Is there any reason not to reccomend to new players that they purchase a Red-Dot Laser Sight and/or the Mono Upgrade for their preferred weapon if their starting funds will cover it (50 and 40 thrones respectively)? This is assuming combat will be at least a semi regular occurence in the campaign.
Not at all. Red Dot Laser Sights are great for weapons incapable of semi/full auto fire and mono weapons are required if you plan on fighting anything with armour. I'd most definitely make sure new players know about mono weapons when selecting gear, especially if they plan to have a skilled melee fighter. Obviously if they're planning to go undercover such costly accessories and improvements might give them away a bit, but neither is too hard to conceal until they actually see use.
Keep in mind that you can monoany primitive melee weapon. I.e. an edge is not required.
jonathan_sicari said:
Is there any reason not to reccomend to new players that they purchase a Red-Dot Laser Sight and/or the Mono Upgrade for their preferred weapon if their starting funds will cover it (50 and 40 thrones respectively)? This is assuming combat will be at least a semi regular occurence in the campaign.
Why, yes, yes there is.
If mentioning "Red-Dot" will cause your recovering alcoholic player to flash back to the drinking days and fall off the wagon, then yes, you should refrain from mentioning "red-dot" to him or her -that would just be cruel.
If you're mentioning these two upgrades to your players so that they can then have all their characters troop into a mechanicus templum where 12 gun servitors wait on over watch to gun them down, then yes, you shouldn't mention it. That's just cold, man, cold.
If recommending these weapon upgrades will make your players think something is up, but then that something never comes up triggering long repressed schizoid delusions in them resulting in a terribly tragic hostage situation and the loss of your dog, then, yes, you shouldn't recommend the upgrades.
Well, that's all i can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's a lot more reasons out there for not recommending these weapon upgrades to your players but I think those might be the top three big ones.
Also, there may or may not be better things to spend thrones on. My techpriest was in love with his Auspex after having discovered every single ambush in a certain mine...
Also, they are upgrades. Sometimes it might be better to spend that cash on a better weapon in general, than the upgrade. For example, if the PC would rather use a handcannon rather than his default las pistol, but he can't afford a handcannon AND a red-dot sight. So the choice is either a handcannon, or a las pistol with a red-dot sight. Something like that. The upgrades are both useful, but sometimes having the equipment you want/need is better than upgrading a weapon you expect to replace at the end of the next mission.
Well, I see mono good for any primitive weapon. With the red-dot sight, eh. I find it's great with single shot weapons, but with anything else that can do semi-auto or fully automatic, it's just not worth it. It's only one single projectile to dodge, instead of two or more.
With the red-dot sight, eh. I find it's great with single shot weapons, but with anything else that can do semi-auto or fully automatic, it's just not worth it. It's only one single projectile to dodge, instead of two or more.
On the other hand side, it's a pretty reliable shot, especially when you like moving and have Hip Shot. Or, of course, when you want to conserve ammo (why do boltguns have a Semi-Auto mode again? Oh, right, for when you're facing daemonhosts and prefer being broke to being dead...)
Snidesworth said:
Obviously if they're planning to go undercover such costly accessories and improvements might give them away a bit, but neither is too hard to conceal until they actually see use.
Why would you need to be an acolyte to have such gear? My acolytes ussually pose as gangers, hired muscle, bounty hunters, envoys of a criminal organisation or even competent "associates" of a legal organisation (ie they have still kept their Coblast Assay secret id's) when going under cover. As such they can even go fully armed and armored in even the most undercover missions. Ussually one of them will be more "light" and pretend to be the leader or something and the rest can even go in carapace armor... I mean who is to say that just cause you were carapace you are a servant of the emperor... dont bad guys get gear?
Also why cant you use red dot with semi-auto?
With regard to the Coblast Assay cover introduced in Edge of Darkness it's not unreasonable for the acolytes to sport mono weapons and RDLS. They're posing as bonded agents of a mercantile company with a dubious reputation so it's no stretch of the imagination that they'd be prepared for trouble. Accomplished bounty hunters and criminals above the level of street-scum can find themselves in the possession of some reasonable gear, as would professional grade mercenaries, so a few tools designed to put down any attacks swiftly and decisively isn't out of the question. Of course, running around the Underhive in full carapace armour will raise far more questions, as will particularly expensive and rare equipment.
As for RDLS and semi-auto, I imagine it's a mixture of balance and the laser-dot not being any good when the weapon is kicking around in your hands.