I have scanned ranged combat, damage resistance, healing, medicine/biotech skills, and am left empty...

I can't find any information on how to handle wounds. In the section about being Stabilized, it really appears to me to only require Stabilization when you're UNCONSCIOUS.

Although I want more realistic gameplay, I still want movie-style bullet-wounds and the like.
I dont want a character to suffer 1 damage box and that causes him to bleed out after a few minutes.
Likewise, I dont want a character to suffer 6 damage boxes- a severe shot to the chest- and afterwards just be like "Hey I'm fine, it's just a bullet in my lung. No biggie I still have 4 boxes of life left!!"

I find it is easy to access when a character suffers bleeding (glitches, a heavy amount of damage boxes taken in a single hit, etc.) but I would like something along the lines of bleeding, blood loss, shock, WITHOUT having to go unconscious first- and without having to do a Logic stabilization.

Would a Body+Willpower stabilization test work? Do Damage Resistance Tests (Body dice) basically count as a character's body stabilizing from bloodloss, shock, etc. (a character with 3 body scoring 2 hits, 5DV turns to 3DV)- or are wounds explained in a different way then I imagine?

I am trying to find a balance between movie-style "It's just a fleshwound" so taking a bullet isn't death, but realistic enough to want, but not REQUIRE, a Combat-Surgeon. Perhaps a mix between a Body Stopping-Bleeding test anyone can have, in addition to the benefit of not requiring that test and suffering no extra damage if the Combat-Surgeon intervenes.
I want my Elven Doctor to be more than just a Logic + Biotech + Medkit test and a stim patch.



I am new to Shadowrun, and even after reading the SR4 Rulebook- I still have a problem understand some aspects of the game because the rulebook seems very vauge at times.
HOUSE RULES anyone? Does anyone have any extra or different Rules for wounds? Combat-Surgery? Bleeding Out? Shock?
Any advice? Hints? Tips? Perhaps something I missed in the rules?


Another problem with wounds is that, although I dont want them to be too lethal- I would like them to be more incapacitating. I find it odd that a character can shoot a man twice in the chest, doing 6 boxes of damage at the start of the Initiative, but the man simply responds after being shot twice by taking out his gun of about 6 dice with only a -2 wound modifier (4 dice against a character's 3 reaction, the wounded man still is gonna succeed in shooting)

In the movies- usually once shot the villains are "out" even if not dead.
I want to find a balance though, something along the lines of more incapacitating wounds, but NOT more lethal.
I want my PC's to stay alive, my NPC's to be incapacitated, and the game to be BALANCED between PC and NPC's. Im at a loss
The problem isn't the fact the NPC's dont stay incapacitated, or go "out" after being shot- but that immeditely following the player's brilliant successes in successfully wounding 2 NPC's in a 1v2 shootout, the two NPC's seem to be almost completely unhindered and are able to just fireback. Most of the time, even if the 3DV knocks down the character (Average Body of 3)- it doesn't require a "Stand Up" action to pull out their gun and shoot the PC.

Is armor a huge factor in roleplaying? I imagine if the armor doesn't stop the bullet entirely (Stun Damage) then it goes through the armor and the character gets shot- maybe by a weaker bullet- but still shot and bleeding, having had a bullet fly through them. What are the physics like in roleplaying with armor?? Does the armor stop the bullet- even if it's still Physical damage- so there is little to no actual bleeding- just internal bruising?

Does anyone have a list of ranged and melee combat in relation to DV?
Like....

1DV- Sliced outside of skin- Bullet slices shoulder
2DV- Bullet hits minor part of body, Knife stabs but not deep.
4-8DV- ??????
12DV- Shot in head- Character is most likely dead.

Explaining the wounds in relation to the amount of damage boxes it causes is rather difficult too. And the entire process of AFTER combat- do you always need to find a surgeon to remove the bullet- or should it be cinematic enough for "It's just a fleshwound. Some soup and rest will heal that in a few hours." lol

I just have a problem with someone shooting a shotgun pointblank in someone's face, and then having that someone just pull out their pistol and fire back, wounding the attacker who otherwise would have had an amazing combat encounter in his favor. What is combat normally like?

Examples are what I really want. As a new player to both RPG's and Shadowrun- the Core Rulebook doesn't provide examples on everything- which is kindof what I need.
If anyone can- provide an example of combat between characters, a normal shadowrun- perhaps one that youve recently done? I am having a tough time getting a good general idea of the game's flow, and incorporating specific things like Blood Loss, Shock, Incapacitated but not Unconscious- to allow for a more advanced Combat-Surgeon role for a PC- without hindering characters who have no Logic, Medkits, or Surgeon Teammates.

