[mtfeeney = Baron]

2) -3 or so, I'd imagine. It's not quite as hard as shooting an eyeball, but, it's still not an easy target.
3) I'd say almost completely immobilizing, for the purposes of combat. It's really hard to walk with 15-20 pounds(that's being conservative) of dead chrome on your leg, let alone the outright pain and such of walking on an ankle. Atop all that, it doesn't just turn 'off.' A called shot to the foot would likely mangle it to Hell and back, tear it apart, and leave you dragging a whole bunch of pneumatic components and wires about. In the absolute least, I'd impose a -4 penalty on tests requiring the wounded foot or -2 and call a balance check on the player every time they did something. Getting 'shot in the foot' is still pretty damn lethal.

That said, I also run pretty lethal games.

I would be absolutely terrified of running in a game of yours...  It's only a -3 penalty to completely annihilate a character?  In that case, I'd just constantly aim at peoples feet...     Seriously, though, scary.

Falconer, your stuff makes sense to me, but still scary.  For my own character as an example, he has a cyber arm(+2 armor, 9 body) and 18/18 armor.  If someone wanted to shoot it, they'd roll their attack(-2 for aiming at the arm, -18 to bypass armor).  Ok, it's an impossible shot.  So they skip trying to bypass armor.  They roll their 20 assault(-2 for aiming at the arm) vs my 5 REA.  That's 6 hits, I make 2 saves.  So they do 6 DV +4 net hits, -1 AP.  That's 10 DV vs my BOD + Armor (9+21), so on average I'd reduce it by 10.  Ok, so I'm safe, but assume I rolled poorly.  I only reduced it by 6.  So the arm takes 4 boxes of damage(it has 12 total), and I roll willpower(5) to save against 2S... right?

[Falconer]

More or less... though I'd probably round up... I'd make a separate damage track for the arm/leg since it matters for repair later... and have you soak 5/2== 3stun... not a lot... but enough to be annoying.

Remember that's just house rules I'm making up on the spot with little no thought.

To me that's the role of a GM to arbitrate the game in a manner that's fun and fair to everyone... especially when the rules call for it.  (the rules for called shot repeat this in the vehicle section for example... if someone wants to shoot out a tire or radiator... it's up to the Gm to figure out how he handles it).


In your case... you seem fixated on the armor... remember shadowrun armor is an abstraction... with 18 armor... not all of it is localized... especially if you have 6 points on other cyberlimbs... so I might only apply a -half the armor to ignore half of it.  Which won't change the numbers much... (-10 dice damage, is equally offset by -10 dice soak.. the odds on those dice are exactly the same! no matter which side of the equation they're rolled on).  So it really wouldn't matter... -10 dice means +3 average damage presoak... -10 soak means +3 more damage on average.  See completely offsetting...

A +2/+2 heavy helmet for example is probably more like 10/10 local armor... but it's only +2 because the head isn't hit often in comparison to the rest of the body.  I'm not for making a localized armor system in the game... as I think it's too much fiddly detail and simply slow down the game... also result in the 'boom headshot' game mechanic problem... as anyone without a helmet is instantly splattered by called shots.  (use it enough against the players with 'turnabout is fair play' and they won't want that system either as unfun for them as well as the GM!).


If you had armor implants on the limb... I might choose to apply a lesser dice pool penalty but give you 6 points of armor to reflect the rating 2 armor on the limb (again simply reflecting that the 2 points is a full body abstraction)...  the rules for called shot are pretty open ended and give GM's a lot of discretion they shouldn't be afraid to use IMO.  But that's the kind of thing which is harder to do on the fly...

[mtfeeney = Baron]

Food for thought, definitely.  I never considered that the low armor rating of the helmet was due to averaging out the portion of the body it covers.  I think I'd still just go with the standard armor bypass thing, instead of getting into what you aptly called the fiddly details.  The only localized armor he wears is the helmet and his arm's +2.  On a tangent, for bypassing armor, does that bypass only worn armor or all armor rating?

[Falconer]

By strict RAW wording... the rule is for bypassing is all or nothing armor... though for some things this doesn't make sense and I also don't believe this is the intent of the authors/developers.

Besides as a matter of RAW I can always say rather than the option of bypassing all the armor... i want to bypass some of it... and let the GM adjudicate results as he sees fit as the last option for called shots states!


Again... I'm a big fan of simply letting people choose to ignore some of the armor instead of all of it...   Again as i pointed out 1 dice for 1 dice... is no net change in actual damage!   

The only thing it does is change the stun/physical damage threshold.   (if you have 18 armor and I say I wish to bypass half of it... I'm fine with that... I'm not fine with looking well I got an AR firing APDS... so I want to bypass all but 5 points; that's a bit too fidly for a guy on multiple IP's to do in a mere second size up the armor and pick exactly the right spot for maximum penetration...   if instead he wants to try and get a weaker spot in the armor rather than ignore it completely and let me make the call...  I like that option a lot more.

So again in that case.. lets say you are 18 armor... they ask if they can aim for a weaker portion...  I say sure and knock off say 6 or 9 points for an equal dice penalty...  now all that happens is they roll their attack and the stun/lethal threshold changes to 12 or 9... depending on how many dice were taken out.

[mtfeeney = Baron]

I understand what you're saying.  I guess my personal preference is to get rid of as much "GM discretion" as possible and stick with actual rules.  I like the calling a shot wasn't supposed to originally allow targeting a specific body part to bypass protections and do extra damage.  If I was the shooter, I'd never do anything other than targeting the head, not from liking the rule but from knowing that if I don't do it first... they will.  If I was the target, I would be absolutely pissed when my hard work was destroyed by a retarded abuse of GM discretion.

[Shaidar]

Myself I prefer the "GM Discretion", it usually results in more realistic game-play.  Then again, I usually play with level headed individuals and few power hungry A$$-holes.

[UmaroVI]

Such are the consequences of mixing abstracted hit locations with location-specific armor.

[mtfeeney = Baron]

Such are the consequences of mixing abstracted hit locations with location-specific armor.

But that's just it, isn't it.  The only 'armor' that I've seen that is location-specific is the protective covers for cybereyes that add +1/+1 for shots in the eye area.  All other armor is non-area-centric, which fits the non-area-specific damage system.

[UmaroVI]

Right, and that has some very strange consequences. For example, if someone is wearing Synergist Business Line Slacks (1/1) with Delta-Amyloid (+3/+1) and a Ballistic Mask (+2/+1) and Helmet (+1/+2), and they also have two Armor 3 cyberlegs and an Armor 3 [bulky] Cyberskull, it's a -16 penalty to bypass their armor. But their armor is on their legs and head, and their entire torso is completely unarmored - yet it takes a world-class marksman to have any hope of hitting them in the chest!

[And yes, I'm aware that any problems with any system ever can be brushed under the rug with GM fiat].