As per RAW-Suppressive fire lasts until the PC's next IP. This leads to a paradox where the 4IP street sam uses 4 times as much ammo as a 1 IP grunt to do the same thing for the entire combat round.

1. Did I get the rules right? (no books on me)
2. Has this ever come up in your game?
3. What, if any, house rules did you make to address this?
4. Is it really a non-issue?

I noticed this too.

Remember though that the sammy only needs to use his first IP to suppress everyone with 1 IP. If he suppresses, all the grunts duck, and then he has all the rest of his IPs to run up and melee, or toss a grenade, or whatever else he wants to do. If he's facing cybered opposition, he might need to spend more bullets to keep them suppressed.

Of course, this doesn't fix the reverse problem, that a grunt can keep a sammy suppressed for all his IPs by just spending one. Suggestions?

You could allow a character to skip an IP in order to continue a sustained action.

Given that the wired up guy still gets his Reaction+Edge+Cover bonus on the test when he pokes his head out to gun down the supressing guy. That pool will probably be far larger than the suppressing guard's pool. More importantly, if he does get hit, it's probably not more than a 6P hit with a -1 AP, which is pretty much guaranteed to be converted to Stun damage, most of which will be soaked.

I like this solution. Just have the initial expenditure of bullets and if the sammy wants to continue suppressing, he just declares it as a complex action with no further ammo spent.

Two ways you can handle this via House Rule:

1) Divide the number of rounds used for suppressive fire by the number of initiative passes the PC has, and use this as the number of rounds used per IP.

2) Have suppressive fire only last for a single full IP. If the person firing to suppress has an 11 init and one IP pass, the suppressive fire only lasts until init 11 on IP pass 2.

Um, is that SR3? In SR4 it's just Edge+Cover. Or did SR4A erata it and I missed it?

SR4A pg 154:
"Any character that is currently in the suppressed area (but not
behind cover or prone), or who moves into or out of the area before the
shooter’s next Action Phase, risks catching some flying lead. That character
must make a Reaction + Edge Test (+ Dodge if on full defense)
with a threshold equal to the hits scored by the suppressing attacker."

Per SR4A, it's Reaction+Edge, though I'm extrapolating that Cover would apply since you're defending against a ranged attack.

Which looks like being behind cover means you're completely protected against suppressive fire, rather than getting a bonus to avoid it.

According to RAW, that looks to be the case, any cover would keep you from being suppressed. That is not the way I play it though, if you are in anything less than full cover I would make you take the soak roll and add the cover modifier as a bonus to the pool.

From the same SR4A section on p. 154, it would seem that a prone character (maybe already prone?) need not worry about suppressive fire, and may return fire as he sees fit.

Thanks for bringing the change to my attention.

The Combat Sense adept power would also apply given the wording.

But as to being fully behind cover... THAT'S THE POINT! *grin*

You're shooting to keep the defender suppressed - keep their head down or at least force them to act circumspectly.

The rule specifies full cover, not partial, so if you expose any part of yourself to shoot back, you'd be subject to wandering damage.

If it were limited to being fully behind cover, I'd agree. However, the rules make no such restriction.

Being prone is enough to completely protect against suppressive fire, and gives the same bonus as good cover against other attacks - implying that good cover would also be enough.

There's absolutely no qualifiers on the "behind cover" protection, which implies that any cover, even the partial cover that leaves at least 50% of the defender's body exposed, is enough to provide absolute safety from suppressive fire.

Of these, only good cover causes any penalty for them to return fire, and that one is only a -2. Which means that if these are all enough to protect against suppressive fire, it's failing at its intended purpose of pinning the target down.

If you choose to act while in the area of suppressive fire you risk catching a bullet. If you don't act, dropping prone or taking cover, you avoid the effects. Without worrying about the details of where every bullet went or resolving aiming or any other details a shooter using suppressive fire is accomplishing what they want. Discouraging opponents in the target are from acting. If someone does choose to act, then more dice rolls. You want to take a risk, then we get dice rolls to model it.

