What? The hamburger? In New Seattle they mentioned the cost of a hamburger was 20 So if 1 Nuyen was 1 dollar, it'd cost 20$

Probably a misprint. I'm sure it is supposed to be 2.

I dunno...it was a stab in the dark. Sue me.

Ain't no 20-nuyen SoyBurgers in my Shadowrun game!

Now if it's an actual meat hamburger, I can easily see it being 20-nuyen. Meat is nowhere near as common in the '60s, and would demand a high price.

I misread, never mind.

I thought that was an exchange rate you were offering. Yeah, ¥2 makes sense for a soyburger.

~J

I'd never seen any values for it, but I always figured that 2004 USD~=1.5 to 2¥. That would make a 20¥ real meat burger be $10, which seems pretty reasonable considering the scarcity of beef. A really foul apartment and crappy food for a month would be between $500 and 650 now (YYMV greatly depending on where you live), which would be the 1000¥/month for low lifestyle.

Back to the subject of boiling coffee, I'd say that it can be simulated with 4M shock and 2L physical. If you have a body of 3 and are facing 1 success after dodging, then you won't be able to get rid of the stun damage completely, though you have a pretty good chance of not feeling any lasting effects in terms of physical damage. The shock weapon rules also cover the TN mods nicely already.

I think the optimal damage code would be something like 4L6 physical or something.

~J

Bah, I still stand by my theroy that it's 2M physical and 5S stun.

First off, it's not common, but it IS possible to kill with coffee, which implies physical damage. Not to mention 3rd degree burns, DEFENTALY PHYSICAL!

And, even if you don't get hurt much physicaly, COFFEE ****ING HURTS! If you ever spilled it at boiling point on yourself or someone, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING BUT SCREAM FOR A LOOOOONG TIME!

Maybe I wasn't paying attention to the right spot, but where is a switchblade listed as stun damage? Anyweapon that involves stabbity stabbity to use had better be physical.

This actually came up in the very first game I ran. We were doing food fight and the Decker was paying for her scalding hot soy caffe at the counter when the gangers burst in.

So, she spun around, whipped the coffee in the gang leaders face, and ran like hell. I just ruled that it blinded the guy for a bit.

Seeing as how a compact flamethrower only does 6M, doesn't giving any sort of real damage rating to a cup of coffee seem a little absurd?

I'm with those that just rule "If they manage a called shot to the face, count the guy as blind for a little while, then pissed off for a long while after that."

Keeping in mind that the flamethrower keeps burning, while the coffee is assumed to cool enough to cease being damaging after the first impact…

~J

Why not just treat the boiling coffee attack like an illusion effect, rather than a ranged/melee attack? For every success on a drenching/coffee (QUI linked) skill test (or the ranged combat skill of your choice), increase by 1 an opponent's TNs for any action, up to a maximum of +4 (meaning it can distract you more than a serious wound) for X rounds (where X is a number folks can agree on without too much bickering).

Just got my copy of SOTA64. Maybe the answer is in there. Otherwise, maybe it'll be in SOTA65....

Well, even if we can't settle on a damage code, seems reality has provided us with a legality code.

First off, the damage for switchblades IMO is REALLY broken. I switched it to 3M, beacuse I'll be DAMNED if a switchblade does that little damage.

(Really though, every weapon in SR is really broke, I redid the damage codes for almost all of them in my game, especialy bow range.)

Also, boiling coffee in the split second it first lands, would easily do that much damage. It just wouldn't have any real power and wouldn't be able to go through armor. But the flame thrower is meant to keep burning after contact, unlike coffee, which would just have poor sap #1 spend his next turn wiping it off with a simple action.

(BTW, I changed my flamethrower to 4S in my game, a thrower easily does more damage then a predator, but has less power.)

Well if your going to re work the damage for everything you don’t think makes sense then be my guest but most people don’t have the time skill or inclination to make a new balanced system. Personally I was trying to mach it to other things that do stun damage. A cup of coffee (as apposed to a pot) will do less damage than a club swung by an average humani would therefore say 3LS or 4LS depending on the temperature.

Edward

Third-degree burns (or any other serious wounds) would be reflected by a good attack roll and sucky resistance, just like it is for every other type of weapon. It doesn't have to be pre-built in to the damage code.

