So, I'm lucky enough to for one of my PC's to have built a character solely around the use of his auto fire heavy blaster rifle. At one point last night he actually sprayed down a room full of rival Slavers for over 100 damage. My first knee jerk reaction to this as a GM was "All right, lets see that rifle, talk to me about this dice pool."

I noticed that he was using a scope to reduce the difficulty of his shot at long range. Right away I said, "Wait, you can't use a scope while spraying down a whole room, that's for single shots, at long range." to which he replied, "Well, the RAW doesn't say I can't..."

Any one else run into this problem?

Also while on the topic of OP Auto Fire rules... When hosing down a warehouse full of bad guys, are there rules for firing arc? Or, as my gun enthusiast PC insisted last night, all he had to do was pick the hardest shot, and upon succeeding, could then target anyone else he could see with his additional shots, regardless of whether or not they were 180 degrees apart, or even behind him.

ALSO, how do you resolve targets for the auto shots, ie - Can the PC basically say "Ok, I get 4 shots. The first goes to bad guy X, it does 18 damage. Is he dead? No? Ok, he gets one more. Is he dead? Yes? Ok, I now send shot three to Bad guy Y. He takes 18 damage, is he Dead? Yes? Ok, Last one goes to Bad guy Z."

I argued that he had to declare each individual shot before we resolved the damage, simply as a measure of control over his damage, which he took offence to, because this is pretty much all his character does. In the end the big bad Gm was ruining his fun. Ultimately I just sent in reinforcements and let him get his jollies, nearly killing him in the process.

Am I wrong to think that this is a little OP? I know there have been theory threads about this in the past, but I'm curious if anyone has actually had to deal with it at their table, and how they went about balancing combat, post 100 damage room clearing auto fire shots?

Thanks!

So, I'm lucky enough to for one of my PC's to have built a character solely around the use of his auto fire heavy blaster rifle. At one point last night he actually sprayed down a room full of rival Slavers for over 100 damage. My first knee jerk reaction to this as a GM was "All right, lets see that rifle, talk to me about this dice pool."

I noticed that he was using a scope to reduce the difficulty of his shot at long range. Right away I said, "Wait, you can't use a scope while spraying down a whole room, that's for single shots, at long range." to which he replied, "Well, the RAW doesn't say I can't..."

Any one else run into this problem?

Also while on the topic of OP Auto Fire rules... When hosing down a warehouse full of bad guys, are there rules for firing arc? Or, as my gun enthusiast PC insisted last night, all he had to do was pick the hardest shot, and upon succeeding, could then target anyone else he could see with his additional shots, regardless of whether or not they were 180 degrees apart, or even behind him.

ALSO, how do you resolve targets for the auto shots, ie - Can the PC basically say "Ok, I get 4 shots. The first goes to bad guy X, it does 18 damage. Is he dead? No? Ok, he gets one more. Is he dead? Yes? Ok, I now send shot three to Bad guy Y. He takes 18 damage, is he Dead? Yes? Ok, Last one goes to Bad guy Z."

I argued that he had to declare each individual shot before we resolved the damage, simply as a measure of control over his damage, which he took offence to, because this is pretty much all his character does. In the end the big bad Gm was ruining his fun. Ultimately I just sent in reinforcements and let him get his jollies, nearly killing him in the process.

Am I wrong to think that this is a little OP? I know there have been theory threads about this in the past, but I'm curious if anyone has actually had to deal with it at their table, and how they went about balancing combat, post 100 damage room clearing auto fire shots?

Thanks!

RAW also doesn't say that he can't teleport himself to the center of the nearest star, but I doubt that would happen in this game either.

Without a bunch of strange and unique technology.

Stick to your guns on the scope. Narrative games must use logic and common sense when played or else it will come tumbling down.

He's right about the scope. I've seen agogs and red dots on saws before.

Any one else run into this problem?

Having just tried to shoot 5 helicopters with a sniper rifle in a Grand Theft Auto mission (it was impossible), my response would have been "Fine - go right ahead and shoot those moving targets with your scope. Oh, and add 5 black dice to your roll, will you?"

I had arguments at the table both pro and con for the scope.

Pro - In COD you can put scopes on automatic heavy guns and they help. To which I replied, were they telescopic, or just improved iron sights / laser dot? At which time I asked the PC to describe his weapon mod. That opened a can of worms.

Con - A telescopic sight narrows your field of vision to one target, making it nearly impossible to track other targets while using the scope, thus, useless for anything but single target shots.

