I read somewhere in real life that hits to weapons are pretty common because it's the eyes, the noggin, and the weapon that are probably going to be protruding from cover and facing the enemy when you're actually in a firefight. However, in most RPGs and video games this possibility is oddly not allowed for, which sucks in the sense that it makes backup weapons (i.e. pistols) which usually are implemented not as useful as they'd be in real life. There's a big difference in the usefulness of the sidearm if there's a possibility that your main weapon would be destroyed than if it's literally impossible for that to happen.

Do you think that your game of SR would benefit if there were a possibility of hits to weapons and weapons being destroyed? If so, how would you implement it?

I'd include it. If a PC uses Edge to boost a Dodge, and *JUST* makes it, there goes the rifle! Or a targeted shot to the only thing that a person can see (Great thing about Smartguns, you can shoot around corners without sticking your head out there!).

Any round to a gun is going to ruin it temporarily. You'd have to hit the furniture on older weapons for it not to do something. (Another advantage to the AK-97 over the Ares Alpha or M22-series!).

As for a back-up, there's lots of suggestions for back-ups in various manuals. Short-framed, high calibre pistols are suggested. One of my characters swears by his Browning Ultrapower. Another idea is a Ruger Super Warhawk with a reduced barrel.

A Glitched dodge test, called shot to the weapon, or using a non-hardened ranged weapon to parry are the best times to introduce weapon damage, and I would say, the only times to do so.

You can also introduce it on a glancing shot.

interesting idea, but how common would such a hit be? also if it hits the gun, it might not hit the works, look at how much wood is on the AK47. anything not a bullpup has a lot of support materials.

Glancing hits occur whenever you tie on successes. In other words, you match the defense roll, but don't have a net. The rules say that it's a glancing shot, and go on to say that for things like Squirt rounds, it still counts as a hit. We could use the weapon's Barrier rating to decide how badly it was hit.

if you're going as detailed as to roll for hit locations, you could add 'weapon' to the dice roll. also: defending against burst/suppressing fire and AoE attacks would run a high risk of weapon damage.

Two words: Element Damage.

It's more than that. If you are trained at all the gun is aiming at what you are looking in a hostile situation. Seeing the gun is what makes someone a threat, so that is where they are looking (and aiming) when the decision to shoot is made. They then shoot the gun or the arm. It takes some training to get over this and transition back to aim at the person holding the gun instead of the gun. I saw it happen, and did it myself, in scenarios until you had enough experience and training to not do it.

I missed where the BBB stated the structure rating for weapons. How much toughness and armor does the average gun have? Blade? CLub? Stun baton?

The actual strength of the guns frame is relatively insignificant; the solidity of the internals is what really matters. There was a man in a shooting using a semi-auto rifle that got hit by a pistol round and from the exterior it looked alright. The hit just broke a bit of the mechanism and turned it into an automatic. The more advanced guns of 2070 will be as (or more) vulnerable to internal damage from glancing hits.

Most my combat oriented characters carry a Cezka as a backup piece. Nice big clip, and even in 3rd edition it could still preform assuming you had a decent pistols skill.

You would have to implement a random hit table, and then roll again for a weapon (or other equipment) in the vicinity of the hit. The size of the weapon could come into play here.

How common is it? Usually when automatic fire is involved you'll see more of it - obviously, right?

In a close quarters battle, where weapons tend to be centrally located on the target, you will see more weapon damage. CQB training tends to emphasize aiming for center of mass, or the head.

A back up weapon usually comes into play when the primary weapon runs dry and there isn't enough time to reload it.

I don't follow your logic

why would a gun built with more advanced technologies and more advanced materials be more fragile then guns built now days?

I could understand if gun was custom, or perhaps built for design purposes other then durability, but I don't think that a standard rifle would be more subject to failure.

Say it's one of those fancy advance guns that uses electronics to drive a spark generator to ignite the propellant instead of a conventional hammer. Those eletronics are more likely vulnerable to damage than a simple forged steel hammer arm.

Simple, the weapons in Shadowrun are higher performance (check their minimum CROF) than existing guns and, therefore, require higher precision in machining and calibration. Precision tends to get disrupted when signficant forces are applied to an item.


They'd be more reliable. Fewer moving components avoids the need for so much precision, making the weapon more robust.

yea I could see like a weapon with a smart link getting all out of wack, but I don't follow the general logic flow which is as I see it
weapons creating in the past are more reliable then weapons created in the future

the problem I have is that lets say a Gunsmith simply created an exact replica of an Ak47 in the shadowrun world. Then lets say that that same Gunsmith updated the schmetics so that it would use more advanced components, for example plastics, or some other polymer, as opposed to wood on the gun. Its still an Ak47 right? lets call it an Ak47 mk2.

This new Ak47 should be more reliable if the components it is made out of are more reliable then the old fashioned components. Thus as long as you don't do anything fancy like add a smart link newer guns should be More reliable then previous ones, assuming they have developed better technologies.

In my original post I mentioned that guns that had been customized would be more effected by damage dealt to the gun, at least in my mind they could be.


Also why would guns suddenly have more moving parts, it doesn't make sense for gunmakers to design Rube Goldberg machine esq firearms.

You clearly didn't understand the points I was trying to get across. First of all; the strength of most of your material doesn't actually matter all that much. Some kind of advanced plastic dooesn't affect the fact that a small piece of metal has slammed into the weapon and accelerated the frame without (initially) accelerating the internal components. The relative velocity between components and frame wll accelerate components, but will also stress the linkages through which the force is being transmitted and will deform them.

Now, a high performance firearm, as most SR weapons are, will require smooth mechanical operation at higher speed. These requirements lead to a need for high precision layout, alignment and machining, because if that firing pin is a little larger then it'll experienced increased friction and that will lower CROF. Similar arguments can be made about most other internal components. Disrupting the precision alignment or damaging the components will severely impair the function of the weapon functioning, probably totally as the weapon has been tuned to maximise effectiveness based on the assumption that these parts will perform optimally.

The AK47 will be improved by using future materials, but the AK47 isn't designed to fire at 2000 RPM (4 IPs, omae, at 20 rounds/IP and some breathing time in between clusters of rounds).