Anyone have rules of thumb for damage to objects?

For example:

1. A sammy accidently drops his Ares Predator IV off a roof. What's left when it hits the 'crete? SR4 gives rules for falling damage, but nothing for the *amount* of damage an item can take.

2. A hacker is unhappily caught in the blast radius of a High Explosive Grenade. How might one figure the odds of the hacker's uber-expensive commlink being roasted in the blast? Obviously we have rules for calculating damage to the person, but what about damage to the gear that person is carrying?

3. An katana-wielding adept tries to chop his opponent's shotgun in half. How should the defender roll his defense? Reaction + Dodge? What if, instead of a shotgun, the defender was holding a petunia? In other words, how would object hardness play into the equation? Some sort of Armor rating, maybe?

Of course, there's also the possibility that all this stuff is in the book and I'm just not seeing it... in which case, maybe point me to a page, or even a section?

Thanks!

-S

1) figure up a good barrier rating for the device and use the barrier rules, although in your example I'd just say the gun was trashed if the roof was higher than a story or two.

2) Unless there's a botch or critical botch no damage should be done to the gear. Mainly because it's too much of a hassle for too little return.

3) Again use the barrier rules. If it's a weapon I'd let them make opposed weapon rolls to determine if the gun was hit and what the base damage would be. Reaction + dodge for everything else.

I haven't got rules of thumb, but I think I can handle the examples.

Sorry. I just feel such answers are necessary as long there are people out there who think katanas can actually slice through thick, hardened ferrous metal items.

There's no disarming rule in SR4? (I can't even remember if there's one in SR3.) Else James McMurray's advice seems about right.

There may be a disarming rules, I can't recall either. But this isn't exactly disarming. If there is a rule for it, use those rolls instead and then apply net hits as damage to the object.

Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking.

What if you gave the object like a tiny or small drone? Just modify the rules a bit.

If it's a drone then it has stats, including armor and body. If it's really small I'd try to extrapolate the numbers.

IIRC the numbers given for breaking through a barrier are for creating a 1m x 1m hole, while the numbers given for penetrating the barrier are for making a tiny hole. If the damage dealt falls between the two levels a general idea of how hurt the object is can be had.

Weapon damaging capability vs. objects is handled in the barriers section. It looks like the Destroying Barriers section fits this situation best. I would modify the effective Structure Rating based on the size of the item. A few off the cuff and probaly horrible examples:

Stupid scientist A is holding a small ballistic glass beaker filled with a genetically engineered virus that can only kill him. Cocky Physad B thinks it would be funnier to break the vial instead of just hackign the poor scientist to bits. They make their rolls and the physad (after rolling for soak) deals 1 damage to the vial. Ballistic glass has a structure rating of 5, but that's for a 1m hole. A beaker is a tiny percentage of a 1m square, so the 1 damage is probably enough to break it.

Same scientist, instead its a gun and a clear armored glass beaker (hey, it holds his death, and he's a bit paranoid about it). This time the weapon's base damage is only 2 because it's a bullet vs. a barrier. Armored glass has a structure rating of 9, so I'd probably require at least 2 damage be dealt, which with a base 2DV vs. 16 armor is going to be tough to pull off.

For the rope example I'd give a major dice pool penalty to the shot, or perhaps increase the rope's effective armor and structure ratings to account for the difficulty of the shot.

Just looked at the called shot / disarm rules. I'd apply the -4 dice pool penalty to the attack, plus another -2 because you're not just trying to hit it well enough to break someone's grasp, you're trying to hit it well enough to break the object.

Situational modifiers might also come into play. For example, trying to sunder a CD held in someone's hand will be much harder than trying to do it to a baseball bat because there's a lot less area on a CD for you to hit.

Sounds good, although that adept's katana will be ruined long before he'll cut that tree down.

