Revising Shadowrun Firearms Combat Rules starting from SR 1.

I have been lucky enough to get a hardcover Shadowrun 1st edition and when I read through it in light of how the rules changed in 2nd and 3rd edition, and when I mentally compare it to other simulationistic RPGs like Phoenix Command, or simulationistic computer games like Operation Flashpoint, SWAT 3 or 4, ARMA, etc, I decided that even though I could understand why certain rule changes were made in Shadowrun across the editions that if it had been up to me I would have changed the rules differently to affect a more tactical gaming experience. Similarly if we look at all the hundreds or thousands of posts on DSF about various house rules or critiques I think it's fair to say that everyone has their own very well developed ideas about how they prefer certain aspects of the rules and I also believe that logically speaking it would make more sense for people wanting a revised Shadowrun to start with first edition and work from there instead of trying to apply increasingly complex “patches� to the already-complex SR3.

On and off over the years I've done a lot of work on how SR could implement tactical gaming a little better. Over the past week I've been revisiting a lot of my old thoughts but applying them as a modification of first edition instead of third edition. I'm posting them on this forum to get peoples' thoughts because I also believe that even someone who hasn't seen or played first edition should still be able to get an idea of what I'm trying to do.

Some people might be thinking something along the lines of, 'if he wants to do a simulationistic firefight so badly why doesn't he just play Phoenix Command?'

My response would be that while I love Phoenix Command to death I also have a few critiques of that system (even though it's awesome it's not perfect) and that SR plays a little faster if you want to have some role-playing aspects instead of a pure firefight simulator. Also, if you really like the 80s like I do SR is better for 80s hardcore awesomeness like cyberdecks, rocker archetypes, and Japanacorps teabagging Midwestern auto workers.



Damage Codes:

In SR1 damage codes had Power and Deadliness, but also had a third value, which was how many successes either the shooter or the victim would need to either scale up or scale down damage. In later editions this was dropped and always defaulted to 2. So, basically, a value like 9M5 would mean that your weapon did 9M like in 2nd and 3rd edition, and the 5 meant you needed 5 successes to raise the wound level if you were the shooter, or 5 to lower it if you were the victim.

I think that variable number of successes to scale damage was actually a great idea because it allowed for much more differentiation between weapons. But it doesn't make sense for a weapon to require the same number of successes to either scale up or scale down; if someone shot you with a Barrett in .50 BMG it should be almost impossible for you to scale that damage down but at the same time very easy for the shooter to scale that damage up. My proposed solution would be to simply give a damage code 4 values where the last two values are number of successes needed for the attacker to scale damage up and number of successes needed for the defender to scale damage down, respectively.

For example if we want to argue about 9mm vs. .45 ACP the third value would let us let 9mm have a higher Power (greater muzzle velocity and smaller bullet diameter allows for superior penetration of solid objects), the same Deadliness (dropping either round a whole wound level or raising either round a whole wound level would probably be overkill; Raygun had them both at M but effectively wussified .45 ACP since he was forced to give it a lower Power than 9mm), but then we could make .45 ACP require less successes to scale up, so that we could make it a little more likely to cause more trauma, and 9mm require less successes to scale down, so that it would be a little less likely to cause more trauma. For example we could assign a 1911 the damage code of 6M(1)(3), meaning Power 6, Deadliness M, shooter needs 1 success to scale damage up, defender needs 3 successes to scale damage down. We could assign a Beretta 92F a damage code of 7M(2)(2), meaning Power 7, Deadliness M, shooter needs 2 successes to scale damage up, and defender needs 2 successes to scale damage down. (That's just an example of the general principle. If I were making a weapon table for real use I would think more carefully about it and probably come up with different values.)



Initiative:

I appreciate that multiple actions in one turn is arguably part of the cyberpunk genre, where a wired punk can WTFPWN a room full of straitlaced corporate types by shooting them all before any of them can react, and therefore we can all dye our hair and fight the power.

Unfortunately, multiple actions in one turn has created all kinds of weirdness in the Shadowrun combat system, including time dilation and wired people with pistols having a higher rate of fire than normal people with emplaced machineguns.

To make everything more logically consistent I propose doing away with multiple actions in a combat turn. Improved Reflexes make you more likely to act first but they don't let you act three times. I propose that each turn is equal to about one second, and when your action rolls around you get a your SR3 Free Actions, Complex Action, or 2 Simple Actions.

