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

[Pavlov]

I've house-ruled called shots this way:

1. Can up the damage code one stage. 9M->9S.

2. Can create some sort of non-damaging effect; for example, you could attempt to shoot the gun out of the sec guard's hand. Very difficult effects (shoot it out of his hand with one shot, then cause the gun to skip in the air with another) have threshholds (ala some spells).

3. Can hit a component part.

4. Can reduce armor up to X, which requires the TN to be raised by X, where X= the level of the skill being used. This option is a complex action (PhysAds love it) and cannot be combined with a weapon in full-auto mode. You might be able to get 3 bullets in the same quarter-sized mass, but not 6 from an assault rifle.

Edit: The 4th option is for players who have read the FAQ and ask about it. Otherwise, I just stick to #1-3.

[Cochise]

[Buzzed]

Buzzed's head explodes.

[RedmondLarry]

A passer-by looks at Buzzed's body and says "Hmmmm. Must have been a lucky head shot -- it bypassed his Armor completely."

[Kagetenshi]

But the real question: did it do wound effects to Buzzed's cranial cyber/bioware?

~J

[Game2BHappy]

[BitBasher]

The FAQ is NOT eratta, it is not an official change to the rules, it is a clarification to the rules by an official person in his opinion. It does not change any rules, just offers a POV explanation from a developer. Take it as you will.

[Zazen]

[moosegod]

Seems like that's kind of the point of SM-2. It's supposed to be the hottest thing for guns since cordite, after all.

[Kagetenshi]

Or since the Smartlink-I :P

~J

[Bearclaw]

[Cochise]

[nezumi]

It seems to me that the fundamental reason why errata is not FAQ is as such:

errata are clarifications to specific sentences or charts in a book. Its what makes the difference before the first publication and the second; the typos are taken out, the grammar is corrected etc. This shouldn't add any new rules (unless they were somehow forgotten in the original release, which would be pretty odd).

FAQ is Frequently Asked Questions. Anything people ask often. This has nothing to do with spelling, but usually with overarching questions. So questions about how called shots work would appear here.

I have read over both a while back, and I didn't see any reason why one should be considered canon and not the other (well, errata obviously should be). However, considering the fact that I have the memory of a pickle, there might be something else there I'm missing.

[JackWill]

ignoring armor is a bit uber to me... i mean come on.. load every gun with flechette.. look you are getting both benifits now!

Flechette ammo sucks if it hits armor!
Ignore armor.. and it hits flesh.. and it stages up also.. what a bonus!

So now my 14S Ranger Arms now ignores your armor and does 14D!!! muwahahaha!

[mfb]

i only allow called shots to bypass armor if it's possible for the armor to be bypassed--for instance, a char in full military armor, with helmet, doesn't have to worry about his armor being bypassed.

[Raygun]

I love that word. "Abstract." It's so useful. It allows people the freedom justify things in any number of ways. It's the short way of saying "I believe what I want to and I can change that whenever I feel like it." Which is great.

Shadowrun's game system definitely is apart from reality. But even in this abstract game system, some things tend to be far more abstract than others, which, obviously, can make things inconsistent and impractical. Personally, when it comes to body armor rules -hell, the whole of ranged combat- I like things to be a bit more practical than they are under canon rules. They do not satisfy my sense of reality. Others may have no problem at all. Thankfully, we can all play the game the way we want to and no one's idea of what is realistic (or realistic enough) and what isn't is any better than anyone else's. It's not one way or the other. There are many levels in between. It's all subjective.

The ability to bypass armor may seem "über" or "munchkin" or whatever word it is that you use to describe something you don't like. It's usually a big step toward enhancing lethality, and some people don't like that. They think the game is lethal enough as it is. I don't. I have seen players get away with some incredibly silly shit by the book. Because of that, I've chosen to change a few things. Allowing PCs/NPCs to bypass armor tends to make a game a bit deadlier, and lethality is a powerful tool for a GM if a player can become so emotionally attached to the character that they've put so much effort into creating. And that, to me, is the way it should be. You can accomplish the same thing in other ways, but in order to do it using canon rules, things can get rediculous very quickly. It depends on the players. Certainly, if you're going to change this one armor rule, you probably should bring a few others in line as well, but you really don't have to if you don't want to.

