You can always tweak the model until you get what you want. Someone suggested extending the track to compensate, while I've also seen things like P+(1/2)S, or whatever. In some ways, I like the idea of Physical damage causing/including a Stun component; that's the shock of the wound. Being S, it would go away fast (including stim effects to mask it; good catch, Draco18s), but the base P component would linger (P's slow heal times).

Sure there are. They grant high pain tolerance (but don't actually heal the stun).

I was being a bit facetious and referring to the premise of the OP that, people would rather take a bullet to the chest than pop a StimPatch to avoid unconsciousness.

It doesn't matter that they don't heal the stun stim patches keep you fighting long enough to win maybe. Given the existence of stim patches; volunteering for Physical damage to avoid more Stun Damage is meta-gaming of the worst kind. (regardless of risk to magic.)

Also:
I like the idea of physical wounds doing stun (especially with firearms because I'm a sometimes believer in the Hydrostati Shock theory. But that's a tough mechanic to write.

Either there really is an immediate difference between the Contusions, Abrasions, Fatigue of Stun damage, and the life-threatening traumas of physical damage or there's not. Really, damage is damage and the distinction is one of degree, not type or location. I see that doubling the wound modifier would make the game unplayable. I still think the way to encourage players to fear and avoid physical damage more than stun is to model it better.

Perhapse it would work to model things like broken bones, punctured lungs and open veins. How about;

That sounds like the Advanced Wound rules from Arsenal.

You wouldn't *just* double the wound mod (if you did that at all); you'd alter things to compensate.

Do stims actually prevent unconsciousness, if they only give pain tolerance? Those two things are necessarily linked, and I don't recall if the rules actually do that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

TJ's point, which I would totally agree with, is that nobody in their right mind would want to take a slug in the gut rather than in the ballistic vest. End of. A player (esp a troll tank with high BOD) looking at their condition tracks and saying "Oh, I can't take any more stun damage, time to take off the armoured vest and take that P damage." IS metagaming, like it or not.

I have no problems with the system as it is, and would not let that sort of metagamery fly at my table, but YMMV. For those who find it hard to sleep at night because of this possible exploit, I suggest a simple house rule that anyone taking S damage can elect to take it as P if the stun damage would have knocked them out. Simple!

Interesting suggestion from Thorya about the much bigger stun track (with presumably reduced penalties to boot). Don't think I will be using it however, as I am fine with the system as it currently is, and I don't want to encourage my players to use lethal force over stunning opponents any more than they already do ...

No one disagrees with TJ's point, or that it's metagaming; they never did. He's arguing against nothing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The actual point is that there's a weird and nagging glitch in the rules, and that's objectively undesirable. Not catastrophic, not unplayable, just a glitch to be considered and maybe fixed.

It's like how TN7 was the same as TN6 in SR3; it never really changed much, but it was an annoying little error in the mechanic.

@Midas
Nobody takes his armor off. That is not what this glitch is about.
It is about hitting a passed out target with gelrounds is nearly as deadly as "normal" rounds.
It is about a guy hitting you for physical might not take you down, but doing less damage and beeing stun would.

Yes, if you have either unarmored players or the trolltank, this won't come up.
But lets take a look at some guy with body 3 and 6 Worn armor. The "normal" guy. If you shoot him with one of the many DV 5 weapons, you will always vary between stun and physical.
So this guy will be standing a bit longer, than the guy with 2 additional points of cyberarmor...

But I get it, it is a thread on dumpshock talking about the rules and not about abusing them. This can be confusing...

Well, a quick fix would be:

Someone falls unconscious when one of the following conditions is met:
- Stun track is full
- Physical track is full
- Stun + Physical dmg exceed 1,25 times the lower of the tracks

For the mage with a good drain resistance pool it's more similar to armored to the gill borg troll putting a light pistol to his head and repetaply pulling the the trigger for shit and giggles, as he know that only think those bullets do is a funny blink sound when they bounce of.

Except that StimmPatch doesn't stop one from dropping unconscious.

This is one of the reasons I have fiddled with the personal armor rules.
My current idea is thus:
Unless you are wearing hardened armor, incoming *Physical* damage is turned into stun by half the relavent armor rating (round up) after the soak roll. Any damage beyond that is physical. eg: Taking 5 physical damage after soak roll while wearing 6 armor means you'd take 3 stun and 2 physical.

