Well, I'd like to know if the Quick Healer +2 dice for all heal attempts apply to Regen. There's nothing explicitly stating either way. The way it's worded, makes me think they would work quite nicely in conjunction.

The talent specifically states Healing Tests. Regeneration uses a Regeneration Test, so it's not compatible. Ask your GM anyway as it's horrible pedantic and Regeneration sucks enough as is.

Thanks, Doc.

Could you elaborate? I've been reading about Regeneration today, so it's something I've been thinking about.

The problem with it is that you only get the check once every combat turn and thus can be pushed into red quite a bit between healing attempts.

Still, just because it doesn't make you invulnerable doesn't mean it sucks.

Oh, right, and the 'injured by magic' part kinda sucks. A mage can take out a regenerating creature as easily as anything else.

Yes because I hate having the potential to die due to massive amounts of damage dealt to me, regen should totally prevent that because i'm like, totally a werewolf.

Regeneration only works, basically, on tiny little hits that barely do any damage. Anything major can easily be said to be a spinal or head shot (so no regeneration for joo), and a Called Shot pretty much guarantees that. All forms of magic, from spells to critter powers to weapon foci render it useless. Allergies do the same thing. Couple that with the fact that you don't get to make your test until the end of the turn -- if you get to make one at all with all those ways to render it pointless -- is what makes it pretty useless. Particularly for the cost it takes to get it.

If you're just going up against some gangers with a Pistols skill of 1 or 2, you might make it out okay. But any competition where you'd need to be able to regenerate is right out. You'll never get to even use it. So yay for wasting resources when you could have just gotten, say, a Savior Medkit and an auto-injector for the same net effect in-combat. Except even that works better than regeneration because it doesn't stop working if you get a Called Shot, hit by magic, or suffer an allergy. Not to mention that it works with Quick Healer, Rapid Healing, and similar abilities that boost your Healing Tests.

It should be pointed out that allergies don't prevent regeneration unless the allergen is still in contact with the wound. They do however get a nice +4 to damage, so that basically cancels out a turn's worth of healing.

Even called shots aren't going to do automatic brain/spinal cord damage. A called shot to the head (Even if it hits) doesn't mean an instant kill after all, and I'm fairly sure that 99.9999% of people would die quite instantly if a bullet went through their brain. Now, if someone with regeneration is down and someone walks up and puts the gun to their head and pulls the trigger: that's when I figure you step out of the combat rules and have them simply die.

So really, regeneration is one of those things that is really effective against mundanes, but much less so against awakened, much like spirits.

Savior medkits with auto-injectors aren't going to be nearly as useful, because you'd only get 6 dice (Presuming the GM allows it. I've thought of doing this several times but it always seemed kinda sketchy to me), and it would prevent getting any real medical attention for your wounds, not to mention that it takes multiple turns for the healing to take place. Oh, and the 500 nuyen a shot can be fairly prohibitive as well.

Edit: To simplify, I don't think it is quite as useless as Dr. F is indicating, but I also don't think it is quite as big a fear as most people seem to think. Now, if it worked on magical wounds, then it would be sweet, and honestly somewhat more balanced (As if mages don't already have enough "Ha, look how much more awesome I am than a mundane" things about them)

Shot to head = head injury = no regeneration. No way at all to argue that one. It's the whole point of a Called Shot, particularly the fourth option. It's also the best option a mundane shooter has of taking out a regenerating enemy, which they should be doing. Particularly if they're smart and using the incredibly broken rules for Full Auto fire in SR4 to offset the penalty of the Called Shot. (And getting even a pistol turned into a FA weapon with six points of recoil compensation is stupid easy, though SMGs and Machine Pistols work just fine without any cheesy rules.)

Likewise, headshots do not equal instant death. Nor do ones that hit the spinal region. Those are easily written off as major hits in Shadowrun's abstract system. It relies purely on GM fiat to see how effective non Called Shots are on a regenerating enemy.

Again: The only time regeneration is worth a damn is when you're in a fight against pathetic opponents who aren't a challenge to anyone, regeneration or not. Even then all Regeneration really gets you is faster downtime healing. Against any threat worth a damn where you'd want to be able to regenerate to the point where it's worth the ridiculous costs and insane forum crying about how unbalanced it is, it's completely and utterly useless. A sniper, a mage, a critter, a drone, and a gunbunny can all render your regeneration worthless without even trying.

