[Darrian Wolffe]

OK, so I'm running a relatively low-powered game, core SR4A book only (the splats are getting released a little at a time to simulate the progression of SOTA).  Dice pools are limited to 16 dice, runners aren't twinking out specific skills, the fastest guy in the group as 3 IPs and everyone else has 2, ballistic armor ratings are in the single-digits, wireless isn't universal, and so forth.  Very SR1/2 feel.  So far, it's worked pretty well (for those of you who remember your older modules, the runners just found Madame Ullishia's corpse in their search for the necklace "Blood").  However...


1) Knockdown.  Take your Body or more damage in a shot and automatically fall prone.  Well...everybody is getting knocked over.  PC, NPC...doesn't matter (they don't have a Troll and haven't gone up against one yet).  And frankly, that simply doesn't happen.  It's breaking our suspension of disbelief.  It's the whole "automatically" bit that's getting us.  We generally feel that there should be a test of some sort to avoid falling prone if you take more damage than your Body rating.  Assuming I institute a house-rule along those lines, am I going to throw anything seriously out of whack? 

2) Stick N' Shock.  OK, this crap is flat-out busted when it comes to game balance.  Right now, we're in kind of a detente where "GM won't use it against the players if the player's don't start using it heavily against NPCs".  Aside from arbitrarily giving everybody in the game world either 30 free rounds of S'NS, or Rating X Electric Resistance, anybody got any good ideas about how to deal with this?  My players through the earlier editions of SR went out of their way not to use broken stuff they found in the system (or read about on dumpshock), but this stuff has to potential to become a real problem, and there isn't a good way to keep PCs from getting it that doesn't feel excessively arbitrary.  Combined with the low-powered, low-optimization game we've got going, this stuff blows people out of the water.   How do you folks handle the stuff, and/or given a game in which splats and high-dice combos aren't in play, how would you handle it?

[Walks Through Walls]

Any of the weapons that use the electricity rules are down right nasty. Be it a stun baton, taser or stick n shock. A bit of nonconductivity for the more important NPCs could be one way to go. It will surprise them when they don't automatically get zapped since you then get your full armor not the half of impact that you would otherwise.

As far as the knockback as long as it is universal it doesn't matter if you make some house rule. The other option is if you want to have a cinematic type effect you could use the house rule of an agility or reaction roll, but only for the PCs and important NPCs.

The other option for the electrical problem is only do the damage and ignore the stunning effect I know a couple of the GMs at GENCON were running it this way. As long as it is the same for everyone shadowrun is pretty easy to tweak to your groups personal liking as you know in what you have done already to limit the power of characters which is part of the reason you are having the issues you are right now, but just adapt more to correct it.

[Nomad Zophiel]

1) Knockdown.  Take your Body or more damage in a shot and automatically fall prone.  Well...everybody is getting knocked over.  PC, NPC...doesn't matter (they don't have a Troll and haven't gone up against one yet).  And frankly, that simply doesn't happen.  It's breaking our suspension of disbelief.  It's the whole "automatically" bit that's getting us.  We generally feel that there should be a test of some sort to avoid falling prone if you take more damage than your Body rating.  Assuming I institute a house-rule along those lines, am I going to throw anything seriously out of whack? 

I think this is not so much a matter of physics as self control. If you're taking 1/3-1/2 of your damage track in a single shot, trying to keep your knees from giving out reflexively is going to be a real effort. Anyone who takes a solid hit and keeps advancing is either a total badass or hopped up on drugs. If you like that logic you might want a house rule that people with an enhanced pain tolerance can stay on their feet.

[voydangel]

Any of the weapons that use the electricity rules are down right nasty. Be it a stun baton, taser or stick n shock. A bit of nonconductivity for the more important NPCs could be one way to go. It will surprise them when they don't automatically get zapped since you then get your full armor not the half of impact that you would otherwise.
...

