally, I think the Physical healing is very fast (and I understand this to be a normal view?), esp. with healing options in the game. Probably too fast, but that's a game-versus-realism issue.

As for Stun, I strongly think it *should* be easy to shake off. It's easy to inflict, and it's meant to be a much more temporary disabling factor. That's why tasers exist, and are allowed to exist. If people were running around with 24 hour knockout devices, the laws would be very different.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 22 2011, 04:38 PM

Holy crap dude, tell me that's just facetiousness there! Also, I'm not really sure what that last bit is going on about. Threshold 18...?

I'm really not out to just keep them down longer. I am mostly very happy with the healing rules, I just have the two minor niggles but I accept that neither has found much sympathy.
Que sera sera.

Posted by: darthmord Aug 22 2011, 05:29 PM

The older editions had the wound severity play into the healing time. For Physical damage, Light wounds were a day, Moderate wounds were a week, Severe I think were 2 weeks, and Deadly was a month and that was just to heal a box per success.

I'd have to go dig up my old books to get the exact numbers though. You may want to consider something like that. Perhaps every 3 boxes of damage up the healing time interval by a notch to represent more complex and damaging wounds.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 22 2011, 05:43 PM

Sounds good, darthmord. Every-three would be a simple add-on to the existing system, and it lets truly serious wounds matter (if that's a problem for a given group).

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 22 2011, 05:46 PM

I realize I went a little high, upon rereading the OP.

The maximum possible is going to be around...6 + 10, so 16.

Low Pain tollerance on characters with 8 willpower and 16 body (and/or cyberware). On normal people (i.e. neither high nor low pain tollerance) you're looking at 4+7 or 11 and your average person is going to top out at 6. Which is still absurd.

In other words: do the math first, then insult me if I was wrong.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 22 2011, 06:59 PM

I just don't know what maths you're doing. Could you put in the wordy bits as well as the numbery bits?

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 22 2011, 07:14 PM

I calculated "maximum willpower" and "maximum body" independently. If I get a little more realistic:

Maximum Body: 12 (exceptional and genetweaked troll) + cyber boost: 18
Maximum willpower (on said character): 6 (no tweaks, no cyber)
Maximum number of boxes (each track): 17/11
Add cyberware bonus boxes (2 per limb): 12
Total track size: 29/11

29 boxes can incur a maximum DP penalty of -9
11 boxes can incur a maximum DP penalty of -3

Total: -12. A TH of 12 on a maximum dicepool of 7 is not a good thing.

That's before Low Pain Tollerance (which is -1 per 2 boxes, rather than -1 per 3), which would get us to 14+5 or 19.

Even on an average human you're looking at 11 boxes twice, which is -3 per track, total of -6 with a maximum ever achievable edge value of 8 (and getting 6 hits on 8 dice is RARE as fuck (1.7%)).

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 22 2011, 07:19 PM

What I don't get is *why* you're doing the numbery bits here. What is the proposition you're trying to prove? Penalties can go really high? That people really hurt can't heal naturally/alone?

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 22 2011, 07:43 PM

This is why:

The point was to point out how arbitrary and impossible such a rule would be.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 22 2011, 07:48 PM

The moral of this story: do the math on any proposed house rules.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 22 2011, 07:57 PM

Correct.

It might work out OK for the average human who's already been healed by a good medic and a good mage (4 dice, 1 TH) but not for the street sam troll who's got stacking wounds and can't be healed further and has low edge (2 dice, 3 TH).

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 22 2011, 08:05 PM

Ah, thanks. I was trying to figure out what rules you were talking about.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 22 2011, 08:14 PM

I started by making an offhand comment about the OP; should have quoted it.

Posted by: Dreadlord Aug 22 2011, 08:22 PM

In my game, I apply a fair number of the grittier options.

I use ALL the applicable conditions mods. ALL First Aid, Medicine, and Resting Rolls are modified by wound mods, no matter who is making the roll (if you are trying to heal yourself, wound mods apply TWICE). I also use the Severe Wounds optional rules in Augmentation pages 120-121. I have also considered putting those same mods on the mage casting a Heal Spell as well, but haven't pulled the trigger yet on that.

I find these rules alone is enough to scare the players into making a hangnail into an episode of ER, with everyone grabbing medkits "STAT!" and teamworking the injury as much as possible, with the mage finishing it off with a Heal spell. And when they don't have time to do that, you can feel the desperation and teeth-gritting determination as they attempt to finish the run as fast as they can before they start falling like flies, or get so injured they are in a hospital for a month or more, assuming they survive. Injury has also led them to abort a run, which I feel is very realistic!

