Damaging a weapon

By Wyldrogue, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

Looked through the forums and haven't found anything on the subject and this has come up in some of my groups games in the past.

These are some of the items where it talks about hitting and repairing...

  • Aim on pg. 207 talks about targeting a hand held weapon.
  • Repairing a damaged weapon is on pg. 166

There is nothing on damaging a weapon? Am I missing something? Is the hit weapon automatically major damaged and just useless? Some insight on this would be helpful - Thanks

Looked through the forums and haven't found anything on the subject and this has come up in some of my groups games in the past.

These are some of the items where it talks about hitting and repairing...

  • Aim on pg. 207 talks about targeting a hand held weapon.
  • Repairing a damaged weapon is on pg. 166

There is nothing on damaging a weapon? Am I missing something? Is the hit weapon automatically major damaged and just useless? Some insight on this would be helpful - Thanks

Similarly it's not out of the question to damage a characters equipment if they roll enough threat or despair, either while attacking, or trudging through a harsh environment that gunks up a gun or wears down a blade, etc or perhaps they purchase a discount piece of equipment that is a bit damaged.

Targeting the weapon could result in the weapon being knocked out of the hand. Advantage could be used to send it flying further away.

Edited by kaosoe

So, if the attacking weapon did not have sunder, it would just do minor damage unless it crit? Would a crit with a non-sunder weapon kick it up to the next level (moderately) damaged?

Targeting the weapon should result in the weapon being licked out of the hand. Advantage could be used to send it flying further away.

"Could allow to" not "should result in". And if I aim for the hyperdrive I **** sure do not want to ... oh, no wait, kicking it out of the enemy's ship works for me.

They afterwards mention as well that you can cripple a leg as well, etc we are playing a narrative system, it up to players and GM to decide if the thing is just flying away, gets sunder applied to or just becomes downright crippled/unuseable. Keep one thing in mind, when you use lightsaber with sunder then you will apply damage to your target and can on top of that apply sunder to a weapon or equipment piece. You give up potential lethal damage to disarm your target instead. Or in other words: If I shoot a freaking railgun at a blaster then I expect parts flying around. ;-)

Edited by SEApocalypse

Sunder is a Quality of certain weapons that can be activated by using Advantages in addition to damaging the target without requiring a special Aim Maneuver.
You can also damage items by Aiming at them, and you should use the step system outlined in weapon repair, however this requires the Aim Maneuver and does no damage to anything but the item.

FaD Core page 166 is where it's all at. Specifically it mentions rolling a Despair on a combat check "may indicate" weapon damage. Personally I extrapolate that to mean that if you aim (with 2 setback) for an opponents weapon then a Triumph can be spent to cause 1 step of damage to that weapon.

There are 4 levels of damage:

Minor: add 1 setback to checks to use it.

Moderate: add 1 difficulty dice to checks to use it.

Major: unusable but repairable.

Destroyed: it's stuffed, chuck it out and get a new one!

Targeting the weapon should result in the weapon being licked out of the hand. Advantage could be used to send it flying further away.

"Could allow to" not "should result in". And if I aim for the hyperdrive I **** sure do not want to ... oh, no wait, kicking it out of the enemy's ship works for me.

They afterwards mention as well that you can cripple a leg as well, etc we are playing a narrative system, it up to players and GM to decide if the thing is just flying away, gets sunder applied to or just becomes downright crippled/unuseable. Keep one thing in mind, when you use lightsaber with sunder then you will apply damage to your target and can on top of that apply sunder to a weapon or equipment piece. You give up potential lethal damage to disarm your target instead. Or in other words: If I shoot a freaking railgun at a blaster then I expect parts flying around. ;-)

Ah thank you. As you can tell by my obvious spelling error, I typed my response in haste without proofreading it. I edited my original comment so that it better expresses what I meant to say.

So, if the attacking weapon did not have sunder, it would just do minor damage unless it crit? Would a crit with a non-sunder weapon kick it up to the next level (moderately) damaged?

So, if the attacking weapon did not have sunder, it would just do minor damage unless it crit? Would a crit with a non-sunder weapon kick it up to the next level (moderately) damaged?

Well that's going to be up to you and your GM as a player the only way you can assure damage using a weapon with the sunder quality which most weapons simply don't have. Qualities on weapons are things like auto-fire, burn, etc some are always active others need to be activated by spending 2 advantage sunder is one of those but if your weapon does not have that quality then you're only hope is the GM's ok as by RAW you simply cant damage items unless your weapon has sunder period... though as a GM if I allowed such damage from a non sunder type weapon then it'd have to be a direct attack against the item itself (i.e. No damage done to its bearer) OR you'd need something better than just 2 advantage due to lacking said quality perhaps a triumph or 4 advantage per damage step.

