Static range for blasters and other ranged weapons

[Naaman]

Having been in the military for a while, ranged combat in almost every rpg bothers me a lot. One thing that a game like D6SW suffers from is the abstract interpretation of range and accuracy. And while a laser bolt would certainly have different ballistics than a bullet, I think it would be more fun to really differentiate between various weapon types to allow more of a decision to be made when it comes to picking the right weapon for the job.

Something I came up with was the following (a while after I wrote it, I was quite dismayed to see something similar in SAGA):

5 range categories consisting of Point Blank, Short, Medium, Long and Extreme.

Point blank range is 20 feet (or 7 meters, if you prefer), which is optimum pistol range, but other weapons do well from here, as well. Short range is where pistols can still be accurate but, short barreled, shoulder fired weapons such as sub-repeating blasters, and "scatterguns" (my Star Wars version of a shotgun) really shine here. Medium range is where carbines, battle rifles and the like really come into their own and long range is where sniper rifles shine. Crew served weapons, missile weapons and high quality sniper rifles do well here.

Point blank: 7 meters
Short: 25 meters
Medium: 150 meters
Long: 300 meters
Extreme: > 300 meters (penalties applied for each additional 100 meters).

The way it works is to provide a small bonus to a weapon that is being used within its optimum range, and penalties for shots happening outside its range. Whereas the RAW require you to keep track of range increments for each weapon individually, this version expresses superior or inferior accuracy/range with penalties and bonuses.

Of course, the biggest problem is giving the attacker a bonus when the defender must also roll a skill to avoid harm.

My first idea is to create a system where the range to the target gives the target a bonus on his dodge roll (assuming he knows he's being shot at).

The other thing this does is allow for different ranges to have static difficulties to hit the when shooting at unaware targets or inanimate objects.

A quick example:

A basic blaster pistol might have the following accuracy profile:
+3/+0/-10/miss/miss (this profile means that the pistol gets a +3 to hit at point blank range, a -10 at medium range and automatically misses beyond medium range). A battle rifle might have a profile like this: +0/+0/+2/+0/+0. The battle rifle does not provide a bonus up close because it's more clumsy than a pistol is but its longer sight radius and long barrel become advantages at longer ranges.

The range bonus to dodge might look something like this:
+0/+0/+2/+5/+10-->+5 (this chart shows that someone dodging a shot from point blank range gets a +0 bonus, but at extreme range gets a +10 bonus, which increases by an additional +5 for every 100 meters, since even the slightest movement at long range will spoil a shot.

A host of other house rules can go with it, such as rules for an advanced sniping skill, rules for "double tapping" etc.

[CRMcNeill]

I like it, and I tried to come up with something similar a while back. Where I got hung up was converting the ranges of existing weapons to the static difficulty numbers.

Another aspect to consider is the effects of scale on range. Generally speaking, the larger a weapon is, the greater its maximum range, but also the increased difficulty of hitting something close. Using your system, my idea is that a Speeder-Scale weapon's Extreme range would be one range step beyond Extreme range for characters, but a character scale target would be able to get inside of Point-Blank range, and effectively be "under the guns." This shift would continue for every scale step so that Point Blank for Capital-Scale is Extreme for Character-Scale, but if the character could get close enough to move to Long range for Character-Scale, the Capital Scale weaponry couldn't target them.

It might even be useful to come up with another range step beyond Extreme to cover things that can be seen but not shot at, so that you can use sensors to detect something even if it isn't close enough to shoot at.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[atgxtg]

I7m not sold on this. Some things I don't like about:

1) Rifles not given a bonus at medium range. Or even at close. The longer site radius usually means that itis easier to hit something with a rifle, as long as the target isn't moving a lot. I think most people have a bert chance of hiting a target with a rifle than with a pistol over most ranges.

Maybe the weapon could get it's optimum bonus at optimum range, and the bonus drops 1 per range band, rather than just going to zero?

So a pistol would be +3/+2/+1/0/-1 and a rifle would be +0/+1/+2/+1/+0

2) 7m is too long for "point blank" range. Most shooting tend to occur at this range, and with a realtive poor number of hits.


3)I think the ranges would be better if they increased at a constant progression, rather than by random amounts. Something lke:

5m/25m/125m/625m/3125m.

Being at the high end of a range band could man using the high end of he difficulty scale, and being at the low end could mean using the lower number.

[Whill]

I don't know about the specifics yet, but I've got to say that I really love the general idea of streamlining weapon ranges. The difficulty/bonus/penalty can vary per weapon type for each range, instead of the specific range increments for each weapon varying for each range/difficulty level. I think that would make combat move a little faster and easier because a GM can be a little more abstract and not have to always have a specific number of meters distance for each combatant. In other words, the PCs round the corner and the team of bounty hunters after them are down the street at a distance of "medium range". Wow, why didn't I think of that before!
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[Naaman]

[Bren]

Interesting topic. I like some of the ideas.

One minor quibble -

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

[Bren]

[Whill]

[CRMcNeill]

[Bren]

[Bren]

[CRMcNeill]

[Bren]