Bursts and Full-Autofire, heretic thoughts and house rule Options

[Ombre]

Am I the only one here thinking that automatic weapons are way too powerful when compared to semi-automatic guns ?
I hope not...

Anyway, let me explain my point (I apologize in advance for my English skills): if you shoot some Humanis skinhead wearing a Lined coat with a single bullet from your trusty AK97, he gets to roll 4s (8 - Ballistic Armor Rating of 4) to soak the damage...
Strangely enough, if I fire 6 slugs, our Humanis goon (not that I'm pitying him though...) must get 10s on his Body test...

How come? All those 6 bullets don't punch through the same hole in the kevlar lining, right?
Some people will argue that 6 bullets transmit much more kinetic energy and so on...which explains the increase in Power.
Let's consider another example : let's say our skinhead gets shot by two M.O.M activists
firing one 3-round burst each (that is the same number of bullets as in my previous example) : suddenly , the Body Test is TN 7 instead of 10 for the very same number of bullets...
How come armor can have such a varying degree of efficiency? After all, each bullet has to punch through the same thickness of kevlar/ceramic plates , doesn't it?

My point is : the full-auto/burst fire rules suck ! Not very logical and way too deadly in my humble opinion...

Here is my proposition, partly inspired by the Searching Fire rule in the Cannon Companion: the philosophy is autofire increases the chances you hit the target.

So I suggest that you get a bonus of 1 Die for every bullet fired in a burst (long or short) with a maximum equal to your Base Skill.
Damage Level would go up but NOT the Power of the attack (exactly the opposite of the Searching Fire rule)
You could even go a little bit further by considering that on a burst, the number of bullets that actually hit the target depends on your successes: 1 bullet hits for each success on your Combat roll , which then allows you to come up with the actual Damage Level.

Let's take an example:

SunderStone (strength 10, Assault Rifle 5, Combat Pool 6), Troll street samuraï and card-wielding MOM activist , decides to clarify his political ideas by firing a 6-round burst with his good old AK (recoil comp 4, smartlinked) on a Brackhaven fanboy (Body 5) in Reinforced Jacket (5/3) insulting him from across the street in Redmond at 2 am (20 m, short range, partial light)
TN: 5
SunderStone chooses to roll 15 dice (skill+pool+bonus from autofire ) and can expect to get some 5 successes. The damage level is 8S (if you use the optional rule of taking the actual number of slugs hitting the target to calculate Damage Level)

The Humanis goon can dodge (TN 6) with let's say 4 pool dice and get maybe one success and then make a Body test TN 3 (8 - 5) with 7 dice (5 from Body, 2 remaining pool dice) , getting 4 successes.

End result: the norm falls on the sidewalk screaming with a Serious Wound...very different from the usual inescapable Deadly Wound....

The point here is that in the standard rule an overstressed NRA-contributing-sarariman with an AK can fire a 14D long burst. With a Dodge TN of 6, even a seasoned runner can get wasted. since the Body test would have an average TN of 8 (considering 6 Ballistic pts)...

My house rule tries to make a big difference between a professional and an amateur (the difference being the number of successes hence the number of bullets actually hitting the target and thus the Damage Level) and tries to reevaluate the effectiveness of armor against burst fire...
As a side effect, some weapons like the Ares Crusader or the Beretta 200ST would be reevaluated too, their autofire capacity giving an alternative choice to consider (lesser Power than a heavy handgun, but bonus dice : nice trade-off for average shooters)

What's your opinion on this heresy?

[Kanada Ten]

So, you just use the Searching Fire rules in place of Damage increase?

[Ombre]

Let's say the philosphy of it (but not the letter) , instead of the standard rule from the BBB, yes....but with some differences if you've read the examples...

[BitBasher]

Remember also, taking damage does *not* mean the bullet punched through the armor. In fact, the bullet won;t punch through the armor very often, the damage is cause by the blunt force trauma of the bullet impact with the armor whether or not it penetrates. I'd say the bullet rarely penetarates.

[Lindt]

It just boils down to how lucky the skinhead is. He might just get nicked, or have the armoed soak most of the impact, but with 6 rounds comming at him, hes in a world of trouble. There is a reason that fully automatic rifles where invented ya know. Cause they ARE better.

[Raife]

Keep in mind that a firefight like this SHOULD be dangerous. Players and NPC's should spend most of their time dodging. If they aren't... well... then they deserve to die. Just standing and shooting will get you killed.

Rules to a firefight (shadowrun and real life match up here)

1) Don't get cought in the open
2) Stay prone if you can
3) If 1 & 2 fail keep moving... a zig-zag and move towards your target.
4) Don't shoot better... shoot MORE!

[James McMurray]

2 and 4 don't apply to shadowrun. There is no bonus for being prone, unless you're behind something which gives cover. 4 is especially not true. A single shot with 6 successes is much better than a 6 round burst with none, or a ten round burst with one that gets dodged.

[Dawnshadow]

Shoot better AND more, AND more often.

[BitBasher]

[James McMurray]

What book is that from? Its not in the main book (at least its not on the ranged attack modifiers table).

[hahnsoo]

A quick search through the BBB (god, I love the new PDFs) reveals no modifier to try to hit a prone person. However, if you are using Cover rules, it would make sense that at certain angles, a prone person would be harder to hit than a standing person, and thus a +2 to +6 modifier would apply.

I remember a "prone target" modifier, too. Maybe it was in 2nd edition. I'll have to dig out my 2nd ed BBB sometime.

[Raife]

Hmm, I thought there was a +2 modifier to fire at a prone target. Well I'm gonna keep playing with it.

