Called shots, Forgive me....... Options

[Ol' Scratch]

There doesn't need to be a way to bypass armor because actually hitting the target means you've bypassed it. Either in part (Light Wound) or in whole (Deadly Wound) based upon your skill (dice) and accuracy (successes).

If you didn't bypass armor, you'd rarely ever have a chance of hurting your opponent because the armor will have stopped it. There wouldn't be target number (at least not one anything like what it is currently). That's why various types of armors have similar ratings. Form Fitting Body Armor has a Ballistics of 4 not because it's as tough and resisilant as an Armored Vest w/ Plates, but because it covers a greater part of his body. That Armored Vest w/ Plates might have a more accurate rating of Ballistics 20 on its own, but because it onyl covers your chest and back, it's only benefit is a Ballistics rating of 4. Yet you have the same exact chance of damaging someone in one or the other because of that very reason.

The reason, once again, that a Called Shot raises the Damage Level by one is because you're intentionally aiming for a more vulnerable spot. It could be a weak spot in the armor, an unarmored area, or just about anything else. However, since you're not aiming at center mass, your chance of missing completely increases, hence the +4 TN penalty to your attack roll (as opposed to his Dodge/Damage Resistance roll).

This is why Shadowrun is considered an abstract system. You do all the rolls and tests, then you determine just what happened based upon those results. Did you just nail the guy with a Deadly shot that took him down? Well, using the Armored Vest / Form Fitting examples above, that Deadly shot would probably be a blow to the Armored Vest guy's unprotected head, while that same Deadly shot might have been a chest wound on the Form Fitting guy... a chest shot that punched right through his relatively flimsy armor.

[BitBasher]

Funky is right, thats the entire basis for an abstract combat system. Try to change part of it to make it specific and it comes apart in far more dyslexic ways.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Kagetenshi]

But you already have that, unless the armor is hardened. That's why the rules for shotguns are so broken: set the choke to maximum, and your opponent will be resisting 2D with as many successes as you have dice behind it (because of the -9 to TN).
Remember, non-hardened armor only goes so far, and "so far" is 2.

~J

[Bearclaw]

I was just thinking about the armor thing.
A burst from a sliver gun against a guy in a regulation armor jacket still does 6D. Plus success. Holy crap.
That being given, I'm going to allow the origonal called shot rule, but not allow the bypass armor rule because the rules are kinda weak already on armor.

[Kagetenshi]

Psst... can we not mention the "s" word? It's looking like we might not have to break out the fireblankets...

~J

[Austere Emancipa...]

But, even without the Called Shot system, you already have a system for having a small chance of doing more damage with a low-skilled shooter to a more skilled opponent. Just roll more successes -> more damage.

Oh, what the heck, I don't use any of the rules that this whole discussion is based on, so I fold. And you're all completely correct in that it's a very bad idea to use armor-bypassing called shots in a canon SR game. I don't really have a point, I was just rambling so I wouldn't have to prepare for this gawd damn Approaches to Contemporary Narrative oral presentation. And I finished that already, so I'll go away.

[Ol' Scratch]

No it doesn't. It does 7M. 9S(f) base, reduced to 9M because flechette isn't staged up against armor, +3 Power for a burst, -5 Power from the Jacket. 7M. Or am I misremembering yet again?

[Ol' Scratch]

And Austere, the point of the Called Shot is to make up for a lack of successes. Save you only have a Skill of 3 and no Combat Pool left. Your shot is almost definitely going to have a minimal amount of effect anyway, so why not boost your TN up by +4 to gain the effect of 2 free successes if you do manage to make it?

[Austere Emancipa...]

Only a bit. -6 Power from the AJ (double Impact). So it's 6M. [Edit #2]Right, 6S. Oh well...[/Edit] Not much of a difference, but meh.

[Edit]Doing a bit of math, it's probably going to turn out that in most cases, unless you are insanely lucky, you have a better chance of getting the +1 DL from extra successes than from scoring a success with +4 TN.

And now I'm going to bed, and I declare that You Other People were right all along, and that I'm a stupid motherfragger who should never be allowed to write anything.[/Edit]

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Nov 17 2003, 11:11 PM

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Kagetenshi]

Yep, he forgot a staging.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

Oops, I did forget the staging. The only key things the Slivergun has going for it over, say, the Savalette (a personal favorite simply because it's more stylish, and I like style) is that it can fire in BF twice per phase, has a silencer, and a better clip. The latter never meant much to me (if you need that many shots at one time, you're a dead man already), the former is only useful if you're going to do nothing but shoot and make a nice little target for everyone else, and the middle is... just wrong. :) Shoulda been a supressor. But oh well.

[Bearclaw]

The not staging up against armor is what brought up the whole discussion :D
If you call shot at an unarmored area, it's not an armored opponent, and he's got to resist a 12D wound with no armor.

By skipping that, and using the called shot rule, with SGL bonuses, a called shot ends up with a TN of 6, and the target (with armor jacket) resists a 6D.

Wait, forgot recoil. A TN of 10, to do a 6D.

[Kagetenshi]

Remember, getting two dice to roll a 6 is the same difficulty as getting one die to roll a 12. You've essentially just swapped a TN of 12 for one of 10.

~J

[tisoz]

I know it isn't a rule, but if someone makes a called shot to a smaller part of a target, shouldn't the target get a TN reduction on its dodge test? It only needs to get that one part out of the way.

[Ol' Scratch]

That's really already covered by the +4 TN. Fewer successes mean fewer successes needed to dodge the attack completely.

[BitBasher]

Yeah, the +4 TM means the dodge dice are far more effective because you need to use far less of them. Odds are that increasing your TN is just going to screw you. Much for the same reason that melee maneuvers thad increase your own target number to do extra damage are absolutely short bus retarded.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Kagetenshi]

AE, I'd call that an extreme example. If you've got 3 skill, odds are you aren't a gun-bunny, which means you probably aren't smartlinked.

~J

[Austere Emancipa...]

Laser Sight, Take Aim. The same applies with 3 vs 7, 8 vs 12, and so on. The point is, there are many TNs where not CSing leads to making more damage, there are many where they'll probably lead to about the same, and then a few where CSing would lead to more. And like pointed out by BitBasher, the fact that dodging a CS is easier makes it even easier to kill a high-skilled char with a low-skiller char through CSing.

[Ol' Scratch]

Extreme example? It's a base TN of 4 with a single +2 mod to it for whatever mild conditions you want to apply. Yes, how "extreme." :please:

[BitBasher]

[Kagetenshi]

Maybe I'm in the minority not usually seeing TNs of 2 even with Smartlinks, but yes, that is an extreme example.
I'm happy for you that your targets like to stand still for you.

~J

Edit: BitBasher, sometimes people run out of combat pool.

[TheScamp]

And sometimes they don't know you're shooting at them.