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Signal
One favored tactic I see time and time again is the headshot. Players love to do it because they figure it's an unamored spot on a bad guy, and thus they get no benefit of ballistic protection, and particularly nasty GMs like to do it against PCs for the same reason. But what happens if either the NPCs or PCs are wearing a helmet? All too often I see GMs interpret the +1 bonus to ballistic armor as simply a plain old 1 when someone with a helmet takes a headshot. That doesn't seem right to me, because I've worn real-life ballistic helmets and they're entirely too heavy, hard, and rigid to only give you the protection of what basically amounts to cardboard. How do you feel this should be handled?
Ol' Scratch
<just twitches a bit>
Canid13
I can see your point Signal. Armour in SR seems to be a composite factor which, in part, includes how much of the body the armour covers. This has to be the case else the armoured jacket is FAR too good a protective item :o)

So, I suppose you could say this doesn't work, but then again I use the modified version on the FAQ on the SR website. There's three options for called shots - hit a small target, bypass armour or increase damage.

If someone's taking a +4 TN modifier to hit you in the head, then perhaps it's about right but then again it would be nice to do something about this rather cheesy game mechanic - beyond bone lacing, orthoskin and a helmet (of which there's 2 I can find).
Kagetenshi
Tell your players that if they can find a headshot in SR3, they can perform it, and not until.

~J
LinaInverse
I believe a helmet is meant to be "+1" over the rest of the armor someone is wearing. As the OP points out, in RL, combat helmets are among the strongest armor soldiers and mercs wear, for fairly obvious reasons.

Sadly, this seems to have become our GM's favorite tactic against our players when he can't do a ton of damage otherwise. We got into a discussion on whether or not Form-Fit Lvl 3 armor includes head protection. The description says it includes a "hood", but it was ruled that face-shots (head shots from the front) are still fair game for the same +4 TN.
RedmondLarry
I agree with you Signal. A character should get more than 1 point of protection against a head shot if a called shot is done to the head.
toturi
Why would anyone call shot to the head when they can just declare a called shot to bypass armour?
BitBasher
QUOTE
Sadly, this seems to have become our GM's favorite tactic against our players when he can't do a ton of damage otherwise.
No offense, but that's because it's a GM crutch IMHO.
Blaze
QUOTE (toturi @ Oct 21 2004, 03:15 PM)
Why would anyone call shot to the head when they can just declare a called shot to bypass armour?

Probably because of the caveat that 'only armour in the location specifed counts against the attack', meaning against a target with an unarmoured head one can have their cake and eat it- getting the +1 Damage Level and negating any armour. If my players call a head-shot against a fully-armoured target, they get the choice of negating the armour or increasing their damage; if they go for the latter they face the full armour value (I believe that's 9 for a full suit of light milspec armour), teaching them that armour piercing ammunition is worth its weight in orichalcum when facing such well-equipped opponents.

-JH.
mfb
we tend to ignore the helmet rules in SR3, and rule instead that a helmet offers the same amount of ballistic/impact that the base armor offers.
toturi
QUOTE (Blaze)
QUOTE (toturi @ Oct 21 2004, 03:15 PM)
Why would anyone call shot to the head when they can just declare a called shot to bypass armour?

Probably because of the caveat that 'only armour in the location specifed counts against the attack', meaning against a target with an unarmoured head one can have their cake and eat it- getting the +1 Damage Level and negating any armour. If my players call a head-shot against a fully-armoured target, they get the choice of negating the armour or increasing their damage; if they go for the latter they face the full armour value (I believe that's 9 for a full suit of light milspec armour), teaching them that armour piercing ammunition is worth its weight in orichalcum when facing such well-equipped opponents.

-JH.

Untrue. To call a shot to a lesser armoured portion of the target does not allow you to stage the Damage. You are still using Option 2 of Called Shot in the FAQ.

QUOTE
The player calling the shot can choose one result from the following three options:

1) The Damage Code is increased by one Level (as stated on p. 114, SR3). The target's regular armor applies.