Or, when your total dice pool penalty from wounds is equal to your Willpower... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Add a mage with "Reduce Willpower"

Except it's not, because those rules are observable reality to anyone who has been shot a few times within the game. It's not a nice rule, but it's observable nonetheless.


Actually a larger stun track but with the same modifiers would be perfectly fine - after all, concussion can be every bit as bad if not worse than bleeding wounds - until the blood loss gets worse. (And the effects of blood loss in the game are rather under-represented, I believe.)

But overall I still think the combined tracks are probably best for consistency.

Faraday, any playtesting on that? I noticed that you didn't round up, though. 5/2 = 3 stun, 3 physical.

At that point, I am likely running and not casting spells. That is why my Current Mage has a Base of 10 Dice to shoot guns with (12 With Tacnet). So I do not HAVE to risk killing MYSELF with Drain. The nice thing about guns is that they have... NO DRAIN... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You see, I don't feel the need to houserule a Loophole, Edge Case, Exploit. I just do not allow the Edge Case Exploit in the first place. Why? Because it is Metagaming BS. It was not considered to be a valid option when the rules were crafted, so why should I care? Just Say NO. Your life will be happier. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It's not about play, it's about theory. It is obvious that it's a non-issue in play, because no one lets it be one. You've admitted (how could you not?) that the issue exists *if you don't disallow it*; the only argument you could make against discussing and maybe fixing it is laziness (let's say 'time management'). Given that we're a bunch of game-players on a forum for discussing the game, discussing the discussion of the game… I'm gonna guess that we have plenty of free time.

I seriously doubt the rules were 'crafted' with a conscious decision of 'hey, let's add a glitch to P/S resolution because it's not a valid option anyway'. It is likely an error, which is the whole point.

Stim patches don't keep you from falling unconscious either. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

10 stun is 10 stun is 10 stun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

But how do you just disallow a situation where more successes for a player equals a worse result? This isn't an exploit anyone particularly wants or tries to set up. It's just there. No one's choosing it. You can't just say NO, if it's just something that happens.

It's like the fact that an untrained buddy can prevent a good medic from bandaging you even without a glitch, because they attempted to help you before the trained medic arrived. It breaks the reality a little if you're better off bleeding out then having the wrong person stop the bleeding. Would it be metagaming for someone to say, "you're better off if we just leave that gun wound bleeding, because I have a low logic and no first aid training" yeah it would, but it's still frustrating for the players because it doesn't make sense that putting a bandage on can be a bad thing.

It's not something we particularly have problems with on the player end, the players are usually okay blacking out rather than risking death. It's only a problem in the case where they were doing Stun and Physical damage and it would break the reality that a bullet through the gut was less dangerous to an NPC than one to the trauma plate. Since I've started GMing, I just gave the NPC's a single damage track and they lived or died based whether there was more Stun or Physical (easier bookkeeping too).

But how do you just disallow a situation where more successes for a player equals a worse result? This isn't an exploit anyone particularly wants or tries to set up. It's just there. No one's choosing it. You can't just say NO, if it's just something that happens.

It's like the fact that an untrained buddy can prevent a good medic from bandaging you even without a glitch, because they attempted to help you before the trained medic arrived. It breaks the reality a little if you're better off bleeding out then having the wrong person stop the bleeding. Would it be metagaming for someone to say, "you're better off if we just leave that gun wound bleeding, because I have a low logic and no first aid training" yeah it would, but it's still frustrating for the players because it doesn't make sense that putting a bandage on can be a bad thing.

It's not something we particularly have problems with on the player end, the players are usually okay blacking out rather than risking death. It's only a problem in the case where they were doing Stun and Physical damage and it would break the reality that a bullet through the gut was less dangerous to an NPC than one to the trauma plate. Since I've started GMing, I just gave the NPC's a single damage track and they lived or died based whether there was more Stun or Physical (easier bookkeeping too).

I will try to answer these individually...



