Oh, I agree with that point.

Also, if you put stabilizing fins on it (like the shotgun round) then it wouldn't be moving at 900 fps.

Heck a 3" long 1/4" wide streamer would slow it down significantly.

An idea I had for SnS that went like this: change their damage to 4P AP 0, and if the shot does at least 1 point of damage, the target takes 6S(e) (net hits add nothing, still -half Impact). It would work kind of like a toxin with an injection vector.

I'd suggest 1 point of physical. If only stun, I'd give them a bonus on the secondary damage (odds are the prongs wouldn't have penetrated).

Good point.

Or perhaps if the initial shot does Physical then no armor dice get to be rolled to resist the Electricity damage, if its only stun then the target gets Armor dice.

another thought (just so I don't have to go back and keep re-editing posts)

If the SnS projectile is accelerated from a normal firearm the propellant charge and slug weight would have to be at least enough to work the action of the firearm.

The fact is that there are myriad problems making SnS work with SR technology the way RAW says they do. All of the problems make it feel like metagaming and magic. No character or npc of mine will ever use them.

And I have zero problem assuming that they slow down in flight, and that the technology of 2070 can handle it. Every character or NPC of mine will use them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Shotgun only. Problem solved.

Capacitance = Permittivity of material between plates * Surface Area of one of the plates / Separation of the plates

You don't need (or benefit from) superconductors; you just need to get the surface area really high, and the separation distance really low. Happily, those two work together; smaller separation lets you pack more surface area into a given volume. Nanotech would make it possible to push both of those to nearly atomic scales, cheaply. The main remaining technical problem becomes, how much voltage can you pump in before you overcome the resistance between the plates (which decreases as the space between them goes down) and short the thing out? That's the main bug in current day nano-scale capacitors; if you have one spot where the separation is abnormally low, its a focus for a short. If you can nail that problem, power density goes through the roof.

All in all, my gut tells me energy density of capacitors wouldn't be a problem. In fact, super-density capacitors would explain why its safe to ignore the issue of power consumption for most (non drone) portable electronics in SR.

EDIT- BTW, a bit of research shows that current day "ultracapcitors" can have energy densities approaching 10 Wh/kg, and can fully discharge in under 1 sec. Seems up to the task to me, IF you could make a taser dart that small.

I think this is the best solution. I'd also rule it as a slow moving projectile so a Phys add could potentially catch it.

Yes. The more armor, the less likely the flechette ammo is to penetrate. The reason is that although they have less penetrating power than even normal rounds, they can still deal with low-armor targets (and is great against unarmored ones.) Thus, against leather jacket they have AP +2, giving the leather 4 dice to soak (in addition to body) instead of 7 dice (almost as good as regular ammo on armor jacket). Note that one is a fashion statement and the other is an armor designed to protect you against bullets.

However I'm considering using the pre-errata rules for Flechette again, and retain the errata ones (or my option which is almost identical) only for buckshot (which can only be fired from Shotguns and pistol shotguns. Also to compensate I wil l use the same cost for buckshot as for regular ammo (it IS regular ammo for shotguns after all). And Flechette IS just as expensive as EX-EX ammo after all, which makes it one of the more expensive ammo in the game. Does that sound like gangers would use on a regular basis?

Dedicated electrix weapons are still very good. Tasers have damage 6 (as good as Assault rifles) or 4 (as good as light pistols and S&S), which means they are pretty much as effective in damage as bullets and with alot better armor penetration. In my book, Stun damage is just as effective as Physical, actually it's better since you get the chance to take people alive and reduce collateral damage. The only real drawback is against vehicles and drones which are immune to Stun damage. Stun batons already are underpowered, so they keep their damage. After all why should a Taser that fires a darth with a capacitor do more damage than a full size baton? Melee is nerfed enough as it is.

Also what most people forget is the secondary effect of electrical damage, which quite often causes the target to be incapacitated on the floor or at the very least cause the -2 penalty! This is something my players have used to great effect and is IMO the primary effect of tasers and S&S.

The main effect here is that IMHO nonlethal attacks should almost always be less effective than normal lethal ones. If people could just as easily win wars without killing anyone that would have been preferred, but the truth is that the evolution of weapons often has lead to more lethal ones rather than less lethal ones, as the goal is to incapacitate the enemy as quickly as possible.

Also, another question to everyone: Do you guys find it strange that the errata lists shotgun(f) and Slivergun (f) as +5 AP? Shouldn't it be +4 AP for the shotgun since base AP of shotguns is -1 AP? Or does the +5 from flechette supersede base weapon AP?

