The rules for damage boxes don't seem to mesh well with the graphic laid out in any version of the SR4 Character sheet, and I'm confused.

The Physical track has 18 boxes. The Stun track has 12. However: the corebook says that you should have 8 plus half of augmented body/willpower, rounded up, plus an additional box for each cyberlimb.

So let's say you have a troll with four cyberlimbs and maxed out body augmentation. That's 15 body points, half of which is 8 (rounded up). That's sixteen boxes on the damage track, plus the four for the cyberlimbs, making a total of 20. Add to that the three you have to soak before actually dying, and that's a possible 23 boxes that can be crossed out.

And what if the troll is low pain tolerant? For every two boxes of damage, he suffers a -1 modifier. So you'd be down to -10 before all of his boxes were full, and the damage track only goes to -6. So what does this mean? (There are similar scenarios for stun damage, but you get my idea by this point.)

Does the player create an all-new damage track with 23 boxes and a maximum modifier of -10? Or does he just keel over at 18 boxes (and die when the imaginary extra three get theoretically filled)?

Likewise, is 12 the most stun damage you can take without high pain tolerance? According to the rules, max augmented willpower is 10, raising the box count to 13 - and that doesn't even take into account the cyberlimb bonus.

That. And you will find it very rare to have a char that runs into that problem in the first place.

Remember, you can get another 2 points on your physical condition track if you also spring for the cybertorso and the cyberskull.

Assuming you have a body 3 and willpower 3 and no cyberlimbs, nothing funny or awesome, you have 10 boxes of physical and stun. What I usually do in such an instance is fill in all but the first 10 boxes.

If you have an inordinately large number of boxes inherent to the sheet, nearly everyone will have to fill most of them in, but if you only have 10 for each side, everyone with more will have to make new sheets. I think the number of boxes that they have now is reasonable for most characters.

anyone here played the old battletech and make your own custom mechs? remember that sheet that had the max number of armour bubbles, and you had to fill in all the ones you weren't using?

Whether you just scribbled them in, or did it like a careful scantron test, all depended on if it was a 1-shot game or a campaign.

Actually, the Overflow Track is [Body], not [3]. And your example is not extreme enough

Troll with augmented Body of 18, with 5 Cyberlimbs, & two ranks of Tough as Nails (easily doable, & even within character generation limits - I think, would have to double check cyberlimb availability).

Physical Damage Track of 24 ( 8 + [18/2] + 5 + 2), with an Overflow Track of 18, and you have 42 boxes to fill before death, & a maximum Wound Modifier of -8.



There are reasons I don't use the published character sheets, & this is one of them.





Side note: I do not like how Wound Modifiers are done, as someone capable of taking greater damage suffers greater penalties for it despite the comparative level of harm being the same (50% to 50%, for example). A House Rule I would suggest, but have not actually used [yet], would be the last box on the Damage Track imposes a -6 Wound Modifier, with every 3 boxes prior imposing -3 & -1. Thus, for someone with a Damage Track of 9, it would look like:
0-2: -0
3-5: -1
6-8: -3
9+: -6

On someone with a Damage Track of 14, it would look like:
0-7: -0
8-10: -1
11-13: -3
14+: -6

The rulebook says that the max augmented body for a troll is 15. How can you get 18?

From what I'm getting it looks like a maxed out Troll with four cyberlimbs, a cybertorso, a cyberskull, three levels of Tough as Nails is the best it gets? That adds up to a total of 41 Physical Boxes (with the 42nd being the killing blow?).

Is there any way to get more than 13 boxes on the Stun Damage Track?

metagenic attribute boost (via surge), genetic optimisation, and exceptional attribute can all increase the troll's natural maximum. any 2 of them are sufficient to get augmented max for body up to 18.

It looks like you're trying to take what the damage resistance test does and double it up in the condition monitor.

The size of a character's damage track represents the amount of stress his body needs to suffer before meltdown. Three boxes recorded on a damage track of 10 is representing exactly the same degree of wounding as is represented by three boxes on a damage track of 15. High body rating doesn't equate to high pain tolerance, it just means you incur less damage from the same impacts and you can continue to function at higher degrees of damage. It also means you heal faster, so having a high body rating is already working overtime for you.

Your idea is interesting, but do you really think that the kind of assault that would manage to cause 7 boxes of damage to a guy with Body of 12+ wouldn't slow them down? Would you even want that to be true in your game?

So the next time you see a troll limping around at -5 complaining that the 18-inch pixie doesn't have this problem, just remind him that said pixie became a smear on the asphalt hours earlier.

Stun Damage Track: is there any circumstance in which it would be more than 13 boxes?

Drugs ?
Possession Spirit ?

with 2 possible Dances
Medicineman