The healing times using the RAW tend to feel about right, as long as you decrease their dice pool as I noted above for their recovery tests. Glitches also become more common.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 22 2011, 08:29 PM

I am surprised anyone in your game bothers with first aid at all. Someone with 3 boxes of stun and 6 boxes of physical is getting a -3 to that first aid test.

Oh, and -2 for being in bad conditions (the street)

Oh, and -1 for it being a little dark

Oh, and -2 for the subject being a mage

Oh, and there's a minimum threshold of 2 before any healing even occurs (17 base dice needed at this point to get 1 box of either track healed).

Do you apply these modifiers to natural healing tests too?

(Sorry, your 4 body minus your two wound penalties and you got a glitch? Take 1d6 more boxes of damage)

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 22 2011, 08:35 PM

Yes, very realistic. But is it fun?

"We didn't do the job, which means we didn't get paid, which means we can't afford to lay around recuperating. We need a new job!"

"But boss, we're all shot up. We can't pull off a job in this condition."

"Well, then I guess we all roll over and die."

To pull a quote from RPG.net's http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml, "If this were any more realistic, you'd be able to TASTE the penis length!"

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 22 2011, 08:38 PM

Not to mention the automatic +1 notoriety for failing a run.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 22 2011, 10:29 PM

All of it, it seems. Weak builds, medium builds, strong builds, optimised builds, builds that use every single bonus that stacks in order to make the average guy in the street look as tough as an asthmatic ant.

I must admit that I don't bear in mind the optimised builds when thinking up house rules and judging them. I never have that kind of player at my table (not that I ban them) and I think it generally makes more sense for the nature of an optimised build to bend to the rules rather than the other way around.

So does it make sense that a tank with enough injury to kill a pleb nearly three times over to be unable to stave off the internal bleeding long enough to complete the mission? Maybe, maybe not.

Should the same apply to a less extreme but still very tough tank? Say 16 boxes total for a threshold of 4 or 5? Perhaps the rule is too harsh for that. But then I'm already thinking Critas was more on the money with his Body+Edge idea and a tank should have a fair chance then. Plus, we're only talking about one box per day and do many runs go on for days and days without any let up? When first contemplating this rule I imagined it would be of dramatic significance quite rarely, but present enough to hurt a little every once in a while. Maybe my games are quite unusual in that more often than not no more than one of the characters come close to filling up a damage track.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 22 2011, 10:40 PM

Now you're getting it. In order to figure out where the rule breaks, you have to do the math for the most brokenly overpowered builds you can think of. Then come to Dumpshock, get somebody to make a build that's even more overpowered than that, and do the math again. If the rule only breaks for outliers, you might have something. A straight Edge test with a threshold higher than 1 breaks everybody. Body + Edge is better, but still punishing for any character who isn't a tank or Mr. Lucky. A human with average Body and Edge rolls six dice, and cannot reliably meet a threshold higher than 2, and will glitch... fuck, I don't know how to figure that. Intuitively, I'm going to say it's unacceptably high; Draco18s, enlighten me, please.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 23 2011, 02:15 AM

Open Excel

Type this:



And that will tell you what you need to know.

Parameters are:
1) number of "hits" you're looking for
2) number of dice rolled
3) probability of a "hit" (in this case, 1s, so 1/6)
4) false (you don't want true for SR)

So, 5.35% (of 3 1s). Do the same for 4, 5, and 6 1's and sum (6.22%) and a 64.8% odds of 2 or more successes.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 23 2011, 02:31 AM

I prefer this: http://anydice.com/ Gorgeous.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 23 2011, 03:20 AM

http://topps.diku.dk/torbenm/troll.msp is better. Namely because it includes Turing complete probability calculations for ANY dice roll setup you can imagine (check the dropdown for ShadowRun d6s and with Edge).

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 23 2011, 03:21 AM

Hello? I said this one's prettier.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 23 2011, 06:09 AM

Except that I don't agree with that methodology. I expect the super-optimised builds to cause rules to break, at least in terms of plausible realism, and think they do so all over the shop already so I choose not to consider them. Again, I may well be in a minority over how much consideration the extreme cases warrant.

The supertank build might treat Edge as a dump stat (for all I know) but with this kind of rule in place he'd have to rethink and to me that's the natural order of things. Think of it like the 20 dice cap optional rule - a 40+ DP in your speciality might normally be considered a great build, but with the cap in place it suddenly becomes very sub-optimal

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 23 2011, 07:59 AM

Hmm, maybe that was somewhat dismissive of me and not in-keeping with the debating spirit. Might have to stop posting before getting out of bed.