Sunder is a single advantage to activate, but spot on idea. As I see it Sunder reduces the cost to damage a weapon from Aim/Triumph to 1 Advantage, it's a big cost reduction.

FaD Core page 166 is where it's all at. Specifically it mentions rolling a Despair on a combat check "may indicate" weapon damage. Personally I extrapolate that to mean that if you aim (with 2 setback) for an opponents weapon then a Triumph can be spent to cause 1 step of damage to that weapon.

There are 4 levels of damage:

Minor: add 1 setback to checks to use it.

Moderate: add 1 difficulty dice to checks to use it.

Major: unusable but repairable.

Destroyed: it's stuffed, chuck it out and get a new one!

So if you roll 6 green 2 setback and do enough damage to destroy an A-Wing in single shot with your rifle, you still do zero damage to that fragile verpine shatter pistol. ;-)

Or I get just for aiming at the leg or hand an automatic critical 96-100 instead of doing damage.

I am not really feeling it when I read your extrapolation. 8% chance per yellow dice to do damage one out of 4 steps damage on that weapon, I am not sure why you are so set to make disabling the weapon so hard, unlikely and inconvenient when just shooting the guy is so deadly. Drawing another weapon can be done as incidental if quickdraw is available.

Sunder is a single advantage to activate, but spot on idea. As I see it Sunder reduces the cost to damage a weapon from Aim/Triumph to 1 Advantage, it's a big cost reduction.

Edited by SEApocalypse

Sorry, I got my first explanation mixed up a bit;

Either attack the person, spend a Triumph to damage the weapon by 1 step(single advantage if your swinging a Sunder weapon)

Or Aim for the weapon, doing 1 step of damage for success (but no damage to the individual), plus additional steps for any Triumph.

I think there's also plenty of wiggle room in the rules to allow GM's to make logical calls on things, a Breach weapon or Vehicle weapon would logically damage most weapons, but it could get complicated if armour and particularly equipment starts getting damaged as well.

In that scenario it still easier for an sharpshooter/assassin to one-shot an A-Wing with a Verpine Heavy Shatter Rifle than to destroy that rifle with another rifle. *g*

Besides three advantages are alreadly listed (p133/156) to be enough to disarm the target and one single triumph as something vital to turn the tide of battle. That is when you do damage and not spend an action and maneuver on trying to achieve something specific.

In that scenario it still easier for an sharpshooter/assassin to one-shot an A-Wing with a Verpine Heavy Shatter Rifle than to destroy that rifle with another rifle. *g*Besides three advantages are alreadly listed (p133/156) to be enough to disarm the target and one single triumph as something vital to turn the tide of battle. That is when you do damage and not spend an action and maneuver on trying to achieve something specific.

In that scenario it still easier for an sharpshooter/assassin to one-shot an A-Wing with a Verpine Heavy Shatter Rifle than to destroy that rifle with another rifle. *g*Besides three advantages are alreadly listed (p133/156) to be enough to disarm the target and one single triumph as something vital to turn the tide of battle. That is when you do damage and not spend an action and maneuver on trying to achieve something specific.

Id not likely allow you to do that against vehicles as that's not equipment as per raw and then there's the whole ship vs personal scale thing.

I was not talking about using aim at vehicles, the verpine heavy shatter rifle can just vaporize A-Wing with a single shot. 2 Armor are 20 soak, the rifle has 15 damage and 6 pierce. Proc a a few crits, decent crit role, and bam, dead A-Wing, TIE/LN, TIE/IN or whatever else comes into personal scale range and has just armor 2. Crits are the only way to deal with vehicles when you are limited to rifles, but they for sure can make pretty explosions and they can be quite consistent as well. Unlike just hoping for those triumph roles. Shame that lethal blows does not work on vehiciles else you could guarantee those deadly crits. Or is there something similar for vehicles?

Edited by SEApocalypse

In that scenario it still easier for an sharpshooter/assassin to one-shot an A-Wing with a Verpine Heavy Shatter Rifle than to destroy that rifle with another rifle. *g*Besides three advantages are alreadly listed (p133/156) to be enough to disarm the target and one single triumph as something vital to turn the tide of battle. That is when you do damage and not spend an action and maneuver on trying to achieve something specific.

Id not likely allow you to do that against vehicles as that's not equipment as per raw and then there's the whole ship vs personal scale thing.

