If you punch someone with regular old fist -- no cyberware, adept powers, etc. -- you deal (STR)S damage. Almost everything else in melee deals physical damage, but sometimes stun is preferable.

The sidebar on p.186 ("Changing damage types") describes the case of wanting to only knock someone out when all you have is a sword, and it says you can use a called shot to "transfer damage types" if the target is armored. If the target is unarmored you instead have the option of using your sword as a club -- except clubs also deal P damage, so I don't see how that helps.

The rules for called shots don't mention an option to deal stun damage with melee weapons. There's "Harder Knock" which converts stun to physical and "Splitting the Damage" which converts physical to half-and-half, but neither of those matches the description from the sidebar. So my current interpretation is that the sidebar from p.186 offers an additional type of called shot (convert physical to stun for melee attacks against armored opponents) that's not listed with the rest of them.

I also assume that as soon as you have 'ware that gives you physical damage in melee (e.g. bone lacing), you no longer have the option of dealing stun damage. If you punch someone with a reinforced fist, you have to make a called shot to deal stun damage just as if you were using a sword.

Does that all sound correct?

well, if you really want to deal stun in melee, i would recommend that you try carrying a shock weapon. most of them deal stun damage.

GRAPPLE TEST!

p195


Now your street sammy can subdue the researcher who isn't being very cooperative for your extraction run. Unless he's a troll..you're going to have problems if he's a troll.

But I also like this idea of using called shots to knock people out. Makes sense that you'd be going out of your way to not kill them, so it'd be harder to hit that sweet spot.

What I find interesting is that the sap, which is pretty much meant to knock people out, does P damage in SR5. Wonder if it's a mistake?

It used to do Stun in 4E - one of the half dozen or so weapons that did.

~Umi

Hm, if you use the called shot to distribute damage: which part gets resisted first? If it is the physical part (which would make sense) that would be a pretty nice representation of real life (try beating someone unconcious with a bat fast without causing injuries).

The sap (and similar instruments which distribute force over a broader area) should probably be stun though (i.e. the close-range gel-round).

Yeah, that's why I was wondering if it was a mistake. Given the purpose of a sap is to knock people unconscious, having it do Stun in 4E made sense. So is the change on purpose or a mistake?

I dunno about intent, but I could see it as purposeful. In the wrong hands a 'stun weapon' can be a killer. I take a baseball bat to you and its theoretically possible for me to kill you in one hit in real life, even if 'intent' was to stun/ko. Per media we think pistol-whipping somebody just leads to KO, but probably could kill you too. Heck, taking a baseball to the chest can kill you. So unless you're taking care to pull the hit or make adjustments, you don't just easily get 'stun damage' instead of 'real damage'.

And that is why you use a Tazer or Narcojet/Breathtaker/Slab (pick one) DMSO-Capsule Round.

I like the idea of base physical damage, then using the half P half S rule and having the target soak P damage first.