ervaeI still cant get my head around the UA guns rules.
I get that a player with low skill will do less damage as they are unlikely to hit a heart etc, but well say you have 20 in firearms… you only have 20% chance to hit
But you can only do 20 damage. most gunshots kills you full stop wherever they hit you, through hydrostatic shock, cappiliries-be-gone, etc. and some guns do no more than 35,40,50 damage.
So if you’re shot with one, your likely to live if you get medical treatment.
Seems to me that it would be more realistic to have minimum damage dealt is 35,40,50 etc,
Or maybe the rules are done that way to give the players a sporting chance, or just to make called shots more useful?
What do people think?
XombieI think it works just fine. Sure guns aren’t always as lethal as in reality but critical hits still do max damage, and like you said, there are still the option of called shots.
An untrained firearm user is probably just going to wing a target which is fine, and helps keep things cinematic and flowing.
I think the big thing is that the players don’t know how healthy they are. With HP being secret, every source of injury should be treated with care. If you take a bullet, you may still be able to walk away, but are you going to take unnecessary risks now that your are seriously wounded?
Sure it’s not perfect, but I think it works very well for a rules light system.
Cal_Loussomeone with a firearms skill of twenty can do more damage. Apart from OUACOWAs, which do max damage, there is also focus shifts, and called shots. As for realism, it is surprising how varied peoples beliefs are as to the lethality of firearms. Personally I don’t quite agree with you as to their awesome lethality level, as people can and do survive fairly severe looking gunshots. Shock and the like are just as likely with swords and things which (though rarer) are as likely to kill you if your attacked by them. Plus your average person is going to hit the ground screaming for mommy after twenty points of damage, and is dead by fifty, so letting anything not 100% guaranteed lethal have a minimum damage of fifty is a fairly bad idea.
If you really wanted you could instigate rules about taking more damage in subsequent rounds due to bleeding out/etc, which would better reflect the reality of the situation, but makes things a bit more complicated book keeping wise.
say any single bullet wound dealing out at least half(/one quarter/whatever) of your Wounds results in you losing the sum of the firearms roll (rather than the total) every subsequent round till you get medical treatment. That would give guns the awesome lethality your looking for, while not making them completely game destroying.
Personally I like the gun rules as they are, but to each his own.
Ars MysteriorumPersonally, I was thinking it would be fair that on a successful attack roll, a character at least gets to inflict either 10% of the max damage.
A possible debate against this is the cases where a bullet only grazes a target, which would be 2 points of damage at most. I would argue back that being grazed is outrageously lucky.
Hence, you could make it fair that if a person rolls a 02 on their roll, it’s a graze and only inflicts 2 points of damage. A 1% chance of a graze makes sense. Even a less than lethal shot to the shoulder is still gonna smart and bleed a hell of a lot, and definitely more than a knife wound.
Any counter-arguments to this idea? Opinions are welcome to help balance this idea.
Ars MysteriorumSorry to double-post but another support for a 10% of max damage as a minimum damage (rounded down) is also that the incentive to get a big-ass gun grows as well.
This way a hand-cannon of dramatic proportions is still a threat in the hands of a person who couldn’t hit the broad side of a 1000 pound woman. Sure he still might miss, but if he doesn’t, there should be big ouchies.
Maybe this makes gunfighting too crunchy for UA… Please hit me with your opinions…
Cal_LousI have never managed to understand why people seem so sure that guns are just astoundingly more lethal than knives.
The rules allow for guns doing massive amounts of damage.
the idea that there is no way for a gun to only do a little damage, or even that it is only 1% is just far too ridiculous to be believed. A shot in the arm is not significantly more devasting than a knife wound to the same spot. guns frequently only wound someone. much more so than some people seem to believe. As it is the firearms rules swing the statistical damage much more realistically than the rules for knives/ melee weaponry, perhaps erring on the side of excess, to appease peoples need to see awesome lethality in guns. Guns kill people, this is true, but so do knives. The fact that someone cant die from one stab unless the attacker is obsessed with knife fighting and rolls a match is much more unrealistic than the firearms rules.
People often get shot and live, or at least don’t die instantly the way increasing the damage would imply.
dying later due to blood loss/etc shouldn’t be dealt with by fiddling with the minimum damage, but by fiddling with the healing rules/ aftereffects of damage rules.
