Having played some more modern RPGs recently, most notably using the Fate system, I'm starting to wonder why Shadowrun still sticks with a "hit points" style system rather than moving to something that's more descriptive and less prone to numbers insanity.

Does the system really need to keep fine track of damage to get its point across? Instead of taking 4 damage or 1 damage, couldn't you just take a "gunshot" or a "flesh wound" instead? Shadowrun's got enough quirks that getting fiddly with damage numbers seems unproductive at best ("you deal 18P to the target and it explodes" / "no no, I got 7 hits, so I deal 20P") and unthematic at worst ("the Streetline Special is worthless because it does 6P instead of 8P, which is why everyone uses it even though it can't kill a twig").

When you get into SR4 and on through SR5, this tends to make combat... I don't know, kind of bland? I shoot / I hit / he resists some / he takes 3 damage. Lots of pluses and minuses and rolling. Rinse, repeat. It really shows its blandness in Matrix combat, where pretty much all of the environmental nuances are stripped away and you're just left with two code spheres battering each other in open space.

What can be done with this? One of the biggest problems I have with getting people interested in playing Shadowrun is the chunkiness of the system, and I'm wondering if it's getting on toward time to push it into the modern era.

Never really had issues with the Health Boxes of Shadowrun, myself (though various iterations of Damage Coding have been an issue for me - SR1, SR2, and SR3 I am looking at you), though I see where you are coming from. I enjoy/love FATE system as well. Problem with the Fate System is that it greatly generisizes (word I just made up) such things. You will lose a great deal of granularity that the Shadowrun system provides, which I greatly enjoy. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses... Personally, the granularity of Shadowrun (and the Gun Porn) is a Strength, in my opinion. And you lose that in FATE.

Like Tymeaus said. They're different games for different people. I enjoy reading FATE books, and would probably enjoy it from a strictly RP point of view. But it sucks at anything approaching realistic modeling. It's a 'narrative' system not a 'modeling' system.

I do agree that the SR4 rinse and repeat gets a little rough. This is why I couldn't transition over from SR3. In SR3, the pools were part of the game, and that whole gambling and planning component that came with it was part of the fun. I don't play D&D for the same reason. If you're going to do tactical modeling with lots of rolls, you need to at least make the rolls interesting, with lots of options for player choice and story-telling.

I still think you could maintain a simulation feel without sticking to a flat damage model. I'm not saying that the Fate system is a good model for Shadowrun, but it got me thinking in this direction.

For example, the difference in handguns is a good feature to zoom in on. What makes a Predator better than a Fichetti Security? Well, it's the damage, because raw damage output is really the only thing that matters. Trying to add complexity to that (Accuracy, for example) only serves to bog down the system.

Sometimes a gun is just a gun, and the personal preference of a user has absolutely nothing to do with its capabilities or features.

I agree, though Shadowrun doesn't seem to care about the differences that actually matter. You can't, for example, put 5 .50AE pistol rounds on target as quickly as you can 5 9mm rounds. Since the only difference between the guns is a flat damage code, the heavier gun always looks more appealing. You get into the same issue between SMGs and assault rifles and MGs.

Besides, Hold-outs definitely have their uses. You can carry them with lesser problems in social situations you normally wouldn´t be able to bring along a heavy pistol. They are smaller and in the correct hands they can also be quite deadly. Of course they are the wrong choice if you want to meet in a barrens bar, but that is another point.

Indeed...

We have hit points as an abstraction of damage.

Shadowrun uses an abstract and very, very general damage model, suited to an action movie like combat experience. This is why little details in gun difference don't matter enough to be modeled in their damage code. The damage isn't granular enough for that.

It's not really suited to an action movie style. An action movie style would involve getting "a few scratches" or "just a flesh wound" or "a sucking chest wound." Not incremental damage.

Always thought using a hit location might help:

Prior to determining damage level, roll 2D6 for location:

2: Head/neck
3-4:Arm (roll again, 1-3 Left, 4-6 right)
5-7:Upper Chest
8-9:Lower abdomen
10-11: Leg (roll again, 1-3 Left, 4-6 right)
12:Head/neck

But then this mean all the armor codes need to be rewritten:
Could go something like this for an armored jacket:

H(ead):0 C(hest&torso):8 L(imbs):5

And the helmet could be:
H:+10 C:+0 L:+0

Then the question becomes can you sacrifice hits to select location? Say use 2 net hits to adjust location roll by 1.


