My Search-Fu is apparently weak as I cannot find the threads that sparked these thoughts.

After poking through the archives and reading several threads regarding the way firearms are broken up into categories and people's disapproval thereof, I submit the following thoughts:

We now have five firearms skills (one of them being a logical amalgamation of several formerly exotic weapons):

Short Arms: Tasers, Holdouts, Light Pistols, Heavy Pistols, Machine Pistols and Submachine Guns fall into this category. Loosely defined as a gun that can be fire effectively with one hand. In addition, they are also, almost without exception, short range weapons that fire large, low velocity projectiles.
Long Arms: Shotguns, Sport Rifles, Sniper Rifles and Assault Rifles fall into this category. Loosely defined as 'small arms' that need two hands to fire.
Heavy Weapons: As per RAW, with the addition of Water Cannons and Flamers. A bunch of large, generally military grade, quite often explosive weapons thrown into one big category for convenience.
Beam Weapons: Any 'weapon' that shoots electromagnetic radiation. Target designators, Lasers, HERF guns and the Pain Inducer would fall into this category. These weapons all hit nearly instantaneously, generate no recoil and have very different operational requirements than traditional firearms.
Automatics: Acts as recoil compensation equal to it's rating.

No more using the 'automatics' skill for SA on an assault rifle despite using the 'longarms' skill for SA on a sport rifle despite them sometimes being the same damn gun with different trigger groups. No more mooks being totally unable to use the automatic features of their bare-bones automatic weapons.

There are some issues with handling Automatics this way. Off the top of my head, the worst I've come up with is someone with Automatics 7(+2 HMG) going Rambo with a totally uncompensated HMG with no penalty. Then again, is that really any worse from a gameplay perspective than the existence of the Barret 121? In any case, its simple, glaringly logical, and fixes a couple of problems such as low-level opponents not being able to use their weapons.

Discuss or Ignore at your discretion.

I'd suggest dropping Automatics as a skill but make up a seperate technique - like the martial arts maneuvers from Arsenal - that gives you a natural ability to apply 1/2 the skill rating (round up) of the applicaple weapon (short arms, long arms, etc.) as innate recoil compensation. Balance and tweak to your liking.

Or double the recoil mods for burst and autofire for those w/o the skill/manuever.

Carrot or Stick? It depends on which way you want to go, but note that the rules have to make sense for people without the huge-ass-dicepools that dumpshock-approved runners seem to sport, and if they simply can't hit with automatic fire, then it's a bust.

I'm all for a bit more grit, in this regard. There is a reason why there were several hundred thousand rounds of autofire used in Vietnam per enemy casualty and it's not because autofire is TEH ROXOR, especially with untrained idiots.

Looks kinda nice.
I assume taser are used with the short arms skill?

Tazers and firearms are like softball and shotput. Yeah, they both toss stuff but they ain't even in the same athletic category.

I would treat tazers as an exotic weapon and bring that handy-dandy gelpack gun from the base book into the fold of shortarms, myself.

Yeah. "Point and shoot" versus "point and shoot" is like apples and oranges, man. That's why it takes years -- nay, decades -- to learn to use a taser, especially if you're already trained in the use fo pistols. I mean, my God. Those rent-a-cops and little old ladies running around with tasers. You think they're chumps? Pfft, they got more training than a Green Beret ninja. And they had to go to some exotic out of the way place to learn how to use 'em, too. Word.

Same goes for those crazy Ares Squirts. Yowza. All those little kids who go running around with their versions of one are Kung Fu geniuses, especially the ones who can nail you from three meters away. Woo baby.

(Hopefully my disdain for the Exotic Ranged Weapons skill with regards to shit like this is finding its way through the sarcasm.)

I have a big problem with the exotic skills in general. Ok, not the actual idea of the skill. I mean, if you want to use, say, some kind of triple-barreled spinning gun that works by pulling a cord and mixing a chemical together, I can see why that would be under Exotic Ranged. If you want to staple a knife to a hammer and then mount the hammer on a beer helmet and use it as a weapon, I suppose I can count that as Exotic. But when stuff like a knee spike requires me to use an Exotic Melee Weapon(they count implants in strange places. and a knee is a strange place, apparently-last I read, unless they changed it. I guess the expert brawler sam forgets how to knee people if his spike is out), or a gun that is rather similar to something a gun expert would know how to use needs Exotic Ranged, I start asking questions, and then houseruling.

Heh... aheh... haha... ahahaha! BWHAHAHAHAAAAA!

*ahem*
...

Thanks, I needed that.

I took around thirty minutes writing and rereading this post just to make sure I didn't miss anything and I leave out the damn tazers. Also, Flamers (and their slightly less roasty cousin, water cannons) should be added to the heavy weapons category. OP has been edited to reflect this. I hate the exotic weapon rules too, El Fefnir.


I would tend to think that has more to do with the fact they were constantly using supression fire and shooting at glimpsed shadows in the jungle rather than the inherrent worthlessness of autofire, but that may be just me. If the target is clearly visible and under 50 meters away, a trained shooter should hit with a significant number of rounds even using ten round bursts. The better he is at controlling recoil, the higher his hit percentage will be. Also, your example would not be 'grit', it would be 'realism based on statistics from the Vietnam War which bares little resemblance to the world of ShadowRun'.