2) The attack bypasses the target's armor. In this case, the attack's Damage Code is not modified, but the Power is not reduced by armor bonuses. (Note that the attacker can simply choose a location on the target that is less armored, rather than bypassing the armor completely, so that only the armor in that location applies).

3) Target a smaller part of a larger target (such as the tires on a vehicle).


1, 2 or 3. You do not get to mix and match.
Ol' Scratch
I stick with the rules in the SR3 sourcebook. All of the bullshit and poorly thought out Called Shot rules in the FAQs/errata that completely ignore the abstract nature of the system are utterly meaningless to me, canon or not. If they're not going to respect the nature of their own system, I'm not going to respect their shitty tacked-on and broken rules.
Arethusa
QUOTE (toturi)
Why would anyone call shot to the head when they can just declare a called shot to bypass armour?

Possibly because most people do not think exclusively— or even mostly— in terms of canon, which, as we all know, has little to nothing to do with real life.

I'm with Funk on this one.
LinaInverse
QUOTE (BitBasher)
QUOTE
Sadly, this seems to have become our GM's favorite tactic against our players when he can't do a ton of damage otherwise.
No offense, but that's because it's a GM crutch IMHO.

Well, to be fair to our GM (who's reading these boards, BTW biggrin.gif ), the circumstance that was in play at the time involved a bunch of Mafia guys shooting one of our toughest chars (not me, BTW) with Assault rifles. The char in question had FormFit, Armor Jacket/Clothing, Adept Mystic Armor, a good Combat Pool and a fairly hefty Body score. The mafia guys were only barely getting through the layered armor (and yes, we know and use the rules about halving and penalties with overarmoring) and the player was consistently successful on staging it down. Because we were the aggressors here and had initial surprise and it wasn't their actual HQ, it wasn't really justified for the GM to whip out stuff heavier than Assault rifles and he probably didn't want us looting them off the dead capos anyway.
Kagetenshi
As I’ve posted elsewhere, I allow called shots to bypass armor at a range of Skill*.5 meters, allowing hold-outs to potentially pose a threat. I do have to toss my hat into the ring of people who think that the called shot to bypass armor is an awful rule (the called shot for extra damage is sufficiently penalized to be rare in my experience, anyway, and the called shot for special effect I like).

~J
toturi
The reason for the FAQ is the Called Shot passage in M & M that allows you to bypass Impact Armour for chemical delivery. Without that, then things were perfectly fine and dandy.
Dashifen
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
I stick with the rules in the SR3 sourcebook.

Amen. Just modify the shooter's TN, add three to the power and 1 to the damage code of the shot and roll the dice. I explicitly forbid my players from saying that they're aiming for a specific portion of their target's body and then I tell them where they hit.

Example:
Sniper Sam is calling a shot with his nifty 10S rifle (picking numbers here, I don't have any specific rifle in mind). We'll say, for the purposes of this example, that he's at long range (base TN 6) and for some crazy reason we'll leave out smartlink 2 because it makes the numbers less easy but decides to call the shot (TN 10). He takes a simple action to aim (TN 9). Therefore, the shot's damage would be 13D with a final TN of 9. He makes the shot and the target doesn't dodge. Now it's up to the target's resistence test. There's a two options in this case (well, more than two but you'll see what I mean):
  1. The target soaks some of the damage and does not take a deadly wound. Therefore, this shot was not a head shot. Perhaps the target was it in the chest or the arm or leg. If it's a serious wound, maybe the bullet hit some major organs or something. Moderate might be a through-the-upper-arm shot and a light is probably an ear or a hand, something like that (again just picking options).
  2. The target does not soak and takes a deadly wound. This you could describe as a headshot.


Since the SR armor/damage system is abstract (or random if you're using the M&M what-gets-stressed rules) then it's the job of the GM to describe hit and the job of the player to decide whether or not to call the shot.
Kagetenshi
Where does the +3 Power come in? Sure you aren’t mixing it up with burst-fire?