RAW also doesn't say that he can't teleport himself to the center of the nearest star, but I doubt that would happen in this game either.

Without a bunch of strange and unique technology.

Stick to your guns on the scope. Narrative games must use logic and common sense when played or else it will come tumbling down.

Haha! Yes, thank you. Unfortunately my PC doesn't react well to hyperbole, in fact I said almost this exactly last night in defence of my ruling, except it was more along the lines of "Well, the rules don't say that there isn't a ship in orbit that is about to start bombarding the facility with a heavy turbo laser battery. Would that be fun?"

I was trying to make the point that as the GM I'm trying to strike a balance, not kill them. I'm not the bad guy, I just control them. If I think that something is unbalanced, Its my job to say so. Unfortunately my PC thinks that if the RAW is on his side, then he can do what ever he wants. I find myself arguing in defence of maintaining the fun by keeping things fair and interesting for everyone, when they think I'm just out to gimp their character and take away their toys.

I don't see how autofiring while using a scope is illogical. Who's to say that in the approximately 1 minute that encompasses your player's turn, he can't zoom in and spray a room from a couple hundred 100 meters? A few quick bursts should do it. Further, saying you've gotta reserve something for "single shots" really goes against the whole concept of combat rounds in this game. The idea that "one action = one squeeze of the trigger" needs to die a quick, public death.

That said, it's your game, so do what you like but once those dice are rolled, abide by the result from the difficulty that you, the GM, set to the player. If something needs tweaking, talk it out with the players after the game session or during a break. But during the game, the players should be happy with the calls you make and the difficulties you set, and the GM should be okay with the dice results.

In such a narrative game, you can beat yourself senseless over the notion of "balanced combat" before even getting to a result that you and your players actually like. And talk of "balance" in a game where challenge levels don't even exist is a bit nebulous. The GM can craft whatever threats he wants, using whatever numbers he wants. Where's the balance in that? Just build your encounters and adventures in such a way that you give everyone the opportunity to have fun. And here's what else is great being a GM: If your players kill your bad guys too fast, you get to bring in more bad guys. All the better to let the combat-focused player shine. Besides that, the purpose of being a mook is to die. Why not be satisfied when they get wiped out in one glorious, fell swoop?

And yeah, I'd get mad too if my GM made me assign my Advantage without knowing whether that Advantage was actually doing any good. For me, it's an issue of GM and player teamwork (you aren't adversaries; you are co-conspirators). If you're on their side, you use the rules to help them, not to hinder them. How much of a jerk would I be if I let a player spend his 3 Advantage to disarm a foe, then tell him, "Sorry, you wasted your Advantage; this guy can't be disarmed because the gun is connected to his armor." Same deal with advantage for a useless autofire hit.

Having a player "declare" stuff like that (use of Advantage without knowing if it'll do any good) just smacks of tactical-grid-based combat, and it evokes images of players holding cards close to their chest, and I don't like it. It's enough that they declare their intended target(s), have the difficulty set (it was at least Hard, right? Maybe with some setbacks for cover/darkness or whatnot?), and roll the dice. When the dice say they can do stuff with their action, let them do stuff and celebrate with them. "That was a great roll! You cleared out that room. Unfortunately, your shots have alerted the rest of the facility, and a shot ricochets off the wall next to you, narrowly missing your head, as some of their snipers return fire."

There's my two Imperial credits for you. Sorry for the wall of text.

You can and the military sometimes does put a red dot sights and 2-4x scopes on SAWs, but they are usually used when on a bipod for long range suppression fire. Close in, as in a warehouse, they are of limited value and you're right it would make it nearly impossible to effectively sweep the whole place because of the way those sighs narrow your field of vision. Also this isn't COD which is about as realistic as.. well, as a video game.

As for the auto shots tell him he doesn't have choose his targets but no longer tell him the targets condition. Just say you can't tell if he's out or not, if you want to know you'll have to make a Perception check, which will end your auto fire.

If he still argues, well it's not just his game or just your game it's the groups game and maybe he's not the right person to be playing with. Find someone who fits closer to your play style.

The most broken part comes in when Jury Rigged reduces the Advantages required for Autofire down to 1. It's bad, effectively doubling the firepower of such weapons.

Thanks for the reply awayputurwpn, I agree that the single shot per turn is a bad narrative concept, I should clarify to say that my personal views of how a scope should function aren't a single shot, but rather a single target, especially when the PC is befitting from aim manurers and talents.

