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Juca Bala
Hi Guys, I was thinking, what is the raw on loading a elephant gun (or any other gun capable of shooting more than one bullet as the same action) with different ammo types? Maybe loading with one APDS bullet and one Stick'n Shock bullet and firing both of the barrels at the same time? What would be your rules on it? cool.gif
Eryk the Red
Far as I know, the rules say a gun can only hold one type of ammo at a time. I'd stick with that, the rules would get ugly if you tried to allowing mixing.
ixombie
It's like turning a bag of holding inside out - the universe ends because the rules aren't equipped to handle it!
Eryk the Red
Except that in the case of the bag of holding, the problems i that the space-time continuum can't handle it. biggrin.gif
Kyoto Kid
...just use EXEX, even with the new errata, it still makes the PJSS the most formidable weapon that you can get a chargen. You can take a force 5 spirit out with it (Base 10 DV - 2AP).
djinni
QUOTE (Juca Bala)
Hi Guys, I was thinking, what is the raw on loading a elephant gun (or any other gun capable of shooting more than one bullet as the same action) with different ammo types?

rules: can't do it.

Talk to your group and don't fire both barrels at once.
My character has a Gel round and an EX round in the PJSS, and one of each type of bullet in the Ruger Super warhawk. if you do that just never fire more than one bullet at a time.
Charon
QUOTE (Juca Bala @ Dec 18 2006, 09:49 AM)
What would be your rules on it?  cool.gif

First, a good whack over the head of the player.

Not only is he doing something that is in all likelyhood less efficient than firing twice but he also wants to make me think!

For APDS + Shock stick ammo I'd just ignore your Shock Stick unless the target has very high impact armor. That's right, I'd waste it.

APDS + Explosive (both kind), I'd just do the standard +1 DV to whichever of the two ammo strike my fancy. They aree close enough in damage potential.
Moon-Hawk
I agree. I'd probably just use the better of the two ammo types and ignore the other, or maybe give it the +1DV if both ammo types are comparable.
Of course, that's what I'd do after I strongly discouraged firing both barrels at once, that is. smile.gif
Shrike30
The player gets to pick whichever of the rounds it is he's "starting the burst" with, and then his character fires a short burst of that type of ammo.

Or, the GM gets to pick whichever of the rounds would be *less* effective, and the character fires a short burst of that type of ammo.

Or you could just say "Uh, please don't."
Faelan
I don't know, I would simply rule that if he hits both hit. The defender got to defend against two shots at once, if he defends the player has an empty weapon. If he does not both rounds are not impacting the same point, so apply armor+body for both hits. Either way th eplayer now has an unloaded weapon. If he missed have fun hosing him. If he hit it's still no guarantee he put the opponent down. Seems pretty simple to me. When he is reloading he gets hosed.
Shrike30
The thing is, though, both fluffwise and systemically there's a decent reason (the old "express rifle" approach) to load the gun with a different round in each barrel. There's also a system mechanic for firing two rounds nearly simultaneously. Hell, there's a specific example for firing the elephant gun's barrels simultaneously. Personally, I'm not a big fan of having the system change how it handles solely because there's two different kinds of bullets in the gun.
Kesslan
Well the problem is properly representing multiple ammo types in a gun in the first place. When its' single shot, it's not a problem at all. Such as pump action shotguns, revolvers, pistols etc, long as you keep track of the actual placement of the rounds.

SR seems to have gotten abit lazy when it even comes to considering this, becuase for example they state tracer rounds as being every third round. When typically at least for MGs it's every 5th, 10th or 20th depending on it's purpose (usually every 5th if it's ment for guiding fire, otherwise far as i know it's only purpose is to give the MGer an idea of how many rounds he's fired off). They've also at least in WWII been used soley as the last 10 rounds or so in an ammo drum to let pilots know their guns were dry.

Part of it of course is that the system doesnt treat a double shot as actually being two seperate rounds. You only roll resist vs a round +x dv bonus from the other. I never quite understood that one since your not being hit with a more powerful round, your being hit with two totaly seperate rounds, simply at the same time. I suppose otherwise it would be 'too deadly'. But I mean geeze, elephant guns ARE bloody deadly. I kinda doubt a person would survive a double blast from one.

At the same time though you wouldnt really have the bonuses stacking exactly becuase their not quite hitting the same impact point. With flesh that probably wont matter one bloody bit, but with armor etc it might well make a difference, though I dont really know.

I suppose in the interest of balance, that if they were firing say, EX-EX in one barrel and APDS In the other, delegate one as the 'primary round' and the other gives only half the bonus. So if APDS is 'primary' the shot would have the base bonus of the APDS and either the +1 DV or the -1AP of the EX-EX. Or in the case of Explosive it would just stack directly or something. Dunno.
Eryk the Red
The problem with stacking bonuses at all is that you don't do that if the ammo is all the same. APDS in both barrels wouldn't give you -6 AP. It gives -4. Whether you fire one barrel or two. Letting modifiers stack, even at reduced rates, gives unfair power to mixed ammo.

