Firearm Damage

Introduction

VtM has some pretty wierd rules for the use of firearms, with rather dubious damage and difficulty ratings set for some of the firearms in both the original rulebook and the Vampire Players Guide. There are instances where pistols that are known to be powerful have damage ratings set very low, such as the Glock 20, which fires the powerful 10mm Auto ammunition that is comparable to .357 Magnum in stopping power. Also, the difficulties seem to be based on the type of firearm, with White Wolf deciding that it is harder to hit a target with an automatic pistol than it is with a revolver, which is simply untrue (I might be from England, but I have fired a few different firearms in my local gunclub, before our government came over all media-friendly and banned anything bigger than .22 LR, and more recently all handguns altogether!). The system developed below is simple and, in my humble opinion, a much more accurate simulation of firearms use than that in the White Wolf books.

Difficulties

Basically, all weapons have a base difficulty of 6 for Rifles and SMGs, and 7 for Handguns and Machine Pistols. Shotguns have a different difficulty depending on range, but more on that later. Firearms produce recoil, and it is this that makes accurate shooting difficult. While the Desert Eagle .50 hand cannon is basically as easy to use as a Beretta Model 92, the recoil produced by the Desert Eagle’s massive half-inch ammunition is considerably more than that produced by the 9mm Parabellum ammo used in the Beretta. The only force that counteracts recoil is the weight of the weapon, any recoil-reduction methods (such as a muzzle brake, or Magna-Porting), and the arm strength of the person firing the weapon.

The table below gives a basic list of weapons, with examples of most major firearms calibres being represented. Recoil is compared to the character’s strength. If it is higher than their strength, the character looses one dice from their shooting dice pool per point difference. If it is lower, the difficulty is reduced by one for every point of strength, but only up to a maximum bonus of 3 lower than the starting difficulty. At no time can firearm difficulty be reduced to less than 3.

The effects of recoil can be modified as shown below:-

Use of a recoil reduction system (muzzle brake, Magna-Porting, etc)	-1
Firing a Handgun with one-hand	+1
Firing a Rifle or Shotgun with one hand	+2
Firing a weapon on full-auto with one hand	+3

Both of these items will not reduce task difficulties below that of the weapon being fired.

This list is NOT exhaustive, but the recoil and damage are reflective of a number of things. These are the bullet velocity at a fixed distance from the weapon (50 yards for handguns and 100 yards for rifles) and their impact energy, as recorded by Guns & Ammo 1998 Annual, plus the Taylor Knockdown Values calculated from those figures.

Referees can make basic assumptions about weapons: The use of a bipod will reduce recoil by one. The use of a tripod will reduce recoil by two.

Shotguns

Shotguns are a pain in the butt regardless of RPG system, as buckshot isn’t as final as a bullet. For White Wolf, use the following system. Shotguns have three ranges: Short, Medium and Long. While in Short range, the difficulty is 7, and the damage done is 10. At medium range, difficulty is reduced to 6, and damage is reduced to 5. Long range reduces the difficulty to 5, but the damage drops right down to 2. Solid slugs do 10 damage at all ranges, and difficulty is 6 in a rifled shotgun and 7 in a smoothbore shotgun.

Sometimes, a player may wish to give their target both barrels of a double-barrelled shotgun, in which case difficulty is increased by 1, but damage is increased by 4. You cannot, to my knowledge, buy twin-barrelled, rifled shotguns.

Automatic Fire

The autofire rules in the White Wolf system are pretty roppy. My are as follows. A short, three-round burst increases the difficulty of the shot by 1, but damage dice are rolled twice. For a long burst, the difficulty is increased by two, and the damage dice are rolled three times. The opponent looses one soak dice for each hit after the first.

Applying Damage

Damage done depends on the number of successes the character has rolled:-

Successes	Dice	Full
1	Half	—
2	Full	—
3	Half	Half
4	—	Full
5+	+1/success	Full

Revised Firearms Guide

Handguns

Machine Pistols

Submachine Guns

Rifles

Shotguns

This selection of firearms, much like that in the Vampire Players Guide and other White Wolf supplements, is in no way complete. The recoil values in the Rifles section and below take into account the weights of the individual weapons. Adding weight to a firearm can reduce recoil, and the storyteller can give characters bonuses for the use of extra weight on their firearms.

As with any of my supplemental material, comments are always appreciated.