Personally I have always felt that melee combat was generally underwealming compared to ranged combat in all but a few builds. But recently I noticed this Gem of a upgrade has real potencal to have characters with strength 4 hitting with around 12 strength.

I am not entirely certain of this but the stun upgrade seems to stack ontop of the damage upgrade. So that 2 (base damage) + 5 (stun) damage means that a character will have a base damage of 7+ with two perice for the cost of HP slot and 250 credits, thus far discounting any brawn the character may have.

Considering the average strength of a starting brawn focused character is around 3/4 and the additional option of a balienced hilt it seems fairly obivous to me that this is a very strong competator for someone who wants a melee weapon but doesn't want the social stigma of a lightsaber. Since being able to hit for 12 and set the weapon up to earn advantages means that the vibrosword can easily be paired up with another to offer a reasonably efficent pairing. I already have the idea for a unusual character concept to be paired up with the weapons for my fairly action heavy campiagn if my current mainstray goes south.

The question I wish to ask is am I reading this correctly or is there a catch that I haven't observed as of yet? I don't believe this is game breaking but I am just curious for my own clarification.

When fully modified, the weapon could deal 5 strain on top of the weapon's base damage, provided you also have the two Advantage necessary to trigger the Stun quality, which per the gear chapter is an active weapon quality; in short, it's not that you hit and automatically get to inflict that extra "damage" from the Stun Pulse attachment.

It's also limited to Melee weapons, so it's no use on blasters or any weapon that doesn't use the Melee skill (such as lightsabers).

Very strong against minions and rivals, as the strain would be converted to wounds, but dealing extra strain damage won't be that useful against most nemeses as dealing damage to two "hit point totals" at once is a waste of your resources as you only need to exceed one of either the wound or strain threshold to knock the nemesis out of the fight. The nemesis would have to have a scary talent that cost strain for me to choose to stun blast him over passing out boost dice to my allies.

Also important to note that the Stun quality inflicts straight Strain, not "stun damage," so it essentially bypasses your Soak. So when activated, Stun rating x = x strain suffered. It doesn't get added to your damage dealt...it's like a kicker on top of the damage dealt.

Very strong against minions and rivals, as the strain would be converted to wounds, but dealing extra strain damage won't be that useful against most nemeses as dealing damage to two "hit point totals" at once is a waste of your resources as you only need to exceed one of either the wound or strain threshold to knock the nemesis out of the fight. The nemesis would have to have a scary talent that cost strain for me to choose to stun blast him over passing out boost dice to my allies.

For the consummate melee specialist (e.g. Inflitrator from Age of Rebellion), there exists the talent Stunning Blow, which would provide great synergy with this upgrade.

In EotE, the Stunning Blow talent is found in the Gadgeteer specialization, so while you're there you'll want to also grab the Jury Rigged talent and apply it to that Stun Pulse Melee weapon, reducing the Advantages required to activate by 1...talk about Synergy

But using just Force and Destiny, yeah this Stun Pulse would usually be best utilized on Minions and Rivals.

I think the point Away is making is that while the Stun Pulse can be potent, it takes certain combinations to make it especially so, such as the Gadgeteer spec.

But then, that can also be said of other attachments once they've been fully modified. A vibro-sword with a fully modded mono-molecular edge is going to be doling out crits on a single Advantage and pretty much ignoring the Soak Value of most targets. A fully modded augmented spin barrel on a heavy blaster rifle is 13 damage base, with a rank of Pierce and Accurate to boot, for what equates to a +4 bonus to damage and better odds of getting those extra Advantage needed to trigger the Auto-Fire quality. Even a blaster actuating module on a heavy blaster pistol is pretty nasty, providing 10 damage base with Pierce 2, which is effectively a +5 bonus to damage as I don't think there's very many (or even any) combat-related NPCs with a Soak Value less than a 2.

I think the point Away is making is that while the Stun Pulse can be potent, it takes certain combinations to make it especially so, such as the Gadgeteer spec.

Well, specifically the Stunning Blow talent, which I mentioned, but failed to clarify that it gives you the option of dealing stun damage with any Melee weapon. And it only exists in the Infiltrator and Gadgeteer specs. But really, if you're wanting to be a melee specialist, I'd argue you should have at least one of those specializations

But my additional, aside, point was that the Gadgeteer is nice specifically because it grants the Stunning Blow and Jury-Rigged talents, so that Vibrosword or Truncheon or Staff or whatever you're using can now deal stun damage on top of that Stun 2 - 5 quality that Stun Pulse grants.

Or just use a Force Pike or Electrostaff, they have stun settings of their own

Sorry for taking so long to reply, life kind of got in the way. XD

But aye, this is primarily brainstorming for an ARC Trooper that had been carbon frozen by the primative rebellion to his wishes so that he would still have some of his prime left by the time they needed him (biologically, he was nearing 40/50 and was starting to need enhancement to keep him relivent.) though of course, the death of Bail Ogama meant that he was frozen for an unspesified length of time, which is when the PC players find him at the height of the rebellion war. Of course, due to his role as a stealth specialist, I imagine that though he would be alright at gunplay the ability to hack/take down fellows silently would be his "ace" trait. Essencally a "Solid Snake/Big Boss" of the clone world, since he would often get in to the droid mainframes, tamper with that and get out under the friendly fire confusion to disrupt activities.

