Autofire: What's the point?

[NuSoardGraphite]

I see where you are comming from Elysea, but Autofire can be very usefull if you don't worry so much about the mathematical aspects of it.

 

The most obvious advantage is vs. multiple opponents. As others have stated here, a normal (non-autofire) Energy Blast (or other attack) can be spread to hit multiple opponents, but they lose damage dice to do so. Autofire attacks can hit multiple opponents without losing any damage whatsoever. The trade off between the two is that spreading an Energy Blast is just as accurate as using your EB against a single target, but Autofire is at -1 per hex spread to.

 

The second advantage to Autofire is the ability to hit a single opponent, multiple times. As you stated, the reduced OCV per additional shot after the first reduces the effectiveness of this sort of attack, and it is rare for more than 3 hits to occur (most often it is only 1 or 2 hits) when the CV's are fairly comparable. However, when you get a character who has a hefty OCV advantage over his opponents DCV (3 or more points higher) the effects can be downright devastating

 

A character with a 14 or less chance to hit will, 50% of the time hit at least 3 times. Hitting 4 times is still feasable (26% or so) and 5 hits is not unheard of.

 

A character with a 16 or less chance to hit is practically garunteed at least 2 hits. 3 is easy and a 50% chance of achieving 4 hits.

 

As you can see, the higher one's OCV, the more effective an Autofire attack will be. Thus there is often a trade off of inherent damage (the damage of an Autofire attack doesn't need to be that high, as multiple hits will add up) for increased accuracy (instead of purchasing an 8D6 Autofire-5 attack for 60 points, its probably better to buy a 6D6 Autifire-5 attack for 45 points and buy +5 OCV bonus to the attack with the remaining points!)

 

Third and most important advantage to Autofire:

 

DON'T FORGET TO PURCHASE AUTOFIRE SKILLS!!!!

 

These "skills" will make using Autofire far superior to spreading. Most especially Concentrated Sprayfire and Accurate Sprayfire. A combination of these two are positively devastating against low level agents.

 

Remeber these three points:

 

Autofire damage doesn't have to be that high to be effective: Certainly you won't do much body damage against characters with high defenses, but the Stun adds up in a hurry.

 

High OCV is king:

The points you save in slightly reducing the damage of such attacks can go toward increasing the number of rounds that hit in each "burst". In fact, you can use the 2 point +1OCV bonus category to increase your OCV with a single specific Autofire attack immensely. Don't go overboard though, as that will annoy your GM. Saving a measly 10 points can translate into a +5 OCV bonus which translates into (at least) 2.5 additional hits in the Burst!

 

Don't forget your Autofire Skills:

I cannot stress these enough. Re-read these skills in your 5E rulesbook to familiarize yourself with them. They make Autofire more than worth the increase in cost for any attack power...

[Killer Shrike]

Hey, NuSoardGraphite, are you coming back to San Diego soon?

[pinecone]

Auto-fire is a usefull but not dominate power...just like it should be,it is only gruesome against Damage reduction weasals...ie: "well you take 4 body,halve that to 2 body,Ummm 4 times...dude you look pale" As noted auto fire is best when comboed up with other stuff like levels with ranged combat/"my gun" and both AP and Pen are terrifiying with an accurate autofire attack. My "Vigilante" character carrys a 2D6 RKA AP Autofire 0 END machine gun and mows down supers as easaly as criminals,without Hardened this this is brutal! But that character is built to be a gun fighter...

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Fur Face

In 4th edition is was people who were skilled with autofire weapons that were really scar, because they would buy 5 pt combat skill levels then take the limitation "only to counteract autofire penalties (-1)". At this rate 10 points would guarantee that your shots first three shots are going to be very effective, which is a very accurate short burst.

 

But, outside of reasons others have already posted, like hitting multiple opponents, I wouldn't buy autofire over 1-3, just because of the statistics.

 

Right now you can do nearly the same thing with the new Sweep maneuver, you just take a DCV penalty. Autofire doesn't require a DCV penalty, so you'd probably be better off with autofire if you have a low CV.

You can't do supression fire with sweep. However, if you aren't worried about that kind of combat maneuver: DCV levels to compensate for sweeping. eewwww - now that's min-maxing

[NuSoardGraphite]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Hey, NuSoardGraphite, are you coming back to San Diego soon?

 

Eventually.

 

Definitely before the year is over.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by NuSoardGraphite

Eventually.

 

Definitely before the year is over.

 

Well, look me up when you get back. Maybe we could do some cross-overs or something. Or if your old group is unavailable maybe we can make space for you in our group

[Hugh Neilson]

1d6 RKA, Armor Piercing Penetrating Autofire (back in the +4 OCV/10 shots) days. It was supposed to be a backup weapon sidearm. It was a Brick Destructor.

 

OCV 18 vs DCV 3 for Huge Brick w/ Growth al on meant 5 hits on a 17 - just stay out of his reach and he'll be dead in a few phases (if the charges hold out).

 

There's a power that got modified FAST - Penetrating had just been added to the rules, and we didn't realize its impact until too late...

