Rules for friendly fire Options

[Inca]

There are many combat situations which just seem very unrealistic unless I put in friendly fire rules. Like when I have 2 characters engaging an enemy in hand to hand ...and then another player from 20 m away with good recoil comp unleashes a narrow long burst at the enemy .....he never has to worry about hitting his friends unless he glitches or critical glitches. Glitches are just really rare on larger dicepools. Say on a DP of 8 (4 automatics, 4 agility)...that's only a 3% chance to glitch.....but I would say there should be some mechanism in place to make him hesitate cuz he might hit his friends....in real life nobody would ever shoot at an enemy who's in hand to hand with a friend unless it was like a hostage situation or something.
Does anyone know any good rules for handling this?
Up to now i've handled it in this way:
If it's SS or SA, then any character who is 2m or less from an enemy must make a Reaction+Edge (1) if the bullet doesn't make contact with the enemy. If it's narrow burst fire, then they need to make a R+E (2) test....if it's a wide burst or FA of any kind, then they need to make a R+E(3) test. If they succeed the test then they don't get hit....but if they fail, then they take the base damage of the weapon and get to do a damage resistance test.

How's that?

[Stahlseele]

There's an app for that.
For the Smartlink OS.

[Yerameyahu]

Try it and see, I guess. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I'd allow a Called Shot to Not Shoot My Ally, too.

Personally, my runners are *all* always out of melee range, but it can't hurt to have this kind of rule for a grittier game.

Yes, you can use Safe Target, as well.

[suoq]

Personal Opinion.

If your players wanted realism, they simply wouldn't shoot. That's what I do.
If your players want cinema, they simply shoot. Oh, wait, I do that also.

If your players start shooting at people in hand to hand combat, then have their opposition shoot into hand to hand combat as well.

[StealthSigma]

There are many combat situations which just seem very unrealistic unless I put in friendly fire rules. Like when I have 2 characters engaging an enemy in hand to hand ...and then another player from 20 m away with good recoil comp unleashes a narrow long burst at the enemy .....he never has to worry about hitting his friends unless he glitches or critical glitches. Glitches are just really rare on larger dicepools. Say on a DP of 8 (4 automatics, 4 agility)...that's only a 3% chance to glitch.....but I would say there should be some mechanism in place to make him hesitate cuz he might hit his friends....in real life nobody would ever shoot at an enemy who's in hand to hand with a friend unless it was like a hostage situation or something.
Does anyone know any good rules for handling this?
Up to now i've handled it in this way:
If it's SS or SA, then any character who is 2m or less from an enemy must make a Reaction+Edge (1) if the bullet doesn't make contact with the enemy. If it's narrow burst fire, then they need to make a R+E (2) test....if it's a wide burst or FA of any kind, then they need to make a R+E(3) test. If they succeed the test then they don't get hit....but if they fail, then they take the base damage of the weapon and get to do a damage resistance test.

How's that?

I think you're confusing melee combat with grappling with regard to your perception of how realistic it is....

[sabs]

Couple of options:

1) allow the target to make an opposed reaction roll vs one of the people he's in hand 2 hand with. if he wins, he uses that person as full cover. And that person takes the full brunt of the attack.
2) On a miss, use modified scatter to see who the bullets really hit?
3) Say that a narrow burst isn't that narrow, and equally hits everyone in 'melee range' (treat it like wide burst for the people in melee. They can default to dodge and try to get out of the way, at -9 dv.

[Inca]

Anyone who's within two meters ....or who I deem is in danger by the flying lead has to make those checks....it doesn't matter if they're in melee with the enemy. Grappling is just one possible move that can be employed in melee. Melee assumes a lot of moves are being used that aren't being rolled for....it's just an abstraction that i hit once per IP...i'm really hitting a lot and blocking a lot and doing other crazy stuff.

[StealthSigma]

3) Say that a narrow burst isn't that narrow, and equally hits everyone in 'melee range' (treat it like wide burst for the people in melee. They can default to dodge and try to get out of the way, at -9 dv.