However, automatic melee counterattacks and Dodge checks amount to extra actions. They're also unrealistic because action is faster than reaction. I propose getting rid of those things entirely on the grounds that you cannot act before your initiative.

If you want to counter attack in melee you must roll a higher initiative than the attacker and then specify that you're delaying your action so that you can counterattack in melee. Since turns are only 1 second long and action is faster than reaction you cannot change your mind about how you want to use your delayed action until next turn.

If you want to use your action to minimize your chances of getting shot you may either use your action to try and sprint behind full or partial cover (or just at least be a moving target), or if for some reason you don't want to sprint but otherwise want to move unpredictably to be hard to shoot you can roll your Athletics dice. I haven't worked out the details yet but a high Athletics skill would help you give TN penalties to people trying to shoot you and I suppose you should be able to use combat pool to help with this. Raygun had a similar rule on his website.



Detailed Recoil and Aimed Automatic Fire, basic concept:

In the first place, with 1 second combat turns, I propose looking up real-world rates of fire for your weapons and setting the maximum rounds fired per turn as equal to the number of rounds that weapon could actually discharge in 1 second.

I think it would make more sense to present recoil as a fraction, (# of rounds fired)/(points of recoil). And then, I wouldn't apply the recoil penalty to the whole attack. If a gun had a recoil value of 2/1, only the second round fired in one combat turn would be penalized due to recoil. The first one would have no recoil penalty.

So if I have a very heavy submachinegun that is firing 9mm rounds, the recoil can be considerably less than if I'm firing a G3, which is a .30 caliber rifle, in full auto. Just as an example, I might decide to give the SMG a recoil rating of 3/1, meaning that a +1 TN penalty would take affect on the third round, and that an additional +1 TN penalty would be added to the sixth round, and that yet another cumulative +1 TN penalty would apply to the ninth round. I might decide to assign the G3 a recoil rating of 2/3, meaning that a +3 TN penalty would take affect on the second round, an additional cumulative +3 TN penalty would apply to the fourth round, and that another cumulative +3 TN penalty would apply on the sixth round.

This is directly related to how to handle aimed automatic fire. How can we treat each round as a separate attack without bogging down the system? I propose that the attacker who is using automatic fire makes 1 attack roll. If the attack is successful the first round hits. Next, we check the results of that roll against the adjusted target number for subsequent rounds as recoil penalties begin to apply. If the attack is still successful the subsequent rounds continue to hit. If the attack is no longer successful the subsequent rounds begin to miss.

So, for example, let's say that I'm using a submachinegun with a recoil rating of 3/1 and I'm shooting at a bad guy and my TN is 4, and I spray 10 rounds at him. Between my skill and my pool I roll 3 dice, and come up with 2, 4, and 8, or 2 successes. This means that rounds 1-2 all hit with 2 successes, but the third round accrues a +1 TN penalty, so that the TN is adjusted to 5, and the third round now only hits with 1 success. Rounds 4 and 5 have the same penalty as round 3, so they also hit with 1 success. Round 6 gets another +1 TN penalty so the TN is adjusted up to 6, but since I had rolled an 8 I am still getting 1 success on my attack roll, and rounds 6, 7, and 8 all hit with 1 success. Rounds 9 and 10 have a TN adjusted up to 7, but again since I had rolled an 8, those rounds also hit with 1 success apiece.

The bad guy has to resist 10 attacks. Unless he's got really good armor he's probably paste.



Get Rid of Called Shots:

Called Shots are logically inconsistent with scaling damage. I propose getting rid of them, but adding the possibility of a round bypassing armor due to hit location (see below).

Suppression Fire or Searching Fire:

The above automatic fire rules make conceptual sense if you think of an aimed shot at a target that gets pushed further and further off target as more rounds fly out but it doesn't make sense for situations where you're firing without carefully aiming at a discrete point, like when you're trying to suppress, or when you don't feel you have a good chance of hitting so you're using automatic fire to increase the odds of a random hit.

For un-aimed fire, I propose rolling a number of dice equal to the number of rounds discharged versus a target number that is subject to a flat unaimed fire TN penalty, range modifiers, cover modifiers, movement modifiers, but not recoil penalties, since the fire isn't aimed anyway. I haven't figured out the details but the idea would be to overall have rather high target numbers but the possibility of rolling very many dice. If there are any hits the damage would scale up or down randomly!