There, fixed it for you.

I agree on the "Exotic Ranged Weapon" bit as well, but we didn't write the damn thing so...we be hosed.

Actually, the main improvements in per-round casualty rates are due to a focus in training on semi-auto aimed fire and the inclusion of standard aiming devices and scope-type sights to the basic infantryman. I can only see smartguns and similar technology as further increasing this dramatic improvement in per-soldier and per-round lethality as long as they're not blowing 90% of their ammo at low-flying aircraft.

When they first had a look at the M14 rifle back in the 50s, the Army guys were 18 kinds of fired up by the SA demo team's ability to lay down accurate autofire during their little dog and pony shows. Of course, once the M14 came into general use they quickly discovered that when it comes to accurate autofire from this weapon, it really helps to be the SA demo team. The same goes for pretty much any autofire from anything heavier than a SMG like the MP5 (which is much heavier than it strictly has to be for controllability during autofire).

Autofire isn't worthless, it's just usually used incorrectly by those untrained in the specific use of autofiring weapons and the correct tactical application of said autofire. Look at insurgent videos from Afghanistan and Iraq. These show correctly what the indiscriminate use of autofire and a lack in correct tactical and weapons training often results in...pretty much a huge waste of ammunition (but dammit, it sure looks cool to untrained people! ).

I'd love rules for autofire in which the chance to hit with the first round is no less than the chance to hit with a single shot. Maybe rounds after the first have any accuracy, maybe not, but how does the recoil of the second and following rounds affect the accuracy of the first one?

By RAW:
Joe with AGL 3 and Automatics 1 (and no recoil comp) fires an AK-47 at a paper target 10 feet away, with the fire selector on single shot. DP4, he'll probably hit with that one bullet.
Joe flicks the fire selector to Burst, fires a wide long burst. Autofire penalty reduces his DP to 0. The paper target isn't dodging, so walking the shots onto target have no positive effect in game mechanics.

Yep, because no sharp shooter with a pistol has any hope of any accuracy with a taser. Let alone a water pistol. Nailed that one solid.

Defensive tactics instructor walking down the street towards his car parked in a blind alley. Let's say some thug with a Saturday Night Special in his waistband. The instructor sees the thug coming at him in an obviously menacing manner at a distance of 50 feet. Thug starts reaching for his gun and the "victim" goes for his Taser (which is just like a handgun) that he hasn't properly trained with. Thug starts to raise his pistol right about the time the more experienced instructor has his weapon all lined up to fire. The Taser fires fine but DOH! the wire stops at 30ft and falls limp (very much unlike the bullet he's used to which can go for quite a longer distance) while the thug shoots his firearm just fine. Bad day at the office anyone?

You fight as you train so you need to train to not fight like shit.

I'm not saying that the Taser is a completely foreign concept that is so mind-boggling that anyone with previous firearms-exclusive experience won't know which end to point towards their assailant. What I'm saying is that their function, use, and the realities associated with this other weapon system is just different enough that without proper practice and training there is a greatly increased chance of you getting yourself dead.

Case in point. You shoot someone with a handgun and it's pretty damn hard for them to get unshot. They have a hole or holes in them and if it's in the CNS or a major blood bearing organ there is a pretty good chance they won't be up for much more than screaming and bleeding in short order. You shoot someone with a Taser and they will probably go down as well. But once that juice cuts off for any reason at all (or only one of the probes hits them) then they're able to function if they have the will to get back up and get at you again. A bullet has an effect that lasts until the wound heals. A typical Taser charge is of 5 seconds duration without squeezing the trigger again for another 5 second jolt.

But yeah, they work exactly the same, right? I mean there is no difference at all between a firearm that can shoot for up to a mile (in the extremely unlikely event that the sights were lined up in the case of a handgun) and a Taser that can shoot only 30 ft or so. There is no difference at all in how you need to lead your target when you're firing a close to sonic velocity bullet vs. a much slower Taser. There is no difference at all between an immediate, potentially lethal ballistic effect of effectively unlimited duration and 5 seconds of incapacitation per Taser charge.

There is a reason why they have specific Taser tactical courses, after all. And that reason is not, "So all these LEOs can waste taxpayer money". A Taser is used so the officers have a non-lethal or impact-injurous ranged weapon that gives them 5 seconds to get some cuffs on the suspect's twitching ass while they scream like a bitch, not to replace firearms under any stretch of the imagination.

That all true about contemporary tasers, but IMO tasers in SR don't have those wires but shoot capacitator darts.

Any magician will tell you the ones with wire leads are better - because they can be enchanted as weapon foci!

aaaactually... SR tasers go both ways. some have darts, and some use leads.

Depending on how you want to look at it, that effect could already be in the game. The fact that on each bullet after the first adds only 1P could be thought of as modeling the reduced accuracy of subsequent rounds. The kind of detail you sound like you're asking for basically requires each shot to be handled individually which would slow the flow of the game to a crawl. CP2020's combat rules, while considerably more realistic and detailed, were not much fun to play with unless you were looking for hour long turns.

