Stick'n'Shock is Overpowered, How to fix it. Options

[Neurosis]

I am new to Dumpshock but you guys seem like you've collectively been around the block...a lot! I probably don't need to make the case to any of you why SnS ammo is so incredibly powerful. (These facts are based on SR4 so if any of them have changed in SR4A then I stand corrected.)

* Stick'n'Shock rounds change any weapon's base damage to 6S(e). For all weapons with a damage under six, that means more damage.
* Stick'n'Shock rounds are soaked with Body + Half Impact (rounded down) which means significantly more damage
* Every time you take electricity damage you have to make a Body + Willpower + 1/2 Impact (round down) roll and get three hits. If you fail, you are effectively dead (paralyzed for 2+ Combat Turns). At my game table we call it the flop and twitch roll.
* Even if you succeed the above test, you still take a hefty -2 Penalty on top of the wounds you have already incurred for the same duration (2+ full turns).
* Stick'n'Shock is available at character creation.
* Stick'n'Shock costs less than Flechettes which are worse in every way.
* Stick'n'Shock has an Availability of 5R and a cost of 80 Nuyen. Nothing stops every runner from starting game with a boatload of it.

In other words, Stick'n'Shock ammo effectively turns a standard pistol (light or heavy) into a Force 6 Lightning Bolt spell with no drain that you can cast twice per turn. What a mage can do once per turn for 6DV Drain, anyone can do twice per turn without risking stun. But it's not just magicians that SnS make look bad. Every ammo in the game is irrelevant compared to SnS.

* Regular Ammo: LOL.
* Gel rounds? Don't make me frigging laugh.
* Flechettes' extra damage won't necessarily exceed that of SnS, and it is soaked with IMPACT + 5 as opposed to Impact/2.
* Explosive ammo is better than the above but not as good.
* 'Novelty'/Specialty Ammo we can discount.
* That leaves APDS....which is the only ammo even close to as effective as SnS, and even it is nto as good. It is also Availability 16F.

But what does Stick'n'Shock ammo really, really, really make look bad? Almost every other form of electricity damage. Why would anyone ever, ever, ever buy a four shot Yamaha Pulsar when they can get a 30 shot Fichetti Security 600 "taser" for pennies more with Recoil Comp and a folding stock. Even a generally crappy gun like a Colt American L36 becomes a dangerous threat when combined with Stick'n'Shock.

So, then, how to fix it? I see basically three issues...

* Availability/Price
* Armor penetration.
* Flop and twitch effect.

Now my players aren't abusing it. They're really good about that! But just as an exercise, how would you fix it? Assuming of course you agree that it's a problem.

Just off the top of my head, I am thinking of increasing the availability to 13F and the price to 200. That in-and-of itself does a LOT because it means you need to invest at least 6BP (Restricted Gear) to start with 250 Rounds of the stuff as opposed to less than one BP. Next is the armor penetration. Impact - 2 sounds like a good compromise. With those two fixes, we can leave the secondary effects of electrical damage as is. Of course, I'm not married to this.

I'd love to hear alternatives. : )

[Magus]

Have you run a search on this topic. It seems to pop up at least once every 2 -3 months.

The consensus if there really was one was to change the availability or to just flood the market with it and give everyone non conductivity on everything.

[Neurosis]

No, I haven't run a search.

Mea culpa, I guess?

[Jonny Reload]

Well the first thing you always have to consider with Shadowrun.... It's a deadly game PERIOD. If your not prepared, anything can kill you quite easily. Let's say the average character has 3 body and willpower as well as some decent armor, it's not that hard to get 3 hits and even not, you still have edge.

The Drawbacks to Stick'n'Shock rounds (especially with my favorite types of Gun Characters I play...) You can't target vital areas as per the combat rules. 6S to your torso is still gonna do 6S to your head. You can't take a -4 penalty to your shooting like any other round and get +4 NON STUN damage to what ever gun your using. Sure, Stick'n'Shock is great against unarmored opponents that are average at best, but if that's what your up against in the first place, you've gotta ask yourself if using your gun is even a necessity at this point since there's such mediocre security/opposition.

APDS has always been the round of choice for the players in games I've run since no one ever worries about unarmored targets unless their Mages or Phys Adepts... And at that point your probably gonna need more then just Firepower (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Magus]

No, I haven't run a search.

Mea culpa, I guess?

No worries, but this title as well as Direct Spells/Indirect spell tend to ignite quickly. A few of them have been shut down by the mods. They do have a lot of good ideas. And as I said there are a lot of them.

