Regarding Revolvers…

[Talon Starblade]

Ok, while doing research on an article I’m considering writing I re-introduced myself to the idea that revolver tech was not only in existence decades prior to the Civil War, but so were carbine and full smooth-bore and rifled long barreled “revolvers.” So, prior to the merging of WP’s Revolver and Pistol into Handguns, would revolver carbines and rifles be considered part of revolvers (as many of them used the exact same designs for the core, just adding a stock and longer barrels), rifles, or actually part of their own WP’s? And this is both on the modern AND their “Black powder” predecessors.

A good example of what I’m talking about is presented in the movie “3:10 to Yuma.” One of the bad guys I have read used a cartridge converted .44 1833 Army revolver with a full length targeting sight.

It might be surprising, but gun makers (both company and individual makers) are making carbines and rifles even today.

[Jefffar]

There are reasons I tend to divide WPs into Handguns and Long Arms instead of Revolver, Pistol and Rifle. This is one of them.

For unmodified Palladium, I use WP Revolver to cover handgun style weapons with Rifle covering longer wWeapons with an attached stock.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Maybe the WP Revolver can be turned into a weapons specialization instead of being a a WP.

[PalladiumBrony]

Maybe the WP Revolver can be turned into a weapons specialization instead of being a a WP.

This. I would have a specific skill in revolvers be a weapon specialization such as those found in The Rifter issue #30... though I notice that those rules only cover melee weapons, bows and crossbows, there's no Firearms Speciality/Firearms Mastery.

[zerombr]

There is a ranged combat table in a rifter for Superior marksmanship

[Jack Burton]

Palladium's weapons proficiencies concerning handguns for the Rifts line have always been wrong. In 1st Edition, W.P. Revolver was fine, but there was no W.P. for semi-auto pistols. There was, however, a "W.P. Automatic Pistol" (page 32) that explained how it covered pistols that kept firing as long as the trigger was pressed... like a machine pistol (Glock 18 comes to mind). It was very strange there was no W.P. to cover semi-auto pistols, which is the vast majority and bread and butter of all non-revolver handguns. Perhaps in the Rifts world ALL magazine-fed handguns are automatic? Likely written by someone who doesn't understand firearms.

Then in Rifts Ultimate Edition, the W.P. Revolver went away as did the W.P. Automatic Pistol. They were combined to make "W.P. Handguns." Interestingly, the fallacy of all pistols being automatic and firing multiple bullets as long as the trigger is depressed is carried over. Nowhere in there does it mention a W.P. for semi-automatic handguns or anything about semi-automatic handguns at all. The good news? At least good news for me... I don't play Rifts (but I own the books for reasons unknown). Sorry all you guys who do have to live with that abomination of a weapons rule. I didn't mean to go into a full-blown history lesson on that, but I had fun researching it and going through my 26 year-old Rifts 1st Ed. book as I typed.

So check this out-My beloved Heroes Unlimited 2nd Ed. has the separate weapon proficiencies "W.P. Revolver" and "W.P. Semi-Automatic Pistol," AND they both accurately describe the firearms they encompass (semi-automatic pistols are described as firing as quickly as the trigger is pulled). Why am I so happy there are two separate W.P.s? Because revolvers and semi-auto pistols are very different. I have extensive training with semi-auto handguns, however I remember an experience I had with a revolver that I'll never forget. When I tried to load, fire, then reload the revolver, I was a hot mess. That's AFTER I had been shooting semi-auto handguns for years. Prior to that, I had shot a revolver once... years before and even then, only a few rounds. This last time, I had to slow down considerably and figure out what the hell I was doing to just plink at a target. It wasn't so much the actual firing of it, but the overall manipulation. Simply loading the thing felt profoundly foreign to me. I had ZERO muscle memory (aka weapons proficiency) to draw upon.

I can quickly load a semi-auto pistol, charge it, accurately fire it, smoothly reload it, and if need be, clear out a malfunction and get back to firing in very little time. I even learned how to strip out a magazine, clear out a malfunction, work the action and reload it using only my non-dominant hand. Translating that into gamespeak, THAT'S what a weapons proficiency allows a character to do in a game.

