Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: Senko on <05-27-14/0026:13>
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I'm working up a mage/face as a theory crafting exercise. They have enough spare karma to get a suppliment to their pistol skill and I'm wondering which be better for their main weapon on runs as a suppliment/alternative to their magic. Longarms lets me use shotguns and if needed sniper rifles, assault rifles + swat armour means they're not going to instantly be shot as a mage (that comes after they cast a spell ;D ). Anyway I was just wondering if people think one or the other offers better advantages longarms (specializing in shotguns) or automatics specializing in assault rifles based on the mechanical advantages of the guns available?
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If you're using the default skill groups, you'd be better served putting your points from Pistols and your free points into Automatics. If you're using the variant rules that does away with Automatics, you're better served doing Longarms.
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What variant rules are those?
Not default skill groups the character put those into pistol 4, speciality light. Eventually I'd want all 3 at 4 just for the group skills discount as all of them are useful in different situations (or would have been without my being alerted to the variant rules). Its purely theory crafting to work out how various advancement paths work and now I've assigned them more karma I'm planning to get a more powerful gun either shotgun or assault rifle as the primary weapon with pistols as back up. I'm leaning towards long arms due to the spread option of shotguns and the ability to snipe if needed but I'm curious if people think automatics (assault rifles) are a better primary weapon.
My other option was blades to get a weapon foci so I have a weapon that can be used on the physical or astral and can hurt creatures immune to normal weapons. However her strength is (and is going to remain) at 3 so a gun seemed a better option since her magic can hurt creatures immune to normal weapons and on the astral/physical planes anyway. Not to mention I don't know what a decent weapon focus value actually is beyond 1 so I can hit things and you can't just upgrade if you make a mistake you have to create an entire new one.
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What variant rules are those?
Just a house rule that a lot of people here on the boards seem to use. It does away with the Automatics skill, and puts Pistols, Longarms, and Heavy Weapons all in the Firearms skill group. Pistols covers everything up to a Machine Pistol, Longarms covers everything from Submachine Guns to Sniper Rifles. Heavy Weapons continues to be the same in every way.
Not default skill groups the character put those into pistol 4, speciality light. Eventually I'd want all 3 at 4 just for the group skills discount as all of them are useful in different situations (or would have been without my being alerted to the variant rules). Its purely theory crafting to work out how various advancement paths work and now I've assigned them more karma I'm planning to get a more powerful gun either shotgun or assault rifle as the primary weapon with pistols as back up. I'm leaning towards long arms due to the spread option of shotguns and the ability to snipe if needed but I'm curious if people think automatics (assault rifles) are a better primary weapon.
Longarms are definitely useful. Not subtle, but very useful. Often, pistols are regarded as a secondary weapon skill choice simply because they lack the overall power and versatility of Automatics and Longarms.
My other option was blades to get a weapon foci so I have a weapon that can be used on the physical or astral and can hurt creatures immune to normal weapons. However her strength is (and is going to remain) at 3 so a gun seemed a better option since her magic can hurt creatures immune to normal weapons and on the astral/physical planes anyway. Not to mention I don't know what a decent weapon focus value actually is beyond 1 so I can hit things and you can't just upgrade if you make a mistake you have to create an entire new one.
Mages and faces generally have pisspoor physical attributes, so I wouldn't recommend melee combat.
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That was why it was passed over in favor of a less subtle but more powerful main gun. Hmmm part of why I'm doing this is to familiarize myself with herolabs running of it let's see if I can create that houserule.
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I've actually created it in my custom rules file. Not sure how to implement it on someone else's machine though. To be fair and honest about it, this wasn't so much me getting the house rule to work as Mathias working with me to make one work. I wouldn't have been able to do it without his help. If you'd like, I can send it to you and let you try to figure out how to use it.
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I'd appreciate it thanks, worst case scenario I can just stick it in my rules folder as is.
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So lets assume all things are equal skills, abilities etc which is a better weapon shotgun, ar, situational?
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While shotguns can be nice, do not forget that your assault rifle can be putting down suppression fire, which can be very handy at times.
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While shotguns can be nice, do not forget that your assault rifle can be putting down suppression fire, which can be very handy at times.
To which I say: Flechette Suppression.
Generally, though, a Longarms/Pistols user is looking at wanting to carry 3 weapons - a shotgun, a rifle, and a pistol. Shotguns and long rifles are very, very useful weapons, but their utility is radically different, and one really can't adequately substitute for the other. For example, shotguns are amazing for taking on multiple targets, while nothing beats a long rifle for taking on hardened targets.
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Lot to carry though pistol on hip, katana on other hip, ar in hands, shotgun on backpack, backpack on back, deck strapped to upper thigh.
