Shotguns

[jes722]

Hi guys/girls.

Can someone explain the logic behind new shotgun rules?

both the 10% ½D rule and how you get to how many shots(pellets) that actually hit the target.

If you can write an example with a skill 15 bartender with his 2-3 rof shotgun :)

A shotgun for dummies?

[Ulzgoroth]

I'm not going to try to explain the logic behind, just how they work.

Shotgun hits are resolved exactly the same as any other 'rapid fire' weapon in most situations. You figure out how many projectiles are fired, which gives you a modifier per the table on page 373. You then get an extra hit for each full multiple of your weapon's rcl in your margin of success, limited of course by the number of projectiles fired. (For shotguns firing shot, rcl is normally 1.)

So your distressingly skilled bartender shoots a guy 6 yards away (-3 to skill) in mediocre light (say -1). He fires two shells without aiming. Since the RoF is x9, that makes 2*9 = 18 pellets for a +4 bonus to hit. Net modifier +0 for effective skill 15, and I did not set that up on purpose. He rolls, apparently, a 7, for a margin of success of 8. Since rcl is 1, that means one hit for succeeding and 8 additional hits.

If the target dodges successfully, they cancel 1 hit plus 1 per margin of success. The dice love everyone today, so his hypothetical target with dodge 8 does a dodge and drop (for +3) and rolls a 6 for a margin of success of 5. So 6 of the 9 originally rolled hits are dodged, but three pellets still connect.

[Ulzgoroth]

Now, the extremely close range rule. Up close enough, instead of spreading out enough to be treated as a bunch of separate projectiles, so the rule goes, a shell of buckshot is more like an especially-squishy slug. You don't multiply RoF, so you get less (usually no) attack bonus for that, but you do get bigger hits if you score any.

If we reduce the range to 4 yards (range penalty -2 now) so this rule kicks in, and keep everything else the same, the net modifier is now -3 because the bonus for 2 projectiles is +0. Effective skill is 12. With the same roll of 7 that's a margin of success of 5.

Now, there's a couple things here where the Basic Set is kind of messed up. It says absolutely nothing about changing the Rcl stat or damage type under these conditions. Thus those remain at Rcl 1 and pi, respectively. So going by the Basic Set, that roll would generate up to 6 hits, limited down to 2 because that's how many shots were fired. The dodge roll from before would cancel both of them, but if we take that part out each of the hits does 4d+4 pi with any DR on the target multiplied by 4.

This would look really dumb if instead of two shells the guy had fired six from a USAS-12 automatic shotgun, and hit with every one of them. The damage type is less of an obvious problem, but it could also seem odd that the expected damage from hitting with a shell is not unlikely to go down under rules that say "This increases lethality".

Tactical Shooting has a couple fixes there, though one of them is a bit of a problem for you if you don't have High Tech. The damage one is simple - the damage type changes to pi++. The Rcl fix calls for using "the Rcl statistic for slugs". Basic doesn't have such a thing, but High Tech shotgun stats do. Rule of thumb appears to be that a 12-gauge firing slugs has Rcl 4 if semi-auto, 5 if pump-action.

Now, because the shooter got that spectacular margin of success, the Rcl fix makes no difference - he gets both hits regardless. But changing to 4d+4 pi++ means that the expected damage from each (if they don't get dodged) is around 36, rather than a relatively-modest 18. Bumping it from 'you are having a bad day and should probably lie down now' for an unarmored human to 'you are quite likely dead'.

Meanwhile, the pellets he hit with from a bit further away in the last post were worth 1d+1 pi each, for a total of around 40.5 injury for the 9 rolled hits. As you can see, that's more than the two hits for 18 each, but rather less than the two hits for 36 each! Of course if we include the dodging, the three pellets that still hit delivering about 14.5 injury rather beats the two blasts that don't connect at all.