We're Gonna Need Guns [Archive] - HERO Games Discussion Boards

Toadmaster

May 24th, '04, 04:17 PM

Definately think some expaned discussion of using firearms in the campaign is worth while, pros and cons of more lethal / less lethal modifications to the rules, use of expanded rules etc. This is a popular discussion topic so I think it is worthy of space in the book.

Suppressors, sights, night vision, folding stocks and other accessories. Also their use not just a list of some, I'd like to see some thought to each as well as benefits / hiderances of them (ex high powered telescopic sights let you see clearly long distances but are hard to use up close, are fragile and give you a very narrow view)

I'd love to see some rules for Close Quarters Combat, something to give short fast weapons an advantage up close (speed modifiers or some such), there has to be a reason to use an MP5 instead of a Barrett when you are clearing a room. Also the dangers of overpenatration (or how not to shoot your buddy on the other side of the wall).

Other weapons, flame throwers, WP grenades, tear gas etc.

Be very careful about falling into the new tech is much better than old tech trap, the M1911A1 .45 Handgun has seen almost 100 years of use, the P90 PDW is only a few years old but already faces an uncertain future, most games don't reflect this since they make the P90 a super gun. HERO is a very narrow system when it comes to guns and it is easy to make stuff out of balance, I'd prefer to see less differance between weapons than over the top attempts to make a weapon stand out.

Shotguns deserve more attention, I'd like to see other than 12 gauge and some variety in ammunition, small shot, lock breakers, tear gas rounds, rubber bullets, flares etc.

Whoops the toadling is taking a nap, more later.

BobGreenwade

May 24th, '04, 04:53 PM

I'm going to ask for stuff at the opposite end of the spectrum -- some of the non-lethal weapons and ammunication currently available. Rubber bullets have been around for quite a long time, and "stun guns" of various sorts for nearly as long; I've also seen net-guns and a few other new innovations in actual use. Look into some of these and see what you can get. :D

Metaphysician

May 24th, '04, 07:31 PM

There should be some coverage of "cutting edge" weapons and borderline supertech guns, though perhaps not in the corebook. Stuff for more extreme campaigns.

Mightybec

May 24th, '04, 07:35 PM

The M203 grenade launcher has what's called a submunition round. Basically, it's a 40mm shotgun shell with a hell of a lot of powder. There is an account of a Marine in Somalia using one of these on a threatening person about 7 feet away from him, and the guy was absolutely obliterated.

Also, I posted a link to a video clip to something called either a blended metal or a liquid metal round. The energy of impact is enough to liquify the metal, thereby transfering almost all of it's energy into it's target. The lagre potroast the round hit was heavily damaged. The damaged tissue was in about a 3 inch radius from the impact.

Toadmaster

May 24th, '04, 08:20 PM

Not guns per se but I'd like to see more on demolitions, explosives and EOD.

Definately more less than lethal weapons, there are quite a few on the verge of practical use. Discovery Channel or the History Channel occasionally runs a really good show on many of the up and coming less than lethal weapons out there and on the drawing board from tasers and really stinky paintball guns to a strobe guns that make the target get disoriented.

While I know how squeemish many Hero gamers are about attaching game stats to real stats I hope you will include some discussion of how to compare new weapons to existing weapons in the designing weapons section. Whether you go with a hard x# of foot pounds equals y DC or just a ball park method of comparison I think it is worthy of mention in the book. I assume you have someway of making that decision I'd like to see it included even if it is just a feeling of where it goes.

Strangely I'm not all that interested in a big list of guns in this book (I've already got so many gun books at home) rather I'd like to see a wide selection of weapon types, maybe a dozen of each (pistols, rifles, shotguns etc) but make sure to include widely differant examples of each, single action big big bore revolver (.475 Linebaugh type), big bore double action revolver (.44 Mag), a couple of 9mm pistols, .22 back up, .22 target pistol, a silhouette pistol (bolt action rifle caliber target pistol) etc rather than 27 9mm handguns that are all pretty much the same. This will really make it easier to add in weapons later.

Heavy weapons too, 40mm grenade launchers, recoiless rifles, wire guided missiles, mortar or two.

Examples of weapons that require special rules like guided missiles and mortars.

Some indirect fire rules for calling in artillery would be nice too.

Basically I'm looking for examples of rule use to build unusual weapons.

Resartus

May 24th, '04, 10:18 PM

I think Metal Storm http://www.metalstorm.com/ weapons definitely fit the definition of "cutting-edge". I'd really like to see an official write up on them. Especially the O'Dwyer VLe Smartgun http://www.metalstorm.com/04_what_is_a_smart_gun.html, it has non-lethal and lethal rounds available via selector switch or voice activation.

It also be very nice to see some work on armor. This subject tends to get overlooked when guns are brought up. I'd like to see some coverage of newer aramid fibers and materials like Spectra. Spider silk will also be an option in the near future and could easily be available in a DC campaign. And of course there is this little gem about liquid armor http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,usa3_042104.00.html.

But advances and new stuff aside a more detailed write-up of Kevlar type soft armors would be nice. For instance the protection they provide really only works against bullets. A Kevlar vest without an insert is usless at protecting against a knife or even a baseball bat and the write-up should reflect that in a gritty campaign.

And what would the average vigilante be without his ride? A small addition that covered class IV and V armors that can be bought for real world vehicles would be nice. It would give GMs a guideline for armoring a Mafia Don's limo or a Brinks money transport. Class IV armors for instance should stop a perfectly square hit from a .308 at point blank, so it would be a least rPD 13 in Hero terms.

LordGhee

May 24th, '04, 10:54 PM

New gun stuff? Him. . . . .

how about

The russians built a new seris of inf rifles that fire the secound round before the first left the barrel so the secound round is very accurate and the rifle barrel impulses back in a cool way.

Report of guided 50cal rounds (laser?).

The million rounds a second system. The round are in the barrel stacked one on anther so the barrel in the mag. The rounds are fired electronicly and the speed in up at million rounds a sec. The pistol has four barrel and holds 10 rds each and is the size of a 45. so those geeky multi barrel future guns in sf movies are not that far off .

shotguns have teargas, flame, flash bang, bean bag rounds for years

Safety locks do not work like every one wants yet (dna machting).

Camera on guns. not there yet but years to a good one (look around or over things and soon after that my lt can see what it sees.)

Lasers build into the gun it self.

Lord Ghee

LordGhee

May 24th, '04, 11:01 PM

Hey the laser,

yep they are using a laser to burn bombs in the gulf now it is mounted on a hummer and it is a big box see strageypage.com gallery. shades of the Andromeda Strain ( see the movie).

Lord Ghee

Resartus

May 24th, '04, 11:18 PM

Oops, That last post was a little more off topic that I realized at first. So I'll confine this one to a list of Ammo types I'd like to see:

Armor Piercing: I know this sounds obvious but I'd like to see some guidelines on how many levels of AP a real world round could have. I'm sure that a depleted uranium round would have more AP than a standard steel penetrator but how much more?

Semi-Armor Piercing: This category covers rounds that are better at penetrating armor than standard FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) ammo but don't really qualify as AP. These rounds usually achieve this by shape and/or high velocities.

Armor Piercing Saboted: Probably has more than one level of AP and definately has better range than the standard round fired from the same gun. Will probably do less damage to living targets because of it's smaller caliber.

Armor Piercing Explosive: Good at getting through armor and then exploding inside. Not typically available in small calibers but very nasty for a vigilanty's "Big Gun". Also tends to prevent over penetration normaly associated with large caliber rounds.

Hollow Point: Should get reduced penetration against armors but should do more damage to a living target because of the post entry expansion.

Tracers: Should provide some sort of aiming bonus while firing at the same target across multiple phases.

Incendiary: Will set some targets on fire and do some additional damage to living targets. Maybe just a single point of RKA with a fire special effect?

Frangible: Breaks up on any hard surface especially armors but will do normal damage to soft Kevlar type armors and unarmored living targets. Great for preventing a missed shot from going through a wall and hitting an innocent target on the other side.

Baton/Bean Bag/Rubber Shot: Grenade launcher/shotgun ammo designed to be non-lethal. Often deployed in crowd control situations.

As a general question, will most firearms in DC be written up as Multipowers to reflect their performance with different ammo types?

Steve Long

May 25th, '04, 04:08 AM

As a general question, will most firearms in DC be written up as Multipowers to reflect their performance with different ammo types?

Nope. That's way too complicated for what most people want, and would use up way too much page space. Guns will be written up as if using standard ammunition. Then there'll be descriptions of other types of ammunition in game terms, and tables to help you (a) determine the cost of a gun if you always want to use that type of ammo, or (b) want to buy a clip of that type of ammo for emergencies, and so on. Most of this is already done, in fact; I just have to check over it, update it, and so on.

Susano

May 25th, '04, 06:19 AM

ghost-angel

May 25th, '04, 09:21 AM

I was going to suggest Metalstorm, but restartus beat me to it. So I'll second that point.

I'd love to see something official for MetalStorm.

RDU Neil

May 25th, '04, 11:18 AM

I'll second the calls for "blow through" rules and sections on armor "soft, padded, rigid" etc. That kind of stuff makes the feel of heroic level games much different than super level games. (Blowthrough actually reducing damage done to a soft target could be an option as well.)

Similarly, maybe a discussion of optional rules on "types of damage" like piercing, cutting, blunt, etc. Certain kinds of damage vs. certain kinds of protection... that can make a big difference... but also might be too "crunchy" for Hero.

Finally... my main concern is a base concern with Hero System ranged combat. Basically, that it is way too easy to hit someone. Hero is so based on supers combat of high probability to hit, high defenses, nickel and dime the enemy in a fight... that this doesn't translate well to more "realistic" gun combat. One, the range mods are ridiculous for guns. A handgun shouldn't be so accurate beyond fifty feet, unless you are braced and set. Plusses on guns (to hit) should only count if character is braced and set. Maybe some "point blank range" combat options/maneuvers/rules... that reinforce the fact that most pistol combats take place within 10 feet of eachother... not across football fields.

I'd love to see the old DI range mods brought back as an optional rule.

I'd also love some kind of rule mods that encourage "throwing a lot of lead" as in real life... rather than the standard Hero combat of counting every shot, rarely having to reload, etc. Automatic weapons are better than single shot because they not only increase the number of possible hits... but increase the chance of hitting period. This isn't reflected in Hero... for game balance reasons at the supers level, I understand... but it makes automatic weapons much less scary than they should be. Close quarters automatic gunfire should be horrendously scary, IMO. Characters should be encouraged to throw multiple shots down range (realistic fashion, or a'la John Wu, either way) for better chances to hit/more damage... etc.

In the end, I guess anything that can move the Hero system rules away from the "one big energy blast" concept, and more toward hails of lead, floors covered in spent shells, empty clips dropping, unloading down hallways, etc.