I'm fine with rough and low-detail modelling of the effect of rounds after the first. No, I don't wanna track each round. I want some sort of rapidly-decreasing effect of multiple rounds. For example, take your net hits that add damage, and then roll that many dice, up to # of shots, for even more damage from further rounds. (If you hit well with the first shot, then you're more likely to have multiple hits and thus even higher damage, no?) If you fired more rounds than you got net hits, then those extra rounds are wasted ammo (generally, depending on where the misses end up). This tends to make short bursts a good strategy; it makes long bursts worthwhile on point-blank easy shots, but not when shooting at distant or evasive targets.

I'm still objecting to the reduced accuracy of the first shot. If you fire a burst, you're more likely to miss entirely, than if you fired only one shot. What does that model?

GURPs has a set of "defaulting" rules in which having a high skill with Pistols gives you some advantage when firing weapons with similar grip and sights; better than having no relevant skills, but not as good as when you're firing an actual pistol. I dunno how to model that in SR4. Halved ranks?

Shadowrun had very similar rules. Until the Great Dumbing Down™ that is 4th Edition. In 3rd Edition, which was already a dumbed down version of it, you suffered I believe a -2 penalty to your relevant skill. It's been a while so I may be off. 'Course, the Attribute-Skill dynamic worked completely different then, too, so that wouldn't be a clean translation of the rule either way.

Crazy autofire while screaming is also emblematic of the Vietnam War. Which is why it becomes cool when you also play "Paint It Black" in the background.

To OP... I don't care for it much.

I have my own issue w/ the automatics skill (that it covers everything from MP's to SMG's to AR's simply because they can fire full auto). But using the skill to give essentially a huge dicepool bonus is just wrong. (-2 then -5 dice... for most people means even w/ 3 points RC that second burst takes a -2 penalty). I'd say that borders on broken. Especially if you're firing wide bursts, each point of uncompensated recoil then reduces your attack pool by one, but it also reduces your defenders reaction pool by 1 as well, so it's a net wash (actually it's in your favor as normally attack pool is larger than reaction pool, so each reduction is proportionally more)


I don't like that you break what is essentially 3 different firearms skills down into a mere 2, then use the 3rd to give a major boost to the first 2.

I'd probably look more at a Pistols, ShortArms/Carbines, and LongArms breakdown and eliminate automatics.
Pistols covering pistols and MP's. (change specialization to cover light pistols, heavy pistols, or MP's. No catchall 'automatics' allowed)
Short arms covering short ranged weapons like carbines, shotguns, and SMG's. (EG: short range weapons, and 'hand and a half' weapons which can be used 1 or 2 handed).
Long Arms covering AR's, hunting & sniper rifles.
Heavy Weaps, again no change from SR catchall category for belt-fed & heavy explosive weapons

If you absolutely had to have automatics... use it to cap your relevant gun skill. (EG: pistol 5, automatics 3... firing that MP on BF you only get 3 points since you haven't trained enough to handle automatic fire. If you specialized automatics in MP's then you could use your full 5 dice firing those full auto w/o penalty except for recoil and recoil comp as normal.

Just keep in mind there's a certain arbitrariness to rules systems. You don't want to significantly change karma and skill costs. Also remember that the skill reflects not just point the red dot over the target and squeeze the trigger, but also the maintenance, and proper use, and limitations of each.

Mutant Chronicles actually did that to some degree. You fire a three round burst? Roll one attack using rifles skill (as you aim and pull the trigger), then one using your automatics skill (as you ride the burst). As to defaulting in GURPS, I think that's sort-of the effect SR4 was going for with skill groups.



QFMFT.

Fair enough. Came looking for discussion, not converts. Thank you for actually voicing an opinion on the rules rather than these peripheral discussions.

Isn't that what skills do? Give dice pool bonuses? In this case Automatics isn't even giving a bonus, its negating penalties.
This is, of course totally ignoring the fact that a lot of the guns have RC built into them and that the ones that don't can have RC4 (gas vent 3 and personalized grip) added very easily for only 500Y. If you want to totally trick out certain guns with the Arsenal customization rules you can make guns that generate no recoil at all, even without a gyro. If someone wants to spend precious karma/bp for something that costs so little money, I don't see the problem.

I dispute that it adds too much power to the other skills. It partially negates penalties for a particular sort of action. And no, discounting beam weapons, it went from four to three. Besides, using autofire is considerably weaker (in my opinion) than using the damage increase called shot with a SS or SA weapon.

That said, I don't really have a problem breaking the guns down your way either as long as all are still covered in the Firearms Skill Group. The categories make sense and that is a lot more than can be said for the RAW.

So you go from needing one skill to two? Didn't you say something about not messing with karma costs?
I had considered using the Automatics skill that way but prefered using it as RC. Either way, its better than the RAW.

This of course hinges on whether you think the part of the system in question is well balanced to begin with. If I thought so, I wouldn't be houseruling it.

If I were going to house rule new rules for firearms (and skills in general), I'd approach it from a method similar to -- but nothing like -- the old Skill Web system Shadowrun used to use. Sort of a tiered system, really.

