So what other places do you believe the FAQs are wrong?

I would have to read over it again. I do remember seeing several "bad rulings" on it. I would be happy, when I have time, to read it over and point out the specific examples, provided someone else doesn't beat me to the punch.

Look at the stats on SR4 railguns. AP = (X/2)-Y Where X is the armor of the target, and Y is some number taken off AFTER already 1/2ing the armor. The target would have to be in the middle of an armored vault for it to make much of a difference. A decent gauss gun would do ~12P, ap (1/2) - 6. So unless you're going through load bearing or armored walls, the round won't slow down at all.

Sure enough, though you can have information remain if you so choose... says so right in the Description of the Quality.

Actually, it will... Physics dictates that it is so...

Yeah, but there's no stats for physics.

The guass round will keep going until some other Barrier stops it.
.... though I think each target behind a wall gets to include the walls armor as a bonus. After a few walls, there should be a decent sized armor value to halve and -6. After a few more, it should finally plink off.

Indeed, which means the ammo/round is useless after it penetrates a few load bearing walls, as I could purchase automatic hits to not take damage... 2 Load bearing walls at Rating 32 Barriers provides an immediate 8 points of reduced damage, not counting any other walls or personal armor.

And I would actually apply the damage to each wall independantly, and blead off damage as it progressed rather than just letting it go through 30 walls to impact a target... that way leads madness...

Specializations, for one. The other one that lets Cellular Repair heal essence loss from HMHVV, well, if you think the FAQ supercedes rules just because its new means that Ghouls can benefit from it. Cause...ghoulitude does have essence loss from hmhvv!

You have to keep in mind that the FAQ was written in 2006, for shadowrun 4th.

Then along came anniversary edition, in 2009, and changed a bunch of minor rules in the background. You probably don't even know it, but scatter, mystic adepts, karma cost for attributes, skillwires, bows, and a handful of other minor things got updated.

THEN they made a NEW faq. And just tacked it on the end of the old faq, without bothering to check if any of the old rulings were still relevant.

So now we have a bunch of new users going 'BUT THE FAQ SEZ THIS, YOU'RE WRONG!' because catalyst is too fucking lazy to datestamp their FAQ answers.
Yes, the FAQ does say stuff, but its also often contradictory and throwing the game back half an edition because its four years out of date, and the rules have changed since then.
When in doubt, use the 4A rulebook. Its newer.

you realize regular rifle rounds go through quite a few walls before they slow down much? For what a Gauss rifle is supposed to be I would think it would go through most buildings before slowing down much. Buildings don't stop bullets well. to stop high velocity high density low cross section projectiles it takes fancy armor.

As far as I know the rules for specializations did not change in this regard between 4e and 4A. I think the FAQ is old argument gets played when ever someone disagrees with the FAQ. It may apply sometimes but sometimes it does not.

Yeah, but I don't care about how bullets work in real life. I know they go through walls just fine. But shadowrun is a fantasy game with fictional game mechanics. But now i'm curious how far it does penetrate.



Its worth mentioning that rating 32 barriers don't exist. Barriers have armor and structure, but not a general rating. Rating 32 is reserved for blast bunkers and nuclear fallout shelters, and i think its a little unfair to slap on a load bearing wall. Those are supposed to be very very sturdy, but not necessarily armored. Putting it at 32 puts that wall into 'even explosives can't kill it' range.

Lets think this through. A gauss rifle hits for 9P+ nethits at AP Half -2 (and can't get any more from ammo, because it uses gauss cannon rounds, sadly). As an Assault Cannon class weapon, it also has an extreme range of 1500 meters. (0.93 miles with a 400 nuyen imaging scope with zoom is scary when you think about it.)
Average material, such as ballistic glass, is armor 4 and structure 5.
Heavy material, such as hardwood, is 6 armor/7 structure.
Reinforced, such as security doors, armored glass, or kevlar wallboards is 12armor/11 structure
Structural, such as blick or plascrete 12 arm/11 struct.
Heavy Structural, such as concrete or metal beams is 16Arm/13Str
Armored/Reinforced, such as reinforced concrete 24Arm/15St

I think its fair to say that in the course of shooting through a building that Average through Heavy Structural is going to be the most common material.
When you shoot through a barrier, the weapon damage must be > than the barriers armor, but you apply AP first. Then, the target behind the wall gets the first barriers modified armor to its own. Structure doesn't come into it at all.

