You have all given me an idea, NPC's don't have to be the only valid targets for AutoFire hits. how about killing 1 of the minions guarding the door, then destroying the door behind them as well, giving the Melee monster the chance to charge into the room and go toe to toe with the bigger threat.

Something that occurred to me with the back and forth here.

How many minion groups do your GMs throw at you? Because even basic brawn 2-3 minions with padded armor are going to soak up a couple of AF hits if they are in groups of 3 or so.

Stormtrooper minion groups are even tougher in larger numbers.

After seeing someone use Autofire in a game I'm playing in, I added a house-rule to the gaming group I run right away. I've limited the number of additional targets you can engage to the number of upgrades you have in the skill. If you've trained 3 times you can hit up to three additional targets beyond the initial target. We'll see how this works.

I believe too much emphasis is being put onto the mechanic of autofire it's self rather than ways to control the appropriation and use of such weapons.

Weapons with autofire should be heavily restricted on most worlds, on the worlds where it isn't or can't be, player's and NPC alike should be able to reacts to players/NPC's carrying such weapons, such as focusing their attacks on characters with such weapons with grenades, sunder abilities and so forth.

If a player wishes to develop a character to be able to carry one of these weapons around dealing death to all and sundry then the DM should make that player aware of certain restrictions and obstacles they may face in the future, such as being stopped often by security personel, attacked on sight by jealous rivals wishing the weapon for them selves, confiscation of said weapon etc etc.

Autofire is a VERY powerful ability but it doesn't mean it automatically breaks the game. It is the DM responsibility to manage any encounter that involve such weapons so that the players don't lose there sense of heroic acompleshment but at the same time dosn't reduce the impact of encounters that players may face.

I look forward to any of my players thinking it will be a simple thing to walk around with such a weapon. Mwahahahaahah!!!!

After seeing someone use Autofire in a game I'm playing in, I added a house-rule to the gaming group I run right away. I've limited the number of targets you can engage to the number of upgrades you have in the skill. If you've trained 3 times you can hit up to three targets. We'll see how this works.

Won't that simply compound the problem further by giving the players that added incentive to get even more ranks in the skill?

I believe too much emphasis is being put onto the mechanic of autofire it's self rather than ways to control the appropriation and use of such weapons.

Weapons with autofire should be heavily restricted on most worlds, on the worlds where it isn't or can't be, player's and NPC alike should be able to reacts to players/NPC's carrying such weapons, such as focusing their attacks on characters with such weapons with grenades, sunder abilities and so forth.

If a player wishes to develop a character to be able to carry one of these weapons around dealing death to all and sundry then the DM should make that player aware of certain restrictions and obstacles they may face in the future, such as being stopped often by security personel, attacked on sight by jealous rivals wishing the weapon for them selves, confiscation of said weapon etc etc.

Autofire is a VERY powerful ability but it doesn't mean it automatically breaks the game. It is the DM responsibility to manage any encounter that involve such weapons so that the players don't lose there sense of heroic acompleshment but at the same time dosn't reduce the impact of encounters that players may face.

I look forward to any of my players thinking it will be a simple thing to walk around with such a weapon. Mwahahahaahah!!!!

The thought of taking a weapon by force from a heavily armed group just isn't very realistic. Most beings will be way more concerned with not getting shot rather than putting themselves in harms way for a chance to get the gun This obviously doesn't apply to the protagonist of the Fallout games, but I'd hope it does in RPGs where you don't have unlimited save points.

I believe too much emphasis is being put onto the mechanic of autofire it's self rather than ways to control the appropriation and use of such weapons.

Weapons with autofire should be heavily restricted on most worlds, on the worlds where it isn't or can't be, player's and NPC alike should be able to reacts to players/NPC's carrying such weapons, such as focusing their attacks on characters with such weapons with grenades, sunder abilities and so forth.