Let's take firearms as an example. I'd make the first tier Common Firearms or something similar. It would cover things like tasers, hold-out and light pistols, shotguns, and pretty much anything your common everyday person would be able to use effectively without too much trouble. It would be an easy skill to level (say the equivalence of a Knowledge Skill). Next would be, maybe, Trained Firearms. The ones you normally only see soldiers, professional hunters, and police officers being trained to use. It would cover Heavy Pistols, Machine Pistols, SMGs, Assault Rifles, Sporting Rifles. Things like that. It would be the equivalence of a normal Active Skill as far as costs go. The next tier would be Advanced Firearms (I know these names suck; bear with me). It would cover Sniper Rifles, Machine Guns, and Rocket Launchers (I'm not too knowledgable on firearms but hopefully you get the idea). This tier would be equivalent to a skill group in price.

Each tier would then include every weapon of its own tier and those below it. If you were to pick up a weapon from a higher tier than you're trained in, you'd suffer a -2 dice pool penalty per difference. Furthermore you could specialize in any individual type of weapon within your tier or those below for the same bonus as the current system, but it wouldn't apply when defaulting.

I think, as a start for house rules, that would be a better way of handling things. Some things are a lot easier to learn and do than other things, and that's something Shadowrun's system doesn't reflect at all. It also covers the basic knowledge you have with related skills without being an all-or-nothing affair. And it's still abstract enough not to be completely jarring to the rest of the system (which is something I hate about most house rules; they try too hard to be realistic). The thing I really like about it is that it not only encourages the use of weapons that most people ignore out of hand, but helps players better decide what weapons and skills to select during character creation. I imagine if such a set of rules existed in the real game, light pistols and shotguns would be a lot more popular without having to redo their indivudual stats.

So. Yeah. If I were really interested in coming up with new rules, that's where I'd start. Dunno if it helps or not.

It sounds like an interesting concept. The ONE thing I might do is put Sporting Rifles a bit lower. Now, Im no gun expert, but the times I fired a regular old hunting rifle, I found it wasn't that hard for me to handle. I know a lot of ''regular Joes'' that hunt, and have never been in any sort of military service and the like.

So far I haven't had too much trouble with the firearms, but what I am trying to do is go through all of these Exotic Skills(ranged and melee) and wondering if they really need to be Exotic. I know there is a lot of subjectivity on that, but I guess I have in my mind something different for Exotic than others, and they have something different from yet another group, etc.

As far as I can recall off the top of my head, the only 'true' exotics in the BBB are the monowhip and the monofilament chainsaw (and even the chainsaw could be argued).

The rest can really be rolled into respective weapon categories.

Funkenstein: Problem I have w/ that is specialization, current model allows one spec per 'class'. You only get one spec overall, so you can't spec in say both your backup SMG and your sniper rifle.

I also disagree w/ one skill for all when you lump in things like exceptional skill and such.

One of the issues I have, is people who think that all guns are the same. If you can fire one you can fire them all well. It's not just a matter of put the red dot over the target pull the switch. You hold and maneuver differently with a rifle, than you do w/ a SMG, and pistols are a major subject of their own! I know people who can fire a rifle like no tomorrow, but are downright awful when it comes to pistols.

That much said... it's not unreasonable for people to use another weapon in a pinch w/o being forced to default. I'd probably remove the defaulting penalty for using various firearms, but not much more... maybe allow a 3 for 1 trade... 6 ranks in pistols means you can 3:1 for 2 ranks in automatics in a pinch, but 2:1 strikes me as too much, as it removes the impetus to take say 1 or 2 ranks plus a specialization.



ReepNeep:
I'm not out to cut you down, just point out what I see as broken attempt to fix it.

The reason I suggested the alternate classing is simple... I wanted to replace 3 firearms skills with 3 firearms skills for karma cost & balance reasons. I didn't want to radically change the system as it's not all that bad.
It struck me that your idea of small and large wasn't half bad, you just lumped too many individual guns under each category IMO.
Just like you, it's kinda silly that Machine Pistol is in a different skill than pistols but in the same skill as an assault rifle. , but IMO works better as pistols, infighting short weapons, and longarms. With a little time to think it through, the only thing I'd add to the post would be short-arms like a SMG take a double penalty for uncompensated recoil if used 1 handed (they have the option of using 1 handed, but pistols are best for that... but with good equipment 1handed use is trivial).


You don't seem to realize, reducing a penalty is exactly the same thing as adding dice for most purposes. And removing dice from both opposing dice pools inordinately favours the larger dice pool, then your skill effectively adds two skills + attribute vs. one attribute (+ dodge if you forego your ability to fight back). Your automatics skill is just outright broken, especially after recoil compensation equipment is added in.

Lets take an example of a typical runner w/ say a dice pool of say 12 dice in his automatics. Firing at someone with upped reaction or actively dodging and a pool of say 7 dice (5rea + 2bio, or 4rea +1dodge + 2ranged spec). Lets say there is zero recoil compensation available.

We'll fire a long wide burst. That's -5 dice to the attack pool reducing it to 7 dice. However the reaction/dodge pool is decimated down to a mere 2 dice. If we add recoil compensation and make it a full wide burst instead reaction goes to zero, and every point of your skill adds more dice to add additional hits increasing damage. Initially the first pool is only about twice as big as the second, but after the burst w/o any recoil comp whatsoever, we're looking at 3.5x as large. If we add in a modest amount of -3 recoil comp... it goes to 5times as big. If we then add your skill on top of it it's pure gravy as now even full auto bursts don't suffer any dice pool mods, and NO ONE is going to realistically dodge them ever w/ -9 to their reaction pool.