I believe that with non-conductivity you still lose half your armor. The bonus is that you get to add the rating of your non-conductivity enhancement to your armor after the halving. So if you have 10 impact armor with rating 6 non-conductivity modification and get zapped you lose half 10/2 = 5, but then add 6 to it for a total armor of 11 vs the electrical attack. Although, I can't seem to recall exactly where I read this and can't find the RAW in the books. But hopefully somsone will come along after me with a page number or something...

[voydangel]

1) Knockdown.  Take your Body or more damage in a shot and automatically fall prone.  Well...everybody is getting knocked over.  PC, NPC...doesn't matter (they don't have a Troll and haven't gone up against one yet).  And frankly, that simply doesn't happen.  It's breaking our suspension of disbelief.  It's the whole "automatically" bit that's getting us.  We generally feel that there should be a test of some sort to avoid falling prone if you take more damage than your Body rating.  Assuming I institute a house-rule along those lines, am I going to throw anything seriously out of whack?

An additional thing to keep in mind is that, although you may not like it, and it may kill your suspension of disbelief, is that the rule is actually pretty accurate to real world effects. If your average person gets shot and it's anything more than a grazing wound, they're gonna take a knee, or more. Heck, even most grazing shots are gonna put someone on a knee. Ask a cop or military person who's been shot, whether it hits armor or not - there's a lot of kinetic force being slogged around there, so it's really not all that off base.

However, your enjoyment of the game is far more important than rules simulating real world physics, whether they're correct or not, so I would personally sit down and come up with a house rule that everyone can agree on that makes the game better for your group. Nomadzophiel had a good idea, and there are many others possible as well.

[Chaemera]

Any of the weapons that use the electricity rules are down right nasty. Be it a stun baton, taser or stick n shock. A bit of nonconductivity for the more important NPCs could be one way to go. It will surprise them when they don't automatically get zapped since you then get your full armor not the half of impact that you would otherwise.
...

I believe that with non-conductivity you still lose half your armor. The bonus is that you get to add the rating of your non-conductivity enhancement to your armor after the halving. So if you have 10 impact armor with rating 6 non-conductivity modification and get zapped you lose half 10/2 = 5, but then add 6 to it for a total armor of 11 vs the electrical attack. Although, I can't seem to recall exactly where I read this and can't find the RAW in the books. But hopefully somsone will come along after me with a page number or something...

The nonconductive armor upgrade (p. 327) adds its full rating to the armor value.

Electrical insulation and grounding materials protect the wearer against Electricity damage (p. 163), adding its full rating to the armor value.

Emphasis mine.

You have been RAW-fued

[Bradd]

@voydangel: It's the other way around. Gunshots don't have all that much energy. If they did, Newton's 3rd Law would put the shooter on his ass too. It's not just theory either, Mythbusters has tackled the subject at least once. It's surprise and shock that puts people down. Folks who get shot accidentally, from behind, etc. such that they're not expecting it often don't even realize they've been shot (e.g., they think they've been stung or punched instead).

That said, the end result is the same. People tend to panic and fall over when they're injured.

FYI, here's a discussion of the subject: http://forums.randi.org/archive/index.php/t-81777.html

[Critias]

1)  An easy fix I'd use would be changing the line of text from "Body" to "Body + Will."  Tough or crazy (or both) people stay on their feet while getting shot, and everyday schlubs who take a serious hit will still go into shock and fall over squalling like a stuck pig.  Rather than instituting a roll (and slowing things down), you're just changing the threshold, so it's not as clunky as letting folks roll to stay on their feet used to be.

2)  Yup.  Stick and Shock was one of the first things I started a conversation about once I got onto the right Google Group and had the ear of various game devs.  I don't like how it's currently set up, and neither do an awful lot of other folks.  The quickest and easiest fix would be to remember how cheap electrically insulated armor is (for starters), and then to change it so that it -- like gel rounds -- just turns the existing DV of a firearm into stun and electrical damage.  The electrical effect means it can still be a mundane's answer to spirits and whatever, but making the SnS DV dependent on the DV of the gun means no more packing 'em into hold-outs just to be a douche (and even kind of makes sense, since the bigger the round the bigger the capacitors, etc, etc). 