The lack of rules for damaging non-barrier objects is a bit of a hole - it came up in a different thread in connection with there not being rules for attacking active foci via astral combat. I think you're right that the barrier rules can be adapted to it easily enough, but it'd be nice if they tossed in a paragraph or so on the subject..some guidelines on picking the right barrier/structure ratings, etc. Wouldn't take much. It could maybe even be snuch into the errata, since it's an amplification rather than a change.

Structure ratings might be a bit difficult to define, but barrier ratings are based on the item's material and usually easy to pull from the chart.

To borrow a term from another RPG, I'll call this "sundering."

To sunder a held item, I'd call it a called shot with a penalty of -1 (a guitar case) to -4 (a pistol). Then, I'd have the attacker do damage to the object using the barrier rules. I'd try not to let it get any more complicated than that.

Doing enough damage could completely destroy the object. At the very least, I'd inflict a -1 dice pool penalty to the user of an object per point of damage done. Electronics could be disrupted, the barrel could get bent slightly, etc.

I think disarming can either be trying to finesse an object out of someone's hand, to simply trying to violently knocking it out of their hand, to inflicting enough pain on the hand/arm to get the holder to drop the item. I think sundering could either be easier or harder than disarming, depending on what the appropriate disarming technique is. Of course, in interest of simplicity, we just use the same disarming rules for all 3 techniques.

As for chopping a barrel off a shotgun- I think a monofiliment blade could do it. I also think a high-tech constructed katana could possibly do it.

Dread Polack

I agree that, assuming 1) leaps in material technology occur that are only barely imaginable today, with advances directly applicable to bladed melee weapons; 2) the shotgun is held in place so as to be completely immovable; 3) the person wielding the sword is extremely strong, and the sword is made very heavy yet insanely thin, a shotgun barrel could be chopped in half. It is also possible with the simple assumption that things don't have to make sense.

I've seen a Glock 21 that's survived being run over, dragged behind a car for a while, tossed off a roof, shot with a .22 (in the metal slide, not the polymer frame), and dropped out of an airplane into a field. Amusingly, the thing that interfered with it's ability to function the most wasn't the drop breaking the gun, but the sudden deceleration flattening the cases on all of the rounds on the downwards side of the magazine when it hit, causing every other round to fail to feed. A change of magazine would fix that problem.

Some guns can withstand incredible amounts of abuse. Others aren't built so hot... a big dent in the side of the reciever can cause the bolt to fail to cycle, or the barrel can be crushed by an impact. However, if the frame holds up to the impact (that is, the gun doesn't shatter it's stock or split the frame open on impact), most of the internals shouldn't move too much.

In other words, I wouldn't want to toss an AK-97 off a rooftop then have to use it afterwards, but I'd at least give it a try.

As for cutting a shotgun in half... sure, go for it. Just make sure the GM picks an appropriately high-strength material for the gun to be made out of.

Oh I'd have a lot more confidence in an AK-97's ability to withstand a drop from a roof than in a Predator's. An AK should handle it fine as long as it doesn't drop on it's barrel, who cares if the stock or the sights get busted.

Things get more confusing with the chop a gun with a sword.

Consider somebody with a clamor attacking a shotgun in somebody’s hand.

It is quit improbable that he will chop the gun in half (not braced and all that) but he could easily dent or bend the barrel, making the weapon useless.

What about spell verses weapon, my semi pacifist mage is not above power bolting enemies guns, or wrestling them away with a force 8 magic fingers spell, or at least I would not be if I had the foggiest idea how you would resolve such an action

When I played a mage in SR3 I used telekinesis to steal guns on occasion. I believe the system worked like this... the mage cast the spell and had to defeat the object resistance of the gun, then the wielder of the weapon had to make a strength check to hold onto it and had to beat the mages successes. This translates quite nicely into SR4, although I'm not sure that magic fingers would work, as it allows fine manipulation, rather than great force. You could eject the clip with it, or engage the safety, but that's just my interpretation.

Power bolting the gun is even simpler. Assign the gun an object resistance rating, an armour and structure rating and determine damage based on that.

