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.