So a gauss rifle with one net hit at 10P shoots an Armored Material. 24 armor gets halved to 12, -4 to 8, which doesn't stop the round at all.
Unsurprisingly, on the other side of the room, there's another wall made of the same stuff, because rooms tend to have four walls. 24 armor + 8 armor is 32 armor, which gets halved to 16, then -4 to 12. the second wall stops the round.
On the other hand, a gauss rifle with 4 net hits(which isn't too hard to do with a specialty, a decent agility, and an external smartlink/laser sight, or even edge) would go through the wall. 3 hits isn't enough, because 9+3=12, which isn't MORE than the second walls modified armor.

So yeah. 4 hits on an gauss rifle enables Energizer Bunny mode. The round just keeps going, and going, and going....

Um and again that is what FAQS are for. There are for the places where things are not explicitly stated. If it is explicitly stated you do not need a FAQ, unless it is poorly worded. What force you can cast spells at is not explicitly stated people are interpreting it from a general rule. The FAQ if this is what the FAQ is currently intended to be does not directly contradict the RAW it is clarifying a general rule.

FAQ ain't raw.
Errata is RAW.
As long as something is not errataed, it is, per definitionem, RAW even if the FAQ states the complete opposite.

This has gotten me thinking, does the AP apply multiple times? Yeah, the AP is -half -6, but after it has applied AP to the first wall, does it get to apply AP again to the next wall (or even the target)? If it doesn't get to apply AP multiple times, then yeah, a few walls will quickly stop a round of any kind of weapon, because after a few walls the target will have 40+ points of armor.

Personally I don't see why AP would get to apply multiple times. AP doesn't apply multiple times when you stack armor after all.

But general rules aren't RAW for every situation that you can possibly imagine applying. When you have to interpret a general rule and figure out if it applies or not because it is not explicitly stated it is not RAW unless it ever gets clarified. It is just your tables interpretation of a general rule. And this is exactly what FAQs are supposed to deal with.

But still, FAQ is not RAW.
It's the INTENT of a rule as the one writing the FAQ thought it was supposed to be . .
Which is not neccesarely the intent the one who wrote the rule originally had in mind.
Which might be, again, something completely different than what you are reading into it.
Rules are RAW. Errata is RAW. FAQ is . . at best . . someone trying to explain a rule . .
And at worst, a complete contradiction of both a rule and an earlier errata to the rule.

No, one of the new FAQ rulings about two-weapon shooting changes Specializations to be included in the split, which is directly in contradiction to the 4A rulebook, which says that only Att+Skill are split, and that Specializations add to each -test- where they apply, and don't actually raise the skill they're on.

Yes, shooting through barriers rule does not change the AP of the weapon at all. It never goes away. The only thing I can think of that would reduce the AP is Smart armor. But yeah. AP represents how hard a round penetrates a targets. I don't see why a bullets AP would magically stop working when it goes through any barrier - because glass, plywood, cloth hanging, and other things that really don't stop bullets also have barrier ratings. Really, really weak barrier ratings, and your rule for eliminating the RP would have to apply to ALL barriers - or else it wouldn't make sense.

Bringing up stacked armor is a silly arguement becase armor doesn't stack in 4th edition.(you use the best you're wearing). FFBA is a -single- exception.

Well the ammo would be deforming upon striking each barrier giving it different characteristics so I could see an argument logically how it only applies once. I don't feel like reading all the rules on this area to find out since I don't think it will come into play enough for me to care.

