Got my copy of Savage Spirits...nice book, again...but once again we have a bunch of equipment with qualities like "Cumbersome 2" or "Unwieldy 2". This has been bugging me for a while, so...

Why bother? Almost nobody will be running a character that is affected by a rating of 2 for any of these qualities. For the "average person" it will have zero effect. And the tiny fraction of characters that would be affected (because their related characteristic is a 1) would never pick such a weapon, because there are so many choices out there close enough in capability that don't have the penalty. Sure, at some point there might be a "story moment" where the Brawn 1 Twi-lek Ambassador has to pick up the Blastech M-300 dropped by the party's Soldier to take out a sniper, but...a weapon quality for such a limited purpose is practically pointless.

To me the only point of having a weapon quality like Cumbersome or Unwieldy is to give the weapon a distinctive flair that rewards someone capable enough to wield it. Even a rating of 3 is easily bypassed by most starting characters who might be planning ahead. So these qualities should either work differently, or shouldn't even be in the stat line unless they are 3+...and 4+ would make it a lot more rewarding.

Thoughts?

There are several weapon attachments that add Cumbersome ratings to weapons. Most weapons don't have Cumbersome, so are effectively Cumbersome 0. Cumbersome 0 + Cumbersome 2 from an attachment gives you Cumbersome 2. However, Cumbersome 2 + Cumbersome 2 gives you Cumbersome 4.

So while the quality might not be too detrimental by itself, the base weapon having it can greatly limit what kind of snazzy secondary firing systems you can plug on to your weapon.

Yeah sure, bows (which are the weapons I think you're mostly referring to) aren't really affected by this issue, but that's one of the general reasons why a low starting Cumbersome can be problematic.

I'm inclined to agree, save for one small aspect. My players currently have a Hired Gun who eventually decided he wanted to get into being a heavy, and wound up using gunnery as a skill.

He has a brawn of 1. So he's had to be careful, and plan ahead in other fashions. Currently he is using a weapon harness and it routinely comes up that he has to take off the whole rig in order to meet with contacts.

But, that's a very limited in scope sort of situation -- the guy who doesn't plan at all. So, other than my personal enjoyment of laughing at him acting out taking off the harness to put "Danger Zone" down so he can meet with their boss for a mission report, yeah, it seems to me we are in agreement.

You could take a crit and lose a point of the given stat. It would become an issue then.

There are several weapon attachments that add Cumbersome ratings to weapons.

A good point I hadn't considered. Still, you can easily avoid any issues by picking different--or complementary--attachments, or planning ahead. If you're going to be a Heavy your Brawn is probably going to be at least 3, plus you have access to Burly. Even if you don't plan ahead, you're probably not going to pick the attachment you want until you earn the Brawn or ranks in Burly to do it.

You could take a crit and lose a point of the given stat. It would become an issue then.

We've never rolled one of those yet.

Heavy is one thing. But it is hard to imagine a ace: pilot, etc with more the brawn 1 or 2. And they all come with gunnery, right? ^-^

We've rolled quite a few of those criticals in our game. About once every two or three sessions. Also my twilek jedi has a one strength so it would be an issue for me.

Certainly agree most of the cumbersome/unwieldy ratings are on the low side, the attachment point is a good one though. It would be a big challenge as GM to put my PC's in situations where they had to use weapons they are not strong/agile enough to use normally.

Also remember that you don't always get to pick the weapon or equipment, sometimes it's just whatever is available.

That said I concur that cumbersome 2 is a lot more situational than other qualities.

I'm imagining an encounter that's an archery tournament or perhaps a gladiator arena where the group have no choice but to use these weapons. Unfortunately I can imagine the player in that case electing to do something other than fight with that weapon, or if possible only the people who can use it normally will do so. It would feel very forced to put the group in that position too... But then everyone rolling successful Survival checks to ride beasts in an arena on Geonosis is not unheard of...

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There are several weapon attachments that add Cumbersome ratings to weapons.

A good point I hadn't considered. Still, you can easily avoid any issues by picking different--or complementary--attachments, or planning ahead. If you're going to be a Heavy your Brawn is probably going to be at least 3, plus you have access to Burly. Even if you don't plan ahead, you're probably not going to pick the attachment you want until you earn the Brawn or ranks in Burly to do it.

You could take a crit and lose a point of the given stat. It would become an issue then.

We've never rolled one of those yet.

