 Combine Vehicle Ramming w/Close Combat |
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 Mar 31 2005, 09:34 AM
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#1
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 9-February 05 Member No.: 7,071  |
Okay, recently during some combat against some Corp elite guards, I had the chance to do a ramming attack with a Large Anthroform Drone. The results of the attack were eminently satisfying (from unwounded to road paste in one hit, and with no damage to my drone, to boot), but I was wondering. My Anthroform was carrying a Combat Axe at the time (no diakote, unfortunately, my GM thinks that cheap), and I was wondering if it was possible to combine ramming attacks with a close-combat weapon. Sure, getting hit with a troll-sized robot going 60mph would hurt, but imagine getting hit by an axe that was swung by a troll that happened to be running 60mph *wince*. There probably aren't too many enemies that require that kind of damage, but I like the idea conceptually.
So, any thoughts? |
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Mar 31 2005, 10:02 AM
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#2
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
The rules for a "charge" manuever from Cannon Companion spring to mind, but maybe instead of a flat +1 to power you'd receive a bonus based more directly upon your charging speed. That stated, the movement penalties (which do apply to close combat attacks) would make it fairly likely you fail in the attack.
I dunno, really. It seems weird that an anthropomorphic drone would run someone over like a vehicle does, in the first place (instead of making a melee attack). |
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Mar 31 2005, 11:24 PM
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#3
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Target Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 9-February 05 Member No.: 7,071 |
no stranger than being hit by a motorcycle, which has a body-rating similar to an Anthroform. A Large Anthroform has a body-rating equal to a sports car, so you consider a mass range of 75-300 kgs, and then have that moving at 125mpt, we're taking some serious kinetic energy.
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Mar 31 2005, 11:35 PM
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#4
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 468 Joined: 17-March 05 Member No.: 7,185 |
Lance type attacks would probably be the preferred method for combining drones ramming with melee combat. Chances are pretty high that unless you are hitting a very soft target the melee weapon is going to be fried after the hit.
Of course you can get into wierd style situations in which trolls on motorcycles prefer using lances to attack people. That or having a monomolecular net held out before you to turn human targets into bite sized morsels. While it might have cool visual effects it begins to create strange looking situations which ultimately might detract from game play. |
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Apr 4 2005, 01:52 AM
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#5
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 560 Joined: 21-December 04 Member No.: 6,893 |
Even then, you need to account for two things:
1. How a physad or mage running at 480 kph does no more damage when attacking than a street sam doing 15, and 2. Why a target moving twoards a dikoted spear at 100kph takes no more damage than if the same spear were used to impale an enemy at a max of 20. I personally think that the power of the attack should go up by 1 for every 15kph in speed, with damage upped 1 category (light to moderate, for example) for every f10 dice gained, and the same rules applying against attackers if a suitable weapon (like a polearm) is set to impal the enemy as it rushes up. After all, a cotton ball hitting the windshield of a FA-18 has roughly the same kinetic energy as a bullet. |
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Apr 4 2005, 05:24 AM
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#6
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Nope. The cotton ball in this situation has very little kinetic energy, except perhaps after it has hit the windshield, since that will undoubtedly boost its velocity significantly for a short time. However, the effects of the cotton ball hitting the windshield will be similar (or identical) to what would happen if the windshield were still and the cotton ball moving very fast. Even at the absolute maximum speed of an F/A-18 (just above 615m/s), the cotton ball would have to weigh over 4 grams for the impact to happen with effects similar to the cotton ball having the same amount of kinetic energy as an average 9x19mm loading. I think a cotton ball weighing 4 grams would be the size of a fist or bigger unless heavily compressed. |