Indeed I do... Yes rounds can penetrate... I do not argue that... My point is that those walls, that the round is penetrating, have an effect on the further penetration of the round... eventually (after a wall or two) the round has no more energy to punch through any longer, and it lodges in the wall.

Just because the rules do not spell that out in the mechanics of the game does not mean that it does not happen. If a GM tried to pull such a thing, I would comment on it... It breaks verisimilitude for the infinite wall penetrating round to continue to do so until it actually hits a person, then stops... That is a bunch of crap, and I am sure that you know that as well...

I will use your numbers (Though note that your AP is off, you quoted -2, but used -4)... just a note...

But that round (with 4 Net Hits; 13 Damage) would then stop at the 3rd Wall, as it has expended its vast amount of energy on the 1st wall (Easily Penetrated) and the 2nd Wall (Not So easily penetrated on that one, but still through), so the 3rd wall will stop it (Remember, add the values of the previous walls armor to the next)... After all, 24/2-4 = 8; 24+8=32/2-4 Equal 12; 32+12/2-4=18, which stops the round according to your calculations. Simple math at that point...

Just Sayin'

No, I'm not saying one barrier takes all the AP. I'm saying that if you have an AP of 5 on the bullet, and the first barrier has an armor of 3, then 3 of the AP gets used up, and when it strikes the next target/barrier, it only has 2 AP remaining. This would essentially be the same as the AP 'running out' as it goes through the armor that the character is wearing. I think it makes more sense, as the bullet goes through more barriers, it should have less and less penetrating power. Sure, a bullet can go through a sheet of plywood no problem, but put a dozen sheets of plywood in the way, and you might have something that helps out.

But Shinobi, I think that you are missing the point, especially about the Limits for the Mystic Adept... It is specifically stated in the RAW (SR4A Rulebook) what it allows... the FAQ contradicts this... therefore, since the FAQ is not RAW (It is not an errata), RAW supersedes...

Seems I misunderstood you.

Per RAW, it is the armor rating of the barrier that is added to the target's armor, not the modified armor value. This is equivalent to apply AP only once, but the other way around: instead of "running out" of AP after the first wall, AP is only applied on the last wall. In your example, you should add 24 to the second wall, not 8, then apply the Gauss cannon -half and AP.

I think that as long as you are using the rules to shoot something through barriers, you should check only once, on the final target. If there are several barriers, you add all the armor ratings together, then apply AP and check for penetration. More detailed computations would only tell you which barrier stopped the bullet, but who cares about that?

But an interesting thing happens if you put a cubical wall in each room. Suddenly it goes:
24/2-4 = 8; 1+8=9/2-4 = 0; 24/2-4 = 8;..... forever

So, the addition of a weak barrier actually gives the bullet more energy each time it passes through it O.o

This is why I suggested that AP gets 'used up' as it passes through barriers.

Yeah, thats silly, and not supported by the rules. The shooting through barrier rules checks the weapons AP. So yes! A barrier does use up all AP.
Anddd it gets it back, fresh and new at its full value for the next barrier, because the AP value hasn't changed. If you can find it within the rules, please go ahead, but you wont.

I'm fairly sure you're confusing the Shooting Through Barriers rules and the Destroying Barriers Rules. Destroying barriers do indeed ignore weapon AP, and brings the Structure rating into play. The shooting through barriers rule doesn't care about either of those things, because its a lot easier to put a bullet sized hole in the wall than it is to blow a wall the heck up.
The fact is, a gauss cannon sucks at blowing meter size holes through walls. its a DV of 2(ecause one bullet) + net hits, soaked by 2x armor (which would be halved), with damage carrying over to the Structure. You make 1 square meter hole per increment of [Structure rating] past its max.
To compare, a machinegun with explosive ammo on full burst blows walls down no problem. 2DV per bullet, doubled to 4dv per bullet because its an explosive, with 3-10 in a burst? yeah, that wall's doing DOWN.

