So my group has been playing EotE for a few weeks now, and my Gadgeteer has finally scraped enough credits together and obtained a few parts that I want to put together into a new item. I'm a fan of the SW:ToR PowerTech and I am basically trying to create a retractable vibroblade-type weapon that functions as a heavy gauntlet when the blade is stored. As I am far more crunch oriented than my GM (I'm typically the rules monkey in our games) and the community here seems helpful, I thought I'd post up how we're handling the item as a reality and balance check on myself.

Components: One Vamblade (Dangerous Covenants, 500 credits), one set of Brass Knuckles (25 credits), one Vibroknife (250 credits if the helpful Rodian who tried to slip it between my ribs our first session hadn't decided to "donate" it to my nascent armory before being hauled in to talk to his loan shark), one set of generic mod components (100 credits). Total cost: 875 credits.

Narrative: My bounty hunter is taking the left gauntlet of his armor, integrating the vamblade into the glove, and reinforcing the resulting gauntlet with the brass knuckles. He's then taking the inner workings of the vamblade, and replacing or augmenting the retractable knife housed therein with the power source and field generator from the vibroknife and running a control switch from that housing to the inside of the gauntlet.

Rules: Originally I was pitching the idea of a retractable vibroblade to my GM as a melee version of the Shortened Barrel attachment from the core rulebook, with the cost doubled from 250 credits to 500 to account for it being a non-standard "attachment". Then my copy of DC came in and while flipping through I saw that the vamblade description fit the in-game physical description of the item pretty well already. The brass-knuckles as fighting gloves idea I'd already been using in-game - my hunter's the type where he's not going to slip on the knuckles to let you know you're in trouble, he's already got his dirty fighting built in and ready to go.

Combining the components together we are treating as a Hard Mechanics test. Failure won't destroy the components without a catastrophic roll (3+ threats or a despair), but does waste a day's worth of tinkering. A second Hard Mechanics test would allow the Quick-Draw mod from the Shortened Barrel rules to be attached to the item, with the usual penalty for failure (if the mod fails, it can't be installed - for this reason it'll probably be a few sessions before my character attempts this).

Final stats on the item:

Fighting Gauntlet

Skill Brawl, Damage Brawn +1, Crit 4, Range Engaged, Encumbrance 2, Hard Points 1, Qualities Defensive 1, Disorient 3.

Retractable Vibroblade (extended)

As above, with the following changes: Skill Melee, Crit 2, Qualities Defensive 1, Pierce 2, Vicious 1.

The item appears as a heavy fighting glove with durasteel reinforcement along the wrist and across the knuckles, out of place as an obvious upgrade to my hunter's current set of padded armor but it would blend in with a heavier suit. The difficulty to conceal the blade hidden within is reduced by one thanks to the heavy construction and the difficulty scanners have in penetrating the durasteel housing. It takes a maneuver to extend or retract the vibroblade until the mechanism is modded; if successful the item will gain the Innate Talent (Quick Draw) quality. The sole hard point remaining supports a blade modification - it will probably become Serrated with our current credit intake, but would hopefully be changed out for a Mono-Edged blade down the road. Obviously those mods would only affect the Vibroblade portions of the weapon's stat lines.

How does this look to the community?

looks fine to me.

I wouldn't let it have Defensive, but fine otherwise.

Why the Defensive quality when it is in gauntlet form? It is basically brass knuckles. Shouldn't it just have the Disorient 3 quality?

I'd skip the Defensive quality. Also, I'd cut the hard point; it's already a modified weapon that does two things at once AND is built into a suit of armour. Any more attachments would be excessive, in my opinion.

I waffled on the Defensive quality myself. I threw it in because Vamblades have it to represent the durasteel cuff storing the blade, or so it appears to me since there's nothing in the weapon description to imply that it only gains the quality with the blade extended. It seemed mild to retain given the paired Vamblade rules (Accurate + Sunder) which I do think are a bit excessive but are stock FFG gear. I could easily live without it.

As to the hard point issue, the item's already Enc 2. I could mechanically get the same effect carrying Brass Knuckles and a Vibroknife, since they're both Enc 1 each. In addition I'd get two full HPs on the knife, and the Knuckles already have a conceal bonus, which they're losing in this modified form. So for the knife it boils down to whether getting a double-cost version of Shortened Barrel or even just going for some kind of concealed sheathe rig (which wouldn't be any HPs in most games, I'd think) is worth two hard points. I'm trying to combine them to be a bit different and invoke some Rule of Cool at our table. ;-)

I'm not trying to argue per se - it's obviously not anyone's table here - but I did want to explain my reasoning a bit more for debate purposes. I've actually spent a decent portion of this past week lurking on these forums looking at debates and suggestions regarding equipment customization simply because I'm not usually a fan of player-made gear but wanted something balanced that didn't seem quite covered in the rules.

As a side note, I'm curious how FFG's going to explain some of Boba Fett's gadgets without giving Mandalorian Armor an excessive number of hardpoints. Just off the top of my head he's got an entangling a line, a flame projector (Enc 6! Though you could argue it's a one-shot like the Ranged - Heavy attachment), and a blaster pistol of some sort "built" into his set. The only mechanical solution that makes sense to me is to treat a lot of the doodads as "carried" weapons for game purposes, and that's one of the reasons I've taken that approach here.

TL;DR: The Bounty Hunter and Technician books can't come out soon enough!

You might want to look into Cartol's Emporium. They have a collapsible weapon attachemnt that would allow a vibro sword to do just what you are looking for. Having a seperate gauntlet that stores it would be easy enough after that.

Dangerous Covenants already brought out a convert to arm weapon attachemnt. I think too many people get wrapped up in thinking that all of Bobba's stuff is built into the armor. It may be fluff wise, but mechanically, it's easy enough to just have seperate items.

Wrist mounted flame projector: Underbarel flame projector attachement combined with the wrist mounted weapon attachement.

Grappling hook: just a grappling hook. Or use the attached gear attachement from Cartol's Emporium.

Jetpack: he's wearing a jetpack, it doesn't have to be built in.

Blaster pistol: holdout blaster with wrist attachment.

I buy the defensive bit for retracted, but extended I would say there is no defensive quality. However, the shifting quality of defense is hard to play with, so I would choose one or the other. As to the hard point, you definitely used up one of those for modification. As tot eh encumbrance, I don't think that this would exceed the encumbrance of either item, as you are making the item compact and wearable.

I'd say choose either 1 hard point and no defense at all, or defense and no hard point.

Encumbrance 1.

Rest seems right no me. Neat idea!