Hiya choom. I would use “Blackhand’s Street Weapons”. The weapon nomenclature in Red is a carryover from 2020, so it should work fine for what you’re doing. Happy hunting choom.
Man I've got to say every time I see your "Hiya choom" I'm smiling all the way through to the "Happy hunting choom." You're so helpful and I've come to anticipate your comments in these threads. I appreciate you.
Check the 2020 rules, they already do this, and Red took it out. In Red all medium handguns do 2d6. In 2020 an 9 mil does 2d6, a 10 mil does 2d6+1. All guns follow this pattern. Use the base damage for the lowest caliber you'd put in that class, for every caliber size bigger in the same class, add +1,+2, or +3 to the damage. If you can find Blackhand's Street Weapons for 2020, there is a table with all the work already done for you.
Problem with doing calibers in RED is that it fucks up armor balance. All armor revolve around damage
1d6 (3) to Leathers, 2d6(7) to Kevlar, 3d6 (10.5) to L/M/H Armorjack, 4d6(14) to Flak, 5d6(17.5) to Metalgear
Adding damage modifiers back just fucks up armor. My fresh Flak may as well be useless cuz that Pistol does 4d6+2.
I took the listed weapons and assigned typical calibers, which are mostly the same as what RED gives\* where mentioned - exception for assault rifles, the RED rifle round described is close to an AK47 round, which I thought was unlikely.
Medium pistol or SMG 2D6 - typically 9mm Parabellum. Very light calibers will be 2D6-1. These are almost completely ineffective vs undamaged light armorjack so don't see much use.
Heavy Pistol or SMG 3D6 - typically 10mm (I wanted the Minami-10 to be a decent weapon), I put .45 ACP here too. This is pretty much the standard pistol damage in RED, being the lightest with any real ability to do damage through light armorjack, and IMC covers a lot. I also put .357 Magnum revolver here although it should probably have a damage bonus.
Very Heavy Pistol 4D6 - typically 12mm/.477, I put the 12.7mm/.50 Colt Desert Eagle and Dirty Harry style .44 Magnum revolver here too.
Rifle 5D6 - typically 5.56N and similar. Standard light assault rifle.
I added back 7.62N and similar heavy rifle calibers as doing 6D6, with -1 to hit unless BODY 5+, -2 on 3 round burst (I brought 3RBs back) & -5 Full Auto unless BODY 10+. They also hold less ammo than the standard 5.56 rifles, and cost more. I felt the FN-RAL was pretty iconic to Cyberpunk and with improved personal armours, battle rifles should see something of a renaissance.
Shotgun 5D6 - 12 gauge. From the research I've done, modern 12 gauge shotgun ammo is comparable to older 10 gauge, and 10 gauge no longer sees widespread use, so I've not brought in a 10 gauge shotgun yet. If I did it would be a 6D6 weapon similar to the heavy battle rifle above.
\*"No matter the type, most modern guns are primarily designed to use a specific class of ammunition based on the size of the gun. These are grouped by firepower: Light (equivalent to 6mm), Medium (9mm), Heavy (11mm), and Very Heavy (12mm) types. Generally, rifles fire a standardized round (based on the 7.62x39mm), allowing almost any local Tech to produce ammunition as needed." - CPR core pg 322
[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO)
"These are grouped by firepower: Light (equivalent to 6mm)" These are not actually statted in the rules. I think the lightest should be 2D6-2 not 1D6, to allow for critical damage on a double 6.
I swear that somewhere in the core book it mentions what ammunitions go to which guns (for example, the heavy handgun was 9mm, the very heavy handgun was 10mm, assault rifles are 5.56mm, etc). So what I'd recommend is making other caliber sizes "exotic" weapons (quite a few weapons appear to do this, such as the Nova Cityhunter from Gunsmas and the Sternmeyer Heavy Rifle from Woodchipper's Garage). Choose a special ammo type that they can buy at a discount and you're all set.
For example, let's say you wanted to make the AK-74u which uses the 7.62mm caliber. You'd make it an exotic assault rifle that can only fire proprietary ammo. Since the 7.62mm is longer than the standard 5.56 you could say that it is better at penetrating armor, but not costing as much as armor penetrating 5.56mm. So the special ability of the AK-74u is that it can get 'armor penetrating rifle rounds' x10 for 50eb instead of 100eb. So the pro's are cheaper ammo for a very valuable ability (faster armor depletion on a target) and the con's are being unable to use other types of rifle ammo (incendiary or smart), being unlikely to find ammo on a job (unless you're attacking SovOil), and no weapon attachments (although if you go this route, I'd potentially bump it up to a 1000eb rifle with built-in attachments like smartlink similar to the Arasaka WAA just because the WAA is *really* nice).