Easy... I just say No. More successes does not equal a worse result. It equals a Better result. ie. From Stun Damage to Physical Damage. It sucks to be the guy taking the Physical Damage now instead of the Stun, but there you go. If He takes more Stun damage instead (The worse reslut I imagine you are talking about), then he goes unconscious. This is NOT BAD. It is exactly why characters wear armor. SO THEY DO NOT DIE.



In this instance, I do not have the untrained guy roll the dice. He applies a bandage that stops bleeding. As a bandage is supposed to do. The Field medic actually makes the roll when he gets to a location that allows such things to occur. So, No, I do not have that issue. Interestingly enough, Since there are NO BLEEDING RULES in the game unless you opt for the Optional ones in Augmentation, not making the roll immediately will still work narratively, while still applying a "bandage" to stop that bleeding. This instance is best handled narratively, as most things are. You can apply a bandage, and not make a First Aid Roll, after all.



And that can work. But since I have never had any issues with the way the rules work for tracking/applying damage, I have no desire to actually change the rules on how damage is applied. Besides, a Bullet through the Gut is NOT less dangerous than one to the Trauma Plate. Saying it is is disengenuous. There are already rules in place for healing that say different. If your players see it that way, then maybe it is in the way that you (generic) describe the scenario, rather than in the mechanics. Mechanically, a wound penalty is just a wound penalty; Narratively, it is not.

If it's the player who's attacking, then it's quite possible to get just one hit too many witch pushes the damage to physical and leaves the bad guy standing to shoot back for one more turn, where as he would have been unconscious from the stun damage.
That's quite clearly a worse result for getting more successes.

No, its not. It is a Better result. It may be an unfortunate result, but if your goal is to take someone down non-lethally, use Non-lethal (Less Lethal?) rounds. Problem solved. If your goal is to kill them, then the result you claim is worse, is, in fact, better. Now, if you are going to metagame, then yes, you could argue your point, but it would still have absolutely zero validity. You have inflicted a wound that heals on the increment of a day, vs a wound that would heal on an increment of an hour. Sounds like a more successful result to me. Again, people are arguing from a metagame POV, not a World POV. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Describing specific circumstances and methods for *avoiding* these glitches, TJ, doesn't mean they're not there. Quite the opposite. Ideally, they wouldn't *be* there, so you wouldn't have to avoid them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

What if the goal was to drop him ASAP, then? If you change the goal, you change how 'good' the result is, obviously. The character has no reason to assume he has to switch to Stun in order to achieve that perfectly common goal. This is identical to what I told you before, when I proposed that the goal was to stay standing, not avoid dying (which, once again, is a total nonissue).

You're right, people are arguing from a metagame perspective, because this is a theory issue. Metagame means looking at the way the mechanics match (or fail to match) the purported game world. Why is that so hard for you to grasp today? They fail to match, that's objectively a problem, problems should be fixed, fixing requires considering and discussing, and that's what we're doing (when not trying to explain it to you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ).

If the goal is to drop him ASAP, you pick a method and go with it. My guess is that most would choose SnS. Me? I would Choose APDS, personally. But here is the kicker. Are you trying to not kill him or kill him. The scenario changes depending upon that choice. Goal Matters. I am not trying to argue that you change your goal based upon the targets damage. Others are doing that. If my goal is to kill him, I shoot him with lethal ammunition. Some times, the target may take stun, and other times they may take physical. Which is irrelevant to me, because I am trying to kill him. I don't care which he has taken, and in fact have no real way of telling whether he soaked all the damage, took stun, or is bleeding internally. IN THE GAME, it makes absolutely no difference narratively. It is only when you have players that apply the mecahnics to everything that they see, in game, that you have an issue.



But my point is that the Mechanics DO match the world view, UNLESS YOU LOOK AT IT from a METAGAMING (Or Theoretical) viewpoint (Objectively, in the world, the mechanics work, it is only in the Subjective reality of the Players that it becomes an issue). Individuals IN THE WORLD do not have that luxury of second guessing the mechanics, which is why when players do it (because their characters are incapable of such things), it should be slapped down mercilessly.

Not sure why that one is so difficult either. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

But, as is often the case, we see things from different perspectives. I look at it from the World View (more often than not) and you look at it from the Mecahnics View. Usually, these view points are at odds. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)