Let me begin by apologizing to everyone if this question has been asked before, but I did a search and could not find it on the board; I was equally not able to turn up the answer to my question when reading the SR4 errata.

I am experiencing some confusion understanding the rules pertaining to flechette rules (especially in relation to shotguns) in SR4.

I have played Shadowrun from version 1 to 3, but am just now taking up version 4, so I do have some background knowledge as to game concepts, but I am really baffled here. A lot of changes from SR2/3 to 4!

When I read the rules for the shotguns firing buckshot with a tight choke, it tells me to use standard damage values of +2DV, +2AP. Okay, that I understand. But on the same page, it says to use the rules for flechettes when firing buckshot.

So I look up the rules for flechettes later in the SR4 sourcebook, and it tells me that they are +2DV, but "the effective value" for Impact Armor is adjusted +5AP. This is where I am confused.

When it says "the effective value" above, does that mean that the effective value of the Impact Armor is +5AP only to determine if it inflicts Stun vs. Physical damage? Or is it +5AP instead of +2AP as noted in the shotgun rules? I am quite confused.

On an off-topic, as someone who has fired 3-inch 00 buckshot...that stuff can kill a black bear! I can understand some regular shot being tame but...I guess that's just my opinion. Why SR has always made it so weak is beyond me. I don't know anything about real-life body armor so for all I know it might stop buckshot...

http://shadowrun4.com/resources/sr4/sr4_errata_v18.pdf

Your rules are a tad out of date, check the link Muspellsheimr posted for current rule changes.

The choke settings apply additional modifiers. Let's take your standard Defiance t250, base Damage code of 7p and AP of -1. This is the base setting for the shotgun using regular slug ammo. If you choose to use shot ammo, then the choke settings apply.
So a Defiance firing in narrow spread would have a base damage code of 9p and an AP of +4, Medium Spread would be 7p and AP of +6, and Wide spread would be 5p AP+8.

The AP will modify the defenders dice pool for damage resistance tests. So lets say Mr.Street Sam firing a Defiance at Rent-A-Cop on a Narrow Spread got one net hit on his attack roll. Base damage is (7p Ap-1) add in the narrow spread modifier (+2dv, +5ap) and the bonus 1DV from his net hit brings the total to DV= 10p AP= +4. Rent-A-Cop is currently wearing an Armored Vest with a ballistic rating of 6. However due to the AP value of the attack being +4, Rent-A-Cop gets to add 4 additional dice to his armor rating, bringing his modified armor value to 10. Since the modified damage code of 10p does not exceed the rent-a-cop's modified armor value of 10, the attack becomes stun damage.

Had Street Sam scored two net hits, his modified damage code would have been 11p, which exceeds the modified armor value(10) of rent-a-cop and the damage would have been physical. I hope this helps and welcome to Dumpshock.

*edit*


From my experience, SR uses regular shot, not 00. Having taken apart old shells, regular shot is quite small and doesn't necessarily have the mass to be effective against SR modern armor. 00 shot is quite large, why we don't have rules for that type of shot is beyond me, but I believe it's for balance reasons. HeavyAngel.com had some house rules for 00 and 000 shot, but it appears the domain expired last month. I'll see if I can dig around on my hardrive and find where I saved the page containing the info.

Also remember that if the target has no armor, it gains no benefit from ammo/gun +AP effects.

So if you're shooting dogs or rats.. (even a lot of the awakened ones). Or unarmored ghouls in the sewers... That +damage from the shot (or flechette) ammo is a pure damage increase.

It's always a reason I like to make sure my char always has say a point or 2 of ballistic and impact armor.

Sort of related to this topic, have the devs said anything yet about the bizarre incongriguity in AP values for shotguns? In the example above Beetle correctly states that the basic damage of the weapon (7P, AP-1) gets modified by the flechette rules to be 9P, AP+4 (-1 + 5 = 4. Duh). So why is the AP for the Remington with flechette listed as +5? Where did the extra +1 come from, and why the hell should I bother using a Remington when I can just load Flechette into a T-250 and, by RAW, get an extra point of AP?

Please, if this one has finally been answered, could somebody point me to the thread?

