| From: | Dave Sherohman <esper@*****.IMA.UMN.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Spell Geasa and Autofire |
| Date: | Thu, 16 Dec 1993 20:06:13 -0600 |
geasa an option instead of an integral part of the spell design works too. I
don't like dropping the optional geas just on the basis that it functions
identically to a normal geas (aside from it only applying to a single spell
instead of all magical activity).
The simple explanation of my autofire rules (for hosing down a single target)
is that you work the official rule in reverse - if your highest die comes up
good enough to hit with a 5-round burst, you hit with 5 bullets (provided that
you fired 5 or more, of course). Determine Combat Pool resistance based on this
number of hits with each Combat Pool success negating the attacker's highest
roll (i.e., attacker rolls 10, 8, 8, 6, 3, 2, 2, 1 and the defender gets 2
Combat Pool successes, so the 10 and one of the 8s are ignored); if any of the
burst still hits, resolve Body resistance accordingly. If the highest roll is
equal to the Base (i.e., single-shot) Target Number, a number of bullets equal
to the available Recoil Compensation hit (of course). If the highest roll is
less than the BTN, reduce the number of hits by 2 per point that the BTN was
missed by; if you want to eliminate the granularity of this reduction, you can
allow a 50% chance of one extra bullet hitting.
Effects of this system: Autofire is worthwhile as it allows for any number of
hits from 1 to the full burst; the official rule implies that, unless the full
burst hits, the full burst misses. Additionally, this makes autofire a more
attractive option for people with lower skill (with 1 or 2 dice, you're not
going to get enough successes to stage damage up very often, but with multiple
autofire hits, you can raise damage with a single high roll) while more skilled
gunmen are likely to be better off with smaller bursts or single shots (with 10
or 12 dice, you can stage the damage up 3 or 4 levels with a TN of 3, but how
many 10s are you likely to roll?). Note that damage is not staged up on
bursts unless all bullets hit; until they all hit, you can only raise damage
by getting more hits.
Supressive fire: The idea here is to fill an area with lead, thereby making it
a dangerous place to be rather than to hose down a specific person. First,
pick out the arc you want to cover; note the width of the arc at the far end
of your weapon's short range. Now roll to hit as above, with a -1 to the BTN
(since you're "aiming" at an area, you get the Stationary Target modifier).
You "hit" the arc with (number of hits rolled) * (width of arc at end of
short range) bullets (or the number of bullets fired, whichever is less, of
course). At any give range, the Bullet Flux (BF) = "hits"/(width of arc).
Starting with the nearest person in the arc, everyone rolls 1 die against a
Target Number of (4 + BF); this TN is modified by -1 for dwarfs, -1 for
trolls, and -1 per 25% of body with hard cover and Combat Pool dice may also
be rolled in this test. If at least 1 success is rolled, the person is not hit.
If no successes are rolled, 1 bullet hits for each point by which the TN was
missed (to a maximum of BF) and the group has the equivalent of 1d6 successes
with which to stage up damage (per the Stray Shots rule, SR2, p. 93). Note
that Combat Pool may not be used to resist damage at this stage, as it has
already been rolled to determine whether the bullets missed cleanly. (The 1
free die is because in a situation like this, you could get lucky and be
missed entirely by chance.)
I hope that's clear... There's a little math involved, but then I'm a former
physics geek... If you want, I can post the 'technical' version (with every-
thing written up in mathematical notation), but I don't know how much it would
clarify matters.
esper@***.umn.edu