I don't know much about guns, but in my limited experience they are pretty tough (depending on model). If someone wanted to make an attack on a weapon I'd rule it in the same way that I would if they were trying to attack a barrier, except that the defender could make a defense test to reduce their successes. You'd need to assign a structure and armour rating to the weapon involved, then refer to the barrier rules.

If I was feeling particularly number crunchy (which right now I'm not) I'd also assign a structure and armour rating to the attackers weapon to see if that was damaged. Hence a claymore or a fire axe would have a high enough structure and armour that it would be unlikely to break, while a fencing foil or similar would more likely snap.

It occurs to me that this could also replace the section about blunt objects doing less damage to a barrier than sharp ones (which leads to the problem that it's easier to cut down a tree with a club than an axe). All this is, however, more maths than I can face on a sunday.

Abra cadabra, GM discretion.

If a melee player wants to use something to smash something on another player just make a called shot followed by a normal melee attack and if the player hits then it has whatever affect the player wants within reason.

A grenade vs items....If you chuck a grenade at somebody i wouldnt roll for every little piece of equipment they were carrying. It would either hit the guy or it would not. Otherwise your getting into the realm of "where exactly did the bullet hit" and trying to come up with some crazy dice roll table to see if you shot the guy in a toe or a finger or killed his sunglasses or shot off his ear.

If your trying to specifically shoot something on another person it would work the same as the melee attack. You call the shot and apply a heavy negative modifier and take the shot. If it hit your destroy the item.

Sounds like some unkillable machine stole your secret commlink and your trying to break it before he gets away so nobody finds out your #1 band on your commlink is N'Sync.

If a GM has players trying to always shoot out an enemy hacker/riggers commlink to nuetralize them i would just say that you cant see the commlink. You dont need specific rules on how to do specific things.

Player: "Hey my player wants to try and wipe his ass with toilet paper in a more effecient manner"

GM: Uhhhh ok make a logic test.

Player: I got 1 success

GM: Congrats your guy now has ass wiping skill 1 and learned a more effecient way to wipe his ass

I have a question about smashing barriers.

If i try to punch my fist through a wall it has a base of 0 damage and only my hits count ?? So i have 6p damage fists and I throw my agility+unarmed and get like 5 hits. My 6p fists are totally ignored and i only do 5 damage to the wall ??

Oh i was confused about the table on sr4 pg158. Damaging barriers Table. Those are modifiers for DV but they dont have any +'s on them so i thought thats where the DV started.

So my fist would have done 11P and against an average wall it would be resisted with 8 dice(4x2). So even if the wall got 6 hits i would still smash a hole in it.

An ares predator 4 on the other hand would be 5P+ plus net hits +1. Lets say 6 hits. 12P vs an average wall or 8 dice. Even if the wall rolls 7 hits i still smash blow a hole in the wall.

Right ? Thats kinda..funny... a single bullet knocking a meter size hole in the wall..

Look at the table, bullets have only 2DV.

edit: Also, you don't need a special rule for breaking items if you just want to go the GM discretion route, but if there's already rules in place why not use them?

I'm not sure what's inelegant about it. It works using the rules as written. A finer definitionof structure rating vs. size would be nice, but percentages are fairly easy to use.

Oh ok.. some things get there damage value set and some get left alone. So if your shooting a wall it doesnt matter if your using a walter palm or a Panther XXL the damage value = 2 for bullets.

But for my fist i get to start with my str/2 +whatever and add on my hits.

And a high explosive rocket dv=14 would get multiplied by 3 + hits and only get soaked by 1x armor.

IIRC The blast will still ricochet back and forth. The chunky salsa rules ddon't require a completely closed blast zone.

Wait, a citymaster is a wheeled vehicle, right? I'd say the spoon and clip on the average frag grenade might be mangled to make the grenade unusable, but at least the kind of nades I handled could otherwise take a truck driving over them. The probability of a 2050s+ nade detonating as a result of this would be about zero, regardless of whether the shell breaks and the insides spread all over the street or not, unless it was primed beforehand. I personally handled nade fuses designed in the 50s which could apparently go off if you so much as looked at them funny.