If you really want to do this, average the ratings for the ammo involved. So, if you are using an explosive round and APDS, the atack gets -2 AP and +1 DV (or +0, depending on how much of a bastard you are, and I would be a bastard about this). If one of the rounds does stun damage, split the resulting damage (after resisting) between stun and physical. If one round is resisted with impact and one ballistic, the target averages the ratings. And so forth.

That'd be fairest way to do it.

It's also a pain in the booty. So I would just tell my players, "PLEASE DON'T."
Arz
I call my Elephant rifle w/ EX-EX "spirit-killer" in honor of its use on toxic safari.
Shrike30
QUOTE (Kesslan)
SR seems to have gotten abit lazy when it even comes to considering this, becuase for example they state tracer rounds as being every third round. When typically at least for MGs it's every 5th, 10th or 20th depending on it's purpose (usually every 5th if it's ment for guiding fire, otherwise far as i know it's only purpose is to give the MGer an idea of how many rounds he's fired off). They've also at least in WWII been used soley as the last 10 rounds or so in an ammo drum to let pilots know their guns were dry.

I think this is solely due to the fact that the vast majority of SR bursts are calculated in increments of 3 rounds. It avoids people saying "well, that burst wasn't one of the ones with a tracer in it, why should the bonus apply?"

Essentially, you're guaranteeing that there's actually a tracer being fired in a situation where the player gets a "tracer" bonus.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Arz)
I call my Elephant rifle w/ EX-EX "spirit-killer" in honor of its use on toxic safari.

....Dr Zanzabar calls his PJSS the "boom stick of spirit doom".

He also has Background Knowlege skills in Spirits, Paranormals, and Magic.

...and he's a mundane.
Kesslan
QUOTE (Shrike30)
QUOTE (Kesslan @ Dec 19 2006, 09:27 PM)
SR seems to have gotten abit lazy when it even comes to considering this, becuase for example they state tracer rounds as being every third round. When typically at least for MGs it's every 5th, 10th or 20th depending on it's purpose (usually every 5th if it's ment for guiding fire, otherwise far as i know it's only purpose is to give the MGer an idea of how many rounds he's fired off). They've also at least in WWII been used soley as the last 10 rounds or so in an ammo drum to let pilots know their guns were dry.

I think this is solely due to the fact that the vast majority of SR bursts are calculated in increments of 3 rounds. It avoids people saying "well, that burst wasn't one of the ones with a tracer in it, why should the bonus apply?"

Essentially, you're guaranteeing that there's actually a tracer being fired in a situation where the player gets a "tracer" bonus.

Ah true, modern combat and burstfire has allways been a little odd in some RPGs.

I much prefer the 3 shot 'short bursts' myself as the base starter, because its quite possible to fire short bursts or longer ones. Unlike Silouette were unless they changed it recently, a 'short' burst is now 5 rounds (it used to be any burst was 10 rounds, which was silly)

As for the shotgun thing, as I said (though perhaps I wasnt terribly clear about what I ment), part of the reason it's a problem is because a 'double shot' just adds something like +2 DV or so. Where technically it litterally doubles your damage in the real world if your firing both barrels of a two barrled shotgun and hit the target.

Apparently, and entirely for balance reasons they decided against this in SR, otherwise you could just divy up the hits between the two damage types and roll two resist tests or some such.
Kyoto Kid
...yeah, I've fired both barrels of a DB shotgun before and yes:

...it does a lot of damage.

...it usually knocks you on your ass unless you are brace against a stout tree or other immovable object. Even then, you can torque your shoulder out real easy.

I would give the PJSS a much higher recoil penalty than -1 for firing both barrels at once even with the built in shock pad.
Kesslan
Aye, I totally agree to that too. It sort of reminds me of one invention that poped up durring the napoleonic wars. It never saw much use. Simply because the recoil at the very least decked those firing, not to mention usualy broke their shoulders to boot.

It was a six barreled musket basically, fired all the barrels at once. It was built for the navy (Srgt Harper in the Sharp book series has one) for use in clearing out enemy sailors from ships rigging and so forth. Never saw much use due to it's utter lack of practicality, and god knows how well it actually worked when it came to firing all the barrels at the same time (which is at elast, what it was supposed to do).

There's also various old marine harpoon guns that had much the same effect due to the size of the projectile and the fact that you were basically shoulder firing a small cannon. Elephant guns I certainly would place under the header of 'heavy weapons' in term of recoil.

