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Posted by: Arethusa Aug 19 2003, 06:11 AM

I'm currently working on adapting/rewriting the SR3 rules for a modern day campaign, realism being one of my major concerns. That said, I'm curious what attempts there have been to make the full auto and burst fire rules more realistic (ie, resolving every round individually), as well as how these attempts have fared in being useful and not overly complex. Any information would be appreciated.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Aug 19 2003, 08:12 AM

If you're going for realism, and plan on using hit locations and armor by locations too (because that's far greater a concern realism-wise than breaking 3-round bursts down to individual rounds), resolving burst and autofire 1 round at a time will lead to extreme deadliness. At long ranges, hitting people on burst or full auto is a bit too easy, and 3 different 1-round hits generally do more damage than a 3-round burst, especially if said burst is part of fully automatic fire.

If that's the way you want it, however, there should be no rules-wise problem rolling the hits 1 round at a time. The recoil for each round should be calculated as for semi-auto fire, because the first round should never be significantly influenced by recoil. I don't see any problems with this, although I think there are people on this forum who use this as a house rule, so they can elaborate.

A few additional important bits about full auto, if you really aim for realism. I suggest giving all FA-capable firearms a RoF based on their real world RoFs per 3 seconds. If someone can act on 2 Initiative Passes in a Combat Turn, he could only fire half of the full RoF per Pass. And I hope you've got a lot of patience, because rolling all those 60 sets of dice when someone decides to go cyclic with an MG3 is going to take a long, long time.

I also suggest putting a recoil cap at ~7-11, depending on how useful you wish extended fully automatic fire to be, from e.g. LMGs & GPMGs, without Suppressive Fire. I have a maximum recoil of 7 before modifiers, +3 at Long/Extreme (the latter cannot be compensated for). At Short/Medium, a SMG with RC3 would not have more than a +4 recoil modifier, no matter how many rounds it fires in a Combat Phase. A vehicle-mounted GPMG with RC7 would still have +3 Recoil Modifier for all bursts/full auto fire at Long and Extreme Ranges. 1 round at a time, the same GPMG would have +1 on second, +2 on third and +3 on the fourth and all consecutive rounds in that Phase, again only at Long or Extreme.

That said, I think you don't need to resolve full auto as individual rounds for a decent balance of simplicity and realism. Breaking full auto down to 10 bursts of equivalent size, or into bursts of 3, which ever is higher, is enough. It also maintains the spirit of SR3 rules. But that's just down to personal preference. If you really like the idea of 1-round-at-a-time, try it out by all means.

Posted by: mckay421 Aug 19 2003, 09:10 AM

So what is your idea of realism?

Having played phoenix Command (now long out of print from the defunct Leading Edge Games) that is what I considered to be a realistic system and also a very slooooow system (we still had fun though). The running joke we had about that system was...'Just how important is it that Mack Bolan had a burrito for lunch'.

But if I was going to modify SR I would...

Get rid of the D6's and go with D10's. Statistically speaking I like the distribution of the D10 to virtually any other dice type (especially D20s).

Karma pool would be calculated 1 Karma Pool for every 40 Good Karma.

Mandate Willpower checks once shooting begins to determine NPC's and PC's initial reaction (Fight or Flight). If you want realism...once lead starts flying most people make themselves into the smallest target possible versus leaping into the thick of things.

Mandate Willpower checks for poor bastards wearing body armor (without trauma plates) that gets shot...from not falling to the floor and whimpering...TN 16. If you want a visual imagine pushing a pencil eraser two inches into your sternum.

Weapon ranges and damage ratings aren't really bad from a broad view...figure your assault rifles are shooting 5.56mm rounds, sniper rifles 7.62mm up to .50 cal., heavy pistols are using .357 Magnum up to .50 Desert Eagle (and the full sized 10mm round), medium pistols .38 caliber to .45 ACP, and light pistols .22 cal up to .32 cal. A decent reference is The Shooter's Bible they have basic ballistic data...I suggest using the round's foot-pound energy for determining what class a round should be placed in for damage.

Unarmed combat...that one is really difficult and I tend to think that SR has a very workable system. I have heard a lot of different arguments over the years about Tae Kwon Do vs. Kempo Karate and so on and so forth. My opinion goes along the lines of...trained vs. untrained fights should normally go to the trained combatant. Then there is the Mad Dog I philosophy where the more motivated (i.e. vicious) combatant will win. I don't really know how to model this effectively or consistently...so I say stick with SR.