[Killer Shrike]

Hugh: Preface with "This is not an attack, just a question"

 

Im still curious why anyone would ever take AP and Penetrating both on an attack. This is a construct that Ive seen pop up several times over the last 13 years of HEROs gaming and Ive never understood why any one would ever think it efficient. They are mutually exclusive -- either you halve thier defenses or you dont get thru thier defenses at all and Penetrating kicks in. Better to have AP x2 or Penetrating x2 to insure you defeat Hardened defenses, or some other +1/2 advantage, or more dice.

 

Any insight?

[VictorVonDoom]

The point of autofiring is simple:

 

Even I can comprehend it although i am not a regular gamer; I only want to understand what i am reading...

Autofire is simple: you shoot a series of burst on your ennemie; Instead of one shot the ennemie is hit by several shots. They can be deflected or bounce of shields, ....

You know the movie "Escape from Athena": Telly sevelas gives a guy a gun and says you pull the trigger and squeeze one time only one time and do "TATA and not TATATATA" ; the TATATATA part is autofire...(why did he say that because the gun was prone to overheating?) In some games you called it Bursts (several times firing emptying a clip; with one shot you can't empty a clip only if there is one shot in)

Suppose your uzi has 6 charges in it; With TATATATA (burst or autofire) you shoot several times firing 5 shots after that shot you only do TATA '(one shot)

I am a simple guy so i give a simple explication

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Hugh: Preface with "This is not an attack, just a question"

 

Im still curious why anyone would ever take AP and Penetrating both on an attack. This is a construct that Ive seen pop up several times over the last 13 years of HEROs gaming and Ive never understood why any one would ever think it efficient. They are mutually exclusive -- either you halve thier defenses or you dont get thru thier defenses at all and Penetrating kicks in. Better to have AP x2 or Penetrating x2 to insure you defeat Hardened defenses, or some other +1/2 advantage, or more dice.

 

Any insight?

 

This construct is particularly useful with a Killing Attack vs. Resistant Defenses, because Penetrating applies to the Body damage done by a KA. It's possible to halve defenses with an Armor Piercing attack so that Stun damage gets through, but no Body; with these two Advantages together some Body will get through as well, unless the AP Adv. reduced defense enough that more body would get through than Penetrating would account for.

 

Also, under the 4E definition of Hardening (as clarified by Steve Peterson) one level of Hardened would stop one level of AP and one level of Pen. regardless of whether they were used together or not. Under 5E one level of Hardened will stop only one of those Advantages at a time when they're used together - the player gets to decide which one at the time he purchases Hardened. So using them together covers both your bases.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

This construct is particularly useful with a Killing Attack vs. Resistant Defenses, because Penetrating applies to the Body damage done by a KA. It's possible to halve defenses with an Armor Piercing attack so that Stun damage gets through, but no Body; with these two Advantages together some Body will get through as well, unless the AP Adv. reduced defense enough that more body would get through than Penetrating would account for.

 

Also, under the 4E definition of Hardening (as clarified by Steve Peterson) one level of Hardened would stop one level of AP and one level of Pen. regardless of whether they were used together or not. Under 5E one level of Hardened will stop only one of those Advantages at a time when they're used together - the player gets to decide which one at the time he purchases Hardened. So using them together covers both your bases.

Yes, I understand the effect, but it still does not strike me as efficient. I would rather go double AP or double penetrating, depending on the number of dice involved and circumvent Hardened altogether. Also, its hard to argue with simply going with more dice to surpass defenses, or Variable Advantage (+1; any 1/2 of Advantages) and tuning the attack as needed.

 

Granted, I had forgotten that 5th ed nerfs Hardened, so it does make it more viable in 5th.

[VictorVonDoom]

If you add AP & autofire as advances that you can penetrate the defences of someone

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by VictorVonDoom

If you add AP & autofire as advances that you can penetrate the defences of someone

Im not talking about AP & Autofire; Im talking about AP and Penetrating.

[VictorVonDoom]

i was not discussing that . I simple gave an idea...

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Yes, I understand the effect, but it still does not strike me as efficient. I would rather go double AP or double penetrating, depending on the number of dice involved and circumvent Hardened altogether. Also, its hard to argue with simply going with more dice to surpass defenses, or Variable Advantage (+1; any 1/2 of Advantages) and tuning the attack as needed.

 

Granted, I had forgotten that 5th ed nerfs Hardened, so it does make it more viable in 5th.

 

Prior to 4th Ed, AP Penetrating vs 1 level of Hardened meant AP was lost but penetrating got through (at least that was the rule when penetrating first came in). Generally, I've only seen AP Penetrating on KA's, as another poster notes above, to ensure some BOD gets through.

 

In the specific example, it was (IIRC) a 1d6+1 autofire penetrating KA with a horrendous number of charges through an OAF sidearm. Adding the "penetrating" cost 5 points (20 base points, half that for the advantage, halved again due to the focus) so it was a pretty cheap addition. And, of course, penetrating was brand new, so it was as much a "let's see how this new toy works" decision as anything else. The way it worked, however, was to strip away 5+ BOD on a typical attack. On a well-nigh invulnerable, but easy to hit, opponent, I'm pretty suire he managed 10+ BOD in one shot at least once.