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If I was a mage/face, and one of my players is just that, I'd just carry a small sidearm for when the drek hits the fan and you can't talk your way out of it or spellsling your way out of it. Leave the heavy guns and gunnery to the rest of the team. Your specialty should be avoiding conflict in the first place.
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Lot to carry though pistol on hip, katana on other hip, ar in hands, shotgun on backpack, backpack on back, deck strapped to upper thigh.
At absolute minimum, I'm seriously questioning why this character is carrying a deck and a katana...
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To Hack on the Fly? :P
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To Hack on the Fly? :P
You made me literally burst out laughing. I'm saving that for future reference. Thank you =)
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Nice line and most of it is sort of future planning. I'm more generalist than specialist so while in an actual game I'd focus on magic, magic and a little bit of face since this is just theory crafting I feel comfy being a great starting mage, decent starting face and decent hacker/fighter. In other words while they aren't the best out there they are a very good mage compared to a starting character (initiate 4) and a pretty good front line face they can also serve as a back up decker and don't look like a mage so they may be able to buy a few moments to react. For an actual game character drop the deck but a katana is fairly cheap for combat camoflage.
When the enemy see's the figure in full mil-spec armour, carying an assault rifle with more guns and a bladed weapon their first thought is going to be that they're a street sam. After she hits them with ball lightning their second thought is going to be owwwwww followed by ok not a street sam at which point she becomes a priority target but hopefully the camoflage will buy those few precious seconds at the start of combat.
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Yeah, all of that is... Not needed for that kind of camouflage. Very excessive.
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You can never have too much camoflage, just like there is no such thing as overkill only "Is it dead yet?" and "Reload" :)
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I think once it gets in the way of the useful stuff, you've discovered the point of excess.
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Useful stuff = 1 hand + voice its not in the way, particuarly for a generalist. Seriously like I said in an actual game I'd probably just have main gun, side arm and armour for a mage however since this isn't for an actual game I'm indulging my generalist tendencies, long term they'll actually be able to use all this well enough for a back up character if not front line.
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Yeah, the whole "geek the mage first" is an adage and is in no way like hard coded AI. The GM is in no way obligated to not have the opponents attack you first just because you don't look like a mage, or rather, not give you less of a chance than the rest of your team to not be attacked because you're not magic looking. Heh, I mean, if no one in your group is obviously a mage, its not like the opposition will delay their action waiting to see if the mage reveals themselves, they'll prolly just attack whoever is in front of them, and at that point they might decide to focus fire on the armored street sam and take her out before she can start killing them.
I mean, if you want to run around in full mil-spec armor for the protection, sure. (though running around like that is sure to freak the opposition out, and if they're corporate/governmental, they might call in heavily armed response teams with anti-armor capability) If you want to carry around an AR or shotgun to have more tools in your role as a "generalist", that's fine too. But if its just to not look like a mage, that's a little much.
That being said, you could always carry the Optimum II or an HK XM-30 (configured with the underbarrel shotgun). Then you'd have both on in one handy weapon. But yeah, they each have their role, and honestly which one is better depends on the mission. An AR might be better in general because it has better range- yeah, its not as powerful close up as a shotgun, but its no slouch either in the damage department. So, you have a way to engage enemies from farther away if you needed to. Plus like some people said, you can use it for suppressive fire. Of course, my street sam alternates between the SPAS-24 (w/ gels and flechettes) and the EBR (with gels and APDS) depending on the likely opposition and the environment, so she can't do suppressive fire, but at least they use the same skill.
Again, hopefully you are asking this as "which one will be a more useful tool" and not, "which one is the one a street sam is more likely to carry" as part of your disguise, like if you picked wrong the opposition would be all, "What the, they're dressed like a street sam, but they're carrying the wrong type of weapon for this situation, something's fishy here, they must be the mage, geek them!"
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No I was asking which is the more useful skill. However I think I'll use that variant rule mentioned earlier and since I have no interest in heavy waeapons I just need to buy the guns and can use whichever's appropriate to the situation.
As for the armour full mil-spec isn't her normal wear on ops she tends more towards stealth (wear clothes to blend in), clothing appropriate to her role or general armour e.g. jacket that can look inocuous on the street "I ride a bike this + the helmets in case of accidents."
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I don't think that house rule will be very useful for theorycrafting if you have no guarantee your GM will actually utilize it.
Personally, I think Automatics are more useful because they include one type of "pistol" (size-wise) among them. At the same time, you have more legal options with Longarms than with Automatics; most of the best ARs are Forbidden while most shotguns and hunting rifles are Restricted at worst. The addition of choke settings has made shotguns somewhat competitive compared to high-fire bursts and suppression too. So it's mostly a matter of style and concealability.
