Armored cars in 2072? Options

[Karoline]

Hmm... heavy pistol is 5P -1. Body 8, armor 6. At least 1 hit to hit the vehicle, so modified damage of at least 6P/-1 That adjusts the subcompact's armor to 5. So it resists with 13 dice, buys three hits against 6P damage an thus takes 3 damage. I think the dude in the subcompact is going to be zipping it up and hitting the gas if he is getting shot at with anything bigger than a holdout.

Also kzt, it says it adds the vehicles -armor- not the vehicle's armor + body (As Dahrken already said).

The reason body doesn't get included at all when attacking the passengers is fairly simple, you aren't aiming to damage the vehicle at all in that case (Except to put a single hole through it). When you are attacking the vehicle you are aiming to damage and disable it, thus aiming for things like the engine and tires and other.. umm... important vehicle things (Gas tank? Not that it'll explode, but having no gas would suck)

That aiming for critical spots is where the body of the vehicle comes in. Remember that under the damage to passengers, it also never says anything about having to completely demolish the vehicle in order to get at the passengers.

Oh, and as for modern cars, yeah, pistol rounds will go right through the door. Cops are trained that if a gun gets pulled on them by a person in a car (Like when they walk up to give a ticket or whatever) they drop down to their knees and shoot the guy through the door. The guy in the car will generally try to aim out and over the window while he is plugged full of bullets flying through the door.

[rob]

KZT - I looked over the stuff this morning. In my copy of SR4A, the vehicle damage rules read exactly as you write, and I'll admit the confusion by the chronological ordering of those statements.

However, if you look at the vehicle attributes on p. 167, it states (italicized emphasis mine):

Vehicle Body: Vehicle Body functions much like a character's Body, and is primarily used for damage resistance tests.
...
Vehicle Armor: Vehicle armor functions just like character armor, and is used for the vehicle's damage resistance tests... If an attack's modified DV does not exceed a vehicle's modified Armor rating, then the attack automatically fails.

I have read your take on the rules, so don't quote it back a third time, that's annoying. I understand where you're coming from, if you look at that one paragraph in isolation. However, I think that the take Drakhen, Karoline, and myself present makes a lot more sense, and is more consistent with similar rules, such as the Immunity from Normal Weapons powers for spirits and every other thing with hardened armor.

Plus, I really fail to understand why you want to disagree, since we're giving you an easy, logical, rules based way to avoid the ridiculous scenario of people making out in a subcompact being fired on by assault rifles.

I have fairly extensive personal experience getting shot at by and shooting at people in cars, courtesy of the government. Nothing in these rules strikes me as over the top; all seems quite reasonable.

Legs - sorry we co-opted your scenario based thread for a rules argument. Hope that some of it is useful to you. I think an armored car heist sounds fun, and I think roadmasters make good armored cars (I have a character that uses a Citymaster for it, and has a fake armored car service company that he uses as a cover, so I've thought about this before).

[kzt]

Hmm... heavy pistol is 5P -1. Body 8, armor 6. At least 1 hit to hit the vehicle, so modified damage of at least 6P/-1 That adjusts the subcompact's armor to 5. So it resists with 13 dice, buys three hits against 6P damage an thus takes 3 damage.

No. Vehicles get to roll their armor + body and subtract hits from the attackers DV. If the adjusted DV doesn't exceed the armor the attack bounces. So in your example the DV has to exceed at least 9 to do ANY damage, and hence takes the subcompact no damage.

[Sponge]

No, the rules are:

VEHICLE DAMAGE
Whenever a vehicle is hit by an attack, it resists damage as
normal, rolling Body + Armor. If the attack’s modified DV does
not exceed the vehicle’s modified Armor, no damage is applied.

