Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[shinryu]

So one thing that's come out of the suppressive fire discussion to me is how much of an advantage being in cover is in SWD. And it should be; not being in cover is typically a BAD IDEA if any sort of projectiles are flying about. That said, there's almost no incentive to stick your neck out once you're dug in. Now there are certainly situational reasons why you might not want to be prone or behind a particular wall (for example, you may not be able to get line of sight on a target given the particulars of the angle of wall or ground). But mechanically, -4 to be hit, +4 to resist (or virtually immune to) suppressive fire and +4 armor against area effects is pretty hard to give up.

The NWoD system tried (and failed, generally) to do some interesting things, but one thing it did do that was interesting was to penalize ranged attacks from cover. Typically, that penalty was -1 less than the cover bonus (cover bonuses going from -1 to -3 to be hit in that system). Now, prone is a bit of an exception since you should be able to fire just as well or better from prone, but in general I can see the logic; if you're trying to maximize the amount of car/trench/corner of building between you and incoming fire you might have a more difficult time situating the weapon, aiming, all of that important business. This too is a bit situational (if you're firing out of a designed gun port in a wall or vehicle, you've probably got great cover and a decent firing position). But for typical cover behind objects this makes a lot of sense to me.

So, worth porting to Savage Worlds? Perhaps as a penalty equal to half the cover penalty (so -1 for partial, -2 for full cover, maybe -3 for some "arrow slit" types of situations?)? Particularly in the suppressive fire context it would encourage some characters to move out of cover and possibly be vulnerable to the suppression effect, and it might generally give incentive to not just find cover and rail back fire (or at least to Aim and not just fire every round). Also, more realistic or at least not unrealistic.

Thoughts?

[ValhallaGH]

Opinion: Unrealistic. A car makes a better firing support than the cramped confines of an APC with a rifle slit, and is at least as good as a solid standing or kneeling position (uncovered).

Goal: Why? Why are you wanting to import this mechanic? Are you trying to introduce more movement into combat? Are you trying to achieve "realism"? Do you think that cowering in a covered position, picking off your enemies with impunity, is not enough fun and needs to be altered? Why?

Note: There are lots of tactics characters can use to drive their foes out of covered positions (grenades in the fighting hole are a solid, and flanking attacks are simply classic), any of which can get everyone moving without changing the rules.
_________________
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[shinryu]

[UmbraLux]

[ValhallaGH]

[shinryu]

This makes no sense to me.

From a realism point of view, your own cover only inhibits you're shots if it blocks line of sight...in other words when it's complete cover from that target. Inhibiting cover is close to the opposite of what really occurs - you'll gain a stability advantage whenever the cover is stable enough to provide some amount of support for you or your weapon.[/quote]

But not all cover is a nice rest for your weapon, nor is even such cover a nice rest if you're trying to maximize its effect. I think the argument is if you're having to crouch very low behind the cover, can only get one arm around with a pistol and are not able to use a stable grip, etc, that this can impede your ability to make accurate shots. It's not intended to turn things into D&D, it's meant to try to turn things away from static positions of high cover plinking at each other till someone dies.

[UmbraLux]

[catalac]

if why your looking for a way to nerf cover is what i think it is.

then why are you looking for a way to make machine guns the best weapon you can use.

as far as i can see the basic weapon purposes work like this (and in my opinion they work well)

regular guns which are to be used for accuracy and precision hits. this type of weapon is great at getting raises on stupid people and hitting smart people successfully. they often hide in cover negating the effectiveness of machine guns but often falling prone(bad pun but true) to devastating attacks by melee
they come in two types
pistols which are great for short range and are designed to keep attacking despite melee at the exchange that melee works better against you
rifles have better range but can't attack melee on the other hand they have slightly better defense.

melee weapons. these are created to kill regular guns but are weak when approaching them especially against machine guns.

machine guns give up accuracy in order to be able to target many targets at one time. this is particularly effective against charging melee characters. this category can give up even more of its accuracy to effect even more charging melee characters by preforming a maneuver called suppressive fire.

area effects grenades and other artillery. this battle group is most effective against targets in cover because it is able to be thrown over the cover. this is great in areas where the enemy has less venues of escape (such as in an area that is surrounded by several walls and obstacles [coincidentally the stuff cover is made of]) but not as effective on people charging in an open area. (yes the escape is based on agility but to get the agility roll you have to have somewhere to escape to [also how hard it is to escape also determines additional penalties to the roll])

in my opinion weapons in game were made to preform different tasks. they are made to be balanced so that other players don't feel left out just because someone else has a different weapon.

so there are ways around cover just not as many for some particular classes (particularly machine guns.)

[Mylon]

The only problem I have with cover in the current system is the ability to move, fire, and move again. I have a hard time rationalizing being able to poke your head out, acquire a target, take a shot, and get back down unless someone is holding an action. And, depending on how one does the rules, wins an opposed agility check. I rule that if the person on hold loses the agility check, they still get to shoot, provided they're not shaken. Seems like a decent compromise.

[ogbendog]

I could see some kind of "fire defensivly option"

suppose you have -1 or -2 cover, and you are injured, or the bad guy has a wpn that does big damage.

So you do a quick shot, just barely peeking out. Give yourself a bit of a cover bonus, for a penalty to be hit.

[shinryu]

[UmbraLux]