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Apr 4 2005, 05:33 AM
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#7
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 560 Joined: 21-December 04 Member No.: 6,893 |
I admit that I made a goof with the kinetic energy bit, but the part about the cotton is accurate. unrefined, wild cotton has all sorts of junk in it, and is generally a good bit heavier than the stuff you find at drugstores. If nothing else, the bugs which are often found in wild cotton may weigh more than 4g in their own right. It is, however, true that a small bird (which tend to be flying about in the air) could puncture an unarmored vehicle (and damage the engine) at only 400mph; a 747 has over 6" of high-strength coated and tempered glass in the cockpit windows for this reason. A large spear at a similar speed (Horse Shaman's way physads tend to be pretty zippy) can puncture right through something designed to stop bullets. With a dikoted polearm and some REALLY big shock pads, a troll (est. 200 kg or 500 lbs) at 665 kph (400 mph) has more force behind that blade than a 120 kg projectile at supersonic velocities! This is also similar to the amount of force applied behind the blade as would be in a 1 2/3 ton truck at 100 kph, which is a lot of force even if it was'nt concentrated on an area the size of a point on a spear. And, of course, if the enemy car is driving twoards the spear at 200mph, the force is only that much greater. All you need for this: 1 troll "horse shaman's way" physad initiated once with level 10 rooting (to keep you from simply being knocked out of the way), the metamagical critter power of Transport, and 7 points added to quickness, or a running speed increase ability (if there is one) 1 spirit for "transport" power (presuming that the transport bonuses stack if the character has it as a metamagic ability) 1 Dikoted spear, preferably of the very, very thick sintered-tungsten-titanium-alloy variety. Also, there's a type of ammunition known as anti-materiel rounds that are not terribly useful versus people but are highly effective against large metal targets...like cars. Although I'm not sure on the specifics, these would likely do some more damage than the traditional bullets when fired from a large weapon like, say, a 12-guage shotgun. |
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Apr 4 2005, 10:41 AM
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#8
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
I'm not going to argue against big, heavy, fast, pointy things having a tendency to busting things they hit. There's a certain logic in allowing a Horse Shaman on skates with a Dikoted Spear to penetrate a thick concrete wall or an armored vehicle (although you could argue that the Spear is more likely to break than the wall).
Are you talking about Shadowrun or RL here? There's no category of projectile designs I'm aware of called "anti-material" in common usage. There are anti-material rifles, which basically includes heavy sniper rifles (.400 ultramagnum and up, up, up), but these are plenty effective if not practical for engaging humans or any land animal. For projectiles, simple armor-piercing bullets, sometimes saboted, are used for most anti-material work with rifles IRL. Compared to a FMJ bullet for the same weapon, the terminal effects of a non-saboted AP bullet are almost equal -- an APDS round will perform worse against tissue because of the smaller diameter, creating a smaller permanent wound cavity. There are more complex "multi-purpose" bullets used by NATO counties for .50 BMG rifles and MGs, like the MK 211 MOD 0. These might become more viable for small arms in the future as more potent explosives are discovered. However, they are not, and I seriously doubt they ever will be, available for shotguns. Also, they are still very, very lethal to any land animal when fired from the kinds of weapons they are designed for. When you get to the really big anti-material weapons, in the 20mm+ range, you have the normal variety of fused explosive rounds, including shaped charges. In canon SR, you've got APDS (which is just as effective against unarmored humans as regular ammunition), EX-Explosive (useful for busting light barriers), and Anti-Vehicular rounds (solid bronze cores! w00t!). And that's it. |
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Apr 5 2005, 02:11 PM
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#9
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Old Man Jones Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 4,415 Joined: 26-February 02 From: New York Member No.: 1,699 |
I cannot imagine that getting hit with an axe at 60 kph would be all THAT different than getting hit with a fender, armored fist, chestplate, or any other hard metal bits of a vehicle.
