Paladium tried it, Cyber Punk Got it Dead On, Shadowrun.............. Options

[WorkOver]

Ok, maybe I am missing something here.

Lowly pathetic Palladium games has a system in place for putting a 40 up to a persons head and pulling the trigger. It involves a complicated series of charts to roll on, plus some bypass-S.D.C.-and-go-straight-to-hitpoints damage, but there is something.

In Cyberpunk, guy has a 18 point cowl plate, you put a weak 2D6 9mm up to his head and squeeze you don't even roll for damage. Point Plank shot is ALWAYS maximum damage, plus a head shot is double damage. Bang, 6 gets through, make a shock save. But it doesn't matter. 6 points to a body part with one attack will sever or mangle it, so that dudes head is toast. Make a new toon. 18 points of armour on a head is the same as the armor on the door of an armored vehicle.

Swap out that pitiful pre crash 9 with an armalite 44, thats 4D6+1, or 25 x 2 for 50 points of damage to a head. That head is blows clean off. Tone it down with a City Master which is 3D6, and you still get dead.

Change that ammo, and the results are more splashy.

I hate house rules. Don't use em. If I have to make house rules, we will just make up our own game and play it, no reason to pay for a rule set, just to change it.

In Shadowrun, you put a colt manhunter up to a guy ties up, have 12 dice in your pool, roll average, you will do 6 + successes, which is about 4 on average, for 10 boxes, which will only kill of you have less than a 4 body.

A Colt manhunter is like hitting with the Armalite .44 from Cyberpunk, which in the same system is garunteed to do what it is supposed to do at point blank, which is to remove said head from same body.

In Shadowrun, you need to use burst fire to kill, which works for me, as I have no issue with killing players and NPCs with guns, as long as it's not a single shot execution shot.

Or am I missing some rule in Shadowrun?

[Starmage21]

Ok, maybe I am missing something here.

Lowly pathetic Palladium games has a system in place for putting a 40 up to a persons head and pulling the trigger. It involves a complicated series of charts to roll on, plus some bypass-S.D.C.-and-go-straight-to-hitpoints damage, but there is something.

In Cyberpunk, guy has a 18 point cowl plate, you put a weak 2D6 9mm up to his head and squeeze you don't even roll for damage. Point Plank shot is ALWAYS maximum damage, plus a head shot is double damage. Bang, 6 gets through, make a shock save. But it doesn't matter. 6 points to a body part with one attack will sever or mangle it, so that dudes head is toast. Make a new toon. 18 points of armour on a head is the same as the armor on the door of an armored vehicle.

Swap out that pitiful pre crash 9 with an armalite 44, thats 4D6+1, or 25 x 2 for 50 points of damage to a head. That head is blows clean off. Tone it down with a City Master which is 3D6, and you still get dead.

Change that ammo, and the results are more splashy.

I hate house rules. Don't use em. If I have to make house rules, we will just make up our own game and play it, no reason to pay for a rule set, just to change it.

In Shadowrun, you put a colt manhunter up to a guy ties up, have 12 dice in your pool, roll average, you will do 6 + successes, which is about 4 on average, for 10 boxes, which will only kill of you have less than a 4 body.

A Colt manhunter is like hitting with the Armalite .44 from Cyberpunk, which in the same system is garunteed to do what it is supposed to do at point blank, which is to remove said head from same body.

In Shadowrun, you need to use burst fire to kill, which works for me, as I have no issue with killing players and NPCs with guns, as long as it's not a single shot execution shot.

Or am I missing some rule in Shadowrun?

Did you know that a bullet to the brain-case isnt necessarily instant death? An astounding number of people survive it. There is a reason those old-time gangsters used to shoot people in the head TWICE.

[Stahlseele]

It's an aimed shot, so you take the appropriate malus to your pool.
If you want to aim for several actions/seconds, you get dice back.
No, there is, to my knowledge, as of $R4.5 NO rule for the Krönlein-Schuss/Coup-De-Grace or whatever.
This stems from the simple fact that the shadowrun damage system does not have any hit locations.
You get enough successes, even if you aimed for the pinky finger on the trolls cyber-arm, the troll DIES.
Wanna see it get even more silly?
Try to shoot yourself in the head.
It's an aimed shot, so you get a malus.
It's a blind shot, as you can't SEE your target . . yeah, well, take SEVERE malus.
And it goes on and on and on like this . .

