Combat Option: Single Target Burst?

[Gilfalas]

From what I have seen so far many think that the Automatic weapon property is a bit lackluster. Would adding another option to the property help?

I proposed you can use it as written OR use a 3 round burst (marking off three shots worth of ammunition as appropriate for the weapon being used) as a full action to get a +1 to hit on a single target.

Opinions?

[Metaphysician]

I tend to assume that logically-automatic weapons are already doing burst fire for their normal attacks, with this being factored into their damage.

[baggageboy]

IT is also factored in to the usage. Note many of the higher level automatic weapons have multiple shot usages.

[gustavo iglesias]

If you really want a burst option, maybe an additional shot at - 2 (so - 6 for 3, or - 8 for four with onslaught) will be a better option, as it meshes better with current rules.

[Metaphysician]

Alternatively, "burst fire" is a representation of a full attack on a single target.

[Gilfalas]

baggageboy wrote:

IT is also factored in to the usage. Note many of the higher level automatic weapons have multiple shot usages.

See our table always assumed the greater energy usage was more powerful single blasts, not mutliple shots.

Current burst or automatic capable weapons do not use multiple rounds when firing in non burst mode so we didn't assume such with the games automatic weapons.

But in retrospect that would not work for the automatic weapons that use multiple actual bullets for their 'shots' at higher levels even on 'single fire' so I think your probably right.

gustavo iglesias wrote:

If you really want a burst option, maybe an additional shot at - 2 (so - 6 for 3, or - 8 for four with onslaught) will be a better option, as it meshes better with current rules.

No, adding in a non class based way to get extra attacks is definitely not something we want to do since Starfinder has so carefully designed the entire system to lower attacks per round numbers.

[baggageboy]

You could give automatic weapons a version of the boost property...

[Jakonen]

I made this as a fix almost Day one. Give it a try.

Select Fire
Automatic weapons now have three firing modes that can be chosen as part of an attack.
Single-Fire: Attack normally
Burst-Fire: Gain a flat +2 to Attack and Damage to that attack, at the cost of ¼ of the weapon’s capacity in ammo spent.
Full auto fire: Weapon trait as normal

[Vexies]

Jakonen wrote:

I made this as a fix almost Day one. Give it a try.

Select Fire
Automatic weapons now have three firing modes that can be chosen as part of an attack.
Single-Fire: Attack normally
Burst-Fire: Gain a flat +2 to Attack and Damage to that attack, at the cost of ¼ of the weapon’s capacity in ammo spent.
Full auto fire: Weapon trait as normal

I like the idea of what your proposing but +2 attack is way to strong and makes it the no brainer option. I think a -2 to your attack would be more in keeping with the rules and balance forcing the PC to choose between a bit of sacrificed accuracy in favor of potential single target damage.

[Aseroth_Blackward]

I'm kinda not a fan of the way they have the automatic rule either. This rule is more like your sweeping the gun over an area (ie. the cone). Rather than say you use all the ammunition, you would only use a number of rounds equal to the number of targets in your cone, so if say, you have a tactical x-gen gun with a full clip, and 6 targets in your cone, you would only use 12 rounds in that sweep.

[Aseroth_Blackward]

Now, if you really wanted to use up all the ammunition in your clip and try to make sure someone dies you would use something like this.

Automatic
In addition to making ranged attacks normally, a weapon with this special property can fire in fully automatic mode. No action is required to toggle a weapon between making normal ranged attacks and using automatic mode. When you make a full attack with a weapon in automatic mode, you can attack in a cone with a range of half the weapon’s range increment. This uses all of the weapon’s remaining ammunition. You get one attack per two rounds of ammunition spent. Roll one attack against each target in the cone starting with those closest to you. If a target is directly behind an earlier target (ie. In the same row), that target cannot be hit. Make one damage roll for all targets hit. If ammunition remains, repeat until all attacks are spent.

For example, if you were using a tactical X-gen gun with 27 rounds remaining, you can make a total of 13 shots. If there are 5 targets, but 2 of the targets are behind someone else, they cannot be targeted until the person in front of them is knocked unconscious or killed.

Each pass confers a -2 to hit to attack rolls as weapon recoil builds up. If you don’t have enough cartridges remaining to shoot at all equidistant creatures, determine randomly which one you target. You can’t avoid shooting at allies in the cone.

Alternately, you can skip the man in front rule and just target everybody once for each pass. Also, you could just do one damage roll for all passes, applied multiple times depending on how many times a target was hit.

