Melee damage/Single target auto fire v1

[Caradhras]

A couple of basic questions from the V1 rules.

During play a few issues from my players...

1. One elite PC sneaks up on a sentry and jumps him, using his combat knife he does a specified head shot and hits..... he rolls 2d6 (average 7) and the sentry shouts 'ouch' and isnt dead!

My thoughts for a solution is give the player an auto-kill if he has succeeded in surprise and hit? This situation aside - melee damage does seem a bit feeble tbh.

2. The players are being assaulted by a large group of NPCs whilst dug in - they have a PK and an M-60 with the rest armed with M-16s and the like. The V1 rules only allow 1 target per round whereas they should be cutting down considerably more - is there a good rule for this I can lift from another source?

[TiggerCCW UK]

I beefed up the damage in my game by adding a D4 to unarmed Melee attacks, D6 to melee weapon attacks and using a D8 for firearms and explosives, but in that situation I would have allowed an auto kill as long as all appropriate skill checks were made.

As far as the auto fire goes I agree that it doesn't work overly well in game. I've found my players rearely use autofire, preferring to stick with single shots most of the time. I'd be very open to seeing good suppressive fire/autofire rules as well.

[weswood]

With my homegrown rules for suppressive fire, the character can fire twice the listed RoF. No skill check is made, but each round downrange will hit a target on a 1 on a D4 at short range, a roll of 1 on a D6 hits at medium range, and a D8 is used at long range.

I don't know if this is effective, I haven't playtested that particular rule.

[TiggerCCW UK]

Sounds like a reasonable system Wes. I'll try it in my next session if the opportunity comes up. I'll let you know how it goes, but my next session might not be for a while

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Caradhras

A couple of basic questions from the V1 rules.

During play a few issues from my players...

1. One elite PC sneaks up on a sentry and jumps him, using his combat knife he does a specified head shot and hits..... he rolls 2d6 (average 7) and the sentry shouts 'ouch' and isnt dead!

My thoughts for a solution is give the player an auto-kill if he has succeeded in surprise and hit? This situation aside - melee damage does seem a bit feeble tbh.

I don't really know the v1 rules. I played with them a few times back in the 1990's, but can't remember much about them. However, Merc 2K (which uses the v2 rules) includes a new rule, which may be usable:

CRITICAL HIT/QUICK KILL (NEW RULE)

Any aimed shot which hits the chest or head may constitute a killing shot. Roll a D10. If the die roll is less than or equal to thedamage value ofthe shot, the target is instantly killed except on a roll of 10 exactly. If the hit was scored on an area protected by armor, roll versus the remaining damage value of the round. For automatic fire, roll onlyonce per phase (regardless of the number of shots that hit). This rule should be applied only to NPCs.

It is recommended that PCs who suffer a killing wound instead suffer enough damage to increase the wound level of the head or chest to at least serious if unwounded (and critical if already serious), and in addition take the normal damage inflicted by the round. For example, if Charles had no damage to his chest and was struck by a killing wound, he would take enough damage to bring his chest to serious wound level plus the normal damage of the round which hit him.

Originally Posted by Caradhras

2. The players are being assaulted by a large group of NPCs whilst dug in - they have a PK and an M-60 with the rest armed with M-16s and the like. The V1 rules only allow 1 target per round whereas they should be cutting down considerably more - is there a good rule for this I can lift from another source?

The v2 rules allow a character to fire at three targets per fire phase. They also have this:

Danger Zone: The danger zone is the area where characters not actually aimed at may be hit by stray bulletsfroma burst of automatic fire.

The danger zone is an area four meters to either side of a line drawn between the firing PC and the target, and includes all potential targets which are within the same range band as the target.

Once a player has rolled all of his automatic fire hit dice and noted how many rounds hit, he takes half of the dice which missed (rounding fractions down) and rolls them again. Each 6 rolled on this second set of dice is a hit inflicted on another target in the danger zone. The referee will assign these hits to the other targets, beginning with those closest to the intended target.

Any dice which missed from this second roll (or half of all dice which missed from the first roll, if there were no other potential targets) are set aside and will be used to attack any character moving through the weapon’s danger zone for one full phase. A full phase for the purposes of this rule is the remainder of the current phase and all of the next until the firing character’s Initiative. However, if the point in the next phase, then the fire lasts only until the end of the current phase. Note that by careful use of this effect, automatic weapons fire can be used to interdict movement or keep enemy troops under cover by simply firing through open doorways, over the tops of walls. etc.

In v2, when a gun is fired full-auto, you roll 3, 5 or 10 (depending on rate of fire) D6 per burst. You can fire up to 5 bursts. There are modifiers for range, etc that reduce the number of D6 rolled, and every 6 is a hit.

[General Pain]

we use d12 for damage results and use optional rules for critical hits..

example:
DAM 1 (9mm) 10% chance of critical hit(a critical hit means you loose every HP down to 0 and then take the rolled damage) double chance of critical damage for head/chest and abdomen
DAM 4 (7.62mm N) 40%
DAM 9 (12.7mm) 90%
etc.

http://thebigbookofwar.50megs.com/DOX/0-House%20rules/

chekc out melee damage rules 2,1

[Adm.Lee]

Weren't head hits double damage in v1?

I did prefer the autofire and quick-kill rules in V2.

[Legbreaker]

I think (and this is from my fuzzy memory of V1) head shots to NPCs are double damage.
PCs usually have very limited hit capacity to their head to begin with so doubling damage is a bit of an overkill IMHO.

[TiggerCCW UK]

That's the way I work it in my game.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I think (and this is from my fuzzy memory of V1) head shots to NPCs are double damage.
PCs usually have very limited hit capacity to their head to begin with so doubling damage is a bit of an overkill IMHO.

I agree. Waaay back when I used the v1 rules I thought that doubling head injuries along with the low hit points that the head already has meant that there were few minor wounds to the head. I agree that bullet wounds and injuries that penetrate the skull are very serious injuries but if the real world operated the way the v1 mechanics suggest they should, anyone who performed a head butt to another person's face would as often as not result in having their own skull explode like an egg. The head can take quite a bit of punishment from some types of attacks. Look at boxers.

[Caradhras]

Well - confusing stuff, I guess it is just a matter of adding something that suits myself and my group for both problems.