Semiautomatic Rapid Fire

apoc527

Mongoose
Another candidate for house rule:

Rapid Fire

Most modern semiautomatic weapons can be fired rapidly with a single action. This method is not particularly accurate (unless very skilled) but is an effective way of getting multiple rounds into a target.

Rules: You may fire a semiautomatic weapon 2 times per significant action and 1 additional time if you also use your minor action for attack. The first shot is normal, but each subsequent shot has a cumulative DM equal to -Recoil (negative Recoil, but can't give a bonus) and Effect is not added to damage. Roll separately for each attack. If you switch targets, double the DM for cumulative shots.

Just for completeness, here's my potential house rules for Burst/Autofire as well:

Burst Fire House Rules
1. Wide vs. Narrow Burst -- Stolen shamelessly from Spycraft, give two options for burst fire: wide bursts add half the Auto value as a DM to the attack roll and Effect is added to damage normally. Narrow bursts have no DM, but in addition to adding Effect to damage, you also score bonus damage based off Effect and the Auto number. I would use Effect/2 * Auto number, so Effect 0-2 = +Auto, Effect 3-4 = +2xAuto, and Effect 5-6+ = +3xAuto. This would still use up Auto number of rounds.

It would also potentially hurt--a burst from an ACR with Effect 6 would do 3d6+6 (Effect)+18 (Auto x3). To help balance this out, a narrow burst could actually be a -1 DM. OTOH, catching a full burst from an ACR would totally suck!

Autofire House Rules
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).
 
apoc527 said:
Rules: You may fire a semiautomatic weapon 2 times per significant action and 1 additional time if you also use your minor action for attack. The first shot is normal, but each subsequent shot has a cumulative DM equal to -Recoil (negative Recoil, but can't give a bonus) and Effect is not added to damage. Roll separately for each attack. If you switch targets, double the DM for cumulative shots.
This reminds me of Shadowrun, where you could fire any semi-automatic (or burst) weapon twice per round but suffer recoil for the second shot (and, in burst mode, for the first one as well, though the second shot always suffers greater recoil).

Has this house-rule been playtested? My concern is that even with the negative DMs it might make combat even more deadly than it already is.

apoc527 said:
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.
I like this house-rule. Quite realistic, and I like higher skills giving you more than just a high DM...
 
while back I wrote a post that tried to do something similar, but more aimed at capturing the idea of the "double tap" rather than "rapid fire":

When firing a semi-automatic weapon as the major action, a character can fire again at the same target as a minor action, with a -2 DM to hit, provided the character is not subject to a recoil penalty for that weapon.

It's not as powerful as the OP's proposal, and it gives rise to a tactical choice of "move and fire" versus "fire twice".
 
Ok, after trying out some MGT combat, I fully agree that my house rule is way too nasty (the rapid fire one, the burst fire/autofire I think are good). I will adopt the above poster's house rule for "double tapping."
 
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