apoc527

Quote (Bookwyrm @ Mar. 14 2002,02:45)

I personally think that the idea of an objective moral system existing is just plain daft.  Ethics are a human construct and as such can have no independent existence.  So, sorry, cultural relativism is the only way to go.

<SPUTTER!><GASP!>

Hackhackhack!  Coughcoughcough!!

Whoa there...I see your ploy.  You're trying to distract me from writing my philosophy paper, aren't you!

Ok, well, I'm resisting, but I WILL be back to argue this.  However, it is pretty off topic.  If you want to continue this discussion (I can't believe you accept moral relativisim), then email me.  You should be able to do so from my profile.

Ahhh...of course there are problems with it.  I don't believe we've yet "discovered" a real objective moral theory yet.  I do believe one exists, though, which is why I hate cultural relativisim.

As for Aristotle...we did that too.  I wasn't too terribly impressed...but that really is off topic.  

<Loads his SiG P229>

Ok...you win this battle, but you'll never win the war.  

I have a gun now, so feel free to use whatever martial art trick you want...just don't get within 10 feet of me.  

As I would've hoped.  You are indeed a worthy opponent (and apparently a few years older than I...I'm 21...you are 26 or so, right?)

Regardless, I too have done research.  Not only have I DONE many martial arts (judo, Tae Kwon Do, kendo, wrestling), I've also spent a while thinking about this stuff (we gamers...we think, and that's a good skill!).  As for the pain thing, that's right.  I was just saying that in a CP2020, a world filled with psychos (like yourself. ), drug addicts, and cyberwarriors, it's probably not a good idea to depend on the "pain" from a handgun knocking your opponent down.  Don't forget, there's probably an equal number of cops who get shot in the chest and either 1) don't realize it until after the battle is over (see below) or 2) Don't care (once again, see below).  

We have this nice little response, that I'm sure you've heard about.  It's called the fight or flight response, and it's extremely powerful.  I'm a biology major (oooh, watch out, there I go throwing my supposed education around!   ) so I know a few things about biochemistry (curse you, biochem!).  Epinephrine (also called adrenaline) is some pretty amazing stuff.  It's released to save your butt in a fight or flight response, because it's actually a poison (the reason we don't want or have adrenaline constantly flowing in our bloodstream).  A person who's already entered a fight (ie, NOT by surprise, like your pin-in-the-ass example) is not readily going to react to "pain."  Pain is a chemical reaction at the wound site, and CAN BE and IS repressed by your body if it needs to be.  Hence, pain alone is unlikely to cause someone in a fight to fall down.  

As for your martial arts example, once again that is an unfair situation.  Sure, if you are not in a life threatening situation, then pain will cause you to screw up.  However, I guarantee you that someone more concerned with living is going to completely ignore the damage to his wrist.  Sure, it will hurt like hell later, but if it hurts, at least you are still alive.  

Your turn.    

Touche! (stupid lack of accents)

Since your gunning down my arguments, I'm climbing into my ACPA and revving up the miniguns...

I understand what a Sabot is (and how to pronounce it) and I fail to see why this makes a difference.  The thing can be saboted all it wants, it's still subject to the temperatures inside the gun when it shoots.  All I'm saying is that, given that KFF work by a "near microscopic filling of C6" that it seems possible that a plasma reaction in such close proximity MIGHT set it off.  Now, it's possible that C6 is so heat-resistant that it still won't go off when nearby expanding plasma, but it's really impossible to tell.  

Hmmm...interesting.  While I don't want to argue with you about how energy translates to damage (I assume you have some system, like 3G3, that you enjoy using), I also don't want to argue about the real life ETE weapons being developed (because I haven't done my research, like you apparently have).  I just don't think they are all that broken.  As I've previously pointed out, they can't accept silencers, and they aren't automatic.  They also require cased ammo.  Those seem like fair balancing factors to me.  Once again, if you don't like 'em, don't use 'em.  I, however, have no real issue with them.  BTW: Do you have GURPS Ultra Tech 2?  That book has REALLY broken ETE weapons.  They add to damage, range, and accuracy, NOT to recoil (I always thought that was odd), and can be fully automatic.  Them is some nasty weapons (grammar mistakes intentional   )

I'll look forward to our next engagement... (For your information, I have chosen the Militech Commando as my ACPA of choice...)

