Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[shinryu]

So in the process of working on my Shadowrun conversion I came up with the idea of treating extra attacks from Wired Reflexes as the equivalent of extra attacks from Frenzy; basically, regardless of other factors, each level only adds one extra attack. The idea being, even with an Rof 3 weapon, a boosted sam with 2 levels of wired reflexes would only get 5 total Shooting dice with the weapon, rather than 9 separate attacks with wild dice for each set of 3 (please correct me if this is not the canon interpretation of the rule), or 4 attacks plus a melee attack or 3 plus melee + reload, and so on. (Primarily, I thought maybe allowing 9+ attacks a round might be overmuch, but the real danger of multiple attacks is multiple 3 round bursts, since those are all but guaranteed to hit for most competent shooters; if you limit the characters to 1 3RB a round and anything else is autofire, it works pretty well)

However, in running the math for this, it looks like this solution might actually be a good way to adapt the Wild Attack rules to cover fully automatic fire, and possibly supplement/replace the existing suppression rules; the assumption here is that the standard autofire rules cover situations where the character is using short controlled bursts, while the Wild Attack (and/or Suppressive Fire) emulates just holding the trigger down like a hose and hoping.

Essentially: an automatic weapon gets 6 + ROF shooting dice in a Wild Attack, but also suffers recoil penalties, making the effective penalty -6 without a bipod/Rock n' Roll, whatever. I've run odds on a couple of situations assuming d6 and d12 Extras for simplicity; the Wild Die probably doesn't affect this situation overmuch given the large number of dice involved. For what it's worth, the Wild die adjustment is probably on the order of +/- 10% of the odds (so 22% to 24%, not 12% to 22%).

Situation 1: All 3 Rof vs. 9 Rof wild attack, single target, short range.
Odds of getting at least one hit are approximately 43% in the former case, about 53% in the latter. This is a significant improvement, but you're wasting 21 rounds for a 10% bump. You can do almost as good with a single round (50%), or much better with a 3RB (83%). For D12s, odds are 87% in the first case, 93% in the second case, and about 92% with a three round burst.

Situation 2: 1 Rof per 3 targets vs. Wild Attack, short range, 3 Rof at each target: First case, each target is at a 17% hit chance; latter case 23%. Again, slight improvement, but considerable ammo wastage. For D12s, chance of success is 58% vs. 58%, interestingly.

Situation 3: Suppressive fire, 9 targets, short range vs Wild attack, 9 Rof, short range, 9 targets: In the case of a successful Suppressive fire attack and assuming d6 Spirit, any of the 9 targets has a 17% chance of being hit.
Using the Wild Attack rules, odds are approximately 8%, independent of the target's Spirit. For D12s, no change in the first case except chance of initial success, but chance of hitting each target jumps to 25% for the second case. Again, not a big jump, but would be a nerf to higher Spirit. Then again, if you're cleanly missed you're cleanly missed, and if you're in cover your odds of being missed will jump, which they don't in the other system.

Now, the obvious disadvantage to this method is having to roll great deals of dice to deal with this situation. I'm not sure this is that much worse than you would have in say the Suppressive fire situation, where all 9 targets would need to make Spirit saves. At least for suppressive fire, it might be desirable to retain both sets of rules, one for keep their heads down grazing fire (or for Extras holding down the trigger), and the other if you're actually trying to hit something. I'd suggest it would also be a good idea to rule that Rock n' Roll doesn't apply here. again, it's short trained bursts vs. spray and pray, and Rock and Roll could be interpreted as dependent on using the former rather than the latter, and it gives the Edge a niche in terms of the odds improvement; for example, the odds of hitting are up to 75% per target in the 3 Rof/3 target case for a D12 shooter, so better off than either case for the character without the edge. Other recoil modifiers might apply, though. Anyway, it's an optional thought for people who like to empty the clip. Thoughts?

[ValhallaGH]

Are you confusing Wild Attack and Rapid Attack? Because that's the only possible thing that might make your post make sense.
_________________
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[shinryu]

Yes, did mean Rapid Attack. Don't know why I got those confused in terms of terminology.

Basically, the idea is that hopefully this is more "realistic," and keeps the autofire mechanic more unified, though with the drawback of requiring more dice;; really, not that much more, I think, at least in the suppressive fire context, hopefully without unbalancing . It's a little like shotguns: is more realistic if it's resolved as an Rof 3 autofire attack on a single target at 2d6 damage (figuring no recoil penalty as the +2 cancels out), but I can also see how figuring it in one die roll is attractive.

The major balance concern would be that it would probably inflict more hits on average (e.g, probability of at least 2 hits for a d12 Extra is about 62% for a normal 3 Rof attack, but it's closer to 70% for a 9 die attack); 3 hits is about 40% vs. 20%. So that may or not be an acceptable change.