And allergies didn't come up once. Not that it matters as a single silver bullet is going to stay "in contact" with you until you get it removed or the GM (fiat steps in again) decides it went completely through you.

Regeneration is only prevented by CNS damage, not everything of your head and up is in that cathegory. In Fact even most people with an open brain injury (ie. one where the skull is punctured and the brain lies open) die from blood loss, lack of blood flow to the brain, or internal bleeding putting too much pressure on the brain.

Thing is, this was originally intended with the shapeshifter, since they already come with Regen. Honestly, I wouldn't spend the points to get the effect later. I was just curious to see if I could sneak a couple extra dice on this character's heal test. I'm still getting it for other healings and all. Heh, funny thing is, this character I'm building is based off of one of my older ones. I'm running a game and was thinking of bringing my old PC's into the mix for my new group.

Yeah, I'm not 100% sure what 'cost' people are talking about. As far as I know it isn't something you can buy via nuyen, BP, or karma. Only way I know to buy it is via a free spirit, where yes, it is ridiculously expensive. Otherwise it is simply part of being a race, which I suppose is factored into the cost of the race somehow, but I've never sat down and looked at how many points they are factored out at are.

As Sengir pointed out it is brain damage, not head damage. People don't survive brain damage (In non-vegitable or severely handicapped states) so I'd imagine that a called shot to the head is going to damage the skull or other important things, but won't generally injure the brain.


So yes, you did mention allergies. As for the silver bullet, the silver isn't touching most of the wound, only a very small part of it on your insides (Presuming of course that it didn't go all the way through) so even in the case of a silver bullet I figure that a werewolf would be able to regenerate all but 1 point of damage (It would be a real pain to get it out later though).

Regeneration's main weakness like I said earlier is magic and that it works on a turn basis, not an IP basis.

GM Fiat.

The rules for Regeneration specifically state that using a Called Shot cancels Regeneration. End of discussion. SR4A pp. 296-297. Regeneration is magical. It has its own bizarre rules. The same rules that state that touching a piece of silver to a werewolf will stop them from regeneration despite a complete and total lack of damage to the central nervous system. Hell, you can walk up to someone with it, slap them upside the head with extreme prejudice, and they can't recover from it any faster than anyone else. Whereas you could stab them in the heart with a piece of rusted iron and they'd be okay a few seconds later.


Free Spirits show us the game designer's point of view through reduction and reverse engineering. Regeneration is the equivalence of 5 Power Points as an adept, which in turn is equal to 5 points of Magic or an implant that took up 5 points of Essence. Boosting your reflexes by three initiative passes, six Reaction, and three point of Dodge is worth less to the designers than Regeneration is. Ignoring that, they show us how much they value it through any metatype that they give it to. Not only are the majority of them expensive in and of themselves, but most of them are laden down with crippling allergies and vulnerabilities (as well as other weaknesses) and are unable to get any kind of implant without having to pay ten times the normal cost and begging the GM for access to a delta clinic.

It's a classic example of game designers overcompensating. Regeneration used to be really powerful and those methods of controlling it were called for them. But not only do they burden anyone with Regeneration down with those limitations, they crippled the core ability itself to the point of complete and utter uselessness except as a small savings on your downtime expenses (as long as no Called Shots or magical attacks were involved).

True for weapon foci and spells, not true per se for allergies, the allergen has to remain in contact with the person / creature's body



A head shot is harder than it sounds, targetting an opponent's weapon or specific body location is at a -4 dice penalty, remember.



Wrong, read the rules for called shots again, you main only use up to burst-fire (short burst that is, not long burst) which makes it less dangerous than one may think. Second, I for one consider that even if you do succeed in hitting the head, it actually takes quite more than 2 or 3 boxes of damage to actually count as brain / spine damage, otherwise every runner would pretty much be brain damaged or paralytic....

Overall for having tested it in one of my games (one of my players had a character with regeneration), it's pretty powerful, especially since if you're clever and not obviously a spirit or whatever, the opponent is not going to know you have regeneration at first, and so isnt going to "put a bullet in your head" once you're on the floor, leaving you quite some time to get better and help your friends, for example.

