Is it only a feeling of mine, or does is sometimes worse, to be hit by a weapon that causes "only" stun damage? Let me explain, what I mean.

If your stun condition monitor is almost filled and the physical condition monitor is still empty, a further hit that does not penetrate your armor will problably make you unconscious ( and if you are the last man standing, this will probably kill you). But if the damage would be physical, you might stay conscious and just get a higher wound modifier. This leads to the situation that my players are sometimes happy to get physical instead of stun damage...

To resolve this, I think of someting like getting the same amount of stun damage, if you get physical damage, or maybe half. Of course, this would make the game harder. Do you think, this is a good idea? How could this increased diffuculty level be compensated? Or do you think, such situations hardly ever occur?

Yup. You might be able to search for some house rules about this (I've seen P+1/2S, like you suggest). The 'automatic tearaway armor' trick is relatively popular (in theory). It doesn't come up *that* often, but it is an issue.

Umm... I don't see the problem. A knocked out guy isn't dead YET. If he's worried, he can always take off some armour when his stun track gets filled...

Personally, I think giving effectively double damage for physical unnecessarily punishes players. Also, modifiers would then end up doubled. The other option is combining both damage types onto one track, and doing stun by loose shading, and physical by blacking out the boxes (or single stroke and crossing out), and shifting existing stun upwards (might be good to print a page full of condition monitors). Then stun always sits on top of the pysical on the same track and when it's full by either you go out. You would have to find a suitable compromise on the size of the monitors, though, 8 + 1/2 Bod + 1/2 Will, rounded down, for instance. Or a single track with a "stun overflow" section of 1/2 Will on top. You drop when your physical track is full of physical or when phys+stun reaches the edge of the overflow. Stun overflow into physical then happens when the physical track is full of stun, you simply cross in some physical boxes when going into stun overflow.

That way stun damage gets inherently less bad, because you at least theoretically take more of it, but taking phyiscal instead won't keep you awake longer.

Taking stun damage makes you unconscious.
Taking physical damage makes you leaky.
Leaking blood everywhere isn't good, not by a long shot. And often, they shoot the medic first, so you're shit outta luck anyway.

It's not a non-issue. It *is* insane that there are cases in the system where someone would *want* to remove armor mid-combat in order to take more damage. Many people have commented on this over the years.

It's true that Physical damage is very bad, and all things equal, you'd prefer Stun. That's this weird little issue is so nagging.

Brainpiercing, sounds like WoD, which I think has been proposed before. Seems like a good enough idea to me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Besides, then we could use Aggravated for Drain and Fading, mwa ha.

How would you balance out a combined Condition Track with characters that have multiple cyberlimbs, or extra boxes from Will To Live?

Hm. You could say screw it and just give them boxes. You could get fancy and give them boxes of permanent 'pseudo-stun' (pre-slashed boxes that can't take Stun in them), but that starts getting much trickier than I'd care to deal with. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The first option seems totally fine to me, given it's all arbitrary. You might want to rejigger costs, if you were very worried.

It is NOT an issue. That is Gaming the System, pure and simple. In no way is it ever better to take Physical Damage than it is to take Stun Damage. If you go unconscious, then you have another plot point. Why is it that characters (and their players) choose to go out in a blaze of glory rather than be captured? It is not an instant death sentence to go unconscious, unless you are playing in a game with a killer Game Master. There are always reasons to keep you alive, and they do not require a lot of thought, either. I never really understood this mindset for Shadowrun. *shrug*

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
But from a gametheorie point of view it is better to win with 9 boxes of stun and 4 of physical damage, than to go down with 11 boxes of stun.

TJ, that's exactly why it is an issue. Duh. There should not be the potential (or incentive) for such nonsense.

Surely, you are right, Tymeaus. What I more or less wanted to say, was that it is rather strange to me that it is possible to stay awake, when you get shot at, but go down due to a simple punch (physical condition monitor empty, stun almost filled).

Well the saying is geek the mage first, and he is usually the one to patch you up on the fly....so yeah. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I agree. I've GM'd a group where 4 of 6 of them were captured. The next mission the captured players made quick 350 BP characters to act as hired mercs to rescue their actual characters.

I think that's a false concern; this isn't about not-dying. Dying is always 100% the purview of the GM, regardless. This is about *winning* that specific combat. There are (rare) cases when you can take P, get off another shot, and hobble away the victor. That's a glitch, an artifact of the game mechanic, and it's at odds with the realism; it shouldn't be the case. That's all.

8 + (Bod + Wil)/2 boxes. Track Stun and Physical differently. When Stun + Physical = Condition monitor, unconscious. Similar to Damage and Subdual from the Other Game.

So just don't allow it. That is how I handle it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Slap it down and it is never an issue again.
Unfortunately, no game system can be perfect. Some yahoo will always screw it up with his Game theory.

And Irion... Game Theory should stay the hell out of Game Play. If you keep them seperate, and don't allow the Theory to cloud the issue, you will likely be much happier. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You're answering the wrong question. From what I thought, this is a game theory thread, not 'how do I GM this?'. The OP specifically asked about house rules (=theory).

Just because the GM can *always* fix any problem by fiat doesn't mean you ignore those issues and never think about them. Half this whole forum is theory musings.

