Ammunition Types

Firearms may be loaded with a variety of different types of ammunition.

Buckshot inflicts full damage in the first two range increments, and then suffer a -1 die penalty to damage per increment thereafter. Shotguns suffer no penalties to-hit for range.

10-gauge and 8-gauge shotguns inflict damage on their user when fired.

Dragon shotgun shells essentially transform a shotgun into a light flamethrower, creating a jet of flame in a 20' line that causes 3d6 damage, halved with a successful DC 15 Reflex save. They do not generate sufficient chamber pressure to actuate an automatic or semiautomatic firearm, so weapons using them must have their actions worked by hand in a single shot fashion. Additionally, any weapon firing a Dragon shell becomes unreliable until it has undergone maintenance. Dragon shells carry an explosion risk in the same fashion as Explosive and Incendiary rounds.

Cold Load rounds are completely silent when fired from a suppressed weapon.

Hot Load rounds may be combined with other ammunition types, but multiple sources of unreliability stack. Thus, a gun firing AET hot loads inflicts +4 damage, but misfires on a natural 1 or 2.

Incendiary and Explosive rounds inflict substantially increased damage, but if the character carrying them ever suffers more than 10 points of damage from fire, falling, or an explosion he must make a DC 20 Fort save. If failed, all such rounds on the character's person explode and inflict 4 points of damage per round in a 5' radius. Characters in the adjacent spaces may make a DC 20 Reflex save to halve this damage.

Ammunition with a bonus or penalty to its attack modifier versus armor apply that bonus or penalty when a target has a natural or armor bonus to defense of greater than +2.

Tracer rounds provide an equipment bonus to hit, but the user suffers a -2 penalty to AC until the start of his next turn.

CS shells are essentially tiny tear gas grenades. The listed damage is caused when a character is struck directly by the shell but generally users aim at a square rather than a target. On the round it is fired it fills the square it strikes with a cloud of standard CS gas, which spreads to all adjacent squares the round after. The gas disperses after 10 rounds, half that in light winds, and 1 round in a strong wind. Any character encountering the gas must pass a DC 20 Fort save or be stunned for 1d6 rounds, at the conclusion of which (or immediately if they pass the save) they are shaken for 1d6 rounds.

Hollow Point and Glaser rounds are frangible rounds designed to fragment inside a target for superior energy transfer. They do greater damage but suffer penalties against armored targets.

Birdshot is a shotgun round that uses smaller pellets. It is generally considered inferior as a combat load.

Armor Piercing rounds have superior performance against armored targets, but suffer a damage penalty against all targets.

Riot ammunition such as rock salt or beanbag rounds inflicts nonlethal damage. Due to non-optimal