Might be too much to ask, but it's what I'd love to see. :smoke:

TheQuestionMan

May 25th, '04, 12:11 PM

Steve,
There's that "Future Soldier 2025" article that showed up in Digital Hero (I forget the issue). I wrote up all sorts of high-tech near-future infantry toys, including the Alliant Technosystems Selectable Assault Battle Rifle (a.k.a. SABR)/Objective Individual Combat Weapon (OICW). That sort of stuff would be great.

Also, I agree on the comment about overshooting, and/or shooting through stuff to hit the guy on the other side. Maybe you could introduce some sort of "blowthrough" rule, where you compare DCs to DEF to see if a round goes through a wall or similar object with no real loss of energy.

Digital HERO #10 and a fine artical it is.

Flechette Rounds - do higher damage vs unarmored or soft armored targets and no damage vs hard targets (I want something official on this one).

You could also reference a SR Dumpshock website called FIREARMS. Really educational for gunbunnies and wannabes.

SuperPheemy

May 25th, '04, 01:03 PM

Interesting post RDU Neil. Could you post or posit the options you use in a new thread (so as to not hijack this one any more than I'm currently doing)? I'd like to kick the tires on 'em in my campaign.

Trebuchet

May 25th, '04, 01:22 PM

Also, I agree on the comment about overshooting, and/or shooting through stuff to hit the guy on the other side. Maybe you could introduce some sort of "blowthrough" rule, where you compare DCs to DEF to see if a round goes through a wall or similar object with no real loss of energy.This is a question which should have been fully addressed in The Ultimate Vehicle and unfortunately was not: What happens to people in a building or vehicle which is badly damaged or destroyed by an attack?

JohnTaber

May 25th, '04, 01:40 PM

Hi Steve: I think otherd have covered lots of angles. My only comment is that I like the way DI handled the special rounds. They just applied modifiers to how the existing rounds worked. For example, dum-dum added +1 Stun Mod and doubled the effective armor...if my memory is right. That works neat because it can be "added" to any existing round. I even use a similar approach in my Star Hero game. ;)

Trencher

May 27th, '04, 05:04 AM

The most important thing is to illustrate the guns you write up. I also would like to see some info like this : http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~leirbakk/rpg/shadowrun/equipment/shadowrun_equipment_tarotfirearms.html on guns. That page and the stuff there in was like fresh air into my old shadowrun campain many years ago.

SCUBA Hero

May 27th, '04, 05:33 AM

The old Piercing rules from (?) Robot Warriors (?). Either as a stand-alone thing or an official build (DCs with the Limitation 'Only to penetrate armor' or suchlike).

RDU Neil

May 27th, '04, 08:22 AM

I assume everyone here has seen this book...

http://www.greenronin.com/cgi-bin/product.cgi?prodid=1016

To me... this was the single best gaming supplement around firearms I've ever seen. Clean, crisp layout... excellent art... good detail on the weapons,without gun-nut overkill detail... and best of all, some basic primer information about guns, terminology, etc., all done on two pages. This is not text heavy in any way... giving you just what you need to play... no more, no less.

IMO... license this book exactly as is... just replace the stats with Hero stats... leave the rest there. I'd buy the book again, just for that.

Steve Long

May 27th, '04, 09:40 AM

Edsel

May 27th, '04, 10:22 AM

A Lot of good suggestions so far.

I'd like some rules on concealable weapons and the technology to combat them. Rules for detection equipment, airport security type of stuff (metal detectors, x-ray machines). Weapons that can be broken-down and disguised. Covert ops stuff.

It might be cool to have a bit about how characters with the proper skills can customize their own weapons or ammo. Perhaps even make their own custom weapons. I want to be the man with the golden gun (that sort of stuff).

Metaphysician

May 27th, '04, 04:10 PM

We're not going to illustrate all the guns that are written up. We're only going to illustrate more than a tiny fraction of them. Not only is comprehensive illustration unnecessary, but we simply don't have the art budget to commission that many illustrations (or the page space to devote to that type of formatting and layout, which I think it largely wasteful and pointless). The artists don't get paid less simply because the illustrations are small, after all. ;)

I won't complain. More money and time spent on illustrations = less money and time spent on content. Same reason why I'm opposed to full color.

Mightybec

May 27th, '04, 06:04 PM

Ooooo Ooooooo! I forgot one. How about a cyanide bullets like in Jaws?

Also, what if you had a hollowpoint bullet with a chunk of elemental potassium hidden in it's core. Once the potassuim hits the moist innards, it would react violently from the inside. :D

Toadmaster

May 27th, '04, 06:22 PM

Materials usable to make bullets from might be interesting, I understand pure Silver doesn't work so good (too hard), gold might but werewolves don't mind gold. :P This might be more appropriate whenever Horror gets its own book but the comments about cyanide bullets etc got me thinking.

As far as other kinds of bullets I think within the limits of HERO your going to be limited to expanding (soft points, hollow points, glasers), AP, frangible rounds (powdered lead that break up easily to avoid over penatration), shot, and perhaps target rounds. I agree with the other poster that I'd like to see the DI method of handling these used but please feel free to surprise me by finding a better way or ways to handle more types of bullets. Obviously shotguns have a few more varieties available.

Steve Long

May 27th, '04, 06:54 PM

gewing

May 27th, '04, 09:42 PM

The MP-5-10.. 10mm version.

HK UMP in .45, 9mm, .40, iirc

the Gyurza pistol from Russia.

The various specialty guns made for underwater use, there is even an Assault rifle version from Russia, there are several pistols. All fire darts, and can be used at short range in atmosphere too.

The fragmentation and Shaped charge grenades for the 12 gauge. I haven't read many real world bits, but Janes apparently has a writeup, unfortunaty the neares library with "infantry weapons" is about 290 miles away. :(

some of the heavy rifles short of .50 caliber.
.375 H&H, the 9.3x64 (used in a version of the SVD), the .45-70, the .444 marlin, the .358 and .35 Whelen,
>338 Lapua, .408 Cheytac

Rules for pistol (magnum mostly) in carbines, Probably just add 1DC, but the .44 is over-rated then(if it is not now).

Aquila mini shotgun shells.
"Whisper" line of cartridges.

The pure "Gamer Guns"
.500 S&W.
.458 Socom
.50 Beowulf
6.5 Grendel and 6.8mm Remington (militarily useful)
MOre to come.

gewing

May 27th, '04, 10:45 PM

That is odd. I can think of two shotgun style rounds for the M-203. One uses about 14 shot at iirc 750fps. This is significantly less potent than even a 20 gauge, unless the shot are VERY heavy, say 000 buck, but I think they were about #4 buck.

There was a Very complex, quite rare, but more effective round in which the "cartridge" became a multi-barrel .22lr. IIRC it had about 17 barrels, fired all at once. THis would be pretty nasty.

I have heard that the 40mm grenade launcher is devastating even if the impact is too close, so the round has not had time to fuse. Basically like a 40mm pistol round. Velocity is only about 250 fps, but grenade iirc is 4 oz. just Nasty. And if it IS fused...

I have my doubts still about the Blended Metal Technology bullets. I have met the main people from the Company, and liked them. The interesting capability of their round is the penetration of armor, then fragmentation.

There is a significant question as to whether it will be legal under the "Laws of War"
FOr police and such, it would be legal, depending on the locality, but they would be worried about penetration of their own vests. Something like 40% of all Police shot are shot with their own guns, iirc. If the round will penetrate their vest like it wasn't there...(note the company says they have a soft armor that stops it cold. :))

I would also like to see some explanation/ rethinking of the damage, ocv, and range mod numbers. I E-mailed the guy at Wizards of the Coast about the writeup of .22lr pistols being far less accurate at range than a BOW.
WHile I know Olympic Archers can do amazing things at 70 yards, A friend and I (I had to use a rest, he didn't) were hitting cans of spray paint at 85-90 yards with A Bernadelli pistol, kind of a low end target pistol. He could do it pretty regularly. He was NOT of Olympic caliber. :) I would be afraid of what my cousin's wife, who IS on the olympic pistol team could do. Of course, my cousin is on the olympic rifle team, so....

The M203 grenade launcher has what's called a submunition round. Basically, it's a 40mm shotgun shell with a hell of a lot of powder. There is an account of a Marine in Somalia using one of these on a threatening person about 7 feet away from him, and the guy was absolutely obliterated.

Also, I posted a link to a video clip to something called either a blended metal or a liquid metal round. The energy of impact is enough to liquify the metal, thereby transfering almost all of it's energy into it's target. The lagre potroast the round hit was heavily damaged. The damaged tissue was in about a 3 inch radius from the impact.

gewing

May 27th, '04, 10:47 PM

Very good points. I really like the idea of updated info on the recoilless rifles, the mortars, and demolitions.

There are the new Mauser Recoilless AUTOCANNONS that can be mounted on light vehicles....

Not guns per se but I'd like to see more on demolitions, explosives and EOD.

Definately more less than lethal weapons, there are quite a few on the verge of practical use. Discovery Channel or the History Channel occasionally runs a really good show on many of the up and coming less than lethal weapons out there and on the drawing board from tasers and really stinky paintball guns to a strobe guns that make the target get disoriented.

While I know how squeemish many Hero gamers are about attaching game stats to real stats I hope you will include some discussion of how to compare new weapons to existing weapons in the designing weapons section. Whether you go with a hard x# of foot pounds equals y DC or just a ball park method of comparison I think it is worthy of mention in the book. I assume you have someway of making that decision I'd like to see it included even if it is just a feeling of where it goes.

Strangely I'm not all that interested in a big list of guns in this book (I've already got so many gun books at home) rather I'd like to see a wide selection of weapon types, maybe a dozen of each (pistols, rifles, shotguns etc) but make sure to include widely differant examples of each, single action big big bore revolver (.475 Linebaugh type), big bore double action revolver (.44 Mag), a couple of 9mm pistols, .22 back up, .22 target pistol, a silhouette pistol (bolt action rifle caliber target pistol) etc rather than 27 9mm handguns that are all pretty much the same. This will really make it easier to add in weapons later.

Heavy weapons too, 40mm grenade launchers, recoiless rifles, wire guided missiles, mortar or two.

Examples of weapons that require special rules like guided missiles and mortars.

Some indirect fire rules for calling in artillery would be nice too.

Basically I'm looking for examples of rule use to build unusual weapons.

gewing

May 27th, '04, 10:48 PM

The vest I tried would have SOme effect versus a baseball bat, but not as much as solid armor.

I think Metal Storm http://www.metalstorm.com/ weapons definitely fit the definition of "cutting-edge". I'd really like to see an official write up on them. Especially the O'Dwyer VLe Smartgun http://www.metalstorm.com/04_what_is_a_smart_gun.html, it has non-lethal and lethal rounds available via selector switch or voice activation.

It also be very nice to see some work on armor. This subject tends to get overlooked when guns are brought up. I'd like to see some coverage of newer aramid fibers and materials like Spectra. Spider silk will also be an option in the near future and could easily be available in a DC campaign. And of course there is this little gem about liquid armor http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,usa3_042104.00.html.