Well, you CAN, but you'd be wrong (hmmm...I see a pattern emerging).  (Heh.  I figure this being a cyberpunk forum, might as well post in a cyberpunk fashion...)

At any rate, first of all, Electrothermal Enhancement isn't really all that silly.  It is at least theoretically plausible, if not a legitimate advance in firearms technology.  This is all coming from previous discussions on GURPS newsgroups and such, where there's a surprising number of Physics Ph.D's and the like who enjoy thinking about this stuff.  

Finally, the official reason is that there is no official "reason."  I think that it's because it would be broken, but the other poster (Furguy, or something) had a good point.  You are dealing with plasma temperatures here, and its likely that you'd just cook off your incendiary round or flag flechette.  You can use AP rounds (or any Sabot variation of it), so that pretty much covers most of the other ammo types.  You should be able to use Hollow Points, as well (and ironically that would give close to 100% expansion, due to drastically increased expansion.)  

If it weren't for the game effect, I'd say that hollowpoints fired from ETE guns would be the deadliest ammo.  Most people assume that HP bullets are bad at penetrating, but that's misinformation.  Hollowpoints ONLY expand in liquid mediums.  A hollowpoint is just as capable of going through walls and doors as any other bullet.  Therefore, you'd expect Hollowpoints fired from ETE guns to be really deadly.  Granted, you'll probably have some slight increase in the effectiveness of armor, but it would be closer to 25%.

Damn straight.  I'll take Style over Substance any day.  psychophipps sure as hell isn't playing the same CyberPUNK 2020 that we are.  He's playing Cyberutilitarian.  A very different game.  BTW: Utilitarianism is stupid, but that's a very different can of worms.  It's all about Kantianism.

Actually, kinetic energy is largely irrelevent to moving targets around.  That's covered by the momentum of the bullet and that is simply equal to mass*velocity.  A bullet has very little momentum.  In fact, it has the same force as the recoil that the shooter absorbs.  

If a character is well armored enough to take no damage from a round as powerful as a .454 plasmatic, then there are two things evident (actually 3)-

1.  They have significant combat training or are expecting to be shot by large guns.

2.  They are wearing so much armor, that the bullet impact is essentially nothing, because the mass of the target is so much larger than that of the bullet.  The transfer of momentum is minute.  As CP2020 says, knockdown is a Hollywood fallacy.  Similarly, kinetic energy isn't really the primary indicator of bullet lethality or effectiveness.  People often throw terms like "transfer of energy" around as if they were the sole determinant in figuring out the damage a bullet causes.  Well, unfortunately there is no clear correlation between bullet energy and damaging effects.  It's somewhat easier to talk about penetration vs inanimate objects, but clearly the above character is armored against penetration.  

I'm just saying that psychophipps is vastly overestimating the effect of Blunt Trauma in his rules, and in the above example, it's probably possible that there would be no "side effects."  It's not even likely to shove his leg down given how much it's going to weigh.  

So yes, to answer your last little bit that I quoted, bullets do indeed hurt, but not if you are specifically wearing armor to defend against them.  This is the idea behind armor.  Armor that stopped bullets, but still knocked you on your ass would be bad armor, and bad physics.  Chances are, people who fall down after being shot do so out of their psychology, not because the bullet physically shoved them.  

(3).  Munchkin, but this is largely irrelevent to the topic at hand.  

At any rate, because of 1 and 2, it's actually unlikely that

Yea, that's what I meant.  

Anyway, in the end you'll use what you like and I'll use what I like.  I was just more interested in the academic discussion as to why you used your set of rules.  