You seem to be jumping to the conclusion that either the "vehicle's modified Armor" or the "attacker's modified DV" in the second sentence somehow incorporates the results of the resistance test from the first test. Soaking damage reduces the damage taken, it affects neither the actual (modified) DV of the attack nor the actual armor of the defender. They are two independent rules to follow: Resist the attack as normal with Body + Armor. If the attacker's modified DV doesn't exceed the modified armor of the vehicle, no damage is applied. (It's a trivial optimisation to skip the resist roll if no damage is applied....)

It nowhere says, under the subordinate heading of damage and passengers, that the general rules on vehicle damage don't apply to attacking passengers. Why wouldn't they?

It does, in fact:

Attacks must specifically target either the passengers (in which case, the vehicle is unaffected), or the vehicle itself (in which case, the passengers are not affected). The exceptions to this rule are [various area-effect attacks].

Unless you're specifically targeting the vehicle, the vehicle damage resistance rules never come into play. If you're targeting the passengers, the subsection has further rules for what part the vehicle does play (-2 to dodge, partial/full cover, add vehicle's armor to passenger's armor).

[kzt]

You seem to be jumping to the conclusion that either the "vehicle's modified Armor" or the "attacker's modified DV" in the second sentence somehow incorporates the results of the resistance test from the first test. Soaking damage reduces the damage taken, it affects neither the actual (modified) DV of the attack nor the actual armor of the defender. They are two independent rules to follow: Resist the attack as normal with Body + Armor. If the attacker's modified DV doesn't exceed the modified armor of the vehicle, no damage is applied. (It's a trivial optimisation to skip the resist roll if no damage is applied....)

The damage resistance roll is what produces the modified DV.

[Sponge]

Looking at the Combat Sequence text (BBB p139-140) clarifies things a little bit, but not as much as I'd like. Step 4 is the "Compare Armor" test, which explicitly states that net hits + base DV = modified Damage Value (emphasis in the book). If the modified DV does not exceed the modified armor, damage is stun rather than physical. Step 5 ("Damage Resistance Test") does in fact say "each hit scored [on the damage resistance test] reduces the modified Damage Value by 1."

So basically it boils down to this: The section on vehicle damage (p161) is not clear how those rules break down into steps in the Combat Sequence. The choice of wording of "modified armor value" and "modified DV" (as well as the various bits of text that state that vehicle armor functions just like character armor), to me, indicate that the armor comparison goes in Step 4 (which explicitly defines those terms), before the damage resistance is applied, and proceeds as normal from there ("it resists damage as normal," first sentence). I could see how a literal reading could interpret it to replace Steps 4 and 5 entirely, but to me it doesn't make sense to disregard the larger context of the combat rules when trying to read this one paragraph. I don't think there's a definitive answer to be found by examining the letter of the rules further, but my own feeling is that the results of doing the comparison in Step 4 are much more reasonable.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

The damage resistance roll is what produces the modified DV.

No, the opposed Attack-Defense roll does.

See SR4A, p. 149, Step 4. First, the modified DV (and modified Armor!) is calculated, then there is damage resistance.

[kzt]

If things like the magic example that contradict the rules on what test to use and how it works didn't exist I'd be more willing to say "oh, it should just work like the rest of the combat rules". Given these exceptions I tend to believe that when they write rules that have a subsystem that works differently that the rest of the game that they mean it.

[rob]

Dude, but why? The test you're arguing for makes every shadowrun car armored like the brinks car, makes one system work an entirely different way than another, and is only supported by one sentence in the rules, that you're the only person posting has read that way? That really doesn't make sense for me.

I disagree with it because 1. I don't read the rules that way, because of the other places I and others have pointed out, 2. I don't think they intended it that way, because it's a significant departure from the rest of the system on the basis of one vaguely worded line, and 3. The implications of that rule don't pan out with sense (subcompacts immune to assault rifles, riot control trucks immune to shipboard/MBT weapons).

I would understand that, if you think every shadowrun car is SUPPOSED to be armored like the brinks car.

