06-14-2019, 11:10 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2018
|
rifles in close combat
B391 says you apply bulk as a penalty to hit in close combat, aside from sharing the hex of the shooter would that also apply with sharing the hex of the rifle? B400 has
TS25 "Close-Contact Shots" uses melee-ish rules for pistols at reach C and other guns at reach C,1. The downside for non-pistols being that unlike pistols, they can be parried at reach 1 while pistols can only be parried at reach C. Would this also mean that rifles suffer the bulk penalty to hit at reach 1? Rifles seem like maybe they ought to be reach 1 (not c,1) for Close-Combat Shots because firing at someone in the same hex would be very awkward. If they are treated like melee weapons then firing at someone at reach C could be done at -4 to hit, like when trying to use a reach 1 weapon against someone in close combat. Bayonets can extend stabbing range to Reach 2 and that seems like it might make it easier to parry the gun (swat aside the more easily reached bayonet to move the entire rifle) as well as making it even harder to shoot closer targets (-8 at close, -4 at 1?) B240's C/1/2 reaches for short wands / (long wands or short staff) / long staff sounds like it maybe it should cause similar problems for mages who are engaged at close range. If you are firing your spells from a weapon held in an adjacent hex, then shouldn't it be -4 to hit someone sharing your hex? Or with a weapon held with the tip 2 yards away, a -4 to target adjacent hexes and a -8 to target your own hex? Same for parrying; seems like you should be able to parry spells from a further distance away if they're being fired from a longer staff? |
06-14-2019, 11:34 PM | #2 | ||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
|
Re: rifles in close combat
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
||||
06-15-2019, 01:01 AM | #3 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2018
|
Re: rifles in close combat
Quote:
Do you think shooting from hip should change it (the "tuck under the shoulder" idea) so it doesn't occupy 2 hexes and only can only be parried if a melee weapon can target the user's hex, with parrying not allowed if only the hex in front is in range? It already gives -1 to parry but needing to get closer (slip?) to parry a hip-shooting longarm would make that Shooting Stance a lot more useful. Quote:
Quote:
Then it seems (like a spear) you'd need to do weird angles (wraparound shots) to hit them, like the rules in MA used to hit people at lower-than-Reach ranges. I guess if you were doing that it'd make more sense to just take a -1 range penalty rather than rely on touching with the staff at -4 to avoid that range penalty... I guess it's more of a consideration for the "Magic Items" (M16) since you MUST shoot the spell out of the staff to use it and don't have the option to ignore the staff in hand and just cast it mentally. |
|||
06-15-2019, 07:02 AM | #4 | ||||
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
|
Re: rifles in close combat
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
There is no requirement that the spell leave the "tip" of the Wand or Staff. Regardless if you want to do things this way, feel free. |
||||
06-15-2019, 05:25 PM | #5 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2018
|
Re: rifles in close combat
This has to do with whether or not the hex a weapon occupies (presuming that a rifle is big enough to stick out of your hex as long weapons do) influences this.
Like for example, a multi-hex creature, which would include a human who is lying down and occupying two (one for upper, one adjacent for lower) An attacker sharing the hex with your lower body would be in "close combat" with your lower body, but in respect to your upper body they would not be, they would be "reach 1". If you had to try and shoot at creatures trying to grapple/trample you while you were lying on the ground, since it would be the upper body wielding pistols, it sounds like the Bulk penalty for Close Combat should apply when a creature is sharing the same hex as your upper body, but perhaps not if the creature is only sharing the same hex as your lower body? Whereas with a rifle, while you wield the base of a rifle using the upper body, the length is probably like a reach 1 weapon where the tip of the barrel would occupy the hex your lower body is in (if you were aiming at something grappling your feet) and so perhaps (since the rifle tip is sharing the hex with that creature) it should be considered in Close Combat and suffer the Bulk? Ranged weapons which get +4 to hit from All-Out Determined and can get another +4 for Telegraphic Attack in that situaton, so what I mean is they're Ranged Weapons with melee-esque treatment based on better bonuses. Quote:
found what you mean on MA230, will try to remember that. I guess the "full-length" aka "quarter" staff might be thought of as a "medium" staff since at max reach 2 the QS/MS lies between the SS at 1 and the LS at max reach 3 Quote:
IE if you are pointing the perpendicular bisector of a staff at someone it maybe shouldn't extend your reach since if you do that your fingers will always be closer to the foe than the staff would be. With baseline operation being "I can touch them with ANY part of the quarterstaff" I'm wondering if there is some way using the Enchantment rules to have staff to only work by touching with just the tip of the staff. I was thinking maybe using Bane (M62) although it probably wouldn't be worth any reduction in spell costs to do something like "Bane: doesn't affect anyone touching the lower half" This would allow an ally sharing your hex to put a hand on the base of your staff and avoid being hit by some kind of area effect attack. The downside being that if you wanted to use "touch with my staff" casting (to avoid touching something) you could only use the distal half (like only the distal part of a halberd can cut) making touching people closer to you with the appropriate "dangerous end" harder, due to weird angles (the need to make