Even narrow bursts get nastier... normally every 3 dice is what will get you +1 net hit for damage. But narrow bursts trade +1DV for -1dice... yes you're less likely to hit, but if you do... the damage gets quite sick. A burst on an AR w/o any special ammo goes up to 15P/-1 before net hits. How many things are going to resist that much damage and still be in condition to fight back?! Especially if used for a surprise round where the target is denied reaction.

The auto rules are made to reflect a balance between spraying down the area, and a well aimed narrow salvo potentially doubling the damage.

Falconer i think any character that bents lots of BP/karma for a skill that only gives them recoil compesition, decerve all the extra damage they maybe will be able to do.
Considering their using 24BP/44karma to get 6 points of RC that you can just buy for your gun with 560 (0,112BP/0,224karma)

I know that. We just seem to have different perspectives and I'm enjoying the debate.


I said I wasn't opposed to using pistols/shortarms/longarms. It works alright too. Honestly, the more I think about it its seeming like a better idea to me. The problem is defining 'short arms' in your setup. All you end up with is SMGs and Shotguns. Is anyone even going to want that skill? You lump shotguns in there which I don't agree with as they have far more in common with a rifle than they do with a little SMG.

I'll refine that and say that one handed autofire gets the double penalty. Doesn't make sense for an SMG to get the penalty but a Heavy Pistol not to, even on SS/SA.


It does not enable the person in question to exceed their natural dicepool, so no. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
So you're saying that the Gas Vent 3 is broken? Same effect, and for pocket change instead of precious karma, no less. One thing you might not be remembering is that the bonus damage for autofire does not apply when testing for armor penetration. Damage increasing called shots do.


As I stated earlier, you can already make guns that have no recoil with the rules in Arsenal, so this a bogus argument. Yes, people caught on open ground by opponents that are more skilled than they are are dead meat. Run the same scenario with Shotgun slugs fired on SA and you will end up in the same place, no even worse because of the double hit from the weapon's base damage. Seriously, 7DP will beat 12DP once in a blue moon.


Once again, any automatic in the game can be made to do this with just a few hundred and that's RAW. A high force spirit? An armored vehicle/drone? The troll tank? People in Shadowrun generally don't survive being surprised anyway, PC or NPC. Drones already don't suffer from recoil. This change to the Automatics skill does not result in any large change in the lethality of runner-caliber people.

The balance between wide and narrow bursts was never there to begin with because of the wealth of RC options already available. What's one more?

See my above point about abstract versus realism. The entirity of Shadowrun's rules revolve around an abstraction. Why try to be "realistic" in one area while ignoring it completely in another related one? All of these arguments could be made about pretty much any skill or skill group in the game, not to mention other areas (especially magic). I don't get the fascination with trying to do it with firearms.

<<<raises hand>>>

Because unlike magic, firearms actually exist and there are people on this board who seem to know far more about them than the people who wrote the RAW did? Didn't mean that to sound so snarky, not saying its a good or a bad thing, but that's my theory.

*also raises hand*

I've also thought about this and I agree that the present rules are a bit odd.

I haven't come up with a solution but if I were to make my own house rule I'd probably go with something similar to the rules in the first edition of Conspiracy X. I don't remember it too well since I only played a couple of games years ago but it went something like this.

There were three skills that broke down like this, IIRC:

• Handguns/Pistols - Pretty much anything that can be fired with one hand.
• Longarms - Rifles, Assault Rifles, Shotguns, etc.
• Autofire - Used only when firing in Burst/Auto. I think you could not use an AF skill higher than the relevant gun skill (so someone with pistol 4, AF 6 would roll 4 dice for a machine pistol) but I'm not sure.

I think it should work. wanna be a good sniper? Get a high Longarms skill, wanna be Chow Yun Fat? Ambidex and high Pistols. Wanna shoot a minigun? Get a high Autofire skill.


I also agree that Exotic Weapon Skill is lame. One idea I came up with is to use the most similar skill, say Pistols for a Gyrojet Pistol or Ares Squirt but have a small penalty, say -2 dice. This penalty could be removed by getting a "Proficiency" (for lack of a better term, taking suggestions) in the relevant weapon at a cost similar to either a Specialization or a Martial Arts maneuver. From then on that character would consider that weapon to be a normal weapon of the relevant type. So someone who got Gyrojet Proficiency would in all ways consider the Gyrojet Pistol a normal Pistol and could even get a Gyrojet specialization for his Psitols skill.


So, what do you think?

Again, if you MODIFY the gun gun to have all that recoil comp you're good. But that eats up a good third to half your mod space in most weapons. Now you have more mod space for other mods.... such as hyper-velocity throwing out even more damage w/ less need for recoil comp which would normally use up that space. That's a balance problem.

My issue is the rules seem to balance SMG's and AR's around that they can only get enough recoil comp to handle wide burst... as soon as you add a skill stacking on top of equipment things break, and suddenly full bursts are the default action and anyone caught downrange has zero chance of avoiding hits, because of the largescale obliteration of reaction pools from wide bursts.