[Daddy's Litt...]

Lowly pathetic Palladium games has a system in place for putting a 40 up to a persons head and pulling the trigger. It involves a complicated series of charts to roll on, plus some bypass-S.D.C.-and-go-straight-to-hitpoints damage, but there is something.

I underlined the key point. For something as simple as putting a honking big gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger, it should pretty well slip into: "GM takes over and gives a gory detailed listing of the splatter pattern redecorating the wall. "

[Stahlseele]

Nuhu!
I'm wearing my bullet proof Shoes! i get all that armor!
And my complete Bone-Stuff. And my complete built in Armor, be it magical, natural, biological or cybernetic too!
and i am a big frigging Troll! the bullet goes SPLAT on my hard skull and i headbut the gun into his mouth!

[Dixie Flatline]

GM Fiat is not a "house rule".

If you're a troll with bone lacing and a combat helmet and get shot in the head with a .22, then yeah, all those stupid rules that let you soak damage probably would apply. It *might* give the troll a headache. If you put a 30-06 up to the troll's head, GM Fiat takes over and says "splat".

Also, Cyberpunk (or more specifically, Friday Night Firefight, the advanced combat rules for Cyberpunk) were drawn from FBI gunfight statistics. You shoot a whole bunch at less than 30 feet, in a poorly lit area, you're not exactly well trained, and the first bullet usually takes you out of the fight period.

Shadowrun and Cyberpunk are on two entirely different reality levels as far as combat goes. Shadowrun is far more fantastic than Cyberpunk 2020 is.

PS. I know you hate house rules, but I find it hard to believe you've never done anything in an RPG that wasn't covered in the rules. No rule system is complete for every single potential outcome possible.

[Ghremdal]

If you want to go by the rules, you can say it is a called shot for -4 DP + 4DV, +3 DP take aim, +2 DP impossible to miss and rule that it bypasses all armor. So you are at +4 DV, +1 DP and bypass all armor. Load up flechettes for a additional +2 DV, and you have a +6 DV + 1 DP attack the target resists only with his body.

With a Ares Predator that is 11 DV before counting any hits from your DP.

[Malachi]

Shadowrun combat rules are intended to be a relatively quick resolution for a combat situation where people are moving and shooting and attempting to dodge. Outside of this you should revert to whatever makes sense for the situation.

I would also like to take this time to point out (kind of as a PSA) that the modifiers listed in the book(s) are not intended to be all-encompassing. They are not a list of every modifier that could ever be applied to any situation that could ever come up. Such as list, by its definition, would be infinitely long. So, if a situation comes up where the list of modifiers doesn't seem to make sense, throw in some other modifiers. This isn't a house rule, it's the GM doing their job. So give the person a +8 or +15 or +20 to their shot because it is ridiculously easy to shoot someone when they are tied up and helpless. Personally, I wouldn't roll dice at all in this situation, the target is simply dead. If the target was a PC I would let them burn Edge to survive, but that would be it.

[Neraph]

If you want to go by the rules, you can say it is a called shot for -4 DP + 4DV, +3 DP take aim, +2 DP impossible to miss and rule that it bypasses all armor. So you are at +4 DV, +1 DP and bypass all armor. Load up flechettes for a additional +2 DV, and you have a +6 DV + 1 DP attack the target resists only with his body.

With a Ares Predator that is 11 DV before counting any hits from your DP.

Exactly. That last +2 DP should be for "Point Blank Range" from the additional combat rules in Arsenal. To my knowledge there's no "Impossible to Miss" bonus.

Edit: And without the possibility for your target to Dodge, it should be over quick.

[Flowman]

Called shot rules anyone? sub 4 dice for +4 damage, you get 8 dice, +2 for the target being point blank(Arsenal combat modifier rules) assume target gets no hits on his reaction roll, average 3 net-hits means 12 damage. Apply soaks as needed.

