So, here's the scenario. I'm firing a shotgun at a mook security guard, who is wearing an armor vest. I drop 4 dice to 'aim' the blast towards his head (dropping the dice to remove armor, not add damage). Now that the mook doesn't have any armor left, he shouldn't get the +5 AP from the shotgun, right? I suppose I'm not surprised a shotgun to the face is effective, but that seems brutal if I'm right. Have I figured it out correctly, or is there a step I'm missing?

Thanks,
DrZ

As written, that's more or less correct. However you may want to consider that if the target doesn't have a large unarmored part of the body (wears a helmet, for example) you may want to still apply the +5 to represent that.

If you're bypassing armor, you're bypassing armor. It's not just a shotgun thing, any flechette weapon can do it (and be almost as messy).

Unless of course you're shooting a troll; I presume you can't bypass dermal armor with an aimed shot.

The description of trolls says they have irregular bone deposits rather than an "iron skin", so you could claim to aim somewhere where there's only soft skin. RAI of course, as all parts of aimed shots.

The RAW doesn't care about logical or plausible, so yes.

Between you and me, I would just give the player -4 for a face shot. Aiming to bypass armour kinda implies (yes, RAI rather than RAW) that you're aiming for a joint or a seam rather than just an unarmoured location. That's why the penalty for aiming for a body part is fixed while aiming to bypass armour is variable.

As given, I would agree that the AP bonus from shot rounds becomes irrelevant when firing at an unarmoured location. I might consider houseruling it as a head has less area to catch shot than a body plus limbs, but that's for another day.

Don't you first apply the weapons AP value, before seeing how many dice you loose from ignoring armor?

I don't see that the AP of the weapon has a bearing on the accuracy, so no. I'm sure that a trained shooter will take armour penetration into account when trying to line up a trick shot, though.

Why would you take a -4 to bypass armor anyway? +4 DV is much better, even if they're getting +5 armor from flechette.

You're right, you'd basically never do that. However, for the sake of answering the question…

Because it's -4 to the dice pool to attack, which is ~1DV. Doing so would negate about 9 points of armor, which is ~2-3 hits to soak damage.

That aside, what the armor/called shot rules don't cover is armor coverage. An armor vest might only cover the torso, while a lined coat might cover the arms, torso, and most of the legs. Even though they have the same armor values, it would theoretically be harder to perform a called shot (to bypass armor) on someone wearing a lined coat.

The system as written is fast, dirty, and abstract.

What you could do is just hash out some sort of standard table for called shots and house rule them. Something like:

Head: -6
Torso: -2
Upper Limb (bicep/thigh): -4
Lower Limb (forearm/lower leg): -6
Hand or Foot: -8

Those are just rough figures that I thought about for 10 seconds. Then you could consider armor coverage: vests would cover the torso, armored and lined coats (and anything that's a full suit, like armored clothing) would cover the arms, torso, and upper legs. Full body armor would cover everything but the head. Helmets would cover the head.

Then you could say that to perform a called shot against someone in a lined coat, you'd have to go after the Head, Hand, Lower Leg, or Foot. You could also say that if you perform a called shot against the head, only the helmet armor (if any) would apply.

You could also say that if someone is wearing layered armor such as, say, an armored vest and a leather jacket, the armored vest would apply against called shots to the torso, but the leather jacket would apply against the arms, and nothing would apply to the legs, feet, hands, or head.

If you wanted to get even more complicated, you could allow people to make piecemeal armor outfits -- against regular (non-called) shots you'd just take the average of the overall armor, but against called shots, different areas of the body could have their own armor values.

The rule is -X DP to ignore someone's X-level armor. That's it. Anything else is a house rule. I see the mild trickery of avoiding the +5 AP from flechette… I doubt I'd allow that, but it might fly. The whole issue of shotguns and armor in SR4 is a little suspect to begin with, after all.

Lets pretend the target has monster armour with a 4/4 helmet and 20/20 for the full body suit. You call for bypass armour, 4 points, aim for an eye socket or a seam.

