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StormKnight
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Joined: 09 Jan 2008
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 Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 1:22 am Post subject: Good genre rule to downpower guns? |
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Guns are quite nasty in Savage Worlds. That's realistic, but not really fitting for some genres. For example, modern martial artsy genres where guns are around, but swords and even bare fists are a perfectly viable option against them.
Anyone have good genre rules for that sort of settings? I'd still like guns to be handy, just not drastically deadlier than close combat.
I could just knock down the damage a tad, but I wonder if there's a cooler way to handle it.
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GranFalloon
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 1:51 am Post subject: |
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In one of the many Star Wars conversions floating around, someone made a new derived stat, I think called "Evasion." It's 2+ 1/2 Smarts, and all ranged attacks have to beat that, rather than a simple 4. Smarts was chosen over Agility because you're not dodging bullets, you're aware of who's shooting at you and what you can get for a quick bit of cover, and how to run, and so forth.
That should even things out a bit, as most guns in the game don't do a huge amount of damage. As it stands, a martial artist who can close with his enemies can make their lives very difficult. They can only attack him with pistols, have to beat his parry, and lose 2 parry themselves, since they're not using a melee weapon. And if they try to back up to take a shot, hey, free attack, sucka! |
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Snate56
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 9:29 am Post subject: |
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Evasion actually sounds kinda cool as a specific setting Trait, perhaps available only to those with the Martial Artist Profession Edge. Remember, Remo Williams didn't dodge out of the way of the bullet, he dodged out of the way of where the guy was aiming the bullet.
SteveN
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Rohan
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 9:31 am Post subject: |
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That sounds awesome. I might have to do some digging and see if I can borrow that for a Wellstone City Trapping.....
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jasales
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Dracones
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Location: Fort Pierce, Fl
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:05 am Post subject: Re: Good genre rule to downpower guns? |
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| StormKnight wrote: |
I could just knock down the damage a tad, but I wonder if there's a cooler way to handle it.
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Are you sure gun damage needs to be knocked down? A katana is str + d6 + 2 with 2 AP and a longsword is str + d8. Short sword is str + d6. That puts melee weapons in the 2d6 - 2d8 range pretty easily which is about where pistols and rifles sit.
At range with no cover guns will rip people up, but add cover and that goes down quite a bit. When the melee guys get in close then it's usually the gun guys who are getting ripped up. |
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tigerguy786
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Joined: 26 Nov 2011
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| Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:07 am Post subject: |
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I second the Pulp Rule for extras' guns not acing.
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StormKnight
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the replies so far. Not sure there's been anything that's quite I was looking for, but still good to get ideas.
The main problem I've seen in play is that a foe that's a threat to an unarmed or improvised weapon armed martial arts type is a complete joke to a marginally skilled character with a gun. The session preceding this post, one character with minimal combat skills wasted three vicious monsters with a single burst from an assault rifle. Again, realistic, but just not fitting for the genre.
I was considering giving a -1 modifier to hit characters who aren't wearing armor with guns - since they are more agile and can dodge better. Also gives a bit more incentive to those aren't wearing armor, which is also genre appropriate. |
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kreider204
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Joined: 19 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 1:04 pm Post subject: |
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Use Parry instead of the usual TN of 4 for guns?
Remove / reduce AP for guns?
Remove any damage pluses for guns (e.g., 2d6+1 becomes 2d6)?
Give swords (or anything about that length) a Reach of 1 (and then spears and the like a reach of 2)?
Just b.s.ing here (that stands for "brainstorming") ...
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Virgobrown72
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 1:07 pm Post subject: |
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Did he get his -2 for autofire? Were the baddies pretty much extras( i.e., cannon fodder?)?
Yeah, it can be tough balancing this issue. I personally use the no extras ace rule, and it helps. most of my extras have straight d6 in thier skills unless something special was needed. Things I want to keep alive a little longer generally have higher tougher or armor.
Good luck with this, and keep us posted... 
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Snate56
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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Did that character roll average or did he get lucky? If he made a phenominal roll, well that's the nature of the game.
SteveN
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Dracones
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Joined: 26 Aug 2011
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Location: Fort Pierce, Fl
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| Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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| StormKnight wrote: |
The main problem I've seen in play is that a foe that's a threat to an unarmed or improvised weapon armed martial arts type is a complete joke to a marginally skilled character with a gun. The session preceding this post, one character with minimal combat skills wasted three vicious monsters with a single burst from an assault rifle. Again, realistic, but just not fitting for the genre.
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I've found it to be the opposite. I ran an encounter Friday with 4 novice PCs sporting rifles, pistol and a shotgun and they got torn apart by a panther and 8 savages with spears and clubs. The savages were just d6 skills across the board.
Before you start nerfing firearms you should probably post out how you're handling the encounters. In my case it was a road through a jungle forest which provided cover until the NPCs got in close to melee range. Once that happened the PCs got ripped up.