If a player wishes to develop a character to be able to carry one of these weapons around dealing death to all and sundry then the DM should make that player aware of certain restrictions and obstacles they may face in the future, such as being stopped often by security personel, attacked on sight by jealous rivals wishing the weapon for them selves, confiscation of said weapon etc etc.

Autofire is a VERY powerful ability but it doesn't mean it automatically breaks the game. It is the DM responsibility to manage any encounter that involve such weapons so that the players don't lose there sense of heroic acompleshment but at the same time dosn't reduce the impact of encounters that players may face.

I look forward to any of my players thinking it will be a simple thing to walk around with such a weapon. Mwahahahaahah!!!!

The thought of taking a weapon by force from a heavily armed group just isn't very realistic. Most beings will be way more concerned with not getting shot rather than putting themselves in harms way for a chance to get the gun This obviously doesn't apply to the protagonist of the Fallout games, but I'd hope it does in RPGs where you don't have unlimited save points.

Well, neither is it realistic that authorities on civilized worlds allow people to walk around with assault weaponry unchallenged. Granted, the single rent-a-cop at the mall might not challenge them, but he'll be sure to notify what ever planetary defense forces that deal with such matters and then leave it to the SWAT-team.

My players are always very concerned when visiting a new planet with what sort of weapons are allowed. But I also "obey the rules" for the NPCs, if the PCs can't bring anything heavier than a pistol they will mostly face beings with similar armament. Mostly...

I believe too much emphasis is being put onto the mechanic of autofire it's self rather than ways to control the appropriation and use of such weapons.

Weapons with autofire should be heavily restricted on most worlds, on the worlds where it isn't or can't be, player's and NPC alike should be able to reacts to players/NPC's carrying such weapons, such as focusing their attacks on characters with such weapons with grenades, sunder abilities and so forth.

If a player wishes to develop a character to be able to carry one of these weapons around dealing death to all and sundry then the DM should make that player aware of certain restrictions and obstacles they may face in the future, such as being stopped often by security personel, attacked on sight by jealous rivals wishing the weapon for them selves, confiscation of said weapon etc etc.

Autofire is a VERY powerful ability but it doesn't mean it automatically breaks the game. It is the DM responsibility to manage any encounter that involve such weapons so that the players don't lose there sense of heroic acompleshment but at the same time dosn't reduce the impact of encounters that players may face.

I look forward to any of my players thinking it will be a simple thing to walk around with such a weapon. Mwahahahaahah!!!!

The thought of taking a weapon by force from a heavily armed group just isn't very realistic. Most beings will be way more concerned with not getting shot rather than putting themselves in harms way for a chance to get the gun This obviously doesn't apply to the protagonist of the Fallout games, but I'd hope it does in RPGs where you don't have unlimited save points.

Well, neither is it realistic that authorities on civilized worlds allow people to walk around with assault weaponry unchallenged. Granted, the single rent-a-cop at the mall might not challenge them, but he'll be sure to notify what ever planetary defense forces that deal with such matters and then leave it to the SWAT-team.

My players are always very concerned when visiting a new planet with what sort of weapons are allowed. But I also "obey the rules" for the NPCs, if the PCs can't bring anything heavier than a pistol they will mostly face beings with similar armament. Mostly...

Aye, indeed. I imagine it's more a case of "Sure you might be a big game hunter or a merc, but here we only allow you X, if your not willing to cooperate, we won't allow any of you onto this port/You into this port." Attempts at force in that kind of situation would cause matters to escalate in a way likely counter to their interests.

Proved quite problematic in one particular players case who took a heavy blaster rifle practically everywhere. even when pretending blend in with the crowd. Leading to a lot of awkward situations arising unless we were more or less constantly on his case about it and in a lot of cases the more social members of the party had to start leaving him behind because of a lack of concession.

Proved quite problematic in one particular players case who took a heavy blaster rifle practically everywhere. even when pretending blend in with the crowd.

I can just see the conversation now.

GM: Roll a Hard Stealth test with one upgrade to blend in with the crowd. Oh, and don't forget the setback dice for carrying a heavy blaster rifle in the middle of the shopping area in the capital.