Regarding the numbers for called shots, and I'm going to quote RAW here, it's "Target a vital area in order to increase damage. The attacking character can choose to increase the DV of his attack by +1 to +4, but receives an equivalent dice pool modifier to the attack." SR4, page 150.

Now, based on that, it's my understanding that the head would be a high damage target area. Thus, +4 to damage, -4 to the dice pool. It's also given that a shot to a held item that lands a DV higher than the target's Strength causes them to drop it. To make such a shot is a -4 penalty. Should you want to houserule different levels of penalties, that's between you and your table, but these are the rules given by the book. Personally I think half the problem is due to dice pool inflation resulting from increasing levels of "optimal" builds, but nevermind...

If they have 20/20 body armor and a 4/4 helmet, they have 24/24 armor. SR doesn't have sectional armor rules. A called shot to bypass their armor would be at -24 dice.

Called shot to bypass armor is very rarely useful. If you get caught using Flechette ammo against somebody you want to do lethal damage to, then it's not a totally terrible idea - if, for example, you're up against a drone with armor 10 using a flechette weapon or shotgun, you're probably not going to hurt it at all just by shooting it or even by making called shots for +4 DV, but you might be able to get in a lucky shot at -10 dice and oneshot it. The real moral of the story is "don't use shotguns or flechette if you can avoid it, cause they suck."

I don't care how big and tough your troll is. A shotgun blast to the pelvis is going to put them down.

A creature that can toss a car and shrug off most attacks might not be put down by a single blast to the hip. Certainly might stagger them, but there's always that chance you'll pop them and they'll just look at you like "Really?"

CanRay: Unless you use the rules, of course.

OK. Let me rephrase.

Not Pelvis.

Groin.

Rules or not, male, female... Unless they're a Cyberzombie (Who is probably missing those parts, which is part of their problem!), you're going down for at least a single count. Although, admittedly, with some characters, that might just piss them off a lot.

*Snikt*

Okay, rules be damned. I agree there.

Don't many kinds of full body armor specifically have groin protectors? Even just in SR4, there's a PPP option just for that. Honestly, shadowrunning without a codpiece is just asking for trouble.

Even a lot of vests comes with groin protection. So the bullets won't penetrate, the kinetic force is still distributed to your groin.

Heavy bruising instead of penetration is still a bad thing in that sensitive area. Of course, it's one hell of a hard shot to pull off as well.

Why would you aim for a body part that doesn't affect the targets combat ability at all. I mean, pain is dangerous and all, but adrenaline makes for a mighty fine painkiller. I'd much rather aim for a hand or a foot or an eye.

OK, OOB, let me kick you in the crotch, and tell me how combat capable you are afterward. I know I would be pretty close to non-operational for at least a few clockticks, which is an eternity in combat.

As for why? Because if I'm on a Shadowrun, and I'm in a fight, I'm not going to fight dirty.

I'm going to fight in a way that makes dirty look good by comparison.

If you're on a shadowrun, you're going to fight in a way that's numerically optimal by the rules in use, regardless of how it looks IC.

Right, my bad.

Assault Cannon to the Crotch to explain how you're bypassing armor and doing maximum damage to mobility as you're hitting an area that requires motion (Thus cannot have hard trauma plates) and will incapacitate a person as their hip joints will be affected by the shot.

Better? IC and Rules?

Nailed it!

I don't even know if my Accountant From Hell can even pick up an Assault Cannon...

Pick up line for a troll:
Is that a Panther in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

A kick (or slash or bullet or whatever) to the junk isn't some magical combat-stopper in real life. Hopped up on adrenaline, in a kill or be killed situation, plenty of people can (and have) keep coming and totally ruin your day. Yes, a shot to the nuts is unpleasant, and can stop people, and can certainly hurt them without requiring the accuracy and power of some more dangerous attacks (so it's easy and popular to teach "soccer kick to the junk" or "knee to the groin" in basic self defense classes)...but it's certainly no guarantee.