If the qualm is that a total novice deserves a better than 1% chance of killing someone (since OUACOWA does max damage), and don’t think increasing this while lowering the chance of a minor wound to 1% isn’t a tinch ridiculous, then separate the to hit roll from the damage roll (although apply the same shifts to each roll) that way a total novice still has little chance of hitting, but he can now do loads of damage more reliably. It doesn’t quite match that only pro’s get only kill shots, but its closer to the threat level you seem to yearn.
stange_personI remember someone in the Mods section suggesting that, for firearms, anyone who’s not obsessed flip-flops the roll in between determining whether it hits and applying the damage. Thus, for example, someone with firearms 15% who rolls an 03 would do 30 points of damage, subject to the normal maximum for the weapon of course.
I think this didn’t apply to folks with a firearms obsession because someone with extreme focus can afford to aim for something other than the vitals.
I think knives are hard to get one-hit kills with because they make it up with reliability. Even a blind idiot with a knife does one point of damage with every swing. That’s why cops worry more about perps with knives than guns; a knife is always loaded and it doesn’t miss. You don’t need to stab someone all the way through center mass to kill them, just keep poking and slashing and swinging wildly until they run out of blood.
WrattsMultipost is nearing.
Here are some custom rules I’ve been tailoring recently. They don’t necessarily make things more or less realistic than they are in UA, but they certainly meet my requirements of keeping the rules as light as possible while allowing some complexity in combat tactics.
Called Shots
These are in addition to the standard Called Shots rules.
Melee weapons deal firearms damage on called shots if they’re done with a „penetrating“ type weapon of +6 damage bonus or higher.
Damage Codes
Every wound measuring above 5 points of damage is considered a „serious“, or rather, Major wound. Roll a Body check in this case, with a minimum roll equal to the damage. On a failure, the character loses her next turn! Furthermore, should the damage score exceed the character’s Body rating, the character in question gets knocked down (see the Combat section of the rulebook to refer to rules concerning characters getting knocked down).
In terms of knocking down people with a melee weapon: Multiply the weapon’s damage rating by 10 – if this rating and the maximum damage rating together exceed the injured target’s Body rating, the target gets knocked down. Sprint attacks also double this rating for knockdown purposes.
There are no penalties applied to damage taken, as long as the remaining Wound Points are above zero. Once a character reaches zero wound points, she is knocked out cold for an amount of rounds equal to the negative Wound Point rating she’s currently at. Then, once having regained consciousness again, she can only take partial, heavily impaired actions (at shifts of -30%). If she gets knocked out yet again now, she goes comatose.
A character dies if her sum of negative Wound Points exceeds her Body rating. Lights out, fin.
To figure out how badly you’re hurt during a fight, spend a full round and perform a diagnostical First Aid / Medicine check on yourself (note that this imposes a Major check as you’re in combat!). This will only give you a rough overview and idea of how badly a character has been hurt („You have a gunshot wound in your shoulder which might require some medical attention, but the knife stab wound in your chest – dangerously close to where your heart would be – is ejecting worrisome amounts of blood.“).
WrattsMultiple Shots, Suppressive Fire, and Fully Automatic Fire
All the original rules on these subjects are superseded by the following modifications. Some of these suggestions might conflict with eachother, but the general idea is that the most reasonable one is applied to the situation in question.
– A single-shot weapon (i.e. Shotguns, hold-out pistols, revolvers), allow you only one shot per round, however two shots if your Firearms skill exceeds 30%.
– All other firearms (i.e. semi-automatic pistols, SMGs, fully-automatics) allow you to empty their entire clip within one round, given that the actual weapon allows such a rate of fire (rpm – this is up to the common GM’s and player’s jurisdiction of knowing real-life weapons).
The firearms checks have no shifts, unless there are other advantages or disadvantages given by the GM. Sucker shots can be done with firearms too, but they are called “John Woo maneuvers”, i.e. sliding over the ground while shooting, down the stairway railing, etc.
Step 1: Called shot restrictions.
Called shots can only be taken as a bonus on single shots without any penalty.
Leg shots have a minimum roll of 30, arm, hand, and feet shots 40, and head shots have 50 with a bonus shift of +10%.
Light burst fire (2-3 bullets spent) raises the called shot difficult with a shift of –10%.
Heavy burst fire (4-10 bullets spent) raises the called shot difficulty with a shift of –20%.
Fully automatic fire (11 or more bullets spent) raises the called shot difficulty with a shift of –30%.
Step 2: Choose a cone of fire – narrow or wide.
à Wide cone: Maximum damage of the firearm is applied as normal – a limit for damage. The number of ammo spent poses a bonus to any minimum roll for people to dodge bullets in the cone of fire.
à Narrow cone: Ignore the weapon’s maximum damage, instead, add the number of ammo spent to the effective damage roll and the maximum damage rating.
