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Tailz Silver Paws
April 27th, 2006, 02:46
I have been tinkering for some time with how Automatic weapons work in d20 Modern; something that’s not really taken into effect in d20 Modern is Suppression. Since I am always on the lookout for feedback on my tweaked rules, I thought I’d post some of my rules here and see what people think. :D


Suppression
During combat officers will order soldiers to lay down suppressing fire in order to cover the advance or retreat of friendly soldiers, this fire is intended to cause enemy soldiers to think twice about popping their heads up to take a shot – thus giving friendly troops cover from enemy fire.

Causing Suppression
There are two main sources that will cause a character to undergo a suppression check:
Automatic Fire: The most common cause is automatic gunfire. Through the use of the Controlled Burst Fire Feat a character can attempt to use a machine gun to suppress enemy soldiers by spraying an area with bullets. If a character is within the area of effect of a Suppression Attack from an automatic weapon, the player must make a Suppression Check to see if the character is affected.
Directed Weapons Fire: A soldier can attempt to suppress an enemy soldier with direct fire from his weapon, for example a character could attempt to suppress an enemy soldier who is taking cover around the corner of a building by shooting at and causing his bullets to skip off the building corner - causing the enemy soldier to think that he would be hit if he poked his head out around the building corner.
To cause suppression in this manner the character must be able to locate the enemy soldier, he then performs an attack against him but rolls no “to hit” dice.
The Game Master may deem that a character cannot be suppressed by directed fire for a number of reasons, eg: the character is in full cover behind a wall. Generally the target of suppression must be able to see the effect of the shots, eg: the bullets making holes in the wall or the splinters being kicked up as bullets skip off cover.

The Suppression Check
A Suppression check is a Willpower Save against a DC of 12 plus the Rate of Fire (RoF) stat of the suppression source weapon. eg: if the suppression source is using a rifle the DC is 13, where a Machine Gun with a RoF of 3 would result in a DC of 15.
Suppression is a Fear effect and thus any effects that give a character a bonus or immune to fear effects apply to this willpower save.
If the save is failed, the character is affected by Suppression.

Effects of Suppression
Characters that have been suppressed dive for cover and attempt to keep their heads down for fear of being shot or hit by flying shrapnel.
The character may instantly make one of the following actions when suppressed; a free 5ft step in any direction or become prone on the ground. The action selected must improve the characters defence bonus verses the suppression source. The character gains this free action only once, thus if suppressed by another source during the same round the character will not gain the free action if he has already taken it.
A suppressed character may not take any action that would lower his or her total defence bonus verses attacks from the source of the suppression.
The effects of suppression last until the character passes a Willpower save during his rounds actions, this special willpower save requires a move action to perform. The DC is 10 plus the current circumstances modifiers (see below).


The character was wounded by the attack that caused the initial suppression check = +1 per hit point.
Within the zone of an effect that causes Suppression during the previous or current round = +4.
The character has received encouragement from a non-suppressed friendly character. (it is a move action to encourage a suppressed character, this action must be performed from a position where the suppressed character can both hear and see the encouragement) = -2.
Per round since the character was last in the zone of a Suppression effect = -1.

tdwyer11b
June 29th, 2006, 12:46
Guess I can add a little to this since I was an infantryman in the army, hence the 11b after my name. Your correct in that we use suppresive fire during movement. Usually when advancing and bounding towards a target. Bounding is the same as leapfroging. Supressive fire can also be used to fix a target and deny them movement.

Craw
June 29th, 2006, 15:27
Suppression is an important part of gunbattles. It was also a (less important) part of archery. Adding suppression effects to modern games makes a lot of sense. A couple of thoughts:

No need to see the effects of suppressing fire. Hearing the gunfire and bullets hitting the wall is just as effective. Go ahead and make a suppression will save against any incoming fire. The suppressing fire action without an attack roll is an interesting concept. Seems you could also suppress a larger area with automatic fire, as opposed to better suppression of a single target at the player's choice. Also, what about suppressing fire on a location, rather than a target enemy? I.E., I want to lay down some suppressing fire on that intersection to try and keep the enemy (who I know is behind that building somewhere) from crossing it.