Also, I agree with the point you make about it being a jerk move to essentially pull the rug from under my player by saying that his spent advantages could potentially do nothing, but only in cases when there is a clear tangible result that takes place in a logical order.

The example of disarming a dude is a good one, You want to disarm him, ok spend you advantages, he is disarmed vs. Sorry pal, he can't be disarmed, spend them on something else. I agree that would be a jerk move.

Firing off seven or Eight shots in a matter of seconds at multiple opponents, some falling behind cover, some soaking shots, some deflecting off armour, it would be hard to micro manage those shots so efficiently to say that my shooter could determine shot by shot if the targets were going out of the fight. For me asking the PC for targets ahead of time is a risk reward situation where he decides who the threats are and how long he pauses to spray them with laser before he twitches to the next target. I don't think this is unreasonable.

PS, I always appreciate your comments. A little devil's advocate helps bring clarity to these types of discussions. Thanks for chiming in!

The most broken part comes in when Jury Rigged reduces the Advantages required for Autofire down to 1. It's bad, effectively doubling the firepower of such weapons.

He has done that. And yes, squeezing off 7 or 8 shots at 18 damage is sad. It's like having a starship gun, capable of targeting multiple opponents in the party. My other PC's don't even bother drawing their guns any more.

When I talk about balancing combat encounters, I don't mean for difficulty, I mean balanced for all my PC's to equally contribute. It's getting hard.

I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm not sure about the order of actions, assigning/using triumph, etc (although I think there IS a clear priority), but if a PC kept asking me to identify whether a target was dead or alive in the middle of a firefight, I might start calling for Perception checks to determine it properly...

In such a narrative game, you can beat yourself senseless over the notion of "balanced combat" before even getting to a result that you and your players actually like. And talk of "balance" in a game where challenge levels don't even exist is a bit nebulous. The GM can craft whatever threats he wants, using whatever numbers he wants. Where's the balance in that? Just build your encounters and adventures in such a way that you give everyone the opportunity to have fun. And here's what else is great being a GM: If your players kill your bad guys too fast, you get to bring in more bad guys. All the better to let the combat-focused player shine. Besides that, the purpose of being a mook is to die. Why not be satisfied when they get wiped out in one glorious, fell swoop?

The difficulty of what your talking about here is when PCs min-max combat skills. If you have a Combat Monster that can take out just about anything because he's so effective then you end up having to keep upping the challenge level to the point where more balanced PCs would not be able to survive the encounter or are effective useless. It also makes that one character always the focus when combat comes up no one else gets to "shine" because no one else can get a shot off that matters. Not much fun for the rest of the group.

I get where your coming from but the reality is, at least with the groups I've played in, min-maxed combat monsters just get boring for everyone else, especially an argumentative ones that don't want to compromise like the OP is describing. Boring.

BTW, if you're one of these kinds of players (not you specifically awayputurwpn but a Power Player or min-max'er) and you want to know if the group you're playing in appreciates your play style watch how everyone acts when your turn comes up: if they get quiet and start looking bored, their not having fun.

The most broken part comes in when Jury Rigged reduces the Advantages required for Autofire down to 1. It's bad, effectively doubling the firepower of such weapons.

I've house-ruled that if you Jury Rig a quality that can be used multiple times this way, it only applies to the first usage. That takes the pressure off of the insane autofire thing, while still making it worth the choice.

I don't really see the problem with the scope. From a rules perspective I think it's reasonable to believe that if the designers had intended autofire to negate the use of scopes, they would have said so. From a narrative perspective, with all the crazy technology in Star Wars, I have little difficulty imagining that a scope that "works" with autofire might exist.

To my mind the problem appears to lie, as someone else has mentioned, with a clash of play styles. He's apparently more focused on optimization than you would like, and perhaps more importantly, more than your other players, if he's leaving them feeling useless. In terms of solutions, you might need to just ask him to tone it down a bit, stressing that there's nothing wrong with how he made his character, it's just not meshing well with the group.

All that said, if he got 18 damage and 7-8 Advantage, I have to assume he rolled exceptionally well on that particular action, so it may be fitting that he pulled off something crazy with that action. If he's rolling like that often enough that other players literally don't even bother to participate in combat, then I suppose he has pretty high combat related scores. That's not necessarily a problem in and of itself, though, unless the other players are interested in participating in combat. If your players are all hyper-specialized in different areas (he's a combat machine, I'm a social encounter machine, and she's the ultimate cat burglar) and happy with that, then you may want to shift your focus to adapting to that particular group dynamic.