My current character is a 600+ Bounty Hunter-Assassin-Force Emergent-Artisan whom had risen from a simple thug, a machanic with a grudge against a bounty hunter, to a full blown agent of the rebellion involved with all things techinological whom just now had began to discover his force sensiability through constant contact with a sith lightsaber (which, he had repaired about over a year and a half ago, so it was one of those really slow moving developments). So really I just wanted a hypothetical cool concept incase I needed a new character, just the issue is keeping it relivent to the other members of the party (two members are ranged specialists, which means they scythe through most encounters like soft butter if have access to their full loadout. One member is especially irritating because he takes his heavy blaster everywhere, especially in encounters where we don't want to kill anyone. But thats another story for another day.)

In any case: ****, the two advantage to trigger stun really puts a spanner in the works but then I had forgotten just how flexable gadgeteer is! Almost gave me the nasty idea to use the rank in tinker to put a extra hard point on an elctrostaff, take weighted head, balienced hilt and the additional stun (upgraded batteries) to deal at least 16 (including brawn) damage with the stun setting spent and the possiblity to link to double it up. The only issue is it seems odd to imagine a stealthy character with such a large weapon (plus knight budget doesn't stretch that far to afford one) so more likely I opt for balienced hilt and setting to a vibrosword, which is compareable overall but lacks the link.

Gadgetter will definately be my second class now that I will buy into (I will probably buy into the second class with my remaining + Knight level exp and spend between both, buying streight down to dedication in the gadgetter tree.). Just trying to decide between Assassin (No ranks in computer, but stalker and two destiny point triggers are very good. Along with a few other talents since my ranged heavy will likely be decent anyways) or the infultrator (Ranks in computers, just I haven't had any experience in it before and I find the class somewhat confusing. It seems very defensive in nature and the cunning feats are not that useful for me at this stage) and likely fix any patches with the third class (if I go former, go outlaw tech.)

Sound reasonable?

If you go with Infiltrator for the starting specialization, then any Melee weapon can be made to deal stun damage, so there's that (if you're looking to carry a smaller weapon).

I have a Shadow/Artisan that uses the Electrostaff who tries to always engage in non-lethal combat. I added the Stun Pulse upgrade, but I find that I don't get to use it very often. I always spend my advantage on Linked and Concussive, and if I do have any advantage left over, they're generally better spent replenishing the strain I use to activate dodge.

When I get enough credits, I will swap out that particular mod with the Superior Weapon mod instead, 1 additional damage (2 if Linked is activated) and 1 additional advantage to spend seems to be the better route to go. Although the mod is obviously far more expensive.

I have a Shadow/Artisan that uses the Electrostaff who tries to always engage in non-lethal combat. I added the Stun Pulse upgrade, but I find that I don't get to use it very often. I always spend my advantage on Linked and Concussive, and if I do have any advantage left over, they're generally better spent replenishing the strain I use to activate dodge.

When I get enough credits, I will swap out that particular mod with the Superior Weapon mod instead, 1 additional damage (2 if Linked is activated) and 1 additional advantage to spend seems to be the better route to go. Although the mod is obviously far more expensive.

1) The Stun Pulse is modifiable to deal up to 5 strain...is yours fully upgraded?

2) Every Linked hit from an Electrostaff is Soaked, so unless you're already dishing out a lot of damage (high Brawn, lots of net Success, low Soak on your opponents), sometimes that 5 strain (which bypasses soak) is gonna be more bang for your buck. But YMMV of course.

1) The Stun Pulse is modifiable to deal up to 5 strain...is yours fully upgraded?

2) Every Linked hit from an Electrostaff is Soaked, so unless you're already dishing out a lot of damage (high Brawn, lots of net Success, low Soak on your opponents), sometimes that 5 strain (which bypasses soak) is gonna be more bang for your buck. But YMMV of course.

You make a very good point, there are likely times that it would be better to use Stun Pulse over Linked.

I was able to successfully upgrade 2 of the 3 additional stun damage mods, however I did fail one of the Mechanics checks keeping my Stun Pulse capped at 4.

My current setup with the Electrostaff gives me a minimum damage of 10 or 11 and sometimes 12 (3 Brawn, +2 damage from Weighted Head, +4 damage base from the staff, and +1 from Enhance power upgrading my Brawn to 4, and we also have a combat medic with Stim Application allowing me to get to a possible Brawn of 5 occasionally).

With my setup I don't think it would be an improvement to use Pulse over Linked very often, and our GM does not disclose the actual Soak value of our enemies. But at times and vs certain enemies, if I did not have Enhance and(or) Stim App available, it would be better to use the Pulse.

Nice! That sounds like a really fun build to play! And yeah, hard to know the soak value. In those cases I might drop hints for my players, like "your blows don't seem to be doing much against the creature's thick skin. Perhaps a different touch is required?"

Out of curiosity, what species are you playing?

I don't play anything special, just an older human.

I think Stun Pulse is a great mod. When combined with Stunning Blow, it's a great asset to most melee weapons when a player wants to take their target alive, especially when it's fully upgraded. Against minions it's fantastic in any situation when you have enough advantage, and one of the best things about the mod is that it's cheap.