| From: | Marc Renouf renouf@********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | More than (D)eadly |
| Date: | Tue, 18 May 1999 11:29:28 -0400 (EDT) |
[SNIP description of DD damage code]
> *Doc' grins evilly. "Does it scare you that I apparently subject my
> players to hideously nasty damage often enough to have developed a
> house rule to cover the situation?"*
No, actually. We've used a variety of overdamage rule that had a
similar effect for some time now. Basically, it works by "rolling over"
the damage code into overflow, starting over at light. So if you have a
weapon that does base Serious damage and get four successes, you stage the
damage up twice, which goes to Deadly, then Deadly + Light (meaning that
if you don't resist the damage, you'll take 11 boxes). Eight successes
with this same weapon would yield a Deadly + Serious, which would
instantly and irrevocably slay someone with a Body of 6 or less (as it
would totally fill their overflow). It keeps the "two successes per
stage" mechanic intact. Also, astute observers will not that it will work
exactly the same way for the rollover of Stun wounds into Physical damage.
This type of mechanic is used regardless of the Power Level of the attack
or the target's Body. In other words, it's *always* worked the same way.
If you stitch someone up with 10 rounds out of an assault rifle,
of get a whole mess of successes with your Wallacher Combat Axe, you can
pretty easily do a grievous amount of damage in a single hit. The record
in one of my games was a street-sammy who put a three-round burst into a
surprised target at close range. He got successes with *all* of his
appreciable number of skill and Combat Pool dice. The combined total was
16 successes, which brought his damage code to 10D+D+S. In other words,
the target's head was paste.
In most cases, though, the target numbers for combat are so high
that rollover damage really only comes into play in surprise situations
and with automatic weapons (where several rounds hitting can actually push
the damage code above D even if the shooter only gets a single success).
Other folks on this list use the same (or similar) overdamage
rules to make Shadowrun as deadly as it should be.
Marc