Did you drop the +2DV of RAW flechettes? Even the errataed RAW ones are actually better than normal rounds against armored targets. Tou counter the +2DV statistically you would need 6 soak dice, but flechette only adds 5 and a shot with buckshot or flechettes is resisted with impact armor which is usually lower than ballistic.

It could work. In your houserule net hits add to damage right?
Agreed, but electric stun damage has the possibility to incapacitate a vehicle all the same.
I agree on the opinion about the stun batons, but melee should be less powerful than ranged combat. "Never bring a knife to a gun fight".

The problem is that you can only expect the -2, not the incapacitation. Getting 9 or more dice out of CHA+WIL+half Impact+electrical protection isn't that hard. Since the -2 isn't even cumulative the only sure way to incapacitate someone with SnS or tasers is to fill their condition monitor. With your houserule this is more difficult.

Not really, most effective are weapons that do not kill but incapacitate, wound and maim. As such not only is the enemy deprived of the fighting power of the hit soldier but this wounded soldier also ties up the resources of all sorts of medical personnel.


This has been this way since the first printing (with +2 then). The rules say that ammo statistics are added thus it should be +4, which is what we use in our game

Real life isn't a game. In a game, this is simply bad design

A) Keeping 'bad' options in just means that mechanically uninformed players may make choices that are clearly suboptimal - if you want something to be an option it needs to be useful.

B) It uses pointless amount of text in the book that could have been used for something else (see: Adam complaining about word count restrictions when doing layout)

With this in mind, options that the game provides should all be viable. If an option is not viable, it should be removed entirely to free up space for viable options in another area.



This is built into the game rules, as melee is a complex action, but firing is a simple action - so you get two shots per 1 melee attack. With this in mind, non-concealable Melee weapons need to be significantly more powerful than guns to be useful.

I guess a lot of things in the game must really piss you off, then. Because the game is full of gear that's suboptimal. Just like most any other game I can think of. Example: Why buy a Walther PB-120 when you can get a Fichetti Security 600 instead? It comes with more than twice the ammo capacity and two accessories for practically the same cost. Why buy an Armor Vest when you can get a Lined Coat instead? It has the same exact armor ratings, is more available, and comes with a concealability bonus. Why buy an expensive Fairlight Excalibur commlink with a custom rating 6 System/Firewall OS when you can just blow 1,200 nuyen on a rating 6 Micro-Transceiver which, by the rules, is way more effective (having a rating of 6 across the board)? And hell, why get the Transciever when you can just buy a Certified Credstick (which has a Device Rating of 6, too) to serve the same purpose? etc.

Options are not a bad design decision. Just because the players won't be using the subpar equipment, that doesn't mean NPCs or specialty concepts won't. Or are you really arguing that all ammo should be equivalent to Regular Ammo? Because, in reality, that's exactly what you're arguing. Hell, by your logic, there shouldn't really even be variations on weapons. At best, one weapon per category. Because, inevitably, one of those options is going to be superior to all the others... and we simply can't have that. Particularly with items that have such relatively microscopic and meaningless prices, thus negating any possible advantage a cheaper option (like Regular Ammo) may have.

You know… those are fixed now. Both are periphery nodes. Even the issue of getting the cheapest commlink, then upgrading to 6/6 is fixed.

Just there shouldn't be complete uber-options.
S&S is broken for two things: It overrides weapon damage code, even in smallarms and it changes the damage to elemental damage (arguably the best elemental damage type, because it can incapacitate or hinder enemies even if they don't go down from the damage itself) without any penalty.
Try that with any other kind of elemental damage and you'd be torn apart – no matter if going creative with rating 6 acid capsule rounds or white phospor capsule rounds.

Yes, it is really bad.



I never said that. I said 'bad options are bad design' - that said the problems you point out with device ratings is just 'the hacking rules are shit' which is well established SR fact.



There is lots of room for variation on weapons. One assault rifle can be F and have a smart gun, one can be R and have a red dot sight stock. Those two are in the book, and do offer a useful point of differentiation. You could then easily add a third one can be F, not have a smart gun and offer a collapsible stock giving it a conceal ability option. A forth might have no mod cons, very low availability and low cost. this gives us a weapon model of

A) Baseline, restricted, small bonus accuracy
B) Dangerous, illegal, high bonus accuracy
C) Assassin, illegal, no bonus accuracy, concealable
D) Cheap, legal/restricted, no bonus accuracy, very low price and availability.

