Vehicle Combat, man vs machine Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Rory Blackhand]

Just browsing the rules. Don't have the rigger book, but have a question. I'm so well loved by a few folks, but this is just a simple question or two concerning an area of the rules I have never thought much about.

You are rigging an armored van with a body of 5 armor 10. You pass within 1 meter of a narrow alley and a suicidal troll armed with a dikoted polearm "intercepts" you. According to interception, he gets a free attack on you. I assume you get by him if your vehicle can still move after he takes his shot.

The troll has a 13 strength, the polearm blade is dikoted, so against vehiles he does what? Polearm normally 16S, goes to 17D for dikoting, goes down to 17S vs vehicles? If the troll is an adept with improved skill 6 levels, a 6 skill, and at least 6 combat pool, he could roll 18 dice to attack your vehicle, right?

What am I missing? Can the troll even try to intercept a moving vehicle? I have never thought of it before, but I am curious if it is possible for a melee weapon to destroy a vehicle? And if your vehicle can't physically turn the corner to run the troll over what can you do as the driver?

[Kanada Ten]

I'm not really sure that Interception rules apply to vehicles, but if they do then the driver may engage in Full Defense and try to dodge the attack. It's a semantics questions, really, since the Interception rules specifically call out characters within the movement rules for characters. Even under the Vehicle rules it seems to imply it doesn't work (note that niether ramming nor vehicle-pedestrian collsions mentions melee attacks). And even more odd, no mention is made of melee attacks against vehicles at all in the entire vehicle section. Perhaps there are to be treated as barriers.

[Rory Blackhand]

I thought about that. But then the dikoting slices thru barriers pretty well, or at least they are not doubled.

The interception is questionable, but what if the troll was waiting in ambush to just ram that polearm up your grill as you drive by?

[Kanada Ten]

Mum, I think it should be possible to attack a vehicle with melee, but slicing through barriers doesn't actually damage things in a normal way.

[GM opinion] My thought is to simply treat it as a normal melee test. In the case of interception, the driver rolls their vehicle skill plus any control pool or karma pool and the attacker makes their roll per normal - though I'm tempted to increase the attacker's TN by +2 or +4 using the Ramming modifiers (it's a similar action). In the case of an ambush, a surpirse test is in order, but the implications of Actions during vehicle combat is that characters have it harder against vehicles, so I'd use the base TN of 4 and not 6, unless I felt the character planned the ambush well.

[BitBasher]

Actually in this cast it's irrelevant. For the purposes of armor Dikote does not grant any anti-armor abilities. The 17d drops to an 8s which is less than the value of the armor, so no roll is necessary, the vehicle is immune to it. Boink.

[Austere Emancipa...]

BitBasher's got it. You need this guy or something similar.

[DrJest]

[Austere Emancipa...]

Oh you can still do that, unless there's a rigger driving or the car is very heavily armored. Ranger-X bow @ STR 7 + Dikoted arrows = 6M damage to vehicles.

[Rory Blackhand]

Thanks, that makes it easy.

Is it possible for the troll to call a shot and bypass the armor of the vehicle?

[BitBasher]

[Shockwave_IIc]

[Demosthenes]

There's a link to wallhacker in there somewhere...

[Austere Emancipa...]

If the link above doesn't get you right into the WallHacker-message, try this.

[Tarantula]

[Austere Emancipa...]

By the same token, "only" 6 Vehicle Armor will stop dead HMGs firing EX-Ex on FA, and a good rigger can dodge several vehicular lasers fired in unison. The issue there is that Dobermans and Steel Lynxes have very heavy armor, and that dodging in Shadowrun is very powerful, not that bows are powerless against vehicles.

[Tarantula]

As I also pointed out there, the bison/bulldog sec would be resisting 2M with 4 body dice, which has pretty good odds to reduce entirely, but might take a light, which still isn't that great.

[Austere Emancipa...]

The F-C Bison can also shrug off limitless AR fire, while the GMC Bulldog Security can shrug off HMG fire. Again, that doesn't mean bows are not powerful against vehicles, it just shows that vehicle armor is very powerful. Also, with only 4 dice to resist damage, even 2M is plenty deadly if the archer has decent skills. If on the other hand there's a rigger in charge of the vehicle, you usually won't need any armor.

[Nikoli]

Um, just a point of contention, how exactly does a van "dodge" in an alley with a meter of wiggle space? That's a No dodge allowed moment.

[Tarantula]

Speed up, slow down, that'd be about it. By the book, trains can dodge, and they're on tracks. It even explicitly allows them to.

[Nikoli]

well, that's just stupid. unless it's a road train and even that shouldn't happen too often or easily.

[BitBasher]

It also could represent the rigger altering speed so the blow then hits the vehicle in a way it cannot harm it, or any other method for making the blow ineffectual.

[Tarantula]

Heh, pop the hood and deflect the bullets, yeah, thats it....

[Rory Blackhand]

Ok, thanks for the response guys. I have one other related question though. Under "determine damage" on page 123 SR3 rules it says the damage code can be staged to deadly and any success over that increases the power of the attack. Is this representing a really hard swing? Can the troll adept hit so hard if he places his swing right that he can chop thru the armor? Or is this rule to be read similar to burst fire?

[Tarantula]

No, its off the base weapon damage. So, if your base weapon damage is < 2x the armor value, you can never damage the vehicle with that weapon. Period.

[Rory Blackhand]

Ok, I'm not saying I don't accept this, but are you sure? Because a polearm doesn't have a base weapon damage. It does differing damages depending on who is holding the weapon. Under melee it says that the power of the weapon is improved. There is nothing similar in ranged weapon fire where extra success increase weapon power. A troll with 18 dice might make 12 successes to stage it to deadly and end up with a weapon doing 22D, which would then effect the vehicle.