But advances and new stuff aside a more detailed write-up of Kevlar type soft armors would be nice. For instance the protection they provide really only works against bullets. A Kevlar vest without an insert is usless at protecting against a knife or even a baseball bat and the write-up should reflect that in a gritty campaign.

And what would the average vigilante be without his ride? A small addition that covered class IV and V armors that can be bought for real world vehicles would be nice. It would give GMs a guideline for armoring a Mafia Don's limo or a Brinks money transport. Class IV armors for instance should stop a perfectly square hit from a .308 at point blank, so it would be a least rPD 13 in Hero terms.

gewing

May 27th, '04, 10:58 PM

The OICW/whatever the name of the Week is, M-25 or 29 iirc can have it's thermal camera fed to a helmet mounted sight. So can the French PAPOP (35!mm grenade launcher) and I think the new COrnershot can also.

Good rules for laser sights, they do have some usefulness both in the daylight and at fairly long ranges now.

Rules for Pepper Spray. It is not just a flash, but if you write it up as much more, it is more expensive than most guns, iirc.

The "Spike" missile the Marines are looking at, not the Israeli anti-tank, rather a 2-3 lb mini missile with up to a 2 mile range(daylight or if there is a laser spot it can be locked onto) with a small AP explosive warhead (self forging fragment) that is fire and forget with an optical seeker and the total launcher/missile/fire control only weighs about 7lbs. Designed to kill trucks, mashinegun nests, helicopters under good conditions... Missiles are designed to cost less than $4k.

more on the heavy rifles. I have always felt that the .50 Browning should be 3d6+1, iirc the energy numbers can justify this, and it allows there to be rifles such as the .375 H&H (low end elephant rifle) doing different damage than .458 Win, .460 Weatherby. .700 Nitro Express ($100 per shot!)

Oh, there are concepts for small guided rounds, I don't know much about them. Now Guided mortar rounds and such...

New gun stuff? Him. . . . .

how about

The russians built a new seris of inf rifles that fire the secound round before the first left the barrel so the secound round is very accurate and the rifle barrel impulses back in a cool way.

Report of guided 50cal rounds (laser?).

The million rounds a second system. The round are in the barrel stacked one on anther so the barrel in the mag. The rounds are fired electronicly and the speed in up at million rounds a sec. The pistol has four barrel and holds 10 rds each and is the size of a 45. so those geeky multi barrel future guns in sf movies are not that far off .

shotguns have teargas, flame, flash bang, bean bag rounds for years

Safety locks do not work like every one wants yet (dna machting).

Camera on guns. not there yet but years to a good one (look around or over things and soon after that my lt can see what it sees.)

Lasers build into the gun it self.

Lord Ghee

gewing

May 27th, '04, 11:03 PM

I was just going to suggest bringing back the size and concealment rules.

The Kel-tec P3AT will fit in your back pocket with ease, holds iirc 7 rds of .380, and with my wife's I could do head shots at 50 feet. Needless to say, I was quite impressed.

A Lot of good suggestions so far.

I'd like some rules on concealable weapons and the technology to combat them. Rules for detection equipment, airport security type of stuff (metal detectors, x-ray machines). Weapons that can be broken-down and disguised. Covert ops stuff.

It might be cool to have a bit about how characters with the proper skills can customize their own weapons or ammo. Perhaps even make their own custom weapons. I want to be the man with the golden gun (that sort of stuff).

gewing

May 27th, '04, 11:04 PM

I always preferred the DI version of Shotguns. For one thing it imo accurately made it easier to hit past a certain range, though the damage was less due to spread.

Materials usable to make bullets from might be interesting, I understand pure Silver doesn't work so good (too hard), gold might but werewolves don't mind gold. :P This might be more appropriate whenever Horror gets its own book but the comments about cyanide bullets etc got me thinking.

As far as other kinds of bullets I think within the limits of HERO your going to be limited to expanding (soft points, hollow points, glasers), AP, frangible rounds (powdered lead that break up easily to avoid over penatration), shot, and perhaps target rounds. I agree with the other poster that I'd like to see the DI method of handling these used but please feel free to surprise me by finding a better way or ways to handle more types of bullets. Obviously shotguns have a few more varieties available.

Toadmaster

May 28th, '04, 12:26 AM

Hey, Gewing I was starting to wonder what happend to you, two days on a major gun thread and I hadn't heard a whisper, then BAM :jawdrop: , you certainly do know how to make an enterance. :D

While it is stretching it a bit I do agree with bumping the .50 cal up to 3d6+1, the 1DC differance opens up the damage spacing just enough to get a nice spread for the rifles (30-06), magnum rifles (.300 WinMag, .338 Winmag), big magnum rifles (.375 H&H, .458 WinMag) and El Mucho Grande :shock: Magnum rifles (.460 Weatherby, .600 Nitro) which are all dwarfed by the .50 BMG.

BobGreenwade

May 28th, '04, 06:34 AM

Not to worry, o Master of Toads! I have a mighty long list of bullet and shotgun ammo types, and very good ways to handle them all (including Many Useful Reference Charts). If there's one thing this book's not gonna lack for, its types of bullets. :hex: This being the case, you really should pull the quote from gewing's sig and stick it in a sidebar. ;)

Edsel

May 28th, '04, 10:16 AM

Not to worry, o Master of Toads! I have a mighty long list of bullet and shotgun ammo types, and very good ways to handle them all (including Many Useful Reference Charts). If there's one thing this book's not gonna lack for, its types of bullets. :hex:
Okay, for those of us who do Dark Champions / Horror Hero cross-overs...
What about rules for silver bullets, wooden bullets, cold-iron. How dense is silver compaired to lead anyway?

gewing

May 28th, '04, 03:29 PM

Well, I don't have internet at home. :(
I am not sure of any other way to do it. Unless you retroactively remove a bunch of cartridges stun mods, and add it to the heavy magnums.... IMO There should be a difference between hunting rifle, Magnum rifle, and HEAVY magnum rifle. :)

Hey, Gewing I was starting to wonder what happend to you, two days on a major gun thread and I hadn't heard a whisper, then BAM :jawdrop: , you certainly do know how to make an enterance. :D

While it is stretching it a bit I do agree with bumping the .50 cal up to 3d6+1, the 1DC differance opens up the damage spacing just enough to get a nice spread for the rifles (30-06), magnum rifles (.300 WinMag, .338 Winmag), big magnum rifles (.375 H&H, .458 WinMag) and El Mucho Grande :shock: Magnum rifles (.460 Weatherby, .600 Nitro) which are all dwarfed by the .50 BMG.

gewing

May 28th, '04, 03:38 PM

Of the top of my head, ... Never mind, I found something at http://tm.wc.ask.com/r?t=c&s=a&id=30780&sv=za5cb0dc7&uid=055DD3DFC779C9704&sid=15268D2A1D8DB7B04&p=%2flinks&o=0&u=http://www.supermalta.com/en-us/pg_19.html

Metal Density
Gold 19.3
Silver 10.5
Platinum 21.4
Palladium 12.0
Copper 9.0
9ct 10.9 to 12.7
14ct 12.9 to 14.6
18ct Yellow 15.2 to 15.9
18ct White 14.7 to 16.9
22ct 17.7 to 17.8
Sterling Silver 10.2 to 10.3
Platinum 20.1

and even better at http://tm.wc.ask.com/r?t=c&s=a&id=30780&sv=za5cb0d8f&uid=055DD3DFC779C9704&sid=15268D2A1D8DB7B04&p=%2flinks&o=0&u=http://ep.llnl.gov/msds/Chem120/metal-densities.html

titanium is about 60% as heavy as steel, and aluminum about 33% steel as I remembered is about 8 times the density of water. copper is about 9Silver is 10 ish
gold is 19, lead should be about the same, and tungsten is denser yet.

remember there is usually a copper jacket around modern bullets. :)

wood would be much lighter, and need a jacket or sabot. Though the Japanese did use wood bullets at the end of WWII... Nasty wounds at Short ranges. And for the poor vampire who attacks the WWII vet with his souvenir Arisaka... :eg:

Okay, for those of us who do Dark Champions / Horror Hero cross-overs...
What about rules for silver bullets, wooden bullets, cold-iron. How dense is silver compaired to lead anyway?

Toadmaster

May 29th, '04, 09:29 AM

Okay, for those of us who do Dark Champions / Horror Hero cross-overs...
What about rules for silver bullets, wooden bullets, cold-iron. How dense is silver compaired to lead anyway?

Its not so much about the density its the hardness, lead alone is too soft for most modern guns it just strips out filling the rifling with shavings and not getting the proper spin which is why "lead" bullets are actually a lead alloy, silver on the other hand is too hard (or so I recall) making it tough on the gun barrel. Sure you can put a copper jacket on it but what effect does copper coated silver have on a werewolf?

My solution for horror games has generally been, get a shotgun (you can stuff pretty much anything in a shotgun shell) or for those with extraordinary resources can use saboted ammo, the sabot takes care of getting the slug down range. My favorite round from a Stalking the Night Fantastic game was a bane round we cooked up after getting our butts kicked by a demon who could only be hurt by glass (IIRC) basically it was a shotgun shell with bits of broken glass, silver & gold pellets, wood chunks, pebbles and anything else we could think of, we thought something in it should hurt critters with unknown vulnerabilities, oh yeah we loaded a magazine full into a full auto shotgun, unfortunately the next time we ran into a demon it turned out to be a hoax (a guy in a rubber suit), on the plus side it got my character into the looney bin instead of prison (it wasn't hard to argue he was insane).

tmutant

May 29th, '04, 01:04 PM

Its not so much about the density its the hardness, lead alone is too soft for most modern guns it just strips out filling the rifling with shavings and not getting the proper spin which is why "lead" bullets are actually a lead alloy, silver on the other hand is too hard (or so I recall) making it tough on the gun barrel. Sure you can put a copper jacket on it but what effect does copper coated silver have on a werewolf?

My solution for horror games has generally been, get a shotgun (you can stuff pretty much anything in a shotgun shell) or for those with extraordinary resources can use saboted ammo, the sabot takes care of getting the slug down range. My favorite round from a Stalking the Night Fantastic game was a bane round we cooked up after getting our butts kicked by a demon who could only be hurt by glass (IIRC) basically it was a shotgun shell with bits of broken glass, silver & gold pellets, wood chunks, pebbles and anything else we could think of, we thought something in it should hurt critters with unknown vulnerabilities, oh yeah we loaded a magazine full into a full auto shotgun, unfortunately the next time we ran into a demon it turned out to be a hoax (a guy in a rubber suit), on the plus side it got my character into the looney bin instead of prison (it wasn't hard to argue he was insane).