Lances always seemed to me as a method of transferring ramming damage without actually having to ram the target yourself, avoiding damage to your "ride", as opposed to actually increasing the amount of damage possible. -karma |
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Apr 5 2005, 01:18 PM
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#10
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,664 Joined: 21-September 04 From: Arvada, CO Member No.: 6,686 |
Just to put in perspective what you're talking about here. A 200kg troll. The starting armor weight on a bison is 200kg, and thats only 4 armor. Add on that its an RV Chassis (1.25-2.5 tons) and that to reliably stop a regularly wielded troll polearm the armor would have to be beefed up to around 10 or so. Upping the armor to 10 increases the armor weight to 800kg. On top of the 2.5tons the vehicle itself weighs. 3.38 tons of weight. Thats rougly 15 times the mass of the troll. The armor alone is 4 times the mass of the troll. Hell, lets do some quick math. Since the vehicle has roughly 6 sides that much be protected (like a cube basically) we'll say it has equal amounts of armor on each side. That puts it at having 133kg of armor on the front end only, minimum. Thats over half the trolls weight in solid metal. I'm pretty sure that the troll holding the shockpads can't actually resist that much force. What would most likely happen, is the polearm hits the truck, and 1) the back end stabs through the troll 2) the troll loses his grip on the polearm and ends up running into the truck himself 3) the trolls hands slide up the polearm and he runs into the truck himself 4) the polearm hits the truck, the troll keeps his grip, and takes collision damage for 400mph (53D) as does the vehicle (53M) 5) The polearm stabs through the vehicle, and the troll still takes collision damage for 400mph (53D) as does the vehicle (53M). The vehicle then takes damage from the attack also, which was minimum power 22, base S. Pretend thats what it stayed at for simplicity, so the vehicle then resists 2M damage. Which its likely to shrug off anyway even with only 4 dice. Just because your troll weighs 200kg which is an obscene number for a humanoid creature, doesn't mean its incredible. The vehicle is still massively bigger, and the troll isn't much worse than hitting an elf. Personally, I'd say you get no bonus for running 400mph, as theres no way you'd be able to exert the entirety of the collision force through the polearm. I'd give the stick a barrier rating of metal or wood depending what its made of, and subtract however much speed is required for a vehicle to punch through that from the collision damage the troll would take. (Wood is I think 6, so 60m/ct would come off the speed calculation for the damage dropping it to 47D. Other than that, no bonus for charging, beyond the CC +1, because you can't exert all your force through the weapon. I got the weight for the RV chassis out of R3R, as well as the armor. |
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Apr 5 2005, 07:53 PM
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#11
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,664 Joined: 21-September 04 From: Arvada, CO Member No.: 6,686 |
Now that I'm back at home with my books... let me crack open R3R and rip this troll apart.
Troll: 200kg Bison with 10 armor: 3,068kg First off, R3R pg 80 says "Characters may make melee attacks against vehicles (or against characters riding in vehicles), as long as they are close enough to engage. Because vehicles themselves cannot counterattack, they suffer the full brunt of the melee attack, though standard rules for damaging vehicles apply." Meaning, you get to attack a vehicle, and if you get a success, you hit, and the rigger can't even try to dodge it. Moving on, the horse troll is running at the bison at a nice 400mph. Lets say the bison is gunning it for the troll at its top speed of 152mph. I'm going to convert these to m/ct now for simplicity. Troll: 533m/ct Bison: 202m/ct Now, they're moving toward each other, so they're head on. Power is combined speed / 10, which is 73. Bison's body is twice what the troll gets (1 for most collisions, 2 if the trolls regular body is > 8), which means the bison is taking a light. Troll's body is less than the bisons (1 or 2 vs 4) meaning troll takes a D. Bison resists 73L, troll resists 73D. The bison can also add control pool to try to resist this damage, but whats the point? Now, since its a vehicle-pedestrian collision, if the troll takes a D (almost garunteed) the bison keeps on trucked leaving a nice smear on the ground. Provided the driver succeeds in a crash check, which is very likely. As far as the melee attack is concerned, the troll gets +1 if he wants to use the charging attack option. He would need a minimum strength of 18 to be able to penetrate the bisons armor (because its dikoted, adding another power). Making the bison resist a base 22D / 2 - DL for vehicle leaving it with 11S, minus the 10 armor resulting in 2S damage from the polearm. Since the rigger can dump as much control pool as he wants into resisting this, its most likely going to reduce down to a light or just a scratch, meanwhile the troll is roadpaste. Have fun with that mr. troll, I'll choose the bison any day of the week. |
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Apr 5 2005, 10:52 PM
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#12
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 351 Joined: 17-February 05 Member No.: 7,093 |
Here's a question: What if the damn car doesn't have 10 points of vehicle armor on? What if it's just a normal freekin' car and not a cleverly disguised shadowrunner tank? I'm sure the troll is still roadpaste, but wouldn't this hypothetical normal car get trashed as well? And isn't there an attack test to factor in here? How many successes did this suicidal troll get?
