Strike that reverse it. My intent was just to make it a flat P to S substitution instead of everything being 6S. I had reedited my post to remove some words I didn't like using and S to P probably worked in the original version, but my switch of wording didn't make it work and I missed it.

Ah, I thought you meant changing the 6S damage to 6P damage.

Stick 'n Shock ammo is not the best ammo. There isn't a best ammo. You can argue there is a best ammo at a certain time in a certain situation, but you cannot prove any one type is "the best".

Mesh

Well, you could, but currently there is no ammo that is so good as to be simply 'the best'. SnS ammo is only the best when talking about any weapon of assault rifle size or smaller, and dealing with a reasonable amount of armor on the target. If you're talking about high power weapons, SnS is not the best unless the target is very heavily armored.

I'll prove my point: You, light pistol, SnS, reasonable skills, firing at me, reasonable skills, behind a bulletproof window, using APDS ammo in my light pistol. If SnS were "the best", it would always be the best. It isn't. Think that example isn't striking enough? My armor jacket has rating 6 nonconductivity.

Mesh

SnS is still better in that example than any other form of ammo I could have, and you would be better off firing at me with SnS ammo than with APDS ammo in that situation.

Sure, I'm at a disadvantage, but it has nothing to do with SnS ammo not being the best option in that situation.

It has everything to do with the ammo in that situation. Mine can make it through the barrier. Yours can't. SnS loses again.

Mesh

Light pistol has damage of 4P, and with APDS an AP of -4. SnS round has a damage of 6 and an AP of -half, or in this case 4. Bulletproof glass has an armor rating of 8.

This means that the glass effectively has an armor value of 4 against both weapons. The SnS ammo however has 2 higher base damage, which is negated out by the 6 points of non-conductive armor. After that, the only question is how much armor we both have as to which is better in that case. So okay, you've managed to set up a situation in which the SnS ammo is only as good as APDS, not counting the fact that after the first time I hit you, you'll lose 2 DP, and thus lower your damage by .666 giving me the advantage.

True... Which means you choose your ammo for the situation... which is ultimately what most people do I would imagine.
At least, it is what I do... Both in and out of the game...

Actually, I was extremely harsh. Your STICK 'n Shock just stuck to the glass or bounced off. Every single shot. It does not cut barrier armor in half. It cuts impact armor in half. To penetrate a barrier, your DV must exceed the Armor Rating of the barrier. I'm not sure any amount of stun damage will accomplish that.

Mesh

this thread and others like it have convinced me that SnS rounds are generally the best round, 95% of the time.

I think I'll either just get rid of them or relegate them to high bore low range weapons like shotguns.

One area Stick and Shock has issues is hardened combat drones since they do not take stun damage. You still have a chance to short them out, but even a stock Steel Lynx will be throwing 13 dice vs. the Attacker's Net Hits in that test, which is very decent. I'd still rather have an APDS loaded assault rifle or longarm in such a situation, especially if the drones have been upgraded, but such weapons aren't really an option for all characters. Frankly, I consider Stick and Shock to be the best ammo type due to what it's capable of in a simple Morrisey Elan holdout pistol. Perhaps it is not overpowered, per se, but I would hold that it's over-centralized, since I can't think of many reasons why a runner shouldn't own Stick and Shock considering that it's legal and competitive against the vast majority of targets regardless of the weapon being used to fire it.

Actually, it forces the use of impact armor, and halves it. So either barrier armor is both impact and ballistic armor, and gets halved, or it technically doesn't have impact armor, and thus has no armor against the SnS ammo. Either way, SnS works fine against it.

Agreed. I have sympathy for the way you want to interpret things Mesh, but the fact of the matter is you're creating an artificial distinction here that isn't present in the RAW even if it is implied by the fluff name "Stick" and Shock. APDS is resisted by Ballistic and Stick and Shock is resisted by Impact by virtue of their attack types. There's no more basis for excluding Impact halving effects than there is for excluding Ballistic halving effects, and since APDS is shown to be a good penetrator in the example than I'm afraid it must be concluded that AP just works as advertised, period.

Again, nobody said S&S is better in *every* situation. It's simply better in *tons*/*most*/*nearly all*.

Shooting through barriers is one (rather obscure) example. Last session, in fact, I switched between regular ammo and S&S, because I was alternately shooting people and car tires.