I was not talking about using aim at vehicles, the verpine heavy shatter rifle can just vaporize A-Wing with a single shot. 2 Armor are 20 soak, the rifle has 15 damage and 6 pierce. Proc a a few crits, decent crit role, and bam, dead A-Wing, TIE/LN, TIE/IN or whatever else comes into personal scale range and has just armor 2. Crits are the only way to deal with vehicles when you are limited to rifles, but they for sure can make pretty explosions and they can be quite consistent as well. Unlike just hoping for those triumph roles. Shame that lethal blows does not work on vehiciles else you could guarantee those deadly crits. Or is there something similar for vehicles?

Ah I thought you where talking about using sunder. This said more often than not your first few crits are just going to cause minor system damage not a complete destruction unless you're activating crit several times and/or rolling exceptionally high on that d100.

Typically I think it is far wiser to simply not fight a vehicle with ground based weapons when it can be avoided, you're much better of just seeking cover until you can nab one of your own.

Properly modded you get one crite per advantage about 3 or 4 free crits + whatever you roll. Though I did not wanted to discuss the viability of personal scale weapons against vehicles, I just wanted to showcase that the challenge of destroying a light starfighter is easier done than the challenge of destroying a blaster rifle or even even a holdout blaster in the suggested ways to handle weapon damage.

(requiring 4 triumphs and constant hitting for several rounds (aka minutes) or multiple characters hitting the same lousy personal weapons several times and high skills with firearms)

Properly modded you get one crite per advantage about 3 or 4 free crits + whatever you roll. Though I did not wanted to discuss the viability of personal scale weapons against vehicles, I just wanted to showcase that the challenge of destroying a light starfighter is easier done than the challenge of destroying a blaster rifle or even even a holdout blaster in the suggested ways to handle weapon damage.

(requiring 4 triumphs and constant hitting for several rounds (aka minutes) or multiple characters hitting the same lousy personal weapons several times and high skills with firearms)

To top this off very few weapons are even capable of harming most vehicles, let alone destroying then whilst many more could, with such rules, destroy equipment. Your also using a weapon massively modded and of course with all that factored in you could run into aberrations.

To top this off a weapon is hard to hit in a vital area when moving around in an opponents arms due to its size, and typically won't have as much catastrophic failure mechanisms.

You argue here that I need to hit a vital area of a blaster to do significant damage with a plasma ball which will punch right through heavy armor, but needs to hit a vital spot of a hold out blaster to do damage to it? :D

I give you that, amusing thought to use a wall of blasters as my new armor. :D

Pierce has no effect on Armour by the way, only Breach does. To damage that A-Wing enough to crit it you need to do 30 damage or have Breach to bring that down to 20/10. So basically a Missile tube or Lightsaber

Pierce has no effect on Armour by the way, only Breach does. To damage that A-Wing enough to crit it you need to do 30 damage or have Breach to bring that down to 20/10. So basically a Missile tube or Lightsaber

Interesting and good to know. Is there a source for that or if it is part of the FAQ a reason given that armor ignores pierce?

It's more in the descriptions of the 2 qualities, Pierce calls out bypassing 1 point of Soak, while Breach specifies it bypasses 1 point of armour or 10 points of soak.

I believe a Developer confirmed this somewhere, it may be on the EotE forum in the "Developer Answered Questions" thread, or an early episode of The Order 66 podcast (wish there was a transcript of every episode to search!)

To top this off a weapon is hard to hit in a vital area when moving around in an opponents arms due to its size, and typically won't have as much catastrophic failure mechanisms.

You argue here that I need to hit a vital area of a blaster to do significant damage with a plasma ball which will punch right through heavy armor, but needs to hit a vital spot of a hold out blaster to do damage to it? :DI give you that, amusing thought to use a wall of blasters as my new armor. :D

It's more in the descriptions of the 2 qualities, Pierce calls out bypassing 1 point of Soak, while Breach specifies it bypasses 1 point of armour or 10 points of soak.

I believe a Developer confirmed this somewhere, it may be on the EotE forum in the "Developer Answered Questions" thread, or an early episode of The Order 66 podcast (wish there was a transcript of every episode to search!)

AoR. p.236 Grey Box "STARSHIPS, VEHICLES, AND SCALE"

When dealing with a vessel's weapons, armor and hull trauma threshold, every point is equal to ten points of the equivalent characteristic on personal scale. …

At least that is from where I am coming from, quite possible that there is a dev statement which contradicts this. We have contradicting statements to defense and defensive qualities as well. Anyway, let's not derail this anymore. if happen to find the quote I would be happy if you can leave me a pm with a link to it.

Edited by SEApocalypse