That is about it...
John

Posted by: Arethusa Aug 19 2003, 09:46 AM

To a degree, I like the idea of doing it one round at a time, but I also see a major problem with pacing for obvious reasons. Still, just upping the damage code and power seems to be oversimplification, for my tastes. There's also the issue of handling armor whose ballistic protection has been negated due to previous impacts; to Shadowrun's credit, upping the power does this to some degree. Could always consider upping the power by 1 per hit (ie, first hit does 8M, second hit does 9M, etc), but this could be significantly imbalancing.

As far as range is concerned, I think I'll be doubling recoil at medium, tripling at long, etc. Admittedly, I have yet to test this, numbers-wise, but I think it would go a long way to cutting down on any sort of automatic fire at longer ranges.

For extreme rates of fire, may have to resolve per set of rounds (for something along the lines of a Mac10, MG3, MG42, maybe per 5 rounds; for something like a G11, possibly per 10; for an M134 or Metalstorm, resolve combat as a chainsaw with range). As noted, I really am worried about how cumbersome this could get.

I have been putting a lot of thought into handling recoil and I do agree with capping somewhere between 7 and 11. Also considering making recoil not refresh and requiring a simple action to steady the gun after having fired down to the base TN to hit (likely 4) + 2, and another simple action to steady it back to the base TN. Have some more ideas for rewriting initiative entirely, but that can wait until I have things more finalized.

I consdered switching to d8s, but that may just make the rewrite too cumbersome, and, to be honest, there's a stylistic issue with d6s that I just enjoy. Still, d10s do open up more opportunity to refine probabilities; I'll consider it.

Though the game I intend to run will be tossing a number of rules to the wind (including karma) in favor of being freeform, I do like the idea of making karma pool progression slower. Then again, this is largely a GM call.

As for Willpower checks: I don't mind the idea, though, personally, I feel it should be a GM fiat call, and, as for players, a roleplaying issue. At the very least, I'd prefer it an optional rule.

I liked a number of the range charts, though, overall, they could use some refinement. Also need to rework all of the weapon designs for modern calibers. One thing I did consider was a rewrite to include three part damage codes, the additional number being penetration (ie, .45ACP might have 9M-4 where as 9mm might have 6M+2), but, again, this is more idle musing than definite planning, and, as always, may easily prove far more cumbersome than enjoyable.

Unarmed combat worries me, but I think a lot of the suggestions for unarmed house rules could be put to good use. I do think that it needs to be broadened up to allow for a combat phase being a draw, but the specifics of how to do that remain to be seen. That said, I do like a fair amount of the current unarmed system, though it could stand to be a bit less simplistic— especially, in my experience, for melee weapons. Still, I should get more familiar with the melee rules before I start to suggest any changes, much less make any substantial judgements.

As always, any comments are welcome. And, for the hell of it— and since this is already getting slightly off topic— might as well open up discussion to a modern and more realistic adaptation of the current SR3 rules.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Aug 19 2003, 09:54 AM

This is all completely off-topic, but what the heck:

If you like D10s more, you like D10s more. However, that doesn't make a system more realistic...

Karma pool has nothing to do with realism. But I do agree that for a realistic game, you might want to limit the speed at which it is gained. I personally like Diminishing Returns, ie. 10 karma for the first pool, 20 more for the second (30 total), 30 more for the third (60 total), etc.

A combat-oriented game gets boring quickly if all the PCs keep running away all the time because of bad luck with dice. And the GM should play NPCs smart, no need to roll Willpower there. If you think a NPC would run, make him/her run.

There are already the rules for Knockdown. If you wish, you can make the TNs higher for the Knockdown Test. But even if you think getting hit while wearing flexible body armor hurts a lot, I'm quite certain getting hit while NOT wearing body armor hurts even more. Making armored opponents more likely to fall down when shot than unarmored opponents makes no sense.

For realism with damages and ranges, go to http://matrix.dumpshock.com/raygun/. All you need in the way of damage codes and ranges can be found there, as well as several good rules to make ranged combat more realistic (like the sudden shock rules). There's also a nice amount of modern firearms there, so you don't have to do as much translation-work. I suggest you do NOT just pick up a Guns&Ammo magazine and give weapons damage codes depending on the muzzle energies - that's not a perfect indicator to begin with, and there's just too much that can go wrong. It's much better to use the data provided by people who know more than you do. I should know, I made that mistake once.

Posted by: Arethusa Aug 19 2003, 10:04 AM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Aug 19 2003, 10:10 AM

Pheew, getting busy here...
Basic flexible body armor, like kevlar et al, do not degrade when hit as long as they aren't penetrated. After all, the bloody things are tested every once in a while by shooting live rounds at them, then worn a couple of years, and then shot at again. For penetrated rounds, how about just reducing the armor rating of the piece of armor for every N Power that has penetrated?

