Firearm-rules in BRP

[SDLeary]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

This is true. In BRP you can fire arrows at the same rate as a 9mm, and that's not really realistic.

SGL.

Yes and no. At least in Cthulhu. There is a spot rule on p.63, current edition.
It is written thus:

Unaimed Shots
The shots-per-round entries for firearms assume that a shooter has an ernest desire to hit the target, and thus aims with care. As a general guide, unaimed fire allows twice the number of attacks per round listed for the weapon on the Weapons Table. Reduce the shooter's chance to hit to one fifth of normal. ...

This is slightly different from the way it appeared in its first iteration in Chtulhu Now:

... some desire to hit the target and takes time to aim. If the character simply wants to blaze away, he can get off 4 shots per round from any pistol or semi-automatic rifle, 3 shots per round from any pump-action or lever-action gun or 1 shot per round from any bolt-action weapon.

The chance there is also one fifth.

Also in Chtulhu Now, if you used the optional Hit Locations rule, you had another option, Aimed Shots, which applied called location shots from RQ to firearms.

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

He was using the Jane's as a reference when working specifically on Cthulhu Now. I'll have to go back and compare those tables to the current edition.

SDLeary

Some of the weapon damage has changed for some reason.

.375 Magnum: 1d8+1d4 in the current Cthulhu, and 1d8+1d6 in Cthulhu Now. The .38 Automatic is currently 1d10, was 1d8 in CN.

Looks like a few others too, but pistols have been mentioned, so there ya go.

[soltakss]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

One thing about firearms you need to watch out for, however, is that high rates of fire are often accompanied by, honestly, amazingly crappy accuracy in actual combat (which is why the mediocre rates of fire in even a strike rank using game aren't entirely painful); in particular, its been estimated by police that the average amount of hits even by trained police in firefights is about one in six; even in realtively good conditions and/or quite close quarters you often get an amazing number of rounds going everywhere but the target.

I can't speak for D100 until I get the rulebook, but RQ always had the rule that someone zigzagging around halved the attack chance of anyone firing/throwing missiles at them.

So, a master shot at 90% would still be halved to 45% by someone moving erratically. You could add modifiers of cover, poor visibility and so on and get a vastly reduced chance to hit, and all within the standard rules.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Sorloc

[color="Indigo"]Yeah, but how fun is that to play?

I'm just saying that simply upping the rate of fire without addressing it may, in fact, essentially make the game _less_ realistic (and have some undesireable play-balance issues on giving even more benefit to people who get off the first shots). It probably pays to not get carried away with ROF issues if you aren't going to downgrade accuracy.

One way to do so is to not, as you say, actually roll for every shot, but take some kind of autofire like mechanic; and of course, suppression fire should be done differently, too.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by soltakss

I can't speak for D100 until I get the rulebook, but RQ always had the rule that someone zigzagging around halved the attack chance of anyone firing/throwing missiles at them.

So, a master shot at 90% would still be halved to 45% by someone moving erratically. You could add modifiers of cover, poor visibility and so on and get a vastly reduced chance to hit, and all within the standard rules.

Many of those aren't applicable in the cases I'm refering to; in some cases you've had this happen in things like a criminal and a bailiff exchanging shots in a well lit courtroom with both of them standing there and minimal cover.

It might be handled by simply having a rapid-fire penalty though; it just needs to be halfway steep.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

Yes and no. At least in Cthulhu. There is a spot rule on p.63, current edition.
It is written thus:

Unaimed Shots
The shots-per-round entries for firearms assume that a shooter has an ernest desire to hit the target, and thus aims with care. As a general guide, unaimed fire allows twice the number of attacks per round listed for the weapon on the Weapons Table. Reduce the shooter's chance to hit to one fifth of normal. ...

This is slightly different from the way it appeared in its first iteration in Chtulhu Now:

... some desire to hit the target and takes time to aim. If the character simply wants to blaze away, he can get off 4 shots per round from any pistol or semi-automatic rifle, 3 shots per round from any pump-action or lever-action gun or 1 shot per round from any bolt-action weapon.

The chance there is also one fifth.

Also in Chtulhu Now, if you used the optional Hit Locations rule, you had another option, Aimed Shots, which applied called location shots from RQ to firearms.

SDLeary

That's probably more along the line of what I'm talking about (though double-tapping is a bit of a special case, as there's evidence it effectively _ups_ the rounds-to-target).

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

Some of the weapon damage has changed for some reason.

.375 Magnum: 1d8+1d4 in the current Cthulhu, and 1d8+1d6 in Cthulhu Now. The .38 Automatic is currently 1d10, was 1d8 in CN.

Looks like a few others too, but pistols have been mentioned, so there ya go.

IMO, the older damages are a bit more consistent, basically you could work out damage values by compaisons with the statsgiven. The new version just looks like someone tweaked it to give what he felt was right. But that ended up pushing the pistol damage in to close to the rile damages.

THe big difficulty with firearms in most RPGs, including BRP is the variable damage. In realisty firearms tend to make smaller wounds than swords and axes, but are still lethal becuase of wound placement. With a variable damage roll (1D10, 2D8, etc.) the damage done is more a factor of how well you roll on the damage die than how well you place the bullet (skill). 80% of your damage is just random by weapon. Something liek +1 to each damage die per 10% you make the roll by would probably work out better. We'd need to reduce the damage a little first though.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

IMO, the older damages are a bit more consistent, basically you could work out damage values by compaisons with the statsgiven. The new version just looks like someone tweaked it to give what he felt was right. But that ended up pushing the pistol damage in to close to the rile damages.

THe big difficulty with firearms in most RPGs, including BRP is the variable damage. In realisty firearms tend to make smaller wounds than swords and axes, but are still lethal becuase of wound placement. With a variable damage roll (1D10, 2D8, etc.) the damage done is more a factor of how well you roll on the damage die than how well you place the bullet (skill). 80% of your damage is just random by weapon. Something liek +1 to each damage die per 10% you make the roll by would probably work out better. We'd need to reduce the damage a little first though.

If you were going to do that, you'd need to do it for more than guns; almost all piercing weapons are dependent on location for a lot of their damage; its virtually as true of an arrow or an epee as it is of a bullet.

[Atgxtg]

I agree. In fact, I'd go one step father and say that location is key for all weapon damages. It is just becomes less imprtant the more powerful and larger the weapon is. With pistol bullets and knives it is crucial, with nukes is isn't important at all. Plus with most melee weapons you can do damage taking the weapon "out" of the foe too.

BRP's strengths and weakness tend to come from it's SCA orgins. n SCA combat you don't get linger deaths, and all that. You get up and functiong, lost limb, or dead.

[Nightshade]

Part of the problem, of course, is it depends on whether you're dealing with hit locations; if you are, they're handling part of the problem there. Past that, you can easily assume that hitting critical locations is part of what the abstraction of damage rolls in the first place does.

Contribution of skill to location is tricky. Almost everyone aims a missile weapon at the torso barring sniping situations, because honestly, playing headshot games is usually counterproductive; you end up missing enough more you could have done the job just with rounds to target. Personally, I think its an element that at least as a standard default is more trouble than its worth, buy YMMV.