House ruling firearm skills?

[ed_209a]

I am considering a house rule defining the Guns skill by how you shoot, not what you shoot. This will involve folding all handguns and all longarms into Guns(Pistol) and Guns(Rifle).

It seems to me that the real skill in using a firearm is in aligning the weapon with target, and then triggering the weapon without pulling the weapon off target. That is what you spend hundreds of hours honing. That shouldn't change whether you are firing a .38 revolver or a blaster.

Really, I believe a pioneer with a TL5 flintlock rifle could pick up a TL8 assault carbine, and be up to speed in a few hours of training. Having fired a modern reproduction of a TL6 rifle, I can assure you it goes the other way. You just need to learn the quirks of the weapon. This is exactly the concept of Familiarity, rather than separate skills.

As a related house rule, I am considering putting the diversity back into the Guns skill family, but only at high level. Up to a reasonably expert level (14- maybe?) Guns(Rifle) or Guns(Pistol) covers everything. After that point, further training is so specific that it only applies to a limited scope of weaponry. Then at an even higher level of skill (18- maybe?) it becomes even more specific, to a single model of weapon.

For an example, a hypothetical Olympic rifleman might have Guns(rifle)-14, then Guns(Marksman)-18, then Guns(Anschütz Super Match 2013)-20.

Note that the additional entries on the char sheet are not a separate skills. You only pay for the difference from the previous tier.

So, what do you think of these? Any pitfalls you see?

[Bruno]

[QUOTE=ed_209a;804796]Really, I believe a pioneer with a TL5 flintlock rifle could pick up a TL8 assault carbine, and be up to speed in a few hours of training. Having fired a modern reproduction of a TL6 rifle, I can assure you it goes the other way. You just need to learn the quirks of the weapon. This is exactly the concept of Familiarity, rather than separate skills.

A TL 6 rifle and a TL 7 or 8 rifle have far more in common with each other than any of them have with a flintlock weapon (let alone a match lock or cannon lock!)

You might be able to fire a flintlock based only on Familiarity penalty, but LOADING the thing is another beast entirely. Loading a match lock or cannon lock is even more removed, although closer related to a flintlock than modern cased ammunition.

Firing a cannon lock is not even that similar (there's no trigger to pull at all!)

[warmachine]

I've always wondered why Beam Weapons only had three specialisations but Guns had lots. I suspect that there are many types of modern gun but few types of energy weapon of a given technology, such as laser. No laser submachine guns. If so, that strikes me as a weak reason as the reason for Guns(Submachine gun) should force the creation of laser submachine guns in Ultra-tech.

I think that GURPS suffers from too many specialisations and I agree with folding them in. Except for Grenade Launcher. For the same reason, I agree that TL shouldn't apply for aiming weapons. That's why Bow isn't a TL skill.

However, this logic contradicts the Guns(Marksman) and Guns(Anschütz Super Match 2013) super specialisations. If a skill with rifles is transferable to light machine guns, a high skill with an Anschütz Super Match 2013 is transferable to light machine guns. Neither should you try to strictly emulate reality too much as what's important is the character's role. If a player wants to be a super sniper in combat, it's mean to nerf him because he has a slightly different model of sniper rifle, just to be strictly realistic. If he's not so good with a shotgun, that's fine as the player built for long range sniper, rather than close quarters blaster.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ed_209a

It seems to me that the real skill in using a firearm is in aligning the weapon with target, and then triggering the weapon without pulling the weapon off target. That is what you spend hundreds of hours honing. That shouldn't change whether you are firing a .38 revolver or a blaster.

Actually it will be pretty different with the blaster. Beam paths are much less distorted by things like gravity or wind than bullets. All of the stuff you would do to compensate for range is unnecessary. And in rapid fire you don't need to worry about recoil (conversely you can't use it to help change the aim point if you are trying for suppressive fire) or where the cases are going.

Most of these skills have good defaults to each other anyway, so this mostly amounts to adjusting how much practice you need buy off different "familiarity" penalties - buying up a default is exactly the same process, it just has a different name and calls for more hours.

[Dave E]

I generally use Guns: Pistol and Guns:Rifle or Guns:Autoweapon, with Autoweapon and Rifle being -2 to each other and using a Technique to eliminate the default. For me this simulates the ability to fire single shots or being initially trained in spray and pray. I do, however, use familiarity penalties a fair bit. If you were trained to use an AK-47 on auto (so Guns:Autoweapon), picking up a Lee Enfield bolt action is both -2 for the switch to single shots, and another -2 for a switch to bolt action.

(Machine Pistols I give at -4 to Pistol, again with a Technique to buy off the penalty.)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by ed_209a

I am considering a house rule defining the Guns skill by how you shoot, not what you shoot. This will involve folding all handguns and all longarms into Guns(Pistol) and Guns(Rifle).

