Expanded Guns Tables

[Turloigh]

Oh yes, and while we're at it: what do you think is the best way to handle shotguns vs armour?

(EDIT: I've just realized that this is the wrong thread for my question. There's a More Guns Stuff thread that I hadn't noticed the first time around.)

[cleombrotus]

Guns get very complicated in rpg's, especially if you're really after realism rather than an adequate game simulation.

I always thought that if skill means skill, as opposed to a simple probability of a hit, then firearm capabilities like recoil, range and rate of fire and human capabilities like coolness under fire should be considered part of the skill for the purposes of BRP. Even ammunition management in a firefight is a matter of experience rather than mathematics.

The chance of any numpty picking up a modern rifle and hitting something in the head is covered by criticals.

Coolness under fire is probably a skill, based on an aptitude for combat (POW stat? Maybe High INT as a negative since it goes against reason!) but learned through experience. You learn that if you don't keep your head over the parapet so that you can lay fire on the enemy then he will close with and kill you. This of course means that you might cop it either from an aimed round or a wild one, but the alternative is a certain death, whilst sticking your head up only offers a chance of it.

Whilst Str helps with the recoil of a rapidly firing submachinegun, the skillful use of bursts is a much more effective means of controlling it. Adherence to marksmanship principles (a learned skill) makes the recoil of even .50 cal weapons more of a painful nuisance than an impediment to hitting a target.

I always felt that you should give a weapon an optimum/maximum performance and downgrade its abilities through skill range bands. Over the top in my own opinion, but people do seem to want reality above all else.

As an observation, most of the serious soldiers I've met cared about two things - the size of the round and the reliability of the weapon. Everything else was just window dressing. As long as the weapon didn't get a stoppage, the only other question was whether the guy they hit was going to stay down or fire back. Weapons are often referred to only by their calibre - as a roleplayer I was horrified and found it incomprehensible to think that they didn't know they were using colt commando/M203, but they didn't really seem to care...

[cleombrotus]

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...

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

Doubling of armor? Are you referring to thickness, for vehicles?

SGL.

Yeah. And possibly for PCs too, when you factor in armored vests. That seems to fit in about right.

For instance a 5.56 bullet would have twice the penetrating power of a 9mm, and a .50 cal about twice that (even more with some of the modern .50 cal AP rounds). From there we could continue the progression. That data points aren't too far off from where most the weapon damage are now.

And you really can't design weapon damages without looking at armor, since they are interrelated. You don't want to just up the damages and have rifles blowing through the sides of tanks. At least not the modern ones. And yuo vcertainly don't want to make bullet resistant vests or glass worthless.

[soltakss]

Would Coolness Under Fire be a skill that can be increased by experience?

Can you learn to be cool under fire or is it something that comes naturally to some people and not at all to others?

If it's the latter, then you could make it a Characteristic and require a Characteristic Roll to succeed. So, you could have a CUF characteristic with coolness under normal fire as CUFx5%, coolness under heavy fire CUFx3% or coolness under suicidal conditions CUFx1%. That way, you have a rating, some people could be ultra-cool and some people might break at a single shot and it wouldn't be a skill that everyone gets to 90% eventually.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Turloigh

So, suppose a 9mm ends up at 1D8, where does that put a .22, .32, .45, or a magnum? And, are there other opinions from the experts?

Well, BRP Zero Edition didn't classify guns by caliber but went with "light pistol" "medium pistol" and "heavy pistol" instead. Of course some of us are working on doing it by gun and caliber. Not that everyone agrees on where to set the damages.

It get complicated because each of the different options for handling injuries (general hit points, major wounds, hit locations) are different in severity. So a 7 point injury with general hit points is shrugged off, while it would be a major wound with that option, or disable a location with hit locations.

One way to adress this would be to use some sort of universal damage class chart, like 1D4/1D6/1D8/1D10 etc and then shift the damages up or down a die type based upon which options you are using. So if Major wounds are the norm, then playing with general HP would shift the damage die up, and going with hit locations would shift the damage down.

Or not, as desired. This idea would let each GM tailor the firearm (and other) damages to his personal tastes. Likewise, a similar scaling system could be done with armor to keep it's protection consistent in relation to the weapon damage.

So, for instance, if a 9mm Pistol was DC5 (1D10) and a Vest stopped 8 points, and we shifted the damage down to DC4 (1D8), the vest could scale down to 6 or 7 points.

Originally Posted by Turloigh

Also, how many shots should each be able to fire per round?

(That's why I don't mind guns doing less damage: If that "wimpy" .32 pistol can fire three times per round, that makes a world of a difference. Last time we played CoC, my character dispatched three cultists in the first two rounds of combat).

Well BRP Zero had light pistols firing 3 times per round, medium twice, and heavy once. Again, not everyone is pleased with this, and you example is the reason why. It tends to make light guns better than heavy ones in the game.

Based on real world info, it isn't quite correct either. While lighter guns can usually be fired faster, they are not 3 times faster. Plus many light guns, being small, tend to take a bit longer to reload.

