Except that as far as the SR4 rules are concerned, they are the same.

Yes and all you need to do by the rules is be lying down on the ground to not take a hit when someone is using the suppressing fire rules.... even if you are suppressing an area 20 feet below you (say shooting people on the ground when you are directly above them in a two story house.) By the straight rules all you need to do is get prone.... even though this will actually make you a bigger target in a sense hey you got down on the ground so you don't get hit. Yes the rules are with you on this one Tarantula, but the rule can be just as stupid as it can be helpful when fitting it in a small situation. Generally the rules for suppression work better with the rules as written, but hell as a GM I would say it's not above the realm of impossibility when shooting at someone who is behind a very very thin wall (hell I have put my fist through dry wall before.)

Now this has nothing to do with the rules but I might suggest weapon skill + edge when you are trying to use suppressive fire through a wall (while still taking into account the -6 for blind firing.) In the end it means that most people will not get a single hit when firing. At the same time someone would need a weapon skill of at least four and an edge of three just to even have a 1/3rd chance of scoring a single hit. Maybe just to make things a little more interesting have them roll just straight edge and tie successes into how many people they can even have a chance of hitting with the suppressive fire. <-- again note that this has nothing to do with any SR rules, but as a GM I think it would work. Makes it so you can't hose a room full of people you can't even see, and at the same time heavily penalizes the shooter. You can get the cinematic sequence, and if someone made a character to do just this then they would already be just the crazy gun bunny except would have to spend quite a lot of bp or karma on edge.

Thanks everyone. I'll probably just pick a section of wall and declare that everyone on the other side of it is dodging bullets, with the wall adding armor value to the resistance test. The specific scenario I'm planning is:

Corp Security: We have you surrounded. Now would be a good time for you to surrender and be taken into custody.
Shadowrunners: Get bent, pigs!
Corp Security: <ventilates the room>
Corp Security: Did we mention the complimentary healthcare for prisoners?

Again, if you're shooting at some-one you can't see (perhaps, because they're behind concealment), then you get a -6. So this situation probably calls for a full auto burst, against multiple targets, with a -6 blind fire modifier. Not "you can't hit them.". Perhaps if your DP is reduced to 0, then you can't hit them, unless you spend edge on a long shot.

Apparently, blind fire doesn't apply to suppressive fire, so the other choice is to use suppressive fire through the wall, and anyone who doesn't get enough hits on a dodge test or go prone gets hit, and adds the "body" rating of the drywall to their armour rating for resistance.

Also, since when does heat require cracks to travel through? Drywall is not complete insulation. Cold can travel into drywall through induction, and heat can do the same. It wouldn't appear invisible on thermo, but I personally think you could get heat signatures through induction. There's a much better chance of a thermal signature passing through drywall than say, light.

Which is what I was saying should happen. And it isn't concealment to SR4, there is no concealment in SR4. Its all called "cover". They can still shoot to hit you through it, you just get the benefit of the armor of the stuff in the way.

No, it doesn't, and using suppressive fire through the wall is pointless, because they have cover, and thusly, aren't affected, no roll required.

Again, site something to backup your claim. I don't think drywall has a good chance of passing heat through, especially in a fashion that would be useful for targetting through it. Here is what I've found. Things like heat leaks, hot pipes, and the like, (also note, very STATIC things) can show up on FLIR. Usually only through 1 drywall (and theres 2 panels to go through a wall). Please, if you want to convince me this is possible bring some evidence.

Ahh...the joys of Robocop. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
Hate to say this, but you aren't going to be seeing people through substantial objects on a FLIR or Thermal Imaging system. You might see a thermal signature if someone is leaning rather heavily against a thin wall, or a running engine is right by the same wall, but you won't be seeing anything but a wall otherwise.

Yes, they did not go out of their way to define the difference between cover and concealment. They don't say "concealment and cover are the same thing", do they? They just mention that if you find "cover" then you are safe from suppressive fire. They left the difference between cover and concealment up to GM discretion.

