yeah, and all sorts of other crazy shit happens in the real world, too. for every vehicle you show me that shrugs off a fusillade, i can show you ten that broke down after one lucky shot. disabling a car with two or three light pistol rounds is unlikely, but within the realm of probability. disabling a car with a baseball bat is only barely within the realm of possibility, much less probability. just because one rule is mildy retarded, that's not carte blanche to make up any crazy rule you want. yeah, the vehicle damage rules aren't quite realistic--but your rule is wholly unrealistic.

The rule for doing physical damage with a stun weapon is in Fields of Fire p83. It appears it was omitted in the Cannon Companion.

O k, for one we all agree that damage to vehicles is broken. As for it not taking stun damage (damm... I want the Proof smily back{{}) its on Pg 145 Sr3 on the right side about half way down. Vehicles do not take stun damage.
Lets say I have avg skills. I take my .45 Colt (9M) and put 2 rounds into a car. Assuming no staging on a body 4 car (lets say a Crown Vic) its reduced to a piddly 4L twice. A few holes, and you lost a sparkplug wire
Ok, now Im a massive troll. I take my sledge hammer (str+3M stun) and my massive str (9). I take a wack at that car. My 12m stun would change to 6m physical (Im sure I saw this somewhere...) and now Im doing..... oooo 3L. Mabey you bent up a fender enough to get it in the way of something.
Now even with a called shot, nither can really break any major parts (with out GM approval). However, someone mentioned something about staging. IMO, you could actually do damage to a car with stun rounds. However, its gotta be a really solid hit.
I hose down said Crown Vic with an Ak-47 on FA. Assuming I hit (ouch) we go from 6M stun (rember, gel rounds) to 17D stun (6m-9s-12d-16d-17d). Lets let it roll over from the stun track. Here is where this breaks... we now have a wopping 16L (down to nothing from reduction). At this point there is enough mass to break things.
Suggestion, ignore the damage reduction if it rolls over from the stun?
*edit* Armor negates stun. Makes sense. Its hard rolled steel plating. Your not gonna do jack to it with out very big guns.

You mean that? </offtopic>

I think this is the most entertainment I've gotten out of a single post in a long time. We simply ruled that no damage was inflicted. assuming the dalmation has at least the integrity of a garbage can, no ammount of shooting it with a paintball gun would hurt it. I was just curious to see what others might have done, The ruling, like all good gamemastering, was done on the fly to keep the game going. I'd hate to see what might have happened in one of your fellows sessions.

Besides, how many body 1, armor 0 drones are there?
*quick duck and roll out of the line of fire*

i got pissed off at my car one time because it kept stalling on me at intersections - so i got out, took my crow bar, yelled at it in the parking lot of the mall, and hit it on the backside once then went inside to buy stuff

when i came back out it wouldnt start

turns out the spot i hit was 2 inches from the collision detector in the trunk that shuts down the gas line when it detects a collision

A caltrop might be able to take out the tires though...

Sure can. They do (STR-1)L Physical damage when thrown.

Throwing Weapons 6, Strength 5, Combat Pool 6: 12 dice, TN 4. 6 successes on average I believe.
Body 3 Vehicle (Ford Americar): 3 dice to resist, TN 2, and let's say two of are successes.
End result: Light wound increased to Serious throw staging, then brought back down to Moderate due to it being a vehicle.

The reduction is before the staging. It states that any wepon with a light damage code will not damage a vehicle.

Ah, I was not aware of that. I stand corrected then. We'll just dikote it first.

But at least it's nice to know that a hold-out and light pistol can't do any harm, either.

However, caltrops can damage any tires a vehicle has if thrown in front.

Umm... so you're saying that a round which generally causes a large bruise (and possibly a cracked rib) on a human could tear through durable plastic or metal? It'd probably give it a nice dent, but punch a hole through? What part of human flesh is stronger than plastic or metal?

Article about an assassination attempt on Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze

The pertinent part...

Actually I'm not at all sure that these baseball bat blows aren't unrealistic in destroying a car. After all, a hit to the radiator and your car won't make it 10 yards without overheating, and the radiator is right under the hood in the front where any blow to the grill will probably hit it. In two hits it's reasonable to dent the hood enough to reach the air intake, then smash the air filter. No air=no combustion. I'm ignoring the ramifications of electric fuel-cell cars here, you can probably jinx them even easier with a hit to some electrical system. Now hitting a car in the door will never make it quite running but there's a huge number of delicate things under the hood that will make the car quite running (Or else quit running a minute after startup) from a quite delicate blow, ranging from the distributor cap to the oil filter. And the hood's just thin sheet metal.

This is, of course, ignoring vehicle armor possibilities but if the vehicle has even one point of armor you'll need strength 4 to do more than scratch the paint, and then given even a moderate car body you'll die of old age trying. At 4 points of armor even a troll shouldn't be able to hurt it so that's pretty reasonable in my mind.

Are we saying that any vehicle has armor plating? I understand why a car with plating wouldn't be beaten by a baseball bat, same reasona butterknife won't cut hardened military armor...

HOWEVER, we are talking about a an Americar...the equivilent to a Dodge POS Neon in 2060. I think very easily these cars, which have no vehicular armor plating, could fall to overflow damage from a good stun attack.

