I think the fact that their consciousness is so utterly elsewhere, but not in the literal manner of mages, causes this. You hit them when they're already receiving stimuli from elsewhere, and the body just doesn't respond properly to the trauma for a bit.

~J

I was pretty sure that it is said inrelation to resisting damage for damage caused to the drone he is currently jumped into. This is because the damage comes back in the form of shocks through the VCR which is wired extensively into the middle brain and nervous system, something not particularly tough or resilient to damage.

Nope. Not drones. This is in the section on shooting passengers. Nobody buys that it is either completely bogus or it should be generalized to every unresponsive victim?

Not buying it. As I said, normally, body gets wounded, body detects wound, body responds to heal. When jacked in, body doesn't feel, no trauma response, wound ends up a lot worse than it would have otherwise been.

~J

I thought the body's responses to damage were on the sub-brain/brain stem level or even less. The biggest single trauma response (clotting) is in the blood chemistry. VCR is way up there in the mid brain. Even if I disagree with your reason, thanks for putting something at least pseudo-logical up there Kagetenshi.

Kage so a pain editor gives what penalty to soak then?

Astral projecting magicians and deckers should have the same penalty at least.

Edward

"Coup de grâce". What you said = "Fat hit".

I actually thought that was some kind of intentional clever way of implying the rule was silly, since it was, like, excess fat or something.

Thank you Wounded Ronin. I wish it was true. I'm merely a stupid, lazy US American.

Actually the +3 to soak is factored in on the person not being able to roll with the hit, or to angle their body to reduce the damage, and because they're completely not prepared or able to cope with the injury at that moment. Or so my DM says

Coalheart rolling with the blow is what combat pool represents, tell your GM I said he is full of drek

I've never understood that penalty. I don't use it. If I did, I'd have to apply it to every other situation where people are unaware, unable to dodge, otherwise simsence distracted, and y'know what? It's easy enough to double-tap a projecting mage's meatbod, or a decker. They just don't need a penalty.

Here's a question (that's mostly on topic) -- in what order do you apply this modifier?

Let's say I'm wearing all sorts of armor (ballistic rating 8, let's say), because I'm jacked into a drone and I'm paranoid about getting shot while I'm away. Then someone shoots me with a 4L hold out pistol, just to spite me.

Do I use apply armor rating first (TN 2, the lowest it can go), then apply the +3 TN to soak for a final TN of 5? Or do I apply the modifier before calculating how armor factors in, etc, etc, making it -1L damage (for a TN of 2)?

It's kind of weird that Riggers and only Riggers suffer from this sort of thing -- and they don't bother to explain it real well, as a result.

EDIT -- Sorry for my typo earlier, I didn't realize it would magically change my "8" next to a ")" sign into the smiley face, whether I wanted it to or not. I'm a little new here.

You apply ALL modifiers, making no special exception for negative, irrational, or imaginary numbers. Only in the final step do you sanity check the TN and make it a 2, or round it off, or find it's magnitude and phase, or whatever, if necessary.
note: This opinion has been brought to you by Moon-Hawk, and in no way represents the opinions of Wizkids, Fanpro, or anything else that could be considered canon.

Your final TN is 6i.

~J

For those of you wondering where to chalk that up, it's in the same place as your regular condition monitor, just pi/2 radians out of phase.

Hey, maybe that's what the damage code for a dikoted slivergun ally spirit should be. Post-coitus, of course.

Sorry. I'm done.

I think your math is off, Kage. I got (2pi)/3.

In SR4 all damage codes should be functions of x.

Grenade scatter diagrams should be all or part of the mandelbrot set.

~J

A TN modifier of +3 would be a blessing for a projecting mage. They don't even get a chance to resist damage to their vacant meat bods.

SR3 p. 173

Well, part of the problem I think lies in the design of the VCR, which is attached (according to fluff text) to a good bit of the brain that controls background stuff, like heart beat, kidney regualtion, adrenaline, etc. So I can see why this is strictly a Rigger issue as they alone are redirecting those bodily funtions, yes they still happen, but the signals received by teh brain for processing might muddy them up with the stuff it's getting from the VCR, so the VCR 'filters' the feedback from those organs, they still get commands, but the brain doesn't knwo if they are receiving or not. So your brain never gets the "flex arendal gland muscles" command and the hormones most useful for the body to deal with trauma doesn't get released.

Of course, I could just be full of it, but it works for me and I play riggers primarily.

Hmmmm, interesting rationalization of that ruling.
In that context I could see the modifier being used. If that's the reason the designers intended, it would've been nice to include that explanation, but meh, like it and keep it or hate it and lose it. Whatever.
That is the best rationalization for keeping it that I've heard, though.

I've always ignored that and used the -1 Stationary Target modifier that I'd use for anyone else.