Once again into the void displaying how little I sometimes know-but can someone walk me through step by step of what happens when a vehicle rams a stopped vehicle.

For this example we'll use the situation that occurred this evening: a PC vehicle is stopped along side a busy highway while the PC's fight off a Go-Gang. As the finish the combat sequence their stopped vehicle is struck by a moving automated drone semi-truck. I know how I ended up resolving this but what is the step by step process folks?

Unfortunately relative speed is irrelevant speed between the two objects involved in the maneuver is irrelevant. Only the absolute speed of the ramming vehicle is used in any calculation.

How the procedure works is on p. 169 of SR4A. The steps are pretty clear apart from being unrealistic.

1) ramming vehicle makes attack test
2) target makes an evasive maneuver (or nor in case of a parked vehicle)
3) if target scores more hits, end. If ramming vehicle scores more hits calculate damage (see table)
4) target soaks, ramming vehicle soaks 1/2 damage
5) both vehicles make crash tests

Entirely correct by RAW, I believe. But absolutely terrible. Everyone I know just goes with relative speeds between both vehicles.


In case you want to make things a little less zany than the rules come out as, you can have base damage to the ramming vehicle be half the lower of either vehicle's body.
example: Motorcycle with body of 8 rams SUVwith body 12. SUV will take some damage (8*table multiplier), while the motorcycle takes half as much.

If the case is reversed, the motorcycle is taking (12*table multiplier) damage, but the SUV only takes a third of that due to the difference in size.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you did this one dead right. There are some mitigating factors you could use to bring things up or down, but at its heart, you used the right rules and process. If this comes up again - and it will, since my Land Rover has a ram plate - we should definitely use the relative speed of the two vehicles, as is suggested here, but since mine was stopped, that wouldn't have mattered in this case, anyway.

I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't plain getting down on you guys. Anytime I start looking at dealing in excess of 20P to players I start asking myself if I've done something wrong! Luckily you guys deal with it all in stride.

I don't think there's a great reason to make the ramming vehicle's taken damage lower. If anything, raise it. A ram is (should be) a hugely dangerous, last-ditch tactic. By the same token, the ram plate should reduce the rammer's *taken* damage, not hugely increase the damage *dealt*. Using relative speed is just the tip of the iceberg for fixing ramming.

Oh and don't forget that by RAW passengers do not take any damage - if they buckled up.

In theory, it should be a pretty easy fix: we have numbers for mass [Body] and velocity, so working out the relative forces involved should be trivial...if we trusted Body as a proxy for mass, which we can't really bring ourselves to do, I suspect.


Shouldn't it do both in relatively equal measure? If the ram plate works by preventing the deformation of the vehicle it's mounted to - like a bull bar, or the front bumper on my Jeep - that means the vehicle that gets hit collides with what is effectively a much harder material: brick wall instead of marshmallow. The extent to which it prevents deformation determines, proportionately, damage to both vehicles, doesn't it?

Yes, but I'm not trying to get too realistic (especially when physics is involved). I'm just talking about a feel-and-balance perspective. I think the dealt damage is already high enough, but I'd still want the ram plate to do something (namely, allow more frequent ramming).

Yeah, Dakka Dakka, that just makes sense. I can see how forgetting that would really alter things, though.

In the case of ramming, too? It looks to me like, in the case of ramming, we shouldn't have gotten the vehicle's armor and body at all [SR4a p171]! Is this another error in my beta SR4a? Or am I understanding it wrong?

If ramming is akin to falling, then it's (1/2 Impact), or just 1/2 Armor for a vehicle. If it's akin to a more 'direct' melee attack, then full armor.

Personally, I think vehicle armor should be 'Ballistic Only', so that'd be none, but house rules… Hehe. Don't mind me if you're just asking what the RAW is, sorry.

First of all, I always use relative speed involved. It's the only thing that 'makes sense' (don't quote me on that last part though, though )

Second, as far as my interpretation of the rules go:

Anything except full-auto, area-effect, and ramming/crashing targets only vehicle or passenger. Resolve as normal.