Generally, getting full recoil comp for full auto means you have to immobilize the gun w/ a bipod/tripod in most cases for full auto.

Again I repeat removing a penalty is the same, if it means that you're far more likely to use that action. I'm dead set against the precedent of using 2 skills stacked together (even if one just reduces penalties) against 1 on the other side. That's a problem. That's one of the reaosns magic gets so much flak because you have two stats against 1 (wil or bod). Here you're throwing *3* skills against 1. That's just a bad game mechanic.

Lets put this into another context... Every rank in automatics as you have it written correlates directly into either a +1DV, or -1reaction on the target. Each and every rank.. that is frankly overpowered and broken. Not for each hit rolled, but each and every rank! And that's before we even add in equipment benefits.

I'd divide the weapon skills and their use rather like this:
Pistols - You hold it in one hand and shoot SS, SA or BF
Long Arms - You hold it in both hands and shoot SS, SA or BF
Automatics - How ever you hold it but you shoot FA
Heavy weapons-as is in the core.
Exotics to only laser weapons

Is it now? Even though you can add RC 4 to a gun using Accessories before even using a single Modification slot or using a gyro? Seriously, RC from gun paid for with a little bit of money, and RC from skill paid for with karma and its the one that costs karma that you have a problem with? Despite the fact that you can already nearly completely compensate any gun in the game with accessories and modifications without resorting to a tripod or gyro?

You really don't know how high you can go with just hardware, do you?
Picture everyone's favorite God Gun, the Ares Alpha with:
Accessories: Shock Pad(1) Gas Vent 3(3)
Modifications: Heavy Barrel(1) Personalized Grip(1) Foregrip(1)
All this stuff combined with the Alpha's innate RC2 adds up to RC9. Do the same with the significantly more ghetto AK97 and you get RC7. Replace the Foregrip mod with a Gyro and you get up to RC14 with the Alpha. Thats enough to fully compensate a fucking minigun.

The problem with magic is that all you get is that one willpower roll. With guns, you still get body+armor+relevant bioware even if you fail your dodge.
No, you're still attacking with Stat+Skill because the Automatics doesn't stack with the gun skill, you just take a smaller penalty just like you would using a gun with a Gas Vent. It also doesn't help with the real killers of ranged dicepools: modifiers for vision, motion and cover.

Thats a rather extreme way of looking at it. You get the same results from tracers, smartlinks, gun mounted RC (which I have already demonstrated can totally compensate a full burst without immobilizing you) and skill/stat improvements.

Hmm... just for arguments sake, IIRC you can only manage 3 points recoil comp from modifications. The special firing chamber counts as one of the mods in arsenal already built into the alpha (so doesn't take up mod space).

Please forgive me as I only have a SR4 pdf handy, my books for the rest are away. But the chamber doesn't stack w/ personalized grip IIRC. In arsenal it lists which mods count as the same -1 (ares is special and has it's -2 instead of a -1 there, not that odd as the white knight has a special -5 gas vent, so not all that odd for some guns to have a better mod built in than the 'mod' itself). Please check arsenal, but I thought the shock pad was not cumulative w/ a sling or foregrip, so you may be overstacking. If I'm wrong I'm wrong... but I'm still 1 short, and only for the ares w/ it's 'special chamber'. For any other SMG or AR w/o that special feature you're 1 point RC less.

Heavy Barrel is -1 to the fully auto bursts only.
You have -2 from one source already, -1 + -1 from the two other ones. -3 from gas3. I see a -7 to a full burst, -6 if you fired two seperate bursts in the pass (you can fire a short and a long burst in a single IP for a total of 9 rounds). In either case short, switch, long, or full burst.

If we modify the gun to have hyper-velocity, you need 11 points or RC (and you can fire 2 long bursts per IP IIRC).

Another thing to consider is if you silence/suppress you cannot get 3 points of RC from gas3. Since most runners are stealth obsessed, this is a huge drawback especially to SMG's.

Gyro-mounts are special... I don't think they're quite germaine to this, as they're normally only used w/ heavy weapons... they're basically a mobile tripod. Wearing one has drawbacks as well as benefits. You suffer a sever stealth penalty for wearing one... and you're not going to be 'carrying it hidden'. You're talking about a skill which completely replaces it here. The guards see someone walking up to the gate who looks pretty normal, he whips out a SMG and hoses em down... vs. the guards see someone coming towards them in an assault rig and a gun in a gyro-mount... they're taking cover now and hitting the panic button.

But back to my point.... +1 DV is roughly equivalent to -3 armor. So if your skill adds +1DV through narrow burst, you've effectively negated 3 points of armor of soak. So 1 point of skill eliminates 3 points of armor... that's wrong. If used on wide, 1 rank in skill eliminates one point of reaction pool. Throw in that reaction pool already degrades for each individual attack and you see the problem.