That gives you variation between the four - clearly one is better for mages and one is better for street Sammie, and even then the third 'concealable' option might be the go if you need to take your gun through a security checkpoint into a no weapons zone. The restricted version might be more useful in many circumstances to because it offers a 'legal' option that you can explain away if a cop finds it in your car boot. If you quickly need to find an assault rifle after having landed in Europe, your arms dealer can connect you up with the forth. Bam! Differentiated weapons that all have a clear role.

As you point out, stuff that is 'Like A, except worse' is just a waste of space and should be removed because why do we have that, and replaced with differentiated weapons. In pistols, again you could see something similar (a powerful forbidden model, a less powerful restricted model, a cheap as chips model and a concealable assassin model) offering you 4 guns that players might want to use. Which also makes this



Total bullshit. I just dashed out 4 differentiated weapons concepts no problem. None of them is superior to all the others. yes, in a particular role one is better, but in another role, you might prefer another. Of course you could just have 4 guns, but only a weapons specialist is likely to do that, and hey, that's a fine character schtick too.

Ammo just needs strong points of differentiation because it's unlikely to can support multiple weak differentiating points. Given that, there is no reason for lots of types if you cannot support it. An example of ammo model could be: 'easily available, non lethal, AP bonus, damage bonus' where easily available is R and the other two types lethal types are F, offers differentiation and low word count. It's reasonable for a player to want to choose any of the 4 available types.

Yes I keep the +2 DV. However, in my game attacks that fails to penetrate armor are halved (round up) after soak, so +AP is much worse than normal. Also in game +2 DV +5 AP is very bad against spirits and vehicles with hardened armor.



Hmm can't remember that part about vehicles being vulnerable to electric stun. I thought most vehicles were shielded against such? Oh and believe me, melee IS alot worse than ranged, as pointed out. An enemy could theoretically shoot you 8 times before you can get close enough to him.
In fact even with the debuff using stun batons is kinda stupid as you need a simple action to draw it and can't attack until next round, while you can pull up a taser and shoot in the same pass.. in fact since they are essentially pistols you can quickdraw them!



In my game most people being hit with tasers have failed this test. Even an ork! And it's Body+Willpower+half impact (3). Non-conductivity isn't that common in my game, but of course changes things. But normal people and standard security guards will often go down, and even one of the PCs have done so already so it is nothing to scoff off.

Weapons that can maim can also kill. These are not stun weapons you're talking about, but non-expanding bullets and shrapnel/flechettes that main rather than outright kill.


Yes I found it strange it isn't changed in the errata or clarified. Confusing to new players as well.

<shrugs> I don't care much for video game mentalities in my roleplaying games. In the real world, there are clearly superior options when it comes to gear and equipment. Especially with ammunition. I have absolutely no problem with some being far and away better than others. What's more, I've had numerous characters who took regular rounds and gel rounds over EX explosive or Stick-and-Shock rounds simply because they were more appropriate to the concept. (Which, incidentally, were more Average Joe type characters). Despite the price difference being miniscule and the benefits being worse. Not everyone in the game's universe is a top-of-the-line professional criminal who knows the intricacies of every ammo type on the market.

Game balance means something completely different in a roleplaying game than it does in a video game.

Just the margin of that difference is much, much smaller. In fact, it can be small enough to be the same thing when abstracted.

This. I can't tell you, how many times our SR group(s) had IC conversations about a particular weapons manufaturer, whichgun is better, what ammo to buy and what sighting systems. To me, the preseted list needs to provide a realistic abstraction of the currently available and currently developed weapons of our current age, to ease the transition into the SR universe. An HK is better than a Colt. Simple. A Barret hits harder than a PSG. Simple. APDS cuts through armor better than regular ammo. Simple.

It is exactly the mentioned viedo game mentality that keeps ruining not only PnO RPGs, but video games in general. All that "everyone must be equal" bullshit. I have a solution for that: One option. Then everyone is equal. It's no fun, it's bland and it certainly will not carry any long term motivation, but hey: all options are equally powerful and perfectly balanced. Yay?

And in abstract game terms, they are pretty much the same.

And all those real weapons and ammunition operate within a certain frame of reference, differences being quite small.

And while one is a higher quality, higher price item to be slightly better, the other is a step up in size category to be better. Simple.

And in real life, APDS would cause less permanent wound cavity, thus reducing damage. Simple.