I've wondered about that myself as it seems anything with a flechette designation has a +5 in my fifth printing book. I'm also wondering why through several errata and printings they still haven't fixed the weapon categories on page 309. Why that is a fancy PJSS Elephant Rifle Machine Pistol

It was right in the second printing I have. Why it became wrong I have no clue. It would seem to me that each extra printing would make for fewer errors.

Anyway when I read the rules for shotguns the modified damage values for flechette are already included when using shot shells (which they are basically treating as flechette ammo).

armor can and does stop buckshot. the problem is that the hit pattern usually strikes unarmored areas. extrapolating for sixty years of technology advancement for body armor, flechettes and buckshot should be worthless against it. which they are.

Wonderful. Now I can flatten light ammo against body armor faster than ever before.

Here's a primer on body armor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_vest#World_War_II
Note most armors are designed to stop pistol and shrapnel. The individual shot in buckshot have similar characteristics to pistol rounds. Since most are pure lead, they just flatten against the armor. Though this still might cause blunt force trauma to the wearer. Also shot shells may hit areas unprotected by the blast.

Given the fairly ridiculous damage being done (9P is one short of a Panther Cannon) it's generally been my assumption that shot rounds are loaded with 000 or 0000 guage. The stats would certainly suggest combat loads, as opposed to hunting loads.

I mean look at it this way; a light pistol (equivalent to about a 9mm round from the sounds of things) does 4P. A light pistol firing a six round burst does 9P. Getting hit by six .36 slugs sounds about right for a triple-aught shell. The crappy AP will be down to a combination of low muzzle velocity, and the slugs being made of pure lead, as opposed to lead in a copper shell or whatever they're going with for pistol rounds in 2070. The figures are rough, because there's a lot of abstraction going on, but it fits well enough.

If we assume a bear has a body of 8 (equivalent to a pretty well built troll, and well into superhuman), then that's 12 boxes of physical damage track, and 8 dice to soak. The hunter aims the shot, then calls -2 for damage. They roll their stat + skill + specialisation of 8 dice, -2 for called shot, and +1 for aiming (totalling 7), getting 3 hits (we're being generous to the hunter throughout this example, because 000 "can" not "will" kill the bear. The example assumes the bear gets crappy luck). The bear didn't see the attack coming, so didn't get a reaction roll. The bear is facing 9 + 2 + 3 = 14 damage. It rolls 8 dice to soak, and gets 1 hit; the attack completely fills it's physical track and goes into the overflow by 1. The bear is knocked down, and dying.

Obviously there's a fairly good chance that the bear would roll better, and the hunter would roll worse, leaving a wounded and angry bear instead. Same as real life.

well, a assault rifle firing long bursts can do somewhere around 12P, so...

I was in the same situation coming to SR4. I found that forgetting prior version's rules helps a lot since many nuances don't exist (or are mentioned) in SR4. A good example is spell grounding.

Good luck and hang in there!

spell grounding was removed back in SR3...

My only beef with Flechette ammunition is the costs

Which is fine in my mind for normal things, for example pistol flechette rounds can be considered unique and justify the cost. But in my games, I cost out flechette for shotguns under the cost of normal ammo, and consider doing the same for the viper sliver gun. It kinda is there "normal" ammo isn't it?

no. there is a difference between Flechettes and Buckshot

Not in the comic books that whoever wrote the gun rules used as their sole reference.

rule of cool...

Thanks all for the replies and clarification. I appreciate it. My errata version was 1.5, so thank you for the updated link.

The muzzle velocity on buckshot isn't terrible. I think the boxes in my closet are around 1350 fps whereas my 165 gr .40S&W is around...1125 fps if I recall correctly. That's nowhere near the ~2800 fps on say a .308, so I could see how body armor could stop that. But that's all academic, as I have no idea of fps or armor strength for Shadowrun time frame.

Thanks so much everyone. If I have any more questions, I will be sure to ask.

I would just like to say:

Fiendish Dire Chicken Swarm

of Doom!






Yes, that has happened, in the Game That Shall Not Be Mentioned. One of the few highlights of that game.

Seconded. For shotguns, "flechette" is considered normal amo in my game. (Let's face it, it's not "Flechette." It is shot. I believe someone had a good example before that flechette would actually lessen the damage, but also make armor less effective. So a worse form of AP rounds.)