You are incorrect. SR4a p166, Shooting Through Barriers. SnS has no chance to penetrate the glass' Armor Rating of 8. Read also p160's section on Impact Armor and p324's explanation of how SnS works: "This is a special adhesive projectile that sticks to the target..." No chance.

For every scenario you devise where a light weapon is more effective (nonlethally) with SnS than any other type of ammo, there is another scenario where it is impotent. There's no denying SnS wins the "Hey, this makes my holdout/light pistol better in a lot of situations!", but using that argument to paint SnS as "the best" is unfounded. Shadowrunners face a variety of situations that call for different responses. SnS is not the answer to every one. It is not "broken".

Mesh

If we're gonna get all RAW, does it actually *say* that S&S doesn't penetrate barriers exactly as *any* bullet does? Obviously, it makes no sense, but RAW != sense.

Again, S&S is the answer to the vast majority of situations. It doesn't *have* to be all, because 'most' is plenty. Plus easy to get, plus easy to explain, plus less expensive than some of the other powerful options…

Not really sure where I'm seeing the part where your argument is supported, Mesh. The Stick and Shock description is really your only prayer on that one, but you need to read that as an explicit exception (and hey, the argument can be made,) rather than as something that's in line with Impact armor halving effects being useless against Barriers. Keep in mind that Explosives are also Impact damage, for example, and I'd really like to think that Flechette rounds make it trickier to shoot through bulletproof glass, but if Impact AP modifiers are to be ignored than they are actually better than normal rounds, which, honestly would be pretty stupid. Remember, what is good for the goose must be good for the gander if your explanation is to make any sense.

AFAIK, all bullets perform equally against barriers, at least DV-wise. And "The weapon’s AP is ignored."

That's if you're trying to destroy the barrier, rather than shoot through it. It's one of the reasons why I think the barrier rules are kind of dumb, to be perfectly frank.

SR4a p160, Impact Armor: "electrical... apply half of the Impact armor rating (round up) to such damage" - If the round hits the runner, this is how it interacts with her armor.

SR4a p166, Shooting Through Barriers: "If the weapon's modified Damage Value does not exceed the barrier's Armor rating (modified by the weapon's AP), then the weapon is simply not strong enough to pierce the barrier, and the attack automatically fails." - Whether you believe a barrier's Armor Rating behaves simultaneously like Ballistic and Impact or whether you believe the note on p160 that says electrical damage only uses half the Impact armor rating and a barrier is not Impact, both beliefs are irrelevant. Electrical stun damage does not damage armored glass. Its DV to penetrate the glass must be 9P. Even 9Se won't cut it. So even if you cut the glass Armor Rating to 4, not even 5Se will penetrate it. Electrical stun damage does not damage armored glass.

Mesh

For real. They *are* dumb. But thanks, I misunderstood shooting through versus destroying in this conversation.

Do the rules actually *say* Physical damage to pierce, though? Again, logic is not sufficient. This is RAW.

Sorry, but nowhere does it say that the damage to bypass a barrier must be physical damage. It says only that the DV must be high enough, not that the DV need be physical.

Stun damage by RAW only damages things with a stun track monitor.

Mesh

That certainly should be the case. I'm only asking out of curiosity. I wouldn't let S&S pierce barriers either, but I play my session RA-NotStupid. Just wondering if RAW is broken here, too.

In any case, the ability of S&S to pierce or destroy barriers is almost totally irrelevant to its general superpoweredness.

Seriously though, if you're trying to argue that an ammunition type that says it works by sticking to you and electrocuting you can penetrate armored glass, then you're not really having a discussion. You're trying to win at all costs to prove your point.

You do what you want with SnS in your game. I've never had any problems with my players using it since it was invented. I'm all for effective non-lethal options as well. I love the professionalism of the team in Fade to Black.

Mesh

Yeah, but you aren't damaging the barrier, you're bypassing it. I know it is fairly stupid, but so are all the barrier rules. The point however is that by RAW, there is nothing that says that an S damage weapon cannot bypass the barrier and hit someone on the other side, because the only requirement for doing so is having a DV higher than the modified armor of the barrier.

