Broken Rules., Or where RAW just fails. Options

[Dumori]

ok, let's try this again: if this rule needs fixing (ie requires the user to ignore what the rules say), then it is clearly broken. you arguing that there is a solution to the problem, even an easily available solution, does not make the fact that there is a problem go away. it merely proves that there is in fact a problem in need of solving.


no, that just means we need to put wheels on the chain link fence before we wrap people in it (so that it's a vehicle) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) beware the outhouse on wheels!

Wait vans become the best cannon ever. As the DV inside that van would be at least 144 as sated above openign the doors will redmist most people. Thats one nice booby trap.

[Yerameyahu]

Hehe. It's not a '144 DV blast' inside the van. It's a total blast exposure to a target over time adding up to 144. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Except it's not, see above.

[Dumori]

Hehe. It's not a '144 DV blast' inside the van. It's a total blast exposure to a target over time adding up to 144. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Except it's not, see above.

I know how it works and yes it would be slightly less that 144 as we would lose a wall. How ever you set ti the set off the flasgbang as the doors opend you will still kill those who trip in.

[Yerameyahu]

I think you'd get, at most, 6 from the direct blast, and then 4 or 5 (maybe the full six, depending on how you accept the 'uniform blast across 10m') from the opposite rebounding blast. So, yes, 'slightly less'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Dumori]

I think you'd get, at most, 6 from the direct blast, and then 4 or 5 (maybe the full six, depending on how you accept the 'uniform blast across 10m') from the opposite rebounding blast. So, yes, 'slightly less'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Two sets of doors then or just a shit load of flash bangs. The fact they cant hurt the van is key.

[Yerameyahu]

Oh oh! You're talking about the discrepancy between barrier rules and vehicle armor rules! Now I understand. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Yes, the super-abusive flashbang trick *would* work *inside* a closed vehicle even though it wouldn't work in a closed non-vehicle. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Broken-by-design.

[Neurosis]

Force 1 physical barrier + flashbang.

Force 1 Physical Barrier does not survive "Blast Against Barriers" hence no "Blast In A Confined Space".

A Force 7 Physical Barrier on the otherhand. That came up recently in a game I played...that and hydrostatic shock. In the same scene. In the same grenade throw.

I wish Shadowrun realistically modeled hydrostatic shock or took it into account at all. (If you are in swimming pool, grenade is in swimming pool, regardless of size of pool (within reason) or relative position of you and grenade, you = chunky salsa. At least that's my understanding of how it works in real life.)

[Yerameyahu]

'Hydrostatic shock' is (I think) more commonly used to refer to an effect of bullets on the human (animal) body. AFAIK it's not modeled in SR either. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[tagz]

Force 1 Physical Barrier does not survive "Blast Against Barriers" hence no "Blast In A Confined Space".

A Force 7 Physical Barrier on the otherhand. That came up recently in a game I played...that and hydrostatic shock. In the same scene. In the same grenade throw.

I wish Shadowrun realistically modeled hydrostatic shock or took it into account at all. (If you are in swimming pool, grenade is in swimming pool, regardless of size of pool (within reason) or relative position of you and grenade, you = chunky salsa. At least that's my understanding of how it works in real life.)

They do, sorta.

Explosions underwater tend to cause more damage because water transmits the shockwave very well. Multiply the DV of an underwater explosion by 1.5 (round up), but do not change the blast for normal explosions. For explosives that throw out shrapnel, such as fragmentation grenades, double the Blast (halving its effective range) due to the greatly increased resistance the fragments are subject to.

Not sure how well it reflects reality but they considered it at least.

[Muspellsheimr]

Broken Rules:

All spells are subject to Object Resistance.

Indirect Combat spells are Opposed Tests.

There are no rules for how to resolve tests that are both Opposed and Threshold.

[Smokeskin]

I wish Shadowrun realistically modeled hydrostatic shock or took it into account at all. (If you are in swimming pool, grenade is in swimming pool, regardless of size of pool (within reason) or relative position of you and grenade, you = chunky salsa. At least that's my understanding of how it works in real life.)

Using the formula here http://www.scuba-doc.com/uwblast.html

Pressure (lb/in2) = 13000x charge size (lb)1/3 divided by Distance from the charge (feet) (3ft=1m)
2000 lb/in2 = 909 kg will cause death
500 lb/in2 = 227 kg will cause serious injury or death.