[Mäx]

S&S isn't really that good, it really only raises the weapons damage for pistols and SMG:s, after that its just even(AR:S and L/MG:S) or less and you start to need really absurd armor values for it to be better then EX-EX and APDS or even Fletchette(as it actually gives more damage).

If your going for light pistol or hold-out with S&S, you could just as well get Defiance EX Shocker that is a much better electrical weapon(get 2 to get around the SS firerate)
For Heavy pistols Warhawk with EX-EX or APDS is pretty much just as good and actualy does physical damage
That leaves pretty much only Machine pistols and SMG:s as the only categories in which S&S rules supreme and even then a burst of EX-EX does enought stun damage that the difference doesn't really matter.

Only think you really need S&S is if your against nasty force 5-7 spirits.

The Drawbacks to Stick'n'Shock rounds (especially with my favorite types of Gun Characters I play...) You can't target vital areas as per the combat rules. 6S to your torso is still gonna do 6S to your head. You can't take a -4 penalty to your shooting like any other round and get +4 NON STUN damage to what ever gun your using. Sure, Stick'n'Shock is great against unarmored opponents that are average at best, but if that's what your up against in the first place, you've gotta ask yourself if using your gun is even a necessity at this point since there's such mediocre security/opposition.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)
WTF, nothink in the rules stop you from taking called shots with S&S rounds or any other electric damage weapons.

[Neurosis]

I'll admit that we don't use called shots often at my table...generally we figure it's six in one, half a dozen in the other, since the more dice you roll the more net hits you can rack. We'll leave soft targets out of this for now.

Jonny, imagine you're shooting at a Red Samurai with Body 6 and 12/10 Armor. You've got your trusty Ares Predator.

If you load APDS and aim a -4 Dice Pool Called Shot to the FACE, if you hit he's soaking a base of 9P with 13 Dice.

If you load Stick'n'Shock and fire a regular, non-called shot, he's soaking a base of six damage with 11 Dice. And remember you get to roll FOUR MORE DICE on the attack. If he takes even ONE BOX of damage, he has to resist being immediately incapacitated, and he is subject to an additional -2 penalty.

Starting to see my point at all?

S&S isn't really that good, it really only raises the weapons damage for pistols and SMG:s, after that its just even(AR:S and L/MG:S) or less and you start to need really absurd armor values for it to be better then EX-EX and APDS or even Fletchette(as it actually gives more damage).

If your going for light pistol or hold-out with S&S, you could just as well get Defiance EX Shocker that is a much better electrical weapon(get 2 to get around the SS firerate)
For Heavy pistols Warhawk with EX-EX or APDS is pretty much just as good and actualy does physical damage
That leaves pretty much only Machine pistols and SMG:s as the only categories in which S&S rules supreme and even then a burst of EX-EX does enought stun damage that the difference doesn't really matter.

Only think you really need S&S is if your against nasty force 5-7 spirits.

EX-EX has less AP and is resisted with ballistic and you don't have "Heads you're incapacitated, Tails you get -2 to Everything".

[Summerstorm]

Yepp... everyone who has money for real armor nearly ALWAYS has nonconductivity at high level. At least in my games. Electricity attacks are nasty and very common. Only chemical attacks are even in the same league.

But there are other factors:
SNS cannot penetrate barriers (Would be REALLY weird), cannot harm someone imune to electricity (drones for example) AND... and this is of course just my opinion and against the rules as written: They shouldn't stack damage like the other ammo types - of course more is better... but you can't get more tasered than tasered *g* and alos they should cut down on the range a bit.

(Also i prefer to have them shot just in high caliber... i find it stupid to allow them in light pistols and MP's and such. Shotgun should be the tool of the trade here.

[LurkerOutThere]

Best fix for stick and shock, just pretend it doesn't exist.

[Neurosis]

Yepp... everyone who has money for real armor nearly ALWAYS has nonconductivity at high level. At least in my games. Electricity attacks are nasty and very common. Only chemical attacks are even in the same league.

But there are other factors:
SNS cannot penetrate barriers (Would be REALLY weird), cannot harm someone imune to electricity (drones for example) AND... and this is of course just my opinion and against the rules as written: They shouldn't stack damage like the other ammo types - of course more is better... but you can't get more tasered than tasered *g* and alos they should cut down on the range a bit.

(Also i prefer to have them shot just in high caliber... i find it stupid to allow them in light pistols and MP's and such. Shotgun should be the tool of the trade here.

I dislike the idea of everyone having nonconductivity but that is one fix.

Stick'n'Shock in shotguns only is an option I do like (makes sense) although it seems a touch extreme.

