Old West: Shotgun pellets and missed targets

[hal]

Hello Folks,
Suppose you have a player who is holding a shotgun in his hand such that he will aim at a target that is 15 feet away. Target gets to the hitching post and grabs the reins of the horse, and unties it. Then as he attempts to mount his horse, due to all the gunfire prior to the dramatic escape attempt, the horse is skittish and doesn't allow for an easy mount. Said person has a bulls eye on his back painted there by a PLAYER CHARACTER with a 12 guage shotgun pointed at his back. BLAMBLAM as both barrels go off. The target suffers a whopping total of 6 pellets entering his back, of which one enters his vitals. Poor guy suffers a total of 27 points of damage.

But what of the remaining 13 pellets from the shotgun blast? Since you know the pellets grouped at torso height in order to strike the fleeing man in his back, the other pellets have to be at about the same height. Assuming that if a roll is made to determine whether the remaining pellets went left of the target or right (left hits the horse, right just continues on) - how would one roll for the second grouping of 13 pellets?

Would it be treated as a roll against a skill 9 or less to hit the wrong target, and grant a bonus for rapid fire equal tothat gained by firing 13 bullets? Or would it be a simple roll against a 9 to hit and see how many pellets hit? Just curious...

[hal]

For what it is worth, in ACES AND EIGHTS, if a shotgun shell fails to hit its target with all the pellets, the display shows you where said missing shotgun pellets will strike. No rolls needed to see where it hits, etc. Would like to keep that in mind for when someone uses a shotgun to rescue a hostage, or to hit a target and then plan on riding away on the horse next to said target ;)

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by hal

Would it be treated as a roll against a skill 9 or less to hit the wrong target, and grant a bonus for rapid fire equal tothat gained by firing 13 bullets? Or would it be a simple roll against a 9 to hit and see how many pellets hit? Just curious...

I think this is primarily a GM's call. By RAW, I don't think extra bullets are rolled for hitting other targets, you normally only roll if the entire attack misses. Also, I don't think the Hitting the Wrong Target rules account for RoF. However, if there's logically another target along the line of fire, you can certainly use those same rules to see if the extra pellets hit. And for something as substantial as a horse, it would certainly make sense. So, all in all, GM's call.

[trechriron]

Just roll to hit both targets and calculate number of hits as usual. The horse is right there, behind the rider! It makes sense that both would get hit.

The horse should get some cover provided by the rider trying to mount.

[Sam Cade]

Originally Posted by hal

Hello Folks,
Suppose you have a player who is holding a shotgun in his hand such that he will aim at a target that is 15 feet away.

The target is dead. At that range, even an open bored shotgun is throwing a pattern about the size of a quarter.

Tactical Shooting is a worthwhile purchase for any campaign with plenty of bang bang.

Page six

In real life,
such a close shot usually hits with all pellets, but using only
half their number for the damage calculation ensures that shot-
shell attacks don’t become unrealistically lethal. For more
authentic point-blank results, use the Rcl statistic for slugs, not
shot, and change the damage type to huge piercing (pi++) due
to the large area of the wound.

[lexington]

15 is five yards, so the pattern should really be about five inches across. It is is a gray area for GURPS rules since its just outside of what's known on the forum's as "Boomstick Range" which would simply treat everything as a slug.

In the real world what happens is that all the pellets hit the target.
In GURPS terms most of the pellets will miss even at 15 feet. This is an artifact of the game system (you can justify it if you wish but that's what it is) that prevents shotguns from being absurdly deadly.

[Sam Cade]

Originally Posted by lexington

15 is five yards, so the pattern should really be about five inches across.

Realistically, it's dependent on the load. At 5 yards, most loads will still be in the shotcup.

Flitecontrol buckshot will put nine pellets in a group that you can cover with your hand at 25 yards, from a cylinder bore, that that technology is more than 100 years away from the OPs vignette.


http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot20.htm

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by hal

For what it is worth, in ACES AND EIGHTS, if a shotgun shell fails to hit its target with all the pellets, the display shows you where said missing shotgun pellets will strike. No rolls needed to see where it hits, etc. Would like to keep that in mind for when someone uses a shotgun to rescue a hostage, or to hit a target and then plan on riding away on the horse next to said target ;)

Too bad that's the only thing in those rules that makes much sense. :)

[Anthony]

While the 4th edition rules for rate of fire are more usable than the 3rd edition rules, they have some pretty significant realism issues. I would probably roll vs a 9, modified by the rate of fire.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would probably roll vs a 9, modified by the rate of fire.

Agreed. But as others have pointed out, you'd need to be firing at someone, say 30+ yards away for the spread to get wide enough to clip one person and strike another, I'd think. The issue is partly with bird shot and its astronomical RoF.