I am fairly new around here and am just returning to Shadowrun. The last time I played Shadowrun it was still first edition and that was some time ago. We are soon to kick off a new campaign and we’re all (my RPG group that is) brushing up on third edition rules.

When I first got to the shotgun section I loved it. As an avid firearms fan both in game and in my real life I was thrilled with the idea that the RPG differentiated between slugs and shotshells and they even took choke into account. Then when I and the guy that is going to GM started looking into the nitty-gritty details we realize while the mechanics was simple and effective it was quite a bit off reality.

I have read some older post on the topic here but would like to revisit it and share how my group has decided to tweak the choke rules.

First up a quick reality check on shotguns and chokes. A choke is simply a constriction of the last few inches of a shotgun barrel to make the shot spread a little slower in flight. Shotguns are often patterned to see how tight a particular shotgun/choke will shoot. Pattering is done by shooting the shotgun at a patterning board, basicly a large piece of paper. This is done at forty yards for all but the small gage shotgun, the 410 shotgun. You then draw a 30 inch circle around the largest number of pellet holes possible and count the hits inside the circle. Knowing the original weight and pellet size you can estimate the number of pellet in the unfired shell and calculate the percentage in the 30 circle.

The standard choke constrictions are Cylinder, Improved Cylinder, Modified, Improved Modified, and Full. In order from no constriction most constriction. There are certainly other sizes tighter and intermingled with these but these are the five standard ones.

Now at 40 yards a full choke throw 70-80% of its pattern inside that 30 circle. The tightest Shadowrun choke a 10 at 40 meters (43.7yds) would have a 4 meter pattern of shot. If we assuming relatively even shot distribution that would only give you about a 5-7% pattern. Even the most open choke, a cylinder, which has no constriction at all, gives about a 35-40% pattern. And a Shadowrun 2 choke looses effectiveness, due to power penalty at 20 meter but even then shot is spread over a 10 meter pattern at only 20 meters. I’m not sure a blunderbuss loaded with dimes could shoot that open of a pattern let alone a shotshell from a modern or near futuristic shotgun. On top of these unrealistically fast spreading patterns the problem with the –1 to the target number for each range increment make the choke bonus out run the range modifiers very quickly.

Our group has decided on the following changes to make shotgun interesting but much more realistic. We attempted to change the rules as little as possible and still have believable shotgun functionality in the game mechanics.

First thing is when firing shotshells shotguns use the heavy pistol ranges. This make max range for a shotgun about 60 meter which is a bit of a stretch for small diameter bird shot (#9, 8, 7.5) but pretty good for larger diameter bird shot (#6, 5, 4, 2) and buckshot (#2 buck, 00, 000).

Next we simple change the choke selection from 2-10 by increments of 1, to 10-30 by increments of 5. This corresponds nicely to standard chokes:

Cylinder (10)
Improved Cylinder (15)
Modified (20)
Improved Modified (25)
Full (30)

All other choke rules for the modifiers to hit and decrease in power stay exactly the same.

This is slightly generous in pattern size when compared to real shotguns but is very playable and still gives the shotgun an interesting short/medium range edge while not making it munchkin out with its outrageous modifiers to hit as originally written.

With these changes a full choke (30) at 40 meter has a 2 meter wide pattern a –1 power and +1 to hit.

A cylinder choke (10) at 40 meters has a 4 meter pattern with –4 power +4 to hit. A little bit open compared to reality but it works nice in the game mechanics and is far more realistic then the original version.

If you hash out the above in a spread sheet it works pretty good. It does get a little funny with the ranges and choke sometime making it easier to hit if the target was another meter farther way because of the choke intervals but it does give a much more realistic feel to shotgun then the rules as lay out.

I would love to here your comments.
mcb

My group has never used the choke rules due to not really understanding their purpose. If nothing else, you description above has helped me to understand what shotgun choke is. Whether or not we use the rules notwithstanding, I still appreciate that

A few earlier threads:
Correction of "Shotgun Sickness"
Shotguns and Choke

I'm sure what you put down is workable. My objection with that is that if you wish for believable shotguns, you just can't use the -1 Power/extra meter of spread. 5D(f) damage when the pattern is spread over 12.5m^2 area (2 meter radius circle) is just fucking insane. But if you forget about that, it's OK.

I agree its a bit generous, but is a nice compromise between realism, game balance and keeping game mechanics simple. Also I figure most characters shooting shotshells in a combat situation would be using buckshot. Figure a 3" 12 gage shell spits twelve 00 pellets with each one of those pellets having about the same energy as 38 special. 2-3 of those pellets really ruins your day.

Like I said earlier the pattern spread even with our changes is still generous in size and thus the damage does get spread a bit thick. The damage value is good in my opinion, buckshot should be xD on unarmored targets. Remember that if the target is wearing any type of armor the damage goes down to xM. At close range there are few shoulder mounted weapon as deadly on soft targets as a 12ga shooting buckshot.

Maybe make a rule that if its bird shot then the damage does not stage up from xS to xD. It stays at xS for unarmored and goes to xM for armored personnel.

How does it go down to xM for armored targets? I still see xS with 2X impact.
As for birdshot, if you want to make new rules for it, that's fine, but you don't have to make rules to handle it already existing because it essentially doesn't exist.

~J

Doh! my bad. I had miss read that part. Armor still get a bonus against shotshells. 2x impact if it higher then the ballistic as you state.

Sorry

mcb, nice work. Well thought out and described well.

SR3 Choke rules are a little silly. To add balance, I created a house rule:

-1 Power/-1 TN per meter spread as per usual for choke.

However, every 3M of spread permanently reduces the Damage Level by one level, to a minimum of Light damage. Extra successes cannot be used to stage up damage, however they have to be rolled off by defender before staging the Light wound down to nothing.

So a Burst Fire from a Franchi-SPAS 22 with a damage of 13D, at 96 feet with a choke of 8 would give you a spread of 12m, power level of 1, TN mod of -12, and a maximum Damage of Light.

I like you idea of reducing the damage level as the shot spreads especially for bird shot, but I think you miss the point that the choke rules as written let the pattern spread way too fast. We have not had a chance to play with our tweak to the rules much yet so I am not sure that only the power loss will be enough to properly balance the advantage the spread gives you but we will see.

I personally think that it will work well. As I have stated before buckshot is extremely lethal out to 40 yds and deer are often shot out to ranges of 60-70 yards with good results. So for now I'm incline to leave the damage were its at least untill we get some more play in.