Suppressive Fire and HERO System

Yesterday's post on Suppressive Fire drew some good comments. I didn't respond because much of my response is continue in this article.

Within the HERO core rules (5th edition) there are three methods of handling suppressive fire. Let's example each and see if they achieve what we desire (and if they do, what is the downside of using them).

Method 1: "My character aborts to a Dodge"

Like many systems, HERO has rules for dodges and blocks, basically you exchange your attack action for an decreased chance of being hit or for an attempt to actively roll to 'block' an attack. Dive for Cover is another such action often used to leap out of way of an attack.

Given that one is exchanging offensive action (and at least some movement) for these options (with their defensive benefits), one can say that they represent the player declaring his character 'suppressed'.

There are a few problems with depending upon this approach however.

First players typically only opt for these when the threat is serious (i.e. excellent chance of being hit and seriously damaged by the hit). Suppressive fire often doesn't have a serious change of hitting- it's more of psychological affect that damages someone as a side effect. Second, it doesn't reflect the genre and real world convention of firing in the general direction of a foe in order to 'keep their heads down' as opposed to trying to hit them directly.

So this rule by itself doesn't really do what we want although it certainly covers part of the concept.


Method 2: The Suppressive Fire Maneuver.

Hero System includes a combat maneuver called Suppressive Fire, so we have to consider it. When reading it however we find that it doesn't really do what we want.

The actual effect is sort of an area denial action. You hose down an area spending lots of ammo and anyone entering it is automatically attacked (at slightly less than normal hit chances).

That's sort of cool. But very limited. For example against a single target it's no different than holding an action and then firing at him (at a reduced chance unlike holding an action). It doesn't make him take cover or do anything other than let you shoot at him (once per your  phase). It really only becomes interesting when you're trying to deny an area to multiple people.

The requirement for auto-fire is also a bit of a drawback. Movies have characters with revolvers providing covering fire and this doesn't help any in modeling that.

So once again, we have a bit of what we want, but not all of it.



Method 3: Presence Attack

HERO has a attack method call Presence Attacks. These are basically an attempt to so impress someone that they lose actions and/or just give up (or give you information, open the door, etc.). Bonus dices are gained from violent action, so this sounds almost exactly like what we are looking for.

The base rule is that you roll a number of dice based upon your PRE and modify that number as the result of various conditions. So from memory, a PRE of 15 (a good solid value for 'street level' campaigns) gives 3 dice, -1 dice for in combat already, +2 for very violent action (shoot a firearm at someone isn't the most violent thing possible, but it's violent), +1 for display a 'power' (i.e. the firearm).

So 5d6, on average 17.5 points. Which isn't enough to make the typical man in the street lose even a half-phase action. It does let the attacker go first but that has very little practical impact. Worse, each additional attack Presence Attack of the same type suffers a -1 dice modifier and will quickly not even case that much effect.

Sigh.

A good roll (say all 4s or better) does work- it will make the target lose a half phase and in my campaigns that's their 1/2 phase combat action by default. But that's an above average roll, and would work only at the beginning of the battle.

Plus there are some odd effects here, Presence Attacks don't have to be related to the target, but can impress everyone. So by shooting in Joe's direction and rolling good- I can suppress Pete who was sneaking up behind me...

So Presence Attacks don't do exactly what we want either. So out of the box, HERO can't do want we want.


Next, we turn to house rules....