[The_Gun_Nut]

Why?  It can be done IRL with little trouble.  Putting this modifier in the game may make it feel artificial to your players.

The mechanics are there to help immerse the players into the world, to help them feel like they are there, and to provide a means by which they can think their way into or out of the situations that exist within the session/adventure/mission.

Discuss these things with your players and ask them to think about what the modifiers and house-rules mean.  Then ask them if they are necessary or do they simply clutter up the game table.

[Mithlas]

With sniper rifles, you get up into things like the Anti-materiel rifles. You know, the things it is technically a war crime to use on people, because they're designed to hunt armored vehicles. Of course, that point is moot, since if you don't catch a sniper, you can't exactly prosecute war crimes, and because of what snipers do, they tend to wind up dead rather than captured when they are caught.

In real life that's true, but the only example in Shadowrun (based directly on the Barret M82, or XM500) of this isn't classified as a sniper rifle, it's classified as an assault cannon (Ares Vigorous Assault Cannon, Arsenal p30).

Granted, with weapon modifications and alternative ammo you can shrink jump over that line for most practical intents and purposes.

The main reason you see police/military using specialized versions of these rifles is because those versions make the rifle lighter, more durable, and easier to handle.

Civilian hunting rifles tend to be customized precisely to the hunter and dedicated to the ranges and conditions of hunting, sniper rifles are manufactured by the lowest bidder for a different variety of ranges and conditions. That's the primary difference from where I see it. The difference of the user is something I figure is always there and doesn't even usually need to be mentioned.

[The_Gun_Nut]

The military tells the "lowest bidder" the exact conditions and specifications that they (military) require their weapons to perform under.  This also means that the weapon has to be durable enough to perform repeatedly under extremely harsh conditions that civilian weapons never get subjected to, such as repeated firings over a significant duration (days, perhaps weeks).  This means that the weapon is likely far more expensive and of higher quality than its civilian counterpart.

All this "lowest bidder" crap is starting to annoy.  Yes, the military grants the contract to those who promise to deliver the specified equipment for the least investment.  This does not mean that they are the lowest quality.  This means they have no bells and whistles and are only delivered with exactly what the customer (the military) wants.  No more, no less.

[CanRay]

A good example of a "civilian" design that didn't work for the military, but was selected for political reasons is Canada's Ross Rifle.  Great hunting rifle, excellent target rifle (Russia won an Olympic Biathlon with one), but the least bit of dirt or grit jammed it, and if you put the bolt in backwards (easy enough to do when trying to reassemble the weapon under combat conditions) it had a tendency of blowing up.  (Read tendency as "You didn't really need that eye, did you?")

Also, it encouraged the worst design for an entrenching tool I ever heard of.

[Mirikon]

Exactly, Gun Nut. "Lowest Bidder" doesn't mean "Barrens Special", it means "This is the cheapest I can produce this item that is capable of firing accurately every time, even after being dropped, kicked, thrown in the dirt, thrown in the water, thrown in the mud, in heat and in cold, after lying exposed to the elements for days, and won't break down after a few hundred rounds. The difference between a sniper rifle and a civilian hunting rifle also has to do with the amount of abuse the sniper rifle is going to take before even taking the shot.

[Falconer]

Actually that's false Mirikon.

Most of those weapons need to be resighted after say parachuting into position or which take any rough use or after being stuffed on a buffeting plane being vibrated while transitting... or stuffed in a vehicle going cross country even taking hard jarring bumps.


If you want a gun like you describe then you want an AK which functions when ignored... just don't expect it to shoot straight afterwards due to the loose tolerances.

There are far more similarities between hunting rifles and sniper rifles than differences.  Definitely far more than with your typical assault rifle which trades precision and range for reliability and high rate of fire.  The only major difference between the two is that sniper rifles commonly have heavier thicker barrels (not necessarily longer) since precision is of more importance than gun weight for extended field carry.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

And again, the main point here is avoided - that the seperation is done in main part for game design.  You still need to differentiate - in the weapon class, the damage done, the availability, etc.

Game design tries to approximate real life, but that's mostly what it tries to do - approximate.  You can refine one part or another, if you like, for your own game, but for design issues including but not limited to playability, things are probably best as they've been portrayed for the last 4 iterations.

[Aryeonos]

When GMing I've always changed the rules for the choke setting to increase your chance to hit by 1 for each setting but decrease damage equally for each setting. I've found that it's more realistic and works for characters with poor skill or facing a lot of negative modifiers.

The issue with Automatics is that it just does not make any sense. A machine pistol like the FN 5-7C uses a different skill than a heavy pistol like the Salvette Guardian when both are firing in BF even though they use the same frame type. Similarly, there is no reason for a Battle Rifle being fired in SA to use a completely different skill than a Sport Rifle firing in SA. It's the same style of shooting.

The best solution, what I'm hoping gets done in SR5, is to toss Automatics into a bottomless pit, roll Machine Pistols and SMGs into the Pistols skill, and toss Assault Rifles and Battle Rifles into the Longarms skill. Toss Gunnery or Heavy Weapons into the Firearms group to replace the lost Automatics skill and everything would work fine.

Do you work for Bethesda? Or have a soul even? I'm sorry but conglomerating unlike skills together to reduce specialization is always the wrong answer. I'd rule that a machine pistol firing in single fire could use the pistols skill, but the concept of firing in bursts or suppressing isn't something regular pistols cover. If you wanted to rearange skills, I'd say battle rifles would go to the longarms skill, and sniping rifles (Not sporting rifles though) would go into a new skill with the assault cannon and some other heavy precision weapon. I don't know why machine guns and various forms of launch weaponry go together, I think they should be broken up but that's a different topic.