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Yeah, the removal of Automatics as a skill is highly situational; I would go so far as to state that there is absolutely NO basis to claim that "most" people here on the forum use it.
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What variant rules are those?
Just a house rule that a lot of people here on the boards seem to use. It does away with the Automatics skill, and puts Pistols, Longarms, and Heavy Weapons all in the Firearms skill group. Pistols covers everything up to a Machine Pistol, Longarms covers everything from Submachine Guns to Sniper Rifles. Heavy Weapons continues to be the same in every way.
Pistols = All firearms you wield with one hand
Longarms = All firearms you wield with two hands (excluding heavy weapons)
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At least for the moment I would look towards Long Arms, as you have more legal options and more importantly, more flexibility with them.
Pistols can do in the close in work, so can some shotguns. If you're needing to hit at range, nothing can do better than the EBR in mind, both for cost and availability.
If anything I'd actually ask your GM about the presence of extended magazines, sure it might not be fully automatic, add in a fore grip or bipod, bipod is my call, with an extended mag, say hello to a very, very light machine gun.
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Pistols = All firearms you wield with one hand
Longarms = All firearms you wield with two hands (excluding heavy weapons)
Well, technically proper control and procedure would have you firing a pistol two handed also, gripping the weapon firmly with two hands on the grip. My only issue with just making it pistols and longarms is what category do smgs fall under? Would they go under longarms also, and the only thing you would use pistol for is tasers and those categories with pistol in the name (i..e, hold-out pistol to machine pistols) ?
Because yes, I would think weapons like the HK-227 and FN P-93 that come with stocks are meant to be fired in a similar way that you would fire rifles and shotguns, with the stock braced against your shoulder. But then you have SMGs like the Ingram Smartgun (which although the various illustrations throughout the years depict it with a folding stock, its never actually had one stats-wise), physically, its design is no different that the Steyr TMP. (Or at least what the Steyr TMP of our current time looks like). So why would the TMP be fired with pistols but the Ingram with longarms?
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In the real world all SMGs are two-handed.
In Hollywood all SMGs can be fired with one hand without a negative dice pool modifier ;)
In the house rule at our table you can actually use SMGs with both skills. Pistol Skill when you wield it in one hand ("gangsta style" which is seem to be the "norm" in the SR universe) and Longarm skill when you use it with both hands (we also ruled that in order to get the benefit of the extra point of recoil compensation from a folding stock you need to wield the SMG with both hands "spec op style").
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[quote author=Xenon link=topic=16674.msg295114#msg295114 date=140120909
In the house rule at our table you can actually use SMGs with both skills. Pistol Skill when you wield it in one hand ("gangsta style" which is seem to be the "norm" in the SR universe) and Longarm skill when you use it with both hands (we also ruled that in order to get the benefit of the extra point of recoil compensation from a folding stock you need to wield the SMG with both hands "spec op style").
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Ah, I see. That sounds reasonable.
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In the house rule at our table you can actually use SMGs with both skills. Pistol Skill when you wield it in one hand ("gangsta style" which is seem to be the "norm" in the SR universe) and Longarm skill when you use it with both hands (we also ruled that in order to get the benefit of the extra point of recoil compensation from a folding stock you need to wield the SMG with both hands "spec op style").
And now, I must have a character threaten to "shoot someone spec-op style" :P
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In the house rule at our table you can actually use SMGs with both skills. Pistol Skill when you wield it in one hand ("gangsta style" which is seem to be the "norm" in the SR universe) and Longarm skill when you use it with both hands (we also ruled that in order to get the benefit of the extra point of recoil compensation from a folding stock you need to wield the SMG with both hands "spec op style").
And now, I must have a character threaten to "shoot someone spec-op style" :P
I think that's an actual method firing some weapons without stocks. You've got a sling and you're holding it in both hands.
I say think, as I don't have strong evidence for it. Perhaps it's time for some googling,
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While I've never heard it referred to as "Spec-ops style", using a sling to increasing stability when firing a submachine gun is a tried and tested method, though not nearly as effective as an actual stock (collapsible, solid, or otherwise).
During my service, I was trained to use the sling to assist when firing a rifle; we were taught the loop sling and the "hasty" sling methods. I'm quite certain one can find plenty of videos describing how to accomplish these on youtube.
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While I've never heard it referred to as "Spec-ops style", using a sling to increasing stability when firing a submachine gun is a tried and tested method, though not nearly as effective as an actual stock (collapsible, solid, or otherwise).
During my service, I was trained to use the sling to assist when firing a rifle; we were taught the loop sling and the "hasty" sling methods. I'm quite certain one can find plenty of videos describing how to accomplish these on youtube.
Or someone has been trained in a similar method. Thanks for the confirmation.