QUOTE (Draco18s @ Feb 15 2011, 10:15 AM)
Lets assume that your player is not an idiot.
1) He aimed for three rounds, yet she was running and screaming "rapists, rapists, they tried to rape me." He had three rounds to aim!?
2) He spent Edge. Edge is for "this really has to go down right now, with a nuke." You don't spend Edge to shoot little girls.
3) His a) high Agility b) smart link c) specialization and weapon skill should have been enough to beat her Reaction score of 2.
4) She was already injured, meaning her stun track is partially full. If he hits her and she rolls an amazing 2 successes with her Body of 2 (no armor) she's taking 6 Stun, outright. 5 from the gun, +2 for gel, +1 for nethits (minimum) -2 Resistance. 6 stun, plus the 3 Stun she already has is enough to fill her stun Track of 8 + (Half Will of 2) or 9 boxes.
Conclusion. She's dead and you need to hit someone with a rule book.
Being unlucky because the player spent Edge for exploding 6s. It's his own fault, really.
I'd penalize my players for not aiming and not spending edge on some thing as risky as that.
Seems that the player in this case is really in a Catch-22 for taking a careful shot.
You spend edge to make things happen YOUR way when it really matters because the CHARACTER is lucky.
How lucky is it for a professional Shadowrunner to kill the target of a snatch job?
This is not an instinctive center of mass shot in the middle of combat.
I agree there is a risk, but a professional highly skilled runner making a carefully aimed take down shot on a target he needs a live...
And a professional knows the advantages and limitations of his tools.
The first thing he will do once he gets the girl away is check her condition.
And in SR4 more net successes means the player gets closer to what he wanted.
Also 14 Net hits is triple what he needed for a critical success. (4 or more net success over Pg 65 SR20.)
By RAW, on a Critical Success the PC gets to add a flourishing details he wants.
So his flourishing detail is NOT DEAD. The extra point of Edge is not bad either.
I'd say a PC can if he is paying attention and in control of the situation, not use all of his net successes if it is counter productive to his goal.
Does he have exact control - No.
To give an example close combat is a series of moves. Unless the players is out of control, he should be able to choose to stop beating the face in of the Humanist thug before he cracks his skull.
The GM will determine the exact number of successes used based on the situation. You have to make it challenging after all.
But he should be able to put it in the ball park of what he was trying to do unless there are extenuating circumstances.
If nothing else I would have given the player a warning that he had better be careful trying to use a weapon designed for full size adults on a child.
For example the target critically glitch the damage resistance test, No once checks on the target's reaction to the drug or sees if the target is stable, or the PC is too enraged to stop and fails a Composure roll.
So he needed 5 success to knock her unconscious and ended up using 10 and breaking some bones.
This is not a runner thoughtlessly hosing down an old man with a pacemaker with Stick and Shock burst fire and leaving him on the floor.
Also has a GM you should avoid appearing to penalize the Player for doing every thing right and not giving the character credit for being a professional even if the game mechanics are distorting it.
Since you are the eyes, ears, and personal experiences of the PC, they filter every thing through you.
That also means you need to give the players some sense of the risks involved based on their character's life experience.
So you want to make sure that when the character hoses up bad, it is either clearly because of the actions of the player, the character was working with the information available to them, or part of the plot line.
And there will be no shortage of it.
So I'd have the girl injured. Maybe she hit her head when she was knocked down or her knee is shattered. Have her cry A LOT. Make them take her to a street doc. Do they know one they can trust?
Just don't take the fun out it for a player when he did every thing right.