Fria Ligans forum

Ammo dice today:
- How many bullets used in the attack
- Mishap
- If rolled a six, add a target

1. Problem with this is, like many others have pointed out, that the only possible way to hit more than one target during your round is to roll a "6", This is too much of randomness as you must as a minimum spend at least six bulltes to add a second target but you could also be spending 30 bullets and not get to add a second target (if you are unlucky and rolling only "5"s with ROF 6). This brings it to the second problem..
2. Rolling skill and attribute for success is fine but as it is now it doent matter how many bullets you used in your attack. This is wrong in my opinion. Some say it isnt the amount of bullets hitting the traget, just how many you needed to hit or if you like, make a successful attack. The rules dont make a difference between hitting a target with two bullets or 30. I do think it is a huge difference in reality and therefor should be implemented in the rules. This is why single shots will be "better" as every one-bullet-hit will be as "good" as 30 bullets in terms of damage to the target.

For me the ammo dice rule, as it stands today, is not good enough for covering resource management (ammo usage) and, more important, the effect of hitting a target with many bullets.

I dont think a sulotion is the get negative modifiers on single shots as it is easier to take your time and fire just one round than multiple bursts, if your goal is to hit with every bullet fired. But if you just want "a hit" bursts is better.
Spraying 50 rounds at a traget, hoping at least one will hit should be a positive modifier to "to hit". If not successful with the attack it counts as suppression

Ammo dice today:
- If rolled a six, add a target

1. Problem with this is, like many others have pointed out, that the only possible way to hit more than one target during your round is to roll a "6"

You point out an interesting aspect of this. What the rule says is "if rolled a six, add a hit; on same target or new". When discussing the tight two- or three round bursts, the assumption is that any hits strike the same target, or at the very least that any additional targets are within a very narrow span from the same line of sight.

And this highlights two different uses of automatic fire in real life: that of area fire, where you attempt to hit, or at least suppress, a plurality of targets in a given area; and that of targeted fire, where you want to boost your chance to hit a specific target.
It feels like the system currently does a much better job of representing the first one than the second one. It really ought to do both, though.

The big problem with allowing the ammo dice to be counted as hits even though your skill roll failed is that this benefits idiots over experts. The current system benefits the expert over the idiots. I have played systems where amount of lead is the key to win a gunfight and skill not so much and really don't want to go back to that.

The big problem with allowing the ammo dice to be counted as hits even though your skill roll failed is that this benefits idiots over experts. The current system benefits the expert over the idiots. I have played systems where amount of lead is the key to win a gunfight and skill not so much and really don't want to go back to that.

If you fail the skill/attribute roll then it is a supperssion attack and the "hits" from ammo dice counts as a more successful supperssion attack. Or you just dont count them at all as the initial attack missed

The big problem with allowing the ammo dice to be counted as hits even though your skill roll failed is that this benefits idiots over experts. The current system benefits the expert over the idiots. I have played systems where amount of lead is the key to win a gunfight and skill not so much and really don't want to go back to that.

If you fail the skill/attribute roll then it is a supperssion attack and the "hits" from ammo dice counts as a more successful supperssion attack. Or you just dont count them at all as the initial attack missed

I know how the rules work. My comment was to those that wants to increase the chance of getting hit based on lead by for example changing the rules so also the ammo dice counts as hit regardless of your skill roll.

Let me just jot down a few loose ideas:

• Single shots: use system as normal; a hit is a hit; one round is spent. Suppression effect applies to target and targets in its vicinity.
• Short targeted bursts: apply +1 to roll; use Ammo Die for rounds spent, halve result. Ammo Die success means second round hit on same target, or target in immediate vicinity to first. Suppression effect applies to target and targets in its vicinity.
• Long targeted burst: apply +1 to roll; use single Ammo Die for rounds spent. Ammo Die success means second round hit on same target, or target in immediate vicinity to first; additional Base Die successes count as Ammo Die successes, up to Ammo Die spent rounds result. Suppression effect applies to target and targets in its vicinity.
• Area fire: use system as normal — additional hits allowed to strike multiple targets in area, not only in immediate vicinity. Two 6's on Ammo Dice count as a To Hit success, and additional Base Die successes count as Ammo Dice successes, up to Ammo Dice spent rounds result. Suppression effect applies to area.

This is just off the top of my head ... but would this work okay? Short bursts have an advantage over single shots; long bursts an advantage over short ones. But targeted bursts are limited to single target or targets on a single LOS; if you want to be able to spread fire beyond a single line, you need to use the ordinary system; with the addition that any two Ammo Die successes make one Base Die success.

For just spraying an area, as fenhorn says, it is possible even for idiots to score hits by just hosing bullets. But this is actually true to life. A skilled person still has an advantage — they're able to hit easier than someone who relies on Ammo Dice to hit, and they can add to hits by additional Base Die successes.
Plus — if you rely on an Ammo Dice result to hit, your two Ammo Die successes become a single hit, whereas if you'd scored the hit with Base Dice, those two would have been two additional hits; total three.

To me, this seems to be ticking pretty much all the boxes ... what am I missing?

Or atleast make the first (and possibly ony) ammo die an d3.