Also while on the topic of OP Auto Fire rules... When hosing down a warehouse full of bad guys, are there rules for firing arc? Or, as my gun enthusiast PC insisted last night, all he had to do was pick the hardest shot, and upon succeeding, could then target anyone else he could see with his additional shots, regardless of whether or not they were 180 degrees apart, or even behind him.

ALSO, how do you resolve targets for the auto shots, ie - Can the PC basically say "Ok, I get 4 shots. The first goes to bad guy X, it does 18 damage. Is he dead? No? Ok, he gets one more. Is he dead? Yes? Ok, I now send shot three to Bad guy Y. He takes 18 damage, is he Dead? Yes? Ok, Last one goes to Bad guy Z."

RAW does state that the shooter should declare his intended targets first, so I'd let him have his 180 degree fire arc with the caveat that any friendlies or non-combatants in the arc add upgrades to his roll (as if they were engaged with the targets). This at least adds some risk to those room-clearing scenarios.

For the status check between each auto-fire trigger, I'd have him spend 1 Advantage to find out each time. The Advantage table states that it costs 1 Adv to "Notice a single important point in the ongoing conflict". Then he has the option of using "controlled auto-fire" to optimize his damage among fewer shots, or "spray and pray" which gives him more shots but might result in overkill.

RAW does state that the shooter should declare his intended targets first, so I'd let him have his 180 degree fire arc with the caveat that any friendlies or non-combatants in the arc add upgrades to his roll (as if they were engaged with the targets). This at least adds some risk to those room-clearing scenarios.

For the status check between each auto-fire trigger, I'd have him spend 1 Advantage to find out each time. The Advantage table states that it costs 1 Adv to "Notice a single important point in the ongoing conflict". Then he has the option of using "controlled auto-fire" to optimize his damage among fewer shots, or "spray and pray" which gives him more shots but might result in overkill.

I thought I saw that in the RAW and I like the Advantage to check for status, it's RAW and it makes sense.

If someone said it would cost me one Advantage per target to tell if they were dead, I'd probably opt to just spend the one Advantage per target to put another hit on each of them (same cost with Jury Rigged).

Also while on the topic of OP Auto Fire rules... When hosing down a warehouse full of bad guys, are there rules for firing arc? Or, as my gun enthusiast PC insisted last night, all he had to do was pick the hardest shot, and upon succeeding, could then target anyone else he could see with his additional shots, regardless of whether or not they were 180 degrees apart, or even behind him.

ALSO, how do you resolve targets for the auto shots, ie - Can the PC basically say "Ok, I get 4 shots. The first goes to bad guy X, it does 18 damage. Is he dead? No? Ok, he gets one more. Is he dead? Yes? Ok, I now send shot three to Bad guy Y. He takes 18 damage, is he Dead? Yes? Ok, Last one goes to Bad guy Z."

RAW does state that the shooter should declare his intended targets first, so I'd let him have his 180 degree fire arc with the caveat that any friendlies or non-combatants in the arc add upgrades to his roll (as if they were engaged with the targets). This at least adds some risk to those room-clearing scenarios.

For the status check between each auto-fire trigger, I'd have him spend 1 Advantage to find out each time. The Advantage table states that it costs 1 Adv to "Notice a single important point in the ongoing conflict". Then he has the option of using "controlled auto-fire" to optimize his damage among fewer shots, or "spray and pray" which gives him more shots but might result in overkill.

This is exactly what I was looking for, Spjork for the win. The only way to beat an optimizing rules layer is at his own game. Thanks for the tip off!

This is exactly what I was looking for, Spjork for the win. The only way to beat an optimizing rules layer is at his own game. Thanks for the tip off!

No, really no. I know it looks that way but please believe me.

The only way to beat an optimizing rules lawyer is not to play his game. Find a compromise between his point of view and the rest of the group. Once you have consensus, it is a LOT easier for everyone to enjoy the game. Take a few notes from FATE on group dynamics.

If you go down that path you will be constantly fighting about rules and he will nitpick your game until it bleeds. Address the personnel and viewpoint issues first.

FangGrip is right. Forums are a place to go all Medieval and debate rules, the game table isn't. It almost never ends well.

You could have him look at this thread though, he'll get some insight as to the problem and how you're trying to work it out so that everyone is happy.