Two of the most forgotten rules in SR. I even think I know the page refs off the top of my head now.

P151 knockdown. Whenever you take body or more boxes in damage that character is kissing floorboards.

p137 when standing up when wounded you have to roll for it with wound modifiers. Regular everyday people and goons after a bad hit will often just lay there. They just won't be throwing enough dice to get up in a timely manner.

So if a PC with fast reflexes (iniative and reaction) is in a 1v3 situation, he should shoot one goon, then move/run/cover, shoot another goon, move/run/cover, then fight the last one solo?

This helps, but one problem is that after they're knocked down- they dont require to stand up because you can pull out and fire a gun while prone.

Is PC using movement and cover the key? Or would it be easier to require a character, after being knocked down, to do a "stand up" roll to take ANY further actions- regardless if they stand up or not- IF just shot and knocked down in the same Round as they're trying to act? Would it be fair to skip one Initiative Pass because of "Shot and Knocked Down" stun/recovery?

Phew this is a rather complex topic, as it is not only a matter of rules, it is a matter of "how to use the rules to complement my storytelling". A fine example is the way you have a view at "12 Damage - a shot in the head, the character is most likely dead". I would not look at it this way around but more the other way. If the Charakter is instantly dead, I would opt for the headshot (exept it was a called shot in the first). The same thing goes with the other "wounds". Armor is and important thin either in roleplay aswell as ruleplay... without armor being hit kills you alot faster (SR4 is quite deadly..exept for Trolls ) No matter if the armor transfers the phisical damage to "stun" or not, Armor gives you the option to treat a hit as as a bruise or maybe a broken rip or something like that. Like I allready mentioned unarmored characters can't say that their amror keept them save, but from my experience the damage they take mirrors that.

Damage is in most cases not meant to be really severe, at least when you look at first aid. A good doc can easily reduce damage to bearable amounts. The rules are after all an abstraction, to complement the story you tell. I tend to treat most "wounds" as bruises, fleshwounds, scratches and what not... The really severe stuff comes into play if someone reaches the incapatiation level or glitches on the resistance roll or the situation implies it.

Now for the hit and run thingy... Yes cover can be a great help, but you seem to forget, that the oponent can take cover aswell. Incase you didn't notice, Your friendly neighborhoods sam, can't regulary act two or three before the opponent can react (execpt he surprised / ambushed them). So they can shoot him while he's outside of cover and run to cover when he does. Also You don't only use reaction for defense, you can use the dodge skill as well. Ifact you can even go on full defense (using up your action for the phase) to use reaction and double dodge (or some other options) so you can avoid being shot by a wounded opponend if you really want.

On treating wounds and recovering from them etc. etc. read "Running the Shadows" / "Health" pg. 242 SR4

The realism doesn't come through the rules, it come from the way you tell the story - too realistic (meaning too complex) rules often distract you from this fact. Also the abstract nature of the rule usually is ment to balance realism with the fun of playing by them.

Personally I use the following "rules" (more like guidelines, since they are very open and require a lot of GM/Player discretion):

When a character is hit, the localisation and exact nature of the wound are decided (this depends on the position/cover of the victim and the damage taken). The basic wound modifiers are for the whole character but if the character tries to do something that's specifically hindered by his wound, he adds a local wound modifier (generally, I add 3 damage boxes to get the local wound modifier) and may worsen the wound. First aid can help ignore the modifiers and prevent worsening (up to a point) but won't cure them. Only medical attention and rest can remove the wound boxes. Magical healing works as usual, but prevents any use of mundane medical healing afterwards.

For example, if the character is hit in the arm for 3 damage boxes, the arm will be considered to have 6 damage boxes. If the character tries to use this arm, he'll get a -3 modifier (-1 global modifier + -2 local modifier) and might worsen the wound (that depends on the wound and what the character tries to do). For all healing puroposes, only the global damage boxes are considered, which means that you still need only 3 net hits to heal the whole arm. Getting the 2 basic hits on the first aid test will prevent worsening, any following hit will remove 1 damage box when calculating modifiers.
If the character is hit in the arm for 8 damage boxes, the arm is considered to have 11 damage boxes, which probably means it's just gone or at least completely crippled.

