I think I screwed up my Shadowrun game Options

[Kolinho]

Um, I can't find anything like that in my rulebook. The descriptions for Full-Auto's various options make no mention of it, and refer to various "DV Modifiers", which would imply that they would count towards the "modified DV". You are correct about Burst-Fire mode, though, which explicitly states that Narrow Bursts increase the DV by +2, but it doesn't count when comparing the DV to the armor rating. But none of the Full-Auto options say that, and the descriptions for the Immunity and Hardened Armor Critter Powers don't mention it either.


Anyway, I've been meaning to return to this thread sooner to update everyone on the game. We had our first session after the "debacle" last night. It was a lot more "talky" than I had planned, but I think it went well and one of the players (who, oddly enough, was fairly quiet/unengaged) texted me after the game to say how awesome the roleplaying was. I've never been texted about the quality of one of my games before, and I've been GMing since college.


So anyway, I went with my previous plan of introducing the players to a Knight-Errant Detective/Mage who is hunting the child-eating Free Spirit. I chose not to have them arrested/humiliated first, because I hate that kind of contrivance as a player, so I don't want to use it as a GM. I'm fine with capture as an alternative to killing in a combat where the PCs have lost and it makes sense not to kill them, but not here. I'll freely admit that my style may seem a bit "soft" to some people here, but ultimately I find that I feel better about my games overall when I'm not fighting my players. I want to challenge them, hurt them, scare them, but overall I want them to have a good time.


Back to the matter at hand, I should probably introduce the cast before I explain what went down:

1. "Machine-Gun" Maccabee, an Ork with some really expensive cyberlegs, complete with foot anchors, and some martial arts expertise (that weird gladiator one from Aztlan). As the name implies, he has a machinegun.
2. Mr. Nobody, an Ork "vat job" with mostly bioware. A former bodyguard from L.A. whose last client perished during one of his off-shifts, he came to Seattle for a fresh start. He is kind of a generalist, and the closest thing they have to a face. Also does some sniping.
3. Smith, a Dwarf rigger/outdoorsman.
4. They were joined mid-way through this game by a player who had left the group due to scheduling problems; he came with his old rigger, X, but will likely be playing a different character in the future, as they already have a guy with a van. X's player is new to Shadowrun.

So Maccabee's hacker contact calls to warn him that someone has been asking about him on the down-low, and spreading around a photograph of Maccabee hanging out of a van firing a machinegun (it's from the dashcan of one of the cop cars). The guy isn't being subtle, and has left a contact number for anyone with info on the guy in the picture to call. Maccabee is intrigued, but has security concerns; I explain that he would probably think a disposable commlink would be a good first step (he'd since hung up from the call with the hacker, so she couldn't advise him further, and he's trying to keep her out of trouble).

So, he's got a custom lifestyle that I helped him put together: it's basically a flophouse run by a family of orks, some of whom sell stuff and/or operate a small bar on the ground floor. He asks one of them about getting his hands on a disposable commlink, but they were fresh out. They offer to grab one for him (for a price), but he decides to hoof it to the Crime Mall (he's in Puyallup). On the way over, he's jumped by four guys who recognize him from the photo that is floating around and decide to collect on what they assume is a bounty. He surprised me by not immediately spocking them; instead he used his foot anchors to enhance his vertical leap and jump up to a second-story window nearby (he got up about 4 meters; this seemed reasonable for getting his hand on a window ledge to pull himself up). They fired on him from below, but he took a full dodge and easily weathered the volley.

Around this time, X's player showed up. Eager to throw him into the game quickly, and remembering that X also lived in Puyallup, I had him drive by around this time. X actually has never met Maccabee, but he was in a runner group with Mr. Nobody, and was eager to link up with him again. He calls Nobody and explains this crazy thing he just saw (armored ork leaping up into a second-story window, while under fire) and Nobody puts two and two together, calls Maccabee to confirm, and asks X to provide a getaway.

Thus, the group was reunited. They eventually get their commlink and call the number, but they have Smith do the calling. This is an annoying thing they do: Smith's player is often rather quiet during the game, so I appreciate them getting him involved, but trying to roleplay a conversation with him while two other people tell him what to say (in their defense, he's awfully indecisive without advice) is super annoying. Anyway, the Detective asks them to meet him at a bar downtown that I make clear to them (two of them live in Downtown, and would likely know either from experience or looking on a map) that the bar is possibly a cop bar. They smell a trap, but are also intrigued, so they go, but decide to disguise Mr. Nobody and send him into the bar with X to broker communication remotely with Maccabee, who will be waiting in the van with Smith.

