So, why do we reduce the power of the toxin if I have impact armor on? Is there something I'm missing? The dart guns don't have a power rating of their own, which I feel would represent the penetration power of the gun. However, if the needle penetrates the armor and delivers the toxin inside the body the fact that I have impact armor on shouldn't really matter to the power of the weapon.

Example: Jumpin' Jonny is wearing a secure long coat (4b/2i). He's shot by a narcojet round (6D stun). He doesn't dodge the shot so he is struck with the dart, but because he's wearing the secure long coat, the narcojet's power is reduced by 2 to 4D stun.

Solution: We give the dart pistol a damage rating of 6L or 9M (is it a light or heavy pistol?) which is reduced by impact armor. If the target of the shot (a) dodges or (b) soaks all of the "damage" by the pistol then the dart doesn't get through the armor and therefore doesn't deliver the toxin. If, on the other hand "damage" would have been incurred by the gun, we consider the dart to have penetrated the armor and the toxin is delivered at it's normal strength. A similar process could be applied to the dart rifle, giving it a damage code of 7S (average of the three sport rifles (7S + 7S + 9S) / 3 round down = 7S) and working with the above solution.

Example (using 6L for the pistol): Jumpin' Jonny is still wearing his secure long coat. He's shot by a narcojet round. The shooter generates 4 successess. Jonny rolls his dodge and generates 3 successes, leaving 1 net successes on the ranged combat roll. Then he rolls his body like a normal damage resistance test against a target number of 6 - impact armor = 4 and gets 3 successes, enough to soak the damage. Therefore, his impact armor stopped the dart and he's not harmed.

Example (still using 6L for the pistol): Same scenario but Jonny only rolls one success on his body roll. Therefore, there would still suffer a 6L wound. However, because this is a dart pistol, that result is actually the deliver of the toxin, in this case Narcojet, and therefore, he makes another body roll against the 6D stun damage from the toxin.

Questions:

• Do you like the solution?
• Is there something in canon that makes my solution unnecessary?
• Which damage code should the dart pistol have?

To answer my own question, I think the pistol should have a code of 6M. That's the power rating of the light pistol with a damage rating of a heavy. This is so that impact armor (often less than ballistic) can pull that 6 down to a relatively easy number to hit (probably 3 or 4) but you still need 4 successes to have the dart fail to penetrate. This seems to reflect, to me, the idea that the "darts can effectively pierce most armors."

The only problem with this line of thought is that doubling the dose of the chemical in question would more than make up for what little is lost penetrating the armor. In my games, narcoject darts pretty much ignore soft armor, but have MUCH shorter effective range (5 Meters for Pistol, 10 for Rifle).

Whenever I feel that armor will play a factor, I simply use the armor's impact rating as the minimum number of successes required to penetrate. The attacker's successes are only reduced by the defender's dodge test. There is no body roll involved. So you shoot a narcoject dart at a guy with an armored jacket (5/3). You need three net successes, AFTER the defender has rolled his dodge test, to have the dart penetrate. 1 or 2 successes, no penetration. 3+ successes an the bad guy is resisting a 6D stun from the toxin.

Also, Security, Military, and hardened armor is not subject to penetration by dart guns.

The dart is not actually doing any damage. The purpose of providing the damage codes to the dart guns was to determine if hte bullet makes it through the person's armor. It doesn't do any damage at all. I like the idea by TheOneRonin better though. It's more simple and invovles less rolling.

Still not sure if I like just reducing the power of the toxin, though. Much easier and canon, so I'll probably just suck it up and use those rules, but I think it's weird.

never noticed that ... thanks OurTeam

I like these, but i do think your beng a little hard, perhaps it should be impact halfed round up (for a change)? this is for someone who has had a pc around around with atropine darts.

Military i can see (being hardened) but why security?

That's a big nega-tory.
Gamma-Scopolamine (i looked up the spelling) costs half as much, does 10D (yeah, it's stun, but...) instead of 7D, AND has other TN modifyers.
p. 157-158 M&M

That point i'll concead (sp?)

If your intending to interograte someone then yes Gamma all the way, but low skill (ie liking only 1-2 success) then then dart guns and atropine.

Definately, as it's hard to kill with Gamma. I'm just saying I prefer it over Narcoject for Stun. For killin', atropine (or as Diesel said, a gun) is the way to go.

Got to get me some Super Soaker loving!!!!

- theartthief