That's because movie makers are stupid. In real life, if you shoot someone just once but don't it doesn't kill him then he is probably going to keep shooting at you. That whole shooting in the shoulder crap doesn't work unless you cause extensive nerve damage or destroy the joint, both of which are highly unlikely, and even then he can just switch hands.
This is why shooting at the center mass until the target stops moving is standard procedure in self defense situations, which often involves emptying an entire magazine into the target, reloading, and emptying another magazine into the same guy.

hm...the second magazine might be a bit over the top but yes, the reaction to being shot differs widely. A human body can handle quite some bullets before giving up...or he might just as well drop dead from shock after the first bruise.

Rather than going into rather gruesome (and quite boring detail) you need to realise that everyone is different. People have died from getting shot int he foot. People have ben blown in half by cannon fire and kept on shooting for a few hours before finally dying like a good little boy. With these extremes being not only possible but plausible there is no really good reason to add how fast you're spurting to the rules because it's best handled by utilizing the greatest tension-building GM trick on the planet:

The Almighty *drum roll* "WOULD IT BE COOL IN THE STORY RIGHT NOW?"

No fudging rolls, no flipping through rulebooks looking for certain entries. Just tell the players, "Hey, Chuck there is bleeding pretty bad and you might want to get to working on him, ASAP, before he goes and dies on you." Add in a few fun descriptions and have the players roll them bones. You get enough successes and/or teamwork to be happy, it's all in the good. If not...well, Chuck should have ducked, eh?

Jupp indeed, use the rules for your story, don't let them use you. The golden rule is also stated in the Rulebook as far as I know...for those who need it.

I allways take roleplaying over ruleplaying.

Still be careful. Once you start not having things get in the way of your story you're getting into railroad country. And I don't mean in the fun wild west sense.

Rules are how the players interface with the world.

Personally I like saving fun bleeding/shock effects for occasions where the botch.

On a side not everybody should read
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612

The sign of a skilled GM is that the players feel like they have power over the story, regardless of how much they were actually railroaded. Railroading isn't inherently bad, but obvious railroading is, because it leaves players feeling powerless.

As long as it's fun, a GM should feel free to make stuff up on the fly, with or without rules behind it. This applies especially to injuries, since the system is very abstract.

That said, I'm a big fan of the optional injury rules in Augmentation. They don't bog the game down much and they give good opportunities for meaningful and interesting side effects from injury. But they rely heavily on GM judgment. They don't tell you what to do so much as give you semi-solid guidelines. It was exactly what I wanted for my game, to make injury more meaningful.

If you want canon rules for wounding hits, check out Augmentation. The advanced medicine optional rules allow that kind of coolness, usually as a consequence of glitching, but also as a consequence of taking more than 7 levels of damage. It has examples too.

Of course, if your rolling is anything like mine all your NPCs will fall over with aneurysms when the runners turn up.

My take on the whole damage/healing thing: Shadowrun isn't D&D... you don't quaff a potion and magically have your wounds close. That means when you're a player, you need to use your head when it comes to combat. It took my players 2 or 3 character deaths to realize that they needed to stack their modifiers by taking cover. Even if that meant they were reduced to one die when popping off a burst they were still making the right choice. Sure you can be a cybered-up street sam or a phys adept and leap around like a ballerina with 4 IP but eventually, if enough enemy NPCs target you in a combat round, your negative modifiers are going to stack up to where you have no defensive pool. Which means you're a grease stain.

After reading the BBB a few times I realized that first aid and magical healing were only meant to heal non-life-threatening physical and stun damage. If you're bleeding out, all you can do is get someone to stabilize you and wait for medical extraction.

Then comes the 10,000 nuyen hospital bill.

Some people are really hard to stop. Like this guy who got shot 17 times in a 3.5 minute long shootout with a couple of cops and was still fighting the cops when they handcuffed him. It's got some kind of gory autopsy photos at the end, as he didn't make it out the ED alive.
Autopsy photos & report on dead thug He does have some very appropriate tattoos....

Yes, I heard of a few extremes there, but putting the contents of a second clip into that fellow just to make sure seems a bit out of line... it's a completely different thing if he's still shooting back.

On railroading... I never found railroading a story to very cool for a given story. I like to give the players all the chances and choices they deserve to have, including immens success or massive faillure. Usually I am even prepared for them to take a completely different course of action. After all this is not a narrow lined video game.

