The rules state that to shoot through a barrier, the weapons DV must exceed the armor rating of the barrier (adjusted for armor penetration), otherwise the attack will not hit the target behind the barrier.

So this makes me wonder, what's the effective armor/barrier rating of a meta-human if you want to shoot a target behind the "barrier" metahuman?

I would assume, at minimum, it would be equivalent to the ballistic armor value worn by the the "barrier" metahuman, but what about the meat body itself? Will it contribute? How much?

Or is it better to just ignore doing this, even when I'm walking about with a Barrett using APDS ammo.

Edit: Wrong Impact when I meant Ballistic...

Reduce the power of the hit on the second target by the body of the first.
You would use the ballistic armor not impact of the shoot-through target.

I might go with just a fraction of their body (1/2, for instance) but I'll certainly agree that Body is probably the most relevant trait to look at here (and would help represent the trolls and orks being tougher to shoot through than the scrawny elf)

A few points...

One is that per RAW when shooting/attacking through a barrier the attack ignores the body/structural rating of the Barrier.

If the modified damage is greater than the barrier's armor rating (adjusted by the weapons AP) then it goes through with the target getting the adjusted barrier armor added to his armor.

For an unarmored "barrier" I could see granting a couple of points of extra armor and maybe reducing the weapon's AP modifier for a bullet passing through the body, but you need to remember that metahumans are mostly water. It is worth noting that for melee attacks by edged weapons the barrier armor rating is doubled.



Two is that if the target is well armored then the bullet actually has to go through the "barrier's" armor twice. The better the armor the more chance it will just bounce around inside. Likely not worth messing with, but it does point out that the target should get at least the full ballistic armor of the "barrier".


Also wouldn't using a person as a barrier count more as cover and wouldn't a called shot work around that?



Now a mechanics question, if someone was shooting a target through a barrier then the AP adjustment of the weapon/attack should only be applied once (when it adjusted the barrier's armor rating)?

That is if the attack does penetrate the barrier then the Damage Resistance test is the adjusted barrier armor (barrier armor plus weapon's AP) plus target's armor plus target's body.

Or to put it another way, it is barrier armor plus target armor plus target body plus the weapon's AP.

Does that sound right?

Yes, if your goal is to just shoot the target behind the first person.

However I'm looking at it as a way to possibly net two kills with one shot. Assuming guards are loitering around, standing close to each other, etc.

Well, the shot, upon histting the first target, only makes it through the armor if the DV is higher than the ballistic armor. So it's clearly higher than that.
I'd actually say that the DV (modified with armor penetration) has to be higher than the first target's armor + Body. I'd personally also suggest some sort of called shot or take aim action or something to be able to line up the two targets, though that's not really part of the question

The body of the person is the DV. Remember if the person is wearing a vest, you take into account armor on bothsides for a through and through.

At least that is how I would do it.

Wait, what? I'm missing what you mean, I think... The body is the DV? Huh?

Anyways, you're right, I forgot the armor vest has plates on the back too, but it seems sort of ridiculous to make the barrier rating the ballistic armor DOUBLED plus the body... That'd make through-and-throughs all but impossible. I also can't see ignoring the person's armor, or the body itself... finally, the barrier rating would have to be at least as high as the armor, because the bullet can't penetrate the armor unless the DV is higher than the ballistic rating. Maybe it could just be armor * 2 +Body? That seems a little too high though, even though it might be possible with a callet shot to somewhere without armor...

Sorry not DV, just body.

armor*2+body.

Too high? Called shot, bypasses armor.

It makes sense for this to be nigh impossible. You're asking a bullet to penetrate something that's designed to stop it, maintain velocity through a body (bone, liquid, tissue - all represent significant drag and will slow your bullet down considerably), then penetrate the armor again, and maintain sufficient velocity to penetrate any armor present on the second target, while preserving enough velocity to do damage after that.

There's a reason that you don't see through-and-throughs on people wearing ballistic armor in the real world (excluding VERY large guns) - this is something that SHOULD be functionally impossible without hitting some unarmored area. As a side note, even if it weren't for armor, deflection of the bullet's trajectory upon interaction with a body is almost impossible to predict, so it's a tough shot to make in the first place.

Thus, in the end, the answer is clearly just to use a Direct Area offensive spell

+1. I don't see anything unreasonable in not being able to do effective shoot-throughs on people in modern body armour.

hi hi

I suppose having APDS ammo would help a little bit. But it seems to me that barriers and meta-humans have roughly the same kinds of stats so it shouldn't be to hard to come up with a house rule if there isn't already a rule.

Just think of body armor being a vault that is designed to protect a room full of jello on all sides. To hit a second room of jello on the other side, you have to at least pass through at first room's two walls and perhaps a third if the second room is armored as well.

I see this more as lining up a sniper shot on the necks of people who are walking around: wait till their necks overlap and pull the trigger.

Called Shot to negate the armor, followed by an Edge Test (additional dice equal to unnegated hits from the originating shot; hits equal to hits on the attack) to hit the other person.

For Example:

I called shot to negate armor on Dude 1; 5 successes. He saves 4 boxes of damage, takes the rest. He did not save on 1 box of the originating 5 successes, so now I make my Edge Test + 1 (the remaining success), getting 2 successes, to hit the other guy.

One point on going through the armor twice...

Doubling the thickness of the armor doesn't double the armor rating. There is diminishing returns.

Armor doesn't stack so you can't just double the armor, instead I'd add about a quarter or a third to the base armor rating to the total armor.



I'm so not an expert but bullets are designed to transfer energy to the target and chew them up. Some are specially designed to do so (dumdums and hollow points).

Most armor piecing rounds deform as they penetrate and then are designed to transfer the remaining energy to the target (bounce around inside).

I know tanks used to have two layers of armor with a gap between to defeat AP rounds. The AP round would penetrate the first layer would loose energy in the gap and hopefully wouldn't pierce the second layer.

You could use an anti vehicle round but it will do a lot less damage to the initial target since the round will just go right through the target leaving two little holes. If you don't hit some thing vital... Trade offs are a bitch.

Course using APDS to shoot through an unarmored target wouldn't slow the sabot down that much.


I'll also point out that the Body of the target includes Fitness, Endurance, and general health as well as size.