TheIronPriest
July 1st, 2006, 21:13
God Bless suppressive fire.

Tailz Silver Paws
July 3rd, 2006, 01:39
When I was first comming up with the rules I wanted some kind of framework to base the game mechanic upon - and this is the result - I posted it here in the hope that people would try it out and i could get more feedback.


Suppression is an important part of gunbattles. It was also a (less important) part of archery. Adding suppression effects to modern games makes a lot of sense. A couple of thoughts:

No need to see the effects of suppressing fire. Hearing the gunfire and bullets hitting the wall is just as effective.

I know what you mean, and i agree - what i was trying to get at is that the character who is going to be effected by the suppression should in some way be aware of the danger - thus seeing and hearing the threat.

i'll look at how to describe the sample a little better...


Go ahead and make a suppression will save against any incoming fire. The suppressing fire action without an attack roll is an interesting concept.

I did this as I wanted to try and cut down on the amount of dice rolling needed.


Seems you could also suppress a larger area with automatic fire, as opposed to better suppression of a single target at the player's choice.

Yup, thats the referance to my new feat: Controlled Burst Fire (there should be another forum post about it).


Also, what about suppressing fire on a location, rather than a target enemy? I.E., I want to lay down some suppressing fire on that intersection to try and keep the enemy (who I know is behind that building somewhere) from crossing it.

This is where it gets a little tricky - it depends upon the amount of space we are talking about. If your talking about an alleyway intersection that is narrow and you are only using a rifle - I would give it to you. But if we are talking about a street wide enough to drive a car down....then you could cause suppression to the edge of a building on one side during a given combat round, but not the other because of the distance involved and the fact you are using a rifle - or if you had a friend with you, one could suppress one side of the street while the other suppresses the other side of the street.

On the other hand if you have a machine gun, you could engage the "area" with suppression fire.

Oberoten
July 3rd, 2006, 19:38
I would suggest supressive fire to get an intensity level set by the actual number of rounds fired divided by the area covered. If you are to supress a doorway you have the full number of rounds as a penalty to the roll to go into the hail of fire.

If you are instead dividing your fire over a larger area, like the crossing of a road you just divide up the number of rounds... Say you have a nice M16 that can fire 12 rounds a combat round (well... second actually) and you are fiering over an area of 4 square meters. Divide 12 by 4 and you get an intensity level of 3 as a penalty to the will-roll to stick your head up into the barrage...

acmer
July 3rd, 2006, 20:30
I'm not familiar with d20 modern yet, but the best way might be using damage, rounds per turn and area. That way you could use it with any weapon.

One grenade would not suppress much, as it has relatively small area, damage is not very heavy and there is only one "shot". Artillery fire would suppress almost anyone. 1000 rounds with a pea shooter is no suppresser, unless targeted to a very small area. Heavy machineguns would suppress even if fired to a relatively large area.

The effects should be dependant on the situtaion. If suppressed with direct fire, there could be no movement out of the present cover, which could be a large rock, house, vehicle wreck or a fallen tree. With indirect fire the target would seek the lowest spot near him and dive there, unable to move.

Perhaps it could be used in a table calculating (damage x rounds) / area = relative suppression value. Explosives might need an adjustment with distance from the explosion and type (HE, concussion, incendiary etc).

Tailz Silver Paws
July 14th, 2006, 08:06
I can see where you guys are going, and i agree to a point. But I thought it would be better and simpler if it was just a matter of a saving throw to those effected - instead of having to work out time periods and volume and fire and such.

But I did take these into count with how you work out the save DC, righters are a save of 13, while a machine gun gets a higher save depending upon the volume of fire.

Also when you try to shrug off the effects, the time since you were last effected comes into account and can lower the DC.