Full-auto, area-effect, and ramming/crashing targets both vehicle and passangers. When resolving these damage resistance tests:

- The vehicle resists damage with as normal.

- Passengers resist damage as normal, adding the vehicle armor to their own (the sturdier the vehicle, the less risk it is to the passengers).

There's also the 'Personal Armor' modification that can apply to passengers. (Also remember that, by RAW, the ramming vehicle takes half damage; this would probably apply to passengers in that vehicle as well)

Since there is no rule stating damage to passengers that are strapped in/not strapped in, as the cruel GM I am I'll apply extra falling damage to anyone not strapped in:

I count the relative speed of the vehicle divided by 10 as the 'distance fallen'. Note: I only use this if the vehicle drives into something. If they are rear-ended, they won't fly around in general, so no extra damage applies. If they are side-swiped or if they are standing when hit from the rear, I only apply actual distance travelled for the second damage test. This test is resisted with half Impact armor, as normal.

I read the 'characters resist ramming damage using half Impact' sentence to mean that this is what a character uses if rammed by a vehicle.

Hope that helps =)

Pretty sure this is not the case (not to mention extra complication, heh). I'll see if I can remember where it's in the rules, but it's what Dakka Dakka was mentioning earlier. (This is distinct from the Passenger Protection mod, which is nifty.)

Ah, Arsenal p103. I suppose if you decided that a ram was not a crash, you could wrongly interpret this not to apply to ramming. But given the rules for crash damage *use* the ramming rules… Hehe. Anyway: *if* you disable the standard airbags/etc., you get: As we knew.

woops my bad, I remembered it wrong. I thought only FA bursts and area effect weapons were applied to both passengers and vehicles.

Still it is pretty silly that a short FA burst affects both while a BF burst (equally short) affects only one or the other.

On a tangent, that rule has always bothered me. Why should 10 bullets magically do full damage to 6 people and a vehicle? Blah. Explosive, fine, because that's how they work outside of vehicles.

It is even sillier. A short FA burst affects both while a BF burst (equally short) affects only one or the other.

That's a whole nother stupid issue, but you're right: a crazy person *could* read it that way. Hehe.

Having a very rigid vehicle means more damage to the impacted target, but it also means higher Gs applied to teh hard vehicle"s passengers. Which can be nasty if you go fast enough.. It's even worse if you strike something hard like a bnridge pile or similar 'unbreakable' items of scenery.

Modern vehicle fold up in crashes precisely for that reason. Remove the 'folding' zones can get nasty results. Which means the passenger of a ramplate-equiped vehicle really should have their belts buckled.

Ah, I had missed that part in Arsenal - thank you!

Hmm...

However, the statement that 'according to standard SR4 vehicle rules, passengers are not injured if they crash' confuses me. It states clearly under 'crashing' in SR4A: 'Apply damage as if the vehicle rammed itself.' ...and passengers take the same amount of damage as the vehicle in cases of ramming.

As far as I can tell, the rules in those books either contradict each other, or the rules are completely illogical (as in, being bumped from behind by a vehicle travelling slightly faster than you causes damage to the passengers regardless of safety measures, but smashing your car into a brick wall at 100 km/h won't hurt the passengers at all...if they are wearing their seat-belts).

Also, being rammed (or ramming) would be resisted as any other damage, and you add the vehicles armor to your own. Crashing is resisted with Body+half impact (unless of course you are crashing into something intentionally, because that would be ramming...?)

During a crash the vehicle is damaged as if the vehicle rammed itself, but this is not a ramming maneuver. As such the passengers are obviously not affected.

I think that point is precisely what we're discussing, actually. I'm saying that passengers do *not* take the damage unless they specifically disabled their airbags/restraints. If so, then they do indeed take damage (against 1/2 Impact, like falling) as a ramming action.

If I understand you, though, you're saying that Arsenal is wrongly saying SR4(A?) actually mentions standard restraints? Because yeah, I can't find it there either.

That's pretty fine hairs you've split there, Dakka Dakka! But the rules are crazy, so we can't rule that out, I guess. In any case, Arsenal *does* make it clear.