[Nomad Zophiel]

2)  Yup.  Stick and Shock was one of the first things I started a conversation about once I got onto the right Google Group and had the ear of various game devs.  I don't like how it's currently set up, and neither do an awful lot of other folks.  The quickest and easiest fix would be to remember how cheap electrically insulated armor is (for starters), and then to change it so that it -- like gel rounds -- just turns the existing DV of a firearm into stun and electrical damage.  The electrical effect means it can still be a mundane's answer to spirits and whatever, but making the SnS DV dependent on the DV of the gun means no more packing 'em into hold-outs just to be a douche (and even kind of makes sense, since the bigger the round the bigger the capacitors, etc, etc). 

To me, there's no reason to change the DV. The current DV is in line with tasers. Some do more, some do less but they average out to about 6S. All of them are essentially holdout or light pistols. A few of them fire darts that don't need wires, which are essentially stick'n'shock rounds in their native habitat. Stick'n'shock, kind of like flechette, allows a regular gun to be competitive with a specialty gun. If you feel the need to base DV on the gun's base plus or minus something, DV+2S seems about right when comparing light pistols to tasers. Unfortunately that means that any heavier weapon will actually do more than 6S.

[Chaemera]

2)  Yup.  Stick and Shock was one of the first things I started a conversation about once I got onto the right Google Group and had the ear of various game devs.  I don't like how it's currently set up, and neither do an awful lot of other folks.  The quickest and easiest fix would be to remember how cheap electrically insulated armor is (for starters), and then to change it so that it -- like gel rounds -- just turns the existing DV of a firearm into stun and electrical damage.  The electrical effect means it can still be a mundane's answer to spirits and whatever, but making the SnS DV dependent on the DV of the gun means no more packing 'em into hold-outs just to be a douche (and even kind of makes sense, since the bigger the round the bigger the capacitors, etc, etc). 

As an electrical engineer, I just said "screw it" and decided that Stick-n-Shock only came in shotgun-slug form. Pistol bullets are too damn tiny to handle any kind of reasonable capacitance, I don't care about the tech advances, physics doesn't really support a practical electro-shock device in small rounds. At the same end, the insanely high forces common to machine-guns, sport rifles, and sniper rounds would wreck havoc on a capacitor, likely causing it to simply rupture in the chamber.

Yes, we've got massively more advanced technology, but there are limits to the physics involved with high-voltage capacitance and we've just about hit them when it comes to packaging them into man-portable weapons.

Remember, the taser either has leads or fires a fairly large capacitor at a fairly low velocity.

[voydangel]

Any of the weapons that use the electricity rules are down right nasty. Be it a stun baton, taser or stick n shock. A bit of nonconductivity for the more important NPCs could be one way to go. It will surprise them when they don't automatically get zapped since you then get your full armor not the half of impact that you would otherwise.
...

I believe that with non-conductivity you still lose half your armor. The bonus is that you get to add the rating of your non-conductivity enhancement to your armor after the halving. So if you have 10 impact armor with rating 6 non-conductivity modification and get zapped you lose half 10/2 = 5, but then add 6 to it for a total armor of 11 vs the electrical attack. Although, I can't seem to recall exactly where I read this and can't find the RAW in the books. But hopefully somsone will come along after me with a page number or something...

The nonconductive armor upgrade (p. 327) adds its full rating to the armor value.

Electrical insulation and grounding materials protect the wearer against Electricity damage (p. 163), adding its full rating to the armor value.

Emphasis mine.

You have been RAW-fued

Yes, the full rating of the non-conductivity is added to the armor, but that does not mean that you don't still have to reduce your base impact armor by half first.

