Involved as they are in an illegal and often hazardous line of work, shadowrunners get hurt and get hurt often. What kind of damage, how bad an injury is, and how much it affects the character vary greatly depending on the situation.
Damage in Shadowrun is defined as Physical or Stun. Each type of damage is tracked on a separate Condition Monitor.
Physical damage, the most dangerous type, is the kind done by guns, explosions, most melee weapons, and many magic spells. Weapons that inflict Physical damage have the letter “P” following their Damage Value.
Physical damage takes a longer time to heal.
The number of boxes in the Physical Condition Monitor equals (Body ÷ 2) + 8.
Stun damage—bruising, muscle fatigue, and the like— is the kind done by fists, kicks, blunt weapons, stun rounds, shock weapons, concussion grenades, and some magic spells. If something does Stun damage, the letter “S” follows the Damage Value.
Stun damage takes a shorter time to heal.
The number of boxes in the Stun Condition Monitor equals (Willpower ÷ 2) + 8.
Injuries cause pain, bleeding, and other distractions that interfere with doing all sorts of actions. Wound modifiers are accumulated with every third box of damage and are cumulative between damage tracks and with other negative modifiers such as spells or adverse conditions. Wound modifiers are applied to all tests not about reducing the number of boxes you’re about to take on your Condition Monitor (such as damage resistance, resisting direct combat spells, toxin resistance, and so on).
The Wound Modifier penalty is also applied to the character’s Initiative attribute and therefore their Initiative Score during combat.
When the total number of boxes in a damage track (Physical or Stun) are filled in, and damage still remains to be applied, one of two things happens:
Characters whose Physical damage overflow has not been filled can survive if they receive prompt medical attention. If no medical attention is available, the character takes an additional box of damage from loss of blood, shock, or other complications for every (Body) minutes he manages to hang on. If the cumulative overflow damage exceeds the character’s Body attribute before medical help arrives, he dies.
Bullets do their damage by delivering kinetic energy to a target, but that’s not the only kind of hurting that can be put on a runner. Burning, freezing, zapping, and chemical damage can all dampen the mood of the most boisterous runner. Along with the elemental forces things like gravity (or at least the stop at the bottom), drowning, and general exhaustion can add to the pain and suffering. All of these different damages have their own rules quirks, detailed below.
This is damage caused by non-kinetic sources, like acid, fire, etc. Most of the time you’d look to magic for this sort of damage, but some mundane weapons and attacks can deliver added elemental effects.
Acid damage is Physical. In addition to its normal damage, it also reduces the rating of any Armor it hits by 1. If the acid isn’t removed from the target (by washing it off, or because the acid is from a spell and evaporates into mana after the spell ends), then the acid continues to burn. Each Combat Turn the base DV of the acid is decreased by 1 and damage is applied again. The acid also continues to burn through armor reducing the target’s Armor rating by 1 until the acid is removed, neutralized, or loses all its base DV. The Armor reduction should be applied to worn Armor first but could be applied to Armor accessories (+Armor items) if the gamemaster allows.
At the gamemaster’s discretion, acid can also create Light Smoke conditions in an area around the target.
Cold is just the absence of heat, but it hurts when too much heat is absent, and calling cold “absent heat” doesn’t make it any less painful. Cold damage is Physical. Additionally, cold damage can make armor brittle, liquids freeze, lubricants gum up, etc. Make a simple Armor Test for anything directly hit. If the armor gets no hits, it breaks and cannot be used as armor. It can be repaired with the Building & Repairing rules, p. 145. In the case of a glitch, it’s destroyed irreparably. With a critical glitch the armor breaks irreparably in a dangerous way.
A wide variety of nonlethal weapons are designed to incapacitate targets with electrical shock attacks, including stun batons, tasers, cyberware shock hands, and similar electrically charged weapons. These weapons rely on a contact discharge of electricity rather than kinetic energy. Spells and critter powers such as Lightning Bolt and Energy Aura cause similar effects.
Electrical damage is treated as Stun or Physical damage depending on the source and/or target. The Non-conductivity armor upgrade (p. 438) adds its full rating to the Armor value. The gamemaster can also decide which (if any) other factors may modify the target’s damage, such as extra conductivity for a character covered in water.
An Electricity attack that does damage can stun and incapacitate the target as well, though if there is no damage, there is no secondary effect at all.