*Sets up a scenario:
Semi-truck crashes into a motorcycle.
Semi-truck "rams itself" and ends up as an exploding ball of fire.
Motorcycle...???*

That's all the realm of GM fiat. He's the one who decides how anything crashes, really (it could have been a wall, instead). Presumably, 'terrain' (here, the motorcyle… but probably several things behind it, too) also takes appropriate damage. You could theoretically use Barrier rules, as well; but ultimately, none of that is prescribed in the rules (especially the ball of fire).

Really, it makes perfect sense in general: crashing is ramming terrain, airbags always protect passengers unless they're off, ta da.

No, I'm saying that Arsenal wrongly claims that in SR4(A) rules passengers do not take damage in a crash. According to RAW, he damage applied to the vehicle is as if the vehicle rammed itself, and ramming damage is clearly stated in SR4(A) to apply to both the vehicle and the passengers.

Also, the means of resisting damage from crashes as per Arsenal (Body+half impact) is different than the SR4(A) rules for resisting damage from ramming (Body+half Impact+vehicle Armor) -- actually I need to clarify that:

According to SR4A pg. 169 'Ramming': "Characters resist ramming damage with half Impact armor."
According to SR4A pg. 171 'Damage and Passengers': "Additionally, the passengers gain protection from the vehicle's chassis, adding the Armor of the vehicle to any personal armor the characters are wearing."

Since 'Ramming' talks about attacking characters, I read that sentence to mean 'characters being rammed by a vehicle resist with half Impact armor'. If said character is in another vehicle, the second part says to add vehicle armor to that.

So, as far as I can tell, according to SR4A, a character in a vehicle that crashes takes damage as if the vehicle had rammed itself, resisting with (Body+half Impact+vehicle Armor).

However, according to Arsenal, said character resists damage with (Body+half Impact) if they have disabled the safety features.



I'm not so sure it does. Arsenal only speaks of crashing, not ramming--the two are (apparently) distinct from a rules-perspective. See above.

If a vehicle crashes, it takes damage as if it had rammed itself. Clearly ramming damage.

If a vehicle is rammed, the passengers take the same damage.

Thus the passengers in a vehicle that is rammed, rams something, or crashes, take damage.

Nope. Crashing and ramming are clearly the *same* thing, which was my position many posts ago. Like I said at the beginning, I'm not playing strict-constructionist games, though. If one were, I think Dakka Dakka's point is fine: 'it' takes damage as if it had rammed itself, not 'the whole system is a ram'. But whatever.

For crashing and ramming, there are standard restraints that impede-yet-protect the normal passengers. This is obvious, regardless of bad rules writing. Without those, though, they take damage. Like falling, this damage is all half-Impact for passengers. Whether or not vehicle armor should be added is unclear, but there's no great reason for it to be; vehicle armor helps against bullets and things, not falling around inside.

The writing mess is probably due to writers who disagreed, I guess? It certainly matters whether or not runners' cars have airbags turned on, tactically.

Ah, so we actually have the same stand-point!

Thing is, no matter how well you secure people, they may be injured in a crash, if it's severe enough.

I'd say vehicle armor should apply, because the sturdier the vehicle is the greater the chance that no part of it is pushed into you etc. On the other hand, if you are unsecured and without airbags, you'll be hitting the inside of the vehicle at more or less the same relative speed that the crash occured at (depending on angle etc).

That's why I think the SR4 statement of 'passengers take same damage but adds vehicle armor' works for secured people, and Arsenals 'take same damage but resists with body+half impact only' works well for unsecured people. I'd add any 'personal armor' mod to the secured crash as well.

The only thing that suggests that crashes cause no damage to passengers is the line in Arsenal referring to a rule in SR4 that doesn't exist...author oversight, most likely. If you go by that rule, you can be inside a jet plane that crashes into a mountain side without needing to make a damage resistance test... (unless the jet explodes, that is).

The "ball of fire" was in reference to the fact the larger a vehicle is, the more likely it is that it'll fill it's damage track fully by "ramming itself."

