Not so much a”mod” as an interpretation really
A coupleof posts down in this section you’ll find somequite nice rules for making firearms more deadly in UA. However thinking about it I don’t think it’s the rules that need changing (at least not much) so much as the definition of “combat”.
RPGs tend to assume that all fights will be between opponents who are reasonably equally matched, and both of whom are fighting properly, however this is often an unsafe assumption if your game is being run gritty low key stylee which UA usually is. Most people freeze and panic and generally put up remarkably little effective resistance.
The combat rules in UA are perfectly good for the default assumption, two gangs of proper badasses run into each other on a dark night and proceed to have at one another,blood runs but basicaly each side gives as good as it gets. The pointblanking rules nicely cover the other end of the spectrum, where the target really is just so much dead meat. However there is a broad gap in the middle of the spectrum, and that place is where the Significant Check rules come into play.
Significant Combat Rolls work like ordinary combat rolls, except that they follow the normal rules for Significant skill checks. Any roll that’s under your Stat is a success,and roll that’s under your skill is roughly equivalent to a matched success (I’d generally rule that it gives you maximum damage for your firearm,or firearms damage from your melee weapon).
Significant Combat rolls are used when you’re doing something combattey – hitting somebody, shooting somebody, whatever – but aren’t actually in an active combat situation. Often if you have the drop on somebody your first roll in combat will be a Significant rather than Major one. Furthermore, if somebody blows a Stress check in combat (and don’t forget that stress checks are common in combat) and freezes, all combat rolls made against them are likely to be Significant (unless their buddies are still shooting at you of course).
Bascially what I’m going for here is a twofold effect. Firstly I want ordinary folks with guns to be a credible threat if you get caught unawares, secondly I want them to *stop* being a credible threat once it really hits the fan. With Significant combat checks in place you have the (IMO desirable) situation where when you find the guy whose house you’re breaking into pointing a gun at you, you have a serious decision to make about what gives you the best chance of survival, act now and take the risk, or wait fora better chance and hope thingsdon’t get worse. By comparison under a “major checks only” system the guy has only a 1% chance of doing any serious damage to a player, and most PCs find that to be a risk worth taking.
Interesting. I do see how this could get the result you’re looking for. But one thing isn’t clear – when do you move from a significant to a major check? Taking your example above of breaking into a house, obviously if the guy just pulls the trigger without someone doing anything, he’s making a significant check. What if a player throws something at him? Does that put it into combat, making the check major, or does the guy get an initial shot off with a significant check, and then things go into major checks?
If you want to model movies, in which you can distract people easily (after, of course, the villan gets done gloating to the hero) then you want it to be a major check. If you want to make things darker and more dangerous, then you might want it to be a significant check.
You’ve pretty much answered your own question. It dependson the feel you’re going for. My default is that if you makeany move combat-wards (throwing something at the guy say) then he gets one significant shot, and then it’s combat time and major checks all the way.
Of course there’s a reason the rules use the term “fuzzy logic”, it’s quite open to interpretation.
I’ll use the Sig Check for point blank shots (since this is the distance most street shootouts happen (the exceedingly valid Cyberpunk2020 explaination).
I actually like the current combat system. I have heard too many stories about people blazing away at each other from across the round and not hitting their targets.
Even trained cops…
Cheers,
Chris.
Like the black kid in New York who got shot 15 odd times out of 40 bullets by a bunch of cops?
Disgraceful.
The hit ratio, I mean.
“I actually like the current combat system. I have heard too many stories about people blazing away at each other from across the round and not hitting their targets.”
True, but you *don’t* tend to hear stories about people being shot – as in actually hit with bullets – and hardly being slowed down at all. My problem with the current system isn’t so much the low to hit ratio for ameteur gunmen as the absence of a level of damage between “01 – instant kill” and “15 – doesn’t hurt that much at all”
URNOVI: Great point. I see no reason why and untrained shooter should only be able to do max 15 damage with a 12 gague 99 percent of the time.