I've come up with a system of dealing damage to different body parts and having it effect characters differently. I was tired of having a shot to the head and a shot to the toe do the same damage, and so I created this. I already posted this in the Critical Hits thread, but since I don't want to just barge into it and invade with my system, I started a new topic

Here is the .doc with 4 of the body damage systems and a random hit chart on it, to boot. Get it here (right-click and do a "Save As"). The way I do it now seems to work, but you can always change it to your liking:

Overall damage is the same as normal Shadowrun damage, Mental damage is the same as stun.

Damage delivered to any of the 4 limbs is marked, and then half of the total damage on that limb is added to the overall damage.

Damage to the torso is taken to the torso and then applied directly to overall damage using the same box amount.

Damage to the head is multiplied by 2 (1.5 could also work, depending on the situation), and then added to overall damage.

Damage to the groin is taken, divided by four, and added to overall damage. Take the groin damage again and apply the same amount of mental damage (stun) to the character.

Damage levels for each area go as follows (the alternate ones are if you want to go softer on the PC's):

Light: +1 TN for any actions involving area
Medium: +2 TN for any actions involving area
Serious: Area disabled, no actions possible
Serious(Alternate): +3 TN for any actions involving area
Deadly: Area removed, cannot be repaired, only replaced
Deadly(Alternate): Area disabled, no actions possible

Overall damage still has the same initiative penalties, as does Mental damage, but Overall damage no longer gives target number penalties. Mental gives only half TN penalties (so serious stun will only be +1 or +2 TN, depending on GM discretion).

Every time an area (besides the groin) is hit, two dice are rolled and the correct effect from the random damage table is applied (you can write down effects in the gray box under each area, to keep track, and the results of the effect are up to you, damage, stun, whatever you deem appropriate for the new injury)

Obviously, when a PC's overall damage reaches Deadly, they are dead.

So, there it is. Since none of my players have used stun-based melee weapons in this system, I'm not sure how they would work, but I wager just adding stun normally won't cut it, since a hit to the arm won't stun you, but it will damage the arm. Electricity-based weapons, obviously, will still work no matter what limb they hit, but clubs and saps will have to be reworked somehow. Anyone have any bright ideas?

Considering how this duplicates the semi-permanent damage effects listed somewhere in Man and Machine, I see no reason these should exist. That being said, if it makes your game more enjoyable for your players and yourself, good.

I agree, use the wound effects already in the game.

I can't seem to find anything very close to this in M&M, though I did see the random damage rules, they didn't look like they would work the same in gameplay. That, or I misinterpreted what it said at some point. Mind telling me where I went wrong?

Same post from the other thread of the same type.

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You guys need to read up on the section of the rules dealing with wound effects. Wound effects are pretty much any damage that does more than just a "box" of damage. The below list is an example of possible wound effects (no it's not all inclusive):

Stress points to attributes
ie Bobby was never the same after that shot to the lung, he always got winded easier (BOD)
ie Tony was never up to par after he injured his back (QUI)

Stress points to limbs:
Every once in while my trick knee gives out on me.
Every since that one accident dislocated my shoulder, it goes out when I push it too hard

Massive trauma:
Massive trauma can be listed as a wound effect (or in this case more than one wound effect). First figure out what the trauma level is (wound level), where it's logical to apply it (one shot from a pistol won't damage an eye and your foot), how much it's going to stress or hinder the body (number of wound effects). Once you figure this out, apply it.

Character takes a moderate wound from a heavy pistol. After rolling the character comes up with 2 wound effects. So it's a moderate wound from a pistol to the left leg with 2 wound effects. You can either review the chart with ideas or make up your own. What happens when you hurt your leg? You limp right? You also have less weight to carry. Etc. In this case I'm being generous and apply –1 QUI for running and –1 STR. Both effects are temporary until healed.

Character takes a serious wound with 3 wound effects, same situation above. Character has taken a shot to the knee. With repair, replacement or cyber enhancement the leg won't ever work correctly again. The wound effects are as follows:
1. Limb now has 2 points of stress, apply to QUI and STR for use of limb
2. Apply 1 wound effect to 'ware in the leg.

Alternately the character can also have mangled ankle or foot. Same aspect as above, but the option to rebuild is pretty much out.