This system would by no means be perfect, but might help. I'd revert to the following descriptors (modify for creatures with bodies greater than 4):
1-3 damage: A light wound, such as a bullet bouncing off the skull causing bleeding, taking off an ear, hitting a limb but not damaging any tendons, with minor damage to muscle or bone, hitting the torso or chest might meant a complete blow through without hitting a major organ, possibly some muscle or bone damage (like a cracked rib).
4-6 damage: Moderate damage for the head would be fracturing the skull, jaw or a wound that seriously impairs your hearing or sight. Hitting a limb and damaging nerves and tendons, in the case of a torso or chest wound this might mean minor organ damage, like your left kidney taking a hit (assuming you haven't sold your right).
7-9: Serious wound to the head might mean taking damage to brain or artery, to a limb it might mean a limb got mangled (to the point it probably needs to be replaces), and for the torso, major organ damage.

A singe shot that kills for the head means brain splatter, to a limb means blown off and you're in shock, and chest or torso means the lung or heart have been hit.

Honestly, the older editions worked on a somewhat more storytelling principle. Rather than doing an obvious numerical value, weapons did Light, Moderate, Serious, etc. wounds. Granted, the wounds, when using the damage track, equated to 1, 3, 6, etc. damage. But they could still be easily described as flesh wounds, gunshot, or however the GM wants to describe them. You can really do the same thing in the current game with a decent imagination and storytelling chops.

I disagree with the idea that it only takes "decent imagination." That's just a patch put over the gamey hit point system. You can do the same thing with D&D.

That's fine, there are certainly dicelight and diceless storytelling systems that could be easily converted for Shadowrun. Shadowrun, for five editions, has been a heavily dice-based game.

Well a better simulation wouldn't say: you've been winged 10 times for 1 point of damage each, so I guess now you've been incapacitated. Dice are fine, it's just the damage model is weird as hell, and very flat. And it's not very simulation-oriented. It's a lot of crunch and grind for a low payout.

"Your luck holds as the ganger's shot only grazes your arm. While only a minor wound, the combined shock from blood loss and bruising from the last several flesh wounds you suffered bring you to your knees. Your vision slowly tunnels and fades to black."

It might not be for everyone, but I guess it has worked for me across most of the RPGs I have played.

Not a Die Hard fan, are you?

Sure, but you never break a leg, or pass out from blood loss, or take a hard knock and get dizzy for a second. You know, in the system. Hit points are directly contrary to that notion. The example of Fate sort of lets the player decide what negative consequences they take. A simulationist game like Shadowrun could do something mechanically interesting instead. But the more games I play, the more I see hit points stand in the way of interesting combat.

"Sorry John, the explosion combined with crashing through the window does 2 more points of Stun. You pass out."

Here's a brief example of a dice-oriented system that would provide a better simulation:

Damage comes in by applying a specific consequence. Let's say that one possible consequence of getting solidly hit with a baseball bat is "broken leg" which comes with some movement penalties and some overall pain/distraction penalty to actions. You're then required to make some test like Body + Willpower so that you don't go into shock.

Let's say that you get shot, but your armor vest absorbs most of the impact (reducing it into the Stun range, normally). You might take some consequence like "Winded" which doesn't last long, but gives you some penalty to actions, and getting hit like that multiple times in short order might accumulate enough penalties to the Body+Willpower roll that you fail it and pass out.

You do know that there are options for that in SR4A, right?

From my experience, more often than not, if you are not willing to completely detail all possible interactions of damage and consequence (and annotate them in writing), you will get disagreement from participants in how those interactions should/would work.. And you are apparently making even more rolls to adjudicate effects (as evidenced by your first example)
And this leads to a much more complex set of interactions than the simple mechanic that already exists in Shadowrun.

There are benefits and drawbacks to each system, to be sure, but more often than not, simplicity wins over more simulationist approaches.

I thought that was EXACTLY what wound penalties are.

To use your example; you get hit with a baseball bat and breaks something. You can't move as fast or as well. You suffer a -1 to all actions. (A lenient GM would use Called Shot rules.) You get hit by a gel round and get winded. While that's in effect, you suffer a -1 to all actions, but it doesn't last long. However, accumulate enough and you might pass out.

There are two things you've added which aren't covered here;

1) Shock. This has been brought up a few times on this forum. Someone even made up rules for them. However, the overall response was 'this is terrible'. No one wants to play a character who might pass out or wet himself on the first shot. It's just not fun, and the first rule of the game is having fun.

2) Area-specific damage. Most people agree being able to have area-specific damage would be fun, but they don't want to pay the book-keeping cost. I've played CP2020 which does have area-specific damage. It's frequently silly, and always slow. So while I don't disagree with you, you need to recognize what you're giving up. The easy solution here is to say 'hey, the GM's job is to take narrative control and describe things as appropriate'. Unfortunately, no rule book will ever be able to properly document how to do that.