A silver bullet or similar attack will remain in contact with the target unless the GM handwaves and decides that it passes through. A single 25-nuyen bullet completely stops regeneration cold for most shapeshifters and several other regenerating creatures. Hit them with one and each and every attack made against them will not be regenerated.


First, I did make a mistake with the Full Auto portion but even a Short Burst is enough to make up most of the difference. Take Aim (simple action or free action if you have training in Krav Maga or the like) + Burst Fire (simple action) = +1 die for you and -2 dice for them. If you have dice to spare, as most gunbunnies and snipers will, even an unmodified -4 penalty means little. Several other options exist to make it all the better.

Second, the Called Shot to target the head isn't a -4 penalty. You can use the option to target a vital area, and choose to increase your DV by only +1 for a paltry -1 dice pool modifier. Take Aim completely counters that. Alternatively you can leave it up to the GM to decide via the fourth option which is used for specific effects. Which, incidently, has no associated modifier. A -4 modifier, however, is way overboard as that's the same modifier used in the third option which is to shoot an object out of a target's grasp; a significantly more challenging shot than a head shot.

Third, it doesn't take much to figure out someone can regenerate. Worse, most enemies aren't just going to shoot you til you drop then wander off and let you heal as you please. The moment you start showing signs of life -- which will be completely unconscious on your part -- they're going to come back over and finish the job.

And yet again, the only time you don't have to worry about getting killed so hard that you can't regenerate is in fights where your regeneration doesn't mean anything anyway because they're just pathetic goons thrown into the run for some action. All it gives you is some free healing at the end of the fight, if you got hit at all. Any real threat is going to kill you so dead -- either through overkilling the moment they figure out you can regenerate, which is very easy to pick up on for anyone with half a brain, or the very simple method of just hitting you with a manabolt or two -- that you may as well not even have had it to begin with. I really like how you guys keep skipping over that particular fact. It's even worse because if you do go around flaunting your regeneration, which you will any time it comes up by default, you should totally end up getting a bounty on your head one way or another. Either for the handful of nuyen they'll get for selling your pelt, or the default bounties on things like the infected.

I'd say they take it as example for something that can cause that damage, and called shots always require GM fiat. Smashing somebody's brain at the cost of just 4 dice would be too broken IMHO.


@Karoline: Brain damage will not automatically tie somebody to the wheelchair or worse, but the consequences will still be nasty. For RL examples, just look up the history of Lobotomy.

Yeah, I thought I'd mentioned other mental damage as well. Basically if every time someone took serious damage, it was brain/CNC, then no SR character would last more than a run or two, because they would all be bedridden, mentally retarded, or otherwise unsuited to run in the shadows.

Now, as for regeneration being obvious... says who? In a normal combat situation, visibility is going to be somewhat poor, and people aren't going to have time to closely examine your wound to see if it is still there or not, they'll be too busy trying to get behind cover. Heck, they won't even necessarily be entirely sure they've hit you, much less that the hit actually pierced your armor. Now in melee where you have long gashes and stuff, this might become more obvious, but not necessarily instantly so. And even if someone does know that you can regenerate, not all characters have the benefit of having an SR core rulebook to look up ways to prevent it (Actually none of them do) Vampires and warewolves are rare, and most of what people know about them is going to come from hearsay. It's more likely that they'll look around for something to make into a cross or find some garlic or something than go "Oh, guys, I got this, they totally can't regenerate if you aim for their heads." unless someone has high ranks in some relieve magical lore (Like knowledge: Real Vampires/Werewolves).

And if you get dropped and presumed dead, then chances are good they'll overlook a few small twitches that you might do as you wake back up, as they'll be too busy checking themselves and tending to their own wounds to worry about dead/unconscious enemies.

I'm just going to keep quoting this part since you guys really like ignoring it.



And sorry, but Magic Background, Paranormal Critters, Parazoology and similar Knowledge Skills are exceedingly common.

Don't forget that people are conflating SR4A Regeneration with Wolverine Regeneration. His regen works on anything all the time. SR4A Regen doesn't work the same way.

Here's a question... does Regeneration as written on Page 296 of SR4A have any effect on Drain? It specifically calls for Magical Damage.

