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.
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.