The relationship between Stun and Physical damage has got me thinking.

There are a few things about it that make sense-- it's easier to knock someone out than to make them faint from blood loss or traumatic shock. But mechanically I have some concerns.

Particularly, the fact that they are separate tracks. Taking damage that's less than the rating of your armor deals stun damage, as does electrocution, any and all types of Drain, and a multitude of other things. There are a lot of situations where your Stun track is in trouble but nobody is going to touch your Physical track. This feels wrong to me-- that in some situations you would greatly prefer to take Physical instead of Stun.

Besides, how does it make sense for bullets to deal Stun damage to you?

Bullets that do not penetrate the armor do not penetrrate the skin, thus Stun Damage (you are greatly more likely to survive such things, but they could become life threatening over time if you are not aware enough to get out of the hail of bullets)...

Just picking a nit here, but not all types of Drain/Fading are stun... Just sayin'

Mechanically, yes, sometimes it is preferrable to take Physical instead of stun damage, however, fluff wise, it is never a good idea to make that decision in my opinion

Keep the Faith

I think it's realistic that you don't always get to decide if you'd rather take a sixth punch to the jaw, or a 1 box knife slash to the forearm.

the lower your body, the more likely that you will take physical damage. the higher your body, the more opportunity you have to take stun instead.

so, with a body of 8 i could easily get 19/17 armor(FFBA, securetech PPP, armor with gel packs, some cyber), and roll 30 dice to soak ballistic damage. sure the damage that i dont soak will go to my stun track, but the upside is that i get a LOT of dice to roll soak. enough to buy 7 hits, or roll an average of 10.

stun is because the armor is acting to spread the impact of the bullet(or blade) over a larger area, in a way that will hurt and bruise but wont penetrate and make you bleed out. its the physics of an inelastic collision- the energy has to go somewhere, and the larger the surface area its spreads across the less force at any given point.

as for dealing body, lets say i want to do a called shot(to vitals +4DV) with narrow BF from an shotgun. if i load flechettes then i have a BETTER chance to hit the physical track, as impact armor is usually lower than ballistic armor in SR4, as well as doing more overall damage. 7+2(f)+2(burst)+4(called shot)= 15 power+net to hit successes of 1+. so at least 16 power vs the targets impact armor +2. on the other hand if i load EX-EX, then its 16 vs targets ballistic armor -2. the better my net to hit, the more likely i am to do physical damage. and then the target has to roll to soak, and 30 dice wont soak enough on average for that. combat shotguns are deadly.

if your target has a 'reasonable' amount of armor like just an armored jacket, your basic shotgun with flechette ammo will do body. if your target is well armored, then even BF and called shots wont do enough to do P instead of S. unless you use a long or full burst, then someone is gonna end up dead in a hurry.

in the end, remember that stun heals a lot faster than physical.

Exactly. Mechanically, certain situations will drain your Stun in no time. Extremely heavy armor becomes a liability not because of any side effects of wearing massive armor but because it protects you TOO WELL. Rolling well and nailing a narrow burst to the center of mass at an opponent who's already taken heavy damage is less likely to drop him than if you hadn't been trying so hard to kill him.

But, that happens... does not mean that the target would prefer that you actually inflict Physical Damage, especially since they have gone so far out of their way to pretty much insure that incomming damage is Stun... better to live and Fight another day than to bleed out all over the place...

Keep the Faith

QFT. Stun damage can tend to take a person out of the fight faster, but remember that phsycial damage takes *a lot* more time to heal. Not to mention, if you take 7+ boxes of physical, you generally end up having something important go missing, or at least damaged.

This seems pretty realistic, IMO.

The last time this came up, I proposed a set of FBA connected to a biomonitor with automatic quick-release straps so that when your stun track got below a certain level, it would automatically fall off, exposing you to physical damage instead.

Evilest stripe of metagaming.

if you have a biomoniter, then its a simple thing to hook one more component to the system and have the system give you drugs instead. an auto-injector is something that can fit into your armors capacity, and dose you with the right drug when needed. heck, you could include multiple auto-injectors in one suit, set to work at different times. stim-patch for when your stun track is above X, trauma patch for when your physical track is above Y. keep in the fight longer and stay alive longer without any 'wardrobe malfunctions'

also cheaper to mod into the armor.

This is the kind of stuff I would expect to see in a higher end security force. The old guy on the front desk minding the place might just have a pistol and a jacket but the wild boys he calls in when he's pinned down by runner fire would be faster tougher and last longer in a straight up fight. This would be a cheap way to make sure they are.

Rocky alt ending
Announcer: "Yes, Rocky might be going down this time after that pummeling from Apollo. He's staggering...spinning...." !KAVOOM! "Brilliant...his manager Mick just remote detonated the Italian Stallion's arm clean off!!! Look at him roll in with those left jabs! Apollo's down and unconscious!!! Rocky WINS!"

Of course, I doubt that ending would have netted best picture Oscar for Rocky...

Except stim patches don't heal stun damage - they just give you pain resistance for it. You'll still pass out when your track is full.

Combat drugs that add willpower, however...


And really...how is losing 10+ soak dice going to help, exactly?

Because you'd only be horribly wounded, instead of actually passing out. *Of course* it's insane and would never, ever happen in the game, but that's the funny old mechanic we know and love.

Say. i've been wondering - how are wound penalties from stun and physical condition monitors worked out? Each 3, on each track, gives a -1? Meaning a character who's been beat the heck up on both tracks suffers a pretty substantial penalty?

This is correct.

If a character has taken 3 boxes of stun and 3 boxes of physical (both of which have a -1 DP modifier) then you are at -2DP.

Oh, good. I figured that's the way it worked. I'm going to have to start mixing up blackout and attack in cybercombat to take advantage of that. And, hey, thanks for the quick reply.

Frankly, it's not really worth it - just keep hitting them until they drop. The quicker you can get the fight over with, the better.

The stacking DP penalties, in my experience, mostly serve to work against PCs in the long run - they go from one fight in which they took S damage to another in which they take P, and suddenly they're in two worlds of hurt.