~J
Lantzer
It doesn't come up in a normal combat. The combat system is abstract - no real room for head shots. Unless, as a previous poster has suggested, you describe serious/deadly results of a normal shot as a hit to something vital.

So what do you do when a special situation shows up? Play it by ear. If your face has slid up next to the target and has pulled a gun and has placed it to the back of the target's head, without anybody noticing, then this is not a combat situation, and the GM can rule the results any way he likes. The face's gun skill may not make a bit of difference in a situation such as this. Anybody can pull a trigger and hit a helpless target at contact range. The stats of the gun itself may or may not make a difference. GM call.
Dashifen
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 21 2004, 11:01 AM)
Where does the +3 Power come in? Sure you aren’t mixing it up with burst-fire?

Whoops! House rule. We did that because we thought it helped called shots tend towards deadly. My bad.
mmu1
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 21 2004, 09:49 AM)
Tell your players that if they can find a headshot in SR3, they can perform it, and not until.

~J

So how exactly do we handle it in our games? I think keeping it abstract is best, but out of curiosity, how were you adjuticating it when I killed, what, 3 people with headshots in our last session? nyahnyah.gif
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (BitBasher)
QUOTE
Sadly, this seems to have become our GM's favorite tactic against our players when he can't do a ton of damage otherwise.
No offense, but that's because it's a GM crutch IMHO.

Well, look, the game has got to stay challenging. I mean, if you layer on all that armor and can stage away a lot of damage, and then you start to get all this karma, what's left to make you sweat saved for the called shot to the face with the barret?


Besides, super duper special forces guys probably would aim for your head anyway. Didn't you play Rainbox Six? Tango down, heh heh heh. rotfl.gif


The moral is, be the guy who shoots first from a position of cover and concealment. biggrin.gif
Ol' Scratch
Because shooting first from a position of cover and concealment doesn't require broken rules that bypass armor? They're already being denied their Combat Pool, while you can put all of yours into the shot. Significantly more successes = death even if their armor stages the Power of the attack to 2. And the standard Called Shot rules effectively give you two free successes on your attack should you choose to use them (which, more often than not, isn't worth it).
Nikoli
Yeah, the only time that doesn't work is with Mil-spec armor (base power of weapon < ballistic = richochet)
Canid13
I'll just throw in here that I don't allow layering armour. In the case of Signal's circumstance, the PC gets 5/3 (plus mystic armour power) and should someone call a shot to a bodypart then I'll use the armour there. The only reason I allow my players to state the location is because of the caveat that allows called shots to lesser armoured parts of the target. A good hit is still a good hit, and get's described as such.

Will start tending away even more from this though.
LinaInverse
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
Well, look, the game has got to stay challenging.  I mean, if you layer on all that armor and can stage away a lot of damage, and then you start to get all this karma, what's left to make you sweat saved for the called shot to the face with the barret?


Besides, super duper special forces guys probably would aim for your head anyway.  Didn't you play Rainbox Six?  Tango down, heh heh heh.  rotfl.gif


The moral is, be the guy who shoots first from a position of cover and concealment.  biggrin.gif

Well, to date, we've not had a single game session where at least 1 (sometimes more) player did not go to Serious. About 50% of our games has someone taking Deadly Overflow, so clearly we're still getting challenged. We haven't even gone against "Super Duper Special Forces guys"; this is just against Capos, security guards and gang punks so far.

We've started a new arc involving critters and Insects though. Now if they start taking head-shots, then I think it's going too far, if for no other reason that it doesn't make sense in concept.
Austere Emancipator
The GM won't have to use called shots with Insects -- a F6 Male Mantid can roll 29 dice on a melee combat test, which is quite deadly enough even with a Damage Code of just 6M.
mfb
haven't gone up against bugs, yet. five thousand shedim, yeah, but not bugs.
Dashifen
QUOTE (LinaInverse)
Well, to date, we've not had a single game session where at least 1 (sometimes more) player did not go to Serious. About 50% of our games has someone taking Deadly Overflow, so clearly we're still getting challenged. We haven't even gone against "Super Duper Special Forces guys"; this is just against Capos, security guards and gang punks so far.

eek.gif eek.gif In three years of GMing I've only ever killed one player. I think I've wounded the players about a dozen times not counting drain. *shudder* sounds like an devil.gif game.
LinaInverse
QUOTE (Dashifen)
eek.gif eek.gif In three years of GMing I've only ever killed one player. I think I've wounded the players about a dozen times not counting drain. *shudder* sounds like an devil.gif game.