Yeah, you're right, I'm fighting hard to prove that SnS rounds are overpowered, because they are. Even if this one was given to you as a win, it involved the use of a barrier and maxed out non-conductive armor. I'd hardly call this some great overturning of SnS ammo. It's still more useful in a light pistol the other 99.9% of the time it is in use.

Yeah, see, I'm fine with the notion that Stick and Shock won't penetrate because the description says it sticks to things. It's just this idea that impact ammo modifiers don't apply at all because barrier armor ratings are different from other armor ratings that I cannot tolerate. If you think the rules treat stick and shock as an exception, by all means treat it as an exception. Just don't argue that Impact weapons in general are different from Ballistic in regards to barriers when there's no evidence that we should treat them that way. That leads to dumb shenanigans as far as projectile and flechette/shot rounds are concerned.

And i see that as a good think, an actual reason for someone to use light pistols once in a while, as otherwise those suck donkey balls and there really isn't any reason to ever use light pistols.

Unless you want the concealability and don't mind the slightly weaker bullets.

And instead heavy pistols have no reason to be used. They are harder to conceal, but do the same damage with SnS rounds.


ExEx should be similarly unable to be shot through a barrier then because it would explode on contact with the barrier instead of the target.

Really the whole shooting through a barrier rules are fairly inane as shown by just how easy it is to shoot through 'bulletproof' glass. A mildly skilled person with a heavy pistol will only be slightly hindered by a layer of the stuff.

This is how it used to work in SR3.

For stun vs barriers, um can't you kick down a door? The rules as I remember them do not specify, and going with my kick down the door example I am glad they don't. Just have a high enough DV and you knock it down, or punch through it.

And yes there are corner cases where stick and shock does not reign supreme, I don't think anyone has argued otherwise.

Oh and a side note I have almost never seen Balistic and impact armor as equal in PCs and it is usually spread by more than 2 with form fitting.

Lined coat 6/4 FF level 2 4/1 = 10/5. Going against impact alone helps a lot, 1/2 the armor on top of that makes it even better. Even if they went with the secure PPC stuff on top which most of the players I know don't do that would be 12/9 armor then which still favors ballistic by 3. And if they are going to put on a helmet then they can go to FF level 3 and the spread remains the same.

I would call that them being "stupid" and it's completdly okey if they get shafted for having low impact armor.
My character are much more likely to have 10/10 armor then 12/9.
My players are "stupid" and gimp them self by having low impact armor isn't exactly a good argument for S&S being better then anythink else

It's not what your characters would have, it's what's common in the game world. In the game world, Impact is usually lower (often much lower) for the class of opponents in a normal game. Street level sometimes reverses this (leathers, etc.), but it's the overall situation.

Even for PCs (which we're not really talking about anyway) generally have higher B than I. As was already explained to you, it's simply much easier to raise B, and hard to keep the two equal with the stacking rules. It's not impossible, no.

Yeah, I'm sorry, but not everyone runs with the assumption that every Sixth worlder out there straps on a two or three layer non-conductive armor system every morning. If you use the grunt rules as a guideline, then it's easy to come to the conclusion that your average Lone Star motorcycle jockey is going to be running with an Armored Jacket and an 0/2 helmet, netting him an 8/8 armor rating. Respectable, but still definitely in eggs-armed-with-hammers territory.

I've been away for awhile. Did they do away with the quality that can be put on armor, or am i just misremembering, that at one point there was a factor of if the base power of the attack didn't exceed the armor rating (whether due to natural power or AP mods) that the attack didn't do any damage?

It just seems odd that you could fire a burst or rockandrollauto of S/S rounds at a guy in nonconductive military/security armor and have that actually work. Or dual fire doubletaps. I can see where firing more means you might actually land a hit, but isn't the intent of the 'burst/auto adds DV to attacks, but not vs armor calcs' to show that sure you managed to land a hit, but it doesn't suddenly make that shot more effective and able to do MASSIVE DAMAGE ROWR! Isn't that sorta what called shots are for?

Most sample grunts have Impact at least 2 lower than B, yes. The standard is 6/4 or 8/6, and 10/8 for the Full Suit guys. Every now and then, one might be wearing a helmet, esp. the Full Suit-ers. This in no way refutes my statements.

If anything (since it was mentioned before), PCs are more likely to have lower Impact, because they *will* be layering, and are less likely to have helmets.

