Not if you bash the hood enough, sometime it'll break and you'll start hitting parts.

And, since, by the rules, it doesn't take Stun, there can be no Overflow, and thus no Physical.

You keep mentioning how ridiculous it is that you can't damage a vehicle with a baseball bat. Have you considered how ridiculous it is that a bat only does stun damage in the first place? I think it's pretty funny that you use a completely unrealistic rule to argue in favor of realism.

I remember watching an episode of GI Joe when I was a little kid where that White Ninja badguy was training cobra soldiers and he demonstrated his ninjitsu mastery by destroying a tank with his bare hands. That seemed pretty ridiculous, even at 10 or so years old.

He's a Ninja, how is that ridiculous?

He was obviously a Physical Mage with Killing Hands (D).

Yeah, ninjas are pretty cool after all. And by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Hoo-freaking-rah. Want to talk realism? Don't play Shadowrun. 'Nuff said.

How about if you only deal it Stun, which it then doesn't mark? You can't keep track of how much it takes to Overflow to Physical then...

Say I bat it with M Stun. You mark nothing. I repeat, which should move it to S Stun. You mark nothing. Say this time I manage S Stun, which raises it six boxes to L Physical. You still don't mark anything, because there is no Stun on Vehicles!

So, therefore, Overflow does not work for the average Joe.

The average Joe, a mundane shawdowrunner with no combat pool...and a skill of 4 with a crowbar dealing 6S could indeed. 6L physical in one hit. even a pussy can deal it...it just takes them longer than someone who would be...WORTH PLAYING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

What's the damage and reaction on a cat? I think they'd be restricted to slashing the tires.

~J

If he is using a bat he is an idiot. Why not try a crowbar...something made of...of METAL...

Beyond that, we are talking about a PC I assume, since why else would you really care? even an NPC that is a foe in a game would have more than 3 Atts and nada. I would really question that me personally would be out trying to mess up cars..especially with a bat, my int of 4 tells me maybe I should use something better.

The example is of a bat, not a crowbar. Besides, IMO, a crowbar does Physical. The prongs at the ends look freaking painful.

So, for simplicity's sake, the bat is the example, so, he uses the bat to do 4M Stun.

Besides, what if nothing else is readily available? Bats are cheap and can be found at most general stores like K-Mart and such.

The question remains...why is little pussy Str 2 or 3 me trying to beat a car to death witha bat? If I wanna stop the thing why not remove a few vital engine peices, hell open the hood pop the battery line off or the tranny hose and wham, dead car. Unless I wanna deal cosmetic damage and have the joy of beating the car...why do it with a wooden bat? Does a metal bat work better? I would assume so...All bats aside, I could just shoot the tire, in 2061 I can find a gun at the local corner store. Even a called shot wouldn't be that bad for me untrained assuming AIMing and whatnot.

Logically I would think I wouldn't be beating the car. My STR 6 char might be, with a 6 clubbed training and a nice fat combat pool aside. Any char could easily beat a car with a bat, even 4M base Stun with 6 successes deals a L phys, hit it 10 times and the thing is done. WHy are we assuming me myself am going to beat it and not the char I made, which is the whole point of RPG?

I think I might also mention the trend of cars lately...assuming a non barricated car...

my 1965 Ford Mustang can take baseball sized hail with no scratch(well to paint once...that's it) But all my buddies cars...cheap aluminum and plastic numbers get beaten by smaller hail, even pea sized leaves dents... I think sure the hell I can beat the hell out of car like that...A neon would go down in like 3 minutes. An armored car, no, and I wouldn't try to beat one with a bat.

Assuming stable trend, the cars of 2060 could go down as if not more easily.

Because we're arguing whether or not the car should take Physical from Stun, not whether or not you or I could do it.

Oh, and you can only Take Aim for a number of turns equal to half your skill, IIRC. So that means a defaulter cannot Take Aim once.

Besides, have you ever gotten so angry at something you wanted to take something blunt to it? I get angry at my PC. People get angry at their consoles for losing a game. Others get angry at their car. So Average Joe can't get his car to start, he's already had a horrible day, he loses it and starts beating his car with the nearest thing he can find, which, for some reason, is a baseball bat.

The point still is, you're not going to do much damage to a car's function by beating it repeatedly with a baseball bat. Sure, you'll beat up the body work, take out a few lights or windows, but you're not going to be denting the actual frame or be able to smash the engine block.

You may be able to target specific parts of the car and do damage, but that's covered under the Called Shot versus Vehicles rules.

BTW, Doc: The rules also say that any damaging effect trashes a Body 0 drone. Since there are no Body 0 drones in the main book, only R3r, those rules take precedence. You can destroy a spider drone by stepping on it.

what cain said. you're not--a troll isn't--going to do enough damage with one, ten, or fifty smacks with a baseball bat to put a car out of commission. you guys watch too much Walker: Texas Ranger.