One, this is our GM's first campaign, and to his credit, I think he's coming up with solid stories under challenging circumstances of some flaky player attendance. Two, I'm the only player (I think) who's had substantial experience in previous Shadowrun campaigns, so we're battling player inexperience as well. I do think our game difficulty is a tad harsh, but that's as much me whining as a player than anything else.

We haven't had a character go down at least, though at our current pace, it won't surprise me when one eventually does. But at least if/when the survivors reach any kind of affluence, they can justifiably say they weren't coddled on the way there.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (mmu1)
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 21 2004, 09:49 AM)
Tell your players that if they can find a headshot in SR3, they can perform it, and not until.

~J

So how exactly do we handle it in our games? I think keeping it abstract is best, but out of curiosity, how were you adjuticating it when I killed, what, 3 people with headshots in our last session? nyahnyah.gif

You may have thought you were performing headshots, but you were making called shots nyahnyah.gif

If you were at any point trying to bypass armor, I didn’t notice so they used armor anyway. The fact that they’re dead suggests it didn’t matter, though.

~J
Kremlin KOA
QUOTE (Dashifen)
eek.gif eek.gif In three years of GMing I've only ever killed one player.

where didja hide the body?
Dashifen
QUOTE (Kremlin KOA)
QUOTE (Dashifen @ Oct 22 2004, 01:06 AM)
eek.gif  eek.gif In three years of GMing I've only ever killed one player.

where didja hide the body?

Fed it to pigs grinbig.gif
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (LinaInverse @ Oct 21 2004, 11:37 AM)
Well, to date, we've not had a single game session where at least 1 (sometimes more) player did not go to Serious.  About 50% of our games has someone taking Deadly Overflow, so clearly we're still getting challenged.  We haven't even gone against "Super Duper Special Forces guys"; this is just against Capos, security guards and gang punks so far.

We've started a new arc involving critters and Insects though.  Now if they start taking head-shots, then I think it's going too far, if for no other reason that it doesn't make sense in concept.

I try to have it be like that when I GM, but my players are too smart. They manage to avoid all the nasty things I have in store.

Like, for example, once I had these monsters that had this special move where they could hit you with one of the drugs that gives you a lot of stun. Since they could do this repeatedly, the idea was that they could do it to someone and keep doing it until that person overflowed into deadly physical. But the PCs managed to avoid getting put in the position where that could happen, even though I completely mentally was planning on that happening to someone.

The next game, I had them battling ghouls in pitch darkness. The plan was that if anyone so much as got hit in melee they would have to roll versus the Krieger strain, which is pretty nasty. But one PC had freaking ultrasound sight and super thermo vision and enhanced hearing, etc, and he was taking point. So I couldn't plausibly have the ghouls who were waiting behind corners and such succeed in their surprise attacks as the party came around the corner.

Once he even did get engaged in melee but from sheer luck he rolled really well and the ghoul rolled really badly so he still won melee without taking a hit.

There was also a part with sentry guns, a long fall, a vat of runny meat below, and 5 ghouls waiting for the PCs to get Knockbacked into the vat, but the same guy with the super senses also had the foresight to bring a grenade launcher, so he destroyed the sentry guns before they could knock half of the party into the infected goop.

So the PCs were smart and had good attributes, and thus avoided the very significant danger.

