How to you handle gun stats and damage in your games?

[Phaze]

I have disliked the fact that PCs rarely have any hinderences to thier actions until they are out for the count (below 0 hit points). I find it a sign of a good GM if characters are 'wounded' and have limitations to movement, accuracy, or ability after taking a hit.

Not only do I like to roll for damage, but also roll on a hit table to see where the PC was hit and what effect it might have on the characters performance. This takes only a moment to do and you can add a lot of color to the game. Damage to the leg would effect movement, damage to his good arm would limit his accuracy, damage to his off hand may effect his ability to function at two handed tasks (firing a rifle, driving), and damge to the torso and head could potentially stun an individual or cause him to loss his breath. Head injuries can also cause blurry vision, concussion, and unconscience.

I agree with damage 'threshholds'. If an NPC just took more than half of his health in one shot, how much fight would he have in him? Now Zents are fighters, and I give them a little more toughness than the average PC, only because they are cloned and built for war. Machines will work until destroyed. Other humans, however, I show little mercy.

The more color you can add into a game, the more players get involved. Even if a character dies, the color can add a sense of drama to the scene. I have had PCs get wounded, limping, and on thier last leg, realize they can't make it out of the situation, and sacrifice themselves to assist thier fellow players, going down in a blaze of glory. I have also had the party leave a character to die, because they could not (or would not) go rescue them from the situation.

These are stories people remember years down the road, and come up time after time at the gaming table, all because of a little color and flavor added to a game. This is what seperates Table Top RPGs from the cold console and PC games... imagination.

If you need a table to refer to, do a google search. There are a lot of them available, just find one that suits your style.

[filo_clarke]

My group uses the Shock & Blood Loss rules from the Modern Weapons Compendium. We also use the Penetration Value rules found in Heroes Unlimited/Ninjas & Superspies. This makes for VERY dangerous combat, as even someting as a .22LR can cause a PC to suffer -4 Attacks in that melee round, and then be bleeding out at a rate of 1 HP per wound, per minute (2 if Hollow Points were used)!

When we first introduced the rules, it was in a Dead Reign game, but we have all agreed to keep using them across the board in SDC settings. This makes the game much less superheroic, especially for settings like Dead Reign and Beyond the Supernatural, where if an enemy pulls a gun (or even a knife) the players are much less likely to just charge him/her and "soak the damage". Getting shot now takes a dramatic toll.

We also make extensive use of the Weapon Deterioration rules in Rifts: Australia One, and Rifts: Adventures in Dinosaur Swamp. Nothing like having the players find a corroded firearm, and deciding if it is worth trying to fire or not.

I have gone so far as to create weapon cards containing the information of particular weapons (both melee and ranged) so all the rules for that particular item are laid out in front of the player for easy reference. For example:

RUGER SINGLE-TEN Revolver
Length: 11.0” (279.4 mm)
Weight: Unloaded: 38 oz (1.07 kg)
Feed: 10 round cylinder
Action: Double-Action
Rate of Fire: Standard
Caliber: .22 Long Rifle
Effective Range: 165 ft (50 m)
Cost: $500 minimum (extremely rare)
Ammunition: .22 LR: $4.50 per 100 rounds
Notes: A classically designed revolver, chambered in the popular .22LR cartridge.
Damage: Pistol Whip: +1D4 Punch damage
.22 Long Rifle: 1D6, PV 2
.22 LR Subsonic: 1D6, PV 2, +1 Strike, -20% Range
.22 LR Dum Dum: 2D4, PV 1, -15% Range
.22 LR Hyper Velocity: 2D6, PV 2
.22 LR Rat Shot: 2D4 to Soft, 1D6 to Hard, PV 1, -5% Range
.22 LR FMJ: 2D4, PV 3
.22 Hyper Velocity Hollow Point: 3D6, PV 1
.22 LR Tracer: 1D6, PV 2, +1 Strike
Penetration Value: PV 1: Deflects off bone. Penetrates objects under 30 SDC
PV 2: Deflects off bone. Penetrates objects under 50 SDC
PV 3: May lodge in bone. Penetrates objects with up to 75 SDC
Shock & Blood Loss: PV 1-2: Save vs. Shock 16+ (with PE Bonuses) or lose 1D4 attacks for that
melee round. No other penalties are incurred except for blood loss. Blood
Loss: One point of damage (SDC first, then HP) per wound, per minute (2
points of damage per minute for Hollow Points)
PV 3-4: Save vs. Shock 18+ (with PE Bonuses) or lose ALL attacks for the
remainder of the melee and the next. 100% chance of knockdown. 50%
chance to drop whatever he was carrying. The character recovers from
shock in 30 seconds, but Speed is reduced by 20% and Skill performance
by 30%. A successful save means the character is stunned for only half
the time. Blood loss: One point of damage (SDC first, then HP) per
wound, per minute (2 points of damage per minute for Hollow Points).
Standard Rate of Fire: Short Burst: 3 rounds, x2 Damage, uses 2 Melee Attacks
Medium Burst: 5 rounds, x3 Damage, uses 3 Melee Attacks
Long Burst: 10 rounds, x5 Damage, uses 4 Melee Attacks