The qualifier is there. Per SR4A, page 154: "Characters in the suppressed area who do not move, remain behind full cover, or simply drop prone are not at risk."

Oddly, while being prone does grant you immunity to suppressive fire, it doesn't actually help you with avoiding directed fire beyond the obvious of making it easier to take advantage of any ground cover (curbs, dropped motorcycles, dead bystanders, and so on).

Huh. Missed the later part. Given that I like that reading better (though I could potentially still argue for why the RAW supports the other one), I'm going to concede the point.

On the subject of being prone, see page 160:
Defender/Tar get has Good Cover
If more than 50 percent of the defender’s form is obscured by intervening terrain or cover, he gains a +4 dice pool modifier to his Defense roll against any attack. This modifier can also apply to prone targets that are at least 20 meters away from their attackers. This modifier too is applicable to both Ranged Combat and Spellcasting.

I don't think it's that odd. The goal of suppressive fire is to suppress, to keep your head down- if it hits someone, great, but that's not strictly speaking what it's for.

I don't consider it odd that hugging the deck under someone's cone of fire will reduce the risk that you'll catch a stray round. I consider it odd that someone lying down on an open featureless plain is as easy to hit with direct fire as they would be if they were standing straight up.

But this really is going way off target. The point being that yes, the unaugmented shmuck does get a lot more suppression per round than the wired up supertranshuman, but that he's far less likely to effectively suppress the vatjob.

I really liked the idea of breaking the number of rounds into four, per IP. Guns don't really fire any faster for the augmented than the mundane. Mind you, the augmented still gets up to 4 long bursts per turn in theory but... I'm not touching that at this point.

Actually a prone target at distance is a harder to hit target. Even though you don't see most players do it, that +4 to defend from dropping prone is a useful thing to use to help your NPCs live a little longer and actually get to shoot back at the PCs.

Thanks for the speciffic, I wanted to toss it up but didn't have the BBB handy.

Now, if you can go prone behind even a LITTLE cover... every infantryman knows that even the least depression or rise to hid behind can make the diference between life and death. Those shovels aren't for digging trenches and foxholes (well, ok, but it takes a while) - they're for digging quick and dirty slit depressions to lower your profile just that extra couple inches.

Characters who do not move? Does this mean you can be safe from suppressive fire just by standing still?

My example was based on the rules, not on reality. I was looking through SR4A and I couldn't find any reference to there being a defense bonus for being prone because it's apparently buried in the section on good cover. Having found it, I stand corrected.

The sentence quoted here is out of context, if you read the previous sentences from this section you will realize that it is referring to moving in or out of the the suppressed area:

Any character that is currently in the suppressed area (but not
behind cover or prone), or who moves into or out of the area before the
shooter’s next Action Phase, risks catching some flying lead. That character
must make a Reaction + Edge Test (+ Dodge if on full defense)
with a threshold equal to the hits scored by the suppressing attacker. If
the test fails, the character is hit, suffering damage at the weapon’s base
Damage Value. Characters in the suppressed area who do not move,
remain behind full cover, or simply drop prone are not at risk.

Actually RL RPMs of WWII era SMGs can support the fire rates in SR. The MP-40 shot 500 RPM (rounds per minute), the Thompson 600 RPM.

Sorry, I wasn't clear:

Weapons don't inherently fire any faster for a character that's enhanced.

Although, now that I think about it, maybe just letting them "sustain" the action (and spend ammo) through all IPs would work best? Eliminates any inconsistency.

Hey 1 question that no ones answered is how often it comes up in a game? Have you seen the mechanic actually used?

Suppression fire? Hell, I used it this weekend with my Ork Goganger in our street level game. AK's gotta be good for something, might as well be spraying an area down. Specially when a bunch of bikers are driving right into the beaten zone.

EDIT: Never mind.

My players use it to keep the mooks at bay and I use it to force the squishies behind cover (even if that is a friendly troll).