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Confused about the shoot table

A topic by gestaltist created 8 days ago Views: 33 Replies: 3

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gestaltist8 days ago (1 edit)

This has been discussed in a few places but I haven’t received a satisfactory explanation. Hopefully someone can chime in.

I ran the numbers comparing the odds of specific damage with a regular d8 gun and with a d8 artifact gun using the shoot tables. Mean damage output for a regular gun is 4.5. Mean damage output for an artifact gun is 3.2 (the “increased” chance of max damage actually gives it the same chance to do 8 damage as the regular gun, and the chance to score 5-7 damage is actually lower because of the “graze” option.)

Even with the benefit of bypassing armor, you can see that an artifact gun only becomes better than a regular gun for enemies with DEF 2 or more, and such enemies are relatively rare.

It’s a bit better for harriers who have a d6 regular gun in the bestiary. The text says “Though disgraced, a deadly killer with a Gunslinger’s instinct (rolls on the Shoot Table).” Mean damage for a d6 regular gun = 3.5. Mean damage rolling on the shoot table = 2.7. So at least they come out better against enemies with DEF 1 or more. But they are still less effective than regular people against unarmored enemies.

What is the thinking here? How have others solved this issue? (My instinct is to force rolls on shooting table for all guns, not just artifact guns.)

gestaltist5 days ago(+1)

For the record, I ran a oneshot of WDiL yesterday, and we all had a blast. I solved my issues from the OP by simply not giving NPCs guns. It made the PCs feel more special, and the system is pretty lethal as it is.

I’d still love to hear the logic behind the shoot table, though.

By Odin's Beard RPGDeveloper3 days ago

I built the Shoot table as it is for a number of different mechanical reasons:

Guns are rare in the Drifted World and gunslingers are even rarer.
Making gunslingers feel different and special compared to other Into the Odd classes.
Building the core combat mechanic around gunslingers and artefact guns.
Building in compatibility with other Into the Odd games that already have guns and firearms.

All this is also under the assumption that players would prefer to play as gunslingers with artefact guns for flavour and narrative reasons rather than optimising damage output and min-maxing.

Ultimately, there’s no right or wrong way to play and every table’s different. There’s no one design or solution that works for 100% of players, so folks should make the choice that suits their table the best.

Hope this helps clarify things.

gestaltist3 days ago

Thanks for the explanation. So the reason is flavor more than anything. Makes sense. Yeah, it does put gunslinging front and center for sure.

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We Deal in Lead

Confused about the shoot table