Except that you can fix it without houserules, by just not pandering to it (note that this is not the same as ignoring it). It exists that way so that you can actually have a situation where the opponent actually goes unconscious due to a beating, rather than dying outright. It is a GOOD thing, in my opinion. Many of the "abuses" that people point out actually have a great in-game reasoning for them. Armor is one of them. You provide armor so the character does not die. He takes a beating, and yet lives to fight another day. The fact that many "Game Theorists" do not like it, because it provides an exploitable loop-hole, is actually the wrong way to look at that situation.

And actually, looking back at the Original Post, it is definitely a "How do I GM this" question. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I don't ignore the issues that are being brought up. I find an in-game rationale for them to work the way that they do. Sometimes that does not work, and a houserule must be considered. But I find that to be a rarity, in practice.

But you do have a point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That *is* the same as ignoring it, and it's fixing it by GM fiat. I agree that it's a rarer problem and easily avoided by not metagaming. But this is the same problem you have with every rules debate, TJ. As an ideal and a mental exercise, rules *should* produce and reflect a coherent realistic game world. That's why we have all these discussions about loopholes and things.

Again, it's not about dying. No one is wanting to exploit this… in order to die. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I feel like he specifically asked about fixing it with a house rule; that's theory. He mentioned that his players noticed this break in the realism; that mismatch is the whole problem. There is no in-game reasoning for that.

See, I disagree here a bit. I do not see telling someone "No" as ignoring the issue. I see it as not allowing a metagaming aspect to encroach upon the playability of the world. I feel that the rules, as they are, provide a playable world that is fun and immersive. Are there a few problems? Yes, no rule system is perfect. As an Ideal and Mental Exercise (Thanks, I like that terminology), I believe that the rules provide a reasonable, coherent, and realistic game world, WITHIN ITS OWN PARAMETERS. It is not the same as our world. The discussions about loopholes is purely a metagaming issue. If you really look at the vast majority of those discussions, you will see that they are almost all purely metagame topics, that a reasonable person IN THE WORLD would never even consider. The reason they come up is because Individuals see the potential for an abuse and want to exploit it (Players) or shut it down (GM's), rather than ignoring it, or just saying "No." If you just do not allow the metagamey issue to matter, then there is usually no problem.

AS or the current Armor Question. There is an In-Game reasoning for that, and it is NOT a break in realism. It is SPECIFICALLY a metagaming issue. Armor is worn so that you do not otherwise die from Physical Damage. THAT is why it was invented in the first place. The disconnect is specifically a PC noticing that it would be more effecient to take stun to a certain point, and then to ditch the armor so that he can take the empty physical boxes, so that he can stay up longer. WHY does he want to stay up longer, though? There is absolutely no answer that can be provided that does not break that metagaming issue. NO ONE in their right mind would ditch armor in a firefight so they could get one more shot in. The more likely scenario is that they will run, or give up, the moment that they see they are in a losing fight. Arguing that you would ditch the armor to stay in the fight is entirely disengenous.

In fact, they are wanting to exploit this so that they can "get in that one last shot that will let them win." Poppycock, BS, and anything else I could think of. It is Metagaming, pure and simple, and should be stomped on. It is the same argument that everyone uses to support their "Overcasting" mages. They overcast because they can soak it to nothing, so why not, when in the reality (of the game world), few to none would overcast their spells even if their life absolutely depended upon it, because that is the same as putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger.

It is a disconnect between the rules and reality. And unfortunately, the players know this is not reality, so they try to pull shennanigans that would never fly in the real world, just so that they can game the system. If you do not allow those shennanigans, then you do not have those problems. Pure and Simple.

Again, I'm not saying that disallowing it doesn't *avoid* the issue. I'm saying that's the problem; you say, 'there's an issue, but we're never doing it'. That's the definition of ignoring it, instead of talking about it here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) *Yes*, it arises from metagaming; so? The glitch is the problem, not the source of it. No one said this wasn't about metagaming, or that metagaming is good.

There is no in-game reasoning for removing armor keeping your conscious longer under fire. You're talking about a different, distracting point: that there's an in-game reason no one would *notice*. You're right: it *is* exactly the same as Overcasting, which is equally an issue to be discussed. You can bet that 'in the world' some mage sometime would notice that they (inexplicably!) felt better casting at a certain level.

Once again, it is nothing to do with curbing metagaming. It is about the rules failing to produce a coherent effect; bad rules. We don't *want* any disconnect (actually, conflict) between the rules and the reality. Sure, they work fine *if you ignore it*. You shouldn't have to ignore it. You shouldn't have to have gentlemen's agreements. You shouldn't have to have GM intervention. So, here in this discussion forum, where we discuss theory, this is an issue worthy of discussion.

There are other ways to get physical damage, short of ditching your armor. One more hit on the attack and no hit on your reaction test.

This leads to the situation: "Thank god, this guy hit me hard."

Heheheh... I guess we have to agree to disagree on this then. I don't see an Issue of "Avoidance", where you do. It is discussed, I (or another GM) beat people about the head and shoulders with a heavy Tome for being crazy, and then it is not allowed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And I was also arguing that there was no in-game reasoning to remove armor. There is EVERY in-game reason to NOT do so, though. Which was my point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

No worries. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Right, which is a different point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

One issue is that 2070 is a scientific world. It *is* theoretically possible that someone actually ran controlled experiments about how long subjects stayed conscious under damage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) The same goes for overcasting, for the logical dominance of S&S, etc.

NO... Physical Damage HURTS me much more than Stun Damage Does. I can never see a time where I would be grateful to have Physical Damage over Stun Damage. But then, I do not care if I am captured or not.