Physical vs. stun, and blunt weapons, house rule discussion Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[FriendoftheDork]

Hello again.

Since 4th edition I was always annoyed at the way armor could convert attacks to stun. Sure, it makes sense if most attacks are physical, but when runners were (ab)using tasers it became a liability.

For example, if in a fight two runners fires at an enemy with an armor jacket. One uses an taser dealing 7S damage after soak (tasers are good), the second one uses a heavy pistol and deals 10P damage. Now, normally if you soak some of that damage, you're still left standing due to one being stun and another being physical. However, with the armor jacket (armor 12-1AP 11 vs 10P) the damage become stun, and despite soaking 6 damage a WP 6 character still goes down from that. However, if the pistol guy used APDS, the damage would be lethal and he would still be standing assuming he soaked 1 or more.

So depending on circumstances, converting Physical to Stun is either a bonus or a flaw.

In my old SR4 game I made a house rule that halved all damage converted to stun, which worked fairly good, except armor became even more important. With the higher armor values in SR5 it might just be too much.

In SR 5 I notice blunt weapon are described of doing Stun (description of Stun damage), yet they are all listed with P for physical. Since in real life a club is generally less lethal than a knife (assuming you dont hit vital organs) due to bleeding, it would make sense that Physical damage should have some advantage over Stun damage except for healing. Since WP gives Stun boxes and Body gives physical boxes though, almost everyone can take more physical damage than stun damage. How would you counter that?

1. Have all blunt weapons split damage "pool" into stun and physical, with any leftover put into stun. a -2 called shot allows you to do full physical or stun damage. Killing Hands removes penalty, and Critical Strike reduces it by 1 per level
2. Edged weapon and ranged (P) attacks causing damage in excess of Body (after resistance) causes bleeding, doing 1 more unresisted physical damage unless succeeding a Bodyx2 (3) test per combat turn, until treated by First Aid (2). Once boxes are filled, normal rules for stabilization applies.

Rule 2 won't have much effect on tough shadowrunners, but normal people can easily bleed to death after a gunshot wound unless treated. It could also matter in longer fights with poor rolls.

None of these are strictly necessary but... the current system annoys me. Any other suggestions to fix it?