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Apr 6 2005, 12:23 AM
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#13
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,664 Joined: 21-September 04 From: Arvada, CO Member No.: 6,686 |
Well, the discussion was for a road tank, seeing as how the base damage of the dikoted polearm is Str + 4 D, and a regular car has 2 body, and gets no test to avoid the attack, the car gets to freely drop the damage to serious, so it takes the troll two swings. Other than that, we can either use the cheapest car available, or the ford americar.
The cheapest is a Runabout. Speed is 75. Body of 3. Ford americar is Speed 105, Body of 3. Now, I'll run runabout first, then the ford. Runabout: Top speed: 112 Troll: Speed: 533 Power is going to be 64. Now, this depends on the trolls body, if the trolls body is over 8, its different. So I'll run both. Troll body < 8: Runabout takes a 64L, Troll takes a 64D. If the troll can't stage it down any, the Runabout keeps on truckin after a handling (4 +/- modifiers) check. Troll body > 8: Runabout takes a 64M, Troll takes a 64D. If the troll can't stage it down any, the Runabout keeps on truckin, after a handling (4 +/- modifiers) check. Now, with the americar: Ford Americar Speed: 157 Troll: 533 Power of the attack is 69. Troll body < 8: Ford takes a 69L, troll takes a 69D. If the troll doesn't stage it down any, the americar keeps on rolling after a handling (4 +/- modifers) check. Troll body > 8: Ford takes a 69M, troll takes a 69D. If the troll doesn't stage it down any, the americar keeps on rolling after a handling (4 +/- modifers) check. With melee attack: Each vehicle has taken at worst a moderate wound, the worst a non-AV weapon can do to a vehicle is a Serious. Troll swings first, vehicles take serious, troll road pastes, say each vehicle takes a moderate, both of them are very close to falling apart, but can still drive over to the garage and get patched up. Troll loses, again. How many successes doesn't matter, the base damage of the polearm is Deadly (its dikoted) and the vehicle automatically stages it back to serious. So, it doesn't matter how many success the troll gets, because the damage taken will be a Serious or less. |
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Apr 6 2005, 06:12 AM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 351 Joined: 17-February 05 Member No.: 7,093 |
I don't have R3R so they may have changed the rule, but in SR3 pg 149 under 'Attacks Against a Vehicle' second paragraph from the bottom it says "Standard staging rules apply". This means that this doomed Troll with a dikoted polearm CAN stage the damage up with enough successes. If the car doesn't have enough body and control pool (only up to the driving skill), the damage is going to get staged. Even against the road tank of the furthar above example, the Troll could possibly get enough successes on his attack test to destroy the vehicle. The Bison has a base body of 4 (I'm assuming this doesn't change with the added armor), with a Rigger of of a good 6 skill and full Control pool, the Troll would need 12 successes to destroy the vehicle (assuming all the damage resistance dice succeed against TN of 2). This suicidal troll might dump all his accumulated Karma into the attack roll, which with a Polearms skill of 6 (assumed, I'm assuming a lot, I know, but who would try this stunt any other way?) could easily dump enough combat pool into the roll to get those needed 12 successes (against a TN of 5, if reach bonuses and running modifier apply), not counting possible Improved Ability dice.
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Apr 8 2005, 11:14 PM
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#15
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,664 Joined: 21-September 04 From: Arvada, CO Member No.: 6,686 |
I didn't realize you had replied to this, so sorry for dragging it back up, but yes, they can stage up the damage to a D wound. Fine, but then because it is a vehicle, it is automatically staged down one level, and the power is halved. So even if you get 300 successes, making it a D thats near impossible to dodge, because it is against a vehicle, it drops to an S.
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Apr 8 2005, 11:32 PM
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#16
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 351 Joined: 17-February 05 Member No.: 7,093 |
oookay. You do realize that staging is applied AFTER damage resistance, yes? The power of the weapon would be staged down, true, but if the dead troll got enough successes on his attack test (say... 12), the shadowrunner tank would not have enough dice to resist it all and (barring karma use) would take Deadly damage from the stupid troll with the polearm.
It's not the damage level of the final damage that's staged down, it's the initial damage level of the attacking weapon. Unless they changed this rule in R3R. |
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Apr 8 2005, 11:33 PM
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#17
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
That's completely false for melee combat. Staging occurs before soak in melee.
