The called shot rules state that you may shoot a pistol out of somebody's hands with a -4 penalty to your dice pool.

They also state that you can shoot somebody in the head for +4 DV / -4 dice.

Or, you can shoot somebody in an unarmored location for -(armor value) dice.

Odds for the average runner wearing, say.. an armored jacket, their legs, feet, hands, and head are all unarmored. Now, given that the whole idea of shooting an unarmored area is to do *more* damage than normal, let's assume that the unarmored location people are aiming for is the head. Afterall, shooting somebody in the hand, leg, or foot is likely to do less damage rather than more damage.

The same can really be said about the whole +1 DV / -1 dice pool thing. I guess you could argue that the groin would be another valid location for this shot, but when it comes down to it, that'd be more stun damage than anything when compared to a chest shot.

I fully understand the tactical implications as to when to use these various shot methods, but what I don't understand is the logical reasoning behind it. Why does a headshot cause +4 damage with a -4 pool mod in one way (but still strangely add armor to the resistance test), and -8 dice with no armor on the resistance test with the other mechanic.

Moreover, how is a pistol easier to hit than a head? It's smaller, and usually moving around more and faster.

Maybe I'm just being stupid and asking questions that don't need to be asked, since the mechanics work fine in a "balance" way (although I'd argue that +1DV for -1 die is a no-brainer if you have 10 or more dice. It's like netting 2 dice, given that it's a benefit of 3 if you figure probability, and a penalty of 1).

The real reason I'm asking is this: What if a person is wearing a mask? One of my players plays a mage that wears a mask that is a spellcasting focus. He realizes he could wear something much smaller and more inconspicuous, but for style reasons he likes the mask. In my opinion, anybody with half a brain is going to shoot him in the face to break that thing if he starts slinging fireballs. The issue is two-fold: Do I say that anybody who shoots to avoid his armor is hitting him in the head, and thus breaks his expensive focus and possibly blows his brains out, or do I apply a mere -4, do normal damage, and break the focus? Or.. should the focus be more difficult to break? I almost hate to penalize him just for trying to be a little stylish. But then again, it makes logical sense to me to go for it.

I'm new to the 4th edition game system, but i had the same kind of interrogations.
In my opinion, every thing must be abstracted : when a players makes a call shot, he is in some way raising the stakes. He's betting that he can still hit with a lower dice pool (and his opponent will have an easier time dodging) and if he succeeds, he'll be rewarded with additional damage.
In fact, this is kind like the system used in L5R and 7thsea.
so for this kind of called shot, i'll consider there is no "localisation" involved. It was just some kind of deadly shot.
The bypassing armor thing is quite the same : who cares WHERE he shoots ? The character is shooting where there is no armor, that's all.
Now for a specific move, the true location is mentioned (the head for the mask, the hand for the weapon etc ...)
In that case as it is noted its the GM that chooses the specific effects.
I would rule in such a case that a call shot will break the mask (or at least it will make a resistance test) but the attack does minimum damage.
I know this doesnt sound realistic, but this is a RPG, the rules are here to serve the story first, try to simulate reality second.
If your characters are mature enought (as gamers i mean : they have enought experience to know that the game is more important than the accuracy of the rules), they'll accept the fact, and just move on.

True enough.

I guess I'm just sometimes faced with similar requests, even by my players. "I want to shoot at this specific location." Usually I just determine their reasoning. If it's to do more damage, I have them roll at the proper mod, apply the bonus damage, and.. if they get enough hits that it kills the bastard, they hit where they wanted. If not, they were a little off but still effective.

I'm actually more concerned about what ruling to take should they wish to specifically fire at a piece of hardware on an enemy character, rather than do more damage. Is it a mere -4 like the hand shot, or..?

I could probably just remind them that, in the midst of a full-on firefight, it's pretty hard to be that precise with aiming unless you are merely an observer of the fight and able to make a couple take aim actions. Tough call. It is about the story, but if / when a player asks to do such an action, I hate to cheese it. I like to give them a fair chance. And if I thought about it as a gamemaster, I know my players have definately thought about it.

The easiest, for balance, is to give a penalty of HALF the highest armor value for a called shot to avoid armor.

Leather Jacket? -1
Lined Coat? -3
Armor Jacket? -4
Full Bodyarmor with helmet? -6

That makes it just as easy to hit with blind fire as circumvent full armor - reasonable to my ears.

Specific locations isn't really supported at all in shadowrun, so applying the rules to that with reason doesn't fly.

I suppose that makes sense, Mr. U. There are definately some major vessels there and it would be quite debilitating from the resulting loss of flexibility and movement, making it more difficult to do the things you might normally do to stop bleeding an the like.

Anyway. I agree that, in general, the rules really don't support specific locations but more a general attempt at hitting a vital point, where ever that may be. I just notice there's that one glaring exception to the rule: shooting something out of somebody's hand. That, to me, is a VERY specific called shot. It's just odd that you can shoot something out of somebody's hand at a mere -4 dice, but not pop them in the face with the same ease.

