Supression Fire, PC with two guns Options

[DgrenJ]

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

[James McMurray]

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.

[DgrenJ]

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

[James McMurray]

[DgrenJ]

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

[James McMurray]

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.

[DgrenJ]

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)




??

[ShadowDragon8685]

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.

[James McMurray]

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.

[DgrenJ]

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

- DgrenJ

[James McMurray]

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.

[DgrenJ]

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.

[James McMurray]

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.

[mfb]

[James McMurray]

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

[X-Kalibur]

[Lagomorph]

[James McMurray]

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.

[James McMurray]

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.

[Lagomorph]

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.

[Shrike30]

[X-Kalibur]

[Shrike30]

Assume I'm not, for a minute :P 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?

[Eddie Furious]

[Eddie Furious]