I dont know if it is intended, but I miss the optional rule box for stray fire.

I liked this optional rule and would like to keep it "official".

Always played with it, because otherwise I feel shooting into melee is taken too easily.

One way to do it, to help players **** themselves of course, would be as such:

If it's you vs the other guy alone, and you've got a pistol, there's no penalty.

If anyone else is in there, or if you're firing from outside a melee engagement into one:You either take the -20 firing into melee penalty, OR anything dodged is going into the next guy.

Could be worth getting the extra DoS in on that hellgun, but if any shots are eliminated by dodging, you've just struck your buddy. Hope he had an AP left to dodge as well.

Liking your ideas Kiton. How about this:

Melee participants gain a single 0AP evasion action to dodge incoming fire, with a +10 modifier for every melee participant.

Evaded hits may be distributed onto other melee participants by the one doing the evading, but cannot be distributed to a melee participant who has already rolled to evade hits from the same attack.

...

At least to me it doesn't make a great deal of sense that hitting people would be more difficult, so I'm not loving the to-hit penalty.

However it does seem to me that hitting who you intend might be rather more difficult than normal, and while the target's evasion bonus doesn't exactly make a lot of sense - I assume it'd be a great deal more difficult dodging bullets if you're already busy dodging chainswords, ultimately the effect is that multi-hit attacks will tend to hit people more or less at random.

0AP might not be a good idea, and even if it is, it might not be a good enough idea to justify the complication.

Another complication that might be a good idea, could be to add a -10 modifier on the evasion roll for every time the hit has been evaded already. I can kind of picture 500 rioters against 500 Enforcers, all dancing between the hail of bullets from 500 heavy stubbers. Then again, DH1e had movement speed rules that would have had millipedes running around at something like 300Mph. I find the question is rarely if a rule can break down hilariously, but rather if circumstances where it does will ever come up

Good suggestions here - I liked that there was an optional rule in previous systems, but the rule itself was...lets say.."ok".

I didnt like that when you "almost" hit, it should hit another person.

I'd rather say, if you have 3+ DoF, it should hit another person (random). I wouldnt give a penalty to a near-hit (even if this would physically be more logical, it is strange gameplay-wise).

With auto-fire, I would rule, that per each DoF 1 other combatant (random) gets 1 possible hit (might cumulate to be more than 1 on a single other combatant).

I would let the other combatants use Evade though, if they are not surprised by the attack.

There is a bit when looking at firing blind "Spray and Pray" where DH2 suggests that the GM set a value on how likely a particular blind attack is to hit and just roll a percentile die. If it succeeds you proceed as normal and otherwise you do not. This is not especially elegant but it is fast, efficient, and flexible.

Something similar could be done with shooting into melee, where the GM tosses out a percentage based upon position, cover, relative size of opponents, who is winning the fight, angle of fire, type of weapon, and a dozen other factors that are rather complex to enumerate ahead of time. Then you decide whether or not to risk it and move on.

This would also make shooting into melee rather more deadly with your friend possibly being shoved into the line of fire at the last second and absorbing a whole attack. It could even correspond to some grappling rules and allow people in a grapple to intentionally try and keep their opponent in between them and incoming fire.

Grappling could be used with a living-shield-rule

I've been running shooting into melee (DH1e) this way...

Shooting into melee incurs a -20 penalty to hit (representing a loathing, reluctance, or hesitation to do so when allies are in the line of fire). Melee participants are allowed an Awareness Test to notice the imminent incoming fire. To-hit rolls that miss and result in doubles (22, 33, 44, etc) will hit random melee participants (evenly distributed). The number of hits distributed is equal to the number of DoF on the to-hit Test, up to the RoF used for the attack. All Damage dice are assumed to result in scores of 8 before adding +X Damage for weapon mods, Talents, etc. Melee participants may attempt to Evade (Dodge) if they have any remaining Reactions, but only if they are aware of the incoming fire.

It is deliberately brutal.

Perhaps something in this might be helpful in designing a DH2e version? I'm too tired to fiddle with it.

Like your friendly fire idea.