The detective was not having any of this nonsense. I didn't bother having him pierce the disguise, but he knows exactly who he's looking for, and has had enough of opportunists claiming to "know a guy". He demands to see Maccabee in person, even as Nobody is relaying their conversation to Maccabee remotely. The detective points out that wireless communication is fairly easy to intercept ("are you even a hacker, son? do you even know one? anyone in this room could have been listening this whole time..."). In fact, the detective had a hacker doing exactly that (for tracing purposes) the entire time they were in the bar; as they have no hacker backing them up, I didn't bother having them roll anything to notice.

Maccabee comes in, and tries to send X back to the van, but X sticks around and ends up learning exactly what kind of trouble these guys are in, and what they helped someone do. I played the detective cool, not rising to any of the jibes he was getting from Maccabee, who was still full of swagger and who did not appreciate what he saw as blackmail. The detective explains that he has Maccabee and his accomplices dead to rights, with plenty of photos and a "traitor" willing to tie them directly to the kidnapping. He then explains that he couldn't care less about arresting them now, because they're the closest he's ever gotten to the monster that is eating these children. He wants the monster so badly that he'd gladly make a deal with "garbage" like them to do it. He has some pleasantly intense staredowns with Maccabee, gives the runners a cheap commlink to stay in contact, and tells them that he'll be in touch when he gets his next lead; the "thing" will likely be inactive until the next New Moon grows closer.

He also tells them to feel free to skip town if they want; he has no doubt of his ability to track them if necessary (I suppose enough disguise could work, but knowing them they'd reach out to a contact sooner or later and he'd have them then; alternatively, I don't think it'd be hard at all for a team with no magic support to be tracked by magic detective).


Shortly after, Smith's smuggler contact calls him with a follow-up job from the "milk run" they did for him in exchange for an escape route during their disastrous kidnapping job. This job is longer, and doesn't pay in advance; they'll be paid for each delivery as it happens, and they'll be driving long-distance with as-yet unidentified contraband (they know it's not a person, isn't toxic to them, but is "something they shouldn't let near fire, and shouldn't let the cops see"). Four stops. The road trip begins next session.

Nice. Real nice. I love the idea of slipping mini-runs in the middle of the main story. Nice NPC play too, and I like how you got the new player in. A lot of nice tips in here that I will happily yoink

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Irion]

Full-Auto bursts should work, and combined with the right ammo I've seen street sams do semi-decent damage to Spirits before. Not *great*, mind you....it's a pain in the ass, but it's a shortcut to a tough fight if you have players with optimized builds.

DON'T. If you take this interpretation to the rules for immunity to normal weapons they ARE IMMUNE. They would compare to the base DV of any attack. NO Net-hits and NO AP.

There is a reason why such RAW-Rulings are not applyed. If you interpret every rule like this, the game will change... much.

[JonathanC]

DON'T. If you take this interpretation to the rules for immunity to normal weapons they ARE IMMUNE. They would compare to the base DV of any attack. NO Net-hits and NO AP.

There is a reason why such RAW-Rulings are not applyed. If you interpret every rule like this, the game will change... much.

I'm not sure I understand. According to SR4A, p.295:

Immunity
"The critter gains an "Armor Rating" equal to twice its magic against the damage. This Immunity Armor is treated as "hardened" protection (see Hardened Armor), meaning that if the Damage Value does not exceed the armor, then the attack automatically does no damage"

Hardened Armor
"If the modified Damage Value of an attack does not exceed the armor rating (modified by Armor Penetration), then it bounces harmlessly off the critter..."

The rules say nothing about base DV; both net-hits and AP apply. As near as I can tell, unless Brainpiercing7.62mm's interpretation is correct (and the DV bonus from full-auto doesn't apply), a spirit is absolutely killable (or at least, defeatable) with an Ingram White Knight, assuming you've got enough Recoil Compensation to keep your dice pool high.

[Irion]

@JonathanC
Does it say AP applys (In the description of immunity)? Does it say that Net-Hits apply? (I have to look it up, but the DV of an attack with net hits is called modified DV)

If you go totally RAW neither of those applys. (At least AP is OUT)
And while it is kind of logical, it makes Spirits much, much better.

