Chromatic Shadows: Barrier Rules Revised

As I contine to playtest the existing core-rules of Chromatic Shadows, I occasionally find certain mechanics to be more cumbersome than intended when they hit the table. The rules for Barriers is one such instance. Having chugged through them as written several times, I'm left with a sense that I can do better.

Barriers are a core mechanic to the game, and appear in standard combat, vehicle combat, and hacking (in the form of ICE). I've gone and revised the whole system to make things play faster and more smoothly. I'm trying to keep the existing values intact as best as I can. Where I've substantially changed the numbers it's for the sake of balancing the mechanic. I hope you find these new rules easier to understand and considerably more user friendly. If they stand up to playtesting they might migrate into Chromatic Shadows Revised Edition. Let me now what you think, or if this revision works for you!

Photo by Bro Takes Photos on Unsplash

BARRIER RULES REVISED

• These rules are to be used in place of all previous standard Barrier Rules, Rules for ICE, and Vehicle Barrier Rules.
• With standard Barrier attacks, a weapon's DV must be equal to or greater than the BR that the attacker is trying to penetrate.
• Barriers have a rating from 1-6. 1 being the weakest (reinforced particle board) to 6 being the strongest (solid steel door, or wall)
• The Barrier Rating is always subtracted from the attacker’s dicepool.
• If any 6s show, the Barrier is structurally damaged. Its BR is reduced by the amount of total 6s rolled.
• Vehicle Barrier Rating is equal to Body +1. The Vehicles BR is subtracted from the attacking vehicle’s dicepool and resolved.
•  Any rolled 6s reduce a vehicles Barrier Rating, or suppresses a point of ICE. 
• Armor piercing attacks (bullets, blades, etc) ignores a number of Barrier points up to the armor piercing value.
  
  

Type	Barrier Rating (BR)
Reinforced cardboard, thick fabric	1
Sheet rock wall, light wood	2
Standard wooden door or wall, light vehicle	3
Heavy wooden door, aluminum wall, medium vehicle	4
Steel fire door, brick wall, heavy vehicle	5
Heavy steel plating, solid stone, armored military vehicle	6
ICE ratings when hacking	Unchanged (as per CS Companion)

Changes with ICE and Hacking

• The following rules change the way ICE is handled during a hacking session.
• ICE ratings when Hacking are unchanged and remain as listed (see CS Companion).
  
• ICE reduces a hacker’s Program Action dicepool as it applies to a Program Action (see CS Basic).
• A hacker who fails a Program Action test and whose dicepool is also subject to ICE takes stun damage equal to the current ICE Value. Damage from ICE is subject to a deck’s Hardening rating (see CS Basic).
• Any 6s rolled for the hacking test reduce the ICE rating by an equal amount.
• At the end of each round a character spends in a node, the GM rolls a d6. If the result is a 6, the ICE respawns 1 point.
• The ICE Breaker Daemon ignores 1 point of ICE. Multiple ICE Breaker daemons can be slotted at once and its effects stack. This also applies to damage from ICE.
  
• The ICE Jammer Daemon causes the node to roll to respawn every 5 rounds.