Secondary effects for characters injured by Electricity damage include a –1 dice pool penalty on all actions and Defense Tests, but not Damage Resistance Tests, for 1 Combat Turn and an immediate Initiative Score reduction of 5. The dice pool penalty and Initiative Score reduction do not accumulate with multiple attacks, but the length of the penalty is extended by 1 Combat Turn for each successful damaging attack while a character is affected. If the character’s Initiative Score is reduced to 0 or below, they lose their last action. If they have no Initiative Score left the reduction comes on the start of the next Combat Turn.
Electronic equipment and drones can also be affected by Electricity damage. They never suffer Stun damage so Electricity damage is Physical when used against electronics and drones. They resist damage as usual and suffer a secondary effect if they take even a single box of damage.
The secondary effect for electronics and drones damaged by Electricity damage is shorting out or overloading. In game terms this is reflected as secondary Matrix damage equal to half the Physical damage rounded down.
Vehicles can be damaged by Electricity attacks but do not suffer any secondary effects. Specific systems of vehicles can be targeted by a Called Shots (p. 195).
Fire damage is Physical. It can also make things catch fire. To determine if something catches fire, roll Armor Value + Fire Resistance – Fire AP (see Fire Armor Piercing Ratings table, below). The threshold on this test is the net hits rolled on the fire-based attack. If the item succeeds, it is not on fire (for now). Armor accessories are excluded from the test but the gamemaster may require them to make their own test.
When something catches fire, the fire has an initial Damage Value of 3. This damage is caused at the end of each Combat Turn, and the DV increases by 1 at the start of each subsequent Combat Turn until the item is completely destroyed or the fire is put out. You can fight the fire a number of ways (water, smothering, etc.), making an Agility + Intuition Test and reducing the fire’s DV by 1 for each hit. Remember, as long as the fire is burning it can ignite any nearby flammables, including furniture, vehicles, foliage, and elves.
When a character falls more than three meters, he takes Physical damage with a DV equal to the number of meters fallen, with an AP of –4. Use Body + Armor to resist this damage. The gamemaster should feel free to modify the damage to reflect a softer landing surface (sand), branches to break the fall, and so on.
Falling characters drop 50 meters in the first Combat Turn, 150 meters in the second Combat Turn, and 200 meters every Combat Turn after that. Terminal velocity for a falling body is about 200 meters per turn.
Fatigue damage is Stun damage you incur through doing something strenuous or for being in the middle of something stressful. It’s caused by harsh environments, hard exertion, and drek like that. Fatigue damage is resisted with Body + Willpower, not with any armor. Fatigue damage cannot be healed while the condition causing it still exists.
If you sprint over multiple consecutive Combat Turns or during multiple Action Phases in the same Combat Turn, you risk taking fatigue damage. For every consecutive Action Phase or Combat Turn in which you use the Sprint action, you take a cumulative 1S DV of fatigue damage, which means that the second time you take it without dialing it back you take 2S, then 3S, etc.
If you’re only running (using your running movement rate) instead of sprinting, this damage is taken every 3 minutes.
Hot, cold, humid, dry, polluted, or irradiated environments can cause fatigue damage, depending on the severity of the surroundings. As with running fatigue, the DV from a harsh environment starts at 1S and increases over time. Unlike running fatigue, if you keel over in a hostile environment the damage doesn’t stop rolling in.
After 24 hours, if you haven’t eaten, slept, or had a (nonalcoholic) drink, you risk fatigue damage. Like running, the damage starts at a mere 1S and increases over each interval it is taken. The interval for hunger is 6 days, for thirst is 2 days, and for sleep is 3 hours. This damage stops when you eat, drink, or sleep, respectively.
So you’ve been shot, stabbed, burned, electrocuted, slashed, and blown up and you want to know what your options are for getting back out on the street to start earning those nuyen again. This is where you’ll find them.
Characters with the First Aid skill may immediately help reduce the trauma of wounds (Stun or Physical). First Aid can only be used if you have a medkit (even if you do not currently have supplies for it), and it may only be applied within 1 hour of when the damage was taken. Roll a First Aid + Logic [Mental] (2) Test, applying appropriate modifiers from the Healing Modifiers table. (Characters using First Aid on themselves or others must also apply their wound modifiers to the test.) Each net hit over the threshold removes 1 box of damage; divide the net effect in half (rounded up) if the victim being treated is wearing any kind of full-body armor in order to represent the difficulty of treating the patient through armor.
