Weapon Specialties

[atpollard]

Strictly my personal taste, but I think that there are WAY too many gun combat skills. Is pointing and shooting a laser pistol vs a Colt 1911 at a target less than 10 meters away (typical pistol combat range) really so different that it requires a unique skill?

IMTU ... the Gun Combat skills are:
Pistol (1 hand - 1 shot)
Rifle (2 hands - 1 shot)
SMG (burst fire ... all about control)

Laser, CPR, Gyroc, Caseless ... just doesn't matter at the point and shoot level of application.
[save the UBER specialization for high level 'I want to design and build and repair custom weapons' applications.]

 

[samuelvss]

Strictly my personal taste, but I think that there are WAY too many gun combat skills. Is pointing and shooting a laser pistol vs a Colt 1911 at a target less than 10 meters away (typical pistol combat range) really so different that it requires a unique skill?

Indeed not. Having grown up with my trusty laser pistol, however, the first time I pick up a briskly loaded 10mm I may not shoot it as well.

On the other hand, if I have been leading moving targets all my life with a shotgun, the first time a pick up a laser rifle and try to lead....

Ballistic v. speed of light. Single shot v. auto fire. The paintbrush of a shotgun shooting at a small, moving target v. the mechanical pencil of shooting a rifle at a very stationary target. Too many loose ends based on my understanding of ballistics (and lack thereof). I would join Simon's comments about most slug weapons being fairly close, but I doubt how many lasers and PGMP's were thrown into his experience. One thing I have noticed is that great rifle shots often make bad wing shooters; having grown up with a healthy mix of bolt, semi- and full-auto, slugs and pellets, it was easy for me to take this background for granted beginners.

That said, any pistol at pistol range has more to do with any other pistol than a Gauss rifle on auto fire does with a bolt gun at rifle range.

That's why I think having mutually exclusive (CT), or overly inclusive (MgT) weapon skills is a mistake.

I have slug rifle, I can shoot any slug gun with no penalty; but I can't fire anything on full auto or burst (rifle or no) at my skill level, nor get an autofire bonus without autofire (call this SMG, and I wouldn't argue semantics). I can fire a shotgun with slugs as a rifle; a shotgun fired as a shotgun (w/ pellets shot at small, flying targets) I can shoot with no penalty, but not use slug rifle skill. (No slug; no rifle..... ). Energy Rifle includes all sorts of plasma/fusion stuff that Sgt. York might get himself in real trouble with; so Slug Rifle gets any laser without penalty, but no F's or G's. Combat Rifleman gets the benefits of both slug rifle and SMG. Slug Rifle gets grenade launchers, but can get into trouble at short ranges. Not as logically neat, but closer to the truth along functional lines while avoiding overspecialization.

 

[DickNervous]

So here is what I think I'm gonna run with.

For the Gun Combat skills the players will allocate to either Slug, Energy, or Shotgun. For Slug and Energy they pick a preferred weapon (Rifle or Pistol). They gain that at the level and the other at half that level (Round down) and all other Gun Combat at 0.

So if you pick Slug Rifle - 3, you get Slug Pistol - 1, everything else at 0.
Start with Energy Pistol - 4, you get Energy Rifle - 2, rest at 0.

For Archaic Weapons (Bow, Crossbow, Sling) and Thrown weapons they fall under Athletics: Co-Ordination or Dexterity. Extremes in STR (either high or low) can impact range of thrown weapons.

Carbines and SMGs are considered Rifles.

And if you have the Zero-G or Vacc Suit skills you don't get penalized for combat in Zero-G (assuming you use a 0 recoil weapon). Otherwise it's a -3 to hit.

I'll let everyone know how it goes.

 

[McPerth]

IMHO, from the game playing POV, and forfeiting realism for a while, the broadness of the skills must be according the numbre of them a character gets. In MgT, with 1-3 skills per term (so less than a skill a year), they must be quite broad (as medical skill is). I've criticized sometimes the subdividing of Engineer skill due to this same reason, and I think we should not divide other skills in too many cathegories, or we'll see the characters quite limited in what they are proficient to use.

In other versions where you have more skill levels (e.g. T4, where you had a skill a year plus bonuses), you could be quite more detailed on them.

Of course firing a revolver is quite different from firing an auto-pistol or a rifle, but also being an neurosurgeon is quite different tan being a pediatrician or a cardiologist, and all of them use the same skill...

And riding a motorcycle is quite different from driving a car or a 8 weeled lorry, and still they use the same skill without modifiers...

