Hey there dumpshockers,

i have been thinking a lot about the shadowrun rules for firearms.

Mainly i found the recoil rules weird plus the cyclic firing rate for full auto is ridicously low.

I also read some alternate rules (rayguns i think), cool stuff to read but 3rd edition and very complex.

So i cooked up some stuff myself, i hope you guys like it and dont flame too much.

Obsolete! look here


Firing modes:

SS: remains the same
SA: remains the same
BF: short bursts increase the base damage of a weapon by 50% (multiply base damage by 1.5 round up)
long bursts: removed

Full auto: firing a weapon in full auto is a complex action and uses up to 40 rounds, every 2 rounds fired equal 1 dice, this pool is divided by the range modifier (regardless of aiming aids) and then added to the test. Up to 4 targets can be engaged at the same time if they are within 1 meter of each other, but the successes of the test have to be split up evenly among the targets(round down).

Suppressive Fire: remains almost the same except that 40 rounds are used and an area of up to 40 meters width and 2 meters height is covered. The result of the number of bullets divided by the meters width is the threshold for the dodge test. Any successes generated by the attacker increase the DV by 1 per two net hits.


Recoil: Recoil is generated every time a weapon is fired. This means that pulling the trigger once will generate a recoil of 1. So a streetsam who fires his weapon 5 times during thecombat turn, will have to deal with -4 recoil when he fires the weapon the fifth time.

Heavy Weapons: Heavy Weapons like Miniguns and HMGs produce more recoil than normal weapons, therefore the recoil for bursts is doubled, so is the range modifier for calculating the dice in full auto mode.

Maximum Fire Rate: A normal weapon cannot fire more than 40 rounds per Initiative pass

Range modifier table:
short : +1 1W6
medium : - 2W6
long : -3W6
extreme : -4W6


Recoilmods:
The following recoil modifications and accessories need changes due to the recoil rules change.

Heavy barrel: first off, three capacity slots is a bit much, one capacity slot seems more reasonable, secondly heavy barrels increase accuracy by reducing the trembling of the barrel, when a shot is fired, hence instead of one point of recoil compensation they offer one additional dice.

Foregrip: A foregrip helps holding a rifle, making it easier to aim, therefor it provides 1 dice instead of one point of recoil compensation.

Bipod: When braced a bipod makes a weapon more stable and this way easier to aim, it provides 2 dice instead of two points of recoil compensation.
Tripod: like bipod but provides 3 dice and eliminates the heavy weapons recoil penalty for heavy weapons.

Stock: a rigid or employed folding stock stabilizes the weapon against the shooter shoulder, it provides 1 dice instead of one point of recoil compensation.

Silencer: Sound suppressors provide 1 point of recoil compensation.

Comments and suggestions appreciated

That is essentially how recoil works in the current system. You get -1 recoil for every bullet fired for the initiative pass.

x2 Semi-auto? 2 bullets
0 Recoil, -1 Recoil
x2 Short burst? 6 bullets
-2 Recoil, -5 Recoil
Short/Long Burst? 9 bullets
-2 Recoil, -8 Recoil
Full Burst? 10 bullets
-9 Recoil

It resets each initiative pass. I'm not sure how your rule has changed anything except for clarify any potential ambiguity, unless you're suggesting the two short burst in an initiative pass would generate -1 Recoil/-2 Recoil.

if i am not mistaken recoil only accumulates per Action Phase not Initiative Pass, and yes, i meant first burst 0 recoil, second burst -1, third burst -2 recoil and so forth.

By changing mods to +DP instead, isn't it just making the problem worse? At least RC was self-limiting.

At first glance, it looks complicated, in the way that could slow down the game. Good that you're making an effort, though. Playtest it on guinea pigs and let us know?

Functionally, Action Phase and Initiative Pass mean the same thing. Or rather, you get one Action Phase per Initiative Pass.

well the reason for this was basically that an unmodded assault rifle like an AK right is totally unusable, if you wanna do full auto mayhem you need maxed out recoil compensation... that kinda sucks imo.

i cant playtest it, since i recently moved to a, well, lets call it a village, not much running going on here...

oh hell then i meant combat turn instead of initiative pass/action phase!

i'll edit it..

But an AK on rock'n'roll is supposed to be near unusable. You're not throwing 30 rounds into a bullseye downrange with an off-the-shelf rifle.

He has a point the HK 98
6p -1 SA/BF/FA - 38©

If you have your typical thug ganger 3 agility, 3 automatics skill would have 6 dice.
If he does a FA narrow he would have -3 dice to hit with. Before other modifiers.
Even if all he does is a narrow BF that's still leaving him with 3 dice to try and hit someone. That's pretty pathetic.

