Banking the shot. Bouncing your blaster bolts off of stuff?

[garhkal]

Has anyone made HRs to allow people to bank shots of interposing objects, so they can hit targets elsewhere? Such as say han in that corridor on the Death star shoots one trooper before he rounds the corner, hitting him, then banks one off the side wall to hit a 2nd trooper just as he turned it?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[DougRed4]

Haven't made any house rules, but I figure I'd just make up a ruling on the spot, if it seemed feasible. I could see such a tactic working occasionally, if the surface is appropriate to do so.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[TyCaine]

Like DougRed4 I haven't noted any actual ruling, but off the top of my head perhaps something like this:

Per surface (how appropriate the surface is, is up to the GM) to ricochet the shot off: +1 Difficulty Level & -1D Damage

This accounts for the additional difficulty to hit the original target with a planned ricochet, and for the damage reduction that I could see from the blaster bolt expending energy against the additional surface.
The bolt can only be bounced off as many surfaces as it has D in Damage to a minimum of 1D damage (since you loose one D per surface).
Shooter must know or have an idea the target is there...

We could get into a more in-depth look at energy and expenditure, and such, but SWD6 is supposed to be quick and dirty, so this is a relatively simple HR to account for the action, without over-complicating it.

Thoughts?


T.C.
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"For every person with a spark of genius, there are a hundred with ignition trouble."

[Leon The Lion]

[Tinman]

[Corise Lucerne]

[Leon The Lion]

[lurker]

Well, I don't know about 'blaster bolts' but I do know real life bullets can be 'bounced' under cars (doing good damage to a surprised target's ankles and knees if they are kneeled down taking cover) and 'tumble' down a brick/clay etc wall at just about 1 1/2 - 2 feet from the wall (that is one of the reasons why guys are taught to stay about an arm's length from the wall). Now I'm not saying this is easy. I had to get training to do it correctly and spend days at the range perfecting it so it was muscle memory and not something I had to think about …

If we use that precedence then it would be possible. However, and like Tinman pointed out, in the movies they tend to make big smoking holes in walls. Except for the trash compactor and I think that was explained as it being 'magnetically sealed' or something like that. So, you as the GM could easily say blasters don’t bounce and leave it at that.

Now, to find the 'middle of the road' answer and to keep it in the simple fast rules of the game. I'd say make it a +1d - 2d difficulty to hit. Call it the slag, spall and splash from the blaster hitting the wall and then hitting the target, or say the bolt itself hit the target (which ever you as the GM feel most comfortable with in your narrative). Then drop the damage by 1d (it is surprising how much energy bullets still have when bounced, so I wouldn't drop the damage as much as increase the 'to hit'. Then get on with the game and have fun!

LTL, good point on partial vs full cover. It is always easier to hit what you can see than try and bounce the shot. So you should default to cover / concealment rules before this (and then bouncing the shot should be harder than the cover rules)
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"And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!" - Mark Twain

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[atgxtg]

As has been mentioned, blaster bolts generally don't bounce off objects. Shields and Lightsabers appear to be the exceptions. And yes, the trash compactor was "magnetically sealed" so we can assume sort of of magnetic field would work (and that blaster gas is probably ferrous).

I'd suspect that banking a shot is probably a lot more difficult that +1 level per surface. Maybe something like +1 level per surface per range band. it's much, much easier to get the right angle to hit someone 3m away than it is to get the right angle to hit someone 300m away.

After a certain point the complexity would probably require a Jedi to pull it off. Come to think of it, the shooter is trying to redirect a blaster bolt in a controlled fashion.

[DougRed4]

[atgxtg]

[Tinman]

[Ral_Brelt]

I doubt Luke even had his saber at that point as it was still unwieldy to him and he was trying to sneak around as a Stormtrooper at the time.

'TK-615, what's that on your belt?'
'Uhm...a flashlight Sir?'

I'd say the mag seal was to:
A- keep the door closed
B- help contain any hazardous materials being crushed
And I'd imagine the compactor is heavily armored as well in case of explosion of say, surplus tabana canisters from weapons systems.

[garhkal]

THat is a good point. Often people do chuck out batteries or the like which still has a charge on, but not sufficient to do the job.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[lurker]