Autofire... am I missing something?

[ned-kogar]

Hello.

I've noticed that quite few folk are house-ruling autofire, but I'm not sure I've even got the standard rules straight in my brain.

Say My Gun (Pistol) skill is 0 (+0). My Dex is 12 (+2). I have an Autopistol (Auto 4) at short range versus a gang of 6 men, all within 6m of eachother. Generously, they're not going to dodge and have no cover.

"When using auto-fire, roll a number of dice equal to the Auto rating of the weapon and sort them into pairs as you wish."

I roll 4 dice: 1, 3, 4, 5.

I pair them: 1+5, 3+4, after Dex DM I get: 8 and 9.

"Each pair is an attack. Auto-fire attacks can be allocated to as many different targets as you have attacks provided all the targets are within six metres of each other."

2 pairs = 2 attacks = 2 targets, so I allocate the 8 roll to one man, and the 9 to another.

This uses 12 bullets.

I fear I may be being stupid, but is that a bit a rubbish? Am I misinterpreting some ambiguity in the description?

Burst, additional recoil, no skill bonus beyond Skill 1, etc all seem fine.

Thanks in advance,

Ned

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I think you have it right.

Think of all the movies or TV shows you have seen with guys with Uzi's or machine pistols sending out streams of lead to try to knock down one or more people... LOTS of bullets, but only a couple of them really come very close to hitting anything.

In this case, you hit 2 people in 1 combat round (about 6 seconds), that isn't bad. You do waste a lot of ammo though, which is why the military teaches people NOT to use autofire whenever possible.

 

[Claybor]

I also believe you have it correct, and it has looked a bit odd to me from the beginning. I have not seen it used in play though, and as RTT stated, it works pretty consistanly with whats seen on TV.

 

[ned-kogar]

Ok, thanks, that's great.

I guess I'd like it to be a little more intimidating.

For now I may use the following two House Rules I've seen elsewhere on the forum:

Autofire House Rules (apoc527)

1. As per RAW, but Skill 2+ means that you expend only Auto x2 rounds instead of Auto x3 rounds to get the same effect. This represents an experienced autogunner being able to more effectively use the weapon on autofire without making it godlike in damage potential.

2. As per RAW, but Effect 6+ results in a bonus hit and is calculated independently per pair of dice. I.e. If I am using the ACR and roll my 6 dice and get a 5, 6, 5, 4, 6, 3 (a darn good roll) and I have Skill 1 and +1 DM from Dex, then I could conceivably pair the 2 sixes to get 14, the 5+4+2=11, and 5+3+2=10 to score 4 hits (2 normal successes and 1 extraordinary success).

 

[Treebore]

Yeah, auto fire has a shockingly high miss rate in real life.

 

[BP]

... I guess I'd like it to be a little more intimidating. ...

Perhaps less effective at damaging than you might have expected (which as many have pointed out - is more realistic) - but still intimidating... :wink:

Don't forget the other aspect of auto fire - suppressive fire. For a group of opponents - there will probably be a lot of ducking, diving and cover. This burns up minor actions, reduces return fire accuracy, etc., etc.

Plus you still have the advantage of inflicting damage to mutliple opponents!

 

[ned-kogar]

Good point - the fact that they're all potentially targetted is plenty motivation to get out of the line of fire...

Thanks all.

 

[apoc527]

My autofire house rules are probably only realistic with expert autogunners. In real life, flicking the weapon on full auto is usually not very effective.

That said, I don't like the RAW burst fire rules (magic additional damage always bugs me), so I've modified those to allow for multiple actual hits. Then, in order to make Autofire not completely pointless, I had to allow for a few more hits there too.

Think of my house rules as a "cinematic autofire" type of house rule. If you've played Gears of War, that's an example of ridiculously accurate autofire.

 

[GJD]

RAW?

 

[AndrewW]

RAW?

Rules as written.

 

[BP]

RAW?

Rules as written.

Thanks! - was having a hard time finding those rules :?

(P.S.: GJD - your tag line sure fits with this one!)

 

[apoc527]

Sorry, the RAW was a result of spending too much time on the WotC Star Wars Saga Edition boards where RAW might as well be the Bible (or some other equally important text).

 

[GJD]

RAW?

Rules as written.

Groovy. Thank you.

G.

 

[justacaveman]

Burst fire allows you to use your full skill level, while autofire limits you to skill level 1.