Specific trumps general, as we all agree. Well, the general rule is that you get full impact armor to resist non-ballistic damage. then the specific rule of -half armor due to it being electricity kicks in. then the rule where you add the full rating of non-conductivity to to that kicks in. Nowhere in the nonconductivity does it say you get to add the full rating to your full armor rating. It says exactly what you wrote: add the full rating of the non-conductivity mod to your armor rating. And in this case armor = 1/2 impact.

[Medicineman]

@Stick & Schock
A lot of German Groups developed 2 Houserules
1) S&S Ammo only in Shotguns and (assault)Rifles and up
2) no increase of Damage with Net Hits (only for Burst Fire)

HokaHey
Medicineman

[Mäx]

2)  Yup.  Stick and Shock was one of the first things I started a conversation about once I got onto the right Google Group and had the ear of various game devs.  I don't like how it's currently set up, and neither do an awful lot of other folks.  The quickest and easiest fix would be to remember how cheap electrically insulated armor is (for starters), and then to change it so that it -- like gel rounds -- just turns the existing DV of a firearm into stun and electrical damage.  The electrical effect means it can still be a mundane's answer to spirits and whatever, but making the SnS DV dependent on the DV of the gun means no more packing 'em into hold-outs just to be a douche (and even kind of makes sense, since the bigger the round the bigger the capacitors, etc, etc).  

Oh god i hope you don't get that rule into the books, because that turns S&S into best ammo there is for every and all weapon types.
At least currently its only really good in the small guns. as the big guns lose damage if they use them.
Really even with that rule i would still load my hold-outs with S&S for the -half impact armor, but i would also load every single one of my other weapons with S&S too as there would be no reason what so ever to not load my sniper rifle with them.

That rule idea is fifteen miles beyond broken.

[Nomad Zophiel]

At the end of the day, I mostly ignore physics for game balance. Should a sniper rifle with rubber bullets still be lethal? Probably if you do the math on muzzle velocity and whatnot. Is there anything wrong with sniper rifles having a non-lethal round? No. Same thing with S&S. Should a .22 be able to carry a capacitor, even accounting for carbon nanotubes? Maybe not. Then again, .22 flech rounds don't really make sense either. You just can't fit that many slivers. Flechette guns and tasers are both cheap because they can only mount the one type of ammo. Equivalent guns that can take different ammo loadouts are more expensive. It pretty much balances out. YMMV

Max makes a pretty good point. Small guns used by non-combat specialist characters on non-combat specialist characters get a nice advantage. When the heavies come out to play, they're using guns that don't benefit as much against armor that is probably insulated. The latter is sort of a second order consequence. If s'n's is cheap and effective, its going to be very common. If the countermeasure against it is also cheap and effective, its also going to be common. Sort of like my "everyone owns an emotitoy" logic elsewhere. So yes, that means that if everyone is using s'n's, insulation may be standard by 2075 in new armor. From a gameplay perspective, though, ignoring half impact armor may be exactly the thing that keeps a lone PC alive.

[Critias]

1)  The quick and dirty patch I proposed here is not, trust me, the SnS fix I'd like to see.  It's not the one I proposed formally.  It's a fast, easy, change that just turns SnS ammo functionally into Gel Rounds, except that they get the elemental damage effect (so mundanes still have a way to hurt spirits) instead of the +2 for knockdown effect Gel Rounds get.  I know it's not a perfect fix, but remember they'd still cost almost three times as much as Gel Rounds, they'd be less effective against mundane targets (since they only retain the elemental damage tag in order to hurt spirits, compared to getting a knockdown bonus on everyone, and insulated armor would still help extra), and that a Hold-Out with SnS wouldn't be a magic wand any more.  Is it terrific?  Of course not.  But I think it's an easy house rule, that slaps a band-aid on a few of the key issues.

2)  What I actually proposed for SnS, I won't get into full details here, because I'm just a freelancer and it's not up to me anyways...and also because none of it's been shot down yet, so I'd like to keep it hush-hush just in case it does go official.  Suffice it to say it was a five bullet-point proposal that's larger than a standard screen of text.