They only survived because 1 of the players played the "out of the fire" adventure card.
That -1 for "not wearing armor" is easily gained simply by having the NPCs being behind very soft partial cover. And with a 6 + d6 run it's not at all hard to get into melee range at which point the automatic rifles aren't effective. |
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Clint
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Posts: 16261
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| Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:38 am Post subject: |
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| StormKnight wrote: | | The main problem I've seen in play is that a foe that's a threat to an unarmed or improvised weapon armed martial arts type is a complete joke to a marginally skilled character with a gun. The session preceding this post, one character with minimal combat skills wasted three vicious monsters with a single burst from an assault rifle. Again, realistic, but just not fitting for the genre. |
What do we mean by "minimal combat skills?" Cause to me that says no more than a d6 in Shooting and certainly not the Rock & Roll Edge.
That means shooting three targets rolling four d6s and getting at least a 6 on three of those dice (before considering range, cover, or any other penalties). That seems darn lucky enough on its own, but to then roll enough damage on all three attacks to kill all the monsters, and it really gets into extreme odds.
Also, as a sidenote, assault rifles seem to be pretty hardcore weaponry for a "modern martial artsy genre." To me, that genre might have submachine guns (with reduced range and damge), but not so much the military ordnance.
That said, keep in mind the weakness of such weapons, when a foe does get adjacent, the character can't shoot them. Their weapon pretty much becomes an expensive club.
I'd also note that ranged attacks have an inherent "free" defense in movement. It costs nothing but normal movement to get behind cover (-1, -2, or -4 to be hit). Even in the open, prone provides Medium Cover and only costs 2" to stand up from, and a character can crouch for -1 to be hit by ranged attacks.
That said, I think the Evasion idea (and basing it off Smarts) sounds like a good fit as a Setting rule. A character with an average Smarts (d6) would effectively be -1 to be hit. And if the agile character want to be even harder to hit, then they take Dodge and Improved Dodge.
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StormKnight
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| Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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Yep, she just had a D6 and no particular edges. But she had a round to aim to cancel out the -2, so it was 4 dice needing 4+. A little better than a 30% chance of getting 3 hits. So yes, lucky, but not unreasonably so. The targets had toughness 5 and 2 points of natural armor - so, total toughness 7 - an unarmed/simple weapon melee attack does about 2d6, so just shakes one on average. An assault rifle ignores the 2 armor and averages 9, enough to cause a wound. Again, lucky to all hit averages, but not radically lucky.
Most of what has been going on has been in urban terrain or inside - just not a situation where you'd be in cover without a of dodging around.
The range, easier to hit and higher damage just seem to combine for a lot more effectiveness. |
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Soulliard
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 12:15 am Post subject: |
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| I've been running a pulp campaign using my alternate equipment rules, and guns don't seem too unbalanced. On average, I reduced gun damage by just a point or so. Guns are more powerful if you only put in a small investment, but melee combat is more powerful if you focus on it. |
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johnnii
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:31 am Post subject: |
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| I didn't know you could aim with an autofire attack, is that so? |
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JamesG
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Location: Northern Ocean County, NJ
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:21 am Post subject: |
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| johnnii wrote: | | I didn't know you could aim with an autofire attack, is that so? |
You can't use the Marksman Edge with a ROF greater than 1, but there is nothing I see in the rules for Aim or Autofire that would prevent Aiming an Autofire attack. |
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Dracones
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:02 am Post subject: |
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Well in that situation, yeah, the NPCs are going to get torn up. They're out in the open, short range, no cover with a PC getting a full round of aim in on them with an automatic rifle.
Nothing wrong with that, I'm sure it was a lot of fun for that player to mow down the enemies like that.
You don't really need to tune down the gun power to fix that though. Just use the NPC movement to make sure they can make use of cover and get up next to the players. Once they're in melee that d6 shooting person can't shoot at them with autofire without a 1 in 3 chance of hitting an innocent.
NPCs should be running into melee or from cover to cover. That's an average of 9 inches movement which is a lot of space on any battlemap. If you're not using a battlemap just rule that they have a certain level of cover in the 1 or 2 rounds it takes to get to the PCs. Maybe a couple stay back with cover firing at the PCs themselves.
That'll give the PCs a ranged battle for your gun wielders with some melee mixed in keeping them on their toes. |
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Clint
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| StormKnight wrote: | | Yep, she just had a D6 and no particular edges. But she had a round to aim to cancel out the -2, so it was 4 dice needing 4+. |
Okay, one issue first off, a character can't aim at more than one target at the same time. You can use Aim with autofire, but only if all the shots are at the same target. Same thing applies to firing a gun in each hand.
| StormKnight wrote: | | A little better than a 30% chance of getting 3 hits. So yes, lucky, but not unreasonably so. The targets had toughness 5 and 2 points of natural armor - so, total toughness 7 - an unarmed/simple weapon melee attack does about 2d6, so just shakes one on average. An assault rifle ignores the 2 armor and averages 9, enough to cause a wound. Again, lucky to all hit averages, but not radically lucky. |
Actually, yeah, it kind of is. Sounds like your 30% might come from allowing a Wild Die for each Shooting die or something. The actual odds of hitting a TN 4 on all three shots with a d6 Shooting and Wild Die is 18.75%. And then the odds of rolling a 9 or better for damage on all three of those shots as well is 17.8%. That means the final chance of this occuring was 3.33% or literally a 1 in 30 chance. That shouldn't be considered a reasonably expected occurence at all.