[Anarkitty]

I could also get behind a total redesign of the skills based on how it is being used.  Rather than Pistols, Automatics and Longarms, Why not Single Round (SS and SA), Automatic Fire (BF and FA), Sniping (aimed shots), etc.?  It seems like firing a modded heavy pistol on full auto has less in common with taking pot shots with a holdout revolver, and more in common with opening up with even something as large as a light machine gun, in terms of the skills involved in doing it effectively and sccurately.

It just crossed my mind, so don't feel bad about tearing the idea apart if you don't like it. 

[Inconnu]

Actually, shot gun suppressive fire. I'd give that a hefty + modifier.... seeing as recoil doesnt matter that much.

[RHat]

I could also get behind a total redesign of the skills based on how it is being used.  Rather than Pistols, Automatics and Longarms, Why not Single Round (SS and SA), Automatic Fire (BF and FA), Sniping (aimed shots), etc.?  It seems like firing a modded heavy pistol on full auto has less in common with taking pot shots with a holdout revolver, and more in common with opening up with even something as large as a light machine gun, in terms of the skills involved in doing it effectively and sccurately.

It just crossed my mind, so don't feel bad about tearing the idea apart if you don't like it.

Thought about this, but it would have to be by strict firing modes - SS/SA, BF, and FA.  That's a lot clumsier, though, than the easier solution of shifting Battle Rifles into Longarms, making SnS shotgun only or at least more effective in shotguns (Perhaps 4S in anything up to light pistol, 6S north of there, shotguns exceptionally being 8S?), and put in more special shotgun rounds.  That way, any weapon skill is viable for a combat focused character, with the following balancing elements:

Pistols - High concealability, lack rapid fire options, if some sort of rule accounting for precision is added these would be counted as precise.  Firing Selection Change rules might need a note about turning Pistols into Machine Pistols if FA is added.  Hypothetically, you could move Machine Pistols into here, but that might be making this group too powerful.

Automatics - General utility, but not fantastic at everything.  Concealability is worse than pistols, range is worse than longarms, but wide variety of weapon options allow for the tools to solve many problems.  Removal of Battle Rifles keeps this from being the weapon skill to solve all problems.

Longarms - Not much middle ground on range, as they're either long range weapons or shotguns.  Addition of more specialized ammo for shotguns means that there's more reason to use those (After a wendigo?  Iron slugs!  After bugs?  Insecticide-soaked flechettes!  Need to Kill It With Fire?  Dragonsbreath rounds!).

And thus, weapon skills become more balanced.  Tossing Gunnery into the group wouldn't be a bad idea, though.

[DamienHollow]

I could also get behind a total redesign of the skills based on how it is being used.  Rather than Pistols, Automatics and Longarms, Why not Single Round (SS and SA), Automatic Fire (BF and FA), Sniping (aimed shots), etc.?  It seems like firing a modded heavy pistol on full auto has less in common with taking pot shots with a holdout revolver, and more in common with opening up with even something as large as a light machine gun, in terms of the skills involved in doing it effectively and sccurately.

It just crossed my mind, so don't feel bad about tearing the idea apart if you don't like it.

i like this idea.

[The_Gun_Nut]

The basics of firing a weapon are the same, but the details are different.  Each kind of weapon has specific grips, body positions, and sight alignment.  No, I don't mean the sight picture is different, I mean how one holds one's head while sighting is slightly different.

Are these differences enough between the different firearm types to be a big deal?  For some yes, for some no (sighting along a hold out is a different animal than sighting down a scoped sniper rifle).  I'm not sure I want that much detail in the game, however.

[Mithlas]

True, but I'm starting to like the idea of folding machine guns into the Firearms skill. There are a lot of ways to do it right - I think that some people get tripped up over the ways it can go wrong. We'll see, though - either way, that's different than the thread topic, which the thread hasn't quite been about for a couple pages.

I personally think they're well-suited to toolkit-weapons, somewhat like crossbows - one of my players wanted to modify his crossbow into more of a batman-utility belt thing with a flashlight built-in and a grapple-hook/winch attachable for getting in and out of high buildings and etc. Since it's done in real life, I don't see how a little common-sense rulings could hurt.

[WellsIDidIt]

Do you work for Bethesda? Or have a soul even? I'm sorry but conglomerating unlike skills together to reduce specialization is always the wrong answer. I'd rule that a machine pistol firing in single fire could use the pistols skill, but the concept of firing in bursts or suppressing isn't something regular pistols cover. If you wanted to rearange skills, I'd say battle rifles would go to the longarms skill, and sniping rifles (Not sporting rifles though) would go into a new skill with the assault cannon and some other heavy precision weapon. I don't know why machine guns and various forms of launch weaponry go together, I think they should be broken up but that's a different topic.

What about a Heavy Pistol firing a burst (Like the Ares Viper Slivergun or the Salvette Guardian)?
They work under the Pistol skill currently. That means that currently the Pistol skill does cover the concept of bursts.

Let's do an example here:
Fichetti Executive Action modded for Firing Mode: Small (FA) and Extended Clip.
Here we have a Light Pistol that can fire SA, BF, or FA (including suppressive fire) all while using the Pistols skill.
Meanwhile the FN 5-7C holds 2 less rounds, doesn't have a FA setting, and falls under Automatics for some reason.
What is "unlike" about these two guns?

The only real difference in learning to shoot most firearms is in the stance being used, whether firing at close range or long range. It's easily adaptable from one gun to the other meant for use at the same range. I see no reason to change back to an every weapon class is a separate skill type of system. Even firing an automatic isn't that much different. The only difference is recoil, which is already compensated for by having a penalty for recoil.