If a number of rounds equal to or greater than a character's Willpower passes within a 5 meter radius of him or her, the character must make an opposed test using Willpower versus one half the number of rounds passing through the 5 meter radius. The character may use Combat Pool to roll additional dice in this opposed test but pool dice do not raise the TN that the suppression fire must roll against. If the character wins he or she is not phazed. If the suppression fire wins, each net success subtracts 1 from the character's current initiative score and initiative score next turn, and every 2 net successes that the suppression fire scores adds a cumulative +1 TN penalty to the character's next action.



Detailed Recoil, Recoil Compensation:

The way SR ended up handling recoil tended towards the crude and eliminated the refinement of differences between weapons in terms of the specific characteristic of how they recoil. In the first place +1TN per round fired is a very significant penalty to apply across the board. Secondly, in spite of that very big simplification, at the same time Shadowrun got very complicated in terms of having across-the-board rules and modifications that would eliminate those points of recoil. We have custom firearm creation rules with counterweights, we have gas vents rating 1-3, we have folding stocks that magically work on SMGs and carbines but if your rifle has a fixed stock it somehow doesn't work, and we have gyro stabilization mounts. That is an extremely long laundry list with an ad hoc approach to recoil compensation which I feel is totally unnecessary, because in real life there are a lot of factors that affect the recoil of a firearm that don't strictly conform to that list. These factors can include the type of ammunition you use (slugs out of a shotgun recoil more than shot, and some people make custom cold-loaded cartridges to reduce recoil for sports purposes), the overall weight of the firearm, the specific construction of the action of the firearm, and the skill of the shooter (someone who has incorrect posture will be hindered much more by recoil more than someone with correct posture). Sometimes firearms vent gasses in certain directions to try and compensate for recoil but not everyone agrees about how helpful those mechanisms are, so I would prefer to not make specific rules for whether or not a firearm vents gasses in that manner.

Instead of trying to list up all possible factors and translate them into a specific bonus, I just think the GM, or the person writing the weapon table, should just assign a recoil value to each weapon based on his or her subjective appraisal of each weapon. Hopefully this person has a lot of experience with firearms and knows what the hell he or she is talking about.

The only universal add-on recoil compensations which I feel should apply in the rules are ammunition type (because ammunition can be customized by a hand loader very specifically to personal preference across the board), and the skill of the shooter (because crap posture will always give crap results).

I'd propose that every 4 levels of skill in the corresponding firearm skill give a character 1 inherent point of recoil compensation when using the appropriate firearm due to refinement of posture and technique. If someone tries to operate a firearm by defaulting to an attribute recoil is doubled due to idiocy.

To simulate homemade cold-loaded ammo, a player character with a reloading kit may reduce the Power of his firearm by 2 in order to gain 1 inherent point of recoil compensation whenever he uses his cold loaded-ammunition with the firearm. Also firing the weapon should be quieter. If the character ever rolls a critical failure while using his firearm, though, the GM can consider that as signifying that a squib round has messed up the character's firearm and depending on how far the GM wants to take that it could result in a destructed firearm if the character keeps firing.

I haven't thought of the details yet but logically a character should also be able to hot-load ammo to get more Power. There should also be a risk of blowing your hand off if you stupidly overpower the ammo and recoil gets increased.



Real-world ammunition and calibers:

Cold loaded ammo and hot loaded ammo are a good transition in to the subject of real-world ammunition and calibers. Logically speaking a way to arrive at the damage codes could be by implementing real-world ammunitions and then modifying the damage codes based on the barrel length or other characteristics of the firearm. What calibers should be implemented and why?

The basics are very universal and are useful as benchmarks if you want to make other more exotic or rare ammunitions:
9mm Parabellum
.45 ACP
5.56 NATO
7.62 NATO
7.62x25
9x18mm
7.62 WP
5.45 WP
.38 Special
.357 Magnum
.380 ACP
.50 BMG
.40 S&W
12 ga. Slug
12 ga. buckshot

Culturally significant for the 80s:
4.73x33 caseless ammunition (for your G11; the big thing about caseless ammo is that the rate of fire is higher than cased ammo, and recoil takes affect later in the burst due to more rounds having left the barrel before the barrel is displaced by recoil)
10mm (for when the FBI implemented it and everyone thought it was the next big thing)

If all that is written up systematically if someone wants to get sexy and do .50 beowulf or run around with a FN Five-seveN they have the basis to do so.

