For the gun people, a crazy player question ...

[Storyteller01]

Could you imagine sneak attack damage with this thing??

I've read about it happening (again, in fiction). Check out the bokk 'Without Remorse'. The hero actually used this to take down a drug dealer in one surprise move.


As for the campaign...maybe you could compromise. Appeal to his ego. Have him work as a doulbel agent for another company. Gives him some 'special' connections that the others don't have. Makes him feel special. The other company will stress subtle action, so maybe they can take him out and train him in covert actions.

Some known (ie real world) actions include shotgun shells in a muffler, localized bombs tasking out one person in a group of people. With his new role, he may forget about this weapon idea.

Have him work on solo missions to let him vent his need to blow things up immediately. Let's him have his fun, but have his new employers stress the need to keep a low profile when he's with the group.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Rereading this thread, I had a few ideas that could possibly help, wihtout making him feel like crap...

Every team NEEDS the "armed to the teeth Hard Option" suck... I mean, player.

He should be left outside, watching for the "Black Caddy" or the "Black Helicopter" to land.

Think of Jack off of 24 Hours.

It's investigative, but he still ends up kicking people's teeth in.

Sometimes, you NEED a guy who thinks it's a good idea to charge an emplaced weapon head on.

I haven't read your story hour, but I can see having him stay outside, waiting, and having some guys try to jack him, or luring him into an alley.

While the PC's investigate, he's outside, fighting for his life and trying to keep the bad-guys from interrupting or trapping the PC's inside the building.

Example:

In the Year of the Zombie playtest, the PC's had to sneak 6 blocks, carrying cans of diesel fuel on thier backs, past the zombies, and get to the Bradley Fighting Vehicles. This meant stealth. Big time stealth.

One of the PC's was the standard Modern d20 "Combatacon" with firearm skills and everything else, but no stealth.

So, while the other PC's made a break for it, he ran another route, firing his pistols with each hand and doing a "New York Reload" (Dropping the empty pistol and drawing a new one)...

While the other PC's had a round by round run for 6 blocks, he was trying to outfight about 30,000 zombies on his own, while making a run for it.

The stealth and "Use your heady-bone for something other than a hat rack" group got to do something, while the "Combatacons" got to make a running gunfight against zombies, using thier grenades, shotguns, pistols, assault rifles, SMG's, and everything else, including diving into an abandoned position and using a .50 caliber machine gun on the zombies coming down the street.

I guess, what I'm trying to say, is "Seperate sub-plot within the bigger picture for the Combatacon."

 

[Danos402]

Rereading this thread, I had a few ideas that could possibly help, wihtout making him feel like crap...

Every team NEEDS the "armed to the teeth Hard Option" suck... I mean, player.
Sometimes, you NEED a guy who thinks it's a good idea to charge an emplaced weapon head on.
One of the PC's was the standard Modern d20 "Combatacon" with firearm skills and everything else, but no stealth.
So, while the other PC's made a break for it, he ran another route, firing his pistols with each hand and doing a "New York Reload" (Dropping the empty pistol and drawing a new one)...

I guess, what I'm trying to say, is "Seperate sub-plot within the bigger picture for the Combatacon."

Hey that's a good idea for making somewhat expendable cahracters useful.. and you are right they do have their uses .. it's the fact that when you need a distraction you have a perfect one right there waiting for you . There is always a time to use brute force versus stealth... however knowing when to use eitehr is the most important...

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Yea, as I've said, it's partially my fault for designing an entirely investigative game. Granted, I did design most of it before the players brought me their characters and I DID say it was an investigative game. But no matter.

Maybe he'll get his fill with other games run during the semester.

It's reasonably hard to fit everybody's bill all of the time. My wife loves cerebral role playing games ... investigation, clues, etc. If there's too much combat SHE gets bored. Hopefully a broader spectrum of games will appeal to more people.

--fje

 

[Pierce]

In the Year of the Zombie playtest, the PC's had to sneak 6 blocks, carrying cans of diesel fuel on thier backs, past the zombies, and get to the Bradley Fighting Vehicles. This meant stealth. Big time stealth.

One of the PC's was the standard Modern d20 "Combatacon" with firearm skills and everything else, but no stealth.

So, while the other PC's made a break for it, he ran another route, firing his pistols with each hand and doing a "New York Reload" (Dropping the empty pistol and drawing a new one)...

While the other PC's had a round by round run for 6 blocks, he was trying to outfight about 30,000 zombies on his own, while making a run for it.