Originally Posted by Turloigh

Oh yes, and while we're at it: what do you think is the best way to handle shotguns vs armour?

I've got a few ideas here.


1)Technically a shotgun blast is a bunch of small pellets. A buckshot round isn't much differerntthat a burst of of a dozen .32 cailber bullets.

So treating it as a burst attack at 1D6 damage each isn't too far off the mark. Just half the bust size at each doubling of range. So A bust of shot at long range is less likely to hit with a lot of pellets.

This could be used to fire a "burst" at adjacent targets, too.

2) Similar to option 1 but just use the normal damage and treat each damage die individually. In general, s shotgun blast is the idea attack for a ballistic vest-at least at range.

Nott hat I'd want to get shot, but if I were wearing a vest I would almost always take a shotgun blast than a bullet from a 7.62. I'd almost certainly live through the shotgun hit to regret it. I'd be bruised, have a couple of cracked ribs, and probably not want to do much except lie there and groan, but I'd be better off that having a bullet go through the armor, into me, and play pinball through my ribcage.

In you are up close, though the shot hasn't spread much and could just be treated as a slug.

[cleombrotus]

This is a great example of the differences between systems and reality. IMHO Coolness under fire is definitely an acquired skill. Some have an aptitude for it (high relevant stat/high starting skill), others don't but can be taught, or, if they live long enough can learn themselves.

However in terms of an rpg you run into the same issues that MRQ did with Resilience/Persistance, that meant that once you had acquired the skill it was no longer a challenge.

This is inconvenient for gaming but is quite realistic in terms of firefights. The more you do it, the better you get at it. I think it is best expressed in Band of Brothers, "As soon as you come to terms with the fact that you're already dead you can start doing your job" or somesuch...

There is the counter argument that as soldiers become more veteran they actually lose degree of recklessness required for certain activities - I read somewhere that the general thinking was that only a unit that hadn't seen combat could have taken Omaha beach because of the level of naivety required to charge machine guns...

I'd probably go with your ideas as far as a game's concerned, since it is, after all, a game...

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

Would Coolness Under Fire be a skill that can be increased by experience?

Can you learn to be cool under fire or is it something that comes naturally to some people and not at all to others?

Probably a bit of both. While experience does help, some people do seem to react better than others.

If we wanted to do something like that. I'd be inclined to do something similar to what you have, but maybe combine it with skills and the SAN rules. That is it starts at POWx5% and can be raised through experience like a skill, but can also take a hit when confronted with stuff that might shake you, even if you are a grizzled vet. So seeing 9 out of ten guys in your squad go down from a grenade might shake you up and keep you from advancing.

Something like this could simulate things like battle fatigue.

[cleombrotus]

Given that this is BRP it would be nice if we could use the resistance table for this mechanic.

Make Coolness under fire a Stat similar to POW and variable in the same way. Maybe a derived ability.

Then you can assign each firefight a 'pucker factor' varied by automatic fire, artillery, etc, etc, and make rolls in order to function effectively.

There could be a fumble table associated with failure, mainly creating a degree of inactivity or ineffective activity. failures could represent something as minor as losing track of your ammo and having to change mags, flapping in various degrees - I've seen people frantically trying to fire dry weapons and seeming completely unable to make the link between lack of ammo and their inability to fire. It sounds a bit crap, but adrenalin can do some strange things to your head, and we're talking about 'elite' forces here (I won't say which to protect the guilty)...

This stat can vary by general experience, specific experience, circumstance...

[RMS]

Originally Posted by soltakss

Would Coolness Under Fire be a skill that can be increased by experience?

Can you learn to be cool under fire or is it something that comes naturally to some people and not at all to others?

If it's the latter, then you could make it a Characteristic and require a Characteristic Roll to succeed. So, you could have a CUF characteristic with coolness under normal fire as CUFx5%, coolness under heavy fire CUFx3% or coolness under suicidal conditions CUFx1%. That way, you have a rating, some people could be ultra-cool and some people might break at a single shot and it wouldn't be a skill that everyone gets to 90% eventually.

I suggested before the concept of a Morale skill (essentially the coolness under fire, but less wordy ) that defaults to POW x 1% for the average person off the street. Then I'd move it to POW x 3% for someone who's completely basic training and allow it to increase, through experience only, with a maximum value of POW x 5%.

With that system, there's some difference in natural ability for those without training, more for those with basic training (who will trump those without it, regardless of natural ability) and large differences at the top end for those with experience and the natural inclination to react well under fire vs. the average person. I used POW since it's pretty much a lost stat for a modern or future game...unlike a fantasy setting where it's the most important stat.

My suggestion was to cap all skills at the Morale value when under direct enemy fire. I'd probably allow Morale to double if in battle but when not under direct fire. That means an average person is still pretty weak in such a situation, but an experienced soldier can pretty much react at full skill so long as not under fire. Plus, this neatly allows suppression fire without a lot of extra rolls. (Those who like more crunch, might want to adjust some fire level of suppression fire: a rifle vs. a machine gun nest, or similar.)