But see, that's different. That doesn't allow different limbs to take varying amounts of damage and have their performance effected differently. I think it's easier to figure out what the enemy was aiming for, roll and do the math, and then shade in boxes and figure out of Ripper can still keep his pistol level or if he just lost his finger.

And also, once again, that system IGNORES the fact that damage to different areas of the body will not hurt the same. A sword wound to the groin and a sword wound to the arm will hurt you differently. Groin shot, you crumple over and mourn the loss of lefty, while a hit to the arm will impede your retaliation on the offending slasher. Believe me, I wouldn't have spent time on this system to do something I could easily do with a few dice rolls and a random damage chart. This will let leg shots impede you little by little, but still not kill you, groin shots stun you but still not do too terribly much damage, and headshots totally flatten you.

So, when M&M magically updates itself to include the fact that a headshot and a toeshot are different, I'll believe that their system is exactly the same.

Yes it does. If you take "trauma X" to your leg and "trauma Y" spine, that's represented by different damage levels. The same wound to a leg, is going to be more traumatic to your spine or head. Hence the different damage levels. Making up some slipshod dice rolling way of telling you where you hit is going to cripple the combat system, or just make it lamer. The base of the weapon damage and how far up it's staged is going to tell you where the shot hit. You simply aren't going to do "Deadly Damage" to someone's non-critical parts of their body without aiming for them. So those wounds are going to be upper half center torso, spine, head, etc. Serious wounds are not going to be a trivial shot to the hand, it's going to be a crippling blow to a lower limb, mangled portion of an upper limb, massively hindering shot to the torso, spine, head, etc.

Truly if you can't figure out what damage level correlates to a trauma and it's location on the body, why are you using an additional chart in the game? You've completely missed the whole point of an abstract combat system. In your example of generic wounds between a sword shot to the groin and the same shot to your arm, you've just figured the difference between a Moderate/Serious wound (groin shot) and an Moderate wound (arm shot). Now because the shot to your groin was incapacitating wound, we've established that that particular groin shot carries with it more than just a given number of boxes in damage. Why not assign it a wound effect that covers the same thing? The moderate wound to the arm only impedes you as much as any +2 TN modifier in melee combat does.

To address your last issues:
The combat system is abstract and that's why it works.

"So, when M&M magically updates itself to include the fact that a headshot and a toeshot are different, I'll believe that their system is exactly the same.'

What's not to understand? A head shot and a toe shot are different. The fact that you do "X" damage to the head and the same to the foot. If you can't understand that, it's because you don’t' understand the damage system. A shot to the toe that destroys it, is a light wound (with a wound effect). That same shot to the head is still a light wound (with or without a wound effect). You just need to look at what it is that you're talking about. Since you can't do called shots with ranged weapons, that isn't an issue. Any moron that wants to do a called shot with a sword only to his target's one toe, is only going to cut that toe off and won't be able to stage the damage up. By the rules though melee is not just one swing it's a series of blows. You want to target someone's toe? Fine, if you stage the damage up, you've just hit more than the toe. Probably took a good portion of the leg out. If you do a moderate wound or more to the person's toe, it's going to take out more. A light wound is a toe. A moderate wound is good portion of the foot. A serious wound is enough to take the leg out. A deadly wound is enough to kill, ie the major artery in your leg.

Seriously though if you can't get that right, how do you expect to put together a chart of wounds and locations from an abstract damage system? All you've done is made it harder to kill someone (unless you shoot them in the head). There's a good chance in your system that you're just going to blow someone's limb off and they really take half damage to the rest of them. Of course your system is completely hosed when you hit a cyberlimb huh? What do you do then? Make up a Band-Aid rule for a broken arm? I don't think so. What about the limited number of criticals on your chart? Again the system in place is fine if you use it.

Let me sum it up a bit better than I did.

Damage is a combination of the weapon's damage code and body location. Body location is determined by the number of successes from the attack roll. The more successes you get, the better the shot location.

"Since you can't do called shots with ranged weapons, that isn't an issue."

I assume you meant melee weapons, correct? If you can't aim a gun at a point on the body, that's just silly.