If you are going to revise the damage codes to reflect worst-case-scenarios, all weapons should be done this way. I'm sure many more people have been killed outright via clubs than by thrown cups of coffee.

And shattering bones takes high good rolls and sucky restance. I'm assuming worst-case in what I wrote above.

I don't believe 2-3 months recovery time is the 'worst case scenario' for getting brained with a mace.

By an average human it pretty much is, and that'd be a called shot worst case scenario.

No, it would be a normal attack staged to 'D'.

Average human assumes 3 in the Skill and 3 in Combat Pool, which is 6 dice. This is enough to stage an 'M' wound to 'D'. Considering that in the worst case the defender would get no successes on his resistance roll, he would be in a world of hurt. This is a much more common and likely scenario than the coffee cup assassin.

An average human consists of 2 combat dice pool, and no skill therefore forced to resort to their 2 STR, making it 3 dice, which if I remember right, under normal rules won't kill.

You're both wrong. An average human has quickness, intelligence, and willpower of 3 each. Combat pool is (qui+int+wil)/2 rounded down. (3+3+3)/2 = 4.5, round down to 4.

Even if you assumed that "average" stats are 2's, which isnt true, you'd still come up with a combat pool of 3.

Ok, 4+1=5=S=Club

But that's not the real argument, the real argument is weather or not a bad burn will heal faster then a broken bone or D damage, or whatever you say a club is. D damage, if I remember right, takes a month to heal now, but considering the horrible funding for burn victims we have today, I doubt we will have much better cures for the pain/damage.

Another part of the arugment is weather clubs do more immedate damage then coffee. Coffee does horrible burns. (For all intents and purposes, lets say the coffee is somewhere between 100-102 Degrees Celcius.

In this case, I beleve that as long as the club strike does not kill the target, which we just proved is impossible by a normal human, the coffee is much more painful and burning and generaly nasty then a serious wound.

EDIT: Ok, THE AVERAGE PERSON DOES NOT HAVE WEAPON SKILLS.

people a copule of points coffee is usually served between 85-90 C for best flavour.
and burns heal as fask as fractures. in a setting where vat skin is cheap, proably faster. I have fallen into a bonfire and broken a leg... guess which healed quicker. My father had a large mug of boiling coffee fall into his lap, and circumcision required due to permanent damage aside, it healed faster than my broken leg.

Given that the coffee assumed at the beginning of the thread was deliberately intended to be used for attacking (weaponized coffee, so to speak), I'd say it'd be as hot as it can be without all boiling away. Flavour is not important, but smell is good so that one can convincingly say it's coffee.

~J

95-98 C then, past that you get a smell of BAAAD coffee. doesn't change my other point.

Weeelll, dad certainly looked shocked.

Healing times shouldn't factor in to what Level of Damage an attack is, since the DL's main purpose is to keep tabs on when a character loses consciousness and dies. A Deadly wound is something that causes immediate loss of consciousness and will kill Average Joe in 27 seconds if Physical.

Such as having weaponized coffee in your breathing hole.

Be serious, when it first hits, if you have no protection, you're going to be in a WORLD of hurt.

I still think we should be working on iots base damage code not the staged up code. Witch will hurt more. Having 1 cup of 100c liquid on your arm or being hit on the arm by a baseball bat.

Edward

I'm going with the coffee personly. I WILL believe the bat has more power though.

Well how about this then: Which is more likely to kill you: Average Joe sticking a large, extremely sharp blade in your abdomen, or getting a cup of very hot coffee thrown at your abdomen?

But they're noncomparable. A good solid stab to the torso is beyond what a single success would yield for the knife, while it'd probably be only one success for the coffee.

~J

Why's that? I find it rather silly to assume that only a few (2-3) successes on an attack test to splash hot coffee on someone ends up with a good solid hit on the face even without a Called Shot. The majority of coffee splashes would probably be spread over a very large area, mainly the arms and upper torso. Getting most of it in one area, such as abdomen, would already be a major achievement.

It'd probably have to be tossed at about center chest, from where most of it would splash and drip on the abdomen, thighs and perhaps arms.