I didn't provide a mechanic, just an idea that could be made into a mechanic. Taking a cue from Fate, you could even go so far as to allow players to decide how their characters get injured -- you roll your attack/defense/soak dice and then get to apply the "injured" or "crippled" effect somewhere on the body with associated penalties. Or maybe you just take another "flesh wound" and roll on.

Or a simple die roll (Edge to choose, yourself?).

I simply find the combat system to devolve rapidly into "I shoot at the dude" "you hit, the dude shoots back" because the amount of thought that needs to go into it is fairly low, and the system doesn't pull any weight on explaining what's happening. There's only so much creative juice you can pour into describing a gunfight, especially the ones where it's two groups behind cover firing lots of shots at each other.

Not exactly. It's a step up from D&D where you take no penalties while you go from full health to no health, but the system can't handle you spraining your ankle.

Incapacitation was earlier described as "shock" upthread here, by someone. You could put in an incapacitation mechanic that doesn't rely on simple accrual of damage, but rather one that sets a threshold to test against.

Locational damage is tricky, but I think there are ways to do it without resorting to bookkeeping nightmares like locational armor or multi-tree charts. You could enlist player decision, roll a couple dice, or draw cards from a deck. It doesn't have to take a long time.

While I understand your point - I believe that it is incumbent upon the participants (both GM and Players) to provide the descriptive narration in the scene. If they let it devolve into the uninteresting territory of "I shoot, I dodge, I shoot back", then it is on them and not the system. Even FATE is wholly dependent upon the descriptive narrative. And even in FATE, you can get what you describe as a boring implementation.

Sure, though Fate has lots of added player agency in resolving exactly what happens descriptively, while the mechanics just amount to a possible -2 here or there. It distributes the narrative out to the players, while games like Shadowrun put most of everything on the GM.

I don't agree that players are removed from descriptive (or narrative) agency in Shadowrun (though it may not be the norm), nor that most everything is placed upon the GM. It is obviously not the default at your table, from what I am hearing, but that does not mean that other tables do not share the load. It is a shared experience, after all.

Maybe I am biased, though, because I always try to encourage player agency in games that I run, whether FATE, DnD, Shadowrun or nWOD. And many of the GM's I play with do the same thing. But I am odd like that, so, maybe that falls under the TJ Fallacy.

There used to be things like permadamage out there in SR3. But I think the reason you see things like Numerical system or incremental health levels (WoD, L5R) is that they are a simple but effective game mechanic that fit well enough not the style of game they're built around. Every so often the Hit location, winging shot, bullet to lung etc comes up. There was a game called Pheonix Command that did this, it did it very very well. It was also almost unplayable because of this. Entire missions came to an end with a winging bullet to the leg that also scraped the bone and generated a system shock a few seconds later and so forth.

There was an old article or paragraph in a D&D manual that once said... "Why HP and not more detailed damage?" the answer was "Because while it's gritty and realistic to get a broken leg from falling 15feet down a hillside it's hard to have fun in a fantasy heroic game with that kind if thing."

People often complain that Decking or Astral "takes someone out of the game or the group out of them game" imagine a game where some bad luck early on means missing the next 3-4 sessions? That's the big downside if such damage systems.

Moirdryd made the case better than I (apparently) can.

A lucky shot taking a PC out of the fight just isn't fun. If you don't agree with us, run it at your own table and report back how it worked. I've never played at a game like this, and while I'm pretty sure it'll suck royally, I'd love to be proven wrong (because I dig the realism).

For NPCs it's a different question, and that's why we have Professionalism Rating. Sure, in theory it's just for 'how much until they give up/run away' but it's an easy fix to wrap 'pass out' in there as well.



Again, if you can do it, do it. If you can make a location damage system that:
1) Is as fast or faster than the current (SR3 is my standard) system
2) Isn't silly/frivolous (getting shot in the foot while standing behind cover, etc.)
3) Reasonably represents reality and
4) Is quick to grok/doesn't require a ton of paperwork (like ten different HP tracks and armor tracks)
I will literally pay you $5 for the rights to use it.

I love gaming systems. I play them a lot. CP2020 does locational damage and like I said, it's slow, and it gets silly. If you can do it, this has value to me. But I haven't found one that is worth the cost.

I always liked the BTRC system using Body Points that you compared to the damage to determine the result.

You don't lose the body points but accrue penalties to the appropriate limb, however the overall system was math heavy and it did get to be a pain tracking multiple injuries across the body.

What exactly is it that you're looking to add to your experience by changing the damage system?

