I have yet to run a game using 4E. But I have run 2E extensively and some 3E.

I just finished up reading the 4E book and something doesn't sit well with me. I'm sure house rules are out there and I would like to hear that they are.

See if I got this right. If a character has a body of 5. and another has a body of 3 but has a leather jacket. and both get shot in the chest with a Ruger super warhawk. the first guy still has 5 to resist and the second is the same as naked.
The body's natural toughness is better than armor at stopping a bullet?

An average leather jacket barely affects a bullet passing through it (especially when it's a magnum round). You'd have to go with one of the thicker jackets that they sell for riding motorcycles before you start to see a significant impact on how much damage a bullet does.

You ever shot a gun at leather? The bullet barely even notices.

Hell, you can stab through leather with a pencil.

Well I'm just trying to make sense of the rules. Not really comparing armor to armor.
Reason why I ask is I like to start games at street level. I'm just worried that low armor levels will make the system a bit off with characters with high body.

Well I'm just trying to make sense of the rules. Not really comparing armor to armor.
Reason why I ask is I like to start games at street level. I'm just worried that low armor levels will make the system a bit off with characters with high body.

He's talking about a 2/2 leather jacket. In this case, both PCs resist damage with with the same dice pool. What armor will do is turn P (killing) damage into S(tun) damage IF the DV after armor pierce mods but before net hit/autofire bonuses is LESS than the armor value.

so the 5 body resists full...but the AP -2 takes away the 2 armor from the leather jacket. leaving guy 2 with just his body to resist.

So having a high body is more powerful at stopping a bullet than armor is? because armor pierce is subtracted from armor but not body. Or am I wrong?

IS there even a single weapon that does less than 3 points of damage?

*shrug*. Armor is subject to AP, but I wouldn't say it's an imbalance between Body and Armor. Anyone can get both, and they require many various methods to do so. As said above, armor can reduce damage to Stun (Body can't), etc.

And I wouldn't say 'stopping the bullet'. Body is resistance.

Um. Needles, maybe? Weak melee attacks. Things like that.

Actually you include the net hits in the DV when determining stun (S) or physical (P) damage.

At street level use different guns, like shotguns with Flechette.... the leather jacket gets +5 armor against those so now guy 2 is rolling 10 dice.

If you want to stick to pistols, have the gangers use light pistols or machine pistols with regular ammo. Someone has a post a few weeks ago about running a street game and limiting initial purchases to availability 8 or less. I think you can still get AK-97's for that "AK's for EVERYONE!".

A human punching someone.



Correct (and for clarification: but not burst fire). People always seem to get this messed up.

*nods* so that's a no then, got it.

Knifes and Clubs from STR 1 or 2 Guys
Razors with STR 1 or 2
Shuriken and Throwing Knifes
Why do you ask ?

HokaHey
Medicineman

yeah, because body means health, e.g. how well you can handle infected wounds etc.
and body is more expensive to get

In all RPGs, I now see hit points not so much as damage as pain tolerance. Thinking real-world rather than numbers, the gunshot damages Body 5 and Body 3 similarly. Body 3 just feels a lot more pain, thus takes pain modifiers a lot faster than Body 5. Once Body 3 takes too much pain, he passes out, when Body 5 could keep going.

That's my interpretation.

Low-strength melee punches.

from kids.

ghrarhble doublepost

But kids with bone lacing, or it'd be Stun already.

Stahlseele only asked for Damage of less than 3 not wether ist P or S
if it would've been 3 or Less on could add
Holdout and Light Pistol with Gel Ammo,Polearms & STR 1 or 2,Wristblades,Handblades
and some more

HokaHey
Medicineman

Point for point, yes, Body is better at resisting the negative effects of damage. It applies against more tests and it won't be reduced by specialty ammunition or elemental damage. But the thing is, you can get a point of armor a heck of a lot easier than you can get a point of Body, and armor is actually very cheap in the SR4 world. Bike Racing armor, armored clothing and lightweight wrap Armor Vests only set you back about 500-600 nuyen and provide far more protection than a leather jacket will. Unless things are really, really low powered, a lot of gangers will be opting for the vests and armor jackets rather than saving the 200 nuyen to go with a cheap piece of synthleather.

That's for true. I can roll down to Armor Joe's Quickie Plate Shack and get my ass 8 ballistic and 6 impact in a jacket for a pittance. I'd pay out the ass to ramp my Body up to 8. *OR* 6, hell. I'm not a damage sponge...

Plus, it's important to look at these rules in context. Quite frankly, you won't see even unaugmented trolls completely soaking heavy pistol damage very often without the use of Edge or a rather nice roll. So a naked person with no cyber armor won't really be "stopping" any bullets with their skin any time soon. And further, it's best to approach things with the understanding that the system doesn't seem to actually track every li'l bruise, scratch or flesh wound that happens to your runner. Rather, a damage resistance roll is simply a process that figures out much closer you are to being killed or or at least slown down by the stuff that just happened to you, with some facets of a given wound apparently being considered inconsequential sometimes-- after all, if you get hit with a Melee Attack to Knock Down the game just figures you didn't take any damage despite your butt being introduced to the ground by force. In other words, Body 5 characters get hurt like everyone else. They just ain't got time to bleed.

Yes you got the rules right, but your ablying them to a highly improbable situation, its much more likely that the hight body guy will also have more armor then the one with the lower body.
Shooting naked people isnt exactly a common situation in shadowrun.

It had to be P instead of S because the context was 'armor reduces P to S'.

If you're being shot at, and you have no armor, or even just a stylish leather jacket, then you're in trouble no matter how you slice it.

But, yeah, Body is great. One of the most important stats for nearly every character.

Ok, thanks for all the replys every one.