Here's the relevant C&P:


It's plain that magic having some sort of primary effect on you is valid for not being regenerated. I'm curious about the secondary effects of Magic, such as Drain. It's a byproduct of casting spells. It's not the purpose behind the spell.

That right there is my biggest issue with Regen. Magic damage nulls it. Sure, Bod+Mag, being anywhere from 2 to 12+ dice for regen at chargen RAW. Law of statistics[or was it averages? I can never remember...] dictates that'll be on average four hits. Man, if only Regen could heal magic damage, the rest of the restrictions would be fine... Curse my group trying to run as RAW as possible.

None of which will confer any knowledge of regeneration. It is a quite rare power. Off the top of my head, only vampires and werewolves possess it (And a very few free spirits). And given the general attitude towards those two, they aren't exactly going to offer up their weaknesses, and likely not much study has been done. Heck, honestly a vampire who has recently turned likely wouldn't even know that they can't regenerate magic/brain damage.

So yeah, there is lots of knowledge about magic out there, but if you're letting such obscure things as regeneration fall under the absurdly broad category of 'Magic Background'... well then Magic Background is the only skill you would ever need for all things even remotely related to magic.

And you're quoted argument mostly relies on them knowing you can regenrate. Yeah, they'll overkill you if they know that, but figuring that out isn't exactly easy as I already said. I think the truth is that the power is only slightly useful against big threats (Because they are likely to down you in a single combat turn) but is still handy if you can draw out the fight (Running, taking lots of cover, etc). It is absurdly useful against cannon fodder types, because you don't have to worry about the little nicks and scratches you might get from them, while others might take a few points that might add up to a -1 DP.

So yeah, I haven't skipped over it, I addressed it mostly with the fact that it isn't 'anyone with half a brain' that can notice regeneration and then knows how to deal with it properly.

I mean think of all the ways you've ever heard of dealing with a vampire and regeneration in general. Crosses, running water, holy water, garlic, can't enter a house without permission, silver, wooden stakes, sunlight, holy chants, fire, acid, brain damage, overkill. You've likely heard of all of these things working. You've also likely heard of all of these things not working too. So, you come up against a vampire, how do you go about killing it? Well damn, you don't really know exactly what will really work against them, maybe nothing will, maybe you haven't even heard of what will really get rid of them.

Just because it is in the book doesn't mean joe average knows anything about it. Even joe average mage with a fair bit of magic knowledge likely doesn't know what really hurts a vampire, unless he for some reason studies them in particular.

Edit: @darthmod Given that the damage is caused by magical backlash, I figure the damage wouldn't be regenerated.

At least professional hit men could make a habit of double tapping the center of mass and adding a shot to the head. No matter if the opponent is a normal metahuman, ghoul, vampire or shapeshifter, it slows all of them down pretty good. Hmm aren't shadowrunners sometimes called "guys, who shoot people in the face for money"?

You get a big old "whatever" for that.


And another monstrous one.

Interesting arguments. Certainly, Regeneration seems useful, in the sense that I would much rather have the ability than not. Even with a Magic and Body of 3, and thus only healing a couple of points of damage each turn, it's better than not being able to do it! And in conjunction with higher attributes - and the various ruinous options for enhancing them - you can achieve proportionately more healing. The limitations are harsh, but stop short of being drawbacks: they're not worse than not having Regeneration!

The only question then if it it's worth the price you pay for it. My understanding of the rules for spirits is that the Regeneration power cost there is ludicrous, calibrated perhaps as Dr Funk says for previous editions, perhaps just another bad rule; even in conjunction with Immunity to Normal Weapons, this cost seems disproportionate. [Although I haven't playtested it, so this is ultimately just speculation on my part!] The only other way you get access to Regeneration is Infection, right? Which means you have to weigh Regeneration with a host of other benefits and drawbacks. Looking at the costs for various Infected with Regeneration, and the other things they get, I wouldn't feel at all cheated, so there's that.

If players were interested in Regeneration in our group, I'd probably propose slight changes to it. For instance, perhaps a Regeneration test would require a complex action: you'd get more than one per turn, but you'd have to actively concentrate on healing yourself, [perhaps limiting the number of Regeneration tests per Combat Turn, if it was getting out of hand with high IPs]. Certainly I'd lower the cost for Free Spirits. I can think of various solutions for the "silver bullet lodged in my ribs means I can't heal" issue, which I agree is troublesome as worded. And I would find a better way of dealing with the "damage to head or spine" issue, which shouldn't ever come up in a locationless hit system like Shadowrun's.