~J |
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Apr 8 2005, 11:54 PM
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#18
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 351 Joined: 17-February 05 Member No.: 7,093 |
hmm. You're right.
It's irrelevant though. Staging still occurs, it's just the base damage level of the weapon that is dropped by one. The (STR+4) D weapon becomes (STR+4)S because of the vehicle, and the 2 net successes up the damage back to D. However, because of the melee rules, the extra successes beyond this stage up will not be added on (the vehicle cannot fight back, the Troll's 12 successes are all valid) Okay, here's how it would go. Road Tank and crazy Troll with 12 successes. SMASH! Troll rolls his attack even as his life is flashing before his eyes, 12 successes, 'cause he knows he's dead and he burns all his karma to get it. Road tank get's no counterattack, all 12 successes are valid. Troll's polearm base damage (STR+4)D is reduced to (STR+4)S, two of the Troll's successes stage it back up to D. 10 successes left. Those 10 successes stage the power of the attack up to (STR+9)D. Road Tank resists. 4 Body dice + 6 control pool dice (Rigger's skill rating) 10 points vehicle armor. Troll's attack is reduced to 13D, minus 10 Armor, is 3D. Road Tank resists with 10 dice against TN of 3, every 2 successes reduce damage. The road tank's likely to come out of this one with Serious damage, if that. (one Moderate from the collision, one Moderate from the ill-advised attack itself). right. Stupid Troll. |
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Apr 8 2005, 11:57 PM
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#19
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Ah, you're right, the vehicle staging does happen first. The Power also gets halved, though, don't forget that.
~J |
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Apr 8 2005, 11:59 PM
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#20
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 351 Joined: 17-February 05 Member No.: 7,093 |
see above, RE: 3D damage.
Edit: If the increase to power from extra successes happens after the power of the attack originally is halved (which I think it the case, but I went the other way in the example), then the road Tank would be resisting 6D damage in the end instead of 3D, making the chances for the Troll to trash the Tank much, much better. |
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Apr 9 2005, 12:13 AM
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#21
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
The power of the attack is halved before staging, and the hardening is against the base power modified by the halving. As far as I can tell, the Troll bounces off.
My brain's going fuzzy, what base Power are we talking? ~J |
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Apr 9 2005, 12:49 AM
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#22
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 351 Joined: 17-February 05 Member No.: 7,093 |
right. This Troll has 18 Strength (the minimum needed to hurt the road Tank with a dikoted polearm). So at full power the Troll's doing 22D
The road tank being a vehicle, it reduces the damage level one and the power by half. So the revised damage code is 11S. The road tank has 10 points of armor. Now, in the example I gave, the Troll also got 12 successes on his attack test. 2 for staging damage up to Deadly, 10 for upping power. Now, does the power up get added before the stage down, or after? If the former is correct, final damage code would be 3D If the latter is correct, final damage code would be 6D |
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Apr 9 2005, 01:32 AM
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#23
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,664 Joined: 21-September 04 From: Arvada, CO Member No.: 6,686 |
Order of melee combat:
attack test defender test compare successes determine damage resist damage When troll is attacking road tank. 12 successes 0 successes Troll, wins, hits tank Damage is: 22D base, With 12 success this goes up to 28D. (R3R pg 80 says standard rules for damaging a vehicle apply to melee attacks) This gets dropped to 14S, -10 more from armor, down to 4S. Tank is pretty well off with 10 dice vs 4S and will probably take a light, maybe a moderate. |
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Apr 9 2005, 02:29 AM
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#24
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 351 Joined: 17-February 05 Member No.: 7,093 |
Tarantula, see above discussion on when the attack gets staged down. It's BEFORE you do any attack roll at all. Your example is invalid, as it assumes final weapon damage is autostaged. This is not the case.
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Apr 9 2005, 09:07 AM
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#25
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,664 Joined: 21-September 04 From: Arvada, CO Member No.: 6,686 |
Err, you're right. The key part is the fact that base L weapons do nothing, because its done before any staging damage. Otherwise, you could get 12 successes with a streeline and disable a car.
I suppose its a misinterpretation on my part from a long time ago.... or maybe an old house rule to help prevent one hit wonders on vehicles. |
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