The title is pretty straight forward. What is the rating for a body? What I am thinking of is a troll body guard throws himself over a human/elf he is protecting as the lead begins to fly. Because of the relative sizes, the target is obstructed from view, but how much armor does the target get for someone trying to shoot her through the troll? Does the troll's armored jacket give any armor to the target ?

We can deal with the ribs snapped by the troll landing on her, after the shooting settles down.

theres no rules for through and through's....... maybe if the troll is unarmored the chick takes 1/2 the damage the bullet had to begin with vs any armor she has. If the troll is armored I'd make the bullet stick or miss the human elf altogether.

I'd probably give the original target 1/2 damage +1 or 2 to ballistic for troll skin lol.

*edit If your the GM its your show though, do whatever will make a good scene. Troll fails to get in front of the bullet or it rips right throughim and vitally injures the target she only has minutes to live, troll fails she dies, troll succeeds and is vitally hit(no evasion test for the troll), troll dives for the girl and rolls out of the way with her in his arms as a bullet pierces the floor where the target was laying. whatever.

Another option might be to apply the Troll's Body as a barrier for the purposes of shooting through, though the barrier rules don't apply perfectly either.

The way I would handle it assuming a few things:

1. the human/elf is 100% obscured.
2. you can not call shot to shoot around the troll magically hitting the human/elf

ok first:
100% obscure makes the human/ elf a -6 DP target.
Then have the troll (at this point I would count as a barrier and automatically hit) roll his body + armor in a resistance roll. Mark the trolls condition monitor the appropriate DV.
Then take the DV the troll just took as the base DV to be resisted by the human/elf armor + body.

neither get any dodge.

Looking at what the bullet deals with en route to it's target is pretty key in my opinion. The bullet must penetrate the following things, before even hurting the intended target:

- The back plating on the armor jacket the troll is wearing
- The Troll's skin/dermal armor
- The Troll's Body
- The Troll's Skin/Dermal armor again (now exiting the troll)
- The Troll's armor jacket again (on the front side now)
- The target's armor

So I'd roll it out like this:

Troll makes standard resistance test, and soaks as much as he can.
Intended target (elf/human/whatever) rolls their body + armor + troll's armor (including the dermal armor) to soak whatever the troll didn't. It's a hell of a lot of dice, but it makes sense. Is it going to be damned hard to kill that person who's protected by the body of a troll? Hell yes, but then, it really should be hard to kill them. You're shooting through a fraggin' troll after all.

Two more ideas for house rules here:

1. Allow the elf to stack the troll's armor and body with his/her own. (or half ratings, whatever), and any shot meant for the elf also injures the troll.

This would be the same as if it put the armor on, over its own, and took the hit for being over encumbered (since its pinned beneath a troll, it is already encumbered). And it takes account of the mass of hte troll's bulk.

If they shoot at the troll, the troll takes damage as usual, with no chance of the bullet hitting the elf.
If they were shooting at the elf, the troll takes damage as usual, and the elf adds the troll's armor and body ratings to its own for reducing damage to it.

2. The other idea would be that ANY shot at the troll (whether meant to kill the troll, or hoping to go for the elf) is first resisted by the troll. Any UNRESISTED damage must then be resisted by the elf. This is a lot like the first one, except that they're rolling their stats separately, and if the troll is able to shrug of the damage (either because the bullet didn't penetrate armor, or because he's so massive) the elf doesn't even need to roll - the bullet didn't make it through. This version eliminates the possibility of the troll being shot and almost killed while keeping the elf safe (unless the elf was able to shrug of damage already).

DLN, I've had this come up more times than I can easily recall. My general rule is as follows:

Treat the body as a barrier with a rating equal to (1/2 Body)+appropriate armor for cyberware/remaining worn armor. Resolve attacks as per attacking through barriers.

This rule works best if you're remembering to degrade armor for being riddled with holes, so if Little Ninja Girl gets a Troll McLargeHuge draped on top of her after taking a couple of assault cannon rounds, his 8/6 armored jacket isn't at full strength. That way there's still a chance Little Ninja Girl gets a bruise.

I think I like Slymoon's suggestion, but even so it doesn't sit quite right with me. I mean, if you assume the ward (the person being protected) is an unarmored child (resisting damage with only a couple dice, tops) or something, which is the sort of situation where I'd expect this sort of thing to come up, then you're left in a position where the only way the ward isn't damaged is if the Troll stages the damage down completely. I'm not sure I like that. There should be a range where the bodyguard gets jacked but the arbitrarily fragile ward is unharmed.

Off the top of my head I would suggest that after the bodyguard has resisted damage, and before the ward has to resist, there is an opportunity for some more boxes to be dropped. Maybe, sum the bodyguard's Body and the attack's AP, and then subtract that from the DV threatening the ward before damage is resisted. That way a low-body bodyguard and/or an armor piercing attack threatens to overpenetrate, but a high-body bodyguard and/or poor armor piercing attack doesn't.

That way, after the bodyguard has resisted the damage somewhat, if the shot came from a sniper rifle with APDS it's going to go through most bodyguards like tissue paper and still threaten the ward with a significant DV, but there's just no way a burst from a shotgun is going to overpenetrate, regardless of the damage resistance of the bodyguard.

Based on barrier rules (which I don't have at hand atm), when do we get to see the 1m hole in the troll barrier. Does the troll take enough damage to kill him, if not what do trolls with 1m holes in them do for a living?

Maybe sit a drone in it for safe keeping.


@Moon-Hawk:

Yeah I thought that afterwards as well.
I was thinking simply adding another armor soak roll pre target:
ala:
Troll body + armor = DV to troll
DV to troll vs. troll armor = remaining DV to target.

Again that isnt quite right as that is assuming all bullets will be passing through the troll.

Or you empty enough magazines until you can't distinguish between troll and elf bits anymore.

Sorry, not helpful.

-Siege

Generally when you strap explosives to the Troll. There aren't very specific rules for what happens to a barrier, hole-wise, when you're just using the "shooting through barriers" rules. However, at a guess?
Assuming the troll has 10 body and is wearing an 8/6 armored jacket, I BELIEVE a 1-meter hole opens after he's sustained about 36 boxes of damage. Factually it's less than that, if you're using armor degradation rules, but I'm not gonna do the math on that right now.