The last time that I had several D wounds occur in the party was a mission where the PCs got to command 30 soldiers in a fort while they were assaulted by 100 ninjas with AKs, sniper support, and mortar support. And that just became a slaughter because the people who were tactically really strong were either drunk or absent at the time, and so the party got sniped out and mortared. (BOOOM!)

However, that one made me cry because I had to roll for 100 ninjas.

And, like, a few years ago, I had a recurring villian who was an immortal taoist taichichuan master who cultivated immortality through sexual chi kung techniques such as "Drinking Jade Juices From Golden Pond". He was stats-wise like a vampire, meaning he could add +12 to all his physical attributes, but his only flaw was Essence Loss. Furthermore, I forgot how many dice it was, but since he was a centuries old taichichuan practitioner with a youthful body I think that his base skill dice was somewhere between 10 and 20. And on top of that he had at least 6 points of physad powers, I forgot what they were. Also, he had especially good regeneration, where he would regenerate under all circumstances no matter what unless someone specifically made called shot to chop off his head.

And, like, in the final showdown I believe he had like 20 kungfu cultists to help him against the party.

So, like, I forgot all the details, but the party quickly exploded all the followers and set fire to the bad guy's house. Then the bad guy came out to fight them, right?

But since my players are smart people, they realized that even if he had a lot of dice, they could neutralize him with the Friends In Melee/Enemies in Melee mods. (I never use the advanced melee combat rules because I feel they are extremely silly.) So, like the whole party delayed so as to all be able to act in the same phase, even the people who sucked at fighting, and they all meleed him at once. And they all meleed in a particular order so that the last attack went to the classical samurai styled guy with the katana, who was able to make a called shot to decapitate (which he correctly guessed on his own) with the biggest TN bonus so that the called shot was plausible, and killed the immortal villain very quickly. I may have missed some of the details, but that's basically what happened. And there was relatively little injury, IIRC, from that battle.

So once again, the PCs avoided a horrible tantric sex fate which was a very plausible fate under the circumstances by being intelligent.

So, yeah....I try to be tough, like your GM, but usually the PCs are so smart it just dosen't work out.
Kagetenshi
I’ve never had that problem. I had a hitsquad attack the team with dartguns filled with knockout stuff and some gas grenades, and almost killed the team from the overflow to physical when I’d just been meaning to give them a different challenge.

~J
Req
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
So once again, the PCs avoided a horrible tantric sex fate which was a very plausible fate under the circumstances by being intelligent.

Umm.... spin.gif

Wounded Ronin
I would argue that as long as one PC is able to drag everyone's body to safety anyway, D wounds don't matter too much. The system is set up so that there are a lot of safety nets you have to fall through before your character literally dies, such as the self stabilization roll and the bleedout time which can become pretty extensive for someone with a big Body score. Even the odds of losing a limb or something are kind of on the small side unless you have a terrible Body score. The big medical bills just serve as an incentive to take another job. nyahnyah.gif

And failing all of that, there's always the Hand of God. With all that, you can't go wrong. That's the way I see it.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Req @ Oct 21 2004, 01:43 PM)
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Oct 21 2004, 11:14 AM)
So once again, the PCs avoided a horrible tantric sex fate which was a very plausible fate under the circumstances by being intelligent.

Umm.... spin.gif

I actually try to avoid having too much sexual stuff. Because if you spring it, or any shocking concept, too often, people get jaded and it loses its effect.

So, IIRC, the only "sexual" villians I've had over 4+ years of gaming were:
1.) The tai chi guy described above
2.) 3 hentai tentacle monsters, which were also the things mentioned above
3.) A perverted decker who was actually very wussy and got pwned by the pair of female mages whom he was attempting to menace. He was more of a joke than anything.

And that's all. Indeed, usually instead my concepts focus on ninjas.