A ½lbs hand grenade would kill a bit over 1 feet away and the "serious injury or death" distance is less than 4½ feet according to that. Strangely, the text (perhaps anecdotely?) describes a hand grenade killing 5 meters away underwater.

A grenade thrown into water: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68vc3Lv7d6c . Doesn't look that impressive.

I think the effects of underwater grenades are exaggareted. Does anyone have hard or experimental data that suggests otherwise?

[StealthSigma]

Oh oh! You're talking about the discrepancy between barrier rules and vehicle armor rules! Now I understand. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Yes, the super-abusive flashbang trick *would* work *inside* a closed vehicle even though it wouldn't work in a closed non-vehicle. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Broken-by-design.

It would work in a non-closed vehicle. It would just not be as... lethal. Since the exterior of the vehicle would contain the blast, it would all be channeled out whichever door was opened. So let's say the target vehicle is a van with nothing in the rear. Two flashbangs are mounted on the back of the driver and passenger side seats. They are rigged to trigger if the rear doors open. If we consider just the six cardinal directions, then only two directions of the blast will strike the person opening the door (vans are NOT going to be 7+ meters long). Shadowrun is a a 3 dimensional space so the reality is that some of the blast will be bounced up/down across the floor, roof, and sides of the van before being expelled. By the rules, there would be at least ten different blast waves just by adding in the angles between the 6 cardinals.

[darthmord]

Broken Rules:

All spells are subject to Object Resistance.

Indirect Combat spells are Opposed Tests.

There are no rules for how to resolve tests that are both Opposed and Threshold.

I believe there are a couple of unspoken rules covering that discrepancy...

Namely, the specific overrides the general and the rule about living objects resist spells normally therefore do not get an object resistance test.

Stated another way, living objects (people, animals, etc) having an Object Resistance of 0.

[Mäx]

I believe there are a couple of unspoken rules covering that discrepancy...

Namely, the specific overrides the general and the rule about living objects resist spells normally therefore do not get an object resistance test.

Stated another way, living objects (people, animals, etc) having an Object Resistance of 0.

That doesn't really answer the situation of casting a lighting bolt at a drone, but i prefer the assumption that indirect combat spells dont care about OR as they create real lighting/fire/acid/elemental effects.

[sabs]

That doesn't really answer the situation of casting a lighting bolt at a drone, but i prefer the assumption that indirect combat spells dont care about OR as they create real lighting/fire/acid/elemental effects.

If you want to be mean, When casting lightning bolt at a drone.
You make an opposed test, where you need threshold net hits to actually successfully hit the drone AND do damage.

[Smokeskin]

Mäx is right, there's no OR threshold because the spell creates a real effect. There's even an example in the book where a drone (OR 5+) gets hit by a Flamethrower spell with 3 hits.

[Yerameyahu]

StealthSigma: yes, but you still have to be *in* the vehicle, which is what I meant. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You're right, I misspoke about 'closed'.

[StealthSigma]

StealthSigma: yes, but you still have to be *in* the vehicle, which is what I meant. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You're right, I misspoke about 'closed'.

No you don't. You just have to be in range of any of the bouncing effects assuming the vehicle is enough to cause bounce.

CODE

XXXXXX
Xo   |
Xo   |
XXXXXX

This is the scenario in question. X's represent the sides of the van, o's represent the two booby trapped flashbangs. |'s represent the rear doors to the van that are booby trapped. A lot of the blast will bounce back and force on the inside, but a lot of the blast will also bounce out the rear doors before traveling 10 meters. Functionally, the van's sides tamp the flashbangs in order to redirect as much of the blast as possible out the rear of the van. Whoever opens the van door is in for a very nasty surprise, as is anyone that is 2 or 3 meters of the door.

[Yerameyahu]

It depends on how the game counts 'blast shaping'. I thought that it only counted 'linear' incidence: direct, and reflection along that same axis only. There is no redirection ('turning'), only reflection (on the same axis).

That's why someone in the car gets hit by reflections on three axes (including re-reflections), while outside only takes 1 axis of hits (1 direct blast, and 1 reflection off the opposite wall). Obvious, that's not how physics works, but…

Even if you rule that blast can be shunted into different directions, that means it's *not* doing the 'hall of mirrors' trick anymore. At worst, then, someone opening a metal box with a flashbang in it would take 6x the blast (1 direct, 1 reflection, and 4 'redirects'); this is still a far cry from the person inside a vehicle, who takes the billion-percent multireflect damage discussed earlier in this thread. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) See?

