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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Supression Fire

Posted by: DgrenJ Jun 26 2006, 01:59 PM

PC with two guns, lets for arguement sake say two Steyr TMP's, one in each hand with the Ambidextrous quality.

Per the rules on suppression fire (P. 144) "Suppressive fire is treated as a wide burst, but for simplicity we assume that the wide burst and recoil modifiers cancel out."

Could then a person with dual Steyr's choose to fire both weapons as Suppressive on an area, and essentially "suppress it 2x as effective"?

i.e. a person entering the area would have to make two checks to avoid the suppression fire?

- DgrenJ

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 02:06 PM

IIRC suppression fire is a complex action. If so, then no, because you can only take one complex action no matter how many guns and arms you have.

Posted by: DgrenJ Jun 26 2006, 02:24 PM

Off-Hand Weapon
If an attacking or parrying character is wielding the melee
weapon in his non-dominant hand, he suffers –2 modifier for
the attack. Note that all characters have a dominant hand (left
or right, their choice), unless they have the Ambidextrous quality

Attacker Using a Second Firearm
Characters can use two pistol- or SMG-class weapons, one in each hand, firing both with a single Simple Action. Doing so, however, requires that the character split his dice pool between the attacks. If two separate skills are being used (Pistols
and Automatics), use the smallest dice pool. Split the pool before applying modifiers. Two-gun attacks also negate any dice pool bonuses from smartlinks or laser sights. Additionally, any uncompensated recoil modifiers applicable to one weapon also apply to the other weapon.

It says nothing about having to be a simple or complex action, it states that using two can be done with a single simple action, would that not then kind of indicate that using two with a single complex action is then also possible?

My thoughts, and hoping to get some feedback from you guys, is that this "could" be done, albeit that the dice pools would be split, per the rules on off-handed weapons.

- DgrenJ

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 02:26 PM

QUOTE (DgrenJ)

It says nothing about having to be a simple or complex action, it states that using two can be done with a single simple action, would that not then kind of indicate that using two with a single complex action is then also possible?

If you want to interpret it that way then yes, but it's not RAW.

Posted by: DgrenJ Jun 26 2006, 02:29 PM

Can you point me to the RAW...

I'm in no way saying your wrong, but as we have seen with SR4 often times rules are very vague, and i'm just wanting some official interpretation of these rules since I already know this scenario is going to come up.

Would like to have some official "here are the rules" type backing... rather than just saying "No", without being able to say why.

- DgrenJ

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 02:47 PM

The rules for ambidexterity allow for multiple shots when taking simple actions. If multiple shots using complex actions were possible, it probably would have been mentioned, since people could fire multiple full auto bursts. There is no "it can't be done" in the rules, because the rules spell out what can be done instead.

Posted by: DgrenJ Jun 26 2006, 03:00 PM

On the subject of Off-Handed weapons then...

Since it seems that Full Auto would not be an option, a person could do the followign though correct?

First Simple Action:
Left Hand
Long Burst (6 Shots)

Right Hand
Long Burst (6 Shots)

Second Simple Action:
Left Hand
Short Burst (3 Shots)

Right Hand
Short Burst (3 Shots)

??

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jun 26 2006, 03:01 PM

I love it where rules and realite stand at crossed paths.

I mean, going full-auto with two SMGs/machine pistols is easy. Hold down both triggers.

Granted, hitting anything is the ball's own luck, but it's fairly effective for surpression fire.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 03:13 PM

Suppressive fire isn't just spraying lead. If it were it would take a lot more than ten rounds. Suppressive fire is taking a few shots, and timing shots for when someone starts to poke their head out. At least that's how I view it.

There's nothing in the rules that prevents you from holding down both triggers on two SMGs, only doing it with any sort of accuracy.

Posted by: DgrenJ Jun 26 2006, 03:16 PM

Would the lack of accuracy then not be reflected by the "halving of the dice pools"?

- DgrenJ

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 03:24 PM

It would be reflected in the fact that your second gun isn't taking a firing action, it's just spraying lead, and the combined recoil penalties from firing two weapons at full auto. A house rule allowing it might not be too bad. Halving pools could work, although suppressive fire is already pretty powerful, so allowing it to be doubled might be a bit nasty. I'd want to see it in action a few times before drawing any firm conclusions.