This would also add insane amounts of malfunctions (or opportunities thereof).

And this seems to be precisely the problem here: combining several phenomena into a single die which is then rolled possibly multiple times (aka "ammo dice"). This way, ammo dice handle

• malfunction,
• ammo usage and
• probability to hit.

Those are not directly linked however in a weapon, at least not how I understand and experienced guns, pistols etc.

Malfunctions occur in various parts of weapons, but they differ by weapon designs and by the source of the problem. A revolver will never suffer a "failure to feed" because the cartridge will always be in correct position. Unless of course, the revolver suffers a serious mechanical breakdown. Failures to feed can be a design problem or one of wear and team in the feed system.

Duds however will simply not fire in regular service rifles and they have nothing to do with the weapon. You clear them out and the weapon is exactly as good as before. Duds are a problem of the ammunition production, unless you suffer from a rare case of "your firing pin is to short to reach the primer of this particular type of ammunition", which happens, but is either an issue of ammunition production or you have a gun that was designed oddly. These cases are rare and wear and tear should not be an issue here, unless yo DIYed a new firing pin and cut it to short.

Which brings me to the next point. Many of these failures actually base on errors in work that you did before the fight: loading ammunition incorrectly, not servicing your weapon properly or using replacement parts that do not follow the proper specifications. And as such, these matters are specified not in the ammo dice, but in the reliability code of a weapon. Any by the way, if weapons in T2K are supposed to be no factory new - I am certainly all for it! - then we need a different set of reliability figures for "factory new" issues. After all, those will exist as soon a gun smiths open up shop and their weapons will degrade by use. Plus, their might be some old stashes to be found. Europe was full of weapons depots after all.

Of course shooting more means generating more opportunities for the combined reliability of ammo and guns to produce problems. So, ammo dice should not factor into reliability, but ammo might of course reduce reliability. That would mean malfunctions should be depending more on the shooter's skills and the gun-ammo combination than the shots fired. The shooter's skills will actually have preordained some of these problems way before the firefight, but for simplicity's sake, we should not start rolling out servicing of weapons, hand-loading ammunition and installing repairparts all the time. This is all only interesting, if something goes wrong in a fight.

So, ammo dice should not logically be part of the "malfunction process" at all. This is a matter of skill, either before the battle or during. But ammo dice could still determine usage of ammunition, right?

Well, yes, in a way. As (ex-)servicemembers know, ammo is used in a firefight like there's no tomorrow. Since, if you do not overpower your enemy, there won't be. So in modern combat, usage is pretty high. But for T2K this might not be true. With hunting and foraging being a big issue in a game of survival, ammo will be used sparingly. And firefights might become much shorter. A bolt-action rifle or pump-gun will not be used for "spray-and-pray", but only for shots that look "safe". It's no use to buzz the enemy with all you got, if you will not have anything left after that. What about the next guy then?

So, we need mechanic for cautious and "ammo saving" shooters. The single shot mechanic is one thing: Aim carefully, use one shot and hope you hit.

But well skilled individuals can also use a higher ROF and still not go "all nine yards" on the enemy. Maybe we should be able to use ROF-dice of the same type as our skill dice? Shooters with a dice type of d10 or d12 might gamble for two successes when really opening up on someone at only ROF1 with their gun, whereas a less skilled individual would have to use a ROF2 weapon for even the slightest chance of two additional successes, and possibly still using up 10 shots for no additional successes. A highly skilled soldier using a ROF4 machinegun could of course build up an additional 8 successes with these rules, but the chances are extremely low (who comes up with four 10+ on 4 d10 or d12?). And on their way to such an "ultra-kill" they would also use up 40-48 of these precious rounds of brass.

Perhaps the mishap symbol on the Ammo dice could represent a defective round, such that mishaps on Ammo dice don't count towards reducing weapon reliability but DO still count for determining if the weapon has jammed.

Another way is to turn the mishap actions around and make it harder to break weapons.

1) mishap from rolling more than one '1'= weapon is jammed. Simple to fix, no long-term effects. E.g. dud ammo, magazine not inserted properly, dirty weapon causes malfunction.

2) roll again to determine if weapon reliability is reduced.
In this example the weapon's reliability rating is used. This means a weapon will degrade more quickly as it wears out.

e.g. roll above 4 with weapon's reliability rating (RR).
RR A used D12
RR D uses D6.
If failed roll, RR is reduced one step, if RR falls below D, weapon breaks.

N.B.: 4 is just an arbitrary number, could be higher or lower. I just use it to present an idea.


With this idea, the risk of a mishap is the same, but the consequences of mishaps are milder.

Perhaps the mishap symbol on the Ammo dice could represent a defective round, such that mishaps on Ammo dice don't count towards reducing weapon reliability but DO still count for determining if the weapon has jammed.

But what good is it to know that you have fired a defective round? In a ten second combat round, you can even fire several defective rounds and clear your chamber each time to resume firing afterwards. Then this rule does not add to the game on a narrative level. And since the mishap symbol (aka rolling a "1") also means you are shooting less bullets and hitting less targets (by means of not being a "6"), this is all part of showing a "1" already: the mishap mechanic is unnecessary here and even illogical (as explained above).