Doesn't suck at all its just balanced vs Shot Guns and making a full attack with non automatic weapons. The advantage here is that you get to potentially attack a lot more targets.
Blast weapons take penalties to hit too, except they don't expend all of their ammo and (if I recall correctly) can be fired more than once per round.
It's the sum of all their drawbacks and penalties that make autofire weapons a lackluster option.
Blast weapons take penalties to hit too, except they don't expend all of their ammo and (if I recall correctly) can be fired more than once per round.
It's the sum of all their drawbacks and penalties that make autofire weapons a lackluster option.
I fail to see how they are any worse and arent in fact better than just simply doing a full attack. Full attack is -4 to both attacks. Autofire is the same -4 but you get to shoot at all targets in that template until your ammo is expired. That gives you a lot of potential targets depending on the weapon used. Granted your expending all your ammo but its potentially the best option to use.
Shotguns on the other hand are -2 to hit each target rather than -4 but tend to have a shorter range. However you can opt to do a full attack with them for a -6 to hit. Once again you get to shoot at everything in the template and it ignores concealment and can crit.
Both weapons / fire modes are extremely effective in their element and most autofire weapons can choose to shoot normally or hose down the room when the situation is right to catch a bunch of targets.
If either mode was any better it would always be superior to simply making a full attack. As is each is useful, brutal even in the right situation while also being balanced.
If autofire didn't have the penalty, it would still suck compared to full attacking, since you can only do it every other round at best, and you can't focus fire with it to take targets out sooner like you could with regular full attacking.
It's cool that you could hit 20+ targets with autofire, but how often do you fight 20+ enemies in games? It pretty much never happens.
Even if it did, if they are at all threatening, more than half the attacks will likely miss. If they aren't so threatening, than why isn't the GM ruling the encounter over due to the lack of any significant enemies?
In my experience a party up against one guy with a automatic weapon and they immediately learned the error of underestimating them. its a move action to reload so if they are in cover and indoors where there isnt a whole hell of a lot of areas to run (which come up often) you can autofire every round. Granted its not going to be the right option every time but it is an absolute terror in the situations its designed for. My party wastes no time eliminating them.
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its a move action to reload so if they are in cover and indoors where there isnt a whole hell of a lot of areas to run (which come up often) you can autofire every round.
Attacks in automatic more are a full action, so if you take a Move action to reload, you can't magic an automatic attack that round.
Now, a 4-armed character with two automatic weapon could fire 2/3 rounds (fire automatic with weapon one, next round do it with weapon two, third round reload both), and one with 6 arms could do it 3/4 rounds, but weapon cost begins to be an issue.
A skittermander could theoretically get 2 cyberlimbs and carry 4 automatic weapons...
A skittermander could theoretically get 2 cyberlimbs and carry 4 automatic weapons...
Or a lot smurphing more with powered armor mounts! :D
In general autofire weapons are typically worse than full attacking, if you have 4+ enemies in an area, it might be worth it. I'd have to run the math, which I haven't (though I think someone else might have).
They aren't a no-brianer option, but that also means people generally don't want to expend the cash on them when you could have something else that would be relevant more of the time.
its a move action to reload so if they are in cover and indoors where there isnt a whole hell of a lot of areas to run (which come up often) you can autofire every round.Attacks in automatic more are a full action, so if you take a Move action to reload, you can't magic an automatic attack that round.
Now, a 4-armed character with two automatic weapon could fire 2/3 rounds (fire automatic with weapon one, next round do it with weapon two, third round reload both), and one with 6 arms could do it 3/4 rounds, but weapon cost begins to be an issue.
A skittermander could theoretically get 2 cyberlimbs and carry 4 automatic weapons...
ah so it is, not sure how I missed that. Hmm that does seem a bit overly punitive considering all the other factors. An interesting point about multi-armed races though :)
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If autofire didn't have the penalty, it would still suck compared to full attacking, since you can only do it every other round at best, and you can't focus fire with it to take targets out sooner like you could with regular full attacking.
It's cool that you could hit 20+ targets with autofire, but how often do you fight 20+ enemies in games? It pretty much never happens.
Even if it did, if they are at all threatening, more than half the attacks will likely miss. If they aren't so threatening, than why isn't the GM ruling the encounter over due to the lack of any significant enemies?
As you point out, if there really is 20 of them, they are all going to be much lower CR, and focusing fire is probably not actually optimal.
Page 390 of the CRB lists 16 creatures as CR+8. So clearly, they consider that a valid encounter. If that is setup as an Epic fight (total CR+3 compared to players level), that implies CR-5.
Consider a level 10 party against 16 CR 5s. Thats 70 hit points a piece (combatant array), for a total of 1,120 hit points with KAC of 19 (compare to an optimal Soldier's +18 to hit or an optimal Operative's +16). Compare that to a single CR 13's 225 hit points and KAC 29 (so needs a 11-13). Roughly twice the effective hit points on the group, but it loses individuals as the fight goes on while the CR 13 is 100% effective until the end.
For the CR 5 NPC offense, they probably need something like 15's to hit, so probably 4 hit per round, at around 10 damage per hit, for about 40 dpr total (although that is not including crit chance). Again compared to a CR 13 with a single hit for ~34 on 3 or higher of a d20 (30.6 average). Alternatively if the CR 13 full attacks for two attacks, thats ~68 on 7 or higher (47.6 average).
Typical hit points for a player (14 Con) might be 144. Those NPCs take about 3-4 turns to drop a player. 4 Players focus firing probably drop 1-2 NPC per round depending on how the overkill works out. 8-16 rounds to take out the enemies with single target focus fire, meaning 1-2 PCs probably dropped to zero hit points. Against the CR 13, its going to probably take 4-8 rounds to drop, with it also potentially dropping 1-2 PCs.
