Homebrew gun rules

[Railak]

So I'm a player in a campaign, but I've been helping the DM, whose rather "new" to DMing, but he's been playing forever.
He decided to do a Stargate campaign, using a combination of d20 modern, Starfinder, Pathfinder and D&D. Yes we mix a lot of systems, our group enjoys it.

So the thing that has been causing the biggest issue is autofire weapons. We didn't like how it worked in any if the above systems, it's always a waste to even attempt. So we adopted the fallout pnp (not d20) idea that you make a separate attack roll for each bullet, and it fires in a narrow cone. Like it is a 15 ft wide cone for first range increment, then 25ft wide for second, adding 10ft to the width every time. Those two things have more or less been fine, cause he tacked on a -4 to hit with autofire since you're not being precise. The attacks also are not touch attacks. And the bullets stop in the first thing they strike, so any miss keeps going and makes attacks on people behind.
The problem we've had and have been constantly adjusting is damage.. back in the beginning it wasn't a HUGE problem cause with the -4 we could barely hit the broad side of a barn, but now that we're level 10, we hit with at least half of our shots per enemy.
We used to do exampl 2d8+6 per bullet, it was rediculous.. we changed it to half the dice on full auto, and we're still doing rediculous damage.. so we're thinking tacking on the extra damage at the end of each damage roll set per enemy, example hitting one person with 4 bullets would be 4d8+6

Of course damage reduction applies per bullet. And shotguns shoot out a 15 wide cone like autofire, autofire shotguns first cone is 25 ft wide, and does full damage within the first range instead of half.

Does this sound reasonable? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve it?

[King of Nowhere]

So I'm a player in a campaign, but I've been helping the DM, whose rather "new" to DMing, but he's been playing forever.
He decided to do a Stargate campaign, using a combination of d20 modern, Starfinder, Pathfinder and D&D. Yes we mix a lot of systems, our group enjoys it.

So the thing that has been causing the biggest issue is autofire weapons. We didn't like how it worked in any if the above systems, it's always a waste to even attempt. So we adopted the fallout pnp (not d20) idea that you make a separate attack roll for each bullet, and it fires in a narrow cone. Like it is a 15 ft wide cone for first range increment, then 25ft wide for second, adding 10ft to the width every time. Those two things have more or less been fine, cause he tacked on a -4 to hit with autofire since you're not being precise. The attacks also are not touch attacks. And the bullets stop in the first thing they strike, so any miss keeps going and makes attacks on people behind.
The problem we've had and have been constantly adjusting is damage.. back in the beginning it wasn't a HUGE problem cause with the -4 we could barely hit the broad side of a barn, but now that we're level 10, we hit with at least half of our shots per enemy.
We used to do exampl 2d8+6 per bullet, it was rediculous.. we changed it to half the dice on full auto, and we're still doing rediculous damage.. so we're thinking tacking on the extra damage at the end of each damage roll set per enemy, example hitting one person with 4 bullets would be 4d8+6

Of course damage reduction applies per bullet. And shotguns shoot out a 15 wide cone like autofire, autofire shotguns first cone is 25 ft wide, and does full damage within the first range instead of half.

Does this sound reasonable? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve it?

the problem with automatic fire is that after the first few bullets, you only hit stuff by accident...
i would apply a cumulative -2 for every bullet past the first, at some point you stop hitting

or perhaps a burst of bullets could really be considered an area attack, and your to-hit roll may actually determine how much damage it deals....

[ngilop]

the problem with automatic fire is that after the first few bullets, you only hit stuff by accident...
i would apply a cumulative -2 for every bullet past the first, at some point you stop hitting

or perhaps a burst of bullets could really be considered an area attack, and your to-hit roll may actually determine how much damage it deals....

One of the above mentioned rules-sets have this as their auto-fire you make X number of attacks at a cumulative pentalty, for both of these suggestions actually.

I think the penalty does do a cumulative -2 and it will say like autofire 4 where you can make an additional 4 attacks with said weapon., and the AoE is a line that you hit a number of squares and they have to roll a reflex save


But as stated, the OP did not like those rules anyways.


i think a massive cone is non-sensical.

And the ability to NOT miss is just a function of the D20 rulesets, there comes a point where it is literally "as long as I do not roll a 1, I hit" In my experiences it comes online between 7th to 10th level depending on the focus of the class in question

[PraxisVetli]

We personally run full auto as a 10x10¹ square AoE that consumes 10 rounds, performed as a full round action. This means AoO's can't be done with a full auto weapon, amongst other things.
Character uses an attack roll to set the Reflex DC for half. The attack roll has no relevance on the attack otherwise, except in the case of 1's and 20's. Nat 1, everything auto makes the save, Nat 20, everything fails the save.
Damage is treated as a single attack, so Damage Reduction applies once, but things that grant +X to damage also only apply once, so it works out.
It's our own variant of the D20 Modern rules, and it's worked pretty well so far, over ±10 levels so far. It starts strong, but is hard to scale, so it levels out eventually and even falls behind once it becomes easier to put more behind singular bullets.


¹D20 Modern offers the feat Strafe, which makes it a 5x20 instead. Actually pretty useful.

[ShurikVch]

Call of Cthulhu d20 have rules for automatic fire: it is 3 bullets per round, with -6 penalty on attack rolls; Multishot feat reduces penalties by 2; Rapid Shot - add 1 extra attack and -2 penalty to all attacks
Thus, at BAB 10 (no such thing as "full BAB" for CoC PC), it's possible to make up to 5 attacks: +4/+4/+4/+4/-1