As it is under SR rules you can fire a sawed off version, when in reality that would more than likely cause severe fractures in your wrist I would immagine.
Lord Ben
Sure, a sawed off elephant rifle will hurt most human wrists but not my bone density 4 orc wrists... smile.gif

Firing both barrels doesn't do "double damage" really. For example in hunting if you hit a poor location on an animal all you're going to do is make em bleed, if you hit them in a good location you'll drop them in their tracks. Whether one bullet or two passes through the meaty section or the heart doen't matter in terms of lethality. It'll do not much or everything. I've seen whitetail tear with 5+ bullet holes run half a mile and I've seen them with one bullet hole fall over where they stood. Firing two barrels at once in SR where they're assumed to hit the same location won't make it significantly easier to kill something.
Kesslan
Well, I suppose. I'm certainly no balistics expert. And for shooting in general, aye, what really matters is what and where you hit something. It reminds me of one video a friend sent me a link to. This one bowhunter took a shot at a deer, missed the sweetspot, and, instead of running away, the deer promptly started beating the crap out of the hunter.

It was actually quite funny to watch, though I bet the guy was hurting aftewards. Getting battered by hoves is not, I would think, a fun experience
Fortune
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)
I would give the PJSS a much higher recoil penalty than -1 for firing both barrels at once even with the built in shock pad.

How do you apply a recoil penalty to a weapon that won't be firing a second time? Recoil does not apply to the first shot fired, and if both barrels are fired at once, then there is no point in adjudicating a 'Heavy Weapons type' recoil modifier, as the gun would subsequently be empty.
Moon-Hawk
Well yeah, but it's not like that particular weirdness is unique to the elephant gun. Why does firing a three round burst from an SMG with no recoil comp decrease your chances of hitting, including the first bullet? 'Cause that's how SR works, and it's good for game balance. smile.gif

edit: I thought of more to say. The point I was driving at is, you're welcome to dislike that particular quirk of SR rules, but THAT'S the issue you want to get into, then the place to be debating them is in their own recoil thread, it's not an issue unique to the elephant gun. In the elephant gun thread let's just assume it's consistent with every other kind of short burst in SR, and accept the weirdness. smile.gif That was my point, and I hope it didn't come off snarky, 'cause I didn't mean it to.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Fortune @ Dec 21 2006, 06:47 AM)
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Dec 21 2006, 06:07 PM)
I would give the PJSS a much higher recoil penalty than -1 for firing both barrels at once even with the built in shock pad.

How do you apply a recoil penalty to a weapon that won't be firing a second time? Recoil does not apply to the first shot fired, and if both barrels are fired at once, then there is no point in adjudicating a 'Heavy Weapons type' recoil modifier, as the gun would subsequently be empty.

...the BBB lists a recoil penalty of -1 when using both barrels simultaneously.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Kesslan)
Well, I suppose. I'm certainly no balistics expert. And for shooting in general, aye, what really matters is what and where you hit something. It reminds me of one video a friend sent me a link to. This one bowhunter took a shot at a deer, missed the sweetspot, and, instead of running away, the deer promptly started beating the crap out of the hunter.

It was actually quite funny to watch, though I bet the guy was hurting aftewards. Getting battered by hoves is not, I would think, a fun experience

..I saw a vid like that once on Maximum Exposure a while back. Great show if you like watching "Stupid Human Tricks".
Lord Ben
It's more common than you think. A lot of time shotgun slugs can take a glancing blow of the skull/antlers without killing the deer and it'll wake up and leave while looking at it. Sometimes while taking pictures. I'm fairly close to the hunting industry so I know a few people who had to wrestle a wounded deer down.
lorechaser
My dad apparently used to bowhunt (It's crazy the bizarre things you randomly find out about your parents - my dad was a motocross racer, a semi-pro dirt bike racer, and a bowhunter. And you'd never guess it now), and apparently it's far far more likely you'll get attacked using a bow. You have to be closer, there's not a startlingly loud noise, and you're far more likely to get a wounding, not killing blow.

From what I understand, the main goal of bowhunting is to create a bleeding wound, then wait for the deer to bleed out, rather than actually kill it.

So sometimes, they're pissed.
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (lorechaser)
From what I understand, the main goal of bowhunting is to create a bleeding wound, then wait for the deer to bleed out, rather than actually kill it.

Nearly always when you violently kill someone, you kill through bleeding. This is usually the main goal of, say, shooting someone with a firearm or hitting them with a sword.
Raygun
Yeah. The only way to reliably cause an instant incapacitation is to hit the central nervous system. Unfortunately, it's a relatively small target.

And to expound on Lord Ben's comment a little, this hunting season, a friend of mine shot a whitetail buck in the back of the head with a .300 WSM at roughly 100 yards. As he came up to the buck, he noticed that its skull had been split between the antlers and he could see nervous tissue. But when he poked the deer to make sure it was dead, it sprang up and ran another 30 yards or so before he could shoot it again. I would have flipped.
Fortune
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)
...the BBB lists a recoil penalty of -1 when using both barrels simultaneously.

