guns!

[Kindling]

Okay, so, I've decided there will be guns in Drust. Now, I'm well aware that there are existing D20 rules for firearms, and I don't have them. So, I'm coming up with my own stats to use in Iron Heroes. I did this the other day, finished them off, and was feeling pretty pleased with it, when I suddenly realised, wait a minute, other than the fact it weighs a lot less, there is absolutely no reason anyone would choose a submachine gun over a heavy machine gun.

Now, I'm no expert on guns. Most, if not all of what I know about them comes from Call of Duty and war movies. The closest I've ever come to firing a gun myself, is a paintball gun. But, my understanding of it is that for certain situations (close-quarters type stuff mainly, I'm guessing), it would be completely stupid to take a heavy machine gun, and the submachine gun would actually be a lot more useful.

I already made, obviously, the big guns heavier, but what I'm looking for is some other simple ways to represent this kind of thing in-game, so that choice of guns for my players is more to do with preference/combat style than just "what's the biggest thing available?" The key here, too, is simple ways to do this, I don't want to overwhelm my players with tonnes of new house-rules, I just want one or two things that will work simply, and don't necessarily have to be totally realistic as long as they're fun and streamlined.

I'm also thinking I want guns to be rare and powerful, kinda like magic items might be in traditional D&D games. A swordsman should not stand an equal chance against a gunman unless he is significantly higher level. Ammo will also be expensive/hard to come by.

I want to balance this slightly by having firearms be incompatible with some, if not all, of the Archer class abilities and Projectile feats... possibly not realistic, but I just like the idea of keeping the Archer class as archers - people who specialise in using bows.

For anyone who's interested, here are the gun-stats I've come up with so far.

one-handed:
Revolver         : 2d8/3, range 20 ft., single shot (6), 3 lb.
Automatic Pistol   : 2d6/3, range 20ft., single shot (8) 3 lb.
Machine Pistol       : 2d6/3, range 15ft., burst fire (15) 4 lb.
two-handed:
Submachine Gun   : 2d6/3, range 30ft., burst fire (30), 8 lb.
Assault Rifle      : 2d8/3, range 50ft., burst fire (30), 10 lb.
Battle Rifle      : 2d10/3, range 70ft., single shot (20) 12 lb.
Light Machine Gun   : 2d8/3, range 70ft., burst fire (100) 15 lb.
Heavy Machine Gun   : 2d10/3, range 70ft., burst fire (100) 20 lb.

I'm aware that single-shot means something else in D20 modern firearms rules, but I'm using it to roughly mean semi-automatic or, in the case of the revolver, double-action; basically each pull of the trigger fires a single shot.

The other guns are listed as burst-fire, rather than full auto or rapid fire or whatever, because of the burst-firing mechanic I've come up with, based in part on my (slightly vague) understanding of CoC's similar rule. This mechanic is, I'm guessing, fairly unrealistic, but as I said above, I'm more worried about it being fun and easy to use/remember than necessarily being too true-to-life.
I'm also hoping that this rule will mean that while spraying out lots of bullets does make it a lot more likely to score hits (and, potentially, lots of hits), the scarcity of ammunition in the campaign will mean that players should only resort to these kind of spray-and-pray tactics when in dire need.
Anyway, this is my burst-firing mechanic:


BURST FIRE

When firing a burst fire gun, you make a choice between firing a single bullet, or a burst. If firing a single bullet, treat it as a normal single shot gun.

If you decide to fire a burst, you may only fire one burst per combat round, regardless of any additional attacks you might otherwise be allowed due to BAB, feats, etc.

When firing a burst, first, decide how many bullets to put into the burst. You must choose an amount that corresponds to a dice shape, for example a 4 round burst, for a d4, a 6 round burst, for a d6, and so on up to a 20 round burst for a d20.
Bear in mind that you cannot fire more rounds in a burst than there are rounds currently loaded in the gun you are using.