So how about this angle - how often will a 29-box tank be concerned about an extra box per day of running? Does anyone run the kind of game in which such a character could die from overflow?

Ok, version 2.0.

Only applies to physical damage, roll is Body + Edge (I still like the Edge element) and threshold is reduced by 1 if first aid and/or Heal has been applied since the last injury was suffered (reflecting that the wounds are not only less severe but also more under control).

Better? Too much the other way?

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 23 2011, 02:09 PM

Lets see.

Your supertank troll with oodles of edge is going to be pushing around 16 dice to this test (10 body, 6 edge) and the absolute max is around 23 dice (12 body + 4 aug + 7 edge)?
Average expected hits is going to be about 5 (or 7-8 ).

At 13 physical boxes for the unaugmented max body troll, his maximum wound penalty is going to be -4 (and 16 dice to roll).

The cybertroll is rolling around with 16 boxes + 12, looking at a maximum wound penalties of -9 (and 23 dice to roll for that).

Maybe a little too far the other way. Someone who's rocking a nearly full tracks isn't going to be on a run.

Normal runners, at around 6 body (for your high end--orc or troll--as opposed to your body 2 mage) and 3 nominal Edge has 9 dice and a max threshold of -3 (1 box shy of the -4).

The low end (body 2 mage) is looking at a -3 top-out but only has 2 + 4 = 6 dice to roll.

It's a little easy, still, on that mid-to-high range. Full damage tracks shouldn't be the average (e.g. a full track's TH is the averge # of hits on the available dice pool). But that low range is going to kill somebody, and they're the least worrisome. They're not going to be going on the runs where they get shot up a lot, get shot up, and then want to run again.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 23 2011, 02:22 PM

What exactly are we trying to prove here Draco18s? I am still a bit unsure.
The numbers above are not speaking to me.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 23 2011, 02:47 PM

I was observing the scenarios available to the possible house rule, seeing how many dice a given character had to roll and figuring out what their maximum threshold is.

As it turns out, the test is largely meaningless for the people Aerospider is trying to "punish" (the street sams with piles of body, I assume). Previously the test was just outright impossible for everyone (even a TH2, which is an average human only 1/3 of the way to being unconscious, is difficult for anyone who didn't soft-max edge).

Anyway. Aerospider.

The way to work through the rule is to figure out what numbers you have to deal with. That being the potential dice pool, the DP penalty from wounds (the potential TH), and which group you want to be most effected. This should be the high-body characters with -1 to -3 in wound penalties (depending on their total number of boxes of health).

I'm not sure what to say in order to get somewhere that's "good."

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 23 2011, 03:32 PM

I still think you're trying to fix something that isn't broken. The "Severe Wounds" optional rules in Augmentation are perfectly adequate if you want to make boxes of damage less like hit points (which, IMO, is an excellent goal, and I wholeheartedly support the use of Severe Wounds rules). They strike the right balance between making getting shot something worth worrying about and not beating the PCs down like redheaded stepchildren for sticking a pinky finger out from behind cover (see Dreadlord's house rules).

Posted by: CanRay Aug 23 2011, 03:37 PM

"JesusAllahBuddha this burns like a motherslotter! Damn, whose idea was it to use Willie-Peter?" "It's burning your cyberarm, you can turn off the sensation." "Oh, right. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that's better. Oh, look, it fell out onto the ground. Good thing it missed my boot. ... Why do my lungs hurt?"

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 23 2011, 04:08 PM

Quite. I was never looking for an ingenious way to tip characters into overflow (though would want that danger included in the rule) and would hope that someone with only a box to spare would give serious thought to taking a break at this point. This is also a part of why I didn't consider catering for the (IMO) ridiculous tank builds.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 23 2011, 04:18 PM

Ooh, I'm glad you used the quotation marks there. I never look to punish any character based on build, especially not by house rule. Rules should affect various builds in ways that are fair by realism or gameplay. It was interesting to note that (by the first version at least) those that could suffer the most damage would suffer most, which is not reasonable given that they are suffering for being strong. That said, I am tempted by the notion that the more bullets you're carrying in your organs the more can go wrong and deteriorate.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 23 2011, 04:45 PM

Extreme tank builds will just have huge tracks (pushing 20+ boxes) which is why a character won't mind having 6 boxes filled. To them they're at "half health" or less, whereas other characters would consider themselves at being "almost dead."



Exactly. I was using the term as a negative reinforcement tool (punish versus reward) towards the target audience, rather than something intended to be harsh and unforgiving.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 23 2011, 04:50 PM

Perhaps I should have illustrated my issue better.

