Just watching episode 11 of Rollplay Blades. Miss Cataby used her Sharpshooter ability to lay down a barrage of supressive fire, but failed the roll. So I have 2 questions:
1. Why did the barrage still work?
2. Why were there no consequences for the 2 that was rolled?
John Harper
1. I think this is a GM call. I.e., this isn’t what the rules say you have to do, but what John elected to do in the game.
From the text of Sharpshooter on page 66.
The second use allows you to keep up a steady rate of fire in a battle (enough to “suppress” a small gang up to six people), rather than stopping for a slow reload or discarding a gun after each shot. When an enemy is suppressed, they’re reluctant to maneuver or attack (usually calling for a fortune roll to see if they can manage it).
Even though Miss Cattaby failed the Hunt roll to shoot the Docker, she was still using this ability, so John elected that it’s effect of suppressing him still worked. Just in the same way that if Whisper used Tempest, they would cause collateral damage even if they failed the roll.
2. The effect of a 1-3 on controlled is that You falter. Press on by seizing a risky opportunity, or withdraw and try a different approach.
Cattaby elected not to press on, so she tried with another approach by teaming up with Salia’s guard. We’re used to seeing our scoundrels keep pressing their luck until they are facing serious consequences, but the game is engineered that if you have the upper hand (i.e. controlled position) it takes more than one bad roll for you to be really in trouble.
Yep, what Sean said. 🙂
About sharpshooter; the part about discarding weapons to keep up the rate of fire; are all firearms flintlock / powder reload in this setting? Or are repeating arms in existence but rare and only available to characters with this ability?
Nathan Egbers, repeating arms don’t exist in the setting but it’s close enough technology wise that it’s really close (i.e. could probably be invented with Tinker).