You roll the burst fire attack as a single ranged attack at your highest BAB, with a to-hit bonus as shown on the table below based on how many rounds you fired in the burst.

4 rounds      +1
6 rounds      +2
8 rounds      +3
10 rounds    +4
12 rounds      +5
20 rounds      +6

If you hit with your burst fire attack, next roll the corresponding dice for the number of rounds in your burst (1d4 for a 4-round burst, 1d6 for a 6-round burst, and so on) to determine how many bullets out of the burst made contact.
Then proceed to roll damage for each round that connected as if it were an individual hit.

If you score a critical hit with your burst fire attack, only the first round to connect, and thus the first damage roll, will count as a critical - fully-automatic small arms fire is too imprecise for multiple rounds to strike the exact same point.

[Steerpike]

These rules look good to me, but just in case you want something to compare them to, d20 modern actually has an online SRD.

[Kindling]

Thanks, I'll give it a look. No suggestions for making submachine guns and assault rifles more attractive choices though?

[brainface]

No suggestions for making submachine guns and assault rifles more attractive choices though?

really[/i] need light and heavy machine guns both. You could just describe everything machine gun like with the heavy machine gun's stats.

Another option is to require heavy's to have a setup time. I don't think you can really fire heavy machine gun's from the hip unless you're Jesse Ventura. A penalty to hit to represent carrying weaponry realllly meant to be mounted somewhere might also be appropriate.

[Kindling]

I guess you're right about the division. I was thinking basically of the division in calibre. Watch now as I start talking slightly technically about guns... as I said above I'm no expert so any and all of this might be complete BS

Basically the light machine gun was supposed to represent weapons like the FN Minimi which fire intermediate cartridges, the same as assault rifles, while the heavy machine gun was supposed to be a bit like its bigger brother, the FN MAG which fires full-size rifle rounds. That's why I've made the distinction, but then again, you're right that there's no real game-type reason to do so.

As I was imagining the FN MAG as a real-world example of what the heavy machine gun might be, I guess maybe general-purpose machine gun might have been a better name to use for it, as that's (I think) technically what the FN MAG is, as opposed to like some massive .50 cal.

A to-hit penalty for the machine guns is a good idea though, and I think I'll definitely go for it. How severe do you think I should make it? -1 or -2 doesn't seem enough for how hard I imagine it would be to fire those kind of weapons from a standing position, but I don't want to make it too high, so players can still have fun doing a bit of a Jesse Ventura :)

EDIT: Also, I'm sure I once saw a photo of some soldiers training with big machine guns held as if to hip-fire... I mean, obviously they're not gonna be best employed that way, but it does seem to me that it can be done, and they don't absolutely have to be mounted.

EDIT 2: Not the picture I was thinking of, but I found one of a guy actually hip-firing a GPMG: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4668910733_80de7f8231.jpg

[Superfluous Crow]

You could modify the range rules slighly for the bigger guns, reducing the range increment but allowing more increments before it is a miss by default. Basically, make it so that heavy machine guns lose accuracy quickly over range.

[Kindling]

Ah, range increments! Yes! How about this: the machine guns get two different range increments, a pretty short one for firing when standing, and a long-range one for firing from prone?

This could help differentiate the light and heavy machine guns too, as the light machine gun could maybe have a slightly longer standing range increment due to its lighter weight and less powerful ammo?

This would still leave the submachine gun as just a weaker, shorter-ranged assault rifle though. I would like it to have something at least to make it worth taking, given the choice.

[CoyoteCamouflage]

I can help provide a few notes to consider. I am not well-versed with guns, but I am at least literate, for the most part.

1. Much of the distinction in damage should be by the type of round fired, be it pistol or rifle rounds (while this can vary wildly based on specific kinds of ammunition, for simplicity sake, let us simply assume that a rifle round will have more powder and a faster muzzle velocity, thus providing more stopping power). There are .22 Revolvers just as there are Hand-Cannons-- but they certainly do not do the same kind of damage to a target. For your purposes, it seems easier to assume that Revolvers are more along the lines of Hand-Cannons.