I propose getting rid of magical gel rounds and replacing them with the SR 1 less-lethal ammunition which has the basic restriction that it usually has to be fired from large-bore firearms. They still ought to get the -2 Power penalty since Impact armor is usually lower than Ballistic.

I propose making tasers, flashbangs, and other tactical aides more efficacious. Otherwise they're basically besides the point when you could just have a Shaman playing with nature spirits and their Confusion and Fear powers.




Armor, getting hit, and less-lethal attacks:

Armor could be handled a little more realistically, as could less-lethal attacks including shotguns loaded with beanbag rounds and karate chops.

In the first place armor usually doesn't provide full body coverage. To be more realistic armor would have a percentage body coverage value and every time you are hit you roll a percentile dice to see if the round either hit or bypassed armor. If the round bypassed armor your armor does not apply but there is a 75% chance the damage code is reduced by 1 level since you would have likely been hit in a less important location. Under this system helmets would add to percentage body coverage.

An attack doing physical damage with a Power of less than the armor's relevant rating will do Stun instead of Physical if it does damage. An attack with a Power exceeding the armor's relevant rating will do Physical damage and damage the armor.

An attack that does Stun damage like a karate chop or nonlethal shotgun round may do physical damage. If a nonlethal attack causes at least a Serious stun to a target, the target must also resist equivalent physical damage with half the Power of the original attack. Impact armor helps with this test but combat pool may not be used. This reflects how it is easy to accidentally kill someone with less-lethal force.

With 1 second combat turns a basic melee attack is just a quick jab. Anyone who uses melee attacks may spend an action gathering kinetic power (eg. Winding up for a punch) which raises the damage code on their next melee attack. I have not thought this out fully yet.

Any time someone is hit in combat and then tries to shoot later in the turn turn they suffer from a +4 TN penalty in addition to other penalties that may apply. This is because when you're shot or punched and your body is moved even a little bit it would completely throw off your aim.



Firearms malfunctions:

If you wanted to implement the reliability of various firearms one relatively easy way to do that would be to roll a percentage dice every time a firearm has discharged 100 rounds. The percentage chance of a failure would be affected by the condition of the firearm, the inherent reliability of the mechanism, the quality of the magazines, and the type of ammunition used. If you roll that a failure would occur, roll the percentage dice again and find out on which future round fired the malfunction will occur. It could be anything from a stovepipe to a double feed to the extractor falling out. I think that this would require a GM who knows about firearms but it could finally make a difference in reliability between automatics, revolvers, DAO handguns, bolt actions, etc.


Phew! That's all for now. I've been writing for like 3 hours. Let me know what you think.

I don't know where you came up with the idea that SR was "simulationist"?


Anyways, things you might want to look into adding:


Declare actions before rolling initiative.
Initiative determines what order people act in, not the order in which they decide their actions. So, you should have players declare their actions before they know their initiative order. This'll make combat MUCH more realistic as you never really know who is going to actually get their shot off first.

Making the numbers needed to hit a target static.
If you want a "simulationist" approach to combat, then a person's agility should have nothing to do with how easy they are to hit with a firearm. No amount of Neo-style body contortions that you can actually do can move your COM an appreciable amount so as to make you harder to hit. Especially if you intend to have any chance of shooting back.


Also, I'd keep called shots. Being able to aim for the head or arm or somesuch can be important in certain situations.

My main pet peve with SR is that it has a crying need to hit locations. I mean, you have people with expensive cyber limbs and the only way get them damaged is essentially limited to GM fiat. However this is hard.

If you can make this work the next issue is that armor penetration and damage caused are typically inversely related, as really hard, stable bullets tend to make ice-pick type wounds. One of the things that you can effectively model is what armor a given weapon will not penetrate without some miracle hit. So the effect of shooting a guy wearing a bullet proof vest in the chest with a .22 is nothing. The guy might notice some bruises later, but you are not going to knock him out. So if you have hit locations you can model armor a lot better.

The best way to model a taser effecting someone is that they can't move and will likely fall down, but the effect vanishes as soon as the power is turned out. Essentially it's electronic "decrease agility" F8. Whether it effects them is a bit different, as they are not 100% reliable.