Actually, that's pretty accurate to what I've seen when even reasonably trained people try to do full auto for the first time...

Just look at Youtube videos of people firing a single shot from a gun.
Now amplify that about 10-fold to apply for full-auto.

for the first time..
but a ganger with a 3 skill is not "a first timer"
Rating 3: Professional
Firearms example: Regular beat cop or military grunt

Perhaps it's reasonable to think that people of that skill level don't really aim when in full auto mode. They just do suppression fire.
That gives them 6 dice to hit anyone not under cover

I guess that's reasonable.

AK on full auto 0-50 ? you are dead no matter what. besides it not like i am suggesting to automatically increase DV. you just get more dice, which can still all fail.
Plus if your target is at extreme range you get a lot less dice.

Although a minor adjustment to the range table might help:

short : +1 1W6
medium : - 2W6
long: -3W6
extreme: -4W6

With this you get at short range standard AK AR:

30 rounds (+15W6) + short range (+1W6) + skill + att. with DV:6P AP: -1

for extreme range you would get:

30 rounds (+ 3W6) + extreme range (- 4W6) + skill + att. with DV:6P AP:-1

Those folks are trained to fire in short bursts with rifles, longer bursts with LMG's.

Heh. Have you ever tried to fire a rifle on rock 'n roll at even short ranges? It's tougher than you think. There's a reason why it's known as 'Spray 'n Pray'.

Yeah, its one of those fluff vs mechanics thing. Though, to be fair a grunt would be more likely to have automatics(assault rifle) 3(+2). But yeah, any type of professional grade gunfighter is probably going to be throwing at least 10 dice, which seems reasonable with the mechanics of full auto.

So I am thinking you mean Combat Turn mayhaps?

I've actually been tinkering with my own idea for similar changes, but I wan't to make them as low impact as possible (less confusing and won't break existing characters too much) so they are still in works.

Edit: Ack, i see this has been addressed. Thats what i get from trying to post while at work.

This example with professional level 3.

With this you get at short range standard AK AR:

30 rounds (+15W6) + short range (+1W6) + skill(+3W6) + att. (+3W6) = 22W6 DP with DV:6P AP: -1

for extreme range you would get:

30 rounds (+ 3W6) + extreme range (- 4W6) + skill(+3W6) + att.(+3W6) = 5W6 DP with DV:6P AP:-1

Mechanically, it seems that full auto on the fly is meant to be done as suppressive fire or to use wide bursts to apply the -9 penalty to the targets dodge pool, thus negating the fact that you aren't going to be able to get a lot of net hits. 3 recoil compensation is relatively easy to acquire and would make full auto usable for people with dice pools of 7 or higher. Full auto accurately (narrow bursts) seems to be more the goal of having bipods and tripods and other ways to greatly increase recoil compensation.

Why is it +15 for the 30 rounds at short and +3 at extreme?

I'll be honest. He's confusing me and I don't get confused easily.

Namely, I have no idea what the W represents.

Indeed. It means that ambushes automatically turn everyone to hamburger.

It just seems like trying to reinvent the wheel.

30 rounds (1 dice per 2 rounds)= 15 dice (divided by range modifier +1 for short, -4 for extreme, we assume a positive result) 15 dice for short (15/1) 3 for extreme (15/4)

I've seen some awfully bad marksmen in my day. I mean, I'm not going to volunteer to test the theory, but I always wouldn't call it a sure thing.

The rifle is almost always accurate. It's the shooter who misses.

What about folks able to ignore range modifiers?

agreed, thats why i think full auto should give additional dice, depending on range, instead of an increased DV.

Although Should't all Assault Rifles have 1 point of recoil compensation from a stock?
So that if you're firing it from the shoulder you have 1 RC.

mm.. a position recoil compensation.

one 1 knee = 1 rc
prone = 2rc
stabalized on something = 1rc

so lets say I had the HK 98.
I'm on one knee, my gun resting on the window sill, with the gun to my shoulder
I would get 3 rc.
Now as a Military grunt I have 3 agi, 3 skill, and 3 points of RC.
So now if I try to full Auto I have 0 dice.
But if I short burst then I have 6 dice where I might have had 4.

its in the original post:
they may ignore the negative dice, but the dice granted by full auto are always divided by the range modifiers.

That's what it does on wide burst, effectively (by imposing a -9 dp modifier to the defenders dodge pool).
It's the narrow burst that increases the dv.

this is covered in the recoil compensation section...

sure, but have you ever seen somebody wide bursting IRL, plus my intention was the following: full auto at close range is absolutely lethal but pretty pointless at long ranges, the current rules make it either completly pointless (no recoil comp) or lethal at all ranges (maxed recoil comp), which is imho stupid.