Say you've got a light kevlar vest (e.g. 4/2 in torso only) and you get hit with an assault rifle (e.g. 8M). That's four points of penetrating Power. If you ruled that armor degrades 1 point/10 penetrated Power, the vest would drop to 3/1 after 3 hits, 2/0 after 5, 1/0 after 7 and 0/0 after the 8th hit. That's still complicated, but you can't do it much more simply than that if you want to be at least slightly realistic at the same that.

I suggest you don't make recoil penalties that harsh at longer ranges. At least the in the "Medium" range category, using canon SR recoil compensation methods, you can fire long (~10) bursts on full auto with a LMG on a bipod quite accurately. If you doubled recoil, that would just not happen. Doubled recoil at Extreme I can understand, even at Long it might be overdoing it.

It's going to get really whacky if you solve 1200rpm fire 5 rounds at a time, but 1000rpm fire 1 round at a time. I find it a lot easier to solve 600rpm fire 3 rounds at a time, 800rpm fire 4 rounds at a time, 1000rpm fire 5 rounds at a time, 1200rpm fire 6 rounds at a time, etc. Oh and the cyclic RoF of the G11 on full auto is, what, 240rpm? That translates to 12 rounds per Combat Turn, about as slow as you can get with a fully automatic weapons. It's really fast (2000rpm or 2200rpm, I keep forgetting) only on 3-round bursts, and you never have to solve those more than 3 rounds at a time.

Ooh ooh! Good to see my Penetration rating idea is finally catching on. I can tell you that it's certainly more enjoyable than cumbersome. And if you want my full list of calibers with Damage codes and Penetration ratings, feel free to ask.

[Edit]The kind of rounds that will get stopped by flexible body armor (HP/frangible rifle rounds, pistol rounds) are unlikely to overpenetrate much anyway, so that point is rather moot.

There just aren't wound profiles to be found for that many calibers and bullet types on the internet. If you can find a comprehensive list, I'd be interested. I have only ever seen profiles for the most common military rifle rounds, a few types of shotgun rounds and .22LR, .38, 9mmP, .45ACP and perhaps I few others.

And there's still the problem of how you interpret each kind of wound profile. It's not certain that a round which immediately spreads and causes an extremely wide but shallow wound is more lethal than a round which penetrates deeped but with a narrower wound. If someone's hands get in the way, the former might never reach the torso. So it all depends...[/Edit]

Posted by: Arethusa Aug 19 2003, 10:48 AM

Flexible armor still has an issue with being easily penetrable in the same area as a previous shot. If I recall correctly a IIA vest may not be penetrated by a 9mm round, but a second round shot in the same spot immediately after stands a significantly better chance of punching through.

You're probably right about double and triple recoil penalties at longer ranges being too harsh, though I do plan on making bipods singificantly more effective.

Forgot the G11 was only 240 rpm on full auto. In case it wasn't obvious, haven't slept in a while and I've got a lot on my mind. If I'm lacking coherency, there's why.

Also, wasn't aware the pentration rating idea had been fielded before, but please, if You've got this more worked out than I do, feel free to post that up. I'm definitely interested.

Fair enough about HP and the like being unnecessarily accounted for in overpenetration/armor penetration, but there's still the possibility of a rifle round being stopped by a trauma plate, and a full metal jacket 9mm round definitely can overpenetrate, if not necessarily often.

I have seen lists I personally considered comprehensive, but I also don't plan on worrying about more esoteric calibers. And, yes, I am aware that wound profiles are hardly an end all, and it's certainly arguable that ballistic gelatin just doesn't pass for real people, but it's still useful information and one of the better sources for judging abstract damage codes, if not necessarily a good one. May ultimately be all I have to go on, and, as for calibers that ballistic profiles aren't available for, like everything else, comes down to a (potentially very rough) judgement call off of as much information as I can get my hands on. Far from perfect, but I don't think it's damning.

Posted by: Lilt Aug 19 2003, 12:06 PM

I've mentioned it before in other posts but the SLA industries system is good for resolving autofire quickly and in a balanced manner. You roll once on your weapons skill to see if you hit with at-least one bullet or not, with bonuses from high rates of fire, and then roll a second check using an autofire control skill called Auto/Support plus your weapons skill. The Auto/Support roll is used to determine how many rounds hit and has bonuses/penalties based on # of rounds/recoil.