à Special: Sawed shotguns with buckshots at medium range or common shotguns with buckshots at long range both fire in a wide cone, giving a minimum roll to dodge its blast cone, equal to (maximum damage / 4). Sawed shotguns with buckshots at short range or common shotguns with buckshots at medium range both fire in a narrow cone, giving a bonus damage rating equal to (maximum damage / 4).
Note: Firing a single-shot weapon twice in the same round at the same target doubles the maximum damage!
WrattsStep 3: Calculate damage.
This is as given in the rulebook, but you add the number of ammo spent to the roll result.
Crits deal damage equal to the maximum damage rating. Fumbles let the GM choose; either you shot yourself or a different target for minimum 20 points of damage. Match failures cause a jam or misfire, depending on the weapon type. Match successes deal damage equal to the firearms skill, but naturally limited by the maximum damage; and if gunnery is your obsession skill, you get firearms cherries to pick from. Basically, the damage dealt by firearms is equal to what you rolled (body armor causes it to be computed like melee damage instead – the sum of the dice, instead of the final roll result). Additional shots and other stunts may modify this result, as given in the steps.
If multiple targets get hit (intentionally or not), the GM divvies the damage score among them. There’s only one roll for all targets, and remember that a Focus Shift is only applied to a single target!
Step 4: This is a painful one.
The GM might rule that certain weapons (i.e. a shotgun, or rocket launcher) deal a minimum damage, no matter what was rolled. Ouch.
This might turn that measly 06 / 6-point damage into a whopping 20-point shotgun blast, or even 50, if the GM makes the situation call for it.
Generally, a firearm has a minimum damage rating of (maximum damage / 4). However, when firing multiple shots, there is no minimum damage.
Step 5: Here comes the recoil, baby!
A weapon’s recoil nerfs any Focus Shift bonuses on the following round (although some of the gun-toting maniacs will compensate this by empyting their clip in the first round, and maybe reloading the clip on the following round or dodging enemy attacks). It also limits the amount of shots you can fire in the subsequent round without further penalty, based on the type of firearm:
– fully automatic weapon (i.e. assault rifle) à up to 12 shots
– burst fire weapon (i.e. SMG) à up to 6 shots
– semi-automatic weapon (i.e. semi-automatic pistol) à up to 3 shots
– single shot (i.e. shotgun) à 1 only, no more
If you try to continue firing more shots, thusly exceeding the recoil limit in the subsequent rounds, you gain cumulative shifts of –10%, up to a maximum of –30%.
Note though, that a tough motherfucker might have a Body rating that exceeds the sum of the ammo spent and the weapon’s maximum damage – in this case, she may ignore the recoil effects! Remember that for single-shot weapons firing multiple shots at a single target, that the maximum damage rating is doubled – this is considered when checking for recoil, too. If using two guns simultaneously in one hand each, the recoil of both guns are summed up to a total for recoil purposes.
WrattsStep 6: Entering, or staying in a cone of fire?
Provokes a Stress check, subject to GM’s decisions. Failure forces you to stay the fuck out of harm’s way!
Check penalties impairing characters in a cone of fire apply as normally given in the rulebook.
(-10% Shift to all checks for anyone in a field of light suppressive fire <4-10 bullets>, -20% for moderate <11-20>, and -30% for major <21+>)
Firearms Cherries
– Aeon Flux: Handled as the Melee cherry given in the rulebook, under the name „Monkey Dodge“.
– Bateau: The hit(s) are treated as if they had been dealt with armor-piercing ammo.
– Desperado: When firing at multiple targets, the GM does not divvy the damage score, instead the GM deals the basic resulting amount of damage to each target.
– Equilibrium: When using two guns simultaneously, you don’t have to divide your skill rating for the next check when using both of them at the same time.
– Gunslinger: You get to fire an extra single shot at any target of choice, without any penalties.
– Knock Down: Handled as the equally named Melee cherry given in the rulebook.
– Lone Star: Disarms your target immediately, forcing her to drop her weapon in a random direction.
– More Pain: Handled as the equally named Melee cherry given in the rulebook.
– Quick Reload: Allows you to reload your firearm in the same round.
– Turning Tides: Handled as the equally named Melee cherry given in the rulebook.
– Wolfwood: Ignore the firearm’s maximum damage rating altogether.
AntagonishIt’s solid work, which is why I wish I could like it.
The firearms cherries are nice, as are the damage codes, but the rest strikes me as rather..Off.
Blasting away with a semi-auto pistol (as in, 20 shots in three seconds) avoids all recoil penalties, because they haven’t “kicked in” yet. Mrr?
“John Woo Maneuvers” are decidedly not the kind’ve thing anyone but Obsessed gunslingers or Videomancers burning through charges should be attempting.
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