Finally finished reading through the book, and have liked most of what I've seen. I did have one question I wasn't able to answer after searching through the forums for a bit.

Let's assume I have high enough skill, and enough recoil to not factor into this discussion.

If I make a full auto attack using a complex action, I can also divide my dice pool to make multiple attacks. Let's say there are 3 mooks out there. I divide my pool of 9 dice into 3 each, and fire away. Do all 3 mooks take a -9 penalty to their defenses, or am I missing something?

-DrZ

Are you wielding two firearms? if not according to the rules for for multiple attacks on pg196 you can't shoot more than one target.

Basically the rules for burst fire/full auto and attacking multiple targets have so many holes in them you might as well just make them up yourself, or wait till they get FAQ'd so they're usable.

Well, I think that's a pretty negative reading of the rules.

On page 179,
"Weapons that can fire in Full-Auto (FA) mode can throw bullets for as long as the attacker keeps the trigger pulled and the rounds last. Full-Auto weapons can be fired as a Simple Action, firing 6 bullets, or a Complex Action, firing 10 bullets. Full-auto weapons can take advantage of the Multiple Attacks Free Action to fire at multiple targets with the same burst." [emphasis mine].

So, given that the rules state you can make multiple attacks using full auto (and all the other bursts, for that matter); how are people planning to rule how the defender's dice pools are affected?

I'd have to second this emotion. I just re-read the RAW for multiple attacks on p.196 and they're more than a little ridiculous. You can make more than one attack, but only if it's a melee attack? That directly contradicts p.179, which states that Semi-Auto Burst, Burst Fire, Long Burst, and Full-auto ALL can fire at multiple targets.

Well, I'm just presuming that the guy who wrote the bit on page 196 forgot about the stuff on page 179. If this hasn't been mentioned in the errata thread, this would probably be a good one to add!

That said, what I'm trying to figure out is the *intent* of the game designers, which I think is pretty clear- on bursts, you can split your dice pool to attack multiple targets. The number of targets you can hit are equal to your skill divided by 2. With that in mind, I see a few obvious interpretations.

1. You need 1 bullet per target, minimum.
2. Since you have to factor in modifiers prior to splitting your pool, all your targets need to be within the same range category.
3. This isn't explicit, but I imagine most GM's would rule that the targets need to be within a reasonable distance of each other (i.e. not one in front of you, while the other is behind you).

So, with those assumptions in mind, here's how I think you *could* interpret the rules.

1. RAW, I make my full auto attack against 3 targets, with my dice pool of 9 (which I split evenly into 3 sets of 3). All 3 targets take a -9 to their dice pool (while I have effectively taken a -6 to mine to be able to hit 3 at a time).
2. I still split my dice pool into 3 sets of 3, but the modifier to the defender depends on how many bullets I'm throwing at each. So, assuming I'm splitting the rounds into 3, 3, and 4 at each respective mook, they would have the following modifiers: -2 for mook 1 (a 3 round burst), -2 for mook 2 (the same), -3 for mook 3 (using the long burst -5, and modifying it using the "not enough bullets" rule). I have taken a -6 penalty to attack each mook, BUT I still get to make an attack against 3 mooks instead of just 1 in the turn.

Given those 2 options, I'm not really sure which is intended. #1 is obviously more player friendly, but #2 is more crunchy which this edition seems to be shying away from to speed up combat.

Thoughts?

This is not covered in the book, so to the Errata or FAQ!

The Firing Mode table on p. 180 shows the -9 Defense Modifier for Full Auto, but it does seem odd that if you use the Multiple Attacks Free Action to split the attack, that you wouldn't also change the Defense Modifier.

My suggestion is that I would also split the Defense Modifier between the Mooks, but that is not explained in the book anywhere.