One thing that always amazed me in this board is how detailed we want to be with weapons skills and how broad we accept other ones...

 

[Adam Dray]

The issue became one of how granular do you want the system to be? Do skills represent broad areas of training and expertise, or do they represent specific specialties?

Another approach is, "what does a point of skill represent?" More fine-grained skills represent a cost of time and opportunity and, in game terms, points, which represent a portion of the benefits of a career path. You spend 4 years in the Navy; how good do you get at using different guns?

You probably want some specialization, not only for verisimilitude, but also so that it's hard for anyone to have a +2 or +3 skill in every combat situation.

How many total points should "guns" span though? Say you want to be an absolute expert (+3) in any weapon you pick up. How much should that cost in points? 12? 15? 30?

Realistically, I think about my brother's RL training, which is bad-ass and highly specialized. He is about as good a shot with a pistol as people get, at least in terms of combat situations. He has also qualified at expert levels with a variety of assault rifles and SMGs. He has also received weeks of training across the board on basically every single class of firearm people make, so that's the equivalent of training (+0? +1?) on every single firearm skill. If I were to model him in Traveller terms, he'd probably have Gun Combat +1, Pistols +3, Rifles +2, SMG +2. Anything else he comes across, he gets the +1 base (but I wonder if that's low, but it's probably offset by a very high Tactics skill level, good initiative rolls, and thus Aim action bonuses). So 8 points of skills to be a bad-ass mother▮▮▮▮er.

 

[Adam Dray]

IMHO, from the game playing POV, and forfeiting realism for a while, the broadness of the skills must be according the numbre of them a character gets.

We're on the same wavelength, yeah.

 

[simonh]

IMHO, from the game playing POV, and forfeiting realism for a while, the broadness of the skills must be according the numbre of them a character gets.

Quite, and I don't think it's really forfeiting realism all that much given that a +1 DM can mean anything from +16% to +3. Traveller has a fairly 'pixelated' resolution mechanic, which IMHO is fine.

All RPGs model the environemnt and most situations in very broad terms. Pretending that a system with +/-1% modifiers for this and that is somehow necessarily more realistic is purely illusory. It's just that the designers of that particular game picked out some specific issues they arbitrarily chose to model.

How many games have rules for restricted vision due to having a stupid haircut, or the chances of spraining your ankle while running down some stairs during a firefight? The first was a factor in a paintballing match, and the latter happened to a mate while we were on FIBUA training. No RPG I've ever played has had rules that would simulate those.

Simon Hibbs

 

[McPerth]

or the chances of spraining your ankle while running down some stairs during a firefight? (...) No RPG I've ever played has had rules that would simulate those.

Simon Hibbs

I guess you've never played rolemaster, then :devil:...

In RM, any maneuver (even the easiest ones) may end in fumble, if the referee asks you to roll for it.

 

[McPerth]

I don't think that's the right way to look at it. I think what it means is that anyone with good athletic ability can be handy at Archery if they chose to, and there's no particular obstacle in the rules to them doing so.

What I meant is that adding archery to Athletics cascade skill means that anyone that has Athletic skill (no matter what specialization) has Archery at level 0...

I'd port over from "Alternate Guns Specialties and Techniques". Even though it's GURPS, thus the resolution granularity is 3d6, the basic principles apply, IMO.

Keeping with my argumentation above, how many skills does a GURPS average character have, compared with a MgT one?

 

[atpollard]

Indeed not. Having grown up with my trusty laser pistol, however, the first time I pick up a briskly loaded 10mm I may not shoot it as well.

I get your point, but remember that even the highly specific "CT Autopistol" skill, which will not apply to a revolver, will still apply whether the gun is firing a .25 ACP at 230 mps or a .50 AE at 470 mps.

Or my bolt action "Rifle" could be a .22 LR or a .50 BMG, so compensating for lead and drop is already part of the skill package.

 

[samuelvss]

so compensating for lead and drop is already part of the skill package.

Except when it's not...as with a laser.

Anywhere we draw the line, there's always going to be a problem. I think MgT does a pretty good job, but I would just overlay some distinctions, such as for auto-fire and fowling pieces.

 

[RandyB]

Keeping with my argumentation above, how many skills does a GURPS average character have, compared with a MgT one?

It Depends.

For GURPS Traveller, probably more skills. But skills in GURPS are priced on a sliding scale; higher skill levels cost more to increase to the next level.

One of the net effects of that article is to reduce the amount of skill investment necessary to have a sufficient ability with firearms, so that other aspects of the character (and campaign) can then be emphasized on a similar chargen budget.