Off the top of my head; roll the skills as an open test, subtract any TN penalties like recoil/vision/cover/range, then add the number of bullets fired. The amount over 6 is the number of bullets that hit (up to the rate of fire of the gun). that seem OK?

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Aug 19 2003, 05:33 PM

Posted by: mckay421 Aug 19 2003, 10:19 PM

Austere Emancipator...


Unarmored people who get shot in my games ALWAYS fall down.

D10's are more intuitive for me, given that I think in base 10. The possible range of results is broad enough for me without being so random as to negate a low rating skill.

As for the Willpower checks... I get tired of players who always run these bad asses that are sniper/martial artists that have no fear. Their idea of roleplaying is to take a cookie cutter and a sheet of cardboard to create their characters. The only thing that really changes is the names. Having gone with the carrot method and then the stick method...I have opted for the probability method.

I believe that muzzle energy is a pretty good indicator of damage potential. However, if you want to get more involved and start dealing with different types of projectiles, barrel lengths, powders and primers...that is certainly your perogative.

Karma pools and realism? I never actually claimed that my suggestions would MAKE SR modern MORE realistic. They were simply personal things that I would change if running SR modern.

If you don't like my ideas so be it. It is simply PERSONAL tastes and perceptions of the world that I reside in.

All the best...
John A. Schmidt

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Aug 19 2003, 11:39 PM

I mentioned realism in the comments to all the points you made because Arethusa originally asked for realistic house rules. And with the rules that realism has little to nothing to do with, I only offered my personal tastes, just like you offered yours.

And for the knockdown stuff, it would have helped if you had mentioned that everyone who gets hit in your games always fall down. Do note that that is not exactly realistic, since people have been known to get hit, both armored and unarmored, and not fall down. It is not, in fact, all that rare even, or so claims the book Black Hawk Down (ie so claim US Army Rangers and 1st SFOD-Delta operators with actual combat experience).

Muzzle energy certainly is a "pretty good indicator of damage potential". But I certainly wish to get more involved, because using only muzzle energy as basis for damage codes, you get some rather silly results. And because I rather people not run silly games and call them "realistic", I rather other people got more involved too.

For example, based purely on muzzle energy, you should get 1.5-2x the damage potential by simply cutting the weights of pistol bullets down to less than a half. Since velocity is so much more important a factor in energy than mass, a 77gr .40S&W bullet traveling at 2100fps has ~1.89 times the energy of a 180gr at 1000fps. Certainly you agree that the former should definitely not be almost twice as deadly as the latter? If you wish, I can give you tons more examples of this.

Barrel length influences (mostly) the muzzle velocity, which is already considered in muzzle energy. Powders don't matter a damn as long as they propel the bullet at the same velocity, which again is already considered in muzzle energy. And neither do primers (as you certainly know, but someone else might not).

What I'm talking about are things like caliber and bullet type. By making a bullet smaller in diameter and longer, while retaining the same mass, you can probably make it leave the barrel faster ceteris paribus. However, smaller bullet diameter meaning more tissue damage is quite counter-intuitive, is it not? And while saboted AP rounds generally have more energy than similar FMJ rounds, it is generally accepted that they do less tissue damage.

So, you see, I'm not talking about tiny, inconsequential things. In reality, things like diameter of the bullet and bullet type make one helluva difference. Otherwise, why would anyone who wants to kill/maim/cripple something (unarmored at close range) with a firearm pack anything but extralight saboted steel bullets?

Posted by: mckay421 Aug 20 2003, 01:00 AM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Aug 20 2003, 01:23 AM

Posted by: mckay421 Aug 20 2003, 02:32 AM

Posted by: Turtle Aug 20 2003, 09:42 AM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Aug 20 2003, 11:55 AM

Posted by: Fortune Aug 20 2003, 02:48 PM

Posted by: Ezra Aug 20 2003, 03:52 PM

My House rules for Full Auto are as follows.

The Character states that they are going full auto, and tell me just how many rounds that entails. and then we go from there.

Then the player rolls ONE roll, using any/all of their combat pool and any other dice that they can scrounge into the roll. They make the roll, and leave the dice alone.
The fisrt three round burst has its own target number, and the dice results are compared against the target number. Then the same dice are comapred against the target number for the second three round burst....and so on until the dice roll fails. ONce the target numbers are too high for the dice roll, then you simply tally up the rounds that hit, and apply the damage modifiers. The rest of the rounds are expended and go wild.

That is what works for me.

