"Injection Darts: For use with dart guns of various types—such as
the Parashield pistol and rifle—injection darts carry a single dose of a
drug or toxin. Effects depend on the drug payload, but to successfully
deliver the payload and penetrate armor, the attacker needs two net
hits on the Ranged Combat Opposed Test." SR4A - P.324

Ok, contrarily to other injection methods (arrows, needles and thus) all you need is 2 success on an opposed roll to inject the toxin ? This is from SR4A so I suppose Military Armour were taken into account when conceiving that ?

Seriously, 2 hit square then down they go ? perfect weapon to dual-wield..

For what it's worth: Military Armor cannot be penetrated by injection darts. That is specifically stated in Arsenal...

And most toxins have a speed of 1 combat turn, meaning the target will get at least one more action phase before damaga is applied. Even hitting someone with Nacroject darts (speed immediate, 10 DV Stun) does not guarantee a dropped target. Just one hit on the drug resistance test will usually be enough to stay conscious...
And if a target has another action after he got hit but before the toxin resistance test is made, there is enough time to administer an antidote patch...
Another point: Toxins are way more expensive than gel rounds or SnS.

-CJ

Hum, what if I use 2 different toxin in the 2 guns or hit someone with 2 doses of the same toxin ?

Sure he will only get down at the turn end but resisting twice should be far enough. As always first shooter is always right and surprise seems more essential for toxins.

The whole thing with the dartguns doesn't feel right, though.

There should be a damage resist test, but body shouldn't be involved. A Dart should have low damage (possible just stun to reflect minor damage) and high armor piercing effect (maybe /half or -4AP?). You can shoot somebody with it in the face though, and so it might be used to kill/hurt someone too. All armors with hard components should be able to deflect them, though.

(Vest with plates, Lined Coat, PPP-Systems, military and maybe Riot-armor)

So how do we do it mechanicly? (I will be back later with something... have some ideas but have to make it fast and easy (and not too much different from the normal rules)

There was another thread about this last month, if you want to search for it. The upshot is that it doesn't really make sense with the other darts/weapons in the game; either you have to live with it, or house rule it. :/

Rule that rather than needing 2 hits, and milspec armor being completely immune (or maybe keep that, milspec armor is supposed to be badass), that the shooter must take the armor bypass penalty in order to deliver the poison (I can't remember the exact keyword, but the one where you take a penalty to hit equal to the armor value and the target then doesn't get to add armor to the soak pool). If the attack fails it hits some armor and has a DV of 1S.

That's the Called Shot to Bypass Armor. The problem is that this means darts will probably never work now; if that's not what you wanted in your game, the solution doesn't fit. :/ It also requires using a Called Shot action (unless you also waive that).

The simplest house rule to keep dart guns in the realm of options, but not auto-ignoring armor, is to just raise that Threshold from 2 to 3, 4, etc. Wherever is hard enough to be fair, and easy enough to be possible at your table.

Theres been a half dozen or more threads about this.
Arsenal has damage codes for darts. (But they don't do damage)
Darts have an AP? (But target doesn't get an armor resistance test.)
Onset times are wonky.
What happens when I use drugs instead of chemicals? (This was answered somewhat in arsenal, use power 6 for most drugs.)

I think we've tried several times over the years to goad the powers that be to answer the question. The answer so far has been the two success's rule.

How about 1 net hit required for every 3 points of armor?

Makes it 2-4 hits on an average runner, and upwards of 6 net hits required for stuff like milspec armor.

Or if you prefer rolling dice, do a normal attack, damage of the dart = net hits. Soak with armor only, if the damage isn't reduced to 0, then the toxin goes to work.

1:3 seems fair at first blush, Karoline. Impact or Ballistic? Higher/lower of the two?

What about 2 guns, one loaded S-n s and other Capsule rounds (loaded w/DMSO and Narcojet)
both guns to the targets side,firing 2 shots each gun..GOING DOWN!!!!

And expensive. It depends on what you need for the job.

Forgive me if I am falling into the trap of trying to introduce reality into Shadowrun. I just want to point out that dart weapons have a long history of circumventing the protection of hard armor.

A prime example that comes to mind is the trouble the Spanish (and Portuguese) had during the conquest of South America. One of the few weapons that existed in the Americas at the time that gave trouble to the metal plated conquistadors was the blowgun dart. All that was needed was a single scratch (two net successes on a ranged combat test?) and the conquistador was in trouble. And if you could hit a monkey 100 feet up in a thick tree canopy, you could hit a conquistador in a vital spot.

Definitely too much reality, and at the same time, not enough. If they can hit that monkey, their DP is *huge*, and that's an unarmored target. Conquistadores didn't wear full body armor, but many runners do; hitting skin on a man in a breastplate is hardly a 'vital spot'.

aimed shot face
2 net hits
zing!

I agree with this post.

You'll get him, but will you get him before he takes your fucking head off with his less-than-less-than-lethal weapons is the question. There is no way he's not going to get 1-3 successes on the drug resistance test, unless he's such a soft target that it doesn't matter what you use. I believe (hope?) that dart pistols are SS but I haven't checked. Assuming they are, if you're dual wielding and splitting dice pools, the chance of getting two successes on both attacks goes down significantly. You might even miss both times if his Reaction is good, it could happen. You're better off with the one shot, guaranteed to do about six to nine boxes of stun (congratulations, you are starting level mage with stunbolt, but that is another issue : P) and after that, well, all things being equal he gets a shot at you.

I think dart guns are good but not too good. Although that being said, I WAS surprised that they no longer had to penetrate armor.