Grenades without relatively tough, metallic outer shells would fare worse, obviously. RL offensive grenades ("Defensive Grenades" in SR for some reason) might well splatter, as might newer frag grenades that only have a light plastic cover with a "sleeve" of preformed fragments/steel balls.

[I know you're just trying to think of ways to come up with rules for these things, but I figure if we logically handle all of these examples eventually you won't need rules. ]

My comment was not meant to say that a grenade driven over would explode. I was responding to Shrike's comment about the blast not bouncing around under the citymaster.

sorcel: Don't get me wrong, I don't expect everyone to know how hand grenade fuse design has advanced in the past 60 years and how it's likely to advance in the next 60 (nor do I know anything about that that couldn't be summed up in a sentence). Just pointing things out, in case that particular situation does come up in some game.

I can't promise I'll weigh in on every hypothetical scenario you can come up with, but as long as you keep to weaponry and armor I don't think I'll be able to keep my nose out of it.

A lot of the problems vanish if you distinguish two cases :

- Objects made from solid material, and
- Objects made out of more vulnerable material encased in solid material.

For the first category, simply find the kind of material you're destroying on the table. Every (Structure Rating) damage will be 10cm into the material, just keep chopping/shooting until you're through. (That's what RAW tries to describe)

For the second category, it is usually enough to pierce the casing, then compare the reduced damage to the separate Armor/Structure Ratings of the interior. (That's what RAW forgot to mention)

If the item is carried by someone, simply use Called Shot rules.


Examples :

Sammy (STR 9) tries to chop down a tree (A6, S7) of 4 feet diameter (=120cm) with his trusty Combat Axe (STR/2+4P, AP-1, 12 Pool Dice). On average he would generate 4 hits and deal 13P, AP-1.
The tree would resist each hit with 11 Dice (2x Armor Rating), averaging 4 hits, for average 9 damage per strike.
It would fall prey to Sammy's loving care after 10 strikes (12 (diameter) x 7 (Structure) / 9 (Damage)).

If you want to find out if the axe is damaged, assume it is heavily structured (A 16, S 13) and taking about (STR/2-1,AP+2, same net hits) per strike (force = counterforce, but wood gives in more than a metal edge). So each strike would be 8P vs. 28 dice of the axe - a slight chance each strike to lose its edge.
Chopping through metal would have a damage code more along (STR/2+1,AP0) (and of course far higher Armor and Structure ratings on part of the attacked material).

Chopping through a shotgun barrel would be structured material, too (A16, S13). So Sammy would attack this one with the average 13P,AP-1 from above, but the shotgun would resist rolling 25 (2x Armor, -1 AP) dice to resist, for an average 8 hits, reducing the damage to 5. Still, this would be enough to destoy it, probably even to chop through it cleanly (though that might need 6 damage).
Now look at the damage to the combat axe : ST/2+1, 4 net hits = 10P, resisted by the axe's 26 dice (2x Armor) - unless Sammy is lucky, his axe will be damaged by this stunt.

Sammy now wants to shoot at commlinks. Commlinks normally are pretty fragile electronics (A1, S1) encased with heavy or reinforced material (A6, S7 to A8, S9). Now say he wants to waste a quality one. He uses his pistol (6P, -1AP, 12 Dice Firearms Pool) and gets an average 10P, -1AP vs the armor of 8 of the casing. The shot penetrates the casing and will damage the interior of the commlink. The interior would now roll 10 dice (2 (2x Armor) + 8 (Casing Armor)) vs 6P (2 (Bullet) + 4 (Net Hits)), averaging 3 Damage -> destroyed.
Destroying a grenade (by having the explosives inside blow up) would be the same system, only with the grenade a little tougher (like A12 for the casing, A2, S3 for the interior)



Damage to Object Rules are another nice example of a good rule explained in a way that nobody can use it :wall:

(Edited for more examples (and some spelling :rolleyes:))