Stick and Shock - rehash, More effective than bullets, all the time? Options

[Cheshyr]

I'm looking for some help from the experts of RAW. SnS rounds are supposed to replace the damage value of the weapon. This makes your 5P pistol a 6S(e) pistol. Do you add net hits to the damage value?

Part of me says yes: A shot in the face is more effective than a shot in the foot.

Part of me says no: Someone with a decent dice pool dual-wielding semi-automatic pistols shouldn't have a baseline damage of 24S(e) + hits every round.

I try to find the answer in the books, but I must be missing a sentence somewhere. Can someone illuminate me on RAW, so I can enforce these rules properly, or at least make a house ruling from a position of understanding?

[Neonsamurai]

same question came up on yesterdays' game session

[tifunkalicious]

I've been ruling 'no' because that's how I do toxins injected by dart gun. If the attack would have done damage with normal ammo, than the 6S hits. Compare that to dart guns which require TWO net hits to inject their payload, which is regularly narcojet dealing 10S damage with only a Toxin Resistance test to protect you from there. Burst and automatic capabilities should affect it (More ammo is more zaps), and this is where it can get out of hand. Put that ON TOP of net hits from a skilled shooter and everything in the room will be taking naps in seconds.

[Cheshyr]

I've been ruling 'no' because that's how I do toxins injected by dart gun. If the attack would have done damage with normal ammo, than the 6S hits. Compare that to dart guns which require TWO net hits to inject their payload, which is regularly narcojet dealing 10S damage with only a Toxin Resistance test to protect you from there. Burst and automatic capabilities should affect it (More ammo is more zaps), and this is where it can get out of hand. Put that ON TOP of net hits from a skilled shooter and everything in the room will be taking naps in seconds.

Wait, so by RAW, burst would add increments of 6S for each bullet, instead of the +1P per bullet from normal ammo? That's... Unwholesome.

I'm really hesitant to house-rule this for unrelated reasons. I'm considering making the ammo highly regulated, and serialized... Like those new Tazer Shotgun rounds. Each bullet has a couple of serial numbers stashed in various places, and every bullet sold is tracked to a distributor. Or, from a pure game mechanic perspective, raise the availability from 5R to something like 16R, and make it so boxes of 10 only show up on rare occassions. That'll make burst SnS infeasible, and make SnS usage at all a special occassion. Much like anti-vehicular rounds... <cough><shifty-eye>

I like the idea of a competent gunslinger being able to walk into a room and drop everyone. I'm also terrified of power-creep, since a previous campaign got out of hand, with me leading the way.

But before I do anything, I want to make sure I completely understand how it's supposed to work by RAW, and if there's any reason why leaving it alone might be a good idea.

[tifunkalicious]

not more seperate hits, but would add the regular burst bonus to the DV. Thats how I roll it

[Wasabi]

Same here... I use burst fire bonuses but not net hits.

With conconductivity its about the same as a SMG. Math time!

Target has an armored jacket
Target is shot by a short burst from a SMG with ExEx. Base Damage is 8P -1 AP. With one net hit target takes 9P -1 AP. With a body of 5 and their 8 Ballistic they they reduce the 9P damage by 4 and suffer 5P.

Target is shot by a short burst from a SMG with SnS. Base Damage is 8S (-half). With one net hit target takes 8S -(half). With a body of 5 and their 6 Impact and their 6 Nonconductivity they take (5+3+6)/3 4S and must make a 'dont tase me bro' test as we like to call it.

When SnS is amazing is against high body targets so they use their typically shorter Stun damage tracks and its great against targets with no nonconductivity or when you need SMG firepower in a tiny package like a Cherry Blossom. Its not nearly as gamebreaking as Narcojet Capsule rounds which are unbelievably powerful.

[AngelisStorm]

I have the damage value stay the same, but it changes to S(e). Shotguns can fire bigger tazer bullets than holdout pistols.

[Wasabi]

Thats a great way to do it, Angelis.

I personally wish it acted like Stun Rounds from 1st ed (the bean bag kind) and required a shotgun in the first damn place.

[Saint Sithney]

Logically, with a taser-type round you're aiming for nerve clusters, so a better shot means a higher chance of overloading a target's nervous system. Good thing every gun crazy street thug studies anatomy, right?

[Mäx]

To answer the question in your topic tittle i would say no, there are lots of guns that have a damage code higher then 6.
And to someone suggestion of making it just -S(e), meaning it uses the guns standart damage value i wuold hell no that does make S&S to always be better then other ammo
At least now in heavier weapons your trading -half impactarmor to a slower damage code but with that change you get guns that do 9S(e) with AP-half thats some erious damage code.

[KarmaInferno]

Logically, with a taser-type round you're aiming for nerve clusters, so a better shot means a higher chance of overloading a target's nervous system. Good thing every gun crazy street thug studies anatomy, right?

Well, the real life version works as long as it gets a solid main body hit. It then splits to increase the effect, the back half falls off on impact, connected to the front half by a tough wire, and usually contacts the target's legs around the thigh area.



-karma

[tagz]

In my game "replaces the damage code" means that net hits would not be used to modify damage.

If a character wants to hit a more vulnerable spot then they should be making a Called Shot to increase DV or bypass armor. These are still viable options even not using net hits to modify SnS.