Ultimately, there could be a variety of Regenerations, all with slightly different rules, if you wanted to mirror the variety you find in myth and legend. Shadowrun benefits from a flexible and extensible ruleset which begs to be tampered with, so we don't have to tolerate rules we don't like.

Dr. Funkenstein, your arguments make sense, but they seem to me to be focused on a limited scenario. In the case of a single regenerating character, the problems you describe are applicable. In the situation of a team of shadowrunners, the likelihood of this one character being shot to death and then observed in detail as he regenerates is much lower.

A competent team tends to win the firefight or drag the injured out as they run away. In both of those circumstances, regeneration is very valuable, as the regenerating character is back to full functionality in a matter of a minute. Yes, there are many ways that regeneration can be interrupted, but I don't think it is the case that regeneration is likely to be noticed and dealt with whenever it is activated, and I don't think that being able to heal damage from any material source in a matter of seconds is worthless.

#####
In terms of cost, there are ways around the options you say are too expensive. For example, the team could hire or develop a Wujen or other magician with similar access to Guardian Spirits and Plant spirits, and Invoking. Invoke a F1 Guardian Spirit to have Endowment, and a F3 Plant Spirit to have Regeneration. Have the Guardian Spirit Endow the Plant Spirit with Endowment. Then have the Plant Spirit Endow the entire party (up to 6) with Regeneration. Seems pretty cheap to me.

*ducks the hurled cheese*

Is Endowment supposed to be endowable?

Hmm and the shapeshifter magician should learn Sludge[Silver]. or even better lose the elemental effect for less drain and same damage. Gets rid of those pesky silver bullets in no time.

Don't know of any reason it wouldn't be.



The Alleviate Allergy spell (Street Magic p. 169) seems like something every magician who suffers from an allergy should have in his book.

Yeah, nothing like vampire magicians with that spell and a F2 and F3 sustaining focus so that they are no longer allergic to sunlight or wood

My interpretation is that under the effect of the spell the vampire or other allergic character does not suffer any extra damage or penalties from the allergen, but regeneration is still blocked since he is still in the presence of the allergen.

Wouldn't being unable to regenerate be an effect of an allergy?

I think the point SM is trying to make is that it doesn't cure the allergy, it just doesn't have any effect as long as the spell is sustained. (Kind of like allergy medicine. You still have the allergy, it just doesn't affect you any as long as you are taking your medicine)

Alleviate Allergy alleviates the effects of the allergy -- which are described in the entry for allergies -- but you still possess it. The rules for Regeneration are not part of the rules for allergies, to which the spell temporarily alleviates. By the rules, if you have an allergy and are exposed to it you won't regenerate for as long as you're exposed to it even if its other affects are alleviated.

To be more blunt, from a pure rules perspective, Alleviate Allergy specifically points to the rules for the negative quality in SR4. It even specifically states that it does not remove the allergy, only temporarily reduces the level of it. Regeneration is never once mentioned in either of these two rules, and regeneration doesn't give a damn about the level of the allergy.

Dr. Funkenstein was quicker. I totally agree.

Well, I guess if you really want to read it that way. I figure that "Every net hit reduces thenallergy level by one (from Moderate to Mild, for example)." would go on to reduce Mild to None. And if you don't have an allergy, then you can't have an allergy to have negating regeneration. I would consider "negation of regeneration" to be an "effect of an allergy." and thus fall under "Alleviates its effects."

As with 99% of Shadowrun's rules you can argue it either way. It seems to me a case that they were simply trying to point out that when the spell goes away the allergy returns. Otherwise the wording is only of any consequence for regeneration (Because there is no other instance in which a level of 'no allergy' could possibly have any effect (Notice the word effect there?) and yet no specific mention of regeneration is made, either for or against, making it yet another ambiguous rule that requires GM ruling.

More importantly, whatever they meant, if it would be useful to you for the rule to function that way, it could.

The spell specifically states that it never removes the allergy.


