This came up at the table today - hey, guys! - and I figured we may as well get the community consensus on it.

Under what circumstances does autofire apply to the modified Damage Value mentioned on p149, SR4a [or p140, SR4], when determining whether damage will be Physical or Stun? Obviously, autofire does not apply to the modified Damage Value in the case of short narrow bursts ["Note that
this DV modifier does not apply when comparing the DV to the armor rating." (p153, SR4a or p143, SR4)], but are short narrow bursts unique in this way, or does autofire never apply when determining the modified Damage Value?

Never. Nor for hardened armor, ItNW, etc.

He be correct.

What more need be said?

Well, how about this: chapter and verse? Where and how is this rule enumerated?

Forgive the threadjack, but, on a related note: What about stick and shock rounds? Do you resolve the damage from a 3 round burst as 3 seperate 6s wounds, plus successes, or do you just do it as a normal 3 round burst, with ammo that does 6s instead of 5p or whatever?

The latter. Add your net hits to the 6S(e) damage of the round and compare to the target's armor (after AP) for determining if you got past Hardened/ITNW, then add the burst damage to that value to find the total DV that the target must soak.

The Precious pg. 150, lowest row of the "Ranged Combat Summary" box. Also pg. 149 Step4, where AF is not factored in.

Always. Except short narrow bursts

Well, this is how we run it, works fine and has as much RAW support as the other interpretation.

Except it doesn't, as you would find out if you bothered to read the sections of the rules meantioned in the post above yours

Well at least there's no confusing answers in this thread. I'll assume by "Precious" you mean the SRA edition, and I'll try to look up those very rules, and see if I can make heads or tails of everyone's answers so far. In the mean while I'll hope for someone with better writing skills than I to drop by the thread and break it down into manageable pieces.

Ah, okay. "The Precious" is, indeed, SR4a. The table in the upper-right hand corner has a list of things that modify DV, namely net hits, ammunition, and autofire, with the latter being asterisked to this: "Autofire does not count when comparing the modified DV to the modified Armor." That's about as unequivocal as it gets. Thank you, everyone!

Sure is a stupid way to write it into the rules, though: it should be explicitly written into the steps on 149, and explicitly spelled out in the Burst Fire Mode and Full Auto Mode sections on p153 and p154 [which should be rewritten for clarity, anyway].

Except that the step-by-step instructions on p. 149 do not mention burst/FA at all, therefore when accepting this as a reason not to factor in the damage increase in the decision between physical and stun dmg., one consequently must not factor in this damage increase at all.
The summary on p. 150 is just that, a summary -- a short and necessarily imprecise recapitulation which should never take precedence over the original text. If the abstract of a paper says A and the full text says A but also B, the full text wins.

Now, I'm not saying that my interpretation is the sole and universal salvific way, IMO both are valid but we have made better experiences when full auto bursts can damage hardened armor (i.e. anything which does not take stun).

Nope, doesn't make sense, Sengir. Even if you're ignoring the rules, the autofire mechanic reflects the fact that small/weak attacks bounce off armor; multiple small/weak attacks *still* bounce.

Feel free to point out any fault in my logic..


And you are not using RL firearms knowledge to discuss SR, are you?

I… just pointed out the flaw. In that same post.

And no, I'm not. The whole armor system of SR is based on this *game* concept.

Not really, all you did was cite an RL example...which is not even universally true, a large number of small impacts can do far more damage than one large hit depending on the circumstances.


Circular reasoning: The concept exists, therefore it's fundamental, therefore it has to exist.

Not a RL example, a SR4 example, but whatever.

Not at all. We're talking about the effect of autofire. The concept of 'beating armor' is a larger, separate one. One which underlies SR4 armor. Autofire is a specific application of that concept.

It is mentioned in the first entry for narrow burst, rewriting it into ever following entry would be total waste of word count.
Especially when there's a handy summary restating how it works later in the book, but the page 149 should indeed be rewritten to actually include the damage from auto fire.