Actually the Augmentation rules are solid. Basically what I'd been doing except for the reasonable 7 damage thing.

Though if you can point out in the book where it say something you might be able to avoid an annoying fight.

Indeed.. there are many accounts of modern soldiers being dismayed that their enemies keep shooting back and doing other nasty stuff after having been shot by the soldiers. Even if you get shot in the chest etc.. the adrenalin keeps you going for quite some time unless it hits a really really vital part of the body.. like the head..

Take that Cops episode where a black _big_ guy gets shot in the stomack by a 9 mil.. the guy walks around, screams and are generally agitated.. but doesnt seem to be all that bothered by the wound to his side in the stomack region. The cops pleade to him to sit down and stop moving about etc.. he doesnt care.. and no PCP or drugs where involved in that.. mabye some alchohol tho, cant remember exactly.. (you can cleanly see the entry wound with no exit wound, the entry wound dribbles a wee bit of blood but not that much at all.. )

I think the best reason for why there are no "bleeders" in SR4 is because everyone wears effectively bulletproof armor. Unless a shot knocks you into overflow, it hasn't penetrated your armor, just done some trauma to your insides that won't really get progressively worse as long as you have treatment in a reasonable time. And being knocked into 10 boxes could easily be described as the bleeding-out wound. When you take your last few boxes and start dying, maybe that last one got you in the thigh and ruptured your artery, or just punched through your armor and hit your lung. I wouldn't endorse a system where, despite wearing armor that (according to the AP system) bullets usually cannot pierce, bullets make me bleed all over myself...

Obviously there aren't bleeders for unarmored people either, but since any half-decent shot can kill an unarmored person outright, I think the system holds up with them.

Actually I think the whole convert to stun/don't convert to stun business is what determines wheather a bullet managed to punch the armor.

I think SR doesn't do bleeders because the rules are complex enough as it is, and it isn't like the RPGs that came before generally had bleeders either.

Instead if you've taken enough damage that it would incapacitate you in half a minute they just have you go down right then.

Though they do periodically introduce optional rules for it. I don't remember the book, but there were some rules I used in a past edition where if your damage track filled up you could make a roll to keep fighting at notably reduced capabilities. That's what I would consider the "bleeder" state. They're fighting when they should be down and they're still getting extra boxes of damage every few turns same as if they were passed out. Worse because they didn't get any kind of roll to stabilize. Eventually they'll just fall over dead.

That'd be an easy house rule if you want to add it back in. Just say if you can make a willpower+body(3) test or whatever they can keep going at double wound modifiers, and only one initiative pass per turn. With NPCs this can be a fun way to model those dramatic deathbed speeches (he if you're about to die you're almost obliged to make it good).

Oh. And the other rational I have is that there is just such an availibility of solid medical stuff. Even a basic medkit probably has some of that awsome clotting stuff our armed forces use now. An autosutre. Who knows?

To that end generally the way I describe wounds.
1-2 boxes. Surface cuts, very shallow bullet penetrations.
3-5 boxes deeper flesh wounds
6-8 wounds nastier stuff that could be lethal if you leave it long enough, but for the purposes of three second combat turns they aren't going down anytime soon. Gutshots, lung hits
9 to just before death. Stuff that would kill some people fast. Bad lung hits, heart, throat
death headshots, spin, direct heart hits.
If I'm describing the wounds generally I attribute them to the torso somewhere. It's where people aim anyway and it makes things simpler. Fits the system too.

If the modified Damage Value of a physical-damage attack exceeds the modified Armor Value of the target (excluding BF/FA damage), the attack does Physical Damage and has breached the armor. Such armor breaches are important for [former] Chemical Seals, as well as if you are using the Armor Damage optional rule (Arsenal), but otherwise are unimportant. If the modified Damage Value does not exceed the modified Armor Value, the attack has not breached the armor & does Stun Damage.

Regarding wound severity (flavor-wise), the before mentioned guide lines look good to me. As for hit-locations, with the exception of called shots, this is abstracted by the system. If it becomes important (for flavor, typically), the more Net Hits the attacker achieved, the more vital the location struck. Called shots are abstracted as well, mechanically, but my group uses whatever would make sense - a 4-point called shot is usually a head shot. Once again, net hits can be used to determine where precisely was struck (1 = side of the head, jaw line; 4+ = between the eyes, through an eye).

As for mechanics of bleeding out without being disabled, limb loss, bone fractures/breaks, etc, see Augmentation (Severe Wounds, p.120).