Re: [BNW] Stun attacks

[Theo McGuckin <tsm@jlab.org>]

> I'm curious as to how stun attacks (rubber bullets, tasers, Screamer
> power etc) apply against armour.  Do these attacks ignore armour, are
> they entirely negated by armour, or what?
> 
> The problem is that Strength is much more important in overcoming stun
> attacks than armour (at least, as far as I can work out from the
> rules).  That gives results I don't like.  It means that Toughs, who
> have armour but no Strength bonus, have _less_ defence against a taser
> than a Bouncer, who has a Strength bonus but no armour.

How about every 5 pts. of armor lowers the TN for stun check by 1? This
would only apply against PURE stun weapons, as the armor is already taken
into account with normal weapons.

> I'm leaning towards changing rubber bullets from a 'stun-only' attack to a
> low-powered normal attack.  My impression is that in the real world, rubber
> bullets are about as dangerous as a solid hit from a baseball bat or club, which
> is (for an average attacker) about 2d6+2.  One easy solution would be to say
> that rubber bullets do only half damage.  A Colt 2000, for instance, does 5d6+5,
> or about 13 points; halved, that's 6 points, doing a single wound to most people
> and requiring a difficulty 6 Stun check.  A baseball bat (2d6+2), by contrast,
> will do 7 damage, almost exactly the same.

This seems reasonable. In which case I would scratch the above suggestion.

Another suggestion as far as stun goes is to keep track of how many stun
checks someone has failed. They must make all of them (they only get one
roll per action) before they can get up again. This way it is possible to
beat someone into submission without killing them or ripping an arm off.
Also if their total number of failed checks exceeds their str. then they
are out as if they had critically failed the check.
Maybe you should even add that they get an additional stun marker for
every 5 they miss the check by, that way you can knock someone out
with one punch.
Finally, fists and such should have the option to do stun damage.

Ex. Jack the Bouncer goes up against Vince the Flyer (str. 2). Jack gets
the drop on Vince and uses first move to punch him three times. Damage is
done, then halved (Jack only wants to stun him, not kill him). Vince makes
three stun checks (for the three hits) and fails all three (ouch!) he goes
out for 1d6 hours (or whatever the book says).

How's that sound?

 Theo McGuckin
	"Powerful like a Gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerfball"