The Armor Value of a Metahuman Body, what should it be? Options

[Kagetenshi]

So say I've got Joe Assassin, who just botched an attempt at killing me, by the throat. I realize that if he's following the textbook there's someone behind me taking aim with a heavy pistol. I whirl, bringing Joe Assassin between me and the other guy, and the bullets hit the body. How much are they slowed down, or are they stopped?

A similar example, imagine I was running alongside the Troll tank and got hosed down by LMG fire. The troll dies, I'm wounded and drop to the ground. Scrambling, I pull the Troll's body across mine, covering me from the incoming fire. What gets through?

Anecdotes aside, I realize the value would change based on armor on meatshield or meatshield's Body score, but I'm wondering if anyone has guidelines to suggest?

~J

[Bane]

This actually came up the time before last that I GM'ed.

I just ruled that any damage the meat-shield didn't absorb got passed onto the person using said shield. Seemed to work pretty well.

EDIT: Oh, and both the armor value of the meat-shield and the person behind it applied.

[mfb]

how about simply adding 1/2 of the meatshield's body to your own soak test?

[Friggas Ring]

I'm a nice guy and would rule on the side of the person trying to live (because most of my games are deadly enough as it is). I'd say the power of the attack would need to be greater than the front person's armor rating plus body before it would pass through and hit someone behind (unless it was a called shot to a "thin" body part).

I never was the most realistic person in the world though.

[Wounded Ronin]

Isn't this one of those things that is "realistically" extremely hard to predict? Like, the issue of the possibility of "overshooting" hasn't been well addressed by anyone because of the fact that it's so unpredictable.


If we're talking about an unarmored body, I would say that maybe if the power of a single shot is above 14, then it punches clean through with minimal loss of power?


Maybe if it's power 9 for a single shot, it gets down to half power.

And maybe if it's power 6 for a single shot, it dosen't pass through.

So, BF and FA damage mods wouldn't affect overshooting.

[Ol' Scratch]

I'd go with twice their appropriate Armor Rating (once for the front, once for the back) and treat it as Hardened Armor. If it doesn't penetrate, the body absorbed the full power of the attack... if not, it barely slowed it down compared to the armor. If not wearing armor -- and only if not wearing any armor -- I'd use their Body in the same fashion, albeit only once. You then resist the attack as normal albeit with the Power reduced by the two Armor Ratings or Body score as appropriate.

[hyzmarca]

Treat the meatshield as a barrier providing partial cover. Barrier rating should probably be 1/2 Body+Armor.

Alternatly, treat it is partial cover and he soaks any attack that would have hit you. The bullet overpenetrates completly on a deadly wound and power is reduced by his armor rating.

Unless you're wearing him, then add his armor rating + 1/2 body to your own and take the approperiate combat pool reductions.

[Morphling The Pr...]

How about Occam's Razor? The meat bod is just a form of cover (probably +4). I'm assuming the shootist is trying to hit the hostage taker. Of course, if the shootist intentionally wants to shoot through the person, that's different. I'd use the person's body stat and worn armor to reduce the power of the attack.

[Da9iel]

A troll could very well be full cover. I'd use the troll's armor and body dice just like Bane said.

[DocMortand]

Heh...this came up in my last game as well - I had a insect flesh form that was using an elf hostage as a meat-shield. How I ruled was that to hit the flesh form you have to make a called shot. If you make it, the hostage is missed - if you miss...well...poor hostage, I suppose.

[Kayne]

I'm positive that Raygun had a crack at this...I won't post his link for fear of Kagetenshi

[Fygg Nuuton]

[Ol' Scratch]

Transforming Armor Ratings and Body scores into Barrier Ratings is every bit as arbitrary as just deciding to use Armor and/or Body in the first place.

As previously mentioned, using twice the Armor Rating of the shield makes the most sense to me (since the attack has to go through *both* sides of the shield, as opposed to just once when shooting someone normally), and at least cinematically, metahuman shields are "supposed" to be very effective. That's why I recommended treating it as Hardened Armor on top of that; if the attack fails to penetrate twice the shield's Armor Rating, the shield absorbed the entire attack. Otherwise, it just slowed it down.

[Fortune]

I'm with the Doc on this.

[RedmondLarry]

Me too. What he says sounds very playable and easy to remember.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Makes perfect sense that it's Hardened Armor (or anything similar, like making it work as a Barrier). Double armor rating is also in order. I might even add the Body of the meatshield even if armor is present -- in RL terms, 2 layers of body armor with 4"-12" of meat inbetween is a very effective bullet barrier, I would expect only moderately-very powerful rifles firing armor piercing ammunition to punch through.

The full bonuses from this should only come into play if 80-90% of the body mass of the character is hiding behind the torso of the meat shield. For both cinematic effect and realism, allowing called shots to bypass or significantly reduce the effective armor of the meatshield should probably be allowed.

[Ol' Scratch]

You know, I had considered using Body with my suggestion, too, but I figured a normal person (Body 3) wearing only Armored Clothing (Ballistic 3) would be a pretty good shield against most light arms like Hold-Out, Light, and Machine Pistols. I didn't, however, think they would completely absorb the damage from the heavier penetrators like most Shotguns or Heavy Pistols. So that's why I decided to just recommend doubling Armor instead of doubling Armor and using Body.

If that phenomenon only occured with a beefy shield with substantial armor (Body 6, Armored Jacket), that would be all right. But completely ignoring most weapons in the game using any schmoe off the street was a bit much.

Note also that if you do use any of the recommendations here, it's also a good idea to consider using the Armor Degredation rules from the Cannon Companion. Dunno how you'd adjust it for this since I've never really used those rules, but this seems like a good application for 'em if ever there were any.

[Crusher Bob]

Sigh, now I have the image in my head of an HMG toting troll covered with armored drawf bodies...

So thats 6 armor for teh dwarf + my armored jacket, FFBA, and helmet... :grinbig:

[Shanshu Freeman]

One time in our game, we had some wetwork to do. Wipe out a whole famliy. The mother was holding the baby, so the gm gave the mother a point of impact against our physad punching her through the child.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Ol' Scratch]

[Austere Emancipa...]

My main beef is that there's so many things that could have been done to maintain gameplay and simplicity while still allowing rifles to be much more powerful than handguns like they really are. For example, had the current edition been designed to work with DamCodes such as LP: 6M, SMG: 7M, HP: 8M, AR: 9M, SportR: 9M-12S, etc, with rifles getting an extra 0.75x armor modifier or a straigh -2 to all armor values, I'd be a lot happier. I don't see how that would negatively affect gameplay or simplicity, although it's still a long way from realism.

[mfb]

i don't think that converting body into armor works. every other thing in SR that puts more flesh between you and damage simply gives you extra body dice--troll's armor, body plating, dermal sheathing. it makes more sense, given that, to simply have the meatshield soak the damage first, and then have the person behind the meatshield soak the reduced damage.

[Jason Farlander]

mfb: that also seems like a very sensible approach, with the minor problem that it creates extra dicerolling. I propose a blend of that approach and Doc Funk's

Use Armor*2 as hardened armor as suggested. If the bullet would still penetrate (due to high power or low armor), add the body of the meatshield to the number of dice rolled to resist damage. That way you aren't creating an extra diceroll and calculating damage twice, you're just incorporating the protection into a single resistance roll.

[mfb]

works for me.