Ranged Combat, the SR3R way Options

[Kagetenshi]

Channeling.

~J

[Darkest Angel]

[mfb]

the whole scatter mechanic is crazy because it doesn't factor in range. the idea of being 7m off-target when your target is just outside the arming distance is wacky. on the other hand, 7m off at extreme range is a near-miss; a bad shot could be twice that distance or more off (real-life example: our Apache pilots, when calibrating their rocket systems, use one-quarter of a mountain as their target area--and i've seen them miss the mountain completely).

[Darkest Angel]

That's part of what I've been discussing with my group, maybe putting 1D6 at short range, 2D6 for medium and long, then 3D6 for extreme. Our concensus is -2m per success with scatter to bring them in line with grenades.

[nezumi]

To avoid making another chart, why not base it off the existing range TNs. The number of scatter dice is based off the range TN -4 (or -3 for aerodynamic grenades or what-not). That way extreme range still is pretty extreme, short range really doesn't scatter at all.

[Darkest Angel]

Was toying with 1D6 per range bracket, but 4D6 seemed a huge scatter... but maybe it should be?

[mfb]

one-quarter of a mountain. like, an area that would take you half an hour to hike across. and they missed it, regularly.

[Darkest Angel]

[mfb]

yeah. m'just saying, i wouldn't worry about 4d6 being too much scatter.

[Darkest Angel]

Fair enough, I'll be going with that then.

[Kagetenshi]

Bola rounds. Do you make one attack with them? Two? What happens if you only make one? What if one of them misses but the other doesn't?

~J

[mfb]

i believe bolo rounds contain only a single bolo per shot. according to this page, the bolo balls are connected by a 5-inch wire. i don't see any reason not to treat bolo rounds as a single attack against a single target.

aside: i like the "mini-missile" round on that page. it apparently has a steel core that "acts like a shaped charge". that must be some really awesome steel! maybe they dikoted it, so it'd be angrier.

[Kagetenshi]

Doesn't everyone have explosive steel?

Anyway, I think I was just misinterpreting the wording in Cannon Companion. Ah well.

~J

[nezumi]

Yeah, I'd agree with mfb. Bola's are attached by a cord or wire, so its the wire, not the weighted balls, that's supposed to hit the target, making it a single success test. I assume this doesn't need to be added to the list?

(Whether the bolas explode upon contact with the target or not could be the subject of a different, much sillier discussion, I suppose, but I don't see any reason for that now.)

[Kagetenshi]

Nope, this one was just a matter of bad wording. We'll reword it later, it doesn't need a separate entry..

~J

[Link]

Do bola rounds exist in (our) reality? How about dumping the stupid things, they first turned up in CC & are less fundamental to SR then astral projection for instance ;)

[Kagetenshi]

Unlike Astral Projection, they don't cause all kinds of problems and strike against a major core theme of Shadowrun (the notion of property).

They do actually exist, at least enough to be banned in some states. If they were badly broken I'd just scrap them, but they almost worked (and as it turns out, they do work if you don't parse the description incorrectly).

~J

[Kagetenshi]

Does anyone have an opinion as to whether tasers should face the full Impact Armor on their target as opposed to the current half? I was initially going to make it a proposal, but some quick research indicated that the darts don't actually have to stick into flesh anymore—someone want to weigh in?

~J

[nezumi]

I don't know, it seems somewhat odd that wearing a kevlar vest would offer 0 protection against a taser. Taser effectiveness is based on the thickness of the clothing, which isn't necessarily a function of either ballistic or impact (case in point, my Moscow parka is thick enough that I'm pretty sure it would completely stop a taser. Although it would probably also stop small caliber HP rounds, so maybe that's not the best example.)

That said, mechanically, I can't think of a way to easily represent this beyond perhaps putting better impact values on clothing not strictly made to be armor.

[Kagetenshi]

So two things have popped into my head based on percolations over the last half-decade.

First, the idea of adding a penetration value to damage codes has grown on me. It’s grown roughly proportionally to the length of time since I actually played Shadowrun, so it’s a very uncertain favorable feeling, but I’ve come to like the idea of using it to provide a distinctive but balanced Slivergun by making it something like 8L4 in contrast to a typical 8-9M1-2 heavy pistol while keeping the huge magazine.

Second, it might be possible to salvage the general concept of Called Shot to Ignore Armor by incurring Called Shot penalties to cause successes to stage Power (or Penetration) on a 1:1 basis while sacrificing DV staging entirely. Hard to be sure offhand how useful it’d be (how often final Power will produce more reliable damage than simply demanding more soak successes on a full-armor Power), but it might be worth kicking the tires on.

Any thoughts?

(To the mods: if I’m jumping the gun and reports of SR3R’s rewelcoming were exaggerated, either in general or because you’re currently debating it behind closed doors, just let me know and I’ll drop it again until the green light comes (if it ever does).)

~J

[nezumi]

(BTW, last post was 2007. That's 1.4 decades, not a half-decade. Just making it clear for anyone new jumping in and reading my old, dumb posts, it's been a long while, and since then, I am in fact just as dumb. But also 1.4 decades older.)


Adding to penetration is equivalent to adding to power, up to the cap of the opponent's armor value.
For the opponent, the power level impacts the ability to stage down damage. So especially for a high-body opponent, moving the power from 4 to 6 is likely worth more than increasing the DL by one step.

That would seem like a valuable tool, although it's adding two new rules, and a good deal more math for optimization.