[Mäx]

EX-EX has less AP and is resisted with ballistic and you don't have "Heads you're incapacitated, Tails you get -2 to Everything".

Warhawk with EX-EX also has 1 higher base damage(on avarage worth 3 points of AP) so it has technically -6AP compared to S&S, meaning the target has to have more then 12 points of armor for S&S to get better AP.

cannot harm someone imune to electricity (drones for example)

Drones definitely aren't immune to electricity, but your right that S&S rounds cant harm then(except the side effect) as drones dont take stun damage

Stick'n'Shock in shotguns only is an option I do like (makes sense)

Too bad S&S isn't really worth it in shotguns, except in very specific situations.

[Dakka Dakka]

The Drawbacks to Stick'n'Shock rounds (especially with my favorite types of Gun Characters I play...) You can't target vital areas as per the combat rules. 6S to your torso is still gonna do 6S to your head. You can't take a -4 penalty to your shooting like any other round and get +4 NON STUN damage to what ever gun your using.

Where did you get that? Called shots can always be used unless the GM says there are no vulnerable spots.

Sure, Stick'n'Shock is great against unarmored opponents that are average at best, but if that's what your up against in the first place, you've gotta ask yourself if using your gun is even a necessity at this point since there's such mediocre security/opposition.

Actually SnS shines against armored targets. No other round (except for those fired from rail guns) have that much armor negation.

APDS has always been the round of choice for the players in games I've run since no one ever worries about unarmored targets unless their Mages or Phys Adepts... And at that point your probably gonna need more then just Firepower (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

True, but unfortunately APDS is not available at CharGen.

My fix to SnS is to have the gameworld react to the effectivness of the ammunition. Most professional guards will have rating 6 electricity protection.

[Summerstorm]

Well... everyone having nonconductivity is just logical. I mean: People run around with SNS-Ammo and stuff *g*.

Buy an Armor Vest (6/4) for 600 bucks and go down from an old grandma with her taser or buy a Armor Vest with 6 Levels of nonconductivity (6) for 1800 and laugh at the puny thunderbolts of a mighty spirit.

[Mäx]

Buy an Armor Vest (6/4) for 600 bucks and go down from an old grandma with her taser or buy a Armor Vest with 6 Levels of nonconductivity (6) for 1800 and laugh at the puny thunderbolts of a mighty spirit.

9 points of armor isn't really that awesome versus thunderbolts of even relativly weak spirits(force 4-7)

[Summerstorm]

It's just 8... but it is maybe enough to just get knocked out instead of being fried... Also maybe enough to take 2-3 of that with good body.

But of course there is no ULTIMATE armor which makes you perfectly safe from everything. SR rewards aggressive behavior, you shouldn't "wait it out". Armor just helps giving you more actions to murder someone.

[Medicineman]

Most of the Groups I know or read of in german forums use either of these Houserules
A) S&S ammo only in Shotguns or Rifles
B) additional hits don't raise the damage .Its capped at 6S (+burst or aimed fire damage)
C) drastic raise of Avail and Price
in my own Groups we use B )

with a Housedance
Medicineman

[Mäx]

A makes S&S pretty useless most of the time, unless they rule it to have a higher base damage.

[Jonny Reload]

I'll admit that we don't use called shots often at my table...generally we figure it's six in one, half a dozen in the other, since the more dice you roll the more net hits you can rack. We'll leave soft targets out of this for now.

Jonny, imagine you're shooting at a Red Samurai with Body 6 and 12/10 Armor. You've got your trusty Ares Predator.

If you load APDS and aim a -4 Dice Pool Called Shot to the FACE, if you hit he's soaking a base of 9P with 13 Dice.

If you load Stick'n'Shock and fire a regular, non-called shot, he's soaking a base of six damage with 11 Dice. And remember you get to roll FOUR MORE DICE on the attack. If he takes even ONE BOX of damage, he has to resist being immediately incapacitated, and he is subject to an additional -2 penalty.

Starting to see my point at all?

Ok, if your using an Ares Predator without Burst Fire, your either not using the Arsenal Book modifications or your an ammo-whore (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) That's an extra +2 to your 9P.

11 Automatic Damage vs 14 (not 13, your math was off (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) ) soak dice that won't turn up all successes... And keep in mind this isn't factoring in EXTRA damage with the successes that carry over from hitting your target when he fails at dodging. I mean when I hit a target, I usually get at least 5 successes over and that's with a starting character following all the limitations on equipment of 12R or less and money wise... I dunno, it still sounds like your taking a long shot with the Stick'n'Shock and hoping they fail their Body + Willpower + Half Impact Armor test.