And, given a gun, there's absolutely no way I'd be trying to aim there. Now, I'm pretty sure the whole line started from you making a joke (or, at least, I took it as a joke before people started replying, and you started replying back, etc, etc)...but just because it's called "the vitals" doesn't mean it's where you wanna aim in a firefight. Anywhere two to three feet directly above there is more likely to stop a fight, and permanently, compared to a shot to the balls.

A kick (or slash or bullet or whatever) to the junk isn't some magical combat-stopper in real life. Hopped up on adrenaline, in a kill or be killed situation, plenty of people can (and have) keep coming and totally ruin your day. Yes, a shot to the nuts is unpleasant, and can stop people, and can certainly hurt them without requiring the accuracy and power of some more dangerous attacks (so it's easy and popular to teach "soccer kick to the junk" or "knee to the groin" in basic self defense classes)...but it's certainly no guarantee.

And, given a gun, there's absolutely no way I'd be trying to aim there. Now, I'm pretty sure the whole line started from you making a joke (or, at least, I took it as a joke before people started replying, and you started replying back, etc, etc)...but just because it's called "the vitals" doesn't mean it's where you wanna aim in a firefight. Anywhere two to three feet directly above there is more likely to stop a fight, and permanently, compared to a shot to the balls.

Only if I can hit your throat, knock you out just as long, if not longer, might even kill you. Getting hit in the crotch hurts, a lot, but pain is a very unreliable way to stop someone from fighting back. Different people have different pain tolerances, and pain tolerance is greatly augmented by adrenaline. In battles, it's not unusual for someone not to notice they have been shot for several seconds or longer, more than enough time to kill you. If I'm calling a shot, I'd much rather hit a spot that physically inhibits the targets ability to fight back, than one that may or may not make them double over in pain.

The problem is that SR armor values are not designed to use with hit locations. The value is chosen both for energy absorption and for coverage. A military helmet is probably a lot better in the former quality but still has the same value as a leather jacket. Or look at Armor vest, Lined Coat and Chameleon Suit. All three have the same armor value but vastly different coverage.
How do you fairly represent their protective value is someone uses a called shot to a protected area?

Making rules for Hit Locations in SR will be very difficult and time consuming. I doubt that it will add much to the fun.

You could start by dividing the body in a number of sections and then assign each piece of armor a value on the section it protects so that, if you did a weighted average across all sections, the normal value would come up.

Not to mention SR has the High Pain Tolerance quality, drugs that mimic it, pain editors, and probably other things I'm forgetting. All of these things would let someone take a soccer kick to the jigglers and laugh. They might be crying later when they find out they ruptured something and can't have kids, but you'll be too dead to enjoy it.

You are forgetting how quick you can bleed out from a wound to the groin.

Or the throat. I thought the premise was armor present, though.

I've learned over the years I've been playing SR4 not to mess with the level of abstraction too much. And yes, called shots to avoid armor are one of the ways to make flechette shotguns and hollowpoint rounds and so on more viable.

Easier to hard armor your throat than your groin if mobility is at all a concern, a rigid/semi-rigid gorget built in to the armor protecting your torso with some overlap from a helmet (Motorcycle or otherwise) will stop alot more firepower than anything you can reasonably do to protect the tender bits between your thighs and will have very small seams while maintaining a good range of motion whereas the most you can do with protecting the groin is a cup and maybe some light padding before you begin restricting movement of the legs.

But then we're, again, not talking about bleeding. We're talking about bruising. See?

A bad enough bruise can have immediate negative effects as well considering what it does.

You said 'bleed out'.

I don't care even a little bit, but I noticed you criticize TheOOB for comparing a *strike* to the throat with a *strike* to the groin… by talking about bleeding. Obviously, we can talk about one thing or the other, but it's hardly fair to go apples and oranges.

I mentioned how the armor rules were abstract.