2. LMG and HMG. As far as I see what you want, an HMG is going to be a Man-Portable Heavy weapon (Such as a Browing .30 cal, or an MG42). These weapons, though usually reliable and capable of grotesque amounts of destruction, are not easy to use. They are often mounted in emplacements, making them largely immobile (at least for running and gunning), and with a limited field of fire. A good distinction may be to enhance it as a belt-fed weapon. Make it's ammunition per 'clip' much higher, but increase its reload time. Also, real machine guns like the ones I mentioned can suffer severely for long periods of firing- the barrels can and will get red hot (most of the WW2 era machine guns featured extra barrels to change out in the middle of a firefight).

3. If you want SMGs to seem better choices, here is an idea: Why not invent a Close-Quarters-Combat (CQC) ability for the SMGS and the pistols (not the revolver) that allows you to use them as ranged weapons while threatened in melee without provoking AoOs? And with everything else present, why no shotguns?

4. Sorry, but I find your burst rules to be, well, broken. Granted, while I don't know the scaling by level or cost of ammunition that you intend (And couldn't a PC also take ranks in a Craft skill to make their own?). Even the Machine Pistol can do upwards of 16d6 damage. The HMG can do up to 40d10 damage. For comparison sake, that ought to average ~200 damage, which is about the damage of a 3.5 DnD Maximized fireball from a level 16-17 character. The ceiling of 400-- even with armor to reduce it-- just makes me cringe.

I would suggest negating the numerous extra hits. Bring it back down so that you can do a burst for any attack (you do not give up your extra attacks from BAB), but have the burst add directly into your plus to hit (in other words, you are treating your ammunition like aim tokens). For this, I would modify the current table you have present to make it a little bit better (or even set the ammunition cost of a burst based on the weapon itself.) Now, I understand that some people might like the Burst rules here. I don't, but that's because I prefer more set averages and restricted ranges as opposed to wildly divergent possibilities (Mostly because my luck with dice is utter crap. I learned this from Warhammer. Anyone else ever seen all seven 2+ armor saves failed in the same roll? That's par for the course, with me). This way, I see guns at least being balanced, since you would be most likely to accrue hits based on your BAB attacks, not the random "I-Eat-You" roll of good luck that will, in about (%85?) of situations, give you more hits than you have attacks. Also, to be honest, full-auto fire is generally more for suppressing fire than accurate fire (meaning hits are all about blind luck, not skill, as it is more than likely most of your shots will miss). Still, the three-round burst is basically a gun-version of Many/Rapidshot.

[sparkletwist]

A brief tangent:
You're not the only one who has bad luck with Warhammer dice. The ones made by GW are actually somewhat cheaply made and tend to roll a 1 more likely than the statistical 1 in 6. It is studied at http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/That%27s_How_I_Roll_-_A_Scientific_Analysis_of_Dice

EDIT: Fixed the URL

[Nomadic]

Expanding upon what Coyote said, heavy machine guns are usually crew serviced weapons. They're not designed to be used like a light machine gun by a lone person. You often set it up as an emplacement and have a separate gunner and ammunition man/spotter backing you up. You're probably better off focusing on light machine guns and possibly throwing HMGs in there as an option for bad guys to use (or for crazy PCs).

One thought here is that if guns are going to be rare you may want to consider suppressive fire. In real life combat a good 95% of the shooting is just to force the enemy to keep their head down. If you don't consider it then you get silly situations where the PCs charge into a hail of bullets unphased because "hey a few shots to the gut won't knock me below 0 hp". In real life you hear guns go off and you get your head down almost reflexively.

As guns are rare in your setting this is even more important as they likely have a bit of fear associated with them. Strange weapons with the power of "a hundred bows". Any person who has even heard rumors of them is going to feel their heart skip a beat after the first gunshot. So then you might consider some rules to help enforce the importance of cover for the players.

