I have been recently comparing the SR4 damage system with its much older and outdated gaming counterpart and I was wondering if anyone here had built alternate systems for Hit locations, losing limbs due to damage and armor degradation.

The reason why I ask is that while SR4's damage system is much better than previous editions and resonably balanced for game play, it really doesnt take into account becoming permanatly injured do to damage.

...much of this has to do with the change from damage stages to a flat 1:1 hit based system. In previous editions characters had the risk of permanent impairment from taking Deadly physical wounds (whether all at once or cumulatively).

I'd imagine that the same deadly wound effect rules (SRIII BBB pp127 -128) could be used if the character reaches 0 boxes on their physical track. Just make a Body test (unmodified by worn armour) with 0 hits = a decrease in attribute., 1 hit = loss of limb, and 2 hits = no effect. Since effective body dice pools are smaller in SR4 than SRIII, I could see allowing bonuses from the Toughness quality, natural armour, or augmentations (implants & adept powers since the latter are treated as permanent) that add to the character's body roll for the purpose of shaking off damage.

it's also designed to not take forever to resolve.

if you must add something, then i would suggest you keep it simple... for example, whenever someone goes into physical damage overflow, they roll body + will ( + any hits on a first aid test someone might perform) with a threshold of X (i don't much care what X is, because i'm not going to use it anyways).

for every point they fail by, something happens (-1 to some sort of test, etc).

and that's about as complicated as i would ever even bother making it. anything more just isn't worth the nuisance of working out.

I added a quick "permanent" wounding rule: if you suffer more than 8 boxes of damage (either stun or physical) in one attack then there's the chance for permanent injury. Also, to heal that wound it requires hospitalization or, at least, someone with a Medicine skill and a Medical facility. The length in the hospital for the wounded is the same amount of time that it would take to completely heal the wound. However, until the wounded is released from the hospital, no actual healing takes place. The GM can decide if he wants to add extra problems (reductions in attributes, malfunctioning cyberware, etc.) when such a critical wound is dealt to a character.

Example:
Toshi was in a knife fight when his opponent gets in a lucky thrust. Mechanically, Toshi takes 9 boxes of damage in one hit. The GM rules that the knife punctures Toshi's lung. Toshi backs off from the fight as he begins to cough and choke due to the wound. His opponent grins and moves in for the kill but not before Toshi's teammate deals with him.

The team's medic uses first aid on him, healing 2 boxes of damage and, in game, staunching the flow of blood. They get him to a street doc who can patch up the rest of the damage fixing another three boxes. This leaves Toshi with 4 boxes of "left over" damage after the healing efforts of his team and contacts.

His Body + Willpower gives him 5 dice to roll. He rolls three times before beating the threshold of 4. Thus, it takes three more days of a Hospitalization lifestyle before he's up on his feet. After he's released from the hospital, he still has to actually heal the remaining 4 boxes of damage. He rolls better this time, beating the threshold in two rolls and his healed up and ready to go after that.

Armor degredation:

If you take damage equal to or greater than the armor rating, the armor rating degrades by 1. Simple, quick and effective. My GM in college used that for 2nd ed. (Granted he geared it off wound level but hey).

Edited for Spelling

hmm... Is that original armour rating, or new armour rating?

Obviously, if the latter the rate at which armour degrades increases rapidly.

The degraded rating becomes the new armor rating for both protection and further damage.

That GM believed that runners should spend their paycheck staying alive. I don't want to get into what he did with SOTA.

Glitch on a damage resistance test, good chance for something wrong to happen-

Critical Glitch; you are fragged

It's simple, it's in the rules, it's horribly gritty, why not?

Cheers,

Max

Looks like max beat me to it.

4th Edition 'oops' seems all based around the rules for glitching. Whether its armor degredation, permanent injuries or magic loss/Geasa (see the sidebars in Street Magic for the last).