Also, even allowing for Aim to work as it did, the character didn't take out three foes in one action like it seemed. The character took out three foes in one action and one other round dedicates to nothing but aiming. So this took all actions on one round and another on a second round. That's a major commitment.
Comparatively, put a moderately skilled fighter (d8) with average Strength and weapon (2d6 damage) against the same foes. They had a base Toughness of 5, so figure they have an equivalent Parry of 5. Aim doesn help the fighter, but he can use Wild Attack. Additionally, he can attack with both hands without needing any additional Edges, so he gets one attack at 0 (+2 - 2) and one at -2 (+2 - 4).
As one action, he has a 3.6% chance of taking out two of those foes. Almost exactly the same as the shooter, only he does it in just one action instead of an action plus an additional round to prepare.
Basically, I'm just saying that it could have just as easily been the fighter in that case wiping out targets. It's just hard to see the odds when the dice are actually rolling in front of you.
| StormKnight wrote: | | Most of what has been going on has been in urban terrain or inside - just not a situation where you'd be in cover without a of dodging around. |
Not sure I understand. Typically urban terrain tends to mean cities to me, and cities are full of cover, be it cars, dumpsters, stairs, building corners, etc. Yeah, characters have to move behind them, but that's pretty much exactly what I was saying. Basic Pace is free; it should be used to maintain cover when someone is shooting at you.
But if we are talking about a situation where cover isn't available, like I said, there are other options for the character to protect themselves, going prone or just crouching to make themselves a smaller target.
The -1 to Shooting from the target crouching or just having Light Cover may not seem like much, but it changes the example above from a 1 in 30 chance to a 1 in 90 chance. That's huge.
Ultimately, TN 4 applies to a target at Short Range in the open who is using none of their options to make themselves a harder target. It can happen, but it shouldn't be common.
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StormKnight
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Well in that situation, yeah, the NPCs are going to get torn up. They're out in the open, short range, no cover with a PC getting a full round of aim in on them with an automatic rifle. |
I'm really not trying to be snarky, but that sounds an awful lot like "of course the NPCs are going to get torn up, the PC has an automatic rifle". Longer range means you are likely to get multiple rounds before they close on you, that's pretty much the POINT of having longer range!
A lot of this seems to hinge on the cover, and I'm just not seeing it. I kept glancing around on my way to work today thinking "so, what sort of cover is around here", and most places I'm seeing there's usually cover easily reachable, but there's lots of places to be where nobody could reasonably advance on you while staying in cover.
| Quote: | | Okay, one issue first off, a character can't aim at more than one target at the same time. |
That's an interesting clarification. Not completely clear from the rules, but I can see where its implied. Still, the character could have just taken the extra action shooting in a straight up fight (she was aiming mostly because she was hoping she wouldn't have to shoot) and used burst fire and taken down two a lot more reliably.
| Quote: | | The actual odds of hitting a TN 4 on all three shots with a d6 Shooting and Wild Die is 18.75% |
Ok, we'll need to check some math here. Maybe we did something wrong - this is the first time in SW we've ever used auto fire 
Needing a 4+ on a d6 is a 50/50 chance. You get 4 dice and pick the best three. That means you've got 16 possible combinations of hit/miss:
0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0
0 0 0 1
1 1 0 0
1 0 1 0
1 0 0 1
0 1 1 0
0 1 0 1
0 0 1 1
0 1 1 1
1 0 1 1
1 1 0 1
1 1 1 0
1 1 1 1
Five of those combos give 3 or 4 hits, with 4 being the same as 3. 5/16 = .31.
I haven't run the odds on damage though. Its too tricky to figure out off hand how aces on the attack roll modify it
In your melee example, you are giving the fighter an extra fighting die, and if said fighter takes out two foes (unlikely), she's now at -2 parry and ganged up on - the counterattack is going to hurt badly! If she misses, its even worse.
You mention crouching, which, again, makes perfect sense for not getting hit, but not in conjunction with advancing on the target. I agree that a +1 to hit can be a very big deal - that's why the base difficulty of 4 for a shot as compared to 5 (or more) for a melee attack seems like a big deal.
Its sounds like other people are just seeing things in a very different way than we are...though the difference between a houserule that usually grants +1 dodge and generally assuming that targets will be in cover for -1 to hit is, well, non-existent  |
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