OK, but why is there an initiative penalty associated with recoil and is it truly representative of the effect of recoil?
Recoil is something a good shooter will manage but they will still put multiple hits on target.
Situational example.
Two shooters with equal weapon skill and characteristics like dex.
One shooter with a weapon that has no recoil, like a laser weapon. They can more easily keep the weapon on target without expending effort or time.
One shooter with a weapon that "jumps". It recoils and the user has to bring it back on target thus taking skill and time.
No matter how skilled one is, the recoil still exists. The more the recoil, the harder it is to stay on target vs a weapon with less or no recoil. Thus initiative for a person with a weapon that "kicks" is lowered if they don't have the strength to handle the weapon. I can see how one might want to say if a person is skilled, they can more easily compensate for heft and recoil but take someone supper awesome skilled but slight in stature and build thus smartly use a light weapon with little recoil. With a hefty weapon this very skilled person may barely be able to pick it up let alone keep it on target. We can not all be Arnold Schwarzenegger grabbing vehicle mounted weapons off their mounts and using them one handed. A skilled role player should properly role play their character such that a skilled combat character would choose their weapon based on their ability to handle it and knowing the negatives and positives of using such.
The skill part is a DM added to the attack and chance to hit and through effect (MongT) also damage. Higher skill, more likely you compensated for any and all issues to lock on target.
Sure, I guess one could create yet one more rule for combat and allow someone to try and get off shots just as fast with their huge recoil weapon. Something like ignore the recoil initiative DM but now have an attack DM and will be less likely to stay on target and hit it.
So for the roleplay/rules/reality aspect you get situations like
A) ignore this new optional initiative/recoil and the "skilled" character can take the initiative/recoil penalty and as usual, be more likely to hit and do more damage than their less skilled opponent.
or
B) the "skilled" character can use this optional initiative/recoil rule to ignore the recoil/initiative penalty but takes a small -DM to hit. They are now reduced in likelihood to hit but because of their high skill perhaps still just as capable of hitting a target as a less skilled character who is slowed down and taking longer to compensate for the recoils.
EDIT: FYI, the rule to increase initiative at the expense of accuracy already does exist. It's called Hasten. It's just not limited to skilled people trying to quickly fire weapons they can't handle.
If recoil should have an effect, it should be in followup shots. Recoil after all has no effect on the first round.
I thought this was how the MongT rules were worded?