That's all rules in the game. Regeneration especially. Go read the introduction to the Critter Powers section of the rules. They go out of their way to tell you that the rules for critters powers aren't actually rules at all, but "guidelines." It must be nice to be responsible for creating a fair and balanced-as-best-you-can rule system but include such stupid clauses to get the game designers out of any of that actual responsibility. "Uh, balance it yourself or something, just gimme your money; LOL!!!" is what it translates into every time I read it.

Are you talking about this paragraph, SR4a, p292? "The game mechanics given for the powers below are not intended as hard and fast rules, but as guidelines for the gamemaster. Players should never be absolutely certain of the capabilities of a critter, particularly Awakened ones. There is always a chance that a power may work slightly differently for one particular paracritter, especially one designated as a prime runner critter. Uncertainty is a wonderful dramatic tool." Because if you are, your interpretation of their intent is very different from my own.

Yes, I am. If they were simply telling a GM they can modify a power slightly to make things interesting, they should have said as much. Instead, they specifically tell the GM that they aren't rules at all, then go on and give some bullshit reason for why that's so. "Do what you want with these non-rules, and do so in the name of making things interesting or something. I don't care. If there's a balance issue, it's your fault. Lawlz! Gimme your money."

Actually the whole thing whether alleviate allergy is enough to allow damage from silver be regenerated is a moot point. Shifters are not allergic to silver, they are vulnerable. As such removing an allergy or its symptoms is pointless, since they don't have it. And unfortunately even removing the substance does not trigger regeneration. You can treat it as magic damage. Cf. Running Wild p. 219

According to street magic the Metal Elemental effect generates iron shrapnel. Can you change it to silver or any other metal. Even if not, you could make a nice goblin killer spell.

They're both allergic and vulnerable. And shifters aren't the only ones who have Regeneration or an allergy. Several have an allergy (but not vulnerability) to things like sunlight, salt, gold, or so on and so forth.

OK for those that only have Allergy this is still an issue, but damage from substances someone is vulnerable to cannot be regenerated period.

They did: "Uncertainty is a wonderful dramatic tool." Seriously.


So you don't believe the reason they explicitly stated, but instead believe a reason they neither express nor imply.

The first sentence says it all. It's pointless to write a set of rules for other people to buy if you're not going to bother to make them actual rules and say as much. There's absolutely no reason to say "these aren't real rules" in order to get the alleged point across. Instead, the point they're trying to make is an excuse for their shitty writing. And considering how many of critter powers are disproportionately wretched in their rules, the point stands. Binding (with its automatic success), Regeneration (which is absolutely craptacular), and the God-forsaken brokenedess of Emdowment are all fine examples.

I endow you with endowment?

That's one thing. The other is, which MAG attribute is used when the endowed character uses a power?
If you invoke a F1 spirit with endowment does it grant Immunity to normal weapons 2 or ItNW 2*MAG of the Beneficiary. The same goes for any other Power that uses MAG as a stat.

I'd guess it would be at the level of the original user, otherwise you couldn't endow mundanes with anything.

Me too, but it isn't clear.

No, it doesn't. Hence the need for additional sentences in the paragraph.

The whole paragraph is just a basic reminder of both Rule 0 and the unpredictability of magic and critters. Shadowrun has been littered with them since its first edition. If you want to take one one sentence - "The game mechanics given for the powers below are not intended as hard and fast rules, but as guidelines for the gamemaster." - and take it to mean the designers were being lazy instead of "balancing" its critters, despite the entire rest of the paragraph - "Players should never be absolutely certain of the capabilities of a critter, particularly Awakened ones. There is always a chance that a power may work slightly differently for one particular paracritter, especially one designated as a prime runner critter. Uncertainty is a wonderful dramatic tool." - then that's up to you. I think you're conflating two things: an imbalance of critter powers, and a statement about the dramatic unpredictability of magic. I agree there's a lot of critter imbalance - even a lot of lazy writing! - but I don't think this paragraph has anything to do with it.

If I ever write a book, I'll have to preface it with "This book is not a hard and fast description of the world which it describes, and you are encouraged to imagine your own details where the book deviates from what you want. I also reserve the right to retcon this entire book if I back myself into a corner in a future book."



