Here’s another house rule for Call of Cthulhu. I’m not a fan of the automatic fire rules in Call of Cthulhu because they feel too crunchy. I did have a look at the rules in Delta Green, but they felt too simple, and inapplicable to Pulp Cthulhu.
My aim was a single dice roll, no matter how many bullets are being fired. I wanted to keep ammo tracking simple, and to maintain some degree of realism.
Automatic Fire
Some firearms can fire a ‘burst’ or ‘full auto’ (Keeper rulebook, p.114ff & p.404ff). A firearm that can fire full auto can also fire a burst. A burst is 5 rounds. Full auto is 10 rounds.
Make a firearms roll as normal, adding one bonus die for a burst, or two bonus dice for full auto. These bonus dice behave differently to normal bonus dice. Multiple results are scored for each combination of ‘tens and ones dice’.
Example: You fire a gun on full auto. You roll 3 tens dice and a single ones dice. You roll 20, 50, 80 and a 7. You have scored 27, 57 and 87.
- For each success, one bullet hits. 1 or 2 bullets might hit with a burst. 1, 2 or 3 bullets might hit with full auto.
- For each failure, additional ammo is consumed: +5 rounds for a burst, or +10 rounds for full auto. 5, 10 or 15 rounds might be used with a burst. 10, 20, 30 or 40 rounds might be used with full auto.
- If a dice result indicates an Extreme or Critical success, that bullet impales as normal (Keeper rulebook, p.103).
- Damage is rolled per bullet. Armour is applied per bullet.
- A malfunction can occur on any dice result, more likely with a burst, and more so with full auto. If a malfunction occurs, it does so before any bullets hit, except for a Critical success which impales as normal (Keeper rulebook, p.103) and might ignore armour, depending on how you interpret the rules!
Longer ranges: apply penalty dice as usual when firing a burst or full auto at longer ranges (Keeper rulebook, p.112). One penalty die negates one bonus die, so a burst at long range results in a normal dice roll with a single tens die and a single ones die (as does full auto at very long range).
Bracing a firearm when firing a burst or full auto increases range or provides a bonus die as normal (Keeper rulebook, p.127). Mechanically-braced machineguns firing on full auto are deadly!
Minimum ammo: a mag must contain 5+ rounds to fire a burst, or 10+ rounds to fire full auto. Otherwise, the shooter empties their mag, and looses a bonus dice (no bonus dice for a ‘short’ burst’, only 1 bonus die for ‘short’ full auto).
Ignore failures that indicate ammo consumption beyond the amount remaining in the mag. The shooter is pumping the trigger on an empty mag!
Telescopic sights provide no benefit when firing burst or full auto.
Suppressive fire: a burst or full auto can be spread amongst multiple targets, one per tens dice. Use different coloured tens dice, nominating a colour per target before rolling, or determine randomly. Penalty dice reduce the number of targets that can be hit.
Play-testing
I briefly play-tested these rules with a player and a fellow Keeper. The rules were quick to explain and easier to remember than the published rules. The firefights were deadly and fast. A jammed Tommy gun resulted in the death of one character.
I hope you enjoy these rules. If you decide to give them a whirl, let me know in the comments below!
Craig Pay 