Most of the zombies are the classic slow-movers, but about 10% of them are "runners" - once they get to point blank range, it's usually already too late. Our characters have learned to aim for the head, and almost all of their shots are aimed rather than fired at random locations (this also helps conserve precious ammo). I am thinking of using the d20 hit location table with the minor tweak I mentioned. I don't think I'll allow making a called shot without taking precise aim, but it's still possible to hit the head through chance that way. When using precise aim we'll continue using the existing penalty without requiring an impale. When an impale is scored, it will double damage as usual. Our zombies take 10 damage to the head to guarantee destroying the brain (not all head hits will hit the brain). It is rare for a pistol to take out a zombie with a single shot, except in the case of an impale, or if the pistol in question is very powerful, such as a .44 Magnum. Rifles have a good chance, and shotguns at close range are even better.
Thanks for the map links. Welsh posted several maps of the area in the OOC thread early on. Welsh did make a rough PDF of the T-Bone and motel once. It's also possible to simply use Paint to make a basic diagram, which I've seen a Keeper do on Play@Yog-Sothoth. I haven't really had time to make my own maps, and Welsh has a better idea of the building layouts than I do since he originally designed them. When the characters visit other locations, I will probably make my own maps.
Erica landed her chopper at Brownson at around 10:30 AM, at which point she was just about out of fuel. I'm not sure how many hours the chopper can stay in the air on a full tank, but I'd say she'd been in the air before any alerts are issued. If there isn't enough fuel capacity for this, then she landed briefly just to refuel at some point before sunrise and hadn't been able to land since. It's already been established that she started with only her pistol, and it would change too much to give her a small arsenal. I did give her a 5 point vest like the other State Troopers have, and they were only armed with pistols and shotguns and did not have much ammo on them to start with.
I went to the locations and weapons thread and changed "clips" to "magazines" for all rifles, though most of them already had "magazines" listed. There actually are two M1 Garands, which legitimately do use clips, but they already said "magazines" and I left them alone. For the pistols, I left the description as "clips." I'm not going to go back through the entire story and edit descriptions there, but in the future I'll keep it in mind.
Back to my comments on the earlier posts:
For scopes, we've just been playing that all of them double the base range. Luke's original rifle probably would have a 6x scope, which would triple his base range if we use these rules, and the two military snipers would have even better magnification. There are two M14s and two M1 Garands with scopes that have been found, and those were military in origin. Allowing extreme multiples of the base range does get ridiculous. Under the rules I've been using, Sam Black can reliably hit targets (without range penalties) at a little over a mile away, though he does have 92% Rifle skill. The way I interpreted the rules is that you must use Precision Aim to gain the advantage of the scope (otherwise there is no range multiplier), but if you do use it then you get the advantage of both (the range is quadrupled).
The rules on grenade launchers are good, and I will use them. Base grenade launcher skill is 25%, and nobody has a higher skill on their character sheet. The two M203 hits landed so far in Chapter 2 were on rolls of 10 and 46, so this remains consistent. A skinhead in Chapter 1 did hit with an M203 on a roll of 64, but we can say he did have higher than the base skill. Aiming at the ground near the target gives anyone 50% effective skill (though this does not apply to thrown hand grenades). Theoretically you could double it again by firing at point blank range, but that would be a very bad idea.
I've been using the rule that suppressors cut the range in half because the shot is slowed, though it hasn't come up yet (none of our PCs are aware of any silencers yet). I don't think we should also reduce the damage.
welsh said:
At present we only have one silencer floating around.
Master Yoda said:
The only laser sights in the game so far are on the two military sniper rifles, and these would be collimation sights. They do not double the range again, but instead add 1/5 of the shooter's base skill (so Sam Black would have 92+18=110% effective skill when using the Barrett's laser sight). However, this only applies when there is an unobstructed line of sight on the target. Otherwise, there is no bonus. I do like the rule of doubling the point blank range, though that would apply only to LTS.
The house rules we've been using for burst fire give +5% per bullet after the first, up to a maximum of either double the appropriate skill or 90%, whichever is lower. Welsh came up with the cap because otherwise someone with 50%+ skill can almost guarantee a hit (barring a malfunction) simply by firing enough rounds. However, if someone is lucky enough to have over 90% skill, they simply use their skill level without having to lower it to 90%. You cannot make called shots with a burst, but we did allow precise aim to extend the base range when shooting at only one target. We have been going with the listed rate of fire in the weapons lists to determine maximum number of shots fired per round, so that's how many you could get off before a zombie reaches you if it's close by. Suppressive fire has no psychological effect on zombies of course, since they have no fear, but it can be effective against humans. The M16s and M4s in the game all have burst limiters. We didn't know about the +20% to hit (I've just been using +10% for firing a 3-round burst). Since everyone has at least 25% Rifle skill, anyone could do a controlled burst.
There may be situations where skill-level equivalents can be useful, but for most rolls a simple roll would be enough, possibly modified with a bonus or penalty. I believe the current 6th edition rules also have a base skill of at least 1% for everything but Cthulhu Mythos (which is not used in this game), though I could be wrong. It's also possible to simulate this with the current rules while still allowing a skilled person a chance of failure. For a particularly tricky task, for instance, we could just apply a -30% penalty. A person with 20 or 30 in the skill would automatically fail. A person with a score of 80 would have a 50% chance to succeed.
I've never played AFMBE and I'm not familiar with the rules, but I have been reading the accounts of "To Live and Die in LA (Louisiana)" run by agoodall on rpg.net. The characters don't seem to lose it as much as they do in CoC, and I really like the detailed rules on Sanity.
While we've got more time to go through rules in play-by-post than tabletop roleplaying, there's still a limit to how much time we have. I'm always short on time, and writing each major update usually takes me 3-4 hours as it is. If we add too many rules, it would take prohibitively long and slow down the game. I prefer to go lighter on the rules and improvise a bit when needed.
), and combat could get quite involved if I didn't streamline it, especially since there is a lot of it.
