How would you resolve a called shot to the head? It seems you have to choose between ignoring the armor jacket (for instance) and taking -8 to your attack, or doing more damage at -4 but +4 DV but then they still get armor right?

So is there a way to both ignore armor and shoot a vulnerable unarmored part of the body? Would you have to stack the two together for -12 dice to hit a guy in the face both ignoring armor and doing more damge?

Not that I'm trying to find an easy way to min/max but my pistol guy in sr3 had low-damage pistols and usually just used a TON of dice to aim for the face in order to take down opponents. Not sure how my staple attack works in SR4.

You really weren't supposed to be able to avoid armor in SR3...

The bypassing armor rules were intended for use in melee, and extended to chemical weapons - which is why the rules specifically mentioned 'impact armor' every time it was mentioned.


(Reminds me of when my group switched from SR2 to SR3 - our shaman was upset that his spell pool could no longer be used to summon spirits...not that the rules ever supported the use of that die pool for summoning, even in SR2.)

What? Full body armor covering the face? Odd...

The hit, damage, and armor rules in SR3 are abstract, they were never meant for called shots. It was a tack on that broke the system. Is it a realistic system? Not really. But it works as long as you keep it abstract.

Called shots should only ever be used for trick shots, shooting pistols out of hands, hitting the elevator button etc.

Full round burst from an AK to the face breaking the system? Never!

Okay, so you can't shoot a vulnerable area unprotected by armor and have it still count as both ignoring the armor and also +4DV?

so does it mean that if my player called shot someone in the face, he would get to hit someone without worring about armor? It kinda makes the bypass armor rule useless unless the person has a face shield. any comments?

If the SL allows it, that would be bypassing armor and increasing DV.

So, basically, it would result in -12 dice.

...Which makes a lot of sense, when you think about it.

Spending 8 dice to bypass armor isn't so bad of an idea, although it wouldn't be worth it against weakly armored targets. Sacrificing another 4 dice to increase your DV is well worth the investment. Essentially the -12 dice just means you're taking a whole lot of effort and split-second layout mapping in your head in order to make that perfect shot or two to the dome.

and the target will roll reaction, preemptivly go full defense, and use edge. If he isn't a chump, he can probably get more successes than the shooter

The ignore armor called shot is basically pointless. Every die you subtract subtracts a die from your opponent's resistance test. The average damage stays exactly the same, but the chance of both you and the target glitching increases, as does the chance of missing outright.

Glitching on the resistance check doesn't do anything, glitching on the attack roll does. Mathematically, you are worse off in absolute terms by taking a called shot to ignore armor.

Raking a called shot for extra damage on the other hand, causes you to do on average more damage in exchange for a higher chance of missing. That kind of called shot is either a good idea or not depending upon how likely you are to hit and how tough your opponent is.

-Frank

I thought glitching on resistance tests meant you sprained an ankle, have internal bleeding, or have some other equally unpleasant damage side effect (I'd hate to see a mage with a concussion...ugh).

No, actually you have not. Your increased damage is nill.

Edit: As far as I can see you would only ever do this is you have, say a dice pool of 4, call a shot getting -8, then going for a long shot. Thereby granting you 4 extra dice.

so a head shot would be considered more of a bypass armor test then anything else.

you might by pass armor if someone has (somehow) hardened armor
(hmm, could you use this to by pass vehiclar or drone armor? what about spirits?)

or if you don't want to do stun to them, you want to KILL them.

or, and this is probably the best, is to by pass specal armor like insulated.

an insulated +6 dice vs electricity vest is only -4 dice to shoot past, but that bypasses both the 1/2 impact and the extra 6 dice. same thing for chemical with a super soaker