Suppose two weak characters are a little bit shot up, no more than 6 boxes. One gets his head down whilst the other decides to stay active until a better healing opportunity arises. Now the second guy has nothing to worry about if he keeps himself out of trouble - that crossbow bolt in his calf will wait. The first guy, however, is in some danger. He has a low Body rating, no medical equipment or expertise on hand, poor conditions, whatever - he has only 1 die to roll for healing. That's a 1 in 6 chance of gaining 1D3 damage as well as losing an extra day of healing. If he's rolling 2 healing dice that probability goes up to 7 in 36, as we all know. So while his mate is off galavanting about town he's just praying his sick bed doesn't kill him.

Note, I'm quite happy with the glitch rules on healing, but desire an equivalent for those who put off healing for another day.

I'm also a big fan of the severe wounds rules, but they don't cater for this concern.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 23 2011, 04:57 PM

Oh, I totally get what you're trying to do. I'm just saying that I can't figure out how to get where you want to be without managing to hose someone (or end up with someone who invariably doesn't care).

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 23 2011, 04:59 PM

...I think you still need to illustrate your issue better. What I get out of that post is that Runner A, who gets shot and takes some time off to heal up, is actually worse off than Runner B, who takes a crossbow bolt to the leg and keeps going. That not only makes no damn sense, it doesn't square with my previous understanding of your position (wounds should matter more and healing should be harder).

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 23 2011, 05:31 PM

That is and always was exactly my issue and the purpose of this thread. As you say, it makes no damn sense but is RAW nonetheless.

My apologies for any part I played in your misunderstanding up until now.

Posted by: Dreadlord Aug 23 2011, 06:14 PM

Hm, it seems like what you (and myself as well!) are looking for is some kind of "internal bleeding" or "infection" rule for untreated wounds and/or people who refuse to rest up and heal naturally.

Either a new mechanic such as the aforementioned BOD + EDGE, or a novel application of an existing mechanic would work, I think.

How about if you don't rest/treat wounds within the first interval for the wound type (Stun is 1 hour, Physical Damage is 1 day), it counts as an automatic critical glitch and you take a further 1D3 damage boxes? Or is that too harsh? (which I have been accused of in this thread!)

btw: I misspoke earlier, I double-checked the House Rules published to my players and I don't apply injury mods to a First Aid or Medicine roll unless the person is trying to patch themselves up, nor do I apply it twice. My game is on hiatus for the summer, and my brain has misplaced some of the facts! The mage PC in my campaign is a doctor, though, so it rarely comes up due to First Aid, Medicine, and Heal Spell used in the proper order. On top of that, they are working a long-term mission (Ghost Cartels) for a medical AA company who provides health care for a discount if needed, although the players don't trust any corp enough to make it a habit.

I DO apply injury mods to all other health rolls such as resting, which tends to make healing times feel less "videogamey", especially for heavy wounds. I am not sure if that is a House Rule, as I don't see that Resting/Natural Healing is explicitly exempt from injury mods.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 23 2011, 06:35 PM

I'm pretty sure that resting-healing tests are exempt from wound modifiers, although I am AFB.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 23 2011, 06:45 PM

I'm fine with the general concept… not seeking timely care is dangerous. Why not simply require a Healing test (for the one who keeps running/ignores treatment), but the only effect is on a glitch? Now they're equal, except the non-healer doesn't gain anything.

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 23 2011, 07:40 PM

Which is why you, as the GM, don't necessarily follow the glitch suggestions. The book says a glitch can be anything detrimental, and I would think, forcing your self to stand up tall and look strong, staring down the opposition (intimidation), even if a shot isn't fired, to be enough to "pull something" when the character takes a deep breath at the start of the staredown. I might give him some stun damage for a base glitch, or a box of physical for a critical glitch.

Posted by: Dreadlord Aug 23 2011, 07:56 PM

I happen to have my SR4A PDF handy, and you are correct that the base rules do not have injury mods. On p.252, though, there is the "Slower Healing" optional rule to use injury mods for Healing Tests. I do not use the second bullet point of only rolling BOD instead of BOD * 2 (even I think that is pretty bad!)

Since the Healing Test is an Extended Test, and if you are using the cumulative -1 per roll, wouldn't that be REALLY severe? Would you end up with crippling damage that can't be healed?

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 23 2011, 08:43 PM

Healing is not really an extended test, per se. So you should never suffer the cumulative -1 to the roll.

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 23 2011, 10:50 PM

While it is described as an extended test, I would have to agree that it shouldn't be held to the cumulative -1 penalty. My method is already gritty and dangerous enough, (body- wounds), that a cumulative penalty would completely remove healing from the game.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 23 2011, 10:58 PM

Weird pseudo-errata notwithstanding, the cumulative penalty is an *optional* rule for *some* Extended Tests, subject in all cases to the GM's judgment.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 24 2011, 02:05 AM

Indeed...

