I need advice for my homebrew system (Pathfinder Modern)

[Doppio Giudici]

The last three to four weeks I have put in 20+ hours into this system I have been working on. So far it's worked a lot better then it's ancestors and has so far shown a number of improvements. The lineage of the system is as shown.

D&D 3.5, D-20 Modern

Then,

Pathfinder, Pathfinder Modern

Point system and classes are from PM, kick (Recoil), damage modifiers for different weapons in the same group (IE, 2D6 vs 2D6+1 9x19 vs 45.ACP), bi-pod, archetypes, extra feats, extra skills.

All of these features were moved around so that the game was A: less frustrating for the players and B: less frustrating for me because it was unrealistic.

The backstory (AKA your old job and the skills or feats it taught you) feature, a lot of the feats and some of the skills, most of the weapons information, and some other things are from D-20 Modern.

Almost all of these features are intact without tampering, except for the burst and auto-fire abilities that were replaced.

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Game Events and Characters, Campaign One

AKA, wow this isn't exploding in my face

Started off with four players and two observers, game was kinda thrown together on the players end. On my end I and my assistant Thal helped me make it work. We set up a parking garage, tested the system a bit and figured out the rules to actually play D&D or Pathfinder. Single room, part of a parking garage with lots of identical cars parked.

Ben "Blue" (Played by Steve), was a baseball player who after and interview was going to press conference at a diplomatic meeting. He entered the game with only a M1911 Colt 2D6+1, 40 feet before a penalty to hit. He had three feats. One for being human, one for being alive, and one for being an baseball player (brawl).

"Red" (Played by my assistant Thal) was a reporter who was used to getting shot at to get a story. He had three feats as well, his reporting job got him a personal firearms proficiency. He could also quick draw and quick reload.

"Green" (Played by I have no idea, I am bad at names and it was his only game) was a veterinarian who was leaving the meeting to get to his car. He had some surgery stuff and some first aid things on him. Not idea what his feats were.

Blue and Red get jumped by two thugs with P226s behind a car, neither of the players know who is shooting at them and with what; only the direction. Blue stays back and distracts one of them, while Red hops over the front of car after car parked against the wall; so he can get a clear shot. Green runs to his car right next to the thugs and hides, freaking out quietly. The shooting gets the attention of one of the people providing security for the meeting. He moves next to green, sprinting from a door and avoiding a shot. The thugs, now flanked; try to split up and shot at over and over. Red jumps out of cover and is 15 feet from one of them, when he puts two rounds in the enemy. A bullet-wound is healed up by the vet and security operator, while they look over the hostiles. The three of them are offered a job by the operator, to provide security, loading capability, and additional skills a shattered nation to get an artifact. Since the nation in question is part of Nationstates and dead, I am not going to say it's name or risk people looking up stuff and ruining the plot.

AKA, This is actually going really really well.

During the last two games we had two people watching the events, since they were late to the game and asked to join minutes before it started.

"Orange" (Played by I have no idea, again super bad with names) who was a mechanic and was in charge of keeping the two Jeep Cherokees from breaking down. He drove the second one while Frederick "Yellow" drove the one in front.

The party is flown into "Mind Walker", a nation based off some vague memories from Aleckandor about the nations next to the target setting. All of the mercs start off in a Vadian/DG enclave, a walled off compound with it's own runway and own defense militia. They go into a mostly empty weapons store and buy up Peacekeeper vests (NTA modified HIA Peacekeeper Vests), Spreewerke AK-74Ms (I bought the rights from Spreewerke, a Remington 700 sniper rifle, and some other gear. Everyone haggles and senses the shopkeepers motives, they know he is lying but can't tell if the goods are over priced (They are underpriced).

They get to the Mind-Walker border and pass security, once they pass the wasteland nations borders they drive for a bit seeing nothing but dust and the aftermath of a nuclear war. The party stops to look over a ruined SUV and look at the drugs in the back of it. They get jumped by three people from behind another SUV, two of which appear to be Mind-Walker soldiers. Orange fires his sniper rifle into the back left car door of the other vehicle, straight down the head and spine of the tango lying down in the back seat. Green sneaks over and climbs over the dead body, before reaching over the back right door to punch the last soldier in the head. Red sneaks around the back of the enemy SUV and shoots the enemy in the chest dead seconds later.

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Speak thanks to Lyras for making the Hell-Hammer that so far has been pretty awesome in the setting. The source material mentions it so I included it, it works pretty well on zombies.

Questions I need sorted out.

1. Okay. First things first.

SMGs deal 2D6 or 2D6+1, no SMG fires .357 and 10mm 2D6+3 SMGs are rare.

Assault Rifles deal 2D8 5.56,5.45,5.8 or 2D8+1 7.62x39.

Rifles have 60 to 100 feet range increments depending on barrel length and weapon. Both of them take a normal shot, a normal shot followed by four with a kick of 2 (Burst), or a normal shot followed by nine shots with a kick of 4 (Automatic).

Here is the problem, why on earth would you use an SMG?

"If you are one square from someone and use the rifle, the other person can pull it from you, beat you with their hands or weapon or shoot first. You are in an "Attack of Opportunity spot"

Yeah I know that, but should In nerf the recoil for automatic SMGs?

2. 11 and up is a hit, we are rolling a D20. If you get a 19 the neck or groin are shot, 20 your head gets hit. So far everything in between is a two point system for each section of the body.

Before this system, the vest characters wore could take one rifle hit and only one. The damage decided if the person was bruised or not.

Big problem, all the vests the characters can get are NIJ III. They can take at least three 7.62x39 rounds even on a bad day. Some numbers the army and police provide say it should be 3 rounds of 7.62x51 at least, while civilian testing and videos show at least 10 rounds not doing a thing.

So no people get shot in the legs and shoulders to make up for this level of protection, the problem is I have no idea how the vests should fail or how big a person's arms are in a fight. What are the odds you will get shot in the arms or legs?

3. So far if a window gets shot out it's shot out. Rounds go through walls and people get killed. However I have no idea if I want to keep the old system for vehicle health or just assume what I know from watching people shoot at cars in real life.

So far no one has ever shot at a car or truck engine, just the windows, tires or car doors.

4. Should characters get hungry every 4 to 6 hours? Four if combat has happened once or twice? Same for thirsty? How much water or food would be needed for this?

5. Since the setting is mostly realistic, but has zombies and some magic; would any other settings you know of be compatible? Would you like to add some stuff to the setting? Perhaps a type of weapon or food? Would you like to DM this setting or system? Have you already done it?