If you want to use armor bypassing rules, do it. There's nothing wrong with it, no matter what anyone else says. Just understand that the John-Woo-Flying-Lead-And-Kung-Fu thing isn't going to work out all that well. It can suck a lot of the gunplay out of your game. Fortunately, that tends to make players think about other ways of solving their problems, which can be fun. But if you think the game is fine the way it it is, then great. Play it the way it is. It's certainly geared more toward Hollywood gun battles, and that can be fun too. It's up to you.

[Shockwave_IIc]

[TinkerGnome]

The classic example is the Armor spell. It shouldn't have weak points...

[Eindrachen]

Well, I may be late to the podium, but here's some random remarks/comments:

1. I feel that the Called Shot is acceptable as-is. It's okay at shorter ranges for squeezing out some extra damage; at longer ranges, assuming you are smart enough to be using something with real range (i.e., the sniper rifle), it's fairly ridiculous to make things harder on yourself by making a Called Shot, when you could just take a regular shot with a gun decked out with mods (and you with cyber), and let raw successes make it do Deadly-plus-overflow damage.

2. The Ares Viper Slivergun is a pretty toy. Yes, it is a remarkably deadly pistol. Yes, a Called Shot will make it the next best thing since sliced bread. Yes, it is an assassin's weapon of choice.

It is NOT what you want a PC to build a long and successful shadowrunning career off of, however. Why?

Because while that gun is hella-cool at close range, I can be much more hella-cool at longer ranges with bigger guns. There's the always-fun sniper rifle, assault cannons, MGs, and missile launchers. The sheer range differences on some of these go without mentioning; you can't kill me with a AVS at the range I could reach out and explode your head with a sniper rifle. Oh, I'm sure you can concoct scenarios by which I am unable to make your head disappear with said gun; scenarios involving magic and other things, which I am almost certain to counter with my own tricks. If it boils down to whose gun is better, I'll take a sniper rifle and a tall building overlooking the taco stand you frequent any day of the week over an AVS.

Incidentally, don't forget that if you do shoot the AVS on burst-fire mode, you start incurring a nasty little recoil score. If uncompensated, recoil can do a nasty number on your TN, no matter the range you're shooting at. If I remember correctly, it's +3 on the first Phase, +6 on the next. Start doing the math; that Called Shot at Medium to Long range starts looking pretty high after a while.

Oh, and the AVS is practically worthless against vehicles, which means if a mark you're after is in a car, you better reach for the bigger guns anyway. That includes drones; if you go on a run against riggers, leave the AVS sitting at home, and get yourself an assault cannon, or a LMG/GL combo.

The AVS is hardly the ultimate weapon, and is good for pretty much one thing: assassinations at fairly close range. A forward-thinking shadowrunner that specializes in wetwork would be a fool not to take one, but would be equally foolish to depend on it for every scenario.

3. The abstract nature of Shadowrun's combat system is found in many other systems, namely D&D. The abstract school of thought dictates that the flow of the game's action is more important than sorting out layers and layers of modifiers, situations, and whatnot, and so some conventions are allowed for in the name of cinematics.

If you like a detailed system for combat, I highly recommend just playing GURPS for inspiration. They use a hit-location map that uses 3d6 to determine hit location, and assigns various penalties to shooting various locations. You'll have to adjust the way armor works, probably, but other than that, the system works pretty darn good, I think.

By the way, there is no more merit to abstraction than there is to detail. Both can be good to keep the action going, and both can be horribly abused by power gamers and munchkins. In the end, it only matters what makes things more fun for everybody, which does include the GM; a GM not having fun is a GM who isn't going to run games very long.