[Dumori]

No you don't. You just have to be in range of any of the bouncing effects assuming the vehicle is enough to cause bounce.

CODE

XXXXXX
Xo   |
Xo   |
XXXXXX

This is the scenario in question. X's represent the sides of the van, o's represent the two booby trapped flashbangs. |'s represent the rear doors to the van that are booby trapped. A lot of the blast will bounce back and force on the inside, but a lot of the blast will also bounce out the rear doors before traveling 10 meters. Functionally, the van's sides tamp the flashbangs in order to redirect as much of the blast as possible out the rear of the van. Whoever opens the van door is in for a very nasty surprise, as is anyone that is 2 or 3 meters of the door.

Which is what I was saying I've not done the math but I think 10-20 stun maybe more is likely per flashbang.

[StealthSigma]

It depends on how the game counts 'blast shaping'. I thought that it only counted 'linear' incidence: direct, and reflection along that same axis only. There is no redirection ('turning'), only reflection (on the same axis).

That's why someone in the car gets hit by reflections on three axes (including re-reflections), while outside only takes 1 axis of hits (1 direct blast, and 1 reflection off the opposite wall). Obvious, that's not how physics works, but…

Even if you rule that blast can be shunted into different directions, that means it's *not* doing the 'hall of mirrors' trick anymore. At worst, then, someone opening a metal box with a flashbang in it would take 6x the blast (1 direct, 1 reflection, and 4 'redirects'); this is still a far cry from the person inside a vehicle, who takes the billion-percent multireflect damage discussed earlier in this thread. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) See?

The problem. If we go directly by the rules.....

We have two guys in a room and a flashbang goes off at the feet of guy #1.

CODE

XXXXXX
X1   X
X 2  X
X    X
X    X
XXXXXX

According to this diagram and what you're saying. Guy #2 (despite being less than a meter away) is going to take significantly less damage than Guy #1.

[Yerameyahu]

You don't have to tell me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I know it doesn't make sense, but we're talking about the rules.

[Muspellsheimr]

Mäx is right, there's no OR threshold because the spell creates a real effect. There's even an example in the book where a drone (OR 5+) gets hit by a Flamethrower spell with 3 hits.

That is how it was intended to function - even (unnecessarily) clarified as such by one of the developers on these forums; forget who at the moment.

That is not how it actually works, by Rules as Written.




RAW states that spells are subject to Object Resistance (where applicable - aka affecting objects), and exceptions are possible.

It does not, however, provide any such exception, making every single spell targeted against an object subject to OR - including Indirect Combat.



This is a thread about broken rules - this is among the top 3 most broken in the game, as the game does not provide rules for resolving an opposed Threshold test as I stated previously, nor does it forbid such tests from happening.






Side note: My House Errata specifically states Indirect Combat and Environmental Manipulation spells are not subject to Object Resistance, and provides rules for resolving an opposed Threshold test.

[Smokeskin]

Muspellheimr, read pg 204, SR4A, and the example - a few snippets:

Indirect Combat Spells: Indirect Combat spells are treated
like ranged combat attacks; the caster makes a Spellcasting + Magic
Success Test versus the target’s Reaction.
Hence, Indirect Spells are handled
as ranged attacks and require a physically solid target or astrally active
target to hit.
Note that nonliving objects
resist damage from an Indirect Combat spell with their Armor rating x
2 (see Barriers, p. 166).
Flamethrower is an Indirect Combat spell,
so the drone rolls its Response to avoid getting hit. It rolls 0 hits, so Sarai’s 3 net hits
increase the base damage from 5 to 8.
The drone has Body 3 and Armor 2, so it rolls 4 dice (Body + half Armor) to
resist the spell damage.

I really don't see how you can interpret that as Indirect Combat has beat Object Resistance.

[Muspellsheimr]

An example is quite different from the actual rules.

Examples have been incorrect in the past.
Examples are meant to provide an illustration of how the rules work, not provide those rules.
Examples show how the rule was intended to work, not how the rule actually does work (or in this case, doesn't).