One of the things I like about SR is how damage is represented with the Damage Codes. You can almost immediately know by looking at them how powerful a weapon is instead of having to calculate if "2d6" was better than "3d4". My only real reservation is how little room SR leaves to fine-tune them. The idea i've toyed with changes a few things but keeps inline with existing SR mechanics.

Here's my idea: Scale up Power Level, Wound Level, Total Player Boxes and Armor Ratings by a factor of 10 and replacing "L", "M", "S" and "D" with numbers instead.

This allows for "more room" and flexiblity in determining Power and Wound Levels. 5L becomes 50L or 50-10, 8M becomes 80M or 80-30. Armor would work in the same manor; 5/3 becomes 50/30. To determine the TN for the Resistance and Dodge Tests, you'd need to divide the resultant Power Level by 10 (round up). In the interest of streamlining SR4, this could be applied across all damage calculations.

I think this would allow all sorts of weapons and ammunition types to exist and still keep the system relatively simple. This would also introduce a new variable way to tweek Wound Level since now you could take over Light and under Moderate (11-29) damage.

Some example Damage Codes:

5L = 50-10
9M = 90-30
12S = 120-60
18D = 180-100

You could also have things that don't currently exist and could let ammo type directly adjust these values:

55-15 (between L and M)
95-25 (just under M)
120-65 (just over S)
190-90 (just under D)

I like the idea. I could definitely imagine them implementing a similar system encorporating an increased number of damage levels.

For example:

Condition Monitor = 20 boxes

Trivial Damage = 1 box
Light Damage = 2 boxes
Moderate Damage = 6 boxes
Serious Damage = 12 boxes
Crippling Damage = 15 boxes
Deadly Damage = 20 boxes


What I would personally like to see is a system where you could be shot, soak all the physical damage but still get knocked off your feet and take stun damage from the bruising force of the bullet hitting your armor vest. I'm not sure there would be an easy way to implement this sort of idea however (short of having weapons do both stun and physical damage, which would be rather cumbersome...)

I don't mind the idea of more precision. Precision is, really, something that the current system is all but incapable of. Grafting 100 'hit points' of damage levels onto that system, however, is unnecessarily cumbersome. Especially when you go that far and don't bother addressing far bigger issues, like penetration and resistability being inextricable when, in reality, they're quite often inversely proportional. Three part damage codes before any of this.

Dev question: any chance any of this is being addressed in/considered for SR4?

what about a damage location.

1: Head
2: body (torso)
3: Left Arm
4: Right Arm
5: Left Leg
6: Right Leg

Or some variation there of.

just a thought

Careful. Hit location is a much-debated topic and there is a poster or two here that gets their panties in a wad over it.

Our group has no problem with hit location and uses them regularly. It can be a useful houserule and adds more flexibility to combat.

I use hit location in that when an attack causes damage, I roll 2d6, look at my chart, and tell them that's where they took the wound, and then they can role play that out as they see fit. Hit locations are rarely used in SR because as the system stands, it would tend to slow down combat even more, especially one you start figuring in determining armor over various body parts.

If you do hit locations, you need to rework the armor stats ahead of time. That's about as obvious as saying "I should probably work out gun stats before my players start shooting them."

What's the rationale for multiplying the Power by 10, since it doesn't seem to factor into anything and just ends up being divided again?

Why not just convert the Damage Code to a number and multiply it by 10 as you have done, but leave the Power alone?

I toyed with this idea, a Damage Level scale from 0-100, for modern (2004-5) Shadowrun. I don't think I liked it, because it's really hard to figure in the same quick progression from "Light" to Deadly with just 6 net successes while yet not allowing a "Serious" to stage far, far into Over-Deadly with the same or making Deadly damages unstagable to nothing -- unless you work in really quite complicated rules.

Still, I do like the basic idea of it, and if someone has better ideas on staging with such a system than just "+X boxes per success", I'm listening.

I'd tentatively put my hand up for a return to the variable staging codes. At first I was happy with the flat Staging 2 of SR2 and later, but now I'm not so sure.

I don't mind if they kept the flat 2 for staging up but had a variable for staging back down.

I'm going to be really surprised if staging still exists in the new mechanic. At least in the same way we're currently familiar with it. I know it'd have been one of the first things I would have looked at in the name of streamlining.

How would staging work with your suggestion? I don't need to see actual numbers, but I would like to see the function in detail. Because I really don't like the idea of just adding or reducing the damage dealt by # boxes per net success.

As for armor piercing, you'll want to have a lot of variance, starting with attacks which actually increase any armor present, such as shotguns firing shot, through HPs (which might add a bit to armor), FMJs (which may add or reduce, based on the weapon in question), and different AP bullet designs (which may reduce armor by a bit or by a lot), as well as a number of other common and special munitions in the mix. If even pistol JHP attacks have a positive Armor Piercing value (ie. they reduce armor by X), then you'll end up with insanely high Armor ratings to maintain balance.

