Hail comrades-

I've waded through a good deal today trying to find an answer for a question that has been plaguing me. I see that semi and auto fire are popular areas for discussion but I haven't seen anyone talk about missing with auto-fire. According to my GM this was how it worked. We were at a doorway and about 8 baddies crowded in front of us as they went first in initiative. Then our party sent a hail of gunfire at them, at least one of us used auto-fire. As per our GM auto-fire got the +20 and a hit for each degree of success. Unfortunately the attack missed, I had figured there would be a bonus for being so close...as hitting someone with 10 bullets less than 3 meters away would seem to be fairly easy not matter if they dodge or not. I have seen the topic discussing how if you hit someone and they dodge the first bullet it is there degrees of success that negates each incoming bullet after the first. That makes sense though I haven't seen that in the book, so it could be a house rule. My real question is, if the direction I fired full auto into and missed my enemy should be hitting his friends. In this case there was basically a wall of baddies coming towards us. So in my mind, outside of the rules as our Gm understands it, you should get a bonus for close range for these attacks and an extra bonus for the amount of bodies that are in view. I am aware that I can't target individuals unless I have two weapons and all of that, but it would seem that the proximity and amount of enemies would provide an ample home for my bullets. Sorry about the lengthy and perhaps wordy description. much obliged

No, you only hit his friends if you succeed in your BS roll, and decide to allocate any hits following the initial hit (which must be allocated to your original target) to his friends.

If you fail your BS roll, you miss completely.

but there are not any inherent bonuses for how many of them are piled up in front of us a few meters away? That is my main question, if it is reasonable for me to assume there should be some bonuses in this case.

Nope, because you fire at a single person, not at a group.

Shouldn't there be +10 from short range?

Yep. +10 for short range, +20 for full auto. If you were point blank you would have gotten a +30 instead of the +10.

Unfortunately what you did, was pull off a Bren-gun incident as popularized by the totally rad movie, Lock, stock, and two smoking barrels.

But back to the matter at hand, the only way you'd get some even more serious bonuses is using full auto with a scatter-shot loaded shotgun. As mentioned in a recent thread, you get some massive enemy-pulping damage potential doing so.

EDIT: this is the thread i mentioned -- "Gaining BS/WS" located in this sub-group.

How can you possibly miss with a +50 to hit?

On second thought, I did that once, just needed to roll under 94 and I still missed.

Letrii said:

Or if you're having a really bad night, you roll that 94 and your full auto weapon locks up on you.

And I don't think he was given more than the Full Auto fire bonus of +20, which appears to have been the place that the mistake happened.

Thank for all the replies, this clears a few things up for me. So you do get range bonuses to FA and SA? Where is that in the book, as my GM does not seem to be aware of this. Also you had mentioned that if I had hit then I could allocate hits to different targets, somehow I have missed that in the book. If I could get those page numbers that would help.

So no one thinks that there should be a bonus for attacking a group compared to a single target? I would imagine a small bonus like 2% per target that is close together and it would have to 5 or more. Probably just something that the GM would agree to based on circumstances, no rule necessary. Thanks again

We're just going by what the rules say, and the rules mean you get no bonuses for firing into a group, since you aim at a single target.

The rules for range modifiers don't state when they do get added to a roll, only when they don't count (like you not getting the +30 for point-blank range when firing a pistol in close combat). The rules for range modifiers are covered in pages 198 and 199.

As for being able to allocate hits after the first one to additional targets, that is on page 190, included in the rules for Full-Auto Bursts.

I can't imagine how I missed the allocation sentence under full auto burst. Therein lies the danger of skimming I suppose. You've all been more than helpful. Much obliged comrades

For a group of people so closely stacked together that there is more than one in 2x2m area (one sq if using a grid), I would treat them as a single larger target, so giving +10% for normal sized humans for instance.

We still on this? If I missed that bad I would have gotten pissed and used a fate to re-roll. I don't think there should be extra bonuses for shooting at groups if you don't declaire that your shooting at a group.

This post is surprisingly whiny. You missed, it sucks, but life's like that. I know what your thinking, How could I have missed that bad? Dude, I don't know it's the same reason you accidently drop something, or trip, or break something. Normally you think that you're pretty careful but sometimes things happen.

The Attack Roll is Representational, It represents you doing your best with all thats going on around you. If you care about it that much, have your GM explain in the story why you missed or make it up yourself. The game already has pretty much everything covered already. And sometimes when you miss bad enough it's actually not your fault, your gun jams. Maybe he flinched, maybe his grip was loose, maybe he was taken back the the sudden appearance of the enemy.

I saw my Boss Fire a .45 caliber handgun and missed a 2'x2' peice of wood from like 5 yards. I'll tell you what happened, he misjudged what he was doing, (and he was a pistol marksmen in the navy) he didn't shoot high, or wide. He shot the ground 3 yards in front of him. It was stupid and Pathetic, but that's life.

Sorry about this post. Somehow I was rageing.. I still don't feel like taking it down though..

Elohiem_Militant said:

No such thing as a navy marksman, everyone knows that the only true soldiers are in the army

Anyways, on topic.

Sucks to miss but thats life (or maybe death in this case), use a fate point to re-roll or suck it up.

Full Auto doesn't really need more bonuses.

Its not terribly realistic, its true. But that's always a problem with RPGs. You have to strike the balance between reality simulation while still keeping a system relatively light and fast to use.

Letrii said:

How can you possibly miss with a +50 to hit?

On second thought, I did that once, just needed to roll under 94 and I still missed.

Or if you're having a really bad night, you roll that 94 and your full auto weapon locks up on you.

And I don't think he was given more than the Full Auto fire bonus of +20, which appears to have been the place that the mistake happened.

The Guardsman in my campaign rolled a 97, used a fate point and rolled a straight 100.

With an Eviscerator.

He failed his AGI check and promptly facebutted his massive chainsword for 26 damage, forcing him to burn a fate point just to stay alive.

Not sure how realistic it is that a Rank 6 character with a WS of 53 and every available melee talent can kill himself with his own sword, but that's the magic of RNG...

Here's another full-auto question.

It says that when multiple bulelts hits your target wiht full-auto, you can distribute hits to your main target, or to a close target 2 meters away.

Now, let's say I'm facing 5 guys at 30 meters, all of them are 2 meters apart.

I shoot at Mook#1 get 6 hits. Now hit1 goes on mook#1; hit2 goes on Mook#2...now can hit3/4/5/6 get to Mook#3 #4 and #5, or does the hit allocation is only based on the original target, or can they move from target to target, like in a 'pay'n'spray' movement?

You asked about dodging full auto. There is a rule in a core book on page 193 "Dodging auto-fire and area of effect". For each degree of succes on dodge, you negate 1 additional hit

I would say that overall my group is all a lot better at knowing the rules now and full auto works much better. While I can't see my first post being whiny, I will say that I still can't see there not being a more likely chance that you would hit a group compared to a person. Granted it isn't an automatic success, as several are more than willing to point out but the rules are largely structured around hitting a single target, especially in the area of the attack difficulty. So in my mind this is the end of it, also I did eventually notice the dodging full auto rule thanks.