Elephant Gun with different ammo..., See the title... =] Options

[Juca Bala]

Hi Guys, I was thinking, what is the raw on loading a elephant gun (or any other gun capable of shooting more than one bullet as the same action) with different ammo types? Maybe loading with one APDS bullet and one Stick'n Shock bullet and firing both of the barrels at the same time? What would be your rules on it? 8)

[Eryk the Red]

Far as I know, the rules say a gun can only hold one type of ammo at a time. I'd stick with that, the rules would get ugly if you tried to allowing mixing.

[ixombie]

It's like turning a bag of holding inside out - the universe ends because the rules aren't equipped to handle it!

[Eryk the Red]

Except that in the case of the bag of holding, the problems i that the space-time continuum can't handle it. :D

[Kyoto Kid]

...just use EXEX, even with the new errata, it still makes the PJSS the most formidable weapon that you can get a chargen. You can take a force 5 spirit out with it (Base 10 DV - 2AP).

[djinni]

[Charon]

[Moon-Hawk]

I agree. I'd probably just use the better of the two ammo types and ignore the other, or maybe give it the +1DV if both ammo types are comparable.
Of course, that's what I'd do after I strongly discouraged firing both barrels at once, that is. :-)

[Shrike30]

The player gets to pick whichever of the rounds it is he's "starting the burst" with, and then his character fires a short burst of that type of ammo.

Or, the GM gets to pick whichever of the rounds would be *less* effective, and the character fires a short burst of that type of ammo.

Or you could just say "Uh, please don't."

[Faelan]

I don't know, I would simply rule that if he hits both hit. The defender got to defend against two shots at once, if he defends the player has an empty weapon. If he does not both rounds are not impacting the same point, so apply armor+body for both hits. Either way th eplayer now has an unloaded weapon. If he missed have fun hosing him. If he hit it's still no guarantee he put the opponent down. Seems pretty simple to me. When he is reloading he gets hosed.

[Shrike30]

The thing is, though, both fluffwise and systemically there's a decent reason (the old "express rifle" approach) to load the gun with a different round in each barrel. There's also a system mechanic for firing two rounds nearly simultaneously. Hell, there's a specific example for firing the elephant gun's barrels simultaneously. Personally, I'm not a big fan of having the system change how it handles solely because there's two different kinds of bullets in the gun.

[Kesslan]

Well the problem is properly representing multiple ammo types in a gun in the first place. When its' single shot, it's not a problem at all. Such as pump action shotguns, revolvers, pistols etc, long as you keep track of the actual placement of the rounds.

SR seems to have gotten abit lazy when it even comes to considering this, becuase for example they state tracer rounds as being every third round. When typically at least for MGs it's every 5th, 10th or 20th depending on it's purpose (usually every 5th if it's ment for guiding fire, otherwise far as i know it's only purpose is to give the MGer an idea of how many rounds he's fired off). They've also at least in WWII been used soley as the last 10 rounds or so in an ammo drum to let pilots know their guns were dry.

Part of it of course is that the system doesnt treat a double shot as actually being two seperate rounds. You only roll resist vs a round +x dv bonus from the other. I never quite understood that one since your not being hit with a more powerful round, your being hit with two totaly seperate rounds, simply at the same time. I suppose otherwise it would be 'too deadly'. But I mean geeze, elephant guns ARE bloody deadly. I kinda doubt a person would survive a double blast from one.

At the same time though you wouldnt really have the bonuses stacking exactly becuase their not quite hitting the same impact point. With flesh that probably wont matter one bloody bit, but with armor etc it might well make a difference, though I dont really know.

I suppose in the interest of balance, that if they were firing say, EX-EX in one barrel and APDS In the other, delegate one as the 'primary round' and the other gives only half the bonus. So if APDS is 'primary' the shot would have the base bonus of the APDS and either the +1 DV or the -1AP of the EX-EX. Or in the case of Explosive it would just stack directly or something. Dunno.

