One of the complaints I am actually looking forward to fielding involves the usage of ammunition. Last session, my rogue activated a close burst ranged ability involving thrown daggers but hadn’t accounted for the number of daggers required to fulfill the power. He was trying to make the argument that ammunition usage is not covered in the rules. You use the power and disregard the specifics. He was joking. I wasn’t laughing.
The idea of one bullet per attack roll seems pretty basic—following the same logic of one arrow per attack roll for the ranger or rogue. But where the ranger only fires one arrow at a time (mostly at least), a stalker or a grounder have the capacity of firing multiple weapons multiple times. I asked both my group and my playtesters if our ammunition usage was too strict. The unanimous response was “no”. You can increase damage with Akimbo, a feat which uses the same ammunition in your secondary hand as your primary hand. You can do likewise with the Burst Fire feat, which increases rate of fire to 5 shots per attack roll with autofire weapons instead of 1. If you are wielding machine pistols, these values stack. However, as clearly seen, you just went from using 1 shot per attack roll to 10 shots per attack roll. Despite what you might think, I discovered to my amazement, that players were willingly using this additional ammunition for a very mild increase in damage.
Then comes Passing Kill. Passing Kill is a Minor action power which causes 1 point of damage. Add in Akimbo and Rapid Fire, and it increases to an impressive 3 points of damage. So…10 shots = 3 points of damage for a minor action power. Take into account your standard attack power and you can see where ammunition usage can go out of control. Players may bit--…complain that ammunition usage is too high, that it’s not worth the extra ammo. Well here is the response: You don’t have to do it. If you are down to your last few clips, don’t use the extra ammo. Conserve. From playing first-person-shooters, the idea of conservation may seem foreign, especially in an environment where players can just pick up randomly fallen clips as they venture through a hostile landscape. In the real world, this doesn’t occur, especially in the fantasy landscape of Amethyst, where you have only what you take with you.
So three weeks ago, I started my THIRD Amethyst campaign, dubbed “Cradle” (long story). We’ve been running these games since 2002. My co-writer and friend, Conan, selected a two-pistol Stalker build and was impressed in himself with his 270 rounds of ammunition (9 clips worth for his dual machine pistols) he acquired at 1st level. With both Akimbo and Burst Fire, he had the capacity to rain some impressive damage upon his foes. He was also confident his supply would carry for the duration of the dungeon module I was starting them on.
He employed Passing Kill and Boundary Threshold on a regular basis and after the VERY FIRST battle against a group of Boggs, Conan was slack-jawed at his ammunition usage. He had used 40 rounds in the first battle. 14% of his entire supply gone on the opening encounter. With no capacity to reload until they get back to a town, Conan realized that Passing Kill’s balance is the severe ammunition usage for the promise of a mild increase in the damage he inflicts in a turn. Ammo is quite cheap but not free. He also has a limit on how much he can carry.
We are now into our third session in this dungeon and the module is just hitting the half way point. Conan will be surely out of bullets by the end current battle. Player pressure has prevented him from avoiding the use of Passing Kill. When I informed him a certain enemy had only 3 hit points left, instead of letting one of the other three players (all of whom went before the monster) make the killing blow/shot, Conan activated Passing Kill, fired 10 shots of ammunition, did 3 points of damage, and claimed the kill as his own…because he’s a player…and he’s stupid. This didn’t occur once. It happened numerous times throughout the day.
Point is ammunition is part of the balance of Amethyst and our modern rules as a whole. Yes, we have massive powers which can lay huge effects across many enemies. But to do so requires significant ammunition to accomplish. When I considered that ammunition usage may be a bit steep, I looked at the number of bullets spent in an average conflict in our real world…and I realized we were still somewhat frugal.
