full/semi- auto weapons

[bergh]

Should it be possible to fire a "burst" every exchange in Tros? ie.
2 "bursts" in a round?

and as descripped before its always better to fire Burst within 50 meters, and should the rules not reflect that?

should it then be such that a shot with a burst just means that a person had been hit with 3 bullets instead of one? and then add margin of success to each? which will say that if hit by a burst you can't survive, which i think is rather TOO lethal for a RPG.

[Caz]

I think the rules do reflect that.  i.e. ATN 7, +1 per 10 meters, etc.
Each round that strikes should deal damage seperately, otherwise in tros it IS too lethal, and too abstract IMO.  
   I do it one of two ways, depending on how much time I want to take.  One roll with all modifiers and penalties, with the margin of success governing how many rounds hit (though each hit is still rolled seperately on the damage table) or one roll with the appropriate mods and penalties for each seperate shot within the turn, still with all rounds striking seperately.

[Tash]

Well my exprience with burst weapons (MP5s and M-16/M4s) is that its pretty easy to aim, fire a burst, get back on target and fire another burst.  Doing this quickly (i.e. multiple times a round) is kind of trick, which is why I said you should have to divide your missile pool.  So if you have an MP of 12 and fire 2 burst you'd be limited to 6 dice each.  

I would apply the full margin of success to the damage for each bullet in the burst.  They won't all hit the same place but they'll be close (we should have rules for bullet scatter in place, but I can't think of a good way to handle).  Sure this makes burst weapons incredibly lethal, but I don't think it is unrealistic.  There is a reason these weapons are used so widely by military and elite police forces worldwide.

[Lance D. Allen]

Too lethal.

Which is why (say it with me kids) we don't want to get hit.

TRoS takes lethality to new levels, it's true. It always has. Those levels are generally pretty realistic. But consider.. How many of the locations on the body actually result in instant death on a level 5 hit?

Cutting: 27 locations total
5 instant deaths
5 death is imminent or likely

Puncture: 21 locations total
3 death is nearly instantaneous

Bashing: 50 locations total
9 instant deaths
2 death is imminent
2 neck instantly broken

On other level 5 hits, there are some pretty nasty results, some of which are life threatening, but if you're playing with modern weapons, chances are you have modern medicine too, so unless someone takes the time to finish you off, you may just survive to live another day.

Don't lower the lethality level. Make it deadly, make it real. Make it so that anyone who plays TRoS modern has to be just as smart as if they play TRoS fantasy.

[Valthalion]

I personally don't believe Dice pool games model firearm combat very well.  They are too abstract.  I would recommend (if you can get it) an old game called Phoenix Command.  This is one of my personal favourites but it is extremley detailed and dare I say it, More deadly than TROS.  It uses 1/2 second impulses. But at that timescale you need to model stance aim time,  vision. Because at 5yards no one misses. (don't forget the safety) (don't even think about a game that uses 10 second turns ugh)
Although most people won't like it because it is slow and cumbersome.

On the other hand TROS works because the dice pool mechanic very neatly models the choices of attack and defence and the effort put into the attack (divinding the pool) and the manouvers are brilliant (My hat off to you Jake)

Funnily enough I think the dice pool worls well enough for bows etc, I just think that firearm combat is so deadly that what wins you the fight is not the same thing as medieval missile combat.


Valthalion
aka Bayonet Pete

[bergh]

I know that dice pool systems arent good for modern firearms, but also if you want the dice pool system for hand to hand combat then i think you also have to have it for the shooting as well? or you maybe got a better idea?

it is importent for me, becouse im soon starting a Warhammer 40,000 RPG game, and then players both want a good detailed hand to hand system and shooting as well..

[Valthalion]

I have just re read my post and I realised that I must be the greatest simulationist ever. Harn and Phoenix Command wow.

Valthalion

[Tash]

I've never played pheonix command but I'll agree that dice pool mechanics abstract things more when dealing with firearms combat than more straight number based systems (like Cyberpunk, a personal favorite of mine).

But I don't think that's such a bad thing.  In the real world firearms combat basically boil down to: people see each other, point guns, pull triggers, somebody gets hurt and maybe dies.  According to an article I read once regarding firearms training for personal defence, the "average" gun fight in the US takes place in the dark at a range of 10 feet between two completely untrained persons.  Its almost unheard of for trained gunfighters to square off against each other.  Things like recoil, bullet scatter,  stances, breath control, sight picture and what not don't add much to a game in my opinion.  
To me its more important that the combat system capture the tension and fear such an encounter would cause than to know that the system was accurately modeling the effect trigger pull weight had on bullet dispersion at extended ranges.  :)

[Caz]

I think TROS models proper shooting technique pretty well, in that someone with bad form has a MP of 3, someone who uses good technique has a lot of skill and has a much highe MP.
   I don't think splitting the MP between bursts works well because it doesn't take recoil and the accuracy of each round into account.
   Also, one lump damage sum for a burst is too lethal to be realistic IMO and will always result in automatic death unless your DR is too low to be lethal with one shot.  The majority of gunshot victims do not die unless the round accurately strikes a lethal target or they don't get medical attention.  
   When you roll each shot individually, or at least each hit, even if several rounds hit the same D6 location, that doesn't mean they have to be one wound like with hand weapons, they can be cumulative.