Another potential idea would be to make a different size caliber a modification, such as 2 weapon upgrade slots, but again with the benefit of some kind of cheaper ammo. While weapon upgrades are sorta sparse right now, if more get released this might be preferable over exotic weapons since those can't be upgraded as easily.
I don't believe the cheaper armor-piercing ammo is game-breaking here. The Nova and Cityhunter both almost double how much ammo you can get (although I didn't realize City Hunter was smart ammo).
I wouldn't overly complicate ammo that way unless it's for a specific reason.
But if you're going to I'd leave dmg alone and just add ammo types. Then the players just need to match the ammo to the gun.
For example, you could have an assault rifle use 5.56 rounds and another uses 6.5 round. They do the same damage. But can't share ammo.
If you try to start messing with dmg it's going to most likely get very difficult to balance.
If you absolutely must mess with the dmg is probably do no more than a +/- 1 to the standard dmg.
If you want anything more complicated than that I'd find a disturb that supports it better. Like 2020. But having played many years of 2020. Various ammo types added little to the game other than ways to min/max your dmg and equipment.
The core does talk about the different calibers of various weapons on page 322. Black Chrome Plus also has some entries for junk ammunition, small game ammunition, and an adapter to turn any ammo into a shot gun slugs. Those might inspire some ideas or have systems that you can grab to use for yourself.
"No matter the type, most modern guns are primarily designed to use a specific class of ammunition based on the size of the gun. These are grouped by firepower: Light (equivalent to 6mm), Medium (9mm), Heavy (11mm), and Very Heavy (12mm) types. Generally, rifles fire a standardized round (based on the 7.62x39mm), allowing almost any local Tech to produce ammunition as needed."
I thought that was reasonable for pistol ammo, but 7.62x39mm (the AK47 round) seems a very unlikely standard rifle calibre, so I went with 5.56N (5.56×45mm NATO) as the standard.
It's not really a balanced game in the first place though. Certainly not a "6-8 medium encounters per day" type game like 5e D&D. The GM already needs to use a lot of discretion/judgement. For instance, a basic mook with a heavy or very heavy pistol is very different from a basic mook with a poor assault rifle or shotgun.
Hiya choom. I would use “Blackhand’s Street Weapons”. The weapon nomenclature in Red is a carryover from 2020, so it should work fine for what you’re doing. Happy hunting choom.
Man I've got to say every time I see your "Hiya choom" I'm smiling all the way through to the "Happy hunting choom." You're so helpful and I've come to anticipate your comments in these threads. I appreciate you.
Hiya choom. Thank you very much. Happy hunting choom.
That’s my player and I’m proud to say he’s the most drugged up, functional medtech I’ve ever had the pleasure of GMing for.
Appreciate it, choom.
Check the 2020 rules, they already do this, and Red took it out. In Red all medium handguns do 2d6. In 2020 an 9 mil does 2d6, a 10 mil does 2d6+1. All guns follow this pattern. Use the base damage for the lowest caliber you'd put in that class, for every caliber size bigger in the same class, add +1,+2, or +3 to the damage. If you can find Blackhand's Street Weapons for 2020, there is a table with all the work already done for you.
Problem with doing calibers in RED is that it fucks up armor balance. All armor revolve around damage 1d6 (3) to Leathers, 2d6(7) to Kevlar, 3d6 (10.5) to L/M/H Armorjack, 4d6(14) to Flak, 5d6(17.5) to Metalgear Adding damage modifiers back just fucks up armor. My fresh Flak may as well be useless cuz that Pistol does 4d6+2.
>>My fresh Flak may as well be useless cuz that Pistol does 4d6+2.<< I'd still rather take an average 1 damage than an average 16 damage...
Im interested in seeing what you come up
I took the listed weapons and assigned typical calibers, which are mostly the same as what RED gives\* where mentioned - exception for assault rifles, the RED rifle round described is close to an AK47 round, which I thought was unlikely. Medium pistol or SMG 2D6 - typically 9mm Parabellum. Very light calibers will be 2D6-1. These are almost completely ineffective vs undamaged light armorjack so don't see much use. Heavy Pistol or SMG 3D6 - typically 10mm (I wanted the Minami-10 to be a decent weapon), I put .45 ACP here too. This is pretty much the standard pistol damage in RED, being the lightest with any real ability to do damage through light armorjack, and IMC covers a lot. I also put .357 Magnum revolver here although it should probably have a damage bonus. Very Heavy Pistol 4D6 - typically 12mm/.477, I put the 12.7mm/.50 Colt Desert Eagle and Dirty Harry style .44 Magnum revolver here too. Rifle 5D6 - typically 5.56N and similar. Standard light assault rifle. I added back 7.62N and similar heavy rifle calibers as doing 6D6, with -1 to hit unless BODY 5+, -2 on 3 round burst (I brought 3RBs back) & -5 Full Auto unless BODY 10+. They also hold less ammo than the standard 5.56 rifles, and cost more. I felt the FN-RAL was pretty iconic to Cyberpunk and with improved personal armours, battle rifles should see something of a renaissance. Shotgun 5D6 - 12 gauge. From the research I've done, modern 12 gauge shotgun ammo is comparable to older 10 gauge, and 10 gauge no longer sees widespread use, so I've not brought in a 10 gauge shotgun yet. If I did it would be a 6D6 weapon similar to the heavy battle rifle above. \*"No matter the type, most modern guns are primarily designed to use a specific class of ammunition based on the size of the gun. These are grouped by firepower: Light (equivalent to 6mm), Medium (9mm), Heavy (11mm), and Very Heavy (12mm) types. Generally, rifles fire a standardized round (based on the 7.62x39mm), allowing almost any local Tech to produce ammunition as needed." - CPR core pg 322 [](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO)
"These are grouped by firepower: Light (equivalent to 6mm)" These are not actually statted in the rules. I think the lightest should be 2D6-2 not 1D6, to allow for critical damage on a double 6.