Actually, banging up the rims of a car can be pretty bad and result in higher TNs for driving tests. Really frags with your steering.

Sure, that's a Called Shot, but who's to say Average Joe isn't going to randomly bash the rims as well as everything else?

that's when Average Joe gets 8 successes and deals an L wound to the car.

I'll grant you that one, Cain, but what a Body 1 drone? I can't destroy something the size of a toaster with a sledge hammer or bat either? Especially something the size of a toaster that doesn't have a speck of armor on it like, oh, most Body 1 drones?

If anything, vehicles *should* have a "stun" Condition Monitor even if it has absolutely no effect on the vehicle. It would simply count as cosmetic damage at that point; damage that can easily be repaired for only a couple hundred nuyen per box. But even without it, I have absolutely no problem suspending my disbelief and allowing stun weapons to hurt most vehicles. Does it seem silly in some situations to a few of you? Sure. But I can name quite a few other core rules that provide equally silly situations, too. It's a game first and foremost.

I think the vehicles rules are screwy to begin with. The larger a vehicle is, the more dice it should have to resist damage compared to what they currently receive, more along the lines of two or even three or four times their Body rating, and I'm a strong advocate of including that in the rules. As it stands, a Body 6 vehicle isn't that much more difficult to destroy than a Body 3 vehicle using a handgun unless it's armored, yet I firmly believe that shouldn't be the case.

And on that same idea, I don't think vehicles should be immune to damage from weapons just because they do Stun damage to metahuman bodies.

Also, just as a side note, you do *not* need to focus on hitting a vulnerable part of a vehicle when smacking the hell out of it with a bat. That's assumed by the standard combat rules. A Called Shot against a vehicle would do the same thing it does against anything else; raising the target number to earn you a +1 Damage Level on the attack. You *could* also make a Called Shot upon a specific part of the vehicle if you so desired, like an antenna or a tire or something, but by default it's already assumed you're trying to cripple the vehicle. That's where your Skill rating comes in.

That said, I do admit that I've house ruled it so that Stun weapons are staged down twice as much as regular weapons (much like what someone else suggested earlier in the thread), both in Power and Damage Level (to a minimum of 2L) simply because I *do* agree that you're going to have a harder time with a baseball bat than a pistol.

But on the same hand, I don't see how, say, a caltrop is going to do enough damage to a car to cripple it compared to a sledgehammer or other heavy Stun weapon. Remember, it have the potential to completely cripple the vehicle while Stun weapons (by a strict reading of the rules) have absolutely no chance, regardless of how much more damaging they are.

Oh, and for another example of the weirdness of what can happen: I imagine if some guy jumps off a 100-story building and slams into your car, it's going to be pretty crippled. Yet, but the rules, that's simply impossible simply because Metahuman Bodies only do Stun damage (CC p. 11).

funk, i wouldn't have a problem if it made things screwy in a couple of situations. your rules make it screwy every time someone takes a bat to a car. Joe Average can, all of the sudden, beat an Americar into a scrap heap in three or four hits. and you say called shots are unrealistic!

called shots against subcomponents, by the way, generally require you to do only M damage to destroy that component. for instance, shooting out a tire? M damage, it's blown.

Completely impossible. Clubs is Str, Average Joe has 3, which also incurs a +TN for defaulting. His CP is 4, of which I believe he can only add 1, so that's a maximum of 4 successes.

Average Joe can't do it, by game standards.

Yet Average Joe can do it in the real world.

Also, where are you guys coming up with this rule that you can stage a weapon up past Deadly Stun damage? As far as I know, you can't. Your *Condition Monitor* flows excess Stun damage into the Physical track, but no single attack from a Stun weapon can do Physical damage by the rules as far as I know. (Please include a page reference if/when you correct me, thanks. )

okay, Joe Average can't. but Joe Average also can't commit suicide with a handgun--Joe Average, in SR, can hardly accomplish crossing the street.

Joe "I Suck at Baseball" Normal, with clubs 2, can bust up an Americar in three or four hits. better?

The optional overdamage rules are in the combat section of SR3. I don't remember the page number.

Nope, not better. He can still only get four successes, then.

Joe Average can commit suicide with a handgun, based on a ruling in MitS that states that one can assume a character capable of causing any desired level of damage to themselves.

~J

yeah. four successes. that's D damage, buddy.

D Stun, buddy. The vehicle clinks and nothing Physical is done.

uh, we're on different pages. i'm saying that if Stun weapons deal normal damage to a vehicle, it's unrealistic because Joe Normal can completely destroy a car in 3-4 hits, max.

Well, then, my post is null and void.