Do you want more description or more direction for what the description of the damage should be?
Do you want more narrative control? For the players?
Do you want better simulation of an actual combat or of some representation of combat?
Do you want more dynamic combat scenes with more engagement?
Do you want there to be more nuance to weapon descriptions to capture the trade-offs for larger caliber weapons?
Do you want a greater sense of threat to the players so that combat actually feels dangerous?
Do you want more lingering effects so that players aren't so quick to throw their characters into the meat grinder?
Do you want weapons to be less flat? Do you want there to be a possibility that anyone can potentially one shot a PC?
How much bookkeeping do you want to deal with?

I've got some sense of what your answers to those questions would be, but I'm still not entirely clear what you want and I don't want to throw out lots of alternative damage systems that aren't useful to you.

I will offer one piece of advice though, less is more in terms of making combat more fun, descriptive, and realistic. The more mechanics and rules you try to put in, the more time it takes (less fun), the more constrained you are in narrating the combat (less descriptive) and the more likely you are to have edge cases or breakdowns (unrealistic).

I played in a game years ago that actually did this with a hit location deck. Very similar to the crit deck's that are floating around (but with more neutral and less damaging results) I wish I could remember the name of the deck we played with that time. Unfortunately, it was D&D so it wouldn't be compatible, but it was literally just draw a card give it to the injured player or monster, it had a location, some increase or decrease in damage for that attack, and some penalty that was applied (-1 on attack rolls). If the card didn't apply you just discarded it and did damage as normal, like your getting shot in the foot example. One additional action, three things to read, nothing to remember because you hung onto the card until healed. A similar deck for shadowrun would not be hard to create, but I can't even find the one for D&D anymore (I go looking occasionally hoping someone has reprinted it), I doubt anyone has ever made such a thing for SR.

My 2¥ for all they are worth:

I love the fate system. But its not designed to be used in a tactical combat game like SR.
That being said, I don't DISLIKE the damage meter scaling present in SR, but i dont love it. I like its abstraction of damage and inherent lethality over something like a D20 system.
All things being equal, 2 solid hits with a pistol (Moderate) will kill someone, as will a solid hit with a larger weapon (Serious). I say solid, because 1 success means you hit (perhaps its best to think of it as a fair shot, but not center mass), 2 successes means you scale up. Id consider having more then the minimum success as a solid hit, yes? And an amazing hit from a piddly weapon can be lethal as well.

Sure, the troll wearing combat armor wont necessarily see it all that way, but I assume taking several dozen rounds to even the heaviest vest will put you in serious trouble. Internal bleeding is a bitch like that.

I'd like to see it play a little fast-and-loose, with description rather than accrued points.



I think putting some control of the narrative in the players' hands is a good idea. It encourages the players to put more thought into what's going on than "I get behind cover and start shooting."



There are a lot of ways to handle "you put two bullets into the guy and he goes down." The current system has the trappings of a simulation, but doesn't provide very much fidelity for its amount of overhead.

So either "a better simulation for the cost" or "a more free-flowing, easier to follow without getting bogged down in the numbers" approach would be good. I lean toward the latter.



Generally speaking, yes. The combat system is designed so that it's hard to actually do stuff, or make stuff happen. Run-and-gun battles are tedious when you have to incorporate the movement rules, for example.



A little more thought in the weapon system design would be nice. As I mentioned earlier, the guns don't differ in the way that guns actually differ, and that's an artifact of the damage system.



Always. Getting shot is a bad idea. But I'd also give players some outs, to keep them from dropping like flies.



Lingering effects are good -- modern medicine in Shadowrun should be able to put a person back into a useful state in short order, but a character might be going into a situation with a flexible cast and a shot of bone glue holding his arm together. Not a major impediment, but perhaps a complication worth considering.



I'd like weapons to be more useful. There should be some benefit to using a light pistol over a heavy pistol and vice versa. An assault rifle with lower damage might have a higher rate of fire. SR tries to incorporate these factors into a flat damage value per weapon, but isn't highly successful at it.

Guns are deadly when they hit the right thing. I'm not saying that "one-shot" should be a common thing, but there should be the possibility. PCs get to use things like Edge to avoid really unfortunate consequences, anyway, which is what keeps them alive longer than the competition.



That depends on the kind of bookkeeping. Doing a crap-ton of calculations, notes, tick marks, and whatnot in the middle of a combat bogs things down. Doing a crap-ton of calculations, notes, tick marks, and whatnot during character creation or downtime in order to distill the relevant combat info into an easily usable state is fine.



My whole premise for the topic was "why do we still have hit points." It seems to me that a system that produces "a broken leg" instead of "6 points of damage" is less likely to bog down in how you arrive at the conclusion, because it's more focused on the narrative outcome than a pile of numbers.

The problem with this is that Broken Legs tend to not heal in a few days (while the 6 points of Damage is arbitrary enough that it is a few days or less and done). Sometimes they take months. One of the guys in my unit took several MG rounds to the arm and shoulder (Call it a Serious Wound - 6 points of damage). He was pinned and bolted for almost a year (with an arm and shoulder that were completely immobilized and useless). Not Fun. And that tends to be NOT FUN in game.

Like I said, it could be held together with a flexible cast and bone glue, and honestly take 6 months to fully heal while not providing a serious impediment to the character. But it could provide a little impediment to the character, or at least something to consider in the narrative.

Point is that that kind of injury is something that you CANNOT just put in a flexible cast and hope for the best. Same for the Spinal (Vertebrae) Injury I had, where I was almost completely incapacitated for two months, and recovery took well over a year - again, something I would classify as a Serious Wound, but not life threatening. You don't get to "run the shadows" in that capacity (because those wounds ARE a Serious Impediment). When those types of wounds are amorphous, you can just run and gun, get some quick medical attention and you are back in the thick of things in a few days. Once you start talking about "Descriptive" wounds, you generate a cognitive disconnect when the wounds no longer match up with the effect generated because of those wounds.

You're drifting. Shadowrun medtech is seriously advanced compared to current.

Maybe/Probably... However, Once you start describing effects rather than using an abstract system, that cognitive disconnect will occur, especially once it impacts you in combat (more so than the wound penalties already do). If you want a bit more variety in how you describe wounds in SR, there are already optional rules provided to detail such things (at least in SR4A - Augmentation).

I do heartily endorse more narrative control by both players and GM, however, and your goals are interesting.

I'm going to have to look into this. I've never heard of it, but it sounds very handy!

With a friend we've been toying with the idea of "any bullet can kill you with a lucky shot" and we were considering the following system:

The armor is added in the condition monitor, before the damage boxes. Armor values go from 2 to 6. The average runner will have an armor of 4.



- DV is base DV + net hits + 1D6
- When hit, the player counts the armor boxes, and instead of checking the whole damage box he just put a small sign inside. For example, if the character receives a 12 DV attack:



And then receives a 8 DV attack:


- If all the boxes are checked, the character has a mortal wound and will die unless he receives first aid soon (similar to overflow)
- If not all boxes are checked, the wound won't kill the character, but for each row of damage box he'll suffer a -1 wound modifier (so in the example, the character will have a -3 wound modifier, 2 from the first attack, and 1 from the second)
- When the second row is filled, the character has a severe injury (broken arm/leg, lost finger/ear/etc.)
- When the third row is filled, the character has a critical injury (lost limb)
- The nature of the injury is up to the GM's discretion, according to the situation.
- Armor degradation can be taken into account by checking armor boxes in some circumstances.

With this mechanism, a sword hit to the leg won't make the character more likely to be killed by a subsequent bullet to the arm, but a character who got both will have trouble doing things. Death is still rare, but nobody's safe from a lucky shot, and someone riddled full of holes won't be able to do much. It also gets rid of the soaking roll.

We still haven't fully tested it, but on the paper it seems interesting.

Okay, so I could be reading some of this wrong, but I get the impression that just dropping in a new damage system won't actually make the improvements you want. If not, I apologize for the off topic stuff below. Some alternative systems that are out there that might help:

1. You could use the severe wound system from augmentation, but I find it to be unruly and requires flipping through books with lots of note taking. It doesn't really feel like it's going to deliver what you want. Long term care stuff might be useful.

2. You could introduce attribute damage. Keep the current damage system, but eliminate the wound penalty and instead every three boxes the player takes a point of attribute damage. Let the player choose where that damage goes. Repair of attribute damage takes major medical procedures (nuyen), heavy repair of cyber (nuyen), or dedicated retraining (karma) and is not healed the same way as boxes of damage. It provides a great basis for describing just what exactly happened. A blow to Will could be something seriously painful that leaves the character shaken, a blow to strength could be a serious arm wound or a back injury. Players feel much more threatened by losing attributes and it can have lingering effects that don't completely take the player out of the game. By letting them choose, they have some narrative control over the wounds. It doesn't solve the flat weapons, but at least makes even a streetline special potentially threatening in a permanent way.

2 b. Go even further, eliminate damage boxes entirely and make it all attribute damage. With this though, you'll need a process for healing attributes and you'll have to change weapons damage values. You could specify that certain things target physical or mental attributes (drugs and certain combat chemicals come to mind).


3. Reduce the number of actions in each round. This might seem counter-intuitive, but the more things you have happening the more time it takes and the more likely you are to have uninteresting things. Maybe rather then extra passes, just let initiative improvements just grant an extra simple actions (+1 simple action rather than +1 pass). It eliminates all of the division of movements and if players are doing everything all at once there is less transitioning between people which speeds things up.

