[Rules Question] What happens to my cell phone if you use a stun gun on it?

[Gurps Fan]

My cell phone is a character who has Elecrical disadvantage and Machine meta-trait. (Not quite. It's not sentient. For the sake of discussion, let's assume it's a charater who has a built-in sentient AI, is permanently possessed by a spirit, or whatever.) If an Electrical charater is hit with an attack that has the surge ("sur") damage modifier, he suffer the "short-circuiting" effect as per FAQ 3.2.19:

Originally Posted by FAQ 3.2.19

[A]ny Electronics that take over 1/3 HP from an attack with the Surge enhancement must make a HT roll to avoid shorting out. Failure disables the target for seconds equal to the margin of failure; critical failure disables it until repaired (see Repairs, p. B484).

Thus, if an Eletrical character is hit with damaging attacks such as particle beam weapons and electrokinetic Lightning, then he must make HT roll to avoid being disabled. This is no problem.

Here a question arises: What if he's attacked with non-damaging electroshock weapons such as stun guns and Electric Stun (Powers, p. 139) ability? Stun Gun on p. B271 does "HT-3(0.5) aff" (this aff causes stunning) but no damage -- there's no chance that he will take "over 1/3 HP" from such an attack.

It follows that stun guns can never cause short-curcuiting to any electronics including my cell phone, but is this right? Or am I missing something?

[Edges]

I may be missing something but I'll go ahead and say the obvious:

The stun gun does cause short circuiting to the cell phone just like on a human. That's it's basic effect. The Electrical disadvantage adds a stun follow-up to things with Surge. With a stun gun, you don't need to add the follow-up. It's already there.

So Mr Cell rolls a HT-3 like everybody else (probably with an additional -7 for SM for a total -10 making critical failure likely).

[Langy]

My question is: what happens to an actual cell phone if you use a stun gun on it?

[Tommi_Kovala]

Originally Posted by Langy

My question is: what happens to an actual cell phone if you use a stun gun on it?

Depends on the design. If it's a Taser, then probably nothing. The odds of both electrode darts sticking to something so small, hard and smooth are low. They might cause small scratches if they hit the touchscreen, though.

[Gurps Fan]

Originally Posted by Tommi_Kovala

If it's a Taser, then probably nothing. The odds of both electrode darts sticking to something so small, hard and smooth are low. They might cause small scratches if they hit the touchscreen, though.

Yes, and that's what happens in GURPS. TASERs do a pi- damage that's followed up by stunning aff (High-Tech, p. 89). If the electrodes fail to penetrate the target's surface covering in the first place, there's no effect except small scratches.

[Langy]

Depends on the design. If it's a Taser, then probably nothing. The odds of both electrode darts sticking to something so small, hard and smooth are low. They might cause small scratches if they hit the touchscreen, though.

Yeah, but what about a taser in drive stun mode, or any other stun weapon where the electrodes don't need to penetrate the surface of the target?

[rosignol]

Originally Posted by Langy

My question is: what happens to an actual cell phone if you use a stun gun on it?

I have a cellphone in the junk drawer with a broken antenna, send me a stun gun and I'll try it out. :-)

[Anthony]

Heh. I doubt that testing is necessary; I believe that the effects of a 10,000V power surge on electronic devices is fairly well known (though the amperage is very low). This assumes you hit a place that can actually conduct a charge into vulnerable parts of the cell phone, of course.

[Mailanka]

Setting aside realism and looking straight at the rules: There's no reason to expect that a character with Electrical wouldn't react exactly the same way as a normal character when struck by a stun-gun. It's not "Those vulnerable to metabolic effects only." If it hits the character, they have to check for stun, whether or not they are electrical.

[Gurps Fan]

Originally Posted by Edges

I may be missing something but I'll go ahead and say the obvious:

The stun gun does cause short circuiting to the cell phone just like on a human. That's it's basic effect. The Electrical disadvantage adds a stun follow-up to things with Surge. With a stun gun, you don't need to add the follow-up. It's already there.

So Mr Cell rolls a HT-3 like everybody else (probably with an additional -7 for SM for a total -10 making critical failure likely).

Stunning is not what Surge attacks inflict on an Electrical character. Surge causes him to be "disabled", and "disabled" here means the effect comparable to falling unconscious; see pp. B483-484. A disabled Electrical character can't move, attack, defense, or anything else. Further, the duration of this effect is seconds equal to the margin of failure (on a critical failure, this becomes "indefinite, until repaired") and there's no way for him to shorten this.

Stun Gun causes stunning, nothing more. The effects of stunning is being forced to take Do Nothing maneuver and suffering the -4 defense penalty; see p. B420. Further, the victim can try to shrug off the effect by rolling vs. HT (at some penalty, if any), every turn. This is much less severe than being "disabled".

By the way, where does "an additional -7 for SM" come from? The box on p. 40 of Powers is specifically about "preventing those with low levels from zapping planets" by using "Afflictions that cause Invisibility, Shrinking, and other transformations". I'm quite sure that this box doesn't mean that small targets suffer a penalty equal to their SM when resisting a stunning Affliction.