Ranged Combat

Ranged Weapon Properties

Ranged weapons have some specific properties that set them apart from melee weapons.

Force

The ranged weapon equivalent of weapon size. It measures the penetrative power of that wepaon or its ammunition to determine whether the blow overcome a parry.

Damage Modifier

Some ranged weapons use methods of propulsion that do not care about the strength and size of the weilder, for example crossbows. Ranged weapons will indicate if the attacker may utilize their Damage Modifier when dealing damage with it.

Range

Ranged weapons will have three numbers displayed for the range, seperated by slashes (i.e. 10/20/50). The first number is the close range, which allows for the use of some Special Effects such as Choose Location. The second number is the effective range, which imparts no special modifiers. The last number is the long range, the distance at which the projectile has begun to slow, dealing half damage and having the Force reduced by one step.

Reload

The amount of turns it takes to reload a weapon that requires ammunition. This may be the time to reload a single shot (like a crossbow), or a container with many shots (like a gun).

Distance Penalties

The difficulty of hitting a target increases rapidly with the distance which seperates it from the marksman. Distance is considered independent of a weapon's Range, the latter being the description of how far the projectile can go before losing force or falling short.

Distance penalties can be offset by the size of the target being aimed at. Hitting a mammoth at fifty meters is far easier than hitting a person at the same range. The table below indicates the difficulty grade adjustment to the attack roll for varying sized objects and distances.

				Target Size
		10 or less	11 - 20	21 - 40	41 - 80	81 - 150	151 - 300
	1 - 20m	1 Step Harder	No Effect	1 Step Easier	1 Step Easier	2 Steps Easier	2 Steps Easier
	21 - 40m	1 Step Harder	1 Step Harder	No Effect	1 Step Easier	1 Step Easier	2 Steps Easier
	41 - 60m	2 Steps Harder	1 Step Harder	1 Step Harder	No Effect	1 Step Easier	1 Step Easier
	61 - 80m	2 Steps Harder	2 Steps Harder	1 Step Harder	1 Step Harder	No Effect	1 Step Easier
Distance to Target	81 - 100m	3 Steps Harder	2 Steps Harder	2 Steps Harder	1 Step Harder	1 Step Harder	No Effect
	101 - 120m	3 Steps Harder	3 Steps Harder	2 Steps Harder	2 Steps Harder	1 Step Harder	1 Step Harder
	121 - 140m	4 Steps Harder	3 Steps Harder	3 Steps Harder	2 Steps Harder	2 Steps Harder	1 Step Harder
	Each 20m	Follow table progression

Firing Into a Crowd

Firing into the swirling ebb and flow of a melee can be a risky business, even for the most proficient marksman. There is always a risk of accidentally striking someone other than the original target being aimed at.

When firing at a specific target at the edge of a crowd or melee, the attack suffers a one difficulty grade penalty. If trying to fire through a group to hit a target in its mids, or on the other side, the penalty is raised to two grades.

The result of the attack roll is important, a markman who passes their attack roll despite the penalty has aimed true and will hit their intended target. If however the marksman fails the roll, but would have succeeded if not for the firing into a crowd penalty, then an adjacent victim is struck instead. If more than one target is in the line of fire, the GM should determine the victim randomly.

No matter who becomes the target -- intended or not -- they are free to Evade and Parry as normal. Any special effects won as part of the attack only apply to the original target, not any accidentally struck bystander.

Facing and Ranged Combat

The above shows the facing squares extended for ranged combat. Attacking a target in the side squares imparts a one grade penalty to the attack roll. Characters cannot attack targets in their back squares.

Firearms

Firearms tend to have exceptions to the rules for normal ranged weapons.

Parrying Firearms

Firearms cannot be parried. When striking a shield or weapon that is passively blocking the item reduces the projectiels damage by the AP of the item (rather than using the parrying damage reduction rules.

Firearms and Distance Penalties

Some firearms are easier or harder to fire at range than others. Pistols increase penalty by 1 step , Carbines and SMG's are as written. Rifles reduce penalty by 1 step. Sniper Rifles reduce the penalty by 2 steps.

Telescopic scopes can improve the penalty further.

Fire Modes

Some firearms automatically chamber the next shot, granting the weapon of a range of different firing rates, all dependent on how much ammo the user wishes to release. These firing modes are known as Semi-Automatic, Burst, and Full-Automatic. While this ability can make some guns capable of dealing out fearsome damage, trying to maintain accuracy with recoiling weapons is problematic.

Semi-Automatic: This is the default rate of fire for most guns, where each pull of the trigger fires a single shot and loads the next round.

Burst: For burst fire, each pull on the trigger releases a number of rounds, usually no more than three to five, depending on the weapon. Its original purpose was to permit limited suppresive fire, but restrict excessive ammunition use. It is not intended to improve the shooter's chance to hit since rapid, sequential recoil continually jerks the wepaon off line. Firing in burst mode imposes a penalty grade of Hard to the attack roll. If the attack succeeds however, the shooter rolls a dice to see how many of the rounds in that burst struck home on the target. So a three round burst would use a 1d3. Roll seperate location and damage for each round that hits.

Full Automatic: Normally used for full blow suppressing fire to pin down multiple targets, full automatic can be devastating if fired into a closely grouped body of enemies. The shooter decides how many rounds of ammo to fire (up to the limit of the cyclic rate of the weapon), which are then evenely distributed across all the targets included in the arc of fire. Any spare rounds are considered lost whilst traversing aim (thus firing 15 rounds as 6 targets would be two bullets each). A seperate attack roll is made for each target, but at a difficulty grade of Formidable due to the increased recoil effects of sustained fire. Those targets who are hit suffer a random number of rounds as per Burst fire.

Note that only the first shot that strikes during a burst or full autoatic spray can benefit from special effects. Thus rolling a critical attack while firing in automatic mode would permit the selection of Maximize Damage, but only on the first shot, even if all the remaining rounds hit home.

Dual Firearms

Characters may use dual firearms, shooting both weapons simultaneously during theit turn to gain a more rapid rate of fire. Hwoever this comes at a penalty to accuracy. Firing a pistol in each hand increase the difficulty grade by one step. Trying to concurrently shoot with a carbine or SMG in each hand suffers a penalty of Formidable.

Fumbling with Firearms

Since gunfire is not normally resisted by an opposing skill, a special provision should be made when a shooter fumbles their attack roll. In this case whoever the intended target was is allowed to select a fumble specific effect, which the shooter then suffers, for example Weapon Malfunction.