Perhaps the largest difference is what we believe to be the "ratings" for armor in CP2020.  I think that the actual people of the CP2020 world refer to armor as having so many "SP."  There's quote in the main rulebook, "Rated SP20, man.  You can walk through *fire*.  Just like the holos, choomba."  Heh.  That's kind of funny, but I still say that an SP14 "Light Armor Jack" is just about the heaviest armor you can wear before being constantly harassed by cops.  It's also not stylish, thereby violating the number one rule of CP: Style over Substance.

Anyway, this has been a good discussion.

Well...that report isn't really "urban legend" as you put it.  In fact, that same information (or information very similar to is repeated constantly).  I'm not saying that handguns aren't deadly weapons...I sure as hell don't want to be shot with one, even a .22.  That would hurt...a lot!

And you're right about the psychology of the victim being important.  That's exactly what the article said.  I just think that you are basically overestimating the power of handguns, and the effectiveness of armor.  If you want your games to be more deadly fine, but you must admit that your damages are a little over the top.  Cyberpunk probably does underestimate the damage of a few calibers, but FNFF makes no pretenses about this.  I believe there's even a quote that states something to the effect of "Yes, .22 wounds in the foot have been known to kill through shock, but we won't do that to your character."  Why?  because that would be LAME (to use your word).  I don't care if it is possible, my cyberpunk better not go down due to a .22 in the foot.  

Out of curiousity, have you tried converting CP2020 stuff to GURPS?  GURPS is inherently more deadly and realistic and it seems to suit your style of play a little better than Interlok.  If you have, I'd be interested.  I've always been a little wary of GURPS Cyberpunk, because charging points for cyberware is silly (and most people don't, which is why I've been looking at it again).  Of course, CP2020 has so many sourcebooks and cyberware for it, that it's not really worthwhile switching to GURPS.  Is it?

Of course.  And I'm most definitely not disputing that.  At this point, my only real contention is that the basic CP2020 actually works.  Some people think it's "too weak" or as psychophipp's likes to quip, "candyassed." for their tastes.  I really don't care if other people use weird house rules to fix a game that not's broken.  I just thought I'd see what others thought about the basic system.

YOu are forgetting about or ignoring the Proportional Armor rule.  Yes, I know it's a little weird, but it's necessary.

By the way, I apologize if any of the above is a little harsh or flame-like.  I'm just being enthusiastic.  Remember, I used to have house rules JUST like psychophipp's.

Ok, I've now read your rules and that article I posted.  I must say one thing-

You are completely wrong, given that you state that your new rules are based on your pet peeve that the guns don't kick as much "cyber-butt" as they "should."  

Now then.  Rifles, shotguns, cannons?  They kick butt.  Do they kick butt in CP2020?  Hell yes.  Nothing short of full body plated borgs can withstand hits from these guns (and meatboys in MetalGear...which amounts to the same thing).  That sort of gear should make you IMMUNE to all but the highest powered rifles (.50 BMG, and a few others).  

Pistols?  SMG's?  Nahh...these things suck.  They MIGHT bring down someone who is completely unarmored (hence the Stun/Shock saves and eventual Death Saves every turn...and hence the random damage).  Will they cause someone in armor to pause?  Probably not.  They SHOULDN'T!!  AP rounds?  Sure, eventually these will work, but only because a whole crapload of holes is bad for the human body.  

My point is this- this really isn't a matter of opinion.  It is a fact that handguns suck at incapacitating targets.  SOmetimes they do, sometimes they don't.  It's probably a lot more common in CP for them to not work, given the drugs, cyberware and general attitude.  In the end, your rules are great if you want to actually ignore reality and just make the PC's scared of little .38 peashooters and 9mm bullets.  It's great if you want to needlessly damage your PC's with the myth of serious blunt trauma.  It's great if you don't care that handguns are notoriously poor at accomplishing incapacitation.  It's bad for realism, and it's bad for the genre.  Guns are common.  Really common.  Why do you think armor is so cheap in CP2020?  GURPS has a blowthrough rule, which works pretty well.  CP2020 doesn't, but it's not all that important because the GURPS blowthrough rules suck if you don't modify them according to the rule in Black Ops.  