4. A number of systems have everyone decide their actions simultaneously (i.e. at the start of the round) and then are fixed in those actions. Discussion may or may not be allowed. It adds a lot more tactical planning and pre-combat discussion since people won't want to waste their action shooting someone that may already be dead from being shot. It also makes combat faster since everyone's decision making time is simultaneous. Leads to some crazy shenanigans (everyone shooting at the same guy and him being riddled with bullets so that he's at like 20 boxes of overflow). Especially great for dealing with alpha players that try to tell everyone else what to do, just don't allow discussion.

5. You could implement one of the light, serious, critical wound systems. Not to be confused with the SR1 system, but something similar to what is used in Dresden files (I think, I could be mixing up systems here). But ultimately, this ends up being a hit point system under another name in many cases.

6. Go super abstract and make combat a straight out opposed test (maybe an extended test). This is usually done in board games or rpgs with a non-combat focus. You don't get bogged down and can apply whatever description you want. Probably a bit too fast and loose for your game though.

7. You could make each type of attack or weapon have an effect or apply a condition rather than a damage amount so that condition modifiers build up on a character. This mechanic seems to be popular with superhero games. So rather than a streetline special doing X damage, on a successful attack it applies the "gun shot" effect, which causes X penalty or effect.

Example: Gun shot: -1 penalty to all actions and causes Blood Loss.
Blood Loss: This attack or effect causes blood loss. Roll your Body versus a threshold (total number of Blood Loss effects currently on the player) to remain conscious. Repeat at the end of the encounter.

Example: Explosion: Blood Loss, Concussed, Disoriented, and Burned.
Concussed: You have a concussion. You make any rolls to stay conscious at a -2 penalty.

etc.

The condition system is often stacked on top of a hit point like system, but doesn't have to be. This requires creating a list of effects for each weapon, spell, and other attack and tends to be tedious (especially because people are going to want there to be more than one possible effect), but is closest to your original premise. You would have to roll armor into the defense roll in some way (or allow armor to prevent or add bonuses against certain effects) and weapons are differentiated by the effects they cause.

GURPS has both and we all know how well accepted GURPS is, right? Granted, I really like the system, but it's been a real pain finding new players willing to play it. They always run away and prefer sticking to D&D/Pathfinder/WoD, etc...

Tell me about it...

@Blade: just skimmed your post but those damage boxes instantly made me think battletech for some reason. Possibly a modified version of the battletech armour/structure system would be suitable to your needs?

How well does the Fate system handle heavy powergamers?

Because Shadowrun seems to attract a rather large number of those.




-k

Here's a (probably terrible) thing:

Guns get the following attributes:

Accuracy
Power
Armor Penetration
ROF
Recoil
Recoil Compensation
Fire Modes
Ammo

They work like this.

Accuracy is on a scale from 1 to 6. It forms the threshold for determining how "good" a shot is. Power determines the threshold to resist damage from the weapon. Rate of Fire determines how many times you can pull the trigger as part of a complex action. Recoil determines how much recoil a trigger pull causes. Recoil Compensation reduces the effects of recoil. Fire modes (SS, SA, BF, FA). Ammo -- amount and configuration (clip, internal magazine, etc).

For a single shot, roll attack and defense as normal. Compare net hits to Accuracy. If net hits < Accuracy, it's a glance, halve Power. If net hits >= Accuracy, Power as normal. If net hits > Accuracy x2, it's a solid hit and x1.5 Power. If net hits > Accuracy x3, it's a critical hit and x2 Power.

Power is on a scale from 1 to 6 for most small arms. Military grade stuff like rockets and assault cannons obviously go higher.

A single trigger pull (simple action) in Burst mode fires 3 shots. This increases the Power of the weapon by 1, increases the Accuracy of the weapon by 1, and applies Recoil as a penalty to the shot (modified by recoil compensation). This reduces the defense pool of the target by 1.

A single trigger pull (simple action) in FA mode fires 5 shots. This increases the Power of the weapon by 1, increases the Accuracy of the weapon by 1, applies Recoil as a penalty (modified by RC), and reduces the defense pool of the target by 1. Alternately, as a complex action, FA can fire 10 shots, doubling the above.

You can pull the trigger as many times as a complex action, up to the ROF of the weapon in its current mode.

Range increments are as normal, and have the added penalty of increasing Accuracy by one per step (+1 at Medium range, +2 at Long range, etc).

Once Power is figured (base power, modified by net hits compared to Accuracy), the target rolls Body+Armor (modified by AP) with a threshold of Power. If hits > Power, no effect. If hits = Power, it's a glancing hit or "Flesh Wound." If hits < Power, the character takes a "Gunshot Wound." There are two more levels of damage: "Severe Gunshot Wound" and "Critical Gunshot Wound." A glitch on the test increases the damage one step (from Nothing to Flesh Wound, from Flesh Wound to GSW, etc). A critical glitch on the test produces the Critical Gunshot Wound.

