Very strong shockwaves can shatter rigid materials and damage tissues. Living tissue is very elastic and difficult to hurt, but the interfaces of tissue with bone and, especially, tissue with air, are vulnerable to tearing. The primary damage from a shockwave occurs to the lungs, which rupture and fill with blood. The gut also usually contains gas pockets, and thus shocks can rip the intestines. Shock waves will burst eardrums and can rattle the brain. In game terms, strong shocks cause full damage to the torso, and half damage to limbs, extremities, and the head. Any wound of minor or greater severity to the head causes deafness until the injury heals, unless the victim can make a HT check. Remember that injury to the head requires a HT roll to avoid stuning. Shocks cause full damage to structures unless, in the GM's judgement, the material is notably elastic or resiliant, in which case damage is halved.
Shock damage from explosive blasts is given by (explosive damage rolled)/(distance from explosive × falloff parameter). The falloff parameter varies with atmospheric density, and is given in the following table.
| Atmospheric density | falloff |
| Vacuum | 10 |
| Trace | 10 |
| Very Thin | 8 |
| Thin | 4 |
| Standard | 3 |
| Dense | 2.5 |
| Very Dense | 2 |
| Super Dense | 1.5 |
| Underwater | 1 |