House rules can be as complex as you want them, yes. I was just tossing out some rough numbers. The idea would be to flip one abstract system around for another abstract system that is slightly less abstract -- hit locations with set difficulties rather than amorphous armor that makes it harder to shoot around.

If you want to go all fugnuts on it and break it down into truly locational armor, knock yourself out. I'll warn you that if you do, people will be making called shots all the time, since locational armor values will necessarily be lower.

This is only really interesting because most of the armors in the main book are very same-y, and there aren't enough options to effectively layer them. In fact, there really aren't any two armors that'd be worth layering. Ever.

Think about it this way: when you layer two pieces of armor, you only get the higher of the B and I ratings. So in theory it might be okay to take something with a high B and low I, then a piece with low B and high I. But the latter category doesn't exist. Everything worth having is either 6/4 or 8/6. Armor Clothing staggers in at 4/0, which I suppose you could hook up with a Leather Jacket to get 4/2, though for the price you're better off with a 6/4 Armor Vest that fits under your shirt anyway. Even the Camo and Chameleon Suits have top-grade armor, negating the need to stuff a vest under them.

The problem is that there are lots of *other* things to layer, and anyone who doesn't is tissue paper by comparison.

I put together a house rule that allows for phantom AP to be added.

According to the house rule, you can just drop dice from the attacker's DP to decrease by the opponent's armor dice pool by the same amount. If the damage of the attack exceeds the modified armor rating, the attack deals physical damage.

This allows someone (particularly NPCs) to engage targets with high (14-20) armor and still pose a threat of some kind, beyond stun damage. One of the biggest problems I have dealt with in the SR4A armor system is that to bypass armor and do physical damage often means doing so much damage that the target is likely to get smeared. So, armor is all-or-nothing. There are only deadly wounds or stuns. No minor wounds, really. Makes threatening players that wear tons of armor rather difficult without - at the same time, in the same encounter - murmaidering the rest of the team.

Imagine a 12 dice pool firing a heavy pistol, 4p, at someone with an armor jacket. Probably going to score 3 hits on an open test, with between 1 and 3 dropped from Reaction. So, 5 to 7s, resisted with Body + Armor. Otherwise, I must drop 8 dice to bypass armor, leaving me with 6 total and an average of just over one hit. Easy dodge.

It only gets worse when you stack on the armor. Same kind of a scenario, except the target has 20 armor. Use an assault rifle for 6p, -1 AP, and you need to generate either thirteen hits to exceed armor, use a narrow burst with eight hits to exceed armor or have 21+ dice to drop enough to ignore armor. And, if you succeed in causing physical instead of stun, the target is resisting so much damage that they are as good as dead.

At that point, I'd rather be using a HMG or a Panther cannon or something. An anti-vehicle rocket, maybe. Even then, I get a largely binary result - dead / shrugged off. Unfortunately, that also leaves everyone else in the encounter totally screwed.

Lame.

Where do you get this weird need to do physical damage?
It's especially baffling becouse pretty much all of those high armor tanks are gonna drop down faster if you do stun damage to them instead of physical.
Seriously stun damage is much worse for body 10+ Troll then physical damage is.

Then the shooter can instead opt for stun.

Point is, if someone is wearing an armored jacket or vest, it is remarkably hard to shoot them in the leg by RAW. Or cause any kind of wound other than a killing blow.

Actually it is impossible to shoot a specific body part. You can either shoot to cause more damage or to avoid the worn armor. The GM then describes the result possibly as a shot to the leg.
That's where the fourth option for a Called Shot comes in. Anything other than incapacitation is covered with this option.

Considering that under Called Shots are the +DV and -Armor mechanics (the very mechanics that my house rule gloss), other than just a hand wave, there isn't a whole lot more that a GM can do.

I'm not talking about those two options but:

See 'hand waving'.

Secondly, none of those effects involve converting or adding damage, as those two mechanical effects are covered by the previous two rules... which, again, my house rules are intended to improve upon.