Having fired a M240 in the service, putting a scope on it makes long range shots easier yes but it doesn't magically make you able to fire at multiple targets separated by distance laterally who are also engaging back. You can spray bullets in an area and maybe hit people, or you can spray lots of rounds at one target. That's the real world, nobody stands out in the open and fires a gun at other people.

The way minions work is to cinematic-ly represent the times in the movies one person dispatches multiple targets in a single action. You're not shooting once, your spraying a cloud of blaster bolts and you got hits for X damage. So for example you fire two heavy blaster pistols with a 4 agility and 3 ranged light at medium range. You roll 1 green, 3 yellow, and 3 purple for medium +1 due to duel wield. You get 4 successes and 3 advantage and activate your second blaster, you deal 11 damage before soak to a target group twice. It's mechanically the same as auto-fire minus the additional difficulty dice for two weapons. You hit the group of 3 minions, you apply soak twice and count how much damage is dealt if it exceeds they're combined wound threshold they all die, or just two it depends on the threshold. In a Stormtrooper example, they have 5 soak and 5 wounds. So 3 of them is 15 wounds. The first shot does 6 after soak, so the first guy dies and the second guy is a little scorched. The second shot finishes off the 2nd guy and injures the 3rd. He is still capable of returning fire.

However that's one minion group. IIRC by RAW he can only attack a single group of minions with a single action. Not a whole warehouse unless you specifically allow him too by setting them up as one large group. I'd set them up (Minions) as fire-teams of 3-5 around a perimeter and he says he makes an attack he picks a cluster because he's not Rambo and this is not the Expendables. He fires, dice are tallied, a whole minion group goes down. Great. Next PC shoots whose not a combat monkey and he gets to contribute as well.

Now I'd let him attack a second group if he pop'd a triumph with something crazy. "Your blaster fire drills holes in a group of Stormtroopers and in the process cuts the crane down behind them driving it into the crowd of Stormtroopers to their left causing them to dive out of cover into your hail of fire" assuming he had enough advantage for more shots left anyway.

Maybe i'd let him do that with an E-web mounted and setup to fire. I'd rule he can attack the warehouse with a significant number of black dice to count for objects inside, the building, people going prone etc. He's basically firing blind unless its into an open door. Lots of black dice. More feasibly than that, if he wants to waste a warehouse, get a ship. Starship weapons are awesome.

That's my two cents. I could be wrong too I haven't picked up my book in a week or two. I hate homework.

Oh, I didn't mean I was going to shove some rules in his face and stick out my tongue at the game table next time he tried to autofire...

What I should have said was, This gives me a great place to start the conversation about how to handle this situation. This PC only listens to hard rules. If I have a few examples, such as the spend one advantage to see if the target is dead, which I can begin to implement in our sessions, then he doesn't get bent out of shape for having his GM pulling fiat over the RAW.

I've been playing with this group of fellas for nearly 15 years now. I know what will work at my table. This player isn't the "for the good of the group" type guy, but he will listen to reason, if it's in the book. This gives me some RAW tools to begin curbing his blaster spray.

To MessytheKoala,

These weren't minions they were individually targeted Rivals. Which, unless Iv'e missed something major in the RAW, can all be selected as targets when Autofiring. He popped off 7 shots at 18 damage (it was a good roll, but his dice pool is stacked - read scope issues), And proceeded to take out each rival, one by one.

I wouldn't have been so concerned if this was a room full of minions. I agree, that's what minions are for.

Oh, I didn't mean I was going to shove some rules in his face and stick out my tongue at the game table next time he tried to autofire...

What I should have said was, This gives me a great place to start the conversation about how to handle this situation. This PC only listens to hard rules. If I have a few examples, such as the spend one advantage to see if the target is dead, which I can begin to implement in our sessions, then he doesn't get bent out of shape for having his GM pulling fiat over the RAW.

I've been playing with this group of fellas for nearly 15 years now. I know what will work at my table. This player isn't the "for the good of the group" type guy, but he will listen to reason, if it's in the book. This gives me some RAW tools to begin curbing his blaster spray.

Perhaps you should introduce him to Maelora's group then?

I feel like making a Hot Fuzz "Greater Good" comment here. Ah well.

If you guys have been gaming together that long, then I doubt anything will change the player. Good luck trying to have him see reason with things as they pop up. You may still want to read and show him the FATE system for group discussions, and speak with the other players to get their view points on rules after the session ends.

I guess in the end, you know the player best so handle them in the best possible way. Just try not to get into that never ending rules lawyering back and forth. It rarely helps.