[glitterboy2098]

honestly, what we need is a decent article in the rifter about how things like "save vs pain" and such should be used in combat. after all. often a GM will track the SDC/Hp damage, but will forget that being stabbed/shot/punched/kicked/thrown-around/etc hurts, and that players should be rolling for a save vs pain somewhere in the process.
likewise the bloodloss rules in the GMG really should be a part of all main rulebooks. same for the knockdown rules from the Conversion books.


as for weapons.. the main changes i make is when the stats on something makes little sense. like how the light machinegun in the macross saga sourcebook does less damage on a burst than the assualt rifle, despite firing the exact same ammo at larger burst sizes.

as for other weapons.. when i wrote up my "frags" page for my site, i made sure sdc weapons were the most common.. and i amde sure to have the Ak-47 and M-16 take up a third of the table. the SDC macross era weapons taking up much the rest. i did make sure to specify the bandits would have at least one magazine of SLAP ammo though.

[jedi078]

First of all for the Macross era I do not use the conventional firearms listed in the books. I hate to say but RL weaponry has better stats.

Second, because the damages done by conventional weapon have no scale and are inconsistent from book to book, I have my own damage scale system in place based on what's on the Kitsune website.

Three, bullets kill. So if you get shot 50% of the damage goes directly to hit points. Basically stay in cover and don't get shot.

Four, I don't buy the idea that a 5.56mm or 7.62mm SLAP ammo can do mega damage. Again there is an issue with damage scaling when 20 guys armed with simple assault rifles all firing at a destriod at the same time can seriously damage it.

Five, in regards to save vs pain it depends on what hit s the character. Most of the time I rule the player needs to roll a 14 or higher (with ME bonuses) to fight throug the pain of getting shot.

Six, headshots automatically do x3 damage to hit points, and as much as some wnat to argue about it shooting someone int hehead is just a called shot to a specific target. That's it, end of discussion.

[filo_clarke]

This is way to much math for what the gun is. Its a .22 after all. It you took a .22 revolver out with those different rounds and shot it....you might notice a slight difference in accuracy and a bit in penetration but not enough to alter that stats in a game. Except maybe for the rat shot which should not get more damage than the standard .22 LR...its good for shooting mice and snakes...but terrible for any respectable tissue damage in that caliber. Also the difference between a .22 FMJ and a regular .22 soft lead bullet is the fact that the .22 FMJ as a light sprayed on coating and just prevents less lead guming up the rifling, and the differences between it and a none copper coated bullet in .22 are little to none. In fact I really would call them a true FMJ in that caliber.

Also I don't see why a 3 round burst should take 2 melee attacks. It takes about one second to fire a 3 round burst...not 30 seconds. Guys in the military that are trained can dump a 30 rnd mag in about 20-30 seconds aiming firing and recovering.

Actually, all of these stats are from Heroes Unlimited, the Heroes Unlimited GMG and the Modern Weapons Compendium. According to those books, bursts from semi-automatic and double-action firearms take one attack more than they do in fully automatic weapons. So, while it is definitely possible to empty 30 rounds from a fully-automatic weapon in only a few attacks, using a semi-automatic weapon adds one attack to that time.

Also, while I agree that ammunition modifications would work better on certain bullets than on others, it would b far too cumbersome to stat-out each bullet-type, per caliber, and make specific rulings on each one. I presently have over 100 pages of weapons statted out as above, and have no desire to go house-ruling them all.