And I disagree with treating all long guns the same and all handguns the same. Shotguns are long guns, but they function and shoot much differently than a rifle, even if they're both semi-auto. I also have a lot of experience with both pump action shotguns and AR-patterned rifles and they need to be treated for what they are, which are two completely different animals. There are tons of things that are different about them, including their feed systems, how their safeties function, their trigger control groups (although this even differs among shotguns and also among rifles!), how both weapons' points of aim differ from their points of impact, blah, blah, blah... I could go on and on with other boring, but critically important comparisons.

To offer insight on Talon Starblade's question about which W.P. covers revolver carbines, I think that question is a good one. Although that type of firearm is an anomaly, in the end, I believe a person proficient in revolvers would have an easier time shooting it without prior experience with it. Why? Because its feed system and trigger mechanism are based on a revolver design. The stock is a secondary feature meant to help steady it when firing and also enable it to have such a long sight radius (the distance between the rear and front sights). The principals used to aim it are the same as those for a normal revolver.

If you really have your heart set on using that weapon, my advice as a gamer would be to work with the GM and ask what W.P. would be more applicable.

[Jefffar]

On the flip side, which WP would an AR-15 pistol fall under?

There are always corner cases in firearms design and function that any hard and fast categorization will struggle with.

[Jack Burton]

On the flip side, which WP would an AR-15 pistol fall under?

There are always corner cases in firearms design and function that any hard and fast categorization will struggle with.

I would categorize that under W.P. Rifle. That weapon has more in common with the AR-15 operating system than it would any semi-auto handgun on the market. Again, somewhat of an anomoly. Yes, there will always be those. I'd also run that by the GM before picking skills if I wanted my character to use one.

[Killer Cyborg]

On the flip side, which WP would an AR-15 pistol fall under?

There are always corner cases in firearms design and function that any hard and fast categorization will struggle with.

I would categorize that under W.P. Rifle. That weapon has more in common with the AR-15 operating system than it would any semi-auto handgun on the market. Again, somewhat of an anomoly. Yes, there will always be those. I'd also run that by the GM before picking skills if I wanted my character to use one.

Agreed.

I might require BOTH proficiencies for full bonuses, though, because neither proficiency in its own right would prepare you properly.
Then again, I haven't fired an AR-pistol, so I can't say for certain.

[Jack Burton]

On the flip side, which WP would an AR-15 pistol fall under?

There are always corner cases in firearms design and function that any hard and fast categorization will struggle with.

I would categorize that under W.P. Rifle. That weapon has more in common with the AR-15 operating system than it would any semi-auto handgun on the market. Again, somewhat of an anomoly. Yes, there will always be those. I'd also run that by the GM before picking skills if I wanted my character to use one.

Agreed.

I might require BOTH proficiencies for full bonuses, though, because neither proficiency in its own right would prepare you properly.
Then again, I haven't fired an AR-pistol, so I can't say for certain.

They're not the easiest things in the world to use. You're probably right about requiring both weapon proficiencies to take advantage of the bonuses.

[Jefffar]

As another system put it, Weapon Proficiency Exotic

[dreicunan]

I prefer the handgun/rifle split, as it makes non-energy weapons slightly more balanced as far as WPs go. Now, if we had WP laser, WP ion, WP plasma, etc, then I'd feel differently.

[vidarr]

I've never understood why the LA was so much better for revolvers over other modern weapons. The charts in TMNT Revised and Heroes Unlimited Revised always struck me as...written by someone who didn't really understand guns or just had some real favoritism towards one kind or another.

I saw "Automatic Pistol" as being a semi-auto pistol because the correct name is automatic pistol, going way back to the early 1900s if I'm remembering correctly. So, seeing the LA being, what was it? 1/3 or 1/4 rounds hitting? While Revolvers had no penalties? What really makes that hurt is some of the fastest handgun shooting in the world was done with revolvers...just not as many rounds to shoot before running out. Revolvers are mechanical, while semi-auto pistols are limited by how fast the firing pin strikes the primer, the bullet gets kicked out the muzzle and also operates the action of the pistol.

I keep looking for a rate of fire reference for the modern weapons, like there was for archery. Don't see it.