You can alloy the silver to make it softer, or use a sabot made of plastic which drops off after the round leaves the barrel.

gewing

May 29th, '04, 07:36 PM

I have been thinking about making little display boxes, with "In case of Werewolf, break glass" INside would be 2 12 gauge shells loaded with old silver dimes. An old west gunfighter favorite, I understand. :eg: I think they spread Really fast as the dimes turn sideways, so probably WOULD be area effect. :eg:

Its not so much about the density its the hardness, lead alone is too soft for most modern guns it just strips out filling the rifling with shavings and not getting the proper spin which is why "lead" bullets are actually a lead alloy, silver on the other hand is too hard (or so I recall) making it tough on the gun barrel. Sure you can put a copper jacket on it but what effect does copper coated silver have on a werewolf?

My solution for horror games has generally been, get a shotgun (you can stuff pretty much anything in a shotgun shell) or for those with extraordinary resources can use saboted ammo, the sabot takes care of getting the slug down range. My favorite round from a Stalking the Night Fantastic game was a bane round we cooked up after getting our butts kicked by a demon who could only be hurt by glass (IIRC) basically it was a shotgun shell with bits of broken glass, silver & gold pellets, wood chunks, pebbles and anything else we could think of, we thought something in it should hurt critters with unknown vulnerabilities, oh yeah we loaded a magazine full into a full auto shotgun, unfortunately the next time we ran into a demon it turned out to be a hoax (a guy in a rubber suit), on the plus side it got my character into the looney bin instead of prison (it wasn't hard to argue he was insane).

gewing

May 29th, '04, 07:39 PM

Or you could cast it with "Driving bands" and molycoat it.

One interesting thing on metallurgy, my dad uses an Aluminum, I think it is 7075, that is roughly the same strength as mild steel and about 1/3 the mass. I have some "Interesting" ideas based on that fact.

You can alloy the silver to make it softer, or use a sabot made of plastic which drops off after the round leaves the barrel.

Major Tom

May 29th, '04, 09:26 PM

Here was a recent thread on a very nasty Russian-made shotgun (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15219&highlight=shotgun). Note that the first link recommends a reference work for now-declassified Soviet-era weapons.

Just got through looking at the thread in question, and it brought to mind
another Russian-made shotgun, the Saiga-12 (I think that's how it's spell-
ed), a semiauto job with a 7-round box magazine that's mostly used by
SWAT-type police units. I've got the information on it somewhere here at
home.

As far as 40mm grenade rounds go, I'd like to see something like the RAP
(Rocket Assissted Projectile) round included. This particular round is used
in automatic grenade launchers like the MOD-19, and can hit a target at
up to 1,000 meters away.

Major Tom :eg:

gewing

May 29th, '04, 10:29 PM

I have heard of an experimental Rocket assisted grenade, but not for the Mk 19. It's High velocity grenade (3x as fast as the M-203) can reach out to 1600 meters, but is definately an area weapon at that range. It takes something like 15 seconds to get there, and travels on a trajectory almost like a mortar. nasty though.

Just got through looking at the thread in question, and it brought to mind
another Russian-made shotgun, the Saiga-12 (I think that's how it's spell-
ed), a semiauto job with a 7-round box magazine that's mostly used by
SWAT-type police units. I've got the information on it somewhere here at
home.

As far as 40mm grenade rounds go, I'd like to see something like the RAP
(Rocket Assissted Projectile) round included. This particular round is used
in automatic grenade launchers like the MOD-19, and can hit a target at
up to 1,000 meters away.

Major Tom :eg:

assault

May 30th, '04, 02:59 AM

I'd like to see some older weapons. For example, the kind of gear that was floating around between, say 1946-1966. That would allow for some classic Cold War espionage games, (and provide some support for Silver Age Champions!). It would also help fill in a gap between Pulp Hero & Golden Age Champions, on the one hand, and the modern period on the other.

I'm not talking about much - say a few rifles, a few SMGs, and maybe a few other weapons. You might throw in a few vehicles - how fast do fifties era vehicles go, compared to present ones? - plus, perhaps, a few other odds and ends (radios?). Much of this stuff could be used in present day games too.

Incidentally, this is not unreasonable, if you have a look at the history of the Hero System. Espionage was written in the early 1980's, and it's technology was essentially that of the 1970's. Pushing back a bit further shouldn't be too difficult.

On guns in general: generally speaking, I only ever use a few common designs. Pages and pages of weapons is usually dead space as far as I am concerned. But it's of interest to some people, so I can deal with it. And if my own silly prejudices are covered, I'm happy. :)

Doug Limmer

May 30th, '04, 05:05 AM

I don't know how 'futuristic' you want to get, or whether you already know about this, but this article on electric bullets http://www.discover.com/issues/jun-04/rd/electric-bullets-save-lives/ may be of interest. It's unclear from this short article whether this would be a NND instead of a RKA, an NND on top of an RKA, or just a good special effect for a high STUN multiplier.

Steve Long

May 30th, '04, 07:35 AM

Electric bullets -- excellent! This is just the sort of stuff I was hoping to get out of this thread. Lots of other suggestions have been worth following up on, too. Keep up the good work, folx!

Vondy

May 30th, '04, 10:35 AM

A short list of antique fireames would be nice. I say this for several reasons:

1) many detective novels have unusual murder weapons in them
2) supplements that would otherwise include them are unlikely to be published
3) they might make a good costumed hero/villian schtick

Such a list could include - a handful of muskets, tenessee long rifle, springfield rifle, gattling gun, blunderbuss, .41 single action revolver, etc. More recent "antique guns" could include the WWI style machine guns, the M-1 Garand, a WWII German sniper rifle, and some of the big game guns from the earlier part of this century.

----

Don't forget to include the Ithica .12 guage - its the most common police shotgun out there. It does vary (lots of departments use lots of brands), but the Ithica is a touch iconic.

---

I too would like to see some non-lethal options - modern tasers (the ones that have a profile like a handgun), tear gas grenades, flashbang grenages, stun guns, and the like.

---

Golden Sabre rounds are in common use with the police in the NW. It would be cool to see a write up on them. The rationale is - since the bullet stops inside the target it reduces liability (potential injury to bystanders). Of course, the fact that the round has a high effectiveness (read "lethality") quotient doesn't factor into the decision at all (sorry, feeling snarky).

---

Shotgun slugs are a must (as well as a notation reminding your dear readers that shotguns have to be ramped for slugs - you can't just stick them in and start shooting).

---

A list of tactical rifles would be an excellent choice as well - and in the case of the really rare ones, production numbers would be useful (esp. since that can be a good lead in from a forensics perspective). Both the Walther 2000 (only a few hundred made) and the M40 (hand crafted by Marine Corps armorers) come to mind.

---

Oh! Subsonic rounds. You must include sub-sonic rounds.

---

Another thing to include in your silencer section is a discussion of realistic silencers and an explanation of what is being silenced (muzzle blast, not the crack of the bullet as it breaks the sound barrier). You can eliminate the crack of the bullet passing the sound barrier with subsonic rounds, but the muzzle blast is still pretty darn loud - even when "silenced."

Movie silencers are a major pet peeve of mine. Most "silenced" rifles still exceed 115 decibles, and with the exception of low caliber handguns, "silenced" handguns still remain high (around 80-90 decibles, which is roughly equivelent to the sound a riveter makes).

I watched the Bellevue SWAT team try out their silencers when I was an auxillury officer. Their MP-5's were still distinctive sounding and pretty loud. The main reason they used them wasn't to hide the noise, but to ensure they'd still be able to talk to one another once the shooting started (the human threshold for pain is around 140 decibles).

---

More later.

tmutant

May 30th, '04, 11:51 AM

There is a version of the MP-5 that has a non-detachable silencer. With sub-sonic ammo the sound of the action cycling is the loudest sound it makes. That's still fairly substantial, easily heard 50 feet away. The weapon has an action lock that prevents the action from cycling, turning into a very quiet single shot. The action is then cycled by hand. Used only when maximum stealth is needed.
Some handguns with similar capability have been made. In Vietnam, a 9mm Smith and Wesson Mod. 39 was modified to use subsonic ammo, fitted with a silencer and and action lock, and dubbed the Hush Puppy because one use was to take out sentry dogs from a great enough distance to keep them from alerting, with a low enough sound signature to prevent detection. The SOCOM .45 is supposed to have a similar function, quietly removing guards, dogs and such during a Special-Ops raid.

Metaphysician

May 30th, '04, 11:54 AM

Could we also have a note somewhere that it isn't possible to silence certain types of weapons, mainly revolvers??

gewing

May 30th, '04, 01:08 PM

The DeLisle silenced carbine from WWII would be a good item. Modified SMLE to fire .45 acp with a suppressor. Very popular with WWII commandos.

There was a man (I could look up his name) who served in the iirc Rangers in WWII. He and his unit were in danger of premature exposure from a German stepping out of the bunker they were about to assault from behind. He THREW A KNIFE and hit and killed the man at70 Yards!

Because even for a former travelling carny this was almost impossible, the Delisle was quite popular. :)

I'd like to see some older weapons. For example, the kind of gear that was floating around between, say 1946-1966. That would allow for some classic Cold War espionage games, (and provide some support for Silver Age Champions!). It would also help fill in a gap between Pulp Hero & Golden Age Champions, on the one hand, and the modern period on the other.

I'm not talking about much - say a few rifles, a few SMGs, and maybe a few other weapons. You might throw in a few vehicles - how fast do fifties era vehicles go, compared to present ones? - plus, perhaps, a few other odds and ends (radios?). Much of this stuff could be used in present day games too.

Incidentally, this is not unreasonable, if you have a look at the history of the Hero System. Espionage was written in the early 1980's, and it's technology was essentially that of the 1970's. Pushing back a bit further shouldn't be too difficult.

On guns in general: generally speaking, I only ever use a few common designs. Pages and pages of weapons is usually dead space as far as I am concerned. But it's of interest to some people, so I can deal with it. And if my own silly prejudices are covered, I'm happy. :)

gewing

May 30th, '04, 01:17 PM

I just read the little article. It would in a highly realistic writeup be a killing attack, maybe not as high as a normal pistol, with probably an nnd linked.
Any bullet that can be effective at 300 feet is going to imo have a killing attack linked unless it is rubber or something.

The NND might be versus ff or electrically insulated armor that the bullet does not penetrate.

The simplest writeup would be several extra stun multiples.

I have been wondering when something like this would be built, IMO a shotgun slug or possible a Beanbag or rubber baton bullet might be a better choice. Should be able to get more voltage or duration for greater effect.

Electric bullets -- excellent! This is just the sort of stuff I was hoping to get out of this thread. Lots of other suggestions have been worth following up on, too. Keep up the good work, folx!

gewing

May 30th, '04, 01:26 PM

A couple of oldies I like are the .577 black powder revolver I posted a couple months ago. The Mauser c-96 broomhandle is interesting, but I have heard it isn't as nice to shoot. There was a full auto version with a snail magazine.

On shotgun slugs, do do you mean the barrel has to be a certain CHOKE? Most can even be fired through a full choke, though accuracy may not be as good.

Then there is the special "vang comp" for buckshot for tactical guns, REALLY tight groups.

