I'm playing a covert ops character who uses nonlethal takedowns, and after a little thought there's a lot of potential for abuse there. The Defiance taser is low range and low rate of fire, so the unusually high damage seems like a fair trade.

However, stick n' shock ammo damage is independent of the gun firing it. This allows you to put it in a light pistol like the Yamaha Fubuki or machine pistol and use burst or fully auto to do a lot of damage in a distressingly small package.

I initially thought that S&S would be useless when facing drones and the like, but electrical damage offsets that. Imagine what shooting a computer with a taser would do to it's components, and you're looking at a similar situation. I haven't checked the drone rules in a while, so please correct me if I'm mistakened on this.

Are there disadvantages to doing this, or is it just broken?

I suppose, at the same time, are there any advantages to using my Defiance taser when my Fubuki does the same damage at better range and is also SA?

Compared to Tasers, yes, it's a great choice in practically every way except price and SS/SA modes.

Compared to Gel Rounds? Not that big of a difference depending on the weapon type, though it's definitely a better choice on smaller pistols. It's also more than 150% more expensive per shot.

Stick-n-Shock is nice, but it's not as game-breaking as a lot of people seem to make it out (and no, something being a bit better than cheaper alternatives is not any more game-breaking than an Armored Jacket vs. Armored Clothing or a Meta Link vs. a Fairlight Caliban commlink is).

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree, Dr Funk.

I believe Stick n' Shock is broken for two reasons:

1) It is more powerful than equivalent lethal ammunition. I believe the choice to make a non-lethal takedown should be a hard one. Shadowrun is a gritty, hard world: you can either be effective or you can be humane.

2) Its independence from weapon type allows assault-rifle scale damage in a machine pistol. This kind of destroys the correlation between the amount of scrutiny a guns-based character will be put through and the amount of damage he will be able to dish out. I believe if you can only bring a pistol past security, and the guards have SMGs, that's supposed to have an effect.

So it's not that it's directly overpowered in an absolute sense: it's very expensive, only slightly better than Ex-ex and easier to counter (Nonconductivity). The problems are that it destroys some other subtleties of gunplay in SR, while simultaneously blowing all other non-lethal takedown methods off the map.

1. If it didn't exist, the same complaint would be made against Gel Rounds. Or APDS ammo. Or EX Explosive ammo. Or the doubtlessly upcoming Capsule Rounds. Or some other ammo type of choice that's better than Regular ammo. Stick-n-Shock is just getting the brunt of the "hate" because it's one of the better -- albeit significantly more expensive -- options. Especially for an automatic weapon. If you feel your game isn't gritty and hard enough because players are using nothing but Stick-n-Shock, tone down the amount of free cash you're distributing, give opponents more Nonconductive modified armor, and/or just say 'no.'

If nothing else, it gives players a reason to select a less conspicuous weapon, assuming they choose their gear based on "what gives me the most pluses." Hold-Out/Light/Machine Pistols are all really pathetic choices unless the GM cooks up a contrived reason otherwise, or has weapon checks be a serious concern way too often. In which case does it matter that they're doing good damage at all?

2. Steyr TMP with Stick-n-Shock vs. Ares Alpha with APDS. One is 6S(e) damage with -half AP (usually equal to -1 to -3 on typical opponents), one is 6P with -5 AP (completely ignoring armor or being about the same as the former on typical opponents). One is affected negatively by Nonconductive armor, the other ignores it completely. One bounces off walls, one shoots through walls. One has no integral recoil compensation, the other has two points for free not including the stock. At best one can have 3 points of recoil compensation without external mods, the other can have 6. One is stuck with those stats without getting signifcantly worse, the other can use the same ammo as the former and still get all the recoil perks. Feel free to switch the second weapon with an SMG and/or use some other good ammo choice like EX Explosive.

How exactly is the former option equal to or better than the latter in all situations again? I can't quite figure it out.

EDIT: And as an aside, the Machine Pistols in SR4 are just slightly smaller SMGs as far as I can tell as opposed to an automatic pistol, and I don't know much of anything firearms. So your comparison of a runner with a Machine Pistol being nearly equal to a guard with an SMG isn't really that big of a difference as far as believability goes. Least not for me. Especially since the former is merely incapacitating a guard whereas the guards are actually killing you.