A critical glitch on a First Aid Test increases the damage by 1D3 (1D6 ÷ 2) boxes. The maximum damage healable with the First Aid skill is equal to the skill’s rating. First Aid may only be applied to a character once for that set of wounds, and it may not be applied if the character has been magically healed.
Using the First Aid skill in combat requires a Complex Action and takes a number of Combat Turns equal to the number of boxes of damage the character is healing. This means the character applying First Aid must spend one Complex Action per Combat Turn providing care but may spend the rest of their Action Phases however they would like.
First Aid may also be used to simply diagnose a character’s health, the extent of wounds taken, or the effect of other ailments. The gamemaster sets the threshold as appropriate to the character’s health or affliction, and awards information appropriate to the net hits scored.
Stun and Physical damage both heal naturally, though at different rates. Medical attention can help hasten the process. In both cases, healing is handled as an Extended Test. Hits from each test should be recorded separately in case an interruption occurs at some point in the healing process so the character and gamemaster know how much damage would have been healed up to that point.
Natural Recovery can be bolstered by the use of medkits or autodoc drones.
Make a Body + Willpower (1 hour) Extended Test. The character must rest for the entire hour for it to count (forced naps and unconsciousness also count). Each hit heals 1 box of Stun damage.
Make a Body x 2 (1 day) Extended Test. The character must rest for the entire day for it to count (forced naps and unconsciousness also count). Each hit heals 1 box of Physical damage. Physical damage cannot be healed through rest if the character also has Stun damage; the Stun damage must be healed first.
A glitch on a healing test (Stun or Physical) doubles the resting time (the damage is still healed—it just takes longer). A critical glitch increases the damage by 1D3 (1D6 ÷ 2) boxes in addition to doubling the resting time.
Characters with the Medicine skill are able to speed the healing process. The character makes a Medicine + Logic [Mental] Test; apply appropriate modifiers, including wound modifiers if a character is applying the Medicine skill to her own wounds. Each hit provides +1 die to any subsequent healing tests the character makes for healing through rest as long as the character using the Medicine skill spends some time tending to the injured character. For Physical injuries the character needs to spend at least 30 minutes per day tending to the injuries of her patient. For Stun it is 10 minutes per hour to gain the bonus dice.
Medicine may only be applied once to each set of wounds, but it may be applied even if First Aid and/ or magical healing have already been used. Additional damage taken afterward counts as a new set of wounds. Medicine may be used to diagnose a character’s health in the same manner as First Aid.
Medicine cannot be applied in combat situations.
The capabilities of modern medkits (p. 450) and autodoc drones rival those of trained paramedics. They can serve as a valuable aid to a medtech’s diagnoses or applied healing, or they can simply be hooked up to the patient and set to apply medical care automatically.
To use a medkit/autodoc in combat is a time-consuming task. First the character must perform a Complex Action to apply a medkit/autodoc. After the medkit/ autodoc is in place she receives a dice pool modifier equal to the medkit rating (if it’s functioning wirelessly) or the autodoc’s First Aid or Medicine autosoft when treating a character. If the character is untrained, she can still make an untrained First Aid test using her Intuition attribute minus 1 die and the device’s rating in place of her First Aid skill. If a wireless medkit is hooked up to a patient and left unattended, simply roll the device’s rating x 2 for any subsequent tests.
Medkits and autodocs can be accessed and controlled remotely via the Matrix/wireless link.
The Heal spell can be used to repair physical injuries. Each hit from the Spellcasting Test heals one box of Physical damage (up to a maximum equal to the spell’s Force; see Healing, p. 205). Sorcery cannot heal damage resulting from magical Drain.
If the character’s condition is not stabilized, she takes an additional box of damage every (Body) minutes for blood loss, shock, and other things that affect a body on the brink of death. In order to stabilize a wounded character, a First Aid + Logic [Mental] (3) Test or Medicine + Logic [Mental] (3) Test must be made (situational modifiers apply). Medkits and autodocs may be used to stabilize a character as well. If successful, the wounded patient stabilizes and no longer takes automatic additional damage. If the stabilization fails, the character continues to take damage until she dies. Additional stabilization tests may be made, at a cumulative –2 dice pool modifier per test.
The Stabilize spell (p. 289) may also be used to stabilize a character, but the Heal spell (p. 288) cannot. Once a character has been stabilized, First Aid, Medicine and/or magical healing may be applied normally.