P or S which is better Options

[Akai Sokata]

Hoi chummers akai here with alittle personal opion question agine, here it... which is better stun or physical damage.

lately I really think stun wins, heres my argument. One, stun knocks out the oppent, keeping mr. J happy he doesn't have to foot the bill if you slag a poor son of a gun if you get caught. Two, if your on the other side of the field a bonked runner can be interrogated when you wake him/her up. Three eletric damage is always stun, need I say more. Four, the stun damage track is smaller. Five, last but not least, the new armor rule usually makes it do stun anyways. Not saying I disagree with that rule, I just noticed that.

Now physical has its own ups. Only have to fill that track once, keeps that guy you wasted quiet, and overall you just feel better after killing a corp goon or shadow scum.

well gang thats my arugement, post with what you think :smokin:

[Angelstandings]

I concur, also stun damage can't be magically healed (but you gotta worry about those stimpacks).

Both physical and stun have their up and down points, but overall, when GMing, I go for stun damage on the players -- and my players go for stun damage on the NPCs.

So it works out. And I think it's great that not having to killing people in Shadowrun is the preferred way to do things, as opposed to other RPGs which need not be named. Heh.

[fistandantilus4....]

another point for stun is that there are many cyber/bio/magical ways to bring up your body, as well as racial adjustments. Hitting someone with stun damage works off of their will track instead of body, and so generally will be lower, making an opponent easier to take down (theoretically)

[Cold-Dragon]

Your only fluke with that is when they get the bioware/cyberware that negate or ignores stun damage. There was one that would let you completely negate the track wasn't there? Dangerous stuff....good for cyber tanks! ;) lol. As long as you keep damage stun, no harm at all.

[fistandantilus4....]

damage compensators do almost as good a job. But in most cases, the physical body track is higher (more boxes), as the result of the modifiers I mentioned.

[Space Ghost]

The real problem i have with physical damage is that sometimes you end up doing physical on the first shot then stun on the second etc.

Think about. Let's say an enemy has 10 phys boxes and 10 stun. Let's say your first shot does a sweet 7 damage, physical. Your second shot does 4, but it's stun. Your enemy is heavily punked, but the bottom line is that he's still up, and now it's his turn. He might be too messed up to fight, but he can still call for help, or run behind cover, or issue a command to his drones etc.

If your weapon is stun only you avoid this problem and limit your target to the (usually smaller) stun track.

When the goal is to to be rid of a threat, and you don't care wether it's dead or unconscious, go for stun.

[Chrome Shadow]

I prefer to do stun damage. In other words, I prefer not to kill. The mayority or the people one find on runs (late shift turns, guards, etc...) work because they need money, need a job... They have families to care for and all that... So if I dont have to use lethal force I feel better. Also, if you desable someone and let him live, he will probably thank you; kill someone, and you dont know who will be after you, seeking vengance...

And as mentioned before, people usually have shorter stun stun tracks...

[Angelstandings]

[Azralon]

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

I prefer stun for all of the above reasons and largely convinced my players, that it´s the better choice most of the time. However, never forget your physical backup, for paineditors and objects. In SR3 nothing sayed goodby to full cover faster then a clip of ExEx in your SMG 8)

[Serbitar]

S!

just search for ammo discussions with me as poster in it in this forum. cant miss them

ammo is unbalanced
stun combat magic is unbalanced
stun weapons are unbalanced
physical to stun conversion is unbalanced

they all have in mind that physical damage is better than stun, and thus give stun less drain,, more damage and less armor to resist. big mistake of SR4

[TinkerGnome]

[FrankTrollman]

Don't forget Narcoject, 10D Stun (no armor). Ouch, you aren't getting away from that with less than a Serious Wound, and you've been able to shoot it twice a round since SR2 (when "reactive triggers" became standard on all equipment).

Stun weapons have been overpowered for a long time. Fundamentally Stun isn't particularly better or worse than Physical, but it's come in bigger and/or cheaper packages. Which means that while there is ample reason to inflict Stun or Physical, a character can inflict more Stun, which makes Stun weapons better.

-Frank

[Serbitar]

DOWN WITH STUN.

You should pay with effectivness to only stun your opponents. Its a dark world out there, not pussy playground.

[FrankTrollman]

But I like Pussy Playground. That place is awesome.

-Frank

[Cold-Dragon]

Something I just thought of while we were all saying stun kicks ass. Stun occurs (usually) because you have too much armor to take a true physical wound - meaning that you have a lot of armor compared to the stun damage. That means, if done correctly, you are more likely to take less stun damage than physical.

Of course, Then you take in to account things like stun rounds, but if that becomes an issue, start loading your armor up with rubber modification. Sure you're a fetish freak now, but at least you're immune to tazers!

[Space Ghost]

You can get electrical shielding for your armor, but it doesn't make you immune. It just adds 1 to 6 dice to resist electrical attacks. It's worth it though, since your Impact just got cut in half.

[mintcar]

For professional runners, I concider it smart to stun the opposition. Then you accomplish everything you wanted out of firing the weapon in the first place (to get past the guard or whatever) without having murdered someone. Great.

But now we're doing a ganger game. When players started buying stun rounds I had to tell them: "Man, the other kids will think you're fair game". Being shot down with rubber rounds aint as scary as being blasted to bits with the real thing.

If you're out to subdue someone, stun is better. If you're packing heat to gain respect in the hood, stun wont cut it. Eventually, you'll be in a fire fight and people will know you're shooting blanks.

[nick012000]

Except that once they're unconscious, you can do all sorts of unspeakable things to them. ;)

Also, I'll point out that in SR4, filling out the damage track does not render your opponents unconscious, just bleeding to death... somewhat more realistic, IMO.

[mintcar]

[FrankTrollman]

[Azralon]

[Brahm]

[Serbitar]

You are thinking the wrong way. The damage you get is the damage you get. Its doesnt matter that you get less damage when a conversion takes place, as you would get less physical damage if the conversion would not take place, too.

So the net difference is still the difference between the damage tracks. And, as a matter of fact, most combat monsters have at least 2 more physical damage boxes than stun. Thats enough to call it a serious logic flaw.

[ThatSzechuan]

I can understand why they used Willpower for the stun track when it is described as pain, disorientation, drowsiness, or whatever similar effects can occur as a result of injury. What I have never really understood is why the average Troll can only take as much bruising as the average human. I suppose you can argue that their much higher Body is what represents this, meaning that an attack that manages to damage the troll in spite of their Body must have been strong enough to damage them proportionately to a human receiving a similar injury, but it still bugs me.