You seriously underestimate how fast people can hit. Someone trained can make at least 3 effective punches in a second. Nobody stands there for a second getting ready to punch. If you do I'm going to move away from you or do something else that makes it impossible for you to launch that attack.


I don't know how to model malfunctions in a way that makes sense. The most common malfunctions are user induced, namely failing to fully seat the mag. But this can be cleared by someone trained in well under a second. Double feeds are typically equipment failures, aka cheap-ass, damaged or worn out magazines, and take a few seconds. But these can normally be detected prior by crushing bad magazines. Failures to extract you are just screwed, but these are typically bad ammo or a filthy gun.

Actually there's a decent critical hit system published for d20 that might be useful for adapting to SR. It's called Torn Asunder and it's either by Bastion Press or DragonWing Games depending on where you look.

Ah, staging codes. Them were the good ol' days. Of course, the whole reason they were abandoned when SR2 came out was because the developers at the time thought they were too complicated for people to understand. You might want to consider that before taking up a system that adds twice the complexity they saw fit to eliminate from the game.

Also, are you intending to use these changes in SR3 or SR4? Staging is designed to work with non-linear damage escalation (1 - 3 - 6 - 10 boxes) so I'm not sure how it'd work in SR4. It would be lame if you had to roll a bunch of hits just to increase the damage by 1 measly box, and it would be complicated by the armor rules, which state that any attack that doesn't exceed the modified armor = stun. Maybe you add half the weapons damage each time you exceed that threshold?

If you want a tactical game for shadowrun I think it is better you find the rules for Downtown Militarized Zone. I had that several years ago and would be a better fit for what you want. As for myself I want a a shadowrun rpg not a Warhammer 40k knockoff. Making combat very complicated is fine if the entire game is about combat. My games are not and nor should they be. Having been in games where combat took 3 hours out of a 4 hour night to me is a wasted night. It is one reason I enjoy the new system more than the old. Easy for players to learn and the GM to get a grasp.

It's not necessarily simulationist. To make it more simulationist would be my personal preference.



I like it!



Thanks for your input and thoughts.

Yes. The way I see it you either have to make *everything* explicit in terms of where stuff hits and eliminate scaling. Scaling is kind of like an abstracted way to do that and therefore as I see it is logically incompatible with hit locations.



Good thoughts, definitely.



I used to participate in a boxing club. Your statements are correct. I didn't get around to putting into my post but I was thinking of making the ability to hit with a lot of power instantaneously contingent on skill level. Someone with low skill has to wind up to hit hard. Someone with high skill can hit hard within a second.

People can certainly punch faster than 1 punch per second, but since your actions in a combat turn could reflect various types of attacks, including quick judo foot sweeps, a shoot, or a kick, I figured that 1 melee attack per second was kind of an average for your basic fast-as-possible attack.




Yes, it's not obvious how to do that "well".

I'll check it out, thanks.

I'm not really familiar with SR4 so if I somehow brought this project to a meaingful conclusion it would probably be more like a SR3 variant.

Well, that's the thing. When I ran some Pheonix Command sample battles it took all evening to do so. My hope with the stuff I'm writing here is to find something that's still realistic but doesn't necessarily take 3 hours for a firefight. Do you think it would take much longer than I'm hoping?

Looking over your proposal it appears you will having 3 times as many rounds of combat as normal. Not a big deal with highly wired reflexes characters , but a much bigger deal if your opponents normally lack wired reflexes. I have always liked the players with the lowest initiative declare their actions first.

As for armor protection it is assumed that it does not fully cover so the rating varies accordingly. I would allow the option to increase the damage, bypass armor or have some other effect such as shooting an antenna on a vehicle, etc by assigning a threshold number higher or requiring a higher number of successes. Let the player roll and then he describe the action accordingly. If you give a base +6 to TN for aimed shot on an armor jacket to bypass for example then the player can describe the hit depending on how well he rolls. If you combine the bypass armor with called shot then raise the number even higher. It may encourage the players to stop head shooting in the middle of combat as you are more likely to miss.

