Weapon Rate of Fire

[Toric]

I'm certain this has probably been discussed in the past here. I noticed one six year old thread that discussed it briefly, but the discussion was mostly based around auto fire.

1e doesn't seem to have a rate of fire for any of the weapons. As far as I can tell by the book, you can fire as many times per round as you want provided you can handle the multiple action penalties associated with those shots.

As I am running a 2e R&E game, I've noticed that there is a rate of fire for most weapons. All the most used ones (blaster pistol, heavy blaster pistol, blaster rifle, etc.) seem to have a ROF of 1 each. That would seem to be a big change from 1e of firing as many times as you want with MAPs to being only able to fire once per round. I've been trying to visualize a person firing a blaster pistol but only being able to get one shot off every five seconds.

Anyway, my question is, do you all use ROF by the book? Or do some of you have house rules? I am running my first full 2e R&E session on Sunday and was just curious what everyone does with regards to ROF.

I'm not sure if I should have posted this in the Official Rules forum or House Rules. Mods should feel free to move if it should have been posted elsewhere.

[Whill]

I think some of the 1s are errors. I would just make the ROF whatever you think is appropriate. Hand blasters don't really need a ROF because MAPs are going to limit how many shots you can get off in a round from being anything too outrageous.
_________________
*
Site Map
Forum Guidelines
Registration/Log-In Help
The Rancor Pit Library
Star Wars D6 Damage

[garhkal]

I'd keep a 1 ROF for heavy pistols, rifles and maybe even carbines. BUT light repeaters and regular pistols, i'd either remove them, or increase them.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[OuttaWindu]

I also brought this up just some time ago, but in the Home Rules section.

I think the ROF rules make sense, but the ROF value for many weapons should be changed. Right now all weapons are either ROF 1, or have no ROF(meaning no limit), with a few rocket launchers going with ROF 0.5.

My suggestion is something among these lines:

Bowcaster ROF: 1
Blaster pistols ROF: 1-2
Blaster ROF: 2-4
Heavy blaster ROF: 1-2
Repeating blaster ROF: 1-2 + (however the repeating part would be counted)
Heavy Rep. blaster ROF: 1 + (however the repeating part would be counted)

Melee weapons ROF: N/A (no restrictions on most melee weapons)

Detonators (default setting) ROF 1 (essentially this would mean default timer is around 4-5 sec, so if you throw several without shortening the detonation time in advance others have their turn in addition to their reaction to move away from the blast)

If the ROF are statted in a good way, dual wielding could have an mechanical difference.

Two pistols with ROF 2 would allow you 4 attacks in a turn where a stronger and only slightly faster ROF 3 would only result in max 3 attacks a turn, so you'd end up with a choice between more shots fired or stronger shots.

[Naaman]

[griff]

I am going to make a comment here without having read this thread from the beginning. And with only reading haphazardly over the last few post. I am only making this comment to share the rules I have use for the weapons with the descriptor "repeating".

Single target rule. One skill roll is made. No MAP. The one target is the only one being shot at for the entire round. For every 5 points the roll is higher than the difficulty one extra shot hits the target. Each damage roll is rolled against an opposing strength roll.

Example: shooter is attacking a single stormtrooper at short range, difficulty 10. The attacker rolls a 21. One shot hits for beating the 10, another hits at 15, and another hits at 20. The number of shots from the weapon was greater than the number that hit the target but only three hit by the "threshold of success"

Example 2: multiple target. The attacker is sweeping an area of multiple targets, for every 5 points higher rolled than the difficulty the attacker hits an additional target. As above the difficulty is 10, the attacker rolls 21. First target is hit a ten, the second is hit at 15, and the third is hit at 20.

Baze would have had to have a great skill roll and or used a force point during the fight on Jedha.
_________________
"EXECUTE ORDER 67. Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like order 67..... No, wait. Yes, yes it does. EXECUTE ORDER 68" Palpatine's last moments - robot chicken.

[Naaman]

How do you determine the number of shots/ammo expended?

[griff]

We never were a very crunchy group. If ammo counting was needed the GM (usually me) would tell the players that they were running low on ammo. And it would be part of the adventure to find more.

And the repeating weapons were fixed placed weapons with generators (evacuation scene ESB) and didn't worry about ammo until counting it was story worthy. The one time that this was in issue I gave the players a set number of combat rounds they could use the weapon instead of counting each shot.
_________________
"EXECUTE ORDER 67. Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like order 67..... No, wait. Yes, yes it does. EXECUTE ORDER 68" Palpatine's last moments - robot chicken.

[Toric]

Much as I suspected, most everyone has a different way of handling this. Thanks for the replies, all.

I ran my session yesterday and it never even came up. No character took more than one shot in a round during any of the three combats that occurred so I wasn't forced to make a ruling. Of course these are beginning characters that had previously earned just a few character points each so no one has the skill to take too many actions just yet.

I'm half tempted to just allow up to two shots per round with most typical weapons like the various blaster pistols, rifles and carbines and just call it a day there. Seems reasonable enough given the five second round. I'll mull this over a bit more over the next two weeks between sessions.

[Naaman]

I wouldn't worry about a "5-second" round dictating how many shots can be fired in that time period.

For example, it is humanly possible, while at the surrender position (hands up), to draw a pistol from concealment and deliver 2 or 3 tightly grouped shots all in under 1 second. If we were to translate this into D6, I would estimate that a shooter with around 8D could do this consistently (significantly better than 50% of the time).

I myself have placed 6 A-zone shots (i.e. "kill shots") on 6 different targets with a reload after shot number 3 all in 6.3 seconds. I know this feat can be done in under 5 seconds by people who are better than me.

All I really mean is, if you want "realism" based on the length of time in a round, just let the MAPs do it for you.

One last thought would be to limit the maximum number of targets to the number of D (or perhaps twice the number of D) the character has in Dexterity. This way, the attribute itself remains valuable even at high skill levels, and it helps to account for "good genetics" that would separate people who are world champion shooters from the rest of us.

[garhkal]

[Naaman]

Yes. That's the idea. Since we are taking about the weapon's maximum potential, without respect to who is shooting it, I dont think the 5-second thing is of any real consequence. My best time from low-ready at 5m is three shots all in the heart in 0.88 (with a rifle).

A couple guys I know are notably faster than that.

[Toric]

Oh, don't get the wrong idea about what I said. I am FAR from concerned with realism in my Star Wars. I only mentioned that in my estimation, two shots from a blaster in five seconds seemed perfectly reasonable, even for one unskilled in shooting. I am perfectly happy with two shots per round being the maximum, should I choose to go with that ruling. I understand that in real-life, some ultra skilled individuals are going to be able to do amazing things with firearms, and those with no skill are going to be mediocre at best. In Star Wars, especially if I decide to go with a couple shot limit per round, I am okay with letting skill dictate how WELL the shooter can hit a target and not how MANY shots he can get off.

Of course, another option is just to let skill and MAPs dictate how many effective shots a character can get off in a round.

All of this has been food for thought.

[Naaman]

Of course, there comes a point when a given skill is high enough that raising it higher uas zero value IF you decide to put a mechanical limit on shots per round.

For example, hiting a perfect shot on bullseye (say, difficulty 20) will almost never reult in a distinction between am 8D shooter and a 10D shooter. Whereas the 10D shooter really shines in comparison when he can hit three bullseyes in quick succession just as easily and as quickly as the 8D shooter can hit one.

[Toric]