EDIT:



With dice pools of what, exactly? If you're rolling more than seven or eight dice for each attack, you must be very tweaked indeed. Anyway, fortunately there are nonconductivity and chemical seal options. You'd be better off with a stunbolt. : P

Sabs, that's exactly the point: you've just described a Called Shot to Bypass Armor.

Yes the problem is that if a GM allows a Called Shot: Face (-4 Penalty) to replace a Called Shot to Bypass Armor (-Armor penalty, up to -12 or more) and do the same thing, that would be bad.

In general, I think that Called Shot (-DP;+DV) is overpowered and Called Shot (Bypass Armor) is underpowered (probably situational exceptions to both of these).

It'd be a house rule if the GM did that, so there's nothing we can do about GMs introducing their own imbalance. By the RAW, merely hitting the face is nothing special with respect to DV or Armor, unless it's specifically a Called Shot to Increase Damage or Bypass Armor.

Well, minimalist metal body armor involved a breastplate and skirts that covered considerably more of the body than SR's armored vest. As far as DP for the hunter goes, that's a guess. A great hunter might hit with every dart. An ordinary one might have to use several.

I was thinking of FFBA, which is why I said 'many runners'. Still, lots of normals in SR are probably wearing full-body clothing, which generally has some armor weave. But, of course, realism has no place.

I like using FFBA and a nice designer armored business suit.

What I meant is that "Called Shot to Increase Damage" is generally stronger than "Called Shot to Bypass Armor".

I know, Neurosis, and I agree. I was commenting in the first 'GM allows' bit: that would be even stronger, of course.

I would have to imagine that their biggest problem isn't getting hit by one dart.

It's getting hit by dozens of blowdarts simultaneously. At least one is likely to hit skin, and then...





-karma

I figure ballistic, as a dart is fairly similar to a bullet.

I like my method because it considers both the ability of the dart to pierce armor outright, and for the dart to hit an unarmored spot because armor rating is a combination of strength and coverage of the worn armor.

It's certainly intended to be Impact, by the RAW. I was just asking because someone would, and we're talking about house rules. I say Impact.

Indeed, KarmaInferno. So what's that mean for SR4? If it takes dozens of shots (simultaneous also means Dodge penalties), then armor should be pretty effective, no?

I will have you note that Bullet Proof vests stop arrows about as well as they stop knives.
Which is to say, way worse than bullets.

Oh, is it? I was just guessing. Use impact then.

I mean, I wasn't trying to trick you. I could see using the higher or lower of the two, if that helped the balance. Armor in SR4 is *mostly* balanced for B/I, so it's probably that a big issue in the first place.

Higher of Ballistic or TWICE impact. Impact armor is specifically designed to block pokey things from breaking your skin. Called shots to bypass armor are figured before this doubling, so very advisable vs folks with decent impact armor.

Though I prefer the "armor rolls to resist" idea. Allows there to be the (small) possibility that somebody with only a couple attack dice could still get a dart past heavy armor.

*shrug* Knives and flechette don't have to go against double Impact. The idea is to use something that's fair, functional, balanced. If you have the standard 6 Impact, that's 4 *net* hits; pretty prohibitive, esp. for NPCs.

Yeah, or someone to luck out and have someone hit the hardest part of their armor, which is why I suggested it.

I agree. I remember that in 2nd I think you needed net hit = to impact armor to punch with a narcoject dart. Houserule for us is net hits = to half impact armor +1 to inject

We use (firmly in the realm of house rules here):
Attacker rolls attack test, Defender rolls ranged dodge
If attacker's net hits >= modified impact armor (dart guns do have an AP of -2) then the dart connects with flesh, toxin delivered.

-D

So that's 4 *net* hits on the standard 8/6 'good' armor. I don't know if that's doable, especially considering Impact armors of 8 or 10+. :/ Hmm. I thinking of NPCs, not runner super-shooters, is the thing. You're also not going to be getting any help from Wide Bursts (except with the Fingertip Dartguns). It's certainly fair for a heavily armored runner to be basically immune to darts, but it'd be nice if the 'immunity' level of armoring was more special for MilSpec.

On the other hand, it's only 6 dice more than the current rules require. It's annoying for balance to hinge on such small increments. What do you guys think? Should the goal be that CorpSec can reliably dart an 8/6 'normal Dodger' foe within 2-3 shots, or some other baseline?

Personally, I like Karoline's idea where the target rolls reaction (+dodge) + armor straight up against the shooter's pool. 1 net hit from the attacker means that the target gets stuck.

Well, it would actually be the regular attack rules, really. So, the player/BBEG can use edge on each test. The dodge and the soak.
That means a shooter's net hits can be dropped by edge, just like a regular attack, and armor's net hits can be raised by edge as well. Besides, it adds more variation than the threshold based on 1:3 armor, since that's basically just assuming 1 hit for every 3 armor for this same test.

Yera,

We still allow the called shot to bypass armor as well. At which point you only need 1 net hit past the dodge. I'm not sure if that makes the whole thing easier or harder, but it's an option.

We just started using dart guns in our game, so it's not completly play-tested. We have found that (at least in our games) NPC's aren't usually worried too much about killing the players, so we have yet to see non-lethal attacks directed against us. We have however seen APDS directed against us.

-D

Glad so many people seem to like my idea

I considered doing 1:4 originally (the normal ratio for buying hits) but that seemed like it would go through armor a little too easily. Even heavy milspec would only take 4 net hits to bypass, so figured 1:3 was a little better, and then figured I'd add 'or just roll like normal' since the idea of a fixed net hits in a situation like this isn't the greatest in the first place.