All right, but then why would I want to do all this math in the first place?

Currently the system as it stands isn't too bad. If I want to burstfire, I have to compensate for the recoil to keep my pools. Adding more dice doesn't solve the problem, it just makes it so it's easier to get a billion successes. A pack of sprawl gangers with cheap AK's will turn any opposition to hamburger with a hail of gunfire.

Yes, I have, and no, it isn't.. The rules right now are much more accurate than what you're trying to turn it into.

is it really that much math?

and yes a bunch of gangers with cheap AKs are scary, ask anyone in brazil or mexico.

Currently? Yes, it is.

I have to have 30 rounds divided by two to get fifteen dice divided by range plus weapon skill plus linked attribute plus dice from weapon mods and everything else.

With the current system? Skill plus attribute plus mods minus range and recoil. Done.

it probably depends on how you imagine wide spread, in my mind certain chuck norris flicks show up, so wide spread is something never seen IRL and i have served my time....

but those rules are merely a suggestion, you dont have to use 'em, i merely wanted to check out if there were some major flaws, lke the initiative pass thing and the range table modifer issue...

Chuck Norris movies =/= RL.

I find the rules to be overly complicated, though they give unimaginable power to people with little to no skill and godlike dice cascading to those who do. It's my opinion that the automatics be left to those with proper training and not rely on full auto to annihilate everything in the 0-50 range.

Those guys mostly use burst fire. Not full auto.
And burst Fire is only a -2 or -5 recoil depending.

my system

skill + attb. + range + mods + rounds/range/2

current system

skill + attb. + range + mods ; base damage + rounds spent/ dodge pool - rounds spent

No, he is right. The recoil rules don't make much sense the way they are written, and really never have. They are way more cinematic than even a remotely accurate depiction of ranged combat.

His way of doing things makes it more complicated, sure, but you can't really say it is wrong. It may just be more number crunching than you're willing to do, that's all. Some people might prefer their combat be less John Woo.

So you're stating that the actual damage resistance/dodge rolls are what makes the system so complicated?

And you're also saying that people now have no chances to dodge and must soak the 22 dice your theoretical skill 3 is rolling?

I posted some different burst fire rules a couple months ago, if you'd like to take a look at those. They have the advantage of being much simpler, and they've playtested well (faster play, not obviously imbalanced). *shrug* I can find the link.

(If you're looking for realism, you're in the wrong place.)

i've seen different, also the AK as such was meant to be fired full auto. the first position after safe on an AK is FA then BF and last SA.


the advantage of this system is, that

1. even cheap assault rifles become useful
2. the decisions of wide and narrow burst and their implications disappear
3. weapons dont need max recoil comp. to be usefull in full auto
4. high recoil comp. still provides benefits
5. more realism (ok,ok, debatable)

Of course the rules aren't terribly accurate; I don't see how going farther away from realism makes it less John Woo like though.

Edit: I take it back. Don't care. Trying to rationalize SR combat mechanics makes my head hurt.

Why is range being counted twice?

skill + attb + range + mods + rounds/range/2

The current system is:
skill + attb + mods + Fire Mode - recoil; base damage + hits + Fire Mode (if narrow burst), defense = attb + skill + mods - Fire Mode(if wide burst)

a Full 40 round burst:
3 + 3 + 20 = 26 dice at short range with a 6 DV.
even at extreme range
3+3+5=11 dice.

That seems like crazy dice.

of course they can dodge, but the attackers action dont influence the dodge pool. your dodge pool is always the same.

it boils down to 3 calculations: how many attack dice, how many net success, damage calculation

where in the curent system you have 5: how many attack dice, how many dodge dice, how much damage, how many net success, damage calculation

By increasing the bonus at shorter ranges, where play is more likely to happen?

edit: in any case:



Well, it seems to accomplish 1-4 pretty well.

I know I can put a lot of rounds on target firing short bursts at short range. I've seen guys who are really good shooters put an amazing number of rounds on target at short range.

Dunno. I guess it comes down to the fact that 4e's skill+attribute+x dice w/ fixed Target Number is just a shitty mechanic for combat with the damage rules as written.

Save that 'how many attack dice' has subsequent calculations, namely rounds fired / 2 / range.

Plus the insane bonuses you give for shorter ranges has turned combat into "I throw my dice at you."

I feel that 'More damage or less dodge' is not that complicated a concept, as selecting one locks in both damage and dodge pool.

first of all you forgot to divide the rounds fired by 2 (2 rounds = 1 Dice), secondly i also added an slightly altered range modifier table (yes you are right i should put it in the first post).

actually you calculated correct..