Essentially, we are going to have to agree to disagree, but it really comes down to facts.  Your damages and more importantly your Blunt Trauma rules are designed to kill PC's and make them fear handguns.  In reality, most edgerunners should only fear a shot to the head or repeated body shots with armor piercing weapons.  That's the way it should be.  

I really suggest you read that article I posted.  It's quite enlightening.

Ok, I will inform him for you.  

Check out this link-  I haven't read the whole thing yet, so I don't know whose point of view it will support but it's interesting nonetheless.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/hwfe.htm

More later.  Unfortunately, work is calling.

Oh yea, one more thing.  The G-36 uses standard 5.56mm NATO ammunition.  I'm not sure what you are referring to.  The G11 used the funky caseless stuff, and probably would have been adopted if it weren't for silly politics getting in the way (the unification of East and West Germany).

Ah good, another GURPS player.  I salute thee!

Now, on to the argument at hand.  

(Haven't bought GURPS Cops, but opens up his playtest files of said book).  Hmmm...interesting indeed.  Either you misquoted (not likely) or they have since modified GURPS Cops since these playtest files (likely) because my version says that Class II vests have a DR15 and Class IIA vests have DR14.  So that's weird.  Well, the above is what they should have been because that does make sense.

Anyway, this is more or less silly because CP2020 and GURPS are two different systems.  I honestly think that CP2020 wasn't designed to super-realistic (unlike GURPS) and so that comparing the two isn't fair.  Heck, look at CP V3 with the Fuzion system.  It's really easy to take damage and ignore it.  That system doesn't use BTM but it does take into account the size of the individual being shot because you have "Hits" equal to BODx5 (or something like that.)  Regardless, it's more or less pure coincidence that the two systems have similar damage ratings.  

I should also point out a few things that I really *really* should have mentioned earlier.  I use the Blackhammer/Fuzion Hit Location tables for my CP games, meaning that a hit to the Vitals (center chest, same as in GURPS) does 1.5x damage.  That can make a difference (unarmored man takes 9mm to Vitals...average roll of 9 (using Blackhammer damages) x1.5 = 14-2 (BTM) = 12.  Just about a mortal wound.  You roll a little higher on the damage (more on this below) and you are done.  

Ok, now on to an interesting conundrum.  Really, bullets should have 2 ratings, one for Penetration and one for Tissue Damage.  Penetration is more or less constant and is easily calculated at any range.  Tissue Damage is MUCH more variable however, and is properly addressed by rolling dice.  Unfortunately, no game system yet addresses this (well...that's not true.  The Palladium Compendium of Modern Weapons does, but Palladium has other problems) and so we must live with what we've got (or design a new system... )

(One quick note before I move on:  It's unlikely that "propellent technology" will provide any real increase in damage potential.  Chemical propellents are only so good.  I argued this for a while, but eventually someone with sick sick sick amounts of firearms knowledge convinced me otherwise.  The only answer is ETE).  

(Oh, another thing.  I have a house rule in GURPS so you don't have to roll every round to stay awake.  Does it mess with your example?  Yes, but we didn't want characters to get out of the fight so fast.  Fun always comes first with us, and my players (different from yours, I'm sure) don't have fun if they got shot once and knocked out of the fight.  In all honesty, I probably run very cinematic games compared to you (and I don't consider my games all *that* cinematic).)

Now for Blunt Trauma.  BT is a hard one to fix.  If you make one bullet do one point of BT regardless, then you ignore the obvious differences between being hit with a .44 Magnum vs a 9mm.  It's easy though.  If you make bullets do a variable amount of BT (I had a system even more complicated than yours, using Stun Points and stuff), then you just tack time onto figuring out how much damage you take.  It's a matter of taste really.  I've had rules nearly identical to yours at certain points in my CP career.  I may even go back to some form of slightly variable BT (such as, the bullet does BT equal to 1/2 the dice rounding up, or steal from GURPS and say that each 5 or 6 rolled produces one point of BT, even if the bullet penetrates.)  