Additionally, in the case of the railgun, its clause about "Halve all armor but smart armor against the gauss rifle(before applying the AP modifier)" is entirely unaffected, because its not part of the armor penetration rules. Its a property of the weapon intself.

But that isn't how the rules describe it. What happens is the bullet is fired at the barrier, the AP lowers the armor of the barrier, damage is check against barrier armor to ensure it passes through, then it hits the target, which gets the remaining barrier armor as bonus armor. The description doesn't however go on to say weather or not the AP gets applied to any personal armor the person might have been wearing at the time, or what happens if there is a second barrier in the way.

not quite true. I thought that at first - then read the provided example in 4A. The executive behind the door does, indeed, get Modified Door Armor to his soak test.

Also, no, RAW you dont apply each barrier consecutively - the barrier rules only check for Current Wall, and the one Behind it. Armor does carry over, slightly, but not directly: The first wall's modified armor is a bonus to the second walls(if it isn't eliminated completely).
Now that I think about it, the modified armor would continue to grow slowly each consecutive barrier, as long as there's one or two left over after the round passes through.

I never said it was in the rules. I said this would be a good way to deal with it because the rules never actually say what happens. The rules fail to mention if the AP on a bullet applies to the target's personal armor, they fail to mention what happens if multiple barriers are involved. They quite simply don't provide an answer one way or the other. It does however seem stupid to allow a bullet to go through an infinite number of barriers with no penalty just because they happen to have an armor rating equal to or lower than the AP of the bullet. A sniper rifle with APDS rounds could, in theory, with the way you want to read the rules, travel through over 1km of armored glass and hit its target with no adverse effects.

No, I'm not, at all

Yes it does. The example quite clearly shows that the person being shot through the door has to resist certain damage, and gets a point of bonus armor.
It does not change the rules for soaking damage in any way, which is what you're arguing.
AP is not used it. You're basically saying it magically vanishes. Thats wrong.
The relevant AP modifier applies in every situation the AP value is checked. It is not used up. It does not apply once. It does not go away. AP does not vanish into the ether if you hit more than one person with Suppressive fire.
If an armor roll says its modified by AP, then its modified by the AP of the weapon. You apply it in any situation it is called for. The only way it can go away is if it is reduced to 0. Which is entirely possible with some ammo and gun combinations.

You need to read this stuff before interjecting common sense into it. This is a world of fictional fantasty game mechanics. I don't care how it works in real life.

It is one interpetation that a FAQ is not an errata by you, where others see it as RAW clarification and expansion of the rules beyond the Errata for written rules.

It's rules as written in the FAQ, Errata and Books.

Some just pick and choose what they want to use, in their house rules.

OK, let's get the paragraph:



In the first paragraph, the Armor rating is not modified. In the second, it is. Moreover, the Armor rating is added to the target's armor. In your example, the second wall is not the target of the shoot. The guy behind the second wall is.

If you're going to quote rules, you need to quote the whole thing so there's no confusion.




Exactly right! Now if there wasn't a guy in the way, well, the bullet would hit the next wall. Which means you use the next wall's stats. Go back to step 1, with the new walls stats, carrying over the modified armor as normal.

*sigh* and you need to read the rules before you write a long post about the rules.

Suppressive fire is an entirely different situation because you have multiple bullets in play, and it is entirely viable that separate bullets have separate AP which can be applied to separate targets, and would in fact be moronic if one bullet hitting target A caused a different bullet to suddenly lose it's ability to pierce armor on target B.

Read the rules. It quite clearly fails to state what happens in regard to AP and the target in question. It does not say "And then the bullet hits the target, applying AP to their personal armor before the soak roll." It also does not say "And then the bullet hits the target with no further adjustments to armor because of AP, since the AP already affected the barrier."

So, at that point a decision needs to be made on how to deal with it, and the two options are:
Use some common sense, the energy of the bullet was largely expended going through the barrier, no further AP applies (Could also be considered as all armor (structural and personal) is combined into one big armor rating that AP is applied to once)
or
Bullets are magically charged with 110% kinetic energy when passing through barriers, allowing them to pierce an infinite number of barriers and arrive at the target without being effected in any way.

