I'm getting ready to start a new game, and one of my players-to-be has proposed a house rule from his previous group. As originally used, it worked like this: a character with a semi-automatic weapon may take a Complex Action to fire as many rounds as he likes, up to the number of rounds remaining in the magazine. Each round after the first imposed +1 to the shooter's TN (this player is coming from 2/3E; we'll be playing SR20A); each round was tracked seperately for the purpose of inflicting damage.

I told him I'd think about it. I'd like to get Dumpshock's read on the rule before I give a definite answer. Obviously, the rule will need to be changed to account for static TNs; -2 DP per shot after the first?

I'm going to say it should be a nastier penalty.

Why?

Here's my reasoning.

Arguably, the top fast shot in the world is Jerry Miculek (he has a wikipedia page). Now I'll grant you that he shoots like a machine, but his top cyclic rate on tuned machinery works out to around 600 rounds per minute (or thereabouts anyway). Most semiautomatics can't actually run that fast, because of reasons such as slide return rates. On a solid rifle, his record is more like 370 rounds per minute.

You said semi-automatic, so with a specially tuned, meticulously cleaned, obsessively lubricated weapon in competition condition, run by someone with freakishly fast twitch muscle response, you have fewer than 20 rounds fired per combat turn. This isn't something that wired reflexes will improve, because it's a mechanical limitation in the firearm itself. So that right there puts a theoretical cap on the size of magazine you can clean out.

But the next problem is accuracy. Runners might be running obsessively tuned guns, but they'll be tuned for serious punching power because they might be shooting trolls. Emptying lead out of a magazine isn't that hard, but doing it with a heavy round, over a stiff load of powder, and still putting the rounds into a target the size of a pie plate is very hard.

One of my hobbies is shooting sports (at the club level, not national or anything) and one of the sports in which I participate is bowling pin shooting. I have seen a very well practiced, club level shooter shoot 5 pins off a table at 25 feet under range conditions (i.e. perfect) in under 3 seconds from first shot to last. I refer to that because you need more punch to knock over bowling pins, rather than punch holes in paper. A 9mm is too little. I believe that the shooter in question was using a tuned Glock in .40 calibre, with a compensator, so I would feel comfortable capping the reasonably aimed round rate at 10 or so for Shadowrun combat turns. I would also feel absolutely comfortable limiting it at 6 or so for a more powerful pistol.

You may find that an easier solution than capping round counts is working out what the shooter's dice pool might plausibly be, and basing your pool reduction on that, because beyond a certain level you're waving around a noisemaker and throwing lead in random directions. You could scale the penalty based on the power of the gun, and factors such as compensators.

With this house rule though you are changing damage dramatically.

Under current SR5 multishot options like burst and autofire still only do ONE bullet worth of damage as its base, plus some addition for hits, but assigns a penalty to dodge on the target.

With your change you will be inflicting potentially a lot more damage per IP, which if you are comfortable with is great but what happens when the bad guys shoot back?

Granted you are dividing up the dice pool a lot so chances are reduced on hitting with every shot, but you get some lucky rolls or someone pops edge and you got an instakill on anything less than a dragon with hardened armor in a single combat round, which again makes for great scenes when its player doing unto NPC, but will the PCs be so receptive when they are on the receiving end of this?
Again not so bad for guys able to absorb a few rounds, but the lightly armored just won't survive it to retaliate on the turn.

You may need to retweak damage codes back down to 4th while keeping armor at 5th ratings or even retweak armor to keep it from becoming a "whoever shoots first -wins" scenario.

I think this idea was in SR1, and was cancelled in next editions for obvious reason, such as dramatically slowing the game and making full auto (it was only for full auto) very imbalanced.

I don't know which game he comes from, but that's the first time I hear about someone wanting to go back to such a thing.

Don't !! No, Really , DON'T ! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)
It will result in a Massive Dicing Orgy !
You will end up rolling 5+ different Attack-Dodge-Soak Rolls IN ONE IP !

I guess than You will need 1 Hour of Gaming time to play 1 or 2 Rounds of Combat ,but the Fight will be Over in only 1 or two rounds and often only the one Player who starts this cascade of Attack-Dodge-Soak Rolles will be the only one having fun and the other players can only watch while this One Player is rolling his dice for 10+ Minutes....
Worst Idea I ever heard lately ( especially for the other Players !!)



And(additionally ) that Houserule is against the Mainstream Rules. It practically destroy the efficienacy of normal Busrt Fire and Full Auto Fire
a Burst either means a Minus to the Defenders Dodge or a Plus to the Attackers Damage.( -2/+2 or -5/+5)
With this Option you roll out each and every Bullet ...
You could Streamline it with the existing SR4A Rules by allowing a HM-Burst (3 Bullets) as a complex Action (AKA SR5 HM Burst )
So you'll be giving your Player an additional Option without unbalancing the Basic Rules and without destroying the Fun of the Other Players

Hough!
Medicineman

I like this idea. This is what I'm implementing. Thanks!

You're Welcome
Glad to be of Help

HougH!
Medicineman

SR1 tracked each full-auto shot individually, but the number of rounds was limited by the shooter's skill
SR2 reduced the rolls to one per target, but the number of rounds and targets was unlimited (although faced with +1 recoil per round and +2 TN for every extra target)

So actually it's more like the worst of 1st and 2nd Edition combined (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

It'd be easier to just use the Multiple Attack free action rules. I don't know about 4e, but in 5e those are easy to adapt to work that way. For example, I could fire two shots, which would divide my dice pool by two, and then roll each attack individually. Of course, that would mean emptying a clip would result in something like .25 dice per attack, but that makes sense to me.

Alternatively, you could rule that any attack that fires multiple shots does not get a damage increase per net hit, and instead lands an additional bullet per net hit, up the the number of bullets fired. For example, a machine pistol dealing 7P damage per attack would deal 10P damage on a successful three net hit attack firing one bullet, but on the same roll in burst fire it would do 7P three times. This would make combat both more and less lethal, because while more damage is being thrown around, armor is more likely to convert it to Stun damage. It'd fuck with game balance, sure, but so do most house rules.

Due to damage overflow, I'm pretty sure three 7P hits in one IP is an instakill on anyone other than a heavily-cybered troll. Yeah, I'm sticking with Medicineman's idea. Good effort, though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

But you can Split it only at different Targets
RAW never mentions hitting only ONE Target with a Multishot.
AND all Examples are Burst Fire Weapons so ImO it's RAI that you can Split only Bursts (especially since the Rules Mention splitting the Bullets in 3's )
one Long Burst at two different Targets and a Full Auto Burst at 3 different Targets
Its nowhere near what the Player in Tanegar wants to Acomplisch . He wants to shoot with a Pistol up to ....however much ,maybe 5 , 6 or 10 Times at one Victim to inflict the Damage up to Ten Times.

with up to Ten Dances
Medicineman

In 4E there was no limitation on only one attack per IP -- an SA shot is a Simple Action, you have two Simple Actions per IP, have fun.

@Medic: You can multishot with SA bursts, but by RAW only against different targets or with two weapons. The adaption would be to fire twice at the same target with a split DP

You should know that I really don't approve/like to shortcut or nick my name
so next time please write down my name correctly (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

and of course I/my table adapt so that the rules make ...kind of Sense (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

HokaHey
medicineman