Another few thoughts that have occurred...
Coolness under fire or whatever substitutes for it should perhaps work as a cap to weapon skills in much the same way as ride skill creates a limit to mounted combat. The problem with this is that it makes for an indispensible skill in terms of rpg's, like MRQ did with resilience. Only raised by experience, obviously. An alternative to "Coolness Under Fire" might be a skill such as "Firefight". Thus a sniper, in position and braced would use his/her weapon skill, but the moment he/she comes under fire the skill is capped by an experienced based skill that dictates actual ability to think and function in combat...
There is a distinct difference to what you can achieve with a zeroed weapon on a firing range compared to a firefight. When you get weapons tables in an rpg they always reflect, to me, the physical performance of the weapon when fired from a vice, in a lab. Weapons tables are from "Jane's" textbooks. How a character translates those characteristics into results should be more individual...
Base skills like rifle, handgun, submachinegun seem about right. You only need familiarisation with a particular weapon to be able to use it as well as any other in a broad category. This would make a nice section on a character sheet for all the gun nuts...
This is all bearing in mind that I've not seen BRP in its current form and thus in terms of system don't actually have a scooby what I'm talking about. Cthulhu Now is about my limit, but I always thought that in terms of a game it was perfectly adequate...
|