So, using your discretion, do you think drywall is cover? For purposes of targeting, if I (an unaugmented human) have a fully automatic weapon in a pitch black room and start spraying bullets at the concealed people with in the room, is that really any different than if they're behind drywall? I can't see either in pitch black or through drywall, and whether travelling through darkness or drywall, bullets are still going to be going at lethal velocities. Think about it, if suppressive fire doesn't suffer blind fire modifiers, then it shouldn't suffer any visual modifiers. Suppressive fire is basically waving a fully automatic weapon in some-one's direction, and if there is a layer of drywall inbetween? Too bad for the drywall. I don't make the logic leap that you seem to that just because the RAW does not define cover and concealment, that drywall is cover.

So if you really think drywall is cover, and negates bullets, and feel you want to rule that way in your game, I won't stop you. But the Shadowrun devs did not tell you to do that.

As for the thermographic vision debate, your photographic citation doesn't prove your argument that thermal imaging can only pick up heat through cracks. Most of those photographs show heat escaping through solid surfaces, not through cracks. According to wikipedia's (Unless it's not a valid source for this argument in your opinion) articles on thermodynamics (particularly heat, heat transfer, convection, conduction and radiation), heat travelling through cracks (for example, through rubble), would be convection, which is heat transfer through particles such as fluids and gases. However, there are two more ways for heat to transfer. Conduction is heat travelling through solid objects (as seen in the photos of houses you posted), and heat is also transferred through the infrared spectrum, which is a longer wavelength than visible light, and to a degree, more penetrative.

So, depending on how accurate you think thermographic vision is in the 2070's, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that body heat can travel via a mixture of convection (eg. heat through air), conduction (heat travelling through the drywall), and infrared radiation (heat penetrating the drywall). You mentioned static objects, but from the example, the people on either side of this drywall barrier are standing there and talking to eachother, so if I was GM then I would rule that in the time the characters had remained static, their heat signatures had at least partially penetrated the drywall (they would be smudges on the wall of course, not full figures).

edit:

As much as I hate to say it, Shadowrun is probably on par with robocop when it comes to realism.

Just in case there was a misunderstanding, I didn't suggest that a thermographically gifted shadowrunner would be able to literally see a person through a wall, but you might get traces of their heat signature if the wall is thin and they are standing still.

Now this is just hearsay, but I have heard that there are rifle scopes for highly penetrative sniper rifles that can spot people via some form of imaging system (thermographic I assumed, but it could be anything, even ultrasound for heartbeat) in order to nail them through a wall. Is there any truth to this or am I making things up?

If you're using suppressive fire against targets who are already beyond a wall, I don't think that wall counts as cover. There are various different ways of handling firing through objects, and in this case, the wall is not providing them cover, but is a barrier which is fired through. You could consider the wall only to be cover if the one doing the suppressing was not taking the wall into account while shooting at those he is suppressing.

I may have been confusing the far end of the possible with fiction there. So walls are just plain opaque. Still doesn't mean that a lead hose won't kill people the other side of flimsy protection.

No, there is cover, and there is nothing. There is no concealment, not "left to GM discretion" it just doesn't exist as far as RAW is concerned.


Drywall is cover, because there is no concealment. If you an unaugmented human spray bullets in a dark room suppressing it, then anyone not prone or behind cover will have to make their tests to avoid being hit. If they are behind drywall, a cabinet, desk, other person, etc, then they're safe and don't have to make a test. If they're just standing there going "wha?" then they make a test.


It is cover, because there is no concealment. I never said it negates bullets, but considering that when you suppress, the area is 10 meters wide at the end, and up to 2 meters high, that means that for every cubic meter of space, one bullet passes through. If you don't at least have a vague idea of where you need to be suppressing, then I don't think that its unreasonable to say that the cover they have protects them from the full unaimed autofire.


Yes, heat can travel through things via conduction. Did you check those pictures of people wearing clothes? Notice how their clothes were notably colder than their face? And thats clothes, which are quite porous actually. Please, site something to backup your claim.


It can travel through, sure, given a long enough time. Not nearly a few minutes, not even someone sleeping in bed all night would do it though, people simply aren't hot enough to do that.


