Help with robust modern firearms rules.

[Epsilon Rose]

Hello all. First things first. This post concerns a campaign I am currently running. So, if you're playing in my current incarnation of Escaping Reality: Please exit this thread post haste.




Everyone who should be gone? Good. Let's get on with it.

I'm currently running/starting a fairly heavily homebrewed PF campaign that takes place in the modern world, but also has access to a more fantastical, less modern, world. As the PCs, and no small number of NPCs, will be natives of our world, firearms of the modern variety will be playing a roll.

Right now, I'm trying to find a robust set of rules for said guns (because PFs flintlocks just aren't going to cut it). There are a number of rather difficult criteria I want to hit, which has me leaning towards wanting to find or adapt an already existing system, rather than simply trying to build my own. Still, I would appreciate any advice on either front or simply on interesting ways of integrating modern technology into the campaign.

The main things I want to accomplish are as follows:

• Variety
  
  I'd like there to be some variety in firearms. More than the token weak handgun/strong handgun/weak long-arm/strong long-arm divide. I'd also like the guns to feel different; i.e. not like swords in 3.5. This is probably one of the biggest things keeping me from simply jumping for the d20 modern firearms rules. As one of my players pointed out: there's really not all that much difference between using an anti-material rife and a hunting rifle in d20 modern. He was talking about the skill required to use them, but I'd extend the sentiment to their mechanics as well. Without special feats, semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons are pretty similar. At the very least, I'd like the different types of guns (pistol, revolver, shotgun, submachine gun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, you should really be bolting that down rifle) to have some positive distinguishing features. Basically, I'd like to have the choice be more involved than "this option always gives you the best numbers" or "they're all interchangeable".
  On a slightly lesser note, it would also be nice if there were options for different types of ammo, both in terms of different calibers and specialty rounds. Eventually, I think I'd like to introduce smart guns and airburst rounds (either as shiny new toys or loathsome new enemies depending on who the PCs are working for at the time), but other near future or exotic variants would also be fun (Gyrojets any one?).
• Options
  
  I'd like there to be a variety of options for using different kinds of guns in different ways. For example, it would be nice if you could lay down suppressive fire with an automatic weapon. I imagine this sort of thing will either already be a part of most rule systems governing modern weapons or easily added, but I felt it was important to mention, especially because I don't know what types of tactics need explicit rules, nor what those rules should look like.
• Logistics
  
  It would be nice if the rules took certain logistics considerations into account. I'm mostly thinking about ammo (Is it being stored in magazines, are those magazines stored in your pack or in some more readily accessible manner [particularly relevant for spells that heat up metals]? How much of a given type of ammo can you reasonably carry in magazines at one time [beyond just weight considerations]?). Again, I doubt that sort of thing is difficult and I also doubt I'll be putting much emphasis on it while they're in the modern world, but it would be nice to have some extra pressures I can heap on them while they're in the fantastic one.
• Balance
  
  My desire for balanced rules should be fairly self explanatory, but I'm actually less worried about it than I'd normally be. I don't think I really need too worry to much about balancing guns against melee or bows in the modern world because in our world guns are assumed to be better and most (relevant) people use them anyways. In the fantastic world, most people are going to have magic to bolster their more archaic weapons. I'd probably be willing to go so far as to give my mooks levels in ToB or Spell Shaping classes and I'm toying with making low level enchanted gear common.

You can find the rules I'm using here, but the most important points are probably: I'm using an HP/VP mechanic, defense bonuses from Unearthed Arcana, a High point buy, and gestalt.

If you have any questions about the game, I'd be happy to answer them and, if you have any ideas, I'd be happy to hear them (even if you just want to tell me to use the d20 modern rules).

P.S. I apologize for any typos I might have missed. My spell checker was acting a bit funny, blinking certain things on and off.

[Amechra]

On these forums, you don't wrap urls in links with quotes. So all your links are broken.

But anyway... as long as you are fiddling around, here are some suggestions:

1. Shotguns: I've seen a version of shotgun rules where they only have 5 range increments but deals something like 5 dice of damage. You deal 1 die less for each range increment and check for scatter if you miss.

2. Automatic weapons should rules-wise work kind of like a splash weapon; you attack a square, and a little bit extra shrapnel hits the next square over. Add in a "Shaped Burst" feat and an option to "walk" your weapon (get a small benefit for attacking whatever square you "splashed" into on your last attack.) and it should work rather well.

3. Ammo capacity and reload time are biggies; a sniper rifle, for example, could be represented by giving it a long range increment, high damage, and stating that it takes a full round to fire. A pistol and a revolver (to give a bad example) could have an equal amount of ammo, but the pistol takes a magazine, and so can be loaded faster.

4. How fantastic do you want your auxiliary ammo to be? Are we talking realistic ammo here, or armor piercing spookity rounds that do evil voodoo to a guy's insides?

[Epsilon Rose]

On these forums, you don't wrap urls in links with quotes. So all your links are broken.

Oh, whoops. I just copied this from my post on giant. When I saw the links looked right, I assumed they worked. I have corrected my error.

