[Hermes]

We had a fight about two things in my game last night about the rules:

* One was the item threshold target numbers.

* another was about Buying Hits.

Now Item or Material Threshold numbers.  Errata has been posted on the SR4 website, is this correct?

Secondly, about buying hits:

Buying Hits
"If the gamemaster allows it, a character may trade in 4 dice from her dice pool in exchange for an automatic hit. Gamemasters should only allow this when the character has an exceptionally large dice pool (and is unlikely to fail) or when the situation is non-threatening and non stressful.  If the character might suffer bad consequences from failing the test, then the gamemaster should require her to roll the test rather than buying hits. Buying hits is an all-or-nothing affair; you cannot spend part of your pool to buy hits and then make a test with the rest."

Has this been errata-ed as well?

[KommissarK]

I'm not sure what the question is on buying hits.

Yes, when you buy hits, you trade in 4 dice to get one automatic hit. That is to say, you got a hit on the test if you have 4 dice, 2 hits if you have 8, and so on. The trade off is that yes, thats not the "right" ratio for hits to dice (3 is the "proper" amount by probability). Also, the fact you have to do it all or nothing (can't buy 2 hits, and roll your 3 remaining dice).

Its completely at the GM's discretion.

Really the only thing I'm not 100% on, is if the GM is in his rights to force the buying of hits. That is to say "No, you may not roll your 20 dice, you just have 5 hits." I'm not 100% sure if its proper for a GM to demand that. I would not, but my players, with their luck, would probably choose to buy hits.

What would the "automatic hits" portion be errata'd to be anyway? That phrase naturally goes with the idea of "buying" hits.

[Bira]

Yup, you're just trading in your dice for a slightly worse than average number of hits in situations where you're pretty much already guaranteed to succeed. I don't seem the problem, it just saves time.

[Critias]

Has this been errata-ed as well?

Why?

What makes you think it has been?

[Hermes]

Actually, no one has answered my first question, yet.

It's on the Object Resistance table.

[Critias]

Go take a look for it, man. 

Here's the general resources/downloads: http://www.shadowrun4.com/game-resources/
Here's the FAQ: http://www.shadowrun4.com/game-resources/frequently-asked-questions/

Would you like to tell us more about the actual disagreements you had?  Just saying "I'm looking for rules about ______" makes it kind of tough to answer a question...since, well, you're not actually asking anything very clearly.

[Hermes]

No, I wasn't.

The fight was about firearms, such as the Ares' Predator IV, and cooking ammunition.  My players disagreed about whether to beat a firearm's threshold it's either 5, 4, or 3.

I ruled that an Ares Predator was threshold 4 to make it's ammunition cook and pop (like in "Red.")

[Tagz]

I believe he's asking about what a particular firearm's Object Resistance should be to Direct magic.  I think.

The answer would be:  depends on the gun.  Does it have a wooden stock?  A smartlink?  A wood stock might take the OR down, a smartlink up.  Is the gun made of lots of plastic components?  Other modification might push it more processed as well.

I typically start a gun at an OR of 3 and may modify it depending on the particular gun and adjust it for these sort of variables.  An Ares Predator IV with built in Smartlink, no other mods I'd put at an OR of 4.

Though to make ammo cook, that's usually an Indirect spell, not a Direct.  An Indirect spell ignores OR.

I hope this answers your question, but I'm not entirely sure what you're asking.

[Mantis]

He might be talking about using the Ignite spell to cook the ammo, which does use the object resistance table for spells. However, that spell would just light the gun on fire or melt it or whatever since the spell is line of sight and you can't actually see the ammo to affect it.
Of course giving background like what exactly happened would be more useful. Lots of times on these forums, you need to provide info the same way you would for a computer related problem. Details. Without the background it can be really hard to give a useful answer.
And yeah, about 4 OR for an Ares Predator sounds about right.

[markelphoenix]

I used Fire Water F: 5 on a guy. Fire effect listed 'cooking off' ammo/explosives as a potential outcome. Argument arose that the weapon was OR 5 or even potentially 6+, therefore would not be affected by fire effect (I got multiple net hits on the cast).

[UmaroVI]

The most recent OR table is here: http://www.shadowrun4.com/wp-content/uploads/Downloads/SR4A_changes.pdf page two. An Ares Predator IV is probably OR3. It's not "simple plastics" level for sure, so it is higher than two. It's not a computer, drone, or vehicle (unless it got upgrades like built-in commlink, pilot upgrade, or something). It's probably "advanced plastics, alloys, electronics, sensors" all of which are in a Ares Predator IV. So OR 3.

Markelphoenix: In your case, OR is irrelevant. Fire Water is an Indirect spell so it completely ignores OR.