Overall, just looking at the numbers for a level 10 group, it kinda check out to me. 16 CR 5s would be a valid, challenging fight just like a single CR 13. Unless, you know, the PC group happens to be rocking 4 automatic weapons with 60 foot cones, at which point its potentially a 1-4 rounder.
If you group the NPCs into squads of 4, and just roll 4 d20s at a time to hit all against the same PC, it might not even be that hard to run as a GM.
I admit, I don't know how common seen encounter design like that will be. I haven't played the AP, so I don't know if there are fights with say 8 enemies or the like. Only having gotten to level 3 in SFS, I don't really have a large enough sample at mid-levels (where CR-5 makes sense) to know how common fight like that will be. It does sound like an awesome way to show how far the PCs have come in the last 5 levels. :)
Automatic weapons can be an effective option for when the character is facing several foes at once (5-6 should be more common than 8; i.e., a boss and 4-5 minions). Automatic fire also has a couple of benefits over blast weapons: 1) as mentioned, the cone is often twice as long than blast weapons of similar level and 2) automatic fire can "benefit from feats* and abilities that increase the damage of a single attack" (which blast weapons explicitly do not).
Anyway, you don't have to fire an automatic weapon in automatic fire mode. You can (and probably should) use an automatic weapon for normal attacks most of the time. Additionally, other than laser longarms and autotarget rifles vs. tactical acid dart rifles, it looks as if most automatic weapons have more "shots" (capacity/usage) than comparable weapons in the same category (reloading is less frequent unless firing in automatic mode).
*- like, say Weapon Specialization...
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its a move action to reload so if they are in cover and indoors where there isnt a whole hell of a lot of areas to run (which come up often) you can autofire every round.Attacks in automatic more are a full action, so if you take a Move action to reload, you can't magic an automatic attack that round.
Now, a 4-armed character with two automatic weapon could fire 2/3 rounds (fire automatic with weapon one, next round do it with weapon two, third round reload both), and one with 6 arms could do it 3/4 rounds, but weapon cost begins to be an issue.
A skittermander could theoretically get 2 cyberlimbs and carry 4 automatic weapons...
Red headband not included.
It's also worth noting that automatic mode attacks can damage swarms, while single-target weapon cannot. So if nothing else, it's nice to be able to flip a switch and damage a cloud of 10,000 insectoid fleshscoopers.
Could a band of a hundred men with single-fire weapons barrage a swarm to death? That kind of volume of fire would essentially be like duplicating autofire, no? :P
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It's also worth noting that automatic mode attacks can damage swarms, while single-target weapon cannot. So if nothing else, it's nice to be able to flip a switch and damage a cloud of 10,000 insectoid fleshscoopers.Could a band of a hundred men with single-fire weapons barrage a swarm to death? That kind of volume of fire would essentially be like duplicating autofire, no? :P
Ask your GM. :)
Ask your GM. :)It's also worth noting that automatic mode attacks can damage swarms, while single-target weapon cannot. So if nothing else, it's nice to be able to flip a switch and damage a cloud of 10,000 insectoid fleshscoopers.Could a band of a hundred men with single-fire weapons barrage a swarm to death? That kind of volume of fire would essentially be like duplicating autofire, no? :P
Oh Owen, you always know just the perfect answer to the most complicated questions! Don't ever let them trick you up, baby!
It's also worth noting that automatic mode attacks can damage swarms, while single-target weapon cannot. So if nothing else, it's nice to be able to flip a switch and damage a cloud of 10,000 insectoid fleshscoopers.
Can it?
Autofire targets a limited amount of targets. An Autotarget rifle has a magazine of 10 bullets, and autofire stops attacking once you have hit the total amount of bullets left, divided by two. So it can target 5 of those 10.000 insectoid fleshcoopers. Other autofire weapons have bigger magazines, but leaving 9.950 insectoids untouched instead of 9.995 does not really make an impact in the swarm, as swarms are inmune to effects that target a finite number of them (Be it 2, or 20). Hurl Forcedisk, for example, hit 5 creatures, just as much asan Autotarget Rifle would. And it has no effect on swarms, as far as I understand the RAW.Blast weapons is my go-to for swarms. Autoweapons don't really work for them, AFAIK.
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It's also worth noting that automatic mode attacks can damage swarms, while single-target weapon cannot. So if nothing else, it's nice to be able to flip a switch and damage a cloud of 10,000 insectoid fleshscoopers.Can it?
[snip]
Blast weapons is my go-to for swarms. Autoweapons don't really work for them, AFAIK.
Yes, it can. That's how I designed it. The rules for this are explicitly covered in the Swarm Defenses ability in Alien Archive, on page 157.
Thanks for pointing!
A clear issue with "too much pathfinder mindeset" by myself :P.
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Could a band of a hundred men with single-fire weapons barrage a swarm to death? That kind of volume of fire would essentially be like duplicating autofire, no? :P
Hey guys! I found the Imperial Guardsman!
Yes, it can. That's how I designed it. The rules for this are explicitly covered in the Swarm Defenses ability in Alien Archive, on page 157.It's also worth noting that automatic mode attacks can damage swarms, while single-target weapon cannot. So if nothing else, it's nice to be able to flip a switch and damage a cloud of 10,000 insectoid fleshscoopers.Can it?
[snip]
Blast weapons is my go-to for swarms. Autoweapons don't really work for them, AFAIK.
And this is another reason WHY I read these boards, I think I would have missed that ENTIRELY.
Thanks Owen!
Yep. I certainly missed it the first time, and it's pretty probable that, if I had to make a call at my table, I had ran with the Pathfinder version.
It's hard to forget everything you have learned for almost 10 years :P