I doubt that the developers put that there as an excuse for their bad writing, it just so happens that it precedes a particularly badly written and tested part of the rules.

Having played a character with Regeration for a short time, I think the argument does not hold a lot of water... in the short term, one on one, regeneration will make a big difference... never forget that you still get to react against any attacks against you, which will generally reduce the effects to start with, then you will get to resist that damage, which will also reduce the effect upon you... and then at the end of the turn, you get a free Heal me up roll that no one else will get... where it will have problems is when you are against a GROUP of skilled opponents and you are by yourself... at that point, you may not fair any better than a normal human... which is to be expected... the big benefit is that even if you are 10 boxes into overflow, you STILL gert a chance to obtain that Regeneration roll before you are oficially dead (Page 296, Under Regeneration)... so no matter how many times you are shot, you still get that chance to survive... I would say that that is what edge is for for most mundanes, and the Regenerating character gets that as a default (of which he can ALSO add Edge to as well)...

And if you are going to make an aimed shot to perform the damage that you are talking about (and continue to quote), you should be using the targeting rule to negate armor (which is not easy to pull off, and generally guarantees that the character will not get hit out of a surprise situation, unless the atatcker is exceptionally skilled and the target is not)... Using called shot for specific effect is such that you would NEVER get the level of damage you are seeking... in that mode, the called shot provides a secondary effect, such as temporary blindness, limited mobility, knocking someone off a ledge, or some such (See page 161 of SR4A under Called Shots)...

It is GM Fiat for the effects that you are ascribing to the Called Shot Rules, and they are fine, as long as you recognize that it is indeed GM Fiat... Look at them again... each Bullet Point describes EXACTLY what it will allow... in no case does it say make a called shot and get an automatic effect that is CNS or Brain Damage... Page 296 provides the rules for Regeneration (and the Called shot that you are consistently touting is an example of GM Fiat) and using that rule, and your Insistence on a Called Shot to the Head (which is the Only example of a mundane solution)... I would use the First option on the Called Shot category to Netgate Armor, and then hope that I could make the shot and make it actually hit, which is not likely...

There are many instances in Real Life where someone is shot in the head and remains functional, even though by conventional wisdom they should be dead... it actually happens quite a lot... Bullets are not nearly as Devastating as the movies make them out to be...

Probably rambled on a bit, but hey...

Keep the Faith

re: the general population's knowledge of regeneration:
Shadowrun has a ton of bad trid and AR entertainment. If it's a scientifically proven fact that vamps and werewolves regenerate damage (and I can't imagine someone hasn't published that paper), the issue isn't going to be that people aren't aware these things regenerate... it's going to be that *everyone* knows they regenerate, and some people have wrong ideas about what works against 'em, how fast they can regen, etc. "Aren't silver bullets supposed to be for werewolves?" "No man, they're for vampires, didn't you see Blade 23?" The basic concept of "shapeshifters can regenerate" will be common knowledge, it's the specifics that people will be ignorant of.

re: CNS:
People can survive bullets hitting the central nervous system, but a CNS hit that leaves a person still functional immediately afterwards is the exception, not the rule. Ignoring the simple physical damage caused by the projectile, the compression and shock wave alone from a bullet passing through the brain or spinal column is enough to contuse or concuss the surrounding tissues to the point that the target isn't going to be doing too much in the next few minutes. Working as an EMT, I've worked with a lot of patients with traumatic brain and spine injuries... it's not something you can just shrug off. When it's a brand-new injury, even though the effects (altered mental status, unconciousness, paralysis) might be temporary, they're kind of hard to work around in a firefight.


It's not uncommon for a round to hit the skull at a shallow angle and slide along it, rather than penetrating into it. That's kind of what the skull is supposed to do. That type of hit isn't a CNS hit, however, it's a flesh wound, or maybe a skull fracture. Being hit in the head != being hit in the brain. The defensive handgun instructors I learned from a while back taught that when you aim at the head, you're aiming at a box about 2" tall by 4" wide, which would bracket the eyes when you're looking straight at someone. That target box is always over the center of mass of the head, which will give you the best chance of a perpendicular impact, and so the best chance at the round punching through bone. Fairly significant portions of the head can be damaged without causing an immediately life-threatening injury, since they don't contain brain or the blood supply to your brain.