Cool under Fire

[Kurziel]

Has anybody tried using the 'Cool under Fire' optional rule that Rich Redman presented in Notes from the Bunker? Found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/fb/20030624a

I'm considering using it, or a variation of it. Any opinions of it? The DC 15 for the saving throw seems a bit high, especially at the low levels. How badly does it slow down combat?

 

[Tellerve]

One one hand I think it is pretty interesting and would help those games where perhaps people are being a bit too gung-ho about running through a hailstorm of bullets. However, that DC is pretty dang high and if rolled every round it just doesn't to me seem right. When I imagine rules like that used for soldiers in combat they don't appear to me to be able to do much, as a moderate portion of them would be stunned a good many rounds. While I do agree that people in war are sometimes struck with shock, it seems a bit excessive at least in my opinion.

EDIT: I was looking over it again and noticing that if you fail at the 1-5 range your stunned, which unless they changed it from dnd means you drop your held items. Lord people would be dropping guns and stuff left and right. I definetely think this is an intriguing idea but would work horribly in game.

Tellerve

 

[Kurziel]

You're right about stun forcing a character to drop what he's holding. What I'm thinking now is base DC 10-12 instead of 15, and dazed on a roll that fails by 1-5 points instead of stunned.

 

[kipling]

One one hand I think it is pretty interesting and would help those games where perhaps people are being a bit too gung-ho about running through a hailstorm of bullets. However, that DC is pretty dang high and if rolled every round it just doesn't to me seem right. When I imagine rules like that used for soldiers in combat they don't appear to me to be able to do much, as a moderate portion of them would be stunned a good many rounds. While I do agree that people in war are sometimes struck with shock, it seems a bit excessive at least in my opinion.

I was reading On Killing, an interesting look at how many people actually fire weapons, and it is apparently quite low. Modern media be danged, most folks don't kill, they don't like to kill. I'd believe the values you get with a DC 15 roll.

I'll track down the book and provide more info.

 

[Tellerve]

I'm sure that people don't want to kill, your right. However, depending on your campaign there is killing and there is shooting the sludge monster/zombie/horrific demon summoned by some evil corporation. So while a character might not want to kill a guard with a bullet through the head they probably could be easier on themselves to fire some shots off at the walking dead. *shrugs* maybe not...maybe that's just hollywood.

But considering they indicate the military profession in there they want it to include soldiers, and I'm sorry but even if the dc15 was fine that is insane as soldiers would be dropping weapons all over the battlefield. With the +1 to the dc every round?

Kurziel I think is right that switching it to dazed makes a huge improvement in my opinion of it as dazed still means you don't loose your dexterity but your a bit out of it and you don't drop your gun or whatever. That I can much more easily fit into the reality of soldiers in war.

Tellerve

 

[kipling]

I'm sure that people don't want to kill, your right. However, depending on your campaign there is killing and there is shooting the sludge monster/zombie/horrific demon summoned by some evil corporation. So while a character might not want to kill a guard with a bullet through the head they probably could be easier on themselves to fire some shots off at the walking dead. *shrugs* maybe not...maybe that's just hollywood.

That's what the book calls "noble killing" -- killing of something human that is condoned (and of course the book never gets into killing demons, etc. You could argue that there would be a difference between a sludge monster and a zombie; the more human it looks, the higher the DC.)

But considering they indicate the military profession in there they want it to include soldiers, and I'm sorry but even if the dc15 was fine that is insane as soldiers would be dropping weapons all over the battlefield. With the +1 to the dc every round?

Kurziel I think is right that switching it to dazed makes a huge improvement in my opinion of it as dazed still means you don't loose your dexterity but your a bit out of it and you don't drop your gun or whatever. That I can much more easily fit into the reality of soldiers in war.

Tellerve

I agree that they don't drop their weapons, so maybe dazed is better--and of course there are the 2% of people who show no compunction against killing at all.

The book is On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, ISBN 031633000, Back Bay Books.

Fascinating stuff--there's evidence that the majority of soldiers in the US Civil War never fired at all, they just kept reloading to make it look like they had fired; abandoned weapons all over the field had five, eight, nine, ten balls packed and primed in the barrel. The Marshall study, after World War II, asked two questions: Did you see the enemy? and Did you fire? They found that of those who had seen the enemy, only something like a quarter of them fired.

With modern training techniques, that's been raised to a much higher figure, but there are many forces involved (small group loyalty, for example).