Hi,

I'm participating in a game and we are a bit confused about some rules around armors. If someone could clarify, we would be grateful.

We have one character who has 12 physical box, and 9 stun box on his condition monitor.
He has 16 for armor and 6 body.

There is a rule that states, that if the damage you receive is not higher than your armor rating, you suffer stun damage instead of physical.

So here's an example :
I shoot him with my ares predator V, i get 6 hits, and he gets 2 hits on his defense roll. So I do to him 12P damage. That means it is stun damage.

He gets a 21 (16 armor and 6 body -1 Armor piercing for that pistol) dice pool for damage resists. So 12 minus the number of success on that pool, will represents the stun damage he receives.


So a character like that, that has a lot of armor is mostly always going to receive stun damage, but as soon as your stun condition monitor is full you fall unconcious...

Have I understood the rules correctly?

Does that means that something like a troll with a focus on the physical attributes and in full combat armor is gonna near never get physical hit, and that he'll soon fall unconsious, since he doesn't have a big stun condition monitor?

Thanks in advance for the clarifications.

yes, although having a lot of armour and body also tends to reduce the total damage you receive as well.

(on a side note, there is cyberware that can help with this problem).

Yes, if the character is a tough MOFO and has the bones, and the armor, to withstand the heat, the bullets are not going through his armor/skin/bones/whatever, but this doesn't means that the bruising, concussion and other unpleasant side effects of being hit by super-sonic pieces of lead can be simply ignored. Enough internal bruises, bleeding and broken bones and you will go down all the same.

Honestly, it's a rather hamfisted rules kludge to try and avoid the invincible troll problem. Pain Editors make it pointless though, as they can be amped up enough to remove all stun penalties until unconsciousness.

It's not that huge of a vulnerability. A monster troll may have a lower stun monitor, but he will still be rolling that same fistfull of dice to soak that stun damage.

And could potentially roll enough hits to negate the original damage entirely. I've seen it happen a few times in my games.

Indeed... Watched as an ORK in our group (Artifacts Campaign) rolled away the damage from 2 Claymore Mines in Succession (16dv each). At least the Autocannon actually made him sweat a little bit (well, okay, he sweated that one a LOT).

Nitpick:
You're doing 12 DV. The damage (12) is less than armor (16), that means it's going to be stun.

12P is 12 physical. 12S is 12 stun. If its indeterminate, then use 12 DV ("damage value").

That distinction is important in some places (namely magic).

of course, just to mix things up, magic also uses DV for drain value

That's still a Damage Value
Its just a different kind.

Draco18, I know your educating but cut the Target's OP a break

You gotta admit, though, Shadowrun is a confusing game. There is an adept power called Combat Sense, and a spell called Combat Sense. There is an adept power called Mystic Armor, and a critter power called Mystic Armor.

And its possible to have all four at once. And have hardened (mystic) armor to boot. And have the armor spell cast on you.

Yeah, good luck figuring out when you take no damage, only stun, or physical (and how many dice you roll!).