Firearms Options

[Critias]

[Ddays]

Just putting my 2 cents in there, I have never noticed a trend towards pistols as "super weapons" in my gaming group, at least not because of equivalent damage potential (Definitely for concealment purposes).

A heavy pistol deals 5P -1

All smgs deal 5P, this looks bad yes? But then you factor in burst fire. All smgs actually deal 7P. And you can fire the same number of short bursts within a pass as you can fire semi-automatically.

The only pistol with BF, the Viper Silvergun, has the same damage specs as any SMG loaded with fletchettes.

Fully automatic weapons simply aren't meant to be wielded on foot and the game rules reflect with the massive minuses to hit. However, the heavy weapons are also incredibly effective if the -9 can be cancelled out with recoil compensation as it should be.

Note that I'm not saying that the current rules are true to life, just that the current rules do balance the weapon levels in my opinion. My only wish is for there to be rules on bonus recoil compensation if a runner stays prone and steadies his weapon and for strength to also provide some form of recoil compensation.

Another thing, the Stoner-Ares M202 is completely worthless. No weapon mount can fit it, so it can't fulfil its "military-vehicle" weapon role as well as weapon mounts not providing any recoil compensation for its full-auto fire.

[imperialus]

[mfb]

well, yes, if it's designed badly, it won't work. that's true of just about anything.

[Critias]

[Ddays]

Well, I have to say in defense of DnD, most problems arise not out of too many options but simply bad player dm interaction (isn't it always?).

Players should not complain that they're not allowed to use their character concepts if DMs did not have the time to fully study the sourcebook which details the powers, weaknesses, and backgrounds pertaining to it.

Likewise, DMs should take the time to learn the rules that players are using.

It takes a bit of effort to get the rules down and start playing, and some things definitely aren't as fleshed out as it's supposed to be, but it shouldn't be a free lunch either.

If it were, I would go back to narrating Doom games.

[TheOneRonin]

[eidolon]

@mfb:

Yes, I agree with you. A well designed scaling rule system could work. The pitfalls are as imperialus noted, combined with the fact that WotC has created a wave of new players that are a child of what I jokingly refer to as "player entitlement culture", where because there are 50,000 rules out there, and a player only has to know the fifty that apply to his character, a GM can't tool his game the way he wants it because everyone will just whine and quit.

Thus, it's my opinion that anything not in the game should just be created by those that want it there. Understand that this is partly because I "grew up" on AD&D 2nd edition, where practically everything outside of THAC0 was a house rule. The rest of it comes from a few years of watching systems attempt everything from having three rules, to having badly designed and poorly explained or interpreted "scaling" rulesets, to throwing 1.6 million rules at players hoping that the GM will never have to think that way.

The GM is there for many reasons, and one of the most important is not adjudicating the rules, but adjudicating the lack of rules. It's one of the hardest things, but one that no system or number of rules is ever going to "solve". I think that the more systems and designers try to solve this "problem", the worse a game gets. Eh, I could go on and on about this, but then I'd have to move the thread to General Gaming and bitch myself out.

[eidolon]

Seriously though, if you would like to continue the discussion of ruleset coverage, please jump over to this spinoff thread:

Rules Coverage

My apologies for the hijack.

[imperialus]

Edit: Whoops. Eidolon posted while I was typing. Moved to the other thread.

[TheOneRonin]

[Spike]

Current ballistics studies tend to show that rifles, particularly assault rifles, don't do appreciably more damage per shot than pistols. The advantages of a rifle over a pistol are range and, typically, ammo capacity. Range, naturally, implies a degree of accuracy.

High end hunting rifles... which would trend towards sniper rifles... to the point that I'm not certain why SR makes a point of there being two catagories there... would do more damage than assault rifles. Typically, however, such rifles throw bigger rounds down range and use softer bullets that expand better, though they cost more.

Still, I agree that the viper and the fubuki definitely look overpowered, though I suspect part of that is that the viper fires flechettes (As I recall...).

I agree that the ammo is over the top, and the most important thing not taken into consideration is that recoil is going to be much worse in a comparatively tiny pistol than a comparable rifle or reasonably bulky SMG. Based on the numbers a Skorpion should be the dominant weapon in use now, being a pistol sized weapon with a high ammo cap and full auto capability, but aside from presumably ex-kgb russian mafia types, I don't know of anyone who uses one. Presumably range and control are the deciding factors in real life.

[TheOneRonin]

[Spike]

[TheOneRonin]

[kzt]

[mfb]

[Aku]

except, pistols dont have any mounts to put a scope on, do they?

[Cursedsoul]

Pistols have a barrel and a top mount so yep, there's room. Its on page 301-302 of the BBB in the black sidebar.

[Fortune]

[Narmio]

These threads always seem to disintegrate into talking about real world guns and posting autofire videos and wound profiles over and over while people argue the same points that were argued three months earlier. I don't know a damn thing about real world firearms, what I'm interested in is maintaining the suspension of disbelief in my games. So let's talk about the SR4 rules for pistols.