Bullets are probably the easiest to determine with recoil. Just base recoil on the type of bullet and the size of weapon. As this number won't change through out combat it will be much easier for all. Each step up increases recoil and when rifles fire pistol bullets the recoil is less. Submachine guns would fall into the light rifle or heavy pistol category. A snub nose .44 would probably fall into the medium or small pistol due to recoil.
Small pistol .22
Medium Pistol .380
Heavy Pistol .45
Light rifle 5.56mm
Medium Rifle 7.62mm
Heavy rifle 12.5mm

It is the calculations that take longer than the dice rolling. This is why I like a simpler system when you get into a firefight because of the shear volume of combatants. In a sniper situation the tension is more about making a perfect shot where all the calculations are fine as there are only two rolls. 1 for the shot and 1 for the resistance.

I'd go further (I actually do in my games) and ask the players to describe what they intend to do regardless of combat turns (for example "I enter the room, run for cover shooting hostiles if I see any, two bullets for each one of them." or "I shoot that guy twice then shoot this one twice"). This avoid players who waits to know if their opponent is dead before deciding to shoot again at the same enemy or not. I only let them change their course of action if there's something obvious or if they have time (and/or enough tactical sense) to assess the new situation.

At least in SR4....

Called shots can be used in 4 ways, of which you've proposed getting rid of called shots entirely based on one reason. Shooting items out of grasp, targeting a part of the body (BOOM HEADSHOT), or just about any trick shot would require some other rule. All of these uses of called shot have tactical implications. Putting a round through someone's arm or leg to impair movement or ability. Shooting items out of people's grasp. Each of these options impacts or outright impedes the effectiveness of a character in combat.

Otherwise I like the ideas, though I may not use many of them myself.

Armor Auto-successes

One of the things I really liked about first edition was that you armor gave its rating in free success when you were attacked. I think it makes armor more valuable


I shoot a ganger with my Beretta (3M2) and he's wearing an Armored vest with plates, giving him 4 successes on his damage resistance roll, meaning it comes down to my skill to score a better hit.

I get shot with a Panther Assault Cannon (8D8), my Armored Jacker gives me 5 successes, I only need 3 successes at a target number 8 to not die on the spot. Compared to SR2 and 3, where the same Armored Jacket will give me a target number of 13, but only needing two successes.

Shadowrun is not ideal for hard-core simulationism. It relies heavily on abstractions, and as you try to correct them, the system breaks down. Case in point, kzt's comment about hit locations, unless handled very carefully, is likely to cause serious rules bloat, or break the system altogether (since you now have to rework your armor code as well).


Your damage codes idea works, except insofar that it requires people deciding 'which weapons are best' and by how much Good luck with that! It also adds a lot of numbers to remember, so you will have to ask if it's a reasonable trade-off.


As for initiative...
Dumping the multiple rounds really takes away one of the coolest aspects of Shadowrun combat, and one that's really fundamentally built into the system. Pools don't make sense any more (twice so if you eliminate dodging). The weirdness of multiple rounds is worse than the weirdness of only one round. If you're seriously going this way, I recommend you drop SR, and instead apply the multiple dice -> multiple successes idea to another rules system.

I believe a better idea might be to cap how many rounds a character can get in a turn (probably 4, maybe 5, with a higher number for matrix or astral combat). Automatic weapons begin firing on the character's initiative, with a maximum number of shots per round, and continue firing until the character's next initiative. On rounds where the gun is firing, but the character doesn't have initiative, it would probably work like suppressive fire.

Cap the number of melee counter-attacks, and disallow them before you have an action. Perhaps have them work as unused free actions (and cap the number of free actions/round). So a character with a high initiative can defend more often. Fighting defensively gives additional free actions for defense.

Dodge I'd probably allow, if you spent a simple action prior to the attack preparing to dodge (and move out of the line of fire). In other words, a faster character can watch you and anticipate your shooting at him, so he can move himself away from where the gun is pointing. It's basically a 'I'm saving my action so if he points his weapon at me, I move'. The dodge roll is a contest on who is moving faster, the target or the shooter.




Automatic fire -
With weapons that shoot 50 rounds a second, using realistic rates of fire is going to kill the game. No one can dodge suppressive fire with a TN of 50 (nor should they have to - suppressive fire isn't a randomly distributed grouping of bullets, but a single moving point or, effectively, a line. If the bullets are currently hitting Bob, they can't be hitting me.) For mechanics reasons, I would avoid this. You can say the firearm has a rof of 50, but the TN to dodge, to power, etc. caps at 10.