DM can fiat what soaks apply (My armor pants will protect me!)

If the target is nice and restrained he gets no reaction roll and thus no hits. You can use take aim actions to compensate for the call shot dice loss.

This post has been edited by Flowman: Mar 8 2010, 10:46 PM

[Stahlseele]

And if it's built in, natural or magical armor, there is no bypassing all armor either. Same with formfitting full body suit and a Helmet.
If you ever start this kinda nonsense, everybody and their grandma is going to get an assault rifle and aim only for the unprotected eyes.
So there is only heads going splat, nothing else. Any Gm try to pull this kinda nonsense on me had better let me pull that kinda nonsense on . . oh, see that dragon over there?
His eye is TOTALLY unprotected!
Also if the character is specifically built to resist damage, taking away his means to do so is just bad form.

[Flowman]

And if it's built in, natural or magical armor, there is no bypassing all armor either. Same with formfitting full body suit and a Helmet.
If you ever start this kinda nonsense, everybody and their grandma is going to get an assault rifle and aim only for the unprotected eyes.
So there is only heads going splat, nothing else.

Rule for avoiding armor is taking a dice penalty equal to the armor rating your trying to avoid, thus milspec armor is almost impossible to bypass. The number of dice you would lose at all times for this would make running around shooting people in the head almost impossible. But still with APDS rounds and a point blank shot, called and all that jazz, restrained targets will go splat.

[X-Kalibur]

Ever play Syphon Filter? You get an air taser than can set people on fire if you tag them long enough, but it won't work on body armor. Unless you aim for the head. Then they die a gruesome, electrifying death, and you get a clean, unharmed suit of body armor.

[Caadium]

And if it's built in, natural or magical armor, there is no bypassing all armor either. Same with formfitting full body suit and a Helmet.
If you ever start this kinda nonsense, everybody and their grandma is going to get an assault rifle and aim only for the unprotected eyes.
So there is only heads going splat, nothing else. Any Gm try to pull this kinda nonsense on me had better let me pull that kinda nonsense on . . oh, see that dragon over there?
His eye is TOTALLY unprotected!
Also if the character is specifically built to resist damage, taking away his means to do so is just bad form.

I don't have my book handy, but as I recall when making a called shot there are a couple of choices that people have.

1 choice is the above mentioned +DV (up to 4) for -DP (on an equal amount).

However, there is also the listed choice of bypassing armor. I think that the -DP modifier is equal to the armor value you are bypassing, but if you hit the armor is not used. This is basically the option that anyone using Flechette will chose, since Impact is typically the lower armor value.

Addressing the OP though, you get 2 shots per action. If the target is subdued or you are somehow able to get this point-blank shot to the head, remember, double-tap. As posted above, its a time-tested method for a reason. Aslo, remember that MOST humans, elves, and dwarves, will have 9-10 boxes of damage (enough to die by your example which is leaving out things like called shots). If there is a chance that a tougher PC, or an Ork or Troll, might not die from that 1 shot, I'm perfectly okay with that. You can still execute MOST people with 1 shot that way. The exceptions (which is what PCs are) either take a bigger gun (Ruger SuperWarhawk helps), better ammo (Flechette using the called shot to bypass armor), or even two shots; but they are a FRACKING troll so I'm okay with it.

[Stahlseele]

Rule for avoiding armor is taking a dice penalty equal to the armor rating your trying to avoid, thus milspec armor is almost impossible to bypass. The number of dice you would lose at all times for this would make running around shooting people in the head almost impossible. But still with APDS rounds and a point blank shot, called and all that jazz, restrained targets will go splat.

if they are not wearing a fully enclosed helmet, then their face and especially their eyes are open to attack. no armor for them.
if they are, then so am i.

[Daylen]

SR is not a rule system for declaring exactly what you do and hitting a precise location. its abstracted far from that. Anytime you try to be very precise its going to seem silly in such a system.

[raggedhalo]

Arsenal gives rules for point-blank shooting.

[Cain]

Let's crunch the numbers on this one.