Lots of ways to do this stuff...Hell, I might adopt that 1/2 dice of damage thing.  I like it.  Anything doing 1-2 dice of damage does 1 BT per hit, anything doing 3-4 does 2, etc.  That's quite a nice little gimmick if you ask me.  (And since my 10mm do 3d6, it works out well...once again the Blackhammer weapon damages are VITAL).

Quote (psychophipps @ Mar. 12 2002,03:53)

and BTM is for candyasses! Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Ohhhh!  Now I see what we have here.  After reading your rules, psychophipps, I see what's going on.  We have a GM who wants to constantly be bloodying his characters, at the expense of realism.  Frankly, you'd be better off just making armor extremely rare in your game, because you are COMPLETELY underestimating armor's ability to stop damage.  First of all, the 9mm to an unarmored person's chest may or MAY NOT even cause them to pause.  Bullets, especially those fired from pistols aren't great killers...if I was in a real war, there is no way I'd trust a pistol to kill my enemies.  Secondly, against armor, there is no way in whatever underworld you believe in that 2 9mm's are going to cause that much "Blunt Trauma."  Simply not realistic.  In fact, it's almost more realistic to say they do nothing (kind of like the rules system in the back of Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads).  

Well, ok.  Now I understand.  You are bloodthirsty, and want to modify the game so you can hurt your PC's even when they are wearing armor that by all rights should PROTECT them from damage.  I'm not flaming you, because I had rules that were very similar at one point.  I halved the SP of all "Soft Armor" at one point.  I had rules that assigned the equivalent of SDP to body parts, making it much easier to die if struck in the chest.  I had increased damage tables (though I do use the Blackhammer damage rules still) and I had BTM completely out of the picture.  However, I have since "Seen the Light" and will not go back to my evil (ironically, less realistic) ways.  Maybe some day you'll look back at these rules and say the same thing.  Maybe.

Quote (psychophipps @ Mar. 12 2002,03:53)

umm...yeah... 1) yes, armor is effective.  as long as you're in a Class IIIA and up, it's great against pistol rounds.  too bad 90% of the armor in the game isn't Class IIIA, eh? the CP2020 rules doesn't cover the blunt trauma that is also an effect of being shot.  a Light Armorjack is probably a Class IIA or a close equivalent.  you will note that this level is not rated for .44 magnums(11mm rounds).  now let's look at the statistics of die rolling.  you will roll a 16+ on 3d6 less than 2% of the time so there is over a 98%(!!!) chance of the target wearing a Class IIA armorjack taking a single point of damage after BTM from a .44 magnum round THAT THE JACKET IS NOT RATED TO STOP IN THE FIRST PLACE.   problem?  hell yeah! 2) yes, they are to a point.  you see, you only get about a 10% increase in damage with a 42% increase in barrel length.  this is taking into account that your base barrel length allows for full energy transfer to the projectile in the first place, which most SMGs honestly don't.  good idea, but your numbers are through the bloody roof on the increases in effective penetration and damage. 3) umm...no it doesn't.  it works if you like cinematic games where bullets bounce off your chest without effect and you can take a 7.62mm and keep smiling.  Maximum Mike himself said "Cyberpunk isn't good, clean fun."  Too bad he fell short like just about every other RPG in existance, eh? me?  i'm an overbearing, opinionated w*nker who LIKES people going down from blunt trauma.  who LIKES people actually dying when they get shot.  who LIKES skullscrewing people...err, never mind that one.  i could go on, but i think you get my point here. and BTM is for candyasses! Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Oh boy oh boy.  I have replies to all of this!!

1) I would argue that SP14 "Light Armor Jack" is easily the equivalent of Class IIIA armor by today's standards.  Look at the SP, for chrissake's, it will stop almost every pistol round out there!  Also, it's a clearly armored jacket, not stylish and not very comfortable.  The "Light" in it's name is somewhat of a misnomer if you ask me, because the next Armor Jack (the medium one) actually has an EV (I think...boy will I be embarassed if it doesn't).  So, to summarize, an SP14 Light Armor Jack obviously IS RATED TO STOP .44 MAGNUMS AND DOES A DAMN FINE JOB DOING IT.  :-)

2) You're probably right, but SMG's should be better at piercing armor and doing damage than pistols chambered for the same round.  I'm mostly taking this from GURPS, which accounts for barrel length when designing new weapons.  In GURPS (which excels at reality), you can have several weapons with the same cartridge, all doing slightly different damage depending on barrel length.  At any rate, the point is that a 10mm SMG should do slightly more damage than a 10mm pistol.  Exactly how much more, it's hard to say.  