I've tested it, and for now it works properly for my purposes, so I don't see any point in debating it further, because I know it needs work and polishing to include all aspects of the game equally. This is the first version of it that's been completed to the point of usability, I haven't worked on it for an immense amount of time like FASA worked on the system in place, I don't get paid, and I'm no professional by any means. I do plan to revise it, though and post it again when I have every aspect from shapeshifters to cyberware figured out and balanced.

As for now, after reading over the rules quite a few times, the system in place seems to work quite nicely. But when I make this public again, I'll make sure it not only is all-inclusive, but surpasses the FASA system for ease of use, plausibility/fairness, and entertainment value

So thanks for taking time to explain things, looks like I'm gonna have to put more work into this than I thought to get a really good system.

Another parameter not taken into account in your system (and it makes again the point of SR being an abstract system) : armors.
Armor ratings in SR are abstract in the sense that the rating itself takes into account the area the armor covers. The difference between a vest and a jacket is not really the effectiveness of their Kevlar, but the fact that one better covers the body.
So if you include a localisation system in your game, you also have to reconsider the armor ratings.

The armor is pretty simple, I deal with it differently even when using standard rules. I don't let helmets count for gut shots, vests don't protect from getting pegged in the knee, etc. etc.

As for the "you can't make called shots with ranged weapons", you have to be freaking kidding me. I could understand no called shots with melee (even though I allow them, I wasn't sure what the "official" ruling was before Fortune said so), but there's no possible way you can't call a shot with a ranged weapon. You could certainly miss horribly if you lack proper skills, but saying that you can't call a shot with a gun or bow is silly.

In fact, the rules mention something named "called shot", which allow you to make increased damage for a +4 TN.
I think SR rules focus on the intent, rather than the mean. And so the important thing is to know what your character wants to achieve when firing on its opponent: if his goal is to kill him with this bullet, use the above "called shot" rule. If after the aatack roll and the dodge/resistance roll, the final damage is Deadly, then you can assume that your character hit his opponent in the head.
You determine the localisation of the wounds from the severity of the damage suffered, not the other way around. This has its flaws, and its benefits. And it needs to be understood as it is.

About armor, I'm not sure you took my point. If I understood your system, you make the attack test and the dodge/defense test normally, then you determine the localisation of the hit.
If the attacker called shots, he localisation is already known, and you just take into account or not armor, depending on the armor and the area aimed at.

This has 2 flaws:
- the first is not related to armors. It is the fact that using your system, someone who tries to hit a particular area of the opponent's body always succeeds if he has at least 1 success on his attack roll and the target doesn't dodge. That seem unrealistic to me.
- the second flaw is that in your way of doing, armor either count or don't. But let's take an armor vest of 5/3. This protection rating is the overall rating, meaning that this rating means NOTHING if you use localisation rules. I mean that this armor vest doesn't have a 5/3 protection rating when call shot to the torso, but probably more. What do you use as a balistic protection rating for someone in a heavy security armor shot at the arm ?
I don't see anything in your system taking this aspect into account.

Not to criticize your system in particular (I haven't read it through properly) but there are a few facts about the shadowrun damage system that doesn't easily translate into localized damage:

Damage Codes and attack tests - this system is very abstract, and as people have pointed out, the better you roll, the better you hit. But there's more to hit. The better your successes AFTER the damage resistance test, the better you hit - there is NO WAY of accurately determining where you hit before the damage resistance test has been rolled. Example: Joe the Sniper rolls ten successes on his attack test with a Barret 121 (14D). Using the rules for staging wounds above deadly(he's shooting a guy with Body 5), Joe increases the damage to Deadly plus 5 boxes. This is enough damage to immediately kill the character - shot through the heart, shot through the brain, for example. But you can't say he hit there - not yet. See, Billy the Target has a Combat Pool of 10, and adds that to his Body for the damage resistance test. Through a miracle and some Karma Pool rolling, Billy gets 15(!) successes (unlikely, but possible) This means that Billy takes a Moderate wound. Billy wasn't wearing any armor - he didn't dodge - he was just lucky. Now, if you said before Billy's resistance roll that he was hit in the heart, how can he have taken a Moderate wound? 'Oh, wait - the bullet missed the heart and passed through your body, not doing any severe damage') - the consequences of the system is that you cannot determine where a shot hit until all the dice have been rolled. If Billy had bone lacing, maybe he would have taken no damage at all - 'You hit him square in the head, right between the eyes...but, magically the bullet is stopped completely by the bonelacing, and look - Billy only staggers abit! (If that...)

Even if he had taken a deadly from that shot (but managed to survive), when you roll to see if he got any permanent effects, Billy looses an eye(!) - but, he was shot in the heart...

Armor ratings - the armor system is also abstract, as has been pointed out. If you just apply the rating to the various protected body parts, you can acheive interesting effects. Examples: Samson the Security Guard is standing with his back to two runners sneaking up on him - Zippy and BangBang. Samson is wearing an Armor Jacket layered with an Armor Vest w/plates, and a security helmet to top it all off (he's paranoid, what can I say?). Now, BangBang and Zippy shoot him at the same time. BangBang uses his Remington 750 hunting rifle and fires straight at Samson's heart (BangBang is a hunter, and always aims for the heart) the bullet can't penetrate the armor (Jacket, plus vest - total 7) and Samson starts to turn around. But Zippy shoots him in the head with his Streetline special and oops helmet only protects +1/+2 - since he isn't wearing any other armor on his head, that's 1(!) and the bullet penetrates...(Of course, this situation is eliminated if you assume the helmet protects the same as the armor it came from - but then, what's the value of a rapid transit line helmet? A hardhat? Forearm Guards? A Riot shield? Should a bullet from hold-out pistol be able to go straight through that ballistic riot shield, or through that secure ultra vest? What areas exactly do 'Real Leathers' cover for the cost of 750¥ Does the armor vest Impact armor of 3 mean that a human with strength 6 can stab right through it with a fork that does (Str-1)L damage?

To make all this extreme, assume Billybob the butcher (str 5) throws a knife at the heart of a cop wearing an Armor Jacket and an Armor Vest w/Plates - their armor total to 4, so that leaves 1L damage. But Billybob got 8 successes, and the poor sap wearing this has a body of 2 and rolls only 2 successes - does this mean that he now has a fork lodged in his heart (through two layers of armor I might add) and he will bleed to death in 12 seconds?

Consensus - if you want to use hit locations in shadowrun, there needs to be some major revamping of the entire damage/armor system, if not the entire combat system, in order to avoid absurd or strange situations.

Another problem is Combat Spells - if you use hit locations, where does a Power Bolt or even better - a Power ball hit? Damage to every area separately? One area? Damage to the entire body, on a separate column. And what about a Fireball? What armor counts - if you apply the damage to the entire body once, do you use the highest armor rating? The total? The lowest?

Phew... that turned into more of a rant than I thought...

My point is that it is near impossible to combine the shadowrun damage system with realistic localized damage and damage effects - even the Wound Effect system in Man&Machine is flawed, and you need to modify the results before applying them, if you want to keep a certain degree of realism. I have tried (multiple times) to work out a system, but I have found it is much more work than it is worth, since you have to modify the entire combat system, more or system
That said, I'm not criticizing your system - if they work for you, that's great. Just be prepared to modify alot as you go along when you end up in unforeseen situations And most importantly - have fun gaming!

That's the whole point of an abstract combat system. You don't aim at body parts. You either aim for the person or you aim a vulnerable area (ie called shot, raise damage code one level).

For the armor system, you either have to completely redo it, or use it as is. There's really not much else you can do. A helmet by itself is like 1/2 armor rating. Does that mean that for a called shot to head (in melee) that it's only got an armor value of 2 impact? No, it doesn't. That's the value it adds to your whole body. You might be able to break it down like cyberlimb armor. What are there like 6 or 7 body location for cyberlimb armor? So if you have a 1/2 helmet, that would be a 6/12 for the head if you use that system. Kinda makes a vest with plates (12/9 for front torso) godly huh.

A few things to help make it all easier on you.
1. You can kick someone in the nuts, but you can't shoot them in the head.
2. Don't go for the magic bullet theory. Wounds effects are all connected. A shot to the leg will not pop out your eyes.
3. Don't assume the game designers are gun experts, martial artists or that common sense is common. Just use the rules and go with them.