And, I mean, if were more intelligent and could mentally keep track of more things, there's a lot more I'd do with ordinary things to keep the players challenged. For example, every time someone got hit, whether it did damage or not, if I were smart I'd make them have to get their armor repaired, so as to tack on extra expenses to any risks they take. It's also an incentive to do what you're supposed to do all along and use range, cover, and concealment to shoot first and not get hit. And, the thing is that I don't have enough brainpower to keep track of too many NPCs (100 nearly identical ninjas almost killed me) but if I were more intelligent I'd make sure that the PCs often faced teams with very well thought out mages with strong combinations of Initiate powers in addition to carefully thought out samurais and physads, so that there would be a triple threat. But I'm not really smart enough with the rules or quick enough on the uptake, so often times I fail to put a sufficient magical hurting on the party combined with a physical challenge, since I don't really enjoy designing mages. If I did that, things would be a lot harder, but I just can't keep track of that much information.


Like, for example, with the sentry gun story above....at the same time that those sentry guns were going, I also had the party be magically attacked by a ghoul mage. But it was only one mage and he had only like 3 spells or something. His stats weren't that impressive. But ideally there would have been several mages with intelligent combinations of spells and foci in addition to the sentry guns and the melee ghouls.


I think that my lack of ability to keep track of many things at once really makes my GMing less interesting than it could be. For example, in my group of players, I have some people who are real experts at making the very best possible samurai/bioware characters, some people who are real experts at squeezing everything possible out of starting magical characters and what the most efficient arrangement of Force levels and attributes so as to have powerful drain-free casting, some people who can get really great equipment, etc. While I certainly understand what they are doing, whenever I make a character I'm just far too lazy to actually go through the sourcebooks with as much detail as is needed to make those types of characters. When I'm a player and not a GM, I usually just make a physad because it's mentally the easiest to create and be effective with. Even when I play D&D, I hate picking spells, so I always make either a vanilla fighter or a vanilla cleric.

But what this means is that when it comes down to making challenging opposition for the PCs, I can't make high-octane samurai or mages. Only high-octane physads, really. And they aren't too tough when they're getting slammed on by a combination of magic, APDS rounds, and simultaneously being tag teamed by like 2 close combat experts. I have trouble making truly memorable and challenging opposition. I just don't think that I'd be able to write up a whole adventure and simultaneously sit down and create a really cool, say, mage with a fiberoptic periscope, who would be a worthy challenge towards the end.
mfb
say "D wounds don't matter" to any player of Awakened characters. i dare you.

when i run games, they're usually pretty easy on the characters. the one time i went all-out, i was showing a new player how her shapeshifter melee physad worked; i had a piasma jump her while she was strolling through the woods in fox form.

the piasma got surprise, which is absurd if you've ever looked at a piasma's stats. i wasn't worried, though. it got got 4-5 successes on the melee test, bringing the shifter to D instantly--but shifters have regen, so this is a great time to show off how tough the character is, right?

she rolled a fucking 1 on the regen test.
Req
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Oct 21 2004, 11:51 AM)
So, IIRC, the only "sexual" villians I've had over 4+ years of gaming were:
1.)  The tai chi guy described above
2.)  3 hentai tentacle monsters, which were also the things mentioned above
3.)  A perverted decker who was actually very wussy and got pwned by the pair of female mages whom he was attempting to menace.  He was more of a joke than anything.

And that's all.  Indeed, usually instead my concepts focus on ninjas.

Wow, that's all? Uh, I've been playing (with a few breaks) since 1994, and we ain't had one "sexual" villain, Ghost forbid a hentai tentacle monster. But that's just what works for me and my group. YMMV quite a bit, apparently. Sex and all its associated baggage does come up, but not in a plot-central manner...that just ain't no fun.

Not that I take any umbrage with your use of ninjas, they're nearly always appropriate. biggrin.gif
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
I’ve never had that problem. I had a hitsquad attack the team with dartguns filled with knockout stuff and some gas grenades, and almost killed the team from the overflow to physical when I’d just been meaning to give them a different challenge.

~J

Well, grenades and drugs are really nasty. Stun drugs are nastier than physical damage because most kinds of armor don't apply towards making them easier to resist, and the drugs often clap on something like an additional +2 TN on top of wound mods just for the fun of it. Considering that D stun is just as defeated as D physical in most cases, stun based attacks can be a lot more horrific.