Let's say that you've got a gun to a helpless person's head, thereby negating their ability to dodge. You've got 12 dice in your base pool. You've taken 3 Take Aim actions (+3), have Point-blank range (+2), giving you 17 dice to play with. Subtract 4 dice for +4 damage on a called shot, we're still discussing 13 dice to attack with. You make the roll; we'll round up a bit on the average and give you 5 successes. On a Streetline Special (equivalent of .22LR), that's 4P + 4 called shot +5 successes, for 13 damage that's only going to be soaked with body. Since Joe Average is only Body 3, there's no way he can take that shot. Up the damage on the gun, add special ammo, and other nifty factors, and you've got your instant kill.

[hobgoblin]

i should really stay off this thread, but now i understand why so many gun fans seems to gravitate towards cp2020.

[Daylen]

i should really stay off this thread, but now i understand why so many gun fans seems to gravitate towards cp2020.

really? me and a buddy of mine are avid gun owners and generally dont like going through such details in combat, prefering the more abstract systems.

[Dixie Flatline]

i should really stay off this thread, but now i understand why so many gun fans seems to gravitate towards cp2020.

Eh, it's hit-locational, it's hard to actually shoot someone, and when you get lucky enough to shoot someone, it usually takes them out of the fight.

My CP2020 fights usually started with one person trying to get the drop on someone else, and then a round or two where everyone fires blindly while running to cover (since armor isn't all that useful) before resuming the firefight more properly. Otherwise, you're one bullet wound away from being combat-ineffective.

I even had firefights fizzle out because everyone ran to cover, and one side just kept running after that.

I wouldn't say it's *better* per se than SR4, but it's a very different flavor.

I personally miss the old damage codes in earlier editions of SR. The toughness to soak being independent of the actual amount of damage inflicted rocked. It led to a *lot* more variation in the guns than we have in SR4. In SR3, you'd up the damage to deadly pretty easily in an execution, and then any remaining successes would go towards upping the soak difficulty as high as possible. Therefore, while you *could* kill someone with a .22 to the back of the head, your .357 or .45 is going to be a lot more reliable.

It was more math, but felt better to me.

[TheOOB]

There really is only one place that you can shoot someone where you can be sure they won't get a chance to shoot back, and it's not the brain, it's the base of the neck, and even then only if you sever the spinal column. People use .22s to kill people at point blank range specifically because a higher caliber round isn't necessarily going to be lethal.

The system is designed so it usually takes two shots to ensure they are dead when executing, which is realistic, and hey you get two simple actions a pass.

[crash2029]

At the risk of melanoma I would like to bring up the d20 coup-de-grace system. It boils down to a saving throw, fail and you die, succeed and you take double damage and probably still die.

Here's how I would do it in SR:

Coup-de-grace- When the enemy is helpless (unconsious, bound, paralyzed, ect.) you can attempt to kill them with a complex action. You must be standing next to them. Roll an opposed test (body + willpower + will to live/die) vs (attribute + skill). If the attacker wins the defender dies, otherwise calculate damage disregarding the defenders hits. Resist as normal.

[Doc Byte]

Or am I missing some rule in Shadowrun?

What do you do, if someone cuts somebody else's throat with a knife? Do you roll damage resistance agaist (Str/2)+1P or let the poor guy just die?

[WorkOver]

I am not talking about making aim shots for eyes. I am talking about executing someone.

Pathetic palladium has a bullshit system for it. It is bullshit, but at least it is an attempt. Cyberpunk has an uber unforgiving system for it. You put your pistol to the back of a head, you WILL blow their mind.

Shadowrun has no such anything. You must rely on GM Fiat. I hate that. It invites rules lawyers. It also invites you to have to pull out the "I am GM, my fiat rules" card. Both of which I hate.

This should have not been omitted.

EDIT: For the record, I LOVE Shadowrun. I do mean love it. I love Cyberpunk no less that Shadwrun, no more than Shadowrun. Except for CPV3. That game is worse than Palladium games. Leaving in Michigan, we got that crammed down our throats for more than a decade, so glad to see it die the horrible death it deserved.