Austere Emancipator
The inability to lower the attack power of a weapon below 2 (short of heavy armor) is the beauty of the system. You are coved in soft armor after all and that doesn't even cover your whole body. There's always a chink in your armor somewhere. A knife vs an armored jacked and vest with plates has 4 points of impact armor. The whole reason people when to hard armor for protection is because of blunt trauma. I see no reason for that to change. So the knife man vs the armored man, the guy has open areas to stab, hence the minimum of 2 points of power. With the option of doing a called shot to ignore the armor.

If the armored guy was wearing hard armor (miltech or gel pack) he could if he had enough armor just ignore said knife guy. Or the knife guy could do a called shot to ignore the armor (though on milspec with a helmet I'd have to think more on an appropriate TN).

My main problem isn't that certain weapons can do damage through heavy armor (like Armored Vest with Plates should be), it is that armor against low-powered weapons is useless, and that very heavy armor doesn't seem to protect much better than lighter armor.

I realize that a shot might hit between the plates in the vest, or hit the armpit, etc. even with a Hit Location system (and that will happen even if you give extra dice for DamRes if the attacker gets lucky/rolls well). But to think that people with a Str of 1 and a knife always hit the armpits, or some other unarmored area of a person with body armor seems silly to me. Same thing with, say, an Armored Jacket and a Heavy Security Grade vs a Light Pistol - common sense says that the guy in Heavy Sec Grade would be less hurt, but SR canon doesn't agree. Where common sense and canon rules clash, I go with common sense, even if it's not all that common.

There are far better ways of redoing the armor system than using a flat modifier for coverage. Like the one I described above: use a few hours of your meaningless life (don't get yet panties in a bunch, I'm not addressing anyone specific here) to browse through info on body armor and wound trauma, and then modify the numbers to suit your game. I do not find it a problem that people with armored vests with plates (type III or IV in RL terms) are nearly invulnerable to non-armor piercing small arms hits to their torsos. That's realistic (the dreaded R-word). Such armor should stop anything up to and including .308 Winchester/7.62x51mm NATO FMJ rounds at point blank (or Sporting Rifles/MMGs in Shadowrun terms) with minimal blunt trauma.

A guy wearing an armored vest with plates that gets shot square in the chest, directly to the plate, with a Heavy Pistol (even if you consider them .50AEs with FMJ rounds) wouldn't be seriously injured. He might feel a bit like someone poked him hard with a stick, but that's hardly the equivalent of resisting 2M (or more) Physical. This only goes for use with Hit Locations, though, because I realize that there's no telling where exactly the round hit with the canon rules, and the 5M Physical wound is an abstract way of saying that the round could have hit the arms, or legs, or head, or anything not protected by the vest.

You know I asked one of the guys (Rich I think) at GenCon if called shots were allowed. He said that they were allowed.

However, that's an unofficial answer. I just hope that it gets errataed(?) quickly.

As a side not...just put some flippin water on the bullets and call it a "chemical delivery system" and use the rules from M&M that allow for called shots.

Austere Emancipator added a really interesting point, how is magic going to be affected by this system? Combat Magic by its design affects the entire aura/person. This means that it would probably make magic Much more deadly, because it would affect your Total Damage Track, where as guns have five or six tracks to deal with.

I think it's fairer to credit snowRaven for bringing up the Combat Spell problem. I just gave it a quick and dirty fix, which many will no doubt find unattractive.

Like I mentioned, I use only one track for all damage, including that from firearms. This is a compromise between abstraction and complexity (not realism and simplicity...). A guy might continue fighting after one of his legs gets blown off (only a Serious wound, since you can't get more than a Serious on a hit to a limb in my games), but he'll probably lose the fighting spirit after the other one gets blown off too.

Not that it makes a big difference to using different damage tracks. Even with my rules, combat spells are (very) slightly more deadly, because they do not have to worry about only hitting the target in a limb, and thus not being capable of incapacitating it instantly. The same thing goes for the different tracks, since a powerbolt would basically hit everyone in the torso, not having to worry about only hitting a limb and doing less overall damage. On the other hand, it cannot hit the enemy in the head, either, so it's a trade off.