Yeah, I know, but it just doesn't make sense to me. There is no recoil until the bullet(s) (shells, rounds, whatever) have left the barrel of the gun. With both chambers firing simultaneously, any recoil generated would not affect the shots already fired.
dog_xinu
QUOTE (Fortune)
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Dec 22 2006, 02:46 AM)
...the BBB lists a recoil penalty of -1 when using both barrels simultaneously.

Yeah, I know, but it just doesn't make sense to me. There is no recoil until the bullet(s) (shells, rounds, whatever) have left the barrel of the gun. With both chambers firing simultaneously, any recoil generated would not affect the shots already fired.


I can not speak for game terms, but in RL when you fire both barrels at the same time, there is a slight difference in firing the two barrels. One goes then the there a half second (I did not time this, but only a guestimation) later. There is where the -1 comes from I believe. With a shotgun, this works out better since the spread going left out of the right barrel and the spread going right out of the left barrel will not then collide right in front of the gun.

Just my 2 cents worth..
dog
Raygun
The difference in timing is negligible, nowhere near a half a second, maybe a few hundredths tops. That will be enough for recoil from the first shot to disrupt the aim of the second, but not by much, especially in the type of situation where you'd risk opening up with both barrels (read: very close range).
Kesslan
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
QUOTE (lorechaser)
From what I understand, the main goal of bowhunting is to create a bleeding wound, then wait for the deer to bleed out, rather than actually kill it.

Nearly always when you violently kill someone, you kill through bleeding. This is usually the main goal of, say, shooting someone with a firearm or hitting them with a sword.

It's also not a good idea to have a deer run before it dies. THe meat tastes as one of my friends once put it 'like sweaty socks' afterwards. This is due to the eh.. bleh, mind fails me atm. It's a chemical buildup basically in the muscle tissue when you run etc.

A little bit of running probably wont have too grand an effect but if it's been running for a while, thats a whole other story. If you manage to kill it in a single hit so it just keels over, you dont get this buildup.

I doubt, however, doing this is actually all that easy, not sure. I've never actualy had the chance to hunt anything like that alas.
Lord Ben
An arrow through the lungs will cause the deer to run maybe 30 yards before dying. The blood comes out like from a garden hose mister. A rifle through one or both front shoulder blades will drop it in it's tracks and also damage several major organs so it'll usually bleed out by the time you walk over there. I've shot 9 deer and most dropped where they were standing. For rifles the force of the impact kills just as well as bleeding.

I haven't noticed much difference in taste around deer depending on if they run or not. But I think it makes a difference how much they run. Also, the most common way they die slowly is from a gutshot. The fluids in the gut poisons the bloodsteam and they die in like 24 hours. The meat tastes absolutely shitty then I've heard. So maybe that's where that comes from...
Kesslan
Nah it's dependant on how long their running. If they run a short bit, there isn tmuch difference becuase there is very little buildup.

Longer periods of running are what does it. I'm not quite sure where exactly the noticable threshold is however. I"m sure if you goggled the subject some actual scientific/hunter lore would come up.
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (Lord Ben)
For rifles the force of the impact kills just as well as bleeding.

I suppose it is theoretically possible that the impact would kill it without directly damaging the CNS, but it is very unlikely. Apparently what much more often happens is that the pressure waves caused by the projectile in tissue hammer at the spine and temporarily paralyze the animal or knock it unconscious, and usually with a well placed shot it will have bled to death by the time it comes to. There are plenty of stories of animals that have been "killed instantly" by a shot through the shoulders only to leap up and run off a while later.
Kesslan
This has incidently happend with human beings as well.
Austere Emancipator
Certainly. The shape of most quadruped mammals' ribcages and the way in which they are shot (sideways through the shoulders with relatively high-powered rifles) just makes it much more common with them.
lorechaser
Lactic acid is the chemical you're thinking of, I'll wager. That's what builds up in human muscle tissue and causes cramps, etc.

And I can see how that would affect the taste of the meat.
Arz
QUOTE (Fortune)
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Dec 22 2006, 02:46 AM)
...the BBB lists a recoil penalty of -1 when using both barrels simultaneously.

Yeah, I know, but it just doesn't make sense to me. There is no recoil until the bullet(s) (shells, rounds, whatever) have left the barrel of the gun. With both chambers firing simultaneously, any recoil generated would not affect the shots already fired.

I believe they mean that shot takes a -1 recoil penalty similar to a short burst. The idea beingto get you to purchase a shock pad for your 'Spirit Killer'.

Though personally I like to put it on a gyromount for effect. Just imagine pre-teen orks, two over-arm swinging gyromounts, eyes crazed with amphetimines, and you have 2070's child soldiers.

The stories I heard from Sierra Leone years ago still scare me.
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