But anyway... as long as you are fiddling around, here are some suggestions:

1. Shotguns: I've seen a version of shotgun rules where they only have 5 range increments but deals something like 5 dice of damage. You deal 1 die less for each range increment and check for scatter if you miss.

That could be very interesting, depending on how guns work in general. Do you know where on here you saw it?

2. Automatic weapons should rules-wise work kind of like a splash weapon; you attack a square, and a little bit extra shrapnel hits the next square over. Add in a "Shaped Burst" feat and an option to "walk" your weapon (get a small benefit for attacking whatever square you "splashed" into on your last attack.) and it should work rather well.

Also an interesting idea.

3. Ammo capacity and reload time are biggies; a sniper rifle, for example, could be represented by giving it a long range increment, high damage, and stating that it takes a full round to fire. A pistol and a revolver (to give a bad example) could have an equal amount of ammo, but the pistol takes a magazine, and so can be loaded faster.

I'm not so sure about the pistol/revolver split. Many pistols have much higher ammo capacities than revolvers and most revolvers can be used with a speed loader or ring clip (which still might take longer to use).

4. How fantastic do you want your auxiliary ammo to be? Are we talking realistic ammo here, or armor piercing spookity rounds that do evil voodoo to a guy's insides?

I'm thinking the ammo should be mostly realistic. The two worlds haven't had much interaction for a very long time, so no "spooky" rounds would have been developed yet. That said, it's definitely something to consider for later in the campaign.

[Amechra]

The revolver/pistol thing was me just reaching around for something.

I can't remember where I saw that houserule...

[Keldar]

Have you looked into D20 Modern?  It has fairly robust firearms rules, with a wide selection of guns.

[Epsilon Rose]

Have you looked into D20 Modern?  It has fairly robust firearms rules, with a wide selection of guns.

I have. I even mentioned a few problems I had with it, though Amechra's suggestions do help with them.

[Solo]

As someone who owns both a pistol and revolver, let me just say that there are speedloading techniques to quickly reload both, so for the purpose of a game, in which abstractions necessarily exist, having reload times be the same for both is does not endanger verisimilitude.

Besides, we all know that guns never run out of ammunition except when it would create dramatic tension.

A word about automatic fire: full auto imposes severe penalties to accuracy, which is why its often used for suppressive purposes. Video here.

[Epsilon Rose]

That is a rather useful video. Thank you.
Now I just need to figure out how to translate that into rules.

[Solo]

Small AOE damage and large movement speed penalty when under suppressive fire.

[Epsilon Rose]

Small AOE damage and large movement speed penalty when under suppressive fire.

That sounds like a good idea. I was thinking of maybe doing something involving the shaken condition and normally, d20 modern makes it so you attack a 10x10 area when using autofire and everyone in it has to make a dc15 ref save or take damage, but doesn't impose any penalties. However, I think it might be interesting to combine all three. Maybe something like: When using auto fire, you attack a 10x10 area with an ac of 10. If you hit, every one in that area must make a will save with a dc=your attack roll or take 1/2 weapons damage and either suffer the shaken condition or move at 1/2 speed for the duration of the round, at their choice. If they choose the movement penalty, they must move.

[Nanshork]

Star Wars Saga Editions has some autofire/suppressive fire rules though I'm at work so I have no idea what they are.

[Solo]

That sounds like a good idea. I was thinking of maybe doing something involving the shaken condition and normally, d20 modern makes it so you attack a 10x10 area when using autofire and everyone in it has to make a dc15 ref save or take damage, but doesn't impose any penalties. However, I think it might be interesting to combine all three. Maybe something like: When using auto fire, you attack a 10x10 area with an ac of 10. If you hit, every one in that area must make a will save with a dc=your attack roll or take 1/2 weapons damage and either suffer the shaken condition or move at 1/2 speed for the duration of the round, at their choice. If they choose the movement penalty, they must move.

Keep in mind a well trained fighter will simply take cover and return fire.

[Garryl]

Star Wars Saga Editions has some autofire/suppressive fire rules though I'm at work so I have no idea what they are.

IIRC, SWSE's Suppressing Fire is sort of like an inverted, souped up Aid Another. You make a ranged attack vs. AC 10, only cover and a few other things apply. If you hit, you don't deal any damage but the target gets a -2 penalty on all attack rolls for 1 round. Compare to D&D's Aid Another, which only works in melee, only gives +2 AC to one specific ally against attacks from one specific enemy, and only works on one attack during the round, rather than all of them (although SWSE normally only allows a single attack per round so that particular difference probably doesn't come up that much).

SWSE Autofire is kinda like D20 Modern's autofire condensed into a single roll, since SWSE doesn't have separate saves from AC (make a ranged attack roll; if you equal or exceed the Reflex Defense of anyone in the 3mx3m area, you deal damage to them; if you miss their Reflex Defense but hit AC 10, you deal 1/2 damage; if you miss AC 10, you deal no damage). I think one of the SWSE splatbooks also added that if you hit AC 10 but miss the Reflex Defense of someone who has cover, you deal no damage to them instead of 1/2. There are also a few other penalties and restrictions involved if you don't have the right feat or if you don't spend an action to brace yourself, and SWSE guns also usually take a minor action to switch between standard fire and automatic.

