RE: [DL] Cover rules & malfunctions

["Mark Chiddicks" <Mark.Chiddicks@descisys.com>]

well, I am talking about targeting.  I just don't like the cover rules, I guess I don't see that shooting at the bit you can see is a called shot while shooting at something smaller than a man is a lesser Size penalty. The chance to hit should be based on the size of the target, whether the target is an entire dwarf or the visible half of a bandito.

Unless of course you are just blasting away - certainly Fanned revolvers, shotguns & dynamite should use the current rules. In my game a PC was shooting at a guy through a window and the rules said he fired 3 shots into the wall underneath the sill. We both agreed this was very silly, since he was shooting at the window. I definitely see this as just shooting at a smaller target, hence a size penalty is appropriate.

On a related subject, Civil War era longarms were historically, habitually fired too high - many misses went over the target's head because the soldiers didn't aim low enough. I think the system should allow for this - rifles & carbines getting a +3 or so to location with 21+ being a shot over the target's head - this penalty is reduced by 1 for each level of aptitude in Shootin' Rifles.

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Zachariasen [mailto:zacharin@pluto.dsu.edu]
Sent: Friday, 26 July 2002 3:44 p.m.
To: deadlands@gamerz.net
Subject: Re: [DL] Cover rules & malfunctions


> mmm - in that acse the size penalties are not big enough.
>
> Aim for his upper body: -2 for called shot,
> He hasn't GOT a lower body (Ken Branagh in Wild Wild West): -1 for size
penalty
>
> Yet the target is the same size in each case.

Don't think of Size so much as an indicator of mass so much as density and
overall resistance to damage. Yes, a guy with no legs is, obviously, not as
large as a guy without, but they're the same physical size in the other
areas. You could say the guy effectively has two Sizes: he's (for the sake
of argument) Size 4 for targeting purposes, but still Size 6 for damage
purposes. The rules mostly make sense, you just have to think about them a
bit.

Nick Zachariasen
Editor Emeritus
Trojan Times



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