Posted by: DgrenJ Jun 26 2006, 03:53 PM

Of course remember, there is absolutely no way to stage the damage of the weapon up, even with an adsorbent amount of hits.

So even a totally stacked Elven Gunner with 10 Agility and 7 (+2 Specialized) is only going to have two dice pools of 9, and with the 33% chance of hitting, only 3 hits per pool.

Your opponents are rolling Reaction + Edge to evade the Suppression fire…

So more than likely your damage, even if it does hit against an armored target is going to due Stun Damage, since anything over an 8 or 9 armor is going to bump them into the Stun Range.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 04:12 PM

In a firefight, unless you're dealing multiple types of damage between multiple people, the damage type doesn't really matter. Many would argue that stun damage is actually better in most cases, since it doesn't kill the target. That's a debate that's rage on in other threads though.

If the GM is using the "mooks have one damage track" rule then stun vs. physical is a comparison that doesn't even exist for most NPCs.

Posted by: mfb Jun 26 2006, 06:22 PM

QUOTE (James McMurray)

that's somewhat at odds with SR4's description of the action. taking a few timed shots doesn't mesh with the idea of saturating an area with gunfire. as for the ten rounds thing, that's simply the result of sticking with the 10-round/action limit even after someone tells you it's a bad idea, and tells you how to fix it. *grumble*

personally, i'm in favor of allowing suppressive fire any time someone is able to pump out a minimum number of rounds during their action. on the flip side, i don't think i'd allow extra-effective suppression, except in terms of enlarging the area being suppressed.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 06:27 PM

Hence the "at least that's how I'd view it" portion of the quote that got truncated in your reply.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 26 2006, 06:30 PM

QUOTE (James McMurray)

Go watch "Saving Private Ryan" and look at the parts in the beginning where they call out for covering fire (the same as suppresive fire). The soldiers with SMGs (Thompsons in this case, with normal 30 round mags) fire full-auto at emplacements so that they are forced to take cover while the other soldiers make a break for cover and a possible better position to take out said emplacements.

Posted by: Lagomorph Jun 26 2006, 06:34 PM

QUOTE (James McMurray)

Suppressive fire isn't just spraying lead. If it were it would take a lot more than ten rounds.

I believe that a Supressive fire action takes 20 ammo to do.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 06:36 PM

Right. They're firing full auto in reality, not full auto in SR. In SR your suppressive fire is 10 bullets. That's closer to old west movies where they take rifle potshots at the hombres hiding down in the canyon than it is to war movies where they fire a steady stream of bullets until their mag is gone.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 06:38 PM

Ah yes, 20 rounds. Sorry bout dat. My group hasn't used it yet in SR4, so I forgot that little tidbit. In that case having it be a somewhat steady stream of lead makes more sense.

I still wouldn't allow suppressive fire from two weapons at two different locations, mainly because the rules don't allow it and I don't think it adds enough goodness to the game to overcome the badness it adds. I would allow someone to spend ten rounds from one weapon and ten rounds from the other though.

Posted by: Lagomorph Jun 26 2006, 06:41 PM

The only time we deviated from the 20 rounds per SF rule was when my character was using the auto shotgun, we ruled that the full clip of 10 rounds was okay for a supressive fire action. It worked well since he had about 4 of them laying at his feet.

edit:

To adress the original topic: I'd say that a person using two machine pistols could use 10 from each to make a suppresive fire, but not that they could get double effect. The rules for SF are abstracted from normal combat rules, and I don't think that dual weilding applies specifically since it only states that it works with simple actions, but because they spent the points on ambidexterity, they should be able to use 10 from each gun.

Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 26 2006, 07:25 PM

QUOTE (Lagomorph)

We did the same thing.

Saying that you can get suppressive fire by firing half as many rounds (each) from two different guns simultaneously sounds fine to me. Does the -2 penalty for offhand weapon get applied in some way?

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 26 2006, 07:26 PM

QUOTE (Shrike30)

QUOTE (Lagomorph @ Jun 26 2006, 11:41 AM)

There's no penalty if you are ambidexterous anyway.

Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 26 2006, 07:34 PM

Assume I'm not, for a minute Would it not matter, would it be applied full, or would I only apply a -1 because only half of the bullets being fired are from my off-hand?