Now, I'm only dusting off my old Palladium after years of playing AD&D 2nd ed, White Wolf OWD, and White Wolf Aberrant, but I wanted to show my kids what I started off with. Where I ran my first games...good old TMNT Revised.

I see some great points in this thread, especially from Jack Burton. Problem with getting that precise is that this system doesn't seem to allow you to add new skills to your character over time, so you can't pick up a new weapon or class of weapon in the future. Unless I'm misreading something...looking at the TMNT Revised. I'll have to dig out my old Rifts books and see how they handled things there.

But let's face it, Palladium has never done well with modern weapons and their proficiencies. Between the damage listed for handgun rounds that do as much damage as high velocity rifle rounds and the clunky proficiency (WP), I wonder if the creator just didn't like guns.

I could be worse, though. Champions Online does more damage for each hand to hand attack than a projectile weapon does per round. And their gunplay is bad even by comic book standards. I don't remember much about the game (paper and dice) it was based on, but it was probably similar.

[Jack Burton]

I see some great points in this thread, especially from Jack Burton. Problem with getting that precise is that this system doesn't seem to allow you to add new skills to your character over time, so you can't pick up a new weapon or class of weapon in the future. Unless I'm misreading something...looking at the TMNT Revised. I'll have to dig out my old Rifts books and see how they handled things there.

Thanks for the compliment. I think you're right about there not being a mechanism in TMNT to learn new skills. That may be by design or perhaps that rule was added to later Palladium books.

If you don't mind borrowing from other Palladium genres, your character CAN learn new skills when advancing levels or if your character dedicates time/money to the endeavor over the course of gameplay (with GM input and approval). For example, on page 48 of of Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition, characters can learn two new secondary skills at levels 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15. That includes all ancient and modern weapons proficiencies except energy weapons. That section also discusses characters going back to school to learn new skills or improve already known skills, although that's more difficult to do. Rifts handles it a little differently (Page 300), though I'm not familiar with Rifts. I was curious, so I just checked the RUE book out myself.

[vidarr]

I see some great points in this thread, especially from Jack Burton. Problem with getting that precise is that this system doesn't seem to allow you to add new skills to your character over time, so you can't pick up a new weapon or class of weapon in the future. Unless I'm misreading something...looking at the TMNT Revised. I'll have to dig out my old Rifts books and see how they handled things there.

Thanks for the compliment. I think you're right about there not being a mechanism in TMNT to learn new skills. That may be by design or perhaps that rule was added to later Palladium books.

If you don't mind borrowing from other Palladium genres, your character CAN learn new skills when advancing levels or if your character dedicates time/money to the endeavor over the course of gameplay (with GM input and approval). For example, on page 48 of of Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition, characters can learn two new secondary skills at levels 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15. That includes all ancient and modern weapons proficiencies except energy weapons. That section also discusses characters going back to school to learn new skills or improve already known skills, although that's more difficult to do. Rifts handles it a little differently (Page 300), though I'm not familiar with Rifts. I was curious, so I just checked the RUE book out myself.

Thank you. I have Rifts books and Heroes Unlimited Revised. The packages they do are different, but not better...not really worse. But, it's somewhere to start for sure, with the guidelines on secondary skills and collegiate stuff. And Rifts is different from all of them, but at least Hand to Hand Martial Arts doesn't always cost more slots than Hand to Hand Basic...just depends on the "package" you choose, like Borg versus the other classes. Drawing a blank at the moment and don't feel like looking it up.

Now, I'll have to figure out what I want to set for RoF for modern weapons. Let's face it, an AR-15 or M16 has a phenomenal rate of fire, semi-auto or burst or full auto (the latter two being M16 only, obviously). A bolt action rifle does not. But can still be impressive for what it is. A lever action rifle is faster than a bolt action, but slower than an AR-15. And the AR-15, bolt action, and lever action cannot truly "spray" -- but I think they meant more of a rapid, hollywood style fire.

I'd say a Colt Python can fire faster, if fewer rounds, than a Colt 1911.

But, the rules are definitely all over the place for modern and futuristic weapons.

