Sniper Rifles DV, Did a search, but nothing specific... Options

[Yoan]

One of my players has been achin' for a long rifle/sniper rifle for far too long, and I am willing to give it to him: but only after tackling this nagging question...

Do the listed sniper rifles shoot magic bullets? How else do you justify the high DV and deadly AP value? Has anybody houseruled this yet? That is, in fact, my real question ;) I need a sanitized set of DV/AP for the non-assault rifles...

While I'm here, do you think it would make sense to say the sniper in question (let's say he's on a roof, supporting his buddies down below) HAS to Take Aim, meaning he can't just shoot two seperate targets off the bat? How else is he going to be shooting at a target fairly far?

[Zak]

I fail to see your point. Sniper rifles are fine, just start using things like cover and line of sight and you shouldn't have big issues with snipers being overpowered (which they aren't anyway).

[Yoan]

I simply don't see what warrants the high DV and AP, and I am trying to find a middle-ground.

[tirsales]

Sport Rifle:
7P/-1

Sniper Rifle:
7P/-3
8P/-3

HMG:
7P/-3

So ... Where exactly is the Sniper Rifle overpowered? Apart from being Semiautomatic and thus not giving the same benefit like e.g. the HMG (Fullautomatic)??

Oh and having a look at "real life" sniper rifles with e.g. very big expulsion charges and quite heavy ammunition - they *do* cut through your personal armor like nothing. And - quite a number of special sniper rifles have a "bigger punch" than a normal machine gun.

[kzt]

Get rid of the magic that scopes mean you can ignore range. Nobody involved with SR combat rules has apparently ever shot a gun, so the combat rules all have weird issues, some minor, some huge. The "Attacker Using Image Magnification" section is the most obvious demonstration that they don't have the foggiest idea how shooting really works.

The other detail is that large and heavy sniper rifels are large and heavy and really long. 5ft long 40 pound guns are not subtle or easy to carry around.

[Tarantula]

Except for that fancy one that folds into a briefcase. Thats pretty easy to lug around.

[Simon May]

But then they get nailed by building security every time you send it through the x-ray machine. I'm sure they could mask it somehow, but it would be exorbitantly expensive.

[Tarantula]

Why are you going through building security, climb up the side. Thats what gecko gloves are for anyway.

[HappyDaze]

[Narse]

If your running a low power campaign, just give him a sports rifle instead. Or just use the stats of the sports rifle with sniper ranges. Still I think that for most groups the Sniper isn't overpowered (it can only fire SA and the one you can actually use in combat isn't that much worse than a sports rifle or shotgun firing slugs [it has a -2 ap bonus]) I wouldn't go much lower than the sports rifle stats tho. Keep in mind that Assault rifles do 6p/-1 when firing in semi-automatic mode. Of course they may also be too high powered for your group. You can also hammer on the obvious nature of a sniper rifle and also the fact that it is VERY illegal, your just asking the cops to throw you in jail for a very long time if one ever catches you with it. Note that a take aim action has to be expended to reduce range modifiers with magnification and that there is a penalty for firing at more than one target in an action phase: -1 (IIRC). This means most characters will probably concentrate their fire on 1 person per action phase. If you find your characters are taking them down in less than 1 action phase you can always increase the goons' body.

Hope that helped.

[Tarantula]

Trolls and orcs are the norm too, why not .50 sniper rounds?

[Narse]

Tangentially (as you guys are starting to get a little off topic)
I don't think .50 cal snipers are necessarily the norm. I think their longer barrels and less jarring actions allow the sniper rifles to be just as deadly. That is actually what the damage code measures. (plus smaller caliber rounds generally penetrate armor better)

[kzt]

In the real world, a sniper rifle does exactly the same damage as the same caliber deer rifle shooting the same bullet.

And for most purposes in urban areas, a good quality deer rifle would work just perfectly. It's only at long range that you start seeing the reason why you want to buy the $9000 rifle instead of the $500 rifle.