A couple options for individual styles of bullets would be good. Most of the modern hollowpoints are fairly similar in performance, though there are arguments between those who want massive early disruption and those who SWEAR the bullet needs to penetrate a Minimum of 12" In game terms, the underpenetration/etc could just be a poor roll.

A short list of antique fireames would be nice. I say this for several reasons:

1) many detective novels have unusual murder weapons in them
2) supplements that would otherwise include them are unlikely to be published
3) they might make a good costumed hero/villian schtick

Such a list could include - a handful of muskets, tenessee long rifle, springfield rifle, gattling gun, blunderbuss, .41 single action revolver, etc. More recent "antique guns" could include the WWI style machine guns, the M-1 Garand, a WWII German sniper rifle, and some of the big game guns from the earlier part of this century.

----

Don't forget to include the Ithica .12 guage - its the most common police shotgun out there. It does vary (lots of departments use lots of brands), but the Ithica is a touch iconic.

---

I too would like to see some non-lethal options - modern tasers (the ones that have a profile like a handgun), tear gas grenades, flashbang grenages, stun guns, and the like.

---

Golden Sabre rounds are in common use with the police in the NW. It would be cool to see a write up on them. The rationale is - since the bullet stops inside the target it reduces liability (potential injury to bystanders). Of course, the fact that the round has a high effectiveness (read "lethality") quotient doesn't factor into the decision at all (sorry, feeling snarky).

---

Shotgun slugs are a must (as well as a notation reminding your dear readers that shotguns have to be ramped for slugs - you can't just stick them in and start shooting).

---

A list of tactical rifles would be an excellent choice as well - and in the case of the really rare ones, production numbers would be useful (esp. since that can be a good lead in from a forensics perspective). Both the Walther 2000 (only a few hundred made) and the M40 (hand crafted by Marine Corps armorers) come to mind.

---

Oh! Subsonic rounds. You must include sub-sonic rounds.

---

Another thing to include in your silencer section is a discussion of realistic silencers and an explanation of what is being silenced (muzzle blast, not the crack of the bullet as it breaks the sound barrier). You can eliminate the crack of the bullet passing the sound barrier with subsonic rounds, but the muzzle blast is still pretty darn loud - even when "silenced."

Movie silencers are a major pet peeve of mine. Most "silenced" rifles still exceed 115 decibles, and with the exception of low caliber handguns, "silenced" handguns still remain high (around 80-90 decibles, which is roughly equivelent to the sound a riveter makes).

I watched the Bellevue SWAT team try out their silencers when I was an auxillury officer. Their MP-5's were still distinctive sounding and pretty loud. The main reason they used them wasn't to hide the noise, but to ensure they'd still be able to talk to one another once the shooting started (the human threshold for pain is around 140 decibles).

---

More later.

Vondy

May 31st, '04, 02:19 AM

On shotgun slugs, do do you mean the barrel has to be a certain CHOKE? Most can even be fired through a full choke, though accuracy may not be as good.

Not really. Its an issue of bore. Shotgun manufacturers don't actually produce barrels that are the same size (precision wise) by guage, whereas handguns tend to be precise due to the nature of the ammunition that has to be fired. As a result, slugs that are a precise fit for one shotgun of a particular guage may not be a precise fit for another shotgun (from a different manufacturer) of the same guage. As such, slugs have a tendency to damage the barrels over several firings (as few as three to four in some cases) and seriously reduce the ability to place groups. Damaged barrels lead to accidents on occassion, too. Some of the new saboted slugs are designed to expand to the barrel's size when fired, eliminating these problems, but traditionally you have to be very careful about selecting the correct slug for your shotgun if you don't want to damage your barrel (and to avoid potential accidents). My reference to "ramping" was essentially the fitting process - making sure you have the right barrel for the right slug.

Most dedicated hunters who use slugs have rifled barrels (to assist with bore issues) and use saboted slugs - giving them accurate groupings at as much as 100 yards, which is a lot for a shotgun. If you don't "ramp" you won't be accurate with your slugs beyond normal shot ranges.

Some of the saboted slugs are .73 caliber and expand on impact! Ouch! How much hero damage is that? If a .50 is 3d6... 3d6+1 with a +2 stun multiplier? Or just 4d6?

Edsel

May 31st, '04, 07:42 AM

Actually this deals with the .22 calibur bullets, .22 LR, .22 Hornet, etc. I don't know how much of this is popular fiction and how much has a basis in fact. So here it goes...

I have heard sometimes "professionals" will use a .22 for a hit because the high-velocity, small, soft slug will be so distorted after it is fired into a target (body, wall, street, etc.) that ballistics may be useless in matching the round to a specific gun.
I have also heard that very small diameter rounds (like the .22 or .17) may actually penetrate soft body armor since the small bullet can actually slip between threads. Its not real likely but it can happen.

I know just enough about guns to be dangerous. :rolleyes:

TheQuestionMan

May 31st, '04, 12:08 PM

I think your gonna lose out if you forget adding in some Old West guns. For those themed characters. I'm gonna need a Winchester Rifle, a Colt Peacemaker, and a Thunderer Pistol (a pistol retooled to fire rifle rounds).

Blam, blam, "STOP!", Blam,"POLICE" - HCPD. ;)

QM

gewing

May 31st, '04, 07:48 PM

I have never read about any serious problems with shotgun slugs in different barrels, biggest I have read about is the worry about extra full chokes. I know my 870 shot several brands just fine, though i was not testing for accuracy.

as to damage,
The velocity is nowhere near as high as a .50. 2.5d6 would make sense though.

My favorite is the Federal load with the barnes x-slug. it expands to 1.5" in Diameter!

Not really. Its an issue of bore. Shotgun manufacturers don't actually produce barrels that are the same size (precision wise) by guage, whereas handguns tend to be precise due to the nature of the ammunition that has to be fired. As a result, slugs that are a precise fit for one shotgun of a particular guage may not be a precise fit for another shotgun (from a different manufacturer) of the same guage. As such, slugs have a tendency to damage the barrels over several firings (as few as three to four in some cases) and seriously reduce the ability to place groups. Damaged barrels lead to accidents on occassion, too. Some of the new saboted slugs are designed to expand to the barrel's size when fired, eliminating these problems, but traditionally you have to be very careful about selecting the correct slug for your shotgun if you don't want to damage your barrel (and to avoid potential accidents). My reference to "ramping" was essentially the fitting process - making sure you have the right barrel for the right slug.

Most dedicated hunters who use slugs have rifled barrels (to assist with bore issues) and use saboted slugs - giving them accurate groupings at as much as 100 yards, which is a lot for a shotgun. If you don't "ramp" you won't be accurate with your slugs beyond normal shot ranges.

Some of the saboted slugs are .73 caliber and expand on impact! Ouch! How much hero damage is that? If a .50 is 3d6... 3d6+1 with a +2 stun multiplier? Or just 4d6?

Toadmaster

May 31st, '04, 08:21 PM

I've never heard of a problem with the bore for using slugs either, I have heard of people blowing out their choke though, it's my understanding is best to use an open choke with slugs, the tighter chokes may foul eventually being damaged by a slug trying to force past, perhaps this is what you are thinking of, many barrels do not have replacable chokes so it would require another "slug" barrel if you had an incompatable choke on your gun. There are barrels made to use slugs, often these are rifled and have standard rifle type sights increasing accuracy since standard barrels are not rifled, many slugs have grooves cut into them becasue it was thought the air going by would causing the round to spin making up for the lack of rifled barrel, apparently this doesn't happen but many still have the grooves. The saboted slugs are supposed to be more accurate but I believe this is because they are higher velocity and more aerodynamic, full bore slugs from a smoothbore shotgun are not much more advanced than an old blunderbus from the 1700's, the design of most saboted slugs makes them fly point first even from an unrifled barrel.

Edsel I think the thing with .22's is not that they can go through body armor (that sounds very unlikely since body armor is tested against this to get rated) but that low powered rounds like this often can get in but can't get back out bouncing off bones and such while more powerful rounds tend to go in and go out. Plus when a lucky shot gets under the armpit (or other unprotected area) of someone wearing body armor it is a better story than a .44 magnum ("he was wearing body armor but got killed with a .22, WoW really?" vs "he got killed by a .44 mag, no kidding, really? big surprise, its a .44, hello Mcfly!")

I can't speak for the use by "professional" killers beyond what I've seen on TV. :) But it wouldn't surprise me, .22 is readily available, many .22 are very small guns and isn't all that loud compared to most service weapons (9mm, .45 etc).

Kevin Rose

May 31st, '04, 10:49 PM

Non-gun weapons and add-ons.
Tasers and stun guns, which actually don't knock people out, they incapacitate them for as long as the juice is on and a few seconds after. (proabably best represented in hero as an entangle) Except when they don't affect the target or don't effect them as planned. Knew a cop who had to get zapped as part of his training every so often. Big guy. He said his instant reaction to getting hit by a stun gun (which is quite painful) was to grab the guy and throw him across the room. Even when he tried to not do that.

Pepper spray, which has about an 85% effectiveness according to several trainers I talked to. Last for many seconds to minutes. More than just a flash attack, it makes it very difficult to concentrate on anything other than the amazing pain in your eyes and skin, when it works.

Virtually all the actual firearms trainers I know consider lasers to be worthless, or even negatively effective. Particularly in a team operation. (Is that your red dot on the hostage or is yours the one on the hostage taker? They all look the same. Go ahead, pull the trigger and find out.) It's just as bad with IR lasers and NVGs. There also is a tendency for the shooter to try to aim with the laser vs the sights. This causes all sorts of bizzare problems. Very overrated in games. Can be really effective when used as a pointer by the team leader, but not as gun mounted toys.

High intensity tacical lights (surefire) are really effective in temporarily disabiling the guy being illuminated at night or in dark areas. The brightness of these, particularly the 9V and larger, is amazing. Much brighter then any maglight. All the bad guy sees is this wall of light that is too bright to look at. With a weapon mounted light it's even better. There are obvious issues with turning on a really bright light, but it only really applies if the bad guy is not in the light cone. If he is he is going to be shooting blind.

Kevin Rose

Jun 1st, '04, 12:12 AM

Armor and Bullets:

Armor in hero doesn't work like it should against bullets. In general, bullets either are stopped by armor (with no effect on the target) or go right through with no beneficial effect from the armor. I've seen arguments that wearing the old Vietnam flack jackets INCREASED the severity of wounds from AKs. {There are exceptions, when a vest stops a round it isn't rated for, where the wearer will sustain significant blunt trauma. I've seen pictures of a vest that was not penetrated but has significant blood on the inside due to this effect. But it's rare.}

A typical description of being shot wearing a vest is being poked by a strong man’s finger. The hero body die rolls allow a very good chance of a typical pistol round to penetrate a vest and also a good chance of the person getting knocked unconscious by attacks that would possibly leave a bruise in reality and often wouldn’t be noticed in a fight.

Part of the issue is that Hero links “ability to incapacitate” to “ability to punch holes in armor” and they are actually quite different. For example, a 9mm pistol round is much harder to stop than a .45 pistol, despite it doing 1.5 pts less on average (and 4 pts less maximum) damage in Hero.