PC: (Assembling the dice pool.) OK, how many setback dice?

GM: How many do we have available at the table? (Goes around to all the players picking up all their setback dice.)

PC: ...

I'm not sure if it's been covered here but the solution we use for Auto-Fire at my table works pretty well, keeping the flavour but bringing it down a notch without nerfing it.

First follow the RAW, do not handwave any rule that affects the situation. For example, the Player must call their targets before rolling. Do not tell the Player if a target has gone down until all the Damage has been tabulated, if a Player wants to know mid Attack they must spend an Advantage to "Notice something important". Do not handwave ENC, this may or may not affect every PC but ENC is a balancing factor with larger, more effective weapons and carrying a HBR is a base 6 ENC, and will force Players to choose their load outs carefully (Carrying a HVY Weapon is a commitment that will require making sacrifices when choosing what equipment to bring). None of these things will reduce the damage output but they will at least maintain the cost for it's effectiveness.

Finally consider this House Rule:

Talents like Jury Rigging and Mods that reduce the Advantage cost to activate effects ( Auto-Fire, Criticals, Linked etc. ) only affect the first instance for activating weapon effects, additional activations cost the normal amount.

I have spent time trying to work out schemes for trying to "fix" autofire, but like I said in my previous post, I eventually realized the issue really seems to be racking up multiple hits on a single target. My houserule is simply that autofire can only be triggered once on any given opponent (so the original target can be hit up to twice, other targets once). Also, I removed autofire from the heavy blaster rifle (I did up its HP to 5 though), to prevent Heavy Repeating Blaster damage (once attachments/mods are applied) from being on an unrestricted weapon.

Proved quite problematic in one particular players case who took a heavy blaster rifle practically everywhere. even when pretending blend in with the crowd.

I can just see the conversation now.

GM: Roll a Hard Stealth test with one upgrade to blend in with the crowd. Oh, and don't forget the setback dice for carrying a heavy blaster rifle in the middle of the shopping area in the capital.

PC: (Assembling the dice pool.) OK, how many setback dice?

GM: How many do we have available at the table? (Goes around to all the players picking up all their setback dice.)

PC: ...

More like.

"There is a disturbance outside, armed stormtroopers begin a sweep of the casino-"

"I put my heavy blaster rifle on the table and open fire."

"*Sighs* No, if I knew that you had that on you, the check would have been significantly harder."

"I always have it on me."

"Not in this particular instance. Someone else outside the casino on overwatch is taking care of it for you to pass back in a briefcase as soon as you are out."

"But-"

"No, you don't, have it on you. GM fiat. No other weapons? Your problem because this is a social party for well off people, the biggest thing they would allow is the bodyguard to have a nice nasty pistol, anyway..."

Wasn't a huge issue because we soon disarmed the local folks quite quickly, but it's a good deal of why I don't really like roleplaying with him sometimes; he's the kind of guy who thinks he can have his cake and eat it if your not watching.

I think the problem steems more from Jury Rig than Autofire. People here seem to say Autofire is fine before you add that Talent.

So why not limit Jury Rig? Have it cost 1 strain for every time you remove a required Advantage. These will eventually ramp up rather quickly. Especially as a 4-hit volley would cost 3 strains.

I think the problem steems more from Jury Rig than Autofire. People here seem to say Autofire is fine before you add that Talent.

So why not limit Jury Rig? Have it cost 1 strain for every time you remove a required Advantage. These will eventually ramp up rather quickly. Especially as a 4-hit volley would cost 3 strains.

I like this

You have all given me an idea, NPC's don't have to be the only valid targets for AutoFire hits. how about killing 1 of the minions guarding the door, then destroying the door behind them as well, giving the Melee monster the chance to charge into the room and go toe to toe with the bigger threat.

Oh! Like on a Despair or maybe three Threats? Fun!

Or a stray blast from the auto-fire triggers the emergency fire fighting system in the room (or the whole base!). Now we're fighting with lots of water spraying down on us!