Grenades will also ruin anyone's day. I mean, it would be pretty preposterous if a squad full of dedicated grenade flingers didn't utterly destroy the object of their wroth. Grenades are really deadly and are portrayed that way in the game as well.


So, like, the solution in that situation would have been either to 1.) stay at a really far distance with cover, out of hand grenade range, and hopefully raising the TNs for launch grenades, or 2.) hide and delay at close range so that you can theoretically headshot all the bad guys when they appear.

I mean, if someone went toe-to-toe with a bunch of grenade people, I'd expect a lot of defeated characters.
OrphanProcess
This came up in our group too. We actually emailed the shadowFAQ guys and this is what we got. It's rather long, but this is their "official" take on it.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 20:39:00 -0700
Cc: info@shadowrunrpg.com
Subject: Re: Re: Shadowrun Called Shot to Helmets

Hi Brian and Aaron,

Oh, I'm so glad you guys are smart! There are a lot of folks that just don't
see what you see, and I didn't want to confuse anyone by pointing it out.
OK, here we go. There are two methods for this.

First method:
See Man and Machine, page 35, where it describes 5 locations for cyberlimb
body plating (also called "Armor" for cyberlimbs) as Arms, Legs, Front
Torso, Rear Torso, and Skull. It takes 5 points of body plating (armor) for
the Skull to count as one overall point of armor for the whole body. Since
the Armor Helmet and Secure Helmet both provide 1 overall point of ballistic
armor for the whole body, they should count for at least an individual
rating of 5 points, and no more than 9, as protection for the skull. So, the
simple calculation of helmet rating for protection to the skull is at least
5 ballistic. If you wanted to average 5 and 9, you might decide 7 points of
protection, but I don't think that either 5 or 7 is very precise.

Second method:
Assume we cover a character completely in a special material that I call "7
ballistic". Part of this material is formed as a helmet, part as worn armor.
Assume that when the "7 ballistic" material is worn all over the body
that
it provides 7 points of ballistic armor. Anywhere your shot hits, the body
is protected by 7 points of ballistic armor. Assume I take off the helmet.
Now, how much overall armor protection does the character get? Let's say
it's 6 points of overall protection. But if we somehow know that a shot is
hitting the rear torso, we know that it's hitting "7 ballistic" armor,
because "7 ballistic material" is on the rear torso. Overall the helmet
provides 1 point of ballistic, but if we know that a shot is hitting the
head, it's hitting the "7 ballistic material" and that's 7 points of
protection. This "special material" I'm describing is actually the material
of a suit of Medium Security Armor & Helmet.

With this method, we make an evaluation of what the material rating would be
if it covered the whole body. That's the rating we use if we know a shot is
striking a body part protected by that material. We actually end of with two
ways of calculating the protection of a Security Helmet this way. The first
is calculating it with the lightest armor it's made to go with. In which
case a 1/2 Security Helmet provides 7/6 protection to the head. The second
is keeping track of what kind of suit the Security Helmet actually came
with, so if it came with Heavy Security armor then the helmet provides 8/7
to the skull. You choose which feels better for your group.

One might argue that a Security Helmet is more rigid than the rest of the
suit, and thus provides more than 6 or 7 points of Impact protection, but I
usually don't go that far.

I hope this helps!

Signed,
ShadowFaq

----- Original Message -----
To: "ShadowFaq" <ShadowFaq@comcast.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 7:32 PM
Subject: Fwd: Re: Shadowrun Called Shot in Ranged Combat (fwd)


