Old West: Shotgun pellets and missed targets

[lexington]

Originally Posted by Sam Cade

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

I thought the general rule was that shot spreads about 1 inch per yard of flight.

[Sam Cade]

Originally Posted by lexington

I thought the general rule was that shot spreads about 1 inch per yard of flight.

Sure.

It was only ballpark for cylinder bores, it breaks down at close ranges, and modern shot shells break it completely.


Look what a modern shotgun set up for turkey can do at 40 yards.

That is a 10" circle.
http://i39.tinypic.com/2hpiurl.jpg

Or modern buckshot, from a CB, at 25 yards

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1...FCW59025YD.jpg

[hal]

See, my problem as a GM running this genre, is to try and get the kinks out of the system BEFORE the players put me in the position of having to judge what happens ;)

If attempting to hit a target with a single barrel of shot, RoF is 9, with a +2 to hit and a recoil of 1. A shooter (skill 12) using a shotgun firing at a target without taking time to aim, will on a roll of a 10, have the following modifiers:

Skill 12
Range penalty: -2
RoF bonus: +2
Die roll: 10

Strike with 3 out of 9 pellets.

As GM, I'd have to wonder what happened to those other 6 pellets. In theory, if the 3 hit the target, none of those three pellets should have a chance of wounding in the vitals (aka the 1 in 6 chance) because they are probably on th edge of the target profile (ie the edge of the lung, ribs etc). Question is - which "side" of the profile did it hit? The side that misses the horse, or the side that strikes the horse?

And, while I'm thinking about it...

If GURPS TACTICAL SHOOTER included rules for potentially striking the vitals, why aren't there rules for when a bullet strikes a rib itself? The bones of a rib are there to help protect the Torso.

I had forgotten about the point blank range of a shotgun (1/10th the half damage range), which is something I'll need to remember in future gunfights! :)


Thanks guys.

[vicky_molokh]

Seems like TS has a Destiny to have its name changed in posts. :)

[hal]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Seems like TS has a Destiny to have its name changed in posts. :)

Eyup - because I'm getting in my years ;)

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by hal

As GM, I'd have to wonder what happened to those other 6 pellets. In theory, if the 3 hit the target, none of those three pellets should have a chance of wounding in the vitals (aka the 1 in 6 chance) because they are probably on th edge of the target profile (ie the edge of the lung, ribs etc). Question is - which "side" of the profile did it hit? The side that misses the horse, or the side that strikes the horse?

Hmm... GURPS' Rapid Fire rules are pretty abstract, so I don't think we can assume that all 6 of those "extra" pellets actually missed, they just did zero damage between them. Consider Birdshot, with 100+ tiny pellets inflicting 1d-2(0.5) pi- or so. Against an unarmored man, the injuries inflicted by a full shotload are probably more consistent with 10 hits rather than 100 (ie, 5 damage rather than 50). I guess this is partly because of the cumulative nature of GURPS damage, which doesn't really describe the complexity of physical traum. But what it means is that you don't necessarily have to assume that the "misses" actually missed, they may have just struck for no effect.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Hmm... GURPS' Rapid Fire rules are pretty abstract, so I don't think we can assume that all 6 of those "extra" pellets actually missed, they just did zero damage between them. Consider Birdshot, with 100+ tiny pellets inflicting 1d-2(0.5) pi- or so. Against an unarmored man, the injuries inflicted by a full shotload are probably more consistent with 10 hits rather than 100 (ie, 5 damage rather than 50). I guess this is partly because of the cumulative nature of GURPS damage, which doesn't really describe the complexity of physical traum. But what it means is that you don't necessarily have to assume that the "misses" actually missed, they may have just struck for no effect.

They missed for all possible mechanical purposes. This is the GURPS equivalent of arguing that a successful, damaging attack in D&D doesn't need to actually represent being injured, which never actually worked over there and is even worse in GURPS.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by hal

Strike with 3 out of 9 pellets.

As GM, I'd have to wonder what happened to those other 6 pellets.

[...] why aren't there rules for when a bullet strikes a rib itself? The bones of a rib are there to help protect the Torso.

You might just have answered your own question there. Just assume all the pellets hit, but on a bad hit many of them hit bone or for some reason deals less than 1 HP of damage (that could still penetrate the skin, but not deep enough to do actual damage).

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

They missed for all possible mechanical purposes. This is the GURPS equivalent of arguing that a successful, damaging attack in D&D doesn't need to actually represent being injured, which never actually worked over there and is even worse in GURPS.

Aww, 4e RoF is kinda a Dead Horse even for me by now. I was one of the first ranting about it, but by now I just accept that it was invented to fix the problem of 3e RoF, which it kinda did. Better luck in 5e. :)

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

They missed for all possible mechanical purposes. This is the GURPS equivalent of arguing that a successful, damaging attack in D&D doesn't need to actually represent being injured, which never actually worked over there and is even worse in GURPS.

What I'm saying is that we sometimes can't draw descriptive conclusions from the mechanical results. If 3/9 pellets hit, the spread might have just clipped the edge of the target, or it might have hit dead-center but 6 of them weren't "significant". I'd still roll for the Vitals hit, and use that to inform my description. GURPS is far better than D&D in that each hit has significant effects, descriptively and mechanically. This is just one of the cases where it's not completely precise, leaving it up to GM interpretation.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Aww, 4e RoF is kinda a Dead Horse even for me by now. I was one of the first ranting about it, but by now I just accept that it was invented to fix the problem of 3e RoF, which it kinda did. Better luck in 5e. :)

Yeah, I have problems with it too. However, for the small arms that typically show up in my games, the current rules are suitable. Just so long as I take the results lightly.