Or a stray blast hits the computer console the PCs needed to interact with. Or shuts all the doors in the room and locks them down tight.

Here’s another idea — roll a Setback die for every additional activation of auto-fire, past the first.

Failures are accrued to the next time you fire the weapon. The amount of recoil from the weapon was surprising and not properly accounted for by the jury-rig, which makes it that much more difficult to accurately use the next time.

Threats are taken as strain — unless the GM chooses to use them otherwise. So, two threats could be two points of strain, or they could be something else. But these threats can only be spent after the damage is done from the weapon(s) to the target(s), as appropriate.

And when you create the jury-rig, you could decide to limit it to a three-round burst, or full-auto mode. That could allow you to limit the amount of potential setback dice you might be rolling on a frequent basis.

None of this is applicable to normal auto-fire mode for these weapons, because they were designed and built to handle the normal auto-fire process with that speed of weapon cycling, etc….

If you want to speed the thing up and make it fire a lot faster, then there are going to be additional drawbacks that you have to accept.

After seeing someone use Autofire in a game I'm playing in, I added a house-rule to the gaming group I run right away. I've limited the number of targets you can engage to the number of upgrades you have in the skill. If you've trained 3 times you can hit up to three targets. We'll see how this works.

Won't that simply compound the problem further by giving the players that added incentive to get even more ranks in the skill?

I don't think it'll be a problem. The whole reason for my change is to require spending XP to represent training that allows you to be more effective with an automatic weapon... and to slow down the incredible devestation. If it ends up backfiring we'll switch it to something else.

Just my two cents on an already lengthy topic:

I think I'm in the group that has never really been bothered by autofire even with Jury-Rigged. The crit machine and blast weapon characters are worlds better at taking down a single minion group. Autofire truly only shines when used against multiple minion groups or mutiple hits on one rival/nemesis. Even then, barely, as I'm not the kind of GM to send the NPCs out naked, the kind to limit minion groups to only small numbers in each group, nor the kind to let PCs walk around with "assault" weapons without difficulties. I'm also the kind of GM that fights fire with fire. That BBEG "Vulcan Raven" with his super modified heavy repeating rifle that he uses to autofire barrage from far away and forces the players to come up with an interesting way to cover hop and take him out? Yeah, kind of evens the playing field.

Though, maybe I'm just lucky; I have always planned my campaigns so that the heavy gunner can mow down enemies or at least surpress them and keep them at bay while the slicer tries to get into the computer system, the social face bolsters the team and instills fear to the enemies, and the melee specialist flanks to take out the less tankier baddies in the rear. Have I had scenarios in which characters do the unexpected and make easy work of my planned to be difficult encounter? Have I had players get boned by unlucky dice rolls and poor tactics resulting in an easy encounter turning almost deadly? Yes, of course, to both, but my players had fun, my story progressed, and that was all that mattered. I've never made rule-changes based solely on how good a certain build was in game. Yeah sometimes clarifications have needed to be made, but the mechanics I rarely mess with. Even when I had a half-ogre, half-minotaur, feral, orc, dungeon crasher in 3.5 use his vorpal, keen, thundering claws to blow apart baddies. Just took a single Dominate spell to make him rethink his tactics.

Back on topic though, if you do decide to use some sort of fix, just make sure your players are okay with the change, or are alerted of the change before campaign starts. There's really nothing more insulting than a GM ruining a build out of nowhere.

It's like when I had a shotgun surgeon character in WH40k:DH and after the first session the GM decided that he wanted degrees of success to be measured by 5s and not 10s (big mistake). Then, half way through the campaign my GM decided that he was sick of my character getting the jump on enemies and turning them into paste so he ruled that shotguns could only benefit from one extra hit regardless. He essentially nerfed my character because he couldn't plan his sessions to include large landscapes or to have situations that would leave me without my shotgun. Don't even get me started on the crazy limitations he put on the party once he let us get some warp weapons...