We are talking about Overflow damage...if you go above D in Stun you start to do an L physical...the arguement is whether or not a you can do overflow when there is no stun bar to overflow from...Which if you do it in one attack makes sense, if not, you can't track it.

You can't actually overflow in one attack under the standard rules. Unless I'm missing something, at least (if I am, page number, please).

How about a page number that says you can't?

According the the way I have always played RPGs and the way most do, if it says you can do somthing you can do it. If it says you can't you can't do it. If it says nothing you can. This is also true from rules of the Game Playing Manefesto from Dx and the Tri Stat system.

You really should consider posting a quote that tells me I can't do overflow in a Single attack, cause for now that is how my group plays, unless we see a quote I don't see that changing.

So while if I shoot a guy with enough gel rounds he goes down and eventually overflows to true D... But using a sledgehammer I can't possibly kill a man?

I like that system.

Isn't this where the optional rule of allowing that to occur comes in?

I can take a pipe to a guy's head, he's unconscious, and he has a Serious Physical wound to boot!

As I said, in a single attack. If he already has some Stun and you do Deadly, then it overflows into his Physical monitor. You specifically asked about a single attack, as that is what is in question here, what with vehicles having no Stun monitor.

With one swing, I can nearly kill somebody with something that only does stun. Granted, I'm semi-trained in martial arts and have a good grasp of where to hit to do the most damage, but the same example is displayed by people who grab the pipe out of sheer frustration.

I understand that. So could I if I wanted to. Canon-wise though, it'd take at least 2 swings of the sledge in order to actually inflict death on someone.

Which is where canon doesn't make sense, and where we simply houserule it to make sense for the time being.

Yes, I know, we aren't going for pure realism, but some of it is too obvious.

Now, if it were some Str 1 kid doing the swinging, I'd say the guy ends up with a bruise and a very bad attitude. Or maybe just an egg on the side of his head and the same bad attitude. Other than that, he's toast, 'natch.

IIRC, even by the canon Ranged Combat rules, you would need 20 successes over-and-above staging damage to Deadly Stun in order to do Deadly Physical in one (Stun) attack. After Deadly Stun, every two successes gives the target one box of Physical Damage.

Technically speaking, it's bulldrek (No, I don't mean the site).

Oh well. I was asked about the canon rules, and then challenged as to their validity when I gave them. I made no comment as to their relevance to real life, as my games tend to be just that...games.

Even the rules which let you overflow in ranged combat are optional rules. Which brings it back to the point that you cannot, by canon, overflow from stun to physical in one hit.

Realistic? Not really.

Likely to be house ruled? Yep.

Want to hear the really sick thing?

Here it goes. Take our friend, Joe Troll. Joe really, really hates Ford Americars. Since Joe is a big guy (strength 10), he's inclined to beating them up when given a chance. One night he spots a victim in a parking lot and goes to work with a baseball bat. Joe takes a swing and it does nothing. He takes another. Still nothing. About thirty swings later, Joe drops the bat in frustration and gives the car half a dozen karate chops (Joe had two years of karate in high school). The wheels fly off and the car is toast.

So, a martial artist can do with their bare hands (via the vicious blow technique) what a blunt instrument cannot? That's just weird. But apparently legal (per CC, Vicious Blow manuever).

He's talking about the martial arts maneuver, not the adept power.

~J

Oh, well in that case I also think the martial arts maneuvers are optional and therefore not part of this conversation since we seem to be talking about strict canon only.

I believe there's an option to do similarly that isn't a part of the martial arts rules, but if you're removing optional items, technically all sourcebooks other than the BBB are optional as well.

~J

I say use common sense, and common sense says gel rounds wont do much besides break glass, dent, and rip off curtain exterior attachments (mirrors, and antenna if lucky). A gel round could probably puncher the radiator, but the gel round has to be either a luck hit or aimed at that location, but either way the gel round wont do much other then that. As for using a clubs and what not, use common sense too, something tells me enough time a sledge will do damage to a vehicle. Thats what most people have been trying to say, dont need any special rules because there is already a rule for that, the rule zero.

I am sure there was a discussion on doing Physical damage with Stun melee weapons WAY back, Doctor Funkenstein being one of the people discussing the issue... And I remember suggesting then that you could use the same system for doing Physical with clubs and the like as you do with Bone Lacing, ie ½ Power, no change in DL. I think someone has mentioned those numbers in this thread earlier on, too.

I also remember that the thread died almost immediately after I suggested that, and no one got to comment on it. So either everyone accepted that as a house rule and just stopped talking, or they absolutely hated it so much they didn't want to have anything to do with the whole thread afterwards. I think it's the latter.

Either way, I'll use ½ Power, same DL, if something like this comes up IMG.

IIRC vicious blow can be used with blunt weapons as well. i think it says any weapon that did stun before can now do physical, which leads to it's own problems of someone trying to get a shock glove to do physical. may not be exactly right but that's what i remember.

Oh, and heres a good one for you. I slam away at my car with a bat. no Effect. I pull out my katana, and trash it in a few rounds. Now thats screwed up too...
Honestly, Id like to get it (meaning this houserule that is forming) to the point where, with a solid hit (multiple sucesses), will do light damage to an unarmored vehicle.

Troll with Killinghands D Titanium bone lacing and lots of strength and hardliner gloves could make a tank implode Wheee fun.