Thats why you should be very carefull with only what is said, does apply. A lot of stuff goes without saying so and just by implication.
(Actually, If my mind does not play tricks on me) hardend protection is never said in the rules for Hardened Armor)

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

I'm not sure I understand. According to SR4A, p.295:

Immunity
"The critter gains an "Armor Rating" equal to twice its magic against the damage. This Immunity Armor is treated as "hardened" protection (see Hardened Armor), meaning that if the Damage Value does not exceed the armor, then the attack automatically does no damage"

Hardened Armor
"If the modified Damage Value of an attack does not exceed the armor rating (modified by Armor Penetration), then it bounces harmlessly off the critter..."

The rules say nothing about base DV; both net-hits and AP apply. As near as I can tell, unless Brainpiercing7.62mm's interpretation is correct (and the DV bonus from full-auto doesn't apply), a spirit is absolutely killable (or at least, defeatable) with an Ingram White Knight, assuming you've got enough Recoil Compensation to keep your dice pool high.

The only thing I'm saying is that narrow burst DV bonus does not apply vs the armour penetration check. This includes conversion to stun damage, and damaging both vehicles and hardened armour.

The modified DV includes net hits, and AP always modifies the armour value to compare that with, also hardened. That's why S&S is so good vs spirits.

If you let narrow burst bonus DV count for the armour penetration check, your game just got THAT much deadlier. Also, now spririts are really shitty, because it's trivial to get a DV of 12 with a narrow burst. You only need to hit, at this point.

I'll happily continue on with my current interpretation, though, that narrow burst DV does not modify the modified DV which is used to check penetration. In any case, a full wide burst from a vehicle (or even just a regular wide burst from a sammy) with some good DP will usually also hurt a spirit.

[JonathanC]

@JonathanC
Does it say AP applys (In the description of immunity)? Does it say that Net-Hits apply? (I have to look it up, but the DV of an attack with net hits is called modified DV)

If you go totally RAW neither of those applys. (At least AP is OUT)
And while it is kind of logical, it makes Spirits much, much better.

Thats why you should be very carefull with only what is said, does apply. A lot of stuff goes without saying so and just by implication.
(Actually, If my mind does not play tricks on me) hardend protection is never said in the rules for Hardened Armor)

Immunity says that it works like Hardened Armor; Hardened Armor says that modified DV applies; it's pretty straightforward. According to RAW, both apply, unless you can find a rule that contradicts the definitions of the Immunity and Hardened Armor critter powers.

The only thing I'm saying is that narrow burst DV bonus does not apply vs the armour penetration check. This includes conversion to stun damage, and damaging both vehicles and hardened armour.

The modified DV includes net hits, and AP always modifies the armour value to compare that with, also hardened. That's why S&S is so good vs spirits.

If you let narrow burst bonus DV count for the armour penetration check, your game just got THAT much deadlier. Also, now spririts are really shitty, because it's trivial to get a DV of 12 with a narrow burst. You only need to hit, at this point.

I'll happily continue on with my current interpretation, though, that narrow burst DV does not modify the modified DV which is used to check penetration. In any case, a full wide burst from a vehicle (or even just a regular wide burst from a sammy) with some good DP will usually also hurt a spirit.

This makes sense as a House Rule, especially if you want to "protect" Spirits as a weapon. IMO, going by the RAW in this case almost provides a reasonable check on the power of Mages; they can't just summon a Force 8 Spirit and roll over an entire city. Even without rival mages, a tac team dropping full-auto on the spirit will whittle it down, if it remains materialized.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

So, JonathanC, are you really trying to argue that a Fully Automatic Assault Rifle can be used to whittle down an M1-Abrahms MBT (or Shadowrun Equivalent) because you believe that the Full Auto rules allow such silliness? Truly? Even though the rounds from such a weapon CANNOT EVEN PUT A DENT in the armor, let alone breach it? All because you can us Full Auto against it?

Wow.......

[JonathanC]

So, JonathanC, are you really trying to argue that a Fully Automatic Assault Rifle can be used to whittle down an M1-Abrahms MBT (or Shadowrun Equivalent) because you believe that the Full Auto rules allow such silliness? Truly? Even though the rounds from such a weapon CANNOT EVEN PUT A DENT in the armor, let alone breach it? All because you can us Full Auto against it?

Wow.......

Hmm....it does seem more problematic when you put it that way. It'd be nice to get an official ruling on this.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Hmm....it does seem more problematic when you put it that way. It'd be nice to get an official ruling on this.

Well, the official ruling has already been presented to you. Narrow bursts, of any stripe, do not count towards the DV calculation of whether or not the Hardened armor is penetrated. Poor choice of how to word it in the text, but there it is.