Well, if you ever thought that Stick'n'Shock needs fixing, a quick and easy way would be to state that the number of hits on your firearms roll does not add to the amount of damage.

That way, targets would take 6 damages top - the only way to improve the effect is to call shots to bypass armor further.

However, a short burst with 3 s'n's would mean 3 different soak tests, instead of adding +2 to the damage.

That way, a S'n'S long burst could really bring something biggish down, but it would be quite expensive, and a long burst of regular ammo would be just as effective...

I suppose it needs to be tested...
Anyway, just a thought.

Cheers,
Fumble.

If full auto taser with the range of a machine pistols are considered a dangerous threat by security forces, they'll soon install nonconductive options on all uniforms, if they think the price is worth it (and I think it is).

That or the round isn't at all aerodynamic, or it converts some of the energy into its charge, combines impact with a charge for the net effect, or whatever other bullshit reasoning you want to come up with for a fictional type of ammo.

Love how it's gone from being metagame issues to reality-based ones, though.

But since we're now changing the topic completely on a whim, I choose to bring inthe Trauma Damper. Silly implant reduces a Stick-n-Shock hit by one box, but if you did the same thing with an assault rifle it'd only move one box to Stun from Physical! How absurd is that.

Sorry about missing your point earlier, doc. its been a long night

To be fair, S&S ammunition does have one massive flaw, non conductive armor. It renders the ammunition worthless, am I correct? So, if, as a GM, you find your players abusing S&S ammunition, just start issuing your NPCs nonconductive armor. If your gun bunny brought nothing but S&S out with him, he is is going to be worthless as he will be incapable of inflicting any damage. If he claims it unrealistic that everyone is running around with nonconnductive armor, just explain that security forces have been having it issued ever since there had been a string of jobs lately where the runners were using S&S

While, ya, sure, it can be over powered, it can also be totally nullified (unless of course I'm mistaken about nonconductive armor, in which case, ignore this post)

IIRC Nonconductive armor adds its rating to the damage resistance test... which is good but not that good

I guess I shouldn't mention what you can do with a AGL loaded with stun grenades...

Our group had issues with stick & shock ammo, we compensated by making it only available as a shotgun round. Solved a lot of problems.

I reduced the base damage of SS to 4. (Like serbitar). The strange thing is that the players still chose SS over other ammo when appropriate (when they don't want to kill someone as opposed to just remove threats asap), but it means tasers are used alot as well.

FYI I've nerfed Flechette, EX-EX, EX, Gel ammo as well. Otherwise I agree EX-EX is even more overpowered than SS.

Special ammo was a significant problem prior to errattaing it. A Warhawk with EX-EX ammo was 20% weaker than a Panther XXL, could be concealed, and was much much cheaper in terms of both the weapon itself and the ammo. The only real downside was the range difference.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the downside to flechettes was almost perfectly offset by using I instead of B armour. This made the Viper Slivergun disgustingly powerful.

However, the erratta has now made EX, EX-EX, Gel, and flechette ammo much less powerful. It didn't touch SnS, which really makes SnS more powerful in relation.

Check again.

...apparently all the links to the "official" site (where FAQ 1.5 was posted) have been broken.

Keep getting URL error 404

Here.

Oi, for all you guys using the word 'RAW: RAW, Rules As Written, pertains to specific rules that are not optional (In theory, GM choice is the final decider). So, the Variant rules listed after, say, Edge, are not RAW. They are optional. Nor do most Theme based writtens count! The acronym shouldn't be thrown around for every little thing you pick up from the books text to prove points.

Ok well, use it how you wish, but that was originally the use of the term.

And no, I don't think SnS is broken. If somethings broken every player will grab it from the get go. I've yet to see one.

A point that a few people are making is that SnS fired in a burst does 3 hits of 6S(e). This is incorrect. It replaces the weapons damage with the 6S(e). The burst rules still apply. So a short narrow burst with SnS does 8S(e).

Stick-n-shock is relatively balanced, power-wise. The biggest problem that some people have with it is that it seems to make tasers worthless. But that assumes that tasers are meant to be on a par with stick-n-shock to begin with. If you look at the stats for tasers, you will see that they are very cheap, use cheaper ammo, and are not restricted like guns are. Tasers are less of a shadowrunner weapon, and more of a weapon for, say, a mall security guard.

...I didn't see anything specific regarding S&S and Burst/Autotfire.

And thus, it uses the normal rules.