Sounds like a fun time. So what happened?

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

He got eaten.

 

[Pax]

Logically, design-wise, a triple-blast "bang stick of doom" would need to have all three shells as close to the pole as possible. And it COULD be made re-useable ... even multiple times in a single round.

Bear with me for a moment; I'll go through it all in as much detail as my brain can manage. ^_^ And for now, let's call this the "Bang Stick Plus", or BS+ (the acronym is NOT an unintentional pun, heh).

Visually, picture a good cattle-prod-like pole (in fact, a cattle prod would be the first "component" to use in manufacturing our BS+).

At the "business end", instead of a three-tined "trident"-like arrangement, picture a set of single-shot shotgun barrels, arranged much like three sticks of dynamite taped together around the end of the pole.

From the center of this, a slender metal bar protrudes maybe an inch - this is the trigger-bar; when the end of the BS+ is shoved against something, the trigger-bar is pushed into the central pole, which fires the weapon.

With a little work (and the right craft and knowledge skills), this could be built so that it has an "all-safe", "one at a time", and "kitchen sink" setting - in all-safe, it's like having the safety engaged on any normal firearm. In "one at a time", punching someone once fires off one of the rounds, and sets the next one up to be fired (this way, you could Full Attack in melee with the weapon, and use each of the three shells for a single hit - potentially a very useful option!). And "kitchen sink", of course, is "all or nothing" ... all three shells (or two, if one is a dud, not loaded, or has already been fired) fire at once.

Changing from one mode to another should take a move action, as the controls for same should be out at the "business end" of the BS+, just "behind" the shotgun barrels.

Re-useability comes from being able to re-chamber new shotgun rounds - but here, as a GM, I'd insist on each barrel being breech-loading, or maybe break-action - one shot each, a move action PER BARREL to reload.

Optimally (and munchkin-esque-ly), the cattle prod's ability to deliver shocks would be retained, and arranged to serve as a deterrent to the "just grab the stick" risk that such a weapon would impose. Besides, keeping the heavy batteries in the handle end of our BS+ would help keep the whole balanced.

And balance is DEFINITELY going to be a problem, because even sawed off to barely the length of a 10-guage magnum shell ... with trigger, barrel, and mechanism to reload ... the business end is gonna have a LOt of HEAVY metal bits on it.

I'd call the whole thing an Exotic Weapon (keep in mind, I'm fairlynew to d20 Modern, and possibly am still thinking in irrelevant-to-d20M terms), if it's built with care, tested, redesigned, rebuilt, re-tested, [lather, rinse, repeat ... about ten times total].

Mind you, this should be an EXPENSIVE process, fraught with no small risk of serious, maiming injury if the character (read: player) doesn't take a lot of even MORE-expensive safety precautions.

And make sure there are a LOt of DIFFICULT rolls at high DCs. Set it just out of reach of a Take 10, at the minimum, for each and every roll. For at least some of them, make sure only a 15 or even a 20 will succeed.

Inventing an entiely new firearm - one that WORKS as intended, no less - is not an easy task. However, a "combat bangstick" like this, I can see being built to be mechanically sound.

But I still have absolutely no idea if it could be made into a useful WEAPON, not against thinking, moving opponents.

But ... those fish had better not look cross-eyed at the wielder of the BS+, wouldn't you agree?

 

[cyferwolf]

sounds like he wants some sort of club that fires a shot gun shell upon impact with a body, yes?

thats actually similar to a construction tool i've used here and thre for driving a bolt or nail into conrete. basicvally its hammer that you load a bullet less .22 caliber cartridge into and place the nail or bolt on top of. behind the cartridge is a pin. the impact of hitting the loaded hammer to the body shoves the nail agaisnt the cartridge, which is in turn shoved back agaisnt a firing pin, fring the cartridge and launching the nail into the concrete. they areworkable, and lethal, and I suppose you could do it witha shot gun shell but...

first off they are very clumsy and annyoing to load, and even a fairly light impact can set off the cartridge, so if he fell or had to dive out of the way, he'd best hope he didn't jar the weapon.

sercondly the recoil is considerable, even on the .22 caliber hammer I've used before, can't imagine a what a solid set of 2 or 3 12 gauge shells would be like, but it would be pretty.

thirdly, you have to have a proper liscence in most states to use the .22 caliber hammer version, I cannot imagine any state not tossing someone in jail for a significant weapons violation for caryrying something like what he wants around.