Your 'aimed automatic fire' idea does have the problem that automatic weapons are almost always going to turn the target into paste, with few or no penalties. Good for realism, not for balance. Just saying

Some changes that worked for my group. Main goal was to speedup combat and make it more deadlier.

Iniatitve
-We reversed the Iniatitve Rules. First one to go is the one with the highest Initative Passes. RAW: 1-2-3-4, Housrule: 4-3-2-1.

Combat
-Handle combat as a Success Test with a treshhold based on range (1-2-3-4). Modifiers like smartlink gain dice pool. Defense mods like cover increase the treshold (25% cover +1, 50% cover +2, 100% cover +3).

-I know this is gonna make a few of you spit out "burn the heretic!", but we dropped dodge. Hell yeah we did it. Damage restistance is done only by Body + Armour. Keeps the game more deadlier and players start first to look for cover and then to shoot. Furthermore you save dice test.

-As for called shots we agreed to follwing ruling that neither PC or NPC can targed selective limbs. Called shots work only that way that PC/NPCs can enhance DV up to +4, which costs -4 dice of your dicepool.
IRL a headshot means death, SR just counts damage and thats it. Never liked the called shots ruling. Therefore we dropped it. Hated those discussions.

Maps
-Maps help alout. Try googlemaps or googleearth. Make a screenshot, print it and give your players a handout of their main objectives.

-Using a battlemap with miniatures to simulate bigger shootouts. Helps to keep the overview when there are more parties that are attacking my runners. For smaller skirmish a battlemap aint needed.


Cheers

Oh, I just remember:


We should also fix the problem with the SR rules where shooting an M-16 uses a different skill than shooting an AR-15.

Just a sidenote... IRL, A headshot does not always (nor usually) equal death... there are MANY, MANY examples of people being shot in the head, with a variety of weapon calibers, that did not die from the experience...

I am aware that IRL a headshot doesnt always equal death, but let us not go offtopic. The reason we decided to drop called shots is a missing critical hit system. As a GM I had a few situations where players are arguing about their called shots. Moste time they expected more damadge / effects then the RAW system is giving them. Thats the reason why we agreed on this ruling.

Not an issue. SR1/2 don't have the broken up firearms skills, they only have the broad category - Firearms.

They do, however, break up the etiquette skills (so now there's etiquette corp, etiquette matrix, etc.)

But you know that's going to be awesome. Think of all the lively debate and discussion over drinks that it would bring to the gaming table. Especially if you game with a bunch of gun nuts.



I can kind of understand what you're saying, but pool could still be used if someone acts only once a turn. In SR3 it's not like characters without wired reflexes didn't use pool. You could still attack two targets with your two Simple Actions, or you could be attempting to walk automatic fire across several targets, and then you would want to assign pool use to each target.



Interesting.




That seems to make sense intuitively.



It's still more forgiving than Phoenix Command.

Just say that in your game a headshot = incapacitation, but every time it happens we roll a % dice an if it comes up 00 it actually doesn't result in incapacitation.

I was just using Google Maps to look at Seattle for the first time. Years of playing SR but it wasn't until the internet that I finally began to understand what Seattle really looks like. I compared it to the Seattle map in SR1. It was an "ahhh" moment.

But in that case, he still effectively has multiple rounds because he is reacting defensively during multiple rounds. If you're limiting everyone to one round before pools refresh, real pool tactical decisions will only come up when facing multiple enemies (who are all likely to hit). In one-on-one combat, there's little decision making process. If you go first, you throw your whole (or almost whole) pool into your attack. The defender throws as much of his pool is necessary to soak the damage, then throws his whole remaining pool into HIS attack. It becomes formulaic, and the result is really that the good get better (my rifles - 5 character can throw 10 dice, while your rifles - 4 character can only through , with a tremendous number of one-hit kills (because there's a tremendous number of 'all my pool into this shot' shots).

Try it sometime with a pair of initiative-1 characters and see how it plays out. It feels like D&D melee combat.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Basically if you remove or limit defensive actions the number of constructive choices as to what you do with your pool is reduced, and just using it for offense is usually going to be the best one. Hmm, it seems like I have to think this through a little more.

Yup. Pools are pointless if you only have one action. Anyone thinking about it will attempt to put down whatever enemy is the biggest threat to them when they act. There isn't any strategy to it. It's just front sight, press the whole time.