That's the P-to-S rule, Voran, yes. There's no S-to-nothing. You're talking about Hardened Armor, which is how vehicles work.

Huh, guess that seems a little odd, so with an abusive enough dice pool, you could take out a space marine with a LMG that fires bb's and overload their stun track?

Assuming they didn't soak the Stun damage, yes. Except a Space Marine doesn't exist, so we don't know if his armor counts as Hardened (SR3 had a rule for this). But, even if you beat their soak, you'd have to fill their stun track *and* their physical (if you wanted them actually dead). This is an issue for tanks with Pain Editors.

An up-armored Steel Lynx is another opponent you don't really want to try facing down with a pea shooter either. Drones don't take stun, period.

Hm, how feasible would ..I dunno...tesla armor be? I mean you have nonconductive armor, how difficult would it be to have armor that's setup to drain away incoming electrical charge into its own discharge batteries. Basically it uses shock rounds to recharge its own stun gloves or something.

I'd imagine the problem would be similar to the problems faced with trying to get energy out of a lightning bolt, it's just too much too quickly to properly absorb. It'd also be one of those game balance things, the reason that non-conductive armor only provides a bonus, instead of negating electric attacks entirely.

Doesn't help that the targeting locations/called shot rules are a bit of a hodge podge at best and that things run cleanest when you accept how abstract things are and describe the events with a free hand. Thus taking a 6+ net hit heavy pistol shot and a crappy armor soak roll can be handwaved away as getting hit in the neck or a vest outright failing or whatever. Normally I can just bs my way to whatever explanation makes the most sense with little problems by way of sniff test, but I do find it somewhat annoying that there isn't really anything you can do about the negative 2 penalty inflicted by stick and shock. Even if your non-conductive milspec lets you soak the attack completely the victim is still left with a rather nasty chunk of disorientation. I guess you just have to roll with the being disrupted but not actually harmed explanation, as weird as that feels.

Well... You could always rule that if the SnS does no damage whatsoever then it has no secondary effect either...

Give us your 10/10 armor spread and lets see how reasonable it is to wear. And unless your body can't hack it why aren't you getting the 12 B? I'd much rather have 12/9 than 10/10 since oh most things go against B, and unless I am being hit by an Troll or some modded out freak or facing stick and shock the Ballistic DV numbers will be higher.

And by the way I don't appreciate the insults, you want to disagree with my norms because you guys play differently go for it. But its not stupid, you are just being a dick.

There are multiple ways to do that, buit my Sasha for example has the full steampunk line with gellpacks and a couple of PPP pieces.

Actually there are quite a lot of thinks that go against impact and many of those hurt hard, especially if you gimped your impact armor.

Damm i guess next time i neeed to use more smileys, i kinda tought that the quote marks around stupid and the wink smiley in the end would be enought to convey the tone i was going for, but i guess thats a bad assumtion when communicating over the internet.

Cool, I wouldn't go with gel packs because they are obvious. And also they have equal B/I improvement so unless you start with something like the urban explore jumpsuit it stays spread out. And I guess the PPP pieces will reduce that spread to 0 but only if you don't take form fitting and I can't see why someone who is trying to max out wouldn't.



There are things that go against impact, but they are IMO much less frequent than ballistic attacks. Though that is obviously something different from table to table. But I also just don't see not having every impact booster gimping yourself in impact. This is a roleplaying game not a tactical combat game, why does every character stat out with all the PPP stuff etc. It actually seems like something only a small percentage of the team would use due to different knowledge levels and skill sets. Further more virtually every NPC character I've seen in adventures and books has better ballistic than impact and most don't stat out the full FF, PPP etc backup so it doesn't seem to fit the setting to me to say its gimped if not maxed out.



Sorry for misreading you then.

Actually thats the nice think about steampunk line, it has even ballistic and impact armor(unless you take dressing gown instead of a corset/vest) and thats why she only has the 2 PPP pieces that are +1/+1.

Yeah there are more thinks that go agains ballistic, but having a slower impact armor makes thinks like shotguns loaded with shotshell(fletchette) must more effective then they are othervise getting +2DV and +5AP is kind not worth it, but if the target gimbep their impact armor value and has it 3 lower then their ballistic, then its an effective +2DV and only +2AP witch is pretty damm good.
And i would see shotguns as quite common.