Shotgun damage

[Robroy]

In the games when one of my characters used a shotgun it was a civilian weapon. Now we have the military full auto guns and I have found the damages a little lite. In Dead Reign my Reaper just pick up a Thunder 5,which is cool as I have been thinking of getting a Judge. Both are 5 shot revolvers chambered for .410 shot shell / .45 Long Colt. Like any good consumer I have been doing some research that has made me rethink the shotgun damage in the game.

I noticed the Saiga-12 list damage by gauge. I like this as it is more in line with the bullet damage list. I would modify it by type of round.

Shotgun Damage and Range

Range 50 yards (150 ft)
Shot shells do full damage up to 10 yards (30 ft), (5yards (15 ft) for saw offs), ½ damage after that.

12 Gauge: 5d6
Bird shot: ½ damage
Buck shot: x3 damage
Slug: range x2

20 Gauge: 4d6
Bird shot: ½ damage
Buck shot: x2 damage
Slug: range x2

.410: 3d6
Bird shot: ½ damage
Buck shot: x2 damage
Slug: range x2

I have a multiplier for buck because a 12 gauge buck shot round has around 8 .36 caliber balls in it (depending on brand and load). By the current rules if I fire a five round burst and hit I would do damage times 3. The other gages do x2 damage because they have less or lighter pellets.

The slugs come in Armor Piercing, Hollow Point, and Fragmenting. The military has the Frag-12, a mini-grenade, but they are not supposed to chamber in a civilian gun.

[J. Lionheart]

I'm not sure if you're looking for feedback/suggestions on this one, but I'll go ahead and give some. Disregard if you're not interested.

There are quite a few different books with various rules fo combat, but I'll go with some stuff from the Compendium, which is what my group uses for DR games.

The 5D6 rating on a 12 gauge shotty is for a solid slug - something a lot scarier than a .36 calibre ball (as scary as a spray of those might be). A .36 in this game would only do 2D6 damage, so the multiplication should be off that, rather than the 5D6 for a slug. It would be a bit silly for buck to do triple the damage of a slug.

Burst fire rules are meant for an aimed burst at one person, with each bullet following a straight path. A 5-shot burst would do maybe x2 damage, certainly not x3. Disregarding that, firing buckshot is closer to a spray than a burst, I would think, and should follow the multiple-impact rules for that (namely, x2 damage, +20% of hitting any innocents or others in the target area). The listed buck damage for a 12 gauge is 4D6, basically the 2D6x2 a spray would create.

Lowering the gauge, it makes sense to reduce the damage as you have, I just think it's overly complicated the do it with all the multiplying and dividing. It's already listed in the books as being 5D6/4D6, which follows a pretty logical pattern, and does in some ways mimic what you're planning there. Also duplicated in the book are certain aspects of the range differential, though the game gives each of them a generously longer range without fall-off. Basically, both slug and buck has a 150 foot range without damage loss, while a sawed-off has 1/3 of that.


The system you're suggesting is close enough to the book that I wouldn't really have an issue with it, except the way buck is handled (drop the damage you're multiplying, it shouldn't outdo a slug). It might be more streamlined to simply use dice rolls that reflect the damage, rather than doing multiplying and dividing to get there - ie 4D6 instead of 2D6x2, or 2D8 instead of 5D6/2, but whatever floats your boat

[Robroy]

Feed back is fine. I posted it for constructive criticism.

Yea I will change the multiplier for 12 gauge buck to x2. I think buck will do more damage at close range. A slug can go through some one, once it leaves a body that is energy that is wasted. The lighter balls of buck shot will stop in a body transmitting all there energy to the body.

I increased the range of slugs because any more they are rifled slugs. Making them spin stabilized and can deliver there energy at longer range. Where the buck shot will spread and slow to much.

We have been using the new damage rules where a 3 round burst is x2 and a 5 (or 6 depending on where in the book you look) burst is x3. So with 9 balls in 12 gauge buck shot, if you go by the 2d6 damage it is easy to get to a x4 or x5 damage. Which would put it in the 8d6-10d6 range.

At close range.

That is why it we have it do half damage after 30 feet.

As far as a shot gun spraying an area, we don’t play that. Shot will spread about 1 inch every 10 feet or so. So at 60 feet you will have a spread of about 6 inches. This is why shotguns have a choke, and some military guns have a shot spreader, to effect the pattern for the desired result.

[jedi078]

With solid slug it’s hard to hit a paper target at 25 yards (75 feet) because the barrel of the shot gun is NOT rifled. You need both a rifled bullet as well as a barrel to get decent range. So the effective range (the range in which you actually stand a chance of hitting the target) of 150 feet that the book lists is wrong. You need to chop that in half.

For damages I suggest you check out Kitsunes Net book of modern firearms. Damage values are not haphazardly assigned.

[azazel1024]

I'll have to check out his netbook, I didn't realize he had one (I've seen the PW stuff from him).

For buck, despite the ball size, it would do less damage then a .36 caliber bullet. A .38 caliber slug weight is typically around 8g and a .32 caliber slug weight is around 4.6g (using ACP weights of both calibers). The weight of 000 buck (.36 caliber ball) is 4.5g, about that of .32 caliber bullets (remeber, bullets aren't round, buckshot is). 00 buck is the most common shell for defense and is pretty common for hunting as well and contains 9 .33 caliber balls in a 12 gauge shell. 000 buck only has 7 balls in the same caliber shell.

I am not familiar with small guage shotguns like .410, but I'd think they'd have a hard time loading anything bigger then 00 buck and even then would be hard. How much could a .410 load? 3-4 00 balls? Not much spread pattern. I'd think you'd be using solid slug or something lighter like #1 buck shot so that you'd have at least 5-6 ball in the shell.
-Matt

[Robroy]

I had seen Kitsune’s site before and for got about it. Thanks for the reindeer.

The .410 normally has three OOO balls. But I have seen some personal defense loads that have five balls.

[Natasha]

Not all shotguns are smooth bore; you can only shoot slugs with rifled shotguns, if I recall correctly, otherwise shot will damage the barrel. But some people will say that it's no longer a shotgun but I suppose for game rules purposes that's neither here nor there.

[jedi078]

Not all shotguns are smooth bore; you can only shoot slugs with rifled shotguns, if I recall correctly, otherwise shot will damage the barrel.

I have rounds for my 9mm that are shot, designed to kill rats and so forth, so it might be possible to fire a shot round from a rifled shotgun.

But the idea of a rifled shotgun is a moot point since a rifled 12 gauge shotgun is illegal in the United States, hence you won't find one in a contemporary game setting.

In the United States any weapon with a rifled barrel over 12.7 millimeters (or .50 inches/caliber) is legally considered a destructive device. For reference a 12 gauge shotgun shell is 18.5 millimeter or .73 inches in size. You could go down to a .410 bore shotgun, but would only be about the size of a 10mm round.

But some people will say that it's no longer a shotgun but I suppose for game rules purposes that's neither here nor there.

IMO it would become an Elephant gun. Most of which fired rifled rounds measured in 10, 8, 6, and 4 bore/gauge.

[Natasha]

They're manufactured by a company called Hastings. You can even buy them from Cabela's.

[jedi078]

They're manufactured by a company called Hastings. You can even buy them from Cabela's.

Yeah and in order to get the accuracy Hastings advertises you have to use SPECIAL saboted slugs that are LESS then .50 inches in size.