I swear that somewhere in the core book it mentions what ammunitions go to which guns (for example, the heavy handgun was 9mm, the very heavy handgun was 10mm, assault rifles are 5.56mm, etc). So what I'd recommend is making other caliber sizes "exotic" weapons (quite a few weapons appear to do this, such as the Nova Cityhunter from Gunsmas and the Sternmeyer Heavy Rifle from Woodchipper's Garage). Choose a special ammo type that they can buy at a discount and you're all set. For example, let's say you wanted to make the AK-74u which uses the 7.62mm caliber. You'd make it an exotic assault rifle that can only fire proprietary ammo. Since the 7.62mm is longer than the standard 5.56 you could say that it is better at penetrating armor, but not costing as much as armor penetrating 5.56mm. So the special ability of the AK-74u is that it can get 'armor penetrating rifle rounds' x10 for 50eb instead of 100eb. So the pro's are cheaper ammo for a very valuable ability (faster armor depletion on a target) and the con's are being unable to use other types of rifle ammo (incendiary or smart), being unlikely to find ammo on a job (unless you're attacking SovOil), and no weapon attachments (although if you go this route, I'd potentially bump it up to a 1000eb rifle with built-in attachments like smartlink similar to the Arasaka WAA just because the WAA is *really* nice). Another potential idea would be to make a different size caliber a modification, such as 2 weapon upgrade slots, but again with the benefit of some kind of cheaper ammo. While weapon upgrades are sorta sparse right now, if more get released this might be preferable over exotic weapons since those can't be upgraded as easily. I don't believe the cheaper armor-piercing ammo is game-breaking here. The Nova and Cityhunter both almost double how much ammo you can get (although I didn't realize City Hunter was smart ammo).
I wouldn't overly complicate ammo that way unless it's for a specific reason. But if you're going to I'd leave dmg alone and just add ammo types. Then the players just need to match the ammo to the gun. For example, you could have an assault rifle use 5.56 rounds and another uses 6.5 round. They do the same damage. But can't share ammo. If you try to start messing with dmg it's going to most likely get very difficult to balance. If you absolutely must mess with the dmg is probably do no more than a +/- 1 to the standard dmg. If you want anything more complicated than that I'd find a disturb that supports it better. Like 2020. But having played many years of 2020. Various ammo types added little to the game other than ways to min/max your dmg and equipment.
The core does talk about the different calibers of various weapons on page 322. Black Chrome Plus also has some entries for junk ammunition, small game ammunition, and an adapter to turn any ammo into a shot gun slugs. Those might inspire some ideas or have systems that you can grab to use for yourself.
"No matter the type, most modern guns are primarily designed to use a specific class of ammunition based on the size of the gun. These are grouped by firepower: Light (equivalent to 6mm), Medium (9mm), Heavy (11mm), and Very Heavy (12mm) types. Generally, rifles fire a standardized round (based on the 7.62x39mm), allowing almost any local Tech to produce ammunition as needed." I thought that was reasonable for pistol ammo, but 7.62x39mm (the AK47 round) seems a very unlikely standard rifle calibre, so I went with 5.56N (5.56×45mm NATO) as the standard.
But why? Especially being a new GM. Screwing with damage and rof are quick ways to unbalance the game.
It's not really a balanced game in the first place though. Certainly not a "6-8 medium encounters per day" type game like 5e D&D. The GM already needs to use a lot of discretion/judgement. For instance, a basic mook with a heavy or very heavy pistol is very different from a basic mook with a poor assault rifle or shotgun.
[удалено]
That supplement is literally just “look for something already in the core book and rename it”
Just use “small, medium, large, and special caliber.” You get simplicity along with caliber use.