Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas
Absolutely ... but until we can find one person who is actually playing GURPS and finds that the rules for long-range musketry make their games less fun, its probably not a good idea to worry too much. Playing around with ways to represent things in the real world can be fun, but in my experience it does not have much impact on play unless all the work can be front-loaded. Even then, it may be more a GM's worry than a player's worry, like setting design.
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My suggestion isn't much more of a hassle to use than the Time of Flight rules, and if opting for the low-resolution version is fairly easy to frontload - all smoothbores would have an additional Range value, call it Effective Range or whatever, which would designate the point after which it suffers a -2 per Range increment, rather than a -1. You could add it in parentheses after the weapon's Range. So, you might have a weapon that is Range 120/1200 (70), which means for a 200 yard shot you're at the normal -12 for Range, then another -3 (for being 3 steps beyond 70) for drift. I think a more important factor, however, might be adjustments for proper MoA - if smoothbores do indeed hover around MoA 36, that's a maximum effective skill of 21*, which is reachable without having a cinematic character (unlike effective skill of 26).
That said, the above is likely more useful to answer the question of "Why bother with rifles when muskets are only marginally less accurate and can be loaded more quickly?" which is, as you noted, more a GM/setting question than a player question (where "+1 Acc on a weapon I can only use once per combat anyway? Yes, please" is the answer).
*Assuming I'm figuring out maximum skill correctly, anyway. I figured out how it goes a while back and am basing my current numbers off of old posts, as I don't remember
exactly how it's meant to be calculated. MoA 36 is a grouping of around 1 yard at 100 yards, meaning you can just barely hit a circular target with a 1 yard diameter, which would be right around SM 0, at 100 yards (-10 to hit). A roll of 10.5 implies normal conditions; a higher or lower roll means luck was (perhaps slightly) for (lower roll) or against (higher roll) you. Round this up to 11 (implying luck being
slightly against you), or use the optional "Taking 11" rule, and that means effective skill of 21.
(EDIT: Looks like MoA actually refers to a 69% hit rate, which is more like a roll of 11.5 or 12. That would mean effective skill of 21.5 or 22)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
A more realistic version of accuracy than what GURPS does would be an aim bonus that is completely determined by the ergonomics of the weapon, and then a maximum skill that is determined by the intrinsic accuracy of the gun.
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Yes, please.