Lurker forever. First time poster.

Does the Demolitionist's Powerful Blast talent apply to the Blast effect of the Corondexx VES-700 Pulse Rifle?

My first impression is that the talent is aimed more squarely at explosive devices like bombs and such. While the game mechanics might be the same for the blast created by the pulse rifle, it doesn't achieve it in any way that the talent would augment. And, from a game balance perspective, I don't know, off the top of my head, of another light weapon that has Blast but does not have Limited Ammo.

Strictly interpreting the RAW, the talent would seem to apply but, if there's one thing that this forum has taught me, it is that the RAW is not the 'from on high' resource that other games treat it as. I'm perfectly ok with that so, barring a concrete ruling, what would your opinion be?

I didn't see this addressed in the errata so I'm hoping someone here can help.

Looking at the full description of the talent in the AoR core rulebook (pg154), it specifically calls out that Powerful Blast only applies to "explosives, explosive weapons, and grenades."

Based on that, I'd say the Pulse Rifle isn't eligible, much the same as the effects of the spread barrel (which provides the Blast quality) wouldn't be eligible. Things like a grenade launcher or missile tube would be eligible, since they'd fall under "grenades" and "explosive weapons" respectively.

A good lesson to take away from Dono is: When dealing with talents, read the full description found in the talent chapter, not just the summery on the talent tree.

FFG's ruleset is pretty solid considering it's age, but they do spread things out a little bit, so divining RAW can be a little tricky sometimes.

At least it's not like 40k where you need to flip back and forth between six different chapters across three different books to figure out how to configure something... or (my personal fav of theirs) find the same rule in five different books intentionally written with a totally different name in each.

FFG's ruleset is pretty solid considering it's age

Isn't this ruleset only like 3 years old (6 if you count wfrp 3e)? That's pretty much infant-age for RPG rules. 40K, for example, runs off the Basic Roleplaying core mechanics, and those are 35 years old.

I think that's his point. It works very well without having been refined for decades.

Exactly. It's pretty solid even though it hasn't been ripped apart and reassembled a thousand times like D20.

I think that's his point. It works very well without having been refined for decades.

Ah, my RPG Ageism is showing.

Looking at the full description of the talent in the AoR core rulebook (pg154), it specifically calls out that Powerful Blast only applies to "explosives, explosive weapons, and grenades."

Based on that, I'd say the Pulse Rifle isn't eligible, much the same as the effects of the spread barrel (which provides the Blast quality) wouldn't be eligible. Things like a grenade launcher or missile tube would be eligible, since they'd fall under "grenades" and "explosive weapons" respectively.

It would probably take some looking around a bit... but I seem to recall seeing that same question on the forums a few months back... I think someone asked Sam and posted the reply....

It's a little vague but I'm pretty sure we've seen it somewhere before... and to my knowledge, I think the answer was that it works with every weapons with the Blast quality.

I'll try to find it ...

Found it...
Very old thread from before the F&D Beta, when AoR Beta came out. The original question was about Flamthrowers which aren't "explosive weapons" in the strict sense of the term, but was listed as such in the equipment section of the book. Anyway the consensus at the time was that it was up to the GM.

Anyway no real reply from the Up and Mighty.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/112491-powerful-blast-point-blank/