[Myliel]

Is it just me or are weapons in Shadowrun 5e underwhelming damage-wise ?

For the sake of argument I imagined a situation, one of the world's « best » snipers against a surprised target, with a Barret Model 122.

Shooter is an Elf with maxed out AGI and Exceptional Attribute (AGI), Bioware boosting his AGI by 4 (Muscle Toner & Suprathyroid Gland) for a total of 12 AGI.

He also has 13 in the Longarms Skill (with Aptitude) and a specialization in Sniper Rifles for a grand total of 15.

Let us add that he takes  the Take Aim action twice, and has a Smarlink, for another 2 Dice Pool and +2 Accuracy (or DP).

Considering all this he has 31 dice and 11 accuracy, which statistically gives him a whooping 10 successes (9 if making a called shot), thus boosting his damage up to 23P or 24P.

Once again statistically he will obtain 7 or 8 actual damage boxes.

Now for the target, let us assume a random human with 3 in all stats and no armor (we assume the shooter uses APDS so most regular armors do not apply). With his stats he statistically has 10 boxes of Physical Condition Monitor and will have 1 success on the damage resistance test, thus incurring a total of either 6 or 7 boxes of damage.

To sum up, 6 or 7 might seems like a lot but it seems VERY underwhelming to me considering it will NOT kill the target outright even though the shooter is maxed to the gills and using a friggin' Antimateriel Rifle.

In real life such a situation would result in 100% death rate for the target, even using much smaller calibers... so what's wrong ?

[Sphinx]

What? First the attack test: Your expert sniper rolls 31 dice and gets 10 hits. The surprised defender doesn't get to roll defense, so all ten hits are net hits, adding to the damage of your Barret Model 122 (14P/-6), resulting in a modified DV of 24P. Next comes the damage resistance test: The target rolls Body 3 + Armor 0 = 3 dice to soak 24 boxes of physical damage, gets 1 hit, and takes 23 boxes, overwhelming both the physical track and overflow. Massive overkill.

EDIT TO ADD: Damage Value (DV) is not a dice pool.

[Xenon]

Considering all this he has 31 dice and 11 accuracy, which statistically gives him a whooping 10 successes (9 if making a called shot), thus boosting his damage up to 23P or 24P.

Once again statistically he will obtain 7 or 8 actual damage boxes.

It seem as if you are treating modified Damage Value as # of dice. It isn't. This is actual boxes of damage dealt.

Using averages, any person without armor and with a Body rating of 20 or less will either directly die or go unconscious and bleed out.

[CanRay]

Guns not big enough?

BUY KRIME!!!!!!

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

While there are some faulty assumptions baked into the original post, as already described above.

I would like to note, however, that the phenomenon IS still largely accurate.  It's pretty hard to hurt, much less kill, targets who optimize available soak pool options in 5e.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

In real life such a situation would result in 100% death rate for the target, even using much smaller calibers... so what's wrong ?

Setting the facts straight for your example:

Considering all this he has 31 dice and 11 accuracy, which statistically gives him a whooping 10 successes (9 if making a called shot), thus boosting his damage up to 23P or 24P.

I didn't delve and double check, but I'll take 31 dice and 11 accuracy at face value.  Without edge, yeah that's about 10 hits, but you also have to factor in how many hits the defense side of the test generates. In 5e, an average person has 3s in their attributes.  3 Reaction + 3 intuition = 6 dice, which is probably 2 hits.  2 hits means the sniper has 8 Net Hits, increasing the DV by 8.

As pointed out, you don't roll DV.  The victim rolls Body+Armor against it, where each hit reduces the damage suffered by 1 DV per hit.  If they're Body 3 and not wearing armor, that's probably 1 hit.  DV23P reduced by 1 is 22 boxes of Physical damage.  Squish.  In the case of an absolutely maximized deathsniper shooting at an unarmored, unnamed NPC... they're dead. Zero chance.  What I was talking about in my previous post is how it's hard to hurt people who min-max the defensive side of the equation, but even then a maxed out sniper can maybe do it.  So long as they don't score 10+ hits on their dodge test

[Grimlakin]

We are all forgetting about edge.   Mr elf sniper is probably running 6edge. 

Now if Mr elf badass sniper is rolling 37 dice with no accuracy limit due to spending an edge, and getting to re roll sixes j could see 15 to 20 hits.  And that attribute plus skill is going to be hard to dodge.

Let's say the target is built to evade.  So for some reason they know someone is shooting at them.  Reaction plus intuition plus say danger sense.  Let's say reaction of 10, and intuition of 8 and danger sense of 4.  That would give them 22 dice.   Since they are human they get 29 dice with edge.   So let's call that 1t hits to evade.   Net 6 hits so dv of 20.   

Now the soak.  Human is built to soak.  Has 4 points of mystic armor or whatever the adept power is.   A body of 10.  And an armor value of 20.   So 34 dice to soak.   But the ap is -6 and ap bullet adds 4 for an ap value of minus 10.   So now 24 dice to soak.  Spends an edge to soak bringing it to 31.  If they roll well they won't die.  Amazing and they stone cold soak it.   Then again that's their job.   

[Michael Chandra]

(Exploding Sixes are average 0.4 hit per die, Reroll afterwards is 5/9. So it's more like 9 hits vs 12 with Exploding vs Reroll. You're better off pushing your limit like crazy with weapon mods and rerolling afterwards.)

[Grimlakin]

Ok I need to be schooled in weapon mods that increase limits in 5e.

[steelybran]

Keep in mind something else about the 122, is that it STARTS with 6 in AP.  Throw in APDS rounds, and you're basically ignoring 10 points of Armor - this means that if they are wearing an armor jacket, you've effectively reduced their armor to 2.  Throw in Sharpshooter, and you can do a double tap called shot at only -2, and ignore up to 20 points of armor.