Stop and ask yourself this. Is shadowrun gun combat deadly enough already, or not deadly enough? I think the vast majority of people will answer it's already quite deadly and doesn't need to be made more so. By hypercharging recoil comp w/ an additional source of comp from a skill, you've effectively made it an order of magnitude more deadly. Best of luck w/ your game, but I think you're going to make your players a bit miserable when these rules are turned against them. (I'm a firm believer in if the PC's can or will abuse something, so can the NPC's).

Pre-existing modifications and accessories don't count against your limit for vehicles or weapons.

No, it stacks with everything and it's not a mod wound in arsenal.


Lets start with gas-vent 3 and foregrip as accessoris for RC4.
And then add in the sling and personalised grip for a total of 6 ponts of RC costing only 610 and 1 mod slot.

Funkenstein: I'm aware of that... my point was that OTHER mods used to reduce compensation will still eat up space. If you replace that recoil mod with a STACKING skill... now you don't need to use up that space and can use it for other gun modifications (hyper velocity, drum mags, drum mags w/ dual feeds giving monstrous ammo capacity... etc.) making the gun more powerfull than it can otherwise be.


Max, I was referring to non gas mods... I wasn't clear on that. (his original example used the barrel accessory gas3, not the mod gas3).

And in Arsenal there's an electronic firing system chamber mod which provides 1 point of recoil comp which doesn't stack w/ certain other mods. I'd say the ares alpha mod counts the same as it's an inbuilt chamber-modification. And if we go to a less contentious AR like the AK or colt this point of contention goes away. I think we can both agree, it's fair to say the Ares itself has 2 points or 1 point of exceptional recoil comp (depending whether you as GM consider it taking up the chamber mod or not).


In the end, I'm only trying to explain to the OP why this is going to supercharge his automatics and make them far more deadlier than they already are. It's his game, I just don't want to see him regret doing something like this. (especially when the NPC's turn this stuff right back on the PC's).

Another way to go might be:

Handguns - Semi-automatic pistols and revolvers
Longarms - sporting and/or civilian bolt, lever, pump, and semi-auto rifles/shotguns
Police Weapons - Tazers, stingball guns, gas and non-lethal grenade shells, etc.
Military Weapons - automatic rifles, non-mounted MGs, automatic SMGs, GLs, maybe single-shot LAWs as this is a basic infantry weapon.

Heavy Weapons - Any weapon too heavy for single-person, non-metahuman portability that is mounted but is not relying upon electro-mechanical sighting systems and/or fire controls.

Gunnery - Any weapon fired or aimed via purely electro-mechanical means.

Comments? Other ideas?

The best I've been able to come up with using Mods exclusively is a Gasvent 3, Foregrip, Sling and Personalized Grip for a total of RC6 and four slots. Yes, I made extra special sure they're all compatible.
The firing chamber is 'magic' RC that stacks with everything and can't be added to a gun that doesn't already have it. This, along with the decent integral grenade launcher, is the reason the Alpha is in the running for the game's best gun. There is no 'special firing chamber' mod in Arsenal (If you can find one, please post as I want to use it ).

The only thing the Personalized Grip doesn't stack with is Electronic Firing (see Arsenal p148).
You're half right about the Shock Pad. It isn't compatible with a sling, but is with a foregrip.
Thank you for making me look at the White Knight again. I was remembering the 'cannot be further upgraded' line as referring to the weapon as a whole but the wording only references the funky gas vent system. Now I have a reason to buy one (Waagh! Dakka Dakka Dakka! ).

Never noticed that stipulation about the Heavy Barrel, so thank you. Still its certainly a relevant mod for a weapon designed for fully compensated full bursts, right?
HV weapons is where you get into Cyberarm Gyro territory if you want full compensation. Or you could just eat the small penalty. Or you could spend a bunch of Karma to negate said small penalty.
If we're talking about the Alpha, it gets a big fat 0 penalty to both full bursts and a combination short+long burst in the same round. The AK97 gets a -2 or -0/-1 penalty for the same.

Best I've been able to figure here is RC4: Auto Adjusting Weight(2), Sling(1 and improved concealment) and Electronic Firing(1 and adds penalty to perception) with the added constraint I wouldn't use a mod that negatively affected concealability. After this, you would need 20BP/32Karma to totally compensate a non-HV SMG. If some nutter wants to blow that much Karma on what basically amounts to a gimmick that really won't increase their ability to do their chosen job, more power to them.

And when the biomonitors sewn into their uniforms report they just went flatline, what next? Or if someone is simply watching the gate camera feed when you go Solid Snake on the poor guards? Geeking people and subtlety are casual acquaintances at best.
You're forgetting the totally concealable cyberarm gyros here. They only provide RC3 instead of RC6, though. I'm providing an alternative, not a replacement. The gyromount costs 3000 , while getting equivalent RC out of the automatics skill will run you 24 BP or 44 Karma. That's equivalent to 120,000 or 110,000 . Hell, suppression firing Gamma Scorp capsule rounds is cheaper than that.

Stop and think about what you just said. What I'm hearing from you is that RC in general is wrong as any other dicepool change does the same thing and you can fully compensate just about any gun already.
Its also more complicated than that. There's a reason that APDS is considered to be better than EXEX and it's not the glitch effects. +1DV only adds a +1 to armor penetration while -3AP adds a +3. Add to this the fact that the DV bonus from autofire doesn't apply when testing for armor penetration. Once you add edge into the defender's test it really starts to slant in the favor of AP as it reduces the number of dice available to reroll.