[Eryk the Red]

The problem with stacking bonuses at all is that you don't do that if the ammo is all the same. APDS in both barrels wouldn't give you -6 AP. It gives -4. Whether you fire one barrel or two. Letting modifiers stack, even at reduced rates, gives unfair power to mixed ammo.

If you really want to do this, average the ratings for the ammo involved. So, if you are using an explosive round and APDS, the atack gets -2 AP and +1 DV (or +0, depending on how much of a bastard you are, and I would be a bastard about this). If one of the rounds does stun damage, split the resulting damage (after resisting) between stun and physical. If one round is resisted with impact and one ballistic, the target averages the ratings. And so forth.

That'd be fairest way to do it.

It's also a pain in the booty. So I would just tell my players, "PLEASE DON'T."

[Arz]

I call my Elephant rifle w/ EX-EX "spirit-killer" in honor of its use on toxic safari.

[Shrike30]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Kesslan]

[Kyoto Kid]

...yeah, I've fired both barrels of a DB shotgun before and yes:

...it does a lot of damage.

...it usually knocks you on your ass unless you are brace against a stout tree or other immovable object. Even then, you can torque your shoulder out real easy.

I would give the PJSS a much higher recoil penalty than -1 for firing both barrels at once even with the built in shock pad.

[Kesslan]

Aye, I totally agree to that too. It sort of reminds me of one invention that poped up durring the napoleonic wars. It never saw much use. Simply because the recoil at the very least decked those firing, not to mention usualy broke their shoulders to boot.

It was a six barreled musket basically, fired all the barrels at once. It was built for the navy (Srgt Harper in the Sharp book series has one) for use in clearing out enemy sailors from ships rigging and so forth. Never saw much use due to it's utter lack of practicality, and god knows how well it actually worked when it came to firing all the barrels at the same time (which is at elast, what it was supposed to do).

There's also various old marine harpoon guns that had much the same effect due to the size of the projectile and the fact that you were basically shoulder firing a small cannon. Elephant guns I certainly would place under the header of 'heavy weapons' in term of recoil.

As it is under SR rules you can fire a sawed off version, when in reality that would more than likely cause severe fractures in your wrist I would immagine.

[Lord Ben]

Sure, a sawed off elephant rifle will hurt most human wrists but not my bone density 4 orc wrists... :)

Firing both barrels doesn't do "double damage" really. For example in hunting if you hit a poor location on an animal all you're going to do is make em bleed, if you hit them in a good location you'll drop them in their tracks. Whether one bullet or two passes through the meaty section or the heart doen't matter in terms of lethality. It'll do not much or everything. I've seen whitetail tear with 5+ bullet holes run half a mile and I've seen them with one bullet hole fall over where they stood. Firing two barrels at once in SR where they're assumed to hit the same location won't make it significantly easier to kill something.

[Kesslan]

Well, I suppose. I'm certainly no balistics expert. And for shooting in general, aye, what really matters is what and where you hit something. It reminds me of one video a friend sent me a link to. This one bowhunter took a shot at a deer, missed the sweetspot, and, instead of running away, the deer promptly started beating the crap out of the hunter.

It was actually quite funny to watch, though I bet the guy was hurting aftewards. Getting battered by hoves is not, I would think, a fun experience

[Fortune]

[Moon-Hawk]

Well yeah, but it's not like that particular weirdness is unique to the elephant gun. Why does firing a three round burst from an SMG with no recoil comp decrease your chances of hitting, including the first bullet? 'Cause that's how SR works, and it's good for game balance. :-)

edit: I thought of more to say. The point I was driving at is, you're welcome to dislike that particular quirk of SR rules, but THAT'S the issue you want to get into, then the place to be debating them is in their own recoil thread, it's not an issue unique to the elephant gun. In the elephant gun thread let's just assume it's consistent with every other kind of short burst in SR, and accept the weirdness. :-) That was my point, and I hope it didn't come off snarky, 'cause I didn't mean it to.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Kyoto Kid]