Keep in mind that I've never actually read the SWSE books. This is just what I've gleaned from look at some of the previews and watching a few SWSE games being played. Much of my information is incomplete.

[Prime32]

I'm not sure if this is appropriate, but have you considered giving everyone the ability to use wands, and fluffing wands as "spell cartridges" you insert into a magitek gun?

There's a bunch of nonmagical special arrows out there which could be adapted into different kinds of bullets, mostly in Races of the Wild and issues 330/349 of Dragon (EDIT: Dr348 also has crossbow bolts that explode or trip enemies). Then there's razorfeather arrows from MM5. See also the gnome crossbow sight in the Arms & Equipment Guide.

[ksbsnowowl]

Most of the basic d20 Modern firearms are a decent starting place.  I agree the auto-fire rules are a bit wonky.  I think the Double-tap rule/feat is actually a decent approximation.

A few specific firearms in some of the splat books are off, in my opinion, but it's only a few examples.  The P-90 and the Mosin Nagant are the two main offenders. (One suffers from masturbatory fandom, and the other is the game writers not realizing how a Mosin compares to other firearms and cartridges).

How the rules depict firearms damage-wise, I know is a vast abstraction.  Giving them all a crit range of 18-20 or 19-20 would make them decently more realistic, but it's not necessary (lessens the abstraction just enough for my tastes).  This all sort of depends what level you are playing at, and how fantastical/"heroic" you want things to be.

Yeah, if someone's got moonclips, reloading a revolver vs. a pistol is similar, and would take someone of average proficiency a move action.

Shotguns:  At 30 feet, a real world shotgun is going to have a spread of 12" or less.  They aren't cones.  Amechra's proposed rule isn't a bad one.  Call it five range increments of 30 feet each (or 20 ft, or whatever).  Lessen the damage by a die each range increment (outliers start to fly wide, you only hit with half the spread, etc).  The d20M 12-gauges do 2d8 damage; maybe make them do 4d4, and remove one for each 30-foot range increment.

Not sure what else you could do to mechanically differentiate different types of firearms.  I'll give it some thought though.
A lot of the real differences are due to how the bullet behaves inside the body, and mere differences in damage aren't a good way to demonstrate that.  I can't think of many good ways to represent them (for example, the lowly .22 has racked up more deaths outside of war than any other caliber, but it is usually a slow death, where it bounces off of ribs, and the patient never becomes stable enough for surgery, but it didn't have stopping power in the moment).

[Garryl]

Shotguns:  At 30 feet, a real world shotgun is going to have a spread of 12" or less.  They aren't cones.  Amechra's proposed rule isn't a bad one.  Call it five range increments of 30 feet each (or 20 ft, or whatever).  Lessen the damage by a die each range increment (outliers start to fly wide, you only hit with half the spread, etc).  The d20M 12-gauges do 2d8 damage; maybe make them do 4d4, and remove one for each 30-foot range increment.

D20 Modern shotguns already take a -1 penalty on damage per range increment (in addition to the -2 penalty to attack rolls that all ranged attacks face) to model that same issue.

[ksbsnowowl]

Shotguns:  At 30 feet, a real world shotgun is going to have a spread of 12" or less.  They aren't cones.  Amechra's proposed rule isn't a bad one.  Call it five range increments of 30 feet each (or 20 ft, or whatever).  Lessen the damage by a die each range increment (outliers start to fly wide, you only hit with half the spread, etc).  The d20M 12-gauges do 2d8 damage; maybe make them do 4d4, and remove one for each 30-foot range increment.

D20 Modern shotguns already take a -1 penalty on damage per range increment (in addition to the -2 penalty to attack rolls that all ranged attacks face) to model that same issue.

It's been a while.  I vaguely recalled there being something like that, but a quick peek at the Modern SRD didn't find it.

[Garryl]

Shotguns:  At 30 feet, a real world shotgun is going to have a spread of 12" or less.  They aren't cones.  Amechra's proposed rule isn't a bad one.  Call it five range increments of 30 feet each (or 20 ft, or whatever).  Lessen the damage by a die each range increment (outliers start to fly wide, you only hit with half the spread, etc).  The d20M 12-gauges do 2d8 damage; maybe make them do 4d4, and remove one for each 30-foot range increment.

D20 Modern shotguns already take a -1 penalty on damage per range increment (in addition to the -2 penalty to attack rolls that all ranged attacks face) to model that same issue.

It's been a while.  I vaguely recalled there being something like that, but a quick peek at the Modern SRD didn't find it.

It's hidden in the weapon descriptions.

Shotguns are large-bore weapons that primarily fire shells full of small projectiles. They tend to be powerful, but only at short range. Reduce shotgun damage by 1 point for every range increment of the attack.