3) Ok, you're obviously mistaken here.  First of all, BTM is essential.  Why else would you play a 500lb meatball?  You have to give the really, really meaty guys a chance against metal.  Usually, it won't matter, because they will die long before a borg runs out of SDP.  I find that CP2020 as it comes "out of the box" is PERFECTLY lethal.  You just have to realize that the game isn't 100% perfect, but it works really well nonetheless.  Blunt trauma is fine and good, but it shouldn't put you down from one bullet.  You are probably overestimating the effectiveness of bullets...sure they are deadly to an unarmored person, but in 2020 the armor technology has definitely overtaken the offensive tech.  Hence you are seeing stuff like ETE and advanced ammo like Kendachi Frag Flechettes (1/2 Soft SP, full damage...OUCH!)

Frankly, I completely understand where you're coming from, because I was once you (several years ago).  My friends use to call the game we played "Jakepunk" because of all the modifications I made to it "for the sake of realism."  Well, that's frankly silly.  Cyberpunk is quite deadly.  I don't know what kind of rules you are using, but there is no way a 7.62mm is going to bounce off of somebody's chest if they are unarmored.  If they are armored, well then maybe it SHOULD.  ARMOR STOPS BULLETS.  (I find this ironic, as it used to be my friends who would scream the above at me.)  

I will be glad to continue this discussion.  Just keep the replies coming!

Actually, it's completely the opposite.  An SMG is MUCH harder to control than say, a 5.56mm automatic rifle like the M-4 carbine.  You see, 5.56mm has virtually no recoil.  You know how they prove this to grunts?  They have them put the rifle butt against their crotch and fire it.  You can't even feel it.  The M16 is designed to control recoil and it does it very well.  A proper grip makes the M16/M4 extremely easy to control on full auto.  Most submachineguns in CP2020 don't even use stocks (why would they?  It kind of screws with concealability) and in reality would be significantly harder to control on full auto.

Hello everyone,

Well I started playing CP2020 again, this time after a few years of real firearms experiences and professional training classes (ok...so I only took Basic Handgun from Insights, Inc, but I will be taking General Defensive later...)  At any rate, I have a few musings about armor and guns.  

1.  Armor is effective.

This can not be stressed enough.  I used to be of the mind that bullets really hurt people.  Well, they do...if fired from a rifle.  You see, the pistol is a pathetically inept combat weapon.  There are so many reports of people being shot many, many times (sometimes even in the head) and completely ignoring the wound they have taken.  Yes, I know there are supposedly an equal number of reports of people dying from a .22 in the foot, but that's largely not relevent to my argument.  Essentially, in 2020, a bullet proof vest should be able to stop almost all the damage from most handguns, assuming JHP or Ball ammunition.  The normal CP rules actually do this quite well.  Some of the problem is in the interpretation of the armor in the main book.  The "Light Armor Jack" has SP14...enough to stop most people from being afraid of most handguns and SMG's (more on that later).  However, once you get to Chrome 4, they are saying that stuff is "obvious armor" and not stylish in anyway.  Ok, that's fine.  Additionally, you'll note that SP14 is about as high as you can go without incuring a Ref penalty.  THis is presumably why in Stormfront and the Hot War, they talk about Militech and Arasaka black ops using SP14 armor.  

2. SMG's are underpowered in CP2020

This is a fact.  Submachineguns have significantly longer barrels than most pistols (I could find numbers, but I think most people will give me this), and a bullets kinetic energy increases drastically with a longer barrel length.  So, why does my 9mm handgun do 2d6+1, but my 9mm UZI ALSO does 2d6+1?  Well, that's largely fudging it.  In reality, a 9mm bullet fired from an SMG is going to have significantly more armor penetration and wounding potential behind it than one fired from a normal sized pistol.  What to do about it?  