The logical way to fix these sorts of armor issues has severe compatibility issues. So, without having to redo everything an approach that might work that doesn't require gross changes to the system would be to assume that handgun bullets are always "reduced penetration". This takes care of much of the issue.

This still leaves the issue with AP bullets. I don’t have a great fix for this without remodeling the gun chart. You could redo the gun chart and make roughly similar pistols (9mm, .40, .357, .41 .45) differ by stun multiple instead of base damage. Or not.

Similarly buckshot would always be 1/4 penetration and slugs are normal penetration (with options for AP rounds). For people who are not wearing armor it has no effect, but it makes body armor effective.

Rifles would do normal penetration, SMGs would do reduced. Though the bullet from an SMG should do more damage than the round from a pistol. Typically has a SMG has a rather higher muzzle velocity.

Armour piercing ammo also has significantly less ability to incapacitate an opponent. The whole point of an AP bullet is to hold together and remain stable - which produces a small, clean "through and through" wound channel, while incapacitating someone the optimal effect is a giant hole punched deep into them and all the bullet energy being absorbed by the target, none exiting. The obvious way to model this in hero is two levels of reduced stun multiple, countering the AP modifier.

I'd also suggest that pistol AP is limited in effectiveness to only light armor. No matter what, you can't shoot though the armor on a Bradley using a pistol with AP ammo.

Modern, high quality hollow-point ammo behaves pretty much the same as FMJ ammo for purposes of punching holes in things other than people. The FBI tests pretty much require this. FMJ ammo will do less damage to a person or critter, so treating it as AP ammo for damage purposes (but not penetration) would make sense. It's not point-cost effective to use - life is hard. Don't take training ammo to a real gunfight.

assault

Jun 1st, '04, 01:37 AM

A couple of days ago, I wrote:

I'd like to see some older weapons. For example, the kind of gear that was floating around between, say 1946-1966. That would allow for some classic Cold War espionage games, (and provide some support for Silver Age Champions!). It would also help fill in a gap between Pulp Hero & Golden Age Champions, on the one hand, and the modern period on the other.

Since then, I've rechecked the weapons listed in 4th Ed DC. Most of the weapons I was thinking about were, _of course_ there, and doubtless will be in the upcoming version of DC. Oops!

Still, some other "old" gear would be nice - perhaps some vehicles and old, clunky radios...

Major Tom

Jun 1st, '04, 08:18 AM

I have heard of an experimental Rocket assisted grenade, but not for the Mk 19. It's High velocity grenade (3x as fast as the M-203) can reach out to 1600 meters, but is definately an area weapon at that range. It takes something like 15 seconds to get there, and travels on a trajectory almost like a mortar. nasty though.

I had a chance last night to go through some of my old stuff, and managed
to find the name of the GL that the RAP round was designed for: the XM-174.
It can be mounted either vehicularly on a pintle mount, or on a tripod as a
static-mounted weapon. Its 12-round magazine can be emptied in about 6
seconds, and can function in either automatic or semiautomatic fire mode.

Major Tom :cool:

Major Tom

Jun 1st, '04, 08:35 AM

One thing I'd like to see as far as bullet types for the new DC book goes would
be a section dealing with some of the more "cinematic" rounds that have been
seen in recent films -- stuff like the silver nitrate/garlic extract rounds and the
ultraviolet fluid rounds from Underworld, as well as the radio tracer,
bloodsplatter/tranquilizer round and the 12-hour "Mickey Finn" round from XXX.

Major Tom :eg:

TheQuestionMan

Jun 2nd, '04, 01:58 PM

We're not going to illustrate all the guns that are written up. We're only going to illustrate more than a tiny fraction of them. Not only is comprehensive illustration unnecessary, but we simply don't have the art budget to commission that many illustrations (or the page space to devote to that type of formatting and layout, which I think it largely wasteful and pointless). The artists don't get paid less simply because the illustrations are small, after all. ;)

Your absolutely right about the cost Steve. I still think your overlooking a huge resource for Art from HERO Fans. I'm sure several would be more than willing to submit Art for Firearms upon request and be happy with nothing more than their name in credits. (and maybe a copy of the book ;) ).

You never know !

QM

Metaphysician

Jun 2nd, '04, 07:24 PM

That might run into problems with copyrights or something along those lines, though.

Teflon Billy

Jun 3rd, '04, 06:02 PM

That might run into problems with copyrights or something along those lines, though.
Not to mention alienate your contract artists by giving the work to scabs.

There are bigger issues than just getting cheap pictures.

John515

Jun 3rd, '04, 08:45 PM

So long as the terms "clip" and "magazine" are properly used, as well as "automatic" and "semi-automatic", I'll be happy. (I seldom see these two terms consistently used properly in gaming supplements....)

As far as ideas for guns and other toys:

Check out the Kalashnikov site. They've got all kinds of neat stuff there.

A write up for the M134 minigun, as depicted in the movie Predator, used by Jesse Ventura, baby! The ULTIMATE street sweeper!

How about UAV's? There's some really cool stuff on the horizon with these little babies.....some of them are going to be VERY small

More to follow....

Toadmaster

Jun 3rd, '04, 10:53 PM

Armor and Bullets:

--Snipped

The logical way to fix these sorts of armor issues has severe compatibility issues. So, without having to redo everything an approach that might work that doesn't require gross changes to the system would be to assume that handgun bullets are always "reduced penetration". This takes care of much of the issue.

This still leaves the issue with AP bullets. I don’t have a great fix for this without remodeling the gun chart. You could redo the gun chart and make roughly similar pistols (9mm, .40, .357, .41 .45) differ by stun multiple instead of base damage. Or not.

Similarly buckshot would always be 1/4 penetration and slugs are normal penetration (with options for AP rounds). For people who are not wearing armor it has no effect, but it makes body armor effective.

Rifles would do normal penetration, SMGs would do reduced. Though the bullet from an SMG should do more damage than the round from a pistol. Typically has a SMG has a rather higher muzzle velocity.

Armour piercing ammo also has significantly less ability to incapacitate an opponent. The whole point of an AP bullet is to hold together and remain stable - which produces a small, clean "through and through" wound channel, while incapacitating someone the optimal effect is a giant hole punched deep into them and all the bullet energy being absorbed by the target, none exiting. The obvious way to model this in hero is two levels of reduced stun multiple, countering the AP modifier.

While I agree with alot of your comments I think many of the ideas are just to difficult to do under the existing rules, the damage range is just too narrow.

I was fooling around with RP for shotguns though, basically I added a level of RP, so slugs had one level (but also did a tad more damage than the listed ones) since slugs don't penetrate as well as rifles but in most cases are at the same DC as rifles, buck shot had 2 levels but again increased damage (I was trying to bring them back to the old DI 1d6+1 x4 type of damage), small shot, bird shot 3 levels.

I think there are a lot of ways to tweek the gun rules using the HERO rules but not the way guns are written. I don't expect to see much in this way changed "officially" (it would impact to many other game books) but it would be nice to see some ideas for optional rules.

AP bullets do, do less damage in HERO, they lose a DC to gain that AP. I've considered reducing the stun X but adding or removing a stun x has huge effects.

I would like to see the reintroduction of piercing (Champs 3 power that basically removed 1 pt of armor per level before the attack which would help accomplish many of the things you mentioned.

It would also be nice to see some ideas to handle big armored things like tanks to take them well out of the small arms vulnerability range and give more variety to big guns (tank guns, WGM's etc) but again have a feeling that is just too far from the base rules.

Trencher

Jun 6th, '04, 09:05 AM

We're not going to illustrate all the guns that are written up. We're only going to illustrate more than a tiny fraction of them. Not only is comprehensive illustration unnecessary, but we simply don't have the art budget to commission that many illustrations (or the page space to devote to that type of formatting and layout, which I think it largely wasteful and pointless). The artists don't get paid less simply because the illustrations are small, after all. ;)

I am glad you are going to illustrate some guns atleast :) . All I am saying is that the old field's of fire book was the most popoular shadowrun book among my players of all the shadowrun books I had. And the only one not bought by me.

Kevin Rose

Jun 6th, '04, 12:30 PM

So long as the terms "clip" and "magazine" are properly used, as well as "automatic" and "semi-automatic", I'll be happy. (I seldom see these two terms consistently used properly in gaming supplements....)

Then there are the "Shadow Run" idiots that got cyclic rate and velocity confused.

The other issue that I see with people trying to use guns in hero is that the concept of how fast you can fire it isn't well represented (vs a semi-competent attempt in Shadow Run). There are reasons that people who carry guns for a living don't carry Desert Eagle .50 AEs to a gunfight. I can put several hammers into a target before a typical person with an .50 AE (or similar huge round) gets the second round off.

However, if you are carrying a gun to deal with Grizzly or Kodiak bears then a pistol chambered in .50 AE is lot more convenient than a rifle. They are really slow to shoot follow-up shots due to the recoil, but damned accurate.

Equally, if you weight 350 lbs and are proportionately strong it might work also.

gewing

Jun 6th, '04, 01:19 PM

Recoil recovery is an interesting issue. I enjoyed shooting a .44 Desert Eagle, but to me it was more of a target range and hunting gun. Dead on accurate and controllable, but too heavy for me, at 220 lbs and halfway decent arms strength at the time. I just couldn't have carried it comfortably, and my hands weren't big enough to feel COMFORTABLE shooting it one handed, in fact I HAD to use two hands so I could manipulate the controls.

The mega single action revolvers are probable much quicker into action (.475 linebaugh Ruger, etc) but again they have the recoil recovery problem.

I would far rather have a Marlin 1895 G with modern heavy loads or a 12 ga with slugs.

Then there are the "Shadow Run" idiots that got cyclic rate and velocity confused.

The other issue that I see with people trying to use guns in hero is that the concept of how fast you can fire it isn't well represented (vs a semi-competent attempt in Shadow Run). There are reasons that people who carry guns for a living don't carry Desert Eagle .50 AEs to a gunfight. I can put several hammers into a target before a typical person with an .50 AE (or similar huge round) gets the second round off.

However, if you are carrying a gun to deal with Grizzly or Kodiak bears then a pistol chambered in .50 AE is lot more convenient than a rifle. They are really slow to shoot follow-up shots due to the recoil, but damned accurate.

Equally, if you weight 350 lbs and are proportionately strong it might work also.

Enforcer84

Jun 7th, '04, 08:51 PM

All I want is an HD prefab with them in Heroic and SUperheroic format...:)

Steve Long

Jun 9th, '04, 04:44 PM

Howdy, folx! Just wanted to say thanx for all the suggestions so far, and to please keep 'em coming if you're so inclined.