Maybe that says more about it maybe being too easy to shoot something out of the hand being a flaw than anything else.

Probably - but it sacrifices damage for a cinematic effect, which lots of folks like in their games.

As I recall - the doctor talking about groin injuries in Iraq was mentioning that when triage was developed in Korea, and they were dealing with a lot of chest injuries, they came up with the idea of a 'golden hour' i.e. if treatment occurs within an hour the patient will likely survive. In Iraq, he said groin injuries get a 'golden five minutes.'

Most hits to the chest that don't penetrate the heart or aorta will take a while to kill - especially if there's someone around to pack the wound & apply pressure. By their nature, groin injuries are difficult to impossible to stem the bloodflow.

I think the +4DV, -4Dice is extremely broken. You are giving up 4 dice for a 12 dice advantage to damage. Just one net hit and you are so golden. A 4P pistol suddenly becomes as good as an Ares Alpha. I'm glad my players haven't exploited this yet.

Yes but if you were to pimp out pistols and agility and use apds... apsd... whatever the acronym is, you are one sick puppy. Oh wait, I also forgot to mention edge.

Conceptually, "called-shots" would make a lot more sense if the rules weren't so dang simplified.

First off, the should probably require either an ambush situation (Sniper at 600 meters, stationary target reading the morning news paper), or the target be in VERY close range.

Secondly, called shots shouldn't always be an all or nothing deal. If you are making a called shot to the target's head, you might shoot low and hit center mass. Perhaps something like a threshold increase should be required.

Thirdly, a called shot should be VERY difficult to pull off. So difficult, in fact, that the risk always outweighs the rewards, EXCEPT for those of exceptional skill. An SOFD-Delta operator might be able to pull it off about 30% of the time, but he'd normally be better off just shooting the target center-mass (prob 85% hit rate).

Aorta (ascending and descending), heart, pulmonary arteries and veins, superior and inferior vena cava, brachiocephalic artery, subclavian and carotid arteries, liver, trachea.

I have zero medical training, but it is my understanding that being hit in any of the above with a projectile at mach 2.5+ results, without prompt medical aid, in a life expectancy of 5 minutes or less -- in many cases less than 1 minute regardless of any aid. The spine is a nice bonus.

By comparison, in the groin you've basically got 2 big targets: the common iliacs. Then there's the branches of these and various other small arteries which handle volumes far smaller than the major arteries of the chest.

The huge variety of the smaller arteries in the groin does, I suppose, mean that there's a fairly good chance of at least one of them being severed on any penetrating wound through there, whereas there are larger areas of the chest where there are no major arteries. On the other hand, as Nim said, there's an area at least as large, maybe twice as large as the groin that contains far more vital structures. If I had to choose where I wanted to get hit it'd be a tough choice.

One thing that might skew statistics on a military medical aid station is that if something vital in your chest is hit with a rifle, there's a good chance you aren't going to live long enough to get to an aid station -- the concentration of extremely vital bits basically makes survival rather binary, either giving you less than a minute or else closer to an hour.

Of course since I haven't actually done any research on this, I'm really just talking out of my ass.

After thinking about called shots, I've realized they seem somewhat redundant with the other rules.

There are three reasons for called shots:
1. Bypass armor
2. Target a vital area
3. Knock something out of target's grasp.

Okay, here's my hypo:
PC A has a firearm skill of 1
PC B has a firearm skill of 5
Both use the same weapon, have the same attributes, and are shooting at the same target.

1. Statistically, B is more likely to score more net hits, and will therefore do more damage. However, since they are using the same weapon and shooting the same target, this doesn't make sense; unless, of course, B's skill means he is more likely to hit a vital area or shoot an unarmored area . If A and B keep shooting a target in the chest and doing no damage, they are going to start aiming for different areas naturally, a called shot isn't needed to reflect this.

2. In order to improve his chances, A decides to use a take aim action. Naturally, to take aim, you must aim at something. A decides to aim at an armored, nonvital area. Oh wait, A decides to aim at a vital area without armor.

As an alternative to called shots, just use the critical success system. If player B wants to shoot the target in the head, or shoot a vehicle in the tire, instead of giving -4/+4DV modifiers, just do a normal attack, and if it is a critical success, make it happen.

You could also modify called shot reason #3 to fit this system. Knocking something out of a target's grasp would be Agility + Skill v. Reaction + Strength and require a critical success.

I just thought this was an interesting alternative that would get rid of annoying called shots without damaging realism. I haven't tested it (especially that last part), so use this idea at your own risk.

I don't think you can call a shot without using at least one take aim action prior...

Eh...I looked on page 137 and 149...nothing there to explicitly state you have to take aim, but the descriptions make it sound like you do...that's how I have been running it...