Posted by: Eddie Furious Jun 26 2006, 07:59 PM

QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Jun 26 2006, 10:01 AM)

No its not. It is a sure-fire way of attracting the attention of at least one person who will take the time to put one in the snotlocker while your standing there fighting the two weapons on full auto.

Suppression fire is actually harder to do than you would think (especially with bullets coming back your way - so I would invoke the Composure rules too, to see if a person would be able to stay there and provide suppression fire if there were currently bullets going in more than one direction). It involves the accurate placement of rounds in the area where the enemy wants to be, not just blatting off a magazine or two of ammo.

Posted by: Eddie Furious Jun 26 2006, 08:07 PM

QUOTE (James McMurray @ Jun 26 2006, 10:13 AM)

Maybe and... not really.

Suppression fire is all about when, where and how much. If you have a rifle with a 30rd. magazine, you determine the range to target and place the rounds where you don't want the bad-guy to be. It could mean at 100m, a round every second or so, with a bit of randomness to keep him from trying to move between shots, or if you're only 10m away, a few well placed bursts of fire at the same random intervals. With a Gimpy, we're talking 200 rounds of disintigrating linked belt ammo, an impressive cyclic rate of fire, a stabilized platform and two-three guys watching for the bad-guys. Then there is an increase in rounds fired.

It all depends upon the tool (rifle, smg, GPMG...), the target (two guys in a stage six at 300m, or five guys down a 12m hallway...) and the operator(s).

Posted by: DgrenJ Jun 26 2006, 08:14 PM

Another interesting fact I found...

"The Area remains "suppressed" until the shooting characters next action phase."

Would this not imply then that a character with "faster reflexes" i.e. more initiative passes can NOT suppress as well as a slow guy with 1 IP?

I would assume a person with multiple IP's could instead choose to forgo their extra Initiative passes, to maintain "suppressing" until their next Initiative phase, but the rules don't clearly say this.

- DgrenJ

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jun 26 2006, 08:52 PM

They might, but they'll use four times as many bullets doing it. *shrug* I would house-rule it so that surpression could be continued for free (provided you don't do anything else) for up to a turn, but if you're going strictly by the RAW it does create a slightly odd situation there.

Posted by: Shrike30 Jun 26 2006, 10:06 PM

QUOTE (Moon-Hawk)

That actually neatly solves one of my major problems with suppression fire (the whole "fast people burn more ammo" bit). I'll allow "held actions" to be taken with the suppressive fire continuing until the character invokes his held action.

Posted by: James McMurray Jun 26 2006, 11:19 PM

QUOTE (Eddie Furious)

It all depends upon the tool (rifle, smg, GPMG...), the target (two guys in a stage six at 300m, or five guys down a 12m hallway...) and the operator(s).

I already retracted that statement when someone reminded me of the increased ammo cost. Good points though.

Posted by: Lagomorph Jun 27 2006, 12:34 AM

QUOTE (DgrenJ @ Jun 26 2006, 08:14 PM)

Yes, we ruled that this was "as intended" to give a 1IP joe nobody a chance against a 4IP super sam. Sure the super sam has more actions, but as long as joe nobody has 20 rounds, the supersam can risk catching lead. Any one with 4 ip, is going to be better off using (short|long)&(narrow|wide) bursts than using supression. So we felt that suppressive fire is the hero of the proletariat.

edit: against a crowd of zombies, or other lined up slow moving objects, even super sam would get a benefit from SF

Posted by: Eddie Furious Jun 27 2006, 06:40 AM

QUOTE (James McMurray)

QUOTE (Eddie Furious @ Jun 26 2006, 03:07 PM)

It all depends upon the tool (rifle, smg, GPMG...), the target (two guys in a stage six at 300m, or five guys down a 12m hallway...) and the operator(s).

I already retracted that statement when someone reminded me of the increased ammo cost. Good points though.

Yeah, I read the whole thread, but I guess I missed it, sorry!

However, whenever I go on about this kind of stuff it is not to tell anybody they are wrong (well, mostly) but to help them get a grasp on the basic concept of the virtual violence (as in not real, that's why I'll never tell how to do this shit) they wish to put into the game to enhance the sense of peril and, if there is a desire, increase the verisimilitude of the game.