Well, you can do nothing.  This is the easiest, but since most people have already changed some aspect of their game, this isn't that big a deal.  

You can also use a simple formula to make your SMG's do more damage in the game.  An SMG is getting closer to a rifle, but very few SMG's should ever do anything close to real combat rifle damage.  Therefore, I say it would be fair to increase the damage done from an SMG by +1/die and then converting 3 "pips" to 1d6.  Example: A 12mm SMG (nearly a real rifle) would do 4d6+4 --> 5d6+1.  This is slightly more than a 5.56mm rifle bullet does, but overall that's not a big deal.  More importantly, a 9mm SMG now does 2d6+3 --> 3d6.  That's not a huge difference, but it will be enough to penetrate that SP14 Light Armor Jack on occasion, whereas the 2d6+1 never will.  You could also say that only a +4 or more translates into another die.  This will bring the power down a little bit, but still provide a bit more kick than they do now.  

Finally,

3. The standard CP damage system works!!!

This is something I used to be really bad about.  I would always change the CP damage system, because I never thought that guns were dangerous enough.  Well, it turns out that you don't really have to change anything to make CP2020 "work."  9mm's are notoriously bad stopping rounds.  Usually one won't kill (unless it hits the head or heart) and it certainly doesn't stop with a single hit (use Hollowpoints...it helps!).  Hence, the fact that an average roll won't even put the average man in Critical is not that bad.  (Based on Bod of 6, BTM of -2 (I think)).  On the other hand, a 5.56mm combat rifle is bad news.  An average roll of 17 (19 if using Blackhammer damages, which I do) will put the same man with BTM -2 in Mortal0, meaning that he WILL die unless someone stabilizes him.  One thing that used to bother me was that I never thought the game was "lethal enough."  Hahaha...once I did the math, though, I found that this was silly.  Even a guy with Bod 8 (not too uncommon for characters) will almost always die within a few minutes (start multiplying .8 x .8 x .8 and you'll see the chance of successfully making the roll decreases nearly to zero if you let it go long enough).  

Anyway, that's long enough.  Thoughts, flames, suggestions?

OK, just so you know, this is automatically not feasible.  The reason is that diffusion from the wound won't happen that fast...ever.  No technology can affect how fast chemicals diffuse in their surroundings (unless you fit each molecule of poison with its own nano-jet engine, that is).  

Basically, it's a neat idea, and the poison would still work, but it would take at least a second or two.  Also, complete braindeath would occur, but it would probably take a minute or so.

Thank you for that DragoonCav.  I was going to say something similar, but instead I'll just say that that kind of behavior in RPG's sickens me, moreso because it was done in seriousness.  My group has a few pretty depraved people, but usually they either aren't serious or just talk about doing something really depraved...they think it's funny.  What can you do?

However, the act of Gringo's "character" is obviously just an excuse for him to get some action...even if its through rape in a make believe world.

Well, obviously if something doesn't fit in your campaign, then it's fine to ditch it.  I was more arguing from a game mechanic perspective.  I don't think they are broken...they are semi-automatic only, and they require bulkier power clips on all weapons that use the technology.  It's not terribly different than the Liquid Propellant rifle with variable damage ratings (at least GURPS says it's pretty similar for game effects).  At any rate, I always thought the ETE revolvers were cool.  Don't forget: you can't silence an ETE weapon, and you need to find cased ammo built for ETE guns (I would assign an ammo cost modifier of at least x3, and require Streetwise rolls to find any...unless they are available at your local Militech shop, in which case go for it).  

I don't know...it only started to get silly when a character would go to any length to retrieve his dual Desert Eagle .50 ETE back from the police station.  He and my character, Ice, pulled a very Terminator-esque scene and pretty much went gunning through the entire police department.  Good thing MaxTac was away...