[Collaborative] Gears of War

[Sletchman]

I don't know squat about the setting (played the first for a few seconds at my brother in laws house), but something that just occurred to me WRT autofire - perhaps give automatic weapons a recoil score, and additional hits are determined based on this score.  A laser with zero recoil will likely hit all shots in a burst, but a hip fired .308 will be far harder to hit successive shots in a short burst.

Also, after reading the Active Reload section of the Wiki, it seems to be about the same effect as Quick Draw - most of the guns go from about 3 second reload time, to about 1 second.  I'd consider a reload trick with a resolve / prestidigitation check in there that grants edge (which with some support rules for spending edge on killing) to model the damage / ROF boost most weapons get.

Just some thoughts.

[Mister Andersen]

Excessive bookkeeping that most people will ignore

[Morgenstern]

I think for modern firearms we can see a simple expansion of the load notation to things like "Load 1/16" with the number after the slash being the magazine size. Some of the heavy weapons might have Load 3/8 or similar values where after you expend 8 shots you'll spend 3 actions getting realoaded.

Being able to spend a point or 2 of Edge as part of the reload process to buff up the weapon for the next clip might not have an obvious parallel in the real world, but the idea of it speeding things up and bumping up damage seems to match the cinematic reality of Gears of War. I kinda like that it puts some desirable focus on an action that's ussually just a time sink.

[glimmerrat]

Also, after reading the Active Reload section of the Wiki, it seems to be about the same effect as Quick Draw

Yeah, but a perfect reload (which is what you're really aiming for...) temporarily amps up weapon damage too.

[Big_Jim]

For my take on the IK setting I created the following new weapon quality:

Ammo (#): The weapon is loaded with this many shots/uses. When empty, it gains the Load (1/3rd Ammo) quality. Example: The Cygnarian sentinel's Chaingun has Ammo (12). This means that after it has expended its 12 shots (of belted ammunition), it acquires the Load 4 quality to represent loading a fresh belt.

Two other weapons qualities that go along with the IK's firearm theme are:

Automatic: When firing this weapon the user gains the following trick:
Autofire (Ranged attack trick): You may target up to three targets, roll separate to hit rolls for each target. These do not have to be different targets. Each target’s to hit roll suffers -3 to hit and the weapon’s Error range increases by +3 for the duration of this action.

Single Mode (named trick): When the named trick can be applied to an action with the weapon, it must be, before any other tricks are applied (if applicable).

The Chaingun has all three of these. The end result is that the Chaingun can only be fired in conjunction with the Autofire trick from the Automatic quality and can fire 4 three target bursts before needing a new belt fed into it. Only if the firer has the ability to ignore the Single Mode (Autofire) quality (through a class ability or feat, perhaps) would a single shot or other trick be applicable thanks to these qualities. Also, a class ability or feat that allows multiple tricks to be applied to the ranged attack (such as with the martial artist's Master’s Touch I ability) would let you do more with the weapon than just spray and pray.

[Morgenstern]

For my take on the IK setting I created the following new weapon quality:

Ammo (#): The weapon is loaded with this many shots/uses. When empty, it gains the Load (1/3rd Ammo) quality. Example: The Cygnarian sentinel's Chaingun has Ammo (12). This means that after it has expended its 12 shots (of belted ammunition), it acquires the Load 4 quality to represent loading a fresh belt.

I don' tthink its a good idea to formulaicly tie the load number to the the ammo count.

I'd also like to avoid cluttering the tables with an additional word/quality, especially if they are always going to work in pairs anyway.

Single Mode (named trick): When the named trick can be applied to an action with the weapon, it must be, before any other tricks are applied (if applicable).

You can only use one trick per action, so that's pretty much the end of the story right there. I'd definitely phrase that differently.

[Big_Jim]

Single Mode (named trick): When the named trick can be applied to an action with the weapon, it must be, before any other tricks are applied (if applicable).

You can only use one trick per action, so that's pretty much the end of the story right there. I'd definitely phrase that differently.

It was phrased that way deliberately, as noted in the last sentence of my previous post. Master's Touch I doesn't specify an attack type, so therefore you can apply two tricks to an autofiring chaingun with that class ability. The phrasing means without Master's Touch I (or any similar ability) you not going to be able to do anything but autofire, since applying additional tricks aren't applicable (by the basic rules). 

[Morgenstern]

I guess my point was I would lock out a single method of using the weapon, rather than lock out ALL POSSIBLE ways of using the weapon except one. I'd be more comfortable saying "This can't be used in single shot mode."I think that structure will be useful in more cases than "The single trick slot for attacks with this weapon is pre-filled". For instance a weapon that can burst or fulll auto, but not single shot.