As for shooting more is better than shooting better... it IS true. You are using an extreme example with the +6 successes.

let's use a more likely approach.

6 Dice in Pistols and Assualt rifles, short range, 9m dmg on both, target has 5/3 armor

6 dice at a target number 4 gets you 3 successes, with a 4 needed for success to dodge.

now assuming they roll 4 dice to dodge, they get 2 successes. then 4 body dice on average gets 2 more... target takes a M wound.

1 3 round burst from the SM, assuming only 1 point of recoil compensation (much likely more) would be a target number of 5, gaining 2 successes. 4 dice to dodge gets 1 success, and soaking the 12s at a target number 7 gets you maybe 1 more. So the target takes a Serious wound.

That is by FAR a more model approach to fire more vs well. If your characters (both player and non) are NOT dodging then yes... one good bullet is better. But with dodging... MORE IS BETTER!

[hyzmarca]

You could increase the effectivness of multiple shooters by limiting the amount of damage a character can resist in a combat turn.

Instead of resisting with full body for every hit characters have a damage resistance pool equal to body that replenishes every combat turn. If a body 6 person resists one hit with 6 dice he has nothing left to resist a second hit with. He can instead choose to only resist with 3 dice and save 3 for a secon hit.

The result is that it is much easier to die when facing multiple opponets. 4 uncybered mundanes with hold ou pistols can hurt a body 15 troll just by shooting him 8 times.

[BitBasher]

I would have bet vital parts of my anatomy that was on the ranged combat table...

[mfb]

i've seen it before as well. can't find it now, of course.

[Xirces]

[Ombre]

Actually my point was to find an alternative to the awful increase in Power when autofire is used...

Let's take a simple example: a bullet proof jacket is supposed to stop a bullet, right?
In the game, if I shoot a single assault rifle (8M) round at someone (a plain John Doe, not one our regular street monsters) wearing a reinforced jacket witha single success (just for the sake of testing his armor) he must get 3s on his Body test and will porbably end up with a light wound. Rather realistic so far...

Let's say I fire a short burst in the same conditions (11G). Body test TN goes up to 6 and our nice guinea pig ends up with a Serious wound...not so realistic in my humble opinion: in real life I'm sure our guy would get bruises and maybe would be KO, but not seriously injured (needing up to 30 days in a hospital...come on)

With 6 bullets, the body test needs 9s...and our guy is plain Dead ! Unrealistic!

Remember I'm talking about filedtesting the armor jacket (no bullet in the head and such, just one success on the combat test, no dodging...)

Conclusion the rules about armor in SR are flawed...but then again that's just an opimion...

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Kanada Ten]

[Austere Emancipa...]

All fully automatic fire in an action is divided evenly into 10 bursts, except that no burst can be less than 3 rounds. I also use house ruled rates of fire, so that all RoFs are per CT and the amount you can fire per action = RoF/CT/# of actions.

Character with 1 action firing a LMG with a RoF of 1200/min (60/CT) cyclically = 10 bursts of 6
Character with 3 actions firing the same = 3 x 3+3+3+3+3+5

[LynGrey]

Ok i rather be shot with one bullet than a 3 shot burst cluster in my chest =\ you know.. one of those bullets could find that one spot that doesn't have the ballistic plate.. or it could hit my neck or something...
I am sorry.. a 3 shot burts is pretty freakin leathal no mater how padded up you are. Heck this is my philospy.. if you don't like the system.. then either house rule.. or don't play it.. its that simple. I like the system, its simple, everybody that plays SR knows it.. and it keeps things universal.

[Fortune]

[TeOdio]

I agree w/ the house rule thing, but I'd like to argue the "semi" abstract nature of the Fire Arms rules as well. If I'm rationalizing this right (not looking at a book right now), getting nailed w/ full auto does not mean that every bullet strikes you. It could if that's how you want to explain the damage level that is inflicted. In my understanding, you could also say a hail of gunfire is just tougher to dodge, plus you have a greater chance of catching one in a bad spot (not being able to soak the damage down.) The wicked recoil penalties make it tough to nail someone (I know there are counters to this, but it is usually pretty rare in my game.) And hey, you need some way to take down a friggin troll with armor. :cyber:
:nuyen: :nuyen: :nuyen:

[Sandoval Smith]

My opinion is that I guess it's not so bad of a house rule, but there's really no point for it. The current rules seem to work well enough as they are, and the only problem you seem to have stemming from them is due to your misunderstanding of how they work.

There is nothing wrong with a salariman being able to achieve 14D with an AK and greasing a runner. If the runner is in a position where a salariman can hit them with a full burst, they're boned, because it does not take a lot of skill to hold down the trigger and spray lead (although with that salaryman's probably skill, it's unlikely he'll do it well).

As has been said before, combat in SR in highly abstracted. That's why while one shot from an assualt rifle might do 6S, but for a single burst, the target doesn't have to worry about 6S three times. The increased power represents the fact that with more bullets coming at the target, their is an increased chance of them getting hurt (soft tissue damage, chink in the armor, whatever you want to say happens). Taking damage does not nessasarily mean that a hole was blown through the target's armor. Your Humanis example was wearing a lined coat in the example. If someone tries to put six slugs into the same space he's filling, there's a good chance that one of those is going to hit his head, or his legs, or a hand, or break a rib even through the armor. Rather than bogging combat down further with hit locations, or variable armor (did he button his coat up? Otherwise he has a big unarmored stripe down the middle of his torso), more bullets are represented by a higher power rating.

As I said before, your house rule isn't bad, it just has no purpose.

[Smiley]