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horror-game-fanatic · 4 years

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Weaponry (Survival Horror Manual)

It’s been a minute, I know!

So I have finally cracked how weapons work. This is still being refined, mind you, but its solid enough to put on paper.

So last we talked, I touched on the fact that instead of specific weapons, there will be categories of weapon types and the DM will have to come up with the specifics if they want the players to know they have anything other than a pistol or shotgun or melee weapon, etc. Now I have devised how each weapon category works.

So what we have is three attributes that goes with all the weapon categories. Save for special weapons, (which will be covered later), we have the basic groups:

Pistols

Shotguns

Rifles

Heavy

Special

Melee

Obviously this is just a basic list to get the game off the ground. They will be expanded upon and fleshed out as test playing commences. For the explanation of this system I wills tick with pistols for now. Before I begin, I want you to know that I am not taking a 5e tradition approach to damage, but rather a more buffed 3.5e approach. I want every weapon to feel substantial. A human being should not be able to take like six shots and keep going, or four dozen beatings to the head with a melee weapon and shrug it off like they’re Broly, okay? So as we explain the creature categories in later posts, take into consideration that they are enemies, not like us common folk. Look at the revamped Resident Evil 2; on normal difficulties a normal zombie can take two or three headshots before its put down. That's because it does not feel pain like a human, as well as the fact that the brain processes WAY differently than their living counterparts. A human on the other hand, can take one shot (MAYBE two, depending on where it was shot and what shot it), but lets be realistic here. That’s what we are going for after all. The odds are stacked against the players, at all time, or else its not survival horror, its not even survival. So something as simple as a pistol should definitely do more than a typical humans HP should ever be able to surpass. That way every fight, every encounter, every run in with even another NPC, could be life or death. The tension should always be constant and the stress should always be high.

And we all know what stress does in this system.

Alright, so lets go over my attributes. Each weapon will have three qualities:

Damage

Speed

Quality

Damage is how much dice you roll if your attack connects. A pistols damage is 4d6, which can be a max of 24 if you roll all 6′s. Rare, but it can happen. Speed is how fast your weapon fires during each Reaction. Since we have replaced rounds with Reactions, battle is a lot more fluid and can constantly change. Speed is increased by an increment of 4. The speed of a pistol is 10, so that means you can get two shots off per Reaction. If you went of standard D&D rules, a round takes six seconds. I am not trained in gun weaponry at all and even I know I can get more shots off in less than six seconds. Why we changed this old rule was for this reason. While you may have built of tension for your players through your atmosphere and general difficulty, everything would always slow down to the same old crawl of hitting once and then waiting and then attacking again and then waiting and then attacking again...

With a speed rating, combined with the Reaction control, you could potentially end a fight in your first go around, granted your Reaction is good and your attacks don’t miss. Think of playing The Last of Us. You really want to run through a warehouse filled with enemies and not be able to chain attacks? Six enemies up in this place and you have to enter and roll initiative for each one and then take damage from each one and piss off the rest and not come up with strategies an-- you get the idea. Try it before you knock it.

Quality is random. Unless otherwise stated by the DM, every weapon a player comes across should come with a roll of a dice. There are three tiers; low, common, and high. Since we have included the system that weapons can be upgradable, this idea really shines through. Every time a weapon is found or picked up, a dice should be rolled secretly. You, as a DM, will decide if the weapon fits into one of these three tiers.

Low - The weapon has a high misfire chance and only has one upgrade slot available.

Common - The misfire chance is lower but still there and it has two or three ways to upgrade.

High - While the misfire chance is really low, it is still present but it also has the highest possibilities for upgrades. Typically no more than four.

Going off the upgrade section just real quick, upgrades can come in several varieties such as speed reloaders, increased magazines, damage outputs, scopes, etc.

Once an upgrade is attached to a weapon, it can’t be taken off without a certain perk. One of he basic perks will allow players the ability to attach upgrades successfully, but a later perk will be needed to remove them. This will also potentially punish the player if they want to be more risky with their decisions and don’t take the perk and instead leave their fate to the dice. The speed and damage would be set, but depending on the place in the story and DM’s discretion, I’d say that some weapons would already have upgrades on them.

A weapons quality wouldn’t be a known fact at first glance either, unless you have a specific perk, until you actually use the weapon. It might be dirty, it might be busted, or jammed, or in a major need of servicing. If you are going through a forest and stumble across a weapon, unless you are trained to use said weapon, you cannot honestly believe you can just pick it up and use it. Melee weapons may be more obvious in their telling of it they are good or not, but a pistol, though caked in mud, may actually be in rather good condition. Or one found in a drawer next to a box of bullets, while scavenging supplies, may have not been used in so long that it needs oiling. Upgrades on a weapon can be seen on sight.

Speed would only increase in increments of 2. A pistol starts with a 10, but you find an upgrade that raises the firing speed, so now it fires at a 12. That means you can now get 3 shots off per reaction! That’s a lot of shots. With each shot doing 4d6 damage, you have the possibility of 72 damage in one Reaction. Think of the possibilities. Now that may not be much for a low tier weapon, that could increase exponentially for common or high tier qualities. Like I said, a weapon should be dangerous and a player needs to feel the weight of that responsibility. Risk the spent bullets, noise, and misfires but pump out some damage, or conserve your shots and focus on surviving.

Shotguns would a little differently; obviously they aren’t fast, but with enough upgrades they can be. Rifles are powerful and fast, but have a high chance of misfiring.

Let’s touch on Misfire real quick, actually. This is a mechanic that effects all weapon types, despite it sounding like it only effects ranged weapons. Think of it like the Wild Magic Table for a Sorcerer in 5e. Every time you roll to attack, you will see if you hit. If successful, you will roll your damage. Based on the weapon type (lets keep going with pistols), you will roll your damage (4d6) AND THEN roll your weapons base die (1d6). This is called your Misfire Chance. A misfire chance can be anything from your weapon jams, to the handle breaks, to the gun ricochets and hits you, to the weapon fails you in some way. In fact, it is optional, but the DM can use a table (created in a later post) that details just exactly what your weapon does. This brings a sense of stress to each encounter. You will roll the base die after your roll your damage. Each quality tier will have a different misfire chance;

Low: Evens or Odds

Common: Call the number and if you land on it then you fail.

High: Roll a one (1) on the base die.

As you can see, the chance for a mess up is always there. The chances are slimmer the better quality your weapon, but the presence of failure always looms. The Misfire Chance will have to be tweaked, of course, for different types of weapons but as I make the chart, I will add those effects. I like the idea that even a well seasoned soldier can have a mistake and I also like how we have gotten away from the D20 being a deciding factor in all of this.

There has been a lot of information thrown out so let’s recap: There are categories for weapons. Each category of weapon has three attributes; damage, speed, and quality. Depending on the quality, a weapon has a chance to misfire or fail. Upgrades can be attached to weapons to not only decrease this oversight, but also to increase weapon damage and speed as well as do a variety of effects. Qualities should be randomized by a roll unless otherwise stated by a DM. Players will need certain perks to properly handle certain weapons as well attached and dismantle upgrades.

Weapons have real power and must be used responsibly. A shot or swipe of a weapon can easily take down another player or NPC and in most cases, an enemy. Ammo or resources should always be scarce and the tension and stress should always be high. Remember DM’s, this system is made to put the odds in the favor of the enemies, not the players. Your players did not come to play Resident Evil or even Left 4 Dead, to feel like the king of the world. They came to play a game that’s thought outside of the box. A game that will challenge them and maybe even frustrate them. A game that will force them to survive.

We are almost ready people. The horror is coming.

#survivalhorror #d&d

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