 

[McPerth]

It Depends.

For GURPS Traveller, probably more skills. But skills in GURPS are priced on a sliding scale; higher skill levels cost more to increase to the next level.

One of the net effects of that article is to reduce the amount of skill investment necessary to have a sufficient ability with firearms, so that other aspects of the character (and campaign) can then be emphasized on a similar chargen budget.

Also in Traveller it's good for the characters to have other skills, aside of weapon ones, and in MgT they get 1-3 skills per term (not counting 0 level ones).

in MgT, to be moderately expert in something (let's say level 2) takes you a full term, so, if skills are to specialized, for someone to be good in 3 different weapons would mean 3 terms and having very few or no other skills.

 

[pendragonman]

It Depends.

For GURPS Traveller, probably more skills. But skills in GURPS are priced on a sliding scale; higher skill levels cost more to increase to the next level.

One of the net effects of that article is to reduce the amount of skill investment necessary to have a sufficient ability with firearms, so that other aspects of the character (and campaign) can then be emphasized on a similar chargen budget.

I think what he meant by his question is not actually how many different skills does one have in Gurps vs MgT, but how many skill levels. It is the total skill levels that is the better comparison.

 

[RandyB]

I think what he meant by his question is not actually how many different skills does one have in Gurps vs MgT, but how many skill levels. It is the total skill levels that is the better comparison.

Fair question. GURPS rates skills differently (as a delta off of attributes yielding a base target number for a 3d6 roll), but that rating can be roughly equated to MgT skill levels.

I still think (absent a head-to-head comparison, which I haven't yet done) that GURPS Traveller characters will have more "skill levels" (as per the above) than their MgT counterparts, which in GURPS are purchased with character points. Again, though, the main impact of that variant article is to de-emphasize firearms skills by providing moderately more breadth of firearms ability for the same investment of character points. This allows a character to be a broadly capable firearms user without focusing the character on firearms use. If a given character is intended to be unskilled with firearms, that is just as easily possible.

 

[simonh]

Except when it's not...as with a laser.

Anywhere we draw the line, there's always going to be a problem. I think MgT does a pretty good job, but I would just overlay some distinctions, such as for auto-fire and fowling pieces.

Personaly, I prefer just using the skills directly from Merc 2nd ed and that's that.

However if my players majority-videt for a more detailed system I'd rule as folows: If a character has a roughly appropriate firearms skill and the player chooses a set of weapons for that character from the weapons list, I would assume the character has spent some time familiarising with those weapons and is used to their characteristics. At a push I'd rule that a week of occasional trips to a gun range is enough to familiarise.

However if in mid-action a character picks up a weapon not of a type the character routinely carries, they get a -1 DM unfamiliarity penalty.

I'd do the same for Archery and the Athletics skill. If a character has a bow already listed on their character sheet, they can use it using the Athletics skill at no penalty. A character with the Atheltics skill and no previously stated familiarity with bows can pick one up and use it at -1 DM.

I see it as being analagous to expecting an Engineer character to carry out emergency repairs on a ship type and engine configuration he's never worked on before and hasn't had time to familiarise with. Say your Type-S scout ship comes across a damaged Type-R and that ship's Engineer was killed in a Pirate attack you helped drive off. Your engineer transfers across and tries to patch up the drives before another Pirate ship arrives. Would you make it a streight Engineering roll, or would you appy a penalty for unfamiliarity?

Personally I wouldn't bother, but it's a matter of taste.

Simon Hibbs

 

[CosmicGamer]

However if in mid-action a character picks up a weapon not of a type the character routinely carries, they get a -1 DM unfamiliarity penalty.

I think because the combat rules are detailed out with so many DMs, some people feel that the rules already cover combat and anything not covered is not supposed to get a DM or is a mistake.

But combat is a task, more detailed, but a task like any other and the GM can certainly do things like add situational modifiers, task chains, and adjust the difficulty of a task to fit situations not specifically covered in the rules.

 

[atpollard]

I think because the combat rules are detailed out with so many DMs, some people feel that the rules already cover combat and anything not covered is not supposed to get a DM or is a mistake.

But combat is a task, more detailed, but a task like any other and the GM can certainly do things like add situational modifiers, task chains, and adjust the difficulty of a task to fit situations not specifically covered in the rules.

Not a problem for me ... I like "Rule 68A".

 

[rancke]

Not a problem for me ... I like "Rule 68A".

I prefer Rule 69C for 3D universes.


Hans