[Black Mamba]

A character fires Full Auto as a Complex Action, which imposes a -9 Defense Modifier. The target of the attack only has 5 dice to roll for their defense, leaving 4 points of the penalty unaccounted for. I read somewhere that the deficit results in a DV increase for the attack, but I can’t remember where. I also can’t recall if it was in SR5 or SR4A.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? If so, could you please direct me to a book and page number?

[Coyote]

A character fires Full Auto as a Complex Action, which imposes a -9 Defense Modifier. The target of the attack only has 5 dice to roll for their defense, leaving 4 points of the penalty unaccounted for. I read somewhere that the deficit results in a DV increase for the attack, but I can’t remember where. I also can’t recall if it was in SR5 or SR4A.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? If so, could you please direct me to a book and page number?

It is optional rule RG6, from Run & Gun page 110.

[Blue Rose]

Personally, I wouldn't use that optional rule.  Eating full auto without a chance to defend is deadly enough.

[Kiirnodel]

And just so people know, that optional rule calls for increasing the DV by 1 for every two dice lost (or in this case should be lost but can't because you are already out of defense dice).

[Herr Brackhaus]

Yep, RG6 is a good rule. Fully automatic weapons fire is deadly, something that in my opinion isn't well reflected in the base rules.

Just remember that what's good for the players are good for the NPCs. A table using this rule where the players run up against Full Auto weapons should beware that an already deadly game gets even deadlier this way.

[bangbangtequila]

This rule is severely dangerous to non-combatants, but doesn't make much difference to most player characters except to punish mistakes more harshly. I've never made a character with less than 12 defense dice, since my awakened characters have high intuition and my combat characters have great reaction. Unless you are facing situationally reduced dice pools, or spells that incur such penalties (Bugs, Opium Den, etc), the danger is only from not  mitigating the opponents' attack dice, which happens with or without this rule. It makes not getting surprised and such even more important.

[SIlverBudda]

A character fires Full Auto as a Complex Action, which imposes a -9 Defense Modifier. The target of the attack only has 5 dice to roll for their defense, leaving 4 points of the penalty unaccounted for. I read somewhere that the deficit results in a DV increase for the attack, but I can’t remember where. I also can’t recall if it was in SR5 or SR4A.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? If so, could you please direct me to a book and page number?

It is optional rule RG6, from Run & Gun page 110.

If the above is an optional rule. What is the rule for straight up SR5 core book?

[FST_Gemstar]

I'm not sure anything specific is stated...

I guess if defense dice hit 0 or go below 0, you just don't roll defense. This means it only takes one hit on the attack roll to "hit".  Net hits on the attack vs defense roll are added to DV per usual (in this case, it means all hits on the attack roll are added to the DV, as the defending character does not roll defense and gets 0 hits).

[AwesomenessDog]

I'm not sure anything specific is stated...

I guess if defense dice hit 0 or go below 0, you just don't roll defense. This means it only takes one hit on the attack roll to "hit".  Net hits on the attack vs defense roll are added to DV per usual (in this case, it means all hits on the attack roll are added to the DV, as the defending character does not roll defense and gets 0 hits).

Wrong sir, wrong.

You cannot reduce a Dice pool below 1 die for any reason or from any number of penalties. Therefore if I fire FA at you and you have 5 defense dice, you still get to roll that die. If my FA weapon does 8P base damage, it's base gets increased by (9-5)/2=2 by the rule listed above. Then you an I role our respective rolls, (for the sake of argument, I have 9 shooting dice left): Lets say you manage to get a hit with your die and I get the average of 3; I am now doing 8+2[FA adjusted]+2[Net hits]-[Soak] damage against you. If you didn't succeed, the second two would have merely been a three instead because its really hard to dodge bursts and FA, meaning you have been hit squarely by one bullet and winged by at least one more.

The only time defense dice would be 0 or unrolled is when the target is unaware of the attack and cannot dodge out of the way.

[Blue Rose]

That is a not uncommon houserule. You can absolutely lower a dice pool to zero.

[Herr Brackhaus]

You cannot reduce a Dice pool below 1 die for any reason or from any number of penalties.

Can you provide a reference to where in the rules this is stated? Because I am confident you cannot.

And RG6 does not work the way you seem to think it does; it increases the DV by 1 for every 2 dice below 0 the defender has lost, as per page 110 of Run & Gun:

If an attack decreases a target’s Defense Test pool below 0 dice, additional penalties are added to the DV of the attack at a rate of 1 DV per two lost dice. This makes Full Auto or Burst Fire attacks against unaware or restrained foes truly deadly.

It's a poorly constructed sentence in my opinion, because "additional penalties" below zero are "added to the the DV"; this is an inelegant way of stating that for every two dice lost below zero, add 1 to the DV of the attack.

[FST_Gemstar]

I'm not sure anything specific is stated...

I guess if defense dice hit 0 or go below 0, you just don't roll defense. This means it only takes one hit on the attack roll to "hit".  Net hits on the attack vs defense roll are added to DV per usual (in this case, it means all hits on the attack roll are added to the DV, as the defending character does not roll defense and gets 0 hits).

Wrong sir, wrong.

You cannot reduce a Dice pool below 1 die for any reason or from any number of penalties. Therefore if I fire FA at you and you have 5 defense dice, you still get to roll that die. If my FA weapon does 8P base damage, it's base gets increased by (9-5)/2=2 by the rule listed above. Then you an I role our respective rolls, (for the sake of argument, I have 9 shooting dice left): Lets say you manage to get a hit with your die and I get the average of 3; I am now doing 8+2[FA adjusted]+2[Net hits]-[Soak] damage against you. If you didn't succeed, the second two would have merely been a three instead because its really hard to dodge bursts and FA, meaning you have been hit squarely by one bullet and winged by at least one more.

The only time defense dice would be 0 or unrolled is when the target is unaware of the attack and cannot dodge out of the way.

Are you sure you can't lower a dice pool to 0 or below? Defaulting on an Attribute 1? Negative Modifiers? IIRC, the edge section notes that you can use Push the limit when you have 0 or less than 0 dice... 

I mean you can't roll negative dice, but a modifier that makes your pool hit 0 or less I think means that you can't do the action/roll.

[Reaver]

I would be interested in a page number for that rule as well.

In every edition of SR, there has always been a chance of having a defense pool reduced to 0 (or LESS!). Especially true when facing bursts and multiple incoming attacks (as each attack you defend against reduces your defense pool by 1).

[Aaron]

A quick read of Push the Limit, p. 56, SR5 might help clear this up. =i)

[Herr Brackhaus]

The relevant section Aaron hints at is this.

This can allow you to take tests that might otherwise have a dice pool of zero or less thanks to various modifiers in play.