Radar vision in shadowrun you can, thermo you can't. If you could see through walls with thermo, there would be rules for the thickness of the wall, just like with radar.


You can't see them. You're firing unaimed autofire into a 10x2xY space, at people who you have no idea where they are. The shooter is not taking the wall into account, he can feel free to "suppress" the area, but since everyone there has cover from him, they are unaffected. Again, I think the easiest explanation for this is because there is only one bullet per cubic meter of space, there isn't a very good chance of hitting someone, and due to the cover, basically negates what chance you had.

Hmm, I would probably do this:

Since the shooter cannot see the targets then he will be under the penalty of Blind Fire (-6) simply because even by spraying the room he would in ideal conditions see a target and shoot towards it.

The shooter has no idea about room conditions in the way of furniture and other obstacles.

The targets would have to make a surprise test as they have no idea the shooter is there.

The targets also get a body and armour bonus as per the barrier table from the drywall the shooter is shooting through.

Conclusion
Less chance of hitting targets as he cannot see them
Less chance to dodge since the targets are unaware
Higher chance of survival due to lesser bullet impact as they have travelled through a wall.

Sure, he might only get one or 2 hits but the targets will most likely not dodge.

RAW is all very fine but in delicate situations one has to improvise and saying that someone cannot be hit behind a thin inner wall is stretching the laws of physics a bit.

Still, I agree that in a normal shooting you generally have a point of reference to your shooting which the shooter does not have as it is blocked by the wall.

He might after all shoot straight into a refridgerator...

Well, theres 2 drywall walls for each internal wall, theres also the chance he hits the 2x4 studs in the wall too. Not to mention appliances, furniture and room layout as you mentioned. Also, wiring or anything like that too. There is no dodge test for suppressive fire. There is a reaction+edge test to represent the blind luck basically. You could drop it down to just edge if they were not in combat at the time, but if they're in combat, you should give them their full pool (that, or have the suppressor roll a ambushing surprise test, whoever wins wins).

I don't think this is a delicate situation, as I haven't said they can't be hit behind the wall, merely that they can't be suppressed while behind the wall. You can feel free to try to get an idea of where they are (radar or somesuch) and shoot them to your hearts content, and use the firing through barriers rules to boot. But suppressing won't work, period, get over it.

This is also the perfect chance to make player ingenuity pay, IMO. If the "bad guys" in the room are just mooks, then why bother diddling dice at all? Just select a few to survive, a few to maybe spurt a bit while they tell the PCs to go to hell, etc and go from there. It takes a bit to set a gig like this up, it's actually a fairly good idea provided the various players stay in their respective zones of the room, and is actually kinda cool enough to just RP and/or wing it.

Be a bloody shame to waste such an intricate and cool plan on something a dumb as bum die rolls, no?

Besides, it doesn't matter if you're a cashier at Wal-Mart or a death commando. A hail of machinegun fire comes tearing through your section of the room completely out of the blue and you'll be too busy going, "WTF?!?" to effectively fight back for a decent span of time (read: at least turn or so).
Think about it for a second. You're closing a drug deal or something and suddenly a really, really loud hole erupts from the wall to your right as fucking machinegun rounds sweep through your section of the room. One second you're letting yourself feel good about a deal gone good and the next you're wearing bits of Chuck the Bodyguard as a whole belt of 7.62 NATO tears through your little section of the room. You manage to duck, but the rounds just keep pouring in with everything they touch exploding around you with bullet impacts and the other guard juttering as rounds tear across their torso. Furniture, the stove, the counters, the fresh pitcher of iced tea, etc. are all raining bits of plastic, glass, and wood on you as the buzzsaw noise of mechanical death slamming front to back, feeding more ballistic terror into the breech to spout more and more devastating fire all around you.

It suddenly stops and you're deafened by the silence with only the ringing in your ears to keep you company. Looking over the counter rather sheepishly, your product and the money are gone. So are the people you were dealing with.