A couple of general notes that may save some people some time for future posts (if any):

1. There'll be few, if any, antique or really old firearms in DC. I don't have the space. Even if I did, I don't have the time to research them. And even if I had the time, they're of limited relevance to the subject of the book. You'll haveta wait for The Ultimate Weapon, various genre books, and the like. :hex:

2. Of course I'm going to have some nonlethal weapons.

And now, back to writing.... ;)

LordGhee

Jun 12th, '04, 03:56 AM

Acorrding to a friend of mine who worked for the FBI the .22 was used because it was the quietest of guns and the bullet most of the time deformed win it hits (mainly bone). Hits take place at a few feet since the main target is the head. (check out goodfellows or casino (moivies). The germans develepoded a silenced luger which fell into allied hands in Eygt which the Oss liked so they developed the silence .22 it was so quiet that Wild Bill Donvan head of the Oss took it to show FDR. As the President was talking on the Phone W.B. shot his pillow full of holes on the couch next to him and FDR did not notice. FDR then proceeded to shoot up the office! It ended up on display for tours where an Oss agent reporting to the White house notice it a year later (1943) where it had sat for all to see! (This from the bio on Wild Bill)
There have been many studies on leathality.

Mass times velocity.
but to fast and the bullet goes through the body and cause less damage.

.357 +P is best (max v)
but the 45 is very good large mass x low v
and one State police study of the 1950 conside the cap and ball .44 -50 as the best man stopper. lots of mass and the slow moving ball transfers all of the enegery to the target.

Lord Ghee
:bmk:

Tasha

Jun 14th, '04, 09:40 AM

I for one would LIKE to see a fairly complete modern guns chart. The one in the original DChamps, is just a good resource. I don't really want to have to even have to spend time to make sure that a particular gun a player wants is "right". I really just want to look at the chart see the stats and then go. Also special rounds would be nice to have stats on. I second a call for Piercing points to make a re-appearance.

All of the other stuff that was in the original DC books are very useful as well, esp if they are updated. We tend to use a lot of "real world" stuff in our regular champions games.

Of course making sure that Hero Designer gets prefabs for all of the equipment would be nice as well.

Thanks,
Tasha :D

Edsel

Jun 14th, '04, 10:26 AM

I second a call for Piercing points to make a re-appearance.I'll third that. We've been using piercing points as a house rule ever since they were officially dropped.

BobGreenwade

Jun 14th, '04, 11:39 AM

Let's put in squirt guns, from little toy pistols to super-soakers. Sure, they may not seem effective in this sort of thing, but that all depends on what you put in them.... :sneaky:

lemming

Jun 17th, '04, 12:54 PM

A story at /. about Next generation Stun Guns (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/17/1236251&mode=thread&tid=126)

or if you want the links from there:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996014
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9869233%255E401,00.html
http://www.xtremeads.com

gewing

Jun 19th, '04, 06:01 PM

We have always allowed damage that is only for penetrating armor.

I'll third that. We've been using piercing points as a house rule ever since they were officially dropped.

shadowcat1313

Jun 20th, '04, 09:39 AM

what about binary propellant and ETC rounds?

early gauss and flechette weapons?

the water knife is a neat concept that already sees industrial use
and theres a man portable written up in the Emperors Arsenal book for Trav veller 4th Edition

Markdoc

Jun 25th, '04, 06:15 AM

Kevin Rose

Jun 25th, '04, 09:58 PM

Cool idea. I'd probably prefer that you still get skill levels (in some fashion) even at a run but no dex based OCV. I saw an IPSC master/grand master put a hammer into 3 targets one handed as he ran past them. Only 3-6 yards away, but very impressive. So I'd argue for full or 1/2 skill levels with dex OCV of zero and range mods of -1 per inch or so. Which works pretty good against DCV 1 or 2 paper targets.

I find that moving and shooting has serious effects on accuracy even at close range, at least for me, even while moving at a shuffle. I can't imagine effectively shooting at significant range while moving. I'd probably argue for range mods that made long range shooting much tougher and close range somewhat harder. Say range mode of -1 per 2" and 1/2 dex based OCV?

One suggestion, re: the idea that gun combat in Hero system is much more accurate than it is in real life. Add an optional rule called "combat stress", for gritty, heroic games.

This is simply that you only get your full OCV when concentrating. If you want to stand still (DCV 0) then you get your full OCV. If you want to move slowly and take aimed shots (1/2 DCV) then you are at half OCV. If you want to take snap shots while moving (full DCV) then you are at 0 OCV.

I tried this in a Sci-fi con game and it had the following advantages.

1. It's realistic. My personal experiences suggest that a shooter under any kind of stress has their effective range (ie the range at which you can normally expect to hit something) reduced by about 75%. My dad, a decorated vet with extensive combat experience, was a bit crueller - he reckoned a 90% reduction was closer to the truth.

2. It gives an extra advantage to automatic weapons. If you are at half DCV you can still do suppression fire on a hex with a reasonable chance of causing someone grief - even if you are at 0 DCV, you can make them worried. This makes automatic fire the method of choice in assaults - just as it is in real life. It also encourages the "everybody shoot the crap out of the windows, while we run up to the building" approach, with its concomittent wastage of ammo. It also ensures an "emplaced" automatic weapon (even if it's just a guy lying down at the corner of a wall) is way scarier to assault. These are also true to life.

3. It places a high priority on cover. If you have to be at DCV 0 to take that shot the length of the street, you're not going to want to do it standing up in the open.

4. Just like in real life, it differentiates the weapons suitable for the "stalk and shoot" approach from those suited to "spray and pray" and rewards tactical thinking. All too often the tendency for Dark Champions players is to take "whatever does the most damage" because weapons work equally well at the range most combat occurs at.

5. It reflects the truism that in combat 10% of the soldiers get 90% of the kills. These are the guys who are prepared to stick their head up and take their time for a clean shot - in other words, the ones who are briefly at DCV 0.

There is one negative aspect: players hate not being able to take down the bad guys from a half klick away (although they still can, if they stand still and aim)

Cheers, Mark

RDU Neil

Jun 26th, '04, 06:34 AM

One suggestion, re: the idea that gun combat in Hero system is much more accurate than it is in real life. Add an optional rule called "combat stress", for gritty, heroic games.

This is simply that you only get your full OCV when concentrating. If you want to stand still (DCV 0) then you get your full OCV. If you want to move slowly and take aimed shots (1/2 DCV) then you are at half OCV. If you want to take snap shots while moving (full DCV) then you are at 0 OCV.

I tried this in a Sci-fi con game and it had the following advantages.

1. It's realistic. My personal experiences suggest that a shooter under any kind of stress has their effective range (ie the range at which you can normally expect to hit something) reduced by about 75%. My dad, a decorated vet with extensive combat experience, was a bit crueller - he reckoned a 90% reduction was closer to the truth.

2. It gives an extra advantage to automatic weapons. If you are at half DCV you can still do suppression fire on a hex with a reasonable chance of causing someone grief - even if you are at 0 DCV, you can make them worried. This makes automatic fire the method of choice in assaults - just as it is in real life. It also encourages the "everybody shoot the crap out of the windows, while we run up to the building" approach, with its concomittent wastage of ammo. It also ensures an "emplaced" automatic weapon (even if it's just a guy lying down at the corner of a wall) is way scarier to assault. These are also true to life.

3. It places a high priority on cover. If you have to be at DCV 0 to take that shot the length of the street, you're not going to want to do it standing up in the open.

4. Just like in real life, it differentiates the weapons suitable for the "stalk and shoot" approach from those suited to "spray and pray" and rewards tactical thinking. All too often the tendency for Dark Champions players is to take "whatever does the most damage" because weapons work equally well at the range most combat occurs at.

5. It reflects the truism that in combat 10% of the soldiers get 90% of the kills. These are the guys who are prepared to stick their head up and take their time for a clean shot - in other words, the ones who are briefly at DCV 0.

There is one negative aspect: players hate not being able to take down the bad guys from a half klick away (although they still can, if they stand still and aim)

Cheers, Mark

I like this a lot... but then I've always loved the low-level, "realistic" DI kinds of games. I've gone about it differently.

All characters have automatic +3 to DCV vs. range. It's just harder to hit at range.

OCV plusses on guns only work when braced & set (your 0 DCV concentrate)... so you have to aim a gun to get it's bonus.

Autofire... roll every bullet, each one at a cumulative -2 to hit. This means, the final round may be -10, but you still could roll a 3. More rolls allow the odds on more hits to go up. Throwing lead actually gives multiple chances to hit. (This can take a while with 10 shot or more autofire... so I don't really recommend it with lots of players.)

Cover not only give +2 to +4 DCV... but even if you hit, the cover could still take the round, if the hit location is covered. Example: I'm exposing my head and right arm, shoulder to fire. I have +6 DCV... but the enemy manages to hit anyway... roll hit location... turns out to be my left thigh, which is behind the wall... so the wall takes the round first, likely stopping the round. (Blow through occassionally would still hit, but that was rare.) Cover became very important.

Lots of ways of making gun (and all range) combat, a little less "one shot, easy hit" which is how the Hero System, based on supers combat, works. See my thread on gun-fu, as another discussion on encouraging lots of lead being thrown, over single shot, old-cowboy movie combat.

Neil

Dog Soldier

Jun 26th, '04, 07:47 AM

Kevin Rose

Jun 26th, '04, 11:07 AM

Lots of interesting stuff here. I'll just put in a few basics about wound ballistics. Firearms work by exposing the inside of the target to the outside enviroment, in other words letting air in and letting 'juice' out.

The deeper the wound the more, different tissue is exposed. Given the same depth of penetration the larger the diameter of the hole the more effective the wounding mechanism. The larger diameter also increases the likelyhood of 'clipping' something vital.
[snip]

As a general rule of thumb protective body armor defeats handguns and rifles defeat protective body armor.

Simulating semi-realistic wound effects is a hard problem. It's just not easy to do as it is not deterministic.

The South Carolina cop who shot a guy 5 tmes with a .357 magnum hollowpoints at less than 10 feet didn't do any really serious damage to him, though it did hurt him enough that he didn't get away. He was a big fat guy and the bullets didn't reach anything vital. The second .22 the guy shot killed the cop when it entered his arm and cut an artery in his chest. The other .22 was stopped by his vest.

I know a guy who had to shoot someone 11 times to cause him to stop shooting at him and his partner. The FBI's Miami Massacre had three FBI agents killed by a guy who had taken an unsurvivable wound in the opening volley. He ended up being killed by a wounded FBI agent who emptied his revolver into his head a few minutes later while he was trying to get away. Some people take a lot of killing.

People keep fighting with wounds that should incapacitate them and still kill their opponent. Some people take a flesh wound and go into shock and die.

For Hero this would suggest a lot more emphasis on body and/or ego rolls to keep operating when hurt. And even if your heart is destroyed you can still act for several seconds. Cops have drawn and killed people who had just shot them through the heart before dying.

There was one case I heard of where the cop got shot and the ambulance had a trauma surgeon on board. He and the bad guy (who was also shot a bit by his partner) where being worked on. The doc tells him that there is nothing he can do and he's going to die in a minute or so and is there anything he wants to say. The cops tells him to tell his wife that he lovers her, draws his gun and shoots the guy who shot him in the head and then dies.

