Forum

It seems to me that decreased accuracy due to recoil aside slinging more lead at a target, especially at short range, should allow for a better chance of hitting. The idea that you hit or miss based on skill alone and additional rounds only increase your damage or chance to add to the hits you score just seems... well off bit, in my opinion. I dont want to radically alter the rules but have considered the following option.

A "bullet" result on an ammo die may be traded in for a reroll of the skill or attribute dice. In this way you still arent guaranteed anything but have a chance to make up for a bad shot with additional rounds fired. You can also gamble your way out of suppression by trading in that last bullet for a failed chance so there is a risk. Ive gave thought to only allowing this option if you use half or more of your ROF to make it costly in ammunition as well.

Thoughts?

Another thread discussed lots of options for replicating volume of fire and recoil effects. Ideally, any house rule should favour full auto fire (3+ ammo dice) at short range and semi-auto fire (0-2 ammo dice) at long/extreme range. Personally I would just give a +1 modifier for 3+ ammo dice at short range, and a -1 modifier for 3+ ammo dice at long/extreme range.

Another thread discussed lots of options for replicating volume of fire and recoil effects. Ideally, any house rule should favour full auto fire (3+ ammo dice) at short range and semi-auto fire (0-2 ammo dice) at long/extreme range. Personally I would just give a +1 modifier for 3+ ammo dice at short range, and a -1 modifier for 3+ ammo dice at long/extreme range.

Thats actually straight forward and addresses the concern pretty well. It still leaves me nagged a bit about how firing 5 or 6 or even 10 or 12 rounds isnt more likely to hit your target than if you send only 1 but Im willing to live with it. Ill give it a try.

We use the house-rule that you can use 6's on ammo dice to add a +1 to one of the skill rolls thereby potentially turning a close miss into a hit.

For example:
You roll 2 and 5 on your to hit roll and a 2,4 & 6 with your ammo dice. You could use the 6 to add a +1 to the 5, turning it into a hit.

We use the house-rule that you can use 6's on ammo dice to add a +1 to one of the skill rolls thereby potentially turning a close miss into a hit.

That is an interesting take. It's a small enough change not to throw everything off balance, but at the same time offers a nice boost for using ammo dice.

We use the house-rule that you can use 6's on ammo dice to add a +1 to one of the skill rolls thereby potentially turning a close miss into a hit.

That is an interesting take. It's a small enough change not to throw everything off balance, but at the same time offers a nice boost for using ammo dice.

This is fine for short to medium range but it doesn't address the fact that once you get to long range and beyond recoil tends to dominate over volume of fire and you end up with a large beaten zone that is good for suppression but not so much for actual hits. This is why soldiers are trained to use semi-automatic fire at longer ranges. I've even seen video of machinegun crews firing single shots at long range targets. The .50 Cal M2 has a single-shot mode but not sure about any others. Until I see a house rule that takes this into account I will stick with my simple +1/-1 rule, although I admit it is not perfect.

Easy, just limit the effect to short range. Sure it doesn't make hitting long range targets harder with a larger ROF, but ROF isn't meant to be spray and pray, it's still aimed shots, just more of them in the span of the 5-10 seconds.

Easy, just limit the effect to short range. Sure it doesn't make hitting long range targets harder with a larger ROF, but ROF isn't meant to be spray and pray, it's still aimed shots, just more of them in the span of the 5-10 seconds.

One of the PDFs on DriveThruRPG ("Service Rifles of Europe and North America") has the -1 idea. Each weapon's ROF has a superscript value that is one or two lower than the normal ROF. If you roll this many ammo dice or higher you incur a -1 penalty for "recoil" unless the weapon is braced, on a tripod, or equipped with a bipod and the shooter is prone. It does not give any advantage for rolling more ammo dice at short range though. I simply adapted this idea by making the -1 for recoil a general rule for 3+ ammo dice (based on the fact that semi-automatic weapons have ROF 2), applying it only for long/extreme range, and applying an opposite beneficial effect of +1 at short range. The author of this PDF says he will bring out another one for machineguns that gives new values and rules for their recoil.

We use the house-rule that you can use 6's on ammo dice to add a +1 to one of the skill rolls thereby potentially turning a close miss into a hit.

For example:
You roll 2 and 5 on your to hit roll and a 2,4 & 6 with your ammo dice. You could use the 6 to add a +1 to the 5, turning it into a hit.

This would favour low hit-chance attacks more than high hit-chance ones as rolling a 5 on a d6 is 16.67% but rolling a 5 on a d12 is only 8.33%.

Sorry for spamming posts. I AM very much in search of the ideal house rule, so I am engaged in the discussion.

How about this variant?

Volume of Fire
When rolling 4+ ammo dice at short range an optional +1 "volume of fire" bonus may be applied with the proviso that any ammo dice successes are reduced by one. Machineguns firing from a bipod, tripod or vehicle mount may apply this bonus at medium range as well.

Recoil
When rolling 4+ ammo dice at long (exception: machineguns) or extreme range a mandatory -1 "recoil" penalty applies unless firing from a bipod, tripod or vehicle mount.

[EDIT] I'm also tempted to make the cut-off 4+ ammo dice. ROF 3 tends to be for "3-round-burst" weapons rather than full-auto ones. [EDIT 2] Done! [EDIT 3] Added some extra rules for machineguns to make the more effective at full-auto fire. [EDIT 4] Cleaned up wording to be more precise.