These things happen. The classic 'called shot in BF-short burst, not in FA-short burst' typo is an example.

It baffles me how someone could see the note on p150 and ignore it. It can only be selective reading, and it produces truly weird results: inconsistent *and* illogical.

Its the "can't kill a tank with a machinegun" concept. If one machinegun round won't go through two meters of rolled steel, 10 won't do any better. They all sparkle away harmlessly.

Granted, in real life there would a sliding curved scale of the effects of multiple impacts versus armor thickness/hardness/ablation rate, but calculus and reams of D6s make poor bed partners when 75% of the time the answer is "can't kill a tank with a machinegun".

I've never seen stuff bounce off armor in SR4, only dice rolling. So naturally, any argument like "small rounds should bounce off armor" is based on RL observations.



And you are claiming that a fundamental rule exists, because if that fundamental rule existed it would be fundamental and thus could not be ignored. Circular reasoning at its best.

I'm also still waiting for you to point out any flaws you might have found...

That's not what I said, in either case. First and unrelated, I'm terribly sad for you if you've only ever seen dice rolling in SR.

In SR4, small rounds bounce off armor. I apologize for being too metaphorical, so I'll rephrase into lame terms: if you don't beat the armor, you do stun (living targets) or nothing (vehicles, barriers). *Ping*

I said a fundamental concept: DV has to beat armor. It's no accident that this correlates to reality, but it requires no mention of reality to talk about. Autofire is an application of this general concept.

Your 'logic' is apparently 'ignore the parts of the book that disagree', so I'm going to keep pointing out the same flaw until you stop being silly. So I guess keep waiting? Whatever makes you happy.

Oh, enough of this.

Sengir, in another thread on another list you argued, successfully, that the clarification in a chart determined sensor ranges. These weren't in the rules, they were in a chart.

We have a chart. It is labeled summary. It has a line "Autofire does not count when comparing the modified DV to the modified Armor." Therefore, using your previous argument, it is the rules and applies.

If per your previous argument the charts are as much rules as the book, then this chart's rule applies.

Notice I'm not arguing about bullets bouncing or anything else. I am merely using your reasoning and the rules as written.

Modified DV. The question is what goes into "modified" and what comes later.


Since you apparently think that a secondary source which is clearly labeled as providing only an abridged description ("summary") is superior to the full primary source: If I wrote an IMDB summary claiming that Chewie is Luke Skywalker's father, would I change Star Wars canon and label the movies irrelevant?

BS argument. The summary is not external to the rules, but is an integrated part, written by the same people.

It is, in the context you're describing, a recap from one of the characters that includes a "what this means" statement within it.

Your example is more similar to a house rule.

Then take the abstract of a paper, written by the same author. I've seen all sorts of sensationalist abstracts which claim stuff totally not supported by the proper paper. Or in less serious cases, the author simply generalized some stuff further elaborated in the paper.

And no, "what's said about one table applies for all" just doesn't work that way.

So you're really saying that they should have wasted precious word count and added that same line about armor for all narrow burst entries.
Instead of the current version that includes one full description of the rules and a pair of entries that just list the part that is different.
Doing the first think makes zero sense what so ever, especially as the rules include a summary section restating how the burst dv works.

Wait… you're assuming the table is not just wrong, but an intentional lie (Chewbacca-Luke)? You're willing to say that the table is a complete error, but not that they left out the caveat from each kind of burst for brevity? And that their intent was for short narrow bursts to behave differently from every other kind of burst?

It strains credulity. But I'll grant you that it's possible, heh. Especially if you're playing at a 'RAW, no matter how obviously broken or erroneous' table.

Or, you know, add it to the general description of firearms or armor ONCE...

PS: It's also interesting how you argue that something merely got left out for brevity in one instance, but are fighting tooth and nail against the notion that something merely got left out for brevity in another instance, an instance labeled "summary".