I´d love a revised combat/damage system in SR4.
The old SR damage system sucks imho, since it´s possible to reduce damage to nothing by rolling Body. That´s something i never understood. You were hit by bullets and were able to take no damage. Crazy stuff...
I love condition systems, like in SR or Cyberpunk or old World of Darkness. That´s something they should keep.
Oh, and hit location would be cool, too. You know what? Just take the CP 2020 damage system, it´s not perfect but it´s deadly enough for a game like SR and is very easy and fast to handle.

Perhaps ammo type would be used for the staging, since after all, the bullet is doing the damage? Maybe the stage-per-success would be affixed to the bullet type? "+X boxes" per succcess for the type of round fired?

Also you need to definitely have some comparitive mechanic to overdamage to represent the really nasty wounds that come about via high end weaponry. However I think people need to be wary of having something akin to regular vs naval damage as tbh it kinda smells like some palladium sdc/mdc mechanic.

However there does need to be some improvement concerning how small arms effect vehicles and how heavy weapons effect people as the current system does leave a bit to be desired.

Of course this starts getting into icky issues like critter hardened armor etc which will quickly make a alt system really hard to hash out.

All that being said be very wary of critical hit charts etc as they quickly become unmanageable (think rolemaster) without adding much to gameplay. Further body location charts tend to discourage stylistic roleplaying as suddenly to survive a mission you need to wear a helmet which is sooo not cyberpunk

For more discussion on what do the various Damage Levels mean, read, uhh, this thread.

heh, hit locations help with picturing damage. thats for sure. but is it realy usefull for much else?

For a random hit location chart you'd probably want to use a bell curve style probability chart which while it's not fitting with the standard dice roll mechanics it allows for a less random insanity.

Example 3d6 chart

3 - Right Hand Shot
4 - Right Foot Shot
5-6 Right Arm Shot
7-8 Right Leg Shot
9-12 Torso/Head Shot
13-14 Left Leg Shot
15-16 Left Arm Shot
17 - Left Foot Shot
18 - Left Hand Shot

You'd probably want to have a second chart on torso/head shots which uses a d6 on which 6s indicate a direct head hit.

Note that I've chosen to have head shots not be 3s or 18s as lets face it assume that someone's roughly aiming at the torso there is a decent chance that the head is going to be hit. Of course not all head shots are going to be the same so the second roll would likely indicate some sort of increased damage power code hit. I'd suggest something like a +3 +1 damage code at a minimum.

Assuming heavy pistols stay at 9m a head hit become 12S.

Of course for multiple rounds hitting this becomes difficult as realistically you'd want to get rid of the burst fire and automatic fire modifiers (or change them to a TN modifier) but then you'd have to roll to hit for each bullet which would increase resolution time alot.

With this type of system you'd likely want to make the TN modifier for called shots quite a bit higher or make the called shot be something like a +/- 2or 3 to the 3d6 roll for location and direct head hits occur on 4-6 on the second hit for a torso shot. That way you have increased lethality on called shots but not instakills. Further I'd make called shots incompatible with burst fire or automatic fire as even with enhanced ballistic capabilities it would be stupid for a gun to remain that accurate on an extended burst. Pretty much this would be the province of heavy duty pistoleers and sniper types rather than the samurai with the valiant LMG. Of course called shots with shotguns should be practically unattainable unless you are at ridicolously close range which gets into the whole dodge thing.

Further you'd likely want to add in some way of burning karma to avoid sniper rifle instakills or changing the dodge rules so that you can force rerolls on called shots etc.

I don't think anyone is at a loss for how to do it. The argument is really, "Is it worth it?"

Ohh it would require a huge redoing of large areas related to combat as armor would likely need major revision unless full body ballistic armor becomes the norm in the future. Factor in damage boxes for various body parts and it becomes very clunky very quickly. Not that it's inherently bad it just becomes a much more specialized product whose target audience is largely limited to gun fanatics (I mean even more than it already is )

It's worth a fan netbook down the road if people can get off thier butts though.

if you absolutely have to have a shot placement mechanic, why not just use the attack roll? take the highest die on the shot. if it's 1-2, you hit the arms; 3-4, you hit the legs; 5-6, torso; 8+, headshot. simple, vaguely skill-based, no extra dice.

No hit locations! Details are for roleplaying.

One of the few times I thought it would come in handy would be for shooting someone is the leg to slow them down. As SR stand now, someone at 9-stun, 9-physical boxes can still run full-speed.

Jesus, did Patrick just refuse to answer this thread because he knew what would happen if he didn't even grace it with a "sorry, no answers; NDA, you know"? Did he just want to fuck with me?

Even shots that hit the skull itself (esp. from pistols) have decent chance of glancing off (though not as much from short range), and anything too low in the head may not be enough to kill the guy (but usually incapacitate him. Usually).