For the same reason there's heaps of firearms weirdness in SR. The rules aren't particularly simulationistic.

However I agree that having "real" ammunition types such as 00 shot or having non-craptatstic hollow points or beanbag rounds rather than gel rounds would be more fun.

It's actually specifically stated in the rules that Flechette and Shot rounds are different things (hence why shot rounds use the choke rules, whilst flechette do not), they just use the same statting for the sake of convenience.

I agree with the price thing; I've always gone with the assumption (this is a house rule) that "Shot" rounds for shotguns cost the same as regular ("Slug") ammo. It's a benefit of using shotguns; high calibre makes flechette ammo cheaper.

I guess it's just that SR doesn't account for all the variables in guns...how could they really? There are so many variables to account for it gets out of hand in a hurry. Is the DV for 2 3/4 inch 00 buckshot or is it for 000 3.5 inch magnum? What gauge is the shotgun? How is it that the smooth bore barrel that fires the buckshot can lob a slug 150 meters without rifling? Why doesn't barrel length in rifles affect range in SR or even muzzle velocity? Doesn't make any sense, but it makes the rules easier and by goodness I can live with that!

In the modern world, buckshot and slugs are both quite pricey. Slugs are actually a little more expensive, but I would say your assumption is quite right.

Yeah, people will always complain when a particular part of a system (usually the part where they have the most real world knowledge) isn't as accurate as they'd like it to be, but in the end if you actually try to create a rules system that perfectly simulates everything, well, you just end up with FATAL

Their whole model of shotguns is comic book level. Shotguns don't produce the meter wide spread that the rules have until you are far past the range where they are effective. At medium range with a shotgun you are only going to hit two people with a single shell if you'd have hit them with a single rifle bullet. It's more like a 10 inch diameter pattern using no choke (equal to wide in SR).

You can hit man-sized targets at 100 meters with a smoothbore shotgun slug pretty regularly, never tried 150, but it seems reasonable. 35 meters with shot is where the best pattern I've seen in a shotgun has nearly all the pellets in the best-working 00 load on a man-sized silhouette. At 60 meters I think you'd be shooting up the neighborhood for a while to hit the guy. Buckshot can still do a lot of damage at that range if you were to eventually hit him.

Somehow I don't think that the guy who wrote FATAL actually knew about what he was writing about, though.

Yeah, it's just the one that people immediately recognise. A better example of simulationism gone mad would actually be Hybrid (have a read if you really want to break your brain).

I like the previous attempt by one of authors of SR 1st. Aftermath. http://www.fantasygamesunlimited.net/shop/...e.php?prod_id=1

It's horribly detailed, to to the point of needing a flowchart for combat. And still doesn't work. There was an old Murphy's rules about a stick of dynamite in Aftermath killing everything within 100 meters...

... where as a stick of dynamite held in your hand in SR is no different then one set down next to you (except that if you armor your hand, you get less armor for holding it). Either way, it won't kill you.

I think my personal pet peive is the range categories. Sure, guns CAN fire super far... but your not going to hit anything (that your aiming at, at least) over basic iron sights after a point. (Unless you "take a perk," of course.)

Is that just a collection of the guy writing out random rules based on mathematical modeling of entirely random crap? There's no way the author could have a working knowledge of everything he writes rules for. I would argue that that is just like a more intelligent less socially unacceptable version of FATAL.

No, that's the best part; Hybrid does work, more or less . The rules are not in sequential order, so you have to be willing to go through and cross reference a lot, and deal with the fact that the author is almost certainly insane. The basic idea, however, is sound, just ridiculous. He's attempting to create a superhero roleplaying game that essentially functions as a perfect simulation of reality. There are examples of how you can accurately stat Nostrodamus, Galactus, and Hitler, all with reference to real world energies, velocities, and other properties. It's this nightmarishly convoluted system that tries to be the most accurate recreation of "reality" possible (insofar as a superhero game can be reality).

That actually sounds pretty sweet, in principle. But how did you know that it more or less works? Did you yourself ever read all the rules and play a game?

Not personally, but other, more adventurous souls have braved that dark abysss. Essentially what I've been told is that the math is solid, but actually trying to create a character should only be attempted if you have a spare decade