A little silly thing called aiming... Options

[Cynic project]

If I shoot randomly at a guy in full body armour let's just say it is 9/9.

If one of those points comes from a helmet. Would he then only have one point of armour? And if so why? I mean would it mean that normally every non aimed shot some how hit his head? Or that by having something over his head that the rest of the armour on his body is some how harder?

[Herald of Verjig...]

No, aiming is just fine. The silly part is trying to add hit locations by way of called shots into Shadowrun.

IIRC, the total armor based on cyberlimb armor accounts for 6 locations, all averaged equally. Therefore, for a helmet to provide 1 point of armor total, it must have between 6 and 11 effective armor for just the wearer's head. If my base number is wrong, adjust my resultant numbers accordingly.

[mfb]

that's not quite how it works. helmet ratings are not the same as regular armor ratings; rather than listing how much armor a helmet has, the books list how much more armor a helmet provides. i tend to assume that means that helmets have an armor rating equal to the base armor they're made for, plus the bonus. regardless, however, you don't average a helmet's rating by location; that only applies to cyberlimb armor.

[Arethusa]

[Herald of Verjig...]

True, that's not how it works, but it's the only thing that even vaguely resembles an answer to his question that isn't pure house-ruling.

[mfb]

er, well, your answer is pure house-ruling. there are already rules for how helmets work; they're completely different from the rules for how cyberlimb armor work. applying the cyberlimb armor rules to helmets is, well, pretty much pure house-rule.

at any rate, the rules don't cover shooting helmets. you pretty much just have to house-rule it.

[Shrapnel]

In my opinion, the helmet bonus just reflects the over-all armor of the target.

Keep in mind that Shadowrun doesn't use a hit location, it simply stages up damage based on successes. So, a hit with only 1 success could be said to have hit armor, and therefore easier to resist. A hit with 8 successes that wasn't staged down could be roleplayed to hit an unarmored location, such as a head, or inbetween armor plates.

If you use the house-rule for called shots bypassing armor, this idea still works. If you aim for the head, and only get 1 success, it could be a grazing shot, or perhaps hit low, such as the shoulder. This idea also works with the canon rule for called shots, by staging up damage, reflecting a better shot but still a chance to be restricted by armor, based on successes.

The whole point is to NOT have to worry about hit locations. It's all abstract, and only successes matter. The armor bonus for the helmet simply shows that it would be harder to get a good hit with a normal shot, because a higher percentage of the target is armored, and there are less weak points to aim at.

[Cynic project]

[Arethusa]

[mfb]

according to the FAQ, a headshot against someone in a vest (4/3) and FFBA3 (4/1) would meet an armor rating of 4, since the only thing that covers the head is the FFBA. a a torso hit woult meet armor 6 (vest 4 +1/2 the FFBA). if you consider the FAQ canon, there's your answer.

before you ask any more questions about this, though, you should really do a search of the forums for "called shot". this topic has been done to death many, many times.

[Fix-it]

flaming idiots aside,

Cynic, I don't think you read the rules very well. Called shots only stage up damage, at the expense of a higher TN. it doesn't matter WHERE the shot is called. it could be his right pinky finger for all we care. while it's retarded when you think about it, it's a lot simpler than having to keep track of armor on all possible locations of the body. It would be like trying to play battletech and Shadowrun simultaneously.

[Fortune]

The controversial FAQ response ...

[Arethusa]

[Lindt]

Im with Arethusa on this one...

LLALALALALALALALALAL I CANT HEAR YOU!!!

[Adam]

ahem. Let's cut back on the name calling and the 8 year old antics, please.

Yes, the topic has been done to death; so inject something new or let it die, please.

[John Campbell]

Y'know, the real problem here is the ability to call shots at all. It doesn't work with a generalized damage system. Given that Shadowrun's combat mechanic allows good hits and bad hits based on degree of success in the shooting test, I'm not seeing that it's really necessary to have an additional mechanic that allows you to shoot someone in a specific place to bypass armor or hit their vulnerable spots or whatnot. Just roll your attack and assume that you're always trying your best to bypass your target's armor and shoot it in its most vulnerable spots and so on. If you got lots of successes and they failed to stage it down, then you did it. If you didn't get many successes and they easily soaked the damage, then you must have failed to miss the armor.

[hobgoblin]

a declared called shot basicly means that rather then aiming center of mass, fireing some lead down range and pray to god you dont hit armor your infact limiting yourself to a area of the person that will give you either a damage increase (some vital area) or a armor effect decrease (joints, limbs whatever).

the logic works as long as you dont expect the player to state any more then "called shot for damage increase" or "called shot for armor decrease".

its only when going after targets like cars where takeing out a tire may force the driver to do a crash test and stop (or atleast get a worse handleing stat, gms option) that you have to declare exactly what your aiming for.

problem is that people see "called shot" and automaticly think that they have to decleare stuff like head shots, limb shots and so on...

and soaking damage have nothing to do with armor outside of the fact that armor helps in soaking damage. in that way the armor system in sr isnt that bad. if shot while wearing a vest you will still feel the impact but unless your a undertrained geek like me you will most likely just go ouch and fire back, but the bullet may still crack a rib and force that into a lung (serious damage anyone) on a bad body roll. damage dont have to come from the bullet directly, just like blunt trauma rarely create a lot of visual blod effects but may still kill (by damageing some organ so that you bleed to death internaly).

there are way more ways to die then bleeding to death all over the floor.

if you want a realy nice damage system, take a look at blue planet. there you dont have a set damage track or stun damage. even a fist can kill if one side rolls good and is strong and the other side rolls way bad. aiming there basicly results in the to hit target number goes up pr point of "damage" that goes up.

[Shrapnel]

[Kagetenshi]

IIRC, targeting a specific part of a person for special effect (gun, hat, cigarette) is explicitly forbidden.

~J

[mfb]

that's only for spells.

[Shrapnel]

[Kagetenshi]

Nope. Under those rules it would be ok to shoot them in an unspecified unarmored portion, or an unspecified vulnerable portion, but not a specific sub-target (like, say, the hand).

~J

[Shrapnel]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I gathered from rereading the rules.

So, you basically can't specify WHERE you shoot them, just that it does more damage, or bypasses armor.

I still prefer the theatrical value of shooting guns out of people's hands, or knee-capping them, but I do understand the rules as written. All effects are based on number of successes, not hit location.

[Critias]

You can always describe it as an uber-L33T headshot, or kneecapping, or what-have-you. It's just that the actual game result is always just the generic "bypass armor" or "stage up damage by one."

[Kagetenshi]

Though it's best to wait on that until after the dice go down. If you hit them with D+12 successes, you hit them square in the brainpan. If you got eleven ones and a single success for a total of L damage, you managed to screw up and hit them in the foot or something.

~J