[Lance D. Allen]

With a game like TRoS, where damage is location based, each bullet pretty much has to be accounted for individually.

In the case of multiple rounds, there might be some need for a sort of "over-shock" rule. Perhaps if the total shock exceeds some number, then the victim up and dies, even if they have not bled out yet.

Typically, physical trauma does not kill people with gunshot wounds directly, unless it's one of those nasty one-shot locations like the heart or brain, possibly even lungs (though there are methods to save someone with a sucking chest wound, if you're up on your first aid). Generally they die of bloodloss (which is modeled by standard TRoS rules) or by shock, which really isn't.

How's this for a rule.. If the total shock of a single attack or series of attacks is equal to 2x the Willpower of the target, the target dies. SAs can be added to the 2x WP as applicable, representing a "will to live" beyond what is natural.

Or perhaps such a rule wouldn't be necessary or desired. TRoS is fair deadly enough on it's own.

[Edge]

i think an overshock rule wouldn't hurt if you are including firearms but in my opinion it needs to be allot higher than 2x WP

without having my book in front of me don't allot of the damage tables have shock values of above 2x an average WP?

[Turin]

The one thing about dice pools that does not work well IMO is the sucesses.  Except for perhaps autofire and shotguns, how many sucesses you have should not effect damage.  I could see it applicable for autofire and shotguns because the more you are on target, the more rounds/shot will hit.  The only thing sucesses should apply to perhaps is where you hit, helping aim the round better.

MP would equal experience, courage under fire, dexterity, etc.  I could see this giving more action available in an exchange, but not more damage done by the bullet.  Transferring fire from one target to another is something that should be effected by this.  A beginner would be lucky to site and fire, where the combat veteran may be able to site in and fire on 2-3 targets during this time frame.


For damage, I think a base damage plus a mod would be most accurate.  Such as a d6, 1 is -2 to damage, 2 is a -1, 3-4 = base damage, 5 and 6 would add to damage.  If this were the case, I think damage would be as follows:

6 -Small low velocity pistols, .22 of any type 6
7 -9mm pistols, many SMG's                        
8- 357 and 44 magnum, most rifles, LMG

The .45 acp would probably be about a 7-8, and most assualt rifles a 7 or an 8 as well.

Maximum toughness to firearms should probably be a 5, and this should be real rare.  If you use the revised toughness = toughness/2 + 2,  maybe firearm toughness could be this number divided by 2 +2.

I.E. - toughness of 8 - 8/2+2=6, for firearms this would be 6/2+2=5.  So only the extreme toughness of 7 or 8 would apply to firearms.

[Caz]

Good thinking, but I don't see how your argument seperates from hand weapons either.  I think it's unneccessarily complex.  I think successes go well toward damage with bullets just like stabs.  The more skill someone has, the more likely they are to achieve a more accurate and therefore more lethal hit.
   And with firearms, just as with a rapier, accuracy is of the utmost importance to achieve the maximum results.  Just as with hand weapons, the firearms DR should be balanced to factor in successes.  Changing that would change the damage system for everything, including bows.

[Tash]

Overall I think Riddle's damage system does a great job of breaking down (no pun intended) the very complex issue that are at work when dealing with damage to a human body into a pretty simple form.  I don't see why it should work differently for firearms.  It all boils down to the same thing: using kinetic energy to destroy living tissues.  Look at it this way:  assume a 9mm round has a total damage of 6.  Now assume a character fires that round at a target adn hits with a margin of 3, total damage 9.  If the target has an average toughness of 4 and isn't wearing armor, that's a level 5 wound....a nasty wound to be sure, but not necisarily instantly fatal.  Do the same math with a Str 4 character stabbing with a rapier at an unarmored foe....guess what, same results.  Now I'm not going to venture that  a rapier and a 9mm do the same damage in the real world, but I feel they are in the same ballpark under these conditions: a good margin of success = a good solid hit which causes a lot of hurt to an average person.

[Salamander]

Well my exprience with burst weapons (MP5s and M-16/M4s) is that its pretty easy to aim, fire a burst, get back on target and fire another burst.  Doing this quickly (i.e. multiple times a round) is kind of trick, which is why I said you should have to divide your missile pool.  So if you have an MP of 12 and fire 2 burst you'd be limited to 6 dice each.  

I would apply the full margin of success to the damage for each bullet in the burst.  They won't all hit the same place but they'll be close (we should have rules for bullet scatter in place, but I can't think of a good way to handle).  Sure this makes burst weapons incredibly lethal, but I don't think it is unrealistic.  There is a reason these weapons are used so widely by military and elite police forces worldwide.

Tash is pretty much on the ball in regards to burst fire. With proper grip of the weapon, aiming methods, movement and breathing you can squeeze off a few bursts in relatively quick succession. However, the bursts will not produce as much volume as auto fire and will not cycle as quickly as repetition (where one burst is a cycle and one repetiion is a cycle) for obvious reasons. I rarely had a weapon with burst fire issued to me. I most often used firearms with an S-E-F trigger group (MP5SD2s & 3s, M4/C8s, M16/C7s, AKMs), with an S-E group (L1A1s) & with an S-F group (L7A1s).