I do agree with Doc Funk's ruling. Stun weapons take to Physical at one stage lower. Or at least some sort of "Cosmetic" Monitor. After so much abuse, even that goes Physical.

i could buy a penalty-free 'Cosmetic' monitor, but i'd want half a vehicle's body to apply as armor against Stun attacks. in addition to the -1 Level, i mean. and gel rounds would face a further -1 Level adjustment (so, -3 total: -1 for being a vehicle, -1 for doing Stun, -1 because there's no room for Jello in an engine block).

There's an optional rule (somewhere) that could be applied in this situation. That's the one that, IIRC, allows characters to do Physical damage when attacking using Unarmed Combat by taking a TN penalty.

that'd be the Vicious Blowjob. er, That Blows. no, wait.

anyway, it's a maneuver, something like +2 TN and you stage with 4 successes instead of 2.

I remember reading that somewhere. I think it was CC, but I'm not entirely sure.

it was. check in the melee section. it's not really suited for what we're discussing, because you'd have to invest some points into it (and even more points, if you want to use it with clubs).

hm. have to look for that.

I skimmed through all of CC and found nothing. Care to specify a page?

Joe Average picks up a heavy pistol and shoots the car that's just sort of sitting there. He, remarkably, has a Skill of 3 in Pistols and uses his full Combat Pool on the attack. He scores 3 succeses and the vehicle only scores one. He just did a Moderate wound on the vehicle.

Joe Average then reaches over and picks up a baseball bat so that he can bash the hood of the car that was just sort of stitting next to the other one. He, remarkably, has a Skill of 3 in Clubs and uses his full Combat Pool. He scores 3 successes and the vehicle scores 3 as well (it only had a Power of 4M Stun to begin with, dropped down to 2L). Joe Average doesn't even phase the vehicle.

Three more shots with the pistol -- 12 seconds of work -- and the first car is toast, yet he'd have to bash the vehicle repeatedly for an hour just to stand a chance of doing the same. Yep. Pretty insane interpretation of the rules there.

I'm sure you'll come back and point to trolls and other mega-strength characters. My only response to that is going to be a big fat "duh." I would hope that the exaggerated strength possessed by trolls and their ilk would be sufficient to bash the living hell out of something as simple as a standard Ford Americar in short order. The same goes for an elephant stomping on one, someone falling on top of one, and etc.

Considering it's a game where a single shot from a gun *does* stand a pretty good chance of completely disabling anything but the most heavily armored vehicles (Pistols 6, -2 TN, 6 Combat Pool will net about 10 or so successes, while that poor little Ford Americar has only 3 dice to try and somehow get at least four successes on a TN of 4), and I honestly don't see why some of you are getting so heated over it. I guess only one type of theatrical-inspired damage is acceptable in some people's mind...


(And yes, I know my averages are probably a little off; I'm not very good at calculating 'em with dice. But the point still stands.)

funk, that's wholly realistic. you can not total a vehicle with three or four swings of a baseball bat, in real life. where in the world did you get the idea that you could? even with an hour of bashing, i doubt you could do enough damage to a car to keep it from moving.

the gun thing, hey--at least a bullet has a chance of puncturing the hood in one go. a few lucky bounces around in the engine block, maybe a fuel line, and the car's out of commission.

Uhm. That's what I was saying, MFB. The rules *reflect* that you're going to have trouble bashing a car to "death" even after an hour of bashing.

And along your logic there at the end, the same can be said about me and my sledgehammer (simply because you continue to have trouble with the mental image of a baseball bat). I can slam it into the hood just right and possibly smash a few important engine components, completely putting it out of it's misery. And I'm not even a muscle-bound troll. Hooray for selective suspension of disbelief!

honestly? i doubt it. i trump your imagination with my dollar spent at a car bashin' back in high school. it was there for six hours, with god knows how many kids and adults paying a buck each for two hits with a 10-lb sledge, and at the end of the day they drove it into the garage.

the book rules reflect that. your rules do not.

And when it comes down to it, I don't give a flying fuck. The same can be said about people shooting a car with a handgun, yet you have no problem suspending your disbelief for that. The same is true with me the other way around.

no, the same can't be said for shooting a car with a handgun. a bullet punches through the car's body and wreaks havoc in the engine. a sledgehammer puts a massive dent in the body and maybe twists a Thingamabob that sticks up too far.

...and yet cars in the real world often get riddled with tens to hundreds of rounds without being rendered useless even if so riddled by groups of experienced shooters, yet an incompetent boob who only has a basic skill in using one can do it in 4 shots easy. Go figure. And whoa be it if it's shot by an experienced shooter... the car's almost guaranteed to go up in a single shot every time.

Continue to argue all you like. It's obvious we're not going to go anywhere with this.