This one is at least a little more realistic (and complicated), as one can expected to get hit multiple times if caught in a full auto hail of bullets, with the people in front taking the brunt of the attack, and the people in the back taking less damage (assuming there isn't enough rounds or the shooter can't shoot to save his life). However, this also ensures that the people in front are hamburger before the people in back get hit. Even with the hit penalty for each sweep, this makes full auto fire insanely powerful. I would probably only use this rule for a carried heavy weapon, but it would definitely work for a fixed gun emplacement.

[Sauce987654321]

I'm not much of a fan of the "man in front" rule. It doesn't strike me as realistic and seems awkward. This implies that people are just standing around and not actively moving, like these games imply. That would be like assuming that a creature has to "stand" after a run action before taking another one on their next turn.

It also assumes that people take up an entire square space, which again doesn't seem realistic, to me. If anything, they should, at best, benefit from having soft cover.

[Aseroth_Blackward]

Sauce987654321 wrote:

I'm not much of a fan of the "man in front" rule. It doesn't strike me as realistic and seems awkward. This implies that people are just standing around and not actively moving, like these games imply. That would be like assuming that a creature has to "stand" after a run action before taking another one on their next turn.

It also assumes that people take up an entire square space, which again doesn't seem realistic, to me. If anything, they should, at best, benefit from having soft cover.

I agree in that sense. People in front would take more damage, but they wouldn't cover the people behind them unless they're very bulky. There's also the potential of bullets just punching through the first guy and hitting the guy behind him. This setup was more of a compromise to try and not get too mired in rules. Thinking about it now, it could be said that the person behind the one in front would get something akin to a +1 or +2 bonus to AC.

As for the person in the square thing, I probably shouldn't get started on that. If it was to be more realistic, you would probably shrink that to a 3x3 instead of a 5x5. That would really complicate the map for some people though. Inside a square, you're not assumed to be just standing there. The square represent's your total range of movement without actually moving from point A to point B (least that's always been my assumption since 2nd edition dnd). When you look at the grid, you gotta look at the grid in more of a tactical sense than an actual 'where is he in the square' and 'I move half a step that way', etc.

[Toni Masana]

There are other previous RPG games that have burst attacks like d20modern or Stargate SG-1. This last proposes narrow and wide burst using 3 shots as some of you said before.
-Narrow Burst (3 shots): -3 attack, +1 damage
-Wide Burst (3 shots): +1 attack

In my opinion and experience playing Stargate campaings and adapting to starfinder rules it would have more sense to use as follow:
-Narrow Burst (3 shots): -2 attack, +2 damage
-Wide Burst (3 shots): +2 attack

Wide word doesn't mean attacking on different "squares", it implies just moving your gun little to hit any part of the enemy's body, no matter which.
For this reason I don't know if in this subpart of automatic attack called "burst" would have sense or not to ban critical hit. On wide burst attack you are attacking whatever you can (here I understand there is no critical hit possible, or only by pure luck) but on narrow burst you are trying to focus on enemmy's movements (inside same square = Dex) meanwhile you balance weapon's recoil.

[Rysky the Dark Solarion]

The thread is two years old just so you're aware.

[Toni Masana]

I have seen that its's old but the main question is not solved. I am guessing the same question while I prepare a new game.

[Garretmander]

-2 to attack isn't worth it even when it's +1/2 lvl to damage, and even +1 to attack is worth a massive amount just for buying the right weapon. Burst fire should probably do something else entirely.

[kadance]

I'm going a more complicated route as part of converting Shadowrun stuff for Starfinder:

To paraphrase:
Burst Fire: Weapons with multiple usage have the option of using burst fire as an Attack Action (projectile weapons with usage 1 can use burst fire as a Full Action unless they are unwieldy).

The effects of a burst fire attack depend on the usage stat. Half the usage is added as a circumstance bonus on the attack roll (one-third for automatic weapons).

For the rest of the round, all other attacks suffer the full usage stat as a penalty to attack rolls. Multiple burst fire penalties stack.

If a critical hit is rolled, add the usage as a bonus to the damage roll.
=====
In addition to this basic outline, the weapons I'm converting have different firing modes with different usage, recoil compensation to mitigate the penalty, and semiautomatics (non-unwieldy weapons with usage 1) can set their usage for the burst fire at a number up to the lower of their capacity or the user's base attack bonus.

Without using additional armor and damage reduction abilities, probably need to lower the to hit bonuses from burst fire to 1/3 and 1/4 usage.

If you want to see more, PM me for access to the rough draft.