[tirsales]

@HappyDaze: As the Sniper does more damage than the sports gun, I would assume it to have eg a higher caliber, different types of ammo, "better barrel" eg reducing "wobbling" of the bullet-flight (sorry, english is not my native language..) and thus enhancing "speed on the long run", ...
Yeah, I was thinking of a .50 sniper when comparing to a HMG.
But you could also say, that "the improved accuracy" makes efficient shooting of a single target easier (with a normal rifle you can aim for his breast, using that uber-rifle you can even aim for his heart (or at least for the assumed location of the heart and thus shoot several cm to its left side ;) )

And yes, the "long range shooting"-rules are crappy, though every house rule I tried to design was more complicated - and thus problematic in a official setting. (The group I was running at the time actually liked it, and perhaps someday I will post it .. Needs more testing beforehand though and I will wait for Arsenal) - but that is a completely different topic ;)

Putting aside reality - the snipers are *much* more expensive then the sport rifles - thus they should have some (worthy) benefits apart from being cool. Okay, their range is doubled - and if that is a worthy benefit for your group - well, just go along with kzt and use sport rifle stats.
Or give them a better AP (hey, it's not as if 1/3 of a hit is that much...) but keep that 6P. Or say: They use special ammo, please leave all your worldly possesion at the counter. There are so many possibilities for reducing sniper rifle efficiency ;)

-- edit: Corrected some mistakes ..

[Narse]

[HappyDaze]

I don't think that 'highly accurate' weapons should have a higher damage code. Instead they should have bonus dice to the attack roll (possibly only acessed with aiming). This can give extra damage with a good roll, but the base damage should not be adjusted since you can still have the same 'grazing' hit with either weapon using the same size of ammo.

[tirsales]

I didn't say it was a particulary good or sensible idea ;)

[WearzManySkins]

There are sniper rifles like the .416 designed from the cartridge to the weapon to be a sniper rifle. The .416 is not a hunting rifle round. The .50 cal is not the most efficient use of a sniper rifle.

The category of hunting rifle is a very large range of weapons, from the .17 to the .460, but others have posted some excellant examples search for User name Crusher Bob, he has posted some very good examples/rules.

WMS

[Whipstitch]

[Critias]

They also have shooters that are, y'know, just a little bit better than your average "I take my rifle to the range once a year, just before deer season," sort of casual hunter. I'm sure that contributes more than a little to the upkeep and accuracy of their rifles.

I'd rather face your average deer hunter with a Marine Scout/Sniper's finely tuned rifle than a Marine with the deer hunter's case trophy, I can tell you that much. ;)

[kzt]

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, I can't even imagine bothering to train for truly, truly long ranges, and I'd like to think I'm a slight cut above the really casual guys. I find the few obsessive hunters who really do practice like crazy and spend all their free time tuning their gear kind of amusing, actually. I mean, I understand why in the military they do it. But for deer hunting? Heck, I use a shotgun and slugs pretty much exclusively these days; the way I see it, if it's far enough away to be out of shotgun range then it's far enough away for me to have a hard time knowing what's behind it if I should miss (well, okay, that and my old shotgun's just plain stupidly reliable). I just don't see any reason to risk a bad shot and hitting someone over a stupid deer; there's waaaaay too many other hunters out there in southern Minnesota for me to feel comfortable trying ego shots. I dunno, I guess they must really, REALLY like shooting.

[Falconer]

I'm surprised not many folks have picked up on this. But the PJSS is probably the best 'sniper' weapon in the game.

Which would you rather have break action 2 shot 9P/AP-1 weapon with no legality issues. Or would you rather a semi-auto 7P/AP-3 weapon with a big 'F' for legality for no good reason. (it's just an accuraized semi-auto rifle! I can see the 'F' for the breakdownable sniper rifle, but the other one?!).

Really which would you rather have +2DR, or 22AP... I know which one is more effective! And the ability to give em both barrels for a 10P single shot doesn't hurt either.

Range brackets are almost irrelevant because of the ignore all range on optics. How often does your sniper work from 1.5klicks anyhow? How often wouldn't 800m suffice?

[Narse]

What I meant when referring to range brackets was with the sniper you don't even have to use a take aim action at under 150m - almost 3x the maximum range on that predator and exactly the maximum range of that Ingram Smartgun.

[Cabral]