@Y: No, but nice stawman.

Cool. So we've concluded that you're *not* saying the table is wrong, and that the writers' intent was *not* to make narrow short bursts different from every other burst.

You're the one who brought up the ridiculous 'straw man' Star Wars example, bud.

What exactly are you implying got left out from the summary?

also i wound Y summary pretty accurate.

He's proposing that they meant to write 'Autofire does not count when comparing the modified DV to the modified Armor… for narrow short bursts only', instead of "Autofire does not count when comparing the modified DV to the modified Armor."

Except we have a case of it in the rules so it's at least partially supported.

There are two RAW possibilities.
1) EITHER they did not include it for narrow full and narrow long (for word count or due to brain fart)
2) OR they misprinted "autofire" when they meant "burst fire" in the footnote.

I will note that the same line in the same table is in SR4 as well as SR4A, and that no errata I have (I do not have them all) changes this line. For this reason I am led to believe the first possibility is more likely. It simply requires fewer "errors" to explain.

To pg. 149, yes. With a slightly changed wording - the "modified DV" term has to go. Armor Penetration should depend on base DV, ammo mod, and net hits. No need to introduce a fresh term.

I'm saying that IF they had intended that rule for all burst and automatic fire, they could have simply added it in a more central place. Since they did not, it apparently only affects that subgroup where it was mentioned.


Strawman != analogy.

Your implication was that I believed that (utterly preposterous) analogy, and that my position was therefore ludicrous.

They added it to a very central place: the table. And yes, therefore you are saying they purposefully made narrow short (2-3 bullet) bursts add +0 to modified DV, while Long (including 4 and 5 bullet) get the full +5 (or 3, 4), and full bursts get the full +9 (or 14, etc). That's a truly strange inconsistency, though again *possible*.

I showed that your argument makes no sense by showing that it leads to consequences everybody, yourself included, considers preposterous. It's called reductio ad absurdum.


If short narrow bursts had a straight +2 DV without the "does not count when comparing armor" clause they'd probably be a bit too good. An AR would punch through most body armor twice per IP. On the other hand, if a long burst (restricted to once per IP) has a better chance of penetrating armor than a single shot I'm fine with that.

Except it's a straw man when someone else does it.

Yes: possible, though inconsistent. It requires 3 bullets to act totally different from 4+ bullets.

Except the text does not say anything about modified DV only the chart does so there is no contradiction. Also the general rule is that autofire adds to the damage, the specific rule is that it does NOT apply to the modified damage value for the purposes of beating armour.

It's the idea that a 'summary' is 'necessarily' incorrect that kills me. The whole point of those tables is to *accurately* condense the rules.

Aha, read page 149 the compare armor section.
Add the net hits scored to the base Damage Value of the attack; this is the modified Damage Value.

Q.E.D

For added clarity of how the rules work according the the devs, the following is from Runners Tool Kit ranged combat cheat sheet.

Edit: Shortstraw the problem with that page is that according to it you never ably the damage bonus from narrow burst, as it's not mentioned at all.

But, at least it's a different problem.

That does seem to be a helpful quote, Mäx, if anyone were genuinely confused or doubtful in good faith.

You will note on that the extra damage is applied AFTER it is compared to armour.

Then you should really learn how to write a summary. As Oxford puts it, a summary is "a brief statement or account of the main points of something" and accordingly imprecise because it leaves out some points. If your "summary" includes each and every aspect of the original text you rephrased it but did not summarize.

And we've already had page 149, which leaves out damage modifiers both before and after Armor...RT on the other hand is new and admittedly unambiguous. I guess we'll keep it as a houserule anyway.

There's a gulf between 'imprecise' and 'incorrect'.

By all means, if it has a benefit for your play - and you already told us that - create a houserule.

The "benefit" is that a guy with a machine gun can mow down spirits and tanks.

Pretty sure they have.

Maybe they'll realize it someday.