[Yerameyahu]

Re: burst fire, you could simply rule that you neither get multiple hits *nor* Narrow-burst effects. Make wide bursts to be surer of hitting them with the S&S, and you only ever get 6S(e). This solves the problem of 8, 11, or 15S(e) bursts (god forbid you use a minigun).

I'd be open to considering no net hits for damage either (logically, I can see it not mattering where the tazer connects), but you'd want to playtest that a little.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Using the rules in the book of 6(s)e with net hits increasing damage, and busrt fire used as normal, we have had absolutely no problem with this round. It has yet to even be used in more than a few occassions at all. Yes, Half Impact Armor is nice, as is the secondary effect, but overall, I have always felt that the many options for ammunition make the character's choices interesting...

Overall, I tend to see more useage of Ex-Ex, APDS, and AV rounds in the game much more often than I see the Use of SnS. In fact, I cuold probably count the number of clips (of SnS) on one hand in our game, where the number of Standard Round, EX-EX Round, APDS Round, AV Round Clips vastly outnumbers them by a factor of probably 50 or so... We have 6 Players, and of them, I tend to be the only one who uses SnS (I carry 2 Clips just in case I might Need them for something like Spirits)...

I know that this probably does not help the debate, as a lot of tables see nothing BUT Sns at their tables... I just wanted to point it out is all... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

Yeah, your players just aren't 'smart' enough, that's all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Combat Mage]

Using the rules in the book of 6(s)e with net hits increasing damage, and busrt fire used as normal, we have had absolutely no problem with this round. It has yet to even be used in more than a few occassions at all. Yes, Half Impact Armor is nice, as is the secondary effect, but overall, I have always felt that the many options for ammunition make the character's choices interesting...

Overall, I tend to see more useage of Ex-Ex, APDS, and AV rounds in the game much more often than I see the Use of SnS. In fact, I cuold probably count the number of clips (of SnS) on one hand in our game, where the number of Standard Round, EX-EX Round, APDS Round, AV Round Clips vastly outnumbers them by a factor of probably 50 or so... We have 6 Players, and of them, I tend to be the only one who uses SnS (I carry 2 Clips just in case I might Need them for something like Spirits)...

I know that this probably does not help the debate, as a lot of tables see nothing BUT Sns at their tables... I just wanted to point it out is all... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

If you have APDS or even AV available then it's no surprise. I prefer ADPS in most cases over SnS in heavier weapons. But APDS has an availability of 16 while SnS has something like 4 (not sure on this but it's not very high), so the problem is that your getting something that is as good as APDS or sometimes even better and is really easy to get at the same time.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

If you have APDS or even AV available then it's no surprise. I prefer ADPS in most cases over SnS in heavier weapons. But APDS has an availability of 16 while SnS has something like 4 (not sure on this but it's not very high), so the problem is that your getting something that is as good as APDS or sometimes even better and is really easy to get at the same time.

Yeah... Most of the players at our table actually do not like SnS... It is just Choice on their part, not any indication of Intelligence there Yerameyahu, and they choose other round types... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Honestly, we have enough magical power that Spirits are generally not that big of a deal, so the Spirit Killing Properties of SnS do not mean much in our case...

As for the availability of APDS/AV/EX-EX... the characters have been around so long that they have ample contacts to acquire such items (The majority of the characters are over 300 Karma points Awarded). So it has become easier to acquire the more difficult to get items.

[Yerameyahu]

I didn't say not smart, I said not 'smart'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I didn't say not smart, I said not 'smart'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Heheheh... Potaytoe, Potahto.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Doc Byte]

Re: burst fire, you could simply rule that you neither get multiple hits *nor* Narrow-burst effects. Make wide bursts to be surer of hitting them with the S&S, and you only ever get 6S(e). This solves the problem of 8, 11, or 15S(e) bursts (god forbid you use a minigun).

Have you ever used a Vindicator with Gel Rounds? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Traul]

Have you ever used a Vindicator with Gel Rounds? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

If I was your Vindicator, I would critically glitch on every burst to punish you for such blasphemy.

[Daylen]

I'm considering making the ammo highly regulated, and serialized... Like those new Tazer Shotgun rounds. Each bullet has a couple of serial numbers stashed in various places, and every bullet sold is tracked to a distributor.

Mind giving a reference for this? I've never heard or found any indication that TI is doing anything like being picky about who buys the ammo, keeping more than just normal documents on purchasers or serializing ammo.

[Yerameyahu]

Tazer does everything they can to promote their gear as 100% safe. Why would they do that?

More important for SR, why would anyone highly regulate nonlethal ammo? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Daylen]

Tazer does everything they can to promote their gear as 100% safe. Why would they do that?

More important for SR, why would anyone highly regulate nonlethal ammo? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Railroad GMs

[Cheshyr]

Mind giving a reference for this? I've never heard or found any indication that TI is doing anything like being picky about who buys the ammo, keeping more than just normal documents on purchasers or serializing ammo.

There is no reference. If you read the rest of the sentence, I was musing over a potential house ruling; nothing more.

You guys can call it railroading if you like, and I know there's always the 'if they can do it, so can you' crowd, but I'm trying to maintain statistical balance, so the game doesn't turn into another arms-race.

You can debate the merits as you see fit. As interesting as that debate is, I'm here to learn how people are interpreting RAW.