One thing people always seem to forget in damage comparison threads is just how variable the system can be, so let's ignore average numbers of hits and all that jazz and stick to how much base damage the gun is putting down range. I'm also going to be assuming that people can soak two short bursts of recoil per phase, which is pretty easy, especially with the augmentation rules making cyberarm gyromounts more attractive. I'm also only going to mention ammo loads in extreme circumstances, I've never had a combat go for so long that automatic weapons needed reloading, SR combats are usually over in two or three turns, so the difference between 30 and 40 ammo isn't that important. Automatic shotguns with 10 ammo, however, are. Everything else seems to just get tactical reloads.

So, numbers. Runners use Ex-ex, APDS or Stick 'n' Shock, but I despise the latter and it doesn't make any distinction between firearms, damage wise, so let's just stick with Ex-ex for now. The basic heavy pistol then does a "raw" damage of 6.66. The basic machine pistol does 7.33, the basic SMG does 8.33 and the basic assault rifle does 9.66. These seem pretty balanced to me, especially considering that almost all the time all of those examples are going to need two shots (or two bursts) to down any reasonable target. With an AR, you have a significantly higher chance of putting him down in one, but in my experience it will take a least a full pass.

Now, let's look at the proud nails problem: The AVS, the Fubuki and for comparison, the Mossberg AM-CMDT.

The AVS is and has always been a problem. It does a base of 8P(+5) with the erratad ammo rules, and so that comes to 8.33, equal to an SMG, but vastly more likely to be doing Stun damage (if that's an issue). That seems a little over the top, to me, you could expect it to do a little extra damage in exchange for the inability to load it with different rounds, but I don't think it needs BOTH one extra base damage over other pistols (before flechette calcultion) and the ability to burst fire.

The Fubuki is very interesting. The first thing that comes to mind is using Stick and Shock, despite the fact that it's clearly an electrically triggered Metalstorm weapon, but there are no explicit rules against that and I swore I wouldn't talk about SnS here. So we load it with ExEx like everything else and its base damage becomes 7.33, identical in almost every way to a machine pistol, except more concealable and significantly easier to recoil compensate. It's a powerful gun, but it's also pretty expensive and recognisable, I'm OK with this one, although I might prefer it was re-classified as a machine pistol, even if it kept part of the concealment bonus.

Now, the auto-shotgun. Forget the choke rules, they're a good way to do nothing but damage bystanders, Shadowrun is an armour-filled world and that's pretty much how it should be. So, burst firing this baby does a scary-looking 11P(+5), for 9.33 damage, less than an alpha, with no recoil compensation (not even a stock!) and you're going to very quickly run into ammo problems. I'd like to say a longarms samurai was viable outside of a sniping role, but that will have to wait until Arsenal comes out. So shotguns are a little suboptimal unless you're lured by the coolness factor, but if you are, you're not going to get pasted, you're just not going to blow things away in one shot.

So, in conclusion, I'll say what everyone knows already. Runners only ever really use the Ingram Smartgun and the Alpha, but those are only a bit better than their peers in any case. The AVS is as always a pain in the arse, handing out assault rifle damage with pistol concealability, but its range is poor and it's terrible at firing through cover, because the AP gets applied twice there. Everything else, however, is only a few small points here and there, and at the end of the day you can still build a respectable sam who uses a pair of warhawks, an automatic shotgun, or an LMG. You'd be a bit better off with a Fubuki, AVS, Ingram or Alpha, but the proud nails don't really kill players looking to play something interesting.

Except for Stick n' Shock, of course.

[EDIT: Re: scoped pistols. Using a scope takes a simple action, halving your damage potential for that pass. Pretty big disadvantage.]

[Ddays]

Another thing most people overlook, the Fubuki is MUZZLE LOADED (IE pain in the ass when you do run out of ammo)

And yes the Viper has near assault rifle damage out of the box, but it can only fire fletchettes, and dammit, sometimes you want EX Explosive. You trade versatility for out of the box power.

As for the vids on full auto fire, maybe the noticeable jerk was an indication otherwise, but that looks fairly inaccurate to me. Suppressive fire, unless you're telling me over 50% of those shots hit just from the grimace on the shooter's face.

edited to say that:
I completely agree with Narmio on his points about the weapons.

And on the guy who said that it's bad for GMs to know the rules the players want to play:

Uh, I have been a DM and a player and I understand the desire to play cool characters. As a DM, I try to learn about what my players want to play so that my players can have fun, not to subvert them to my story and desires. Tabletop games are for FUN, and some people have different definitions of what fun is.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, unfortunately, the AM-CMDT is a niche weapon for longarm specialists or characters who simply suck so bad at shooting that medium/wide choke with wide bursts is one of their few paths to threatening damage. A friend of mine who created a Sniper/AR Drone Rigger has utilized it to great effect before when forced into close quarters (A full narrow burst wide spread can cause a ridiculous amount of stun and knockdowns), but it's still no Alpha.

[Wounded Ronin]

[Crusher Bob]