> How do you determine the localized armor rating of, say a helmet? If the
> helmet gives +1/+2 rating to a player's overall armor rating, how much
> does it help his/her head in a called shot? The numbers logically can't be
> the same...
>
>
> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 05:44:09 -0700
> From: ShadowFaq <ShadowFaq@comcast.net>
> Cc: info@shadowrunrpg.com
> Subject: Re: Shadowrun Called Shot in Ranged Combat
>
> Hi Aaron,
> Yes, the Cannon Companion has Called Shot rules for melee combat that
> allows
> you to use only the armor in the targeted location. There are also Called
> Shot rules in Man and Machine (page 106) for ranged weapons that deliver
> drugs (like Narcoject or Capsule rounds) which use only the armor in the
> targeted location.
>
> The Shadowrun Faq (www.ShadowrunRPG.com/resources/faq.shtml) describes
> Called Shot rules for general ranged weapons (like your pistol) that, as
> an
> option, lets you use only the armor in the targeted location.
>
> With these FAQ called shot rules, the player can choose one of the
> following:
> a) Use the called shot to raise the damage by one level, and apply all
> armor
> (7 in your example)
> or
> b) Use the called shot to *not* raise the damage level, but apply *only*
> the
> armor in the targeted location (1 in your example)
> or
> c) Use the called shot to achieve a particular objective. E.g. shooting a
> tire on a vehicle, shooting out a headlight, or shooting the leg of a
> fleeing suspect to keep him from running. In these cases extra successes
> should not stage up damage to the overall vehicle or person, but should
> instead be an indication of achieving better success with your particular
> objective.
>
> Signed,
> ShadowFaq
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> To: "ShadowFaq" <ShadowFaq@comcast.net>
> Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 4:23 AM
> Subject: Re: shadowrun cannon companion
>
>
> lol ok heres another dilema.in a test game i wanted to
> use a called shot to an armored head of a baddie.he
> had and armor value of 7/7 (6/5+ helmet of +1/2).in
> the cannon companion it losts for advanced melee
> combat that armor for the targeted location
> protects.in this case head IE the +1/2.
> now heres my question.if with a pistol or other ranged
> weapon when i target the head.what armor value would
> it have?the +1 only or the full 7.
> thanks
> Aaron
Eyeless Blond
Ah, that's a really good way to do it, one which I sincerely wish that the FAQ actually reflected. Applying the armor at a specific location rather than just arbitrarily bypassing armor completely is at least a balanced way of doing things. It may *partly* ruin the abstract nature of combat, but at least it's not so horribly unbalanced as the current Option 2 which allows you to completely bypass armor.
Kagetenshi
The grenades weren't being thrown, they'd been planted in a room that the runners were staying in. The runners did worse than I'd expected on their Perception tests, and the gas was nastier than I had anticipated. The opposition itself had no grenades, only dartguns (I didn't screw up that badly).

~J
DocMortand
QUOTE (LinaInverse)
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
Well, look, the game has got to stay challenging.  I mean, if you layer on all that armor and can stage away a lot of damage, and then you start to get all this karma, what's left to make you sweat saved for the called shot to the face with the barret?


Besides, super duper special forces guys probably would aim for your head anyway.  Didn't you play Rainbox Six?  Tango down, heh heh heh.   rotfl.gif


The moral is, be the guy who shoots first from a position of cover and concealment.  biggrin.gif

Well, to date, we've not had a single game session where at least 1 (sometimes more) player did not go to Serious. About 50% of our games has someone taking Deadly Overflow, so clearly we're still getting challenged. We haven't even gone against "Super Duper Special Forces guys"; this is just against Capos, security guards and gang punks so far.

We've started a new arc involving critters and Insects though. Now if they start taking head-shots, then I think it's going too far, if for no other reason that it doesn't make sense in concept.

In my defense (I'm Lina's GM), I always shoot for the body first...it's when they get desperate they start aiming for the head. Second, I don't stage up the damage for head shots.

I think I might start using that system Shadowfaq sent Orphan for figuring out helmet armor tho - and raise the head shot damage back up one. vegm.gif It strikes me as fairly balanced - and definately better than the FAQ options.

Also, the game where I learned how to play the GM I had was even more evil than me - he had several games with TPKs, and my mage never survived long enough to initiate. I use some of his tricks, but not all...which is why I haven't killed my players yet (and they're too smart for their own good).
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