If you want to get even sillier, take a semi and a motorcycle and have them hit each other head-on. Assuming relative speed, of course.

Depending on which of the two is considered to be "doing the ramming" you end up with vastly different results.

If the semi rams the cycle, the cycle is obliterated (and the semi is out for repairs, as it did half of its own body in damage).

If the cycle rams the semi, the cycle takes a few scratches and otherwise bounces off (truck is undamaged, cycle's body in damage is vastly lower than the truck's resistance dice pool).

Draco18s, I agree that the basic ramming rules are silly, and we talked about that toward the beginning of the thread (I think the damages are all messed up in the first place). However, leaving damage issues aside, I think the *crash* rules are pretty logical, if we're talking about crashing into 'terrain'. It's that crashing that I'm talking about, not a head-on collision; I would say the rules should separately model that as 'co-ramming', hehe.

The issue is presumably that 'a crash' assumes an immobile, arbitrarily-strong object (e.g., a big solid wall). This assumption is obviously an oversimplification, but perhaps a forgivable one in many cases? Yes, we've all heard of the 'crash into a sheet of paper' problem, but the options are either to have a fully-developed physics/barriers mechanic… or just let the GM wing it. (I choose #2, I'm too lazy.) So, given the assumption, 'ramming itself' makes perfect sense.

True...BUT - if you are actively ramming something, you are probably trying to minimize damage to your own vehicle.

So, the semi ramming a bike would just plow over it, but if you're on a bike trying to 'ram' a semi (stupid as that may be...) you'll likely try and hit a front wheel to force the semi off the road (You're not hoping to crush it with damage, but to have the driver of the semi fail his resulting crash test).

So the discrepancy in the rules are actually somewhat logical, leading to the results you depicted.

If, on the other hand, they are just crashing into each other without ramming, they'd each take damage as if they'd rammed themselves...which will result in the semi being more damaged than the bike, most likely.

By RAW, bike (Growler) takes 12 boxes of damage, rolls 12 in resistance; semi takes 36 boxes and rolls 26 for defense...buying successes leaves the bike with 9 of 11 boxes in damage; semi gets 29 of 17 boxes.

Of course, in a situation like this where the bike offers virtually no resistance for the oncoming truck, I'd say it's logical to either give the semi that 'half damage' rule as if it had rammed the bike, or judge damage based on the smaller of the colliding vehicles - resulting in 11 or 5 respectively. Or just treat it as if they had rammed each other, giving the truck 5 and the bike 32 boxes of damage. SPLAT! makes sense

Of course, by the line in Arsenal, the motorcycle driver walks away from his destroyed bike without a scratch (as long as the semi wasn't intentionally ramming him - then he's dead...)

I'm happiest with the 'co-ramming' solution. Bike takes tons, semi takes less.

That's just the magic of advanced full-body airbags, duh. And ramming=crashing.

It isn't really forgivable, if you start looking at it. It's entirely possible to "crash" and not hit anything that's "arbitrarily strong."

In fact, I've done it.
(Which is once more than I'd have liked).

My truck lost traction going around a bend to the left, I crossed over the lane of oncoming traffic, up onto an embankment, missed two trees, a iron-pip mailbox, back across the oncoming lane of traffic, and regained control in my own lane.

Sum total of damages: seriously whacked front-end alignment (i.e. not serious or permanent) and the jitters (I pulled over almost immediate and twitched for 5 minutes).

I'm suggesting that the mechanic didn't care to model such a case.

The rules mechanic yes. Apparently not.
(As opposed to Wes, who is awesome, and fixed my truck. ;p )

As am I =)



I'd say you made a pretty good job of the crash test, perhaps a success with a glitch, missing all those trees and stuff and ending up in your own lane with only minor damage. That, or maybe excellent use of Edge on the vehicle damage resistance test...perhaps even burning a point and forcing the GM to come up with a good explanation for how both you and the car survived.

Oh I'm sorry.

I meant in real life.

Agreed, snowRaven. The game is not like real life.

Oh, I know =)

I was just translating your real-life experience to game terms, to show that the rules can simulate such an occurence