Posted by: I am Jin Aug 20 2003, 07:32 PM

I think Turtle's system maybe a bit more realistic than it would at first appear. Now, I'm just thinking of this as I type, so bear with me, and I may have something completey, utterly wrong, but this thought jsut occurred to me.


When you are firing on full-auto, it's not like you are squeezing the trigger X many times and X many bullets. you are holding down the trigger and letting loose. As this is the case, rolling for each individual shot suddenly seems kinda silly to me, since it doesn't seem reasonable that the first shot might get 6 successes and the 2nd shot will be a botch. I don't know about you, but I think I would have difficulty shooting some dude in the head and then myself in the foot while on full-auto if I was trying to, let alone by accident! the recoil is gonna start sending latter bullets a little farther off than the first ones, but your gun probably isn't going to be doing a 180, or even a 90 or a 45 or a fragging 11.25. As such, just rolling once for the whole thing and increasing the TN as each bullet leaves the barrel, but leaving the roll the same, make sense, and I would prospose, even more sense than rolling each shot individually.


If you are allotting bullets to seperate targets then I would say make a seperate roll for each target, since you are basically taking aim again for each individual target, but once again, just one roll per target, and use turtle's system.


This is just something I thought of just now. Throwing it out there to see what you think.

Posted by: Hida Tsuzua Aug 20 2003, 08:43 PM

Turtle's system seems good in my opinion (some hit some don't). I'll use it as opposed to the rules or my current "divide into bursts" houserule.

Posted by: Arethusa Aug 20 2003, 08:43 PM

Though I do like the simplicity inherent in that approach, it is still somewhat lacking, as rolling for ever round does allow the possibility of the shooter regaining control temporarily in the middle of a burst. A possible midpoint might be allowing rerolls for every three rounds, but I dislike the fact that it then forces the player for fire in denominations of three round bursts.

As for botching during a full auto burst, any GM who'd make a judgement call and say you shot your foot needs a plank swung into the back of his or her head. Botches should be believable, not ridiculous. In that case, a jam or tripping over debris would be acceptable. Swinging your gun 90 degrees opposite of the direction recoil is pushing it and landing a bullet right in your foot? Not so much.

Posted by: mckay421 Aug 20 2003, 09:13 PM

First...

I appologize for going off on a tangent. I should have stuck with the main theme of realistic resolution for full auto and burst fire. My view on the actual theme of this thread is that realistic resolution for rapid firing is that it is far more complicated than I am willing to delve into. And I fear that the end result would drag down ranged combat considerably. As a game designer the trade off between realism and ease of play is NEVER an easy one. However...if you desire to create such house rules I for one will NOT naysay your efforts.

Second...

Rather than respond to Austere Emancipator about the tangent points I will create a new thread.

All the best...
John A. Schmidt

Posted by: I am Jin Aug 20 2003, 10:04 PM

Well yes there are clear problems such as gaining back control of the weapon, something I thought of and couldn't really see a way around except for the gm to look at the person's successes and decide to apply those successes to the middle of the fire rather than at the beginning, because granted, always having any successes occurring at the beginning of the turn is pretty dumb, and so this would just be for overall successes, and it would then be the gm's perogative to decide which bullets they were. Or at least that was the only way I could see to get around the problem. But more in line with my question, do you think that it is more or less realistic than rolling for every single shot due to the nature of full-auto gunfire?

[edit] yeah, shooting myself in the foot, turning 90 degrees, etc. were just hyperbole to get the point across that your barrel is going to stay in more or less the same direction, and that if you start off aiming mid-body it shouldn't stray far from that, and that if you start off aiming 3 feet above his head it shouldn't stray far from there either. [/edit]

Posted by: Turtle Aug 21 2003, 12:06 AM

First of, thanks a lot for all the positive feedback I didn't think my suggestion would meet that kind of approval If you're trying this out in your game, I'd love to hear how it worked out for you

@Fortune: Not really with the Smartlink...Cat Who Walks Through Walls was a shaman...she never really liked the cyber-stuff

@Arethusa & Jin: Keeping control of your fire can be simulated by using the optional rule of recoil compensation by Strength. Usually, if you fire a burst of autofire, you aren't fast enough to regain control against the recoil at the end of your burst...at least that's my experience with autofiring. Walking your fire would simply spend a bullet per meter you walk your fire towards your new target, applying your successes to the bullets that actually hit the new target. The newer Smartlink rules avoid "wasting" bullets during a walk, AFAIK.

Posted by: Fortune Aug 21 2003, 01:19 AM

Posted by: Turtle Aug 21 2003, 01:24 AM

Posted by: Fortune Aug 21 2003, 02:16 AM

LMAO!