Sorry cant. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

My reasoning for that is because the point with supression is that you fill an area with lead for a prolonged time (in this case 3 seconds) and anyone who is smart will duck and cover.

That is the point with supression and regardless of RAW the following will happen:

Lead WILL fly through the room regardless of rules since most players wants to follow a certain level of realism. few, many or all bullets might hit objects within the wall and stop but most likely go through with reduced force and/or deflexted into a new direction.

People who do not dodge regardless of RAW when someone fills a room with lead MIGHT get hit.

With your reasoning I could put up a paper screen that offer no protection whatsoever and according to RAW people on the other side CANNOT BE HURT.

And if we follow RAW they CANNOT BE HIT since the autofire rules becomes rather silly when shooting at 20 different targets in one room.

Personally in such situation i blatantly dont give a s**t about RAW if my players think that they can just stand and look dumb as someone blasts through the walls with a few mags of APDS or AV ammo and think they cannot be hit or hurt because the RAW says so.

I don't think the blind fire penalty should apply, because you're basically making an area effect rather than targetting anyone specific in that area. You only make one test for suppressive fire, and every target rolls against it (or are prone or have sufficient cover.) You wouldn't make one normal test and one separate test with a blind fire penalty if some targets are invisible, right? They're still in the area and bullets are still flying at them.
The limits for the shooter, as I see them, would be that he uses up ammo like crazy, he can't use called shots or other more effective ways of shooting, he can't tell how effective he is, and he can't avoid sufficient cover. If there's a big metal safe covering half of the wall, he's not suppressing anything behind it.
I'd rule that hitting infractructure in the wall is covered by rolling Edge in the test. The bullet was headed for you but hit the pipe in the wall first.

I disagree. How often in shadowrun do your runners get ambushed, it would be a surprise check, the wired up samurai is most likely going to be able to react and do something useful. So would the improved initiative adept. And the increased reflexded mage. And now, even the accelerated technomancer. Use the rules, give them a surprise check. Give the guy shooting his +6 ambush bonus.


Actually, it lasts up to 3 seconds, or as short as .75 of a second (4 IP user).


Actually, the point of suppression is to keep people from moving into or out of an area, or make them take cover. Not, hose down a room and try to kill everyone, thats what full auto and multiple attacks are for.
Note, any character there who has already acted in that combat turn (and still has a free action) can drop prone and avoid taking damage anyway.

So even if the bullets can't penetrate the barrier, unless they dodge, they'll get hit? What?


Ammend that, BY SUPPRESSIVE FIRE. Why? Because, you're hosing blindly in full auto. There is a reason that you need to see someone to even get remotely close to where they are. You aren't going to be hitting anyone you can't see.


What do you mean? You can't accurately shoot 20 bullets at 20 targets while on full auto, period. I don't see how that is silly.


Well, thats nice that they're blasting through the wall, they still have no idea where the characters are, and as such, in my game, the characters would get an alarming surprise, but not be hurt until the guy started actually shooting at the characters with aimed shots like most people typically do.

I would do as you do -i.e. no visibility penalties applied- but I would add the wall's barrier rating to the resistance tests of people who were hit.

Oh, and in my games I do allow some kind of "Robocop realism", after all. So, yes, sometimes thermographically gifted characters can detect people from the other side of filmsy obstacles.

Plus, the "1 bullet per cubic meter" trend of thought is just a victim of SR's abstraction of rates of fire. Actual fully automatic weapons -particularly miniguns- actually fire quite a lot more bullets.

So it's a game and RAW doesn't reflect reality perfectly, that's the intention. RAW does not cover all situations, for language and space reasons, mainly. -for example the "drop prone vs suppresion from above" That's not the idea either. So, let's take in those limits, be happy and play the game as we want, using the RAW to the hilt but without forgeting common sense. (I do have the sense to play with people who like my applications of common sense)
What's the criteria? It's very clear to me. What's coolest apply.

Cheers!

Max

I'm gonna go backflipping through the air with 2 guns and shoot everyone in the head! Yeah, do I get bonuses for that?!

If that's the way he wants to play it why not? His game. His rules. All you are saying is you play by RAW. Some people make house rules.

