| From: | Marc A Renouf <jormung@*****.UMICH.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: SRII Autofire |
| Date: | Thu, 19 Jan 1995 15:36:47 -0500 |
There were enough responses to me that it seemed easier to post this on
the list. To those not interested, sorry for the waste of your
bandwidth. To those of you who *are* interested, enjoy!
Note: These rules have one holdover from SRI. In our game, we
have kept the concept of "dodge" intact. Namely, one can spend X dice
from his or her combat pool to devote to dodging an attack. The target
number for dodging is typically a 4 (though this is often modified) as
per SRI. The rationale for this rule being kept is as follows:
Bullet from light pistol. Bullet from rifle. Both travel at roughly
similar velocities, high enough that you are not actually dodging the
bullet but rather trying to get away from the point of aim. Therefore,
it should be no more difficult to get out of the pistol's line of aim
than the rifle's (actually, the rifle would be easier to dodge at close
range, which adds another level of complexity that it is not prudent to
keep track of). In SRII, however, dodge dice are rolled with the same
number as the Body target number. In the case of a light pistol, it is a
6, in the case of a rifle, it is a 7-9. If one would include the effects
of armor making easier to "dodge", this makes little or no sense.
Therefore, to get around this vague dependence on power level,
the old SRI rules for dodging have been held over. These rules actually
allow for more clean misses, which means more ammo wasted shooting at
nothing in particular, which is WAY more realistic than hitting
everything you shoot at. So, with that out of the way, let us proceed...
AUTOFIRE
The easiest way to illustrate is by example. Consider the
following. Spam the Sam has a firearms skill of 7 and is using an Ingram
Smartgun. He is shooting at a poor corp guard at medium range, no
relative movement, good light conditions (yeah, right, when does *that*
ever happen...)
His base target number is a 5, modified to a 3 by the presence of
sly old Spam's trusty smartgunlink. Spam fires ten rounds on full auto,
rolling a 2,4,5,5,8,8,and 11. Now here's where it gets a bit tricky. The
Ingram has gas vent 2 and a folding stock. But folding stocks are for
pussies, so Spam fires from the hip, leaving him with only 2 points of
recoil reduction. The first round hits on the base target number of 3 as
it has no recoil (though in the SRII errata it states that the first
round IS subject to recoil mod. GM choice, but we don't use it as
semiauto's don't have it.) The second and third rounds are taken care of
by the gas vent 2, so the first three rounds hit with a target number of
3. After that, recoil takes over, so the fourth round has a +1 (t# 4),
the fifth round has a further +1 (t#5) and so on.
Say the corp goon didn't dodge (too good to be true). In that
case, Spam's 11 is good enough to hit with 11 rounds, but only ten were
fired, so he hits with ten rounds. Ouch. Damage from that comes out to
be 17D (actually, the damage code is staged up more than D due to the
number of rounds that hit. The GM has the choice of capping the damage
at D, using the rules in the back of FoF, or continuing the staging
starting at light-overflow, moderate-overflow, and so on. This gets real
vicious real quick. But then, so does getting nailed with many SMG
rounds). Keep in mind that Spam has only one success with this number of
rounds. So far, this is just like the rules as written. But wait,
there's more...
But what if the guard dodges? In that case, you take off Spam's
successes on a one-for-one basis with the guard's dodge successes
STARTING FROM THE HIGHEST NUMBER. So say the guard gets a single dodge
success. Spam the Sam's 11 is removed. In SRII, Spam would miss
completely! But alas, he has two 8's, so he hits with 8 rounds (base
t#3, 3 rounds for free w/ recoil comp, one more round on a one-for-+1
basis as described above). The damage code for this is 15D (again,
overflow damage is up to the discretion of the GM). But note that Spam
has *2* successes, which is sufficient to stage the damage up one
category (this gets REAL ugly when you use the overflow-staging rules...)
Now say there were *two* guards. Being an equal-opportunity
hose-beast, Spam decides that they each get five rounds. His base target
number is again a 3 (5 - 2). Again, he gets three rounds at that target
number. The fourth round hits on a 4, the fifth round hits on a 5. At
this point, however, Spam is switching targets, and thus has to pay the
secondary target modifier of +2. So the sixth round hits at an 8, not a
6. The seventh round hits on a 9, etc., all the way up to the tenth
round, which would hit on a 12.
So with his 2,4,5,5,8,8,and 11, Spam hits the first goon with all
five rounds and the second with four rounds. (this assumes that the goons
are close enough that Spam doesn't have to walk his fire). Say both
guards dodge, and both score two successes. Both guards start taking off
successes FROM THE HIGHEST, so both take off the 11 and one of the 8's.
At this point, Spam hits the first guard with all 5 rounds (ouch) and
wings the second guard with 1 round. So damage codes are 12S for the
first guard and 8M for the second, each treated as though Spam had only
one success (no upward staging).
If both guards had gotten three dodge successes, the second guard
would have been missed completely, as Spam's highest is now a 5, which is
not enough to hit the second guard at all. The first guard would have
been in trouble, though. Spam's two 5's are enough to still hit with
all five rounds fired in the first goon's direction, for a damage code
of 12S. But Spam has *two* 5's, so the damage code stages up to 12D. Ouch.
If there were more targets, each would get a +2 jump in Spam's
target number when it came to the rounds that they were to be hit with.
ODDITIES
As you have probably noticed, it is possible to dodge into *more*
damage. Them's the breaks. That's what happens when you dodge into the
stream of lead instead of away from it.
Also, this is one of the few circumstances where a tie favors the
defender, since the attacker has no more successes that indicate rounds
that hit after all his successes have been taken off the top.
As an added bonus, you don't have to roll bijillions of dice and
the dice you do roll only have to be rolled once, regardless of how many
targets you are engaging.
These rules allow for engaging multiple targets, walking your
fire, hitting with partial bursts, you name it. They are fairly
realistic (typically, only about the first four rounds hit with any
accuracy, and it is very difficult to hit more than one target
reliably. If you are emplaced, firing with tracers, and have sufficient
recoil comp, however, the automatic weapon can become a fearsome
opponent, just like it is in real life.
I hope my explanation has been clear (probably not, but I suck at
trying to *write* examples this way. It's easier if you actually see it in
use). If not, let me know, and I will attempt to further clarify them.
They may seem complicated, but in practice, once you get the hang of
lining up your successes numerically and taking off the top, they get
very quick and easy to use. The added bonus of only having to roll the
dice once for all the targets is nice as well. As I said, if anything
is unclear, or my math sucks, or whatever, let me know.
Marc ("Let's Rock-n-Roll!" -every bad movie that involved automatic
weapons in any way whatsoever)