To be fair .... pretty much any negative trait or quality in this game can be avoided with careful planning. But that really isn't a reason to not have them in the game. Also buying alternative equipment has it own drawbacks. One weapon with Cumbersome 2 might have a lower Encumbrance than the one without it. Or the damage might be different. Or the alternative weapon doesn't have the trait or quality you want. There are so many choices and options that ..... yeah you can avoid Cumbersome 2 stuff or anything really but it isn't always the most practical thing to do depending on gear funds and the dynamics of a game.

It's not always about optimizing for best possible combo. Sometimes it's just cool when character uses equipments he won't be able to use optimally. (In our Rogue Trader campaign one of the most memorable character was a mutant with charisma of 5 (on scale to 0-100, basically base percentile change of success), but he often worked as face of the group. Those cases when he succeeded were epic. Also, failures, which there were many, were entertaining.)

Also, about planning. What if character plans to raise attribute, but doesn't have yet enough XP to buy the talent for it, but he has possibility to get the equipment. In this case he may want to use the non optimal gear and grow to it when he gets more XP and can buy a raise.

I'm imagining an encounter that's an archery tournament...

Penelope imagined the same thing. And she had all the competitors use a Cumbersome 6 bow.

I'm imagining an encounter that's an archery tournament...

Penelope imagined the same thing. And she had all the competitors use a Cumbersome 6 bow.

+10 for Grecian Myth reference!

I'm imagining an encounter that's an archery tournament...

Penelope imagined the same thing. And she had all the competitors use a Cumbersome 6 bow.

+10 for Grecian Myth reference!

Odysseus, human living on Ryloth. He's got average leadership skills, but pretty poor Astrogation.

Oh, the Force, his poor, poor Astrogation skill...I didn't know skills could go negative in this system.

I dunno. He ran afoul of a witch. So probably Dathomir rather than Ryloth. But she tricked him into thinking it was Ryloth, so he had several Setback dice. His GM flipped a Destiny Point and turned a purple into a red. He rolled a Despair, and just as Ithaca came into view, the hyperdrive went out and whisked him away again to Dathomir.

Not to mention his trouble with the one-eyed Rancor that had a herd of wookies for living...

Certainly agree most of the cumbersome/unwieldy ratings are on the low side, the attachment point is a good one though. It would be a big challenge as GM to put my PC's in situations where they had to use weapons they are not strong/agile enough to use normally.

This works both ways, there are plenty of attachments to reduce cumbersome as well.

It's not always about optimizing for best possible combo.

I wasn't talking about optimizing. I was pointing out that almost no characters will be affected by a rating of Cumbersome 2. Of the characters affected, only a tiny fraction will be put in a position where it matters, and the GM would have to basically railroad to make it happen. Meanwhile, of the unaffected characters, only a tiny fraction will be affected by mods that increase Cumbersome to a level that is problematic without being able to counter it with other mods, and an even tinier fraction would actually go ahead with it rather than just picking something else.

So though a good point was made about the mods, it's still an effectively pointless rating.

Are all weapons effectively Cumbersome (or Unwieldy) 1? Or is the invisible default value 0?

Can you have a characteristic value of 0?

Are all weapons effectively Cumbersome (or Unwieldy) 1? Or is the invisible default value 0?

Can you have a characteristic value of 0?

I don't think so. Intellect 1 covers everything from worms to Weequay. I've never seen an animal stat at zero. So the invisible default is basically Cumbersome 1.

Are all weapons effectively Cumbersome (or Unwieldy) 1? Or is the invisible default value 0?

Can you have a characteristic value of 0?

I don't think so. Intellect 1 covers everything from worms to Weequay. I've never seen an animal stat at zero. So the invisible default is basically Cumbersome 1.

Going to disagree here. A blaster rifle doesn't have burn, disorder, and blast 1. Invisible or not.

Weapon qualities and characteristics aren't the same thing, so that line of logic isn't going to go too far.

Nobody said all qualities have an implicit rating.

The "invisible default" is 0, because when you take a weapon without Cumbersome and add an attachment like the Under-Barrel Flame Projector that adds Cumbersome +1, the end result is 0+1=1, not 1+1=2. It's likely a moot point anyway, as it's an open question as to whether characteristics can drop below 1 and if a character can still function with a characteristic of 0. Even if both of those are true, I doubt the GM is going to consider a hidden Cumbersome rating when determining the penalties you take.