[Superfluous Crow]

A burst mechanic I've seen is that you are assumed to fire n shots and if one hits, you get to make a second attack with a -2 modifier, if that hits you get an attack and a -4 modifier, etc...

Alternatively, you could have each burst-bullet-wound deal e.g. 3 points of damage. A more fixed value, where the variable is the amount of hits.

Heavy guns could reduce speed like armor.

Jamming and misfire is also a balancing option.

[Llum]

Wouldn't firing more rounds with an automatic weapon actually make you less accurate due to muzzle lift and recoil? I'm not overly familiar with guns but just knowing physics shouldn't think be a problem?

[Nomadic]

Wouldn't firing more rounds with an automatic weapon actually make you less accurate due to muzzle lift and recoil? I'm not overly familiar with guns but just knowing physics shouldn't think be a problem?

Recoil on automatic rifles is often not that bad. Muzzle lift only becomes an issue in full auto (which is almost never used outside of suppressive fire where accuracy doesn't matter).

[Kindling]

@CoyoteCamouflage: You're absolutely right about the burst fire thing. See, this is why I normally stick to fluff: I just don't seem to think my crunch through properly!

How about if I use your ammo-for-aim idea, but say instead of a 1-for-1 exchange of extra bullets for to-hit bonuses, you buy each +1 to hit for 1d4 extra bullets in the burst? I could make a feat called like "controlled bursts" or something that lets you take that down to a 1-for-1 instead.

The close quarters idea for SMGs and pistols is a good one, I will start thinking of how to implement it. And I've not uncluded shotguns, because I've been completely unable to come up with a smooth, simple mechanic for the spread on their buckshot - although I understand that in real life they have tighter spread and longer range than is normally seen in shooters such as CoD?

@Nomadic: As I said above, I probably chose the wrong name for what I'm calling a heavy machine gun. Think instead of a general-purpose machine gun like the FN MAG or M60: Something that fires rifle calibre rounds but is flexible enough to be used as a squad automatic weapon as well as a mounted gun.

The suppressive fire idea is cool and stuff, but as I said I'd rather go for simple over realistic, and just roleplay things like people getting scared by gunfire.

Plus, I like to run adventurous, actiony type games, with larger-than-life heroes. Sure, you're right, in the real world everyone ducks when the shooting starts, and in my games the NPCs will do just that. The PCs though? They're the ones with the balls to do just what you describe; charge regardless and just take the punishment.

@CC: I like the speed reduction thing. Maybe just -10ft. to base move or something, what do you reckon?

@Llum: I think the idea is that instead of fine-aiming a single shot, which takes skill, you just hose down the general area your target is in. If you put enough lead in the air, you're bound to hit something. That may not be the way it really works - as I said, I've never fired a gun, so I wouldn't know - but it does seem to go that way in the movies, and I'd much rather go with just-about-justifiable-and-badass than realistic-and-dull :P

[Superfluous Crow]

10 ft. sounds okay. Maybe you could even go as low as only 5 ft., would still be a deterrent for many. More than 10 ft. would be both unrealistic and too punishing.

Concerning your argument that there are no real reasons to use SMG over HMG, ordinary D&D and D20 games suffer under much the same issues. Take the humble dagger. It had a place in medieval warfare (you used them to stab a knight's eyes), and it would generally be way more useful in (very close) close quarters fighting than a longsword, but in D&D there is no real advantage in wielding a dagger as compared to most of the other weapons other than it looks cool and you can hide it in your sleeve.

D&D and Iron Heroes have tried to lift some of these weapons out of their pitiful state by introducing feats like weapon finesse and razor fiend which only apply to a small subgroup of weapons, yet provide significant bonusses. You could devise feats like Assault Tactics and Gunpoint Combat which apply to SMGs, but not their larger kin. If the SMG is of sufficient size there is of course also always the humble art of dual-wielding. Or SMG-and-shield :p