[thorya]

So, JonathanC, are you really trying to argue that a Fully Automatic Assault Rifle can be used to whittle down an M1-Abrahms MBT (or Shadowrun Equivalent) because you believe that the Full Auto rules allow such silliness? Truly? Even though the rounds from such a weapon CANNOT EVEN PUT A DENT in the armor, let alone breach it? All because you can us Full Auto against it?

Wow.......

To be fair, depending on the ammo it does make a dent. Just really small ones. I mean a 7.62x51mm armor piercing round will make it almost half an inch through the several inch thick armor of an Abrahms. So steel core assault rifle ammo, should be able to get maybe 1/4 an inch if we're generous. I don't know the actual thickness, but seem to recall that at it's thinness it's more than 4 inches. So if you manage to stack all of your shots on top of each other in the exact same place that's at least 16 shots to get through. So if we're really generous that's just two passes of perfectly placed full auto shots to get through the tank. And that's not even using explosive ammo. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

To be fair, depending on the ammo it does make a dent. Just really small ones. I mean a 7.62x51mm armor piercing round will make it almost half an inch through the several inch thick armor of an Abrahms. So steel core assault rifle ammo, should be able to get maybe 1/4 an inch if we're generous. I don't know the actual thickness, but seem to recall that at it's thinness it's more than 4 inches. So if you manage to stack all of your shots on top of each other in the exact same place that's at least 16 shots to get through. So if we're really generous that's just two passes of perfectly placed full auto shots to get through the tank. And that's not even using explosive ammo. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Which is completely ludicrous. Just Sayin' (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[snowRaven]

To be fair, depending on the ammo it does make a dent. Just really small ones. I mean a 7.62x51mm armor piercing round will make it almost half an inch through the several inch thick armor of an Abrahms. So steel core assault rifle ammo, should be able to get maybe 1/4 an inch if we're generous. I don't know the actual thickness, but seem to recall that at it's thinness it's more than 4 inches. So if you manage to stack all of your shots on top of each other in the exact same place that's at least 16 shots to get through. So if we're really generous that's just two passes of perfectly placed full auto shots to get through the tank. And that's not even using explosive ammo. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Except that every bullet you shoot at that same place also has to penetrate through the bullet in front of it, adding to the armor...

[kzt]

To be fair, depending on the ammo it does make a dent. Just really small ones. I mean a 7.62x51mm armor piercing round will make it almost half an inch through the several inch thick armor of an Abrahms. So steel core assault rifle ammo, should be able to get maybe 1/4 an inch if we're generous.

No, actually, you'll get shallow craters at best. Massively thick armor doesn't react even close to the same as thin armor. You don't get the flexing and similar causes of failure.

[Manunancy]

To be fair, depending on the ammo it does make a dent. Just really small ones. I mean a 7.62x51mm armor piercing round will make it almost half an inch through the several inch thick armor of an Abrahms. So steel core assault rifle ammo, should be able to get maybe 1/4 an inch if we're generous. I don't know the actual thickness, but seem to recall that at it's thinness it's more than 4 inches. So if you manage to stack all of your shots on top of each other in the exact same place that's at least 16 shots to get through. So if we're really generous that's just two passes of perfectly placed full auto shots to get through the tank. And that's not even using explosive ammo. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

When shot at the outer face-hardened outer armor of and MBT, riffle bullets don't even go half an incho into the material : they splatter on it, with barely any effect. Which is exactly the purpose of that outer facing : make sure bullets and shrapnels don't get teh slightest chance to affect the somewhat brittle layers underneath.

A tungsten-cored armor piercing bullet might fare a bit better, but regular ammo just soesn't cut the mustard here, no matter how many you can pump.

[thorya]

Which is completely ludicrous. Just Sayin' (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I know. I was just trying to show how ridiculous. Notice that I made several assumptions so that it worked out to be way less shots than you would need. I think you could whittle down a tank with an assault rifle, eventually. You would just be standing in a pile of casings up to your hip by the time you were done.

And I pulled the half inch penetration number from a DOD study on penetration on thick Rolled Homogeneous Armor plating, like the Abrahm has.

[JonathanC]

Well, the official ruling has already been presented to you. Narrow bursts, of any stripe, do not count towards the DV calculation of whether or not the Hardened armor is penetrated. Poor choice of how to word it in the text, but there it is.

The official ruling is that burst-fire narrow bursts do not count; by the letter of the rules, full-auto narrow bursts *do* count, unless the book has been errata'd. That's the sort of "official ruling" I was looking for. It is possible that they intended for heavily armored targets to be vulnerable to full-auto weapons, which tend to be considerably larger and more trouble to fire than small arms. Of course, Assault Rifles can Full-auto, so that puts a hole in that theory...

