i've been wondering . . aside from Bone-Lacing and mybe with SR4 Bone Density Stuffings is there anywhere some mentioning of the Rating of such bodyparts?
What would it take to rip the Arm out of it's socket to beat someone to death with it?
What would it take to do the Bartleby from Dogma and you know, break someones neck with one hand?
(yes, aside from rolling the needed dice in unarmed combat with the sucker resisting)

Enough damage to fill the physical damage monitor and *snap* there goes your neck. If you have Augmentation, severe or critical wounds could be used to bartleby someone.

I think an even more important use for barrier ratings of bodies is if you were using a human shield. If someone shot your hostage, how likely is it that the bullet would go through, into you?

yeah, good catch there, i did not think of that . . but then, i mostly play combat oriented characters in SR3 so i didn't really have to worry about that yet ^^

Maybe you'll need to shoot someone through another person then!

See? It's a two-way street.

yep, that's closer to the truth, but with my trusty STR16 Ranger-X Bow doing 20m Damage without special Arrows i think i will punch through ^^
buuut . . let's not delve into that any more *g*

You might even get through with the hammerhead arrow.

"The STR16 Troll with Titan Bone-Lacing hitting an Body 3 Elf on the head to knock him out . . IS STILL A STRENGTH 16 TROLL WITH TITAN BONE LACE HITTING AN BODY 3 ELF ON THE HEAD!"
my GM when i asked why i could not question the elf later . .

Been there done that, discovered much to my chargrin that the person playing the deltaware full borg ninja (we found out about his 'augs' later) went to chin the guy we wanted taken alive forgot to state he was pulling his punch, and wham we were all kinda agog at the mighty rolling and the GM saying 'okay the guy takes 8 deadly damage unresisted' several sighs and a theatrical 'get the guy outta the boot we are gunna questio... guys ... he's dead...'

YOU WERE ONLY SUPPOSED TO PUNCH HIS BLOODY LIGHTS OUT!

Body....

That is the structural rating of humans. Body represents how strong the body is internally. How well conditioned everything is. Not so much how much physical power can be applied, but how much physical power can be taken without damaging.

To rip out an arm, Id do something like Strength test against Body X2. The damage would probably be (Str/2)+(Bod of Limb/2)Stun. I think that would work well. To crush someones neck with one hand, Id do a Strength test against Body X2 again, but this time apply at least a -2 if not more of a modifier to represent the use of grip strength alone.

Hope that helps.

While body would be the simplest measure for a person's barrier rating, I find it hard to believe the range of standard human ballistic resistance is the same as the range between a regular window and a lightpost. I would just go for a standard rating in the neighborhood of 4.

Yeah, but then you get into the fact that Robbie the robo-troll should provide much more bullet protection than Oliver the Otaku. Going with Body is easy, and scales well.

The robotroll has natural armor, and likely has some sort of cyber armor, too, which would increase his barrier rating, too. Those increase his barrier rating.

Isnt Barrier also a range of Ballistic resistance? Of course it also doubles as Impact resistance, but doesn't Body account for that as well? If you say that all humans have a breaking point of 4, thats just foolish and doesnt properly model the possibilities and variance among humans.

Gross example, but stick with me, If I were to tear apart a small child (Body 1), it is very easy and happens all the time. If I tried the same with either a highly muscled, or just plain bigger person with a more solid frame, it would be VERY hard (not accounting for the increased resistance they would put up to being torn apart). This is because the anatomy that holds our body together is different between different people. We all break at different points, and a Troll will go a LONG way before breaking.


Armor is the the resistance to outside penetration or impact, not the resistance of joints to being displaced. Robo-Trolls would be almost impossible to dismantle not because of their "Armor" but because of a higher natural Body attribute and an Augmented Body attribute from their Cyberlimbs/Torso/etc. Trolls already have a good +6 dice to resist breaking, why do they need more?

He would also provide more cover than Ollie the Otaku. But that gets into a lot of wiggly-niggly that would impede play. Sticking with Barrier Rating = Body is a good choice.

but take for example my STR16 troll . . he probably could rip appart anything with a body of 8 and below, no matter what kind of armor and what kind of ware they are sporting . .
Bone-Lace(at least i think it did) gave a Barrier-Rating to Bones in M&M if i remember correctly, how would you figure that one into the test to see if someone can break or just chop off an Arm halfway between ellbow and hand?
Does improves artwinculation give something like this? i don't quite remember, but i am thinking no somehow . .
it get's positively silly with such things as cbyer-limbs, especially obvious and ESPECIALLY the Cyber-Torso i would say . . not that anybody really uses that one anyway *g*
and the Skin . . what about skin with orthto or demal tech in it? for example, how do you see if something broke the skin to deliver injection vector toxins? does it break the skin if some physical damage comes through? so a character with bone lacing who has dipped his hands into gamma scopolamine would be able to deliver the stuff by PUNCHING someone in the guts? but the same guy throwing a laced knife would probably not succeed? questions above questions from me . . probably because i am still half asleep as of right now x.x. .

Well, the ''Bartelby'' move, to me, if i recall the movie, looked like he grabbed the guy(Grapple check? I guess an Unarmed roll with any appropriate Grappling specialization), and attacked. I guess it could be all one manuver. The cop in question failed his Dodge roll miserably(perhaps he had a Dodge 1 or 2), and i dunno, body 3, maybe 4 max? He looked like a fairly healthy dude i guess. Armor wouldn't be in question here(i don't think the kevlar vest did anything if he even had one), so I guess Bartleby just rolled really well on his Unarmed skill, the cop failed his dodge AND Soak roll, and Bartleby(i guess stronger than the average person by a pretty fair amount), had a ton of overflow to take it to 10P damage. (Someone with Strength: 7 would have 4 damage already, all it takes is 6 net hits.)

And he was obviously doing Physical damage due to Angelic Bone Lacing or whatever.

I don't see why it would be too tough to replicate; to me, as i said, it seemed like a ''What happens when someone makes a kickass offensive roll and someone else fails miserably at defense''.

Pulling an arm out of a socket, though, IMO, would be hard, even for a troll. Bone, tendon, and muscle are strong; and skin is stronger than most people think; IMO, that would have a pretty high Threshold on it. Especially if it is a healthy, fairly tough human(Body 4 or so). I mean, there's instances of arms being stuck in machinery that doesn't even tear it all the way off(though it does some hardcore damage).

Causing physical damage with a stun damage weapon is a martial arts maneuver.
Learn it, use it.

Roll armor x2 and body any thing that isn't blocked by that goes through the human shield and into you. If a character does not have any armor then just body. It goes through their armor, through them, then through the back of their armor then continues on its merry little way and then into the next person in line.

"Fezzig Jog his memory."
<bonk>
"Sorry Inigo I didn't mean to jog him so hard."

well yes, i guess it happens to the best of us trogs ^^

I kinda like this. Maybe just do a regular damage resistance test and let whatever net DV is left carry on into the next target. Though, that gives us a problem where any shot that actually does physical damage goes through the target, rather than leaving bullets inside the wounds. Maybe only hits beyond the standard DV of the attack.