At least with Damage, if you don't kill them in one shot, your building up a wound penalty snow ball to keep blasting at them and giving them more negatives to all their dice pools until they drop.

[Kruger]

Best fix for stick and shock, just pretend it doesn't exist.

Have to agree. It's possibly one of the sillier ideas that Shadowrun has come up with.

Here, for example is a projectile from an 5.56mm M855 ball round for the M16 assault rifle. Pardon the blurry pic. Took it with my camera phone in mediocre lighting.

http://i56.tinypic.com/9fthd5.jpg

As you can see, it's slightly shorter than the diameter of a quarter and narrow enough to fit inside Washington's neck. Now, instead of being a somewhat balanced and aerodynamic slug, it's going to be an encased miniature capacitor with a non-aerodynamic conductor face and some kind of miracle adhesive on the tiny space between conductor prongs that allows for it to "stick" to an opponent?

Mind you, there couldn't be adhesive on the sides of the projectile, and the prongs have to be thick enough to penetrate the surface being "stuck" and also sturdy enough not to bend or break under the impact, or even from the simple wear and tear from being handled, loaded and carried.

Now, anybody who has ever seen a ballistics test or wandered around the impact area for a range will tell you that there's often not much left of even a pistol round that has struck a target. Shadowrun has developed a round that can be fired at absurdly high muzzle velocities and is still sturdy enough not to be completely deformed/destroyed at the point of impact.

I've figured out what they're made out of.

http://cdn.fd.uproxx.com/wp-content/upload...-Unobtanium.jpg

[Medicineman]

A makes S&S pretty useless most of the time, unless they rule it to have a higher base damage.

No, it just balances the 1/2armor and the sideeffect of Electricity

If he takes even ONE BOX of damage, he has to resist being immediately incapacitated, and he is subject to an additional -2 penalty.
It's even worse than that.You don't even need one Box of Damage.A gracing Hit (in German Streifschuß ----no Netto Hits) is all you need for the Victim to make his CON&WIL (3) roll

with a gracing Dance
Medicineman

[Kruger]

Some interesting "real tech".

The TASER eXtended Range Electronic Projectile (XREP)

http://www.apbweb.com/images/XREP.pdf

http://www.technovelgy.com/graphics/conten...taser-xrep2.jpg

Has a muzzle velocity of approximately 260fps (less than 1/6 of common slug rounds) and an effective range of approximately 30m.


S&S would be believable as a round for shotguns using Taser ranges. Maybe even a heavy revolver like the Ruger Super Warhawk if you're feeling sassy. But remember, the shotgun would be limited to SS mode because the propellant in the round won't be enough to cycle a semi-automatic action (meaning pump action or a manual bolt manipulation).

[Neraph]

Have to agree. It's possibly one of the sillier ideas that Shadowrun has come up with.

Ahem. With an extra 60-some years of refining, I don't see a problem with it at all.

EDIT: This is an old site for the round, but there are shotgun rounds on the market now for it.

EDIT EDIT: Kruger-ninja.

[toturi]

A regular round costs 25% of a Stick and Shock round and has better Availability. S&S should be always 400% more effective.

But it is not. Use the right round in the right weapon for the best results.

[Dakka Dakka]

But remember, the shotgun would be limited to SS mode because the propellant in the round won't be enough to cycle a semi-automatic action (meaning pump action or a manual bolt manipulation).

Don't confuse SA mode (Two shots per action phase) with a semi automatic trigger group. They are not necessarily the same. The Remington 900 at least looks like a regular pump action shot gun (especially in SR4) and is SA whereas the Panther looks like having at least a semi automatic mechanism but fires only in SS.
SR4 simply does not go into the details enough to decide whether a certain round produces enough force to chamber the next round.

[Whipstitch]

One thing to consider is that it takes a pretty steady hand to use Stick and Shock effectively vs. drones and light vehicles as well. On the bright side, with enough net hits you can theoretically force a drone out of action for a few combat turns even with a holdout. On the downside, you need a fair number of net hits to win the test against any Steel Lynx equivalent drone and even then it will not be permanently harmed unless you switch to something that threatens sufficient Physical damage. That means depending on JUST a light pistol for all your self-defense needs can become a bit of a problem if you're not a Gunslinger Adept who tosses entire bricks of dice at their opponents. So heavier weapons may seem like a bit of a niche item at first blush, but my group's samurai has never really had any reason to regret his habit of stowing a Defiance T-250 and a handful of tungsten AV slugs in the back of the van. Dirt cheap and effective.