Effects:
Flesh Wound -- -1 ongoing dice pool modifier.
Gunshot Wound -- -2 ongoing dice pool modifier.
Severe Gunshot Wound -- -3.
Critical Gunshot Wound -- -4.

First Aid can reduce the severity of an injury by one step per hit on the First Aid test (the test receives a penalty equal to the accumulated wound penalties of the target) -- eg, if a First Aid gets 3 hits on a test to fix 2 Flesh Wounds and a GSW, it can remove 2 Flesh Wounds and reduce the GSW to a Flesh Wound.

A character can accumulate a total negative penalty equal to his Body score. Beyond that, the character must begin making Body+Willpower rolls to remain active when taking new damage (with a penalty of the accumulated damage modifiers). A failure on this test indicates that the character is incapacitated. A glitch indicates that the character has acquired some sort of specific trauma that applies an additional -2 penalty to a certain type of action (like athletics or shooting) until healed (by magic/doctor/medicine/etc). A critical glitch indicates total unconsciousness and specific trauma.

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So as an example, assume that an Ares Predator does 3P -1AP. It has a ROF 2, Recoil 2, Accuracy 3. RC 0.

Runner Bob attacks Security Joe from close range. Bob has 9 dice to attack and gets 3 hits. Security Joe has 6 dice to defend and gets 2.

1 net hit on the attack is less than Accuracy, so it's a glance (half Power, or 2). Security Joe has an armor vest on (armor 5?) and Body 3, or 7 dice after AP. Joe rolls 2 hits, which equals the Power of the attack, and takes a Flesh Wound for -1 to his actions.

Runner Bob decides to whip out his Ingram Smartgun, which does 2P 0AP, Recoil 2, Accuracy 3, RC 3. It has a ROF 3/2 for SA/BF. He decides to go full bore and fire 2 bursts.

The first burst provides 2 recoil, compensated by 3 for no penalty. On 10 dice (he's slightly better at automatics), Bob gets 4 hits. Joe's down to 5 defense dice due to his light injury, and only gets 1 back, for 3 net hits.

The smartgun's Power is modified to 3 for the burst, but since its Accuracy is modified to 4, 3 net hits is still a glance for 2 damage. Joe soaks it.

The second shot carries 4 recoil, modified to 1 by RC. Bob rolls 9 dice, and gets another 3 hits. Joe's down to 4 dice (for injury and multiple dodges), and gets 1 hit. Another glance, and Joe takes another Flesh Wound.

Bob remembers that he has a smartlink and turns the thing on, reducing the Smartgun's Accuracy by 2 (to 1). Bob fires more bursts. The first is on 10 dice, getting 4 hits. Joe has -2 to actions, so gets 4 dice, and 1 hit. 3 net hits again.

The smartgun's Accuracy is 1 now, or 2 for the burst. Net hits > Accuracy, but not twice or more. That means 3 damage. Joe rolls Body + Armor (8 dice) and gets 2 hits. That's a GSW for another -2. This brings Joe's total damage penalty to -4, which is more than his Body, so he rolls his Body + Willpower (-4), or 2 dice. He gets a hit and stays up.

The second burst comes in at 9 dice, for 2 hits. Joe tries to dodge, -5 for wounds and multiple dodges. One die, he comes up empty. 2 net hits. It's a hit. Joe only gets 1 hit on the soak, and takes another GSW. Joe is now at -6 to actions. He has no more dice left to roll, and goes out of the fight.

My damage/armor scale is imagined something like this. Aberrations should occur.

Light Pistol, SMG (using light pistol rounds): 2P, AP 0, ROF 3, Acc 2, Recoil 1
Heavy Pistol, SMG (using heavy pistol rounds): 3P, AP -1, ROF 2 (or 3/2 for burst SMGs), Acc 3, Recoil 2
Standard Assault Rifle: 3P, AP -1, ROF 2/2/1, Acc 2, Recoil 2
Heavy Assault Rifle, Light (Sniper) Rifle, LMG, Shotgun: 4P, AP -1, ROF 2(/1/1 for BF/FA), Acc 3 for HARs and LMGs, 2 for snipers, Recoil 3
Standard Sniper Rifle, MMG: 4P, AP -2, ROF 1(/1 for FA), Acc 2 for snipers, Acc 4 for MMGs, Recoil 3
Heavy Sniper Rifle, HMG: 5P, AP -3, ROF 1(/1 for FA), Acc 1 for snipers, Acc 4 for HMGs, Recoil 4
Assault Cannon: 6P, AP -3, ROF 1 Acc 3, Recoil 5

Armor
0 - No armor
1 - Heavy clothing, leather jacket
2 - Armored clothing
3 - Armored vest, Actioneer business suit, armored longcoat
4 - Armored jacket
5 - Light security armor
6 - Heavy security armor
7+ - Military stuff

Melee then works roughly the same way.