It seems to me that the real skill in using a firearm is in aligning the weapon with target, and then triggering the weapon without pulling the weapon off target. That is what you spend hundreds of hours honing. That shouldn't change whether you are firing a .38 revolver or a blaster.

Really, I believe a pioneer with a TL5 flintlock rifle could pick up a TL8 assault carbine, and be up to speed in a few hours of training. Having fired a modern reproduction of a TL6 rifle, I can assure you it goes the other way. You just need to learn the quirks of the weapon. This is exactly the concept of Familiarity, rather than separate skills.

As a related house rule, I am considering putting the diversity back into the Guns skill family, but only at high level. Up to a reasonably expert level (14- maybe?) Guns(Rifle) or Guns(Pistol) covers everything. After that point, further training is so specific that it only applies to a limited scope of weaponry. Then at an even higher level of skill (18- maybe?) it becomes even more specific, to a single model of weapon.

For an example, a hypothetical Olympic rifleman might have Guns(rifle)-14, then Guns(Marksman)-18, then Guns(Anschütz Super Match 2013)-20.

Note that the additional entries on the char sheet are not a separate skills. You only pay for the difference from the previous tier.

So, what do you think of these? Any pitfalls you see?

I proposed this concept prior to 4ed, and was somewhat disappointed that such skills as Guns (SMG) made it in.

In short, I agree with what you're trying to do. The only thing I might say is that innate ability to point a handgun or longarm (base skill) would then segue into Techniques based on particular types of weapons, topping out at (say) +4 to skill. For a particular type of weapon, or even a particular weapon itself, perhaps just allow more than one level of Weapon Bond.

So you might have Guns(Longarm) at 16, and be quite skilled with shotguns, SMGs, rifles, possibly even grenade launchers. If someone ever gave you a Plasma Rifle (40W range), you'd be good at that too, after a Familiarity lesson.

If you were particular good with SMGs, for example, you could buy the SMG technique at up to skill 20. If you were particularly adept with the H&K UMP in .40, you might be able to buy two more levels of weapon bond which would take you, with that kind of gun, up to +2 more.

Thinking about this for hand-to-hand, this sort of tiered treatment would be interesting for those who believe that certain basic skills (movement, timing, ability to judge distance and reach) translate from swordwork to hand-to-hand to spear fighting, and address some of the issues that came up in the Melee Talent thread.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Actually it will be pretty different with the blaster. Beam paths are much less distorted by things like gravity or wind than bullets. All of the stuff you would do to compensate for range is unnecessary. And in rapid fire you don't need to worry about recoil (conversely you can't use it to help change the aim point if you are trying for suppressive fire) or where the cases are going.

Most of these skills have good defaults to each other anyway, so this mostly amounts to adjusting how much practice you need buy off different "familiarity" penalties - buying up a default is exactly the same process, it just has a different name and calls for more hours.

Nearly all of these things, however, would be reasons why the translation would be one-way rather than not-at-all. The act of pointing a laser type gun (or, say, playing Photon or Laser Tag or heck, even shooting with MILES gear) is exactly the same; the offsets for aiming are different, but easier, for LOS weapons than slugthrowers. Still, I think ED209's point is basically accurate, and it wouldn't be that bad (and there's a lot of good there) figuring out how to set up the GURPS houserules accordingly.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Dave E

I generally use Guns: Pistol and Guns:Rifle or Guns:Autoweapon, with Autoweapon and Rifle being -2 to each other and using a Technique to eliminate the default. For me this simulates the ability to fire single shots or being initially trained in spray and pray. I do, however, use familiarity penalties a fair bit. If you were trained to use an AK-47 on auto (so Guns:Autoweapon), picking up a Lee Enfield bolt action is both -2 for the switch to single shots, and another -2 for a switch to bolt action.

(Machine Pistols I give at -4 to Pistol, again with a Technique to buy off the penalty.)

I like (and have used) the concept that firing at full auto buys off an inherent penalty to Acc based on a Technique. It can't go above the basic pointability skill (firing one shot will always be easier to control than firing ten).

Something in the -2 to -4 and a Hard technique that can be bought up to flat skill would be sensible.

[ed_209a]

Originally Posted by ed_209a

Having fired a modern reproduction of a TL6 rifle, I can assure you it goes the other way.

Originally Posted by Bruno

A TL 6 rifle and a TL 7 or 8 rifle have far more in common with each other than any of them have with a flintlock weapon (let alone a match lock or cannon lock!)

You might be able to fire a flintlock based only on Familiarity penalty, but LOADING the thing is another beast entirely.

Sorry, got my TLs mixed up. It was a reproduction of a Kentucky Rifle, but percussion cap instead of flintlock. So, it was an early TL8 copy of a TL5 weapon.

My dad wasn't a great marksman or teacher, but he taught me enough in 5-6 hours that I could load and fire the weapon, and tie it in with all the other firearm practice I had earlier. Time wise, that seems a lot more like a new familiarity in Guns(Rifle) than 1 point in Guns/TL5(Rifle).