But then that gets into other levels of ridiculousness, when you consider that by your interpretation a stock, unmodified Ares Citymaster will shrug off hits from a gauss rifle with less than 5 successes on the attack + defense test (Base damage 9P, -4 AP, half armor vs. Soak roll of 22 (16 body, 20 armor, halved to 10, minus 4, so average 7 successes, or just buying 5 would mean less than 3 successes.)), or the GM heavy cannon with less than 5 or 3 successes (Base damage 17P, -8 AP, so 16 body and 12 armor, average 9 successes or buying 7). Or, with 1 point of smart armor, completely resists the Aztechnology heavy gauss cannon with less than 2 net successes.


Is there some reason you think the game world should work this way?

[Paul]

Well I guess there's a simple solution to this, anyone who wrote the books want to weigh in? Anyone know anyone with authority who can weigh in?

[Karoline]

Whenever a vehicle is hit by an attack, it resists damage as
normal, rolling Body + Armor. If the attack’s modified DV does
not exceed the vehicle’s modified Armor, no damage is applied.

kzt's interpretation is lacking one very very important key word to make these two sentences work for him. That key word? Then.

The lack of a joining word like then means that the order of the two rules can be switched. It can just as easily read "If the attack's modified DV does not exceed the vehicle's modified armor, no damage is applied. Whenever a vehicle is hit by an attack, it resists damage as normal, rolling Body + Armor."

Also please note the part that says "it resists damage as normal" which indicates that it deals with damage in the same way as every other thing in SR existence, which is that DV being compared to Armor is done -before- soaking occurs, not after, for the sake of P v S damage.

As for shooting through the door/window of a vehicle somehow including the body of the vehicle, let me ask you this... why does shooting through a -wall- not require you to take into account the 'body' of a wall? You don't have to completely destroy the wall to be able to shoot through it, you just have to be able to overcome its armor value.

Additionally, the
passengers gain protection from the vehicle’s chassis, adding the
Armor of the vehicle to any personal armor the characters are
wearing.

Notice how it doesn't mention anything at all about the body of the vehicle being part of this in any way what-so-ever?

Also, the 'DV must be greater than vehicle armor to do damage' thing is also mentioned much much earlier on page 158, in no relation at all to there being a soak test.

(Sorry this kinda jumps around, was reading up on the section a bit more as I wrote)

[Dahrken]

Also read the section about Armor (for characters but still...) p 160 in SR4A. What is written ?
"Armor is used with Body to make damage resistance test" followed two sentences later by "If the modified DV does not exceed the modified armor rting, then the attack does Stun damage".

Sound familiar ? The beginning of the section on vehicule armor page 167 follows exactly the same pattern, without the precisions about what exactly is a "Damage resistance" test and modified Armor and Damage Value - IMHO because those concepts have been thoroughly explained before and it explicitely says vehicle armor function like charcter armor. Finally, the paragraph p. 170 about vehicle damage drops even more extras, and the two sentences are now one next to the other...

I think you infer far too much from a slightly ambiguously worded paragraph, particularly when your reading leads to blatantly ridiculous results like needing a Panther to go Jackrabbit hunting.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

No. Vehicles get to roll their armor + body and subtract hits from the attackers DV. If the adjusted DV doesn't exceed the armor the attack bounces. So in your example the DV has to exceed at least 9 to do ANY damage, and hence takes the subcompact no damage.

NO, NO, NO...

You are NOT reading the rules in their totality... Vehicles soak damage JUST LIKE PEOPLE DO...
Please refer to all of the above relevant posts...

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The damage resistance roll is what produces the modified DV.

NO... The modified DV is the result of the Attack Test... JUST LIKE in ALL other cases within the Rules

[hobgoblin]

talk about cain 3.0...

[kzt]

Well, on reflection, now that I have some sleep, I'll admit that I was wrong. But the writing of the rules still sucks.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

talk about cain 3.0...

Not really, No... and it has obviously been resolved anyway, so no big deel...

Keep the Faith