Stop lighting the strawman, will you? No-one is talking about "everyone must be equal".

It's about keeping the game within a certain frame of reference, where one easily exchangeable option isn't so ridiculously more effective than every other.
Because that what's S&S is – it's stun-phaser ammunition for regular firearms.

Then there is plain gear creep and dragging along artifacts from previous editions:
In SR3, APDS didn't work against vehicles, so AV was invented… being pretty much the same, just somehow magically more much effective against vehicles.
In SR4, APDS just works fine against vehicles… but to have something nice and new in Arsenal, AV rose from the dead, still being pretty much the same as APDS, just still magically more effective against vehicles… and now barriers, too.
Does that really add anything to the game? Maybe if we added another armor-pierceing ammunition that just works better against barriers would be great. And then we could add even more options, for all variations between APDS and AV. It would be really cool to have a -4 against persons, -5 against barriers, -4 against vehicles, or a -4 against persons, -4 against barriers, -5 against vehicles, wouldn't it?

And yet not everyone uses it. How can that possibly be?

Gross inconsistency.

If S&S is used by RAW, it's the perfect security & police ammunition – less-than-lethal, doesn't overpenetrate, bypasses armor, disorients / incapacitates and even does more damage in a light handgun than a heavy handgun. All for just 4 times the price of the cheapest ammunition available – even if it were 10 times, it would dominate the market.

And here comes the fun part:
Tasers are worse than a light handgun loaded with S&S when it comes to ammunition capacity and firing speed. All of them. The only one doing more damage still has wires to transmit it. There even is a taser out that that sacrifices some damage for a slight bit of more ammunition.

The specialized device is worse than the generic device equipped with a more expensive kind of expendable materials.
It's completely out of any frame of reference.

If S&S for light handguns really exists, you could easily strip the propellant, saving space, then build a retrofitted compressed-air nail-gun with full-auto capacity around it and call it the Tasorator.

That heavily depends on your abstraction level.


If you want to do them justice they need a difference in game terms as well, otherwise you could simly leave them out. It is perfectly viable to increase the abstraction weapon and state that "ammo includes various different types, ranging from primitive lead bullets to semi-autonomous seeker projectiles" but that wouldn't be any fun now, would it?


Way to miss the point! *tipshat*


You want to argue damage mechanics? The damage model of SR is on a much higher abstraction level than their weapon stats.


You got me on the AV ammo, as I think it's bullshit as well. Other than that, however, I don't agree with your that a rulebook containing:

-Generic Rifle A
-Generic Rifle B
-Generic Rifle C
-Generic Rifle D

as my four options would be anywhere close to satisfying. I don't know about you but my group and I are somewhat of weapon nuts as well. We love to talk about pointless differences between various weapons and weapon systems. Some are indeed small, but make a large difference in how you perceive it. Naturally that way certain preferances develop. Personally, I like the Tavor TAR-21 very much. It is natural to want that in the game as well, and if I were to implement a Tavor TAR-23 into SR, I would want to make sure it has something to stand out against the rest of the available options (note: I said "stand out" not "be superior").
I am fairly confident I am not alone in this and adding the newly created Tavor TAR-23 to the "Generic Rifle C" Category just won't do.

Lets stick to the SR4 abstraction level here. Ho much variance do you see in handgun damage code? Most of them is just the secondary stats, and some details.

It's gear creep, plain and simple – to get people bying more books. At least the new stuff isn't better then the one in the main book anymore.

Not entirely – add a variant system like for vehicles in arsenal.

What would be so bad about Standard, Amorpiercing, Antipersonel, Less-Than-Leathal & Explosive as base types? Because that's basically what it already is, plus some SR-Specific names.
Additional stuff like Incendery, Shock and the niche stuff for shotguns and high caliber? Absolutely plausible.

Why not? It's the same for vehicles. Then take the variant system, and declare that B1 has a few more hots, but no internal laser pointer, and so on.

An Ares Alpha variant with unterbarrel shotgun instead of a grenade launcher, called Nitama Optimum? Works just fine.

The thing is, that's even easier with basic examples provided and a variant system.

We will just have to agree to disagree. While I see your point when it comes to different munitions types, we differ greatly when it comes to weapon types. Even your comparison doesn't hold water. You use the vehicle variants as an excemple, but no one uses them. Find me a single character builder that uses them. If you were referring to vehicle categories, I have to disapoint you as well, as the vehicles within a given category vary drasticaly.