How do they take up more room… and fit in the gun?

I feel compelled to accept Yerameyahu's observation of a problem as a challenge.

While this won't work in every case, perhaps the first bullet fired acts as entirely a means of getting contact onto the target, with a spool of thin wire trailing back into the gun, where the place of the next bullet is occupied by a bullet shaped object that holds the actual electrical charge. This object would need to be removed from the gun, either by flicking the wrist to fling the smaller shaped bullet out, or for the upgraded version of SnS, firing the charge as a less dangerous bullet, perhaps dealing two to three physical damage, with a moderate AP penalty to represent the fragility of the electrical device.

This of course, weakens SnS further, making all uses of it single shot only.

I just don't see how any of that that works with the existing magazine, feed mechanism, bore, etc.

Spirits.

It's the mages answer to every problem, you might as well let non-OP folk use it too.

Hehe. Now, I could maybe see a rule that S&S uses special 'charger' magazines, which have much lower capacity (due to the charging stuff). If that was something you wanted; personally, that's not something I care about.

I thought about that, but that doesn't quite work for revolvers. It doesn't work for my idea either, but let's just overlook that.

It is possible to have a longer bullet either by seating the bullet further into the case, or having it extend out more into the barrel.

In the former example, it ould limit the amount of propellant and probably reduce the range.

In the latter, the rounds would have to be individually manually inserted - the automatic feed would likely not work. And stuff like revolvers are right out.

And no staging of the damage would be a good house rule, yes.




-k

Umm, there are a lot of reason to fire bullets other then S&S from a sniper rifle, shief among them is doing more damage.

In case of the Barrett you are probably right, but 6S AP-half is not really worse than 6P AP-5/6 (LMG/MMG with APDS) or 7P AP-7 (HMG with APDS). The only Exception being vehicles, which can't be affected by stun.

How do the machine guns have anything to do with sniper rifles?

And -half is only as good as -7 if the target has 14 points of armor, witch isn't very likely for most targets.
For example a target with 8 armor(max for an above avarage human of body 4) only has 1 armor left after -7, but has 4 left after -half and can also have up to +6 non encumbering armor that only works agains that type of damage(so that 8 might turn into 10).

Weakest sniper rifle is 7P AP -3 shooting normal ammo, so as you on avarage need 3 dice to soak one point of damage, that one extra point of damage is worth -3AP, so for S&S to be better then regular ammo target needs to have more then 12 point of armor.Comparing to EX-EX for example raises that to 20 points of armor.

… And this is why we talk about the S&S-abuse being pistols and small-medium automatics. It's true, though, that S&S isn't *much* worse for better guns, but those guns tend to be expensive and huge anyway.

This has probably been suggested before, but could we make it so that if the stun damage doesn't overcome armor it is staged down to nothing, similar to how physical goes to stun. SNS is still very powerful for most targets, but a target with 12+ armor or with nonconductivity + a few points of armor can ignore them on most hits and it greatly reduces the chance for instant knock-out or instant -2 penalty against tough targets (have three players wide burst a target in military armor with SNS not even trying to hurt it, just stacking up the penalties to effectively disable it). I also cap it so that only one disorientation from shock is active on an individual at any given time. (I found it was just getting ridiculous when NPC's had -8 DP between disorientation and wound penalties)

… Multiple Disorientations *don't* stack. You under under the effect of Disorientation, period.

Oh good, I just assumed that where the rules were a bit fuzzy that they intended the interpretation that makes less sense.

Haha, I hear you there!

If your target doesn't have at least 14 points of armor, then it really doesn't matter at all what ammo you shoot at them. You really ought to be able to twoshot or even oneshot them with pretty much anything in the "hard to conceal" weapons tier. That said, for the higher DV weapons like sniper rifles, SnS usually isn't worth it. SnS is typically best for 6 or lower DV weapons especially ones that use automatic fire for their DV bonuses. The Super Mach 100 is the best SnS spammer bar none.*


Really it depends on if disorientation is the same as Disorientation the toxin effect. Just like you can talk about someone's willpower without talking about their Willpower.

The best way to nerf SnS is to make their damage not occur until the end of the combat turn just like if they were an immediate toxin. Then, they're totally great at taking out random people and low end thugs. Against Red Samurai, you might totally have KOed men walking shooting back for up to 3 passes. That's enough to switch back to Ex-Ex or even gel if you're not the killing type.

I would be for making electricity be a immediate toxin in general, but there's enough special cases that it makes it not worth it since you'll totally screw up someplace and have DMSO lightning bolts or something.

*-Okay it might have to share that throne with the Fubuki.

Does that make sense, though? Tasers are notable for their immediacy.

Indeed.

Perhaps a special rule: Damage isn't staged up - instead, each net success reduces armor by 1?

Does the simpler 'no net hits' work? I hesitate to add any novel mechanics without a good reason.

That's fair. If a bullet's effects get to be instant, so should a taser's.

The problem with no net hits is that called shots still work and narrow bursts are the major source of extra damage anyways. Remove those three and it can work. You can also remove SnS (or make them a shotgun round), keep tasers around, and nerf spirits/buff other ammo.

Be carefull with this.
SnS is only stun. It really does not matter if the PC use it, but it matters a lot if it is used at them. It marks the differance between the troll carries you home and "roll a new character".

It works, but is a more dramatic 'nerf'.

Unless you roll dodge, and then armor+body vs the attackers successes before you apply the 'no net hits' rule. Then you get a similar effect - damage is capped at 6 no matter how well the attack rolls, but the more armor and body the defender has the larger the chance of reducing said damage.

That may have been the intention all along, of course - I interpreted 'no net hits' to mean that no hits were counted after a hit (Defender rolls Body+half Impact Armor vs 6 stun).

Right. 'No net hits' means 'do not increase DV for net hits'. Sorry.

Good point, Hida. I use a custom Wide/Narrow Bursts ruleset (hybridized into one simple, less DV-ifying rule), so I forgot for a moment. As for Called Shots, yeah, I can't see the GM allowing a Called Shot for increased DV here. Certainly a huge problem if he did.

Another common rule is that S&S don't have a DV of 6, instead just inherit the DV from their firearm (4, 5, 6, etc.). This isn't my preference, but it does dial back the 'pea shooter' abuse slightly. Or, simply reduce the base S&S DV from 6 (lower than 5 almost requires 'Use Net Hits', though, and the main effects of S&S are the secondary ones, to me).

I still prefer the 'shotgun only' option, myself, but there are indeed tons of variations.

Ah, alright - then the 'no net hits' as you mean is more limiting than my idea. That works =)

Now I'm curious about your custom rules for bursts, care to expand on that?

I can dig up the old thread, maybe. Basically, all bursts are half Wide and half Narrow (well, maybe 80-20). Incidentally, it largely removes the Narrow Burst issue for S&S, but that wasn't the goal at the time.

Ah, here you go: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=31831 I went with 'Variant 2', but tastes differ.

Ah, thank you!

I'd say any half decent armour could carry it as a half price optional upgrade at the point of sale, perhaps even carrying a point or two as standard.