So, take your pick, the interpretation that makes sense, or the interpretation that is composed of pure bulldrek.

Sorry, I replied before seeing that brought up this example. It contradicts the rule.

If there is no guy in the way, what are you shooting at? There is always a target, otherwise you are not using those rules but the ones to destroy barriers.

He's trying to blow a 1m hole in the far wall without damaging the closer wall.

Are you -seriosly- saying that you need the Shooting Through Barriers rules to tell you how to soak damage from the combat section?
No!
Just no!
You managed to shoot through the barrier. That part is resolved. Great job! Now its done with, and you go back to resolving the rest of the attack.
Per the normal rules.
Or are you really going to insist that that person shot through the door, in the example, doesn't have to resist 7dv, because the shooting through walls rules don't tell you how?
Because the logic is the same. Oh no! it doesn't say how to handle AP! Oh no, it doesn't say how to handle 7p! Therefore, the rest of the rules regarding that topic magically don't apply.

No, I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense to apply AP from a single bullet twice. Like I said, you either get magic bullets that punch through infinite amount of stuff, or the AP only applies once per shot. Otherwise, check this out: The guy got 1 bonus armor from the barrier right? Well, if we go with your interpretation is correct, and the guy had no armor, then that means that the bullet's AP reduces that bonus armor to 0, even though it already failed to provide enough AP to reduce that armor entirely. Congratulations, you've just doubled the AP of the gun against a barrier because the bullet goes back for a second round.

Except that we have bullets in real life that will shoot through a concrete barrier and still have enough punch to go through personal armor afterwards.

50 caliber sniper rifle depleted uranium rounds

those things will shoot THROUGH an engine block and still have enough punch to go through a vest.

Yes, but will they have enough punch to go through 30 engine blocks and still punch through a vest? How about 300? How about as many as you can set up in the maximum range of the weapon? Because that is what you're saying a weapon should be able to do.

Also keep in mind you're talking about what might be the highest AP thing ever to exist. If the weapon has enough AP to reduce the barrier's armor to 0, then yeah, it should still keep some of its punch to go through the armor, but it shouldn't keep it's full force after going through a barrier. What you're saying is that barriers are effectively pointless unless they have absurdly massive armor ratings, because the weapon will just punch right on through them, and then continue at full power, then punch through the armor the person is wearing as if the barrier never existed.

But what happens if the guy is behind that third wall? The calculations presented above work, and the bullet is stopped by the third wall, and the guy need not worry about soaking any damage at all... which is the point that is being made... I think... At least, that was the point that I was making originally anyways.

What, no, that's wrong. You're applying different logic/math to different situations.

The guy gets bonus armor form the barrier, and his own armor. Lets say he's wearing, say, full body armor. Thats 10 ballistic, plus one from the wall, which is 11, then that's reduced by the weapons AP.
The AP is not applied to the bonus armor, then to the defenders armor.

The same logic applies when shooting through multiple walls. The bonus modified armor from one wall goes to the second. So then the bullet has to try to go through that well. As long as there's -any- bonus armor left, carrying over, it'll add up slowly, wall after wall.

You may have missed it, but I changed my mind here:


To reuse the 1hit gauss rifle example, i'm going to pit it against heavy structural material at armor 16 to show you what I mean.
wall1: 16/2-4=4. Round goes through. 4 armor added to next wall
wall2: 20/2-4=6. Round goes through, beacause 10P is more than 6.
Wall3: 22/2-4=7. Round goes through, because 10>7
Wall3: 23/2-4=7.5. The gauss cannon doesn't say to round up or down, so i'm going to go with all other AP-half's rules of round up, which makes it:
Wall3: 24/2-4=8. Still on its merry way.
Wall4: 24/2-4=8. Wait a sec.
Wall5: 24/2-4=8
Oh hell.

