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I'm curious to haer how the GMs present here have handled phasers on stun settings against armor.
We know that armor absorbs damage, but what happens when you hit an armored target with a phaser set to Light Stun? Do you guys make any changes to the rules? Stun settings don't do numerical damage so the absorbtion would seem to be useless.
Interresting Question, I'd have to get back to you on that
I assume if it can suck up the energy of a phaser on "kill", it can do so with the stun settings. I assume light and medium are ineffective, heavy stun I lessen the TN for the stamina check to the medium.
But that's just me...
I was thinking the same thing, Black. In fact, you could lessen the Test Number needed to avoid the effect of the Stun by an amount equal to the armor's absorbtion value for all three stun settings. It's a quick and easy rule.
But would you still use the full penalty that is applied to a character who succeeded at resisting the Stun effect? Or would you reduce it some?
Well I have a quick and dirty house rule with regards to personal shielding and armour.. I give it a rating = to a step backwards reduction... I.e. if it has a 3 step reduction it would reduce setting 3 to 0 or 6 to 3 etc, reflecting how much energy it can displace/absorb. You can then either chose to take less damage, or optionally burn out the battery (shorter duration) to negate higher hits altogether. One of my players plays an ex Borg (don't ask hehe) since he doesn't get the benefit of the adaptation ability, or indeed the hive mind to help him adapt, he can opt to put in bio-energy from himself (helath points) to raise his personal shielding to a stronger level, the down side is if he's not careful he can kill himself :D
In the show Armour doesn't really give much protection, except against physical damage, however armour is not worn much except by Klingons and Cardassians, and it's not clear if the Cardassian armour even does that much! Klingons like to fight in hand to hand, so yes armour makes sense, but one shot with a phaser takes them down, as with everyone else.
I would say that armour should probably reduce stun effects, or perhaps instead you could effectivelly (optionally) increase their defence by that number for the purposes of stun.. i.e. if you hit a Klingon in the chest with a stun (the usual defence modifier) then it doesn't count, or counts for less, but if you hit him in the face, or other exposed area (the higher number) then they recieve the stun as usual... Actually without thar rule the targeting a location would count, because hitting anyone with armour, in a non armoured location, (using the location dificulties) would result in the normal result anyway.
I think it makes more sense for armor to reduce the effect of the stun, rather than the chances of being hit. Someone wearing armor isn't going to be any harder to hit with a stun blast.
Maybe add the armor value to the target's roll to avoid the effects of the stun? Maybe reduce the stun TN by the armor's value?