For instance we thought getting penalized on dice from 12 dice down to 2 (when dealing with most types of negatives when shooting) that it really doesn't make sense to have a really high chance of critical glitching because you are shooting at a person you can barely see..... so your gun will have a much more likely chance of exploding in your hands or having something going terribly wrong.... if critical glitches are not done this way (as it is GM who makes the call) then it means that for other instances when a critical glitch happens should it get watered down or be just as weak.... well it just didn't make sense to us so we house ruled that you roll those two dice, but then roll the other 10 underneath those two dice. You do not count any successes when rolling the 10 dice as they are dice you are taking as a penalty, but it does determine if you critical glitch or not (as you would count ones on 12 dice instead of 2.) It's common in most situations that our game plays -especially combat- so we made a house rule. By RAW we are bad bad naughty people for thinking that one up, but for our table it works.

You have your camp he has his. Just let it go man, because it's just going to turn into an internet slap fest.

Has someone been playing Exalted? Didn't you know that White Wolf raises your cholesterol?

The RAW is pretty clear here: no supressive fire through obstacles because said obstacles count as cover.
WWRND? I would allow it anyway and just buy hits for the wall and apply it to the weapon's damage code. Throw in a -6 blind fire penalty unless the guy had radar vision or AR assistance from someone in the room and call it good. The RAW must step aside for logic and fun.

Seeing people through walls with IR is absolutely ridiculous. Most walls are double-layered with a gap in between them. That is a very effective insulator and you are not going to get any useful heat signatures through something like that. Exterior walls will also have fiber insulation on top of that.

I'm getting the idea that it's mostly a "style of game" thing, y'all. Some people like to roll for things like this and check up on the RAW (what does this mean, btw? *lol*) rules for situations that might apply like Tarantula, some would just wing it like me because it's fresh and I hate ruining kick-ass plans with bad die rolls, and most of you will probably do a bit of both to keep you or your players happy with the results. Nothing wrong with either opinion as long as you and your group are having fun with it.

One thing to keep in mind, though. If you're just hosing a set area regardless of if a target is visible or not, as in the example of setting up firing stakes, then it's not really "blind fire" at all. You're hosing your previously established zone and if someone is randomly in the wrong spot at the wrong time? Tough luck.

That said, running a tripod-mounted GPMG all staked out into a relatively narrow defined kill zone for a full 200 round belt, or 16 seconds, of rock-n-roll will either take care of biz or certainly give the other guy something to worry about other than chasing you and your boys. You pick the right angles from the next room over and you sweep that weapon across the beaten zone at grazing fire (read: mid-thigh to knee) height a la WWI to great effect as demonstrated by many a failed charge through No Man's Land? Add the fact that your typical street-trash "Sammie" isn't exactly the Mozart of military tactics, that they generally don't see a GPMG hosing through a cheap hotel wall in controlled sweeps across the room where they're (or perhaps more correctly, were) standing, and they still have the other PCs in front of them probably pulling out misc tools o' death? It's getting grim for the visiting team, right quick.

Of course, I would never do something this whacked out to my PCs. It strongly smacks of weak sauce when the GM pulls random BS like this.

Unless they deserve it. Like, say, pissing off a Mercenary Crew that do use tactics just like this, and were just hired to get rid of the 'Runners in question.

Revenge and money, love in a merc's mind!

RAW = Rules As Written

16 seconds? 200/20 rnds per pass = 10 passes. 10 * 3 second turns = 30 seconds max. Or, 10 * .75 second passes = 7.5seconds. So, it'll take anywhere from 7.5seconds-30seconds depending on just how initiative boosted the shooter is.

Well, that would be true if cyclic fire rate of automatic weapons was based upon the shooter other than them pulling the trigger or not pulling the trigger. It's not, so umm...yeah.

I based my calculations upon the fairly-standard 750 rpm rate of many GPMGs. 750 rpm/60 = 12.5 rps 200 round belt/12.5 rps = 16 seconds of Ayatolla of Rock n' Rolla, baby!