Pedestrians have it quite lucky really. In the normal course of things, 1 point of damage equals, well, 1 point of damage. With pedestrians though, the damage is added, a table is consulted and then the results applied to the character. This all sounds very nice, but when you start looking at the facts and figures, it gets a bit strange. For example, the maximum damage that an assault rifle can do is +0, or 6 points. This won't kill, but will knock the character out. Shotguns and smaller weapons won't even get that far. Which is all well and good, but the game mechanics don't allow for single shots and thus represent a burst or automatic fire.
Thus I suggest a slight change to the way that pedestrians and drivers take damage.
Note that this system only works with the variant CON point system found on this site.
Whenever a pedestrian gets hit, the damage they receive is equal to the damage rolled, minus any armour that the pedestrian is wearing. This damage is subtracted directly from a characters CON points.
For drivers, gunners and passengers, use the damage that the vehicle sustains after the vehicles armour has been deducted from the attack. The crew then subtract their armour and the rest is damage to the occupants.
For additional effects - such as stun, KO and skill effects, you can use either the normal Pedestrian would table (1 CON damage is a light wound, 2 CON damage is a serious wound, 3 is KO) or you can use the CON Wound Chart in the Alternate Damage System. Both work fine, although the first system is quicker and easier, while the second is probably more accurate and works best with high CON point characters.
For example, an unarmoured pedestrian is hit by an assault rifle (+0 damage), and a 4 is rolled. This inflicts 4 CON points of damage, killing the poor soul.
A driver (wearing Kevlar armour - AV 2) has their vehicle hit by chaingun fire (+4 damage). An 8 is rolled. This gets through the vehicles AV 4, and a driver critical is scored. 4 points are inflicted on the driver (8 points of damage - AV 4 of the vehicle), of which the body armour soaks up 2. End result, the driver takes 2 CON points of damage, which is still enough to ruin his day.
Well, to be fair, when using large calibre weapons, there isn't going to be a lot of difference. They can inflict the damage capable of killing quite easily. However, when using a lot of pedestrians with hand weapons, this makes sorting out the damage a bit easier as well as sorting out a few inconsistencies.