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 24 2011, 07:05 AM

My fallback plan was essentially this. The slight problem with it is that if the character would have suffered a glitch anyway he's not really suffering any extra for his decision to keep running while injured.

Posted by: suoq Aug 24 2011, 04:08 PM

I may be misunderstanding something, but with a negative to his dice pool (for being injured), it seems like he either needs to reduce his activity (limit the number of times he rolls dice) or increase his chance of failing and occasionally glitching. Increasing his wounds as a result of the glitch does not seem out of line to me if that's your goal.

If he is continuing to run without resting, then it strikes me that he's going to run out of edge sooner (due to the decreased dice pool) and it seems perfectly reasonable to not refresh edge on someone who won't rest/heal/recover.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 24 2011, 06:26 PM

Oh, now this I quite like. You can only refresh Edge if you're at full health. If this turns out to be too harsh, allow Edge refreshment with Stun damage but not Physical.

Posted by: Aerospider Aug 24 2011, 06:45 PM

Interesting...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 24 2011, 07:05 PM

Ooh, that is kinda compelling. On the other hand, what if they can't rest/heal? What if it's a gritty survival-type game? I guess the GM could do it only when the player is violating Wheaton's Law.

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 24 2011, 07:35 PM

I have my own set up for that. According to the Survival rules, you can`t heal unless you are in a safe place. I say, allow the person with the best survival skill roll a Survival+Intuition (2) test (teamwork rules apply), to set up a "safe" camp. Characters can use this camp to rest and heal. If you want to make it grittier, set the maximum number of boxes healed as the net hits on the Camp test. YMMV, however.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 24 2011, 07:55 PM

Sounds good. Still, I'd worry about the possible unintended consequences of dealing with Edge refresh. That's all. Given that Edge refresh is so much up to GM whim already, it's probably not an issue.

Posted by: HunterHerne Aug 24 2011, 08:13 PM

This I agree with as well. I generally refresh edge when I give a character a call for a new mission, or if they have do the work to get a new mission under way. Right now, my PC's are rescuing a girl from a fairly vicious gang, and they are doing it right, except using a forbidden aerial drone inside a military flight zone. The result of them doing it right, is that they found someone has a bounty on the gang leader, so mission 2, which will involve transporting the gang leader alive, will proceed shortly after mission 1. I will most likely refresh their edge, especially if they take a couple hours to rest, after they have him stored somewhere prior to delivery.

Posted by: Dreadlord Aug 24 2011, 09:11 PM

Huh. I am already doing this, since I don't refresh Edge unless (wounded or not) the PC gets a good night's rest. There are extenuating circumstances at times (I give instant rewards sometimes such as getting a spent Edge point back for roleplaying, extreme dice rolls, etc.), but my players are now familiar with that pacing of Edge refresh, so getting them to rest, while wounded or not, is not a problem! Even Mr. Lucky the Hacker wants his spent Edge refreshed!

It has also made for some tense situations where the player realizes he has wasted his Edge too early in the mission, and now needs it to save his life or the mission! Therefore, even Mr. Lucky thinks long and hard before using his Edge. Makes it more strategic, in my opinion.

I had to do this because on character generation the players realized how important a stat Edge is, so one character has 4 Edge, two characters are at 5, and one is at 7.

Posted by: Draco18s Aug 24 2011, 09:39 PM

Here's a thought:

When performing strenuous activity¹ with at least -1 wound penalty, roll 7 (-wounds) dice. No hits or a glitch, take 1 stun (unresisted). Crit-glitch, take 1 physical (unresisted).
If reduced to 0 or fewer dice, take an immediate 1 stun (unresisted) and add 7 dice to the dice pool and roll as above (so -2 dice would be 1 stun, roll 5 dice).

It's going to be (largely) fair to every character type (only the beefiest of troll sams having damage tracks large enough to put them at 0 dice) and instead of penalizing based on low (body, will, edge) it's harsher for continuing to do jobs with higher amounts of damage.

¹Obviously not within minutes of having received wounds. Should be rolled after first aid has been applied and the characters have the opportunity to rest.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Aug 25 2011, 02:31 AM

I'm just saying there's no particular reason to tie Edge to rest, or to anything physical. It's luck. You can explicitly get Edge back for pulling off crazy actions, not resting. I'm fine with the idea of no Edge while you're already 'pushing your luck' with untreated wounds, but tying it directly to *rest* seems arbitrary and contrary to the spirit of Edge.