The 'bandwagon' argument won't work on me and you shouldn't presume to speak for others. My answer is that it depends on what class of weapon you're talking about. Light pistols and holdouts? They're fine. Assault Cannons (particularly the poor, much abused Assault Cannons), MMGs, HMGs and Rockets? They were unduly hit hard with the Nerf bat. I have not 'hypercharged' anything as you can already totally compensate full bursts with whats already in the books and combat would only be marginally more deadly at most.

I don't GM, by the way. Never had the sustainable creativity for it. In my current game I have an automatic grenade launcher that I only use with smokers because I don't want to provoke the Wrath of God.

This real change this rule makes is that it allows those poor hapless mooks to use low grade autofire without ending up with a negative dicepool. The gangers and the low grade CorpSec who are throwing 6-8 dice using weapons with no RC at all will never use autofire beyond three rounds because they'll never hit anything. The samurai-caliber people (who you keep using in your arguments) already have access to fully compensated weapons and can sling the bullets about in any manner they choose if they even bother with autofire to begin with.

Electronic firing is much more than an chamber modification and considering that FN P93 Praetor can be bought with both, you really have no basis in saying their the same thing.

Let's assume for a second I'm going to fire one full auto every IP.

I have Agi 6 + skill 5 + spec + smartgun for 15 dice.

So now I'm rolling 4 dice for my full auto.

I now take 3 ranks in your version of the automatics skill.

Now I'm rolling 7 dice.

Looks a lot like I'm rolling stat + skill + skill when I autofire, doesn't it?

That's the core argument behind Falconer's argument, and I, for one, agree with him. Yes, it's only in the case of firing full auto / 2x long burst, and yes there are other ways to get recoil comp, but it's still breaks the system slightly.

My vote: Gunnery for vehicle/drone - mounted weapons
Handguns for pistols / SMG's
Longarms for rifles / shotguns / LMG's
Launchers for, well, launchers (underslung or shoulder-mounted)
Exotics for laser weaponry or other beams (HERF gun)

Notes:
Alternately, LMG's could be rolled into gunnery.
Tasers / squirt-gun / needler could be rolled into handguns (I believe they're all one-handed, and they're all short range).
Firearms skill group would be handguns + longarms + gunnery (or possibly launchers)

You know, I really like that way of grouping the weapons and I think I'm going to steal it. *yoink*
One question, though. Where does the PAC go in this? Launchers?

I understand Falconer's argument perfectly, I just disagree with him. My position, boiled down to it's essentials, is this: Why is Stat+Skill1+Skill2 so much worse than Stat+Skill1+Hardware? Especially when they both have the same hard limit of DP <= Stat+Skill1 that both are more than capable of reaching? You're arguing its wrong because of the method used to get there and I'm arguing that both methods are functionally equivalent with the latter being far more expensive to the character. I'm not seeing any breakage at all, it only makes sammys slightly less dependent on their toys at the cost of a good deal of extra karma. *shrugs*

One thing I am toying with is disallowing specializatons on Automatics as that lowers the karma cost too much for my liking.

Those DPs should be 6(15-9) and 9(15-9+3), I think.

Point 1: Glad you like the system. =)

I'm assuming 'PAC' stands for Panther Assault Cannon - for assault cannons / miniguns and other extra-heavy weapons that weren't designed for man-portability, you could either roll them into gunnery, into longarms or change 'launchers' to 'heavy' and put them there. I prefer the first option, though, because launchers covers things like bola-launchers, though either's good.

Point 2: because it's not a choice between stat + skill + gear vs. stat + skill1 + skill2, it's stat + skill + gear vs. stat + skill1 + skill2 + gear. You could just chuck a couple of points in automatics, then ditch a weapon mod or two from your recoil comp and get other funky things like extended clip etc.

It's true that you can trick out a weapon to have no recoil even with maximum fire rate, but even then 6 ranks in automatics frees up 6 RC worth of wepon mods for other things. The two character's dice pools may be the same, but character 2 has the option of picking up extra options that character 1 cannot without reducing his dice pool.

Point 3: I was working under the assumption that autofire was 12 bullets = 11 recoil, though if I'm wrong, you can use long burst x2 to get the same 11 recoil on the second burst.

That tiny bit of potential power creep is something I'm more than willing to accept for the added logical consistency and simplicity, especially if the sammy is willing to pay precious karma for what he could easily just drop some cred on. I've never thought that most of the non-RC weapon mods were all that attractive with a couple of exceptions. The fact that mooks can actually use low-grade autofire in combat with their unmodified weapons more than compensates for a couple extra toys the sammy can pack into his gun. Just my opinion, of course.

Another thought just hit me. You should have to split the Automatics RC evenly between hands if you're dual wielding SMGs or something similar. Round fractions down.

Full Bursts only use twelve rounds if its coming from an Hyper Velocity weapon like the Ares HVAR. They can also fire two long bursts in a pass, like you said. Standard automatic weapons fire ten round full bursts and only one long burst and one short burst in a pass. The only other variant to this is the Minigun template which I don't remember the details of, as no one in a game I've played in has used one.