Damage, Trauma, and Shock

If an attack hits, it inflicts hit point damage equal to the weapon’s damage die plus the weapon’s relevant attribute modifier. Special weapon mods or cyberware may increase this damage.

Some armor provides Damage Soak. Incoming weapon damage is subtracted from this Damage Soak first before it can reach the wearer. Once this Damage Soak is depleted it can give no further protection for the rest of the fight; it refreshes after combat is over to reflect a new chance for the wearer’s luck to save them.

Non-Lethal Damage

You may attack non-lethally with an appropriate weapon or unarmed attack. If so, do not roll the Trauma Die as explained below. Your attacks will only incapacitate the target if you reduce them to zero hit points.

Punch Weapon Damage

If you are making a purely unarmed attack you may add your Punch skill to the damage. You may not add the skill to the damage done by Body Blade cyber or other artificial weaponry that uses the Punch skill.

Trauma

When you hit with a weapon or lethally-intended unarmed attack, roll the weapon’s associated Trauma Die. If it equals or exceeds the victim’s Trauma Target, which is usually 6 for a normal unarmored human, you have inflicted a Traumatic Hit.

Traumatic Hits multiply the total damage of the hit by the weapon’s listed Trauma Rating. Thus, if a shotgun with a x3 Trauma Rating would normally have done 9 damage in total, it instead does 27. If this damage or any later damage in the same fight reduces the victim to zero hit points, they risk a Major Injury as described in section 2.5.6.

Some Edges, armor, or cyberware may increase a subject’s Trauma Target. Some other abilities might grant a bonus to the Trauma Die roll. To speed the process, it’s generally best to roll the Trauma Die at the same time as the attack or damage roll.

Drones, vehicles, and other inanimate objects are immune to Traumatic Hits from weapons that could not reasonably inflict catastrophic structural damage on them. A shotgun may be sufficient to wreck a backpack-portable drone, while it is unlikely to inflict ruin on a car engine. The GM decides on applicability in ambiguous cases.

Shock

Some melee weapons inflict Shock on a missed attack roll. This damage reflects the inevitable harm a poorly-armored combatant suffers when engaging in armed combat. Shock for a weapon is recorded as a point value and target Armor Class, such as “Shock 2/15”. If the wielder misses a target with this weapon that has a Melee Armor Class equal or less than the weapon’s Shock rating, they suffer the listed amount of damage anyway. Thus, if that weapon were to miss a victim with Melee AC 13, it would still do 2 points of damage.

Some attacks apply Shock on a miss regardless of the target’s Armor Class. This benefit may be granted by certain abilities, or it may be part of a dangerous NPC’s talents. Such Shock ratings are recorded with “-“ as the affected AC, such as “Shock 5/-“. This automatic Shock is still negated by cyber or abilities that grant a subject immunity to Shock.

The only modifiers that add to Shock damage are the wielder’s relevant attribute modifier for the weapon and any damage bonuses that explicitly add to Shock. Thus, the Killing Blow Edge adds to Shock because it specifically says so, while a weapon mod that merely says it adds +2 damage would not.

A person using a riot shield or other barrier can ignore the first source of Shock they would normally suffer in a round. Some other Foci or special actions such as Total Defense can also render a subject immune to Shock.

Damage inflicted by Shock cannot cause a Traumatic Hit. An attack that hits can never do less damage than the Shock that would have been inflicted on a miss.