wrap-shots, like with spears) which is where applying a -4 would seem appropriate. Another primary benefit (other than protecting allies) would also be protecting yourself: if an enchanted item cannot work on a class of beings designated as those touching the "safe end" then if you had the staff enchanted with a melee spell, shouldn't that protect you from being hurt with the melee spell on a critical miss where you might normally harm yourself? A side-benefit would also be that if an enemy disarmed you (M19 they become "the first to touch it" in that case) even if you couldn't disarm them in return, simply being able to get your hand back on the weapon's base (assuming they haven't had time to flip it around and hold the base and point the tip at you) would prevent them from targeting you with it. A more direct way to get that would be B68 "Limit" with the complexity of the "class of users" being "only the person holding the base of the weapon". What it would cause, basically, is like with a gun: you can't simply take it off them, you have to flip it around 180 (readying it in a proper grip) to be able to use it, to hold the proper handle/trigger side of the tool. Last edited by Plane; 06-15-2019 at 05:32 PM. |
||
06-15-2019, 09:06 PM | #6 | |||||||
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
|
Re: rifles in close combat
Quote:
Quote:
* This may be unrealistic for some creatures, however, if you are occupying the same hex as a foe, you are in Close Combat. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
And as your next several paragraphs illustrate you're just making complications for complication's sake. |
|||||||
06-15-2019, 09:29 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
|
Re: rifles in close combat
Quote:
That said, the putative problem seems esoteric since pointing the staff isn't the only option - a staff can also deliver spells by touching the subject with no range penalty rather than by pointing at them, so using it on targets too close to conveniently point at isn't really a problem. Maybe if there was some reason you really didn't want your staff to touch the target...
__________________
I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
|
06-15-2019, 10:59 PM | #8 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
|
Re: rifles in close combat
Quote:
There's no penalty in most cases for not touching but being less than 1 yard away... however that now poses to me an interesting idea. Round up the distance if not touching. Not touching your subject immediately becomes -1, and means you may now want to risk touching the black pudding with your staff if that -1 makes a serious difference. I once ran a campaign where it wasn't trained skill that gave FP reduction, but final skill... had Wizards using the Take Extra Time and Elaborate Rituals* rules as often as they could get away with it. * It was 3e and basically used the Alternate Magic Ritual Rules. |
|
06-16-2019, 01:33 AM | #9 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2018
|
Re: rifles in close combat
Quote:
Well as absurd as it seems, technically if you are lying down and since your lower body occupies a different hex than your upper, you'd need to use All-Out Attack (Long) to punch your own leg. What we envision as touching the leg is more likely the leg kicking (since it has reach 1) into the upper body's hex and then you can grab it and keep it held up there. Quote:
Quote:
Eventually found it on B239 though: If you cannot touch the subject, apply a skill penalty equal to your distance in yards from the subject It doesn't address fractions, but for policy on that, we might consult the precedent on B550: If size falls between two values, base SM on the next-highest size. That's pretty much a "round up" type policy. B241's Long-Distance Modifiers works like that as well: If the distance falls between two values, use the higher. so I think there's support for your idea actually being canonically supported. Even if there was no rounding up and being 1/2 a yard a way (1.5 feet, or 18 inches) only resulted in -0.5 to skill, that's basically the same effect as a -1 in terms of what you need to roll under to succeed. The only case where it might make a difference is if you had some kind of result equivalent to MoS multiplied, in which case I guess you could opt to use the fraction if you wanted? In terms of hex-targeting, if we round up anyone in close combat (not touching) to 1 yard (always -1) because you are guaranteed to be 1 yard or less away from someone in a hex you share, perhaps it should be -2 for someone in adjacent hexes? |
|||
06-16-2019, 12:33 PM | #10 | |||||||
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
|
Re: rifles in close combat
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Thus, punching someone in the groin who is standing in your leg's hex while you are lying down only incurs a -2 penalty nothing more, and that is because you are lying down and are fighting from an odd position, not because they are "way over there in a different hex than your torso". Taking up 2 hexes because you are prone is an abstraction in the rules, a way to say you are longer lying down and take up more of a footprint on the combat mat than when standing up, not that you somehow take up the entirety of two hexes, or that your feet are suddenly harder to touch than when you are standing and "all in one hex". You're seeking to over complicate things unnecessarily. * 'Alien' in the 'alien limb syndrome' sense. Quote:
Quote:
But no, if for some reason you must point your staff directly forward of you, of course you don't get the Reach bonus into your side, flank, or rear hexes (okay, maybe the hex opposite your center of "aiming", depending on how you are griping it. But that's a height of fiddliness I don't care about). Quote:
Quote:
Being a caster in Close Combat already brings enough ancillary penalties (or at least the great possibility of penalties) that encouraging a caster to going into CC is probably a poor choice. |
|||||||
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|