Those rules exist.... shotgun choke rules.

[Traul]

If you want realism, remove smartlinks and AGI 9 cyberlimbs. Because with them, it works.

[CanRay]

I've always been of the opinion that, if they're firing at you, they're not friendly to begin with.

[pbangarth]

I've always been of the opinion that, if they're firing at you, they're not friendly to begin with.

Careful, Canadian. Careful.

[StealthSigma]

I've always been of the opinion that, if they're firing at you, they're not friendly to begin with.

Actually, there is one situation where I can see friendly fire rules being useful. Three-party engagements.

Party A is shooting an assault rifle at a member of Party B and Party C that are engaged in melee combat. Party A is hostile to Party B and Party C. I'm pretty sure the guy from Party A, while wanting to hit the member from Party C, isn't going to particularly care if he misses and his the member of Party B.

[pbangarth]

Actually, there is one situation where I can see friendly fire rules being useful. Three-party engagements.

Party A is shooting an assault rifle at a member of Party B and Party C that are engaged in melee combat. Party A is hostile to Party B and Party C. I'm pretty sure the guy from Party A, while wanting to hit the member from Party C, isn't going to particularly care if he misses and his the member of Party B.

Depends on who scares Party A more.

[Inca]

There's an app for that.
For the Smartlink OS.

That's a good idea...i'll give the innocent bystander a +2 bonus to the role if a smartgun was being used by the friendly shooter.

[Yerameyahu]

Heh. I assumed he meant Safe Target, which doesn't do that, but sure. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[sabs]

Safe target when turned on, prevents your gun from firing when aimed at a target that has been specified as 'friendly'

You can override it. In this instance, it just wouldn't let you shoot into the melee.. I suspect.

[Yerameyahu]

Right. So it's not a very direct answer to OP. I was just mentioning it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I wouldn't give a flat out Smartlink bonus against friendly fire errors, though, especially given the existence of Safe Target in the game world.

[sabs]

Does SafeTarget work if you still have a manual trigger?
Or do you have gone to DNI interface only for it to work?

[Yerameyahu]

It engages the safety, regardless of trigger mechanism.

[Makki]

I'd allow a Called Shot to Not Shoot My Ally, too.

that's what we did. my troll always storms into close combat. the rigger hates me for that 'cause he's shooting with -4 to not hit me.

[Stahlseele]

Well, the Troll probably would actually live to complain about it . .
But yeha, i meant the safe target thingie, just did not remember what it was called <.<

[Androcomputus]

This is an interesting question for me as one of my players chooses not to use a smartlink on his gun because he knows a hacker can/will mess with it. (Switching what is considered friendly)

[Yerameyahu]

Well, that's only if you had a Safe Target system, for one thing. A smartgun is probably the single most important firearms accessory, and there are plenty of steps you can take to make hacking all but impossible.

[Makki]

This is an interesting question for me as one of my players chooses not to use a smartlink on his gun because he knows a hacker can/will mess with it.

let his fixer call him:" Hey dude! I know you dont like smarktlink, because you're afraid of getting hacked. But hey, we're friends. I moved heaven and earth for you and I did it. I found a - wait for it - smartgun cable! How great is that?"

sry for OT

[StealthSigma]

Safe target when turned on, prevents your gun from firing when aimed at a target that has been specified as 'friendly'

You can override it. In this instance, it just wouldn't let you shoot into the melee.. I suspect.

It depends on how well the smartgun system is capable of knowing where the barrel is pointing. If it know that, then you can fire into a melee without any complications. There's probably a buffer radius around the friendly target, but otherwise the system should allow you to shoot all around the "safe" individual.

Makes me wonder if you couldn't use that to make yourself out to be a god to really really dumb people. Stand against a wall and tell all your minions to unload on you with strafing fire back and forth over your person. The bullets will strike the wall all around you and you won't be hurt. God status to idiots?