Well, shit, you're right. that is a little silly. However, its due to the Gauss Rifle being really stupid. The math works fine for other, less armor-halving guns such as machine guns. (though I think this means laser guns shoot through walls pretty good too. its the half-4 that -really- breaks it, though)
For any other gun, though! it works just fine.

(in this example, a gauss rifle round would have to hit something with 20 armor next, which would go to 28, reduced to ten, and would plink off.)



No, no, thats the entire -point- of the barrier rules. It doesn't need to reduce it to zero, it just needs to reduce it enough for the damage of the round to exceed the armor(and thus go through. Also, important clarification: Exceed, not equal or exceed.) What you're aruing is that an APDS round fired through a wall magically stops being an APDS penetrator round designed to go through stuff as soon as it goes through a piece of plywood.

I think that you probably meant to type it this way...

To reuse the 1 hit gauss rifle example, we're going to pit it against heavy structural material at armor 16 to show you what I mean.

wall 1: 16/2 (=8 )-4=4. Round goes through. 4 armor added to next wall
wall 2: 20/2 (=10)-4=6. Round goes through, beacause 10P is more than 6.. 6 is added to wall 2 Total (which was 20, not 16, for a New Wall Rating of 26)
Wall 3: 26/2 (=13)-4=9. Round goes through, because 10>9 (and again, 9 is added to Wall 3 total, which was 26, to get to 35)
Wall 4: 35/2 (=17, we went ahead and rounded down) -4=13. The round lodges in the 4th wall impacted (10<13) as the energy has been expended.

You do not reset the value of the walls to their base each time, you continuously increment them with the values of the previous walls and remaining armor... this is the only sane way to do this that actually makes sense. Yes, this means that weaker walls will provide less impediment to the actual rounds that impact them, requiring more intervening barriers to actually stop the bullet/round.

It is not just the Gauss Rifle, and you got rather lucky with the numbers. Now let us switch to a Japan corp building with hardened external walls (armor 24) and fancy inside paper / light wood internal walls (armor 1).

Shoot that with a LMG loaded with APDS: AP -5. Assume plenty of net hits.

Wall 1: 24 - 5 = 19
Wall 2: 1 + 19 - 5 = 15
Wall 3: 1 + 15 - 5 = 11
...

Yes, the bullet goes faster with each wall it crosses.

Again... the bullet likely impacts against that Armor 24 of the outer wall and Stops, that is unless you are doing more than 19 points of damage... which is unlikely, as you do not get the Autofire bonus for that...

Sorry, I edited while you were answering. But this is just an example. Feel free to replace the outer wall with something easier to penetrate if you prefer. It will not change anything to the main point: the target gets higher armor right behind the external wall than behind the external + the internal ones.

Well, you could always argue (and some have I thnk) that the end result is all that matters. Take the number of walls penetrated, add the armor ratings of those walls together, then perform your Damage/AP Calculations, and provide the remainder Armor as a bonus to the target, and see if target is hurt... works, though, to me, that is a little odd... I prefer to perform the calculations per Wall and see if there is anything remaining once/if the target is actually impacted...

....

Yes. Yes I did. It makes much more sense that way.

Please forgive me for debating on dumpshock, while doing Tired Math.

On one hand, when writing that up, I couldn't find anything to support checking for previous walls in the limited rules.
On the other hand, nothing nullifies previous bonus armor either. So I think, yeah, you've got it right.

With the proper math, the bullet won't get stopped by anything weak enough (armor reduced all the way to zero) for it to not matter, but gradually slows down as it passes through anything with leftover bonus armor until it plinks off of something.

Yep. Makes sense within the rules, and outside of them. Works for me.

If you want to do that, you need to apply the AP before adding the armor from the previous wall.

In my example, that would make

Wall 1: 24 - 5 = 19
Wall 2: max(1-5, 0) + 19 = 19
Wall 3: max(1-5, 0) + 19 = 19
...

Paper walls still don't add anything, but now they don't subtract anything either.