[Chinane]

The official ruling is that burst-fire narrow bursts do not count; by the letter of the rules, full-auto narrow bursts *do* count, unless the book has been errata'd. That's the sort of "official ruling" I was looking for. It is possible that they intended for heavily armored targets to be vulnerable to full-auto weapons, which tend to be considerably larger and more trouble to fire than small arms. Of course, Assault Rifles can Full-auto, so that puts a hole in that theory...

Does it explicitely say that full auto burst does count or do you imply that because it's not stated otherwise?

[JonathanC]

Does it explicitely say that full auto burst does count or do you imply that because it's not stated otherwise?

The default rule is that anything that raises the DV counts, unless explicitly stated otherwise (as is the case with burst fire).

[KarmaInferno]

Here's the thing.

Define "modified DV".

The term appears a few times in the rules, but I'm not sure the various authors who wrote them were on the same page as the what "modified DV" actually means.

I really could go for a glossary of defined terms. Just sayin. Again.



-k

[Yerameyahu]

The point is that it takes intentional cheesing to misread that interpretation of the rules. An obvious error in the rules is not to exploited. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Wheaton's Law.

[JonathanC]

I'm still not sure we can be certain of the intent of the rules. If we go with your interpretation, then you can still hurt a spirit with a machinegun....by using a wide spread and getting more net hits. How does that make more sense? You're going to penetrate the thickened armor of a Spirit/Dragon/Tank by spreading bullets all over the general area? Why does that make more sense than affecting the same target with a narrow burst?

Because no weapon has a damage cap, it's theoretically possible for any weapon to hurt anything, regardless of how ridiculous that might be.

[Yerameyahu]

For one thing, the wide burst effect is *massively* less than the narrow burst effect (and yes, it's an issue; oh well). But the main reason is that it's nonsense for 1-6 bullets to do one thing, and 10 bullets to do something totally different… and illogical, and overpowered. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You mentally have to go way out of your way to get this crazy interpretation. There are dozens of clearly erroneous 'rules' in the book (see the thread (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ). *shrug*

[JonathanC]

For one thing, the wide burst effect is *massively* less than the narrow burst effect (and yes, it's an issue; oh well). But the main reason is that it's nonsense for 1-6 bullets to do one thing, and 10 bullets to do something totally different… and illogical, and overpowered. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You mentally have to go way out of your way to get this crazy interpretation. There are dozens of clearly erroneous 'rules' in the book (see the thread (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ). *shrug*

I'm just saying, even if we go by your interpretation...10 bullets is still having a huge effect compared to a simple burst, and those 10 bullets are being used in a way that makes even *less* sense to be affecting a heavily armored target. There is no way that, by RAW, this situation is going to make logical sense. At this point we're just choosing between a game where Spirits can only be effectively combatted with mages, or a world where heavy arms fire can have an effect as well. Seeing as I doubt Ares Firewatch teams are 100% mage, I'm inclined to think the latter situation has precedent in the lore. But I'm willing to be proven wrong, should there be an official errata on this.

[Yerameyahu]

It's about consistency and potential for abuse. Wide bursts are simply less problematic (33%, to be exact?) and therefore 'less illogical', and we *know* that 6 bullets (narrow) never counts for 'modified DV'. So, it requires a total shift in those next 4 bullets to suddenly give all 10 armor-piercing magic. Even if the wide burst issue were as big or bigger, that's not an argument (two wrongs != right, etc.). The same goes for the equivalent argument people make for S&S: 'we need S&S to beat spirits!'… except what about all those non-spirit targets that get mangled too?

What you're choosing is a world where *all* armor—personal, milspec, spirit, vehicular—can be *easily* defeated by machine pistols. Autofire is not 'heavy arms fire'. Heavy arms fire is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) HMGs, grenades, rockets, sniper rifles, assault cannons (big guns) can and do work on spirits (and personal armor, vehicle armor…). As intended.

[Manunancy]

And I pulled the half inch penetration number from a DOD study on penetration on thick Rolled Homogeneous Armor plating, like the Abrahm has.

The Abrahm definitively has not RHA armor, I'd even say that no tank more recent than the 60's uses it except as the base hull with the armor added on. It's used as a benchmark to compare various designs of armor and weapons, that's why the armor is rated as RHA equivalent. In the Abrahm's latest iteration, the turret front is rated at 800mm (three feet) to 1300mm (four feet) depending on what you're shooting at it.