"I still split my dice pool into 3 sets of 3, but the modifier to the defender depends on how many bullets I'm throwing at each. So, assuming I'm splitting the rounds into 3, 3, and 4 at each respective mook, they would have the following modifiers: -2 for mook 1 (a 3 round burst), -2 for mook 2 (the same), -3 for mook 3 (using the long burst -5, and modifying it using the "not enough bullets" rule). I have taken a -6 penalty to attack each mook, BUT I still get to make an attack against 3 mooks instead of just 1 in the turn."

I agree with number 2.

If you are walking your fire over a wide arc to cover two or more targets, you should divide it up.
You are spliting the dice and bullets up among the targets so each target is only facing some of the bullets.
In that case you should split the autofire/burst fire defense modifier up among the targets.

Now if the targets were all lined up in a very tight corridor so that the arc was very narrow...
That is every bullet sent down range had a chance to hit more than one target as it went by, then I'd increase the negative defense modifier for all of the targets.
Giving each Mooka between -3 to -6 depending on how lined up they were sounds good.

Nice job of the lists...
For the sake of preventing abuse by both players and GM, I would use your second option of splitting both dice pool and penalties. Applying a -9 penalty with only 3 bullets is abuse.

Thinking some more, I agree with the people who have suggested the -2 per mook.

Reading the table, you can take the approach, "What is the Target being shot with?" and by doing that, in this scenario, the mook is receiving a "short burst" and the Target gets the -2 penalty.

So you can take the approach that the Defense Modifier column is based on what is the Target Experiencing rather than what the Shooter is doing.

Imposing the full defense penalty would lead to the awkward scenario of shooting the same guy three times full auto for -9 defense each time.

By a strict reading of the rules (p164, Multiple Attacks), you cannot make multiple attacks against a single target.

I disagree. It references page 196, where it states, "This action represents both attacking multiple times from a single melee weapon and attacking with two different weapons (firearms or melee)."

I read that as allowing you to fire both your guns at once, at however many targets you wish to shoot at (limited by half your combat skill)

-DrZ

Sorry for the long post:

Pg. 164 – the Multiple Attacks free actions says:

This states that you use this to attack multiple targets in a single action. It does not state that you can use it to attack a single target with multiple targets. It also states that it must be combined with one of the attack actions of fire weapon, throw weapon, melee attack, reckless spellcasting, or cast spell.

Pg. 165 – the Fire semi-auto, single-shot, burst fire, or full-auto simple action says:

The highlighted part states that this can only be done if you have two weapons (one in each hand). So you cannot use the simple action to fire an SMG in burst fire and hit multiple targets.

Pg. 166 – the Throw weapon simple action says:

This says that you can throw multiple weapons at a single target, but does not mention multiple targets.

Pg. 167 – the Fire full-auto weapon complex action says:

This again states that you can only use the Multiple Attack rules if you have one weapon in each hand. So again, no firing the single LMG in full-auto and hitting multiple targets.

Pg. 167 – the Firs long burst or semi-auto burst complex action says:

Here we finally have it. This specifically states you can attack multiple targets with a single gun (the highlighted section) but they have to be in the Short or Medium ranges. Otherwise you have to have two weapons to use multiple attacks.

Pg. 167 – the Melee attack complex action says:

This states that you can attack multiple targets with a single weapon, but says nothing about attacking a single target multiple times.

Pg. 196 – the Multiple Attacks section says:


The above is word for word what is written in the book and the interpretations are reading the rules exactly as they are written. However, there are a couple references that come in that contradict this. They are:

Pg. 179 – the firing modes state that the SA burst, BF, LB, and FA all allow you to use the multiple attacks free action to fire at multiple targets with the same burst. The SA states specifically that you need two SA weapons to take advantage of the multiple attacks free action. I personally think that these make more sense than the above.

As for the question of the defense mod, I would probably look at the number of bullets going to each target, and go -2, -2, -2 (for the 3, 3, 4 since 3 rounds has a -2 and a single round has no def mod and the next level of rounds is 6)

Wouldn't a 4-round burst be counted as a short 6-round burst, yielding -3?

Could be.