Basic melee Power is back to Str/2 (+X for various weapons). Accuracy, ROF, Recoil, and Recoil Compensation still apply. So a fist might be ROF 3, Acc 4 Recoil 1, RC 0. A Katana might be ROF 2, Acc 2, Recoil 2, RC 0. However.

Stun damage you can take before making rolls to stay up is based on Willpower instead of Body.

Damage is standard:
Light/Flesh/Grazing/etc Wound (-1)
Moderate Wound (-2)
Severe Wound (-3)
Critical Wound (-4)

Direct Spells:
Accuracy is inverse to Force. Call it 10 - Force, or 4 for a Force 6 spell.

So if a Mage casts Stunbolt at a target, he rolls his spellcasting test versus the target's WP. No effect on Net Hits < Acc. On a "graze" (Net Hits = Acc) the target takes a light (-1) Stun. On a normal hit (Net Hits > Acc) the target takes a Stun (-2). On a solid hit (Net Hits > Accx2) it's a Severe Stun. On a critical hit (Net Hits > Accx3) the target takes a Critical Stun (-4).

Indirect Spells: Accuracy = 3. Power = Force.

Drain: Spell has a Drain code (Power = Force +/- some number). Mage rolls Drain Resistance (Will + Log, for a hermetic mage). Hits > Power, no effect. Hits = Power, light damage (-1). Hits < Power, damage (-2). Glitch bumps it up one level, Critical Glitch bumps it up 2 levels (automatically to Critical). If Force equals or is less than the caster's Magic, it's Stun. Higher, it's Physical.

Some problems I spot:

1. Your chance of getting a really good hit has nothing to do with your skill and everything to do with whether the target glitches on their body+armor roll (which is very unlikely if they're wearing decent armor).
2. If you allow smartguns to reduce accuracy by 2, you pretty much have every hit doubling accuracy (or more), since this will make almost all of your listed accuracies 0 or 1. There is no way to handle an accuracy of 0. Probably want to set a minimum accuracy of 1.
3. A low accuracy is good, while high everything else is good (that can be confusing). So a high accuracy weapon would have a low accuracy number. Consider renaming it to make it something more intuitive.
4. Penalties stack up quickly under this system, so you'll get the death spiral. Not something I actually mind, unless it leads to the irritating thing where no one can hit anything and the fight drags on. Consider whether you think the death spiral is a feature or a bug.
5. Fights will take longer under this system, since there is more to compare and it's very likely that any character with a body of 4 or more is going to take at about 3 shots to drop unless you're using something bigger than an assault rifle and it's nearly impossible to drop someone with even an assault cannon in 1 shot, unless they have a low body score. Again, not sure if you consider this a bug or a feature.
6. This is still mechanically very similar to damage boxes or the SR1 system, but with less granularity.
7. Your ROF statistic means that there are going to be even more attack rolls to make on each turn and I'm pretty sure from just eyeballing the math that a light pistol becomes by far the best weapon in the game for everything but trolls. (three attacks a turn, with a smartlink accuracy of 0 (assume 1), so it's impossible to get a glancing blow and with a decent skill you're probably looking at 3P or 4P everytime)
8. Your chances for severe trauma and incapacitation don't make sense, since the Body is automatically eliminated from those rolls (since you subtract the wound modifiers from the Body+Will and you don't roll until you're at a negative equal to the Body score). I get the staying conscious, but a strong willed character is less likely to have a specific trauma? Unless you meant the accumulated modifiers beyond the body score apply on this test, in which case a high body character will likely stay conscious for many shots beyond 3 or 4.
9. I'm not seeing the narrative control in this system? Did I miss it?
10. Added Complexity
Current System:
Roll opposed, compare rolls, add net to weapon damage, subtract AP from target armor, roll soak, subtract soak from damage, subtract damage from boxes= 7 operations with comparisons, addition and subtraction(yeah, there can be more with modifiers and bursts, but that's true both ways)
Roll opposed, compare rolls, compare net hits to weapon accuracy, determine power, subtract AP from target armor, roll soak, compare to power, apply damage = 8 operations with multiplication, comparison, addition, and subtraction (multiplication, especially by 1.5, takes longer for people to do than the other operations)

It seems like it needs more tuning and some play testing, but I don't see this actually making the fights any less- "I shoot, I hit, I do X damage" and it might push it in the other direction.