I'm thinking for RoF, to bring a little touch of real world, a semi-auto shotgun would be RoF 4, while a pump action shotgun would be RoF 2. But, that would be the weapon's capability, not the shooter's. Likewise, RoF 3 for a 1911. RoF 4 for a Glock 22, maybe 3. That could be argued for years. AR-15 would get a RoF like 5 or 6, while a Winchester 30-30 lever action would get something like a RoF 3 and a Lee-Enfield bolt action rifle from WWI or early WWII would get RoF 2.

Perhaps even that is too simplistic, but seems reasonable for game play.

Once again, thanks for the feedback on the skills.

[Zer0 Kay]

I see some great points in this thread, especially from Jack Burton. Problem with getting that precise is that this system doesn't seem to allow you to add new skills to your character over time, so you can't pick up a new weapon or class of weapon in the future. Unless I'm misreading something...looking at the TMNT Revised. I'll have to dig out my old Rifts books and see how they handled things there.

Thanks for the compliment. I think you're right about there not being a mechanism in TMNT to learn new skills. That may be by design or perhaps that rule was added to later Palladium books.

If you don't mind borrowing from other Palladium genres, your character CAN learn new skills when advancing levels or if your character dedicates time/money to the endeavor over the course of gameplay (with GM input and approval). For example, on page 48 of of Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition, characters can learn two new secondary skills at levels 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15. That includes all ancient and modern weapons proficiencies except energy weapons. That section also discusses characters going back to school to learn new skills or improve already known skills, although that's more difficult to do. Rifts handles it a little differently (Page 300), though I'm not familiar with Rifts. I was curious, so I just checked the RUE book out myself.

Pfft. The guy has no idea what he is talking about this Jack Burton character has never touched a gun heck he regularly calls a magazine a clip and thinks the A-R in AR-15 means Assault Rifle. JUST KIDDING, KS needs to publish Jacks book so we can get some of the gun stuff cleared up. Too bad it is only modern weapons need someone with actual melee weapon experience to do an Ancient Weapons Compendium and someone who knows the difference between Lorentz and Gauss to write a Sci-fi Weapons Compendium too.

[vidarr]

Thanks for the compliment. I think you're right about there not being a mechanism in TMNT to learn new skills. That may be by design or perhaps that rule was added to later Palladium books.

If you don't mind borrowing from other Palladium genres, your character CAN learn new skills when advancing levels or if your character dedicates time/money to the endeavor over the course of gameplay (with GM input and approval). For example, on page 48 of of Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition, characters can learn two new secondary skills at levels 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15. That includes all ancient and modern weapons proficiencies except energy weapons. That section also discusses characters going back to school to learn new skills or improve already known skills, although that's more difficult to do. Rifts handles it a little differently (Page 300), though I'm not familiar with Rifts. I was curious, so I just checked the RUE book out myself.

Pfft. The guy has no idea what he is talking about this Jack Burton character has never touched a gun heck he regularly calls a magazine a clip and thinks the A-R in AR-15 means Assault Rifle. JUST KIDDING, KS needs to publish Jacks book so we can get some of the gun stuff cleared up. Too bad it is only modern weapons need someone with actual melee weapon experience to do an Ancient Weapons Compendium and someone who knows the difference between Lorentz and Gauss to write a Sci-fi Weapons Compendium too.

LMAO. Nice.

Sure, if I wanted to pick apart melee, I can do so in most any system...heavy rapier is a good one, where your attack and defense are not separate movements, but one in the same.

And on the sci-fi front, things definitely got frozen in time in some ways. LOL.

But yeah, it'd be nice to be able to help the system out by working with KS. I don't know the man. I can only imagine he's trying to hold Palladium together and not end up on the scrap pile like TSR, with someone else rewriting his vision.

[Zer0 Kay]

I'd use Rifle for the revolver carbine and Pistol for the AR-15 Pistol for bonuses but you would need to have W.P. Revolver and W.P. Rifle/Assault Rifle/Semi-Automatic Rifle/Whatever the game uses for Semi-Automatic Rifles in order to maintain, load and clear the weapons. If they have the first but not the second they can fire it well but reloading and clearing the weapons should be difficult and clearing a fault should be dangerous. If they have the second but not the first then they can clear and maintain but wouldn't receive bonuses... being familiar with shooting though they also shouldn't receive no W.P. penalties.