The body armor problem is much easier to fix as the actual mechanism is well understood. However it requires some significant changes to the rules. The problem is that Hero gloms together the weapons "ability to hurt you" and the weapons "ability to penetrate armor" into a single statistic - which is somewhat of the reverse of reality. This can be somewhat fixed by making handgun bullets reduced penetration (and ignoring stun for non penetrating bullets) or by fully completely reworking armor into classes of armor with weapons having a fixed penetration value.

Metaphysician

Jun 26th, '04, 12:29 PM

IIRC, the other advantage to .22 rounds, at least for head shots at close range, is they go in, but won't pierce the other side of the skull, resulting in more brain damage.

MisterD

Jun 29th, '04, 06:39 PM

I don't know if it was addressed. Anything on gun Skills?

Tunelling 1" x Def. (Shooting out a wall to create a doorway or weaken a wall so a goot kick can knock part of it down?

Area effect radius To hit all thoes goons surrounding the character.

Any other ideas?

steriaca

Jun 30th, '04, 05:40 PM

What I would love to see is a gun kata where the hero shoots three thugs with one bullet. I don't remember, thoe, does Charges count as each 'burst', or as each individual bullet?

This also requiers a limitation to repersent that the three targets must be close together to each other relativitly. How much of a lim is that?

steriaca

Jun 30th, '04, 05:42 PM

Oh, and the "Z-Group" ability to shoot at a hex instead of a person, and then cause eveyone in the hex to basicly jump up. Prehaps an Explosion, Stun Only, Does Knockback/Knockdown attack?

Wolf

Jul 8th, '04, 09:30 AM

Hey everybody your favorite neighborhood wolf here, I have some thoughts, but first the sights....:)
I think ppl might like to look at the newest off the line from H&K with the OICW progect, it's the XM-8, and is looking to be America's next major assult rifle, Carbine, SAW, and undermounted Granade launcher all in one... It's a pretty abititous project, and they say that by 2008 we could see it on the line. Here's the website:
http://www.hk-usa.com/pages/military-le/rifles-carbines/xm8.html

Personally, I would like to see a book at some time that deals with Dul-Ram rounds, or depleated uranium rounds. I know in Desert storm they were being put through Barret .50's and getting engine/crew Kills in one shot... that's some dunk if you ask me... good stuff.

Oh, personal peave, Please put in there something about the diference between the .50AE and the .50 round... I know too many ppl who think that the Desert Eagle .50AE shoots .50 rounds, and that is just getting too silly for words. It's enough to get under a persons skin, any other gunbunnies out there feel me on that one?

If I've said it once, I've said it a milion times, Kydex (spelling?) holsters rock.

Make note of the difference between a Red Dot (point scope), and a more traditional scope.. please.

I'd like to see some rules for the standard "duble-tap" or just a writeup on it... it's a way of shooting that is closest to the "more led, means better chance to hit, thus better chance to down a target".

Quote
RDU neil said:
I'd also love some kind of rule mods that encourage "throwing a lot of lead" as in real life... rather than the standard Hero combat of counting every shot, rarely having to reload, etc. Automatic weapons are better than single shot because they not only increase the number of possible hits... but increase the chance of hitting period. This isn't reflected in Hero... for game balance reasons at the supers level, I understand... but it makes automatic weapons much less scary than they should be. Close quarters automatic gunfire should be horrendously scary, IMO. Characters should be encouraged to throw multiple shots down range (realistic fashion, or a'la John Wu, either way) for better chances to hit/more damage... etc.
-Quote

As an infantry man, veteran of 1 forign military action, and Paratrooper, I just wish to point out that More led= heads down, not better chance to hit, in fact your acruacy goes south like a duck in winter the more rounds you fire out your barrel in one fire grouping... Plus it wastes your ammo real quickly. I've seen it a million times, somone on a .50 Cal. rocking away, from a braced and set position (read, on the top of a parked Track) trying to hit a platoon of targets, and not able to hit one... in fact If I ever get shot at by a large spray fire weapon, I've noticed the best thing to do is not to move, because he (the firerer) is shure as spit not going to be able to place any rounds where he's aiming... Trained soldiers, well trained soldiers and those who hit what their shooting at tend to do a much better job when fireing one round at a time... anything else is just foolish.
Go out an buy a navy seal tape, or Delta force tape or DVD, one that shows room entry, and you'll see well placed double taps at the most... and those guys almost never miss... got it... It's an old Axium from the best units out there, from the GSG-9 to the israli SF... "Two in the head, you know their dead." learn it love it, operate it...

That's all my input for now...
Wolf.

PS, just as a Me thing please put in a write up, or at least stats on the socom Mk 23 .45. I love that pistol... it's so great (wipes tear from eye).

RDU Neil

Jul 8th, '04, 11:41 AM

Wolf,
You make good points, but I'm also not talking about "spray and pray" type combat... I'm talking about firing multiple single shots or double taps or three round burst, in controlled bursts, toward targets.

In Hero, the system is so generous on range modifiers, basic chance to hit, etc., that it encourages a more "old western" feel of hip shotting guys at one hundred feet with a six shooter so they clutch their chest and fall, kind of game, rather than the controlled, bam/bam... bam/bam... bam/bam... shuffling forward, walking the rounds up center mass kind of firing... all done in under three seconds, to hit squarely and accurately, and with enough rounds to get the job done.

I'm not a highly trained pistol shooter, but I can fire pretty accurate two and three round taps, stationary or moving slowly. The game just doesn't support that, unless the character spends a lot of points to buy skills to allow it. There should be some basic maneuvers built into the game that allow for it... that's all I'm asking.

And at close range or point blank, two hex distance or less in Hero terms) I really think autofire weapons should get a bonus. If you are at all familiar with the kick, rise and pull of your weapon, you should have a good chance of multiple hits without being a ten year Navy SEAL vet.

Oh... and the "heads down" is an effect I'd really love to see. Right now, the game encourages people to ignore autofire, because, hey, more bullets means they have a lower OCV, so we are golden! It encourages rule playing, rather than dramatic role playing in gun combat, and that drives me nuts.

I do have question, though. At what point does automatic gunfire go from being "spray and pray" missing everyone, to "a wall of lead" that kills everything in a five meter wide spread? I'm thinking of situations like the use of the heavy machine guns on the Little Birds in Mogadishu... documented as mowing down dozens in a five second burst... and decently portrayed in the movie version of Black Hawk Down. At what point does it go from firing at a target but your rise sending bullets way off, to just filling a few meters with so much lead that everything in it is creamed?

gewing

Jul 8th, '04, 01:12 PM

Little Quibble... IMO the xm8 isn't worth the cost of replacing the M-16 and retraining everyone from the grunts to thte armorers.
It is a little lighter, and a little easier to clean. Yippee. The standard barrel length is shorter, it will decrease the effective range of the weapon for most troops, and shorten the range at which the bullet performs optimally on impact.

If they had gone to more of a bullpup with little bit of stock length adjustment for fitting with or without body armor, I would have been more excited.

If they want to cut weight, they could go to the Carbon Fiber receivers from Bushmaster on the M-16. If they want to make it easier to clean, HK also has started manufacturing a new upper that is piston, rather than direct gas impingement operated.

I REALLY don't see what is so special about the XM-8, unless you want the troops to look like they are out of "starship troopers the abomination"

I haven't seen anything about FIELDED Depleted Uranium rounds for the .50 cal. I know they were developed, but iirc testing indicated there was not enough advantage to make it worthwhile. 10-15% is probably more than it would get, and that doesn't mean much more than 1-3 mm penetration for the .50 cal. The SLAP tungsten Discarding sabot at 4500 fps or so and the Raufuss "mk211" dual purpose semi ap, High explosive Incendiary are very effective though. For sniper use, the Solid copper barnes Bore Rider bullet that has a Ballistic Coefficient of greater than one is awfully nice.

Hey everybody your favorite neighborhood wolf here, I have some thoughts, but first the sights....:)
I think ppl might like to look at the newest off the line from H&K with the OICW progect, it's the XM-8, and is looking to be America's next major assult rifle, Carbine, SAW, and undermounted Granade launcher all in one... It's a pretty abititous project, and they say that by 2008 we could see it on the line. Here's the website:
http://www.hk-usa.com/pages/military-le/rifles-carbines/xm8.html

Personally, I would like to see a book at some time that deals with Dul-Ram rounds, or depleated uranium rounds. I know in Desert storm they were being put through Barret .50's and getting engine/crew Kills in one shot... that's some dunk if you ask me... good stuff.

Oh, personal peave, Please put in there something about the diference between the .50AE and the .50 round... I know too many ppl who think that the Desert Eagle .50AE shoots .50 rounds, and that is just getting too silly for words. It's enough to get under a persons skin, any other gunbunnies out there feel me on that one?

If I've said it once, I've said it a milion times, Kydex (spelling?) holsters rock.

Make note of the difference between a Red Dot (point scope), and a more traditional scope.. please.

I'd like to see some rules for the standard "duble-tap" or just a writeup on it... it's a way of shooting that is closest to the "more led, means better chance to hit, thus better chance to down a target".

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RDU neil said:
I'd also love some kind of rule mods that encourage "throwing a lot of lead" as in real life... rather than the standard Hero combat of counting every shot, rarely having to reload, etc. Automatic weapons are better than single shot because they not only increase the number of possible hits... but increase the chance of hitting period. This isn't reflected in Hero... for game balance reasons at the supers level, I understand... but it makes automatic weapons much less scary than they should be. Close quarters automatic gunfire should be horrendously scary, IMO. Characters should be encouraged to throw multiple shots down range (realistic fashion, or a'la John Wu, either way) for better chances to hit/more damage... etc.
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As an infantry man, veteran of 1 forign military action, and Paratrooper, I just wish to point out that More led= heads down, not better chance to hit, in fact your acruacy goes south like a duck in winter the more rounds you fire out your barrel in one fire grouping... Plus it wastes your ammo real quickly. I've seen it a million times, somone on a .50 Cal. rocking away, from a braced and set position (read, on the top of a parked Track) trying to hit a platoon of targets, and not able to hit one... in fact If I ever get shot at by a large spray fire weapon, I've noticed the best thing to do is not to move, because he (the firerer) is shure as spit not going to be able to place any rounds where he's aiming... Trained soldiers, well trained soldiers and those who hit what their shooting at tend to do a much better job when fireing one round at a time... anything else is just foolish.
Go out an buy a navy seal tape, or Delta force tape or DVD, one that shows room entry, and you'll see well placed double taps at the most... and those guys almost never miss... got it... It's an old Axium from the best units out there, from the GSG-9 to the israli SF... "Two in the head, you know their dead." learn it love it, operate it...

That's all my input for now...
Wolf.

PS, just as a Me thing please put in a write up, or at least stats on the socom Mk 23 .45. I love that pistol... it's so great (wipes tear from eye).